Friday, February 6, 2009

Is there anything making sense right now?

Miners and financials lead broad gains in Toronto, says the headliner on the TSX web page. Umm, we just lost 129,000 jobs in a month, just about all of them good ones, and these marketeers bet some more. Based on the bailouts maybe? Some short term paper profits there? I dunno, it doesn't make sense.

Another headline says Bushco wasted 78 Billion on the financial industry with his hurry up bail out. And yet the TSX is up 155 points as I write and US markets are up 188 points.

Meanwhile oil is down to $39 again and pump prices went up again 2 days ago. Futures contracts, misreading the future, disapearing excess inventories sitting in tankers and profits for the greatest gougers of them all. Yup, makes sense to me. Demand, that greatest evil of all has fallen, the price of a barrel of oil, then next biggest evil of all has tanked, and yet......the pump price goes up again. It was 95 cents a litre for diesel at the pump yesterday. FOR DIESEL! A ruddy by product. Oh yes, that's because of all those folks buying diesel jettas and the like. According to the lying oil companies that is.

So now we pay for all those developments that are no longer economically viable. Kind of like paying for a mortgage of $300,000 on a house that's now worth $240,000. Only in the end, you will own the house, but not the tar sands nor the rest of the expensive projects made necessary by ever expanding policies of shipping crap all over the Continent and the world that we didn't need in the first place.

9 comments:

  1. Quote of the day. From Big City Lib;

    Economageddon!

    "Jesus, when we Liberals return to power there'll hardly be anything left to pillage."

    http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com/2009/02/economageddon.html

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  2. I think the reason the markets are up is because the spending China may be doing and RRSP season.

    Hope life is treating you all well. Trying to stay off the computer to save on my energy bills, they were a beaut this month.

    Garth's recent post is right on. Detroit is so badly off that people have had to lay their dead in their homes. Some can't even afford to give their loved ones a proper funeral.

    Peace dudes.

    D

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  3. Here is what makes sense to me right now:

    When the fat lady comes to sing she'll be wearing a green shift under a blue vest. Dion will be remembered as the greenest PM we never had. And it will be as much business as before as possible.

    Sign of the times of forlorn hope and utter cluelessness: "two of the world's leading scholars" made $2.2M producing a 36 page vision of Ontario's "new, creative economy" based on higher education, wages and creativity - http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Entertainment/Ottawa+world+leader+economy/1258215/story.html

    Didn't we already proclaim a "knowledge-based economy" some years ago?

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  4. The rest of the story, according to "opinion" of some.

    http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/090206/business/cbusiness_us_markets_canada_stocks

    "Key stocks on the upside included fertilizer company Potash Corp of Saskatchewan , up 4.4 percent at C$110.80, Manulife Financial , which rose 4.02 percent to C$21.23, and Suncor Energy , up 3.4 percent at C$25.49.

    Much of the optimism focused on Washington's stimulus package and a plan, expected to be announced on Monday, to rescue the ailing banking sector."

    If one is inclined to accept this at face value, then doesn't one have to wonder how it is that these markets can ignore the magnitude of the jobs lost, which is real and tangible, only to focus on the stimulus monies which is according to many, more hope and prayers?

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  5. Herb, that's the fat I'm talking about. Such a load of techno babble. I wonder where these great minds think the analytical abilities will be required if this great transition continues? Perhaps analyzing how people are going to make the money to afford them would be a good to start.

    Using Ottawa and Washington as examples to support this dubious theory is genuinely disingenuous. The 2.2 million price tag for said study being evidence of that. Where's the spin off from that? Where's the tangible long lasting benefits? Instead of commissioning these things in future, they should give them a picture of the horn of plenty and a lifetime lease on a rubber room.

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  6. Furthering the thoughts above, here is an example of how spending a few million on a study, can evolve into spending that amounts to billions.

    Google this; Cost of Bernard Lord committee on bilingualism.

    I went looking for the exact cost for Bernard Lord's study on bilingualism, and couldn't find it. Seems it's a need to know item. I have read that it was in excess of 2 million, but can't remember exactly. What I did find was some pretty wild eyed and passionate articles from both MSM and blog sources and references to how the bilingualism budget monies are being spent, manipulation of polls and data amounting to gross propaganda and a possible price tag of $1.8 Billion in total for the previous 5 years and the few years coming.

    There was also a reference to Lord's latest appointment as President of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association. Lord graduated from law school in 1992 and was elected premier of NB in 1999 at the age of 34. Quite the resume wot?

    Wiki lists Lord as Canadian Politician and lobbyist. The Tradition continues.

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  7. Dee, sorry for not responding sooner but the circumstances in Detroit are somewhat overwhelming, and not something anyone should comment on lightly. The best I can do, is to offer the gift of an artist, and a few memories that few understand.

    And his momma cries;

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ox1Tore9nw

    I remember the courage of the black man. The Soldier who fought because he had to.

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  8. And this one,

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n3ebuL1cPA

    He was the King, after all.

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  9. Hello Dee~It's tragic when whole areas become depressed. I watched Roger and Me again, a little while ago. And cried, again. Where I live was a Union town, voted NDP in for many years. This area has had more than it's share of depression...and what's up with JF saying Ont. 'sucks' right before the crap hit-was that intentional or just stupid? Anyway, is it ok if I ask what province you're in? Take care, peace&power to the People.

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