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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (1182)	10/16/2005 2:07:42 AM
From: Amark$p	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 217574

lighten up Jay, reason for optimism... www2.bmo.com

To: TobagoJack who wrote (1182)	10/16/2005 8:56:55 AM
From: Moominoid	Respond to of 217574

The juxtaposition of photos is hilarious. Poor kids :) BTW, 5 million is a Houston or Philadelphia etc. LA has 15-20 million people. LA county alone has more than 10 million. But the trends are still amazing (though expected).

To: TobagoJack who wrote (1182)	10/16/2005 2:31:55 PM
From: Slagle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217574

TobagoJack Re: "Opium" The commodity of choice with which the British desired to flood China was cheap machine woven cotton cloth, not opium, but the Chinese Imperial authorities resisted the import of cotton cloth as vigorously as they resisted opium importation. So opium being a product for which there was already a demand and could be obtained in India as a result of the cotton cloth trade, was just a natural progression, conducted under the protection of the guns of the Royal Navy and with the purchased cooperation of Mandarin officaldom. The Brits cleverly used "cotton cloth trade warfare" all over the world. The whole period of the Chinese opium importation the British Empire was practically in a state of war with the French, the Spanish or both. But there is no evidence of the Brits using opium on a large scale against either rival, only the Chinese. But they DID use the cotton cloth weapon. Importation of English cloth into Spanish possessions was strictly illegal but British traders managed to smuggle the stuff in on a large scale anyway. Same into the French possessions. Iloiol was the weaving capital of the Spanish Philippines and numerous English cotton traders were caught and hung by the Spanish authorities. Likewise in many South American Spanish possessions. In the Philipines there is a big "anti-imperialist" mythology based upon the damage done to the Iloilo native weaving industry by the English smugglers. But I guess that depends upon your point of view. Surely there was some very fine cotton hand woven native cloth. But this was only available to the well off, the poor had to cover their nakedness with itchy-scratchy palm fiber fabric better suited for floor mats than clothes (unless you had the hide of an elephant). And even at that the very soft comfortable machine woven English cotton may have been one tenth the price. Even Gandhi made a big element of his movement an attack on English cotton. And maybe Gandhi was right and if he was maybe we should resist Chinese or Indian imports for the same sort of reasons. You have mentioned "socks" several times. Now mind you that modern sock knitting was developed here and can, if so desired be so automated that a human hand never touches the product until it arrives at the retail store. I know something of circular knitting, having applied for a US patent on a knitter (for industrial tubing, not apparel) and a friend shipped a bunch of the knitters from Carolina knitting mills to China back in the 1980's, presumably the same knitters that may now be producing the socks we see at Walmart now. Here is where I am going with the "sock" angle. 165 years ago there may have been a 100 fold advantage to a Filipino (or Indian, or Chinese, ect.) villager to have available machine woven Birmingham cotton cloth to cover their nakedness. I am counting cost, comfort (imagine nipa palm fiber on the skin in a hot climate) and durability. Now take the Walmart socks. If the Chinese imports cost two dollars a pair, then surely with best available technology we should be able to closely meet that here with a retooled domestic production (remember, I am refering to an almost zero labor input due to the high degree of automation). If the English had to use the guns of the Royal Navy and smugglers to bring "progress" to the world then why should things be any different now? Slagle

To: TobagoJack who wrote (1182)	10/18/2005 2:15:01 PM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217574

"lots of records will be broken in the future" Producer price inflation at 15-year high U.S. producer prices shot up by an unexpectedly large 1.9 percent last month, the biggest gain in more than 15 years, as energy costs surged in the wake of hurricanes that devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast, a government report showed on Tuesday. However, outside of volatile food and energy costs, prices received by farms, factories and refineries rose a relatively subdued 0.3 percent, the Labor Department said. Separately, the Treasury Department said net flows of capital into U.S. assets swelled to $91.3 billion in August. It was the largest inflow in 16 months and suggested the United States was having little trouble finding the overseas capital it needs to balance its books. washingtonpost.com