Catch-22 & The New World Order ( couple of articles from Fortune)

In the precariously positioned Economic Global Bipolar world, any changes by the Central banks to either lower the interest rates to foster growth further or increase the interest rates to control the inflation which will result in higher fuel prices etc leads us to a perfect CATCH-22 .  

The Global corporations would love to see the Indian and Chinese middle Class go up dramatically as it means they will buy more mobile phones, toothpaste, homes , electricity etc . It is estimated by 2020 China alone will have close to 700 million in middle class and India would go up to around 580 million . But double digit growth in especially  smaller markets and even in India and China also means raising living costs. Inflation in India has doubled to 8% and China has gone up from 1% to & 7.7% since 2006.

The "New World Order" being that 54 developing markets will post a 6.7% increase in GDP ( though last year it was 7.5%) versus 1.6% from the 31 developed countries. US is no longer the spear head for growth , which also means many markets which are very heavily USA dependent need to braise up for tough times ahead. While USA will still be an enormous 13.92 trillion dollars by 2008 and while other markets coming quickly on the radar are still small but sizable. (  China at 3.7 trillion and with India , Brazil and Russia ranging from 1.14 to 1.29 trillion )

For the first time ever in over a decade , did we see a drop in American based  Fortune 500 companies to 153 total in number. Less then a ten years ago India , Mexico and Russia posted just one company on F500 . This years list includes 7 from the subcontinent and five each from Mexico and Russia.

China steals the show this year by an unprecedented total of 29 companies , which is as many as from Italy , Spain and Australia combined. Lenovo  entered the spot at 499. Global Giants grew a phenomenal 13% up by approx. 23.6 trillion dollars  and profits of the complete F500 went up by 3.9% amounting to 1.6 trillion dollars. 

Australia has around 8 Companies in the F500 list while Britain has 34 and Canada around 14. China the Non English speaking market stands at 29 while France and Germany are at 37 and 39 respectively .  India's 7 , Brazil's 5 , Japan's 64 and while  USA is  still the largest contributer with  153 F500 corporations, there does not seem to be a doubt on where the "NEW WORLD" is going to be in the future .