[TheForge] new book review

Sun Feb 20 12:53:38 EST 2005

Dave,
     This is the reason for steel prices skyrocketing.  I think it is a topical post.  China is buying our steel and germay's steel plants to boister this economic boom.  It is making bidding jobs a dicey prospect.

-Chris K.

----- Original Message -----
From: magichammer <dave at magichammer.net>
To: "Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: Re: [TheForge] new book review
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2005 20:56:52 -0600

> 
> Bob, does it say anything about Chinese blacksmiths?
> This is a blacksmith list.......
> dave m
> 
> Schade wrote:
> 
> > Hope you like Chinese.
> >
> > Bob
> > __________
> >
> >  CHINA INC.
> >  How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World
> >  By Ted C. Fishman
> >  342 pages. Scribner. $26.
> >
> >  If the 20th was the American century, then the 21st belongs to 
> > China. It's that simple, Ted C. Fishman says, and anyone who 
> > doubts it should take his whirlwind tour of the world's 
> > fastest-developing economy.
> >
> >  The numbers are staggering. From 1982 through 2002, the United 
> > States economy grew at an annual rate of 3.3 percent, he writes, 
> > well above average for the world's most prosperous nations. 
> > China's economy grew at an annual rate of 9.5 percent, meaning it 
> > "doubled nearly three times over," in the generation since market 
> > reforms were introduced. In 2003 it bought 7 percent of the 
> > world's oil, a quarter of its aluminum and steel, almost a third 
> > of its iron ore and coal, and 40 percent of its cement. It makes 
> > 40 percent of all furniture sold in the United States. Its 3,000 
> > Christmas-decoration factories exported more than $900 million 
> > tree trimmings and plastic Santas in the first 10 months of 2003.
> >
> > "China still only makes one-twentieth of everything produced in 
> > the world, but on the world stage it plays the role of a new 
> > factory in an old industrial town," Mr. Fishman says. "It can 
> > spend, it can bully, it can hire and dictate wages, it can throw 
> > old-line competitors out of work. It changes the way everyone 
> > does business."
> >
> >  One of the most powerful weapons in China's economic arsenal is 
> > what businesses have come to know as "the China price." A 
> > stampede from the countryside to China's new industrial boomtowns 
> > has created a vast low-wage army, working for an average of 40 
> > cents an hour, that can turn out consumer goods of every 
> > description even cheaper than Mexican or Malaysian factories can. 
> > American factories that cannot deliver to Wal-Mart or General 
> > Motors at the China price often face two stark choices: they can 
> > go under or set up shop in China.
> >
> > Many choose option No. 2. But danger lies in that direction too. 
> > The Chinese are adept at copying and quite loose in their 
> > interpretation of intellectual property rights. One of Mr. 
> > Fishman's more striking examples is the auto industry, which 
> > looms large in China's economic plans. American and Japanese 
> > companies spend $1 billion to $2 billion to develop a new car. 
> > The Chinese, by forcing foreign car companies to form joint 
> > ventures with their companies and to share their technology in 
> > order to enter China, hope to leapfrog over those kinds of 
> > development costs.
> >
> >  Foreign companies, salivating at the thought of 100 million 
> > Chinese customers, cannot stop themselves from signing on the 
> > dotted line. Sometimes, rude surprises await. At the 2003 
> > Shanghai auto show, G.M. executives unveiled a new $9,000 small 
> > family van, only to discover an identical vehicle, priced at 
> > $6,000, at a Chinese booth in the same row. The clone was made by 
> > Chery, a Chinese company owned in part by Shanghai Auto, G.M.'s 
> > joint-venture partner.
> >
> >  Americans who fret over Japanese-style assaults on major 
> > industries miss the point, Mr. Fishman maintains. The real 
> > competition, he argues, and the real source of China's strength, 
> > lie in local enterprises "that spring on the scene lean and mean, 
> > planned and financed by investors who want to make money 
> > quickly." No one in Beijing analyzed the German toy industry and 
> > decided that China needed to move in.
> >
> >  Mr. Fishman describes China's miracle economy with a mixture of 
> > fear and admiration. He is a lively writer, and some of his most 
> > vivid pages are devoted to the wrenching transformations brought 
> > about by the government's controlled experiment in free 
> > enterprise. He paints a neon-lit portrait of Shanghai, the 
> > showcase city of the new China. He also walks through the market 
> > stalls and factory floors of new super-cities like Shenzhen, a 
> > fishing town of 70,000 20 years ago that now has 7 million 
> > people, making it larger than Los Angeles or Paris, swelled by 
> > migrants from the countryside looking for a better life in the 
> > city. They are part of the largest human migration in history, a 
> > tide estimated to be as high as 300 million Chinese who account 
> > for the dynamism of the Chinese economy.
> >
> > Their wishes, increasingly, will be our commands, Mr. Fishman 
> > says. Their production and consumption patterns are already 
> > changing the way Americans shop, the kinds of jobs, wages and 
> > pensions they can expect and even the air they breathe. The Asian 
> > Brown Cloud, a wind-borne industrial smog that originates on 
> > China's east coast, can be seen in California as it rides the jet 
> > stream. (China has 7 of the world's 10 most polluted cities.)
> >
> >  Mr. Fishman does not really have any convincing ideas on how to 
> > meet the Chinese challenge. The book goes a bit soft at the end, 
> > as he recommends better education to deal with the narrowing 
> > research and development gap between China and the United States. 
> > He would like to see Washington pay as much attention to China as 
> > to the Middle East. But he's a much better worrier than he is a 
> > problem solver. If it's any consolation, China is beating just 
> > about everybody in the world right now. How can you stop a nation 
> > where peasants figure out a way to sell on eBay? It's simple, Mr. 
> > Fishman seems to be saying. You can't.
> >
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> > ___________
> >
> >
> >
> 
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> ___________

It is I who formed the blacksmith, 
who fans the flame into a fire and
fashions a weapon fit for it's work.

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