Tag Archives: salmon

International

Global Food Crisis: No more Salmon from Europe?

15 January 2016 (16:30 UTC-07 Tango 01)/25 Dey 1394/04 Rabi’a’-Thani 1437/06 Ding-Chou (12th month) 4713

At least four Norwegian salmon fishing outfits are reporting they can’t find any salmon!

Last season they claim they had to end the fishing early due to an outbreak of sea-lice infesting the fish.  The result is the fishing industry panicked and harvested way too many salmon too soon, meaning they harvested a lot of fish before they were able to spawn!

Now there are so few North Sea salmon that the price skyrocketed to 30 year-highs in the fish markets.

“Driven by low availability and weak NOK, salmon prices have continued up during the week. We are now seeing one of the highest weekly prices ever ….The biomass situation is challenging as the volume available for harvesting over the next six months are substantially lower….”-Kolbjorn Giskeodegard, Nordea

Global Food Crisis: No more Salmon from South America? 

U.S. Food Crisis December 2015: “…what are you supposed to do when the kids tell you they are hungry & they don’t have any money?” 

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? U.S. Postal Service cuts officially (almost) done deal, will “move forward” with austerity measures, Merry Xmas!

As promised, the U.S. Postal Service made its dreaded announcement on December 5.  The USPS filed a request with the Postal Regulatory Commission to “move forward” with austerity measures that will not only cut back service, but eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs.

“We’re in a deep financial crisis today because we have a business model that’s tied to the past [ie Congress]. We are expected to operate like a business, but don’t have the flexibility to do so [because of rules created by Congress]. Our business model is fundamentally inflexible [no thanks to Congress]. It prevents the postal service from solving its problems.”-Patrick Donahoe, U.S. Postmaster General, November 2011

The plan, supported by the Obama Administration, calls for cutting U.S.$20 billion from operating costs by 2015.  That means closing 252 processing facilities, closing 3,700 post offices, and eliminating 100,000 jobs!!!

The processing centers will be closed by spring 2012.  Job losses just from the closing of processing centers could hit 28,000! Expect delays in getting your mail.

This after the U.S. Congress decided to ‘delay’ any action on their part until after next year’s Presidential elections.  The move guarantees the demise of the USPS, because President Barack Obama set the default date for the Postal Service as December 16, 2010.

In a PBS interview, both the Postmaster General, and the President of the Letter Carrier’s Union said it wasn’t really about lack of business, in fact the Postmaster General said package volume was still good.  It was all about the U.S. Congress ripping off the non-taxpayer funded Postal Service: “The Postal Service actually has somewhere between $50 billion and $125 billion in their other funds that is not taxpayer money. They haven’t used a dime of taxpayer money in over 30 years! And the Congress just needs to act responsibly and quickly to give them access to that — those funds.”- Fredric Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers

Rolando pointed out that the job losses will go beyond the USPS. It will affect all the companies the USPS contracts with, like FedEx, Siemens, Northrop-Grumman, Pat Salmon & Sons and Campbell-Ewald, to name a few.

Rolando, in the PBS interview, predicted that millions of jobs will eventually be lost because of what’s happening to the USPS!

Merry Xmas Mr. Scrooge, and God bless us, everyone!