. August 11, 2008 SouthAmerica: In case you don't know the "R" in BRIC's is Russia. BRIC's = Brazil + Russia + India + China .
. August 11, 2008 SouthAmerica: I would not worry about the renationalization of an oil company in Russia such as Yukos since that is a global trend that investors will have to adjust to it. The nationalization of oil and gas supplies has been going on for many decades and includes countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Russia, Mexico, and Bolivia. It seems that if oil is so important and so rare, as they tell us, we should have a better control of our own national reserves when we take in consideration that oil is a strategic and economic asset. You probably will be surprised when the Brazilian government also renationalize the portion of Petrobras common shares that are being held today by foreigners. (About 30 percent of its outstanding common shares) You can read about that subject on the following article and there are 133 comments following the article and the discussion still is going on. Why Brazilians Should Demand the Renationalization of Petrobras http://www.brazzil.com/articles/194...emand-the-renationalization-of-petrobras.html ****** âConflict is unlikely to deter Russia investorsâ Associated Press - Monday August 11, 1:17 pm ET By Emily Flynn Vencat and Nataliya Vasilyeva Russian market up; conflict with Georgia not seen as deterring investment LONDON (AP) -- Russian stock markets rose Monday as investors focused on the long-term opportunities offered by Russia's booming economy instead of the clash between Russia and Georgia over the separatist province of South Ossetia. News of the fighting in the South Ossetia region on Friday sent Russia's RTS stock index down 6.5 percent to a two-year low, but by market close Monday the index had regained 1.2 percent following Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's announcement that the army had completed a "significant" part of its operations. Meanwhile, the dollar-denominated MICEX index gained 3.9 percent on Monday. In another sign the fighting was not fueling panic, oil prices fell despite concerns the conflict could disrupt pipelines running from Caspian fields across Georgia to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. "It is clearly a very upsetting event that has led to indiscriminate market selling and Russia's perception in the West will suffer as a result," said Elena Shaftan, head of Jupiter's Emerging European Opportunities fund, which has around 600 million pounds ($1.1 billion) under management, nearly half of that in Russia. "However, it has no significant impact on Russia's economic fundamentals and corporate earnings and at the end of the day we firmly believe this is what ultimately drives the markets, rather then emotions and swings in investor sentiment," she said. "We feel Russia represents a buying opportunity." Alexander Branis, director of Prosperity Capital Management, a fund with about $5 billion under management, almost all in Russia, agreed. "This conflict will have a negligible effect on the Russian economy," he said. Branis branded Friday's RTS drop an "emotional" response from investors. If the conflict ends quickly, the market's memory could be short. The market recovery was a token of the willingness of investors to accept risk and volatility in return for a slice of Russia's mineral and oil and gas wealth, amid a sense that funds focusing on emerging markets can't afford to bypass one of the biggest and most potentially lucrative. As a precedent, during the year after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin oversaw an invasion of Chechnya in 1999, the RTS index rose by a whopping 141 percent. Putin, having served two terms as president, is now prime minister again. The fact that investors won't be pulling out of Russia is a plus for the country, but the reality is that the country has fewer worries about courting foreign money now than after its embarrassing 1998 financial collapse. A decade ago, when Russia relied on the West for loans and needed to attract foreign private investment for economic growth, the country's rulers might have worried more that a war might scare these investors off its soil. Investing in Russia is not worry free -- but many of the worries have come from other directions than the war, such as the shaky legal system and the chance that politics could disrupt business. A dispute between oil major BP PLC and Russian shareholders over the BP-TNK oil joint venture has chilled the investment climate. Then, Putin accused mining company Mechel of price fixing, causing Mechel's shares to plummet and giving even Russian investors concern over the country's regulatory stability. Today's Russia is in a position to dictate its own terms. Flush with wealth from exporting oil and gas, Russia is a net investor into the rest of the world, the economy is growing faster than 8 percent a year, and it boasts foreign-exchange reserves of $600 billion. Source: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080811/russia_financial_fallout.html .
And the other 20% is dependant on mafia income on Europe: Drug traffic, extortions, prostitution. And yeah, as someone here at ET said, southamerica is a leftist wacko, economist my a$$!
I have to agree with that. Before BRIC gets too strong, we need to clean up our balance sheet and make ourselves more competitive. The capital per income gap is big between US and BRIC and there is no fundamental reason why the gap won't be closed in the future.
While everything went wrong for Russians in the 1990s, the commodity prices and Putin leadership were the ONLY two good points in the 21 century. The commodity boom if lasts another 10 years will guarantee the Russian treasury of good amount for another 30 years and after that it is only a matter of what they plan and how well they implement it. Folks should understand that the new Superpowers are China and EU. India and Brazil can only be the second fiddle as what Germany and France are today individually. US, Russia, UK are in decline population wise and thus economically. Japan is also suffering from aging population like North America is. Russia is still very corrupt and inefficient set up. May be it is their culture after 70 years of communism. What is happening in Georgia today is nothing to do with Russian plans of resurgence and invading neighbouring countries. Georgian leadership took a long shot gamble and they will pay for it. Russia is merely guarding its best interests and stopping any genocide of civilians in the region. US and West should be ashamed of yapping nonsense and raising false alarm of Russian threat.
'Right now Russia has a war to take care of and it would be for their benefit to escalate the war to see if the United States has the capability to come to the rescue of its ally.' SouthAmerica, why do not you understand that US is a happy camper as of today with war going on in Georgia. The long term US goal is to destroy the people of the former USSR be that Russians, Ukrainians or Georgians. US incited Georgians to take a long shot gamble and kill civilians and invite the Russian response. Every extra soldier or tank blown up on either side is a happy point for the NeoCons. Master stroke Neos!! Russia should make sure that it has pro-Russia government in Georgia and Ukraine, even if it means using some tough economic and diplomatic muscle or sly back hand tricks. Ukraine and Georgia are idiot nations who do not understand that their better bets are with Russia and EU rather than the US. Russians should not attempt to overrun Georgia but wait and device ways to topple its hostile government and bring long term peace in the region.
. Toc: SouthAmerica, why do not you understand that US is a happy camper as of today with war going on in Georgia. ******* August 12, 2008 SouthAmerica: The US canât be happy with such a war, because if the new clod war escalates Russia, and China have the money to finance the new arms race, but the United States is going to depend on China to finance its side of the arms race. The finances of the US government are in shambles when compared with the finances of Russia and China. The United States will not have the money to finance a new arms race because the Baby Boomers are going to require every dime the US government has available in the coming years. And donât forget that the entire US government current hard assets such as helicopters (Apache Longbow, Black Hawk, Chinook, Kiowa Warrior), Abrams Tank, Bradley Vehicles, Hercules, Hemtt, HMMWV, Heavy equipment transporter, PLS, Stryker, and all sorts of other weapons and fighter jets â all these weapons and more are being completely destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan and the replacement cost for these weapons is very high. These weapons are being consistently destroyed in Iraq by very high temperatures, sand storms and a very inhospitable environment. The US weapons and its support systems werenât built for a long-term use under very high temperatures and constant sand storms. Today a lot of US weapons being used in Iraq are in a state of disrepair and canât be used even if they wanted to. .
And donât forget that the entire US government current hard assets such as helicopters (Apache Longbow, Black Hawk, Chinook, Kiowa Warrior), Abrams Tank, Bradley Vehicles, Hercules, Hemtt, HMMWV, Heavy equipment transporter, PLS, Stryker, and all sorts of other weapons and fighter jets â all these weapons and more are being completely destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan and the replacement cost for these weapons is very high. These weapons are being consistently destroyed in Iraq by very high temperatures, sand storms and a very inhospitable environment. The US weapons and its support systems werenât built for a long-term use under very high temperatures and constant sand storms. Today a lot of US weapons being used in Iraq are in a state of disrepair and canât be used even if they wanted to. . Yes. U.S. military is quite impotent. I asked you before and I ask you again. What color is the sky in your world SA?
. SouthAmerica: Reply to Cesko Are you so clueless about what is going on in Iraq that you are laughing. You should be crying. And I am not even mentioning here the 100,000 American soldiers who became a complete basket case after the US Army send them back for various tours of service in Iraq. That is on top of casualties, and the wounded. .