--- Marvin Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
> Andie writes:
>
> > China has built an economic manufacturing
> > infrastructure Russia hasn't. That's the bid
> > difference. Why couldn't the Russians have done
> that?
>
> The Putin government earlier this year emphasized
> the need to develop the
> manufacturing sector,
Big talk.
with FDI being strongly
> encouraged, as in China. I'm
> not very knowledgeable about the relative state of
> Chinese and Russian
> manufacturing - perhaps those are who are can
> comment further - but I think
> you are very likely exaggerating the latter's
> backwardness; investment in
> Russian industry seems to have been steadily growing
> and its steel,
> aviation, nuclear, engineering, and arms production
> industries seem quite
> robust.
AS Doug said,a part from the arms industry. Russian industrial production cannot compete on the world market. Quality sucks, it's labor intensive and comparatively highly expensive. Also there are no laws that investors can rely on to enforce contracts. China's quality and efficiency are vastly better, but it has the same lawlessness problem. Unlike Ravi, I am bullish on India and South Asia generally, bit it's hard to invest in India. I have invested in the few native Indian companies that do trade on the NYSE, also in Thailand and Taiwan. I'd invest in China if they got laws. Russia, not on a bet.
It's true, however, that like many other
> countries the Russians are
> at a competitive disadvantage to China in that the
> latter's labour costs are
> about a third lower, and the Chinese maintain a
> dollar peg while Russia's
> strengthening oil-backed ruble drives up the cost of
> its manufactured goods.
>
> Today's Wall Street Journal reports on "the
> country's booming banking
> sector", driven by "consumer lending...as economic
> prosperity makes more and
> more Russians eligible for car loans, credit cards
> and mortgages."
> ("Russia's VTB Bank Prices IPO Toward Top of Range")
> - further evidence that
> the Russian economy is more broad-based and vibrant
> than its leading oil and
> gas export industry, and perhaps not as vulnerable
> to a downturn in
> commodity prices as is widely supposed.
>
> > And by, Why would it have destroyed Russia ti have
> a
> > free press, opposition parties free from
> harassment
> > and persecution, and a prosecutor's police that
> was
> > not a political tool, a start on a stable system
> of
> > property rights?
>
> It wouldn't destroy Russia to have these things, and
> I think it is moving in
> that direction under the pressure of its own
> internal development and
> integration into the world economy.
Maybe eventually. Not now. But we were talking about Chris's challenge to show who in Russia in repressed. In a de facto one party start with a state press, fixed elections, and a lapdog opposition, together with an out-of-control police that brutalized minorities Chris dismisses as terrorists and thieves in the classic Great Russian chauvinist manner, as well as any critical opposition, I'd say all Russians are democracy deprived and Russians in the minority, whether Russian nationality or merely Russian citizens, are oppressed.
The same thing
> can be said of China,
> which is subject to the same criticism. Except, it
> would appear, by
> yourself...
>
> > The Chinese squelched these tinge
> > because at their level of exploitation they face
> > dangerous labor unrest.
>
> This sounds like a justification for the suppression
> of democratic rights in
> China on grounds these would encourage "dangerous"
> labour unrest.
>
Explanation is not justification. That's why the Chinese did that. I don't approve.
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