This quote:

” Taxis and other vehicles one sees in Delhi and Mumbai are not petrol driven. They are gas powered, and the infrastructure exists in service stations to support them. With gas 30% cheaper than the price of oil, that is going to be an important step for other manufacturers to take, while India is part way down that road already.”

Has Mr. Devonshire Ellis ever driven in Europe? LPG filling stations are quite common and have been so since the 1970’s. The beauty of it all? You don’t need a special car for it, just have the LPG tank and evaporation unit built in and there you go.

Is there any logic in this story?

Secondly With LandRover Tata acquired a car that is on its way out. If they would have bought a nice company that deals with fuel cells or other technology I can understand but really buying LandRover and Jaguar is no high tech whatsoever. None of the technologies in these vehicles are revolutionary, none of them could not be licensed or reverse engineered.

This purchase is a white elephant and with Chinese companies in fierce competition, also private companies like Geely, you will see a lot more R&D hitting the Chinese roads in the years to come.

The Indian market has been greeting silly outdated models like the Ambassador because of the import substitution policies that have destroyed its economy for decades and ofcourse JV’s are not putting the most advanced cars on the market, they want to have proven technology first and then they might be able to start making something more sophisticated. Foreign brands are not keen to shift their R&D to developing markets. Not just for IP issues but it just takes a lot of work to have properly trained people and facilities in place, not too mention the costs.

So how about the magnificent private car industry of India. Tata came up with some sort of Mercedes Benz clone in the early ’90’s which was a piece of rubbish, their models have not evolved much since. The heralded Nano is nothing else than an egg with a small simple engine in it. Nothing high tech whatsoever. What do you expect at an estimated sales price of 2500 USD? Bajaj could come up with a 4 wheeled scooter which is just as high tech and probably would cost even less.

I don’t know what the author sees but I don’t see anything other than a wrong buy.

Additionally the stocks ahve compared like this over the past 5 years…

“WALMART STOCKHOLDERS HAVE LOST MONEY OVER THE PAST 5 YEARS IN HOLDING ONTO WALMART STOCK”

WalMart (WMT) shares bought Aug. 1st 2003 at the best low 5 year price of $55.27

Dividends paid-

.18 (2003), .52 (2004), .60 (2005), .69? (2006), .88 (2007), .48(.96 projection) (2008)

Total dividends paid per share for cited 5 year time period $3.35

Best 52 week high to date in 2008 $59.95

Total price gain per share in cited 5 year time period $4.68 + $3.35 (Div) = $8.03

no splits for the cover time period

——————————————————————————————————————————

Costco (COST) shares bought Aug 8th 2003 at the best low 5 year price of $29.22

Dividends paid-

.00 (2003), .30 (2004), .46 (2005), .51 (2006), .55 (2007), .30 (.62 projection) (2008)

total dividends paid per share for cited 5 year time period $2.12

Best 52 week high to date in 2008 $75.23

Total price gain per share in cited 5 year time period $66.01 + $2.12 (Div) = $68.13

no splits for the covered time period

——————————————————————————————————————————

Difference of 8.48 times or 848 percent benefit in owning Costco shares over WalMart shares
Aug. 2003 through best recent high of 2008

Based on the 5 year time period cited and the $7.34 gain per share in stock value for WalMart shares you would have lost money due to compounded inflation even at the official Bush government low ball inflation rate declarations for 2003 -2008 (2003 - 2.27%, 2004 - 2.68%, 2005 - 3.39%, 2006 - 3.24%, 2007 - 2.85%, 2008 - 4-5%)

55.27 inflation loss = 1.25 (2.27% full year rate)

56.52 inflation loss = 1.51

58.03 inflation loss = 1.96

59.99 inflation loss = 1.94

61.93 inflation loss = 1.76

63.69 inflation loss = 2.86 (4.5% full year rate)

By the end of 2008 your WalMart shares would need to be priced at $66.55 just to stay even with official inflation figures over the past 5 years of holding WalMart stock. So far, even with the dividend per share from WaMart stock, you have lost money ( -17.27% after inflation and at$57/share [7/28/2008] not including the 5 years of total $3.35 dividend)

——————————————————————————————————————————

Based on the 5 year time period cited and the $68.13 gain per share in stock value for Costco shares you would have made money even with compounded inflation even at the official Bush government low ball inflation rate declarations for 2003 -2008 (2003 - 2.27%, 2004 - 2.68%, 2005 - 3.39%, 2006 - 3.24%, 2007 - 2.85%, 2008 - 4-5%)

29.22 inflation loss = .66 (2.27% full year rate)

29.88 inflation loss = .80

30.68 inflation loss = 1.04

31.72 inflation loss = 1.02

32.74 inflation loss = .93

33.67 inflation loss = 1.52 (4.5% full year rate)

By the end of 2008 your Costco shares would need to be priced at $35.18 just to stay even with official inflation figures over the past 5 years of holding Costco stock. So far, with the dividend per share from Costco stock, you have made money (88.36% after inflation and at $61/share [7/28/2008] not including the 5 years of $2.12 total dividend)

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In the starting effort to learn and use Chinese Simplified and CIL (Chinese Internet Language) it becomes curious if the following would be blocked in China.

WalMart = 是妓院精神病患者 公司

Translation…

WalMart is the whorehouse psychopath company.

Perhaps this is already a cliche over there and the software word censor will just blink. It is something of a cliche already here in the United States as Costco has earned the title of anti-WalMart in their socialism “treat people well” model.

http://investorsconundrum.com/english_edition/2008/06/an-indicator-to-know-when-you-should-invest-in-the-china-stock-market/

If it were only for biofuels, inflation would have been restricted to only those crops that are used for biofuels or to those countries that use food crops for biofuels.

Take the example of India. India has a surplus for most food crops. It has even banned exports of many types of commodities.

Also, India uses sugarcane to produce ethanol. Sugarcane has a large over-supply.

and yet the prices of most foods are shooting up in India.

In my opinion, biofuels are the only solution to world’s energy problems.

An Indian firm Praj Industries has developed a new technology to make biofuels from non-food feedstocks.

Many other companies are also working in this direction.

I think second-generation biofuels hold a lot of promise.