Here's the Result of Obamanomics

Over the last 100 years, the US was the place where the smart money went. Regardless of the party in charge, the business of America was always business and people who wanted stability bought the dollar. We thrived in all conditions and our political leadership always maintained calm, steady economic liberty.

Not anymore. The increased regulations set forth by the EPA and other agencies coupled with high corporate taxes and failed ventures in "green tech" have left us a shell of what we used to be and a poorer nation as a result. We've sunken to depths unheard of and been passed by nations that have a socialist side to them but also maintained the economic freedom so cherished by investors both here and abroad:

Canada has taken its place among the Top 5 countries with the most economic freedom, according to a new Fraser Institute report — now leaps and bounds ahead of the United States thanks to the gradual shrinking of the Canadian government since the mid-1990s as America’s just got bigger.

And where is the good US of A?  Try 18th.

Yes, the US is now behind such powerhouse economic engines as Mauritius and Chile. 

how the hell did we get to this point? By instituting policies designed to make us outcasts. Obama wanted class warfare and this would be one of the results of that although he looks at it more as a feature than a bug. 

In 2000 we were #2, last year we were number 8, this year we dropped 10 spots. The dollar is essentially worthless and world markets are looking more and more at the Yuan as an alternative. If the Euro did not have nations such as Greece and Italy involved, they would have been the currency of choice two years ago.

Instead of making the dollar strong again and working on revitalizing our business climate we now have QE-infinty, an all out war on businesses and a strong possibility that Obama may win and continue our spiral that will land us near Iran and Cuba. Instead of keeping debt low and suffering for a year, Obama wasted nearly a billion dollars on "shovel ready projects" that enriched his cronies and kept us in the same position (or an infinitely worse one) for three and probably a few more. We have seen our bond rating drop twice since Obamanomics took effect. 

Who wants to invest in a nation that berates those who do and belittles those who complain about it? Evidently a lot less people than previously wanted to. 

On the flip side we see Canada moving way up because they use exploit their natural resources, welcome investors and deal fairly with the world's businesses. Stephen Harper has thrived by using the model America once did and when he offered us good terms and a chance to reduce our costs on a major import the Obama administration spit on him and said no. 

This is as embarrassing as anything I've seen since the last time Joe Biden spoke in public.

If you want to know why Estonia is moving up, read this. It's a lesson Obama should have learned while hanging around the Ivy League.

How American Ingenuity Will Change the World Again

There's a simplistic formula for making money in America.

First you have smart people come up with an idea and develop that idea. They then find wealthy people to financially assist them in bringing their idea to fruition (private equity). A company is born and the the idea becomes a viable product or service. The product or service is marketed and is provided to consumers at the best price possible while the company provides it in the most efficient manner possible.

In the end, everyone make money including the people who developed the idea, the financial backers who took a risk and those who subsequently work for the company. Consumers get what they want at a good price as the industry develops, expands and becomes even more efficient.

Notice that I did not mention government assistance or regulation at all in the above formula.

We're seeing that play out in an industry that we were not even key players in a decade ago.

Natural gas is second only to oil in making the world run. Ten years ago, the US was a player but not a large one. Russia ruled the natural gas markets in Europe and Asia and used that power to hold continental Europe by the balls.

Enter some smart people who developed hydraulic fracturing that allowed natural gas once thought untouchable to be removed and sold. This has been so successful that the price of natural gas--used in everything from power plants to boilers--has dropped dramatically keeping prices reasonable in Obamanation.

To be honest, this is the only truly successful sector in America since Obama took office and he's doing everything he can to kill it through regulations, but I digress.

Today, natural gas can be bought for $2 per million cubic feet in the US but in Asia is ten times that amount. We are sitting on something that, properly exploited will ensure a strong America for decades.

Some issues still remain--such as restrictions on exports instituted by politicians who don't know the first thing about energy and environmentalist's screaming just to scream--but the industry is one of the few bright lights in an otherwise gloomy economic world.

Here's a must read.

We Can't Survive Four More Years

Two things to see or watch. The first, a graphic that has to get wide attention:

The second is a video that has gone viral today on conservative sites and should be a commercial broken up into four parts and run during Modern Family and other popular shows: What have we gotten ourselves into with this guy?

Obama Has Finally Made Us #1 Again

Unfortunately it's in highest corporate taxes. Yes, Japan (the land of 10-year recessions) is about to cut their tax rate while Obama stands fast to a horrible policy that drives businesses to foreign lands where they actually enjoy having jobs and profits and stuff:

Come Sunday, America finally has something to crow about in its economic war with China and Japan: It will have the highest jobs-killing corporate tax rate in the industrialized world.

No, it’s not an April Fool’s joke. When Japan officially slashes its rate to 36.8 percent Sunday, America’s will be tops at 39.2 percent.

President Obama has proposed a rate of 28 percent, but Republicans charge that it comes with $350 billion in new, off-setting taxes. The GOP is pushing for a cut to 25 percent, but the election year is getting in the way of any deal.

The Business Roundtable has been pushing for a clean cut in corporate tax rates, claiming it would spur job growth and industrial reinvestment. They even cite a recent move by England to cut their tax rates from 28 percent to 22 percent, which officials called “an advertisement for investment and jobs in Britain.”

The Obamatons just look at business as a source of revenue to spend on more programs designed to make us a better nation--albeit a nation with no jobs and helplessly addicted to more government handouts.

It's interesting, I was discussing manufacturing with a knowledgeable European guy the other day and he mentioned a resurgence in the US manufacturing sector. Yes, there's a slight resurgence but it's all in the south where state taxes are low and wages are steady. Imagine if the US corporate rate was reduced to say 18%, what would that do to the manufacturing sector?

The Obama Business Failures Keep Piling Up

There's never been an administration that has been as anti-business as the current one. From collusion with unions in the GM/Chrysler debacle to Solyndra and the myriad other "green" entities that have squandered billions and crashed and burned leaving us holding the bag, it seems that everything the Obama folks touch turns to shit.

The latest example comes to us from Consumer Reports' testing facility:

DETROIT (Reuters) -- A $100,000-plus Fisker Automotive luxury car died during Consumer Reports speed testing for reasons that are still unknown, leaving the struggling electric car startup with another blow to its image.

"It is a little disconcerting that you pay that amount of money for a car and it lasts basically 180 miles before going wrong," David Champion, senior director for the magazine's automotive test center, told Reuters.

Fisker has benefited from the publicity generated when actor Leonardo DiCaprio was handed the first Karma last summer and pop idol Justin Bieber received one as a gift this month.

The breakdown of the Consumer Reports car is more bad news for a company that already recalled some Karmas. Fisker also has changed its CEO and halted production over the past month as it seeks to renegotiate the terms of a $529 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy.

I'm guessing that the word "renegotiate' will mean what it did with the aforementioned Solyndra and Jon Corzine: It means give bonuses to execs and claim bankruptcy. There's no way they can survive this and not enough bleeding heart actors like Leonardo DiCaprio to keep them in business. And note that Fisker is a foreign company seeded with American tax dollars. Not that Obama's results have been any better at home.

But no, the Obama failures don't end there, we also have example #204,986,835 showing that government has no business intruding in business:

The U.S. government has awarded appliance-maker Philips $10 million for devising an “affordable” alternative to today’s standard 60-watt incandescent bulb. That standard bulb sells for around $1. The Philips alternative sells for $50.

Of course, the award-winner is no ordinary bulb. It uses only one-sixth the energy of an incandescent. And it lasts 30,000 hours–about 30 times as long. In fact, if you don’t drop it, it may last 10 years or more.

But only the U.S. Government (in this case, the Department of Energy) could view a $50 bulb as cheap.

See how that works? Your hard-earned tax dollars were paid to a company to design a lightbulb that will cost you 20-times what you paid for your last one while helping solve an environmental crisis that may or may not actually exist. That's called Obamanomics and it's the reason we're in the fiscal shape we are in today.

Another Look at Canada

America's relationship with our northern neighbors has always been an interesting one. Canada has always just been there, not really in our thoughts one way or the other but pretty much universally liked by us. We love Canada but we just pretty much make fun of the people whenever we can:

Royal Pudding
Get More: SOUTH
PARKIke Broflovski,Terrance,Phillip,more...

But something has changed up there why we were preoccupied with trying to survive the last three years under Obama. The normally socialist-minded Canadians have gone all capitalist and free market on us. While we spend and spend while creating no new jobs, they are aggressively cutting costs. When the world was melting down, they kept it steady. While we debate the environmental impact of tracking and our government subsidizes Chevy Volts that no one wants, the Canadians have been developing new technologies to safely extract oil from tar sands. While Obama nixes a huge job-creating pipeline that would ensure us clean, ethical oil for decades, Canada pursues other buyers while still trying to make us see the light. While we beg China for money, PM Stephen Harper is forging strong business ties with China and opening markets to sell his nations products.

Americans don't really know much more about Canada than it's the home of hockey and curling. But while we've been blissfully unaware, the former beta male is becoming a full blown alpha while leaving us in the dust. Harper has sold Canadians on his brand of conservatism and they are a prospering group of provinces because of it.

#Occupyfail: The OWS Generation

During the mid to late 80's, when I was in my late teens and early twenties, I was idealistic and thought I had all the answers. Whatever ills were ailing society, my generation could fix them. I get that the Occupy (fill in the balnk) people think what they are doing is Important.

I came from parents whose generation lived through WWII and in my pop's case, the Great Depression. They were old school before old school was even a term. They taught me that if you want things, you have to work for them and work hard. So, from the age of 15, I worked.

I wanted a car, I worked. I wanted to go skiing, I worked. There were no handouts in my house because if you didn't earn something, you didn't deserve it.

The generation directly after mine wasn't taught that. All you had to do was show up and you won. Your baseball team went 0-16, you won a trophy. You didn't do a good job on your term paper, that's okay, we'll grade you on a curve and a 60% becomes an 85%. You act up in class, it must be ADD and we'll feed you ritalin. There's no consequences to actions because for some damn reason--and it may have had to be made up by some liberal "researcher"--it was someone of something elses fault and you were not responsible.

Well guess what, that generation and the succeeding one are all grown up (at least physically), hyper educated and living in a park down the street while lambasting the people who had no part in their misery. Watch them rail about the evil corporations and the unfairness of American society. Why, these idiots spent six years in college, got a masters in art appreciation and are way smarter than those evil white men who actually fuel the economy and create jobs.

For those who are sleeping in a tent and railing about the 1% while using your advanced degree in Women's Studies as toilet paper, this is Real Life. While wasting $100,000 of their parents money or racking up huge loans you have no idea how to repay you essentially showed up and got by. Chasing pussy and huffing bongs while attending a class a day that began at 2 PM was just the way it was done because when you got out, you'd automatically make $80,000 a year right off the bat. At least that's what the professors who have spent decades within the confines of academia told you. You earned it God damn it! And you earned it even more if you were part of one of the oppressed groups such as LGBT because society owes you.

Now back in the Real World, people actually have to prove themselves to earn $80K. They bring real value to those who employ them and increase their skill set to become more valuable. I guess that degree in Gender Studies has value to someone, somewhere; most likely teaching a course in Gender Studies at a college where some other moron convinced her parents to pay $40,000 per semester to attend.

But in the real world, that degree means you've earned exactly nothing. It may even double some day. Just because you've gotten a 3.9 GPA and got raves from the instructor on your thesis entitled Misogynistic Inequities in an Oppressive, White and Patriarchal America in the 21st Century doesn't mean you've actually done anything of value to anyone; including yourself.
It must be doubly tough to watch the man you elected to bring Hope and Change(TM) to America remain deeply in bed with the very institutions you claim to abhor.

So how's this going to end for you? Great question. You have two choices: A) you trash the tent, move back into your parent's basement, lose the lip piercing, create a resume (shouldn't be too hard considering you've got zero experience), apply for a job some place and get on with being a productive American. Or B) continue living in the park and shitting behind a bush, make ridiculous signs that include some drivel about you being the 99%, draw the ire of every hard-working citizen within a mile of the park and not accomplish anything but lose more time that could have been used learning a marketable skill.

For the record, everyone is laughing at you (at least everyone who is not exploiting you like the unions have been). It doesn't unleash the inner hippy in us watching you grow dreads and bang on drums. We look at your incoherent rants on You Tube and chuckle at the inanity of what you say. Hell, John at Verum Serum has made exposing your idiocy a full-time job. We don't hate The Bankers or Big Business more because you want your student loan forgiven. We work for and/or with those people and provide a home and nice life to our children because of them.

Please just stop. You're an embarrassment to yourselves and a punchline to the 99% of us who are too busy working to even consider your plight.

The Legacy of Obama's 1st Year: The End of American Economic Dominance

America has been an economic force for the last 175-years. From building ships to building cars to building planes to building computers, we ruled the world. We developed and implemented weapons programs that brought the Nazi's and Soviet Union down and sent a man to the moon using our great American ingenuity and the power of American business.

Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Procter and Gamble, Walmart, Microsoft, Xerox, IBM, Exxon...the list is endless. American business was the engine that drove our prosperity. We all enjoyed the highest standard of living because of the men and women who came up with ideas, secured funding to make them reality and sold them to the world.

Alas, those days are gone.

Why do I say this? The following is all from today:

First Obama's cutting a small business lifeline:

The Obama administration will stop American banks from taking gambles--a practice that has worked for a century:

The president's proposal aims to remove private-equity investments, the hedge fund business and proprietary trading from banks, and put a stronger lid on bank acquisitions.

The proposal might prevent Wall Street giant J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) from buying another bank, or diversifying in some areas--though it wouldn't mean the bank's end. Shares of the bank fell 6.6% Thursday.

...Private-equity investments have done little harm to banks. "Virtually every regional bank in the country has some amount of private equity," for example in small business development co-investments, the banker said. Ceasing such investments "pulls a huge amount of money out of small business" at a time when the economy has just begun to recover, the banker said.

Regional banks might also run into problems with a ban on proprietary trading. Regional banks often have small investment banking operations to help business clients access the capital markets, and the banks have to hedge a clients' bond offering with proprietary positions, the banker said. Strictly speaking, a bank's investment portfolio could be considered a proprietary position.

We've slipped on the list of "economic freedom" as well, falling below Canada:

Jan. 21--Blame government spending and industry bailouts: The U.S. economy is not the freest in North America, according to the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom.

The index, issued by the Washington-based Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, ranks the United States as the world's eighth-freest economy in 2010, a slip of two places from 2009.

And finally, Russia is diversifying and the big gainer will be...Canada:

Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Russia’s decision to buy Canadian dollars reflects the North American country’s relatively strong fiscal position, and “substantial” pressure on the U.S. currency to depreciate.

Flaherty, speaking to reporters today in Windsor, Ontario, said the U.S.’s budget deficit and “other challenges” in the world’s biggest economy are making the U.S. dollar less attractive compared with other currencies.

“Investments by other central banks in Canadian securities and the Canadian currency is a recognition of the fiscal health, relatively speaking, of Canada, which is strong,” Flaherty, 60, told reporters. “There’s downward pressure on the U.S. dollar, which results in upward pressure on other market currencies.”

The U.S. dollar has declined against all but one of the 16 most-active currencies over the past 12 months, prompting major reserve-holding countries such as Russia and China to express concern that their U.S.-denominated investments may decline in value. Canada’s dollar gained 21 percent against the U.S. dollar over that time.

Damn, I say we invade Canada, take their oil and sell Quebec. Er, on second thought, we'd pretty much have the equivalent of a really large Vermont.

Microsoft Sees Obama Policies as Oppressive

As with every household and every business, if you spend money you don't have, you end up getting in trouble. If you continue to spend money you don't have then you go bankrupt. If you're a government and face the possibility of bankruptcy, you institute confiscatory tax policies and drive business away. Pretty simple, huh?

One of the firms that define the American entrepeneurial spirit is saying enough is enough:

June 3 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steven Ballmer said the world’s largest software company would move some employees offshore if Congress enacts President Barack Obama’s plans to impose higher taxes on U.S. companies’ foreign profits.

“It makes U.S. jobs more expensive,” Ballmer said in an interview. “We’re better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S. as opposed to keeping them inside the U.S.”

Obama on May 4 proposed outlawing or restricting about $190 billion in tax breaks for offshore companies over the next decade. Such business groups as the National Foreign Trade Council, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable have denounced the proposed overhaul.

In essence, every single business organization is against this blatant attempt to skewer American companies. Pretty soon, the only American businesses that will remain will be those owned by the US government.

Alienating Yet Another Ally

And this time on our northern border and the one nation that we simply cannot afford a trade war with:

Ordered by Congress to "buy American" when spending money from the $787 billion stimulus package, the town of Peru, Ind., stunned its Canadian supplier by rejecting sewage pumps made outside of Toronto. After a Navy official spotted Canadian pipe fittings in a construction project at Camp Pendleton, Calif., they were hauled out of the ground and replaced with American versions. In recent weeks, other Canadian manufacturers doing business with U.S. state and local governments say they have been besieged with requests to sign affidavits pledging that they will only supply materials made in the USA.

Outrage spread in Canada, with the Toronto Star last week bemoaning "a plague of protectionist measures in the U.S." and Canadian companies openly fretting about having to shift jobs to the United States to meet made-in-the-USA requirements. This week, the Canadians fired back. A number of Ontario towns, with a collective population of nearly 500,000, retaliated with measures effectively barring U.S. companies from their municipal contracts — the first shot in a larger campaign that could shut U.S. companies out of billions of dollars worth of Canadian projects.

I thought the Obama administration was supposed to fix all the alleged broken relationships we had with our allies. So far he's belittled Britain, France, Israel and now Canada.

This isn't just an embarrassing gift mishap like with Gordon Brown, this is an issue that can cause long-term damage to our relationship with a crucial trading partner. Sure, it may not resonate in DC but it does in states like the Dakotas, Idaho, Wisconsin, Minnesota and the reeling state of Michigan.

Liberals never, ever consider the ripple effect their policies will generate and the lib we now have in the Oval Office is more oblivious than most. Isolationism breeds hatred that cannot be easily turned. We are not hurting Canada by putting tariffs on Molson but actually affecting their job market and business climate. Those are things not easily forgotten and will fester for as long as the isolationist policies continue.

Obama has done more damage to our standing in the world than Bush could have in four terms.

What Bias? AP Downplays Buffett Meeting

Two headlines from the same Warren Buffett meeting. First Bloomberg:

Buffett Says He Sees ‘No Signs’ of Recovery in Housing, Retail

Now AP:

Buffett says government is doing the right things

Note the difference? Plus, the AP cuts short the Buffett quote to portray Buffett as completely supportive. Here's how the AP quoted it:

"Overall, I commend the actions that were taken," Buffett said. But he said no one should expect perfection because the economy experienced a "financial hurricane."

Here's how Bloomberg quoted him:

Buffett, in his most recent letter to shareholders in February, said he supported the U.S. government actions, while predicting bailouts will cause “unwelcome aftereffects” including inflation.

AP does not even include the portion about "aftereffects" or inflation but essentially plays it as a straight endorsement of Obama when that's most definitely not what it was.

The Death of Starbucks

Starbucks was once a company to emulate; from their meteoric rise out of Seattle to their apex with stores on almost as many corners as Dunkin Donuts, they've mastered the elitist coffee drinker angle. You have to give credit to anyone who can get Americans to pony up $5 for thirty cents worth of crushed beans and some cream.

They've hit a rough patch of late and sales started to slip some but they've slimmed down and have managed to maintain corporate stability.

That may change if they decide to go in this direction:

Starbucks Corp. and other companies are discussing a potential compromise on union-backed “card- check” legislation that U.S. business groups are spending millions of dollars to defeat.

Starbucks, the world’s largest coffee-shop chain, has had “conversations with like-minded companies” and is “open to exploring alternative solutions” to the measure, said Deb Trevino, director of corporate communications for the Seattle- based company in an e-mail yesterday.

The bill, backed by President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress, would make it easier for unions to organize. It would let workers form a union when a majority of company employees sign a card requesting one, rather than permitting their employer to require a secret-ballot election run by the National Labor Relations Board. The proposal is organized labor’s top legislative goal this year.

If Starbucks goes the union route, they will effectively die as a company. Big Labor will demand a "living wage" that will exceed roughly $13 to start and will raise steadily every year. They will demand full health benefits and some type of pension plan plus the percentage that goes to the union local. The stabilized labor rate--actual cost paid per hour--will be somewhere in the area of $21 when all the above-mentioned benefits are added in. That means that they will make increasingly less profit unless they raise their prices even more and will end up pricing themselves out of the market.

Most people don't realize how unions work so here's a primer: Say you're doing construction work in New Jersey. You have to do the work using union labor. You call the local hall and ask for a heavy equipment operator and they send him to the site. Let's say he's going to operate an excavator for you. His hourly rate is, at current, $41. Add to that the ancillary disability and other taxes that are required. Then add in the union costs: healthcare, vacation, union fees and a few others. His actual cost per hour to the construction company is over $70 per hour, paid weekly to the employee and the union hall.

This is one of the many battles that has to be fought, not just for big and small business but for the American consumer. Big Labor needs just a crack in the door to send their goons in and unionize everything from the local hardware store to the electronics dealers. Wages will rocket upward and prices will surely follow affecting us, the consumer, in ways we can't even fathom.

If Starbucks, or any other large firm breaks ranks and allows unions to organize in their stores, they will be bankrupt within five years and we'll have more people out of work. Thinks I'm making this up? Just take a look at GM, Ford and Chrysler and tell me what good unions have done for them.

If I Owned a Taco Bell, I'd Want Phelps

Earlier this week, some forgotten cereal brand bailed on record-breaking swimmer Michael Phelps because Phelps was photographed partaking in some the festivities at a November party. Specifically, Phelps was smoking da kine bud out of a bong and one of the party-goers took a pic with their phone and scummily sold it to a British rag.

One has to look at opportunities when they arise and this would be a great one for fast food places. Think about it, Phelps has gotten the attention of that 18-29 year old stoner group. This group is known to smoke the ganja regularly and that leads to the serious affliction called unscientifically "the munchies". If I'm Taco Bell, McDonald's or Wendy's, I'm calling Phelps' agent as we speak to get that boy on my ads. Sales would rocket--especially on Friday and Saturday nights.

As one who was once young, I can see an ad man's dream here. Say, hypothetically, some dudes are out on a Friday cruising and the chick scene is not really happening. You know they'll pull over and spark a fatty. Thirty minutes later, it's time to eat and fast food meets that urge...I'm guessing a few triple stack tacos from Taco Bell would satisfy that craving. Good for the young men and good for Taco Bell. A classic win-win. In this economy, businesses have to think outside the box.

Subway sees my logic as they've opted to ride it out with Phelps.

Al Gore's Green Ball

Al Gore's having a "green ball" in honor of Obama's inauguration. Forgetting the fact that a "green ball" sounds like something you'd contract in the rain forest, let's see who the sponsors for this event are.

Well, you have all the companies and advocacy groups one would expect like Earth Justice and Eco America but I saw some companies I wasn't quite sure would be considered "green" such as:


WalMart: The company that has been the whipping boy for liberals for years on all issues from union-busting to environmental. They eliminate jobs, are a bane on the environment and are just plain bad corporate citizens according to libs. I guess every other good company was bankrupt so they crawled on hands and knees to get WalMart to pony up some dough.

Dow Corning: Hmmm...they have 14 sites currently listed as active Superfund sites. Granted, they've done a hell of a job of cleaning them up as have most American companies yet the "green" coalitions have been unfair to the point of idiocy in pointing out how horrible these types of corporations have been. I know for a fact that Dow-Corning has been at the forefront of cleaning up impacted sites and are industry leaders but they seem out of place here.

Ted's Montana Grill: Now maybe it's just me mis-remembering but wasn't it environmental groups who slammed McDonalds for use of beef and the subsequent--yet unverified claim--that rain forests were being plowed under for grazing land? Ted's grill has a hell of a lot of beef on it. Plus, aren't cows the main culprits in producing methane--a supposed global warming gas? How can Al justify taking money from a company that contributes to "climate change". I'm as carnivorous and capitalist as anyone but they profit from a business that directly contributes to methane emissions so they must be bad in Gore's eyes, right?

PG & E: Wasn't it less than a decade ago that PG & E was hated because of environmental pollution from their facilities? I believe Erin Brockovich became a household name because of it. Now they are the sponsors of an inaugural ball that highlights "green" policies? They use either fossil fuels like natural gas and coal or nuclear power to generate 68% of the power they distribute.

Now don't get me wrong, every single one of the above-listed companies has environmental policies in place that exceed policies of most nations. American businesses have been and remain the world leaders in environmental stewardship with regard to air emissions, water quality, hazardous waste disposal and spill response. Most probably emit lower amounts of carbon company-wide than Al Gore's house does.

I just find it amusing that when it comes to money to sponsor an event like this, Al Gore is willing to swallow his pride be extremely hypocritical and bring in any one who picks up the tab while a very recently, his compadres in the Great Global Warming swindle have been berating these companies or products for being un-green.

As with everything else in Al Gore's world; do what I say, not what I do and pony up the shekels when he comes calling.

Here's the hideously-named Green Ball Blog commemorating the event.

Exit thought: I had a certain song running through my head as I wrote this post.

Spending Up for Black Friday

Count it as good news although Bloomberg is somber:

U.S. holiday retail sales increased 3 percent yesterday from a year earlier, the smallest gain for a “Black Friday” in three years, research firm ShopperTrak RCT Corp. said.

Sales rose to $10.6 billion, the Chicago-based company said in a statement. The increase was the smallest since a decline of 0.9 percent in 2005 and compares with a jump of 8.3 percent last year.

“So far, so good,” said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners LLC, a retail consulting firm based in New Canaan, Connecticut. “But a decent Black Friday figure doesn’t predict the whole season. The question is, how much momentum we can keep” in this “challenging” economic environment, Johnson said.

U.S. retailers are making earlier and deeper price cuts to lure Christmas shoppers, who are coping with the shrinking values of homes and stock holdings along with increasing joblessness. The season can account for as much as a third of annual profit.

Let's all hope that the season sees an increase. Overall, not bad considering the economic climate. There's a hell of a lot of families relying on the jobs created or maintained by this season.

Congress to US Carmakers: Sink or Swim

With trillions already tabbed for banks and insurance giant AIG, the US automotive industry is being pushed to the side and not getting a seat at the tax money trough:

WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (Reuters) - A senior Democratic senator raised doubts on Thursday that an attempt to bail out U.S. automakers had enough support to clear Congress this year.

As Republicans amplified their concerns about a bailout, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd raised the biggest red flag for fellow Democrats trying to craft a $25 billion rescue and pass it during a post-election session set to start next week.

"Right now, I don't think there are the votes," Dodd of Connecticut told reporters about prospects in the Senate. "I want to be careful of bringing up a proposition that might fail," he said.

I guess Dodd doesn't have any special friends at GM or Ford like he did at Countrywide but I digress.

Anyway, we have to draw the line somewhere and that somewhere is evidently the Big Three.

Detroit has been turning out an inferior product for decades now with a few exceptions. The Japanese, South Koreans and Germans have been designing and building better, sleeker and more efficient vehicles while GM, Ford and Chrysler have been regurgitating the same old same old for twenty years.

Add to that the inflated salaries paid to those assembling the cars in the US and you have the recipe for lower profits and lower sales. The average UAW worker makes somewhere between $30 and $40 per hour, but not said is that an extra $30 goes on top of that in benefits costs. Those benefits checks fund the pension plan, health care and, of course, help to line the pockets of UAW bigwigs and Democrat politicians. In other words, through greed and poor planning, the US auto makers have such huge payrolls that they've not been able to capitalize on the greatest advantage they have; no tariffs. The tariff savings are used up in payroll costs and not seen by the consumer who, when given the option of buying a Buick or an equally priced Toyota will almost always go with the higher-quality Japanese brand.

President Bush opened up the flood gates by pushing for the bailout bill and is now trying to keep the money from flowing out using a single sand bag and a small pump with a garden hose. It's not going to be that easy as Congress has instant access to trillions of dollars that they didn't have before and the spending will make earmarks look like pocket change. Bush has made a mockery of free market economics and by passing the bailout bill has paved the way for Obama t institute more socialist economic policies that will see spending balloon to the states and cities who are screaming "help!".

It's about time we took a breather and looked at what we have wrought. My guess is that Bush will long regret pushing for the bailout plan and going against a century of American thinking whereby companies that are not solid are than doomed to failure.

Thanks For the Compliment, Moron

The media machine has managed to make an unprepared, unqualified, solipsistic millionaire seem as though he's the greatest man of the people since Cesar Chavez. Obama has done what he rants against, divided us into two classes: the haves and the have-nots.

Check this out:

I love this big financial meltdown. At last, Republican-voting, suit-stuffing, briefcase-toting, almighty-buck-worshiping, strip-club-frequenting, slave-driving, law-flouting, power-abusing, wheeling, dealing, profit-stealing yuppies are getting hurt, too - just like the rest of us have been for decades.

J. Andrew Smith
Bloomfield, N.J.
mailto:N.J.jasmith4@comcast.net

Set aside the joy this idiot is enjoying watching 401K's disintegrate and the life savings of people erode, he's the typical guy who cheered every American death in Iraq because it made President Bush look bad. No, I'm more appalled by his statement "Republican-voting, suit-stuffing, briefcase-toting, almighty-buck-worshiping, strip-club-frequenting, slave-driving, law-flouting, power-abusing, wheeling, dealing, profit-stealing yuppies" being written as though that's a horrible thing.

Let's see:

Republican-voting? Check. Straight down the ticket every year.

Suit-stuffing? Er, not sure exactly what that means. I guess it means we're all fat or something. Being as Mr. Andrew probably sent this to the Inquirer written in Crayola, I'll just have to guess.

Briefcase-toting? I guess he means supporters of the GOP carry briefcases. I assume that Mr. Andrew is a union tradesman or something that would preclude him from utilizing a briefcase and hasn't actually taken the time to realize that his take-home pay is about to be slashed by an Obama administration. But hey, the local said to vote for him so, by golly, he will...mindlessly.

Almighty-buck-worshipping? Well, yeah, we are Republicans. I've never been able to pay my mortgage with my astoundingly good looks or pesos. Perhaps Mr. Andrews' employer will withhold his paycheck for a few day and we'll see exactly who worships the almighty buck. Better yet, I recommend that Mr. Andrews' employer start taking out 10% more of his paycheck as Obama will do and give it to the homeless guy sleeping on Broad St. We'll call it practicing for inauguration day. Mr. Andrews doesn't care about that almighty buck so it shouldn't be of concern to him.

Strip-club-frequenting? He says it like it's a bad thing or something. We choose to see it as frequenting small businesses to help boost the economy. If we stop going to these establishments, hundreds, if not thousands of college women will be unemployed. We look at it as our civic and fiscal duty. I guess Mr. Andrews is not a fan of working women, hot ladies or small business. He must be a communist.

Slave-driving? I'm guessing he meant this in the racial sense and thought he'd be oh-so-clever in adding this. My guess is that Mr. Andrews feels that he's being forced or pushed to work long hours, or more likely that he's forced to work at all. Here's a news flash, sport; you can leave your job and get another. You can go to college and earn a degree and get a job where you don't have to work for a "slave-driver". Or better yet, you can start your own business and be your own boss, but don't expect too much from your employees as they'll call you a "slave-driver".

Law-flouting? I see the law broken by politicians in and around Philly on a daily basis. Wayne Bryant, Robert Torricelli and others. Hmmm...it seems as if they're mostly Democrats with strong union ties to boot.

... wheeling, dealing, profit-stealing yuppies?
First off, most "yuppies" nowadays are liberals and second, who has even used "yuppie" to describe anyone since 1988? Now what's wrong with wheeling and dealing? I would imagine Mr. Andrews' boss is a wheeler-dealer and by being so can give Mr. Andrews a paycheck. Now the profit stealing thing is amusing as liberals seem perplexed that a company would actually be so callous as to turn a profit. How dare they. No, in Andrews' perfect world, the company management would bust their asses on a daily basis, take heavy financial risks, pay higher taxes and then be rewarded with minimum wage (while Mr. Andrews would keep his same amount of pay of course).

This sums up the liberal ideology so damn well. Play the class card while simultaneously trying to get ahead and make more money than the other guy. In my world it's called hypocrisy, in Mr. Andrews world it's called Democratic politics.

A Liberal Conundrum

Libs love hybrids as a whole and the Toyota Prius in particular. They get a smug expression as soon as they get behind the wheel because they are saving the planet by driving green don't you know?. They can't even keep the cars in stock and dealers have been doing that most capitalistic of things: gouging.

That said, they now have to make some hard choices. You see, libs believe in the environment, unions and workers rights. Apparently, Toyota has their own thoughts on the workers rights question:

The American and Japanese people have a lot in common. In both countries, excessive corporate power and greed are destroying the middle class as income disparity soars, enriching the few while the vast majority of us are left behind. As the two largest economies in the world, the people of the U.S. and Japan should, and could, have a very powerful voice in helping to shape a global economy that fosters respect for human and worker rights, protects our environment and promotes social and economic equality. There needs to be more dialogue among labor, environmental, human and women’s rights organizations and students in the U.S. and Japan. If corporations are the only ones talking to one another, we will just get more of the same.

Savor the verbiage, folks. Right out of Mao's Little Red Book or Lenin's fetid mouth.

In the U.S., we produce too many gas guzzlers. But they are made by well-paid, middle class union workers who have a democratic voice on the shop floor. In Japan, companies like Toyota make some of the best hybrids. But their unions are weak and lack independence—allowing the widespread exploitation of cheap temporary workers in their plants, along with a parts supply chain that is riddled with sweatshop abuses, including human trafficking. We have a lot to learn from each other.

Right now, Toyota and the U.S. auto companies are locked in a race to the bottom, which will inevitably lead them to adopt each others worst practices.

This is all lefty tripe of course but I am savoring the communists who wrote this piece slamming the car that every socialist is eager to own. It's an internecine battle between two far-left ideologies: One that believes Marx and Trotsky were gods and another that thinks Gaia is the one true god (with Marx as a prophet).

Sorry, I'll continue to buy the best made car regardless of who makes it or where it's made. I'm a capitalist through and through and as such will buy the best product for the best price. Period.

Is Oil Bubble Popping? Both Gold, Oil Drop

The key, from my perspective, of reawakening the economy is the increase in value of the dollar as well as the decrease in fuel prices.

I wrote a few weeks ago that the "oil bubble" has to pop and the price of gasoline must decrease substantially to get the spending going again. Say the price of oil were to drop 35% to, say, $70 a barrel. The corresponding drop in gasoline prices would effectively give every car owner a tax break--in effect putting more money into peoples pockets. If gas goes down to about an average of say $2.70 (it's about $3.03 in New Jersey right now, among the lowest in the nation), that would be $0.33 per gallon not spent on fuel. That would be about a $5.61 savings when people fill up based on a 17-gallon tank. Double or triple that $5.61 taking into account two or three cars per family and you're looking at an extra $16 being spent elsewhere for every household. Not insignificant.

The scenario above doesn't even take into account the substantial effect it would have on businesses who spend millions on fuel every day. A trucking company now paying $4.00+ for diesel would save thousands per week thus allowing them to retain workers or reduce rates, which would translate to lower consumer prices.

Think a $30 drop is unlikely? Check this out:

Oil futures lost 4.5% to end at $104.48 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, its biggest daily loss since 1991. See more on oil.

Plus an extra 2%+ 3%+today for a nearly 7% 8% drop in two days.

That's the beginning as I noted before, it is a speculative bubble, not a demand-inspired one. It comes from financial firms taking their money out of the dollar and putting it into commodities.

Is this a sure thing? No, it isn't but it is a bit encouraging. If mortgage rates drop as expected, the housing market will then pick up and we can inch our way out of the recession that every one is afraid to call a recession.

Update: Rep. John Dingell is either a complete idiot or has the tinnest political ear of anyone in Congress. My guess is somewhere in between:

A Michigan congressman wants to put a 50-cent tax on every gallon of gasoline to try to cut back on Americans' consumption.

Polls show that a majority of Americans support policies that would reduce greenhouse gases. But when it comes to paying for it, it's a different story.

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., wants to help cut consumption with a gas tax but some don't agree with the idea, according to a new poll by the National Center for Public Policy Research.

The poll, scheduled to be released on Thursday, shows 48 percent don't support paying even a penny more, 28 percent would pay up to 50 cents more, 10 percent would pay more than 50 cents and 8 percent would pay more than a dollar.

Nothing would deflate an economic upturn like this proposal. Please, please, please allow this to go up for a vote. The GOP would be dancing in the aisles and the Dems would be laughed at.

Joey Vento Wins a Victory for Free Speech

Joey Vento wins:

PHILADELPHIA - The owner of a famous cheesesteak shop did not discriminate when he posted signs asking customers to speak English, a city panel ruled Wednesday.

In a 2-1 vote, a Commission on Human Relations panel found that two signs at Geno's Steaks telling customers, "This is America: WHEN ORDERING 'PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH,'" do not violate the city's Fair Practices Ordinance.

Shop owner Joe Vento has said he posted the signs in October 2005 because of concerns over immigration reform and an increasing number of people in the area who could not order in English.

Vento is a character for sure, he donated an entire days proceeds to 9/11 causes and is known as a man who will help any cause. He has never refused service to anyone because they didn't speak English. He's a proud son of immigrants who worked hard and learned to speak the language of this country and he expects today's immigrants to do the same.