Wall Street and Washington
President Obama reached a compromise with congressional Republicans to extend tax cuts, at all levels, saying that “Because of this agreement, middle-class Americans won’t see their taxes go up on Jan. 1. It’s a good deal for the American people.” The president conceded that Republicans wouldn’t budge on the upper-income tax breaks that he sought to end and “A long political fight that carried over into next year might have been good politics but it would be a bad deal for the economy.”
Democrats were in an uproar. How could the president cave on extending current tax rates to those couples earning more than $250,000?! How could Obama cave on the estate tax, whose rate will now be ‘only’ 35% on estates over $5 million ($10 million for couples) when it was supposed to go back to 55% for anything over $1 million?!
Obama chose a news conference on Tuesday to mock liberals for their “sanctimonious” opposition, but didn’t spare Republicans, saying, “I felt that the middle-class tax cuts were being held hostage to the high-end tax cuts. I think it’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage-takers, unless the hostage gets harmed. Then people will question the wisdom of that strategy. In this case, the hostage was the American people, and I was not willing to see them get harmed.”
Gee, thanks, Mr. President, I think. A Gallup poll published on Wednesday found that 2/3s of Americans favored extending the tax cuts for all, and was also for another goodie, extending unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed for another 13 months. Democrats couldn’t argue against this last bit.
But then the tax agreement (and I need to emphasize that some facets could change before it goes to a vote in both chambers early next week), in the biggest immediate stimulus, cuts the payroll tax by 2% through 2011, which will cost $120 billion but for someone earning $40,000 means an extra $800 in their pocket, which most experts believe will go straight into the economy (as will unemployment benefits). The payroll tax cut is in essence a 2% pay raise. It’s huge, plus, while it is set to expire at the end of 2011, guess what? The following year is 2012 and who will be running for president? Barack Obama. Do you think he’ll then want to take this big benefit away from the electorate?
And so with this last item you see how the whole package when taken in total will add at least $800 billion to our deficit (figures are all over the board but $800 billion+ is conservative) and as I go to post all manner of other goodies are being added, including extensions of business tax credits, as well as extending various clean-energy incentives, including a hefty credit for ethanol production.
“Barack Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 – and House Democrats don’t have a clue that he did. In the deal struck this week, the president negotiated the biggest stimulus in American history, larger than his $814 billion 2009 stimulus package. It will pump a trillion borrowed Chinese dollars into the U.S. economy over the next two years – which just happen to be the two years of the run-up to the next presidential election. This is a defeat?
“If Obama had asked for a second stimulus directly, he would have been laughed out of town. Stimulus I was so reviled that the Democrats banished the word from their lexicon throughout the 2010 campaign. And yet, despite a very weak post-election hand, Obama got the Republicans to offer to increase spending and cut taxes by $990 billion over two years. Two-thirds of that is above and beyond extension of the Bush tax cuts but includes such urgent national necessities as windmill subsidies.
“No mean achievement. After all, these are the same Republicans who spent 2010 running on limited government and reducing debt. And this budget busting occurs less than a week after the president’s deficit commission had supposedly signaled a new national consensus of austerity and frugality….
“Obama is no fool. While getting Republicans to boost his own reelection chances, he gets them to make a mockery of their newfound, second-chance, post-Bush, Tea-Party, this-time-we’re-serious persona of debt-averse fiscal responsibility.
“And he gets all this in return for what? For a mere two-year postponement of a mere 4.6-point increase in marginal tax rates for upper incomes. And an estate tax rate of 35 percent – it jumps insanely from zero to 55 percent on Jan. 1 – that is somewhat lower than what the Democrats wanted.”
Bottom line, as Krauthammer writes, Obama pulled off the swindle of the year.
Meanwhile, go ahead and give the 2012 election to the guy. As I look at it from a market and economic standpoint, yes, as PIMCO’s Mohamed El-Erian said in hiking his firm’s growth forecast for 2011 to 3.0-3.5 percent, between what Congress is going to do and the Federal Reserve’s ongoing quantitative easing, the economy should be doing just fine. I haven’t established my own forecasts yet, but it seems pretty clear to me there will be enough momentum heading into 2012, at which point the unemployment rate will finally be coming down and sentiment will be turning back in favor of Obama.
It was going to be this way regardless of the amount of stimulus thrown out there. It’s just the way this recovery was going to play out. Remember when I mentioned how on my trip to Australia and the South Pacific I talked of a man sitting next to me on one of the flights who asked how we got out of our mess? I said, “Time.” Time was going to be the answer all along, but now the timetable has been sped up.
OK…consider the above part I. Many of you are probably wondering, hey, where is the gloomy editor? Fret not, dear readers.
The deficit, as you can see, is going to soar even further thanks to the new package, especially because some items such as the payroll tax cut are going to be awful hard to take away in the future. The bond market, totally ignoring the Fed’s quantitative easing part deux and its $600 billion bond-buying program took interest rates for a ride this week, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury climbing above my target of 3.25% that I felt was the ‘line of concern,’ so to speak. Yes, still historically low, no doubt, but the rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage hit 4.61% and will be close to 5.00% when this week’s bond debacle is factored in for the next calculation, so rates aren’t a help for real estate, and so much for another round of refinancings. I mean look at the trend. The 10-year hit a low yield of 2.33% in October and is 100 basis points higher already.
It’s about an economy that might finally grow at a respectable clip, with possible inflation pressures, plus concerns over the deficit, the financing of same (even though the 30-year auction this week went well), and the stimulus just adding to future funding needs. Late Friday, the government also announced that the budget deficit for November was $150.4 billion owing to the timing of payments for programs like Medicare and Social Security, another harbinger of red ink to come. Receipts did climb 12% in November, though, which is a good thing.
Last week I wrote that with the deficit commission’s plan having been released, and with 11 of 18 on the bipartisan panel voting for it, there was hope a consensus could form early next year to take some real steps to tackle this humongous issue. I still believe that can be the case, but some of the actions in Stimulus II will make any solutions that much harder; unless you tell me solid growth indeed extends into 2012 and well beyond, at which point growing revenues would put a dent in the deficit, assuming Congress didn’t just turn around and spend it all.
But all of the above talk still comes down to two essential items…jobs and housing. If the economy grows at 3-3.5 percent next year as everyone is suddenly rushing to forecast, the job picture will improve, albeit slightly. But real estate is a different matter. Some now say we have entered a double-dip in housing, which is intellectually dishonest until we take out the spring 2009 lows in existing median home prices, but maybe that happens in the next few months.
Just as importantly, however, is the fact that the percentage of homeowners with mortgages that are underwater (negative equity) is up to 23.2 percent, according to Zillow Inc, up from 21.8 percent at the end of 2009. This obviously spells more foreclosures and so the picture for 2011 does not look good.
Also, if economist Nouriel Roubini is right, the ongoing problems in real estate mean the financial industry faces another $1 trillion in losses.
Yes, there are so many cross-currents these days. And it’s not as if the European debt crisis has been resolved. In fact this week Euro leaders got together and couldn’t agree on anything. Some are calling for a larger bailout fund than what has already been established, others say there is no need for an additional $100 to $200 billion (which would require the politicians asking their electorates for more). German Chancellor Angela Merkel is one who has ruled out both further funds as well as a proposal for the creation of a Europe-wide bond. So for now finance ministers are counting on European Central Bank bond purchases to calm debt-spooked markets.
What we saw instead this week, as Ireland’s parliament voted 82-77 to accept the draconian austerity plan that allows the country to access the bailout fund, was protests spreading in the U.K., Greece and Spain. In the case of the first two, anarchists are taking advantage of issues such as tuition hikes to wreak havoc, and this is most disconcerting because the level of violence can be ratcheted up in a heartbeat when it comes to these POS.
At least Spain’s Prime Minister Zapatero may have had his Ronald Reagan/PATCO moment when Spain’s air traffic controllers staged a wildcat strike, shutting down the system and stranding hundreds of thousands on a holiday weekend.
Get this. Whereas the average U.S. air traffic controller earns $110,000, in Spain the average is $265,000.
But wait…there’s more! The controllers struck because the government was eliminating overtime rules that allowed these same guys to earn as much as $465,000!
So the Spanish people were furious that in this time of austerity these a-holes were being so incredibly greedy and Zapatero, seizing the moment, has threatened to put offenders in jail, and for a long time.
Nonetheless, the pictures out of Europe this week weren’t good and Greece faces a nationwide strike on Dec. 15, while further protests in the U.K. are planned for Monday. [Nice job protecting the Prince of Wales and Camilla, by the way.] It’s all about dealing with severe financial stress, caused by massive debts.
“People who wonder what America’s budget problem is ultimately about should look to Europe. In the streets of Dublin, Athens and London, angry citizens are protesting government plans to cut programs and raise taxes. The social contract is being broken. People are furious; they feel betrayed.
“Modern democracies have created a new morality. Government benefits, once conferred, cannot be revoked. People expect them and consider them property rights. Just as government cannot randomly confiscate property, it cannot withdraw benefits without violating a moral code. The old-fashioned idea that government’s policies should serve the ‘national interest’ has given way to inertia and squatters’ rights….
“We need a new public philosophy that acknowledges these realities. Perhaps Bowles-Simpson will start the needed conversation. Government will be big, offending conservatives. But it also should be limited, offending liberals. The social contract will be rewritten either by design or, as in Europe, under outside pressures. If we keep the expedient morality of perpetual programs – so that nothing fundamental can ever be abandoned – then Europe’s social unrest could be a prelude to our own.”
On to China. At week’s end the government reported another string of strong numbers. Imports in November rose 37.7%. Exports surged 34.9%. Estimates of growth for 2011 range from the World Bank’s 8.7% to 9.6% from the IMF to 10.0% from a leading Chinese think tank.
But China faces an inflation issue*, which I’m on record as saying is close to peaking, but nonetheless is a major government concern. A report in the China Daily also talked of real estate being overvalued by 30 to 50 percent in 11 of 35 major cities. [Ironically, the biggest offender is Fuzhou city in Fujian province, where my big investment is. The new plant is outside Fuzhou but the initial facility was next to the city proper.] I do not believe China’s property bubble is going to lead to a collapse and economic turmoil. Prices will come down, but I’ve taken the stand that chaos will be averted.
On inflation, though, Morgan Stanley Asia’s Stephen Roach said this week, “The longer government policy makers wait to address inflation, the tougher it will be to deal with. My advice is move quickly and aggressively to deal with inflation, so that you can get on with the most important transition in China, which is stimulating internal private consumption.”
*Friday night, China announced consumer prices for Nov. rose at a 5.1% clip, the fastest in 28 months. An interest rate hike to slow the economy seems certain. Industrial output accelerated to 13.3% in November as well and retail sales gained 18.7%.
But on the issue of a rising China and its recent ornery behavior, from an editorial in The Economist:
“The best way to turn China into an opponent is to treat it as one. The danger is that spats and rows will sour relations between China and America, just as the friendship between Germany and Britain crumbled in the decades before the first world war. It is already happening in defense. Feeling threatened by American naval power, China has been modernizing its missiles, submarines, radar, cyber-warfare and anti-satellite weapons. Now America feels on its mettle. Recent Pentagon assessments of China’s military strength warn of the threat to Taiwan and American bases and to aircraft-carriers near the Chinese coast. The U.S. Navy has begun to deploy more forces in the Pacific. Feeling threatened anew, China may respond. Even if neither America nor China intended harm – if they wanted only to ensure their own security – each could nevertheless see the other as a growing threat.
“Some would say the solution is for America to turn its back on military rivalry. But a weaker America would lead to chronic insecurity in East Asia and thus threaten the peaceful conduct of trade and commerce on which America’s prosperity depends. America therefore needs to be strong enough to guarantee the seas and protect Taiwan from Chinese attack.”
“Then there is America’s military power. Armies win wars, but in an age when the theater of conflict is global, navies and air forces are more accurate registers of national might. (Any attack on Iran, for example, would be a sea and air campaign.) The U.S. Navy has gone from nearly 600 warships in the Reagan era to fewer than 300 today, while the navies of China and India grow apace. Such trends will accelerate with the defense cuts that are surely coming in order to rescue America from its fiscal crisis. The United States still dominates the seas and the air and will do so for years ahead, but the distance between it and other nations is narrowing….
“One standard narrative is that as we recede, China will step up as part of a benign post-American world. But this presupposes that all imperial powers are the same, even when history clearly demonstrates that they are not. Nor does one empire sequentially fill the gap left by another.
“While the Soviet Union and the United States were both missionary powers motivated by ideals – communism and liberal democracy – through which they might order the world, China has no such grand conception. It is driven abroad by the hunger for natural resources (hydrocarbons, minerals and metals) that it requires to raise hundreds of millions of its citizens into the middle class.
“This could abet the development of a trading system between the Indian Ocean, Africa and Central Asia that might maintain peace with minimal American involvement. But who is to fill the moral void? Does China really care if Tehran develops nuclear weapons, so long as it has access to Iran’s natural gas? And Beijing may not be entirely comfortable with the North Korean regime, which keeps its population in a state of freeze-frame semi-starvation, but China props it up nevertheless.
“It can be argued that with power comes moral responsibility, but it will probably be decades before China has the kind of navy and air force that would lead it to become an authentic partner in an international security system. For the moment, Beijing gets a free ride off the protection of the world’s sea lanes that the U.S. Navy helps provide, and watches us struggle to stabilize Afghanistan and Pakistan so that China can one day extract their natural resources….
“The American empire has always been more structural than spiritual. Its network of alliances certainly resembles those of empires past, and the challenges facing its troops abroad are comparable to those of imperial forces of yore, though the American public, especially after the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, is in no mood for any more of the land-centric adventures that have been the stuff of imperialism since antiquity.
“Americans rightly lack an imperial mentality. But lessening our engagement with the world would have devastating consequences for humanity. The disruptions we witness today are but a taste of what is to come should our country flinch from its international responsibilities.”
Street Bytes
–Stocks finished higher with the Dow Jones up just 0.2% to 11410 but the S&P 500 rose 1.3% and Nasdaq advanced another 1.8%. The tax cut compromise helped, as did a return of some animal spirits…out of bonds and into stocks. On Friday, General Electric and Honeywell also raised their dividends, a sign of confidence the worst is behind us.
Bonds were hammered for the above noted reasons. For his part, in an interview with 60 Minutes, Ben Bernanke said the “fear of inflation is way overstated.” If you’re talking only the government’s official data, I can’t disagree. I’ve said countless times don’t bother me on inflation until wages go up (and/or capacity utilization). But if you’re talking rising commodity and fuel prices, as well as still soaring healthcare costs, that’s a debate of a different sort. You have to separate the two.
–Bloomberg Businessweek’s Rich Miller had this as part of a piece on the relationship between Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke.
“ ‘Two of Tim’s favorite aphorisms bear repeating,’ says Bernanke. ‘Life’s about alternatives’ and ‘A plan beats no plan.’ To me, these two aphorisms pretty well sum up what we know about, respectively, economics and political science.’ There may be new adages to come. Bernanke and Geithner ‘were very successful in avoiding a depression,’ says Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive officer of PIMCO. ‘Now they have to be equally successful in avoiding a lost decade.’”
–According to a Bloomberg National Poll, more than half of those surveyed said the Fed’s Nov. 3 announcement that it would buy bonds in an attempt to bring down unemployment and prevent deflation (quantitative easing II) won’t help the economy. 39% said the Fed should be held more accountable, 16% said it should be abolished, while 37% favor the status quo. A poll two months earlier had only 8% believing the Fed should be abolished.
In Ireland, the ruling (for now) Fianna Fail party has a 13% approval rating, Prime Minister Cowen 8%. 1,400 companies have gone bankrupt the first 11 months of 2010. And the taxpayers can’t get over the fact that through the austerity plan, they take a severe hit to protect the banks, which is really bailing out the Euro banks who lent to Ireland.
Germany accounts for 30% of Euro GDP and despite all the happy talk, the German economy’s growth rate will slide considerably from 2010’s projected 3.6% clip. German exports in October fell as a result of austerity measures taken in the region.
The unemployment rate in Australia fell in November from 5.4% to 5.2%.
Japan revised GDP up from the third quarter to 4.5% on an annualized basis, but no one expects this pace to continue.
India’s industrial production rose a super 10.8% in October, far better than expected, but inflation is a big issue here. I also saw this fascinating tidbit in a Bloomberg story that the average turnaround time for ships unloading and loading cargo at India’s major ports is almost four days, compared with 10 hours in Hong Kong. Ergo, there is lots of room for improvement and it’s one reason why India remains an “emerging” nation, not a “developed” one.
–Insurance conglomerate AIG said it will pay off a loan from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that will clear the way for the Treasury to sell off the government’s stake, which will temporarily rise from 80% to 92% until such time as the government then dumps the shares.
–Another bailout beneficiary, Citigroup, received $45 billion in taxpayer support late in 2008 but the Treasury announced this week it had sold its remaining holdings in Citi common stock, with the government realizing $57 billion, or a $12 billion profit.
–Owing to the stock market rally, household wealth in the U.S. rose by $1.2 trillion in the third quarter ($10,400 per average household), a 9.1% annualized pace to $54.9 trillion after dropping at a 9.9% clip the previous three months. American families also cut debt for a 10th consecutive quarter. This is good. [Prior to the recession, Americans had $66 trillion in net worth.]
–But, in a survey by Wells Fargo & Co., middle-class Americans think they need $300,000 to fund their retirement, but have saved just $20,000 on average. Respondents aged 50 to 59 have saved an average of only $29,000 for retirement.
–Ford is hiring 1,800 workers and spending $600 million to overhaul a factory in Louisville, Kentucky, to build small SUVs, specifically a version of the Escape compact utility vehicle.
–Last weekend, Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler suddenly announced he was leaving due to fatigue after just 4 ½ years at the helm of the world’s largest drug maker by sales. Ian Read was named to replace Kindler. But the board is facing criticism because external candidates apparently weren’t given consideration. Said one investor, “Pfizer’s board of directors has been largely composed of the same value destroyers for more than a decade.” Pfizer stock was $26 when Kindler took over and closed the week around $17.
–Imagine how furious folks in Ireland are after learning that executives at bailed out Allied Irish Bank, which taxpayers have kicked in $5 billion thus far, will nonetheless share in over $50 billion in bonuses; this as taxpayers are seeing their own incomes slashed. Shareholders can’t be happy either as the stock has fallen from over $30 to about a $1 in the past two years or so. The bonuses are actually for work done in 2008 and a large number of AIB staff took legal action seeking the payments that were part of contracts signed before the crash.
–Speaking of bankers and bonuses, Morgan Stanley has apparently told executives to budget 10% to 25% less this year for traders, back-office staff and others, though better performers in equity capital markets and investment banking could still see top dollar.
–The Wall Street Journal had an editorial concerning farmland prices; as in the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago reported in November that farmland values across the upper Midwest have jumped 10% since 2009. 13% in Iowa. Some parts of Iowa are seeing bidding wars taking property values to twice what they were just 12 months earlier.
Of course a major reason for this is the rally in crop prices. John Deere & Co. recently forecast that net farm cash income will climb 31% this year – the most profitable agricultural year in history – and then jump another 15% in 2011. I’m kind of anxious to get back out to Iowa next summer and compare notes with my impressions back in 2007 after interviewing a number of folks at the State Fair.
But, as the Journal points out, while some of the largesse can be explained away by rising global demand for U.S. farm products, the fall in the dollar has had just as big an impact. “Farmland booms have typically coincided with periods of Fed easing, such as the 1970s and the late 1980s. It’s no accident in our view that the latest commodity price surge began this summer when the Fed’s talk about another round of quantitative easing began in earnest.”
So is it yet another bubble? “The mid-2000s witnessed a similar euphoria over U.S. housing, with the Fed also declaiming that the boom was rooted in a natural growth in demand from immigration and younger families. We know how that turned out.”
–But a report by an investment banker to many of the world’s biggest food companies, Radobank, predicts China’s demand for imported corn “will soar to about 25 million metric tons annually, or roughly one billion bushels, by 2015, from this year’s 1.3 million metric tons, or about 51 million bushels.” [Wall Street Journal] That’s staggering, and perhaps a bit off base. The USDA, for example, sees China importing about 75 million bushels of corn in 2015. But regardless of who’s right, U.S. farmers stand to benefit.
–According to a Transparency International poll, 56% believe their country has become more corrupt. People from Afghanistan, Nigeria, Iraq and India were among those who perceived the highest levels of corruption in their daily lives. Cambodia (84%) and Liberia (89%) were the most likely to have to pay a bribe, the Danish reported 0% bribery. In EU countries and North America, bribe taking was 5%, although these were the two regions seeing the biggest increase in concern about corruption.
–The International Energy Agency raised its forecast for global oil demand this year and next. Demand should hit 88.8 million barrels a day in 2011, vs. a revised 87.4 million this year.
–Scary story concerning the Federal Aviation Administration, which “is missing key information on who owns one-third of the 357,000 private and commercial aircraft in the U.S. – a gap the agency fears could be exploited by terrorists and drug traffickers.
“The records are in such disarray that the FAA says it is worried that criminals could buy planes without the government’s knowledge, or use the registration numbers of other aircraft to evade new computer systems designed to track suspicious flights. It has ordered all aircraft owners to re-register their planes in an effort to clean up its files.” [Chris Hawley / AP]
–The court-appointed trustee of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, Irving Picard, trained his guns on HSBC and the New York Mets owners this week, suing both, after doing the same with JPMorgan Chase and UBS the prior one. [Mets ownership allegedly made money in one of its partnerships which the court can go after to redistribute to the losers.] Separately, 97-year-old Carl Shapiro agreed to forfeit $625 million to Picard as the philanthropist was one of the first investors in Madoff’s scheme and a longtime Madoff friend.
And then late Friday, Mr. Picard trained his guns on Sonja Kohn of defunct Bank Medici, suing her plus Bank Austria and UniCredit a whopping $19.6 billion for facilitating the scam, Ms. Kohn being Madoff’s soul mate.
–Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has signed onto the “Giving Pledge” that asks its signatories to commit publicly to give away most of their wealth. More than 50 billionaires have now signed on, joining the likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. I will gladly sign on to this as well if given the opportunity. [I’d keep $100 million or so for premium and fine dinners.]
–Netflix has been in the news a lot lately as its stock has surged, and then fallen; but the bottom line is the DVD-delivery service now accounts for 20% of all Internet traffic during the typical American evening, as noted in a piece by Peter Burrows of Bloomberg Businessweek. The problem is that as Internet traffic triples by 2014, according to Cisco Systems, more than 90% of it could be video, which will require massive amounts of investment by the carriers such as AT&T and Comcast. Some say the carriers just can’t afford it given the level of revenues. Which means one thing; either the Net crashes or you and I will be paying a lot more to use it.
–Consumer Reports rates AT&T as being the worst cellphone service provider. The top scorer was U.S. Cellular. AT&T struggled in all 10 customer satisfaction categories. Consumer Reports is also declining to recommend the iPhone to readers, citing lingering problems with reception, plus Apple’s decision in September to cancel its giveaway of free cases to address a signal strength issue.
–McDonald’s reported same-store sales up 4.8% in November, helped by the reintroduction of the limited-time McRib sandwich.
–International tourists accounted for 17% of all admissions to Broadway shows in New York for the 2009-2010 season, vs. 21% the previous one. Fewer overall tickets were sold this year, 11.89 million vs. 12.15 million in ’08-’09. 66.3% of the audience was female, the highest ever. [Crain’s New York Business]
–My portfolio: I had dinner in New York with the COO and CFO of my China holding and for those of you playing along at home, there is nothing to report other than they are still on track for a very solid Q4 and the future looks good. Unfortunately, because the next report is the annual one, it won’t be issued until March and there don’t appear to be any real catalysts to take the stock to the next level (and get the company listed on an exchange) beforehand. [We did have a very interesting discussion on North Korea. I think the North would obliterate the South. My friends disagree and believe Kim Jong-Un is a closet reformer, to which I said that’s all well and good but he’s going to get plugged in the back of the head before he has a chance to prove this.]
Separately, my uranium stock took a header on web blog concerns management is a little shady. The Internet has been a killer for many a small company as the ‘shorts’ run around for targets and then spread all manner of information to discredit the outfit, much of it untrue. Nonetheless, at least for this week I was glad I had already sold 2/3s of it.
[Speaking of uranium, a Russian state-owned company is set to control up to half of U.S. output by the middle of the decade as American authorities gave approval for a partial takeover of Uranium One of Canada by ARMZ. Uranium One owns mines in Wyoming. U.S. nuclear energy plans are non-existent in yet another sign of our declining leadership around the world. In so many ways we really do suck these days.]
–Shares in Sirius XM Radio got a boost on Thursday with the announcement that talk-show host Howard Stern is returning for five more years. “It all worked out, very, very well,” Stern told his morning audience. “I got five f—ing more years of this.” According to one estimate, Stern is responsible for adding 2 million subscribers to Sirius XM since he moved there in January 2006.
–Cindy Perman of CNBC.com had a piece in USA TODAY on “what not to say at the office holiday party.” Such as:
“Who’s hotter: Ashley or Jessica?” If the topic has turned to something like this, it’s time to go home.
–A study of gambling habits in Atlantic City shows that gamblers are spending less time in the casinos and spending 30% less than four years ago. Gross operating profit per hour for the casinos is down 61%. Actual tourist traffic is hanging in there, people are just less gambling-centric, as the experts say.
Such is the case in Las Vegas, too, where for the period January through September, the area saw 2.4% more visitors but gambling revenue was down 1% vs. 2009, which of course was a terrible year, with revenue down 9.8% vs. ‘08. [Atlantic City’s casino revenues peaked at $5.2 billion in 2006, fell to $3.9 billion in 2009, and will come in around $3.6 billion this year as the opening of slots in Pennsylvania, in particular, has hit A.C. hard.]
–Speaking of gambling, American casino mogul Sheldon Adelson arrived in Macau on Wednesday to check out his Venetian Macau resort and police chose the day to round up 100 suspected prostitutes; this coming a week after the local government rejected his Sands China’s long-standing app to develop another casino resort there.
— If you play blackjack in one of the new Vegas “party pits,” where scantily clad dancers vie for your attention, instead of getting paid 3:2 on blackjack, or 21, ($15 plus your original $10 back, for example), at the party pits you may only get a 6:5 payout (or $12 plus your original $10). As one expert put it regarding the latest craze, “Looking at pretty girls is going to cost you more to play.”
Party Pit Tips…another free feature of StocksandNews.
Foreign Affairs
Israel: With the U.S., Israel and the Palestinian Authority failing to reach an agreement on a new 90-day settlement freeze, at which point it was hoped Israel and the PA would agree on borders, it’s back to the drawing board, with the U.S. now opting to look at the entire peace process with “fresh eyes.”
The U.S. had been holding extensive talks with both parties and what would happen during the freeze, but what developed was a gap in expectations on what could be achieved in further talks. The Palestinians felt border issues could be resolved in 90 days, while Israel argued you couldn’t talk about borders without reaching agreement on security, plus the Israelis wouldn’t cede land without knowing what security would be put in place upon withdrawal. Without a new freeze, however, Palestinians have refused to negotiate.
The Israeli right was overjoyed at the latest developments and praised Prime Minister Netanyahu for rebuffing the U.S. call for a further moratorium. Palestinians countered Israel was never serious in the first place.
As for the United Nations and the European Union, both blasted the Netanyahu government. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Israel wasn’t “heeding the call of the international community” to extend the settlement freeze. Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, said: “The EU position on settlements is clear: They are illegal under international law and an obstacle to peace.”
Since the ’67 War, Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, settling close to 500,000 Jews in more than 100 settlements. There are about 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank.
Meanwhile, Hamas has been very quiet since Operation Cast Lead in December 2008. It’s sitting back…rearming…much as Hizbullah has since their 2006 war with Israel. Don’t look for the peace to last through 2011.
Finally, you have the aftermath of the Mount Carmel fire, Israel’s largest forest fire ever that killed 41. One of the stories that has come out is how the ultra-Orthodox Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, had earlier refused to accept a donation of 8 new fire trucks that would have helped in fighting the fire because the offer came from pro-Israel Christians. Yishai’s religious-based rejection of contributions from non-Jewish sources led to the termination of the order that had been approved by his predecessor, a member of Kadima. This, friends, is an idiot. And recall a story I noted recently on how the Israeli Army is becoming increasingly ultra-Orthodox and how when the inevitable day comes that some larger settlements will have to be dismantled, you’ll have mass insubordination in the ranks.
Israelis also should be upset with how the fire services have been so short-changed for decades. Until reading a piece in the Jerusalem Post, however, I didn’t realize how much so. As in, “International standards are about one fireman per 1,000 citizens. In Israel, the ratio is closer to one for every 6,000.”
It’s been easy over the years to talk of Israeli exceptionalism, but the 2006 war with Hizbullah shot more than a few holes in this theory. The Carmel fire did even more damage to it. Not very reassuring as the country maps out a seemingly inevitable attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, let alone renewed conflict with Hizbullah precipitated by the Hariri investigation.
Iran: Tehran announced it had delivered its first domestically mined raw uranium to a processing facility, thus claiming it is now self-sufficient over the entire nuclear fuel cycle. The uranium concentrate, “yellowcake,” was produced in southern Iran and delivered to a conversion facility in Isfahan for reprocessing.
The declaration came as Iran was sitting down in Geneva for a renewal of talks with the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the Security Council…U.S., U.K., France, Russia and China…plus Germany). Zero was accomplished…just what Iran wants as its brilliant stall game continues. But President Ahmadinejad said negotiations with the West could work if sanctions were scrapped!
Even more disconcerting should have been the Iranian ambassador to China’s statements ahead of the Geneva talks.
“In the next year, Sino-Iran relations will improve, although they are fantastic now….Oil interests are important for Iran-China relations, because Iran is an independent big player in the Persian Gulf. Some Persian Gulf states make promises to Beijing now, but will Beijing believe these promises forever? Iran is always a reliable partner,” said Mahdi Safari.
I would just add that with the release of the WikiLeaks cables, we’ve learned even more about the fantastic relationship between Iran and China when it comes to abetting North Korea’s missile and bombworks.
Lebanon: It would appear my contact in Beirut, Michael Young, was correct when he said months ago that while the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) investigating the 2005 Hariri assassination may hand down indictments in fairly short order, the STL’s chief executive (registrar) said an actual trial may not begin until “the end of next year.”
Not to bore you with minutiae, but in this case it’s important. Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare first files his indictment with a pretrial judge, but then it is expected Bellemare wil request the judge keep the indictment sealed. The indictment is just the beginning, but as long as it’s sealed, the names of any Hizbullah conspirators (as is assumed at this point) would not be released and Hizbullah wouldn’t have an excuse to try and take over the government, as they’ve threatened. The pretrial judge would not be in a position to confirm all or part of Bellemare’s indictment for a few months, at least.
Michael Young also asserts this week that while Hizbullah members could be the focus of any indictment, “there are no guarantees that subsequent indictments will not (implicate Syria) if the trial opens up new investigative avenues. No one in Damascus can be certain of what lies ahead.”
Afghanistan: According to a joint poll carried out by various U.S. news agencies, as well as the BBC and Germany’s ARD television, Afghans are more pessimistic about the direction of their country, and less confident in the ability of the United States and its allies to provide security. The poll was conducted in all 34 provinces.
However, in the two southern provinces that have been the focus of U.S. military operations over the past year, attitudes are significantly more positive. For instance in Helmand province, 67% now describe their security as “good,” up from just 14% in December 2009.
Overall, though, 49% support the deployment of 30,000 more U.S. troops vs. 61% who did a year ago.
No doubt the Pentagon will be stressing the Helmand results in its review this month with the White House.
You still have to deal with the negative, though, such as a suicide bombing this week on the Afghan border that killed 50 anti-Taliban tribesmen who were holding a meeting.
China: First you have Friday’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, Norway, honoring Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. Beijing has been furious at world reaction, with a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman saying the Nobel committee was “orchestrating an anti-China farce by themselves.” But China’s influence is such these days that at least 19 of 65 embassies receiving an invite declined the invitation. Some of the 19 you’d expect, such as Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba.
But it was disappointing seeing Colombia turn it down, and especially the Philippines. As to the latter, one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies, Manila is seeking stronger military and economic ties with China, though it claimed its ambassador to Norway had a scheduling conflict. Talk about weak.
[Serbia’s decision not to attend is equally puzzling because it aspires to be part of the EU and an EU enlargement spokeswoman said any country seeking to join the bloc was expected “to fully share the values of the EU, and protection of human rights is one of (its) fundamental values.”]
Back in China, the crackdown on dissidents following the Peace Prize being awarded to Liu is disturbing. His wife was placed under house arrest and was not able to travel to Oslo and there are stories of other wives of high-profile political prisoners being under renewed pressure.
For their part, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a symbolic message of congratulations to Liu by a 402-1 margin.
On the Korean Peninsula crisis, China continues to refuse to pressure North Korea in any public fashion (and it’s unlikely they are acting any differently in private). U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said in Tokyo:
“I actually believe that because these provocations continue, and seemingly at a more frequent interval, that the danger is going up and that steps must be taken to ensure that they stop.
“Much of that volatility is owed to the reckless behavior of the North Korean regime, enabled by their friends in China. There is too much at stake for this sort of myopia,” said Mullen.
Mullen then called on Japan, the U.S. and South Korea to stand together against Pyongyang, and both Japan and South Korea have carried out joint military exercises with the U.S. in just the past few weeks. China has blasted such maneuvers as an attempt at containment in an area Beijing sees as its own.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was open to resuming talks on the North’s nuclear program only if Pyongyang first ended its belligerence and kept its 2005 commitment to abandon its nukes. Most say China is only urging talks be resumed to make it look like it’s doing something.
“China’s support for such a regime for so many years suggests that Beijing may see strategic benefit in the North’s behavior. It may want a proxy that discomfits its neighbors and makes South Korea and Japan wonder if they can trust the U.S. defense umbrella. Perhaps some in the politburo or People’s Liberation Army think this is a way that China can assert its regional authority and drive the U.S. out of the Northeast Pacific. If so, they are mistaken.
“From what we can glean from the (WikiLeaks) cables, it’s encouraging to see that the Obama administration seems to have few illusions about North Korea and the abetting role played by China. Compared to Mr. Bush in his second term, this administration has been relatively tough and realistic. But if China really is the key to better North Korean behavior, then Washington will have to confront Beijing more bluntly than it has dared so far.
“Mr. Obama is due to treat Mr. Hu to a state visit in Washington early next year. We suggest the president cancel the invitation until Beijing ceases to be Pyongyang’s accomplice.”
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former ambassador to the United Nations who for years was sort of a roving troubleshooter, is slated to visit North Korea next week, which is encouraging. And Secretary Gates will visit China for the first time in more than three years in an effort to engage the Chinese military and reassure Beijing that Washington’s moves in the Yellow Sea are not aimed at China.
Lastly, despite improved relations between the mainland and Taiwan, Taipei confirmed for the first time that it is mass-producing cruise missiles that would be capable of hitting airports and missile bases in southeast China, as well as Hong Kong and Shanghai. [Memo to Taiwan’s leaders: Don’t hit my plant in Fujian!]
Australia: Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd has a huge problem on his hands with the release of various WikiLeaks cables. When he was prime minister, he told Hillary Clinton to be prepared to use force against China “if everything goes wrong,” which won’t endear the current Aussie government to China. Rudd also disparaged President Hu Jintao. Rudd is blaming the U.S. for release of the cables.
As for Japan, its first National Defense Program Guideline since 2004 will identify North Korea as a direct threat and label China’s military activities a concern, but while Japan needs to beef up its capabilities to deal with Beijing’s rising power, Japan’s crippling debt prevents it from doing as much as it should on this front…a lesson for the U.S., which is being forced to cut back on defense spending itself at perhaps the worst time, though I have largely agreed with the moves Defense Secretary Gates is taking thus far as there is clearly significant overlap, especially when it comes to the Pentagon’s bureaucracy.
Russia: The Kremlin isn’t happy with Britain and its deportation of a 25-year-old Russian girl, working in the House of Commons, who evidently was also secretly working for Russian intelligence as a “sleeper.” Britain’s MI5 believe there are between 30 and 35 “undeclared” professional intelligence officers working under diplomatic cover at the Russian embassy in London. In the case of Katia Zatuliveter, she was working for a Liberal Democrat, Mike Hancock, 64, who has strong Russian interests and a reputation as a womanizer. Said one source to the London Times:
“(Katia) would walk around in very short skirts and high heels with Hancock and they would be seen having lunch together.”
Many of the spies flooding Britain are out to get military and economic secrets. Hancock had been making requests for information on Britain’s nuclear weapons program in recent weeks. So of course now the Kremlin is threatening retaliation.
Separately, Charles Clover of the Financial Times had an extensive story on Russia’s skinheads organizations.
“Court documents from the NSO trial [now-defunct National Socialist Organization, an ultra-nationalist skinhead gang], which started in April and in which 12 of the 13 defendants have pleaded not guilty [to murder], offer some unintentionally black-humored insights into this world. ‘A skinhead, in my opinion,’ testified Sergei Yurova, one of the defendants, ‘is a person who loves their nation. To affirm our love for the nation I, together with other skinheads, went to football matches, went to fight with the fans of other football teams, and together with other skinheads beat people of non-Slavic appearance.”
But in essence the NSO was a terrorist group, and what is truly depressing these days when one examines the Russian government (as I have extensively in this space) is how in bed with the Kremlin the skinhead gangs are.
“(Dmitry) Dyumushkin runs a training gym for mixed martial arts and is reputed to have strong ties to Russia’s police generals. According to an opposition activist who asked not to be named, they routinely intervene to get his members out of jail. ‘We have a lot of sympathizers in the police and special services,’ confirms Dyumushkin. ‘They all went through Chechnya.’ However, he denies any formal links to the authorities.”
But Dyumushkin admits that his group, Slavic Union, will disperse into autonomous groups who will carry on military activity, he said.
“Like the Pakistani secret service’s indulgence of the Taliban in the mid-1990s, intended as a directed outlet for Islamic radicalism, the movement has slipped from the grasp of those who would rein it in. Instead of creating a docile manipulable movement, it has unleashed a generation of radicals.
“ ‘Five years ago,’ said Dmitry Bakhirev, a lawyer for one of the NSO defendants, ‘you would hear about some skinheads beating a Tajik migrant on the metro. Then it became knives and aluminum bats. Then firearms. Soon you will be hearing about machine guns and grenade launchers.’”
Meanwhile, sometime soon a Moscow judge is going to be handing down new prison sentences for Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, who formerly ran oil giant Yukos before it was confiscated by Vladimir Putin. As the Washington Post editorializes:
“If that occurs, the notion that Russia might be moving toward the rule of law under Mr. Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev will no longer deserve serious consideration.
“The trial has been a travesty, shocking even in a country that still remembers the show trials of Soviet times….
“The Obama administration has offered no public indication that this lawlessness will have any effect on its ‘reset’ of relations with Moscow….but as previous U.S. presidents have demonstrated, it is possible to challenge and even to penalize Kremlin rulers for their human rights violations while still pursuing initiatives such as arms control.”
Chile: In another classic case of ‘wait 24 hours,’ all of the good will and national pride generated by the rescue of the miners in Chile may have just gone up in flames as a fire set off during a riot in a severely overcrowded prison killed at least 83 inmates. The prison was built to hold 700 yet had 1,900 inmates. What made it even worse was that one inmate, using an illegal cellphone, called state television so that Chileans could hear inmates screaming for help. Suddenly, what should have been a festive Christmas season here is far from it.
Haiti: And I’m not about to rush down to Port-au-Prince for Christmas. In fact I am very happy to say I’ve never, nor will, go to this hellhole. The cholera outbreak, which it now appears did indeed start with lax sanitation at one of the U.N. troop bases, has claimed at least 2,000 and will affect as many as 650,000 others over the next six months, according to the U.N. Also, the results of the rigged election were posted and Haitians rioted.
Random Musings
–According to a Bloomberg National Poll, 51% of Americans say they are worse off now than they were two years ago when President Obama took office, 35% say they’re doing better, while 2/3s believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.
–WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested and placed in jail in London as he awaits probable extradition to Sweden to stand trial on sexual assault allegations. Assange’s followers, “hacktavists,” proceeded to go after the likes of Visa, MasterCard, and Amazon through denial of service attacks designed to shut down the sites. They had limited success in some cases, but this is our new world. Everyone in America with half a brain knows that hackers, whether from China, North Korea, Russia or elsewhere will one day wreak havoc on our electric grid, our military nerve center, or Wall Street. No one will be surprised, but what is inexcusable is how ill-prepared we are for that day.
–Historian Paul Kennedy on America, post-WikiLeaks, from an op-ed in the London Times.
“(The whole WikiLeaks episode) is worrying over the longer term to political observers, for three main reasons, all of which should make one pause. The first is the sheer ‘leakiness’ of the U.S. Government’s communications systems. This is a dysfunctionality that, if it had existed in some analogous way, would have put the Roman, Spanish and British empires out of existence long before their actual historical decline….
“Second is the painful banality of so much of this stuff. Sorting through the debris, one can pick up a very small number of politically important and damaging items here and there…
“But many of these 251,287 cables made me wonder on occasion if they had not been composed by the mischievous editors of Private Eye….
“My larger point is that one has to worry about the quality, intelligence and, frankly, the utility of so much of the U.S. Diplomatic Service. There is no trace here of a George Kennan or Paul Nitze. The great Henry Stimson must be shivering in his grave….
“(The trivia of much of the cables) takes attention away from the much more important things that were happening in global politics in 2010.
“What are those important things? The first is shifting world economic balances; the second is shifting world military balances; the third is the dysfunctional nature of the American political and decision-making system; and the fourth, consequential aspect is the American incapacity to make hard, strategic choices, and fix on its international priorities….
“The twin challenges to America’s 60-year economic hegemony are enormous. The first is a broad global trend that Washington cannot stop; the steady shift of the world’s wealth-producing centers from Europe and North America to Asia. What can throttling future WikiLeaks do about that? Nothing. The second is located at home, though it has international repercussions. It is the frightening state of U.S. indebtedness abroad, caused in the main by federal deficits funded by selling Treasury bonds to foreigners. How long can this stupidity last? And when does the dollar lose its special artificial status, and suffer the buffeting that hits all other currencies from time to time? When does Congress dare to balance the budget?
“The second complex of challenges relates to America’s global military posture. On the face of it, this is much less problematic, as the American advantage is so huge. Yet for all its investments, the U.S. cannot secure itself, especially worldwide, against the threats posed by terrorists and ‘dirty’ chemical/biological/nuclear weapons. For all its investments, it cannot prevent China and India from steadily turning the waters around Asia into no-go zones, through deployment of sea-skimming missiles and ultra-quiet submarines, and their growing capacity to interrupt U.S. communications systems electronically.
“And there seems nothing, really nothing, that can bring ‘victory’ in the high, snowy passes of the Hindu Kush. All that the Afghan war is doing is wasting U.S. army and Marine assets, and diverting attention from bigger issues. One wishes Eisenhower and Marshall were back….
“I am not happy writing these words. But I am even less happy at the increasing inability of the U.S. to keep up with the times. There is a big shift in global power balances, and that cannot be contested. Yet there is no reason why Americans are responding so poorly, why the political leadership cannot shake itself up and face realities, and why, frankly, this great republic cannot look at itself more honestly and begin to face the 21st century. That is the wheat. Alas, WikiLeaks is the overwhelming chaff. It is very sad.”
–Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz on the aftermath of WikiLeaks.
“There is now a widespread, conscious reluctance in our society, whether in business or politics, to create records – and a disposition to destroy them when they exist. What I worry about is our ability to portray history accurately if such records are not at hand and leaders try to rely on their own memory, which is often flawed. A living history requires tools of remembrance. So much of what we do today depends upon our understanding of the past. If we lose that past, we are also going to lose one of the important handles on the future.”
–A new website is launching on Monday…Openleaks …which will be run by Julian Assange’s former right-hand man and other WikiLeaks defectors. Openleaks operators say they were tired of Assange’s autocratic behavior. Isn’t this great news?!
–We did have a positive moment this week, technologically speaking, with the successful launch of a spacecraft into orbit, which then was guided back to Earth in a new test for NASA that could lead to the first commercial space station supply run next year.
The capsule was built by Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, which is headquartered in Hawthorne, Calif. NASA is hiring companies to haul supplies to the Space Station following next year’s retirement of the space shuttle. Trips for astronauts could follow.
–But, in what was described by some as a Sputnik moment, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) administered a test known as PISA for 15-year-old students around the world and found that 5,100 students in Shanghai blew away the competition in reading as well as in math and science. The United States, by contrast, came in 23rd or 24th in most subjects, as pointed out by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. For instance, on the PISA scale, 500 is an average. On the math test, students in Shanghai scored 600, Singapore 562, Germany 513, and the United States 487. The accuracy of the results was described by a former Dept. of Education official in the George W. Bush administration as being unassailable.
–I mused last week on President Obama’s trip to Afghanistan and how it was apparent he took it when he did because he didn’t want to disturb his vacation plans, and then I saw the next day in the Los Angeles Times that Obama is indeed taking a two-week break in Hawaii beginning Dec. 18. I don’t begrudge him a vacation, it would just be nice to be with the troops in a war zone on Christmas Day itself.
There has been some controversy as to whether first, ABC, and then other networks broke the news embargo (designed to prevent terror attacks) before Air Force One landed, but by week’s end, U.S. News was reporting that was not the case.
–Back to the content of Obama’s trip to buck up the troops, his biggest applause line was when he told them, paraphrasing, ‘You may have seen how I froze all federal employees’ pay for two years. But I didn’t freeze yours!’ Hoo-ahh!!! replied the soldiers.
So then a few days later we learn that the administration had proposed a 1.4% raise for the military in 2011, the lowest since 1962, when no raise was given. ‘Sup wit dat? Mr. President. The House had approved 1.9%, but the Senate Armed Service Committee adopted the lower recommendation. Dem. Sen. Jim Webb (Va.) has proposed bonuses for troops doing the “hardest work and most hazardous duties.” That’s the way to go. But the president looks like a total fool on this one.
–Depressing story out of Chicago, as five police officers have been gunned down in the line of duty this year…and a sixth while off-duty. A 17-year-department veteran told the AP: “There is a lack of respect for the police, a lack of fear of the police that’s getting worse. They see a cop, and they just don’t care anymore.”
“Officers routinely return to their station with stories about rocks and other debris pinging off their squad cars as they respond to calls or being confronted by crowds that no longer disperse just because an officer tells them to. Also, the sound of gunfire that used to stop whenever they arrived at a scene now continues long afterward.”
–According to a recent study by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, 1/3 of all drug tests on drivers killed in motor vehicle accidents came back positive for drugs ranging from hallucinogens to prescription painkillers last year. This was a 5 percentage point increase over 2005.
I didn’t report the above last time when the story first hit but feel compelled to now after a speeding car in Italy careened into a group of cyclists and killed eight. The driver had been smoking marijuana, according to police.
–Big drug bust at Columbia University with five ringleaders arrested. The sales took place at three fraternities and involved the peddling of cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy and LSD. Pi Kappa Alpha was one of the frats. I was a Pike at Wake Forest and I can imagine how “national” is scrambling with the damage control. [The other frats were Alpha Epsilon Pi and Psi Upsilon.] I did like how one of the five arrested supposedly called his father to bail him out and on the other end of the line was ‘click.’
–A study in the British medical journal The Lancet analyzed eight trials involving 25,570 patients and found a daily dose of aspirin, the equivalent of less than a quarter of an aspirin tablet, reduced cancer deaths by an average of 21% during the studies and 34% after five years. Doctors advise caution.
–The anarchists in London burned the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square and defaced the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament square with graffiti that read “f— police” and “Clegg eat s—,” Clegg being deputy prime minister. I would love to have the power to throw them all in the Thames with cement boots.
–We learned from WikiLeaks that Saudi Arabia is party central. One dispatch, in discussing a private deal involving 150 men and women in their 20s and 30s, said, “Alcohol, though strictly prohibited by Saudi law and custom, was plentiful at the party’s well-stocked bar. The hired Filipino bartenders served a cocktail punch using sadiqi, a locally made moonshine. It was also learned through word-of-mouth that a number of the guests were in fact ‘working girls,’ not uncommon for such parties.”
–Life expectancy in the U.S. fell for the first time in 15 years, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Based on the latest available data, 2008, life expectancy fell 36.5 days from 2007 to 77.8 years. I just hope when I get to 77.7 to 77.8 that it’s not during March Madness or one of golf’s majors. Otherwise, I really won’t give a damn.
–Oprah told Barbara Walters “I’m not a lesbian.” Upon hearing this I still looked under my chair just to see if there were keys to a new car or somethin’.
Pray for the men and women of our armed forces, and all the fallen.
Gold closed at $1384
Oil, $87.79
Returns for the week 12/6-12/10
Dow Jones +0.2% [11410]
S&P 500 +1.3% [1240]
S&P MidCap +1.4%
Russell 2000 +2.7%
Nasdaq +1.8% [2637]
Returns for the period 1/1/10-12/10/10
Dow Jones +9.4%
S&P 500 +11.2%
S&P MidCap +23.7%
Russell 2000 +24.2%
Nasdaq +16.2%
Bulls 56.2
Bears 21.3 [Source: Chartcraft: Investors Intelligence]
Have a great week. I appreciate your support.
Brian Trumbore
