[lbo-talk] Russia's economy

[ravi]

On 11 May, 2007, at 2:18 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> On May 11, 2007, at 1:58 PM, ravi wrote:
>
>> I am curious... what has China created in a global scale? State
>> sponsored knock-offs like Huawei and ZTE? I can't think of any
>> (mostly due to my ignorance of China). Do they have a GM, Honda,
>> Boeing, Citibank, Pepsico, Monsanto, Johnson & Johnson, P&G, GE,
>> Viacom/Murdoch, Nokia, Microsoft, Google, 3M, .....?
>
> They've got Lenovo and Haier, but it was a nation of rice paddies 25
> years ago!

But Lenovo is what it is due to (among other things) an acquisition  
of IBM's PC business -- something IBM was glad to shed rather than  
continue to play in a commoditised and cut-throat market. That's an  
ongoing trend -- from underwear to memory chips. I am not sure what  
Haier does and am too lazy to look it up. Someone else (or you)  
mentioned Huawei and ZTE. Especially regarding the former, I would  
suggest a second look at their history.

Re: 25 years ago, didn't China go nuclear quite a long time before  
that? That would require quite a bit of scientific and technical  
knowledge, infrastructure, etc?

In fact, it seems to me that if China could go from rice paddies to  
Lenovo in 25 years, Russia, which is already scientifically/ 
technically ahead (of China and India) -- a point I have tentatively  
put forth without being challenged -- what is the fear for their  
future? The lack of the aforementioned investment? Is there something  
in the Russian culture/politics/etc that prevents this transformation?

	--ravi