They have developed brands in the East, and in my view, that will continue. A hundred years ago, who would have thought that Ford would be a brand that anybody would have ever heard of? I mean, Henry Ford's just this old toad sitting there, making these cars – who would have thought? Even in the Twenties, General Motors was far and away better known than Ford. So it takes a while to develop a brand, but it can happen, and in my view it will happen. The markets here are huge.
Of course, if you go into any shop in Shanghai, they all want to have a Burberry – everybody would like to have a Burberry, because it's the western brand, and the others which you mentioned. But I suspect that that is going to evolve, just as has happened – as Tom Peters said, creative destruction is always going on in the world, and you're going to see more and more brands coming out of Asia, as the Asian consumers become wealthier and wealthier, and want to buy their own stuff, and, of course, it will be cheaper and better.
In the end, just as General Motors' cars became pretty sloppy and shoddy, when they didn't have to compete, that's going to happen to the western brands, as Asia rises. - in Fool UK
Jim Rogers is an author, financial commentator and successful international investor. He has been frequently featured in Time, The New York Times, Barron’s, Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and is a regular guest on Bloomberg and CNBC.