“Despite all of the rhetoric to the contrary, it looks like the air got let out of the balloon,” commented the members of the Survey Panel of the ISM-Chicago Business Survey; the closely watched numbers had suddenly taken a turn for the worse. But the phenomenon wasn’t limited to the Chicago area. And now there are real reasons for concern.
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Mad Cow: the Costs of Trying to Keep Costs Down
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Mad Cow: the Costs of Trying to Keep Costs Down
“The US is one of two major beef-exporting countries with no comprehensive traceability system,” said Erin Borror, economist at the Meat Export Federation. The other country is India. The issue was Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or Mad Cow Disease. Humans contract it by eating contaminated beef. It’s always fatal. Lack of traceability “places the US at risk if an outbreak occurs in this country,” Borror said. That was last November.
Immigration and the Housing Quagmire
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Immigration and the Housing Quagmire
Pundits who have been announcing the imminent turnaround in housing for the last few years were disappointed once again by the Case-Shiller composite, which declined 0.8% for the month and 3.5% for the year. It has fallen to a level last seen in October 2002. Since that time, inflation has eaten up another 27%, which would take the composite back to the 1990s. And now, even a trend that supported housing for decades has reversed.
What On Earth Were They Thinking at GM?
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on What On Earth Were They Thinking at GM?
To save $2 billion in some distant year—at least that’s the official story—GM bought 7% of French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroën. Perhaps it hoped that the alliance would bail out its bleeding subsidiary Opel. But what GM bought into was one of the most uncompetitive automakers in one of the toughest auto markets in the world. And there is no happy end in sight.
The Big Rift Between Germany and France
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The Big Rift Between Germany and France
The crowd at the Place de la Concorde in Paris on Sunday, one week before the first round of elections, had come to hear French President Nicolas Sarkozy beg for his job. And politicians were listening warily … in Germany. He’d already shocked them in March when he’d declared that he wanted to renegotiate the Schengen Treaty. Now he went after the independence of the European Central Bank. Germany’s answer was swift.
Deer Sashimi
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Deer Sashimi
A New Beginning in Japan: Glimmers of False Hope?
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on A New Beginning in Japan: Glimmers of False Hope?
April 1 marks a new beginning in Japan and coincides roughly with the arrival of cherry blossoms. The first ethereal pink was sighted last week in Kochi. Now blossoms have appeared in Tokyo. Full bloom is expected by Friday. Last year, after the horrific earthquake and tsunami that took over 18,000 lives, cherry-blossom events had been canceled. But this year, it’s different. And there is even an uptick in the numbers.
Bluebelly Mousse
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Bluebelly Mousse
Japan, May 1996. The joys of eating cement us together, and the harmony between us emboldens me. We finish the fifth course, sautéed almond trout, and as I’m pouring the remainder of our bottle of wine, I broach the subject that has been on my mind for weeks and that I’ve broached in subtle ways before without getting a response. Now I want to violate yarikata. I want to communicate with her clearly and directly, with personal pronouns and all.
Now They Have Another Speculative Bubble in China: Art
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Now They Have Another Speculative Bubble in China: Art
We’ve seen photos of apartment buildings and neighborhoods, lavishly laid out with avenues and shopping centers where the only missing element was human life. And we raised our eyebrows at the revolts in front of real-estate offices when prices crashed. And we marveled at booming luxury car sales or the blistering stock market that blew up. Now they have another hot investment. And they pushed the US into second place, again.
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.