Tag Archives: economy

Fukushima

False Flag op? Japanese scientists knew major tsunami was going to hit Japan, at least one month prior!

A report discovered by Japan’s NHK news, shows that officials knew in February that a major tsunami could hit Japan soon.

The report was put together by the Earthquake Research Committee.  It looked at geographical evidence, and recent studies, and came up with a scenario that is exactly like what happened on 11 March.  It even named Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectures as being the hardest hit!

The conclusion of the report was that the prefectures of north east Honshu needed to make preparations.  Even though the report was finish in February, the officials weren’t planning on releasing it until April.   Apparently even the experts didn’t think it could actually happen.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Commodities crashing? More signs that there is no economic recovery

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.

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Who’s behind high commodity prices? Glencore, ever hear of them? Call them food crisis managers

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.

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Kraft moving chocolate production to Brazil?

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.

Business/Economics, International

Germany to pump more money into Mexico

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.

Business/Economics, International

WalMart business down in U.S., but booming down south of the border

“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.

Business/Economics, U.S.

U.S. Gas prices will be about $4.50 average by end of May

The price of May reformulated unleaded blendstock gasoline futures prices hit $3.37 per gallon, on April 29.  That means the average price of gas at the pump could be $4.50 by the end of May.

For some parts of the country, like California, prices could hit $5.50 or more, per gallon.  For a little explainer on gasoline futures see my post “Think gas is high now…”

Business/Economics, International

German economy doing well at the expense of German people

“We don’t even have minimum wage!”-German protester

“Fair wages, decent work and social security is the minimum that workers in this country expect, need and have to fight for again and again.”-Michael Sommer, head of Confederation of German Trade Unions

Germany is one of the few European countries that has a good economy.  It turns out Germany’s good economy is coming at the expense of German workers.

Germans have been protesting, because they are not benefiting from the so called good economy, and now they will be competing against eastern European migrant workers.

For the first time since the creation of the European Union, Germany and Austria will open their borders to eastern European migrant workers.  This has German workers upset, especially since they’ve seen a decline in wages while German corporations enjoy increased profits.

At least 8,000 workers protested in Berlin alone.  According to the Confederation of German Trade Unions, approximately 423,000 people demonstrated across Germany on May Day.

 

Fukushima

TEPCo: problems with another Japan nuke plant

Tokyo Electric Power Company announced early May 2, that another of their nuclear plants in Japan is in trouble.  The Tsuruga nuclear plant is having technical problems, resulting in overheating.

The plant is around 450 km (280 miles) west of Tokyo, in Fukui prefecture.  TEPCo says the problem is so bad they are considering shutting down the whole plant.  There is a possible leak of iodine from Tsuruga nuclear plant #2 reactor’s nuclear fuel assemblies into its coolant.