RENTON, WASH. -- The Seattle Seahawks game versus the New York Jets on Sunday will be played as scheduled with kickoff at 1:05 p.m. at Qwest Field. With the recent winter storm and more snow expected this Sunday, team officials encourage fans to arrive early and dress warmly for winter weather, including appropriate footwear. I don't think the Seahawks have ever played at home in weather this bad; it will be in the 20sF with snow and a stiff wind - it is not a covered stadium.
Qwest Field has a trained and experienced operations team in place to ensure the safety of Seahawks fans and is prepared for all weather and game conditions. Team officials will be in contact with the Washington State Department of Transportation and Seattle City Light throughout the game and relay any pertinent fan information.
#2
Good thing they don't play open air football in Ojmjakon, Russia. It's -72F as of about 1:40 pm Dec 21 local time. Winds are calm though. At Verhojansk, Russia its -64F.
#3
Quest Field is a covered field with a retractable roof. I think the weather warning is for the parking lot and areas outside. And I don't think the stadium is heated.
Seattle in snow is kind of strange. The local news gets all Its the end of the WORLD! panic-mode and people overreact. Having said that its been about 19F today - fairly cold for Seattle - and the roads are icey with more snow expected tonight.
Personally I think all football games should be played in uncovered stadiums. Playing in freezing snow should be part of the game.
#4
Even when they were masters of the awesome NFC West, the Seachicks were known to be a soft team. This should be a winnable game, but I expect by halftime the team will be warming up their cars for the ride home.
Posted by: regular joe ||
12/20/2008 22:35 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Qwest doesn't have a retractable roof. It must be Safeco you're thinking about. I doubt many will be able to get to the stadium regardless.
Members of The Islamic Research Center at al-Azhar University issued a statement in support of the Grand Imam's handshake with Israeli president Shimon Peres in a U.N. sponsored religious dialogue, which stirred outrage in Egypt and triggered calls for the Imam's dismissal.
"The lawsuit was based on the violation of Article 30 - Clause B of al-Azhar's law by acting in a way that belittled his standing as a venerated Muslim scholar."
The statement came in the wake of a legal notice filed by an Egyptian lawyer calling on scholars of the center to use their authority to drop the membership of Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi since the handshake was constituted a violation of his duties as a Muslim scholar. This automatically entails his dismissal from the position as Grand Imam. "The lawsuit was based on the violation of Article 30 - Clause B of al-Azhar's law by acting in a way that belittled his standing as a venerated Muslim scholar," Essam Sultan, the lawyer who filed the suit and member of al-Wasat party told AlArabiya.net.
"His irresponsible stance violated all al-Azhar laws, which criminalize dealing with Israel," he said. "And his appearance in a TV interview declaring that he does not care about an issue as important as the siege of Gaza proves his indifference towards what's happening in the Muslim world."
This article starring:
Essam Sultan, the lawyer who filed the suit
SHEIKH MUHAMAD SAIYED TANTAWI
Learned Elders of Islam
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Global Jihad
(SomaliNet) The death toll from Zimbabwe's cholera epidemic has soared to 1,100, the United Nations says. President Robert Mugabe recently claimed the epidemic had been brought under control.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
For once, Bob is right. On the bright side, this is the sort of thing dictators say immediately prior to somebody else dumping them. I think Ceaucescu said something similar once.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has accused the United States of urging African nations to topple him, adding that none were "brave enough to do that", state media reported on Friday.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently called on Mugabe to step down and urged southern African states to pressure the 84-year-old leader to resolve the longstanding political deadlock in the country, ravished by a collapsed economy and deadly cholera epidemic.
Mugabe referred to what he said were "recent utterances by Condoleezza Rice that African leaders are not prepared to topple President Mugabe and bring about regime change," the Herald newspaper reported. "She condemned this ability on the part of African leaders. How could African leaders ever topple Robert Mugabe, organise an army to come? It is not easy," the Herald reported. "I do not know of any African country that is brave enough to do that," Mugabe was quoted as telling a meeting of his ZANU-PF party.
Few African nations have been openly critical of Mugabe although Botswana's President Ian Khama infuriated his Zimbabwean counterpart last month by calling for a re-run of disputed elections under international supervision. The veteran leader also said he would soon discuss forming a unity government with his two political rivals. Negotiations to form the government following a power-sharing in September have deadlocked.
"We will be inviting the two leaders -- Mr Morgan Tsvangirai and Professor Arthur Mutambara -- to come and discuss the way forward," said Mugabe. Unity government discussions have stalled over disagreements on the allocation of key ministries, including home affairs, which controls the police.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Brave enough or wise enough to grasp the concept of principle, as rare as it is today. If Bob goes, who will follow predicated upon the same concept. Given the quality of the other 'nations', we're talking degree here.
#3
It has nothing to do with bravery. It has everything to do with not giving a tinker's damn about you, your country, or your people. They wanted you, Bob, and now they're getting you, good and hard. You and your fellow Zimbos made your bed, lie in it. If you want to see who did this to you, Zimbos, go find a mirror.
At least ten Awami League (AL) activists were injured yesterday as BNP supporters allegedly attacked an AL election procession at Boalkhali upazila in Chittagong-6 constituency. Looks like things are getting back to normal in Banglaland...
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
Supporters 4-party alliance candidate in Chittagong-10 during their campaign yesterday allegedly sold booklets containing provocative statements using religious sentiment against Awami League (AL) chief Sheikh Hasina and party policies .
The supporters, mostly activists of Islami Chhatra Shibir, were seen selling two booklets titled "Disgraceful picture of Awami misrule" published by Touhid Publications, Chittagong, and "Violent politics of Sheikh Hasina to foil 2007 election" written by former Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Golam Azam.
They were selling those at Ghosaildanga area during a campaign rally of the AL candidate. The booklets were being sold for Tk 5 and Tk 10.
The booklets criticised Awami League's politics. One of them apparently had a doctored photo of AL chief Sheikh Hasina wearing Sindur (vermilion).
As The Daily Star correspondent bought two booklets from a Shibir activist he was told that the Shibir men stored the booklets in a nearby library of their organisation for selling during the rally.
Four-party candidate in the constituency Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury said he was not aware of such activities.
"I do not believe in such dirty politics of tarnishing someone's character," he said, adding, "Everybody knows that I am a clean politician. It would be a matter of Jamaat if any such incident takes place," he added.
Prof Aslam Chowdhury, personal secretary to Khasru, told The Daily Star that they would be careful in future so that none could repeat such incident.
Our staff correspondent in Khulna reports: Police seized 101 VCDs and audiocassettes at an office of a courier service in Khulna yesterday.
The VCDs had pictures and footage of a Shibir man being killed with oars and sticks in front of Baitul Mukarram Mosque in Dhaka on October 28, 2006. The audiocassettes contained apparently Awami League leaders' speeches against Jamaat-e-Islami.
Iqbal Hossain of Moghbazar, Dhaka, sent those to City Jamaat Ameer Mian Golam Parwar and Maulana Golam Kader, proprietor of Mamun Pharmacy at Paikgachha Bazar in Khulna.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
BNP chief Khaleda Zia yesterday warned that any sort of 'election engineering' in the upcoming parliamentary polls would bring dire consequences in the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Awami League (AL) President Sheikh Hasina yesterday urged voters not to vote for the corrupt people, black money holders and patrons of terrorists and militants in the next parliamentary election.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"Do not to vote for those corrupt people, black money holders and patrons of terrorists and militants in the next parliamentary election.
Vote for our corrupt people, black money holders and patrons of terrorists and militants in the next parliamentary election"
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/20/2008 9:10 Comments ||
Top||
#2
i thought this was a leftover from the US election...
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
12/20/2008 10:29 Comments ||
Top||
(SomaliNet) Belgium's parliament has ordered a probe into allegations that associates of Prime Minister Yves Leterme tried to interfere in a lawsuit regarding the sale of insurance group Fortis to French bank BNP Paribas.
The move comes after Belgian media reported that Mr Leterme's aides pressured the public prosecutor. The opposition is calling for the prime minister's resignation. Mr Leterme has acknowledged there were contacts but denied any wrongdoing.
On Friday, a court in Brussels ordered the sale of Fortis to BNP Paribas to be suspended on the grounds that shareholders had to be consulted first. The Belgian government is appealing against the ruling.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
OPEC's oil chiefs were almost begging to be taken seriously on the eve of their conference in Oran, Algeria. When Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi arrived at the Sheraton, a big glass-and-steel building in the hills above the city, he told the waiting scrum of reporters that OPEC planned to cut production by a big number. Sure enough, on Dec. 17, OPEC announced cuts that amounted to 2.2 million barrels a day. Unimpressed, the market for crude drifted lower, to around $40 (28).
This was the fourth meeting of OPEC since September. Two of them were hastily convened emergency sessions. Before Oran, the organization had announced 2 million barrels in cuts over the last three months. None of this has been enough to stem a plunge from the July peak of $147 per barrel. Despite the big cuts of Dec. 17, OPEC's hopes are modest. Its target may be $75 a barrel, but a delegate from the Gulf doubted the price would exceed $55 in the first half of 2009. "OPEC is turning into an increasingly irrelevant organization," said Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Neil McMahon on a recent conference call.
Why is OPEC's reputation taking such a hit? The market views it as having let things get out of control when prices were surging. Now the cartel can't seem to contain a downward slide, either. "I don't think they even have compliance on [the cuts] they've already done," says John Hall, a London-based analyst attending the conference. OPEC adopts production quotas for each of its members, but it rarely adheres to them. OPEC delegates reckon the 1.5 million- barrel-per-day cut announced in October reduced production by only 1 million barrels -- nearly all of it from Saudi Arabia.
The situation recalls the late 1990s when a fractious OPEC watched prices hit record lows. Today the organization is trying to present a united front, but profound differences exist. On the one hand are the Saudis and other Persian Gulf states. They are the only countries with enough production capacity to make big cuts. Yet they don't want to inflict further damage on the global economy by forcing prices too high. Then there are the hardliners like Iran and Venezuela that want sharply higher prices to support their social programs. Crude prices are well below the $100 per barrel and $86 per barrel Venezuela and Iran need to pay their bills, according to Washington consultant PFC Energy.
As OPEC strives to retain its clout, a glut is emerging that could drive prices even lower. Off Iran's Kharg Island oil terminal are seven supertankers laden with Iranian crude. Iran is storing oil on board in hopes of higher prices later, according to an industry source. Worldwide, an estimated 21 ships are holding about 40 million barrels. At the end of October there were just five. That means producers have been churning out 750,000 to 1 million barrels a day for which there are no ready buyers. With the production cuts, OPEC is simply trying to avoid swamping the world with oil.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
It is time for you, Ishmael, to learn how to build a bicycle.
#2
Then there are the hardliners like Iran and Venezuela that want sharply higher prices to support their social programs. Crude prices are well below the $100 per barrel and $86 per barrel Venezuela and Iran need to pay their bills, according to Washington consultant PFC Energy
Heheheheheheheheheheh
Posted by: Boss Sleans2792 ||
12/20/2008 2:21 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Off Iran's Kharg Island oil terminal are seven supertankers laden with Iranian crude. Iran is storing oil on board in hopes
#7
This has a ripple effect too as Venezuela will have to cut assistance to Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Cuba and rich Saudis will reduce support to various terrorist groups.
#8
Actually, during the high prices there WERE a lot of tankers being used to store oil, just apparently not by Iran. It was getting hard to get a tanker to use to transport oil because so many were being rented as floating storage tanks. The Saudis ramped up production when prices spiked to try to bring prices down but there were no takers for the oil. Having nowhere to put the oil, they were forced to reduce production.
Oil storage in Oklahoma where the oil traded on the commodity exchanges is stored is nearly full. There is about one or two week's storage supply left at the current fill rate and it is done. I have no idea where they are going to start putting the oil.
Part of the problem is that this month's contract was less than next months contract so people are taking delivery on this month's oil in order to write contracts at next month's price ... a guaranteed money maker at the moment. So as they take delivery and store it in Oklahoma, the storage facility fills up.
Right now would be an excellent time to expand the strategic reserve but only in sips. Or maybe since demand is down we should build up a strategic reserve of refined products like jet fuel and diesel that can be used by the military in a time of crisis without drawing off of other domestic supplies. Convert an old military base to a storage depot for diesel and jet fuel.
#9
CP - I agree this time - smart to stockpile refined & special use, especially mil fuel
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/20/2008 18:42 Comments ||
Top||
#10
"Iran and Venezuela that want sharply higher prices to support their social programs. Crude prices are well below the $100 per barrel and $86 per barrel Venezuela and Iran need to pay their bills"
Awwwwwww, ain't that just too bad. My heart just aches for them.
No, wait - it's just the chili....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/20/2008 21:05 Comments ||
Top||
Sixty-six countries Thursday called on the United Nations to urge members to decriminalize homosexuality, a position rejected by several Arab countries and the Vatican.
A declaration of the rights of gays was submitted to the U.N. General Assembly for the first time by the ambassador of Argentina, Jorge Arguello, representing 66 of the world body's 192 countries.
"We urge states to take all the necessary measures, in particular legislative or administrative, to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests or detention," the draft document says.
The appeal is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states in Article One that "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights."
The document reaffirms "that everyone is entitled to the enjoyment of human rights without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status."
The 66 countries that signed the document "are deeply concerned by violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms based on sexual orientation or gender identity," it said. In addition, they are "disturbed that violence, harassment, discrimination, exclusion, stigmatization and prejudice are directed against persons in all countries in the world because of sexual orientation or gender identity."
The signatories "condemn the human rights violations based on sexual orientation or gender identity wherever they occur," especially "the use of the death penalty on this ground" as well as their "arbitrary arrest or detention and deprivation of economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to health."
After the draft was read, Netherlands Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen and French Human Rights Minister Rama Yade held a high-level meeting to support the resolution.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Sixty-six countries Thursday called on the United Nations to urge members to decriminalize homosexuality, a position rejected by several Arab countries and the Vatican.
Nice. The Vatican urges criminalization of homosexuality? I don't think so. Good journalism, asshole
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/20/2008 9:34 Comments ||
Top||
#2
What's the UN's punishment for criminal buggers anyway?
#1
CAIR-MN is asking Yum! Brands to:
1. Investigate the incident.
2. Offer the Muslim family a formal written apology.
3. Review the toy distribution policy for all restaurants and ensure that such incidents are not repeated.
4. Participate in CAIR's sensitivity and diversity training.
The restaurant chain has not responded to a November 17 letter from the Islamic civil rights and advocacy group.
Proper response: "F*ck off. We're busy with Christmas"
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/20/2008 9:37 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Learned from Jesse Jackson and Operation PUSH ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/20/2008 9:59 Comments ||
Top||
#3
A Kentucky-based company is presumably Christian, but I know at least one honcho is Jewish!
#4
By following the link you can see the toy and read the quotation that has CAIR-MN in full stealth jihad mode:
" In Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit". Ephesians 2:22
The muslim immigrants - who have no intention of assimilating in a country based upon Judeo-Christian ethics and values - would be more comfortable reading quotations from the koran:
"O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people." koran 5:51
#2
Yup. US regulations and world's second highest corporate tax rate are going to force the headquarters of more global companies offshore. I am surprised GM hasn't moved to Budapest yet.
Vice President-Elect Joe Biden said the U.S. economy is in danger of ''absolutely tanking'' and will need a second stimulus package in the $600-billion to $700-billion range. The economy is in much worse shape than we thought it was in,'' Biden told me during an exclusive interview -- his first since becoming vice president-elect-- to air this Sunday on ''This Week with George Stephanopoulos.'' Joe's quite correct. We've spent the past 30 or 40 years casually discarding our manufacturing base and making our living selling information, derivitives, and burgers to each other. The Democrats' world of cloth-capped workers taking their lunch buckets to the factory every day is a fantasy. Today's Americans are supervisors and managers and executives, just like the Soddies. We hire Mexicans and Guatamalans and Peruvians to do the actual manual labor, just like the Soddies use and discard Banglas and Filipinos.
Now that the entire economy's been thoroughly gutted it could very well just tank in the Crash of 2008. The price of your house could drop to maybe $5-10,0000, max. (Don't laugh: My Mom sold her house -- both halves of a duplex and four lots for $10,000 in 1971, which for some of us isn't that long ago.)
We now live in a global economy, which is something al-Qaeda either doesn't realize or doesn't care about and the oil ticks certainly don't comprehend. The economic hipbone is connected to the economic neckbone. When our economy goes down it's going to take all the other economies in the world with it, with the possible exception of China, where they still make things, and South Korea, if they're not too leveraged. Hard skills will have some value, Modern Dance or Womyn's Studies majors need not apply.
I'm probably a dullard, but I really can't comprehend how spending unimaginably large amounts of money we don't have -- somebody said the stimulus packages add up to $21,000 per man, woman, and child in the United States -- is going to repair the damage, especially when it's been going to bonuses for Malefactors of Great Wealth and creating "green" jobs -- at the supervisory level, without a doubt -- for friends of Dems. I keep waiting to hear a politician form either party utter the Magick Words: "We can't afford it." So far there's been, if not silence, then background noise. The current path has been a thoroughly Zim approach, and it probably has cholera epidemics in its wake.
I write code for a living, one of those jobs that has been exported overseas. You can hire a coder in Bangalore for $10 an hour with no more effort than a Google search. My job isn't going to come back any more than unionized steelworkers' jobs are coming back, though good luck with getting your requirements defined and understood and getting the code maintained.
I restore furniture as a hobby, in the hours and hours of spare time I have on my hands. The output goes to my wife's antique stores -- she has space in two shops. Without much effort at all we'll be able to go into the used furniture business when the true extent of the carnage becomes fully apparent. Those among us who still have houses are going to need someplace to sit.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I thought he was Obama's expert on foreign policy.
Now he's a genius on the economy?
Obama's guys must have trained him to babble the party line without making too many gaffes. That way they're on message with 100% gloom and doom so the country will be ready for the deficit spending that they decried when Bush was doing it. By comparison, Bush will be seen as being a piker in the deficit-spending competition.
The only thing we have to fear is Joe Biden himself.
Posted by: Boss Sleans2792 ||
12/20/2008 1:24 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Joe must've slipped his leash and ripped off the duct tape*. Hope his handlers didn't hurt him when they shoved him back in the closet.
*Though Ed Morissey at Hot Air is speculating that Joe is tasked with the Chicken Little routine on purpose.
#4
It would be to their political advantage to attempt to tank the economy as much as possible before they take office. But it is a gamble.
They can attempt to use psychology to put a brake on consumer spending and spread fear in the hopes that when they take office they can turn it all around by simply saying "nothing to see, move along, the economy is doing splendidly" and spending will come back and things will cycle up.
The gamble, though, is that things will go too far and a lot of economic infrastructure will fail that can't be revived easily by pumping sunshine up our arses.
#9
This pre-planned and Democrat-manufacured "economic crisis" was delibrately timed to devastate McCain's campaign and knock out National Security/WOT as the main campaign issue, to the Dems great benefit. The tools at FannieMae and FreddieMac and the other Financial houses were happy to oblige the Dem agenda and support their buddies in Congress (note that the execs didn't lose THEIR bonuses, so it was no sweat off their backs.) The problem is that it snowballed much faster and deeper than they expected because their Media buddies went overboard in their anti-Bush zeal and completely scared the wits out of the investors and consuming public. This is not to say that that there were (and are) not real and serious problems in the economy. Just that the timing and that everybody jumping on the bad-news bandwagon at the same time is suspicious.
Posted by: Ho Chi Hupaviper1106 ||
12/20/2008 8:56 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Actually, Biden hits 50%, because this will be a very bad recession, most likely a depression.
But it is bad that he and the rest of Washington hasn't yet realized that the two typical means for recovery in this type of economy won't work anymore. More government spending or trying to grow the economy will just make matters worse.
There are at least three major collapses that are going to happen soon. The first two are the collapse of two other mortgage schemes, worth about 1.5 times the subprime scheme failure. Then the much more dramatic collapse of the T-bill bubble, which is anticipated to be "dramatic".
The best the government can do is protect the real economy from the many times larger fantasy leverage economy creating the problem.
Like a 1500 pound man, underneath all that fat he may be generally healthy, but until the vast majority of the fat is gone, it's not letting the healthy part of his body move.
And this applies across the board. Government will have to contract as much or more than the rest of the economy. Open ended entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will *have* to end in their current form.
Credit and debt will have to be tightly controlled at all levels, individual, corporate and government. Business, to a great extent, will have to operate on reserve funds. If they are reliant on credit to function, unless measures are taken by the government to protect them, they will be swept away with the leverage corporations.
The markets can, in a reasonable orderly manner, unwind leverage on bad debt. The only thing that concerns me is that the Bumblemint Twins are going to make it far worse on Everyman than it has to be.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
12/20/2008 9:58 Comments ||
Top||
#12
I agree with 'moose on the idea that the open-ended entitlements will abruptly end. The surprise is going to be who kills them. It will be the Dems. We can't pay for them anymore and there's not even the hope of it. The only people who will get anything out of SS are going to be those who have neither a pot nor a window. Same with Medicare. Medicaid will be tossed to the states with a "it's your problem now; change it however you like, just don't ask us for cash to run it."
Bottom line: the Dems are power-mad bastards whose strongest points are invective and the politics of personal destruction. That said, even they can't ignore the coming financial train wreck and know the political carnage will kill them if they don't take action.
So they will.
In a way, it will be a lot like Nixon approaching China. No Dem could have done so without touching off a firestorm of treason charges. The Dems will be able to cut this stuff because when they propose it, their idiot voter base will finally believe the cuts are necessary rather than "mean-spirited Republicans out to grind the faces of the poor." They might even do something about illegal immigration for the same reason.
#13
Look for immediate FICA tax annual ceiling $97.5k illimination. Also monthly FICA deduction increases in conjunction the end of SSN eligibility at age 62. Eligibility will likely jump from 65 to 67 or higher for full benefits, and may take into consideration pensioner 401K, or other sources of other residual income. The IRS will be a key partner here. Don't be surprised to see Obama go after future military pension plans and the illimination of duel-pension, ie military and SSN.
If not through some Euro based carbon-emission scheme, I suspect he'll also be looking at Green Taxes on luxury cars and trucks. Chicago is famous for tollroads. I'd look for a national tollroad program to.... cover the cost of road and bridge repair, etc.
Gradual at first, assets and non-church properties, but rules on tax exempt institutions will be targeted as well.
#14
Thinking that happier sentiment will fix the economy is the same as thinking transcendental meditation will help you avoid gravity.
Only borrowing that increases productivity more than the interest costs is worthwhile.
Debt servicing on mal-investment is what is killing the economy, and the government is doing all it can to keep those mal-investments in the economy! That's how to make a depression from a recession.
#15
Ho Chi Hupaviper1106:
While I wouldn't credit the Dems with enough smarts to manufacture this crisis on their own, it is interesting Hank Paulson is a registered Democrat.
#16
JM is probably spot on, especially about the Nixon China thing. I just hoep we get there in Bambi's first term so there isn't a second.
Another option is that Barry, Harry and Nan fritter away the next 4 years, afraid to do anything to hurt any of their victimized supporters. Palin runs in 12 and we have a 1932 type turnover. That's what I go to sleep dreaming about every night.
#18
I wish I would have gone long Doom-n-Gloom about 6 months ago.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
12/20/2008 13:44 Comments ||
Top||
#19
dont do it .5MT
there's is gonna be a glut of those things and your value will tank
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
12/20/2008 13:45 Comments ||
Top||
#20
Well, Thealing, they keep calling Barney Frank the smartest guy in Congress. And he was a big supporter of Fannie and Freddie. I'm just going with the flow..
Posted by: Ho Chi Hupaviper1106 ||
12/20/2008 13:55 Comments ||
Top||
#21
There are going to be some serious "whipsaws" in this thing. For example, right now, international trade has almost halted, but at the same time retail stores are desperate to dump their inventories. This means "sale" deflation, but once the shelves and warehouses are empty, no more stuff in the pipeline to refill them.
The Port of Long Beach, right now, looks like the biggest parking lot you have ever seen, because it is full of new imported cars that have arrived, but are just sitting there, not moving inland.
You might be able to buy a new car cheap, but once they are gone, no more imported new cars for a long time.
The whole machine is seizing up. Like running a car without oil.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
12/20/2008 15:27 Comments ||
Top||
#23
"international trade has almost halted"
That is pretty much true at the moment. In order to get someone to ship a cargo of goods, the recipient obtains a "letter of credit" that tells the exporter on the other end that the recipient has means to pay for the goods. In the meantime the shipment is also insured in case it is lost in transit.
It is practically impossible for businesses to obtain these letters of credit at the moment and the insurers are hurting too. As a result shipping is at a record post-WWII low.
The problem is that the same people that issued credit for import/export were the same people holding mortgages in the US market. Once those mortgages went under water, they had no assets to lend against. No assets, no lending. It's pretty simple.
The major problem here is one of a lack of diversity. Practically the entire economy was build on one thing ... US real estate. Even big ticket "durable goods" purchased by end consumers such as appliances, furnishings, cars, boats, home improvements, etc. were financed with home equity loans. Eliminate home equity loans and there is no more demand for those items. When home equity is eliminated, home equity loans are eliminated.
At this point they should be demolishing repossessed homes and selling them as building lots rather than turning the houses around at fire sale prices. This would stop the plummeting of median home prices and put some support back into the market by reducing supply. It also sows the seeds for more home construction in the future.
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.
#24
CP - I scarcely know where to begin there, but:
A) the economy is based on the value of mortgage-held and asset-value real estate... OK, somewhat;
B)"At this point they should be demolishing repossessed homes and selling them as building lots rather than turning the houses around at fire sale prices. This would stop the plummeting of median home prices and put some support back into the market by reducing supply. It also sows the seeds for more home construction in the future."
C) How does removing the house value on a lot increase the market? Who decides what houses get demo'd to increase the value of the remaining? Bawney Fwank? What about the now homeless? Rents increase tremendously because of the housing shortage... how great is that? WTF?? Are you simply trying to increase the paper-value of your own home?
Think again. Write it down, explain it to someone you don't know, and if they agree, repost. Until then....
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/20/2008 18:09 Comments ||
Top||
#25
You could also allow immigration and citizenship to anyone able to buy a house for cash.
#26
At this point they should be demolishing repossessed homes and selling them as building lots rather than turning the houses around at fire sale prices.
Thus leaving debt holders eating the entire amount of the loan instead of having an asset that allows them to recovery a large portion of it. And we think banks are hurting now, Jeebus. Not to mention it destroys the entire asset backed loan model.
This would stop the plummeting of median home prices and put some support back into the market by reducing supply. It also sows the seeds for more home construction in the future.
Destroying an asset for no reason other than to eliminate assets is interesting economics. Especially when it's done with the intent to rebuild it later. A more economically inefficient idea I cannot imagine. Asset Destruction Economics doesn't have a catchy populist tone like Trickle Up Economics, so I wouldn't expect to hear the Bumblemint Twins putting the hard sell on that idea.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
12/20/2008 19:07 Comments ||
Top||
#27
It's gonna get ugly. True enough. There will be plenty of pain to go around, and I think we're just at the beginning.
But....remember not so long ago when the Japanese were going to be our new landlords, or maybe it was the Arabs, but anyway we were all gonna die in a nuclear war (started by Reagan, natch) so....good thing we dodged that bullet with Y2K, because the EU was definitely poised to whomp us good economically.
Let's all calm down here a bit. Gaming out "what's the worst that could happen" is interesting, but it rarely if ever occurs.
#28
As Pauli would have said, "You know, Crosspatch's idea isn't totally stupid."
My first thought was, "Wha?"
But it grows on you fairly quickly. When a home is sold at a firesale price, it pulls the whole block down. When you consider that the 3T$ spent so far on the bailout is equivalent to the cost of WWII in current dollars, destroying a few houses hardly matters. And as he says, it provides jobs in construction - once down, once up. All the value is in the land, anyway, when you are talking foreclosure prices. The idea is to avoid a glut of cheap homes, which would cause long-term damage to the construction industry, which truly drives our economy.
The United Auto Workers union says it will act against "unfair conditions" imposed by George Bush's USD 13.4b dollar rescue loan. If the companies go out of business just think how unfair life is going to be. You might want to discuss the matter with any Studebaker-Packard workers you can find.
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said Friday that he will work closely with Barack Obama's administration following its takeover in January to guarantee fair conditions for all auto workers. He's apparently too dim to conceive of the entire U.S. auto industry crumbling away. I guess the residents of Herculaneum felt about the same way.
"While we appreciate that President Bush has taken the emergency action needed to help America's auto companies weather the current financial crisis, we are disappointed that he has added unfair conditions singling out workers," Gettelfinger said in a statement. "We will work with the Obama administration and the new Congress to ensure that these unfair conditions are removed as we join in the coming months with all stakeholders to create a viable future for the US auto industry." "We will work with the Obama administration and a Democratic Congress to gut the measure that's been enacted at the expense of the taxpayer because we don't think it benefits us enough."
The main US carmakers, GM and Chrysler, on the brink of bankruptcy, have been offered a USD 13.4b in government loans by the Bush Administration. GM and Chrysler will receive the government helping hand in exchange for tough reforms including more flexible work rules and cuts in wages to make the companies competitive with foreign manufacturers established on US soil.
Work rules are the third rail here: the UAW won't accept changes to those, and the Big 3 can't survive without changes.
The terms of the loan call for the two ailing car giants to present a complete restructuring program inclusive of the measures to be taken to move GM and Chrysler into a vastly more innovative future than their past 20 years indicate. Failure to meet this condition by March 31, will result in the loans being called in. My suggestion would be to break them up into autonomous companies and let them sink or swim. There's no reason for Dodge to drag Plymouth under, or vice versa. GM's already laid the Oldmobile to rest -- too much like your father's Olds, I understand.
"These conditions were not included in the bipartisan legislation endorsed by the White House, which passed the House of Representatives and which won support from a majority of senators," Gettelfinger said. Rather than routinely paying out a significant percentage of cash flow to routine executive bonuses, they might try pouring that money in the direction of designers and engineers. The golden age of the U.S. auto industry was when they were turning out '56 and '57 Chevies, Fords, and Plymouths. The silver age came only a few years later with the GTO and its competitors, but they were already concentrating on "longer, lower, leaner, wider." Since then, with only a few notable exceptions, they've been noted for such inovations as the opera window and the vinyl top.
And paint falling off. We can't forget that, though it's not the designers' fault that in the '80s you could buy an American car and expect the paint to flake off most of the front of the vehicle in a couple years. At the same time you could buy a Nissan or a Toyota and given geologic ages the paint would eventually erode, but only after heavy glaciation.
The exceptions, by the way, have been what kept the industry afloat: the minivan, the Jeep Cherokee that evolved into all sorts of SUVs, the PT Cruiser, and... ummm... it'll come to me...
The union has already made "substantial sacrifices" to help make the Big Three automakers more competitive, Gettelfinger said. He added: "All stakeholders -- management, directors, bondholders, suppliers, dealers, workers -- will have to participate in shared sacrifices to help the industry move forward."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The union has already made "substantial sacrifices" to help make the Big Three automakers more competitive,
Yeah.... right....
Well if the big three start permanently shutting down factories, then the UAW (or rather their workers) will make "substantial sacrifices".
You just can't continue to lose money on every product you sell and expect to stay in business. Isn't this taught in 'Business 101' or something?
I'm sure the union bosses won't have to make any 'sacrifices'..... The Democrats will insure that.
#2
I'll know the big 3 are serious when they start to move their factories South to Right To Work states. Though it seems that Ford thinks they have a handle on things at this time.
Having Congress and the UAW running the show ought to kill off GM and Chrysler in minimum time.
#6
The UAW doesn't seem to grasp their dire position. When the layoffs and closings REALLY start, how long will that jobs fund hold out?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/20/2008 9:25 Comments ||
Top||
#7
The UAW isn't afraid of plant closings, and the companies cant move operations south because all the current workers will just go on 'job bank'
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
12/20/2008 10:46 Comments ||
Top||
#8
The UAW knows Bush is now gutless and won't let GM go BK in his last month in office. Harry and Sally Nancy will bail them out as soon as The Messiah is anointed.
#9
abu do love you they have already started too move factories south. they closed one near Atlanta about a year ago. But anyway if they moved those plants into my neighborhood most folks would readily take a paycut over what most the folks are making just too keep a job
#10
The UAW doesn't seem to grasp their dire position.
You confuse the worker with the leadership. The 'leadership' could give a rat's ass about the future of their workers. It's about power, all the way down into the bunker. Rational people saw the 'writing on the wall' a long time ago, but the leadership isn't about rational. It's about power. The lemmings are just along for the ride [like the other true believing lemmings who've dragged the rest of us along with the Donk's unsustainable socialist agenda].
#14
RJ, I'll bash the UAW with the best, but nobody is being paid $75/hour to work on the line at any car company. That figure is the total personnel cost divided by each hour of labor. It includes the pay to the employee (about $28/hour, I believe. So 56K$/year is still good pay, but not $75/hour.), benefits to the employee including employer Social Security, health care pension provision, dental, vision, and non-direct employee costs such as retiree health care, unfunded retiree pension, and job bank. It probably includes the cost of the HR organization as well.
So does it cost a lot for GM to have workers? Yes. Does it all go to the guy on the line? No.
#15
NS is correct, the $75/hr quote includes all compensation, including health/pension/jobs bank/union squeak/etc. That said, the Southern autoworker $48/hr often-quoted includes same. YMMV, but not your facts, UAW.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/20/2008 18:12 Comments ||
Top||
#16
anyone i know here in the south that works in any kind of plant that makes anything that goes into a car would feel "lucky" too make $20 an hr so where do they pull these figures out of? Executives pay included?
#17
IIUC - they are "average pay" = total compensation (UAW positions)/number of workers (UAW positions). Please someone correct me if that's wrong. I don't believe it includes Exec (non-UAW) positions
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/20/2008 19:33 Comments ||
Top||
#18
I believe it's total UAW cost, active and retired, divided by UAW hours. So if they have non-union hourlies, which I doubt, they aren't in it either.
Oil prices are likely to stabilize around current levels in December before OPEC output cuts take effect in strengthening the market, OPEC President Chakib Khelil said on Friday. "It will stabilize somewhere where it is now as we don't really know how the economy will evolve," Khelil said when asked his view of oil prices for the balance of the year.
Oil fell below $34 on Friday to its lowest level in more than 4-1/2 years as the global economic slowdown overshadowed OPEC's record supply cuts. U.S. light crude for January delivery touched $33.44 in early Friday trading, the lowest since April 2004. London Brent crude was trading at $43.54.
Oil prices have fallen by more than $110 from their peak above $147 in July. They look set for their second biggest weekly decline since 2003.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/20/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
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.
Sixty-six countries Thursday called on the United Nations to urge members to decriminalize homosexuality, a position rejected by several Arab countries and the Vatican.
Vice President-Elect Joe Biden said the U.S. economy is in danger of ''absolutely tanking'' and will need a second stimulus package in the $600-billion to $700-billion range. The economy is in much worse shape than we thought it was in,'' Biden told me during an exclusive interview -- his first since becoming vice president-elect-- to air this Sunday on ''This Week with George Stephanopoulos.'' 
