Full Moon Sheds Light on China

Today’s blog post is dedicated to the rising tension with China. I will make a couple of comments at the end.

As China Rises, Conflict With West Rises Too

DAVOS, Switzerland —As recently as 2008, when China was still an emerging economy eager to put its best foot forward for Western consumers, it lifted censorship, at least temporarily, on several Web sites before the Beijing Olympics. At the same time, it responded to pleas from U.S. and European politicians to cooperate on several other fronts.

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Its currency, the renminbi, is frozen at an undervalued level…

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“China is the West’s greatest hope and greatest fear,” said Kristin Forbes, a former member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers and one of hundreds of top officials and executives flocking to this winter resort for the annual World Economic Forum, which is taking place Wednesday through Sunday.

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China is the biggest recipient of foreign direct investment in the world: 450 of the Fortune 500 companies have business presences there, and many of those still reeling at home are doing brisk business in China. “G.M. is hurting anywhere else, but here [in China] things are quite profitable,” Mr. McGregor said.

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Some say Chinese officials are using their country’s $2.4 trillion in foreign currency reserves as a bargaining chip, knowing that any hint of reducing those reserves would rattle currency markets.

Bargaining chip is a nice word for yoke or leash, isn’t it?

Irritable year ahead expected for relations between the US and China

It is going to be an irritable year in relations between the US and China. After Google’s threatened exit from China, the deadlock of the Copenhagen conference, the latest scrap over Taiwan and half a dozen other points of friction, it is clearly a year in which both countries are exploring whether their relationship is fundamentally changing.

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It would be wrong to be too optimistic. This year has opened with more discord than Obama’s team appeared to expect a year ago. Nor have Sino-British relations fared well. But even if the tone is sour, it is not, at the moment, getting worse.

China may build Middle East naval base

Mr Yin said a permanent base in the region would help supply Chinese ships. “We are not saying we need our navy everywhere in order to fulfil our international commitments,” he said, cautiously. “We are saying to fulfil our international commitments, we need to strengthen our supply capacity.”

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Yin added he was aware that Chinese naval ships in the waters near the Gulf have aroused suspicions, but believed other nations understood Beijing’s intention was to counter pirates. As the world’s largest importer of oil, China is believed to want to establish bases throughout the Indian Ocean and South China Sea to protect its tankers.

US arms sales to Taiwan raise tensions with China

China has cancelled all military exchanges with the US in a sign of its anger at the proposed sale of advanced missiles and helicopters to Taiwan.

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Beijing has also imposed sanctions on the companies selling the arms.

“We made the decision out of considerations on the severe harm of the US arms sales to Taiwan,” said Defence Ministry spokesman Huang Xueping in a statement.

“The US plan will definitely seriously disturb the relations between the two countries.”

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Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade province that is still part of its territory.

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“The US plan will definitely undermine China-US relations and bring about a serious negative impact on exchanges and co-operation in major areas between the two countries,” said He in a statement.

Under a 1979 Act of Congress, Washington is legally obliged to help Taiwan defend itself.

Flashback to 1995-1996:

Third Taiwan Strait Crisis

The Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, also called the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis or the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, was the effect of a series of missile tests conducted by the People’s Republic of China in the waters surrounding Taiwan including the Taiwan Strait from July 21, 1995 to March 23, 1996.

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Another set of missile firings, accompanied by live ammunition exercises, occurred from August 15 to 25, 1995. Naval exercises in August were followed by amphibious exercises in November. Though many of these military activities were part of the normal PLA training regimen, this was the first time in many years that they were announced publicly.

The U.S. government responded by staging the biggest display of American military might in Asia since the Vietnam War. President Clinton ordered ships including the USS Nimitz into the Taiwan Strait in December 1995. This was the first transit by a U.S. warship in the Taiwan Straight since 1976, a clear signal by the U.S. that it was willing and ready to defend Taiwan in the face of Chinese aggression.

And what was the American response after that? Buy Chinese goods, sell them Treasury paper, and move our factories over there.

Ok, so what’s really going on this time? Will there be more saber rattling again followed by the excuse that our symbiotic dysfunctional economies are nosediving together later this year as a result? It wouldn’t be a surprise considering the same people who played “tough” back in the 1990s are still in the same federal positions today.

Is everything just about in place yet for the next world war?

[Via http://gardenserf.wordpress.com]

A Bit Rich: Calculating the real value to society of different professions

The link below connects to a recent report issues by the New Economics Foundation on how the value of work is calculated. It can be dowloaded in .pdf format, or ordered printed and bound.

Thank you for passing this my way, Monika!!

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This report takes a new approach to looking at the value of work. We go beyond how much different professions are paid to look at what they contribute to society. We use some of the principles and valuation techniques of Social Return on Investment analysis to quantify the social, environmental and economic value that these roles produce – or in some cases undermine.

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Pay matters. How much you earn can determine your lifestyle, where you can afford to live, and your aspirations and status. But to what extent does what we get paid confer ‘worth’? Beyond a narrow notion of productivity, what impact does our work have on the rest of society, and do the financial rewards we receive correspond to this? Do those that get more contribute more to society?

Our report tells the story of six different jobs. We have chosen jobs from across the private and public sectors and deliberately chosen ones that illustrate the problem. Three are low paid – a hospital cleaner, a recycling plant worker and a childcare worker. The others are highly paid – a City banker, an advertising executive and a tax accountant. We examined the contributions they make to society, and found that, in this case, it was the lower paid jobs which involved more valuable work.

The report goes on to challenge ten of the most enduring myths surrounding pay and work. People who earn more don’t necessarily work harder than those who earn less. The private sector is not necessarily more efficient than the public sector. And high salaries don’t necessarily reflect talent.

The report offers a series of policy recommendations that would reduce the inequality between different incomes and reconnect salaries with the value of work.

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http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/bit-rich?utm_source=nef+%28the+new+economics+foundation%29+List&utm_campaign=daf4a1636f-eletter-january&utm_medium=email

[Via http://notimetolose.wordpress.com]

Lets Know About DEMAT ACCOUNT - Part 1

Hello Friends here we come up with our another write up on “SMC Gyan Series”. .

Lets Know About DEMAT ACCOUNT - Part 1

. Topic is DEMAT ACCOUNT – Know how it really works ! . In this First part of Blog, we would try to discuss about the importance of Demat account and would like to share the fact that why demat account is must. . With growing financial awareness, more and more people now want to dabble in the share market. To do this, one should understand the basic requirements to trade in shares.

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A company enlisted in a stock exchange, is under obligation to offer the securities in both physical and dematerialized mode.

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Physical securities mean actual certificates giving information about the shares of a company owned by a person.

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In the same manner, Dematerialization is the process of converting physical shares (share certificates) into an electronic form.

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Shares once converted into dematerialized form are held in a Demat account. Today, almost all of the shares trading happens using the Demat mode of shares.

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What is a Demat account? . Demat account allows you to buy, sell and transact shares without the endless paperwork and delays. It is also safe, secure and convenient. . Just as you have to open an account with a bank if you want to save your money, make cheque payments etc, you need to open a demat account if you want to buy or sell stocks. . So it is just like a bank account where actual money is replaced by shares.

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You have to approach the DPs (remember, they are like bank branches), to open your demat account.

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Let’s say your portfolio has 100 of Satyam, 200 of IBM and 120 of TCS shares. All these will show in your demat account.

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So you don’t have to possess any physical certificates showing that you own these shares. They are all held electronically in your account.

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As you buy and sell the shares, they are adjusted in your account. Just like a bank passbook or statement, the DP will provide you with periodic statements of holdings and transactions. . Is a Demat account must? . Nowadays, practically all trades have to be settled in dematerialized form.

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Although the market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), has allowed trades of upto 500 shares to be settled in physical form, nobody wants physical shares any more.

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So a demat account is a must for trading and investing. It is a safe and convenient means of holding securities just like a bank account is for funds.

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Next Blog we would try to touch upon the aspects like why demat account as well as features and benefits of Demat account.

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Stay Tuned for more and more on this

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However For More latest Industry,Stock Market and Economy News Updates, Click Here

[Via http://smcinvestment.wordpress.com]

Directors’ remuneration: One long video

A few months ago, I posted an item entitled Directors’ remuneration: A few long videos with links to a set of videos from a roundtable that the European Commission held last March. Judging by the brevity of commenting (not helped by my failure to follow-up Worldbystorm’s question in the third comment), I guess few people might have watched the videos. I certainly didn’t send encouraging signals when I said of them “I think it is amazing how little attention is given to the the issue of social justice“.

If you had told me before this week’s conference in Davos that a debate at the World Economic Forum would be more — much more — positive from a Left perspective than one organised by the guardians of “Social Europe“, I would not have believed you. However, one of the sessions on Wednesday was on the topic of Rethinking Compensation Models. Speakers — with the exception of Shumeet Banerjii, who sees no problem with the levels of CEO pay — were more engaged with social justice issues, and the trade union speaker, Philip Jennings of UNI Global Union was impressive.

(I loved Jennings’s reply to one of the ‘middle ground’ speakers, who responded to his passion and anger by saying that “raising the temperature does not facilitate getting to the right answers”: “I see it as my job to raise the temperature.” And then he explained why: “What we are seeing is simply unacceptable”.)

No, I wasn’t in Davos for the WEF. I watched on the web this session. It does run to 78 minutes, but much more enlightening and hopeful than the event in Brussels last March.

[Via http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com]

Indian Private Equity Industry to Hit By US Banks Curbs : Experts

Indian Private Equity Industry to Hit By US Banks Curbs

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In case, US President Barack Obama’s proposal to curb the role of commercial banks in hedge and PE funds is implemented, then fund-raising could indeed become a very tough task for Indian private equity players.

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But at the same time, the move could help Indian funds take part in more deals, market players insist.

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Obama has proposed to bar commercial banks from owning, advising and investing their own capital in PE and hedge funds.

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Though most investors in Indian PE funds are university funds, endowment funds, pension funds, insurance funds and institutional investors,  the industry expects the move to impact fund-raising in the long term and in big way, as banks will be barred from taking part in these funds.

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A large number of venture capital and PE funds of US-based commercial banks had reduced their exposure to India during the economic slowdown.

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Though few big ones like Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch etc; stayed back in the market. Indian PE players hope to get more deals if these players vacate the market. . Market experts do not see any significant impact in the coming few months, but cannot deny that a slowdown in USA market will surely impact the Indian private equity industry.

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They feel that any curbs on banks would make fund-raising a very difficult task since banks were the biggest contributors of funds.

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Industry players say the focus will shift from funds of banks to fund of funds, pension funds, and university and endowment funds.

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“It will be difficult to put a number as these transactions are structured in a complex manner. But I believe a significant proportion of investments in India-based PE funds come from balance sheets of these banks. These firms will be affected and will have to look for new sources of money,” said Jagannadham Thunuguntla, equity head at SMC Capitals. .

[Via http://smcinvestment.wordpress.com]

Kingston Fossil Plant, Tennessee, TVA

The Kingston Fossil Plant, part of the Tennessee Valley Authority, is proud of its record in reducing certain emissions at this coal fired plant as expressed in their website. Yet, and a big yet, they have not reduced the emissions of CO2, that greenhouse gas that is the main culprit in global warming. Overall, in 2008, the plant produced 9,409,452 pounds of toxics as stated in their “Toxic Release Inventory.” This figure does not include the approximately 22,000,000 pounds of Carbon dioxide released. It also appears that the 20,000 pounds of Nitrogen oxides and 100,000 pounds of Sulfur dioxide are not included in the toxic release inventory.

There is an infrastructure in this country that supports the use of massive amounts of coal as the fuel source for much of our electrical generation. This is not going to change anytime soon. Yet for every bit of coal that is burned, we put toxics and other chemicals into our air, ground, and water. Yes, the coal industry is doing much to mitigate this problem; but the fact remains that these toxics and chemicals, even if properly sequestered, are still admitted into our environment.

The long-term solution is to leave the coal in the ground and find other non-hazardous methods of energy production. Solar and wind are the best long-term solutions we have right now. Nuclear fission is not the long-term solution. However, if nuclear fusion comes into play, it may become a viable option.

Once a solar generating site has been set up, train-loads of coal need not be shipped to it. Here is a link to a Google map image of 2 such locations a few miles east of Barstow, California.

Certainly there are maintenance costs associated with all generating costs; but solar and wind plants emit no toxic chemicals or CO2.

Think “Photovoltaic.” That’s direct conversion of solar energy to electrical energy. Pioneering relativity theorist Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize in 1921 – but not for his famous theories of relativity and the iconic equation E=mc2. The prize was for his 1905 discovery of exactly how light caused what was then called the photoelectric effect (photovoltaics). This is the wave of the future, and the sooner we jump on that bandwagon, the sooner we get away from relying on coal.

I’m sorry Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and all the other states that dig coal. Start building plants to manufacture solar panels and wind generators. That’s the future.

[Via http://wetlandstom.wordpress.com]

Vac. jobs opportunities for SA students

“Hi all I was approached by a recruitment company today They are looking for 400 people to assist in the boxes at the stadium during the world cup.

Job types:

1. Barmen/Waiter @ R25/hour · Required to welcome guests · Serve food and drinks · Look after them

2. Superviser/Captain @ R45/hour · Manage 5 – 10 boxes · Ensure staff are doing what is required · Ensure suites are clean and well stocked · Deal with any problems that arise

All candidates must be

· 18 years and older · presentable,

· English literate (read, write and speak clearly)

· Must be able to commit to all 8 games & 3 training sessions (11 June – 6 July 2010)

· Do not have to have waiter/barmen experience

Hours: 10am – till end of game (± 10 hour shift)

Need to get own transport to the Presclean offices in Brooklyn – vehicles will be look after (security will be present) – they will transport the staff to and from the stadium.

Dress code: they will supply a shirt – the person will need to wear black trousers, black socks, black shoes

Closing date for applications 31 January 2010 CV’s required for those wanting to do the supervisor job

This is open to everyone –

Please send me names & contact details ASAP!!

Details I need: Address, Contact number, ID, Shirt size and Next of kin details.

Especially for the unemployed/youth in our communities[Alexia Leetz]  - send details to Zaeemah Dollie Dollie.Zaeemah@damelin.co.za“

[Via http://minilicious.wordpress.com]

Dual Specialites

Having dual and diverse specialities is one way to become highly in-demand in this age of short-term employment and globalized competition. Unfortunately, many educators and parents have not realised that and some even discourage dual specialisation, seeing it as a waste of time.

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In JC,  I wanted to do Biology and Economics. The principal refused.  You had to do either (1) Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Maths, or (2) Economics, Chemistry, Physics and Maths.  

I wanted (3) Biology, Economics, Chemistry and Maths. There were students who wanted other Biology combinations too… eg. (4) Biology, Economics,  Maths, Physics. They were refused too.

The reason given for refusing us?  In order to get into the Medical Faculty, you needed combination (1).  What could you do with option (2,3, 4) besides teaching?!! 

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Today, Health Economists and Biostatisticians are amongst the world’s most sought after specialists. They are so rare, because we’ve always been conditioned to think that we need to be a master of one, rather than a jack of all trades, especially here in Asia.

Health Economists are people who are both specialists in biology/medical/health sciences , AND economics. [ combi (3) Biology, Economics, Chemistry, Maths]  These are the people who plan and design national health care systems, deciding who to subsidise, what to spend money on, how to generate revenue etc. They are the people employed by WHO to create financially sustainable health care programmes for countries in need of help. Large pharmaceuticals or investment firms pay them huge salaries to forecast which class of drugs is worth investing in. Large insurance companies need them to forecast how much medical-claims they have to pay, and how much premiums to charge to be profitable.

Biostatisticians are people who are both specialists in biology/medical/health sciences AND maths [combi (4) Biology, Economics, Maths, Physics/Further Maths]  After sampling 1% of the population, the Biostatistician tells you how many people in the country are likely HIV+, how many people are going to be HIV+ in 10 years. Biostatisticians are arguably THE people responsible for the whole Human Genome Project and all the genetic studies we’re going to do over the next 50 years.

 (I’ve described what other highly sought-after dual specialities are, at the end of the main article.)

Lately, because I’m finishing up my PhD thesis, people are asking me what I want to do after graduation. When I tell them I’ll like to go into public health planning & policy-making, they go “Why don’t you want to do lab research?!?!  Your PhD would be wasted and you’ve been in biology research for 10 years!”  hmmm….. wait till they hear that I want to go into religious studies one of these days too   ; )

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A person’s health conditions are determined by a combination of his/her genetics,  environment and behaviour. My PhD hopefully makes me an expert of the first. Going into public-health will hopefully make me an expert in seeing how we can create environments good for every citizen’s health. And religion — that’s fascinating! It’s fascinating how religion can be so subjective, faith-driven, and yet have such huge tangible effects on our economy, politics, health and society.  So many religious practices have direct impact on health-determining behaviour. So many religious commands, I suspect, has its roots in ancient public health policies.

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Few people understand the concept of dual/multiple specialities until you explain it to them. Most of the time, that’s all right = ) We can’t all know everything, and we learn something new each day.

However, I think it is very dangerous and sad when parents and educators don’t understand this concept, and INSIST on how a child should be educated, INSIST that a child should not do such dual/multiple and diverse subjects in school. It’s very dangerous and sad when parents and educators assume that they know how the world works, and how the world will work in future, and INSIST on limiting a child’s potential, in the name of NOT WASTING TIME.  Because in the end, you might be denying these children some fantastic opportunities to really make it big in this world.

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Many developed countries, including Singapore, are seeing increasing and very worrying unemployment trends amongst PMETs (Professionals, Managers, Executives, Technicians). This is not surprising given how India and China are mass producing cheap PMETs. Telling people that they should not be picky, have better attitudes, accept lower pays, getting re-trained, improves the situation to a certain extend. However, few people accept this advice happily.

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I look on with worry, at the number of engineers, bankers, biotechnologists etc we’re churning out. No doubt, these are good jobs with good incomes in good times.  But when the industry goes through a bad patch, you get lots of unemployment. On an individual level, you really have to be in the top percentile to keep your job. How can YOU as an individual make yourself more recession-proof? How do you increase how in-demand you are?  Many people decide to do advanced degrees, which is great. Getting an advanced degree in your field, is great too, because you’re capitalising on what you already have.  However, you’ll still be competing with people specialised the same way, and there’re just so many more of such people.

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On the other hand, few people specialise in 2 different areas, and few people might choose the same combination as you did. Suddenly, you are peerless. There’s no competition. The demand for such dual specialists far outstrips the number of such specialists, and you become an expert overnight.  One such example is Dr Martha Lee, whom people often mistake me for. She’s specialised in Communication, Public Policy and Sexuality — 3 specialities ( www.eroscoaching.com/profile.html  ) .  It’s easy to see how each of her specialities have complemented each other, how she has been able to market herself as an expert in Sexology to become Singapore’s leading Clinical Sexologist in less than a year.

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So why not consider doing a specialisation in a totally different field? You wouldn’t be wasting your first degree. You’ll be one of those rare, rare people, who can do it all.

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High-demand dual specialities.

( Everything here is health/biology-related, because of my familiarity with this field. I’m sure you can come up with your own speciality-pairings in your familiar field)

Health Economists

Biostatisticians

Computational biologists (Computer Science + Biology)–

The human genome has 3 billon letters. Trust me, you need high CPU power for that one.

Biology – Engineering –

I’m referring to the people who create the powerful machines that push biological experiments to the cutting edge. You need to know engineering to make it work, you need to know biology to make it useful.

Lawyers –

 Indispensible aren’t they? Trust me, defending pharmas, doctors and hospitals from lawsuits are huge money. Handling Intellectual Property for pharmas and research institutions are huge money.  But if I told my JC principal I wanted to do Biology, Econs, Maths and English Literature, she’ll just roll her eyes and not even bother with me.

Science Journalists —

A lot of public misunderstanding and suspicion of science and biology happens because most scientists frankly, are too specialised too communicate normally.

Biology and politics, biology and religion etc etc —-

you see why bad policies/doctrines are made? Sometimes it’s not because of anything more than ignorance.

[Via http://mathialee.wordpress.com]

Follow along now, I'll get there in JUUUST a minute.

I LOVE shit like this. Exercises the brain, gives you a wake up call. What, you may ask? “Conspiracy Theories” that prove to be true.

“Conspiracy THEORY? It’s only a theory until you prove it!”

THAT is an article about some, by no means all, that have been proven after dismissal by “the powers” because they’re very ugly. Go read that, I’ll wait.

Now to the point.

You KNEW that, somehow, no matter how much shit got thrown at the masses to try to blind them, ObaMao was coming for our ability to fight back. He, and his crew, would try to defang the “Gadsden Snake”. Cripple if not remove our ability to overthrow the tyrannical government envisaged by our Founding Fathers.

Freedom Fighter did the research and had some links. I will take you to those links, and expound. This one is from Infowars, they’re very good at being on top of stuff.

Simply enough put, that is false charges AND an attempt at entrapment with them. Anybody ever buy a house? Or sell a house? You pay the inspector, you pay the realtor. The other name for this is “lead commission” on a sale to the agent or agents establishing the sale of a good or product to another entity. But what the puppets of the Bilderbergs are trying to do is cripple those of this nation. This, from The New World Order Report, identifies further the who and what of that set of attacks on our freedom, and ability to retain it. Jimmuh Peanut, or his congress critters, established the law that these men are accused of violating.

I don’t mean to dwell on the NWO aspect, but look back at that earlier post about “the people that own the Earth”. Look at the PROVEN “Conspiracy Theories”. Look at the STATED intent, from the campaign trail, of this government. How much of a theory, how much of a stretch to see that as quite probable truth?

Then we have the shut down of the Texas gun show, as set up by the Austin PD, or the ATF, or whoever it actually WAS that set this up.

It is not illegal for private citizens in Texas to sell firearms. The demand by the ATF and Austin cops is a direct violation of the  Commerce Clause(Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution). In addition, under the terms of the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, individuals “not engaged in the business” of dealing firearms, or who only make “occasional” sales within their state of residence (including parking lots) are not subjected to federal regulation.

What they did was provide false identities to convicted criminals and illegal aliens. Then they sent them in to make PRIVATE purchases from NON-FFL PRIVATE sellers, who would not have the resources to check, and would NOT fall under the “known, or should have known” that these buyers were not simply other citizens wishing to make said private purchase to avoid dealer mark-ups. So they’re Mexicans. Or Mexican-Americans. Has anybody out there got the first fucking clue about how many “persons of Hispanic origin” there are around these parts? Go read that link. In it, right below the one I just quoted, is even more good linkage to the first point in here.

And then there’s this, an FBI identification of “persons of interest” sent to gunshops. They’re coming. They’re trying to cripple our ability to fight back. They’ve been around for damn near a millenia, what makes you think they can’t hold on another 10, 20, 30 years?

Check the links, read the articles, hell, do a bit of background yourself. If we don’t stop them, we’re done.

[Via http://cmblake6.wordpress.com]

Spanish Verb Conjugation - The Basics

The importance of understanding the conjugation of Spanish verbs can not be underestimated. Having an excellent knowledge of the basic training Spanish verb provide a solid basis for future studies.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PR Log (Press Release) – 21 Jan 2010 – Spanish verb forms are generally quite disciplined and easy to learn clean fireplace. There are actually three types of verb you need to know, regular verbs, irregular and reflexive, and each verb, regardless of type of verb, will have one of these three purposes,-ar,-er and-ir.All forms of Spanish verb without exception belong to either-ar,-er or-ir groups, but with regular verbs Spanish verbs we start.Regular Forms: The group of regular verbs is by far the most three large groups of verb forms with verbs ending in-ar greatest.All regular verbs follow the same pattern as provided by the grammatical rules governing regular verbs in Spanish, and they are; When the stem of the verb is it usually means, especially with regular verbs, the verb, the less is finished, for example, the stem of hablar (to speak) would HABL. (we use the regular ar verb hablar in this example) In this example the conjugation of hablar now a regular-ar verb, you can see that the stem is used for each pronoun, but the endings are different, which makes Spanish, which is affectionately called, prodrop language, which means that in most cases, the pronoun may be filed as the verb ending is enough to show who is the fulfillment of task.Obviously it There will be times of ambiguity and, where appropriate, the pronoun is generally used.HABL Yo-o I speakTú HABL as you speakÉl / Ella / Usted HABL-a He / She / It speaks (as you mention [in the singular policy] is used when Usted) Nosotros HABL-Amos We speakVosotros HABL You speakEllos-Ais / Ellas / Ustedes-year HABL They / You tell ([plural of politeness] when Ustedes is used) This example shows that the present for a regular-ar verb, but every other time have their specific models of training as the main thing to remember is that all verbs that are designated regular follow these models, the same can be said for ER-and-ir verbs, althou Hot News: Meet The Neighbors Attending Microcredit Summit in Nairobi

[Via http://roniyon.wordpress.com]

What kind of economics?

Last night, the London School of Economics hosted a public debate, with Geoffrey Hodgson and Paul Ormerod, on the question, ““What kind of economics should we teach?”

Here is a link to a pdf version of Hodgson’s slide show. His main point:

Students should be trained to question assumptions and adjudicate wisely between competing explanations.

And for that economics education needs to include philosophy, the history of economic thought, and economic history. Otherwise, students are taught a set of neoclassicals principles and formal models as a common sense, as a single representation of the economy.

The debate held at the LSE is happening around the world. Unfortunately, it’s exactly the kind of debate that is going to be eliminated at the University of Notre Dame (for more, see here and here).

[Via http://anticap.wordpress.com]

The beginning of the end of the USA?

I’m not one to make predictions about the demise of the last superpower, since there are too many of those, but with the thumping of the Democrats for the senate seat in Massachusetts – the safest Democrat seat in the country, we are told – I can’t help the feeling that things are fucked across the Pacific. It’s not so much that the Democrat candidate – Martha Coakley – blew a 31% lead, but that voters are now angrily blaming the government, whatever government,  for their increasing ills. Not a good time to be in government; not a good time to be in the USA.

[Via http://stalinsmoustache.wordpress.com]

The Common root causes of sickness in Bees and Humans - are we both headed towards the same early human caused extinction?

The BBC has an interesting article today that links the decline in bees in many countries to the decline in biodiversity. I agree with the article and have a further take on the subject.

Shock horror – bees are getting sick for exactly the same reasons as humans – they are eating a diet and getting stressed in ways that their systems weren’t evolved for – and the cause is the modern human environment, diet and lifestyle.

Just as we are increasingly eating a diet of processed sugars and carbohydrates – that come from fewer and fewer food sources so are the bees.

Note: Processed and reconstructed variations of corn and soy make up an increasing component of the diet of humans and animals, and this includes bees. One of the ironies is that bees have access to a more diverse diet in cities than they do in the country side – there is now more plant diversity in cities than in the modern farming countryside.

Bees no longer live in stable environments. The bee industry has been commercialised. Bees are now dragged all around the country in trucks to service different farms. This constant change and travel causes stress in much the same way as we humans are stressed by changing jobs, work environments and constant travel. And it should be no surprise that chronic stress weakens their immune systems in the same way as it does ours.

And, to supplement their bland diets and increased workloads, commercial bees are fed simple sugars in much the same way as we feed ourselves sweets, sugary drinks and coffee to keep ourselves going.

The problem for the bees, and poor humans, is that they don’t have choices like the well off humans do. Their environmental choices are set and limited by the environmental conditions created by the wealthy humans who own the businesses that create these environmental conditions and employ the less well off.

The bad news for the wealthy humans is that they are shooting themselves in the foot. If the bees die off the human species will die off too.

The downside of being at the top of the food chain is that we humans are dependent on the survival of the species lower down the food chain for our survival.

While the wealthy have the option of escaping climate change and environmental damage in the short run, by moving location and putting on the air con, the species on which our survival depends do not have this luxury.

99.9% of species that have been on this planet are extinct and we are now in the midst of the 6th great extinction. And this extinction is being caused by us humans.

Alan McCrindle

[Via http://alanmccrindle.wordpress.com]

Make 'Em Pay!

For months now I have been a bitch about the taxpayers money being used to give bonuses to the fat cats on Wall Street…..at every turn the banks have gotten a special treatment and it looked like the taxpayer was screwed…..

Today Obama will announce a plan to recover upwards of $120 billion of the money originally given the banks….

Obama’s announcement will come as U.S. unemployment is stuck in double digits and public anger is growing over big bonuses that some financial firms are poised to resume paying, barely a year after the height of the global financial crisis that made the bailout necessary.

The Obama administration official said the amount of money raised from the fees would not exceed $120 billion since this was the higher end of conservative estimates of the cost of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

Sounds like a pretty good idea to me….but as usual there is a downside to the plan…..The source, speaking anonymously because the fee has not officially been proposed, said government officials are also discussing exempting automakers and insurer American International Group from the fee, even though these companies are expected to represent a large chunk of the bailout losses.

There are other ways of “Making Them Pay”……that would be a Goldman-Sachs shareholder that is suing the company……this was posted in “Before Its News”:

the firm is supposed to spend about 50% of its net revenue on salaries and bonuses.  But in 2008 Goldman dished out $4.82 billion in bonuses despite earnings of only $2.32 billion..In the first quarter of 2009, it spent 259% of its net income on employee and executive compensation and in the second quarter 193%. Brown is now Goldman for exceeding its own rules on salaries and bonuses.

I makes me happy to see that at least someone is mad enough to do something as a payback for the screwing the banks have given the taxpayer….I just wish more people would take these a/holes to task….

[Via http://lobotero.wordpress.com]

January Recommendations

Who doesn’t like recommendations?? Eh? Who? No-one. So, even in the midst of piles and piles of books, here are some for you from me:

Florence & The Machine – Lungs

Review here

Listen here

Soul-tinged, bluesy alt-rock. Lyrically interesting. Highly recommended by U2. Music the wife and I can agree on.

Sufjan Stevens – The BQE

Review here

Listen here

His first classical album. Some excellent tracks. Number three sounds quite like Satie. Being received well in the ‘classical community’ apparently.

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Philip Goodchild – The Exceptional Political Theology of St. Paul – PDF here

Fine article, if a bit rough around the edges, arguing for the exceptionality of Paul’s political theology, in conversation with recent atheist treatment from the likes of Badiou, Žižek and Agamben.

Philip Goodchild – What Is Wrong With The Global Financial System – PDF here

Another good one, Goodchild giving his diagnosis of our ongoing economic troubles, and arguing that a more radical solution than simply “better regulation” is required to fix them. Actually offers quite a bleak outlook.

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The Radical Orthodoxy Reader (Oliver & Milbank)

Details here

Love it or hate it, and people do, this is an absolutely stunning introduction to all things radically orthodox. Articles by Milbank, Pickstock, Ward and Cavanaugh. Lucid introductions to each section by Simon Oliver.

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Democracy & Tradition – Jeffrey Stout

Details here / Preview here

Interesting discussion of the place of traditioned communities in liberal democracies, contra Rawls et al on one side, and Macintyre, Milbank and Hauerwas on the other. Suggests a mode of genuine ‘conversation’ is achievable in political discourse without any notion of ‘public reason’. Not entirely convinced, but an interesting read.

AND FINALLY

Dr. Samuel Johnson’s fabulous Twitter Feed

link here

I’m not a fan of Twitter, but this alone has made me glad it exists. Witty 18th Century commentary on 21st Century news and culture from writer of renowned dictionary. Here are a few gems from the last few days:

“In England, Snowfall & Society do proceed in Lock-Step: one Inch of Snowfall does equate to one Day of SOCIAL COLLAPSE”

“He who wishes to brush the Cloak of Mortality should brake in Herr AUDI’s Prussian Carriage ‘pon an icy Highway”

“Mister JOBS descends from Cupertino brandishing a TABLET unto the same Adulation as MOSES descending from Mt. SINAI”

[Via http://simrav.wordpress.com]

How High Pay Interferes With Ethical of Even Logical Decision Making

Is our compensation system pushing us to do things that are right for society generally?

There is a great misconception that is almost a requirement for one to believe if one lives in the US. This is that high pay is necessary for motivation and that more pay causes more motivation, and that this motivation is always in the right direction. Undiscussed is whether compensation can cause people to be over-motivated and to actually do things that are bad for society in general. The question to ask is what would a person do for $1 million or even $20 million? How can people who make such large amounts of money be expected to put anything in front of that money? What would you do for that much money? Would you use sweatshop labor, would you perform unnecessary operations? The higher pay becomes, the more likely unethical behavior will result. In fact, pay does not need to be what any of us would consider outrageous; in fact it only needs to be high relatively to what else the individual is used to.

• Illegal Aliens: The vast majority of illegal aliens in the US are Mexican. Mexico, along with the much of Latin America has drastically mismanaged its economy, infrastructure, and is a basket case. Because of this pay in Mexico is extremely low, and the vast majority of the population in Mexico is completely illiterate and treated no better than slaves by the white / Spanish over-class. The pay in the US is so much higher, that it causes Mexicans to violate immigration law and to migrate to the US at great danger to themselves. Once in the US, they will do any job, no matter how dangerous in order to survive. The primary reason for this is because they can make 10x the money they would make in the Mexico.
• H1-B Visa: These are work visas for temporary workers that allow large companies like IBM and Accenture to bill very high rates to clients, while paying their workers less, and enriching the elite at these companies. The H1-B workers will do anything to stay in the US and can be pressured to IBM and Accenture to say anything and get behind any program in order to stay. This
• Doctors: Because of overcompensation doctors perform a large number of unnecessary operations, and continually look for pharmaceutical solutions to health maintenance problems. Overcompensation of physicians is one reason why the US only scores 37 in the world in health while spending 16 times what countries do who are similarly ranked.
• CEOs: These individuals make so much more money than the rest of society that they really see themselves as separate from it. They will make decisions that benefit their stock price to the detriment of very other priority in society including the health and wellbeing of their employees, the cleanliness of the environment and the sustainability of the overall society.
• Wall Street Workers: As we have chronicled repeatedly in this blog, Wall Street is an unnecessary grouping of financial firms that pulls money from the rest of the economy without providing anything of value back. The US economy would be larger if not for the stock market and mortgage backed securities and other derivatives. Wall Street loads up companies and other financial services companies load up individuals with debt without consideration to what it does to their lives.

Conclusion

Compensation is directed towards the wrong things and away from those areas of the economy that actually add value. The compensation in the US, and in other countries, needs to be altered so that people have the incentives that are aligned with what is good for society generally. The current compensation model is based upon what you can “extract” from the system, not what an individual contributes to the system.

[Via http://counterecon.com]

Local Registered Nurse Receives Prestigious Award

Debbie J. Judd, RN was awarded the status of diplomat after completing a two-year fellowship in clinical science of anti-aging, regenerative and functional medicine online nursing programs.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Log-PR (Press Release) – January 16, 2010 – Spokane, Washington, December 29, 2009-Debbie J. Judd, RN was awarded the status of diplomat after completing a two-year fellowship in clinical science of anti-aging, regenerative and functional medicine. The scholarship program is offered by the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine organization. "Anti-Aging Medicine is a clinical medical specialty and field of scientific research aimed at early detection, prevention, treatment, and reversal of age-related decline. It is well documented in medical journals and and uses scientific methods based on evidence to make patient assessments.The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine was established in 1997 as doctor of professional certification and review board, which offers recognition of physicians in the form of specialty-based examination in Anti -Aging Medicine. It represents 12,500 physicians, scientists, health professionals, mental and public health from 73 countries worldwide. "1 The health of the U.S. population is rapidly declining. With obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer on the rise, there must be a new direction and approach to treatment these chronic diseases and related problems. Functional and regenerative medicine are the new paradigm of health care. Patient "life stories" are evaluated for underlying causes of disease; lifestyle are used to relieve Many symptoms related to chronic diseases. Debbie Judd is co-owner with her husband, Dr. Michael Judd, of the Metabolic Institute.The Metabolic Institute has been in business for four years and focuses on evidence-based medicine using a functional approach in medicine in the treatment of chronic diseases. In addition to working at the Institute, Debbie is currently a student at Gonzaga University to pursue studies t

[Via http://porrtocar.wordpress.com]

A Lesson In Crony Capitalism

The Obama Administration’s favoritism towards its political allies is glaringly obvious. They want to impose a “Financial Responsibility Tax” on banks, but they are willing to give a pass to the automakers who have benefited from TARP and have yet to repay the American tax payers. Here is an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal:

The real TARP losers—General Motors, Chrysler and delinquent mortgage borrowers—are exempt from the new tax. Why the auto companies? An Administration official told the Journal that the banks caused the crisis that doomed the auto companies, which apparently were innocent bystanders to their own bankruptcy. The fact that the auto companies remain wards of Washington no doubt has nothing to do with their free tax pass.

Also exempt are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which operate outside of TARP but also surely did more than any other company to cause the housing boom and bust. The key to understanding their free tax pass is that on Christmas Eve Treasury lifted the $400 billion cap on their potential taxpayer losses expressly so they can rewrite more underwater mortgages at a loss.

In other words, the White House wants to tax more capital away from profit-making banks to offset the intentional losses that the politicians have ordered up at Fan and Fred. The bank tax revenue will flow directly into the Treasury to be spent on whatever immediate cause Congress favors. Come the next “systemic risk” bailout, taxpayers will still be on the hook. “Responsibility” is not the word that comes to mind here.

[Via http://thecanopener.wordpress.com]

Separation of Race and State

MSNBC.com published a story about the increase in the number of moms as sole breadwinners.

What I found disturbing in this age and it was probably unintentional and maybe not was the racial profiling of Americans.

Some people may think it is important what a black or latino family makes as compared to oriental or caucasian, but to me that is state verification or acknowledgement that not all Americans are equal and they publish numbers illustrating the inequalities.

For example:

According to the Census data, the increase in the number of moms as the only worker was seen across all racial and ethnic groups. But it was biggest among black women, whose numbers rose from 9 percent in 2007 to 12 percent last year as black men suffered disproportionately higher rates of unemployment. The share of Hispanic moms rose from 5 percent to 8 percent, while the share of white non-Hispanic women rose from 4 percent to 7 percent and the share of Asian women grew from 5 percent to 7 percent.

According to the data, white women have less financial responsibility that a black woman.  Which makes a black woman better prepared to fend for herself than a white woman.

Anyway, if I were in one of the mentioned groups I would feel a little uncomfortable that my government is not viewing me as an equal citizen, but a citizen of race.  Like a white America, black American, non white Latino American or Oriental American.

Me, I’m a pygmy so I don’t show up on any demographic charts and am too small for the census people to take seriously.  Have you ever heard of a pygmy American?

[Via http://plainview.wordpress.com]

Free software and externalities

I’ve been thinking of externalities and by far the hardest form of externality examples to come up with has to be “positive production externalities”. That is, where the production of a good or service leads to a beneficial spillover effect for the rest of society’s producers. I came across an older post by Jason Welker where he speaks of the difficulty in providing examples. In that post he quotes economics professor Dr. Tim Haab who had this to say about PPEs:

The problems usually come in defining a positive production externality. A benefit to someone that is not fully captured by the producers–usually difficult because producers are usually pretty funny about finding ways to recover the full benefits of their production.

The case of proprietary software provides evidence for this claim. When proprietary software is published, it uses trade secret, patent and copyright laws to keep other producers from benefiting fully from the spillover. For example, trade secrecy keeps useful source code hidden from 3rd parties. Patent laws can keep 3rd parties from implementing similar ideas in their programs. As well, non-disclosure agreements are used within companies in an attempt to stop any benefit from “leaking” to other producers. Proprietary software production is an allocatively inefficient deployment of resources (historically justified under the fallacy that quality software won’t be written otherwise) and represents a market failure.

In the case of Free software production, the PPE isn’t negated by NDAs and patent thickets. With Free software, all producers are affected by the benefit. Non-copylefted Free software brings the marginal private cost (MPC) curve closer to the marginal social cost (MSC) curve while copylefted Free software aligns the two even closer as producers are unable to prevent others from acquiring the same benefits they received. Therefore, it makes the most sense for government policies to support businesses and other institutions in a way that encourages even more development of Free software.

On a related but unfortunate note, countries like Germany are trying to correct a negative consumption externality of proprietary software. Specifically, the burden of malware. Promoting Free software also tackles this problem as Free software offers users the best defense against malicious code.

[Via http://gnuosphere.wordpress.com]

There really is no correct way to raise a kid

My head is full of a bunch of ideas, so instead of boring you 2 viewers out there with a bunch of paragraphs, I’ll just list everything.

• I was watching a video of me as a child over Christmas vacation at my parents’ place, and it was depressing. The kid, me, in the video grew up to be embarrassed about any childish activities he took part in, despite the activities being proper for his age. My dad had little tolerance of childishness, and I picked up on that early on. One of the first times I found out was my mom clued me in that he didn’t like it when I ran around in my underwear in the house. I think I was 6 at the time, and I never forgot that, and I wore clothes in the house forever after that.
• Dad lost his father when he was young, and probably grew up super quick, losing out on his childhood.
• Dad also expected a lot out of me, which made me push myself hard in school and get better grades than the average kid, even though maybe I was pretty average myself. I learned lots of stuff outside of class, and while I may not have been smarter than the average kid by the end of high school, I knew different stuff and could hold interesting conversations.
• Mom complimented me relentlessly and still does. Dad, not so much. I never cared that mom complimented me, but every time dad did it I loved it.
• I tried to please dad at every turn, but wasn’t sure how to do it. I think I picked up the idea that he liked mom, so I tried to look like mom, but was scared to death he might find out about it. Pretty confusing for me. I was a closet CD early on. So I went about it the opposite way, by doing fight scenes and action films. He liked these, but the other compulsion was always there.
• In an attempt to impress him with my intelligence I started studying economics and the like, which ended up working against me since he doesn’t agree with any of it. This is a fairly recent event, since I only picked up these ideas in the past 18 months or so, and I’ve noticed my CD tendencies have been off the charts. Rarely does he say anything nice about my views on economics, or say I have a good point, even when I debate him out of the room. This happened during Christmas too, and it was pretty disappointing.
• That’s when I came up with the plot for my movie, about the self-destructive guy who’s forever trying to impress his dead father and has no other real course in life. The store came out like someone opened a valve.
• I worry/wonder if my CD habits are going to start fading once/if this ever clears up.
• At least I wrote a kick-ass story.
• Maybe I’m totally wrong, because I come up with a new theory all the time. This one seems better than the rest, though.

[Via http://xout.wordpress.com]

Fund Raising by PE and VCs to Increase by 30-40 percent in 2010

Fund Raising by PE and VCs to Increase by 30-40 percent in 2010

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Private equity (PE) players and venture capitalists (VCs) are back in the market to raise funds.

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Market experts believe that 2010 will see these players raising $13-15 billion, almost as equal to what PE players and VCs raised in 2008.

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PE players and VCs had raised $10-11 billion in 2009, though most of this was in the second half of 2009.

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Experts expect to see a 30-40 per cent rise in fund-raising this calendar year courtesy PE players and VCs.

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“Close to 45 funds are either preparing to enter the market or have already hit the road to raise funds. While I feel that matching the level of 2007 is difficult, the year will be better than 2009,” said Jagannadham Thunuguntla, equity head, SMC Capitals.

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Industry experts expect that this year will be governed by returns. Many Industry experts are of view that LPs are going to focus on returns and returns will be more than 20 per cent, better than in 2009. . “I think LPs are still trying to rework their portfolios. It will be difficult for general partners to convince LPs to invest,” said Thunuguntla.

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Infrastructure, consumer services, education, healthcare, financial and clean technology will be the favoured sectors, say experts.

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One sector that is already in focus is infrastructure. The players are in the process of raising close to Rs 8,541 crore ($1.78billion) worth of infrastructure funds.

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“Investors will become company-specific rather than sector-specific. Good sectors can have bad companies and so it makes sense to focus on companies,” said Thunuguntla.

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Fund-raising by VCs already seems to be gaining momentum. Moreover Industry experts are of view that fund-raising will be more selective this year. It will be better in 2010 than what was seen in 2008-09.

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However experts say that the number of funds that get allocation from LPs will come down significantly this year.

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[Via http://smcinvestment.wordpress.com]

Obama's Progressive Radical Socialist Transformation of America--Government Dependence To Command and Control The American People

 

 Glenn Beck Show – January 11, 2010 part 1 of 7

 

Glenn Beck Show – January 11, 2010 – Pt 2 of 7

Glenn Beck Show – January 11, 2010 – Pt 3 of 7

Glenn Beck Show – January 11, 2010 – Pt 4 of 7

Glenn Beck Show – January 11, 2010 – Pt 5 of 7

Glenn Beck Show – January 11, 2010 – Pt 6 of 7

Glenn Beck Show – January 11, 2010 – Pt 7 of 7

[Via http://raymondpronk.wordpress.com]

Environmentalism "uber alles"?

While there are valid reasons to be concerned about environmental degradation, we’re now in a situation in which concerns over saving the environment are being co-opted to support an agenda in which people and nations have are being cast as enemies. Look at they’ve been saying:

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill …All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.” – Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution, consultants to the UN.

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsiblity to bring that about?” – Maurice Strong, former Secretary General of UNEP

“The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed a sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation.” – UN Commission for Global Governance report (1999)

“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.“ -- Timothy Wirth, former US Under Secretary of State,

current Head of the UN Foundation

“No matter if the science of global warming is all phony… climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.” – Christine Stewart, former Canadian Minister of the Environment

“…we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination…. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts…. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.“ -- Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead Author of many IPCC reports

“The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.” — emeritus professor Daniel Botkin

“We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis…” -- David Rockefeller, Club of Rome executive member

“A New World Order is required to deal with the Climate Change crisis.” -- Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister

“Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely. Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today’s problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time.”  – Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution

Quotes above are from the Windfarms blog.

Thanks to Marjorie Tietjen at Lyme Disease Sentinel blog for the heads-up.

[Via http://thebovine.wordpress.com]

2020 Retrospective: What will the '10's be remembered for?

With the new decade, and my newly redesigned blog underway, there will be new issues that will change the landscape of the sport more drastically than the last. The rise of sports media may have changed how sports is reported, however this new decade could bring about the restructuring of leagues, networks, and even the fabric of a team. Here are the three events I foresee changing the landscape of professional sports.

3. The end of the ESPN Monopoly

ESPN has established itself as THE place to go for sports news. If a story breaks, it isn’t official until you hear about it from ESPN. Though their online presence has been eaten away by other online news sources, their television presence is unmatched. They hold the rights to broadcast three of the four major sports in the United States and hold broadcast rights for numerous NCAA events.

The reason they have this monopoly is because there hasn’t been a large enough entity to compete with ESPN and their parent company, ABC/Disney. News Corp tried launching Fox Sports Net as a national sports news network, but it unfortunately fell flat and is now a regional sports network. CBS has their own college sports network, as well as broadcast rights to the NFL and College Football and Basketball, but it doesn’t nearly have the reach as ESPN.

Ironically for ESPN, it might be the sports entity they don’t have broadcast rights to that could lead to a dramatic shift in sports on television.

The NHL sold its broadcast rights to VERSUS in 2005 after ESPN declined to match the $200 million that VERSUS offered. Since then, the network has quietly been picking up other sports properties, such as College football, College basketball, and World Extreme Cagefighting (owned by UFC). VERSUS made efforts to buy the rights to broadcast MLB games in 2006, but came up short.

On the surface, this might not seem significant, however VERSUS is owned by the cable television provider Comcast, which owns several cable television channels. In addition, they also operate Comcast SportsNet stations in various markets, including Chicago, Michigan, Philadelphia, Washington DC/Baltimore, New England, Northern and Central California, and the Pacific Northwest. On top of that, they also launched The Mtn. (based in Colorado) and SportsNet New York and are a minority partner in the MLB Network. These Comcast Sports affiliates carry FSN Sports programming and games. They also acquired the rights to broadcast NBA games locally in those markets.

Comcast’s biggest splash occurred in December of 2009, when they bought a controlling interest in NBC/Universal, giving them 51% control of NBA/Universal. This gives them tremendous influence nationwide and further increasing revenues.

If they already operate local regional sports stations, and they own a controlling interest of a major broadcast network, don’t you think that a National Sports Network is next? Three of the four major sports leagues have television contracts expiring during the next decade, and with Comcast owning a piece of NBC, the pieces are in place to create and successfully launch a large enough network to compete with ESPN the same way CNN and Fox News compete.

The difference though is that ABC/Disney is not a cable provider. On the other hand, Comcast is a growing cable provider who can get their network on everyone’s cable packages and make matters worse for other broadcast companies.

2. The Restructuring of Professional Sports Leagues

The early 2000’s saw increased revenues across the board for all four major American sports leagues. Television contracts got richer, leagues and teams found new ways to bring in revenue, and more importantly, more fans came out to the games.

In 2008, the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression of the 1930’s unfolded. Unemployment has skyrocketed in the past 24 months into double digits, and many Americans are out of work, and those that still have their jobs have much less disposable income than in the past.

Unfortunately for sports teams and leagues, less disposable income means less revenue for teams. Many teams that had been struggling to operate in good times are now deep in the red, highlighted by the Phoenix Coyotes declaring bankruptcy and being owned by the NHL. Because there’s less revenue, many of the smaller market teams simply can’t compete financially with those teams in larger markets. the disparity between the have and the have-nots is growing to where there are many more bad teams than there are good because the bad teams cannot bring in marquis players without taking a huge financial hit.

There are going to be two results I foresee happening in this decade. The first will be relocation of teams. All of the leagues saw major expansion in the 90’s and 00’s when times were good. Markets that would normally not be home to professional sports teams were given franchises of their own, even if it didn’t make much sense, such as putting a NHL franchise in Nashville. If there’s a market that can make a team financially viable, they will move there.

The NHL’s failed expansion in the southern part of the United States might be the gain of cities in the northern United States and Canada. Hockey is Canada’s biggest sport, and cities up there would be more open to supporting a hockey franchise. In addition, college hockey is popular in the Northeast and Midwestern United States, and fans in those regions could support a pro hockey team. The Winnipeg Jets, Quebec Nordiques, Hartford Whalers, and the Minnesota North Stars all relocated south, and while Minnesota has since regained a team, the other three markets remain empty even though they have more fan support than citizens in cities such as Phoenix. Many sports teams with expiring leases and low attendance will look to move their franchise in hopes of greener pastures.

The other option would be contraction. With 30 or more teams in each of the four professional sports leagues, players who would not have made a team in the 80’s, are seeing their bank accounts surpass their actual on the field talent. Teams now are less talented than they were back in the 80’s and early 90’s because the talent pool is more spread out.

Much like other businesses which have shut their doors due to financial problems, don’t be surprised if leagues decide to cut their losses and cut teams. MLB toyed with the idea of contraction in 2001 but that was ultimately shot down. With revenue and attendance down league wide for all sports, contraction could be a viable way to cut down on expenses and even improve the quality of play on the field. If teams don’t move, look for leagues to cut back and shrink the amount of teams in their respective leagues.

1. The Gay Athlete

Girls, cars, money, etc. are open topics of conversation among athletes in the locker room. Additionally, because of their wealth, athletes often find groupies throwing themselves at them, and have made the most of it. Most notably, Wilt Chaimberlain claimed to have slept with 20,000 women.

One topic of conversation that is rarely brought up publicly by athletes is the subject of homosexuality.

In the last decade, there have been more and more openly gay people in public places, including politicians and actors. This decade saw states legally recognize (and in some states ban) gay marriage. More Americans are accepting of gay people and their rights than they have been in the past.

The lone exception to this movement is in the realm of professional sports. While some athletes have come out of the closet, the majority of them don’t do so until after their playing career is done. In the four major sports, and in team sports for that matter, knowing that one of your teammates is openly gay could create some discomfort publicly among fans and privately among the team. Additionally, with sponsors wary about athletes actions off the field, being associated with a gay athlete in any way could hinder endorsement deals with companies with conservative values.

With gay people being accepted by the public, and younger players entering professional sports, there is a chance for players and coaches to be more accepting of one of their athletes being gay. Privately, they may already know. This subject was brought up in the short-lived ESPN drama “Playmakers”, in which one of the players was outed by his lover, and he eventually came out to the team. The series was canceled by ESPN, partly because of pressure by the NFL, so the end result of that will forever be unknown.

But the question remains, will an athlete in either the NFL, NBA, NHL, or MLB, come out of the closet while they are still an active player? Whichever athlete decides to be the first one to do so will be in the line of fire. It will most likely be the closest thing my generation sees to Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball.

He will most likely lose all endorsements they have, whether it be the companies decision or if they’re pressured by public opinion. He will also have to endure some of the harshest taunting athletes will ever hear, and his personal life will become much more public. Whichever team he’s on will most likely face public backlash from fans and sponsors.

When the smoke is cleared, gay athletes will be accepted by the public like openly gay actors and politicians. The road to acceptance will be a harsh one.

[Via http://commonsensesports.com]

Handouts: It's Your Right America

Take a lesson from the past Democrats

As if a lesson from Reaganism appeared long before Ronaldus Magnus became one of the greatest Presidents this country has ever known, then John Kennedy was on to something.  So why are today’s democrats using a spending model as a way to stimulate the economy?  It doesn’t make sense.

Obama Defies Logic and Economic Sense

Plus Picking Nose and Picking Pockets

So, let me get this right.  Obama says spending more tax dollars, our money, is good for the economy?  To me a stimulus is more money in my pocket, not more money taken out of my pocket.  The arrogance and hubris this Obama spews is complete nonsense.

Real economic stimulus is not government spending, it’s people spending money, and People cannot spend money if the government is taking our money away from us.  Business cannot create jobs because no one knows how the health care bill will effect business spending.  No Jobs, No Spending, No Recovery.

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today.  Teach a man to fish; and you will not have to listen to his incessant whining about how hungry he is.”

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today.  Teach a man to fish; and you can sell him fishing equipment.”

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today.  Teach a man to use the Net and he won’t bother you for weeks.”

“Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.  Unless he doesn’t like sushi—then you also have to teach him to cook.”

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today.  Teach a man to fish, and he will sit in the boat and drink beer all day.”

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today.  Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.  Teach a man to sell fish and he eats steak.”

(H/T amatecon)

What’s For Dinner?

Red Snapper

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today.

Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”

[Via http://kinialohaguy.wordpress.com]

Living in the age...

Living in the age of the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression has me thinking.  I’ve read a lot in the last two years about people blaming the government, big banks, credit card companies, and Wall Street for the economic crash.  When do we stop blaming everyone else and start taking a hard look at ourselves  We are the ones that have lived beyond our means since the end of World War II.  Buying houses we can’t afford, charging things we don’t need and don’t have the cash to buy, keeping up with the Joneses . When do we, as citizens of this country and of the world, take responsibility for our part in the crash of the World economy? Before World War II, people lived in small houses that they could afford and they were happy.  People saved to buy furniture and go on vacation and buy a car. They sat down at night with their children and ate together,talked together, shared their lives.

When did we, as a people, become so discontented with our lives that the only way, if only fleetingly, that we could feel good was to go shopping, buy a fancier car, a bigger house, stop cooking and spending time with our families to work non-stop to try and stay ahead of the bills.  When did all the values that we, as a nation, have held dear since our birth over 200 years ago become obsolete?

I see some people now thinking ,as I am, about changing their lives, going back to the ways of our parents and grandparents.  People are saving again, paying with cash, haunting thrift stores, growing gardens, cooking meals at home and reliving those wonderful evenings at the dinner table talking to their children, catching up on their days.  I’m glad to see the changes but I wonder, will they last?  Or, will we go back to the old ways…..will we once again start to think that what we have isn’t good enough, big enough, or fancy enough?  I hope not.  With responsibility comes joy, a simpler way of living, a re-connecting with family and friends, a slowing down of the frenetic life that we, as Americans, have lived for far too long. And that, is this humble Americans opinion.

Chris Schultz

[Via http://politicalstrife.wordpress.com]

Is Your Credit Score Affected In A Debt Consolidation Program?

There are several factors that affect your credit score, and you have complete control over almost all of them.

What is the best company for debt consolidation?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Log-PR (Press Release) – Jan 06, 2010 – About the only thing you do not control your credit score is when the credit agency commits an error and distorts your information nursing training. Hector Milla editor of the Consolidation Best Debt Services "Website – http://www.ReputableDebtConsolidationCompanies.com – said:" … But even then you can request that they fix this error, and get your credit report accurate.The decision to take on the accounts of various credit is yours, and where these accounts you may take if you are using are consequences that you will continue to face … "Some things that can negatively impact your credit score is to have too much credit, using credit too, having too many inquiries on your credit report, and delays payment to your credit accounts . If you allow your credit accounts to grow out of control, then they stand a very good chance of having a severe negative impact on your credit score.One things you can do to fix this is to consolidate debt . With an aid to the debt, you can take all your high interest debt credit card and boil all at one program at low interest rate loan.This will instantly improve your credit because it removes excess credit available for your name because you are canceling the account after you pay, it stops the story accounts credit card before they can cause more damage, and it reduces your monthly debt that has a huge impact on your credit score. A business debt consolidation can also save you hundreds of dollars per month on your bills by eliminating multiple service fees that used to exist on your credit multiple accounts, which can release a lot of extra cash in your monthly income to hel

[Via http://roniyon.wordpress.com]

The Issue of the Federal Reserve.

THIS BLOG WILL TALK ABOUT THE PROBLEM WITH THE FEDERAL RESERVE’S EXISTENCE AND THE ASSUMED NOBALITY OF THE INSTITUTION

The Reason Most Economists are Keynesian Economists…

Is not because they believe it is the form of economics that best works it is because…

From the 1940’s to the early 19080’s the most widely used textbooks used for the study of economics for universities were written by Samuelsson. All of the rest quickly made their textbooks Samuelsson-clones for the sake of their sales.

So most economic journalist and decision makers were taught in Samuelsson economics. Samuelsson was a fellow disciple of John Maynard Keynes.

The a late edition [1989] of the Samuelsson text book said this about the fed,

The Federal Reserves goals are for steady growth and national output and low-unemployment. It’s sworn enemy is inflation. If aggravate demand is excessive so that prices are being lifted up the federal reserve board-they want to slow the growth of the money supply thereby slowing aggravate demand and out-put growth.

If unemployment is high and business is languishing the fed may consider increasing the money supply thereby rising aggravate demand and augmenting output growth.

That makes the Federal Reserve sound like a independent working machine that fights for the good of the economy. And I am sure that their (the fed) hearts are in the right place but they are not independent and they are not working for the good of the economy—This blog with show that…

POLITICIZAITON OF THE FED.(Not independent)

The Federal Reserve constantly reminds the public that they are not politicized. However history, the best teacher, tells another story….

The national bank of Andrew Jackson’s day gave 100,000 to Henry Clay for his campaign against Andrew Jackson.

FDR appointed Mariner Equises as head of the Federal Reserve. This man had no experience in economics or a college degree, even. And he was also a huge advocate of deficit spending. FDR wanted deficit spending, coincidence? Mr. Equises was a political yes man.

This way by appointing this man FDR for all practical reasons ran the fed.

Eisenhower wanted slower money growth–he got it. Fed grew the money supply at 1.3% during his administration.

Kennedy came in and he wanted faster money growth–he got it. Fed grew the money supply at 2.31% during his administration.

Lyndon Johnson, for the war, of course wanted a faster rate of growth so he grew the money supply so it was at 5%. This establishes that when it comes to the Federal Reserve in power, there is no economic difference between Republicans or Democrats. Sorry Obama fans but, George Bush was a Keynesian and so is Barrack Obama. So how much change can we really expect?

This all under the same Federal Reserve chairman William Shezny Martin, by the way. The idea that all these changes happened under one Federal Reserve chairmen proves that the Fed is clearly politicized. So although the Fed claims they are independent of political influence they are clearly not.

Carter was scared he wouldn’t get re-elected for office so in fear of this he had the Federal Reserve spike the inflation rate from an already high 8% to a thundering 16.5% in just the last five months of his administration. His hope was this would create fast illusionary wealth in the country making it seem that he was in control.

It IS NOT FOR THE GOOD OF THE ECONOMY…

Price level of goods was about the same during the age of the constitution as in 1913, under the Gold Standard.

But since the Fed’s beginning in 1913 the price levels are at least 15 times more. The value of our dollar has depreciated 97% since 1913. These facts prove how the Federal Reserve discourages savings because if you had 10,000 dollars in 1999 for a college fund—you now only have 7,000 thanks to all the bailouts and cheap credit bubbles of Greenspan and Bernanke.

Multiple administrations have sought steps to remove the gold standard. And since the removal of the limiting standard we’ve had a lot more severe up and downs, like never before; We have had some sort of recession, by ratio, every 3.4 years since 1913. In the entirety of nineteenth century we had I believe 11 recessions and, that’s being generous because I remember the figure being under ten.

These items (such as the 97% decrease in value of the USD), which are of a negative value, cannot, in any respect, be the product of a “too” free market. The reason for this conclusion is that in the 19th century the market was as free as it has ever been. This is especially true in the times after Andrew Jackson’s ending of Hamilton’s central bank. Currencies competed with each other and gold was abundant(which restricts inflation.)

The time after Hamilton’s bank the country was run by gold/silver/competing bills and with no economic interventions from government. During this time there were seldom recessions, no dramatic price changes, no external wars and, the currency was something that solely had to do with the market and nothing to do with the government. Thus this chaos we now see could not have been derived from the free market that showed no negative effect on society in the 19th century. In fact the population, in the nineteenth century jumped more than ever in history. The only item that could have possibly supported this vast growing population was the gold standard because it gave the growing poor demographic more buying power because inflation was seldom, under gold. Also, if you were in the growing middle class—you were able to save you dollar without worry of it loosing buying power, under gold. Austrian Economics is what saved the growing population of the nineteenth century. There is no way our twentieth and twenty-first century form of Keynesian Economics could have supported such a population with such perpetuated inflation.

To argue otherwise is an argument that, to uphold, must ignore history.

And ignoring history is in of itself foolhardy and fallacious and it is what we are currently good at.

In all cases ignoring history has never proven wise. Like in sleep, knowledge is gained through history.

According to recession.org/history these are all of America’s notable economic declines:

Late 2000’s Recession

Early 2000’s Recession

1990’s Recession

1980’s Recession

1970’s Oil Crisis

Late 1960’s Recession

Early 1960’s Recession

Late 1950’s Recession

Early 1950’s Recession

Late 1940’s Recession

Recession of 1945

The Great Depression

Recession 1926

[RECESSION OF 1921]

Post World War I Recession

Panic of 1907

1870’s Recession

1890’s Recession

Panic of 1857

Panic of 1837

Depression of 1807

Panic of 1819

Panic of 1797

America has been around for 233 years. The Federal Reserve has been around for ninety-six years. In that time that have accounted for fourteen of America’s great recessions, being 60%.

We had truly free-market society for roughly fifty years in the mid 19th century and in the early twentieth century. In that time there were four recessions. And the Panic of 1837 was actually because people lost confidence in banks because banks were attempting a move to paper currency.

Thus if they would of held true to the commodity then really only three recessions would be under the belt of the free market society. But notice yet how even that recession was a product of the people’s s confidence but not that of the corrupt, murky, secretative, governmental organization, the Federal Reserve. So really in their recessions, at least the glass was half full.

This is the one other recession that the exists under the time of out free market society in the nineteenth century:

The Panic of 1857 lasted longer than most previous U.S. recessions had. Basically, the failure of a huge life insurance and trust company, which was called the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company, spurred a huge drop in European speculation for the U.S. railroads.

United States banks, which had lost much of their confidence, began a downward spiral that business began to feel the very first year of the recession. In the first year of the recession alone, over 5,000 businesses folded. Unemployment soared as people lost jobs all over the country. In fact, the labor scene was so bad that there were regular protest meetings held in urban areas after the businesses failed.

This recession helped prove that other economies, not just the U.S. economy, play huge roles as far as what happens on U.S. soil in terms of bank confidence, labor, and business survival.

This recession ended in the December of 1858; it lasted 18 months. In a free-market society when companies were going to fail they were going to fail. This makes companies more unwilling to fail as they then know that if in a free market society you fail you actually fail. There’s no one to pick you up and say “oh hey go give it another go-around.”

The consequence is fatal for capitalism if corporations no longer fear failure. The consequence is also corruption will begin to thrive like ever before. The fear of failure is what drives competitiveness in a financial market.

If those on top are profiting off of their failure and are being kept alive despite their failure then they have little incentive to get into a truly competitive nature. This nature of course is what gives people the lowest possible prices on consumer goods.

The Federal Reserve may boast that they subsidize for this lack of competitiveness by orchestrating the interest rates. Well there is two obvious things wrong with such a statement coming from the Federal Reserve.

1. False interest rates that with Greenspan and Bernanke go as low as 1% cause a ripple effect of misplaced confidence; people placing risk where they other-wise wouldn’t have placed it. E.G. our current depression.

2. The very essence of Keynesian Economics, what the Federal Reserve represents, discourages saving and encouraging mass spending and borrowing. Through their philosophy of inflation cures inflation the value of our dollar has depreciated 97% in value. Thus if you saved in a family fund in 1913 of $400,000, you would now only have $10,000….These two items are not a healthy subsidy.

In the transcripts of Congress the general consensus of the advocates for the bill that passed the Federal Reserved into existence was that they wished America to pursue something of an empire. They did not want America to be restricted to a republic of our constitution. They wanted to be an empire that would rival that of the British Empire. And they knew they needed a central bank to finance that.

[Via http://jonathanbruce.wordpress.com]

Corporate India set to prefer QIPs for Funds Raising in 2010

Corporate India set to prefer QIPs for Funds Raising in 2010

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Merchant bankers are of view that Qualified institutional placements (QIPs) are expected to still be the preferred route to raise money in 2010.

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Earlier, QIPs  had gained traction during the middle of the year but ran into valuation headwinds in the last quarter of 2009.

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In 2009, Indian companies had raised close to Rs 33,000 crore by way of 45 QIP issuances.

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Also, about 33 QIP issuances are trading above the issue price, while 12 issuances are trading below the issue price.

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2009 was the year of the QIPs. QIPs are expected to rule the roost, as there is serious interest and appetite in the overseas markets for instruments like converts/ADRs/GDRs. . QIP, which was introduced in May 2006, picked up momentum in 2007 and then stagnated in 2008 when the market was in a bear grip.

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Delhi-based real estate company Unitech successfully raised $325 million through a QIP in mid-April 2009.

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Later, Indiabulls Real Estate and PTC India raised Rs 2,657 crore and Rs 500 crore, respectively, through such placements.

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QIP is a private placement by which a company sells its shares to qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) on a discretionary basis with the two-week average price being the floor.

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In a QIP, unlike an IPO or PE investment, the window is shorter (four weeks) and money can be raised quickly.

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According to a study by SMC Capital, the 45 QIP issuances have resulted into a mark-to-market (MTM) return of about more than 21.60 per cent, amounting to a profit of about Rs 7,050 crore.

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Some of the QIP issuances trading significantly above the issue price are Unitech (first round of QIP issuance), Emami, Shree Renuka Sugars, HCC , United Spirits, Dewan Housing, etc.

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Those trading below the issue price are Network 18 Fincap, REI Agro, Indiabulls Financial Services, Punj Lloyd, Delta Corp.

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“The overall positive listing performance of QIPs in 2009 will encourage investors as well as Indian corporates to access this route for fund-rising in an aggressive manner,” says Jagannadham Thunuguntla, equity head, SMC Capitals.

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QIPs had hit a pause button when a large percentage of them ran into valuation headwinds, resulting in companies raising a much smaller amount than what was initially proposed.

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[Via http://smcinvestment.wordpress.com]

Hayek on Freedom

Think for a minute about how progress is made. It doesn’t follow a constant, linear path. It is unpredictable. It comes in violent fits and starts. It happens at the whim and fancy of genius.

Everyday life is much the same. Life is what you make of it. You have to be free to find what’s best for you. That means making wrong choices sometimes. It means not just trial, but error. Or, as Hayek put it:

“If we knew how freedom would be used, the case for it would largely disappear… It is therefore no argument against individual freedom that it is frequently abused.”

-F.A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, p. 31.

[Via http://inertiawins.com]

Let Us Look Back At TARP

Lots of anger….lots of shouting….lots of frustration….lots of cash……lots of everything but justice….by justice I mean the justice where the people that paid the bail out tab got something in return….they got NOTHING….the taxpayer got fleeced!

Let us look back for a moment…..a moment provided by Andre Damon and Barry Grey of wsws.org:

It is worth recalling the justifications that were given at the time for the passage of TARP. Then-President George W. Bush went on national television after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the fall of 2008 and declared that Wall Street had to be bailed out in order to rescue Main Street. The alternative, he said, was mass unemployment and the worst recession since the 1930s. The taxpayers had to bail out the banks, he insisted, in order to allow them to offload their bad assets so they could begin lending again to consumers and businesses.

These claims were lies. The banks have used their government handouts to boost their profits and further enrich their executives, big shareholders and creditors. They have refused to expand their loans to small businesses and consumers, contributing to the worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression. They have refused to sell off or write down their bad assets, confident that, in the end, the government will make sure that they are able to palm them off at top dollar, or, in extremis, bail them out again.

A good portion of the banks’ revived profits have come from the systematic and open gouging of the public. They have jacked up interest rates and fees on credit cards, imposed higher fees on checking account overdrafts, and gamed the foreclosure crisis in order to profit from the tragedy of families driven into homelessness and destitution.

The American taxpayer has gotten the shaft yet again….they voted for change and they got the same screwing they always get…….no lube….no kiss….no cash……nothing has changed….see what corporate cash can buy?  It buys lots of politicians, even though taxpayer’s money pays them to do a job for the whole country…..they disregard that pledge and work for the captains of industry….the same people that caused all the economic problems……

[Via http://lobotero.wordpress.com]

orgtheory quiz #2: what's the world's oldest firm?

Hey, tough guy! Think you’re “the situation?” Answer me this: what’s the world’s oldest firm?

It’s Hyoshi Ryokan. It’s an inn in Japan. Been running since 718. The previous record holder was Kongo Gumi, a Japanese construction firm, founded in 578 and running till 2006. Here’s a list of other old firms, compiled by b-school prof  William O’Hara.

Didn’t get that? You flunk into demography!

[Via http://orgtheory.wordpress.com]

The Road

As people always say, the road to hell is always paved with good intentions. I read this quote and found its timelines appropriate given the altruistic intentions of our current administration.

The great tragedy of the drive to centralization, as of the drive to extend the scope of government in general, is that it is mostly led by men of good will who will be the first to rue its consequences.

Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 3.

[Via http://andrewwalker.wordpress.com]

Economic Impacts from the Promotion of Renewable Energy Technologies

Manuel Frondel, Nolan Ritter, Christoph M. Schmidt, Colin Vance have recently published a paper on the economic impacts of promoting renewable energy technologies in Germany.

The allure of an environmentally benign, abundant, and cost-effective energy source has led an increasing number of industrialized countries to back public financing of renewable energies. Germany’s experience with renewable energy promotion is often cited as a model to be replicated elsewhere, being based on a combination of far reaching energy and environmental laws that stretch back nearly two decades. This paper critically reviews the current centerpiece of this effort, the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), focusing on its costs and the associated implications for job creation and climate protection. We argue that German renewable energy policy, and in particular the adopted feed-in tariff scheme, has failed to harness the market incentives needed to ensure a viable and cost-effective introduction of renewable energies into the country’s energy portfolio. To the contrary, the government’s support mechanisms have in many respects subverted these incentives, resulting in massive expenditures that show little long-term promise for stimulating the economy, protecting the environment, or increasing energy security.

[Via http://freemarketmojo.wordpress.com]