E.M.Smith (USA)
While making the run out here, I had the experience of hitting about a half dozen “speed cameras” in a row outside of Phoenix on I-10… The good news is that my general driving rules prevented me from triggering them. The bad news is that they are there… Drivers rapidly become aware of the location and at that point, there was a rapid slow down of the traffic with the attendant crowding and risks… It is a great traffic jam generator as it starts a peristaltic slowdown wave into the rush. The wiki said that the Phoenix cameras are set to trip at 11 mph over. Hope your speedometer is accurate…"
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Ireland admits investors uneasy as bailout fears mount
(Reuters) - Ireland's central bank governor conceded on Wednesday a huge bank recapitalisation programme had failed to reassure investors, as borrowing costs mounted along with concerns its new fiscal plan would not avert a bailout.
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
Ireland: a sinking basket case
Catallaxy Files (Australia)
"..Karen Maley over at Business Spectator, however, has an interesting article on the most recent developments in Ireland, which include a marked spiking in the yields on Irish government bonds. A prominent Irish professor of economics is arguing that the country is in effect bankrupt because the capacity of the taxpayer to fund the bail-outs of the three big Irish banks, that are extremely exposed to the ailing property sector, is insufficient to meet the calls at the higher yields. (I’m not sure he is correct to recommend that that the Irish government should have allowed those banks to fail, in effect, however.) Fiscal austerity will not be enough.
Is it time for the IMF to come in to sort out the mess? And I’m not so sure now that the Celtic experiment will have been worth the candle."
"..Karen Maley over at Business Spectator, however, has an interesting article on the most recent developments in Ireland, which include a marked spiking in the yields on Irish government bonds. A prominent Irish professor of economics is arguing that the country is in effect bankrupt because the capacity of the taxpayer to fund the bail-outs of the three big Irish banks, that are extremely exposed to the ailing property sector, is insufficient to meet the calls at the higher yields. (I’m not sure he is correct to recommend that that the Irish government should have allowed those banks to fail, in effect, however.) Fiscal austerity will not be enough.
Is it time for the IMF to come in to sort out the mess? And I’m not so sure now that the Celtic experiment will have been worth the candle."
Monday, 8 November 2010
Gold breaks through the $1,400 barrier
Daily Mail
"Gold has broken the $1,400 mark to hit a new record high following comments from the World Bank on adopting a new gold standard.The spot gold price hit $1,407.2 at 5.30pm today – a new record level for bullion.Gold fell back slightly after hitting the new high and was trading at $1,406 at 6.15pm – or £870 an ounce."
"Gold has broken the $1,400 mark to hit a new record high following comments from the World Bank on adopting a new gold standard.The spot gold price hit $1,407.2 at 5.30pm today – a new record level for bullion.Gold fell back slightly after hitting the new high and was trading at $1,406 at 6.15pm – or £870 an ounce."
Sunday, 7 November 2010
The rest of the world goes West when America prints more money
Telegraph
"Last Wednesday was a hinge point in history. The United States decided to drop all pretence of being interested in leading – or even being part of – a coordinated global policy response to the most serious economic crisis in more than 70 years. America is now isolated and the rest of the world is furious. The widespread use of capital controls and even a lurch into 1930s-style protectionism are both far more likely than just a few days ago.
The Federal Reserve's words may have been anodyne. "We will adjust the programme as needed to best foster maximum employment and price stability," said the US central bank's Open Market Committee. But by announcing another round of "quantitative easing", America is rightfully incurring the wrath not only of the emerging giants of the East, but the eurozone too. "
"Last Wednesday was a hinge point in history. The United States decided to drop all pretence of being interested in leading – or even being part of – a coordinated global policy response to the most serious economic crisis in more than 70 years. America is now isolated and the rest of the world is furious. The widespread use of capital controls and even a lurch into 1930s-style protectionism are both far more likely than just a few days ago.
The Federal Reserve's words may have been anodyne. "We will adjust the programme as needed to best foster maximum employment and price stability," said the US central bank's Open Market Committee. But by announcing another round of "quantitative easing", America is rightfully incurring the wrath not only of the emerging giants of the East, but the eurozone too. "
Saturday, 6 November 2010
UK economy in danger of being sucked into Ben Bernanke's great inflation
Telegraph
"The great inflation is under way, its source is the US but we are close to being sucked in too. Investors are fleeing into equities as a hedge against inflation. The US is now being run by experimental economics, a $600bn (£372bn) experiment to be precise as Ben Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, hopes to re-float the sunken American property market and punish savers, transferring wealth to debtors through negative real interest rates. "
"The great inflation is under way, its source is the US but we are close to being sucked in too. Investors are fleeing into equities as a hedge against inflation. The US is now being run by experimental economics, a $600bn (£372bn) experiment to be precise as Ben Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, hopes to re-float the sunken American property market and punish savers, transferring wealth to debtors through negative real interest rates. "
Friday, 5 November 2010
Der Spiegel: Geologists Warning Of “Mega-Eruption”
NoTricksZone
"Der Spiegel reports on the growling-ever-louder Indonesian Merapi volcano in an article titled: Geologists Warning of Mega-Eruption of Merapi. ......'The Merapi eruptions are becoming more violent – and the big bang could be just ahead. The Indonesian volcano has been spewing 800°C ash clouds for days. .....A rough estimate indicates that there is three times more magma than what was ejected by the Indonesian volcano Tambora in 1815 – the biggest eruption in the last 10,000 years, which led to a cooling of the climate globally.'
"Der Spiegel reports on the growling-ever-louder Indonesian Merapi volcano in an article titled: Geologists Warning of Mega-Eruption of Merapi. ......'The Merapi eruptions are becoming more violent – and the big bang could be just ahead. The Indonesian volcano has been spewing 800°C ash clouds for days. .....A rough estimate indicates that there is three times more magma than what was ejected by the Indonesian volcano Tambora in 1815 – the biggest eruption in the last 10,000 years, which led to a cooling of the climate globally.'
Thursday, 4 November 2010
Fed's $600bn gamble risks throwing away America's biggest asset
Telegraph
"Apparently, there's been an election in the US. The BBC tells us that America's wholly unsurprising verdict on the past two years is frightfully important and signals the end of the Obama dream, whatever that may have been; it was never entirely clear. .....It didn't seem to occur to him that Obama's drubbing was not so much a case of haplessly falling victim to economic circumstance but was in fact largely down to incoherent legislative experiment, blind disregard for the deficit and chronic mishandling of the economy. Americans had reasonably expected better. Obama's punishment will make little if any difference to the mess the US economy finds itself in and in any case is something of a sideshow against the latest high risk policy initiative the Federal Reserve is visiting on an already battered nation. The Hill can't act, but the Fed still stands ready and willing at the roulette wheel.
The fresh $600bn (£372bn) infusion of quantitative easing announced on Wednesday may or may not provide a lift for beleaguered domestic demand – both Goldman Sachs and HSBC have said much more is needed to escape a real or imagined liquidity trap – but one thing it certainly does do is further debauch the currency. Never before has dollar hegemony been so much under threat. By flooding the world economy with yet more freshly minted dollars, America further undermines faith in the greenback as an internationally reliable store of value and is thereby squandering an economic and geo-political asset of huge importance to the nation's history.
The dollar's reserve currency status means that America can borrow at will in its own currency from the rest of the world, and at favourable rates to boot. This privilege is being recklessly thrown away. Every time the Fed prints more dollars to fight the domestic recession, it further devalues that debt. The lenders are understandably getting restless.As is now becoming steadily more apparent, dollar hegemony was a major underlying cause of the crisis, for it allowed America to go on an unrestrained borrowing binge; the developing world is ever more minded to think its demise part of the solution.
The Fed is taking a massive gamble with America's long term future by blindly pursuing further monetary stimulus; it may take time, but the dollar's all powerful reign on the world stage is drawing to a close."
"Apparently, there's been an election in the US. The BBC tells us that America's wholly unsurprising verdict on the past two years is frightfully important and signals the end of the Obama dream, whatever that may have been; it was never entirely clear. .....It didn't seem to occur to him that Obama's drubbing was not so much a case of haplessly falling victim to economic circumstance but was in fact largely down to incoherent legislative experiment, blind disregard for the deficit and chronic mishandling of the economy. Americans had reasonably expected better. Obama's punishment will make little if any difference to the mess the US economy finds itself in and in any case is something of a sideshow against the latest high risk policy initiative the Federal Reserve is visiting on an already battered nation. The Hill can't act, but the Fed still stands ready and willing at the roulette wheel.
The fresh $600bn (£372bn) infusion of quantitative easing announced on Wednesday may or may not provide a lift for beleaguered domestic demand – both Goldman Sachs and HSBC have said much more is needed to escape a real or imagined liquidity trap – but one thing it certainly does do is further debauch the currency. Never before has dollar hegemony been so much under threat. By flooding the world economy with yet more freshly minted dollars, America further undermines faith in the greenback as an internationally reliable store of value and is thereby squandering an economic and geo-political asset of huge importance to the nation's history.
The dollar's reserve currency status means that America can borrow at will in its own currency from the rest of the world, and at favourable rates to boot. This privilege is being recklessly thrown away. Every time the Fed prints more dollars to fight the domestic recession, it further devalues that debt. The lenders are understandably getting restless.As is now becoming steadily more apparent, dollar hegemony was a major underlying cause of the crisis, for it allowed America to go on an unrestrained borrowing binge; the developing world is ever more minded to think its demise part of the solution.
The Fed is taking a massive gamble with America's long term future by blindly pursuing further monetary stimulus; it may take time, but the dollar's all powerful reign on the world stage is drawing to a close."
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
Ireland is running out of time
Telegraph
"Ireland has been desperately unlucky.
The bond crisis is snowballing out of control before the country has had enough time to let its medical, pharma, IT, and financial services industries (don’t laugh, some of it is doing well) come to the rescue. Yields on 10-year Irish bonds surged this morning to a post-EMU high of 7.41pc. Yes, Ireland is fully-funded until April – and has another €12bn in pension reserves that could be tapped in extremis – but that is less reassuring than it looks. The spreads over German Bunds are mimicking the action seen in Greece in the final hours before the dam broke."
"Ireland has been desperately unlucky.
The bond crisis is snowballing out of control before the country has had enough time to let its medical, pharma, IT, and financial services industries (don’t laugh, some of it is doing well) come to the rescue. Yields on 10-year Irish bonds surged this morning to a post-EMU high of 7.41pc. Yes, Ireland is fully-funded until April – and has another €12bn in pension reserves that could be tapped in extremis – but that is less reassuring than it looks. The spreads over German Bunds are mimicking the action seen in Greece in the final hours before the dam broke."
G.O.P. Captures House, but Not Senate
NYT
"One after another, once-unassailable Democrats like Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Representatives Ike Skelton of Missouri, John Spratt of South Carolina, Rick Boucher of Virginia and Chet Edwards of Texas fell to little-known Republican challengers.
“Voters sent a message that change has not happened fast enough,” said Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Republicans did not achieve a perfect evening, losing races in several states they had once hoped to win, including the Senate contests in Delaware and Connecticut, because some candidates supported by the Tea Party movement knocked out establishment candidates to win their nominations. But they did score notable victories in some tight races, like Pat Toomey’s Senate run in Pennsylvania. "
"One after another, once-unassailable Democrats like Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Representatives Ike Skelton of Missouri, John Spratt of South Carolina, Rick Boucher of Virginia and Chet Edwards of Texas fell to little-known Republican challengers.
“Voters sent a message that change has not happened fast enough,” said Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Republicans did not achieve a perfect evening, losing races in several states they had once hoped to win, including the Senate contests in Delaware and Connecticut, because some candidates supported by the Tea Party movement knocked out establishment candidates to win their nominations. But they did score notable victories in some tight races, like Pat Toomey’s Senate run in Pennsylvania. "
Spending watchdog ran up £4.8m bill for hotels and used taxpayers' cash to fund gay rights workshop for staff
Daily Mail
"A public spending watchdog lavished millions of pounds on entertaining, staff parties and fine dining for its managers, it was revealed yesterday.Events funded by the Audit Commission for its staff included a gay rights workshop, a Christmas party at an exclusive restaurant and a ‘conflict management’ course.The quango also paid £10,000 to sponsor a book to be published by the Smith Institute, a charity with links to Gordon Brown which was criticised in a Charity Commission investigation for allowing itself to appear too political. More money went on landscaping the grounds around the commission’s offices and a ‘stakeholder briefing’ at a golf and country club."
"A public spending watchdog lavished millions of pounds on entertaining, staff parties and fine dining for its managers, it was revealed yesterday.Events funded by the Audit Commission for its staff included a gay rights workshop, a Christmas party at an exclusive restaurant and a ‘conflict management’ course.The quango also paid £10,000 to sponsor a book to be published by the Smith Institute, a charity with links to Gordon Brown which was criticised in a Charity Commission investigation for allowing itself to appear too political. More money went on landscaping the grounds around the commission’s offices and a ‘stakeholder briefing’ at a golf and country club."
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