Tag Archives: economy

Fukushima

Government Incompetence: Rice becomes the new Gold in Japan, add another notch to the tightening famine belt

Now that it’s become clear that most of Japan’s upcoming rice harvests are most likely to be contaminated with cesium, Japanese are holding onto last years rice like it was gold.

Japanese retailers are reporting that bags of last year’s rice are flying off the shelves, because consumers don’t think there will be any rice available from this year’s harvests.

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry says it’s working to ensure the safety of this year’s rice harvests.  But so far the government has a real bad track record of proving their incompetence regarding nuclear contamination.

Lack of rice in Japan, yet another notch in the tightening belt of the global food crisis.

Business/Economics, International

What Economic Recovery? Will Sony join Hitachi and stop making TVs in Japan?

Believe it or not the electronics giant Sony has been losing money big time on TV sales.  Prior to the March 11th disasters Sony lost about $95 million from TV sales.

Hitachi recently announced they would shut down their last Japanese TV factory by March 2012.  They claim they’re losing to competition from South Korea.

Sony says it wants to continue to make TVs in Japan, in fact they say making TVs is “the biggest and critical issue” for Sony.

Sony would not give any details of their plans to rebuild their TV business, but analysts think Sony is hoping to expand sales in emerging markets.

The concern over TV production is overshadowing Sony’s next generation video game system, the PlayStation Vita, which is due to be released at the end of the year, or beginning of next year.

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Fannie Mae wants another $5 Billion bailout from taxpayers

The mortgage lender Fannie Mae reported a huge 2nd quarter loss of $5.2 billion. Now they want another $5.1 billion from taxpayers.

Let me remind you that Fannie Mae asked for $8.5 billion back in May!  So far the mortgage lender has gotten about $99 billion in bailout money from the U.S. government (taxpayers).

Fannie Mae officials say the answer to the continued housing finance crisis is jobs: “We’ve got to clear the mortgage market of the excess inventory and employment needs to recover, I believe, before we’re going to see a stabilization of home prices.“-Susan McFarland, Fannie Mae Chief Financial Officer

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Ford, GM, Chrysler; can we trust their sales and profit reports? U.S. auto sales actually stagnating

Ford and GM reported profits in July.  They also reported increased U.S. sales.  Ford claims 9% increase, GM an 8% increase, while Chrysler claims an incredible 20% increase in U.S. sales.

This while Japanese car makers Toyota and Honda reported that their U.S. sales crashed by more than 20% each.

Despite Chrysler reporting a 20% increase in sales, they claimed a net loss in profits, from buying back stocks from the U.S. taxpayers (interestingly the U.S. taxpayer also lost money).

Ford reported a small 9% increase in sales, but a big increase in profits.  One reason is because they jacked up the prices of their cars.  According to one report, the price increases accounted for $900 million of Ford’s profit.  Profiting by inflation.  Ford’s Chief Financial Officer, Lewis Booth, said they expect a drop in U.S. sales in the second half of 2011.

GM reported a small 8% increase in July sales, with a profit of $2.5 billion.  Remember GM still owes U.S. taxpayers for the bailout.  However analysts say now would be a bad time for taxpayers if GM decided to buy back its taxpayer (U.S. Treasury Department) held stock.  Just like the Chrysler buy back taxpayers would lose big time.  Most of GM’s sales came from pickup trucks.  The problem is that GM still has a surplus of pickup trucks, equal to a 115 day supply.  In order to get the surplus inventories down GM will continue with planned factory shut downs, that means more people out of work.  GM officials also expect the second half of 2011 to be hard on sales.

Mitsubishi reported an amazing 41% increase in July sales, while sales for most other Japanese companies stalled or crashed.

German car makers did well: Volkswagen reported a respectable 21% increase (not counting their AUDI brand).  Mercedes had a 13% increase.  BMW increased by 11%.

British companies Jaguar and Land Rover went in opposite directions, with Jaguar down 0.3% and Land Rover up 22%.

The problem is that you can’t go by percentages.  Here’s an example: Even though Toyota’s U.S. sales for July were down 22.7%, they still sold 130,802 vehicles in one month.  Compare that to Chrysler’s huge gain of 20%.  In July they sold 112,026 vehicles, still less than Toyota.

For another example of how percentages can deceive, let’s look at Mitsubishi and GM.  Mitsubishi reported an amazing 41% increase in July, but the actual number of vehicles sold that month was only 7,972.  GM reported a 8% increase in U.S. sales.  Sounds small, but the actual number of vehicles they sold in July is 214,915.  That makes GM the sales leader, however GM officials pointed out  they’re still stuck with a surplus of vehicles to sell.

So, is the auto industry on the rebound, or not?  Overall light vehicle (cars & pickup trucks) sales indicate that the auto industry stagnated in the month of July.  Car sales down 3%, pickup truck sales up 4.8%, almost cancelling each other out.

Data from Autodata Corp

 

Fukushima

Government Corruption: Japanese officials “fixed” public hearings on nuclear energy with fake supporters from the utility companies

The recent announcement that three top government officials will lose their jobs, comes after weeks of blame games between the Japanese nuclear agencies and the nuclear power utility companies.  The issue is that many weeks ago it was revealed that public hearings to determine if the Japanese people wanted nuclear power, were fixed to make it look like there was strong support of nuclear power.

Initially the utility companies were blamed, because it was their employees, and subcontractors that flooded the public hearings with support for nuclear energy. Now it turns out that the utility companies were ordered to do so by the very government agencies that were supposed to be regulating them.

05 August 2011, the Minister of the Economy, Trade, and Industry Ministry, Banri Kaieda, announced an investigation into the actions of the three top officials who were effectively fired the day before.

Specifically, a third party will investigate the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.  That agency was the one who set up the public hearings, and, according to several electric power companies, ordered the utilities to flood the hearings with supporters of nuclear power.  The Japanese media is calling this a case of “influence peddling” on the part of the government.

Fukushima

Corporate & Government Incompetence: Local governments demand TEPCo end the nuclear disaster now!

Not only is Tokyo Electric Popwer Company being targeted, but other nuclear plants in other parts of Japan are getting hit by demands to get outa town.

A meeting in Tokyo, of local community leaders from around Japan, demanded a quick end to the ongoing crisis at Fukushima Daiichi.  They also demanded a complete redo of Japan’s nuclear power policies.

Those local officials with nuclear power plants in their area are extremely worried, because it’s become obvious that no one can trust the plant operators, or national government agencies that are supposed to be regulating the plant operators.

Business/Economics, International

Argentina has so much wheat they’ve released 450,000 tons from their surplus stockpile

The Argentine officials announced that they have plenty of wheat.  As a result of predicted high crop yields from upcoming harvests, the government decided to issue 450,000 tons of surplus wheat.

The surplus wheat will be split up among three provences of Argentina.  Those provences can then sell the wheat on the export market.  The action was encouraged by the Argentine Interior Commerce Secretary, Guillermo Moreno.

Argentina has a policy of maintaining large wheat surpluses, for food security.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery, What Global Warming? It’s summer time and Crops in Mexico are being threatened by Frost, yet more reasons why food prices will go up

“The involvement is significant, because they are threatening more than 7 million hectares of crops planted in the spring-summer 2011, which are at risk for losing a harvest of 20 million tons of basic grains as well as lost income and liquidity of more 3.5 million basic grain producers.”-Salazar Arriaga, National Confederation of Corn Producers

To be sure Mexico’s agriculture industry is dealing with severe drought, but also flooding and…frost.

23 of Mexico’s 32 states are dealing with drought, but, now that the rainy season is about to start it looks like they’ll get hit with severe flooding, neither of which are conducive to growing crops.

In northern Mexico, winter is predicted to come on colder than normal, resulting in frost damage to many struggling crops.

Some of the worst hit states in Mexico are Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Durango, Sonora, Chihuahua, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, Colima, Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatán and Zacatecas.  Farmers in those states have lost too much of the growing year, which means it’s too late to plant anything.

Fukushima

Government Incompetence: Top Japanese nuclear officials fired!

In a hastily arranged press conference, on 04 August 2011, it was announced that the top three officials, in charge of nuclear power operations were fired.

More than four months after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi, and with no end in sight, the Japanese government decided it was time for new blood.

Who’s being fired? Vice Minister of the Economy, Trade, and Industry Ministry, Matsunaga Kazuo.  Director General of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, Terasaka Nobuaki.  Director General of the Natural Resources and Energy Agency, Hosono Tetsuhiro.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, and the Natural Resources and Energy Agency are controlled by the Economy, Trade, and Industry Ministry.

The announcement was made by the Minister of the Economy, Trade, and Industry Ministry, Kaieda Banri.  Along with the dismissals, there will be a major reshuffling of all personnel within the Economy, Trade, and Industry Ministry.

 

Business/Economics, International

What Economic Recovery? Japan’s biggest paper maker closing down, Hitachi & Mitsubishi merging

Japan’s biggest paper maker, Nippon Paper Group, will lay off at least 1,300 workers and close at least five factories.

Part of the blame is on the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which damaged three factories.  Company officials say it’s not worth it to rebuild the damaged factories.

In fact business is so bad that Nippon Paper says it will close down factories, and lay off employees, as part of plans to cut production by 800,000 tons of paper.

And two industrial giants in Japan are merging in an attempt to save themselves.  Hitachi and Mitsubishi will merge some of their businesses that are involved with energy and environment, to create a new company.

This continues a trend between the two companies.  They’ve already created a joint rail transportation company.  Analysts say eventually the two companies will fully merge.