Archive for the ‘Business/Technology’ Category

Not so good? Well, this is one of the schemes Obama is planning. Forcing you to convert your 401k investment into annuities having the government as the annuity salesman. It’s bad enough that the likes of Rep. Barney Frank forced banks into the CRA using Janet Reno holding a sledgehammer over lending institutions heads. Then protecting Fannie and Freddie into insolvency so the US Taxpayers have to give unlimited funds to cover the CRA mess Barney and his Democrat cronies created. It was so great that Barney was able to blame the banks and Bush for the housing bubble collapse, can’t wait to see how Barney manages this conversion.

From All American Blogger we read about the plan detailed in Business Week.

But what you won’t read in the Business Week article is this from Will Collier of Pajamas Media:

As noted later in the article, “Seven in 10 U.S. households would object to a requirement that retirees convert part of their savings into annuities,” and the “why” of that opinion isn’t that hard to figure out: they’re a bad deal for everybody except the guys selling them. Consumer gurus like Clark Howard have been warning people away from high-commission “guaranteed” annuities for years. I bet everyone reading this knows of somebody who’s been ripped off by an annuity salesman.

But now … now the government would be the annuity salesman – except that if the administration gets its wish, there won’t be any “selling,” you’ll just be forced to take the money you’ve earned and “convert” it to a construct that they’ll allow you to “invest” in. No more of this willy-nilly mutual fund nonsense for you plebeians; we’ll tell you how you’re going to pay for things, so hand over the cash – it’s your patriotic duty!

It would be plenty bad enough if the “guaranteed” government annuities were limited to bailed-out insurers like AIG. But Karl Denninger of The Market Ticker took a deeper look and found an even scarier outcome. Denninger believes this is really a scheme to prop up the market for Treasury bonds by forcing citizens to “invest” in them.

As Denninger points out, “Forcing people into Treasuries as an ‘annuity’ is exactly what Social Security allegedly is. Except that Treasury stole the money that was collected in FICA taxes and spent it!”

Another Ponzi Scheme from the Democrats to rape and pillage the US Taxpayer.

Obama 401k scheme, 401k Ponzi Scheme, Jeff Bingaman D-NM, Johnny Isakson R-GA, Herb Kohl D-WI

Like you couldn’t see this coming. The Spring Hill GM plant in Tn didn’t have a chance in hell of receiving this contract. The UAW threw their union comrades in Spring Hill under the bus, they’re just following the lead of the new CEO (Obama) of GM (Government Motors). I can’t believe that Bredesen, Alexander and Corker actually thought that Obama would keep politics out of making a business decision for a business that will have nothing to do with making a profit. Government owned entities don’t worry about profits, they only worry about consuming other business’s profits.

This could work out to be the best thing for the Spring Hill plant in the long term. Another business can now come in and buy this plant. Course, if the buyer has any sense, no unions will be involved in the business.

The plant chosen in Michigan won’t be successful just as Government Motors won’t be successful. The ball has just been kicked down the road a bit with taxpayer dollars before it goes out of business. These mini cars won’t be a market seller, at least enough for the plant to be profitable.

With two strikes against it there is no way this is going to be a viable business. The two strikes, government and union ownership!

From WSJ – Economics Wasn’t GM’s Only Criteria for New Plant

So Tennessee’s three top officials were astonished last month, in a meeting with GM, when they were told the first two criteria were “community impact” and “carbon footprint” — or how the choice would affect unemployment rates and carbon-dioxide emissions.

“Those didn’t strike us as business criteria at all,” said Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, who was joined in the meeting by fellow Republican Sen. Bob Corker and the state’s Democratic governor, Phil Bredesen. Those factors, Mr. Alexander said, “seemed odd for a company struggling to get back on its feet.”

Hey, every successful business plan HAS to include those criteria right. How else will a company make a profit?

The area has one of the region’s highest unemployment rates, at 12.4%, though the Wisconsin site’s was even higher, at 12.9%. Janesville, by contrast, offered a less-expensive labor pool, according to people briefed on the plan. In Spring Hill, GM has a new, $225 million paint shop. The Orion plant’s paint shop needs to be replaced.

Set to emerge from bankruptcy within weeks, GM declined to disclose the factors it weighed in picking Orion, but said the process was free of political meddling. “It’s in the best interest of all involved to not discuss the selection criteria for the small-car plant,” said GM spokeswoman Sherrie Childers Arb. “All three plants have individual merits, but when all told, the Orion plant scenario provided the best business case.”

This kind of reasoning is what you get from government bureaucrats. These people must think taxpayers are all stupid.

GM, Government Motors, Obama, Spring Hill Tn, Janesville Wi, Orion Mi, Phil Bredesen, Lamar Alexander, Bob Corker, UAW, unions

There’s some really choice quotes in this Business Week column. My favorite is the Barney Frank prediction on Fannie and Freddie.

3. “I think this is a case where Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE – News) and Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM – News) are fundamentally sound. They’re not in danger of going under I think they are in good shape going forward.” — Barney Frank (D-Mass.), House Financial Services Committee chairman, July 14, 2008

Two months later, the government forced the mortgage giants into conservatorships and pledged to invest up to $100 billion in each.

This one is even more amazing considering the short timespan between the quote and it’s demise:

5. “No! No! No! Bear Stearns is not in trouble.” — Jim Cramer, CNBC commentator, Mar. 11, 2008

Five days later, JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM – News) took over Bear Stearns with government help, nearly wiping out shareholders.

2008 Predictions, Barney Frank, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns

Postville, Iowa is finding out there are downsides to encouraging and endorsing illegal aliens to come to their town. The town had previously benefited from increased funding from the State and Federal government due to an increased population made up of illegal aliens who were working at a meat packing plant in the town. On May 12th there was an immigration raid which subsequently led to the closing of the plant. The story doesn’t give any details as to why the plant closed, just places the blame on the raid. The town itself blames DHS on their situation.

Postville had the temerity to request aid from Iowa Homeland Security for humanitarian and economic disaster relief blaming DHS for their dilemma.

Some of the crushing stories relayed in the “news report” are so absurd it sounds like a satire:

The Rev. Steve Brackett, pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Postville, said the grant funds will not be available to about 70 undocumented former Agriprocessors workers who were either detained in the country as material witnesses in upcoming court proceedings or recently released after serving prison terms.

The burden of their care remains with St. Bridget Catholic Church’s Hispanic ministry, he said.

Brackett said the city’s disaster declaration is appropriate.

“A raid executed by a U.S. government entity caused collateral damage that the people of northeast Iowa are having to deal with without any help from those who caused the damage,” he said.

I don’t think this town has learned a thing about being a sanctuary city for illegal aliens!

Illegal aliens, Postville IA, sanctuary city, meat packing, DHS

Now I have something else to remember in 2013, not fly an airlines that has these regional jets! I’d be afraid of some sort of poisoning. Who can trust Chinese quality control?

China to sell 25 regional jets to U.S. market

ZHUHAI, Guangdong Province, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) — China signed its biggest aircraft export agreement, in terms of both number of jets and contract value, Tuesday at the 7th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai city of southern Guangdong province.

The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd. (COMAC) will sell 25 ARJ21-700 regional jets to GE Commercial Aviation Services of the United States.

Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang, who announced the opening of the six-day airshow, attended the signing ceremony of the sales contract.

The deal is valued at five billion yuan (733.1 million U.S. dollars).The first jet will be delivered in 2013 and then another will be delivered every month after.

COMAC Chairman Zhang Qingwei told Xinhua this was the first time Chinese-developed and manufactured regional jets have entered western airline markets.

Roger N. Seager, vice president of the GE Commercial Aviation Services, said his company was confident in the ARJ21 aircraft, China’s aviation market and the Chinese economy at large.

ARJ21 (Advanced Regional Jet for the 21st Century) was developed independently by China. It has between 78-90 seats and a standard full-passenger flight can go 2,225 kilometers.

The regional jet will make its maiden flight in Shanghai within this month.

A total of 206 ARJ21-700s have been so far ordered

.
I think this is crazy.

China, ARJ21-700, GE Commercial Aviation Svcs, importing Chinese jets

I always find it so disingenuous when billionaires turn on capitalism. They’ve made their fortunes yet decry tax cuts, blame capitalist countries for poor countries, turn to the advocacy of a socialist state. Like Warren Buffett calling for the increase of taxes yet I don’t see Warren Buffett giving half or more of his wealth to the federal coffers. No one is stopping him. If he thinks there should be a death tax then Warren should bequeath his billions all to the federal coffers instead of reducing his children’s heritage to only a measly billion and protecting the rest of his billions behind a charitable tax shelter. As Milton Friedman taught and advocated, capitalism is the catalyst for change in poor countries, not foreign aid. Socialism, communism and dictatorships are the greatest enemies to the poor.

Now Bill Gates is blaming capitalist countries for the state of poor countries. Larry Kudlow brings the skinny on Gates’ ridiculous statements at a the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Bill Gates, bloviating at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is issuing a clarion call for a “kinder capitalism� to aid the world’s poor. Mr. Gates says he has grown impatient with the shortcomings of capitalism. He thinks it’s failing much of the world. This, of course, from a guy who’s worth around $35 billion (give or take a billion).

Don’t you just love it?

A guy without a college degree who invented a new technology process in his garage that literally changed the entire world, a guy who took advantage of all the great opportunities that a free and capitalist society has to offer and got filthy rich in the process, is now trashing capitalism and telling us it doesn’t work. What chutzpah.

Kudlow goes on to talk about successful countries moving into the capitalist world while countries turning to a non-capitalist economy are becoming mired in strife and poverty.

Is no one willing to tell Bill Gates how ignorant he sounds?

Technorati Tags: Bill Gates, Capitalism, Milton Friedman, World Economic Forum

Here’s a bit of information on China’s state-sanctioned organ harvesting. Another wonderful export from the Chi-comms.

Disturbing Practice in China Brings Canadian Dignitaries to NZ

Hon David Kilgour and David Matas will be in Wellington Tuesday 11 September to highlight new evidence from their painstaking research into the practice of state-sanctioned organ harvesting in China.

The former Canadian MP and the human rights lawyer have spent a year and a half researching and travelling in a global mission to raise awareness of the practice they conclude is “a form of evil yet to be seen on this planet.”

Kilgour and Matas released Bloody Harvest: Revised Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China in January this year.

The report almost doubles the evidence found in the first report, published July, 2006.

“The practice of organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners is even more widespread than we had originally reported,” Kilgour and Matas say in their report.

New evidence includes the heavy military involvement in organ transplants, evidence from transplant recipients, the lack of legislative enforcement and a coherent reply from the Chinese regime, and the large-scale persecution and vilification of Falun Gong practitioners.

snip….Bloody Harvest tells of one Asian man who was proffered eight kidneys over two separate trips to China before a match was found.

“In 2003 [the man] flew to Shanghai to obtain a new kidney for the $20,000 USD price negotiated before his departure… during the ensuing two weeks four kidneys were brought for testing against his blood and other factors. None proved compatible because of his anti‑bodies; all were taken away.”

The man returned to the hospital two months later, where another four kidneys were tested. The eighth proved compatible and was successfully transplanted.

The surgeon, Dr. Tan Jianming of the Nanjing military region, wore his army uniform at times in the civilian hospital and carried sheets of paper containing lists of prospective “donors”, based on various tissue and blood characteristics, from which he would select names, the revised report Bloody Harvest said.

“The doctor was observed at various times to leave the hospital in uniform and return 2‑3 hours later with containers bearing kidneys. Dr. Tan told the recipient that the eighth kidney came from an executed prisoner.”

And now Starbucks is planning on buying coffee from China! Course this might improve the the flavor of Starbucks coffee.

Starbucks to source coffee from China

Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O: Quote, Profile, Research), the world’s biggest coffee-shop chain, said it planned to source coffee from China for the first time as it expands in a country with more than 5,000 years of tea-drinking culture.

Starbucks has been working with coffee farmers in China’s southwestern Yunnan province to help them meet sourcing standards and has sent coffee shipments to the United States for testing, Starbucks China President Wang Jinlong said at the Reuters China Century Summit on Tuesday.

Don’t you love the Starbucks smoke and mirrors for buying product from China – it’s now called “sourcing”!

And then Mattel is once again recalling toys manufactured in China…….

Barbie accessories part of latest Mattel recall

Mattel Inc., in cooperation with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, announced late Tuesday that it is recalling more than 700,000 Chinese-made toys that have excessive amounts of lead paint.

The recall covers 675,000 units of various Barbie accessory toys that were manufactured between Sept. 30, 2006, and Aug. 20, 2007. The action also involves 90,000 units of Geo Trax Locomotive Toys and 8,900 Big Big World 6-in-1 Bongo Band toys, both from the company’s Fisher-Price brand. The Big Big World products were sold at retailers nationwide from July through August of this year, while the Geo Trax toys were sold from September 2006 through August of this year.

The announcement marks Mattel’s third major recall of Chinese-made toys because of lead paint in a a month.

Technorati Tags: China, organ harvest, starbucks coffee, mattel toys, recalls

China is blaming Mattel Inc. for their defective products and quality control. Course, China’s only requirement for quality control is get the product out the door as fast as possible never mind if there’s lead or rat poison in the product. For China ( A COMMUNIST REGIME & COUNTRY) it’s all about short term gain and saving face. There is no transparency. Personally, I do believe Mattel Inc. and the dog food companies deserve all the blame that can be slapped at them. When you trust a Communist regime you deserve to get your hand cut off.

China says toy recall scare shows protectionist agenda

Mattel has only itself to blame for a huge toy recall that has stoked global alarm about Chinese-made goods, state media said on Thursday, charging that a slew of foreign safety scares had exposed a protectionist agenda.

snit…..Coming in the wake of warnings over Chinese-made toothpaste, pet food, tires, eels and seafood, and lethal chemicals that had found their way into medicine, the toy recall has magnified calls in Washington for much tougher scrutiny of such imports.

The overseas edition of the People’s Daily, the ruling Communist Party’s official paper, continued Beijing’s recent counter-offensive, putting the spotlight on multinationals that have used China as a production base.

“If it comes down to blame, then it all lies with the U.S. side,” the paper said of the Mattel magnet recall, noting that the problem was a design defect. “The Chinese manufacturer only produced according to those specifications.”

A China-based company that let lead in the toy paint would be punished, but even here Mattel must share blame, the paper said, noting that the U.S. firm had worked with it for over a decade.

The paper said foreign media reports about unsafe Chinese food and products were exaggerated and ignored the good record of nearly all the country’s exporters.

Technorati Tags: China, Chi-coms, defective, Mattel, Iams

Toons to go with the China Product Woes:

Technorati Tags: China, products, toons, communists

When the media interviews someone filling their tank at a pump why is it the person never complains about one of the real culprits of the cost of a gallon of gas?  Enviromental groups driving regulations.  Congress, through the influence of enviro lobbying groups, has regulated ourselves out of the business of refining crude.  The same thing applies to drilling for oil domestically.  There’s plenty of crude in the US plus there’s coal gasification which could be utilized.  But nooooooo, they have to mandate ethanol which is currently causing the price of corn to go through the roof which will drive all level of food prices. That doesn’t even cover the inefficiencies on the whole ethanol product.  Of course this is at the same time we are throwing all sorts of farm subsidies for growing corn and building ethanol plants.  But the media continues to focus only on the evils of oil and gas energy.  They have helped to mislead the public into believing the propaganda distributed by the junk science socialists. 

I just saw the movie “The Power of Choice” which is a biography on the life of Dr.Milton Friedman.  This should be required viewing by every Congress person.  Maybe, just maybe, they will get it through their dim brains that price controls don’t work. 

From The Washington Times – Price at the pump driven by aging U.S. refineries

Attention American motorists: It is not ExxonMobil or Middle Eastern oil producers who are driving the price of gasoline you pay at the pump.

It is shortages of gas and other problems at aging refineries in your neighborhoods.

While that has been true all year, oil analysts say, it has never been more obvious than yesterday, when the price of premium crude oil briefly hit a record $78.77 in New York trading even as gas prices continued to fall at the pump.

snip….”The refineries have finally gotten their act together,” said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. “They’re back to normal, almost.” The Energy Information Administration reported yesterday that refineries are operating at 93.6 percent of capacity, the highest in more than a year.

American refineries are aging and prone to accidents and other problems that require extended periods offline to remedy. No new refineries have been built in 30 years, largely because Clean Air Act regulations make building new ones prohibitively expensive, oil analysts say

Attempts by Congress to encourage new refinery construction through tax breaks and other enticements in recent years failed to produce the desired results. Most new refineries are being built in China, the Middle East and other countries where regulations are less restrictive. That has led to an increase in imports of gasoline as well as oil.

snip….In the meantime, the outlook for new refineries in the United States — or even adding to the capacity of existing ones — remains poor, said Michael Canes, economic consultant at the Energy Policy Research Foundation.

“Consumers will benefit if additions to refining capacity keep pace with demand,” he said, but “from a refiner’s perspective, uncertainties abound.”

The new Democratic leadership, rather than offering tax incentives and other enticements to build new plants, is enacting tax increases and other penalties, he said. A Senate-passed bill would punish suppliers of gasoline with severe fines for any purported “price gouging” during an emergency such as a hurricane.

Also clouding the outlook for refiners are vows by President Bush and Democratic leaders to cut oil consumption by 20 percent through stricter fuel-efficiency requirement on cars and trucks and greater use of ethanol — developments that would take years to carry out but still raise questions about whether new gasoline refineries are needed in the long run, he said.

Technorati Tags: gas, price controls, milton friedman, the power of choice, reifneries, enviroMENTAL wackos, junk science, farm subsidies, corn, ethanol