GLG News by Mr. Jack Lifton, Co-founder and Director
GLG News is now G+ Insights
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October 18, 2007
Money in New York: The Capital of Capital No More? | www.nytimes.com
The rise in the prices of exchange and non-exchange traded metals has been unprecedented in the last five years. At the same time the US production of most metals has been slashed not due to the exhaustion of resources but to the triumph of environmental activism. Therefore in the event that exchanges switch the pricing of metals from US dollars to other, now stronger, currencies there will certainly be end-use product price inflation completely beyond the control of US finance or commercial law.
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October 17, 2007
CORRECT: GM cut at Bear Stearns, Ford preferred | www.marketwatch.com
Ford has lost billions of dollars through poor management decisions in its global purchasing group since 2000. Ford's Global VP for Purchasing since the sudden departure of the unlamented David Thursfield in the early 2000s, has been Anthony Brown, whose sole idea of risk management is cost-cutting through outsourcing mainly to China. Now that the dollar is sinking, the renimbi is rising, and the prices of strategic and critical metals and materials has continued to rise dramatically Ford doesn't have any better idea on how to manage cost other than to pretend it can continue to squeeze suppliers without their having to compromise quality.
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October 15, 2007
Toyota's Loss, Ford's Gain? | www.businessweek.com
The American business press is convinced that Chrysler and Ford are "poaching" good people from Toyota to try and obtain, thereby, Toyota's magic touch in marketing. Yet no Japanese people who actually implement Toyota marketing and planning have been hired or, indeed m have quit. Who is being obtained from Toyota and what do they have to bring?
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With Regard to Natural Resources the American Free Market Capitalism Business Model is Badly Broken
October 15, 2007
Demand Drivers for Critical Metals: A report to Congress | www.resourceinvestor.com
The National Academies has just reported to Congress that the US civilian and military manufacturing industries are at risk of being crippled by shortages brought on by their growing dependence for raw materials on foreign sources that are, at best, politically risky, and at worst under the control of hostile regimes practicing resource nationalism. The American natural resource purchasing community is under the illusion that so long as they are willing and able to meet the price demand of even hostile foreign sources they will be able to get supplies. They are wrong.
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October 12, 2007
Environmentalists Criticize Toyota | www.consumeraffairs.com
Toyota, like every other car maker in the world, wants minimal non-market interference in its plans to make and sell cars that its customers want. Toyota also wants as level a playing field as possible when it comes to costly government intervention in the design, manufacturing of, or marketing of cars and trucks in the USA. Toyota also wants to make cars that are profitable.
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Ford's Status as a Sophisticated Global Company is More in Doubt Than Ever
October 11, 2007
EU opens state aid probe into Ford's Craiova | www.autonews.com
Did the Ford Motor Company, which had, until the current CEO's tenure, a succession of CEOs who were not born, raised, or educated in the United States, gain any international savvy thereby? Apparently not.
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October 10, 2007
GM looks to substitute materials to reduce costs: Purchasing VP calls price increases "scary" and outlines upcoming plans | www.purchasing.com
GM's global purchasing director says that commodity price increases are driving him to seek to substitute magnesium for aluminum and plastic for steel. Does he or anyone under his management at GM have any idea what they're saying on this topic?
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October 8, 2007
Russia gives Lakshmi Mittal, one of world’s richest men, the bum’s rush | www.mineweb.net
The Russian State has regained its self-esteem under the rule of Vladimir Putin, and the result is that his approval ratings within Russia make him invincible there. Putin does not believe in free market capitalism or the global economy when it comes to the control of domestic natural resources. Russia's default on its sovereign debt, ten years ago, and its rejection of foreign ownership or control of its natural resources today make its state-planned economic approach to natural resource development make investment by foreigners in that sector foolish.
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October 5, 2007
GM, JCI Seek Feds Help With Batteries | www.autonews.com
We endlessly now hear from employees of the OEM automotive companies and of their tier one (direct) suppliers that lithium technology batteries are 'on track' in their development, and that they will soon replace nickel metal hydride batteries for use in hybrids, plug in hybrids, and/or battery powered all electric cars. So, why did Toyota back off on its lithium powered generation II Prius? Why is the GM Saturn Aura hybrid powered by 'advanced nickel metal hydride batteries?' And, why on earth are GM and JCI asking for a taxpayer funded subsidy for the development and manufacturing of advanced battery technology in the US if everything is on track?
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October 4, 2007
ArcelorMittal to Bid for World's Biggest Coal Field | www.bloomberg.com
ArcelorMittal would seem to be taking an enormous political risk with its capital in trying to acquire a very large Russian coal field as a source of coking coal perhaps for its European and certainly for its southeast Asian (Korea and Japan) operations and customers.
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October 4, 2007
Mazda develops catalyst to slash precious metal use | uk.reuters.com
GM has been using much less of the platinum group metals in its catalytic converters than Mazda, Toyota, Nissan, or most other OEM automotive companies for years, so what's the big deal, and, more to the point, why announce this at all now?
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October 3, 2007
With U.A.W. Accord, G.M. Looks to a New Detroit | www.nytimes.com
General Motors negotiated an excellent deal, for General Motors, with the UAW, and both GM's and the UAW's top leadership hoped that it would be a pattern agreement. However the larger number of metropolitan Detroit-area located UAW workers at Chrysler and Ford facilities are already showing signs of resistance to the core idea of the GM agreement, VEBAs. The failure of this type of arrangement at Caterpillar, where a forever arrangement went bankrupt in just six years, a growing reluctance to help out those the UAW rank and file view as absurdly overpaid executives, and the fact that the steady decline of the American OEM automotive industry has been blamed entirely on UAW legacy costs, has soured the remaining UAW members most of whom feel they have given up enough.
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October 3, 2007
Steel Dynamics to Acquire OmniSource Corporation | money.cnn.com
Steel Dynamics is dependent on scrap metal as a feedstock for its minimills. OmniSource is under competitive attack on its home turf from regional and national conglomerates. This was a good move for both companies, but it will reduce the effectiveness of OmniSource as an independent broker.
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There's no choice: Lease, do not buy the battery pack for a hybrid or all electric car or truck.
September 27, 2007
Tesla Roadster Deliveries Pushed Back to 2008: 245 Mile Range Confirmed | www.autoblog.com
The battery pack in a hybrid vehicle takes the place of a high performance engine in the economic valuation of the vehicle's depreciation. Additionally the battery pack will bring with it a disposal charge as well as a true amortization charge based on its remaining life. No one has yet taken this into account. This additional cost of owning and operating a Toyota Prius is about to hit the fan.
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The UAW agreement to a VEBA may be its costliest error ever
September 26, 2007
UAW Concedes to GM | www.businessweek.com
If the details that have so far leaked out about the UAW's (pattern) agreement with GM then Ron Gettelfinger, the UAW CEO, may have well sold out his 'membership' in the long term for a handful of silver now. It will be, of course, the retirees who must pay for this mistake, if mistake it is, not the currently employed workers.
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Will, or should, an American hybrid car be a sucessor to Toyota's Prius?
September 24, 2007
An American Prius | www.slate.com
General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler all made the same mistake in 1997: They failed to see any consequences for themselves from a Japanese carmaker's introduction of a new power train technology especially since it was based entirely on American technology. The then Big Three decided that Toyota was barking up the wrong tree and wasting time, money, and resources on a dead end. After all, they reasoned, GM had proved that even if the Detroit-area-invented nickel metal hydride battery could improve the performance of their all electric GM EV1 beyond the performance it was getting from lead-acid storage cells the EV1's performance would never match the speed, range, acceleration, and cargo carrying capacity of petroleum hydrocarbon fueled cars, and Americans, their focus groups assured them, would never be satisfied with less. GM then and therefore led the rest of the US OEM automotive industry down the garden path of 'cost cutting" as the only way to stave off the Japanese invasion.
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Are Russian steel makers in the US able to operate independently of American owned scrap brokers?
September 21, 2007
Russia's steel wheels roll into America | www.businessweek.com
Russian steel makers are rapidly expanding their production facilities in the US. One example is Severstal's takeover and revival of Rouge Steel in Dearborn, Michigan. This mill originally built and operated by Henry Ford became moribund by the 1990s. It was then taken over by a Japanese steelmaker, which failed in its attempts to revive the company. Then came Severstal and the Russians succeeded where both The Ford Motor Company and the Japanese had failed. Why?
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September 19, 2007
China Worst Nightmare for GM, Ford | pr-gb.com
Chinese battery makers specializing in nickel metal hydride batteries for power driven small bicycle type, and industrial 'fork lift' type, vehicles have lately been consolidating. China is the world's predominant source of the rare earth metals needed to make the nickel metal hydride battery. China is also the world's largest producer of nickel metal hydride batteries. It is true that the nickel metal hydride battery packs for Toyota's Prius are made in Japan by Panasonic and the nickel metal hydride battery packs for vehicles made by anyone other than Toyota are made, also in Japan, by Sanyo. However there are dozens of Chinese mainland companies making NiMH batteries for millions of power bicycles, and the sheer volume of this production simply overwhelms that of Panasonic and Sanyo , even though the individual Japanese made NiMH batteries are much larger than those currently made in China. What are China's plans for NiMH batteries?
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September 19, 2007
GM Debuts HydroGen4 Vehicles | www.businessweek.com
GM has the largest staff and the largest research facilities on earth dedicated to hybrid and electric car development. Is this just to make or give an impression of progress? If not, is GM now so far ahead that its r&d and its test vehicles already set the standards, which the rest of the global OEM automotive industry will have to follow?
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September 17, 2007
Identifying Peak Metals, Critical Metals and Strategic Metals, Part I: Gallium and Rhodium | www.resourceinvestor.com
Rhodium metal, critical to the operation of automotive exhaust emission control, is becoming scarce. A rhodium metal catalyst is the easiest, most economical, and most effective way to reduce the nitrogen oxides (acid rain formers) produced in ordinary internal combustion engine operations back to harmless nitrogen. Rhodium, however, is only produced as a byproduct of platinum mining and, due to its complex chemistry, only about half of the rhodium originally used to manufacture a catalytic converter is ultimately recovered for reuse. The number of cars powered by internal combustion engines is growing rapidly. If there are no major power train changes, such as to hybrids and all electric cars,the rhodium supply will fall so far below the demand that car and truck production could be limited by the shortfall.
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