Grand Theft Economics
By DAVID B. CARUSO
Associated Press
Fri Dec 30, 1:47 PM ET
By DAVID B. CARUSO
Associated Press
Fri Dec 30, 1:47 PM ET
Sat, 31 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
NEW YORK - Hotel prices set wallet-busting records in New York City in 2005 after a long, slow recovery from the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The average daily price of a room in the city hit $292 in November, according to the hospitality industry analysis firm PKF Consulting. Figures for December weren't yet available, but the city is a lock to break its previous record yearlong average of $237 per night, set in 2000.
By JEANNINE AVERSA
29 Dec 2005
AP
By JEANNINE AVERSA
29 Dec 2005
AP
Fri, 30 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary John Snow on Thursday said the United States could face the prospect of not being able to pay its bills early next year unless Congress raises the government's borrowing authority, now capped at $8.18 trillion.
Snow, in a letter to lawmakers, estimated that the government is expected to bump into the statutory debt limit around the middle of February.
"At that time, unless the debt limit is raised or the Treasury Department takes authorized extraordinary actions, we will be unable to continue to finance government operations," Snow wrote.
By Alexandria Sage
Reuters
Thu Dec 29, 6:59 PM ET
By Alexandria Sage
Reuters
Thu Dec 29, 6:59 PM ET
Fri, 30 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
LOS ANGELES - After a tepid holiday shopping season, U.S. retailers are hoping that an earlier launch of full-price spring apparel will attract shoppers with gift cards in hand and break the industry's recent reliance on discounting.
By Kristin Roberts
Reuters
December 30, 2005
By Kristin Roberts
Reuters
December 30, 2005
Fri, 30 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
WASHINGTON - Sales of existing U.S. homes fell 1.7 percent in November as inventories climbed, indicating a rally in the U.S. housing market has begun to wane, a trade group said on Thursday.
Comment: Comment: "This is not a scenario for a hard landing." Since it seems that the housing market and numerous lies about continuing economic growth are the only thing keeping the economy afloat, it's hard to see how anyone could claim that any aspect of the US economy is in for a soft landing in the near future.
By Jennifer Coogan
Reuters
Thu Dec 29, 2:26 PM ET
By Jennifer Coogan
Reuters
Thu Dec 29, 2:26 PM ET
Fri, 30 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
NEW YORK - As the year draws to a close, the U.S. stock market's major indexes have fallen short of Wall Street forecasts, but analysts aren't blaming corporate America for this year's lackluster gains.
Analysts point to Federal Reserve monetary policy and a sharp increase in energy prices as the culprits.
Comment: Comment: That's it?? How about the gang in the White House whose drunken spending spree and "tax cuts" have done more to harm the average American than any other administration in recent memory?
Reuters
Thu Dec 29, 3:27 PM ET
Reuters
Thu Dec 29, 3:27 PM ET
Fri, 30 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
DETROIT - General Motors Corp.'s shares touched their lowest price in more than 20 years on Thursday, in keeping with the rough road the world's largest automaker has traveled in 2005 and uncertainty about the future.
An expected weak end to GM's U.S. sales year, a possible change in pension accounting that could erase most shareholder equity and investors taking their losses in the stock to offset gains in other investments depressed GM stock on Thursday before it bounced back, analysts said.
By David Barboza
The New York Times
DECEMBER 21, 2005
By David Barboza
The New York Times
DECEMBER 21, 2005
Thu, 29 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
SHANGHAI China said Tuesday that its economy was far bigger than previously estimated and that new figures suggested it had probably passed France, Italy and Britain to become the world's fourth-largest economy.
The announcement sent economists and financial prognosticators scrambling to rethink their assessments of the rise of China and its role on the world stage. Many of them even brought forward their estimations of when China might eclipse the United States as the world's biggest economy.
Economyincrisis.org
28 Dec 2005
Economyincrisis.org
28 Dec 2005
Thu, 29 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
The following staggering amount of our wealth producing companies has been sold to foreign owners in the 10 years from 1995 through 2005. It is critical to understand that even if these are not all familiar corporate names, they are all very valuable strategic companies with vast amounts of technology, assets, production facilities, tax base, and employment attached to each one. In fact, many of the smallest, most unfamiliar acquisitions represent some of the most significant strategic and proprietary technology losses to this country. Many of these companies took decades, and in some cases generations, to build to their size and scope prior to acquisition. Not only does the US lose control of the assets and technologies of these companies as of the date they were acquired, the US also loses all future profit and title to all future advancements of these companies.
These companies were the means through which America created much of its present wealth. With the loss of these companies and having no comparable replacement, it's easy to see that our future will not be as good as our past, especially since the countries that acquired these companies are now able to compete with us in almost all industries. Why are we doing this? Don't we have alternatives? Who is responsible, demand answers from your congressperson.
The following table lists only a few of the 8,600 foreign acquisitions during this period. The $1.3 Trillion figure and complete list can be verified at the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Click link to original article to see the list.
By Paul Craig Roberts
28 Dec 2005
By Paul Craig Roberts
28 Dec 2005
Thu, 29 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
The US continues its descent into the Third World, but you would never know it from news reports of the Bureau of Labor Statistics July payroll jobs release.
The media gives a bare bones jobs report that is misleading. The public heard that 207,000 jobs were created in July. If not a reassuring figure, at least it is not a disturbing one. On the surface things look to be pretty much OK. It is when you look into the composition of these jobs that the concern arises.
Comment: Comment: Pathocrats achievement of absolute domination in the government of a country cannot be permanent, since such a system of government has nowhere to go but down.
Any leadership position - down to village headman and community cooperative mangers, not to mention the directors of police units, and special-services police personnel, and activists in the pathocratic party - must be filled by individuals whose feeling of linkage to such a regime is conditioned by corresponding psychological deviations, which are inherited as a rule. However, such people become more valuable because they constitute a very small percentage of the population. Their intellectual level or professional skills cannot be taken into account, since people representing superior abilities with the requisite psychological deviations - are even harder to find. After such a system has lasted several years, one hundred percent of all the cases of essential psychopathy are involved in pathocratic activity; they are considered the most loyal...
Under such conditions, no area of social life can develop normally, whether in economics, culture, science, technology, administration, etc.
Pathocracy progressively paralyzes everything. Pathocracy progressively intrudes everywhere and dulls everything.
Germs are not aware that they will be burned alive or buried deep in the ground along with the human body whose death they are causing. [
Political Ponerology]
By Jeff Franks
Dec 28, 2005
Reuters
By Jeff Franks
Dec 28, 2005
Reuters
Thu, 29 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
HOUSTON - Enron's former chief accountant, Richard Causey, on Wednesday pleaded guilty to securities fraud in exchange for a maximum seven-year jail sentence for his role in the financial scandal that led to the 2001 collapse of the power-trading giant.
Causey, 45, had been scheduled to go on trial next month with former Enron chief executives Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, facing the possibility of more than 20 years behind bars, but now may cooperate with federal prosecutors against them in a switch legal experts said could hurt his former bosses.
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