Falling gas prices brought truck buyers back to General Motors showrooms last month. Still, pump prices remained high enough that shoppers snapped up smaller cars as well.
GM sales rose 10 percent in June from a year ago. The Detroit car company said it sold 215,000 cars and trucks last month, up from 194,828 a year ago. The result indicates the auto industry’s slow recovery from the recession is back on track after a brief slump in May.
GM said that cheaper gas lured more pickup truck buyers with Chevrolet Silverado sales rising 5 percent and GMC Sierra sales up 8 percent compared with a year earlier. Any jump in pickup sales helps GM and other Detroit automakers, which sell more than five times as many pickups as foreign-based brands.
Still, GM’s sales were led by smaller, more fuel-efficient models like the new Chevrolet Cruze compact. Gas prices averaged $3.68 per gallon in June. That’s cheaper than the average for May, but hardly cheap. Sales of the Cruze more than doubled the sales of the car it replaced, the lackluster Chevrolet Cobalt.
GM’s small-car and crossover sales also got a boost from earthquake-related shortages of Japanese models that persisted through June.
GM is the first major car company to report U.S. sales on Wednesday. Earlier, Volkswagen of America Inc. said its U.S. sales rose 35 percent in June on strong demand for its Jetta midsize sedan and other models. Industry analysts expect overall U.S. sales to rise 13.5 percent from last June.
Even with sales rebounding in June, GM backed off a bit from its sales forecast for the year payday loans online. Don Johnson, vice president of U.S. sales, said he now expects the total sales to be at the low end of the company’s previous prediction of 13 million to 13.5 million vehicles.
Johnson blamed the change on stubbornly high unemployment, which contributed to the decline in May. Total U.S. sales fell 3.7 percent in May after a string of double-digit monthly increases.
Johnson sees the slow recovery continuing through the rest of the year. He said that even with unemployment around 9 percent, 91 percent of the country is still working, and many are driving older cars.
“There are still people out there looking for a vehicle and in many cases need to replace their vehicles,” Johnson said.
The average car on the road now is 10.6 years old, according to the Polk research firm.
Automakers expect to sell around 1.1 million cars and trucks in June. That’s up 5 percent from May, when parts shortages caused by the March earthquake in Japan, $4-per-gallon gas and a lack of deals caused a slump.
But the pace of sales has slowed from the beginning of this year. Like GM, some analysts are starting to question the strength of the recovery. J.D. Power and Associates lowered its full-year sales forecast from 13 million vehicles to 12.9 million, saying the sluggish economy could take a bite out of sales even if car shortages ease by this fall.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and other Republican governors are calling on the National Labor Relations Board to dismiss its complaint against Boeing.
Haley and 15 other GOP governors wrote to the board’s general counsel, Lafe Solomon, on Thursday saying the probe hamstrings governors who are trying to create jobs.
The letter was released Friday as the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing in North Charleston on the complaint.
The labor board alleges Boeing built an assembly line for its new 787 aircraft in South Carolina to avoid unionized workers in Washington state. Boeing has challenged the complaint, saying no union workers lost jobs.
Haley and Solomon are scheduled to testify during the hearing.
The union that represents Toronto
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, whose party’s five-decade rule oversaw a 41-fold jump in gross domestic product, may find past success doesn’t sell as well to younger voters in tomorrow’s election.
The People’s Action Party is facing the most contests for parliamentary seats since independence in 1965. PAP members will likely keep a majority at a time of record economic growth, according to Pearlyn Wong, an investment analyst in Singapore at Bank Julius Baer & Co., which manages about $262 billion. At the same time, a decline in the share of the popular vote may spur the next PAP government to lean toward opposition concerns.
Singapore’s success has fueled wider income inequality, with the world’s highest share of dollar-millionaire households contributing to pressure on property and consumer prices. The opposition has called for more limits on the influx of foreign workers that make up the majority of construction and shipyard employees, and urged further steps to contain home prices.
“The PAP has to be mindful of and adapt to the new generation of voters who demonstrate a ‘papa don’t preach’ mentality,” said Eugene Tan, assistant professor of law at the Singapore Management University. “A relatively poor showing at the general election would certainly get the PAP back to the drawing board not just to re-examine the policy but also how to better communicate the policies.”
Parliament Makeup
Polls close at 8 p.m. tomorrow. The parliament dissolved last month was made up of 82 PAP lawmakers, two elected opposition politicians and 10 non-elected members. Tan said a loss of more than seven seats by the PAP or their share of the popular vote dipping below 60 percent would be a poor showing.
In a nation where 82 percent of households have Internet access, the PAP’s Facebook page is “liked” by 25,004 people, less than the 32,332 who favor the rival Workers’ Party. Voter polls and approval ratings aren’t published in Singapore.
Opposition groups including the Workers’ Party and Singapore Democratic Party are contesting the PAP for 82 of 87 parliamentary seats on May 7. The constituency of Lee Kuan Yew, 87, the Cambridge University-trained lawyer who led the island from British rule and became its first premier, is the only one going uncontested.
“This is really shaping up to be an exciting election,” said Samantha Lee, 23, an undergraduate and first-time voter. “The PAP has done a great job bringing us so far but maybe it’s time to have more voices representing the people. The record number of opposition candidates this time must surely say something about citizens wanting more alternatives.”
Stock Reaction
Property stocks including CapitaLand Ltd. (CAPL) and Keppel Land Ltd. (KPLD) have fallen in the run-up to tomorrow’s vote amid concern there will be increased pressure to rein in home prices. CapitaLand has dropped 4.4 percent in the past month, exceeding the 1.6 percent decline in the Straits Times Index (FSSTI), while Keppel Land has retreated 11 percent.
“If there is a result that’s a lot less than expected for the ruling party, such as if they lose 20-30 percent of the number of seats in the parliament,” stocks would drop, said Wong of Bank Julius Baer. “There might be some concern in the market that some of the policies that they’ve been very aggressive on might be scaled back or modified, such as on casinos, tourism, commercial properties and immigration.”
Opposition parties may win 10 to 17 parliamentary seats, meaning the PAP will still have more than 80 percent of seats and “be in complete control of policy-making and implementation,” Prasenjit Basu, an economist at Daiwa Capital in Singapore, wrote in a report dated yesterday no faxing payday loan.
Growth Recipe
In recent years, Singapore’s drive for growth has included the opening of two casino-resorts and bringing the Formula One race to the island to boost tourism. More than a third of Singapore’s 5.1 million population is made up of foreigners and permanent residents, whose growing numbers have led to increased competition for housing, jobs and education.
Smaller than New York City and without natural resources, Singapore’s gross domestic product was about S$285 billion ($231 billion) last year, compared with S$6.9 billion in 1960, while GDP per capita surged to S$59,813 from S$1,310. GDP surged 14.5 percent last year, the most in Asia. Singapore is the only Asian country with AAA ratings from Moody’s Investors Service, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings.
“Do not rock this foundation,” Lee Kuan Yew said in an editorial in the Today newspaper last week. “Do not risk your assets, property values, job opportunities. Vote for men and women of proven character and track records of high performance.”
Paying Dividends
The administration of Lee’s son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 59, says it hasn’t neglected its citizens for the sake of growth. In this year’s budget, the government plans to spend S$6.6 billion on benefits to ease the burden of inflation.
The government is distributing cash to all adult citizens as a “dividend” from record growth, supplementing the wages of low-income workers, upgrading homes and requiring companies to increase contributions into employees’ pension fund.
The PAP’s message still resounds among some voters.
“The current party works for me,” said Tan Sze Theng, 31, a tutor who lives in the affluent Bukit Timah neighborhood in Singapore. “I have my job, the country is stable, there are worse-off places to be in. There is complacency in the government, but it’s not big enough a reason for me to vote for the opposition.”
Lee Apologizes
Opposition groups are seeking to create a more diverse political structure. The Singapore Democratic Party said on its website April 18 that “little room has been left for the views of citizens to shape the policy-making process. This has led to a situation where local and national government is very far removed from the day-to-day concerns of the people.”
Prime Minister Lee apologized at a PAP rally for not moving faster to address shortfalls in housing, the Straits Times reported. “If we didn’t quite get it right, I am sorry but we will try and do better the next time,” the paper quoted him as saying May 3.
Dissent is growing among Singaporeans who may feel less beholden to a ruling party that led the island out of colonial rule than past voters. The shift mirrors that in nations from Malaysia to India, where the hold of independence-era parties has weakened. The last polls, in May 2006, returned the PAP to power with about 67 percent of the votes cast, down from 75 percent in the 2001 elections.
‘Very Complacent’
“They keep telling us how they built Singapore,” said Alvin Lee, a 25-year-old economics and finance student at Singapore Institute of Management who plans to vote for the opposition. “They are really very complacent.”
Singapore’s Gini coefficient, a gauge of income inequality, rose to 0.48 last year from 0.444 in 2000, according to the statistics department. A reading of zero means income equality, while a reading of one means complete inequality. Inflation accelerated to a two-year high of 5.5 percent in January.
“It’s very pressurizing living in Singapore,” said housewife Low Bee Kian, 39, who has three children aged 10 to 16. “Everything is so expensive. The government says the economy is doing well but why am I not feeling it?”
Clayco Inc. appointed Melissa Hughes as vice president of talent management.
She will provide overall strategic leadership on all elements of the talent management function, including management of policy and procedures while focusing on executive search and hire, training and development and succession planning.
Hughes has more than 20 years of experience in human resources. Most recently she was vice president of Human Resources for KV Pharmaceutical.
She has a bachelor’s degree in human resource management and a master’s degree in business administration, both from Lindenwood University. She also holds an advanced human resource executive certification from the University of Michigan.
Canadians still haven
Libyan rebels have pushed into the strategic oil town of Brega as a government envoy begins a trip to Europe to discuss an end to the fighting.
Brega has been the site of battles during weeks of back-and-forth battling along Libya’s eastern coast.
The rebels, backed by airstrikes, have been making incremental advances. On Monday, the town was under rebel control.
An envoy of Moammar Gadhafi told Greece’s prime minister Sunday that the Libyan leader was seeking a way out of the crisis no fax cash advance. Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi will travel next to Turkey and Malta in a sign that Gadhafi’s regime may be softening its hard line in the face of the sustained attacks.
Regulators on Friday shut down small banks in Oklahoma and Wisconsin, lifting to 25 the number of U.S. bank failures this year after economic distress and soaring loan defaults brought down 157 banks in 2010.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized First National Bank of Davis, with one office in Davis, Okla., $90.2 million in assets and $68.3 million in deposits; and minority-owned Legacy Bank in Milwaukee, also with one office, with $190.4 million in assets and $183.3 million in deposits.
Pauls Valley National Bank, based in Pauls Valley, Okla., agreed to assume all the deposits and $28.5 million of the loans and other assets of First National Bank of Davis. Chicago-based Seaway Bank and Trust Co. is assuming the deposits and $165.9 million of the assets of Legacy Bank. The FDIC will retain the rest of the failed banks’ assets for future sale.
In addition, the FDIC and Seaway Bank and Trust agreed to share losses on $120 million of Legacy Bank’s assets.
The failure of First National Bank of Davis is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $26.5 million; the failure of Legacy Bank is expected to cost $43.5 million.
The 157 bank closures last year topped the 140 shuttered in 2009. It was the most in a year since the savings-and-loan crisis two decades ago.
The FDIC has said that 2010 likely would be the peak for bank failures payday loans online. Already this year the pace of closures has slowed: By this time last year, regulators had closed 30 banks.
The 2009 failures cost the insurance fund about $36 billion. The failures last year cost around $21 billion, a lower price tag because the banks that failed in 2010 were smaller on average. Twenty-five banks failed in 2008, the year the financial crisis struck with force; only three were closed in 2007.
The growing number of bank failures has sapped billions of dollars out of the deposit insurance fund. It fell into the red in 2009, and its deficit stood at $7.4 billion as of Dec. 31.
The number of banks on the FDIC’s confidential “problem” list rose to 884 in the final quarter of last year from 860 three months earlier. The 884 troubled banks is the highest number since 1993, during the savings-and-loan crisis.
The FDIC expects the cost of resolving failed banks to total around $52 billion from 2010 through 2014.
Depositors’ money _ insured up to $250,000 per account _ is not at risk, with the FDIC backed by the government. That insurance cap was made permanent in the financial overhaul law enacted in July.
The euro fell to its lowest level in almost three weeks against the yen on speculation a new Irish government will seek to share the burden of rescuing the country’s financial system with senior bank bondholders.
The common currency retreated from a more than three-week high against the dollar with the Irish election result following a defeat this month for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party that threatens to limit her scope to tackle the region’s debt crisis. The yen touched a three-week high against the dollar on concern civil unrest spreading through the Middle East and North Africa will derail a recovery in the global economy.
“We’ve got a political shift in Ireland and Germany and a banking system that’s hooked on European Central Bank cash,” said Robert Rennie, Sydney-based chief currency strategist at Westpac Banking Corp., Australia’s second-largest lender. “The euro is looking expensive.”
The euro fell to 112.01 yen as of 9:28 a.m. in Tokyo from 112.35 in New York last week, when it completed a 1.4 percent weekly drop. It touched 111.99 yen, the least since Feb. 8. The common currency declined to $1.3718 from $1.3754 on Feb. 25, when it reached $1.3838, the most since Feb. 2. The yen was at 81 one hour payday loan.65 against the dollar from 81.68 and traded as strong as 81.62, the most since Feb. 4.
Enda Kenny may lead a new coalition Irish government after the collapse of the banking system and an external bailout pushed the Fianna Fail party to a record election defeat. As of 10:30 p.m. in Dublin, 154 lawmakers had been elected to the 166- seat Dail, as the Irish parliament is known, according to broadcaster RTE’s website. Fine Gael had won 70 seats, Labour won 36 seats, Fianna Fail had 18 and Sinn Fein had 13.
Ireland Election
The Fine Gael leader wants to re-negotiate the interest rate on the emergency loans, speed up spending cuts to narrow the budget gap and share the cost burden with lenders’ senior bondholders.
U.S. officials will meet foreign counterparts in Geneva today to discuss the fate of Libya, including measures to pressure Muammar Qaddafi out of power while building ties to opposition leaders. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said for the first time yesterday that the U.S. has begun “reaching out” to Libyans organizing for a post-Qaddafi era.
OTTAWA
Powered by WordPress -- XHTML 1.0