Category Archives: U.S.

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Ford, GM, Chrysler; can we trust their sales and profit reports? U.S. auto sales actually stagnating

Ford and GM reported profits in July.  They also reported increased U.S. sales.  Ford claims 9% increase, GM an 8% increase, while Chrysler claims an incredible 20% increase in U.S. sales.

This while Japanese car makers Toyota and Honda reported that their U.S. sales crashed by more than 20% each.

Despite Chrysler reporting a 20% increase in sales, they claimed a net loss in profits, from buying back stocks from the U.S. taxpayers (interestingly the U.S. taxpayer also lost money).

Ford reported a small 9% increase in sales, but a big increase in profits.  One reason is because they jacked up the prices of their cars.  According to one report, the price increases accounted for $900 million of Ford’s profit.  Profiting by inflation.  Ford’s Chief Financial Officer, Lewis Booth, said they expect a drop in U.S. sales in the second half of 2011.

GM reported a small 8% increase in July sales, with a profit of $2.5 billion.  Remember GM still owes U.S. taxpayers for the bailout.  However analysts say now would be a bad time for taxpayers if GM decided to buy back its taxpayer (U.S. Treasury Department) held stock.  Just like the Chrysler buy back taxpayers would lose big time.  Most of GM’s sales came from pickup trucks.  The problem is that GM still has a surplus of pickup trucks, equal to a 115 day supply.  In order to get the surplus inventories down GM will continue with planned factory shut downs, that means more people out of work.  GM officials also expect the second half of 2011 to be hard on sales.

Mitsubishi reported an amazing 41% increase in July sales, while sales for most other Japanese companies stalled or crashed.

German car makers did well: Volkswagen reported a respectable 21% increase (not counting their AUDI brand).  Mercedes had a 13% increase.  BMW increased by 11%.

British companies Jaguar and Land Rover went in opposite directions, with Jaguar down 0.3% and Land Rover up 22%.

The problem is that you can’t go by percentages.  Here’s an example: Even though Toyota’s U.S. sales for July were down 22.7%, they still sold 130,802 vehicles in one month.  Compare that to Chrysler’s huge gain of 20%.  In July they sold 112,026 vehicles, still less than Toyota.

For another example of how percentages can deceive, let’s look at Mitsubishi and GM.  Mitsubishi reported an amazing 41% increase in July, but the actual number of vehicles sold that month was only 7,972.  GM reported a 8% increase in U.S. sales.  Sounds small, but the actual number of vehicles they sold in July is 214,915.  That makes GM the sales leader, however GM officials pointed out  they’re still stuck with a surplus of vehicles to sell.

So, is the auto industry on the rebound, or not?  Overall light vehicle (cars & pickup trucks) sales indicate that the auto industry stagnated in the month of July.  Car sales down 3%, pickup truck sales up 4.8%, almost cancelling each other out.

Data from Autodata Corp

 

International, U.S.

Proof that the U.S. military is controlled by Christian Crusaders: USAF “ethics” course is an in your face course on Christianity

30 U.S. Air Force officers revealed that a nuclear “ethics” course they were required to attend was nothing more than a promotion of Christianity, and a bad one at that.

The course constantly referred to biblical quotes, and quotes from Christian saints.  Most of the justification is based on versus from the Old Testament. I like to point out that there were no “Christians” in the Old Testament.  Also, the course uses Saint Augustine’s “Christian” justification of war.  Augustine was born more than 3oo years after the death of Jesus of Nazareth.  Augustine made the statements in order to justify the continued war mongering of the newly Christianized Roman Empire.

One part of the ethics course even stated that Christians view nuclear war as a good thing.

I’d like to remind people that no Hebrew official can speak for Moses, just as no Imam can speak for Mohammad.  And definitely no Saint can speak for Jesus of Nazareth.  Here’s a quote from the New Testament: Mathew 5:39; “But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”-attributed to Jesus of Nazareth, New American Standard 1984 edition

Amazingly (well, from my experience, maybe it’s not so amazing) USAF officials claim they never realized there was anything “Christian” about the ethics course.  The U.S. Air Force has been teaching the officer ethics course for nearly 20 years.

The USAF says they’ve stopped teaching the course.  There is a detailed report at truth-out.org.  Also the original USAF powerpoint presentation was made available online, you can find it at the Washington Post website.  It was after the presentation hit the internet that the USAF stopped their nuclear “ethics” course.

 

International, U.S.

The Young Indiana Jones got his start in Mexico, turns out the fictional story may have some truth to it

The popularity of the Indiana Jones movie character lead to the short lived TV show, Young Indiana Jones.  The character spent a lot of time doing rogue archeology in Mexico, at the time of the First World War.

If you remember (oh well, most people don’t) the United States actually invaded Mexico at that time (it wasn’t the first time).  It was to try to capture the revolutionary Fransisco “Poncho” Villa.  Turns out the U.S. Army did a little archeological research as well.

Now Mexican officials are reporting that they found 11 (out of 13) mound sites, that were previously explored by U.S. Army soldiers.  The sites are located near San Joaquin, Chihuahua, where 50 U.S. soldiers spent their off duty time digging around.

The testimonies of two U.S. officers are kept in the National Archives of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Museum, in Washington DC.  Mexican archeologists spent time reading those testimonies.  The documents include photographs, maps, sketches and drawings of the sites.

Mexican archeologists say the maps of the U.S. officers were very accurate.  It turns out that a path indicated on the map was actually a major transport route in ancient times.  However, only 11 of the 13 mound sites on the maps have been found, so far.

The U.S. soldiers estimated the sites to be 800 years old, about the time of the Middle Paquimé period (between 1200 and 1450 AD).

No details have been given about what was found.  I guess we have to go to the National Archives of Anthropology in Washington DC, and beg them to let us read those documents.

 

 

 

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery, What Global Warming? It’s summer time and Crops in Mexico are being threatened by Frost, yet more reasons why food prices will go up

“The involvement is significant, because they are threatening more than 7 million hectares of crops planted in the spring-summer 2011, which are at risk for losing a harvest of 20 million tons of basic grains as well as lost income and liquidity of more 3.5 million basic grain producers.”-Salazar Arriaga, National Confederation of Corn Producers

To be sure Mexico’s agriculture industry is dealing with severe drought, but also flooding and…frost.

23 of Mexico’s 32 states are dealing with drought, but, now that the rainy season is about to start it looks like they’ll get hit with severe flooding, neither of which are conducive to growing crops.

In northern Mexico, winter is predicted to come on colder than normal, resulting in frost damage to many struggling crops.

Some of the worst hit states in Mexico are Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Durango, Sonora, Chihuahua, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, Colima, Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatán and Zacatecas.  Farmers in those states have lost too much of the growing year, which means it’s too late to plant anything.

U.S.

Military Incompetence: Mustard Gas leak at Army facility in Colorado

On Tuesday, August 2, the U.S. Army reported a mustard gas leak at their chemical storage site in Pueblo, Colorado.  They also claim no one has been affected.

Today, August 3, personnel at the site are trying to find out where the leak is coming from.  One official thinks it’s one or two old artillery shells that are leaking.

The Pueblo site is one of five U.S. Army chemical stockpile sites in the United States.  Those sites are in the states of Oregon, Utah, Colorado, Kentucky and Alabama.  A factory designed to destroy the chemical weapons is scheduled for construction in 2013, and it’s hoped it will be ready by 2017.

Business/Economics, Idaho, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Debt Limit deal screws college students, what happened to Obama’s promise?

Some government loans for college graduate students covered, or forgave, the interest payments while the student was still in school.  Not anymore: “They will be responsible for the interest while they’re going to school, beginning in the 2012/2013 academic year.”- James Martin, Idaho State University Associate Director of Financial Aid

You can thank the Debt Limit deal just signed into law by President Obama.

For some students who have to take the maximum loans, it could mean paying $207.00 per month in interest, while they’re in school.  That would mean they would have much less of their loans to live on.

Many graduate students at Idaho State said they might not be able to continue their higher education: “So I think taking away the subsidized, which most of my loans are, I don’t think I would have attended this program if they had done that.”-Chris Thurston

“You know, I know they have to make cuts somewhere, but unfortunately it’s the one that will affect me. But you just gotta do what you gotta do.”-Zach Migel

“If we don’t have the ability to pay for it, we’ll go for not the top notch schools, we’ll go for cheaper schools, cheaper programs.”-Sheila Mitchell

On top of the ending of the interest subsidies, the Debt Limit deal also ends a credit for students who make 12 on time loan payments.

Business/Economics, Idaho, Technology, U.S.

It’s official: Idaho’s internet services suck!

After decades spending millions of dollars to get Idahoan’s connected to the World Wide Web, Idaho has the slowest connection speed in the U.S.

Pando Networks surveyed 4 million internet customers across the country, and found Idaho’s average connection speed to be 318 kilobytes per second, with 83% completion rate.

Idaho’s northern neighbor, Montana, and eastern neighbor Wyoming, also made the slow connection list.  Wyoming actually has a slightly faster connection rate, than Idaho.

Two of Idaho’s other neighbors, Washington and Oregon, made the top 15 fastest rates.

So who’s number one in the United States for internet connection speed?  Tiny old Rhode Island: 894 KPbs!

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Japanese on welfare at record numbers, the last Japanese TV factory to shut down, Japan is the second largest foreign holder of U.S. debt

The number of households getting welfare in Japan hit a record number of 1.46 million.  That’s households, not individuals.

The Japanese Welfare Ministry say it’s a rising trend, no thanks to the never ending nuclear disaster.

To make matters worse, Japan’s only domestic television maker, Hitachi, announced they will close up shop and move their factory to Taiwan.  Of course this means more Japanese out of work.  Hitachi officials say they had to make the move in order to compete with South Korean companies.

Other big name Japanese electronics makers, like Panasonic, Sony and Toshiba, all reported big loses in the past quarter. And it can’t be blamed on the nuclear disaster.  The Japanese companies are having a hard time competing with other Asian nations.

This brings us to an important, and over looked fact: Japan is the second largest foreign holder of U.S. government debt (after China).  Japan’s main market is the United States, yet has been losing out to companies from China and South Korea.

If things get bad enough for Japan, they will be forced to off load their U.S. bonds in order to make some money for their struggling systems.  This could be why the U.S. has given Japan so much help battling the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi.

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? China blames the United States for creating runaway inflation, the dollar will continue to lose value despite debt limit deal, China looking for other currencies to do business with

“If the unemployment rate continues to rise, it will further damage investor confidence and force them to move away from U.S. Treasury securities, leaving the U.S. government no choice but to print money and depreciate its currency.”-Lu Zhengwei, Industrial Bank Co Ltd

Chinese officials say the U.S. Debt Limit Deal is not enough, mainly because it will not stop job loses, and it doesn’t cut enough government spending.

Zhu Baoliang, chief economist at the State Information Center, says U.S. government debt is too large to be resolved through normal measures such as tax increases and deficit reductions.  Also, it is highly unlikely the U.S. government will significantly reduce entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, or significantly draw down troops overseas.  All that means is at the very least the U.S. dollar will continue to lose value.

The Chinese are blaming their runaway inflation on the falling U.S. dollar.  In June inflation hit 6.4% in China.  The increase in costs is causing a drop in factory orders, which hits China where it hurts.

Chen Kexin, chief analyst at the Distribution Productivity Promotion Center of China Commerce, says no matter what happens now, inflation will pick up speed.  He predicts oil prices will go back up to more than $100.00 per barrel, and copper could hit $10,000 per ton.

According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. government debt (the overall largest holder of U.S. debt is…the U.S. taxpayer via the U.S. Treasury).  Many analysts in the United States think China has no choice but to keep buying U.S. debt, creating a false sense of security among U.S. leaders.  But one analysts admits China is cutting back: “Beijing is probably not buying Treasuries as intensely as it did last year.”-Derek Scissors, The Heritage Foundation

Chinese analysts are pushing for their government to diversify their U.S. debt holdings, because the debt limit deal won’t help: “The debt crisis may have a negative impact on the fiscal spending of the U.S. government, which may drag down the U.S. economy for the rest of the year.”-Hou Zhenhai, Investment bank China International Capital Corp

It’s not just U.S. government bonds China has, but something called foreign exchange reserves.  These bonds can come from corporations, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  The problem for China is most of its foreign exchange reserves are in U.S. dollars.  Chinese analysts are warning of the “all your eggs in one basket” scenario; they think China will be dragged down when the United States finally sinks.

In fact, one analysts thinks the situation is so bad that China should stop investing into all foreign operations: “Because of the lack of mature overseas investment projects, the scale of China’s overseas investment is not big enough to absorb massive foreign exchange reserves in the short term. Therefore, to invest overseas is not realistic.”-Zhang Yi, Institute of Foreign Economy, the National Development and Reform Commission