Bye Bye Hummer

Nightly business report is doing interviews with Hummer dealers. Seems that sales are indeed off, even the dealers are admitting it. One dealer was explaining that the Hummer gas milage was really better than people think, as good a 12-14 mpg, on regular gas. Hell, my '99 Cadillac DeVille gets twice that and runs knock free on regular. Hummer is the vehicle that makes Caddy look economical? That's gonna sell Hummers?

Cluelessness on the News Hour

Last night Ray Suarez was chatting breezily with a youngish Wall St broker type. They traded market jargon back and forth and sounded very hep. Then the broker guy said something like "Of course the market for mortgage backed securities froze up last fall and still hasn't unfrozen" Wow. Understatement of the year. A better description of the situation is that investors wised up last fall and won't touch mortgage backed securities with a ten foot pole. And there is no reason to believe investors will ever buy them again.
Buried in the fine print of mortgaged backed securities is language that means "If the mortgages "backing" this security default it will cost you, the security owner. The security will loose value and/or reduce dividend payments. And by the way, said mortgages are all sub prime. "
Now that investors understand the fine print (burned investor hand teaches best) they have resolved never to get mixed up in them again.
I expect Hell to freeze over before that market "unfreezes".
Ray Suarez never called him on it. Was Ray merely being polite (he is a nice guy) or was he clueless too?

So how do they know the tomatoes are contaminated?

It's tough trying to make a living growing tomatoes. FDA is blaming the salmonella outbreak on tomatoes, from somewhere. Sales have dropped to zip. Fresh ripe tomatoes are piling up unsold, un eaten and going bad. Growers are losing money thru no fault of their own. How do they know the salmonella came from a tomato? Were they able to culture salmonella from an uneaten tomato? If so, could they read the packer's name and lot number off the cardboard carton?
Or, did they merely ask the victims to list everything they ate, and discover that all ( or a lot) of the victims listed tomatoes? Since tomato is about the most popular veggie in America you'd expect nearly everyone to list them. Guilt by association.
FDA isn't talking. Wonder what they are really doing

There aughta be a law, Pt 2

Against TV broadcasters putting a station logo over the program material. Bad enough to endure the modern 10 minute commercial break. But to mess up a movie with a station logo is plain offensive. Even worse are those animated coming attraction thingies that pop up to ruin the movie for you.

There Oughta be a Law Pt 1.

Against those telemarketers who ring your phone but when you pick it up, you just get dead air. When they ring my phone, causing me to drop what I am doing to answer, they should at least have the courtesy to speak with me.

NH congressman Paul Hodes Solves the gasoline price crisis

Mr. Hodes shared his wisdom with us taxpayers in a handsome 4 color printed brochure mailed to voters. “This mailing was prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense” was printed right on the front. Mr. Hodes has a four part plan to bring back the good old days of lower gas prices.

Part 1. Stop filling the strategic petroleum reserve. Big one here. 70,000 barrels per day were going into the reserve. US consumption is 20 million barrels a day. Stopping filling reduces US demand by 0.35%. Does anyone think this is enough to make any kind of difference?

Part 2. Sue OPEC. The long arm of US law will reach across the world and hail Dubai, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, the Iranians, and others in to US district court. Rather than being held in contempt of court, these easily cowed Arab countries will immediately cut prices and pump more oil. Last time I looked, foreign governments were not subject to US law. Sounds like more welfare for lawyers. Surely no one believes we can increase supplies by suing the suppliers.

Part 3. Alternate Energy. Repeal some tax breaks enjoyed by the oil companies and put the extra tax money into “alternate energy”. Ethanol anyone? At least I can run my car on ethanol. Wind and solar? Can’t put them in my gas tank, or my oil tank. Add a “biomass” tax credit. Wow, I get a tax credit for the cord of split birch I bought this spring?

Mr. Hodes doesn’t speak to the PSNH wood fired electric plant for Grafton country recently shot down in Concord, or the endless red tape holding back nuclear power.

Part 4. Offer special low rate loans for construction of energy efficient buildings. Right on. With mortgage money tight as it is, every new building will be certified “energy efficient” if it cuts a quarter point off the mortgage rate. This will become simply cheap mortgage money, a desirable thing, but hardly a thing to reduce gasoline prices.

Part 5. Tax credits for carpooling. “Oh yes your honor, I carpooled every day, and that is why I took a tax credit of $5700 last year, $20 a day for the 270 working days”. Right now, everyone who can put a carpool together is carpooling. Find two or three guys working at the same company and living sorta close together and they will carpool. No tax credits required.

Mr. Hodes doesn’t speak of the need to increase domestic oil production, build more refineries, exploit US reserves of oil shale, refine common cheap heavy sour crude oil into heating oil and gasoline, support research into nuclear fusion, and end the ridiculous system of boutique gasoline requirements.

If Mr. Hodes would talk about actually doing real things to relieve the fuel shortage he could send out as many self promoting brochures at taxpayer expense as he pleased. As it is, he comes out four square for doing nothing, at taxpayere expense.

Congress men are terrible speakers

Watched the House "debate" on the Amtrak bill this morning. Rep after Rep would take his allotted time to praise his committee, his constituents, damn the price of gasoline, and recommend a vote for the Amtrak bill. None of them spoke about the bill itself. Issues such as levels of service, speed, adding new routes, improving existing routes, buying new rolling stock, electrifying more track, scheduling more or fewer trains, raising pay and benefits for Amtrak workers, dead silence. In short, the C-Span televised floor debate didn't enlighten this taxpayer one iota. A voice over commentator mentioned some dispute between the White House and Congress and a veto threat, but none of the floor speakers gave a hint of this, or emphasised some good feature of the bill that might qualify a veto over ride.
In short, our Reps are using their floor time to promote themselves and their party. They don't attempt to persuade voters or the other party of the merits of the bills before them.