#1
Smart fellow he is, the airlines and large users do much the same. The oil companies do precisely the opposite. The crude oil they have already purchased and have in storage may bring a gasoline price of lets say $ 2.00 per gallon. When crude prices rise, they raise the value of oil in storage to meet the new price and gasoline production prices follow along, regardless of production costs of the old oil. This elevates crude purchased at a March price to that of crude purchased at a higher rate in May. As the price of crude eventually declines, gasoline prices gradually follow, not immediately mind you, but gradually, even if only a few days. Big oil companies make a premium over regular profits as crude goes up, and they make it again as crude goes down, by advancing and delaying prices at the pump. Dealers play the same game. This explains their extraordinary profit percentages over actual crude oil cost increase percentages. Welcome to the oil business.
New research from the National Exercise and Nutrition Council explains why keeping the weight off after dieting is so difficult
That people start gaining weight as soon as they come off a diet isn't just a myth. New research from the National Exercise and Nutrition Council shows that people can't lose more than 5 to 10 percent of their weight.
It also proves that more than 90 percent of dieters are back to their original weight 2 years after having stopped their diet.
Professor Bjørn Richelsen from the National Exercise and Nutrition Council explains:
'Weight-loss has always been a threat to humanity. You cannot say the same about weight-gain. This is where we find the explanation for why the body has mechanisms for getting the weight back.'
Richelsen points out that it doesn't make a difference what diet is being used: We all have a fat-thermostat and this thermostat can only be increased. Once the level of fat-cells has grown - the increased level of cells are screaming for food.
The body's metabolism and the muscles start working effectively in order to get that fat back. Richelsen believes that this reaction is due to the body's ancient defense-mechanism against hunger.
Professor Richelsen advises people to keep an eye on their weight, and if there is a slight increase then respond straight away: 'Those kind of weight increases are manageable,' says Richelsen.
#3
Not necessarily. Many people have a genetic heritage that is so acclimated to starvation that their livers become hyper-efficient when their food is decreased. Their margin between starvation and weight gain is ridiculously small.
I've seen an extreme example of this in the Pima Indian tribe of Arizona. They can survive on about 900 calories of crude carbohydrate a day, compared to a bare minimum of 1600 to 2800 of much more nutritional food for someone of European descent.
However, if Pimas eat food with any more calories or nutritional value than bare minimum, they become terribly obese and suffer from diabetes--an endemic problem to their tribe.
For an awful lot of people, the eat less and exercise more concept just doesn't work. Their own body can counter it so effectively that the net result is negligible, other than hunger and sore muscles.
Doctors often see people who are both starved and have excessive fat at the same time. Their bodies sacrifice muscle first, so that it can save their fat.
#6
The folks you know who only eat 1/4 of what you eat and don't lose weight will stay that way. The body needs food. Their metabolism is so slow that whatever they eat goes directly to storage. Balanced diet, high fiber, high protein, and EEK! EXERCISE. Boring, but true.
#7
RD: I know heavy people that eat 1/4 of what I eat and still can't lose weight.
In my experience, they snack a lot and eat tons of food when they head home - at night. That's part of the problem - they really ought to be eating big lunches and easing up at night.
#8
Common among the Irish as well - famine survival in the 1800's did a wonderful job of selecting survivors with this trait (survive on low carbs, get fat off any more than that, diabetes soon follows).
#10
Old Spook,
You are on to something. My family is right out of that niche and tend to be thin and muscular in their 20's and go downhill from there on out. Primarily due to a decrease in physical toil and not an increase in food intake. Believe me, I eat less than I did in my 20's and put on weight at the drop of a sandwich. Genetics are going to rear their ugly head and come to be known as the true culprit in the obesity plague. Who would choose to be overweight if if were in their ability to control their weight and still live a somewhat normal life?
#12
While not disagreeing with 'it's what you eat and how much you exercise', I'll note that I am thinish and my weight has varied very little through my life. I can eat whatever I want including things most people find horribly fattening, e.g. I eat a large breakfast of eggs/bacon/sausage every day. For some reason I have an strong aversion to sugar in my food. As a result I eat almost no prepared foods because they all contain added sugar.
Just suggesting the sugar in everything diet screws up our metabolism and causes the fat accumulation. And for the record my blood pressure and cholesterol are great.
#13
Just like the 'global warming' crowd chooses to ignore the increase in energy generated by the Sun, the nutritionist ignore evolution and natural selection.
Not only have we only recently beat about 100,000 years plus of cycles of feast and famine with plentiful food year round, but it is easily obtainable [even delivered if you so request]. Add to that, the fact that with modern 20th Century medicine we had far more children survive who would, due to various frailties and diseases, died and would not have added to the population pool along with those various defects or anomalies. A lot of problems arise now because we live long enough to become afflicted with them rather than die off at a much earlier age.
Finally, death is a zero sum game. You die of something. No one seems to die of old age anymore. "He done plum wore out". Every death certificate has some cause. However, being a zero sum game, if you reduce the causal factor in one area, you only shift the underlying pathology to another. Its a great statistical game, very useful when asking for more Government Grants [tm].
#15
Phil - nail on the head. My theory is that there is so much sugar and "crap" carbohydrates that it overloads those (genetically?) predisposed to Type II diabetes. The worst is Corn Syrup or Corn Sweetner - that crap is in everything and is absolute poison to anyone with diabetic tendencies. Read the labels!
I can eat bacon and eggs just fine. Steel cut whole oats for oatmeal (McCanns). But give me a serving of polished white rice or mashed potatoes or slices of white bread (or anything with sugarin it) and BANG Im in blood sugar trouble. I think a lot of the stuff being researched abotu Glycemic Index is where the problem will be found for people like me.
I've found that eating like my grandfather (who lived into his 90's) did and working out hard with weights most days, jogging only 2 days a week, that has me healthy with control of my pre-diabetes, and has lowered my cholesterol, and my triglyicerides. And thats eating an average daily set of meals like my grandma used to make - and I lived off of when I was visting them on the farm as a teenager: 2 scrambled eggs, 2 strips bacon (crisp & drained) and a cup of strong black coffee for breakfast, small whole grain roll, with a hunk of cheese and meat for lunch with water to drink, and high protein low carbohydrate dinner like potroast or sausages with green beans or other stuff fromthe garden out back, with ice tea (we're southern) for dinner - and a couple of snacks of beef jerky bookending lunch by a couple of hours on each side. He was a railroad man, so took his lunch in a pail, and had the jerky wrapped in wax paper in his pocket. That was a workday meal schedule. The only day they "ate fancy" was on Sunday (and sometimes Saturday if my cousin or aunt was cooking), with pie made the day before, fancy dinner with fried chicken and mashed potatos, cornbread/biscuits with the breakfast stuff.
Funny how I can have my bacon and eggs fried in a little bit of butter and watch these other poor guys trying to eat Low Fat and nearly Vegetarian that only drives their body further into a fat storage mode.
By the way - check out most Low Fat foods - and compare them to the normal version. You'll see they add more Corn Sweetner or Sugar to make up for the lack of fat. "Low Fat" versions of foods are very bad for you if you are predisposed toward diabetes.
My personal regime:
Exercise intensely with weights 3-4 times a week (Mo-We-Fr or Mo-Tu-Th-Fr), walking or other less-intense "aerobic" exercise 2-3 times a week.
Eat 3 small-to-medium sized meals and 2 high-protien snacks - so that you dont go more than 4 hours without taking something in during the day. Do NOT skip breakfast - and be sure thats a low carb, high protien meal (primes the pump for fat burning instead of fat storage). Dont eat within 3 hours of going to bed, and take a multivitamin.
Read the labels, avoid sugars and corn sweetner, load up on natural protiens and natural fats (butter for instance), avoid that fake stuff like margerine and other trans-fats. If you have to have the sweets, go with sugar free stuff (avoid fat free like the plague that it is). And ignore the food pyramid - its the crap that got us into this mess. Avoid bread, potatos, rice, and any other simple grain products.
All of the above applies to me and my biochemistry ONLY. Yours may differ. I am not a Doctor -- See a doctor you can trust and onw who is open minded as to rejecting a lot of the old garbage nutritional info thats out there.
#19
One other comment. I eat large amounts of bread, but only what I would call dense breads, primarily real rye bread and middle eastern pita. This is not some dietary fad, its because I like them better.
Otherwise, I was fortunate to never have sweet carbonated drinks as a kid, and never acquired a taste for them as an adult. I drink gallons of tea and more wine than is probably good for me.
#20
I just go off the USMC height/weight tables and stay under my weight for my height. I figure it's very plausible for me to stay under my max weight established by the Corps (176 lbs.) the rest of my life. So long as I stay under that I might look puffy but I'll never look or more importantly feel horrible.
In my current regimen I run 3-4 times a week, hit the weights about 4 times a week and do pushups/chins/& crunches almost every day. For me it comes down to total calorie in-take vice going low carb or low fat. Unlike most folks I do better on less chow - 1,500 calories is actually a lot for me. (but that's just my body - I eat what I need vice what I want) Basically I figure if the average American ate a balanced diet, took in high protein, drank plenty of h2o, does high fiber, & stays away from junk foods w/high sugar or fried fast food garbage they'd be okay. However, like I said, most fatties I see eat what they want vice what they really need.
BTW - I reserve Saturday's for eating anything I want along w/drinking some Pabsts (a man's gotta live a little). Unfortunately for me, the rest of the week I have to watch everything as it's too easy for me to pack on weight - curse of the irish & all.
One thing I tell people is to take off the weight slow, if you're currently 220 and really should be about 190 I say just work on losing the first 5-7 lbs the first month. Then spend the next month staying under 215 or whatever while gradually increasing your exercise and slowly cutting out the garbage in your diet. You'd be surprised how much additional excess you lose just by cleaning up your eating habits. Do this again the next month an so on until you hit your target weight. It might take 6 months but by this method you're not starving your body and the body is not going into a survival mode thus cutting off your fat burning ability. You slowly re-train your body to feel full on less and it gets used to weighing less. Then after you've hit your target/healthy weight make sure you keep a ceiling weight you always stay under; if 190 was your target then say 197 is your ceiling weight where you have to kick yourself in the ass not to go over. I wouldn't even necessarily call it dieting but lifestyle. Again, this works for me & has worked for folks I know. If you have a system that works for you then that's cool, everybody's wired different.
#21
interesting commets. Thanks old spook and others.
Off the diabetes discussion ...if "dieting" is as worthless as this author claims, shouldn't the opposite be true as well? But it's not. If I were to scarf down nachos, ice cream and donuts all day for a week I'd start piling on the pounds pretty quick. If I didn't stop, the pounds would continue to climb up and up. Yet if I stopped eating the excess then the weight would come off - albeit much slower than it came on.
So, even though I found the accompaning comments to this discussion interesting, it's false to imply thatyou can't lose any weight by dieting. Agree that the best way to lose it is to cut out the refined carbs and eat regular meals otherwise. I'm convinced it is the refined carbs plus fat that is causing the problem in America with obesity and heart diesease. I've often wondered that if other countries like France where they could eat both was because they somehow milled their flour differently than we do.
Never the less, one thing that holds true is that if you remove the refined carbs out of the equation, you can eat to statisfaction and watch the weight come off. Of course, it's not that easy to stay away from all those yummy refined carbs. Thanks for the tips!
Hat tip to the Interested Participant, who has all your female-teacher-abusing-underage-boy stories as well.
Two men who had driven around several towns for hours after meeting in a bar ended up fighting after one of the men couldn't communicate directions clearly to the driver.
Haven't we heard this joke before?
Kent Hisey, 52, became frustrated by the difficulty of James Mills, who is deaf, in communicating directions, Valparaiso police said. They had driven from the Playboy Lounge in New Chicago to Portage, then Hobart _ where the 46-year-old Mills lives _ and finally to Valparaiso _ communities spread across two northwest Indiana counties about 30 miles southeast of Chicago.
Hisey, who has two prosthetic legs, stopped his car at the Porter County Airport, got out and used his walker to go around to the passenger side, where he grabbed Mills to pull him from the car, police said. Mills allegedly pushed Hisey to the ground, causing him to hit his head.
Paramedics arrived Thursday about 1:30 a.m. to treat Hisey's lacerations and take him to Porter Hospital. Police wrote a note to Mills informing him he was being arrested on a battery charge. Officers conducted a field sobriety test on Hisey. His blood-alcohol level registered 0.16 percent. Under Indiana law, the threshold for drunken driving is 0.08 percent.
Both Hisey and Mills were taken to the Porter County Jail, where they were being held Friday morning.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
But was the legless guy armed?
Posted by: ed ||
05/08/2006 7:43 Comments ||
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#2
So the guy with no legs is driving and the deaf guy is navigating. What's ASL for "turn right here. No there. Idiot, you missed it. Back there!"?
President Robert Mugabe is surreptitiously arming his war veterans and violent youth brigades with guns so that they can crush the planned street protests to topple his regime next month. The street protests, called by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, are set to be held in winter. Army sources promised chaos and bloodshed on a scale never seen before if protesters tried to march against President Mugabe's administration. The MDC has kept the actual dates under wraps although it has promised a cold season of mass protests. Mugabe's militant war veteran supporters have vowed to crush them.
"Mugabe's resolve to crush any challenge to his authority must not be underestimated," said a middle ranking army official, who preferred not to be identified. "He has ordered the army to give weapons to his war veterans and the youth brigades for his defence," added the official, insisting that they would use these guns only if necessary.
A senior army officer said there was nothing wrong with arming war veterans and youth brigades because they were considered a reserve force of the Zimbabwe National Army. "You may recall that the war veterans have been constituted into a reserve force of the army. They are entitled to weapons, if this is necessary for them to defend their leader."
Officials say Mugabe trusts the war veterans more than the young soldiers who joined the army in large numbers after independence from Britain in 1980. He feels the war veterans are more loyal to him and more reliable than young soldiers who did not fight in Zimbabwe's liberation struggle, say the officials. The notorious war veterans, who spearheaded Mugabe's often violent farm invasions, last week vowed to use "military tactics" to thwart the planned protests against Mugabe. National Liberation War Veterans' Association leader, Endy Mhlanga, said his militias would forcefully resist the MDC mass resistance.
"We have stood aside and observed you for too long and this time we will not," said Mhlanga. "This time, using our own military experience, we will mobilise against you. I do not mince my words." Mhlanga added: "The consequences of any mass action will be grave. We will co-ordinate with state security agents to fight you off.
The MDC has vowed to press ahead with its protests, despite the threats. Its spokesperson, Nelson Chamisa, said there was nothing wrong with the people of Zimbabwe using peaceful mass protests to free themselves from "this rogue regime". However, the MDC is not taking Mugabe's threats lightly. It has been urging the country's uniformed services not to allow themselves to be used against the people. The opposition party is telling the army to disobey illegal orders, warning that those who partake in Mugabe's repression will face serious consequences under a "future" MDC government.
#2
Sometimes the stupidity shines through even a good idea.
I'd strongly suggest only arming veterans that are prosperous, arming the veterans who are starving, homeless, or destitute would be the same as arming the opposition.
I'd also be very interested in the quantity of ammo given each vet, 10 rounds or less indicates a serious lack of trust.
This looks to be the start of Civil War, the beginning of the end for Sprocket Bob.
Think of it this way, the people he can trust are already armed, arming the vets simply provides the opposition with guns (After they take them away from aging vets) as well as disillusioning the very people who have survived so far.
The Youth Brigades now are a different matter, they'll attack anybody their "Leader" points them at, (Inexperience, poor judgment) I forsee fighting between the vets abd youths, with heavy casualties on both sides, and a gross weakeneng of Bob's base supporters whichever way the chios fall.
Bad, bad idea.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/08/2006 9:16 Comments ||
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#3
Oh yeah, he's much better than Ian Smith. Like night and day.
#4
A covert, never-to-be-acknowledged night flight of a B-2 over Harare, dropping a MOAB on Bob's boudoir would go a long way towards improving the lot of the people.
#8
"So, Fordesque you think they're going to wind up with a ChiCom Govt as a Puppet State?"
Thirty years ago, the Chinese were providing ZANU with AK-47s, RPGs, mortars, radios, and training in camps located in Zambia. Unlike the Soviets, the Chinese were content to allow the "liberation-groups" to espouse their own local brand of communist ideology.
The Chinese now have preferential access to Zimabwe's minerals, land and trade.
To answer your question, no. But Zimbabwe ended up with a government that the Chinese are not unhappy about.
DOHA - A Sri Lankan Muslim who worked as a tea boy in Ras Laffan, says he has been sacked by his employers and is being sent home since he refused to shave off his beard. He kept the beard on account of his religious belief.
Mohamed Afher, 32, is not the only one who has invited the wrath of his employers for sporting a beard. Another compatriot of his, Mohamed Faris, 27, has met a similar fate. The two are expected to fly home today after a kind-hearted Qatari working in Qatar Petroleum (QP) bought them air tickets.
The company when contacted, however, denied the accusation and said they had resigned on their own. They were creating trouble and flouting company rules, the manager of the firm said. On April 27, they quit and expressed their desire to return home, he added.
The Sri Lankans were employed by a company with its head office in the Industrial Area and they were legally supplied to work as tea boys in Ras Laffan Industrial City. They were asked by the company to shave their beards and given an ultimatum and when they refused to comply, they were asked to sign resignation letters, the duo claimed.
The Peninsula contacted the philanthropic Qatari who provided them air tickets and he confirmed that what the tea boys were saying was correct. They were asked not to sport beards since they served tea in our office, but when they refused, they were sacked, said the national.
He said there were actually four tea boys who were asked by the company to remove their beards last Sunday, but two of them gave in to the companys pressure and came to the office clean shaven the next day. These two refused to budge and I supported them, said the Qatari asking not to be named. If I am required as a witness, my identity can be disclosed, he said.
Mohamed Afher worked in Madina, Saudi Arabia, for a number of years and returned home in 2004. He hails from a coastal area (Beruwala) in Sri Lanka that was hit by the tsunami in late December 2004.
He said his home was destroyed in the tsunami and he was forced to look for a job in the Gulf again to rebuild the house and support his family. I mortgaged my ancestral land with a money lender and took Rs100,000 to pay manpower agents in Colombo to get a job in Qatar early last year, said Afher.
He eventually landed here in June 2005 and had been working as a tea boy ever since. With two small daughters and an ageing mother Afher is worried how he would pay the huge debt back and how he would support his family. I feel devastated, he said.
His family should certainly feel devastated. After all, the man chose his beard over them!
#1
What this shows is that some Brits are downright miserly when it comes to paying out of pocket for dental work. Maybe they've adopted the principle that if the government doesn't cover an ailment, they just won't get it treated. I find this dogmatic and fatalistic attitude really strange. Sure, they've paid their taxes for the service, meaning they shouldn't have to pay out of pocket again to a private practitioner, but it's their bodies and their teeth.
#5
My dentist a great gal from Russia about 5' tall strong as hell, stopped taking insurance payments 5 years ago of any kind. It's credit card, cash or check. I like her and her work so I pay cash now for my dental. Her prices are fairly reasonable.
But for a family with 2 or 3 kids it might not fit the budget. braces, root-canals etc.
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL Bolivia's decision last week to nationalize its natural gas reserves shocked the West, but the country set to pay the highest price - both politically and economically - is Brazil, experts and analysts say.
More than half the gas used in Brazil is Bolivian, and in Sao Paulo - the state that accounts for roughly half of Brazil's GDP - the figure is 75 percent. Any disruption in supply from Bolivia would hit Brazil hard, and those in the heavily industrialized south of the country are especially concerned about the potential costs of last week's decision. "If prices were to increase, industry would be very hard hit," says Saturnino Sergio da Silva, vice president of the Sao Paulo Federation of Industries, the state's most important business organization. "We want [Brazil's state-owned oil company] Petrobras to act; we have to be tough and say we don't accept this."
Petrobras's president Jose Sergio Gabrielli vowed last week not to invest a penny more in Bolivia, but Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was more equivocal. He admitted that Brazil had made a "strategic error" in relying too heavily on Bolivian gas, but told Bolivian President Evo Morales that Brazil would not abandon his country.
Although Mr. Morales, a left-wing populist who became Bolivia's first indigenous president in December 2005, had promised to nationalize the country's oil and gas reserves while campaigning last fall, few expected him to do it so aggressively. But on May 1, Morales sent in troops to occupy foreign-owned petrochemical installations. He gave the companies 180 days to renegotiate their existing contracts and accept its decision to take 82 percent of all proceeds from production.
Lula called an emergency summit to discuss the measures. After the meeting Thursday with Morales, Argentine President Nestor Kirschner, and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, he tried to play down the affair by insisting that all sides were committed to finding a negotiated settlement.
But Lula is in an awkward position. While the former union leader shares Morales' humble background and populist goals, he can't afford to ignore Petrobas's stake in Bolivia. The energy company says it has invested more than 1 billion dollars in Bolivia since 1994 and is responsible for 18 percent of the country's GDP and 24 percent of its tax revenue.
Mr. Gabrielli, Petrobas's president, told reporters if Bolivia does try to force up prices, his company will go to court. The contract signed with the Bolivian government to provide 30 million cubic feet of gas a day cannot be changed without both sides' approval, he says. Brazil's supply of gas is guaranteed by the contract, he adds, and consumers will not face a price rise.
But even if Bolivia does stick to the contract, experts say Lula needs to hasten development of Brazil's own natural gas reserves and take other steps to reduce its reliance on its neighbor. "Petrobras has to speed up development and find alternatives to Bolivia," says Mr. da Silva of the Sao Paulo Federation of Industries. "We can't be held hostage to a country that breaks contracts at will."
Last month, the country declared itself one of the few nations self-sufficient in oil, amid much nationalist celebration. And last week, Brazil opened an uranium enriching plant it hopes will help it produce nuclear energy. Petrobras, meanwhile, is now under more pressure to speed up development of the major gas reserves discovered off the Sao Paulo coast, as Gabrielli confirmed in promising to invest 17 billion dollars in bringing it online by 2009.
"The country should have worried a long time ago about diversifying its sources of gas," wrote Andre Pires and Rafael Schechtman, two energy experts at the Brazilian Centre of Infrastructure, in an op-ed piece about the crisis that ran in Valor, a Brazilian business newspaper. "President Lula, who blamed his predecessor for the lack of planning that caused the shortage of electric energy in 2001, is making the same mistake and his first term is ending with the country on the verge of a natural gas blackout."
Another worry for Lula - and also for the US - are the political ramifications of Morales' decision. Although a wave of leftist leaders have swept to power in Latin America recently, until now their words spoke louder than their deeds.
Analysts are now concerned that Morales' move to nationalize - made just days after he met in Cuba with Fidel Castro and populist Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez - is evidence he plans to stand alongside those radical partners rather than the moderates led by Lula. "I think that Lula and Chávez have disputed the leadership role in South America and this was a defeat for Lula," says Rogerio Schmitt, a political analyst with the Tendencia consulting firm.
"That doesn't mean we are seeing an irreversible shift to the left. There won't be a domino effect, other countries won't take the same measures. I think the radical left won a battle but they have not won the war."
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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#2
The thought occurs that there are similarities between this and Africa during during the last half of the 20th century. Country after country replaced European colonial administrations with indigenous socialist/communist/tribalist thugocracies. The result was to give well-fed, prosperous peoples over to the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. If I lived in Bolivia, I would apply for asylum in the US.
#4
I wouldn't go so far as to say that the people of Africa in the 1960s were well-fed and prosperous. As I recall, the Belgians truly did rape the Congo, and the Frenchies weren't a whole lot nicer in their part of the continent. These colonies existed first and foremost for the benefit of the mother country.
That said, the combination of anti-colonalism and socialism was a particularly bad one for Africa, one that only now they're beginning (in a few places) to fix.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/08/2006 16:06 Comments ||
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#5
On the eve of independence, the Congo, a territory larger than Western Europe, bordering on nine other African colonies/states, was seriously underdeveloped. There were no African army officers, only three African managers in the entire civil service, and only 30 university graduates.
Posted by: john ||
05/08/2006 19:42 Comments ||
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#6
Mark Twain calls Léopold the slayer of 15 million Congolese and a "greedy, grasping, avaricious, cynical, bloodthirsty old goat". His dark and graphic satire 'King Léopold's Soliloquy: A Defence of His Congo Rule' is published in pamphlet form by the American Congo Reform Association in September 1905.
" Listen to the yell of Leopold's ghost
Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host,
Hear how the demons chuckle and yell
Cutting his hands off, down in Hell."
Posted by: john ||
05/08/2006 19:48 Comments ||
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#7
remember "Roland, the headless Thompson Gunner"...
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2006 19:55 Comments ||
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ESTIMATES of the growing pile of non-performing loans (NPLs) in China appear to have caught many by surprise, especially because Beijing's efforts to clean up its rickety state-owned banks were thought to have greatly reduced NPLs and the risk of a full-blown financial crisis.
According to Ernst & Young, the accounting firm, bad loans in the Chinese financial system have reached a staggering $US911 billion ($1.18 trillion), including $US225 billion in potential future NPLs in the four largest state-owned banks.
This equals 40 per cent of gross domestic product and China has already spent the equivalent of 25-30 per cent of GDP in previous bank bail-outs.
Poor business practices are blamed for NPLs but the real source is political. As long as the communist party relies on state-controlled banks to maintain an unreformed core of a command economy, Chinese banks will make more bad loans.
Systemic economic waste, bank lending practices, political patronage and the survival of a one-party state are inseparably intertwined in China. That is why, after nearly 30 years of economic reform, the state still owns 56 per cent of the fixed capital stock. The unreformed core of the economy is the base of political patronage.
Government figures show that, in 2003, 5.3 million party officials held executive positions in SOEs [State Owned Enterprises]. The party appoints about 80 per cent of the chief executives in SOEs and 56 per cent of all senior corporate executives At 70 per cent of the large and medium-sized SOEs ostensibly restructured into Western-style companies, members of party committees were appointed to the boards. Painful restructuring appears to have spared this elite. China has shed more than 30 million industrial jobs since the late 1990s but few party officials have become jobless.
The World Bank estimated that in the 1990s about one-third of fixed investments made in China were wasted. The Chinese central bank reported that during 2000-01 politically directed lending accounted for 60 per cent of NPLs. Such disregard for economic efficiency has bred a culture of irresponsibility and unaccountability in Chinese banks.
In a survey of 3500 bank employees in 2002, 20 per cent reported that no action was taken against managers even when their mistakes resulted in NPLs; an additional 46 per cent said their banks made no efforts to uncover bad loans.
More than 80 per cent said corruption in their branches was either prevalent or took place quite often.
Nearly all senior bank executives are appointed by the party, which maintains an extensive organisational network within the financial system. That is why an IMF study finds no evidence that these reforms have improved risk management and credit allocation by banks.
Now, compound this financial crisis with what will gradually emerge as the World's Largest Medically Caused AIDS Epidemic [Google "HRIC Henan AIDS"], a potential oil shortfall (if Iran goes off-line), the shortage of marrigeable women, avian flu plus another one of their all too common famines and civil war or something much uglier could easily arise.
China is a monstrous Humpty-Dumpty poised for Omelet City.
#4
Dodgy loans and the bursting of the land bubble sent Japan into recession for fifteen years. It just started coming out of recession a year ago. Japan is a democracy, and the recession caused a change of government.
China is totalitarian state and the Chinese government's overriding goal is to maintain their power indefinitely. If China plunges into recession, the government will need something to take the people's minds off their economic woes. That will not be a good thing for anyone else in the region.
With the recent publication of a textbook of "The Art of War by Sunzi", the world's oldest military treatise has become required reading for officers in China's military schools. They're just now getting around to it? Jeez, I thought they'd have read this for centuries. Suppose it might have been deemed reactionary ideas or something.
According to the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences (CAMS), the formal introduction of the ancient works by ace Chinese military expert Sunzi is aimed at "improving strategy and command proficiency of military officers" of the People's Liberation Army. Ah, I suppose that only Mao Zedong could supply any worthy military thought.
"The Art of War by Sunzi," written more than 2,500 years ago, has been widely acclaimed by military commanders both in China and overseas for its superb military artistry and philosophical intelligence. The new textbook, compiled by the CAMS, provides an original version of the works and a modern Chinese translation. It also contains comments and research essays on each of the 13 chapters, which detail various strategies, warfare planning, war operation and other related tactics. Link to the original text of "The Art of War". A great read, if you haven't already.
#3
The Sun Tzu for Dummies edition. As the first reviewer notes:
This is the most accessible translation of Sun Tzu's Art of War availible. The text is contemporary english at roughly a seventh grade level, and the illustrations are brilliant. The illustrations both illuminate the concepts in the text and are lightly humorous.
Use the Amazon preview ability to see the illustrations. The ISBN is 0-385-47258-7. Disregard the listing price, the paperback copy can be found cheaper with an ISBN search.
#4
Every modern army uses Sun Tzu's operations guide, a five or six paragraph method of planning that is unsurpassed in covering the details needed for a military operation. (The US, rather foolishly, omits the 6th paragraph, for no good reason.)
Mandatory reading for military people, along with Clausewitz, Dupuy and Dupuy, and Mahan for naval warfare.
#6
It's pretty weird how the title became prettified into "The Art of War" - the original Chinese, "bing fa", translates literally into "military methods".
#7
Probably because when it was first translated people were comparing it to the book by Machiavelli of the same name.
Since noone wants to talk about the book by Machiavelli for some very "good" reasons (or more accurately, some extraordinarily strong bad reasons), people have forgotten about it and assume that Sun Tzu's "Military Matters" is the original of the _Art of War_ title.
(To make a long story short, Machiavelli talks about war as an extension of politics and methods of war as extensions of the political structures of the time, and the differing "military" styles of dictatorships and republics, in much greater depth than he did in The Prince. Sun Tzu doesn't discuss politics, but if you look closely he contains the never stated, always implicit assumption that the state he's giving advice to is an isolationist dictatorship run by a sage-king of some sort.)
Posted by: Phil ||
05/08/2006 11:03 Comments ||
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#8
Phil: (To make a long story short, Machiavelli talks about war as an extension of politics and methods of war as extensions of the political structures of the time, and the differing "military" styles of dictatorships and republics, in much greater depth than he did in The Prince. Sun Tzu doesn't discuss politics, but if you look closely he contains the never stated, always implicit assumption that the state he's giving advice to is an isolationist dictatorship run by a sage-king of some sort.)
Well, Machiavelli was more or less free to publish what he wanted, as long as he insulted no one personally who was still alive. Sun Tzu wrote, a couple of thousand years ago, in an environment in which works of this type were considered state secrets and private possession of such were considered to be a sign of seditious intent.
To what extent the limitations of Sun Tzu's work involved self-censorship, a deliberate decision to limit the scope of the exposition or Sun Tzu's personal limitations, I don't really know. (Subsequent unattributed writers and editors have added and subtracted passages, so no one really knows what the original looked like). But as a primer on leadership (the ability to attract and retain followers) - as opposed to purely military methods, Machiavelli's work is far superior.
#9
Machiavelli was about governmentship with war as a method of diplomacy. Sun Tzu was about fighting the war and being ready for it. Both are great works and need read. Or need to be used to clobber liberals with.
#10
should make em watch Wesley Snipes in Art of War ...painful
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2006 11:34 Comments ||
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#11
Not quite what I meant, ZF. I'll explain later when I get home.
Posted by: Phil ||
05/08/2006 12:46 Comments ||
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#12
Neither book is really suited for clobbering liberals there Darth. I think a good hard copy of Clausewitz on war just might crack the hard shell.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
05/08/2006 14:51 Comments ||
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#13
The Art of War was and still is required reading for Marine company grade officers. I've read through it twice now. Same w/"the prince" (though that's not required military reading - I just did it for shitz & gigglez). I think both books should be required reading for anyone who plans on going into the military or politics.
AoS note: please put source http into the 'source' line of the Poster page, not buried in the text of the article. Thanks.
FOREIGN Minister Alexander Downer has admitted he was a behind a decision to withdraw funds from an Indonesia film festival, leaving organisers in the lurch on the eve of its opening night.
Last December, the government pulled funding from the Jakarta International Film Festival because it objected to the screening of some movies. LOVE to know what the movies where. This story doesn't say as it focuses on lefty opposition taking the dirty Indo side, but I BET one of the films was an anti-Western jihadi flick. So I'm GLAD my taxes were withdrawn! They have no right to my tax dollars unless it is going to benefit me or my country in some way
On the eve of the festival, organisers were told they would not be receiving the $16,000 promised by the Australia-Indonesia Institute (AII). ha ha ha!
The AII, a government-funded body set up to promote friendship between the two countries, had sponsored the festival in previous years. So they expected more "It's our right!"
In response to a question on notice asking who made the decision to withdraw funding at the last minute, Mr Downer said: "I did." Some days I really like Downer. Mostly he's a useless tool but some days he is just brilliant
#2
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/jiff-d15.shtml
The Australian films in question are:
The President versus David Hicks, which exposes the illegal detention of Australian citizen David Hicks in Guantánamo Bay;
Garudas Deadly Upgrade, about the murder of Indonesian human rights campaigner Munir Said Thalib;
Dhakiyarr versus the King, a documentary on the murder trial and subsequent disappearance of Aboriginal leader Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda over 70 years ago; and
We Have Decided Not To Die, an 11-minute short about three individuals who escape death in a number of different and unusual ways. Indonesian censors had cleared all four films for the festival.
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05/08/2006 8:23 Comments ||
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#3
Seems the Aussies didn't want to pay for jihadi films to be shown on their own soil. Good on ya.
Rhode Islanders in Congressman Patrick Kennedy's district are reacting to the Democrat's latest struggle with addiction. The son of Senator Edward Kennedy is entering treatment for addiction to prescription pain drugs after a middle-of-the-night car crash last week. Kennedy has entered rehab at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
I thought that sentence should read "Kennedy has entered rehab at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota again." Hasn't he been there at least once before? But that's okay, Rhode Island. Keep voting him in. The rest of the country laughs at you, but you know in your hearts you just love the guy.
I thought he was getting treatment for addiction to sleeping meds, that being the Ambien he 'took' just prior to the DC car wreck. Oh well, pain meds, sleepers, likker, whatever, hope he gets cleaned up. In the meantime, he might have the sense and decency to resign from Congress so that someone from his district can do the job full-time. Addiction is a difficult demon to beat, so he ought to devote himself completely to it.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Maybe they can work in an ethics transplant and tune up his shame and truthy glands while he's there.
I suggest that addiction to a lack of responsibility is, by far, the larger demon in this twerp's basement.
#4
I hate to say it but the dude is undermedicating. Apparently he has bipolar disorder but is NOT on anything for that. b
It's amazing that, despite these challenges, he's the best man to represent half of RI in congress. I've been to the state and met many seemingly solid citizens who seem like they could do it if they had to. I must have been in the other guy's district.
#5
Booze, pills and lying: the only element missing would be a dead campaign worker. But this Kennedy is still young, there's still time to outdo dear old Dad.
#11
I wouldn't fault the guy for going to the Mayo clinic. But he's a lying sack of shit, just like the rest of the Kennedys. First he denies everything, then he cant remember the wreck, then he's sorry, then he's back to "no comment", ect, ect, ect.
#17
Seven out of the ten voices in his head agreed that a trip back to the spin dry away from prying eyes might garner some sympathy. Chock another vapor scandal up to ole "inner-demons in all us" excuse.
#19
I really do not give a rat's behind if he cleans himself up or not. I do not care wheter he lives or dies. All I ask of him to do is to not be a driver of a motor vehicle. He could have just as easily run some innocent soul over and killed them.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/08/2006 17:32 Comments ||
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#20
What can you say. Everything about this is a depressing statment about our elected government, political parties, law enforcement and the idea of eqaul treatment under the law.
The country is broke and sending it to the Mayo Clinic isn't going to fix it. This adult they pretend is a "kid" will not be fixed there either.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/08/2006 17:47 Comments ||
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#21
Well, so long as he wasn't under the influence of alcohol.
SHIMLA, INDIA: A woman in Himachal Pradesh was critically injured when she mistook a country made explosive for a piece of jaggery and bit into it.
The woman, whose mouth was ripped apart, was passing a makeshift colony of gypsies near the town Poanta Sahib, 175 km from here, when she began talking to someone and chewed on what she thought was a sweet.
To her horror, it turned out to be a homemade explosive used by gypsies to hunt wild animals.
Three men have been arrested for questioning.
Posted by: john ||
05/08/2006 16:54 ||
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#1
Don't take candy from gypsies ?
Posted by: john ||
05/08/2006 17:01 Comments ||
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Jaggery is the traditional unrefined sugar of India. Although the word is used for the products of both sugarcane and the date palm tree, technically, jaggery refers solely to sugarcane sugar.
Jaggery is considered by some to be a particularly wholesome sugar and, unlike refined sugar, retains more mineral salts. Moreover, the process does not involve chemical agents. Indian Ayurvedic medicine considers jaggery to be beneficial in treating throat and lung infections; Sahu and Saxena found that in rats jaggery can prevent lung damage from particulate matter such as coal and silica dust (1994).
Posted by: john ||
05/08/2006 18:59 Comments ||
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Enhanced Translocation of Particles from Lungs by Jaggery
By Anand P. Sahu and Ashok K. Saxena
Industrial Toxicology Research Centre, Lucknow, India
Abstract
Because industrial workers in dusty or smoky environments seemed to experience no discomfort if they consumed the sugar cane product jaggery, experimental studies were undertaken to observe the effects of jaggery on dust-exposed rats. Rats with and without a single intratracheal instillation of coal dust (50 mg/rat) were orally gavaged with jaggery (0.5 g/rat, 5 days/week for 90 days) . The enhanced translocation of coal particles from lungs to tracheobronchial lymph nodes was observed in jaggery-treated rats. Moreover, the jaggery reduced the coal-induced histological lesions and hydroxyproline contents of lungs. The lesions induced in omental tissue and regional lymph nodes by a single intraperitoneal injection of 50 mg each of coal and silica dust were modified by jaggery (0.5 g/rat, 5 days/week for 30 days) . These findings along with the preventive action of jaggery on smoke-induced lung lesions suggest the potential of jaggery as protective agent for workers in dusty and smoky environments. -- Environ Health Perspect 102(Suppl 6) :211-214 (1994) .
Posted by: john ||
05/08/2006 19:01 Comments ||
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Nepal's new government has scrapped all appointments made by King Gyanendra since October 2002, recalling handpicked ambassadors to key countries such as Britain, India and the United States. Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat says cabinet, which was appointed on Tuesday, has today decided to revoke all the appointments made by the King since October 2002. The move is the latest by the new government to roll back actions taken by the autocratic ruler of the tiny Himalayan kingdom in recent years.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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Luxury cars hit showroom after an economic boom prompted by September 11
Wheezing rickshaws, ornately decorated trucks and tottering motorcycles, often carrying a family of six, crowd Pakistan's bustling roads. Now there is an incongruous newcomer to the street chaos - the latest Porsche.
The German sports car heralded its arrival in Pakistan last month with a glitzy ceremony at one of Lahore's most exclusive clubs. Abukhar Bokhari, the importer, has already sold 30. "Business is booming," he said.
The invasion of the Pakistani Porsches, which are sold at a starting price of £52,000, represents the flashy end of a little publicised economic boom. Last year Pakistan's economy grew by 8.4%, second only to that of China's. This year's rate is expected to top 6%. After years of spurning their country's unhappy association with al-Qaida and Islamic extremism, the monied elite is celebrating.
"It's the best it's ever been," said Asif Kamal, an industrialist who has just bought an investment bank and is building a 20-storey office in downtown Lahore. "There's never been so much money and so many opportunities."
To celebrate, he bought a Porsche Cayman S for £72,000, a car costing £30,000 more than it would in the UK due to the import tariffs. "It's a nice toy, just for fun," he said, adding that a Rolls-Royce concession had found two customers even before it had opened.
The iconic Porsche 911 is going to be the most popular model, Mr Bokhari predicts. It is an irony since September 11 is largely responsible for Pakistan's dramatic turnaround: Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, won key economic rewards that revived his basketcase economy after turning his back on the Taliban, joining the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and thereby "cooperating" with George Bush's "war on terror" after September 11 2001.
The US dismissed Pakistan's $1.5bn debts, offered $3bn in economic and military assistance, and ended sanctions linked to the controversial nuclear bomb programme. Coupled with this, wealthy Pakistanis abroad began sending home their savings, to be invested in houses and stocks. Since then property prices in the country have soared, Karachi has Asia's top-performing stock exchange, and sales of television, mobiles and luxury cars are booming.
"September 11 was a horrible tragedy but it saved Pakistan," said Nassir Kasuri, the 28-year-old son of Pakistan's foreign minister and the owner of a new Porsche 911.
The prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, who was a formerly a New York banker and who helped knock the country's ailing finances into order, has collected the plaudits for the growth.
But the sparkling statistics mask a worrying downside. The spending splurge is limited to a small minority. Most of the country's 160 million people remain desperately poor, barely able to afford a motorcycle, and the rich-poor divide is wider than ever.
Mr Kamal said that 1% of citizens were richer now, another 3% were slightly better off, and the rest were "just poor".
Inflation, which touched 11% last year before easing to 8%, is the main difficulty.
Outside Mr Kamal's office Abdul Rehman, a 55-year-old "tea boy" with 30 years' service to the company, said that it was difficult to make his £55-a-month salary meet the soaring prices of flour, sugar and transport. "A bag of sugar that used to cost 25 rupees [22p] two years ago is now 40 rupees," said the father of six. "It's really terrible."
In contrast with India and China, Pakistan's economic boom has done little to swell the ranks of the middle class, which remains small. Only about two million Pakistanis pay income tax. The government has increased health and education expenditure but continues to pour funds into expensive military hardware. Last month President Musharraf ordered 62 F-16 jets from the US at an estimated cost of $2.5bn.
More worryingly, economists say the boom is built on "foundations of sand". The stock market is considered to be dangerously overvalued, property prices have started to dip sharply in some areas, and the central bank recently made front-page news with a stern warning on the dangers of inflation.
Shahid Javed Burki, a former World Bank vice-president, believes Pakistan is in the grip of a "casino culture" and is showing symptoms of financial crisis.
One British analyst, who said credit-card spending had left many consumers vulnerable to a downturn, added: "Pakistan is going in the right direction but it's travelling on a tightrope." The uncertainty is also linked to political issues such as next year's elections which are expected to pose the greatest challenge yet to Gen Musharraf's power and Pakistan's stability.
Posted by: john ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Think this might be one of the reasons they aren't breaking their asses going after Binny and the boys?
Don't kill the job...
Young girls in Liberia are still being sexually exploited by aid workers and peacekeepers despite pledges to stamp out such abuse, Save the Children says. Girls as young as eight are being forced to have sex in exchange for food by workers for local and international agencies, according to its report.
The agency says such abuse is continuing as people displaced by the civil war return to their villages. The UN in Liberia said it would investigate specific allegations.
"Hey Sven, check out that one!"
The United Nations promised to put safeguards in place after sexual abuse in the refugee camps of West Africa was first revealed four years ago.
"Careful, Helgo, she might be under age 10."
But a study by Save the Children, which involved speaking to more than 300 people in camps for people displaced by the war, found that abuse was still widespread. The report said that all of the respondents clearly stated that more than half of the girls in their locations were affected.
Girls from the age of eight to 18 years were being sold for sex, "commonly referred to as 'man business'," the report noted.
One 20-year-old woman told the BBC that she had been forced to have sex with a worker for the World Food Programme (WFP). "This young man had been doing it to most of my friends. And the children too don't have strong minds. They will have sex with him to get the food," Konah Brown said.
Kids, what are they coming to, huh?
The image of UN peacekeepers in West Africa has suffered but government officials and teachers are also contributing to the abuse, Save the Children says. Teachers have demanded sex in lieu of school fees, or even just to give good grades the report found.
"This cannot continue. It must be tackled," said Jasmine Whitbread, Save the Children's UK Chief Executive. "Men who use positions of power to take advantage of vulnerable children must be reported and fired.
"More must be done to support children and their families to make a living without turning to this kind of desperation."
The WFP's Greg Barrow said the organisation would be taking the latest allegations with "the greatest seriousness" and was already taking steps to investigate them. "The key here is to find what link in this chain of delivering food, and getting it to the people who need it, is perhaps abusing this position," he told the BBC.
The UN's Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Liberia, Jordan Ryan, also said specific allegations would be investigated. "Unfortunately not all international NGOs have taken it seriously. But it is a clear priority," he said. "We have never done enough until there's a zero case load. Has enough been done? Not yet. Are we working on it? You bet we are." I guess that why we have seen all those prosections brought by the UN (Not).
#5
EU-N Consulate of Sex Commerce:
"What's the big deal? As long as the aid workers and peacekeepers are sexually satisfied, all is well. I must go now to meet with World Cup officials on the deplorable quality of available prostitutes-most are over 15! We want our young nookie."
#6
"We have never done enough until there's a zero case load. Has enough been done? Not yet. Are we working on it? You bet we are."
It depends on what the definition of "working on it" is.
Also, given the AIDS situation in sub-saharan Africa, do these "aid workers" have a collective death-wish? Of course, that would partly explain the preference for young-uns.
#8
Can Gonzales file charges against these people? It would at least look like we give a shit, and give the U.S. an oppurtunity to sentence them to years of being raped in prison if they ever came here instead of letting them prey on our children too.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
05/08/2006 17:45 Comments ||
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#9
Gives a new meaning to the phrase "We are here for the children."
#11
Ummm, isn't this about the tenth time a story like this has been circulated in the past year or so? UN or African Union troops have a habit of pursuing their darkest delights in the Dark Continent, and it comes at the expense of young girls. SICK!
#13
I think they did that in Serbia or Kosovo didn't they?
IIRC - no (proximity to NATO troops?) or we never heard about it at the time enough to cement the UN troop rep as pedophile f*&ks. The rot starts at the top
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2006 21:41 Comments ||
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#14
I think it was in Bosnia that Jordanian troops were turned in by a Dutch?/Scandianvian?/English unit for such behaviour, and actually turned their guns on the accusers before being stood down.
Also, complaints about the brothels set up exclusively for NATO troops' use somewhere in the former Yugoslavia.
JAKARTA - A strong offshore earthquake registering 5.4 on the Richter scale hit the eastern coast of central Sumatra Monday but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, the meteorology office said. The earthquake, which hit at 4:16 pm (0916 GMT), was centered 46 kilometers (29 miles) under the floor of the Indian Ocean, some 129 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of Bengkulu city, agency official Hardiatno said in Jakarta. Hardiatno said that the quake was felt in Bengkulu but that there were no reports of damage or casualties in the city. The Hong Kong observatory registered the quake at 6.0 on the Richter scale.
Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where the meeting of continental plates means seismic activity is common. A geographical faultline runs parallel to the Indonesian island of Sumatra and tectonic activities along it have repeatedly led to strong earthquakes.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/08/2006 08:46 ||
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#1
Sumatra? Golly, I hope the rhinos are ok -- there are apparently only about 30 of that subspecies left in the world. NPR was waxing concerned about that this evening.
MANILA - A Saudi Arabian man has been arrested in the Philippines for allegedly beheading his Filipino mother-in-law, police said on Monday. Senior Police Officer Filipina Manaig said Zyad Bander Abdullah, 35, allegedly killed and beheaded his mother-in-law late Saturday in their residence in Calamba City, 50 kilometres south of Manila.
That'll put a damper on Mother's Day
Manaig said the suspect, armed with a kitchen knife, suddenly barged into the bathroom, where his 66-year-old mother-in-law was taking a bath, and attacked her for no apparent reason.
Hey, he's a Saudi. It doesn't take much to git yur head wacked off
According to the suspects wife, her husband was having an argument with someone over the phone prior to the incident. The wife added the suspect was hot-tempered.
Ya think?
The suspect was being detained e police station in the city, while criminal charges were being readied against him.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/08/2006 08:32 ||
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#4
I realize that Rambler. I was just contrasting how little of an offense it would be back in Saudi. And I predict he will get off with a fine. The Phillipines are too dependent on Saudi remittances and the Phillipinos in Saudi will be sunject to even more abuse.
P.S. Of course Abdullah was pissed off. He was surrounded by dirty infidels. It's enough to make a pious muslim saw off heads.
Posted by: ed ||
05/08/2006 9:54 Comments ||
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Hawaii's gasoline price controls have sputtered to a stop.
The island state whose drivers pay the highest pump prices in the nation has given up on price caps after an eight-month, first-in-the- nation experiment. Some complained that the restrictions actually led to higher prices, because oil companies knew they could charge up to the maximum allowed.
"In a lot of people's minds, they thought the gas cap wasn't working," said Republican state Sen. Paul Whalen, a strong supporter of the price controls. "It was hard to generate lots of support for it because we're paying more than we ever were before."
Gas is particularly expensive in Hawaii because of high state taxes and because of the costs of transporting oil across the Pacific. Last fall, Hawaii became the only state to cap the cost of fuel to try to give some relief to motorists.
Under the price control legislation, Hawaii set weekly caps on wholesale gas prices. Those caps were based on the average of prices in Los Angeles and New York and on the Gulf Coast. Then allowances were added for what it costs wholesalers to ship to Hawaii and distribute gas to more remote islands.
But there was no cap on the markup added by gas stations.
With regular gasoline climbing past an average of $3.38 per gallon in the past few weeks, lawmakers sent Republican Gov. Linda Lingle a bill last week to suspend the controls. She signed it on Friday.
Because the oil refiners keep their profit margins and costs private, it was difficult for even experts to say whether Hawaii drivers were paying more or less than they would without the gas cap.
"It's ridiculous. Prices jumped up 20 cents in the last couple of days," said Calvin Reddick, who paid $15 for just over four gallons of gas for his Volkswagen Beetle. "Usually when you have a cap, it's supposed to freeze prices off. Obviously, their idea of a cap is different from mine."
One study by an economics professor showed the gas cap cost consumers 5 cents more per gallon. An analysis by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism estimated that island motorists paid $54.9 million more than they otherwise would have in the first five months under the cap. But research by cap supporter Rep. Marcus Oshiro indicated the limits saved drivers $33 million.
"It was a failure, and other experts that have looked at it have said the same thing," said Anita Mangels, a spokeswoman for the Western States Petroleum Association, which represents ChevronTexaco and Shell Oil. "It was well-intended, but apparently according to the state's own agency has not served consumers well."
With customer unrest mounting, oil companies lobbying aggressively to get rid of the cap, and the November elections looming, lawmakers felt compelled to act.
Rather than forcing down gas prices with a lower price ceiling, the mostly Democratic Legislature suspended the cap and gave Lingle, who had opposed any regulation of gas prices, the power to bring it back if she decides fuel has gotten too expensive. The legislators passed the responsibility to the governor.
At the same time, the new law provides for the computation of a hypothetical gas cap to let customers know what gasoline would cost if there were price controls.
Also, the law requires oil companies to make their wholesale price information public so that customers can compare pump prices with actual costs. Currently, that information is kept confidential. One of those economics lessons that has to be re-learned each generation, I guess.
#1
LOL they never even looked at what happened when Carter tried this crap (price fixing). It lead to huge shortages, long gas lines, and his defeat. FYI, the Donks in Congress want to use the same legislation NATIONWIDE (good luck with that).
EFL and Nuggets
Newspaper circulation fell 2.6 percent in the six-month period ending in March, according to data released Monday, as the industry continued to struggle with competition from other media outlets and the Internet.
The decline in average paid weekday circulation was about the same as the previous time newspapers reported six-month circulation figures for the period ending last September, according to the Newspaper Association of America, a trade group.
The NAA reported that average paid circulation at Sunday newspapers fell 3.1 percent versus the same period a year ago, also a comparable decline with the last time circulation figures were reported.
Despite the declines in paid copies, the industry group reported Monday that newspaper-run Web sites had an 8 percent increase in viewers in the first quarter. The data from Nielsen/NetRatings found that newspaper Web sites averaged 56 million users in the period, or 37 percent of all online users in the period, the NAA said.
Gannett Co.'s USA Today remained the top-selling newspaper with 2,272,815 copies, up 0.09 percent from the same period a year ago; while The Wall Street Journal, published by Dow Jones & Co., was second with 2,049,786, down 1 percent.
Several top newspapers reported significant declines in the period, including Tribune Co.'s Los Angeles Times, down 5.4 percent at 851,832; The Washington Post, down 3.7 percent at 724,242; the New York Daily News, also down 3.7 percent at 708,477. News Corp.'s New York Post slipped 0.7 percent to 673,379.
The largest slump at a major daily came at the San Francisco Chronicle, where average paid weekday circulation fell 15.6 percent to 398,246 as the newspaper continued to cut back on less desirable circulation such as copies paid for by advertisers and then distributed for free.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2006 11:35 ||
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Not real surprising. Free news over the internet is taking its toll. I don't think the news wire services are benefitting either - they're migrating from a model of selling wire stories to a lot of small newspapers to dealing with internet behemoths like Yahoo, Time Warner and MSN. Their ability to set prices has gone into the toilet. Their stories are still being read - perhaps more widely than ever, but the revenues per story are getting crunched. The $15 monthly New York Times or WaPo subscription is now going towards the cable, broadband or Netflix bill.
#3
BP: So LeftWingViewsPapers lose customers faster.
I doubt it - the Wall Street Journal's news pages are more left wing than the New York Times, and few people buy the Journal just for the conservative editorial section. Fact is that people read the Journal for in-depth business news, and there are no free substitutes available - the Journal is one of the few paid subscription-only newspapers on the Internet, and its business coverage is unequalled, despite the liberal bias.
Ironically, I think the New York Times and WaPo would make more money if they made their internet edition paid subscription only. Nonetheless, they're both better-run than Dow Jones and Company, the Journal's parent - their profit margins are much higher.
#5
seafarious: WaPo's biggest income is coming from its Kaplan Education division (coaching for SAT, GRE, LSATs etc...)
Not by much. Kaplan is also the lowest margin business (operating profit divided by revenue). The newspaper business has an operating margin of 15% compared to the Kaplan division's 11%. Makes sense, too - with newspapers, it's write once, sell many copies. A Kaplan instructor can only teach so many classes in front of so many students every day.
#9
With what it costs to replace a long term customer with a new one, I am still amazed I never got a call from the Chicago Tribune after canceling my subscription last year that I originated in 1990. A simple "wuz up?'call would have told them exactly why I was leaving... I found the daily coverage of the Iraq war lop sided and lacking credibility.
I'd think they would want to have known this stuff...
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
New research from the National Exercise and Nutrition Council explains why keeping the weight off after dieting is so difficult
President Robert Mugabe is surreptitiously arming his war veterans and violent youth brigades with guns so that they can crush the planned street protests to topple his regime next month. The street protests, called by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, are set to be held in winter. Army sources promised chaos and bloodshed on a scale never seen before if protesters tried to march against President Mugabe's administration. The MDC has kept the actual dates under wraps although it has promised a cold season of mass protests. Mugabe's militant war veteran supporters have vowed to crush them. 
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL Bolivia's decision last week to nationalize its natural gas reserves shocked the West, but the country set to pay the highest price - both politically and economically - is Brazil, experts and analysts say.
Rhode Islanders in Congressman Patrick Kennedy's district are reacting to the Democrat's latest struggle with addiction. The son of Senator Edward Kennedy is entering treatment for addiction to prescription pain drugs after a middle-of-the-night car crash last week. Kennedy has entered rehab at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
Nepal's new government has scrapped all appointments made by King Gyanendra since October 2002, recalling handpicked ambassadors to key countries such as Britain, India and the United States. Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat says cabinet, which was appointed on Tuesday, has today decided to revoke all the appointments made by the King since October 2002. The move is the latest by the new government to roll back actions taken by the autocratic ruler of the tiny Himalayan kingdom in recent years.
Wheezing rickshaws, ornately decorated trucks and tottering motorcycles, often carrying a family of six, crowd Pakistan's bustling roads. Now there is an incongruous newcomer to the street chaos - the latest Porsche.
Young girls in Liberia are still being sexually exploited by aid workers and peacekeepers despite pledges to stamp out such abuse, Save the Children says. Girls as young as eight are being forced to have sex in exchange for food by workers for local and international agencies, according to its report. 
JAKARTA - A strong offshore earthquake registering 5.4 on the Richter scale hit the eastern coast of central Sumatra Monday but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, the meteorology office said. The earthquake, which hit at 4:16 pm (0916 GMT), was centered 46 kilometers (29 miles) under the floor of the Indian Ocean, some 129 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of Bengkulu city, agency official Hardiatno said in Jakarta. Hardiatno said that the quake was felt in Bengkulu but that there were no reports of damage or casualties in the city. The Hong Kong observatory registered the quake at 6.0 on the Richter scale.
MANILA - A Saudi Arabian man has been arrested in the Philippines for allegedly beheading his Filipino mother-in-law, police said on Monday. Senior Police Officer Filipina Manaig said Zyad Bander Abdullah, 35, allegedly killed and beheaded his mother-in-law late Saturday in their residence in Calamba City, 50 kilometres south of Manila. 
