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B4 the Bell Fryday, July 23, 2004


Guest yobob1

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Ok...we are losing the consumer. So where to place your bets?

 

I'm seeing my earlier thoughts about the death-of-brands play out in the grocery store. My local Winn Dixie is knocking off practically every consumer food product category with their own store brand...from cheese to cereal to beverages...you name it. WMT is going to knock-off every brand name you can think of.

 

Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kraft Foods, and other known brands are facing increased costs across the board (water costs, sweetner costs, manufacturing, health benefits, distribution, slotting fees for shelf space, etc.), an ambush-minded retail channel whose entire strategy is to position their store brands side-by-side with the brand names with a 1/2 price strategy, and a consumer that is increasingly more interested in the greatest quantity for the lowest price, and less concerned with quality than ever before. At some point, consumers just need to eat, and quantity is trumping quality.

 

KO is getting hit, CCE is Coke's bottling division and that chart is fugly. Now check out PepsiAmerica's chart:

 

http://139.142.147.218/StockChart_ImageOnl...=INX&ref_rate=0

 

If you look at a chart of WMT, EBAY and AMZN (down $3 this morning) - they are telling us that the American Consumer is tapped out. Where will the consumer cut corners and how will they make ends meet?

 

Is Circuit City (CC) really going to sell more electrical gadgets this year than last year?

 

Why did Maytag and CFC miss? Why is F losing money making cars? Sears is toast, and KMRT has a long way to drop.

 

Personal bankruptcy is a growth industry.

 

The term "ex-food&energy" is the one to focus on. Consumers will not survive ex-food&energy, and increasingly, all of their spending will be focused here.

 

RCL is telling us that increasing food and energy costs combined with decreasing levels of discressionary income and an aging population whose pensions are being stripped away may not lead to the brightest future for the cruise industry. All of the hotel stocks are getting hit as well. Look at HOT, MAR and HLT.

 

Something wicked this way comes.

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Ok...we are losing the consumer. So where to place your bets?

 

I'm seeing my earlier thoughts about the death-of-brands play out in the grocery store. My local Winn Dixie is knocking off practically every consumer food product category with their own store brand...from cheese to cereal to beverages...you name it. WMT is going to knock-off every brand name you can think of.

 

Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kraft Foods, and other known brands are facing increased costs across the board (water costs, sweetner costs, manufacturing, health benefits, distribution, slotting fees for shelf space, etc.), an ambush-minded retail channel whose entire strategy is to position their store brands side-by-side with the brand names with a 1/2 price strategy, and a consumer that is increasingly more interested in the greatest quantity for the lowest price, and less concerned with quality than ever before. At some point, consumers just need to eat, and quantity is trumping quality.

 

KO is getting hit, CCE is Coke's bottling division and that chart is fugly. Now check out PepsiAmerica's chart:

 

http://139.142.147.218/StockChart_ImageOnl...=INX&ref_rate=0

 

If you look at a chart of WMT, EBAY and AMZN (down $3 this morning) - they are telling us that the American Consumer is tapped out. Where will the consumer cut corners and how will they make ends meet?

 

Is Circuit City (CC) really going to sell more electrical gadgets this year than last year?

 

Why did Maytag and CFC miss? Why is F losing money making cars? Sears is toast, and KMRT has a long way to drop.

 

Personal bankruptcy is a growth industry.

 

The term "ex-food&energy" is the one to focus on. Consumers will not survive ex-food&energy, and increasingly, all of their spending will be focused here.

 

RCL is telling us that increasing food and energy costs combined with decreasing levels of discressionary income and an aging population whose pensions are being stripped away may not lead to the brightest future for the cruise industry. All of the hotel stocks are getting hit as well. Look at HOT, MAR and HLT.

 

Something wicked this way comes.

Japan Suicides Hit Record High in 2003

 

By Natalie Obiko Pearson Associated Press Writer

Published: Jul 23, 2004

TOKYO (AP) - Suicides in Japan surged to an all-time high last year, topping 34,000 deaths in a trend fueled by health and financial troubles, the government reported Friday.

Suicides rose 7.1 percent to 34,427 in 2003 - the highest number on record since police began taking statistics in 1978, the National Police Agency report said.

 

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBAZ4T20XD.html

 

 

 

Dismal stats await the US ...... suicides and prisons....Growth industries?

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Anybody see this article last week?

 

Terror in the Skies -- Again?

 

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14249

 

 

Well, today WNBC investigative reporter Scott Weinberger reported on Joe Scarborough's MSNBC show tonight that the 14 Syrians on Northwest Flight 327 ALL had expired visas. He said that law enforcement officials xeroxed the men's paperwork without looking at the dates. The visas had expired nearly a month earlier, according to Weinberger.

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The following was?reprinted from the book "Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal" by Ayn Rand in 1967 which also?included several articles by Alan Greenspan, the present Chairman of the US Federal Reserve.

 

By ALAN GREENSPAN

 

The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit. They have created paper reserves in the form of government bonds which-through a complex series of steps-the banks accept in place of tangible assets and treat as if they were an actual deposit, i.e., as the equivalent of what was formerly a deposit of gold. The holder of a government bond or of a bank deposit created by paper reserves believes that he has a valid claim on a real asset. But the fact is that there are now more claims outstanding than real assets.

 

The law of supply and demand is not to be conned. As the supply of money (of claims) increases relative to the supply of tangible assets in the economy, prices must eventually rise. Thus the earnings saved by the productive members of the society lose value in terms of goods. When the economy's books are finally balanced, one finds that loss in value represents the goods purchased by the government for welfare or other purposes with the money proceeds of the government bonds financed by bank credit expansion.

 

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

 

This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard.

 

http://www.jsmineset.com/

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"Squawkbox" this AM:

 

** Mr. Kernan sounded a wee bit testy that the latest pronouncements of Microsoft have not generated more investor interest. He ascribed this to somewhat excessive investor gloominess, a mentality that insists on "seeing the glass as half empty, instead of half full."

 

** Corporations have got lots of cash laying around. Inspired by Microsoft, they may start shoveling large amounts of it back to stockholders, triggering renewed bullish excitement.

 

** They brought out some guy from a "wine institute" to talk about what kinds of "summer white wines" you might want to be drinking now. He says that "summer white wines" are tasty, and cheap, too.

 

NPR this AM: The 9/11 Commission hearings, and report, from the perspective of a mom who lost family in the WTC. She's been riding the train to get to the hearings. She likes the people who are conducting those hearings: smart, thoughtful, courteous. She feels they have really gotten to the bottom of things and says that now it's time for Washington to make us safer by promptly implementing its recommendations.

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Tanks Hunter, Plunger.

 

This confirms Marc Faber that said on Puplava that a new war cycle has begun that will probably last 20 years. Like Russell, he expects ALL commodities to surge higher.

 

You can play with your paper(Comex) all you want, but the "law of supply and demand is not to be conned."

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BTW Plunger.

 

WD distribution center Jax has new management ....... decreasing work force

within the domain. Cannot address their cattle operation, but suspect the

original owners WD brands/ops have too much to loose in tax write offs.

 

The family would transfer investments out of Florida at year-end to escape

the previous investment taxes and then bring the investments back in February of each year. Moved them to Georgia.

 

New laws in both states may prevent that now but the Davis family is resourceful.

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