China moving in on Mercedes ownership….

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Have travelled widely east central south and west Africa.
From late 1950s to early 1970 travel was relatively easy, in east Africa no documents required.
I went back to Zambia in mid 1980s still OK but had deteriorated. The house I was living in was a mini fortress,
iron bar on widows and bedroom door. Rampant crime and car thefts.
Congo in the 1990s and other west African countries bribes, after much argument, had to be paid at airport customs and to police and army outside of town.
In Point Noire, an oil town, often stranded for a week or more no fuel!!!! Very often no electricity. Always had a few drums of diesel fuel for emergency and power the electric generator.
Happy days!!!
 
The China have not only taken over Africa but also Sri Lanka and working on the West Indies. They basically operate whereever they find a corrupt government. Force them in to unsustainable debt, and when they cannot keep up with the repayments, they take over key infrastructure as well as take over land in these countries as Chinese soverign territory. They also expect to be treated differently to the laws of the land and basically get away with murder.

These countries also turned to China for easy money, as borrowing money from the World Bank with their robbery interest rates was also tunring in to a disaster.

The future generations of these countries will pay a huge price and will lose everything including their identity,

This has been in the works for many years and Western powers were fully aware of it but did nothing and turned a blind eye because they all owe China money or need Chinese investment is some shape or form.
 
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Highlighted today by a leading German motor industry commentator, is that Mercedes has been under 20% Chinese ownership for 2 years now with BAIC and Geely sharing roughly 10% each.

More to come one suspects, especially given the aggravated risk created by the Mercedes shares and company structure arrangements.

Food for thought…..
No big deal as the Chinese business people are not stupid.

Guess who owns Landrover/Jaguar - yep the Indians, Tata I think and Landrover and Jag were going under and look where they are now. The Range Rover and the Range Rover Sport cars are cars millions aspire to around the world. Business means making money and that is the bottom line.

Any co that has share equity can be taken over by any country unless the government of that country has what is describe as a "Golden share" in the country. BT is/was being stalked by not sure who but a company that is not UK is building a stake and our gov has warned the stock market as a take over will not happen as BT is part of UK integral security network but never say never.

Bottom line as almost all will agree, a MB is not what it used to be but no car is I guess in ways that I as an older person recalls cars. It's market forces and these dictate most want more for their money, EG a S class in real terms is much cheaper than compared to 30ish years ago. Typically about 22/24 years ago a S class cost about 60k and the majority of property in south london was cheaper than that. I recall my uncle pulling up in a blue S class, they bough her a year old and dad was telling me it costs more than our house.
 
Terrible, why didn't we think of this hundreds of years ago
Because it was just easier to shoot the locals and help yourself! :)
 
Bottom line as almost all will agree, a MB is not what it used to be but no car is I guess in ways that I as an older person recalls cars. It's market forces and these dictate most want more for their money, EG a S class in real terms is much cheaper than compared to 30ish years ago. Typically about 22/24 years ago a S class cost about 60k and the majority of property in south london was cheaper than that. I recall my uncle pulling up in a blue S class, they bough her a year old and dad was telling me it costs more than our house.
The average London/South London terraced house price in 1998 was circa £124k, more for semi and much, much more for detached. So double the price of the S Class quoted….
 
My apologies. Thinking about it again and going by where we lived as we had no OSP and when we moved to our first house in London with OSP
I'm guessing it was more 1989/1990 as I recall the car I had and then changed to an Audi just before we moved.
I'm sure the house we lived in was worth less than 55k at the time and the car was worth more but ready to be corrected again
It was the big ,last of the real merces w126
 
The average London/South London terraced house price in 1998 was circa £124k, more for semi and much, much more for detached. So double the price of the S Class quoted….

Luxury cars are certainly cheaper / more accessible than they were due to price and finance that’s available. Even when I was young, a nice Mercedes / BMW would get a bit of attention. These days, unless your driving an exotic, no one cares!
 

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