Religions > Atheism > It's all very well beating the French, but it's the Chinese we really have to worry about
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
03 Oct 2005 04:35:37 AM |
| Object: |
It's all very well beating the French, but it's the Chinese we really have to worry about |
Stephen King: It's all very well beating the French, but it's the
Chinese we really have to worry about
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/comment/article316732.ece
Published: 03 October 2005
Last week's Labour Party Conference certainly got the focus right.
Here's Tony Blair: "I hear people say we have to stop and debate
globalisation. You might as well debate whether autumn should follow
summer. They're not debating it in China and India. They are seizing
its possibilities, in a way that will transform their lives and ours."
And here's Gordon Brown: "So our economic goal now and for the future
must be to become the world's number one power in education. And that
means matching the best in the world for standards in our schools,
leading in science, excelling for the creativity and inventiveness of
all our people."
The 2005 World Investment Report released by the United Nations
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) at first sight suggests
that the policies of recent years are already paying dividends
(http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/wir2005overview_en.pdf). The report was
greeted with patriotic fervour in the UK press last week. The key
nugget was the huge surge in foreign direct investment into the United
Kingdom in 2004, up fourfold compared with 2003. The total amounted to
$78bn. This is an impressive result: from 1985 through to 1995, the
average amount of inward investment per year was around $17bn and, in
the early years of this decade, the figure was around $30bn.
But there's more than one form of foreign direct investment. Ideally,
it would be good to see a lot of greenfield sites being developed,
leading to extra capacity and more jobs in British industry. Much of
Britain's inward investment, however, isn't really of this kind. Of the
total inflow of $78bn, $58bn represented merger and acquisition
activity of which a big slug came from the $16bn takeover of Abbey
National by Santander Central Hispano, the Spanish bank. I have no view
on the specifics of this particular takeover, but M&A activity is not
guaranteed to add to a nation's wealth. Indeed, by disposing of assets
to foreigners - particularly for a country running a current account
deficit - a cynic might argue that this amounts to selling the family
silver.
Stephen King HSBC
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/e0909c78f4570080
Is the wakening giant a monster?
http://tinyurl.com/iws6
A Blueprint for the Future
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/59c28cd6dfe6f60f
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