St. Stanislaus School benefit, 9 to 4 in Kolbe Hall, Adams. Bake sale, snack bar, games, Chinese auctions, money raffle, crafts, and pierogi.
Blackinton Union Church, 1373 Massachusetts Ave., North Adams; 10 to 2. Crafts table, bake sale, Chinese auction, the Christmas table, and kid's grab bag. Lunch $4, $2 kids.
First Congregational Church, North Adams, 9-2.
Nov. 28 Becket Federated Church, Route 8, holiday bazaar from 9-3. Lunch, crafts, baked goods, holiday and other items. Information: Mary Peltier, Parish House, 413-623-5217.
Dec. 5
Holiday Fair at First Congregational Church, 25 Park Place, Lee, from 10 to 3; handcrafted items, raffles, children's shop, bake sale, cut Christmas trees and lunch from 11 to 1. Includes angel-themed goods from SERRV. Information, 413-243-1033 or www.ucc-lee.org.
Dec. 12-13
North Adams Country Club, crafts 9-4; food from That's a Wrap from 11-2. Information: Sheryl Morehouse at 413-822-3329.
Planning a bazaar this season? Submit information to info@iberkshires.com to have it listed here.
We're trying out blogs to offer shorter, easy-to-find news. Let us know what you think.
Send press releases and announcements to info@iberkshires.com. Need to contact someone at iBerkshires? Here's how.
Mammography Dispute The government's issued controversial new guidelines stating that women shouldn't get annual mammograms until age 50, rather than age 40.
iBerkshires will be meeting with local medical experts Monday. Have a question you'd like answered on this issue? Send it info@iberkshires.com with "mammogram" in the subject line.
@theMarket: Markets Maintain Higher Levels despite Bad News
By Bill Schmick iBerkshires Columnist 09:17AM / Saturday, December 13, 2008
Bill Schmick
Despite Friday's blow up of the Detroit bailout, the massive layoffs from every corner of America and the revelation of an alleged $50 billion Ponzi-scheme from one of Wall Street's top brokers, Bernard Madoff, the U.S. market is hanging in there. Can investors continue to shake off bad news and for how long?
The ongoing drama between the politicians and the automakers rivals the on-again, off-again circus of the first $750 billion Wall Street bailout we lived through a few months back. Ostensibly, the $14 billion deal struck in the House came apart in the Senate on Thursday night when the UAW's Ron Gettelfinger refused to bow to the senators' demands that the union reduce wages ($75/hour) to a level prevalent among non-union shops ($43/hour).
Underneath the GOP senators' "free market" resistance to the bailout is an age-old rivalry between Republicans and the auto workers union. The union has provided a powerful and traditional source of money and election workers for the Democratic Party for decades. The GOP sees the crisis of the Big Three as a means to break the back of labor hopefully for good. If there is no bailout, so the thinking goes, then the automakers would be forced into bankruptcy. Under that legal process, the courts could mandate vast changes in union wages, contracts and other areas without interference as a condition for eventually re-emerging from bankruptcy.
Both sides have a point. I can't see how the American car makers can compete, regardless of any bailout with such a huge differential in labor costs, not to mention the onus of unworkable union rules and regulations on what company management can and can't do on the assembly line (see my column "The Big Three Should Become the Big One"). At the same time, if Gettlefinger agreed to such a deal the union body would lynch him. Like all Americans, the auto workers are struggling with recession, higher prices, and higher unemployment as it is. I suspect a 57 percent cut in their wages would have hundreds of thousands of workers on strike and in the streets. How would that help GM or Chrysler?
General Motors, who did not take kindly to the rebuff of its loan request, upped the ante on Friday by announcing the closing of 20 North American plants by the first quarter of next year. That would not only reduce production by 250,000 vehicles but would throw hundreds of thousands of workers into the unemployment lines at least temporarily.
Given that, I expect President Bush will relent in his opposition to using any of the $750 billion bank bailout money for the automakers. So by Monday I can predict with some surety that a deal will be struck to provide enough money to GM and Chrysler (Ford says it doesn't need any immediate cash right now) to at least tide them over until the whole mess becomes Obama's problem.
As for the alleged swindle perpetrated over several years by the ex-chairman of the NASDAQ Stock Market, Bernie Madoff, what can I say? His own sons turned him in. If true, his actions seem to exemplify the greed and dishonesty of Wall Street and will just drive another nail into the coffin of the financial sector. Still, none of this bad news seems to have swayed investors in their determination to have what they want most, a Christmas rally.
By the end of the week the markets managed to overcome everything from crappy earnings, the highest unemployment increase in 34 years, scandals, bankruptcies and even one or two kitchen sinks only to end slightly higher from a week ago last Friday. You have to admire the bulls; if nothing else, they have determination.
Bill Schmick is a licensed investment adviser representative and portfolio strategist as well as a registered financial planner with Berkshire-based Dion Money Management, which manages more than $500 million for middle-class Americans from coast to coast. Direct your inquires to Bill at 1-877-850-7942, Ext. 146, (toll-free) or e-mail him at wschmick@dionmm.com. You can also visit www.afewdollarsmore.com for more of Bill's insight.
No, they are not at all the same. The "bridge loan" to GM will save thousands of auto related jobs in America. The bail-out of AIG saved the country's entire financial system from imploding. And FYI, I don't think a degree has anything to do with "smarts" or common sense. However, I do believe one should read and understand the facts before coming to conclusions.
from: Bill Schmick
on: 12-15-2008
You Seem Like a fairly smart man (college grad?)...Do you think the "bailout" of AIG is the same as the "bridge loan" to General Motors ?
from: High School Grad
on: 12-13-2008
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