--- On Wed, 3/25/09, Mervyn Lobo <[email protected]> wrote: Marlon, The request was for numbers. I live in a world where numbers are everything, and sentiment is not worth a penny. In simple terms, it is much easier to understand a salesman who informs you that your investment will make 4% annually verses a salesman who tells you, "I will make you lots of money." ------ I think you missed out my comment that 70% of the world's venture capital was being invested in America. Technological innovation and its commercialization is what ultimately determines a nation's standard of living.
--- On Wed, 3/25/09, Mervyn Lobo <[email protected]> wrote: WRT your two points: 1) The Chinese have and are marketing an electric car that is far more advanced than anything the US has to offer. This is just the beginning of inovation that will surely come out of China. Here is the link to the NPR program. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99286134 --- BYD is a good company, but the details on this car remain sketchy. Lithium ion has several issues: cost, safety, recharge speed and energy density . Except via fuzzy accounting or excessive govt. subsidies, I do not see how anyone can make these cars so cheap ($22K). Toyota, a company that is acknowledged to be the most efficient auto manufacturer in the world, loses money on every hybrid car its sells - and hybrids are far cheaper than plug in electrics. For now, they are a marketing halo product. Even GM's soon to be released and much acclaimed plug in electric car, the "Volt", is a dubious proposition. GM is marketing this car as something that will save it. It will not. In the next 10 years, I believe the biggest bang for the buck in engine efficiency will come from the implementation of "Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition" (HCCI) technology - and not from the more sexy hybrid or battery technology. Perhaps by then, battery technology will become more mainstream. As far as battery research is concerned, most of the cutting edge work is happening in America - not China. Ironically, the future may be in the use of a variation of the common lead acid battery known as the lead carbon battery. See: http://seekingalpha.com/article/115257-lead-carbon-a-game-changer-for-alternative-energy-storage --- On Wed, 3/25/09, Mervyn Lobo <[email protected]> wrote: 2) When you report false numbers in China, the Govt takes you outside and shoots you. When you report false numbers in the USSA, the govt gives you a bonus, prints money to pay the bonus and then passes legislation to tax 90% of the bonus. The final part of this process is for the USSA govt to appoint managers to run the companies that have fantasy profits/losses. In this regard, it feel that the Chinese method promotes far more fiscal responsibility than the USSA's 'democratic' method. ---- In China, anything is the truth - so long as the government says it is so. Your understanding of China is rather naive. Regarding the much maligned issue of the AIG bonuses, the fact is that the original core team responsible for this mess, were fired, forced out or had quit a long time ago. The current staff that were supposed to get the bonuses were brought in at the government's request to clean up house and many of the executives were receiving no salaries. But yes, fundamentally, the US is wrong in letting these companies live. They should have been shut down in the first place. Marlon
