Decateur's Weekly Business Roundup

Hey, how's it going. Guess it's time for me to give my weekly "roundup"?

I know, I know ...the market is crashing and you're afraid that your investment portfolio is ready to submerge. According to news reports the subprime-mortgage crisis has sent global financial markets into a tailspin over credit market woes. My advice: SELL! Dump it all - dump your stocks, your mutual funds, your annuities and your kid's college bonds and convert it into something solid like Pepsie-powered trucks or ant farm home-heating systems. Or follow your instincts and do what I did: take all your money out of the bank and bury it in a chest under the oak tree in your back yard where no one will find it.

Which brings me to the bumper crop of corn the country is set to produce this year in response to high ethanol demand. According the the Wall Street Journal corn production will yield enough to fill 183,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. This may be good for corn futures investors, but for those suffering mid-westerners wanting to escape the summer heat this is a blow to human dignity. Ever tried swimming in a pool of corn? Not me, and I don't want to - even if it's creamed corn. Look for a down-turn in pool toy accessory stocks.

And this may be the reason the government has announced that jobless claims have increased. The Wall Street Journal also reports that jobless claims are up this week by 7,000 to 316,000. How much do you want to wager that most of these claimants are out-of-work lifeguards?

Lastly, according to the Washington Post the Bush administration has instigated a policy of clamping down on illegal immigrant workers. Measures include "raising fines for knowingly hiring illegal workers, streamlining current guest-worker programs, bolstering an electronic system employers can use to verify workers' legal status, and adding 370 miles of border fencing, 300 miles of vehicle barriers and 1,700 Border Patrol agents." In short, look for skyrocketing home-building costs, a spike in produce prices, a shortage of home health-care workers, a down-grade in salsa taste and quality and renewed scrutiny of Taco Bell's "think outside the bun" policy.

See you next week.

Decateur