1/ The US has 3% of the worlds population but 25% of global consumption, due to our high living standards across a broad level of our middle class. Unfortunately both China and India [and Brazil etc] also have a rapidly expanding middle class clamoring for the kind of living standards we enjoy here in the US. And due to our profligate borrowing to finance our debts they also have a lot of our money, and with that comes clout.
Crunch time. As Paul Krugman explains in this article the world has finite resources, so due to the demand from these developing countries the prices for a broad range of commodities, from oil to food, are going to go up......and the standards of our middle class will go down unless we export more and import less.....
What the commodity markets are telling us is that we’re living in a finite world, in which the rapid growth of emerging economies is placing pressure on limited supplies of raw materials, pushing up their prices. And America is, for the most part, just a bystander in this story.
Inconsistency aside, however, the big problem with those blaming the Fed for rising commodity prices is that they’re suffering from delusions of U.S. economic grandeur. For commodity prices are set globally, and what America does just isn’t that important a factor.
In particular, today, as in 2007-2008, the primary driving force behind rising commodity prices isn’t demand from the United States. It’s demand from China and other emerging economies. As more and more people in formerly poor nations are entering the global middle class, they’re beginning to drive cars and eat meat, placing growing pressure on world oil and food supplies.
And those supplies aren’t keeping pace. Conventional oil production has been flat for four years; in that sense, at least, peak oil has arrived. True, alternative sources, like oil from Canada’s tar sands, have continued to grow. But these alternative sources come at relatively high cost, both monetary and environmental.
Also, over the past year, extreme weather — especially severe heat and drought in some important agricultural regions — played an important role in driving up food prices. And, yes, there’s every reason to believe that climate change is making such weather episodes more common.
2/ Bundle up - It's Global Warming
How do we rationalise the fact that the earth is heating up with the record cold and snow over a large part of the Northern Hemisphere.....if you want to know, read this article. If you don't, keep watching Fox News.
The arctic air patterns have changed, producing more snow in Siberia.....although it doesn't say so I think this winter pattern might be the near future for our weather.....boy I hope not.....
The snow and record cold have invaded the Eastern United States, with more bad weather predicted.
All of this cold was met with perfect comic timing by the release of a World Meteorological Organization report showing that 2010 will probably be among the three warmest years on record, and 2001 through 2010 the warmest decade on record.
How can we reconcile this? The not-so-obvious short answer is that the overall warming of the atmosphere is actually creating cold-weather extremes. Last winter, too, was exceptionally snowy and cold across the Eastern United States and Eurasia, as were seven of the previous nine winters.
For a more detailed explanation, we must turn our attention to the snow in Siberia.
Annual cycles like El Niño/Southern Oscillation, solar variability and global ocean currents cannot account for recent winter cooling. And though it is well documented that the earth’s frozen areas are in retreat, evidence of thinning Arctic sea ice does not explain why the world’s major cities are having colder winters.
3/ The US military budget
Excellent article by Nicolas Kristof on the sacred cow of both the Democrats and the Republicans when it comes to the budget.....military spending. Why do we need 11 aircraft carrier groups for the Navy? Why do we need advanced fighters? Does Al-Queda have a Navy? Are we frightened of the North Korean Air Force?
The answer is obvious. There is no politician strong enough to take on the military-industrial complex....they own the Pentagon, and all of our politicians. All of them.
With the cuts that are coming because this country is borrowing money we don't earn from the Chinese, the bloated military will be sucking up your Social Security, Medicare and every other benefit the middle class is relying on for retirement....
It’s the military/security world, and it’s time to bust that taboo. A few facts:
• The United States spends nearly as much on military power as every other country in the world combined, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. It says that we spend more than six times as muchas the country with the next highest budget, China.
• The United States maintains troops at more than 560 bases and other sites abroad, many of them a legacy of a world war that ended 65 years ago. Do we fear that if we pull our bases from Germany, Russia might invade?
• The intelligence community is so vast that more people have “top secret” clearance than live in Washington, D.C.
• The U.S. will spend more on the war in Afghanistan this year, adjusting for inflation, than we spent on the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War combined.
4/ Scary stuff about a school shooter who had a troubled past and multiple previous incidents of shooting students and teachers.....could he have been helped?....from Onion News.....
5/ "The Looming Crisis in the States"
Serious issues folks - just about every state has a large budget shortfall [Florida's is about $3.5 billion] with no way to pay for it except to slash whatever is left of social programs, because the we certainly wouldn't close any tax loopholes for big political donors, would we......
It just gets worse and worse....
The most immediate cause of the states’ problems is the decline in tax revenue caused by the downturn, just as the demand for services has increased.
Over the last two years, combined sales, personal and corporate taxes have fallen by more than 10 percent. Although revenue is likely to tick up slightly in 2011, federal stimulus money — which has been keeping many states afloat — is largely scheduled to expire. Renewing a portion of that aid would be one of the most effective ways to assist the economy.
Many conservatives have said the revenue decline is a good incentive for states to cut their spending. That is precisely what almost all states have done, because they are legally barred from running deficits. State spending fell by 3.8 percent in the 2009 fiscal year and 7.3 percent more in the 2010 fiscal year, the only significant declines since at least the 1970s, even as the cost of education and health care rose.
School aid, Medicaid, transportation, employee salaries, social services, courts — whatever there was to cut, states have slashed it, often at ruinous costs to the most vulnerable: the poor, the sick and disabled, students, tens of thousands of laid-off workers.
But cutting spending will not affect the heaviest burden: the accumulated debt that comes from passing off the biggest problems to future generations. States and cities have nearly $3 trillion in outstanding bonds, and more than $3.5 trillion in shortfalls to pensions. Promised health benefits alone are more than $500 billion.
6/ Fascinating video about an unknown golfer - Moe Norman, who could have been a household name.....but of course wasn't.....interesting even if you don't play golf.......great commentator.....
7/ The Gulf oil spill.
Both BP and the government have been desperately hoping this story would die, but new evidence says there is a layer of oil on the ocean bed covering possibly thousands of square miles.....the scientists can't say what the damage is precisely but you know it isn't good for the ocean.
Scientists who have been on research cruises in the Gulf in recent days report finding layers of residue up to several centimeters thick from what they suspect is BP oil.
The material appears in spots across several thousand square miles of seafloor, they said. In many of those spots, they said, worms and other marine life that crawl along the sediment appear dead, though many organisms that can swim appear healthy.
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Tests now have started to link some oil in the sediment to the BP well could add to the amount of money BP ends up paying to compensate for the spill's damage.
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The test results also raise questions about the possible downsides of the government's use of chemical dispersants to fight the spill.
The material appears in spots across several thousand square miles of seafloor, they said. In many of those spots, they said, worms and other marine life that crawl along the sediment appear dead, though many organisms that can swim appear healthy.
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Tests now have started to link some oil in the sediment to the BP well could add to the amount of money BP ends up paying to compensate for the spill's damage.
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The test results also raise questions about the possible downsides of the government's use of chemical dispersants to fight the spill.
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8/ Music - Joy Formidable with "I don't want to see you like this".
A variant on a power trio like Rush, lead and bass guitars with a killer drummer, the twist being the lead singer/ lead guitarist is female......cool......watch it at 720......
9/ Travel - If you're not frightened of your own shadow Mexico is a really good deal right now....yes you should avoid some areas but if you are smart you can have a great vacation at a decent price.......the Yucutan is lovely, just avoid Cozumel at all costs because of the cruise ship crowding.....
The latest travel warning, issued by the State Department in September, urged American citizens to defer unnecessary travel specifically to Michoacán and areas along the northern border, including Tamaulipas, and parts of Chihuahua, Durango and Coahuila, where tourists generally don’t go. Yet, ever cautious, it stated, “violence has occurred throughout the country, including in areas frequented by American tourists.” Visitors were encouraged to stay on main roads in daylight hours and to remain in well-known tourist areas.
All of this has made travel to Mexico a hard sell lately, but travel agents say the negative publicity has also made Mexico among the best values out there as resorts lower rates or add free incentives to entice travelers. When asked where agents are recommending travelers go to get the most for their dollar this year, 70 percent said Mexico, according to Travel Leaders, a major network of agents.
10/ Ah Florida......we're toast......
Our water - we let bottlers like Niagara pump millions of gallons from the aquifer for nothing, bottle our water and ship it around the country. No tax. But the biggest loophole is all bottled water they sell in Florida is [sales] tax free. No tax.
We have a huge budget deficit, so this is a no-brainer you would think....but not with the corrupt scum who run this state.....
Faced with at least a $3.5 billion budget shortfall, maybe Florida's legislators will finally be pushed into closing one of the biggest sales-tax loopholes around.
While the state's sales tax is applied to purchases of soft drinks and other beverages, lobbyists for the bottled-water industry have managed to exclude their product from the 6 percent tax.
It's truly amazing: The bottlers draw their water from beneath Florida, and pay almost nothing for it.
Then they ship it around the United States.
Meanwhile, while every other bottler pays sales tax to help offset the costs of maintaining landfills for the millions of bottles that stay here, the bottled-water industry escapes taxes on its product.
The exemption is a loophole big enough to let $43 million in taxes slip through each year
Your homeowners insurance
Insurance companies are about to raise rates across the board even though we haven't had a hurricane for five years....the swear they're losing money, and our crack team of corrupt regulators let them raise rates again. The way it works is the companies set up subsidiaries for all of their services - the parent company makes little money or makes a loss, because it buys from the subsidiaries at inflated prices. Any decent accountant can make this work, and they have some good ones. And lobbyists. .....
So suck it up people and assume the position......you are going to pay more.....
State regulators have approved $718 million in rate increases -- despite five years of no hurricanes. They will widen an already $20 billion gap between what Florida consumers this decade paid for protection and what insurers returned by way of claims checks.
Florida insurers continue to claim they are losing money -- the top 20 carriers reported losing $111 million the first half of the year after big payments to reinsurers for hurricane protection -- but the Herald-Tribune found those figures also hide profits.
Payments to affiliated companies continue to tack on hundreds of dollars to the individual bills of homeowners, charges a consumer advocate says are inflated. Most Florida insurers need not publicly report those profits, but two that do posted earnings of $32 million despite telling state regulators their insurance operations lost $16 million and required double-digit rate hikes.
Governor Rick is famous - a profile in Time magazine.....not as flattering as he would have liked but who cares.....he's the Gov. now. Open for business.
As long as you're not poor, sick, disabled, in a public school or on unemployment in which case his advice would be move to Georgia.....
Still, those Republicans — whose state party is embroiled in an embarrassing finance scandal of its own — know that Floridians expect them to help Scott make good on his "7-step" pledge to create 700,000 new jobs in seven years (even though the gubernatorial term is only four years). They may wave off some of Scott's less viable ideas — this month he revived the push for a school voucher-like plan for all of Florida's 2.6 million schoolchildren, even though Florida's Supreme Court in 2006 ruled the scheme a violation of the state constitution's public education provisions. But they'll have to be engaged for a change in efforts to shake Florida out of its complacently low-tech, low-wage economic model, which depends inordinately on beaches and oranges.
11/ The Chevy Volt - we've heard a lot about this car from GM, so here is the first review of the "all-electric" car you can buy [after subsidies] for about $34,000. Of course it isn't all electric, but you could say it's better than that because it's backup gas engine gives it much more range. Anyway the reviewer likes it......
All told, the Volt was weighed down with so much political and social baggage that I was surprised it could pull away from the curb.
So for me, it felt great to finally jump into the Chevy, ditch the debates and just drive. And you know what? G.M. has nailed it, creating a hatchback that feels peppy and mainstream yet can sip less fuel than any gas- or diesel-powered car sold in America.
The Volt leaves you grinning with its driving-the-future vibe. Yet the car operates so seamlessly that owners need not think about the planetary gear sets, the liquid-cooled electrons and all that digital magic taking place below.
Just don’t forget to unplug it when you back out of the garage.
Interesting car-related story from The Haggler with a tale of an auto dealer blatantly cheating a customer, and even with the NY Times behind the car buyer the dealer still said "toughki".......
Our tale this time comes from a hotel clerk and recent immigrant from India named George Karikulathileliyas — henceforth known as Mr. K. The question below is based on his e-mail and several follow-up conversations with the Haggler.
Q. I bought a Nissan Murano from Star Nissan in Queens last year. I thought the price was $35,985, because that’s what it said on the sales agreement I signed that evening.
But when I received my financing document from Chase, the price was $39,754. The difference — nearly $4,000 — is a mystery that I have spent more than a year trying to solve.
12/ Good TV - "Men of a Certain Age" on TNT.....a show for the ladies.....
“Men of a Certain Age,” TNT’s funny, elegant meditation on midlife, which resumed on Monday nights for a second season this month, was created by Ray Romano and Mike Royce (both of “Everybody Loves Raymond”), but it is easy to imagine that these are pseudonyms for two other people entirely — let’s call them Ramona and Michele.
The suspicion festers because the sensibility of the show is so genetically female, so catered to how women think men ought to live. Revolving around the relationship of three male friends with a long history, the series is warm, chatty, minutiae obsessed and almost hormonal in its swings from cool observational comedy to saturnine character examination. It is, in some sense, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” ratcheted down a few tax brackets and up a number of scales in emotional key. The result has proved to be a success.
Todays video - a classic , "The Dentist" from the Carol Burnett show, with Harvey Korman and Tim Conway.......
Todays naughty joke
A couple living in a small Minnesota town take on an 18-year-old girl as a lodger.
She asked if she could have a bath but the woman of the house told her they didn't have a bathroom as such but she could use a tin bath in front of the fire.
"Monday's the best night, when my husband goes out to bowl," the woman said. So the young girl agreed to have a bath the following Monday night.
After her husband had gone off for his bowling tournament, the woman filled the bath and watched as the girl got undressed.
She was surprised to see that the young lass didn't have any pubic hair and told her husband when he came home. He didn't believe her, so she said, "Next week, when you go off to bowl, I'll leave a little gap in the curtains so that you can see for
Yourself, alright?"
The following Monday night, while the girl got undressed for her bath, the wife asked her, "Do you shave down there?"
"No," replied the girl, "I've just never grown any hairs down there. Do you have hairs on yours?"
"Oh, yes," said the woman and she showed the girl her hairy muff.
After the girl had gone to bed the husband came home and the wife asked, "Did you see it?"
"Yes," he said, "but why the hell did you have to show her yours?"
"Why not?" she said, "You've seen it before.”
"I know," he replied, "but the bowling team hadn't!"
She asked if she could have a bath but the woman of the house told her they didn't have a bathroom as such but she could use a tin bath in front of the fire.
"Monday's the best night, when my husband goes out to bowl," the woman said. So the young girl agreed to have a bath the following Monday night.
After her husband had gone off for his bowling tournament, the woman filled the bath and watched as the girl got undressed.
She was surprised to see that the young lass didn't have any pubic hair and told her husband when he came home. He didn't believe her, so she said, "Next week, when you go off to bowl, I'll leave a little gap in the curtains so that you can see for
Yourself, alright?"
The following Monday night, while the girl got undressed for her bath, the wife asked her, "Do you shave down there?"
"No," replied the girl, "I've just never grown any hairs down there. Do you have hairs on yours?"
"Oh, yes," said the woman and she showed the girl her hairy muff.
After the girl had gone to bed the husband came home and the wife asked, "Did you see it?"
"Yes," he said, "but why the hell did you have to show her yours?"
"Why not?" she said, "You've seen it before.”
"I know," he replied, "but the bowling team hadn't!"
Todays senior joke
While on a road trip, an elderly couple stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch.
After finishing their meal, they left the restaurant, and resumed their trip. When leaving, the elderly woman unknowingly left her glasses on the table, and she didn't miss them until they had been driving for about forty minutes.
By then, to add to the aggravation, they had to travel quite a distance before they could find a safe place to turn around, in order to return to the restaurant to retrieve her glasses.
All the way back, the elderly husband became the classic grouchy old man. He fussed and complained, and scolded his wife relentlessly during the entire return drive. The more he chided her, the more agitated he became. He just wouldn't let up for a single minute.
To her relief, they finally arrived at the restaurant. As the woman got out of the car, and hurried inside to retrieve her glasses, the old geezer yelled to her, "While you're in there, you might as well get my hat and the credit card."
Coming up is National Senior Mental Health Week. You can do YOUR part by remembering to contact at least one unstable Senior that you know personally...to show you care.
At least, I've done MY part!!
After finishing their meal, they left the restaurant, and resumed their trip. When leaving, the elderly woman unknowingly left her glasses on the table, and she didn't miss them until they had been driving for about forty minutes.
By then, to add to the aggravation, they had to travel quite a distance before they could find a safe place to turn around, in order to return to the restaurant to retrieve her glasses.
All the way back, the elderly husband became the classic grouchy old man. He fussed and complained, and scolded his wife relentlessly during the entire return drive. The more he chided her, the more agitated he became. He just wouldn't let up for a single minute.
To her relief, they finally arrived at the restaurant. As the woman got out of the car, and hurried inside to retrieve her glasses, the old geezer yelled to her, "While you're in there, you might as well get my hat and the credit card."
Coming up is National Senior Mental Health Week. You can do YOUR part by remembering to contact at least one unstable Senior that you know personally...to show you care.
At least, I've done MY part!!
Todays blonde joke
A young, successful
"What does a person's physical attributes have to do with their worth as a human being?" she goes on to say...
"It's guys like you who keep women like me from being respected at work and in my community, of reaching my full potential as a person because you and your kind continue to perpetuate discrimination against not only blondes but women at large - all in the name of humor."
Flustered, the ventriloquist begins to apologize, when the blonde screams again, "You stay out of this mister, I'm talking to that little sh*t on your knee!"
"What does a person's physical attributes have to do with their worth as a human being?" she goes on to say...
"It's guys like you who keep women like me from being respected at work and in my community, of reaching my full potential as a person because you and your kind continue to perpetuate discrimination against not only blondes but women at large - all in the name of humor."
Flustered, the ventriloquist begins to apologize, when the blonde screams again, "You stay out of this mister, I'm talking to that little sh*t on your knee!"
