Weak US Dollar Means Nintendo Favors Europe For Now

timeOday writes "The LA Times is reporting that the new Nintendo Wii Fit is hard to find on US shelves, due not only to strong demand but also the United States' declining status in the world economy: '"[Nintendo] is also is shrewdly maximizing its profit by sending four times as many units to Europe, reaping the benefits of the strong euro," says Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities. "The shortage demonstrates one consequence of the weak dollar. We're seeing companies ignore their largest market simply because they can make a greater profit elsewhere."'"

Comments

Re:Heh.

[drinkypoo]

Methinks you are being sensationalist. If anything, the "recession/depression" that we are going through will stimulate a tide of social-programs that will benefit the overall welfare of the country more than the sales of a few million Wiis could.

I mentioned the Wiis as signifier, not as a possible spur to economic recovery, and your attempt to distract from the actual conversation by depicting it as anything else is disingenuous at best.

With that said, a tide of social programs is one possible outcome. It was a possible outcome during the Great Depression, too, but in actuality we never really recovered from that until we began to receive and benefit from economic concessions from Germany and Japan following WWII.

This time it's hard to imagine where the money is going to come from. I'd like to see the public works projects, but they couldn't even bother to go save people's lives in New Orleans. I'm just not seeing it, sorry. Seriously, where does the money come from?

You doom-and-gloom predictions of "a lot of sweat to correct it" simply miss the point of what's really wrong.

I really meant blood, but I didn't want to seem overly melodramatic. On the other hand, blood is the cost of the way we do business today - do you have any idea of what percentage of the shit we buy from China is produced in government-owned-and-operated forced labor camps filled predominantly with people whose primary crime is that they were the nails sticking up the farthest and they needed laborers? People are literally put into labor camps for being Christians... where they make the plastic shit that we hang on our christmas trees.

Closer to home, though, I really don't see things changing for the better without a major upset. I hope to be wrong.

A Simple Lesson in Global Ecomonic Reality...

[flajann]

While there is some truth in what you say -- and reporters make copy by selling "bad news", however they spin it -- the real question is: how weak is too weak? If markets begin to skip selling in the US in lieu of more lucrative markets elsewhere, I really don't see this as a "good thing". The US has lost much of its manufacturing and production capacity to other countries, so there is nothing in place to make up the short fall.

The US is a war-driven ecomony, which is unfortunate on many fronts, let alone creating weapons and systems that kill innocents en masse -- there's an associated brain drain, and the goods created in most cases have no material use that would enhance wealth -- but rather, these devices are designed to destroy wealth as well as human lives.

China has manufacturing capability up the ying-yang (no pun intended), and as I've stated before, if they were to choose to stop propping up the USD, the US would have far more to loose than they would. Also keep in mind the Euro markets that they could -- and probably are -- transistion to if they're smart.

No, I'm afraid this is a different situation. It might be "ok" for the dollar to have *some* weakness from time to time, but you can't tell me it would be fine if the bottom fell out on the dollar entirely.

Re:Americans AREN'T skilled (says Toyota)

[NFN_NLN]

If I was BMW I'd love to settle back in Detroit; little competition from GM/Ford, tons of skilled workers...

Queue sound of music stopping to a screech...


"Toyota has stated it will build a new factory in Canada instead of the US because of concerns US workers are less skilled."

"Toyota President calls American's stupid"
http://forums.motortrend.com/70/38630/the-general-forum/toyota-president-calls-americans-stupid/index.html

Re:Oh the humanity

[Anonymous Coward]

Iraq war was at least as pointless as the Vietnam war. Saddam was no threat other than in the eyes of the American public bombarded by the propaganda campaign of the US government.

If you read Israeli Kuwaiti security reports about Iraq their assessment was; Iraq is essentially a failed state extremely week from a decade of sanctions and poses no security threat.

Being defenseless is of course a prerequisite for the US to invade as we won't pick on someone that could actually defend themselves (would not be a very productive way to run an empire)

The worst atrocities Saddam committed was while he was SUPPORTED by the US. This is hugely important piece of information that gets downplayed with "the enemy of our enemy is our friend". But the US was supporting both sides of the Iran/Iraq conflict so there is no moral ground to stand on.

The problems of Saddam at his worst was he was being supported by an external all powerful military force with deep vested interests in resources of the area, giving him free hand to commit atrocities in the name of "stability" now Iraq has a government in place that commits atrocities in the name of "democracy" with the same power structure. This is not lost on Iraqis. The victims flesh burning white phosphors in Fallujah and the tortured of abu ghraib probably don't care much about the semantics.