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Turkey seeks a more modern Islam - By Fazile Zahir - 16 years ago
"We are not here as Turkish Muslims to put ourselves in the service of Islam, but to put Islam in the service of life." - Fethullah Gulen, Turkish Islamic scholar and writer By Fazile Zahir Mar 27, 2008 Source FETHIYE, Turkey - The level of surprise with which the world's media greeted the news that Turkey's highest religious authority, the Diyanet, has instructed a cby ProjectC - Project C
Let the Russians sort out Russia - By Rodric Braithwaite - 16 years ago
"George Kennan, that great Russia-watcher, got it right when he wrote in 1951, at the height of the cold war: “When Soviet power has run its course . . . let us not hover nervously over the people who come after, applying litmus papers daily to their political complexions to find out whether they answer to our concept of ‘democrats’. Give them time; let them beby ProjectC - Project C
What Created This Monster? - By Nelson D. Schwartz and Julie Creswell - 16 years ago
'TWO months before he resigned as chief executive of Citigroup last year amid nearly $20 billion in write-downs, Charles O. Prince III sat down in Washington with Representative Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Among the topics they discussed were investment vehicles that allowed Citigroup and other banks to keep billions of dollars in potential liabilitiby ProjectC - Project C
Nationalization - By Doug Noland - 16 years ago
'Surging demand for U.S. Treasuries is causing failures to deliver or receive government debt in the $6.3 trillion a day market for borrowing and lending to climb to the highest level in almost four years." -- Liz Capo McCormick, Treasuries' Scarcity Triggers Repo Market Failures, March 20, 2008 *** "First of all, there is the issue of a problematic dislocation in theby ProjectC - Project C
A Real Freak Out - By Jim Kunstler - 16 years ago
By Jim Kunstler March 17, 2008 Source Note: This is the official publication week of my new 'post-oil' novel, "World Made By Hand," a vivid depiction of life in The Long Emergency. Visit the book's website: Things are getting very weird very fast -- and will probably get even weirder, faster, as the train wreck of bad debt meets the Saint Paddy's Day Paradeby ProjectC - Project C
Arthur C Clarke, writer and futurist, dies at 90 - By Sarah Knapton - 16 years ago
"His forecasts often earned him derision from peers and social commentators." Arthur C Clarke, writer and futurist, dies at 90 · Heart failure kills creator of 2001: A Space Odyssey · Author's forecasts proved uncannily accurate By Sarah Knapton Wednesday March 19, 2008 The Guardian Source Arthur C Clarke, the pioneering science fiction author and technological vby ProjectC - Project C
Why today’s hedge fund industry may not survive - By Martin Wolf - 16 years ago
"...With the “right” fee structure mediocre investment managers may become rich as they ensure that their investors cease to remain so." Why today’s hedge fund industry may not survive By Martin Wolf March 18 2008 Source Hardly a week goes by without the implosion of a hedge fund. Last week it was Carlyle Capital, with an astonishing $31 of debt for each dollar of equity. Bby ProjectC - Project C
Sorry, I wasn’t pessimistic enough! - By Martin Hutchinson - 16 years ago
"It is clearer now than it was a year ago that losses in housing debt will not be isolated. They will lead to losses in credit cards, leveraged corporate loans, automobile loans and most areas of the credit economy. Even emerging market debt, at first sight insulated from the problem, is in practice endangered by its concentration in Latin America and Russia, both dependent either on the USby ProjectC - Project C
Does Shariah mean the rule of law? - By Noah Feldman - 16 years ago
"Was it to be hoped that the stern spirit of religious enthusiasm, allying itself with the–keen instinct of civil liberty, would endue the provinces with strength to throw off the Spanish yoke?" - J. L. Motley ( The Great Bell Roland - 1540 ), The Rise of the Dutch Republic. *** "To many, the word "Shariah" conjures horrors of hands cut off, adulterers stoned anby ProjectC - Project C
(Ukraine) Investors council a progressive step - 16 years ago
The Khazar Empire. J. *** Investors council a progressive step By E.Morgan Williams Mar 06 2008 Source The Ukrainian government should be applauded for the actions it has taken to improve the business climate, such as the partial payment of long overdue value-added tax (VAT) refunds in late January and the move to finalize membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Oby ProjectC - Project C
Wishing for Another Z.1 - By Doug Noland - 16 years ago
"To be sure, the Credit Crisis has accelerated to a ferocious clip. Last week it was a “white shoe” hedge fund leveraged in “AAA” securities that imploded. Earlier this week, a “white shoe” firm listed (in Europe) fund that had been leveraging in “AAA” Fannie and Freddie securities imploded. Today, one of Wall Street’s white shoe firms required a Fed-assisted “bailout” to at least temporaby ProjectC - Project C
Going, going, gone: a rising auction of scary scenarios - By Martin Wolf - 16 years ago
"Suppose, then, that Prof Roubini were right. Losses of $2,000bn-$3,000bn would decapitalise the financial system. The government would have to mount a rescue. The most plausible means of doing so would be via nationalisation of all losses. While the US government could afford to raise its debt by up to 20 per cent of GDP, in order to do this, that decision would have huge ramifications. Weby ProjectC - Project C
Going Going. . . . - By Jim Kunstler - 16 years ago
By Jim Kunstler March 10, 2008 Source The feigned cluelessness in Paul Krugman's Sunday New York Times column ("The Face-Slap Theory") about the meltdown in finance is a good index of the cringing mendacity now emanating from those in service to the centers of power. I doubt an editor, or the publisher, Mr. Sulzberger, had to whisper in his ear to soft-pedal the situatioby ProjectC - Project C
A reply of Nouriel Roubini on Martin Wolf's article - 16 years ago
“This is not a crisis of “crony capitalism” in emerging economies, but of sophisticated, rules-governed capitalisms in the world’s most advanced economy. The instinct of those responsible will be to mount a rescue and pretend nothing happened… Worse, the institutions that prospered on the upside expect rescue on the downside. They are right to expect this. But this can hardly be a tolerable bargaby ProjectC - Project C
(UK) Clueless generation need to do the maths - 16 years ago
By Rosemary Bennett, Social Affairs Correspondent March 10, 2008 Source They are the media-savvy generation, but teenagers are not so sharp when it comes to money. A study involving 8,500 teenagers from all social backgrounds found that most of them are financially illiterate. More than three quarters could not identify the cheapest loan. They also grossly overestimate their future earninby ProjectC - Project C
(Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicl) Huge space truck races into orbit - 16 years ago
"The hardware that is used to lift the samples off the surface of the Red Planet would need to meet up in orbit with the propulsion unit which would carry it home. The technology for this in-orbit assembly might be derived from ATV know-how. And there may even be a grander application - one not lost on the Nasa chief Mike Griffin. "It occurs to me that it's a fairly short steby ProjectC - Project C
Europe - By Winston Churchill - 16 years ago
"...If Europe is to be saved from infinite misery and indeed from final doom, there must be this act of faith in the European family this 'act of oblivion against all crimes and follies of the past. Can these peoples of Europe rise to the heights of the soul and of the instinct and spirit of man? If they could, the wrongs and injuries which have been indicted would have been washed awayby ProjectC - Project C
Double Bubble Trouble - By Stephen S. Roach - 16 years ago
"The United States is now going through its second post-bubble downturn in seven years. Yet this one stands in sharp contrast to the post-bubble shakeout in the stock market during 2000 and 2001. Back then, there was a collapse in business capital spending, a sector that peaked at only 13 percent of real gross domestic product. The current recession has been set off by the simultaneous buby ProjectC - Project C
The Credit Default Swap Market - Will It Unravel? - By Satyajit Das - 16 years ago
'The CDS market entails complex chains of risk. This is similar to the re-insurance chains that proved so problematic in the case of Lloyds. The CDS markets have certain similarities with the reinsurance markets. The CDS fees like the reinsurance premiums are received up front. In both cases the risks are both potentially significant and "long tail" - they do not emerge immediatelyby ProjectC - Project C
Mouth-to-mouth will fail beached economies - By Walden Bello - 16 years ago
"...the Basel process focused on making developing country financial institutions and processes transparent and standardized along the lines of what Wade calls the "Anglo-American" financial model. Calls to regulate the proliferation of these new, sophisticated financial instruments, such as derivatives placed on the market by developed country financial institutions, went nowhby ProjectC - Project C
Regulating the un-regulatable - By Martin Hutchinson - 16 years ago
"However the major international banks regarded the 8% capital requirement imposed by Basel as impossibly onerous, and believed that the Accord unnecessarily restricted their move into profitable new areas of finance. Consequently, from the middle 1990s they vigorously lobbied the Basel Committee for a new agreement, the Basel II accord, which would allow them to carry out their own risk manby ProjectC - Project C
German Doctors' Group Confesses to Mistakes - 16 years ago
NOT "GODS IN WHITE" German Doctors' Group Confesses to Mistakes Der Spiegel February 29, 2008 Source Surgical scissors left in stomachs, operations on the wrong knee, prescriptions of uppers instead of downers -- medical error is not just the stuff of fiction. Now a group of German doctors has decided to break a taboo and talk openly about their slip-ups. The myth ofby ProjectC - Project C
'It's abuse and a life of hell' - 16 years ago
'In 2003, Matthews began work on a project that considered different legislative approaches to prostitution from around the world. The countries included Sweden, where buying sexual services was criminalised in 1999 - thus criminalising the punters, rather than the women in prostitution - and the Netherlands, where prostitution was legalised in 2000. The most important lesson learned in Swedby ProjectC - Project C
No LTCM - By Doug Noland - 16 years ago
"In many respects, systemic stress from de-leveraging is more intense today than even during the LTCM fiasco. ... Throughout the system, risk models have broken down. They will now be functionally inoperable for some time to come. At the heart of the now unfolding systemic de-leveraging are some newfound realities. Leveraging, as Peloton Partners realized this week, has become a perby ProjectC - Project C
Seduced by the power of historic books - By Robert Fisk - 16 years ago
"Freedom from fear is the only environment in which people, particularly one lacking in breadth of political maturity, can express an honest voice. And how can this be obtained if one enemy ... refuses to negotiate with the other? How, on the other hand, can the rebels lay down their arms?" Seduced by the power of historic books By Robert Fisk Saturday, 9 February 2008 Sourceby ProjectC - Project C
Turkey in radical revision of Islamic texts - 16 years ago
"He longed for the day when a woman might travel long distances alone." -- Professor Mehmet Gormez Turkey in radical revision of Islamic texts By Robert Piggott Religious affairs correspondent, BBC News 26 February 2008 Source Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam - and a controversial and radical modernisatioby ProjectC - Project C
Anti-depressants 'of little use' - 16 years ago
There is a lack of affection. - Fire - The Art of Being Human - A State of Security - Project Consciousness - Haptonomy the Science of Affectivity J. *** Anti-depressants 'of little use' New generation anti-depressants have little clinical benefit for most patients, research suggests. BBC News 26 February 2008 Source A University of Hull team concluby ProjectC - Project C
Bank group takes Linux migration a step at a time - 16 years ago
"We liked the idea of having an open enterprise and an infrastructure able to support anything." -- Tom Johnson Bank group takes Linux migration a step at a time By Tina Gasperson February 20, 2008 Source Metropolitan Bank Group is a large conglomerate in Illinois, comprising 10 banks and $3 billion in assets. As Metropolitan acquired more banking interests, IT Director Tby ProjectC - Project C
A ‘Moral Hazard’ for a Housing Bailout: Sorting the Victims From Those Who Volunteered - 16 years ago
"it has often been innovation without substance. And it's achieved nothing. It's been cosmetic." -- Satyajit Das ( More ) *** "Over the last two decades, few industries have lobbied more ferociously or effectively than banks to get the government out of its business and to obtain freer rein for “financial innovation.” ... ...banks and Wall Street firms thaby ProjectC - Project C
Pyramids Crumbling - By Bill Gross - 16 years ago
"But today’s banking system as pointed out in recent Investment Outlooks, has morphed into something entirely different and inherently more risky. Our modern shadow banking system craftily dodges the reserve requirements of traditional institutions and promotes a chain letter, pyramid scheme of leverage, based in many cases on no reserve cushion whatsoever. Financial derivatives of all descrby ProjectC - Project C