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B4 The Bell Moonday August 23


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Crap-Vision just had on the living fossil-Kurt Barnard who has been covering retail for 50 years-he says Toys r Us will soon be Toys were Us, there only asset is their real estate. He went on to say China -Mart is in trouble because the consumer is tapped out but not as much trouble as every one else. I love the "old Guys" they are the only ones who tell the truth! ;)

I've also heard - and I can't recall the source, but it made sense to me - that Toys Were Us :) will not become the next KMRT because their stores are not big enough for Home Depot, etc.

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it was just a matter of time the way things were going, but Aljazeera home page now has a picture of the damage to the Imam Ali shrine:

That's OK, beccause things are going really well over there as I can deduce from the near blackout of information on the Najaf fighting in the traitorous US press.

 

As sports illustrated reported, the Iraqi soccer team is really glad that Uday Hussein is gone.

 

Unfortuantely, they also said this:

... midfielder Salih Sadir then said, "Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign. He can find another way to advertise himself." Another midfielder, Ahmed Manajid, said, "How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women? He has committed so many crimes." (As it happens, American troops killed Manajid's cousin recently.) He continued, "If a stranger invades America and the people resist, does that mean they are terrorists? Everyone [in Fallujah] has been labeled a terrorist. These are all lies. Fallujah people are some of the best people in Iraq." Meanwhile Iraqi soccer coach Adnan Hamad said, "My problems are not with the American people. They are with what America has done in Iraq: destroy everything. The American army has killed so many people in Iraq. What is freedom when I go to the [national] stadium and there are shootings on the road?"

 

I checked all over the Bush campaign website and I could not find these quotes there, so perhaps they aren't true.....

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fantastic - what a fantastic capper to 25 years of neoliberalism - let the ill-gotten oligarchs live out their days tax-free, and then pass their pile to thier kids tax free, all the while letting the serfs shoulder the burden in exchange for the privilege of riding the rest of the bear market to non-retirement. Excellent.

Exactly!

 

But hey, what could go wrong?

 

:P

What could go wrong already has for the last couple of decades. We have exported our jobs and there are fewer and fewer worker bees to feed the system from the bottom. When the construction / real estate boom dies, that will be painfully obvious.

 

Why would you buy a new car today if you know the incentives are only going to get bigger tommorrow? I think that's what Detroit is facing right now. Too many people bit when incentives were half of what they are and now with the new prices continuing to fall they are severely upside down in their autos. This doesn't make them happy when they see prices for 2005 models below what they paid for their 2003 that they still owe on for another 4 years.

 

A different twist on Plunger's tire theory. People may be forced to keep their cars longer if they can't trade out of them (upside down) or simply become reluctant to buy if they think prices will keep falling. This could actually shift tire demand from the manufacturers to the consumers who might have simply traded out of the old tires into a shiny new set on a new car. Tire demand might fall but maybe not as fast as one might think.

 

I'm beginning to wonder which is worse, highly protectionist tarrifs or "free trade"? When oil is hitting $200 a barrel shipping the same stuff all the world makes back and forth across the planet isn't going to make much sense. With tarrifs we kept the jobs on shore but lost a lot of the export markets and subsequently some of the jobs. Now we lose most of the jobs and the export markets.

 

Yobob1,

 

are you saying that by shipping our manufacturing base abroad, we may have eliminated our ability to internally meet domestic deamnd if oil prices continue upward? that would definitely be an unintended consequence and is a very scary thought.

PeeBrain, you oughta be damned scared.

 

Without that manufacturing/industrial base, we have no fallback position.

We can't provide for our own needs internally. That leaves us vulnerable

to other nations to provide for us and dependent upon the ability of transportation

systems to get goods to us. When oil becomes too expensive to complete that

transaction, we are dead in the water.

 

So far I think we would be ok in agricultural/food products, but our mills for

making cloth, our clothing manufacturers, furniture makers, etc. are gone.

Our steel mills have closed and I recently posted on the shortage of concrete

in the world system that is halting our capacity to build things.

 

When a highly industrialized society such as the US loses its capacity to sustain itself

internally, then it loses its fundamental strength.

 

For years and years, this is what the military worried about.

Do we have sufficient US industrial capability/resources to provide for military needs?

As I recall, the ability to produce ball bearings was one of the critical items.

"We do them better than anybody!" LOL

 

If you will recall, when we began the Gulf WarI effort, there was a huge delay of

some months before we actually were ready to attack. Why was that?

Because we had to wait for Japan to produce some critical items before starting.

When things are produced in the US, vs overseas, the Gov't can intervene and

accelerate/augment the production cycles. We cannot do that overseas.

 

Now, due to reduced industrial capability, we have sent troops into Iraq,

undersupplied and without the capability to quickly remedy the shortfalls.

I cite Kevlar vests. The only steel sheets available to remedy the lack of

protection on the Humvees, etc happened to come from some scrap stock

that one of our manufacturers still had.

One Senator found it and fixed the problem. (I watch C-Span)

 

Sorry for the long mid-day post, but I am deeply concerned that folks don't

understand the significance of the US shift from self sustainment to dependency

on other nations to meet our needs. We are now in a highly vulnerable position.

:cry:

 

Sherlock

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This is really, really, really disturbing.

 

Stoking deranged delusions

 

There's a marked difference in the campaign styles of George W. Bush and John Kerry, and it's a difference that makes Our Great Leader out to be, well, a bit of a chickenshit. It seems that while John Kerry is out and about holding public rallies in front of thousands of people, George W. Bush is hiding himself away in smaller venues, ensuring that not only will he be able to avoid protesters, but he won't even have to face questions from people who are genuinely curious about what what he might do for them during the next four years.

 

For example, these are the kind of "questions" that Bush faced recently at one of his butt-kissing sessions: "Mr. President, I just want to say I'm praying for you and God bless you." Follow up question... "I would just like to say that I agree with this gentleman, that we should all pray for you." Pretty incisive, huh? Or take this exchange... QUESTION: "Mr. President, you were a fighter pilot and you were with the 147th Fighter Wing?" ANSWER: "Yes." QUESTION: "And flew a very dangerous aircraft, the Delta F102?" ANSWER: "Right, and I'm still standing." QUESTION: "I want to thank you for serving our country."

 

All people with differing opinions are preventing from even attending, and often are arrested.

 

This is no way to run a country. This stands against everything I thought were core American values.

 

Just disgusting.

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Despite the dollah propping today, the CRB index has risen to 277.40 ... only 2.7% below its 20-year high of 285.08 set earlier this year.

 

Mad Al's $1.25 trillion custody account is basically just another commodity producer's price-rigging pool (the commodity, in this case, being the paper dollah).

 

Every commodity pool in history has failed. So will Mad Al's. Meaning that the dollah and bonds lose their artificially-induced premium, and it will take more dollahs to buy guns, gold and goulash ...

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This is really, really, really disturbing.

 

Stoking deranged delusions

 

There's a marked difference in the campaign styles of George W. Bush and John Kerry, and it's a difference that makes Our Great Leader out to be, well, a bit of a chickenshit. It seems that while John Kerry is out and about holding public rallies in front of thousands of people, George W. Bush is hiding himself away in smaller venues, ensuring that not only will he be able to avoid protesters, but he won't even have to face questions from people who are genuinely curious about what what he might do for them during the next four years.

 

For example, these are the kind of "questions" that Bush faced recently at one of his butt-kissing sessions: "Mr. President, I just want to say I'm praying for you and God bless you." Follow up question... "I would just like to say that I agree with this gentleman, that we should all pray for you." Pretty incisive, huh? Or take this exchange... QUESTION: "Mr. President, you were a fighter pilot and you were with the 147th Fighter Wing?" ANSWER: "Yes." QUESTION: "And flew a very dangerous aircraft, the Delta F102?" ANSWER: "Right, and I'm still standing." QUESTION: "I want to thank you for serving our country."

 

All people with differing opinions are preventing from even attending, and often are arrested.

 

This is no way to run a country. This stands against everything I thought were core American values.

 

Just disgusting.

Damn straight. Not what America's all about, and certainly not what Americans are all about. Who the hell are these people, and why have they been permitted to run amuck and trample on the consitution as well as our moral and cultural integrity?

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Sherlock- the Military doesn't give a rats ass about manufacturing capacity for their needs-two examples-the Abrams battle Tank is made in Egypt (if I was in the Tank Corp that would scare Hell outta me). Then from todays Vancouver Sun- a large Photo of 4 F-16's in flight, with the caption "Outsourcing into the Wild Blue Yonder"-byline..."South Korea is now producing McDonnell Douglas F-16 fighter jets for use in its Air Force under license from the Pentagon. These 4 took flight last week."..don't worry though we still make paper plates and deodorant ;)

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it was just a matter of time the way things were going, but Aljazeera home page now has a picture of the damage to the Imam Ali shrine:

Aljazeera home page

I wonder how Catholics would feel if the Vatican were attacked in a similar manner?

Or what of the Holy Places in Israel?

 

When the Al-Sadr forces are continually augmented by furious Shiites, angry over

the desecration of their temples, how do we win in this situation?

No "hearts and minds" are won,

and yet these were the very people that welcomed us when we invaded.

 

The stated objectives of our gov't vs the hidden ones will be our downfall.

 

Put yourself in the shoes of an Iraqi person. How would YOU feel?

Pretty hard to do if you are a right-wing Christian hell bent on values.

Be against abortion but ignore blowing up mothers and children in Iraq.

 

I consider myself to be a Christian in the broadest sense of that word.

I do not understand.

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