Food & Terrorists

Food prices are soaring.

The reasons:

1. Ethanol Production
2. Australian Drought - poor crops
3. Oil prices at $125 per barrel

Most of the world lives paycheck to paycheck, if they get a paycheck at all. Many of the poorest people in the world spend 50 to 75 percent of their paycheck on food.
When food prices double that means that they cannot afford to buy enough food to keep a healthy diet or it means that all their money goes to food. There have already been food riots in many countries and the World Food Bank been working overtime to try and ease some of the pain.

One of the problems associated with this crisis is the ablility of terrorists to recruit these starving people into their organizations. A person that is faced with death is easily swayed to join an organization that they feel might bring about change for their people. It is an easy sell to say "Come fight with us against the infedels that are putting your grain into their big SUVs.

Corporate Greed

I am for free markets. I am not for individuals who conduct business in an unethical manner. There are plenty of opportunities out there for many people to have success. My theory is that the charter that corporations abide by "increase shareholder's wealth" is not clear enough. In order to increase shareholder's wealth over a long period of time, a company must be prudent and conduct business in a ethical manner. If you want quick returns, which is what many corporations strive for, you will have corruption and greed. That is why you see the CEO turnover, out of control executive salaries. and the mass layoffs in many corporations.

The people and the government have the responsiblity to keep these corporations in check through purchasing power and regulations.

Economy

The world economy is in peril. The banking system got too greedy and it is going to cost everyone a great deal of hardship. It doesn't help that oil is now at $110. This is causing food prices to soar and that spells trouble for the bottom third of the US population and a great deal of trouble for many second and third world countries. The Fed has stepped in and is making large sums of money available to the banks. What it boils down to is that they made very bad investments and the banks are in trouble of going bankrupt if they don't write down their losses and find infusions of capital. Many people are trying to blame the borrowers who to on these mortgages that they couldn't afford. There was fraud on the part of some borrowers, but I place the blame more fully on the lenders. The "American Dream" of owning a house has been engrained into the public’s consciousness and the banks took advantage of low interest rates to get people into homes they couldn't afford, thinking that the price of homes would continue to rise and everyone would win. Well, as we have learned so may times before, what goes up must come down. I believe that there should be a full investigation into the lending practices and the packaging of these mortgages into funds that were incorrectly rated. There are people that knew this thing was going to blow up and continued to pump it up.

The banks are in a position where they don't know how much they could lose, which is a very bad thing for public confidence in the financial system. I have been talking to some of my banking friends on Wall Street and they say that this situation resembles the 1890s and that it could get really bad.

As I said earlier if it was just the financial sector that was in trouble, we might be able to recover in a couple of years. With oil prices soaring we are headed for a very rough ride that could result in an economic depression.

Obama, Wright, and the Black Community

Obama has taken a jab to jaw that has put a doubt into the minds of the American voters.

I personally am not that concerned with Reverend Wright's comments and not that surprised either. The black community has a long history of reverends/preachers making strong comments; see King, Jackson, and Sharpton. The black community turns to its religious leaders for spiritual and political guidance. The blacks don't have leaders in prominent political positions that they can turn to, so the religious leaders and comedians fill this void.

I feel like Obama is going to have a difficult time with his opposition now being armed with this fodder, but maybe the American voters will look more closely at the black culture and learn something.

Recession? Primaries?

It appears that the economy is in a slowdown. High oil prices and the credit meltdown have caused inflation to soar and many people of cutting spending. With the economy in the dumps, the focus from the occupation in Iraq has taken a backseat on the road to the White House.

I am not too happy with any of the candidates. Obama seems to have the momentum and we will see how dirty the Clinton machine gets in the next few weeks. The republicans have settled for McCain, or at least some of them have.

Bush vs. Hitler

It is not that big of leap to compare these two leaders.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tTQ34y4Ww0

 

The Good ol US of A

Humans are extremely resilient.  You can find Humans on every continent.  Places that would seem uninhabitable, like Las Vegas for instance....Humans are there.  That would be one reason this year hasn't been a total bust.  High oil prices, falling credit markets, baseball heroes on steroids, a budget and trade deficits that would choke a dinosaur and we are still ticking.  I hope you don't think that I'm a old scrooge.  The good news is Iran is not trying to build a nuclear bomb, the Arctic ice is freezing back at a record pace (of course it did melt a record pace this summer), the Dallas Cowboys are 12 and 2, and HDTVs are finally somewhat affordable and if they
aren't we will just put it on our MasterCard.

I would like to wish the World a Happy Holiday Season or just a happy December and January if you don't partake in any rituals during this time.