JUNE 26, 2011
BRUCE A. BRENNAN BLOG FROM THE WORLD AND MY MIND
The news as I see it and the views as I want them.
June 26 is … National Chocolate Pudding Day
I just do not understand all the hoopla surrounding the “Gitmo” prison and military trials in Cuba. We do not want these people in our country so our Constitutional rights attach to them. In a country where the majority rules (it does not always), the minority that has some type of problem with one of the few intelligent decision our government has made concerning homeland security since 9-11-01 should just get over it. This may help.
A military court has upheld the conviction of the first Guantanamo Bay prisoner to be tried for war crimes at the U.S. base in Cuba. The U.S. Court of Military Commission Review refused to overturn the August 2008 conviction of Salim Hamdan. The court rejected a claim that the charge of providing material support to terrorism is not a war crime that can be prosecuted by a military tribunal.
Hamdan was charged with the offense because he had been a driver for Osama bin Laden. Hamdan was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison but has been released and returned to his native Yemen. The Pentagon released the ruling Friday.
The military is preparing to resume trials at Guantanamo. Conduct the trials and be done with it. It is unlikely any of the Defendants that are tried would be found not guilty. If they are found not guilty, it is even less likely they would be released. If they are released it would be into the country we caught them in or in a Muslim nation friendly to us. These people will not pose a threat to America anymore and many will meet untimely deaths.
Get your Coca Cola while it’s cheaper. Get your Coke here. Coca-Cola Co plans to raise prices on its soft drinks by 3 percent to 4 percent in July, in addition to a 2 percent increase taken earlier this year, a company spokesman said on Friday. News of the increases which will take effect on July 31 was first reported by industry newsletter Beverage Digest, which quoted retail customer pricing letters as saying the increases were due to higher-than-anticipated commodity costs.
Like many food and drink companies, Coca-Cola is facing higher costs for goods like corn, oil and packaging. Coca-Cola, the world's largest soft drink maker, said earlier this year that it expected to raise prices in that range, but the timing was unknown.
Carlos Laboy, a Credit Suisse analyst, said in a research note that there were concerns the company would wait until after Labor Day, at the end of the summer. That would make it more difficult for other soft drink makers, like PepsiCo Inc and Dr Pepper Snapple, to raise prices on their products during the key summer selling season. "Today's news should provide some relief for all players in the industry in North America," Laboy wrote. Coke is helping the competition, just a bit. Is that being a good neighbor or market manipulation?
Beverage Digest reported earlier this month that Pepsi was notifying retailers of price increases of 3 percent to 5 percent between July 10 and around Labor Day. Coke shares were up 0.2 percent at $65.09 in afternoon trade on the New York Stock Exchange. Pepsi shares were up 0.8 percent at $68.54. I wonder when Coca-Cola raised prices on January 1 of any year?
America, we must wakeup to the looming debt crisis that is going to get worse as Congress complains to each other and dusts off the age-old excuse for not addressing the issue; America is too big to fail. We have been doing it the wrong way since the end of WW I. It is not working. We need to try another tactic. If America defaults on a few loan obligations, what is the world going to do about it? Most countries have defaulted at some time throughout history but they still exist. Americans just don’t get it and Washington is not spending their money so they do not care.
It might be time for another midnight ride by Paul Revere or a really big alarm clock to wake up the citizenry, this time warning "the creditors are coming." Americans seem not to have awakened to the fast-looming debt crisis that could summon a new recession, imperil their stock market investments and shatter faith in the world's most powerful economy. Those are among the implications, both sudden and long-lasting, expected to unfold if the U.S. defaults on debt payments for the first time in history.
Facing an August deadline for raising the country's borrowing limit or setting loose the consequences, politicians and economists are plenty alarmed. The people? Apparently not so much. They're divided on whether to raise the limit, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that found 41 percent opposed to the idea and 38 percent in favor. People aren't exactly blase. A narrow majority in the poll expects an economic crisis to ensue if the U.S., maxed out on its borrowing capacity, starts missing interest payments to creditors. But even among that group, 37 percent say no dice to raising the limit.
In Washington's humid air, talk of a financial apocalypse is thick. There are warnings of "credit markets in a state of panic," as the House Budget Committee chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., put it, causing a sudden drop-off in the country's ability to borrow and pushing the government off a "credit cliff." He was characterizing a report by the government's nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that warns of a "sudden fiscal crisis" in which investors might abandon U.S. bonds and force the government to pay steep interest rates and impose spending cuts and tax increases far more Draconian than if default were avoided.
America can always devalue the dollar or simply say we are not paying you. Without the American economy fueling economic growth, the rest of the world cab refuse to do business with us or go pound sand and consume the products they produce. Foreign countries could not exist without America while we can survive without most of the rest of the world. Most of Europe never paid America for loans and support we provided to them in WW I and WW II. Pay backs are a bitch.
Just a couple of thoughts I had and you should too.
BRUCE A. BRENNAN
DEKALB, IL 60115
COPYRIGHT 2011
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Book Titles:
Holmes the Ripper
A Revengeful Mix of Short Fiction
"Men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all the other alternatives." - Abba Eban
