[lbo-talk] Re: Cultural change?

uvj at vsnl.com uvj at vsnl.com
Mon May 3 08:09:29 PDT 2004


Dennis Redmond wrote:


> > Economic and technological dominance needs no explanation, it's obvious.


> What tremendous new economic leverage does the US have now over India
> which it didn't have 15 years ago?

Asian economies have huge trade surpluses with the US, not with Japan or European economies. Their FX reserves are mainly held in $. World Bank/IMF are crucial lending institutions.

In case of India, 20% of foreign trade was with fSU and East European countries 20 years ago. India could import plant and machinery, with long credits with nominal interest rates and paid in Indian currency. That's gone. India's trade with Bangladesh is greater than that with Russia now.

India has a small trade surplus with US, trade deficit with Japan and Europe.


> Eurobanks are the creditors of the
> world.

May be, what is their share of global credit flows to Asia?


>East Asia continues to dominate in electrics/electronics.

US enjoys 'full spectrum' dominance: economic, technological, military and cultural.


>The
> software industry is multinational.

Not in India. Microsoft, IBM, Hewlett Packard etc., among non Indian banks Citibank, HSBC etc.


>isn'tIndia still a relatively
> self-contained economy, with low amounts of foreign debt and low
> trade-to-GDP ratios?

Yes. Foreign trade/ GDP ratio of about 20% and foreign debt/ FX reserves are almost the same, about $110 bn. But Indian exports are expected to grow, mainly to due US offshoring (software, BPO, autocomponents, textiles [after quotas are abolished from 1 Jan 05], drugs etc.).


>here is nothing comparable to Discovery or
> > National Geographic channel in German or Japanese.


> Pokemon? Nintendo? Playstation 2? All those shiny German cars, French
> foods and Italian fashions the Indian upper middle class is consuming
> these days?

All these are consumed by a tiny layer of Indian society, unlike consumption of soft drinks (coke and pepsi with their advertising budgets, sponsorship of events), fast food joints (Mcdonalds and Pizzahut), films, soaps, music, cartoons, sports channels, news (Murdoch empire). 150-200 million people have cable connections. I get about 100 channels on my for $5 per month.

Education: US is the most preferred destination for higher education, followed by Britain, Australia and Ireland. Not Germany or Japan.

Ulhas



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