>
>1) They get invested by the company to do something (i.e. build a plant,
>upgrade facilities, design new models, etc.). This activity is "country
>independent" in the sense that it doesn't matter where the company is
>headquartered, the country that benefits is the one where the work is
>being done.
>
>2) They get returned to the shareholders in the form of dividends. Again
>its country independent, depending on where the investor is located
Right, "depending on where the investor is located". The investor is
located in Stuttgart (excuse spelling).
>
>Sooo, just because a company is "foreign" owned, it doesn't mean that
>the benefits from the profits are going to leave the country where the
>work is done. The converse of that is that just because a company is
That's true, but the likelihood of a larger chunk of the profits getting
invested far away (i.e., closer to the physical location of the investor)
goes up. I dont think that anyone posting to this thread thinks that
corporate ownership is black and white, as in the profits either go "here"
or "there", partly, because the profits will not move anywhere as a single
mass due to the multitude of shareholders involved.
>"owned" in the USA, it doesn't mean that the investment of the profits
>will necessarily take place in the USA; the "big 3" send lots of $$$s
>out of the US, to Mexico, Canada and other places to build factories,
>etc.
>
True again. But, from a corporate-statist point of view, what you are
describing here is ok, because the profits keep coming back into the control
of USA entities, who then redistribute them as they see fit. The worrisome
aspect of the DaimlerChrysler case from that point of view is that, since
the majority of shares belong to the German side, basically, the majority of
the profits flow back to the control of the German entities involved.
It may be that the USA shareholders involved are eager to fritter the
profits away, let's say, by lending it all to the "Re-elect Boris Yeltsin
2000" campaign, while the German shareholders are wise and benevolent in the
extreme, and intend to invest in carefully-examined projects all over the
globe.
But, to get an accurate picture of the intentions of the shareholders
involved would at least require a hell of lot of research, and more likely
is impossible. In light of which, one simply guesstimates.
Only time will tell in completion.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:09:56 EDT