LilBambi’s Blog – BambisMusings

Baltic Dry Index Falls 93% (watch on YouTube)

More info on Baltic Dry Index on YouTube

What is the Baltic Dry Index? (wikipedia):

The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) is a number issued daily by the London-based Baltic Exchange. The index provides “an assessment of the price of moving the major raw materials by sea. Taking in 26 shipping routes measured on a timecharter and voyage basis, the index covers Handymax, Panamax, and Capesize dry bulk carriers carrying a range of commodities including coal, iron ore and grain.”[1]

What has happened in 2008 to make this all that important?

On 21 May 2008 the index reached its record high level since its introduction in 1998, reaching 11,793 points. Half a year later, on 5 December 2008, the index had dropped by 94%, to 663 points, the lowest since 1986.[8] These low rates move dangerously close to the combined operating costs of vessels, fuel, and crews.[9][10]

By the end of 2008, shipping times had been already increased by reduced speeds to save fuel consumption, but lack of credit meant the disappearance of letters of credit, historically required to load cargoes for departure at ports. Debt load of future ship construction was also a problem for shipping companies, with several major bankruptcies and implications for shipyards.[11][12] This, combined with the collapsing price of raw commodities created a perfect storm for the world’s marine commerce. Cheaper fuel was no longer able to offset this situation and global letters of credit are beyond the powers of the Federal Reserve.

The best economic indicator you’ve never heard of. (Shipping News – Salon 10/2008)

Baltic Dry Index on InvestmentTools.com

Thanks Ice for the heads up on this.

Read it and weep….

EDIT: added the Salon article.

Unemployment Filings Reach 26-Year High (Washington Post)

The number of people filing for unemployment benefits hit a 26-year high last week, as the deepening recession forced more employers to cut jobs.

First-time claims for unemployment rose 5.4 percent, to 586,000 for the week ending Dec. 20, the Labor Department reported this morning. The last time claims were that high was Nov. 27, 1982. The four-week moving average, which is a less volatile indicator, rose to 558,000 from 544,250, also a 26-year high.

Food on the table, fuel in the heater and a roof over their heads may be the greatest gifts for many this Christmas season.

Good to keep things in perspective … good to make sure children understand that many men, women and children won’t have any ‘desired’ gifts this Christmas — they will be happy to have that roof over their heads, warmth so they don’t freeze to death, and food in their bellies… and that’s here in America as well as other areas of the world.

As the good book says, “Count your blessings” and as an old song says, “Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God has done.
Count your blessings, name them one by one…count your many blessings, see what God has done.”

Here’s wishing everyone a very Happy Christmas!

On This Day: Marie and Pierre Curie Discover Radium

On Dec. 21, 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie isolated a new element that came to be called “radium,” a landmark moment in chemistry and physics.

Quite a discovery in the scheme of things. And it cost Marie her life as she died of radiation poisoning in 1934.

Her husband Pierre was likely luckier than Marie as he died in a carriage accident in 1906.

However, by Marie’s own words, she obviously felt a great loss when Pierre was killed in that carriage accident:

“Our work drew us closer and closer, until we were both convinced that neither of us could find a better life companion.”

Like Einstein, I sometimes think that although their discoveries have many perceived good uses in medicine, energy, etc., it would not surprise me if they would have felt remorse in their discoveries if they knew what would be done with their discoveries. More here.

Yes, I sometimes wonder if they wouldn’t also have said things like this:

“If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith.”
– Albert Einstein

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” — Albert Einstein

On the other hand, it is also sad to see that despite the dangers of studying and curiosity in the sciences and other ‘unapproved’ areas, which Marie did because of her love of science and learning in the Poland of her youth, she persevered. This was quite obvious in the following quote:

“Constantly held in suspicion and spied upon, the children knew that a single conversation in Polish, or an imprudent word, might seriously harm, not only themselves, but also their families.”
–Marie Curie

When I see where we are headed in this country, I wonder if we too may live to see a day when our children will grow up to have such fears.

Climate Catastrophe Cancelled

(video from FriendsOfScience.org)

An Inconvenient Truth or Convenient Fiction?

Just a couple things to think about.

Bailout Update

It looks like a vote on the bailout could be taken in the House between 7 and 8 eastern tonight.  However, it appears to be encountering problems in the Senate.

MSNBC has a copy of the bill available here.

Keep calling and writing (suggested letters are here).  It’s very possible the bill could be rejected in the House if there is widespread uncertainty about its future in the Senate.  Legislators who would otherwise cave to the pressure to vote for the bill may be encouraged to stick to their guns and vote against the bailout.

As if it wasn’t bad enough when the government gave the (minimum) $700 billion dollar bailout of the banking cartels and not requiring proper paper trail on where these funds went or to whom. And before that Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, and more! Believe it or not….including an earlier auto industry bailout.

But now they want to give $23 billion more to the automakers.

And this is again beyond the $700 billion (plus the trillians projected for that) for the banking cartel’s bailout.

And the auto makers that apparently will just keep doing many of the bad business practices that put them where they are today. And could still quite likely go bankrupt at a later date after they riffle through the bailout funds provided by our taxpayer dollars! Oh, and what about AIG’s bailout rework to get even more money?

Do you think we should continue to bailout every company that cries ‘we’re falling and we can’t get up … at least not by ourselves” routine?

All these bailouts are simply prolonging the inevitable. Eventually, we will have to deal with the reasons for this collapse and the longer we put it off, I really believe it will only get worse and take even more down with it.

There are still some people that really think that bailing out the ‘wealthy’ will work? They really need to get their head out of the sand and get a reality check. This country has never bailed out those that REALLY needed it, so what makes people think bailing out the ‘wealthy’ who were bad managers will work, eh? Oh, and rewarding them by taking money from those that did do well, or at least didn’t go bankrupt, and likely doing things right — by taking their money to give to those who failed miserably so they can continue to fail miserably at our expense!?

Besides does anyone think the auto industry will do any better this time around with yet another band aid fix? They are not fixing what’s wrong, they just want more money to throw at the symptoms instead of taking care of the real problem.

Check out CampaignForLiberty.com for more information and the following videos of Ron Paul on Neil Cavuto: An anthology – dealing with these bailouts.

I have some words for you from our Founding Fathers regarding ‘redistribution of wealth:’

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” — Benjamin Franklin

This is a really sad time in our country which began when they instituted The Fed and Income Tax in 1913. Isn’t it amazing that less than 100 years after the institution of these two things (The Fed and Income Tax) a major collapse has happened .. yet again. And would have happened sooner and not quite so big if ‘natural’ corrections had been allowed to occur. And they have been trying to say that The Fed was NOT responsible for ‘recovering’ from the last Depression. What a load of horse hockey.

Read your history and pay close attention to the dates of things. And don’t go by today’s numbers in the stock market. Even during the Great Depression, there were ups and downs. And even Bernanke in a speech that is well documented admitted that The Fed caused the Great Depression and that was back in 2002!

Also check out some of the articles at Mises.org on Austrian Economics. Here’s a good place to start, “The New Deal and the Great Duration.”

Who makes out during these times – you know the Great Depressions, major recessions, and collapses? Just ask yourself that. Because there were those who did/do just fine … many of these actually made out/are making out pretty darn well.

And if you are wondering why we shouldn’t be giving away our children’s and grand children’s future …

How Bad Could It Get?

In “What Goes Up”, I discussed the law of booms and busts. A big boom with easy credit leads to a big bust.

The question is, given the boom we had between 2001-2007, how bad a bust might we have?

Real Estate

Well, in the greatest financial crash of all time – the crash of the 1340s in Italy, which brought on a new dark Age – real estate prices fell by 50 percent by 1349 in Florence when boom became bust.

How does that compare to 2001-2007? The price of Southern California homes is already down 41%, Southern California hasn’t fallen as fast as some other areas, and we’re nowhere near the bottom of the market.

Moreover, the bubble was not confined to the U.S. There was a worldwide bubble in real estate.

Indeed, the Economist magazine wrote in 2005 that the worldwide boom in residential real estate prices in this decade was “the biggest bubble in history“. The Economist noted that – at that time – the total value of residential property in developed countries rose by more than $30 trillion, to $70 trillion, over the past five years – an increase equal to the combined GDPs of those nations.

Housing bubbles are now bursting in China, France, Spain, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, and many other regions.

Much more in the article.

EDIT: Added How Bad Can it Get? from George Washignton’s Blog?

Well, there we have it. The music cartel’s playbook; pretend to talk about providing DRM-Free music, let the rumors fly, and then slap them down publicly so you think you have no other options. And all because they don’t get their way so they will take their marbles and go home.

One of these days, maybe the government will wake up and see they are being made the fool by copyright special interests. But then they didn’t see it with the banking cartels either. So don’t hold your breath.

If you are smart, get your music wherever you can that offers DRM-free music and don’t depend upon one specific place for it. There are quite a few places around to get DRM-free music. A few top ones at this time are Amazon MP3 which has an absolutely wonderful list of DRM-free musis and at great prices. Of course there are also places like eMusic as well. They still have a very nice selection even if it’s not as big as Amazon MP3. And so many more out there! Do your research. It’s well worth checking to be sure you are getting a good deal and NO DRM.

If you really want to see the big picture, don’t look at what’s happening today. Look at what’s happened before, AND what the music cartels (or banking cartels, or medical/pharmaceutical cartels, or any other corporate cartels) are doing now AND the direction they appear to be heading based on what they are doing. Then look at how the government has responded to the cartels’ special interest groups in Washington, and what it ended up costing you as a Citizen over time. Then you can begin to make an informed decision.

It’s this nation’s gotta have it now mentality that is destroying us. Few are willing to see the big picture and actually do something to help stop what is going on. They want ’stuff’ too much.

We need to be brave and do without if that is the only way to make a stand on what is right and what is wrong in government or commerce. Do the right thing.

Yeah, I know with all the bailouts, it sure makes it hard to discern. But it can be done if you really want to know.

But I digress. There is no reason anyone should be willing to pay for defective, errr, DRM’d music that won’t play where you want to play it because of short sighted (can’t see beyond THEIR pocketbook) cartels.

And don’t forget the threats to people’s music by the powers that be if someone stops selling the DRM’d music (remember Walmart?) and they finally came around and kept the license servers up, but they told you to burn your music to CDs so you won’t have to depend on them because they are not keeping them up indefinitely. That’s what happens when you are locked into DRM’d music.

The Truth About Bailouts
by Peter Schiff
November 24, 2008

As the Federal bailout bonanza prepares to spread beyond the mortgage and financial sectors to fill Detroit’s depleted coffers, few economic or policy analysts have spared a thought for the destitution of the U.S. government itself. Put simply, our government doesn’t have enough spare cash to bail out a lemonade stand let alone a bloated and failing industry that is losing tens of billions of dollars per month. Washington can only offer funds that it has borrowed from abroad or printed. Unfortunately, the nation is in the grips of a delusion that money derived from these sources has the power to heal. But history has clearly shown that borrowed or printed money only has the power to destroy.

The argument that energizes the pro-Detroit camp is that the government should extend the same courtesy to the rank and file auto workers that it lavished upon the fat cats of Wall Street. While two wrongs certainly do not make a right, the fact remains that the Wall Street firms are still floundering despite the bailouts. What’s worse, the money spent was either printed or borrowed from abroad. Both options are destructive to America.

Much more in the article. Well worth the read. Peter Schiff is the one who called this collapse before anyone else, if I remember correctly. You can find many of his videos on YouTube, like this one “Peter Schiff Was Right 2006-2007.”

Have you been to the grocery store lately? I don’t think the high prices are just here in VA. The grocery store is a scary place to go right now.

Maybe it is time to take a look at Surviving the Economy, he?