ヨーロッパ、限られた選択しか残されてない負債の悪循環
For Europe, Few Options in a Vicious Cycle of Debt
By PETER EAVIS | New York Times – 1 hour 27 minutes ago
Europe has a $1 trillion problem.
As difficult as the last two years have been for Europe, 2012 could be even tougher. Each week, countries will need to sell billions of dollars of bonds - a staggering $1 trillion in total - to replace existing debt and cover their current budget deficits.
At any point, should banks, pensions and other big investors balk, anxiety could course through the markets, making government officials feel like they are stuck in a scary financial remake of "Groundhog Day."
Even if governments attract investors at reasonable interest rates one month, they will have to repeat the process again the next month - and signs of skittish buyers could make each sale harder to manage than the previous one.
"The headline risk is enormous," said Nick Firoozye, chief European rates strategist at Nomura International in London.
Given this vicious cycle, policy makers and investors are closely watching the debt auctions for potential weakness. On Thursday, Spain is set to sell as much as 5 billion euros ($6.3 billion) of government bonds. Italy follows on Friday with an auction of more than $9 billion.
The current challenge for Europe is to keep Italy and Spain from ending up like Greece and Portugal, whose borrowing costs rose so high last year that it signaled real likelihood of default, making it impossible for the governments to find buyers for their debt. Since then, Greece and Portugal have been reliant on the financial backing of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
The intense focus on the sovereign debt auctions - and their importance to the broader economy - starkly underscores the difference between European and American responses to their crises.
Since 2008, there has been almost no private sector interest to buy new United States residential mortgage loans, the financial asset at the root of the country's crisis. To make up for that lack of investor demand, the federal government has bought and guaranteed hundreds of billions of dollars of new mortgages.
In Europe, policy makers are still expecting private sector buyers to acquire the majority of government debt. Last month, in perhaps the boldest move of the crisis, the European Central Bank lent $620 billion to banks for up to three years at a rate of 1 percent.
Some officials had hoped that these cheap loans would spur demand for government debt. The idea is that financial institutions would be able to make a tidy profit by borrowing from the central bank at 1 percent and using the money to buy government bonds that have a higher yield, like Spain's 10-year bond at 5.5 percent.
But the sovereign debt markets continue to show signs of stress. Italy's 10-year government bond has fallen in price, lifting its yield to more than 7 percent, a level that shows investors remain worried about the financial strength of Italy's government.
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And European banks appear to be hoarding much of the money they borrowed from the central bank, rather than lending it to governments. Money deposited by banks at the European Central Bank, where it remains idle, stands at $617 billion, up from $425 billion just a month ago.
"It's hard to see why a banker would want to tie up money in a European sovereign for, say, three years," said Phillip L. Swagel at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, who served as assistant secretary for economic policy under Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.
Italy's troubles highlight how hard it is to generate demand for a deluge of new debt from a dwindling pool of investors. The country needs to issue as much as $305 billion of debt this year, the highest in the euro zone. By comparison, France, with the second highest total, needs to auction $243 billion of new debt, according to estimates by Nomura.
Governments like Italy's are at the mercy of markets because they simply don't have the cash to pay off even some of their bonds that come due. They must issue new bonds to cover their old debts, as well as their budget deficits, at a time when investors are growing scarce.
Banks, traditionally big holders of government bonds, have been selling Italian debt. "We've seen a lot of liquidation by non-European investors," said Laurent Fransolet, head of European interest rate strategy at Barclays Capital in London. For instance, Nomura Holdings in Japan slashed its Italian debt holdings, mostly government bonds, to $467 million on Nov. 24, from $2.8 billion at the end of Sept.
European banks have also been dumping the debt. BNP Paribas, a French bank, cut its exposure to Italian government bonds to $15.5 billion at the end of October, from $26 billion at the end of June.
Italian banks, though large owners of their government's obligations, may not want to take on too much more, to keep their investors happy. Shares in UniCredit have fallen more than 40 percent since last week as the Italian firm has tried to raise capital to comply with new regulations.
There are ways to avoid spectacularly bad debt auctions, at least in the short term.
The central bank can help by buying a country's bonds in the market ahead of a new debt sale. That would help bolster prices at the auction, or at least keep them stable.
There is also some evidence that banks' government-bond selling may have abated at the end of last year, according to Mr. Fransolet. Central bank figures show European financial firms acquired $2.4 billion of Spanish government bonds in November, after selling a monthly average of $4.8 billion in the preceding three months.
Governments may also be able to attract new buyers to their bond markets. Belgium sold $7.2 billion of government bonds to local retail investors last month, in part appealing to their patriotism.
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Opportunistic hedge funds, betting the market is too pessimistic about certain European countries, may also bite. Saba Capital Management, a New York-based hedge fund headed by the former Deutsche Bank trader Boaz Weinstein, owns Italian government bonds, though it does so as part of a wider trading strategy that includes bets that could pay off if Europe's problems worsen.
But it is doubtful that Italy and Spain can find enough new buyers this year to bring their bond yields down to sustainable levels. Instead, if their economies slow - and if their governments become unpopular - debt auctions could fail and their cost of borrowing could rise even more.
All eyes would then turn to the central bank for drastic action. It could lend more cheap money to banks, in the hope that some of it might find its way into government bonds. Or it could become a big buyer of government bonds itself, printing euros to finance the purchases.
But that may not be a lasting solution, since the central bank's actions could scare off private investors. Typically, when government-backed organizations like the central bank hold a country's debt, their claims on the debtor rank higher than those of other creditors. For that reason, private investors might think their holdings would fall in value if the central bank became a big owner of Italian debt - and they might retreat.
At the same time, the crisis response in the United States did not depend solely on government-backed entities like the Federal Reserve to buy housing loans. Professor Swagel of the University of Maryland points out that banks and investors also took large losses on existing housing debt. While painful, the mortgage debt proved less of a drag on the financial system.
So far, Europe has been averse to taking permanent losses on government bonds. Except in the case of Greek debt, European policy makers have shied away from any plan that could mean private holders of government debt get hurt.
However, Nouriel Roubini, a professor of economics at the Stern School of Business at New York University, recently argued in a Financial Times editorial that Italy's debt should be reduced to 90 percent of the gross domestic product from 120 percent. In such a situation, investors might suffer a 25 percent hit on the value of their Italian bonds, he said.
Such haircuts might seem like the recipe for more instability right now. But if Europe struggles to find buyers for its debt, more radical options are likely to be considered. Europe's debt problem is huge, and the experience in the United States suggests dealing with it may take several, more drastic approaches.
"If you go halfway, you'll never get to the end," Professor Swagel said. "And that describes European policy-making."
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By MARK SCHREIBER
Take a stroll through home sweet home. You'll almost certainly see an entertainment system, refrigerator, microwave oven, rice cooker, toaster, mixer/blender, vacuum cleaner, heater/air conditioner, hair dryer, electric blanket and so on. From personal hygiene to food preparation to recreation and entertainment, electric appliances are a ubiquitous part of our daily lives.
For the previous half century, the Japanese consumer-electronics industry enjoyed a extraordinarily successful run as both innovator and competitor, capturing dominant market shares of everything from calculators and boom-boxes to microwave ovens and video cassette recorders.
Among its manifold products, certainly none have held the aura of television, referred to in Japanese as kaden no ōsama (the king of appliances). So said not because TV was necessarily the most expensive or essential, but because people spent more hours per day looking at it than everything else combined. "It's like having a billboard to promote your brand right in the customer's living room," a PR spokesman at a manufacturer explained to me years ago.
During the five years leading up to July 2011, practically every household in Japan replaced its analog cathode-ray tube TV for a digital set. Did this result in a major windfall for TV makers? Hardly. In an article titled "The End of Japan's TV Industry," Shukan Diamond (Nov. 12) describes its death throes. Overproduction and oversupply has resulted in a price collapse. At retail a TV now sells for less than \1,000 per inch of display size, i.e., a 32-inch model might go for below \32,000.
Even the majority of Japanese brands sold here are assembled abroad of foreign components. As the result of strategic decisions made well over a decade ago, South Korea and Taiwan came to dominate production of LCD display panels, and now hold a respective 52.7 and 31 percent of the world's output, as opposed to only 15 percent by Japan.
But TV sets are just the tip of the iceberg. Starting with radios (remember radios?), from about 1995, imported goods have successively come to dominate Japan's consumer-appliance markets, gradually surpassing domestically manufactured washing machines, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, microwave ovens and others.
"Whereas electronics were once a major earner of foreign exchange," rues Shukan Diamond, "Japan has become a net importer," i.e., with an overall trade deficit.
That turning point came in 2009, a year after the yen's value soared in the wake of the "Lehman Shock." Presently, out of 18 listed product sectors, only in five — storage batteries, dry-cell batteries, light bulbs, digital cameras and the almost defunct sector of video tape recorders — does Japan still maintain a clear edge.
The consequences of this shift are grave. Compared with 1985, when the consumer electronics manufacturing sector employed some 440,000 workers, by 2009 that figure had shrunk to 156,400. The total value of electronics exports, which peaked at \4.54 trillion in 1985, has shrunk to one-third that figure, and this impacts in turn on the nonconsumer sectors of Japan's electronics industry, such as components, devices and industrial-use electronics.
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Nikkei Business (Dec. 26-Jan-2) observed that 2012 might mark a tipping point in the hollowing out of Japanese manufacturing.
In the past, Japanese companies — which made considerable investments to develop their brand image — could always rely on their compatriots' reluctance to stray from the fold. Unfamiliar foreign brands with funny names raised questions. Will it perform reliably? Is it safe for my family? Will I be able to read the user manual?
Now, ominously, a growing body of evidence demonstrates a "Made in Japan" label can no longer be relied upon — not on things consumers purchase to rub on their skin, or plug into the wall, or hold against their ear, or ingest through their mouth.
As one example, reports Nikkei Business, take the "Market O Real Brownie" from South Korea, sold through convenience-store chains in Japan from last September. For 12 straight weeks, according to point of sales data, this American-style chocolate confection was the second-best selling item at 250 Tokyo convenience stores. Its pink, brown and white cardboard display stand and the individual packets carry only English and Korean. The virtual absence of Japanese POP (point of purchase) appears to have been no deterrent to sales.
But why is this happening now? More than irradiation of the environment per se, perhaps trauma over the March 11 nuclear disaster may have served to dash the myth of Japan-made products being safe. And this, compounded by the flooding in Thailand, where many Japanese companies have factories, exposed the fragility of the product supply chain.
The disasters' impact on Japanese consumer psychology will no doubt be studied for years to come. But the magazine concludes the success of foreign products during 2011 is part of a trend that's not about to change anytime soon.
"With the present declining loyalty toward 'Made in Japan,' what direction should Japanese companies take?" the magazine asks rhetorically. "One thing's for sure: We will need to reexamine aspects of product manufacturing up to now, from the bottom up."
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日本の終りの序章か？
****
Sony Ericsson posts big loss in Q4
Reuters – 7 minutes ago
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sony Ericsson on Thursday posted a big loss for the fourth quarter of 2011, blaming tough competition, the global slowdown and restructuring for marring the final quarter before it is rolled into Japanese consumer giant Sony.
The pretax loss was 247 million euros ($316.57 million)versus a forecast for a profit of 41.7 million in a Reuters poll and a profit of 31 million euros in the previous three-month period. ($1 = 0.7802 euros)
コダックが倒産
Kodak files for bankruptcy, secures $950 million lifeline
Reuters – 27 minutes ago
(Reuters) - Eastman Kodak Co, which invented the hand-held camera and helped bring the world the first pictures from the moon, has filed for bankruptcy protection, capping a prolonged plunge for one of America's best-known companies.
The more than 130-year-old photographic film pioneer, which had tried to restructure to become a seller of consumer products like cameras, said it had also obtained a $950 million, 18-month credit facility from Citigroup to keep it going.
The loan and bankruptcy protection from U.S. trade creditors may give Kodak the time it needs to find buyers for some of its 1,100 digital patents, the key to its remaining value, and to reshape its business while continuing to pay its 17,000 workers.
"The board of directors and the entire senior management team unanimously believe that this is a necessary step and the right thing to do for the future of Kodak," Chairman and Chief Executive Antonio Perez said in a statement.
"Now we must complete the transformation by further addressing our cost structure and effectively monetizing non-core intellectual-property assets. We look forward to working with our stakeholders to emerge a lean, world-class, digital imaging and materials science company," he added.
At end September, the group had total assets of $5.1 billion and liabilities of $6.75 billion.
Kodak said it and its U.S. subsidiaries had filed for Chapter 11 business reorganization in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Non-U.S. subsidiaries were not covered by the filing and would continue to honor all obligations to their suppliers, it added.
任天堂の将来がリスク
Nintendo sees profit next year, but shares tumble
Reuters – 7 minutes ago
By Isabel Reynolds
TOKYO (Reuters) - Nintendo President Satoru Iwata dismissed the idea that the age of the dedicated handheld games device was over and said he aimed to return the company to substantial profit in 2012/13, after it warned of its first ever operating loss this year.
Shares in Kyoto-based Nintendo Co Ltd tumbled nearly 8 percent to an 8-year low after it slashed its full-year guidance for the third time in 6 months, and analysts said the potential market for its products was shrinking rapidly.
The creator of the Super Mario franchise reported a sharp drop in quarterly earnings, as its sales of its games devices that have dominated the industry for years were hit by competing gadgets such as Apple Inc's iPhone.
Iwata said he blamed the dismal results on a mixture of strategic errors and the difficult business environment created by the strong yen and European consumer gloom.
"Nintendo is facing its worst results since it entered the games business. What matters now is how Nintendo can make a profit from next year onwards, even under these harsh conditions," he told an analysts' meeting.
The maker of the Wii home console and DS handheld games is struggling to compete as sales of more versatile smartphones and tablets boom, and poor sales forced it to slash the price of its much anticipated 3DS handheld game device in August.
"The profitability of 3DS hardware was the biggest issue for earnings this financial year, but it looks like we'll be able to resolve the problem we've been having with losses on the 3DS during the first half of the next financial year," Iwata said.
"We should be able to generate a large profit by getting rid of losses on the 3DS hardware, if we can substantially lift sales of software."
A Nintendo spokesman said the company expected to stop losing money on each 3DS sold, thanks to economies of scale and changes to the internal design of the device.
But Nintendo shares closed down 4.1 percent at 10,310 yen, after falling to 9,910 yen shortly after the market opened, their lowest since February 2004. It has lost nearly 60 percent of its value since the start of last year.
"The company's core handheld business is under assault from smartphones, iPods and tablets, and we see competition for consumer wallet share continuing," said analyst Michael Pachter of U.S.-based Wedbush Securities in a research note.
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"The fact is that a significant share of Nintendo's market is gone forever, and we don't expect the company to come up with a practical strategy to stem the declines in sales we have forecast," he added. "We do not expect the company's fortunes to turn in FY 13."
NEW HOME CONSOLE BY CHRISTMAS
Nintendo said on Thursday its third-quarter operating profit fell 61 percent to 40.9 billion yen ($529 million) and it forecast an operating loss of 45 billion yen for the financial year to March 31, far worse than analysts' average forecast of a 4.2 billion yen loss.
Sales of its 3DS slumped shortly after launch in February, forcing the company to slash prices just six months later and take a loss on each device, something it had prided itself on avoiding in the past.
Even so, Nintendo cut its full-year 3DS sales forecast to 14 million from 16 million, while sales of its ageing Wii and the previous generation DS have fallen faster than expected.
It also faces stiff competition in the home console market from Sony Corp's Move and Microsoft Corp's Kinect, and some analysts say the console market may dry up over the next several years as cloud gaming takes off.
Nintendo will launch its Wii U console, a successor to the phenomenally successful Wii, in Japan, the United States, Australia and Europe at the year-end, after showing a final version at the E3 games show in June.
But Masayuki Otani, chief market analyst at Securities Japan, said the market was unlikely to have high hopes for the Wii U, although the slide in the share price may be reaching an end.
"The pace of the share price decline is easing and it may be near a floor, but it would be hard to predict a rapid recovery," he said.
Iwata said a leap in 3DS sales after the launch of a raft of software late last year showed that dedicated handheld games gadgets still had a future.
"I believe we have disproved the extreme theory that there is no longer a demand for handheld devices," he said.
($1 = 77.34)
(Additional reporting by Dominic Lau, James Topham, Reiji Murai, Daiki Iga; Editing by Edwina Gibbs, Michael Watson and Alex Richardson)
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日本、30年間以上の歴史で初めて貿易赤字計上。
-産業の空洞化と人口の高齢化が将来に暗い陰−
Japan's first trade deficit since 1980 raises debt doubts
By Kaori Kaneko and Tetsushi Kajimoto、Reuters
TOKYO | Wed Jan 25, 2012 9:41am EST
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's first annual trade deficit in more than 30 years calls into question how much longer the country can rely on exports to help finance a huge public debt without having to turn to fickle foreign investors.
The aftermath of the March earthquake raised fuel import costs while slowing global growth and the yen's strength hit exports, data released on Wednesday showed, swinging the 2011 trade balance into deficit.
Few analysts expect Japan to immediately run a deficit in the current account, which includes trade and returns on the country's huge portfolio of investments abroad. A steady inflow of profits and capital gains from overseas still outweighs the trade deficit.
But the trade figures underscore a broader trend of Japan's declining global competitive edge and a rapidly ageing population, compounding the immediate problem of increased reliance on fuel imports due to the loss of nuclear power.
Only four of the country's 54 nuclear power reactors are running due to public safety fears following the March disaster.
"What it means is that the time when Japan runs out of savings -- 'Sayonara net creditor country' -- that point is coming closer," said Jesper Koll, head of equities research at JPMorgan in Japan.
"It means Japan becomes dependent on global savings to fund its deficit and either the currency weakens or interest rates rise."
That prospect could give added impetus to Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's push to double Japan's 5 percent sales tax in two stages by October 2015 to fund the bulging social security costs of a fast-ageing society.
The biggest opposition party, although agreeing with the need for a higher levy, is threatening to block legislation in parliament's upper house in hopes of forcing a general election.
Japan logged a trade deficit of 2.49 trillion yen ($32 billion) for 2011, Ministry of Finance data showed, the first annual deficit since 1980, after the economy was hit by the shock of rising oil prices.
Were Japan to run a current account deficit, it would spell trouble because it would mean the country cannot finance its huge public debt -- already twice the size of its $5 trillion economy -- without overseas funds.
Japanese investors currently hold about 95 percent of Japan's government bonds, which lends some stability to an otherwise unsustainable debt burden.
Domestic buyers are less likely to dump debt at the first whiff of economic trouble, unlike foreign investors, as Europe's debt crisis has shown.
The trade data helped send the yen to a one-month low against the dollar and the euro on Wednesday.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Graphic on 2011 trade data link.reuters.com/mev26s
Dec trade balance link.reuters.com/vyq65s
Exports by destination link.reuters.com/far65s
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Total exports shrank 2.7 percent last year while imports surged 12.0 percent, reflecting reduced earnings from goods and services and higher spending on crude and fuel oil. Annual imports of liquefied natural gas hit a record high.
In a sign of the continuing pain from slowing global growth, exports fell 8.0 percent in December from a year earlier, roughly matching a median market forecast for a 7.9 percent drop, due partly to weak shipments of electronics parts.
Imports rose 8.1 percent in December from a year earlier, in line with a 8.0 percent annual gain expected, bringing the trade balance to a deficit of 205.1 billion yen, against 139.7 billion yen expected. It marked the third straight month of deficits.
Japan managed to sustain annual trade surpluses through the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s and the post-Lehman Brothers global recession that started in late 2008, which makes the 2011 dip into deficit all the more dramatic.
A generation ago, Japan was the world's export juggernaut, churning out a stream of innovative products from the likes of Sony and Toyota.
Much like China today, Japan's bulging trade surplus became a source of friction with the United States and other advanced economies, who pressed Tokyo to allow the yen to rise more rapidly in order to reduce the imbalance.
A 1985 agreement between Japan, the United States and Europe's big economies -- known as the Plaza Accord after the New York hotel where it was signed -- pushed the yen higher against the U.S. dollar.
Many economists argue that sowed the seeds of Japan's current debt woes. After the Plaza Accord, Japan's economy weakened and its central bank slashed interest rates, which contributed to a credit boom that eventually spawned a financial crisis and led to two decades of economic stagnation.
Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said on Tuesday he did not expect trade deficits to become a pattern, and did not foresee the country's current account balance tipping into the red in the near future.
But Japan's days of logging huge trade surpluses may be over as it relies more on fuel imports and manufacturers move production offshore to cope with rising costs and a strong yen, a trend that may weaken the Japanese currency longer term.
A fast-ageing population also means a growing number of elderly Japanese will be running down their savings.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said the government wants to closely watch the trend of exports and imports.
"There are worries that the yen's strength is driving Japanese industry to go abroad," said Fujimura. "We have to create new industries ... implement comprehensive steps to boost growth. It is important to secure employment within the nation."
($1=77.71 yen)
(Additional writing by Leika Kihara; Editing by Linda Sieg and Emily Kaiser)
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国内外の経済・社会変化とスピードの加速化。その波に乗れない無能なリーダーたちが将来の日本や群馬や高経大を潰す。これは首相や知事や理事長だけを指していない。その周りを囲むイエスマン集団や市区町村の首長や議会議員、それに癒着する役人や官僚。如いてはそんなリーダーを選ぶ縁故や目先の利益ばかりを追い求める選挙投票者の大きな群れを含む。つまり、「従来どおり」で良かった政党政治マシーンの歯車にのって動く日本社会システムが大きく問われている。甘い見通しで東北大震災の津波が防げなかったように、この社会的・経済的大津波が日本を呑み込む日はそう遠くない。
****
Industrial revival claims ring hollow as makers flee Japan
Friday, Feb. 17, 2012 Kyodo
Data released by the government in January showing Japan posted its first trade deficit in 31 years in 2011 has prompted much soul-searching in domestic industries and sparked fears the country might soon lose its status as one of the world's major exporters.
Home electronics, long a cash cow for domestic manufacturers, already are mostly produced at overseas plants, while the strong yen has also pushed carmakers — another major driver of economic growth — to increasingly relocate assembly lines abroad.
The domestic automotive industry is being "gutted," said Toshiyuki Shiga, chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association.
Some industry observers warn that with major exporters increasingly shifting production overseas, Japan's trade balance may drastically deteriorate in the near future.
"The automotive industry should earn money abroad to protect (Japanese) workers' jobs (at domestic plants)," said Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda.
"This may sound irrational but I am determined to make it happen, come what may."
Toyoda has vowed that the carmaker will continue to produce around 3 million vehicles a year at domestic plants to assist the broader economy, even though it would be more profitable to increase production at overseas affiliates, as profits from their exports are not slashed by the soaring yen when repatriated.
Last year, domestic auto production ground to a complete standstill for about a month after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, but output picked up rapidly and notched an annual trade surplus of around \7 trillion, though the figure was down 13 percent from a year earlier.
The yen's record appreciation against the world's major currencies is also enabling German and South Korean carmakers to capture greater market share, thanks to the weakness of the euro and the won.
"(Toyota) is shying away from carrying out structural reforms of its operations," said Takaki Nakanishi, an analyst with Merrill Lynch Japan Securities Co., referring to the automaker's stubborn continuation of production at domestic sites.
But despite Toyota's best efforts, the hollowing out of Japan's automotive industry continues apace and is raising broader doubts about whether domestic manufacturers will stick to their avowed policy of turning out high-end products at home.
In the automotive sector, Honda Motor Co. is making a hybrid version of its NSX sports car in the United States, while Nissan Motor Co. is building electric vehicles in North America and China.
Even Toyota is aiming to source more parts from South Korea and other overseas suppliers, while its overseas plants are procuring key components locally, including engines and transmissions, instead of importing them from Japan — a severe blow to domestic parts makers.
Consumer electronics makers are also shuttering domestic plants and shifting manufacturing abroad, given the absence of new business opportunities at home.
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Sony Corp. now produces more than 70 percent of its products overseas, turning out TV sets in Malaysia and China and digital cameras in Thailand.
Material and parts makers are following suit.
"Since car and home electronics makers are shifting operations abroad, suppliers of their product materials like us have no choice but to do the same," said Asahi Kasei Corp. President Taketsugu Fujiwara.
JAMA's Shiga warned that it may not be easy to reverse the current trend. "Once we lose our manufacturing base in Japan, there is no turning back even after the yen has weakened," he cautioned.
Infrastructure-related exporters, meanwhile, are facing problems of their own.
In mid-January, East Japan Railway Co. and Central Japan Railway Co. dispatched their top officials to New Delhi to pitch shinkansen technology to India. But the railways are under no illusions about the strength of their global rivals.
"Our competitors used to be American and European companies, but now the Chinese, South Koreans and Russians are trying to win contracts through predatory pricing," said Hitachi Ltd. President Hiroaki Nakanishi, whose company produces railway vehicles.
In addition to established firms such as General Electric Co. and Germany's Siemens AG, manufacturers in other parts of Asia also have started to pose a significant threat.
In response, the government and the private sector have decided to join forces to help Japanese companies land overseas infrastructure development contracts.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda visited India in December as part of this drive, accompanied by an entourage of a dozen or so Japanese business leaders.
Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yukio Edano also traveled to Thailand and Myanmar last month with a group of corporate executives to pitch Japan's advanced technologies.
But such efforts may be in vain, as other countries are even more robust in supporting their domestic companies bidding for various infrastructure projects around the world.
The government has identified infrastructure-related exports as one of the main pillars of its strategy for economic growth.
But it has been accused of failing to spell out detailed steps for reviving domestic industry so far.
Hitachi's Nakanishi has also criticized the government for not moving to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement sooner, saying his company's fortunes hinge on Japan's participation in the U.S.-led regional trade initiative.
"The government's inaction is hurting Japanese exporters," said Yukihiko Shimada, a senior analyst with SMBC Nikko Securities Inc.
"The government should revamp the existing framework as soon as possible, so that the state and the private sector can increase joint promotion of infrastructure exports."
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雇用創造の鍵を握る起業家養成とその挑戦。アメリカだからこそ、そのブループリントに現実味がある。今の日本社会に適用しようとしても、中等教育の中身が違うから、過去の試みと同様まったく成果は生まれない。
*****
How Entrepreneurship Can Fix Young America
By Scott Gerber | Time Mag | March 5, 2012
Our government is being strangled by partisan politics. Youth employment is at a 60-year low. Student loan debt is approaching $1 trillion (and default rates are rising quickly).
Yet young Americans are far more optimistic about our country’s future than the pundits would have you believe – and they are demonstrating that optimism through entrepreneurship. According to a 2011 survey, 23% of young people started a business as a result of being unemployed. Fifteen percent started a business in college. And let’s not forget our veterans, who are twice as likely as other Americans to own businesses.
So why are so few pundits and politicians building on that entrepreneurial energy as a solution to joblessness and economic malaise? The fact is, it’s high time we funneled our collective energy toward rebuilding an entrepreneurial America.
This is not an abstract endeavor. My own organization, the Young Entrepreneur Council, and partners like Junior Achievement, Babson College, Codecademy, Venture for America, and College Hunks Hauling Junk, have identified a handful of tried-and-true approaches that are already successfully fostering business creation by young people all over America. I’ve summed up in five broad strategies that we believe need to be adopted to accelerate this vital movement.
1. Integrate Academia and the Real World
In a 2011 survey, 88% of young people said that entrepreneurship education is vitally important given the new economy—and yet 74% of college students had no access to entrepreneurship resources on campus. And when resources were available, most students felt they were woefully inadequate.
This is not acceptable—in the 21st century, entrepreneurial thinking isn’t just for entrepreneurs. Adaptability, creativity and financial literacy are core skills for American employees and so-called intrapreneurs –innovators within larger organizations – as well. They’re also critical assets to our communities: Junior Achievement and the Aspen Institute found that youth-entrepreneurship programs positively impacted dropout rates and community engagement, not to mention the development of risk-taking and opportunity recognition. But most employers today think high school and college graduates are seriously deficient in skills like leadership and innovation, and we face a steep shortfall of graduates majoring in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.
If we actually want to change the way Americans work, then parents, K-12 schools, community colleges, four-year colleges and entrepreneurship-focused nonprofits must meet these challenges head-on. Junior Achievement, Babson, Cogswell College, the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE) and the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), among others, are leading the way.
2. Eliminate Government Barriers
Even our deadlocked Congress has found bi-partisan compromises in entrepreneurship-related legislation, including reforms to the patent process and student loan relief. But gridlock is preventing truly decisive action. From increasing states’ self-employment assistance programs to removing regulations prohibiting startups from openly crowdsourcing capital, we need the U.S. government to do better.
As Americans, we must demand a boldly pro-growth agenda. To start with, let’s pass the Youth Entrepreneurship Act, which would defer or forgive student loan debt for young entrepreneurs using the precedent set by the Income-Based Repayment program. And let’s pass the VET Act of 2011, so our returning vets can use GI benefits to start businesses.
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An overwhelming 88% of young people feel the government does not support them. It is our duty to hold our representatives accountable. We can begin by asking them to stop handicapping the youth-owned startups of tomorrow.
3. Invest in and Mentor Young Entrepreneurs
Initiatives Startup America Partnership and Dell’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence (disclosure: I’ve worked with both organizations) program are models for the private sector. Business leaders can team up with accelerators, venture funds, campus groups, regional leadership and nonprofits to mentor, finance, and train the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Or they can help pave the way for the next public software engineering school, as Union Square Ventures VC Fred Wilson did in New York. Franchisors can extend special financing to youth and veterans—after all, direct economic output in the franchise sector is projected to grow 5 percent in 2012, and employment, 2.1 percent. And we need to openly encourage our young people to work in startups, which generate all net new jobs—so those companies grow, and young people thrive
Finally, we all need to start creating common-sense avenues for financial support. Microloan financiers like Kiva are easing global unemployment throughout the developing world—why not here? And frankly, improving access to capital doesn’t necessarily start with banks—having non-financial support doubles the likelihood that a young entrepreneur will be approved for a commercial loan.
4. Teach Technology Inside and Outside the Classroom
The Web has revolutionized the way we do business, creating a far more level playing field for young entrepreneurs—provided they have the skill set to take advantage of it.
One study found that small-to-medium businesses with strong Web presences grew twice as fast as those with only a minimal presence (or none at all) and created twice the number of jobs. We need to prepare all young people for this reality through sustainable technology programs that work in tandem with academics. In the classroom, this means teaching hands-on software engineering, not just computing basics—the Bureau of Labor Statistics is projecting an employment increase for software engineers of 32 percent by 2018. Outside the classroom, companies like Codecademy can fill gaps in K-12 and college education by creating peer-to-peer platforms where aspiring coders learn by doing.
5. Foster Entrepreneurship at the Regional Level
Not all solutions fit all communities. For example, cities facing economic decline need to create resource-rich networks so young entrepreneurs can cut through red tape at the local level instead of departing en masse. The Idea Village in New Orleans has sustained more than 1,000 jobs and $83 million in revenue by retaining and supporting the city’s entrepreneurs.
Underserved regions must develop ecosystems in which idea exchange, growth, and financial support are readily available. From Silicon Prairie to New Orleans, entrepreneurs are bridging gaps between local government, investors and backyard entrepreneurs. These hyper-local networks provide the momentum Americans need to get new businesses off the ground immediately.
It’s Time to Fix Young America
I am only touching on some of the solutions working right now. There are leaders in every sector—government, education, nonprofit and private—who can add to this list as we approach the 2012 elections. If we really want to shift the national conversation for good, then we need to lay all solutions on the table for our decision makers to see.
Importantly, this is not about making life easier for Millennials. It’s about ensuring that, when they become the 30-, 40- and 50-something leaders of tomorrow, they will have the capacity and ability to lead America forward.
The YEC leads #FixYoungAmerica, a solutions-based movement that aims to end youth unemployment and put young Americans back to work.
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*vyoung
I've been saying this for 16 years especially in the spring when local news stations do pieces on high school students going from fast food chains to the mall to fill out job applications and coming up empty handed.
My response is always the same:"Make a job!"
1) You'll be happier
2) You'll probably make more money
The inability to see entrepreneurial opportunities problem extends to career counselors who especially, on the high school and college level are totally job-centric.
Tell a traditional career counselor that you love dogs, traveling, and cooking and you want to make good money and their eyes will glaze over. Ask them about entrepreneurial options and they'll say, "Oh, the MBA program handles that."
Since 2006 I've trained over 200 people from 16 countries to be "outside the job box" career coaches teaching them how to work with people -- burned out execs to recent retirees to stay at home moms to college students -- and others who need help finding viable ways to profit from their passions.
American colleges need to wake up!
Dr. Valerie Young
ChangingCourse.com
5 days ago
3 Likes
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*Oliver John Drew
This article is bang on.
Entrepreneurship is the answer to a lot of problems.
Don't look for a job, create your own job and hire other people.
It is a lot more work to be a business owner than an employee but the freedom and rewards offset this. It is the government red tape that kills my entrepreneurial drive and spirit (#2).
6 days ago
2 Likes
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*padgettshcom
In response to #5, Detroit, too, has been involved in similar projects. Tech Town, Green Garage, et al. are really churning out some great ideas and opportunities.
6 days ago
2 Likes
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*Areal1
I just retired as the top fed in veteran entrepreneurship, and you are right. The political class in DC needs to wake up and realize that self employed small business ownership is the answer for many Americans young and old, already employed and unemployed. 30% of vets in the labor market right now are self employed. Lets quite subsidizing big business and return to the nation of independent yeomen and women. Bill Elmore
電気自動車の将来。価格低下と高い走行距離が需要の鍵。
Electric car revolution faces increasing headwinds
Wed Mar 21, 2012 7:08am EDT By Ben Klayman
DETROIT (Reuters) - Scott Kluth has a love-hate relationship with his new Fisker Karma luxury electric sedan.
The 34-year-old car lover bought the plug-in hybrid electric Karma in December for $107,850, but five days later the car's battery died as he was driving in downtown Chicago. While the car he affectionately calls a "head turner" was fixed in a recall, Kluth remains uncertain how much he will drive it.
"I just want a car that works," Kluth said. "It's a fun car to drive. It's just that I've lost confidence in it."
The Karma's problems -- one vehicle died during testing by Consumer Reports this month -- follow bad publicity arising from a probe of General Motors Co's Chevrolet Volt and weak sales of the car, and the closure or bankruptcy of several electric vehicle-related start-ups.
The unrelenting bad news has led to questions about the readiness of electric cars and raises fresh doubts about a technology that has been around since the late 1890s but is still struggling to win over the public.
Whether electric vehicles can find an audience beyond policymakers in Washington and Hollywood celebrities depends on lowering vehicle prices without selling cars at a loss, analysts and industry executives say, while extending driving range to make the cars competitive with their gasoline-powered peers.
"It's going to be a slow slog," said John O'Dell, senior green car editor at industry research firm Edmunds.com. "Maybe there's too much expectation of more and quicker success than might realistically be expected of a brand new technology."
He also questioned whether priorities will simply change for whomever is U.S. president after the November election. Electric vehicles could lose tax breaks -- currently worth $7,500 a vehicle for buyers -- particularly if a Republican ends up in the White House.
Edmunds expects pure electric cars and plug-in hybrids to make up only 1.5 percent of the U.S. market in 2017, compared with 0.1 percent last year, and O'Dell said that may be optimistic. Consumers charge all-electric cars by plugging into an outlet, while hybrid versions include a gasoline engine.
President Barack Obama's administration has been a strong proponent of electric vehicles like the Volt and set a goal of getting 1 million battery-powered vehicles on the road by 2015. Lux Research estimates that number will actually be fewer than 200,000. Both the Volt and Karma's development were supported by low-interest federal loans.
That has not dissuaded automakers, many of which plan to launch electric vehicles to join the Volt and Nissan's all-electric Leaf in a bid to meet rising fuel efficiency standards. Toyota has begun selling a plug-in Prius, and EVs from Ford, Honda, BMW and Fiat will join the fray this year, along with cars from start-ups Tesla and Coda Automotive.
HENRY FORD'S WIFE
Electric cars aren't a new concept. Henry Ford bought his wife, Clara, at least two electric cars in the early 1900s offering at best 50 miles driving range and top speeds of about 35 miles per hour, according to the Henry Ford Museum.
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But analysts said automakers have not done a good enough job getting the costs down and explaining the technology to win over anyone beyond early adopters like actor Leonardo DiCaprio, pop idol Justin Bieber, comedian Jay Leno and former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.
"You can do all the advertising and promotion you want, but if people don't buy into the message the needle's not going to move," said George Cook, a marketing professor at the University of Rochester's business school and a former Ford executive.
The Volt, at almost $40,000 before federal subsidies, is seen as too expensive by many critics. Fiat-Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne, a long-time EV skeptic, has said Chrysler will lose more than $10,000 on every battery-powered Fiat 500 it sells.
And even with rising gasoline prices -- topping $4 a gallon in parts of the country -- EVs are just not competitive, according to the Lundberg Survey. Gasoline prices would have to rise to $8.53 a gallon to make the Leaf competitive and hit $12.50 for a Volt to be worth it, based on the cost of gasoline versus electricity, fuel efficiency and depreciation, the survey said.
Obama's vision, which he laid out at a Daimler truck plant in North Carolina this month, includes a car battery that costs half the price of today's versions and can go up to 300 miles on a single charge. The industry is far from achieving that.
Since last fall, there has been a run of bad news for EVs, starting with the late November news that U.S. safety regulators were investigating the Volt for possible battery fires.
While the federal investigation was closed with the conclusion there was no defect and the car did not pose a greater risk of fire than gas-powered vehicles, weak demand led GM to halt production for five weeks and temporarily lay off 1,300 workers at the plant that builds the car. GM, which strengthened the structural protection of the Volt battery, has repeatedly said the car is safe, and some said the safety probe should have never occurred.
The Karma that died during testing by Consumer Reports magazine was another blow following a recall of more than 200 of the cars last year and the halting of sales in January for a software issue. Fisker, which builds the Karma in Finland, also suspended work last month at its U.S. plant scheduled to make another car, the Nina sedan, while it works to renegotiate a $529 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Fisker spokesman Roger Ormisher said problems can arise with new technologies and a new company but added Fisker had gone "beyond the call of duty" in instituting a system to respond to customer issues and had plenty of satisfied owners. CEO Tom LaSorda in a letter to Karma owners last week said Fisker was committed to giving customers "complete peace of mind" and he had created a "SWAT team" of 50 engineers and consultants to identify issues with the car.
'FIRST LAW OF DISNEY'
"The expectations have always been too high for electric cars," said Bill Reinert, Toyota's U.S. manager for advanced technology. "The realities have always been clouded by the dreams. I like to say it's the first law of thermodynamics versus the first law of Disney. Disney is wishing it will be so. It doesn't work." Toyota has always been skeptical EVs would quickly boost its share of the auto market.
Meanwhile, several companies have struggled due to lack of funding or customer troubles.
A123 Systems posted a wider-than-expected fourth-quarter loss this month after Fisker, one of its largest customers, cut battery orders. Bright Automotive, an Indiana electric commercial truck start-up, closed its doors in February after failing to get a federal loan.
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Ener1 Inc, which received a $118.5 million federal grant to make lithium-ion batteries for EVs, filed for bankruptcy in January, and Aptera Motors, a California-based EV start-up, went out of business last December after it couldn't raise $80 million in private funding.
"There will be more companies that fail, but it's no different than Internet companies," said Kristen Helsel, vice president of EV solutions for AeroVironment, which makes EV charging stations for BMW, Mitsubishi and Nissan. "People with the right business model are going to do fine."
A number of top national retail chains, including Kohl's and Walgreen, have begun installing charging stations at their stores, but critics say the U.S. push for electric cars has come before such infrastructure is in place, weakening the case for consumers to be attracted to the technology.
But since the bankruptcy of Solyndra, a solar panel maker that received $535 million in U.S. loan guarantees, federal support for advanced vehicle technology programs has ground to a halt. Industry officials and analysts point to tightened U.S. Department of Energy requirements in the face of withering criticism from Republicans about the Obama administration's generosity for anything related to green technology.
"There was certainly a different energy level one year ago, even two years ago," said Oliver Hazimeh, sustainable transportation practice leader for PricewaterhouseCoopers. "This year, it just had a different drumbeat." Hazimeh sees long-term demand for EVs rising to up to 9 percent of the global market by 2022, but he predicts there will be some setbacks along the way.
Obama wants to increase the tax subsidies for buyers of electric vehicles to $10,000 per vehicle from the current $7,500. But critics say the small EV sales totals tell the real story.
Complicating matters, automakers continue to squeeze increased fuel efficiency out of the internal combustion engine. That makes it tougher to make EV sticker prices attractive enough to put a dent in the traditional gasoline-powered vehicles' domination of the market.
The EV's industry's struggles have vindicated the more deliberate approach taken by Toyota, Ford and Chrysler's Marchionne, who killed plans for a Chrysler electric car, analysts said.
Still, proponents say electric-car sales will grow just like Toyota's hybrid Prius rose from about 5,500 in its U.S. debut in 2000 to a peak of more than 180,000 in 2007.
Doug Parks, GM's chief Volt engineer, said the proof is in the large amounts of money automakers are spending on EV technology development.
"Follow the money. People are investing huge in this stuff," he said. "This is a 10- or 20-year discussion and we've been selling the Volt for a year."
GM, which recently launched a new advertising campaign centered on testimonials by adoring Volt owners, has made the car the centerpiece of efforts to seize from Toyota the mantle as the world's greenest automaker. Meanwhile, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has estimated pure electric vehicles like the Leaf will make up 10 percent of industry global sales by 2020.
Time will tell if that's wishful thinking.
"It's been the Kool-Aid that the entire political system has been drinking for a decade," said Bob Martin, a senior consultant with auto product development firm The CarLab. "Electric cars are not ready for prime time. They're really interesting toys for very, very rich people."
(Additional reporting by Braden Reddall in Benecia, California and Bernie Woodall in Geneva; Phil Wahba in New York; Editing by Edward Tobin, Martin Howell and Steve Orlofsky)
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Sony to axe 10,000 jobs in turnaround bid: Nikkei
Mon Apr 9, 2012 8:03am EDT By Chris Gallagher
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Sony Corp is cutting 10,000 jobs, about 6 percent of its global workforce, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Monday, as new CEO Kazuo Hirai looks to steer the electronics and entertainment giant back to profit after four years in the red.
The job cuts would be the latest downsizing in Japan Inc where companies from cellphone maker NEC Corp to electronics firm Panasonic Corp are trimming costs in the face of a strong yen and competition from rivals like Apple and Samsung Electronics.
TV makers in particular have been hit hard by the tough business climate as well as sharp price falls, with Sony, Panasonic and Sharp expecting to have lost a combined $17 billion in the fiscal year just ended.
Investors will closely monitor a briefing on Thursday by Hirai, who formally took over this month as chief executive from Howard Stringer, for further clues on how Sony plans to revamp its business.
"Under a new CEO, it's easier to cut jobs or go in a new direction," said Yuuki Sakurai, head of fund manager Fukoku Capital, which had around $7 billion worth of assets under management as of end-March 2011.
"One of the things I'd like to see is that they shift their resources to other areas outside TVs ... If they stick to TVs, they may have to fight a war they may not be able to win."
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Sony sees $2.9 bln loss, CEO warns of pain
Hirai to get tough on costs
Sony earnings graphic: r.reuters.com/wah46s
Sony to sell chemical business
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The Nikkei said half of the latest round of job cuts would come from consolidating the firm's chemicals and small and midsize LCD operations.
Sony said last month it was selling a chemical products division, accounting for some 3,000 people, while on April 1 it merged its Sony Mobile display unit, which had about 2,000 workers, with the small LCD panel businesses of Toshiba Corp and Hitachi Ltd into a new firm called Japan Display.
The Nikkei said it was not clear how many of the cuts would take place in Japan or overseas.
As of end-March 2011, Sony had 168,200 employees on a consolidated basis, according to the company's website.
Sony may also ask its seven executive directors who served through the fiscal year to end-March, including Stringer, who is now chairman, to return their bonuses, the Nikkei said.
Sony declined to comment on the report.
Sony announced 16,000 job cuts in December 2008 after the global financial crisis battered demand for its products, but it has not managed to make a profit since then.
The company has forecast a 220 billion yen ($2.7 billion) net loss for the fiscal year just ended, hurt in large part by its ailing TV business.
Sony said last month that Hirai would keep direct charge of the TV business as part of a structural reorganization.
Sony shares closed up 0.6 percent, while the benchmark Nikkei average ended 1.5 percent lower. The stock has dropped more than 10 percent in the past 3 weeks since hitting a 7-month high.
(Reporting by Chris Gallagher; Additional reporting by Shinichi Saoshiro; Editing by Edmund Klamann and Ian Geoghegan)
