The Institute for Supply Management reported that its index of service sector business activity declined to 44.6 in January from a revised reading of 54.4 in December. I believe they were forecasting 53. Of course this is abysmal.Utilities, professional services and educational services were the only sectors reporting increases. The others were down.

    New orders fell to 43.5 while employment fell to 43.9. The employment picture is especially discocerting as it is looking forward.

     We are in recession! K

     As of now I am an Obama supporter for no other reason than its time for some change. The debate last night cemented my decision.

   I have ruled Hillary Clinton out, for the simple reason that there has only been a Clinton or a Bush in the White House for what? 20 years? Time for a change. Bill and Hillary have shown their true colors in the last few weeks by bringing race into the picture.

    My first choice was Bill Richardson. He was by far the most qualified man for the job so of course he would drop out early in the game. Biden and Dodd were also highly qualified, but alas, no suport for them.

    As for the Republicans:Mitt Romney….too rich and out of touch with the middle class      Mike Huckabee…….being a Baptist minister disqualified me with him immediately…….Fred Thompson…..phony………John McCain….would continue Bush’s policies in Iraq.

     So…….Barack Obama it shall be………..Kevin

Some I have seen today: Housing Decline 25% Ahead!

                                                    17k Jobs Lost Last Month

    The Fed has certainly let us know what they think about the economy. It sucks ass! Some things are a bother though to me. Have they forgotten inflation? Are they just trying to placate the market? These cuts are going to be inflationary for sure….

      My doubts are still intact for the stimulus plan. First, if they agree on it anytime soon I will be greatly surprised. If they do manage to hammer out agreements I am betting most are going to pay down debt instead of running out and buy something. I am not quite sure how that would help anything.

     Gold and silver continue to rise..1000 bucks this month. Some are beginning to call it a gold bubble I don’t believe it. I don’t buy the physical gold myself. The way to do it is to buy ETFs such as GLD…..Kevin

“Dear Reader,

I wrote this essay last night, because my mom forwarded me an incredibly hateful negative email that is going around from some crazy spam-bot about Barack Obama.

I would like to share it with you, because, I think that you are the future and the present of the United States of America.

Barack Obama is this country’s last hope. So what if his dad is or was a Muslim? Lots of People are Muslim, and most Muslims don’t want anything to do with fundamentalism and destroying the U. S, they just want a happy family life and a good income. Just like most Christian Americans

Being Muslim is a religion. Just like Christianity. It is not wanting to destroy the U. S. Our government now wants you to FEAR them. But why? Fear is an easy means of control.

Just because somebody’s parents were of a different religion than Christianity doesn’t mean that that person is bad, or a scheming way for the fundamentalist Arabs to control the U. S. That is WACK. And if you believe that you are Wack. If you seriously believe that Barack Obama is a spy for the “Evil Arabs” than you are rather gullible and ill-advised.

As far as religion goes, The number one president in all U. S. history, Abraham Lincoln, who we should all look up to, was also Non Religious

From Wikipedia:

“For some time, Thomas Lincoln, Abraham’s father, was a respected and relatively affluent citizen of the Kentucky backcountry. He had purchased the Sinking Spring Farm in December of 1808 for $200 cash and assumption of a debt.[4] The family belonged to a Baptist church that had seceded from a larger church over the issue of slavery [citation needed], although Abraham himself never joined their church, or any other church for that matter.”

A president need not wear his Christianity on his sleeve to be great, moral or outstanding.

Barack Obama is a dedicated senator, and most important of all, an outsider. Not of the Shrillery Clinton Blue-bloods, or the Old White Millionaires that the Republican Party wants us to vote for. Obama is the son of an immigrant parent, and he worked hard for what he has and is. So what if he associated with a “Slumlord”? he was trying to help the community at the time. He worked with Real People to make the community better from the ground up. He wasn’t handed everything on a silver platter in an Ivory Tower like The Clintons, or The Republican Millionaire candidates. I want a president who knows what is up in the United States in the real world now.

Andrew Jackson’s Parents were IMMIGRANTS. Nobody cared back then did they? They wanted the best man for the job.

Did John F. Kennedy’s presidency (He was a devote Catholic) make the Vatican secretly run the U. S. government? I don’t think so. I think you sheeple should open your minds and your guts and think really hard. Katrina. Remember how great the Republicans handled Katrina? Yeah, not so great at all. Hundreds died. “make levees, not war,” but the war kept going..

And for the record, most of my possessions were destroyed in Katrina. My greatest musical recordings, my VHS taped lived performances with my band, gone, except for ten songs that I took with me before Katrina. I know several people who have either died or gone insane from fighting in Iraq. I have a rather negative opinion of the Bush Presidency. Why are we there in Iraq, I thought it all so complicated until I read Kurt Vonnegut’s essay “Cold Turkey” and it explained a lot. I mean Vonnegut(R. I. P.), was a veteran himself! He lived through the fire bombing of Dresden, by hiding in a slaughterhouse. (the novel Slaughterhouse Five is a personal fantastical science fiction memoir of that one event) One of the most horrific events of the last century, of WWII. I can understand why we fought in WWII. Hitler, was very bad. Vonnegut is one of my literary idols, possibly the greatest author in the twentieth century.

here’s the link: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/cold_turkey/ 

If I could just make one person open their mind to the thought of Barack Obama being a good president, then I feel this essay is worth it.

Love,

http://www.urbansurvival.com/week.htm   This was taken from George Ure’s site. Check it out it is a great one!

New Orders New orders for manufactured durable goods in December increased $11.2 billion or 5.2 percent to $226.6 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This was the second consecutive monthly increase and followed 0.5 percent November increase. Excluding transportation, new orders increased 2.6 percent. Excluding defense, new orders increased 2.9 percent.

Shipments Shipments of manufactured durable goods in December, down four of the last five months, decreased $0.1 billion or 0.1 percent to $212.6 billion. This followed a 0.2 percent November decrease.

Unfilled Orders Unfilled orders for manufactured durable goods in December, up thirty-one of the last thirty-two months, increased $20.0 billion or 2.5 percent to $808.6 billion. This was at the highest level since the series was first stated on a NAICS basis in 1992 and followed a 1.2 percent November increase.

Inventories Inventories of manufactured durable goods in December, up five of the last six months, increased $3.5 billion or 1.1 percent to $320.7 billion. This was also at the highest level since the series was first stated on a NAICS basis in 1992 and followed a 0.8 percent November increase.

Capital Goods Industries Nondefense

Nondefense new orders for capital goods in December increased $4.2 billion or 5.4 percent to $81.1 billion.

Defense

Defense new orders for capital goods in December increased $5.2 billion or 80.6 percent to $11.6 billion.

Don’t see how durable goods can be up with such horrible numbers on housing being released a day or two ago. Its hard for me to believe a damn thing this government releases…….K

    With new home sales down over 26% we are looking for another cut by the Fed. But how will it be received by the markets? Damn, its hard to say. Too little and we will see a sell off and if the cut is percieved to be too big you will see a sell off, with investors thinking that the economy is in worse shape than they thought. Kevin

    I am betting our Congressman will never agree on some of the fine points to get this thing out in any kind of time. Its my understanding that now several are trying to put their “add ons” to the bill and other perks, trying to slip them in. What is going to happen, its just going to slow the whole thing down, if not derail it completely. I have my doubts about them pulling this off.

    Another issue, I am seeing, is that this will hit the Treasury Department at the worst possible time, if they do get it out……right at tax time. Will there be checks or will those of us that have their tax refunds direct deposited, have them direct deposited?

     I will be mightily surprised if they get this thing going and out before the damn recession is over……Kevin

     I did a bit of research on basic food staples and the percentage increases were quite astonishing. Milk is up some 30% in the past year, costing around 4.50 per gallon in our area.. Eggs are up 38% in the past year, pricing at around 1.90 or so and a loaf of bread, 24 ounce, is up around 12% for a price of 2.50 or so.

    Now the figures released by the government  in November say this equates to slightly over 5% for the seasonally adjusted annual rate and around 2.5% for all of 06. Of course, those of us living in the real world know that this does not seem correct. Its got to be more than that.

     Myself, I have had to make some serious adjustments in my shopping habits. The last few months I have had to start shopping by price. I have always been a brand loyal sorta guy but I have had to toss that out the window.  I have had to drastically reduce the beef I have purchased and have gone with the much cheaper pork steaks. I have had to forego the brand names and go with the private label stuff, some of which the quality is noticeably lower and some of which is just as good. You just have to buy and try.

                                                     Kevin

Several of the family were sitting around my dining room table one night and haveing a few beers…..of course dear old Dad is the comedian and the subject of Walker Texas Ranger came up. Seems this is the favorite television show of many an old Bastard, including Dad. We were laughing at how Walker could do anything. There were shows of him flying planes and helicopters. There were shows about him driving in Nascar races(and winning). He could whip as many asses that would come at him and he would never lose his hat….well old Dad just blurted out that he wished he had a son like that. It was a funny damn moment. Anyway, that got me researching Chuck Norris and I came across a site called www.chucknorrisfacts.com  Here are some of my favorites from that site: