Tag Archives: economy

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? U.S. Congress & Postal Service make delay deal; no closings until May 2012

“If you don’t like what the postal service has put forward (to cut costs) by closing processing facilities and post offices and eliminating jobs, then come up with a better approach. It’s a challenge we need to accept, and this agreement with the postal service gives us that opportunity.”-Richard Durbin, U.S. Senator for Illinois

The U.S. Congress and the Postal Service has reached an agreement, that will delay closing of hundreds of processing centers and thousands of post offices.  Instead of starting that shut down in March, the USPS will wait until May.

This is because members of Congress promise they will return to negotiations regarding how to make cuts, and minimize the effects on postal employees and the economy.  Back in November Congress indicated they were shelving any discussions about the Postal Service until after elections in November 2012.  However that’s far later than the December 16 default date set by President Barack Obama.  I suppose members of Congress got an earful, about the draconian cuts looming for the USPS, from their constituents.

The Postal Service operates on money that comes from you and me buying postal products, not taxes!

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? It’s an official record, 6.3 million U.S. citizens left the United States. 40% of young adults want to leave!

“I don’t regret leaving the States one bit!”-Matt Landau, left the U.S. six years ago

The U.S. State Department is admitting that at least 6.3 million U.S. citizens have left the Untied States, officially to find jobs or go to cheaper universities!

“There’s a feeling among more entrepreneurial Americans that if you really want to get anything done, you have to get out of country and away from the depressing atmosphere. There’s a sense of lost direction, so more people are looking for locations that offer more hope about the future.”–Bob Adams, America Wave

Blame it on a bad economy, caused by outsourcing jobs: “We’ve pretty much outsourced everything else.”-Giovanni Pinzon, laidoff aerospace technician

The U.S. State Department said Russia, China and Latin American countries are the recipients of the brain drain from the United States.

“I connected the dots and decided that I should go somewhere different and learn something new, like Mandarin, to challenge myself. I picked China because it was growing so fast.”-Derek Capo, left Florida for China

According to Bob Adams, who’s been doing surveys of U.S. citizens leaving the country, 40% of 18 to 24 year olds now want to leave the U.S.! Adams says he’s been doing the surveys for the past nine years and said the latest numbers “…have shot through the ceiling…not something I anticipated.”

 

 

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Holiday season Movie revenues lowest in three years. Past two weekends took in less money than the weekends after September 11, 2001

‘Hollywood’ isn’t merry this holiday season. That’s ’cause the past two weekends have seen the least amount of revenues since the two weekends after September 11, 2001.

Also, this past weekend (December 10-11) was the lowest money making weekend since Labor Day in 2008.

The past two weekends combined saw only 19.8 million customers! To put it in perspective; the past two weekends saw the same amount of movie goers for all the movies that were playing, as that 19+ million people who saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 on it’s opening weekend!

Happy Holidays, Hollywood!

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Comments out of Korea and Europe cast strong doubt on any EU recovery

“The leaders have not yet proposed fundamental solutions such as euro bond issuance or the European Central Bank’s intervention.”-Kwon Hyouk-se, Financial Supervisory Service, South Korea 

“The EU summit was widely seen as a new step in the right direction, but the summit deal has many obvious flaws and lacks operational details in many areas. It looks more like a comprehensive fix to the next crisis, rather than a final resolution to the current one.”-Luca Jellinek, Credit Agricole, France

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

World War 3: Canada pulls out of Kyoto environmental pact, blames U.S. & China. Durban Deal a failure? Japan may be forced to follow Canada’s lead.

“The Kyoto Protocol does not include the world’s two largest emitters, the United States and China, therefore it can not work!”-Peter Kent, Environment Minister of Canada

Canada is the first country to officially exit from the Kyoto environmental protocols.  This follows the end of the second round of ‘Kyoto’ (aka COP 17) talks in South Africa.

The COP 17 talks acknowledged that the goals set at Kyoto would most likely not be met, and they extended the deadline for those goals to 2018.  This latest round of talks is being referred to as the ‘Durban Deal’.

Edna Molewa, UN Water and Environmental Affairs Minister, called the Durban deal a “watershed” moment.  However, Canada is raining on that moment, and Japan has been warning of leaving the Kyoto Protocol as well.

“The Kyoto Protocol is not the right path.”-Masahiko Horie, envoy from Japan

Japan can no longer meet all the agreed upon goals because of the fact that 85% of their nuclear plants are shut down, or damaged.  Even before the loss of so many nuclear plants (for various reasons) Japan was still the number 5 polluter in the world!  Think what will happen as they switch back to electricity generated by coal and petroleum fueled power plants.

The following countries either refuse to take part, have quit, or are threatening to quit the Kyoto Protocol: Brazil, India, New Zealand, Russia, Japan, Canada, China (number 1 polluter) and the United States (number 2 polluter).

 

Business/Economics, U.S.

World War 3 & United Police States of America: Obama to sign into law the very National Defense Authorization Act he said he would veto. People of the U.S. you are now enemies of your own state, welcome to NAZI-land.

“…the [Obama] administration asked us to remove the language which says that U.S. citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section.”-Carl Levin, U.S. Senator from Michigan

There is now speculation that President Barack Obama will sign into law S.1253.RS, a bill he said he would veto. The reasoning behind that is based on statements from Senator Carl Levin, who stressed many times that it was the Obama administration that cut any language from the bill, that would protect U.S. citizens from being detained indefinitely.

Watch Senator Levin’s statements from cspan2 here.

President Obama could sign the bill into law as soon as December 13. Happy Holidays!

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

OWS, What Economic Recovery? As promised, Occupiers shutting down busy U.S. West Coast shipping ports. Watch out, media reporting there are undercover cops amongst your ranks!

A video stream from the Port of Long Beach, in California, shows that it’s raining, and you can also hear what Occupiers say are police helicopters circling low.

California media reporting that Occupiers have moved onto several important shipping port; Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, Portland in Oregon and Seattle in Washington.

Occupiers were hoping the port labor unions would join in, but one union official said there was not enough support from union members.

Bloomberg media says Goldman Sachs is the main target of the Occupiers.  Goldman Sachs owns the country’s largest port cargo operator: SSA Marine.

Reuters has confirmed that Los Angeles police sent in undercover officers prior to mass arrests last month.  The LA police said they used the info they got from spying on the occupiers to make the arrests.

 

Fukushima

Government & Corporate Incompetence: Still no decontamination efforts in Fukushima!

Just days after the the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunamis, several Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors went critical, melted down, and some even exploded.  But to date (11 December 2011) no decontamination efforts have been carried out by the prefectural or national governments!

A couple of cities, and even neighborhood committees have attempted decontamination of their immediate surroundings, but nothing on the large scale that’s needed.  This is because no one in higher authority thought such a nuclear disaster would ever happen.

Testimony by many Japanese officials (and Tokyo Electric Power Company officials) say representatives from General Electric (and other U.S. nuclear power companies), and the U.S. government, had claimed the U.S. designed disaster reactors were the safest in the world.  Japanese officials thought there was no justification for such preparations as the U.S. designed nuke plants were so safe.

As a result of the March nuclear disaster (which is still ongoing) officials in the national and prefectural governments have been scrambling to learn everything they can about how to deal with the situation (that included a trip to Chernobyl, albeit very late in the game).

But learning everything they could in a short time wasn’t enough.  The Japanese national government had to pass a law ordering the large scale decontamination!

The Japanese Environment Ministry says they will begin decontamination of roads and other infrastructure in late January 2012.  They do not expect to be able to start decontaminating residences until March 2012!  And that’s for areas contaminated with less than 20 millisieverts of radiation. Japanese officials admit they still don’t know how to deal with areas contaminated with more than 20 millisieverts of radiation!

The Environment Ministry says they are conducting new studies to see how best to handle decontamination in areas with more than 20 millisieverts of radiation, with a focus on protecting the workers.

Business/Economics, Idaho, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Idaho Governor finally admits economy sucks, tax revenues continue to crash, not enough jobs

“This recent string of sub-par showings has raised concerns whether the sales tax will be able to recover enough to meet its targets during the important holiday shopping season.”-Derek Santos, Chief Economist for Idaho

After years of being ‘optimistic’ in his rhetoric regarding the local economy, Idaho’s Butch Otter is finally sounding more realistic: “…for both fiscal 2012 and fiscal 2013 to be years of limited growth that will require us to be very selective in the authorization of new general fund spending.”-Clement Leroy ‘Butch’ Otter, Governor of Idaho

If times were bad when he was being optimistic, what’s really gonna happen now?

The reason why Governor Otter is turning down his optimism is that month after month State tax revenues have been much lower than hoped for.  November was no different.  Derek Santos, Idaho’s Chief Economist, says November 2011’s tax returns were 4.1% lower than November 2010.  And last year’s tax returns were down as well.

In fact, sales tax revenues for the first half of fiscal 2012 are already $19 million below what was hoped for!  Income taxes are $6.7 million below expectations!

Idaho’s fiscal 2012 year runs from July 2011 to June 2012.

Economic analysts hope that Idaho will end fiscal 2012 with a surplus of $130 million.  But realize that the State has run through $395 million in reserves since 2009!  Now add to that the fact that analysts also expect tax revenues to continue to drop.  One report said that State leaders did not have a “plan B” for when they run out of surplus money.

The only way that tax revenues will go back up is if a lot of good paying jobs are created. I guess that would be part of any “plan B” that our exalted leaders have failed to come up with.

 

Fukushima, International

Japan Modern Day Atlantis round 4: Minamisanriku, hometown of Heroine Miki Endo is becoming the Atlantis I predicted

Video

On March 11, a massive tsunami hit Minamisanriku.  If it wasn’t for a young woman, Miki Endo, as well as her boss ordering the residents to escape, many thousands more would have been killed.

Endo and her boss did not survive. They stayed at their posts on the second floor of the town hall building.  The water reached the top of the third floor of the building.  Endo’s last words over the city’s loudspeaker system were: “Take care mom!”

On November 7, Independent Television News updated the situation of Minamisanriku, and it looks like my past posts, comparing it to a modern day Atlantis, might apply.  A city official says no rebuilding can take place, because the land is slowing sinking into the ocean: “…our plan is to move the entire town to higher ground, because the ground level here has dropped by 70 cm [27.5 inches]. When we get higher tides, they come in and this entire area is underwater.”-Jin Sato, Mayor

Who said southern California can’t drop off into the ocean?

ATLANTIS SYNDROME: OFFICIALS CONFIRM LAND SUNK AFTER 9.0 QUAKE

JAPAN MODERN DAY ATLANTIS ROUND 3: QUAKE UPGRADED 10,000+ DEAD