Okay so now my own personal life really is feeling rising prices of things. This year Yoga classes for 10 classes ha month has gone up 30 a month! although they haven't raised prices in 4 years so a big jump was to be expected. I expect my hair stylist’s prices will increase next week—it’s been almost 3 months since I’ve seen her and hair styling products have got to be directly related to oil feedstock and products.

Strangely enough gas here is only 2 cents more than it was just before Christmas, 2.99 up from 2.97.

Instead of oil prices this week the general economic news became very gloomy; this means of course that the “out there” dire doom predictors have arrived at us being on the threshold of a depression that will last many years. The second great depression doesn’t sound near as far out as it did a few months ago, that’s the really scary part.

Two primaries into the presidential race and it’s still a tossup for who exactly it will be for either party’s nominee. The candidates haven’t been touched by the economic news when I’ve seen them yet.

Historically, presidential election years have had decent economic news whenever it was possible to keep it going well but I wonder how fast this situation will deteriorate. Perhaps the Powers That Be can’t hold it off until after November, it seems to be surfacing from underneath layers and layers of problems.

Friday night NBC broadcast news talked seriously about downturn in our economy. NYtimes and Washington Post have articles these days about how the whole global financial system could be shaken and thath we've never seen the kind of financial conditions developing. On the other hand, others say cautiously that we "could" go into a recession in the next quarter or two.

After the week’s results on the stock market it seems we will go down a lot maybe a little at a time ???Dow Jones down in the mid 12,000 range.

BofA is buying the Countrywide Mortgage business. Don’t know if that will really do anything to help the situation or not.

J.P. Morgan was talking bout merging with another financial institution in trouble, Washington Mutual.

It seems that if www.CNBC.com has wording like the following sentence we’re really approaching mainstream telling us how bad it is. “Two of the biggest names on Wall Street are scrambling again to secure major cash infusions from foreign governments to offset billions of dollars in losses from risky subprime mortgage securities, analysts said on Thursday.” This is Citigroup and Merrill Lynch looking for cash from overseas. They and some other institutions have already had infusions of cash from overseas but apparently it wasn’t enough.

Below information from a reading of thedailyreckoning.com this past week:

A bushel of wheat now costs between $9.00 and $10.00. It’s increased in price more than 90% the past year.

The price of a bushel of corn has risen 44% in the past 14-15 months.

Biofuels will take up to one third of the US grain harvest from 2007.

International food supplies, mostly grains, kept on hand for places in the world that need some food are at their lowest levels in 30-40 years.

Now, when my leftist internet sites, not so leftist internet sites, rightist internet sites—Monica Crowley and Pat Buchanan and Glen Beck all say the same thing—we must be in trouble. We being American consumer society, American society, American economy or substitute “western World” for American—or just plain “Americans” are in trouble.

Association of General Contractors: (courtesy of the oildrum.com) alert is from Oct 2007 but it says what is still coming and is happening right now. “AGC’s Construction Inflation Alert: Construction Costs: End of the Calm is Coming Soon Oct., 2007

After years of minimal cost increases, prices of many construction materials skyrocketed from 2004 to mid-2006. Since mid-2006, some input prices have moderated, while others have fallen. But the cumulative increase in the producer price index (PPI) for construction inputs since December 2003 (28 percent through August 2007) remains more than double the 13 percent increase in the most common measure of overall inflation, the consumer price index (CPI) for all urban consumers. Labor costs, in contrast, have risen at similar rates for construction and for the private sector as a whole.

The cumulative difference matters because the estimates for many projects now being bid, especially public facilities, were prepared in 2003-2005 under the assumption that construction costs would escalate at the same rate as the CPI. That divergence explains why some projects are being canceled, delayed or redesigned.

In the next several months, the PPI for construction inputs, which covers items used up in construction such as diesel fuel as well as materials that go into a project, is expected to accelerate to a 3-5 percent annual rate of increase from the recent 1.5-3 percent range. By the end of 2008, and indefinitely thereafter, construction input costs are likely to be rising at 6-8 percent. Labor cost increases could top 5 percent by the end of 2007 and 5-6 percent in subsequent years.”

January 18, 2008 Ambac—a bond insurer has been downgraded—this is not good. This could affect cities and banks financing, as far as I understand it and will affect it not for the better. Down hit below 12,000 but came up to 12,043.

Barrel of crude in the low $90 range.

Made my two week run to the grocery store—most loaves of bread are now above $4.00 a loaf. I don’t remember them being quite that high a couple of weeks ago.

From urbansurvival.com: “My friend Robin Landry up in Shawnee, OK summed it up pretty good yesterday while we were talking about 'next lines in the sand' on Thursday (Low: 12,000 & then 11,500 or on the up side 12,411 then 12,600).

"I tell my clients it's like this: Every 16-years or so, you get a good-sized recession. Remember 1990? And then every 60-70 years, you get a depression. And then every couple of hundred years, you get a revolution in investing."”

Quote from some view of the economy in the coming 2008:

“That said, my base case outlook sees a weak first half of 2008—but one of modest growth—with gradual improvement beginning in the year's second half and continuing into 2009. This outcome assumes that the housing situation doesn't weaken more than expected and that financial markets stabilize. A sober assessment of risks must take into account the possibility of protracted financial market instability together with a deep decline in house prices, volatile and high energy prices, continued dollar depreciation, and elevated inflation measures following from the recent upticks we've seen.”

On the up side: last two physical therapy sessions are next week. My 3 months of PT is up and I am so much improved! I’m hoping the improvement will just keep on coming with my exercise program at home.

Observance of Martin Luther King Day in the USA. Markets were closed in USA. But they were open around the rest of the world and they all SANK. On Friday, the US stockmarket sank, it SANK, to end the week at 12,099. The joke on the news a couple of times today was the stockmarket did great today, it wasn’t open!

But it will be open tomorrow and is expected to drop at least at opening. We’ll see where it ends tomorrow afternoon. Since last mid week, everything has just gotten more shaky and stock market-volatile.

A big French bank is in trouble for huge losses supposedly due to "a rogue trader." He claims the bank knew well what he was doing.

Fund raising for Safari Joes' animal refuge has gone very well so far. Not enough to raise a new structure but that would be about 200,000 dollars. but a lot has been raised for food supplies and some new equipment.

From www.theautomatifcearth.blogspot.com on Jan 31 entry:

“News of MBIA’s loss came a day after FGIC’s insurance unit became the third company to be stripped of its Aaa credit rating and downgraded to Aa. It also came just after shares in MBIA and Ambac, the second-biggest bond insurer, tanked in New York on Wednesday, sliding 15.9 per cent and 12.6 per cent, respectively, on fears of imminent downgrades.”

Bond insurers are being downgraded …. This is not a real surprise but it is chilling

“Ilargi: This last line below is one hell of a scary statement, especially when you realize this is not confined to the US, it's a global phenomenon. Thousands of small banks and large and small funds sit on trillions 'worth' of waste paper. When MBIA rattles its last breath, Jericho's dominoes will start tumbling.

Under accounting rules, many smaller banks haven't been required to write down their holdings until the credit ratings fell, enabling them to avoid the losses that have crippled Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and UBS AG. Which gets us to the real problem; Most consumers are at the end of their ropes and can’t buy more. Real incomes are no higher than they were in 2000, while food and energy and health care costs are all rising faster than inflation. And home values are dropping, which means an end to home equity loans and refinancing.”

From financialsense.com:

“Two Billionaires Describe Our Outlook by Paul J. Lamont, Lamont Trading Advisors, Inc. | January 30, 2008

Printing Money to Avoid Immediate Banking Collapse

According to the Federal Reserve Board website, U.S. non-borrowed bank reserves have gone from $37B to $199M (nope, that’s not a typo) in the last month. We have been discussing this with Sitka Pacific Capital’s Mike ‘Mish’ Shedlock for the last two weeks. He concludes: “Banks in aggregate have now burnt through all of their capital and are forced to borrow reserves from the Fed in order to keep lending.” Simply put, the U.S. banking system has no reserves. In addition, the FDIC has recently begun modernizing large-bank insurance rules. We hope this is a wake-up call to everyone as to the extent of the credit crisis. Bank account balances should be used only for transactions. Instead cash should be held in the form of U.S. Treasury Bills at a conservative brokerage or trust. Under the mattress is also perfectly acceptable (your parents or grandparents had to do it!). For investors, we advised last year to sell the banks. Banks will be soon forced to sell assets (yes, even 10 year Treasury Bonds) at deeply discounted prices to pay depositors.”

Ilargi: We’ll be hearing a lot about the rescue attempts for the bond insurers, especially the big ones, Ambac and MBIA. A bit of perspective was provided yesterday on CNBC, where Sean Egan of independent rating agency Egan-Jones said none of these “monolines” deserve an AAA rating (though most do have one).

His estimate is that it will take over $200 billion of added capital to raise the bondinsurers (7 of them, at $30 billion a piece) to an AAA rating. CNBC’s journalists themselves emphasized the pressure applied in recent years within the industry, from investment banks through ratings agencies to bond insurers, to “get into CDO’s and other securities”.

Obama seems to be ahead of Hilary and pulling away in the past two weeks. McCain looks like the nominee for Republicans although Huckabee hasn’t quit yet.

More interest in some regulation of the robber barons in the financial sector, although many of the robber barons are getting payback these days because of the disintegration of financial inventions that they were responsible for in the first place.

More talk on the internet and newspapers (online) about scarcities being in our future.

More interest in some regulation of the robber barons in the financial sector, although many of the robber barons are getting payback these days because of the disintegration of financial inventions that they were responsible for in the first place.

More talk on the internet and newspapers (online) about scarcities being in our future.

Ilargi: News is traveling fast and furious about failing auctions of various bonds. We posted an article on it earlier today … and they keep on coming in. There is ever less trust, and there is ever less money. Note that this severely impacts many things we take for granted, like hospitals, bridges etc., public facilities and local governments. They have financed their day-to-day operations through bonds for years, and they have no idea where to go from here. No Buffett will solve their problems.

What I've been saying all that time comes down to this: Small, local, governments will be hit, financially, from three sides at the same time (the article makes it four), and it will (start to) happen this year.

1. Decreasing tax revenues, especially property taxes, will limit financing for project building and maintenance, and lead to large scale job losses for those who work in the field.

2. Issuing bonds, the main source of credit to keep day-to-day expenditures flowing, will become much harder, and in many cases downright impossible. The bond insurers can't guarantee bonds anymore, so investors don't know who to trust, and as per point 1, the financial situation of the local government has worsened, making its bonds less attractive.

3. Local governments themselves have funds that need to be invested. And 99% of them are invested in the same bonds and securities that they themselves now have a hard time finding buyers for. Think about that ironic paradox for a moment. Most of them have these investments managed by 'professionals', and those have all gone for max profit.

And now we can add another coffin's nail:

4. The bonds that have already been issued have become far more expensive to service. That's what it means when Ambac was downgraded from AAA to AA. And these are costs that have to be paid, no matter what.

What goes for local governments, goes equally for hospitals, bridge authorities, water treatment and many other "public goods". We will see huge deterioration in road quality, health care facilities and tons of other services we take for granted. There's simply no more money. The system's broken. Governments at all levels will try raising taxes, but it will be from an ever more impoverished population. That will not work.

POSITIVE NOTES TODAY: Mom is doing very well these days, not staying in bed until lunch or so. She up most of the day the past couple of weeks. One of the caregivers there and I took turns distracting her with photos, for one of us to get in her room and clean out the food stashes, general dust, and junk. She having trouble walking still.

ROM for shoulders/arms is still improving a little at a time.

Looks like Barack Obama is goint to be the Demo candidate this year, he’s ahead of Hilary but we’ve a looooong way to go yet. Who knows what could happen.

Happy 96th Birthday to Arizona on Feb 14th.

Not so Positive:

Bonds issued by municipalities, states, other entities are not selling well at all over the past week. Muni bonds used to be almost as good as cash, too. This means all the bond issuers have to pay more, like interest, on the money they raise for whatever they need to run their jurisdictions. The cost of operations has increased already and will keep on going up because of this no sale problem. Local government budgets will have to cut back or cut back more because they’re already not collecting the property taxes they thought they’d get a year or so ago. Probably sales taxes are down, too, these days. PBS news hour did a story on the bond insurer troubles this past week. They still need to raise a lot of money to save themselves; but the reporter didj’t exactly say that. But he did imply they were not doing well and are necessary to run things. Barrel Crude: 95.50 at COB Feb 15 Gas: 2.85, 2.95, 3.05

Worst Scenarios I’ve come across in the past two months Jan-Feb for the near-term to shorter future: :

Circumstances will keep on deteriorating causing more financial/economic bad stuff in the next year through to 2009. Somewhere after that date, (in 2009-2010) the US government will nationalize the whole banking system—I have to confess I don’t really know what that really means or implies or anything except it can’t be good and it can’t be anything like “free markets” or “capitalism”.

The LEAP2020 think-tank in Europe projects that the US economy will collapse/grind to a halt after the 3rd quarter of 2008-I don’t think they meant in the third quarter, but I’m not sure. I read a translation from the French that was quite clear except for a few words in English were a little imprecise. Or maye I didn’t under the financial term in English. They also say that the US dollars will cease to be the international currency and something else will have to replace it; that’s within the same time fram as our economic collapse. They say that Europe/Eurozone will not feel the bad effects of a depression like the US will. Also, China and Asia won’t feel it so much either. China, Europe and Russian will be the new world powers after the US sinks and the dollar sinks, too. This group will have to decide what new currency or combination or basket of currencies will take over for the dollar.

We will definitely be regulated to second rate or less power status in the world. I think more of the psychological/emotional effects of this on our people that the financial and daily life struggle would be. Neither one of them would be good.

Oh, yes, the stock markets will go down anywhere from 20% to 60% in value depending on the region of the world. That would be happen in the next few months and into 2009.

Barrel Crude: 95.50 at COB Feb 15

Charlie is still with us. I can't say more as it could go either way. The Vet says to wait a bit more giving RX more time but if he isn't improved then we lose him for his own sake. Gotta go. Can't think or see to type now.

Tulsa World reported the following animals lost in the fire the time it happened: From tuls a World in Jan when the fire took place: Among the animals that were killed Thursday in a fire at Safari Joe’s Exotic Wildlife Refuge:

Monkeys ......... 10

Hedgehog ...........1

Skunk .................1

Angora rabbits ...3

Alligators ...........3

Tortoises ............3

Leopard tortoises ............3

Snakes ............ 30(Burmese pythons,corn, milk, California King snakes)

Big birds ......... 10(macaws, cockatoos, amazons)

Tigers .................2

Also, four ATVs equipped with flatbeds used to transport water and feed to animals, a golf cart used for transport, and a children’s train used for birthday parties.

It has been hard to discuss this and after talking with Joe last night I wish I hadn't.

At the time of the fire the known loss of animals are as follows: ALL the small mammals, exotic birds and reptiles except for 4 birds and 1 Albino Burmese Python. Joe was only able to save those because they were closest to the doors of their perspective rooms. The fire was to much for him to do more. There were cages attached to that barn on one side that held 2 tigers and wolves. We lost Cierra - a Bengal tiger to burns/smoke that day along with Toby the Black Leopard from smoke inhalation later that evening. The 2nd tiger was Charlie a white tiger who had majors burns. He stayed with us till just recently then he to went to kitty heaven to romp with Cierra and Toby. I know that it is better for Charlie there. He won't be hurting any more.

This is so hard to write. My eyes can't seem to stay clear. I've helped raise all 3 cats from babies. A lot of the animals lost in the barn were also my babies. My ladies the brown Lemurs and Sparky the coatimundi - Sparky was in my home when Joe first got him. We nursed him back to health before he went to live at SJ's. And my Cole - the African Serval in my pic would have been lost too if he wasn't here with me. His old cage was in that row outside the barn.

I'm sorry, I'm carrying on. We had a few benefits done here that has raised some money. The website has info on donating. Joe is using my Paypal to accept donations that way and a local bank in Tulsa has the Tragedy Fund. The immediate hard thing is that the animals lost were the ones he did the educational programs, shows, etc. That is how Joe supported the animals. The barn was valued at about a quarter million with no insurance. Why no insurance? Because all moneys went into feed, utilities, etc for almost 300 animals on 200 acres. No grants or financial support from any city or government agency. Exotic sanctuaries like SJ's are not zoos nor are they recognized because they interact with the animals. I'm sorry but would you put a foster child in a room with NO interaction? These animals are worse off then children! They will never be able to take care of themselves. Someone has to and that is what SJ's and other places do. Take in animals that no one wants and gives them care and love for the rest of their lives.

Something wrong with that? Tiger poop! I did it again. Sorry folks. http://kotv.com/news/local/story/?id=143232

This link is a local news stations report. It has a video that shows a lot. Very sad! :(

I'll sign off now. I need to get this info on Charlie to several other places. I will be back to let you know when I get some pics posted.

Thank you ALL for your kind words and thoughts. Love, Calico