Free Republic

Korea's Top 5 Industries Face Oversupply Crisis Korea's major industries are at the great risk of being hit by oversupply problems in the global market. If automobiles, steel, petrochemicals, ships and semiconductors end up sinking due to a worldwide glut, the Korean economy is expected to face the greatest shock since the Asian financial crisis. According to an internal Ministry of Strategy and Finance document obtained by the Chosun Ilbo on Sunday, the global automobile industry faced a 56.7 percent oversupply last year, while the steel industry was hit with a 37.7 percent glut. The oversupply ratio refers to the...

There are still too many houses House prices have pulled out of their free fall, but don't expect them to recover until we work through a huge property glut. By Colin Barr, senior writer Last Updated: November 11, 2009: 9:08 AM ET NEW YORK (Fortune) -- The lights are on in the housing market. But at more and more places, nobody's home. House prices have risen in recent months after a long plunge, according to the National Association of Realtors and the S&P Case-Shiller national index. Fewer Americans owe more than their property is worth, according to a report this...

Don't blame the banking crisis for the bad economy, says author of 1970's eco-doom classic. The global economic crisis is like a Samurai movie, quips Dennis Meadows co-author of the 1970s eco-doom report, 'Limits to Growth.' In a Samurai film's inevitable finale, sword wielding hero and villain inevitably clash in a flurry of steel. The two halt and glower at each other before one, always the miscreant, collapses to the ground dead. The baddy was "already dead, but didn't know it," Meadows explained in Tokyo. The same is true in the current crisis for glowering corporate giants such as carmakers....

China's property market not in the pink of health Greedy developers and low interest rates push up supply of residential and office space, but where are the buyers? ZHONGSHAN - China has a serious problem these days, and its colour is pink. Pink and similar hues - from rose-tinged brick to tangerine and even magenta - have been popular in the past few years with Chinese developers, who are also partial to tinted, highly reflective glass and rooftops in the shape of lotus blossoms. Advertisement The result is an extraordinary number of garish apartment buildings, office buildings, industrial parks and...