Publicly-Owned Utilities and the Recession

I have already commented on the local water utility and their interesting ideas as to what constitutes "investing in the community". However, today I discovered they decided to kick it up a notch.

The Scranton Times-Tribune reports today that, as the third-costliest water utility in the state of PA, they are petitioning the PUC for a rate hike. Of almost 14%. Which would bring us up to second-costliest!

They suggest that it's because they've invested *so* much money into the local infrastructure. But there's also a completely separate charge on the bill for "Distribution Systems Improvement". And rates got hiked 9% in 2007.

I'll have more on this later, but I mainly just wanted to get the links bookmarked for handy reference.

Write the PUC and your state representatives, dammit.

Hershey's sending more jobs to Mexico

As a Pennsylvania citizen, I've always had a soft spot for Hershey's chocolate.

Turns out the relentless flow of globalization is causing more jobs to get shipped down to Mexico.

Boycott Peppermint Patties, 5th Avenue, Zagnut and Jolly Ranchers.

Production of York Peppermint Patties and other candy brands is coming to an end at The Hershey Co. plant in Reading.

After 23 years in Reading, the chocolate maker is closing the plant Friday and moving production to a new factory it has built in Monterey, Mexico. Hershey (nyse: HSY - news - people ) says it will mean the loss of about 260 jobs in the southeastern Pennsylvania city.

The plant also makes 5th Avenue and Zagnut candy bars and Jolly Rancher hard candies.

Boxee Box

Posted for convenient reference.

Link

Krugman on the Fed and "Clap Louder"

Krugman posts today about how in 2005 the Fed were not listening to any negative news relating to securitization.

I'm rather astonished by the sheer magnitude of the groupthink that must have been happening in policy-making circles during the go-go years.

I'm an IT guy by trade, so it's not my job to worry about economics/finance/public policy, but I am an interested observer. There seemed to be an awful lot of flashing lights and alerts out there for quite some time. There was also long time when you could both believe that Roubini was over-the-top yet still be very concerned about the future.

I'm sure that most Fed members were probably not visiting Calculated Risk every day, and I'm not even sure if the blog existed then. But way back in that same year, The Economist came right out and called "the biggest bubble in history", specifically in housing, but it also suggested that we had a Global bubble across all assets, IIRC. This is The Economist, so it's not that you had to be a Bush-hating fringe Lefty to read this.

This whole situation reminds me of the old saw: "Experience is the ability to recognize that you've made this same mistake before."

Hank Paulson - Hits it out of the Park

My boy Hank really delivered in an interview reported today, as we head into the scary leg of the Global Financial Crisis.

Paulson says U.S. lacked tools to tackle crisis: report

Hmm....I'd have to argue the administration had quite a few tools running the show, sir.

He said even after Congress in October approved the $700 billion troubled asset relief program, the U.S. still lacked tools such as an adequate special bankruptcy regime for non-bank financial firms.

"We're dealing with something that is really historic and we haven't had a playbook," he said.

So, I get it that $700B wouldn't buy enough tools. I'm sure they don't sell these things at Harbor Freight. But, dude...you didn't have a playbook? Aren't you...like...the coach?

"The reason it has been difficult is first of all, these excesses have been building up for many, many years. Secondly, we had a hopelessly outdated global architecture and regulatory authorities...in the U.S.," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Ah, yes...The old "outdated regulatory authorities". I recall endless discussions about the quaint, Depression-era regulations while Congress was dismantling Glass-Steagall and enabling wholesale financial deregulation.

The article delivers the Money Quote towards the end:

"But we have been for some time in the frustrating situation of understanding much more than the public or even the Congress understood in terms of the magnitude of what we are facing."

Um...yeah. That's why by October of last year, I felt the need to post my year-end summary of Paulson On-Message.

Heckuva job, Hank. Enjoy your millions.

Barack Wins

Holy fucking shit!

It's been a long time coming. Amazing job for the Obama staff.

Awesomeness.

China to Slow Petrol Imports

FT via Naked Capitalism, we are alerted to the fact that China is to stop its massive purchases of refined petroleum products. Now that the Olympics are over (and the stockpiles are full) the Big Buy is coming to an end.

Quick! Snatch up that marked-down Hummer, stat!

China’s state-owned oil companies are likely to stop imports of refined products such as diesel and petrol next month after a nine-month buying spree that has left stockpiles overflowing, one of Asia’s largest refiners said.
...
Since late last year, the two Chinese state-owned refiners had been importing increasing amounts of diesel, peaking at 960,000 tonnes in June, and the country be­came a net petrol importer for the first time in May.
...
However, much of the imported petrol and diesel has been stockpiled rather than consumed.

“The state refiners’ stockpiles are so full that they have been reselling the stuff,” FPCC said.

FDIC seeks Treasury Funds

Hmm...surely this ain't good. FDIC seems to think it's gonna need more cash in the future. IndyMac started the hurt, now what's next? (From WSJ)

Probably good for a 200 point DOW pop tomorrow.

FDIC Weighs Tapping Treasury as Funds Run Low

WASHINGTON -- Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair said Tuesday her agency might have to borrow money from the Treasury Department to see it through an expected wave of bank failures.

Ms. Bair said the borrowing could be needed to cover short-term cash-flow pressures caused by reimbursing depositors immediately after the failure of a bank. The borrowed money would be repaid once the assets of that failed bank are sold.

Note, this comes hot on the heels of the release of the release of the updated "Problem Banks" list from the FDIC earlier today. The list increased from 90 to 117.

Ugliness keeps on coming, but nothing seems to happen...

Random Information - SOS 100 years old.

1. Today (well, July 1st 2008, so depends on when I hit "publish") is the 100th anniversary of the adoption of S.O.S. as the universal symbol of distress. As is discussed in the linked article, and has been made clear in countless histories about the event, it was still a novel thing nearly 4 years later when the Titanic went down, and it appears that it was that event that truly cemented it as the standard.

2. Via Kottke, some Euro dude celebrates Euro 2008 by kicking some fine goals off random urbanscape.



I definitely appreciate the skill, the fact that he seems to enjoy screwing with the cops, and the use of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" as the background music. 5 minutes of asskicking good times.

3. In WWI history, today is the anniversary of the first day of the Battle of the Somme. As noted in the wikipedia entry:

(It) was among the largest battles of the First World War. With more than 1.5 million casualties, it is also one of the bloodiest military operations recorded.

Let us not forget.

Here I come to save the day....

Once again, it appears that the Senator from the Great State of Wisconsin is all that stands between us and the destruction of Civil Liberties as we know it.

The Russinator and Chris Dodd are planning on filibustering the FISAbomination.

As has been said here before, the idea of immunity for a price is ridiculous. Thanks to Sens. Feingold and Dodd for preserving the Constitution.

Ice, Ice Baby

Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?
[tap, tap- SQUEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111]

Um...hey. So, yeah. I guess it's been a while.

Just wanted to do a quick rundown of what's new and exciting today.

The newly-arrived Phoenix Mars explorer appears to have discovered ice!! They can tell because some little white chunks appear to have sublimated. And salt just doesn't do that. Eagerly awaiting more robust confirmation.

Also, the 6th disembodied foot to have washed up on the shore of British Columbia in recent weeks appears to be a hoax. Thank heavens for that. 5 random feet, we can deal with, but 6? That's just crazy, man.

That's it. Talk to you in a few months.

Mmmm....More Open Beer

(via /.)

BDS, this one is for you...more open source beer!

"Three years ago we discussed an open source brewing project in which a Danish brewer made his beer recipes available for public consumption and alteration. The concept has taken off, first with the 'Free Beer Project' in Denmark and now with Flying Dog's 'Collaborator' Doppelbock in the US, which was created via input from home brewers across the world. One version of the Collaborator is commercially brewed and available for purchase (and is darned tasty), but you can download the same recipe and labels, brew it yourself, and submit your mods back to the project."

Ponticelli - Last French WWI Vet Passes

Messr. Lazare Ponticelli, the last surviving French WWI veteran, passed away Wed. Mar 12th, at age 110. Au Revior et merci Messr. Ponticelli.

Mr Ponticelli, who lived with his daughter in a southern suburb of Paris, had initially refused a government offer of a state funeral, the AFP news agency reported.

But he later decided to accept "in the name of all those who died, men and women", during WWI.

Further:

Ponticelli joined the Foreign Legion during the war and served in the Argonne region of forest, rivers and lakes in northeast France, digging burial pits and trenches.

"At the beginning, we barely knew how to fight and had hardly any ammunition. Every time that one of us died, we fell silent and waited for our turn," he said in the 2005 interview.

He also recalled running into no man's land to save a wounded comrade stuck in barbed wire.

"He was shouting, 'Come and get me, I've severed a leg.' The stretcher-bearers didn't dare go out. I couldn't bear it any longer," he said.

When Italy entered the war in 1915, Ponticelli was called up to fight with an Italian Alpine regiment. He tried to hide, but was found and sent to fight the Austrian army.

He described moments of fraternity with enemy Austrian soldiers.

"They gave us tobacco, and we gave them loaves of bread. No one was shooting any more. The headquarters found out, and moved us to a tougher zone," he told Le Monde.

He described the joy in receiving letters from a milkmaid who "adopted" him when he was serving in Italy. He couldn't read at the time, so comrades read them to him, according to a biography by the Versailles veterans' office.

The Italian President Giorgio Napolitano expressed condolences "in the name of all Italians" to the veteran's daughter, Jeannine Desbaucheron.

By fighting first for France and then for Italy, Ponticelli "offered an admirable example of an elevated sense of duty and dedication to both his adoptive country and his country of birth," Napolitano wrote in a message to her.

God Bless, Mr. Ponticelli, and Fare Thee Well.

WGA Strike Officially Over

I missed this one last night, so here's the dope. The Writer's Guild has overwhelmingly voted to approve the new contract. The Strike is officially over. As has been noted elsewhere, it was certainly not an ideal contract, but the writers made some serious wins and made it clear that organized labor ain't dead yet.

Props to all involved, and I hope everyone is back to work pronto.

Today, it is our pleasure to inform you that members of the Writers Guilds of America, East and West, have voted to ratify the MBA contract with 93.6% approval. With a total of 4,060 votes cast, the tally was 3,802 to 258. These numbers reaffirm the tremendous level of support and commitment our membership has continuously demonstrated over these last few crucial months.

China - Shifting Economic Winds

There are two interesting stories on China's place in the world of manufacturing tonight. Since Americans have spent a good chunk of the new millenium crapping our pants over the emergence of China and India, it seems worthy to note the emerging trends.

First off, this article notes that due to inflationary pressures, China has begun raising the minimum wages across the country. It states that the Guangdong province is rasing wages by up to 18%, and and that the minimum wage in Tibet went up by almost 50%.

The wage increases, aimed at relieving food and other price pressures, could instead fuel inflation, analysts said. Higher wages are also likely to raise prices of U.S. imports from China, and possibly reduce China's attraction as the world's manufacturing center.

In a related story from NPR this evening, we are advised that the booming dynamics of China's manufacturing sector in the last decade has resulted in China no longer being the cheapest player on the block for manufacturers.

As profit margins disappear, some companies are even moving to lower-cost countries such as Vietnam. In fact, according to China's state-run press, 1,000 shoe factories closed in Guangdong province in 2007.

(....)

Samuel Kuo, says he couldn't afford to pay rising labor costs. Other factories have been pinched by increasing costs for materials such as glass, paint and steel pipe.

" 'Made in China' isn't cheap anymore," Kuo says. "The low value-added products will have a hard time surviving in China … because the costs here are too high."

Now, I have nothing personal against the Chinese people, but as an American who has watched manufacturing move relentlessly from here to there, it's certainly been a cause of concern. And clearly, this will not stop the trend, nor does it mean that companies wont simply move jobs to Vietnam, or wherever the cheapest labor is located at the moment. Additionally, as I understand it, there are still billions of impoverished Chinese living in the rural regions, so this new trend also has its downside.

As the "made in china" trend emerged over the last decade, I recalled how the same dynamic seemed to have occurred in Japan in the 80s. These trends cannot continue indefinitely before the economics eventually change the course of the game.

But it is also hard not to feel some relief that the relentless Chinese manufacturing juggernaut is becoming less...well...relentless.

Quotations, Citations, and Dave Barry

Us damned librul elites strike again....

Long story short: I was searching for some quote attributions, and google let me down.

Meanwhile, from bartleby.com, while searching on "Dave Barry"...

(Just click the frakkin' link, okay? You'll be quizzed on it later.)

...Why 3 results? If there were none, I could easily see writing it off on the Liberal Elite Media. If I had to choose only 3, these are certainly amusing, but I wouldn't call them "Dave's 3 best quotes, EVA!!!1!!11!"

More interesting, is the attribution for citation 5664.

ATTRIBUTION: Dave Barry (b. 1940s), U.S. humorist. Dave Barry Turns 40, ch. 2, Crown (1990).


The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press.

"Born 1940s"? They quoted him, but couldn't be bothered to verify his birthdate to within the decade? I can even understand that they were hedging their bet on the fact that the book was titled "Dave Barry Turns 40" and the publishing date was 1990. I'm sure a lot of famous people celebrate their "big four-oh" on their 45th birthday, so it was probably a safe bet. And there's always the publishing cycle, of course. But if you were cash- and employee-stapped, and just did the math, you might come up wiht a different "circa" number.

But, surely, even cash-strapped, small-town Columbia University had enough staff to competently verify the birthday of Dave-freaking-Barry.

At least if they're going to bother to quote him, no?

Sincerely,

mergenow (b. 20th c.-ish)

Paulson: Economy should dodge recession

In my ongoing efforts to document our Treasury Secretary and his "Clap Louder" message, here's our newest installment. (I'm quoting this more than I probably should because this only shows up on y!, and they are notorious for expiring stories.)

Our boy, Hank "Subprime is Contained" Paulson tells us today, and I quote the headline, that: " Paulson says economy should dodge recession"

Admittedly, the headline is not substantiated by the text of the article, but I'm quoting this for posterity.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is experiencing a "significant" housing market downturn but the economy is fundamentally sound and should avoid recession, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will tell Congress on Thursday.
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"The U.S. economy is fundamentally strong, diverse and resilient, yet after years of unsustainable home price appreciation, our economy is undergoing a significant and necessary housing correction," Paulson said in remarks prepared for delivery at a congressional hearing, obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.

"The housing correction, high energy prices, and capital market turmoil are weighing on current economic growth," he said. "I believe that our economy will continue to grow, although its pace in coming quarters will be slower than what we have seen in recent years."

Conan on his guitar on strike

Here's Conan O'Brien doing a vid during the Writers' strike. First half is kind of "meh."

It picks up in the last two or three minutes. BDS, this is for you. We're talking Rock Band, Beastie Boys, "Creep" and Edith Bunker. Huttah.

Catch-up Diary

1. Over on Kos, diarist Grand Moff Texan makes some points that aren't automatically clear to a lot of the Dem party establishment:

I learned that lesson. Obama learned that lesson. Have you? You can't get "wonk" through Jabba the Crowley any more than you can play a Bach chorale on the kazoo. So, excuse the f--k out of me while I go play "Tequila" on my kazoo. You can stand over there and make snarky comments about how it should be polyphonic, octotonic, and polyrhythmic.

But no one's going to shake their ass to your jejune sniping, Fauntleroy.

2. Besides the progressing Obama landslide yesterday, the other big news was how Donna Edwards kicked incumbent DINO Al Wynn to the curb in the MD Primary. Yeah, that's right Washington establishment, we're coming after you! More democrats and better democrats, as they say on the internets.

3. In other Liberal Conspiracy news, the Writers' Guild has voted to lift the strike, with +92% in favor. They vote on the contract ratification in 10 days, and it sounds like the odds are that it will be a go. It ain't a perfect contract, but they got some decent concessions for having gone on strike. Rock on, Writers/Actors/All associated individuals.

That's it for the moment. Enjoy.

New Favorite Band - Architecture in Helsinki

I'm probably late to the party on this one, but I just tonight discovered my newest favorite band* (of the moment [I'm fickle]).

The band in question is Architecture in Helsinki. Contrary to the intuitive expectation, they're not from Finland, but rather Australia (at least some of them). It looks like they started out as a worthy shoe-gaze emo band, but they managed to improve on that. Their newer songs tend to range from an intriguing blend of Modest Mouse and Talking Heads, to an interesting mix of Funky 80's-technopop, with a brass section. I've spent the last few years looking for someone who makes some *new* music, that isn't directly derivative of their influences. These dudes and dudettes are it, beyotches!

I'm totally loving the following tunes, in order of kickin' videos:

"Heart it races" (not sure why, but it reminds me of Midnight Oil, in the "Diesel and Dust" era)


"Do the Whirlwind" (with awesome Sega Genesis graphics)


"Hold Music" (reminds me of the "OK Go" video)


P.S.: While researching for this post, I discovered that Peter Garrett, the singer for Midnight Oil, was named Environment Minister after the Labor Party won the recent elections.

*Johnathan Coulter still retains this blog's Most-Favored Artist status, however.