Thursday, April 22, 2010

Japan's Exports Rise 43%; Barclays Economist Says No Chance of Double-Dip, Strong Growth Ahead

TOKYO — "Japan's exports rose for a fourth straight month in March as a recovering global economy drove demand for the nation's cars and gadgets. Exports jumped 43.5 percent from a year earlier the government said Thursday.

The figures offer more evidence that robust growth, particularly in Asia, is feeding a turnaround in the world's second-biggest economy, offsetting weak demand and falling prices at home. Shipments rose worldwide, with those to Asia up almost 53 percent.

Exports to the U.S. grew 30 percent, and those to the European Union rose 27 percent, the finance ministry said. Overseas shipments of vehicles more than doubled, while electrical machinery exports were up 43 percent.

Global demand fueled Japan's economy to expand at an annualized pace of 3.8 percent in the October-December period and likely led to another strong showing in the first quarter.

"The possibility that the economy will experience a double-dip recession in 2010 now appears extremely unlikely. Instead, the focus has shifted to how broadly the recovery will expand," said Kyohei Morita, chief Japan economist at Barclays Capital."

25 Comments:

At 4/22/2010 12:06 PM, Anonymous geoih said...

Of course there's no chance of a double dip recession in Japan, they're still in the first dip that started 20 years ago. Japan's market index has never been above 70% of the 1990 peak.

Japan is a case study for what is coming to America. We're doing the same things they started doing 20 years ago, and it still isn't working for them.

 
At 4/22/2010 1:31 PM, Blogger Benjamin Cole said...

Asia is booming, and will for generations.

Japan was a bubble, and it popped. But their GDP has grown slowly over the years. They have a problem with declining population.

Nations like Thailand and China have a long, long good future in front of them.

The money culture is coming to non-Islamic Asia. As Marx said, "money dissolves all other bonds." That is why Islamics hate free enterprise so much. People start to worship money and not false gods.

Look for an Asian boom to go and on.

The USA will tag along, sluggishly. We waste too much money on a parasitic military, housing and rural welfare state. We should be investing in infrastructure, factories and technical and science educations.

 
At 4/22/2010 2:30 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

Americans don't really want smaller cars.When good times are rolling they buy bigger vehicles because they prefer them.The new Chevy Volt is an attempt by an American company to leap ahead of this problem with new technology and introduce a larger vehicle that is cheap to own and operate. This vehicle is not a hy-brid but an electric car that incorporates a gasoline engine generator to recharge the vehicles batteries as it is underway when required.Apparently it is also a recharge plug in.America doesn't need imported small cars it needs these new technology vehicles that consume less fuel.This vehicle has been under development for a long time and GM has kept it off the market to de-bug it prior to it's release.You now even get a government guarantee from a mainly government owned company.
New technology is the way forward America does not have any problem developing it. It's problem is getting paid enough for it before foreign imitators start to manufacture copys of it and produce goods to sell on the American market.

 
At 4/22/2010 2:36 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

````````BUY AMERICAN````````````````
````````````WISE UP``````````````````
```````SUPPORT AMERICAN JOBS`````````
`````````AND YOUR COUNTRY````````````

 
At 4/22/2010 8:46 PM, Blogger juandos said...

I wonder if Kyohei Morita is willing to put his money where his mouth is?

"BUY AMERICAN
WISE UP
SUPPORT AMERICAN JOBS
AND YOUR COUNTRY
"...

Sure as long as these American jobs don't price themselves out of the market..

 
At 4/22/2010 9:07 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

OK point taken juandos but when Gm was restructured all the old union agreements were torn up and the unions were told what conditions they would be working under. There was no union involvement "per say" This policy should have been extended to other industries and reorganized.

 
At 4/23/2010 1:46 AM, Blogger KO said...

Isn't the VOLT still going to run $40,000 at a time when Prius is around $25,000? There's a $7,500 credit to cut it down, but still pretty expensive.

There are kits available on the internet to add plug in capability to the Prius. I'd go that route before I bought a first year GM car that costs more.

 
At 4/23/2010 2:57 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

YES! OA But its not made in America by your own [owned]car company so the money you pay for it stays in your own country and because it is mainly electric the amount of fuel consumed will be reduced for a vehicle its size. This auto has been featured several times in road tests in the new york times in recent months and it is a very attractive vehicle and the road test reports have been good.

 
At 4/23/2010 3:04 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The PRIS is a hybrid the VOLT is an electric car with its own gas generator.

 
At 4/23/2010 3:59 AM, Blogger KO said...

Anon, it's still about $10,000 more. I wouldn't buy either, and for $32,000, there's a long list of other vehicles to look at.

That it takes a $7,500 credit to sell it tells you why the government and unions own GM. GM didn't exactly make great business decisions the last few decades.

A hybrid is an electric car. The Volt just has a bigger battery pack and a plug in capability already added.

 
At 4/23/2010 5:51 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The CHEVY VOLT has a 1 litre 3 cyclinder turbocharged gasoline engine that drives a generator which then charges the lithium ion batteries.Electric energy is then fed to an electric motor drive system that has no gearbox. The vehicle is driven for the first 40 miles on the plug in charge before the genset cuts in.So up to 40 miles there is no gas used so the fuel comsumption figures vary but at 80 miles travelled it consumes 100 mile to the gallon. At 60 miles traveled it consumes fuel at the rate of 150 miles per gallon.

 
At 4/23/2010 6:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The hybrid car was first produced by GM in the 1980's when the leases expired on these vehicles GM had them crushed. GM hybrids were never sold only leased.
Don't get me wrong I am not knocking the Toyota Prius as I do not know enough about the vehicle to do that but it does travel about 60 mile to the gallon so thats impressive compared to a6.9 litre gas gussler.

 
At 4/23/2010 6:35 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Economically the good points of this concept.
1.Reduction by a substantial margin of fuel consumed per mile.
2.Simpler design concept which should mean lower maintenance costs.
3.American made with
4.Big reduction in emissions
Benefits!
1&3 Could be big reduction in current account deficit for import of vehicles and petroleum.
2 Cheaper to run family car lower wage needed to own vehicle.
4 Great substantial lowering of emissions.

 
At 4/23/2010 10:33 AM, Blogger juandos said...

"all the old union agreements were torn up and the unions were told what conditions they would be working under"...

Yes I know and I for one am hoping that its good enough...

"This policy should have been extended to other industries and reorganized"...

Whether or not the companies were in the same financial straits as GM?

 
At 4/23/2010 11:57 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes,Juandos America is a basket case and I don't think the average American has any Idea how grave the situation is. I believe new technology is one of the avenues that can be used to ease the country into the future by carefully selecting where funds are spent.
There was a Chinese economist who stated that earnings should be nationally immediately I agree with him.

 
At 4/23/2010 4:51 PM, Anonymous Pedro said...

I just LOVE all these "no chance" predictions.

They build so much altitude for the subsequent fall.

There was "no chance" of house price declines seen in 2006.

 
At 4/23/2010 4:53 PM, Anonymous Grom said...

There's no chance of a double-dip, Pedro, because there hasn't been a recovery yet.

 
At 4/23/2010 5:18 PM, Blogger KO said...

@ Anon, 6:00 AM. The EV1, if that's what you mean, was all electric, not a hybrid. It came out in the 90's. One big problem was if you ran out of charge, you were stuck wherever you were. AAA could tow you, but couldn't give you a recharge.

A side note: the reason they were leased is that a manufacturer selling a car has to support it for something like 25 or 30 years after they sell it. Spare parts and service I think, or big chunk of money. Jay Leno wanted to buy one but GM refused.

The Prius, like the Ford and Honda hybrids, is an electric drive car with a gasoline powered generator, just as the Volt is. It has a smaller battery pack and relies much more on the gasoline engine to provide power.

The Volt isn't some huge breakthrough. It adds a plug-in battery charger and bigger battery pack to a hybrid car.

 
At 4/23/2010 5:42 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thankyou OA but the excellent www.forbes.com currently has has a big write up on electric cars probably for EARTH DAY so have a look at the following articles:-what to know before buying an electric car:-test driving the chevy volt:-the hurdles for electric cars:-preparing for the electric car future:-the electric car battery glut:the ev9 hybrid:

 
At 4/23/2010 5:52 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

OA google chevy volt for its technical specifications including drive train type. the chevy volt is an electric car not a hybrid.
I am pleased to say there are now many various makes of hybrids on the Us market most of foreign manufacture.
OA you should remember that overall Americans are bigger in height and size than a lot of other nationalities so I think this is why they prefer larger vehicles

 
At 4/23/2010 8:37 PM, Blogger KO said...

Anon, now I see what's going on.

"The Volt is not a hybrid or plug-in hybrid," said Jim Campbell, the U.S. marketing vice president at Chevrolet. "It is an extended-range electric vehicle."


Hybrid and electric vehicle are defined differently for IRS credits. The Volt is a hybrid in the generic sense, but qualifies as a plug-in electric drive vehicle and a much bigger credit.

"Hybrid vehicles have drive trains powered by both an internal combustion engine and a rechargeable battery."

http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=107766,00.html


The Volt's gasoline engine charges the battery which then provides the power to the electric motors. If they didn't dump it into the battery first or didn't have the plug-in, then it would fall into some other credit category.

"Internal Revenue Code Section 30D provides a credit for Qualified Plug-in Electric Drive Motor Vehicles including passenger vehicles and light trucks."

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/article/0,,id=214841,00.html


Also I checked and you are right that hybrids run both the gasoline mechanical energy and electrical motor into the gearbox. The Prius runs a generator, but also uses mechanical power into the gearbox at times. That last part is obviously news to me. It's a series-parallel hybrid. The Volt is a series hybrid.

http://www.hybridcenter.org/hybrid-center-how-hybrid-cars-work-under-the-hood-2.html

 
At 4/23/2010 9:20 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

OA, where did you get your pricing from for the volt as far as I know a price for it will be announced in october when it goes on sale

 
At 4/23/2010 9:41 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Some poster on this site recently commented on the wretched ethanol industry but at www.forbes.com there is an article titled" we are getting closer to clean ethanol" have a read its about producing ethanol by a new cheaper method in a new plant. Watch out Shieks your about to get much smaller harems.

 
At 4/23/2010 10:28 PM, Blogger cynthia1 said...

The society is facing problems with such laws. This has to go legal
and it’s needed to be sorted at the earlier.

Cynthia
-------------------------------------Luxury Cars

 
At 4/23/2010 11:07 PM, Blogger KO said...

Former CEO Bob Lutz
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/06/19/lutz-volt-will-cost-40-000-first-gen-will-lose-money/

Current CEO Ed Whitacre
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/01/chevrolet-volt-price/

Why it costs so much:
http://adage.com/article?article_id=138244

I've been hearing about cellulostic ethanol for years. Articles will mention plans for a production facility, then you never hear anything again. But usually it's some academic or scientist trying to do it, not a successful bioscience company. Their estimated production costs are actually economic as well. Hopefully they can get an economic plant up and running.

 

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