72% Of America Hates Globalization!

January 9, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

The German press breaks the startling news that 72% of Americans are ANTI-FREE TRADE! Wow. Won't see that in our media any time soon. Also, the British press notices that Japan is the root cause of global inflation via the carry trade generating vast seas of debts that are now causing our banking crisis! Holy cow. Knock me over with a feather! Toyota announces they will crush their Japanese slaves further in order to drop costs due to rampaging inflation. No surprise for me. The Baltic Trade index is falling rapidly which means trade is decreasing due to the banking crisis. Debts=trade these days. Also, gold hits new highs as China opens its gold trade market! This also irritates our rulers, for some weird reason, which we discuss.

Bush convenes Plunge Protection Team

The team is led by Treasury chief Hank Paulson, ex-Goldman Sachs, a man with a nose for market psychology, and includes Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and the key exchange regulators.

Judging by a well-briefed report in the Washington Post, a mood of deep alarm has taken hold in the upper echelons of the administration. "What everyone's looking at is what is the fastest way to get money out there," said a Bush aide.
*snip*
The White House certainly has grounds for alarm. The global picture is darkening by the day. The Baltic Dry Index has been falling hard for seven weeks, signalling a downturn in bulk shipments. Singapore's economy contracted 3.2pc in the final quarter of last year, led by a slump in electronics and semiconductors.

The Tokyo bourse kicked off with the worst New Year slide in more than half a century as the Seven Samurai exporters buckled. The Topix is down 24pc from its peak. If Japan and Singapore are stalling, it is a fair bet that China's efforts to tighten credit are starting to bite. Asia is not going to rescue us. On the contrary.

Keep an eye on Japan, still the world's top creditor by far, with $3 trillion in net foreign assets. The Bank of Japan has been the biggest single source of liquidity for the global asset boom over the last five years. An army of investors - Japanese insurers and pension funds, housewives and hedge funds borrowing at near zero rates in Tokyo - have sprayed money across the Antipodes, South Africa, Brazil, Turkey, Iceland, Latvia, the US commercial paper market and the City of London.

The Japanese are now bringing the money home, as they always do when the cycle turns. The yen has risen 13pc against the dollar and 12pc against sterling since the summer. We are witnessing the long-feared unwind of the "carry trade", valued by BNP Paribas in all its forms at $1.4 trillion.

Many years ago, after living overseas, I told people, 'If you want to know what is going on in Russia, read the Western press. If you want to know what is going on in America, read only the foreign press.' I read and use the American press mostly for the laughter it brings. A good, bracing sardonic laugh in the morning is like coffee to me.

Today's lead story here comes from England. The English press is often refreshingly honest except when it comes to anything concerning WWII or their former empire's problems, post-WWI. Then the mind closes and they can only see things through the dense foliage of endless propaganda. I noticed this is also the case when it comes to Ireland, too.

In the news here are some salient points I have painfully worked out by myself, for the most part, for several years. I know I am read in England. Perhaps, at last, someone else has put 2+2 together? If so, the big issue is, as I have explained many times, Japan. This article notes---and frankly, this is the FIRST TIME EVER I have seen a major media paper mention this---that Japan is the wellspring, the source, the CAUSE of the flood of 'liquidity' which has poured across the entire planet, starting an amazing round of global inflation! This is a two-level force: insanely low, totally a-historical interest rates on savings has utterly destroyed domestic savings in Japan. The US has destroyed savings by going into debt. The Japanese destroyed savings by outsourcing it. The second level is the carry trade. Loans for Japanese corporations are 'free' since they are greatly below the rate of real inflation. Japanese manufacturing has seen every penny and yen of inflation as any other manufacturing nation. In many cases, more inflation than, say, Europe.

Yet they claim there is no inflation and by gum, they got rid of it, all right! By destroying funds flowing to the work force of Japan that is being beggared in the name of killing inflation. This is literally killing the majority of Japanese. When Russia went into a depression after the fall of Communism and the looting of their natural resources by the Western empires, the population level began to collapse. So it is in Japan. The US, during the Great Depression, also saw a fall in births. The stresses on the nurturing side of the populace of Europe is now so intense, births there are also collapsing.

Back to Japan: the Western bankers have gone to great lengths to cover Japan in this matter. The utter silence about Japan's toxic role in creating global inflation just so they can expand market share, should be the #1 topic at all those recent G7 meetings. Instead, they focused on China. Not only has this rightfully infuriated China, it did nothing to stop the present melt-down. Up until the dollar began its swan dive into nothingness, the carry trade/free money joy ride was lots of fun for the billionaires of the West. All this free money and all they had to do was go to Japan, get a loan and then make it 'grow' via derivatives and playing ABX games or playing the stock markets. They expanded 'opportunities' by creating many layers of paper investment schemes based on every possible imaginable platform. Restlessly, they searched out all sorts of utterly ridiculous buy-ups and buy-out schemes and then dumped trillions of debt onto whatever they spotted. All across the planet, asset classes and commodities shot up as SPECULATORS took loans out at 1% in Japan and then rolled it over into other forms of finance.

This massive increase in global 'money supply' that was virtually entirely off the official books of the central banks, has not only caused inflation, it is causing a debt-crisis as none of the parties carrying this vast, totally uncontrolled mountain of new debt money, can't pay any of the interest, much less, principal. The flood of free money caused by the Japanese wanting a flood of 'free trade' that was focused entirely on exports out of Japan or exports from Japanese factories all over the planet, has now pushed the entire planet into debts too deep to pay off. Coupled with the US doing the same thing from 2002-2004 with the inappropriate 1% interest rates scheme cooked by the Federal Reserve, we have a global crisis brewing. The only thing standing between a total collapse of international monetarism is China!

And this is due to their banking system being 'backwards'. Practicing the virtues of the lessons learned in the last depression, they have much higher reserves ratios than the collapsing West. They raise interest rates to more closely reflect reality and instead of collapsing the wages and benefits of workers, they are expanding this, rapidly. Europe, Japan and the US are all trying to crush wages, eliminate benefits and destroy unions. They are all pursuing depressionary policies even as they claim they are trying to increase 'liquidity'. But the scheme to drop all their interest rates rest upon one thing and one thing only: to kill the effects of global inflation caused by the Bank of Japan by wrecking the buying power of the workers.

Of course, this causes trade to collapse. Toyota's sales in Japan are floundering and are now lower today than in 1983! Amazing, isn't it? If US workers are crushed like Japanese, Toyota's sales here will shrink rapidly, too. Ditto, Europe. These stupid, cruel deflationary policies would be not needed if Japan raised interest rates. But the West wants this status quo for the simple reason, it makes them filthy rich.

Is America Slouching Towards Protectionism?

For Americans, the evening news has been filled with too much bad economic news lately. In 2007, for example, more foreign cars than American models were sold in the United States -- for the second year in a row, no less. The country's balance of trade deficit with China continues to grow. The United States has even lost its title of "world's biggest exporter of information technology" to China. It has lost 3 million blue-collar jobs since the turn of the millennium. Today only 15 percent of American workers are involved in the actual production of goods. Americans are learning that, as inexpensive as imported products are, they can also be dangerous and hazardous to their health. In 2007, toxic chemicals turned up in many products from the Far East (more...), including pet food, toothpaste and toys. In the past few months alone, more than 20 million imported Chinese products had to be recalled from the United States. Three children died.

Many Americans have stopped believing that vigorous international trade promotes the wealth of nations. According to an opinion poll the Wall Street Journal and the NBC television network conducted shortly before Christmas, there has been a decisive shift in American attitudes about globalization: Only 28 percent of respondents agreed that globalization is a good thing.

Never, never, never do we ever see an anti-globalization article in the mainstream media in the US. Anti-globalists become 'non-persons' like Ron Paul. He gets to be in the mainstream news only if it is an attack piece. He has, being human, many flaws. But the pro-globalists are TRAITORS. I see no flaw worse than treason. It is treason to ignore the ravages of globalism. It is treason to bury patriots who are justifiably alarmed by globalism so we can't see or hear them. I am an internationalist who is a patriot and who believes that ALL nations should protect their own people but also form good alliances. Not CIA-sponsored dictatorships. But real relations based on trust and joint goals.

This German article isn't bemoaning the fact that even the 'man in the street', Joe 6 Pack, is now against globalization, it gives a good, hard look at what globalization is doing to the US. Germany has a trade surplus with the US which is why we had repeated meetings with them and the Japanese in order to slash the value of the dollar rapidly in order to fix trade imbalances. Of course, this stupid monetarist game has failed, spectacularly, every time.

The New York Times and the Washington Post, both war mongering rags, are also very invested in globalism and will fight tooth and nail for the domination of America by foreign powers who use us for their own ends. The startling news that the vast majority of Americans hate globalism certainly will NOT be a headliner with these two major publications. But then, they exist mainly to provide propaganda cover for the traitors who are hollowing out the US.

I took the charts and graphs from this very excellent Der Spiegel series and altered them a bit so we can see the correlation between the increasing incomes of the upper 1% of America, the rulers, and how this dovetails with 'free trade.'

I color coded the deficit bar from a decade ago to show how, compared to the present deficit, it has grown so vastly. From $70 billion to $700 billion! In ten years? Incredible. This should have raised tremendous alarm in DC. But far from that, this has been nearly totally ignored. And of course, with zero media attention on free trade's destructive force and with all the rich in America profiting off of this, the only candidates who has a long record of opposing this, Ron Paul and Kucinich both have been near the bottom of the polls. Indeed, few people outside of internet enthusiasts are even aware these two men exist. Their appeal should be at 35% each based on their real positions dovetailing exactly with the vast majority of Americans! But we are collectively, unaware of the fact that so many of us share the same point of view as these two nearly invisible men!

Yesterday, dutiful voters, urged by the mass media, trooped to the polls to repudiate the only two candidates who are not pro-globalization, pro-war with a vengeance. This sad enterprise means the destruction will continue. But the rage shown by Ron Paul supporters are like a match that can take at any minute. The left has been crushed by extreme police brutality in the last 7 years. There is great fear of going to the streets since, if we do any more anti-WTO meetings riots like in Seattle, they will murder everyone.

But the unhappy right is not afraid. They have never tasted the taser. So they will push back in the streets. You can bet, after that brief anti-Fox TV riot, the rulers are plotting to crush them, next.

Toyota Squeezes the Deflationary Lemon Even Harder

This side story in the Nikkei news is typical. Toyota is planning to put in more robots, squeeze more vendors and in particular, KILL their workers. Japan is in a medical crisis. Doctors and nurses have seen wages crushed and are either leaving or retiring. Service is collapsing. People are hauled around in ambulances, seeking hospitals that can take a patient. People are dying while this game of hot potato is played out. And along comes the world's biggest auto manufacturer, making this worse. So they can drop prices! Globalization is killing the Japanese worker and just like in the US, there is no political will to fight this...yet.

The LDP is in trouble but thanks to the heavy blanket of conformity, they are still in power and the organized resistance on the left has vanished while the right wing dreams of empire.

China's gold futures jump to daily limit upon debut

With world bullion prices hitting new highs, gold futures made a strong debut on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SFE) on Wednesday. The contract offers China a chance to become a key player in the global gold market. It could also be a hedging tool for gold producers and a means to absorb excess liquidity, analysts said.

The key contract for June delivery was the first to take off, surging 9.98 percent to 230.95 yuan (about 31.65 U.S. dollars) per gram. This was followed by the daily limit rise of other contracts for July-to-December delivery.

Rejoice, oh gold bugs! Your dreams are coming true! Europe and the US central bankers as well as the media have toiled hard to try to convince you all that gold is worthless, sovereign wealth funds are stupid and FOREX reserves are useless! And being a wise dragon, you all resisted this propaganda. In the gold trade community, I must say, you have all be right so far. I would happily join you all in this merry game of wrecking the schemes of the rulers except for one important fact: they will steal everything back if the gold community gets too rich. Strong arming the gold hoarders is very ancient. ALL governments do this if they can.

The history of the Jews is all about hoarding gold and then seeing it stolen by powerful lords wielding swords! Repeatedly, China has been invaded and all the gold stolen! We can see how this works today. Just like our media has muffled anti-globalism via crude propaganda means straight out of the Pravda playbook, so it is here: they don't like this news so they minimize or ignore it.

We do have the wonderful Bloomberg service that covers all the news all the time, pretty even handedly.

One last thing from China, rather amusing:

Live pig futures will also be launched to help stabilize pork prices.

I remember the dawn farm reports on TV back in the 1950's. This is where I learned all about pork bellies. When the price of sheep collapsed here back in 1998, rather than inflation, it fell by 300% and I sold my entire flock. This was due to globalization and the removal of barriers to importers who instantly flooded our markets. My farming/manufacturing town has lost 75% of its industries and farms since 1995. Now we are losing population as people give up and leave. This is why I am for barriers of some sort. And I will note that many G7 nations are pro-barrier. Aside from obviously, Japan!

EU Considers Carbon Tariff on Imports

European Union leaders strive to portray themselves as being on the front line of global efforts to combat climate change. They boast that the EU has agreed to cut emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, well beyond the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol. And both the United Kingdom (more...) and Germany (more...) recently announced plans to expand their commitment to renewable energy. Their strategy, it seemed, was to lead by example.
But they appear to be considering less subtle tactics.

The European Commission is considering a carbon tariff on goods from countries where greenhouse gas emission policies do not match European standards. The tariff system would force companies that import products into Europe to buy EU carbon emissions permits through the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) -- the ETS already obliges European firms to buy and sell excess carbon dioxide emissions, thereby creating a continental cap on carbon dioxide emissions.

HAHAHA. So much for 'free trade'. If Europe can impose tariffs based on 'carbon footprint' then it means we can do this for ANY REASON and obviously, there are many, many reasons to do this. All systems are underpinned by a philosophy. Globalism is, like the collapsing monetarist matrix, collapsing. The Europeans, unable to build a joint FOREX reserve that can buy up and hold yen and yuan, are using this foolish backdoor scheme. This preserves the corpse of globalism so it can continue to crush us while piously saying, they are only trying to stop pollution. Of course, the real reason can't be openly stated or the US can exclude European exports to the US which are quite considerable.

An examination of figures in August 2006 showed every company made ``substantial overstatements'' in at least one security, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said in a statement today. Investors rely on the reports to pick brokers that can find buyers and sellers for a particular company's shares.

``It is critically important that firms take appropriate steps to ensure that their advertised trade volume is accurate,'' said Thomas Gira, Finra's executive vice president of market regulation. The regulator cited the brokerages for failing to adopt adequate supervisory systems for the data before September 2006.
*snip*
Finra levied top penalties of $200,000 against eight companies, including subsidiaries of Merrill, the world's largest brokerage, UBS, Europe's biggest bank by assets, and Lehman, the fourth-largest U.S. securities firm by market value.

The number of brokerages involved ``is quite significant,'' said Nejat Seyhun, a professor of finance at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

With institutional investors watching the numbers, firms seeking business may have suspected others were lying and felt pressure ``to cheat so that they're not penalized for their honesty,'' Seyhun said.

Arrest them all. I keep warning outsiders trying to short the markets, this is an insider game. Whenever bears on the outside do the correct thing that statistics and data shows, will work, they get hammered by these creeps, liars and conspirators! This is why we must support politicians who are not owned by these same people! Note how the corporate corrupt, Mc Cain and Clinton, are on top, thanks to these same people. Money is pouring into their coffers unlike Paul, who is supported only by the 'little guy.' Huckabee made a brief splash but his anti-corporate credentials terrified the rulers and note how they tore him down, rapidly. He will not see the light of day again.

I hope Ron Paul runs on the Libertarian ticket. He can be our Ross Perot.

MBIA Cuts Dividend, to Raise $1 Billion After Losses

MBIA Inc., facing the crippling loss of its AAA credit rating, sliced its dividend and will raise $1 billion in the sale of notes. The shares jumped in early trading.

MBIA, the world's largest bond insurer, reduced its quarterly payment to 13 cents a share from 34 cents and will sell notes to shore up capital, according to a statement today. The value of contracts made to protect securities has fallen by $2.1 billion, creating losses of $200 million last quarter, MBIA said.

The banking crisis continues. It is far from ending, it can't end until the spigot in Japan is turned off. Then we get a really bad 'liquidity' crisis as the West drops rates to 0% in order to keep cheap lending going. And this is why we need anti-corporate politicians overturning the apple cards, spilling the gravy and kicking in the doors.

And on top of all this, is the mess caused by military overspending. We are at a cross roads. And going down the wrong path, thanks to our media and their friends in the financial world.

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Comments

[JSmith]

I don't hate globalization. In the early 60s, my parents bought a color TV. I think it was a Magnavox and cost around $800.

A little over 10 years later I had a color TV in my dorm room, and it didn't cost anywhere near $800. Thank you, Mr. Panasonic!

"I hope Ron Paul runs on the Libertarian ticket."

Let's say for the sake of discussion that Paul runs in the general election, and - mirabile dictu! - wins. Then what? Do you actually believe he'll be able to deliver on any of the positions he's running on? Think it through! Congress won't play ball - so what's he going to do? Govern by executive order? Or are you hoping he'll use Mr. Bush's idea of expanded presidential powers to do the stuff you like instead of the stuff you don't?

[Slamfields]

I must commend Elaine for upholding our American value of free speech and putting up with a moron like JSmith. If JSmith ever writes something that contradicts the wishes of the plutocracy, I hope that Elaine will highlight and commemorate it.

[Teddy]

JSmith, how's your pension fund doing? We need good paying American jobs to pay for our standard of living and for all types of pensions. A cheap TV won't cut it. Neither will the flatlining of the salaries of the college educated, especially given the parabolic rise in tuition.

[blues]

I must interrupt the narration of this fiasco to bring you this important message about another fiasco.

I want to just let the data here speak for itself. I got these links from comments on BradBlog. I have global HTML copies of these pages archived, just in case...

Here are the pages' URLs:

http://ronrox.com/paulstats.php?party=DEMOCRATS

http://ronrox.com/paulstats.php?party=REPUBLICANS

We now return to your regularly scheduled fiasco.

[Elaine Supkis]

I just want real issued debated. Ross Perot forced this. Anderson, back in the early 1980's, did this too. And Nader in 2000.

We NEED 3rd party candidates. It doesn't stop the Tweedle dumb and Tweedle warmongers. But it is better than nothing.

[Pluto]

Forgive my snark, but far more than 72% of the American people have no idea what globalization is. Not a single clue. They're like the blind men feeling an elephant -- one the tail, one the trunk, one the ear -- and determining what it is.

[Pluto]

Elaine and All:

Don't you think it's a little past the tipping point, in the US, for a "president" to come in and set things straight? The country has no money and only debt, the assets that havent collapsed are being purchased daily (along with our natural resources) by foreign interests on the cheap, for them. All the big money has gone offshore over the past 7 years, along with headquarters of our military industrial complex and their subsidiaries.

The US has become a junkyard car, being sold off for parts. The wheels came off a long time ago.

So this "President" inherits a rusted chassis, a mountain of debt, a virtually foreign-owned nation, a savings-negative population largely employed in servicing each other, a worthless currency, and an infrastructure that came into existance (and was designed) after the invention of the automobile, making it impossible to survive without cars and oil -- and worst of all, we can't even afford the food we grow here, because we are outbid on the commodities market for our own grain and anything else we can put in our mouths.

The other player nations in the globalization game are not in national bancruptcy. And if they are in debt, they can actually pay the interest on that debt.

What I'm saying is, as a global trader, you don't have to be tethered to the US economy. How does patriotism play into that? Is it like being a Yankees fan? Is it a "team sport?" There are other places on the planet that are not circling the drain.

I post this merely to provoke the thought experiment and in a friendly gesture, because I enjoy you guys.

[Teddy]

Pluto, and the scary thing is that the global parasites are now moving into Canada and Europe and will eat them alive. It won't take long.

[EEngineer]

Elaine, have you seen:
http://zenhuber.blogspot.com/

Being ex-Navy myself I find his post just as entertaining as your own.

[Al]

Pluto - my 2cents worth,

You're probably right about 72% not knowing what globalization is. Most Americans think it means a McD's in every city.

As for a president setting things right, I'm hoping for a president to manage the US descending to being part of a multi-polar world without us going nuclear and trying to go out in a blaze of glory. We don't deserve to have things set straight and go back to the good old days, the good old days were bad old days for most of the world.

[kenogami]

I read on the Net that those counting the votes for the Democrats
in the primaries are from an Israeli outfit owned by Mossad. If this true
(I don't know if the source was trustworthy), Kucinich will gradually disappear from the picture. why are the Democrats so naive and wimpy?

[D.F. Facti]

"why are the Democrats so naive and wimpy?"

It pays well.

[JT, Espoo, Finland]

I don´t know if all americans know anything about even civilization anymore. I found this blog, the writer says "I am retired after a long career as a senior executive of a Fortune 100 company."

Boy, some of you (I know not most of you), really haven´t learned anything in the last 1000 years.
I think the american empire will fall, when nobody wants to be a teacher anymore. So I agree with the writer on the topic, but rest of this blog is just unbelievable.
Link: http://owendavis2100.blogspot.com/2007/12/coming-fall-of-american-empire.html

And here I thought it couldn´t possibly get any worse after Bush. But it could, choose Mitt Romney and let´s really put this planet out of its misery this time.

[John]

"[C]hoose Mitt Romney and let´s really put this planet out of its misery this time."

Yep. One has only to look at billionare Bush-buddy Rush Limbaugh, who acts as if he refuses to endorse anyone but gushes over Romney while bashing the others pretty consistently--and refusing to even mention Ron Paul, while acting like he's the only true Reagan/Goldwater conservative in the country.

If you want to know what the fascists like, just keep up with Limbaugh and Hannity; they're the spokesmen for the legacy of Prescott Bush. And they both tacitly support Romney.

[Elaine Supkis]

The new story I just put up has some very sobering graphs. I am a global patriot. I want the US to be strong and yet, noble. I want us to be leaders, not cry babies demanding a lollipop from Santa.

And I want us to respect our neighbors and distant strangers. Bush is in the Middle East arranging the funeral of the Palestinians as he is also sabre rattling in the Persian Gulf and Pakistan is teetering on the abyss edge. And the world is sliding into a US-made recession/depression.

We need real leadership and I don't see anyone who is very serious about all this. The charts this week from the Federal Reserve shows our banking system is fucking COLLAPSING internally. In ways I can hardly figure out but I can see it is bad just from the fact that it looks totally weird and utterly ahistorical. It has NEVER happened before.

Lord help us all.

[katya]

Hey Y'all,

In case you missed it Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich were both interview by Bill Moyers. Good stuff:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html

Too bad so few Americans will see it.

[JSmith]

"We need good paying American jobs to pay for our standard of living and for all types of pensions."

A funny thing happened in the mid-70s. For quite a while the US had been importing a lot of cheap crap from Japan and other places, but suddenly it wasn't crap any more - it was still cheap, and the quality was excellent. Buh-bye, 'Merican Manufacturing!

You see, those "good paying American jobs" produced a lot of god-awful, overpriced junk. Why do you think Japanese car companies took away Detroit's lunch and ate it? Not only wasn't the product any good, very little of it was ever any good; we just didn't know the difference. Ford (Fix Or Repair Daily) and GMC (the Garage Man's Companion) came by their nicknames honestly. It only took Honda, Toyota, and Datsun to show up with a well-made product at a reasonable price.

"...Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich were both interviewed by Bill Moyers..."

Good God. Did they all hold hands and sing "Kumbaya"?

[DeVaul]

"Good God. Did they all hold hands and sing "Kumbaya"?"

Lol. Good one!

I'm still voting for Ron Paul, even if he did do this strange ritual you mention.

As for cars, they are all financial black holes. Even Japanese cars now have built-in defects that keep the parts industry alive and properous. I know. I have one.

[Teddy]

JSmith, again how's your pension doing? Elaine's presentation breaks yours in two. Better stick to bird watching and watching your woodpecker.

[JSmith]

"JSmith, again how's your pension doing?"

I don't have one. technology firms seldom offer pension plans. But since you asked, the 401(k) is doing fine, and - since it's diversified - it's not dependent on whether one specific company keeps its head above water.

[Teddy]

JSmith, when do you think the SEC is going to indict the CEO's and their workers for backdating options immediately after 9/11. And quite frankly, your red herrings and riding down the slippery slopes by deriding the American worker including the college educated is readily apparent. The reliability ratings for Japanese cars have gone down and IMO, their safety also. Someone I know recently had a "fender bender" without the air bags deploying on their Japanese car, and the insurance company chose to repair it rather than declare it a total loss. The repair work cost 65% of the car's initial purchase price 8 months earlier and it never ran right again. You remind me of the guy who wants to make a profit on the sale of his "valuable" rug and is so mathematically gifted that in order to make his rug longer employs an expensive firm to cut off one end of it and sew it on the other end such that it is initially undetectable.

[Elaine Supkis]

HAHAHA. Smith, the Oriental Rug Merchant.

[CEO Nutcracker]

I think "JStein" is a 'troll'. Or, certainly a 'Merchant' peddling alot of crap. You fail to mention our latest casualty of globalization, (technology industry) stolen and sold to slave nations, China and Japan. I know, I saw the birth and death of Silicon Valley. No industry is safe now. Until globalization is dead, the 'brain-drain' will continue its exodus from this country. The illegals will be fighting over the bones.

[Kat]

"Why are the Democrats so naive and wimpy?"

Have you seen Hillary Clinton? I wouldn't want to get into a fight with her.