1/ To all of you DDDer's my apologies - I may have got a little pessimistic with the whole "debt limit deal" process and overreacted with the "gloom and doom" articles. Apparently everything is now hunky dory and I should stop being so negative....so enjoy the following story and get out there to the mall.....
Even Marked Up, Luxury Goods Fly Off Shelves
By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
Published: August 3, 2011
Nordstrom has a waiting list for a Chanel sequined tweed coat with a $9,010 price. Neiman Marcus has sold out in almost every size of Christian Louboutin “Bianca” platform pumps, at $775 a pair. Mercedes-Benz said it sold more carslast month in the United States than it had in any July in five years.
Tiffany’s first-quarter sales were up 20 percent to $761 million. Last week LVMH, which owns expensive brands like Louis Vuitton and Givenchy, reportedsales growth in the first half of 2011 of 13 percent to 10.3 billion euros, or $14.9 billion. Also last week, PPR, home to Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and other brands, said its luxury segment’s sales gained 23 percent in the first half. Profits are also up by double digits for many of these companies.
BMW this week said it more than doubled its quarterly profit from a year ago as sales rose 16.5 percent; Porsche said its first-half profit rose 59 percent; and Mercedes-Benz said July sales of its high-end S-Class sedans — some of which cost more than $200,000 — jumped nearly 14 percent in the United States.
The success luxury retailers are having in selling $250 Ermenegildo Zegna ties and $2,800 David Yurman pavé rings — the kind encircled with small precious stones — stands in stark contrast to the retailers who cater to more average Americans.
Apparel stores are holding near fire sales to get people to spend. Wal-Mart is selling smaller packages because some shoppers do not have enough cash on hand to afford multipacks of toilet paper. Retailers from Victoria’s Secret to the Children’s Place are nudging prices up by just pennies, worried they will lose customers if they do anything more.
While the free spending of the affluent may not be of much comfort to people who are out of jobs or out of cash, the rich may contribute disproportionately to the overall economic recovery.
“This group is key because the top 5 percent of income earners accounts for about one-third of spending, and the top 20 percent accounts for close to 60 percent of spending,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. “That was key to why we suffered such a bad recession — their spending fell very sharply.”
2/ Well maybe there are a few lingering issues, like an economy going into the toilet, a paralysed political system, no jobs, stock market in the tank etc etc.....
Paul Krugman tells us what is really happening, and it isn't good...........
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Wrong Worries
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 4, 2011
In case you had any doubts, Thursday’s more than 500-point plunge in the Dow Jones industrial average and the drop in interest rates to near-record lows confirmed it: The economy isn’t recovering, and Washington has been worrying about the wrong things.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Paul Krugman
Related
Times Topic: United States Economy
Related in Opinion
Editorial: Meanwhile, Back in the Economy (July 31, 2011)
Readers’ Comments
Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
It’s not just that the threat of a double-dip recession has become very real. It’s now impossible to deny the obvious, which is that we are not now and have never been on the road to recovery.
For two years, officials at the Federal Reserve, international organizations and, sad to say, within the Obama administration have insisted that the economy was on the mend. Every setback was attributed to temporary factors — It’s the Greeks! It’s the tsunami! — that would soon fade away. And the focus of policy turned from jobs and growth to the supposedly urgent issue of deficit reduction.
But the economy wasn’t on the mend.
Yes, officially the recession ended two years ago, and the economy did indeed pull out of a terrifying tailspin. But at no point has growth looked remotely adequate given the depth of the initial plunge. In particular, when employment falls as much as it did from 2007 to 2009, you need a lot of job growth to make up the lost ground. And that just hasn’t happened.
Consider one crucial measure, the ratio of employment to population. In June 2007, around 63 percent of adults were employed. In June 2009, the official end of the recession, that number was down to 59.4. As of June 2011, two years into the alleged recovery, the number was: 58.2.
These may sound like dry statistics, but they reflect a truly terrible reality. Not only are vast numbers of Americans unemployed or underemployed, for the first time since the Great Depression many American workers are facing the prospect of very-long-term — maybe permanent — unemployment. Among other things, the rise in long-term unemployment will reduce future government revenues, so we’re not even acting sensibly in purely fiscal terms. But, more important, it’s a human catastrophe.
And why should we be surprised at this catastrophe? Where was growth supposed to come from? Consumers, still burdened by the debt that they ran up during the housing bubble, aren’t ready to spend. Businesses see no reason to expand given the lack of consumer demand. And thanks to that deficit obsession, government, which could and should be supporting the economy in its time of need, has been pulling back.
Now it looks as if it’s all about to get even worse. So what’s the response?
To turn this disaster around, a lot of people are going to have to admit, to themselves at least, that they’ve been wrong and need to change their priorities, right away.
Of course, some players won’t change. Republicans won’t stop screaming about the deficit because they weren’t sincere in the first place: Their deficit hawkery was a club with which to beat their political opponents, nothing more — as became obvious whenever any rise in taxes on the rich was suggested. And they’re not going to give up that club.
But the policy disaster of the past two years wasn’t just the result of G.O.P. obstructionism, which wouldn’t have been so effective if the policy elite — including at least some senior figures in the Obama administration — hadn’t agreed that deficit reduction, not job creation, should be our main priority. Nor should we let Ben Bernanke and his colleagues off the hook: The Fed has by no means done all it could, partly because it was more concerned with hypothetical inflation than with real unemployment, partly because it let itself be intimidated by the Ron Paul types.
Well, it’s time for all that to stop. Those plunging interest rates and stock prices say that the markets aren’t worried about either U.S. solvency or inflation. They’re worried about U.S. lack of growth. And they’re right, even if on Wednesday the White House press secretary chose, inexplicably, to declare that there’s no threat of a double-dip recession.
Earlier this week, the word was that the Obama administration would “pivot” to jobs now that the debt ceiling has been raised. But what that pivot would mean, as far as I can tell, was proposing some minor measures that would be more symbolic than substantive. And, at this point, that kind of proposal would just make President Obama look ridiculous.
The point is that it’s now time — long past time — to get serious about the real crisis the economy faces. The Fed needs to stop making excuses, while the president needs to come up with real job-creation proposals. And if Republicans block those proposals, he needs to make a Harry Truman-style campaign against the do-nothing G.O.P.
This might or might not work. But we already know what isn’t working: the economic policy of the past two years — and the millions of Americans who should have jobs, but don’t.
3/ So what's the Tea Party's next target? They are furiously trying to undo every environmental protection we have......
The GOP's hidden debt-deal agenda: Gut the EPA
By BRYAN WALSH | Time.com – Tue, Aug 2, 2011
It was lost in the endless drama of the debt-ceiling negotiations, but last week, the Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives launched an unprecedented attack on the U.S.'s environmental protections. GOP Representatives added rider after rider to the 2012 spending bill for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department, tacking on amendments that would essentially prevent those agencies - charged with protecting America's air, water and wildlife - from doing their jobs.
Last week's riderfest wasn't unusual for the 112th U.S. Congress. Representatives Henry Waxman and Edward Markey - two senior Democrats with solid green credentials - recently charted all the votes taken so far this year and calculated that the Republican-led House has voted to "stop," "block" or "undermine" efforts to protect the environment 110 times since January. As Natural Resources Defense Council president Frances Beinecke wrote recently, this body of lawmakers stands an excellent chance of becoming "the most anti-environment House of Representatives" in U.S. history. (Read about the battle brewing over the EPA's emissions regulations.)
To which you might react: Well, duh. In recent years the Republican Party has defined itself as staunchly anti-EPA and generally anti–environmental protection. Whether that means opposing legislation to curb climate change or new rules to promote energy-efficient lightbulbs, if it can be considered green, then the majority of the GOP is almost always against it. That antigreen ideology has only been stiffened by the rise of the Tea Party, and Republican presidential candidates on the campaign trail are fighting to see who can come across as more hostile to environmental regulations.
4/ Look at the body language in this photo - think these guys aren't buddies? Two pols going through the motions springs to mind.....
5/ Long, fascinating and very informative article about the Murdoch empire in the US by Frank Rich [formerly of the Times] and he warns us again how nasty and ruthless the Fox corporate ethic is and how it has corrupted our lives....
A good read.....
Murdoch Hacked Us Too
The News Corp. scandal already exposed just how thoroughly the company had corrupted Britain. Now it’s time to look on this side of the pond.
6/ In case you've been in Tibet or Somalia or somewhere really backward like Texas and need to catch up with the weeks happenings, here's a 2 minute recap from Onion News......
7/ This story has been mentioned in a number of other segments, so here it is.....required reading for Democrats, I would think.....
OPINION
Why Voters Tune Out Democrats
Andrew Spear for The New York Times
Tea Party members in Indian Hill, Ohio, waiting at a protest last summer for the motorcade of Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the House.
By STANLEY B. GREENBERG
Published: July 30, 2011
Stanley B. Greenberg is the chief executive of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a polling company that works with center-left political parties in the United States and abroad.
Related
Times Topic: Federal Debt Ceiling
Related in Opinion
News Analysis: Jefferson’s Tea Party Moment (July 31, 2011)
Editorial: It’s Up to the Senate(July 30, 2011)
Room For Debate: Debt Lessons From Taft to Bush
Brian Stauffer
BARACK OBAMA can’t catch a break from the American public on the economy, even though he prevented a depression and saved global capitalism.
Perhaps the president finds solace in knowing he’s not alone. During this period of economic crisis and uncertainty, voters are generally turning to conservative and right-wing political parties, most notably in Europe and in Canada.
It’s perplexing. When unemployment is high, and the rich are getting richer, you would think that voters of average means would flock to progressives, who are supposed to have their interests in mind — and who historically have delivered for them.
During the last half-century or so, when a Democratic president has led the country, people have tended to experience lower unemployment, less inequality and rising income compared with periods of Republican governance. There is a reason, however, that many voters in the developed world are turning away from Democrats, Socialists, liberals and progressives.
My vantage point on voter behavior comes through my company, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, and its work for center-left parties globally, starting with Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992. For the last decade, I have worked in partnership with James Carville conducting monthly polls digging into America’s mood and studying how progressives can develop successful electoral strategies. (I am also married to a Democratic congresswoman from Connecticut, Rosa L. DeLauro.)
In analyzing these polls in the United States, I see clearly that voters feel ever more estranged from government — and that they associate Democrats with government. If Democrats are going to be encumbered by that link, they need to change voters’ feelings about government. They can recite their good plans as a mantra and raise their voices as if they had not been heard, but voters will not listen to them if government is disreputable.
Oddly, many voters prefer the policies of Democrats to the policies of Republicans. They just don’t trust the Democrats to carry out those promises
8/ An excellent Rachael Maddow segment on the economy and the 512 point drop in the Dow Jones index......she explains what happened, and Ezra Klein from Bloomberg explains why......
We're in trouble folks......
9/ An article summarising the recent disgusting Congressional circus, with a wonderful analogy of what just happened [below]......we got screwed again by Obama caving to the Tea Party.....
magine you helped prepare a great feast with 99 other people - one of them is morbidly obese, the rest are frail and anorexic. Now imagine the morbidly obese man lining up first, piling almost all the food onto his own plate, and leaving nothing but scraps for you and the rest of the dinner party. If he said you should eat less, would that justify his greed?Republicans in Congress just held their "No New Taxes" gun to the economy's head, and vowed to drive us into a second global recession unless Democrats and the White House paid the ransom. Even though the hostage was eventually returned, it was done so only after the basic needs of America's most vulnerable were cut to shreds. President Obama calls this a "compromise," but this was a deal where the Republicans got everything they wanted - trillions in spending cuts, and no new revenue.
10/ Interesting article about Holland and how they have integrated bicycles into most Dutch peoples daily lives.......and how it affects their behaviour in a positive way....
Having just spent a month in Toronto, where walking and bikes are a way of life I can really relate to this story, and Toronto also has a great Metro [similar to the London Tube] and really cool streetcars if you want to go downtown....
Life is much more local here....we haven't used our car to travel around Toronto yet.....
Love the title of the story......
OPINION
The Dutch Way: Bicycles and Fresh Bread
Robin Utrecht/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
In the Netherlands, respect for bicycles is hard-wired into the culture.
By RUSSELL SHORTO
Published: July 30, 2011
Russell Shorto is the author of “The Island at the Center of the World” and a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine. He is working on a book about Amsterdam.
Related
Across Europe, Irking Drivers Is Urban Policy (June 27, 2011)
Amsterdam
AS an American who has been living here for several years, I am struck, every time I go home, by the way American cities remain manacled to the car. While Europe is dealing with congestion and greenhouse gas buildup by turning urban centers into pedestrian zones and finding innovative ways to combine driving with public transportation, many American cities are carving out more parking spaces. It’s all the more bewildering because America’s collapsing infrastructure would seem to cry out for new solutions.
Geography partly explains the difference: America is spread out, while European cities predate the car. But Boston and Philadelphia have old centers too, while the peripheral sprawl in London and Barcelona mirrors that of American cities.
More important, I think, is mind-set. Take bicycles. The advent of bike lanes in some American cities may seem like a big step, but merely marking a strip of the road for recreational cycling spectacularly misses the point. In Amsterdam, nearly everyone cycles, and cars, bikes and trams coexist in a complex flow, with dedicated bicycle lanes, traffic lights and parking garages. But this is thanks to a different way of thinking about transportation.
11/ This video was nominated for MTV "Video With a Message" category - Pink with "Fxxxing Perfect"....it's definitely a girl video, so ladies tell me what the message is......
12/ A cruise line story - Robyn Blumner from the St. Petersburg Times just came back from an Alaska cruise on a ship with 1700 passengers [one of the smaller ships!] and although she enjoyed Alaska.....
"A magical trip to an unspoiled land was marred by the ship's persistent efforts to turn me into a walking credit card."
Unfortunately it's true, and I will confess I had a hand in what she is talking about, as my job in the cruise industry was to manage onboard revenue and get passengers to do exactly what she says in this column. However it wasn't as bad as she writes about when I left three years ago, but there's been enormous pressure on onboard revenue because middle America, as you all know, is hurting, and onboard revenues are down....so the ships hustle....and hustle.....and what wasn't acceptable three years ago is probably the new normal....
She also doesn't mention the major problem with cruising even in Alaska, which is the horrible port experience. There's nothing worse than being in St. Thomas or Grand Cayman with 6 or 7 giant ships in port.....and cruise lines are having problems filling their ships in the crowded itineraries, as once you've been into these destinations you never want to go again....
Take a European cruise folks.....big cities can absorb a lot of tourists.....
I have just returned from an Alaskan cruise that reached as far north as the Hubbard Glacier. My husband and I joined about 1,700 fellow passengers on a cruise out of Vancouver, Canada, for a week of communing with the wonders of the natural world while stuck on a giant floating mall.
This is how I discovered that in addition to the exceptional beauty of America's 49th state, cruise ship life is not for me. A magical trip to an unspoiled land was marred by the ship's persistent efforts to turn me into a walking credit card. As you embark, the slow-moving security line is made even slower by the herding of passengers in front of a fake glacial backdrop for a picture — that could be purchased later.
13/ Five minutes of some amazing stunts, athletic feats and just plain crazy stuff.....I was exhausted watching it.....we have also seen some of the outtakes from these where it goes wrong...not so funny....
But these are all successful......by the way a very well produced video.....
14/ This sounds like a decent summer movie - "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" with James Franco....good clean fun....
“Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” an amusingly cheerful film about the end of humanity that’s PETA and critic approved — no animals were harmed in its making, and neither wasJames Franco’s career — is precisely the kind of summer diversion that the studios have such a hard time making now. It’s good, canny-dumb fun. Employing bleeding-edge technologies in the service of old-fashioned entertainment, it insists on the emotional truth of its absurd story, its tongue in cheek (and in check), while offering self-aware asides, like the ritual bow to Charlton Heston, the lockjaw hero of the original 1968 “Planet of the Apes.
The trailer is very cool.....
Todays video - quite old but Pythonesque clip from Iraq....British.....
Todays cruise line joke
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Todays bonus golf joke
He left home about 8:30 a.m. to play golf with his friends. On the way out the door he answered his wife's "what time will you be home?" question with "probably about 1:30, I'll have lunch at the club." 1:30 came & went, 3:00 passed, 6:15, still not home, finally at about 7:00pm he rolls in the driveway, leaves his clubs in the garage, and presents his wife with a pizza, and begins the apologetic story. We finished our game about 11:30, had lunch, and I started home, when alongside the road I saw this attractive girl with a flat tire on her car. I stopped to help, got the tire changed, and looked around for a place to wash my hands. She offered money, but I refused, so she suggested that I at least allow her to buy me a beer. She said there's a tavern just up the road, and they have a restroom, you can clean up a bit. I agreed to stop, we had a beer, then another beer, then a couple more, and I realized that this girl was not only pretty, she was very friendly, and a good companion to spend time with. Before I knew it, we were in the motel next door having sex. And that is why I am so late getting home. His wife looked him right in the eye and said "stop shitting me; you played 36 holes, didn't you? |
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