Category: Business

  • US Guns Sales Booming

    Mel Bernstein, owner of Dragonman Arms in Colorado Springs, told KOAA-TV that sales of semi-automatic weapons had boomed in recent days.

    He said: “We’re going from normally six to eight guns a day, to 25. I stocked up, I got a stockpile of these AK-47s, we’re selling these like hot cakes. Luckily I had an idea of what was going on because it happened with Clinton.”

    Mr Bernstein said he normally orders up to 7,000 rounds a week from distributors but could now only get hold of 3,000 because of demand.

    John Kielbasa, owner of Fernwood Firearms in Hankins, New York, told CNN: “Sales are up. I had a guy waiting here first thing in the morning (the day after the election.) He came in, bought two AK-47s. It’s going to be good for me for business.”

    via Telegraph.

    Again from the U.K.  No U.S. paper wants to touch this right now.  They wrote all about it before the election when it would drive gun-control folks to the polls.  Now, it’s the other side of the sword; Obama is the greatest gun salesman of all time.

    Even if Obama manages to slip something by the Congress the damage is done.  12.7 million background checks in 2008 alone.  The number’s only gone up… every year since.  Obama in office is responsible for 5 – 6 million new guns sales since 2008.  Crazy.

  • Hyatt Chairman Pritzker To Work in Iraq

    Thomas Pritzker, patriarch of Chicago’s richest family and executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels Corp., is starting to do business in Iraq.

    A venture he co-founded to chase deals in the war-torn country and other parts of the Middle East announced its first project last month: an upgrade of a port on the Persian Gulf—work that will be parceled out to two other Pritzker holdings.

    via Crain’s Chicago Business.

    I’m sorry but am I the only one thinking Arrested Development?

  • United Continental Returns TIF Money

    United Continental Holdings, parent of United Airlines, is giving back $5.6 million in City of Chicago tax incentives.

    The incentive money is tied to United’s 2007 move to its corporate headquarters at 77 W. Wacker Drive, along the Chicago River.  Because of United’s recent plans to move out of that building and consolidate its headquarters into Willis Tower where it has other operations, the airline said it was “appropriate” to return the money. However, it wasn’t necessary.

    City officials said United had so far fulfilled its obligations for receiving the money, such as maintaining a minimum employment level in the 77 W. Wacker Drive building, and that the incentives would have traveled with the company as it moved several blocks down Wacker Drive to Willis Tower.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    Well Kudos to United Continental!!

    As you (should already) know, TIF’s are evil.  United’s actions are commendable.  Abolishing TIF’s; putting as much money back into the general tax rolls as possible is the goal.  Giving the money  back to the TIF shows that it’s not needed.  That’s a great first step in getting rid of the TIF altogether.

  • Companies Closing or Laying-off Since Obama Won

    An incredible complication of stories over at TheBlaze.com.

    Here’s a partial list of layoffs announced since the election:

    Energizer – laying off 1,500 employees

    Exide Technologies – laying off 150 employees

    Westinghouse – laid off another 50 employees

    Research in Motion Limited – laid off about 200 employees

    Lightyear Network Solutions – laid off more than a dozen

    Providence Journal – laid off 23 employees

    Hawker Beechcraft – laying off 240 employees

    Boeing – laying off 30% of executives at Boeing Defense, Space & Security

    CVPH Medical Center – laid off 17 employees

    US Cellular – laying off 980, 640 in the Chicago area

    Momentive Performance Materials – laying off 150

    Rocketdyne – laid off about 100

    Brake Parts – laying off 75

    Vestas Wind Systems – reducing headcount by 3,000

    Husqvarna – laying off 600

    Center for Hospice New York – laying off 40

    Bristol-Meyers – laying of 480

    OCE North America – laying off 135

    West Ridge Mine –

    In its statement, UtahAmerican Energy blames the Obama administration for instituting policies that will close down “204 American coal-fired power plants by 2014″ and for drastically reducing the market for coal.

    United Blood Services Gulf –

    United Blood Services Gulf South region, the non-profit blood service provider for much of south Louisiana and Mississippi, will lay off approximately 10 percent of its workforce. It was a hard decision to make according to Susan Begnaud, Regional Center Director for the Gulf South region.

    Insane right?  Here’s a partial list of businesses closing announced since the election:

    Caterpillar Inc. will close its plant in Owatonna Minn.

    Mount Pleasant’s Albrecht Sentry Foods

    The Target store at Manassas Mall Va.

    Millennium Academy in Wake Forest NC

    Target Closing Kissimmee FL Location

    The Andover Gift Shop in Andover MA

    Grand Union Family Markets Closing Storrs Location CT

    Movie Scene Milford Location NH

    Update: TE Connectivity Closing Greensboro Plant – 620 Layoffs Expected

    Gomer’s Fried Chicken in South Kansas City

    Kmart in Homer Glen

    Fresh Market on Pine Street in Burlington

    AGC Glass North America to permanently close its Blue Ridge Plant in Kingsport Tenn

    The Target store at Platte and Academy in Colorado Springs

    The Roses store on Reynold Road in Winston-Salem NC

    Bost Harley-Davidson at 46th Avenue North and Delaware Ave. in West Nashville TN

    Townsend Booksellers in Oakland

    The Kmart store in Parkway Plaza off University Drive in Durham NC – 79 Jobs Lost

     

    Where’s Chris Matthews on this story?  Where the rest of the media on this story?

  • Craigslist Ads Seek Election Night Sex

    As Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make one final, last-ditch effort to win the presidency, some Washington, D.C. and surrounding area folks are using Craigslist to make one last-ditch effort to find an election night companion for some adult entertainment.

    Here are some of the best lines from personal ads seeking to relieve some stress from this seemingly never-ending campaign, “grown folks style”:

    via The Daily Caller.

    A tad more prurient than I usually but it’s too funny to pass up.

    Click and enjoy.

  • US Out Of The Top 10 In World Prosperity Index

    The Legatum Prosperity Index assessed and ranked the prosperity of 142 countries based on eight sub-categories: economy, entrepreneurship and opportunity, health, governance, education, safety and security, personal freedom, and social capital.

    via Business Insider.

    We are now 12th.

    Embarrassing.  No wonder people are leaving in droves.

  • Socialism Hurts the Poor

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnX7TNFIELg?rel=0]

  • Forget FEMA, Get Walmart in There!!

    In the wake of hurricane Sandy we’re hearing stories of hungry New Yorkers being forced to dumpster dive for food.  This is in addition to the stories of looters dressing like Con Edison workers to get access to houses, elected officials expressing their frustration with the Red Cross,  state troopers being deployed to N.J. gas stations to help keep the peace, and Staten Island residents pleading for food.  It’s safe to say that the government is not really all that organized when it come to preparing for a disaster.

    With all the Sandy coverage over the last week  I was reminded that in 2011 the Missouri, Mississippi, and Souris Rivers all flooded in North Dakota.  The town of Minot had to be nearly completely evacuated.  Lest there be any doubt, homes and cars were simply washed away.  Thankfully, not one person in North Dakota was forced to dumpster dive for food.  … But I digress.

    Where the government sucks, the private sector rocks.  Here’s a few stories over the years about Walmart and strawberry Pop-Tarts:

    Survival gear and canned goods weren’t the only go-to categories. “We didn’t know in the past that strawberry Pop-Tarts increase in sales, like seven times their normal sales rate, ahead of a hurricane,” a Wal-Mart rep says. “And the pre-hurricane top-selling item was beer.”

    via Adweek. (11/14/2004)

    The Only Lifeline was the Walmart

    Jessica Lewis couldn’t believe her eyes. Her entire community–Waveland, Miss., a Gulf Coast resort town of 7,000–had been laid waste by the storm, and Lewis, co-manager of the local Wal-Mart, was assessing the damage to her store. The fortresslike big box on Highway 90 still stood. But Katrina’s floodwaters had surged through the entrance, knocking over refrigerators full of frozen pizza, shelves of back-to-school items, racks of lingerie. Trudging through nearly two feet of water in the fading light, Lewis thought, How are we ever going to clean up this mess?

    That quickly became the least of Lewis’s worries. As the sun set on Waveland, a nightmarish scene unfolded on Highway 90. She saw neighbors wandering around with bloody feet because they had fled their homes with no shoes. Some wore only underwear. “It broke my heart to see them like this,” Lewis recalls. “These were my kid’s teachers. Some of them were my teachers. They were the parents of the kids on my kids’ sports teams. They were my neighbors. They were my customers.”

    Lewis felt there was only one thing to do. She had her stepbrother clear a path through the mess in the store with a bulldozer. Then she salvaged everything she could and handed it out in the parking lot. She gave socks and underwear to shivering Waveland police officers who had climbed into trees to escape the rising water. She handed out shoes to her barefoot neighbors and diapers for their babies. She gave people bottled water to drink and sausages, stored high in the warehouse, that hadn’t been touched by the flood. She even broke into the pharmacy and got insulin and drugs for AIDS patients. “This is the right thing to do,” she recalls thinking. “I hope my bosses aren’t going to have a problem with that.”  …

    And if that wasn’t enough:

    At the urging of CEO Lee Scott, its truckers hauled $3 million of supplies to the ravaged zone, arriving days before the Federal Emergency Management Agency in many cases. The company also contributed $17 million in cash to relief efforts. Wal-Mart also demonstrated how efficient it can be. As of Sept. 16, all but 13 of the facilities that Katrina had shut down were up and running again. The company had located 97% of the employees displaced by the storm and offered them jobs at any Wal-Mart operation in the country.via CNN Money. (10/03/2005)

    More recently:

    Walmart and its warehouse store Sam’s Club managed to send 7,000 generators to its stores in the Northeast that were in the path of superstorm Sandy at the last minute, reports Shelly Banjo at the Wall Street Journal.

    It was quite a feat, but how did they make it happen?

    Thousands of truck drivers from Walmart’s supply chain have been scurrying around the Northeast to get things where they’re needed.

    They’ve been constantly going between Walmart’s huge distribution centers and the big box stores.

    “We kick into emergency mode,” one driver in the middle of a 14-hour shift tells the WSJ. “There’s loads of rain, store managers are anxious asking us when their next shipment of water is coming in … But we know it’s up to us to get water and other supplies to the stores and customers as fast as possible.”

    Customers had emptied the shelves by Monday night, so employees from all over the region came into New Jersey to get the stores running by 7 AM the next morning.

    And, like home improvement chains Home Depot and Lowe’s, Walmart has years of experience responding to disasters. It sets up charging stations and stocks up on the right items beforehand for the hundreds that come by in the storm’s immediate aftermath.

    via Business Insider. (11/01/2012)

    You see, this is what the Walmarts, the Home Depots, and Lowe’s do — LOGISTICS!!  (It’s a lot like a UPS commercial.)  FEMA does not do logistics; and frankly they’re terrible at it.  After everyone’s got some dry clothes and had something to eat, FEMA comes in and passes out checks.  That’s what FEMA’s good at.

    Good luck to those eating from the dumpster.  Maybe if you were just a little more prepared self reliant you’d be at home under a blanket listening to the radio and having cup-o-soup and a roll instead.  Maybe you will learn from this experience that the government cannot take care of you the same way that you can take care of you.  Maybe.

  • Intellectual Flight from China

    Like hundreds of thousands of Chinese who leave each year, she was driven by an overriding sense that she could do better outside China. Despite China’s tremendous economic successes in recent years, she was lured by Australia’s healthier environment, robust social services and the freedom to start a family in a country that guarantees religious freedoms.

    “It’s very stressful in China — sometimes I was working 128 hours a week for my auditing company,” Ms. Chen said in her Beijing apartment a few hours before leaving. “And it will be easier raising my children as Christians abroad. It is more free in Australia.”

    via NYTimes.com.

    No story in the NYT about the intellectual flight from the U.S.

    Funny how that works.  Guess that’s not news worthy.

     

     

  • Dem Governors Force Ins. Premiums Higher

    Tens of thousands of homeowners who suffered wind and storm damage this week will get financial relief from rulings by several governors that insurers must treat Sandy as a tropical storm and not a hurricane.  …

    “Whether they call it a hurricane or something else, that translates into the percentage I have to pay to get my apartment redone,” she said before Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that homeowners would not have to pay hurricane deductibles. “I had no idea. It’s crazy, and it’s going to cost so much money.”Homeowners’ insurance policies in coastal areas almost always include a provision that the deductible will be higher when damage is caused by a hurricane than a lesser windstorm. The difference can be steep — in the thousands of dollars — because the regular deductible is a flat dollar amount, while the hurricane deductible is connected to the replacement value of the house.

    via NYTimes.com.

    Right about now dozens of actuaries at all the big insurance companies tossed a huge pile of paper in the air and started to bang their head against the wall.

    The title of this story at the NYT is “Governors Promote Lower Deductibles for Homeowners” which is one way of looking at it.  The other way is to say, “Governors pander for votes, interfere with the insurance system, annual premiums going to go up up up.”

    You don’t get to negotiate your insurance policy terms after the fact.  If you wanted a lower deductible then you could have purchased insurance with a lower deductible.  If you wanted hurricane replacement value insurance then you could have bought that as well.  But if you went cheap and bought the typical policy… then you got the typical policy.

    So when the insurance companies start running the numbers they will figure out how much more they’re going to pay out as a result of Gov. Cuomo’s unilateral action.  Then they divide that amount over all the policies in the area over 5 or 10 years.

    So take your joy now.  Because when you get your insurance bill next year something tells me the NYT will not be writing a story about how you can’t afford to pay it.