Signs of faltering US economy surface

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070806/ts_csm/aslow


hummmmmmmm could it be smokers are not allowed anywhere,, well now I think smoker contrubite mega dollars to the economy.. and the government and ban addicts need to realize that fact

Yep, it all rolls downhill. A State or City Government decides to discriminate against 20-25% of the population by banning smoking in restaurants and/or bars. These places lose revenue & profits. They cut hours of employess or even lay them off. The affected employees now have to keep their old cars, can't buy a new house, etc. Then the car dealers and homesellers lose business, etc, and the cycle starts again. And Again.............All because some asshole decided that "secondhand smoke" is deadly and socially unnacceptable. Way to go, EPA..................

He cites slow car and truck sales, a weakening recreational boat market, and slowing domestic sales of Harley-Davidson motorcycles. "It's spreading to freight haulers who are reporting weaker volumes. Caterpillar is reporting weaker domestic sales because of a slowdown in construction, and ad revenue is down for newspapers in part because of diminished real estate advertising," he says.

Car and truck sales are getting killed by fuel prices, as well as the recreational boat market. Also, what I've seen of boating lately seems to be people sitting in a boat wanting to have a good time, while a police boat stands guard a hundred yards away.

Recreational boating is great. Yet, due to the high maintenance involved, and the little time that the people who can usually afford it can devote to it, it has always seemed to me to be on the precipice of waning away. Boating is supposed to have a sense of freedom to it, so people will pay the price. Add just a sprinkle of extra government regulation and it quickly becomes not worth doing.

I've always been a bit puzzled, politically, by motorcycles, and there's actually a good lesson here. Motorcycle riding is another activity that people engage in because of the personal sense of freedom. Yet, other than the helmet laws, which were quite controversial (and quite illogical, I might add), it seems to me that motorcycling would earn the immediate scorn of the Leftist, protectionist types. Yet, it hasn't. Why not?

Now, here's the lesson.

I'm not sure what percentage of the population enjoys motorcycling, but it has to be (I think) less than the smoking population. It seems to me that helmet laws caused more of a controversy in this country than smoking bans did.

There's a reason for this, I think.

Every year, like clockwork, motorcyclists lobby politicians about the stupidity of helmet laws and other concerns amongst the motorcycling populace. I don't know, but I imagine that they qre regarded as complete "weirdos" by the othe lobbyists who make lucrative incomes doing this professionally for other special interests. Not these guys. These guys just want to ride their bike. So, they put the tie on and go down to talk to the politicians. They're not screwing around; they don't want to be given any crap about riding their motorcycles.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I'll tell you that I don't even know how to ride a motorcycle. I've been on a motorcycle maybe three times in my life, as a frightened passenger. I can't tell a Harley Davidson from a Honda hybrid. Personally, I dislike motorcycles. To be perfectly honest, I don't even like them around me on the road. I'm not so keen on boats, either. I wouldn't own a boat unless I was a millionaire, and maybe not even then. However, unlike most, I don't translate my personal feelings regarding this thing or that into an excuse for government intervention. So, for the motorcyclists and boaters out there, please feel free to ignore the shit out of me. Ride on and have fun.)

Okay, I've run long again.

Economy?

In a nutshell:

Fuel prices, government intervention, the economic rise of China under the protectionist shadow of Communism and its effect on world markets, an artificially inflated DOW (Hey, everybody: 14,000! They said it would never reach 10,000!), the fall of adult, public interest in the arts, the increasing expansion of the internet, and the loss of interest in conventional television and newspaper media.

Marginally:

An increase in the minimum wage, worries over SCHIP and the next presidential election, backlash against the popularity of new technology, increasing hypochondria (spurned on by Big Pharma), aging baby boomers, and the beginning of the payback for trying to make all your government dreams come true by torturing the ever decreasing smoking population, with only trans-fat, global warming, and other such popular nonsense on the plate.

Positive Signs:

Well, most of the people who cause this crap live on the coastlines. Did you know that 40% of the U.S. population lives within 50 miles of the coastline? Hard to believe, but true...

...if you saw the movie "Deep Impact"... well, nevermind.



BTW, Winston's Surprising Historical Fact of the Day:

The Americans were losing The War of 1812 by a wide margin, when something completely inexplicable happened; a tornado touched down during the night and destroyed the British encampments.

I'm not making this up (online references below).

Funny thing.

The Al Gore types think the earth is tired of humans. Maybe a force larger than the earth is getting tired of something else.

It's a thought, anyway. Please don't take any inference too seriously. I'm feeling a bit mischievous tonight.

BTW, and very seriously, I'm an agnostic and a pacifist. I wish no harm to any individual person. there is absolutely nothing to be gained, other than detriment, by wishing any kind of violence against opposing ideas. Ideas are the proper forum for these "battles" and a much better place to win them. In fact, humans have tremedously evolved just in the last century because America, and its emphasis on personal freedom and freedom of speech (as your PRIMARY, completely natural RIGHT, which will never, ever be a "privilege"), allowed wars of destruction to become wars of words.

On that note, if some force doesn't allow you to speak your mind...well, question it.


"..when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

-Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, Second paragraph.

http://www.amazon.com/History-Channel-Presents-War-1812/dp/B000742G0G

http://www.roanoke.com/weather/wb/wb/xp-79760

http://www.weatherbook.com/1814.htm

http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/hurricane_1812.htm

This message has been edited. Last edited by: WinstonSmith,

good post winston oh and welcome back

As more and more of the pleasures in life are taxed or removed there is little to stimulate us to spend.

Food and shelter are basic needs. Their costs come out of the budget first, after taxes. Most of the new homes being built in my area are the size of aircraft hangers and people are looking at the cost to heat and cool what they have and deciding the exercise bike in the closet is better than room devoted exclusively to it.

Food costs are rising as the cost of first class air fare for it to travel from foreign lands becomes more expensive.

Rising fuel costs to heat/cool and get from place to place are rising faster than budgets can adjust to.

Smoking has an effect, for us and those we support, as the product remains the same but it's cost has risen. But also because as we pay more for it, we can enjoy it in fewer and fewer places.

As smoking has been removed from the workplace, the creative classes have also been removed, as evidenced by the offerings of television and the movie industry can attest.

A bland lifestyle means a bland economy.

Bruce!
You said it all right here!
I wouldn't even be so nice as to say "bland"
I would say that those who are in control have done exactly as they set out to do. They have assisted in dumbing down of every American and are setting out to do so around the world.

When the WHO added the proviso of: not just the health and safety of the body, but of the society...

Karl Marx: everyone to their abilities-(my words) no more, no less=the laziest, stupidist, whimpiest bunch of Americans I have worked with and see in political power in my life.

The Level Playing Field: (my words) it's not fair, why can't I be as good as them?, you have to fix it that I get everything they have - without my having to lift a finger to get it.

Second Handers: I live off of everyone elses-power, spirit, ingenuity, strengths, intelligence, lives, money, production =leeches of today.

just a few rambling thoughts for today...

To add:
Down to simplicity:
"I want what you have"
"You can't do what I don't want you to do"
"It's not fair"

Simpler still:
ME, ME, ME.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/treasurys-dive-fe...A2B7-5A3D70362931%7D

China's foreign-exchange reserves stand at about $1.33 trillion, the largest in the world. About two-thirds of them are held in dollar-denominated assets. Some economists estimate China holds about $407 billion of U.S. Treasury notes and bonds.

Such a move could trigger a sharp drop in the U.S. dollar and a spike in interest rates.

"The warning was given by two government officials, which is a reflection of how serious this threat is," said Kathy Lien, chief strategist at DailyFX.com. "With $1.3 trillion in foreign reserves, most of which are held in U.S. dollars, China has what it takes to cripple the U.S. economy."

At a time "when the stability of the U.S. economy is hanging by a thread," rising bond yields and any further shocks "could have widespread consequences -- and China knows this."
But T.J. Marta, strategist at RBC Capital Markets, said the potential damage to the global economy -- and China's economy in particular -- makes the move "unlikely."

"The U.S. and China are engaging in mutually assured economic destruction," he said.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, said fear of such an action was "absurd" and that the top officials he had met in China have not indicated such plans.
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"The U.S. and China are engaging in mutually assured economic destruction,"

China is a communist nation, I'll remind you.