Both Ford and Chrysler are reporting increased sales revenues, but both are reporting decreases in profits. The culprit, inflation.
Inflation is driving up the cost of materials used to build their cars, and even with retail price increases the result is lower profits.
Now Ford is preparing to deal with Union contract negotiations in the United States. Obviously workers are going to want more money, because inflation is driving up their cost of living.
Taxpayers in the United States lost $1.3 billion when Fiat bought back all the remaining Chrysler stocks held by the U.S. government (U.S. taxpayers lost at least $14 billion, between Chrysler and GM).
Now Chrysler/Fiat is claiming they lost money too. Chrysler would have reported a profit for the second quarter of 2011, it weren’t for the stock buy back, which they claim cost $551 million.
Chrysler is also reporting a 30% increase in sales revenue (compared to the second quarter of 2010), but don’t think you can buy some of that Chrysler stock, they’re privately held by Fiat and Union trust funds.
British Prime Minister David Cameron lamented that “…a general feeling that maybe our best days as a country are behind us…”. He was talking about everything from the economic disaster to the scandal involving Rupert Murdoch’s media empire and public officials.
Cameron says it’s become clear that elected leaders, as well as corporate leaders, even government employees, are acting out of pure greed: “I’m talking about the expenses scandal, the financial crisis, this whole disgraceful and sorry episode of phone hacking. There’s a sense that the rich and the powerful – politicians, bankers, the press and the police – have been serving themselves…”
“It really doesn’t do much good if the money goes back to repairing the irrigation system. I can’t use it. I’m paying for a service I have no choice to pay for, but I have no access to the benefits.”-Mary Fullmer, 77 year old school bus driver
The USPS lost $8.5 billion in 2010. It lost $3.8 billion in 2009. So far this year the USPS has lost $2.2 billion. The result; the United States Postal Service will make public a list of post offices that could be closed this year, as many as 3,653.
The United States Postal Service does not make money off taxpayers, they are solely funded by the postage they charge. The problem is that Congress controls the postage they are allowed to charge, and so far Congress has refused to allow postal rates to reflect the actual operating cost of the USPS.
On top of that, Congress overcharged the USPS $75 billion for the Federal Employees Retirement System plan. The Postmaster General asked for that money to be returned, but Congress refused (you think they already spent it?).
As a result of incompetence (or is it on purpose?) by our elected officials in Congress, thousands more USPS employees will lose their jobs.
“If you were admitted to hospital tomorrow in any country … your chances of being subjected to an error in your care would be something like 1 in 10. Your chances of dying due to an error in health care would be 1 in 300.”-Professor Liam Donaldson, World Health Organization envoy
The United Nations released a study saying that hospitals in the ‘western’ world are sure places to catch a deadly disease, or die from mistakes made by medical personnel.
The UN World Health Organization discovered that your chances of dying in a hospital, by medical errors, are far greater than dying in a plane crash.
More interestingly, Canada takes the number one spot for worst hospital related infections, at an 11.6% infection rate. The European Union has a 7% rate, followed by the United States with 4.5%.
But lets put that U.S. rate of 4.5%, which sounds low, into real numbers. According to the research 1.7 million infections are acquired in U.S. hospitals, which leads to 100,000 deaths each year. That’s 100,000 people in the U.S. being killed because of hospital uncleanliness.
Catching an infection while in the hospital means a longer stay and more treatment. The study suggests that the increased infection rate while being in the hospital, along with medical mistakes, are partly to blame for increasing medical costs.
To be sure most health care systems around the world are in trouble, but, what surprised the WHO researchers is that the developed ‘western’ world has made no progress in improving medical care inside hospitals. Former United Kingdom chief medical officer Liam Donaldson, said this: “It shows that health care in general worldwide still has a long way to go. Health care has not achieved the level of safety of many other high-risk industries.”
An organization called Project on Government Oversight discovered the U.S. Treasury Department is letting big banks, and corporations, pay off their taxpayer funded loans with new taxpayer funded loans meant for small banks.
On paper it looks like big banks who took out TARP bailout loans are paying those loans off. It turns out that many of those payoffs came from new loans also offered through the Treasury Department.
The new loans are being made with a program that was meant for smaller banks, to lend money to small businesses. The program is called Small Business Lending Fund.
What this means is the U.S. Treasury is not really getting the taxpayer funded TARP bailout money back. Instead the Treasury is allowing the big banks to rob Peter to pay Paul. The problem here is that both Peter and Paul are one in the same, the U.S. taxpayer!
This isn’t the first time claims were made that TARP money was being paid back with loans. In April 2010, Senator Charles Grassley, of Iowa, claimed that General Motors paid back their TARP loan, with another TARP loan: “It looks like [GM’s] announcement is really just an elaborate TARP money shuffle. The repayment dollars haven’t come from GM selling cars but, instead, from a TARP [escrow] account at the Treasury Department.”
Now the question is why can’t the big banks, and other corporations, pay back their taxpayer TRAP (I mean TARP) loans? After all many have reported big profits. Is this a case of no real money left in the United States?
“The FAA employees who will be furloughed perform critical work for our nation’s aviation system and our economy. These are real people with families who do not deserve to be put out of work during these tough economic times.”-Randy Babbitt, FAA Administrator
Because the U.S. Senate failed to approve the House tax plan to fund the Federal Aviation Administration, about 4,000 people will be laid off. As usual, both republicans and democrats blame each other!
However, the democrat controlled Senate might have a point, because the republican controlled House plan added on pork spending ($16.5 million worth), basically subsidizing commercial airline operations in ten states.
“This is a very rare condition in otherwise healthy individuals and is generally untreatable. We believe that it is caused by an inhalational exposure with which they have contact while in southwest Asia.”-Dr. Matthew S. King
The New England Journal of Medicine published a study, which was conducted by a team of medical personnel including Doctor Matthew S. King. They concluded that military personnel, in Iraq and Afghanistan, are contracting incurable lung diseases, possibly from exposure to chemicals.
In one case 38 U.S. troops were exposed to smoke from a sulfur mine fire in Iraq.
Doctor King said the symptoms of the lung disorders are many, and severe: “Respiratory disorders are emerging as a major consequence of service in southwest Asia. In addition to our study, there have been studies showing increases in asthma, obstructive lung disease, allergic rhinitis and a general increase in reports of respiratory symptoms.”
Medical experts are now trying to convince the Veterans Administration to recognize and treat the disorders.
You can get a copy of the New England Journal of Medicine article (Constrictive Bronchiolitis in Soldiers Returning from Iraq and Afghanistan) by emailing; [email protected]
The Idaho AARP (formerly known as American Association of Retired Persons) is sending 20,000 signatures to the U.S. Congress, demanding that Social Security and Medicare be left out of budget cuts.
Cuts to SS and Medicare would adversely affect hundreds of thousands of Idahoans who paid into the system for decades.