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Old 2012-12-05, 05:31   Link #61
Arturia Polaris
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If there is division of labour between countries, why can't there be division of labour in a unified world?

As I said, I'm not talking about erasing POLITICAL boundaries. Once humanity sees everyone as their brother, no matter what language, it'll happen.

Arty
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Old 2012-12-05, 05:41   Link #62
SaintessHeart
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Arturia Polaris View Post
If there is division of labour between countries, why can't there be division of labour in a unified world?

As I said, I'm not talking about erasing POLITICAL boundaries. Once humanity sees everyone as their brother, no matter what language, it'll happen.

Arty
Then who is going to create that division of labour?

The Lenin and Sun Yat Sen administrations have envisioned this in their civil and domestic production plans, but it ultimately shows that someone has to be at the top.

The struggle against class warfare indirectly created another class warfare - so thus it seems that places with lots of MNCs seemingly created a ballooning of the Gini Coefficient.

A hive mind would probably work, however we would be no different from those bots we have created to do the work for us.
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Old 2012-12-05, 08:17   Link #63
Arturia Polaris
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I'm not a leninist, don't get me wrong. I agree with Adam Smith's views on the world, or rather I'd like them to be true.

Of course it can't happen in a world where we're all poised against each other.

Arty
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Old 2012-12-05, 09:10   Link #64
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Originally Posted by Arturia Polaris View Post
I know this may sound idealistic, but the only way the world will move forward is when there are no boundaries left. In the 1930's the whole world clamped down with extreme mercantilism in an attempt to keep gold inside their own nations, and that brought us WW2.

If everyone tries to have less imports than exports, international commerce is reduced to virtually 0. More so if countries want to buy raw materials to produce manufactures to sell back.

Once the world starts thinking not in terms of nations but in the terms of a world, it'll all become much clearer. It's just a matter of time, a looooong time.

Just my humble opinion.

Arty
The west got richer and more powerful much more quickly than other parts of the globe precisely by screwing everyone else over. Not that this is a good thing morally, of course, but it begs the question, was an imbalance necessary for the modern level of advancement? And can there be a comfortable equilibrium where every nation has its citizenry living in comfort?
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Old 2012-12-05, 09:36   Link #65
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Originally Posted by ChainLegacy View Post
The west got richer and more powerful much more quickly than other parts of the globe precisely by screwing everyone else over. Not that this is a good thing morally, of course, but it begs the question, was an imbalance necessary for the modern level of advancement? And can there be a comfortable equilibrium where every nation has its citizenry living in comfort?
This is actually on the cutting edge of economics research for asymmetric information. If I had to say, in short, the answer is no. The capitalist system works in the western world, because, quite frankly, it is built on the blood of conquest. There is no reason to believe that the relationship between initial income (when we put the 'system' into place' and final equilibrium is direct and monotonic; Most economics is based on static, unifying equilibria, which is slowly being phased out as economic problems are looked at as dynamic, optimal control problems which result in multiple equilibria solutions. When the system is put into place, if the nation doesn't have the existing wealth and infrastructure to sustain the system, it is doomed for failure (naturally this doesn't have to be the case, its just that the math seems to work out as such).

Anyways, I'll say it again, I believe that the system is unsustainable; I believe the most common DSGE problems (Dynamic Standard General Equilibrium), that are based on classical models, turn out to be 'cake-eating' problems; they are called so because the solution is to eat all the cake at once. Theres a great professor by the name of Daron Acemoglu ( I think) who works at MIT and works with this type of stuff, if you don't mind a little math and economics jargon his work is great.

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Originally Posted by SaintessHeart View Post
I call BS on that. My job is under quality assurance, and as my company continues to segment and specialise departments, my workload grows. Never had I see much more defective products since the first month where they changed business plans and hired me.

It is more like "divide at the part when the people know what they have to do next due to their knowledge of what they have done previously" that division of labour works. Otherwise, overspecialisation means that productivity has no way to decrease returns - after all, prevention is better than cure.

Or maybe it is because I have joined a big company - too big, too bureaucratic, too inefficient.
Talk about small sample size. Just because its that way in the company you've worked in for a (I'm assuming this) pretty short time doesn't fit the model from your perspective, doesn't mean much. I'm not saying you're wrong however, you bring up a pretty important point. Economics is pretty much based on optimization problems, which means that there is (obviously) an optimum. Over-specialization of labor comes under diseconomies of scale, basically when you increase your capital and labor beyond its optimal level.

I don't think thats what TLR was talking about though. I think this was comparative advantage the wiki article on it is actually pretty good : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardi...tive_advantage. Apparently, this will occur naturally.
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Old 2012-12-05, 14:42   Link #66
willx
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Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf View Post
You'll need to qualify that. The so-called "slow down" in export-oriented growth comes from a variety of factors, not all of them necessarily bad. By and large, the relative decline is to be expected, as the economic base grows thanks precisely to the sustained prosperity made possible by exports.
Sure, I can qualify that, but I'd also point out to this short article from the BBC back in 2009 that still applies today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8031456.stm

The historically weak Yen (and Yuan for that matter) and the export driven nature of the Asian economies have to led to startling growth. This is, of course, as you say due to the outdated nature of the initial economic base. Japan post-WW2 and pre-industrial China could not help but grow at double digit rates for decades as they rapidly industrialized. This growth of course will naturally slow down due to the law of large numbers, but my point overall is that being "export dependent" in the long-term is a bad thing, just as much as being "export consuming" over the long-term is.

The consequence of an export driven economy with a weak currency is an impediment to domestic consumption - it hurts consumers' purchasing power. This results in an increase in the domestic savings rate. See: Japan, Germany and China. Saving isn't necessarily a bad thing, in fact, in contrast to many western countries it's seen as a good thing. Problem is an excess of savings is an economic imbalance as much as excess debt is. It leads to excessive over-investment domestically. Companies become inefficient. Governments overspend on unnecessary infrastructure. This leads to poor real returns on domestic investments. All the meanwhile the productive capital base has been geared and tuned and designed to be export based.

(Not going to even get into the spiral that is foreign currency reserves, imperfect capital mobility and sovereign debt - it's a related problem that propagates further foreign consumption and a weak domestic currency)

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Old 2012-12-05, 20:56   Link #67
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Originally Posted by willx View Post
The historically weak Yen (and Yuan for that matter) and the export driven nature of the Asian economies have to led to startling growth.
I believe there is generally too much emphasis on the impact of exchange rates on trade and growth. Exchange rates are, after all, double-edged tools. For developing economies that had very little capital to begin with to acquire the resources they needed to upgrade their export industries, a weak currency was likely as harmful as it was useful. Whatever the exchange rate was at any given moment in time, its effect on an economy would very likely balance out in the long run.

To me, it's more important to look beyond the exchange rates and focus on the exports that an economy is producing. The most salient feature of the growth achieved by the Asian tiger economies, and by China in the past 20 years, is that their export industries steadily progressed up the value chain. Starting with cheap textiles, these economies very quickly invested their accumulated earnings on the technologies needed to move on to the next stage. Taiwanese companies, for example, moved on to OEM production of computer parts, and eventually became leading producers of branded laptops. Hong Kong and Singapore moved from heavy industry into a heavier reliance on services that provide more "value add" per dollar spent. South Korea has long since overtaken Japan as the leading producer of consumer electronics in the region.

These, to me, are the more important reasons for the startling growth of many East Asian economies, not currency or exchange rate manipulation.

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Originally Posted by willx View Post
This growth of course will naturally slow down due to the law of large numbers, but my point overall is that being "export dependent" in the long-term is a bad thing, just as much as being "export consuming" over the long-term is.
When you're looking at city-state economies like Singapore or Hong Kong's, I don't see how we have any choice but to be export-oriented. Our domestic economies are simply too small to sustain long-term economic growth.

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Originally Posted by willx View Post
The consequence of an export driven economy with a weak currency is an impediment to domestic consumption - it hurts consumers' purchasing power. This results in an increase in the domestic savings rate. See: Japan, Germany and China. Saving isn't necessarily a bad thing, in fact, in contrast to many western countries it's seen as a good thing. Problem is an excess of savings is an economic imbalance as much as excess debt is.
I broadly agree with you in principle. In practice, however, it's very difficult to balance savings and debt. There are a huge range of factors involved, from taxation to fiscal policy to social-political expectations that have to be met. In the end, between savings and debt, I would much rather have more savings than more debt, and I will never understand nor wholeheartedly accept the Western addiction to credit-driven consumption growth.
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Old 2012-12-06, 12:47   Link #68
willx
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Hm, well, I'm not sure how to address the FX comment without going into the extensive literature of macro-economic effects of currency reserve imbalances and the supply and demand of currencies related to underlying interest rates.. What I suppose we can simply agree upon is that in the short-term exchange rates can have a massive effect on an economy?

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Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf View Post
When you're looking at city-state economies like Singapore or Hong Kong's, I don't see how we have any choice but to be export-oriented. Our domestic economies are simply too small to sustain long-term economic growth.
I was just having a conversation with someone about this recently in relation to "trade-hubs" like Singapore and tying it back to jobs like mine in "Professional Services" -- this is my speculation, but much of Singapore's balance of trade showing up as positive is "value-added" goods and services that I believe are consumed domestically. Primarily services. This shows up as an ongoing positive balance of trade. What I think is happening is value capture through the facilitation of the international trade between the two counter-parties with the export component actually being "domestic" GDP production via services. I don't think I explained it right. Here's my example:

Asian Company A: Ships a tanker full of shoes to Singapore that cost $X to produce and needs to earn a profit $Y
Singapore Trade Finance Company / Distribution Brokerage / Etc: Facilitates sale/purchase transaction, sometimes simply through LCs or a brokered transaction or some other means, including at times taking possession and re-sale (albeit likely only for a day or two) -- anyways, title and ownership transfers -- this adds costs of $Z
European Company B: Ultimate buyer/distributor of shoes wants to buy those shoes and pays $X+$Y+$Z

Now, should $Z be really classified as an export? Services can be exported, I agree, but all of these transactions could very well have occurred on the shores of Singapore itself. My firm for example has all of its trade finance offices based in Singapore. Most international trading companies will likely also have their offices in Singapore. Staffed by people that live in Singapore. What about the "export $$$" that were calculated due to taking possession of trade product and reselling to capture the spread .. is that really export $$$ or domestically consumed services?

Reason I thought about it this way is as someone in financial services, I like to think of myself as someone that adds value most of the time, but there are other times where my job is to collect "Economic Rent" because of structural and bureaucratic inefficiencies. Facilitating trade is in some ways the same.

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Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf View Post
I broadly agree with you in principle. In practice, however, it's very difficult to balance savings and debt. There are a huge range of factors involved, from taxation to fiscal policy to social-political expectations that have to be met. In the end, between savings and debt, I would much rather have more savings than more debt, and I will never understand nor wholeheartedly accept the Western addiction to credit-driven consumption growth.
Well, my simplistic response to that is that money-multipliers and the financial system = one side's savings is another side's debt. You save and put your money into the bank. The bank can only exist by generating a return on that savings. That return is primarily due to lending that money out. We're talking about the velocity of capital. I think like trade, savings and debt will eventually need to be balanced out, which means tough times coming for the U.S. -- which is fine to me because the country has been overspending and therefore financing the growth of other countries around the world.

Pardon the rambling, racing off to a meeting but thought I'd puke out some thoughts.

Outcome remains uncertain
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Old 2012-12-06, 20:34   Link #69
TinyRedLeaf
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Originally Posted by willx View Post
Hm, well, I'm not sure how to address the FX comment without going into the extensive literature of macro-economic effects of currency reserve imbalances and the supply and demand of currencies related to underlying interest rates.. What I suppose we can simply agree upon is that in the short-term exchange rates can have a massive effect on an economy?
Agreed.

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Originally Posted by willx View Post
I was just having a conversation with someone about this recently in relation to "trade-hubs" like Singapore and tying it back to jobs like mine in "Professional Services" -- this is my speculation, but much of Singapore's balance of trade showing up as positive is "value-added" goods and services that I believe are consumed domestically. Primarily services. This shows up as an ongoing positive balance of trade.
The basic information you need to answer your speculations is available from Statistics Singapore.

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Originally Posted by willx View Post
What I think is happening is value capture through the facilitation of the international trade between the two counter-parties with the export component actually being "domestic" GDP production via services.
This chart is particularly relevant: balance of payments (2008 to 2012). Interestingly, Singapore's balance of services was S$2.3 billion (US$1.9 billion) in 2011, compared to a goods balance of S$84.8 billion (S$69.5 billion). On paper, that means we're importing almost as much services as we're exporting. I didn't expect that but, on reflection, it's not surprising. It simply means that, as a small economy with a narrow resource/capital base, we rely heavily on non-domestic services to produce goods for export.

That's not the same as what you're suggesting, that the "value add" from services misrepresents domestic consumption. Still, it makes for useful inference.
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Old 2012-12-07, 19:10   Link #70
SoldierOfDarkness
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Hopefully this question is the right one to ask in this thread.

Awhile back, Stephen Harper, PM of Canada, made a comment that protectionalism is a bad thing, especially in a global economy and he's right.

My question I guess is, where in the world did this all started with "Don't sell off the country! Keep the resources here."?

I mean where is the logic in locking down your resources and not trading with anything a net benefit to you or anyone?

For example, the takeover of Nexen and Petronas which has recently been approved after the Canadian Government gave the Chinese and Malaysians a set of conditions to follow (IE. Maintain head office and currently employees and at least 50% must be Canadian).

Malaysia stated that they are looking to build a new refinery in Canada which obviously means more jobs and such. CNOOC will be pouring money into the oil sands to further develop it. In the end of the day, these resources will be extracted and the royalties and taxes will be paid on it before being shipped off to wherever like any other resource.

Investors like that and will start pouring in their money as well.

Yet people are screaming like the Chinese are going to take over and such and that we can't sell off our resources despite the fact that Nexen only owns 1-2% of the oilsands.

I mean does anybody know where this attitude "Don't sell off" came from?
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Old 2012-12-07, 19:17   Link #71
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Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness View Post
Hopefully this question is the right one to ask in this thread.

Awhile back, Stephen Harper, PM of Canada, made a comment that protectionalism is a bad thing, especially in a global economy and he's right.

My question I guess is, where in the world did this all started with "Don't sell off the country! Keep the resources here."?

I mean where is the logic in locking down your resources and not trading with anything a net benefit to you or anyone?

For example, the takeover of Nexen and Petronas which has recently been approved after the Canadian Government gave the Chinese and Malaysians a set of conditions to follow (IE. Maintain head office and currently employees and at least 50% must be Canadian).

Malaysia stated that they are looking to build a new refinery in Canada which obviously means more jobs and such. CNOOC will be pouring money into the oil sands to further develop it. In the end of the day, these resources will be extracted and the royalties and taxes will be paid on it before being shipped off to wherever like any other resource.

Investors like that and will start pouring in their money as well.

Yet people are screaming like the Chinese are going to take over and such and that we can't sell off our resources despite the fact that Nexen only owns 1-2% of the oilsands.

I mean does anybody know where this attitude "Don't sell off" came from?
i am not sure about the rest of the world but for the US, it was probably around the 80s when the Japanese were buying everything in sight. it was probably the first time people in the US felt they were being beaten at their own game (Capitalism).
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Old 2012-12-07, 19:38   Link #72
SoldierOfDarkness
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I guess Homer wasn't really kidding when he said, "Canada? Why in the world would we leave America for America Junior?"
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Old 2012-12-07, 21:48   Link #73
willx
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I guess Homer wasn't really kidding when he said, "Canada? Why in the world would we leave America for America Junior?"
I have a rather long post about this in another thread. Basically it's an issue of what is the motive behind the purchase and how do you guarantee it is in the best interests of Canadians as a whole for decades to come. I've heard CEOs and Canadian Business Minded Billionaires speak on this issue, sometimes in person, and AGAINST the transaction -- it's not so simple as you make it seem.

http://forums.animesuki.com/showthre...15#post4460715

Also keep in mind, although CNOOC's take-over of Nexen is currently being reviewed by Canada, the major concern globally is Nexen's "North Sea" assets which are actually an issue with relation to the U.K.

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Old 2012-12-08, 00:14   Link #74
SoldierOfDarkness
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Originally Posted by willx View Post
I have a rather long post about this in another thread. Basically it's an issue of what is the motive behind the purchase and how do you guarantee it is in the best interests of Canadians as a whole for decades to come. I've heard CEOs and Canadian Business Minded Billionaires speak on this issue, sometimes in person, and AGAINST the transaction -- it's not so simple as you make it seem.
The only motive I see is that the Chinese want to establish energy ties so they can get resources that are in a secure location compared to say the Middle East where the government could change next month. For Canada it's a matter of diversifying trade and becoming less and less reliant on the US that gouges us on our resources.

And I've heard people that work in Nexen say that they need the capital so they can do their projects.

If these Canadian business minded billionaires that you spoke of in person were so against the transaction why didn't they step forward and prevent the buyout by outbidding CNOOC? Why did no one step forward? Why were the Chinese the only one? In Batman Begins when Wayne enterprises was going public what did Bruce do? He didn't cry or whine he simply took all of his resources and trust funds and bought the company back himself.

There seems to be this fantasy that they're companies and people in Canada that have tons of capital and motives to do this yet none of them actually exist.

And people are acting like this is the first time a state-owned foreign company has bought out a Canadian firm. There are tons of them running around in Canada.

That's a more complicated matter not related but I can post the reasons over on that thread.

China has always maintained a hand's off policy when it comes to foreign governments unless it has to do with their borders. It's why they are always against intervening in other country's affairs so I fail to see how this Nexen deal would involve China sending its armies across the seas into Canada or demanding the Canadian government to change its policy.

It also doesn't make sense for the Canadian government to get involved in those disputes so it's unrelated.

Quote:
Also keep in mind, although CNOOC's take-over of Nexen is currently being reviewed by Canada, the major concern globally is Nexen's "North Sea" assets which are actually an issue with relation to the U.K.
Again, unless there's something in the deal that involves sending Chinese armies and navies to those locations I hardly doubt they'll act any more different than any other state-owned enterprises. However the North Sea's assets is something that China and the UK will have to sort out themselves.

And most of the reasons I'm seeing on the net are quite outright racist that makes little sense.

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Old 2012-12-08, 00:41   Link #75
willx
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^ There's a lot of things you still don't get. It has nothing to do with armies and it's not racist.

You seem to have some very firm opinions on this topic, so let me say this:

1) Back in the 80's and 90's a lot of businesses were sold to U.S. companies of various kinds. When the economy started getting weaker, these companies pulled out or shut down their Canadian operations. There were guarantees made about keeping the jobs in the country, about amounts they would invest in the future -- the promises were broken and it was bad news for the country. Any foreign company taking over a Canadian company is reviewed by the government.

2) It is NOT just China that has been prevented from buying companies:
Canada blocks MDA transaction: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/st.../mdablock.html
Canada blocks Potash transaction: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-1...by-canada.html

3) On top of everything else, China's foreign ownership rules --
http://www.internationalpropertyjour...-property.html

"Basically China doesn't play by the same rules that it expects the rest of the world to" -- is the one of the major arguments.

4) Strategic Reasons: Most countries have strict controls over their domestic agricultural production. Oil is a resource that is likely to be important to a country in the future. If a business is a purely economic one owned not by a sovereign but is profit driven, it will sell to whomever will pay. If in the future oil came to be in short supply -- would a company indirectly owned by the government of China sell to anyone and everyone equally? Or would it sell to China first?

You might not believe this, but I don't have a vested interest in this and frankly if I actually did, it would be to sell assets to China because I'm an investment banker. Selling assets are my job. I'm just trying to inform you of the body of information out there as the matter seems so simple to you but to assume it is so is a disservice to the intellect of these experts and leaders as people with valid viewpoints.

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Old 2012-12-08, 01:15   Link #76
SoldierOfDarkness
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Your making it too complicated than it already is which is surpising for an investor.

Quote:
1) Back in the 80's and 90's a lot of businesses were sold to U.S. companies of various kinds. When the economy started getting weaker, these companies pulled out or shut down their Canadian operations. There were guarantees made about keeping the jobs in the country, about amounts they would invest in the future -- the promises were broken and it was bad news for the country. Any foreign company taking over a Canadian company is reviewed by the government.
You're an investor you should be aware that when a business deal is made there will always be risks involved. You cannot guarantee that everything will always be dandy forever. In the 80's when the businesses were sold to the US, would you say that those people would've been able to fortell that in a decade or so everything will collapse. The thing is as the government has done is learn from those to minimze the risks

Quote:
3) On top of everything else, China's foreign ownership rules --
http://www.internationalpropertyjour...-property.html
I never said anybody's perfect and such so I fail to see what your trying to pull here. Plus that article is out of date.

20 years ago the Liberal party started work on a trade agreement between China and Canada that would even the playing field on both sides which Harper just finished this year.

At the end of day it's not just economics but politics as well and politics is a bloody game where things happen that you just don't understand. That's the reality of it. As an investor you should be aware of this. In fact a lot of the things you do or think you'll do is based on what the politicians are planning to do.

The minority Conservatives — targets of frequent criticism that they allowed many of Canada's business icons to be bought by foreign interests — were quick to trumpet their MDA decision.

Canada blocked BHP Billiton Ltd.’s $40 billion hostile bid for Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc., saying a sale of the world’s largest fertilizer company wouldn’t provide a “net benefit” to the country.

Those are the reasons I see. First one because everyone criticised them for letting lots of business icons being bought out so as a minority government they wanted to show that they had teeth.

The second they didn't want to lose control of the largest fertilizer company in the world.

This is really basic, it's come down to politics. Don't think your the expert here. I've seen dozens of these things happen at the local level and it's stupid but what can you do? There are times when I can accomplish a transaction or a business deal simply because the approval was done by the right guy who was in the right place at the right time.

So you claim to be an investor so let me ask you this.

In 2012 what has happened and what is Harper doing at the moment?

In 2012 Obama blocked the Keystone pipe and the economy in the US is still on a downward spiral. Environmentalists are clamping down on the Gateway pipeline and Europe is also going on a downward spiral. The harsh reality is if the US goes down then we go down as well.

So what does Harper do? He goes on a tour throughout Asia trying to get as much deals as he can not just with China but India as well. It's obvious that he wants to diversify canada's trade and to become less and less reliant on the US. Isn't it an investor's job to diversify their portfolio so that if one stock goes down the other 12 stocks will absorb the damage?

So 2012 now you got China and Malaysia coming in. Well China is only buying a company that holds only 1% of the oilsands which is hardly a comparison to the Potash takeover and he wants to trade more with China. Same with Malaysia. If he blocked these deals while he's going all about foreign investment then he'd looked like an idiot to them. Plus it's already been stated multiple times that we need foreign capital to further develop these resources. By putting these deals through, he's walking the talk and earning points with Asia by showing that they can do business with him.


Quote:
You might not believe this, but I don't have a vested interest in this and frankly if I actually did, it would be to sell assets to China because I'm an investment banker. Selling assets are my job. I'm just trying to inform you of the body of information out there as the matter seems so simple to you but to assume it is so is a disservice to the intellect of these experts and leaders as people with valid viewpoints.
Given what you stated here I have a very hard time believing you are what you say, especially after what I'm reading on the other thread as well.

If your an investment banker you should be aware that China is Canada's 2nd largest trading partner. For someone that integrated into your economy you have to walk a fine line there.

Last edited by SoldierOfDarkness; 2012-12-08 at 01:32.
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Old 2012-12-08, 01:41   Link #77
willx
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Age: 40
Look, I get you have a viewpoint, and from your perspective you don't think it's a big deal and it's a no brainer. That's fine. I'm just conveying information -- which you don't seem to believe which is also fine.

Just pause for a second and understand that these are the concerns that senior people in the Canadian financial word are feeling. These are not MY thoughts, these are words that other people have said. Rather than continue to simply just state your opinion, their concerns will have to be addressed before these deals and other future deals can move forward.

So, no, I'm not "making it too complicated" -- I'm telling you that people think it's complicated and a difficult question to answer. Now, since you don't believe that I am who I am .. what else can I say?

PS: Oh, my quote about "Norges Bank" and the Swedish? That's a paraphrased quote from a CEO of one of the largest financial firms in Canada

PPS: Here's some quotes from the Canadian government's response approving the two transactions but addressing the issues that I mentioned previously:

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/...195/story.html

Quote:
“When we say that Canada is open for business, we do not mean that Canada is for sale to foreign governments,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday.

“Canadians generally, and investors specifically, should understand that these decisions are not the beginning of a trend, but rather the end of a trend,” he added.

The Harper government spent months reviewing China National Offshore Oil Corporation’s (CNOOC) $15.1-billion proposed takeover of Calgary-based petroleum producer Nexen, and whether the deal offered a “net benefit” to Canada — a broadly defined test under the Investment Canada Act.
Quote:
Moreover, the federal industry minister will now closely examine SOE transactions on three key fronts:

- the degree of control or influence a state-owned enterprise would likely exert on the Canadian business being acquired;

- the degree of control or influence an SOE would likely exert on the industry in which the Canadian company operates; and

- the extent to which a foreign state is likely to exercise control or influence over the SOE acquiring the Canadian business.
Outlook is uncertain

Last edited by willx; 2012-12-17 at 16:35.
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Old 2012-12-17, 16:53   Link #78
willx
Nyaaan~~
 
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Age: 40
Since this thread has been dead for a while, thought I'd pop in here with some non-China related items, since people are trying to move that all into it's own thread. I'm also tired of talking about China in general.. there's too much emotion and not enough coldhearted analysis..

So latest economic bulletin today is showing a slight uptick in the longer-dated gov't bond yields for Canada with significant moves in the U.S. Particularly in the 10-30 year yields which moved up sharply in the U.S. showing a steepening yield curve. This is in spite of QE3 continuing, or QE Infinity ~ redux, whatever you want to call it.

Economic data out of the U.S. has been disappointing with the Empire Manufacturing Index at a whopping -8.1 vs. consensus estimate of -1.0. This is the fifth consecutive month of contraction in manufacturing activity. Despite this data, equity markets are up, in particular money center banks and financials.

Significant amounts of data/reports are coming up the rest of this weak, notably Housing Starts, Crude Inventories and a slew of unemployment claims/spending data:

http://www.finviz.com/calendar.ashx



Reply hazy, ask again later
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Old 2012-12-18, 08:38   Link #79
SaintessHeart
NYAAAAHAAANNNNN~
 
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 35
I am sticking to supply-demand principles for crude, as well as patterns. Usually crude has low volatility at the end of the year and will tank all the way until April/May.

It might continue tanking until Assad steps down, though with Palestine being recognised recently, the Arab countries might turn against Israel next year and send crude flying above $120/barrel.

One thing that I just saw which I think might change the Yuletide mood is the personal spending. They expect a 0.3% increase (if I read that correctly)....not much to change the Christmas mood. If it drops that everyone can forget about having beautiful gains during the Santa Claus Rally.
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When three puppygirls named after pastries are on top of each other, it is called Eclair a'la menthe et Biscotti aux fraises avec beaucoup de Ricotta sur le dessus.
Most of all, you have to be disciplined and you have to save, even if you hate our current financial system. Because if you don't save, then you're guaranteed to end up with nothing.
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Old 2012-12-18, 11:04   Link #80
DonQuigleone
Knight Errant
 
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
Sorry for not replying to earlier posts, I got derailed by real life concerns for a bit, and forgot to come back.

I realised what I wrote below is rather long, so I spoilered it for length.
Spoiler for A rumination on worker democracy:


TL; DR: Perhaps corporations would be less shitty if they were owned and run by their own workers, rather then disinterested distant shareholders.
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