And, the market cap gold medal . . . to China!
Posted on 09. Aug, 2009 by scott in economic daydreaming
Just a note about the changing landscape in publicly traded companies (and some implications). And who owns the gold medal in corporate size right now (the medal shown is from the Salt Lake Olympics right here in my own backyard).
America has been the leader for, like ever, dude.
Not now. The medal has been stolen transferred.
The Economist listed the the biggest corporations, by market cap, in their last issue. Of the 7 largest four are NOT U.S. — They are Chinese. Three are American.
The four Chinese have a market cap value of over ONE TRILLION $$!!
The four U.S. companies (Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Walmart) have a value of $750 Billion.
Am I the only one that sees a problem here?
And, does the problem have to do with currency controls and imports/exports and fair trade?
Yes to all apparently.
Sure China is growing and has the fastest (in raw numbers) growing middle-class in the world, but are they really becoming the corporate giants this list indicates?
Sadly, the answer is yes, yes, yes. The investors of the world value Chinese companies and Chinese prospects much more than they do American.
This is because the Chinese model of Communist control of central finances and the treasury allows them to artificially stimulate their own economy at the expense of others. Keep the yuan low and force the dollar trade to favor them and what do you get?
Big trade deficits in America and tons (literally) of our $$ flowing into the Chinese treasury.
This has got to stop.
Bush allowed it because American’s wanted the inexpensive cheap products that come from China. Yes, for their kids, for their living rooms and for their kitchens and everywhere else (except so far their garages — but that may be coming).
Obama is allowing it to continue because he and Giethner don’t have the ‘cahones’ to do otherwise. Well, China does have nearly a trillion $$ of our government’s debt and another trillion or so of our corporations debt . . . and if they don’t keep financing us then the recently waning recession might just look like a beach party.
Still, we have to do something. Those guys need us too. If we stop importing and buying all their ‘goodies’ then their economy will crash like the Russians is doing (gosh, do I ever feel sorry for that humble and kind Putin chap).
The Chinese markets are up around 80% since the first of the year. The U.S. markets are up (on average) about 10%. Just for your additional, special bonus, information, the Russian markets are up over 50% (crap!!).
Do you think we are suffering at the hands of other governments who have the ability to control everything because they don’t offer fair and balanced voices to their hundreds of millions of citizens? Because they don’t deal fairly with their trading partners?
Dang right.
So, stop it right now President Obama. Turn you attack dog Giethner and his attack kitty Summers (Treasury Sec. and Economic advisor respectively) loose. Let’s start setting some things straight here. Let’s balance the scales of economic justice.
Free trade. Fairly valued currencies. Properly supervised and regulated industry and stock markets (think bubble here).
And a bunch of other things too. Heck we imported $675 billion more than we exported in the last 12 months. How long can that go on?? Too long already if you want to know.
So man up here ‘invisible hand’ of the economy (the invisible hand of intelligent trade policy anyway). Set some new rules, Obama and team.
And take it or leave it Chinese dudes. We don’t really need all your ‘junk’ flooding our markets (to be honest though I do own a few really quality Chinese-made big-screen TV’s so that is just my sense of fair play breaking out).
Look, I did business in China for years. Had to quit partly because I couldn’t stop the illegal knock-offs of my patented products from showing up in places all over the world. I paid a steep price for their unfair competitive advantage (not to mention illegal).
I speak from experience.
This current system isn’t working and it isn’t fair.
Fix it Mr. Obama.
NOW!
ps: Gosh think of how many jobs a real solution to the trade imbalance might create!!
thanks to cliff1066 at Flickr for the photo
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