A company that was going to build two reactors in Texas, abandoned the plan.
NRG Energy, in cooperation with Toshiba, was planning on building two reactors in Texas. The company now says the investment environment has become too risky to continue with the plans. They will now write off U.S.$ 481 million on their taxes, for the canceled project.
Toyota announced that it will have to continue cuts in production in its North American factories. Continued parts supply problems being blamed.
Factories in Mexico, Canada and the United States will now suspend operations on Mondays and Fridays. Production will be cut in half on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The latest cuts will continue until June 3.
Toyota expects the new cuts to directly affect North American car sales.
“We are one shock away from a full-blown crisis.” Robert Zoellick, World Bank President
The World bank is run by the United States, and if the current situation within the U.S. is any sign, then the world economy, influenced by the World Bank, is in trouble.
The International Monetary Fund is worried as well: “Especially because of youth unemployment… there is now a risk that this will be turned into a life sentence, and that there is a possibility of a lost generation.”-Dominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF chief
One analyst says fiscal and monetary policies might actually make things worse: “What they do is they very often pressure government to adopt what we call pro-cyclical policies. The economy’s weak and in recession, they want them to cut spending or raise taxes. And that can be very dangerous, I mean you can slip back into recession, you can make a recession worse.”- Mark Weisbrot, Center for Economic and Policy Research
Officials with the World Bank, and the IMF, say food prices, citizen security, justice and jobs, are the main issues for international economic stability. Yet history shows that the policies of the IMF and World Bank actually cause some of the problems: “The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank say that they are interested in reducing poverty. All their actions however said otherwise. Their actions have instead raised the poverty level and created under-development.”-Andrew Garvin Marshall, Center for Research on Globalization
The president of the World Bank has always been a United States citizen, since 1944.
Following the British announcement that they will send troops to train Libyan rebels, France and Italy say they will do the same.
The UN coalition members say, officially, they are within UNSCR 1973 because training rebel militants will protect civilians.
It’s interesting that Libyan government troops are being portrayed as non-Libyan, while rebels are being portrayed as the only Libyans. Don’t forget that even U.S. officials admitted that some rebels could be al-Qaeda.
This is not a rebellion, it is a Civil War.
“We’re actually seeing Texas burn from border to border. We’ve got it in west Texas, in east Texas, in north Texas, in south Texas — it’s all over the state.”-April Saginor, Texas Forest Service
Firefighters from 34 states are helping Texans battle the blazes. More than 170 homes have been destroyed. One firefighter has been killed, five injured.
To show how difficult the situation is, a firefighter using a bulldozer ran over a gas line, causing an explosion.
Texas has been dealing with drought. The National Weather Service said Texas is so dry, that even if it rained right now, it would not be enough to help put out the fires. In fact, there would probably be more fires from the lighting that accompanies most Texas rain storms.
“GDP that stems from new debt — mainly deficit spending — is phony: it is debt-financed consumption, not prosperity. Net of deficit spending, our prosperity is nearly unchanged from 1998, 13 years ago.”-Rob Arnott, Research Affiliates
Arnott says the Democrats and Republicans are to blame. They continue to play games with the voters/taxpayers. While tax revenues have steadily dropped since 1998, because of a bad economy, both major political parties just spend spend spend.
Yes, Arnott says the declining economy started back in 1998, it just didn’t impact the system until 2007, when the housing bubble burst. One reason the Federal Government is having a problem with its spending is that our elected officials think our incomes are up, and as a result, tax revenues should be as well. But they’re not; Arnott says tax revenues are at 1994 levels.
Arnott says part of the problem with the politicians is that current economic statistics are flat wrong. Economic stats, showing consumer spending and GDP, include deficit spending. In other words, credit cards and loans are being used to make it look like the average person has money. And this has been going on for a while.
By using purchases made with credit cards, or loans, it makes it look like people have money, and that the economy is good. These stats are used by our politicians to justify spending tax payer money.
When you throw out the debt spending by consumers, the real GDP figures show we’re stuck in the 1990s. Arnott calls GDP minus debt spending “structural GDP”. Also, he says government spending is another misleading factor used in GDP stats. He says that should be left out as well, only private sector GDP should be looked at, and it’s not pretty.
Another analyst, Max Fraad Wolff, says historically countries go down the drain when their government debt gets close to its GDP levels: “We are approaching national debt on par with the total GDP of the country. This is very serious because most economic research suggests that countries tend to decelerate in their growth and have more and more severe economic problems, once their debt-to-GDP ratio gets above about 90 per cent. And we’re about to go through that level.”
Rescue workers say they think there is a void within the caved in roof of the Lucky Friday mine. They drilled through the debris, ran a camera through and discovered that there is open space.
They drilled some other holes to let fresh air in. Rescuers have been working since the the cave in, on April 15. 53-year-old Larry Marek, and his brother were just finishing up watering down the latest dig, when the roof fell in. Larry didn’t get out.
Rescuers gave up trying to dig through the debris, because it became more dangerous as they went. They feared another cave in. Now they’re trying to dig new tunnels.
An Iranian foreign exchange student, attending school in the United Kingdom, was attacked on April 13, by four British women. The British women said they attacked her because she would not remove her hijab (head covering).
“If it turns out that the incident has been a racial attack and the Iranian student has been assaulted because of her nationality, Iran will show reaction.”-Mahmoud Mollabashi, Deputy Minister of Science, Research and Technology
“Iran can have an effect on world energy and fuel. Fuel prices will go up dramatically. If sanctions are not removed, particularly sanctions against banks and other economic sanctions, the price of oil will go above $150 a barrel.”-Mahmoud Bahmani, Iran’s central bank
A top U.S. Federal Reserve official said that gasoline prices above $4 a gallon would throw the U.S. economy into another recession.
Iran is the world’s third-leading oil exporter, and thanks to U.S. backed sanctions, has just expanded their own oil refining abilities, now making them an exporter of gasoline as well.
On top of any threats of increased oil prices, Iranian oil Minister Massoud Mir-Kazemi, said factors remain that will ensure that oil prices will continue to go up, regardless of how much oil is pumped out of the ground: “The price of oil depends on two things: First, the fundamentals, including supply and demand, and then the political, psychological and unforeseen elements. Based on these factors, oil prices should increase again by end of the year.”
Tourism for Iran increases every year, despite UN sanctions. Iranian officials expect a huge leap in tourism for the 2011-2012 year (Iranian year 1389).
Where do the most tourists come from? Germany, then France. Iran hopes to attract three million tourists this year.