'People who don't what they are doing will buy anything'
As you flip through the pages of the Elk Grove Citizen, you will certainly notice that while there are fewer business and real estate busin...
https://www.elkgrovenews.net/2008/03/people-who-dont-what-they-are-doing.html
As you flip through the pages of the Elk Grove Citizen, you will certainly notice that while there are fewer business and real estate business ads there are whole lot of foreclosure notices.
For those who don't really understand the mortgage mess, this video from what could be called an Australian version of the Daily Show attempts to explain the unexplainable, as Donald Rumsfeld might say.
Clarke and Dawe explain how 'corporate debt offering' contributed to the sub-prime mess.
As they said of the so-called wizards of Wall Street, 'People who don't what they are doing will buy anything.' You might add 'and leave the rest of us with the tab!'
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Thanks for the clip - it's good to get a distant perspective, and if we can't laugh about this, at least we can smile a little.
Shocked? Boy was I! I couldn’t believe this.
Nicole Colson reported the following at Counterpunch today:
"According to U.S. government figures released earlier in March, grocery costs increased 5.1 percent over the past 12 months. The U.S. is undergoing the worst grocery inflation in close to 20 years, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts prices will climb another 3 to 4 percent this year.
"The problem is especially obvious when you look at the cost of individual goods. According to the Labor Department, milk prices are up 17 percent. Prices for dried beans, peas and lentils are up the same amount. Cheese is up 15 percent, rice and pasta 13 percent, and bread 12 percent. And the price of eggs has risen 25 percent since February 2007--and 62 percent in the last two years.
In all likelihood, food inflation will continue, driven by a number of factors, including the rising price of oil--hitting as high as $112 a barrel recently--which has raised the cost to deliver food and run farm and factory equipment; increases in the cost of farm commodities like milk, corn and wheat; and the declining value of the dollar, which is encouraging exports of U.S. crops and food products."
This could be true, but people are missing the point. Some stores are selling the same basics for wildly different prices. Take the crucially important commodity of beer.
Why only yesterday I say that Fat Tire beer was selling in a prominent chain supermarket ironically named “Save-Mor” in Elk Grove for not quite $8 a six-pack. While today at the same Fat Tire six-pack was selling for $1.96 LESS at the FoodMaxx in Linda, about 55 miles north of Sacramento.
Sharp rises in gasoline are one thing. That commodity will only get you to work or the hospital when you need to be there. But beer? Well, beer is another matter altogether.
Now there may be a social quotient involved here. Elk Grove is full of middle class working types, while Linda is all ex-con and soon-to-be-cons and all their assorted relatives and assorted common law wives adn by-blow progeny. You know, the poor but dishonest crowd.
But, seriously, I highly doubt if grocery conglomerates have found it in their hearts to scale back their shelf prices in the spirit of charity for the down and out.
The obverse of that coin is the folks in Elk Grove are getting ripped off, possibly because they Save-Mor folks know much a angry mob of ex-cons can do to with a shopping cart and a plate glass window and how timid the honest and gullible are.
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