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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (74227)	1/22/2000 9:36:00 AM
From: Freedom Fighter	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 132070

Mike, >>So far, all of the adjustments have made the administration look much smarter than they would have looked had they not cooked the books.<< As you probably know from my numerous rants on this thread, I find this sort of stuff very offensive. It's difficult to trust many economists because they are essentially political hired guns. And the task of gathering and understanding all the data is beyond the scope of mere mortals. Aren't there any public watchdog or truly non-vested groups that are intellectually curious about what is really going on? I think there is intellectual merit to many of the changes that have been made, but there are reverse sides and other issues that never get enough press or public debate. Do they perhaps keep two sets of books at the Federal Reserve and other statistics gathering agencies. One for public consumption and one for reality's sake? Wayne

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (74227)	1/22/2000 9:43:00 AM
From: Les H	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 132070

The trade deficit would've been much worse in this report had the average price of crude in the report increased more in line with the increase in crude. The average price barely budged from $ 20.74 to $ 20.90 per barrel. Maybe they added another adjustment to the figures. If a longshoreman spots a tanker with a lower crude price, that one automatically gets to shore. The other one waits for other tankers.

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (74227)	1/22/2000 9:48:00 AM
From: Freedom Fighter	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 132070

Mike, What do you think of the food group? The entire group is getting hammered relentlessly. My view is that the group basically has flat unit sales growth and has been growing via acquisition for a long time. Most of them appear very leveraged. So perhaps rising interest rates are hurting margins for the debt revolvers and making acquisitions a bit more difficult. However, some of the prices are getting interesting. Most of them have huge stable free cash flow that can be used to rapidly pay down debt and/or buy back shares. Amortization is also high so "cash earnings" (if you go for that sort of thing) are higher by 10%-15% for a number of them. The list of "getting close to attractive" is very long. Sara Lee, International Home Foods, Interstate Bakeries, Heinz, Smuckers, Campbells, and others own brands that very attractive. Sara Lee also has Coach, Hanes, Leggs, Platex and other consumer brands. If they can't grow units much they might be put into play sooner or later. Any thoughts? Wayne