Ice-Cream Makers Frozen Out as Corn Price Rises
July 18th, 2007HAHA! Did you hear the one about Dow 14,000? HAHA!
Tell me another one.
Via: Times Online:
What’s the connection between ethanol, the biofuel produced from corn, and a cherry vanilla ice-cream?
Answer: the first is responsible for pushing up the price of the other.
This month, the price of milk in the United States surged to a near-record in part because of the increasing costs of feeding a dairy herd. The corn feed used to feed cattle has almost doubled in price in a year as demand has grown for the grain to produce ethanol.
…
The squeeze on ice-cream makers, chocolate manufacturers and pizza companies – all of whom use dairy produce as a raw material – is set to tighten as the price of a gallon of milk in the US – up 55 per cent in the past 12 months in some American states – is now the same as a gallon of petrol, with dairy prices accelerating faster than the cost of fuel.
Goldman, JPMorgan Saddled With Debt They Can’t Sell
July 18th, 2007Come on guys, there are lots of suckers out there.
Via: Bloomberg:
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and the rest of Wall Street are stuck with at least $11 billion of loans and bonds they can’t readily sell.
The banks have had to dig into their own pockets to finance parts of at least five leveraged buyouts over the past month because of the worst bear market in high-yield debt in more than two years, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Bankers, who just a few months ago boasted that demand for high-yield assets was so great that they would have no problem raising debt for a $100 billion LBO, are now paying for their overconfidence. The cost of tying up their own capital may curb earnings and stem the flood of LBOs, which generated a record $8.4 billion in fees during the first half of 2007, according to Brad Hintz, the former chief financial officer at New York-based Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
Bear Stearns Warns Hedge Fund Investors of Total Loss
July 18th, 2007Via: Bloomberg:
Bear Stearns Cos. told investors in one of its hedge funds that they won’t get any money back after creditors forced it to sell assets at depressed prices, according to a letter sent by the firm.
While a second fund still contains “sufficient assets” to cover the $1.4 billion it owes the New York-based firm, there’s “very little value left for the investors,” Bear Stearns said in the two-page letter, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg News from a person involved in the matter. Bear Stearns bailed out that fund last month with $1.6 billion in emergency funding.
…
The fund that now has nothing left for investors, the High- Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund, had $638 million of capital as of March 31, according to performance reports sent to clients at the time. The second fund, called the High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Fund, had $925 million.
Both funds made leveraged bets in an effort to boost returns. The enhanced fund borrowed about $11 billion, or almost 20 times its capital. Its sister fund, the one Bear Stearns bailed out last month, borrowed almost $9 billion.
U.S. HAS REMOVED AN ESTIMATED STOCKPILE OF 130 NUCLEAR WEAPONS FROM RAMSTEIN AIR FORCE BASE
July 17th, 2007Via: Deutsche Welle:
The Ramstein air base in southwestern Germany, long the largest US nuclear storehouse in Europe, has been completely emptied of its atomic arsenal according to experts who say the weapons are out of the country.
This week the Washington-based Federation of American Scientists (FAS) said in a study that the US army had apparently completely removed its stock of an estimated 130 nuclear weapons from the Ramstein air base.
Energy: U.S. Strike on Iran Could Result in Asymmetric Blowback
July 17th, 2007I’ve been trying to think about some of the possible repercussions of a U.S. strike on Iran. All the usual ones came to mind: economic collapse, panic in the energy markets, possible nuclear war etc. But I came up with a different scenario. I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere.
I thought that an attack on Iran would give every America-hating insurgent, in every energy producing country, a GO SIGNAL.
Think about it.
Russia. Mexico. Nigeria. Saudi Arabia.
Some of the biggest energy exporters face extremely serious asymmetric warfare threats. (See: Above Ground Factors.)
This is just a guess, but when the United States / Israel attacks Iran, insurgents everywhere might see that as an opportunity to deliver a kill shot to the United States via the energy vector. If the U.S. is stupid enough to shoot itself in the foot like this, lots of energy infrastructure bombers, if they’re smart, would seize that opportunity to magnify America’s problems.
Hugo Chavez might simply refuse to send oil to the U.S. in sympathy with everyone else who hates the U.S., and in solidarity with Iran, which is an ally of Venezuela.
Oh yeah, there’s probably a thousand other weird ways it could go, none of them good.
I’ve seen idiot executives in corporations behave like the Bush administration. They interpret a 2% chance of success as a sure thing. Meanwhile, those of us involved with the actual operations of the enterprise brace for impact, or simply run away before the rusty calliope starts throwing pipes. Psychopaths don’t listen to reason.
If I know these things, sitting here in my underwear, I’m damn sure that analysts somewhere are trying to tell these bozos, “If you try to fire the gimp out of the cannon at such a steep angle, it could knock the main pole out from under the big top.”
Cheney would respond with something like, “Never mind all of that negative, defeatist talk. Let’s focus on that 2% chance of success some more.”
At this point, some puffed up general would begin a presentation on nuclear weapons.
Cheney Pushes Bush to Act on Iran
July 17th, 2007Tell me another one.
Via: Guardian:
The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.
The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: “Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo.”
The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.
Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. “The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern,” the source said this week.
Robot Air Attack Squadron Bound for Iraq
July 15th, 2007Via: AP / MyWayNews:
The airplane is the size of a jet fighter, powered by a turboprop engine, able to fly at 300 mph and reach 50,000 feet. It’s outfitted with infrared, laser and radar targeting, and with a ton and a half of guided bombs and missiles.
The Reaper is loaded, but there’s no one on board. Its pilot, as it bombs targets in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada.
The arrival of these outsized U.S. “hunter-killer” drones, in aviation history’s first robot attack squadron, will be a watershed moment even in an Iraq that has seen too many innovative ways to hunt and kill.
…
The MQ-9 Reaper, when compared with the 1995-vintage Predator, represents a major evolution of the unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV.
At five tons gross weight, the Reaper is four times heavier than the Predator. Its size – 36 feet long, with a 66-foot wingspan – is comparable to the profile of the Air Force’s workhorse A-10 attack plane. It can fly twice as fast and twice as high as the Predator. Most significantly, it carries many more weapons.
While the Predator is armed with two Hellfire missiles, the Reaper can carry 14 of the air-to-ground weapons – or four Hellfires and two 500-pound bombs.
“It’s not a recon squadron,” Col. Joe Guasella, operations chief for the Central Command’s air component, said of the Reapers. “It’s an attack squadron, with a lot more kinetic ability.”
“Kinetic” – Pentagon argot for destructive power – is what the Air Force had in mind when it christened its newest robot plane with a name associated with death.
“The name Reaper captures the lethal nature of this new weapon system,” Gen. T. Michael Moseley, Air Force chief of staff, said in announcing the name last September.
Russian Energy Pipeline Giants to Form Corporate Armies
July 15th, 2007Via: mnweekly:
Lawmakers voted Wednesday to give Russia’s natural-gas and oil pipeline monopolies the right to set up armed security units to protect the country’s energy infrastructure.
One lawmaker said the move could lead to “a multitude of corporate armies.”
Instead of hiring private security firms, state-controlled gas giant OAO Gazprom and oil pipeline monopoly OAO Transneft would be able to directly arm and recruit their own security forces, under a bill passed by the lower parliament house, the State Duma.
To become law it must be approved by the upper house, the Federation Council, and signed by President Vladimir Putin.
Gazprom, the world’s biggest gas producer, controls Russia’s main gas pipelines and is the only company allowed to handle exports. Transneft, which is also state-run, has the monopoly on oil pipelines.
Lawmaker Gennady Gudkov, who opposed the bill, warned that it could open a “Pandora’s Box.”
State-controlled giants like savings bank Sberbank, electricity utility UES and the railways monopoly could all seek the same right, he said.
“As a result there will soon be a multitude of corporate armies in the country,” Gudkov said.
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles to Pay $660 Million to Victims
July 15th, 2007Via: Breitbart / AP:
Hundreds of people who claim they were abused by clergy affiliated with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles can expect to be paid more than $1 million each in a $660 million settlement of their lawsuits. The deal, by far the largest settlement in the church’s sexual abuse scandal, was reached Saturday, said Ray Boucher, the lead plaintiff’s attorney.
The archdiocese, America’s largest, and the plaintiffs were set to release a statement Sunday morning and hold a news conference Monday, he said.
An anonymous source with knowledge of the deal placed its value at $660 million, by far the largest payout in the church’s sexual abuse scandal. The source spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the settlement had not been officially announced.
Woman Lives Contently in Tiny, Tiny Dream House
July 15th, 2007Enemy combatant.
Via: katu:
Talk about down-sizing! One woman is living in a house that you really have to see to believe.
“It’s 84 square feet, so roughly the size of a parking spot. Actually, smaller than a parking spot,” says Dee Williams, who decided it was time to move. She was living in a 1,500-square foot home in Portland, but decided the house wasn’t small enough – yes, small enough!
Dee built the tiny cabin herself out of salvaged material. She picked the door out of a dumpster and retrieved the floors from a house fire. Dee’s new tiny home sits in her friend’s backyard.
“In exchange, I do work on their house,” she says.
It takes Dee five steps, sometimes four, to get from one end of her house to the other.
“Two steps through the kitchen and you’re in my living room. Two steps into the living room, you bang into the wall,” Dee says, laughing.
Two solar panels provide electricity. A tiny propane tank allows Dee to cook in her $10,000 home on wheels. Do her friends think the 44-year-old hazardous waste inspector is crazy?
“My friends definitely thought, well, they had some questions for me!” she says.
The obvious question: Why?
The simple answer:
“A simpler life, time, more money. I don’t have a mortgage. I don’t have a big utility bill,” Dee says.
Her monthly heating bill in the winter is $6, less in the summer.
“I’m able to offer money to my family if they need it, (and to) my friends if they need it,” says Dee.
To get to her bedroom, she walks up a step ladder to her loft.
“Every night I look at the stars and watch it rain over and over again. So this is it. Not much to it,” says Dee.
And that’s the point. Not much to it. Simple. Small. A dream house tinier than a parking spot.
“Right now there’s nowhere else I want to be!”
Related: Defunding Fascists with Asymmetric Economic Warfare, or Being Happy with Less
Related: Farmlet
Related: Tumbleweed Houses (Don’t want to spend thousands? Check out the Mad Housers.)
