[PEN-L:4340] Re: US, Japanese, German foreign investment

[Bill Rosenberg <w.rosenberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jim

There are some figures that may be useful in the UN's "World
Investment Report" for 1996 and 1997 - I haven't seen the 1998 one.

Bill Rosenberg

> Date:          Sun, 14 Mar 1999 17:18:23 -0800
> From:          Barbara Laurence <cns@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject:       [PEN-L:4313] US, Japanese, German foreign investment
> To:            pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Reply-to:      pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

> Dennis, I meant US and Japan investments in Germany. You're right,
> interlocks between German and French and other European capital are
> extensive. Which is one reason why there's a euro (by the way, a
> German Marxist scholar visited yesterday, and he said that the euro
> was all about defeating the welfare state and the unions). I was
> careful to say "new, real investments." Meaning in the margin.
>
>
> Doug, I don't think your data distinguish between foreign direct
> investment that are merely M and A's, contrasted with the FDI that
> consist of the construction or addition or modification of real
> productive capacity. I'm speaking of the latter. I see the former
> mainly as a financial, property transfer transaction that may be
> motivated my many things..........Doubtless the big "capital
> imports" into the US in the late 1980's pertained to a/ the much
> cheaper dollar after 1985; thus cheap US productive capacity and b/
> Japan's surplus, when Japan was buying up anything they could get
> their hands on during the Great Bubble after 1985, most of which is
> now sold off. Again, as noted in my first posting, we have
> "economic" changes at root due to the politics of the US/ Japan, a
> strange politics indeed.
>
> Doug, do you know if there are any figures on real FDI (new
> buildings, new equipment, new business services, etc.) vs
> acquisitions only? Thanks for any help. Thanks also for the new LBO;
> I learned a few things and more can you say?
>
> Jim O'Connor
>