Thursday - August 11, 2005

How Things Work

_{Clay Bennett, The Christian Science Monitor, Boston}

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/11/2005 at 06:23 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
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   Tuesday - August 09, 2005

Fill Her Up!

The bottom line: we’re paying, on average, about .50¢ more per gallon of gas than we did a year ago. However, when you adjust for economic growth and inflation, we’re paying about .30¢ less than we did in 1949. Check out all this and more at the Department Of Energy web site.

As for me, I buy a tank of gas (20 gal.) every two weeks to get back and forth to work. Fifty cents more per gallon equals $10 more per tank, every two weeks which equates to $260 more per year I spend on gas. Dick Cheney and Halliburton better hurry up and steal all that Iraqi oil before I go broke ....

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/09/2005 at 12:05 PM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
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   Wednesday - July 13, 2005

Cause Of Drought Identified

Just across the Mississippi River from me some danged lady in Ill-Annoys has been sucking up all the water. City officials finally caught up with her .... well, almost ....

MASCOUTAH, Ill. - It’s been a hot, dry summer in this St. Louis suburb, but Rose Mary Cook knew there was no way she could have used $74,000 worth of water. The city’s utility department claimed Cook used 10 million gallons of water last month, charging her $29,787 for water, $43,581 for sewer, plus $893 for municipal tax.

“Luckily, when I opened the bill, I was sitting down,” Cook said. “I could have filled every pool in southern Illinois and still not used that much water.”

Cook presented the bill to a public works employee at City Hall. The city quickly determined the whopping charge was the result of a broken meter and issued her a corrected bill for $32.66 — waiving Cook’s monthly water and sewer charges for her troubles.

“My daughter asked me if I was hoarding water during the drought,” Cook said. “I told her I would, but I don’t know where I would find 10 million gallon jugs.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/13/2005 at 07:07 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
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   Tuesday - July 05, 2005

Big Trouble In Big China

Trouble is brewing on the other side of the Pacific. China is rapidly growing its economy and building up its military forces to unprecedented levels. Currently, there is a huge trade imbalance between the US and China. They’re selling cheap over here and have frozen their currency at an artificial level that only makes it worse. On top of all that, the Chinese are driving up the price of oil with their drive to industrialize. Did I mention the Chinese are continuing their saber-rattling at Taiwan? Yep, things are getting a little squirrely over there.

Now, they’re attempting to buy US oil companies to help feed their hunger for more of the world’s energy. Congress finally slapped down its hand and said “NO”. The Red Chinese aren’t taking it too calmly. This could be big trouble brewing while our military forces have their hands full in the Middle East ....

SHANGHAI, July 4—The Chinese government on Monday sharply criticized the United States for threatening to erect barriers aimed at preventing the attempted takeover of the American oil company Unocal Corp. by one of China’s three largest energy firms, CNOOC Ltd.

Four days after the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a resolution urging the Bush administration to block the proposed transaction as a threat to national security, China’s Foreign Ministry excoriated Congress for injecting politics into what it characterized as a standard business matter.

“We demand that the U.S. Congress correct its mistaken ways of politicizing economic and trade issues and stop interfering in the normal commercial exchanges between enterprises of the two countries,” the Foreign Ministry said in a written statement. “CNOOC’s bid to take over the U.S. Unocal company is a normal commercial activity between enterprises and should not fall victim to political interference. The development of economic and trade cooperation between China and the United States conforms to the interests of both sides.”

Those words, the latest rhetorical volley in an escalating trade battle, officially elevated the takeover battle for Unocal into a bilateral issue involving Washington and Beijing, raising the stakes of the outcome.

CNOOC’s bid comes as China’s emerging force in the global economy continues to sow international tensions over competition for natural resources, impacts on the environment, trade balances and security relationships. The deal would be the latest in a string of Chinese purchases of foreign companies as Beijing encourages domestic firms to seek new markets abroad and secure raw materials for China’s aggressive industrialization. The Chinese government has urged energy companies in particular to buy foreign oil fields as China’s consumption soars, deepening worries about the country’s access to supplies.

Already, CNOOC’s bid has taken China across a new threshold: It has unleashed the first takeover battle between a Chinese company and a U.S. firm, the oil giant Chevron Corp., which has its own deal to buy Unocal, for $16.5 billion. If completed, CNOOC’s purchase—its bid is for $18.5 billion—would be the largest foreign takeover ever made by a Chinese firm.

But as the price of oil continues to soar, underscoring the finite supply of global stocks, some members of Congress portray China’s appetite for energy as a threat to U.S. interests. They are painting CNOOC’s effort to buy Unocal as an attempt to siphon off oil that would otherwise land in the United States, a proposition that analysts call dubious because most of Unocal’s outstanding contracts supply customers in Asia.

As the House adopted its resolution Thursday by a 398 to 15 vote, some noted that CNOOC remains under the majority control of the Communist Party-led state, suggesting that this alone made the deal a threat.

“We cannot, in my opinion, afford to have a major U.S. energy supplier controlled by the Communist Chinese,” said Rep. William J. Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat. Monday’s reply from Beijing reinforced what CNOOC has said from the beginning—that the deal is nothing more than an attempt to expand its business opportunities and invest capital sensibly.

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/05/2005 at 05:47 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics • International •  
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   Friday - July 01, 2005

One Down, Forty-Nine To Go

We regret to inform you that if you live in Minnesota, you have no state government for the next ten days. It appears the State ran out of money and the legislature couldn’t pass a temporary spending bill before the holiday recess. All citizens of Minnesota are hereby encouraged to pretend you are being governed lest lawlessness break out ....

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Minnesota’s government shut down Friday for the first time in state history after lawmakers failed to pass a temporary spending plan and left 9,000 employees jobless and highway rest stops unattended for the July Fourth weekend.

The shutdown came at midnight after lawmakers failed late Thursday to pass a temporary spending plan to keep the government up and running. The Senate adjourned 20 minutes after Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty said he hoped the two sides could agree on a stopgap measure to keep the state’s doors open for 10 more days.

“I’d like to say I’m sorry to the people of Minnesota,” said Republican state Rep. Rod Hamilton of Mountain Lake. “This is disgusting.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 07/01/2005 at 01:47 PM   
Filed Under: • Economics • Politics •  
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   Friday - June 24, 2005

Death Of An Automaker

The year was 1953. Dwight Eisenhower had just been elected President and was promising to build a national system of “interstate” highways to make transportation across America much easier and to provide easy access for national defense in light of the rising communism in Europe. General Motors executives brought a new phrase into American folklore when one of them stated, “What’s good for Genera Motors is good for America”.

Cars were being built at an astounding rate and Americans were buying them up. Life was good. Then along came the Auto Workers Union who decided their workers deserved a bigger piece of the pie. Gradually, over the years, wages increased, often outpacing price increases on cars. In addition, the union held out for a medical plan for its members that was unprecedented .... completely free medical care with GM paying 100% of the premiums, guaranteeing auto workers a lifetime of free medical care.

Fast forward fifty years to today. National health care costs have risen dramatically over the last two decades. They are so high that a decade ago, most companies switched over to the HMO plans and raised the amount employees had to pay for company-provided coverage. Not General Motors. The unions refused to back off on their health coverage in the contract. As you read the excerpt below from an article in today’s USAToday, keep in mind the following salient points ....

• Union retirees from GM get to keep their medical benefits, free of charge, until they die


• GM reported its largest loss in history last quarter .. $1.1 Billion


• The cost of providing this health care to union workers adds $1,100 to $1,500 to the cost of each car.


• GM spends more per car for health care than it does for steel for that car.


• GM spends more per car for health care than it does for advertising for that car.


• The United Auto Workers (UAW) union refuses to budge off of its sweet deal.

Taking a cigarette break outside a General Motors (GM) assembly plant in Lansing, Mich., last week, Mike O’Driscoll admits he has problems: diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol.

But his arteries are cleaned out, thanks to a $160,000 heart-bypass surgery a few years back.

“I ate too many steaks and not enough veggies,” says O’Driscoll with a laugh.

For as long as O’Driscoll has worked at GM, he hasn’t had to worry about health care costs. He paid nothing for his heart surgery, and he estimates that during the past five years, he has paid his cardiologist a total of $500. GM doesn’t take anything out of his paycheck for health insurance.

The American auto industry is one of the last bastions of generous benefits that were once part of many employers’ largess: fully paid health insurance, retiree medical coverage and pensions.

At a time when the average American company requires workers to pay more than $2,000 a year toward family health insurance premiums, the auto industry is among the 4% of employers that offer free family health coverage. Retirees, who outnumber workers by more than 2-to-1 at General Motors and represent significant percentages at the other major U.S. automakers, get the same deal.

As GM recovers from its worst quarterly loss in more than a decade, $1.1 billion, executives have targeted health care as a top opportunity for cost cutting. And as GM is the nation’s largest private purchaser of health care, what it does is being watched closely and could have ramifications beyond its own 1.1 million employees, retirees and dependants.

The cost of providing health care adds from $1,100 to $1,500 to the cost of each of the 4.65 million vehicles GM sold last year, according to various calculations. GM expects to spend at least $5.6 billion on health care this year, more than it spent on advertising last year.

But getting the union to agree to major changes in the middle of its contract could be difficult. Already, union members are balking at talk of trimming retiree benefits, and local union leaders are grumbling about the possibility of a strike if the company tries to force changes through; however, a mid-contract strike could be deemed illegal.

“It is a well-known fact that the U.S. automobile industry spends more per car on health care than on steel,” says Lee Iacocca, the retired chairman of Chrysler who in the early 1990s advocated a national health care program as a solution. “This problem is not going to go away on its own.”

And while white-collar workers at GM, who represent 26% of the active workforce, pay about 27% of their health care costs, unionized workers pay about 7%. Because the coverage is mainly free, that 7% comes from charges for doctor-office visits and co-payments on drugs. Outside the auto industry, single employees pay an average of 18% of the cost of their premiums, and families pay 22%, according to research by benefit firm Towers Perrin. Many also pay deductibles, co-payments and other out-of-pocket costs on top of that.

Posted by Z Woof     on 06/24/2005 at 10:37 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics • Unions-Labor •  
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   Monday - May 02, 2005

Minor Little Accounting Error?

Insurance giant American International Group (AIG) just discovered a minor error in their books from the year 2000 to the present. How minor an error was it? Well, the company had to re-state its earnings and all accounts for the last five years and the value of the company was revised downward by $2.5 billion dollars .... yes, that is -2,500,000,000.00 dollars .... and yes, that is a negative sign.

How does a company go about losing $2.5 billion dollars? Those books weren’t cooked .... they were sauteed, twice-baked, broiled and stir-fried in double-dipped batter. $2.5 BILLION DOLLARS!

I’m steadily losing faith in corporate America, folks. The Sarbanes-Oxley Bill, which was passed by Congress after the scandals at Enron and WorldCom, didn’t do very much to stop companies like AIG from dishonest accounting. Guess why? Because the CEO’s hire teams of lawyers, use every numb-buts defense in the books and get off scot-free. White collar crime is not being punished at all. If I stole $2.5 billion dollars what do you think would happen to me? You know very well - life imprisonment in a federal pen somewhere with an oversexed roommate from the Ozarks - that’s what I’d get. What these crooks get is, six months in a country club and six months probation.

Justice? There is no such thing in America any more. There is one set of rules for the rich and another set of rules for the rest of us. When the revolution comes, guess who’ll be the first ones up against the wall (after the lawyers and politicians)?

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/02/2005 at 10:58 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Economics •  
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Monday Morning News Bytes

Sometimes the news bites and somedays it just bytes. Or nybbles. Either way it’s the little bits that give us the big picture .. eight bits at a time ....

• MSNBC is changing its name to “NBC News Channel”. They’re taking out the “MS” and replacing it with more “BS”.


• Terry Wilson of the Weekly Standard has the obituary for the mainstream media. Alas, poor Yorick - I news him well.


• The Republican Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is ripping PBS a new one for being so liberal and biased. Naturally, the New York Times has its knickers in a wad over the “blatant bias by Republicans”. Bias? What bias? Republicans just naturally hate liars, race-baiters, hypocrites and media outlets with a socialist agenda.


• Paris Hilton says she wants to stop being a sex-starved, drug-overdosed, party animal (and sleazy slut) and become a serious businesswoman. You assignment is to figure out what this news has to do with flying pigs.


• North Korea is now firing missiles toward Japan to intimidate that great bully, the United States. If “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il doesn’t watch his step he won’t “feel so ronery” much longer, especially after several flights of B-52’s flatten his country to the ground.


• Open warfare between the Poodle and the Hildabeast? It seems the 2008 election is already dividing the Dummycraps - what else is new, eh?


• Question: What’s worse than a Democrat without a conscience? Answer: A Republican without a spine. Both are in abundance in Washington, DC lately.


• Finally, President Bush called the Democrats’ bluff on Social Security last week. This may not be checkmate but the Donks are seeing the endgame approach ....

The Solvency Trap
President Bush calls the Democrats’ bluff on Social Security.

Monday, May 2, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

Give President Bush credit for tenacity. Facing nearly total Democratic opposition and low poll numbers, he nonetheless raised the ante on Social Security last week. The President embraced “progressive indexing” of benefits, in the hope of breaking up the political logjam.

As a policy matter, this at least challenges Democrats to honor their own principles. For months they’ve been saying they really do want to do something about Social Security “solvency,” which means shoring up its inevitable financing shortfall. By adjusting the formula for future benefits based on income, Mr. Bush has now embraced the “fairness” claims that Democrats say they hold dear. So are they serious or not?

On first response, not. Democrats immediately opposed Mr. Bush’s proposal--the brainchild of Democratic financier Robert Pozen--as “big benefit cuts.” AARP lobbyist John Rother proved his organization’s lack of sincerity by calling it “an unnecessary and unfair benefit cut on the middle class.”

Sigh. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan and other Democrats once acknowledged, current policy increases real, inflation-adjusted benefits over time. That’s because benefits are tied to growth in wages, rather than to increases in prices (which rise somewhat more slowly). Though Democrats invoke FDR, this wasn’t his idea; guaranteed annual increases were introduced in 1972 as politicians of both parties competed for elderly votes. Reversing this blunder would still protect all seniors from inflation and also go a long way toward addressing Social Security’s financing shortfall.

But Mr. Bush is going further and proposing to keep wage-indexing for the bottom 30% of all workers, which means their benefits will actually increase by about 40% by the time they retire. Other workers would see more of their benefits price-indexed on a gradual basis as their income rose. And in any case, the indexing adjustment would apply only to the current program’s benefits; whatever higher returns workers get from private accounts would be theirs to keep. If Bill Clinton were the President proposing this, Democrats would be doing “fairness” cartwheels.

(thanks to Neal Boortz, Matt Drudge & James Taranto for the leads on these stories)

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/02/2005 at 09:46 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Economics • Hildabeast • International • Media-Bias •  
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   Saturday - April 30, 2005

Saturday Contest

What do the two stories below have in common? E-mail your answers to “bullshit@microsoft.com”.

Out-of-work man gets the scoop on poop: Former programmer makes living cleaning up after dogs.

DELMAR, N.Y. - Computer programmer Steve Relles has the poop on what to do when your job is outsourced to India.

Relles, one of a rising number of Americans seeking new opportunities as their work shifts to countries with cheaper labor, has spent the past year making his living scooping up dog droppings as the “Delmar Dog Butler.”

“My parents paid for me to get a (degree) in math and now I am a pooper scooper,” Relles, a 42-year-old married father of two told Reuters. “I can clean four to five yards in a hour if they are close together.”

Gates Cites Hiring Woes, Criticizes Visa Restrictions.

Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates said yesterday the software giant is having enormous difficulty filling computer jobs in the United States as a result of tight visa restrictions on foreign workers and a declining interest among U.S. students in computer science.

Speaking on a technology panel at the Library of Congress, Gates said a decline in the number of U.S. students pursuing careers in science and technology is hurting Microsoft in the short run, and could have serious long-term consequences for the U.S. economy if the problem is not addressed.

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/30/2005 at 07:40 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
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   Thursday - April 14, 2005

Dirty Pictures

WARNING! The pictures below are not safe for work. Not because they contain nekkid women (they don’t) but because they contain images that might induce heart attack, stroke, apoplexy and/or extreme rash in sensitive people. They are (horrors) Federal Budget Graphs! All information below comes from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and are for the 2002 budget.

First, where does our government’s money come from? Take a look and see. Do you want to talk about corporations not paying their fair share? How about social security payments into the system? Take your choice ....

Second, where does the government spend money? The first thing that should jump right out at you is that the President and Congress decide how to spend only 35% of the total budget each year (the red and blue pie slices). Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Nearly two-thirds of the budget is already allocated each and every year for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the national debt and other mandatory entitlements and guess what .... those pie slices are growing at astronomical rates each year. Now, we can either keep increasing revenues to make up the difference or start cutting our military or other “discretionary” spending like federal housing, welfare, national parks, environmental cleanup, highways, airport screeners .... you get the picture.

There! Now you can see graphically where the problem is, can’t you? What, are you blind? Look again. No, I’m sorry if you’re having a stroke. Just keep looking until it sinks in that this is pure evil ....

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/14/2005 at 12:27 PM   
Filed Under: • Economics • Politics • Social-Security •  
• Comments (6) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Saturday - April 09, 2005

Saturday News Brief

■ General Motors pulls all of its ads from the Los Angeles Times. The Times is in denial, claiming GM is over-reacting.

GM’s move came a day after the L.A. Times published a column by its Pulitzer Prize-winning auto critic, Dan Neil, about the automaker’s brand strategy.

The column’s headline called the Pontiac G6 “a sales flop.” It also said the automaker should “dump” Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner and “let the impeachment proceedings begin.”

GM spokeswoman Ryndee Carney said the move to withdraw advertising was not spurred by any specific story but by “concerns over accuracy and misrepresentations with the paper’s editorial coverage over a period of some time.”

The woman who claims she bit into a human finger while eating chili at a Wendy’s restaurant has a history of filing lawsuits - including a claim against another fast-food restaurant.

Anna Ayala, 39, who hired a San Jose, Calif., attorney to represent her in the Wendy’s case, has been involved in at least half a dozen legal battles in the San Francisco Bay area, according to court records.

She brought a suit against an ex-boss in 1998 for sexual harassment and sued an auto dealership in 2000, alleging the wheel fell off her car. That suit was dismissed after Ayala fired her lawyer, who said she had threatened him.

The Postal Service said the price of a first-class stamp would rise to 39 cents from 37 cents early next year if the increase is approved by the Postal Rate Commission, an independent body that oversees the post office.

The increase comes as part of a broader 5.4 percent rate rise that the Postal Service will apply to most packages.

The stamp price increase is needed to cover a $3.1 billion payment that Congress requires the Postal Service to make to its employee pension fund. The agency has sought congressional action to eliminate that requirement. If that happens, postal officials said, the rate increase request will be withdrawn.

But defense attorney David Oblon argued nine years was far too long given Jaynes was charged as an out-of-state resident with violating a Virginia law that had taken effect just weeks before. He planned to challenge both the constitutionality of the law and its applicability to Jaynes.

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/09/2005 at 03:46 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics • Judges-Courts-Lawyers • Politics •  
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   Tuesday - April 05, 2005

Got Cash?  Unsure What To Do?

Is this you?  Not sure what to do with your money?

Check out this article.  It has good info on some options you should look into.  And it mentions one fund that, as far as I am concerned, is the type of fund that should be touted to people who fear social security privatization.  You know the ones......the :

“OH MY GOD!!  What happens if the stock market tanks a year before I retire?” types.

Also, thanks to Mr. Javitz at Political Vice Squad, here’s a quick little primer on how to value stocks.

And who says BMEWS doesn’t take care of its readers? 

Hell, we cover medical, international, political, economic, and technology news.  We give you avatars.  We make you laugh.  We let you comment.  We give you porn.  We post your pictures. 

Hmmmmm.........................what else can we do?  OK, why not?  I’ll start looking at a way to set the blog up as a dating service soon, OK?  Any ideas for match-ups?  Condi, Annie or Michelle work for me.  Anyone got their numbers?

Posted by Ranting Right Wing Howler     on 04/05/2005 at 05:49 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Monday - April 04, 2005

How “Cheap” Is Illegal Labor?

Richard Lamm has written a brilliant piece on the cost of illegal labor.

Sure, it’s cheap for the person doing the hiring.  But how expensive is it to the country and its taxpayers?

It may be cheap to those who pay the wages, but for the rest of us it is clearly subsidized labor, as we taxpayers pick up the costs of education, health and other municipal costs imposed by this workforce. That has become a substantial and growing cost as the nature of illegal immigration patterns has changed.

Here’s just one example:

the average family of illegal immigrants has two to four school-age kids. It costs U.S. taxpayers more than $7,000 a child just to educate them in our public schools. Now no minimum-wage workers, or even low-wage workers, pay anywhere near enough in taxes to pay for even one child in school. Even if their parents were paying all federal and state taxes, Colorado’s estimated 30,000 school-age children of workers illegally in the U.S. impose gargantuan costs on other taxpayers.

Take the points mentioned in Lamm’s article and if we were to eliminate illegals completely would there REALLY be an increase in our costs of goods and services?

Even without the entrepreneurship and invention mentioned in my previous post (below), the cost savings alone to the taxpayers would put enough money back in their pockets to make up the rise in other costs.

Kick them the hell out NOW!!!

Posted by Ranting Right Wing Howler     on 04/04/2005 at 07:14 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration •  
• Comments (7) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

   Friday - April 01, 2005

Let’s Wait For The Spin

It will not take long for Dummycraps and the MSM to begin their campaign attempting to tell us our economy sucks.

Why?  The jobless rate is 5.2%

Go here to look at the historical numbers. Click on “unemployment rate” and when that opens, tell it you want data from 1991 to 2005.

Somehow I do not recall the mass cries of “LOUSY ECONOMY” when Clinton was in office.

But it is all we hear when Bush is in office.

Posted by Ranting Right Wing Howler     on 04/01/2005 at 09:48 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
• Comments (7) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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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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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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