This chair will soon be vacant
Remind me to send a bill to Volkswagen for propaganda services rendered. Maybe I can use my old Lieferantennummer. (Supplier’s Number.) Otherwise, TTAC and your humble BS would be ripped off left and right.
So on Friday, I write: “Why is Winfried Vahland still here? Wasn’t he supposed to leave his post as head honcho of Volkswagen China and move to Mladá Boleslav in the Czech Republic to head-up Skoda?” I receive no answer. Then yesterday, Bloomberg reports: “Vahland, who has overseen the China division for five years, is leaving in the second half to return to the Czech Skoda unit and replace Reinhard Jung.” And here I thought that was common knowledge. Bloomberg says that they still haven’t found someone for Vahland’s vacancy. Says Bloomberg: “Former Continental AG Chief Executive Officer Karl-Thomas Neumann, hired by VW last November, is a candidate to replace Vahland, a person familiar with the matter said earlier this month.”
It gets even better (or worse.) Volkswagen’s CEO Winterkorn steals my lines! Didn’t I write yesterday morning “China is Volkswagen’s new home market: They will easily sell more cars in China this year than in Germany?”
That very day, Bloomberg reports in the evening from Beijing:
“There’s a seemingly endless lust for mobility in China and VW is right at the center of this astonishing development,” Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn said at the Beijing Auto Show. “China has become a second home market for VW.”
There just is no respect anymore for intellectual property in China …
I don’t think precognition is covered under intellectual property rights.
No? Darn.
IP rights don’t generally cover the obvious.
Common defense in China …
China is everyone’s new home. Anyone know who doesn’t sell more in China than in their home country?
Chrysler, Ford, GM if you don’t count Wuling ….
“There just is no respect anymore for intellectual property in China …”
Ha!
But you get a great iPad clone for $300…
There just is no respect anymore for intellectual property in China …
Anymore? In China?
IP** is a damaged and highly volatile commodity everywhere and has been for some time. I would be very, very wary of anyone who says that, eg, the saviour of western economies will be IP. It’s highly transportable, requires very little capital: in other words, it can be moved around in a globalist economic shell game with impunity.
** some people call it “intellectual property”, others, for good reason, call it “imaginary property”
I remember walking the streets of Shenzhen, being approached by a stranger, and asked if I wanted to buy a copy of Windows Vista (it was pretty new then). I examined the package which seemed authentic right down to the hologram on the box–not a bad knock-off, and asked, “how much?” The guy said 35 yuan. I thought a few seconds; it occurred to me that on a good day a copy of Windows might even be worth a couple of dollars. But the sky was overcast with an odd yellow haze and I was having some minor gastro-intestinal discomfort from eating something earlier for lunch, something I had no idea what. So I shook my head but asked instead whether he had a copy of Red Flag Linux to sell? He muttered “laowai” under his breath and walked away. But I didn’t mind, since I knew that the real Devil was much taller and more handsome than me.
Good man!
(I am an enthusiastic user of Mint Linux 8 KDE).
“Laowai” means old foreigner. You’re confusing it with “gwailo” which means literally “white ghost” but also “foreign devil” without the negative connotation like “yangguizi” had.
Or Old Outsider. We must speak by the card, as the bard said…