Besides Water on Chemicals, Helps If the Fertilzer Plant Is Upfront

…about what’s inside.

Texas Fertilizer Plant Didn’t Heed Disclosure Rules Before Blast

The fertilizer plant that exploded on Wednesday, obliterating part of a small Texas town and killing at least 14 people, had last year been storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Yet a person familiar with DHS operations said the company that owns the plant, West Fertilizer, did not tell the agency about the potentially explosive fertilizer as it is required to do, leaving one of the principal regulators of ammonium nitrate—which can also be used in bomb-making—unaware of any danger there.

Fertilizer plants and depots must report to the DHS when they hold 400 lb (180 kg) or more of the substance. Filings this year with the Texas Department of State Health Services, which weren’t shared with DHS, show the plant had 270 tons of it on hand last year.

Sweet Mary, Mother of God.

That’d make a difference in how Big the Bang is.

That Screeching You Hear Is More Brakes

…screaming as they protest the sudden deceleration.

NY Fed Manufacturing Growth Slows Sharply in April

The pace of manufacturing growth in New York state slowed sharply in April to its lowest level in five months, the New York Federal Reserve said in a report on Monday.

The New York Fed’s “Empire State” general business conditions index dropped to 6.56 from 20.21M in March, far below economists’ expectations for 18.00. It was the lowest level since last November.

Oh, not to worry, lads! TWO geniuses in charge there. Obama AND Cuomo have it all well in hand, so back to your hives!

On Twitter, They Are Arguing If K-Mart Just Made

…the greatest commercial eh-vah.

“I just shipped my drawers!“

Sort of slipped those classy Martha Stewart bonds, but what the hell, eh?

Stupid Company Tricks

I don’t know if JC Penney’s is salvageable.

I do know that any company that gives someone a clause like this when they hire him

Johnson will likely take a hefty paycheck with him. Recent regulatory filings show that he was guaranteed a $150 million payout if he resigned or was fired, Business Insider reports.

deserves to fail, and any Board that signs off on such a ridiculous package should be publicly flogged.

Dear Mr. President ~ May I Reiterate My Earnest, Heartfelt Sentiments Yet Again?

You SUCK, Skippy. Please believe I mean this with ALL my heart.

Why US Jobs Market Is Going to Get a Lot Worse

…Weakening labor demand, not rising layoffs, is the key problem with the U.S. economy, according to Shepherdson. The weakening demand is mostly coming from smaller firms that are below the radar of the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) survey, which reflects national factory activity.

The National Federation of Small Business job survey has done a decent job in foreshadowing movements in payrolls in recent years, according to Shepherdson, and it’s this report—due to be released on Tuesday—that’s warning of troubled waters ahead, he said.

“While actual job creation appears to be rising, plans to create jobs [in March] took a dive, falling 4 points to a net zero percent of small employers who plan to increase total employment. It seems that the stamina for growth is waning,” William C. Dunkelberg, chief economist for the NFIB said in a press release last week.

Man, I Can’t STAND This Guy

His cartoony 5% give back, while he keeps his vacays, rockstar parties, weekend golf outings, fashion icon wife’s jet-set destinations and kids’ ski or Bahama Island trips and constantly LYING PIEHOLE running about how fucked up I am, make me want to puke.

You balled THIS up, Skippy.

US Job Creation Plunges, but Rate Drops to 7.6%

…Moreover, the drop in the jobless rate was little more than a statistical anomaly, with the labor-force participation rate tumbling to a 34-year low of 63.3 percent. However, a broader measure of unemployment that counts the discouraged and underemployed also fell, declining to 13.8 percent from February’s 14.3 percent.

The actual level of employment dropped by 206,000 and the number of Americans considered still in the labor force tumbled by 496,000.

“Having such a disappointing figure in March will have a volcanic negative impact on sentiment in critical economic areas, such as housing,” said Todd Schoenberger, managing partner at LandColt Capital. “Wall Street will not be happy, and are certain to punish stocks today.”

Oddly Enough This Didn’t Rate A Mention On CNN

I can’t imagine why

The trustee for the now-defunct U.S. brokerage firm MF Global, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, issued a 124-page investigatory report blasting former MF Global CEO and Obama bundler Jon Corzine for “negligent conduct,” employing trading strategies with lax oversight, and surpassing board-approved limits for European trades.

The report says the vaporization of $1.6 billion of MF Global customer money was largely the fault of Corzine.

“The risky business strategy engineered and executed by Corzine and other officers and their failure to improve the company’s inadequate systems and procedures so that the company could accommodate that business strategy contributed to the company’s collapse,” said the report.

Thank goodness for Dan Collins.

My Ebola is in Mourning

Disney Shuts Down LucasArts, Cancels Star Wars 1313 And Star Wars: First Assault

Disney has laid off the staff of LucasArts and cancelled all current projects.

Staff were informed of the shutdown this morning, according to a reliable Kotaku source. Some 150 people were laid off, and both of the studio’s current projects—Star Wars: First Assault and Star Wars 1313—were cancelled. Disney will still use the LucasArts name to license games, but the studio is no more.

Publicly, Disney is saying their current games could be licensed out to a different publisher or developer, but according to our source, that’s unlikely. Our source says Lucas has pursued the option for “one or both games,” but nothing happened. “With the teams now basically being dispersed I think both games are effectively dead forever,” our source said.

A second source also told Kotaku this afternoon that the chances of Lucas licensing out 1313 are very slim. The odds are “effectively zero,” the source said.

And there is a black, black cloud over Tucson as he attempts to absorb this.

Sheesh. I can hardly believe it myself. Lucas Arts has been almost as much a part of our lives as the Brat has. In the early 90’s, when he was a young lad and world famous Jedi, breaking into the online games to design starships, make custom skins for people and DOS bombing miscreants who cheated (not to mention win copious amounts of tournaments), the folks at Lucas Arts liked what his evil, creative, self-taught little brain could do, going so far as to offer him a spot at Skywalker Ranch for his freshman summer of college, if he [insert DUM DUM DUMMMM music] “kept his grades up”. If only he’d been a senior in high school instead of going into his sophmore year. So much for that carrot with his “oooh, something shiney/did-that-on-to-the-next-thing” personality, and any hopes we had of living off of our kid like any self-respecting Lohan or Jackson parent went ‘poof’.

My only consolation is that Ebola ~ never one to mince words ~ would have been canned the second he heard about JarJar Binks anyway, so it’s not like it would have been a long term thing.

But, still…

It Would Be Easier to List What the Administration Has Delivered “On Time” Than What Is Tardy, N’est Pas?

As it is, this little laggard of a deliverable is certainly…awkward.

ObamaCare in Trouble? Exchange provision delayed, as lawmakers push to repeal another

Parts of ObamaCare are starting to fray, even before full implementation.

The Obama administration now says a special system of exchanges designed to make it easier for small businesses to provide insurance will be delayed an entire year — to 2015.

“Lots of small businesses struggle with providing insurance for their workers so this was supposed to facilitate it and make it easier for small business to do this,” said Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. “It was a huge portion of the sale job. When they passed the law in 2010 there were many senators and members of Congress who were saying ‘I am doing this because it’s going to help small businesses.'”

The exchanges were designed to give workers a range of choices supported by dollars from their employers. But now they will have only one choice until 2015, which could mean they can’t shop for insurance that includes their current providers.

Capretta said the administration is “way” behind schedule.

So you might not get to keep your current insurance (AS PROMISED), even before they have anything to replace it with that you might (or might not) prefer. Way to go, El Presidento!

I found myself nodding in agreement with Jim Geraghty’s Morning Jolt assertion the other day ~ Obama wasn’t frogmarched out of office for the simple fact that the horrible, miserable, ill-considered, unimplementable provisions of his monstrosity of a Health Care takeover had yet to kick-in, and start to severely discomfit the very people who had bought into and voted for him, ergo, IT. So, no harm, no foul, check the box for Barack.

NOW, some months after his little paw has safely made it in the air to assume the office yet again, the PRICE we are all paying for the money-for-nothing types is starting to come into focus and the mewling is beginning. Oh, STOP, Juicy Couture, making your employees part-timers, you brutes! NEWSFLASH, girlfriends! You’re on the ass-end of the trend:

Part-Time Workforce Surges Ahead Of ObamaCare Mandate: Gallup

The shift to part-time work accelerated in February ahead of a key, midyear ObamaCare deadline, Gallup reported on Monday.

Gallup’s survey found that the percentage of part-time workers as a share of the overall labor force surged to 20.6%, the highest level in data going back to the start of 2010 — just as the employment recovery began.

The report provides the most dramatic evidence yet of the impact the 2010 health law is now beginning to have on employers of modest-wage workers and — even more importantly — on their workers.

Catch that? “In FEBRUARY”? And who already had secured a second shot at his gig? Yeah. I like this quote, too ~ goes to my earlier post:

“Policymakers should not be misled by the surge in part-time jobs in early 2013,” noted Gallup Chief Economist Dennis Jacobe. “The economic reality is that the U.S. job situation worsened in February.“

Oh, SNAP.

So your hours are cut to part-time, you could very well lose what insurance you have right now, leaving NO access to any insurance for the forseable future because the guy you voted for doesn’t have a plan yet, and the plan he and his botoxed witch sister passed lets all this happen FIRST, without making sure you’re covered in the meantime.

But they had to pass it to find that out. Let the pissing and mewling begin.

ME-owwwww.

TRUMPeting the 3% Factory Orders BOOM on the Telly Last Night

…they forgot to mention it was thanks to a sharp uptick in the “volatile” aircraft orders category.

Factory orders rise, boosted by aircraft

New orders for factory goods rose in February but a gauge of planned business spending slipped, suggesting factory activity continued to expand at a modest pace.

The Commerce Department on Tuesday said orders for manufactured goods climbed 3.0 percent. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast orders advancing 2.9 percent.

…Gains in new orders were modest when stripping out more volatile categories.

Orders excluding transportation equipment increased just 0.3 percent.

TWO additional new Boeing airplane orders caused a “95.1%” increase and sent that rate skyrocketing. (Say what?) Pull them out and it’s a big, fat “meh”.

Why screw up a chirpy headline, right?

Today’s survey of your burgers and fries folks isn’t going so well, though:

Service Sector Growth Weakest in Seven Months: ISM

The pace of growth in the vast U.S. services sector slowed in March to the lowest level in seven months as new orders and employment measures pulled back, an industry report showed on Wednesday.

The Institute for Supply Management said its services index fell to 54.4 last month from 56 in February, falling short of economists’ forecasts for 55.8. It was the weakest reading since August.

…The forward-looking new orders index slipped to 54.6 from 58.2, while employment dropped to its lowest level since November at 53.3 from 57.2.

And those people are mostly PART-TIMERS, right? (Well, they WILL be after the ObamaCare they voted for really starts to stick it to them.) But they won’t be giving up that “Apple pie with those fries?” job just yet, I’m thinking, because the JobsJobsJobs SOOPER-GEEN-EE-US in the White House has better days planned for all of us, doncha know.

Work Slowdown? ADP Says Job Creation Slowing

Private-sector job creation was considerably less than expected in March, indicating that the labor market’s improvements could begin stalling.

A joint report Wednesday from ADP and Moody’s Analytics showed 158,000 new positions, well below economist expectations of 200,000.

Expect another “pivot/Crazy Ivan” to J.O.B.S. any minute now! Fer SURE!

(I’d just let “Shotgun Joe” know before you do. It’s better to be safe than sorry.)

We Are Saved! Cars Sales Are Up!

This is proof, PROOF, that all you H8TRS were wrong wrong wrong and that our Wise Dear Leader Obama is the greatest economic genius EVUH.

Or maybe not

(Reuters) – Thanks largely to the U.S. Federal Reserve, Jeffrey Nelson was able to put up a shotgun as down payment on a car.

Money was tight last year for the school-bus driver and neighborhood constable in Jasper, Alabama, a beaten-down town of 14,000 people. One car had already been repossessed. Medical bills were piling up.

And still, though Nelson’s credit history was an unhappy one, local car dealer Maloy Chrysler Dodge Jeep had no problem arranging a $10,294 loan from Wall Street-backed subprime lender Exeter Finance Corp so Nelson and his wife could buy a charcoal gray 2007 Suzuki Grand Vitara.

All the Nelsons had to do was cover the $1,000 down payment. For most of that amount, Maloy accepted Jeffrey’s 12-gauge Mossberg & Sons shotgun, valued at about $700 online.

In the ensuing months, Nelson and his wife divorced, he moved into a mobile home, and, unable to cover mounting debts, he filed for personal bankruptcy. His ex-wife, who assumed responsibility for the $324-a-month car payment, said she will probably file for bankruptcy in a couple of months.

Subprime loans as the primary force behind our economic recovery.

What could possibly go wrong?

The Exeter loan Nelson and his wife got, for example, carried a 21.95-percent rate. Exeter, which is majority-owned by private-equity giant Blackstone Group, assumes that one in four borrowers will default on their loan, according to an Exeter investor pitch book reviewed by Reuters.

The government is lending them the money at basically 0%.

As in zero.

It’s the Federal Reserve that’s made it all possible.

MONEY, MONEY EVERYWHERE

In its efforts to jumpstart the economy, the U.S. central bank has undertaken since November 2008 three rounds of bond-buying and cut short-term interest rates effectively to zero. The purchases of mostly Treasury and mortgage securities – known as quantitative easing and nicknamed QE1, QE2 and QE3 – have injected trillions of dollars into the financial system.

The Fed isn’t alone. Central banks from Tokyo to Frankfurt to London are running their printing presses overtime. The heavily indebted advanced economies are trying to reflate their way out of the prolonged bout of crisis and recession that crystallized with the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc in 2008. That crisis, of course, followed a nearly decade-long cycle of easy money and exotic financial products that itself began with the collapse of the tech-mania bubble of the late 1990s.

The Fed’s program, while aimed at bolstering the U.S. housing and labor markets, has also steered billions of dollars into riskier, more speculative corners of the economy. That’s because, with low interest rates pinching yields on their traditional investments, insurance companies, hedge funds and other institutional investors hunger for riskier, higher-yielding securities – bonds backed by subprime auto loans, for instance.

This is what this pathetic ‘recovery’ has been built on: cards, smoke, mirrors and fluff.

Oh and massive debt for our children.

Barf

[Insert Loud Braking Noise]

Shocka.

US Manufacturing Growth Slows, Misses Forecast: ISM

The pace of expansion in the U.S. manufacturing sector unexpectedly slowed in March, according to an industry report released on Monday.

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said its index of national factory activity fell to 51.3 from 54.2 the month before. The reading was shy of expectations of 54.2 according to a Reuters poll of economists.

…The new orders index fell to 51.4 from 57.8. The prices paid gauge slid to 54.5 from 61.5, compared to expectations of 59.8.

Oh, “expectations”, like “hope” and “change”, can be such troublesome things.

I Won’t Say “Unexpectedly”

I’ll just say, “Well, I’ll be a Monkey’s Uncle!”

Not-So-Great News for Jobless Claims and GDP

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, but probably not enough to suggest the labor market recovery was taking a step back.

Also, the U.S. economy expanded at a sluggish pace in the fourth quarter although a big gain in business investment and higher exports of services led the government to push up its previous estimate for growth.

Gross domestic product expanded at a 0.4 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said, just below the 0.5 percent gain forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll.

The growth rate was the slowest since the first quarter of 2011 and far from what is needed to fuel a faster drop in the unemployment rate. It was, however, higher than the government’s previous estimate of a 0.1 percent growth rate.

Overall, the news for the economy wasn’t great Thursday.

Yes, Actually, We Do Plan To Keep Stealing Your Money

Anyone in Europe who has even a single penny in the bank is a fool

Cyprus bail-out: savers will be raided to save euro in future crises, says eurozone chief

Savings accounts in Spain, Italy and other European countries will be raided if needed to preserve Europe’s single currency by propping up failing banks, a senior eurozone official has announced.

The new policy will alarm hundreds of thousands of British expatriates who live and have transferred their savings, proceeds from house sales and other assets to eurozone bank accounts in countries such as France, Spain and Italy.

The euro fell on global markets after Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch chairman of the eurozone, announced that the heavy losses inflicted on depositors in Cyprus would be the template for future banking crises across Europe.

Funny the things that the consortium of Big Government and Big Banking can do to an unarmed population.

Repeat after me: $19.2 trillion dollars is currently held by US citizens in 401k and other retirement accounts.

Do you really think the government doesn’t want to “help” you manage that money?

All your money are belong to us.

It’s Not A Good Sign

Nope. The last thing you want when your country is bankrupt and you’re trying to calm international lenders so you can fleece them borrow even more money is for the Governor of your Central Bank to be named PANIC

(Reuters) – Russia rebuffed Cypriot entreaties for aid on Friday, leaving the island’s increasingly isolated leaders scrambling to strike a bailout deal with the European Union by next week or face the collapse of its financial system.

In Nicosia, the country’s biggest bank urged politicians to make haste and cut a deal with their EU partners as parliament considered proposals to nationalize pension funds, pool state assets and split the country’s second-largest bank in a desperate effort to satisfy those exasperated European allies.

The governor of the Central Bank, Panicos Demetriades, warned political leaders the country would face a disorderly bankruptcy on Tuesday unless they approved the bills, an official present at the talks said.

Remain calm.

All is under control.

aaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Well This Is Comforting

Euro Finance Ministers admit they’re “in a mess”

(Reuters) – Euro zone finance officials acknowledged being “in a mess” over Cyprus during a conference call on Wednesday and discussed imposing capital controls to insulate the region from a possible collapse of the Cypriot economy.

In detailed notes of the call seen by Reuters, one official described emotions as running “very high”, making it difficult to come up with rational solutions, and referred to “open talk in regards of (Cyprus) leaving the euro zone”.

The call was among members of the Eurogroup Working Group, which consists of deputy finance ministers or senior treasury officials from the 17 euro zone countries as well as representatives from the European Central Bank and the European Commission. The group is chaired by Austria’s Thomas Wieser.

Cyprus decided not to take part in the call, a decision that several participants described as troubling and reflecting the wider confusion surrounding the island’s predicament.

“The (Cypriot) parliament is obviously too emotional and will not decide on anything, if Cyprus does not even feel that they can attend the call it is a big problem for us,” the French representative said, according to the notes seen by Reuters.

When the French think you’re acting too emotional…

Oh, Jerry Brown and the Boys Got it HAPPENIN’!

As far as “California Dreamin'” goes. Everything else is “going” out of the state as FAST as it frickin’ can.

MetLife to move jobs from California to North Carolina

Insurance giant Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. said Thursday it will move 2,600 jobs from offices in five eastern states and California to lower-cost locations in two North Carolina cities, while also getting tax breaks and other incentives that could reach $100 million.

The insurer is shifting the jobs from Aliso Viejo and Irvine in California, and from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Rhode Island, MetLife spokesman John Calagna said. The positions will be consolidated in Charlotte, which will become the U.S. headquarters for MetLife’s retail business, and at a global technology and operations hub in the Raleigh suburb of Cary. The company’s retail segment sells and services life, disability, auto and other insurance.

…The new jobs, paying average salaries of nearly $82,000 a year, would include product management, marketing, sales and customer support in Charlotte and information technology positions in Cary. The company had about 140 workers in Charlotte before Thursday’s announcement.

“The strong business climate, access to universities and colleges and the desirable cost of living in North Carolina were significant factors in choosing to establish these new campuses in Cary and Charlotte,” MetLife executive vice president Eric Steigerwalt said.

Party in Charlotte, anyone?

H/T CA Political Review

Yeah. About That Tumbling Drop in the Unemployment Rate

Get past the orgasmic gymnastics in the headline:

Job Creation Surges as Rate Falls to 7.7%

Job creation broke out in February, with the economy creating a net 236,000 new jobs as the unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent.

Private job creation stood at a robust 246,000, finally indicating that the economy may be ready to escape the tight growth range in which it has been held since the financial crisis.

…(“ROBUST”?) to the brutal truth:

…A separate unemployment measure that includes workers no longer looking for jobs and those working part-time for economic reasons edged lower to 14.3 percent. At the same time, the labor force participation rate, which measures workers and those looking for jobs,

also fell, to a 32-year low of 63.5 percent, tied with where it stood in August 2012.

Hey, Skippy. Hiring at The Olive Garden or Target might be picking up, but the vast majority of the people are still sitting home, feeling pret-tee hopeless.

A Quick Primer On

Tax increases the fiscal cliff deal allowed:

1. Payroll Tax: increase in the Social Security portion of the payroll tax from 4.2 percent to 6.2 percent for workers. This hits all Americans earning a paycheck—not just the “wealthy.” For example, The Wall Street Journal calculated that the “typical U.S. family earning $50,000 a year” will lose “an annual income boost of $1,000.”

2. Top marginal tax rate: increase from 35 percent to 39.6 percent for taxable incomes over $450,000 ($400,000 for single filers).

3. Phase out of personal exemptions for adjusted gross income (AGI) over $300,000 ($250,000 for single filers).

4. Phase down of itemized deductions for AGI over $300,000 ($250,000 for single filers).

5. Tax rates on investment: increase in the rate on dividends and capital gains from 15 percent to 20 percent for taxable incomes over $450,000 ($400,000 for single filers).

6. Death tax: increase in the rate (on estates larger than $5 million) from 35 percent to 40 percent.

7. Taxes on business investment: expiration of full expensing—the immediate deduction of capital purchases by businesses.

Obamacare tax increases that took effect:

8. Another investment tax increase: 3.8 percent surtax on investment income for taxpayers with taxable income exceeding $250,000 ($200,000 for singles).

9. Another payroll tax hike: 0.9 percent increase in the Hospital Insurance portion of the payroll tax for incomes over $250,000 ($200,000 for single filers).

10. Medical device tax: 2.3 percent excise tax paid by medical device manufacturers and importers on all their sales.

11. Reducing the income tax deduction for individuals’ medical expenses.

12. Elimination of the corporate income tax deduction for expenses related to theMedicare Part D subsidy.

13. Limitation of the corporate income tax deduction for compensation that health insurance companies pay to their executives.

Don’t let ANYONE tell you it was “just the Bush Tax Cuts for the RICH!”

More at the Heritage Blog, via the Morning Jolt from Geraghty at NRO.

While I Applaud Their Obviously Successful Business Model

…I HATESES IT.

HATESES, HATESES, HATESES IT!!!!

In-N-Out’s Billionaire Heiress Explains Why Her Burger Joints Haven’t Expanded All Over America

Much to the chagrin of East Coasters, the folks at the helm of In-N-Out Burger haven’t expanded the chain all the way across America.

Why’s that?

The Orange Country Register managed to get a rare interview with with Lynsi Torres the 30-year-old owner and president of In-N-Out.

Oh, my Banglacola Kingdom for a Double-Double with grilled onions and CHEESE!!!

And a chocolate shake, of course.

I Eatses It Every Day

LOVESES my Chobani!

At Chobani, the Turkish King of Greek Yogurt

amdi Ulukaya sits in a restaurant in upstate New York, waggling a rolled-up slice of pizza, making bombastic pronouncements about yogurt. As the founder and chief executive of Chobani, the brand of Greek yogurt that has stormed the stainless steel refrigerators of coconut water drinkers and ancient grain eaters, he has some standing in the matter, although he’s actually Turkish.

The yogurt that most Americans ate for decades was a travesty, in his view: too thin, too sweet, too fake. “So horrible,” he says in his Turkish accent, his eyes bright against a lean face. “Terrible.” As he sees it, we were all snookered by big food companies that cared little for our taste buds or health. Greek yogurt’s high protein content makes it more filling, and it contains little or no fat. His doesn’t have preservatives, either. “There is no reason for us to put preservatives in the food,” Ulukaya says. “I would say to the big guys, ‘Watch out. You’d better change your ways. The consumer knows now, and the consumer will punish you if you don’t do the right thing.’?”

He has kind words for one competitor, albeit briefly. Fage, the Athens-based company that first brought Greek yogurt to the U.S. 15 years ago, “makes great yogurt,” he says. But when I start writing that down, he almost jumps out of his chair. “No, no, no,” he says, “Fage does not make great yogurt.” Then he laughs.

He can afford to pass out compliments. Chobani has made Ulukaya a billionaire, according to Bloomberg data. Five years ago Chobani had almost no revenue. This year, the company will sell more than $1 billion worth of yogurt, says Ulukaya, who’s the sole owner. Once a niche business, Greek yogurt now accounts for 36 percent of the $6.5 billion in total U.S. yogurt sales, according to investment firm AllianceBernstein (AB). Upstate New York, with its 28 plants owned by Chobani, Fage, Yoplait maker General Mills (GIS), and others, has become something like the Silicon Valley of yogurt.

But buried in the (admittedly GREAT) article is another sobering reminder of what you might call “The New York Mentality”‘s limitations…

…As orders rose to 1.2 million cases a week in 2011, Chobani found it harder to get enough milk. Because milk prices are largely controlled by the federal government, New York dairy farmers are reluctant to spend on herd expansions. Ulukaya wanted to branch out into different flavors and packages, but his sole plant was going all-out just to make enough product. In December, Ulukaya and Idaho Governor Butch Otter dedicated a $450 million plant in Twin Falls. At around a million square feet, it’s the largest yogurt plant in the world, Ulukaya says.

It will draw on an abundant milk supply; Idaho in recent years passed New York to become the third-largest milk-producing state.

The plant has the capacity to produce at least 1 million cases of yogurt weekly, many of them new products such as 3.5-oz. servings called Bites.

You stand still scratching your feds and the world will pass you by ~ New York (in all fairness, California, too) just hasn’t caught on, for all the air of worldly cleverness they wrap themselves in.

It’s a great, delicious American story.

A note for Greek yogurt lovers or those just entering the fray ~ part of the Chobani attraction besides the amazing taste and consistency is the presence of some pretty potent probiotics, ensuring a well rounded, amazingly healthy little cup o’ yum. They haven’t been stripped out in the manufacturing process in order to make a more shelf stable or palatable to the American tongue product. However, with the BIG guys entering the ring now, smelling dollars to be made (I mean Dannon, etc.) there ARE “Greek” yogurts just hitting shelves which are pale imitations of the authentic. Stonyfield organic, which owns Oikos, has sold out their name to be shared with Dannon (BOTH of which are in dairy cases so far) and, if you compare the two labels, the original Stoneyfield Oikos is brimming with all the bacillus and the Dannon cup reads like any other homogeneous cup of mass produced glop.

Buyer beware.

Normally One Would Shriek “Fiduciary Malfeasance!!!” at the Top of Their Little Lungs Had the Name Been “Madoff”

…and not “Emanuel” when cooking up such righteous schemes ~ divesting their fund from stable, consistent money earners, who, thanks to the local homeboy, have nowhere to go but UP:

January 22, 2013
Teacher pension fund divests from gun makers

One of the city’s pension funds has quietly voted to give Mayor Rahm Emanuel what he wanted, moving to divest itself of any interest in assault weapon manufacturers.

But only a miniscule $260,000 in stock was involved. And the step did not apply to ownership in retailers such as Wal-Mart, which arguably would be far more meaningful.

The action came last week when, in a previously unreported step, the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund board voted unanimously to sell its holdings in Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. and two other firms. The fund overall has roughly $9.5 billion in assets, with the divested stock representing about 0.003 percent of the retirement system’s portfolio.

In a statement, board President Jay Rehak said the board is sensitive to its fiduciary duty and the “reputational, regulatory and statutory risks that may impact the shareholder value of assault weapon manufacturers and want to minimize those risks.”

But, with the price of most gun makers’ stock rising lately, the fund also had something else on its mind.

Especially when a mere month later…the “UNEXPECTED” (SHOCKA! SURPRISE!) word rears its ugly head.

Chicago teachers’ pension fund takes unexpected dip
February 21, 2013

The fiscal cliff facing Chicago Public Schools got significantly larger today, with the release of a report disclosing that the cash-strapped system will have to come up with an extra $400 million next year — $70 million more than had been expected — to pay teacher pensions unless something changes.

The report, below, is the annual actuarial analysis of the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund. Presented to the board of the $9.4 billion agency today, the report discloses that on a market-value basis, the fund had a return of minus 0.4 percent on investment for the year ended June 30.

On the four-year asset smoothing basis that the fund uses, the return was 1 percent.

But either figure is well short of the 8 percent return on investments that the retirement system assumes.

And that means CPS will have to come up with an extra payment next year unless the law requiring it to make certain actuarial-based contributions is changed.

“ASSUMES” an EIGHT PERCENT RETURN?!?!?!? THESE DAYS? AND you smugly dumped the few moneymaking gun stocks you had?!

Gotta be a Democratic city.

And we all know what they say about “assume”. Well, besides “ASSUME the position”, I mean.

The Exact Opposite of the Playtex Ads

…would be Old Spice.

If you’ve NEVER read the front and back labels of ANY of their shower gels, I suggest you DO SO IMMEDIATELY.

They’re HILARIOUSLY masculine.

For instance:

Now THAT’S an appeal to MANLY FREEDOM (front labels) we can all spend some serious bucks on.

The World Is Coming to An End

It’s a Playtex wipes ad.

Oh, yes it is.