Marty's Corner

THE CAN FROM CHINA

2009-05-27T23:46:00.000-07:00

BUYING FOOD THE OTHER DAY AT THE COUNTRY MARKET, I NOTICED ON THE LABEL OF SOME PRODUCTS IT SAID, 'FROM CHINA'. FOR EXAMPLE, THE "OUR FAMILY" BRAND OF THE MANDARIN ORANGES SAYS RIGHT ON THE CAN: 'FROM CHINA'. I WAS SHOCKED!! SO, FOR A FEW MORE CENTS I BUY THE LIBERTY GOLD BRAND OR THE DOLE NOW SINCE IT'S FROM CALIF. TAKES FOREVER JUST TO BUY FOOD AND DO LABEL READING ! !Are we Americans

Celeb

2009-04-10T18:48:00.000-07:00

More On Illegal Aliens...

2009-03-22T16:27:00.000-07:00

And you wonder why health care costs are out of control!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!These are extreme cases but there are thousands more which create a great deal of cost.Please listen to this---if they are illegal then it is illegal to grant medical care---a very simple solution to a huge problem Maybe someone should tell Obama, if we would stop paying for the medical services for illegal's our health care

Auto Supplier Tells GM Where To Go

2009-03-22T16:13:00.000-07:00

This message says a lot about our need to stand up and be responsible. Hopefully it will get a wide distribution.This is one of the greatest responses to the requests for bailout money I have seen thus far.As a supplier for the Big 3, this man received a letter from the President of GM North America requesting support for the bail out program. His response is well written, and has to make you

Stimulus Bill

2009-02-07T00:47:00.000-08:00

Harvey, you posed a great question...wasteful spending in the Stimulus Bill, "pork" in the argot of the political trade, and the ostensible objection to the proposed Obama bill. As I do better literately than verbally, I'm going to re-state my take on your question...if for no other reason than I believe the written word carries far more weight of credibility than does the spoken word,

An ecosystem of ideas at the Clean-Tech Summit

2009-01-28T16:15:00.000-08:00

10:00 AM, January 24, 2009 At the annual Clean-Tech Investor Summit in Indian Wells this week, finance, science and imagination mingled, with the aim of fostering industries that preserve the planet. The gathering was produced by Ron Pernick of Clean Edge consultants and Craig Simak of the International Business Forum, and chaired by venture investor Ira Ehrenpreis of

Bank of America shares surge after execs buy stock

2009-01-22T17:41:00.000-08:00

1:14 PM, January 21, 2009 Bank of America Corp.'s stock led a sharp rebound in hammered financial issues today, after some of the bank's senior executives and directors disclosed that they bought shares Tuesday. At the very least, the purchases suggest the execs don’t believe the bank is in danger of being nationalized, which would wipe out common shareholders. From Bloomberg News: Bank

Merrill's Thain reportedly sped up bonus payments

2009-01-22T17:40:00.000-08:00

2:16 PM, January 22, 2009 Just when it seemed impossible for the image of Wall Street executives to sink any lower, now hear this: The Financial Times reports that Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain sped up bonus payments to staff at the end of 2008, even as the brokerage’s losses were deepening. From the Times:Merrill Lynch took the unusual step of accelerating bonus payments by a month

OPEC's holiday gift to us: Oil at $36 a barrel

2008-12-19T18:39:00.000-08:00

Almost nobody got the peak in oil prices right in July. Looks like it’s the same story on the way down. Near-term crude futures crashed through $40 a barrel today, falling $3.84 to end at $36.22, the lowest since 2004. Oil bulls, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries among them, thought $40 would hold. It did two weeks ago, when crude slid to $40.81 on Dec. 5, only to

Fed warns on economic outlook, and cites deflation fears

2008-11-20T15:37:00.000-08:00

Money & Co.Fed warns on economic outlook, and cites deflation fears12:43 PM, November 19, 2008Federal Reserve policymakers are expecting the economy to continue to contract through the first half of 2009, and possibly beyond that point, according to the minutes of their last meeting.They also all but confirmed that they’ll cut their benchmark interest rate again, even though it’s already at a

The Fed's rate at zero? It's no longer a far-fetched idea

2008-10-31T23:19:00.000-07:00

11:45 AM, October 30, 2008 Just a day after the Federal Reserve dropped its key short-term interest rate to 1% -- matching the generational low reached in 2003-04 -- the betting is intensifying on another cut. Trading in futures contracts on the federal funds rate, the Fed’s benchmark, implies a 51.4% probability that the central bank will slash the rate to

A winning hedge fund manager's bitter farewell letter

2008-10-19T11:12:00.000-07:00

4:01 PM, October 17, 2008 The most entertaining reading on the Web today may be the farewell letter from former Santa Monica hedge fund manager Andrew Lahde, who famously scored huge gains last year by correctly betting on the meltdown in subprime mortgage-backed securities. The letter to clients begins with a vicious attack on the hedge fund industry itself and the U.S. "aristocracy,

Fwd Mail: BUSH'S FAREWELL SPEACH

2008-10-16T22:48:00.000-07:00

Please, read this whether you are voting for Mcain or Obama. Even if you hated or liked President Bush this article should explain the course this nation is headed for.PRETTY MUCH SUMS IT UPBUSH'S RESIGNATION SPEECHThe following 'speech' was written recently by an ordinary Maine-iac [a resident of the People's Republic of Maine ]. While satirical in nature, all satire must have a basis in fact to

Why I am voting Democrat

2008-10-08T23:59:00.000-07:00

Re: Why I am voting DemocratI'm voting Democrat because English has no place being the official language in America.I'm voting Democrat because it's better to turn corn into fuel than it is to eat.I'm voting Democrat because I'd rather pay $4 for a gallon of gas than allow drilling for oil off the coasts of America.I'm voting Democrat because I think the government will do a better job of

Election 2008

2008-10-04T12:11:00.000-07:00

From Fwd Mail:Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time." Unfortunately, the future of this country, as well as the fate of the Western world, depends on how many people can be fooled on election day, just a few weeks from now.Right now, the polls indicate that a whole lot of the people

How the Democrats Created the Financial Crisis: Kevin Hassett

2008-09-26T17:13:00.000-07:00

Commentary by Kevin HassettSept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- The financial crisis of the past year has provided a number of surprising twists and turns, and from Bear Stearns Cos. to American International Group Inc., ambiguity has been a big part of the story.Why did Bear Stearns fail, and how does that relate to AIG? It all seems so complex.But really, it isn't. Enough cards on this table have been

Commodity prices dive as traders bail out again

2008-09-16T21:47:00.000-07:00

10:54 AM, September 16, 2008 Leading up to the Federal Reserve’s announcement on interest rates in about 20 minutes, commodity markets are doing their best to give the central bank some cover if it wants to ease credit. Every one of the 19 commodities in the Reuters/Jefferies CRB index is down today. The index overall was off 2.2% to 340.56 at about 10:45 a.m. PDT, its lowest since early

Obama details capital gains, dividend tax plans

2008-08-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

8:41 PM, August 14, 2008 Sen. Barack Obama's campaign on Thursday spelled out the details of the Democratic presidential candidate’s tax plan on his website and in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal. I just wanted to note the basic proposals for capital gains and dividend tax rates here: --- Families with incomes below $250,000 would pay current capital gains rates (a

Banks' credit-crisis write-downs top the half-trillion mark

2008-08-13T01:14:00.000-07:00

Banks' credit-crisis write-downs top the half-trillion mark 2:20 PM, August 12, 2008 Now $500 billion -- and counting. That's Bloomberg's tally of the credit write-downs that investment banks and commercial banks worldwide have taken since the subprime mortgage debacle began to unfold early in 2007. The total reached $501 billion today after Swiss financial giant

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION BREAKS THE BACK OF FLORIDA HOSPITAL(S)

2008-08-09T23:22:00.000-07:00

June 16, 2008Martin Memorial Medical Center in Stuart Florida is indicative of 51 other Florida community hospitals who are also financially struggling or failing and who are facing bankruptcy due to the high cost of treating illegal immigrants (and paying ludicrous illegal alien lawsuit financial settlements) - that vast majority of which never pay for the medical treatment they or their family

Two Choices

2008-08-09T15:18:00.001-07:00

What would you do?....you make the choice. Don't look for a punch line, there isn't one. Read it anyway. My question is: Would you have made the same choice?At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff

Home forclosures reach 20-year high

2008-07-23T17:58:00.000-07:00

Home foreclosures reach new highBy Ben Baeder, Staff WriterArticle Launched: 07/22/2008 12:49:03 PM PDTPasadena Star-NewsLOS ANGELES - Foreclosures statewide were up 124 percent compared to the same three months last year, according to a report from a leading real estate tracking firm.DataQuick Information Services counted 121,341 homeowners who received a "notice-of-default" on their home loans

Regulators to Schumer on IndyMac: Please shut up

2008-07-15T23:42:00.000-07:00

Money & CompanyLos Angeles TimesRegulators to Schumer on IndyMac: Please shut up5:47 PM, July 2, 2008Sen. Charles E. Schumer publicly taunted bank regulators last week about IndyMac Bancorp's financial condition, which helped trigger a sudden outflow of deposits from the Pasadena thrift. Now the New York Democrat is getting some harsh blowback from one current and one former regulator.Their

Fwd Mail: BIG OIL .......Hmmmm

2008-07-08T22:59:00.000-07:00

Bill Phillips spent nearly 50 years in the US oil and gas industry; most of his career was with the Phillips Petroleum Company. Bill is a descendant of Frank Phillips. Frank Phillips, along with his brother Lee Eldas (L.E.) Phillips, Sr., founded the original Phillips Petroleum Company in 1917 in Bartlesville, OK. Do you remember Phillips 66 gas stations? Phillips Petroleum Company merged

Homer Hickam/October Sky

2008-06-25T21:57:00.000-07:00

Homer Hickam made an interesting comment on TV this morning. In case you don't know who he is, Homer was a poor West Va miner's son who worked his way up to being an employee/scientist for NASA. He wrote a book called "Rocket Boy" which was later made into a great movie

As oil stays up, the target on speculators' backs gets bigger

2008-06-25T00:14:00.000-07:00

7:50 PM, June 23, 2008 Congress' current favorite definition of an Enemy of the State: anyone who’s using his or her money to speculate in oil -- as opposed to those who invest to get it out of the ground for sale, or those whose money goes to pay for it at the Quickie Mart. Both the House and the Senate have previously waded into the causes and effects of record energy prices, but this

Blue chips looking more like cow chips to investors

2008-06-25T00:03:00.000-07:00

11:29 PM, June 20, 2008 Big, blue-chip stocks are supposed to be a good place to hide out in a dicey market. Not this time. In Friday’s brutal Wall Street sell-off, the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor’s 500 index both suffered bigger percentage declines than indexes of smaller stocks -- continuing the trend of the last seven weeks. The Dow dropped 220.40 points, or 1.8%,

Fwd: Global Warming silliness and the Price of a Gallon of Gas

2008-06-19T16:14:00.000-07:00

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:33:37 -0700Subject: Global Warming silliness and the Price of a Gallon of GasJohn Coleman's Comments Before the San Diego Chamber of CommerceGlobal Warming and the Price of a Gallon of Gasby John ColemanYou may want to give credit where credit is due to Al Gore and his global warming campaign the next time you fill your car with gasoline, because there is a direct

Tiger Woods out for season

2008-06-18T23:25:00.000-07:00

Source: USAToday var yahooBuzzArticleId = 'usatoday:http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/06/reports-tiger-w.html?csp=34'; Tiger Woods is out for the season because of knee problems, according to a Golf Channel report that has been confirmed by the Associated Press. The network, citing unidentified sources, says the U.S. Open winner will undergo knee

She Really Was a Traitor !!!

2008-06-07T21:04:00.000-07:00

From forward mail:In Memory of My brother -in- lawLT. C.Thomsen WielandWho spent 100 days at the Hanoi HiltonShe really was a TraitorIF YOU NEVER FORWARDEDANYTHING IN YOUR LIFE FORWARD THIS SO THAT EVERYONE WILL KNOW!!!!!! A TRAITOR IS ABOUT TO BE HONORED KEEP THIS MOVING ACROSS AMERICAThis is for all the kids born in the 70's who doNot remember, and didn't have to bear theBurden that our fathers

To find yourself friendless just say, 'I'm a commodity bull'

2008-06-05T12:02:00.000-07:00

LA Times/Businesshttp://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/816965/29753630 8:53 PM, June 3, 2008 The commodity bull market seemed to be under attack from all sides Tuesday, triggering a broad retreat in prices. But considering the big guns aimed at the market, the losses were fairly modest. The Reuters/CRB index of 19 commodities fell 1.4%. Oil was one of the more serious casualties, off

One commodity analyst warns on oil: 'Look out below'

2008-06-05T11:12:00.000-07:00

LA Times/Businesshttp://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/816965/29718292 9:49 PM, June 2, 2008 The stock market had a bad day Monday, but oil escaped most of the blame this time. Instead, the market was primarily rattled by renewed worries about the financial system’s health (or lack thereof), as noted here. The Dow industrial average slid 134.50 points, or 1.1%, to 12,503.82, but it

Phil Donahue, 'Body of War' battle to get into theaters

2008-05-11T12:02:00.000-07:00

chicagotribune.com Phil Donahue, 'Body of War' battle to get into theatersFormer talk show host makes truth his mission, now on other side of the cameraBy Stevenson Swanson Tribune correspondent May 11, 2008 NEW YORK That emphatic, empathetic baritone voice, still familiar after all these years, echoes off the walls of the penthouse apartment. " 'A gun smokes only after it's

Market Snapshot

2008-05-06T14:03:00.000-07:00

Market Watch U.S. stocks shed losses on Fannie Mae turnaround Dow advances after triple-digit decline in earlier trading By Kate Gibson, MarketWatch Last update: 3:06 p.m. EDT May 6, 2008

Crude surges to above $120 for first time on supply concerns

2008-05-05T15:25:00.000-07:00

By Moming ZhouLast update: 11:25 a.m. EDT May 5, 2008SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Crude oil futures surged nearly $4 Monday to above $120 a barrel for the first time on concerns about supply disruptions in Nigeria and weakness in the U.S. dollar. Crude oil for June delivery soared $3.89 to an intraday high of $120.21 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange in mid-morning trading, a new

Go figure: Pro athletes giving in to temptation

2008-05-04T15:18:00.001-07:00

www.chicagotribune.com/sports/chi-04-sub-morrisseymay04,0,7348244.storychicagotribune.comRick MorrisseyIN THE WAKE OF THE NEWSMay 4, 2008Moms and dads out there: Do you really want your kids to grow up to be professional athletes?Some of you see it as the ultimate accomplishment. This is obvious from the amount of time, money and obsessiveness you devote to your budding LeBron James and your

Media

2008-04-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

6-year-old Indian girl burned in possible caste-related violenceThe story of a critically injured 6-year-old Indian girl shows the so-called Rashômon effect in action.Here's how the same incident was reported by different news organizations:IBN: A six-year old Dalit girl was set on fire by a man in Mathura because the girl and her mother chose to walk through a path reserved only for upper caste

Iraqi kills daughter who fell in love with British soldier

2008-04-28T18:54:00.000-07:00

Report: Iraqi kills daughter who fell in love with British soldierRand Abdel-Qader was put to death last month in Basra. The 17-year-old's crime? Falling in love with a 22-year-old British soldier, according to The Observer.They met while working on a relief project late last year in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. The paper says Rand's father found out last month that his daughter had been

Rice Crisis Sham

2008-04-27T18:33:00.000-07:00

Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 19:34:00 -0700 (PDT)Subject: Fwd: Catch of the Day -- CANADIANAI now officially declare the great rice crisis to be a sham and a fraud. All of the big three rice producing countries had bumper crops last year. Stocks are high. It is simply that their countries have declared export embargoes to see how high the price will eventually go. Shoppers at COSTCO, etc. are after the

Fun with Words....

2008-02-28T10:57:00.000-08:00

What, at this stage of the game, is the point of these mean spirited hatchet jobs other than edifying readers as to the character and intent of the author? Aside from the many bald, totally false, fabrications in the piece, would it not suffice were the author to exercise some economy of pejorative words in their childish literary endeavor and simply say, "I hate the bitch"? Of course, these are

Clemens has given feds plenty to work with

2008-02-28T10:52:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, February 27, 2008 Clemens has given feds plenty to work with By Gene WojciechowskiESPN.com Depending on how all this shakes out, some lucky warden might have one helluva prison baseball team. Barry Bonds at DH. Miguel Tejada at shortstop. Roger Clemens on the mound. Knowing Bonds, he'd insist on solitary confinement and never warm up with the rest of the cons, but what else is

Election Madness

2008-02-27T13:01:00.000-08:00

Marty's Response:W... for openers, Zinn is a hell of lot older than you and merely older than me....and I fear in his dotage he leans towards anarchy...that simply does not work and, in my view, creates more problems than it attempts to solve. In a realm of less violence but more social engineering, I can't get past anyone advocating a guaranteed minimum household income and a government

$$$$

2008-02-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

On Feb 16, 2008 11:09 PM,W. wrote: For some figures, etc. seldom announced by the 4th Estate check out www.informationclearinghouse.info.Marty's response:W., there isn't much in here of import that I, or any newspaper junkie, isn't aware of to some degree. That's not to say there isn't much to be appreciated or much that should be in the popular media. What does concern me, is that even

Christmas Stamp

2008-02-17T13:38:00.000-08:00

Subject: Unbelieveable!!! Christmas Stamp.................WHAT NEXT?How ironic is this??!! They don't even believe in Christ and they're getting their own Christmas stamp, but don't dream of posting the ten commandments on federal property? United States Postal Service New StampThis one is impossible to believe. Scroll down for the text. If there is only one thing you forward today...

Shoe Bomber

2008-02-17T13:33:00.000-08:00

Got this in email...Received: Sept 14, 2007Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and tried to light it? Did you know his trial is over? Did you know he was sentenced? Did you see/hear any of the judge's comments on TV or Radio? Didn't think so.Everyone should hear what the judge had to say.Ruling by Judge William Young, US District Court.Prior to sentencing,

Social Security Veto

2008-02-17T13:28:00.000-08:00

Got this from email... Social Security ChangesIt does not matter if you personally like or dislike Bush. You need to sign this petition and flood his e-mail box with e-mails that tell him that, even if the House passes this bill, he needs to veto it. It is already impossible to live on Social Security alone. If the government gives benefits to "illegal" aliens who have never contributed, where

ACLU & Christmas Cards

2006-09-04T14:35:00.000-07:00

Subject: Christmas CardsThis is a GREAT idea!!!!!!Yes, Christmas cards. This is coming early (really early) so that you can get ready to include an important address to your list. Read on........What a GREAT idea!Fun with the ACLU...... Wanna have some fun this CHRISTMAS? Send the ACLU a CHRISTMAS CARD this year.As they are working so very hard to get rid of the CHRISTMAS part of this holiday, we