Monday, December 15, 2003

China Coast stocks Wal-mart. Posted here Monday, December 15, 2003 at 3:49:27 PM     I just find the numbers extraordinary. But China's clout goes well beyond the holiday season. Every day, year round, Guangdong province alone - which covers most of the delta - exports $300 million of goods to world markets. That's a third of China's total. Ten percent of all Delta exports are stocked on Wal-Mart's shelves. In Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and their environs, well-paved roads pass through a staggeringly crowded landscape of factories, offices, dormitories, apartments, and streams of migrant labor. ********

Iraqis no longer afraid.. Posted here Monday, December 15, 2003 at 9:41:36 AM     Robert Fisk, writing in today's Independent, on the capture of Saddam: "And there was one conclusion upon which every Iraqi I spoke to yesterday agreed. This bedraggled, pathetic man with his matted, dirty hair, living in a hole in the ground with three guns and cash as his cave-companions - this man was not leading the Iraqi insurgency against the Americans. Indeed, more and more Iraqis were saying before Saddam's capture that the one reason they would not join the resistance to US occupation was the fear that - if the Americans withdrew - Saddam would return to power. Now that fear has been taken away. So the nightmare is over - and the nightmare is about to begin. For both the Iraqis and for us."   ********

IBM moves 4700 jobs. Posted here Monday, December 15, 2003 at 9:37:37 AM     Saddham's sad but dignified role now takes center stage along with much hoopla and confusion. Behind the scenes, 4,700 IBM jobs for India, China International Business Machines plans to shift over 4,000 jobs to India and China, according to The Wall Street Journal. The world's largest computer company, in one of the largest moves to 'offshore' highly paid American software jobs, will replace 4,730 of workers at IBM facilities in Southbury, Connecticut, Poughkeepsie, NY, Raleigh, North Carolina, Dallas, Boulder, Colorado, and elsewhere in the United States, said the WSJ. The unannounced plan, outlined in company documents viewed by the WSJ. The WSJ reported that managers have already been told, that the company has employed 500 engineers in India to take on some of the work that is to be shifted. IBM calls its plan, first presented internally to some midlevel managers in October, 'Global Sourcing,' said the WSJ. It involves people in its Application Management Services group, a part of IBM's giant global-services operations, which comprise more than half IBM's 315,000 employees, according to the newspaper. ********