CUTTING BACK
Aston Martin: Extended Christmas shutdown and 600 redundancies. Temporary three-day week began in January
Bentley: Worked a three-day week in October and longer Christmas break. Closing Crewe plant for seven weeks from the beginning of March
GM (Vauxhall): Extended Christmas closure and 40-day shutdown
Honda: Four-month shutdown between February and May
Jaguar Land Rover: Series of one-day shutdowns and production cuts late 2008 plus 450 redundancies planned
Nissan: Two-week shutdown late last year and 1,200 redundancies
Toyota: One of the night shifts suspended
Source: SMMT
850 jobs go at Mini car factor
BMW has confirmed that 850 jobs are to go at the Cowley plant in Oxford, which makes the Mini, and that weekend working has been scrapped.
All agency workers who did the weekend shift at the factory have lost their jobs, with immediate effect, prompting an angry announcement from unions.
CANADA:
December manufacturing sales plummet
Recent Canadian economic numbers have been little short of calamitous. Job losses in January were the biggest on record while sales of previously owned homes in January last month were 41 per cent down from a year earlier.
Union walks away from negotiations with GM
As if that were not bad enough, Canada posted its first trade deficit in almost 33 years in December.
OTTAWA — The value of Canadian manufacturing shipments plummeted a record 8.0 per cent in December from November in yet another stark sign of how the global crisis is battering Canada.
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There is one overriding question about the
ReplyDeleteglobal economy and that is who "light switched"
it in September of 2008? It seems everything
came to a screeching halt during that month after the collapse of Lehman Bros. Global trade
virtually went over a cliff. The Baltic Dry Index collapsed because international LOC's
(letters of credit) disappeared. Global commodity prices collapsed. Trade in finished
goods collapsed. How did this happen? Who shut everything down and why?
How did this happen?
ReplyDeletePeak debt
Paulson turned out the lights .....
ReplyDeleteIt's all about derivatives. That's why Lehman was such a "silent disaster". And they weren't the biggest fry in the pond. It's also why all the money being shoveled into the banks is vaporizing.
ReplyDeleteWhen the banks withdrew letters of credit for trade, world trade summarily collapsed. This made little sense relative to other risks (say, compared to mortgage CDOs the bank want to keep on their books marked to artificially high values), but they did it anyways. I'm sure this was one part fear... but I suspect it was also one part malice. After all, the standing survivors will now be able to buy positions in the collapsed commodities and durable goods complex for pennies on the dollar.
Seems colored in shades of Amaranth to me... if you know what I mean.