Alan Baker

In article <>,
Jack Hollis <> wrote:

> On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:31:36 -0500, Lloyd Parsons
> <> wrote:
>
> >> If things are so bad, why did the GDP grow at an annual rate of 3.2%
> >> last quarter?
> >
> >Maybe because GDP has nothing to do with retail sales, jobs or wages.
>
> Actually it has a lot to do with those things.

GDP is driven up by disasters and war. Are we better off with or without
those?

The Gobshiite

On Sep 20 2008 1:51 AM, "R&B" wrote:

> "Jack Hollis" <> wrote in message
> news:...
> > On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:11:45 -0500, Lloyd Parsons
> > <> wrote:
> >
> >>Meanwhile, with all your good news, Joe Sixpack is either out of a job,
> >>or working for less, car dealers can't give away the cars, all the
> >>retail chains are crying....
> >
> > Actually the discount stores like Walmart and Cosco are doing pretty
> > good.
>
>
> Because nobody can afford to shop anywhere else.
>
> Randy

Speak for yourself please. Was at the mall last night, a lot of cars in
the parking lot and the stores quite busy. A lot of people can afford to
"shop any where else". And ate dinner at Red Lobster, not a cheap place,
had to wait 45 minutes for a table. A lot of people doing quite well, in
spite of this great economic calamity liberals try to portray.

Unemployement is a small perecentage, considering society as a whole. A
large percentage of the unemployement is chronic, these people don't want
to work. Or take a pay cut from what they were used to. Or expend the
energy for retraining if necessary. If you have good technical skills or
are good at what you do, there is plenty of work If you have no skills,
or are mediocre at what you do, there might not be as much work. That is
your fault. Not the governments, not big business. Most of the time, you
reap what you sew.

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Jack Hollis

On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:35:20 -0500, Lloyd Parsons
<> wrote:

>Oil at about $97 a barrel today should give us $2.50-$3 gas, but it
>doesn't 'cause they CAN charge as much as they are and get away with it.
>A little book fiddling here and there to show they aren't ripping us off
>and you've got it.

I'd like to see oil at around $20 a barrel. High energy costs reduce
discretionary income.

>BTW, we could be pumping that much more from the small wells if an
>article I read recently is true.

I'm all for it if it increases domestic production.

>In the meantime, the oil companies want to drill offshore, closer than
>50 miles, but won't develop the fields they already have leased. I
>think maybe the gov't should say, OK, we'll take the lease back and let
>someone else have that access and you can trade that for drilling closer
>than 50 miles.
>
>The oil companies will never go for it!

Use you common sense, If the oil companies could drill for oil on
land they currently have leases on and make money, why don't they.

Fact is, that land does not have oil that can be recovered for a
decent profit.

The US has to start recovering its oil assets as soon as it can. I
say drill everywhere there is oil and gas.

Howard Brazee

On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 22:31:35 -0400, Jack Hollis <>
wrote:

>>Maybe because GDP has nothing to do with retail sales, jobs or wages.
>
>Actually it has a lot to do with those things.

I'd like to see a constitutional amendment saying that no department
of the federal government could have a spending increase after a year
when the feds spent more than xx % of the GDP. Congress can
authorize that department to spend more with the same super majority
vote necessary to declare war.

I'll let experts determine what XX should be - I expect no larger than
20% should be acceptable.

Lloyd Parsons

In article <>,
Jack Hollis <> wrote:

> On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:35:20 -0500, Lloyd Parsons
> <> wrote:
>
> >Oil at about $97 a barrel today should give us $2.50-$3 gas, but it
> >doesn't 'cause they CAN charge as much as they are and get away with it.
> >A little book fiddling here and there to show they aren't ripping us off
> >and you've got it.
>
> I'd like to see oil at around $20 a barrel. High energy costs reduce
> discretionary income.
>
Well, I'd like to tooth fairy to start coming around with bigger payoffs
too! But that ain't happening either.

But you dodged the note about where gas pricing should be based on
today's oil prices versus where it really is.

> >BTW, we could be pumping that much more from the small wells if an
> >article I read recently is true.
>
> I'm all for it if it increases domestic production.
>
> >In the meantime, the oil companies want to drill offshore, closer than
> >50 miles, but won't develop the fields they already have leased. I
> >think maybe the gov't should say, OK, we'll take the lease back and let
> >someone else have that access and you can trade that for drilling closer
> >than 50 miles.
> >
> >The oil companies will never go for it!
>
> Use you common sense, If the oil companies could drill for oil on
> land they currently have leases on and make money, why don't they.
>
> Fact is, that land does not have oil that can be recovered for a
> decent profit.
>
Well if it doesn't have any oil on it, then they wouldn't mind if the
leases all got rescinded then? Maybe a smaller company, with lower
overhead could make that land produce at a profit for them?

IBM does this all the time. When they spin off a small company to do a
product developement. The smaller company has much lower overhead than
does IBM, so it is posssible to do something that IBM itself couldn't do
profitably.

> The US has to start recovering its oil assets as soon as it can. I
> say drill everywhere there is oil and gas.

Natural gas is in plentiful supply, they could just remove the caps on
many of them and we'd be up to our ears in the stuff. Of course that
would mean that they couldn't cry wolf and charge the rates that they do
now for it. So you know that won't happen.

Jack Hollis

On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 00:42:23 -0700, Alan Baker <>
wrote:

>In article <>,
> Jack Hollis <> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:31:36 -0500, Lloyd Parsons
>> <> wrote:
>>
>> >> If things are so bad, why did the GDP grow at an annual rate of 3.2%
>> >> last quarter?
>> >
>> >Maybe because GDP has nothing to do with retail sales, jobs or wages.
>>
>> Actually it has a lot to do with those things.
>
>GDP is driven up by disasters and war. Are we better off with or without
>those?

War and disasters will drive GDP up. The GDP in Alaska went way up
after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. So GDP can be somewhat misleading
as a true measure of economic growth.

Actually, one of the main factors in the healthy 3.2% GDP growth in
the second quarter of 2008 was increased exports due to the weak
dollar.

I'd expect continued growth in US GDP in the third quarter but not
3.2%. The last quarter, which we a soon to enter, may not be as good.
The dollar has been on the rise and this will hurt exports. We could
see the fiorst quarter of negative growth.

Considering all the shit that's happened since 9/11/01, it's amazing
how strong the US economy has been.

Right now we're facing a world wide economic slowdown. The US economy
is the main engine running the world economy and it is in better shape
than most other regions, but I'm not sure that it will be able to keep
the world economy from going into a recession. It's all just a part of
the normal economic cycles that have been going on since anyone can
remember.

In many way it's healthy because hard economic times separates the
chaff from the wheat and forces discipline on the market. In
addition, bad economic times can create opportunities for investors
who have cash. Or, as my broker puts it, 'Anyone who still has
bullets left after the shooting's over can make a killing."

R&B

"The Gobshiite" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Sep 20 2008 1:51 AM, "R&B" wrote:
>
>> "Jack Hollis" <> wrote in message
>> news:...
>> > On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:11:45 -0500, Lloyd Parsons
>> > <> wrote:
>> >
>> >>Meanwhile, with all your good news, Joe Sixpack is either out of a job,
>> >>or working for less, car dealers can't give away the cars, all the
>> >>retail chains are crying....
>> >
>> > Actually the discount stores like Walmart and Cosco are doing pretty
>> > good.
>>
>>
>> Because nobody can afford to shop anywhere else.
>>
>> Randy
>
> Speak for yourself please. Was at the mall last night, a lot of cars in
> the parking lot and the stores quite busy. A lot of people can afford to
> "shop any where else". And ate dinner at Red Lobster, not a cheap place,
> had to wait 45 minutes for a table. A lot of people doing quite well, in
> spite of this great economic calamity liberals try to portray.
>
> Unemployement is a small perecentage, considering society as a whole. A
> large percentage of the unemployement is chronic, these people don't want
> to work. Or take a pay cut from what they were used to. Or expend the
> energy for retraining if necessary. If you have good technical skills or
> are good at what you do, there is plenty of work If you have no skills,
> or are mediocre at what you do, there might not be as much work. That is
> your fault. Not the governments, not big business. Most of the time, you
> reap what you sew.



Look, you and I are are among the lucky ones. And I'm fairly certain that
you and I, living in our upper middle class to upper class suburbs, probably
don't see at our local Red Lobster an accurate cross-section of American
society as a whole.

I've posed this question to others in the past, and they're usually stumped
for an answer: With unemployment being such a "small percentage," as you
say -- last I heard it was around 6.1 percent, the highest it's been in
years -- that's a little over TWELVE MILLION Americans (a "small" number?),
just how many Americans slipping through the cracks is acceptable to you?
And since when does having twelve million Americans officially on the
unemployment rolls (which doesn't account for the others who've given up
trying to find work, and therefore don't get counted in the unemployment
figures) does this BENEFIT the economy?

Most importantly, with worker earnings plummeting since George Douchebag
Bush got into office, the average American has less money to spend. This
can't be good for the economy, as they have less to put back into it.

I guess as long as YOU aren't one of those TWELVE MILLION the number is
"small." But if you're one of them, it really doesn't matter how big or how
small it is -- it's big enough to impact your family. So, would I be
correct in assuming you're in favor of starving American children?

Randy

R&B

"Jack Hollis" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On 20 Sep 2008 00:49:17 GMT, Carbon <>
> wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 19:46:06 -0400, Jack Hollis wrote:
>>> On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:11:45 -0500, Lloyd Parsons <>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Meanwhile, with all your good news, Joe Sixpack is either out of a job,
>>>>or working for less, car dealers can't give away the cars, all the
>>>>retail chains are crying....
>>>
>>> Actually the discount stores like Walmart and Cosco are doing pretty
>>> good.
>>
>>The fundamentals of the economy are strong, are they?
>
> Things would be a lot better if the US was pumping 5 million more
> barrels of oil a day than it is now and even better than that if it
> was 10 million.


Congress passed an off-shore drilling measure this week. George W. has
threatened to veto it because he thinks it puts too many restrictions on his
oil buddies. So it's not really about oil after all. It's about money.
Gee, what a surprise.

Either way, if America started drilling off-shore today, it woudn't produce
a drop of gasoline for at least a decade. And when it does, it would only
account for about 1 or 2 percent of America's demand (maybe less by the time
it actually starts yielding anything).

You can keep adovacting putting a band-aid on this giant wound. But the
real answer is a long-term plan that will lead to the technology that will
free us from foreign oil completely, or at least to a large degree. Are you
not in favor of reducing, or possibly even eliminating, our dependence on
oil-producing governments in the Middle East that would just as soon see us
dead? And you call yourself in support of homeland security? Do you not
see the irony here?

Sooner or later, we're going to have to find an alternative to fossil fuels.
Otherwise, we'll become fossils ourselves. Like you.

A little forward thinking -- y'know, beyond this afternoon -- might be a
good idea. Try it.

Meanwhile, you can thank John McCain's chief economic advisor and author of
the McCain economic plan, Phil Gramm, for writing the bill that lifted
restrictions on market speculators that allowed oil speculators to spike the
price of gasoline to where it is today. I wonder how many of John McCain's
houses that helped pay for?

Randy

R&B

"Jack Hollis" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:35:20 -0500, Lloyd Parsons
> <> wrote:
>
>>Oil at about $97 a barrel today should give us $2.50-$3 gas, but it
>>doesn't 'cause they CAN charge as much as they are and get away with it.
>>A little book fiddling here and there to show they aren't ripping us off
>>and you've got it.
>
> I'd like to see oil at around $20 a barrel. High energy costs reduce
> discretionary income.
>
>>BTW, we could be pumping that much more from the small wells if an
>>article I read recently is true.
>
> I'm all for it if it increases domestic production.
>
>>In the meantime, the oil companies want to drill offshore, closer than
>>50 miles, but won't develop the fields they already have leased. I
>>think maybe the gov't should say, OK, we'll take the lease back and let
>>someone else have that access and you can trade that for drilling closer
>>than 50 miles.
>>
>>The oil companies will never go for it!
>
> Use you common sense, If the oil companies could drill for oil on
> land they currently have leases on and make money, why don't they.
>
> Fact is, that land does not have oil that can be recovered for a
> decent profit.
>
> The US has to start recovering its oil assets as soon as it can. I
> say drill everywhere there is oil and gas.


Most are in favor of off-shore drilling. Even Sen. Obama has said that he
wouldn't oppose it -- just not as the centerpiece of our energy strategy.
Or, as Bush would say, "strategery."

Off-shore drilling would account for about 1-2 percent of America's demand
for gas, and that's only after about 10-15 years.

Of course, when we learned last week of the sex scandal involving oil
company personnel, the true meaning behind the slogan "drill, baby, drill"
finally became clear.

Randy

R&B

"The_Professor" <> wrote in message
news:043e50da-110f-45c7-a0e8-...
On Sep 19, 6:59 am, "Bill" <some...@home.net> wrote:
> "Stapler" <stap...@tmp.com> wrote in message
>
> news:lUDAk.353$UB3.133@trnddc07...> Start an immediate run on your
> savings. Camp out at night, to be first in
> > line. We need a good old fashioned panic.
>
> you should camp out in front of Dr Phils office.

...woudln't that be like the nuts returning to the tree?


---


<spewage> !!

Wow. Rob made a funny.

Even *I* laughed at that one.

Randy