COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Chinese Exports Drop by 25.7%.

Need an empty shipping container?

If China has less of a trade surplus, it will have less cash to save and invest in US bonds and other financial instruments. An increase in US savings, already up to 5%, or $600bn on an annual basis, is a good long term trend but rough on an economy that is geared to consume. That is $3 trillion in five years.

China is aggressively using government spending to improve her transportation network. 

The Chinese government is spending up to 40% of its GDP on infrastructure. That is wise for future commerce and growth and so far offsets the decline in exports.

The Obama Administration is missing an opportunity by its total lack of focus in government spending. Imagine the outcome if $800bn were invested in real clean energy that is proven and that is nuclear energy.

____________________

China hit by massive drop in exports
By Geoff Dyer in Beijing Financial Times
Published: March 11 2009 03:30 | Last updated: March 11 2009 05:27

Chinese exports slumped 25.7 per cent in February, much higher than analysts had expected, as the global economic crisis began to take its full toll on the country’s export sector.

However, the government also announced a strong increase in fixed asset investment in the first two months of the year, which economists said was a sign that fiscal stimulus measures were starting to have an impact.

China’s exports have decreased for four months in a row, but until February the rate of decline had been much slower than seen in other Asian countries with large export sectors.

The headline figure for last month probably masks an even steeper decline given that there were a shorter number of working days in February 2008 because the Chinese new year holiday fell during that month. Given the timing of the holiday, analysts had forecast only a modest drop in exports last month and were surprised by the size of the drop. Imports continued to decline sharply, falling by 24.1 per cent in February.

The trade surplus, which has been at record levels for the last four months, also shrank sharply from $39.1bn to $4.84bn. This might come as a relief to Chinese policy-makers preparing for the G20 summit next month who had feared that high trade surpluses would increase the pressure on China to appreciate its currency, however it will also increase the domestic pressure on the government for a weaker renminbi.

In his speech last week to the National People’s Congress, Premier Wen Jiabao said that the Chinese exchange rate would remain “basically stable”.

Chen Deming, China’s commerce minister, said that China would reduce export taxes to zero and give more financial support to exporters. China would ”use all possible measures to ensure the stable growth of our exports and prevent a large drop in external demand”, he said in an interview published by a Communist party newspaper.

Despite the weak trade numbers, analysts were also surprised by the rapid rate of increase in fixed asset investment, which rose 26.5 per cent in January and February, up from a growth rate of 21.9 per cent in December. “The rebound is coming much more quickly than we had expected,” said Yu Song, economist at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong.

Within those figures, transportation investment – one of the priorities of the fiscal stimulus plan – rose 210 per cent over the same period the year before, while property investment was up only 1 per cent, a sign of the continued weakness in the housing market.




140 comments:

  1. Imagine the outcome if $800bn were invested in real clean energy that is proven and that is nuclear energy.

    Hit's me right in my heart strings. Harry Reid's got them spending $8 billion on the Desert Debtor :)

    The French, I was told by Doctor Bill a couple nights ago, got the design for their new clear energy (nuclear) plants from our Diablo design, and improved it a bit. I learned the 1/2 life of the so feared waste is 30 years, so in a hundred years you don't have much to worry about. They also reprocess. A reprocessing plant takes some doing to get built, but then you're up and running. They have one site that does that. The Japanese he said send their stuff to be reprocessed there, then it gets shipped back, to be used there, as do the Brits. He said you can store the entire left over waste amount in a high school gym.
    And we shut down Yucca Mountain. We're fools, what can one say. There's another energy shock coming, one way or the other, either through a blow up in the mideast, an improved economy, something. Count on it.

    Maxine Waters will want to nationalize Chevron.

    No coal.
    No nukes.
    No drilling.
    Cap and trade.
    No this, no that.

    Windmills.

    A loser for our future together.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Plenty of shipping containers for sale right here at our inland port. They even deliver. Quess you could bury one use as a for a bomb shelter, or a bunker for the times of trouble ahead, maybe even a really large tomb. Plenty of uses for a shipping container. Food storage, fuel, two or three together might make a suitable earth home. Cool in summer, warm in winter.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is interesting---

    Lawyer Orly Taits Gets In A Question To Justice Scalia At A Reception--And Gets Something Of An Answer

    She represents some military that are questioning Obama's eligibility to be President.

    ReplyDelete
  4. (al-Bob dreams again of a shipping container full of innocent school-kid/hostages)
    ...there oughta be a law.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The moderate Taliban, staffed by Gitmo [Andy McCarthy]

    The Taliban's new top operations officer in southern Afghanistan had been a prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the latest example of a freed detainee who took a militant leadership role and a potential complication for the Obama administration's efforts to close the prison.

    U.S. authorities handed over the detainee to the Afghan government, which in turn released him, according to Pentagon and CIA officials.

    Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, formerly Guantanamo prisoner No. 008, was among 13 Afghan prisoners released to the Afghan government in December 2007. Rasoul is now known as Mullah Abdullah Zakir, a nom de guerre that Pentagon and intelligence officials say is used by a Taliban leader who is in charge of operations against U.S. and Afghan forces in southern Afghanistan.

    The officials, who spoke anonymously because they are not authorized to release the information, said Rasoul has joined a growing faction of former Guantanamo prisoners who have rejoined militant groups and taken action against U.S. interests. Pentagon officials have said that as many as 60 former detainees have resurfaced on foreign battlefields.

    Pentagon and intelligence officials said Rasoul has emerged as a key militant figure in southern Afghanistan, where violence has been spiking in the last year. Thousands of U.S. troops are preparing to deploy there to fight resurgent Taliban forces.

    One intelligence official told the Associated Press that Rasoul's stated mission is to counter the U.S. troop surge.
    ---
    Andy's article on the courts is even more depressing.

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  6. The really interesting thing, about those Supremes, bob, the left and the right.
    All four of the "right" Judges were appointed by Republican Presidents, the "swing" vote was appointed by a Republican President and two of the the four "Left" votes weree appointed by Republicans.

    Seven of the nine, were appointed by Republicans, and just look at what they will not consider an appropriate case for their Court.

    It is a rigged parlay, bob.

    ReplyDelete
  7. And how does Mr Freeman feel about wi"o" ...

    Freeman left no doubt about where he places blame in a written statement after his withdrawal.

    "The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East," he wrote.

    "The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth."


    Politico

    ReplyDelete
  8. Freeman:

    "Human Rights abuses in China and Saudi Arabia really are not that big a deal."

    ---

    Mexico's drug war


    Tourists weigh Mexico drug violence

    Photos

    Read more about Mexico Under Siege

    ReplyDelete
  9. Well, that seems to be the posititon of the United States, doug, referencing those Human Rights abuses.

    Ms Clinton, in China, echoed Mr Freeman's position, vis a vie China, anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  10. In AIG's case the Mark to Market arrangements were not mandated by rhe Government, but part of the contractual agreement 'tween AIG and the various counterparties.
    Interesting piece, by James Keller, well worth the read in regards to the way forward that seems to have been charted.

    Will we "Stay the Course"?

    AIG's Demise Speaks to Mark-to-Market's Importance

    By James Keller

    Blaming mark-to-market accounting for the banking sector’s woes is like blaming a polar bear stranded on an ice floe for global warming. The stranded bear points to the problem; though he didn’t cause it.

    The AIG debacle demonstrates the risk of ignoring market values. Congress is balking at being asked to approve yet another heap of money for AIG. There’s a growing sense that if we knew in September how big the hole in this bucket was, we might not have started filling it. But we did know in September.

    Or at least somebody knew. And the way they knew was by marking-to-market the assets AIG Financial Products had insured. AIG is now turning into a scandal of the highest order. Consider the fact pattern: the Treasury Secretary convinces Congress to spend $150 billion to bail out one of the largest trading partners of his former firm. If something similar happened in a third world plutocracy, we’d shrug.

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  11. Congress is finally pressing for details on which firms AIG posted taxpayers’ money to. This is a good start. A fuller questioning would ask the following:
    Back in September, when the first funds were called for, what was the total mark-to-market loss on all of AIG FP’s exposures?
    The answer to this question is certainly knowable, and Congress has a right to demand it. If the expected losses were greater than September’s margin call, why was the scope of the problem not fully revealed?

    Mr. Keller, former head of structured products at UBS, now runs a micro-finance enterprise in Peru.

    ReplyDelete
  12. One thing that has bothered me about the bailouts of the banks (and other institutions) is frantic desire to keep these institutions functioning as opposed to allowing for an orderly workout. There is an interesting article on the front page of todays NYTIMES titled "Some Banks, Citing Strings, Want to Return Federal Aid". Indeed some of the strings seem pretty absurd but, ironically, it might the absurd ones that pry the suckers off the government teat. Then again, we seem to be creating a bunch of Zombie institutions. The article is worth reading.

    An exerpt re. the S&L approach:

    "At the height of the savings and loan crisis in the 1980s and 1990s, Congress and regulators adopted new rules known as “prompt corrective action” that required the government to quickly close weak financial institutions if they could not raise money to absorb mounting losses.

    The rules were a response to a consensus that keeping weak institutions open longer, under an earlier practice known as forbearance, damaged healthy banks competing with the government-subsidized ones and ultimately destabilized the banking system. By shutting weakened institutions before their losses grew, prompt corrective action was also seen as less costly to taxpayers and the deposit insurance fund.

    Administration officials say that some of the banks at issue today are simply too large to be seized by the government, making comparisons to the savings and loan crisis less meaningful. "

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/business/economy/11bailout.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

    ReplyDelete
  13. Right, Ash.
    Trish referred to that.
    ...the old days.

    Nowadays, Timothy and Friends are

    "Too Big to Fail"

    ReplyDelete
  14. yeah, this too big to fail bugs me. In the last great depression FDIC was set up to protect individuals and their personal stashes and we seem to have skipped right over that protection to protecting it all. I don't see how it can work in the end...




    I don't know if any of you have been following the Jon Stewart vs CNBC/Cramer wars but it is friggin' HILARIOUS!! It's been running for 3 episodes now and it is worth going back and watching the first take down of CNBC on Thursday night (I think that was it) to last nights. Just watching last nights first segment is good enough to get a feel for the fight. "turd mining" hehehehahaha BWHAAAAHAAAHAHAAAAA! really, check it out - first segments of each nights show.

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  15. Glancing at the NEWS, it appears that a 17 year old that graduated from High School, in Germany, last year returned to that school and shot it up. Killing 3 teachers and perhaps others. I'm not paying that close of attention.

    The question of the day ...
    Was he a Goth, Muslim or neo-Nazi?

    Was he just another of the misguided miscreants or part of an organized clan of evil doers?

    We'll know, soon enough.

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  16. Roubini adjusts his S&P target to 600. Amazing how this corroborates with the chart I've posed 3 days back:

    http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__9QxUvYzu5s/SbCkvC1XlfI/AAAAAAAAANw/tW3IzFY4zaM/s1600-h/2009-03-05-PROPHETb.png

    ReplyDelete
  17. by Robert D. Kaplan

    The Shrinking Superpower

    While the Obama administration seeks to improve America’s position vis-à-vis Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine, Europe, and Asia, the most critical foreign-policy front of all – the home front—is looking brittle. This development is new, as for almost seven decades – ever since Pearl Harbor—policymakers have taken for granted that the homefront would cooperate with military missions and expenditures. America could build ships, planes, and tanks, and assert itself as the pivotal outside power in many parts of the world, and the home front (despite sometimes outspoken political opposition, as during the Vietnam War) would financially support those efforts. This held true from the time of the end of the Great Depression right up until the onset of our current great recession. The emergencies of World War II and the early Cold War years, coupled with a constantly expanding economy, allowed the home front to write blank checks for our endeavors abroad. But the big question in foreign policy today is,
    Will this continue in the face of the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s?

    Soon after the Iraq war turned nasty in 2006, the American people lost their stomach for involvement there. It was only because the surge paid fairly quick dividends, which got Iraq off the front pages, that public disquiet was reduced to low-level muttering. But that was before the economic crisis hit. Given the state of people’s retirement accounts and job prospects, where will the public be regarding Afghanistan a year from now? I’d guess that the Administration has no more than a year to show striking progress in Afghanistan before the public starts to growl like it did at the Bush Administration in the 2006 mid-term elections.

    But Afghanistan is only the most obvious potential casualty of the recession. Also at stake are the expensive weapons programs and air and sea platforms that allow the United States to sustain its position as a global military hegemon. Regardless of what happens on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. dominates the air and the main sea lines of communication (SLOCs). Ultimately, it is this fact that makes this country the preeminent global power that it is, and gives our diplomacy the heft it requires to sit at the front of the table at critical gatherings around the world. Yet maintaining that position doesn’t just cost money, it costs lots and lots of money—billions, not millions.

    The fact that the public has docilely accepted this arrangement for so long does not mean that it will continue to do so. Despite the many new billions that President Obama’s budget allocates for jump-starting the economy, he intends to substantially cut the Pentagon’s money-line. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has warned that the financial “spigot that opened on 9/11…is closing.” Gates might more accurately have said it is the financial spigot that opened following Pearl Harbor that’s closing. For the only interruption to the succession of high budgets the Pentagon has enjoyed since Pearl Harbor occurred during the 1990s, when America felt itself at peace, with no overbearing security threats. That decade saw the Navy lose almost half of its ships. The 1990s may provide only a taste of what is to come as the recession deepens and elongates, leading to tectonic changes in the public mood.

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  18. hmmm, what about the guy in Alabama? Could he be part of a clan of evil doers as well? Soon we'll have mattie urging the killing of all americans for his sins...

    ReplyDelete
  19. The S&P at 600 puts their Price Earning ratio at about 8. It's back to the future, or 1965 anyway.

    As the smoke clears and the mirrors crack ... the era of value investing has returned.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Are you referencing that Christian preacher that was shot at his pulpit, ash?

    That incident has certainly been swept off the table.

    No telling what or who the shooter was, from watching cable news.

    ReplyDelete
  21. No, I was referring to the Alabama shooting - 10 killed.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/us/11alabama.html?hp

    ReplyDelete
  22. That, it appears was a case of fratricide, ash.

    Nothing exceptionally news worthy, there. Nothing but a fellow that couldn't stand the people that inhabited his life.

    ReplyDelete
  23. The S&P at 600 puts their Price Earning ratio at about 8.
    ==

    Actually, 12. You're no taking to account inflation depression.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Well, mat, all I'm doing is extrapulating on what the Morningstar man said. At a PE of 15, the S&P values out at around 1,000.

    Using his standard, he is in the evaluation business, puts the PE in the 8 range. If you have some other mathamatical twist to the equation you're either ahead on that particular curve or looking in a mirror, smoking.

    I do not really know, fer sur.

    ReplyDelete
  25. I'm going by what Roubini has said, dRat. My hunch is that his financial acumen is a bit higher than that of the Morningstar man.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Anywhere, 'tween 8 and 12, mat, it is still a shock to those not raised upon the tenents of value investing.

    ReplyDelete
  27. At 12 there is still room to slide, to the historical norm.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Green energy stocks will lead the way in PE valuations. There's going to be explosive growth in renewable energy, as well as stem cell stocks.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Walmart is setting up shop acrss the Americas and also has 227 stores employing over 70,000 Chinese.

    Wal-Mart has store operations in 14 countries including US, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Puerto Rico, UK, Canada, China, Nicaragua, Japan, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica.

    Now, the only country outside the America/China bi-lateral Walmart cooperation league is the UK, where they have 160,000 employees and 356 stores.

    Walmart International employees more than 620,000 folks, world wide. Take out the 230,000 in China and the UK and that leaves 390,000 Americans, that reside outside the US, as Walmart employees. Walmart Int has 3,125 stores. Again take out the 583 stores in the UK and China and that is one heck of a footprint that Walmart has created, in the Americas, outside the United States.

    ReplyDelete
  30. I did not factor in the 392 stores and 5,700 fulltime employees, in Japan.

    Wonder how many parttimers the have, there in Japan?

    I mean, 5,700 across 392 stores is a far cry less than the numbers per store for China or the UK.

    ReplyDelete
  31. all this jawboning about P/E's. Y'all talkin' trailing earnings or projected? Then you've got EBITDA. This stuff actually makes a difference.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Obama budget lacks votes
    By Walter Alarkon
    Posted: 03/10/09 08:13 PM [ET]


    President Obama’s budget doesn’t have enough support from lawmakers to pass, the Senate Budget Committee chairman said Tuesday.



    Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said he has spoken to enough colleagues about several different provisions in the budget request to make him think Congress won’t pass it.

    ...

    ReplyDelete
  33. I don't see a future for WalMart. Their business model is going to come under increasing attack for its predatory and destructive nature. One way or another, they will be shutdown.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Trailing, ash.

    It is in the reading of the fine print, into the EBITDA and assets carried at book value, rather than fair, that made "Value Investing" an intricate art.

    ReplyDelete
  35. yeah reading the fine print can change ones view of the value. The problem I'm currently having with 'value investing' is the propensity of a stock price to diverge from the companies actual performance. That and the fact that so many companies have become so big and divers that it becomes difficult to tell what the heck it does - take GE for example.

    ReplyDelete
  36. desert rat said...
    And how does Mr Freeman feel about wi"o" ...

    Freeman left no doubt about where he places blame in a written statement after his withdrawal.

    "The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East," he wrote.

    "The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth."


    Mr Freeman (who earns a nice sum over the years via the chinese & saudis) is a zealot on the tit of jew haters...

    Not to mention his many other sub-human tendencies...

    I personally would love to see him move to live in Gaza, Arabia or China...

    Maybe one of his rich jew hating friends will continue to help him now that he has been exposed for the leech (or is that leach) that he is...

    May he rot in hell...

    So what Mr Freeman thinks of me i could care less...

    I am glad he will not be the director of our national intelligence agency...

    ReplyDelete
  37. Did I really tell you how I feel?

    Mr Freeman?

    May his daughters all be married to Hamas men....

    May he find peace and fulfillment in a Chinese Political re-education camp....

    May his grandchildren reject him and all convert to be either jews, buddists or strippers....

    ReplyDelete
  38. It is a rigged parlay, bob.

    It's disheartening.

    Guy that shot the pastor seemed to be a normal guy until he got some disease and started acting strangely. Wasn't a muzzie, didn't seem like.


    Yesterday's market, dead cat bouncing, or submarine breaching?

    ReplyDelete
  39. Freeman blamed you guys?


    heh, that's ripe.

    ReplyDelete
  40. bobal said...
    Freeman blamed you guys?


    heh, that's ripe.


    I shall add it to my resume...

    ReplyDelete
  41. GE is really a bank. And if it were to take correct provisions, it would have negative net worth. The penalty for even appearing as if there is a chance that you can't meet capital adequacy standards is death. So don't expect any of the pronouncements by the banks to tell you the truth. They're all lying.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Last time I went to the City Council to get a zone change I was violently opposed by a dentist--a real son of a bitch, though there are some good ones around--to whom I had sold the land on which his office building sits. Said he didn't want anyone building near him to ruin his view. Nobody had ever promised him a view. It would be hard to grow a city if everyone were implicitly promised a view. I got wanted I wanted, but it pissed me off, so I considered buying a shipping container and, since I owned a few feet right in front of his picture window before the land drops away, considered parking it there. I was talked out of this manoeuvre by my lawyer. however.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Why GE is lying:

    In finance you make profits in "normal times" by carrying risk. The more risk you carry (leverage), the higher your "normal time" profits.

    If GE Capital cut their risk, as they says they did, then their "normal time" profits will have fallen. But profits from GE Capital did not fall, evidenced by their quarterly statements. And that means they are lying. GE is full of toxic assets.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Bernie Madoff needed new suckers to float his Ponzi scheme and so does the US economy. If China can't keep buying Treasuries the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

    ReplyDelete
  45. I've used that cargo container gambit, bob.

    Creates a "slow burn", that's fer sur.

    ReplyDelete
  46. If China can't keep buying Treasuries the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.
    ==

    My advice regards China is bring back all tech manufacturing to the US, and impose severe penalties on Chinezie exports to the US in response to China's slave labor practices, abuse of the environment, and technology theft. I would also advice to cut military spending by 90%, call back the navy from the ME, and end all foreign aid programs.

    The US dollar will come back to the US, and there will be no need to worry about the Chinezies.

    ReplyDelete
  47. heheh, slow burn. I was semi-serious about it, too, but a cooler head prevailed.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Hi Ruby, glad you dropped by. Did you bring the Geritol, prune juice, and cherry juice I requested? :)

    ReplyDelete
  49. Seth Shostak of SETI was on C2C last nite, giving updates about the new Allen Array, which is being expanded.

    Also discussed again the big WOW Signal of '77 and other matters.

    Work continues apace, though Allen may be withdrawing some of his financial support due to the economic downturns.

    We'll hear from these alien fellars someday, if they don't harvest us first, or use us as conversation pieces or assign us some other demeaning function suitable to themselves. If selves they have.

    Seth gives talks around the country to various groups. His observation is, the kids love it, and some stay interested, most old folks pick up their ears a bit at first, then go back to golfing, and the laundry. :)

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  50. Bob, I wouldn't worry about them aliens. If they were truly intelligent, they wouldn't be stuck with us in our 3-dimensional world. :)

    ReplyDelete
  51. That Allen Array I believe he said would be so sensitive it could pick up a normal AM signal from something like 100 light years out.
    This isn't lisening to KGO, and Bernie Ward, that alien.

    ReplyDelete
  52. You might be right there Mat. Actually, something like that was discussed. Said them fellars might have figured a way out, to something a little more interesting! Some way to beat the rap of a universe doomed to die of expansion and heat loss, etc. Some way to beat the rap of the eternal landlord who never dies.

    ReplyDelete
  53. Some way to beat the rap of the eternal landlord who never dies.
    ==

    I wonder what the bastard collects in rent. Actually, I know. This is Comedy Central for him.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Tesseract:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract

    ReplyDelete
  55. Joe, who previously had made waves after the Washington Post first profiled him in October 2008, had "earned" $280 million during his tenure with AIG and who left the company with a $1 million a year consulting contract..


    http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/03/is-joseph-cassano-responsible-for.html
    ==

    Only $280 million? Sorry, Joe, but that aint enough to get you in with the Billionaires Club. Back to the regular street riffraff you go.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Quo Warranto

    I'd heard of a life time warrantry, a warranty deed, but not a quo warranto.

    ReplyDelete
  57. Maxine Waters will want to nationalize Chevron.

    No coal.
    No nukes.
    No drilling.
    Cap and trade.
    No this, no that.

    Windmills.


    -----

    Where are your batteries, mat?

    ReplyDelete
  58. mat:
    My advice regards China is bring back all tech manufacturing to the US, and impose severe penalties on Chinezie exports to the US in response to China's slave labor practices, abuse of the environment, and technology theft. I would also advice to cut military spending by 90%, call back the navy from the ME, and end all foreign aid programs.

    The US dollar will come back to the US, and there will be no need to worry about the Chinezie


    Add to that:

    Retro BILL China for all military, nuclear & commerical theft plus penalty & interest.

    ReplyDelete
  59. Where are your batteries, mat?
    ==

    In the car, LT.

    Anyway, if there was a case to be made for cheap nukes I'm sure it would have been made. There isn't.

    ReplyDelete
  60. Bristol Palin, Fiance Call Off Engagement
    Source say the split occurred a few weeks ago, and that it was mutual between Bristol, 18, and Levi Johnston.

    FOXNews.com
    Wednesday, March 11, 2009
    ==

    :(

    ReplyDelete
  61. If nukes are uneconomical how is it that France is at 85%, exports power to Germany and elsewhere, and Japan is rising to that level? Have they no economists? Or just money to burn?

    ----

    Bristol joins plenty of others in the unwed mom category. Least she isn't alone, got some backup.

    ReplyDelete
  62. They wanted the bomb material. That's always what it was all about.

    ReplyDelete
  63. For Sale in ... Colombia
    Stability and a growing economy have increased Colombian real estate prices.

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  64. The entire Industrial Revolution was a giant conspiracy, al-Bob!

    ReplyDelete
  65. Che Mətušélaḥ says so!

    ReplyDelete
  66. He's on with George Nouri tonite.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Are Windmills part of GE's toxic assets?
    ...they made the biggest ones we have here.

    ReplyDelete
  68. The entire Industrial Revolution was a giant conspiracy to build more and better bombs, al-Bob!
    ==

    Hey, Doogie Howser, learn how to complete a sentence!

    ReplyDelete
  69. Are Windmills part of GE's toxic assets?
    ==

    I've already told dRat, this is the only thing that might save their ass.

    ReplyDelete
  70. Mətušélaḥ said...
    I don't see a future for WalMart. Their business model is going to come under increasing attack for its predatory and destructive nature. One way or another, they will be shutdown.
    ---
    Yeah, by the Marxist and his Union thugs, so that Walmart can become as corrupt and decadent as Fannie and Freddie the US Govt, GM, NEA, Public Schools, etc etc etc.
    ...may as well destroy the one thing that works well while we're at it.

    ReplyDelete
  71. so that Walmart can become as corrupt and decadent
    ==

    Yes, employing slave labor throughout your production supply and retain chain is to be commended for being decent and benevolent.

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  72. Some of Walmart's Evil Deeds:

    Wal-Mart plants seeds of alliance with Latin farmers
    ---

    Replace the F...... Federal Govt with Walmart, and real benefits will accrue to all.

    Wal-Mart has 40 agronomists on staff in Central America who work closely with farmers such as Fermin Pec, who grows radishes, lettuce, cabbage and other vegetables in San Pedro Sacatepequez. “Their pickiness has helped me improve,” Pec says of Wal-Mart's requirements.

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  73. Wal-Mart plants seeds of alliance with Latin farmers
    ==

    Yes, I wonder what was wrong with US farmers.

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  74. They needed all this for bomb material?

    France
    Main article: Nuclear power in France
    Cruas Nuclear Power Plant - 4 reactors: 2 at 880 MWe, 2 at 915 MWe
    Dampierre Nuclear Power Plant - 4 890 MWe PWR reactors
    Fessenheim Nuclear Power Plant - 2 880 MWe PWR reactors - oldest operating commercial PWR reactors in France
    Flamanville Nuclear Power Plant - 2 1330 MWe PWR reactors
    Golfech Nuclear Power Plant - 2 1310 MWe PWR reactors
    Gravelines Nuclear Power Plant - 6 910 MWe PWR reactors
    Nogent Nuclear Power Plant - 2 1310 MWe PWR reactors
    Paluel Nuclear Power Plant - 4 1330 MWe PWR reactors
    Penly Nuclear Power Plant - 2 1330 MWe PWR reactors
    Phénix Nuclear Power Plant - 1 233 MWe FBR reactor
    Saint-Alban Nuclear Power Plant - 2 1335 MWe PWR reactors
    Saint-Laurent Nuclear Power Plant - 2 PWR reactors: 1 at 880 MWe, 1 at 915 MWe
    Tricastin Nuclear Power Center - 4 915 MWe PWR reactors
    Blayais Nuclear Power Plant - 4 910 MWe PWR reactors
    Under construction - 1 total
    Flamanville - 1 1630 MWe PWR reactor - EDF is building the second EPR reactor there.
    Under planning - 1 total
    Penly - 1 1630 MWe PWR reactor - EDF is planning a EPR reactor there.
    Decommissioned Power Reactors - 12 total
    Bugey - 1 540 MWe GCR reactor
    Chinon - 3 GCR reactors
    Chooz-A - 1 310 MWe PWR reactor - first PWR reactor in Europe (operational in 1970), managed by SENA (Société d'énergie nucléaire franco-belge des Ardennes).
    Marcoule - 3 38 MWe GCR reactors
    Monts d'Arrée - 1 70 MWe reactor - EL-49, heavy water reactor, only one of its kind in France, in Brennilis, Brittany
    Saint Laurent des Eaux - 2 GCR reactors
    Superphénix, Creys-Malville - 1 1200 MWe FBR reactor
    Cancelled
    Le Carnet
    Plogoff
    Thermos, a 50-100 MW reactor for the urban heating of Grenoble
    Research reactors
    Institut Laue-Langevin, currently the world's most intense reactor source of neutrons for science
    Rhapsodie
    Zoe, first French reactor (1948)

    List of Nuclear Reactors Worldwide

    ReplyDelete
  75. They needed all this for bomb material?
    ==

    Yes. They were not part of NATO and had their independent policy against the US and NATO.

    ReplyDelete
  76. So our Treasury secretary has no choice but to talk of bank stress-testing and other tactics to buy time before the big bank bailout. Notice that the president's budget already contains a contingency fund of up to $750 billion for a future bank bailout -- a politically shrewd number that roughly matches the size of the Paulson bailout.
    ==

    I have a 'one strike and you're out' policy. And these fsckers would have been out on the curb collecting change a long time ago.

    ReplyDelete
  77. (Those that haven't been sent to another dimension).

    ReplyDelete
  78. Buffet down to 30 billion from 60.
    33% Fewer Billionaires than last year.

    ReplyDelete
  79. Where's albob? He split on us with his trans-dimensional travels?

    ReplyDelete
  80. 33% Fewer Billionaires than last year.
    ==

    Aha. Let me guess, Paulson and his GS gang did not make the list.

    ReplyDelete
  81. al-Bobs got radiation sickness.

    ReplyDelete
  82. Speaking of..

    US Intel does not rule out Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapon from abroad
    DEBKAfile Special Report

    ReplyDelete
  83. al-Bobs got radiation sickness.
    ==

    I think the sicko is radiating la-boobs.

    ReplyDelete
  84. And the extraordinary popular delusion that we are going to be able to run the country on wind and sunshine runs still runs rampant.

    How New Clear Energy Will Revive

    That villain GE makes windmills.

    ReplyDelete
  85. Just got entangled in a warp momentarily. I had some strange vision of a nation running on windmills, but it faded out like a bad dream, when the wind settled on a sunny blue plateau.

    ReplyDelete
  86. Dreaming of Holland's red light districts, again?.

    ReplyDelete
  87. Ah, I've come fully back to my senses--

    Mike| 3.11.09 @ 8:41AM
    I'd like to think Tucker is correct, but the anti-nuclear sentiment is still amazingly strong. I live in perhaps the "greenest" town in Vermont (Charlotte) with what has to be the highest per capita population of Global Warmist loons in the country, and yet the most popular referendum at town meeting day was shutting down Vermont Yankee, the state's only nuke. This despite the propect of a significant increase in carbon emmisions and a 40% rate hike to boot. The mindlessness is stunning!

    whiterb| 3.11.09 @ 9:06AM
    Soon we will be told that freeing in winter is good, that sweltering in summer is good, that wearing unwashed clothes is good- it all leads to longevity, higher intelligence, better sex, you name it. The benefits of cold showers ? Endless. The people in Vermont will buy every word of it. The question is where else will they buy it? There will be studies, and the network news people will solemnly present the evidence. This is al part of " changing science". If you disbelieve you will be proclaimed evil or an imbecile .

    ReplyDelete
  88. 24. Tarnsman:


    “All we need right now is someone with common sense.”

    Maybe like a certain governor ridiculed by the left:

    “we can’t buy into the notion that for government to serve better, it must always spend more. Reductions we support are a chance to show the true measure in public policy. Simply increasing budgets every year, a common government practice, is no guarantee of success. More often, it’s an incentive to failure. Good public policy is accountable for results, and focused on critical priorities.”

    ~ Sarah Palin 2009 State-of-the-State address

    ReplyDelete
  89. That Sarah, she's a good one.

    ReplyDelete
  90. Book Review: Robert Hefner's 'The Grand Energy Transition'

    .
    .
    The “real inconvenient truth,” Hefner says, is that government subsidies are impeding the adoption of abundant, cleaner and cheaper natural gas by extending the life of oil and coal well beyond what otherwise would have been their natural rates of decline. If government policy instead allowed the full external costs of coal and oil (military costs to secure supply, health care costs due to toxic emissions, environmental costs, efficiency costs, etc.) to bleed through to the consumer, the superior energy solutions of natural gas, wind, and solar would come to the fore. Natural gas would then attain its destiny as the “go-to” fuel of choice and accelerate the decline of coal and oil consumption while significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

    .
    .

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/125439-book-review-robert-hefner-s-the-grand-energy-transition?source=feed

    http://snipurl.com/dn96q

    ==

    Read the article. This guy is from the industry.

    ReplyDelete
  91. I was in Amsterdam once, and thought it was kind of disgusting to see women sitting in a windowed cubicle so you could look over the merchansise. And I've never seen so many listless nordic youth lazing around fountains. I wasn't impressed with the place.

    ReplyDelete
  92. I wasn't impressed with the place.
    ==

    Neither am I. And I was never there.

    ReplyDelete
  93. Madoff mysteries remain as he nears guilty plea

    http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE52A5JK20090311

    http://snipurl.com/dn9xd
    ==

    Yes, they still didn't arrest his accountants, wife, and kids, and those that clearly knew of the scam, like everyone on wall street.

    ReplyDelete
  94. Here's this Tucker fellow (don't know anything about him) on a subject you will agree with, Mat.

    Crime, Recidivism, and Jihad

    Got a big day tomorrow. Nite.

    ReplyDelete
  95. Robert Hefner: The Grand Energy Transition

    http://fora.tv/2009/02/24/Robert_Hefner_Grand_Energy_Transition#chapter_01

    ReplyDelete
  96. G'nite, Bob.

    I think the policy with Jihadis should be to kill on sight. There's nothing to be gained in keeping them alive, not even for intelligence info.

    ReplyDelete
  97. The Idiot’s Guide to Destroying the Economy: a 12-Step Program

    2. pat:

    13. Implement cap and trade on fossil fuel sources to drive up the price of energy and the price of everything that uses energy.

    14. Invest vast sums in wind-power and solar energy, sources which can make only a marginal contribution to America’s energy needs.

    15. Put nuclear power and domestic sources of oil and natural gas off limits.

    ht - Larsen

    ReplyDelete
  98. - Movement under way to again reinvent Las Vegas -

    But all three also used unprintable-in-a-family-newspaper expletives to describe the business environment. They also criticized government officials in general and President Barack Obama specifically for cultivating a sentiment that, for businesses seeking aid from the taxpayers, Las Vegas is a wasteful place to hold events.

    "There is a guilt factor right now," Bloss said.

    Unwin said a bank cancellation of 2,800 room nights in January not only resulted in the bank paying cancellation fees, it also cost 230 maids work for the weekend.

    "We are all in the same boat," Unwin said. "If your tips are down, my bonus is gone."
    ---
    People who manage the world's biggest and poshest resorts are now turning to every corner of their properties for advice on how to cut costs, find new business and maintain morale in buildings that can cost $2 million per day to keep running.

    "We have very spirited discussions about it every week," Unwin said.

    And the reinvention ideas are coming from unlikely sources.

    Unwin said managers at Caesars recently boosted revenue in one section of the casino by 10 percent on the advice of a security guard. According to Unwin, the guard noticed that when performers such as Cher were wrapping up events in the evening, the band playing just outside the main showroom would often be on a break. By changing the casino band's break timing, Caesars was able to increase the likelihood that some of the 4,200 people leaving the featured event would stick around and spend money.

    Roger Bloss, founder, president and CEO of Vantage Hospitality in Las Vegas, said the recession has everyone in his company from maids to general managers reconsidering their role in keeping the company afloat.

    Bloss, whose company owns the brand America's Best Value Inn, which has more than 800 independent franchise locations around the country, said the newfound energy is natural survival instinct.

    ReplyDelete
  99. Europe to U.S.: You're on crack!

    http://www.elgallocrows.com/2009/03/europe-to-us-youre-on-crack.html

    http://snipurl.com/dne9c
    ==

    And frankly, so is anyone that advocates sticking with 19th and 20th century technologies for our energy needs. I love you guys, but when you're wrong, you're wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  100. I love you guys, but when you're wrong, you're wrong.

    Show me the battery, mat.

    ReplyDelete
  101. The “Obama Bear Market” And Why He Triggered It

    Maybe, deep down, Obama has changed his mind. Nobody, however, seems to have asked him.
    In his 2004 Preface to the reissue of Dreams, the older Obama himself denies that he has gained much wisdom in subsequent years:

    “I cannot honestly say, however, that the voice in this book is not mine—that I would tell the story much differently today than I did ten years ago, even if certain passages have proven to be inconvenient politically, the grist for pundit commentary and opposition research. “ [p. ix]

    This is a bad outlook for the American economy.

    ReplyDelete
  102. Lots of Prius's (Priui ?) in my neighborhood.
    Recently while biking past a parked one, the thought struck me of what one would be like when it had become old and worn.
    WHAT A NIGHTMARE!
    A plain old gas clunker ain't that sweet when things start falling apart.
    Just imagine what a freaking MESS an old Prius will be:
    Batteries, wires, generators, motors, engines, computers, more wires, more batteries...
    All inevitably turning into worthless JUNK over time.

    ReplyDelete
  103. That is why a pure EV is the way to go. One in which the battery can easily be replaced/exchanged. See Project Better Place.

    ReplyDelete
  104. One in which the battery can easily be replaced/exchanged.

    Where's the battery, mat?

    ReplyDelete
  105. Kalispell, Montana (Airport)
    Updated: 1:55 AM MDT on March 12, 2009
    Clear
    1 °F
    Clear
    Windchill: 1 °F
    Humidity: 72%
    Dew Point: -6 °F
    Wind: Calm



    We want batteries, mat.

    ReplyDelete
  106. It's being mass produced in China as we speak, LT.

    ReplyDelete
  107. The question to ask, LT, is why is it not mass produced in the US.

    ReplyDelete
  108. The question to ask, LT, is why is it not mass produced in the US.

    Don't quibble.

    Where's the battery, mat?

    ReplyDelete
  109. Ask Jay Leno:

    http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/03/10/video-jay-lenos-garage-welcomes-mini-e/

    ReplyDelete
  110. Zimmerman Trail, Billings, Montana (PWS)
    Updated: 2:22 AM MDT on March 12, 2009
    Partly Cloudy
    -1.3 °F
    Partly Cloudy
    Windchill: -1 °F
    Humidity: 55%
    Dew Point: -14 °F
    Wind: Calm

    ReplyDelete
  111. Overall, Jay had plenty of good things to say about the experience, especially about its performance and the short recharge time due to the high-capacity charger that's included as part of the $850 per-month lease package.

    Folks in Billings got no use for the playthings of your metrosexual fans, mat. No use atall for an $850 per-month Mini. They need gas and diesel and propane and fuel oil.

    They're waitin' on your battery.

    Take away their oil, they might come lookin' for you.

    ReplyDelete
  112. China Trade Surplus Falls To 1/8 Prior Month Level
    China Trade Surplus Falls To 1/8 Prior Month Level


    No details up yet on my cheapie version of Bloomberg, will update when more is in.

    Recall, however, that many analysts foresaw a fall in China's surplus. It had stayed at near record levels despite falling volumes of trade overall because imports fell faster than exports.

    Well, many imports are used to produce exports. As forward orders decline, manufacturers would buy less in the way of inputs, while still in the process of completing existing orders.

    Update 12:10 AM: OK, sports fans, we now have more meat. Note in particular how the decline was way above consensus forecasts. The fall in the surplus plus dollar strength (ie little/no need to intervene to keep the RMB from rising) also says China will have much less reason to buy dollar assets like Treasuries

    China’s trade surplus plunged in February as exports fell by a record, adding pressure on the government to spur domestic consumption to prop up the world’s third-biggest economy.

    The trade gap narrowed to $4.8 billion, about an eighth of the amount in the previous month, the customs bureau said in a statement. Exports tumbled 25.7 percent from a year earlier. Imports fell 24.1 percent.

    The government has halted the yuan’s gains against the dollar and plans to cut export taxes to zero as demand dries up because of the global slump...

    “There’s no hope for export demand to recover any time soon,” said Wang Qian, a Hong Kong-based economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. “How fast imports recover depends on how soon the government’s stimulus package kicks in and creates real demand in major industries.”

    ReplyDelete
  113. Up in al-Bob's France list, Linear, Grenoble has Nuclear Heating!

    ReplyDelete
  114. LT,

    Honda will be releasing a $20,000 EV called the Insight, this year. In reality, this is really a $10,000 car, when consider the savings in fuel costs and maintenance costs that come with EVs.

    ReplyDelete
  115. ..when ^you consider the savings..

    ReplyDelete
  116. ...Grenoble has Nuclear Heating!

    It's all just a smoke screen, Doug. They're really making bombs up there in the Alps. Mat told me so.

    I saw it all coming back in '67 when we moved NATO out of Paris. Took everything, down to the commodes and the nuts and washers on the footing anchor bolts. Shipped the buildings back to Germany.

    ReplyDelete
  117. The Insight is a hybrid electric that costs $20,000. That means that a pure electric, can and will cost even less. They're coming, LT. Whether you like, or not.

    ReplyDelete
  118. How unfortunate for GE that it decided to invest so heavily in China, rather than back home in the US.

    ReplyDelete
  119. Insight...

    Replacement battery pack...

    As of 1 June 2008, the replacement battery costs US$1,968 and installation is around US$900.[10]


    Pushin' $3000 for a "fillup" there, mat...or would you call it a service?

    That's for the old Insight...care to guess what the new one will cost? Ever priced replacement parts on a Honda? Or do you just drive them til your ashtrays are full of gum wrappers, and trade up?

    ReplyDelete
  120. They're coming, LT. Whether you like, or not.

    Don't be so defensive, mat. I like them. I really do. I just know deep down that there's no way in hell there's enough power to run the fleet you're so dipsy about.

    Where is the battery, mat?

    ReplyDelete
  121. Todays Li battery pack cost anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000. These are good for 200,000 km, and then the charge start to slowly deteriorate.

    ReplyDelete
  122. Got a franchise on those solar cells that produce watts from starlight, mat?

    ReplyDelete
  123. I just know deep down that there's no way in hell there's enough power to run the fleet you're so dipsy about.
    ==

    LOL!
    I'm off to bed. Have a good one.

    ReplyDelete
  124. Todays Li battery pack cost anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000. These are good for 200,000 km

    Ya told me at 04:45 am the whole damn car only cost $20,000, and now I find out I get to spend the purchase cost for a replacement battery at about the mileage where my Toyotas are just getting comfortably broken in.

    If I need to drive from Portland to Denver, and the daytime high temperature along the route is 10 degrees F, how long will it take me, including charging time, and how much will it cost, including electricity, food, and lodging while I wait for my car to charge up?

    ReplyDelete
  125. Obama and Europe are having their first spat, over money
    Leaders balk at his call that EU countries boost public spending as the U.S. has. They're more concerned with toughening oversight of the financial sector -- and say America shouldn't throw stones.
    • Obama vows tougher financial regulations

    ReplyDelete
  126. 19. Doug:

    Leo is too modest to tell us what reeks.
    Mr. Brown has spread his cheeks.

    ReplyDelete
  127. - Prosecutors Plan an Attack on Financial Fraud -

    "While assorted Wall Street executives have been prosecuted over the years, any concerted legal attack on the financial sector would have little precedent. After the Depression, Congress formed what became known as the Pecora Commission, which grilled top financiers. But the point was mostly to embarrass them, and the upshot was to set the stage for stricter regulations. The most indelible image of the commission’s hearings was a photo of J. P. Morgan Jr. with a midget who had been plopped in his lap by an opportunistic publicist.

    The question behind any cases brought against Wall Street will boil down to this: Was the worst economic crisis in decades caused by law-breaking or some terrible, but noncriminal, mix of greed, naïveté and blunders? The challenge for the Obama administration will be to prove that it was the former, said Michael F. Buchanan, a partner at Jenner & Block and a former United States attorney in New Jersey."

    ReplyDelete
  128. - They're well-versed in hard times -

    "The Bail-Out Plan."

    A "Bail Out" plan in Ag-Land is to feed the livestock hay,

    and not the type of bail-out plan we hear about today.

    When country folks lose money, which happens most the time,

    they don't receive a handout. . . . not even one thin dime.

    ReplyDelete
  129. The Physics of Money

    “All I can say is, beware of geeks bearing formulas,” Warren Buffett said on “The Charlie Rose Show” last fall. Even the quants tend to agree that what they do is not quite science.

    As Dr. Derman put it in his book “My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance,” “In physics there may one day be a Theory of Everything; in finance and the social sciences, you’re lucky if there is a useable theory of anything.”

    Asked to compare her work to physics, one quant, who requested anonymity because her company had not given her permission to talk to reporters, termed the market “a wild beast” that cannot be controlled, and then added: “It’s not like building a bridge. If you’re right more than half the time you’re winning the game.” There are a thousand physicists on Wall Street, she estimated, and many, she said, talk nostalgically about science. “They sold their souls to the devil,” she said, adding, “I haven’t met many quants who said they were in finance because they were in love with finance.”

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  130. OBAMA: TROOP MOVE TO MEXICAN BORDER UNDER CONSIDERATION

    "I don't have a particular tipping point in mind," he said. "I think it's unacceptable if you've got drug gangs crossing our borders and killing U.S. citizens."

    ---
    WELL!
    ...THAT's an improvement on
    Mr. Family values don't stop at the border.
    PUTZ

    ReplyDelete