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August 31, 2007
A Terabyte Here, A Terabyte There
Hard drives with 1 terabyte capacity are now available at $400 or less, according to Web Worker Daily. According to Microsoft Research, a terabyte can hold an audio file of every conversation you will ever have in your life. For further reference, the Library of Congress has collected 70 terabytes of data.
Posted by John at 5:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackQuote of the Day for Friday, August 31, 2007
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August 30, 2007
Putting China's Environmental Situation in Context
An Investor Business Daily editorial gets it right:
. . . Let's get something straight. China was an environmental wasteland long before it began to liberalize its economy. Countries under the boot of Marxist regimes, as China was for a half century — and still is, to a degree — are far dirtier than those with liberal economies.
"The history of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and present-day China show a clear correlation between Big Government socialism, pollution and poverty," Pat Michaels, co-author of "The Satanic Gases," wrote in 2002. "In freer societies, there is less government, less poverty and less pollution."
We're not denying the reporters' observations that in China there are "industrial cities where people rarely see the sun," that children are "killed or sickened by lead poisoning or other types of local pollution," or that "Chinese cities often seem wrapped in a toxic gray shroud." We know that as more Chinese are hooked up to the electric grid and drive more cars — good things, no? — power plants and automobiles will emit more pollution.
What we're saying is that China's pollution problems cannot be fully blamed on economic growth harvested through market principles. If so, how can the dichotomy between the former East and West Germanys be explained?
Posted by John at 5:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackAfter the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and travel between the nations opened, one finding that shocked Westerners visiting Communist East Germany was how dirty it was compared to West Germany, which had flourished under a far more liberal economy.
Similarly, in poor Marxist China, rural peasants fouled the air by burning biomass and clear-cut forests because no one had a property rights interest — a hallmark of a free economy — to stop them.
The Cato Institute's Jerry Taylor captured it well when he wrote that China's "top-heavy, centralized industrial structures are highly pollution-intensive." . . .
Between 1961 and 2002, the food supply in China, once a hungry nation, increased by 80%. Access to decent water supplies among rural Chinese rose from 50% in 1985 to 75% by 1990.
During China's liberalization, infant mortality rates have declined and, despite a population that grew by 200 million from 1980 to the late 1990s, less land has been needed to feed the people.
What environmental alarmists don't say is that China would not dramatically improve its environment if its economic growth were constrained or even stopped by central planners.
In fact, it would only get worse. A clean environment is a luxury that can be afforded only by wealthy nations, and widespread increased wealth comes solely through economic growth, which China is experiencing at a dizzying pace.
What China is enduring is the pain that all nations must live through as their economies open and mature, and their populations urbanize. The environmental trouble is as temporary as it is necessary: Technology brought by economic advancement lets countries hurdle many of their pollution problems. Progress — that is, economic growth — is the greenest of all solutions.
Quote of the Day for Thursday, August 30, 2007
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August 29, 2007
Quote of the Day for Wednesday, August 29, 2007
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August 28, 2007
Quote of the Day for Tuesday, August 28, 2007
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August 27, 2007
Latin America's Flourishing Middle Class
The Economist examines the dramatically increasing numbers in Latin America's middle class, and the causes for the trend:
These trends are furthest advanced in Chile . . . But they are most dramatic in Brazil and Mexico, which between them account for more than half of Latin America's 560m people. In Brazil between 2000 and 2005 the number of households with an annual income of $5,900 to $22,000 grew by half, from 14.5m to 22.3m, while those receiving less than $3,000 a year fell sharply to just 1.3m . . . In Mexico, according to Alejandro Hope of GEA, a consultancy in Mexico City, the number of families with a monthly income of between $600 and $1,600 has increased from 5.7m in 1996 to 10.7m in 2006. . . .
In Latin America as a whole, according to calculations by Banco Santander, a Spanish bank, some 15m households ceased to be poor between 2002 and 2006. If the trend continues, by 2010 a small majority in the region will have joined the middle class, with annual incomes above $12,090 in purchasing-power-parity terms . . . In Mexico some 15m out of 27m households could have middle-class incomes by 2012, reckons Mr Hope.
You can read the article in full here.
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August 26, 2007
What the South Must Do to Succeed in a Globalized Economy
Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President and CEO Richard Fisher recently spoke to the Southern Governors Association on what Southern states must do to succeed in a globalized economy. The answer, says Fisher, is to invest in education:
There is no great secret about how to lay the groundwork for Southern states' success in harvesting and harnessing—in mastering—globalization. The key to adapting to and profiting from globalization lies in education. Texas boomed on the discovery of oil. Now we thrive on the output of the human mind. If you look around Dallas and Houston, you see office buildings, not oil wells or factories. Those buildings warehouse the capital plant of the modern era: human brains. Brains that research and provide services in medicine, marketing, finance and myriad other services. Oil wells eventually run dry. An educated mind never does.
Just as farming and oil and gas and manufacturing once propelled the development of the Southern states, an educated workforce with high earning potential will propel the future of your states, our great nation and the world. The ultimate source of competitive advantage for Texas is not oil and gas or the chemical industry or this widget or that or even the Dallas Cowboys or the San Antonio Spurs (even if they are the good Lord's favorite teams)—it is our elementary and secondary schools, and the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M in College Station, Rice University in Houston, Southwestern Medical and Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and our law and engineering schools and research centers. Each of you could say that for your states. The development of human capacity through education should be the highest policy priority of any government in the South or anywhere else.
When I ran for the Senate, I was told to make every effort to condense complex thoughts and ideas into simple catchall phrases. I obviously wasn't very good at it. And, as politicians yourselves, you know meaningful brevity is not an easy task. Nor one that everyone appreciates. Pundits deride the catchy line as "bumper sticker" politics. I am not running for anything, so I'll risk offering a bumper sticker for our times, one delivering this simple message: "You earn what you learn." . . .
You can find Fisher's speech in its entirety here.
Posted by John at 9:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackQuote of the Day for Sunday, August 26, 2007
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August 25, 2007
Quote of the Day for Saturday, August 25, 2007
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August 24, 2007
More on Ireland's Rise as an Example for Latin America
My friend John Daly emailed me with some great feedback on my post on Ireland's rise as an example for Latin America:
From my reading, my interviews with people who work and invest in Ireland, and from my experience in Ireland, I would agree with Oppenheimer that Latin America--especially Mexico--should look at Ireland as an example. Certainly land reform and opening credit markets have worked brilliantly. The key, however, is education. I wrote about this last December while I visited Mexico.
One thing Oppenheimer failed to mention, though, was the move by Ireland to drop from their Constitution the notion of a unified Ireland in the 1990s. Once that was stated, the sectarian violence ended and commerce began.
We should also realize that Ireland's economy has also benefited from a perfect economic storm--which may not happen for Latin America. For the Irish, the wealthy retired German pensioner, looking for growth in their retirement funds, has heaped what appears to be an un-ending supply of capital into Ireland's educated and technologically based economy. It's one of the reasons why the Irish are getting fat while also owning some of the most expensive hotel real estate in--sit down you Anglophiles--London. My question to you, John, is this: Is there an equivalent of the German pensioners for Latin America?
A good book for your readers is The Pope's Children: Ireland's New Elite by David McWilliams, a fabulous book that profiles the new Ireland as David Brooks' Bobos in Paradise profiled America's new elite in the late 1990s. If your readers are interested in business opportunities in Ireland, they should visit the website for the US-Ireland Alliance and reach my good friend Trina Vargo, the organization's president.
Also, here's an interesting fact if you like to compare golf to business: the two reigning champs of the U.S. Open and the British Open are an Irishmen (Padraic Harrington) and an Argentinean (Angel Cabrera). Can golf be a leading economic indicator?
In answer to John's question regarding what the Latin American equivalent to Ireland's German investors, I responded as follows:
In a sense, I think Oppenheimer has a good answer for your question about the German pensioners: many Latin American countries, through their currently large resource-related revenues in oil, gas, minerals, etc., already have their own “German pensioners”. Further, investment in emerging markets on a global basis is much more prevalent today than it was 20 years ago, so Latin America has sources of capital from around the world which are much deeper than what Ireland had access to during its ascent.
Incidentally, I've spoken with Trina Vargo and she's a very helpful and knowledgeable source for anyone in the U.S. doing business in Ireland.
Posted by John at 5:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackQuote of the Day for Friday, August 23, 2007
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August 23, 2007
Rising Hyperlipidemia in China
Approximately one in five Chinese suffer from hyperlipidemia, or high blood fat, according to this China Daily article. Hyperlipidemia is a precursor to strokes and heart disease, and is caused primarily by higher fat foods and a sedentary lifestyle. Just another indication of China's rising affluence among its urban residences.
Posted by John at 10:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackThe Sun Also Rises
Rowan Callick, China correspondent of The Australian and formerly Asia-Pacific editor of The Australian Financial Review, offers a profile of the Asian economic behemoth few are paying much attention to: Japan. Callick's explains why Japan has come back from many years of economic stagnation, and looks at its future vis-à-vis China, Asia as a whole, and the United States. Read his complete essay here.
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August 22, 2007
Ireland's Welcome Mat to Immigrants . . . and Economic Growth
A Tidbits friend whose email address I didn't recognize sent me a pointer to a New York Times article on Ireland's embrace of immigrants, which has contributed to the country's population growth, but to its economic vitality as well. As my friend noted, the Irish have learned how to welcome and assimilate immigrants from much different backgrounds, to its advantage:
No European Union country has a younger population: statistically, the Irish have been barely aging at all, with the median age staying close to 33. The country will remain young for decades, say the experts, and escape the “graying” fate of the rest of Europe.
Further, demographers now predict that the population could rise to over five million in about a dozen years, and to six million within a generation. With a growing population in Northern Ireland, the island could match its largest population — more than eight million before the devastating 19th-century famine that prompted waves of emigration — by 2032. . . .
Posted by John at 5:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackThe population changes have been uneven geographically. New houses stretch in a wide arc from north Dublin to the west of the city. But the city’s core, despite being replenished by an influx of immigrants, has lost residents to the suburbs and to once unimaginably distant commuting centers in the midlands. In the south, the city of Cork shrank while the county grew.
Some experts think the scale is beyond most citizens’ imaginations: in about half a generation, the population may grow by another Dublin, which has 1.1 million people in its greater metropolitan area.
“The worst is that we find ourselves without growing our services to cope with the numbers,” Mr. Morgenroth said. “The benign outlook is that we have tackled our services and, like Switzerland or Luxembourg, we have great wealth and a great quality of life. The smaller countries can do it right.”
Eunan King, an economist at NCB Stockbrokers in Dublin, has long argued that a rising population — more workers and more consumers — will help sustain Ireland’s remarkable economic renaissance of the past dozen years. . . .
Quote for the Day for Wednesday, August 22, 2007
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August 21, 2007
El Paso: From Sleepy Border Town to Manufacturing Dynamo
Issues like border security, fences, immigration, and trade are a little more complicated in El Paso, which together with its neighbor across the border, Juarez, now has 270,000 manufacturing jobs. That's triple the number in Detroit, and places the El Paso-Juarez "borderplex" fourth in the North American continent, behind only Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas-Fort Worth, in manufacturing jobs. Read the Washington Post story here.
Posted by John at 9:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBackQuote of the Day for Tuesday, August 21, 2007
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August 20, 2007
Quote of the Day for Monday, August 20, 2007
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August 19, 2007
Capitalist Missionaries in Africa . . . from China
Much of the West's presence in Africa can be seen in offices of relief organizations or oil companies. China's footprint in Africa, however, has evolved from drably attired socialists preaching Third World solidarity to businessmen spreading a gospel of capitalism Milton Friedman would love. Trade between Africa and China was $55 billion last year, up from $10 million annually a couple of decades ago, and there are an estimated 750,000 Chinese nationals currently in Africa for an extended time. See more on in this International Herald Tribune article:
. . . At first, this new Chinese exodus was driven largely by word of mouth, as pioneers like Yang relayed news back home of abundant opportunities in a part of the world where many economies lay undeveloped or in ruins, and where even in the richer countries many things taken for granted in the developed world awaited builders and investors.
Conditions like these often deter Western investors, but for many budding Chinese entrepreneurs, Africa's emerging economies are inviting precisely because they seem small and accessible. Competition is often weak or nonexistent, and for African customers, the low price of many Chinese goods and services make them more affordable than their Western counterparts.
You Xianwen sold his pipe-laying business in Chengdu this year to move to Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, to join a startup company with a Chinese partner he had previously only met online.
Posted by John at 6:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack"Back where I come from we are pretty independent people," said You, 55. "My brothers and sisters all supported my decision to come here. In fact, they say that if things really work out for me, they would like to move to Africa, too."
You said that before settling on Ethiopia, he had considered other African countries, including Zambia. "Luckily I didn't decide to go there," he said, explaining that he had been frightened by the recent anti-Chinese protests in that country.
His new business, ABC Bioenergy, builds devices that generate combustible gas from ordinary refuse, providing what You says would be an affordable alternative source of energy in a country where electricity supplies are erratic and prices high.
You's partner here, Mei Haijun, first came to Ethiopia a decade ago to work at a Chinese-built textile factory and has since married an Ethiopian woman, with whom he has a newborn child. "When I first came here you could go two months without seeing another Chinese person," he said. "But it is a different era now. There's a flight to China every day." . . .
Loving Big Cars (and Heather Myles?) in China
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
Last year, China became the world's second-largest market for new vehicles after the United States, with sales of 7.2 million, a rate that is rising by more than 20 percent annually. Meanwhile, the government is building a nationwide network of superhighways at a breakneck pace. About 15,000 miles, the equivalent of one-third the U.S. interstate system, have been built since 2000, and 30,000 more miles are planned by 2020.
Unlike Japanese and European drivers, who favor the minicar (a two-seater about half the size of a compact car) and subcompacts, China's new middle class wants mobility, power and elbow room.
That calls for a little Heather Myles:
Quote of the Day for Sunday, August 19, 2007
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August 18, 2007
The Past vs. the Present in Trade
Michael Barone sees today's debates over free trade agreements with Colombia, South Korea, Peru, and Panama as a clash of the "looking backward" crowd vs. the interests of the future:
You can sum up the reason why most congressional Democrats are voting against FTAs in six letters: AFL-CIO. The AFL-CIO did a splendid job raising money and turning out voters for Democrats in 2006. Their efforts were highly sophisticated and they may very well have made the difference in Democrats gaining their majorities. And the AFL-CIO is dead set against free trade. It was unhappy with the Clinton administration when it pushed through the NAFTA with Mexico in 1993 and predicted big job losses, and is not phased by the fact that the United States has produced nearly 30 million new jobs net since that time.
This is a classic example of interests of the past trumping interests of the future. Nearly half of all union members today are public employees, almost none of whom are likely to be replaced by workers abroad. But the union movement is still in mourning for the hundreds of thousands of jobs in auto factories, steel mills and other industries that disappeared in the recession of 1979-1982. The denunciations of NAFTA and the votes against CAFTA and the pending FTAs are protests against what happened in Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh a quarter century ago. . . .
In other words, the cow is out of the barn.
You can read Barone's complete commentary here.
Posted by John at 10:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackQuote of the Day for Saturday, August 18, 2007
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August 17, 2007
Quote of the Day for Friday, August 17, 2007
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August 16, 2007
Asia's "Demographic Cliff"
The International Labour Organization released an enormously insightful report on trends in Asia's labor force (thanks to demography.matters.blog for the pointer). You can read the full report by following this link (pdf), and you'll be rewarded if you do.
The headlines address the 200 million workers Asia is expected to add to the global workforce by 2015 and the resulting strong economic growth which should result. If you read the report, however, the long-term view demographic outlook is not only more sober, but the authors of this study see a "demographic cliff" coming for several Asian countries, including parts of China:
Many Asian countries will continue to benefit from favourable demographic trends as the share of the region’s population of prime working-age (25-54) will continue to grow. It is expected that this share will have risen in all three developing Asian subregions by 2015, but is likely to fall soon thereafter in East Asia where fertility has declined and population growth has slowed. The share of the prime-age population will continue to decline in the Asian developed economies.
Countries that will see the biggest increase in the share of people of prime working-age and a potential “demographic dividend” in the form of higher potential economic growth rates, include the Islamic Republic of Iran, Bhutan, Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Mongolia and Pakistan. However, the “demographic dividend” is not guaranteed. To take advantage, countries must create a large number of productive jobs – a major challenge in many parts of Asia. On the other hand, Singapore, Hong Kong (China), Macau (China), Thailand and the Republic of Korea are all expected to show significant declines in the prime-age population share, which could represent a potential “demographic cliff” of lower output growth.
In every region, there will be a decline in the share of children (ages 0-14) and youth (ages 15-24) in the total population. The largest declines will occur in South-East Asia and South Asia where many countries are currently experiencing favourable demographic trends. This implies that the period of the “demographic dividend” is time-bound and that the time left to realize the benefits of this dividend is shortening.
At the end of the decade, there will be a marked increase in the share of the population ages 65 and above in every region, with the largest increases taking place in the developed economies (from 20.4 to 26.4 per cent), and East Asia where more than 1 in 10 people will be over 65 years old in 2015, up from 1 in 12. Trends in East Asia reflect the situation in China where family planning policies have accelerated the process of demographic transition. As a result, China is ageing faster than any other nation in history. [emphasis mine] As for Asia’s developed (industrialized) countries, Japan’s labour force began shrinking in 1999 at which point new retirees outnumbered new labour market entrants. Taking a longer-term perspective, the pattern of ageing is abundantly clear: the shape of the region’s population pyramid will change substantially in coming decades, and the region will gradually become significantly older. . . .
What this report implicitly predicts is that in a decade or so the current angst in this country over China's "inexhaustible" labor force which holds down wage rates will be a memory, and the focus will be on labor supply in countries like Iran and Pakistan.
Posted by John at 5:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackQuote of the Day for Thursday, August 16, 2007
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August 15, 2007
Quote of the Day for Wednesday, August 15, 2007
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August 14, 2007
Quote of the Day for Tuesday, August 14, 2007
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August 13, 2007
Quote of the Day for Monday, August 13, 2007
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August 12, 2007
Quote of the Day for Sunday, August 12, 2007
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August 11, 2007
The Ideal Capital Gains Tax Rate
Don Luskin, in a Wall Street Journal editorial, explains why the ideal policy for maximizing government revenue from capital gains is a tax rate on such gains of zero. He does it, mind you, actually using numbers and economic reasoning, which is probably why it will never happen:
The cap-gains tax is a poor revenue raiser, because any given capital gain is a one-time event that can only be taxed once, and in many cases, ends up not being taxed at all. Consider Microsoft. Since the company went public 20 years ago, its market value has increased by about $275 billion. A generous estimate of the cap-gains tax revenues we could expect from this increase is about $40 billion.
Actual collections will surely be less. Many shares will never be sold -- held by founders who wish to retain control, or by people who wish to avoid paying taxes. Many shares will be gifted to charitable foundations, as Bill Gates has done for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, out of the tax collector's reach. Even for those shares that will eventually be sold, from today's perspective the resulting tax revenues have to be discounted, as they won't be collected for years.
This point is reason enough to eliminate this tax, as most politicians apparently don't understand how revenue from a capital gains tax is actually derived, and mismanage the finances they are entrusted with accordingly. One of the most notable examples in recent years is the state of California, which passed a budget in 2000-2001 which increased expenditures by 17%. Realized revenues, however, fell by 1%, as revenues from capital gains taxes, inflated by the surge of stock options and IPOs from the tech bubble, plummeted. According to this analysis from the East Bay Economic Development Alliance, California appears poised to repeat the same mistake, only a few years distant from that experience. Luskin continues:
At the same time, Microsoft has been a fountain of other tax revenues. Since the company went public, I estimate that, in cumulative present-value terms, corporate taxes already paid total roughly $60 billion; sales taxes paid by Microsoft's customers total roughly $11 billion; income taxes paid by Microsoft's employees total roughly $12 billion, and dividend taxes paid by Microsoft's shareholders total about $3 billion. These four sources of tax revenues over the last 20 years total $86 billion -- more than twice our generous estimate of the notional cap-gains tax revenues ($40 billion) for the same period.
Moreover, unless Microsoft's stock price increases -- which it's had a hard time doing the last couple years -- the estimated $40 billion in cap-gains tax revenues will never grow to a larger number. But corporate taxes, sales taxes, income taxes and dividend taxes will continue to be generated year after year. Even if assuming Microsoft's business stops growing (it has been reliably growing at better than 10% per year), the present value of the tax revenues from these other sources is roughly $182 billion. Added to the revenues already collected, the total is $268 billion.
There is also all the new taxable economic activity enabled by Microsoft's products. It's impossible to estimate a dollar value for it, but we can be sure it is a multiple of the value created within Microsoft. In this context, there is nothing unique about Microsoft. Anytime capital is invested, the small, deferred and non-recurring revenues that can be expected from the cap-gains tax are a tiny fraction of the perpetual revenues from other economic activities, generated directly and indirectly.
Luskin goes on to make another important point: that eliminating the capital gains tax would not only spur additional taxable activity from companies like Microsoft, but it would incent the country's capital base to invest in the creation of more innovators like Microsoft. For each new Microsoft which emerges from this activity, the government would implicitly be foregoing $40 billion in capital gains tax revenue in order to collect $268 billion in revenue from other taxable activity. While Microsoft is an out-sized example, the same principle would hold for the thousands of other companies which would emerge under this policy.
Further, what a way to encourage innovation, entrepreneurship, and growth in small business, the three things all politicians, regardless of their party affiliation, seem to pay lip service to during election season. If you really want innovative companies to emerge which, for example, help reduce our dependent on fossil fuels through development of new technologies, then giving entrepreneurs and investors in those technologies an overwhelming incentive to make a go for it is the ideal way to achieve such a goal the fastest. It sure won't happen through some Department of Energy boondoggle.
Finally, if you really want to curb the "excess profits" of companies like Exxon, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi desires, then create the optimal conditions for emerging enterprises which offer alternatives to Exxon's fossil fuels. Such competition will do more to give Exxon and its industry peers a run for their money than any "excess profits" tax.
That's why a zero capital gains tax is unlikely to ever happen: it's too threatening to big corporations in this country. Big companies like Microsoft and Exxon don't like innovation they don't control; it threatens the status quo too much. (In Microsoft's case, for example, think Google.) They will fight anything which creates the conditions for competition and innovation which threatens their position. Corporate America is obviously a big source of revenue for politicians, in the form of campaign contributions, so, like Pelosi's proposal on energy companies (which she's having trouble getting support for even though her party controls the House), a zero capital gains tax would likely be opposed, albeit quietly, by lobbyists from large companies. It's just too destabilizing.
Posted by John at 10:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackQuote of the Day for Saturday, August 11, 2007
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August 10, 2007
Quote of the Day for Friday, August 10, 2007
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August 9, 2007
Rising Suburban Minorities
In a further sign of the United States’ growing diversity, nonwhites now make up a majority in almost one-third of the most-populous counties in the country and in nearly one in 10 of all 3,100 counties, according to an analysis of census results to be released today.
The shift reflects the growing dispersal of immigrants and the suburbanization of blacks and Hispanics pursuing jobs generated by whites moving to the fringes of metropolitan areas.
Posted by John at 8:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBackFrom July 1, 2005, to July 1, 2006, metropolitan Chicago edged out Honolulu in Asian population, and Washington inched ahead of El Paso in the number of Hispanic residents. In black population, Houston overtook Los Angeles.
“The new wave of immigration, along with its continued dispersal to the suburbs and Sun Belt, is transforming the places which are now being classified as multiethnic and majority minority,” said William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution.
“The new melting pots are not large international gateways,” Professor Frey said, adding, “Rather, many are fast-growing suburbs themselves.”
In 36 counties with more than 500,000 residents each, non-Hispanic whites are now a minority, up from 29 counties of that size in 2000. . . .
China Poised to Become Largest IPO Market for 2007
With China Construction Bank Corp.having hired underwriters and other large IPOs like PetroChina Co. and China Shenhua Energy Co. in the works, China is poised to become the largest market for IPOs this year. Through July, Chinese companies have raised $24.2 billion from IPOs, second only to the United States, with $26.9 billion in proceeds for IPOs here. [See this Wall Street Journal story for further information.]
Posted by John at 6:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackQuote of the Day for Thursday, August 9, 2007
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August 8, 2007
Quote of the Day for Wednesday, August 8, 2007
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August 7, 2007
Quote of the Day for Tuesday, August 7, 2007
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August 6, 2007
Quote of the Day for Monday, August 6, 2007
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August 5, 2007
Country Music Industry Ready to Serenade Hispanic Demographic
"I Need You" is one of country singer Leann Rimes most well-known hits, and the country music industry is poised to serenade the Hispanic demographic with a similar tune.
The Country Music Association has formed a task force to study opportunities in the Hispanic market, which will likely lead to a formal market campaign in 2008, reports the Nashville Business Journal. This would mark the first time that the industry has targeted a specific consumer group, and is driven by events such as Los Angeles losing its last country music station last year, playing Keith Urban's "Tonight I'm Going to Cry" as its swam song.
If anything, the country music industry is late to the party. Here's what their study will find: Hispanics are loyal radio listeners and outpace the general population in consumption of Internet radio and music downloads.
If I were the CMA, I'd get on with the marketing campaign.
Posted by John at 11:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackIf Ireland Can Do It, So Can Latin America
Andres Oppenheimer looks at a recent report from the Bank of Ireland which finds that the Irish are among the world's wealthiest people, and on average the richest in Europe. This is the same Ireland which was one of Europe's poorest countries less than two decades ago.
Latin American countries can achieve similar results, says Oppenheimer, if they follow Ireland's example in economic reform and investment:
When I visited Ireland in 2003, virtually everybody told me that while the European support funds helped mitigate some of the hardships that came along with the country's drastic economic opening, they weren't the most important factor.
Rather, Ireland's success is largely due to a combination of a 1987 temporary truce between labor unions and business owners; the elimination of bureaucratic hurdles that discouraged foreign investments; an across-the-board amnesty for tax evaders; a reduction of corporate taxes aimed at encouraging investments; a strong emphasis on science, technology and engineering in its universities; and the successive governments' determination to stay the course despite mounting social tensions at the start of the economic opening. . . .
Read Oppenheimer's complete commentary here.
Posted by John at 11:05 AM
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Quote of the Day for Sunday, August 5, 2007
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August 4, 2007
Quote of the Day for Saturday, August 4, 2007
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August 3, 2007
China Rocks, Africa Stocks
In an article on "globalization's final frontier", the Economist notes that China's foreign exchange reserves alone exceed the value--about $800 billion--of Africa's entire stock of publicly-traded companies. Further, South Africa's listed companies make up about $600 billion of that total, meaning that the market capitalization rest the remainder of the African continent is exceeded alone by that of China's largest bank.
Posted by John at 7:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackQuote of the Day for Friday, August 3, 2007
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