Summary: Obama gives support, marketing a Canadian company RIMM. link http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticke...an"?tickers=RIMM,^IXIC,GOOG,AAPL,PALM,GM,^DJI Posted Jan 09, 2009 05:29pm EST by Henry Blodget in Investing, From Silicon Alley Insider, Jan. 9, 2009: No risk of protectionism in the Obama Administration, apparently. The President Elect is happily providing an estimated $50 million of marketing support for...Canadian company Research in Motion (RIMM). And thank goodness for that. In today's global economy, a lurch toward protectionism would be a disaster. If an American company can't build a smartphone that Obama wants more than the Blackberry, then the heck with "buying American" (which doesn't mean anything anymore anyway). In fact, it's a credit to the technology industry that Valley stars aren't bemoaning this "Benedict Arnold" move by the future chief executive. Can you imagine if the product Obama was telling his staff that they'd have to pry from his cold, dead hands was a Toyota or BMW? That said, this is one hell of a product endorsement. So Apple (AAPL), Palm (PALM), and Google (GOOG) should be shipping some serious swag to the Oval Office to try to win over the world's most influential spokesperson.
Who exactly would it be a "disaster" for? An american company even when outsourcing their manufacturing would still provide more jobs to americans than a foreign company. And yeah, buying american should still have a meaning. This "globalization" which served to weaken american workers is part of the problem for the terrible economy. Where is this guy coming from? Of course you have to be careful so that you don't have a GM abusing their market share but countries should strive to have more local industries.
No economy can run a perpetual trade deficit and survive. If acknowledging and acting on that basic fact is somehow "protectionism", so be it, survival trumps ideology.
Apparently they pull this 'news' and $50 million out of a hat or may be their as* : I guessed George W Bush going to the Bejing Olympics is worth a couple of $$$ billion to the Chinese.
I didn't bother reading the whole article the first time. Just realized that it's heavily biased toward Obama, either way the intentional or genuine ignorance sickens me.