Category Archives: International

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Staples Office Supply Going Russian

The worlds largest office supply store, Staples, has joined up with a Russian company, Pragmatic Express.

The two companies will work jointly to serve international customers in Russia.

The deal allows U.S. based Staples to continue its worldwide expansion.  It also allows Staples to take advantage of Russia’s growing economy, while the U.S. economy falters.

Recently the IMF predicted 4.3% economic growth for Russia in 2011.  Compare that to the forecast of 2.3% growth for the United States.  Also, Russia’s unemployment rate is expected to drop to 7.3%, while unemployment in the U.S. is expected stay around 9.6% (www.imf.org).

Pocatello, Idaho.

Business/Economics, International, Opinion, U.S.

China No Longer Needs Us. November Elections. The Economy is Everything.

Beware of political promises, especially when it comes to the economy.  History shows politicians have a bad track record when it comes to ‘saving’ the economy.  Sometimes they get it right in the short term, but when it comes to long term planning, forget it.  Long term should be considered 20 years plus, not ten years, or more commonly, 5 years or less.

Big news in economics involving the world and the United States.  Last week a U.S. economics professor was quoted, in the European media, as saying the world was “…partially decoupling,” from the U.S. economy (www.bloomberg.com).  What he meant, and what I’ve be warning about in discussions with acquaintances and relatives, is that the “developing economies” (which should no longer be called “developing”) have now reached a point where they do not need the United States to be economically viable.  Those countries include India, Brazil and China.

How many times has you’ve heard how the Chinese need the U.S. economy in order to continue growing?  Remember how much the U.S. is in debt to the Chinese?  Now, realize they no longer need us economically.  Uh oh.

In other economic news, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) has revised, downward, it’s expectations for U.S. economic growth in 2011 (www.imf.org).  Some reasons are the amount of debt owed by the government, and, that economic data coming from the U.S. is never as good as predicted, and in some cases it’s worse.

Here’s an example: Today it was revealed, in a CNNMoney.com article, that according to the U.S. Department of Labor, for the second year in a row, the overall unemployment numbers need to be increased.  They are saying that, so far this year, 366,000 job losses have not been counted.  It was revealed, earlier this year, that 902,000 lost jobs had not been counted for 2009.  Also, the uncounted job losses for 2010 will not be officially added to the 2010 unemployment numbers until February 2011 (you have to keep that in mind every time you hear the “official” numbers reported this year).  One analyst says it is common in a bad economy to underestimate job losses.  Another analyst says the current employment models (formulas for predicting trends, or figuring out what happened) are not working.  Oh really?

We, the people of the United States, are in a predicament that was created by the short term policies of our corporate and political leaders.  Some countries called “developing economies” (formerly known as third world) have not only caught up with us, they are leaving us in their dust.  When you vote this November do your homework.  Investigate the candidates and the issues.  We need not only a high quantity of voting, but a high quality of voting.

Business/Economics, International

Currency Wars Pushing Global Inflation

On October 2nd, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned the world’s countries not to start a currency war. Such action could end any economic recovery. The problem is that it appears that the world is already in a currency war.

Today, October 6th,  an RT (I think it stands for Russia Today) program called Cross Talk, interviewed three currency analysts about the race, by most countries, to devalue their money.

Countries want their money to be low in value in order to attract foreign customers. International trade is key to growing a country’s economy. An economy that’s based on domestic trade only, leads to stagnation. But, if all the major traders in the world crash the value of their money the result could be worse than an economy based only on domestic trade.

The analysts interviewed on RT represent companies/organizations from Hong Kong, Russia and the U.S.

They said currency devaluation works only if a handful of countries do it. The problem is that “everyone” is doing it. The result will be global inflation.

The analysts agreed that the coming global inflation will not affect the ‘western’ countries as badly as the rest of the world. They didn’t give any example of how bad it would get.

An allegory was used to explain the effect of most countries trying to devalue their money at the same time: It’s like a marathon where you have so many runners that they knock each other out of the race. I other words, some countries are going to have their economies “knocked” out.

To solve the problem of currency wars, the analysts said world leaders might create a common global currency, or at least common rules on currency trading.

Increasing commodity prices, currency wars, actual wars, massive debts owed by governments, continuing job losses, etc. It seems to me that despite the positive spin our leaders, and main stream media puts on our economy, the evidence is clear that things are going to get worse. Buckle up.

Business/Economics, Idaho, International, Opinion, U.S.

Europeans Strike! Who Cares About Terrorism?

Europeans were told that a Mumbai style terrorist attack in Europe was foiled, do they care? Hell no! Why? Because, according to strikers in Latvia, people are dying because of the drastic measures undertaken by their government to deal with their crashing economy. In other words, Europeans are more afraid of their governments than random terrorists.

Today, people in France, Spain, Belgium, Ireland, Greece and several other countries not mentioned in U.S. media, went on strike. What happened to the economic recovery? A former European Union commissioner is quoted as saying “The party is over…”. European governments want even more drastic belt tightening, increasing the burden of paying for the partying of political and business leaders upon the average European taxpayer. No wounder Europeans are outraged.

Is this a sign of pending doom for the U.S. recovery? The same caca del toro is happening with our leadership here in the U.S. Where are the mass strikes? Are we so afraid of our leadership that we’d rather continue playing along with their war on terror game?

The real terrorism is being waged on the average U.S. worker, by corporate America and their puppets; our political leaders. Let me give you an example: When my son was 17 he got a job working for a movie theater here on the east side of Idaho. His first two weeks he put in 90 hours. We though he was going to get overtime pay, nope, not under the Fair Labor Standards Act. According to the Idaho Department of Labor, movie theater employees are number 5 on the list of jobs exempted from overtime pay.

We also learned that Idaho employers do not have to provide breaks under Idaho state law. My son was told that he would be fired if he was caught taking a break or eating, even when he worked 8-9 hour shifts. Here is what Idaho says: “IDAHO LAW DOES NOT REQUIRE
1. vacation, holiday, severance or sick pay;
2. a discharge notice or a reason for discharge;
3. rest periods, breaks, lunch breaks, holidays
off or vacations;
4. premium pay rates for weekends or holidays
worked;
5. pay raises or fringe benefits; or
6. a limit on the number of hours an employee
can work per day or week for employees 16
years of age or older.”

Visit labor.idaho.gov

Wake up America!

Business/Economics, International

Lowe’s Defective Drywall, China Strikes Again

Anyone who bought drywall from Lowe’s prior to July 27, 2010, and it was defective causing damage or injury, could collect a settlement payment.

Lowe’s has made a settlement offer in a lawsuit, that will be heard for approval by a Georgia Superior Court on November 19th.

Faulty drywall can emit sulfur gas, which can damage electrical wiring, or anything using copper like air conditioner coils, as well as make you sick. Copper items might require replacing, as well as the drywall. Some cases involve homeowners who rebuilt their homes after damage by Hurricane Katrina. It seems most of the drywall came from China.

The bad drywall wasn’t sold just by Lowe’s. A local supplier in Florida was successfully sued, for the same issue, bad drywall from China.

Lowe’s settlement offer is in the form of gift cards ranging from $50.00 to $2,000.00. For cases with more than $2,000.00 in damage Lowe’s will add up to $2,500.00 in cash. Anyone who thinks they are entitled should visit www.drywallsettlement.info. Be advised there is a lawsuit in Louisiana that is targeting the Chinese manufacturer of the drywall, and attorneys in that case have challenged the Georgia/Lowe’s settlement.

A warning to building contractors; some legal sources say contractors could be sued for using the defective Chinese drywall. The most common, and obvious, sign of the bad drywall is the sulfur smell, which is like rotten eggs.

Idaho, International

Food Prices Up, Crop Yields Down

27 September 2010

Signs of a coming food crisis are everywhere. Most notably at the source, the farms that grow the basic crops. Here on the east side of Idaho, farmers had to deal with a spring that was too cool too long, resulting in crops being planted weeks late, and then a short summer (www.noaanews.noaa.gov) (www.kidk.com).

It’s not just Idaho, but many of the crop growing states in the U.S. are experiencing lower yields, and you can blame the weather. Any type of extreme weather will affect crops (sciencepolicy.colorado.edu).  In Idaho it’s too cool & too dry. In other parts of the United States it’s too wet (just look at all the flooding in the southern states), or too hot & dry. And it’s not just the U.S.; Canada & Mexico, South America, Eurasia & Africa as well as Australia, are all dealing with the adverse affects of weird weather on their crops. Pakistan can kiss most of their crop production goodbye after the incredible floods they experienced. Russia is loosing crops due to record heat & fires (www.voanews.com) (rt.com) (rt.com). Just in the past couple of days flooding in Nigeria has destroyed 240 acres of farmland (www.cnn.com).

The result is that overall, globally, less product is heading towards the markets, which means higher commodity prices paid for those crops (Law of Supply & Demand). This is good for farmers who can still produce big crop yields, as farmers in Colorado are finding out (www.agweek.com), but it’s bad for the average consumer. Coffee retailers have finally started passing on the higher costs they’re paying for the beans (starbucks.tekgroup.com). This will only add to the specter of inflation, a three pronged attack caused by governments printing too much money, precious metal prices blasting off and food prices soaring.

Here’s what has happened to wheat commodity prices: In March 2010 Hard Red Winter Wheat was at a value of 191.07,  by August 2010 it hit a value of 246.35 (www.indexmundi.com).  Not all commodities have experienced such a big increase, a few have actually dropped. But, there is a trend of reduced availability & increased cost, so much so that the UN held an emergency meeting to discuss the issue (www.guardian.co.uk). Some UN officials blame inexperienced commodity speculators for the increases in prices. One example of that is that it looks like the December 2010 Corn futures were “overbought” (Idaho Grain Market Alert 9.23.10). This is a double whammy for the average consumer; not only will some foods become limited but some food will be too expensive. So the coming food crisis may probably be more about people not being able to buy the food, than it’s limited availability.

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