"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
"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
"Six months ago, BaFin president Jochen Sanio was heavily criticized when he warned of the "worst financial crisis since 1931." But now many politicians are convinced that the situation is far more serious than they had assumed until now." WORST FINANCIAL CRISIS SINCE 1931? German State-Owned Banks on Verge of Collapse By Wolfgang Reuter February 20, 2008 Sourceby ProjectC - Project C
By Chris Taylor February 19 2008 Source Jeremy Grantham does not take any pleasure in watching world markets melt down. Well, perhaps just a little. This is because back in mid-November, the chairman of the Boston-based money manager GMO was feeling pretty foolish. He had just read in the Financial Times that corporate profit margins were taking a hit from the economic slowdown, and the nby ProjectC - Project C
"Exports reflect the importance of manufacturing. Almost nine-tenths of all German exports are industrial products. This is not without consequences for the service sector. According to a position paper by the Economics Ministry, "industry provides the impulse for growth in the service sector." Forty percent of all services, as well as 63 percent of all research and development actby ProjectC - Project C
'Frederick Smith, chief executive of FedEx, the world's largest express-transport company with 700 aircraft and 80,000 trucks, is more pointed. He wrote in Newsweek: "It shouldn't be forgotten that the proximate cause of World War II was the US oil embargo against Japan ? The first gulf war was caused totally by oil - it was Saddam Hussein's insistence that he owned certaby ProjectC - Project C
"Sweden is the latest of seven central banks to raise rates since the Federal Reserve slashed borrowing costs last month, as concern that inflation is set to accelerate worldwide offsets the prospect of a recession in the U.S. Australia, Russia, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and Serbia have all raised rates since Jan. 30 as raw material costs and food prices increase." Swedenby ProjectC - Project C
'The magic phrase at Microsoft's third-largest subsidiary outside the United States is "trust-based working hours," and it has helped the company to not only achieve strong returns but has repeatedly earned it the distinction of being voted Germany's most popular employer. "We agree to certain goals with each employee. How and where they are reached is secondary,&quoby ProjectC - Project C
Default Swaps Intensify Credit Crunch Rob Roy Feb 11, 2008 Source Over the past several years my firm has highlighted the risks in the sub-prime sector, the lax lending standards, and the housing bubble that peaked in 2005. The residual effects of these have been vast and continue to support our view that the unraveling of the debt issue is not contained. Housing is clearly in a near-deaby ProjectC - Project C
"My journey is all about fulfilling a dream... to go to the South Pole. The slowness of the tractor symbolises the fact that fulfilling your dream takes time, that however slowly you travel, if you are committed you will get to your final destination." -- Manon Ossevoort Tractor woman on African rescues By Daniel Dickinson BBC News, Dar es Salaam 3 December 2007 Source Aby ProjectC - Project C
"I have an exhibit that shows the 30 years prior to 1982 when the debt-to-gross domestic product ratio was completely flat at 1.2 times. Total debt is defined as government debt, personal debt, corporate debt and financial debt. Then in the 25 years after 1982, the flat line goes up at a 45 degrees angle from 1.2 times to 3.1 times GDP. Massive. In the first 30 years, when debt is flat, annuby ProjectC - Project C
Thoughts on Man's Purpose in Life by Admiral H. G. Rickover, U. S. Navy at a Luncheon Meeting of the San Diego Rotary Club San Diego, California Thursday, February 10, 1977 Source Voltaire once said: "Not to be occupied and not to exist are one and the same thing for a man." With those few words he captured the essence of a purpose in life: to work, to create, to excel, andby ProjectC - Project C
By Brian Berger Space News Staff Writer 04 February 2008 Source WASHINGTON -- Bigelow Aerospace officials said Feb. 1 they are making progress in their negotiations with United Launch Alliance for six initial launches for their planned commercial space station, starting around 2011. Subsequently the company hopes to conduct as many as a dozen launches per year as the new facility becomesby ProjectC - Project C
"Losses on CDS do not represent only a transfer of wealth from those who sold protection to those who bought it. If losses are large some of the counterparties who sold protection – possibly large institutions such as monolines, some hedge funds or a large broker dealer – may go bankrupt leading to even greater systemic risk as those who bought protection may face counterparties who cannot pby ProjectC - Project C
For many extreme Muslims, dreams are a serious affair. Osama bin Laden is a dream-believer By Robert Fisk Saturday, 26 January 2008 Source As a little boy, I had a recurring nightmare and it always featured my grandfather's dog. Arthur Rose had a Labrador called Sir Lancelot – Lance for short – and I adored this dog. I think he liked me too, because we raced around Arthur's greaby ProjectC - Project C
"it has often been innovation without substance. And it's achieved nothing. It's been cosmetic." -- Satyajit Das ( Source ) "The UK’s Financial Services Authority warned last week that there was probably more fraud on the way, either because of misdeeds surfacing from more lax times or because individuals were now pressed into wrongdoing by falling markets. Place yoby ProjectC - Project C
By Larry Dignan January 23rd, 2008 Source Virgin Galactic on Wednesday unveiled designs for SpaceShipTwo and the WhiteKnightTwo, two vehicles that are designed to usher in private spaceflight. The technology behind the system will have an open architecture “like Linux,” said officials. In an event at the American Museum at Natural History in New York, Virgin Galactic unveiled the first prby ProjectC - Project C
“…The Russian meltdown has revealed previously ignored flaws in the international banking system. Banks engage in swaps, forward transactions, and derivative trades among each other and with their clients. These transactions do not show up in the balance sheets…” – George Soros, The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered, December 2, 1998 The worst market crisis in 60 yearsby ProjectC - Project C
"My own view of the grave deficiency of the Few Great Men approach has been greatly influenced by the work of two splendid historians of thought. One is my own dissertation mentor Joseph Dorfman, whose unparalleled multi-volume work on the history of American economic thought demonstrated conclusively how important allegedly "lesser" figures are in any movement of ideas. In the firby ProjectC - Project C
(Prof. Alfred Bork falece em 18 de dezembro de 2007) quinta-feira, 10 de janeiro de 2008 Source Alfred Bork, Professor Emeritus of Information and Computer Science at UC Irvine, died on December 18, 2007. Alfred’s career with UCI began on October 1, 1968 with joint appointments in ICS and Physics. Passionate about the use of computers in education, Alfred contributed to the early dby ProjectC - Project C
"PAUL VOLCKER: To some extent I think it is. Inflation is related to monetary policy. It's related to the issue of money. The issue of money is a governmental responsibility predominantly, and to use that authority in a way that leads to inflation is a system that fools a lot of people, and to keep fooling them you have to do it more and more; is a moral issue. I put myself in that camby ProjectC - Project C
"Haptonomy is a part of the human sciences. It concerns the very base of human existence from which every being flourishes and develops in order to follow his personal way of life." -- Haptonomy *** "The benefits of haptonomy flow onto to the mother as well. For instance, many women have difficulty in labor due to the fact that the birth canal of the pelvis is simply too nby ProjectC - Project C
"I have yet to see a serious act of violence that was not provoked by the experience of feeling shamed and humiliated, disrespected and ridiculed." -- James Giuigan Is Inequality Good for You? Unequal societies will remain unhealthy societies, and also unhappy societies, no matter how wealthy they become' By Michael Prowse December 31, 2007 Source We have grown accby ProjectC - Project C
"Education, too, takes on a new look. It is not enough to learn things; in any case, the busybodies are incapable of organizing real, individual learning. What they can organize is education… with the learning removed or standardized to fit into some new larger national standard. 'Educators' can't be bothered with individual students as they actually are, nor even with local cby ProjectC - Project C
"Dmitry Orlov's publisher sent me the galley proof to get a blurb for the dust-jacket, and I'll furnish one in short order because Reinventing Collapse is an exceptionally clear, authoritative, witty, and original view of our prospects. The thesis is that the United States is headed for troubles as broad and deep as the ones that brought down the Soviet system in Russia, though weby ProjectC - Project C
'...Some analysts have begun to recognize that U.S. asset and debt markets have not faced such precarious dynamics since The Great Depression. Meanwhile, collapsing U.S. and international interest-rates fuel myriad global Bubbles and inflationary pressures. In short, 2007 has been a continuation of the unfolding “worst-case-scenario.”' 2007 Wrap-Up By Doug Noland December 26, 2by ProjectC - Project C
'Today's financial world looks rather more like the era of rootless, trans-oceanic finance that Kreuger entered when he first arrived by ship in New York in 1900, with $100 in his pocket. Once again, credit has ballooned and capital flits around the world faster than any human being can travel; those with the audacity to channel it where it is needed, as Kreuger did, can make unparallelby ProjectC - Project C
"By the end of the 1920s, instalment plans had become the primary way for a middle-class family to attain a piece of the American dream. People who had formerly shied away from acquiring debt now accepted instalment buying as a means to finance modern consumption. This transformation in consumer attitudes resulted from a gradual change in the depiction of instalment buying in advertisements.by ProjectC - Project C
"...If Trichet is clever, he will move the ECB to slower money creation once US and British real estate prices have stabilized. That will allow Eurozone interest rates to rise moderately, while remaining lower than the crisis rates in the Anglosphere. Then he will be able to contrast the problems in the US and Britain with the favorable outlook for Euro zone inflation under his Presidency ofby ProjectC - Project C
"The timeless adage in economics that income is all holds even more true today." -- Henry C K Liu, Part II: Currency Devaluation Depresses Wages Globally, June 13, 2007 Person of the Year: Jean-Claude Trichet FT.com Sun Dec 23, 2007 Source A central banker can never really doze in the sun. But in the usually sleepy month of August, Jean-Claude Trichet, European Central Baby ProjectC - Project C