Two things that I did not know before reading this week’s Economist:
- American Apparel is in the process of going public:
Having gone public, American Apparel plans to open another 650 shops across the world. This will not be possible without moving production to China, Mr Appelbaum predicts. Retail analysts also doubt that American Apparel will be able to expand without resorting to outsourcing. Mr Charney insists that China is too far away for his T-shirt production, even though moving textiles by ship from Hong Kong to Los Angeles takes just 11 days. But as his firm grows, he may have to decide whether he is more a capitalist or a maverick. - Housing prices in [certain parts of] Tokyo are more reasonable than in San Francisco:
Average land prices have fallen by more than 80% from their peak during Japan’s “bubble years”. Old wooden houses on 80-square-metre plots sell for as little as ¥15m ($126,000) in Tokyo, or less than half that in big industrial cities like Nagoya or Hiroshima. Once cleared, paved and equipped with car-stackers, such tiny plots can generate around ¥5m ($42,000) a year as car parks. The owners are in no rush to get planning permission to build four-storey houses. They would rather pile up cars, and cash.
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