Interesting weekend for Democrats as the party takes up the debate over whether delegates from Michigan and Florida will be allowed to take their places at the presidential nominating convention. The two states set their own primary dates and ignored the party’s directions on that matter. Their delegates could keep Hillary Clinton in the race for president. If the delegates are not seated, will those votes count for anything? Fair is fair. Let them sit. This thing will go to the wire and that’s just fine.
A little hope here…
Thinking it over, if we really have hit a sea change in brutally high energy prices, and if Asian standards of living are rising, making offshore manufacturing and transporting goods more expensive, maybe it is going to make sense soon to manufacture and grow more things closer to home. That could be a good thing.
Enough. How much is enough…?
Did we hear correctly? One of those oil executives testifying before congress said he “earns” $12 million – a year? Sure, we heard the argument. An executive decision affects the entire business and the future of all the employees so it’s worth a lot more than say, a switchboard operator’s decision to have tuna for lunch instead of salami. OK. Having said that, who needs a million bucks a month? Really. Since Congress seems empowered to regulate this and sanction that, let’s just have them pass a law. Take the money. Use it to pay for education or to retire some of the national debt. Let the rich have a million bucks each. Let them keep on earning the rest and keep score with it but take it away on April 15. How hard could that be? Just do it. Put it into keeping people warm or driving down gasoline prices.
What Hillary needs…
Obama has one. John McCain has one, too.
Maybe what Hillary needs is an embarrassing cleric, someone who can shout about unmentionables and then be disavowed. What fun. We say screw it. Let’s all just www.writeinwillie.com and be done with this foolishness.
Always low prices 2…
At Wal-Mart, to buy new ink cartridges for a printer, the product was marked with a tag that said $33.50. It was covering a tag that had said $28.50. And the price on the shelf in front of the product said $30.50. The scanned price was the one in the middle $30.50. More evidence that the low-price leader is tweaking inventory alfready on its shelves to make certain that record earnings continue to add up? At whose expense?
The earnings report was terrific, but…
If you buy the same item from the same store week after week you do tend to notice when the price of that item changes. Well our “same item,” pairs of bicycle handle grips, moved from $5.96 to $6.96 a pair this week. The store? The low-price leader, Wal-Mart. And this on a day when Wal-Mart posted record first quarter sales and earnings. (see below) When we asked the cashier, she said she didn’t know if the price of our item had just been raised but added, “You are probably right. Everything else has gone up.” A highly computerized and highly successful retailer is entitled to adjust prices as needed to keep things running smoothly. After all, the cost of just trucking stuff from here to there is through the roof. But this bit of news feels like very bad news for millions of low to average American consumers who may be looking to Wal-Mart more and more in the coming weeks and months.
BENTONVILLE, Ark., May 13, 2008 — Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) today reported its sales and earnings for the quarter ended April 30, 2008. Net sales for the first quarter of fiscal year 2009 were approximately $94.1 billion, an increase of 10.2 percent over $85.4 billion for the first quarter of fiscal year 2008. Net income for the quarter was $3.022 billion, an increase of 6.9 percent from $2.826 billion in the first quarter of fiscal year 2008. Diluted earnings per share for the first quarter of fiscal year 2009 were $0.76, up from $0.68 per share in the same prior year quarter.
“We’re off to a solid start, with record first quarter sales and earnings,” said Lee Scott, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. president and chief executive officer. “We continue to deliver against the business model that Sam Walton started – selling branded merchandise for less. Our business is even more relevant to our customers today, given the current economic pressures.”
Don’t blame it on Hillary…
Did you notice that Obama won in Indiana but Hillary almost lost in West Virginia? Huh? Did you notice that Hillary has only 170 fewer delegates than Obama. So why is the media reporting wins for one and near losses for the other? And what’s this about asking Hillary to bow out early? Isn’t this about a race to the finish line? Sure, If Obama were running the Boston Marathon, it would be nice to catch a Train for the last six or seven miles and be declared the winner without braking much of a sweat. That’s not how it works. Hillary wants to be president. She’s in it. She’s paying for her shot at the White House. There’s no need or reason for her to quit now. Let’s see this thing all the way to its final moments. Doing so may help us see clearly what these folks are made of.
We pay at the pump…
We may be a little bit slow, but most of us can add and subtract. For those worried that gasoline stations won’t pass on savings from a gas tax holiday, never fear. If the geniuses in Congress enact such a holiday, every man, woman and teenager will be looking for a penny-for-penny matching drop in prices. At the least, one can drive away from the pump that does not reflect the price cut. At the worst, well, some folks are more angry and more creative than that. If the tax holiday goes into effect on June 1or so, it will be pretty easy to take away 18.4 from 3.599. Would any gas station owner dare to do otherwise? So get it on. Give us a break. If Congress is worried about gas stations keeping the money, tag on a 50-cents a gallon penalty based on average daily sales and give that to the customers, too.
Should have seen that one coming…
Wow. Sales of smaller cars are on the rise. It’s the mileage, stupid. But the New York Times is reporting that the trend toward smaller and lighter vehicles that get higher mileage is hurting our Detroit automakers. They have fewer such models to sell than Asian car companies like Toyota and Honda. Even worse, falling sales of of S.U.V.’s and pickups is cutting into the biggest source of profits for GM, Ford and Chrysler. Do these companies not have a Department of Paying Attention department? Like many American companies before them, when they get onto a good thing, they stick with it until it swerves into the ditch from changing forces in the world around them. What’s left? Oh, right, better cut costs and lay off people until the business starts growing again. Well, folks, guess what? That has never worked. Not once. Smaller is just plain smaller, not better.
And they go to college for this?
John and Mary take home $1,000 a week. OK. They use the cash to pay for telephone, maybe cable TV, electricity, the mortgage and groceries. They put gas in the car to drive to work and oil in the tank to keep warm. At the end of the week, there’s maybe $100 left over for other things, a new skirt, a movie, a meal out.
Now, raise the price of gasoline to $50 or $60 a fill-up. Raise the price of the oil to $975 a tank full. Watch the grocery bill creep up 10 to 20 percent. Oh, yeah, and take away Mary’s part-time job.
Does anyone need a college degree to figure what comes next? Consumer spending collapses. Store sales drop. Inventories climb. Companies get worried and start laying off more people. A “panel of economists” at the National Bureau of Economic Research and other “experts” conclude that this might be a recession; “that people are in a lot of pain.”
George Bush is concerned? How are things down on the ranch in Crawford, George? Any belt-tightening in Kennebunkport yet? Bill and Hillary earned about $9 mil from books and speeches last year? Barack got a multi-million-dollar book deal? John McCain is worth $36.5 million. His wife is a beer heiress worth $100 mil or so. Do they get it? Guess not.
Greed is a powerful economic force. Executives and economists and politicians can talk all they want but it IS the economy, stupid. Those who can have been taking more than their fair share for a long time. Money is how they keep score.
The rest of us can just start raising chickens in the back yard so we can eat. Because we are pretty much done being able to pay what it costs to keep the economy afloat. Nickel-and-dime tax rebates and a gas tax holiday aren’t going to fix it this time.
