GTFO of the Week: China Making Plastic Rice
by ilene - February 3rd, 2011 3:32 am
Courtesy of Joshua M Brown, The Reformed Broker
Here’s your GTFO article of the week…
Fake Plastic Rice from China
According to the Korean-language “Weekly Hong Kong” (which many Vietnam websites are referencing as well), Singapore media claim that fake rice is being distributed in the Chinese town of Taiyuan, in Shaanxi province. This “rice” is a mix of potatoes, sweet potatoes, and plastic. It is formed by mixing the potatoes and sweet potatoes into the shape of rice grains, then adding industrial synthetic resins. Since the rice does not behave like normal rice, it stays hard even after it has been cooked. Such synthetic resins can also be very harmful if consumed.
A Chinese Restaurant Association official said that eating three bowls of this fake rice would be like eating one plastic bag. Due to the seriousness of the matter, he added that there would be an investigation of factories alleged to be producing the rice. Meanwhile, the low cost of the fake rice is allowing wholesalers to make large profits.
Can this possibly be true? Well, they put lead in childrens’ toys so what can we put past them after that?
Source:
China Makes Fake Rice From Plastic, Vietnam Reacts (Very Vietnam)
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Oil, Oil Everywhere
by ilene - May 23rd, 2010 9:31 pm
Oil, Oil Everywhere
Courtesy of Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker
We’re now about a month into the BP Oil "blowout" incident in the Gulf.
We still don’t know exactly what caused the blowout, but that’s not the important factor from my point of view.
We know that a gas "bolus" got into the drill pipe and expanded as it rose, and that was the proximate cause of the blast and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon.
What we don’t know is why the blowout preventer failed to close.
There have been several theories and claims, among them:
- The Blowout Preventer’s hydraulic system has one or more leaks in it, and as such it couldn’t close. If this is true then the question becomes who knew of the leak, if anyone, as it would have caused the preventer to fail routine tests.
- There are also claims that the well failed a negative pressure test a few hours before the incident. That would imply that there was a problem with the casing integrity (or the cement job done to lock it in place) and work continued without addressing this first.
Let me provide some context here: I live in the Florida Panhandle and in a "worst case scenario" the value of my home is likely to be destroyed. On April 30th I wrote a piece called "Drill Baby Drill", and I stand behind it today, even with the increased knowledge we now have.
I want answers to the above two questions, and I want the firms and persons responsible for those two breaches of protocol and common sense (along with safety measures) tarred, feathered and bankrupted, in that order, with every penny they personally and corporately possess confiscated to perform whatever remediation we can.
What I do know is this: A deepwater rig like the Horizon costs about $500,000 per day to have on site and operate. There was obviously a decision taken by someone that halting operations to pull and repair or replace the blowout preventer stack would cost millions (such an operation would result in significant downtime, of course, during which the rig would be sitting idle) and thus it was not done.
But this does not change my base view, which is that we have no valid alternative to drilling in the Gulf and elsewhere – indeed, everywhere we can find oil and gas.
What…
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Can Crocs Be More Than a One-Hit Wonder?
by ilene - October 9th, 2009 1:46 pm
Never had a pair of these colorful plastic potato-shaped shoes, so add one more to the un-crocced planet walkers. – Ilene
Can Crocs Be More Than a One-Hit Wonder?
By Tara Kelly, courtesy of TIME
There was a time a few years ago when it seemed that the only people on the planet not wearing a pair of Crocs — those quirky, brightly colored rubber clogs — were hard-core fashionistas and Somali nomads. Actually, even Somali nomads were probably wearing them. President George W. Bush had at least one pair. So did Rosie O’Donnell and George Clooney. As well as, oh, about 2 billion children. Sales at the Colorado-based company climbed from a meager $24,000 in 2002 to more than $847 million in 2007. When Crocs went public in February 2006, it raised $208 million — the largest shoe-firm IPO in market history.
Then fortunes turned. Demand for Crocs, which are named after a crocodile because they can be worn on both land and in the water, began to cool in early 2008. Throw in the global downturn and sales tumbled 15% to $721.5 million in 2008, leading to a loss of $185 million, following a profit of $168 million a year earlier. Its share price plummeted from a high of $74 in November 2007 to a low of just $1.05 last November. It was, says John Duerden, Crocs’ chief executive, "the perfect storm."
Crocs’ journey from hot to not is a familiar tale. Reinventing yourself from a one-hit wonder into a profitable, long-term company has to be one of the biggest challenges in business. Plenty fail. Remember Beanie Babies? LA Lights? Slap-on bracelets? Duerden, 68, who joined Crocs in March from the London-based brand consultancy Chrysalis Group, says he can help Crocs avoid disappearing altogether and turn the company into "a financially stable company and brand."
The crucial first step is to lower costs, inventory and manufacturing infrastructure to levels more in line with demand. Overzealous production had left the company with millions of dollars’ worth of unwanted stock by mid-2008. Some of the work was already under way: Crocs has shed 32% of jobs since 2007, shuttering factories, paring its distribution network and cutting its inventory in half over the past couple of years. That’s helped nudge Crocs’ stock close to $7, but for it "to move higher, [the company] ultimately needs to become…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.