This week’s audio netcast features Columbia University’s Ira Katznelson discusses the compromises made by Franklin Roosevelt to keep the Democratic Party together in order to advance the New Deal. Is Obama trying the same thing with the Republican Party?
Nissan Yen-Aided Cuts Threaten Detroit Price Discipline is a well-written article that
brings awareness to Japan’s history of currency manipulation and the consequences for Americans.
Nissan’s sales boom has the industry on edge. It’s the first sign of a Japanese automaker taking advantage of the weakening yen that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pushed down to improve Japan’s economy. That currency’s 15 percent swoon versus the dollar since Oct. 31 gives Japanese automakers an extra $1,500 per car they can use to cut prices or offer additional features while keeping prices even, according to Morgan Stanley.
Nissan’s marketing moves “strike me as a scorched earth policy of going for market share and sales volume at seemingly all costs,” said Michelle Krebs, a Royal Oak, Michigan-based analyst with auto researcher Edmunds.com.
That’s pressuring Detroit to maintain new-found discipline on discounting. An over-reliance on rebates and price cuts helped lead to Detroit’s downfall last decade. In order to survive, the predecessors of General Motors Co. (GM) and Chrysler Group LLC required government-funded bankruptcies in 2009 and Ford needed a self-financed reorganization.
The practice of manipulating their currency to gain advantage at the expense of American industry and jobs has been used extensively in the past and was a primary reason for the automakers needing bridge loans in 2008-2009. As discussed in last week’s post regarding my appearance on Auto Talk with Dave Finkelstein I made this point to listeners of St. Louis’ right -wing radio station 97.1 FM.
How did currency manipulation help the Japanese firms steal market share?
Japanese automakers may wage a “silent price war,” in which they outfit new
models with extra features while keeping sticker prices in check.
Combine that with bigger profits,
The weaker yen will add $2.7 billion to Nissan’s operating profit this year,
Deutsche Bank estimated.
So the practice of currency manipulation helps Japanese manufacturers gain an advantage in the form of lower prices, more content, and higher profits. All this from a government policy not more productive, efficient, innovative, or higher quality products. Add in other practices such as direct research and development and a variety of subsidies courtesy of the Japanese and Korean government is it any wonder American automakers were pressured?
Of course a floating tariff to equalize the value of a currency’s manipulation would create a level playing field for all producers and avoid the circumstance in which domestic manufacturers, the ones providing tax revenue and jobs, are disadvantaged because policymakers don’t want to intervene.
Funny, how many of these same policymakers literally go ballistic if a foreign nation would invade this nation to take our freedom but are nonchalant about these nations destroying American industry, jobs, and futures. OK, not that funny.
Andy Borowitz reports on the NSA and Father’s Day…
(The Borowitz Report)—Americans sent over a hundred million Father’s Day messages on Sunday, the National Security Agency reported today.
The hundred-million number, while robust, falls short of the hundred and twenty million Mother’s Day messages collected by the N.S.A. in May.
The difference between the two figures is “not surprising,” said N.S.A. director General Keith B. Alexander. He added, “On the whole, mothers take Mother’s Day more seriously—if the e-mails we read by mothers whose children forgot are any indication.”
General Alexander said that the agency collected in the neighborhood of two to three million such e-mails from angry mothers this year.
Enjoy this video of Stephen Colbert roasting George W. Bush at the 2006 Correspondents Dinner. Besides world class sarcasm take note of the many references to the NSA wiretap programs. Funny how the press didn’t want to cover the issue then but acts like it’s all new news now.
This week the Post-Dispatch carried an interesting health story that relates directly to your paycheck. I’ll explain in a minute. Waist size gains attention as gauge for health compared the differences between using waist-to-height ration and Body Mass Index (BMI).
Waist-to-height ratio may be a more accurate measure of cardiovascular health risk than the current standard, the body mass index, a local expert says.
He’s confident that the waist-to-height ratio may soon eclipse the BMI as a measure of risk for lifestyle diseases such as cardiovascular disease, heart attack, stroke and diabetes.
Not so fast, says another expert: While the height-weight ratio has value, it needs to mature a bit to be more precise.
The ratio says waistlines should be no more than half of height, said Dr. Mario Morales, medical director of the SSM Weight-Loss Institute at DePaul Health Center. For example, a 6-foot (72 inches) person should maintain a waistline of 36 inches, he said. Growing past that can lead to health risks, he said.
Recent studies show risks that developed from the 50 percent point grow with the waistlines, he said, to the point that people whose waistlines reach 80 percent of their height shortened their life spans by 17 years.
Besides concerns related to quality of life and longevity how could this affect your paycheck? The word around town is that a major St. Louis employer is implementing a program that bases employee insurance premiums on their Body Mass Index. As in lower premiums for lower BMI and more cost sharing for those with a higher BMI. Talk about invasion of privacy! Obamacare eliminates insurance companies denying coverage for pre-existing conditions but now employers can penalize you – bad news. BMI is also bad news, particularly for athletes as it’s flawed premise will cost the healthiest more if they worked at one of these firms basing premiums on BMI. As the article notes, even the former Governor of California was a fat slob according to BMI.
It was found to be useless to the point of humorous for athletes whose weight is due to muscle mass rather than body fat. The most commonly used example is that Arnold Schwartzenegger’s BMI was 30.8 during his peak years, which would categorize him as obese.
I have included a picture of Arnold in his peak years to illustrate what BMI obesity looks like.
With it’s penalty for athletic body types, could BMI actually discourage folks from exercising and lead to a less healthy individual? Perhaps employers could spend less time in employee’s personal lives and more time on quality of life issues like better food in the cafeteria and vending machines, sponsoring healthy activities, and proper staffing to avoid the negative health effects of excessive overtime, Then real benefits of a healthy lifestyle could be achieved.
Or is this just another way to shift cost to workers?
Democratic Underground carried this cartoon that combines the Exxon pipeline spill in Arkansas with Missouri’s U.S. Senator Roy Blunt’s payback legislation the Monsanto Protection Act. Enjoy.
Inc. features the story of garment maker American Giant and how they manufacture in the U.S. Particularly interestingis the breakdown of costs associated with production compared to China.
“Google grabbed headlines recently for its decision to make its wearable computer, Google Glass, in California. The tech giant is not alone. As wages in China rise and intellectual property laws continue to be ignored, more companies are doing their manufacturing closer to home.
American Giant is one of them. The San Francisco-based clothing company sources its materials and manufactures its polos and sweatshirts in the U.S.
A lot of companies underestimate how much American suppliers have closed the price gap, particularly for high-quality materials. American Giant, for example, discovered less-expensive fabric here at home. And Bayard Winthrop, founder and president of the company, doesn’t have to worry about currency fluctuations and the longer lead times required when dealing with overseas suppliers.”
Time magazine’s Michael Grunwald brings some sanity to the subject of energy/economic development with A Bump on the Road to Green. His premise is that while Solyndra and Fisker Automotive may have lacked the right stuff to succeed in the marketplace their failure amounts to a few broken eggs on the way to a delicious omelet. 
If we were to look at the entire basket of loans and projects being nurtured by the Department of Energy $40 billion loan program some great things are being accomplished.
The larger point is that overall, as an independent review by Republican Senator John McCain’s finance chairman confirmed, the Energy Department’s $40 billion loan portfolio is performing well. It’s also transforming the energy landscape with America’s largest wind farm, a half-dozen of the world’s largest solar plants, cellulosic-biofuel refineries and much more. Obama didn’t support one company or one technology; he supported all kinds of plausible alternatives to fossil fuels. He didn’t pick winners and losers; he picked the game of cleaner energy. And we’re winning. The U.S. has doubled its production of renewable power. Our carbon emissions are at their lowest levels since the early 1990s. And after decades when the U.S. invented products like solar panels and lithium-ion batteries only to see them manufactured and deployed abroad, we’re finally making green stuff at home. For example, not only are we generating twice as much wind power, we’re making twice as many of the components for U.S. wind turbines.
The current issue of Inc. magazine’s Between Venus and Mars, which describes the most effective personality traits and styles of business leaders supports the broken egg/omelet analogy.
Just a few years ago, failure was not an option. Today, it is considered a necessary catalyst for personal growth.
So in the business world, a world the most rabid Republicans and critics of the Department of Energysupposedly represent, it is accepted fact that life is a learning experience which means there are occassional failures and lessons to be learned. It seems as if the business leaders are years ahead of the GOP critics.
Of course being disconnected from realityhas become common practice in right-wing circles. Only in this alternative universe is it acceptable to ignore huge numbers of unemployed constituents, deny damage to the environment, and threaten the benefits of senior citizens in the name of corporate tax cuts and subsidies for fossil fuel producers.
Senator John McCain continues his mission to demonstrate the bubble he lives in is 
impenetrable. When he’s not making secret trips around the world trying to get involved in another war he’s busy arguing that this country should let any product be sold, no matter the consequences.
His latest effort on the Farm Bill is to allow contaminated catfish to be served on your dinner table. The Coalition for a Prosperous America has the story. How are these fish raised and processed before you eat them? Check out this video.
Have fun with this video from Crooks and Liars as they bring you Bill Mahers’ New Rules. Bill takes Ronald Reagan apart and rubs the bronze right off the statue that has been falsely erected in his name.
Ronald Reagan was an anti-government, union busting, race baiting, anti-abortion and anti-gay, anti-intellectual, who cut rich people’s taxes in half, had an incurable case of the military industrial complex, and said Medicare was socialism, that would destroy our freedom.
Sounds to me like he would fit in just fine. [...]
But what they cannot contest is even though Ronald Reagan did a few things today’s GOP would not like, he wrote the playbook for them on every issue of consequence. Sure he raised taxes a few times, but when you look at where he started with taxes and where he ended, this is where our income inequality problem began. He invented Voodoo economics.
On race, his ideas couldn’t have been more tea party if he shouted them from a Rascal scooter. He ran on states’ rights. He invented the notion that black people get all the breaks. [...] Reagan just made shit up. Something else, he pioneered for his party of today.
He described the New Deal as fascism, Medicaid recipients as waiting for handouts, unemployment insurance as pre-paid vacation for freeloaders, and once said, “A tree’s a tree, how many more do you need to look at?”
He was the original, official pitch man for bat-shit, where they hold up signs that say “No socialized medicine.” Where do you think they got it from? We got it from you dad. We got it from you.
