Your Tax Dollars at work.

Federal agents raided Gibson Guitar in Memphis and Nashville. They claimed that some rare wood purchased by Gibson to make guitars didn't have enough paperwork. Gibson did have paperwork but the Feds claimed it wasn't good enough. The Feds seized pallets of wood, electronic files, and guitars.
I'm sure that helped Gibson maintain their production schedules, what with raw materials, and finished goods swiped. This is part of Obama's plan to get the economy moving again.
Plus, musicians now worry that taking a wood instrument to a concert will get it seized. The Feds will seize an antique instrument made with protected species of wood unless the owner has paperwork proving that the instrument was made before the wood became protected.
Your tax dollars at work.

Tending to your knitting, Bankers version

American Home Mortgage files suit against Lender Processing Services, a paper pusher for hire. AHM charges that Lender Processing improperly signed mortgage documents in its behalf and triggered millions of dollars of lawsuits as a result. AHM said that it incorrectly processed 30,000 mortgages in all 50 states, causing a failure in the foreclosure[s].
Wow. Talk about farming out the core of your business to the lowest bidder. Mortgage is their middle name. Mortgaging means paying out large amounts of cash in return for the legal right to seize the property if the borrower doesn't pay up. Legal right is slippery and the paper work must be done just so or it doesn't work when you need it.
The suits at AHM were dumb enough to farm out this crucial part of the business to a third party, giving up control of the process to a hired gun. Dumb and Dumber. The key parts of your business ought to be done in house so you can make sure it is done right.
The suits probably laid off a few AHM back office workers and thought they were saving money. But it cost them foreclosure on 30,000 houses, worth $30 billion at a guess. I'm sure AHM is so glad they hired some MBA's to foul things up. Laying off those few back office workers didn't save them $30 billion.

Is it coming? Hurricane signs

Sky in Franconia Notch was crystal clear and blue yesterday morning. By evening a high thin cloud layer, and some cirrus clouds had moved in. Wind picked up so much I had to furl the sun umbrella on the deck lest it be blown away, and take in the flag. Today we have a solid overcast (the good old Cannon Cloud is back) and it's getting warmer and moister.
So much for junior Maine Guide weather signs. The TV shows a blizzard of computer predicted tracks making landfall any where from the Carolinas to Cape Cod. We are 150 miles inland from Long Island Sound, the most likely hurricane track to hit up here. After that much overland travel, it ought to be nothing more than a lot of rain.
So I took stock and went to the store. Hit the State Liquor Store and then Mac's Market, got enough to go til Sunday in case the weather gets really ugly. It's nice to sit back and watch the rain fall knowing you don't have to go out food shopping in it.

Taxes and Spending

The US of A is spending 40% more than it takes in by taxes. This cannot go on forever. Something has to be done. The Republicans want to cut spending, the Democrats want to raise taxes. The Republicans know that any tax hike will be used to postpone the day that spending gets cut. All of those on the public dole will rise in wrath to defend their share of the taxpayer spending. It takes the threat of bankruptcy to force recipients out of the public trough. Any tax hike will postpone bankruptcy and thus make spending cuts impossible. The Republicans are (finally) wise enough to refuse any kind of tax hike until we get some real spending reductions.

How to make 54 mpg Corp. Avg Fuel Economy?`

Simple. Build hybrid pickup trucks. Uncle Sam will give you a 20 mpg credit for each hybrid pickup truck you sell. So you build a hybrid pickup that gets 35 mpg. Add the 20 mpg credit and you have 55 mpg pickup trucks. Wow.

Uncle wants us driving hybrids rather than diesel.

Anyone know how long the batteries in Prius's last? And how much a new one costs?

19877 Sorties flown by NATO

According to the Wall St Journal, only 7505 of those sorties were offensive strikes on Libya. That's about one third. Presumably the bulk of the two thirds non-offensive sorties were tanker missions. Sorties are expensive, it takes just as much work, fuel, maintenance, and expensive aircraft to fly a tanker sortie as an offensive sortie.

It's 400 miles from Sicily to Benghazi in Libya which is a bit of a stretch for modern fighters. 400 miles one way, or 800 miles round trip. Back in the day the old F106 could fly from Duluth MI to Tyndall AFB in FL non stop, about 1600 miles. It could do the 800 mile round trip to Benghazi and have a decent loiter time over target without tanking. Apparently the current fighters (all one or two generations more advanced than the totally obsolete F106) don't have the range to cross the Mediterranean and return. You could save a lot of sorties if the fighters had the range to get to Libya and back without tanking.

They report hitting a lot of stuff including 555 tanks and armored vehicles. That's a lot. Erwin Rommel at his best, campaigning in the same area, never had 400 tanks to call his own. Either Qaddaffi has a huge tank fleet, or the pilots are making a lot of far fetched claims.

Anti Trust is the answer for Too Big To Fail

We passed the Sherman Anti Trust Act back in the 1890's. It was used to break up Standard Oil in the early 20th century, and last used to break up the telephone company in the 1960's. The Sherman act gives the US government the right to break up big companies that are deemed monoplistic, or just too damn big. It's still on the books and the US Justice Dept has a whole division of lawyers to enforce it. Too bad they haven't been earning their pay.
At the beginning of Great Depression 2.0 it was decided to drop Lehman Brothers on the floor as a warning to others. Not a bad idea, but the breakage scared everybody. Soon after, Sec of Treasury Paulson and Chairman of the Fed Bernanke, both thoroughly frightened, went to Congress and got the $800 billion TARP bill passed to shore up the rest of the Wall St to avoid more breakage. Then the perpetrators of Great Depression 2.0, Congress critters Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, got the 2000 page Dodd Frank bill passed to guarantee US taxpayer bailout of "too big to fail" financial institutions.
Where are the anti trust lawyers? Any firm "Too Big To Fail" is clearly big enough to break up under the Sherman Anti Trust act.
Plus, big firms lack competition to keep their pricing honest. We consumers get robbed anytime a company is so big it is the only game in town.