Tuesday, 10 May, 2005

Tuesday News From The Front - Atlanta Themes in today's news - China! The emergence of China will validate or challenge the prevailing view that successful economies can only happen in free societies. Can a communist society operate a free market? FYI - our economic and news search is based upon GEM's Economic Rankings of Economies, we monitor and report news sources from the top two countires on each continent. BTW the United States has slipped from 4th to 11th in the last year - inspiring news. Sunday morning commentary - a new feature - reviews the same publications' editorial sections as well as my short list of thought leaders. For specific business news and commentary visit our sites: hyper-growth center for inspired performance growth project Have a great business day - success, wealth & health - Ciao 9:47:32 AM    comment []

Cash rolls into tech start-up scene......but not yet like it's 1999 We are experiencing the same dynamics with our angel investors Mauro Bonomi has another wad of venture capital cash and is hiring tech talent again in the United States - but not like he did during the dot-com boom. Bonomi recently landed about $10m in venture funding for his company, Minerva Networks, which makes software that lets phone companies offer television services. This year, the 65-person California-based company aims to hire 30 to 35 people, half or more of them likely to be computer professionals based in Silicon Valley or other parts of the US. Rapid growth, to be sure. But Bonomi says he would have brought on close to 80 people if the year were still 1999, when he led a software company focused on the DVD-publishing market and was part of the era's culture: hire first, figure out how to increase revenue second. 8:26:25 AM    comment []

Merrill: "Some Lean Years Ahead" For U.S. Economy More confusing news. Merrill Lynch is at odds with Larry Kudlow's commentary on Sunday - until I see more information - take this report as a data point. May 10, 2005 -- If the economists at Merrill Lynch & Co. are correct, the U.S. economy will average only about 3% inflation-adjusted growth through 2010. One reason: "Real consumer spending is likely to average about 2.5% over the next five years -- a far cry from the 4%-plus heydays of the late 1990s," says New York-based Merrill. Its latest five-year forecast projects, following 3.3% real GDP growth this year, 3.2% in 2006, 2% in 2007, 2.2% in 2008, 3% in 2009 and 3.5% in 2010. 8:22:13 AM    comment []

U.S.-China talks on yuan flexibility I will believe after it occurs and is enforced. China has managed to avoid treaty language that forces them to take this very action. Don't hold your breath. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Department and Chinese central bank officials held "productive" talks on financial issues, including currency flexibility, and will hold more talks this summer, Treasury spokesman Tony Fratto said on Monday. The three-hour talks among mid-level officials advanced China down the path toward allowing its currency to trade freely in currency markets, Fratto said. "They have made continuous, steady progress on the necessary reforms to introduce flexibility," Fratto told reporters at the Treasury. "They've made continued progress on their ability to do that. Along that continuum they've made sufficient progress to introduce flexibility now. And yes, this meeting furthered that." 8:16:29 AM    comment []

China Changes Offshore Investment Rules; Venture Capital Cool Investments Just when you get hope for China's maturing into a market economy, the communistas still have their foot on the brake May 10 (Bloomberg) -- Global venture capital funds slowed investment into Chinese companies in the first quarter after the country's foreign exchange regulator issued rules that may hinder international share sales and capital raising by China businesses. Chinese residents must for the first time get approval from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange before starting or investing in an offshore company, according to notices from the regulator dated Jan. 24 and April 8. Venture capital into China slowed by one-third to $552.6 million in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to the Asian Venture Capital Journal. 8:09:59 AM    comment []

China wants U.S. energy technology cooperation More information on how China's economic growth is affecting world energy supplies WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and China must cooperate to find high-tech ways to use coal, wind and other energy sources to allay future energy shortages, officials from the world's top two oil users said on Monday. China eclipsed Japan in 2003 as the second-biggest world petroleum user behind the United States, with most of the extra supply coming from foreign producers like Saudi Arabia. In the future, China, the world's seventh-largest economy, will take steps to boost domestic supplies, said Xingshan Li, dean of studies at China's Central Committee Party School, which trains top and middle-ranking party officials. 8:06:58 AM    comment []

China claims its software industry surpasses that of India The article wasn' clear concerning the source of the software projects. We can only assume that the US and EU are outsourcing with China taking the lead from India and South Korea. Perhaps this will have some impact on China's intellectual property protection problem. BEIJING- China, whose software exports surged to US $2.8 billion, has claimed that the scale of its software industry has surpassed that of India and South Korea. The scale of China's software industry in 2004 reached 230 billion yuan (US $27.84 billion), up 2.8 times when compared to that of five years ago, surpassing India and South Korea, a senior official from the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry (MII) said. 7:51:29 AM    comment []

Tax cuts for all Another piece of good economic news - removing penaties from the productive ALL Australians will get a tax cut from July this year but single parents and the disabled will be forced back into work in a Budget federal Treasurer Peter Costello says is a plan for the nation's long-term future. After two weeks of simmering leadership tension with Prime Minister John Howard, Mr Costello unveiled a hip-pocket friendly Budget that he denied was aimed at boosting his leadership ambitions. He revealed almost $22 billion in tax cuts and a $16 billion kick-start to the Government's future fund to pay off future federal liabilities, along with a $9.2 billion surplus this financial year and $8.9 billion next year. 7:44:57 AM    comment []

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