...Hedge funds outflows hit 7 year high in July. Millions middle class folks are in the markets through their 401k and IRA accounts, which makes news like this something to keep an eye on once in a while. More here...
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...Paris based think tank warns on "quite significant" U.S. slowdown this year. Since there are railroad tracks near where I live, I watch the volume of daily train traffic as one barometer of how things are going. I can also keep an eye on the local terminal of a nationwide trucking company, and see how many doors they are working on their docks, and how many tractors and trailers are sitting idle in their yard. Simple but useful tool.
...On the other hand, for the local restaurants and traffic congestion on the roads, it seems pretty much like business as usual. Don't see where there has been much cutting back there.
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...Lenders now starting to tighten standards on credit cards, auto and personal loans. Credit cards can be dangerous to your financial health. Plastic surgery may be needed. Did you know that some credit card companies consider you a 'deadbeat' if you pay your entire balance off monthly? Credit card companies make billions of dollars in penalty fees.
...Banks are "...raising interest rates, adding new fees, making the due date for your payment a holiday or a Sunday on the hopes that maybe you'll trip up and get a payment in late," says Robert McKinley, founder and chairman of card research firm Cardweb.com and Ram Research, in this PBS program.
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...Food additives may cause hyperactivity in children. All those things that are put into our food to make them taste better and extend shelf life may sometimes have side effects, it seems.
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Thursday, September 06, 2007
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
09.05.07
...More jobs heading out of the U.S. - this time in agriculture. Some U.S. farms have moved part of their operations to Mexico, where there is a ready labor force that doesn't have to worry about deportation, and also works for lower wages. But back here in the 'homeland', more middle class jobs that are indirectly dependent on agriculture are being lost.
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...Danger, Steep Drop Ahead, shouts the surprising headline on CNN Money's site this morning. Surprising because the article is appearing on a mainstream site. Author Jeremy Grantham gives another take on the housing situation. In recent years mortgage levels of four times income have been considered normal. But here in the U.S., they have risen to six times normal. That has created part of the unsustainable bubble, as the ability of homeowners to pay their mortgages was based on rosy projections that are now proving to be unrealistic. Markets tend to revert to the mean. That is a point that Mr. Grantham makes in the article. Folks tend to extrapolate returns out into the future as if they can expect those same returns to continue indefinitely. Historically, it doesn't work out that way.
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...The longer you keep your car, the better. If you could keep your car 15 years you could save about $31,000 compared to replacing it every five years. I read sometime ago that if you replace your car every ten years you will keep up with all the new innovations and features on cars, too.
...Fleck says central banks are stealing from average citizens. Bill Fleckenstein seems to be pretty much a permabear, which naturally makes him one of the writers I read on a regular basis. Interesting article, with some pertinent quotes and links to other articles in it.
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...Danger, Steep Drop Ahead, shouts the surprising headline on CNN Money's site this morning. Surprising because the article is appearing on a mainstream site. Author Jeremy Grantham gives another take on the housing situation. In recent years mortgage levels of four times income have been considered normal. But here in the U.S., they have risen to six times normal. That has created part of the unsustainable bubble, as the ability of homeowners to pay their mortgages was based on rosy projections that are now proving to be unrealistic. Markets tend to revert to the mean. That is a point that Mr. Grantham makes in the article. Folks tend to extrapolate returns out into the future as if they can expect those same returns to continue indefinitely. Historically, it doesn't work out that way.
.
...The longer you keep your car, the better. If you could keep your car 15 years you could save about $31,000 compared to replacing it every five years. I read sometime ago that if you replace your car every ten years you will keep up with all the new innovations and features on cars, too.
...Fleck says central banks are stealing from average citizens. Bill Fleckenstein seems to be pretty much a permabear, which naturally makes him one of the writers I read on a regular basis. Interesting article, with some pertinent quotes and links to other articles in it.
.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Now They're After Our Trucking Industry
An appeals court has ruled that Mexican truckers can start roaming the U.S. as early as this coming week. The court struck down the latest attempts by the Teamsters Union and other groups to block the move. That deafening silence you hear is the coverage this story is getting in most of the corporate controlled mainstream media, and in the corporate controlled halls of Congress. The same fine folks who brought us NAFTA so that we could buy goods for a lower price in our stores, goods produced in other countries where wages are lower than here in the U.S., are selling us out again.
Here's a rich comments from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regarding the ruling. They regard this latest anti-American-working-class ruling as "...welcome news for U.S. truck drivers anxious to compete south of the border and U.S. consumers eager to realize the savings of more efficient shipments with one of our largest trading partners."
That comment would be a hoot if it weren't another blow against more middle class workers. First, it will be interesting to see how many U.S. trucking firms will be lining up for the right to send their drivers and trucks all over Mexico. If that does occur, it will be just as interesting to see how many of those trailers actually make it back to the U.S. Years ago, the railroad I worked for would not allow their cars to go across the border because so many of the cars that made their way across the border were never seen again.
The last part of the comment is even more ridiculous when you translate the comment into what it actually means. How are those eager U.S. consumers going to realize more efficient shipments? Answer: By using Mexican trucks and Mexican drivers, and eliminating those pesky U.S. drivers with their higher wages.
Just another example in a depressingly long litany of sellouts by the people we voted into office. With a few notable exceptions, our Congress does not represent 'we the people' as much as they represent the corporations who contribute to their campaigns, give them cushy lobbying jobs when they leave CONgress, and actually have the power to put them in and remove them from their offices. But when we keep voting them in, we get what we deserve.
Ross Perot warned everybody about the perils of NAFTA during his unsuccessful run for the Presidency. He was right. We used to run a trade surplus with Mexico. Now we have a trade deficit. In fact, at one time we were the biggest creditor nation on the planet. Now we are the biggest debtor nation. But not only do we not hear anything in Congress about repealing NAFTA, they are looking for more sellout deals. Ever heard of CAFTA? That's the push for expanding NAFTA to include all of Central America as well.
A report by the Council on Foreign Relations from sometime back seems to have served almost as a blueprint for what we have seen happening all around us. The CFR report is entitled Building A North American Community. The CFR is a grouping of the mucketiest of the muckety mucks in our country. Take a look at the membership list sometime. It is composed of nothing but leaders in government, society and business. Mere mortals need not apply. If you think their opinion doesn't count and their recommendations are just something for them to talk about over a good cup of grog, then you're probably happy with the way things are going anyway, so why are you reading this?
Here's a few highlights from that report. On page 10, under the heading What We Should Do By 2010, we read that "...the three governments should commit themselves to the long-term goal of dramatically diminishing the need for the current intensity of the governments' physical control of cross-border traffic, travel, and trade within North America." There's your answer if you ever wondered why your government wasn't more interested in guarding our borders.
Page 12 contains this nugget. "NAFTA was designed to create new opportunities for trade and investment in Mexico and thus complement Mexican development programs. Officials hoped that Mexico would grow much faster than its more industrialized partners and begin to narrow the income gap among the three countries." Bet you don't remember your elected legislators telling you all about that when they voted for NAFTA, eh?
And on page 30 here's another neat recommendation. "Develop teachers exchange and training programs for elementary and secondary school teachers. This would assist in removing language barriers and give some students a greater sense of a North American identity." A North American identity? What a brave new world is being foisted upon us.
Here's a rich comments from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regarding the ruling. They regard this latest anti-American-working-class ruling as "...welcome news for U.S. truck drivers anxious to compete south of the border and U.S. consumers eager to realize the savings of more efficient shipments with one of our largest trading partners."
That comment would be a hoot if it weren't another blow against more middle class workers. First, it will be interesting to see how many U.S. trucking firms will be lining up for the right to send their drivers and trucks all over Mexico. If that does occur, it will be just as interesting to see how many of those trailers actually make it back to the U.S. Years ago, the railroad I worked for would not allow their cars to go across the border because so many of the cars that made their way across the border were never seen again.
The last part of the comment is even more ridiculous when you translate the comment into what it actually means. How are those eager U.S. consumers going to realize more efficient shipments? Answer: By using Mexican trucks and Mexican drivers, and eliminating those pesky U.S. drivers with their higher wages.
Just another example in a depressingly long litany of sellouts by the people we voted into office. With a few notable exceptions, our Congress does not represent 'we the people' as much as they represent the corporations who contribute to their campaigns, give them cushy lobbying jobs when they leave CONgress, and actually have the power to put them in and remove them from their offices. But when we keep voting them in, we get what we deserve.
Ross Perot warned everybody about the perils of NAFTA during his unsuccessful run for the Presidency. He was right. We used to run a trade surplus with Mexico. Now we have a trade deficit. In fact, at one time we were the biggest creditor nation on the planet. Now we are the biggest debtor nation. But not only do we not hear anything in Congress about repealing NAFTA, they are looking for more sellout deals. Ever heard of CAFTA? That's the push for expanding NAFTA to include all of Central America as well.
A report by the Council on Foreign Relations from sometime back seems to have served almost as a blueprint for what we have seen happening all around us. The CFR report is entitled Building A North American Community. The CFR is a grouping of the mucketiest of the muckety mucks in our country. Take a look at the membership list sometime. It is composed of nothing but leaders in government, society and business. Mere mortals need not apply. If you think their opinion doesn't count and their recommendations are just something for them to talk about over a good cup of grog, then you're probably happy with the way things are going anyway, so why are you reading this?
Here's a few highlights from that report. On page 10, under the heading What We Should Do By 2010, we read that "...the three governments should commit themselves to the long-term goal of dramatically diminishing the need for the current intensity of the governments' physical control of cross-border traffic, travel, and trade within North America." There's your answer if you ever wondered why your government wasn't more interested in guarding our borders.
Page 12 contains this nugget. "NAFTA was designed to create new opportunities for trade and investment in Mexico and thus complement Mexican development programs. Officials hoped that Mexico would grow much faster than its more industrialized partners and begin to narrow the income gap among the three countries." Bet you don't remember your elected legislators telling you all about that when they voted for NAFTA, eh?
And on page 30 here's another neat recommendation. "Develop teachers exchange and training programs for elementary and secondary school teachers. This would assist in removing language barriers and give some students a greater sense of a North American identity." A North American identity? What a brave new world is being foisted upon us.
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