The Written Peace:
Open Forum of April 20, 2005
Now, since this is an Open Forum post, the usual dignified, measured, and scholarly language that veritably oozes from the Dark Wraith can be suspended briefly to comment on the producer price index that was released on Tuesday. Recall that the PPI measures inflation at the wholesale level. For March, the overall producer price index rose by seven-tenths of a percent, which translates into an annualized inflation of about 8.7 percent, a real attention getter for inflation hawks. CNN.com, ever the bluebird of happiness and optimism, had this take on the numbers: "The so-called core PPI, which excludes often volatile food and energy prices, gained 0.1 percent... The core measure is considered more important for monetary policy and added to speculation the Federal Reserve would not have to be more aggressive in raising interest rates."
Yes, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has put himself on record as being interested in what business and households face in the absence of those trivial woes about skyrocketing food and energy costs. But that has an interesting side consequence, especially as the Fed is tightening the money supply. You see, fellow students of economics, if energy and food costs are rising rapidly, and the Fed is not cranking out money to make people feel like they have cash in their pockets, what do you suppose is going to happen to demand for everything other than food and energy?
That's right, demand will weaken because of the so-called "income effect"! And when demand weakens, so do prices on all of those things other than food and energy.
Well, spank me, Pope Benedict of the Eggs! Mr. Greenspan and CNN are telling us that, if we ignore the patient's heart attack for a moment, we'll notice that the good fellow is really quite dead.
Enough with the hurtful and unproductive sarcasm.
The stock markets on Tuesday had a nice up day, the kind presciently described here on The Dark Wraith Forums last Saturday as a "rally in the bear market." But then again, that last sentence really does have a hint of self-promotion, something wholly unbecoming of a mainstream, reputable economist. Expect more of the same, then, should the economy continue to pump out dire numbers.
Speak your piece on any matter that comes to your mind or heart. This is the place: all blogging, all the time. And do make sure you tip the waiter. The Dark Wraith pays wretchedly low wages.
Published 4/20/2005 02:20:00 AM
<< 24 Comments Total
The CPI for March is just as gruesome.
Expect more of the same, then, should the economy continue to pump out dire numbers.
Good morning Dark Wraith. Talk about going out on a limb.
Good morning, Mr. Goat.
Hey, call me daring if you will, but when I see waves of bad numbers while the mainstream news media keeps singing a happy tune, I can look like some kind of prophetic sage just stating the obvious.
Last week, one of the major online news services had a cutesy business news headline something along the line of "Blue chip dip a blip?" on Wednesday. I cannot even locate the archive of that article this morning.
Anyway, Mr. Goat, as you well know, I do like to remain right smack on the cutting edge, so later this afternoon, I might push my luck and do a prediction about the sun setting. If I start channeling the forces of nature really well, I'll go even further and set forth some details about how dark it will get afterwards.
Once all of that happens, I'll just sit back and wait for people to say, "Whoa!"
Leave it to the Dark Wraith to set the pace.
[And leave it to Mr. Goat to catch the Wraith saying something that, in retrospect, really was rather silly.]
No, not silly, just more of your sarcasm that some of us like about this place. Much better for the health than those moronic talking heads and their infantile market analysis.
BTW, how's the bushco IPO shaping up?
How long before Bush announces the formation of the US Space Forces and plunks a bunch more money into development as a way to help the economy through "trickle down economics" by creating "desperately needed jobs" in the aerospace industry?
Or did that already happen and I just didn't get the memo?
After all, the terrorist are most likely going to target our communications satelites and GPS systems next right? It makes perfectly logical sense for us to spend 1 Trillion dollars in protecting our space investments......We have to pave the way for space tourism and give the corporations a way into the space market.
Guess who owns a piece of the moon? You'd be surprised......The moon is owned by a who's who of fortune 100 companies.
You too can buy land on the moon or even Mars!
http://www.planetaryinvestments.com/
http://www.moonshop.com/
http://www.lunarregistry.com/
Hey, NeoCon Crusher, did you go down to the thread for Opus Three to see what you said this morning at 8:02 a.m.?
I'm here to tell you, that really hurt. Not the part about being a "retard"; I actually was designated an "imbecile" in fourth grade according to the then-standard rankings from IQ tests.
What really hurt me deeply was being called French. Besides not realizing that such a thing was still an insult from the radical Right xenophobes, I'm of German bloodstock. You know: bratwurst, cabbage, onions in everything—all the foods that make for flatulence that qualifies as a weapon of mass destruction.
French, indeed. I've never even heard of a French food that causes stomach problems.
The Dark Wraith vents his feelings.
I appoligize Dark Wraith, deeply....That was not me (I know you are preceptive enough to notice) but I am afraid SOME other people may not.
It seems I have made some enemys in the blogoshere who have taken to making random comments about me or claimging to make comments by me.
I am flattered actually. I feel like I have finally made it just a little in the blogoshere and only after a few short weeks.
The dislike of me is starting to grow and as it does so does my hit count. God does work in mysterious ways.
FWIW, They have called me a "retard" several times on my blog.....Curious....very curious....Is this the best they got? Where are the Marines? (oh wait, they are all in Iraq...hope no one invades us soon...)
Those tuckfards, don't they know that the word retard is reserved for special people, like George w. Bush?
No worries, my friend.
For situations like this, I pull up hit logs that would be the envy of spooks. I don't know if you've noticed it or not, but I'm pretty good at this new-fangled Internet thing.
The gist of a comment I made on Media Girl's blog a few days ago is appropriate to this occasion:
Leave it to a Freeper to wave a whittling knife at a blogger who builds nukes.
The Dark Wraith watches his future trophies.
Good evening, Mr. Goat.
And that's why I still suspect to this very day that Georgie's real name is Edward.
Well, at least I keep hearing all this stuff about Georgie's school years and Special Ed.
The Dark Wraith thinks education accommodation might have gone a little too far in Texas.
Here is what I don't get:
Bush comes from an Oil Family. Cheney worked for Haliburton. Haliburton gets most of the contracts....
So Why the F*Ck did gas and oil get so expensive?
We went to Iraq to "Secure our future energy needs"....yet all it did was make our energy needs even more insecure.
Aren't these guys in power?
Further, the credit card companies lobbied hard to get the Bankruptcy Laws changed and suceeded.
The Wall St has been lobying hard to get privatization of Social Security and yet the market has been tanking....
You'd think if these guys REALLY wanted to get Social Security privatized they would hold their cash in the markets and if anything try to create a minibull rally until the Prez got his legislation passed.
All of this makes me think the Rich and Powerful are not as powerful as they would have us believe.
Good evening, NeoCon Crusher.
Years ago, there was a joke that traveled among gospel evangelists.
----------------
First Preacher: That young fella Jimmy Swaggert was in Clio, Alabama, las' night at some big gospel revival, an' that boy was doin' some faith healin' like you ain't never seen.
Second Preacher: Clio? Why, isn't that the home town of Governor Wallace?
First Preacher: Tha's right, th' very birthplace, and George was right there in th' front row hopin' fer a miracle to git outta that wheelchair he's been sittin' in fer a couple o' years, now.
Second Preacher: Did Jimmy see 'im?
First Preacher: Well, not at first. Jimmy was workin' the blind old women in th' back, an' then he did some prayin' over a boy with cancer. Jimmy was gittin' all fired up, an' that crowd was just a-movin' back 'n forth like a big ol' field o' wheat.
Second Preacher: I've had th' crowd like that maybe once or twice in my whole preachin' career.
First Preacher: An' it just comes natural to that Jimmy boy.
Second Preacher: Well, did he ever catch eye of old George?
First Preacher: I was gittin' t' that part. There was Jimmy, headin' back t' th' front to give 'em all a last prayer, an' he spots the Governor.
Second Preacher: Ya don't say!
First Preacher: Yep. An' Jimmy went toward George like a bee headin' toward sweet tea in the sun.
Second Preacher: Ya don't say!
First Preacher: Yep. An' Jimmy looks down at George, an' he sez 'George d'ya b'lieve in JAYzus?'
Second Preacher: Ya don't say!
First Preacher: Yep. An' George sez back t' him: 'Yes, I do, preacher'.
Second Preacher: Ya don't say!
First Preacher: Yep. An' Jimmy sez back t' George, 'No, sir! Ah mean, d'ya REALLY, REALLY b'lieve in JAYzus.'
Second Preacher: Ya don't say!
First Preacher: Yep. An ol' George starts t' cryin' like a baby, holdin' Jimmy's hand, an' sayin', 'Ah DO, AH DO b'lieve in JAYzus, Jimmy!'
Second Preacher: Ya don't say!
First Preacher: Yep. An' Jimmy bawls out, 'Well then, George, stand up, STAND UP fer JAYzus! Let the Lord come inta that broken body of yours an' make it whole once again, George!'
Second Preacher: Ya don't say!
First Preacher: Yep. An' Jimmy pulls George up outta that wheelchair an' straight onta his feet; an' Jimmy just up an' KICKS that contraption outta th' way.
Second Preacher: Ya don't say!
First Preacher: Yep. An' then, Jimmy let's go of George.
Second Preacher: YA DON'T SAY!!
First Preacher: Yep.
... [long pause]
Second Preacher: WELL?!
First Preacher: Uh, 'well,' what?
Second Preacher: WHAT HAPPENED?!!!
First Preacher: Oh. I thought you knew. George really is a cripple. He fell right on his ass.
------------------
The Dark Wraith has told his story.
I think you will enjoy this article DW, and much of its content, especially regarding your 21st Century Analysis.
Gorbachev slams U.S. 'hypocrisy'
By the way, since today, and watching what is happening with the Japanese Stock Market, the DJ will almost certainly go under the 10000 margin, do you expect it to stop around there or to continue going down until what mark?
And no, I'm not going to talk about the new Pope... heaven forbides me... a lightning would strike me... ;)
For Paradigm shifter-
Have you read Greg Palast's piece in Harper's, or on his website? Check it out here
He addresses precisely this issue. According to his sources, there were actually two plans regarding the disposition of Iraq's oil reserves; the Neocon's plan, favored by the Pentagon, was to privatize Iraq's oil industry to break OPEC. Big US-based Oil companies had a very different perspective- that $56 per barrel oil was better for them and their shareholders than driving oil prices into the ground by having privatized Iraqi oil companies undercutting OPEC's prices. Guess which side won the day?
lindibee,
thank you very much for that link!
Good morning, Joseph. Thank you for the link.
Yes, in my judgment, the Dow will go below 10,000. That psychological barrier has all but evaporated, and it looks to me like the bulls are going to try to make their stand in the 9800s. This, of course, is a prediction from a hack who has been decidedly out of the mainstream for a long time and has been making "the sky is falling" types of predictions on his blog for months.
Obviously, the beautiful blue sky hasn't fallen. It just seems that way when everybody's singing the blues.
And have you noticed that all of the hype about privatizing Social Security has become quite a bit more muted of late? Gee, I wonder why.
The Dark Wraith just loves it when Old Man Reality wanders in long enough to smack people with his cane.
I'm enjoying seeing Bush and company having at least some of their plans not going according to their wishes. SS one of them, and it seems Bolton is also being kicked in the butt? Wow...
And I also enjoyed the latest approval polls I saw on Bushie, even when he tryed to play that runaway litle game and show with the death of the late Pope... and with all the tears he cried by his side... I imagine he will be there to the entronization of the new Pope. It seems dear Rat pushed a few buttons to make sure Kerry wasn't elected and that Bush was...
I suddenly had a question tonight to present to the sage heads that may have read more about the proposed private accounts for SS than I.... My wife was commenting recently that her 401K now has enough money in it that she'll have to watch it doesn't push her assets past the threshold where it will affect things like our youngest's disability payments. Would an "owned" private account fall into the asset catagory? Would this not mean that if one needed to file bankruptcy(despite the new rules), the account would be forfeit? Or would affect social service safety net things in support of the working poor such as child-care aid (assets is why both the vehicles are in my name), SSI, medicaid?
Has anyone mentioned this? If the idea is to get lower income folks to "own" their retirement, it seems like there would have to be an exemption for such savings accounts UNLESS the purpose is to simply transfer $$$ from the SS taxes to private account to creditor, thus further enriching the "haves" without the government giveaway to the wealthy being immediately obvious. As it stands, SS taxes only benefit the poor/middle class. The wealthy pay little in (proportionally)and get little out. The only way to let them get their hands on this $$$ and benefit from the taxation of the lower classes is something that allows first-the chance to earn $$ by managing the private accounts, and second- the chance to raid said accounts legally in the case of the poor sucker having a financial reversal, illness, or attack of easy credit stupidity.
I'm scaring myself now with the implications here...Damn, I'm too young to be in that "safe" age group declared by Bushy, and too old to think I can do anything of note dollarwise with a private account before I retire, except lose it to a creditor. Assuming that I did not just miss all the discussions on safeguarding the private accounts and making them outside of any and all income/asset calculations.
Good morning, Wild Clover.
Ouch! You hit a very sensitive little backwater topic in the whole matrix of the neo-con revolution.
Are you legally married to your wife, or are you using the term in a more informal sense? The problem you're going to have is that someone to whom you might have a legally binding relationship has an asset of value, and that could cause problems.
This whole issue of prohibiting gay marriages creates more problems than it poses to "solve": the society has evolved, and a small group of extremists has declined to allow the contract law to accommodate this evolution. That means other components of statutory and common law have no bridging framework to address what otherwise become glaring inconsistencies.
Because the two of you are in the same "household," as that term would be defined under certain social service regulations, your assets would be counted jointly for certain purposes. But because you are not married, those same assets would not be counted jointly for other purposes. Although I won't provide a legal opinion, I would bet my bottom dollar that, were you to file for bankruptcy, some creditor would be all kinds of excited about recognizing you and your wife as a single unit with respect to asset liquidation.
And I'll bet that would leave some bankruptcy judge just shaking his head.
The solution is obvious, Wild Clover: surrender your life of being with your partner, live alone and in poverty, and vote for the Republicans who have made the world safer for terrorists to bring down our skyscrapers.
Short of that solution, find a good lawyer who can give you some solid asset structuring recommendations.
I've offered my old friend—an excellent Texas lawyer whose has a temper as foul as a bobcat's and a heart as good as gold—a free place here where he can drum up some business.
He wanders in here all the time, so I hope he sees this and finally takes my offer. And if he doesn't see this, his long-time fiancé might, and maybe she'll have a few words with the thinmansmoking.
Thank God I won't have to be around the two of them when they resolve that issue.
The Dark Wraith casts his net upon the water.
LOL-married to my wife in VA? Hey, we're not even sure where it leaves us owning the house jointly, with VA's law about no contracts between same sex people that mimic any of the conditions of marriage. Besides, from a legal(as opposed to religious/spiritual)standpoint, I'd have to divorce my husband to marry my wife, so my own convoluted life is such that the only way I see to preserve the rights of the family I'm responsible for and to is some form of corporate structure, where all contractual obligations/rights are with the corporation itself, rather than with the individuals themselves.
But my question was much more along the general lines of whether private SS accounts will be counted as "assets" or whether they will be sancrosanct and untouchable by third parties. I don't recall any mention of this in anything I've read, pro or con. The Imp...(wife) figures that they would of course call it an asset-they would almost have to if it is inheritable. So let's sign up with the Bush "plan" and be doubly and triply screwed as far as "safety nets" are concerned.
If one is a believer in karma and reincarnation, I see our neo-con leaders reborn in their next lives as victims of incestuous rape, thrown out by their wingnut families during their pregnancies, and supporting themselves and their kids through gainful employment at Hardees and Wal Mart. Even if one doesn't believe in these concepts, believers in a just God could see Him making an exception "just this once"....
Good evening, Wild Clover.
Sorry about that: I forgot for a minute that you live in the wildly liberal state of Virginia. (At least it's not West Virginia, though, which was one of my old stomping grounds.)
A corporation isn't the only legal form an asset protection structure could take. You might find that trusts are quite wonderful for many things, one of them being matters of asset protection.
On a broader point, I simply cannot wait for the time when courts begin to really start flexing their ancient muscles and begin in earnest to address the question of whether or not and to what extent state and federal legislatures can proscribe contracts on the mere thread of some "public policy" harp that cannot be brought by any sane person into accord with several Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
That day of reckoning could be well down the road, but it will come. As I noted above, a veritable canyon is opening among various common and statutory laws; and sooner or later—damn them-thar activist judges—the courts will have to step in to set the mess straight.
Although it might come far in the future, I don't think so. The wedge is going to happen when a state that does not recognize gay marriages denies benefits to a partner in a marriage formed and recognized in a state that does. This "diversity of citizenship" opening puts the federal courts smack-dab into the fray, much as I am sure they would wish otherwise.
The fun might begin within the next couple of years, in fact. Won't that be a fun Election-year issue?
The Dark Wraith sees troubled (and really interesting) waters ahead for the polemicists and the moderates.
Dear Paradigm Shifter,
Gas & Oil are so expensive because the admin WANTS them to be. So much more money for their friends - Exxon-Mobile just posted record profits. All at the expense of us wage slaves. Truly, the govts of the world are being supplanted in power by the international corporations, and woe be to us when that process is completed!
On that domestic issue, if that comes relatively soon and the fed. courts are sympathetic to the claim of the discriminated against same sex couple, hell will break loose. At the present time I think sentiments are such that a federal marriage amendment would pass easily. As years pass that will become less and less true, but if the conservatives of the 1960's had been as activist as today's are, as a response to the liberal ruling in Loving vs. Virginia there also would now be an amendment against miscegenation.
- oddjob
Just when you thought marriage had its benefits:
County may cut spouses from health insurance