MONEY: Tax the banks; tax the people

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

http://dailyreckoning.com/false-hope-in-financial-free-lunch
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=Feed%3A+dailyreckoning+%28The+Daily+Reckoning%29

False Hope in Financial Free Lunch
By The Mogambo Guru

*** begin quote ***

“President Barack Obama said Thursday he wants to tax banks to recoup the public bailout of foundering firms at the height of the financial crisis.”! Hahaha!

I am sure that you, being the astute Junior Mogambo Ranger (JMR) that you are, are laughing merrily with along with me – Hahahahahaha! – because this is so, so, so Theater-of-the-Absurd funny on so many, many, many levels, once you get beyond the horrifying, un-funny realization that it is abysmally, shockingly, alarmingly stupid on just the one level: it is a known fact that a tax on a business is just another expense to the business, like labor and raw materials, that is added to the prices that they must charge their customers in order to make a profit, which makes prices go up as the businesses raise prices to maintain their profit margins by recouping the tax they had to pay by, in case you haven’t been paying attention, raising prices, which is inflation, which is the one thing a country does NOT want, making a tax on business the most stupid thing you can do.

*** end quote ***

I’m not laughing at the fool in the WH or all the other fools on the Hill. They are sooo dumb!

And, we’re just as dumb to not standing up to ALL of them.

(1) ANY tax on ANY company is dumb. EITHER: (A) the company takes this new cost and passes it along to the customers. (Might even mark it up a little, a la any regulated utility that has a license to steal!) OR (B) if the cost can’t be passed along due to (international?) competition, it goes out of business and closes down and let’s go all its employees. How dumb can one person, even the President, be?

(2) Banks are a special type of company. It deals in money. If you are supposedly trying to get the banks to loan money to Main Street to get the economy moving, taking money from them makes ZERO sense! Perhaps, the President may want to speak to to little Timmy tax cheat Geithner, who defends AIG rescue as essential (to Goldman Sachs) and Helicopter Ben, about the banks borrowing from Treasury at zero and buying Treasury Bills at 3%. Seems like that is worse than the bail out!

The “Corporate tax” should be ZERO. Only real people pay taxes!

Argh!

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POLITICAL: Energy independence; absent leadership

Monday, February 1, 2010

http://www.keywestlou.com/2010/02/sunday-is-supposedly-day-of-rest.html

My Life in Key West

Monday, February 1, 2010

*** begin quote ***

The article contained an observation that sticks with me. The United States has depended on the Middle East for years for its power supply, to wit: oil. That if the United States did not get into the manufacture of renewable energy quickly and in big time, our energy dependency in the future would move to the Far East. China!

And we would have replaced one less than friendly peoples for another in satisfying our energy needs.

All very interesting. Thought provoking. Part of Obama’s State of the Union speech.

Talk is one thing. Action another. Obama has to move us in the direction of manufacture and use of renewable energy dramatically. Now, not tomorrow. And everyone, Democrat and Republican alike, should support him in this endeavor. This is not a No issue.

*** end quote ***

(1) Unfortunately for us, OBH44 is an inexperienced “talker”; not a “do-er”. We need a “leader”; not a “community organizer”. Every politician lectures us about “energy independence”. Little gets done. If we still funded the Federal Government on tariffs and duties like the Dead Old White Guys wanted us to do, then the gooferment would be a lot smaller and less intrusive. AND, we’d have energy independence. because solutions here would be cheaper than imported oil from there. Maybe we might have a car industry too, instead of having sent allt he jobs overseas. Too late, we get smart. It might be way too late.

(2) With all the secession talk, maybe Mike and Tina can do some stuff for real. When the S hits the fan, maybe we can replace the FED’s “dollar” with a Constitutional gold and silver money. The we’d be once again the envy of the world with “honest money”. Maybe then we could get working on the national debt so that we don’t condemn the children to Haiti-like poverty. Inter-generational theft will be how we are remembered as the progeny try to pay off the Chinese.

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RANT: Media Bias – Cost the FDIC?

Sunday, January 31, 2010

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Regulators-shut-banks-in-apf-1868747589.html?x=0&.v=2

Regulators shut down banks in 5 states
Regulators shutter banks in Calif., Fla., Ga., Minn., Wash., totaling 15 bank failures in 2010
By Marcy Gordon, AP Business Writer , On Friday January 29, 2010, 10:48 pm EST

*** begin quote ***

WASHINGTON (AP) — Regulators shut down a big bank in California on Friday, along with two banks in Georgia and one each in Florida, Minnesota and Washington. That brought to 15 the number of bank failures so far in 2010 atop the 140 shuttered last year in the punishing economic climate.

The failure of Los Angeles-based First Regional Bank, with nearly $2.2 billion in assets and $1.9 billion in deposits, is expected to cost the federal deposit insurance fund $825.5 million.

*** end quote ***

And, where, pray tell, does the FDIC get “its” money?

Yes, the taxpayer.

Either directly or indirectly.

Neither the gooferment, nor any corporation, have ANY money that doesn’t originate from a real person.

Some of the FDIC money is extracted from the banks that it “insures”, but that is extracted by the surviving banks from its customers which are, presumably, taxpayers.

Now, with the supposed “insurance” fund broke, it gets “its” money from the Treasury which means we borrow it from China!

Argh!

Hopefully, the AP writer will learn that 825.5 comes from the poor taxpayer.

And, we wonder why we are in a depression?

Economic illiteracy!

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POLITICS: A spending freeze? Is he kidding me?

Thursday, January 28, 2010

reinkefj has left a new comment on the post “A spending freeze? Is he kidding me?”:

Amazing when the wacko left and the wacko right agree, a spending freeze is just dumb. What he needs to do is what he promised in the campaign. Sit down with the Federal budget and a red pen.

Freezing spending at current levels is just enshrining the past mistakes.

imho, for example, milk and sugar price supports. We pay money so that people have to pay higher prices?

imho, minimum wage, that puts minority youths out of work. If there is a marginal worker, he’s out as opposed to making a few bucks. And, it cost the taxpayers in all sorts of ways.

imho, military bases in 170 countries. Let have some base closings in strange places.

That’s the way to “freeze” spending.

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It merely “freezes” the increased spending of the past decade. Argh!

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INTERESTING: Fixing Haiti long-term

Saturday, January 23, 2010

http://economics.gmu.edu/wew/articles/10/Haiti%27sAvoidableDeathToll.htm

A MINORITY VIEW
BY WALTER WILLIAMS
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2010

Haiti’s Avoidable Death Toll

*** begin quote ***

The way out of Haiti’s grinding poverty is not rocket science. Ranking countries according to: (1) whether they are more or less free market, (2) per capita income, and (3) ranking in International Amnesty’s human rights protection index, we would find that those nations with a larger free market sector tend also to be those with the higher income and greater human rights protections. Haitian President Rene Preval is not enthusiastic about free markets; his heroes are none other than the hemisphere’s two brutal communist tyrants: Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro.

*** end quote ***

We can’t fix it, but let’s keep the crooked leaders out of the USA. Persona Non Grata.

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TECHNOLOGY: ENUM won’t be implemented by the vested ISPs

Saturday, January 23, 2010

http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/01/enum-dragging-telephone-numbers-into-the-internet-age.ars/2

ENUM: Dragging telephone numbers into the Internet Age

E-mail, IM, Facebook, phones—what if all of these ways to reach you over a network could be condensed into a single, unique number? The ENUM proposal aims to do just that, by giving everyone a single phone number that maps to all of their identifiers. Here’s how it works, and why it isn’t already widely used.

By Rudolf van der Berg | Last updated January 13, 2010 11:30 PM

*** begin quote ***

The main issue is that the ENUM standard (RFC 3761) demands that ENUM is a public service and that the control of the telephone number lies in the hands of the end-user. For this reason, it’s known as “Public-” or “User ENUM.” This is all in line with the Internet’s user- and endpoint-centric creed. This becomes quite clear if you read, for instance, the documentation of Nominet, which controls the UK’s ENUM registry (the +44 registry). It explicitly states that users can bypass their communications provider when they register in the ENUM registry. A significant amount of money is made by today’s telephony providers (be they traditional providers or ISPs providing VoIP bundled with Internet access). Telephony providers see User ENUM as a threat to their bottom line and are therefore not keen on introducing the technology nationally.

*** end quote ***

The inet was driven by motivated individuals, not gooferments, not ISPs, not companies.

We need to get back to the fast innovation cycle of the old inet!

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JOBSEARCH: A relo is a test of faith?

Thursday, January 21, 2010

http://www.irishcentral.com/ent/Conan-OBrien-will-leave-Tonight-Show-81160232.html

Conan O’Brien will definitely leave ‘Tonight Show’
By ANTOINETTE KELLY
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer
Published Monday, January 11, 2010, 2:43 PM

*** begin quote ***

“Conan uprooted his family, his life and moved to Los Angeles and they have not given him enough time” the friend said. “It is outrageous what they have done to him.” O’Brien’s family is extremely upset that the massive lifestyle change they made and the new responsibility O’Brien assumed has been taken so lightly by NBC.

*** end quote ***

It certainly is a good lesson to anyone considering a corporate relo deal.

I remember one fellow getting axed as his plane was enroute from Sweden to Houston and he was so screwed.

To relo, you MUST HAVE a contract. History is replete with lessons. If they won’t give you one, how can you trust them?

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INTERESTING: Dangerous impact of globalization

Sunday, January 17, 2010

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/farming/6958013/The-dairy-farmer-reduced-to-tears.html

The dairy farmer reduced to tears
By Olga Craig
Published: 9:30PM GMT 09 Jan 2010

*** begin quote ***

All across the country, diary farmers are facing the loss of their livelihood. In 1985, there were 28,000 diary farmers in England and Wales. By last November, when Mr Rickatson became one of the nine dairy farmers that throw in the towel each week, there were 11,551 left. As recently as two years ago Britain was self-sufficient in milk. Now we import 1.5 million litres a day. For the farmers who struggle on, their working lives – and that of their herds – have become a grind: such is their despair that one a week commits suicide.

*** and ***

The chief villains are the supermarkets which, by driving down milk prices, are forcing farmers to intensify production or go out of business and leave the way clear for foreign imports. Currently one litre of full fat milk costs around 75p – of which farmers get around 26p, the exact cost of producing it.

*** end quote ***

Interesting.

And, what happens when “foreign imports” can’t or won’t come?

Surely this is happening all around the world. The movie Gandhi had moving sequences about national economics.

Maybe Pat Buchanan is right?

How does one maintain a minimum national capability to feed itself?

It must all revolve around the definition of money?

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MONEY: Prep for the USA bankruptcy?

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a8486284-fee9-11de-a677-00144feab49a.html

Bankruptcy could be good for America
By Gideon Rachman
Published: January 11 2010 19:47 | Last updated: January 11 2010 19:47

*** begin quote ***

The result is that the US is piling up debt. A budget deficit of about 12 per cent of gross domestic product is understandable as a short-term reaction to a huge financial crisis. What should worry Americans is that, with entitlement spending set to surge, there is no credible plan to bring the budget deficit under control over the medium term.

*** and ***

Perhaps the most memorable thing said so far by an official in Barack Obama’s administration was the remark by Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, that “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste”. Mr Emanuel was widely condemned for flippancy and cynicism. But an examination of world history over the last 30 years suggests he was definitely on to something. Those much discussed emerging powers, the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India and China) all needed a fiscal crisis to set them on the road to economic reform and national resurgence. America may one day be lucky enough to experience its very own national fiscal crisis. Let us hope it is not wasted.

*** end quote ***

While it might be “good”, it’s hard to imagine it would be good for the “little people”. The poor, the middle class, the elderly, the young, those on fixed incomes. They all lose in any kind of problem. The rich, the political class, the bureaucrats all seem to make out just fine regardless of the problem. Some like Wall Street actually prosper when they should be going broke!

So that’s the USA going broke, with no plan.

Argh!

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POLITICAL: Nuke power for the USA!

Sunday, January 3, 2010

http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/01/02/1330245/Thorium-the-Next-Nuclear-Fuel
?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A
 +slashdot%2FeqWf+%28Slashdot%3A+Slashdot%29

Science: Thorium, the Next Nuclear Fuel? on Saturday January 02, @10:57AM
Posted by Soulskill on Saturday January 02, @10:57AM

*** begin quote ***

mrshermanoaks writes “When the choices for developing nuclear energy were being made, we went with uranium because it had the byproduct of producing plutonium that could be weaponized. But thorium is safer and easier to work with, and may cause a lot fewer headaches. ‘It’s abundant — the US has at least 175,000 tons of the stuff — and doesn’t require costly processing. It is also extraordinarily efficient as a nuclear fuel. As it decays in a reactor core, its byproducts produce more neutrons per collision than conventional fuel. The more neutrons per collision, the more energy generated, the less total fuel consumed, and the less radioactive nastiness left behind. Even better, Weinberg realized that you could use thorium in an entirely new kind of reactor, one that would have zero risk of meltdown. The design is based on the lab’s finding that thorium dissolves in hot liquid fluoride salts. This fission soup is poured into tubes in the core of the reactor, where the nuclear chain reaction — the billiard balls colliding — happens. The system makes the reactor self-regulating: When the soup gets too hot it expands and flows out of the tubes — slowing fission and eliminating the possibility of another Chernobyl. Any actinide can work in this method, but thorium is particularly well suited because it is so efficient at the high temperatures at which fission occurs in the soup.’ So why are we not building these reactors?”

*** end quote ***

Here’s an excellent idea!

Why can’t we have nuke power here int he USA? France does it.

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NEWJERSEY: Public Pension have bigger problems

Saturday, January 2, 2010

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091228/D9CSJBM80.html

NJ lawmaker proposes public pension reform
Dec 28, 5:49 PM (ET)
By ANGELA DELLI SANTI

*** begin quote ***

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) – A New Jersey lawmaker is planning to introduce legislation that would bar nongovernment workers from enrolling in the state’s taxpayer-funded pension system.

Assemblyman Paul Moriarty’s bill would restrict eligibility to the Public Employees Retirement System by keeping lobbyists and others out.

Currently, employees of some 17 private groups are eligible for state pensions.

“Why should the taxpayers pay even $1 to someone who is not a state employee, but a lobbyist who is trying to get special favors,” asked Moriarty, D-Turnersville.

*** end quote ***

Why do we have such “public pension funds”?

Private industry has gone to 401ks for “pensions”.

The “State” hasn’t made a contribution to the pension fund in a dog’s age. Surely that’s a bigger problem then a few bottom feeders pigging out at the trough.

Perhaps it’s time to “reform” the whole problem.

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MONEY: Intergenerational Theft

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

http://tslrf.blogspot.com/2009/12/book-review-generation-debt-why-now-is.html

Friday, December 25, 2009

Book Review: Generation Debt, Why Now Is A Terrible Time To Be Young

*** begin quote ***

I just finished the book Generation Debt: Why It Is A Terrible Time To Be Young. Honestly I think if you are 18-35 or have a kid in that age range you should read this book. Here are some interesting snippets of the book:

*** and ***

-The cause is not a temporary recession but structural changes in the economy. In income and occupation prestige, young adults are behind where their parents were at their age.

*** end quote ***

At Christmas eve dinner, we had a discussion on this topic.

The kids didn’t understand that we were talking about their economic future.

Unfortunately, they are going to have to live thru this economic disaster.

They will have to be smart with their money. Very smart. Which to date, I have NOT seen evidenced by any young people. Or some old ones either.

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POLITICAL: Carter calls for debt action

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

http://www.globalatlanta.com/article/23608/

President Carter to U.S.: Tackle Debt Before Lecturing China
Trevor Williams
Atlanta – 12.16.09

*** begin quote ***

The U.S. should focus on getting its own fiscal house in order and give up pressuring China to revalue its currency, the yuan, former President Jimmy Carter said during a Dec. 3 panel discussion at the Carter Center in Atlanta.

*** end quote ***

Pretty bad when ex-President Carter talks financial sense. Guess a stopped clock can be right twice per day. Clearly, the debt should be a priority. If not first, (i.e., national defense, citizen protection, the economy), it’s got to be up there.

The cure is one that the Big Gooferment advocates don’t want to hear — cut spending.

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POLITICAL: Copenhagen caper

Sunday, December 20, 2009

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2009/12/world-leaders-spent-two-weeks-in.html

Saturday, December 19, 2009
World leaders spent two weeks in Copenhagen and all we got was this?

*** begin quote ***

It took two weeks of talks in Copenhagen, after two years of preliminary talks and in the end, to much fanfare we got….

*** end quote ***

Lucky for us that “climate change”, “global warming”, and “global kooling” are all just “barbara streisand” to get socialism ramped up. More “global gooferment”, wealth transfer, and guilt the rich to transfer wealth from the have’s to the gooferments of the have not’s. Note that you can pour money on the “poor” until the cows come home and ALL of it will go into some petty dictators’ or bureaucrats’ pockets.

But lucky for us, humans are like the flies on the cows butt. We can no more impact climate with our minuscule actions then we can make poverty go away.

Argh!

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POLITICS: Unemployment numbers are misleading

Saturday, December 19, 2009

http://www.jibberjobber.com/blog/2009/12/18/unemployment-lies-and-deception

Unemployment Lies and Deception

December 18th, 2009

*** begin quote ***

As far as I know, unemployment numbers are based on those who are reporting to the government — those who are collecting unemployment insurance.

Guess what… unemployment insurance RUNS OUT. And then, you are so worthless, you aren’t even counted as a statistic! You are essentially written off the books.

Yeah, this really gets under my skin. And we aren’t even talking about UNDEREMPLOYED people!!

*** end quote ***

And, don’t forget the underemployed and the old farts who are now “retired” for want of anything better to do.

I fault the gooferment and it’s absolute stupidity.

First, average wage in gooferment is twice that of private industry. Regardless of how they slice and dice the numbers, gooferment workers are in the ascendancy in both quantity and money. TARP — bailout to the banks; should have just let them fail. (Cynically, I’d bet that they’d have figured out how to survive. The bail out of AIG was a direct payoff to Goldman Sachs. The same Goldman Sachs that paid gigantic bonuses.)

Second, every dollar the gooferment “gives” in unemployment benefits has to come from some taxpayer. Remember Basiat and the unseen victim. In this case, we now have four generation of “welfare farmers”. Some of those on “welfare” are rich companies and individuals. Milk and sugar subsidies come to mind.

Third, the poor economy has landed hard on the young and old. Youth unemployment — especially minority — is skyrocketing. And, the older workers are being forced into early retirement; some after burning through their savings from reduced retirement portfolios.

My solution is reduce gooferment. They need to cut, cut, and cut some more. Some entities need to be killed — Agriculture and Education would be my starting point. We need to cut the corporate income tax from 30+ to say ZERO. (Corporations don’t pay taxes. Only real people do. Corps pass them along or go out of business.) When Ron Paul campaigned, he asserted that cutting gooferment back to 1990 levels would allow the income tax to be ZERO.

Not like any of this is going to happen. But I wouldn’t trust anything the gooferment says or does. This included “running health care or health insurance”.

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INTERESTING: A mini-FED to spark the States

Saturday, December 19, 2009

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2009/03/how-nation%E2%80%99s-only-state-owned-bank-became-envy-wall-street

How the Nation’s Only State-Owned Bank Became the Envy of Wall Street
  — By Josh Harkinson | Fri Mar. 27, 2009 5:33 PM PDT

*** begin quote ***

The Bank of North Dakota is the only state-owned bank in America—what Republicans might call an idiosyncratic bastion of socialism. It also earned a record profit last year even as its private-sector corollaries lost billions. To be sure, it owes some of its unusual success to North Dakota’s well-insulated economy, which is heavy on agricultural staples and light on housing speculation. But that hasn’t stopped out-of-state politicos from beating a path to chilly Bismarck in search of advice. Could opening state-owned banks across America get us out of the financial crisis? It certainly might help, says Ellen Brown, author of the book, Web of Debt, who writes that the Bank of North Dakota, with its $4 billion under management, has avoided the credit freeze by “creating its own credit, leading the nation in establishing state economic sovereignty.” Mother Jones spoke with the Bank of North Dakota’s president, Eric Hardmeyer.

*** end quote ***

An interesting way to attack the FED?

Reenforcing State sovereignty to cut into the FED’s action and fiefdom.

As much as don’t like the gooferment, this seems like a good idea.

Fifty mini feds without the power to inflate or to borrow seems better than one big central bank with enormous powers over fiat currency.

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MONEY: Making a Loan Shark look good

Friday, December 18, 2009

http://www.impactlab.com/2009/12/18/subprime-credit-card-issuer-raising-interest-rate-to-79-9/

December 18th, 2009 at 9:56 am

Subprime Credit Card Issuer Raising Interest Rate To 79.9%

*** begin quote ***

In a recent mailing for a preapproved card, First Premier lowers fees to just that limit — $75 in the first year for a credit line of $300. But the new law doesn’t set a cap on interest rates. Hence the 79.9% APR, up from the previous 9.9%.

*** end quote ***

Good law!

People can’t look to the gooferment for protection.

Self-defense is only course.

Worse than the Mafia?

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RANT: Tokens — another broken promise

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

http://thomsinger.blogspot.com/2009/12/whats-next.html

Monday, December 14, 2009
What’s Next?
  This decade is coming to an end.

*** begin quote ***

It came in with all the attention on Y2K and is going out with our world forever changed. Many things, big and small, have morphed our society: The terrorist attacks on 9-11, the mass adoption of cell phones, and the changes in communication due to social media are just a few things that have impacted the ways we live.

*** and ***

Polaroid Photo – Don’t count Polaroid out just yet, they are looking at releasing some new products.

Bank Deposit Slips – Ummmm I still use these.

Subway Token – I live in Austin, this city has avoided any real mass transit for decades, so I have no idea.

*** end quote ***

Tokens were replaced with Metro Cards in NYC. It allows the MTA to steal back all the unused rides by tourists, lost cards, and such. Tokens used to mean something.

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Akin to removing the country from the Gold Standard, which allowed the explosive growth of Gooferment, replacing the token with the metrocard allows the MTA to sell promises that it has no intent to deliver on.

And, close the token booths which provide some measure of persona security to the traveller.

Maybe I do need a tin foil hat?

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MONEY: The Roth IRA Conversion Conundrum

Monday, December 14, 2009

http://www.edelmanfinancial.com/galleries/default-file/ipf_12_09.pdf

Ric Edelman in “The Roth IRA Conversion Conundrum” points out while you CAN convert your IRA to a ROTH. Unless the circumstances are just right, you shouldn’t. Why all the BUZZ about doing it? Well guess who makes out if you do it? Yup, the brokers and the gooferment! Paying taxes when it is not needed or wrong is always disastrous

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GOLDBUG: Implication in gas

Sunday, November 22, 2009

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100002059/is-6300-fair-value-for-gold/

Is $6,300 fair value for gold?
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Economics Last updated: November 19th, 2009

*** begin quote ***

He sees an eery similarity between the decision of India’s central bank to buy half the IMF’s entire sale of gold, and the move by France’s central bank to start converting dollars into gold in 1965 — which was, of course, the start of the slippery slope leading to the collapse of Bretton Woods and the closure of the US gold window under Nixon.

In the gold mania that followed, the price rose to levels that matched the US dollar monetary base (it reached 140pc at the peak). If that were to occur today after Ben Bernanke’s go at the printing press, gold would have to reach $6,300 an ounce. The US owns 263m ounces of gold while the Fed’s monetary base is $1.7 trillion. Simple equation.

*** end quote ***

Wow!

This portends a very difficult time for the USA.

Gas = 3 $ / gallon ~ 0.0026 oz gold @ 1,150 $ / oz

0.0026 oz * 6,300 $ / oz = Gas 16.43 $ / gallon

At 16.43 $ / gallon, the economy stops. (Pundits have said the stop point is less than $10 / gallon.)

Argh!

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RANT: “We” can’t afford the USPS

Thursday, November 19, 2009

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Cato-at-liberty/~3/OMyfED4MxVw/

Government Mail Loses $3.8 Billion

from Cato @ Liberty by Tad DeHaven

*** begin quote ***

The U.S. Postal Service reported that it lost $3.8 billion last fiscal year and that it expects to lose $7.8 billion this year. The loss occurred despite cost-cutting measures and legislation that allowed the USPS to forgo $4 billion in required payments to pre-fund retiree health benefits.

*** end quote ***

SO the USPS “lost” 11.8B$?

So how do we “kill” the USPS?

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POLITICAL: Who’s fault?

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

http://www.keywestlou.com/2009/11/good-morning-world-up-and-at-em-its.html

My Life in Key West
Tuesday, November 10, 2009

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The economic failures of 2008 can be laid largely at their doorstep.

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No, I respectfully disagree. The failure is entirely do to the congress critters. imho!

CRA, and the corruption of campaign contributions is the proximate cause.

Going back a little, the FED’s creation in 1913 and FDR’s taking us off the gold standard allowed the expansion of the Federal Gooferment without any constraint. What we are seeing now is the same as the coin shaving of the various Louis’s of France.

(I saw an exhibit of the French Fran in the Smithsonian in the 1970’s that brought it into focus. The first franc was a hockey puck of gold; the last one a thin shirt collar button.)

Moral of the story: the bankers and their supposed “regulators” are the creation of and puppets of the congress critters. They should be in jail. And we all should have our heads examined for letting them to get away with it!

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: 5B$ down the rathole

Sunday, November 8, 2009

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Freddie-Mac-posts-5-billion-rb-3083454207.html?x=0&.v=3

Freddie Mac posts $5 billion loss
* On 7:00 pm EST, Friday November 6, 2009
By Al Yoon

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE – News; NYSE:FRE – News), the second largest provider of U.S. residential mortgage funding, on Friday posted a loss of $5 billion in the third quarter and predicted it would need more government support amid a “prolonged deterioration” in housing.

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Well, isn’t that just great!

If it was a real business, we could just let it go to bankruptcy court.

Another “gooferment sponsored entity” that’s a rat hole for the taxpayer to pump more money into.

I’m sure the congress critters will certainly give them more money we don’t have.

Argh!

And, what’s the impact on the country, the taxpayers, and the people.

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POLITICAL: Stossel joins Fox News

Friday, November 6, 2009

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=114936

The truth about journalists’ bias
Posted: November 04, 2009

John Stossel is a longtime award-winning broadcast journalist who joins Fox News Oct. 19. He’s the author of “Give Me a Break” and of “Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity.”

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It is odd that this is a news story. In August, AFP hired me to do the very same thing. I give the money to charity. The Times didn’t call that “shameful.”

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Anyone with eyes can see the bias.

I’m hoping that Fox turns Stossel loose!

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MONEY: Stats with a weak dollar?

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

http://www.bargaineering.com/articles/your-take-are-we-out-of-the-recession.html/

Your Take: Are We Out Of The Recession?
by Jim Wang

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Yesterday, the Department of Commerce reported that the annualized GDP (gross domestic product) grew to 3.5% in third quarter. This is significant because, by definition, a recession is two straight quarters of shrinking GDP. A 3.5% increase in GDP would mean, at least technically, the recession was over. Four straight quarters of negative GDP growth, the worst of which was the first quarter of 2009 (-6.4%), has finally come to an end.

Hooray! Right?

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I’d point out that the weak dollar should influence our judgments. If the stock market goes up 50% but the dollar goes down 50% versus gold, the Euro, or some other “standard”, then did the market go up at all? Like fish in a tank, we can’t sense anything but water. Bad metaphor, can’t think of a good one. It’s like a football team gaining ground but the “year” gets redefined as the game proceeds. IT feels like we are losing ground on a “financial treadmill”. AND, give the gooferment’s tendency to make stuff up (i.e., jobs “saved” or “created”), especially if it’s a nebulously defined concept, I’m cynical about being “out of the recession”. The Titanic had its ice deliver but didn’t sink right away. Maybe we’re seeing the same thing. All that printing press money has to come home to roost.

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TECHNOLOGY: Nuke power from Japan?

Thursday, October 29, 2009

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.314f8f63df41800c448cd89e0a88dd31.331&show_article=1

Japanese firms to develop small nuclear reactors

Oct 24 01:08 AM US/Eastern

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Japan’s major nuclear reactor manufacturers have begun developing small nuclear power systems for both developed and emerging countries, a report said on Saturday.

Toshiba Corp. is developing an ultra-compact reactor with an output of about 10,000 kilowatts and has started procedures for approval in the United States, the Nikkei business daily said.

The new reactor, the Toshiba 4S, is designed to minimise the need for monitoring and maintenance, with an automatic shutdown function to ensure safety in case of problems, the newspaper said.

Toshiba plans to market the reactor first in the United States, while foreseeing demand from emerging countries in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe as well as in Africa, it said.

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For America’s “lost generation” of nuke engineers, I’m sure the approval of this will really put a knot in their shorts.

At one time, America “owned” the nuclear engineering niche.

France gets 80% of its power from nukes; we get near zero.

Argh!

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