LANAI CITY — With a high cost of living and a tiny economy of limited job prospects, survival on Lanai has never been easy.
But now that all major new construction has stopped and the island’s largest employer has laid off or furloughed 20 percent of its work force and cut hours for the employees that remain, more families have been pushed to the edge.
Continue reading ‘Lanaians looking for a means of survival – The Maui News’
James L. McGee, CEBS--On Health Care Reform
Health Care Reform – the Next Round
Is health care reform dead? Doubtful? What will it look like? Not nearly enough.
So I want to get a head start on the next round.
Because whatever happens in this round, round 2 cannot come soon enough. It is unrealistic to expect health care reform to be a once and done proposition. The Model T was not invented with 4 wheel anti-lock disk brakes or fuel injection.
So over the next few weeks, I would like to take a look at some of the issues that will still remain even after health care reform legislation is passed.
But first let’s give some thought to what we want from our health care system.
Has the announcement that Maui Land & Pineapple (MLP) is completely out of agriculture the reason for it’s sudden turn away from failure? Check out the chart for the Maui Land & Pineapple (MLP) stocks performance for Januay 2010:
Here is a chart for the Maui Land & Pineapple (MLP) stocks performance for the week ending Januay 29, 2010.
Click Here to view the article regarding Maui Land & Pineapple (MLP) being picked one of the “Double Digit Gainers Beating The Dow: MLP, OTIV” at picksthatmove.com on “No News” and wrong/dated information showing awareness of global technicians tracking computers regarding this weeks move.
CLICK HERE to view the chart showing Maui Land & Pineapple (MLP) terrible performance for the last year trending downwards precariously since October towards certain and inevitable collapse until the move this week.
CLICK HERE to view the histogram chart showing Maui Land & Pineapple (MLP) embarrassing performance compared to other related stocks, etfs, etns, and indexes during the last year.
So, is this just a blip? Are investors so soured by nasty agriculture that the news that MLP won’t be getting it’s collective hands dirty in the future enough to rotate it’s stocks plunging direction towards the positive? Or have responsible management strategies brought the company back from the brink?
By HARRY EAGAR, Staff WriterPierre Omidyar, who invested in Maui Land & Pineapple Co. stock when the company was being pushed in a greener direction, is now supporting a for-profit/charitable combination that is taking over ML&P’s Kapalua Farms, one of the largest organic farms in the state.
Since ML&P also closed its Maui Pineapple Co. subsidiary, then leased much of its land and equipment to the upstart Haliimaile Pineapple Co. this month, the handover takes ML&P completely out of agriculture.
On Friday, Ulupono Sustainable Agriculture Development LLC, a subsidiary of the Ulupono Initiative, announced it would be assuming operations of Kapalua Farms, which not only supplies vegetables and eggs to ML&P’s Kapalua Resort but also conducts research into new methods of producing food on Maui. Ulupono Initiative is a Hawaii-focused social investment organization founded in June with backing from Omidyar and his wife, Pam. He was a founder of eBay, and they now live in Hawaii.
Warren Haruki, chairman and interim chief executive officer of ML&P, said, "We are pleased to partner with Ulupono Sustainable Agriculture Development as they assume operations of Kapalua Farms. Our desire was to find an operational partner that would be able to continue organic farming operations and to maintain Kapalua Farms as a community resource, employer and provider."
Continue reading ‘ML&P stock investor taking over Kapalua Farms’
The annual charts have bee updated. CLICK HERE to view. The 360 day comparative price, line and histogram charts, page has been updated also. CLICK HERE to view.
Maui Land and Pineapple (MLP) 01-29-2010
Calavo Growers (CVGW) 01-29-2010
Alexander and Baldwin (ALEX) 01-29-2010
Monsanto (MON) 01-29-2010
Syngenta (SYT) 01-29-2010
DUPONT E I DE NEM (DD) 01-29-2010
Continue reading ‘Hawaii and Related Agriculture Daily Charts for the week ending 01-29-2010′
WAILUKU – Certified public accountant Lloyd Kimura is facing a flood of lawsuits for unpaid loans, foreclosures and for claims of mismanagement by buyers of a commercial condominium he developed and managed in the Wailuku Industrial Park.Neither Kimura nor his lawyer, Phil Lowenthal, returned phone messages seeking comment.
In November, the state Division of Financial Institutions ordered Maui Industrial (also known as Maui Finance, or MILFCO) to stop taking deposits. Kimura has owned and managed Maui Finance since 1969.
Continue reading ‘Lawsuits, foreclosures, other issues trail isle CPA – The Maui News’
Maui Land & Pineapple Co., On Track Innovations Ltd.Calgary, AB 1/28/2010 09:28 PM GMT (TransWorldNews)
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Double Digit Gainers Beating The Dow: MLP, OTIV
The hot stock information of the day includes: MLP, OTIV
Maui Land & Pineapple Co. (NYSE:MLP) gained 11.60% to close at $2.79 on no news. Based in Maui, Hawaii, Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in agriculture, resort, and real estate development in the US. The company operates through three segments: Agriculture, Resort, and Community Development. The Agriculture segment grows and packs, and markets pineapples under the Maui Gold and Hawaiian Gold brands. The Resort segment operates Kapalua Resort’s golf courses, a tennis facility, retail shops, and a vacation rental program, as well as provides certain services to the resort. It also engages in the mountain outpost and a guided zip-line business. The Community Development is a real estate development company.
Continue reading ‘Double Digit Gainers Beating The Dow: MLP, OTIV – sourced PicksThatMove.com’
WAILUKU — Sugar production on Maui got a reprieve on Thursday, at least through the end of the year.Maui Sugar Cane Tassels
CLICK for larger imageAlexander & Baldwin Inc.’s board of directors met in Honolulu Thursday morning to mull over shuttering its Maui subsidiary, Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co., after it recorded about $45 million in losses over the past two years. In a statement, the company said it would continue sugar operations through the end of the year, but that the company’s fate beyond 2010 would depend on a "favorable outcome" in water cases pending before the state Commission on Water Resource Management, as well as HC&S’s ability to increase its sugar production levels.
An attorney for the environmental and Native Hawaiian groups that are petitioning the state to order HC&S to return more water to Maui streams called the company’s announcement Thursday a "stunt" aimed at pressuring the water commission to give it what it wants.
Asked on Thursday when the board of A&B would reevaluate the sugar company’s fate, HC&S General Manager Chris Benjamin said, "It’s hard to say. No later than the end of the year, but (the review) could happen at any time. It will depend on whether there’s an adverse development, if it’s a water decision or something else.
Continue reading ‘A&B to continue Maui sugar at least through 2010 – The Maui News’
Growing sugarcane and pineapple is hard work, as generations of plantation and farm workers in Hawai’i can attest, but making money at it these days may be even harder. While conditions have improved in modern times for the islands’ fieldworkers, the competition from Third World countries — with different standards of living and labor laws — has also increased.One of the latest large landowners to cry uncle is Maui Land & Pineapple, which announced Nov. 3 that its pineapple subsidiary — renowned for its "Maui Gold" brand — would cease production at the end of the year. Citing losses of $115 million since 2002, along with $20 million in expenses for a new packing facility, the announcement continued: "The painful decision to close pineapple operations at MPC after 97 years was incredibly difficult to make, but absolutely necessary. We realize this ends a significant chapter in Maui’s history — an important part of many lives, over many generations."
The company’s last harvest took place two days before Christmas, but just before New Year’s, a group of investors came up with a plan to continue operations on about 1,000 acres — a third of the former farm — under the name Haliimaile Pineapple.
Continue reading ‘Hawaii Insider : Prickly issue of vanishing pineapple’
Even the wettest spot in Hawai’i — Mount Wai’ale’ale — wasn’t so wet last year as the state experienced below-normal rainfall in all but a few spots.Rain gauges at the Kaua’i mountaintop measured 308 inches in 2009, 73 percent of normal levels, and a scant 3 inches in December, only 7 percent of normal. It was Mount Wai’ale’ale’s third-driest December on record, according to National Weather Service data.
In Honolulu, only the O’ahu Forest National Wildlife Refuge experienced above-normal rainfall in 2009 — 214 inches. Totals for most sites in central and west O’ahu were less than 50 percent of their annual averages.
The December rainfall numbers were even worse, with most O’ahu gauges measuring a third or less of normal rainfall averages, a trend that has continued into the new year.
The U.S. Drought Monitor reports that 99 percent of the state is experiencing "abnormally dry" or worse conditions, compared with 37 percent at the same time last year. More than a third of the state is suffering "severe to exceptional" drought.
On Maui and the Big Island, the U.S. Department of Agriculture last month designated the two counties as natural disaster areas so farmers could seek relief for crop losses.
Continue reading ‘Hawaii’s dry spell predicted to linger through May | The Honolulu Advertiser’
Hawaii investment experts aren’t expecting too much from the U.S. stock market in 2010.
Then again, they didn’t anticipate too much last year either, and the three major indexes posted total returns ranging from about 23 to 45 percent.
So with that as a backdrop, four local stock experts are back at it again for the ninth annual Star-Bulletin survey of best investment ideas.
Barry Hyman, vice president-managing team for the Maui branch of FIM Group Ltd., will seek to defend his title after an impressive 125 percent gain in his hypothetical $20,000 portfolio. That’s heady stuff for a self-proclaimed value investor, who calls the overall market fully valued and expects a lot of churning this year but little, if any, forward progress.
He said if there’s anything that was proven in the last two years it’s that passive investing in diversified index funds is "a loser’s game during volatile periods."
"While 2010 will likely have little upside for the major U.S. market indexes, there will be lots of money to be made both in the U.S. and, especially, overseas by astute investors through selective investing," he said.
Hyman is joined once again in the contest by Kauai’s Norm Caris (up 97.9 percent in 2009), managing director-institutional sales for Caris and Co.; Richard Dole (up 37.8 percent), chief investment officer of Honolulu investment adviser Dole Capital LLC; and Dwight Melton (up 29.5 percent), co-founder of the Hawaii Stocks and Options group.
The participants may have long or short positions in the investments they recommend.
"Selection is key," Hyman said. "Just investing in entire markets or sectors ‘dumbs down’ portfolios. Each sector will likely have winners and mediocre performers. Investors need to own the well-managed undervalued winning companies in these sectors."
Hyman said the best sectors to invest in this year are health care, energy, food/agriculture and companies that benefit from the emerging economies of Asia, east Europe, Africa and South and Central America.Continue reading ‘Local stock experts wary of market once again – Hawaii Business – Starbulletin’
The annual charts have bee updated. CLICK HERE to view. The 360 day comparative price, line and histogram charts, page has been updated also. CLICK HERE to view.
Maui Land and Pineapple (MLP) 01-22-2010
Calavo Growers (CVGW) 01-22-2010
Alexander and Baldwin (ALEX) 01-22-2010
Monsanto (MON) 01-22-2010
Syngenta (SYT) 01-22-2010
DUPONT E I DE NEM (DD) 01-22-2010
Continue reading ‘Hawaii and Related Agriculture Daily Charts for the week ending 01-22-2010′
Castle & Cooke needs approval to build its $2.2 billion community on agricultural lands
Castle & Cooke has asked the state Land Use Commission for permission to convert agricultural lands north of Costco in Waipio into its $2.2 billion master-planned communities Koa Ridge Makai and Waiawa.
The developer, which topped off a 16,000-home, 40-year project in Mililani in 2008, now seeks to reclassify nearly 768 acres in Waipio and Waiawa from an agricultural to an urban designation. Such a ruling would allow Castle & Cooke to move forward on its long-stalled project, which has been planned since the 1990s.
Koa Ridge calls for 3,500 housing units and 500,000 square feet of commercial development, an elementary school, parks, recreation centers and churches to be built on about 575 acres makai of the H-2 freeway. At Waiawa, Castle & Cooke would build another 1,500 homes on 191 acres mauka of the H-2 near Ka Uka Boulevard. The development, which would offer homes from $200,000 to $1 million, would bring more affordable housing to Central Oahu, create some 2,500 jobs and create millions in state and county revenue, said Bruce Barrett, executive vice president of Castle & Cooke.
If the commission agrees to the request, the developer still must go before the city to get subdivision approval, but it will have met all major hurdles, as the LUC approved Castle & Cooke’s environmental impact statement in June. With all approvals, the company could break ground at the end of 2012.
A series of public hearings, which could take months and no doubt will reopen old wounds and mend some old fences, began yesterday. The LUC tentatively approved the project in 2002; however, community opposition and legal battles sent Castle & Cooke back to the drawing board after a state judge ruled that a formal environmental review was necessary before the subdivision, with its planned medical and commercial development, could be built.
SUPPORT NEW COMPANY BY BUYING PINEAPPLE
Well, it’s a new year and the first thing I would like to do is say thank you to all involved in the new Haliimaile Pineapple venture. Kudos to all for keeping this legacy alive and the jobs that go with it.
I will buy one pineapple a week, and I urge the rest of the Maui community to do so as well. We must help prove that agriculture can thrive here on Maui, so I ask all of you to join me in this.
Big mahalo to the Erdmans and everyone involved.
Just one pineapple a week: I will, will you?
Tim Garcia
Makawao
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR – Mauinews.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Visitor’s Information – The Maui News
KIHEI – Three Molokai and Maui schools plus Maui 4-H’ers received a total of $4,620 from the Monsanto Hawaii Science Education Fund for science and robotics programs.The Maui County grants were part of $12,000 distributed statewide to 14 schools and organizations.
"It’s gratifying to see how excited our youth get as they learn about their world – how it works, how it touches our lives each day, how much there is to know and explore," said Paul Koehler, community affairs director for Monsanto Hawaii."Through this grant program, we hope to open up wonderful experiences for dynamic learning."
Continue reading ‘Monsanto grants help county schools, 4-H’ers – The Maui News’
January 16, 2010Agricultural groups from Kansas and across the nation signed onto a letter to EPA clarifying growers’ support for atrazine. The letter was sent to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson today. Earlier this month, environmental activist groups submitted a letter to EPA saying growers oppose the use of atrazine. "It is truly disheartening when political agendas attempt to overturn scientific process," the letter states. "Such is the case in the January 5th letter submitted to the EPA by a handful of special interest groups misrepresenting themselves as the voice of the agriculture community in an attempt to negate the overwhelming support and confidence in the herbicide atrazine and to gain media attention for themselves."
Jere White, executive director of the Kansas corn and grain sorghum growers associations said farmers have been involved in EPA’s reviews of atrazine since the mid-1990s. The groups that signed the letter in support of atrazine represent a very large number of farmers and agricultural producers.
"Over 50 national, state, and local grower and agricultural groups signed on to this letter which reaffirms their support of the use of atrazine. These groups represent hundreds of thousands of farmers from Hawaii to Pennsylvania," White said. Continue reading ‘State ag groups clarify their support for atrazine | Abilene Reflector-Chronicle (KS)’
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| MLP | 4.05 | ||||
| ALEX | 48.15 | ||||
| NNUT | 0.00 | ||||
| WFMI | 0.00 | ||||
| SGG | 83.97 | ||||
| JO | 53.73 | ||||
| SCFE.L | 32.62 | ||||
| DD | 52.01 | ||||
| MON | 82.15 | ||||
| SYT | 62.95 | ||||
| ADM | 29.55 | ||||
| DBA | 29.19 | ||||
| USD | 43.97 | ||||
| JJA | 53.66 | ||||
| MOO | 52.87 |
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