The Hindu A view of the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) building, Bharat Sanchar Bhawan, in New Delhi. Photo: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar
Tata Teleservices today joined state-owned BSNL for sharing infrastructure across the nation, in a first such partnership that would help the private firm expand its GSM network expeditiously.
After signing the 15-year deal, Tata Tele said: “This is a moment of pride for us, as we have become the first private telecom operator to enter into such a strategically important agreement with BSNL, one that will allow us to expand our telecom footprint across the country much more quickly.”
TTSL, however, declined to give financial details of the deal.
“The agreement, which is valid for 15 years, will be applicable to both TTSL and TTSL (Maharashtra) Limited in all of India’s 22 telecom circles,” TTSL’s Legal and Regulatory Affairs president, Madhav Joshi, said.
The deal comes at a very strategic time for Tatas as the company is in the process to launch its GSM mobile services under the Tata DoCoMo brand name and BSNL has infrastructure assets across the country — the largest for any telecom firm.
In the last three months, the company has rolled out GSM services in nine circles — Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Orissa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Mumbai, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Haryana.
The infrastructure-sharing would be advantageous to the company in terms of reduced cost and the same would be reflected in the tariff structure of both the firms.
“This agreement has the potential to not just speed up our network expansion and roll out process, but would also have a substantial impact in terms of reduced costs,” TTSL Chief Technology Officer, A. G. Rao, said.
Under the terms of the agreement, TTSL and TTML will have access to thousands of BSNL towers all across the country.
Sources said the financial details of the deal would actually depend upon the usage of towers by each company in respective circles and thus it would be decided later.
Last week all heads of state gathered in New York to bring their message to the yearly session of the UN General Assembly. Obviously, the president of Haiti, René Préval, did not stand much of a chance to make his way into the international media with what he had to say, unless he would announce the enrichment of uranium for peaceful export purposes; but that kind of thoughts would lead us too far. He’s not much of a person who is fanatical about long speeches anyhow, to say the least. But more than that the scene was indeed dominated by polemic figures such as the president of Iran, Lybia and the like. Obama did have something to say about Haiti though; classifying it together with Timor Leste and Congo as a by violence ravaged country. Well, there is some unrest and much discontent, but the real issues facing Haitians are of an economic nature and not longer political in the first place. So is Timor Leste as far as I can recall, so I am really wondering why Obama didn’t for example mention Honduras, Guinea or Uganda alongside Congo. Apparently, it’s hard to do away with an image of violence.
But back to Préval. His speech before the General Assembly called for a ‘globalisation of solidarity’. He was tired, he said, of always having to rebuild the same infrastructure and of being victim of materialistic politics imposed by the powerful. He further criticised the current relations between rich and poor people and proposed a globalisation of solidarity in stead of a globalisation of profit, ending his discourse with the question when the rhetoric would make way for action. At first sight, this aligns him logically with the positions of most of Latin America’s governments, whose discourses are often fraught with demands for a more just structuring of the world economy.
Does this mean Préval was using the GA as a forum to say what he mostly cannot utter in public? It almost seems so, because in Haiti itself, criticism of his choices crystalise around his economic choices and more recently his opposition to raise the minimum wage to 200 Gourdes or 5 US Dollar a day. A compromise was eventually found on 125 Gourdes, exempting however the ‘zones franches’ or export zones. In other words: companies willing to invest in Haiti or already investing in Haiti for the combination of low wages and export purposes would only have to raise the wages of its workers gradually, thus achieving 200 Gourdes in 2012. This of course rapidly drove Préval into a corner where neoliberalists are still chastised by the left and other social development organisations. Those made the connection with the May 2009 report on Haiti of Paul Collier, prominent expert of Africa’s economies and author of the bestseller ‘The Bottom Billion’. In his plan he proposes quite some privatisation measures aimed at kickstarting exports; especially by making use of the free trade agreement Haiti has with the United States qnd therefore giving the country manifold opportunities to make the best out of its cheap labour.
Back to Préval however, an amusing but silent figure, who – maybe because he can’t be reelected next year – hardly does any effort to work on his popularity. One would wonder how he ever got elected. By not aligning to any party apparently, something he imitates on the international floor. One week, a meeting with Hugo Chavez is sheduled and the next week Washington might be waiting. But in fact, it is not that he has much choice as, for it’s whole history, Haiti has been on the interest agenda of the international community .
Canyon College offers an education; Ashwood University Just sell PaperVision Canyon site of the Order Canyoncollege.edu, and you see a rather austere presence of an online college that boasts over 60 programs and degrees 100S online courses, it provides stakeholders. Sales brackets are the lures of a prestigious college Canyon Dubbed Online Diploma mill degrees online and the ability to win without having to attend classes in a school of brick and mortar. The list of online degrees is impressive: there are journalism, forensic psychology, accounting, nursing, advertising, computers and much more! Canyon College operates from Carmichael, California, and charges $ 435 per course for a baccalaureate degree, $ 500 per course for a Masters, and $ 550 per course for a doctorate. Certificate programs have different tuition fee per course, and prospective students are invited to see the data entry.The faculty list reads like a who's who of credentials, and with a liberal program of transfer credits, Canyon College sounds like a good deal.There is a downside: Canyon College is accredited by the Association for Innovation in Distance Education (AIDE) and the American Naturopathic Medical Accreditation Board (ANMAB), but Carmichael Canyon College is not accredited by the U online geology degree.S. Department of Education Office of Education qualification. In fact, according to Breyer State, AID is not really an accreditation body that is recognized or approved by the U.S. Department of Education. This of course echoes the findings of the history of Fox News' about the experience of Jane Killen had when she tried to continue his career with a master's degree in nursing, she had obtained from Canyon College.This college was said to be particularly based in Idaho – 111 Poplar Street Caldwell, ID 83605 – but when you follow the link for the school seems to be the same as currently listed as being found in 4017, Avenue Garfield, Carmichael, CA 95608….
Read full article: Canyon College Dubbed Online Diploma Mill
I’m considering getting it, but honestly, I have some serious reservations about the book. Fair warning here: I’ve NOT read the book. However, I’ve spent months reading mises.org and getting quite familiar with their ideas so I think I probably know more than people who aren’t Ron Paul followers do about what Ron Paul believes.
You see, I agree with the premise that ultimately, we don’t need the Fed to regulate our economy. After all, from 1776 through 1913, this nation did NOT have the Federal Reserve. The Fed was around when the Great Depression happened, so there is no basis by which you can claim that the Fed calms or normalizes the economic cycles. However, I’m not sure that the Fed makes the cycles worse. I see the point to the argument, but I believe that Fed or no, people will ALWAYS find ways to bid things out of proportion. Take the Tulipomania was done without the Fed (but I guess there could have been a replica of the Fed involved?). The Fed also didn’t stop the economic Panic of 1873, which lasted 4 years.
But those are not the reservations I have. My whole reservation lies in why this book even became popular in the first place. I think if anything, liberals probably should read the book, and TRY their hardest to try to get an understanding of how conservatives are feeling at this time and age. But do keep in mind that not all conservatives agree 100% with Ron Paul. Ironically, I think that the conservatives are probably the LAST people who should be reading this book.
Why am I saying this? I really wish I had a simple answer to explain my reasoning, but, unfortunately some thoughts do not translate to words very well. I’ll try. What I’m seeing:
1. In conservatives, the book is probaby prone to firing up their hatred or opposition to the current administration. I don’t care what your reasoning is, the God placed leaders over you. You are supposed to honor, and submit to those who are placed over you in authority even if you disagree with their ideas. Yes, if the government ask you to do something that violates God’s law, then of course you obey God in those situations. However, in cases where there is no violation of God’s laws, we are called to submit to authority. The fact that this book, or even worse — Mark Levin’s “Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto” has became so popular indicates that lot of conservatives have no intention of following this inconvenient principle that is written in the bible! I don’t know about you, but if you are Christian out there, are you willing to put the bible above politics?
2. As for those liberals who align themselves with Obama, here is what I’m seeing, and why I think it *might* (in a qualified way) be beneficial is because, like it or not, lot of conservatives are reading it. If you want to respect your fellow countrymen, and try to bridge gap between people, I think it pays to learn a bit about how they are thinking. I’d also bet that you would find lot of similarities in their rhetoric as what was seen coming from liberals in the anti-Bush days. It’s all the same basic story “my idea is the only way, nothing else will work!” If you don’t like some of their rhetoric, think back to how you were portraying Bush. I saw way too many “Bush sucks” among friends on facebook. That doesn’t help us move forward one bit since, apparently, nobody was willing to set aside some of their ideas in order to figure out real solutions that works.
There was also lots of intellectual dishonesty going on in which lot of people tend to dismiss all evidences to the contrary of their views, while accepting those that support their views. Here is one big example: lot of people voted for Obama with the thought that on January 20, 2009, everything will change! All of sudden, everything will be better. Get real people, that is intellectually dishonest, but it is all too typical of today’s world. I don’t mean to pick on liberals here — almost everyone is making this same mistake. You see it in businesses — there is a tendency to underestimate how long a project would take, leading to missed deadlines (sometimes by months or years). A crisis brought about by overconfidence or being overly optimistic of your own ideas and overly pessimistic, or even disdainful of other’s ideas.
The stimulus package has helped to renew consideration for updating our national rail system to include high speed trains, devoting $8 billion to funding new projects across the country. The desire for breaking into new territory is clearly there. Forty states have reportedly submitted $103 billion in requests for high speed rail funding (that is over 12 times the available pot.) However, unless we are complimenting these faster means of travel with smaller, more localized improvements to the network of alternative transit these dollars may be paying for a system with limited levels of efficiency.
These sleek trains that can travel in excess of 200 miles per hour are one of the more enticing visions of efficiency in bolstering alternative transportation in the country and limiting car and plane travel. Glances to European and Asian models give tantalizing possibilities of quicker commutes like traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles in under three hours. Conventional wisdom pegs trains as far more fuel efficient than the energy required to fly a plane and within a radius of 600 miles, the train can actually be more convenient and faster when you factor in the arduous process of air travel (baggage, security, boarding, taxiing, deplaning.)
I am a complete supporter of high speed trains, but too many people are beginning to see them as the silver “bullet” for our travel woes and if they are not running between cities that have continued to build a network of alternative transit, their usefulness will be capped and keep us from the success that other countries have found.
Alternative transportation is an ecosystem of its own, encompassing every scale of travel from door to door. High speed rail is at the largest scale, great for covering large distances with as few stops as possible, but no matter what they are only part of the journey. Getting to and from the station in a sensible way is part of what makes the concept viable and attractive. Smaller, more localized systems must be installed to facilitate local access to high speed travel. Spending the money to connect cities without this infrastructure is jumping the gun.
Regional or commuter train lines offer the first level of integration of alternative transit, giving more people easy and cost-effective access to prime transport nodes of major cities. Unlike their high-speed brethren, these trains can make more local stops while still easily trumping the time and energy required of car travel. From there, local lines can take the form of subways, light rail or street cars that give easy maneuverability in urban settings and exponentially increase the amount of accessible destinations. Still further are bus and bike infrastructure that provide an efficient way for short, local trips while remaining efficient in both energy and space.
A true system that utilizes all of these components would drastically decrease the need, and convenience, of traveling by car—which is part of the idea. The more convenience that the system can sell, the more passengers will change their travel habits, allowing the cost of the service to drop, perpetuating the cycle.
Not transit programmed?
Our problem in America is that our cities (and perhaps more importantly, our suburbs) are not designed to accept these systems. The last half-century has been spent crafting our environment around car travel, making it no surprise that many people feel reluctant to consider alternatives. Most of our cities do not have these integrated systems, or even pieces of them, and remain slaves to roads, highways and viaducts. This is why some experts assert that, as of now, the Northeast is the only truly viable site for high speed rail where cities that have matured transit infrastructure can benefit. Having a high speed train stop in Los Angeles makes far less sense than one stopping in New York City.
Although I am a proponent for getting people to change, at a certain point the request becomes unreasonable if the extra effort is less convenient with no time saving and a higher cost. Critics of new rail systems point to existing infrastructure like Amtrak and its failed attempt to remain a profitable source of travel. The costs in construction and maintenance of railroads are extremely high and in a recession no one wants to sign onto a plan that will create black holes of tax dollars.
Their complaints are not entirely unfounded. Amtrak has yet to succeed in convincing enough people ride to keep the prices noticeably low, but what can we expect? As a country we have not succeeded in building our communities around alternative transport—we have not really tried. But if we are going to try then it has to be a holistic effort. That being said, the situation is improving. Amtrak has seen increasing record ridership for the past 6 years and running. The progress can be compliment by our cities, towns and suburbs being re-conceived with less deference given to automobiles. Picking the regions to receive funding for high speed projects could hinge on whether local municipalities can do parallel transit efforts on a local scale to increase the health of the entire network.
I am reminded of conservationist Willie Smits and his rebuilding of rain forests. As he explains, there is more to the forest than just the trees—an entire system at different heights, sizes and light levels that is mutually and intricately co-dependent. True rehabilitation efforts must address them all and alternative transit is no different.
Amid the first signs of an economic rebound, Americans are ready to do what they do best: go shopping. That’s according to a new survey by credit-card company American Express.
People are starting to spend again, albeit slowly, after the savings rate rose to a 15-year high during the longest economic contraction since the 1930s. Abercrombie & Fitch, Aeropostale, The Gap, J. Crew and Nordstrom may benefit the most, as many of the 2,032 adult respondents in the survey said they plan to buy clothes. Also on their to-do list? Perform car maintenance and make an appointment at the hair salon.
American Express surveyed the general U.S. population as well as two sub-groups: the “affluent” and “young professionals.” The company’s Spending & Saving Tracker, the first in a monthly series of reports about consumers’ views about the economy and attitudes about spending and saving, was completed in late August. Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy, which fell into a recession at the end of 2007. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has indicated the economy has started to grow again.
Young professionals were more optimistic about the economy and more likely to increase spending during the next 30 days (24% versus 14% of the affluent pool and 10% of the general population), the American Express survey showed. Asked what they would be buying, two-thirds said clothing and more than half said dining out and travel.
Consumer goods will with reduced production via liquidation in higher stages of production drive the inflationary pressures. Reduced production will create the supply/demand imbalance, exacerbated by improving profit margins in lower stage consumer goods.
NO EMPLOYEES TO DO THE WORK. The flip side. Immediate work for anyone 13 and over with Internet access available now, no screening, no fees, work globally from home, own pace, more work than anyone can possibly do – at least 10 times more people needed in my section.
Why can’t we find people? Why don’t people want to work? Is it that the pay starts at 37 cents a question? Gosh, lots of them are easy -what did you think of this or that and give an example or a link to support it even are the easiest, or where can I buy such and such or how can I cook such and such? How to bake a cake, do handiwork around the house, knit, sew, run a business etc.
Has no one heard of us? Do they not believe it is possible? Yes it is.
Do you think you won’t get in? Yes you can.
How it works here: http://www.mahalo.com/how-mahalo-works
Where to register/start here http://www.mahalo.com
My blog with over 40 sample pages from there on how to find jobs here http://helpfind.wordpress.com Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Dialectical materialism is a “scientific method” that is used to understand matter in motion, …the way society and the world is structured, and how and why it changes, and how history evolved and developed in it’s various stages, and how to predict with scientific accuracy, within the laws of probability, …outcome, … and the inevitability of the inheirant nature and charicteristics of past and future change.
This is only my understanding of “Dialectical Materialism,” and I am only a very old student of the subject that is developing and ongoing!
The US is too dependent on Japan and China buying up the country’s debt and could face severe economic problems if that stops, Tiger Management founder and chairman Julian Robertson told CNBC.
“It’s almost Armageddon if the Japanese and Chinese don’t buy our debt,” Robertson said in an interview. “I don’t know where we could get the money. I think we’ve let ourselves get in a terrible situation and I think we ought to try and get out of it.”
Robertson said inflation is a big risk if foreign countries were to stop buying bonds.
“If the Chinese and Japanese stop buying our bonds, we could easily see [inflation] go to 15 to 20 percent,” he said. “It’s not a question of the economy. It’s a question of who will lend us the money if they don’t. Imagine us getting ourselves in a situation where we’re totally dependent on those two countries. It’s crazy.”
Robertson said while he doesn’t think the Chinese will stop buying US bonds, the Japanese may eventually be forced to sell some of their long-term bonds.
“That’s much worse than not buying,” he said. “The other thing is, they’re buying almost exclusively short-term debt. And that’s what we are offering, because we can’t sell the long-term debt. And you know, the history has been that people who borrow short term really get burned.” READ MORE….cnbc.com/
Are you a first time home buyer? There’s still time to take advantage of the First Time Home Buyer Tax Incentive!
Week Ending September 25, 2009 Total Number of Homes For Sale in the Des Moines Area – 5016 New Listings Taken During the Last 7 Days – 278 Accepted Offers (Pendings) During the Last 7 Days – 175 Homes Closed (Solds) During the Last 7 Days – 123 Average Sale Price of Solds – $155,633 Average Days On Market of Solds – 90 If you would like to search for homes in the Des Moines area, feel free to visit my website. I don’t require a login or password and collect no information about you. You can always contact me if you have questions. Click Here to begin your own home search or go to http://search.homesbyles.iow.mlxchange.com
Les Sulgrove, Iowa Real Estate Solutions, LLC
Information on this blog posting is for informational purposes only and not intended as solicitation if you are already working with a REALTOR®.
There is no obligation or fee for any information on this blog posting. Data Source: Les Sulgrove, Iowa Real Estate Solutions, LLC Des Moines Area Association of REALTORS® MLS. Des Moines Metropolitan Area defined as: Adel, Altoona, Ankeny, Bondurant, Carlisle, Clive, Des Moines, Dallas Center, Desoto, Granger, Grimes, Indianola, Johnston, Norwalk, Pleasant Hill, Polk City, Urbandale, Van Meter ,Waukee, West Des Moines, Windsor Heights, Winterset
Those of you that say, “Government” is the problem and that our economic salvation is to get government off our backs and to let the private sector without government interference be free to do what it does best for the system of capitalism and America!
You IDIOTS that believe this dogmatic Libertarian nonsense are truly blind to our recent American history!
The democrats have replaced the republicans as the “party in power” because of the obvious reason that the democratic party represents the “end of the Republican Era,” of “unrestrained capitalism,” that is allowed to run wild, without government oversight, as they pursue the “all mighty dollar!”
The economic collapse of the world market economy occurred during the Bush regime that cared little about the common good and only cared about investors making a quick profit, … and the “public be damned!”
The present day “Republicans” have gone so far to the extreeme and are allied with the out of touch backward thinking Libertarians that think that they know everything about economics but know nothing, except how to be greedy and anti-social, This type of activity is represented to their greedy anti-social followers, as being for “individual freedom.”
This “republican extremism,” will very quickly dump the republican party into the “trash can,” of the no longer relevant political parties that existed in our no longer relevant past!
With the disappearance of the no longer relevant “republicans,” from our modern day reality, I believe that their will be a new “political realignment.”
The democrats will morph into the modern day, relevant conservative party, and a socialist leaning party will become a mainstream party in a modern day two party system.
…will apparently not be visiting with Secretary Clinton or President Obama when he comes to Washington DC in October. Apparently, they are worried that China will get upset and as a result, that could put a damper on President Obama’s trip to China in late October or November. Given that this administration seems to have some sort of red-carpet gala, ceremony, celebration or “dialogue” with high ranking Chinese government officials about once a month, it would be a bit ballsy of China to complain that it’s being dissed simply because the President (or SOS) were to exercise their right to invite whomever they damn well please to visit with them.
I’m really surprised by this. And disappointed. And no, I don’t think it’s enough to send lower-level officials to meet with the Dalai Lama.
By the way, given all of the above, would somebody please explain the rationale for our heavy-handed and very punitive policy towards Cuba?
“Careful planning puts you ahead in the long run; hurry and scurry puts you further behind” (Proverbs 21:5, Message)
A Plan!! That is what my husband and I need now. We must develop a plan. Our life is changing and it’s mostly out of our control…my husband is unemployed and my biggest client required that I take a pay cut. Wow! With this degradation in income, we cannot meet our current expenses. That is not going to work. I am an advocate of living BENEATH my means and not above them.
We are moving from one era to another. The Industrial age is over. If you are looking to be employed by a company to maintain your lively hood, you are going to get left behind, and if you do get a job, you are likely to be overworked. We are now in the Entrepreneurial age. You need a plan for your own business…a way to accumulate your income without depending upon someone else’s business plan.
We do not like being at the mercy of the Nation’s economy and the whims of the corporations. But just as Joel Osteen suggests below, we are coming up with a plan to take control of our livlihood…and you should too. We must be intentional in pursuing our dreams and aspirations. We must envision, believe, plan, and have a contingency plan for obstacles. God wants us to have a plan, but we must incorporate His advice, and have Him bless the plan before we implement it.
Many blessings,
Trina
TODAY’S WORD from Joel and Victoria
One thing I’ve learned is that success is not accidental. You’re not going to accidentally accomplish your dreams. You don’t accidentally have good relationships. You won’t accidentally lose twenty pounds. You have to have a plan. If you’re going to get to the right destination, you’ve got to know where you’re going and how you are going to get there.
If you’ve ever been at the beach just floating in the water and relaxing, you’ll notice that after a while, the current will take you far away. That’s how it is in life, too. If you don’t have clear-cut goals with a plan in place to accomplish those goals, you’re not going to end up at the right place. You’ll just float around in life easily distracted not knowing where you’re headed.
Today, I encourage you to examine where you are in life. What are your goals? What is your plan? Maybe your first goal needs to be to make a plan. Do some research. Talk to people who have been successful at what you are trying to do. Ask the Lord to guide your steps and connect you with the right people. As you step in faith to accomplish your goals, I believe God will pour out His favor so that you can experience His supernatural blessing on everything you set your hand to.
A PRAYER FOR TODAY
“Father in heaven, I commit everything I am to You today. Direct my steps. Order my destiny. Give me the plan to accomplish every dream and desire You’ve placed within me. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”
September 21, 2009
Sponsored by: AMA Patients’ Action Network
This January, physicians face a minimum across-the-board cut of 21 percent in Medicare payments. Some doctors have said the cuts will force them to stop seeing new Medicare patients.
Before Medicare patients are forced to travel further for medical care or even go to emergency facilities instead of a doctor’s office for basic care,
Furthermore, pay cuts may stop physicians from purchasing health information technology. The Medicare physician payment system needs to keep up with rising practice costs so that seniors can be assured of continued access to quality care.
These cuts will grow to about 40 percent total by 2016 unless Congress permanently reforms Medicare’s physician payment system. Urge Congress not to settle for another temporary fix — health system reform must include Medicare reform and we need a long-term solution now.
Posted 12/8/2003 10:05 PM Updated 12/8/2003 10:05 PM
Source: USA TODAY research
BEYOND WORDS:
Bill signed into law
How Medicare will change The Medicare legislation signed into law by President Bush on Monday (12/08/2003) represents the most dramatic overhaul since the health insurance program for seniors and the disabled was created in 1965.
Some of the major changes and when they would take effect:
•Prescription-drug cards. Starting in the spring, seniors could pay up to $30 for a drug discount card. The Bush administration says it could save them 15% to 25% per prescription. Some very low-income seniors would also get as much as $600 a year to help pay for drugs in 2004 and 2005.
•Prescription-drug benefit. Starting in 2006, seniors could join privately administered drug plans for an average $35 monthly premium, which could rise if drug costs increase. After a $250 deductible, Medicare would cover 75% of drug costs up to $2,250. Seniors then must pay for all of their next $2,850 in drug costs. Once their total drug bill exceeds $5,100, Medicare would begin paying 95% of additional costs. Low-income seniors would receive subsidies covering part or all of their out-of-pocket costs, subject to income and asset limitations. Those with more than $10,000 in savings as individuals or $20,000 as a couple would be disqualified for the added assistance. Premiums, benefits, co-payment shares and limits on assets and income will rise with inflation after 2006.
•Competition. Starting in 2010, Medicare would test competition between private health plans and the government. The experiment would involve up to 2 million seniors in six metropolitan areas for six years. Affected seniors could have to pay 5% more a year to stay in Medicare if private insurers in their areas provide less expensive coverage.
•Doctor bills. Starting in 2007, seniors with incomes of $80,000 or more a year would pay higher monthly premiums for coverage of doctors’ visits. Instead of paying 25% of the premium now paid by all beneficiaries, wealthier seniors would pay more — up to 80% for those with incomes above $200,000.
•Health savings accounts. Starting Jan. 1, pre-retirement-age workers who have health insurance plans with high deductibles would be able to set aside up to $2,250 (for individuals) or $4,500 (for families) annually in tax-free accounts to cover health care costs. Withdrawals for non-medical purposes would be taxed. There would also be a 10% penalty.
•Generic drugs. Changes would speed generic drugs to market by limiting the ability of pharmaceutical companies to block cheaper equivalents.
•Rural health care. About $25 billion would be spent to increase payments to rural hospitals and doctors.
•Drug prices. Medicare would be barred from negotiating lower drug prices for seniors. That would be left to private insurers.
•Job-related coverage. Employers who provide drug benefits to retirees would get tax subsidies and other incentives to continue coverage. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Things have been picking up at Caron Electric as you can see I have not had much time to update our blog. I have exciting news I would like to share with my consumers and readers. Everyone has gone through some hardships with the economy taking a turn for the worse. Of course we had to make some tough decisions to assure Caron Electric would be around for years to come. Because of those decisions we have been able to slowly reposition ourselves for future expansion. That time has come and we recently added another electrician to our work force. Our newest electrician Brian is fully licensed and has many years of experience working in both the residential and commercial electrical field. So while other companies are still trying to get a handle on their future Caron Electric’s is burning brighter then ever.
Another even more exciting change here at Caron Electric for our customers is the reduction of our pricing by 10%. As the competition is greater than ever we knew the best way to stay competitive would be an overhaul of our pricing. I am happy to announce we are in our final stage of preparation to bring our new pricing manual to the field.
This upcoming Fall Season will have many opportunities to use our services and save money, take advantage today! If you have not already signed up for our email promotions and discount program take a moment out to email me at service@caronelectric.com
“CSI: The Experience” which has been touring the country has found a permanent home at the MGM Hotel in Las Vegas. This new attraction will give visitors the chance to be part of the CSI phenomenon. Guest will be able to survey their own crime scene, analyze evidence and crack the case. The experience starts at one of three crime scenes. After exiting the crime scene, the guests will head to the crime lab with their list of evidence and begin to piece together the mystery.
This is the first permanent exhibit for CSI, which has been touring the country for the past 2 years.
Rather than a “look-and-see” exhibit, this one lets visitors control the action. The interactive nature of the program and the technology are what sets “CSI: The Experience” apart from other museum exhibits
“CSI: The Experience” will be open to its first visitors starting at 10 a.m. Sunday September 13. The exhibit will be open daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. with tickets priced at $30.
Fox News’ big announcement that “the honeymoon is over” with President Obama and the American public who elected him assumes that everyone who voted for him expected him to miraculously bring resolution to all of his campaign promises. This is not the case. There are many groups who were disappointed that their particular grievances against the last administration wasn’t priority one with this administration. But there are also those of us who expected a rational attack on the problems which plague the most people.
The economy continues to suffer and the cure although obvious would not be very popular, especially among the banking community. Deregulation had been forced upon an unsuspecting public who had not paid attention in history class when their teacher covered the Great Depression. These regulations were the safeguards put in place by previous administrations to prevent a repeat of the massive bank failures that led to the economic collapse of the time. Their removal and the later unregulated misbehavior of the banks are what led to our current economic crisis.
Health care and the lack of it by a large part of our citizens is another pressing issue. among industrialized nations we are a sad example of callousness toward our own citizens. We may have the best medical schools in the world, and as a result the best doctors, but they are of little use if no one has access. And then there is also the lack of portability; most health insurance plans take exception if you end up hospitalized outside of their service area. Live in Arizona, insured in Arizona, then don’t end up in a hospital in Kentucky because you aren’t covered - unless you are on Medicare.
When the big issues have been settled, then it will be time to deal with the smaller ones. When peoples’ money and health are secured, it will be easier to press the administration on issues that must still be dealt with.
September 21, 2009 — Americans cannot get any truth out of their government about anything, the economy included. Americans are being driven into the ground economically, with one million school children now homeless, while Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke announces that the recession is over.
The spin that masquerades as news is becoming more delusional. Consumer spending is 70% of the US economy. It is the driving force, and it has been shut down. Except for the super rich, there has been no growth in consumer incomes in the 21st century. Statistician John Williams of shadowstats.com reports that real household income has never recovered its pre-2001 peak.
The US economy has been kept going by substituting growth in consumer debt for growth in consumer income. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan encouraged consumer debt with low interest rates. The low interest rates pushed up home prices, enabling Americans to refinance their homes and spend the equity. Credit cards were maxed out in expectations of rising real estate and equity values to pay the accumulated debt. The binge was halted when the real estate and equity bubbles burst.
As consumers no longer can expand their indebtedness and their incomes are not rising, there is no basis for a growing consumer economy. Indeed, statistics indicate that consumers are paying down debt in their efforts to survive financially. In an economy in which the consumer is the driving force, that is bad news.
The banks, now investment banks thanks to greed-driven deregulation that repealed the learned lessons of the past, were even more reckless than consumers and took speculative leverage to new heights. At the urging of Larry Summers and Goldman Sachs’ CEO Henry Paulson, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Bush administration went along with removing restrictions on debt leverage.
When the bubble burst, the extraordinary leverage threatened the financial system with collapse. The US Treasury and the Federal Reserve stepped forward with no one knows how many trillions of dollars to “save the financial system,” which, of course, meant to save the greed-driven financial institutions that had caused the economic crisis that dispossessed ordinary Americans of half of their life savings.
The consumer has been chastened, but not the banks. Refreshed with the TARP $700 billion and the Federal Reserve’s expanded balance sheet, banks are again behaving like hedge funds. Leveraged speculation is producing another bubble with the current stock market rally, which is not a sign of economic recovery but is the final savaging of Americans’ wealth by a few investment banks and their Washington friends. Goldman Sachs, rolling in profits, announced six figure bonuses to employees.
The rest of America is suffering terribly.
The unemployment rate, as reported, is a fiction and has been since the Clinton administration. The unemployment rate does not include jobless Americans who have been unemployed for more than a year and have given up on finding work. The reported 10% unemployment rate is understated by the millions of Americans who are suffering long-term unemployment and are no longer counted as unemployed. As each month passes, unemployed Americans drop off the unemployment role due to nothing except the passing of time.
The inflation rate, especially “core inflation,” is another fiction. “Core inflation” does not include food and energy, two of Americans’ biggest budget items. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) assumes, ever since the Boskin Commission during the Clinton administration, that if prices of items go up consumers substitute cheaper items. This is certainly the case, but this way of measuring inflation means that the CPI is no longer comparable to past years, because the basket of goods in the index is variable.
The Boskin Commission’s CPI, by lowering the measured rate of inflation, raises the real GDP growth rate. The result of the statistical manipulation is an understated inflation rate, thus eroding the real value of Social Security income, and an overstated growth rate. Statistical manipulation cloaks a declining standard of living.
In bygone days of American prosperity, American incomes rose with productivity. It was the real growth in American incomes that propelled the US economy.
In today’s America, the only incomes that rise are in the financial sector that risks the country’s future on excessive leverage and in the corporate world that substitutes foreign for American labor. Under the compensation rules and emphasis on shareholder earnings that hold sway in the US today, corporate executives maximize earnings and their compensation by minimizing the employment of Americans.
Try to find some acknowledgement of this in the “mainstream media,” or among economists, who suck up to the offshoring corporations for grants.
The worst part of the decline is yet to come. Bank failures and home foreclosures are yet to peak. The commercial real estate bust is yet to hit. The dollar crisis is building.
When it hits, interest rates will rise dramatically as the US struggles to finance its massive budget and trade deficits while the rest of the world tries to escape a depreciating dollar.
Since the spring of this year, the value of the US dollar has collapsed against every currency except those pegged to it. The Swiss franc has risen 14% against the dollar. Every hard currency from the Canadian dollar to the Euro and UK pound has risen at least 13 % against the US dollar since April 2009. The Japanese yen is not far behind, and the Brazilian real has risen 25% against the almighty US dollar. Even the Russian ruble has risen 13% against the US dollar.
What sort of recovery is it when the safest investment is to bet against the US dollar?
The American household of my day, in which the husband worked and the wife provided household services and raised the children, scarcely exists today. Most, if not all, members of a household have to work in order to pay the bills. However, the jobs are disappearing, even the part-time ones.
If measured according to the methodology used when I was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, the unemployment rate today in the US is above 20%. Moreover, there is no obvious way of reducing it. There are no factories, with work forces temporarily laid off by high interest rates, waiting for a lower interest rate policy to call their workforces back into production.
The work has been moved abroad. In the bygone days of American prosperity, CEOs were inculcated with the view that they had equal responsibilities to customers, employees, and shareholders. This view has been exterminated. Pushed by Wall Street and the threat of takeovers promising “enhanced shareholder value,” and incentivized by “performance pay,” CEOs use every means to substitute cheaper foreign employees for Americans .
Despite 20% unemployment and cum laude engineering graduates who cannot find jobs or even job interviews, Congress continues to support 65,000 annual H-1B work visas for foreigners.
In the midst of the highest unemployment since the Great Depression what kind of a fool do you need to be to think that there is a shortage of qualified US workers?
HuffingtonPost/Arthur Delaney—Two weeks ago, Ann Minch of Red Bluff, Calif. announced in a YouTube video that she’d launched a one-woman “Debtors’ Revolt” and would refuse to pay off her credit card balance after an unfair interest-rate hike. Now, after her video made a huge splash, Bank of America has agreed to reduce her rate.
Minch said in a video posted Saturday that a Bank of America executive contacted her on Friday.
“He asked me to talk a little about my personal financial situation so we can negotiate some kind of agreement in regard to my existing credit card account,” she said. The executive “tried to get me to agree to 16.99 percent and I said, ‘No, nope, I believe because you guys are getting your money from the Fed at zero percent interest… that 12.99 percent is a more than generous profit margin for you guys.’ So he did finally agree to that and he also agreed to send me that in writing.”
The average variation in the Consumer Price Index over the previous twelve months stood at 4.3% in August, 0.7 percentage points below the figure registered in July. Data released by the National Statistics Institute (INE) confirms the downward trend in the country’s inflation rate, which stood at 6.8% in 2008 – 2.4 percentage points higher than the rate registered in 2007 (A Semana).
ATLANTICO
A joint initiative on the part of entrepreneurs from Brazil and Cape Verde will bring a shrimp breeding facility to Cape Verde. The superintendant of the Small Business Support Service (SEABRA) from the northeastern Brazilian state of Ceará, Carlos Cruz, reveals that the project, which is in the final phase of implementation, will being together technology from Ceará and resources from the Netherlands (A Semana).
The online version of Globo, one of Latin America’s most important media conglomerates, highlighted the participation of Cape Verdean agricultural producers in this year’s edition of Frutal – the International Fruit, Flower and Agribusiness Fair, which is currently taking place in the Brazilian state of Ceará (A Semana).
elow is David Galland’s take on the fact that as of this Friday the US Government will no longer guarantee Money Market Funds. The key points are that the smart money is getting out of MM funds. Assets in these funds have declined by 15% in the last month. There is still $2 trillion in non-Treasury MM funds. Are you sure your MM fund is safe?
The 2nd more important point is that the Treasury is trying to force this money into the Big Banks. DO NOT LET IT HAPPEN. If you withdraw your money, put it in a local credit union or small bank in your community. DO NOT REWARD THE WHORING TARP BANKS. We need to make them fail for the good of the country.
What’s in YOUR Money Market Fund?
I noted with interest that Tim Geithner, the Goldman Sachs Secretary of the Treasury, has gone on record as saying that the government will withdraw its $3 trillion backstop guarantee from the money market fund industry, on schedule, this September 18.
In the 40 years I have lived in the Hub City, Lubbock has known neither boom for bust–just steady 1 or 2 or maybe 3 percent growth every year.
As our nation begins slowly coming back from the recession/depression that hit almost two years ago, the good folks of Lubbock continue to count our lucky stars for our economy.
While the national unemployment rate jumped from from 9.4 percent to 9.7 percent from July to August, Lubbock actually saw drop from 6.1 percent to 5.7 percent during that same time period. Lubbock unemployment rate is second only to Amarillo’s 5.6 percent, the lowest in the state.
While those numbers are higher than they were last year, they nowhere approach that of Las Vegas, NV, where the rate grew to 13.4 percent in August, up from 13.1 percent in August.
While these numbers are not comforting to those who are unemployed, they do indicate that when the economy begins to grow again, we should be able to return to almost full employment.
For more information, Walt Nett, business reporter for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, wrote this story: http://lubbockonline.com/stories/091909/bus_494782613.shtml
By Simon Parry
Last updated at 1:18 PM on 16th September 2009
The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination – and is why your Christmas stocking may be on the light side this year
some economists still follow the idea that in the end the market self-regulates and that consumers always make decisions in their best self-interest. i think both of those have been proven wrong in reality many times over, but those economists that still believe in those principles should maybe take a look at the american working class. certainly a large part of this segment of the US population (mostly in the industrialized areas of the country) are card carrying unionists and democrats. but an equally large segment more in the south and mid-west, as well as south west seem to be hard hitting republicans.
it has always been a mystery to me how these people who are usually lower middle class to middle class can even entertain the thought of voting for republicans, because if they would vote on the basis of what is best for themselves democratic ideas like higher minimum pay, better healthcare for everyone, more accessible schools, higher taxing of the rich … would be directly beneficial to them. but it seems that a slew of so called “value issues” like abortion and gay marriage (and maybe just general fear of the future and change) are trumping issues that would impact their economic situation. in addition i guess that the idea of the “american dream” has so much power over this segment of the population that they think that by hard work they might very soon end up rich and at that point will not need the benefits provided by democratic policies … even though the chances of this economic ascent are fairly slim.
the recent health care debate has brought out many demonstrators against the reforms … most of them from the lower middle classes, exactly those that would benefit the most from the reforms. i thought it was so interesting to see all the tea party demonstrators here in DC last week most of them active consumers of medicare (or other government plans) demonstrating against big government that they themselves directly benefit from … and there i am on the other side, likely to have to pay more post reform and i am all in favor of it. a strange world it is. but the ny times, specifically timothy egan wrote a superb piece yesterday on his nyt blog about this paradox in US politics: working class zero
he perfectly sums up this paradox early on in his post:
Harvard economist Lawrence Katz called it “a plutocratic boom.” If anything comes close to defining the era, that would be my nomination. President Bush cut $1.3 trillion in taxes — and the biggest beneficiaries by far were the top 1 percent of earners. At the same time, Wall Street was inflated by the helium of a regulation-free economy that eventually gave us Bernie Madoff and banks begging for bailouts.
Now consider the people who showed up in a state of generalized rage in Washington over the weekend. They have no leaders, save a self-described rodeo clown — Glenn Beck of Fox News — and some well-funded Astroturf outfits from the permanent lobbying class inside the Beltway. They are loosely organized under a Tea Party movement, but these people are closer to British Tories than 18th century patriots with a love of equality.
and then he goes on to ask exactly the right question:
Where was the Tea Party movement when the tax burden was shifted from the high end to the middle? Where were the patriots when Wall Street, backed in Congress by Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, rewrote securities laws so that the wonder boys of Lehman and A.I.G. could reduce home mortgages to poker chips at a trillion-dollar table?
Where were the angry “stiffs” when the banking industry rolled the 2005 Congress into rewriting bankruptcy law, making it easier to keep people in permanent credit card hock?
Where were they when President Bush started the bailouts, with $700 billion that had to be paid on a few days’ notice — with no debate — to save global capitalism?
They were nowhere, because they were clueless, just as most journalists were.
as i was walking through DC last weekend with the tea party demonstrators making their way through a city largely alien to them i was thinking about exactly those questions — and couldn’t come up with any answers.
“VW’s biggest news at the Frankfurt auto show was the L1 concept, a prototype that “is close to production” and “will be developed,” the company says. Three ingredients were needed to make it happen: a supremely efficient powertrain, great aerodynamics, and lightweight engineering….the L1 looks refined and close to series production, which couldn’t be said of the 2002 concept. It could be on the market as soon as 2013, Volkswagen sources tell us.”
Foreign capital inflows in Greece grew by 40.5%, (€6.48 billion) with net inflows soaring by 147.8% (€3.47 billion), in 2008, compared with the previous year, Invest in Greece Agency – the Hellenic investment promotion body – announced yesterday. Citing figures on Foreign Direct Investments in Greece, published by the Bank of Greece, the Agency said this positive development – amidst an unprecedented international financial crisis – was evidence of foreign investors’ trust towards the Greek market (mainly from the EU and US).
I.T. Is “The Key”
Meeting with Israeli and British businesspeople, Invest in Greece Agency presented Greece’s comparative advantages in the field of advanced technologies such as Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) systems. Both in Israel and United Kingdom, the agency provided information on the advantages deriving from a possible expansion of major technology companies’ business activities in Greece. The Greek ICT sector offers highly skilled human capital and geographic proximity to the markets of Southeast Europe and East Mediterranean , elements which can accommodate the growing need for alternative R&D investment locations around the globe, given the fact the ICT sector still offers considerable room for growth, profit margins and projects of high added value. See also: Business Works: Greece: the economic hub of the region
Fast forward to night 2 (first night us girls just caught up on some gossip), Fashion’s Night Out!!!
We had our guide:
Started out on Seventh Ave. in Chelsea
A little wine and cheese before heading out
Went over to the Meat Packing District-Party @ Tory Burch. Apparently Russel Simmons was there at one point.
Then went around the corner…
Ingrid shopping for glasses @ Kenneth Cole
Window shopping…
Crazy people and mad paparazzi @ Stella McCartney. Kate Hudson was on her way…
We didn’t want to stand in line, so we headed over to DVF
Where Diane and Anna chatted it up
We were hungry from all of the shopping and partying so we went back to Chelsea to the Cafeteria. AMAZING food! There’s always a line, even at like 4 am.
I had the chicken and waffles
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
By Bill Frezza
The White House Council of Economic Advisers said Thursday the $787 billion stimulus plan kept one million people working who would otherwise not have had jobs.
You wouldn’t let me stand up and make the simplistic claim that these million jobs were saved at a cost of $787,000 per job without challenging the details of my accounting, would you? Surely, reality is more complex.
But when the White House Council of Economic Advisers calculated the number of jobs saved by our government’s massive stimulus spending, how is it that they entirely neglected to account for the impact on employment of removing $787 billion dollars from the balance sheet of the private economy?
What kind of single-entry bookkeeping is this? Who are these experts so willing to make glib claims with a straight face? How is it that the press, politicians, and pundits credulously report these claims as facts? And why are those who question whether the emperor is wearing any clothes treated like obstructionist members of some lunatic fringe?
I am posting this from my iPod since my computer has decided to let me down for the last time by taking a major dump, even after a fresh Windows install. Suffice it to day, it’s a goner–so much for that cheap software I recently acquired.
As such, two things are certain:
- Blogging is in hold indefinitely.
- I am officially a Mac, or at least I will be when I have the money for a new computer. I’m done with PCs forever.
That’s right, this is just like the government’s cash for clunkers. Now you can also turn in your old appliance and get a government rebate for a new one. So if you have a fridge or dryer that doesn’t work very well, here’s your chance to replace it! Below is a handy list of what the life expectancy is for various appliances around the house.
Nothing to do with the main body of the blog itself, just a one minute speech by Rep. Joe Wilson from South Carolina. Sounding sane, but very short on facts.
I apologize right off the bat today for not writing about what I said I was going to write about yesterday. I said I’d writer about real oppression (Pol Pot, Stalin, Mugabe, Hitler) or about tomorrow’s Primaries here on Staten Island (Vassky, Liu, Mitchell, Rose, etc…) I’ll try to do a bit about the primaries later tonight or early tomorrow, if I find the time. Gonna go over some stuff I think is a wee bit funny first today.
Ya see, there’s this picture that caught my eye. Take a look at it, courtesy of the L.A. Times. It’s a picture of a few gazillion people meeting at the National Mall in Washington. It purported to show over a million, maybe two million people there. If the picture was an accurate portrayal, the tea party would have been massive, but there was only one problem.
It wasn’t a picture of the tea party at all.
It was actually a picture from a massive promise keepers rally at the national mall over a decade ago, October 1997 to be precise. The problem with the photo was a simple one, well two actually. The Cranes in front of the Smithsonian is one clue. On the left edge of the photo send building from the bottom. The last time there were cranes in front of the Smithsonian was when they were building the Imax theater there.
In the 1990’s.
The other clue is a missing building. Near the top right, there should be a building, National Museum of the American Indian. It’s not there.
Oops.
The actual crowd estimate, an unofficial one by Pete Piringer, public affairs officer for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Department, put the crowd at closer to 60,000 to 75,000 people. Mind you even this number is not necessarily correct, because the city no monger keeps official crowd estimate numbers, due to potential politicizing of them.
For all that the republicans want publicity and need all the help they can get, the continuous negative stream of lies and other crap that comes from that end is really starting to hurt them. Like has been noted previously, the democrats have lost some steam the last few months, but the republicans have not been able to capitalize, due, i think, in large part to their just being blisteringly full of shit. SOOOOO many conspiracy theories, so many stupid lies, so many Hitler/fascist/socialist references, and the bulk of the population just doesn’t seem to be going for it. The base LOOOOOOOOOOVES it, but it doesn’t play well for the average American.
The democrats have their moments of bullshit as well, but nothing quite as amazingly full of shit as the right has shown itself to be.
In other news, The financial world got some good news, at least as far as government ownership is concerned. The Treasusry department is exploring selling the stock it owns in citigroup, getting rid of all of the more than 7,000,000,000 common shares of citigroup that is currently property of the Treasury over the next 6 to 8 months, and yes that is 7 billion shares. Why now? Why not? We the people stand to make a healthy profit from this. We bought that stock at $3.25 a share. Citigroup closed today at over $4.50, and the stock has been slowly rising for a while now.
Personally I say wait. Ride it out a few months extra and see if we can’t get a better price on it. Say wait until the price is…I dunno $15 a share. That would be a better than 450% profit on a 21 billion dollar investment. We have a deficit to pay off, let’s be wise investors here. It is temporary ownership, but why not make it WISE temporary ownership and make a buck or $96,000,000,000 on it.
But we can’t wait too long. Things aren’t exactly perfect in this economy. Watch a viddy from Friday on bloomberg:
Today’s nuggets, via wikiquote: A properly functioning free market system does not spring spontaneously from society’s soil as crabgrass springs from suburban lawns. Rather, it is a complex creation of laws and mores… Capitalism is a government program. George Will
To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers. Adam Smith
It’s nice to see such talented individuals receive record levels of pay for their sterling work bringing the UK economy to the brink of total collapse…great work if you can get it!
“Executives at Britain’s top companies saw their basic salaries leap 10% last year, despite the onset of the worst global recession in decades, in which their companies lost almost a third of their value amid a record decline in the FTSE.
The Guardian’s annual survey of boardroom pay reveals that the full- and part-time directors of the FTSE 100, the premier league of British business, shared between them more than £1bn.
Bonus payouts were lower, but the basic salary hikes were more than three times the 3.1% average pay rise for ordinary workers in the private sector. The big rise in directors’ basic pay – more than double the rate of inflation last year – came as many of their companies were imposing pay freezes on staff and starting huge redundancy programmes to slash costs.” Read more Here.
China may move against new U.S. tariffs on tires with duties on chickens and car parts. Above, a chicken farm in Arkansas
HONG KONG — China unexpectedly increased pressure Sunday on the United States in a widening trade dispute, taking the first steps toward imposing tariffs on American exports of automotive products and chicken meat in retaliation for President Obama’s decision late Friday to levy tariffs on tires from China.
The Chinese government’s strong countermove followed a weekend of nationalistic vitriol against the United States on Chinese Web sites in response to the tire tariff. “The U.S. is shameless!” said one posting, while another called on the Chinese government to sell all of its huge holdings of Treasury bonds.
The impact of the dispute extends well beyond tires, chickens and cars. Both governments are facing domestic pressure to take a tougher stand against the other on economic issues. But the trade battle increases political tensions between the two nations even as they try to work together to revive the global economy and combat mutual security threats, like the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea.
Mr. Obama’s decision to impose a tariff of up to 35 percent on Chinese tires is a signal that he plans to deliver on his promise to labor unions that he would more strictly enforce trade laws, especially against China, which has become the world’s factory while the United States has lost millions of manufacturing jobs. The trade deficit with China was a record $268 billion in 2008.
China had initially issued a fairly formulaic criticism of the tire dispute Saturday. But rising nationalism in China is making it harder for Chinese officials to gloss over American criticism.
“All kinds of policymaking, not just trade policy, is increasingly reactive to Internet opinion,” said Victor Shih, a Northwestern University specialist in economic policy formulation.
A woman passed by a tire store in Beijing, China
Eswar Prasad, a former China division chief at the International Monetary Fund, said that rising trade tensions between the United States and China could become hard to control. They could cloud the Group of 20 meeting of leaders of industrialized and fast-growing emerging nations in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24 and 25, and perhaps affect Mr. Obama’s visit to Beijing in November.
“This spat about tires and chickens could turn ugly very quickly,” Mr. Prasad said.
China exported $1.3 billion in tires to the United States in the first seven months of this year, while the United States shipped about $800 million in automotive products and $376 million in chicken meat to China, according to data from Global Trade Information Services in Columbia, S.C.
For many years, American politicians have been able to take credit domestically for standing up to China by taking largely symbolic measures against Chinese exports in narrowly defined categories. In the last five years, the Commerce Department has restricted Chinese imports of goods as diverse as bras and oil well equipment.
For the most part, Chinese officials have grumbled but done little, preferring to preserve a trade relationship in which the United States buys $4.46 worth of Chinese goods for every $1 worth of American goods sold to China.
Now, the delicate equilibrium is being disturbed.
China’s commerce ministry announced Sunday that it would investigate “certain imported automotive products and certain imported chicken meat products originating from the United States” to determine if they were being subsidized or “dumped” below cost in the Chinese market. A finding of subsidies or dumping would allow China to impose tariffs on these imports.
The ministry did not mention the tire dispute in its announcement, portraying the investigations as “based on the laws of our country and on World Trade Organization rules”.
But the timing of the announcement — on a weekend and just after the tire decision in Washington — sent an unmistakable message of retaliation. The official Xinhua news agency Web site prominently linked its reports on the tire dispute and the Chinese investigations.
The commerce ministry statement, posted on its Web site, also hinted obliquely at the harm that a trade war could do while Western nations and Japan struggle to emerge from a severe economic downturn. “China is willing to continue efforts with various countries to make sure that the world economy recovers as quickly as possible,” the statement said.
The Chinese government sometimes organizes blog postings to defend its own policies. But some postings on the tire decision have been implicitly critical of the Chinese government, making it unlikely that they are part of an orchestrated effort.
“Why did our government purchase so much U.S. government debt?” said one posting signed by a “Group of Angry Youths.” The item continued, “We should get rid of all such U.S. investments”.
China has accumulated $2 trillion in foreign reserves, mostly in Treasury bonds and other dollar-denominated assets, and held down the value of its currency, which has kept Chinese goods quite inexpensive in foreign markets. China’s exports have soared — China surpassed Germany in the first half of this year as the world’s largest exporter — while China’s imports have lagged, except for commodities like iron ore and oil that China lacks.
Worries that China might sell Treasury bonds — or even slow down its purchases of them — have been a concern for the Bush and Obama administrations as they have tried to figure out how to address China’s trade and currency policies.
At the same time, the Chinese economy relies heavily on exports to the United States, while the American economy is much less dependent on exports in the other direction. Exports to the United States, at 6 percent of China’s entire economic output, account for 13 times as large a share of the Chinese economy as exports to China represent for the United States economy.
Carol J. Guthrie, a spokeswoman for the Office of the United States trade representative, said that the United States wanted to avoid disputes with China and continue talks, but would look at any Chinese trade decisions for whether they comply with W.T.O. rules.
Products involved in trade disputes between the United States and China together make up only a minuscule sliver of the two countries’ trade relationship.
The bigger risk for China, economists and corporate executives have periodically warned, is that trade frictions could cause multinationals to rethink their heavy reliance on Chinese factories in their supply chains. The Chinese targeting of autos and chickens affects two industries that may have the political muscle in the United States to dissuade the Obama administration from aggressively challenging China’s policies.
General Motors sees much of its growth coming from its China subsidiary, the second-largest auto company in China after Volkswagen. And the farm lobby in the United States has long pressed for maximum access to a market of 1.3 billion mouths.
But spotlighting automotive trade may be risky for China. G.M. and Ford both rely mostly on local production to supply the Chinese market, while China is rapidly increasing auto parts shipments to the United States.
Dr. Jim Yong Kim is a physician and anthropologist who has combined the skills of both to become one of the most acclaimed visionaries in the field of global health. “The world’s troubles are your troubles,” that’s what he urged the recent graduating class of young doctors always to remember. That imperative has been the inspiration for his own work.
His conversation with Bill Moyers is worth listening to. It goes way above the political fray we have been subjected to this last few months.
Another conversation worth watching is Denis Cortese, President and CEO of Mayo Clinic explaining to Charlie Rose a few weeks ago what we should be paying attention to in the health care debate.
Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises (1881 – 1973) said:”There is no means of avoiding a final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.”
Under Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and successive US Treasury Secretaries, America chose the latter path and now faces the consequences of their reckless, criminal behavior.
In early 2009, economist Michael Hudson said:
The (US) economy has reached its debt limit and is entering its insolvency phase. We are not in a cycle but (at) the end of an era. The old world of debt pyramiding to a fraudulent degree cannot be restored,” only delayed to postpone a painful day of reckoning.
Economist Hyman Minsky (1919 – 1996) described a “Ponzi finance” system during prolonged expansions and economic booms. Speculative excesses create bubbles, triggering structural instability, then asset valuation collapse that turns euphoria to revulsion and market crashes.
On December 29, 2008, the Wall Street Journal online headlined: “As if Things Weren’t Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of US,” then continued:
“For a decade, Russian academic (and former KGB analyst) Igor Panarin has been predicting the US will fall apart in 2010″ to include an “economic and moral collapse, a civil war, and the eventual breakup of the country.” For years, no one took him seriously, but no longer. He’s invited to Kremlin receptions, gets interviewed twice a day, publishes books, is a frequent lecturer, and appears regularly in the media as an expert on US – Russia relations as well as the great interest in his predictions and new book titled, “The Crash of America.”
On March 25, 2009, RussiaToday.com headlined: “Is there anything Obama can do about the US Collapse?” No, according to Panarin, for these reasons:
– “the moral and psychological factor and the stress of the American population;”
– America’s deepening financial and economic crisis; and
– “the increase of anti-Americanism in the world,” the result of continued US belligerency.
Panarin sees America collapsing into six areas of foreign influence and perhaps disintegrating as a nation:
– depressed northern states close to Canada “in their mentality and economic development;”
– the Southwest “fuel and energy complex, the oil sector” close to Mexico;
– California and the Pacific Northwest falling under Chinese influence;
– the Northeast and Middle Atlantic regions under the EU;
– Alaska may be returned to Russia; and
– Hawaii may become a Japanese or Chinese protectorate.
Panarin sees 2010 as America’s tipping point and says no miracle rescues can save it. In addition, he cites French political scientist Emmanuel Todd’s 1976 prediction of the Soviet Union’s dissolution that got him laughed at and scorned at the time but proved right.
Todd now predicts a similar fate for the US in his 2002 book, “After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order.” He cites:
– unilateral militarism shows weakness, not strength;
– America is parasitic, relying on voluntary or extracted “tributes” from vassal states;
– global terrorism is a myth;
– many nations, including EU states, China and Russia, are beginning to resist US adventurism;
– terminal corruption and decay;
– economic weakness and decline;
– producing little, America’s “specialty is consumption (so) relies on foreign imports” to satisfy it;
– a declining middle class and growing poverty will curtail spending sharply;
– if capital inflows cease, the dollar will crash:
– a coming collapse of the stock market, financial institutions and the dollar;
– a ballooning trade deficit and shrinking manufacturing base;
– a predatory ruling class plundering the world with impunity, yet out of touch with its own people growing poorer, more desperate and angrier;
– America’s abandonment of universalism and egalitarianism;
– excess consumption trapping people in an ocean of debt and lowering their living standards;
– “the rest of the world….is on the verge of discovering that it can get along without America; America is realizing that it cannot get along without the rest of the world;”
– an emerging Eurasia will end US supremacy, then isolate and curtail its dominance; and
– “If America continues to endeavor to show its power, it will simply reveal (to) the world its impotence.”
For his part, Panarin compares America to the Titanic after hitting an iceberg when it was unclear whether the crew would try to save the ship or more importantly its passengers. Unfortunately, under Bush and Obama, they’re trying to save themselves at the expense of the ship and passengers.
After disintegration, Panarin sees three dominant influence areas emerging – the EU, Russia and China. After 11 years of monitoring US policies, he believes his prediction is largely confirmed and states the following:
America’s FY 2009 “budget deficit is 4.5 times the 2008 deficit, while firearms sales are up 40%. On October 1, the coupons that were given state workers are to be cashed out. When (they) realize that they are getting nothing for (them), they will take out their firearms and chaos will unfold.”
Further, on September 30, 2009, results will be published that are “destined to shock investors worldwide. After that, and (Japan and China’s) snubbing of the dollar….which will transfer 50% of (their) international operations to Yuan starting in 2010, the currency will then flow like a landslide out of style.” Already nations like China, Russia, Brazil, Argentina and others are trading in their own currencies or will do so shortly.
In Panarin’s view, “the probability of the US ceasing to exist (in its present form) by June 2010 exceeds 50%. At this point, the mission of all major international powers is to prevent chaos” because what hurts America also harms them.
A Multiple-Dip Depression
Economist John Williams publishes the shadowstats.com electronic newsletter with updated sample data on his site. He calls government figures corrupted and unreliable because manipulative changes rigged them for political and market purposes. To correct them, he reverse-engineers GDP, employment, inflation, and other key data for greater reliability to subscribers.
On August 1, Williams called the “Current Economic Downturn (the) Worst Since (the) Great Depression.” It began a year earlier than reported, triggered a systemic solvency crisis, and the effects of “a multiple-dip depression (are) far from over.”
The July 31, 2009 national income accounts “confirmed that the US economy is in its worst economic contraction since the first downleg of the Great Depression, which was a double-dip” one like today’s.
Intermittent upturns are common, like from spiked auto sales from the cash-for-clunkers program that borrowed future purchases for today’s. “Yet, this downturn will continue to deteriorate, proving to be extremely protracted, extremely deep and particularly nonresponsive to traditional stimuli.”
The economy suffers from deep structural problems related to household income. Consumers are over-indebted, can’t borrow, and Washington’s policies aren’t helping them. Continued economic decline will follow. “The current depression is the second dip in a multiple-dip downturn that started in 1999 (and triggered) the systemic solvency crisis” that was visible by August 2007 but started in late 2006.
The worst lies ahead, the result of the “government’s long-range insolvency and (dollar debasing that risks) hyperinflation during the next five years,” and perhaps sooner in 2010. It will cause “a great depression of a magnitude never before seen in” America, disrupting all business and commerce and reverberating globally.
Williams defines deflation as a decrease in goods and services prices, generally from a money supply contraction. Inflation is the reverse. Hyperinflation debases the currency to near worthlessness. Officially, two or more consecutive declining quarters means recession, but better measures are protracted weakened production, employment, retail sales, construction, capital investment, and demand for durable goods among other factors.
A depression occurs when inflation-adjusted peak-to-trough contraction exceeds 10%, and a great depression when it’s 25% or worse.
Today’s economic downturn preceded the systemic solvency crisis after key data “hit cycle highs and began to weaken in late-2005 for housing and durable goods orders….early-2006 for nonfarm payrolls, (and) late-2006 for retail sales and industrial production, patterns more consistent with a late-2006″ real recession onset. Gross Domestic Income (GDI) data confirms this analysis.
Its real growth peaked in Q 1 2006, and revised GDI data contracted in seven of the last nine quarters. “Revised GDP shows the sharpest annual decline in the history of the quarterly GDP series,” suggesting a much deeper and protracted downturn than previously reported.
July 2009 marked the 19th consecutive month of contraction, “the longest downturn since the first downleg of the Great Depression.” More recent GDP declines of 3.3% and 3.9% in Q 1 and Q 2 2009, “are the worst showings in the history of the quarterly GDP series” dating back to 1947-48. In 1946, a greater contraction occurred because of post-war production cutbacks, but it was short-term.
Today’s most reliable economic indicators show the downturn is deepening, not abating as deceptive media accounts report. “The SGS (Shadow Government Statistics) alternative measure of GDP suggests (a) 5.9% contraction….versus the official year-to-year” 3.9% figure.
The official estimated annualized Q 2 2009 decline was 1% compared to SGS’s figure “in excess of five-percent.” Its alternative data show “deeper and more protracted recessions” than officially reported, suggesting a deepening crisis ahead.
The CBO’s Grim Forecast
Even the conservative Congressional Budget Office sees a weaker economy ahead, contrary to most consensus views of a sustainable upturn. Its latest projections are as follows:
– 2010 U-3 unemployment at 10.2%, edging down to 8% by 2011 and 4.8% by 2014;
– in 2010, 12 million will be underemployed;
– for the next five years, economic weakness and lower demand will pressure workers with unemployment or underemployment;
– part-time work only will be available for millions wanting full-time jobs;
– low consumption will persist through 2014;
– unemployment benefits will be exhausted;
– households will be pressured to make mortgage payments, pay for health care, meet other obligations, and provide for their families at a time state and city budget crises force deep cuts in vital social services, not made up for by the federal government;
– tax revenues are down 17%, the sharpest decline since 1932;
– $600 billion in investment losses will result plus another $5.9 trillion in lost output through 2014; and
– the federal deficit will nearly double over the next 10 years to about $20 trillion.
In sum, CBO projects a more severe protracted downturn than it earlier forecast in January.
Troubled Times Ahead
On July 14, Egon von Greyerz, Founder and Managing Partner of Zurich-based Matterhorn Asset Management AG, specializing in precious metals and other investments, said “The Dark Years Are Here” and explained why.
Because of “the devastating effects of credit bubbles, government money printing (and) disastrous actions that governments are taking, (upcoming) tumultuous events will be life changing for most people in the world.” They’ll begin by year end, last for two to three years, then be followed by extended economic, political, and social upheaval, perhaps continuing for two decades.
Greyerz cites three main concerns:
– exploding unemployment and government deficits;
– trillions of unreported bank losses and worthless derivatives; and
– rising inflation, high interest rates, collapsed Treasury bond (and UK gilt) valuations resulting in more money creation, worthless paper, and a “perfect vicious circle (leading to) a hyperinflationary depression followed by the collapse of the dollar and British pound.
America is hemorrhaging financially and economically. Other countries now realize they hold “worthless” US dollars. Reckless money creation achieved short-term hope, benefitted Wall Street alone short-term, elevated world stock markets, and led some to believe the crisis was over when, in fact, it’s worsening.
Aside from expected short-lived upturns, “every single sector of the real economy is deteriorating whether it is production, unemployment, corporate profits, real estate, credit defaults, construction, federal deficits, local government and state deficits etc.”
In response, the Fed keeps printing money and destroying its value. “This is total lunacy! How can any intelligent person believe that printed pieces of paper can solve an economic catastrophe?”
We’re in “the first phase of this tragic saga.” Likely by year end, a second more serious one will start. Real unemployment now tops 20%. It hit 25% in the Great Depression with 35% of the nonfarm population out of work and desperate.
“It is our firm opinion that (US) non-farm unemployment levels will reach 35% at least….in the next few years” with all uncounted categories included.
Growing millions with no jobs, incomes, savings, or safety net protections will create “a disaster of unimaginable consequences that will affect the whole fabric of American society” to a degree far greater than in the Great Depression.
Growing unemployment now plagues Western and Eastern Europe as well, and by 2010 will more greatly affect most parts of the world, “including China, Asia and Africa. Never before has there been a global unemployment crisis affecting the world simultaneously.” Ahead expect sharp drops in consumption and global trade leading to depression, poverty, “famine and social unrest.”
Already, conditions are worse than in the 1930s, but the worst is yet to come. Expect:
– an extremely severe global depression in most countries with grave economic, political, and social consequences;
– social safety net protections will end;
– private and state pensions will likely collapse; and
– unemployment, poverty, homelessness, hunger, and famine will cause a protracted period of economic, political, social, and institutional upheaval.
If von Greyerz, Panarin, Todd, and others with similar views are right, a deepening, protracted, unprecedented global catastrophe approaches that “will be life changing for most people in the world.”
By Stephen Lendman http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached in Chicago at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national topics. All programs are archived for easy listening.
Did you ever have one of those days where you just didn’t want to get out of bed?
I did not want to get out of bed Wednesday, not due to laziness, but because I woke up exhausted. I’ve been burning the candle at both ends (I hate clichés) with working two jobs and trying to secure a third job. Granted, getting a third job really isn’t difficult (despite what the talking heads are saying)–however, I need a third job that a) won’t interfere with my other two jobs and b) does not involve grading papers. These criteria, in addition to the requirements of sleep, make it a bit more challenging. Add to the mix all the relationship/emotional crap (which I am not giving specifics), catching my little ducks so I can put all my little ducks in a row, and keeping “house” and it is no wonder I’m exhausted. Hell, I’m exhausted just thinking and writing about all this.
Back to Wednesday–at the insistence of the cats, who do not think exhaustion is a viable excuse for not getting up and dispensing treats, I manage to drag myself out of bed, dress, and head to the park. It is a good thing I’m such a creature of habit (my god what is up with me and the clichés today?!?) as it means I can operate on autopilot if need be and also that I always get my gym bag and laptop bag ready the night before, otherwise I might not have made it out the door.
As I sipped my hot Bengal Spice tea (side note: I’m down to one box. Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice is my favorite tea and damn if I can’t find it easily. Last time I found some at Super Target and I bought the last four boxes) and drove, I was sure I’d “wake up” but instead I kept nodding off at wheel. This is not good, people. Not only could this cause a serious auto accident, but (provided I didn’t die in a fiery crash on the highway) I still had to get through the rest of the day. I tell my students if anyone sleeps in class 1) the sleeper will automatically be marked as absent and 2) I will offer extra credit to anyone in the class who throws something at the sleeper. As I’m such a hard-ass on the whole sleeping in class, it would set a bad example if I nodded off during my own lecture.
I did make it to the park (obviously as I’m writing this post) but I didn’t get out of my car right away. Instead, using the timer on my watch, I put the seat back and dozed for five minutes–when the timer went off, I reset it and dozed for another five minutes. I figure this was just practice in case I end up having to live in my car. I resisted the urge to go for another five minutes and got out of the car.
The run itself was fairly uneventful, but I did have to opportunity to reflect on some of my pet peeves that pertain to running in the park. I have a list:
1. Men: please refrain from dousing yourselves with aftershave or cologne prior to your walk/run/workout. Honestly, the whole sweat and Old Spice/Aqua Velva/Brut combination is not appealing.
2. Women: please see number one. Seriously, I know this is the Deep South and the mythic women of the South supposedly do not “sweat”–let me tell you this is a lie. Regardless of which side of the Mason Dixon line we are from, we sweat. Covering this up with Gardenia, Vanilla Musk, or even with more expensive perfumes does not mask the fact.
3. Walkers: if you hear a runner coming up from behind (even if it is a slow runner) please do not try to speed up your pace. What is the point? You’re not running, so why is it a big deal if I pass you? I will pass you eventually, even if you speed up. I’m not a math whiz, but if you are walking at a 3 mph pace and I’m running at a 4 or 5 mph pace, I’m going to pass you. I’m not trying to piss you off or show you up, honestly.
4. Group walkers: the paths are not real wide. If you are walking two or three people abreast, have the common decency to move out of the freaking way when you see me huffing and puffing towards you or if you hear a breathless “EXCUSE ME” from behind.
5. Litterbugs: there are literally trash bins about 20 yards apart all over the park. Yes, I know park maintenance will eventually pick it up. Yes, I know this is their job and our tax dollars pay them to maintain the park. However, it will not kill you to walk the extra five yards to put your empty Hardee’s bag in the trash.
6. Litterbugs with babies: what makes you think that a) changing a diaper in the park is acceptable and b) leaving the dirty diaper on the ground is acceptable. Either take the kid to the bathroom, change said kid in there and throw the diaper in the trash OR change the kid in your car/truck/SUV/mini-van and take the dirty diaper HOME with you and throw it away there.
7. Litterbugs with small children: see number 5. You are setting a bad precedent by allowing your “cherub” to throw his/her juice box on the ground. I hope one of those American geese pinches both you and your offspring until you bleed.
I could go on, but I have a life to which I need to attend.
