News Stories

[NameGoesHere]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

For those who kept saying about "China's financial surplus", here is something interesting :

I know using GDP alone can be rather lame (thus please ignore Singapore), but here gives a rough picture of how China is spending their money. Of course, gg for Japan if they don't buck up.

The thing about China is that the wealth calculated seemed to be "personal wealth" rather than collective wealth. It is kind of strange that a socialist-oriented political system has pretty much a top financial end rather than a more evenly distributed wealth with a gigantic middle class (for China's case as they have a large population).
Yuan continues climb to end at record; revaluation seen unlikely

I wonder if this is an empty rally. A sudden increase of a currency always sound like bad news. Still, no government interference is a good sign that at least they are letting the market run on their own. OTOH, I wonder if this is the cause....

When looking at changes in the currency, one needs to first observe the very top level view. Looking at the trends of RMB vs. even the more exotic currencies, USD has become the proverbial anvil...consider the case presented by nearly every commodity.

Also, taking into consideration the method of sterilization that the CCP employs in regards to the "surplus"...is appreciation or inflation the better answer?

IHMO it becomes clear that this is a solid strategic move. Just a few thoughts...things are never as simplistic as they seem...watch what they do, not what they say?

Edit: Completely agree with the wealth disparity. Everybody knows that certain things (like the real estate situation) is a shell game...a gamble to see who can get out on top. The entry linked from the comments of that article also has very good points.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Thousands mourn Sai Baba's death

Puttaparthi, India (April 24, Sun): One of India's most revered spiritual leaders, Sathya Sai Baba, has died in hospital at the age of 84.

Doctors said the guru, who is thought to have millions of followers around the world, died following a cardiac arrest. He was admitted to hospital in his hometown of Puttaparthi last month, suffering from respiratory problems and kidney failure.

Thousands of Hindu followers had massed at the town's Institute of Higher Medical Sciences hospital over recent weeks to hold special prayers asking for a miracle to allow Sai Baba to recover.

He was credited by millions across the globe with having supernatural powers, including an ability to conjure objects out of thin air, remember past lives and cure terminal illnesses.

He enjoyed support from all areas of Indian society, from politicians, judges and generals, to cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar, Hollywood star Goldie Hawn and legions of the poor.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described his death as an "irreparable loss", adding that "he was a spiritual leader who inspired millions to lead a moral and meaningful life even as they followed the religion of their choice."

Controversial figure
Instantly recognisable for his wild curly hair and saffron robes, the guru claimed to be the reincarnation of a former holy man, Sai Baba of Shirdi, who died in 1918.

His charitable organisation has financed health and education projects, among them hospitals and clinics that claim to cure illnesses beyond the capabilities of mainstream medicine.

Puttaparthi grew from a village into a major pilgrimage town, boasting a university and even an airport as Westerners, Indian students and the destitute clamoured to be close to a man they saw as an incarnation of God in human form.

However, at public meetings, his showman antics — in which he would miraculously produce gold coins or watches on stage — brought him both fame and notoriety, with critics accusing him of being a fraudster.

He also faced allegations of sexual abuse of young male followers, which his opponents said were ignored by the Indian authorities because of his power and popularity.

BBC NEWS, AFP

[killer3000ad]

Lack of Wi-Fi security leads officers to raid man's house

The luckless guy didn't secure his wireless home network with a password and someone used it to download child pornography. Authorities traced his IP and then raided his home and threw him down the stairs.

The part that really intrigues me is

The Sarasota, Fla. man, for example, who got a similar visit from the FBI last year after someone on a boat docked in a marina outside his building used a potato chip can as an antenna to boost his wireless signal and download an astounding 10 million images of child porn

[ganbaru]

Hundreds dead on eve of further Nigerian elections
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1996879/

[bladeofdarkness]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Hundreds dead on eve of further Nigerian elections
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1996879/

what happened in Nigeria again ?

I can't keep track of so much senseless violence.

[SaintessHeart]

IMF bombshell: Age of America nears end. Commentary: China’s economy will surpass the U.S. in 2016

BOSTON (MarketWatch) — The International Monetary Fund has just dropped a bombshell, and nobody noticed.

For the first time, the international organization has set a date for the moment when the “Age of America” will end and the U.S. economy will be overtaken by that of China.

And it’s a lot closer than you may think.

According to the latest IMF official forecasts, China’s economy will surpass that of America in real terms in 2016 — just five years from now.

Put that in your calendar.

It provides a painful context for the budget wrangling taking place in Washington, D.C., right now. It raises enormous questions about what the international security system is going to look like in just a handful of years. And it casts a deepening cloud over both the U.S. dollar and the giant Treasury market, which have been propped up for decades by their privileged status as the liabilities of the world’s hegemonic power.

According to the IMF forecast, whoever is elected U.S. president next year — Obama? Mitt Romney? Donald Trump? — will be the last to preside over the world’s largest economy.

Most people aren’t prepared for this. They aren’t even aware it’s that close. Listen to experts of various stripes and they will tell you this moment is decades away. The most bearish will put the figure in the mid-2020s.

But they’re miscounting. They’re only comparing the gross domestic products of the two countries using current exchange rates.

That’s a largely meaningless comparison in real terms. Exchange rates change quickly. And China’s exchange rates are phony. China artificially undervalues its currency, the renminbi, through massive intervention in the markets.
The comparison that really matters

The IMF in its analysis looks beyond exchange rates to the true, real terms picture of the economies using “purchasing power parities.” That compares what people earn and spend in real terms in their domestic economies.

Under PPP, the Chinese economy will expand from $11.2 trillion this year to $19 trillion in 2016. Meanwhile the U.S. economy will rise from $15.2 trillion to $18.8 trillion. That would take America’s share of the world output down to 17.7%, the lowest in modern times. China’s would reach 18%, and is rising.

Just 10 years ago, the U.S. economy was three times the size of China’s.

Naturally, all forecasts are fallible. Time and chance happen to them all. The actual date when China surpasses the U.S. might come even earlier than the IMF predicts, or somewhat later. If the great Chinese juggernaut blows a tire, as a growing number fear it might, it could even delay things by several years. But the outcome is scarcely in doubt.

This is more than a statistical story. It is the end of the Age of America. As a bond strategist in Europe told me two weeks ago, “We are witnessing the end of America’s economic hegemony.”

We have lived in a world dominated by the U.S. for so long that there is no longer anyone alive who remembers anything else. America overtook Great Britain as the world’s leading economic power in the 1890s and never looked back.

And both those countries live under very similar rules of constitutional government, respect for civil liberties and the rights of property. China has none of those. The Age of China will feel very different.

Victor Cha, senior advisor on Asian affairs at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, told me China’s neighbors in Asia are already waking up to the dangers. “The region is overwhelmingly looking to the U.S. in a way that it hasn’t done in the past,” he said. “They see the U.S. as a counterweight to China. They also see American hegemony over the last half century as fairly benign. In China they see the rise of an economic power that is not benevolent, that can be predatory. They don’t see it as a benign hegemony.”

The rise of China, and the relative decline of America, is the biggest story of our time. You can see its implications everywhere, from shuttered factories in the Midwest to soaring costs of oil and other commodities. Last fall, when I attended a conference in London about agricultural investment, I was struck by the number of people there who told stories about Chinese interests snapping up farmland and food stuff supplies — from South America to China and elsewhere.

This is the result of decades during which China has successfully pursued economic policies aimed at national expansion and power, while the U.S. has embraced either free trade or, for want of a better term, economic appeasement.

“There are two systems in collision,” said Ralph Gomory, research professor at NYU’s Stern business school. “They have a state-guided form of capitalism, and we have a much freer former of capitalism.” What we have seen, he said, is “a massive shift in capability from the U.S. to China. What we have done is traded jobs for profit. The jobs have moved to China. The capability erodes in the US and grows in China. That’s very destructive. That is a big reason why the U.S. is becoming more and more polarized between a small, very rich class and an eroding middle class. The people who get the profits are very different from the people who lost the wages.”

The next chapter of the story is just beginning.

U.S. spending spree won’t work

What the rise of China means for defense, and international affairs, has barely been touched on. The U.S. is now spending gigantic sums — from a beleaguered economy — to try to maintain its place in the sun. Pentagon spending is budget blind spot .

It’s a lesson we could learn more cheaply from the sad story of the British, Spanish and other empires. It doesn’t work. You can’t stay on top if your economy doesn’t.

Equally to the point here is what this means economically, and for investors.

Some years ago I was having lunch with the smartest investor I know, London-based hedge fund manager Crispin Odey. He made the argument that markets are reasonably efficient, most of the time, at setting prices. Where they are most likely to fail, though, is in correctly anticipating and pricing big, revolutionary, “paradigm” shifts — whether that be the rise of disruptive technologies or revolutionary changes in geopolitics. We are living through one now.

The U.S. Treasury market continues to operate on the assumption that it will always remain the global benchmark of money. Business schools still teach students, for example, that the interest rate on the 10 Year Treasury bond is the “risk-free rate” on money. And so it has been for more than a century. But that’s all based on the Age of America.

No wonder so many have been buying gold. If the U.S. dollar ceases to be the world’s sole reserve currency, what will be? The euro would be fine if it acts like the old Deutschemark. If it’s just the Greek drachma in drag ... not so much.

The last time the world’s dominant hegemon lost its ability to run things single-handed was early in the past century. That’s when the U.S. and Germany surpassed Great Britain. It didn’t turn out well.

Soon China will ask us to kiss their foot so they will trade with us, while their businesses buy up local ones in forced sales or economic sanctions. Lovely.

[flying ^]

don't want nasty surprises.... like what the experts predicted on japan 20+ years ago for year 2001...

[ganbaru]

Syrian troops storm Deraa, where uprising erupted
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...73N02P20110425

[bladeofdarkness]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Syrian troops storm Deraa, where uprising erupted
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...73N02P20110425

tanks and all.

[justsomeguy]

Originally Posted by killer3000ad

Lack of Wi-Fi security leads officers to raid man's house

The luckless guy didn't secure his wireless home network with a password and someone used it to download child pornography. Authorities traced his IP and then raided his home and threw him down the stairs.

The part that really intrigues me is

The guy isn't really luckless, I would say he's just not too intelligent. Not only did he not secure his wireless, here he's gotten a golden opportunity to sue and win millions, and he's choosing not to.

I'm guessing the potato chip can is a Pringles can which is a tube lined with foil. No idea how to hook that up to anything though.

[Archangel Roy]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/can...?docId=6653023

Japan celebrates Easter, despite the disaster

[ganbaru]

Is Buffett's teflon finally wearing off?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...73O2BH20110425

[Tiberium Wolf]

The town that wants nuclear waste

Not everyday that you see ppl wanting radioactive waste.

[flying ^]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...04-23-16-40-48

umm well... that's one way to reduce their carbon footprint

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Is Buffett's teflon finally wearing off?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...73O2BH20110425

Just take your money off the table already Buffett. It's no use trying to groom another person to be like you...understanding the market requires experience and research and not many people has that.

[MrTerrorist]

Real IRA makes threat to PSNI officers in statement

[flying ^]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

IMF bombshell: Age of America nears end. Commentary: China’s economy will surpass the U.S. in 2016

Soon China will ask us to kiss their foot so they will trade with us, while their businesses buy up local ones in forced sales or economic sanctions. Lovely.

Originally Posted by flying ^

don't want nasty surprises.... like what the experts predicted on japan 20+ years ago for year 2001...

pls don't tell me this is another japan late 80s-early 90s style in the making
http://www.2point6billion.com/news/2...2011-4261.html

[Sugetsu]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

IMF bombshell: Age of America nears end. Commentary: China’s economy will surpass the U.S. in 2016



Soon China will ask us to kiss their foot so they will trade with us, while their businesses buy up local ones in forced sales or economic sanctions. Lovely.

God... This is huge. I can't even begin to comprehend the huge changes that await for the whole world. I hope that this doesn't lead to war... Sadly, that is most likely the logical outcome.

[ganbaru]

Some 500 arrested in Syria crackdown: rights group
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...73N02P20110426
At least they haven't killed them for now.

[bladeofdarkness]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Some 500 arrested in Syria crackdown: rights group
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...73N02P20110426
At least they haven't killed them for now.

You make it sound like being arrested by this regime for the charge of trying to rebel against it is the preferable option.
keep in mind that theres not going to be anyone pressing for their release.