A shortage of glass is taking a toll on the nation's commercial building boom, adding millions of dollars to the cost of new skyscrapers and halting some projects midway through construction. Apartment buildings are sprouting up at their briskest pace in decades, and new office towers are rising in major markets like Manhattan at the fastest rate since the early 1990s.
Restarting idled glass factories is a costly and time-consuming process, so property developers say the current shortage could last well into next year, if not longer.
In the meantime, builders are reporting that curtain-wall prices, which have risen more than 30% in the past 18 months, are setting records.
Glass accounts for roughly one-quarter of a construction project's budget, so the extra expense can add tens of millions of dollars to a building's cost.
Delays are also a problem: Several towers in San Francisco's trendy Rincon Hill neighborhood, home to some of the city's most expensive apartments, are standing bare while their builders wait for glass.
"Nowadays, the glass guys are dictating the timetables of a project to us, instead of the other way around," said Ralph Esposito, who oversees commercial construction by the New York office of Lend Lease Corp. , one of the country's largest building contractors, with nearly 30 high-rise towers under way. "I don't think people had the leap of faith that the [real-estate] industry would be as strong as the run we're currently on."
Producers shut 11 out of 47 float-glass manufacturing plants in North America between 2007 and 2014, according to PPG Industries Inc., a Pittsburgh-based glass maker, as demand for glass of all kind—from building facades to auto windshields—sagged during the downturn. Building a new plant can cost hundreds of millions of dollars, PPG says, and restarting an idled line can take months because workers have to jackhammer thousands of pounds of hardened glass to remove it from melting tanks.
Scott Kinter, a senior vice president in Boston with AvalonBay Communities Inc., one of the largest U.S. apartment-builders, said his team began hearing about glass-related delays about a month ago, and he expects a significant curtain-wall shortage in the fourth quarter of 2015 and into early 2016. Prices are up between 35% and 45% from 2013, he said.
Leap of Faith
Glass manufacturers did not have a leap of faith two years ago. It's more of a leap of faith today that skyscraper, auto, and housing demand will stay intact with a recovery this long in the tooth.
In the wake of the EU migration crisis with German chancellor Angela Merkel chiding UK prime minister David Cameron for not doing enough, a shocking new poll shows Majority in UK Wants to Leave the EU.
A majority of British people would vote to leave the European Union in the wake of the migrant crisis engulfing the continent, a shock new Mail on Sunday poll has found.
If a referendum were to be held tomorrow on whether to remain a member of the EU, 51 per cent of British people would vote 'No'.
It follows a string of polls over recent years which have given comfortable leads to the pro-European camp. Significantly, it is the first measure of public opinion since the Government changed the wording of the referendum question, lending weight to claims that the new phrasing boosts the chances of victory for the 'Out' campaign.
The survey also found strong backing for David Cameron's stance in standing up to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who wants the UK to take in a greater share of migrants.
Growing public support to cut all ties with Brussels came as it was revealed the Prime Minister told Merkel to her face: 'I could walk away from the EU.'
At a private dinner in Downing Street, Merkel accused him of being 'too forceful' in demanding concessions from the rest of the EU. That was why 'we all hate you and isolate you,' she said.
The Above from The Mail.
I strongly doubt Merkel actually said anything resembling "we all hate you". Normally I would stay away from such sources but the Financial Times linked to the article as well.
David Cameron suffered his first defeat in the build-up to the Brexit referendum campaign after being told to rewrite the allegedly biased question to be put on the ballot paper.
Mr Cameron agreed to change the wording after the Electoral Commission objected to the suggestion that voters be invited to say Yes to Britain staying in the European Union.
Eurosceptics celebrated the verdict. Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence party, said: "I'm in no doubt that the Yes/No offering was leading to great confusion."
The EU referendum bill going through parliament had proposed voters be asked: "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?"
But the independent Electoral Commission urged the government to change the question to: "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?"
Pro-EU campaigners shrugged and said they would continue to call themselves the Yes campaign. One said: "In any case the word "remain" sounds static: fighting for the status quo is an advantage."
The Electoral Commission said the original wording was clear but contained a "double bias" by including only the "remain" option and having the "yes" answer endorse the status quo.
Research from pollsters ICM and ComRes suggests that voters are more likely to say they favour the status quo when framed as a yes or no question rather than whether the UK should remain or leave.
David Cameron and his advisers are urging the UK's business leaders not to speak out in favour of the country remaining in the EU, for fear they will jeopardise the prime minister's sensitive renegotiation of Britain's terms of membership ahead of a referendum.
One ally of Mr Cameron's said that the government had been clear in its message to business to "shut up [on a British exit] until a deal is done with the EU".
A poll in the Mail on Sunday by Survation found 43 per cent of people in favour of Brexit — against 40 per cent backing the status quo: suggesting a significant shift towards euroscepticism.
The prime minister's team is concerned that if business leaders speak out now in favour of remaining in the EU they risk damaging the renegotiation process as well as potentially turning public opinion against continued membership. One person close to Downing Street's thinking said that Mr Cameron felt public statements by UK companies at this point would be "counterproductive".
You Talk Too Much
Here's a musical tribute to Cameron's request for businesses to "shut up".
As the Greek debt crisis came to a head again earlier this summer, it's no surprise that leaders in more solvent eurozone countries expressed doubts about Greece's participation in the monetary union -- but these doubts are also widespread among Greeks themselves. A majority of adults in the country -- 55% -- said in a poll conducted May 14-June 16 that they think converting from the Greek drachma to the euro in 2001 has harmed Greece, while one-third (34%) said the common currency has benefited the country.
Euro Question
In general, do you think changing this country's currency to the euro has benefited or harmed Greece?
A question on EU membership shows the opposite result.
EU Question
In general, does membership in the European Union benefit or harm Greece?
The curious thing about the first poll is a huge majority of Greeks have said they want to stay on the euro. Perhaps we need a new poll.
1. Advertising and marketing are no longer the same thing.
2. The most valuable forms of marketing are consumed voluntarily.
3. The network effect is the most powerful force in the world of ideas.
(The last assertion is based on the fact that culture changes everything about how we live our lives, and culture is driven by the network effect... society works because it's something we do together.)
Just about every big organization ignores all three.
Here's the question of the day, on this Labor Day weekend: Will a robotic economy do away with human work?
That's what Barron's suggests in its pay-walled editorial commentary: The End of Labor?
The message is clear, although it's delivered by a voice that sounds almost as mechanical as the process it describes: "Automation is inevitable. It's a tool to produce abundance for little effort. We need to start thinking now about what to do when large sections of the population are unemployable through no fault of their own. What to do in a future where, for most jobs, humans need not apply."
That's the only clip non-subscribers see.
Reader John pinged me with this inside quote "America will have to change the name of Labor Day to Robot Day — at least until artificial intelligence catches up, and robots become citizens."
The onslaught of automation that's replacing human workers -- from golf caddies to bank tellers -- may be putting us on a path to humanitarian crisis, says Jerry Kaplan, author of "Humans Need Not Apply." As technology grows and jobs become obsolete, income inequality and poverty could follow for millions of Americans. Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports.
My Take
Automation has always been with us. We went from horses to cars. Candles to electricity. Phone operators to wireless.
Jobs never vanished. And standards of living rose every step of the way.
In remarks at the G20 in Turkey, the People's Bank of China quoted Mr Zhou as saying: "At present, the exchange rate of the renminbi against the dollar is stabilising, the correction in the stock market is already mostly over and the financial markets show hope for stabilising."
Mr Zhou acknowledged that "before June, the Chinese stock market bubble grew continuously", but added that of the three major corrections since June, only the most recent in mid-August had a global impact. Chinese government action had prevented further slides and systemic risks, he added.
"Following the correction, levels of leverage are clearly lower and there has been no notable effect on the real economy," he added.
The PBoC issued its paraphrased transcript of Mr Zhou's remarks only after Taro Aso, Japanese finance minister, told reporters that Mr Zhou had three times used the term "burst" referring to the stock market bubble. The Chinese transcript uses the more decorous term "correction", and refers to a "bubble" only once.
Words for Us and Words for Them
Apparently it's OK for central bank officials to use the word bubble even though others have been forced to make public confessions for using "emotionally charged" words.
The media was ordered not to use words such as slump, spike, plunge, and collapse. Analysts were instructed "Do not conduct in-depth analysis, and do not speculate on or assess the direction of the market."
Following a witch hunt, one poor soul was forced to make a public confession for saying the wrong things.
Yesterday, I visited a shop that only sells children's books. The store was empty and I asked the clerk, "Do you know where I can find Yertle the Turtle?"
He walked over to the computer, typed a few keystrokes and said, "I don't think we have it, do you know who the author is?"
Stunned silence.
[I found the section myself--they had three copies]
It's possible that he thinks his job is to be a clerk, to keep people from stealing things, to type letters into a computer and to read the results out loud as he stands at the cash register.
If that's the case, this store, like all stores staffed by clerks who are taught to be merely clerks, is doomed.
On the other hand, it's possible that his job is to take it personally, to be interested, to notice, to care, to add more value than a website can.
Who gets hired, how are they trained, where is the magic?
What happens when the boss cares enough to only hire, train and work with people who take it personally?
I writing to you from Budapest. Let me give you a brief take on the refugee crisis.
There's been an average influx of about a 1000 or more people on Hungary's Southern border for the past several month. This number is rising.
By EU/Schengen rules, refugees must register before they can go on. Countries that do not abide by the rules risk their Schengen status.
Moreover, if Hungary simply sends them on, the refugees can legally be sent back to Hungary.
In short, unless the migrants' route towards Germany is cleared, they are quite possible Hungary's problem. Hungary has a population of about 10 million people, and by the end of August, the number of refugees surpassed 120,000.
In short, the Hungarian government is between a rock and a hard place. It may seem the solution is to send them on, but as explained above, this can backfire.
Cheers, Peter
The main points of entry are Hungary, Greece, and Italy and those countries are the ones struggling most under the weight of existing rules.
The heart of the matter is open borders. The borders should be open to every county in the EU, but to open the borders to all takers from Syria, African nations, etc., is 100% guaranteed to cause a problem.
And it has. Australia's solution was to send them back. Europe eventually faces the same decision.
There is a shared belief among the members of the Group of 20 leading economies in the need to "double down" against competitive currency devaluation and avoid it in both policy and language, a senior U.S. Treasury official said on Saturday.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the G20 meeting of central bankers and finance ministers in the Turkish capital Ankara, the official said the final communique from the meeting was expected to address competitive devaluation, where countries attempt to drive down a currency to boost exports.
"There is a shared sense that the G20 needs to double down on its principle that competitive devaluation is a bad thing."
Currencies have come into sharp focus at the G20 meeting, after China devalued the yuan in a surprise move in August, sparking market turmoil.
G20 Hypocrites Translated
The G20 believes the yuan should go higher.
That's quite a collection of clowns all in one place. All they lack is ample makeup. If those hypocrites actually believed what they stated, QE would go out the window in a second.
ECB president Mario Draghi is the top clown at the moment. He hopes to drive the euro lower to increase inflation. His method of choice is QE rather than a peg or fixed rate of exchange.
For some reason QE is an acceptable means to drive a currency lower, but China's peg is not. The irony is the yuan might plunge if China floated it as the G20 and US treasury wants.
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