The only problem with hedge-funds, and therefor the only reason one could speak of a casino-economy is the fact that hedge-funds take companies by surprise. The Dutch government will implement new rules to increase transparency by imposing rules of identification (but still a company doesn’t know who the hedge-fund is fronting for) and notification (when the stake is above 3% instead of 5%).She also commented on State-investment-funds or Sovereign Wealth funds. Secretary vd Hoeven named the fear for these funds, sentimental: “Dutch companies are not on sale… by far not… we get very good prices for the stakes we have sold so far“. In addition she pointed out that selling a stake of your company is also providing an entrance into a new region especially if that stake is bought by an SWF. Protective measures from our side will prevent us entering their markets and hurt economic growth in our country. So SWFs are welcome, with the acceptation of strategic assets (Energy & water), since we need the money to grow the country. Director Rinnooy Kan from the SER commented that he fears the size these SWFs might turn into. They will become such dominant market-players that wealth-accumulation might get unbalanced… The rich SWFs get richer and richer and become unbeatable. It is than the question whether those investors remain just economically driven.
Monday we visited a lecture of Secretary Van der Hoeven (OC&W) on the state of our economy as a response to ‘SuperCapitalism’-book of US Secretary Reich. She responded to the claim of the fact that Dutch companies are ‘on sale’ and that we live in a ‘casino-economy’. She started of with her standpoint that the competitive advantage of a country is very much dependent on the competitive advantage of the companies based in such a region, and that means their advantages on a global scale. To mrs. vd Hoeven her opinion, Hedge-funds keep management on their toes and provide companies with the necessary funds to grow the company, improve competitive advantages, employment and optimize the balance sheet/ profits. She almost made it sound as if companies don’t do so (be hyper-efficient) without this external pressure.
- Time and Decision: Economic and Psychological Perspectives on Intertemporal Choice
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- Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution
- Contours of the World Economy 1-2030 AD: Essays in Macro-Economic History
- Contours of the World Economy 1-2030 AD: Essays in Macro-Economic History
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Toolbox
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by Bob Garfield (Isbn-13: 9780984065103)
What happens when the old world order collapses and the Brave New World is unprepared to replace it as an ad medium, as a news source, as a political soapbox, a channel for new episodes of Lost? Welcome to The Chaos Scenario. It's here, and Bob Garfield saw it coming. In his roles as Advertising Age editor-at-large and as co-host of NPR's On the Media, Bob Garfield long ago connected dots that many in media and marketing refused even to acknowledge. In this fascinating, terrifying, instructive and...
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it appears as if her conclusion will be that the only available option is that holland becomes a sovereign wealth fund itself. perhaps also the logical consequence of realigning policy with the wish/desire to become an activistic shareholder (paraphrasing wouter bas, minister of finance for the netherlands.)
is this something we see in other european countries? and why is our government not reasoning on european scale but on local scale? what is the position of europe in this?
Their is a BIG difference between an ACTIVISTIC shareholder and an ACTIVE shareholder =))
1. She did not say that Holland needs or will set-up its own state-fund.
2. On one side we will try to find ways to compete as Europe with other continents… on other side we will compete with universities, states, companies, cities within Europe.
what i wonder is if countries are starting to be an identifiable marketplayer (sovereign wealth fund, shareholder, etc.) what the logical next step is, and what the consequences are.
one of the logical next steps is that if this strategy is successful (whatever that is) other countries will follow. will that mean that we go from a budget deficit (loan based) paradigm to a budget surplus (savings based) paradigm? how will the european union reshape policy?
the european union is quite harsh in its punishment to microsoft. will the eu handle differently if this company was (partly) funded by swf’s from the middle east? or will the eu be sensitive to (oil) pressure from the sovereign if their interests are harmed? i find this difficult to grasp.
on the other hand if everything is connected to everything else the whole structure is much more stable. it is more stable because the burdens will be shared, or amortized over time. and it is in the interest of everyone to leave no one behind, because the whole structure needs to be progressed.
we are talking about global consciousness. perhaps we are witnessing the emergence of a global unity. not necessarily through a governing body, but through the birth of a complex organism. we can amputate a hand, but that hand is missed. as a consequence we are economical and cherish that part of our body. perhaps those are the laws governing the actions of the organism if our global consciousness is the basis of a global unity.
(one last thought i had. would a SWF of an oil state consciously choose to invest in alternative energy in different states/regions? that is a whole different approach from protectionistic self-reliance (independance) thinking.)
I don’t think a paradigm will shift from budget deficit to budget surplus; the SWFs are based on the foreign currency reserves from exports of either expensive commodities (Middle East, Russia) or cheap goods (China, Korea, Japan, rest of Asia). They are corrolaries of the deficits in other countries (the importers of these goods and resources).
In the short term, I don’t believe SWFs will be very dangerous: Chinese and Middle Eastern officials would be crazy if they bought high-profile companies in the short term, igniting protectionist feelings in countries they need to export to.
In the longer term, I do believe it could pose a serious threat; these SWFs are both not transparent (with the exception of Temasek) and huge in size (China has about $ 1.5 trl in foreign reserves).
In capitalism there has always been a huge disparatiy between thse having capital and those lacking it; what is new now is that the developing countries have the excess capital.
is this our robert reich? (an impression of his life as secretary.)