China and the Gulf states are hungry, and they've just sat down for an American buffet. In the last few months alone, state-affiliated funds and companies have taken bites of American icons, picking up small stakes in Advanced Micro Devices, MGM Mirage, Nasdaq Stock Market, Blackstone Group and Bear Stearns. The deals were designed to be small enough to avoid scrutiny from the U.S. government. This conveniently played into the hands of sellers, who were able to offload pricey positions while giving virtually nothing in return, such as board seats or veto rights. But the mergers-and-acquisitions story of 2008 will be how these foreign sovereign funds -- sitting on an estimated $2 trillion to $3 trillion of reserves -- direct their appetites. Fattened by the U.S.'s own trade imbalances and encouraged by favorable currency rates, they aren't likely to stay so compliant for long. Further down the buffet line sit entire U.S. companies. Seven sovereign funds, including those of Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, China, Singapore and Russia, now sit on piles greater than $100 billion. Outside the U.S., these funds have proven more adventuresome, with a Dubai company recently moving to take ownership of the airport in Auckland, New Zealand. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119552149452198640.html?mod=mktw
You can't really buy a large portion of any 1 country. Population will vote for hiking up the corporate tax and the new buyers will get screwed holding a paper bag they can't get rid of without a large loss. What those countries/funds *can* do is stop funding the US government's appetite for digging itself into the ground with massive debt.
congress better not get fired up to 'do something' about or the dollar will drop another 10% leg very quickly
Only 1 way to STOP all these foreigners in their tracks... Buy less gas/oil, buy less Chinese junk, work harder producing *real* products to sell to them (as opposed to working hard selling houses or stocks to each other), borrow less right now. It's very sad to see this country's work ethic having evaporated over the last 20-30 years while this stupid attitude of "we're #1" somehow be ingrained into people's minds. It's about to seriously kick them in the ASS soon.
Yeah maybe if they (other countries who seem to hate America so much) would stop accepting so much aid from the US, the US wouldn't be in so much debt...so yeah I guess that would be a way of other countries *stopping* funding of the USG's appetite of digging itself in debt. Or maybe the USG should just be proactive and cut all these clowns off from assistance. We have plenty of homeless and hungry here, who cares about those idiots that are starving and dying in other countries? They should immigrate if they want the US's money. Fair enough?
You can't buy a country, because a country can make laws to do whatever it likes. Like Venezuela, they want to nationalize oil industry by force. All Exxon, Total...etc. have to leave the country even they have agreements that say otherwise before.
Have you been overseas lately? How much did you buy with your $? I'm in California and frankly, the freeways here nowadays are full of potholes. They look a LOT worse than many other countries' roads. Recently, there was a fire on some overpass in Oakland and the cost to repair it would be $70 million. Well for a state this size, supposedly the governor would have to declare a state of emergency to be able to come up with the funds to fix pronto. I remember when California used to have beautiful freeways all over the place, plenty of money and was admired overseas. Not today. It's now a me too state/economy. US gov DID assist other poor contries in the past, notice I said past. Not today. Not much anyway. The US is the worlds largest debtor. Countries like Brazil used to be in that spot. They've been working their way out of that spot for the last 30 years. But Americans have somehow cultivated this image of "were better, more powerful, richer, smarter, etc, than them" which except for the more powerful is no longer true. Even worse 90% of the population is in this fantasy land and refuses to wake up. The only people who still wish to come to the US today are dirt poor Mexicans, Iraqis, poor Asian nations as well as African. Tell me how many have come here in the last 20 years from Western Europe, Japan, Australia, or rich Arab countries to work? Only the poor come over since they have a better work ethic than American citizens. Sorry to dissapoint but it's the truth.
Good luck convincing ANY corporation to reinstate an industrial/manufacturing base in USA. No, because poverty wages here is like a decent standard of living for them. Until they get caught up in the mess and realize that their lives have not really improved.
ha ha you say we're not more powerful? LOL ..okay. LOL ha ha ha whatever dude. You must not know much about our military. I'll let that one marinate for a while. Jeez man.