So the forced acquisition of Contry Wide probably held off bankruptcy for the past few years….smart Bearded Clam intervention….
Comments »U.S. Futures Drop Slightly; Equity Preview
The 10 Year Treasury Note Posts the Largest Gains Since July
Greenback Gains Against Most Currencies
The dollar remains a safe haven play for some. Expectations run high on a better than expected consumer confidence and that the slowing in the U.S. is not all that bad….
Comments »UBS Put On Review by Moody’s After Rogue Trader Losses Change Outlook
Research in motion, $RIMM; AKA Rim Job Crushes Investors Again With Lousy 3rd Q Results
European Markets Move Higher in Anticipation of More Details From EU Ministers
Asian Markets Continue Global Rally; S. Korea Ripping Tits off the Bears
The Euro Weakens Slightly in Response to Collateral Issues Stalling Debt Talks
Gold Pares Losses Overnight
Gold fell on the back of a global equity rally and the notion that European debt woes will be solved. Earlier this morning those looses were pared.
Gold up $3 @ $1,784.50
Comments »Crude Oil Rises Overnight for a Five Week Run
WARNING: DON’T BE AN INTERNET SNITCH IN MEXICO
Solyndra only one of several failed green stimulus recipients
Comments »Solyndra, the solar panel company whose highly publicized failure and consequent investigation by federal authorities has flashed across headlines recently, isn’t the only business to go belly up after benefiting from a piece of the $800 billion economic stimulus package passed in 2009.
At least four other companies have received stimulus funding only to later file for bankruptcy, and two of those were working on alternative energy.
Evergreen Solar Inc., indirectly received $5.3 million through a state grant to open a $450 million facility in 2007 that employed roughly 800 people. The company, once a rock star in the solar industry, filed for bankruptcy protection last month, saying it couldn’t compete with Chinese rivals without reorganizing. The company intends to focus on building up its manufacturing facility in China.
SpectraWatt, based in Hopewell Junction, N.Y., is also a solar cell company that was spun out of Intel in 2008. In June 2009, SpectraWatt received a $500,000 grant from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory as part of the stimulus package. SpectraWatt was one of 13 companies to receive the money to help develop ways to improve solar cells without changing current manufacturing processes.
The company filed for bankruptcy last month, saying it could not compete with its Chinese competitors, which receive “considerable government and financial support.”
On Tuesday, Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman wrote an editorial for “USA Today” in which he blamed China in part for the failure of U.S. solar energy manufacturers to compete.
“Winning will require substantial investments. Last year, for example, the China Development Bank offered more than $30 billion in financing to Chinese solar manufacturers, about 20 times more than U.S.-backed loans to solar manufacturers,” Poneman wrote.
“Unfortunately, expanding production has coincided with short-term softening demand, a product of the banking crisis in Europe and its wider economic effects. The combination has had a dramatic effect on the price of solar cells, which has plummeted 42 percent in the past nine months. This has taken a serious toll on solar manufacturers everywhere, including the U.S,” he continued.
On Thursday, White House spokesman Jay Carney noted that the U.S. is on track to double its renewable energy power in 2012, but it will require commitment in the U.S. to grow.
“We have a choice to make as a nation because we will be buying renewable energy projects (in the future) …do we want to buy it with a stamp on it that says ‘made in America’ or do we want to buy it from the Chinese or other countries?” Carney asked. “High-tech clean energy industries are going to be key to (economic prosperity) in this century.”
But Republicans balk at claims that the Obama administration can decide which companies are winners or losers, and questioned a plan to approve $10 billion more in loans before the stimulus program expires.
“Solar panels have been subsidized by the federal government. States’ governments are also subsidizing or giving taxpayers write-off on their tax return. And yet, these solar panels cannot make it in the competitive world without all these subsidies. And even with them, China is flooding the market with this cheap labor and the solar panels just don’t make sense,” House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns R-Fla., told Fox News.
“So I think the administration is on this fervent religion of green jobs and clinging to the idea that solar panel is the answer and it is not the answer,” he said.
Another winner of stimulus who ultimately lost is Mountain Plaza Inc. Despite declaring bankruptcy in 2003, the company received $424,000 from the Tennessee Department of Transportation as part of a grant aimed at installing “truck stop electrification” systems that allow idling truckers to plug-in during extended stops and turn off their exhaust-belching, environment polluting diesel engines.
Mountain Plaza had filed for bankruptcy protection again in June 2010. TDOT, which received a $2 million stimulus grant from the Environmental Protection Agency for the project, said it didn’t learn about the bankruptcy until October, but it is closely monitoring the project.
Elsewhere, Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Co. also failed despite Olsen’s Mills receiving $10 million to increase employment, add equipment and machinery, refinance existing debts and work capital for operations and acquire land. The payout — part of a $64 million package to nine rural businesses in Wisconsin for economic development loan assistance — was delivered in January 2010, after Olsen’s Mills filed for bankruptcy protection for defaulting on a $60 million bank loan.
THE CITY THAT NEVER SMOKES: Bloomberg Cuts NYC Smoking to All-Time Lows
New York’s adult smoking rate fell to record low of 14 percent in 2010, said Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has led the city’s effort to curb tobacco use for the past nine years.
The rate dropped from 22 percent in 2002, meaning about 450,000 fewer people are smoking, the mayor said. New York’s rate among high school students dropped to 7 percent last year from 18 percent in 2001, as the U.S. rate fell to 19 percent from 29 percent, he said. The smoking decline will translate to 50,000 deaths prevented by 2052, Bloomberg said.
“New York City for an awful lot of people sets the style — people copy New York City,” Bloomberg, who quit smoking about 30 years ago, said today at a press conference in Queens. “So the fact that we’ve made all this progress here really will help the entire country.”
Bloomberg, 69, has made the battle against smoking a hallmark of his mayoral tenure. In 2002, he worked with the City Council to ban smoking in offices, bars and restaurants. He also rolled out a media campaign with graphic depictions of the harmful effects of smoking, cracked down on illegal cigarette sales and increased tobacco taxes. In May, the city extended the smoking ban to parks, beaches and pedestrian plazas.
The efforts coincide with the city’s other health initiatives, such as reducing sodium content in foods and increasing access to fresh fruits and vegetables in low-income neighborhoods.
New York, the most-populous U.S. city, with 8.2 million residents, is seeking to lower the adult smoking rate to 12 percent by next year, Health Commissioner Thomas Farley told reporters at the press briefing. Staten Island remains the borough with the highest smoking rate, he said. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in New York, Bloomberg said.
The mayor is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.
Comments »Cool Venezuelan Oil Guys Shun Pineapple Face Idiot Chavez to Find Work in Colombia
PUERTO GAITAN, Colombia — “I don’t have any problems firing everyone I need to fire,” Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez thundered in 2002, as he began purging state oil company executives who had mounted protests against him.
Months later, nearly 20,000 oil workers, from petroleum engineers to geologists and managers, had been fired. But with the company under the president’s tight control, production has swiftly fallen and Venezuela has slipped from the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter to the 11th.
The oilmen who were banished have taken their experience drilling for Venezuela’s tar-like oil to countries as varied as Iraq, Nigeria and Canada. But the presence of Venezuelan petro-scientists has been most vital here in Colombia, where they have helped oil companies sharply increase the production of crude, much of which is exported to the United States.
“Chavez has been a huge help for the petroleum industry in Colombia,” said Humberto Calderon, a former Venezuelan mining minister who now runs Vetra Energy in southern Colombia.
Colombia is now on the verge of achieving what just a few years ago was unthinkable: pumping 1 million barrels of oil a day, up from 540,000 barrels daily in 2005.
“This is practically doubling production during the last four or five years,” said Javier Gutierrez, president of Colombia’s state oil company, Ecopetrol. “It’s a spectacular development.”
The new El Dorado is here in Colombia’s stark eastern plains, a wild land known for its horsemen and harp-based folkloric ballads.
Across 700 square miles, Pacific Rubiales Energy, which is listed on the Toronto stock exchange, jacked up production from 14,000 barrels a day as recently as 2007 to 224,000 last week. Although 12,000 Colombians work here, the company’s top directors and those overseeing exploration and production cut their teeth at the Venezuelan state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, known worldwide as Pdvsa.
“The top management of Pdvsa is now the top management of Pacific Rubiales,” said Ronald Pantin, the chief executive and founder of the company, himself a former high executive at Pdvsa (pronounced peh-deh-veh-sah). “All the people we brought from Venezuela have more than 25 years of experience, so people with a huge knowledge of all this geology.”
A new reality
That experienced oilmen are now considering Colombia as a destination is a testament to a new reality on the ground in this once-chaotic country and what oil analysts call Venezuela’s mismanagement of its oil sector.
Once terrorized by leftist rebel groups that often bombed oil pipelines, much of rural Colombia has been pacified after a long army offensive supported by U.S. aid. Colombia’s previous government, led by President Alvaro Uribe, also introduced financial incentives that lured scores of oil companies, said Ramon Espinasa, senior oil and gas specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank.
Gutierrez of Ecopetrol said 65 percent of the basins that may hold oil have now been awarded to oil companies; eight years ago only 13 percent of the potential oil fields were being developed.
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