WARNING ISSUES-Fisher Capital Management Warning: BOK issues blanket warning on debt

http://andreiclifton.blog.co.uk/2011/06/28/fisher-capital-management-warning-bok-issues-blanket-warning-on-debt-11385681/comment_ID/16697003/comment_level/1/#c16697003

Bank of Korea Governor Kim Choong-soo, right, holds a meeting with chief executives at the BOK’s headquarters in central Seoul yesterday. [NEWSIS]

Korea’s central bank governor cautioned companies, individuals and the government yesterday on the danger of taking on an unreasonable level of debt.

During a meeting with corporate executives yesterday, Bank of Korea Governor Kim Choong-so said, “corporations, the government and individuals should pay close attention to how much debt they take on.”

The BOK’s 25 basis point rate hike last Friday will increase interest payments for debt holders.

Kim also commented on Korea’s mounting household debt.

“We should keep an eye on those who take out loans that have no ability to pay them back.”

Yet he expressed confidence that Korea’s record household debt – which recently exceeded the 800 trillion won mark – is manageable.

A number of the country’s largest conglomerates were represented at the meeting, including Kim Young-chul, Dongkuk Steel president & CEO; Alfred S. Koh, Samsung SDS CEO; Huh Chang-soo, GS Engineering & Construction chairman; Huh Myung-soo, GS E&C president & CEO; and Yoon Young-doo, Asiana Airlines chief executive.

“The housing market doesn’t look so optimistic,” said GS E&C’s chairman, blaming it on financial authorities’ tight management of project financing loans, causing builders to suffer from unsold apartments.

WARNING ISSUES-Fisher Capital Management: Triad Boiler Room Systems Launched New Commercial Boilers

http://nikitasagun-fishercapitalmanagement.blogspot.com/2011/05/triad-boiler-room-systems-launched-new.html?showComment=1319614153517#c1089707953848725549

Benefits of Modularity
TRIAD's elegantly simple design maintains consistent water volume where heat is required.

• Boilers are activated sequentially, drawing water from the main loop into the next hot water boiler until the heating need is meet.
• firing boilers remaining isolated, so no heated water circulates through cold boilers.
• During most of the year the unfired boilers provide additional backup.
• Outdoor temperatures and loop water temperatures are constantly monitored.

Fisher Capital on Boiler Room Equipment, Inc: The efficiency of this design is most apparent during warmer months, when a conventional hydronic heating or steam boiler could still be operating at full capacity.

Primary-Secondary Piping
TRIAD integrates modularity with a single pipe primary-secondary system. TRIAD was the first company to employ a Primary-Secondary concept. It operates with two loops, (i) the primary loop, or building main loop, and (ii) smaller secondary loops off of each hot water boiler, which supply heated water to the primary loop.

Upon a call for heat, the boiler pump begins pushing the return water into the boiler and out through the secondary loop, supplying this hot water up into the primary loop (the main header), where it mixes with the cooler return water from the main loop of the building.

• Supply and return water are blended, avoiding the need for expensive and unreliable mixing valves commonly used in two pipe systems.
• The secondary loop isolates each hot water boiler, resulting in a very efficient system that minimizes thermal shock.

Control Panel
TRIAD Boilers can be sequenced by the use of our control panel that provides many attractive features:

• Temperature set-back when less heat is required, such as nights and weekends.
• Adjustments for latent heat, to take advantage of hot boiler water that retains heat after the burner shuts down.
• Outdoor reset based on atmospheric temperatures.
• Monitoring of return water temperatures to maintain accurate heating output.

It is also very easy to sequence our boilers using the panel of any other major manufacturer.

Packaged ProductFisher Capital on Boiler Room Equipment, Inc: All TRIAD hot water boilers and steam boilers are fully assembled, packaged products, which offer several advantages over boilers that must be assembled at the jobsite

• Onsite labor costs are minimized.
• Quality control is higher at the factory than at the jobsite
• The ease of installation of a packaged boiler allows for quicker start up.

Benefits of Steel Boilers

Easy to Clean
To maintain boiler efficiency, heating surfaces must be kept clean and free of combustion by-products. All TRIAD heating surfaces, especially the firetubes, are easy to access. It is impossible to clean all the heating surfaces of a cast iron boiler, and what can be reached is difficult to clean.

TRIAD also makes it easy to maintain clean water surfaces. The cleaning of the interior of a cast iron boiler is a major undertaking, and even then only the vertical surfaces can be cleaned. The inability to clean the horizontal surfaces can have a significant impact on operating efficiency.

Easy to Repair
Because of their steel construction, TRIAD hot water and steam boilers can be repaired in the field with minimal disruption. A leak can be permanently welded or the tubes re-rolled with little difficulty. It is impossible to permanently weld a cracked cast iron boiler section or a leaking copper fin-tube boiler. The firetubes are easily accessed through the top and through the firedoor.

Fast Water Circulation
Poor circulation of water within the typical cast iron boiler is very common due to their design limits, while TRIAD's steel hot water boilers provide for faster circulation.

RESEARCH:Fisher Capital Management Strategies: Glittering Gold Need Not Set Off a Panic Over Inflation

Have you been asked about gold lately? Has someone tried to explain to you that the precious metal’s 27 percent increase in dollar terms during the past year signals ominous things? Runaway inflation… economic panic… infinite instability…

Well, instead of wasting your breath, or giving up and walking away, direct the concerned party to a corner of the report released this month by the World Gold Council, the gold- mining industry’s main trade group.

Buried amid the standard reportese is a statistical review of worldwide gold demand in 2011’s first quarter. The data show that gold’s ascent is being driven by extraordinary demand fromIndia and China, where rising prosperity is making it easier for millions of people to buy gold in all its forms, particularly jewelry.

The WGC estimates that Indian households own more than 18,000 metric tons of gold, the largest holding on the planet. (By contrast, U.S. official gold reserves total about 8,100 metric tons.) Indian consumers aren’t done buying. In this year’s first quarter, they purchased an additional 206 tons of gold jewelry and 85 tons of gold bars and coins. China’s appetite is growing rapidly and could soon overtake India’s.

Or come at it another way: Strip out Chinese and Indian purchases, and the rest of the world isn’t nearly so vibrant. Some new buyers have shown up; some prior speculators are cashing out.

Price Prediction

This is not the company line. Earlier this month, Sun Zhaoxue, the president of China National Gold Group Corp., the country’s largest gold mine, predicted that gold prices will stay high because of the dollar’s depreciation and “intensifying geopolitical risks.” His measured version of the safe-refuge thesis can be heard in much shriller tones on late-night advertisements for gold coins.

Yes, price surges for gold don’t always reflect genuine fears and the need for disaster-proof investments.

And, yes, gold’s price may continue to climb this year. A recent Bloomberg News survey of 31 analysts, investors and gold- mine operators found respondents, on average, predicting a year- end price of $1,750 an ounce, up significantly from recent levels of about $1,530.

If such a rise occurs, however, it’s likely to reflect normal public demand for a shiny commodity, rather than a far- sighted warning to the world’s central bankers.

RESEARCH:Fisher Capital Management Strategies: Greek Day of Reckoning Looms in Ponzi Europe: Mario I. Blejer

May 31, 2011 — Dirk Faltin, a senior economist at UBS AG, talks about Greece’s debt crisis and bond yields. He speaks from Zurich with Francine Lacqua on Bloomberg Television’s “The Pulse.” (Source: Bloomberg)

One of the undeniable features of the European debt crisis is the tendency to obscure, verbally and politically, the real issues at play. Euphemisms, statistical gimmicks, meaningless institutional squabbling, undecipherable acronyms, and plain double talk proliferate as part of the debate.

In my experience as central-bank governor in Argentina during the worst financial crisis in our history, at the beginning of this century, I learned how useful it is to cut through the fog in order to rebuild credibility and to allow a more lucid evaluation of the outlook. While there are few similarities between Greece’s present debt situation and Argentina’s in 2002, it is possible to reduce the recent talk of a default to four basic issues and make some predictions.

The nature of the debt problem in peripheral Europe is structural. Since it doesn’t reflect a temporary liquidity squeeze, the approach adopted so far can’t resolve it. The strategy in progress has been to pile new debt upon the existing stock. New loans are used to pay old debt, in addition to financing remaining fiscal gaps. This is why the Ponzi scheme analogy is appropriate. And while the pyramid is growing, the share of peripheral debt held by state-owned institutions also keeps getting bigger. This means that when it all finally collapses, it is the taxpayers of Europe, and the world, that will bear the full cost.

Growing Pyramid

The pyramid may continue to grow for a while, particularly if the cement used is public funds. But it is an unstable construction because European bailouts are becoming politically questionable and because throwing International Monetary Fund money into the Ponzi scheme is raising objections. This strategy is only making the situation worse.

The IMF has performed badly in this crisis. Its programs are bound to fail because their design is profoundly flawed. They contain two basic blunders. First, they have wrongly assumed that peripheral countries could return to the voluntary capital market next year. Today we know that Greece’s ability to borrow 30 billion euros ($43 billion) in 2012 is nothing but a fantasy. The programs, therefore, remain unfinanced. And the situation promises to be even more difficult in 2013 if the perverse permanent-bailout mechanism being designed is adopted.

Second, programs have been based on dreamy debt sustainability scenarios in which countries outgrow their debt under severe fiscal tightening. But since these austerity plans cause deep recessions, the debt/gross-domestic-product ratios increase over time in all peripheral nations. How this squares with sustainability, and how the macroeconomics add up, is hard to comprehend.

RESEARCH:Fisher Capital Management News: Steve Jobs pitches new Apple ‘spaceship’ campus to Cupertino City Council

The new facility, as Apple envisions it, would be built on about 150 acres of land that the tech giant owns down the street from its current headquarters.

Jobs said Apple’s plan would involve demolishing buildings now on the site and constructing a new ring-shaped building that would be four stories tall, with four floors of parking underneath.

In the process, the project would increase landscaping to make up about 80% of the site, which is only about 20% trees, plants and grass now, he said.

On Monday, Jobs was on stage in San Francisco, revealing Apple’s new iCloud service at the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference. Public appearances such as the two Jobs has made this week have been rare this year as the Apple co-founder has been on a leave of absence for medical concerns since January. He also announced the iPad 2 in March at an Apple event.

“It’s a little like a spaceship landed,” Jobs said of the planned facility. “It’s a circle, and so it’s curved all the way around. As you know if you build things, this is not the cheapest way to build something. There’s not a straight piece of glass on this building, it’s all curved.

“And we’ve used our experience in making retail buildings all over the world now, and we know how to make the biggest pieces of glass in the world for architectural use.”

The proposed campus wouldn’t rely on Cupertino’s power grid for energy. Instead, it would run from an on-site power facility.

“I think what we’re going to end up doing is making the energy center our primary source of power, because we can generate power with natural gas and other ways that can be cleaner and cheaper, and use the grid as our backup,” Jobs said. “We think that makes more sense.”

Mayor Gilbert Wong said in a statement that Cupertino is excited that Apple is moving forward with a new campus, an idea first mentioned to the city in 2006.

“When Apple submits their building plans later this year, we know that we will be looking at a state-of-the-art facility and all the challenges and opportunities that go along with that,” Wong said.

The review process for the new Apple campus will be the same as any other construction project, with evaluations of environmental impacts, air quality, traffic and other matters, he said.

“The project will come to the City Council for approval in the fall of 2012,” Wong said. “Following approval, Apple can submit building permits. Construction will follow, and Apple and the city expect the new campus to be completed by 2015.”

RESEARCH:Fisher Capital Management Warning: Kellogg Gets Second FDA Warning on Listeria in 2 Years

A Kellogg Co. (K) cookie plant in Augusta, Georgia, was found to have a “persistent strain” of listeria during a February inspection, including on food-contact surfaces, according to a warning letter from U.S. regulators.

The Food and Drug Administration letter, dated June 7, was sent less than two years after a Kellogg Eggo waffle plant in the same state was shut for similar reasons.

The inspection found flies and pools of water, the FDA said. The letter from District Director John Gridley didn’t say that any products were tainted with listeria, yet said they were “adulterated” and “may have become contaminated with filth.” The Augusta plant makes Keebler and Famous Amos cookies, and is one of five cookie bakeries Kellogg operates in North America.

“While the FDA did not identify specific concerns with the food, we take this situation very seriously,” Kris Charles, a spokeswoman for Battle Creek, Michigan-based Kellogg, said in an e-mail. “We have undertaken a number of aggressive actions to address their concerns including comprehensive cleaning and extensive testing.”

Kellogg’s response didn’t include dates for taking action at the plant, the FDA said. The regulator gave Kellogg 15 days to outline specific remedies to avoid injunction or product seizure.

Eggo Production

Kellogg’s cookies are baked at a temperature high enough to kill any listeria present, according to Robert Gravani, a food science professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The lack of an FDA product recall suggests that listeria was not found in the cookies, he said. FDA spokeswoman Tamara Ward declined to comment on a potential recall.

Listeria is a bacterium found in prepared foods and soil that can cause a serious infection in humans called listeriosis. It is particularly harmful to pregnant women, the young, the elderly, and people with weak immune systems, according to the FDA’s website.

Kellogg, the largest U.S. maker of breakfast cereals, fell 45 cents to $54.96 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have gained 7.6 percent this year.

The FDA in January 2010 ordered Kellogg to improve sanitation controls at the different Georgia plant after Eggo buttermilk waffles were found contaminated with listeria bacteria. That, along with flooding and equipment changes at another waffle factory in 2009, slowed production for months and caused Eggo’s market share to drop.

Kellogg in June 2010 voluntarily recalled about 28 million boxes of cereal including Froot Loops and Honey Smacks, citing unusual taste and odor coming from the liner of packages. The recalled boxes were made at an Omaha, Nebraska, facility. North American cereal sales dropped 5 percent in 2010, partly because of the recall.

RESEARCH:Fisher Capital Management News: Fraud warning for craigslist users, scammers seek financial info

Staff Reports

Posted: 06/10/2011 12:38:16 AM PDT

SACRAMENTO — A scam targeting users of craigslist continues to be reported to the Better Business Bureau of Northeast California.

The scam, first reported months ago, involves the intended target getting an email shortly after posting an ad with craigslist, the online classified advertisement website.

The person sending the email claims to be the CEO of craigslist and states the consumer has won a computer.

The scammer asks the target to go to a website, where personal financial information is required before the free computer can be claimed.

Officials said the emails are a blatant and somewhat clumsy attempt to commit identity theft.

Names usually associated with the emails, Amy Sanders and Angel Thompson, have no connection with craigslist.

People who feel they are being targeted by fraud should contact the BBB at 1-916-443-6668.