The United States is being bought up by foreigners. It’s sort of like a rummage sale or a department store bargain basement. Investors are buying up US companies at a record pace and foreign governments are “buying up” the Federal Government through loans to finance Congressional and Presidential deficit spending and corporate bailouts. On one recent day, the stock market reported more than $14 billion in stock acquisitions, some of it in buyout deals by foreign financiers.

The flurry of activity in the market during the end of September and into the first part of October, was the first of a three-part drama in which Part Two is where the foreign investors, those with very deep pockets, buy up American companies with household names, and prime real estate throughout the United States of America.

Much of this activity is triggered by the upwards spiraling US deficit and the devaluing of the US currency, both of which contribute to the buying power of foreign money. In this year alone, the budget deficit is $1.6 trillion (twelve zeros on the end of that number) more than three times the amount it was just last year. Congress has committed the US to $11.6 trillion in new programs that will only increase our national debt (and who knows if the programs are really needed or if they will do any good).

Any recovery from the US “shortfall” will involve selling assets or incurring more debt. Since our credit limit has been reached or exceeded, the assets being sold are US companies . . . and at the head of the line of prospective buyers are China, Japan, Singapore and Russia. All four of these countries have government controlled funds that are invested in the marketplace and they are being used to acquire major interests in brand name American companies. Additionally, except for China, there are huge private investors in these countries who are also jumping into the US market.

All of this harkens back to the gloom of the eighties when Japan’s surging economy stimulated their strong moves into US companies, the stock market and prime real estate. That surge turned around and even backfired somewhat. Don’t expect this one to do that, though, as foreign investors learned from that debacle. Even our sports venues aren’t safe: A Russian investor is buying eighty percent of the NBA New Jersey Nets and nearly half of their new arena; a Chinese financier is buying a minority stake in the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers.

The financial morass American businessmen are wallowing in means that a return to the basics is needed. Companies need to cut waste and pare their staffs for efficiency, while they still aggressively attack the market. Nothing happens without a sale being made, so the focus should be on developing effective sales programs and staffs to implement them. One good means to cut internal costs without sacrificing sales effectiveness and efficiency is to outsource sales lead generation and qualifying to specialists in telesales outsourcing companies.