The U.S. media is talking about Chrysler’s announcement that it plans to pay off the U.S. and Canadian government loans. It is not a sign of a good economy, because the loans are not being paid off with profits.
Chrysler’s pay off is coming as a result of more loans. The Auto maker has decided that it does not want to keep paying the high interest rate of the government bailout loans, so it has refinanced through private banks. In other words Chrysler is still in trouble.
According to Chinese media, the United States has investigated Chinese products for “Section 337” violations, at least 56 times since 2006. That’s more times than all the previous 20 years prior to 2006.
Section 337 investigates claims of unfair trade and competition, as well as possible U.S. copyright violations.
May 24, Sony announced that their online services continue to get hacked. The latest involve countries like Greece and Thailand.
Japanese IT officials think hackers are just practicing, and that Sony’s security sucks: ‘‘Hackers are launching attacks apparently to hone their skills. Sony must review the security systems of its entire group to redress their vulnerability.’’-Information Technology Promotion Agency
Sony announced that they have lost, so far, $171 million because of the hacks. This adds to Sony’s year after year losses.
Toyota announced that they will increase production, in Japan, to 90% of pre-March 11 disaster levels.
They say they have made progress in finding parts for their Japanese operations. They hope to have Japanese production at 100% before November.
French environment minister, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, declared a “crisis situation” because of the ongoing drought. She explained that current water levels are the same as if it was July, instead of May.
She has ordered a third of all French administrative departments to cut back on water use. Two-thirds of the country’s groundwater reserves are reported to be below normal.
Scotland has oil, lots of it. And the Scottish people say they’re tired of the English controlling it. After all they were told they would benefit, but they haven’t. Scottish rebels point to Norway as an example: “Scotland and Norway discovered oil at the same time. Some years ago, Scotland was turned into an industrial desert and Norway has transformed its society and its economy, they have billions in the bank, whereas we have seen ours wasted on missiles and weapons of mass destruction and illegal wars.”-Kenny MacAskill, Scottish Justice Minister
The recent Scottish elections saw the Scottish National Party dominate. The SNP ran on a promise to make Scotland independent: “We have been elected with two mandates: one is to pursue our claim for an independent Scotland in the right for a referendum. Equally, we have been elected as a government to make Scotland a better place and we seek to do that by driving our economy forward and making our country a fairer, greener, safer, wealthier and healthier.”-Kenny MacAskill
Canadian Imperial Oil (a subsidiary Exxon Mobil Corp) has massive equipment, called modules, stuck in Lewiston, Idaho. They need to get it to their Kearl oil sands project in northern Alberta, Canada.
The problem is their size. Idaho Transportation Department has yet to approve transportation of the equipment through Idaho, one of the problems is that the modules won’t fit under any overpasses in Idaho. Oil company officials say they will have to cut them in half.
In Montana, there are lawsuits to stop the transportation through its territory. Montana officials say the size of the Imperial Oil equipment will require burial of overhead power lines, upgrading existing roads and building new turnouts (who’s gonna pay for that?). Montana environmentalists say the company needs to do an environmental impact assessment.
Imperial Oil is complaining that their construction schedule is being compromised. Maybe they should have worked this out before hand?
Imperial Oil does not have a good business track record, or a good safety track record. Recently they’ve apologized for the release of a mile-long plume of sulfur dioxide, in Ontario, Canada.
Voice of America reporting that farms along the Mississippi flood zones are destroyed. Some farmers were able to harvest some of their crops before the flooding.
Many farmers did not have crops to harvest, but were about to plant, and now that’s not going to happen: “…this is unprecedented because of the amount of water that is backed up and out over areas that normally do not flood.”–Randy Ouzts, Horizon Ag
One of the biggest U.S. exports are crops. The harvest is shipped to New Orleans, on barges that sail the Mississippi river. Ouzts says getting the harvested crops out could be a problem: “The issue we are having at the moment is wheat delivery, and also fertilizer and fuel deliveries, and the problem is loading. The facilities were not built to accommodate this much water.”
Ford announced that it’ll build a transmission factory in China. It will build six speed automatic transmissions. The plant will cost $350 million.
Also, they’re building an engine plant in China, at a cost of $500 million. Ford hopes to have the factories operating in 2013. China is now the world’s largest car market.
Depending on which media source you read, Boeing won its World Trade Organization case against Airbus. Depending on which media source you read, Airbus won its World Trade Organization case against Boeing. Yes, that’s the idea.
Both Airbus and Boeing are declaring victories in their WTO case against each other.
U.S. officials say the ruling helps Boeing: “This definitive victory will benefit American workers who have had to compete with a heavily subsidized Airbus.”-Tim Reif, general counsel for the U.S. Trade Representative
Airbus officials say the WTO ruling upheld European loan subsidies: “…government loans are a legal instrument and that none of the government loans made to Airbus over the past 40 years were prohibited…”
Boeing reps said this is a “definitive victory” for the United States, but Airbus said “This is a big win for Europe.”
Who’s right? The WTO looked at the allegations line by line, and voted line by line, basically splitting the difference. So both sides think they won, when in reality they broke even.