<blockquote>"I tend to view subprime as chiefly a “lower end” issue with respect to the real economy. And it is my view that the greatest – as well as least appreciated – Bubble Economy Excesses were at The “Upper-middle” to “Upper-end.” It is in The Upper-ends where years of Credit excess had the most pronounced effects on incomes, household net-worth, spending, and government revenby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"...Maria Benedita Sousa used a small loan five years ago to buy two sewing machines and start her own business making women’s underwear. Today Ms. Sousa, a mother of three who started out working in a jeans factory making minimum wage, employs 25 people in a modest two-room factory that produces 55,000 pairs of cotton underwear a month. ... Despite investor fears aby ProjectC - Project C
By Paul Goble Thursday, July 31, 2008 Source Vienna, July 31 – The Russian Federation, like many other post-Soviet states, is plagued by a kind of corruption that gets far less attention there and in the West than it deserves given the far greater impact on that country’s future it is certain to have -- the illicit purchase of admissions to universities and of grades and even degrees once aby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"But as a professor, students say, Mr. Obama was in the business of complication, showing that even the best-reasoned rules have unintended consequences, that competing legal interests cannot always be resolved, that a rule that promotes justice in one case can be unfair in the next."</blockquote> The Long Run Teaching Law, Testing Ideas, Obama Stood Sligby ProjectC - Project C
By Frank Shostak 12/17/2003 Source The yearly rate of growth of money M2 fell to 5.2% in November from 7.5% in October while the yearly rate of growth of money M3 fell to 4.7% in November from 7.5% in the previous month. How seriously should one take the recent softening in the yearly rate of growth of money supply? Some analysts believe that this softening in the growth momentum could caby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"Ms. Mane said combatting the epidemic requires not only health interventions, but the promotion of human rights and equality for women. She noted, for example, that one-third of the world's countries still do not have laws that protect people living with HIV-AIDS from discrimination and that, in far too many countries, girls still have limited access to educationby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"...today's mess was many years in the making and there is no easy, painless exit strategy. But the need to introduce more banking discipline is yet another reason why the policymakers must refrain from excessively expansionary macroeconomic policy at this juncture and accept the slowdown that must inevitably come at the end of such an incredible boom. For most centralby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"Finally Brazil, which in the past has indulged in the typical Latin American follies of excessive government spending, wild borrowing sprees, hopelessly sloppy monetary policy leading to hyperinflation and inadequate protection of property rights, particularly foreign property rights. Now things are different. Foreign debt has halved as a percentage of GDP since 2002, whilby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"An important prerequisite for such important adjustments on Iran's part rests in Israel, which has recently shown new initiatives by taking part in the French-led Mediterranean process, and by pushing the arch of compromise with its traditional foes - in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. There is no logical reason why this cannot now be extended toward Iran, which lacks a commby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"Bosnia is going backwards again. The EU must stop running its policy for Bosnia for the benefit of its policy for Belgrade and Kosovo. Brussels must toughen up its conditionality, support its instruments on the ground, resist attempts to undermine the Bosnian state, insist on constitutional reform to make Bosnia more functional and tackle corruption which is becoming everby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"Abroad, riots shook India after the government trimmed fuel subsidies. Truckers in Britain, France, Spain and South Korea have clogged the roads to protest rising fuel prices. In the Philippines, soaring prices for oil and petroleum-based fertilizer have derailed the economy and ignited calls for a cut in the tax on oil imports. With her popularity at a record low, Presideby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>...You Know The Banking System Is Unsound When..... Here are those points: <blockquote>24. There is roughly $6.84 Trillion in bank deposits. $2.60 Trillion of that is uninsured. There is only $53 billion in FDIC insurance to cover $6.84 Trillion in bank deposits. Indymac will eat up roughly $8 billion of that. 25. Of the $6.84 Trillion in bank deposits, the total casby ProjectC - Project C
The Wall Street Journal By STUART LEVEY Tuesday, 02 October 2007 Source Tehran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and its radical foreign policies have provoked international sanctions. Its financial subterfuge has led key banks and businesses world-wide to sever their Iranian business ties, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's blunders are debilitating Iran's economy. As a resulby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"Iran's achievement is creating an image of itself as a scary superpower when it's really a paper tiger." -- Former senior Mossad officer</blockquote> Israel's Debate Over an Iran Strike By Tim McGirk and Aaron J. Klein / Jerusalem Thursday, Jul. 24, 2008 Source Despite President Bush's insistence that the military option remainsby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"Enjoying unlimited access to borrowings during periods of systemic stress, the GSEs evolved into the powerful liquidity backstop for the leveraged speculating community and the securities markets generally. Like clockwork, the Greenspan Fed would aggressively cut rates and the GSEs would aggressively expand Credit. And without the GSEs as buyers eager to pay top dollar fby ProjectC - Project C
By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News 22 July 2008 Source The first official image of a Russian-European manned spacecraft has been unveiled. It is designed to replace the Soyuz vehicle currently in use by Russia and will allow Europe to participate directly in crew transportation. The reusable ship was conceived to carry four people towards the Moon, rivalling the US Ares/Orion sby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"The financial crisis, still in its early stages, is apparent to everyone: gasoline prices over $4 a gallon; skyrocketing education and medical-care costs; the collapse of the housing bubble; the bursting of the NASDAQ bubble; stock markets plunging; unemployment rising; massive underemployment; excessive government debt; and unmanageable personal debt. Little doubt existsby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"But the proposed bail-out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac makes that of Bear Stearns look like a model of good governance. It sets an example for other countries of what not to do. The same administration that failed to regulate, then seemed enthusiastic about the Bear Stearns bail-out, is now asking the American people to write a blank cheque. They say: “Trust us.” Yes, weby ProjectC - Project C
By Mister Mortgage July 25th, 2008 Source I am not suggesting all CDO’s are worth 10 cents on the dollar, but this is sounding like the most realistic loss estimate to date. It’s no wonder why the banks have done everything possible to hide these losses and keep the bond insurers afloat. To be specific, the securities in question consist of 10 CDOs of which two are ’super senior’ strips aby ProjectC - Project C
( Part I ) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, ranked Aaa by the world’s leading credit-rating companies, are now being treated by derivatives traders as if they were rated five levels lower because the issuers are pitifully undercapitalized for the size of the debt they issue. Credit-default swaps tied to $1.45 trillion of debt sold by these two biggest allegedly US-backed mortgage finance companiesby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"In the face of a broad systemic collapse of debt capitalism where capital has become dangerously inadequate and new capital hazardously and prohibitively scarce, having been crowded out by massive debt collateralized by overblown assets of declining value, with a credit crisis that clearly requires systemic restructuring and comprehensive intensive care, those in the US reby ProjectC - Project C
By Jim in San Marcos July 19, 2008 Source Here is a post from last year that you may enjoy. This one gives you a feeling for what may lay ahead. It offers some perspective as to what we may expect, this time around. prev. printed 8/31/07 Let's go back and picture a man from the 1929 era. He would have been born about 1890 and been about 40 at the time. His world had gone from horse aby ProjectC - Project C
By Nicholas D. Kristof Monday, July 21, 2008 Source Old timers doing good This month Bill Gates starts his new full-time career as a humanitarian, leaving behind the software bugs to swat the kind that cause malaria. We often think of those trying to save the world as bright-eyed young people, but Gates is part of a booming trend: the "encore career" as a substitute for retirby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>'Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program at Public Citizen, a Washington-based consumer group, doesn't care when the peak will come. "We should be planning as though we're there," he said, "because from a national interest standpoint, from an economic standpoint and from an environmental standpoint, our dependence on oil, whether it comesby ProjectC - Project C
A SEARCH FOR EUROPE'S FUTURE And the Wheels Stopped Turning By Jürgen Habermas 06/18/2008 Source European governments are at their wits' end. It is time for them to admit it -- and let the public decide about the future of the European Union. …and everything comes to a grinding halt. The farmers are upset about falling global prices and the new regulations constantly coby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"In JPMorgan Chase’s and Citigroup’s earnings conference calls, both major lenders this week noted deterioration in prime mortgages. This provides additional confirmation that the mortgage crisis is now reaching the bedrock of our nation’s mortgage Credit system. ...a tightening in “conventional” mortgages will now significantly exacerbate the mortgage/housing/financial/eby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>“We the people are enjoined to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, and to promote the general welfare and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. So it’s up to each of us to summon our unique genius, our own power and our own personal magic to restore these values in today’s imbalanced society.” -- John C. Boby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"Also, Alexander Rahr supported the idea of Central Asian States representatives, namely Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, to take part in the work of Yalta European Strategy summits in future. "These countries shall have a great importance for Ukraine", he stressed."</blockquote> In 2020 it will be easier for Ukraine to enter the EU YESby ProjectC - Project C
<blockquote>"If by "we," Mr. Poole meant his employer, he was off the mark, for the Fed has burnished Wall Street's hide more than skinned it. The shareholders of Bear Stearns were ruined, it's true, but Wall Street called the loss a bargain in view of the risks that an insolvent Bear would have presented to the derivatives-laced financial system. To facilitate theby ProjectC - Project C
By JANET RAE-DUPREE July 6, 2008 Source WHY do some people reach their creative potential in business while other equally talented peers don’t? After three decades of painstaking research, the Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck believes that the answer to the puzzle lies in how people think about intelligence and talent. Those who believe they were born with all the smarts and gifts they’rby ProjectC - Project C