Honda announced they will have to lay off 400 workers at their factory in Brazil. The problem is lack of parts.
Originally Honda was going to reduce production, at their Brazil plant, for 12 days. Now it’s cutting production for a full month, and reducing payroll by 12%.
The ongoing parts supply problem was caused by the March 11 disasters in Japan, which revealed the weak link in the “just in time” supply policy for Japan’s (and even the world’s) industries.
At least 1,000 health care workers picketed a hospital belonging to one of the biggest insurance companies in the U.S.; Kaiser Permanente’s flagship hospital in Los Angeles, California.
The workers say Kaiser has been cutting back on staffing, forcing those still working to handle longer hours. The insurance company is also cutting back on services. Striking workers say the company is lying about lack of funding.
During the first quarter of 2011 Kaiser Permanente reported a profit of $920 million. For all of 2010 they made a profit of $2 billion. Yet the company came out and told employees there will be more rounds of cut backs.
Around the country, tens of thousands of teachers in the United States have been laid off.
New York City needs to lay off 6,000 teachers, to balance their education budget.
California has notified at least 20,000 teachers that they will be unemployed.
Dozens of teachers were fired in Ohio this week.
Broward County Florida School District will lay off 1,400 teachers.
And many layoffs took place in the past year.
In some cities pro-teacher groups are pointing out that their school districts actually have budget surpluses, yet teachers are being laid off in large numbers.
Teachers unions are on board with the layoffs, saying it’s time for the bad teachers to go. I’m all for getting rid of the bad teachers, there are plenty (from my own experience as a student, and as a parent putting four kids through school), but when you realize the number of teachers being laid off across the country it makes you wonder: Are there that many bad teachers?
China reporting that U.S. investments in China has dropped 28%. Some analysts blame rising labor costs. However, other foreign investments into China have actually increased.
Most economists think the decrease in U.S. investment is only short term, but admit it is connected to the bad economy in the United States.
The U.S. Commerce Department says overall new home construction dropped 10.6% in April. Also, building permits fell 4% since March.
Construction of multi-family homes, with five or more units, dropped 28%. Economic “experts” expected an increase in housing construction for April.
“The wildfire situation in Alberta remains extreme.”-Ed Stelmach, Premier of Alberta
The wildfires in Alberta, Canada, are not only destroying homes, and even towns, but oil fields as well. The fires are adding to already damaged oil production in Canada.
This year, most oil producers in Canada are dealing with clean ups of major oil spills (ignored by main stream media) and explosions of sand oil fields (also ignored by main stream media). On top of that, and the fires in Alberta, some oil fields are under water because of flooding in Manitoba.
Oil producer Penn West says their oil production is down by 40,000 barrels per day, and that’s before the fires shut down their operation in Alberta.
The Rainbow pipeline (run by Plains All American Pipeline LP) in Alberta, is closed because of a massive oil spill earlier this year, but clean up of the spill is halted because of the wildfires. How long will the wildfires go once they hit the oil?
Reuters reported that at least half a dozen Canadian pipelines developed leaks this year. This is either a case of shoddy maintenance by Canadian companies, or sabotage.
The result of the explosions, pipeline spills, flooding and now fires, is causing several Canadian refiners to shut down. Operators of the Pelican Lake plant say they will have to shut down if they don’t get oil soon. The Marten Mountain plant is already shut down.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the Oil Ministry, and says he will run Iran’s Oil Ministry himself: “The Iranian government and Parliament (Majlis) have consensus on the Oil Ministry merger…I am the caretaker for the Oil Ministry.”
Iran’s Five Year Development Plan requires the merger of several Ministries, to make the government more efficient. Those mergers are Roads and Transportation with Housing and Urban Development, Energy with Oil, Industries and Mines with Commerce, and Welfare and Social Security with Labor and Social Affairs.
Despite the fact that the mergers are required by law, under the five year plan, Ahmadinejad is being criticized by those ministers who’ve lost their jobs.
Some Parliament members say Ahmadinejad was supposed to get their approval before merging the ministries. Ahmadinejad says the Parliament did approve the Oil Ministry merger.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the number of U.S. citizens living in poverty increased to 43 million, in 2009 (the most recent survey data).
If corporations keep reporting profits, why aren’t they hiring more people? Paul Sheldon Foote says corporate America is still “cooking their books”, the recovery is false: “…how is it possible for example for American banks to report increases in income and have their stocks go up when all they’re doing is releasing reserve accounts on their balance sheet.”
Also: “If in fact you are playing games with the accounts creating reserve accounts and releasing reserve accounts and playing other accounting tricks you are publishing false financial statements. This is what has been happening.”
Foote is an Accounting Professor at California State University in Fullerton.
Unions are planning a protest of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, and the state legislature, for ending collective bargaining rights for Wisconsin workers.
Japanese vehicle makers announced they’ve lost billions since the March 11 disasters.
Toyota was the biggest loser at $1.3 billion. Honda lost $900 million and Nissan almost $500 million.
The biggest problem for the Japanese car makers is the loss of production, due to lack of parts. The lack of parts is due to the “just in time” supply model that most of Japan’s industries rely on. This model means that the big producers do not make their own parts, and they don’t keep a lot of spare parts on hand. Instead they rely on smaller producers to supply those parts. Also, the smaller producers can not keep a stockpile of parts on hand, because they can’t afford to.
The March 11 disasters resulted in 60% of Japan’s nuclear plants going off line. Japan’s industries are almost totally reliant on electricity from the nuclear power plants. The result was factories all over Japan shut down.
Japanese car makers didn’t even try to forecast their performance for the next year, because the lack of electrical power will continue, at least ’till the end of the year.