Bob Morris @ Feb 15th 2008 22:08 - Category: Credit crisis ;
A major homebuilders political action committee says they will stop giving campaign “contributions” to Congresscritters until legislation that benefits their industry is forthcoming. This would appear to be an admission of bribery but of course couldn’t be because bribery is wrong and illegal. But they’re certainly having a fine temper tantrum, aren’t they?
Bob Morris @ Feb 15th 2008 19:47 - Category: Unfiled Tags: coffee;
The competition—between Dunkin’ and Starbucks, as well as with chains like McDonald’s—is heating up just as the economy is slowing down. And that could very well tilt the advantage to Dunkin’ Donuts.
While the article says the battle is for “switchers” - those who go to Starbucks when they feel well-off and Dunkin’ when broke - I think it’s more than that.
McDonald’s uses Newman’s organic fair trade coffee, and multiple taste tests have shown people prefer it to Starbucks. Here in Connecticut, where Dunkin’ is omnipresent (seriously!) local tests have shown the same, people prefer it to Starbucks.
As one who buys green coffee beans and roasts them at home, I think Starbucks coffee is overpriced, overrated, and over roasted. They deliberately nearly burn their beans when roasting to give it a strong taste. But this kills the taste of the bean, what you then taste is the roast alone. McDonald’s and Dunkin’ don’t do this. Thus, you taste the actual flavor of that particular coffee. Which is as it should be.
Bob Morris @ Feb 15th 2008 16:31 - Category: Unfiled ;
Apparently some Seton Hall Law students have uncovered evidence that every Guantanamo interrogation session is taped. Wow.
Bob Morris @ Feb 15th 2008 13:22 - Category: Anti-war Tags: IVAW, Winter Soldier;
Iraq Veterans Against the War just released an eighteen minute video to build for their upcoming Winter Soldier testimony in D.C. March 13-16. This is powerful stuff, with testimonials from soldiers who were there. “I was lied to.”
In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.â€
In 1971, a courageous group of veterans exposed the criminal nature of the Vietnam War in an event called Winter Soldier. Once again, we will demand that the voices of veterans are heard.
Bob Morris @ Feb 15th 2008 10:16 - Category: Climate change Tags: carbon trading;
New Carbon Finance predicts the US carbon trading market could be worth $1 trillion by 2020, with carbon trading for $45 a ton by then, extrapolating from plans in Congress now. It trades at $10-20 a ton now.
If those proposed plans allowed trading with foreign carbon markets, then the price might only be $30 a ton, saving U.S. consumers billions. American exceptionalism, yet again, is proven to be a bad idea.
Bob Morris @ Feb 15th 2008 07:30 - Category: Unfiled ;
My father-in-law discovered a wonderful way to bypass annoying call centers with voice recognition software that insists you answer several questions before routing your call. Which would be ok except that the voice recognition is inept and it often keeps asking you to repeat what you just said.
Here’s how to bypass all of that.
Software: What is your name?
Me: Bob Morris
Software: I’m sorry, did you say Blob Morse?
Me: No.
Software: What is your name?
(repeat endlessly until…)
Software: What is your name?
Me: (yelling) F*&K you. You are IDIOTS. (I mean, really scream it)
Software: I will connect you with a customer service representative now.
This method will almost always get you to a real person quickly.
Bob Morris @ Feb 15th 2008 05:33 - Category: Credit crisis ;
A recent attempted sale of over one hundred auction rate securities failed to find any buyers. Dealbreaker explains why this seemingly esoteric event could have nasty repercussions.
In the private wealth group, they’ve been treating these things as if they were cash. Clients were funneled into the bonds and told they were the most liquid investment short of actual cash. But yesterday the bond auctions failed in a dramatic fashion, leaving many investors in illiquid positions.
They can’t pull their money out until buyers appear. Right now, there are none.
This… is already having repercussions in the broader marketplace, including the stock market. Now that they are locked into the bonds, they are effectively frozen out of the stock market.
Or from buying a house. Or whatever. Imagine you had most of your cash in t-bills because they were supposed to be super-safe then were told, sorry, your money is stuck there because no one will buy them from you.
If this doesn’t turn around soon, there could be major financial consequences.
There’s there’s the bond reinsurers who have 4-5 days left to re-capitalize or else they get sliced and diced. If this happens, all manner of debt will get downgraded with no doubt severe impacts upon the general markets.
Bob Morris @ Feb 15th 2008 03:11 - Category: Unfiled Tags: Torture;
While reactionary troglodytes continue to roam the editorial pages of the WSJ (see previous post), their reporting, as always, remains superb.
Bret Stephens of the WSJ discusses his story, Putin’s Torture Colonies, in this video.
Robert Amsterdam has continuing coverage of Russia and of Putin’s gulags.
Bob Morris @ Feb 15th 2008 00:15 - Category: Unfiled ;
This might be the first time the WSJ has not been a climate change denier, coming out against heating oil subsidies to the poor because it’ll just pump more carbon into the atmosphere. (So then, they must be heating their offices with zero emission technology?)
The WSJ also says such money would just end up going to foreign oil exporters (funny, I thought it would go to the local heating oil company. Or do they think Chavez owns them?) Plus, they shriek, it would encourage those horrid poor people to use more oil (to heat their home above freezing, presumably) thus worsening the global warming they constantly say doesn’t exist.
I hope this clears things up.
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