[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

http://inhabitat.com/2010/04/28/japa...il-spacecraft/



Slashdot discussion

When I was a kid in the 50's and 60's I read all of the "Tom Swift, Jr." series of books about a teenaged inventor. (There had been a series of earlier books about Tom's dad that appeared in the 1930's along with the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series.) Tom invented a number of spacecraft that used "sails" and solar pressure to travel, detailed in Tom Swift and the Cosmic Astronauts (1960). Funny to see how that's actually coming to pass.

Ikaros is the name of the female angel protagonist from the semi-hentai manga Sora No Otoshimono.

So.........when do we get one named Nymph and Astraea?

Originally Posted by Bri

The best article I've read so far on this topic is actually from the WSJ. It really explains the issue in a clear manner.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...153415820.html

In short: German and French banks own a large part of the Greece debt and in case of a default stand to loose $120 billion. The Greek government faced with strong popular opposition is trying to negotiate a deal is acceptable to both the other European countries and their people. The German government is playing hardball in the negotiations as a result of home election pressure, they can't afford to be seen as soft.

If Greece were the only vulnerable country there would not have been such a big problem. Unfortunately there is a contagion risk that could cause Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy to come under pressure as well. That's why Europe and IMF are very likely to try everything to prevent a Greek default, even if only delaying it by one or two years. Should things go wrong and market speculation causes more defaults then many European banks will fail. We are talking about a cost along the lines of about 25-50% of subprime mortgage crisis so it could have a global impact. The IMF is very active in attempting to shore up Greece as I doubt Washington would like to see a second round of bank bailouts.

The Greek government in the mean time has some space to negotiate terms as they are aware that other countries have a strong incentive to help them out of a sense of self preservation. Needles to say this has resulted in a hate frenzy against Greece in the popular press.

I think this picture best explains everything : This Euro debt things can affect the world economy once again : and solely by 4 countries alone.



If you take a look carefully at the picture, Spain produces the most debt, while Germany holds the most. And the SEC's idea of building junk bonds to sell is just the subprime crisis all over again, this time the homes are that of many people, not just individuals.

On the other hand, if they manage to pay the debt off.......anyone who bought the bonds are going to end up seriously rich.