All posts by Hutchins AAron

Born in Deutschland 1965, hometown was Bütthart, parents were not U.S. government employees. However, when father was tricked into joining the U.S. Air Force Civil Service, in 1969, with the promise that we could remain in Germany, we were promptly shipped off to Iran. Due to one of my Iranian educators being disappeared, along with her husband, by the U.S. ally Shah of Iran's Israeli & U.S. created Savak (for the then official terrorist act of promoting the idea that women can vote), and due to my U.S. citizen mother being placed on Savak's Terrorist Arrest List (for supporting the idea that women should vote, at that time the U.S. ally Shah of Iran did not allow women to vote, now they can) we left Iran for the United States in 1973, literally in the middle of the night. At the U.S. Embassy airbase the CIA operated Gooney Bird (C-47) was so packed with other U.S. citizens fleeing our ally Iran (because the Shah gave the OK to arrest any U.S. citizen for such terrorist acts as promoting the concept of voting) that we were turned away by the Loadmaster and had to take a chance on a civilian flight out of Tehran's airport. My father told me he and my mother had three culture shocks; first when they arrived in Germany as civilians, then after being shipped off to Iran as U.S. government employees, then again returning to the United States as unemployed civilians (because so much had changed in the U.S. while they were gone, their only news source was the U.S. Armed Forces Radio & Television Service which heavily censored information about the home front). Since I graduated high school in 1982 I've worked for U.S. government contractors and state & local government agencies (in California), convenience store manager in California, retail/property management in Georgia, California and Idaho. Spent the 1990s in the TV news business producing number one rated local news programs in California, Arizona and Idaho. 14+ years with California and Idaho Army National Guard and the U.S. Air Force. Obtained a BA degree in International Studies from Idaho State University at the age of 42. Unemployed since 2015, so don't tell me the economy has recovered.
International, Opinion, U.S.

Most “Americans” will NOT watch royal wedding, U.S. media all over it, proof U.S. media controled by British Empire

A CNN poll said 75% of U.S. citizens will not watch the royal wedding.  ABC’s own online poll currently shows (as I write this) 427 are not “excited about the royal wedding”, 185 said yes they were “excited”.

Here in eastern Idaho a local TV station (KIFI, Idaho Falls) did their own local poll, the results: 54% said they will NOT watch the royal wedding, 15% answered “what royal wedding”?

Yet U.S. media is going to spend most of the day covering a foreign event.  In fact CNN, apparently in hopes of getting more favorable results, tried a new poll: still, 62% said “Not at all” interested in the royal wedding.

This is the United States, not the United Kingdom, or any other part of the commonwealth/empire (at least officially).  We are anti-royalty, anti-monarchy, we fought a Revolution against the British (today’s United Kingdom) for that reason (as well as unfair taxation).

Why is the U.S. media so bent on covering a foreign spectacle?  Lets see, Fox News is really owned by commonwealther/imperialist Australian Rupert Murdoch.  He only got U.S. citizenship to placate U.S. laws that said only U.S. citizens could own TV stations.  He became a U.S. citizen one year before he created Fox.  And he’s bought out many other U.S. media venues, including the Wall Street Journal.

Murdoch is in regular communication with the evil British Empire: “…were in regular communication……there is nothing unusual in the prime minister talking to Rupert Murdoch.”-Former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s official spokesman

Is Fox News going to cover the royal wedding? You bet!  When are the loyal viewers of Fox, who think they’re true blue conservative Americans, going to wake up and realize that their precious Fox News is run by a red coat limey Imperialist!

Will ABC (American Broadcasting Company, not to be confused with Australian Broadcasting Corporation), NBC and CBS cover the wedding? Yes!

Our own mainstream media conducts polls that show most Americans don’t care about a so called royal wedding, yet our mainstream media is going to blast us with royal wedding crap. That should tell you who they really work for, and who their true target audience is!

International

Japan warns of major flooding

The north eastern areas of Honshu, devastated by the March 11 disasters, will suffer major flooding.

The Land Ministry says the 9.0 earthquake caused a huge portion of the coast off Miyagi Prefecture, to sink.  Many parts are now at or below sea level.

The ministry used lasers to check ground height on the Sendai Plain, of Miyagi Prefecture.  Before March 11, only 3 square kilometers (1.8 square miles) were below sea level, now 16 square kilometers (9.9 square miles) are below sea level.

Areas known as full tide areas, have increased from 32 square kilometers (19.8 square miles) to 56 square kilometers (34.7 square miles).  Areas that could be affected by record high tides (set by 1980 record high tide) increased from 83 square kilometers (51.5 square miles) to 111 square kilometers (68.9 square miles).

Because the typhoon season is here, the Japanese government is asking locals to start sandbagging, now.

Business/Economics, U.S.

Get ready for price hikes on soap & diapers, Pepsi says profits affected by inflation

Several big corporations who make products from soap to diapers, say they must pass on the higher prices they’ve been paying for raw materials.

“I don’t want to get into shoulda, coulda, woulda; but if you step back, if we didn’t have $1.8 billion in commodity cost increases this year, we would have a fantastic bottom line.”-Jon Moeller, Procter & Gamble

Despite slow sales in the United States, because of the bad economy, the very same corporations complaining of the higher costs they’re paying, are spending money to come up with new products, and of course that’ll be added onto the price you pay at the store.

In the world of soda pop and snacks, Pepsi says their profits are being affected by the increasing price of their ingredients. PepsiCo also owns snack food maker FritoLay, and juice brand Tropicana, as well as other brands.  Even though Pepsi says their profits were affected by inflation, they still did well.  They also said they’ve adjusted their business forecast to take into account “…high global commodity cost inflation, difficult macroeconomic conditions in developed markets and ongoing strategic investments in emerging markets and in brand-building activities.” In other words, price hikes.

 

 

Business/Economics, U.S.

Proof the Federal Reserve works for Corporate America, and Foreign Banks, not you

“Why wasn’t the Fed providing these same sweetheart deals to the American people? The Fed was practicing socialism for the rich, powerful and the connected, while the federal government was promoting rugged individualism to everyone else.”-Warren Gunnels, adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders

The Federal Reserve is a privately run bank.  It operates to make a profit.  It is not interested in helping out the average U.S. taxpayer, because there is no profit in it. It’s only natural that the biggest customers of the Federal Reserve are corporations, like financial institutions and banks, including foreign banks, and governments.

Under court order it was revealed that the Federal Reserve made at least 46 “emergency” loans to the Arab Banking Corporation, and the Libyan government is a 59% stake holder in that bank.

The Federal Reserve has also bailed out two major European banks, as well as many U.S. corporations.  The “Fed” makes its money off the interest it charges for those loans.  That includes the money it “loans” to the United States.  That’s right, our money, the not so almighty dollar, is borrowed from the Federal Reserve.

We little guys are ripped off, because the big low interest lows made to credit card companies, and banks, are used to provide high interest loans to us.  I remember a time when the low interest loans to corporate America were supposed to be passed on to the consumer, in the form of low interest loans.  That’s what former President Ronald Reagan claimed when he argued for a drop in interest rates from the “Fed”.

Since the late 1990s interest rates to corporate America have been going down, while interest rates to us little guys has been going up.  Also notice that interest rates on your savings accounts have been going down as well (and they wonder why American’s don’t save their money in the banks!?).

It’s not just individual consumers that are getting ripped off.  If you’re not a big corporation, just a small business, you’ve been ripped off as well.  There’ve been several regional businesses where I live, that have folded up, not because they didn’t have sales, but because their banks refused to extend credit, or canceled their credit altogether.

Basically the Federal Reserve is now only interested in being able to turn a big profit off their low interest loans.  It can’t do that with small time businesses or individuals.  That’s because they’re operating a WalMart type of business plan, that is making profit off high volume, not high prices.  The only way you can make big profits off high volume, low price, is to have customers that can afford to buy in high volume.

If the Federal Reserve is charging half a percent interest, it needs to make loans in the billions of dollars, in order to make a profit from that half a percent interest.  Logically only big corporations and governments, can take on that big of a loan.

So maybe the Federal Reserve is not “…practicing socialism for the rich, powerful and the connected…” as an adviser to Senator Sanders claims, but is simply acting as any other big corporation would in search of big profits.  After all, the “Fed” is the most powerful corporation in the United States (again it is NOT a government agency).  But this is just more reason why our money should not be controlled by the Federal Reserve.

By the way, know how much the “Fed” made in profits last year?  $81.7 billion.


 


Business/Economics, International, U.S.

I told you, “Watch the Commodities Market”, more bad signs of inflation

The Commodities Market “…is sending us the mother of all price signals. The prices of all important commodities except oil declined for 100 years until 2002, by an average of 70%. From 2002 until now, this entire decline was erased by a bigger price surge than occurred during World War II.”-Jeremy Grantham, GMO LLC

I recently wrote a post that advised people to stop paying attention to stock markets, and start watching commodities markets.  Jeremy Grantham’s research shows why.

According to Grantham, commodities prices (oil, gas, food, clothes, metals, etc) have been going up for the last eight years, big time.  The Federal Reserve has been downplaying inflation, until recently, but Grantham’s research shows inflation has been with us for a while.  He also claims the last eight years has seen the biggest jump in commodities prices since World War 2 (see, wars are not good for the economy, unless you become the world’s arms dealer and can stay out of any actually fighting).

Grantham says the rise of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) has also affected commodities, possibly permanently: “I believe that we are in the midst of one of the giant inflection points in economic history. The world is using up its natural resources at an alarming rate, and this has caused a permanent shift in their value.”

Grantham explains why everyone should pay attention to commodities, rather than stocks: “…stock prices and they can be, often are, psychologically flakey. But commodities are made and bought by serious professionals for whom today’s price is life and death.”

Grantham says commodities are truly affected by supply and demand, so, with the booming economies of the BRICS, and the ever growing and expanding War on Terror, all of which increase demand for limited supplies, viola, long term inflation!

“We all need to adjust our behavior to this new environment. It would help if we did it quickly.”-Jeremy Grantham, GMO LLC

Business/Economics, U.S.

Federal Reserve admits inflation is a problem, new jobs could make it worse

Despite years of denial, the Federal Reserve ( a privately run bank) is now saying inflation is a concern: “If we are going to have success in creating a long-run sustainable recovery with lots of job growth, we have to keep inflation under control.”-Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Chairman

The problem is so bad that the Federal Reserve is worried that job growth could actually make things worse: “It is not clear that we can get substantial improvements in payrolls without some additional inflation risk.”

Federal Reserve chairman Bernanke had been saying for months that inflation isn’t that much of a problem.  Now Bernanke is saying that the best way to create jobs is to keep prices down.  In other words, fighting inflation is now the main focus, jobs will come later.  As part of the fight on inflation, the Federal Reserve has decided to keep the interest rates it charges financial institutions low/unchanged.

Business/Economics, U.S.

Unemployment up, spending way down, blame it on the inflation the government denies is happening

Job analysts were shocked Thursday, April 28, when the weekly first time unemployment claims jumped by 25,000.

“This is a major disappointment because it’s another move in the wrong direction. This is more than just a misstep for the job market. It’s a signal that the robust job growth we’ve seen recently is poised to lose momentum.”-Tim Quinlan, Wells Fargo

Total number of initial jobless claims jumped to 429,000 in the week ended April 23, analysts were expecting it to drop to 390,000.

The government is reporting that overall unemployment numbers show a drop in unemployment, but, more and more analyst think that’s because unemployed people have simply exhausted the time limit for unemployment benefits, NOT because they found work.

“We can’t be certain it’s a positive trend yet. The Labor Department doesn’t specify whether these people are rolling off their benefits or if they’ve found jobs.”–Tim Quinlan, Wells Fargo

Another factor is that each state has its own limits on unemployment benefits, so the federal reporting is not accurate state by state. For healthy improvement in the job market  the economy needs to add between 150,000 and 200,000 jobs every month, which it has not been doing.

Add to the jobs loss shock, the GDP shock.  The U.S. Commerce Department reported Thursday, April 28, that Gross Domestic Product percentages fell to 1.8% (it’s funny, some media reports are calling it an increase, maybe compared to last April).  At the end of 2010 GDP was at 3.1%, so April’s numbers are definitely a drop.

The Department of Commerce is blaming the drop on decreased consumer spending, due to, guess what, inflation.  The drop shocked analyst who were expecting GDP to hit 4.3%.

“Undoubtedly, consumers are cutting discretionary spending to compensate for rising food and energy prices.”-Jim Baird, Plante Moran Financial Advisors

Retail prices were up 3.8% from a year earlier.  Add to that the slow housing market, decreasing government domestic spending (even though the government continues to spend money outside the country), and even bad weather are taking a toll on any “recovery”.

 

 

Business/Economics, U.S.

WalMart says; What Economic Recovery?

“Purchases are really dropping off by the end of the month even more than last year. This end-of-month [purchases] cycle is growing to be a concern.”-Mike Duke, CEO WalMart

WalMart executives are doubting claims of an economic recovery, because their sales are down.

Most WalMart shoppers are low income workers who live paycheck to paycheck.  CEO Mike Duke said because of inflation (which official government agencies deny is happening) their customers are running out of money, faster than ever.

Duke admitted that WalMart had to raise prices on produce, but tried to compensate by lowering prices on electronics, but you can’t eat electronics.

WalMart officials are now going to try to lower all their prices, in the hopes it might boost their falling sales.