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Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Microlending - Still No Action
Microlending is something we will continue to focus on with the Hickory Hound. One year ago (May 2, 2011) I had a discussion with the Mayor about this issue on Hal Row's Radio Program. It is an issue that Harry Hipps ran on during his campaign for Hickory City Council in 2009. He was the first person I have heard in Hickory talk about fostering a capital mechanism such as this to help start-ups be able to take that first step towards Free Enterprise. We aren't talking about a handout. We are talking about loans. Microlending was first established in Third World Emerging nations, such as India, as a way to facilitate entrepreneurship amongst the poor. Harry first addressed this issue, because we have seen the lack of a credit function in this community and in many ways this relates to the grass roots business development we have seen in these emerging nations.
This issue was also carried forward by the initial Small Business Task Force and research was executed to establish its legitimacy as a viable economic/financial function in relation to small business start ups. When this issue was brought forward at the City Council retreat of December 2009, our City Manager Mick Berry stated that it was illegal and would not let the presenter even address the issue to the City Council. Not only that, but a question was asked about could one of the businesses start a Sign Company and the answer was that they might be able to, which I feel is a petty/ignorant/selfish question. It shows that the aim, first and foremost IS to protect a personal vested interest at the expense of community growth. Microlending functions have been established in large Metro areas such as Charlotte, NC and San Francisco, CA, as well as locally in Valdese and Burke County and other communities in the Advantage West Economic Development Group. This proves that the premise of Hickory's City Manager is 100% false.
The most egregious issue is that the Microfinancing wasn't even allowed to be discussed with the City Council in 2009-10 and more than 2 years later we have still seen that this issue has been squelched. This is the pattern that I have alluded to over time relating to Hickory's governance. The stifling of debate and critical thinking about how to move this community's economy forward. 99% of the time, City "Leadership" makes up their minds about processes before they are even discussed. This closed mindedness is not leadership. It is also a reason why people don't participate in government around here and frankly I think Rudy Wright and Mick Berry like it that way.
You have seen me espouse this issue many times before related to the duplicity on the issues that face the community. The Mayor in the presentation above talks about needing to know a little more. He had the opportunity in December 2009 to hear a lot more about MicroLending/Microcapital/Microfinancing, but he chose to participate in stifling the discussion, which seems to be his forte. This issue, by the way, was discussed a lot by the Task Force that Mayor Wright personally created a few years ago.
I have been told personally that a Microlending function would be very helpful to Innovators who have had contact with the Manufacturing Solutions Center. Dan St. Louis, the head of the center, said that sometimes these people might only need a few hundred or a few thousand dollars. These people are usually working full time jobs and have families. In this economy, their personal budgets are stretched and they don't have money laying around to help with their side venture, so it is put on hold. So our economy is put on hold by the shortsightedness of a leadership looking to protect some theoretical interest that may not even exist. Luckily for Dan, the Manufacturing Solutions Center will soon be relocating to Conover, which surely seems to be a much more economically progressive community than Hickory.
I was in a discussion related to the local economy last week and a question was asked about how we felt about the economic condition of the community compared to last year. There were 9 people present. One person said they saw signs of progress. One said that they were seeing signs of signs of progress -- People finding work. Five people, including myself, said the economy was the exact same and 2 said it was much worse. One who said it was worse, said it was because people had used their reserves and they no longer have that cushion to fall back on, but the near term future didn't look to be improving and that malaise together with the loss of the cushion is very scary. Another person said that it depended on who you are. If you are at or near retirement, then your perspective is going to be different than a younger person. We still have a huge problem with the slow velocity of business in our local community.
In my opinion, the Mayor has only been working for years to serve the interests of a handful of people. Many of these people are operating in Cruise Control and they can't relate to the people that are struggling. The people who do know that people are struggling are growing perturbed by the priorities of Hickory City Leadership and their lack of real action related to the local economy. The Mayor has always said that we need to bring our ideas to him and he is looking for the "Right" idea. Well, look, this microlending idea was brought to him and he has done absolutely nothing. Yet, we have a half a million bucks to put up a tent on Union Square.
The Banks in this community have pulled back on their lending and that is understandable. We have seen a local bank bought out because they lost their A-double-you know whats playing the Credit derivatives game on Wall Street. Back in the early 2000's would you have ever thought that this bank would have found itself in a bind?
We need alternative sources of capital to move this community forward and microlending is a good start. All anyone wants is the City to be supportive of this process. No one is looking for a handout. No local government official can give you a valid reason not to try this. I just don't think they like the people that are promoting it and I also do believe that they are worried about how some Bogey Man might have an effect on their personal business venture.
I get tired of saying this, but we have got to do something. We have got to try some things. Last year, the Mayor kept throwing around this $20 million idea/figure. We don't even need $20 million. Put $1 million into a Microlending trust. Draw up contracts to get the money back and eventually you can decide after ten years whether you want to leave that money in there for the public good or take it out and use it for something else for the public good. This money would be a dynamic investment that would feed off of itself. It is the public's money and this is the kind of investment we would all hope the government would make. An investment than can benefit the whole community and not just a few.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Economic Stories of Relevance in Today's World -- June 3, 2012
Morganton man still waiting for mom's death certificate - WCNC Channel 36 Charlotte - AMY COWMAN - May 31, 2012 - Morganton man says he’s had to wait nearly a month for his mother’s death certificate after Mecklenburg County sent an incorrect death certificate and he never received a new one. He says that has affected his ability to pay bills, even the mortgage on her house. Richard Garrison is still mourning the loss of his mother, Jean Pruett Garrison, who died on May 5 at Carolina's Medical Center and he says it's been impossible for him to move on since he's still waiting for her death certificate.
Debt Up $1.59T Under GOP House—More in 15 Months Than First 97 Congresses Combined - CNSnews.com - Terence P. Jeffrey - June 1, 2012 - In the fifteen months that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives--led by Speaker John Boehner--has effectively enjoyed a constitutional veto over federal spending, the federal government’s debt has increased by about $1.59 trillion. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution says: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” A law appropriating money cannot be enacted unless it is approved by the House. The approximately $1.59 trillion in new debt accumulated since the Republican-controlled House gained a veto over federal spending legislation is more than the total increase in the federal debt between 1789, when the first Congress convened, and October 1984, when the 98th Congress was nearing the end of its second session.
Hospitals fight drug scarcity, fear patients harmed - Reuters - Anna Yukhananov - June 2, 2012 - At the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, pharmacists are using old-fashioned paper spreadsheets to track their stock of drugs in short supply - a task that takes several hours each day. Most of the hospital's medicines - with usage estimated at $100 million a year - are tracked by automated systems that allow for quick reorders when the supply runs low. But these automated systems, designed to help the hospital avoid purchases and storage costs of unused pills and vials, do not work if it is uncertain when the next batch of drugs will come in. A few hundred medicines make the list of drugs in short supply: anesthetics, drugs for nausea and nutrition, infection treatments and diarrhea pills. A separate list has scarce cancer drugs for leukemia or breast cancer..... The growing scarcity of sterile, injectable drugs is one of the biggest issues confronting hospitals across the country, and will be a key issue at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago this weekend. Health officials blame the shortages on industry consolidation that has left only a handful of generic manufacturers of these drugs, even as the number of drugs going off patent is growing. Some drugmakers have been plagued by manufacturing problems that have shut down multiple plants or production lines, while others have stopped producing a treatment when profit margins erode too far.
Former Hedge Funder Presents A Terrifying Vision Of THE END GAME - Business Insider - Max Nisen - June 1, 2012 - Everyday, we hear some pretty grim predictions about the markets and the economy. But this is one of the more comprehensive and most gloomy outlooks we've ever seen.
Raoul Pal expects a series of sovereign defaults, the "biggest banking crisis in world history", and asserts that we don't have many options to stop it.... A note on the presentation; the last slide is not meant to suggest that we're going back to the economic activity of 3000 years ago. It refers to the 3000 year old trade links between the nations along the Indian Ocean, which Mr. Pal believes will be the center of world's opportunities. Just like the West 50 years ago, they have "...low debts, high savings and a young population".
Top Mitt Romney Campaign Contributors - (Open Secrets.Org):
Top Barack Obama Campaign Contributors - Open Secrets.Org:
How The Super Rich Avoid Taxes Even As They Demand That The Rest Of Us Pay More - The Economic Collapse Blog - The way that we tax people in the United States is fundamentally broken and should be completely discarded. The U.S. tax code is absolutely riddled with loopholes that allow the super rich to legally avoid taxes while many of the rest of us are being taxed into oblivion. In our system of taxation, middle class families that work hard and try to play by the rules are deeply penalized while those that are willing to abuse the system make out like bandits. There is something fundamentally wrong with a system that enables wealthy politicians such as Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to pay a smaller percentage of their incomes in taxes than millions of middle class families. Mitt Romney has millions of dollars parked down in the Cayman Islands and in other tax havens. He does this to avoid taxes. Unfortunately, most Americans do not have the resources to funnel money through offshore tax havens. Most Americans just automatically have their paychecks shredded by taxes and then try to live on whatever is left over. Most Americans are just trying to survive financially from one month to the next. But the super rich have options. Thanks to technology, they can live almost anywhere they want and they can run their companies and manage their investments from anywhere in the world. The truth is that the wealthier you are the easier it is to avoid taxes. But even as the ultra-wealthy do their best to avoid taxes, many of them still feel free to demand that the rest of us be taxed more... If you are interested in digging into some of the technical details of tax avoidance, a recent Businessweek article detailed 10 ways that the wealthy use our current tax code to avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes. It is an article worth reading if you have the time. It has been reported that 80 percent of all international banking transactions involve offshore banks. A whopping 1.4 trillion dollars is being held in offshore banks in the Cayman Islands alone. An article that appeared in the Guardian estimated that a third of all the wealth on the entire planet is being kept in offshore banks. One of the primary reasons for this is tax avoidance.
Anger over Christine Lagarde's tax-free salary - The Independent - Rob Hastings - May 30, 2012 - The IMF chief Christine Lagarde was accused of hypocrisy yesterday after it emerged that she pays no income tax – just days after blaming the Greeks for causing their financial peril by dodging their own bills. The managing director of the International Monetary Fund is paid a salary of $467,940 (£298,675), automatically increased every year according to inflation. On top of that she receives an allowance of $83,760 – payable without "justification" – and additional expenses for entertainment, making her total package worth more than the amount received by US President Barack Obama according to reports last night. Unlike Mr Obama, however, she does not have to pay any tax on this substantial income because of her diplomatic status. The news will intensify criticism of the former French Finance Minister following her controversial remarks on the increasingly bleak prospects for the Greek economy last week. Stating that she had more sympathy for poor African children with little education than for jobless people complaining about austerity measures in Greece, she said last week: "As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax." Speaking to The Guardian, she added that they could "help themselves collectively" by "all paying their tax," and agreed that it was "payback time" for ordinary Greeks.
America's Transition To A Part-Time Worker Society Accelerates As Part-Time Jobs Hit Record - Zerohedge.com - Tyler Durden - June 2, 2012 - Back in December 2010 Zero Hedge was the first to point out what is easily the most troubling characteristic within America's evaporating labor force: its gradual transition to a part-time worker society. We elaborated on this back in February when we noted that the quality assessment of US jobs indicates that this most disturbing trend is accelerating. Finally, yesterday, the BLS' latest jobs report confirmed that our concerns have been valid all along: as of May, part-time jobs just as disclosed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics hit an all time high, over 28 million! These are people who traditionally have zero job benefits, including healthcare and retirement, and which according to the BLS "work less than 35 hours per week." In other words, as little as one hour per week of "work" is enough to classify one a part-time worker. More disturbing: the increase in part-time jobs in May compared to April: 618,000, or the fifth highest on record. It gets better: when added with the 508,000 increase in part-time jobs in April, this is the largest two month increase in part time-jobs in history. Which means of course that full time jobs in May must have declined: sure enough, at a -266,000 drop in full time jobs, the quality composition of the NFP report was just abysmal and makes any reported "increase" in those employed into a sad farce.
Debt Up $1.59T Under GOP House—More in 15 Months Than First 97 Congresses Combined - CNSnews.com - Terence P. Jeffrey - June 1, 2012 - In the fifteen months that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives--led by Speaker John Boehner--has effectively enjoyed a constitutional veto over federal spending, the federal government’s debt has increased by about $1.59 trillion. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution says: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” A law appropriating money cannot be enacted unless it is approved by the House. The approximately $1.59 trillion in new debt accumulated since the Republican-controlled House gained a veto over federal spending legislation is more than the total increase in the federal debt between 1789, when the first Congress convened, and October 1984, when the 98th Congress was nearing the end of its second session.
Hospitals fight drug scarcity, fear patients harmed - Reuters - Anna Yukhananov - June 2, 2012 - At the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, pharmacists are using old-fashioned paper spreadsheets to track their stock of drugs in short supply - a task that takes several hours each day. Most of the hospital's medicines - with usage estimated at $100 million a year - are tracked by automated systems that allow for quick reorders when the supply runs low. But these automated systems, designed to help the hospital avoid purchases and storage costs of unused pills and vials, do not work if it is uncertain when the next batch of drugs will come in. A few hundred medicines make the list of drugs in short supply: anesthetics, drugs for nausea and nutrition, infection treatments and diarrhea pills. A separate list has scarce cancer drugs for leukemia or breast cancer..... The growing scarcity of sterile, injectable drugs is one of the biggest issues confronting hospitals across the country, and will be a key issue at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago this weekend. Health officials blame the shortages on industry consolidation that has left only a handful of generic manufacturers of these drugs, even as the number of drugs going off patent is growing. Some drugmakers have been plagued by manufacturing problems that have shut down multiple plants or production lines, while others have stopped producing a treatment when profit margins erode too far.
Former Hedge Funder Presents A Terrifying Vision Of THE END GAME - Business Insider - Max Nisen - June 1, 2012 - Everyday, we hear some pretty grim predictions about the markets and the economy. But this is one of the more comprehensive and most gloomy outlooks we've ever seen.
Raoul Pal expects a series of sovereign defaults, the "biggest banking crisis in world history", and asserts that we don't have many options to stop it.... A note on the presentation; the last slide is not meant to suggest that we're going back to the economic activity of 3000 years ago. It refers to the 3000 year old trade links between the nations along the Indian Ocean, which Mr. Pal believes will be the center of world's opportunities. Just like the West 50 years ago, they have "...low debts, high savings and a young population".
Top Mitt Romney Campaign Contributors - (Open Secrets.Org):
Top Barack Obama Campaign Contributors - Open Secrets.Org:
How The Super Rich Avoid Taxes Even As They Demand That The Rest Of Us Pay More - The Economic Collapse Blog - The way that we tax people in the United States is fundamentally broken and should be completely discarded. The U.S. tax code is absolutely riddled with loopholes that allow the super rich to legally avoid taxes while many of the rest of us are being taxed into oblivion. In our system of taxation, middle class families that work hard and try to play by the rules are deeply penalized while those that are willing to abuse the system make out like bandits. There is something fundamentally wrong with a system that enables wealthy politicians such as Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to pay a smaller percentage of their incomes in taxes than millions of middle class families. Mitt Romney has millions of dollars parked down in the Cayman Islands and in other tax havens. He does this to avoid taxes. Unfortunately, most Americans do not have the resources to funnel money through offshore tax havens. Most Americans just automatically have their paychecks shredded by taxes and then try to live on whatever is left over. Most Americans are just trying to survive financially from one month to the next. But the super rich have options. Thanks to technology, they can live almost anywhere they want and they can run their companies and manage their investments from anywhere in the world. The truth is that the wealthier you are the easier it is to avoid taxes. But even as the ultra-wealthy do their best to avoid taxes, many of them still feel free to demand that the rest of us be taxed more... If you are interested in digging into some of the technical details of tax avoidance, a recent Businessweek article detailed 10 ways that the wealthy use our current tax code to avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes. It is an article worth reading if you have the time. It has been reported that 80 percent of all international banking transactions involve offshore banks. A whopping 1.4 trillion dollars is being held in offshore banks in the Cayman Islands alone. An article that appeared in the Guardian estimated that a third of all the wealth on the entire planet is being kept in offshore banks. One of the primary reasons for this is tax avoidance.
Anger over Christine Lagarde's tax-free salary - The Independent - Rob Hastings - May 30, 2012 - The IMF chief Christine Lagarde was accused of hypocrisy yesterday after it emerged that she pays no income tax – just days after blaming the Greeks for causing their financial peril by dodging their own bills. The managing director of the International Monetary Fund is paid a salary of $467,940 (£298,675), automatically increased every year according to inflation. On top of that she receives an allowance of $83,760 – payable without "justification" – and additional expenses for entertainment, making her total package worth more than the amount received by US President Barack Obama according to reports last night. Unlike Mr Obama, however, she does not have to pay any tax on this substantial income because of her diplomatic status. The news will intensify criticism of the former French Finance Minister following her controversial remarks on the increasingly bleak prospects for the Greek economy last week. Stating that she had more sympathy for poor African children with little education than for jobless people complaining about austerity measures in Greece, she said last week: "As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax." Speaking to The Guardian, she added that they could "help themselves collectively" by "all paying their tax," and agreed that it was "payback time" for ordinary Greeks.
America's Transition To A Part-Time Worker Society Accelerates As Part-Time Jobs Hit Record - Zerohedge.com - Tyler Durden - June 2, 2012 - Back in December 2010 Zero Hedge was the first to point out what is easily the most troubling characteristic within America's evaporating labor force: its gradual transition to a part-time worker society. We elaborated on this back in February when we noted that the quality assessment of US jobs indicates that this most disturbing trend is accelerating. Finally, yesterday, the BLS' latest jobs report confirmed that our concerns have been valid all along: as of May, part-time jobs just as disclosed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics hit an all time high, over 28 million! These are people who traditionally have zero job benefits, including healthcare and retirement, and which according to the BLS "work less than 35 hours per week." In other words, as little as one hour per week of "work" is enough to classify one a part-time worker. More disturbing: the increase in part-time jobs in May compared to April: 618,000, or the fifth highest on record. It gets better: when added with the 508,000 increase in part-time jobs in April, this is the largest two month increase in part time-jobs in history. Which means of course that full time jobs in May must have declined: sure enough, at a -266,000 drop in full time jobs, the quality composition of the NFP report was just abysmal and makes any reported "increase" in those employed into a sad farce.
Max Keiser on the Bilderberg meeting in Chantilly, Virginia
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Competition, Jobs, & Entrepreneurship
Everybody talks about competition in the marketplace being good and yet what we have seen over the last several years is consolidation in the marketplace, which limits competition. We see that locally, nationally, and internationally. We see that both in relation to the government and the private sector to the point where the private sector has become the quasi-private sector.
When we look at the current jobs picture, we see the inability to find traction towards growth because there are fundamental flaws in the current economic model. The marketplace is essentially run through speculation that obsesses over short term profit models at the expense of long term viability. It all becomes how can you sock it to the customer? How do we keep the disposable goods model going/growing at the expense of quality/durability? and How you can cut costs to the bone, even at the expense of service and quality?
Laissez Faire types seem to think this is good, but I don't feel they are grasping the big picture. What happens to service, quality, and innovation when companies are allowed to stamp out competition and/or create barriers to entry within their business sector? What are their incentives to improve service, quality, or foster innovation?
We have fought this battle before in the history of our nation. In the 1890s, we saw the creation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act (1914) that related to how businesses could operate in relation to competition. The problem is that the megacorporations have transcended these laws buy making their companies Transnational in nature. At the moment there really are no governing rules that oversee how these companies will operate. Many of these Corporations have assets worth more than most countries' GDPs. This allows these companies to have free reign to manipulate foreign governments towards their personal interest.
How can this be fixed? I don't think, nor do I want, an International Body administrating the governance of these corporations. I think the better route is for the United States to make these companies abide by our structure of governance and in the interest of this nation. And if they do not, then they can't operate in the United States. And the goods that they sell in the U.S. will be taxed to equability.
On the local level, I am tired of seeing some favored and the rest rendered mute. Many in local leadership seem to think it is their job to protect certain businesses over the overall health of the marketplace. They seem to think that companies are more important than people. Local unemployment is reported at 10.4%, but the true reflection is the reduction in the workforce in Catawba County from 82,245 people in February 2001 to 73,305 in April 2012. That loss of 8,940 people in the workforce equals a shrinkage of 10.87%.
If we look at that reduction in the workforce with a common sense belief that many of these people would prefer to be working, then by extrapolating that half of that reduction in the workforce is a false reduction, then that would figure to a workforce capacity of 77,775 people.
By looking at the current given workforce 73,305 and multiplying it times the given Unemployment rate of 10.4%, we estimate that 7,623 people are unemployed. If we add the additional estimated 4,470 that have fallen off the workforce rolls, then we estimate that the number of truly unemployed stands at 12,093 ( =7623+4470 ). If that is the case, then the real unemployment rate in Catawba County is really right at 16.5%. This does not even factor the number of teens who have been delayed entering the workforce because of the poor economy. 16.5% is the minimum unemployment rate that we see in the area.
You may believe that the assumptions are off, but you can't say that the shrinkage in workforce is attributable to a loss of population. Despite the travails we have seen with the local economy, we saw an increase in population from 2000 (142,515) to 2010 (154,389) of 11,874 people, which is a growth rate of 8.33%. In 2001, 56.6% of the people/population were considered in the workforce (82,245 workforce/145,405 population). Today that number has shrunk to 47.5% (73,305 workforce/154,389 population). The bottom line is that the jobs that we need to move towards recovery obviously aren't there. It has to be our number one priority.
For every anecdote that I am given about how lazy people are, I can show you people that a busting their butts and struggling to make ends meet.
Management will always look at the working class with scornful eyes. I have never understood this. Nor do I understand people playing the class warfare game against middle managers. We've got to meet somewhere in the middle if we have any hopes of turning our economy around.
We talk a good game about wanting more entrepreneurs. Well, the local community is going to have to put some skin in the game if we are to move forward with that effort. That means looking out towards the best interests of the community and not personal self interests. Can we do this? We haven't shown that ability in the past. Must we do this? Yep, if we aren't to see an implosion of population from our area moving to green pastures - to areas that would rather be ahead of the curve than run over by it.
When we look at the current jobs picture, we see the inability to find traction towards growth because there are fundamental flaws in the current economic model. The marketplace is essentially run through speculation that obsesses over short term profit models at the expense of long term viability. It all becomes how can you sock it to the customer? How do we keep the disposable goods model going/growing at the expense of quality/durability? and How you can cut costs to the bone, even at the expense of service and quality?
Laissez Faire types seem to think this is good, but I don't feel they are grasping the big picture. What happens to service, quality, and innovation when companies are allowed to stamp out competition and/or create barriers to entry within their business sector? What are their incentives to improve service, quality, or foster innovation?
We have fought this battle before in the history of our nation. In the 1890s, we saw the creation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act (1914) that related to how businesses could operate in relation to competition. The problem is that the megacorporations have transcended these laws buy making their companies Transnational in nature. At the moment there really are no governing rules that oversee how these companies will operate. Many of these Corporations have assets worth more than most countries' GDPs. This allows these companies to have free reign to manipulate foreign governments towards their personal interest.
How can this be fixed? I don't think, nor do I want, an International Body administrating the governance of these corporations. I think the better route is for the United States to make these companies abide by our structure of governance and in the interest of this nation. And if they do not, then they can't operate in the United States. And the goods that they sell in the U.S. will be taxed to equability.
On the local level, I am tired of seeing some favored and the rest rendered mute. Many in local leadership seem to think it is their job to protect certain businesses over the overall health of the marketplace. They seem to think that companies are more important than people. Local unemployment is reported at 10.4%, but the true reflection is the reduction in the workforce in Catawba County from 82,245 people in February 2001 to 73,305 in April 2012. That loss of 8,940 people in the workforce equals a shrinkage of 10.87%.
If we look at that reduction in the workforce with a common sense belief that many of these people would prefer to be working, then by extrapolating that half of that reduction in the workforce is a false reduction, then that would figure to a workforce capacity of 77,775 people.
By looking at the current given workforce 73,305 and multiplying it times the given Unemployment rate of 10.4%, we estimate that 7,623 people are unemployed. If we add the additional estimated 4,470 that have fallen off the workforce rolls, then we estimate that the number of truly unemployed stands at 12,093 ( =7623+4470 ). If that is the case, then the real unemployment rate in Catawba County is really right at 16.5%. This does not even factor the number of teens who have been delayed entering the workforce because of the poor economy. 16.5% is the minimum unemployment rate that we see in the area.
You may believe that the assumptions are off, but you can't say that the shrinkage in workforce is attributable to a loss of population. Despite the travails we have seen with the local economy, we saw an increase in population from 2000 (142,515) to 2010 (154,389) of 11,874 people, which is a growth rate of 8.33%. In 2001, 56.6% of the people/population were considered in the workforce (82,245 workforce/145,405 population). Today that number has shrunk to 47.5% (73,305 workforce/154,389 population). The bottom line is that the jobs that we need to move towards recovery obviously aren't there. It has to be our number one priority.
For every anecdote that I am given about how lazy people are, I can show you people that a busting their butts and struggling to make ends meet.
Management will always look at the working class with scornful eyes. I have never understood this. Nor do I understand people playing the class warfare game against middle managers. We've got to meet somewhere in the middle if we have any hopes of turning our economy around.
We talk a good game about wanting more entrepreneurs. Well, the local community is going to have to put some skin in the game if we are to move forward with that effort. That means looking out towards the best interests of the community and not personal self interests. Can we do this? We haven't shown that ability in the past. Must we do this? Yep, if we aren't to see an implosion of population from our area moving to green pastures - to areas that would rather be ahead of the curve than run over by it.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Read about Ulysses Long of America's Got Talent in Today's Hickory Daily Record
An article entitled "Hickory's got a star on 'America's Got Talent'"
http://www2.hickoryrecord.com/news/2012/may/31/4/ulysses-long-playing-1859-cafe-ar-2322857/
http://www2.hickoryrecord.com/news/2012/may/31/4/ulysses-long-playing-1859-cafe-ar-2322857/
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Ulysses Long - America's Got Talent - My extended family
I call him Ulysses S. Long - U.S. Long. He was the entertainer at my Aunt's restaurant on weekends, mainly Saturday Evenings, until she closed last August. Ulysses sang "How Great Thou Art" at my Uncle Alex Moore's and my Grandmother Martha Shell's funerals. He has been like an extended member of my family since around 1987 when he began playing regularly at 1859 Cafe.
Ulysses lives in Statesville, but has been a big part of the Hickory music scene. I think this community should fully embrace Ulysses and his talent in this quest to make a name for himself on the national scene. Ulysses is amazing with the amount of material that he has memorized and that memorization does not come across as being mechanical. Ask him a pop or religious song and he probably knows it. He sang "On The Road Again" at my Uncle's funeral in his honor, because Alex loved Willie Nelson.
I know that his hobby is collecting old television programs and other events that have cultural significance. He loves old Ed Sullivan shows. I think that is where the whole Love Boat theme came from. He has an archive of old shows that a lot of people would envy and he can talk to you about specific episodes of old shows. He also can tell you all kinds of rare facts about music. If Ulysses is given a chance to succeed he will surprise these pop culture icons and you will find out how amazing someone from our community truly is.
Stuff like this makes life worth it. It puts life in perspective. It shows that we all have got a chance to do great things if we put ourselves forward. Thank You Ulysses... I needed the inspiration. We all could use a little inspiration!
I have created a Facebook Fan Club Page for Ulysses - please feel free to join and show your support.
Ulysses on America's Got Talent
Ulysses performing Rollin on a River at 1859 Cafe
Ulysses sings How Great Thou Art at my Grandmother's Funeral
Ulysses lives in Statesville, but has been a big part of the Hickory music scene. I think this community should fully embrace Ulysses and his talent in this quest to make a name for himself on the national scene. Ulysses is amazing with the amount of material that he has memorized and that memorization does not come across as being mechanical. Ask him a pop or religious song and he probably knows it. He sang "On The Road Again" at my Uncle's funeral in his honor, because Alex loved Willie Nelson.
I know that his hobby is collecting old television programs and other events that have cultural significance. He loves old Ed Sullivan shows. I think that is where the whole Love Boat theme came from. He has an archive of old shows that a lot of people would envy and he can talk to you about specific episodes of old shows. He also can tell you all kinds of rare facts about music. If Ulysses is given a chance to succeed he will surprise these pop culture icons and you will find out how amazing someone from our community truly is.
Stuff like this makes life worth it. It puts life in perspective. It shows that we all have got a chance to do great things if we put ourselves forward. Thank You Ulysses... I needed the inspiration. We all could use a little inspiration!
I have created a Facebook Fan Club Page for Ulysses - please feel free to join and show your support.
Ulysses on America's Got Talent
Ulysses performing Rollin on a River at 1859 Cafe
Ulysses sings How Great Thou Art at my Grandmother's Funeral
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
The Mayor on Hal Row's show from April 2, 2012 about Larry Pope
The information presented here is part of the pattern that I discussed with you on Saturday. I don't think that anyone's goal is to slander or libel the Mayor as he stated that Larry Pope had gone right up to the edge of doing related to his address of the City Council on March 6, 2012. That subject came up in the Hal Row show interview below and Larry calls in to defend himself. Then there is the Mayor's submission to the HDR this past weekend (May 26, 2012) where he states that there are "inaccuracies, erroneous conclusions and misquotes" in Harry Hipps' presentation from two weeks prior in relation to comments made on Hal's Monday May 7, 2012 interview with the Mayor.
Mayor Wright doesn't seem to want to have any back and forth discussion with anyone about city issues. He has told Rebecca Inglefield to call him on his cell phone, but mainly refuses to engage her in discussions at City Council meetings in relation to her concerns. People have tried to engage the Mayor at City Council to no avail. The Mayor tells people "This is not a debate" when they request to be heard. It makes people feel like the Mayor and City Council could care less about their concerns. Hal offers the Mayor a chance to respond to Larry's comments made during that April show and the Mayor states that he isn't going to respond to (Larry's comments), because he has responded time and again... and then goes on to say that Larry's comments aren't worthy of response.
I don't think anyone wants to have this kind of public relationship with Mayor Wright. They want to understand where he is coming from. They want to understand his decision making process. That is what would happen with open processes and engagement. The Mayor constantly tells us we are wrong, but never gives us reasons why we are wrong.
One suggestion that I have made is to have Town Hall meetings. Another idea is that we move Citizens Requesting to be heard to the beginning of City Council meetings, instead of at the end where eveyone is looking to wrap up the session. This would correlate perfectly with the problems we have seen with the Consent Agenda. People could voice concerns about issues with the Meeting Agenda before the items are voted upon. This would be the best move towards open engagement and full disclosure relating to pertinent city issues.
Like I have said, I don't think anyone is purposefully mischaracterizing the positions of the Mayor, Hickory City Council or Administration. And personally, I don't feel like they have been mischaracterized. I don't think we are on the wrong path. If we don't have the facts, figures, and information, then open the books and give us the facts that might sway our opinion. If we don't have the information, then whose fault is that? Superfluous propaganda isn't going to cut it though. We need substance, not rhetoric.
Mayor Wright doesn't seem to want to have any back and forth discussion with anyone about city issues. He has told Rebecca Inglefield to call him on his cell phone, but mainly refuses to engage her in discussions at City Council meetings in relation to her concerns. People have tried to engage the Mayor at City Council to no avail. The Mayor tells people "This is not a debate" when they request to be heard. It makes people feel like the Mayor and City Council could care less about their concerns. Hal offers the Mayor a chance to respond to Larry's comments made during that April show and the Mayor states that he isn't going to respond to (Larry's comments), because he has responded time and again... and then goes on to say that Larry's comments aren't worthy of response.
I don't think anyone wants to have this kind of public relationship with Mayor Wright. They want to understand where he is coming from. They want to understand his decision making process. That is what would happen with open processes and engagement. The Mayor constantly tells us we are wrong, but never gives us reasons why we are wrong.
One suggestion that I have made is to have Town Hall meetings. Another idea is that we move Citizens Requesting to be heard to the beginning of City Council meetings, instead of at the end where eveyone is looking to wrap up the session. This would correlate perfectly with the problems we have seen with the Consent Agenda. People could voice concerns about issues with the Meeting Agenda before the items are voted upon. This would be the best move towards open engagement and full disclosure relating to pertinent city issues.
Like I have said, I don't think anyone is purposefully mischaracterizing the positions of the Mayor, Hickory City Council or Administration. And personally, I don't feel like they have been mischaracterized. I don't think we are on the wrong path. If we don't have the facts, figures, and information, then open the books and give us the facts that might sway our opinion. If we don't have the information, then whose fault is that? Superfluous propaganda isn't going to cut it though. We need substance, not rhetoric.
Mayor Wright on Hal Row's Show in which Larry Pope calls in
Larry Pope's address of City Council on March 6, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Economic Stories of Relevance in Today's World -- May 27, 2012
Number of the Week: Half of U.S. Lives in Household Getting Benefits - Wall Street Journal - Phil Izzo - May 26, 2012 - 49.1%: Percent of the population that lives in a household where at least one member received some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2011. Cutting government spending is no easy task, and it’s made more complicated by recent Census Bureau data showing that nearly half of the people in the U.S. live in a household that receives at least one government benefit, and many likely received more than one. The 49.1% of the population in a household that gets benefits is up from 30% in the early 1980s and 44.4% as recently as the third quarter of 2008. The increase in recent years is likely due in large part to the lingering effects of the recession. As of early 2011, 15% of people lived in a household that received food stamps, 26% had someone enrolled in Medicaid and 2% had a member receiving unemployment benefits. Families doubling up to save money or pool expenses also is likely leading to more multigenerational households. But even without the effects of the recession, there would be a larger reliance on government.
JPMorgan sued over employee retirement plan losses - Reuters - Jonathan Stempel - May 22, 2012 - JPMorgan Chase & Co has been hit with a lawsuit brought on behalf of employees whose retirement holdings fell in value after the largest U.S. bank revealed a surprise $2 billion trading loss earlier this month. The complaint, filed late Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, also names individual defendants, including Chief Executive Jamie Dimon and Ina Drew, who stepped down last week as head of JPMorgan's chief investment office, where the loss occurred. The defendants were accused of violating their duties to 401(k) and other retirement plan participants by including company stock as an investment option, hiding the stock's risk, and failing to move participants to safer choices.
JP Morgan 'faces £4bn loss' from trading blunders in one of Square Mile's worst catastrophes - The Daily Mail (London) - Ruth Sutherland - May 22, 2012 - British losses at the JP Morgan bank could double initial estimates and top £4billion – making it one of the worst trading catastrophes ever to hit the Square Mile. The warning came as details emerged of bitter rows between the firm’s offices on Wall Street and in London, where the ill-fated deals took place. The bank chief executive Jamie Dimon admitted earlier this month that the losses racked up by a team of traders in London amounted to around £1.25billion and could rise to £1.875billion. But rival dealers now believe the black hole could swell to as much as £4.4billion as the bank struggles to unravel the highly complex deals amid turmoil in the eurozone....
CBO: 'Fiscal Cliff' Could Push US Back Into Recession - Money News.com - May 23, 2012 - A stalemate over how to tackle a series of fiscal deadlines at year's end would likely push the United States economy into recession in the first half of next year, the Congressional Budget Office warned. A wave of U.S. tax hikes and automatic spending cuts — dubbed the "fiscal cliff" — are set to take effect in January unless Congress and the White House agree on ways to delay or revise at least some of them. The CBO, the official budget and economic analyst for lawmakers, said the U.S. economy would contract at an annual rate of 1.3 percent for the first half of 2013 if lawmakers take no action to prevent the looming tax hikes and spending cuts.
Peter Schiff: The Worst Has Yet To Come - - The Business Insider - William Wei - May 24, 2012 - While we experienced a devastating crash in 2009, it was just a preview for the catastrophe that's coming next, says perma-bear Peter Schiff. The real crash will come from the "government's phony cure" for the economic troubles that have swept our nation, Schiff details in his new book The Real Crash: How To Save Yourself And Your Country. Find out what the crash will look like and why it could have been avoided in the interview with Business Insider editor-in-chief Henry Blodget:
PETER SCHIFF: The Housing Bust Was Just A Preview For The Coming Catastrophe - Euro Pacific Capital - Peter Schiff - May 23, 2012 - I first came to national attention back in 2008 and 2009 when the housing and credit markets imploded. I became known as the guy that other market “experts” laughed at when I warned of trouble brewing in the seemingly indestructible American economy. After the wheels ground to a halt in mid-2008, people noticed that my book Crash Proof, originally released in early 2007, read like a detailed preview of many of the events that eventually unfolded. Three years later I am now catching heat from many who assume that my predictions actually fell short. They argue that I was able to anticipate the crash but that I severely underestimated the resiliency of the American economy. They admit that we took an “unexpected” blow to the chin, and that it left a lingering bruise, but they argue that we never hit the canvas like I predicted we would. However, they mistakenly assumed that the crash I was warning about was solely a housing led credit bubble. While that was part of it, I never saw it ending there. The crash that most concerned me was the one that would result from the government’s response to the initial crisis. My concern was not that our economy would succumb to the disease that I had diagnosed, but instead would be taken down by the “cure” that the government unleashed to combat it.....
HP prepares to announce mass layoffs - CNN Money - David Goldman and Michal Lev-Ram - May 23, 2012 - Hewlett-Packard will announce another round of substantial job cuts Wednesday afternoon in an effort to streamline its teetering PC and services businesses, a source familiar with the plans told Fortune. The layoffs will be "in the ballpark" of 25,000 workers, the source said, which would amount to about 7% of HP's global workforce. The nation's largest technology company by revenue currently employs 349,600 people worldwide, according to its latest regulatory filing. CEO Meg Whitman is trying to reorganize the tech giant into a leaner, more efficient powerhouse, but she faces a massively uphill battle. The overall PC industry is stuck in neutral, but HP (HPQ, Fortune 500), the world's largest computer maker, is traveling in reverse at high speed. The company's PC sales fell 15% during the holiday season, with consumer computer sales tumbling 25%..... HP has deep problems in the market. It missed the boat on tablets and failed to produce a viable smartphone. As the world goes mobile and leaves PCs behind, HP is struggling to stay relevant.
It's not alone. Dell (DELL, Fortune 500), which faces similar struggles, reported Tuesday that the company's lackluster PC sales dragged on its overall profit and revenue last quarter. Its stock fell more than 12% in after-hours trading. Whitman can trim some of HP's fat, realign the organization and make other iterative improvements, but there's not much she can do to significantly alter the company's prospects without making some drastic -- and painful -- changes. HP's past attempts to cut its way to better health haven't worked. Then-CEO Mark Hurd axed 9,000 positions in June 2010. HP shed another 275 workers in February after the company discontinued the webOS lineup that it purchased from Palm.
Fake Chinese Parts 'Found In US Planes' - Sky News - May 22, 2012 - More than a million fake electronic parts from China have been found in US military aircraft, posing a risk to national security, an investigation has revealed. A report by the US Senate uncovered 1,800 cases of bogus parts - including some in special operations helicopters and the US Air Force's largest cargo plane. The total number of individual components involved in these cases exceeded one million, the Committee on Armed Services publication said. "This flood of counterfeit parts, overwhelmingly from China, threatens national security, the safety of our troops and American jobs," committee chairman Senator Carl Levin said."It underscores China's failure to police the blatant market in counterfeit parts - a failure China should rectify," he added....
Buffett Says Free News Unsustainable, May Add More Papers - Bloomberg - Zachary Tracer - May 24, 2012 - Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) struck a deal this month to acquire 63 newspapers, said he may buy more publications as the industry rethinks whether to offer free content on the Internet. “This is an unsustainable model and certain of our papers are already making progress in moving to something that makes more sense,” Buffett wrote in a letter to editors and publishers of Berkshire’s daily newspapers. “We want your best thinking as we work out the blend of digital and print that will attract both the audience and the revenue we need.”..... While circulation may slip, papers only fail when there are dailies competing in the same town, a publication forfeits its position as the primary source of locally important information or the market doesn’t have a sense of identity, he said. “We don’t face those problems,” Buffett, 81, wrote in the letter dated yesterday and posted on the website of Berkshire’s Omaha World-Herald, which is in the Nebraska town where Buffett’s company is based. “Berkshire will probably purchase more papers in the next few years. We will favor towns and cities with a strong sense of community.” The billionaire investor said that editors should focus on making the papers “indispensable” to local communities. “Our future depends on remaining the primary source of information in certain subjects of great importance to our readers,” Buffett wrote. “Technological change has caused us to lose primacy in various key areas, including national news, national sports, stock quotations and employment opportunities. So be it. Our job is to reign supreme in matters of local importance.”
Center of gravity in oil world shifts to Americas - Washington Post - Juan Forero - May 25, 2012 - ... From Canada to Colombia to Brazil, oil and gas production in the Western Hemisphere is booming, with the United States emerging less dependent on supplies from an unstable Middle East. Central to the new energy equation is the United States itself, which has ramped up production and is now churning out 1.7 million more barrels of oil and liquid fuel per day than in 2005... Since 2006, exports to the United States have fallen from all but one major member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the net decline adding up to nearly 1.8 million barrels a day. Canada, Brazil and Colombia have increased exports to the United States by 700,000 barrels daily in that time and now provide nearly 3.4 million barrels a day. Six Persian Gulf suppliers provide just 22 percent of all U.S. imports, the nonpartisan U.S. Energy Information Administration said this month. The United States’ neighbors in the Western Hemisphere, meanwhile, provide more than half — a figure that has held steady for years because, as production has fallen in the oil powers of Venezuela and Mexico, it has gone up elsewhere. Production has risen strikingly fast in places such as the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, and the “tight” rock formations of North Dakota and Texas — basins with resources so hard to refine or reach that they were not considered economically viable until recently. Oil is gushing in once-dangerous regions of Colombia and far off the coast of Brazil, under thick salt beds thousands of feet below the surface.
Oil boom strikes Kansas - CNN Money - Blake Ellis - May 23, 2012
How Alcatel-Lucent made the Internet 5 times faster - CNN Money - David Goldman - May 22, 2012
JPMorgan sued over employee retirement plan losses - Reuters - Jonathan Stempel - May 22, 2012 - JPMorgan Chase & Co has been hit with a lawsuit brought on behalf of employees whose retirement holdings fell in value after the largest U.S. bank revealed a surprise $2 billion trading loss earlier this month. The complaint, filed late Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, also names individual defendants, including Chief Executive Jamie Dimon and Ina Drew, who stepped down last week as head of JPMorgan's chief investment office, where the loss occurred. The defendants were accused of violating their duties to 401(k) and other retirement plan participants by including company stock as an investment option, hiding the stock's risk, and failing to move participants to safer choices.
JP Morgan 'faces £4bn loss' from trading blunders in one of Square Mile's worst catastrophes - The Daily Mail (London) - Ruth Sutherland - May 22, 2012 - British losses at the JP Morgan bank could double initial estimates and top £4billion – making it one of the worst trading catastrophes ever to hit the Square Mile. The warning came as details emerged of bitter rows between the firm’s offices on Wall Street and in London, where the ill-fated deals took place. The bank chief executive Jamie Dimon admitted earlier this month that the losses racked up by a team of traders in London amounted to around £1.25billion and could rise to £1.875billion. But rival dealers now believe the black hole could swell to as much as £4.4billion as the bank struggles to unravel the highly complex deals amid turmoil in the eurozone....
CBO: 'Fiscal Cliff' Could Push US Back Into Recession - Money News.com - May 23, 2012 - A stalemate over how to tackle a series of fiscal deadlines at year's end would likely push the United States economy into recession in the first half of next year, the Congressional Budget Office warned. A wave of U.S. tax hikes and automatic spending cuts — dubbed the "fiscal cliff" — are set to take effect in January unless Congress and the White House agree on ways to delay or revise at least some of them. The CBO, the official budget and economic analyst for lawmakers, said the U.S. economy would contract at an annual rate of 1.3 percent for the first half of 2013 if lawmakers take no action to prevent the looming tax hikes and spending cuts.
Marc Faber: 100% Chance of Global Recession - CNBC - Lee Brodie - May 25, 2012 - ...in a live interview on CNBC’s Fast Money Halftime Report, Faber again warned that economies of the world may be on the brink of a serious slowdown. Faber indicated that while investors remain focused on Greece and Europe – other issues, bigger issues are looming. And they’re more threatening. “As an observer of markets – whenever everyone focuses on one thing – like Greece and Europe – maybe they miss issues that are far more important – such as a meaningful slowdown in India and China.” The latest reports from Beijing would support Faber's assertion. The HSBC Flash Purchasing Managers Index, slipped to 48.7 in May from 49.3 in April. That marks the seventh straight month that the index has been below 50, a level which indicates economic activity is contracting..... “I think we could have a global recession either in Q4 or early 2013." When asked what were the odds, Faber replied, "100%."
Peter Schiff: The Worst Has Yet To Come - - The Business Insider - William Wei - May 24, 2012 - While we experienced a devastating crash in 2009, it was just a preview for the catastrophe that's coming next, says perma-bear Peter Schiff. The real crash will come from the "government's phony cure" for the economic troubles that have swept our nation, Schiff details in his new book The Real Crash: How To Save Yourself And Your Country. Find out what the crash will look like and why it could have been avoided in the interview with Business Insider editor-in-chief Henry Blodget:
PETER SCHIFF: The Housing Bust Was Just A Preview For The Coming Catastrophe - Euro Pacific Capital - Peter Schiff - May 23, 2012 - I first came to national attention back in 2008 and 2009 when the housing and credit markets imploded. I became known as the guy that other market “experts” laughed at when I warned of trouble brewing in the seemingly indestructible American economy. After the wheels ground to a halt in mid-2008, people noticed that my book Crash Proof, originally released in early 2007, read like a detailed preview of many of the events that eventually unfolded. Three years later I am now catching heat from many who assume that my predictions actually fell short. They argue that I was able to anticipate the crash but that I severely underestimated the resiliency of the American economy. They admit that we took an “unexpected” blow to the chin, and that it left a lingering bruise, but they argue that we never hit the canvas like I predicted we would. However, they mistakenly assumed that the crash I was warning about was solely a housing led credit bubble. While that was part of it, I never saw it ending there. The crash that most concerned me was the one that would result from the government’s response to the initial crisis. My concern was not that our economy would succumb to the disease that I had diagnosed, but instead would be taken down by the “cure” that the government unleashed to combat it.....
HP prepares to announce mass layoffs - CNN Money - David Goldman and Michal Lev-Ram - May 23, 2012 - Hewlett-Packard will announce another round of substantial job cuts Wednesday afternoon in an effort to streamline its teetering PC and services businesses, a source familiar with the plans told Fortune. The layoffs will be "in the ballpark" of 25,000 workers, the source said, which would amount to about 7% of HP's global workforce. The nation's largest technology company by revenue currently employs 349,600 people worldwide, according to its latest regulatory filing. CEO Meg Whitman is trying to reorganize the tech giant into a leaner, more efficient powerhouse, but she faces a massively uphill battle. The overall PC industry is stuck in neutral, but HP (HPQ, Fortune 500), the world's largest computer maker, is traveling in reverse at high speed. The company's PC sales fell 15% during the holiday season, with consumer computer sales tumbling 25%..... HP has deep problems in the market. It missed the boat on tablets and failed to produce a viable smartphone. As the world goes mobile and leaves PCs behind, HP is struggling to stay relevant.
It's not alone. Dell (DELL, Fortune 500), which faces similar struggles, reported Tuesday that the company's lackluster PC sales dragged on its overall profit and revenue last quarter. Its stock fell more than 12% in after-hours trading. Whitman can trim some of HP's fat, realign the organization and make other iterative improvements, but there's not much she can do to significantly alter the company's prospects without making some drastic -- and painful -- changes. HP's past attempts to cut its way to better health haven't worked. Then-CEO Mark Hurd axed 9,000 positions in June 2010. HP shed another 275 workers in February after the company discontinued the webOS lineup that it purchased from Palm.
Fake Chinese Parts 'Found In US Planes' - Sky News - May 22, 2012 - More than a million fake electronic parts from China have been found in US military aircraft, posing a risk to national security, an investigation has revealed. A report by the US Senate uncovered 1,800 cases of bogus parts - including some in special operations helicopters and the US Air Force's largest cargo plane. The total number of individual components involved in these cases exceeded one million, the Committee on Armed Services publication said. "This flood of counterfeit parts, overwhelmingly from China, threatens national security, the safety of our troops and American jobs," committee chairman Senator Carl Levin said."It underscores China's failure to police the blatant market in counterfeit parts - a failure China should rectify," he added....
Buffett Says Free News Unsustainable, May Add More Papers - Bloomberg - Zachary Tracer - May 24, 2012 - Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) struck a deal this month to acquire 63 newspapers, said he may buy more publications as the industry rethinks whether to offer free content on the Internet. “This is an unsustainable model and certain of our papers are already making progress in moving to something that makes more sense,” Buffett wrote in a letter to editors and publishers of Berkshire’s daily newspapers. “We want your best thinking as we work out the blend of digital and print that will attract both the audience and the revenue we need.”..... While circulation may slip, papers only fail when there are dailies competing in the same town, a publication forfeits its position as the primary source of locally important information or the market doesn’t have a sense of identity, he said. “We don’t face those problems,” Buffett, 81, wrote in the letter dated yesterday and posted on the website of Berkshire’s Omaha World-Herald, which is in the Nebraska town where Buffett’s company is based. “Berkshire will probably purchase more papers in the next few years. We will favor towns and cities with a strong sense of community.” The billionaire investor said that editors should focus on making the papers “indispensable” to local communities. “Our future depends on remaining the primary source of information in certain subjects of great importance to our readers,” Buffett wrote. “Technological change has caused us to lose primacy in various key areas, including national news, national sports, stock quotations and employment opportunities. So be it. Our job is to reign supreme in matters of local importance.”
Center of gravity in oil world shifts to Americas - Washington Post - Juan Forero - May 25, 2012 - ... From Canada to Colombia to Brazil, oil and gas production in the Western Hemisphere is booming, with the United States emerging less dependent on supplies from an unstable Middle East. Central to the new energy equation is the United States itself, which has ramped up production and is now churning out 1.7 million more barrels of oil and liquid fuel per day than in 2005... Since 2006, exports to the United States have fallen from all but one major member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the net decline adding up to nearly 1.8 million barrels a day. Canada, Brazil and Colombia have increased exports to the United States by 700,000 barrels daily in that time and now provide nearly 3.4 million barrels a day. Six Persian Gulf suppliers provide just 22 percent of all U.S. imports, the nonpartisan U.S. Energy Information Administration said this month. The United States’ neighbors in the Western Hemisphere, meanwhile, provide more than half — a figure that has held steady for years because, as production has fallen in the oil powers of Venezuela and Mexico, it has gone up elsewhere. Production has risen strikingly fast in places such as the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, and the “tight” rock formations of North Dakota and Texas — basins with resources so hard to refine or reach that they were not considered economically viable until recently. Oil is gushing in once-dangerous regions of Colombia and far off the coast of Brazil, under thick salt beds thousands of feet below the surface.
Oil boom strikes Kansas - CNN Money - Blake Ellis - May 23, 2012
How Alcatel-Lucent made the Internet 5 times faster - CNN Money - David Goldman - May 22, 2012
Americans concerned about Bank Runs
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