The Final Nail In The Coffin!

Ron Paul-The only one that really gets it.

How About An Office Of Sanity.

From KATU.com

PORTLAND, Ore. – Mayor Sam Adams wants to create a new city agency to provide more equity for minorities to the tune of a half-million dollars.

But the city already has an Office of Human Relations that works to eliminate discrimination and bigotry in the city. There is also a Diversity Development and Affirmative Action Office that works on equity issues in city employment. Even still, Adams says the city needs an Office of Equity.

The Coalition of Communities of Color, which did the study, says whites, on average, made $33,095 last year and people of color made $16,636 in Multnomah County.

It also found only 7 percent of whites here don’t graduate high school compared to 30 percent of minorities.

But how will the mayor’s new Office of Equity help?

“Well, we don’t know,” Adams said.

But he said that is why he wants the new office.

“So in terms of what is the Office of Equity going to do? Fundamentally, is figure out why Portlanders of color are actually seeing an increasing gap between white Portlanders, why that is and what we can do about it,” Adams said.

“It’s not a lot of money but obviously if you’re trying to make things more equitable that’s always a good thing,” said Marcus Pack with Reggie’s Barber Shop.

Perhaps the problem is that these people don't think that a half a million dollars a year is a lot of money.

Bringing Home The Bacon.

Here is a great little article from the Wall Street Journal that sums up why food prices are rising so rapidly.  Well worth the read.

War On Drugs-winning-dah.

From Bloomberg.com.

Why can't we win the war on drugs?
Answer-because we can't afford to.  From Afganistan to Columbia to Mexico to the U.S. the government-bankster consortium is up to their noses (pun intended) in the action.
Wachovia Corp., Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. admit that for years they have been laundering drug money from narcotics traffickers.  Wachovia admitting handling almost 4 billion dollars in drug money from 2004-2007 which is equal to 1/3 of Mexico's current gross domestic product.  These banks aren't the only ones involved in this, American Express, Western Union and others were also involved.

They NeverGive Up.

Bloomberg
They never give up.
The U.S. proposed opening its highways to Mexican trucks under a second test program that would require Mexican drivers to be proficient in the English language and U.S. traffic laws.

The two countries may reach an agreement to allow cross- border trucking within weeks, Mexican Deputy Transportation Minister Humberto Trevino said today in a telephone interview.

As part of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the U.S. agreed to allow Mexican trucks access to deliver goods in the U.S., a pledge it never fully honored after safety advocates and union officials said Mexico’s trucks and drivers didn’t meet U.S. standards. The U.S. canceled its previous trucking program in 2009, leading Mexico to impose tariffs on U.S. products.

The new proposed program will last 3 years instead of the 1 year trial that ended in 2009.

Of course the U.S. Chamber of Commerce praised this proposed program because it will increase exports but no mention of the trucking jobs it will also export.p; While Mexican truckers are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to operate within the U.S., U.S. truckers are obviously reluctant to transverse the Mexican highways.

More Financial Crisis On The Horizon

Just in case you thought that the worst economic problems were behind us, I believe that we have simply put a band-aid on a gapping wound.
Throwing trillions of dollars at the financial giants seems to have guaranteed some of their huge losses but has not done anything to alleviate the cause of the crisis directly.
As I see it, the main problem is using the home mortgage industry to prop up a dwindling economy. We were told that these mortgages were bundled and then sliced up and sold as securities and that is why we don't even know who owns those mortgages I didn't believe it. How could we have a mortgage and not know who holds the papers. I said to myself, let's stop making payments and then we will see who comes to collect and that will sort itself out. Unfortunately, it appears that they were right. Trillions of dollars worth of loans are out there with less than adequate paperwork.
To see how this is playing out watch the following video:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

What Would You Do With A Billion Dollars?

Steven Chase

Ottawa — From Tuesday's Globe and Mail Published on Tuesday, May. 25, 2010 9:49PM EDT Last updated on Wednesday, May. 26, 2010 8:28AM EDT

The Harper government is preparing to spend close to $1-billion on security for world leaders gathering in Ontario this summer – meetings in which one of the top items on the agenda is reining in state profligacy.

The soaring security bill for safeguarding the late June Group of Eight and Group of 20 summits is now several orders of magnitude greater than the costs of similar meetings in Japan and Britain.

That price tag is more than 20 times the total reported cost for the April, 2009, G20 summit in Britain, with the government estimating a cost of $30-million, and seems much higher than security costs at previous summits – the Gleneagles G8 summit in Scotland, 2005, was reported to have spent $110-million on security, while the estimate for the 2008 G8 gathering in Japan was $381-million.

It appears that Canada will spend close to 1 Billion dollars to host  a small elite group of world leaders from countries that are themselves  wondering how the hell they are going to keep on the lights.  If you're gonna go, go big.

Hayek Vs. Kaynes Rap Video

Interesting video explaining the difference between the two economic views.

TOH-the Lewrockwell.com

The Truth Comes Out.

Obama went off teleprompter in Illinois while explaining his economic reform policies. He finally admitted that Americans have the right to earn as much money as they can if done honestly and provide a good product, there really is a limit to how much money you really need.




I wonder if this applies to AL GORE?


April 28, 2010|Lauren Beale, Los Angeles Times

Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, have added a Montecito-area property to their real estate holdings, reports the Montecito Journal.

The couple spent $8,875,000 on an ocean-view villa on 1.5 acres with a swimming pool, spa and fountains, a real estate source familiar with the deal confirms. The Italian-style house has six fireplaces, five bedrooms and nine bathrooms.

The Future

From Dvorak Unsensored.

The actual state of the economy that many realize but few are willing to actually say.
Nine Points Capital Partners CIO Damon Vickers lays out the future for us.
Here are the fine points on how our current economic crisis may resolve itself:
1. Some type of global currency crisis.
2. An alignment of some type of WORLD GOVERNMENT.
3. A NEW GLOBAL CURRENCY.
4. A NEW WORLD ORDER.
5. The dollar will become worthless.
6. This GAME we are playing can not perpetuate itself forever.

One of the most interesting things about this interview is the lack of emotion or questions from the interviewer.

Merkley's attempt to sabotage Ron Paul

I was wondering how the powers that be would attempt to derail Ron Paul's HR1207 bill to audit the Fed. Ron Paul's bill has 303 cosponsors in the House and 30 in the Senate as of October 21st. So how do you buck that sentiment and still look like you support transparency? Well it appears that one way is you get a couple of shills to offer up a HR21207 Lite bill that looks good on the surface but takes the teeth out of Ron Paul's bill. They found help in none other than our very own freshman Senator Jeff Merkley and Republican Bob Corker. Their bill known as the Federal Reserve Government Accountability Act.

According to Judge Andrew Napolitano the bill waters down Rep. Paul original intentions. It omits important areas of the Feds behavior, and actually whites out proper names of banks and other individuals. That information would be made available one year after each program is no longer used.
This watered down bill is an attempt to have an audit "without inappropriately compromising the independence of the Fed or politicizing its role in crafting monetary policy". Am I wrong, isn't Congress supposed to set monetary policy?

Under pressure from congress to disclose where the TARP money went the Fed said that they are "giving serious consideration" to releasing the names of firms that receive loans from the central bank. How generous of them!

The New Math

Arrogance combined with ignorance is a dangerous thing.

"The larger the national debt, the wealthier we are."

It gets even better at the end.

Tax Idea is Garbage

Woe is me. We never seem to have enough money to repair the city streets. Now the Eugene City Council is considering a 5 percent tax on trash collection within the city limits.
What does trash collecting have to do with street repair you might ask? Well it seems in the council's infinite wisdom, garbage trucks are heavy therefore they cause more wear and tear on our streets. While that may be slightly true, what about fire engines, buses, gravel trucks, etc. don't they all cause about the same wear on the streets?
Garbage companies are not in the tax collecting business but it seems the government is in the garbage dispensing business. This is just another example of government unfairly singling out one activity they think they can tax without too much complaint just like taxing smokers to fund children's health care.
There isn't enough money in the budget for street repair but there is enough for a new city hall and police station. I don't get it.

It's A Global Economy-right?

Let's put this news in the "to be continued" file:

Datalogic plans Vietnam plant
Register-Guard, The (Eugene, OR) - Saturday, February 14, 2009
Author: Sherri Buri McDonald The Register-Guard

Datalogic Scanning, a barcode scanner maker in Eugene, plans to open a factory in Vietnam in June, company officials said on Friday.
They said they do not anticipate the new plant in Ho Chi Minh City will have any significant impact on the company 's manufacturing and design centers in Eugene; Bologna, Italy; or Trnava, Czech Republic.

The Vietnam factory will export nearly all of what it produces, company officials said.

Datalogic Scanning, a division of an Italian company , has about 433 employees, including some temporary workers, at its facility in west Eugene, vice president for human resources Rhone Lee said. A separate division, Datalogic Mobile, has about 110 employees in Eugene, he said.

By early April, Datalogic will implement a wage freeze for 200 salaried employees - executives, managers, professionals and others - in the United States, Lee said. Blue-collar workers will continue to be eligible for raises, he said.

And starting next week, about 120 to 150 production employees in Eugene will begin working a four-day week, Tuesday through Friday.

Lee said the cost-cutting measures in Eugene are unrelated to Datalogic Scanning's plans to open a subsidiary in Vietnam.

The Saigon High Tech Park in Vietnam recently posted an article on its Web site referring to Datalogic's investment in the business park.

"That announcement was not authorized," West said, "so we were a little bit surprised by it." It prompted Datalogic Scanning to inform its Eugene employees on Friday about the plans to open a facility in Vietnam, he said.

The article said that Datalogic "had committed capital of $46 million" and that the factory would employ 500 people.

Economics 101

In ten minutes Peter Schiff explains in simple terms how we got into this economic mess and what we need to do to get through it. He also explains why Obama's answer will only extend and exacerbate the problem. Well worth watching.

Bailout or Buy Out?

It's nice to know that when the federal government trough is open one of our local banks is not asleep at the wheel.
The Register Guard. on 10/29/08 had an article claiming that Umpqua Holdings, the parent company of Umpqua Bank has received preliminary approval of its application for $214 Million in investment money from the U.S. Treasury.
In their lame attempt to jump-start the economy and unfreeze the credit market the feds are throwing this money around like horny college kids at a strip club.

What is sad is that the idea behind the money was to open up the credit crunch. To make it easier and more attractive for banks to make loans-but Umpqua brags that they don't need the money for that so they are planning on "increasing our footprint". In other words they are going to use our money for mergers and acquisitions and "explore new market opportunities". Maybe they can use it to purchase some subprime loans or credit defaults.

The feds in turn will be getting senior preferred shares in return, the bank will now be in business with the government.
Ideas like this would have never been entertained even a few years ago, now it seems like no big deal.

And It's All George Bush's Fault.

I would never try to defend George Bush's policy decisions to anyone. But in order to solve a problem you have to first determine the cause. This video while being prejudice gives a little insight to the depth of the corruption in our system.

My uneducated opinion is the actual underlying reason, beside greed, is that we no longer manufacture hardly anything. Some people seem to believe that you can base an economy on pushing paper around. These same people seem to think that we will be just fine replacing all of our good paying jobs with service jobs at minimum wage and still fund more and more government services. They also believe that a country can import an unlimited volume of unskilled labor and destroy our unions, standard of living and ecology. They also seem to believe that you can and must sell houses to people who can't afford them and sometimes are illegals.

An economy based on more and more consumption to more and more people is not only undesirable but also unsustainable. If you believe that it is necessary to our well being to decrease our population rather than expand it you would have to agree that it is counterproductive to tie such a large percentage of our economy on building houses. More houses require more people to build and fill them. They consume a large amount of resources to build and even more to maintain. They force us to either build outward into farm able land or crowd too many people into cities creating the problems associated with that.

For a good discussion on some of the reasons for limiting growth and achieving a sustainable level of economy that benefits everyone go to Casse