I'm Glad I'm Not You, Cus Then I Wouldn't Be Me

THURSDAY'S JUST THE FACTS

Posted by: ricderr, 2:18 PM GMT on August 13, 2009

I do quite a bit of financial reading and have come across quite a bit of material suggesting that if not now, very soon it is time to sell gold. Can you prove or disprove this factually?

Updated: 2:28 PM GMT on August 13, 2009

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JUST THE FACTS

Posted by: ricderr, 2:11 AM GMT on August 10, 2009

For the tome being I have decided to retire the QOD. It will be back, well maybe. who knows...

When we look back at the 20th century I believe one of the most controversial subjects will be the internet. While it has brought us so much information so readilly available. It is also the source of much misinformation and outright scams. I can not begin to count how many foreign lotteries I have won, how many distant foreign relatives have left me millions of dollars or how many contests I have won and can recieve a wonderful gift if I just give out some personal information such as my bank account numbers and passwords. It has also given easy access to extremist groups to pass out misinformation and outright lies. These groups know no specific color, no specific political pesuasions and no specific moral rights, however they all share the same idea as the travelling huckster salesmen of a few centuries past and that is a sucker is born every minute. Many of these sites are highly trafficked and provide their leaders a good income. It does not though legitimise the information. On a much smaller scale are the blogs and blog authors who pass along this misinformation and I find it amazing how many will ignore facts when they are presented and disprove their claims as false. You may call it stubborness, foolishness or just idiotic. but it goes on daily throughout the blogosphere. I do not think I or anyone else will stop it or even slow it down. I do though hope that disproving these false claims will be entertaining. So for now, it's just the facts:

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Enough Said

Posted by: ricderr, 1:21 PM GMT on August 07, 2009

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Employers cut far fewer jobs from payrolls in July, according to a report from the government Friday, and the unemployment rate fell for the first time in more than a year.

The Labor Department reported a net loss of 247,000 jobs in July, the fewest job losses since August 2008. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a loss of 325,000.

The unemployment rate fell to 9.4% from 9.5% in June, the first decline in that closely watched reading since April of 2008. Economists had expected unemployment to rise to 9.6%

ENOUGH SAID

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--U.S. stock futures jumped Friday morning after the Labor Department announced the unemployment rate surprisingly fell last month as U.S. job losses tapered off.

Prior to the report, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 4 points, Nasdaq Composite futures were up 2 points and S&P 500 futures were down 0.1 point. Following the report, Dow futures soared 62 points to 9291, while Nasdaq futures rose 16 points to 1617 and the S&P 500 futures climbed 8 points to 1003.

ENOUGH SAID

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Goldman Sachs economists lifted their forecast for real economic growth in the second half of this year to 3% from a prior forecast of 1%, citing good signs on inventory liquidation in Friday's report on U.S. gross domestic product, a bigger-than-anticipated boost from fiscal policy and an improvement in residential investment. Still, economists led by Jan Hatzius and Ed McKelvey say they still anticipate growth slowing in the second half of 2010, to below-trend. Goldman has been one of the more pessimistic banks about the possibility of the U.S. economy pursuing a V-shaped recovery. The MarketWatch consensus forecast calls for 2% growth in the third quarter and 2.2% in the fourth.

ENOUGH SAID

ENOUGH SAID

PRINCETON, NJ -- President Barack Obama's job approval rating, after hitting his administration low point of 52% in the middle of last week, has edged back up, and is 56% for the latest three-day period, July 31-Aug. 2.

ENOUGH SAID

Today's Republican Party is an almost entirely white party in an America which is now one-third non-white. They are an aging party, holding on to a politics while once successful no longer works in the much more racially diverse America of the 21st century. And this lack of diversity and long history of racial intolerance has taken its toll on the Republican brand with this fastest growing non-white part of the population, Hispanics. In a tracking poll taken last week the favorable/unfavorable ratings for the Democratic Party with Hispanics was 53-31; the Republican Party 4 percent favorable, and 85 percent unfavorable. The ratio for Congressional Democrats with Hispanics 46-34; for Congressional Republicans 5 percent favorable and 83 percent unfavorable. 4 and 5 percent! These are truly incredible numbers.

As I said in my remarks on Tuesday I think that for the Republicans to get back in the game they will have to do more than just change their racial tune, elect a few more minorities, and begin this long process of modernizing their approach to race. They will have to eventually acknowledge and repudiate their intolerant past, and their shameful exploitation of racial fear as a national political strategy. But today that day seems a long way off, and I have no doubt that the father of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln, if still alive today, would be holding his head down, ashamed of what his once proud Party had become.

ENOUGH SAID

I've said enough.

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Wednesdays Question of the Day

Posted by: ricderr, 1:54 PM GMT on August 05, 2009

I've been quiet for awhile, all this government bashing day in and day out just isn't my cup of tea. Plus, I've found Facebook and FarmTown and that has kept my attention lately. However, a comment yesterday got me thinking of something that has been floating in the murky waters I call a brain. I'm not sure who said it, but someone mentioned how quick companies have been at cutting the fat and laying people off. In any management course you take one thing that is constant is that the easiest cost cutting tool is employees expense. In most cases that is done by both cutting staff and cutting benefits. We've all either personally seen or have heard of how insurance costs are more and more being laid off upon employees. Unemployment numbers show just how fast companies are trimming their employees and stock earning reports show that it is boosting their bottom lines. Here's my point, why everyone is blaming the government we're missing the point that there is no company loyalty to their employees. What did we have before this recession? We had years upon years of unprecedented company profits? Whose backs were these profits made from? And now, as times are tough who is bearing the brunt of these times? Again, it's the worker, Average Joe. I remember back when I worked for a home center in California, we hit a building slump in the late '80's and the owners met with us management and said that we were having a hiring freeze but they would take from savings the profit they had made in past years and there would be no layoffs. That is not happening today and it is sad indeed. I'm not one for doom and gloom, but the days of companies being loyal to their employees appears to be past and that leads to the QOD:

How loyal is your company to you?

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