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300 Foxconn Workers at Xbox 360 Factory Threaten Suicide

According to the Chinese anti-government website China Jasmine Revolution, about 300 employees at a Foxconn Technology Park in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, threatened to kill themselves by jumping from the top of a building in the park.

On Jan. 2, about 300 employees at a plant belonging to Taiwan-based Foxconn — the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer — asked their boss for a raise. They were told either quit their positions with compensation or keep their jobs and receive no additional payment. Most employees took the first option, but the company terminated the agreement, and none of them were given the money they were promised.

Eventually, the mayor of Wuhan came to stop dissuade the former employees from committing suicide. At 9:00pm on Jan. 3, the group chose life.

Suicides at Foxconn plants resulted in the deaths of 14 workers in 2010, where employees frequently complained of discrimination and long working hours.

Source

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Yale’s Crash Confidence Index Shows Just How Fearful Investors Have Become

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 12:15PM

The Yale School of Management has been conducting its own market sentiment surveys for some time now.  One of its surveys is the Crash Confidence Index, which asks both individual and institutional investors how confident they are that there will not be a stock market crash in the next six months.  Recent results from the survey show just how worried investors recently became.

As shown below, early 2009 marked the low point in the Crash Confidence index for both individual and institutional investors.  That was the point where the least number of investors were confident that there wouldn’t be a stock market crash in the next six months.  Early 2009 was also when the market ultimately made its financial crisis low, so just when investors became the most fearful of a crash, the market was about to turn a corner and head significantly higher.

Read the rest of the excellent Bespoke piece here.

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Obama to Ask for Increase to Debt Ceiling in a ‘Matter of Days’

Don’t forget what happened last time…

 

By Amie Parnes – 01/10/12 04:27 PM ET

The Obama administration will be asking Congress to raise the debt limit in the coming days, White House press secretary Jay Carney said on Tuesday.

“I’m confident it will be executed in a matter of days, not weeks,” he told reporters.

Read the rest here.

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Wall Street at 5 Month High

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks climbed to a five-month high on Tuesday, led by materials stocks after an upbeat forecast by aluminum company Alcoa and strong gains in bank shares.

Alcoa Inc posted revenue that topped expectations late Monday and gave a bullish outlook for the aluminum industry. The stock gave up early gains to end at $9.44, up 1 cent. However, data showing strong Chinese imports of copper helped buoy the rest of the sector.

A gauge of materials companies’ shares <.GSPM> was among the leaders of S&P 500 sectors, with a gain of 1.8 percent.

The U.S. equity market continued its recent divergence from the woes of the euro zone. Recent economic reports and optimism about the U.S. earnings season have pushed stocks higher in the start of the new year, with the benchmark S&P 500 rising in five of six sessions.

“Investors are still focusing on Europe but not putting as much weight on Europe as they were in November,” said Jonathan Corpina, head of NYSE floor operations for Meridian Equity Partners in New York.

That focus could change quickly. Key bond auctions later this week from Italy and Spain, two countries at the center of the euro zone crisis, could hurt sentiment if they go poorly.

“Historically, earnings season has helped the market shift higher – so let’s hang our hats on this for now, but let’s not forget about what is going on in Europe,” Corpina said.

Industrial and materials stocks, closely tied to economic performance, were the day’s biggest gainers. Caterpillar Inc shares were up 3 percent at $99.96, leading the Dow index higher.

U.S. bank stocks continued a rebound that has lifted the KBW banks index <.BKX> nearly 9 percent so far this year. The KBW rose 1.9 percent on Tuesday.

Read the rest here.

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BLOWN AWAY: New Research Shows Wind Power Makes More CO2 than Gas Turbines

Wind-power: inordinately expensive and ineffective at cutting CO2 emissions

Energy experts warn that unwarranted support for wind-power is hindering genuinely cleaner energy

The focus on wind-power, driven by the renewables targets, is preventing Britain from effectively reducing CO2 emissions, while crippling energy users with additional costs, according to a new Civitas report. The report finds that wind-power is unreliable and requires back-up power stations to be available in order to maintain a consistent electricity supply to households and businesses. This means that energy users pay twice: once for the window-dressing of renewables, and again for the fossil fuels that the energy sector continues to rely on. Contrary to the implied message of the Government’s approach, the analysis shows that wind-power is not a low-cost way of reducing emissions.

Electricity Costs: the folly of wind-power, by economist Ruth Lea, uses Government-commissioned estimates of the costs of electricity generation in the UK to calculate the most cost-effective technologies. When all costs are included, gas-fired power is the most cost-efficient method of generating electricity in the short-term, while nuclear power stations become the most cost-efficient in the medium-term.

 

All that wind takes a lot of gas

Wind-power is acknowledged to cost more than traditional fossil fuel power stations. But estimates from Government-commissioned reports suggest that, when the cost of CO2 emissions is included, onshore wind-power becomes one of the more cost-effective means of generating electricity. Offshore wind does not however. [See p. 12 – p. 23] Unfortunately, these estimates fail to factor in all the costs of wind-power. These costs are due to the fact that energy output from wind is unpredictable and rarely occurs in areas of most demand:

… wind-power is unreliable and requires conventional back-up generating capacity when wind speeds are, for example, very low or rapidly varying… [p. 14]

This means that wind farms need to be supported by conventional capacity including gas-fired power stations that can be switched on whenever the available wind fails to match demand for electricity. Lea cites research by Colin Gibson, former Power Network Director at the National Grid Group, who has produced some of the most comprehensive estimates for these ‘add-on costs’.

When these add-on costs are included, the resultant levelised generating costs (£ per megawatt hour) for the main electricity generating technologies are, for medium-term projects:

  • Nuclear pressurised water reactors (PWR): £67.8 per MWh.
  • Gas-fired combined-cycle gas turbines (CCGT): £96.5 per MWh.
  • Gas CCGT with carbon capture and storage (CCS): £102.6 per MWh.
  • Coal (ASC) with CCS: £111.9 per MWh.
  • Advanced supercritical (ASC) coal-fired power plants: £133.2 per MWh.
  • Onshore wind: £146.3 per MWh (including ‘add-on costs’ of £60 per MWh).
  • Offshore wind: £179.4 per MWh (including ‘add-on costs’ of £67 per MWh).

(Note: one megawatt hour can run approximately 1000 desktop computers for 8 hours)

The most cost-effective technologies are nuclear and gas-fired. Onshore, and especially offshore, wind technologies are inordinately expensive.

 

Pumping out more CO2

Besides the prohibitive costs, the report shows that wind-power, backed by conventional gas-fired generation, can emit more CO2 than the most efficient gas turbines running alone:

In a comprehensive quantitative analysis of CO2 emissions and wind-power, Dutch physicist C. le Pair has recently shown that deploying wind turbines on “normal windy days” in the Netherlands actually increased fuel (gas) consumption, rather than saving it, when compared to electricity generation with modern high-efficiency gas turbines. Ironically and paradoxically the use of wind farms therefore actually increased CO2 emissions, compared with using efficient gas-fired combined cycle gas turbines (CCGTs) at full power. [p. 30]

This means that the cost of having wind is not just carried by consumers but by the environment as well.

 

Caught in a cross-wind

The report explains how two competing environmental policies have generated a perverse set of priorities. The renewables targets have forced the energy sector to focus on more expensive, less reliable power sources, rather than those most likely to reduce emissions while keeping costs to the rest of economy competitive:

  • The Climate Change Act 2008 requires that Britain’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions be cut by 80 per cent by 2050 compared with the 1990 level and by 34% by around 2020.
  • The EU’s Renewables Directive (2009) commits the UK to sourcing 15% of final energy consumption (FEC) from renewables by 2020. Renewable energy sources include wind, hydro and biomass, but not nuclear power. [pp. 4-5]

This means that UK legislation separately specifies an outcome (reduced CO2 emissions) and a process, more renewable energy.

The outcome itself is substantial and threatens many Britons’ standard of life and employment prospects if not achieved efficiently:

… consultants Redpoint Energy point out “…meeting these targets will mean a radical change in the way the UK produces and consumes energy over the coming decades.” [p. 4]

Unfortunately, the legislated process is ineffective at reaching its supposed outcome. The result of forcing unreliable renewables on the energy sector is higher costs to consumers as well as more CO2 emissions than are necessary for maintaining the electricity grid.

One outcome of this micro-managed approach is that commercial and public sector energy users are, paradoxically, charged under the Climate Change Levy for their use of electricity generated by nuclear power stations (nuclear plants emit no CO2 after construction). The CCL is designed to encourage greater use of renewable energy sources even though wind-power can result in higher CO2 emissions than efficient gas turbines. [pp. 6-7]

The report concludes:

[Wind-power] is expensive and yet it is not effective in cutting CO2 emissions. If it were not for the renewables targets set by the Renewables Directive, wind-power would not even be entertained as a cost-effective way of generating electricity or cutting emissions. The renewables targets should be renegotiated with the EU. [p. 30]

Source

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Poll: Americans 2-1 Fear Obama’s Reelection

When it comes to how Americans view President Obama going into the new year, there appears to be very little spirit of Auld Lang Syne. Instead, according to the new Washington Whispers poll, many voters aren’t forgetting what they dislike about Obama and want him out office.

In our New Year’s poll, when asked what news event they fear most about 2012, Americans by a margin of two-to-one said Obama’s reelection. Only 16 percent said they fear the Democrat won’t win a second term, while 33 percent said they fear four more years.

Next to Obama’s reelection, 31 percent of Americans said they feared higher taxes, which may be proof that the president’s focus on the payroll tax cut has hit paydirt.

Read the rest here.

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