The representative of the European Union (EU) in Cape Verde, Josep Coll, expressed today, the wish to announce during the Spanish Presidency, the partnership agreement to mobility between Cape Verde and Europe, whose negotiations are in progress (Inforpress).
ECONOMY
The Parliament approved, with abstention of the União Cabo-Verdiana Independente e Democrática (UCID), the alteration of the legal regime of the exploration of fortune games that will legalise the installation of gambling house in the country (Inforpress).
ENERGY
The Department of Energy is working to expand the building at the Palmarejo power plant and reinforce its capacity with two additional Wartsila 10 MW generators as a part of the government’s effort to centralize electricity production on the island of Santiago (A Semana).
TOURISM
The Department of Tourism held a forum in Praia to present its new website, the new tourism magazine and the Cape Verde Brand. The event, denominated “Cape Verde Wave” (“Onda Cabo Verde”), is hoped to involve all those connected to the sector in the implementation of the Strategic Tourism Plan (A Semana).
FOGO
São Filipe mayor Eugénio Veiga called for the creation of an institution of investigation and research in the areas of volcanology and geophysics on the island of Fogo. The mayor’s request comes following a study by Germany’s Leibniz Institute, which warned about the possibility of an underwater volcanic eruption near the island of Fogo (A Semana).
AIRPORTS
The decision to locate the future Santo Antão airport in the municipality of Porto Novo enjoys the consensus of political institutions, business owners and society at large, all of whom say that what is most important is to have an airport that serves the island’s development (A Semana).
A lot of religious people, especially environmentalists (but even some Christians), consider petroleum a sin. By contrast, here are some reasons that oil is a righteous investment:
(1) Oil is a plentiful energy source which was created by a good God who made all things for our benefit (Genesis 1-2).
(2) Oil is the energy of choice which fuels production in world’s strongest economies in the world and helps to provide for the general well-being of billions of people.
(3) Oil is an extremely energy efficient source which was provided by our Creator as an energy source, unlike ethanol and other biofuels which derive from grains and other foods, which God provides to us for food because he loves us. The use of biofuels has led to an increase in global food prices which have greatly hurt the poor. The consumption of oil and other petroleum products such as natural gas and coal have no such negative consequences for the world food market.
(4) Oil is proving to be a renewable resource and not a fossil fuel. Therefore, it is not something that we will run out of; we will not see Armeggedon because we run out of oil, but perhaps if we are not allowed to exploit sources of oil that we know exist.
(5) Anthropogenic global warming is a hoax. Therefore, there is no substance to the main argument against oil–the fear that the planet will turn into a ball of fire.
Every year, during this time, when the union budget is announced, there is a lot halla over it. Is the budget good? Will it help the common man? Will it be good for the industries, and the IT sector? Many economists believe that the best way to evaluate the budget is understanding behavior of the stock market.
If the stock market goes up, the budget is described as successful. If it moves sideways, it is said that the market has absorbed it well. If it moves down, it becomes bad news for the market, hence a bad budget. Stock market follows a very complex pattern. If stimulus is withdrawn, it is not considered good by many, since it means more taxes and hence less profit. But it also means more revenue and less government borrowing, which will in turn creates more scope for private borrowing and private investment. The point is this- Stock market is not the ultimate way to judge the union budget, as many believe.
The country gets on its feet, when the budget is announced, but the same people eventually forget about it for the rest of the year. Please understand- the annual budget is a briefcase full of guidelines, promises and expectations, and nothing else! It is merely a plan, and the success and failure completely lies in its implementation. One day, week or month is too early to analyze it!
The Conference Board, a private economic analysis company, released the latest figures for its Consumer Confidence Index on February 23. They showed a sharp, and unexpected, drop in consumer sentiment. What does this mean?
How it’s calculated
The Conference Board hires an outside surveying firm to poll 5,000 families each month. They answer five questions concerning their assessment of: job prospects today, job prospects in six months, overall economic activity today, activity in six months, and the family’s income in six months. The answers can only be: positive, neural or negative.
The Conference Board throws out the “neutrals” and calculates the percentage of positives in the group of positives + negatives (for what it’s worth, this is called a diffusion index). It then compares its results with those of a base year, 1985, to come up with the final result.
The Board also produces two sub-indices, the Present Situation and Expectations Index.
What the interviewees said
They’re the most pessimistic they’ve been since 1983 about the current situation. It only took a few respondents swinging from positive to negative to achieve this result (where have they been the past three years?). And I think that historically the Present Situation index has had less predictive value than the Expectations Index.
Expectations about what the economy will look like in mid-summer have also deteriorated, however, after months of steady improvement. And the numbers of respondents shifting from optimism to pessimism is considerably larger.
How Wall Street uses this information
Economists argue that there’s a direct relationship between consumers’ confidence and their spending behavior. A dip in consumer expectations about the path of economic recovery, therefore, may be signaling that retail spending is about to fall off.
There’s some question, though, as to whether sentiment indicators give much insight into future economic activity or are simply reflective of conditions as they are today. Certainly, other survey information like business confidence, employment trends or overall leading economic indicators are all continuing to tell a more positive story. In addition, publicly-listed consumer companies have by and large been saying that the economy is past the worst and business is picking up.
Can Wall Street be good if consumer confidence is bad?
No, if confidence remains depressed for, say, another year. But there are several factors that argue the stock market can do well, despite poor consumer confidence numbers.
–this is the worst economy for the US in the past seventy years, and one of the longest recessions, so it would be surprising if consumers weren’t feeling bad. Remember, too, that the previous low point was in 1983, an economic recovery year. So confidence can act at times as a lagging indicator.
–in the textbooks, economic recoveries start by low interest rates stimulating industrial production. That spending results in companies hiring new workers, sparking consumer spending as the second leg of the upturn. In past recessions in the US, however, this order has been reversed. Consumer spending has come first, triggering hiring and then industrial expansion. But this time around, the banking crisis has destroyed the housing industry, a key engine in consumer spending revival. So, I think, we’re going to have a “textbook” recovery. This means new hiring will come later than normal in the cycle. Peoples’ expectations are being disappointed–but maybe only for six months.
–I think that for years to come there will be a higher level of structural unemployment in the US than we are used to. Though not really hard evidence, a recent story in the New York Times about “The New Poor” illustrates what I mean. The problem of older, less skilled, computer-illiterate workers has been with us for a decade or more, but has been disguised by the artificial economic vigor induced by the housing boom. This is a national tragedy. And the negative responses to consumer sentiment surveys from the long-term unemployed and their relatives and neighbors will likely depress consumer confidence indices for a long time to come.
Taking off my hat as a human being and putting on my hat as an investor, however, it seems to me that this 5% or so of the population will have very little effect on the profits of publicly-traded companies that cater to US customers. (For example, look at my post on an FDIC study showing that 25% of US households, most of them less affluent, are outside the mainstream banking system.) Revenue growth may be a little slower, but profit growth may not be affected at all.
–Looking at the composition of the S&P 500, half the revenue comes from outside the US. The consumer discretionary sector, where the brunt of the falloff in spending will likely be felt, comprises about 11% of the index. Let’s say that this group gets all its revenue from US customers (the high end has lots of foreign revenue, though). If we assume it loses 5% of its customers (which is too high) that comprise 2% of its revenue (again too high), profits may be 2%-4% less than they would be otherwise. The effect on the S&P as a whole? –a loss of .20%-.45% to the index growth rate.
Again, I don’t mean to minimize the social and political cost of having a permanent underclass of older unemployed citizens. But the numbers alone seem to argue that the S&P will be relatively unaffected.
You’ve heard the song What Do the Lonely Do at Christmas. Well, what do the unemployed do each day? They wake up at 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, 5:00 or maybe 6:00 in the morning. Perhaps to job search; to read a book; to blog; to worry; to play a quick game of solitaire to relax or unwind; to watch a movie; to pray; or to think about the future – and the future is not three or five years from now, but tomorrow, the next day, the next week, the next month.
Yesterday I thought I would get the call scheduling my interview for the job out of state. It didn’t come. The company initially informed me that they wanted to possibly have me there today (Tuesday, February 23). It’s difficult to get a schedule together when you have to meet with multiple individuals, and, likely, even more difficult when the individuals you’re meeting are attorneys. I spoke with HR on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week. On Friday, I e-mailed the requested bio attaching my resume that would be distributed to the interviewers. I followed up with a phone call to the recruiter letting him know I had e-mailed the bio. He thanked me and informed me that he would be in touch next week (this week).
I talked with a friend that lives in the state where the company is located to find out about places to live. My mom reminded me that I have cousins – first cousins – that live there also. That’s reassuring. If I have to make a move, at least I know people there. The unemployed anticipate a job, or in this case a move, before the interview even takes place. A mere glimpse of a job keeps me hopeful.
The Congress has recently raised the official debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion. This amounts to about 100% of GDP and is a sign of trouble ahead. What is rarely mentioned is that this total does not include future unfunded obligations which run the total into the neighborhood of $100 trillion. This level of debt is unsustainable and the day of reckoning may well occur this decade. How can such massive debts ever hope to be paid? There are four basic methods available to address the debt.
Rapid GDP growth
Rising inflation
Increased taxes
Outright default
As illustrated by the Laffer Curve, the current level of taxation is near the point where higher levels will depress GDP growth. Additionally, the sheer size of government at all levels will make it very difficult for the economy to grow sufficiently to reduce the ratio of debt/GDP. This leaves default or inflation as the realistic options. Outright default is politically unfeasible, requiring the government to renege on future Social Security and Medicare benefits, and current interest payments on the debt. Inflation, which is a quiet, long-term form of default, is in all likelihood what the US will be experiencing in the future. This paper demonstrates how this can be accomplished with a surprisingly modest level of inflation. When you hear the term “quantitative easing” in the news, you’re seeing inflation being imposed on the economy. In an inflationary environment debtors will be relatively better off, while savers will be crushed.
I’m not sure what I think of Whole Foods (WFMI) as a stock. But the company’s recently-reported first quarter (ending January 17th) results are a solid indicator that the US economy is on the recovery path, in my opinion. The evidence? –customers are coming back to the company’s stores for the first time since recession hit.
Earnings per share for the quarter were $.36 (excluding a $.04 charge for anticipated losses on store closings) vs. $.20 in the year-ago period. More important as an economic indicator, though–
Comp store sales are now positive
Comp store sales for WFMI continued to rebound from an early 2009 low and have emerged into positive territory. The progression is as follows:
2Q 2009 -4.8%
3Q 2009 -2.5%
4Q 2009 -0.9%
1Q 2010 first five weeks +1.5%
rest of quarter +4.3%
2Q 2010 to date +7.0%
Admittedly, comps are getting easier as WFMI compares against its results during the worst of the economic slump of a year ago, but consumer behavior is very encouraging. What’s happening? Why is this an important sign for the economy?
Recessionary behavior…
During the recession, consumers traded down. This affected WFMI in two ways, in much the same way as one would see from a luxury goods retailer. That’s not so surprising, since in effect that’s what WFMI is.
–Some “aspirational” customers could no longer afford to buy at WFMI and began to use traditional supermarkets for a larger portion, or all, of their food shopping.
–Other clients continued to buy the same proportion of their food at WFMI as before, but gravitated toward the “center of the store,” which contains staples and non-perishables, and away from the higher-margin fresh produce and prepared foods.
(Not all WFMI’s problems came from recession. It was also suffering from having raised its prices too aggressively during the good times. The acquisition of Wild Oats was more difficult than expected. And it turned out that the 50,000+ square foot stores WFMI had been opening over the past several years were too expensive to build and too big to run economically.)
…is changing for the better
The progressive increase in same store sales is coming from:
–more customers. Stores are reporting that the higher customer numbers are a combination of former regulars returning for the first time in over a year, and first-timers.
–more items in the basket. Pricing is flat year-on-year. Purchase amounts are rising because customers are buying more of their food at WFMI, although the company is also beginning to detect some movement toward higher-priced items.
–a move away from the store center and toward the periphery. Strength in fresh produce, for example, is “extraordinary.”
WFMI has helped its own cause
It has shifted to opening smaller, more efficient stores. It’s also been controlling inventories, especially of perishables, better. Former Wild Oats stores are beginning to comp strongly positive. WFMI has been able to buy organic produce more cheaply, because traditional supermarkets have cut back on their ordering. It also sounds like WFMI itself has shifted from “organic” meat offerings to less expensive “natural.” (The latter designation means no/low use of antibiotics and hormones; the former means that plus 100% organic feed and limited confinement.) The company has also begun a “Health Starts Here” education campaign promoting the stores’ products.
WFMI is clearly convinced the worst is over,
because it has sharply increased its guidance for full-year earnings. Wall Street took the results announcement as surprisingly good news. The stock was up about 13% in Thursday trading. If you wanted to make a positive case for the stock, I think it would have two parts:
–the management of WFMI has a flair for high-end food retailing, and
–the financial rescue of the company in late 2008 by Leonard Green and Partners, and that firm’s emergence as a significant shareholder, has brought to WFMI a higher degree of financial discipline and management control.
Maybe so. I don’t know enough to have a strong opinion. I do think, though, that the strength in WFMI’s business is a good indicator that the economy is recovering its health.
Strength here is better than in luxury goods
As I hear them, luxury goods makers and retailers are saying that the very high end–”statement pieces” of jewelry, for example–have bounced back strongly. Otherwise, however, customers are probing the low end of offerings to find a comfortable place to shop. Retailers are asking for still more modestly-priced goods to tempt customers back into the stores. Yes, WFMI has cut prices, but it seems to me the upturn in food is much more across the board (so far, anyway) and likely much more sustainable than for luxury goods.
Its been a dream of many people to live and work in the Caribbean but lack of information about the job market has always kept many away from achieving their dream. US Virgin Islands is located in the Caribbean and being a US territory provides peace of mind to its residents with the same quality of Caribbean life one could imagine. For many years finding a job in the Virgin Islands was a daunting task with only limited level of ground resources available to the job applicants. In 2008, a leading technology company in the Virgin Islands, BIZVI launched a completely free job website, www.career.vi , providing free interaction between the job seekers and employers. In a short period of time, Career.VI became Virgin Islands leading job website with thousands of registered seekers and hundreds of employers posting hundreds of jobs. This has not only helped the local population in their job hunt, but also is providing as the premier resource to the people from all over the world to pursue their life’s dream of working and living in the Virgin Islands.
From the desk of Ken Bryant at Lake Chatuge on the state line between Hiawassee, GA and Hayesville, NC
Daily Real Estate News | January 21, 2010 |
Tax Credit Ignites Early Spring Selling Season
The homebuying season is starting early this year, thanks to the expanded first-time and move-up homebuyer tax credit.
Typically, the busiest time for home shopping starts in March and continues through May, but this year buyers who want to take advantage of the tax credits have to hold a signed contract by April 30 and close the deal by June 30.
That is getting people off the couch.
“The tax credit will absolutely have an effect,” says Pete Flint, CEO of residential real estate search engine Trulia.com. “It is going to shift demand from the later part of the year to the first part. January and February will be very strong. The next three months, there will be a surge in demand.”
Wow. I love Bob’s Red Mill. My wife and I shop at the company store every chance we get. They sell great quality grains, legumes, among other types of food, and in bulk, if you want it. I just had some of their 13 bean soup mix on Ash Wednesday, actually. The employees there have always been top notch and very helpful to us. All this is a backdrop for the bombshell that was dropped today: Bob Moore — the founder and owner of the company — is giving the entire works to his employees. Considering they only have 209 employees, this is a big, big deal:
“This is Bob taking care of us,” said Lori Sobelson, who helps run the business’ retail operation. “He expects a lot out of us, but really gives us the world in return.” Moore declined to say how much he thinks the company is worth. In 2004, however, one business publication estimated that year’s revenues at more than $24 million. A company news release issued this week stated that Bob’s Red Mill has chalked up an annual growth rate of between 20 percent to 30 percent every year since.
Wow. As an employee of a privately-held company, you really can’t expect this. You make an agreement to do your job at the best of your ability for an agreed upon package, mostly being salary. No complaints there, but this is pretty much a dream for these workers. Instead of only the executives getting the package, they’re all getting it. Neat.
We’ll find out now, I guess, how much of their success had to do with Bob Moore himself, and his company can keep succeeding so wildly at what they do. I know I’ll keep spending my cash there (from another privately held company, by the way).
Here’s a video about it on ABC News that, unfortunately, I’m unable to embed.
“Decolonization process affects the individual and fundamentally modifies him; it transforms crushed and unessential spectators to privilege actors. Decolonization introduces a proper rhythm to the newly created man, to the new languages, and a newer humanity. Man is liberated through the process and demands revisiting a set of questions in the integrality of the new situation: The damned spectators in the last rows want to edge to the first rows and then become full actors on the scene.
The damned of the earth want to smash the tribal and clannish conditions that colonial powers maintained to divide and subjugate. This kind of violence is a desintoxicating phase to getting rid of the inferiority complex. This initial violence tends to unify the damned of the earth toward national unity regardless of tribal and sectarian roots. Thus, this violence has no pity to reactionary forces that struggle to maintain colonial statue-quo.
The damned needs the post colonial violence to re-gaining self-esteem; he wants to believe that success was the work of all the damned, even if not a single shot was fired in many decolonization conditions. The damned is elevated to the rank of leader and refuses to confirm any single person as the “liberator” simply because he wants to understand everything and then to decide on every issue.
Illuminated by violence the conscience of the damned rebels against any sort of pacification program. The decolonized damned of the earth intend to demand from the colonial powers to rehabilitate man, his dignity, and his human rights. (1961)”
Frantz Fanon (1925-61) was born in French Martinique Island and died of cancer at the Bethesda hospital in Washington DC. He was buried, according to his will, in Algeria where he practiced as psychiatrist for four years (1954-57). Algeria acquired its independence the following year to Fanon’s death.
Fanon was engaged in the French Liberation Army in 1943 and received the war medal in 1945. He then studied psychiatry in Lyon; he adopted the vision of his mentor Francois Tosquelles (1912-94) that says that hospital should be the center of unifying the sick, nurses, and physicians for the sole objective of rehabilitating and re-inserting the sick to normal society.
Frantz was incensed to witnessing Creole people (mixed blood) in French colonies trying to behave as class apart of blacks and be accepted as white to the heavy price of deep amputation in their heritage and culture. Thus, Fanon published in 1952 his “Black skin, white mask” which is a study of the alienation of black people whose identity is defined by the others (white prejudiced culture).
“Race is a prison for black man; he is radically alienated into becoming an object. Black man should refuse to shoulder the burden of past slavery and thrives to catch up as man among men. Nigger is not; White too is not!
Mother, look at this nigger; I am scared: he wants to eat me live. Every white child is scared when he sees me. When a black man shivers of cold then the kid thinks that the black man is shivering of rage. I tended to get amused first but quickly this game turned impossible to suffer. It dawned on me that every apartheid attitude is fundamentally not based solely on color but on every culture that is different of the mainstream culture. (1952)”
Note: Fifty years after acquiring independence, most African States have reverted to tribalism and religious antagonism. The colonial and imperial powers have been at it indirectly: the enemy is not that obvious because black foremen and black intellectual are doing the maligning and the work hired by multinationals that are mostly directly backed by their respective powerful governments.
Gus Lubin and Lawrence Delevingne | Feb. 17, 2010, 11:51 AM
Hundreds of thousands of people have descended on Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Three billion are projected to follow on TV and 75 million more on vancouver2010.com.
And people around the world are learning to love obscure sports like curling and biathlon for a couple of weeks.
But before you get too caught up in the sports, remember that the Olympics have little to do with sports. They’re mostly about money.
In the United States, NBC demonstrates this every day — ruining the Olympics for millions of sports fans by tape-delaying events so it can show a highlight reel during prime time. (To their credit, other countries don’t do this: Our readers remind us every day how great the coverage is in Canada).
But NBC is just a small part of the global industry known as Olympics, Inc.
In the last four years (2005-2008), the International Olympic Committee (the owners and controllers of “Olympics, Inc.”) generated nearly $6 billion of revenue. For the next cycle, revenues are on track to be significantly higher, with Vancouver already doubling Turin for domestic sponsorship.
It’s enough to make you look twice at the IOC, which is based conveniently in tax-haven Switzerland.
Although the IOC is a non-profit organization, employment (“membership”) in the organization is a cushy job with many benefits.
Where does all that money come from and go? Is anyone making a profit? And who put the IOC in charge anyway?
We bring you the answers here. See the secret $6 billion world of the IOC >
Did a dog on two feet taken a bite off your kid? (Feb. 17, 2010)
“Every black man who teaches another black person to extend the other cheek when attacked is robbing the newly freed Negro of his natural rights to defend his moral and intelligence rights. Why everyone in nature has the rights to defend his life save the American blacks?
Everytime a dog on two feet bites your wives and children, if anyone among you stands up for leader to compromise with this rabid dog for a job in the city then, I say this leader is faked. A Negro has to rely on his inner strength, will, and education to get ahead and be someone of value.
Integration is but an astute gimmick of white people to shock blacks into lethargy; making him believes that white folks can change. White people in America have sawn crimes against humanity for centuries; it is time for them to reap our thunder.
Why is it that Jews are presidents of black organization such as NAACP? Did they ever consider any black to head B’nai B’rith or any of their associations? When we prove that Jews in the USA are exploiting black people in the ghettoes in the northern cities (90% of Jewish trades are targeting blacks) then they shout “anti-Semite”. Deep in their soul Jews know they are hiding their culpability; they have this sensibility to believe they are targeted when exploitation is mentioned. They are right to feel that way because they preferred to exploit blacks’ hard earning rather than taking them for slaves.” (Extract of an interview by Malcolm X, 1963)
Malcolm Little, known as Malcolm X (1925-65), did prison term (1946-52) and then got engaged with Nation of Islam. His highly valued oratory skills made Elijah Muhammad apprehensive that Malcolm X was quickly usurping his authority within the Black Moslems brotherhood. Thus, by 1963, Malcolm took his distances and started his own black organization. Elijah Muhammad backed by the FBI assassinated Malcolm X in 1965.
Malcolm X was an influential leader among the young generations in the northern US cities; he went on pilgrimage to Mecca and visited many African States that recently acquired their independence from colonial powers. Malcolm X program was to establishing an independent black state in the southern part of the USA before re-immigrating to Africa, the homeland of the black slaves.
The Black Panthers, headed by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, as well as Black Power, headed by Stokeley Carmichael, echo Malcolm X positions for organizing black people into auto-defense institutions.
Note: I opened a new category “Black culture/ Creole”.
Apart from his fondness for haikus, and his giggle-inducing name, it’s hard to think of anything interesting to say about Herman Van Rompuy, the first president of the European Council. In fact, the whole point of the Belgian’s election was the avoidance of color and interest: they were looking for a low-profile eurocrat with a record of patiently building relationships, one whose focus was internal rather than external. As the Economist points out: “For all his merits, Mr Van Rompuy’s main experience of an international dispute as prime minister is the Belgo-Dutch row over the dredging of the River Scheldt.”
But one interesting thing about Mr Van Rompuy is his Catholicism, about which he makes no bones. He was educated (drumroll, s’il vous plaît) by Jesuits in Brussels, went onto the Catholic University of Leuven, and in the 1980s wrote a book about Christendom as a modern idea. He is, in short, a bearer of the torch first lit by the Catholic architects of European unity– De Gasperi, Schuman, Adenauer — who, like Van Rompuy, were all Christian Democrats for whom faith and Europe went together.
In 2004, when he was an opposition deputy, Van Rompuy objected to Turkey joining the EU in terms very similar to those used by the then Cardinal Ratzinger (h/t to Tom Heneghan at Reuters, who puts the two quotes side by side): namely that Turkey’s Islamic character would dilute the Christian character of the EU.
That kind of talk makes me queasy. But I am impressed by a speech (in French) Van Rompuy gave on Caritas in Veritate which he carries on his website. It shows a sophisticated grasp of Catholic social doctrine.
Dull he may be, but I for one am delighted that at the heart of the European Union is a politician who can write (my trans):
According to [Catholic] social doctrine, the political community is at the service of the civil society from which it is born. Civil society represents the sum total of the goods, cultural or relational, which are relatively independent of politics and the economy. The state should make sure that the legal framework allows the social actors (societies, associations, organisations, and so on) to carry out their activities in total freedom; it should be ready to intervene, only if needed and in conformity with the principle of subsidiarity, in order that the interaction between freedom of association and the democratic way leads in the direction of the common good.”
Hiromori Maedomari, editorialist for the Okinawa-based Ryukyu News Company, argues that the idea that the US military presence in Okinawa props up the local economy is a myth. Précis of article in February edition of current affairs journal ‘Sekai’.
Maedomari begins by arguing that the answer to the question of whether the Okinawan economy is viable without the US military presence would be a resounding ‘yes’ and comments that the bases are more of a parasite on the local economy than a support and that local opinion is that the time has come to give it a taste of its own medicine. While the bases did contribute to the relative wealth of the region for a period during their construction and, particularly, during the Vietnam War when US soldiers had money in their pockets to burn before heading overseas to fight – during this ‘bubble’ period, the local people had no choice but to depend on the economic opportunities afforded by their ‘generosity’. Formerly an agricultural island, Okinawa lost most of its farmable land to the predatory expansion of the US military zones. With nowhere to work or live the local people became dependent on handouts from the US occupiers and a large pool of labour was created to work for the construction companies that built the bases and associated properties – by 1950, it is estimated that over 50% of the local economy was dependent on this demand for roads (eg., Route 58), ports (Naha Military Port), airports (Kadena, Futenma, Iejima, etc.), the associated sewerage infrastructure, in addition to the libraries and other public buildings necessary for the maintenance of a stable civil society. The burden of all this work was borne by the local people and was the main foundation of the post-war recovery process.
After the initial construction boom and after the end of the Vietnam War, it became apparent that the economy had become severely skewed in the direction of providing entertainment and solace for members of the US military. Useful tax revenue was extremely low and the disassociation of economic activity from actual local needs hindered the development of healthy, independent economic activity. The consumerist economy focused on the needs of the foreign military presence that developed after the war has seen no need for the actual production base that exists in Okinawa. Propped up also by handouts from the Japanese government, the market mechanism is not properly earthed in the local region – far more than local business conditions or events, the economy is affected by international power politics. Through all this, the Okinawan people have never had their voice heeded nor their right to express opposition to the effectively-occupying force recognized – instead they have been brutally sucked into a cruel era in which history has forced on them an economic structure which leaves them dependent for their livelihoods on an un-opposable foreign military presence.
Some statistics are quoted in the article from data collected by the Okinawa Prefecture US Base Policy Response Agency. In March 2008, there were 34 American military installations in Okinawa prefecture, occupying 23,293 hectares of land or 10.2% of the entire prefecture, and 18.4% of Okinawa island itself. 25% of US military installations in Japan are located in Okinawa, accounting for 23% of the total land area occupied by the US military in the whole country. 38.8% of the military installations operated exclusively by the US military (as opposed to being operated in cooperation with the Japanese SDF) are located in Okinawa prefecture. Okinawa prefecture itself makes up no more than 0.6% of the total land mass of Japan, yet despite this carries the burden of 48% of the total number of military installations in the country. Of the 33,286 US soldiers in Japan, 64% are based in Okinawa prefecture; of those 86% are the US Marines typically involved in many of the crimes, incidents and accidents that plague the local society. This is before any mention is made of the traumatizing noise pollution created in the course of their daily activities.
There have been approximately 5,584 criminal incidents involving members of the US military in the 36-year period (1972-2008) since Okinawa was officially returned to Japan. Of those, murder, armed robbery, arson and rape accounted for 559 cases. There are over 100 serious traffic accidents involving US military-associated vehicles each year, and the numbers have been increasing in the last 5 years to around 160-180 accidents a year. Related deaths number between 2 and 5 people each year, with over 200 people being injured. In many cases, proper investigation of the accidents is prevented and those responsible are rarely insured properly to allow for compensation payments to their victims.
Under US military rule, Okinawa was kept separate from the mainland through their support of a Ryuukyuu Government Organization, the primarily agricultural workforce were redirected into construction and industry (16.7% of the workforce), employed on US bases or nearby in commercial entreprises (77.5%) and the exchange rate between the dollar and yen was artificially distorted (the ‘B yen’ was worth about a third of the mainland currency) which had the effect of removing any incentives to produce goods for ‘export’ and made the economy heavily dependent on imports, an effective containment and control fiscal policy which aimed to harmonize the Okinawan economy with the American. Thus, the agricultural prefecture of Okinawa was forcefully transformed into a service-based economy dependent on the custom of the American military. The revenue stream was generally directed out of the region and the local economy did not prosper as much as might be expected from the visual transformation that it underwent.
With much of the U.S. receiving blasts of record snow this winter (and more predicted for this weekend), it seems only natural that the subjects of snow and its impact would be on people’s minds.
Jeff Koterba: Omaha World-Herald/cagle.com
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As usual, Jon Stewart takes on the burning questions of the day:
If winter precipitation is called snow, what should unusual winter precipitation be called? And…If Global Warming causes increased precipitation, does a series of record winter precipitation mean climate change or just your average apocalyptic weather pattern?
(The video can be seen here).
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More great cartoons from the Washington Post:
Ken Catalino: Syndicated / cagle.com
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Chris Britt: State Journal-Register (Springfield, Ill.) / cagle.com
ISLAMABAD: A trilateral US-Pakistan-Afghanistan forum on agriculture has made a robust start in its first meeting held in Qatar with the United States making initial commitment of $100 million as first tranche out of a hefty fund it promised to bolster agriculture in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“More money will flow as concrete projects get under way,” US deputy under-secretary agriculture Burnham Philbrook observed in the plenary session. According to a message received here on Friday, the meeting was organised in Doha by the US Embassy in Pakistan for security reasons and to avoid visa and other complications envisaged in holding it in the United States.
Working groups comprising experts from the three countries in their deliberations focused on areas of food security, trade corridors and water management. Malik announced that the next meeting of the forum will be held in Pakistan in April. Pakistan voiced its concerns on the dam being built on River Kabul with India’s assistance and suggested a profound engagement between Pakistan and Afghanistan to address these concerns.
JEF opens today; women dismayed
13 Feb 2010
By Hamdan Al-Harbi and Zain Anbar
JEDDAH – The 10th Jeddah Economic Forum, headlined “The Global Economy 2020”, kicks off at the Hilton Hotel in Jeddah Saturday evening with over 1,000 “experts, businessmen and academics discussing the outlook for the world economy in the next 10 years.”
Opened by Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, Emir of Makkah region, the Chamber of Commerce and Gulf Research Center-organized event will focus on the key sectors of banking and finance, energy, environment, trade, agriculture, industry, education, health, and science and technology over its four days of activities.
Forum supervisor and head of the Gulf Research Center Abdul Aziz Bin Saqr, said that groups of academics from Saudi and foreign universities worked together to draw up the list of speakers and the issues to be addressed.
“There will be 42 speakers over nine sessions, and the Gulf Research Center will resume each one in a set of final recommendations to be presented to the Chamber of Commerce once the forum has concluded,” he said. “All the events will be transmitted live on the forum’s website.”
Bin Saqr noted that of the 1,200 participants, 370 were women.
“There have also been special invitations to members of the Shoura Council and officials, and 15 percent of those in attendance will be academics,” Bin Saqr said.
Women miffed
Not everyone is happy with the way events have been planned, however, as a number of specialists have noted that of the over three dozen speakers scheduled to address the gathering, not a single one is female.
Nadia Bakharji, an engineer who spoke at the forum in 2005, said she was surprised not to receive an invitation.
“If I’d been asked I would have been happy to provide my experience as a twice-elected member of the Engineers Commission and as a member of its board for four years,” Bakharji said.
“I have also recently completed ten years on the board of the International Arab Forum for Women, and have experience in many areas of private economic activity. I think I have a lot to say and could have contributed.”
Bakharji added: “I hope this doesn’t suggest they’ll be ignoring women at future forums, and that they realize the error as soon as possible and select a Saudi woman who will do us justice.”
Businesswoman Izdihar Batoubara was equally perplexed.
“Where is Nahid Tahir the first bank director general, and where is Lama Al-Solaiman, the first vice president of a chamber of commerce, and where are all the other Saudi women who’ve distinguished themselves in economic affairs?” Batoubara wondered.
Batoubara further questioned whether the absence of women speakers was an “oversight” or not. “If there aren’t any women speakers in the future I shalln’t be attending,” she said.
Amani Abdul Wasi’ was more magnanimous.
“It’s a troubling surprise, but we can only suppose that there was no ill intention and that everything was organized ahead of time and that women were invited to speak but were unable to attend,” she said.
In response to the dismay, Bin Saqr said that the Gulf Research Center did not discriminate between men and women, and said that speakers were chosen in accordance with their fields of specialty and subjects to be addressed.
“It must be remembered that the forum has a global dimension,” he said.
“The organizers have tried to find a balance between guests from the Kingdom and abroad to bring in diversity.
Women have a significant part to play at the forum, and there will be female academics present who will have the chance to table questions and speak from the floor during discussions.”
The Jeddah Economic Forum will begin proceedings at 8.30 P.M. Saturday evening when Prince Khaled Al-Faisal will give the opening sponsor’s speech, followed by the Minister of Trade and Industry Abdullah Zainal, President of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce Saleh Kamil, and President of the Gulf Research Center Abdul Aziz Bin Saqr.
The first business will involve the honoring of numerous individuals for their work in economic fields, and subsequent sessions over the four days will look at “Global Economic Management after the Crisis”, “Future Reserve Currencies”, Rebuilding Confidence in Financial Bodies, Energy and Environment, Trade and Investment Protection Policies, Agriculture and Food Security, and Health.
ccording to Bin Saqr the forum expects to show a surplus of 1.5 million riyals, “thanks to the great support given by Prince Khaled, Emir of Makkah, who put back his holidays to take part in the forum”. – Okaz/SG
February 10, 2010: Daniel Tencer / Raw Story - February 10, 2010
Concerns over privacy have aligned with apocalyptic Biblical prophecy in a proposed Virginia law that limits the use of microchip implants on humans because of a lawmaker’s concern that the chips will prove to be the Antichrist’s “mark of the beast.”
On Wednesday, Virginia’s House of Delegates passed a bill that forbids companies from forcing their employees to be implanted with tracking devices, a move likely to be applauded by civil libertarians. But Virginia state Delegate Mark Cole’s reasons for proposing the law have as much to do with the Book of Revelation as they do with concerns over privacy in the digital age. Cole says he is concerned that the implants will turn out to be the “mark of the beast” worn by Satan’s minions.
“My understanding — I’m not a theologian — but there’s a prophecy in the Bible that says you’ll have to receive a mark, or you can neither buy nor sell things in end times,” Cole said, as quoted at the Washington Post. “Some people think these computer chips might be that mark.”
Cole is not alone in making that assertion. Evangelical Outreach, a Web site run by pastor Dan Corner, states that “[w]ith modern technology, it is very possible that this mark may be directly linked with a computer chip.”
“Radio frequency identification (RFID) implants are currently the prime candidate for this beastly technology,” says the Riding the Beast blog.
David Neff, editor of Christianity Today, says that “this is part of a larger attempt to constantly read current history in the light of the symbolic language of the Book of Revelation,” according to the Post.
Opponents of Cole’s measure argue that it’s “a solution in search of a problem,” the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star reports.
Virginia Democratic delegate Bob Brink said: “As I went door to door, there were a number of issues that never came up. I didn’t hear anything about the danger of an asteroid striking the earth or about the menace of forced implantation of microchips in humans.”
But Cole says it was his constituents who brought the issue to his attention. He says people are concerned that chip implants will replace employee ID badges in offices.
If passed by the full legislature, Virginia will become the fourth state in the US to have such a law. California, Missouri and Georgia have all passed a similar measure, or are working to pass one.
Momentum behind microchip implants has been building for years. Perhaps most significantly, Florida-based VeriChip introduced an implant in 2001 that can store medical data. The FDA approved the technology for use in humans in 2004.
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: “And he that causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:” – Revelation 13:16 KJV
Advance estimates of national income growth released today by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) project it at 7.2 per cent in 2009-10, pegging it a notch below earlier forecasts of the Reserve Bank of India (7.5 per cent) and finance ministry (7.75 per cent). With economic growth back on track the government may initiate a phased withdrawal of the fiscal stimulus package.
These growth projections for gross domestic product (GDP), however, come on a revised base of 2004-05. One consequence of this statistical change is that the fiscal deficit, calculated on a higher national income base, would be lower.
Further, with nominal GDP expected to grow 10.6 per cent at market prices against the Budget estimate of 10.05 per cent the fiscal deficit could come down by another 30 basis points compared to the 6.8 per cent estimated in the 2009-10 Budget. The fiscal deficit is the difference between the government’s total expenditure and receipts minus its borrowings.
“If market prices are considered the GDP of around 10.6 per cent will provide a cushion of 30 basis points to the fiscal deficit,” said Jyotinder Kaur, economist, HDFC.
The fiscal deficit as a percentage of GDP would then fall to about 6.1 per cent almost touching the 2008-09 level of 6 per cent.
Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla said the economy will outgrow the projection given by the advance estimates and we would be looking at a higher growth in the revised estimates.
“This is an advance estimate. What we normally see when the final numbers come out for the third and the fourth quarter is that there is an upward bias and we are sure that this time also the same thing will happen,” he told reporters.
Analysts see a growth rate of 7.2 per cent as “fair” “We had expected the growth to be 6.9 to 7 per cent for the full year. The good thing is that we expected a deep negative on the agriculture side and a 0.2 per cent decline is less than what we were expecting. On the valuation side, agriculture has not lost much due to high MSP and other factors,” said Indranil Pan, chief economist, Kotak Mahindra Bank.
The advance estimates show that growth in 2009-10 is expected to be led by an 8.9 per cent expansion in the manufacturing sector, which had grown a meagre 3.2 per cent in 2008-09. Agriculture and allied industries are likely to contract 0.2 per cent against a growth of 1.6 per cent in the previous fiscal (2008-09).
“As much of the damage of the drought is expected to be felt in the third quarter , we forecast a decline in agricultural growth of -3 to -4 per cent , however, (in these figures) the CSO has factored in a remarkably strong Rabi harvest,” said a report by HDFC Bank’s economic research team.
Economists state that even as manufacturing growth has help the overall growth rate, most argue that it is still not the right time to withdraw fiscal incentives provided by the government to boost the economy .
“I don’t think the government should withdraw fiscal measures based on these numbers as the demand-side scenario is not yet clear,” added Pan.
However, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia pitched for a phased withdrawal of stimulus in the budget. “We should say that the stimulus has succeeded and we should begin to phase it down. The fiscal deficit next year will be lower than this year,” Ahluwalia said.
Growth in services, which accounts for more than half India’s GDP, is likely to slow to 8.7 per cent in the current fiscal against 9.8 per cent in the previous fiscal. The fall is due to reduced expansion in financial services and community, social and personal services — the element that typically reflects government spending.
Trade hotels, transport and communications are likely to grow at 8.3 per cent during the fiscal as compared to 7.6 per cent in the previous fiscal. Financing, insurance, real estate and business services are expected to grow at 9.9 per cent while community, social and personal services are expected to grow at 8.2 per cent in 2009-10.
In terms of GDP at market prices, Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCS) reflected the slowdown in the current fiscal with growth estimated at 32.3 per cent (at current prices) for the current fiscal against a growth of 33 per cent in the previous fiscal.
The country’s per capita income will see a surge of 9 per cent during the current financial year to Rs 43,749 from Rs 40,141 during the previous fiscal.
Last September, at the ‘Global Economic Forum’ held in Farmleigh, former Intel chief executive and chairman Craig Barrett created something of a stir when he suggested that Ireland was under-performing in both education and research and development, and that these failings needed to be corrected if the country was to pull itself out of recession. I wasn’t at the Forum (hey, I wasn’t invited), but I gather from some who were there that Barrett electrified the proceedings and set the tone for a significant debate.
Yesterday evening I was able, along with a few hundred others, to hear him develop his theme a little more at a public lecture organised by the Royal Irish Academy. It was a fascinating talk given by someone with an external perspective but with significant inside knowledge of Ireland.
In his lecture, he set out what he described as some ‘observations’ on current global conditions, followed by a list of things that Ireland needs to get right, and finally by a list of proposals or recommendations for the country.
His observations were as follows:
• Levels of income in any country are closely connected with the educational attainments of the population.
• Levels of productivity – which are vital for future growth – are closely linked to the successful harnessing of new technology .
• It is possible to identify the significant technologies of the future: nanotechnology, nano- and micro-electronics, photonics, biotechnology, new materials and alternative energy.
• Future economic growth will depend critically on entrepreneurship and successful start-ups.
From this he developed his list of national needs:
• A national education system that compares well with the best in the world and is based on excellence. He pointed out that Ireland’s education system has inadequate public investment and performs poorly in vital subjects such as mathematics and science.
• A system of higher education and research that promotes and values basic research, that encourages spin-outs from that research, and that allows universities to be ‘wealth creation centres’. Currently, he believes, Ireland’s universities lack proper expertise in relation to these goals, and their global standing is not as good as it could be.
• The right environment, particularly as regards taxation, IT infrastructure, and a culture that values risk-taking.
Then he presented 10 recommendations for Ireland:
(1) Our goal should be that Ireland’s education system becomes number 1 globally in all subjects, taking account in particular of our current failings in mathematics and science.
(2) We need to have excellent teachers who are truly experts in the subjects they teach. The teaching profession should be rewarded on the basis of performance, not seniority.
(3) Our education system should emphasise 21st century skills such as problem solving and interdisciplinarity, and should rely less on rote learning.
(4) More students need to study mathematics and science at third level, and we should reform the CAO points system in order to ‘bias the system towards the results we need’.
(5) Ireland’s universities need to focus more on delivering start-ups, following the example of Stanford or MIT.
(6) Ireland needs to implement the Lisbon target of investing 3 per cent of GDP in research and development; right now we are only managing about half of that.
(7) We need to ‘grow the economy from within’, as foreign direct investment is unlikely to go back to previous levels. Future growth must come from indigenous start-ups and from entrepreneurship, and we need to have a framework that encourages and facilitates this.
(8) Ireland needs to focus – we cannot do everything, so we need to prioritise those areas in which we can add value and lead.
(9) We need to achieve a dramatic improvement in our IT infrastructure.
(10) Ireland needs to want to compete with the world and to base its economic and business systems on that ambition.
This, it seems to me, represents a good basis for a new national strategy.
The famous biologist GG Simpson said: “The secret of life is the DNA and not vice versa.” We still are unable to comprehend how out of an inert universe living organisms emerged. The French biologist Francois Jacob in his book “Game of possibilities: Essay on the diversity of the living (1981)” wrote that the massacres in history of living species are far more the actions of priests and politicians rather than scientific processes.
“Strange solutions in our evolution cannot be the outcome of a rational God: he would have never applied them. There are no choices to select from such as magnetic tapes or phonograph disk: all that is possible to function is practically used by life history: basically, nature tends to re-use the old working solutions on new entities” wrote Jacob. There is this haunting perspective of hybrid specimens that are counter to nature, a chaos of an anti-world” said Jacob.
There is this illusion of better adaptation of species to nature but biology is refuting this illusion: mankind was not within the realm of the acceptable possibilities to exist; we are one among the 500 million historical structures that could have existed but only one million made it.
Although the constituents of mankind such as codons and nucleotides are finite the number of combinations and permutations exceeded what history allowed to exist. There is this neo-Confucian saying “Respect of nature implies that things follow their natural course; that mankind desists of tampering with pre-conceived systems of ideas”
Nature does not act based on the rational principle of sufficiency that is arbitrated from the outside. The process of energy production in living organisms started from fermentation, then evolved to photosynthesis, and mankind ended up with lung breathing process. We are using jet reaction engine attached to horse carriage to produce energy; this is not at all an efficient engineering design. Thus, nature uses “bric and broc” of minor engineering ingenuity that are not optimal or acceptable.
Representatives of the Bank of Latvia recently travelled to Berlin to accept an international award for the design of a gold coin, it has been reported. Maruta Brukle, head of the bank’s coin division, received the award alongside colleague Janis Blums at last week’s Coin of the Year Awards at the World Money Fair, reports Numismatic News. The gold 20 lati piece – dating back to 1922 – won the top accolade for Coin of the Year at the awards ceremony. Featured on the gold coin is a depiction of a woman in a scarf, which is said to represent motherhood.On the obverse of the piece are symbols of plenitude such as an apple, milk and bread wholesale diamonds.The item that took the prize for Most Artistic Coin was a Polish 200 zlotych gold piece, which depicts scenes of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Lisa Bellavin, Coin of the Year coordinator for Krause Publications, said that the gold coins that won the awards were "nothing short of breathtaking".
WASHINGTON–The FBI is pressing Internet service providers to record which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years, a requirement that law enforcement believes could help it in investigations of child pornography and other serious crimes.
FBI Director Robert Mueller supports storing Internet users’ “origin and destination information,” a bureau attorney said at a federal task force meeting on Thursday.
FBI director Robert Mueller
(Credit: Anne Broache/CNET)
As far back as a 2006 speech, Mueller had called for data retention on the part of Internet providers, and emphasized the point two years later when explicitly asking Congress to enact a law making it mandatory. But it had not been clear before that the FBI was asking companies to begin to keep logs of what Web sites are visited, which few if any currently do.
For full article: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10448060-38.html
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REDMOND, Wash. – Concur Technologies Inc.’s quarterly profit jumped 13 percent as the company reported higher sales of its employee travel and expense services.
The company said after the market closed Wednesday that its net income jumped to $6.5 million, or 12 cents per share, versus $5.8 million, or 11 cents per share, a year ago.
Excluding expenses for employee stock compensation and one-time items, the company earned 19 cents per share, topping the average projection of 17 cents per share of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, on that same basis.
Revenue in the last three months of 2009 — Concur’s fiscal first quarter — rose 16 percent to $67 Payday advance.7 million, ahead of analysts’ expectation for $66 million.
Concur’s forecast for 17 cents per share of net income in the second fiscal quarter, excluding items, fell short of analysts’ forecast for 20 cents per share in profit in the same period.
Concur shares fell $1.03, or 2.5 percent, to $40 in extended trading. They had fallen 22 cents, or 0.5 percent, to close at $41.14 before the results were reported.
The Treasury has admitted that it is having to “significantly reduce” its forecast of tax receipts from the expected income from the new 50p tax rate. This is because of the rather obvious ability to avoid paying with creative accountancy.
The problem is that the treasury were warned that this tax would be completely ineffective, and that it was only designed as part of Gordon Brown’s class war. It was a political decision to introduce it, not an economic one. Again, despite this warning, they wouldn’t listen. Perhaps if the Treasury would start making truly economic decision and not political ones, the economy wouldn’t be in half the mess that Labour have created,
In my previous post, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli quoted a WSJ, In Coke We Trust. This article explains that a soda pop bottler now has better credit than our government. That should be enough to make us all heartsick.
Fortunately, the People have started to take notice of the fact scoundrels lead us. One blog reviewed the reviews our president’s State of the Union address (see THE STATE OF THE UNION: REVIEWING THE REVIEWS) and made an interesting discovery. Very few bloggers in our state had anything good to say about our president’s message. It seems that it has become more difficult for president to tells his lies and to divide us by pitting one interest group against another.
Is President Barack Obama on the ropes? Can Washington’s Big Spenders still buy us with our own money? Will we the People get our act together and choose decent men and women to lead us? That depends upon us.
When we look at the character of the people who lead us, what we see is a reflection of our own character. The moral character of our leaders is no better — and no worse – than our own. Our leaders honor what we honor.
When Christians think of a tottering, undisciplined society many will point to Isaiah 3. When Isaiah spoke of God’s judgement, he spoke to a People that had lost its moral underpinnings. The people of Jerusalem and Judah relied no longer upon God’s Word and Wisdom. Each had become self-indulgent, and each thought only of their own wants. Thus, they behaved in the way of grown children who have never studied and accepted the truth of the Bible.
Isaiah 3 (Today’s New International Version)
Judgment on Jerusalem and Judah
1 See now, the Lord,
the LORD Almighty,
is about to take from Jerusalem and Judah
both supply and support:
all supplies of food and all supplies of water,
2 the hero and the warrior,
the judge and the prophet,
the diviner and the elder,
3 the captain of fifty and the person of rank,
the counselor, skilled worker and clever enchanter.
4 I will make mere youths their officials;
children will govern them.
5 People will oppress each other—
one against another, neighbor against neighbor.
The young will rise up against the old,
the nobody against the honored.
6 A man will seize one of his brothers
in his father’s house, and say,
“You have a cloak, you be our leader;
take charge of this heap of ruins!”
7 But in that day he will cry out,
“I have no remedy.
I have no food or clothing in my house;
do not make me the leader of the people.”
8 Jerusalem staggers,
Judah is falling;
their words and deeds are against the LORD,
defying his glorious presence.
9 The look on their faces testifies against them;
they parade their sin like Sodom;
they do not hide it.
Woe to them!
They have brought disaster upon themselves.
10 Tell the righteous it will be well with them,
for they will enjoy the fruit of their deeds.
11 Woe to the wicked!
Disaster is upon them!
They will be paid back
for what their hands have done.
12 Youths oppress my people,
women rule over them.
My people, your guides lead you astray;
they turn you from the path.
13 The LORD takes his place in court;
he rises to judge the people.
14 The LORD enters into judgment
against the elders and leaders of his people:
“It is you who have ruined my vineyard;
the plunder from the poor is in your houses.
15 What do you mean by crushing my people
and grinding the faces of the poor?”
declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.
16 The LORD says,
“The women of Zion are haughty,
walking along with outstretched necks,
flirting with their eyes,
tripping along with mincing steps,
with ornaments jingling on their ankles.
17 Therefore the Lord will bring sores on the heads of the women of Zion;
the LORD will make their scalps bald.”
18 In that day the Lord will snatch away their finery: the bangles and headbands and crescent necklaces, 19 the earrings and bracelets and veils, 20 the headdresses and ankle chains and sashes, the perfume bottles and charms, 21 the signet rings and nose rings, 22 the fine robes and the capes and cloaks, the purses 23 and mirrors, and the linen garments and tiaras and shawls.
24 Instead of fragrance there will be a stench;
instead of a sash, a rope;
instead of well-dressed hair, baldness;
instead of fine clothing, sackcloth;
instead of beauty, branding.
25 Your men will fall by the sword,
your warriors in battle.
26 The gates of Zion will lament and mourn;
destitute, she will sit on the ground.
Even if you believe in the Bible, you can say Isaiah’s words do not apply to us. They were for another place, another time. If you do not believe, you can just laugh and ridicule.
Nonetheless, our government spends without discipline. Our leaders disregard long-standing principles of national economy. We elect people who swear oaths they have no intention of upholding. We elect people who buy our vote with our neighbor’s money. So we are on the decline, and we are paying the price for rampant greed and extravagant waste. In time others will see our weakness, and we will be at war.
Jeff Koterba: Omaha World-Herald/cagle.com
In my previous post, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli quoted a WSJ, In Coke We Trust. This article explains that a soda pop bottler now has better credit than our government. That should be enough to make us all heartsick.