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German firm in talks to purchase NYSE

Hoplite said:
NYSE traders say yes to Germany, no to lederhosen | Reuters



NOTE: The original title of this article was "NYSE traders say yes to Germany, no to lederhosen" however that was not descriptive and said nothing about the content of the article. If the Moderators disagree with my decision to clarify the title, feel free to change it back.


I'm interested in hearing from the pro-Capitalist Americana side of this. Should ANYTHING be for sale?
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Maybe not ANYTHING...but I don't see the problem with this particular sale. I don't see anything wrong with a private German company buying a private American/French/Dutch company. Do you find something sacred about the New York Stock Exchange in particular, and if so, what?

Sorry, the fact that it's famous is not a good enough reason to prevent the sale.
 
Goldenboy219 said:
Agreed.

Correct me if i am wrong Don, but i believe Deutsche Boerse is owned primarily (slight majority) by US based firms such as BlackRock, Atticus Capital, etc.... So even if Deutsche Boerse controls 63% of the new company, the largest shareholders will still be American entities.
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Not that I doubt you but do you have any links cooperating this? I am just curious on its ownership since I have not been able to find anything on it other than the company was set up in 1993. The shareholder make up seems very hard to find.
 
Councilman said:
This is one of many things that should remain under U.S. control like all of our defense industries which I am sorry to say some parts which are already vulnerable to the whims of Nations which could become of questionable loyalty at the wrong time.

We don't need stocks possibly being manipulated by outsiders.
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How exactly do you think stocks could be "manipulated by outsiders" if the NYSE was owned by Germans, instead of by the Americans/French/Dutch who currently own it? Do you understand how a stock market works? Moreover, why would any company agree to sell its stock (or traders want to buy stock) on a market if the price was being manipulated by outsiders?

Councilman said:
No offense to Germany but they have a poor track record with economics as I recall it. Not counting recent history that is.
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And this has what to do with the New York Stock Exchange?
 
PeteEU said:
You are the biggest market.. go figure!
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Economic importance is a statistic used to minimize the weight in which population figures into an economy. GDP x GDP/capita = economic importance.

Problem with productivity numbers is that they include the sectors like financials, which frankly dont require much man power or productivity to do.
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Your opinion is noted.

But looking at your stats from OECD (your link dont work btw) you find something very striking. Lets take two powerhouses... the US vs Germany.

The average US worker works 1681 hours a year and creates 57.4 GDP per worked hour.
The average German worker works 1390 hours a year and creates 53.3 GDP per worked hour.
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:lol:

Considering the German worker works almost 300 hours LESS a year (17% less) and yet manages to only do 4.1 GDP (7% less) less per worked hour... then I would claim that the German worker is far more productive with the time he puts into his work than American's are.
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Go back and re-read this comment, and figure out the error. Here's a hint: do the arithmetic! :lamo

You mean Facebook? Well if it was not because of Sir Timothy John Berner's Lee, a UK citizen.. aka a Brit, there would be no Facebook.
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Some sort of straw man? If you want to discuss who invented the internet using which nations resources, create a thread about it. None the less, American ingenuity is second to none.
 
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PeteEU said:
Not that I doubt you but do you have any links cooperating this? I am just curious on its ownership since I have not been able to find anything on it other than the company was set up in 1993. The shareholder make up seems very hard to find.
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Source

10char
 
Goldenboy219 said:
Economic importance is a statistic used to minimize the weight in which population figures into an economy. GDP x GDP/capita = economic importance.



Your opinion is noted.



:lol:



Go back and re-read this comment, and figure out the error. Here's a hint: do the arithmetic! :lamo



Some sort of straw man? If you want to discuss who invented the internet using which nations resources, create a thread about it. None the less, American ingenuity is second to none.
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Sometimes, I don't think he really reads his own posts all that closely...
 
PeteEU said:
LOL give me a freaking break. US companies have bought up overseas targets for decades where as the rest of US have been barred from many industries in the US. Considering you all consider yourselves the bastion of the "free market" and "capitalism", then the way the US acts is highly hypocritical.. to say the least.



........ seriously. You would rather have stocks being manipulated by insiders? How about NOT being manipulated by anyone?



Poor track record? Germany blows away the US for god sake. They took a shattered nation with no infrastructure and built it in a decade or two into a manufacturing power house that still "owns" the US on many economic statistics. If anything, especially recently, Germany is the model of a frugal common sense economy where as the US is the drunken sailor going amok in a whore house.
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where are you from Pete?
 
German guy said:
After DaimlerBenz sold Chrysler, and Volkswagen sold Fiat? :p
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I dont think VW ever owned Fiat, the Agnelli family controlled it for a long time, GM had a stake in it and had to pay Fiat a significant amount of money to get out of a contract to purchase the entire company
 
A similar story is happening in Canada right now, as the London stock exchange wants to buy the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Kind of ironic that the U.S. is the creator of modern globalization, and its stock market is about to potentially bought.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
I dont think VW ever owned Fiat, the Agnelli family controlled it for a long time, GM had a stake in it and had to pay Fiat a significant amount of money to get out of a contract to purchase the entire company
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Thanks for the information. Probably confused it with Seat.
 
German guy said:
Thanks for the information. Probably confused it with Seat.
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VW still owns Seat,


A history of some Italian companies

Lamborgini was sold to Chrysler which I believe sold it to Proton which sold it to VW\

Masarati was controlled by Chrysler for a time after which fiat took control


Ferrari is now controlled by Fiat (not exactly anymore but still close to it)
 
German guy said:
After DaimlerBenz sold Chrysler, and Volkswagen sold Fiat? :p
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After Daimler dumbed Chrysler you mean. After Daimler did that, then Chrysler went bankrupt and was bought up by Fiat.

Yes Fiat DOES own Chrysler or will soon. It took a 20% stake at first and that will rise to 55% soon.

As for Volkswagen owning Fiat.. never. It was/is SEAT, which granted was founded by Franco as the Spanish version of Fiat. And SEAT makes pretty good cars these days.. I own one and love it.

Oh and Porsche pretty much owns Volkswagen :)
 
Goldenboy219 said:
Economic importance is a statistic used to minimize the weight in which population figures into an economy. GDP x GDP/capita = economic importance.
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Yes population.. but not how much said population has to work to achieve said GDP per Capita. And that is my point. German's work much less to achieve a gdp per capita that is close to that of the US, and especially close to that of GDP per worked hour.

Your opinion is noted.
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It is a fact.

:lol:
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I fail to see the funny part.

Go back and re-read this comment, and figure out the error. Here's a hint: do the arithmetic! :lamo
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There is no error. Maybe you should wrap your head around it and think... they are two different statistics, which together proves my point.

Some sort of straw man? If you want to discuss who invented the internet using which nations resources, create a thread about it. None the less, American ingenuity is second to none.
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Prove it. I can claim that Denmark's ingenuity is second to none as well, but I cant prove it.. so you prove the US's ingenuity is second to none.
 
SheWolf said:
I remember somebody bought the London exchange a few years ago... well, more like 5 to 6 years ago
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No. NASDAQ tried to merge (buy) the LSE, but failed. This was in 2005. The LSE is still owned by London Stock Exchange Group, which was founded in 1801.
 
PeteEU said:
You are the biggest market.. go figure!



Problem with productivity numbers is that they include the sectors like financials, which frankly dont require much man power or productivity to do. Hence the numbers are skewed, which is why Luxenbourg is top. Norway is top because of its oil, and the US is top because of its massive consumer economy.

But looking at your stats from OECD (your link dont work btw) you find something very striking. Lets take two powerhouses... the US vs Germany.

The average US worker works 1681 hours a year and creates 57.4 GDP per worked hour.
The average German worker works 1390 hours a year and creates 53.3 GDP per worked hour.

Considering the German worker works almost 300 hours LESS a year (17% less) and yet manages to only do 4.1 GDP (7% less) less per worked hour... then I would claim that the German worker is far more productive with the time he puts into his work than American's are.



You mean Facebook? Well if it was not because of Sir Timothy John Berner's Lee, a UK citizen.. aka a Brit, there would be no Facebook.
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Yes, not a Spanaird.
 
PeteEU said:
Yes population.. but not how much said population has to work to achieve said GDP per Capita. And that is my point. German's work much less to achieve a gdp per capita that is close to that of the US, and especially close to that of GDP per worked hour.
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You have no point; Americans work more hours than most other nations and are more productive save for some minor outliers.

It is a fact.
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A quant's ability to price accurately minimizes market inefficiency; see the difference between the Japanese economy (which relies heavily on quantitative analysis) and that of North Korea (which uses central planning).

I fail to see the funny part.
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I can see that.

There is no error. Maybe you should wrap your head around it and think... they are two different statistics, which together proves my point.
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Which is my point. One statistic showed average hours worked, and the other is the ratio for which we measure worker productivity (output per hours worked). The former shows that American workers spend more time working than their foreign counterparts, while the other shows (in regards to Germany) that the US is more productive (by 7%) on a per hour basis.

So even if we were to hold total hours worked in the US at Germany's (to keep total hours from skewing the amount of output), the US will still have more output than Germany even if they work the same amount of time. The fact that American workers have such high productivity numbers given their time spent at work is impressive as well. If you go back to the OECD stats, the only nation that has an average hours worked > 1600 and has a productivity number > 50 is the United States. Reason be, marginal productivity diminishes as hours increase.

Prove it. I can claim that Denmark's ingenuity is second to none as well, but I cant prove it.. so you prove the US's ingenuity is second to none.
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How many Nobel Prizes have Americans won vs the rest of the world? How many computer science patents are issued to Americans every year? Again, this is quite impressive given that a significant portion of aggregate research and development military/defense based.

Imagine what we could do if we were not bogged down defending the free world?
 
Goldenboy219 said:
You have no point; Americans work more hours than most other nations and are more productive save for some minor outliers.
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Exactly.. you work the most hours and yet you dont get the relative benefit out of it.

Which is my point. One statistic showed average hours worked, and the other is the ratio for which we measure worker productivity (output per hours worked). The former shows that American workers spend more time working than their foreign counterparts, while the other shows (in regards to Germany) that the US is more productive (by 7%) on a per hour basis.
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Again, American workers work 17% more than the Germans, but only get 7% more output. In my book that is not very productive at all.

What would you do.. work 100 hours for 100 dollars or work 83 hours for 93 dollars?

How many Nobel Prizes have Americans won vs the rest of the world? How many computer science patents are issued to Americans every year? Again, this is quite impressive given that a significant portion of aggregate research and development military/defense based.
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There are 829 prizes in history.

You have 326 noble prize winners and of those 84 were not born in the US. If we use today's population then that is about 1 per 1 million people, and much less if we dont count those not born in the US.

Germany on the other hand has 102 prize winners, and 11 were not born within the borders of what is Germany today. However of those 11, most were born within the borders of Germany at the time of their birth. Germany has today 80 million people.

My own country of Denmark has had 13 prize winners, out of a population of 5 million. Much better return on investment no?

Imagine what we could do if we were not bogged down defending the free world?
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Considering it is your military industrial complex that has stood for most of the real American innovations, then probably no where.
 
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PeteEU said:
Exactly.. you work the most hours and yet you dont get the relative benefit out of it.



Again, American workers work 17% more than the Germans, but only get 7% more output. In my book that is not very productive at all.

What would you do.. work 100 hours for 100 dollars or work 83 hours for 93 dollars?
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You are still failing to grasp the concept of productivity. We are getting 7% more output per hour worked. This means, if one American worker and one German worker performed the same function, the American worker would produce 7% more EVERY HOUR.

By the time the two workers put in 1000 hours, the American will produce 7% more.

If you still cannot understand this concept, then i don't know what else to tell you. Be a man and admit your error in reasoning.
 
Hoplite said:
I'm interested in hearing from the pro-Capitalist Americana side of this. Should ANYTHING be for sale?
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We no longer have many choices. The republicans thought they could thumb their noses at the world and they lost. Now everybody has to pay.
 
Goldenboy219 said:
You are still failing to grasp the concept of productivity. We are getting 7% more output per hour worked. This means, if one American worker and one German worker performed the same function, the American worker would produce 7% more EVERY HOUR.

By the time the two workers put in 1000 hours, the American will produce 7% more.

If you still cannot understand this concept, then i don't know what else to tell you. Be a man and admit your error in reasoning.
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And YOU dont get it.. you are getting 7% more per hour, but you work 17% more to get that total GDP!
 
PeteEU said:
And YOU dont get it.. you are getting 7% more per hour, but you work 17% more to get that total GDP!
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Your point is irrelevant. I never claimed that we did not work 17% more, so i am not sure what you are trying to accomplish other than saving face (which is impossible given your previous comments).

You stated:
American productivity is not that good, compared to the number of hours you work... in fact it is rather pathetic.
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This quote does not make sense because you are inferring that the reason we are so productive is because of the number of hours worked (which is incorrect). Here is your last chance to admit your error.

US: $54.7 per hour * 1681 hours = $91,950.7 (on average) each worker contributes to GDP.

Germany: $53.3 per hour * 1390 hours = $74,087 (on average) each worker contributes to GDP.



Now, lets factor for the difference in hours worked between the two countries by assuming they both work the same amount of hours (in terms of both nations).

US: $54.7 per hour * 1390 hours = $76,033

Germany: 53.3 per hour * 1681 hours = $89,597.3

We then have:

(US)$91,950.7 > (Germany)$89,597.3 in terms of US hours.

(US)$76,033 > (Germany)$74,087 in terms of German hours.

Therefore, the US is more productive than Germany.

I am not claiming that (US)$76,033 > (Germany)$89,597.3

The fact that American workers work (on average) 291 more hours a year than German workers has nothing to do with their respective productivity, but it does configure in aggregate output (which we were never discussing).

The correct statement is, the size of our GDP is also attributed to the amount of hours worked (as well as the number of workers working, and their average productivity). Now do you understand? If not, you have no business discussing such concepts.
 
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PeteEU said:
The average US worker works 1681 hours a year and creates 57.4 GDP per worked hour.
The average German worker works 1390 hours a year and creates 53.3 GDP per worked hour.
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You already stated the amount of GDP per worked hour. The American worker not only works more hours per year, they contribute more per hour. You already stated the GDP per worked hour. You can't divide it again.
 
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