Tidbits

Chinese Consumers

China has surpassed the U.S. in terms of car sales. In January, China sold an estimated 790,000 vehicles. The U.S. had sales of 657,000 vehicles in January. This is historic as China is becoming the consumer capital of the world. No wonder every auto manufacturer has set up shop there. China will play a key role in leading the world out of this recession.

The Buffet Formula

Buffet has a formula for timing the market.

Total market capitalization / GNP

Total market cap. would be the value of the entire stock market. For Korea in 2008, that's around $623 billion. The GDP of Korea in 2008 was $969 billion. Basically, if the market capitalization is around 70% of GNP, stocks are cheap. Based on the above figures, Korean stocks are undervalued at around 64% of GDP.

Unions

Every year I seem to dislike unions more and more:

1. The recent scandal at the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and attempted cover-up.

2. Ssanyong Motors workers were actually planning to strike before the company went bankrupt. Can they see the forest from the trees?

3. 20,000 AT&T workers are planning to go on strike during one of the worst recessions since 1982.

Why aren't people just thankful that they have a job?