Why shouldn't China purchase Unocal?

[cornermouse]

After all, isn't this free enterprise...business with no barriers to profit at its very best? And on a related note, even if we are successful at staving them off this time with this company; given the abysmal state of our economy and empty state of our treasury, thanks to Bush and Iraq, just how do we expect to stop them the next time... and the next time... and the next time?

:shrug:

[Coastie for Truth]

1. Better the Chinese then the Saudis-N/T

[shraby]

2. Maybe because all the records

will go with the purchase? These records might shed light on Unocal's practices in the past.

[cornermouse]

3. I don't think so.

Have you ever really looked at China?

[Coastie for Truth]

5. Yes

I have been to Quang Dong Province (across the harbor from Hong Kong). But, I have never been to Saudi Arabia 'cause, even though I am a PhD level energy engineer - their Jim Crow laws keep me from getting a visa.

[idlisambar]

11. Neither would be better still n/t

[Old and In the Way]

4. Posted a similar thought last night.

Republicans love to privitize national assets....look what they did in Iraq. Surely, it would be hypocritical to stop the sale of Unacol to the highest bidder.

[lonestarnot]

6. Sovereignty is the buzzword here. Fire sale daily to China already!

[i have issues]

7. Selling the baby with the bathwater...

from the Financial Times yesterday,


As the world’s biggest debtor, the US is ill placed to reject private sector investments by one of its largest creditors, particularly when its own companies have poured money into China. To do so while relying heavily on Chinese loans to finance its budget including national defence would be absurd.

The proposed deal does raise questions but most relate to its commercial logic. China’s belief that it needs to buy resources producers in order to secure supplies makes sense only if its companies can manage them more efficiently than their owners. Otherwise, locking up capital to acquire raw materials that are freely traded on world markets is at best wasteful and at worst very risky. Odder still is CNOOC’s belief that it needs to buy a US oil company to gain access to Asian reserves which it could have bought directly from elsewhere. Integrating management, operations and corporate cultures will be a formidable task, of which the Chinese company has no previous experience, and it may also be obliged to dispose of some of Unocal’s assets.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/44dbf4b8-e454-11d9-a754-00000e2511c8.html

On Edit, happy 300th post to me!:)

[cornermouse]

8. Happy 300th post to you.

And a good one too. :)

[idlisambar]

12. the article is nonsense

The proposed deal does raise questions but most relate to its commercial logic. China’s belief that it needs to buy resources producers in order to secure supplies makes sense only if its companies can manage them more efficiently than their owners. Otherwise, locking up capital to acquire raw materials that are freely traded on world markets is at best wasteful and at worst very risky.

The idea that there is no benefit to owning resource producers as opposed to purchasing them on the "free market" is extremely naive. One simply has to look at the profit margins of oil companies to see that oil is hardly "freely traded"; the market power that large oil companies can exert is considerable.

[leesa]

9. It is rather ironic though. The US did 9-11 in order to invade Afghanistan

so they could get the pipeline Unocal had been trying to get for years, Unocal gets it and China buys them. Kewl, eh? So we launched a war in Afghanistan for nothing.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

10. China already owns the US..we all better get use to it and teach our

children the language