Replies

Around fourteen years ago...some Asian guy appeared out of thin air...bought up several major Asian sewing machine companies, and then started to find capital interest for buying Singer, along with various French, Italian, and German sewing machine companies. He was creating this massive company to manage all sewing machine empires.

So the day came when he approached a New York bank and wanted in excess of $500 million to conclude a deal for a major Russian sewing machine company. This bank was down to the final moments of the deal, and then some young executive was sent on a plane to Russia to just view the factory before they did the final approval.

He shows up in a taxi at the front gate of this factor that is over 100 years old, and in terrible shape. He spends around thirty minutes (by description of the article I read) with the security guard, and comes away with the idea that this company hasn’t made a profit in their entire history...so that’s not much of a way they are worth $50 million....let alone $500 million. They stopped the deal.

Within months....this entire empire began to fall apart, and almost every country touched by this Asian guy....ended up in bankruptcy court and taking over the old company because of incompetence in financial handling.

My dad was a procurement officer for the Army in 1950s Japan. He was offered some metal castings, made in USA.

They looked pretty rough so several men in the office paid a call on the salesman's office in Tokyo.

It was explained that the castings were made in the Japanese village of Usa.
Usa, it was discovered, had little more than a seaweed drying industry...

A friend who works as an analyst for a medium sized venture capital company(’medium’ in this league means pretty dam big for most people or companies).
They are tough, competent investors(or short sellers if they think the investment is hyped or overpriced bs, which is one reason while CEOs don't really like such companies. He was sent by his boss to China for a due diligence walkabout on their Chinese holdings or potential investments. Most were ok, one was an empty lot.
Most applicable maxim...If you dine with the devil, best have a long handled spoon.
Should I even ask if the US taxpayers will bail Caterpillar out of this financial poop puddle?
Rather than blame the evil Yellow Peril, I suggest that we concentrate on due diligence by our own companies. Our labor force is fairly comfortable on unemployment, welfare, and a social welfare network that provides for a higher standard of living than working folks in most of the rest of the world, and our Fascist business structure can rely on taxpayer bailouts, complete with cushy bonuses for executives. TWB