Right Wing Echo Chamber

Last week the right wing thunk tank and taxpayer funded lobby group the Fraser Institute discovered corporate welfare. And sure enough their political lobby arm the Canadian Taxpayers Federation echos their masters voice;



Mr. Gaudet said the collapse of the auto industry remains inevitable despite this latest surge of public cash. "There is no evidence in the past that corporate welfare works," he said. This bailout will only lead other financially struggling companies and industries in this tough economic time to also expect a government shell-out, Mr. Gaudet warned. "The government can't bail them all out," he said. "It's hard to justify to a laid-off Nortel worker why his or her tax dollars should go to support artificially inflated salaries in the auto industry."



Which Nortel workers are those? The ones left working in China?

My goodness but this is funny to hear the CTF speak on behalf of workers. This political lobby of business types, who are not taxpayers, whose association does not speak for workers but a small self interested right wing business lobby, whose association is not democratic and has no elected officials simply employed self appointed spokesmen.

But as the article goes on to point out actually the last time Chrysler was bailed out they paid back their debt. However it seems ominous that this apologist for the capitalist class is telling us the Big 3 are doomed. Of course as usual they blame workers salaries and production costs for being uncompetitive. However as usual they never let the facts get in the way of their rhetoric. In Canada the wages and benefits paid to Toyota workers who are not unionized are competitive with CAW wages and benefits. Not less but competitive. Yet no one is telling Toyota workers to take a wage cut.

And like the Big 3 Toyota is cutting back on production as well. The crisis of overproduction has hit automakers around the globe, thanks of course to globalization.

We are facing a two fold crisis in capitalism, the fiancial market meltdown and the crisis of overproduction and underconsumption. Nothing new in that it is just the same old same old as Marx pointed out 150 years ago.

SEE

Bail Out Is Not Job Security

Chrysler Black Mail

There Is An Alternative To Capitalism

Auto Solution II

We Own GM

Auto Solution

tagsMGuinty, GM, concesssion bargaining, unions, trade union, Marx, Ontario, Corporate Welfare, Canada, cars, automobilie, production, taxes, tax credit, investment, environment, hybrid, self-valorization,, self-management,, workers control,, autoworkers,, KEN LEWENZA,,CAW, Big Three Auto,, libertarian socialism, automobile, Chrysler, Tony Clement, business unions, auto parts, workers, layoffs, plant-closings, workers-control, unions, labour, Canada

Command Capitalism

China remains a one party state, not unlike Alberta, and the command economy has transformed into command capitalism. China's model of capitalism is an alternative to American style capitalism, and to prove its model to the world it is expanding its own form of Free Trade agreements with newly emerging capitalist economies. Welcome to 21st Century Imperialism.

This is why Bush and Harper have spent the last few weeks in international meetings defending American Capitalsim, China and Europe offer other models of capitalism, with China coming to the aid of countries abandoned by the Americans or in some cases like Costa Rica directly competing for market share with the Americans. China has embraced Free Trade in direct competition with the U.S. including in its own backyard. And depsite Bush's claims that free markets creat free people, China proves that democracy and freedom are not inherent to capitalism.

Capitalism in the west developed out of the collapse of autarchic fuedalism, not much differnt than the autarchy of command economies in the East. In fact all of Asia's capitalist development has been by autarchic state capitalsm, some under right wing military dictatorships, such as Korea and Taiwan, or through the Japanese model of an integrated Military Banking Industrial State complex or through the Chinese model.

And all ot the real growth in Asia has come about with fordist manufaturing and the creation of a proletariat.And with the development of a Chinese proletariat based on fordist manufacturing model comes the inevitable, workers organizing to improve their standards of living. And being tied into the international capitalist market place means that China too suffers when capitalism melts down. Forcing it to expend its mass of capital in promoting trade for its products and to speed up production for its own consumption.

Governments need to move fast, because this crisis, which has taken several forms already, is about to change form again. In the past few months, we've moved from a seizing up of credit markets to the collapse of economic demand in the mainstream economy. Soon we could see a string of sovereign defaults of poor and emerging economies that can't meet their debt obligations.
Even worse, hundreds of millions of previously poor people from Hungary and Turkey to India and China - recent arrivals in the global middle class who've benefited from an economic boom fuelled by endless quantities of cheap credit - are about to see their standard of living fall of a cliff. Around the world, Western-style capitalism will be discredited, as it's perceived to have wiped out people's jobs and life savings.

The United States' superpower status will wane over the next two decades as power spreads among several countries and moves from the West to the East, a report by the country's intelligence agency says.
The National Intelligence Council's Global Trends report, issued every four years to document looming problems, predicts a new global system will emerge where no single state dominates.
"By 2025, the U.S. will find itself as one of a number of important actors on the world stage, albeit still the most powerful one," the report by U.S. intelligence agencies says.
China is poised to have more impact than any other country, but the report also foresees a rise by India and Russia.
If trends continue, the report predicts China will have the world's second-largest economy by 2025, be a leading military power, while becoming the world's largest importer of natural resources and also the biggest polluter.
What is striking, the report notes, is that none of the three rising stars adhere to a Western liberal model but rather a system of state capitalism, under which the government takes a key role in economic management.
The transition will leave a world system "almost unrecognizable" in comparison to today, the report says.

Hu visit marks China's growing interest in Latin America
Chinese President Hu Jintao begins a Latin America tour on Monday, taking in Costa Rica, Cuba and Peru, as China tightens economic ties and the region hopes for help in tougher times.
The Asian giant has increased diplomacy and investment in Latin America in recent years, with an eye on its natural resources and developing markets for manufactured goods and even arms.
Many in Latin America hope for an investment boost to help ride out the economic crisis.
Exports from the continent to China include soya and iron ore from Brazil, soya from Argentina, copper from Chile, tin from Bolivia, and oil from Venezuela.
The trade is still only a small percent of the continent's total, but it is growing.
China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported this month that exports to Latin America grew 52 percent in the first nine months of 2008 to 111.5 billion dollars.
Hu will visit San Jose and Havana between a G-20 meeting on the global crisis in Washington on November 15 and an Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit in Peru on November 22.
"It's more than just symbolic that Hu Jintao has decided to come, because it is clearly making the point that it is no longer a Taiwanese stronghold," said Costa Rican analyst Luis Guillermo Solis.
Both Taiwan and China have been accused of using so-called "dollar diplomacy" to get nations to ally with them.
But China's economic might is hard to compete with, especially in tough economic times.
Part of China's incentives to Costa Rica came from China's enormous foreign exchange reserves with an offer to buy 300 million dollars in bonds.
Costa Rica, a major exporter of computer components, is now prepared to negotiate a free trade deal with China, the foreign trade minister said here this week, dismissing fears of an invasion of Chinese products into the tiny Costa Rican market.
China has expanded its high level missions to the whole continent in recent years, making investments and agreements with such oil producers as Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.
"The fact is that China has been locked out of a lot of countries for energy deals" in the past, Brown said. "It's going to be going into these areas more and more."
China has also advanced to economic assistance and direct investment, sometimes taking over from the region's main commercial partner and neighbor, the United States.
The teaching of Chinese in schools and universities and scholarships to China, as in Costa Rica's deal, add to a charm offensive.
And although Latin American economies are in a stronger position to withstand financial setbacks than in the past, a strong economic partner such as China is more attractive than ever.

China is Costa Rica's second-largest trading partner -- although the amount of trade between the two countries is subject to interpretation. China claims it imported $2.3 billion in goods from Costa Rica in 2007, and exported $570 million. Costa Rican officials have said exports to China were valued at $848 million and imports at $763 million. Either set of numbers seems like small potatoes compared to Costa Rica's trade with the U.S.: $3.9 billion in exports last year, and $4.6 billion in imports, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.

A free trade agreement to be signed by China and Peru in March will go into effect in the second half of 2009, if everything goes as planned, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced. The agreement will benefit China’s light machinery industry as well as those of its electronics, domestic appliances, heavy machinery, automobile engines, chemical items, vegetables and fruit. Peru's fishmeal and aquatic products industry, as well as its mining sector, among others, will be reaping benefits from the accord, Reuters reports.

Tacos, Ugly Betty gain Mexico a foothold in China
MEXICO CITY — Armed with tortillas and telenovelas, Mexican companies that have relied on trade ties to the United States are heading to China, challenging old images of a country that many Mexicans consider a rival for foreign investment and jobs.
Mexican exports to China have jumped nine-fold since 2000, soaring from $ 204 million to $ 1. 9 billion in 2007. It’s the fastest growing market for and seventh-largest buyer of Mexican goods, according to Mexico’s government.
Some of Mexico’s most prominent companies have opened operations in China since 2006, expanding beyond their traditional trading turf in the Americas and Europe to vie for a foothold in what is expected to become the world’s biggest market. Even amid the current economic slowdown, China’s 2009 growth rate is projected to hover around 8 percent.
“This is a great signal that commercial relations between Mexico and China are on a good path,” said Juan Jose Ling, director of GDEM, a business development group that promotes Chinese-Mexican ties.
But Mexico relies more than its neighbors on manufactured exports, and many Mexicans saw the Asian giant as an economic enemy that diverted jobs and foreign capital. Since 2000, hundreds of thousands of Mexican jobs have been lost as foreign-owned assembly plants moved to China — which displaced Mexico as the secondlargest supplier of goods to the United States after Canada in 2003, U. S. Census Bureau data show.
China also was accused of flooding markets with low-cost toys and textiles. Even ubiquitous statuettes of Mexico’s iconic Lady of Guadalupe now bear the stamp “Made in China.” Yet more than a dozen big Mexican companies no longer see China as a financial foe, and have joined the global race to capture a slice of its $ 1. 3 trillion retail market.

In Beijing, well-planned modern infrastructure sits comfortably alongside historic monuments. Massive ring roads and modern high-rise apartments seem to be perfectly synchronised to ensure perfect movement of traffic and human beings.
This city of more than 11 million people lacks the chaos that is the hallmark of so many Asian megacities such as Mumbai. It also lacks the stern rigidity of cities of state-controlled countries.
China was not always like this. Free markets and capitalism were allowed to flourish in this communist country 30 years ago when the Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping, introduced economic reforms that sought to modernise agriculture, industry, science and technology.
Known as the architect of China’s emergence as an economic powerhouse, Deng managed to unleash what the Lonely Planet guide refers to as “the long-repressed capitalist instincts of the Chinese” by reforming the agricultural sector, creating special economic zones and “growth poles” in urban areas that served as boomtowns and factories for China’s exports.
In the 1990s, China began intensifying its pro-urban development strategy by investing heavily in cities to boost economic growth.
The results have been remarkable. China’s economic growth has soared to 9 per cent a year and the country has been able to lift nearly 500 million people out of extreme poverty within one generation.
THE QUALITY OF LIFE FOR URBAN residents has improved with cities such as Beijing having the lowest levels of income inequality in the world. Shanghai now stands alongside Singapore and New York as a city with the tallest buildings.
More than 300 million rural migrants have moved to cities since 1980 and 60 per cent of the country’s population is projected to be urban by 2030.
Urbanisation has been one of the key pillars upon which China’s economic success rests.
But unlike other countries, particularly in Africa, rapid urbanisation has not led to the proliferation of slums. This is because China is still a command-and-control economy that can mobilise resources quickly to respond to changing demands.
According to James Adams, the vice-president of the World Bank’s East Asia and Pacific region, “China recognised early on that urban development is not possible on the cheap and that building ahead of demand makes lots of sense.”
He notes that Beijing and Tianjin spend more than 10 per cent of their GDP on roads, water and sewerage services, housing construction and transport, and that “China’s phenomenal ability to mobilise financial resources for urban development through domestic credit and foreign direct investment is what keeps the funds for cities coming.”
National policies that give Chinese municipalities the authority to implement regulations governing land use and transport and decentralised urban planning have also played a part in helping China’s cities to cope with rapid urbanisation more effectively than other middle-income countries such as Brazil and South Africa.
The cracks, however, are beginning to show. Sit-ins and protests by workers in China’s booming industrial cities are on the rise.
Rural-urban disparities are widening, and a growing urban middle class is beginning to ask difficult questions about democracy, freedom of expression and human rights.
The global financial crisis is also having an impact on the economic growth rate, which is projected to slow down.
Nonetheless, as I sipped a glass of Chinese Cabernet Sauvignon wine in a bookshop-cum-café in Beijing, I found it hard to make a case against China’s development model.
I mean, does it really matter if the CEO of your bank is an official of the Communist Party? And what use is democracy when it can’t help put dinner on the table?

Warning from China's premier
"We must be aware that this year would be the worst in recent times for our economic development," Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao warned in the Communist Party magazine Qiushi on November 1."It is very difficult to maintain high growth and a low inflation rate in the long run. These unfavourable factors have already affected our country, and will continue to. There are also many pronounced problems in domestic economic activity," he wrote.As Minqi Li explained in an article in the April 2008 Monthly Review, China's economic growth in the late 1990s and 2000s depended heavily on it being a net exporter. The US alone accounts for 20 per cent of China's total export market, so a US recession alone would have a major impact. In 2007, Europe replaced the US as China's largest export market but Europe too has gone into recession.China's rapid economic growth also relied on Chinese capitalists (state and private) and foreign capitalists operating in China exploiting labour at a rate of about "one-twentieth of that in the US, one-sixteenth that of South Korea, one-quarter of that in Eastern Europe and one-half of that in Mexico or Brazil".While, a large, productive, and cheap labour force allows Chinese capitalists and foreign capitalists in China to profit from intense and massive exploitation, this places a brake on domestic demand making up for collapsing Western export markets.

The initial phases of the Free Trade Agreement between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have brought significant benefits for both parties, helping to absorb external pressures at a time of slowing global growth.
On Oct. 22, Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan told the fifth China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit that it is paramount for the two partners to accelerate their economic cooperation in the face of weakening global demand. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) officials also stated their wish for deeper economic ties with China, stressing the need to reduce the bloc's exposure to slowing demand from the U.S., Europe and Japan.
Structural shift. China's economy is moving away from traditional processing and assembly operations, sourcing more components domestically as its industries move up the value chain. Southeast Asia lacks the technology and skills to provide many of the required high-end imports and raw materials. It thus risks the prospect of a shrinking trade surplus with China and greater vulnerability to currency fluctuations.

Reform of financial system
(China Daily)Updated: 2008-11-15 17:07
As leaders of the 20 largest economies gather in Washington DC to discuss a coordinated plan to deal with the global financial crisis, it is necessary to reassess the existing US dollar-dominated international financial system. It is a speculation-rife, supervision-lacking system.
After the collapse of the Bretton Woods System in the early 1970s, the US rushed to introduce the Jamaica System, which is still in effect, in an attempt to carry forward its financial dominance. The Jamaica System, strictly speaking, is not new, and it has elements of Bretton Woods.
Under this financial structure, the US has excessively indulged itself in the benefits, but has tried to shrink from its responsibility as the world's largest economy. The superpower's unrestrained issuance of dollars to bolster its unrestrained domestic credit consumption and its efforts to maximize its national interests by adopting policies, such as transferring financial risk and crisis to other countries, has added vulnerability to the international financial system.
An absolute authority always leads to corruption. The unchallenged hegemony of the US has contributed to its abuse of power and conduct.
Long ago the European Union proposed that the international community strengthen supervision over hedge funds, which mainly stem from the US, and serves as an important source of its financial capital.
The EU's recommendation has repeatedly been ignored by Washington. As an important prop of the Bretton Woods System, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has long been utilized by the US as a tool to push for neo-liberalism worldwide.
While offering aid to some crisis-plagued emerging economies, the lame-duck organization has never given up its interference in the economic jurisdiction of recipients in contravention of the UN. This has plunged some of these countries into a worse economic situation, sometimes resulting in political and social upheaval.
Since the exposure of the US financial crisis, the IMF has remained idle and other international financial bodies, such as the World Bank and the Bank of International Settlement, due to serious defects, have also been unable to play their roles as creditors and effective monitors.
The current defective international financial system has been widely criticized, but no country can ignore the dominant role of the US in it.
However, the unprecedented international financial tsunami in a century we are experiencing, and the summit on the crisis, have offered a rare opportunity for some competing players to change the existing international financial establishment to their advantage.
The hegemonic status of the US is now under challenge from its friend on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the EU. For many years, the expanded EU has pushed for market integration among its members and accordingly consolidated its strength to rival the US. That can be seen by the rising status of the euro in international markets.
It has been elevated to a major international currency, but admittedly it still has a long way to go before dethroning the US dollar as the world's leading reserve currency.
Behind the euro there is no unified capital market, military or fiscal policy. European countries have different economic development levels and political preferences.
At the same time, the regional community is plagued by problems of immigration, and an aging population. All this present hurdles to snatching the world's No 1 financial status from the US.
The EU has also been a beneficiary of the US-manipulated international financial order. So it is not difficult to understand why up to now it has not proposed major reforms.
We look forward to some positive measures from the Washington summit but should not pin our hopes too high.
The author Jiang Yong is a researcher with the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations

Crisis puts brake on sales of cars

By Patti Waldmeir Financial Times

It had to happen sometime: after several years of stratospheric growth, the Chinese vehicle industry has come back to earth with a bump - and found itself facing a grim reality of weak demand and cut-throat competition that could persist well into the future.Even before the western financial world imploded - stoking fears of a global recession that has chilled the hearts of car buyers, even in faraway China - industry analysts were expecting a slowdown in Chinese car sales this year. But by that, they meant 15 or 20 per cent growth (down from 34 per cent in 2006 and 24 per cent last year) - not low single-digits this year, and flat sales next year, as predicted recently by JD Power, the auto consultancy.Chinese car industry growth had defied gravity for so long - rising from only 5,000 cars in 1980 to 5.8m forecast for 2008, making it the world's second largest auto market - that it was hard to imagine anything could cause such a hard landing. But that was before the credit crisis.In many ways, Chinese car buyers ought to have been well insulated from the crisis: according to Mike Dunne of JD Power in Shanghai, 93 per cent of car purchases are still made with cash. But Li Shufu, chairman of Geely, one of China's largest automakers, says the effect is predominantly psychological. "If consumers think the global economic situation is bad, they also think maybe prices will fall," and they stop buying cars, he told the Financial Times recently in an interview. In China, no one wants to buy a car until the price is as low as possible.But China's car industry was already highly competitive, even before the threat of further price declines. According to Dieter Seemann, commercial executive director of Shanghai Volkswagen, one of VW's two carmaking joint ventures, China has 81 automotive brands compared with 47 in the US - the world's largest car market - and 47 carmakers compared to 16 in the US. VW says prices fell by a staggering 37 per cent from 2001 to 2007, and forecasts further price erosion of 8 per cent from 2008 to 2010. In the short term, says Joseph Liu, General Motors' Asia-Pacific head of sales and marketing, "everyone will suffer".But the medium- to long-term forecast is more cheerful. Nick Reilly, head of Asia-Pacific operations for GM, says market fundamentals remain strong. GM is still forecasting 10 per cent growth for this year and as much or more for next. "I don't see this as the start of a significant decline," he says.Jeffrey Shen, president of Changan Ford Mazda, one of Ford's Chinese joint ventures, says: "We see this as a shortterm adjustment. Long term the [growth] trend in the Chinese automotive industry will continue." Ford believes that when per capita GDP reaches $6,000, the industry will boom and carbuying "will get into every family", Mr Shen says.Ford acknowledges that car sales in China's richer, more export-focused east and south have slowed, but says sales in the interior are beginning to take up the slack - as China has shifted manufacturing production to cheaper regions.In the longer term, one basic fact remains paramount: only 20 out of 1,000 people in China own a car (compared wi th roughly 500 per 1,000 in the US and EU). That fundamental fact will drive the industry for many years to come.Most industry forces expect the Chinese government to stimulate demand in the short term, as a way of propping up the economy in difficult times. "The car industry can serve as a cushion for the overall economy," a senior official of Changan Motors, a large state-owned automaker, said recently. But in the longer term, Beijing's ambitions are much grander.China knows it missed out on decades of automotive technology, because of its Communist past. Now Beijing plans to leapfrog that gap to a new greener future: One plug-in hybrid electric car is expected on the Chinese market within weeks, from BYD, the upstart Shenzhen battery manufacturer that recently rose from nothing to become the biggest-selling Chinese auto maker. And nearly all of China's other leading auto companies say they are working on alternative fuel vehicles. They are counting on backing from Beijing - which has said that 10 per cent of China's cars must run on alternative fuels by 2012 - for everything from tax breaks to the massive infrastructure of charging stations needed for electric cars.China's peculiar brand of authoritarian semi-capitalism could even give Beijing an advantage in the battle, says Paul Gao, author of a recent McKinsey report on electric cars: democracies need to consult on such things as electric vehicles; but Beijing could just decide to support the technology, and it would happen."In China things can happen very fast, or very slowly," says Mr Liu of GM. If the past is any guide, change in the Chinese car industry will be fast-forward

China’s economy losing steam, workers losing jobs and wages
Guangdong province faces millions of job losses in coming months
Vincent Kolo, chinaworker.info
The global capitalist crisis has struck southern China’s export powerhouse Guangdong with the force of a super-typhoon. It is “the worst economic environment of our lives” exclaimed the chief economist of Hong Kong’s Chamber of Commerce. A domino effect of factory closures is rippling through industries such as toys, footwear, textiles and light engineering in Dongguan, Shenzhen, and other heavily industrialised cities in the Pearl River Delta. The Federation of Hong Kong Industries (whose members run their production from the delta) warns of 2.5 million job losses in the coming three months – 27,000 every single day! The same source said 20,000 Hong Kong-owned small and medium-sized enterprises could close down by the Lunar New Year (January 2009).“Depression”For years the world has marvelled at China’s spectacular growth figures, now it should prepare for spectacular figures of another sort! City leaders in Dongguan speak of a “depression” in the city of seven million people, mostly migrant sweatshop workers. Wang Zhiguang, vice chairman of the Dongguan Toy Industry Association, told Guangzhou Daily: “Of some 3,800 toy factories in Dongguan, no more than 2,000 are likely to survive the next couple of years.”Skyrocketing costs for fuel and raw materials, the Chinese currency’s rise, and shrinking export markets, have squeezed already narrow profit margins. “After the EU and the US changed the market thresholds for China-made toys, and because of recalls in 2007, our testing fees have gone up by about 25%,” a toy industry spokesman said.Several Hong Kong-owned factories have gone bust in the last week, including three run by the world’s largest toymaker Smart Union Group, which makes toys for Mattel and Hasbro. “It’s scary,” engineer Zeng Yangwen, 26, who worked for Smart Union for three years, told Reuters. “The companies that folded before were small. This is the first big one to go under.”Daily protestsThousands of workers have lost their jobs and many have taken to the streets to demand unpaid wages. Their former bosses in many cases have spirited away valuable assets and disappeared. Street protests and demonstrations at local government offices have been a daily occurrence in many townships in the region. In at least one case in Shenzhen, at the Xixian factory linked to luxury watch retailer Peace Mark, also Hong Kong-owned, more than 600 workers staged a sit-in for two days to demand their wages. More such protests are on the cards in coming weeks and months.Exporting regions like the Pearl River Delta are the first to be hit by the crisis, as their export markets wither under the impact of the global recession, while input costs have risen, and bank credit has become tighter. This is just the first phase of what is clearly a significant industrial slowdown in China, exacerbated by the simultaneous bursting of gigantic financial bubbles in the Chinese stock market and property sector. Added to this there is of course the global capitalist crisis, which is hammering export markets and threatens new financial upheavals. Asian stock markets sank to four-year lows this week on fears that growing difficulties in China and other ‘emerging markets’ will prolong the global recession. From being a possible ray of hope, China’s faltering economy is becoming another source of despair for the global capitalists.All the above factors mean the current industrial downturn can be far more serious than China’s leaders and most commentators publicly recognise. The Beijing regime continues to reassure the public how ‘basically strong’ the economy is. But in part these statements are tailored to avoid further frightening capitalist ‘investors’ (speculators) – who are more inclined towards panic from the global meltdown than they are to be calmed by recent market-supporting measures from the Chinese regime and central bank.“The slowdown in the Chinese economy so far is unexpectedly serious,” Li Wei of Standard Chartered Bank told China Daily. All the main economic data now point downward. China’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth slowed to 9% in the third quarter, the slowest rate since during the SARS crisis of 2003, and the fifth consecutive quarter of reduced growth. All the forecasts for 2008 and 2009 are being scaled down, and several economists now warn of growth dipping below the crucial 8% level in 2009. Morgan Stanley’s latest forecast is 8.2%, while CICC predicts just 7.3%. Li Wei of Standard Chartered forecasts 7.9% in 2009 and only 7% in 2010. Anything below 8% is a recession in the Chinese context, meaning rocketing unemployment and falling living standards for broad layers of the population.Investment slowsInvestment too, a key motor of GDP growth since the start of the century, has seen a sharp slowdown. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences warns that real fixed asset investment (after compensating for higher producer prices) could grow by 15% overall this year, compared to 20% growth in 2007. This poses big problems for the central government: even its monetary easing (interest rates have been cut twice in the last month) and lifting of earlier credit restrictions on banks, may not have the desired effect if companies are reluctant to invest due to a sluggish market and huge levels of existing surplus capacity. Industries such as steel, coal, and power generation, have grown far beyond the limits of the Chinese economy in the course of a frenetic seven to eight year investment bubble, and are dependent on the country’s XXXL-sized export machine to sustain demand. If this machine fails, so do they. Steel and coal firms have announced production cuts for the first time in years in order to put the brakes on sharply falling prices brought about by lower demand and excess capacity. Coal prices are down 14% and steel by 30% since the summer. 23 of the nations 71 largest steel firms reported losses last month, and Beijing may reintroduce tax incentives for steel exports, despite opposition from the US and EU. Clearly, the slowdown is not confined to export industries or regions, although these are being hit first and hardest.While China’s overall GDP growth still seems impressive by global comparisons, its complex and fragmented economy can experience widely divergent processes at the same time. Guangdong and other coastal provinces are, because of globalisation (they trade more with the US and Europe than with the rest of China), showing clearer signs of recession at this stage than most Western economies. There has been a spate of suicides by capitalists in these provinces. All told perhaps 20 million workers have lost their jobs in 2008 as a result of business collapses. But as the overall economy is still growing, many of these worker (most are migrants) can be absorbed elsewhere. At a certain point in the downward cycle, however, this ability to soak up the new unemployed will likely break down and open unemployment will soar and, with it, the threat of serious unrest.Government measuresProperty markets – pumped up to fantasy levels in the speculative wave of recent years – have deflated sharply, by 40% in some cities such as Shenzhen. The coastal exporting regions that are suffering most from the crisis and the property meltdown are also the main launch-pad for the much discussed but yet to be seen “rebalancing” of the economy towards domestic consumption. Per capita GDP in the wealthiest coastal provinces is roughly twice the level in the north-eastern provinces, three times the level in the central provinces and five or six times the level in the poorest western provinces. Much greater consumption – close to double today’s level – would be needed to break the economy’s huge dependence on exports and avert a serious downturn. If increased consumption does not come from the wealthier provinces, then where? But the combined blows of falling property prices, factory closures and recession, migrants moving elsewhere, will serve to weaken rather than strengthen consumption in these regions. For the first time in modern Chinese history, since the pro-capitalist reform and opening process began 30 years ago, the coastal provinces may be headed for slower growth and greater dislocation than their poor relations in the interior. Already, coastal companies are gearing up for an assault on the markets of other provinces. The stage is being set for a dramatic increase in inter-provincial rivalries and economic disputes. Beijing may find itself in the role of referee at a dogfight!The central government has responded to the current slowdown with a series of measures that include even more investment in infrastructure, restoration of tax rebates to labour intensive export industries (these were cut two years ago as Beijing moved to soften US protectionism) and special rules to ease loan terms for small and medium-sized companies. The pace of currency appreciation will surely slow, if not reverse, and US protests over this fact may be bought off for a time with a Chinese commitment to keep up its lending to the US government’s huge state bailouts. Other steps have been taken to shore up the sinking stock market, to prevent the main CSI 300 index slipping below the psychologically important 2,000 mark. The market has plummeted 70% this year, but the latest measures – using state companies and the sovereign wealth fund, CIC, to buy up shares – have not prevented further falls (the CSI 300 is down on 1,833 points at the time of writing). The government will soon in all probability announce a stimulus package containing tax cuts and extra funds for public investment. It is rumoured that this package will be worth 400bn yuan ($58bn). That the plan has been delayed may reflect deep divisions inside the regime’s economic management team over what ‘mix’ of policies to adopt. Many CCP bigwigs now favour tax cuts, accepting the liberal economists’ argument that this is the fastest way to stimulate consumption. Less than one-third of China’s wage earners would benefit from a tax cut as the remainder do not earn enough to pay any tax. Fear of protestsWhat is the role of local-level governments in the Pearl River Delta and other export hubs in the rising wave of factory closures? There is of course a big risk of instability and even riots and the authorities are keen to diffuse this. At the same time the CCP local administrations have created an environment that allows corrupt capitalists to run their businesses into the ground and then abscond, leaving workers, creditors, and suppliers, in the lurch. Many of today’s fugitive bosses were well integrated with local officials and paid well for their services. Today the factories are being sealed for “immediate auction”, with workers allowed to remain temporarily only in the dormitories and canteens.At the same time the local governments are using public budgets to pay out unpaid wages to redundant workers, a fact that is drawing increasing criticism on similar lines to anger at bank bail-outs in the West. In order to clear the streets and prevent the anger of workers crystallising into a wider struggle across factory or township borders, governments are using the ‘carrot’ of compensation rather than the ‘stick’ of police repression – at least for the time being. The local government in Zhangmutou township, Dongguan, paid out more than 24 million yuan ($3.5 million) to compensate the 7,000 former workers of Smart Union Group, China Daily reported (23 October). This was the township’s entire budget for the coming year! Yet workers are owed four times this amount and may never receive the full amount. Once paid off and dispersed, the authorities hope migrant workers will move onto other jobs or other areas. Rival factories have been sending recruitment agents into the demonstrations in Dongguan and Shenzhen to fill their quota of vacancies.The main focus of workers’ protests has been to get part if not all of the wages they are owed. This is the still basic level at which the struggle stands today, not seeking to challenge the bosses’ right to turn thousands out onto the streets. The perspective of many migrant workers is that 1) they hope and believe that by moving again if necessary they can get new work, and 2) It is not really possible to challenge the bosses and officialdom: “They will do as they want, what can we do?”

The Challenge Of The New Statism
The liberal democracies have experienced financial shocks and reacted, but not as free market advocates expected. Adam Smith’s name is not being loudly heard in the world’s central banks. Instead we have western governments recommending federal interference in their poorly regulated economies and incorporating methods similar to those that guide New Statist nations, such as China and Russia. This phenomenon reveals that Francis Fukayama, who received commendation for his 1989 philosophical tract: The End of History, might have spoken too fast."What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."Fukayama repeated a thesis of often maligned Karl Marx that liberal democracy is an integral part of the capitalist system but refuted Marx's assertion that “capitalism would inevitably lead to increasing class polarization and class conflict,” and “through its own inherent processes of development it is destined to give rise ultimately to its own dissolution." It now seems that both of these scholars have erred and the more prescient is Azar Gat, Professor of National Security at Tel Aviv University. In a Foreign Affairs article: The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers, July/Aug 2007, Professor Gat argues that Fukuyama has not considered the emergence of imposing authoritarian nations, "which could 'end the end of history'." Gat proposes a challenge: “These authoritarian capitalist regimes could inspire other states to follow their model.”The New StatismIn a previous article, The New Statism, The Rise of Corporate States, Alternative Insight, Oct. 2007, the writer independently outlined a similar concept: "A new statism, in various prescriptions, exercises control over the political, moral, economic and social fabric of several nations and has the potential to control the destiny of the world."An earlier article, The Socialization of America, Alternative Insight, April 2005, stated: “The global economy has been pioneered by the United States but has not been a perfect fit for new pioneering nations. In order to provide prosperity for its people, the United States must implement policies that offset the deleterious effects of globalization. American history shows that private industry has never been the sole source of solutions to recurrent economic problems.”The former article described several nations that can be described as "authoritarian capitalist” regimes. China and Russia are the most prominent, but India, Israel, Venezuela, Bolivia and Vietnam, and several autocratic Arab nations can also be considered New Statist. Their institutions include significant New Statist characteristics:The government allows free enterprise but might invest in some industries (mixed economy) and control industries related to national defense, natural resources, communications and media. In some cases it also has extensive land ownership.The government, by direct or indirect mechanisms, partially regulates international money transfers, international trade, wages, prices, internal investment and segments of the labor market.The government promotes nationalism, reinforces chauvinism and allies the education system with these efforts.The government exercises powers that lessen opposition and prevent excessive dissent.With the liberal political and economic world suffering from an economic downfall, emerging nations might be less likely to adopt the free market model and more likely to consideration the autocratic Statist paradigm as an attractive alternative to liberal democracy. Even the free marketers are shelving their concepts and applying Statist solutions for private problems. Rather than an end to history, the liberal democracy movement has become only a stage in history. As predicted by rejected and non-conventional economists, a new stage of history is unfolding.

SEE:

His Masters Voice

Stiglitz On Market Fundamentalism

The New Imperial Age

China Fuels US Inflation

China Burps Greenspan Farts Dow Hiccups

Neo-Liberal State Capitalism In Asia
China: The Triumph of State Capitalism
US vs China for Global Hegemony
China No Longer Red Nor In The Red

China Needs Free Unions

Japanese State Capitalism

China's Trickle Down Economy

New Asian Dragon

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Auto Solution II

Up the road without a map
KEN LEWENZA
national president, Canadian Auto Workers union
November 20, 2008
Your editorial demands CAW concessions as part of any deal to restructure the North American auto industry (Keeping A Foot In The Car Door - Nov. 19).
The CAW was the first major player in the North American industry to respond pro-actively to the devastating effects of the financial crisis and credit crunch. Our new three-year contract freezes wages, suspends cost of living protection, and introduces, once fully implemented, savings totalling $300-million per year (or more than $10,000 per worker, per year) for Canadian auto makers.
Auto labour costs are significantly lower in Canada than in the U.S., Germany and Japan - yet our productivity is higher (at least 10 per cent better than in America).
We didn't write the free trade deals, we don't manage the companies, we don't design the vehicles - we just build them. The best thing we can do as auto workers is to keep building vehicles in the most efficient, high-quality plants in the hemisphere, at competitive costs.

CAW Ken Lewenza says; "We didn't write the free trade deals, we don't manage the companies, we don't design the vehicles - we just build them." And that's the problem. The solution to the auto crisis is not more concessions from the workers, thats been tried and it hasn't worked. Just as federal provincial aid have not helped because we lack a made in Canada Industrial strategy.

Jim Stanford, chief economist at the CAW, said newly signed contracts between the union and the Canadian arms of the Detroit automakers include several unprecedented givebacks, such as an 18-month suspension in cost-of-living increases.
A lack of policy attention from governments in both Canada and the United States have contributed to Detroit's collapse as much as anything else, he said.
"In Japan and Germany and Korea and now China, governments proactively nurture and support high-value export industries like autos. In North America, for the last two decades, we haven't bothered."

Rather the solution is right in front of all of us the workers should control auto manufacturing in Canada they should manage and design the cars not just 'build them'.

Ken if you don't want to discuss concessions then you better start talking about workers control of the means of production.

If there is to be a bailout, let it be for us, the workers. Who dare say we’re unqualified? In the 1920s Italian workers at Fiat and Alfa Romeo took over the plants, and they made cars without bosses. Even as we speak, workers in Venezuela are taking over plants and running them.

And I would add to that the Paris Revolution of 1968 and the Hot Autumn of 1969 when auto workers in France and Italy along with student radicals took over factories and universities and put them under worker control.

Capitalism is in a crisis it is time to socialize capital under workers control.

November 20, 2008
A suggestion for Big Three and UAW (updated)
Michael Nadler
My conceptual solution to the auto company bailout question is as follows:
The federal government makes a one-time only injection of the requested $25 billion into the Big Three in return for a proportionate ownership stake in the companies. Based on the current market capitalization of GM and Ford and my estimate of the market value of privately-held Chrysler, that would give the government about 80% ownership in the 3 companies. (A discount from the market price could be justified for such an investment, providing a higher ownership stake.)
The $25 billion cash injection is conditioned on the United Auto Workers (UAW) accepting a gift of the 80% (or higher) ownership stake from the government, giving the UAW absolute control of the 3 auto companies which will then be exempted from any anti-trust restrictions on consolidations, etc. The fate of the Big 3 and its workers will then be entirely in the hands of the UAW, which could strike the appropriate balance between compensation and competitiveness, as well as the many other issues that will determine the fate of the auto companies it now owns, the jobs they provide and the workers it represents. In that regard, the obligations of the PBGC might be limited as part of this grand bargain.


Workers' control of the means of production?
One of the most influential books on my political outlook when I was first getting politically aware was Geoff Hodgson's The Democratic Economy, published by Pelican Books in 1984. In it he advocated an economy predominantly consisting of worker-owned enterprises: market collectivism, to use a phrase of Jaroslav Vanek. In a Market Collectivist economy, argues Hodgson(p.177), "The workers are self-managed: they do not work under the direct or indirect control of a capitalist...the workers (collectively) own the product of their labour, which they bring to the market for sale."

SEE:
We Own GM
Auto Solution


tags
MGuinty, GM, concesssion bargaining, unions, trade union, Marx, Ontario, Corporate Welfare, Canada, cars, automobilie, production, taxes, tax credit, investment, environment, hybrid, self-valorization,, self-management,, workers control,, autoworkers,, KEN LEWENZA,,CAW, Big Three Auto,, libertarian socialism, automobile, Frank Stronach, Magna, business unions, auto parts, workers, layoffs, plant-closings, workers-control, unions, labour, Canada

We Own GM

Since the Big Three have already accepted taxpayer bail outs over the past five years, and now are delinquint on thier pension payments for their workers, why bail them out, we already own them. Time to make them publicly owned under workers control.

As the Toronto Star reported Saturday, GM's actuaries estimated the pension plan for hourly workers would have been short $4.9 billion if the company had gone out of business at the end of November, 2007. But because the pension fund is heavily invested in stocks, the recent fall in stock markets would have left the fund short another $1.5 billion, assuming no other changes in the meantime.

Paul Duxbury, an actuary who has advised GM pensioners in the past, said yesterday that such a shortfall would cost Ontario's guarantee fund as much as $3 billion, if the province provided the money.

The General Motors of Canada Ltd. pension funds had a shortfall of $4.5-billion as of last November - before the stock market collapse - creating a massive financial headache for the Ontario government and pension cuts for retired employees if the company falls into bankruptcy protection.
Senior GM officials revealed the shortfall between the assets in the company's unionized and salaried plans and their liabilities in a meeting yesterday with the editorial board of The Globe and Mail. The shortfalls are measured on a solvency deficiency basis, which would apply if the plans have to be wound up in the event of bankruptcy.

SEE:
Auto Solution
Whiners and Losers
Business Unionism Offers No Solution To Capitalist Crisis
Concessions Don't Work
And Then There Was One
Pension Rip Off
Buzz Off
Unions=Competitiveness
McGuinty Corporate Welfare
Is Delphi the Oracle of things to come?
How Ford Screwed Up
What's good for GM is bad for Workers
Unions the State and Capital
Chrysler Made In Canada?



tags MGuinty, GM, concesssion bargaining, unions, trade union, Marx, Ontario, Corporate Welfare, Canada, cars, automobilie, production, taxes, taxcredit, investment, environment, hybrid, self-valorization,, self-management,, workers control,, autoworkers,, Buzz Hargrove,,CAW, Big Three Auto,, libertarian socialism, automobile, Frank Stronach, Magna, business unions, auto parts, workers, layoffs, plant-closings, workers-control, unions, labour, Canada

Auto Solution

In the U.S. the debate over the failure of the big three automakers has devolved into an argument over bail-out or bankruptcy. As usual the Republicans arguing in favour of bankruptcy and opposing a bail out claim that part of the Big Three's failure is the high cost of production. They attack the UAW for being part of the problem with their retiree pension plans, healthcare costs and wage demands.

Make union pay cuts mandatory for auto aid

They claim that that Toyota and other import car manufactureres in the U.S. can produce cars cheaper then America's own. Well that is true. However the elephant in the room in this debate is the fact where Toyota and other import auto manufacturers set up shop is in Right To Work States, states which use right to work laws to ban unions.

As for Health Care costs this is the other elephant, in Canada and around the world the government provides health care except in two countries America and China. In the US the healthcare cost is a burden born by business and labour.

So what would a solution be do ya think? Hmm how about passing the the proposed first union contract law that was pending in the Senate; Employee Free Choice Act. You know the one that in the last days of the Presidential campaign became an issue for McCain.
And instead of either Clinton's of Obama's weak tea HealthCare reform, a universal healthcare program was adopted in the U.S. like it is in Canada.

Unionization of Toyota and other import car companies American workers would level the playing field as would creating a universal healthcare program.

While these would go a long way to really changing the auto industry in North America the only real solution is nationalization the auto industry under workers control. Something no one is talking about, including the UAW and CAW.

CAW President Ken Lewenza said the failure of even one of those companies would be a "devastating blow to the economy, a devastating blow to consumers out there and quite frankly devastating to our members."
Ontario, especially, would suffer, he told CTV Newsnet.
"It's not even imaginable what would happen in communities like Oshawa, Windsor, St. Catharines, Oakville. These communities are dominated by the auto industry."
Lewenza said the union has done its part to respond to the Detroit Three's shrinking market share, giving up hundreds of millions of dollars in concessions in collective bargaining.
However, Lewenza didn't blame management either, saying "nobody anticipated at the beginning of this business year we would be selling 12 to 13 million vehicles in the United States, when most people were anticipating 16 or 17."

Oh come on now quit apologizing for your bosses incompetence. What part of Climate Crisis did you miss? I mean for christ sakes the NDP proposes a Green Vehicle plan three years ago and what does CAW get fromall its politcal pull and lobbying? An investment in GM by the Ontario Government for a Camaro plant. Is that counter intuitive or what.

If we are going to produce green vehicles then it will take a complete restructuring of the industry based not on concession bargaining but on workers control and workers ownership.



SEE:
Whiners and Losers
Business Unionism Offers No Solution To Capitalist Crisis
Concessions Don't Work
And Then There Was One
October Surprise Was The Market Crash
No Austrians In Foxholes
Pension Rip Off


tags
MGuinty, GM, concesssion bargaining, unions, trade union, Marx, Ontario, Corporate Welfare, Canada, cars, automobilie, production, taxes, taxcredit, investment, environment, hybrid, self-valorization,, self-management,, workers control,, autoworkers,, Buzz Hargrove,,CAW, Big Three Auto,, libertarian socialism, automobile, Frank Stronach, Magna, business unions, auto parts, workers, layoffs, plant-closings, workers-control, unions, labour, Canada

And Then There Was One

The collapse of the North American Big Three Automakers means that by the end of this collapse of capitalism there will be one left standing. And it won't be Ford, GM or Chrysler. It will be Toyota. Which means its time for a made in Canada auto industry, nationalized under workers control and producing green cars.

After all the automobile industry in North America is actually an integrated oligopoly, its devolution to monopoly will threaten jobs and workers investments; such as their retirement pensions. The current crisis in production is based on the industry focusing on trucks and SUV's. Even Toyota has been affected.

What we see is the falling rate of profit, which was artificially kept up by consumer spending through credit. You now have finance capital dominating productive captial, and the result is that when the financial markets crashed so did the captial base for production. Its not like there is not real capital; workers and production facilities, availble for use production but rather they have been sold off to casino capitalists; hedge funds and private equity firms who are interested in making money off them by cutting them up and selling them. Those firms are directly linked to the ruling class in America, in particular the Republican Party, as Cerbeus management shows.

The fact that Cerbeus, a private investment firm, owns both Chrysler and GMAC, and wants to divest itself of both, with not a care about the impact on the real economy; workers lives, shows that capitalism is still as rapacious as ever, even as it approaches its state for hand outs.

The fact is that workers have invested capital and labour into these businesses, through concession bargaining, with their pension funds and with investment funds tied into their employers companies. Idle factories and laid off workers means a disaster for the real economy in Canada. Instead the government along with the unions should nationalize all car production in Canada, under control of the workers and through the investment of their pension funds, and the unpaid pension liabilities they are owed.

Workers control would mean direct worker management and control of the board of the corporation, and would mean a more flexible manufacturing regime that responded to consumer market choices. Canadians are buying smaller more efficient cars, and the market failed to respond in time to that fact. Under workers control factories would be more efficient and more productive as Alcan workers proved in Quebec when they took over control of their factory which was about to be closed and for several months made a profit and retrofitted the factory to be more environmentally sound, something Alcan had failed to do.

The elephant in the room is that capitalism will continue to face these economic meltdowns until it becomes socialized. While private capital asks the state to fund its failures it offers nothing to the workers that make their profits. The reality is that in order to really affect economic change, capitalism must evolve into socialism; that is worker control of production, and the socialization of investment and profit.

After all private capital is already reliant on workers benefit plans, pension plans, mutual fund investments, securities investments for retirement and in the U.S.; health care plans. As corporations bail out of these plans they look to the state to bail them out. But the state has failed to protect the investors; the workers. Rather than bail outs of capitalist finaciers it would be better that capital be socialized and invested in local production and national/international distribution under workers control.

The auto industry is being pummeled from all sides — by high gas prices that have soured consumers on profitable S.U.V.’s, by a softening economy that has scared shoppers away from showrooms, and by tight credit that is making it difficult for willing buyers to obtain loans. Both G.M. and Chrysler have been struggling with product lineups that are out of sync with consumer demand for smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.
If G.M., the nation’s largest automaker, combined operations with Chrysler, the smallest of Detroit’s Big Three, they would create an auto giant that would surpass Japan’s Toyota Motor Company, which recently has been battling G.M. for bragging rights as the world’s largest automaker.


GM, Ford losses worse than expected, burning cash


Losses force GM to slash 3600 jobs in Canada, US


Warning of cash crunch, GM cuts jobs and halts Chrysler talks

GM dealers feel squeeze from GMAC
With credit tight, GM's 'captive finance arm' is tightening terms on dealers and customers.

Auto major General Motors's already distressed sales are being hurt even more due to the conservative lending regime at its former captive financing arm GMAC Financial Services, according to Dow Jones.

GMAC Leaves Individuals Holding Car Lender's Junk (Update2)

GMAC LLC may leave thousands of individuals on the hook for about $15 billion of junk-rated debt unless the auto and home lender finds a way to pay its bills.
GMAC, the largest lender to car dealers of General Motors Corp., issued more than $25 billion of debt called SmartNotes over the past decade to retail investors. While GMAC has paid off the debts as they matured, five straight unprofitable quarters raised doubt about GMAC's survival, and SmartNotes due in July 2020 have lost about three-quarters of their value.
``An investment like this is totally unsuitable for the retail investor,'' said Sean Egan, president of Egan-Jones Ratings Co. in Haverford, Pennsylvania, who rates GMAC bonds junk, or below investment grade. ``You're selling it to the widows and orphans who think of GMAC as being this strong, long- standing corporation when the reality is far from that.''
GMAC's losses since mid-2007 total $7.9 billion, driven by record home foreclosures and auto sales that GM has called the worst since 1945. Stomaching some of Detroit-based GMAC's deficit are individuals who purchased SmartNotes through brokers at firms including Merrill Lynch & Co., Fidelity Investments and Citigroup Inc.'s Smith Barney unit.
Chuck Woodall, 66, who lives with his wife in Columbus, Ohio, amassed $200,000 of SmartNotes starting eight years ago, and they now equal about 25 percent of his investments. At the time, the securities were rated investment-grade and they paid more interest than government bonds or certificates of deposit. They also were backed by Detroit-based GM, the biggest U.S. automaker.
Safe Ride
Woodall, a former owner of apparel stores and a pet-supply business, holds SmartNotes due in 2018 that he says have lost about 80 percent of their value. He said his Merrill broker told him that in more than 20 years, no client had lost money on bonds.
``He assured me they were safe,'' Woodall said. ``I just wasn't aware enough and didn't have my hand on the pulse.''
GMAC said Nov. 5 its mortgage unit may fail and analysts have questioned the viability of the entire company, which is now 51 percent-owned by New York-based Cerberus Capital Management LP. GM controls the rest.
Of GMAC's $64 billion in debt outstanding at the end of June, about $15 billion was in SmartNotes. They rank equal to senior unsecured debt, which recovers an average of about 40 cents on the dollar in bankruptcy cases, according to Mariarosa Verde, an analyst at Fitch Ratings in New York.
GMAC spokeswoman Gina Proia said the company ``has honored its commitments and intends to continue honoring its commitments to investors.'' She declined to elaborate.
Bonds Drop
SmartNotes maturing in July 2020 fell 6.5 cents on the dollar, or 20 percent, to 26.7 cents at 4 p.m. New York time, according to Trace, the bond-price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The debt yields 35.8 percent, or 32 percentage points more than similar-maturity Treasuries, Trace data show.
Brokers traditionally handle the task of determining whether an investment is suitable for a particular investor, depending on factors such as assets, sophistication and tolerance for losses. Merrill spokesman Mark Herr, Steve Austin from Fidelity and Citigroup's Alex Samuelson declined to comment.
SmartNotes were introduced in 1996 by ABN Amro Holding NV's Chicago-based LaSalle Bank, which is now part of Bank of America Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina. The notes include features designed to appeal to investors seeking interest income -- a concern for older people and retirees.
Prosperous Times
The notes were sold in denominations of $1,000 and offered a ``survivor's option,'' allowing spouses to sell the bonds back to the issuer if the owner dies. The SmartNotes program opened to European investors in 2004.
GMAC and LaSalle said in statements from 1998 through 2003 that the notes were intended for individual investors. Patrick Kelly, a LaSalle managing director, described the buyers in a 2003 interview as ``mom-and-pop investors.''
``If Wal-Mart sold bonds, these would be the bonds they would sell,'' Kelly said.
Back then, SmartNotes may have been safer bets. GMAC debt was rated BBB by Standard & Poor's, GM and GMAC were profitable, and the lender was still a wholly owned unit of the automaker. Sales of GMAC SmartNotes reached $1 billion in 1998, doubled the following year and exceeded $25 billion in 2003, when GMAC was on its way to earning $2.8 billion for the year.
`Gold-Plated'
``GM was considered a can't-miss company,'' said Thomas Smicklas, a retired high school principal and now a homebuilder in Wadsworth, Ohio, who started buying SmartNotes in 2003. Smicklas said he owns about $75,000 of short-term SmartNotes and hasn't lost any money. ``When the GM name is on something, many investors assumed it's gold-plated.''
By 2005, GMAC's debt was reduced to junk -- Moody's Investors Service now rates the firm seven levels below investment grade -- and GMAC continued offering SmartNotes as late as 2007. Today, S&P downgraded GMAC to CCC from B-, citing the lender's ``dire situation.'' Analysts have also raised concerns about the survival of GM, which today reported a $4.2 billion third-quarter operating loss and said it may not have enough cash to make it through the year.
Tom Ricketts helped create SmartNotes at ABN Amro before leaving in 1999 to start Chicago-based Incapital LLC, which earlier this year bought LaSalle's retail bond unit. Ricketts said his firm doesn't issue GMAC notes and sticks with investment-grade bonds. He recommends that individuals who buy them own a wide variety of assets.
Circumstances Change
``When you don't diversify in any portfolio, you expose yourself to risk that you're not getting paid for,'' Ricketts, 43, said in an interview. ``Typically, investment-grade corporate bonds are very good investments.''
GMAC and underwriters of its debt were sued in a 2005 class action that claimed the lender misrepresented SmartNotes in financial statements. A federal judge in eastern Michigan dismissed the case in February 2007, and the plaintiffs are appealing.
``In corporate bonds, time has shown that volatility, credit ratings and potential deterioration in credit means you may own something very different than what you thought you owned,'' said Michael W. Boone, founder of MWBoone & Associates, an investment advisory and money management firm in Bellevue, Washington. Boone said individuals should hold corporate debt only in mutual funds, ``where they have instant diversification and management.''





GM Workers' Risky Savings PlanForbes, NY - 6 Nov 2008It's bad enough that General Motors employees and retirees risk losing their jobs and their retirement benefits if the automaker runs out of cash and can't and can't scare up more bailout money in Washington. But many insiders also are in danger of losing $3.9 billion in savings through an investment once deemed as good as cash.
These investments, called GMAC Demand Notes, have been marketed over the years as a safe place for GM employees, retirees and others to park their money. For as little as $1,000, investors could buy a note paying well above most money-market accounts. (The current rate is 5.25%.) Many GM insiders have squirreled away their college and retirement funds in these notes.


Without a bailout, some industry analysts say GM--and perhaps Ford and Chrysler as well--could be forced to file for bankruptcy. If all three collapsed, the fallout would spread quickly to suppliers and would even temporarily shut down the U.S. factories of healthier foreign automakers. The Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich., says 3 million Americans would lose their jobs in one year, costing the government $60 billion in lost tax revenue.





Cerberus may give up GMAC control to get bank status: Bloomberg
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cerberus Capital Management may pass its control of GMAC LLC to its investors so the financing unit can convert to a bank and get access to government funds, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing three people familiar with the matter.
A source familiar with private equity firm Cerberus said no determination had been made about the structure of GMAC.
Bloomberg reported that Cerberus is mulling a plan to distribute its 51 percent stake in embattled GMAC among investors in its funds.
By forfeiting its control of the company, Cerberus may help GMAC become a bank and get funding from the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve without requiring Cerberus to submit to banking regulations, Bloomberg said.
Cerberus led a group in 2006 that paid General Motors Corp $7.4 billion in cash for 51 percent of Detroit-based GMAC. GM owns the other 49 percent.





Dan Quayle offers hints about possible Chrysler-GM merger


Dan Quayle told a group of Phoenix businessmen that consolidation in the beleaguered auto industry is unavoidable, but provided few details on a possible merger of Chrysler Corp. and General Motors Corp.
“The analysts are looking at it,” the former U.S. vice president and current chairman of New York private equity firm Cerberus Capital LLC told attendees at an Enterprise Network breakfast Thursday morning. Cerberus owns Chrysler. “We’re not going to do the deal unless it’s a positive for our investors,” he said.


Quayle in 1999 unceremoniously dropped out of politics after George H.W. Bush, the man he served under, backed his son’s run for presidency.
But the international ties Quayle made during those four years in the White House proved invaluable when he returned to the private sector. Since his tenure at Cerberus began in 2000, Quayle has been instrumental in setting up offices in Japan –– a country he visits at least seven times a year –– and across Europe.
“You’ve got to know the people you’re doing business with,” he said.





Lobbying Washington


Chrysler Chief Executive Bob Nardelli joined GM CEO Rick Wagoner and Ford CEO Alan Mulally on Thursday in meetings with US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reed. The three automakers lobbied the Democratic lawmakers, who increased their power in Tuesday's election that also saw Barack Obama elected president, for up to $50 billion in federal aid, sources said. The push for aid has been accompanied by increasingly dire warnings from industry executives and their political allies about the cost of inaction and the risk of a failure that would cost tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs. Chrysler does not release financial information. While executives, including Vice Chairman and President Tom LaSorda, once touted that lack of disclosure as a strength, the same lack of transparency could now complicate the automaker's efforts to seek aid under a federal rescue package. In addition, analysts have said Chrysler's ownership by Cerberus poses a political problem as a federal rescue could be criticized as a bailout for a secretive Wall Street firm known for its political contacts. Cerberus is chaired by former Bush administration Treasury Secretary John Snow and its board includes Dan Quayle, who was vice president under former president George H W Bush.





Quayle calls bailout necessary


Dan Quayle says he would never have believed that the Bush administration would bail out the nation's financial institutions, but that it was a necessary move for a precarious global situation.
"The whole international financial situation is one that was extraordinarily precarious," Quayle said Thursday. "That is why (Treasury Secretary Henry) Paulson did what he had to. We'll be reading books in a year or so about really how close I think we were to significant financial instability, much worse than what we're experiencing right now."
But Quayle said he expected things to turn around as the financial world figures out its comeback.
The former U.S. vice president is now chairman of Cerberus Capital Management, a New York private-equity firm that owns interests in Chrysler, GMAC Financial Services and about 50 other firms worldwide.
"We're in the great spots to be - automobiles, finance, real estate," Quayle joked.








The Case Against Giving GM and Chrysler a Hand


Here's a hot potato for the new commander in chief: Having just scored $25 billion in low-cost federal loans to develop fuel-efficient vehicles, General Motors and Chrysler are back, hat in hand, looking for more billions to assist their proposed merger. George W. Bush decided to pass on this one, leaving it to you. Can you blame him?
The biggest potential political problem here has nothing to do with Detroit and everything to do with Wall Street -- specifically Cerberus, a private-equity firm based in New York. Mr. Bush's former Treasury secretary, John Snow, is chairman; ex-vice president Dan Quayle has been a prominent spokesman; and the firm's chief executive, Stephen Feinberg, gives generously to Republican causes. Cerberus bought Chrysler from Germany's Daimler and owns 51% of General Motors' GMAC finance unit. It's hard to imagine a much riper target for Democrats and maverick Republicans looking for a scapegoat for the excesses that brought on the financial meltdown.


Now let's imagine some kind of GM/Chrysler bailout, which would inevitably be a Cerberus bailout. Our tax money would be going to help Messrs. Feinberg, Snow and Quayle out of a tight fix of their own making, Cerberus having shown spectacularly bad timing in plunging into a U.S. auto industry that's only getting worse by the month. Hmmm. I can just imagine what Lou Dobbs would do with that one. No doubt Cerberus will trot out a list of investors that includes pension funds, hospitals, universities and other worthy causes, all of whom stand to benefit, too. Good luck to them. Most people will see only private equity, the secretive, high-return, high-leverage, exorbitantly compensated vehicles that are off-limits to ordinary mortals.


Now let's imagine some kind of GM/Chrysler bailout, which would inevitably be a Cerberus bailout. Our tax money would be going to help Messrs. Feinberg, Snow and Quayle out of a tight fix of their own making, Cerberus having shown spectacularly bad timing in plunging into a U.S. auto industry that's only getting worse by the month. Hmmm. I can just imagine what Lou Dobbs would do with that one. No doubt Cerberus will trot out a list of investors that includes pension funds, hospitals, universities and other worthy causes, all of whom stand to benefit, too. Good luck to them. Most people will see only private equity, the secretive, high-return, high-leverage, exorbitantly compensated vehicles that are off-limits to ordinary mortals.
This is even before a new president gets to the merits of the proposed merger, which strikes me as even more wrong-headed than the Sears-Kmart combination, which I derided at the time. The idea that the combined company would get government assistance and still be headed by GM's Rick Wagoner, the man who bet the store on SUVs, is an affront to common sense. Better to keep Chrysler's Robert Nardelli, the blunt ex-Home Depot chief executive, who at least brings fresh ideas to the table. As for auto workers, the only way something like this could possibly work would be to slash car models -- and that means slashing jobs.








merger would limit the bleeding


Let's look at damage-control scenarios for the key actors in this drama one by one:
• Cerberus Capital Management. The sharpies at the New York-based private equity firm are trying to salvage whatever they can from their ill-timed purchases of 80% of Chrysler and 51% of GMAC. Initially, Chrysler looked like a cheap fixer-upper that Cerberus could flip at a nice profit in five years. But the global financial meltdown has turned Detroit's No. 3 automaker into a money pit with little chance of survival on its own. That means what was once the Big Three must now become the Detroit Two.
• GM has Chrysler's problems on a grander scale: too many brands, too many dealers, too much reliance on trucks and SUVs, and dwindling cash reserves that could dry up next year. GM also has strong sales in Asia and South America, solid technology and promising products if it can survive until 2010. For GM, a Chrysler merger is all about snaring extra cash -- from Cerberus and possibly Uncle Sam -- and cementing its position as an industrial icon the government cannot allow to fail.
• The UAW. President Ron Gettelfinger has been in damage-control mode for some time, bargaining soft landings for legions of UAW members jettisoned in recent years. Now he's hired Steve Girsky, an ex-adviser to GM and recent partner with the UAW in resurrecting parts supplier Dana Corp. from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, to help steer the union through the current storm.
• The next president of the United States. Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain wants to preside over the collapse of GM, Ford, Chrysler -- or all three -- during his first months in office. So you can count on the talks among GM, Cerberus, Ford, the White House, Treasury, Commerce, the Federal Reserve, congressional leaders, the UAW and Wall Street to be on again as of Wednesday.
What is happening, during this confluence of global financial crisis and a U.S. presidential election, is the climactic chapter in the consolidation of the domestic auto industry from three companies to two.
"Chrysler, as we know it, will cease to exist very soon," auto industry consultant Kimberly Rodriguez of Grant Thornton said last week.





PE exec to help UAW on potential GM/Chrysler deal: source


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stephen Girsky, a veteran auto-industry analyst and private equity executive, is working with the United Auto Workers union with regards to any potential General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC deal, a source familiar with the situation said on Sunday.
Girsky is president of Centerbridge Industrial Partners, LLC., the industrial unit of private equity firm Centerbridge Partners.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier on Sunday that the union recently retained Girsky to help "level the playing field" in any discussions about changes in its current contract that could be needed in a tie-up of the two auto makers.
Girsky is expected to help UAW President Ron Gettelfinger evaluate the deal and shape the union's strategy, the WSJ said, citing sources.
Sources told Reuters last week that a deal to merge General Motors and Chrysler LLC hit an impasse after the Bush administration ruled out funding for it.
Advisers on Cerberus' side are JP Morgan and Citi and on the GM side are Morgan Stanley and Evercore, a person familiar with the talks previously told Reuters.



The UAW may be troubled by the fact that some estimates put the job loss of the merger at 60,000. Since the union seems to have fewer members every year, that is a lot of people to have leave. At some point, the UAW's bargaining power is going to move toward zero.
The UAW does not only have to help its current workers, it has to protect funds that are to be supplied by the car companies for benefits and retirement payments. It is not clear whether that capital could be threatened in a marriage of two car companies or not.
GM may not be able to get $10 billion to close the Chrysler deal, and a lot of that money would go to severance. But if a deal goes down, workers might rather keep their jobs than get a buyout which will only carry them for a few months in a recession.





GM-Chrysler merger: United Auto Workers union prepares another betrayal


Recent reports reveal that the United Auto Workers bureaucracy is preparing to further integrate itself within the business framework of the US auto industry at the expense of the livelihoods of the tens of thousands of autoworkers it nominally represents.
Industrial analysts believe that the Big Three US auto companies—General Motors, Ford Motor Co., and Chrysler Corp.—may all face bankruptcy within the next year. The financial crisis has been most acute for GM and Chrysler, and the largest and third-largest US automakers are now carrying on urgent merger negotiations that, if carried through, would lead to the rapid purging of 50,000 jobs.
According to insiders, the deal being pushed forward by GM and Cerberus Capital Management, the giant private equity firm that controls Chrysler, would result in the transfer to GM of Chrysler in exchange for turning over to Cerberus a larger share of GMAC, the financial wing of GM. Cerberus already owns 51 percent of GMAC. Chrysler has reportedly backed out of merger talks with the Franco-Japanese combination Renault-Nissan.
The Big Three, who have suffered through decades of declining market share, are now beset by a shortage of cash that may soon impinge upon day-to-day operations. Due to low incomes and layoffs, large numbers of Americans have stopped buying new cars, especially big and inefficient Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV) and trucks that have in recent years provided the main source of profit for the Big Three.
In October, auto sales plunged by 31 percent from a year ago, reaching their lowest level in 15 years. Michael DiGiovanni, sale analyst for GM, said that relative to the size of the US population, October was “the worst month in the post-World War II era. This is clearly a severe, severe recession.”
A GM-Chrysler merger will require the UAW to suppress rank-and-file opposition and to inflict a new round of concessions on autoworkers. An article published in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, “UAW Vies to be Central Player in GM-Chrysler Deal,” reveals that UAW President Ron Gettelfinger has been holding meetings with GM Chief Operating Officer Fritz Henderson on a potential merger. “Mr. Gettelfinger’s approval,” the article states, “could sway banks and lawmakers considering pitching into the deal.”
In a related development, the New York Times reported Monday that the Treasury Department has turned down GM’s request for an additional $10 billion to assist the merger with Chrysler. The money would have come from the $700 billion Wall Street bailout pushed through in October. Treasury officials were said to fear being directly identified with mass layoffs in the auto industry as a result of the merger, and they opposed extending to industrial firms money from the vast allocation intended for financial concerns.
The $10 billion is needed “to cover the cost of jobs cuts and plant closures that would result from a merger,” according to the Journal. If the federal government does not come through with the funds, the UAW may be asked to allow GM and Chrysler to get out of as much as $14 billion in promised payments into the union-managed “Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association” (VEBA), the retiree health care system now run by the UAW. Without cash, the two corporations could rapidly wind up in bankruptcy.
This threat to the business interests of the UAW will likely propel Gettelfinger and the UAW bureaucracy to pressure the next administration to give handouts to the auto industry as part of a merger agreement. Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama has indicated he is favorably disposed toward handouts, although such utterances must be taken in the context of the current election cycle, where both candidates have sought advantage in Midwest “battleground” states such as Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, Indiana, and Wisconsin, where much of the US auto industry is located.
The UAW no doubt will publicly lament the mass layoffs that will inevitably result from the merger. Behind the scenes, however, they will work energetically to see that the merger goes through and that the federal government foots the bill, so as to protect the multibillion-dollar VEBA fund the union oversees.
The setting up of the VEBA was the latest stage in the decades-long transformation of the UAW from a union into an out-and-out business. In exchange for tens of thousands of jobs cuts, billions of dollars in benefits reductions, and the suppression of rank-and-file resistance, the Big Three handed over to the UAW control of the auto industry’s retiree health care system.
The VEBA fund was dependent for its survival on the continued profitability of the American auto industry, which put the UAW into an openly adversarial relationship with its own workers. But now that the very survival of the US auto industry has been thrown into doubt, so too has the UAW’s VEBA scheme.
In an indication of its enthusiasm for the consolidation of the auto industry, the UAW has recently hired, as a personal adviser to Gettelfinger, business executive and industry analyst Stephen Girsky. Girsky was a former managing partner at the now defunct Wall Street investment bank Morgan Stanley. In 2006, GM head Richard Wagoner brought on Girsky where, according to the Wall Street Journal, he played a “pivotal” role in launching GM’s buyout program, whereby experienced workers were encouraged to retire and were replaced by low-wage workers. The Journal concluded that Girsky “is expected to help … Gettelfinger evaluate the deal and shape the union’s strategy.”
That the UAW feels no shame in bringing such an open opponent of the interests of its workers into a position of power within the union suggests not only that it is preparing to support the merger of GM and Chrysler. It also shows just how openly the UAW now presents itself as a business hostile to the workers it purports to represent.





A case for workers’ control: Can workers stop the illegal sale of Chrysler?


By Martha Grevatt, UAW Chrysler worker for 21 yearsNov 1, 2008, 09:19


While rumors continue to swirl, workers at General Motors and Chrysler hunger for concrete information concerning the possible sale of Chrysler, the number three U.S. automaker, to GM or some other entity.
Chrysler: "...more than 25 percent of salaried positions—that’s 5,000 jobs—are being terminated"They’ve heard not a peep at GM, but [workers] at Chrysler have received two “messages from our leader,” CEO Bob Nardelli. In the latest, workers were informed that they were in “truly unimaginable times” but that “working as a team, we have been right-sizing our organization to become as competitive as possible.” Therefore, more than 25 percent of salaried positions—that’s 5,000 jobs—are being terminated “in a socially responsible way, with respect and gratitude to those who have contributed so much to our company over the years.” What bull!
The salaried cuts were announced just days after workers in Newark, Del., learned that their plant would be closed at the end of this year, a year ahead of schedule. Whole shifts are being cut at assembly plants in Toledo and Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Are these aggressive moves to make the company leaner and more attractive to a prospective buyer?
Eager for some definitive word, the Phoenix Business Journal pressed former Vice President Dan Quayle, now chair of global operations for Chrysler LLC’s parent company, Cerberus. All Quayle would spell out was that “we’re not going to do the deal unless it’s a positive for our investors.” (Oct. 23)


The United Auto Workers union has been left out of the discussions, while financiers, including JP Morgan Chase, have had a seat at the table for at least a week. It’s their call whether any deal goes forward. (That’s nothing new. During the 1937 sit-down strikes the UAW rightly called GM “a Morgan-DuPont dictatorship.”) The big banks favor a merger that would increase GM’s market share while drastically reducing labor costs. Yet the banks and GM appear unwilling to finance any acquisition without government aid. According to the Detroit News, “General Motors Corp. is in talks with government officials about obtaining about $5 billion to help fund a possible merger with Chrysler LLC. GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner was in Washington last week to meet with U.S. Treasury Department officials and make a case for a quick release of funds.” (Oct. 28) This would be on top of the $25 billion the Energy Department plans to loan the Big Three, who are lobbying to get that amount doubled.


Now is the time to raise the slogan of workers' control. The taxpayers should not give the bosses a penny. The funds set aside to help the industry should go to the workers to run the plants themselves. The first step to restore employment levels could be a shorter work week with no cut in pay.
Workers’ control is not as abstract as it sounds. In the period shortly before and after the Russian Revolution, workers kicked the bosses out and then ran the factories, with the support of the Soviet government. In Italy in the 1920s the workers took over the plants of Fiat and Alfa Romeo and made vehicles without supervision. In Venezuela today the Bolivarian government grants workers funds to run the plants after they occupy them.
It should not be assumed that a workers’ takeover would be illegal, even here. In 1912 the federal government established a Commission on Industrial Relations to investigate the causes of strike violence. The commission unanimously blamed John D. Rockefeller for the deaths of more than 60 miners, their wives and children during the 1913 strike in Ludlow, Colo. Remarkably, four of the nine commissioners, including Commission Chair Francis P. Walsh, recommended “that private ownership of coal mines be abolished; and that the National and State Governments take over the same, under just terms and conditions, and that all coal lands shall thereafter be leased upon such terms that the mines may be cooperatively conducted by the actual workers therein.”
Furthermore, in 1937 both Michigan Governor Frank Murphy and U.S. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins challenged GM’s insistence that the 44-day occupation of its plants was illegal.
The class struggle here is not at the stage where workers establish control and demands for workers’ control arise organically. Nevertheless, the slogan can be raised now, in advance of battles sure to come.





Pillars of Japan showing some cracks


TOKYO -- They are the champions of Japanese business, giant companies with famous names like Toyota, Nissan, Canon and Sony. For years, their exports of cars, cameras, video cameras and other high-end products kept Japan's economy alive when domestic industries were languishing.
Now, hit by the global economic crisis, Japan's big exporters are beginning to show signs of weakness, undermining one of the last pillars of the shaky Japanese economy. The announcement yesterday that Toyota was cutting its profit forecast in half was only the latest bit of bad news for Japan's major-league export firms.
Toyota, the country's biggest company, said its annual net earnings would fall to a nine-year low. It also announced a 69-per-cent drop in profit for the most recent quarter, a big setback for a renowned company - sometimes called the world's best - that has seen profit rise year after year for a decade and is vying with General Motors for the title of world's biggest car maker. Its stock promptly dropped 10 per cent, pushing the Nikkei stock index to a 6.5-per-cent loss.


In the past few weeks, Nissan, Honda, Sony and Canon have all reported poor results, the consequence of a double whammy of falling consumer demand in the United States and a sharp rise in the yen. The yen's rise against the dollar makes Japanese exports less affordable for Americans while, at the same time, reducing the yen value of the profits exporters earn overseas. Toyota says its U.S. sales in October dropped a dramatic 23 per cent.
"It's an overused phrase, but it really is a kind of perfect storm at the moment," said Nissan spokesman Simon Sproule. In the United States, "people have just stopped buying cars. It's incredible."
Until recently, Japan seemed likely to come through the global credit crunch better than many countries because its banks were less exposed to the subprime mortgage market in the United States. But there are more and more signs that Japan may in fact be hit hard.
The stock market hit a 26-year low last week. A Reuters poll of economists found that most thought Japan had already joined much of the industrialized world in recession, with the economy unexpectedly contracting for a second consecutive quarter. Acknowledging the spreading pain, the government has announced a $248-billion (U.S.) package to help small businesses and hand out cash to households. Meanwhile, the central bank has cut interest rates for the first time in seven years - to a rock-bottom 0.3 per cent.
The spreading impact of the downturn on export-oriented Japanese countries has helped put paid to the notion that Asian economies had become "decoupled" from the U.S. market. Nissan, for example, which is Japan's third-biggest car maker, still relies on North American car buyers for 35 per cent of its sales, even though it builds cars all over the world. Nissan has cut its profit forecast for the fiscal year in half. It is eliminating 2,500 jobs in the United States and in Europe and laying off 1,000 temporary workers in Japan


Any country would be troubled by faltering results in its biggest, most successful companies, but the bad news is especially upsetting for Japan because its depends so heavily on its major exporters.
Domestic industries have never fully recovered from the bursting of Japan's asset bubble in the early 1990s. Consumers have never regained their confidence, either. The health of the big-name exporters was one of the few things Japan's economy still had going for it. Exports produce 18 per cent of Japan's gross domestic product.
"If the global economy keeps slowing down, Japan is very vulnerable," said Kristine Li, an analyst at KBC Securities.
The shaky results being announced by exporters come as a special shock because they seem to have so many things in their favour. Most have cleaned up their balance sheets over the past decade, reducing debt and building up big cash reserves.





Toyota's magic slips a gear


Toyota Motor Corp. shares plunged nearly 20% in New York trading yesterday after the Japanese automaker said it set up an emergency committee to boost profits and warned it would make almost no money in the second half of its fiscal year.


The development underscores just how bleak market conditions are becoming for automakers worldwide, ravaging even a manufacturer with a strong product lineup and a history of delivering steady returns to investors.


In September, Toyota announced it would delay indefinitely plans to ramp up a new Canadian assembly plant, in Woodstock, Ont., to full capacity because of the slowdown in U. S. sales. The factory is scheduled to open this year with one shift of workers building 75,000 RAV4 sport-utility vehicles to start.
Developments at Toyota yesterday were much worse than some analysts had expected. The automaker reported operating losses in both North America and Europe and said it will cut the number of its temporary contract workers in Japan by half, to 3,000 by next March.
Unlike Japanese rival NissanMotorCo.,Toyota has not offered employee buyouts or issued layoffs in North America, preferring to keep 4,500 factory workers at two idled truck plants in San Antonio and Princeton, Ind., active even if the assembly lines are not.


Toyota Slashes Annual Profit Forecast


The lowered forecast was the latest sign that the recession that began in the United States was spreading, threatening even fast-growing markets like India and China, once seen as immune to an American downturn.
While Toyota recorded growth in Asia and other developing areas, it was not enough to overcome steep declines in the developed markets of North America, Japan and Europe.
“This is another sign of the collapse of the decoupling theory,” said Yasuaki Iwamoto, an auto analyst at Okasan Securities in Tokyo. “The whole world is down because of the North America troubles. That hurts even a company with a more global revenue base, like Toyota.”


The global slowdown has struck Toyota just as it finishes introducing a full lineup of vehicles, including larger eight-cylinder models like its Tundra pickup truck, in a bid to overtake G.M. as the world’s largest automaker. Thursday’s results suggested the slowdown was hurting sales of Toyota’s entire lineup, including popular, fuel-efficient models like its hybrid Prius and Camry sedan.
Analysts expect Toyota to cut costs and shift more production and parts sourcing to local markets. Toyota has already delayed new factories, laid off workers and offered ever-sweeter incentives to entice buyers back into showrooms.


Toyota vulnerable after chasing fast growth


TOKYO, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp's shock profit warning shows its strategy of breakneck expansion has left it especially exposed to an industry crunch brought on by the global financial crisis.
As recently as last year, Toyota was riding high after eight years of earnings growth, during which time profits more than tripled and sales mushroomed to make it the world's biggest carmaker ahead of General Motors Corp.
But Thursday's grim warning that profits would shrink by three-quarters this year was proof that even the mightiest are at risk from the current turmoil, raising the need for increased flexibility and, some say, more prudent investment from the Japanese giant.
"Toyota has become used to carrying excessive investment, and this has left it vulnerable in a downswing," said JPMorgan Securities analyst Takaki Nakanishi, who has a neutral rating on the company.
"It's important to recognise that the current steep decline in Toyota's earnings is not only a cyclical problem -- the downturn has been exacerbated by its own structural problems."


Toyota's troubles surfaced last year when its entry into the full-sized pickup truck segment in the United States coincided with a climb in gasoline prices to record levels.
At the time, Toyota's Tundra model was welcomed as an overdue addition to a segment that had grown to around 15 percent of the U.S. market. Similarly, some chided Honda for not venturing into the market dominated by GM, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler.
But demand for gas-guzzling vehicles evaporated, and Toyota is now trying to repair the damage, deciding this year to build the popular Prius hybrid instead of the Highlander SUV at a planned new factory in Mississippi. It is also trying to find ways to build fuel-efficient compact cars more profitably, while speeding up the rollout of hybrid vehicles, starting with four fresh models next year.


But despite its problems, with $18.5 billion in cash or near cash and little debt, Toyota faces none of the imminent threats to survival that some of its rivals do.
Toyota sees little benefit from buying one of those troubled rivals, preferring to focus on growing its owns brands and maintaining the status quo it dominates -- thanks in a large part to its strategy of chasing fast growth during the past decade.
Without its aggressive investments, Toyota would not have raked in more than 1 trillion yen ($10 billion) in net annual profit in the past five years. Honda's investments have been cautious in comparison, but so have its rewards.
"For companies like Honda or Mazda that haven't been stepping on the gas as much, the (negative) impact is limited now," said UBS Securities analyst Tatsuo Yoshida.
"Toyota can withstand a 3-metre wave while GM and Ford drown in a 1.5-metre wave, but what we have now is a once-in-a-century tsunami," said Yoshida, who cut his rating on Toyota to neutral from buy after the profit warning.
While most analysts are confident of Toyota's medium-term growth prospects with its big lead in clean-vehicle technology, few are upbeat about a quick recovery in its shares.

Regional economies feel impact
Toyota's slump has started to affect the entire auto industry as job cuts take place at parts makers, subsidiaries and affiliates. The negative effects on regional economies cannot be avoided.
Toyota Motor Kyushu Inc., a subsidiary that produces the Lexus and Harrier brands, withdrew its initial plan to rehire 500 of 800 temporary workers whose contracts were terminated between June and August.
Toyota affiliate Denso Corp. slashed 800 term employees in the six months through September, while Toyota Industries Corp. cut 500 jobs.
In Aichi Prefecture, where parts makers that have contracts with Toyota are concentrated, the ratio of job offers to job seekers declined 0.1 percentage point in September from the previous month--the biggest drop among all prefectures. This is apparently because Toyota-related companies were forced to trim production in step with Toyota's plans to cut production, leading to cutbacks in capital investment and the slashing of nonregular jobs.


NUMMI employees may face layoffs

Workers at the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant in Fremont are understandably worried.
It could mean that by early next year about a 1,000 workers won't be reporting for swing shift to make Tacoma pickups.
In a memo to workers on Friday, union officials said: "We're also informed that, due to recent cuts in sales and orders NUMMI has been forced to cut back production until further notice."
And while GM is gasping for air, its NUMMI joint venture partner, Toyota, has seen its quarterly profits drop 69 percent.
NUMMI has been jointly owned and operated for 20 years by GM and Toyota, making the Pontiac Vibe, Toyota Corolla and the Toyota Tacoma.


Servco to lay off more than 100 workers

Servco Pacific Inc. will lay off 118 employees, about 10 percent of its workforce, effective Nov. 17.
The cuts mostly affect Servco's automotive division, reflecting slumping sales.
In Hawaii, Servco sells Chevrolet, Suzuki and Subaru vehicles and is the distributor for and retailer of Toyota, Lexus and Scion vehicles.
In a memo to employees, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark Fukunaga wrote, "I hope you know that we tried to do everything possible to avoid this action."
With lower sales and less work, the layoff decision was made "with heavy hearts but also with the long-term needs of the business in our minds."
Employees to be laid off include 40 unionized workers, who will receive severance in accordance with their contracts, as well as 78 nonunion employees. They will receive 8 days of pay for each year worked, up to 10 years of service, and three weeks' pay for every year beyond 10 years.
The Hawaii Automobile Dealers Association's Auto Outlook recently projected that new car sales statewide could drop to 42,000 this year from a high of 66,000 three years ago.
The auto industry this week posted its worst monthly U.S. sales figures in 25 years. General Motors had a 45 percent drop; Chrysler LLC 35 percent; Ford Motor Co. 30 percent; and Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. were each down more than 20 percent, according the news service reports.











SEE:





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McGuinty Corporate Welfare





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What's good for GM is bad for Workers





Unions the State and Capital



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Alcan Proves Marx Right








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