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Australia exceeded China in total revenue for GE by $100 million, with $5.8 billion in revenues. GE now sees resource rich countries providing revenue growth of 25% in the next 2 years compared to 10-15% for China and India. The Ichthys $34 billion LNG project by Total SA and Inpex of Japan alone generated $1.1 billion in contracts for gas turbines, compressors and underwater production systems. The Gorgon project of Chevron on the northwest coast of Australia generated $1.3 billion in revenue.

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Panasonic forecast a loss of $10 billion or 780 billon yen for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012. This is the second largest loss for a Japanese manufacturing company. Hitachi lost 787 billion yen in the fiscal year ending March 2009 after the financial crisis of 2008. In the prior fiscal year Panasonic showed net profit of 74 billion yen. Panasonic posted restructuring costs of 191 billion yen for the television business and 49 billion yen for the chip business for the first three quarters of the current fiscal year. For the fourth quarter it will take a 250 billion yen writedown of goodwill for the Sanyo acquisition. Panasonic acquired Sanyo based on the potential for growth in its lithium ion battery and solar panel business. But the Sanyo unit is facing stiff competition from manufacturers in South Korea and China, with Samsung Electronics as a major competitor. The strength of the Japanese yen is affecting all Japanese manufacturers. The price competition is severe in the television business and this is also affecting Sony. Since the acquisition Sanyo's earning prospects have significantly worsened says Panasonic CFO, Makoto Uenoyama. Panasonic CEO Ohtsubo defends the acquisition saying that without the rechargeable battery business and its potential in hybrid/electric cars Panasonic's growth potential would not be the same as it is now. Panasonic plans to stop production at two plants making plasma and LCD panels this fiscal year. The job cuts planned will bring the number of employees down from 367,000 in the prior fiscal year to below 350,000....

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Is the Volt an idea vehicle that will be produced on a very small scale too small to have any impact in the car buying scene or worse still an idea vehicle that is ways off a prototype stage or is it something more serious? The battery is a critcal part of this. Toyota worked with Matsushita and Toshiba to develop its battery for the hybrids. GM needs some highly capable partners with large R&D budgets to come up with a suitable battery for the Volt but little information on this is available or GM has not really thought this part through yet.

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Toyota follows GM in announcing it will have a plug-in model in the market by 2010.

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The Obama administration is pushing for new U.S. fuel efficiency standards of 56.2 mpg by 2025. In May 2009 President Obama announced domestic car and light truck fuel efficiency standards of 35 mpg by 2016. Europe is expected to reach fuel efficiency of 60 mpg by 2020. This would still leave Europe considerably ahead of the U.S. in fuel efficiency for automobiles, but the gap would be much smaller. For the last several decades the U.S. has fallen sadly behind Europe and Japan in fuel efficiency. The perception of poor fuel efficiency hurt the automakers badly during periods of high fuel prices and when buyers were facing difficult economic choices. The automakers are beginning to grasp this fact. Mark Reuss, president of General Motors, commented that- "it's very challenging, but its upto us engineers to provide high value to the customer and support the environment." This is an issue that has serious national and global implications as it affects the future prices and demand for oil, emissions, and future economic growth. It would also bring the U.S. in line with Europe and Japan when it comes to fuel efficiency of automobiles. ...

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Honda's Insight will compete with the Prius on price, at $18,000 it is priced $4000 below the Prius.

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The Adani Group's public offering of $2.5 billion was slightly oversubscribed says the WSJ after a short seller in New York City Nathan Anderson issued a report critical of the company. Adani Group is a set of companies in India that have taken  up the ambitious goals of electrifying India with its population of 1.3 billion so that no home lacks an electric bulb light for children to read. It is under criticism because this means coal mines in Australia provide the coal that provides this electricity when coal is used in China and India to provide much needed electricity. Adani Group is unique in that it is making the rapid transition into renewable energy in line with PM Modi's goal of generating 50% of electricity from renewable energy by 2030.  Adani Total Gas Limited fell by 10%, Adani Green Energy and Adani Transmission made low percentage gains.   Thirty anchor investors provided $734 million including American banks.  This includes Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Life Insurance Corporation of India. Abu Dhabi based International Holding Company said it would buy $400 million in shares in a public show of support for the Adani Group. Adani Group will use the proceeds to fund capital expenditures on green energy projects, expressway construction and airport improvements and repay some debt. The building of India's Uttar Pradesh Expressway is being done by Adani Group which is similar to what happened under US president Eisenhower in the 1950's in building the first Interstate Highway system in the US. In 1953 after Dwight Eisenhower became president he developed the plan for a national Interstate Highway system that led to the passing of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. This is happening today in India. Airport and port improvements taken up by Adani Group help build India's woefully inadequate freight logistics to make it a part of the US new supply chain after the errors of overconcentration in one country China. Green energy projects help fight climate change where investments are badly needed and governments in the US and India are giving much needed direction and support. It is in this context that the huge growth of the Adani Group can be seen. It is not similar to the Tech company valuations simply because it is like China's effort under state owned companies to match the growing demand for electricity for industrialization. During the British Empire after 1800 capital from India financed the Napoleonic wars, industrialization of Britain, and indirectly industrialization of the United States through British capital invested in the US in the period before 1860. Capital that was diverted from India, and through British trade that impoverished China. As a result the growth in China after 1990, Korea after 1980 and India after 2014 comes in a catchup mode to meet the growing aspirations of hundreds of millions of young people with some companies state or private owned picking up the pace in an unprecedented way. This is the raison d'etre of the Adani Group. China's total installed capacity of electricity has increased from about 500 GW in 2005 to 2500 GW in 2021. This is the story repeating itself in India with Adani Group and other companies such as NTPC, State Grid and Tata Power setting over five fold increase. ...

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Results of a CBS New York Times Poll of 1018 adults in the U.S., reported Feb 28, 2006. Results show 55% showed support for gasoline tax if it reduced dependence on foreign oil, 59% showed support if it also reduced global warming. There is additional support if the money is used to fight terrorism, allocated to specific projects such as electric cars, or help low income people with extra gasoline costs. The important distinction in the results is what respondents were asked. When told about their response to a gasoline tax 85% of respondents opposed it, but when told it would reduce dependence on foreign oil 55% support it. Some respondents want to see it earmarked so that its use would reduce dependence on foreign oil through fuel efficiency improvements. The gasoline tax has remained at 18.4 cents a gallon since 1993. Politicians see the 85% and stay away from the issue and at periods of higher oil prices there is more concern about the impact on consumers. Prof. Borenstein, director of an energy institute at the University of California, Berkeley, says his calculations show a 10% increase in gasoline cost would reduces consumption by 6-8%. As the tax is regressive by putting a higher burden on low income consumers, this should be offset by income tax relief that would make middle and lower income people better off , says Prof. Borenstein. Some of the revenues would be used to support projects at automakers and research universities to develop more fuel efficient technologies for automobiles. Shows support is there if the tax and where money is spent is shaped in the right way....

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Residents of Detroit- almost all residents- in the three county metropolitan area see their economy in ruins, according to aWashington Post-Kaiser Foundation-Harvard University poll of Detroiters. At the same time 63% of Detroiters feel optimistic that things will change for the better. Detroit's dependence on the auto industry has led to a marked precipitous decline with the highest unemployment in the country. Michigan has 14.7% unemployment and Detroit has 16.7%, the highest in the country. Seven of ten residents see a revitalization of the auto industry needed to rejuvenate Detroit, and three fourths of residents polled say this is likely to happen, even though the state government is looking to diversify the economy. A senior economist at the Upjohn Institute, an independent research group in Kalamazoo, Michigan, says creating a new diversified economy which includes biotech, medical, green energy in addition to electric cars and other fields in auto, will take years. One, two or even five years won't be enough to replace all the jobs lost in the auto industry, it may take adecade or longer. Some workers will be retrained in new areas, others will move and some will take lower wages at new jobs. Because of the area divided along racial lines with the black city neighborhoods and the white suburbs, the pain while distributed throughout the region, is seeing a marked deterioration in the life in the city. Governor Granholm says the state governmet has spent $400 million to help enroll 100,000 people in retraiing programs to become nurses, medical technicians, truck drivers and welders. Granholm says her office has helped create 163,000 jobs in 2009....

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Sharp showed a loss of $3.1 billion for the third quarter of 2012, far larger than expected. Sharp's new forecast is for losses of $5.6 billion for 2012. Sharp CEO, Takashi Okuda, even said the company has "material doubts" about its survival because of "serious negative operating cash flow." Sharp made large bets on LCD panel manufacturing with large investments in added capacity as the television market turned into a commodity business with declining prices and with new competition from China. Just one factory in Sakai, Japan, could manufacture 6 million LCD panels a year- the total global market size at the time. Two other events hurt Sharp- missing the smartphone shift with the introduction of the iPhone in Japan in 2008 leading to a sharp drop in sales, and the collapse of the solar business with cheap products from China. The global economic crisis and overstretched consumers in the U.S. and Europe led to declining sales. Sharp's new factories for LCD panels at Kaneyama now make panels for iPads and iPhones. ...

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How does Honda keep increasing sales and profits year after year worldwide? As much as a 38% increase for the 4th quarter 2007, and this with half of its 3.9 million vehicles sales being in the weak North American market. Quarterly sales went up by 10%. Having better made models which customers prefer is one reason- the Odyssey, Civic and Accord and having hybrids and gas saving cars. Honda plans to invest heavily in new technologies such as gas-electric and diesel for fuel economy, and in new hybrids which are affordable.

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This WSJ editorial says GE's decision to exit the banking business follows the U.S. Federal Reserve's move to designate GE Capital a "systemically important financial institution," subject to extra scrutiny by the Fed and stricter regulation. This reduces the potential for higher returns that existed in the earlier environment of limited regulation. It points out that GE was so keen on escaping the "too big to fail" label and stricter regulatory oversight that it was willing to pay $6 billion in taxes to repatriate cash from overseas as part of shrinking GE Capital. In an earlier editorial in 2011 WSJ pointed to the role of GE Capital in the financial crisis of 2008, when GE shares dropped to $6 and GE needed government rescue funds.