Friday Beaver - Trading beaver edition

Beaver hoping the traditional beaver skin top hats don't come back in fashion. Oops! Too late for this beaver.

TPP  NAFTA CAFTA and other stupid ideas

There was a time when TV sets were made in the U.S. Then NAFTA was signed. Slowly that business went first to Canada then to Mexico and finally to China seeking its' lowest labor costs. To date 62,000 manufacturers have left the country. Nothing was spared and nothing is safe. About the only thing left is airplanes and autos and we know autos took a hit with imports. Yes the auto industry came back but new workers now make about 1/2 what the old timers made. And forget pensions. So that raises the question. What happens when the Chinese learn to build our American planes? If you look at our GDP the bulk of it is dedicated to aircraft manufacturing. While aircraft machinists did make a handsome salary with plenty of perks, new workers see a smaller paycheck and a 401K instead of a pension. 

With an all out assault on the middle class and the fact that 70 to 80% of our economy is consumer driven just where do the corporate suits think they'll find customers? They have this delusion that somehow they're the "job creators" when in fact they didn't create one single job. Jobs are created by demand and necessity. You don't start a business unless you know there's a demand for your product or service.

Now we have the TPP Trans Pacific Trade agreement. From what I've read of it it would strip countries of their sovereignty and give it to corporations. Even though your country might have banned a product or chemical a corporation could sue and not just to be permitted to sell the banned item but for future losses. Such was the case in Canada when Ethyl Corporation sued because Canada had banned a gasoline additive MMT. The company won and got $13 million for its' trouble even though EPA and Health Canada indicted that exposure could cause nerve damage.

Does it really make economic sense to ship a pound of beef from New Zealand half way around the world? And who exactly needs to eat watermelon in the wintertime in North America? Much of the problems could be resolved if they took the speculators out of the market. Their only function is to buy and sell contracts thereby driving up the price of a commodity. They have no vested interest in product itself. And now we have hedge funds betting on the rise or fall of a product. Vegas must be jealous.

Bank fails later
No fails this week

Late Friday Beaver - Random beaver shots

Random rants

It's amazing we haven't seen more shootings in this country. Forget some ISIS extremist hiding under the bed. They're about as much threat as a stone gargoyle. No, worry about that quiet creepy guy on the bus who talks to himself. He's more of a threat should he be off his meds or worse if he took some of the meds they prescribe these days. (side effects and all) It was Ronald Reagan  who opened up the doors to the mental hospitals back in the 80s and let everybody out. So now it's harder to get these folks help. Haven't seen what Obamacare covers so it's a safe bet many are falling through the cracks. Health care shouldn't be tied to whether you have a job or not.

How dry I am

We've had almost no rain here this year. Only two minor rain storms that I can think of in the last couple of months and not enough to water a garden. Normally the grass turns brown until late Sept but this year trees are starting to die. Checked the pine trees the other day with the old christmas tree test. Grab a branch and pull on the needles, if they come off easily then the tree needs water. Can't even keep some of the landscape plants alive. That's creating a fire danger. A bush across the street caught fire the other day. Had it not been for some fast acting neighbors and strangers their trees next to the building would have gone up like a torch setting the entire building ablaze.

There's parts of California, Texas, and Alberta, Canada that I hear are worse. So much for food prices and forget beef. Chicken just shot through the roof with a 4 million pound recall.

Bomb bomb bomb (fill in the blank)

What haven't we blown up over the past years? Afghanistan- check Iraq - check Pakistan - check Syria - check Libya - check Yemen - check. The right wingers are just drooling over Iran. Oh and let's not forget our assistance in Ukraine and Turkey. Bet we loan them a drone or two. But then that leaves the entire continent of Africa with so many countries but we tend to steer clear of that part of the world. Small potatoes maybe? Guess we can't squeeze enough out of them with bribes or intimidation to make it worthwhile.

The Fox News republican clown show

I say we arm them all with pies and seltzer bottles and see who comes out the cleanest. You just know this will be a contest to see who can be the most tea baggyist. If you go so far to the right do you finally land up on the far left? And just who is their base? Or should we say who's left of their base? This country isn't lilly white northern european anymore. Somebody had it right when they called them "the stupid party".  What better way to lose an election than by insulting potential voters. We've heard what they think of hispanics. Can't wait till they're asked about what they think of black people. Now if they could just remember where they put those binders full of women.

Bank fails when I think of it.
No fails this week and only 6 fails so far this year.

Friday Beaver - Up and running

Finally got a newer computer. The old one just wouldn't handle new software and was about as slow as dial up towards the end. Then there was the issue of updating everything. Sadly I can not transfer old files to the newer one because they are two completely different operating systems even though the same brand. 

Greece - Either way they were screwed. Take the deal and inflict austerity or don't take the deal and face bankruptcy and austerity.

Doesn't pay to be a black man or a hispanic in this country. The odds are against you. One black man strangled for 20 minutes until he died. A hispanic with his empty hands held out shot to death. All listed as justified? But the civil suits are running into the millions. You'd think by now that police departments couldn't get liability insurance for such events. No sweat off their hides it's the taxpayers' dime.

I see Canada is swirling down the toilet bowl to recession even though their finance minister denys it . Harper will have fun trying to spin his way out of this especially when the Iran oil hits the markets and the price of oil drops even more.  Fear not Canadians we're not far behind. The largest part of the U.S. GDP is selling airplanes which normally runs in 20 year cycles. Well it's been about 20 years since the last uptick in building aircraft. Much of the military aircraft is coming to an end as well. Forget the F-35. They haven't worked out all the bugs yet and the fuel tankers for the air force are almost complete. That just leaves drones and the military only ordered a couple dozen of them.

Puerto Rico could be the next Greece. They have $72 billion in outstanding bonds and couldn't make a $94 million payment. Portugal is in no better shape with debt to GDP at 400%. Question is when will the dominoes fall?

Bank fails later  None last week
Correction: One bank did fail last week in Denver,Co none this week.

Friday Beaver - Please stand by

 The beaver is off today while he fixes a few computer problems. He may be back next week with a few surprises. In the mean time it looks like Greece caved and more austerity is on the way. We shall see. Haven't researched the full agreement.

Bank fails later

FryDay Beaver

Don't know if our trusty beavers will be out today. The network gods seem to be angry and keep dropping connections.

Hotter than a $2 pistol around here. It's so hot ... (fill in your own answer cause it's too hot to think of one on my end.)

Stick a fork in Greece it's done. Now to the next entree. Will it be Portugal Spain or Italy or maybe some other unsuspected country?

Rah Rah Happy (fill in the blank) be it Canada, the U.S. or the tiny republic that everybody forgot and got taken over by yet another dictator Day. Is it national throw out the moldy leftovers from the fridge day? Perhaps it's treat the third degree burns from fireworks day. Nope that would be Sunday the 5th. To her credit mother nature  has blessed us (or cursed depending on how you look at it) with extremely dry hot weather so the kiddies aren't lighting off explosive devices two days before as they usually do. Two morons here set the grass next to the freeway on fire the other day. Two guys in their 50s I'm told. Sheesh grow up. Temps here hovering around 90F or 32C but nothing like the 104F or 40C Europe is experiencing.

The toxic materials racket. Corporations get away with murder literally. Kill a bunch of people because of greed and yet nobody goes to jail and the fines while appearing large are a pittance of what's needed. Face facts the Gulf Coast will never be the same. Their "solution" has made the problem worse. Oil treated with Corexit can not be picked up with an absorbent pad.
Ideally we should get off of burning dead dinosaurs for our energy needs and it may be that we're getting close to that as we have to drill farther and deeper and resort to fracking to squeeze the last drop of oil from mother nature. Momma doesn't seem to be too happy with that either. Dimwits deny science and they may find their house burned to the ground with no water to put it out. Or a flash flood will wash what assets they had down the river. That's the extremes of climate change.
We have a nice choice now between a leaky pipeline or an exploding rail car take your pick. Nice choice eh?

Where do we go from here? There's enough sunlight hitting the earth in any given day to power all the TVs and monitors on the planet for 100 years but no profit margin in the deal I guess otherwise we would have done it long ago. One thing we do know is that those entrenched in the oil industry will milk every last dime out of the planet before the oil runs out. It's how they roll.

One last parting thought from my pearls of wisdom necklace - A fifth on the fourth could get you ten in the pen.

Probably no bank fails today here as I believe the banks are closed but I'll check...