Archive for July, 2008

If you’re headed to the Beijing Olympic Games and you were planning to eat a nice big plate of Egg Foo Dog or had your heart set on some Dog Sum, you are going to be disappointed. Along with those dishes, Sweet and Sour Dog, Moo Shoo Dog, and Egg Dog Soup will not be offered either. You see, the Chinese government is taking dog off the menu during the Olympic games.

Beijing’s 112 officially designated Olympic restaurants have been banned from selling dog meat during the Olympics, the city’s food safety administration has said.

Non-designated restaurants (especially those serving Korean, Yunnan and Guizhou cuisine) have also been encouraged not to serve the meat, a notice drawn up earlier by the administration said.

All meat transported into Beijing during the Olympics will be checked to prevent violations, the notice said.

“Dog meat sales are being suspended as a mark of respect for foreigners and people from ethnic groups,” an anonymous official with the administration was quoted as saying by Beijing Daily on Friday.

They are not pulling dog from the menu because some people might find it gross to find Lassie chopped up in little pieces on their plate, they are pulling it because they don’t want to offend people from different “ethnic groups”. Wow.

When you visit a foreign country, isn’t it customary to experience their culture “as is”, without the need for any policing of the culture you see while you are there? Seriously… If you are going to be offended that the Chinese eat dog in some of their dishes, then you need to stay the hell home. That is, until being offended is added as one of the official Olympic sports. The way people are acting lately, it should already be one.

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It seems economists are having a hard time agreeing on what should be done to help the ailing economy.

Economists are deeply divided over whether the U.S. Federal Reserve should focus more on fostering growth or keeping inflation in check, The Wall Street Journal said citing its forecasting survey.

Of 53 economists polled, 22 said the U.S. central bank should be more concerned about economic weakness than inflation, while 21 said inflation should be the greater concern, the paper said.

The rest said the risks were balanced or declined to answer.

Ten of the economists weren’t sure how to answer. Some of them took the easy road and said things were balanced. Ha! Yeah, sure they are. What bothers me though are the economists who declined to answer. Why would they decline to answer? Are things so bad they don’t want their names associated with the article, or are things getting better and they don’t want to cast gloom on the occasion?

I want to be an economist. You see, I can predict things just as well as they can. Here goes.

#1. The housing market will continue to slide for a while.
#2. Oil will continue to rise for a while.
#3. The Federal Reserve will keep rates steady for a while.
#4. And then cut them for a while.
#5. The media will continue to report that we are in a recession, although we haven’t even had one quarter of negative growth and two are needed in order to define it as a recession, at least for a while.

and last but not least,

#6. I am going to go sit on the couch and relax for a while.

I bet I hit 6 out of 6 on this one. What do I win?

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Now ain’t that a coincidence. Freddie Mac shares are down 75% for the year. Aren’t 75% of the sub-prime mortgages in foreclosure as well? Wow.

US mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are facing growing pressure as fears intensify about a potential calamity at the firms, which underpin trillions of dollars in home loans.

On Thursday, Freddie Mac shares plunged 22 percent to eight dollars, and are down over 40 percent this week and 75 percent this year.

Word has it that the current administration has held talks about what to do if the two firms falter. Umm… What can they do? There is $1.5 trillion dollars tied up in Freddie Mac and $700 billion in Fannie Mae. How can he fix that? By signing another stimulus package into law? Crazy.

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When I saw the headline, “Pending home sales tumble in May“, I couldn’t help but click the link. I guess I am a compulsive clicker.

Pending sales of previously owned U.S. homes plummeted by 4.7 percent in May, far more than expected and a sign of more trouble ahead for the beleaguered housing market, a real estate trade group report showed on Tuesday.

How can this be a sign of “more trouble ahead” when we haven’t even hit bottom yet from the first trouble? That’s like worrying about a small boulder that happens to be in the path as your car plummets off a 1000ft cliff.

In other words, are you really worried about hitting that boulder? Take a moment to see what’s coming when you hit bottom.

I saw this story tonight, and I honestly don’t know how this will work out for the viewer. Are they going to keep the focus of the network on reporting the weather, or will we be seeing runs of Twister and The Perfect Storm from time to time?

NBC Universal and private equity firms Bain Capital and Blackstone Group said on Sunday they agreed to buy The Weather Channel from Landmark Communications.

Terms of the widely expected deal were not disclosed, but sources familiar with the transaction said the price tag was just under $3.5 billion.

I just hope they don’t lose their focus, because I’m not sure a Law Order: Special Weather Unit would work either.

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Another automaker may be locating nearby.

The U.S. State of Alabama will be the likely home of a new Volkswagen manufacturing plant, beating two other states, German industry newsletter Automobilwoche said on Saturday, citing senior company sources.

This is only good news if they are planning to manufactur the new volkswagen bus, also known as the Kombi at that location. If not, I could care less.

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I knew it was just a matter of time before we started hearing about the possibility of automaker bankruptcies. Just last night when we went to the store, we passed a Chevy dealer’s lot and something looked “off”.

They had re-positioned all the cars and trucks to make the lot look “fuller” when in fact there were not nearly as many vehicles on the lot as the day before. Are they cutting back or what?

General Motors Corp will need to raise as much as $15 billion in cash to shore up liquidity and bankruptcy is “not impossible” if the U.S. auto market continues to slump, Merrill Lynch said.

At this point in time, I think we are going to see a lot more bankruptcies. Personal as well as business. People can only take so much, and the businesses that rely on a better than average economy will begin to fail.

Of course, this has all come to happen without a recession (no matter what Buffet or Greenspan say). The economy has not had two consecutive periods of negative growth, so technically we are not in a recession. I just wish people would understand that.

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It’s good to see more and more states stepping up and holding the executives at Countrywide accountable for their actions.

Florida sued mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp (CFC.N) on Monday for predatory lending practices, alleging the company at the center of the U.S. mortgage crisis made subprime loans to people who could not repay them.

…

The state alleged the company gave subprime loans to borrowers who could not repay them, loaned money at higher subprime rates to people who qualified for prime rate loans and engaged in other deceptive marketing and unfair trade practices, contrary to claims in its 10-K filings.

It will come as no surprise to me if all of the allegations are true. I know of a few people personally, including family, who were deceived by the predatory lending practices of Countrywide and I for one will be happy if some of those people in charge end up doing time for their crimes.

Cross posted at Slobokan’s Site O’ Schtuff.

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