Hey, I thought when Alan Greenspan cut the interest rates he said it would increase capital expenditures. Am I to believe now that what he really said is that it will decrease capital expeditures? I sure hope he knows what he's doing.
From
http://www.manufacturingtalk.com/news/mlw/mlw100.html The newsletter reports that China was the world's largest machine tool consumer in 2002 ($5,696m), followed by Germany ($4,815.2m), Japan ($3,441m) and USA ($3,324.8m).
The UK ($689.9m) now lies at eleventh place after Spain, Canada, Taiwan, France and South Korea.
Italy as the world's fifth largest machine tool consumer (US$ 2,931.5m).
The world's largest machine tool producer continues to be Germany ($6,737.5m) followed closely by Japan ($6,379m).
The UK is the eleventh largest producer ($611.9m).
In more detail - The Peoples Republic of China moves from number four to first place in consumption of machine tools, according to the most recent annual survey of production and trade in that class of equipment.
Chinese durable-goods factories acquired an estimated $5.7-billon worth of the production equipment in 2002, for the first time out-investing their competitors in Germany, Japan and the United States.
Chinese consumption gained 20% in a year in which most major consuming nations reduced their annual purchases.
Through the 1990s, the United States had been far and away the leading purchaser of machine tools.