But no longer!
Watch this space for a daily fix of news, humor, commentary, and the intriguing.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
We Are Back!
But no longer!
Watch this space for a daily fix of news, humor, commentary, and the intriguing.
Friday, January 6, 2012
If an auditor falls in the forest, does it make a sound?
Turns out that KPMG, those accounting mavens, took on the challenge of valuing the millions of acres of trees that made up China Forestry's assets. If an auditor falls in the forest, does it make a sound?
In this case, the sound was probably an embarrassed throat clearing. Turns out that KPMG who certified the 2009 IPO figures for China Forest has just resigned the account, citing questions about the firm’s ownership and valuation of plantations.
Th
e Wall Street Journal concludes, "Taken together with the ongoing problems at China Forestry’s rival, Sino Forest, this latest development might have investors wondering whether there are, in fact, any trees in China at all."
Friday, March 26, 2010
Chinese Ecological Disaster Cause By Chop Sticks
Chopped trees and chopsticks
[From People's Daily-March 26, 2010]Chopped trees and chopsticks
By Justin Ward
For Americans and other Westerners, environmentalism has a certain chic. It is synonymous with being progressive, modern and conscientious. It is fashionable to drive one’s Smart car to the local café and discuss the imminent environmental apocalypse over a cup of organic fair-trade coffee.
But for those living in China, we experience the destruction of the environment in a much more concrete sense. It is not some T.V. news report that one can turn off at will. It is dust choking your lungs and a haze that blots out the sun. Like many in Beijing, I was alarmed over the weekend to wake up and see the city outside bathed in the orange glow of one of the most massive sandstorms in recent history.
The timing of the storm, which came a little over a week after China’s Tree-planting Day, lent it greater significance. It gave us a grim, highly-visible reminder of the potential environmental calamity of deforestation and desertification. The irony is that while Americans in wealthy cities like San Francisco or Seattle, where people enjoy relatively clean air and water, will pay top-dollar for eco-friendly products, many Chinese will fight their way through a sandstorm to get to a restaurant where they will dine using disposable chopsticks, a well-known cause of deforestation.
The more educated city-dwellers will make the connection between disposable chopsticks and the annual sandstorms that plague China. Some, like one truck-driver who was featured in an Associated Press article, may even bring their own chopsticks to restaurants. However, the noble efforts of the eco-conscious are a mere drop in the bucket. Despite the 2006 tax imposed on disposable chopsticks and efforts to raise awareness about the damage they cause to the environment, they remain as ubiquitous as ever. Several hundreds thousand acres of forest are leveled annually to supply the billions of chopsticks consumed.
The continued wide-spread use of disposable chopstick is evidence that taxes alone are not enough. The fact that, four years after the tax was put into place, disposable chopsticks continue to be prevalent shows that the tax does not provide enough economic disincentive. For many restaurants, disposable chopsticks are still a cheaper alternative to hiring a full-time dishwasher, and for those which do the majority of their business in take-out orders, they are an absolute necessity.
Much of the tax’s effect has been dulled or completely nullified. Either companies have adjusted their prices to keep disposable chopsticks affordable, or restaurants merely pass the costs on to their consumers. In the West, where wealth abounds and environmentalism is so trendy, people are willing to pay more for environmentally-themed products, such as bio-degradable to-go boxes. There is an entire industry to cater to these types because it is a useful marketing ploy that enables companies to jack up prices even if their products do not cost more to produce. But in China, where people aren’t quite as pretentious, economics is the overriding concern for most.
An outright ban of all disposable chopsticks, as some have suggested, would be impractical, not to mention unenforceable.
China must take action against disposable chopsticks and other root causes of deforestation and desertification, lest the country be left in the dust, or sand, in this case.
For Americans and other Westerners, environmentalism has a certain chic. It is synonymous with being progressive, modern and conscientious. It is fashionable to drive one’s Smart car to the local café and discuss the imminent environmental apocalypse over a cup of organic fair-trade coffee.
But for those living in China, we experience the destruction of the environment in a much more concrete sense. It is not some T.V. news report that one can turn off at will. It is dust choking your lungs and a haze that blots out the sun. Like many in Beijing, I was alarmed over the weekend to wake up and see the city outside bathed in the orange glow of one of the most massive sandstorms in recent history.
The timing of the storm, which came a little over a week after China’s Tree-planting Day, lent it greater significance. It gave us a grim, highly-visible reminder of the potential environmental calamity of deforestation and desertification. The irony is that while Americans in wealthy cities like San Francisco or Seattle, where people enjoy relatively clean air and water, will pay top-dollar for eco-friendly products, many Chinese will fight their way through a sandstorm to get to a restaurant where they will dine using disposable chopsticks, a well-known cause of deforestation.
The more educated city-dwellers will make the connection between disposable chopsticks and the annual sandstorms that plague China. Some, like one truck-driver who was featured in an Associated Press article, may even bring their own chopsticks to restaurants. However, the noble efforts of the eco-conscious are a mere drop in the bucket. Despite the 2006 tax imposed on disposable chopsticks and efforts to raise awareness about the damage they cause to the environment, they remain as ubiquitous as ever. Several hundreds thousand acres of forest are leveled annually to supply the billions of chopsticks consumed.
The continued wide-spread use of disposable chopstick is evidence that taxes alone are not enough. The fact that, four years after the tax was put into place, disposable chopsticks continue to be prevalent shows that the tax does not provide enough economic disincentive. For many restaurants, disposable chopsticks are still a cheaper alternative to hiring a full-time dishwasher, and for those which do the majority of their business in take-out orders, they are an absolute necessity.
Much of the tax’s effect has been dulled or completely nullified. Either companies have adjusted their prices to keep disposable chopsticks affordable, or restaurants merely pass the costs on to their consumers. In the West, where wealth abounds and environmentalism is so trendy, people are willing to pay more for environmentally-themed products, such as bio-degradable to-go boxes. There is an entire industry to cater to these types because it is a useful marketing ploy that enables companies to jack up prices even if their products do not cost more to produce. But in China, where people aren’t quite as pretentious, economics is the overriding concern for most.
An outright ban of all disposable chopsticks, as some have suggested, would be impractical, not to mention unenforceable.
China must take action against disposable chopsticks and other root causes of deforestation and desertification, lest the country be left in the dust, or sand, in this case.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
No Whoppers Are Key To Afghan Victory!
Concerned that resupplying fast food purveyors on Army bases across Afghanistan was diverting transportation resources needed to supply arms, fuel, and personnel to combat the Taliban, more than 50 such concessions have been ordered closed, including popular fast-food outlets like Burger King, Popeyes and Taco Bell, as well as jewelry stores, souvenir stores and new car sales outlets.
I wonder if we put cup holders in the Hummers?
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
World Trade Death Plunge--Shipping Rates At Zero
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor at the London Telegraph has this staggering report about the freeze in world trade:
Freight rates for containers shipped from Asia to Europe have fallen to zero for the first time since records began, underscoring the dramatic collapse in trade since the world economy buckled in October...Shipping journal Lloyd's List said brokers in Singapore are now waiving fees for containers travelling from South China, charging only for the minimal "bunker" costs. Container fees from North Asia have dropped $200, taking them below operating cost.
Industry sources said they have never seen rates fall so low. "This is a whole new ball game," said one trader.
Larry Kudlow over on CNBC keeps hunting for his "mustard seeds" of hope for the economy. These are more like the seeds of destruction.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Today's Growth Business--Unemployment Claims Processing
It's bad enough to lose your job. But then imagine that the state Unemployment Claims systems nationwide are overwhelmed and can't even process your application for benefits? That's the sorry story, as reported by AP:
Electronic unemployment filing systems have crashed in at least three states in recent days amid an unprecedented crush of thousands of newly jobless Americans seeking benefits, and other states were adjusting their systems to avoid being next.About 4.5 million Americans are collecting jobless benefits, a 26-year high, so the Web sites and phone systems now commonly used to file for benefits are being tested like never before.
Even those that are holding up under the strain are in many cases leaving filers on the line for hours, or kissing them off with an "all circuits are busy" message. Agencies have been scrambling to hire hundreds more workers to handle the calls.
Friday, December 26, 2008
General Motors Becomes A Bank
GMAC, the automobile financing arm of GM has been recognized as a 'bank holding company' by the Feds. This provides unlimited (well, AMPLE) access to federal funds to bankroll consumer loans to purchase GM vehicles. Per the Wall Street Journal:
The Federal Reserve's decision to make GMAC LLC a bank-holding company throws the unit a desperately needed lifeline, but further entangles the federal government in areas of the economy it once considered beyond its purview.
In a Christmas Eve decision, the Fed allowed GMAC, a finance company controlled by private-equity fund Cerberus Capital Management and General Motors Co., to qualify as a bank. As a federally regulated bank-holding company, GMAC potentially gets access to billions of dollars of Treasury funds dedicated to recapitalizing banks.
Santa has been busy this Christmas!
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