Arab Ownership Of U.S. Stock Exchange

[John McKenna]

Wow.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57749

[tdietrich1]

Heard about it. I kinda like Dubai's influence here. Unlike America, they execute all terrorists, not just those of European decent. Might help us refocus the 'war on terrorism'.

tom

[Joseph Burkeson, CMI]

My guess is it will follow a similar course as when the Japanese bought Rockefeller Center they overpaid something like $11B and we bought it back for $3B when their economy crashed in the 90's.

[William J. Decker]

Buying in at 20% is not the same thing as ownership.

[Roy D. Cooke, Sr]

In Canada many of our companies are owned or controlled by Americans.
Is this any difference when some out sider buys a company in the USA.

........ Cookie

[mnahrgang]

Originally Posted by wdecker

Buying in at 20% is not the same thing as ownership.

You don't have to own 51% to own and control a company. If you own more stock than anyone else, you effective own and control the company. It's like an election. If I get 20% of the vote, and the vote is split between 8 candidates, and I get the most, I win. The difference here is, if the owners of the other 80% gang up on me they can re-take control. Likewise, I could take control of a company and own 0% of the stock. All I would need to do is acquire the "proxy" vote of a majority of the current stock holders.

[bzimbelman]

Originally Posted by rcooke

In Canada many of our companies are owned or controlled by Americans.
Is this any difference when some out sider buys a company in the USA.

........ Cookie

There is no problem with US owning companies somewhere else, but when THEY own companies over here that is not allowed...

Hope that helps

-- bz

[William J. Decker]

Originally Posted by mnahrgang

You don't have to own 51% to own and control a company. If you own more stock than anyone else, you effective own and control the company. It's like an election. If I get 20% of the vote, and the vote is split between 8 candidates, and I get the most, I win. The difference here is, if the owners of the other 80% gang up on me they can re-take control. Likewise, I could take control of a company and own 0% of the stock. All I would need to do is acquire the "proxy" vote of a majority of the current stock holders.

I can see where this is a popular belief, but in reality (and experience, based upon 27 years in business) this is not usually the case.

Besides, the main reason for owning part of a business is to maximize profits. Dubai is interested in getting money generating investments to replace their oil revenue because a) Their oil reserves are getting lower and they know that oil will not lost forever and b) they are looking forward to when Iran sets that area on fire and shuts down the Straits of Hormuz again.

Forward thinking and practical people.

[mthomas2]

We're used to owning things, not to being owned.

We complain when some oil-rich despot takes the money we send him and buys a jumbo jet for his personal plane... but also complain when he invests his money in buying our assets.

We sent hundreds of billions to China to by DVD players that end up in a land-fill in three years... and then complain when China turns around and used the dollars to contract for the next 30 years production from some oil potentate.

There are many such examples.

Not hard to see where this is headed.

[John McKenna]

When it looks like America selling our national interest on a small or large
scale, it many times is the new mind set of international business, who
are not loyal to helping their fellow American family.

Even the idea of putting your American family first is scoffed at as an
old fashioned idea, but at one time it was the norm.

The Arab deal is raising eyebrows because people are becoming
aware of our interest being sold out to internationalism and this time
the word "Arabs" sends a chill with it. It's hard to remain politically
sensitive when doing business with a part of the world that has
shocked a sleeping populace. Not all Arabs are bad people but
because of the war and 911 the words ARAB and MUSLIM
are taking on a new edge in our collective mind pool.

At one time we would be cautious of those who have sympathetic
ideas and a common culture with those we are at war with.
Now we sell them powerful positions of influence over our stock
exchange. Even some Americans now scoff at the idea of putting
America first and feel it is more noble to put internationalism
fist, in order to not appear prejudice.

[Michael Larson]

This and the earlier Dubia ports deal are much ado about Very little IMHO

We have much more worriesome thngs on our plate.