Financial Crisis - 2013 - ????

[Ryan Ruck]

NH Thieves Raiding Woodpiles For Firewood

January 21, 2014

Janine Richardson couldn’t believe it when she and her husband went to bring in some firewood to heat their home and it was all gone.

“We don’t use oil at all,” said Richardson. “We heat by wood solely so it was cold, it was cold that night, luckily we had little scraps around so we burnt that for the night.”

Police in Candia New Hampshire says it’s happened at least twice this month. Heavy piles of firewood have been stolen from people’s property.

“I haven’t seen that in this area,” said Candia Police Chief Mike McGillen. “I can’t recall having many investigations like this.”

A cord of wood can be worth up to $250, and police are not sure if the wood is being stolen by people who want to sell it, or if they need the wood to keep warm.

“If someone was desperate and needed the wood they could just come to the town,” said Chief McGillen. “There’s a lot of good people here who would give out wood, give out oil, give assistance in a heartbeat, they don’t need to go around taking it.”

A cord of wood is about eight feet long, four feet wide, and four feet tall.

For Janine Richardson, it’s not about the money. It’s the principle that someone stole from her home. And that all of her hard work was wasted.

“So obviously we’re angry because we cut all our wood and I’m the one who splits it with the log splitter my husband built me,” said Richardson.

[Ryan Ruck]

Bombardier To Lay Off 350 More At Wichita Learjet Plant

January 21, 2014

Bombardier is cutting 1,700 jobs, including 550 at its Learjet plant in Wichita, the company told employees in an internal memo Tuesday morning.

The layoffs will affect workers across the spectrum and include contractors, union-represented workers and nonrepresented employees, said Bombardier spokeswoman Annie Cossette. She did not have a breakdown for those different sectors.

In Wichita, 200 workers already have departed, after being laid off in December. The Tuesday announcement means 350 more will lose their jobs in the coming weeks.

Bombardier currently employs 3,000 contractors and direct employees in Wichita.

Bombardier also will proceed with periodic furloughs and temporary layoffs of 300 Wichita employees during the first six months of the year, although some of those affected may be laid off permanently, Cossette said.

In early January, the company told employees in a memo that a total of six weeks of furloughs and temporary layoffs would be implemented in two-week blocks.

The news of permanent layoffs come a day after a disappointing report on 2013 deliveries – a report that clearly showed the market for business jets has not recovered since the recession ended more than four years ago. In particular, the market for the light category business aircraft segment has not rebounded as fast as the company had hoped, despite encouraging signs in the U.S. economy, Cossette said of the cuts in Wichita.

“It’s a very challenging market,” Cossette said.

The market for medium and large business aircraft has been stronger than the light business jet market, she said.

The remainder of the 1,700 layoffs will be made at Bombardier sites in Montreal, she said.

With delays in two new aircraft programs, Bombardier is working to control costs and preserve cash, the company said. Those new programs require a lot of resources.

The company has announced delays in its new Learjet 85 business jet program, launched in October 2007 in Wichita, and in its new CSeries commercial jet, which is built in Canada.

It announced last week that the CSeries jet won’t be ready for service until the second half of 2015, several months later than its previous plan.

The first flight of the composite Learjet 85, expected by the end of 2013, has been delayed, the company said this month.

A flight is now scheduled in the “coming weeks,” Cossette said in early January. Entry-into-service is still set for this summer 2014, but that may be revised, she said. Once the flight occurs, the Learjet team will review whether that date will need to be moved, she said. The program has met with other delays since its launch.

On Monday, Bombardier announced that it had delivered 25 percent fewer Wichita-assembled Learjets in 2013 than it did the year before.

It delivered 29 Learjet business jets in 2013, compared to 39 in the previous year.

The decline was due mainly to the transition from the Learjet 40XR and Learjet 45XR to the Learjet 70 and 75, which entered service in the fourth quarter of the year.

In its business aviation division, Bombardier delivered 180 business jets, which includes the Learjet deliveries, compared to 179 in 2012.

It took orders, however, for 305 business aircraft last year, compared to 343 in 2012.

The recovery is taking longer than anticipated, Guy Hachey, Bombardier Aerospace president, said in a statement Monday.

[Ryan Ruck]

Wasn't sure whether to put this one here or in the "Keep Working" thread.

The New Face Of Food Stamps: Working-Age Americans

January 26, 2014

In a first, working-age people now make up the majority in U.S. households that rely on food stamps -- a switch from a few years ago, when children and the elderly were the main recipients.

Some of the change is due to demographics, such as the trend toward having fewer children. But a slow economic recovery with high unemployment, stagnant wages and an increasing gulf between low-wage and high-skill jobs also plays a big role. It suggests that government spending on the $80 billion-a-year food stamp program -- twice what it cost five years ago -- may not subside significantly anytime soon.

Food stamp participation since 1980 has grown the fastest among workers with some college training, a sign that the safety net has stretched further to cover America's former middle class, according to an analysis of government data for The Associated Press by economists at the University of Kentucky. Formally called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance, or SNAP, the program now covers 1 in 7 Americans.

The findings coincide with the latest economic data showing workers' wages and salaries growing at the lowest rate relative to corporate profits in U.S. history.

President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night is expected to focus in part on reducing income inequality, such as by raising the federal minimum wage. Congress, meanwhile, is debating cuts to food stamps, with Republicans including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., wanting a $4 billion-a-year reduction to an anti-poverty program that they say promotes dependency and abuse.

Economists say having a job may no longer be enough for self-sufficiency in today's economy.

"A low-wage job supplemented with food stamps is becoming more common for the working poor," said Timothy Smeeding, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in income inequality. "Many of the U.S. jobs now being created are low- or minimum-wage -- part-time or in areas such as retail or fast food -- which means food stamp use will stay high for some time, even after unemployment improves."

The newer food stamp recipients include Maggie Barcellano, 25, of Austin, Texas. A high school graduate, she enrolled in college but didn't complete her nursing degree after she could no longer afford the tuition.

Hoping to boost her credentials, she went through emergency medical technician training with the Army National Guard last year but was unable to find work as a paramedic because of the additional certification and fees required. Barcellano, now the mother of a 3-year-old daughter, finally took a job as a home health aide, working six days a week at $10 an hour. Struggling with the low income, she recently applied for food stamps with the help of the nonprofit Any Baby Can, to help save up for paramedic training.

"It's devastating," Barcellano said. "When I left for the Army I was so motivated, thinking I was creating a situation where I could give my daughter what I know she deserves. But when I came back and basically found myself in the same situation, it was like it was all for naught."

Since 2009, more than 50 percent of U.S. households receiving food stamps have been adults ages 18 to 59, according to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey. The food stamp program defines non-elderly adults as anyone younger than 60.

As recently as 1998, the working-age share of food stamp households was at a low of 44 percent, before the dot-com bust and subsequent recessions in 2001 and 2007 pushed new enrollees into the program, according to the analysis by James Ziliak, director of the Center for Poverty Research at the University of Kentucky.

By education, about 28 percent of food stamp households are headed by a person with at least some college training, up from 8 percent in 1980. Among those with four-year college degrees, the share rose from 3 percent to 7 percent. High-school graduates head the bulk of food stamp households at 37 percent, up from 28 percent. In contrast, food stamp households headed by a high-school dropout have dropped by more than half, to 28 percent.

The shifts in food stamp participation come amid broader changes to the economy such as automation, globalization and outsourcing, which have polarized the job market. Many good-paying jobs in areas such as manufacturing have disappeared, shrinking the American middle class and bumping people with higher levels of education into lower-wage work.

An analysis Ziliak conducted for the AP finds that stagnant wages and income inequality play an increasing role in the growth of food stamp rolls.

Taking into account changing family structure, higher unemployment and policy expansions to the food stamp program, the analysis shows that stagnant wages and income inequality explained just 3.5 percent of the change in food stamp enrollment from 1980 to 2011. But from 2000 to 2011, wages and inequality accounted for 13 percent of the increase.

Several economists say food stamp rolls are likely to remain elevated for some time. Historically, there has been a lag before an improving unemployment rate leads to a substantial decline in food stamp rolls; the Congressional Budget Office has projected it could take 10 years.

"We do not expect income inequality stabilizing or declining in the absence of real wage growth or a significant reduction in unemployment and underemployment problems," said Ishwar Khatiwada, an economist for the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University who reviewed the Labor and Commerce departments' wage data.

Full- and part-time workers employed year-round saw the fastest growth in food stamp participation since 1980, making up 17 percent and 7 percent of households, respectively. In contrast, the share of food stamp households headed by an unemployed person has remained largely unchanged, at 53 percent. Part-year workers declined in food stamp share.

[Ryan Ruck]

There Is 1 Job For Every 3 People Looking For Work

February 10, 2014

The U.S. economy added 113,000 new jobs in January according to the government, far fewer than were expected. While some people blame this on the bad weather in several states, the real truth is that our economy is still struggling, because we aren’t built upon a solid manufacturing base anymore.

Labor participation still remains at around 63%, which is the lowest it has been in decades. The BLS reports an unemployment rate of now 6.6%. This number does not account for the long term unemployed or those who have given up on finding work, and does not account for those who are only working part time. If we include these, that number climbs to around 23%. Additionally, for every 1 job opening in the U.S. there are 3 people actively searching for work.

The vast majority of these jobs are in the service sector, of those 113,000 jobs only 21,000 were in manufacturing while 24,000 were in hotels and restaurants. What are we to expect, though, as “free trade” agreements such as NAFTA have stripped manufacturing from our shores.

Our economy is becoming more and more based on service type jobs. 70% of our economy is now based on consumer spending, which means that when the economy is up and people are spending there is job growth, but when another recession occurs, those same jobs will quickly vanish.

We continue to be sold the lie that American workers cannot compete with manufacturing in the rest of the world. These uncompetitive conditions were not always the norm though. This is the result of “free trade” agreements which have stripped American jobs from our shores.

Since December of 2007 alone, we have lost 1.7 million manufacturing jobs, and there are still 1.3 million fewer total jobs. This is a direct result of our massive trade deficits due to “free trade” agreements. In that same time period we have had a trade deficit of over $360 billion with Mexico alone.

We must act now to regain our economic strength in the world. We must reestablish favorable trade policies that will help us compete in the world, by rewriting or getting out of “free trade” agreements such as NAFTA, and establishing tariffs and other protections to keep our manufacturing base strong.

[Ryan Ruck]

Went shopping yesterday. One of my stops was Sam's Club. Picked up a 2 pack of the Angus steaks I typically get. When I use one of the steaks I make it a habit to pick up a new 2 pack so I'm gradually adding to the stock in my freezer.

I went shopping around this time last month (actually about 3 weeks ago) and bought one then. Price then was $3.98 per pound.

Yesterday, $4.78 per pound! A whopping $0.80 per pound increase in just under a month.

I think this may be a result of the sudden freeze that killed off many cattle earlier in the winter.

Interestingly, the 90/10 ground beef I normally get was still $3.88 per pound as it has been for a while.

[Toad]

Another Banker takes a swan dive.

http://business.financialpost.com/20...ide-hong-kong/

33-year-old banker leaps to his death from JPMorgan’s Hong Kong headquarters, latest in string of apparent suicides

National Post Wire Services | February 18, 2014 9:53 AM ET

A 33-year-old man jumped to his death from the skyscraper roof of U.S. investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co’s Asia headquarters on Tuesday, police said.

JP Morgan has confirmed that the man who jumped was an employee at the firm with the last name Li. He was a junior investment banker.

Li was certified dead in hospital after the fall at around 2 p.m., a police spokeswoman told Reuters. Police did not yet know the circumstances surrounding his death.

Horrified finance workers in neighbouring offices circulated pictures via social media of him standing above the company logo emblazoned on top of the Chater House building in central Hong Kong.

“A sad and tragic incident occurred in Chater House, Hong Kong, today, which is currently being investigated by the police. Out of respect for those involved, we cannot yet comment further,” JPMorgan Chase & Co said in a statement.

Witnesses say that police tried to stop Li from jumping from the 30 story building, 10 floors of which are used by JP Morgan, around 2:00 or 3:00 pm, but to no avail.

[American Patriot]

Six now?

[vector7]

Somethings afoot.

[vector7]

Soros doubles a bearish bet on the S&P 500, to the tune of $1.3 billion

February 17, 2014, 7:23 AM

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Bloomberg George Soros

Soros Fund Management has doubled up a bet that the S&P 500 SPX is headed for a fall.

Within Friday’s 13F filings news was the revelation that the firm, founded by legendary investor George Soros, increased a put position on the S&P 500 ETF SPY by a whopping 154% in the fourth quarter, compared with the third. (A put or short position basically gives the owner the right to sell a security at a set price for a limited time, and in making such a bet, an investor generally believes the security is going to decline.)

The value of that holding, the biggest position in the fund, has risen to $1.3 billion from around $470 million. It now makes up a 11.13% chunk of all reported holdings. It had been cut to 5.14% in the third quarter, from 13.54% in the second quarter, which itself marked another dramatic lift on the bearish call. The numbers can be found at Whalewisdom.com, which makes them slightly easier to digest than the actual SEC filing.

Writing on the Bullion Baron blog, Joseph has been quick to alert readers to the hedge fund’s bets on the S&P 500, offering up a summary of changes to that call from mid-2011 onward. For the four quarters of 2013, that short has followed a pattern of big highs and big lows.

Bullionbaron.com

Of course, Joseph said, the bearish S&P call could be a hedge and, as it’s six weeks into the next reporting period, it may have already been reduced or increased. But he said it could also be indicative of jitters: In January, Soros highlighted risks coming out of China and drew a comparison with the lead-up to the crash of 2008.

“It’s possible that the SPY puts are just a hedge, weighed against other long positions he holds in specific stocks.

However, the views he expressed in this article lead me to believe he thinks another crisis is brewing (led by China on this occasion) and the SPY put position could be an attempt profit from it,” says Joseph.

The second- and third-biggest positions in the 13F were a fresh put on the Energy Select Sector SPDR fund and a big jump in holds of Israeli pharmaceutical maker Teva TEVA . Read about more changes in Soros’s quarterly holdings here.

Soros and his hedge fund aren’t alone if they’re feeling unease at the bull run for markets. It’s been roughly 28 months since a substantial correction for the S&P 500, which is down 0.5% for the year after having endured a pullback earlier this month, triggered in part by jitters over emerging markets. Strategists have been debating about when and how the correction is going to happen.

As for whether investors should ape the 13F followings of others, MarketWatch’s Bill Watts pointed out last week that the 45-day lag in the holdings is particularly tricky when it comes to calls like a huge bearish bet on the S&P 500. And he found that while hedge funds outperform on the upside, they do far worse on the downside.

It was Soros himself who famously once said: “I rely a great deal on animal instincts.” And as we all know, George’s made some big, crazy, winning bets in the past.

– Barbara Kollmeyer writes for MarketWatch. Follow her @bkollmeyer.

[American Patriot]

Soros????


That slime is trying to bring it all down?

[Ryan Ruck]

Went shopping yesterday. One of my stops was Sam's Club. Picked up a 2 pack of the Angus steaks I typically get. When I use one of the steaks I make it a habit to pick up a new 2 pack so I'm gradually adding to the stock in my freezer.

I went shopping around this time last month (actually about 3 weeks ago) and bought one then. Price then was $3.98 per pound.

Yesterday, $4.78 per pound! A whopping $0.80 per pound increase in just under a month.

I think this may be a result of the sudden freeze that killed off many cattle earlier in the winter.

Interestingly, the 90/10 ground beef I normally get was still $3.88 per pound as it has been for a while.

Yeah... Remember that astounding $.80 increase in beef I posted about last month?

Picked up some more this evening. Guess what?

$5.48/pound



An increase of $1.50/pound since the start of the year.

Also, Sam's has started reducing the overall weight of the meat to keep the price of each tray under $30 like it was at $3.98.

Makes one want to switch to a more "free range" option, even if it is out of season and without permit...

[Malsua]

What galls me is that my local store charges $12-$15 per LB for fricking skirt steak! Most parts of the country grind it up into hamburger! When I was in Ohio Last year, I couldn't find skirt steak at ANY of the stores, and I asked. They looked at me as if I were asking for beef assholes and scrotums! "Ew, who eats that???" Anyone who hasn't eaten skirt steak doesn't know what they're missing. It's frickin awesome.

[American Patriot]

we get it all the time. Usually it becomes something like burritos, tacos or just chili meat.

[American Patriot]

Gas is going up quickly around here. It was almost 4 bucks a gallon a couple of days ago.

[Ryan Ruck]

What galls me is that my local store charges $12-$15 per LB for fricking skirt steak!

They looked at me as if I were asking for beef assholes and scrotums! "Ew, who eats that???" Anyone who hasn't eaten skirt steak doesn't know what they're missing. It's frickin awesome.

Waste not, want not. I've eaten cow heart sautéed with onions. Not frequently mind you but, it was available for free and going to be thrown out.

[American Patriot]

If nothing else, you can feed things like hearts to the dogs.

I'm not keen on eating hearts, livers, kidneys and other organs.... though occasionally liver tastes good.

Of course, you're making me hungry now.

[Ryan Ruck]

It was surprisingly good actually. Very lean so you got all meat flavor.

[Malsua]

The only time I ate beef heart, it was like eating a giant flap of overcooked calamari. It was rubbery and tasted like shit. I ate, well, let me clarify, chewed for like 5 minutes, a piece of this shit and that was the end of that.

[American Patriot]

I've had chicken hearts. They are tough. I don't like "tough meat" like that.

I have never tried anything like "kidney pie" since when I was a kid and saw the kidneys in a large pan after granny washed them.... I was pretty, umm, grossed out at the time by it, and actually got a little ill.

I'm not keen on cleaning and gutting critters for that matter, though I know I have to do it. Fish don't bother me much, but more advanced creatures bug me.

There's something about eating "organ meat" that bugs me too. Not sure why.

[Ryan Ruck]

Well, here's my suspicions in print...

The Real Inflation Fear - US Food Prices Are Up 19% In 2014

March 26, 2014

We are sure the weather is to blame but what happens when pent-up demand (from a frosty east coast emerging from its hibernation) bumps up against a drought-stricken west coast unable to plant to meet that demand? The spot price (not futures speculation-driven) of US Foodstuffs is the best performing asset in 2014 - up a staggering 19%...