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.
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?
Pierre 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."
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.
Calgary, AB 1/28/2010 09:28 PM GMT (TransWorldNews)
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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.
Maui Sugar Cane Tassels CLICK for larger imageWAILUKU — Sugar production on Maui got a reprieve on Thursday, at least through the end of the year.
Alexander & 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.
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.
