Siemens AG (SI) has targeted orders worth more than 6 billion Euros for intelligent power networks (Smart Grids) over the next five fiscal years. The company is already a leading international supplier of Smart Grids and continues to strengthen this position.

Intelligent power grids, or smart grids, are based on the conventional power grids which transport electricity from large power plants to individual households. However, digital technology allows individual households or businesses to manage their electricity more efficiently, allowing them to receive, or deliver back to the grid, electricity from other sources like wind or solar power facilities, or even from batteries in electric cars.

According to studies, more than a billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions could be abated with intelligent power networks by 2020. Smart Grids are essential for integrating renewable power sources into power networks and for ensuring stable power supplies from solar and

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Siemens Energy, a division of Siemens AG (SI), acquired the majority holding in the Chinese metalworking company Yangtze Delta Manufacturing and the Chinese aluminum foundry GISAP (GIS Steel & Aluminium Products), both headquartered in Hangzhou.   Siemens Energy is expanding its global production capacity for high-voltage circuit-breakers in China and enhancing its value chain proposition from foundry work through machining to final product assembly.   There is a constant robust demand for high-voltage power transmission products in China. The demand for reliable, cost-efficient high-voltage products for the transmission of electrical energy, which minimizes losses, continues to rise.

Siemens has a leading position in China, the world’s largest market for power transmission equipment. The company has involvement as a provider of innovative energy technologies in numerous major infrastructure projects, including projects in the field of high-voltage direct current transmission.

Siemens is a German industrial conglomerate with interests in information services, automation and

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Siemens AG (SI) reported third-quarter revenues of €18.3 billion, down 4% from the year-ago quarter, and earnings of $1.44 per ADR, lower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate. Order backlog had a stabilizing effect on revenue while new order intake was down 28% and the book-to-bill ratio fell below 1 to 0.94.   On a geographic basis, revenue grew 5% in Asia, Australia on the back of double-digit growth in China. In Europe, Commonwealth of Independent States, Africa and Middle East, revenue declined 9%, including sharply lower revenues in Germany. Order intake was influenced most strongly by Industry segment, which saw demand fall sharply in the Mobility division.   Total Sectors profit declined 21% year over year while income from continuing operations fell 17% year over year. The estimated under funding of Siemens’ principal pension plans as of Jun 30, 2009, was €5 billion, double the amount as on ...

And it’s one, two, three, What are we fighting for? Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn, Next stop is Vietnam; And it’s five, six, seven, Open up the pearly gates, Well there ain’t no time to wonder why, Whoopee! We’re all gonna die.

– Country Joe & the Fish, “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag”

Robert McNamara must have been in a hurry too. He never had time to wonder why he was sending 500,000 American boys to fight a war when Lyndon Johnson was “publicly promising in campaign speeches not to ‘go North,’ not to send American boys to fight wars Asian boys ought to fight for themselves,” as an editorial appearing in the June 17, 1971 issue of The Washington Post put it.

Both the International Herald Tribune and the Financial Times describe the former Secretary of Defense as the “architect” of the Vietnam War. This is news to

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It is still too early to think that we are near or past the bottom of this economic downturn. However, in my mind, we are in the “working out” stage of the downturn, especially in the current economic restructuring we are going through, and we cannot expect this stage to be a short one. 

The problem with many analysts and policy makers is that they continue to see our economic problems in Keynesian terms and think that the difficulties being experienced in banking and financial markets as a liquidity issue. Hence the search for evidence pointing to “green shoots” and for an “easing of credit.” Every day we hear when new statistics are released that the numbers just presented are “less bad” than before and this indicates that the economy is getting worse at a slower pace. An obvious sign that we are near the bottom!

In

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Quote of the week: I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph. – Shirley Temple

Here are eight stocking stuffers to unwrap.

1) The conversation between Libertarians and the rest of us (who aren’t on some nutty fringe) would go a lot smoother if we would all agree that laws and regulations do not prevent bad behavior.

Rather, they are merely guideposts to measure the quality of deviance in a way that allows the US’s local, state and federal judiciary to hand out retribution.

If you need further proof of this, I offer you two words – Bernard Madoff.

In an under-regulated world, Ponzi schemes might not be illegal. In fact, you can assume that is a near certainty, judging by the number of famous institutions and wealthy people that poured billions into Madoff’s fund, even as

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It seems that China is set to repeat the Japanese strategy seen in the 1990s of pouring rivers of concrete all over its countryside in a doomed attempt to sustain faltering GDP growth. This despite the fact that China already invests 9% of GDP in infrastructure (compared to a derisory 0.6% in the US) and that investment productivity has slumped to levels last seen in the Mao era due to chronic resource misallocation. I warned on the dangers of the unsustainable Chinese growth model way back in March in China Miracle faces Meltdown. The country already has too many remote villages with world class (and empty) conference centres, and trophy gimmicks like the Shanghai MagLev train. Foreign observers usually forget that China differs radically from other emerging economies in facing a demographic future far worse than the US. Predictably, the markets rallied on the news for all …

If you still haven't put any defense and aerospace stocks in your portfolio, you should seriously consider doing so before October. There are plenty of these 'war' stocks to choose from including ones that pay high yields. Here are some that you may want to site your scopes on and possibly pull the trigger. All of these have market caps over $1 billion.Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK) manufactures and markets aerospace and defense products and ammunition. The stock has a PE of 16, and a PEG of 1.56.Boeing (BA) makes and markets jets, military aircraft, missile defense systems, satellites, and launch systems. The stock has a PE of 11, a PEG of 0.83, and pays a yield of 2.8%.CAE Inc. (CGT) makes and markets simulation equipment and services to the civil aviation industry, military organizations, and defense organizations. The ...