Month: October 2008

Why Dogs Dig Holes, Not Music

Anyone with normal hearing can distinguish between the musical tones in a scale: do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do. We take this ability for granted, but among most mammals the feat is unparalleled.

This finding is one of many insights into the remarkable acuity of human hearing garnered by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, reported in January in the journal Nature. Continue reading “Why Dogs Dig Holes, Not Music”

Spider Eats Bird

Spiderd Bird

Joel Shakespeare, head spider keeper at the Australian Reptile Park, said the spider was a Golden Orb Weaver.

“Normally they prey on large insects… it’s unusual to see one eating a bird,” he told ninemsn.com.

Mr Shakepeare said he had seen Golden Orb Weaver spiders as big as a human hand but the northern species in tropical areas were known to grow larger.

Queensland Museum identified the bird as a native finch called the Chestnut-breasted Mannikin.

Giant spider eating a bird caught on camera – Telegraph

Billionaires’ $$$ Get Slammed

So far in October, almost $1.24 billion in stock has been sold by CEOs and other executives to cover debts, according to Ben Silverman, director of research at InsiderScore.com, which monitors SEC filings. Another $250 million in stock sales may also be related to so-called margin calls—when lenders force the sale of stock to cover debts.

The point was driven home on Tuesday, Oct. 21, when billionaire Kirk Kerkorian‘s Tracinda Corp. disclosed it sold off 7.3 million shares in Ford Motor (F) and may sell the rest of its stake in the automaker. Originally valued at almost $1 billion, Kerkorian’s stake has lost more than two-thirds of its value as Ford’s stock price has plummeted. It closed Tuesday at 2.17 a share, down 7% for the day. Though the exact reasons for Kerkorian’s sale aren’t clear, he had borrowed $600 million to buy the Ford stake and recently needed to use casino holdings to back that debt.

First Sumner Redstone, chairman of Viacom (VIAB) and CBS (CBS), sold $233 million in stock to help cover a loan. Then John Malone, chairman of Liberty Media (LCAPA), sold $49.5 million in stock to pay back a loan to Bank of America (BAC). Continue reading “Billionaires’ $$$ Get Slammed”

Chins Has Its Own Systemic Market Problems Too

At the heart of the crisis that toppled Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. is an out-of-control system built on debt. At the heart of China’s problems is frantic development that also cuts corners to meet overambitious targets. The habits of both have huge implications, but aren’t easily changed because they are ingrained. The common dynamic is greed, meeting over-inflated goals, creative accounting and a sense of hubris.

Just as the credit crisis has shaken Wall Street to its core, safety concerns are a bigger problem for China than many realize. It’s one thing to fake DVDs and Prada bags. When a lack of regulation and oversight forces companies such as Unilever, Cadbury Plc and Japan’s Kanematsu Corp. to recall goods, China has a true dilemma on its hands.

A critical mass of China’s 1.3 billion people isn’t ready to create a domestic market. Nor can China easily find other export markets to offset Group of Seven economies. China can keep cutting rates, increasing infrastructure spending and tweaking taxes, yet that may not be enough.

The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression won’t leave China unscathed. If things get that bad, Chinese officials will have more to cry over than tainted milk.

via Bloomberg.com: Opinion

Moscow’s Trafiic Grid Locked

You think we have infrastructure problems…Moscow ground to a halt today as traffic jams blocked 500 kilometers (310 miles) of roads leading into the city center.

“Traffic jams paralyzed practically all the major arteries of the capital on Tuesday morning,” state broadcaster Vesti-24 reported. “The overall length of traffic jams in the capital at 9:45 a.m. exceeds 500 kilometers.”

Moscow and the surrounding region lose 400 billion rubles ($15 billion) a year, or 6 percent of the area’s gross regional product, because of added transport costs and shipping delays, Transport Minister Igor Levitin said on Oct. 1. Moscow’s network lacks up to 400 kilometers of roads, resulting in an average of 650 traffic jams every day, he said.

via Bloomberg.com: Latin America

Post-Caucasian world hardly post-American world

As our financial crisis unfolds, Americans suffer a serious bout of existential ennui. Unsure of whom we are or our global role anymore, our self-doubt scares the world in near-equal measure. Predictably, both skeptics at home and challengers abroad tell us that we must get used to this post-American world. My advice is to resist these sirens’ song.

From the perspective of grand strategy, such pessimism is unwarranted: just as our international liberal trade order — known now as globalization — encompasses the near-totality of the planet, vastly outreaching all previous attempts to establish a global order and doing so in a manner that both enriches and empowers individuals, too many Americans feel alienated from this world so clearly of our creation.

via Post-Caucasian world hardly post-American world | ScrippsNews

Credit Default Swap Fears Still Freeze Lending

Lehman Brothers former chief executive Dick Fuld has faced heavy criticism
Lehman Brothers former chief executive Dick Fuld has faced heavy criticism

Those on the wrong side of these Lehman debt contracts – known as credit default swaps (CDS) – must come up with the money by Tuesday, the next D-Day in the ever-fraught calendar of the credit markets. There has been a deafening silence so far.

There is no easy way of finding out who they are, so every bank and insurer is suspect. The $55,000bn CDS market is “completely lacking in transparency and completely unregulated” in the words of Chris Cox, the chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The settlement auction on Lehman CDS contracts last week was in itself a bombshell. Creditors retrieved just nine cents on the dollar from the Lehman wreckage. As Naked Capitalism put it, the bank had “vaporised”.

Fears of Lehman’s CDS derivatives haunt markets – Telegraph

Chavez’s Oil Blues

The state oil company, PDVSA, produced 3.2 million barrels per day in 1998, the year before Mr Chavez won the presidency. After a decade of rising corruption and inefficiency, daily output has now fallen to 2.4 million barrels, according to OPEC figures. About half of this oil is now delivered at a discount to Mr Chavez’s friends around Latin America. The 18 nations in his “Petrocaribe” club, founded in 2005, pay Venezuela only 30 per cent of the market price within 90 days, with rest in instalments spread over 25 years.

The other half – 1.2 million barrels per day – goes to America, Venezuela’s only genuinely paying customer.

Venezuela’s oil output slumps under Hugo Chavez – Telegraph

Will Obama Still Raise Taxes?

AN OBAMA PANIC? – New York Post
Recently, Obama said he wants to expedite loans to small businesses, so he seems to have a clue that they produce much of the country’s job growth. Yet his income-tax hike on upper brackets will hit vast numbers of small businesses (Sub Chapter-S Family Corporations) – they’d face the highest rates they’ve seen in decades.

Overall, his plan includes some of the most lethal tax increases imaginable, including a jump in the capital-gains rate. He’d expand government spending massively, with everything from new public-works projects to increases in foreign aid to a surge in Afghanistan – plus hand out a token $500 welfare check that he calls a tax cut to everyone else. Continue reading “Will Obama Still Raise Taxes?”