Japanese manufacturers

I read an article the other day in the online version of "economist.com" and it talks about Japanese manufacturers.

I thought you might be interested because products from Japan are really popular.

Basically what it says is that a lot of firms in Japan produce abroad.
Toyota’s chief financial officer, Satoshi Ozawa, said that they wanted to keep domestic production, but they were quickly losing competitiveness. Toyota already produces 58 % of their cars abroad.

There are some reasons why firms go abroad.
One is productivity. Subsidiaries in other countries have profit margins about one-third higher than those of domestic operations.
Second is proximity to consumers in fast-growing economies.
Third are taxes. Japan has the highest tax rate among G20 countries and almost twice that of South Korea.

It is also said that the rise of oversee production may be very good to Japanese firms, but for the country it’s bad. Japan lost domestic production worth 35 trillion Yen (420 billion dollar).

What surprised me most was the fact that so many firms in Japan go abroad. In my opinion, this isn’t good because a lot of people lost their jobs.

Words:

domestic production (inländische Produktion): When you produce a product in Austria, its a domestic production.

subsidiaries (Tochtergesellschaften): Many firms have subsidiaries in other countries.

profit margins (Gewinnspanne): It is good, when the profit margins of a firm is very high.

To see the link, click here!

Thanksgiving

On 24th November, the American student Farrah told us something about Thanksgiving. We learned about the history, Tanksgiving today and black Friday. It was very interesting to hear.

History

Pilgrims from England went to America, but they didn’t know anything about life in America. One day, they met Squanto. He was a Native American. He told them how to farm, how to build a house, how to fish, etc. A year later, the Pilgrims invited the Americans to eat with them. This was the first Thanksgiving in the year 1621.

Thanksgiving today

Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday. On this day, the family is very important. They give thanks. The Americans give thanks for their life, their health, they give thanks for everything.

Traditional food on Thanksgiving:

They eat turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, sweet potatoes and many more good things.


The day after Thanksgiving – Black Friday

The next holiday after Thanksgiving is Christmas. So, Black Friday is the traditional start of the Christmas presents shopping. The stores open at midnight or at 5 o’clock in the morning. They give discounts, so that more people come into their store.

Halloween October 31st

Halloween is a shortened form of All Hallows‘ Eve
Hallowed means holy
Eve is the day before a holy day
Halloween was an ancient British Celtic festival.
At Halloween the souls of the dead returned.
People lit bonfires to frighten evil spirits.
Now bonfires are only burnt on November 5th. Bonfire night.
Masks costumes ghosts
Witches on broomsticks with black cats, skeletons, bats and spiders and Halloween lanterns have all become part of Halloween.
Children play trick-or-treat.
They ask for a treat hoping to get sweets.


click here, to see a video about halloween!

Farrah

Last lesson Farrah, a student from the USA, visited our class.

Farrah is 22 years old and lives with her parents in Maryland, near Washington D.C. She doesn't have any brothers or sisters. Her hobbies are reading books, listening to music, meeting her friends and travelling. She will stay in Austria until May. She is spending some time in Austria because she wants to improve her German and she also wants to see some new places.

She also told us some things about the USA. For example, that in the USA everything is bigger. The schools in America have more pupils than the schools in Austria.

All in all I can say it was a very interesting lesson.

XXXLutz

I don't like the spots from XXXLutz because they are silly and unnecessary. But it's a good advertisment because everybody remembers thes spots.


Click here to see a spot.

The development of advertising

I read an article the other day and it talks about advertising.

In the beginning of advertising, in the 19th century, only novelties and fringe products were promoted. More and more companies started to produce the same products and so brand-naming became necessary.

The economic depression which was from 1873 to 1894 brought the change from the old method of organization and distribution to the new.
At the end of the century many small firms realized that it would be better for them if they combined with other small firms.

From about the 1850s there were so many soaps, produced by hundreds of small firms. Competition grew on more and the leading companies embarked on more aggressive selling methods in order to take customors from other firms away.

Lord Leverhulme was one of the first people who understood that advertisements should enclose logical arguments, eye-catching and witty slogans. Many advertisers followed his ideas.

Group B

Argentina - Argentines, Spanish

- farmer, slums, no infrastructure, a lot of wood and steppe,

Nigeria - Nigerians, English,

- poor, are hungry, are ill, thin,

Korea Republic - Koreans, Korean

- war, have a dictator

Greece - Greek, Greek

- no money – crises

We think Argentina and Greece overcame the first round.

And we think Argentina reach into the semi final.

Grades

These are my grades of this year
Winter term: D
2nd test: F
presentation: B
course work (participation in class, home exercices, blogs, etc. ): C or D

I think I deserve a D, because my presentation was good and I think my course work is not soo bad.

Our trip to Italy

We went to Italy from May 17th to May 21st. We started our trip on Monday at 8 o'clock. In Udine we made a little break, there we had freetime to take photos and to visit the village. Afterwards we went by bus again to Bibione.

On Tuesday we went to Venice. :)
We had to make a little quiz in groups of four or five. Our group was the 2nd best group. So we got 10 euro for buying some ice cream.

On Wednesday we had a beginners' course in archery. It wasn't so easy as it looked like. Then we had some time to relax and we went to the beach. In the afternoon we had a bicycle tour. In the evening we had disco. But it wasn't so nice.

On Thursday we went to a little old fishing village. The village was very small and there weren't so much to see. In the afternoon we had a volleyball, beach soccer and Boccia tournament. Then we had some time to relax at the pool and at the beach.

On Friday we went back home. It was a very long bus trip.

It was a very great week and I enjoyed it very much :)

Presentation "Let's Go Green!"

I saw a presentation about environment and pollution.

I think it is an interested topic and I learned much. What I’ve learned is that the Climate Change has natural and human causes. We also heard something about the volcano in Iceland.
We all can save life on earth and everybody can do something for our environment. We can recycle and we can conserve energy at home. We also can reuse some things for example paper.
In the future I will reuse things and I will not waste energy too much.

At this presentation, we also had a look at the websites www.panda.org and www.greenpeace.org/international/ which are the websites of the organisations WWF and Greenpeace.
I think this websites are very useful and interesting. The website of the organisation "WWF" tells to you what they do, who they are, how everybody can help and some information about the earth.

The website of the organisation "Greenpeace" tells to us the history of Greenpeace, what they do, how you can work for Greenpeace and a lot of other interesting points.

Reich-Austria GmbH goes bust

I read an article the other day on the internet side “austriantimes.at” and it talks about the Reich-Austria GmbH.

I thought you might be interested because Reich-Austria is an Austrian firm.

Basically what it says is that Reich Austria GmbH has started bankruptcy proceedings.

Reich-Austria GmbH, based in Styria, had debts of around 37 million Euros and more than 800 creditors.

AKV said the proceeding would affect 260 of 290 employees in Austria and 90 in Germany.

Reich Austria goes bust because of the recession.

See the original article click here