Category — Economy

The media and Democrats keep telling us we’re in a recession.  But if the “staycation”–AKA vactioning within your means–is the worst economic hardship we endure, using the “R” word is a bit over the top.

The press’ Obama man crush is reaching embarrassing new heights.  Even when Obama has nothing to say the press can’t wait to praise him for it.  For example, Obama has no concrete plans for the economy, but it still generated 335 articles and counting on Google News.  With the election just a little over 3 months away, shouldn’t he have something to say about the economy besides he’s going to tax the bejesus out of us?  So much for the press being an important part of a functioning Democracy.

First Big Oil loomed in the sights of Congress. Cheating and gouging, not pumping or selling overseas cried Chuckie Boy Schumer and Socialist Bernie Sanders, two of the Senate’s peltless conspiracy hunters. When this failed to deflect the voting public’s unrest, wild finger pointing commenced, searching out “speculators” and oil cheats.

A huge dilemma occurred with that game drive; it bagged the voters’ 401(k)’s, IRA’s, stocks and mutual funds, yes, their retirement accounts.

Needless to say, that model didn’t get out of the showroom.

The following we have this from people who know, unlike those clowns in congress that put us in this position to start.

Onions have no futures market, yet their recent price volatility makes the swings in oil and corn look tame.

(Fortune Magazine) — Before the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission starts scrutinizing the role that speculators may have played in driving up fuel and food prices, investigators may want to take a look at price swings in a commodity not in today’s news: onions.

The bulbous root is the only commodity for which futures trading is banned. Back in 1958, onion growers convinced themselves that futures traders (and not the new farms sprouting up in Wisconsin) were responsible for falling onion prices, so they lobbied an up-and-coming Michigan Congressman named Gerald Ford to push through a law banning all futures trading in onions. The law still stands.

And yet even with no traders to blame, the volatility in onion prices makes the swings in oil and corn look tame, reinforcing academics’ belief that futures trading diminishes extreme price swings. Since 2006, oil prices have risen 100%, and corn is up 300%. But onion prices soared 400% between October 2006 and April 2007, when weather reduced crops, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, only to crash 96% by March 2008 on overproduction and then rebound 300% by this past April. [snip]

I assume you have seen this in the papers and in all the nightly news reports.

The bestower of all things worthy, her Grand Benevolence, The Poobah of Propane, The Imparter of Gas, Madame Pelosi declared, that on July 4, 2007, this country would be free of Middle East oil shackles.

War has been waged; congressional and journalist jihadists attacked Big Oil, successfully opposing new domestic exploration and extraction, unleashing the feared WMD ethanol. It worked out well didn’t it.

As Democrats solidified their control of Congress in early 2007, the newly empowered leadership pledged to “truly declare our energy independence” by July 4, 2007.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) announced she would create a panel on energy independence, “accelerate the implementation of existing clean, energy-efficient technologies,” invest in domestic alternatives and “send our energy dollars to the Midwest not the Middle East.”

The broadcast networks – ABC, CBS and NBC – have mentioned “energy independence” more than 60 times since Pelosi first made her “Energy Independence Day” pledge in January 2007.

They haven’t declared success yet, why I don’t know. After all this is an election year.

Truthfully, I haven’t seen success on a scale like this since Khrushchev’s Five Year Plans.

I don’t think we can survive more Pelosi success ideas.

If this doesn’t sound familiar your name’s been in the obits.

Markdown of dong, the Vietnamese currency, seen as act of desperation

Vietnam lurched closer to a currency crisis yesterday as the Government cut the official exchange rate to a record low. UBS analysts said that the country’s economic profile was more extreme than that of Thailand on the eve of the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

As well as severe concerns over prospects for the dong, some observers see signs that Vietnam faces the growing risk of a banking crisis. They say that investors should be aware of a potentially drastic blow to sentiment when views on the entire region are fragile.

Edward Teather, UBS economist, said that if Vietnam were to unravel, investor sentiment and financial markets in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia could all take a knock. [snip]

Analysts said that the rising risk of a sudden and crippling depreciation comes as the cracks in Vietnam’s vaunted “economic miracle” have grown too large to ignore. Only 18 months since Vietnam entered the World Trade Organisation, inflation is running above 26 per cent and the country is facing a swollen trade deficit that dwarfs those of its SouthEast Asian neighbours. [snip]

Investors have deserted Vietnamese shares, sending the benchmark index down more than 60 per cent since January and giving it the status of the world’s worst performer in the past year. Soaring commodity inflation, particularly in food and fuel prices, has hit Vietnam many times more fiercely than it has the rest of Asia. Now, Vietnamese lured from villages by the promise of work in booming new factories are finding the pay inadequate and are striking for better salaries.

In the above para, change Vietnam to the United States. Sometime, from August to next April the food and fuel inflation will hit hard. If the GOP keeps control of the Senate it’s going to be bad, if the Democrats win it will be ruinous.

I’m trying to track down the story about a woman in Oregon who has cancer. The single payer healthcare system will not pay for her chemo, but will pay for her assisted suicide. At this time drug manufacturers are chipping in to cover the $4000/month chemo cost for up to one year. You want this from the Feds?

Canadian Health Care We So Envy Lies In Ruins, Its Architect Admits

[snip]
Back in the 1960s, Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.

The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: “the father of Quebec medicare.” Even this title seems modest; Castonguay’s work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast.

Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in “crisis.” [snip]

In Vermont, the legislature is determined to socialize this state to the nth degree with all power residing in Montpelier. What businesses loiter and how many taxpayers remain is unknown; I surmise the number will be small. Who then tithes the elite?

This tidbit is like worry beads while you read the above article in it’s entirety.

[snip]
The Knox County Industrial Development Board’s application review committee met to consider an application from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, a Waterbury, Vt.-based company that is considering an expansion in Knox County. Green Mountain already has announced plans to buy a building in the Forks of the River Industrial Park, outlining a proposal to invest $55 million in a packaging and distribution operation that could eventually provide 360 new jobs.[snip]

Vermont isn’t even being considered for the expansion. This doesn’t bother the Democrat candidate for governor who is responsible for these circumstances.

We can keep out the tomatoes, why not the illegals

Salmonella fear traps tomatoes in Mexico

MEXICO CITY - Export-quality tomatoes labeled “Ready to Eat” in English flooded Mexico City markets on Thursday after a salmonella scare in the U.S. trapped them south of the border.
[snip]
Instead, he now sends his top quality tomatoes to markets around Mexico where they sell for a third the U.S. price. He leaves lesser-quality produce, normally sold in Mexico, to rot.

At the capital’s bustling central food market, truckloads of tomatoes are now arriving in boxes originally meant for the U.S. “Sweet treat. Premium quality,” says lettering in English _ wording lost on most Mexican Spanish speakers.

The top quality tomatoes now sell for 35 cents a pound (8 pesos per kilogram) in the capital _ a third below normal prices.

Most customers don’t know about the U.S. salmonella scare, and those who do, don’t seem alarmed. Some shoppers said they’ve always been more careful than Americans in preparing produce _ they have to be, because vegetables sold in Mexico are not held to the same standards as those certified for export.

“What ends up here is second-rate,” said Sergio Martinez, a 40-year-old bricklayer who bought 4 1/2 pounds of tomatoes at the central market Thursday.

“Almost all vegetables are contaminated with something because they water them with sewer water and put on a lot of chemicals,” he said, noting that he washes all his produce with bleach and water.

About 120,000 people were sickened by salmonella in Mexico last year, according to Mexican health authorities _ three times the average 40,000 cases reported in the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [snip]

We let the salmonella laden illegals come up here to pick our food, circumventing the prophylactic measures the FDA and USDA has in place.
Hey McCain, let as many illegals in as we currently let in tomatoes. Spray them with bleach and water too!

Well, it is a waste of corn.

Belgian Brewer InBev is offering a big payday to shareholders of Anheuser-Busch Cos. (BUD) (BUD) Inc., but its bid to create the world’s largest beer company is already facing a major obstacle - U.S. election-year politics. [snip]
Republican Gov. Matt Blunt said Wednesday he opposes the deal, and directed the Missouri Department of Economic Development to see if there was a way to stop it.

“I am strongly opposed to the sale of Anheuser-Busch, and today’s offer to purchase the company is deeply troubling to me,” Blunt said in a statement.

Web sites have sprung up opposing the deal on patriotic grounds, arguing that such an iconic U.S. firm shouldn’t be handed over to foreign ownership. One of the sites, called SaveAB.com, was launched by Blunt’s former chief of staff, Ed Martin.

“Shareholders should resist choosing dollars over American jobs,” Martin said in a statement Wednesday night. “Selling out to the Belgians is not worth it - because this is about more than beer: it’s about our jobs and our nation.” [snip]

Really? Politicians, from local to federal, spent the dollar to dirt, making everything from the Flatiron Building to BUD cheap enough to buy with pocket change.

What about the obscene profits made by Big Beer?

Bud’s profit margin is 8.74%, slightly more than all of Big Oil. We need to tax these windfall profits, products of misery from the mortgage meltdown.

Even as their overall profits have soared, major oil companies are earning a relatively modest 8.7 percent profit margin — the portion of the sale of each barrel that hits the bottom line. Major banks and drug makers, for example, enjoy profits margins that are twice as big.

Besides, slimming down BUD will free up more corn for ethanol; that puts more pressure on Evil Oil.

They should worry, BUD will be the only alcohol available for the family buggy fuel tank, about for what BUD is fit, if that.

CHRYSLER BUILDING ON THE BLOCK

SOVEREIGN ARAB FUND TO PAY $800M

The latest Big Apple trophy being coveted by oil-rich sovereign wealth fundsis the landmark Chrysler Building. Maybe one of these oil magnates can put in a bid for Turtle Bay. They then could ship the UN to Teheran.

After the check clears, nationalize the building as they did with the oil sites.

An Italian Snags the Flatiron

[snip]
Now a top Italian real estate investor has nabbed a crown piece of New York property, a sale that echoes the Japanese purchase of Rockefeller Center in 1989. Valter Mainetti has confirmed to TIME that his company, the Sorgente Group, has acquired a majority share of Manhattan’s historic Flatiron building. [snip]

It would have been more appropriate to sell them Greenwich Village, the Upper West and East Sides and tossed in Scarsdale as a freebie, displacing only liberal idiots, stockbrokers, and swells in that order producing a suitable result.

A wave of the Chuck’s tail to: http://www.businessandmedia.org/

American farmers and congress, joined at the lips.

Try cornflakes and gasoline for that morning kick.