Miscellanea



Howdy Caballeros and Henentes. Like O'Shea. Jackson would tell you, "Doin' big thangs, big thangs..." So the posting shall be at a paltry dearth, for the time being. Keep tuning in, all five of you so kind as to traffic my website each day. Feliz Dia!

Stories under analysis

The US economy expanded at a much slower pace than expected in the final quarter of last year, with evidence of weaker business spending raising worries about the strength of growth in 2006.
//
Growth was just 1.1 per cent on an annualised basis in the fourth quarter of 2005 - well below forecasts for 3 per cent.
The main disappointment was in business spending and investment. Fixed non-residential investment rose just 2.8 per cent, compared to 8.5 per cent in the previous quarter. Spending on equipment and software rose just 3.5 per cent.
The figures came as a disappointment to economists after durable goods orders on Thursday appeared to point towards relatively strong business investment. The figures are only a first estimate and may be revised upward. Even so, they gave many economists pause for thought.
“The broad picture for 2006 was that consumer spending would slow down but business spending would remain strong, keeping the economy moving forward,” said Nigel Gault, head of US analysis at Global Insight, a consultancy. “If business spending does slow, we are in trouble.”
Consumer spending slowed less than expected, rising by 1.1 per cent rather than completely reining in spending as some economists had expected. Consumer spending on durable goods fell 17.5 per cent - most likely due to lower car sales. But non-durable goods purchases rose 5.1 per cent up from 3.5 per cent.
Economists believe that a weakening of consumer spending is very likely in 2006 because of unprecedented levels of indebtedness, a low savings rate and concern over a slow down in the housing market.
Government spending added to the weakness in the fourth quarter - taking around 0.5 percentage points off the overall growth rate. Defence spending fell 13.1 per cent compared to an increase of 10 per cent in the previous quarter. However, government outlays tend to be extremely volatile on a quarterly basis and there has been no move by the Federal government to cut back spending over the long term.

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Stories Under Analysis

Iran moves foreign assets amid sanction threat
>By Gareth Smyth and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
>Published: January 20 2006 12:03 Last updated: January 20 2006 12:03
>>
Iran is moving foreign exchange out of European banks in advance of a possible referral to the United Nations Security Council and imposition of economic sanctions over its nuclear programme.

Ebrahim Sheibani, Central Bank governor, told reporters on Friday that Iran would “transfer the foreign exchange reserves wherever we consider expedient” and confirmed a shift from Europe had begun.

Mr Sheibani refused to give details or to say where the funds were going, although ISNA, the semi-official Iranian news agency, said the destination was south-east Asia.

On the international currency markets, the dollar fell briefly on Friday against the euro and safe-haven Swiss franc on the news.

“Clearly the Iran situation is the key focus at the moment. Our view is that eventually it will settle down, but it’s expected to rumble on for a while and so maybe at the margins slightly supportive of the safe-haven currencies like the Swiss Franc,” said Kevin Grice, senior economist at American Express Bank.

The Central Bank manages Iran’s “windfall” oil revenue in the Oil Stabilisation Fund, which Mr Sheibani said would contain about $15bn by the end of the Iranian year in March. Iran keeps an unknown amount of this in Europe.

“The nuclear issue and the chance of sanctions is the main reason for this,” said an economic analyst in Tehran. “But there is also alarm from what Italy did.”

A ruling by an Italian court last month upheld a 1996 US law that holds responsible for “terrorist” acts those nations designated by the US government as “sponsors of international terrorism”.

A court in Rome ordered Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) to freeze an account held by the Iranian government, over the deaths of three Americans in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories at the hands of Palestinian bombers.

Iran has protested that its official accounts were protected by the Vienna Convention governing diplomatic relations.

But families of US citizens killed in the bombing of its Beirut embassy in 1983 by Hizbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group, are planning to follow suit - asking European courts to seize Iranian assets after a US ruling that Iran should pay $126m in damages.

Davoud Danesh-Jafari, Iran’s economy minister, said on Thursday the seizure of Iranian assets was both contrary to “global regulations” and damaging for Europe’s banks.

“Such acts would make oil-rich countries anxious to transfer their capital out of European banks into safer places,” he said.

Officials do not expect sanctions against Iran within the next few months. Diplomacy is expected to run its course, and a compromise over the nuclear issue, probably brokered by Russia, remains possible.

The media in Iran has this week highlighted the upward pressure on oil prices simply through talk of sanctions.

Iran exports around 2.5m barrels of crude a day and is the world’s fourth largest producer.

The country has been subject to comprehensive American sanctions since the 1979 Islamic Revolution toppled the US-backed Shah. But many European companies – including the energy majors Shell, Total and Statoil – are active in Iran.


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Happy Birthday

Story under analysis




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Tokyo exchange admits IT error>By David Pilling in Tokyo>Published: January 18 2006 10:30 Last updated: January 18 2006 10:30>>
The Tokyo Stock Exchange yesterday admitted that trouble with its own system had contributed to a botched trade that could cost Mizuho Securities Y27bn ($224m) to settle.
The admission from Takuo Tsurushima, president of the TSE, that a systemic error was partly to blame will deepen concern about operations on the world’s second biggest bourse. Last month the TSE suffered the first total shutdown in its 56-year history after poor communication between different parts of the exchange’s IT operations.
The shutdown raised questions about the exchange’s provision of a back-up system and its ability to handle the much higher trading volumes that have accompanied the Tokyo market’s recent strong performance.
Mr Tsurushima underlined the gravity of the situation by saying he would make a judgment about “my own fate”, according to Kyodo news, suggesting that the error might be considered serious enough to warrant his resignation. On Friday, Makoto Fukuda, president of Mizuho Securities, apologised for the error, in which his securities firm placed an order to sell 610,000 shares in J-Com, a recruitment company, for Y1 each. Its intention had been to sell one share for Y610,000.
The mistake created panic on the main market and resulted in the Nikkei’s second largest absolute loss in two months, finishing the day down almost 2 per cent or 301.30 points at 15,183.36. Mizuho Securities, part of the Mizuho banking group, only admitted its role in the error after trading had closed.
Last week, Mizuho Securities confirmed that it had lost Y27bn on its accidental sale, adding that the loss could be more than Y30bn. The bank said it had made four attempts to cancel the order, including one by the head office of Mizuho.
Mr Tsurushima said yesterday that the TSE would conduct a thorough investigation into the case, which badly marred J-Com’s debut. Trading in J-Com shares was suspended on Friday as officials decided how – and at what price – Mizuho Securities should settle its trade.
The bank declined to comment.
>>>



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Nice Try...


The FT tells of our continential cousins getting up to the same old games the kids in the Potomac Playpin play- namely bait-and-switch,

Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France's ruling UMP party, yesterday proposed
a possible way out of Europe's institutional impasse, suggesting that the
controversial constitutional treaty could be slimmed down to its functional core
and approved by the French parliament.
The revised text would be based on the first two parts of the moribund constitution - including the institutional changes and a civil rights charter - and could be dressed up with a declaration on the EU's social dimension to appease French voters... Under that scenario most of Part III of the treaty - which contains detailed articles on EU
policies, including sections on the free market and social policy - could be
abandoned and the EU would continue to operate under its old rules.
Member states might then try - as Mr Sarkozy has suggested - to claim the new treaty was a relativelymodest affair, side-stepping the need to hold
referendums in countries like France, the Netherlands and the UK.

Emphasis mine. Although I actually like what I know of Sarkozy (as opposed the Trotsky temptress in my life), I'm still rather suspect of anything yearning to bypass an arduous constitutional ratification process. Even if Mr. Sarkozy's motives are pure, that doesn't curtail the ratchet-effect, and it doesn't have any bearing on the motives of the next joe to come after him. A constitution grounded in mutual defense and negative rights of citizens would pull the cork out of the bottle and transform Europe into a economic powerhouse that would put the Americas and the Far East back into a 19th century perspective. Still it's interesting to see what the Euros actually do agree upon-

[T]here is broad agreement that the EU needs some of the institutional changes
contained in the treaty.They include the creation of an EU foreign minister, a
full-time EU president to replace the six-monthly rotating "musical chairs"
system, a slimmed down European Commissionand a simplified voting system.Mr
Sarkozy said one of the main reasons why French voters had rejected the
constitution was because they disapproved of a "Europe without frontiers".
He said he was opposed to the admission of new member states, such as
Croatia, Macedonia, and Ukraine - although talks with Romania and Bulgaria had
progressed so far that it would be inconvenient to stop them.

Secure borders, a functioning executive... Who knows Marshall might have his revenge and whip 'dem Europeans into Good Americans yet!

VAT TAX BLUES



The Pink Avenger tells of HM Sherrifs of Nottingham's never ending quest to stick it to the subjects in the name of Europhobia,

The UK government on Thursday faced the prospect of claims for refunds of value
added tax and compensation running into hundreds of millions of pounds after the
European Court of Justice declared the approach used by HM Revenue & Customs
to combat so-called “carousel fraud” was illegal... On Thursday, in a
long-awaited final ruling in two UK-based test cases, Europe’s top court said
companies that were unwittingly involved in a chain of transactions where
carousel fraud occurred at one stage, should still have the right to reclaim
value added tax in respect of their own supply deals. In a supply chain, the
court said, each transaction had to be considered on its merits as a separate
economic activity. Carousel fraud, a VAT-based scam, stems from the fact that
trading between EU member states is effectively VAT-free. Criminals buy
high-value items VAT-free in the EU which they then sell in the UK, charging the
next customer the extra VAT. The criminal trader then fails to remit the VAT to
the tax authorities. About three years ago, HMRC chose to tackle the problem by
withholding refunds from traders on the premise that where there was a “missing
trader” anywhere in the supply chain, there was no economic activity.

For those of you who don't know, or more likely, don't give a shit what the VAT tax is, it's basically just a glorified sales tax that you can get refunded for if you exit the EU. VAT (Value Added Tax) is why a box of Kellog's Corn flakes cost 2 bucks American in the neighbohood grocer, while Frosties(Frosted Flakes nom de plume for stinky Europeans) costs 3.50 or 4 bucks dues to the fact they use the VAT as a sin tax on foods with sugar in them. It's a politicized and summarily (un)uniform tax wielded at the descretion of whoever is in power. It manifests itself in different ways in different countries. I'm glad to see the ECJ is making Whitehall eat it on using Europhobia as a liscense to screw their peeps over, but I imagine it's more out of continental contempt than it is out of a sense of fair play. The Pink one notes the simple solution to all of this,

Austria, holder of the rotating EU presidency, has promised to make the
battle against VAT fraud one of the cornerstones of its six-month tenure. It
said its own approach – which involves levying VAT only when a product reaches
the consumer and not when it passes from trader to trader – could serve as a
blueprint for other member states.

Much to the Missus' dismay...

The Missus was bitching on the phone the other day that the new Tory leader is looking good for the Cameras and The Pink One also asserts,

The Conservatives still have a long way to go before they have any chance of
winning power outright at Britain’s next general election, expected in 2009. But
in recent weeks, the telegenic 39-year-old has managed to score two clear
successes for his party. First, he has given the Conservatives their first
opinion poll lead over Tony Blair’s Labour government in more than a decade.
An amalgamation of four national opinion polls taken in December gave the
Conservatives 37 per cent of the vote, Labour 35 per cent and the Liberal
Democrats 20 per cent. Second, he has had an impact on the Liberal
Democrats, Britain’s third party, precipitating the ditching of its leader,
Charles Kennedy. Mr Kennedy, 46, was forced out of his job by colleagues
after being forced to admit that he had sought medical treatment for a drinking
problem. But he was also a victim of what MPs are calling the “Cameron effect”.

Ha, Charles Kennedy seems a nice guy, but a total fucking clown-shoe. I get the feeling that the new party leader's blue-ribbon start is in part his getting fluff pieces from all the closet conservatives in the media, along with those who would just like to see some life breathed back into the political process. The article goes on to report,

On health, he has given the firmest possible backing to the UK’s state medical
system, the National Health Service. He ruled out using taxpayers’ money to
subsidise private healthcare – the first time the Tories have adopted such a
position since the NHS was founded in 1948. Last week he declared that the party, often seen as a strong supporter of big business, would insist British companies met their broader social and environmental obligations. How far Mr Cameron can pursue this policy remains to be seen. He acknowledges he faces an uphill struggle. The Conservatives need significantly to boost their share of the national vote if they are to have any chance of getting an outright majority at the next election. Many analysts think this is an unattainable performance next time round.

Hmmm, hey fuck it. Rush always says that Conservative ideas win in every election in America, but it wasn't until Tony Blair co-opted and cherry-picked the Tory strongsuits that he got his lot ensconsed in power. Like I said, a lot of this early approval in the media is simply media-based, as I imagine the general populace in Britain remains skeptical. But hopefully this is all a step back in the right direction...

Miscellanea


Sorry to have been absent, but like the man up there would tell you, I've had a lotta fingers in a lotta pies lately. No, not those kind of pies, that's the whole point of having my fingers in the actual pies I've had them in, in order that I can get back into the Missus'... nevermind.

At any rate, on the off-chance you're yearning for my brain-droppings I'll give you some quick reviews of movies I've been drug to by the resident lipstick-lesbian in my life-

Slue's Review of...

Buttblast Mountain

Actually I drug my lipstick-lesbian friend to see it. Why? Because I was courious... Fortunately, only one sex-scene to report. It was actually pretty humorous to watch. The cinematography was beautiful, capturing the intermountain-west elloquently. There were actually nice titties to be seen as well. The Princess Diary chick's rack was nice, and apparently Heath Ledger's real-life squeeze played his on-screen wife and showed her 'mams. It's not a sentimental treatment of their lives, and the fact they actually stay in the closet throughout the movie makes it a more plausible story. Still, the fact we're talking goat-ropers in WY and the fact Jake *insert Dutch vowel-slur surname here* gets it Casino-style at the end serves as the perfunctory Holywood political statement on middle-Ameirca. But still, it actually wasn't a bad waste of time over all.

Fun with Dick and Jane


I got drug to this one. Just like the salt that lost it's saltiness, this one was like ancient dog shit, so calcified and so petrified with time, that it doesn't even stink or take on the properties of being offensive. To sum this movie up as a 90 minute, blurry shot of a middle-aged asshole would be to give it too much artistic merit. I mean, it was like sitting through a chokingly offensive, ninety-minute commercial shilling what I don't fucking know. Existential larsony, man; sein und zeit deleted from your existence...

The Matador


Now this one, on the other hand, was fucking brilliant. Please, any and all of you non-existent people who puruse this website, please go and see this damn movie in the theatre!
this movie was the antitdote to the last 10, 15 years of just absolute bollocks that Hollywood has churned out in their eternal quest to formulate a PG-13 movie that is all things to all demographics. The plot was nothing groundbreaking, and on the surface made the movie seem like merely warmed-over HBO. But that's not the reason to go see it. Brosnan and Kineer are superbly directed and actually generate chemistry (of a hedrosexual nature) not seen in a buddy-movie in many moons. They really get the script and breathe life into it that lesser actors metastastizing like Agent Smith in the Matrix couldn't pull off, if their life depended on it. The shit that comes out of Pierce Brosnan's mouth is top-notch. I've still got the echo of him saying "I couldn't even get a whiff of her spring-roll!" reverberating throughout the empty-lapses of thought in my mind. The crudity is so authentic and hillarious.

Miscellanea


Happy New Years. I was hoping to post a nice, wholesome picture of Father Time and the New Born to symbologize the new year and all that shit. But the only thing Google pulled up up was a couple of queers. Which fired the synapses towards Heath Ledger and Jake Magillacutty (or whatever the hell his name is) up there, which made me think Grandma Death was somehow appropriate in all this.

Personally, I'm looking forward to a halcyon year. While as for the rest of the world, well, actually, so long as it doesn't directly affect me, whudda I care?!

Here at the Slue, about the only resolution I have and hope to hold on to is to continue to post regularly and hopefully predict some shit that actually comes true. More tenative and abstract resolutions include expanding the content to include more multi-mediea, esp. some form of audio-webcasts you could download. I'd seriously like to get some of my other imaginary friends from around the web, especially from over at Toolshed on here and do some goofy shit with them.

Aside from that, I wish all of you, and the people you genuinely care about in this universe, all the best. If nothing else, just don't get caught...

Toodles