Free Republic

The semiconductor gold rush is all but over, and we've had our fill. Or so the past month of dismal earnings might have you believe. Electronics giant Samsung saw its profits contract 69 percent during the fourth quarter, while revenues slumped 8 percent overall. South Korean memory manufacturer SK Hynix, meanwhile, followed a few days later with an equally bleak report. Both companies told a story of macroeconomic forces that were suppressing consumer spending and driving DRAM and NAND flash inventories to unprecedented levels. Put simply, where there was once a chip shortage there is now a glut. Well, of...

Micron Technology Inc. executives warned about a semiconductor downturn in late June, but now say that a “sharp and sudden” drop in demand exceeded even those expectations, suggesting the current chip glut could get a lot worse. Micron MU, 0.74% reported a worse-than-expected fiscal fourth quarter Thursday, with revenue plunging 23% from last year, but that wasn’t the big miss. Executives guided for $4 billion to $4.5 billion in revenue in the current quarter, more than $1 billion lower than analysts’ expectations, and suggested they could post a loss in the quarter even on an adjusted basis. “As we look...

Is New York City's central business district finally recovering after Covid-19? The simple answer is no. Although residential rents in Manhattan were inflated to record highs, the rise of remote work quelled any recovery for the office space market in the borough. Bloomberg reported blocks of decades-old office buildings sitting partially empty are becoming a multibillion-dollar problem for building owners. Even though Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and other Wall Street firms have pushed for a return to the office after the Labor Day holiday, NYC's office-occupancy trends are still below half, according to card-swipe data provided by Kastle Systems. Office vacancy...

Every time a new study comes out regarding the “payoff” from college, I wonder: Will this finally be the one that takes note of widespread underemployment among recent grads and comprehends the impact of credential inflation? In February, Pew Research released a study on the effects of college but the instant I saw the title, I was sure that this would not be one that broke out of the usual “college is a great investment” model. That study, “The Rising Cost of Not Going to College,” actually moves further in the wrong direction by telling people that those who don’t...

Friday, May 6, 2011 Rare Earths Seen Growing Less Rare SYDNEY (Dow Jones)--Demand for rare earth elements that has driven up prices more than tenfold since 2009 is likely to be met by a surplus of supply by 2013, as Western companies start up new mines to compete with the Chinese firms that now dominate the market, Goldman Sachs analysts predicted Thursday. The forecast calls into question the sustainability of the current boom in rare earths, a suite of 17 elements used in products from high-powered magnets, and fuel refining to energy-efficient light bulbs and mobile phone screens, as well...

Lobstermen in southern New England are facing a possible five-year fishing ban after biologists made that recommendation to regulators, saying the drastic step is needed to save the depleted stock . . . The vast majority of lobsters caught in the Northeast are trapped north of Cape Cod to Maine, an area that accounts for about 93 percent of the catch and has recently grappled with the opposite problem — a glut of lobsters on the market . . .

WAYMART - Joe Davitt's tone curdled as he discussed the trough in milk prices. "We're the only self-employed business that has no say in what we get paid," Mr. Davitt, 39, said Wednesday as he gazed at a cluster of Holstein cows feeding in the barn at his 145-acre farm. "I can't afford to quit because what the cows would bring wouldn't be enough to cover my debt." A slump in milk prices is taking dairy farmers to the woodshed. Expenses exceed milk payments at many dairy operations. "There were times before when the prices were low, but the costs...

Don't blame the banking crisis for the bad economy, says author of 1970's eco-doom classic. The global economic crisis is like a Samurai movie, quips Dennis Meadows co-author of the 1970s eco-doom report, 'Limits to Growth.' In a Samurai film's inevitable finale, sword wielding hero and villain inevitably clash in a flurry of steel. The two halt and glower at each other before one, always the miscreant, collapses to the ground dead. The baddy was "already dead, but didn't know it," Meadows explained in Tokyo. The same is true in the current crisis for glowering corporate giants such as carmakers....

GM Daewoo 'Top-Heavy' with 210 Foreign Executives GM Daewoo had 210 foreign executives as of the end of February, data shows. A subsidiary of General Motors, GM Daewoo published the figures at the request of its labor union. That was 17 times more than the 12 foreign executives at Renault Samsung and almost the same as the entire 250 executives at the headquarters of Hyundai Motor, the world’s fifth largest automaker in terms of sales. There is a growing criticism that GM Daewoo has too many executives given that it is a production-centered subsidiary of GM. Hyundai has 250 executives...

NEWARK, N.J. - Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., struggling like other home builders, is offering six-figure discounts on some of its properties this weekend as it attempts to draw interest in a slumping market. The sales blitz involves dropping prices by more 20 percent on some of its prime real estate. The largest discounts are on the most expensive homes, including a 3-bedroom condominium by the Hudson River in West New York, which has been reduced $240,000, or 22 percent, to $862,000 this weekend. A 25-percent discount is being offered on a 2-bedroom home in Jackson Township, N.J., which lowers its price...

Politicians and Wall Street cheered when the ethanol industry went on a building binge. Now the distillers are waking up to the ugly possibility of a gasohol glut. ...Ethanol makers need the help. Corn prices, 75% of the cost of ethanol production, have doubled in the past six months, to more than $4 a bushel. At the same time, the price of ethanol has followed the price of gasoline downward. Absent a rescue from Capitol Hill, the glut is going to get worse. AgResource's Basse estimates the blending demand for ethanol at 10 billion gallons, 7% of the 150 billion...

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. Energy Information Administration on Tuesday cut its forecast for 2006 world petroleum demand because of slower-than-expected demand growth in Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development countries. The EIA, the statistics and analysis arm of the Department of Energy, said it expects world petroleum demand to grow at 1.3 million barrels a day in 2006, rising to 1.8 million barrels in 2007. "This represents a downward revision for 2006, as EIA has lowered its oil demand for 2006 by 300,000 barrels per day," the administration said on its web site. Surplus world crude oil production...

NEARLY a billion bottles of French and Italian wine are to be turned into fuel and disinfectant because producers cannot find buyers.The EU agriculture commissioner yesterday announced plans for a radical shake-up of the wine market to prevent over-production. In the meantime, it was agreed that the EU will finance the conversion of millions of bottles of French and Italian wine into industrial alcohol. The growing popularity of wines from the New World has been blamed for the decline in the appetite for traditional European produce. "Europe is producing too much wine for which there is no market," the commissioner,...

Grape glut leaves vineyards facing ruin By Nick Squires in Sydney (Filed: 07/06/2006) Hundreds of Australian vineyards are facing ruin amid a glut of grapes that has left the industry producing far more wine than it can sell at home or overseas. The problem is so severe that the industry said yesterday that it will take a multi-million pound government bail-out to save smaller producers from going out of business. The popularity of Australian wine in Britain and America, coupled with generous government tax breaks, encouraged a craze for establishing vineyards from the late 1990s. The Wine Grape Growers' Council...

LONDON: Crude oil traded above US$74 (US$1 = RM3.61) a barrel before a United Nations hearing on Iran's nuclear programme, amid concern oil supplies will be disrupted from the country. The US, UK and France will ask for the United Nations to demand that Iran halt its uranium enrichment programme. Iran is the world's fourth-largest oil supplier. Iranian authorities "would have their own embargo; they wouldn't send their oil to certain countries," said Deborah White, an analyst with Societe Generale SA. "To cut oil exports will certainly not be their first choice. They need the money." Crude oil for June...

Rents are rising again across the country, squeezing tenants who are already coping with high gasoline prices and improving returns to landlords after a deep five-year slump. The turnaround appears to be another sign that the boom in house prices and sales is finally slowing, as homes have become so expensive in many metropolitan areas that some people have decided to rent instead. A government report yesterday also offered new evidence that the housing boom could be reaching a peak. The median price of a newly built home fell to $203,800 in July from $219,500 in June, after having risen...

A wartime economy, domestic overproduction of grapes and a flood of inexpensive imports have combined to benefit the average wine consumer. A visit to Trader Joe’s underlines this situation. TJ’s tasted and embraced the Charles Shaw label as an exclusive for their 141-store chain, selling at a mere $1.99 in California, where it gained the sobriquet late last year of “Two buck Chuck.” Oregon taxes moved the price to $2.99 locally, where TJ stacks cases of Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Merlot in floor displays that chain-wide have moved some 2 million cases in less than a year. This...

VA Say No to New Patients Due to a glut of patients and a shortage of funds, VA officials have ordered its hospitals and clinics to cease efforts to enroll new patients into its health care system. "I am directing each network director to ensure that no marketing activities to enroll new veterans occur within your networks," according to a July 18 memo sent by VA undersecretary Laura Miller to Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) directors. As of Aug. 1 more than 300,000 veterans were waiting for clinic appointments, with some waiting more than six months.