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Thread: The Coming Tech Boom

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    Veteran Member Tara Nicole's Avatar
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    Default The Coming Tech Boom

    This is a great article, imo.



    (snip) So, what's next?

    If the first six years of this century are any indication, 21st-century innovation will prove to be even more prolific than the 20th. Consider the social and cultural changes brought about by camera phones manufactured by Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Motorola (NYSE: MOT), Sony (NYSE: SNE), and Ericsson (NYSE: SI). Suddenly, everyone with a cell phone can be a freelance paparazzo or news reporter. Indeed, there are quite a few of them out there these days -- camera phone sales topped the 300 million mark in 2005.

    Rapid technological advances are also being made in the health-care and renewable energy industries. MedImmune's FluMist, a intranasal flu vaccine introduced in 2003, makes the seasonal flu vaccination less painful and gives doctors another tool to fight a very common ailment. Sales of FluMist jumped 52% over last year's flu season, and MedImmune plans to release a refrigerator-stable version of FluMist for the 2007-2008 season.

    A recurring topic that will be addressed and re-addressed in the 21st century is the need for renewable energy sources. Integrated oil companies, for example, are getting into the renewable energy game. BP, for instance, has stakes in solar, geothermal, wind, and hydrogen power technology. Then there are the ethanol producers like Pacific Ethanol (Nasdaq: PEIX), Archer-Daniels-Midland (NYSE: ADM), and Verasun Energy (NYSE: VSE) that are ramping up production to capitalize on the growing demand for ethanol-based products -- and have seen their stocks skyrocket in response.

    Clearly, whether the eventual solution is wind energy, ethanol, nuclear energy, a more efficient use of current fossil fuels, or solar energy, a lot of money will be spent and made to solve our world's growing energy needs. At our Motley Fool Rule Breakers growth investing service, one company we've recommended is Suntech Power, a Chinese company that designs, manufactures, and sells photovoltaic cells, which are used to generate power in solar panels. Currently, solar power accounts for a fractional percentage of current energy use, so there's huge growth potential here. Moreover, because Suntech is aiming to be the world's low-cost producer of solar technology, our team thinks the company is in a good position to meet both consumer and environmental demands. (snip)
    The essential humanity of men can be protected and preserved only where government must answer--not just to the wealthy, not just to those of a particular religion, or a particular race, but to all its people.

    Robert F. Kennedy
    June 6, 1966

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Coming Tech Boom

    I agree that SunTech has excellent long term investment potential ... based on $200 per month with zero benefit cost labor rates, plus the ability to dump the byproducts of their Gallium Arsenide manufacturing process (i.e. Arsenic) rather than being required to pass them through an extremely expensive waste treatment process. With ongoing US tax credits, their purchase will also be subsidized by US taxpayers ! A win - win - win situation, unless your're Chinese and live downstream from the manufacturing plant.

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    Default Re: The Coming Tech Boom

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    I agree that SunTech has excellent long term investment potential ... based on $200 per month with zero benefit cost labor rates, plus the ability to dump the byproducts of their Gallium Arsenide manufacturing process , unless your're Chinese and live downstream from the manufacturing plant.
    Another reason I believe that EVERY product coming to the US or company doing business here should be required to follow the same environmental, health and safety laws in their overseas operations as in their US plants.

    Not forcing our rules on other countries, simply setting consistent standards for doing business in the us: Treat the worker, community and environment with care or you don't get access to our markets. Pay whatever is a living wage in that country ( could be 4c/hour if thats good money there) and don't create undus pollution

    the rule is easily enforced, would make outsourcing less of an easy financial win, and maybe encourage more businesses to do manufacturing and stuff in the us

    laws are meant to protect us, not create busines for lawyers looking to step around them

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Coming Tech Boom

    ^^^ ah yes, but doing so would raise the price of typical imported products by 27% according to a recent US gov't study (which was the basis for proposed 27% Chinese tariff legislation that will be raised by the new US congress). This in turn will take 27% in 'purchasing power' away from lower income Americans who are arguably most dependent on cheap foreign imports to improve their lifestyle. What does America do next, raise social program benefit levels by 27% to make up for the tariff ? Raise income taxes by 27% on higher earning Americans to pay for the social program benefit increases so that lower earning Americans can maintain the same standard of living despite a 27% across the board price increase for 'cheap' imported products ?

    I'm being overly blunt no doubt, but the point is that America no longer has a 'closed system' economy, that the current standard of living in America is dependent on the availability of cheap foreign imports, and that those imports are cheap to start with because of vastly lower labor costs, vastly lower environmental compliance costs etc. experienced by 'unregulated' foreign producers. Reinserting 'living wage' labor costs, reinserting 'clean and green' environmental costs etc. , whether by banning imports and paying such costs for American manufactured products, or by forcing offshore manufacturers to pay such costs in order to gain approval to export future products to America, in both cases adds those costs to the American retail price - and lowers the standard of living for Americans accordingly.

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    Default Re: The Coming Tech Boom

    Quote Originally Posted by Pinups4DotCom View Post
    the rule is easily enforced, would make outsourcing less of an easy financial win, and maybe encourage more businesses to do manufacturing and stuff in the us

    laws are meant to protect us, not create busines for lawyers looking to step around them

    The reason outsourcing is such a financial win is because of tax breaks our government gives to companies who do.

    The company I work for pays an employee in India $200 a year for a job that in the US would get upwards of $24,000. There are around 1,000 employees per faculity. That is a savings $23.8 million per year in salaries alone. That isnt even looking at energy costs, security, benifits, etc. Large corporations save mountains of money outsourcing.

    I do believe business should have a social responsiblity to the public in the form of ethical practices. But what you and I think is ethical is not what they think it is.

    Basically if they can get away with it legally they will do it. If it gives them greater profits they will do it. They are only beholden to the almighty dollar.
    Our government is in their back pocket and fails us daily.

    What I wonder.... If we had a Depression now, would anyone care to get us on our feet again?

    Other countries are now large consumers now, they can produce their own goods, our corporations would rather do business with them, our government is lap dog to the corporations, and there are so many countries that have econmic power over the US that would they care if the US faded away?
    Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them. ~ Mark Twain


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    Default Re: The Coming Tech Boom

    The reason outsourcing is such a financial win is because of tax breaks our government gives to companies who do.
    Actually, there are no 'tax breaks' where the US gov't subsidizes the export of former US jobs. The tax SAVINGS that are available to US corporations who outsource are in the form of avoided mandatory taxes and other avoided government mandated costs paid on behalf of US employees i.e. the employer's share of SSI tax, unemployment and workers comp insurance premiums paid to the states, employee lawsuit settlements under US labor laws, environmental and worker safety compliance costs etc. As referenced in other threads, this SAVINGS amounts to an estimated 27% average cost premium which American employers must pay that offshore / outsourcing employers do not.

    Corporate execs would of course respond that, given a 27% cost premium and competitors using offshore suppliers and/or outsourcing, that their options boil down to two choices - continue doing business as usual with American employees and go bankrupt, or use offshore suppliers and/or outsourcing themselves. In both cases American employees wind up being priced out of a job, but in the latter case the American corporation survives, still provides some management, sales, accounting and other white collar jobs, and still pays some US taxes.


    As to the rest of the world caring if the US fades away, yes they will care big time. In todays 'global economy' the US consumer is the final element in the economic loop. If the US consumer disappears, China and India and other developing countries won't have any 'customers' for their export products ... and at $200 a month they certainly don't earn enough to support a consumer economy of their own. Similarly, western Europeans won't have anywhere besides America that is 'safe' to invest their money and also provides a decent rate of return on their investment.

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