If you are going to be putting a commercial duct cleaning project out to bid, make sure you go over to the National Duct Cleaner Association’s web site. In particular, you should down load NADCA’s General Specifications for the Cleaning of Commercial HVAC Systems.
It’s free. Obviously, you would need to alter the language Click Here to continue reading.
China has been letting its currency appreciate a little bit lately. This from Brad Setser’s blog…
In his most recent post, Mr. Pettis notes that the RMB’s pace of appreciation picked up last week. That’s true, but the rapid appreciation last week came after an extended period when the RMB was stuck at 7.5 even as the dollar was falling.
China basically sat out the dollar’s fall in September and October — or rather, it opted to follow the dollar down v. host of currencies. A bit of appreciation against the dollar just undoes some of the RMB’s recent depreciation against the euro.
More importantly, as Mr. Pettis notes, expectations of RMB appreciation have picked up. If the market is right and the RMB appreciates by 7% over the next year, simple Chinese bank deposits look mighty attractive.
This is something to watch. China may decided that faster appreciation may be just the ticket to deal with its fuel problems. After all, if the RMB can buy more dollars it can also buy more oil. I don’t think 7% is enough to greatly help though. But if oil prices keep going up in dollar terms, it may encourage them to increase the pace of appreciation.
This would increase the pressure on the dollar (because China would not be supporting it as heavily) and would raise the price of US imports. This would increase US inflation.
In other news, Citi bank has confessed that they have lost between $8 billion to $11 billion more than originally confessed to. They also got rid of their CEO. Calculated Risk had this to say about the Citi press release…
The press release is stunning – this could just be the beginning of the write downs! They claim they will be able to maintain their dividend – I doubt it.
These losses are very dependent on house prices – “fair value of these super senior exposures is based on estimates about, among other things, future housing prices” – I’d love to see their estimate of future price declines (they are probably too optimistic.)
What happens if one of those many Citi pier loans goes bad? Ouch.
If the markets share Calculated Risk’s reaction, this could be an interesting week on Wall Street. One thing that ought to worry anyone with enough sense to keep their heart beating is the fact that Citi still seems to have no clue of what their losses are going be. Either that or they are lying through their teeth. I suspect that it is some of both.
And while all this is all very interesting, the world does not solely revolve around American and its economic issues. Things like politics and religion come into play as well. That is why it is worth keeping your eye on Pakistan. Musharraf has just declared emergency rule. As the Christian Science Monitor says…
In a dramatic move that made explicit his desperation to preserve near-absolute power, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency Saturday, effectively eliminating the opposition that has built against him in recent months.
In doing so, Mr. Musharraf introduced a new “provisional constitutional order” – a move many say looks more like martial law. Despite his assertions to the contrary, his decision has little to do with terrorism, analysts say, adding that his was a political calculation. With the Supreme Court threatening to declare his presidency illegal in a ruling this week, Musharraf struck preemptively against his foes.
Under the emergency order, he has sacked more than half of the Supreme Court, jailed up to 500 opposition party leaders, and shut down the independent media – assuming that the US has invested too much in him and the war on terror to withdraw its patronage. The order may also delay parliamentary elections, which had been scheduled to take place before Jan. 15.
This is a pattern that has been repeated many times in Pakistan’s history. Typical, the army eventually gets tired of backing an unpopular ruler and they kick him out. But is there really anyone out there that the Pakistani Army can stomach? Maybe if Musharraf becomes too much of a liability they will just replace one general with another.
We have highlighted a couple of poems by Mr. Dueck in our weekly feature. But of all of his poems, These Are The Earliest Days of Autumn is my favorite so far.
He actually posted this poem back in august, but I was waiting for a good essay to go along with it. I have given up on the waiting. The poem will just have to stand on its own.
Idang Alibi’s rant entitled “I Agree with Dr Watson” has everything we want in a good rant. It is heartfelt, politically incorrect, and it hits hard. Yet we were reluctant to post this rant to Ethereal Voice because of how people on the internet were approaching Mr. Alibi’s rant.
The predictable howls of outrage from the liberals and other professional victims did not concern us. But the smug satisfaction from a certain group of conservatives/libertarians who feel that IQ is some total of a person’s worth gave us pause. What is the point of posting a rant that makes people feel smug?
But Mr. Alibi’s does not really believe that IQ matters in a way that many conservatives and libertarians do. His lament is really related to moral character of his culture. We who live in more functional cultures then Mr. Alibi read his rant and feel fear, not smugness. 500 years ago, most European cultures were no more functional then his. If we keep destroying the moral underpinnings of our cultural, we will go back to that level.
In the next few decades, America has to spend trillions of dollars on infrastructure just to maintain our current living standards. How will we fund such investments? How will we mange such investments? How will we insure that we get good value for the money?
Such questions can be debated endlessly. But if we are smart, we will study the big infrastructure projects of the past to see what worked and what did not. Nicole Gelinas essay entitled “Lessons of Boston’s Big Dig” is a good place to start such a study.
China raised gasoline and diesel prices Thursday by about 10 percent to curb demand amid shortages that have caused long lines at filling stations and disrupted trucking in key export areas.
Oil companies have blamed the shortages, which began last week, on a lack of refining capacity. Government controls have forced refiners to pay the difference between soaring market prices for crude and lower retail prices at the pump. Some refiners responded by cutting output.
10 percent is not enough of an increase if China wants to keep the Yuan pegged to the dollar.
This from Aviation Week….
Syria’s internal politics might have contributed to the apparent success of the Sept. 6 mission. The target was so highly classified in Damascus that the military wasn’t briefed and, therefore, air defenses were unprepared, says an Israeli official.
In other words, Syria’s military did not know that they had a sensitive nuclear site that they needed to defend. Hence, it was not defended.
You can never be sure how effective a military technology really is. It all depends on the people involved. People are talking about how Israel’s recent strike in Syria proves what great and wonderful technology they have.
But the human factor always seems to play a bigger role then the technological. Maybe Syria’s air defense technology would have been effective in competent hands.
Unless rains come to the south soon, it is going to get a lot worse then this….
As twilight falls over this Tennessee town, Mayor Tony Reames drives up a dusty dirt road to the community’s towering water tank and begins his nightly ritual in front of a rusty metal valve.
With a twist of the wrist, he releases the tank’s meager water supply, and suddenly this sleepy town is alive with activity. Washing machines whir, kitchen sinks fill and showers run.
About three hours later, Reames will return and reverse the process, cutting off water to the town’s 145 residents.
Latter in the same article……
Three days a week, the volunteer fire chief hops in a 1961 fire truck at 5:30 a.m. — before the school bus blocks the narrow road — and drives a few miles to an Alabama fire hydrant. He meets with another truck from nearby New Hope, Ala. The two drivers make about a dozen runs back and forth, hauling about 20,000 gallons of water from the hydrant to Orme’s tank.
This post and the accompanying comments are funny in a sick sort of way. Apparently, the editor of Wired published a list of all the PR shops that he blocked from sending him e-mail because they were spamming him. One enterprising PR shop decided to use that list to try to poach some clients. This got a nasty reaction from one of the PR shops that are on the bad boy list. A regular old flame war started.
Sample of how nasty it got…
I have instructed every one of my staffers (80) to personally target your clients. I will pay them an entire month’s fee as a bounty for every client they take from you. I am also personally calling CEO of your clients, and forwarding your BS email around the industry.
Great move moron… this is war!
Read the whole thing for some comic relief.
I sort of forgot I was enrolled in an on-line class. It is beneath my level in the subject matter and boring. But I should still finish the assignments so I can put it down as complete.
On the job training/learning is so much better. But if they are only training you in doing things the Click Here to continue reading.