Sunday, August 8, 2010

Profits in China

People in the USA are disoriented about profitability now.
We're having an identity crisis, and in our post-'08-meltdown, we, the great initiators of 20th-century enterprise, are wandering around the world trying to figure out how to make some money.

Tony Sagami's advice is to invest in American companies doing large business with China. He's recommending General Motors.
http://www.gm.com/
Tony is also directing his investors to Yum! Brands, which owns KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Long John Silver's. Tony says Yum! has 3500 stores in China now, and that Yum! is making that nation a central part of their future growth strategy.

Do we in America, who have a fast-food option on every sprawling block, want to now make ourselves fat'n'happier by sending convenience food franchises to the burgeoning new markets of the world? --even as we complain about obesity and our frantic pace of life?
I don't see that we have much choice, if we're going to make $.
And as for our resident USgovernment-owned car-mega-maker, I'm wondering--for how many decades now have we said that what is good GM is good for America? Do we now say that what's good for GM is good for the world, and for our portfolios?
I mean, my wife and I switched to Toyota and Subaru thirty years ago because of those companies' reputations for economy, efficiency and reliability.
But we were amazed, last summer, to see so many Buicks in Shanghai. Would we want to support American cars overseas when a doggone cutting-edge Volt costs 40 grand here at home?
And this whole WalMart/Chinese connection has got so many Americans up in arms these days, even as we shop there in droves.
What's a consumer to do if s/he's going to save money?
And what's a yankee investor to do?
I don't see that we have much choice, if we're going to make $.

No way around it, in a globalizing world, and yep, I'll take Taco Bell over McDonald's any day. Not only that, but my ole Chevy would leave your Ford in the dust any day of the year, and its looking like it will do it next year and the year after that, even after a frickin guv'ment bailout.
Sorry, Henry', read 'em and weep. Much as I hate to say it, that's what a guv'ment bailout will get you--a leg up in the rest of the world. I guess we're playing by the same rules now those other countries were all along?

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