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Yeah, this long tail — a book. Hope you ain’t disappointed.

I blogged about myself reading “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson some time back and how the internet was helping consumers all over the world “break the space-time continuum“. oohh.. big word.. what it all means is that the long tail might just turn out to be a shopaholic’s paradise if you buy big time over the web.

I break out of my self-imposed blogging freeze to break you this news — Chris Anderson’s exclusive interview by my good friend Bernard! You can check it all out here on the SGEntrepreneurs blog. Chris even mentions Singapore during the short interview and how he admires Lee Hsien Loong’s (Singapore’s Prime Minister) policies on creating a knowledge-based economy in Asia.

I am aware of IDA MDA’s i.JAM initiative and impressed with the efforts of your prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong for his policies of science and technology towards the creation of a knowledge based economy in Asia. The way I see it, the long tail is about reinforcing the diversity of culture and ideas and at the same time, recognizing the fact that you cannot predict a demand. The liberation of voices and ideas will lead to a messy and unpredictable situation in the marketplace. For example, YouTube is a chaotic television and you can see all sorts of content popping up that may not be acceptable for the Singapore government. The question or perhaps, the challenge for Singapore: is the Singapore government prepared to accept the chaotic and unrestricted ideas that emerges once the content creators and distributors are given the tools of production?

Hu Jintao’s visit to US brought him first to the business community, sidestepping the political maelstrom that awaits him at Washington DC.

“Show me the money!” — thats the not-too-subtle message China is telling America as billion dollar deals are signed with Boeing and Microsoft.

“And screw you with your human rights complaints and currency manipulation accusations, businesses that piss China off will not enjoy priviledged access to the deals struck with Boeing and MS.”

Here’s an excerpt of the CNN article by Lou Dobbs that talks about this:

China’s economy has grown by an average of about 10 percent a year over the past two decades. This year, China moved ahead of Britain and France to become the world’s fourth-largest economy. It’s also changing the global supply chain, becoming the world’s leading buyer of basic commodities, whether grain, meat, coal and steel, and is second to only the United States in consumption of oil. China is buying up American companies and other multinational corporations with almost $900 billion of hard currency reserves. China has now arrived, and we no longer refer to our series on China’s rapid economic and military build-up as “Red Star Rising.” The title of that reporting is now “Red Storm.”

But Dobbs is showing isolationist traits in his rant towards the end of the article. Althought he doesn’t fault China for its rights to economic prowess, he should do well to remember that the fault of US’ economic dependency lies NOT at failed policies in managing unfair, unequal US-Sino trade practices BUT AT the appaling undeveloped human resource infrastructure of middle class America.

Dun blame Walmart for outsourcing to China, dun blame Chinese workers for taking away low-end manufacturing jobs. Blame the inflexible labor laws and the xenophobic mentalities of disaffected, displaced middle class workers who have grown complacent in the excesses of the US domestic labor market.

If you dun cure that, there’s nothing you can do to prevent US corporate leaders to continue scouring the world for cheap labor and deals and please, wake up and smell the roses, its not just the Chinese thats giving you headaches but also Mexican immigrants running across the Texas border of your reigning President’s home state.

The tortoise vs the hare:

Here’s my favourite line that probably summed it up:

that China’s growth is coming via flashy financing (foreign direct investment, the equivalent of VC financing at a startup) while India’s is coming through organic, sustainable growth (the equivalent of revenues).

Click here for link.

Technorati tag: India, China, venture capital, Asia, economic growth