Monday, December 10, 2007

The new financial superpowers (part 1)

From RGE Monitor:

In James Clavell’s Noble House, there is a scene where a fictional Scottish trading house operating in colonial Hong Kong ends either a run on its bank or a run on its stock (or maybe both – I forget) by obtaining an emergency loan from China’s communist government. The loan didn’t come directly from China’s government – it came though the Hong Kong branch of Bank of China – but it clearly required Beijing’s approval.

Clavell's novel was set in a time when China’s government was still really communist. 1949 wasn’t a distant memory in the 1960s.>>>MORE

Or, as Econospeak put it:
Does Wall Street Lead to Socialism?

"It wasn’t all that long ago that Wall Street -- Citi bankers included -- were scouring the emerging world for state-owned companies that could be sold to private investors in the US and Europe. Now the world’s investment bankers seem to be scouring the US and Europe for private assets that can be sold to government investment funds and state-owned companies in the emerging world.

Privatization is out. Selling private companies – or big chunks of a private company -- to another country’s government (partial renationalization?) is in.