Archive for November, 2007

Ron Paul Rally

Published November 30, 2007 thrift Leave a Comment

Went to a Ron Paul rally in Charleston, South Carolina on November 27th.  It was very intersting.  There is a wide cross section of people that support him.  I heard a couple of new ideas from him that I hadn’t heard before.  Basically, he thinks that we should use more contracts in the private sector to get things done that haven’t been looked at before.  he mentioned telling Ross Perot he could make a billion bringing in Osama.  It sounds like a lot of money, but you compare it to the cost of the war and it gets small very quickly.  I still am very happy with the platform that Paul is running on.

I have to be honest though.  He was not the smoothest speaker ever.  I think this is in large part because he had already given two speeches that day as was pretty much tired.  His speaking performance was still solid, but he does not have the speaking ability of some of the other candidates.  His ideas, however, blow them out of the water.  He did stay for pictures and to shake everyone’s hand if they wanted to, but you could tell he was in a hurry.  I can’t blame him.  The day before the presidential debates I am sure that he wanted to get some sleep.

This was my first time at a political rally, and it was fun to feel the energy of the crowd.  There were many parents with their teenage children.  I was very happy with the experience, and will continue to support him.  Here are a couple of pictures from the rally.

One big problem I see with politics is that it is very hard to prove theories.  The circumstances change so fast and the consequences are so huge that one can’t test theories.  You can’t try 1000 years of non interventionist foreign policy with a control group of nations, and 1000 years of interventionist policy with a test group.  The big fact is that we don’t know what really works.  I find that the non interventionist method has worked very well while it was used, and coincides with my belief of the right of other nations to have the same self determination that we wish for ourselves.  I guess we will have to see how things pan out. Ron Paul and Brian Durtschi

Ron Paul gets on the Front Page…. It’s about time!

Published November 6, 2007 election , politics , Ron Paul 2 Comments
Tags: , ,

Ron Paul recieved 4.2 million dollars for his campaign in one day.  He did it without a big old professional staff, without a political or media machine behind him.  He was able to make it happen because he inspires people.  Having almost 40,000 Americans donate to you on one day is quite a feat.

Romney spent massive amounts of money on getting out the vote.  He has gotten a decently wide response, but it seems to be only one inch deep.  Ron Paul’s response, on the other hand, was $100 deep.   Those are volunteers that will move around to get out the vote, and make sincere contacts with voters, meanwhile costing Paul’s campaign relatively nothing.

The other candidates have to be frustrated.  They have a machine behind them, and still they can’t get the deep support Ron Paul does.   The big question is can he widen out that support?  He is tapping into people who are frustrated witht he way things are done and want ot see a change.  They don’t really trust any of the other candidates.  Ron Paul supports civil liberties, he opposes illegal immigration, is against nation building, for smaller government.  He wants to make sure that government power can’t be abused too much by making sure the government doesn’t have too much power.  I like it.  I think the founding fathers would also.  In the article on yahoo, it states that he is carrying the Pat Buchanan voters.  This is partially true, but he is big into free trade and very zealous in protecting civil liberties.

I was just excited when I saw the information.  I hope the big wigs will take notice, and give him some coverage.  He is a phenomenon.  Maybe the people writing those articles aren’t as in touch with America as they think.  Some American’s sure seem to like Ron Paul.  I am one of them

Credit Card Crunch to Compound Current Home Credit Crunch

Published November 6, 2007 economics 5 Comments
Tags: , , , , ,

According to Forbes, the Americans have a credit card crunch.  A trillion dollars worth.  And apparently we are falling behind in payments.  It will be interesting to see how this holiday seasons concludes.  Commercials are trying to tell us that if we don’t enrich the stockholders of Wal-mart, we are not in the proper holiday spirit.  I hope that we will be able to resist.  Gold has taken a sharp hike up again, and is over $800 for the first time in a long while.  Other precious metals are setting new highs as well.  People are getting nervous about inflation.

These are the times when you just sit back with a bowl of vanilla ice cream with hot fudge, sliced bananas, and two crushed up fun size butterfingers from your kid’s Halloween candy and wonder what  is going to happen.  I guess you just need to get yourself a plan on how to prepare your financial ship, sit back, and enjoy life.  Good luck.

One more note-  Is it just me, or did the price of gasoline go up $.30 in the last week?  Given the price of oil, the price of gas can’t come down.  $95 a barrel, with 42 gallons in a barrel.  Assuming you can turn it all into gasoline (which you can’t) you get $2.26 a gallon.  Add in taxes, at about $.45 a gallon, and you get $2.71.  All the sudden you realize that the refiners, shippers, and station owners do not have much of a pie to split.  Prices have to go up even more unless the price of crude drops.  So Hello Inflation!

Weathering a recession- Input from CEO of CAT

Published November 1, 2007 economics , finance , money Leave a Comment
Tags: , , , ,

I saw an article published on October 31st on what is coming in the economy.  The CEO of Caterpillar thinks that recession is nearly certain for the beginning of next year.  The basic idea is that people buy heavy equipment from companies like CAT before engaging in large projects.  The orders for the big equipment has been petering out in the USA.

“Despite weakness in U.S. markets, our sales and revenues increased 9 percent. We continue to see remarkable growth outside of the United States with particular strength in key industries like mining, oil and gas, electric power and marine engines. The industries we serve are becoming increasingly global, and the investments we are making to achieve our 2010 goals have us well positioned to meet their needs.”

Hey-  This is sounding very familiar.  The US has to accept the fact that we can’t be the cool rich kid on the playground.  We gave all of our money away, and everyone else wants a turn.  To take their turn at living the good life, they need resources.  3rd world nations require resources to become 1st world nations.  The price of copper will remain high as people start putting that delightful electricity in their houses.  The cost of oil will remain high as they continue to buy cars, use plastics, and run factories.  We can expect to see uranium and coal move up as electricity demands increase.  If you are invested in the companies that are serving this growth market (read, international market), you will reap the benefits.

One market that I see suffering a little is the P & G type market.  The prices of raw materials has been skyrocketing all across the board.  The economy is starting to suffer a little, and consumer confidence is poor.  These companies that make consumer goods and food are going to have trouble increasing their prices at rates that will offset their increased costs.  I just Googled for evidence and found this story about Kraft’s weakening profits.  They can’t raise their prices too suddenly, or they will rapidly lose market share, but the cost of commodities trickles down.  Employees will want raises to help offset the higher cost of homes, food, gas, and soon, energy.  The electric power generation will see the higher costs of commodities start to trickle through the system.  Inflation of 2-3% a year can’t be maintained when the cost of many basic commodities is going up.  Many basic commodities have gone up in the last five years, like oil($25 to $96), copper ($.70 to $3.50), wheat and corn nearly doubling.  We are going to see these effects soon.

I am guessing right now we will see a little stagflation.  The US is cash poor due to the debt situation, despite having printed dollars left and right.  Time to pay the piper.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started