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Champagne Wishes!!

Champagne Sales Surge in Sluggish Economy



Amazingly champagne sales have surged during 2011 despite the less than effervescent economy. Industry sources say that 192 million bottles of the French bubbly were shipped abroad in the first three quarters of the year, and with the expected holiday season surge, sales could near or top the record 339 million bottles shipped in 2007, the year before the crash.

In 2008 and especially 2009 sales slumped given the global downturn and the fact that producers cut production to protect prices.

Already top French labels are 15% ahead of 2010, a trend which reflects a surge in many luxury products.

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Merry Christmas!!!

Joyeux Noel!!

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Christmas in the City

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Vaclav Havel
1936-2011

The Passing of a Renaissance Man

Author, Playwright, and former President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel has died at age 75. Havel whose career as literary figure and a political dissident in communist Czechoslovakia, presided over the transformation of the former Czechoslovak Socialist Republic’s transition into a sovereign democracy and a free market economy.

His role as a dissident spanned the darkest decades of the old socialist regime. In 1977, he and fellow dissidents supported the “Charter 77” human rights manifesto. During the communist regime, his works and plays were banned and Havel himself was regularly harassed by the security police.

Without question, Havel’s greatest play was the political drama of the Velvet Revolution, the massive people-power protests which rocked Prague the capital and other centers and which finally broke the grip of the ruling communists.

When the Soviet-backed regime collapsed in these epic events of 1989, Havel became President of Czechoslovakia and held the title with a brief interruption until 2003

During President Havel's tenure, the Czech Republic "rejoined history," resumed its place in Central Europe as a prosperous country, and was admitted into the European Union (EU) and NATO.


According to a BBC correspondent,“Within hours of the announcement of his death people began lighting candles and laying flowers at the statue of St. Wenceslas on Wenceslas Square, where Havel addressed huge crowds of demonstrators in November 1989.”

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Euroland’s Sandbox Battle

The most recent “make or break” Euro summit just finished in Brussels, with yet another pledge by most countries to finally get their fiscal act together. The Euro currency, used by a core of European Union members, but not Britain, continues to be tossed on the waves of profligate government spending, a lack of fiscal discipline, and the growing realization that it’s time to Pay the Piper for the debts.

But when push came to shove at the latest Brussels conference, Britain decided to stay in splendid isolation and not be part of the agreement, thus causing a rhetorical tempest across the English Channel, or more specifically between British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sarkozy openly snubbed Cameron at the meeting and feathers flew. France’s major national newspaper Le Figaro took a quick poll to assess the situation. “Is the United Kingdom part of Europe?” and found a resounding 82% (of 57,000 readers logging in), saying NON!

The British counter-batteries of Fleet Street fired back. The Daily Mail thundered, “Day PM Put Britain First; Defiant Cameron Stands up to Euro Bullies.” The Daily Telegraph wrote “EU Treaty; David Cameron stands as the lone man of Europe.”

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Pearl Harbor 1941-2011

A Trans-Pacific view for a moment...


On December 7th 1941, Japan attacked American forces at Pearl Harbor.
The surprise attack on the Hawaiian Islands, crippled the U.S. Navy fleet, stunned the country, and reawakened an isolationist America. Over 2,200 American sailors and airmen were killed that day in the bombings. The USA was now at war.

A decade earlier in 1931 Japan;'s militarists began their dismemberment of China with the move into Manchuria. Then in 1937, Tokyo went for the rest of China.
Free China fought on with the hope of eventual American assistance.

By 1941, Japan had invaded French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies.

And in amazing military coordination after the bombing of the U.S. fleet in Hawaii, the Japanese carried out a series of attacks on Manila, Malaya, and Hong Kong.

It's been 70 years, but Americans should pause and Remember.

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USA Provides Sugar rush to Europe’s Wobbly Banks

The U.S. Federal Reserve provided an early holiday gift to Europe’s wobbly banks. The sugar rush loan from the Fed stabilized dizzy markets and helped a global stock market surge which happily jumped 500 points in the last day of November.

Still the stabilization loans from six Central Banks can treat the symptoms but not solve the problems.

Paying the piper for Euroland’s profligate social spending will take more than largesse from Uncle Sam across the Atlantic. Massive government spending to sustain an Entitlement State (is welfare state too crude??) will continue to draw down the financial fortunes of Europe. The problem goes well beyond the Greeks. Some big names which come to mind include Italy and Spain. And let’s face it, France and Germany can’t pay all the bills.

And for that matter neither can the USA who is equally saddled with spiraling spending and an albatross of debt which has nearly quadrupled in the past three years.

After a pretty dreary economic autumn, it’s nice to see good economic news, at least for a day. Yet, sadly solving the Eurozone crisis will take much more than an early Christmas gift from the Fed.