Ford Motor Corporation has decided that in order to keep emerging in strong markets, its important to analyze the production method line to make it faster and more efficient, while reducing plant downtime, meaning the time period where the company is not producing anything, hence not adding value.
In 2011 Ford started an expansion project in where assembly plants would reach China and India, while power-train plants in Brazil, China India and Russia. A very well thought idea given that cheap labor would reduce costs and these countries are becoming More economically developed countries allowing exports around the world to be possible.
It’s also said that the company will start reducing the global vehicle platforms from 15 to 9 by 2017, on top of plans of increasing the number of vehicles per plant in order to improve efficiency as workers will be focused on less similar pieces, reduce costs and respond more quickly to changes in consumer tastes.
The company also aims to improve manufacturing flexibility and speed by investing in new technology (3D printing of prototype parts).
Its said that Ford plans to run 90 percent of its global factories virtually on three shifts a day by 2017 boosting production run time by more than 30 percent.

reference:

http://www.bnn.ca/News/2013/10/7/Ford-aims-to-make-its-factories-more-flexible-efficient.aspx

Lately the US crisis has caused federal workers to suffer from furloughs meaning in times of crises workers stop getting paid until the situation improves. As a result banks have stepped forward to offer loans to workers equally to their monthly pay, as long as they show their governmental ID and furlough papers, for them to cover up their bills and basic needs.
Loan amounts will consist of up to monthly payments to workers, excluding interests together with fees or taxes, lasting since October 10th till November 2nd unless the government shutdown ends before expected.
Some examples are Capital One bank which has a financial hardship program in order to waive fees out and defer payments for governmental employees. Other banks like Chase, Well Fargo, Bank of America, Citi, Discover and US bank will work in a direct case by case with customers.
The government shutdown started in Tuesday and there is an estimated 800,000 workers affected.
Regarding this issue i think given that its the government there is not much to be claimed or do, but definitely its unmoral to leave workers without pays affecting their families, which should be taken in consideration in a near future to compensate affected workers.

Reference:

http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/03/pf/banks-shutdown/index.html

Recently the British food Industry has been facing volatile food prices specifically for bread and milk, given that demand for food is rising while supermarket wars are becoming tougher. Companies sometimes drop prices even below the cost of production, known as predatory prices, which is considered illegal in many economies. So you might be wondering how can supermarkets be losing that much profits by selling with such elevated costs? While prices of some foods are dropping scandalously, other are rising to cover up loses, causing misunderstandings over market prices and confusion for consumers.
The biggest concern is when analyzing low income level consumers, who strongly depend on inferior goods like bread, who now need to pay higher prices for these, while other superior goods which they cant afford in the first place, are having prices over the roofs in order for companies to balance profits. Overall i think this idea benefits the “B and A classes” middle and high income classes, who turnout to have daily trade offs between buying superior or inferior goods able to analyze prices and make choices. But others within the low income class have no choice but to accept higher prices for inferior goods given that these are their only choice.

reference:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/01/dont-worry-david-cameron-price-bread