Mexico City announced they are working on a way to put their earthquake warning system on social media.
The city’s residents have been complaining that the current quake warning system is not reliable. If Japan can have quake warning systems, and even Mexico City, why doesn’t the United States?
Prime Minister Naoto Kan ordered the Hamaoka nuclear plant shut down, for fear of a major earthquake.
The Hamaoka plant is run by Chubu Electric Power company. The plant has two reactors already decommissioned, one shut down for maintenance, and two still operating. It’s located south west of Tokyo, in Shiuoka Prefecture.
Prime Minister Kan ordered the shut down because Japanese scientists believe an 8.0 quake will take place under the nuclear plants location, anytime in the next 30 years. Kan says that Chubu Electric must come up with a plan to reinforce the reactors for an earthquake greater than 8.0, before they can resume operations.
The cost of living in the U.S. rose at its fastest pace since December 2009 in the year ended in March, the same month when Chinese consumer prices rose by the most since 2008.-Bloomberg report
Rising commodity prices can bring inflation. Commodity prices go up when there is an expected higher demand than supply (or speculators playing the market). Today, May 5, commodity prices are falling.
Some people blame an increase in the value of the U.S. dollar, but has it really gone up that much? When the U.S. dollar is up, it makes commodities that much more expensive on the world market, because commodities are traded in U.S. dollars: “The common denominator for all the commodities selling today is the strength of the dollar.”-Bayram Dincer, LGT Capital Management Ltd
Others are pointing out that commodity traders are realizing that the world’s economy is still bad, and that the average person can’t afford to pay higher prices. That means demand will go down.
If you buy commodities (oil, gas, metals, food stuffs, etc) why bid higher when there’s a good change you can’t sell it on the retail market? Some analysts think this will be the crash of the commodities (which is a good thing for us little guys): “This could be one of the most severe corrections that we’ve seen over the last year. If things get really bad, we could possibly retrace half of the rally of the past six to nine months.”-Sean Corrigan, Diapason Commodities Management SA
How about the fact that a little known company, Glencore, who turns out to have a lot of say in the commodities market, has told their clients to be “underweight” when it came to commodities. Glencore expects prices to actually go up in the next 12 months. Being “underweight” means to sell off your investments, so maybe what we’re seeing is an intentional, and temporary, sell off. A sell off would drive prices down.
Portugal has taken on bail out loans from the International Monetary Fund and European Union. The loans total $115 billion.
This makes Portugal the third European economy to become a lame duck, after Greece and Ireland. Portugal still has to pay back old loans, $5 billion worth, by June 15, or risk default.
Ever since the supposed raid to kill bin Laden was announced, oil prices have been falling. In fact, May 5, oil is about $99.00 per barrel for WTI.
Guess what, now there’s a huge leak in a big oil pipeline in Alberta, Canada. How convenient. Not only that, but officials who control the Plains Midstream pipeline claim the leak started on April 29! So far, 4.5 million liters (1.2 million gallons) of oil has leaked out.
Glencore is a private company in Switzerland. The company is valued at $60 billion. What do they do? Buy and sell commodities.
Glencore is the world’s biggest commodities trader, buying and selling much of the world’s wheat, corn, rice, sugar and edible oils. They also buy and sell minerals; metals, oil, coal. In fact they control 3% of the world’s daily oil supply.
Because Glencore is a privately held company, no one has heard of them. Why are they in the news now? Glencore wants to become even more powerful, so they are going public, offering public stocks in their company for the first time. For those of you who think ,”If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”, the public stocks offering will take place at the end of May, in the London and Hong Kong stock markets.
Glencore has on it’s board some controversial people, including people with their hands in the pockets of U.S. politicians, so do your research.
The U.S. doesn’t need to lose anymore jobs, but Kraft just announced they will build a new plant in Brazil.
“Brazil is one of 10 priority developing markets where we’re making big bets. Today, we’re among the fastest growing consumer goods companies in markets like Brazil, India and China. We’re excited to build on what’s working by making our biggest investment in Brazil in more than 10 years!”-Sanjay Khosla, Kraft Foods
Kraft will build an $80 million chocolate factory in Pernambuco, Brazil. They hope to have it up and running by 2012.
Despite the bloody Drugs War, German companies are about to invest more money into Mexico.
German President Christian Wulff wants to increase business relations with Mexico. Already there are 1,200 German operations in Mexico, employing 130,000 people. Wulff also implied that Germany will help the Mexican government in their Drugs War.
Germany has historically been interested in relations with Mexico, this could be a sign of the declining influence of the United States.
“Our expansion plan will continue to support the socioeconomic development of the Brazilian population. The focus in formats aimed at the emerging middle class will be even stronger in 2011.”-Marcos Samaha, president of WalMart Brazil
Recently WalMart officials expressed their concerns for the poor U.S. retail market. They blame inflation and lack of jobs. But, WalMart is spending big money in Brazil, ’cause the economy is boomin’ there.
Brazil is one of the money making members of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China & South Africa).
WalMart is going to open 80 new stores in Brazil, and spend R$ 1.2 billion in the next year (R$ = Real, the Brazilian money). In the past five years, WalMart has already invested R$ 6 billion, constructing 177 stores and creating 25,000 jobs in Brazil.
Ecuadorian scientists want to create a genetically modified Banana. They say it’s the only way to keep Bananas in their country from going extinct.
“…something that we can be sure of is that the Sigatoka will not lose its battle. As soon as we can get a new fungicide, the disease becomes more resistance. Replacing the Cavendish banana (dominant variety today) for another type, by genetic engineering, is the only answer.”-Emile Frison, International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain
Apparently the use of fungicides has resulted in a super fungus that is resistant to chemicals. Ecuadorian officials are warning against using too much fungicide.
Another motivator for a GMO Banana, is competition. Farmers say they just can’t make enough money on each box of Bananas, mainly because of the cost of fighting the fungus Black Sigatoka.