BMEWS
 
Sarah Palin is the reason compasses point North.

calendar   Wednesday - August 19, 2020

Gee, Oops

A total non-surprise. We saw this coming back in early March. The richer you were the earlier, faster, and further you ran. Problem is, it’s worse than anyone thought at the time.

NYC Ship Sinking, Rats Long Gone

New York City is home to 118 billionaires, more than any other American city. New York City is also home to nearly one million millionaires, more than any other city in the world. Among those millionaires some 8,865 are classified as “high net worth,” with more than $30 million each.

They pay the taxes. The top one percent of NYC taxpayers pay nearly 50 percent of all personal income taxes collected in New York. Personal income tax in the New York area accounts for 59 percent of all revenues. Property taxes add in more than a billion dollars a year in revenue, about half of that generated by office space.

...

The budget for a city as complex as New York is a mess of federal, state, and local funding sources. It can be sliced and diced many ways, but the one that matters is the starkest: the people and companies who pay for New York’s poor are leaving even as the city is already facing a $7.4 billion tax revenue hit from the initial effects of the coronavirus. The money is there; New York’s wealthiest individuals have increased their net worth by $44.9 billion during the pandemic. It’s just not here.

...

While overall only five percent of residents left as of May, in the city’s very wealthiest blocks residential population decreased by 40 percent or more. The higher-earning a neighborhood is, the more likely it is to have emptied out. Even the amount of trash collected in wealthy neighborhoods has dropped, a tell-tale sign no one is home. A real estate agent told me she estimates about a third of the apartments even in my mid-range 300 unit building are empty.

...

Fewer than one-tenth of Manhattan office workers came back to the workplace a month after New York gave businesses the green light to return to the buildings they ran from in March. Having had several months to notice what not paying Manhattan office rents might do for their bottom line, large companies are leaving.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 08/19/2020 at 10:52 PM   
Filed Under: • EconomicsPandemic Pandemonium •  
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calendar   Monday - August 17, 2020

The Death Of NYC?

This is what happens when you elect a communist as mayor. One who encourages rioting and lawlessness. Riots after weeks of extended lockdown. Retail is dying. Populations are fleeing. Violence is everywhere, at unprecedented levels. It’s anarchy and depression.

Beirut DeBlasio

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De Blasio’s New York has finally hit an all-time low: the once bustling city is now on the verge of looking like a demilitarized zone. Between the pandemic and the riots in the city, iconic 5th Avenue now looks more like a dystopian nightmare in a recently shot video posted to Twitter.

The video follows a car driving down a deserted 5th Avenue, with almost all of the area’s high end stores boarded up and shut down. There are few people seen on what is usually a busy street.

“Look at everything. Everything’s boarded up. Even the hotel. Boarded up,” the video’s narrator, who is obviously fed up with how the city looks, says.

He continues: “This is all Manhattan, boarded up. Have you ever seen Manhattan look like this? The media will not report this.”

“Everything boarded up. They don’t want to show this to you people because they’re afraid. Saks 5th Avenue - boarded up from end to end. They put up barbed wire. Everywhere you see boards, windows are gone. Look at New York City - what happened,” he says.

The video runs over 2 minutes and shows dozens of boarded up businesses.




Check the video. Manhattan is boarded up. Block after block of high-end retail closed down and barricaded.



This isn’t exactly new. Similar video from more than a month ago.

No, it’s not a war zone — it’s Manhattan.

Video shows once-bustling Big Apple streets nearly deserted and dotted with boarded-up, spray-painted and bashed-in buildings after days of looting.

The footage taken Tuesday and Wednesday in Midtown and Soho shows the windows of popular stores shattered while others — such as Burberry, Sephora and Sunglasses Hut — are covered in plywood to protect against looters.

...

Only a handful of masked pedestrians and police officers are seen walking on eerily empty sidewalks. Some plywood panels put up by shops were tagged with graffiti reading, “Justice for George Floyd” — the black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pinned him to the ground for nearly nine minutes.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many Big Apple retailers have been closed for months prior to protests over Floyd’s death.



These riots happened at the end of May ...

Sidewalks across the SoHo neighborhood, Union Square and Fifth Avenue were covered in broken glass. Multiple police cars had been burnt to nothing but ashes. Stores, including a Duane Reade, Urban Outfitters and Swatch, were looted. Banks were ravaged. An Equinox gym had been broken in to. Graffiti covered retailers’ logos up and down some of the glitziest shopping districts, which normally would be hosting a hotbed of tourist activity this time of year.

The New York Police Department has since said it arrested almost 350 people Saturday evening, following protests across parts of Harlem, Brooklyn and Staten Island. NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said in a press conference held Sunday that more than 30 officers suffered minor injuries due to clashes with demonstrators.

It’s now the middle of August. More than 11 weeks later. And these businesses are still closed, still boarded up. Whatever stock that wasn’t looted has been sold online.

Do you really think these storefronts are coming back? Even if the beneficent dictator of NYC allows them to open, with 25% customer capacity and ridiculously paranoid levels of isolation and plexiglass protection inside the stores? Somehow, I kind of doubt it.

Greatest city in the world, killed by policy in half a year. This was not an accident.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 08/17/2020 at 09:11 AM   
Filed Under: • CrimeDemocrats-Liberals-Moonbat LeftistsEconomicsPandemic Pandemonium •  
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calendar   Thursday - July 30, 2020

A problem I can solve

With Restaurants Closed, Oyster Farmers Overstocked

With restaurants serving a limited number of diners and relying primarily on take-out in the age of the coronavirus pandemic, oyster farmers are left with more supply than demand as sales remain sluggish ahead of prime oyster-eating season this fall.
...
Growing oysters is time-sensitive, and if they’re kept growing in their cages for too long they’ll get too big to sell.

With fewer restaurants buying oysters as a result of less foot traffic, oyster farmers are left with shellfish surplus.

“What’s going to hurt the oyster farmers is the size. When they get too big, nobody wants them—you have a window because the water is so warm they’re growing so quickly,” said Logan Clarke, founder of The Lobster Trap, a Cape Cod, Massachusetts-based wholesale seafood distributor.

Now, oystermen like Bloom are left with excessive amounts of the mollusks with a limited shelf life. He says he’s selling them directly to consumers to avoid letting them go to waste.

1. The oysters get too large? Oh give me a break. “Waiter, take these back. These oysters are too big, we can’t possibly finish a dozen of them, at a whole tablespoon of mushy goop per oyster.” said no oyster loving customer ever.

2. Drop the price and flood the market. If you could go to a restaurant around here, oysters would cost you $3 - $4 each, depending on which snooty-toot variety you get. Frankly, the varieties from the Pacific northwest are much better than the Atlantic ones. Oooh, plus that hard to find kind from the panhandle down in Florida. Heaven on the halfshell.

3. Hello Campbell’s, Bookbinder’s, and Progresso? Boy have we got a soup deal for you!!

4. Dear oyster guy: send them my way. I will happily eat several dozen a day, even if they’re “extra large”.

5. Move your racks to deeper cooler water. They’ll grow slower. Duh.

6. Sell them to the government as part of the Green Nude Eel program, as oysters clean the ocean water simply by eating, and they also remove CO2 by growing their shells. Restock the bays up and down the coast. Win win, where’s my check?

Unlike cattle or hogs, which need constant expensive care and feeding, oysters sit in the water and take care of things themselves. Oysters can live for decades. Do you think the indigenous natives rejected some oysters because they were too big? Let’s see, twice the food for the same amount of effort opening the shell. Um, nope!

The wholesale price hasn’t dropped, with oysters around 60 cents each, Bloom noted. But even when restaurants are able to reopen, many of them will be ordering a fraction of what their original menus called for. New York City’s Grand Central Oyster Bar inside Grand Central Terminal has been closed since March with indoor dining suspended indefinitely. During normal times, the iconic seafood restaurant was selling up to 5,000 oysters on the half shell per day, not including cooked oysters.

So there hasn’t even been a price drop yet at their end. And the season isn’t even here yet, and who knows what kind of magical reopening we’ll have then. But they wouldn’t be farmers if they weren’t complaining. It’s the law, I swear.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/30/2020 at 08:31 AM   
Filed Under: • EconomicsFine-DiningFood •  
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calendar   Tuesday - July 28, 2020

three cheers for global warming

Northwest Passage Open From Greenland East To Central Canada

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Russian LNG Tankers Take The Short Route

The spike in shipping along the remote Russian Arctic shipping route comes as sea ice melting over the last weeks has reached unprecedented levels.

According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, ice levels on the 15th of July stood at 7.51 million square kilometers, which is 330,000 square kilometers below the record for the time of year set in 2011.

A key reason for the major sea ice melting is the heat wave that in May and June moved across the Russian Arctic coast, leading to very low sea ice extent in the Laptev and Barents Seas, the researchers say.

Already in mid-July, the Northern Sea Route (NSR) was almost ice-free and by 20th July there was completely open waters across the vast seaway.

Ice maps from the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute show that also the Vilkitsky Strait and the East Siberian Sea, the most icy and difficult parts of the sea route, has easy passage for ships.
Many ships

More than 50 vessels are currently sailing on the route, figures from the Northern Sea Route Administration show. Several of them are tankers bringing petroleum products from Arctic fields to Asian markets.

The first LNG carriers made it across the route already in late May, the earliest voyages on the route ever.

Ships from Asia are going the other way too, up north past Japan, around Kamchatka, and then west across the Arctic Ocean to Irkutsk.

The Northwest Passage is fully open from southern Greenland, east to north of Iceland, east to well north of Norway and Finland, east across the Barents Sea north past the island of Novay Zemlya into the Kara Sea. A slight choke point of ice just west of Bolshevik Island slows things down, but the passage is not iced over there. Once into the Laptev Sea, it looks like clear sailing if ships keep close to the Siberian coast into the Chukchi Sea and then south past Alaska and into the Pacific. Or the more daring could brave the narrow but open corridor across the Northwest Territory of Canada about as far as the Amundsen Gulf. After that the ice takes over, east through the small islands up there way north of Hudson Bay to the west side of Greenland.

Sail quickly comrades; this won’t last.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 07/28/2020 at 08:20 AM   
Filed Under: • EconomicsInternationalRussia •  
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calendar   Wednesday - June 24, 2020

Job Loss Numbers, Free States VS Lockdown States

OT, and just for gits and shiggles (yeah right):

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/06/coronavirus_derangement_syndrome.html

https://www.conservativereview.com/news/horowitz-arkansas-tyson-foods-plants-report-95-coronavirus-positives-asymptomatic/

~~~~

Another amazing study ... and totally unexpected too.

Government’s Most Most Essential Workers Are Government Workers

As in No Kidding. You didn’t think they’d lose even an hour’s pay, did you? Meanwhile, you’re out of work for as long as they feel like it.

[ Dateline Kansas ] Employment data released today for May by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows Kansas has about 107,000 fewer private-sector jobs than in February, prior to Governor Kelly’s mandatory shutdown order over COVID-19.  At the same time, state government employment declined by just 200.

Residents and business owners in states under a COVID shutdown mandate from their governors are suffering far more job loss.  May private-sector employment in those 43 states was 13.1% lower than a year ago, but the states not shut down by their governors only lost 7.7% of their private job base.

Thirty-two of the 43 states shut down suffered more than 10% private job loss.

The governors of those 43 states were much more protective of state employees, however.  In fact, eight states – Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island – had more state employees in May than a year ago.  New Jersey’s private sector was devastated with an 18.5% job loss, but state government jobs declined by just 0.4%.

None of the governors that didn’t lock their states down increased state employment levels.  Collectively, the shutdown states had 5.2% fewer state government employees in May compared to a year ago, compared to a 9% decline in the seven states that weren’t shut down.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem took a lot of heat from national media for not closing her state, but her actions are positioning the state for a COVID economic recovery.  With private job loss of just 6.9%, tax revenue loss should be must less than many other states; Governor Noem will also be better prepared to deal with tax loss, having reduced state government employment by 14.1%.

...

South Dakota also has a very low COVID mortality rate, at just 1.3% as of June 17.  The seven states not shut down have an average COVID mortality rate of 1.8%, while the other states’ average mortality rate is 5.5%.

The states locked down by the governors also have more deaths per million of population (375 vs. 103), and South Dakota is even lower, at just 88 deaths per million.

COVID cases per million are also 11% higher in the states that were shut down, There are 6,791 cases per million in the states that were shut down and 6,073 in the other states.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/24/2020 at 04:04 PM   
Filed Under: • EconomicsFREEDOMNo Shit, SherlockPolitics •  
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calendar   Friday - June 05, 2020

I got your re-opening right here

Ah Trump, you magnificent bastard.

Unemployment “unexpectedly” drops to 13.3% as economy starts up again

Nice try Dems, but you lose. Again.

The unemployment rate fell to 13.3 percent and payrolls unexpectedly rose by 2.5 million workers as the easing of restrictions on business activity and government aid led to new hiring in May.

The U.S. unemployment rate fell below last month’s record-high 14.7 percent, which was the highest on record in data going back to 1948. Economists estimate that the unemployment rate reached 25 percent during the Great Depression, although that predated the scientific economy-wide record keeping the government now deploys.

The job gains mark a sudden turnaround from a month earlier, when the economy shed a staggering 20.5 million jobs, by far the worst monthly decline on records back to 1939.

Economists had expected the unemployment rate to rise to nearly 20 percent and the economy to shed an additional 8 million jobs.

The mandatory closures of many businesses and stay-at-home orders slammed what had been a very healthy labor market hard. The economy added jobs for 113 straight weeks through February, a record streak of growth. The unemployment rate was 3.5 percent in February. And yet job creation was running very hot, with the economy adding an average of 211,000 new jobs each month.

In May, employment in leisure and hospitality jumped by 1.2 million after falling by 7.5 million in April and 743,000 in March. Bars and restaurants hired an additional 1.4 million workers following a combined 6.1 million in job losses in April and March.

Construction employment jumped by 464,000 in May, gaining back almost half of April’s decline.

Dentist offices added 245,000 jobs. Health care employment overall rose by 312,00.

Retail shops added 368,000 jobs in May, after a loss of 2.3 million inApril. Over-the-month job gains occurred in clothing and clothing accessories stores were 95,000. Auto dealers added 85,000. General merchandise stores added 84,000.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 06/05/2020 at 12:55 PM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
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calendar   Wednesday - April 22, 2020

kill it while it sleeps

Ethanol Production Idled

Nearly 30% of ethanol plants idled, including four in Minnesota. Gasoline demand has dropped, but eased FDA rules have let one plant pivot to hand sanitizer.

Four Minnesota ethanol plants are idled and many more have throttled back production as COVID-19 has sapped gasoline demand, crushing the biofuel industry.

U.S. ethanol production has hit an all-time low. Nearly 30% of the nation’s 204 biofuel plants have been idled since March 1, while many others have slashed production.

“The fuel market is just telling us to shut down and not operate,” said Randall Doyal, CEO of Al-Corn Clean Fuel in the southern Minnesota town of Claremont. “Economically, its abysmal.”

This is a perfect time to get rid of this boondoggle. If the Spring seeds aren’t in yet, then don’t plant them. If they are, then run this program one more season, and then shut it down.

We don’t need gasahol. We have lots of oil. Right now we have so much oil that the market is crashing. We have no place left to even store it.

Your engines run better on straight gasoline anyway. You get more power and better mileage.

The entire ethanol thing was a) a political move to show OPEC that we didn’t need them that much. Once fracking took off and we had far more oil and gas than we could ever use, it became redundant; and b) for at least half a decade this has been a serving of pork to farmers. Don’t they get enough pork already? Let them grow something else. Even regular corn.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 04/22/2020 at 09:17 AM   
Filed Under: • EconomicsOil, Alternative Energy, and Gas Prices •  
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calendar   Monday - April 20, 2020

economic fubar

It’s A Free For Oil !!

Insane oil market prices plummet. West Texas Intermediate tumbled to $4 a barrel this morning. Later on it hit $0. ZERO DOLLARS. Oil for free.

Now it’s at NEGATIVE $36.73. That’s insane. That’s impossible. WTF is going on? Duh, what’s going on is the One World Government shutting down, overnight, the greatest economy in the history of the world. Production up, everywhere. Income up, everywhere. Quality of life up, everywhere.

And then COVID-19. 

And the utterly insane panic overreaction to it.

This has to stop, and it has to stop now.

U.S. oil prices plummeted in historic fashion Monday, crashing below zero as traders unloaded positions ahead of the May contract’s Tuesday expiration.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures for May delivery cratered by 305 percent to -$36.73 a barrel. At a price below zero, buyers would be paid to take delivery as there are costs associated with transportation and storage. The selling had WTI on track to close at its lowest level since recordkeeping began in March 1983, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

The June contract was trading lower by 18 percent at $20.43 a barrel.

The May contract is a “horror show” and “heading into the worst delivery situation in history,” Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Group Futures, told FOX Business. “With demand still dead and OPEC+ cuts not hitting fast enough, the market looks like it has no bottom.”

CORONAVIRUS PRESSURES US MANUFACTURERS TO BRING PLANTS HOME FROM CHINA

Demand for crude oil is projected to fall by 29 million barrels per day this month, according to the International Energy Administration, as COVID-19 has forced countries around the world to issue “stay-at-home” orders to slow the spread of the disease. Lower economic activity means weaker demand for crude oil and its byproducts, including gasoline and jet fuel.

The sharp drop in demand has storage tanks in Cushing, Oklahoma, a key U.S. oil hub, filling up at an astounding rate. Inventories have ballooned by 48 percent to about 55 million barrels, according to a recent report from the Energy Information Administration. Capacity at the hub is about 76 million barrels, according to the EIA.

Oil supplies were swelling even before Saudi Arabia launched a price war against Russia on March 8 after the latter refused to join OPEC in slashing production, causing oil prices to post their largest single-day drop on record.

After more than a month of pumping out oil at elevated production levels, the world’s largest producers agreed on April 12 to historic cuts that will reduce output by 20 million barrels per day beginning May 1.

The collapse in the world economy has led to a collapse in demand for oil, and pretty big problems for those who are trying to sell it. Oil doesn’t work like a share in a company – it’s not something you can just hold on to, waiting for the right sale price. If you buy an oil contract, you are buying an agreement to accept delivery, on a given date, of one barrel full of oil.

Oil is heavy, it’s toxic, and you have to supply your own barrel. It’s costly to ship and to store – and sorting all of that is the responsibility of whoever is holding the contract on its due date. The contract that hit $0 (though all oil prices have collapsed spectacularly) is for US oil to be delivered in May 2020.

Factories are currently producing less, and so need less energy and less oil for raw materials. We travel less during a recession. We buy fewer cars. Demand drops across the board during any economic slowdown. That can often be moderated by people filling up their stockpiles with oil. If you happen to have a huge warehouse, or a series of huge tankers, and oil is unusually cheap… why not stock up and wait for the market to recover? Those with the capacity have been doing exactly that already. The problem is they’re all now almost full.

At the moment, oil trading is an international game of hot potato, with billion-dollar stakes, and no one wants to be left holding the barrel. That means that no one thinks we are coming out of the coronavirus crisis soon, or that when we do, it will end quickly.

We are all hoping deaths from the coronavirus have peaked already. It could be that we haven’t even begun to see the scale of the economic damage it could wreak.

Granted, there is considerably lag time between pumping the black goo out of the ground and sticking the nozzle in your gas tank. But while gas prices all around the country have been below $1.80 a gallon for several weeks, and often even below $1 even before this latest wave of insanity, gas prices refuse to drop below $2.03 around where I live in NJ. If I had any kind of freedom, I’d think about driving about driving to Minnesota for that 78¢ gas. Or even out to Ohio, where I can find it for a buck and a quarter. Maybe there’s a price fix going on in NY / NJ / PA ? Prices are not dropping Free Market style there at all. A bit lower, but not the give away levels elsewhere. And this is for $25 oil. What happens when the futures come due for MINUS 26 bucks?

What the hell is going on??

[ and when the oil companies go out of business and all the overstock gets used up, then oil will go back up to $400 a barrel ( again, right Bush-Obama? ), gas will hit $5-6 a gallon plus the raised state taxes, and we’ll all have to drive microscopic electric cars, and the Green Nude Eel will rule us all forever ]

If this isn’t the biggest commie plot that ever was, I don’t know what is. And all these assholes fell for it hook line and N95 mask. Because VIRUS RISK ... with what will turn out to be a 0.01% death rate, if anybody can ever put together some honest numbers. Which won’t happen either.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 04/20/2020 at 05:41 PM   
Filed Under: • EconomicsOil, Alternative Energy, and Gas Prices •  
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calendar   Wednesday - March 18, 2020

Here Come The Big Gibbs

Hey, throwing piles of money at everything is the Democrat solution, so they can’t complain if Trump does it, right? Besides, what’s another trillion or two in debt?

Trump To Inject Massive Green To Heal Ailing Economy

Because just 10 days ago everything was super wonderful. And then??

Ahead of an expected surge in coronavirus cases, President Donald Trump on Tuesday moved to blunt the impact of the pandemic on a U.S. economy fundamentally altered by a push for the nation to stay home.

As the global markets fluctuated amid fears of a recession, the president conferred with tourism executives as well as restaurant leaders, retailers and suppliers. His administration was expected to propose a roughly $850 billion emergency economic stimulus to address the free-fall, including considering the sending of checks to American workers trying to make their way in the deeply unsettled economy.

U.S. businesses large and small were reeling from shutdowns, cancellations and public fear about the virus as the number of cases rose nationwide. Stocks moved higher on Wall Street on Tuesday, a day after plunging to their worst losses in more than three decades.

And in an instant they all line up with their hands out ...

NYC MTA wants $4B to keep empty subway cars running. Um, what??

Retailers want debt payment pause and billions in cash.

Hotels and BnB are hurting and needful too. Bigly, with everyone staying home.

$1000 for everybody? And $50B for the airlines

As the coronavirus begins to take its toll on the economy, the federal government on Tuesday said it was working to put cash directly in the hands of Americans.

“We are looking at sending checks to Americans immediately,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters. “Americans need cash now and the president wants to get cash now. And I mean now, in the next two weeks.”

The cash infusion would be part of an $850 billion stimulus package that Mnuchin is discussing with Senate Republicans — $50 billion of that which go to the embattled airline industry.




~~~~

Meanwhile, the stock market takes another dive, oil drops to lowest price since 2003

U.S. equity markets plunged in the opening minutes of trading, gutting a rebound on Monday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1,268 points, or 5.9 percent, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were lower by 5.4 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively. Trading is halted if the S&P 500 falls by 7 percent.

The early selling comes as the Trump administration and Congress hammer out the details of a $1 trillion stimulus package designed to prop up the most harshly pummeled sectors of the U.S. economy and give cash to those out of work.

Looking at stocks, Boeing shares were rocked as the company called for a $60 billion bailout for aerospace manufacturers.

Airlines, restaurants, hotels and casino operators remained under pressure as the Trump administration weighs assistance for the industries hit hardest by the pandemic.

Meanwhile, plunging oil prices hammered energy giants ExxonMobil and Chevron and weighed heavily on Hess Corp. and Continental Resources. West Texas Intermediate crude oil was down 8.1 percent at $25.10 a barrel, its lowest in 17 years.



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And just for fun, Canada and US are closing the northern border, except for essential traffic.

Canada relies on the U.S. for 75 percent of its exports. Much of Canada’s food supply comes from or via the U.S., and 98 percent of its oil exports go to the U.S. About 18 percent of American exports go to Canada.

Trudeau is currently in self-quarantine after his wife Sophie tested positive for the virus.

Future plans for the southern U.S. border remain in development.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/18/2020 at 09:11 AM   
Filed Under: • Border SecurityEconomicsPandemic Pandemonium •  
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calendar   Friday - February 14, 2020

Action, Reaction

The Perils Of Putting All Your 100 Year Old Eggs In One Basket

Gas prices are down 25¢ here in the past 10-14 days, from about $2.50 to $2.25. And that includes NJ’s former Governor’s gas tax, which is now up to 27¢.

Why is the pump price falling? Because there’s a fuel glut, because global demand is down. Because the world economy is slowing down for a short while, because of the viral situation in China. Which has now gone into “military emergency” mode.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/05/coronavirus-global-economy
https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2020/02/13/coronavirus-outbreak-exposes-chinas-monopoly-on-u-s-drug-medical-supplies/
https://prospect.org/world/coronavirus-outbreak-china-economic-red-flag/

And this is our own damn fault, as decades of the “nationalism bad” and “greed at any cost” movements have transferred a massive amount of global production to China. Hardly anything you can buy isn’t made in China or with stuff sourced from China. Except for Henry Rifles and gasoline. Everything in your life, no matter where in the First or Second World you live.

So if China slows down for a bit, or shuts down for a bit ... or if it shuts down forever ... the rest of us are left in the lurch.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 02/14/2020 at 01:38 PM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
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calendar   Tuesday - December 31, 2019

well blow me down

Not Even 2 Weeks Old, Bronx Wind Turbine Falls

Car crushed, nobody injured

A shoddy wind turbine fell apart in the Bronx on Monday when it couldn’t handle its own power source — gusty winds.

The blade damaged a nearby car and an illuminated billboard when it flew off the 250-foot structure in Baychester at about 1:20 p.m., police said.  There were no injuries reported.

Local politicians rushed to the scene and blasted the “hastily” constructed alternative-energy source.  The turbine started spinning on Dec. 17, providing power to nearby buildings, according to the Bronx Times.

“This shouldn’t have been put up so hastily,” said state Sen. Jamaal Bailey. “A wind turbine should not be able to be taken down by the wind.”

During the press conference, Bailey and Assemblyman Mike Benedetto called on the city Department of Buildings (DOB) to make “sure something like this doesn’t happen again.” Both men spoke at the site of the collapse and were struggling to project their voices over the sound of roaring wind.

And the whole thing was a stop-gap? Yeah right, like they needed a 250 foot tall tower to put a billboard on? Sounds like a bait and switch to me.

[ 12/20/19 ] The controversial, recently halted monopole, partially built at the southern edge of Co-op City, will support a wind turbine instead of a billboard that was expected to soar over 250 feet above the ground.

That structure at 500 Baychester Avenue, will join two other billboards as well as a 7-Eleven convenience store, a TD bank and a Sherwin Williams paint store on the commercial property.

The originally-planned illuminated billboard would have shined all night into the bedrooms of many Co-op City apartments.

On Thursday, December 12, two flatbed trucks carrying pieces of the wind turbine arrived at the property.

Elected officials and Community Board 10 fielded hundreds of inquiries from local residents that spotted the erector on the property.

As of Tuesday, December 17, the wind turbine was assembled, and the power generator now towers over 200 feet above the current illuminated billboards.

Matt Cruz, district manager of Community Board 10 stated that while he doesn’t oppose wind turbines, he finds the newly erected turbine location inappropriate.

Rodney Saunders, second vice president of the Riverbay board of directors was bewildered by the wind turbine installation.

He said he has not been able to find any building permits for the structure.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 12/31/2019 at 10:12 AM   
Filed Under: • DisastersEconomics •  
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calendar   Tuesday - December 24, 2019

Biggest Retail Sales Numbers EVAR !!!

“Trump is destroying the economy” complain the Dems “He’s killing the middle class”.

Record Breaking Retail Sales Numbers For This Holiday Season

Holiday shopping set records over the weekend, with Super Saturday sales reaching $34.4 billion, the biggest single day in U.S. retail history, according to Customer Growth Partners.

“Paced by the ‘Big Four’ mega-retailers—Walmart, Amazon, Costco and Target—Super Saturday was boosted by the best traffic our team has seen in years,” said Craig Johnson, president of the retail research firm.

Final Saturday before Christmas was the largest U.S. shopping day ever.

Job growth and fatter wallets, along with stronger household finances, have put consumers in a buying mood this season, Johnson said. And more of them are shopping online. As retailers offer improved web platforms, online spending so far this season has accounted for 58% of sales growth from a year earlier, he said.

Super Saturday’s results topped Black Friday’s $31.2 billion in sales by 10%. The next biggest shopping days were Dec. 14, with $28.1 billion, and Cyber Monday, with $19.1 billion.

While foot traffic was down at most malls, the conversion rate, or the percentage of people who go to malls and make a purchase, rose, Johnson said. Even long-struggling department stores “had their best weekend of the season,” he said.

This story comes from Mr. Nanny State’s personal news service, Bloomberg. So expect some bias ... this is the worst way they could write up this story. 


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 12/24/2019 at 01:15 PM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
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calendar   Wednesday - August 17, 2016

Leaving Home

Well, I know it’s been a while since you’ve heard from me, but now I have an announcement to make. And while I have been drafting posts about both the Iran Ransom and the Olympics (and how politics and cheating go hand in hand), but the big news I have to give is closer to home.

I am still committed to this blog and the Great Cause of our time, but tomorrow- possibly today for you- on August 17th I will be moving halfway across the country. I don’t make it a secret that while I am a man of the right, I have also been a Californian born and raised. And what’s more, someone that has lived on the dread, died-in-the-wool-left Coast itself. My parents came from the Middle of the country decades ago to live here, and I have lived here in this house my entire life.

Now I am doubling back on the path tread by them, the “Okies”, and the Miner 49ers and moving to Ohio. I have my misgivings about My Grandmother is getting on in years and could use our help, and above all the costs of uprooting from the home of 20~ years and moving halfway across the country to a place I scarcely know are less than the costs of staying. Taxes are high, a criminally insane water policy has all but insured drought will strike again, the “law” tried to abolish concealed carry, and I still remember the times when Bernie’s Brownshirts attacked a Trump Rally down the street while two married Jihadists slaughtered a Christmas Party.

This would be the chance where the jokes about the Far Left Coast would come up. But in all due honesty… I feel they’re mostly out of place for me personally. I am NOT blind to California’s innumerable flaws, chief among them the dual facts that it seems committed to being re-annexed by Mexican drug cartels and the fact that it has helped elect every Leftist president we have been cursed with. But the California I knew was generally good to me on the whole. Even with a hideously corrupt school system and government. The neighborhoods were good, The food’s delicious (especially if you know where to look), the climate’s generally above par (though anybody who thinks it shines all the time has never shivered in 30 degree F weather in the middle of Fall of in Santa Clara). And perhaps most surprisingly… almost everybody I have met- and I mean almost everybody- from school on was friendly or neutral. And hard as it may seem, many people know about my political and philosophical beliefs- including in school- and were accepting of it, sans a few individuals (two or three of whom I am proud to say I helped fire).

So on some level I think a part of me will always belong to here, even long after I leave. It is the land of my childhood and nothing I can do will change that. And I suppose I can see why many people might be drawn in by the warm, fuzzy glow of a Leftist, progressive utopia. After all, my life has largely been a demonstration of its’ better sides (to the extent that oxymoron exists).

But even then the underlying rot crept up from the cracks. That was all too obvious from when one of my (married) math Co-Teachers was arrested and dragged off for shagging a student, probably with the knowledge of the Principal.  Even though his wife also worked on the very campus. But more damning was the bitter, encrusted corruption that lies at the top of the school districts and how my parents had to use their legal skill and positions in the PTA to fight a years long, savage battle with a system run by people who will screw over their students- including the disabled- in order to serve themselves. The fact that I was framed for defusing a situation with a history professor blocking the door and physically threatening me was probably the nadir of it. And I think it mirrors the dozens of ways=- from water infrastructure to sanctuary cities to drugs to forest ires- that this dream fails. How it crumbles when even a handful of people with black hearts, greedy natures, avarice, or simple incompetence get high enough on the food chain, and how no amount of resources, Godly mercy, or well intentioned people are around.

I was just one of the ones lucky or blessed enough to not suffer the full consequences. The brilliant VDH has made a long, long series of posts that show a fuller story. It’s well worth reading, just in case you thought you knew everything about Leftist Lunacy.


So, what next for me? I don’t know. But regardless of what happens I do know I can look forward to one thing. Ohio’s a swing state, and we’re moving in time for voter re-registration for the General Election. Which means for whatever I’ve given up, I will have the chance to do something I really never have done before. Cast a vote in the General Election that might make a non-trivial difference. And ultimately, why else was America founded?

In any event, I look forward to getting back in the swing of things.




Posted by Turtler   United States  on 08/17/2016 at 02:14 AM   
Filed Under: • EconomicsFamilyNOSTALGIAPersonalPoliticswork and the workplace •  
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calendar   Wednesday - December 16, 2015

we all be doing great I guess

FED Finally Jacks Interest Rate ... From 1/4% up To 1/2%

WASHINGTON (AP)—The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates from record lows set at the depths of the 2008 financial crisis, a shift that heralds modestly higher rates on some loans.

The Fed coupled its first rate hike in nine years with a signal that further increases will likely be made slowly as the economy strengthens further and inflation rises from undesirably low levels.

The central bank said in a statement after its latest meeting that it was lifting its key rate by a quarter-point to a range of 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent. Its move ends an extraordinary seven-year period of near-zero borrowing rates. But the Fed’s statement suggested that rates would remain historically low well into the future, saying it expects “only gradual increases.”

Still, the action reflects the central bank’s belief that the economy has finally regained enough strength 6½ years after the Great Recession ended to withstand higher borrowing rates.

9 years of may-as-well-be free money and this is the best the economy can do? Crivens on a cracker, somebody is doing something wrong somewhere, doncha think???

And the MSM / .gov is still trying to BS us that the recession was OVER even before Obonehead took office. Give. It. Up. Already.

The recession officially ended in June 2009. But unemployment kept rising, peaking at 10 percent before starting to fall. The jobless rate is now at a seven-year low of 5 percent, close to the Fed’s target for full employment.

They just won’t stop the lies, will they? Man, that smells worse than the litter box after two cans of Funky Fish Buffet. Full employment, for sure. For a nation the size of Madagascar maybe.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 12/16/2015 at 02:52 PM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
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