Economist (January 14, 2012)
Founded in 1880, “Kodak was the Google of its day,” with innovative marketing and pioneering technology. But Kodak quit changing. Profits peaked at $2.5 billion in 1999. With 9 quarterly losses in the past 3 years, Kodak’s share price has fallen by 90% in just the past year. In contrast, “Fujifilm has mastered new tactics and survived. Film went from 60% of its profits in 2000 to basically nothing, yet it found new sources of revenue.” In contrast, Kodak “is poised, like an old photo, to fade away.”
Tags: Fujifilm, Innovation, Kodak, Marketing, Profits, Technology
Bloomberg (January 12, 2012)
In Tokyo, “rents are now at the lowest since Miki Shoji started compiling data in 1990.”
Office rent fell 3.7% in 2011 from 2010. Simultaneously, the Capital’s vacancy rate climbed to 9.01% from 8.91%. With new office space set to increase by 12% in 2012, the vacancy rate is expected to remain high, with continued flexibility on rents.
Tags: Miki Shoji, Office, Rent, Tokyo, Vacancy
Washington Post (January 11, 2012)
Iran has been acting up in numerous ways. This could be a smoke screen. By year end, Iran may have enough bomb-grade material to rapidly produce the core of a nuclear bomb. “Every effort must be made to intensify sanctions — and in particular to stop…Iranian sales of oil everywhere in the world.”
Wall Street Journal (January 9, 2012)
Unemployment in the U.S. dropped to 8.5%, the lowest level since early 2009. While hopes are growing of sustained recovery, “the country’s prolonged struggle with unemployment will leave scars that are likely to remain for years, if not generations.”
Tags: Recovery, Scars, U.S., Unemployment
New York Times (January 8, 2012)
Americans are warned that their country could follow Japan and face lost decades. This is a myth. Japan is not a fallen giant. Indeed it has quietly been strengthening its competitiveness. “Japan should be held up as a model, not an admonition. If a nation can summon the will to pull together, it can turn even the most unpromising circumstances to advantage. Here Japan’s constant upgrading of its infrastructure is surely an inspiration. It is a strategy that often requires cooperation across a wide political front.”
Tags: Cooperation, Infrastructure, Japan, Lost decades, U.S.
The Economist (January 7)
Bank bashing has become routine, but Britain should also “prize” the important contribution of finance. “London is by many measures the world’s biggest financial centre, and weakening it is in nobody’s interest—least of all Britain’s. Better regulation of banks is certainly needed…. But running down one of the world’s most successful (and mobile) commercial clusters is folly—and it is surely not the legacy Mr Cameron would wish to leave his successors.”
Businessweek (January 6, 2012)
Japan was the first country in the Asia Pacific region to allow proprietary platforms to compete with traditional exchanges and these platforms have had a stellar year. “Volume on SBI Japannext and Chi-X Japan since the March 11 earthquake has been triple the level seen in the year leading up to the natural disaster.” In contrast, trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange declined by roughly 19%. Altogether the proprietary markets accounted for 7.8% “of the volume in Topix Index stocks last year, up from 6 percent in 2010.”
Tags: Asia Pacific, Chi-X, Japan, SBI Japannext, Trading platforms, TSE
New York Times (January 6, 2012)
“President Obama has begun to bring more rationality to military planning.” The Times broadly approves his plans to scale back the military “With his new defense strategy, President Obama has put forward a generally pragmatic vision of how this country will organize and deploy its military in the 21st century, while also addressing its deep fiscal problems.”
Tags: Fiscal crisis, Military, Obama, U.S.
Bloomberg (January 5, 2012)
“The vanguard of a looming demographic shift” is beginning in China. In 2009, there were already 178 million Chinese over 60. By 2050, “that figure could reach 437 million—one third of the population.” Caring for them is expected to place an increasing burden on the state. This graying of the population resembles Japan, but brings a much larger challenge: “China will grow old before it gets rich.”
Tags: Aging society, China, Demographics, Graying, Japan
Wall Street Journal (January 3)
“For the third year in a row the world’s leading exchange for new stock offerings was located not in New York, but in Hong Kong. And even without counting Hong Kong’s $31 billion in deals, the various exchanges on the Chinese mainland slightly exceeded the $41 billion combined total of Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange, according to Dealogic.” The Journal blames the disappointing results on the cumbersome regulatory environment of the U.S. market since passage of the Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) Act.
