I Wish this Was an Open Thread. What’s a Pony, Anyway?




You know what’s funny about the story below? Here’s what:

Zimbabwe is the only country that prints more dollars that we do. Barely….

A million Zimbabwe dollars now buys $US1

October 22, 2007

ZIMBABWE’s currency has fallen to record levels, with one million Zimbabwean dollars buying a single US dollar ($1.12) and inflation reaching 8000 per cent.

The data was announced as people in the capital, Harare, struggled to cope without electricity for the third day. “We closed our business today (Saturday),” said a woman who helps to run a major petrol supplier. “We just can’t operate like this.”

The National Blood Transfusion Service said it had been unable to test blood since Tuesday.

At independence in 1980, the Zimbabwean dollar held parity with the US dollar but has suffered from the economic policies of President Robert Mugabe; at the beginning of this year it was $Z2800 to $US1 and 10 days ago $Z500,000.

Mugabe has struggled to curb inflation and in July ordered businesses to halve their prices to alleviate the country’s woes.

The order resulted in the arrest of about 10,000 business people as thousands of police officers raided companies, malls and markets to take goods marked above price control levels. “It shows the lunacy of their belief they can legislate against inflation and bring it down at the barrel of a gun,” said economist Rob Davies.








Seriously though.

I don’t have the heart to crash a “pony party.”

Where is the love?

Oh, and….

Halliburton’s 3Q Earnings Up 19 Percent

Oct 21, 2007  — HOUSTON (AP) – Halliburton Co. continues to benefit from placing greater emphasis on its operations in the Eastern Hemisphere, where expanding business helped the company post a 19 percent rise in third-quarter earnings.

The Houston-based oilfield services company said Sunday its net income rose to $727 million, or 79 cents a share, in the July-September period from $611 million, or 58 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

The most-recent results included a favorable income tax benefit of $133 million, or 15 cents a share.

Third-quarter revenue rose 16 percent to $3.93 billion.

Excluding the income tax gain, the results matched analysts’ average earnings estimate of 64 cents on revenue of $3.87 billion, according to Thomson Financial.

In a statement, Halliburton Chairman and Chief Executive Dave Lesar said the company’s capital expansion in the Eastern Hemisphere resulted in revenue growth of 29 percent versus the third quarter of last year.

Halliburton announced in March it would split its corporate headquarters between Houston and Dubai, where Lesar now works, placing him closer to important markets in the Middle East and Asia.

“I’m pleased with the continuing very strong performance of our Eastern Hemisphere operations this quarter,” Lesar said in a statement.

Halliburton is scheduled to discuss the results in a conference call with investors and analysts Monday morning.




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    • Pluto on October 22, 2007 at 05:17
      Author

    Okay, this is a good one:

    Over at Freeper they are freeping-out because food is expensive. But… then, they figured it out!

    It’s all Al Gore’s fault, ‘cuz of the ethanol, doncha know.

    The story began with this news article:

    Higher food bills squeezing working families

    October 21, 2007

    What used to last four days might last half that long now. Pay the gas bill, but skip breakfast. Eat less for lunch so the kids can have a healthy dinner.

    Across the nation, Americans are increasingly unable to stretch their dollars to the next payday as they juggle higher rent, food and energy bills. It’s starting to affect middle-income working families as well as the poor, and has reached the point of affecting day-to-day calculations of merchants like Wal-Mart, 7-Eleven and Family Dollar.

    Food pantries that serve the needy report severe shortages and reduced government funding at the very time that they are seeing a surge of new people seeking help.

    While economists debate whether the country is headed for a recession, some say the financial stress is already the worst since the last downturn at the start of this decade.

    Merchants have adjusted their product mix and pricing. Sales data show a marked and more prolonged drop in spending in the days before shoppers get their paychecks, when they buy only the barest essentials before splurging around payday.

    ”It’s pretty pronounced,” said Kiley Rawlins of Family Dollar. ”It seems like to us, customers are running out of food products, paper towels sooner in the month.”

    Strain may get worse in winter
    Wal-Mart said the imbalance in spending before and after payday in July was the biggest it has ever seen, though the drop-off wasn’t as steep in August.

    And 7-Eleven says its grocery sales have jumped 12 percent to 13 percent over the last year, compared with only slight increases for non-necessities like gloves and toys. Shoppers can’t afford to load up at the supermarket and are going to the most convenient places to buy emergency food items like milk and eggs.

    ”It even costs more to get the basics like soap and laundry detergent,” said Michelle Grassia, who lives with her husband and three teenage children in Brooklyn, N.Y.

    Her husband’s check from his grocery store job used to last four days. ”Now, it lasts only two,” she said.

    To make up the difference, Grassia buys one gallon of milk a week instead of three. She sometimes skips breakfast and lunch to make sure there’s enough food for her children. She cooks with a hot plate because gas is too expensive. And she depends on free vegetables and powdered milk from a local food pantry.

    Industry analysts and some economists fear the strain will get worse as people are hit with higher home heating bills this winter and mortgage rates go up.

    And here’s how the Freeps responded to that socialist news:

    The media is creating a picture of a bleak economy that only electing Hillary and a majority of ‘Rats to congress will save it. Bastards.
    ____________________________________________

    You wouldn’t think that from the proclaimed “Obesity Pandemic”. I suppose this might just quash that little dilemma…
    ____________________________________________

    Keep using our food to make ethanol and act surprised when the cost of food goes up. Morons.
    ____________________________________________

    If clinton gets elected with a dem majority in both houses she will implement wage and price controls. Why? Because she is a socialist. The majority of the sheeple in this country will think that it’s a great idea, and shortly thereafter, wonder why we have shortages of this and that.
    ____________________________________________

    Well the Iraq war theme has died, time to moveon, so the media now has to create — It’s Bush’s recession. The media is just a series of tragedies up until the 2008 election, then miraculously, if a Democrat is elected President, all the flowers will bloom, soup lines will disappear and our troubles will melt away.

    But elect an evil Republican ….. or even worst, A CONSERVATIVE, and doom will be upon you.

    That is, if the media is still in business by 2009.
    ____________________________________________

    The food shortage might get so bad that these people have to give up their cell phones, long distance service, internet service, or *gasp* their cable!
    Imagine the horror!
    ____________________________________________

    Sure it’s capitalism, but it’s also simple economics. Becuase of the push for ethanol, the demand for corn is higher than ever. So the price of corn rises and so does the price of everything that uses corn somewhere in the production process, like milk, beef, etc. I’d rather we drill the heck out of Alaska and the gulf and get our fuel that way than use the corn for ethanol. Then, maybe, milk wouldn’t cost $4.50 a gallon.
    ____________________________________________

    Well, I was in line at the local Food Lion the other day. The lady in front of me had some nice rib eye steaks. She paid with and EBT card. Me? I paid cash and had some reduced flank steak in my basket.
    Stop drinking sodas and eating fast food and the money will go farther.
    ____________________________________________

    I have gotten used now, around this time every year to be bombarded with articles that

    a) assert an increase of poor people.

    b) Hunger increasing primarily among single (idle) mothers and children.

    c)All sort of tricks and pressures to enhance our sense of guilt for having more than many poor prople.
    ____________________________________________

    Yesterday, in Roseville Minnesota milk was about $4 a gallon. If you have a family of four and they drink only one glass a day that would be 4 days of milk.
    ____________________________________________

    I was downtown once during a government cheese give away and never saw such a bunch of fat “poor” people. They were NOT juggling breakfast, lunch or dinner.
    ____________________________________________

    This is what your going to get every time the government raises the minimum wage. I know someone that manages a grocery store. Now his grocery stores have to pay more than what they had to pay to the part time high school kids that worked there. Guess how this added expense gets passed on? Higher food prices. Same thing goes for fast food restaurants, the cost gets passed on to the consumer.

    Government raises my property taxes on a rental property? Guess how this added expense gets passed on? Higher rent!

    Then they wonder why there hourly wage that was already above the new minimum wage no longer make ends meet. But yet they keep voting for the RAT party that is doing this to them.
    ____________________________________________

    Bingo! I don’t think all the three hundred pounders that I see at our local super market are giving up any meals.
    ____________________________________________

    Always hated milk….never drank/drink it….now I know why…

    Do you LOVE these peeps, or what?

    If the Dems RULE in 2009 — it’s because of them.

    • Pluto on October 22, 2007 at 05:37
      Author

    I commented today that the sky looked yellow. It’s red now.

    Wildfires Blaze Across San Diego County — 1 Dead, At least 8 Injured

    There are two fires burning out of control in the rural areas of eastern San Diego County.  We have reports of one fatality related to the fire. The fires and thick smoke are being pushed westward by dry Santa Ana Winds.

    The county’s Director of Emergency Services proclaimed a local emergency in response to both the Harris fire and the Highway 78 fire.

    HIGHWAY 78 FIRE

    The Hwy 78 fire started near the Santa Ysabel Indian Reservation. It has grown to 3000 acres.

    The Sheriff completed an advisory evacuation Reverse 911 message to 5,461 homes in the area of San Diego Country Estates.

    THE HARRIS FIRE

    A 3000 acre fire is growing near the U-S Mexico border – south and east of San Diego. It has killed at least one civilian… and injured as many as eight. Four firefighters were hospitalized with burns.

    The Santa Ana’s will be blowing for the next seven days.

    • Robyn on October 22, 2007 at 05:40

    …because you don’t like my Sunday Pony Parties. :-{

    Wah!

    • fatdave on October 22, 2007 at 05:59

    as any cove wot drinks in the Finches dahn Whitechapel will tell ya’, is twenty five quid. Wouldn’t ask Orthopaedic Harry though – ‘e never come by that monicker by bein’ no surgeon if you nah wot I mean. ‘E’s more of a “supplier” to the industry.

    • Temmoku on October 22, 2007 at 16:05

    is shrinking too!
    That’s all right, I understand it is polluted anyway…too bad I live in Chicago.

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