| 2008: Looking ahead
This will also hit the retail industry as people spend less on home-related items such as kitchens, bathrooms, furniture etc. The government will have serious problems cause by the balance of payments deficit and the need to finance it. Added to that the tax income will fall too, plus the little black hole called Northern Rock and Gordon's going to wish he hadn't massively increased the public sector in his days of so called prudence. As for a rise in exports - what on earth are we going to export? UK manufacturing industry hardly exists any more and all the income from the financial services industry is going to be hard hit by the credit crunch. No, the 'miracle economy' of the last 10 years is going to be replaced by a nightmare economy for another 10 years.
The Clock is Ticking on Some Now-Or-Never Tax Breaks
Despite the stock market's wild ride this year, 2007 is expected to be a record year for mutual fund distributions, according to Tim Roseen, of Lipper, a mutual-fund analysis firm. Now is a good time to scour your portfolio in search of losses you can use to offset taxable gains. If your investment losses exceed your profits, you can use them to offset up to $3,000 of ordinary income and carry over any unused losses into future years. Normal year-end tax planning calls for paying next year's deductible expenses, such as January's mortgage interest, property taxes and state income taxes, in the current year. But you don't want to do that if you are subject to the alternative minimum tax. The AMT, a parallel tax system with its own set of rules, does not permit deductions for state and local taxes, home-equity loan interest (unless the borrowed money was used to finance home improvements) or personal exemptions -- worth $3,400 this year -- for yourself, your spouse and your children.
Overthrowing the incompetent a noble tradition
At first glance it seems eccentric to compare the Rum Rebellion with the later dismissals. First, Johnston was operating in a very different political system. He was not an officially appointed umpire, in the way Game and Kerr were. His dismissal of Bligh was illegal, which is why it was done with armed force and Johnston was later tried and found guilty. And second, Johnston is widely believed to have been the tool of the powerful civilian John Macarthur, and to have acted out of self-interest to preserve his own income from trading in spirits. If correct, this interpretation of the events of 1808 would clearly place Johnston into a very different category to Game and Kerr, independent officials who stood to derive no material benefit from their actions. However, its possible to dispute both arguments.
Auto Cellulosic Ethanol Promises $1 per Gallon Fuel From Waste
And they reproduce on their own," Lutz explained, excitedly. The process, Lutz elaborated, is a down-to earth approach that does not use designer organisms or chemicals. Further it eliminates many steps in traditional or enzymatic processing, including the need for a centrifuge or still. The process trumps traditional production in efficiency. Less than a third as much water is needed to produce a gallon of ethanol, which makes the process more affordable and easier to implement. Further an analysis of the process conducted at Argone National Laboratory reveals that for every unit of energy Coskata uses, it creates approximately 7.7 times as much energy, a ratio well above current tradition ethanol production. Lutz emphasizes the importance of reducing reliance on foreign energy via ethanol fuel. He also explained that the move will take GM and other auto makers "out of the firing line" of accusations that they contribute to everything from "out-of-control global warming, to funding terrorism." GM plans to aggressively fund Coskata and deploy the technology. While many alternative energy research technologies languish in the development phase, GM announced that a pilot plant will begin producing fuel before the close of 2008. By 2011 a full scale plant will come online, capable of producing 50 to 100 million gallons of ethanol a year. Such a plant would almost amount to 1% of the world's total ethanol production, including ethanol used for industrial sources.
DON'T BET AGAINST 'EM
The Giants have done one of the toughest things to do in American team sports and that is to be the wild-card team and make it to the Super Bowl. You have to win three games against very tough opponents on the road. That's a tough, tough thing, and they did it. I'm very happy for Eli Manning. I don't know if people today, especially younger generations, realize that his father, Archie, may be the single most underrated quarterback ever. With the Saints, he was stuck on a bad team his whole career, but he was like another Roger Staubach, a great quarterback. .
Thirsty and hungry? Let's go to McWells
McWells, for all intents and purposes, looked like a restaurant at first glance. A huge bar stands in the front, but booths and tables litter the rest of the area for family and friends to nosh, giving it a dated WingHouse-type feel.
We sat at the bar and ordered a couple of beers, my Michelob Ultra (trying to keep with the South Beach Diet) cost only $2, the same with Casey's McWells. I kid you not, there is a beer at the bar called McWells. It's a Budweiser product, we found out from the bartender. And, as with most Budweiser products, Casey was choking it down after a couple of sips.
Not a fan, to say the least, but good news: It was only $2. He stuck with Guinness after that, and at $5.50, it cost a bit more than most places. But the $2 domestic draft I was drinking was saving us some change.
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