Tag Archives: economy

Fukushima

Corporate Incompetence: Reactor 3 melt down actually breached containment vessel, plutonium contamination!

First Tokyo Electric Power Company said there were no melt downs, as they struggled to cool the Fukushima Daiichi reactors with salty sea water.  Then TEPCo admitted there were melt downs in reactors 1 and 3, but said they were contained by the water at the bottom of the containment vessels.  Now an independent study says not so.

Tanabe Fumiya, an expert in nuclear safety, studied data from Reactor 3.  Reactor 3 uses MOX fuel.  Most of Reactor 3’s mixed uranium-plutonium oxide fuel might have made it through the containment vessel.  Fumiya says on 21 March 2011 TEPCo was unable to inject water to cool the reactor.  Over the next four days the fuel reheated and melted through.  This explains why plutonium is being found outside the reactors.

Business/Economics, International

Looting and violence spreads outside London, ignorant British newspapers blame video games

BBC is reporting that the city of Birmingham, England, has been hit by looting and violence.

According to the BBC: Cars were set on fire in Lewisham.  A bus and shop were set alight in Peckham.  Several fires broke out in Croydon, including one at a large furniture shop which spread to neighboring buildings and tram lines.  In Hackney police 200 riot officers with dogs and mounted police were located around Mare Street where police cars were damaged.  Looters raided a Debenhams store and a row of shops in Lavender Hill in Clapham.    In Birmingham, police said officers had made 35 arrests, including six juveniles, on Monday evening.    Buses were diverted as the violence spread to Bromley High Street.    There were reports of looting of phone shops in Woolwich High Street, in south London, and a torched police car.   Shops and restaurants were damaged in Ealing, west London, and there was a fire in Haven Green park opposite Ealing Broadway Tube.

Some British newspapers are avoiding the more plausible reasons for the rioting, like a bad economy and police brutality, and actually blamed video games.  One newspaper claims to have seen ten year olds taking part in the looting, and quotes an unnamed police officer as saying the rioters are motivated by the video game Grand Theft Auto.

If you’ve played Grand Theft Auto then you would know that in no way does it involve mass rioting and looting.  The game is centered around a single player, you, who’s goal is to steal cars.  Somehow the ignorant British media and authorities equate an individual stealing cars in a video game to mass rioting, vandalism and looting in real life.  It’s proof that the ‘better off’ in Britain are the ones living in a fantasy world.

Business/Economics, International, Opinion

Violent Riots spreading through London, started by police shooting, continuing because there are no jobs, British leaders on luxury vacations

“Officers responding to sporadic disorder in a number of boroughs made more than 100 arrests throughout last night and early this morning.” Scotland Yard statement, August 8

The violence that started in Tottenham has spread to Enfield and Brixton.  The riots started on Friday August 5, after police shot and killed a man in the back seat of a taxi the day before.  Police say he was a gun runner, locals say it was police brutality. Tottenham, a borough of London, has a decades long history of police brutality.

The riots are spreading and become more about the lack of jobs, and the severe cuts to social programs made by the British Parliament.

Another factor could be that British Prime Minister, David Cameron, is on a luxury vacation in Italy, while Chancellor of the Exchequer (kinda like the U.S. Treasury), George Osbourne, is on vacation in California.  This after they told British taxpayers to make more financial sacrifices.

Police feel targeted, and who wouldn’t be surprised at that since London police have powers even U.S. cops don’t.  The United Kingdom uses Orwellian tactics in their law enforcement.  One bobby said: “Officers are shocked at the outrageous level of violence directed against them.”

An immigrant from Africa said: “I can imagine this kind of thing happening in Somalia but to see it in London was strange.”

Of course the elected and appointed officials in Britain are calling the rioters “petty criminals”, but local residents say people are finally fed up with the system: “Unemployment is very, very high … they are frustrated.” Uzodinma Wigwe, age 49, recently laid off

History shows that peaceful protest does not work.  History shows that it always takes violent protest to make the leaders realize the people want change.  In some cases leaders are so arrogant they end up going to their death thinking there is nothing wrong (French Revolution). The Civil Rights laws in the United States did NOT come about because of the peaceful protests led by Martin Luther King Jr, but because of the violence that took place after Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated.  That’s the part they don’t teach about in the United States, but the info is there, do your own research.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Group of 7 decide to answer the U.S. debt problem by flooding markets with liquidity, won’t that create Hyperinflation?

The European Central Bank, and the Group of 7 top industrialized countries, decided to deal with the credit rating downgrade of the United States by flooding international markets with liquidity.

Liquidity=cash and bank deposits.

One of the problems with this recession is that banks, and other financial institutions as well as big corporations, have been money hording.  Lending has not taken place as President Obama had hoped (at least to small businesses and individuals).  The result is that the ‘big guys’ have a lot of liquidity sitting around doing nothing (by the way something like this happened right before the Great Depression).

Now the international community has decided to flood the international markets with that liquidity.

So far we’ve seen inflation, albeit a mild inflation for most of the world, but get ready to see inflation like you’ve never seen before when all that money hits the markets.  You see, when there is a lot of money available to buy a lot of things, it automatically drives up prices.

Some people might think the stories of Germans using wheelbarrows full of cash to buy a loaf of bread, during their Hyperinflation of the 1920s (which helped lead to the Great Depression in the United States), is just an exaggeration.  It is not.  I’ve read the accounts, and I’ve even seen silent newsreels showing people lining up with wheelbarrows full of worthless Deutschmarks at bakeries.

This happened because the Weimar government thought by printing more money, in essence flooding the public with liquidity, that people would be able to buy the products they needed, products that were already experiencing inflation.  The flooding of money into the German consumer market made the situation worse, creating hyperinflation.

The following is from Wikipedia, on hyperinflation: Hyperinflation becomes visible when there is an unchecked increase in the money supply… also… Hyperinflation is often associated with wars (or their aftermath), currency meltdowns, political or social upheavals, or aggressive bidding on currency exchanges. Mmmm, sound familiar?

 

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Japanese economist predict negative GDP for Japan, blames the United States

Several private economic research firms, in Japan, are predicting GDP for Japan will go south for the 3rd quarter.

As many as ten research firms say Japan’s GDP could contract by as much 4.7% for the next economic quarter.  They blame the decline on a huge reduction in consumer spending, both in Japan, and in other countries, made worse by the U.S. debt.

A few economist predict positive GDP for Japan, but that is totally dependent upon the debt problems of the United States.  It’s the international concern over the debt of the U.S. that has most Japanese economists warning of a crash in Japan’s economy.

Fukushima, Technology

Corporate Incompetence: Fukushima Daiichi water decontamination system crashes!

Ever since Tokyo Electric Power Company  installed a water decontamination and recirculation system, they’ve had problems after problems.  Now the entire system has crashed.

The system includes filters and pumps designed in the United States and France.  The idea is to decontaminate the massive amount of radioactive water flooding into the basements of the reactor buildings, then re-use that water to cool the unstable reactors.

The most common problem, in the many weeks since it’s installation, has been the fact that the decontamination part is not working well, the radiation levels are not being reduced to a level TEPCo would like (this is another proof that radiation levels coming out of the reactors are much higher than TEPCo would like to admit).

The next most common problem is that pumps keep failing.  This time all the pumps have failed, including the back up pumps.

Beginning Thursday, 04 August 2011, pumps began failing.  By Saturday, 06 August, all the pumps were down.  As usual TEPCo does not know why, and is investigation to find out why!!!

TEPCo is planning on hooking up a Japanese designed filters and pumps to the system, as if that’s the solution.

Business/Economics, International

What Economic Recovery? Germany says no more bailout money for Italy

Der Spiegel is reporting that German government officials doubt any more bailout money can save Italy, even if the current European Financial Stability Fund was tripled in size.

German officials have consistently said government finance reforms must come through spending cuts, and tax reform, not taking on more loans.

Currently the European Financial Stability Fund has $627 billion (440 billion Euros), and Germany says even if that was somehow tripled it wouldn’t be enough to save Italy.

Earlier in the week the European Central Bank started buying more government bonds from smaller European countries, but refused to buy any bonds from Italy and Spain (an indication that the bank has little confidence in those countries paying them back).

 

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Emergency World meeting over U.S. credit downgrade, China says no more U.S. dollar, Germany says finally the U.S. gets what it deserves

“The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone.”-Chinese government/media commentary

The European Central Bank will hold an emergency meeting on Sunday, August 7.  The issue; the credit rating downgrade for the United States.

Finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 7 major industrialized nations will meet by telephone on Sunday.  The broader Group of 20 were due to hold a conference call Saturday evening.

China and Japan are calling for coordinated action to avoid a new worldwide financial crisis.  One issue that’s being looked at is whether the world can continue to use the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency: “International supervision over the issue of U.S. dollars should be introduced and a new, stable and secured global reserve currency may also be an option to avert a catastrophe caused by any single country.”-Chinese government/media commentary

Another issue to be discussed is the amount of secure debt versus risky debt: “It will weigh on secure assets. The bigger reaction will be on risky assets, including equities and on agencies and states backed directly by the federal government. U.S. Treasuries will remain a benchmark. This is a ship which takes a long time to turn around.”-Ciaran  O’Hagan, Societe Generale in Paris.

Germany, the economic powerhouse of Europe, says it’s about time the U.S. got what it deserves: “I’m not surprised about the U.S. rating downgrade, rather I am astonished that, for weeks, international rating agencies have focused their attention on the European debt situation but not the American one. For a while, there have been clear worries about America’s economic woes but also the fact the U.S. is heavily indebted.”-Norbert Barthle, a budget expert for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party

 

 

Business/Economics, International

What Economic Recovery? German drug giant Bayer may leave Germany, find new home in China

German drug and chemical giant, Bayer, says high utility cost in Germany could force it to move all its German operations to a new location outside of Europe.

The most likely new home for Bayer, China.

Bayer blames the German government, and in a round about way the German people, for their decision to end the use of nuclear power plants in Germany.

Bayer claims the electricity cost would skyrocket, making it almost impossible for them to do business in Germany : “It is important that we remain competitive in comparison with other countries. Otherwise, a global business such as Bayer would have to consider relocating its production to countries with lower energy costs.”-Marijn Dekkers, CEO

Dekkers hinted that China could be Bayer’s new home, because they’ve already invested big time into their China operations.  They’re also looking at Brazil and India.

It’s not like Bayer is losing money in this bad economy.  They reported a net profit of $1.1 billion for the second quarter of this year!

 

 

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Proof the housing market hasn’t fallen enough: Big Banks bulldozing smalltown America

“Things that were unthinkable are now becoming thinkable.”-James W. Hughes, School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University

If you want proof that the housing market still hasn’t hit bottom, just look at what Bank of America is doing, they’re bulldozing all those homes they foreclosed on.  Why? “There is way too much supply, the best thing we can do to stabilize the market is to get the garbage off.”-Gus Frangos, Cuyahoga County Land Re-utilization Corp of Cleveland

It’s not just BoA, but the other big banks that foreclosed (sometimes unjustifiably) on hundreds of thousands of homes across the U.S. are doing the same thing.

Essentially the big mortgage lenders shot themselves in the foot.  Now there is way too many homes on the market, compared to the decreasing number of qualified home buyers.

BoA is planning on bulldozing 100 homes in Cleveland, Ohio.  BoA is even giving away homes to local authorities: “No one needs these homes, no one is going to buy them. Bank of America is not going to be able to cover its losses, so it might as well give them away and get a little write-off and some nice public relations.”-Christopher Thornberg, Los Angeles office of Beacon Economics LLC

So far they’ve off loaded around 100 homes in Detroit, Michigan and 150 in Chicago, Illinois.

Even big cities are bulldozing their own.  Detroit Mayor, Dave Bing, proposed bulldozing one quarter of the entire city’s houses, and empty buildings, over the next three years.