O - Oh! ... Imports continue up but exports turned down slightly in June... this and plenty more regarding USA international trade at http://www.census.gov/indicator/www/ustrade.html.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Two Indian Ports to Remain Closed a Week
Containers from grounded vessel block channel to nation’s largest ports
A senior Mumbai Port official told the Hindu Business Line that it will take at least five or six days to clear nearly 250 containers sunk in the main navigation channel.
As on Monday, there were about 80 vessels waiting at sea for berths at the three port terminals at JN Port. These vessels are likely to be diverted to Pipavav, Mundra or Kandla ports in Gujarat, said a port official. “Maersk Line has stopped its bookings and I suspect the others will follow suit,” he said.
The delays and the expected pile up once the sea lane opens could cost India as much as $65 million in trade, he said.
It will be the first time ever that the ports will be shut for such a long time following an accident. There was no movement of ships in or out of the port on Monday.
Mumbai harbor has been closed for traffic after the collision of the container vessel MSC Chitra and the breakbulk vessel Khalizia-III on the weekend.
The MSC Chitra, which is owned by Mediterranean Shipping Co., was on its way to Mundra port in Gujarat from JNPT, when it was hit by the breakbulk carrier, which was coming to berth at Mumbai port.
Most of the 20-foot and 40-foot containers that fell off are lying underwater, making movement of large ships through the common channel for Mumbai and JNPT terminals difficult, the official said. The ship is not in the main channel, but is grounded a little away from it.
JNPT has three container terminals — two run by private companies and one run by the government-owned JN Port. The port handles nearly 65 percent of the country's container traffic.
A statement by the Directorate-General of Shipping, which is overseeing the salvage operations, said on Monday that the channel is closed during the night for any shipping traffic.
The vessel is dangerously tilted to port side, which has resulted in about 120 containers falling from its deck and heavy oil spillage from her fuel tanks, the statement said.
Salvage operations will take time as the sunken containers have to be located and marked before they are retrieved.
S.B. Agnihotri, director-general of shipping, said the collision might have taken place because of navigation or radio communication failure. "We have ordered a probe into the incident," he said.
There were more than 2,400 containers on board, of which 31 are loaded with toxic and inflammable materials. The cargo also consisted of textiles and pesticides.
Agnihotri said the vessel has about 1,200 metric tons of fuel oil in the ruptured tanks on the port side and remaining fuel in its starboard side, which is out of the water. A total of 2,700 metric tons of fuel oil and 300 metric tons of diesel oil are on board. Two to three metric tons of oil are leaking from the ship per hour, he said.
SMIT, Dutch salvage experts, have arranged for equipment that is likely to arrive from Singapore in the next two days. "Effective salvage operations can begin only by the end of the month when the weather subsides," the statement said.
The MSC Chitra was coming from Dubai was to pick up cargo from JN Port and Mundra, and was scheduled to sail to Africa next week.
Pix Makes Notes
Gift of ADD?ADHD - Cheerful Giving
The preacher man this morning was explicating the concept of cheerful giving, and it dawned on me that cheerful giving is an attribute of the ADD/ADHD nation. We are cheerful givers. We will give anything and everything away for nothing, we volunteer for anything and everything, although we really accumulate nothing to make giving much of an impact, and we have no skills so our volunteer work seems to be a net deficit for anyone who is managing a task.
But, we look at things from a thousand ways. We may not be able to design a bridge, but we can tell you immediately if it will fall down, because we looked it at a way you did not. Bridge builders could concentrate in school and learn bridge-building, we could not and did not.
We warn and are ignored because we know nothing about bridge-building. But we are right. (Someone said "you can be happy, or you can be right: pick one.") We move quickly from task to task, seeing learning, innovating, and are generally just happy. The powers that be cannot have that: people pointing out error, people not producing like robots, people somehow happy.
So today the ADD nation is drugged. And we all lose the benefit of their insights, their innovations, their warnings. The "cure" for ADD, ritalin, is far worse than the disease, for the person forced to take it, and for the rest of us who lose the good of the ADD/ADHD citizen.
Monday, August 9, 2010
New Washington State Capitol
In Seattle at 5th and Mercer the new state Capitol is being constructed. These times remind me of when Boeing moved their headquarters to Chicago from Seattle. The city mayor at the time said he was blindsided, had no idea. The county executive said he was surprised, he had absolutely no idea they were planning such a thing. The governor of the state was hurt Boeing did not bother to come to the governor and discuss the move.
What politicians do not understand is big business is ALWAYS talking to them: how much can give give us, how little do we have to give you. When Boeing decided to move, it knew the state had nothing else to offer, but was going to want more, so Boeing left. No point in talking to politicians anymore. Today the states and politicians have bankrupted themselves, financially and morally, so their is a shift taking place.
The Gates family foundation is spearheading an effort to get many billionaires to pool resources, as I mention below. Gates wealth would not cover 3 years of Washington state budget today, but who cares, state government and what it can offer is evaporating. This being a democracy, it will take small leverage to get politicians to do the bidding of a multibillion dollar foundation.
So, a new capitol is being built for Washington state at 5th and Mercer in seattle. It is the Gates foundation. The Gates foundation may not have a lot of money in the larger scheme of things, but it only takes a little bit of money in a democracy to buy off the whole system. With 5% of 100 billion to play with each year, the Gates foundation (gates + buffett) will be able to call an awful lot of shots, direct a whole lot of action.
How It Works: Blood Diamonds
Mia Farrow is ratting out Naomi Campbell like a good German. Apparently Naomi Campbell was given a very nice diamond by an admiring head of state. The stories conflict, but on to the point: as African countries emerged more and more independent, they began trading diamonds on their own account, emerging free market and small business. The usual suspects (diamond cartel) claimed this financed terrorism and free trade in diamonds was then suppressed.
Diamonds are taken out of Africa in the rough at very little money, and moved to countries where they are cut, the chief added value for the stone. (This is why Naomi describes what she was given as a dirty pebble: Africans are not allowed to learn how to cut stones.) The congo makes little or nothing off diamonds, the cutter in Antwerp clean up.
If and when Africans are free of western meddling, their countries will grow and prosper. In the meantime, we'll be treated to odd spectacles such as supermodels forced to testify at war crimes trials over a gift.
Against Charitable Foundations
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are leading an effort to get the top 400 billionaires in USA to “give away” most of their wealth. Long ago Bill Gates said he planned to give away 95% of his wealth, which was met with derisive notice that would leave him a mere 2 or 3 billion.
The list of people who have pledged so far can be found at http://givingpledge.org/ . The billionaire founder of Dominos said he too already announced he was giving his wealth away, “planned to die the way he was born, penniless.”
This of course is a scam, one you and I must pay for. Bottom line is nobody is giving anything away, but if you are not uber-wealthy, you’ll have to give yours up.
None of these people are giving anything away. This is how it works: The uberwealthy people hire an army of lawyers to set up foundations to give the money away, called by the IRS 501c3. The money is put in the foundation, and the foundation is controlled by the family. Now the wealth is free from taxes, and is protected by an army of civil servants, that you and I pay for.
The money is invested to earn a return, so it grows larger, tax free.
Next, these foundations are obliged by law to spend 5% of their assets in charitable giving each year. But since 5% is usually less than the investment earns, the foundations are usually growing.
What can they spend the 5% on? Salaries to family members that serve in the foundation. private jets and limousines for family members serving the foundation. All sorts of living and lifestyle expenses “serve the mission of the foundation. A family member paid $250,000 per year to work for the foundation is of course taxable income, the the salary is paid by the ever-growing foundation, which is tax-exempt.
Some foundations spend the majority of its obligatory disbursement on itself and insiders, sometimes up to 100%. Salvation Army is renown for only spending some 7.5% of their money on administration, with 92.5% getting to people in need.
Charitable Foundations are great for the family, who would otherwise be obliged to manage all that money in the real world, if they could not protect it in a 501c3 tax-exempt foundation. In the real world the first generation makes it, the second generation enjoys it, the 3rd generation loses it. Such is the naturally redistribution of wealth. But not with the 501c3.
The bad part is this mass of wealth, free of competition, now has funds to spend on really whatever it likes. Money can be given to nonprofit advocacy groups. Do-good programs like buying mosquito nets for African villages, programs that do more harm than good. They can secretly finance strange science.
In fact, their is little the gates foundation has done that would not be approved by any given congress. This wealth is usually spent to maintain the status quo, or advance some given agenda. This concentration of wealth and power is certainly undemocratic.
A good example of this in action is Bill Gate’s dad works tirelessly to renew the inheritance tax on anyone who cannot afford an army of lawyers to keep their money, like the Gates can. Inheritance tax kills small and medium sized businesses, because people inheritors let a business die rather than pay the inheritance tax on inheriting the business.
Also, since these businesses make or break a newspaper for advertising revenue, such taxes have pretty much killed off the city newspaper.
Have a small business worth 5 million owned by dad? Take out $5 million in life insurance on dad, paid by the business. Dad dies. Life insurance proceeds are not taxable. Take the money and run, one more small business dies. Government policy of get big or get out is advanced, day by day, business by business.
In the bad old stalinist communist countries, they used to execute people and send a bill for the bullet to the family. In capitalist countries, they make you pay for the bullet before they execute you. Our tax money goes to support a superstructures of legislatures, courts, lawyers, regulators and law enforcement that keep the 501c3’s safe from the rabble. We pay for it, then they harm us.
An important reform would be to eliminate all 501c3, nonprofit, tax exempt status. Yes tax churches too, but it might help us all if the clergy experienced taxation. it would eliminate one option for those who would hijack democracies. We do not need an elite in USA, so let’s not pay our taxes to protect their assets. Let’s eliminate the 501c3, and the superstructure that maintains it, and then cut those taxes devoted to it. Country’ll grow.
The Gates family made the billions in business, let them lose it too the old fashioned way, through competition.
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