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.
“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.”
“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.”
Fire fighters in one part of Texas are reporting a strange phenomenon in their battle to control wildfires: ‘Ice capping’.
70 miles west of Fort Worth, embers from the fires have gone so high into the atmosphere that they’ve frozen and fallen back to the ground. It’s an indicator of how hot the fires are, for embers to go that high.
The fires continue, out of control, homes burning. One family, in the city of Austin, returned from a weekend trip to find their home, and their pet gone. What makes it worse is they say their home was the only one on their street that burned: “All the other houses got saved except ours … we’re just kind of speechless right now.”-Kris Griffin
Rescuers are bringing in more equipment to dig out Larry Marek. A section of roof caved in on him and his brother last Friday, his brother got out.
The latest info is that a large diamond drill will be used to drill a hole through the debris, to try and determine if Marek is alive. It could take two days to drill through the 185 feet (56.3 meters) of dirt.
Rescue efforts are slow because the size of the collapse was underestimated. Rescuers are also waiting for parts, so they can use a bigger drone digger.
The company that owns the Lucky Friday mine, Hecla, has a good safety record going back to 2000. But there have been accidents at other Idaho mines. Last June a miner was killed when a slab of rock fell on him, while he was working at the Galena Mine.
GM announced, on April 18, that they will increase the price of their vehicles, because of the rising cost of supplies.
GM said it is not related to the parts supply problem in Japan. Instead they blame it on commodities like oil and steel. GM’s price hike will take effect May 2. Toyota and Ford have already announced similar price hikes.
So you voted for Barack Obama because you’re hoping to go to college, but can’t afford the skyrocketing costs. You thought Obama was going to help you pay for college? You’re right, if your going to college in China!
Last week Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, announced that the U.S. State Department will spend U.S.$3 million on scholarships for study in China. On top of that First Lady Michelle Obama announced that they have convinced U.S. corporations to help fund U.S.$3.25 million for the “100,000 Strong Initiative”. Those corporations include Caterpillar, Citigroup and Coca-Cola.
The program is in addition to the usual Fulbright scholarship program.
So now even college students are being shipped off to China! I guess it makes sense, you know, follow the jobs.
For the fourth month in a row, China is selling off its U.S. Treasury bonds (U.S. Sovereign debt). China is the biggest holder of U.S. bonds, but since February, they’ve been getting rid of them, a little at a time.
So far the Chinese have sold U.S.$600 million in U.S. bonds, that’s according to the U.S. Treasury.
Japan has the second biggest holdings of U.S. Treasuries, but there is concern that Japan will sell them off, to help pay for rebuilding after the March 11 disasters.