Tuition at the California State University will be double of what it was in 2007-08. But it’s still not enough. Now CSU threatened taxpayers and prospective students with stunning enrollment cutbacks, unless—this smells of extortion—it gets its tax increases on the ballot and passed. University of California is also jacking up tuition and cutting enrollment. And yet, a lavish multi-billion-dollar building boom continues on campuses around the state.
Monthly Archives: March 2012
China, the Number One Foreign Investor in Germany
by Wolf Richter • • 3 Comments
The latest success—I suppose you could call it that, at least for those involved on the financial end—was the Kiekert deal last week. The company was founded in 1857 near Düsseldorf, Germany, and became the largest manufacturer of automotive door-lock systems. Its customers are GM, Ford, VW, BMW, and other automakers around the world. But now a Chinese company bought Kiekert, the sign of a sea change.
Loitering Inanely by a Sign I Can’t Read
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Loitering Inanely by a Sign I Can’t Read
Tokyo, May 1996. My relationship with her exhibits all the characteristics of the one-sided trade relationship between the US and Japan. I pay a fortune to be in her country. Though I’m learning Japanese, she refuses to speak it with me. She has seen every aspect of my life in Japan. But I’m not allowed near her house, and her parents don’t know I exist. I haven’t met any of her friends, don’t even know their names.
A Revolt, the Quiet Japanese Way
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on A Revolt, the Quiet Japanese Way
New revelations seeped out about the control Japan’s nuclear industry had over regulators. In 2006, the Nuclear Safety Commission studied the enlargement of disaster-mitigation zones. But the Economics Ministry put an end to it, worried that it ”could cause social unrest and increase popular anxiety.” Five years later, after the preventable meltdowns at the Fukushima power plant, the people paid the price.
Inflation in the Cost of Corruption
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Inflation in the Cost of Corruption
Inflation pervades every aspect of our lives, from skyrocketing gasoline to rents to well, corruption. But inflation in the cost of under-the-table payments is notoriously difficult to measure, and so it’s not included in any of the indices. But in Germany, which is historically paranoid, and rightfully so, about inflation, after two wipe-outs in one generation, there’s progress: inflation in the cost of corruption can now be estimated.
The $10-Per-Gallon Gas Has Arrived, In Paris
by Wolf Richter • • 4 Comments
In early December, Christophe de Margerie, CEO of Total, the Exxon à la Française, shocked the French when he said that there was “no doubt” that a liter of gasoline would reach €2 and that the only question was when. He cited the calamities in the news at the time to justify the skyrocketing prices of oil and gasoline—source of Total’s mega profits. He was talking his book, obviously, which isn’t illegal, not even in France.
The Natural Gas Massacre
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The Natural Gas Massacre
Natural gas is dirt cheap, hovering at a 10-year low. In the US, that is. In other parts of the world, natural gas is four, five times more expensive—a rare discrepancy in a globalized economy. But the US, largest producer in the world, stunningly, has no facilities to export it. So President Obama has made dirt-cheap natural gas a cornerstone of his energy policy, but investors are bloodied, and drilling activity is falling off a cliff.
Plot Twist While French Businesses Are Dying
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Plot Twist While French Businesses Are Dying
France, tangled up in a presidential election with major implications for the Eurozone, has gotten used to watching President Sarkozy getting clobbered in a historic fashion by socialist Hollande. But on Tuesday, the country woke up to the news—quelle horreur—that their presumed loser was suddenly ahead in the polls. Amidst this chaos, two fundamental cross currents in the French economy went practically unnoticed, though they should have caused an outburst of national soul searching.
The Astounding Fuel Price Conundrum
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The Astounding Fuel Price Conundrum
Republicans are trying to tar President Obama with gas prices that are creeping up on $4 a gallon and are shooting for an all-time high. The strategy is working. Obama’s approval rating on handling gas prices has plunged. In San Francisco, gas is already $4.50. Yet across the Bay are five oil refineries that together are the largest exporters of petroleum products in the nation.
The Bomb Incident
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The Bomb Incident
Tokyo, May 1996. One of the newsstands at Takadanobaba station carries the Wall Street Journal Asia. Before 8 a.m., the wrinkled prewar archetype has two copies. By 8:45 a.m., he’s down to one. By 9 a.m., he’s out. And now that I live a few minutes away, I get there in time to grab the last copy. Surely, the same two guys have been buying them for years, and now I come along and muck up their system. I feel like a thief.