“Would have been nice to have had a few depressives underwriting financial derivatives and real estate over the past few years.”
Posted by DR, February 26, 2010, in response to Jonah Lehrer’s The Frontal Cortex blog-take on his article in today’s New York Times. The Upside of Depression.
Depression. It’s a good thing. Or it can be. Helps focus the mind. A clarifying force that pushes aside extraneous things – like eating or sleeping or sex – so you can settle in, wrap your head around, chew on the really big questions.
The ones that seem unanswerable. The ones we’d rather avoid. The ones we’d benefit from addressing. The ones we’d better start answering…
Now that would be a really good application of Behavioral Economics…
The Diamond Trading Company’s (DTC) February sight achieved an estimated value of $525 million. While the DTC, De Beers marketing and sales unit, had announced a price increase in the high single digits prior to the sight, the company also changed its assortment of goods to enable sightholders to profit on their boxes. Sight participants noted higher increases in the cheaper Indian goods, as well. Nonetheless, their comments were mixed, with some observers suggesting that De Beers left room for sightholders to profit and others saying that premiums were still inflated.
In February, when premiums were softer, buyers were willing to pay based on the existing scarcities in rough, one sightholder noted. Others disagreed, assuming that the large quantities of rough coming to the market reflected DTC’s commitments under sightholder’s intentions to offer (ITOs), rather than strong demand. Sightholders submitted their ITOs in 2009 at the height of the downturn, so DTC filled a large portion of their orders early in the contract period, according to a market participant. The March sight will comprise the final sale of the current ITOs.
MICE Service ( Meetings • Incentives • Conventions • Exhibitions)
Provided by Vietnampathfinder Travel
Vietnampathfinder is a private company founded
by Phuc Pham. Phuc began working in the tourism industry in 1996 where he has been a Guide, Leader and Organizer for many different travel companies in Hanoi.
Vietnampathfinder is a highly reputable local tourist operation offering tours to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. We aim to be successful by punctually meeting our commitments to our valued clients.
We thank you very much for choosing Vietnampathfinder Travel and we look forward to receiving meaningful comments and encouragement so that we may continue to serve and entertain you in the best ways possible.
Wishing you all the best during this year of 2010!
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MICE industry and Service in Vietnam
Today with the global economic integration, there are more and more business activities such as meetings, exhibitions and business trips. MICE and MICE economy emerge, as an increasing number of professional convention organizers are engaged in an integrated service of offering information about destinations, itinerary arrangements and planning and organizing of business events. Many business firms believe that MICE not only can effectively motivate their employees, but also is a new way of enhancing public awareness of their own firms. So many companies hold their own product launches while organizing incentive tours so as to maximize the effect of market publicity. Different from regular tours, the incentive tours aim to help the tourists “feel relaxed” during their trips, with a slow-paced itinerary and comfortable accommodation and transportation as well as delicious food. The incentive tourists usually stay at one place for several days. In the meantime, some theme events related to their company will be organized, incorporating corporate culture into the tour. Vietnampathfinder organized a series of MICE activities in Vietnam, which arouse great interest of the tour operators in the MICE market. As tourism is developing rapidly in Vietnam, incentive tourism will become a new economic growth area in Vietnam’s tourism market.
Vietnampathfinder, the Most Attractive MICE Destination
• Ancient and mysterious oriental culture
In this enchanting oriental country, you will encounter a long-standing culture with unique experiences. Through its people, delicious food, beautiful landscape and nice music, Vietnam always shows you its unique charms.
•Increasingly frequent international exchanges ( Please click here to view our lastest conference in January 2009 for 130 VIP in Hanoi at the 5star hotel of Hanoi Intercontinental Hotel)
• To view more pictures of this conference, please click here
Vietnampathfinder and partners as a Professional MICE Organizer and Service Provider
In 1999,Vietnampathfinder team up with Vietnam government tourism partners established the MICE Department. Specializing in the planning and organizing of MICE events as well as arranging for post-meeting tours. Today, Vietnampathfinder with its busines spartners boasts a team of qualified MICE staff members who are dynamic, well-experienced, highly devoted and cooperative. Equipped with up-to-date know-how about MICE products and MICE expertise, are capable of coping with emergencies. The creativity and exceptional abilities of our MICE team will be able to help demonstrate fully your corporate culture and company philosophy.
Vietnampathfinder’s Unique Advantages
•Hanoi a foreign company our self, we understand Western corporate culture and their need in this high demand MICE service.
•Among the first to establish the MICE department to service to overseas delegations and corporate travelers.
•Having the most experienced travel experts and professional service team;
•Adopting a very effective customer management mode with pro-active travel management solutions;
•Maintaining good relations with Vietnam government and private tour suppliers;
•Having strong technical support in the field of business travel;
•Offering various MICE itineraries which cater to our customers’ special needs, such as special food requirements and need for organizing theme party and surprise party;
•Providing accurate budgeting and suggestions on the allocation of MICE funds and on the optimal use of these funds.
To meet the needs of your business activities, we provide integrated solutions for all the necessary MICE arrangements, so as to free you from hassles of trivial matters. We can provide:
•A selection of conference and exhibition venues;
•Information on required conference and exhibition venues;
•All essential conference facilities and materials;
•Customized programs and itineraries for post-meeting tours;
•Fun activities and customized arrangements;
•Special account managers;
•In-house services;
•Professional corporate travel services.
Comprehensive and Integrated Services
Air ticket booking
•Well connected with international and domestic airlines;
•Various air routes at very competitive prices;
•Up-to-date information on flights and prices;
•Easy booking (by phone or by e-mail) with quick ticket delivery.
Hotel reservation
•Powerful hotel reservation network;
•Up-to-date information on hotels;
•Arrangement for special guestrooms;
•Big function rooms and meeting rooms;
•Flexible ways of payment.
Car and coach rental
•Various types of vehicles for rent;
•A diversity of car/coach rental services on offer through Vietnampathfinder branches and partners in other parts of the country;
•Very competitive rates.
Visa
•Maintaining good cooperative relationships with foreign embassies in Hanoi;
•Assisting your employees, customers or partners for visas;
•Providing services which cover the whole process of visa application.
Some extended services
•Airport-hotel transfers;
•VIP reception and arrangement.
Hanoi Head Office
# 13 Ngo Huyen Street, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi, Vietnam.
Phone: (84-4) 928 97 76
Fax: (84-4) 928 97 78
Support (24/7): (84) 91 33 23 977
Email: info@vietnampathfinder.com
Working Hours: 08.00 AM – 06.00 PM From Monday To Saturday
Industry Insight Survey 1st Q 2010
Semper International LLC.
Happy New Year !
First, I wanted to thank you for your amazing response. We have been running this survey for many years now and the participation level form this survey was outstanding. We decided to professionalize the process by using the Cvent Survey Technology, which from your participation level, you approve of. We hope the new format and results will really add value for your time. Over the next several quarters we will be able to provide some rather amazing new ways of looking at the data. As we introduce the new perspectives on the data, we will give a brief contextual description of the view.
For now, lets get right to the results!
The last quarter of 2009 was a bit better then the three previous quarters in a number of ways. However, the number of companies that have closed or merged has become alarming. Clearly, even some of the strongest names are being impacted depending on the level of debt and the strength of their balance sheets going into this downturn. Hopefully the last quarter’s GDP “gain” holds and builds into the first half of this New Year.
For profitability, the results indicate 47.53% had profit slightly better then the previous survey. We would hope with all the stimulus this number would have improved.
The question that deals with finding employees, understandably the need for finding workers has been reduced, but can still be a concern. This question was revamped adding in Social Media as a category. It is interesting to point out the difference in response from this survey to last. Clearly, the use of online methods to finding workers is increasing in importance.
How has business been over the last few weeks? This question may help shed some light on this coming quarter’s profitability. Looking at the results: 23.89 % had an increase 39.82% stayed the same with 36.28% showing a decrease in sales. Comparing the previous survey, the percent of companies with sales decreases stayed roughly the same. Improvement came from those that had indicated they had stayed the same the previous quarter. The next question having a bit longer view into the quarter, looking at the future orders book. Your feeling about overall sales in the first quarter as a whole reflects a strong positive outlook with 81% indicating either staying the same or improving sales to be expected! We certainly hope this optimism holds true.
A new question added this survey asks you to identify your firm by revenue on a yearly basis. This question will be able to help us illustrate segments of each question. For example, are large companies hiring vs. smaller firms?
With the continued debates on healthcare nationally and locally coupled with the election to the Senate of Scott Brown, the question addressing highest labor costs focuses again on healthcare concerns. A full 60% indicate being concerned. When we asked what area of revenue was under the most pressure Offset is still high but increases from 46% to 55% of the total. Seems that for the last six quarters this area has been under significant duress pricing wise. Indicating the over capacity in relationship to demand, thus reflected in the profitability question.
The last area I would bring up from the questionnaire regards the “are you hiring?” question. Clearly, the pressure is still on in our industry and if you drive through the towns or walk through the malls of America most other industries are as well. The responding firms all indicate a willingness to try and hold on to their current labor force and ride out this downturn with 63% staying the same and the remainder spilt between laying off and hiring. A company is it’s people and trying to protect them clearly is important. It is also important to make sure that the strategic goals of a company lead it to place that as quickly as possible allow it to strengthen it’s balance sheet and survive. The need for the DEMAND to change is clearly being made. The smart will listen and experiment with adapting and finding the right model. If ever there was a time to start experimenting now is it.
We have enclosed the entire Questionnaire results below; if you have questions or would like to see additional areas explored please let me know. If you wish to be added to the survey, please email us daver@semperllc.com Semper.
And so now Toyota has joined its American auto company-cousins in caring more about the short-term bottom line than it does its reputation, quality, or even, ultimately, its customers’ safety. In a way I suppose it is comforting to see that people, especially Capitalists, are alike all over the globe.This is very probably a signpost (pun intended!) of the company’s skid (pun intended!) into mediocracy. They are on the road (pun intended!) to be passed (again, pun intended!) by some car-maker from China or maybe India, who will care about customers like, at one time, Ford or Volkswagen or Toyota used-to. I am convinced that, if I knew the mathematics and put in the investigative time, I could quantify the point at which organizations – be they industries, charities, churches, governments – grow to reach a critical mass where they no longer give a rat's derriere about their clients. When that point is reached, the vision shifts from making/doing the product/service better & reaping a fair profit to squeezing, chiseling, bamboozling, and maybe killing in order to maximize short-term profits by any means necessary.
That is how Ford could decide saving a few bucks was an acceptable exchange for roasting some unlucky Pinto drivers, the Christian church could throw-in with the power structure by selling-out the poor, and the Red Cross could collect billions of dollars for “disaster relief” and then spend relatively little of the money on the victims.
Over a hundred years ago, Oscar Wilde labelled a cynic as a person “who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.” But, as brilliant as Mr. Wilde was, I respectfully disagree. For I myself have become a cynic, scornful & negative. As much as I have tried to resist the transformation, I have developed a knee-jerk reaction which causes me to assume our “leaders” will follow whatever course of action is most hurtful and destructive to ordinary people. I am scornful because I do know the “value” of what truly matters in life and that our “leaders” no longer care enough to do the right thing.
No, the cynic is heartbroken that certain things are, indeed, valuable but has learned that those things will be ignored. Instead, it is the fat-cat Capitalist who knows “the price of everything” (the bottom line) but does not understand the worth (value) of things like making sure people have jobs so they can live, feed and house their families, build a nation where human beings and their environment are respected. They apparently don’t even see the importantance of drivers being able to trust their automobiles. Those things matter greatly. And if governments, businesses, or churches don’t help provide those things to citizens then what good are they?
De un tiempo a esta parte, numerosos analistas han realizado mil y un análisis sobre las diferencias y similitudes de nuestra crisis actual con la Gran Depresión que caracterizó los años 30 del pasado siglo. Sin embargo, muchos de estos análisis, no todos, adolecen de graves errores conceptuales cuya influencia en nuestra particular crisis pueden ser demoledores.
Durante años, la vulgata oficial culpaba al capitalismo liberal como origen de la Gran Depresión. El discurso rezaba que Hebert H Hoover, republicano, habría respondido al crac bursátil de 1929 con las fuerzas del mercado y el equilibrio presupuestario para devolver el crecimiento económico. Esto no tuvo efectos, y sólo la determinación de Franklin D Roosevelt desde 1933, bajo el prisma keynesiano, y pese que ganó las elecciones prometiendo bajadas de impuestos, hizo posible la recuperación de la economía americana. Esta tesis, es la comúnmente aceptada. Sin ir más lejos, el pasado domingo en La Vanguardia, Xavier Batalla (que es tanto lo que sabe de Irán, como lo que ignora de economía) caracterizaba a Roosevelt como el salvador de la economía americana y “reinventor” del capitalismo.
Sin embargo, esto no es cierto. Para empezar, Hoover fue un gran socialista (Bernaldo de Quirós señala como para Benjamín Anderson, a la sazón economista jefe del Chase Manhattan Bank, Hoover fué el fundador del New Deal) que se embarcó en enormes planes de intervención y planificación para hacer frente a la crisis sin precedentes en la historia: fijación de salarios en niveles incompatibles con el empleo, subsidios masivos a empresas en dificultades, aumento del gasto público, inversión en obra pública. Resultado: postergación de la crisis, dejando a EE.UU. en una situación de depresión extrema con una tasa de paro del 25 por 100.
Este plan de intervención de corte keynesiano para salir de la crisis se acentuó con la llegada de Roosevelt a la Casa Blanca en 1933. En efecto, la nueva administración demócrata aprobó la National Recovery Act que inundó de regulaciones los mercados, eliminó competencia y el ámbito del mercado, y sobretodo impulso numerosas medidas que distorsionaron enormemente la estructura de precios en la economía. Estas distorsiones en los precios distorsionó el funcionamiento de los mercados postergando el inevitable ajuste, y condenando la economía de Estados Unidos a un largo letargo del que no salió hasta los comienzos de los años 40. Como señala Lorenzo Bernaldo de Quirós, Roosevelt y su New Deal consiguió “una depresión dentro de una depresión”. No en vano, la tasa de paro en EE.UU. no bajo del 14 por cien hasta 1941. Como siempre, los datos son muy testaduros con los mitos (se pueden consultar en el Bureau of Economic Analysis).
El corolario de todo esto es muy simple: los macroproyectos de gasto públicos impulsados desde el prisma del New Deal no ejercieron ningún estímulo a la economía sino más bien todo lo contrario: las subidas impositivas para financiar tan ingente cantidad de gasto público tuvo un efecto perverso sobre la inversión privada deprimiendo aún más la economía estadounidense. En efecto, los abultados déficits no sacaron a ningún país de la crisis. Así pues, la Gran Depresión fue un producto directo del intervencionismo más radical en la esfera monetaria primero, y fiscal después.
The United States economy is a sick puppy right now, reeling after over 1 trillion dollars evaporated. The driving force of the economy in the past, consumer spending, has fallen drastically, as the middle class has been forced to live within its means. Credit is almost impossible to get, and has become more expensive. The declining value of homes has made the home equity loan a thing of the past. Unemployment is scaring people into paying off credit cards, and building up savings. Federal stimulus money has kept states from laying large numbers of employees, but the money is running out.
Maybe we ought to think about spending some of our money making the country more efficient. This would reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources, as well as cutting the emissions of greenhouse gases. Money would be freed up from energy costs, which could be used to increase spending. Consider: Many commercial buildings have no insulation. That is right. None. The average home more than 20 years old is seriously lacking in insulation, and often leaks air copiously.
Putting people to work right now is difficult, because plans have to be drawn up and approved, bids taken, and contracts let. But retrofitting homes and businesses could commence within weeks, if done properly. Although President Obama talked about a program such as this a few months ago, little has been said regarding it recently. Could it be that energy companies don’t want to see consumption reduced? Could it be that Congress doesn’t like giving money to the average American, although they have provided plenty to the big banks and two of the car companies?
Perhaps we could couple improved efficiency with greater reliance on solar and wind power. Low interest loans for solar panels and wind farms would probably increase the numbers in use considerably. We are falling behind the rest of the world in the use of renewable energy, especially in the field of solar. Building and installing solar panels would employ many people if we were to make a national push to utilize them.
Buses are a good way to save energy, and many parts of America have very few. Building buses financed by federal loans to local transit operators would create employment in the parts of the country which have been hit so hard by the fall in auto sales. People who ride buses save money which they can use to take their cars out for recreation, whereas people who drive to work often cannot afford Sunday drives.
There are ways to put people to work, right now, doing things that we would benefit from for years and years. Some seem socialistic, but saving our society seems a worthy enterprise to me. If we are going to keep borrowing money from China, at least we ought to do something worthwhile with it.
A number of people are feeling a little more optimistic these days, because the Manchurian Teleprompter says his stimulus plan saved 2+ million jobs. Right. This from the same people that claim that unemployment hovers around 10% while ignoring “discouraged” workers (those that have been unemployed for 6 months or more). You see, they don’t count anymore. These people are meaningless. While President Obama stumped this week for Harry Reid in Nevada, claiming that he had saved the economy, new unemployment figures showed another 476,000 Americans filed for first time unemployment last week. Up from the week before, the real figures show a deepening trend, the opposite of what Obama, Reid, and Pelosi want us to believe. Who is feeling optimistic? Mostly the news staff at MSDNC, ABC, NBC (raking in the dollars from Olympics), and CBS. None of them want to admit that maybe they were wrong about the messiah.
Maybe you have heard of the idea of a “double bounce”, or a “double dip” recession. Basically recessions start from some point when the economy lacks growth, declines to a low point, and then recovers. Because we are a consumption-based economy, things get better when consumers and business start to spend money, which fires up business bottom lines, which fuels job growth, which provides more money to the economy to spend which fires up business bottom lines… etc. You get the picture I am sure. That is a normal recession. A “double bounce” is far more destructive. Imagine a household that suffers the loss of dad’s (or mom’s) job. Things get tight. They have a Hard-candy Christmas. However, there was a little money in the bank, and of course they had credit cards to cover food and most bills that cash didn’t cover while a new job was sought. Things were pretty lean, and nobody went on a caribbean vacation that year. Then, that much longed-for new job was found. The annual salary and benefits wasn’t as good as before, but nevertheless a step in the right direction. Confidently, the little family increased their spending because there was income. The problem of course was that the credit cards were either maxed out or the credit card company had stopped providing credit altogether while upping the interest rate on the outstanding balances. Even with this, our brave family started spending their cash, because that is what we do. We spend. We consume. We don’t really produce, and we surely don’t save. Then the unimaginable happens. The new job is lost. There are no reserves whatsoever to ride out the storm. Utter collapse ensues. This can and will happen to our economy over the next 24 months unless certain things happen.
How can I say this? It is simple. A small recovery may actually be in the works right now. Business needs it even though there is really no money from banks available to assist in making it happen. Capital in the form of business credit is largely unavailable. This week the Fed raised interest rates a quarter of a percent which signals a tightening of credit, not the inverse which is what we need right now. In any case, we will see some better numbers this year, and by the fall, Democrats will be waving banners suggesting that Obamanomics has saved us. Don’t buy it. Here is why: The Bush era tax cuts will expire this year, and Obama has signaled that he is not interested in extending them. Terminating them was part of his presidential campaign platform. Will his ego let him say he was wrong? Not on your life.
Business however, understands that profits in 2010 will be taxed at a lower rate than profits in 2011. Because of this, their accounting departments will make all efforts to drag as much business and profits into 2010 at the expense of 2011. This backwards accrual will fuel the idea that we are doing very well at recovering from the recession. The hidden secret is that net job growth for the year is forecast at less than 100,000 per month! That is a drop in the bucket compared to current joblessness that hovers at nearly 20% when you account for “discouraged workers”.
Have a great Christmas in 2010, because when 2011 gets here, taxes will rise back to the level seen during the Clinton administration and beyond. Couple that with new taxes from Mr. Obama, inevitable inflation from the unbelievable amounts of cash pumped into the economy by the Fed and the government, and depressing profit figures in the first quarter of 2011 (remember, businesses will borrow from 2011 to save on taxes in 2010) and you have a toxic mixture that could virtually kill the U.S. economy, maybe permanently. Unemployment will begin to rise again as businesses cut costs in the face of faling profits and the lack of capital to support growth. Interest rates will undoubtedly rise, along with taxes. Families will begin to see the real costs of Obamacare, and even those with jobs will labor under the mandatory provisions of this monstrous bill. America is in the set up zone for a massive round-house punch to the jaw and she isn’t even watching.
If you think it has been bad up to now, hold on tight. You ain’t seen nothing yet.
However, this train wreck can be averted. To avert the disaster we have to stop deficit spending by Washington DC immediately. I say DC because I mean Democrats and Repulicans alike need to get their damn hands out of everyone else’s pockets. Secondly, the Bush-era tax cuts need to be made permanent along with some type of temporary tax holiday for businesses and individuals alike. History has shown that tax reductions always precede economic growth.
Remember this: when government is borrowing, it reduces the amount of cash in circulation for businesses and families. Government spending must be slashed. When the government stops spending beyond its means, the economy has more money to be used by business to grow and expand without relying on the Fed to marginalize our past by pouring trillions of inflationary dollars into the market to support both government and business. This will give much needed confidence in the American government’s role in the economy worldwide. The dollar will rebound on these actions. Fiscal responsibility is a requirement for this confidence. Healthcare reform must occur, but not the way prescribed by the neo-socialists in DC. Overnight fundamental change may be what Obama promised, but sweeping changes have unintended consequences and side effects that are unanticipated. Gentle corrections will result in the best long-term results for healthcare and the economy as a whole.
Ron Paul was the straw poll winner this weekend at CPAC. The reason why? Because educated people know that getting control of government spending and fiscal responsibility that starts at home are the cornerstones of any plan that gets America on her feet again. I’m no libertarian, and probably not a Ron Paul supporter across the board, but his big win at CPAC says that people are in tune with these ideas. Without them, we will one day wonder what an American really is anymore.
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Harakahdaily
GOMBAK, 20 Feb: Kerajaan Negeri Selangor menyediakan RM5 bilion bagi memulihkan projek perumahan terbengkalai sebagai salah satu daripada enam fokus utama melalui Pakej Rangsangan Ekonomi negeri yang diumumkan pada 2009.Pengerusi Jawatankuasa Perumahan, Pengurusan Bangunan dan Setinggan negeri, Ir Iskandar Abdul Samad, berkata pemulihan itu akan dapat membantu rakyat di samping menjana ekonomi negeri.
Menurutnya, langkah memulihkan perumahan terbengkalai dilihat sebagai usaha murni membantu pembeli yang kebanyakannya golongan berpendapatan sederhana dan rendah yang tidak dibela sejak sekian lama, akibat menanggung hutang pinjaman walaupun rumah belian mereka tidak dapat disiapkan.
Pada masa yang sama, katanya, aktiviti pemulihan yang melibatkan kos sebanyak RM5 bilion serta kesan gandaannya dijangka akan dapat merancakkan ekonomi negeri dengan menggerakkan kembali sektor pembinaan, terutamanya di kalangan kontraktor kecil dan sederhana.
“Ini selaras dengan usaha kerajaan negeri mengambil pendekatan merakyatkan ekonomi dengan memastikan aktiviti ekonomi melibatkan golongan terbesar iaitu golongan berpendapatan rendah dan sederhana,” katanya kepada Harakahdaily.
Beliau berkata, program pemulihan itu juga merupakan salah satu bukti kejayaan pendekatan kerjasama kerajaan swasta (private finance initiatives) yang diambil oleh kerajaan negeri, yang memainkan peranan memudahkan kelulusan, mengemaskini pantauan dan mengukuhkan pertanggungjawaban di pihak kontraktor, sementara pihak swasta menyumbangkan modal dan kepakaran untuk memulihkan projek perumahan.
Majlis pelancaran Program Pemulihan Perumahan Terbengkalai Negeri Selangor diadakan hari ini di perkarangan perumahan penduduk Taman Ukay Bistari, Hulu Kelang.
Pada majlis itu, Penasihat Ekonomi negeri, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim turut menyerahkan kunci kepada 300 pembeli unit-unit yang berjaya disiapkan di Ukay Bistari dan Saujana Puchong di bawah skim itu (gambar).
Selain beliau, hadir sama di majlis itu ialah Pengerusi Jawatankuasa Khas Pemulihan Perumahan Terbengkalai negeri, Saari Sungib, Ahli Parlimen Gombak yang juga Adun Bukit Antarabangsa, Azmin Ali dan Adun Lembah Jaya, Haji Khasim Abdul Aziz.
Iskandar yang juga Adun Chempaka berkata, beberapa insentif baru kerajaan negeri dalam usaha mempercepatkan pemulihan perumahan terbengkalai seperti mewujudkan satu jawatankuasa induk yang akan memantau kemajuan setiap projek yang diambil alih dan memastikan semua projek berjalan lancar mengikut jadual.
Menurutnya, perjumpaan mesyuarat bulanan akan dipengerusikan sendiri oleh Anwar yang dianggotai Exco, Lembaga Perumahan dan Hartanah Selangor (LPHS), Jawatankuasa Khas Pemulihan Perumahan Terbengkalai Kerajaan negeri, majlis-majlis berkuasa tempatan, wakil penduduk dan semua pihak yang terlibat.
“Penubuhan Jawatankuasa Induk akan mempercepatkan keputusan dan kelulusan dalam usaha memulihkan perumahan terbengkalai,” ujarnya.
Katanya, kerajaan negeri juga akan menyuntik bantuan dalam bentuk underwriting atau jaminan bayar balik bagi projek yang tidak dapat dipulihkan oleh pihak swasta dengan melibatkan kontraktor baru melalui tender terbuka.
Tambahnya, kerajaan negeri menyediakan geran bayar balik kepada perunding-perunding perumahan yang berminat untuk menyelamatkan projek perumahan yang terbengkalai.
This week seemed to promise hope. My scheduled interview earlier this week went well, at least I thought it did. In late January I was contacted by a recruiter for a position I had applied for in December 2009. From there, a phone interview was scheduled with one of the team members. The interview went well, and, in fact, the interviewer informed me that I had a good background, and thought I was be great for the position. The interviewer was going to recommend that the director speak with me. I was contacted by the recruiter, and a phone interview was scheduled on February 2 to speak with two individuals – one of which would be the director. On the day of the interview, I spoke with one person (due to a mix-up). Nonetheless, it was a very good interview – we covered a lot of details about the position. My knowledge and skills definitely were portrayed throughout our conversation, and the interviewer picked up on that. In fact, through the conversation, the interviewer would piggyback on some of the things that I had mentioned throughout our conversation. The interviewer felt I had a lot to offer, and that I would be an excellent fit in the position. The interviewer later would tell me via a follow up e-mail that I definitely had a grasp of e-marketing and online. This interviewer, too, was going to highly recommend me to the director. I felt good about the position, and was excited about the opportunity.
As the time went by, I was scheduled to come in for a personal interview which occurred earlier this week. Again, I felt good. I interviewed with four individuals – each separately, director, HR manager, and the two interviewers with whom I had phone interviews with earlier, and the conversations were good. It all appeared to have gone quite well, and it seemed I was a shoe in. I mean, even at the interview, I was told again and again by two of the interviewers that I had the skills and that they felt I would do a great job in the role. One interviewer even told me that our interview would be short because our phone interview went well, she was aware of my skill set, and had my resume and knew I was a great fit for the position.
So what happened? On Friday, February 19, I received a v.m. from the recruiter that went something like this:
The team assessed my interviews, and that at this time they would not be moving forward with me. They didn’t feel that I had the depth and breath that they were looking for for the position.
What? When I was even told by the recruiter that they were moving forward because I did have the knowledge for the position which was why I was getting the second phone interview. If there is/was some other reason for my not being offered the position, say that. I don’t buy that they felt I didn’t have the depth and breath that they were looking for for the position.
It’s a great company, and I’ll continue to view their open opportunities and submit my credentials.
MADRID — With Spain having spent weeks in the cross hairs of jittery world markets, Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero went on the offensive on Wednesday, defending the country’s solvency and saying his government had “the will” to reduce its fast-growing deficit.
But in an address to Parliament, the Socialist prime minister disappointed some by failing to spell out a clear plan of attack to reduce the country’s 19 percent unemployment rate, the highest in the euro zone, or a time frame for labor reforms that analysts say are crucial for the country to stay competitive.
Instead, he reassured Spaniards that “recovery is not far away,” and reiterated a goal that seems an increasingly tall order: to cut $68 billion in state spending without slicing into the social benefits that he considers the hallmark of his administration. Last week, Mr. Zapatero said the government would extend unemployment benefits.
After two decades of dizzying growth — and the collapse of a housing bubble — there is a pervasive feeling in Spain that the party is over and that Mr. Zapatero is offering little more than palliatives for a national hangover.
“They really haven’t offered anything,” Gayle Allard, an economist and expert in the Spanish labor market at IE University in Madrid, said of the government. Faced with urgent problems like 4.3 million unemployed, “they do not have a strategy, and they do not have a response.”
For months, Mr. Zapatero called the crisis “a slowdown,” a term many Spaniards thought vastly underestimated its scope. Now, critics and defenders alike say the government’s response has been belated, incoherent and erratic, even as markets are paying increasingly close attention.
Elected in the boom year of 2004 promising social change, Mr. Zapatero has watched his credibility sink amid the economic anxiety. Polls have lately shown him trailing the opposition Popular Party, even though it is embroiled in corruption scandals and has not presented a coherent competing economic plan. In Parliament on Wednesday, the leader of the opposition, Mariano Rajoy, reiterated his call on the Socialists to pick a new leader.
In his speech, Mr. Zapatero offered few new details on the austerity plan he announced in January to cut Spain’s deficit in half, to 5.7 percent of gross domestic product by 2013.
Experts agree that Spain is not Greece, and is unlikely to need similar help from the European Union. Its public debt is at 55 percent of gross domestic product, far below the 80 percent average for the European Union. Its banks have never needed a bailout, and its infrastructure is widely considered the best in the Mediterranean.
Spain has nevertheless become the biggest euro-zone economy to stumble, brought low by the collapse of a housing boom that has left 800,000 newly built homes sitting empty. Analysts worry that Spain’s recovery will be delayed or undercut by a rigid labor market and generous unemployment compensation — and a government that has yet to tackle the problem.
Instead, the government is banking on growth. “We went through a period of large change in the cycle, and the economy underwent last year a period of shock. Now, we’re reaching normalization,” José Manuel Campa, a deputy finance minister, said last week in an interview.
Mr. Campa, who is expected to travel soon to New York to speak to investors, said there was “broad consensus” in the government that economic growth was expected to be flat this year, but that it would start to rise “very slowly” next year.
Yet some saw Mr. Campa’s reassurances as at odds with Mr. Zapatero’s approach.
“Mr. Campa goes on a road show one day to reassure European investors that if the Spanish economy has to cut government spending in order to grow, it will,” the columnist Joaquín Estefanía wrote in El País this week.
“The next day,” he continued, Mr. Zapatero announces “that he will extend unemployment benefits to workers who aren’t already enrolled.”
Experts say that waiting for growth is not an effective strategy for fighting the economic downdrafts, and argue that Spain needs a radical structural overhaul of the labor market. To dismiss an employee, to cite one example, Spanish companies must pay 45 days for every year worked. The government and labor unions have begun talks to lower that number to 33.
As a result of that and other rigid labor laws, in the past decade Spain has had one of Europe’s largest rises in pay but one of its lowest increases in productivity. In the past, that gap might have been closed through a currency devaluation. But that avenue is closed for members of the euro zone, so instead Spain faces a grinding process of wage deflation.
In the meantime, the unemployment payments have helped create a class of the comfortably unemployed. In a cafe near the Prado museum on a recent afternoon, José Díaz, 45, said he was fired in December from his job in an electronics store in Gerona, in Catalonia, but was in Madrid on vacation. “I’m taking advantage of the fact that I’m on a break,” Mr. Díaz said.
He said that he had paid off his mortgage, that his wife had a job and that he was only two months into two years of unemployment benefits, which equaled about 25 percent of his salary. “I’m privileged,” he said.
In addition to busting the federal budget, the generous job benefits make businesses wary of taking on full-time employees. Instead, they favor temporary contracts that have become common among younger workers and the newly hired, who absorb the brunt of the crisis. A full 40 percent of Spaniards between the ages of 16 and 25 are unemployed, which many fear is causing long-term damage to the country.
Some argue that as a socialist, Mr. Zapatero is in a better position to tackle reform than are the conservatives. He could say that “the current system is socially divisive” and “mainly penalizes the young, women and immigrants,” said Charles Powell, a history professor at CEU San Pablo University in Madrid.
Instead, analysts say, he is dancing around the issue.
“Nobody is being realistic about this,” said Ms. Allard, the Spanish labor market expert. “No one is saying publicly that this is a system where 70 percent are overprotected, underproductive and overpaid and the rest of them are paying for it.”
I came across with points on Theocracy, Liberty and Secularism in relationship with Islamic Social Justice and Concept of State in Islam.
For Islamic societies many wrongly contest that Islam and Islamic social justice require strong state involvement, mostly who are against it spread it but who are in favor have also toed this line without using their brain.
There assumptions are not based on Quranic beliefs (as far as i understood one may differ).
If we try to understand it we see:
1) Equality of all humans is an essential point.There is no concept of sovereign immunity for any individual or group or institution.
2) Economy is based on real production and services not on fictitious interest base.
3) Social justice means equal social opportunities to grow means no exclusive rights
for any particular class to control the resources.
4) State is their not to control the resources but its role is merely to make sure no individual or group takes the control of resources made available by Allah to all.
5) Zakat or the minimal taxes are based on extra yearly savings or use of collective natural resources not on Income or Intellectual property. Though one may contest the prohibition is there or not but certainly the concept is not there at all of tax on income.
6) Family laws or society laws are only for Muslims who voluntarily accept the system based on Quran or Islam itself . Even in these cases the role is not to regulate to the micro-level or takeaway freedom but it is to ensure that the freedom of one doesn’t become a nightmare for others and doesn’t create social damages to society.
7) No force or compulsion on non-Muslims to follow it. Unlike the hypocrite secular govts. which make centralized laws force all the communities and followers of religious beliefs to follow it. The dealing with other religions and societies are done through social agreements and
voluntary inclusion in society.
A small handful of participants turned out Monday night in Marquette for an event supporting the cause of about 560 U.S. Borax workers locked out of their jobs in southern California by Rio Tinto, the parent company of the Kennecott Eagle Minerals Company.
For the full article and photos, please see today’s printed edition of The Mining Journal. . .
February 16, 2010: Paul Joseph Watson / Prison Planet.com - February 15, 2010
Newsweek has published what undoubtedly amounts to the most feeble, sophomoric, and embarrassing hit piece ever written, penned by an intern fresh out of college who pathetically attempts to dismiss manifestly provable conspiracies with one sentence throwaway jibes that sound like the fodder of an immature and misinformed middle school debate team.
The author of the hit piece, entitled Know Your Conspiracies, NEWSWEEK’s guide to today’s trendiest, hippest, and least likely fringe beliefs, is one David A. Graham, a 2009 graduate of Duke University and a Newsweek intern since August, a fresh face obviously keen to prove to his bosses that he’ll make for a good journalistic whore so as to seamlessly blend in with the rest of the corporate hacks at the magazine. Unfortunately for Graham, his first mistake was to believe that Newsweek’s reputation alone as a trusted source of information was enough to excuse his lazy journalism and complete lack of research into any of the topics raised. Sadly, since nobody trusts the mainstream media anymore, merely attempting to dictate what constitutes reality by glibly scoffing “enough said” to dismiss a claim does not equate to a thorough debunking, Mr. Graham.
That’s how Graham “debunks” the 9/11 truth movement, prefacing it with, “Not even the staunchest mainstream George W. Bush bashers believe this one.” Graham was obviously too busy making the coffee for his colleagues to take note of an October 2006 CBS/New York Times poll that found that only 16% of Americans thought the government told the truth about 9/11 and the intelligence prior to the attacks. No less than six of the ten 9/11 Commissioners are on record as saying the official story is a fraud and yet Graham classes skepticism towards the official story as one of his “fringe beliefs”.
Another “fringe belief” thrown in amongst stupid speculation about Sarah Palin’s baby is the notion that Goldman Sachs was involved in and benefited from the financial collapse. “While Goldman may have profited, that alone doesn’t prove malice or conspiracy,” scoffs Graham.
Oh really? This office tea boy obviously didn’t take the time to read a multi-part eXposé written by Greg Gordon of McClatchy Newspapers, in which it was voluminously documented how Goldman Sachs, “In 2006 and 2007…peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.”
“Goldman’s sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation’s premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies. Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk,” writes Gordon.
No “malice” or “conspiracy” there, Mr Graham? Goldman Sachs betting on a housing collapse right before it happened while telling their buyers everything was hunky dory? No “malice” involved in that one, eh?
Graham’s shoddily bias and vacuous perspective is laid bare when he tries to gloss over the collapsing anthropogenic global warming fraud within the confines of a one sentence tantrum. “Deniers have long taken advantage of scientists’ cautious statements, and “Climategate” breathed new life into the movement, but the science stands: warming is real, and it’s caused by human actions,” he sneers.
In reality, former lead authors of the UN IPCC are now coming forward to state that the “world may not be warming” and the scientist at the center of the Climategate scandal admits there has been no global warming since 1995, as endless scandal after scandal offers mountains of evidence that the progenitors of AGW have been exaggerating and lying about man’s contribution to climate change for decades.
But perhaps Graham’s most egregious falsehood arrives when he dismisses the United Nations’ desire to regulate CO2 emissions as part of a global government power grab as another baseless yarn. A similar faux pas was committed by Time Magazine’s Jonathan Kay, an article Graham links to, in a similarly weak hit piece written earlier this month.
According to Kay, a one world government run by the United Nations that will implement greenhouse gas taxes is another “toxic fantasy” of those crazy Tea Party lunatics, a view shared by Graham. In that case, I guess we must have all just imagined UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s December 16 2009 Los Angeles Times interview during the Copenhagen summit in which he stated, “We will establish a global governance structure to monitor and manage the implementation of this.”
Ban Ki-moon’s October 2009 New York Times editorial in which he wrote that efforts to impose restrictions on CO2 emissions, “Must include an equitable global governance structure” is also a figment of the imagination if you subscribe to Kay and Graham’s world view.
Yes – shocking as it is – top globalists like Herman Van Rompuy, Gordon Brown, Al Gore and others have all publicly and repeatedly called for a new world order and a global government. This is why even Bloomberg writers like David Reilly and former Democratic advisors like Dick Morris are finally admitting that the “conspiracy theorists” were right after all – a secret cabal of bankers and industrialists really does run the world.
Of course, if you still believe Graham and Kay’s fairytale make-believe world in which there is no “new world order” and no march towards a “global government” which would include a “global currency”, then the following You Tube compilation of top power brokers saying those very things since the 1950’s doesn’t exist either…
By number eight, Graham has ceased even bothering to form a glib sentence to “debunk” the topic at hand, and responds to the “conspiracy theory” about government internment camps with just four words, “Too silly to discuss.”
Just as well that Market Watch didn’t deem a $385 million contract awarded to KBR by the Department of Homeland Security in January 2006 “too silly to discuss”. The contract was for KBR, the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton, to build detention facilities inside America that would allow authorities to deal with “an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.”
Project Censored, who also didn’t regard the announcement as “too silly to discuss,” placed the story at number 14 for 2006’s most censored stories. It was explored in depth by numerous prominent and respected writers, including Peter Dale Scott, who highlighted how such “new programs” were a continuation of martial law provisions that first came to light during the Iran Contra scandal in the 1980’s. Scott also made the connection to former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s 2002 call for U.S. citizens to be detained as enemy combatants in detention camps, a story also considered not “too silly to discuss” by the Los Angeles Times’ Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School.
Graham returns to back-slapping his peers at Time Magazine with the claim that Time did not advocate licenses to use the Internet, linking to a two paragraph blog written by Time’s Michael Scherer entitled Despite Reports, TIME Still Not Advocating Internet Driver’s Licenses.
“Time published a story reporting on a Microsoft executive who’d like to see licensing to combat anonymity. Broadcasting such a controversial proposal—regardless of its merits—is quite the opposite of censorship, as Time’s Michael Scherer rightly explained,” Graham smugly proclaims. “The story is not true, of course, but who wants to get in the way of such fun conspiracies?,” smarts Scherer.
Both Scherer and Graham are obviously banking on their audience not actually reading the original Time article to which they refer, in which author Barbara Kiviat clearly does advocate and endorse a licensing system for Internet users.
Kiviat waxes lyrical about how society introduces more laws and regulations as it grows. “There is no reason to think the Internet shouldn’t follow the same pattern,” she writes. “But we’re entitled to anonymity on the Internet!” Really? Are you? Why do you think that?” she asks elsewhere, clearly endorsing stricter controls similar to those first proposed at the Davos Economic Forum earlier this year.
Anyone who reads Kiviat’s article in full comes away with the impression that she, and her publisher Time Magazine, endorse the call for Internet licensing. Scherer did not “rightly explain” anything! He lied through his teeth.
How much more ludicrous can this get? Is Newsweek going to start lecturing us about the “fringe belief” that the sun comes up every morning. That’s not too far removed from Graham’s overriding theme that powerful men never conspire to do bad things to increase their power and that governments are angelic and anyone who says otherwise is expressing a “fringe belief”.
As the excellent George Washington’s Blog explains, the corporate media’s denunciation of “conspiracy theories” is a process in diffusing criticism of the powerful in government or business…
“The government spied on American citizens (even before 9/11 … confirmed here and here), while saying “we don’t spy”. The government tortured prisoners in Iraq, but said “we don’t torture”.
“In other words, high-level government officials have conspired to cover up the truth. The bottom line is that the power of the state is used to crush criticism of major government policies and actions (or failures to act) and high-level government officials.
“Pay attention, and you’ll notice that criticism of “conspiracy theories” is usually aimed at attempting to protect the state and key government players. The power of the state is seldom used to crush conspiracy theories regarding people who are not powerful . . . at least to the extent that they are not important to the government.”
Indeed, if “conspiracy theories” are merely “hip” and “trendy” examples of mindless gossip, as Graham’s article portrays, then why does White House regulation czar Cass Sunstein want to slap a tax on them or even ban them outright?
We are of course familiar with their tired old clichés and smear tactics, but what the mainstream still fails to grasp is the fact that the majority of Americans no longer trust them, so the sophomoric catch phrases just aren’t going to get the job done anymore.
A September 2009 Pew Research Center poll found that, “Trust in news media has reached a new low, with record numbers of Americans saying reporting is inaccurate, biased and shaped by special interests.” The poll found that just 29% of Americans still trusted the corporate media.
By labeling manifestly provable facts, such as the absolutely self-evident and admitted push for a system of global governance as “conspiracy theories” and claiming they are false, the corporate media is only committing seppuku and dispensing with any credibility they had left.
In that case, we invite Mr. Graham, Mr. Kay, Time and Newsweek to continue to lecture us about how overwhelmingly documented facts are baseless “conspiracy theories,” because in doing so they are only making themselves and the corporate media look utterly stupid. Enough said.
The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: There is nothing more powerful than truth for all of those who seek it, embrace it, and defend it. Truth, is indelible… - SJH
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No doubt about it, I’m a proud Boomer. During the turbulent sixties, Rod McKuen was greatly considered to be one of the unofficial poet-laureates of the generaton, and I cherish his songs and poetries to this day. I’m listening to The Sea as I type away.
One of his greatest poems (by me, anyhow) is The Grand Opening Going Out of Business Sale. Here is the first stanza:
Mad dogs rumble in the jungle come and see it for a penny.
Where is hope there isn’t any. Set your course and sail
For the grand opening going out of business sale.
Somehow, Rod McKuen managed to nail down the current administration more than forty years ago. The primaries were almost as nasty as a dog fight, you could buy your way into some inner circles with a prepaid credit card, and one short year later, hope is a scarce commodity. Welcome to the grand opening going out of business sale, where long-held principles are auctioned off cheaply on a daily basis, and massive doses of hope and change are thrown to the wolves that are gathering in the nation’s capital. The President’s decision to factor the Party of “Look, you know, I was, yeah” even further into the equation than they currently are signals the beginning of the end as far as I’m concerned.
The Democrats who propelled the President into office are despondent and the Independents who provided the tailwind are livid. If he could be returned, he would fall into the “Not as expected” category. Health care and budgetary issues are threatening to blow the Democratic party apart, although White House gurus insist that the schism is not as bad as it seems/merely temporary/really no problem at all. SOT Geithner looks like a mumbling fool during Congressional hearings, basically asking members if they would rather believe him or every other economist in the free world.
The Republicans insist that all of the world’s ills can be cured with tort reform, lowered taxes and free market principles. Rep. Cantor (R-Va) has basically stated that unless Congress wishes to embrace the Republican health care plan of (wait for it) tort reform, lowered taxes, and free market principles as evidenced by health care savings accounts and purchasing unregulated policies across state lines, there will be absolutely no progress on health care reform in this particular decade. Undaunted, the President has invited the Republicans to join him at a White House forum in order to brainstorm the situation. The Repubs do not seem to be thrilled with this opportunity – you know, the one they have insisted upon. In fact, they appear to be downright reluctant. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky)states that there will be no progress until the current bill is “shelved”. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nv) insists that efforts to engage them have been in progress all along.
The first things that the President should ask of the minority party is that if they have had the answers all along, why were the changes not implemented while they were in power? How can people best utilize their health savings account when they are unemployed? What will stop insurers from leaving states with appropriate insurance regulations and piling up in states which have none? How about if we take your insurance away and let you purchase your own in said free market? Why have medical costs not been lowered in states with tort reform? How we will pay for two wars and lower the deficit if we lower taxes? If he can get an answer to so much as one of these questions, perhaps the going out of business sale might be deferred. If not, will the last Democrat to leave Congress please turn out the lights?
Konoz Jewellery Exhibition will be held on Feb 15 till the 20th in Salwa Al Sabah ball room near Marina crescent. It will host many local and international jewelery from around the world. Ali Al Arbash and Sons will be participating in this event. The event will start at 10 am till 1 pm every day.
It’s not our cities that are in big trouble: what will fill the empty homes and lots of suburban America?
Timothy Egan addresses this question in his latest nytimes.blog post, “slumburbia.” “Nobody is home in the cities of the future,” Egan writes. and then he notes, “Though sick, foreclosure alley is not terminal. This is not Detroit with sunshine. It will be reborn, remade, inhabited. The question is: as what?”
As what indeed. Egan rejects Christopher B. Leinberger’s thesis in “The Next Slum?” (Atlantic, March 2008) – that the areas with the most foreclosures would be turned into slums, homes into tenements. Instead of embracing such a fate, Egan puts his trust in an esoteric guardian: “Through it all, the country churns and expands, unlike most other Western democracies. That great American natural resource — tomorrow — will have to save the suburban slums.”
Leinberger’s article is powerful stuff, though written several years ago, and Egan admits to its influence. Leinberger references such statistics as this: “In the first half of last year, residential burglaries rose by 35 percent and robberies by 58 percent in suburban Lee County, Florida, where one in four houses stands empty. Charlotte’s crime rates have stayed flat overall in recent years—but from 2003 to 2006, in the 10 suburbs of the city that have experienced the highest foreclosure rates, crime rose 33 percent.”
“For 60 years, Americans have pushed steadily into the suburbs, transforming the landscape and (until recently) leaving cities behind. But today the pendulum is swinging back toward urban living, and there are many reasons to believe this swing will continue. As it does, many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s—slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay.”
Ultimately, Leinberger’s point isn’t just about the slums – it’s also about the trend towards urban living among middle class citizens. Salted with an impressive array of demographic statistics, he takes the reader on a trip across the decades, highlighting the living styles of Americans for the past century or so.
Of course, Leinberger was writing in March 2008, when the worst was just beginning, and we all saw the future as particularly bleak. Egan’s perspective, tempered by time and the recent upward trend, is understandably more hopeful. I wouldn’t go as far as to disagree with Leinberger — knowing the enemy helps you better combat him; but when it’s all said and done, I find myself more aligned with Egan.
Found some news that follows on from my last post.
BEIJING (Reuters) – Senior Chinese military officers have proposed that their country boost defense spending, adjust PLA (People’s Liberation Army) deployments, and possibly sell some U.S. bonds to punish Washington for its latest round of arms sales to Taiwan.
Read full article…
Given the dire economic situation of the U.S., discussions of this type are to be expected. Bear in mind that the People’s Liberation Army has no role in setting Chinese economic policy, so that’s all this is – a discussion.
More households doing the ‘unthinkable’
Consumers used to skip the monthly mortgage bill only as a last resort.
More households doing the 'unthinkable'
Amid high unemployment and sliding home prices, a growing number of struggling consumers are doing what was once considered unthinkable: paying their credit card bills instead of their mortgages … The data reflects a “fundamental paradigm shift” in the way consumers prioritize payment of debt obligations, says Ezra Becker, of TransUnion. “This is dramatically different,” he says. “It is a clear manifestation of the dynamics that lead up to the recession and the recession itself.” Before the housing crisis, bankers typically operated under the assumption that homeowners would do whatever possible to remain current on their mortgage–even if that meant falling behind on other bills. “It used to be that the mortgage was sacrosanct,” says Keith Gumbinger of HSH.com. “You paid it before anything else.” But a combination of factors linked to the current economic mess–falling home prices, high unemployment, and tight consumer credit–have lead many consumers to prioritize credit card payments above mortgage bills – Read full article…
Hello Friends, here, we bring you the weekly overview of the Indian as well as of the Global economy and latest global business and industry updates.
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Weekly Update of The Market (08th-12th February)
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After starting the year on a good note & Indices making fresh highs within few weeks many Asian markets have corrected between 7 to 10%.
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The global sell off over sovereign debt problems in Europe and an unexpected rise in jobless claims in US put investors on the defensive mode.
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The anxiety about sovereign debt in Greece, Portugal and Spain sparked a sell-off in the Euro & has led strength to US dollar.
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Foreign investors sell off is an outcome of dollar-carry-trade unwinding as when they borrowed the dollar was cheap & now it is recovering.
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Investors viewed the markets in year 2010 with confidence in view of recovery gaining momentum is now shaken over the debt problems, nascent economic recovery & confidence of the governments that stand behind the euro.
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Efforts of China to curb lending preventing overheating in economy also pose a risk to derail the global recovery.
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Back at home, the effect of turmoil in the international market also made government to think its strategy on ambitious disinvestment programme.
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Lukewarm response to the NTPC, the much awaited issue managed to get subscription of just 1.2 times on its closing day.
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The maximum bid of 20.87 crore shares was put by Indian institution under the first time adopted French Auction route.
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This has challenged the finance Ministry hopes on the proceeds from disinvestments to make up the sliding revenue & rising expenditure.
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While it looks that PSU disinvestment may not yield desired results on market weakness, the 3G auction i.e. expected to garner Rs. 35,000 crore could be postponed to next fiscal year.
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The fate of some of the IPO’s like NMDC, Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Ltd and Rural Electrification Corporation that are on the disinvestment agenda before March 31, looks tough to sail through, if the stock markets do not rise and big investors do not come back.
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On the contrary, Banks like Bank of Baroda & Indian Bank that were expected to raise money overseas have put now their plans on hold.
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The good news from the external sector continued as the data showed a 9.3% annual increase in exports in December to $14.6 billion, a second consecutive month rise.
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While imports increased by 27.2% from a year earlier to $24.75 billion.
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Food inflation remained at high levels & rose to 17.56% in the week ended 23 January 2010 from 17.40% in the previous week on the back of rising pulses & potato prices.
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Markets are likely to take a closer view of the advance estimates on economic growth for the current fiscal ending March 2010 scheduled to be released on Monday.
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In the days to come an activity in the sectors like railways, fertiliser, textiles, pharma, education, power and infrastructure may be seen on expected positive policy announcements and budgetary sops.
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It was clearly mentioned last week that world markets are going in downtrend and one should be careful in such a scenario and that one should be moving in cash.
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Now the markets have taken a very sharp fall last week due to rise in Dollar Index and fall in all asset classes.
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The coming week might see some counter rally from lower levels.
Nifty faces resistance between 4900-5000 levels and Sensex between 16400-17000 levels.
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If we talk about commodity markets then one can see that strengthening dollar and lack of firm global cues had pressurized commodities prices to move southward.
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Investors are selling riskier assets and putting their money in dollar as a safe haven buying.
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Debt concerns facing Greece, Portugal and Spain coupled with dollar index which is trading above the mark of 80 is most likely to compel commodities to trade lower.
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French and euro zone GDP, USD advance retail sales, USD U. of Michigan Confidence will give further direction to commodities.
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Investors should keep an eye on gold – silver ratio.
It was 58:1 few months back, now reached to 67:1 on MCX, heading towards the level of 70:1.
It is demonstrating more selling in silver.
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Stay Tuned for More on weekly updates.
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Note : For More Latest Industry, Stock Market and Economy News and Updates, please click here
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The Reinhart/Rogoff book speaks primarily to public debt that balloons in response to financial crises. It is a voluminous, somewhat academic production but it has numerous critical conclusions gleaned from an analysis of centuries of creditor/sovereign debt cycles. It states:
The true legacy of banking crises is greater public indebtedness, far beyond the direct headline costs of bailout packages. On average a country’s outstanding debt nearly doubles within three years following the crisis.
The aftermath of banking crises is associated with an average increase of seven percentage points in the unemployment rate, which remains elevated for five years.
Once a country’s public debt exceeds 90% of GDP, its economic growth rate slows by 1%.
A different study by the McKinsey Group analyzes current leverage in the total economy (household, corporate and government debt) and looks to history, finding 32 examples of sustained deleveraging in the aftermath of a financial crisis. It concludes:
Typically deleveraging begins two years after the beginning of the crisis (2008 in this case) and lasts for six to seven years.
In about 50% of the cases the deleveraging results in a prolonged period of belt-tightening exerting a significant drag on GDP growth. In the remainder, deleveraging results in a base case of outright corporate and sovereign defaults or accelerating inflation, all of which are anathema to an investor.
Initial conditions are important. Currently the gross level of public and private debt is shown in Chart 2
Major stink for hiring British geezers The Who, protests planned
News satire site Humor Volcano breaks shocking story
excerpt:
MIAMI – Surely, in this era of great U.S. financial strife, an institution as All-American as the National Football League would know better than send $141 million out of this country without a good reason. Uh, apparently not, since the NFL has booked the British geezer rock band The Who to provide this year’s Super Bowl halftime show spectacular, much to the displeasure of America’s (used-to-be) working class and Washington politicians.
Leading Republicans and Democrats alike are ‘roid raging mad that the NFL didn’t select an American group in order to fully support and stimulate the U.S. economy. Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), beet red with anger on Capitol Hill this morning, demanded a last-minute change. “Let The Who stay in England and play in their sissy football games over there. Come on NFL. Act for the national good and hire The What, a lesbian punk trio from Knoxville, or The When, a fine hillbilly group from right there in Miami,” McCain said.
Financial planners can advise, books can inform, worksheets can approximate. But they'll never replace the advice you can get from folks who have ventured before you into that great unknown: retirement. To help you avoid dead ends and pitfalls, we asked retirees to look back over their time outside the working world and talk about their smartest financial moves, biggest surprises, and worst mistakes.
Tim and Jackie Fehr
Park City, Utah
It was skiing, not snoozing, that Tim Fehr imagined when he thought about retirement. When the Boeing (NYSE:BA – News) engineering executive retired in 2001, at age 60, he and his wife, Jackie, knew they wanted to live in a ski community. Every Christmas for more than 10 years the family had vacationed at ski resorts. Soon after he retired they settled on Park City for its many slopes, lively town, and nearby international airport. The Fehrs consider that move one of their smartest. But the absolute smartest thing he did, says Tim, was to work with a financial planner and hire an estate planning attorney to set up trusts for his wife and two adult kids.
The financial wrinkle he considers his biggest mistake came out of consulting work. A former client hired him as chief technical officer. He was paid mostly with stock grants and had to pay income tax on the stock's value at the time of the grant. When the stock traded below $1, that didn't seem like a big deal. The problem came when the stock rose above $10. When he got grants at that price, he had to pay a lot to cover taxes. He couldn't turn around and sell the stock — he was required by the company to hold it for a year, and, as a corporate insider, had other restrictions on when he could sell. He wound up tapping retirement savings to own a stock he had to wait to sell. "Lots of cash out and a lot of paper in," he says. "The risk was much greater than I was expecting."
The most unexpected aspect of retirement for Fehr is how work-life balance is still tough. He used to tell team members at Boeing that a reasonable balance was 60% work, 30% family, and 10% giving back. When he retired, his team asked what his percentages would be. He predicted 50% family, 20% work, and 30% giving back. The reality: 40% family, 40% community, and 20% work — though the line between working and giving blurs. He works for his wife's not-for-profit, the Wildlife Protection Society. "My challenge is to make it function as a legitimate business and meet IRS and state requirements," he says. "It requires me to tap all my MBA knowledge."
Carol Daly
Minneapolis
Carol Daly, 68, doesn't like the word "retire." It stems from a French word with the bleak meaning of "withdrawing" or going into "isolation," she says. Daly prefers to tell people she "left behind paid work."
For 25 years Daly worked at the University of Minnesota helping colleges and universities in the state develop lifelong learning programs low fee payday advance. Although she and her husband never made more than a combined $100,000, they put three kids through private colleges. She planned on working until 65, but at 56 she lost a part of her work that she loved, as Minnesota state director for Elderhostel, the nonprofit for adult educational travel, when it restructured. (She worked both for the University and Elderhostel.) Three weeks later her husband died from lung cancer at 58. She continued working at the College of Continuing Education at the University of Minnesota until she could tap retirement accounts at age 59 1/2 in 2001.
What has shocked Daly is how well she's doing financially, given the economic trauma of recent years. For 25 years the University took 13.5% of her paycheck for retirement savings and she added another 2.5%. She takes out $6,200 a month from retirement savings and gets another $1,400 from Social Security. About $1,200 is set aside for taxes and another $1,500 is taken out so that she has easily tapped savings.
The best financial move Daly made was selling her home in the suburbs and buying a condo in downtown Minneapolis. The condo has become a hub of her social life. Biggest regret? Working from 2001 to 2006 in the field of adult education, including for her former employer, UMinn, without pay. She stuck around because her identity was so closely tied to her work, she says. Now she's having a blast working on a city arts commission and taking adult education classes. "I wasted some time," she says. "I was too afraid of being discarded or ignored."
Jack and Terry Forsythe
Tucson and Chicago
A cancer scare was a big reason why Jack Forsythe decided it was time to retire in 2006 at age 59. He had been chief tax officer and senior vice-president at Ecolab (NYSE:ECL – News), the cleaning and sanitation company headquartered in St. Paul, Minn., and had worked there for two decades.
Real estate is at the core of both a good move and a mistake. The Forsythes had bought their Arizona home, which is on a golf course, at the height of the housing boom. But they love the climate. They also love Chicago and their condo there. The mistake was trying to hold on to a third home in a St. Paul suburb. The hassles weren't worth it, and they sold it. "I didn't lose money, but I didn't get what I would have if I had sold at the top," Forsythe says.
The surprise is how quickly he abandoned his identity as an Ecolab executive. He left and that was it. Instead, he and Terry travel the world, attending operas and chamber music concerts and visiting kids and grandkids.
Return to the Retirement Special Report Table of Contents
We’re all born and we all die! These are things we all have in common whether we’re heading up a Fortune 100 company or broke and unemployed. Getting from birth to death has a cost to it. Granted that cost may be higher for some than others, but it’s a fact that our journey through life has a cost to it. What may not be so obvious is the fact that the money we spend today pays for the days from birth to the present. It’s the money we don’t spend; the portion that we invest that pays for the days from death back toward the present. When your investments grow to become enough to pay for the rest of your days on Earth, that’s financial independence. I call it functional retirement, because it’s the point when you get to choose what you do each day rather than having to do what someone else wants you to do to earn a living.
The beauty of reaching functional retirement is that there’s no age limit associated with it. Depending on your success, you might become financially independent in your 20s, 30s or 40s instead of waiting until your 60s or even 70s, but you’ll never get there without investments. With that thought in mind, can you see how starting to invest early and investing as much as possible can move retirement up dramatically? Why is this concept so difficult for young people to grasp? I think a lot has to do with our educational system.
Last week I wrote about the failure of public schools to teach basic consumer economics. Paying bills, balancing bank accounts, and understanding how and when to use credit are critically important to handling the money you earn, but that’s just the beginning. Understanding wealth and how to create it is even more important. When I talk with educators about the problem, they point to a myriad of initiatives that when reduced to a common denominator, all focus on teaching students how to get a job and work for a living. They never discuss programs designed to teach young people how to build wealth and secure their futures.
We are all blessed with three eight hour blocks of time per day, seven days per week. In a typical work week, most people work five of these eight hour blocks and they sleep seven of them. It’s what they do with the other nine that determines their fate in life. Most people treat the hours they aren’t working or sleeping as fun time and try to entertain themselves during these 72 discretionary hours. Unfortunately, this can be a recipe for disaster when it comes to wealth building.
If you work 5 of these eight hour blocks of time, try to pay all your bills with the money you earn, plus entertain yourself during all this discretionary time, can you see how money might become an issue? Why not invest part of your spare time instead of spending it? Thirty seven years ago, I decided to invest a few hours each week learning how to buy investment real estate. I recognized the potential it had for producing passive income. In case you don’t know; that’s income for which you don’t have to work.
Today, I still own all the investment properties I’ve purchased over the past 37 years. The income, which was only a break even proposition during the first year, has become enough to secure my future for the rest of my life. That’s what happens when you use patience and persistence and are willing to accept delayed gratification.
This concept is not being taught in our public schools. If you don’t believe me, just ask a few young people to tell you how much money they would have at age 60 if they started at age 20, invested $100 per month and earned an eight percent return compounded monthly. I did this recently and not one of the 14 new high school graduates I interviewed could come up with the correct answer. It’s just over $351,000, or at an 8 percent return, enough to pay a monthly income of almost $2350 per month for the rest of their lives. If they can’t calculate the future value of today’s actions, how can we expect young people to understand the value of delayed gratification? Why aren’t our schools teaching this?
401K plans, IRAs and other retirement type accounts rely on compounding interest and delayed gratification to produce maximum results. These investments aren’t attractive to most young people because they can’t calculate the future value of the account. They would rather have a new car or boat now and worry about the future later. The problem with this thinking is you lose the value of compounding in the early years. In the above example, by starting at age 20, it takes less than 9 years for the interest earned each month to exceed the $100 deposit being made. At that point over $200 per month is being added to the account. Students should not be allowed to graduate high school without understanding this concept.
Here’s a tip! I like real estate as a long term investment for several reasons. First, because it can be highly leveraged, real estate can earn outstanding returns on the cash invested; returns that are far greater than the 8 percent mentioned earlier. Secondly, rents from real estate grow with inflation. Third, as rents increase and mortgages pay down, cash flow increases. Fourth, real estate appreciates in value which increases the owner’s net worth. Fifth, and I think most important, real estate provides great protection from impulse spending because it cannot be readily converted to cash on a whim. Finally, current conditions are the best I’ve seen in my lifetime to invest in real estate.
Original text from article for Asheville Citizen-Times, 35th week of 2008
Pastures are supposed to be, according to all the Michael Pollan wannabes and Polyface jockers, the greener alternative to feedlots. According to an article at physorg.com, this is another bullshit claim – like the claim that pastured or “free-range” slave-animals harbor less E. coli. The Sustainability Assessment Program at the UNSW Water Research Center in South Wales claims factory farms are polluting less per head than the small “family” farmers that claim to be so sustainable. If this study is accurate, and isn’t just industry misinformation, it further solidifies the argument that confining and torturing animals is the only way to produce enough animal-flesh and secretions to meet demand in an economically or ecologically viable way. Keeping slave-animals in captivity for the purpose of exploiting them for food is an inherently inefficient and wasteful process. Pasturing wastes vast spaces of arable land and tons of [hypothetical] food that could be grown in place of grazing, factory farms waste monstrous amounts of [real, but mostly GM] food, both waste copious amounts of water, both produce enormous amounts of waste contaminated with deadly pathogens, and both destroy the environment – air, water, and land. But most importantly both reduce living beings to mere things. Either way, animals suffer enslavement. Either way, animals are killed unnecessarily. If we are to consider ourselves even remotely moral beings, mustn’t we avoid causing or contributing to suffering or death if and when we can? There is no sacrifice in avoiding causing or contributing to suffering, even if it prevents us from attaining pleasure; or, there is as much sacrifice as a pedophile must make when avoiding molesting children. If factory farming -confining and torturing animals- is the only way we can get close to sustainable animal agriculture, doesn’t it make sense to quit the practice of exploitation altogether? Maybe the fact that no matter the method, treatment, or design, the inefficiency of animal agriculture is Nature’s way of saying, “Animals are not property!”
Go vegan. Because we don’t need to torture or kill animals or destroy the environment to accomplish any of our worthwhile goals. Because even the “greenest” animal slavery is far from green; it is destroying our HOME – faster than anything else. Because you don’t shit where you live.
The Diamond Trading Company’s (DTC) February sight achieved an estimated value of $525 million. While the DTC, De Beers marketing and sales unit, had announced a price increase in the high single digits prior to the sight, the company also changed its assortment of goods to enable sightholders to profit on their boxes. Sight participants noted higher increases in the cheaper Indian goods, as well. Nonetheless, their comments were mixed, with some observers suggesting that De Beers left room for sightholders to profit and others saying that premiums were still inflated.
Pada majlis itu, Penasihat Ekonomi negeri, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim turut menyerahkan kunci kepada 300 pembeli unit-unit yang berjaya disiapkan di Ukay Bistari dan Saujana Puchong di bawah skim itu (gambar).
The dealing with other religions and societies are done through social agreements and
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