New orders for durable goods manufactured in the U.S. dropped 7.8% to $17.1 billion in January -- the worst month ever for non-defense goods, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. [...]
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast that orders for durable goods would fall 2.5%, while economists surveyed by MarketWatch predicted a 5.5% drop.
Is this performance terrible everywhere, or only in certain areas of the economy? Take a guess...
Orders for non-defense capital goods fell by a record 19.9%, or $16.3 billion to $65.4 million.
New defense orders for capital goods posted a 10.7%, or $900 million, gain in January to $8.8 billion.
On a related note, something else happened in the stock market yesterday: "Biggest fall since 9-11." Just imagine what a consistently ignored and newly strengthened Al Qaeda could do to the markets if it chooses to.
In a brightly lighted basement gym, [Bush] visited children bending paperclips into different shapes and urged Americans to volunteer as mentors. He talked not of armies in Iraq but of "armies of compassion" at home. Even the kids seemed confused. One asked why he came. "I came to see you," the president responded. As the cameras clicked away, a 7-year-old boy made peace signs. "Put your hands down," Bush chided playfully. [Peter Baker, WaPo]
$3,000 grant to every man, woman and child in the USA $150 grant to every human being on earth
130 Environmental Protection Agencies 18 Departments of Education 170 National Science Foundations 200 National Cancer Institutes 1,500 National Highway Transportation Safety Administrations 28 Departments of Homeland Security
If you could spend a dollar a second, it would take you 32,000 years to spend what the neocons have spent on their Great Adventure: their spectacular failure in Iraq, achieved in less than five years.
Lesson for Sen. Lindsey Graham: next time you bash a ghost, make sure she’s not in the audience.
Monday night, the South Carolina Republican joined Sen. Edward Kennedy (D., Mass.) for a panel discussion following a Washington screening of “Ghosts of Abu Ghraib,” an HBO documentary made by Kennedy’s niece, Rory Kennedy, about the 2004 abuse scandal in the Iraqi prison run by U.S. forces. As a veteran Air Force lawyer, Graham has spoken with authority on military law issues, and seemingly sought to navigate a course between President Bush’s claims of absolute power over enemy prisoners and humanitarian law concerns over compliance with the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture and other treaties.
Kennedy complained that low-ranking soldiers took the fall for Abu Ghraib, while high-level officials got a pass. Graham wouldn’t go that far, but he did take credit for blocking Bush’s nomination of an architect of the prisoner policy, Pentagon General Counsel William J. Haynes II, to a federal appeals court. And he added that the military police commander in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, got off easy with a demotion to colonel. She should have faced a court-martial, he declared.
Apparently unbeknownst to Graham — he arrived a few minutes after formal introductions pointed her out — Karpinski, who is interviewed in the documentary, was a guest at the screening. And moderator Jeffrey Toobin, the New Yorker magazine’s legal correspondent, invited her to reply.
“Sen. Graham…I consider you as cowardly as Rumsfeld, as Sanchez, and Miller and all of them,” said Karpinski, who has long claimed to be a scapegoat for superiors including former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller.
Graham replied that those higher-ups deserved a share of the blame, but “this was going on unchecked for weeks and months, and Rumsfeld was in Washington and you were on the ground, so I stand by my statement.” Noting that Karpinski happens to reside in South Carolina, he acknowledged, “I’ve probably lost your vote.”
So Homer Simpson turns out to be a senator from South Carolina: "D'oh!"
Costco is one of a handful of retailers that has flourished despite Wal-Mart Stores' (WMT) onslaught; Wal-Mart's more downscale Sam's Club chain runs second to Costco. With its strong labor relations, low employee turnover and liberal benefits, Costco has been called an "anti-Wal-Mart." Its approach has paid dividends, because Costco, based in Issaquah, Wash., hasn't encountered the same community resistance as Wal-Mart when it has sought to open new stores. [...]
[Jim] Sinegal, 70, also is one of the biggest bargains among big-company CEOs: In an era of seven- and eight-figure pay packages for CEOs, Sinegal earned a salary of $350,000 in Costco's latest fiscal year, which ended in August. He garnered other compensation of about $100,000.
What's more, Sinegal got no bonus last year, after the company determined that it failed to measure properly the appropriate date for certain option grants from 1996 to 2002, although no evidence of fraud or falsification of records was found. "Jim wouldn't let the board give him a bonus. His view was that the option glitch happened on his watch," Munger says. "How many people behave like that? No wonder everyone loves him."
Unlike Buffett, who draws a salary of just $100,000 as CEO of Berkshire, Sinegal isn't a billionaire. He owns Costco stock worth about $135 million and has options on 1.2 million shares.
Sinegal's compensation and demeanor offer a welcome contrast to former Home Depot chief executive officer Robert Nardelli, who alienated employees with his autocratic style and whose gargantuan exit package of $210 million didn't sit well with shareholders. Costco and Home Depot were two of retailing's biggest success stories in the 1990s, but Home Depot has since lost its way while Costco's growth has continued unabated.
Sounds good, but does it pan out in the value of the stock? Five years ago your investment in Wal-Mart would have lost 20 percent, while your investment in Costco would have gained 20 percent. Quite a spread, reminiscent of the Bush deficit versus Clinton surplus, wouldn't you say?
Costco is blue; Wal-Mart is red. Compare Wal-Mart's slow decay versus Costco's healthy growth.
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges against a pair of executives at Engineered Support Systems Inc., accusing them of backdating stock options between 1997 and 2002.
The SEC charged Gary Gerhardt, the St. Louis-based defense contractor's former chief financial officer, and Steven Landmann, the former controller, of granting its directors between $15 million and $20 million in unauthorized compensation as a result of the grants.
The complaints alleged that Mr. Gerhardt instructed Mr. Landmann to backdate company stock option grants to coincide with historically low closing prices of the company’s common stock.
Mr. Gerhardt and Mr. Landmann received $1.9 million and $518,972, respectively.
Why is Gary smiling? (I mean, besides the $1.9 million he gave himself for pretending his stock options were older.) Because war profits are so fucking sweet! Here are a couple more fun facts:
Annual Engineered Support Systems Revenues: 1999 — $147 million (Clinton impeachment — no war.) 2003 — $573 million ("He tried to kill my dad" — war!)
War means quadruple revenue! Who cares how many children Bush-Cheney are willing to kill — these St. Louis contractors are making a fortune! And it's only getting better: "Engineered Support Systems is rapidly approaching revenues of $1 billion."
And here's the ugliest part of all: "President George W. Bush’s uncle, William H.T. “Bucky” Bush, was part of a group of outside directors at a defense contractor [Engineered Support Systems] who realized about $6 million in unauthorized pay from an options backdating scheme, according to U.S. securities investigators." That's right, Saddam Hussein tried to kill Dubya's daddy and Bucky's brother.
About 985,000 Easy-Bake Ovens sold since last May, manufactured by Easy-Bake, a division of Hasbro Inc., because children can get their hands or fingers caught in the oven's opening, which poses an entrapment or burn hazard. The company has received 29 reports of children getting their fingers or hands caught in the product, including five reports of burns.
Has America no conscience left at all? Are our children's unburned fingers worth more than Iraqi children's lives? Are we so decadent and impotent that we can recall toys that harm children but not recall wars that kill them?
Scooter's Lil' Bowtie. "Former Ambassador Richard Carlson is on the Advisory Committee of Libby's defense fund. Hey, Tucker: who's your daddy? Do you or does MSNBC disclose this connection in the course of your running commentary on the case? No, I didn't think so. Oh, and while we're over there, who's that in charge of the Libby defense fund? Why, it's Max Sembler, Lieberman's go to fundraiser for his last campaign bid. Small world, eh?
"And, as all the world knows, bloggers can't be trusted as reporters or analysts of news because they are partisan and profane. Bloggers, it seems, have an agenda." — Pachacutec at Firedoglake.
In his skull resides the nation's most chilling intelligence. Lynne and their daughters never ask about it.
Is this too much information for a man with a sick heart?
Cheney was found best-suited to being a funeral director. His voice is soft and even, like an airline pilot's. When shaking hands, Cheney grips hard for a split-second then pulls away quickly, as if he's touched a hot stove. You can't hear what Dick is saying.
If only we couldn't hear what Dick is saying, and never had to hear what he is saying ever again, the world would be a better place for it.
