Loading ...I hear you and, yes, I know exactly what you mean. Good luck and be careful. Remember that all the market wants to do is to take all of our money.
JBI
PS - Needless to say, I was sweating it a bit over the last 24 hours with the SMH and INTC puts I shorted last Thursday and Friday, but feeling good right now! 
. Retailers, Semis and Bankers should do well now for awhile and for a change.
And from Japan………
“Japan’s trade surplus down 20.9% in Dec, up 37% in 2007 by V. Phani Kumar
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Japan’s trade surplus dropped 20.9% in December from a year-ago for the second month in a row as growth in imports outpaced exports. Data released by the ministry of finance Thursday showed that trade surplus for the month shrank to 877.87 billion yen ($8.28 billion) from 1.11 trillion yen a year ago, as exports to the U.S. declined 4.5% during the month while imports grew 3.4%. Japan’s surplus for 2007, however, jumped 37% after registering a negative growth in the previous two years, led by higher exports in the earlier months.”
~ ~ ~
JBI
I agree that we’re due for a good short covering counter rally, but I won’t say the worse is past us. I closed a bunch of my SM shorts today and I threw it fairly long the PMs yesterday on the whack job. I still think it’s a bear market we’re witnessing and I’ll look to enter shorts again from materially higher levels in a few weeks. That’s the plan; subject to change on a dime if you know what i mean.
Star—- bucks … banned by federal reserve ..11 sold at discount for 10 star-bucks
By MITCH WEISS,
AP
Posted: 2008-01-23 18:17:56
Filed Under: Nation News, Science News
LAKE NORMAN, N.C. (Jan. 23) - Nuclear reactors across the Southeast could be forced to throttle back or temporarily shut down later this year because drought is drying up the rivers and lakes that supply power plants with the awesome amounts of cooling water they need to operate.
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Jason E. Miczek, AP
With a lack of precipitation causing drought-like conditions throughout the Southeast, many nuclear reactors in the region may be forced to temporarily shut down since they need massive amounts of cooling water from lakes and rivers to operate. The McGuire Nuclear Station in Lake Norman, N.C., above, is one of the reactors in jeopardy.
Utility officials say such shutdowns probably wouldn’t result in blackouts. But they could lead to shockingly higher electric bills for millions of Southerners, because the region’s utilities may be forced to buy expensive replacement power from other energy companies.
Already, there has been one brief, drought-related shutdown, at a reactor in Alabama over the summer.
“Water is the nuclear industry’s Achilles’ heel,” said Jim Warren, executive director of N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, an environmental group critical of nuclear power. “You need a lot of water to operate nuclear plants.” He added: “This is becoming a crisis.”
An Associated Press analysis of the nation’s 104 nuclear reactors found that 24 are in areas experiencing the most severe levels of drought. All but two are built on the shores of lakes and rivers and rely on submerged intake pipes to draw billions of gallons of water for use in cooling and condensing steam after it has turned the plants’ turbines.
Because of the yearlong dry spell gripping the region, the water levels on those lakes and rivers are getting close to the minimums set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Over the next several months, the water could drop below the intake pipes altogether. Or the shallow water could become too hot under the sun to use as coolant.
“If water levels get to a certain point, we’ll have to power it down or go off line,” said Robert Yanity, a spokesman for South Carolina Electric & Gas Co., which operates the Summer nuclear plant outside Columbia, S.C.
Extending or lowering the intake pipes is not as simple at it sounds and wouldn’t necessarily solve the problem. The pipes are usually made of concrete, can be up to 18 feet in diameter and can extend up to a mile. Modifications to the pipes and pump systems, and their required backups, can cost millions and take several months. If the changes are extensive, they require an NRC review that itself can take months or longer.
Even if a quick extension were possible, the pipes can only go so low. It they are put too close to the bottom of a drought-shrunken lake or river, they can suck up sediment, fish and other debris that could clog the system.
An estimated 3 million customers of the four commercial utilities with reactors in the drought zone get their power from nuclear energy. Also, the quasi-governmental Tennessee Valley Authority, which sells electricity to 8.7 million people in seven states through a network of distributors, generates 30 percent of its power at nuclear plants.
While rain and some snow fell recently, water levels across the region are still well below normal. Most of the severely affected area would need more than a foot of rain in the next three months — an unusually large amount — to ease the drought and relieve pressure on the nuclear plants. And the long-term forecast calls for more dry weather.
At Progress Energy Inc., which operates four reactors in the drought zone, officials warned in November that the drought could force it to shut down its Harris reactor near Raleigh, according to documents obtained by the AP. The water in Harris Lake stands at 218.5 feet — just 3½ feet above the limit set in the plant’s license.
Lake Norman near Charlotte is down to 93.7 feet — less than a foot above the minimum set in the license for Duke Energy Corp.’s McGuire nuclear plant. The lake was at 98.2 feet just a year ago.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. We know we haven’t gotten enough rain, so we can’t rule anything out,” said Duke spokeswoman Rita Sipe. “But based on what we know now, we don’t believe we’ll have to shut down the plants.”
During Europe’s brutal 2006 heat wave, French, Spanish and German utilities were forced to shut down some of their nuclear plants and reduce power at others because of low water levels — some for as much as a week.
If a prolonged shutdown like that were to happen in the Southeast, utilities in the region might have to buy electricity on the wholesale market, and the high costs could be passed on to customers.
“Currently, nuclear power costs between $5 to $7 to produce a megawatt hour,” said Daniele Seitz, an energy analyst with New York-based Dahlman Rose & Co. “It would cost 10 times that amount that if you had to buy replacement power — especially during the summer.”
At a nuclear plant, water is also used to cool the reactor core and to create the steam that drives the electricity-generating turbines. But those are comparatively small amounts of water, circulating in what are known as closed systems — that is, the water is constantly reused. Water for those two purposes is not threatened by the drought.
Instead, the drought could choke off the billions of gallons of water that pass through the region’s reactors every day to cool used steam. Water sucked from lakes and rivers passes through pipes, which act as a condenser, turning the steam back into water. The outside water never comes into direct contact with the steam or any nuclear material.
At some plants — those with tall, Three Mile Island-style cooling towers — a lot of the water travels up the tower and is lost to evaporation. At other plants, almost all of the water is returned to the lake or river, though significantly hotter because of the heat absorbed from the steam.
Progress spokeswoman Julie Hahn said the Harris reactor, for example, sucks up 33 million gallons a day, with 17 million gallons lost to evaporation via its big cooling towers. Duke’s McGuire plant draws in more than 2 billion gallons a day, but most of it is pumped back to its source.
Nuclear plants are subject to restrictions on the temperature of the discharged coolant, because hot water can kill fish or plants or otherwise disrupt the environment. Those restrictions, coupled with the drought, led to the one-day shutdown Aug. 16 of a TVA reactor at Browns Ferry in Alabama.
The water was low on the Tennessee River and had become warmer than usual under the hot sun. By the time it had been pumped through the Browns Ferry plant, it had become hotter still — too hot to release back into the river, according to the TVA. So the utility shut down a reactor.
David Lochbaum, nuclear project safety director for the Union of Concerned Scientists, warned that nuclear plants are not designed to take the wear and tear of repeatedly stopping and restarting.
“Nuclear plants are best when they flatline — when they stay up and running or shut down for long periods to refuel,” Lochbaum said. “It wears out piping, valves, motors.”
Both the industry and NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said plants can shut down and restart without problems.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2008-01-23 16:42:46
a small drip, 50 little creamers, next thing you know you got a latte for $1.00. 
a small drip … (no PUN) a buck… five refills no cost … burma shave ….
TOKYO, Jan 24 (Reuters) - The government should introduce tax exemptions on dividend income and capital gains, a draft of proposals being debated by members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Thursday showed.
The group is worried about the impact on Japan of the subprime crisis and growing fears of a U.S. recession, which have sent global stock markets sliding. Japan’s Nikkei stock average .N225 has fallen 15 percent so far this year to around 13,000.
The draft also included a call for the Bank of Japan to cut interest rates back to zero and return to quantitative easing, a policy of force feeding banks with cash.
The government should also consider establishing a sovereign wealth fund, the group said in the draft document. A group of LDP legislators, including a former financial services agency minister, Yuji Yamamoto, are meeting to debate the proposals. They plan to later submit them to Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura.
The proposed tax exemptions on capital gains and dividend income would stay in place until the Nikkei recovered to 18,000, according to the draft.
Other tax breaks proposed included ones relating to capital spending and tax reductions on income tax when there is a wage rise. (Reporting by Reiji Murai)
Mebby no Soup Bawwww! And now not even Soup for me?
But just looksee what Ment gets !!
SEATTLE (AP) — Faced with growing competition from cheaper rivals, Starbucks Corp. is selling small cups of drip coffee for $1 with free refills as part of a test in its hometown.
finance.myway.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt.jsp?section=news&feed=ap&src=601&news_id=ap-d8ubtu680&date=20080123
……..up 7% !!!! The bottom’s IN, soee.
Watcha thinking, buddy? That is a classic reversal we had today in the DJIA, S & P, etc…….
And RNO, did you see the Hang ‘Em Index go UP 10% last night. This is going to be tricky here for traders. The most vicious and powerful rallies in history have come in bear markets, courtesy of those short. I don’t know. Just thinking out loud here. (I know, that’s dangerous! ) Have we just seen nothing more than an ABC correction in all these markets for the past few months and now they are getting ready to explode once again to the upside? At the very least we should see a 3 wave rally now. Have you gotten any new RPW signals in these markets? TIA!
JBI
15,053,700………………………..
No SOUP for you! Before they get thru with this, the package will only be for banks, homebuilders, mortgage companies, monoline insurance and those citizens and non-citizens who paid no tax. That way, those who actually paid taxes into the system can feel good about giving to the future of our country! Now don’t you feel better! 
Everybody else getting a handout these days.
I want another Eagle. Paid by the ‘gubbimint,’ of course.
errr, make that TWO. One for the Mrs.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
President Bush and lawmakers from both parties aim to quickly inject capital into the economy, which has been hit hard by turmoil in the housing and credit markets, by extending the timeframe under which companies are allowed to retroactively deduct net operating losses against earlier profits.
It would be the second time in recent history that the government has amended this accounting tool, known as a “tax loss carryback,” to stimulate the economy in the face of a recession.
Under the proposal, one of several emergency tax breaks being considered for corporate America, companies would for two years be allowed to carry back losses incurred in 2007 and 2008 against profits accrued over the previous five years, instead of the usual two year timeframe.
Some of the biggest beneficiaries would be Wall Street banks such as Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns Cos. Homebuilders, which have been punched by the housing slump after years of go-go profits, also stand to benefit. In fact, any company that is now struggling following years of healthy profits (that pumped up their tax bills) could in theory benefit.
Extending the carryback period “provides financial support for (corporate) taxpayers who are experiencing large losses,” said Leslie Samuels, an assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy in the Clinton administration, now a partner at the law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in New York.
Randy Paschke, chairman of the accounting department at Wayne State University in Detroit, said investment banks’ write-offs from mortgage-related losses are so large, “they probably wouldn’t get all their taxes back with just a two-year carryback.”
Here’s how a tax loss carryback works:
Say a company reports a net operating loss of $100 in 2008 and had combined profit of $100 in 2006 and 2007. Under the current carryback regime, it could claim a $0 net profit and would get a refund of the $35 it paid in tax on the $100 profit, at the corporate tax rate of 35 percent. If the carryback period was extended to five years, the company could also claim refunds on taxes paid on profits in the years 2003-2007.
Net operating loss refers to the amount of expenses that exceed income in a tax year. A profitable company can still record a net operating loss.
The tax loss carryback provision is a morsel of the roughly $145-billion economic stimulus plan being negotiated by the administration and Congress, which would include rebates of several hundred dollars for individuals and couples, and so-called bonus depreciation to allow companies to deduct 50 percent of business investments they make this year. Democratic lawmakers are calling for boosts in unemployment benefits, food stamp payments and the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled.
Whether it survives the negotiating process and final cut as legislation will depend, as with the other elements of the plan, on the interplay in Congress and potential horse-trading with the White House.
biz.yahoo.com/ap/080123/economic_stimulus_business_boon.html?.v=1
watched your Cramer u-tube with John Paul and came away wondering if I may be schizophrenic, as I’ve always categorized the guy as a (not so) secret agent for the GSucks Group.
Well, as you’ve said - wonders never cease -
Cheers frr
Re: “My favorite eagle
…from my first silver dollar.”
That’s a beauty.
Congrats!
JBI
PS - Just got in and am trying to catch up with it all. I see it was another boring day on Wall Street. {G}
Be back later!
In the article it mentions several writers we pretty well all know re: their opinion on resource stocks due to current affairs. It also mentions about physical gold …. but there is not one reference about holding gold/silver stocks. Also, Mr. Swanson mentions in his very last sentence that he will be buying now that he has seen and had time to digest all the “happenings” of late ….. but, he doesn’t state what he will be buying (not looking for company names here as he charges for that) …. in your opinion, do you think he means precious metal stocks or general market stocks ??