China is in talks with Colombia to built a 220km railroad connecting Pacific and Atlantic across the narrow northern Columbia. As part of the plan there is proposal to build a new city, an assembly and shipping hub next to Carthage, to distribute Chinese products in the South America – FT. Allegedly 5% of the world trade pass through the Panama Canal and the railroad will facilitate the “flow” of the Asian goods. In related news, the former CEO of Sun, Scott McNealy on the future of the Silicon Valley – WSJ:
Further reading:“It’s not a terribly job-filled recovery. Productivity gains continue to push the need to hire out. A lot of the jobs today are around two areas: government-sponsored green initiatives and the social-networking space. I’m skeptical that the green jobs are [going to drive the recovery]. So far, the track record’s been terrible. That’s going to be a challenge for the people here who stuck their neck out to go green. Then there’s social networking, which is a pretty interesting phenomenon. There’s a lot of energy there, but that’s not a terribly labor-intensive kind of activity. I don’t think social networking is the jobs driver. I see a migration from the early days of the Valley. We aren’t doing manufacturing; we aren’t doing design; we aren’t doing computers. It’s all moving to Asia and other places where there are lots of technical engineers who are willing to work at a more reasonable salary because they don’t have to spend $3.5 million on a home and pay half of it to taxes. I think every new transition has created less job opportunity as technology has become very leveraged. I don’t think our education system, our regulations, our government policies have kept pace with the changes that technology is driving.”
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