thanx Jeff Ullian
Month: October 2008
What the Candidates were Briefed by CIA
The next U.S. president will govern in an era of increasing international instability, including a heightened risk of terrorist attacks in the near future, long-term prospects of regional conflicts and diminished U.S. dominance across the globe, the nation’s top intelligence officer said Thursday.
Competition for energy, water and food will drive conflicts between nations to a degree not seen in decades, and climate change and global economic upheaval will amplify the effects, Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, said in a speech here.
McConnell, who has given security briefings to both major-party presidential candidates, said the list of worries will soon drown out the euphoria as the next occupant of the White House settles into the job.
via Intelligence Head Says Next President Faces Volatile Era Continue reading “What the Candidates were Briefed by CIA”
Still Pax Americana
Yet the evidence of American decline is weak. Yes, as Zakaria notes, the world's largest Ferris wheel is in Singapore and the largest casino in Macau. But by more serious measures of power, the United States is not in decline, not even relative to other powers. Its share of the global economy last year was about 21 percent, compared with about 23 percent in 1990, 22 percent in 1980 and 24 percent in 1960. Although the United States is suffering through a financial crisis, so is every other major economy. If the past is any guide, the adaptable American economy will be the first to come out of recession and may actually find its position in the global economy enhanced.
Conservatives For Obama
When Conservative Blogger Andrew Sullivan endorsed Obama back in November, he became the darling of TV land’s talking heads. Now he gives 10 good reasons why Conservatives should vote for a Democrat for President.
I could add ,he left out reaction to the Democrats over-reaching , just as their Republican brethren did “Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely”. Then maybe the Cato institute wing of the party will replace the Bush/Cheney ideological wing, which so disdains his homosexuality, and be swept to power by a public revulsion to the probable Liberal excesses.
The World Is Flattened
While the analysis is good, let’s hope Obama doesn’t have to face all of the doom-and-gloom predictions. It wasn’t the world that got flat, contrary to New York Times pundit Thomas Friedman, but the emerging markets that got flattened.
Faddish conventional wisdom over the past few years held that American influence was fading as technology radiated to the far reaches of the world. When America’s economy went into a ditch, though, the supposed economic superpowers of the future went flying, like children on skates holding onto the back of truck.
The American consumer, it turns out, played Atlas to the global economy, taking the exports of Asia, so that Asia could buy the commodities of Russia, Latin America and Africa. Remove the American consumer, and Asian exports crash, taking commodity prices along with them.
via Asia Times Online :: Asian news and current affairs Continue reading “The World Is Flattened”
How To Make Your Dollar Go Further
Hawaiian Won Park has been folding dollar bills into Oragami creations for 32 years and it pays off. Watch how he creates this Choi ( a large Goldfish). Click here to see more including his Star Wars Collection.
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more about “Won Park Folds His Dollar Koi Shaping…“, posted with vodpod
Troubling toll in Thoreau’s backyard
Species that have responded to rising temperatures by flowering earlier – on average, seven days earlier than Thoreau recorded – have managed to survive. Those that did are dying off, including many familiar families such as orchids, irises, sunflowers, dogwoods, lilies, roses, and buttercups.
Because so many of the winners and losers have been found to be phylogenetically linked (meaning they are close genetic relatives), the study is the first to report that whole groups of related plants are at extinction risk from global warming, the researchers said.
Obama – The Next Kennedy?
Remember that the one thing countless millions of people around the world “know” about the United States is that it is controlled by a cabal of white bankers and Jews who use police with fire hoses to repress blacks. To them, Mr. Obama’s rise triggers severe cognitive dissonance.
Europeans like to mock the vapidity of American politics, but they also acknowledge that it would be difficult to imagine a brown or black person leading France or Germany.
As for Africa, Mr. Obama’s Kenyan father was of the Luo tribe, a minority that has long suffered brutal discrimination in both Kenya and in Uganda (where it is known as the Acholi). The bitter joke in East Africa is that a Luo has more of a chance of becoming president in the United States than in Kenya.
Yet before we get too far with the self-congratulations, it’s worth remembering something else.
Jamaica’s 95 percent black population elected a white man as its prime minister in 1980, and kept him in office throughout that decade.Likewise, the African nation of Mauritius has elected a white prime minister of French origin. And don’t forget that India is overwhelmingly Hindu but now has a Sikh prime minister and a white Christian as president of its ruling party, and until last year it had a Muslim in the largely ceremonial position of president. Continue reading “Obama – The Next Kennedy?”
Bubble Warnings From Davos
The five day Davos meetging, held annualy in Switzerland, is THe meeting for the Rich and Powerful.I was taken by this quote from Stephen Roach, then Morgan Stanley’s chief economist, who now is chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia Ltd. “A sharp decline in housing prices could have a tremendous impact on the global economy; in the U.S. alone, 40 percent of new jobs since 2001 have been related to the housing sector. With low interest rates and excess liquidity, other bubbles may follow,” If the corralary is true, then we could be looking at more job loss than currently predicted.Here is the vull article inThe Bloomberg.com: Exclusive
Why the 2nd Bubble is Bursting Now
Another Bubble Bursts – WSJ.com
Among the problems are the reality of recession and the uncertainty over Barack Obama’s policies. But the larger story is that the global economy is fast popping its latest monetary bubble, the one over the last 14 months in commodity prices and non-dollar currencies.
The original bubble was in housing prices and mortgage-related assets, which the Federal Reserve helped to create with its negative real interest rates from 2002 into 2005. This was Alan Greenspan’s tragic mistake, not that the former Fed chief will acknowledge it Continue reading “Why the 2nd Bubble is Bursting Now”