0
POPSNational News vs. Local News The statistics I see for Spokane show our market holding their value from last year or perhaps slightly declining. All these gloom and doom predictions may compel some buyers to wait and become a self fulfilling prophecy. Now is a great time to buy.
2
POPSStarbucks closing 600 stores They blame the economy, but I think in Starbucks' case it is because there is more competition for the coffee dollar in combination with their faltering quality. Something tells me that coffee, like alcohol, is recession proof.
3
POPSSound Bites And Sloganeering Just Won’t Cut It Anymore even including such environmentally sensitive countries as the United Kingdom, Norway and France—to limit oil and gas exploration to this extent. Gulf of Mexico that hold billions of barrels of oil and gas are inaccessible for purely political reasons. Appeasing Florida’s real-estate and tourism industries has been more important than U.S. energy security. In addition, politicians throw red meat to the crowd by promising to punish the oil industry for its huge profits, overlooking the small problem that much of this profit is not even made in the United States. In fact, it is not the oil companies, but producing countries like Venezuela, Mexico, Iran and Russia that are provoking the pending production crunch through lack of investment. National oil companies now control nearly 80 percent of worldwide reserves, leaving major Western multinationals with full access to only 6 percent.
3
POPS Friends Of Barack obvious conflict of interest. The company's code of conduct required prior approval of such arrangements. Neither Mr. Johnson nor Mr. Raines sought such approval, according to Fannie. One question is whether Messrs. Johnson and Raines were using their position to pad their own incomes that were already fabulous thanks to an implicit taxpayer subsidy. But the bigger issue is whether they steered Fannie policy into giving Mr. Mozilo and Countrywide favorable pricing, which means they helped to facilitate the mortgage boom and bust that Countrywide did so much to promote. A further federal probe would seem to be warranted, and we assume Barney Frank and his fellow mortgage moralists will want to dig into this palm-greasing from Capitol Hill. The irony here is that Mr. Obama has denounced Mr. Mozilo
1
POPSU.S. Workers Feeling Overworked and Underappreciated U.S. Workers Feeling Overworked and Underappreciated - Why your people don’t seem all that excited about coming to work these days. By Judith M. Bardwick Judith M. Bardwick is a La Jolla, Calif.-based consultant, specializing in the psychology of the corporate environment, and author of Danger in the Comfort Zone. Adapted from One Foot Out the Door: How to Combat the Psychological Recession That’s Alienating Employees and Hurting American Business