Archive for January, 2012

Ambassador from China Gets a Beating

Monday, January 16th, 2012

The former ambassador to China, John Huntsman, who acted more like he was the ambassador from China was kicked out of the Republican presidential primary race today. Voters didn’t buy his “everything is cool with China” line of BS.

Good for them.

But that won’t stop Rick Perry and Rick Santorum from following in Huntsman’s footsteps. Both of those fools are saying that jobs haven’t moved to China because of cheap labor, but rather because of the heavy-handed regulations imposed by Democrats that have chased manufacturing out of the country.

Will that line of BS work any better than Huntsman’s BS? No, it won’t, and both Perry and Santorum know it. You see, that message is not aimed at voters. It is aimed at corporate donors. Translation: “Look at me! I’m protecting your massive sweatshop profits. I’m your boy. Send me money!”

When Americans spend their unemployment checks and food-stamp credits at Walmart, where everything on the shelves is stamped “Made in China”, they know what the problem is. And any politician that tries to convince them otherwise just looks like a damn fool.

Mitt Romney has the hardest line on China, and he is winning. Is that a coincidence? I don’t know, but if it were the decisive issue, the main-stream media would not inform you of the fact. The MSM works to cover up the true nature of globalization on behalf of the plutocracy.

President Obama has done nothing about China. As a matter of fact, he rubber-stamped even more Republican free-trade treaties. So, if offshoring jobs turns out to be a pivotal issue in November, Obama may be vulnerable. What could his defense possibly be? He had four years. He did nothing. He could attack Romney for offshoring jobs at Bain Capital, but that’s small potatoes compared to what has occurred on the national level – Obama’s beat.

Of course, Obama is already taking action with his “in-sourcing” initiative. But will it be too little, too late? After all, in November, everything at Walmart will still say “Made in China”.

CNBC Banned Words

Saturday, January 14th, 2012

Yesterday’s shameless whitewashing of the Apple sweatshop story made plain what CNBC really is: an infomercial for multinationals.

Banned words:
Global labor arbitrage
Maquiladora
Sweatshop
Sweatshop wages
Project Lean
Saipan
Giant sucking sound
Offshoring
Record immigration
Food stamps

Sometimes these subjects are brought up by guests on CNBC. But then Larry Kudlow immediately begins to shout and changes the subject – just doing his job protecting the romanticized “Gone With the Wind” version of the global economy – putting a happy face on the destruction of the American middle class.

If you pay attention, you will see that whenever the subject of sweatshop wages comes up in the mainstream media, no actual wage numbers will be mentioned. For example, one of the staples of propaganda is the story that goes: “Oh my god! Oh my god! Wages have soared 20% in China! Companies are moving plants back to the USA!” But they never tell you that those wages have gone from $1 per hour to $1.20 per hour. Right? Because if they did that, then people like me would start doing some calculations. See this WSJ article as an example.

Keep up the good work CNBC! America will be in ruins any day now!

The Podcast that Made Apple Sweat

Friday, January 13th, 2012

Apple was forced to release its list of suppliers today, and I think a genius named Mike Daisey is responsible. On January 6th, a PBS station aired his podcast about his trip to China to interview sweatshop workers. This spellbinding podcast is an hour long, so make sure you are ready to listen to it all, because once you start, you won’t be able to turn it off. Go to this page and click the red “Play” button.

CNBC tried to spin the news by saying it was a great resource for finding Apple supplier’s to invest in! Not exactly what I would call hard-hitting journalism. They didn’t even use the word “sweatshop” in any of their stories. In CNBC-land, sweatshops are just “facilities”.

While this story is about Apple, it is unfair to single them out. All multinationals are guilty of this. Nevertheless, Apple could be vulnerable. How hard could it be to make an Android tablet in the USA, and market it under a “No Sweat” brand? Could “sweatshop consciousness” be the next “environmental consciousness”? Could the “No Sweat” pad be the next Prius?

Now that would be something.

Zero Hedge Ignores Food Stamp Data – Again

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

Zero Hedge failed to “report” on the food-stamp data last week. See if you can guess why.

If your guess is that the data did not fit ZH’s “impending Armageddon” thesis, then you get a gold star on your paper. Tell your Mom that I said it was OK. If you’re a girl, you can have some glitter too. Go nuts. If you think that Zero Hedge is trying to give you an objective view of reality so that you may make intelligent investment decisions, then tell your Dad to get the belt because you need some sense beaten into you.

The food-stamp rolls declined by a small number in the latest data. See the third chart on this page. This is only the second month that the rolls have declined since the Great Recession began.

Maybe this is a turning point, maybe not. I don’t know. But what I do know is that within the next two days “Tyler Durden” will write a post sneering at the 43,535 decrease.

Sneering. That’s his thing.

Kudlow Goes Berserk

Saturday, January 7th, 2012

In the video below, you can see Larry Kudlow go berserk on columnist Tim Carney:

Is Kudlow really a “Man of the People” as he so vociferously proclaims? Not hardly. Sure, Kudlow wrote a column supporting the Keystone Pipeline project because it will create blue-collar jobs, but that was obviously a polemic aimed at President Obama.

The fact is that you can see Kudlow shouting “UNIONS ARE DESTROYING AMERICA” almost every day on CNBC. Never mind that union membership (9%) in the private sector is lower than it has been in 80 years, Kudlow won’t rest until it is 0%.

But that’s not all. Kudlow supports the two pincers that are wrecking blue-collar America: mass immigration, and free-trade with low-wage nations which has sucked thousands of factories out of the USA. Kudlow also defends the yuan-dollar currency peg that Beijing has imposed on the USA, which turbo-charges H. Ross Perot’s “giant sucking sound.”

Those three policies are the very pistons in the Engine of Plutocracy that transfers trillions of dollars from middle-class workers to plutocrats, and have caused poverty to explode across the USA.

This dust-up with Tim Carney began when Kudlow went after Rick Santorum’s proposal to make manufacturing tax-exempt. And Carney certainly has a point about Kudlow opposing tax breaks that benefit the “small people”. However, it’s really a non-issue. When it comes time to do the calculations about how much money will be saved when moving a plant from Iowa to Mexico, taxes are just a rounding error. A 0% tax-rate is nothing when you replace $23 per-hour American workers with $2 per-hour Mexicans.

But when Kudlow was shouting at Santorum on this issue, Santorum came back and said that supporting manufacturing was important for national defense. And Kudlow scoffed. I spent about a half-hour fighting with CNBC.com’s horrible search function, but couldn’t find the video. But make no mistake, Kudlow scoffed at the idea that manufacturing is important for making war. This is ironic when you consider that Kudlow is a raving warmonger, currently campaigning to spend the proceeds of the Iraqi peace dividend on a new war with Iran.

A lot of the blue-collar types that Kudlow claims to champion were killed and maimed in Iraq because we didn’t have the manufacturing capacity to make the special super-strong steel needed to harden Humvees against IEDs. And in the conquest of Libya, our French and British allies couldn’t maintain the tempo because they also lacked manufacturing capacity.

Is it really a good idea to turn over all heavy industry to China and Mexico? Kudlow doesn’t seem to have a problem with it.

Kudlow also claims to be a Reagan Republican, but contrary to his image, Reagan didn’t actually invade any countries (not counting Grenada). And while Reagan entered the White House as a free-trader, that ideology went right out the window when he saw Japanese auto imports wiping out American jobs on a mass scale. (That’s what Pat Buchanan sez, and he was there, as was Kudlow.)

Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986, which put sanctions on employers for hiring illegals. And the 1985 Plaza Accord slapped down the Japanese’s cheap currency, just as we should be doing with the Chinese today, over Kudlow’s protestations.

Kudlow holds anti-Reagan positions on these four top issues: free trade, mass immigration, yuan-dollar policy, and starting wars.

Come on Kudlow! Enough of the BS! It’s time for you to come out of the closet as the raging plutocrat that you really are!

Top Investing Websites – Update #2

Thursday, January 5th, 2012

Update: The list of top investing websites now has a permanent home on this page. Please go there to see the latest Alexa rankings.

Here is an update to the list of top investing websites as compiled by my Rank-O-Matic app. I have added 19 new sites – denoted with an asterisk after their name. I found a few more, but their Alexa ranks were so low that I decided not to add them. I like having Larry Kudlow as the anchor (ha, ha) of this list. He’s great at SHOUTING ON CNBC!!!, but apparently couldn’t write his way out of a paper bag. Take that Kudlow!

Note: SPYderCrusher debuts with his new site, already above Kudlow.

Note: I outrank The “World Famous” Gartman Letter, of which I am not “subscribed of”.

Note: I have added Niall Ferguson because it pleases me to out-rank famous people. While he is an historian, he does specialize in economic and financial history, so one can make a case for his inclusion.

Kardashian Bashing

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

Kardashian clothes and shoes are made in sweatshops? Who knew? I’m shocked! Shocked!

But is it really fair to single-out the Kardashians? I mean, this is America after all. Our top national goal is to have as many products made in sweatshops as possible. Why else would we have trade treaties that don’t require minimum-wage laws in exporting countries?

Speaking of which, here are two CNBC bubble-heads, Jane Wells and Carl Quintanilla having a chuckle over California’s proposed anti-sweatshop law (at 2:15 into the video). Wells is outraged and says in an exasperated tone:

“Large retailers have to prove their stuff isn’t made using child slave labor.”

Really Jane? Are you sure that you want to defend child slave labor? I mean, sure, the vast majority of Americans do approve of child slave labor, but most don’t come right out and say it, right?

Goodbye Brock

Monday, January 2nd, 2012

It turns out that being a freakish human specimen is not enough to survive in the UFC. After a humiliating defeat to Alistair Overeem, Brock Lesnar announced his retirement from mixed-martial arts (MMA) last week.

Not everybody is cut out to be a fighter. After all, not very many people like getting punched in the face. And if you don’t truly love to brawl, the UFC is not the place for you. Even if you are the personification of the Hulk.

Brock Lesnar was a world-class collegiate wrestler, but there is no striking in wrestling. A pure wrestler does not discover how he will react to getting kicked and punched by an elite kick-boxer. Lesnar didn’t seem to like it very much.

But is the love of brawling something that can be learned? I don’t know, but if Lesnar wanted to make a comeback, that’s what he should focus on. He should get training partners like Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar and spar as intensely as possible.

And of course, there are MMA skills, of which wrestling is only but one. Lesnar had only eight MMA fights. He retired a rookie. There is no doubt that he could make vast improvements in his game if he stuck with it. He is only 34 years old, after all, and his diverticulitis is fixed.

When you consider how little MMA experience Lesnar had, it’s astonishing how quickly he became the UFC heavyweight champion. And he had two successful title defenses. That might be the most amazing feat in martial-arts history.

Lesnar looked incredibly nervous as he walked in for the Overeem fight. He knew he was going to lose. Nevertheless, Overeem was bleeding right off the bat. I think Lesnar opened him up with a jab. So, even in defeat, Lesnar showed a spark of brilliance there.

Overeem has 62 MMA and kick-boxing fights – almost eight times the experience as Lesnar. That matters.

I think that if Lesnar wants to rescind his retirement decision, he could have a long and lucrative career in MMA. But the level of competition in the UFC is so high that not even the Hulk can expect it to be easy.