Stuttgart, Germany -- "Sales at Mercedes-Benz continue to improve, rising by 17 percent in July. This marked the ninth month in a row that sales have increased at a double-digit rate. Global deliveries to customers amounted to 97,700 units last month (July 2009: 83,500). As a result, sales now total 654,400 units since the beginning of the year (January-July 2009: 566,600), representing an increase of 16 percent.Mercedes-Benz made great gains in many automotive markets in July. The brand had its best month ever in China (incl. Hong Kong), where it sold 14,600 passenger vehicles (July 2009: 4,800), an increase of 205 percent compared to the same month last year. As a result, Mercedes-Benz remains the fastest-growing premium brand in China. Mercedes-Benz achieved its biggest gains last month in the dynamically growing market of South Korea, where 1,300 customers bought a vehicle bearing the Mercedes star. This was five times the number sold in July of last year (plus 446 percent). Within the Asia/Pacific region, sales also rose substantially in Australia (plus 48 percent). Mercedes-Benz in July also achieved its best month ever in Russia (plus 116 percent). Record sales were posted as well in India (plus 142 percent) and Turkey (plus 155 percent)."
I reported on Wednesday that international trade reached a 20-month high in June, and Friday's report from the Port of Los Angeles provides additional statistical evidence of an ongoing boom in international trade activity. Shipping volume reached a 23-month high in July of 730,746 Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs), the highest monthly shipping activity since August of 2008 (see chart above), and 26.8% above July last year. On a year-to-date basis, shipping activity at the LA Port is up by 16.8% compared to last year. Other highlights include:1. Imports (loaded inbound containers) were up 21% and exports (loaded outbound) increased by 6% compared to last July. 2. The 26.8% increase in July follows double-digit gains of 32.3% in June, 19.9% in May and 11.9% in April. The last time there were back-to-back monthly gains as high as 26.8% and 32.3% was back in 2003. 3. For the month of July, this year's shipping activity was the highest in four years since July of 2006, and this follows a record last month for the highest June shipping volume ever in history.
The chart above displays monthly employment levels in the U.S. and Canada back to 2002, and shows that while Canada has now basically recovered all of the jobs that were lost during the recession, the U.S. is still about 8 million jobs below the pre-recession peak employment level. In fact, a recent WSJ article by Jason Clemens points out that "Canada is emerging more quickly from the recession than almost any industrialized country." How did Canada survive the global slowdown with fewer job losses than the U.S. (-2.3% reduction in employment vs. almost -6% in the U.S.), and how did Canada recover from the recession so much faster that the U.S.? Well, it sure wasn't because Canada raised taxes, like the U.S. is now considering during a fragile recovery. In fact, Canada has actually been aggressively cutting both taxes and government spending, with impressive results in economic performance. Here's more from the WSJ article "Canada, Land of Smaller Government": "Canadian taxes have also come down at the federal and provincial level. They were reduced with the stated goal of improving incentives for work effort, savings, investment and entrepreneurship. Tellingly, the last three Canadian elections have all had key debates on tax relief—not whether there should be tax cuts but rather what type of tax cuts. Beginning in 2001 under a Liberal government, even the politically sensitive federal corporate income tax rate has been reduced. It is now 18%, down from 28%, and the plan is to reduce it to 15% in 2012. The U.S. federal rate is 35%."And what about government spending? Accoding to Jason, "If present trends continue, within two or three years Canada will have a smaller government as a share of its economy than the U.S." Jason concludes that "Americans can learn much by looking north," and maybe the lesson from Canada is that tax cuts along with cuts in government spending are the keys to both improved economic performance and greater fiscal responsibility.
30-year fixed mortgage rates fell to 4.44% this week, according to Freddie Mac, which has to be the lowest rate ever in the history of the world. Maybe it's time now to refinance, or buy that $25,000 condo?
I'm not sure exactly what happened, but Intrade odds surged today by 7.5% to a 69.9% chance that the Republicans will control the House after the November elections.
Blogger recently added some kind of new spam filter for comments, and some of your comments with links (e.g. from Walt G. and Juandos) have been automatically sent to a special spam area that requires moderation. So in case your comments with links don't appear automatically, it's not that they are being censored in any way, it's just a new problem with Blogger. I'll see what I can do to remove or adjust the spam filter for comments, to make it as easy as possible for you to continue to add comments with links. Please accept my apologizes and assurance that I have not started any new kind of comment censorship.
"The first half was a crackling good start to the year, so why all the worry? Container shipping volumes and profits rebounded — first half box handling increased 15, 20 and 19 percent, respectively, at the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Charleston (see chart above). The resulting capacity shortages and skyrocketing rates triggered huge swings from loss to profit at container lines.As Neptune Orient Lines’ Ron Widdows somewhat triumphantly commented on Aug. 6 in announcing a $100 million second quarter net profit versus a $146 million loss a year earlier (and a 53 percent increase in revenue), “The result for this latest quarter reflects significant progress as we turn around our performance from the economic downturn of 2009.”And the market is holding. Whatever doom-and-gloom sentiment may exist, it hasn’t hit the container markets yet. Drewry Shipping Consultants’ Container Rate Benchmark for the trans-Pacific spot market soared 225 percent over the last year and backed off only imperceptibly in the last week after climbing steadily since March. It got a further boost in recent weeks from carriers’ apparent success in implementing a peak-season surcharge on import containers."From the commentary "Doom and Gloom, Round 2" by Peter Tirschwell, senior PV for global strategy at UBM Global Trade, in the Journal of Commerce (subscription required).
