Yes some manufacturing goes away. It's the manufacturing that Korean firms don't make a great deal of money on. I'm looking at the back of my own Samsung phone & it clearly says it's made in China. But why not? Cell phones are almost commodities now. Sprint 'gave' me mine for free.

No though in the framework of the next technology wave. There was an article in the WSJ, oh I think 2 years ago maybe 3 that covered the huge investment LG and others were making in new flat screen fabrication technologies. All the subtypes: plasma, LCD, etc. Multiple billions of dollars sunk into fab plants that resemble the chip wafer fabs of the 1990's. They are building up flat screen technology and research on a massive scale not only for production volume but for larger panels and higher quality displays. Which is why you're starting to see consumer grade screens that are >60". If you go out and buy a computer now you'll spend $400-600 for an average desktop and cap it off with a $300 19" LCD flat panel that a few years ago cost $2000. I know because I have an old Sun 18" flat panel which probably cost $1700 new. My son has a 46" LCD HDTV that is less than 10% of the cost relative to 1998.

Korea has done the smart thing and taken a head start on a technology that really only they are good at. Not China or Japan or the US or Germany. And in 10 or 15 years when they've amortized the costs of those massive plants they'll begin to licence the technology to other countries for them to start building even cheaper units.

They must have offered him a third and he took it. I can think of no other reason.

The job comes with a lot of prestige but the organization is rather small and doesn't always accomplish very much. It can do some good in very targeted specific ways in specific countries under a firm hand but in many ways the WB is a lot like the International Red Cross, more about how we want to feel good about the good we do than about the good it does. Wolfowitz was clearly put in that sinecure where he could do the least harm which is a little odd, frankly why there's such a rabid outcry about this rather pedestrian corporate backrubbing. Hell when I worked for Merrill Lynch, our division head (that was a director over about 1000 people) was married to the CEO of the consulting company who supplied all our programming labor. I worked for a large PPO in NYC where the CEO openly had an extramarital relationship with a young lady who started as a clerk and ultimately became a Sr. VP of something or other. I worked for a motion picture studio where executives openly hired their lovers, many of whom had public and painful drug problems, to senior positions. That this goes on at the WB shouldn't really outrage or amaze anyone.

For too long we've kept Chuck Darwin out of the loop. Let the merciless hand of utter fucking stupidity rejigger the gene pool.

Organ donors.

Give me in 250 words, a summary of the operations, successes and failures of the WB since oh 2002. Please compare the P/L of its operations and compare it to any of the 100 largest private commercial banks. I wonder if any of you can even rank the WB is size relative to commercial banks. Then tell me how important this WB is and why it's record of sucesses and failures is what it is.

Also look at the organization and give a relative benchmark of the staffing to assets relative to the banking sector and explain to be why so much of the WB is bloated. In fact probably 10x more people work for the WB compared to any other bank given its size.

Now explain to me how 4 decades of this is in any way different than the waste of the last 2 or 3 years?

In fact explain to me how, in practical terms given the loss ratios and loans in abeyance it's really a bank at all and not really a funnel for aid that's released with little or no oversight?

And if any of you have a Citigroup credit, bank or ATM card or checking account you might want to pay attention to the fact that it's 25% owned by the Royal House of Saud. And that means PERSONALLY owned by the Royal House of Saud. Not a state asset or investment but a personal holding. Then take that aggregate and compare it to year by year Saudi funding in the countries the WB is involved in or any other country.

Take your time. I'll wait. Points off for idiot snarkiness.