Dell Incorporated has been one of the companies hit hard by the lack of credit available in the United States, although recently they’ve got some good news that has pleased both the company’s executive team as well as the large number of investors that have put money into the company. Ever since their share prices have fallen on bad times, Dell has been in the business of cutting costs wherever they can. Now, it appears that some of those measures have finally started to help the company with the arrival of the First Quarter numbers.
The cost cutting measures, combined with sales of mobile devices that were stronger than expected, allowed Dell to create an overall revenue and profit flow that was higher than most of the financial projections indicated. This had an overall positive effect on the Dell stock prices in terms of the international company as well as the company affiliates located within the States and that in turn has made many investors feel good about leaving their money in Dell once again.
That having been said, maintaining momentum will be significantly difficult to carry out because of the fact that the next cost cutting measures that the company is going to take carry much higher risks than the first round. Only time will tell if Dell is able to sustain the momentum they currently have.
“Our PowerEdge servers deliver on Dell’s commitment to simplify IT by providing customers with a seamless and simple upgrade path to quad-core, making it easier and quicker for them to realize the benefits of these advanced processors,” said Sally Stevens, Dell’s Director of PowerEdge Servers. “Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors running on Dell PowerEdge servers delivers the right balance of performance, energy efficiency and price for customers while helping to accelerate our vision of scale-out computing in the enterprise.”
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In a move that has been hailed as visionary by some and Satanic by others, automotive company Ford has declared that they will be opening a new car plant in Mexico. Ford is expected to invest around $3 billion in the new plant, making it the single largest investment ever to be made in Mexican industry. It will also be the largest manufacturing gain that Mexico has had in awhile, with around 4500 new jobs being created by the plant’s presence.
For automotive workers in the United States, the news is quite bad as not only does it mean that no new investment will be happening in that country, but it also means that in all likelihood more layoffs will be coming at some point in the near future on the part of Ford.
The car company has lost approximately $15 billion over the last eight quarters due a number of different factors and it is precisely because of this loss that the company’s executives claim that the new plant is absolutely critical to the long term success of the company in the 21st century. Overall, it is one of the largest examples of outsourcing of jobs that at one point in time were unquestionably to be placed within the borders of the United States.
US giant Ford is to invest $3bn (£1.5bn) in a new car plant in Mexico, the biggest investment in the country’s manufacturing sector.
The move is a blow to American car workers who had hoped the factory would be built in the United States.
Ford has lost more than $15bn (£7.5bn) over the past two years and says the new facility is crucial to its future.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon hailed the announcement as a “turning point” for his country.
(Source) BBC News
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On the heels of the sub-prime mortgage crisis within the United States, it seems that every time one looks at the news a new sector of the real estate industry has been affected in a dangerous and financially scary domino affect. Whether this is confirmation bias at work or an actual trend is best left up to the analysts, but what is definitely true is that the housing slowdown has now reached the very heart of the US real estate market, a place that was previously thought to be somewhat well insulated from the effects of the mortgage crisis.
The heart of the US market has always been resale homes, as these homes tend to circulate around communities in a way that really isn’t that relatable to the sub-prime mortgages that caused the real estate bubble to burst. However, with sales falling by 1% in April and record highs being recorded in the number of resale homes that have gone unsold, there can be no doubt that the housing slowdown has now permeated its way through the entire US housing market. Where things will go from here is anybody’s guess, but if you’re looking for the silver lining then perhaps it would be that things can’t really get that much worse.
Rice, something that most Asian countries consider as a main part of their meal, has joined the ranks of oil as far as shortages and rising outrageous prices in the world today. To most, rice is like bread. In the better off countries like the United States and Europe, you will rarely see rice as their main food carrier.
But for people in the Philippines and Thailand, rice is surely a great need. Not many people would understand why but apparently it originates from tradition. Today, the Philippines is really in a bind. Rice is strangely disappearing and the crops are weirdly disappearing. Worst, parasites called rice hoarders have seen this as an opportunity to make money, stocking up sacks of rice and hiding them and eventually offering them for sale at their commanded prices.
It makes you wonder if the government is indeed doing something about it. Then again, wouldn’t key people in the government have a hand in this? I wouldn’t be surprised. Corruption calling!
“The so-called rice crisis is really an income crisis,” said Rolando Dy, executive director of the food division of the Manila-based University of Asia and the Pacific.
He blamed “under-investment in agriculture and infrastructure, a poor record in eliminating poverty (and) poor infrastructure quality,” for the crisis which has forced thousands of poor Filipinos to line up for hours for subsidized rice.
“We cannot reap what we did not sow. We failed in reducing rural poverty compared to other countries,” like China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, he said.
(Source) The Daily Star
One of the fascinating aspects of viewing the credit crunch that is going on around the world is trying to figure out if any parallels can be drawn between the different countries. While the credit crunch has most severely affected the United States and United Kingdom, at the same time many of the developed nations of the world (Western Europe, South Africa and Japan) have had their share of troubles as well. And because different analysts will hold different factors important in their analysis, anything that changes in another country might be construed as something that could change here.
Well, as far as Japan goes, things appear to be improving in the general economy. Loans are up, real estate is starting to look a lot more promising than it did a few months ago and even the unemployment rate is starting to come down. It was 4% in February, 3.9% in March and as April comes to a close it has been clocked in at 3.8%, showing a very distinct downward trend. How low it will go is anybody’s guess, but at the same time there are many people jumping on the bandwagon and stating that conditions in Japan improving might be a sign that things are going to improve in other places within the developed world as well.
