| To: pie-faced-mutt who wrote (1591) | 8/28/2002 6:16:13 AM | | From: GUSTAVE JAEGER | | | | Follow-up to my post #1593:
Don't miss the snippet on the trade in steel between Japan and China... and then, think again about the current tariff war between the US and Europe --as I once predicted, China's gonna take the slack out of her "natural" trading partners whereas Europe's gonna get stuck with shiploads of steel....
feer.com
Excerpt:
But although more modest export growth to the U.S. would be economically inconvenient for East Asia, it would not be catastrophic. While the U.S. remains the region's single-biggest export market, it is by no means the only one. Trade within Asia is increasingly important and China in particular is fast emerging as a key trading partner for countries across the region.
"China could become the Brazil of Asia: a continental-size economy with an open domestic market," says Cliff Tan, director of Asia-Pacific economic and market analysis at Citibank in Singapore.
Although China's absolute size as an export market remains small compared to the U.S., the speed at which it is developing is breathtaking. Last year--a year in which global trade contracted by 1% and in which China slapped punitive tariffs on Japanese cars, mobile phones and air-conditioners--Japan's exports to China jumped by 15% in yen terms. According to the Japan External Trade Organization, China has become Japan's second most important export market, up from fourth place the previous year.
And the trend is continuing this year. "Look at Japanese steel exports to China. They've gone completely ballistic," says Jesper Koll, first vice-president at Merrill Lynch in Tokyo. Sure enough, sales of Japanese-made steel to China more than doubled in June compared to the same month last year, the 12th monthly increase in a row.
And it's not just Japanese exporters who are benefiting from soaring Chinese demand. "China is by far the fastest-growing major export market for South-east Asia," says Steve Brice, chief economist at Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore. In the year to March, he says, Southeast Asia's seasonally adjusted exports to China grew by 9%. Over the same period the region's shipments to the U.S. dropped by 12%, while exports to Europe fell 18%.
Even so, many economists remain sceptical about China's ability to emerge as an engine of intraregional trade. China's importance, they say, is as a low-cost processing centre assembling imported goods for re-export, more often than not, to the U.S. If U.S. import demand slows, so will China's, they maintain.
That's only partly true. According to Rob Subbaraman and Graham Parry, regional economists at Lehman Brothers in Tokyo, the bulk of China's 10% rise in imports over the first half of this year was fuelled by a 20% surge in demand for goods destined for re-export.
But, significantly, the strongest demand growth for China's exports came not from the U.S. or Europe, but from elsewhere within Asia. China's shipments to the rest of Asia (ex-Japan) rose 21%, they note, stronger than the 19% rise in exports to the U.S. "China is more and more the epicentre of intraregional trade," says Subbaraman.
And that intraregional trade is looking a lot more robust. Although roughly half of imports by countries in the region consist of raw materials and part-processed goods, which are highly dependent on external demand from the U.S. and Europe, around 30% are capital goods and 20% consumer products, both of which rely far more on locally generated demand.
In all, Subbaraman and Parry estimate that between one-third and a half of Asia's intraregional trade is reliant on demand from within the region, meaning that domestic-demand-driven intraregional trade stands ready to act as a powerful buffer to any moderation in export demand from the U.S.
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| To: pie-faced-mutt who wrote (1684) | 8/28/2002 8:56:21 AM | | From: GUSTAVE JAEGER | | | | Re: In May, President Bush signed the $190 billion 10-year farm bill that will continue to give the nation's biggest farmers $19 billion in subsidies, perpetuating a Depression-era program of direct financial aid to encourage production of grain and cotton. Some critics call that a welfare system, and some of the most important developing nations with big agricultural exports - Brazil, Thailand and South Africa - spoke up loudly, charging the Bush administration with hypocrisy.
Well, there's no point in trying to cast the US's farm welfare as a better case than Europe's.... Both keep subsidizing their respective farmer constituencies shamelessly BUT, at least, the US CAN AFFORD IT!! Here're a few key data most European media NEVER blurt out:
Message 15544861
Get the picture? The EU currently panders to THREE times as many farmers as the US's... on an area that's barely a THIRD the size of the US's. The elephantine size of European agriculture is a LIABILITY to the overall EU competitiveness. While the US brazenly subsidizes its farmers, it STILL has the world's best high-tech industry, it still splurges on Defence contractors more than the EU, Russia and China combined... And the US doesn't fuss over genetically-engineered foodstuffs --the US still has more GM-plant schemes than China.
Gus |
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| To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (1699) | 8/28/2002 10:11:15 AM | | From: lorne | | | | French surrender to new language.
Talking back in France.
Immigrants assert their own identity with `reverse speech'
" Within a couple of decades, Verlan has spread from the peripheral housing projects of France's poorest immigrants, heavily populated with Africans and North African Arabs, and gained widespread popularity among young people across France. "
Full story >>>
thestar.com |
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| To: lorne who wrote (1701) | 8/28/2002 10:20:33 AM | | From: GUSTAVE JAEGER | | | | LOL! No, verlan is a much older story than France's postwar immigration --if anything, it's been merely adopted by the latest wave of North African immigrants... but they didn't invent it!
Verlan
The re-ordering of syllables to form new words is not a new innovation, it is thought to date back to the 12th century (see Lefkowitz,1991 pp50-54 for an account of the historical evidence for verlan). The current enthusiasm for 'verlan' among young people living in the 'banlieues' arose in the climate of social unrest in the seventies. It was adopted both as a means to obscure meaning, by those who wished to communicate about taboo or private matters, from sex to drugs, and as a means of identifying others with common interests or live-styles, in other words as an in-group marker of social identity. It is thus used in playful contexts, or in contexts where there is some threat of aggression or danger from outsiders to the group.
[...]
well.ac.uk |
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| To: Spytrdr who wrote (1695) | 8/28/2002 11:04:14 AM | | From: GUSTAVE JAEGER | | | | OOOoops....
China deals U.S. blow over Iraq
August 27, 2002 Posted: 11:38 PM EDT (0338 GMT)
By Willy Wo-Lap Lam
CNN Senior China Analyst
(CNN) -- In a further blow to Washington's effort to get global support for a possible war on Iraq, Beijing has indicated it is against the use of force to resolve Baghdad's differences with the West.
Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan told visiting Iraqi counterpart Naji Sabri on Tuesday that using force or threats of force could not solve the Iraqi problem and "would only cause regional tension and instability."
The official China News Service on Wednesday quoted Tang as saying questions about Iraq should only be resolved within United Nations mechanisms, and "only political and diplomatic methods should be used."
Tang added Beijing was concerned about the suffering of the Iraqi people who had lived under conditions of Western embargoes for a long time.
[...]
cnn.com
Right now, I'm afraid the ONLY sensible strategy for the US is, FIRST, to nuke Europe, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Switzerland... and then, take on the pièce de résistance, namely, Iraq.... |
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| To: Eashoa' M'sheekha who wrote (1693) | 8/28/2002 12:25:07 PM | | From: Thomas M. | | | | There is no dispute. Israel was the aggressor, as agreed upon by the U.S. as well as the UN. Was it a preemptive strike? Perhaps, but the evidence is extremely shaky, and you certainly have not provided any.
If Israel was worried about its security, and launched the war as a preemptive strike, then Israel would obviously have been delighted when the Arab countries offered them peace treaties and recognition. Israel was not.
On the issue of Jews being barred from the Wailing Wall, that was indeed an injustice. But, given the hostile manner in which the Zionists treated the indigenous Moslems, it is understandable. Remember that Jewish community got along fine with the Moslems before the Zionists came along. And during this period of injustice, these indigenous Jews were supporting the PLO.
Tom |
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| To: Thomas M. who wrote (1692) | 8/28/2002 1:28:56 PM | | From: pie-faced-mutt | | | | LOL
We should attack before Iraq attacks us! Lets call it preventive maintenance and while we have the jet engines warmed up, lets do North Korea later in the day. |
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