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IS IT THE END OF THE US DOLLAR$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

2011-03-03T13:51:00.001-05:00

Why the Dollar's Reign Is Near an End

For decades the dollar has served as the world's main reserve currency, but, argues Barry Eichengreen, it will soon have to share that role. Here's why—and what it will mean for international markets and companies.

By BARRY EICHENGREEN

The single most astonishing fact about foreign exchange is not the high volume of transactions, as incredible as that growth has been. Nor is it the volatility of currency rates, as wild as the markets are these days.

Instead, it's the extent to which the market remains dollar-centric.

Consider this: When a South Korean wine wholesaler wants to import Chilean cabernet, the Korean importer buys U.S. dollars, not pesos, with which to pay the Chilean exporter. Indeed, the dollar is virtually the exclusive vehicle for foreign-exchange transactions between Chile and Korea, despite the fact that less than 20% of the merchandise trade of both countries is with the U.S.

Chile

and Korea are hardly an anomaly: Fully 85% of foreign-exchange transactions world-wide are trades of other currencies for dollars. What's more, what is true of foreign-exchange transactions is true of other international business. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries sets the price of oil in dollars. The dollar is the currency of denomination of half of all international debt securities. More than 60% of the foreign reserves of central banks and governments are in dollars.

The greenback, in other words, is not just America's currency. It's the world's.

But as astonishing as that is, what may be even more astonishing is this: The dollar's reign is coming to an end.

I believe that over the next 10 years, we're going to see a profound shift toward a world in which several currencies compete for dominance.

The impact of such a shift will be equally profound, with implications for, among other things, the stability of exchange rates, the stability of financial markets, the ease with which the U.S. will be able to finance budget and current-account deficits, and whether the Fed can follow a policy of benign neglect toward the dollar.

The Three Pillars

How could this be? How could the dollar's longtime most-favored-currency status be in jeopardy?

To understand the dollar's future, it's important to understand the dollar's past—why the dollar became so dominant in the first place. Let me offer three reasons.

First, its allure reflects the singular depth of markets in dollar-denominated debt securities. The sheer scale of those markets allows dealers to offer low bid-ask spreads. The availability of derivative instruments with which to hedge dollar exchange-rate risk is unsurpassed. This makes the dollar the most convenient currency in which to do business for corporations, central banks and governments alike.

Second, there is the fact that the dollar is the world's safe haven. In crises, investors instinctively flock to it, as they did following the 2008 failure of Lehman Brothers. This tendency reflects the exceptional liquidity of markets in dollar instruments, liquidity being the most precious of all commodities in a crisis. It is a product of the fact that U.S. Treasury securities, the single most important asset bought and sold by international investors, have long had a reputation for stability.

Finally, the dollar benefits from a dearth of alternatives. Other countries that have long enjoyed a reputation for stability, such as Switzerland, or that have recently acquired one, like Australia, are too small for their currencies to account for more than a tiny fraction of international financial transactions.

What's Changing

But just because this has been true in the past doesn't guarantee that it will be true in the future. In fact, all three pillars supporting the dollar's international dominance are eroding.

First, changes in technology are undermining the dollar's monopoly. Not so long ago, there may have been room in the world for only one true international currency. Given the difficulty of comparing prices in different currencies, it made sense for exporters, importers and bond issuers all to quote their prices and invoice their transactions in dollars, if only to avoid confusing their customers.

Now, however, nearly everyone carries hand-held devices that can be used to compare prices in different currencies in real time. Just as we have learned that in a world of open networks there is room for more than one operating system for personal computers, there is room in the global economic and financial system for more than one international currency.

Second, the dollar is about to have real rivals in the international sphere for the first time in 50 years. There will soon be two viable alternatives, in the form of the euro and China's yuan.

Americans especially tend to discount the staying power of the euro, but it isn't going anywhere. Contrary to some predictions, European governments have not abandoned it. Nor will they. They will proceed with long-term deficit reduction, something about which they have shown more resolve than the U.S. And they will issue "e-bonds"—bonds backed by the full faith and credit of euro-area governments as a group—as a step in solving their crisis. This will lay the groundwork for the kind of integrated European bond market needed to create an alternative to U.S. Treasurys as a form in which to hold central-bank reserves.

China, meanwhile, is moving rapidly to internationalize the yuan, also known as the renminbi. The last year has seen a quadrupling of the share of bank deposits in Hong Kong denominated in yuan. Seventy thousand Chinese companies are now doing their cross-border settlements in yuan. Dozens of foreign companies have issued yuan-denominated "dim sum" bonds in Hong Kong. In January the Bank of China began offering yuan-deposit accounts in New York insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Allowing Chinese companies to do cross-border settlements in yuan will free them from having to undertake costly foreign-exchange transactions. They will no longer have to bear the exchange-rate risk created by the fact that their revenues are in dollars but many of their costs are in yuan. Allowing Chinese banks, for their part, to do international transactions in yuan will allow them to grab a bigger slice of the global financial pie.

Admittedly, China has a long way to go in building liquid markets and making its financial instruments attractive to international investors. But doing so is central to Beijing's economic strategy. Chinese officials have set 2020 as the deadline for transforming Shanghai into a first-class international financial center. We Westerners have underestimated China before. We should not make the same mistake again.

Finally, there is the danger that the dollar's safe-haven status will be lost. Foreign investors—private and official alike—hold dollars not simply because they are liquid but because they are secure. The U.S. government has a history of honoring its obligations, and it has always had the fiscal capacity to do so.

But now, mainly as a result of the financial crisis, federal debt is approaching 75% of U.S. gross domestic product. Trillion-dollar deficits stretch as far as the eye can see. And as the burden of debt service grows heavier, questions will be asked about whether the U.S. intends to maintain the value of its debts or might resort to inflating them away. Foreign investors will be reluctant to put all their eggs in the dollar basket. At a minimum, the dollar will have to share its safe-haven status with other currencies.

A World More Complicated

How much difference will all this make—to markets, to companies, to households, to governments?

One obvious change will be to the foreign-exchange markets. There will no longer be an automatic jump up in the value of the dollar, and corresponding decline in the value of other major currencies, when financial volatility surges. With the dollar, euro and yuan all trading in liquid markets and all seen as safe havens, there will be movement into all three of them in periods of financial distress. No one currency will rise as strongly as did the dollar following the failure of Lehman Bros. There will be no reason for the rates between them to move sharply, something that would potentially upend investors.

But the impact will extend well beyond the markets. Clearly, the change will make life more complicated for U.S. companies. Until now they have had the convenience of using the same currency—dollars—whether they are paying their workers, importing parts and components, or selling their products to foreign customers. They don't have to incur the cost of changing foreign-currency earnings into dollars. They don't have to purchase forward contracts and options to protect against financial losses due to changes in the exchange rate. This will all change in the brave new world that is coming. American companies will have to cope with some of the same exchange-rate risks and exposures as their foreign competitors.

Conversely, life will become easier for European and Chinese banks and companies, which will be able to do more of their international business in their own currencies. The same will be true of companies in other countries that do most of their business with China or Europe. It will be a considerable convenience—and competitive advantage—for them to be able to do that business in yuan or euros rather than having to go through the dollar.

U.S.

Impact

In this new monetary world, moreover, the U.S. government will not be able to finance its budget deficits so cheaply, since there will no longer be as big an appetite for U.S. Treasury securities on the part of foreign central banks.

Nor will the U.S. be able to run such large trade and current-account deficits, since financing them will become more expensive. Narrowing the current-account deficit will require exporting more, which will mean making U.S. goods more competitive on foreign markets. That in turn means that the dollar will have to fall on foreign-exchange markets—helping U.S. exporters and hurting those companies that export to the U.S.

My calculations suggest that the dollar will have to fall by roughly 20%. Because the prices of imported goods will rise in the U.S., living standards will be reduced by about 1.5% of GDP—$225 billion in today's dollars. That is the equivalent to a half-year of normal economic growth. While this is not an economic disaster, Americans will definitely feel it in the wallet.

On the other hand, the next time the U.S. has a real-estate bubble, we won't have the Chinese helping us blow it.

Dr. Eichengreen is the George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee professor of economics and political science at the University of California, Berkeley. His new book is "Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System."

DEMOCRACY OR ISLAMIC UPRISING IN THE MIDDLE EAST???

2011-03-02T12:32:00.002-05:00

The growing unrest in the Arabic world among Islamic states is leading to concern that the demonstrations are being driven more by a desire for stricter Islamic rule than for democratic reforms. Many of the protesters are being organized by hardline Islamic organizations. Although some of the Arab leaders being challenged are brutal dictators like Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, many are considered secular rulers and allies of the U.S. These uprisings have troubling similarities to the Iranian revolution of 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini came to power by hiding his intentions of creating despotic rule by clerics behind the false promise of democratic reforms.

There is an unwritten social contract in Persian Gulf countries which says that autocratic monarchies are accepted as long as they provide free housing, health care, education, food subsidies, and a government job for life. The demonstrators appear more concerned about obtaining additional government benefits than achieving real democratic reforms like enacting a democratic form of government. Although some are hoping the uprisings are similar to the 1989 democratic revolutions that swept Eastern Europe, those anti-communist uprisings clearly called for replacing totalitarianism with democracy.

Hard-line Islamic clerics in the Arabic world are encouraging the uprisings, and recently released statements of support that harshly warned against changes leading to democratic and secular governments. Al Qaeda is also inciting the protests and calling for Islamic rule. On Saturday, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula posted an audio recording across websites urging Muslims to revolt against Arab rulers and to establish governments based on Islamic religious law, or Shariah.

The protests began in December in Tunisia, in response to a street vendor who immolated himself over unfair treatment by the police. Demonstrators forced Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali to flee the country, and then forced out Egyptian President Hosni Barak, a U.S. ally. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is expected to fall next. The protests are gaining momentum in Bahrain and Yemen, and have spread to Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, Qatar, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and Oman. A massive “Day of Rage” protest was held in several countries on Friday. Other countries are planning their own “Day of Rage” on March 1, 2011, including Iran, which is predominantly Persian, and Syria. A protest is planned for March 3 in Sudan.

There are multiple indications across the Arabic states that the demonstrations may lead to stricter Islamic rule, not democratic reforms. On March 1, 2011, Tunisia legalized its Islamist movement, Ennahda, for the first time in 30 years. The post-Mubarak administration in Egypt has invited the Muslim Brotherhood to participate in the review of Egypt’s constitution, and for the first time in 30 years the regime is allowing Iranian navy ships through the Suez Canal. Iranian clerics are boasting that the Egyptian demonstrations are following in the path of the Iranian revolution. A recent Zogby poll found that 65% of Egyptians believe that Islamic clergy must play a greater role in the Egyptian political system.

In Yemen, where al Qaeda has a strong presence, the main coalition opposed to the U.S.-backed president Ali Abdullah Saleh is the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP), which contains Islah, the country’s primary Islamist party. The changes President Saleh is making to appease demonstrators are not democratic reforms but rather the creation of more government benefits, like increasing social services, tuition assistance and the salaries of government employees and the military.

The protesters in Bahrain are substantially composed of hard-line Shiites backed by Iranian Shiites, and it is feared that if Bahrain’s more moderate Sunni monarchy yields to them it could allow Iran’s Shiite theocratic government to gain control. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been one of the most vocal supporters of the uprisings across the Arab world. The U.S. stands to lose considerably should this happen. The Navy’s Fifth Fleet currently resides in Bahrain, and is the Pentagon’s main counterweight against Iran’s military ambitions.

In Jordan, the largest opposition group to U.S. ally King Abdullah II is the Muslim Brotherhood, a pan-Arab movement of Islamic fundamentalists with ties to Hamas and roots in Egypt. King Abdullah has expressed fear that continued U.S. pressure for more reforms, riling up the protesters, could strengthen hard-line Islamists. His response has been to promise pay raises. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has similar concerns, fearing that protests in support of the Egyptian demonstrators could turn violent, allowing Hamas to destabilize the West Bank.

Another country with a pro-Western leader targeted by protests is Oman’s sultan, Qaboos bin Said. His response to demonstrators’ demands for more jobs has been to hire 50,000 new government employees and offer $390 a month in unemployment insurance.

The nature of the protesters’ behavior not only lacks a real desire for democratic reform, but contains disturbing elements. Young protesters in Bahrain are chanting “death to the al-Khalifa family.” The choice of “Day of Rage” as the name for massive demonstrations instead of something like “Day of Change” speaks volumes. Protesters everywhere have set buildings on fire. The anti-Israel message of many of the demonstrators threatens to deteriorate relations throughout the Middle East with Israel. Protesters in Qatar demanding the resignation of its pro-Western emir accuse him of being an agent of Israel. Their Facebook fan page was up to 18,262 fans on Saturday.

Even if the majority of protesters genuinely want democratic reforms, opposition leaders may pull a bait and switch upon assuming power, using the momentum to establish stricter Islamic states. It is too early and naively optimistic to conclude that these uprisings will lead to more democracy and freedom.

Rachel Alexander

Rachel Alexander is the co-editor of the Intellectual Conservative.

OBAMA'S LEGACY

2011-03-02T12:26:00.000-05:00

President Obama's failure to support America's allies in the Middle East and his dithering endorsement of chaos in the region will send oil and gasoline prices skyrocketing, triggering a massive bout of stagflation. This vicious cycle of rising prices, decreased consumption and ever-higher prices (as vendors seek to recover higher fixed costs) will cripple the American economy for years to come.

This is Obama's true legacy.

Consider what he has done to push up oil and gas prices:

-- Endorsed spreading chaos in the Middle East.

-- First banned and now slowed down off shore oil drilling.

-- Considering curbs on fracking (horizontal drilling to unlock shale deposits in the Northeast -- a potent new source of oil).

-- Imposing a carbon tax on domestically produced coal and oil through EPA mandate.

-- Proposed an end to tax advantages designed to encourage oil drilling and exploration.

Now Obama is reaping the fruits of these misguided policies -- $4 gas soon to go up to $5 or $6! And the fuel price increases will take their place alongside food price rises. Food prices for corn, soybeans, wheat and other basic crops have almost doubled in the past year.

(The Consumer Price Index deliberately understates fuel and food inflation in its formula to avoid triggering cost of living adjustment increases in private pay and government programs).

Finally, he has encouraged the Federal Reserve Board to almost triple the money supply, over $1 trillion of it based on the purchase of worthless mortgage-backed securities.

The combination of reduced confidence in the dollar (at home and abroad) and the rises in fuel and food prices will force up prices, as costs push them higher. Already, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has pressed for the replacement of the dollar as an international currency by "drawing rights" printed by the IMF. Such a policy, of course, would be a disaster, since it would attempt to base global currency on an institution without the power to tax. But it is a measure of how far faith in the dollar has fallen that it is being seriously urged. U.S. inflation can only fan that movement.

Since the Fed has got to stop printing money soon lest it become wallpaper, interest rates, too, will rise -- also contributing to the cost-push price inflation.

But the economy cannot afford to pay these higher prices. Consumer demand, which accounts of three-quarters of gross domestic product, is already stagnant. With inflation, it will drop. Then, unable to recoup their costs, vendors will be forced to raise prices even higher. An inflationary psychology will take hold of the economy. Higher interest rates will be needed to break its hold, forcing us into yet another recession, this one fully courtesy of President Obama.

For months now, political pundits have wondered if the economy would improve, helping Obama's re-election chances. It now appears that the exact opposite is likely and that his re-election chances will be washed away by a massive flood of inflation as a consequence of his misguided policies. Obama will doubtless blame oil companies and speculators for the fuel-price increases, but his role in encouraging instability in the oil-producing regions of the Middle East is apparent enough.

He put the demand of the Egyptian people for political change ahead of America's need for financial stability. He was so enraptured by being "on the right side of history" that he forgot about his role as the head of our economy and its vulnerability to the very instability his policies fanned.

Dick Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton

FOUNDER OF PLANNED PARENHOOD-MARGARET SANGER

2011-02-25T16:23:00.003-05:00

The leftists in the United States claim that abortion is a right and should be left alone.They are biggest supporters of Planned Parenthood and the rest. Do they know who started Planned Parenhood? something we all need to know:
Margaret Sanger Founder of Planned Parenthood In Her Own Words "The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it." Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race (Eugenics Publ. Co., 1920, 1923) Margaret Sanger (1883-1966)

On blacks, immigrants and indigents: "...human weeds,' 'reckless breeders,' 'spawning... human beings who never should have been born." Margaret Sanger, Pivot of Civilization, referring to immigrants and poor people

On sterilization & racial purification: Sanger believed that, for the purpose of racial "purification," couples should be rewarded who chose sterilization. Birth Control in America, The Career of Margaret Sanger, by David Kennedy, p. 117, quoting a 1923 Sanger speech.

On the right of married couples to bear children: Couples should be required to submit applications to have a child, she wrote in her "Plan for Peace." Birth Control Review, April 1932

On the purpose of birth control: The purpose in promoting birth control was "to create a race of thoroughbreds," she wrote in the Birth Control Review, Nov. 1921 (p. 2)

On the rights of the handicapped and mentally ill, and racial minorities: "More children from the fit, less from the unfit -- that is the chief aim of birth control." Birth Control Review, May 1919, p. 12

On religious convictions regarding sex outside of marriage: "This book aims to answer the needs expressed in thousands on thousands of letters to me in the solution of marriage problems... Knowledge of sex truths frankly and plainly presented cannot possibly injure healthy, normal, young minds. Concealment, suppression, futile attempts to veil the unveilable - these work injury, as they seldom succeed and only render those who indulge in them ridiculous. For myself, I have full confidence in the cleanliness, the open-mindedness, the promise of the younger generation." Margaret Sanger, Happiness in Marriage (Bretano's, New York, 1927)

On the extermination of blacks: "We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population," she said, "if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America, by Linda Gordon

On respecting the rights of the mentally ill: In her "Plan for Peace," Sanger outlined her strategy for eradication of those she deemed "feebleminded." Among the steps included in her evil scheme were immigration restrictions; compulsory sterilization; segregation to a lifetime of farm work; etc. Birth Control Review, April 1932, p. 107

On adultery: A woman's physical satisfaction was more important than any marriage vow, Sanger believed. Birth Control in America, p. 11

On marital sex: "The marriage bed is the most degenerating influence in the social order," Sanger said. (p. 23) [Quite the opposite of God's view on the matter: "Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled; but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." (Hebrews 13:4)

On abortion: "Criminal' abortions arise from a perverted sex relationship under the stress of economic necessity, and their greatest frequency is among married women." The Woman Rebel - No Gods, No Masters, May 1914, Vol. 1, No. 3.

On the YMCA and YWCA: "...brothels of the Spirit and morgues of Freedom!"), The Woman Rebel - No Gods, No Masters, May 1914, Vol. 1, No. 3.

On the Catholic Church's view of contraception: "...enforce SUBJUGATION by TURNING WOMAN INTO A MERE INCUBATOR." The Woman Rebel - No Gods, No Masters, May 1914, Vol. 1, No. 3.

On motherhood: "I cannot refrain from saying that women must come to recognize there is some function of womanhood other than being a child-bearing machine." What Every Girl Should Know, by Margaret Sanger (Max Maisel, Publisher, 1915) [Jesus said: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep... for your children. For, behold, the days are coming, in which they shall say, Blessed (happy) are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the breasts which never gave suck." (Luke 23:24)]

"The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it." Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race (Eugenics Publ. Co., 1920, 1923)

RISING OIL PRICES THREATENS OUR WAY OF LIVING

2011-01-05T12:51:00.001-05:00

Rising oil price threatens fragile High oil prices threaten to derail the fragile economic recovery among developed nations this year, the leading energy watchdog has warned, putting pressure on the Opec oil cartel to increase production.

Over the past year the oil import costs for the 34 mostly rich countries that make up the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have soared by $200bn to $790bn at the end of 2010, according to an analysis by the International Energy Agency.

The increase, due to high crude prices, is equal to a loss of income of about 0.5 per cent of OECD gross domestic product, according to the IEA.

“Oil prices are entering a dangerous zone for the global economy,” said Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist. “The oil import bills are becoming a threat to the economic recovery. This is a wake-up call to the oil consuming countries and to the oil producers.”

Oil prices have edged closer to $100 a barrel in recent weeks and Brent crude hit $95 a barrel for the first time in 27 months on Monday as the economic recovery has gathered pace.

Although oil prices dropped on Tuesday, the warning from the IEA will put pressure on Opec to increase its production. Despite the high prices, oil ministers decided last month to leave their quotas unchanged.

Ali Naimi, the Saudi oil minister, repeated at the time that he favoured an oil price of “$70 to $80 a barrel” and that there were no plans to convene an extraordinary meeting before June 2 this year.

However, according to Mr Birol, “it is not in the interest of anyone to see such high prices”.

OECD countries account for about 65 per cent of all global oil imports, he said. “Oil exporters need clients with healthy economies but these high prices will sooner or later make the economies sick, which would mean the need for importing oil will be less.”

In the very short term, therefore, “it may not be a bad idea that the producers are ready to increase production and show their understanding that these high prices are not good for the global economy,” he added.

Oil consuming nations, meanwhile, need to accelerate their efforts to reduce their reliance on oil, especially for transportation, he said. According to the IEA’s analysis, the European Union has seen its import bill rise by $70bn during 2010, equal to the combined budget deficits of Greece and Portugal.

On top of the high crude prices, Europe is still to feel the full impact of higher gas prices as 75 per cent of its gas contracts are linked to oil prices. The weak euro against the US dollar will also amplify the cost.

The US, meanwhile, has seen its bill jump by $72bn. Japan, which imports more than 99 per cent of its energy needs from oil, gas and coal, is paying an additional $27bn. Less developed nations are also being hit, seeing their bill rise by $20bn, equal to a loss of income of almost 1 per cent of GDP.

The ratio of countries’ oil import bills to GDP, a key measure of the cost of oil prices on economies, is close to levels last seen during the financial crisis in 2008, Mr Birol warned.

If oil prices remain above $90/barrel for the rest of this year then the ratio for the European Union will be 2.1 per cent – close to the 2.2 per cent level it reached in 2008.

“It is a very telling story. 2010 rang the first alarm bells and 2011 price levels could bring us to the same financial crisis times that we saw in 2008,” said Mr Birol.

UAE hotel erects 11-million-dollar Christmas tree

2010-12-16T12:52:00.001-05:00

The USA being a country where Christian values are predominant yet, it has a problem of saying Merry Christmas. They prefer Happy Holidays.

However, a Moslim country, the UAE specifically the emirate of Abu-Dhabi has unveiled a Christmas tree which is 40 feet in height and bejeweled with 11 million dollars worth of diamonds, emeralds and sapphires.

How on earth is this possible? The whole world seems to know the importance of Christmas except the morons in the United States. A lesson to be learnt here.

Read on.

Christmas came in extravagant fashion to the Muslim desert emirate of Abu Dhabi as a glitzy hotel unveiled a bejewelled Christmas tree valued at more than 11 million dollars on Wednesday.

It is the "most expensive Christmas tree ever," with a "value of over 11 million dollars," said Hans Olbertz, general manager of Emirates Palace hotel, at its inauguration.

The 13-metre (40-foot) faux evergreen, located in the gold leaf-bedecked rotunda of the hotel, is decorated with silver and gold bows, ball-shaped ornaments and small white lights.

But the necklaces, earrings and other jewellery draped around the tree's branches are what give it a record value.

It holds a total of 181 diamonds, pearls, emeralds, sapphires and other precious stones, said Khalifa Khouri, owner of Style Gallery, which provided the jewellery.

"The tree itself is about 10,000 dollars," Olbertz said. "The jewellery has a value of over 11 million dollars -- I think 11.4, 11.5."

"Probably, this will be another" Dubai entry into the Guinness book of world records, Olbertz said, adding that Emirates Palace planned to contact the organisation about the tree which is to stay until the end of the year.

Asked if the tree might offend religious sensibilities in the United Arab Emirates, where the vast majority of the local population is Muslim, Olbertz said he did not think it would. "It's a very liberal country," he said.

Like other hotels in the United Arab Emirates, it has had a Christmas tree up in previous years. But this year, "we said we have to do something different," and the hotel's marketing team hatched the plan, said Olbertz.

The tree is not the first extravagant offering from Emirates Palace -- a massive, dome-topped hotel sitting amid fountains and carefully manicured lawns.

The hotel, which bills itself as seven-star, in February introduced a package for a seven-day stay priced at one million dollars.

Takers of the package have a private butler and a chauffeur-driven Maybach luxury car at their disposal during their stay, as well as a private jet available for trips to other countries in the region.

And in May, the hotel opened a gold vending machine, becoming the first place outside Germany to install "gold to go, the world's first gold vending machine," said Ex Oriente Lux AG, the German company behind the machine.

REAL-TIME HOLOGRAMS CLOSER THAN YOU THINK

2010-12-13T18:00:00.002-05:00

Real-Time Holograms Beam Closer to Reality

by Robert F. Service on 3 November 2010, 2:00 PM

. A new holographic setup is capable of recording, displaying, and updating this image of an F-4 Phantom Jet every 2 seconds.

Credit: Gargaszphotos.com/University of Arizona

It's not quite the flickering blue projection of Princess Leia begging, "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope!" from the classic sci-fi movie Star Wars, but holographic projection has just beamed a bit closer to reality. Researchers in Arizona have devised a novel plastic film that can be used to generate holographic 3D images sent electronically from one location to another. The new telepresence setup doesn't work yet at full video speed—it can update images only every 2 seconds—but the technology opens the door for everything from holographic surgery to movies that literally surround the viewer.

Holograms are more than just fancy photographs. Shift your head to the side while looking at a photo, and the image doesn't change. Do that with a hologram, and instead of staring at the front of an image of, say, a fighter jet, you're looking at the side (see video). Lasers are the key: When recording a hologram, one beam of laser light illuminates the target. This light is combined with light from a second "reference" beam, creating an interference pattern akin to the one seen when two sets of ripples overlap on a pond. When this light strikes a photographic plate, the interference pattern is recorded. Later, shining a light back on the photographic plate causes light to diffract off the interference pattern, reconstructing the 3D image.

Researchers have been creating holograms for decades—yet they've struggled to make them practical. Among the biggest challenges: the traditional crystalline photographic materials used to capture holographic images are expensive and have trouble covering large areas. Two years ago, Nasser Peyghambarian, an optics researcher at the University of Arizona, Tucson, and his colleagues overcame these limitations when they devised a polymer-based holographic film that was potentially far cheaper than the conventional materials and also easier to grow in large areas. Moreover, the researchers were able to write new images every 4 minutes. But that was hardly a moving picture. So Peyghambarian and his colleagues continued to search for improvements.

In their new paper, published online today in Nature, Peyghambarian and colleagues at Arizona and the Nitto Denko Technical Corp. in Oceanside, California, describe a holographic display that can depict a scene in another location and update the image nearly in real time. The setup starts with 16 cameras arranged in a semicircle around a target. The cameras take simultaneous pictures of the target every second. The camera views are processed by a computer and sent via an Ethernet cable to the photographic recording site, which conceivably can be in the next room or half way around the globe. There, a laser setup receives the image data and shines a steady stream of pulses encoding the images as well as laser light from a reference beam at an improved polymer film, which in turn records the resulting interference pattern. A separate light is then shown from an angle on the other side of the polymer film, generating the hologram as it does so.

Among the advantages of the current setup, Peyghambarian says, is that images can be recorded on one side of the photographic film and viewed on the other. As a result, three people gathered around a table housing the holographic film wouldn't see the laser setup under the table. Rather, they would be able to see a holographic image of, say, a car, and, depending on where they were standing, either the hood, trunk, or doors.

That ability could lead to holographic movies that allow viewers to walk around the scene, for example. It could also bolster the budding field of telemedicine by allowing specialists from around the world to see a patient from all angles, offering their opinions to doctors on site.

"It certainly has got my attention," says Eric van Stryland, an optics expert at the University of Central Florida, Orlando. Stryland notes that Peyghambarian's team has already improved the speed at which his system can refresh images by about 100-fold, and it needs only another improvement by a factor of 10 to approach the 30-frames-per-second speed required for full motion video. "About another order of magnitude and they'll be there," he says. Peyghambarian says there are no physical showstoppers preventing his photorefractive polymers and lasers from reaching that goal, although he says that doing so will require the use of faster pulse lasers, among other things.

Light sabers—those might take a little more work.

the upside of recessions

2010-12-13T17:42:00.001-05:00

Hungry but healthy. A new study suggests that economic downturns are good for human health.

You've lost your job, your house, and your savings. But, hey, you still have your health, right? Actually, you probably do--and it may even be improving. Researchers have found that, historically, Americans were healthier during the Great Depression and other economic downturns than they were during periods of prosperity. And they say the trend may still hold true today.

For many, the Great Depression conjures up images of wan, rail-thin men waiting in bread lines. At its peak in 1932, unemployment hit 22.9% and U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), a standard measure of economic performance, had shrunk by 14%. Despite these hardships, the average American was healthier during this period than during the economic booms that preceded and followed it, according to social researcher José Tapia Granados and his co-author Ana Diez Roux, both of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

The pair looked at historical life expectancy and mortality data as well as GDP growth and unemployment rates. They focused on the years 1920 through 1940, a period that included the Great Depression (1930 to 1933), a couple of less severe recessions, and several years of strong economic growth. The top-six causes of death at that time were cardiovascular and renal disease, flu and pneumonia, cancer, tuberculosis, motor vehicle accidents, and suicide.

Tapia Granados's team found an inverse association between economic health and population health: Life expectancy fell during economic upturns and increased during recessions. Mortality, meanwhile, tended to rise during economic upturns and fall during recessions. Deaths related to flu and pneumonia, for example, fell from about 150 per 100,000 people in 1929 to roughly 100 per 100,000 people in 1930, the researchers report online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Suicide was the only cause of death that increased during times of economic turmoil. For life expectancy, the patterns were particularly obvious among nonwhites: Between 1921 and 1926, a period of economic growth, life expectancy declined 8.1 years among nonwhite males and 7.4 years among nonwhite females. During the Great Depression, on the other hand, life expectancy among nonwhites increased by 8 years.

But why? The researchers don't yet have enough data to say. Previous studies have suggested some plausible mechanisms. Economic booms are associated with more smoking and drinking, less sleep, and more work-related stress--all factors that can affect health. In addition, traffic-related deaths and industrial injuries tend to increase during periods of economic growth. Another factor, Tapia Granados says, may involve social support. Recessions tend to bring people together, and people with stronger social support networks tend to be healthier.

One of the reasons that the findings may seem so counterintuitive, says Christopher Ruhm, a health economist at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, is that it's easy to come up with examples of individuals who have gotten sicker during recessions. "Someone loses their job, they take to the bottle, their health suffers," he says. But these dramatic narratives don't say anything about the overall effect of recessions on the whole population.

Other studies have also suggested that health improves during economic downturns, says Stephen Bezruchka, a physician and public health expert at the University of Washington, Seattle, but this is by far the most all-encompassing study to look at the Great Depression. Taken together, he says, all of the studies suggest that GDP is a flawed measure of societal well-being.

WANT TO DEMOLISH THE EARTH??

2010-12-13T16:08:00.001-05:00

Want to demolish Earth? A new Web site allows you to choose the form of the destructor. Just type in a few variables such as diameter, density, and velocity and Impact: Earth! will send a comet or asteroid hurtling toward our planet. Lest you be unsatisfied with a simulation of a massive rock barreling down on us, the Web site also provides data on the aftermath, including the size of the crater, the extent of the fireball, and even the height of the tsunami wave, should the object crash into the ocean. The Web site is an update of an impact calculator created in 2002 for use by NASA and homeland security. The new version is more visual and user-friendly, allowing even average Joes to smash up the planet.

Just go to the following website/link and insert your parameters.

http://www.purdue.edu/IMPACTEARTH

can google predict the stock market??

2010-12-13T15:52:00.005-05:00

Whoever figures out how to predict the stock market will get rich quick. Unfortunately, the market's ups and downs ultimately depend on the choices of a massive number of people—and you don't know what they're thinking about before they decide to buy or sell a stock. Then again, maybe Google knows. A team of scientists has shown a strong correlation between queries submitted to the Internet search giant and the weekly fluctuations in stock trading. But it's unlikely to make anyone wealthy.

The stock market is a famously complex and jittery system. In any given week of trading, the price of shares in companies might stay the same, rise steadily, or suddenly crash. The causes of these patterns have evaded researchers, though not for lack of trying. An army of "quants"—many of them poached from academic math and physics departments—has studied data from stock indices such as the S&P 500 for decades. But within any given week, the time scale that matters to traders, the movement of the market seems random.

The reason, says Tobias Preis, a physicist at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany, is that people decide to buy or sell stocks based not only on personal motivations but on the collective decisions of others. This "herding behavior" makes the stock market so chaotic that the pattern of trading in one week is nearly useless for predicting what will happen the following week. To predict the market, you need data on what is going through people's minds before they make their financial decisions. One such source of data is the total weekly volume of Internet search queries, now available to researchers through Google Trends.

Researchers led by Preis compared the week-by-week fluctuations in two sets of data: The number of times that the name of a company in the S&P 500 was included in a Google search query, and the price and trading volume of that company's stock. They focused on the 6 years from 2004 to 2010.

The findings, to be published 15 November in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, aren't going to make anybody rich. The Google data could not predict the weekly fluctuations in stock prices. However, the team found a strong correlation between Internet searches for a company's name and its trade volume, the total number of times the stock changed hands over a given week. So, for example, if lots of people were searching for computer manufacturer IBM one week, there would be a lot of trading of IBM stock the following week. But the Google data couldn't predict its price, which is determined by the ratio of shares that are bought and sold.

At least not yet. Neil Johnson, a physicist at the University of Miami in Florida, says that if researchers could drill down even farther into the Google Trends data—so that they could view changes in search terms on a daily or even an hourly basis—they might be able to predict a rise or fall in stock prices. They might even be able to forecast financial crises. It would be an opportunity for Google "to really collaborate with an academic group in a new area," he says. Then again, if the hourly stream of search queries really can predict stock price changes, Google might want to keep those data to itself.

ANOTHER DISASTER UNDER OBAMA- THE END OF NASA??

2010-12-13T15:41:00.000-05:00

Russia

's Soyuz soon to be only lifeline to space

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan — As a Soyuz spacecraft slowly rolls to its launch pad on the icy cold steppes of Kazakhstan, even the most seasoned space fan cannot help but be spellbound by the sight.

With NASA finally retiring the shuttle program next year, the venerable Russian workhorse is now set to become the world's only lifeline to the International Space Station. That predicament is provoking mixed feelings of concern over excess reliance on Russia's space program and enduring admiration for the hardiness of the Soviet-designed Soyuz.

"The vehicle is a rugged 'one trick pony,' no frills or luxuries, and can take any licking and keep on ticking," said James Oberg, a veteran of NASA Space Shuttle Mission Control in Houston.

The next Soyuz mission begins Thursday, when NASA astronaut Catherine Coleman, Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev and European Space Agency's Paolo Nespoli of Italy lift off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in southern Kazakhstan.

In a procedure polished over more than four decades of Soyuz launches, the carrier rocket was horizontally rolled out of its hangar on a flatbed train at 7 a.m. local time Monday and carefully carried to the blastoff site in the winter darkness.

In contrast to NASA's distinctive winged shuttle, which is reusable albeit exorbitantly expensive to operate, the Soyuz can only be used once. It is a relatively streamlined craft consisting of a tiny capsule sitting atop powerful booster rockets.

The name, which comes from the Russian word for "union," was both a tribute to its Soviet design and a reference to the Soyuz's ability to dock with other modules. That detail was an absolute must even to begin thinking about long-term space missions or possible travel beyond the Earth's orbit.

Whereas the shuttle's viability has been hamstrung by countless delays, the last time a Soyuz launch was postponed was as far back as 1971.

Yet for all its trustworthiness, the first Soyuz launch in April 1967 ended in tragedy when Col. Vladimir Komarov, the sole cosmonaut onboard, died on re-entry.

Soviet authorities had grown alarmed at U.S. strides in the space race and had pushed for hasty deployment of the Soyuz before the United States could get its Apollo rocket off the ground.

That Soyuz disaster led to an immediate postponement of manned flights and injected a new spirit of caution into the Soviet space program. A minute attention to detail, most evident in Russian space officials' obsession with running operations on a timetable counted in seconds, has earned the Soyuz a well-deserved reputation for safety.

"My biggest dream in life has always been to fly in orbit someday, but I can tell you that I would feel a hell of a lot more at ease in a Soyuz than in a shuttle," space historian Bert Vis said.

Despite such oft-heard endorsements, a clutch of incidents in recent years has aroused concern. Most notably, problems with the Soyuz capsule's service module during a landing in April 2008 caused a perilously steep re-entry trajectory, which placed crushing gravitational pressure on its three-person crew.

Ahead of watching the Soyuz being winched into place at the launchpad Monday, NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who traveled onboard that capsule, said the luxuries afforded by the shuttle would indeed be missed.

"The Soyuz is kind of a gentler launch, but I'd much rather land in a shuttle, because it's much more civilized," Whitson said.

Critics also complain that by leaving themselves so heavily reliant on the Soyuz, the United States could fall victim to costly price gouging at the hands of Russian space authorities.

"Moscow already uses it for leverage and has raised the price to NASA repeatedly over the years, to $50 million now," said Brian Harvey, an expert on the history of the Russian space program. "But a shuttle launch costs $550 million a go, so it's still good value."

And while the Russian space program is set to enjoy almost a complete monopoly on ferrying people to space for the next few years, things might change. The successful test launch last week of a privately developed rocket from Cape Canaveral is a clear example of how the market could breed viable space competitors.

"If new, commercially developed space transportation systems in the West leapfrog the tried-and-true Russian booster stable in the next decade, Russia will be left with no significant capability of interest to foreign customers," Oberg said.

The politics and economics of space travel is usually far from astronauts' minds, however, and while in Baikonur, most relish the pleasure of witnessing the ingenuity that goes into assembling the rockets.

"It was Michelangelo that said the sculpture was always inside the rock, I just have to take away the unnecessary pieces. The Soyuz is one of those sculptures," said Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who plans to fly to the International Space Station onboard a Soyuz spacecraft in 2012.

ISLAM -DANGEROUS

2010-11-16T17:00:00.001-05:00

Ex-Muslim: Proposal that Islam is Tolerant is Fallacious, Dangerous

WASHINGTON – Though most Muslims are tolerant and peace-loving, Islam itself is not a religion of tolerance, a former Muslim asserted.

Well-known activist and author Ayaan Hirsi Ali made the argument Monday at the National Press Club as security guards stood in the back of the ballroom. An outspoken critic of Islam, Hirsi Ali has been living under a fatwa, a religious ruling or in this case an order to kill, for years.

The Somali native addressed the question "Is Islam a Religion of Tolerance?" to highlight the political dimension of the widely practiced faith.

"I'm frustrated with the continuous belief and, I think, self-delusion that Islam is only a religion," she said. "Islam is more than a religion. It does have a spiritual dimension ... but there is another dimension to Islam – a political dimension."

In general terms, religious tolerance is understood to be the willingness to recognize and respect the beliefs and practices of others, she noted. But there are different levels of tolerance, she added.

"For instance, if you oppose smoking you may think of yourself as tolerant of smokers but it's different when you allow a smoker in your house ... to smoke," the now atheist pointed out.

The Prophet Muhammad defined the state of peace and tolerance as a moment when the entire world submits to Allah and embraces Islam, said Hirsi Ali, who fled from her Muslim family and an arranged marriage in her early twenties and sought asylum in the Netherlands.

"That word 'peace,' 'tolerant' is not defined in Islam as you define it in the West," she clarified. "It doesn't mean ceasefire or compromise. That's temporary.

In Islam, the way to achieve peace is through settlement, jihad, and the institution of sharia (Islamic law), she explained.

And before the state of universal Islamization, "it is the duty of every Muslim male to wage war" – not just by carrying weapons but by preaching and persuading, she added.

"The proposition that Islam is tolerant is not only fallacious but it's also dangerous," Hirsi Ali underscored.

Citing four main sources of Islamic jurisprudence, including the Quran and the Hadith, the former Muslim said she found explicit commands to conquer and guidelines of how to go about that. The sources also describe in detail how Muhammad, who carried out over 60 military campaigns, defeated his enemies. She also found war tactics, the concept of deception, legislation on crime prevention, punishment of behavior such as the hanging of apostates and the stoning of adulterers, and laws governing family matters such as divorce and marriage.

While U.S. policymakers focus their attention on armed militias such as Al-Qaeda and Hamas, other groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and nongovernmental organizations – which have "postponed" violence and chosen a method of preaching, settling and slowly infiltrating – are being overlooked, she noted.

"The idea that Islam is [of] peace, tolerant and compatible with Western political theory and values, I think, seems to be useful more as a strategy and not as a pursuit of the truth," she maintained.

That strategy, she explained, is as follows: Given the fact that there are over a billion Muslims in the world, that the world is globalizing at a fast pace, and that America is a model empire (that doesn't wipe out enemies), we (the U.S.) should practice self-restraint and use political skills, diplomacy and tools of persuasion until we're able to get around the conflict.

"The hope is we will be able to pacify Islam."

Nothing, she said, angers Muslim elites more than the criticism of Islam. Unlike with other faith groups, Muslims do not appreciate the questioning of the moral perfection of the Quran and Muhammad.

Though an atheist, Hirsi Ali has advocated for the conversion of Muslims to Christianity. Clarifying her position on Monday, she said she supported "opening up the competition."

"[Muslims] want to have complete monopoly on Muslim immigrants who first came to the U.S. not to spread Islam, not to settle or infiltrate but to lead normal, peaceful lives," she said. "For them to incorporate all the diverse ethnic groups, they need to get ... to them fast and convince them of sharia agenda."

"What we can do is open up competition," she continued. "In a country like the United States, you are free to peddle your political theory or philosophy. We are going to go to those same communities and educate them on other competing ...philosophies and challenge [the] principles of Islam. You can start that competition as a Christian, as a humanist, as a feminist."

Hirsi Ali is open to Christians converting Muslims because Christianity has "evolved from absolutism to tolerance, to compassion, to peace," she said.

She has found that most people do not want to be an atheist.

"I'm only acknowledging that the Christian God has gone through the reformation, has gone through enlightenment," she added. "In general, things have evolved to the point where I think that the Christian religion, especially as it is practiced in the West, is much more attractive and far less dangerous than the Islamic God.

"Given the fact that this is almost a losing battle because we are not taking them (Muslims) on ... and given the fact that there are very moderate Christians who offer that combination of a spiritual satisfaction with modernity and the respect and sacredness of life, liberty and human rights, I think it would be wrong and neglectful not to involve Christians to go after that demography of 1.57 billion Muslims who today, I think, many of them are seeking a concept of God and are now only getting Allah."

Hirsi Ali's appearance comes just weeks after she participated in a debate on whether Islam is a religion of peace at New York University's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. Her latest book,

END OF OPEC??

2010-10-28T15:25:00.001-04:00

Is this the end of OPEC?

The plunge from $148 a barrel to $50 a barrel in less than five months has opened huge fissures in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Some members, such as Iran and Venezuela, are desperate to raise oil prices so they can balance their national accounts. More-conservative members, such as Saudi Arabia, can balance their budgets even at current prices and have room to fear they will be the scapegoats if the global recession deepens.

We've sat deathwatch for OPEC before, but this time the cartel's future looks especially bleak. Its Nov. 29 meeting in Cairo, Egypt, ended with members deeply divided. The Venezuelas and Irans of OPEC have dug themselves into such a big spending hole that their only way out would be for OPEC to raise prices by cutting production while letting the cartel's hardest-pressed members cheat.

OPEC couldn't agree on any production cuts in Cairo but promised to revisit the issue Dec. 17. The burden of production cuts would fall almost totally on the Saudis and other conservative Middle Eastern oil producers. That's why the Saudis didn't buy into that deal in Cairo and why they might balk again. That result could leave OPEC standing but effectively end the cartel's power to change the balance of global supply and demand.

In the short run, that would be great for consumers. In the long run, it would lead to global energy chaos.

Where oil demand is growing

How did OPEC get into this mess? Consumers in OPEC countries are becoming just as addicted to oil as their counterparts in the United States. According to the latest forecast from the International Energy Agency, oil demand from the world's developed economies will fall by about 3 million barrels a day between 2007 and 2030. In that same period, the countries of the Middle East will be one of the three major sources of oil-demand growth in the world. Overall, about 43% of global oil-demand growth will come from China, according to the forecast, with India and the Middle East contributing 20% each.

It's easy to understand why China's and India's oil demand is growing so fast. They have immense populations -- 1.3 billion and 1.1 billion, respectively -- and emerging middle classes that are just starting to buy cars and the other high-consumption trappings of developed economies.

But the Middle East? Egypt, the most populous country in the region, has just 80 million people. Iran, 70 million. Saudi Arabia, just 27 million. So why are these countries projected to add as much to global demand for oil as India over the next two decades?

Demographics certainly play a part. These are some of the youngest and therefore fastest-growing economies in the world.

National investment plans heavily favor oil- and energy-intensive projects, such as chemical plants.

And subsidies. In 2007, Iran spent almost $20 billion more on energy subsidies than China did. Three Middle Eastern countries -- Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt -- make the International Energy Agency's global top eight for energy subsidies in the developing world. Another OPEC member, Venezuela, also makes the top eight. That group is rounded out by China, India, Indonesia and Russia. Subsidize oil prices, and consumers will buy and consume more. Pretty simple.

Governments hooked on oil

The governments that provide these subsidies are even more hooked on oil than their populations are. Politicians in oil-producing countries have gotten used to oil revenue providing the bulk of the national budget, enabling them to keep taxes low and expand services. In Iran, for example, oil revenue provides between 40% and 80% of the national budget, depending on which oil industry analyst you believe. In Nigeria, oil and natural-gas revenues account for 85% of government revenue.

No problem with that -- until oil prices start to fall. Governments that pegged their budgets to $80- or $100- or $120-a-barrel oil are in deep trouble when oil falls to $50. Russia, for example, developed its national budget for 2008 based on $70-a-barrel oil.

According to consulting company PFC Energy, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria and Qatar would be the only OPEC nations able to balance their accounts in 2009 with oil below $50. Saudi Arabia would need oil prices just over $30 a barrel, according to Merrill Lynch, or slightly more than $50 a barrel, according to PFC Energy.

In contrast, Iran needs a price of $90 to $100 a barrel to break even in 2009. And because of President Hugo Chávez's soaring spending on social programs, Venezuela needs an oil price somewhere between $60 and $120 a barrel; the consensus seems to be somewhere around $90. On Nov. 24, Chávez told a news conference that $80 to $100 a barrel would be a fair price.

Investors are starting to worry about where all the money will come from for bonds. Governments need to sell $2 trillion in bonds in 2009 to pay for bailouts and stimulus packages. Jim Jubak wants to know who will be buying.

2 possible solutions

There are really only two ways out of this bind:

A government could, of course, cut spending and live within its means. (No, I mean it. That's not a joke. Stop rolling on the floor.) That's no more likely among the ranks of oil-producing countries than it is in the good ol' U.S. of IOU.

OPEC as a whole could cut production, raising global oil prices, while allowing the most hard-pressed countries to cut production only minimally. A cartelwide reduction in production might be able to raise prices, but that wouldn't solve the problem confronting Nigeria, Iran, Venezuela and the like. To fill the hole in their budgets, they need to see oil prices climb and to keep pumping at current rates.

The problem confronting OPEC is that it increasingly looks like it would take huge production cuts to just stabilize the price of oil. OPEC agreed to cut production by 500,000 barrels a day in September and then an additional 1.5 million on Oct. 24. It now looks like those two promised cuts -- not completely carried out -- reduced production in November to 30.98 million barrels a day, down from 32.2 million barrels a day in October.

Even cuts of that magnitude haven't stemmed the decline in the price of oil, however. And now some OPEC members are calling for production cuts of at least 1 million more barrels a day and perhaps as much as 2.5 million.

Taking (another) one for the team?

The burden of the cuts so far has fallen most heavily on Saudi Arabia. The Saudis accounted for about 44% of November's projected production cuts. And as OPEC's biggest producer, Saudi Arabia would be expected to pick up the bulk of the next round of cuts, too. The Saudis produced 9.45 million barrels a day in September. That's roughly a third of OPEC's total production.

OPEC's Nov. 29 meeting showed that the Saudis aren't yet willing to step up to the plate with another 500,000- to 1-million-barrel-a-day cut in production at a time when the government is announcing cancellations and delays in its plans to diversify the Saudi economy. Adding up all the cuts actually delivered showed that OPEC had cut production by only 850,000 to 1.2 million barrels a day instead of the 1.5 million promised in October.

And the Saudis seem convinced that Iran, OPEC's second-largest producer, and Venezuela have cut their output by less than they claim. No wonder that the Saudis wanted to wait for more production data before agreeing to further cuts. If what the Saudis hear, or think they hear, is that they've made cuts but that other OPEC members have reneged on their promises, then you can expect them to agree on Dec. 17 to cuts that are much less than Venezuela and Iran are talking about.

The Saudis also got in a not-so-subtle dig at Iran and Venezuela at the Cairo meeting by calling for a $75-a-barrel price for OPEC oil. That would be a huge improvement from current levels but noticeably short of the target championed by Venezuela and of the $90 to $100 a barrel that many experts believe Iran and Venezuela need to balance their budgets.

OPEC's inability to agree on any additional production cuts in Cairo means oil prices will fall further and that the problems confronting the governments of oil producers such as Nigeria, Venezuela and Iran will ratchet up toward crisis. That would pressure OPEC to do something dramatic at its Dec. 17 meeting.

Where Russia fits in

At the same time, the lack of production cuts in Cairo will increase short-term pressure on Iran and Venezuela to cheat on the October production targets and keep production above quotas. (Due to a near civil war in its oil fields, Nigeria's production is falling with or without OPEC quotas.) That, in turn, will make the Saudis even less likely to want to cut production to bail out OPEC members who haven't kept to their quotas.

Even though it isn't an OPEC member, Russia will play a big part in deciding how the future of OPEC plays out. Russia, which produces roughly as much oil as Saudi Arabia, has made noises about coordinating its production policies with OPEC. So far, those noises are exactly that, and the country shows no signs of following OPEC's lead by intentionally cutting production. The sight of a non-OPEC Russia taking advantage of improvements in oil prices created by Saudi Arabia's cuts in production will just increase Saudi resistance to disproportionately sacrificing for the profit of others.

If the September and October production cuts don't do the job (and almost nobody in the oil industry thinks they will) and OPEC goes into its Dec. 17 meeting faced with tumbling oil prices and massive quota flouting, the cartel could slip into public disagreement. An increased level of suspicion and recrimination entering 2009, a year that will see massive budget distress for many OPEC countries, could make it impossible for OPEC to agree on any course of common action.

A shadow of its powerful self

That wouldn't be enough to cause the formal breakup of OPEC. But it would be enough to reduce the cartel to a powerless shell. OPEC might effectively break up into regional or ideological subgroups, each pursing its own market agenda. A further breakdown could see individual oil producers inside and outside OPEC pursuing strategies based only on self-interest.

Consumers around the world would cheer at the breakup of OPEC or even at its devolution into a powerless shell organization. Without OPEC, individual oil producers would pump as much oil as they could in the short term, and oil prices would fall.

That's not good news, of course, for companies that make their money selling oil field infrastructure, because lower oil prices would mean less money to invest in oil field development. It would be really bad news for companies developing more-expensive unconventional sources of oil because they couldn't make a profit competing against cheaper oil. And it would be potentially devastating to emerging alternative-energy technologies, which would be forced back into reliance on government subsidies at a time when governments have plenty of other things to do with their money.

If you believe in some version of peak oil, which I do, then a post-OPEC free-for-all in the oil markets looks like a disaster. As it becomes more and more expensive to extract conventional and unconventional oil, the world is already looking at a bad case of underinvestment. The International Energy Agency has warned that a huge supply crunch awaits the world on the other side of the current supply glut because of underinvestment in new supplies of oil. Lower oil prices would just make that underinvestment worse.

Developments on past columns

"Is ExxonMobil's future running dry?": Devon Energy (DVN, news, msgs) continues to do all the right things -- not that it matters much in the short run in this punishing market for energy stocks.

On Nov. 5, the company announced third-quarter earnings of $3.09 a share, an increase of 97% from the third quarter of 2007. Revenue grew 116% year over year. Production fell 1% from the second quarter of 2008 due to disruptions from hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, but the company made important progress in bringing new resources into production. Production from the company's acreage in the Barnett Shale formation helped U.S. onshore production climb 16%. The company added 50,000 acres to its leases in the Haynesville Shale formation of eastern Texas and northwestern Louisiana, and had record production in the Wyoming's Powder River Basin.

In the Gulf of Mexico, production fell by more than a third under the impact of hurricanes. The storms also delayed drilling on the potentially big new finds in the gulf that the company announced in 2007. But one on Walker Ridge reached total depth, and the other in Keathley Canyon should reach total depth by the end of 2008. At that time, Devon Energy will have a better idea of the size of the resource.

Besides 25% and 50% interest in those two projects, Devon also owns a 25% interest in Petrobras' (PBR, news, msgs) Campos Basin offshore prospect that's being explored in the South Atlantic. A first exploratory well has reached total depth there, and the partners are evaluating the results.

Oil is perhaps less important than cash in the current state of the financial markets, and Devon finished the quarter with $1.2 billion in cash on its books. The company also has a $2.5 billion credit line. The company has suspended its share-buyback program, which certainly doesn't help the stock price but seems a prudent effort to conserve cash. Operating cash flow of $2.6 billion slightly exceeded capital expenditures of $2.4 billion in the quarter.

When all is said and done, however, lower oil prices will mean lower earnings for Devon in 2009. The Wall Street consensus is that earnings will tumble by 28% next year to $7.65 a share from a projected $10.56 a share in 2008. The 2009 projection would still be ahead of Devon's earnings per share in 2007 of $6.97.

In recognition of today's lower oil prices, as of Dec. 1 I'm cutting my target price for Devon to $85 a share by November 2009 from the recent target of $130 by December 2008. That's a projected 29% gain from the Dec. 1 close at $65.69 in a year. That's enough for me to keep this stock in Jubak's Picks despite the risk of falling oil prices in the short term.

By Jim Jubak

THE CAUSE OF UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE USA

2010-10-28T14:55:00.003-04:00

After an intensive debate about fiscal stimulus that would be utilized to cure the recessionary downturn of the current year, there is a wide debate whether President Obama would extend the role of unions in the U.S. While President Obama agreeably supports the extension of the role of labor unions (link), there are several doubts that need to be discussed.

First, there is a significant panel of empirical evidence showing that high level of unionzation tarnishes the growth of potential productivity which is essential to the long-term increase in the standard of living. In countries of the Continental Europe such as Austria, Germany and France, there is an obvious and firm evidence showing strongly negative correlation between the level of unionization and the rate of unemployment. The cost of unionzation is usually beared by grimmy prospects of future youth employment. Data provided by Eurostat (link) fosters the hypothesis that a somewhat negative correlation between unionization and employment rate exists. On the other hand, in Anglo-Saxon countries, where labor markets are more flexible and elastic, the rate of unionization is lower than in Norway, Sweden and Netherlands and the rate of unemployment is lower in all age groups. The difference can be explained by the fact that in Continental and Nordic countries, government fosters the bargaining network between government, employer associations and trade unions while there is significantly less government engineering of labor market in Anglo-Saxon countries such as the U.S., Canada and the UK. The OECD data (link) on hourly earnings are a strong evidence respectively.

Second, the bargaining framework of union negotiation depends on the elasticity of labor supply. If the labor supply curve is more inelastic, it is also more likely that unions will gain an advantage in seeking an anticipated rent and regulate the market for particular professions by restricting the entry and raising the wage ceiling. If unions bargain the rent, lower rate of employment will be an inevitable result of this act.

And third, president Obama says that "you cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement." Unionization is indeed the long-term consequence of higher unemployment because higher union wages exceed competitive market wage rates which causes job losses and unemployment which is higher than hypothetical one. Larry Summers nicely outlined the consequences of unionization regarding welfare, employment and wages (link). It is also important to know the union membership has been declining. The union power of United Auto Workers in the U.S auto manufacturing industry is significant and it also contributes to the bailout problem given high labor cost. Since 1970s, the membership of UAW declined by more than one third. Consequently, foreign investors rather located the production activity in non-union plants in Southern U.S. Recently, professor Becker discussed the issue and perspectives of union membership (link). However, it should be noted that globalization and the rising mobility of labor has been slashing the bargaining power of unions significantly. Interestingly, union membership peaked in 1954 when it reached 28 percent of total employment and has had declined ever since with no reversal after president Reagan won the battle with PATCO (link).

Even though, president Obama's pro-union efforts may reverse the union membership trend, globalization and competitive regional and global labor markets will nonetheless diminish the power of domestic unions. While, in fact, there is no doubt that the long-term cost of unionization is higher rate of unemployment and employment rigidity that gives more economic power to the unions and derails productivity

IMMIGRATION OR BIRTH TOURISM

2010-10-28T14:38:00.001-04:00

Anchors away

Immigration | The debate over birthright citizenship hits hardest on the hospital ward | Megan Basham

TUCSON, Ariz.—The evening after I gave birth to my daughter at Tucson Medical Center (TMC), a hospital administrator stopped by our post-delivery room and presented my husband with a bill for about $1,200—the amount we owed after our insurance deductible had been met but before we'd reached our annual maximum out-of-pocket. If we could pay in full that day, the hospital would knock 10 percent off the charge.

Less than half of the women who give birth at TMC receive such a visit. That's because Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), the state's public health program, offers free maternity coverage to women in low and lower-middle income classes as well as covering all labor and delivery charges for women in the country illegally. The hospital declined to say what portion of their AHCCCS-covered births involve illegal immigrants but revealed to the Arizona Daily Star in 2007 that around 20 percent of their deliveries are to noncitizen mothers. Considering that illegal immigrants make up between 7 percent and 8 percent of Arizona's total population—and that men in that group significantly outnumber women—that accounts for a surprisingly high number. However, it is less surprising once another group of foreign-born mothers who are neither poor nor undocumented are factored into the picture.

Pregnant Mexican women with proper visas who can afford to pay cash for their deliveries are also crossing the border to give birth at TMC. The hospital is one of a few nationwide capitalizing on the cutting-edge practice of birth tourism, targeting specialized maternity packages to Mexican citizens who want to have their babies on U.S. soil.

Though TMC does not specifically advertise U.S. citizenship as a reason for delivering at its hospital, immigration experts say it has always been the main draw for noncitizens—both legal and illegal—who come to the United States to give birth. In a 2009 AP story detailing TMC's birth packages, the Mexican consul general in Tucson, Juan Manuel Calderon Jaimes, found nothing concerning about the practice and said it was nothing new: "Many families of means in Sonora [Mexico] send their wives here to give birth because they have the resources to pay for the services."

But a growing number of U.S. residents are worried about what's happening at hospitals like TMC and how it affects the future of the country. Their alarm is driving the recent push to amend or reinterpret the Constitution so that United States citizenship is no longer automatically conferred upon a person simply because he or she is born here.

According to a recently released study by the Pew Hispanic Center, 37 percent of illegal immigrants in the United States are parents of a citizen child. Even without a citizen in the household, they pose significant costs to states (particularly those that share a border with Mexico) when it comes to healthcare, education, and law enforcement. Once unauthorized residents give birth on U.S. soil, they have access to additional benefits. Mothers and fathers of so-called "anchor babies" are able to apply on behalf of their child for a selection of public programs including Medicaid, Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) subsidies, and food stamps. Should they be apprehended by immigration authorities, they can use the child as justification against deportation and as a reason to request preferred action that will prevent hardship to a U.S.-born citizen. And once the child turns 21, he or she can sponsor his family members' citizenship.

Though Steve Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, confirms that no one can concretely prove that illegal immigrants are intentionally trying to create anchors to the United States by having babies, he says he sees evidence that the parents are well aware of the advantages of giving birth here. He offers detailed statistics by state, noting, for example, that 40 percent of the unauthorized residents in Texas and California utilize food assistance and that a third of those in New York use Medicaid, most often on behalf of a citizen child. Says Camarota, "It is clear that a very large fraction of the illegal population with U.S.-born children learn to navigate certain welfare programs like Medicaid, WIC, and preschool lunch. And it's clear that a significant body of knowledge in regards to that is shared among them on how to sign their children up."

With states like California and Arizona facing crushing budget shortfalls, it's not surprising, says Camarota, that people are becoming upset over birthright citizenship. "So after [illegal immigrants] break the law coming here, they have a baby and get to benefit further by getting a green card and permanent residency? There's a lot not to like there." As for the wealthy, visa-wielding moms-to-be, he sums up the general objection succinctly: "It's the same as buying U.S. citizenship and turns something we should prize and respect into a game."

Eileen Walker, a labor and delivery nurse at Thunderbird Medical Center in Glendale, Ariz., agrees with Camarota's assessment and says in her work she sees illegal immigrants abusing emergency treatment laws and the AHCCCS program. "AHCCCS won't cover an illegal patient's doctor's visit, but the hospital is different. Anyone who walks into OB Triage claiming a health problem, we have to provide care. If they come in and say they're having headaches or have a cold or flu symptoms, we have to provide care." She says pregnant noncitizens understand that they can use emergency treatment as regular maternity care. "They know the right things to say and they know how to manipulate the system. They'll say, 'I'm not feeling my baby move,' because it is a guaranteed way to get the doctor to order an ultrasound. So they can get every benefit—top-of-the-line sonograms, epidurals, all the care a patient with insurance or who is paying out of pocket has—for free."

Some illegal immigrants fail to complete the paperwork that allows the hospital to get reimbursed by the state for its services, says Walker. "They'll get the care they came for and then just disappear, and we'll look around and say, 'Where did they go?' They leave and we find the AHCCCS application in the room," says Walker. "We eat those costs." As a result, she says, employees of Thunderbird have seen a drastic reduction in their own benefits as the hospital tries to cut expenses without resorting to layoffs.

Experience like Walker's and research like Camarota's are what's driving legislators who say it is time for the United States to reconsider its practice of granting citizenship to everyone born here. Among those who support hearings on the issue are Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as well as House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio. Graham is particularly vehement, calling birthright citizenship "a mistake" on Fox News in July and announcing possible plans to introduce a constitutional amendment to reverse it.

The concept of citizenship by birthright has its roots in past injustices. When the Supreme Court ruled in the 1857 Dred Scott case that blacks were not citizens, Congress responded by passing a statute that conferred citizenship by birth. After the Civil War, citizenship for freed slaves received constitutional grounding in 1868 with the 14th Amendment. It states, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." The frontline of the objection against anchor babies is that clause, "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." Those who believe that the children of illegal immigrants shouldn't be considered citizens argue that the 14th Amendment was never intended to apply to them because their parents are not U.S. citizens nor here with U.S. authorization, and therefore are not subject to its jurisdiction.

Recent polls show Americans split about 50-50 on whether birthright citizenship should be repealed—though in border states like Arizona support for the idea is stronger, with two-thirds favoring it. But even someone like Camarota—whose career is researching illegal immigration and publicizing the problems it creates—is hesitant to endorse such a constitutional change.

On the one hand, he says he agrees with Republican leaders who point out that the United States is one of the only industrialized democracies to give citizenship to everyone born within its borders. And he understands the frustration of those who feel that birthright citizenship makes it extremely difficult to solve the problems of illegal immigration, as groups opposed to enforcement can claim that it divides families. "Politically, it creates a much different environment in which to have the debate. One of the chief arguments for granting amnesty to unauthorized residents is that they have all these citizen children and we shouldn't do harm to citizen children," says Camarota. "The advocacy groups make that argument all the time and you get [President] Obama saying that we're tearing babies from their mothers' breasts by trying to enforce the law. Of course the child can always go with the parents so we're not really dividing families, but it allows that narrative to be constructed. So it matters enormously in the immigration debate and it greatly complicates our efforts."

Camarota says that the odds against changing the law are steep. "It'll be a tough, nasty political battle that will focus on children. If you're pro-enforcement, that's not what you want," he says. Even if Congress passed a law, it would by no means signal the end of the fight: "You'd still have an ambiguous outcome because it would have to wind its way through the courts for years. Then if you'd wanted to change it you'd have to get a constitutional amendment. To my mind it's just not where we should put our political efforts."

Instead, Camarota feels that pro-enforcement groups and individuals would better spend their time pushing for work site enforcement, mandatory e-verify for businesses, having an entry and exit system, getting the cooperation of local police, and controlling the border

The US$96,000 Carbon Fiber Renard GT

2010-10-27T16:26:00.001-04:00

Estonia

is not a country known for motorcycles, but the reemergence of a pre-WW2 motorcycle brandname could change all that. Tallinn-based Renard Motorcycles will begin production of its GT next year. The bike's carbon-fiber and Kevlar monocoque chassis weighs just 11 kg and incorporates the airbox and fuel tank while the metal components, other than the Moto Guzzi 1200cc Quattrovalvole v-twin engine, are all CNC milled from a solid aircraft quality aluminum. The carbon parallelogram front suspension and design are reminiscent of a Confederate Wraith, as is the limited edition, stellar price (EUR75,000), craftsmanship and beauty.

Let's hope they've done their homework, as carbon fiber frames on motorcycles have proven problematic for many manufacturers in the past – for all their lustrous beauty, engineering all the handling properties you require in a carbon fiber chassis has proven immensely difficult. If carbon is so good, why aren't there more such frames on the MotoGP grid? Whatsmore, MotoGP bikes only need to be good handling and make no concessions to rider comfort, so the rigidity of this wonder substance might cause even more headaches on a road bike.

The suspension units themselves are top class – a two-way adjustable Öhlins S36DR1L controls the movement of the carbon fiber Hossack/BMW Duolever type layout at the front up while a three-way adjustable Öhlins TTX36 handles the rear. Both wheels are carbon fiber, while the Grand Tourer's lightweight aircraft aluminum components are designed and modeled in 3D, then milled from a solid block by CNC machines.

The Renard’s 1200cc engine produces approximately 130 hp at 8000 rpm while peak torque of 120 Nm happens at 6000 rpm. The Moto Guzzi 90° V2 donk is no horsepower king, but remembering this is a roadbike, it's usable midrange and extremely light weight (190 kg dry) will no doubt contribute to what Renard's press material dubs a “surgeon’s blade on two wheels.”

The styling, price and carbon fiber will certainly set you apart from the crowd – if being the center of attention is what you crave, this machine will do it for

MOHAMMED: THE MAN

2010-10-27T15:00:00.000-04:00

popular name for baby boys ahead of Jack and Harry

Mohammed is now the most popular name for newborn boys in England and Wales ahead of Jack and Harry, it emerged today.

The name, when 12 different spellings were included, was given to 7,549 youngsters in 2009, official statistics revealed.

Oliver was the second most popular and it was given to 7,364 boys in England and Wales in 12 months.

Name game: Mohammed is now the most popular name for new-born boys (picture posed by model)

Jack was third, Harry fourth and Alfie in fifth place in the league table of names.

However, because official figures did not take into account the variations in the spelling of Mohammed, Oliver was named as the most popular boys' name by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) who released the information.

Jack had been the top name for newborn boys in England and Wales for the previous 14 years.

While Oliver was beaten to first place by Mohammed, in the girls list Olivia came out on top.

SPELLING 'MOHAMMED'

1) Mohammed - 3,300

2) Muhammad - 2,162

3) Mohammad - 1,073

4) Muhammed -515

5) Mohamed - 387

6) Mohamad - 33

7) Muhamed - 27

8) Mohammod - 18

9) Mahamed - 14

10) Muhamed - 10

11) Mahammed - 6

12) Mohmmed - 4

TOTAL: 7,549

Ruby, Chloe, Emily and Sophie made up the top five list of girls' names in 2009, it emerged today.

The official list put Mohammed in only 16th place, but when the other 11 different spellings of the same name are taken into account it is the most popular.

Mohammed was given to 3,300 boys, while Muhammad was given to 2,162 youngsters.

The name is a common Anglicised spelling of an Arabic name taken from a word meaning 'praise'.

There is disagreement among scholars about why there are so many spellings of the same name - some argue it is because of phonetic translations while others say it is down to parental choice.

Muslim parents often use the name to honour the Prophet or to show a link to the religion.

There are 14 recognised variations of the spelling - although only 12 of them were given to newborn children last year.

Muslims make up around three per cent of the British population.

The unusual names David and Victoria Beckham gave to their three boys seemed to be boosted in the annual league tables by their celebrity association.

There were 282 Brooklyns, 78 Romeos and 73 Cruzs born in 2009, the figures revealed.

TOP 10 OTHER BOYS' NAMES

1) Oliver
2) Jack
3) Harry
4) Alfie
5) Joshua
6) Thomas
7) Charlie
8) William
9) James
10) Daniel

Six new names made it into the top 100 boys' names this year - they were Aiden, Arthur, Frederick, Jude, Stanley and Austin.

In the girls' list, three names moved into the top 100 this year - Heidi, Mya and Sara.

Compared to names chosen for babies ten years earlier, there was a resurgence in the popularity of names which were associated with people of the inter-war generation, or earlier.

TOP 10 GIRLS' NAMES

1) Olivia
2) Ruby
3) Chloe
4) Emily
5) Sophie
6) Jessica
7) Grace
8) Lily
9) Amelia
10) Evie

Evie was the tenth most popular name given to baby girls in 2009, for example, moving up 157 places since 1999.

Ruby, the second most popular name for girls in 2009, was ranked 91 places lower 10 years ago.

Boys' names such as Alfie and Charlie have followed a similar trend.

Six names in the boys' top ten in 2009 were also there in 1999 - Jack, Joshua, Thomas, James, Daniel and William.

Five girls' names featured in both lists - Olivia, Chloe, Emily, Sophie and Jessica.

There were 706,248 live births in England and Wales in 2009.

Mothers of newborn and slightly older babies are urged by the ONS to include their babies’ details in the 2011 Census, taking place next March.

'Babies often go unrecorded in the census as new mothers sometimes don’t realise they need to enter the details of even the very newest member of the household,' ONS spokesman William Mach said.

'There is a strong link between filling in the census and the authorities being able to plan and provide public services in years to come - for example, in setting numbers of school places.'

2010-10-27T13:15:00.001-04:00

2010-10-27T13:14:00.002-04:00

A FAILED OBAMA HERO

2010-10-27T13:11:00.004-04:00

A Failed Obama Hero

Let's think about President Obama's failed economic stimulus program. Before getting to the nitty-gritty of why stimulus packages fail, let's look at the failed stimulus program of Obama's hero, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR's Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, wrote in his diary: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. ... We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt to boot!"

Morgenthau was being a bit gracious. The unemployment figures for FDR's first eight years were: 18 percent in 1935; 14 percent in 1936; by 1938, unemployment was back to 20 percent. The stock market fell nearly 50 percent between August 1937 and March 1938. Columnist Walter Lippmann wrote, "With almost no important exception every measure he (Roosevelt) has been interested in for the past five months has been to reduce or discourage the production of wealth." The last year of the Herbert Hoover administration, the top marginal income tax rate was raised from 24 to 63 percent. During the Roosevelt administration, the top rate was raised at first to 79 percent and then later to 90 percent. Hillsdale College economic historian Professor Burton Folsom notes that in 1941, Roosevelt even proposed a whopping 99.5 percent marginal rate on all incomes over $100,000. Much more of the Hoover/FDR fiasco can be found in "Great Myths of the Great Depression".

The Great Depression did not end until after WWII. Why it lasted so long went unanswered until Harold L. Cole, professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania, and Lee E. Ohanian, professor of economics at UCLA, published their research project "How Government Prolonged the Depression" in the Journal of Political Economy (August 2004). Professor Cole explained, "The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes. Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened." Professors Cole and Ohanian argue that FDR's economic policies added at least seven years to the depression.

Where do the trillion-plus dollars come from that Congress and Obama are spending in an effort to stimulate the economy? How about Santa Claus, or maybe the Tooth Fairy? If you said, "Come on, Williams, you're being silly! The only way government can spend a dollar is to tax or borrow it," go to the head of the class. In the case of a tax, one should ask what would that taxpayer have done with the dollar had it not been taxed away. He would have spent it on something that would have created a job for someone. If the government hadn't borrowed the dollar, it might have been invested in some project that would have created a job. When government taxes, borrows and spends, it shifts unemployment from one sector to another. Of course, the sector that benefits tends to be a political favorite of the shifter.

Between 1787 and 1930, our nation has seen both mild and severe economic downturns, sometimes called panics, that have ranged from one to seven years. During that interval, no one considered it to be the business of the federal government to try to get the economy out of a depression because there was no constitutional authority to do so. It took Hoover, FDR and a frightened and derelict U.S. Supreme Court to turn what might have been a three- or four-year sharp downturn into a 15-year meltdown.

Walter E. Williams

Dr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well.

THE CROOKED HOUSE IN POLAND

2010-10-27T13:02:00.000-04:00

The Crooked House is most famous building in Poland. This building is totally 4000 square meter hours which in Resident and in this buildings every types of shopping centers available.

HAVE YOU TRIED THIS??

2010-10-27T12:51:00.000-04:00

Hot Mushroom Cabbage Recipe

You've never had vegetables quite like this

INGREDIENTS:

· 6 slices bacon

· 2 Tablespoons butter

· 1 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced, or 16-ounce can, drained

· 1/4 cup minced onion

· 4 cups thinly-sliced cabbage

· 1/2 cup water

· 3 Tablespoons vinegar

· 1 Tablespoon brown sugar

· 1 teaspoon salt

· 1 teaspoon dillweed

· 1/4 teaspoon pepper

TO PREPARE:

1. Saute bacon in skillet. Crumble and set aside. Drain all but 2 Tablespoons bacon fat from skillet.
2. Add butter to skillet and melt. Saute mushrooms and onion for 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and bring to boiling point..
3. Reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 7 minutes or until cabbage is crisp tender.
4. Serve with crumbled bacon.

SHARIA LAW VS WOMEN POWER IN THE PERSIAN GULF

2010-10-15T14:48:00.000-04:00

Woman Power

15 October 2010

Emirati women entrepreneurs have taken different paths to create their businesses with passion and determination

MOVING FROM the palace to the marketplace is a metaphor for a change. All over the Middle East, women are continuing to cross boundaries, going from being heads of households to small business owners to CEOs. While women entrepreneurs are a minority in most parts of the world, their presence in the Middle East and North African region (MENA) has been much lower in comparison to not only other middle-income regions but also predominantly Muslim countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia. As the cost of living steadily rises in the region though, and the need emerges for job creation for a growing labour force, women entrepreneurs are playing a role in creating new employment opportunities.

ASMA DARWISH

is the managing director and interior designer at A&D Interiors, she set up her own firm early on in her career and is a member of the Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Establishment for Young Entrepreneurs (SME). A graduate of the American University of Sharjah with a Bachelors degree of Science in Interior Design, Darwish set up A&D Interiors in 2007 from concept and design to a fully operational business which included complete responsibility for strategy setting, management, marketing and design and project management.

“I wanted to be different and I loved designs. I used to freelance, but then I felt that I wanted security for myself and most importantly I wanted to please my clients so I ventured into design and learnt from other designers and colleagues. Slowly and steadily, that’s how my baby was born,” says Darwish.

If you are renovating or building — or just want a fresh new look — you will need to solve important space issues and choose the design, finishes and products that will work for you and look the way you want. “We give good planning and professional advice. My first design was of a shop for a wedding planner and the most delightful one was a residential place at Palm Island,” she says.

The designs she chooses are a blend of contemporary and classic, a blend of mashreq and maghrib (East and West).

Darwish is inspired by UK-based designer Kelly Hoppen and hopes to meet her someday.

The day she got the keys to her office Darwish knew she had arrived. “I was considered a serious businesswoman and that was my doorway to the world,” she says, adding, “But my most valuable experience is from the on-the-job training that I am always doing: with each new project I’m always learning new things.”

Darwish mainly works on residential projects  and works collaboratively with her clients to create spaces that reflect “my client’s individual taste, personality and lifestyle.” “There are always challenges with projects. Not all projects go smoothly. I call them expensive experiences because there are times I’ve had to put in things with my own pocket just to make sure the clients are happy.”

Bright and bold colours are her favourites and she describes herself as a very colourful person, but yes, she draws a balance when it comes to splashing them on the walls.

“I could hit upon an idea just by looking at things around me; it could be a bookcover, the colour of a shirt or top or even if I hear some nice jingle on TV; sometimes what the client wants can inspire  me to think out of the box,” she says.

With a tight schedule, she still finds time to hang out with friends. “Sometimes the work pressure can be very challenging when everything does not go down too well. That’s when I vent it out through kick-boxing; I also love running. When I feel generous, I treat myself to a spa or a week-long vacation,” she says.

When Darwish feels that there’s something missing in her work, she could forego the money and walk out. “My work has to reflect me in it. The moment I find it’s missing, I will move out. I would never be fake and am too independent to let it affect me.”

She tells other women entrepreneurs, “There will always be problems on the job. Think of them as a challenge and mistakes as expensive experiments. Be optimistic and move on.”

NAYLA AL KHAJA

is breaking new ground in the UAE. She’s the first female filmmaker/producer in the emirates. In 2002, Khaja founded D-Seven Motion Pictures, producing commercial material, independent documentaries and films.

Becoming the UAE’s own Oprah, she’s developing a proposal for a talk show tackling sensitive issues.

Besides her television work, Khaja is currently working on a short film about a young Emirati couple on honeymoon and a documentary on Dubai’s ruling family. “I just got back from India after shooting in Kerala, during monsoons,” she says, adding, “People, cultures and stories fascinate me and I’d like to bring about a fusion of cultures through my work.”

She’s also the first Emirati to shoot a feature film in India. The film Malal (boredom) portrays an Emirati girl who is married to an Indian man and on her honeymoon in India. “We had good fun shooting, except for the leeches. We had to wear gum boots, all of us except for the poor lead actor who wore slippers and jumped up and down as soon as the camera stopped rolling,” she laughs.

In 2006, she made Arabana which deals with the disturbing issue of child abuse, a subject which is taboo in the Middle East. Although it was very difficult to fit such an intense subject into a span of only six minutes, Khaja managed to do so quite efficiently and not without effect. The movie is hard-hitting, and makes you sit up and take notice. It premiered at the Dubai International Film Festival and received special recognition for its content.

Khaja is always on the move. “Filmmaking makes you travel a lot. I just came back from India; now I’ll be going to Japan for a shoot. My parents weren’t too happy with my decisions earlier, but now they have accepted it,” she says.

She has been watching Hindi films from the time she was a kid and wants to make her company just as huge as YashRaj Films.

Knowing that filmmaking is tough business, she hasn’t given up, “When I complain to my mother that I have problems, she asks me — compared to who? Look at the world. People are suffering. I know I can find money even under a stone. It’s all about wanting to survive and all of us will; there’s lots of space on Earth and the universe is made up of billions of solar systems. I look at it and feel so humbled.” No wonder she is fascinated with the universe, the planets, the solar system and keeps track of NASA news.

“I don’t just believe in reaching for the moon, I find myself amongst the stars,” she smiles.

TALA BADRI

When Badri was a kid and her mother asked her what she wanted to be, she would say, “the queen of England.” Born and educated in Dubai, at the age of 17, Badri was awarded a full scholarship by the Government of Dubai to study music at Royal Holloway at the University of London and became the only female Emirati music graduate.

“I had performed in front of 500 people in the late 80s and the press got a whiff of it and came and listened to me and when I got rave reviews, I was sent to study music,” she says.

Badri worked for the next 10 years in the financial sector (Barclay’s Bank) and the consumer sector (Mars) gaining experience in finance, human resources and management. Whilst working in the corporate sector, Badri continued to teach flute and piano regularly and was heavily involved in the performing arts community in Dubai, including being instrumental in the development of the Dubai Community Theatre and Arts Centre. “It was my daughter’s autism that actually inspired me to start this institute as music therapy helped her a lot.”

Music has helped heal many people she says. “Especially teens and youngsters who face daily dilemmas and it helps calm them.”

Badri then founded the Centre for Musical Arts, a non-profit organisation dedicated to providing high quality and affordable music instruction for people of all ages and walks of life.

The Centre has people from various corners of the globe who have signed up for saxophone lessons. “Each of them has never picked up a saxophone in their life before, and now they are coming along for lessons every Tuesday,” she says. “My long-term goal is to have a purpose-built academy in the UAE,” she says.

Running your own business is challenging and exciting — but hearing real stories from the trenches is quite soothing.

THE FOURTH RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD

2010-10-14T14:59:00.000-04:00

India

's richest man Mukesh Ambani moves into £630m home

The richest man in India, Mukesh Ambani, has moved into his new home in Mumbai which is 27 storeys high and worth £630m.

Mukesh Ambani, has moved into his new home in Mumbai which is 27 storeys high and worth £630m Photo: CORBIS/AP

Ambani, his wife and three children have moved into the building which is named Antilia, after a mythical Island. It contains a health club with a gym and dance studio, at least one studio, a ballroom, guestrooms and a range of lounges and a 50 seater cinema.

There is even an elevated garden with ceiling space to accommodate small trees.

The roof has three helicopter pads and there is also underground parking for 160 cars, which will come in handy for guests at Ambani's forthcoming housewarming party.

From the top floors of the 173m high property are spectacular views of Mumbai and of the Arabian Sea.

The 53 year-old tycoon is not only the richest man in India but the fourth richest man in the world. In total there is reported to be 37,000 square metres of space, which is more than the Palace of Versailles.

To keep it running smoothly requires 600 staff.

According to Forbes magazine Ambani, who owns much of Reliance Industries, the oil, retail and biotechnologies conglomerate, is worth £18bn. He used to help run the company before falling out with his brother.

The glass, steel and tiles used to make the building are reported to be from local sources.

Ambani does not appear to be influenced by calls by the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, for business leaders to be "role models of moderation".

IS OBAMA TRYING TO 'DECOLONIZE' SPACE?

2010-10-14T14:53:00.000-04:00

Is Obama trying to 'decolonize' space?

Observers were puzzled when President Obama apparently gave the space agency NASA a new mission to reach out to the world’s Muslims. But his action makes sense when you consider the influence of anticolonial ideology.

By Dinesh D'Souza

Soon after becoming president, Barack Obama evidently gave the space agency NASA a new mission of reaching out to the world’s Muslims. Observers were puzzled. Why should rocket scientists focused on outer space now worry about hearts and minds on Earth?

I believe I have solved the mystery. The reason is that President Obama has adopted his father’s ideology; the son is, as his father was, an anticolonialist. And according to this worldview, NASA is a symbol of America’s effort to colonize outer space. It follows that Obama wants to “decolonize” NASA, and that means converting it from its traditional mission of American exploration into a kind of international project to recognize what Muslims and others have contributed to the development of science.

FOR ANOTHER VIEW, READ Newt Gingrich is right: Obama shares anticolonial values -- American values

A strange new mission

Several months ago, NASA chief Charles Bolden announced that Mr. Obama had given him three priorities: “He wanted me to help reinspire children to want to get into science and math. He wanted me to expand our international relationships. And third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contributions to science and math and engineering.”

Mr. Bolden added that the International Space Station was a kind of model for NASA’s future, since it was not just a US operation but included the Russians and the Japanese.

For former astronauts Neil Armstrong and John Glenn, Bolden’s remarks – which the White House later tried to correct – surely added insult to the injury they felt Obama has caused with his new budget and vision for NASA, which includes shelving the ambitious Constellation program and relying on foreign and commercial spacecraft.

Even some Obama supporters expressed puzzlement. Sure, we are all for Islamic self-esteem, and 800 years ago the Muslims did make some important discoveries, but what on earth was Obama up to here?

What motivates Obama?

To answer this question, we must figure out what motivates Obama; we must know what is Obama’s dream. Fortunately we don’t have to speculate, because Obama tells us in his autobiography, “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.”

The title alone is telling, but as Obama writes in the book: “It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.”

Though Obama also candidly admits to feeling mugged by reality when he learned more about his father, several figures who know him well say the ideological fire of the father still burns within the son. As his grandmother Sarah Obama told Newsweek, “I look at him and I see all the same things, he has taken everything from his father. The family is still intact, this son is realizing everything the father wanted – fighting for people, the dreams of the father are still alive in the son.”

So there it is: Obama’s dream is his father’s dream.

Anticolonial ideology

So who was Barack Obama Sr. and what was his dream? First and foremost, he was an anticolonialist. He came of age during Kenya’s struggle for independence from British rule. I know about anti-colonialism because I grew up in India in the aftermath of British rule there. Anticolonialism was the ideology of my parents and grandparents, and it shaped a whole generation of third world people during the second half of the 20th century.

The basic principle of anticolonialism is that the world is divided into two parts: the colonizers and the colonized. The colonizers are the evil Americans and Europeans, and they got rich by invading and looting the nations of Asia, Africa, and South America.

Even today, this ideology holds, America continues to occupy two countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, and to use its power to dominate and subjugate the rest of the world. The solution, of course, is decolonization, and this means that America must get out and stay out and in the future play a much more modest and humble role in the world.

We know that Barack Obama Sr. was an anticolonialist because he says as much in a 1965 article he wrote in the East Africa Journal. And it seems that his son Barack Obama Jr. is following in his father’s footsteps because he is trying to get America out of both Iraq and Afghanistan and he has informed many international audiences that he seeks a more modest global role for America.

The theory's explanatory power

Just as telling, the anticolonial assumption explains, as no other theory can, why President Obama would apparently undertake the strange task of changing the mission of NASA. Plug in our anti-colonial model and what at first seems inexplicable – converting NASA into a community outreach program for Muslims – suddenly makes complete sense. Remove the theory and it is almost impossibly difficult to account for what Obama is doing.

Recall the Moon Landing of Apollo 11 in 1969. “One small step for man,” Mr. Armstrong said. “One giant leap for mankind.” But that’s not how the rest of the world saw it. I was eight years old at the time and still living in my native India.

I remember my grandfather telling me about the great race between America and Russia to put a man on the moon. America won that race, and everybody knew it because Armstrong placed the American flag on the moon.

So it wasn’t one giant leap for mankind, but one giant leap for the United States. It was as if that flag signified, “We Americans did this. We Americans now own the moon.” I can understand how many in the third world might see the moon landing that way, because I’m from the third world and that’s the way I saw it.

If Obama shares this view, no wonder that he wants to change NASA’s focus. Even when the Muslims aren’t involved, Obama wants to make sure the Russians and the Japanese share the credit. As Bolden put it in his Al Jazeera interview: “We’re not going to go anywhere beyond low Earth orbit as a single entity. The United States can’t do it.”

Space, you see, is for human and not merely American exploration. Obama seems determined to divert NASA from being a symbol of American greatness into a more modest public relations operation that builds ties with Muslims and other peoples. For those who cherish America’s leadership role in space, it is chilling to realize that America’s own president seeks to bring that role to an end.

Dinesh D’Souza is the president of the King’s College in New York City. His new book is “The Roots of Obama’s Rage.”