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Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Cheap yen a boon and a risk for Japan companies

As the yen weakens, famous Japanese exporters from Toyota to Nintendo are getting a boost but the favorable exchange rate also carries risks by insulating some companies from pressure to overhaul their businesses.

Against the dollar, the yen is near a three-year low and looks set to weaken further as the Bank of Japan falls into line with the new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's push to break Japan's domestic economy out of its deflationary slump with very loose monetary policy _ creating more money. One U.S. dollar is now buying more than 94 yen compared with 77-80 yen for much of 2012.

It's a big shift from several years of punishing yen strength that added to the problems of Japanese companies, particularly those in consumer electronics who fell behind more innovative or nimble competitors such as Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.

Some manufacturers worked to minimize their vulnerability by moving production abroad and doing more business in dollars. That means the perk of "yen-yasu" or cheap yen is diluted for the companies that were most diligent at reshaping their business. Others that did not change or could not are set to get big rewards from the weak yen policies dubbed "Abenomics."

Yet analysts warn yen-yasu can make companies complacent and slow to change, which ultimately has its reckoning later on when the yen changes direction.

Some companies that benefited from a weak yen in the past made unwise investments, such as over-expanding with plants in Japan, or otherwise squandered the leeway of time they had gained through the weak yen to turn around their business, said Azusa Kato, economist at BNP Paribas in Tokyo.

"Abenomics sounds like a good story, but there is always a `but' that follows," she said.

Sony Corp., which has floundered for several years as its mainstay TV business was battered by competition and falling prices, says it has striven to become "dollar neutral" _ business speak for making its profits less dependent on the fluctuating exchange rate between the dollar and the yen.

It says it has done that by shifting more production overseas and denominating more of its expenses in dollars. But Makoto Morita, a strategist at Daiwa Securities Co., said other companies may opt to maintain production in Japan because they want to keep prized core technology in-house.

"The answer isn't all that simple," said Morita. "It depends, case by case, on the strategy of the company."

Sony President Kazuo Hirai is playing down the importance of the yen's recent decline.

"It's very short-term at this point. It's a bit too early to try to draw any conclusion," he told reporters last month. "It might stabilize, or it may actually go back to what it was before."

Even so, the maker of Bravia TVS and PlayStation 3 game machines anticipates a 50 billion yen ($540 million) increase in sales for every one yen drop against the dollar. It says that won't boost profit because of its dollar neutral work but yen declines against the euro and other currencies would.

Sony is forecasting a return to profit after four years of losses for the fiscal year ending March. The turnaround is partly due to job cuts and other restructuring. Last week, it said October-December quarter sales inched up nearly 7 percent to 1.95 trillion yen ($21 billion) despite declining sales of gadgets such as flat-panel TVs and Blu-ray video recorders _ but only because of the weak yen.

Other struggling electronics companies are also getting a boost but for some the cheap yen is more of a reprieve than an enduring solution. Panasonic Corp. reported last week it gained 3 billion yen ($33 million) in additional operating profit from the weakening yen in the latest quarter even as it stuck to its projection for a 765 billion yen ($9.6 billion) annual loss.

Sharp Corp., which forecasts a record 450 billion yen ($5 billion) loss for its business year through March, has struggled to cut costs and reshape its business, partly because it has invested in expensive plants in Japan that make panels for which prices have fallen sharply overseas. The plants embody Sharp's prized technology, but they also make the company hostage to the yen's swings.

Nintendo Co. raised its profit forecast for the year through March 2013 to 14 billion yen ($154 million) from 6 billion yen ($66 million), largely because of the weak yen. That's despite having to lower the number of Wii U consoles it expects to sell by 1.5 million units to 4 million.

Its currency gains for the nine months to December totaled 22 billion yen ($242 million), according to the maker of Pokemon and Super Mario games. But the weaker yen can't solve the fundamental challenge that Nintendo's business is facing: casual gamers shifting from specialized game machines to tablets and smartphones.

The declining yen is also playing out in the auto sector.

Toyota Motor Corp., the world's top automaker, gets a whopping 35 billion yen ($380 million) added to its annual operating profit for each yen the dollar gains.

Among the Japanese automakers Toyota is viewed as more "sensitive," or exposed, to the gyrations of the foreign exchange rate, partly because Toyota, as a Japan Inc. leader, has repeatedly promised to help save jobs by keeping production of 3 million vehicles a year in Japan.

Toyota's Lexus luxury models, many of them sophisticated hybrid models, are among the vehicles routinely exported from Japan.

Toyota raised its fiscal year profit forecast this week to 860 billion yen ($9.3 billion), triple what it eked out the previous year. Its comeback is based on a solid sales recovery in the key U.S. market as well as new markets in Asia. But when Toyota reports full year results later this year, the numbers are likely to highlight huge gains from the weak yen. Its forecasts had assumed the dollar at 81 yen compared with its current level above 94 yen.

Still, Toyota isn't celebrating.

Toyota insists it's instead trying to produce vehicles where they're sold, and boost the purchase of locally produced auto parts to better adapt to a fluctuating currency.

"It can get good, and then it can get bad," company spokesman Ryo Sakai said. "Our basic policy is to produce vehicles where the demand is."

Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at www.twitter.com/yurikageyama

Source: http://www.stltoday.com/business/national-and-international/cheap-yen-a-boon-and-a-risk-for-japan-companies/article_39160f13-67d3-5a31-81d0-704562b357ab.html

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Jennifer Garner Leaves London after Ben's Big Night at the BAFTAs

Posted Monday February 11, 2013 11:33 PM GMT

Heading back home after supporting her husband at the BAFTAs, Jennifer Garner smiled at Heathrow Airport in London on Monday (February 11).

The Alias star looked cute in a black jacket, blue jeans, and knee-high black boots with her dark-rimmed spectacles as she hurried to catch her flight.

And what a night it was for hubby Ben Affleck. His movie "Argo" nabbed the Best Picture award and the 40-year-old actor himself won Best Director.

Now famously snubbed in the Oscar category for best director, Ben graciously said during his acceptance speech, "I want to say this is a second act for me and you've given me that, this industry has given me that and I want to thank you and I'm so grateful and proud."

Source: http://gossipcenter.com/jennifer-garner/jennifer-garner-leaves-london-after-bens-big-night-baftas-805969

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Try it with Tabby and Tasha: Impromptu piercing - Arbiter Online ...

By Tabitha Bower Monday, February 11th, 2013

Tasha Adams / The Arbiter

?Try it with Tabby? is a weekly article chronicling the adventures of Tabitha Bower as she searches for out-of-the-ordinary and budget-friendly activities for Boise State students.

Spontaneity goes hand-in-hand with the college lifestyle,?especially that of traditional college freshmen, barely 18 years old and free, possibly for the first time, from parental restrictions.?This newly acquired adulthood brings up the question: How should I exercise this coming-of-age?

A few things on the list of ?things you can do now you?re a grown-up? are: buy cigarettes (don?t do it), vote (do it), porn (to each his own), tattoos and piercings.

While my thoughts on the first three can be summed up in parentheticals, tattoos and piercings are a bit more weighted and could use additional explanation.?This week for ?Try it with Tabby? I took an impromptu trip to Imperial Body Art to practice spontaneity.

It started much like any other Thursday afternoon. Classes were over and I had trekked to Papa Joe?s for a dollar PBR. With flash mob practice looming in my near future, the thought of embarrassing myself with my horrendous dance moves once again, on camera, left a bad taste in my mouth.

?Let?s just go get you pierced,? suggested Tasha Adams, managing editor of The Arbiter.

Despite my complete initial dismissal of this idea, minutes later we were en route to Imperial Body Art. And mere moments after, we were discussing placement and jewelry options with piercer Paul ?Paulio?
Birnbaum.

For Adams, who had been dappling with the idea of gauging her ears but was squeamish at the process, gauge piercing was on the agenda.

?It?s gauging for wieners,? she said of the process. And without much ado, some heavy breaths and larger than average needles, Adams? ears were gauged to 10mm.

?I love it, I am so excited it is finally done, I love it,? she said.

I was up next, decided on a diamond anchor, and delved into a dermal piercing (literally a skin piercing) under my left eye, after multiple recommendations by Adams.

?It is the easiest piecing that I have ever gotten and I?m not lying,? Adams said. ?I would probably be a disco ball if I could because I love them so much, it was my favorite. All of the dermals, everywhere.?

And, as told by Adams, the piercing was painless, until the insertion of the anchor, the step Adams failed to mention in her pro-dermal campaign.

?It is shaped like a lopsided ?T? so he puts the long side of the T in first and then shoves the short side in,? Adams said. ?I didn?t want to tell you about that shoving part.?

?Thanks,? I conceded, to which she responded simply, ?You?re welcome.?

At this point you may be thinking, where do the tattoos come in? And to that, I would say take the advice of the very helpful, gentle-handed piercer Birnbaum.

?Most college students don?t have much money and tattoos are more expensive,? he said. ?A lot of people go through a time of their lives when they are very impulsive and a tattoo is a lot harder to get rid of compared to a piercing.?

And as for my feelings the day after my impromptu piercing??While faced with the slight tinge of guilt in the wake of my financial irresponsibility, the love of my new dermal piercing and in-the-moment memory by far made up for it.

About Tabitha Bower

Tabitha Bower joined the Arbiter after taking a News Writing class. She wrote for the News and Features sections as a journalist for one semester before becoming this year's Arts and Entertainment section editor. She is double majoring in English with a writing emphasis and communication with a journalism emphasis. After college she dreams of being employed. Tabitha lived in Okinawa, Japan for three years prior to moving to Boise. She once spent a year backpacking, scuba diving and basking in a hammock with a drink in Southeast Asia. While there she mistook a lamp pole for a palm tree, climbed it and then severely injured herself falling out of it. When sleeping in her basement beware of her cats, which have been known to attack innocent sleepers. She also has the talent of juggling school, work, looking fabulous and being super mom to her two year old son, Aiden.

Short URL: http://arbiteronline.com/?p=98559

Source: http://arbiteronline.com/2013/02/11/try-it-with-tabby-and-tasha-impromptu-piercing/

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Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Japan to get Fire Emblem: Awakening, Animal Crossing: New Leaf figurines

Photos snapped at the Wonder Festival in Japan this weekend show a new 1/8-scale figure of Fire Emblem: Awakening?s Tharja. Max Factory, the company producing the product, has also announced a Marth figure. Shizue from Animal Crossing: New Leaf will ?

Source: http://thegamestribe.com/news/japan-to-get-fire-emblem-awakening-animal-crossing-new-leaf-figurines/

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Report: Pickup Sales Poised to Gear Up in 2013 | RV Business

Pickup truck sales are expected to outpace the broader U.S. auto market this year helped by a recovering housing market and a slew of new models from the three big U.S. automakers, executives and analysts said on Sunday (Feb. 10).

Reuters reported that revamped models from General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC will be on view this week at the Detroit auto show.

Ford and GM are fierce competitors in the full-size pickup segment where profit margins are larger compared to cars. Pickup trucks made up about 11% of the U.S. market last year, well below the historical average of 17%.

?The pickup truck sector is poised to outperform the rest of the market this year,? said Citi analyst Itay Michaeli at a conference of the Society of Automotive Analysts.

Analysts said gas prices were unlikely to surge this year, which would support truck sales. Micheali said that a mix of pent-up demand and new models will drive pickup sales this year.

GM is counting on a new version of its Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra full-size pickup trucks to show investors and car buyers that the No.1 U.S. automaker is back on track after its $50 billion U.S. taxpayer-funded bailout in 2009.

GM?s new trucks are on view Monday, along with a new RAM 1500 pickup from Chrysler. GM?s arch rival in the pickup truck market, Ford, will tease a concept version of its upcoming F-150 truck Tuesday. The F-150 will be built for the 2015 model year.

?The majority of pickup vehicles on the road are about to be redesigned,? Micheali said. ?The product cycle will unleash demand.?

Source: http://www.rvbusiness.com/2013/02/report-pickup-sales-poised-to-gear-up-in-2013/

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Nike co-founder blasts Freeh report

FILE - In this Nov. 9, 2011 file photo, former Penn State Coach Joe Paterno and his wife, Sue Paterno, stand on their porch to thank supporters gathered outside their home in State College, Pa. Sue Paterno says the family?s detailed response to a critical report on the handling of child abuse allegations against former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky is being released to the public. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

BEAVERTON, Ore. (AP) ? Nike co-founder Phil Knight has issued a statement blasting the Freeh report's characterization of Penn State coach Joe Paterno in the child sex abuse scandal involving assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.

Following the release last year of former FBI director Louis Freeh's report, Knight issued a statement saying he was saddened that Paterno apparently made missteps that led to "heartbreaking consequences."

But Knight now says that he may have jumped to conclusions, after a new critique that was commissioned by the Paterno family and carried out by experts that included Dick Thornburgh, a former U.S. attorney general and governor of Pennsylvania.

In a statement released Monday, Knight called the findings of the Freeh report unjustified and unsubstantiated. He also criticized the NCAA's subsequent sanctions on Penn State's football program as unwarranted.

"When this tragic story first unfolded Joe cautioned all of us to slow down and carefully gather the facts before jumping to conclusions," Knight said in the statement. "We owed it to the victims, he said, to get to the truth. It was counsel we all should have followed."

Sandusky, 69, is serving a 30- to 60-year prison term for the sexual abuse of 10 boys over a period of 15 years, including attacks on children inside Penn State athletics facilities.

Paterno died in January 2012 at age 85. Knight spoke at Paterno's memorial service, but after the Freeh report was released he took the name off the Joe Paterno Child Development Center at Nike headquarters in Beaverton.

The Freeh report concluded that Paterno and other university officials covered up allegations against Sandusky to spare the university bad publicity. But the family's review said the cover-up claims were inaccurate, were unfounded and equated to a "rush to injustice."

Paterno's family released the review of Freeh's investigation on Sunday. The findings were posted on the website paterno.com.

"There's simply nothing in this record, in the Freeh report, that indicates he (Paterno) was involved in any way," Thornburgh told The Associated Press.

Freeh defended his report.

"I stand by our conclusion that four of the most powerful people at Penn State failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade," he said in a statement issued Sunday through a spokesman.

The NCAA took unprecedented action in the wake of the Freeh report by quickly levying strict sanctions on Penn State's football team, including a four-year bowl ban, strict scholarship cuts and a $60 million fine on the university. College sports' governing body also vacated 111 wins under Paterno, erasing what had been his major college record of 409 career victories.

Knight took issue with the sanctions in his statement, which was first obtained by ESPN.com.

"The NCAA acted outside its charter and rendered judgment absent any kind of investigation or judicial hearing. It was simply grandstanding," Knight said.

An NCAA spokeswoman said the organization stood by its previous statements and declined to comment Sunday.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-02-11-FBC-Paterno-Nike/id-367e7e1523d64848b3c25ec7572ab410

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Video: The GOP?s image problem

>>> a bold headline on the cover of the new republic this week. the republicans, the party of white people , and it's an art -- by the way, its art is clever ode to the beatles' album, the white album . in this article the author investigates the root of a phenomenon he's been covering on "hardball" and we've been covering, the increasingly white male isolated republican party . he says it's derived from the political strategy of the pre- civil war pro-slavery vice president john calhoun of south carolina . he writes, quote, this is the politics of nullification, the doctrine nearly as old as the republic itself that holds that the state singly or in concert can defy federal actions by declaring them invalid or simply ignoring them. we hear the echoes of nullification in the venting of anti-government passions and also in campaigns to starve government, curtail voter renl stration, repeal legislation, delegitimize presidents. the sam town is with me tonight. he's editor of the "new york times" book review and willie brown is the former san francisco mayor . thank you so much, sam , and mr. mayor, thaup as well. sam , this is amazing. i love trying to find out our roots politically. i wish i could do a television show, in fact, where every time there's a news story take us back to where it all started, and did you here so beautifully. we have people like rick perry and all across the south mouthing phrases like secession and nullification and it all goes back to those fights they had in the house and the senate in the 1850s , but you have now pointed out this is now the stripe, sort of the road map the republican party has been taking since way back when.

>> well, yes, chris. and great to be here, great to be here with the mayor. there's a terrible historical tragedy and paradox here. in the 1950s as i say in the piece you read, republicans looked pretty good on civil rights under eisenhower, the brown decision, the central high and little rock where he did the tough thing and sent the troops in, and we had the first modern civil rights act . it wasn't great, it wasn't what lbj gave us, but it was somethi something. not one republican voted against that bill. think about it, what's happened. i'll tell you what happened, the conservative movement was born right then, and they decided the road not taken, they were not going to be pro- civil rights . they were not going to defend the rights of citizenship and economic justice and integration of african-americans in the south. no, they were going to side with the southern oppressors, and who was the great philosopher king of that argument? john c. calhoun . what happened? two things. first of all, the party which could have led the way on civil rights , the party of lincoln, turned away from it. also, they gave us this legacy of nullification, as you say. this nullifying government that we see today.

>> you know, i thought, willie, mayor brown, i thought the smart thing in your piece i had never read before, mr. mayor, and i liked it about the piece in sam 's article, was the fon confluence, a lot of libertarian thinking from barry goldwater , leave me alone , i don't like government. that got tied in states right. if you're an enemy of federal power you're on my side. a weird sick marriage between leave me alone and let's get together and nullify civil rights .

>> that's essentially what the republican party stands for even today, as a matter of fact. in sam 's piece, however, i think there should be a reference to the fact that during the nixon administration in reality the whole business of set asides, the whole business of what happens with reference to the philadelphia plan , all of that came because a guy named george schultz working for nixon put that together, and the republicans had a golden opportunity at that moment to really grab the leadership that lincoln had provided and by today willie brown may very well be saying positive things about the republicans.

>> let's put that to sam . not only that, not only did they create basically affirmative action with the philadelphia plan , the screw the eye tish, italians, and their unions, they were up to trouble in some extent, going after the union leaders and they're locked out. unless you're nephew of a kid you're not getting a job there. moynihan gave nixon credit for ending the dual school system . how could they be going in that direction and at the same time playing the southern strategy with strom thurmond and those boys?

>> that's why the great gary wills said richard nixon was the last liberal and there is a reference, willie brown is right, there should have been more, in a longer piece there would be more on that, on the philadelphia plan , but, yes, affirmative action , a phrase originated in the kennedy years, was seized on by the nixon administration . hey, daniel patrick moynihan said about nixon , this guy is not trying to undo the great society, he wants to outdo it. and what happened? ideologues within the conservative movement turned against nixon .

>> well --

>> women --

>> let me go to willie brown . i know nixon . i'm not necessarily a nixon hater by any means. he was a member of the naacp in the '50s. pret friendly with whitney young , getting to know martin luther king ahead of the kennedys. and then becomes a totally mean guy in terms of electoral politics , hooking up with strom thurmond figuring he was going to grab what was left of the segregationists in the south when they were dispointed with the democrats. what happened to this guy?

>> i think sam 's piece clearly indicates that not only would a politician like nixon find it convenient to go in that direction for potential success, but politicians generally, chris, all of us tend to want to move in a direction that points to success. in sam 's piece he talks about how kennedy clearly moved away from where he was as a liberal in massachusetts to try to make sure he didn't get tubed as he had been on the vice presidential nomination when he sought the presidential nomination . so we politicians are not like the moral standard on this issue.

>> okay. sam , great piece. boy, you put a lot of work into these pieces. that is one heck of a piece of work . it should be a book. why don't you just blow it up and call it a book.

>> thanks so much.

>> i think it's fabulous.

>>> up next, the man who shot osama bin laden is going to -- actually his writer is going to be here, the guy who covered this story. we still don't know what his name is but we got the whole story from a great reporter who interviewed him. this is really going to be great journalism coming up here. this is "hardball," the place for politics. the patient, presented with

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/hardball/50775236/

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