"The end of Growth", Richard Heinberg's new book

The world's biggest economy will expand between 2.7pc and 2.9pc this year, weaker than it expected just two months ago. The latest evidence from manufacturing, the housing market and the consumer – still the engine of the economy – all suggest the deterioration that started in the first quarter of this year has extended into the second.
"Part of the slowdown is temporary, part of it may be longer lasting," said Fed chairman Ben Bernanke. "We don't have a precise reading on why this slower pace of growth is persisting." "Economists insist that recovery is at hand. Yet, unemployment remains high, real estate values continue to sink, and governments stagger under record deficits. The End of Growth proposes a startling diagnosis: humanity has reached a fundamental turning point in our economic history. The expansionary trajectory of industrial civilization is colliding with non-negotiable natural limits."The End of Growth describes what policymakers, communities, and families can do to build a new economy that operates within Earth’s budget of energy and resources. We can thrive during the transition if we set goals that promote human and environmental well-being, rather than continuing to pursue the now-unattainable prize of ever-expanding GDP." http://richardheinberg.com

Is the beginning of a new era of progress without growth?

"The Truth of the Apple iPad Behind Foxconn's Lies"

Foxconn is the largest electronics manufacturing in the world.  It’s also one of the most profitable companies with $ 79 billion.

The company mainly works for such a notable company as Apple, Hp and Dell.

Internationally,  Foxconn is best known because in 2010 at least 18 of its workers tried to end their lives.

Therefore a number of Foxconn’s customers like Apple have publicly pledged to “work with Foxconn” to live up to higher international labour standards.

Unfortunately, Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (Sacom), a Hong Kong-based labour organization, still denounces the false statement by Foxconn and its custumers.

A short video on working conditions at Foxconn's iPad production site in Chengdu, “the Truth of the Apple iPad Behind Foxconn's Lies”, has been released to unveil the exploitations at Foxconn to Apple's consumers. 

The footage was taken in March and April 2011 during Sacom's investigations. It documented labour rights abuses at Foxconn's plants in Chengdu, including misleading job advertisement, dangerous working environment, inadequate measures on work safety, excessive and forced overtime work, and deprived of social life. Foxconn's plants in Chengdu exclusively produce for Apple. Regrettably, Apple condones the labour rights violations at Foxconn.

How is it possible?

"Work will make you free"

In China hundreds of millions of “peasants” from the countryside are on the move. Workers-of-rural-origins are preferred as a low cost source of labor and considered better fit for training and adaption to the competitive pressures of the market.

Since the beginning of 2010, a startling ten Foxconn employees in Shenzhen tried to end their lives. Therefore a number of Foxconn’s customers, notably Apple, HP and Dell, have pledged to “work with Foxconn” to live up to higher international labour standards.

But till today in Shenzhen Foxconn’s employees are housed in dormitories surrounded with “anti-suicide” nets.

Will we ever see anyone caring for our poor asses?

Many people from Wall Street think inflation is now the biggest threat to the U.S. economy. In Brooklyn many more than Wall Steet's rather think the biggest threat is falling into another recession. 

Who is right?

Meanwhile the most significant economic news from the first quarter of 2011 is the decline in real wages. 

In fact, millions of Americans, in order to keep their jobs, are accepting lower wages. 

What do you get like this?

The only thing you get is consumers who can't buy enough to keep the economy going.

Why doesn't Wall Street get it?

How Asia Copes with America’s Zombie Consumers

NEW HAVEN – Asia needs a new model consumer. A post-crisis generation of zombie consumers in the United States is likely to hobble growth in global consumption for years to come. And that means that export-led developing Asia now has no choice but to turn inward and rely on its own 3.5 billion consumers.

Of course, this is not the first time that Asia has had to cope with the walking economic dead. Japan’s corporate zombies were at the epicenter of its first lost decade in the 1990’s. Sclerotic companies were put on life-support credit lines by their zaibatsu – like banking partners – delaying their inevitable failure and perpetuating inefficiencies and disincentives that resulted in a post-bubble collapse in Japanese productivity growth.

Similarly, the crisis of 2008-2009 led to zombie-creating bailouts in the West. From Wall Street to AIG to Detroit, the US was quick to rescue corporate giants that would have failed otherwise. Britain and Europe did the same, throwing lifelines to RBS, HBOS-Lloyds, Fortis, Hypo Real Estate, and others. In the West, the excuse was too big to fail. How different is that from Japan’s mindset nearly 20 years ago?

Make it in America - Andrew Liveris

"America used to make things, Americans were the innovatores, the undisputed world economic leaders, and with our success, we built a thriving, high-achieving middle class. Now, with policies that are indifferent or hostile to domestic manufacturing, and with other nations on the rise, America’s long-term prosperity is at risk. Our only chance to turn things around is to remember, revive, and revolutionize what made us great for so long, the manufacturing sector" 

Liveris's book explains why production is of such central importance to revitalizing the economy of the United State. Manufacturing sector creates economic value at a scale unmatched by any other. It‘s central to creating jobs both inside and outside factories.  Other nations are building their manufacturing sectors to stay competitive in the global economy, the book describes how America has failed to keep up.

Andrew N. Liveris is President, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Dow Chemical Company, a $45 billion global specialty chemical, advanced materials, agrosciences and plastics company based in Midland, Michigan

also see:

• Andrew Liveris's audio interview on Re-invetinting America's Economy
• Book's preview