As I Was Saying....

Among other news sources, NPR is reporting this morning that higher gas prices drove down traffic fatalities. The reason is that fewer people were on the roads. And that was part of the news as analysts reported that gasoline prices are down a good deal since their high in July. St. Louis, they say, has the lowest average: $3.77. The price is down not, they report (oh what a surprise!), because oil prices are down - those have fluctuated and are back up where they were two weeks ago, while gas prices are down from that two-week mark. Why? Because, just like the reason for lower traffic fatalities - people are driving less - because of high gas prices. Just as we have always said, all the squawking aside about higher oil prices and international relations driving the price of gasoline, the price of gasoline is driven by what the traffic will allow, so to speak. Oil prices are a factor, of course, but only over the long haul. Gasoline producers and sellers are going to charge you whatever you are willing to pay. They learned that in Economics 101. The lowest prices we had here in Galveston were $3.44 (.9 of course), and they're already on their way back up again.*

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

*Strike that. Looks like we're down to $3.41.

What You Already Knew About Taxes

But had no proof...

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a new report today showing that an average of two-thirds of companies operating in the United States paid no federal corporate income tax from 1998 - 2005. That's right, I said none. Zip. Zero. Nada.

  OMB Watch

According to an April report issued by the liberal Economic Policy Institute (EPI), in the 1950s corporate taxes represented one quarter of all federal revenue. Since 2000, this figure has fallen to about one tenth. The resulting shortfall has largely been made up through payroll taxes on US workers, according to the EPI.

  WSWS

And in case you thought this report was requested to investigate corporate tax evasion, think again.

Democratic Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota had made the request for the GAO study. The purported impetus behind the request was the senators’ suspicion that “foreign” corporations were benefiting unequally from the US tax code, paying substantially less than their US-based competitors through the use of transfer pricing.

[...]

Responding to the report, Levin and Dorgan condemned corporations for avoiding taxes. Levin claimed that the report “makes clear that too many corporations are using tax trickery to send their profits overseas and avoid paying their fair share in the United States.”

Yeah, like they’re just now finding that out.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

You'll Be Shocked

When I got up this morning, had I known it was going to be Surprise Thursday, I would have dressed for the occasion.

Bush administration officials knew that a Texas oil company with close ties to President Bush was planning to sign an oil deal with the regional Kurdistan government that ran counter to American policy and undercut Iraq’s central government, a Congressional committee has concluded.

  NYT

Bush Administration officials knew a Bush pal was slimey? How could they have?

....but hey, believe it if you want.

Hunt post last September.

Good. God. Just, Good God.

[The] Pentagon is working to bring Disneyland to Baghdad. Well, not literally Disneyland, but a massive, Disney-like amusement park to be named the Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience, featuring hotels, lagoons, rides, skateboarding, animals, and… Mickey Mouse?

The BZEE is the brainchild of Llewellyn Werner, head of a Los Angeles based private equity outfit called C3. Investors will put up $500 million to build the enterprise on a 50-acre plot adjacent to Baghdad’s heavily-fortified Green Zone. Werner himself informed the Iraqi people last month about the splendiferous playground he’s planning to bring to them. “It’s going to have a huge psychological impact,” Werner said with grandiose Western confidence.

  Jim Hightower

Oh, no doubt.

Maybe he should check with the State Department to see how their humble Hi magazine venture went over first.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

What Recession?

Thank goodness somebody is doing well. Shell Oil company is reporting a record-breaking $27.6 billion profit.

Made in China

Jim Hightower argues that the rash of problems with imported Chinese goods is not a problem with Chinese goods so much as it is a problem with the American companies who manufacture and import through China while lobbying for relaxed oversight and deregulation of their industries.

Politicians are pointing their fingers at China’s lackadaisical approach to product safety. But wait a minute – where, oh where, are our own regulatory watchdogs?

The big shock is not that Chinese-made toys are laden with lead, but that America’s Consumer Product Safety Commission is a toothless watchdog that employs exactly one inspector to oversee the safety of all toys sold in the U.S. Likewise, the Food and Drug Administration has licensed 714 Chinese plants to manufacture the key ingredients for a growing percentage of the antibiotics, painkillers, and other drugs we buy, but provides practically no oversight of these plants. In 2007, for example, FDA inspected only 13 of them.

[...]

Mark Shapiro, author of Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products, reports that while the European Union has banned the use of phthalates in products aimed at children under three years of age, our government has refused to act.

Thus, China has factories that manufacture two lines of toys – one without phthalates for shipment to European countries, and one with phthalates for export to our children.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

It Wasn't China - It Was Mattel

And I'm sure this story will get equal time.

Mattel ordered three high-profile recalls this summer involving more than 21 million Chinese-made toys, including Barbie doll accessories and toy cars because of concerns about lead paint and tiny magnets that could be swallowed.

[...]

On Friday, [Thomas A. Debrowski, Mattel's executive vice president for worldwide operations,] acknowledged that [the] "vast majority of those products that were recalled were the result of a design flaw in Mattel's design, not through a manufacturing flaw in China's manufacturers."

Lead-tainted toys accounted for only a small percentage of all toys recalled, he said.

[...]

In a statement issued by the company, Mattel said its lead-related recalls were "overly inclusive, including toys that may not have had lead in paint in excess of the U.S. standards.

  TPM

Meanwhile China has already been convicted in the court of public opinion because of the original recall press releases blaming them.

Like linking Saddam and al-Qaeda, the first loudly repeated story is the one that sticks. Some Mattel executive is getting a bonus for his handling of this situation.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

The Jesus Market

We are one2believe, designers of Bible-based toys for young children, called Tales of Glory. Beginning this August our Tales of Glory toys will become available at select Wal-Mart stores and other retailers across the country.

[...]

This program represents a huge opportunity for the faith community as it is the first time a worldwide retailer has opened-up shelf-space for a strong Bible-based toy product, like Tales of Glory! However, this is only a test-run. In fact, Wal-Mart will only have Tales of Glory in about 500 stores and only for a limited time (August through January).

So hurry!

By supporting this program we can send a message to other retailers and toy makers letting them know that we, as a Christian community, are truly concerned about the toys that our children play with!

This is the promotional picture on their website for toys they want our children to play with:

A couple of comments from other blogs:

Should consumers support a toy marketed in the name of “good morals” that is probably manufactured by an exploited labor force, is made of a material that harms the earth, is sold by a retailer who mistreats their workforce and puts millions of small local businesses under, and depicts hulking figures poised on the edge of violence?

  Waldorf Our Way

You get a storybook, too, so you can re-live that one time that Samson killed thirty guys (!) with his bare hands, just so he could get their clothes to pay off a bet! Re-enact when the bad guys found Samson when he was visiting that prostitute!

  letters from kamp krusty

And again, from the manufacturer:

We are aware of the influence that toys have on our young children’s impressionable minds, so we would like to see more God-honoring options available. It’s a “Battle for the Toy Box”!

Perhaps correctly gauging the average Wal-Mart customer, the God-honoring approach they are using to market their toys is one of battle violence. Just what other toys' influence are they concerned about?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

The Incomparable Bill Moyers

If you have some time, Bill's got some videos.

Here are two:

The Yes Men - two guys taking on the system.

Tough Talk on Impeachment - for which he got slammed by PBS (Here's his response.)

I recommend you watch them.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Everybody Does It

The CEO of Whole Foods got busted posting pro-company comments on a discussion forum anonymously, while predicting financial gloom and doom for his competitor. He's asking his stakeholders to "forgive him." He says he only posted on the forum "for fun," excusing himself by saying "most people" post on bulletin boards anonymously.

Yeah, dude. And "most people" don't own the companies.

I say trow da book at 'im.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

A Real Shocker

Are you sitting down?

In a triumph for the pharmaceutical industry, the Senate on Monday killed a drive to allow consumers to buy prescription drugs from abroad at a significant savings over domestic prices.

  Yahoo article

I know. I know. It's hard to believe, but there you have it.

And speaking of nukes

Meanwhile, the chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has announced that the Commission will approve Westinghouse’s sale of two nuclear reactors to China.

Conservatives and Republicans think this is a good idea. Vice President Cheney has lobbied in behalf of the sale. It is good for private business. It means $2.4 billion in revenues for Westinghouse Electric Company.

  VDare article

WTF?

These people (Cheneyites) just don't care. Their first and last concern is whether money is coming into their pockets.

Iran will never again be a world power, even if it has a few nukes. Persia was a power in ancient times, not today. If we don’t bother Iran, Iran won’t bother us.

China is a different matter.

China already is a world power. China holds enough US government debt to have the dollar and US interest rates in its hand. Last month in an official briefing a top Chinese general, Zhu Chenghu, said that if the US messes around with China or tries to interfere with China’s reunification with Taiwan, China will nuke the US: "If the Americans are determined to interfere, then we will be determined to respond. We Chinese will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all the cities east of Xian. Of course, the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese."

VP Cheney and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission want to make sure China has what it takes to do the job.

[...]

The conservative movement has disappeared. The Republican Party has disappeared. The two have morphed into a brownshirt movement that worships coercion and a strutting little marionette who believes he can threaten peoples into submission.

Why does Cheney want to sell nuclear reactors to China, but order the US Strategic Command to prepare to nuke Iran’s nuclear power capability, a capability that would allow Iran to sell more oil to an energy-starved world?

What’s going on here?

Yeah, what?

That strutting little marionette may actually believe he is God's agent to call down Armageddon.

And by the way, this article was written by Ronald Reagan's Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, a former Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former Contributing Editor of National Review.

Americans need not apply

Readers have sent me employment listings from US software development firms. The listings are discriminatory against American citizens. One ad from a company in New Jersey that is a developer for many companies, including Oracle, specifies that the applicant must have a TN visa.

A TN or Trade Nafta visa is what is given to Mexicans and Canadians, who are willing to work in the US at below prevailing wages.

Another ad from a software consulting company based in Omaha, Nebraska, specifies it wants software engineers who are H-1B transferees. What this means is that the firm is advertising for foreigners already in the US who have H-1B work visas.

The reason the US firms specify that they have employment opportunities only for foreigners who hold work visas is because the foreigners will work for less than the prevailing US salary.

Gentle reader, when you read allegations that there is a shortage of engineers in America, necessitating the importation of foreigners to do the work, you are reading a bald faced lie. If there were a shortage of American engineers, employers would not word their job listings to read that no American need apply and that they are offering jobs only to foreigners holding work visas.

What kind of country gives preference to foreigners over its own engineering graduates?

What kind of country destroys the job market for its own citizens?

How much longer will parents shell out $100,000 for a college education for a son or daughter who end up employed as a bartender, waitress, or temp?

  VDare article

Cheney's secret energy deal

And I haven't even scratched the surface. I just don't even want to. Bob does it.

The new energy bill repealed the Public Utilities Holding Company Act of 1935. Apparently, regulated utilities will now be able to merge like banks, and/or be bought up by unrelated corporations, and/or get involved in risky investments that they couldn't invest in before.

  Read more...

Costco not Wal-Mart

LaBelle sends this incredibly indicting link to a Daily Kos post about business analysts in this country. To which all I can say is, "Oh, poor, poor shareholders" and "These people make my stomach churn."

And Ken Lay is still not in jail.