U.S. economists support China bid; Congress thinks otherwise

the bid for unocal by china's CNOOC Ltd. seems, on the face of it, to be solidly in line with the free-market economics so loudly championed by the r's... u.s. economists see the benefits (from an article in china view)...

Some American leading economists have said that China's push to buy US companies such as Unocal Corp. and Maytag Corp., might benefit the American economy despite sparking a political outcry in Congress.

Overseas takeovers of US firms often brought an inclusion of capital and additional markets, according to Catherine L. Mann, an economist at the Institute for International Economics in Washington.

"It turns them into a stakeholder," said Stephen Roach, chief global economist at Morgan Stanley Co. in New York. He further noted that it was better for the US economy to have China using some of the dollars generated by its trade surplus with the United States to acquire American corporations.

but, evidently, the free-market ideology goes out the window when you don't like the buyer (from the nyt)...

Four days after the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a resolution urging the Bush administration to block the proposed transaction as a threat to national security, China's Foreign Ministry excoriated Congress for injecting politics into what it characterized as a standard business matter.

"national security, huh...?" check this rationale for trying to block george soros...

Some Republican lawmakers don't think George Soros should be permitted to purchase a Major League Baseball team because he's too liberal and he has some wacky notions. I must have been napping, and that's why I missed the part where we became a country in which Democrats are no longer allowed to buy things.

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