Tag Archives: tea party

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

Some Economic Recovery, for U.S.? Apple reverses outsourcing

07 December 2012, Apple CEO, Tim Cook, revealed that some computer manufacturing will be brought back to the United States.

However, the actual assembly of a specific line of Macs will still be contracted out.  Cook says they’re still figuring out where in the U.S. to assemble the computers.

Analysts say the move amounts to about a $100 million USD investment into the U.S. economy, which is tiny when you realize Apple has at least $1 billion in cash and other investments.  So, don’t expect this insourcing of a new Mac to be the cure all for the U.S. unemployment blues.

 

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? California: Federal austerity to kill hundreds of thousands of jobs, largest court system in the U.S. to shut down, private sector job loses speeding up!

“As California goes, so goes the rest of the nation.”-phrase usually associated with government regulations originating in California, but it also refers to the economy

Federal government austerity measures (whether it’s the automatic fiscal cliff, or those agreed to by the President and Congress), could go into effect in January 2013 and could result in 225,000 Californians losing their jobs.  More than half of those would be from defense cuts (Almost $500 billion USD in defense cuts are being considered, which could result in at least half a million people losing their jobs across the country).

Defense contractor Northrop Grumman has already announced voluntary buyouts for 200 employees in California and Utah.

The second largest U.S. defense contractor, Boeing, said it will try to cut $1.6 billion from its operations by 2015.  The cuts will affect Boeing’s operations in California, including the selling or demolishing of Boeing property.

The Los Angeles court system (the biggest in the country) will shut down some operations.  Some of the courthouses to be closed are Catalina Island, Hollywood, San Pedro, Whittier and Pomona.  No word on how many people will lose their jobs.  The shut down of the courts will drastically affect civil cases.

Citigroup’s recently announced lay offs will affect about 240 employees in California.

The College of the Redwoods will cut a total of 39 jobs by June 2013.

Geron Corporation to cut 40% of employees after its cancer drug turned out to be a failure.

Entropic, home networking technology supplier to cable and satellite TV companies, will lay off 40 employees.

Memorial Medical Center to lay off 114 people by January 2013.

Dignity Health will let go 50 employees at their Saint John’s hospitals.

Kaiser Permanente officially announced 530 lay offs.

San Diego Hospice laid off 180 employees.

Santa Barbara Bank & Trust: “…468 positions will be eliminated over the course of the next twelve months. 80 percent of those whose positions have been eliminated will not depart the bank until at least April 30, 2013….”

Fourth Wall Studios suddenly laid off about 90% of its staff, reports say the layoffs were driven by a major shareholder: “It was a sudden decision and not necessarily expected by everyone, and I have to leave it at that…”-Jim Stewartson, CEO

The preceding list came from announcements made between 29 November and 06 December 2012.

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Yet another U.S. company invests big, but not in the U.S., in Korea

06 December 2012, for awhile now U.S. President Barack Obama has been touting his desire that U.S. corporations start investing into research right here in the United States.  Yet, a failing U.S. company has decided to spend money it supposedly doesn’t have outside the U.S.

Sears Holdings announced that they are bringing back their old Roadhandler tire brand.  You might think that’s good news, but the new Roadhandler tire is simply a Korean Hankook tire with the Roadhandler name on it.

Hankook tires have good reputation, but in these bad economic times when more and more U.S. citizens are losing their jobs, why couldn’t Sears (a company supposedly going broke) spend their big bucks investing in a quality U.S. made tire?

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Government Incompetence & What Economic Recovery? U.S. made aircraft parts being ripped off by Israeli military and scrap metal dealers, army vehicles and ammo disapearing!

06 December 2012, possibly because of the bad economy in Israel, but investigators now believe that Israeli Defense Force (IDF) personnel are involved in the theft of engines for F-15 and F-16 aircraft.  The engines might have been sold to scrap metal dealers.

The theft of engines took place at Tel Nof air base, near Rehovot, last year.

This is not the only time parts for U.S. made aircraft were stolen.  Last year police raided a scrap metal warehouse in Tel Aviv. It was full of new parts for U.S. made F-15 and F-16 aircraft.

Also, IDF ground forces have revealed that in the past few months several vehicles and at least 1,500 tank rounds went missing from an army base in southern Israel.

The economy is really bad in Israel, and has led to numerous strikes and protests.  The most recent strike involved nurses who said Israeli hospitals are full of sick people who are not being treated due to the fact that there is no money to hire more staff.

Business/Economics, U.S.

Sears & Kmart news: Sears dropped to negative! Looking for more independent owners. Execs get $1 million cash! Sears Hometown stores make big profits! Kmart becomes target for thieves, mostly women!

05 December 2012, Fitch Ratings has dropped Sears Holdings to negative CCC.  Fitch believes it is unlikely Sears/Kmart will recover, and even expects negative earnings in 2013. As other analysts have pointed out, Sears’ assets are still worth more than any expected revenues (one analyst said Sears was worth more dead than alive).

Executives of Sears Holdings got a some early Xmas money, by selling off, or trading in their vested shares of Sears Canada.  Some execs traded in the vested shares for unvested, worth about $280,000.  Those execs who already had unvested shares will get cash. According to paperwork filed with the SEC, the top five Sears Holdings execs got $1 million in cash!

The push to find independent owners of Sears Hometown stores increases, as profits increase. Reports say that profits at independently owned and operated stores jumped 29% from the year before!

In California, Sears returned to Banning, but as a smaller independently owned Hometown store. It’s being run by a former insurance salesman, and stocks only tools and appliances.

Also in California, a new Hometown store in Lake Elsinore is scheduled to open in February 2013. City officials say their tax revenues correlate with Sears’ increased profits in tools and appliances sold at the independent stores: “We certainly can tell based on Riverside County sales tax reports that people are spending money in these categories…”-Kim Joseph Cousins, Lake Elsinore Valley Chamber of Commerce.

Sears is looking for a Hometown owner in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin: “We’re looking for a person who wants to operate a successful business and is customer service oriented. This is an outstanding retail opportunity for a dedicated individual to participate in one of America’s hottest growth opportunities.”-Ed Sosniak, regional development manager for Sears Hometown Stores

Hometown stores are hot, for Sears Holdings, because the onus of paying the rent, utilities and employees is on the independent owner: “The local owner is responsible for start-up and on-going operating expenses associated with the store including: building or leasing a facility; providing in-store fixtures; hiring and training employees; payroll; and insurance…”

Sears makes its money by selling the owner the merchandise.   Hometown stores also employ far fewer people than a full blown Sears.

Sears online sales, cell phone sales, store-to-home sales and web-to-store sales also jumped 28%, however electronics sales crashed 30%!

For Kmart stores there’s been increasing reports of theft.  A man in Florida was captured on video stealing video game systems, four times!  The police are looking for him.

In Wyoming a Kmart was robbed by a woman with a gun (oh no, another one for Bob Costas). What did she want? Prescription drugs!

In Massachusetts, two women were arrested after trying to steal more than $1,000 in merchandise.  And in just the past couple of days, three other women were arrested for trying to steal $130 worth of merchandise!

In Ohio, a Kmart employee was attacked by a man with a box cutter (Bob Costas you better call for the banning of box cutters): “The suspect demanded money and was armed with a box cutter. While the victim was attempting to get his wallet, the suspect began slashing at the victim.”-Ronald Mizner Junior, North Canton Police

In New York, a man who just got out of prison apparently killed himself with drugs (Bob Costas you paying attention).  Police say he was found in a stolen car in a Kmart parking lot.

‘Tis the season

 

 

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

What Economic Recovery? Yet another U.S. company invests big, but not in the U.S., in Japan

05 December 2012, for awhile now U.S. President Barack Obama has been touting his desire that U.S. corporations start investing into research right here in the United States.  Yet, U.S. companies continue to spend that money outside the U.S.

The latest is Qualcomm, who announced they will spend up to $120 million USD, by March 2013, on the failing Japanese company Sharp.

Sharp is now predicting it will lose a record $5.5 billion by the end of March 2013!

Sharp was hoping to be saved by a Taiwanese company, but that deal went south, partly because Sharp’s stock prices are crashing and burning (falling by 75%).

Qualcomm says it’ll use half the $120 million buying up Sharp stocks now, and the other half will be used when Sharp starts showing a profit.  Obviously the California based company has more faith in the Japanese economy than in the U.S. economy.

This could be a money maker for Qualcomm, if Sharp recovers, but if Sharp fails…..

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Global Economic War: Japan & India sign deal to use U.S. dollars only!

05 December 2012, Japan and India have signed a currency exchange deal that could prop up the U.S. dollar.

Banking officials from the two Asian countries have been working on the plan for about a year.  It involves the central banks of Japan and India exchanging up to $15 billion USD per year for the next three years.

They say the exchanges done in U.S. dollars will stabilize their own currencies.  It could prop up the value of the U.S. dollar, which would hurt U.S. factories (who’re still operating in the U.S.) who want to export their products. Japan has been blaming the rising value of their yen on the falling value of the U.S. dollar.

India is blaming the value of the European Union’s euro, for the rupee’s problems.

When a country’s money becomes more valuable it actually hurts their exports because it makes their products more expensive to foreign buyers. The only way for any country to achieve high economic growth is to have strong exports, a strong domestic economy can only achieve stagnation at best (relative to the size of the country).

Business/Economics, International

Trilateral Commission’s dream of one centralized European Bank dashed, for now

05 December 2012, European Union finance ministers shelved any plans to create a single centralized bank for the EU.

Last month things looked good for a central bank of Europe when 6,000 banks were put under EU “supervision”.  It was hoped an official EU central bank would be in place for 2013.

Some of the reasons for the collapse of such plans was that most EU member countries could not agree on the limits of power for a EU central bank. Also, France wanted immediate implementation while Germany wanted a gradual phase in.

EU finance ministers will resume central bank creation discussions next week.

Opinion, U.S.

2nd U.S. Civil War: People, and media of the Big Apple complicit in murder of Asian man? New twist on push for Arms Control!

05 December 2012, an Asian man was pushed to his death by an attacker in a New York City subway.  Such violent crime might not seem too surprising in the Big Apple, but what is is the fact that no one in the subway tried to help the man to safety, they just stood there and took pictures as he gets smashed by the train!

Even a New York City newspaper incriminates itself as they publish pictures of the man’s impending death, taken by a freelance photographer.

Why didn’t anyone help?  The photog gave this answer: “I wanted to help the man, but I couldn’t figure out how to help. It all happened so fast.”

Obviously not so fast that he didn’t have time to pull out his camera and take pics.

Was this because the victim was a yellow skinner from Korea?  The attacker was a black skinner. The photog was a brown skinner (going by his name). Bob Costas is a white skinner.

This should be ammo for the anti-violence crowd, you know, Arms Control.  Not Arms as in guns, but arms.  Obviously in this case it was a deranged man’s arms that killed the other man.  People’s arms should be banned, lest they try to kill other people with them.

Bob Costas should get in on this one, after all it involved someone with mental problems and probably prescription meds (just like that football player who shot his wife and himself).  Using Bob Costas rationalization, it’s not the fact that the guy had mental problems that led to the killing, it’s the fact that he had arms and he knew how to use them to kill!

Even the freelance photog is guilty.  He has arms and he didn’t use them to save the man’s life, he used them to document the man’s death.  Off with his arms!

And this isn’t the first time, there’s at least one other high profile case, back in 1999, when a New York City woman was pushed to her death on the subway tracks by a mentally troubled person, who had arms!

One things for sure, I bet there are even more people throughout the United States who’re are not going to shed anymore tears for the people of New York City.  U.S. sponsored al Qaeda, stock market collapse, Mother Nature’s fury, bring it on!

 

Idaho, Influenza

U.S. Influenza: CDC issues warning, three people already dead in Idaho! Schools being shut down! Connection to West Nile?

“Significant increases in flu activity in the U.S. in the last two weeks indicate that an early flu season is underway.”-U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

04 December 2012, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare reporting that three women have died from flu, or flu like symptoms.  They’re the first deaths reported, and CDC officials say the flu season started early: “It looks like it’s shaping up to be a bad flu season…..We’re seeing the beginning of the uptick start at least a month before we’d generally see it.”-Thomas Frieden, CDC

In North Carolina it’s being reported that more hospitals are ordering their staff to get vaccinated for the flu or face the loss of their jobs.

Mississippi is the first state to report “high” levels of flu.  Louisiana and Alabama are reporting “moderate” levels of flu.   Tennessee and Texas reporting higher than normal flu case levels.  Note that most of these states also got hit hard by West Nile virus.

Kentucky is officially reporting 60 possible cases: “Primarily, the concern at this point is that we are seeing cases earlier in the flu season than we typically do.”-LaQuandra Nesbitt, Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness

However, Kentucky and Tennessee school districts are reporting hundreds of students out sick, causing the schools to lose money.  Kentucky law requires schools to maintain at least 90% student attendance, but because of flu some schools are down to 81%.  A Kentucky doctor says sick students are being reported in the hundreds: “It’s more than just county wide. I think the joining counties in Tennessee. I heard Macon County had 500 students out. That’s huge numbers.  Our waiting room yesterday was terrible. We had people waiting out in their cars with their cell phones, and we would call them when it was there turn to get in.”-William Carter, Tompkinsville doctor

Doctor Carter also said it looks like vaccinations are not working: “A 90 year old who had a flu shot ended up with both A and B, so I don’t know if the flu shots are working completely with this string that’s going around.”

In Tennessee, two schools are closing down because of the flu. University School of Jackson and the Trinity Christian Academy will close on Wednesday, in hopes of halting any spread of flu.

Health officials in Onondaga County, in New York, reporting a huge jump in lab confirmed flu cases; 210 last week, up from 95 the week before. For comparison, county health officials said during last year’s flu season they averaged only 40 cases per week.