Central Perk

marți, 10 iulie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

San Bernardino, California, Weighs Chapter 9 Bankruptcy; That Seals the Fate
Egan Jones Lowers Credit Rating of Netherlands, Austria; Time to Break Up the Rating Agency Cartel Revisited
German Constitutional Court May Take 3 Months to Rule on ESM; Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble Warns of "Uncertainty"
China Import Growth Plunges, Trade Surplus Hits 3-Year High; Will US Response Be Protectionism? Is China Headed For a Deflationary Shock?

San Bernardino, California, Weighs Chapter 9 Bankruptcy; That Seals the Fate

Posted: 10 Jul 2012 07:44 PM PDT

When you see headlines like this: San Bernardino, California, Weighs Chapter 9 Bankruptcy, you know 100% without a doubt the city is bankrupt, and the only question pertains to the filing.

From the Bloomberg headline story ....

San Bernardino may become the third California city in two weeks to file for municipal bankruptcy protection, as it struggles with declining tax revenue, growing employee costs and ill-timed public-works projects.

The City Council is to consider authorizing the city attorney to file a Chapter 9 petition at a meeting late today, said Gwendolyn Waters, a spokeswoman. A decision was possible tonight, though unlikely, she said.

A San Bernardino bankruptcy would follow Stockton, a community of 292,000 east of San Francisco, which on June 28 became the biggest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy. Mammoth Lakes, a mountain resort of 8,200, filed for protection from creditors on July 3 saying it can't afford to pay a $43 million judgment, more than twice its general-fund spending for the year.

San Bernardino, a city of 209,000 east of Los Angeles, faces a $45 million deficit this fiscal year, according to a June 26 budget analysis posted on its website. The city has declared fiscal emergencies, negotiated for concessions from employees and reduced its workforce by 20 percent in four years, according to the report.

The city is facing insolvency because of accounting errors, deficit spending, pension and debt costs, and lack of revenue growth, according to the report.

Few Options

"Cities are running out of options," Michael Sweet, a partner specializing in bankruptcy at the San Francisco office of law firm Fox Rothschild LLP, said today in a telephone interview. "As they see pension contribution obligations and retiree health-care costs going through the roof, revenue is at best stable if not declining."

"The city's reserves and discretionary funds have been depleted, and the city faces insolvency," San Bernardino Interim City Manager Andrea Travis-Miller and Finance Director Jason Simpson wrote in a June 26 memo to the council. "Simply put, the city must now take substantial action to reduce its spending and increase revenues."

According to its financial statements, the city and its agencies held $243 million of outstanding debt, including $48.6 million of taxable pension-obligation bonds outstanding. The city's debt per person was $1,506 or $5.37 percent of personal income. San Bernardino had $200 million of outstanding general- obligation bonds, according to the statement.

Untenable Union Wages and Pension Benefits to Blame

Once again, deficit spending, union wages, and soaring pension obligations are at the heart of the matter.

Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, and numerous other cities face the same fate. Just give it time.

Excellent News

Some people will look at this as bad news. However, this is excellent news.

The only solution is to stick it to uncompromising public unions in bankruptcy court. Bankruptcy is the way forward.

For more excellent news, please see Excellent Anti-Union News From Multiple Places Including US Supreme Court

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Egan Jones Lowers Credit Rating of Netherlands, Austria; Time to Break Up the Rating Agency Cartel Revisited

Posted: 10 Jul 2012 12:30 PM PDT

In a common sense move, Egan-Jones cuts Austrian, Dutch sovereign ratings.

Credit rating agency Egan-Jones lowered Austria's rating to A from A-plus and cut the rating on the Netherlands to A from AA-minus. Both ratings have a negative watch.

Northern European countries will absorb the cost of shoring up ailing neighbors, Egan-Jones said in separate statements on each rating action.

And with Spain and potentially Italy looking for support, "two major economies will switch from providers to users of funds. Our view is that the longer the euro crisis continues, the lower the ultimate recoveries," the statements read.

Big-3 Behind the Curve

The always behind the times "Big Three" (Moody's, Fitch, and the S&P) maintain AAA status on the Netherlands, with Fitch alone having a negative watch.

Time to Breakup the Rating Agency Cartel

Egan-Jones gets business on the basis of accuracy. It has a vested interest in doing a good job. The Big Three get business by government mandate. They primarily get paid on the volume of business they do.

What follows are snips from my post Time To Break Up The Credit Rating Cartel, written September 28, 2007, long before the rating agency AAA scam on sliced, diced, and tranched mortgage-debt was fully exposed. ....

The rating agencies were originally research firms. They were paid by those looking to buy bonds or make loans to a company. If a rating company did poorly it lost business. If it did poorly too often it went out of business.

Low and behold the SEC came along in 1975 and ruined a perfectly viable business construct by mandating that debt be rated by a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization (NRSRO). It originally named seven such rating companies but the number fluctuated between 5 and 7 over the years.

Establishment of the NRSRO did three things (all bad):

1) It made it extremely difficult to become "nationally recognized" as a rating agency when all debt had to be rated by someone who was already nationally recognized.
2) In effect it created a nice monopoly for those in the designated group.
3) It turned upside down the model of who had to pay. Previously debt buyers would go to the ratings companies to know what they were buying. The new model was issuers of debt had to pay to get it rated or they couldn't sell it. Of course this led to shopping around to see who would give the debt the highest rating.

Problems arose because the free market was disrupted by a misguided mandate by the SEC.

Those interested in more information on this topic can read Removing a Regulatory Barrier by Senate Republican Jon Kyl or Creating a Competitive Rating Agency Sector by the American Enterprise Institute.

The Solution is Amazingly Easy

Government sponsorship of organizations and intervention into free markets always creates these kinds of problems. The cure is not an executive shuffle, third party verification or half-measures and more regulation that mask over the issues by splitting functions within an organization.

The SEC created this problem by creating the NRSRO. The problem is easily fixable. It's time to break up the cartel by eliminating the rules that created it. Moody's, Fitch, and the S&P should have to sink or swim by the accuracy of their ratings just like everyone else.

Free market competition, not additional regulation is the cure.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

German Constitutional Court May Take 3 Months to Rule on ESM; Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble Warns of "Uncertainty"

Posted: 10 Jul 2012 10:13 AM PDT

The "fast track" for constitutional review of the ESM in Germany just got a lot slower. Via Google Translate (further modified by me for clarity), Der Spiegel reports ESM Review Probably Longer Than Planned

Karlsruhe - The Federal Constitutional Court fast track review of the euro rescue ESM and Fiscal Pact may take more time than previously thought. Chief Justice Andrew Voßkuhle announced at the hearing on Tuesday a "constitutionally reasonable inspection" of complaints could extend beyond a normal emergency procedures. This could, according to those involved take up to three months.

The fast track was originally expected to last up to three weeks.

Schäuble warns of market uncertainty

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU), stated that in his opinion a clear shift of the July ESM also "could mean a considerable uncertainty in the markets."

A stop of the bailout could lead to "serious economic dislocation, with unforeseeable consequences" for the Federal Republic, said Schäuble.

"Avoid constitutional doubts about the ability or the willingness of the Federal Republic of Germany, threats to the stability of the euro zone could lead to the current crisis symptoms were significantly increased," said Schäuble. The speculation about the euro-exit of some countries would be fueled. This brings no foreseeable risks for the German economy, such as during the 2009 crisis, the minister said.

The last two paragraphs above are as directly translated. The rest contains slight rewordings by me for ease in reading.

Reflections on "Uncertainty"

This is one of the few recent instances of the use of the word "uncertainty" that actually makes any sense. In most other instances lately, the word "uncertainty" was conveniently substituted for something tantamount to "economy is clearly falling apart".

In this case we do not know how the court will rule.

However, that the ruling may take as long as three months is a clear indication the recent challenges to the ESM are not a trivial matter that can be easily dismissed.

That much is certain. So is the fact that Schäuble doesn't care for that message one bit.

Tough.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

China Import Growth Plunges, Trade Surplus Hits 3-Year High; Will US Response Be Protectionism? Is China Headed For a Deflationary Shock?

Posted: 10 Jul 2012 02:51 AM PDT

China's trade surplus hit a 3-year high this month as import growth plunged. That setup raises many questions.

First, let's consider the initial story. Bloomberg reports China's Import Growth Misses Estimates for June

China's imports rose less than anticipated in June, pushing the trade surplus to a three-year high and adding pressure on the government to support demand as the global economy slows.

Inbound shipments increased 6.3 percent from a year earlier, the customs bureau said in a statement today in Beijing, compared with the 11 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 32 economists. Export growth slowed to 11.3 percent and the trade surplus rose to $31.7 billion.

Rising surpluses may further strain trade relations with the U.S., which surpassed the European Union in the first half as China's biggest foreign market and is in the midst of a presidential election marked by criticism of the Asian nation.

The country's trade surplus with the U.S. and lack of currency gains have been issues in the U.S. election campaign this year, as American job growth slowed last quarter. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate, has criticized President Barack Obama as too soft on China. At the same time, Obama has expanded trade complaints against the nation: Last week he accused it of imposing unfair taxes on American vehicles, mostly from General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC.

Will US Response Be Protectionism?

Mitt Romney has pledged to designate China a "currency manipulator" and impose duties on its imports if the yuan isn't allowed to float freely.

If Romney increases tariffs three things will happen, all of them bad.

Prices will rise
Growth will slow
China will retaliate with tariffs of its own or by buying more goods from Europe instead of goods from US produces

In essence everyone will pay higher prices for goods and services in hopes of bring back a few hundred manufacturing jobs (while losing tens-of-thousands of jobs in the ensuing economic slowdown).

Agreement With Lagarde

It is not often I agree with IMF head Christine Lagarde, but this time I do. Please consider IMF's Lagarde urges caution over protectionism

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde on Tuesday said the global economic situation was worrisome and urged countries to be cautious of protectionism.

Lagarde described as "quite alarming" a report published by the World Trade Organization in June which said the world's trading nations were succumbing to protectionism in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Cusp of Deflationary Vortex?

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writing for The Telegraph proposes China Headed For a Deflationary Shock

China is on the cusp of a deflationary vortex. This was signalled late last year by the sharpest contraction in the (real) M1 money supply since modern records began. The hard data is now confirming the warnings.

Consumer prices have been falling for the last three months, producer prices have been falling for four months. This is not a food cost story. It is systemic.

Is this the long-feared hard landing? Of course it is.

The problem was the explosive growth of credit in the preceding years. This is roughly twice the intensity of credit growth – around 50 percentage points of GDP – before the US and Japanese blow-offs.

There seems to a near universal assumption that China can pull the levers of the state banking system and set off a fresh credit boom whenever it wants.

Well, perhaps, but loan demand has withered. The big four banks lent just 190bn yuan in June, down from 253bn in May.

"Large banks are all offering money, but no one is taking it," said a Shanghai dealer quoted by Reuters. This is more or less what happened in Japan in the 1990s, what is happening in Europe now. It is what happened to half the world in the 1930s.

But at the end of the day, the country is bursting with industrial over-capacity.

Woe betide the world if China does indeed land with a thud. We will then have a synchronised planetary slump for the first time since you know when.

Less for More vs. More for Less

Pritchard correctly cites the problem as the "explosive growth of credit in the preceding years."

While not proposing a direct solution (thankfully - because I nearly always disagree), Pritchard fears something that needs to happen.

In a comment to Pritchard's post, Pater Tenebrarum responds "It would of course be excellent news for all of us if we were indeed flooded with cheap goods. Who wants to pay more for goods instead of less? Apparently paying less is considered a great calamity. Not by me though, and I feel pretty certain that there are a few billion consumers who would agree with me."

Count me in the group of a few billion people who would gladly pay less for more, rather than more for less.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Extending Middle Class Tax Cuts for 98% of Americans

Your Daily Snapshot for
Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Extending Middle Class Tax Cuts for 98% of Americans

Yesterday the President called on Congress to extend the middle class tax cuts for the 98 percent of Americans making less than $250,000 for another year.

If Congress fails to act, a typical middle-class family of four will see its taxes go up by $2,200, and America’s small business owners would take a big hit. The President refuses to let that happen.

Find out more about the President's plan to help middle class families

President Barack delivers a statement on the need for Congress to act to extend tax cuts for middle class families, in the East Room of the White House, July 9, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Connecting AdWords and Analytics

Posted: 09 Jul 2012 05:10 AM PDT

Why link AdWords and Analytics?

Traffic from AdWords will be automatically tracked as such in Analytics. You can see information such as bounce rate and pages per visit for different campaigns, ad groups, keywords, search terms and so on. You'll also be able to incorporate AdWords information, like clicks and impressions, into Analytics reports.

Also, goal completions in Analytics can be imported into AdWords to define conversions. This means you can:

Define conversions that aren't page views, by using a goal that's defined by an event (eg clicking a link to download a pdf).
Have conversion tracking without having to put extra code up on the site.
If you've got an ecommerce site with Analytics ecommerce tracking set up, then if you import transactions as conversions into AdWords it will automatically import the transactions' values.

However, there are downsides of importing conversions this way:

It takes at least a day for data from Analytics to get into AdWords (sometimes several days)
You can't have 'view through conversions' if your conversions are imported from Analytics.

How do I link them up?

I don't think there's much point of me repeating what's already up on the Google Help pages – so see the full instructions here!

How do I import conversions into AdWords, then?

Full instructions here – but note that when you've linked your accounts and set Analytics to share with AdWords, you then need someone to click on an ad and complete the relevant goal / transaction, and then you need to wait (probably an extra day) until the data are imported into AdWords.

I've got my accounts linked, but I see differences!

You should expect some discrepancies:

Analytics visits are not the same things as AdWords clicks – the same visitor may click multiple times, or the visitor may leave the page before the Analytics code has properly loaded.
Analytics and AdWords attribute goals/conversions differently – AdWords will claim anything that happens up to 30 days after someone clicks an ad, whereas (by default) Analytics uses last-click attribution.
Analytics and AdWords also time goals/conversions differently – if a user clicks on an ad on Monday and converts on Tuesday, AdWords will say the conversion was on Monday (when the ad was clicked) and Analytics will say Tuesday (when the conversion actually happened).

Anything else to remember?

AdWords accounts are connected to Analytics at profile level – if you see AdWords data coming through as '(not set)' you may have connected your AdWords account to the wrong Analytics profile.
If you change the name of a campaign or ad group in AdWords, the old name will still appear in Analytics for any traffic that came before the change, and the new name will appear for traffic that comes after the change.
Analytics thinks the week starts on Sunday; AdWords thinks it starts on Monday.
While it's not likely to affect many people: AdWords counts the Isle of Mann as part of the UK; Analytics does not.

Seth's Blog : Happy birthday, Mr. Tesla

Happy birthday, Mr. Tesla

He invented the foundational science that led to radio, the AC motor and dozens of other concepts that enable us to live modern lives. He foresaw the energy shortage and global warming. He was also the model for the mad scientist in every bad movie ever made.

He was ridiculed, marginalized and ignored. When the media or the experts or the public didn't know what to do with the progress he pointed to, they shunned the messenger.

Tunis Craven, head of the FCC, said, "There is practically no chance that communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television or radio service inside the United States." Craven said this three years before satellites were used to bring the Olympics to the US from Japan.

Craven or Tesla? I think it's pretty easy to pick a role model.

• Email to a friend •

luni, 9 iulie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Scranton Mayor Slashes All Public Worker Wages to $7.25 per Hour, Including Police, Fire, His Own; City Effectively Bankrupt
Negative Yields In France For First Time, Record Negative Rates in Germany; 10-Year Yield Back Above 7% in Spain, Above 6% in Italy
Global Collapse In Auto Sales Coming Up

Scranton Mayor Slashes All Public Worker Wages to $7.25 per Hour, Including Police, Fire, His Own; City Effectively Bankrupt

Posted: 09 Jul 2012 03:23 PM PDT

Scranton, Pennsylvania's, the state's sixth-most-populous city (population of 76,089 in 2010 census), is down to its last $5,000 and has no way to pay salaries.

The mayor wants an immediate tax hike of 29% and 78% over three years. In every sense of the word, Scranton is bankrupt.

NPR reports Scranton's Public Workers Now Paid Minimum Wage.

The city of Scranton, Pa., sent out paychecks to its employees Friday, like it does every two weeks. But this time the checks were much smaller than usual. Mayor Chris Doherty has reduced everyone's pay — including his own — to the state's minimum wage: $7.25 an hour.

Doherty says his city has run out of money.

Doherty wants to raise taxes to fill a $16.8-million gap. The city council wants to take a different approach and borrow money. City council members did not respond to NPR's requests to discuss the dispute.

After paying workers Friday, the city had only about $5,000 left in the bank. More money flowed into city accounts that day, but it was still not enough to pay the $1 million the city still owes to its nearly 400 employees.

The firefighters' union, along with the police and public works unions, have taken the city to court. Lackawanna County Judge Michael Barrasse issued an injunction, essentially agreeing with the unions that the city was breaking the law, but Doherty says he doesn't have another choice. Despite the injunction, he had the city send out paychecks based on minimum wage.

The unions plan to be back in court first thing Monday morning to ask the judge to hold Doherty in contempt.

There's been no love lost between Doherty and the public employee unions because of this battle; they've already spent the past decade in a legal dispute over pay that went all the way to the state supreme court. Both sides come to this latest battle with plenty of baggage and hard feelings. But with nearly 400 city workers receiving a fraction of the pay they typically get, pressure is building to resolve the issue soon.

Scranton Mayor Slashes City Workers' Pay

Filling in a few more details, IBT reports Scranton Mayor Slashes City Workers' Pay To Minimum Wage

Doherty wants to raise taxes by 29 percent immediately and by as much as 78 percent over the next three years, while the council wants the city to borrow money. The Scranton Times-Tribune reported there's no way for the city to take out a loan because it is unable to show it is capable of paying it back.

"I'm trying to do the best I can with the limited amount of funds that I have," Doherty told NPR. "I want the employees to get paid. Our people work hard -- our police and fire -- I just don't have enough money, and I can't print it in the basement."

Since the political firestorm erupted, Scranton Police Chief Dan Duffy has stepped down from his position, although he claimed his decision has nothing to do with the financial mess the city finds itself in, according to the Times Leader.

The unions see the mayor's pay slash as a bullying technique designed to force the city council to adopt his tax increases.

City Effectively Bankrupt

It should be perfectly obvious to every soul on the planet that Scranton is bankrupt. Tax hikes are not the answer. The solution is filing bankruptcy with the hope of killing public union wages and benefits.

However, inane rules in Pennsylvania prohibit cities from filing bankruptcy without state approval.

On October 12, 2011 I reported Pennsylvania State Capital Files for Bankruptcy

Unfortunately, City of Harrisburg chapter 9 bankruptcy dismissed

The US Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania has dismissed the bankruptcy petition filed on behalf of the City of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, finding that the city failed to meet eligibility requirements under the Bankruptcy Code to be a chapter 9 debtor.

The dismissal of Harrisburg's petition, in November 2011, highlights the US constitutional considerations in municipal bankruptcy cases and the Bankruptcy Code's strict requirement for a municipality to have express state authorization to become a chapter 9 debtor.

Inept city management, with public union wages and benefits at the heart of it, killed Scranton.

The city is bankrupt. Period. Will the state once again deny the obvious?

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Negative Yields In France For First Time, Record Negative Rates in Germany; 10-Year Yield Back Above 7% in Spain, Above 6% in Italy

Posted: 09 Jul 2012 10:52 AM PDT

Add France to the list of eurozone countries with negative short-term interest rates. The Wall Street Journal reports France Joins Germany to Sell T-Bills At Negative Yield

France joined a handful of euro-zone countries Monday in selling short-term debt at negative interest rates as investors seek alternatives to expensive German and Dutch debt.

The negative yield at Monday's German auction, the lowest on record in this maturity segment, means that investors effectively pay the German state for the privilege of holding its debt.

The Dutch State Treasury Agency had already sold Treasury Certificates, or short-term debt, at negative yields. Now the French government is doing so as well.

Select Yields From WSJ

Germany: Germany sold 3.290 billion euros of six-month Treasury bills, known as Bubills, at an average yield of -0.0344%. The record lows was previously -0.0122% seen at an auction Jan. 9.
France: France sold EUR 3.917 billion of 13-week Treasury bills at an average yield of -0.005%, down from 0.048% a week ago, and it sold EUR 1.993 billion of 24-week Treasury bills at an average yield of -0.006%, down from 0.096% last week.

Supposedly, French yields of -.005% are a veritable "bargain" compared to German yields at -.0344%

Unforeseen Consequences

The Journal notes "Several large money-market funds restricted or closed their European funds to new investments after the ECB cut the deposit rate to zero, as they have struggled to provide returns to investors. This emphasizes the unforeseen effects of the extreme monetary policy actions that are currently being carried out by the ECB," said Rabobank's fixed-income strategists.

Unforeseen or Ignored?

It should be easy to foresee such effects.

In the US, the seen effects are the impacts of low rates for those on fixed income. In addition, record low rates makes it impossible for pension plans to meet their over-optimistic goals of 8% annualized returns when interest rates are near zero.

Bernanke has to understand these things. If so, he simply chooses to ignore them for the benefit of banks over everyone else. What he fails to understand is he is doing no one any favors!

10-Year Yield Back Above 7% in Spain, Above 6% in Italy

As short-term yields plunge in Germany, France, and the Netherlands, long-term yields are soaring elsewhere in Europe.

Yield on 10-Year Spanish Government Bond closed at 7.062%

Yield on 10-Year Italian Government Bond closed at 6.015%

As I have repeatedly said, nothing has been solved. It took less than a week this time for yields to head back North.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Global Collapse In Auto Sales Coming Up

Posted: 09 Jul 2012 09:26 AM PDT

In response to my post Plunging New Orders Suggest Global Recession Has Arrived I received a couple of interesting emails from readers, one from the US, the other from an employee of the world's largest automotive parts manufacturer.

Small US Distributor Responds

Dear Mish,

I am a small distributor and sell mostly to online stores. In the past 3 weeks, our business has dropped off a cliff.

Our retail store that usually has 5 orders a day, has had 1 in the past week. I also have a customer with an Amazon store and he has gone from 10 orders a day to a total of 1 order all this week.

Moreover, I have spoken with a number of other distributors and they are all begging for business. There is a dead silence in the buyers right now.

Something is definitely happening and it isn't good. The numbers are not showing the real depth of this. I think we may see them fall off hard in the next 90 days.

Tom

Employee of German Manufacturer Robert Bosch Responds

Hi Mish,

Love your blog. I've written before.

I work for Robert Bosch in Germany. We make diesel injectors for common rail systems (truck and passenger car).

Our sales forecasts are again down and there is a huge crunch now to save money to try to squeeze out a profit at the end of the year. Sales are down 10% to business plan so they are looking for every dime right now.

The retiring CEO (Ferhnback...a good man) wishes for a "black 0" at the end of the year. However, I doubt that will happen.

Numerous older people have been given incentives to leave the company before official retirement age.

There are numerous closure days still planned. I would guess we can expect more.

So what you are seeing in the PMI is reality. I do not see or hear similar hints in the rest of the German economy yet......

Regards,

Name Withheld by Mish

Notes About Bosch

Wikipedia has these details about Robert Bosch.

Robert Bosch GmbH (commonly known as Bosch) is a German multinational engineering and electronics company headquartered in Gerlingen, near Stuttgart. It is the world's largest supplier of automotive components.

Bosch's core products are automotive components (including brakes, controls, electrical drives, electronics, fuel systems, generators, starter motors and steering systems), industrial products (including drives and controls, packaging technology and solar panels) and consumer goods and building products (including household appliances, power tools, security systems and thermotechnology).

Bosch has more than 350 subsidiaries across over 60 countries and its products are sold in around 150 countries. Bosch employs around 303,000 people and had revenues of approximately €51.4 billion in 2011. In 2010 it invested around €3.8 billion in research and development and applied for over 3,800 patents worldwide. In 2009 Bosch was the leader in terms of numbers of patents at the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (GPTO) with 3,213 patents.

Global Auto Sales Collapse On The Way

Anecdotes are personal by definition, and thus cannot tell the full story.

However, anecdotal evidence is in sync with a collapse in new manufacturing orders globally as noted in Plunging New Orders Suggest Global Recession Has Arrived (same as link at top, repeated for convenience).

For more details on the US specifically, please see US Manufacturing ISM Contracts for First Time in Three Years; New Orders and Prices Plunge; Perfect Miss: 0 of 70 Economists Polled By Bloomberg Expected Contraction

Given the nature of Bosh's business, the reported slowdown in that business, and a plunging collapse in new manufacturing orders virtually everywhere, a collapse in global automobile sales is coming.

Perhaps there is one more channel-stuffing rise in sales coming up in the US (sales are reported when cars are delivered to dealers, not when consumers buy them), but if so, it will be the last big hurrah.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

marți, 10 iulie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Extending Middle Class Tax Cuts for 98% of Americans

Connecting AdWords and Analytics

Connecting AdWords and Analytics

Why link AdWords and Analytics?

How do I link them up?

How do I import conversions into AdWords, then?

I've got my accounts linked, but I see differences!

Anything else to remember?

Seth's Blog : Happy birthday, Mr. Tesla

Happy birthday, Mr. Tesla

More Recent Articles

luni, 9 iulie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

marți, 10 iulie 2012

Why link AdWords and Analytics?

How do I link them up?

How do I import conversions into AdWords, then?

I've got my accounts linked, but I see differences!

Anything else to remember?

More Recent Articles

luni, 9 iulie 2012

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

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