present

The Bank of Canada keeps its benchmark rate unchanged to support the present gradual recovery…

by on May 31, 2011

menafn.com…

The Bank of Canada keeps its benchmark rate unchanged to support the present gradual recovery…

Go here to see the original:
The Bank of Canada keeps its benchmark rate unchanged to support the present gradual recovery…

Find our Weekly Commercial Real Estate, Private Equity and Fund Newsletters at www.WeeklyBrief.net

Tagged as: , , , , , , ,

{ 0 comments }

Ian Fletcher: Appeasers or Cold Warriors: Must America Confront China?

by Ian Fletcher on May 11, 2011

Huffington Post…

My last article , a review of Eamonn Fingleton’s provocative (but hard to dismiss) book In the Jaws of the Dragon: America’s Fate Under Chinese Hegemony , has drawn enough comment that I feel I should respond. There have been basically two schools of response: 1) Yes, China is eating our lunch, but it’s our own fault and when will we stop being such fools that we let them do it? By the way, can at least a few token traitors from corporate America go in front of a firing squad at Ft. Leavenworth? It’s 1930s-style appeasement all over again. 2) Lay off the warmongering. China isn’t a threat now, won’t be in future, and you’re either a yellow-peril racist or a neocon pining for a new Cold War. And did I mention Bush lied last time, and right-wingers are trying to lie us into another war? Oh and yes, the economic interests of all nations are in harmony. To be sure, I can’t be certain of the sincerity of all of the latter responses, as Beijing is known to employ an army of amateur Internet propagandists, known as the “50 cent party” after the per-post fee they receive, whose job it is to spread commentary favorable to the regime’s interests on the web. But at least some of the above responses appear to be genuine, and even if they are not, they still represent a possible interpretation of the facts and some corresponding policy choices for the U.S. So we’d better take them seriously. Let’s begin by remembering that America’s past political mistakes don’t, on their own, prove anything about the present. For example, there is no doubt that the U.S. was at one time seriously prejudiced against Asian peoples. But dismissing American fears of China today as mere racial prejudice is silly: we’re not imagining China’s nuclear warheads, its dictatorial government, or its predatory mercantilism. Even if racism is a part of the motivation of some of China’s critics–it may be; I can’t read people’s minds–this doesn’t make their criticisms false, just dishonorably motivated. Similarly, have a care with the Cold War analogy and the ghost of McCarthy. Granted, there are people in the U.S. who are spoiling for an enemy. I recall attending a conference in Washington–it was in 1997 or 1998–in which there was literally a panel discussion entitled “Should We Make China the New Soviet Union?” Hmm… I recall thinking at the time that China either is or isn’t whatever it is, and Americans don’t have much option to “make” it anything otherwise. I still think so. Even if vested interests in the U.S. want to ramp up defense spending and some people just can’t face the day without an enemy to crusade against, again this doesn’t make them wrong, just dishonorably motivated. I also can’t resist noting at this juncture that, perverse though it sounds, having an enemy is not always entirely a bad thing. It’s painfully obvious, in retrospect, that the vast surge of broadly-shared middle class prosperity, not just here in the U.S. but in Western Europe, at mid-century was in large part a riposte to Communism engineered by America’s ruling elite. Minus the competition with Stalin, I’m not entirely sure they would have built Levittown. You think it’s an accident that inequality surged as the credibility of the Soviet threat receded? And that’s not to mention the fact that the Pentagon created most of the effective industrial policy the U.S. had during this era. Might a drawn-out competition with China similarly force America to get its act together and deliver decent economic performance for its own citizens and the foreign peoples in its sphere of influence? It just possibly might, especially as the success of the East Asian model of planned-economy capitalism is intellectually killing the mythology of laissez faire that is strangling this country right now. Sometimes it takes rivalry to bring out the best in people–even the USA. Another theme that often came up about China was that “authoritarianism, no matter how strong it looks at the moment, can’t last. Freedom is on the march, and there is a mile-long list of dead tyrants to testify to that.” Sounds inspiring, and it’s an easy idea to drape in red, white, and blue. But this analysis is misleading in the case of China, barring some extremely unexpected events. The authoritarian societies of the past have tended to fail for specific reasons–problems which the regime in Beijing is very carefully avoiding: 1) They were personalist dictatorships that depended upon the vigor of a single despot whose luck eventually ran out. 2) They were stuck in the past, and did not adapt to modern technology. In this category go traditional societies from Spain to Zululand. 3) They went broke because they didn’t understand economics and thought they could create wealth by political fiat. In this category goes the USSR and all its imitators. 4) They got arrogant and blundered into wars they couldn’t win. In this category go Hitler, Mussolini, and Saddam Hussein. In China’s case, we can rule out #1 and #2 above with ease. Problem #4, of course, refers, from our present vantage point, to the future, as we cannot be absolutely sure they won’t do something stupid militarily. But the evidence appears to weigh against it. Beijing for now appears to be a disciplined player of the game which, while certainly willing to use force (ask Tibet!), isn’t going to romp into strategic catastrophe from sheer excess testosterone. War? Personally, my suspicion is that a corrupt deal will be struck by the rulers (I mean the real rulers, not necessarily the elected government in our case) of China and the U.S., and there will no violent clash between the two nations. Too unprofitable. I can certainly gin up scenarios for the opposite, but these get tendentious. Much easier for two elites to unite on their true common ground: aggrandize their own money and power, and the populations they rule take the hindmost. Behind closed doors, I think they already realize how much they have in common.

See the original post here:
Ian Fletcher: Appeasers or Cold Warriors: Must America Confront China?

Find our Weekly Commercial Real Estate, Private Equity and Fund Newsletters at www.WeeklyBrief.net

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

{ 0 comments }

Mark Zupan: CEOs Do Make Better Decisions When Their Interests Align With the Stockholders

May 4, 2011

In a recent book and accompanying op-eds, Roger Martin, the dean of the University of Toronto’s Rottman School of Business argues that a much-cited article written by two of our Simon School’s former faculty members, Mike Jensen and Bill Meckling, “fixed” (in a bad way) the financial game and thereby led to a greater likelihood of economic bubbles and crashes. The Jensen-Meckling article , published in 1976, spelled out the problem of imperfect monitoring in the corporate arena and the resultant agency costs. It noted that manager-agents should have sufficient “skin in the game” to ensure that they more appropriately represent stockholder-principal interests. It is such “skin in the game”, in the form of option and stock grants, which Martin holds responsible for recent major economic downturns because it has incentivized managers to focus too much on the “expectations market” at the expense of the “real market”. In an op-ed in the Toronto Globe and Mail , Martin states “historically, professional managers played entirely within a single market; they were in charge of performance in the real market and were paid for performance in that real market. That is, they were in charge of earning real profits for their company and they were typically paid a base salary and bonus for meeting real market performance targets.” Martin misses the point that performance and profits in the so-called “real market” that managers should focus on doesn’t just involve today’s “reality” but it also involves future “realities”. Stockholder-principals care not just about how the company is doing today. The value of their assets also hinges critically on how the company will do in the future and the price of a stock is precisely the measure of expected real performance and profits in the future. Thus, to argue that managers shouldn’t also be rewarded on the expectations of future real performance and profits and that only today’s reality should matter is, simply put, ludicrous. It’s akin to arguing that the only realities we should care about in terms of our homes and cars are the real values they deliver to us in the present and not at all the real, expected values they will provide us in the future. Now, admittedly, expectations do not always prove to be accurate. The business world involves having to make a lot of educated guesses about the future and basing one’s operating decisions in the present on those risky, educated guesses. Bad guesses generally lead to adverse consequences for stockholders-principals and their manager-agents, especially when those agents own a piece of the assets. Think about the over $1 billion in personal holdings that former CEO of Lehman, Dick Fuld, saw evaporate when the firm he was the lead decision-maker for tanked. Underlying Martin’s argument is also the assumption that implicitly accuses savvy investors of being subject to potential manipulation by flash-in-the-pan managers. He ignores the possibility that a CEO might greatly enhance their reputations by evaluating growth opportunities prudently, making investments only when they appear good bets and, for sensible competitive reasons, revealing little private information about the strategies underlying those bets. Apparently, Martin believes investors and analysts are incapable of differentiating between prudent allocators of capital and those who regularly promise more than they deliver. Jensen and Meckling had more respect for analysts. Like Lou Gerstner, they too would argue that the market is a “brutally honest” measure of performance. Investors quickly learn to discount the projections of those who think they can manipulate expectations. If anything, the recent economic downturn has taught us how much we have yet to learn from Jensen and Meckling’s seminal paper. In particular, much greater attention is now starting to be given to exactly how manager-agents should be compensated through ownership stakes. If the managers take risks on behalf of stockholders, risks that affect a company’s performance over a multi-year time horizon, to what extent should their compensation be immediate (stock that can be sold or options that may be exercised right away) versus involve a longer vesting period so that managers better take into account the longer-run risks associated with their corporate decision making? More broadly, think about all the reasons why we ended up in the recent economic mess precisely because relevant agents didn’t have sufficient skin in the game. In addition to the bankers who created and sold mortgage-backed securities but who didn’t have vested interests in how their actions would affect their firms’ longer-run performance, there were: homeowners who could get mortgages without having to put any money down; policymakers who promoted low interest rates and encouraged greater home-ownership through funding for vehicles such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but have remained largely immune from the repercussions of their actions; and rating agencies who are legally precluded from having a direct interest in the assets whose credit-worthiness they evaluate for others. Jensen and Meckling’s fundamental point is that agents make more appropriate decisions on behalf of the stockholders they represent when their own interests align with those of stockholders. Anyone who would like to argue the validity of this point would be just as hard pressed to explain why we are more likely to wash a car and change its oil when we own the vehicle than when we rent it.

Read the full article →

Sydney Mining Club Present Arun Kumar Jagatramka, Chairman of Gujarat NRE Coking Coals Limited (ASX:GNM)

April 28, 2011

Sydney Mining Club Present Arun Kumar Jagatramka, Chairman of Gujarat NRE Coking Coals Limited (ASX:GNM)

Read the full article →

This Isn’t A Tech Bubble, It’s Something Else Entirely

April 25, 2011

If you’re an early stage venture capitalist or angel investor there is no time like the present to declare a bubble, say valuations are out of control and predict the demise of the tech industry in the very near future. Since they’re in the business of buying low and selling high, any angle that suggests that the buy price should be even lower sounds great to them.

Read the full article →

BPH Energy Limited (ASX:BPH) To Present At The 4th Australian High Content Image Meeting

February 10, 2011

BPH Energy Limited (ASX:BPH) To Present At The 4th Australian High Content Image Meeting

Read the full article →

Sydney Mining Club Present Exeter Resource Corporation (TSE:XRC) and Extorre Gold Mines (TSE:XG) at The 152nd Sydney Mining Club

January 20, 2011

Sydney Mining Club Present Exeter Resource Corporation (TSE:XRC) and Extorre Gold Mines (TSE:XG) at The 152nd Sydney Mining Club

Read the full article →

The Bank of Canada keeps its benchmark rate unchanged to support the present gradual recovery of the country threatened by a stronger national currency…

January 18, 2011

The Bank of Canada keeps its benchmark rate unchanged to support the present gradual recovery of the country threatened by a stronger national currency…

Read the full article →

More optimism is to be spread regarding the present U.S economic outlook…

January 4, 2011

More optimism is to be spread regarding the present U.S economic outlook…

Read the full article →

EURUSD, GBPUSD Present Prime Trade Opportunities to Start the New Year

December 31, 2010

EURUSD, GBPUSD Present Prime Trade Opportunities to Start the New Year

Read the full article →

Preeti Vissa: The Coming Crisis: What Inside Job Didn’t Cover

November 24, 2010

Last week I urged readers to go see the film Inside Job , which lays out the web of deregulation, deceit and delusion that led to the subprime meltdown and crashed the U.S. economy. It’s no slight against the film to say that there is a lot of ground it didn’t cover. Consider, for instance, the Henriquez family of California’s Central Valley, one of 25 Latino families interviewed in detail by researchers from the University of North Carolina Center for Community Capital and the National Council of La Raza for a report examining the impact of foreclosures on families. Mrs. Henriquez described how a real estate agent steered the family into an expensive loan: [The] real estate agencies [said] we’ll come out and it was in Spanish, my language – They said, “We can help you, just go to the house, we’ll let you know and soon if you qualify or not.” … We said what kind of house can I afford? and his answer was, “If you want a million dollar house, I can give [it to] you.” That was his answer. Whatever you want. And I said well, my question is what can I afford? And he said, “You just let me know how much you want to pay.” But the family’s trust in the real estate agent was misplaced: And when we were doing the paperwork, you know, we realized they put that we made more money than we, than we really did… And then he didn’t say that he put that till he said okay, this — “The bank is going to call and you need to say this.” So he — the person told us what to say and then my husband was like, “No, we shouldn’t do this.” But the family put their trust in what they believed were knowledgeable professionals. The combination of the dubious mortgage and the loss of one income when their youngest son was diagnosed with autism and Mrs. Henriquez had to stop working and stay home led to foreclosure and financial ruin. A once financially stable family now has nearly $60,000 in debt even after the foreclosure. The emotional toil has strained their marriage and disrupted their children’s performance in school. The Henriquez’s story is not unique; it’s been repeated many thousands of times in the last few years. In our work with grassroots organizations trying to assist these families, we’ve heard disturbing numbers of stories of borrowers who were pushed to falsely state a higher income than they really earned or were subject to other questionable tactics, including being sold a loan in their native language and then being forced to sign a contract in another language, with different terms than they had been sold orally. Such foreclosures are numbers on a balance sheet to officials and economists, but they represent human beings with real lives. The UNC/ National Council of La Raza study found that family finances were devastated, with an average loss of nearly $90,000 — including money and hard work these families had put into repairs or upgrades to their homes. With their financial safety net obliterated, families had to make devastating choices, from doing without needed medical care to giving up on plans to help pay for their children’s education. Sadly, the human misery we’ve seen from the foreclosure crisis thus far may be only the opening act. It could get worse — much, much worse — if the federal government and lending institutions stay on their present course. According to figures compiled by the Center for Responsible Lending , a total of 2.5 million homes went into foreclosure in 2007, 2008 and 2009 combined. An additional 5.7 million borrowers are at “imminent risk” of foreclosure, meaning they are two or more payments behind. Analysts predict that there will be between 10 and 13 million foreclosures altogether before the present crisis ends. For the most hard-hit neighborhoods, this will be the equivalent of a financial nuclear blast. The worst devastation will be among Latino and African American homeowners, over one in five of whom are at imminent risk of foreclosure. Think of the wreckage we’ve seen already being inflicted on three to four times more families than have already gone through it. And think of the ripple effects on neighborhoods and communities – the businesses that will go under, the new waves of jobs that will be lost, and so on. This isn’t some far-fetched, worst-case scenario. It’s what will happen if we stay on our present course. But there is still time to stop it – if we choose to. NEXT WEEK: How to stop the coming tidal wave of foreclosures.

Read the full article →

Latin American Iron and Steel Institute (ILAFA) Present the Latin American Iron and Steel Congress 2010

October 14, 2010

Latin American Iron and Steel Institute (ILAFA) Present the Latin American Iron and Steel Congress 2010

Read the full article →

Max Fraad Wolff: Somewhere Between the Emerald Isle and the Land of the Rising Sun

September 14, 2010

The great austerity versus spending debate has been growing louder. The crescendo will likely be reached in the final run-up to the 2010 mid-term elections. This debate will rage for the next several years. At some point the sheer size of U.S. government debt issuance and the unsustainably low present interest rates will collide. The U.S. government will sell over $2.2 trillion worth of debt this year and pay $400 billion in interest on this debt. The only reason the interest expense is so “low” is that we are paying an average interest rate of 2.4%. In the three-year period from 2008 to 2011 America will pay and has paid, $847 billion in interest on the national debt. America is now somewhere between the long, slow slide of the Japanese economy — the land of the rising sun — and the austerity drenched emerald isle — Ireland. Ireland has slashed and enabled the market to begin to correct for the excesses of debt and speculative growth. Japan has tried to ease and stimulate its way out of what has become a 20-year soft patch. Ireland’s GDP has fallen more than 7% and her unemployment rate is over 13%. Japan has seen very low growth for nearly 2 decades. However, Japan has managed remarkable social cohesion and low unemployment. Below you will see the three nation’s unemployment charts as measured by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation Development (OECD). Japan has seen an enormous run-up in government debt and Ireland is suffering to prove its bona fides to bond markets and investors. These two nations are vastly different from the U.S. and from one another. However, they might function as bookends to the present debate in the U.S. All graphs display the U.S., Irish and Japanese unemployment rates against the average rate for the 33 developed nations of the OECD. The serious and persistent problems in the U.S. economy have created an environment where policy makers and pundits scream for greater proximity to either the Japanese or the Irish approach. I would argue that the Japanese, American and Irish approaches all involve the same mistake. Obviously, the circumstances and options open to each nation are different. No nation can fix structural problems with cyclical approaches. When the old structure is seriously broken a new structure must be built. The other choice is to attempt to speed up or slow down the adjustment process. This is done by meddling to smooth the business cycle or bracing for impact. Massive doses of government spending can reduce pain and slow adjustment. This has been the Japanese approach. Harsh market medicine will make a shorter more savage correction. The Japanese style approaches risks by staying down longer. The Irish medicine risks mass suffering fueled by political instability and wounds that fester and cripple. The bigger point is that this does not have to be the path that we follow. We can try a third way. We can confront that the structure of the U.S. economy needs to be adjusted and use market intervention to ease and speed the arrival of new and sustainable economic arrangements. This is absolutely not what we have been doing. America needs to spend less, save more and generate jobs. This must be done with decreasing government spending and a shift in the nation’s tax burdens. Labor needs to pay less in taxes — to grow jobs and assist the recovery in middle class households. This means that capital and profit will have to pay more of the total bill. The more growth our structural shifts generates, the less the increase in tax burden and the less the reduction in government spending that will be required. We have to re-invest in education, infrastructure, health care, public goods and reducing national debt. The costs, results and sufferings of our present issues in health, education, infrastructure and transport shorten and lower our life standards. These shortcomings are also crippling our competitiveness. Spending in these areas — more importantly changing how these areas function — is not mutually exclusive with balancing budgets. In fact, we can’t balance the budget without confronting where our first place spending is not generating world-class results. Our economy is structurally unsound. That means we need to change a portion of how the economy functions. Ours is not a simple question of less or more state involvement — although that is what we hear from most folks — left, right and center. We need to shift what gets taxed more and what gets taxed less. We need to slowly shift back to a system where the vast middle class can get jobs that earn enough to live. America will not be as relatively rich as she was for most of the period since WWII. This will still be a rich country. Our middle class will need to spend less on private consumption than what was spent from 2002 to 2007. Our lives can still be better! This means more public goods and more savings. Public transit, parks, health care, education and community development enrich many more lives at much lower cost than private pools dug in behind unaffordable McMansions. It’s time to let go of the notion that all change means decline. It is time to concentrate on facilitating the structural evolution of the U.S. economy. If we don’t, we are in for years of stifling debate in a deep growth valley between the Japanese and Irish paths.

Read the full article →

Bob Samuels: Defending the Middle-Class: Why We Need Unions, Pensions, and Public Employees

September 13, 2010

Politicians and media pundits have joined the conservative effort to demonize unions, pensions, and public employees. In fact, if you landed on the planet today, you would think that the global financial meltdown was caused by greedy unionized public employees. Instead of blaming the super-wealthy for their huge gambling losses, there is a growing consensus claiming that the working poor and the downsized middle class are the cause of all of our problems. In the case of pensions for public employees, the popular sentiment is that these benefits will starve local and state governments, and so they should be eliminated or at least severely reduced. Leading the media frenzy against pensions is the misunderstanding of the cause and effects of unfunded pension liabilities. What no one seems to be saying is that due to the unethical and possibly illegal activities of Wall Street, most pension funds lost close to a third of their value in 2007 and 2008. While the banks and financial institutions were bailed out, no relief came to these pension funds, and new accounting rules forced public pensions to declare all of their present and future pension liabilities. However, we should remember that these liabilities do not have to be paid for today; in, fact, the pension liabilities cover the present and future retirement costs of all people in the system. Since reporters and the general public do not understand how pensions work, they are easily scared by what looks to be giant deficits. Furthermore, employers are using these huge numbers to get employees to accept reduced benefits, and the side effect of this scare tactic is that the public has turned on pensions, public employees, and unions. Unintentionally, the media, public employers, and the general public are playing into the hands of the wealthiest people in America who do not want to pay middle-class workers a decent wage with acceptable benefits. While it may be necessary to restructure pensions, it is important to stress that many employees have been contributing large parts of their salaries to ensure that they would have a viable income when they retired. Moreover, many employers have profited from being able to attract and retain workers earning reduced salaries because of the promised retirement packages. If these plans are not protected, not only will employers be breaking their promises, but more senior citizens will fall into poverty, which will present another drag on the economy through the reduction of consumer demand. Driving this attack on the middle class benefits and the working poor is the discovery by wealthy corporations and individuals that the best way for them to increase their earnings is to decrease the income and benefits of everyone else. In this move to concentrate wealth at the top, we find that nearly two-thirds of the income growth since 1979 has gone to the top 10 percent of US taxpayers. This tremendous concentration of wealth has been coupled with a decrease in tax rates for these wealthiest Americans, which in turn has resulted in giant state deficits and the reduction of needed social programs. If current trends continue, the top ten percent will continue to increase their earnings, while everyone else suffers. Of course, the great magic trick in all of this is that the Republican party has convinced many Americans that the real threat to their economic survival comes from the poor and the middle class. Perhaps no state better exemplifies this situation than California where the consolidation of wealth has surpassed the national average. Since these rich Californians are not paying their fair share of taxes, the state cannot support even its basic functions, and a huge deficit has resulted in massive budge cuts. Making matters worse is the law that requires a two-thirds supermajority to pass any budget or tax increase. The result is that even the Terminator cannot get a budget passed. To resolve this impasse, California is considering billionaire Meg Whitman for governor. Not only is she spending over a hundred million dollars of her own money on her campaign, but she is running on a very scary platform, which is basically to blame welfare for all of the states problems. Once again, we have the super wealthy blaming the poor for the problems in our economy. This is like a billionaire blaming her maid for the fall in her investment portfolio. Of course, Whitman, like so many other Republicans, also wants to attack unions, public employees, and pensions for our fiscal woes. She believes that we should replace defined benefit plans with defined contribution plans so that the next time the stock market tanks, everyone will lose all of their money. Whitman is as superficial as her commercials, and her only hope of winning is if she convinces workers and middle class people to vote according to their prejudices. What we need is a candidate who will stand up for workers, organized labor, and the middle class. Jerry Brown may not be the perfect candidate, but he does have a history of supporting rational policies that do not cater to the super wealthy. A key to this election will be the passing of Proposition 25, which allows a budget to be passed by the legislature with a simple majority vote. If Brown wins and Proposition 25 passes, California will be able to escape from its paralysis and start putting people back to work.

Read the full article →

Bob Samuels: Defending the Middle-Class: Why We Need Unions, Pensions, and Public Employees

September 13, 2010

Politicians and media pundits have joined the conservative effort to demonize unions, pensions, and public employees. In fact, if you landed on the planet today, you would think that the global financial meltdown was caused by greedy unionized public employees. Instead of blaming the super-wealthy for their huge gambling losses, there is a growing consensus claiming that the working poor and the downsized middle class are the cause of all of our problems. In the case of pensions for public employees, the popular sentiment is that these benefits will starve local and state governments, and so they should be eliminated or at least severely reduced. Leading the media frenzy against pensions is the misunderstanding of the cause and effects of unfunded pension liabilities. What no one seems to be saying is that due to the unethical and possibly illegal activities of Wall Street, most pension funds lost close to a third of their value in 2007 and 2008. While the banks and financial institutions were bailed out, no relief came to these pension funds, and new accounting rules forced public pensions to declare all of their present and future pension liabilities. However, we should remember that these liabilities do not have to be paid for today; in, fact, the pension liabilities cover the present and future retirement costs of all people in the system. Since reporters and the general public do not understand how pensions work, they are easily scared by what looks to be giant deficits. Furthermore, employers are using these huge numbers to get employees to accept reduced benefits, and the side effect of this scare tactic is that the public has turned on pensions, public employees, and unions. Unintentionally, the media, public employers, and the general public are playing into the hands of the wealthiest people in America who do not want to pay middle-class workers a decent wage with acceptable benefits. While it may be necessary to restructure pensions, it is important to stress that many employees have been contributing large parts of their salaries to ensure that they would have a viable income when they retired. Moreover, many employers have profited from being able to attract and retain workers earning reduced salaries because of the promised retirement packages. If these plans are not protected, not only will employers be breaking their promises, but more senior citizens will fall into poverty, which will present another drag on the economy through the reduction of consumer demand. Driving this attack on the middle class benefits and the working poor is the discovery by wealthy corporations and individuals that the best way for them to increase their earnings is to decrease the income and benefits of everyone else. In this move to concentrate wealth at the top, we find that nearly two-thirds of the income growth since 1979 has gone to the top 10 percent of US taxpayers. This tremendous concentration of wealth has been coupled with a decrease in tax rates for these wealthiest Americans, which in turn has resulted in giant state deficits and the reduction of needed social programs. If current trends continue, the top ten percent will continue to increase their earnings, while everyone else suffers. Of course, the great magic trick in all of this is that the Republican party has convinced many Americans that the real threat to their economic survival comes from the poor and the middle class. Perhaps no state better exemplifies this situation than California where the consolidation of wealth has surpassed the national average. Since these rich Californians are not paying their fair share of taxes, the state cannot support even its basic functions, and a huge deficit has resulted in massive budge cuts. Making matters worse is the law that requires a two-thirds supermajority to pass any budget or tax increase. The result is that even the Terminator cannot get a budget passed. To resolve this impasse, California is considering billionaire Meg Whitman for governor. Not only is she spending over a hundred million dollars of her own money on her campaign, but she is running on a very scary platform, which is basically to blame welfare for all of the states problems. Once again, we have the super wealthy blaming the poor for the problems in our economy. This is like a billionaire blaming her maid for the fall in her investment portfolio. Of course, Whitman, like so many other Republicans, also wants to attack unions, public employees, and pensions for our fiscal woes. She believes that we should replace defined benefit plans with defined contribution plans so that the next time the stock market tanks, everyone will lose all of their money. Whitman is as superficial as her commercials, and her only hope of winning is if she convinces workers and middle class people to vote according to their prejudices. What we need is a candidate who will stand up for workers, organized labor, and the middle class. Jerry Brown may not be the perfect candidate, but he does have a history of supporting rational policies that do not cater to the super wealthy. A key to this election will be the passing of Proposition 25, which allows a budget to be passed by the legislature with a simple majority vote. If Brown wins and Proposition 25 passes, California will be able to escape from its paralysis and start putting people back to work.

Read the full article →

Michael Pento: How Dr. Keynes Killed the Patient

August 18, 2010

A morbidly obese gentleman labored into Dr. Hayek’s office suffering from severe chest pain. The patient also complained that he was unable to consume his usual 10,000 calorie-per-day diet; in fact, he was feeling so sick that he could barely scarf down 9,000 calories. He plead that his love for food remained as strong as ever, but his body just wasn’t keeping up with his demands. After having a thorough look at the patient, the good doctor could not find anything wrong outside of the patient’s extreme portliness. After a moment of reflection, he delivered to his patient a troubling diagnosis. He explained that the chest pain stemmed from the strain the patient’s 500lb body was putting on his heart, and that the lack of appetite was his body’s attempt to protect itself from this imbalance. Dr. Hayek’s prescription was simple: the patient had to dramatically reduce his consumption while undertaking a moderate exercise program, with the goal of losing 250lbs as quickly and safely as possible. Dr. Hayek was aware that it would be a physically painful and emotionally difficult process for the man, but it was the only way to avert a life of suffering – or even a heart attack. Unfortunately, our patient rebelled against such an austere program. He had grown very fond of his high-calorie and high-fat diet and didn’t think that now, when he was already depressed from dealing with all these ailments, was a good time to deny himself the few pleasures he had left. In his opinion, the doc’s prescription was just too simplistic. He thought there just had to be a way to have his cake and eat it – frequently. So, he waddled out of Dr. Hayek’s office as fast as he could, shouting over his shoulder: “I’m getting a second opinion!” The overweight gentleman sauntered across the street, where he found the office of Dr. Keynes. He told the new doctor about his acute chest pain and lack of appetite, and complained about the previous doctor’s “heartless” prescription. After a cursory examination, Dr. Keynes rendered his diagnosis: the patient’s condition did not stem from the fact that his gigantic frame was causing undo strain on his heart; instead, the doctor concluded, the patient’s chest pain was merely causing a temporary lack of hunger. Furthermore, Dr. Keynes argued, the stress of cutting weight at the present time would certainly prove detrimental to the man’s already weak heart. Therefore, his prescription was for the 500lb man to each as much as possible, as quickly as possible. Anything less might cause the man to suffer a heart attack, he noted. Now the doctor did concede that, at some point in the distant future, it might be a good idea for the man to shed a few pounds. But for the present, the most import thing to do would be to consume as much as he could stomach. The patient left Dr. Keynes’ office with a broad smile. After gorging at an all-you-can-eat buffet, he momentarily forgot about his chest pain. It looked like he had found his solution; except, a week later, he died. The Hubris of Government The allegory above discusses the dangers of quackery, whether medical or economic. Right now, economic quackery – in the form of Keynesianism – has overtaken Washington. American consumers are trying their best to deleverage. In terms of the story, the patient is actually trying to lose weight. But the government is blocking deleveraging and trying to boost consumption. They are forcing food down the patient’s throat. According to the Flow of Funds Report, households reduced debt at a 2.4% annualized rate ($330 billion) during Q1 of 2010. Meanwhile, the federal government was piling on debt at an 18.5% annual rate ($1.44 trillion). Since every dollar of government debt is a promise to tax the private sector in the future with interest, this public spending spree effectively negated the Herculean efforts of the private sector to return to a sustainable path. That’s where the arrogance of Washington is really apparent. Scores of millions of American consumers have made the decision that reducing their debt burden is in their best interests right now. But a few hundred individuals in government believe they know better than the collective wisdom of the entire free market. By leveraging up the public sector, they have used their power to confiscate our savings. In short, they are forbidding us from following the common sense path to fiscal health. Unlike their forbears, modern-day Keynesians do not argue just for mollification in the rate of deleveraging. They seek to significantly increase debt levels in an effort to boost the aggregate demand in the economy. Apparently, only once the mythical recovery takes hold due to government spending, printing, and borrowing does a discussion of deficits become appropriate. The US has persisted under this theory for close to a century. Curiously, the world has yet to fully recognize our precarious condition, even as they provide us with life support. Washington is now entirely dependent on the reserve currency status of the dollar and the continued hibernation of bond vigilantes. Without these supports, the United States would face complete economic arrest. Rather than allowing the American people to get back on our feet, Washington is stuffing us with even more debt. It’s almost as if the feds are daring our foreign creditors to pull the plug. As a consequence, I predict that just as Dr. Keynes killed his patient, Keynesian economics will kill our economy. Michael Pento is the Senior Economist for Euro Pacific Capital

Read the full article →

NexGen Digital Opens Second U.S. Office to Serve San Francisco and Silicon Valley Markets

July 27, 2010

New Hire Veary Os Will Present NexGen Digital’s Quality Assurance Anti-Counterfeit Detection Processes to Support OEMs and Contract Manufacturers in Procurement

Read the full article →

Amarantus Therapeutics Inc. Appoints Dr. Robert J. Zimmerman as Chief Development Officer

May 24, 2010

Company to Present at the C21 BioVentures Conference on Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 10:30AM PDT

Read the full article →

USD/JPY: Downturn to Present Long Entry Setup

May 14, 2010

USD/JPY: Downturn to Present Long Entry Setup

Read the full article →

Owen Hegarty (G-Resources Group HKG:1051) to Present at Melbourne Symposium Wednesday 17th March, 2010

March 18, 2010

Owen Hegarty (G-Resources Group HKG:1051) to Present at Melbourne Symposium Wednesday 17th March, 2010

Read the full article →

Shopping Center Execs Voice Improving Confidence Despite Major Challenges

March 10, 2010

The International Council of Shopping Centers’ (ICSC) latest Shopping Center Executive Survey showed that shopping center executives’ confidence in the present economic situation and expectations for the future, while muted, are better and improving….

Read the full article →

The Volcker Rule & AIG: Hedge Funds, Prop Desks Are Not The Problem

January 24, 2010

There are certain basic things that the investor must realize today. In the first place, he must recognize the weakness of his individual position… [T]he growth of investors from the comparative few of a generation ago to the millions of the present day has made it a practical impossibility for the individual investor to know what is occurring in the affairs of the corporation in which he has an interest.

Read the full article →

HearAtLast Announces New Board of Directors

December 29, 2009

MISSISSAUGA, ON–(Marketwire – December 29, 2009) – HearAtLast Holdings, Inc. ( PINKSHEETS : HRAL ), a leading provider of suitable affordable solutions to clients with hearing needs in the billion dollar hearing loss market, today announced the Company has assembled a new Board of Directors to lead HearAtlast into 2010. Since its formation of their Advisory Board on June 30, 2009, the present Advisory Board will make up the new HearAtLast Board of Directors along with the addition of Janice Parente as a new member to the Board.

Read the full article →

Dan Agin: Book Review: Giant Molecules: From Nylon to Nanotubes

December 12, 2009

When the history of chemistry is written a thousand years from now, the 20th century will no doubt be marked as the century of giant molecules (macromolecules) in industry, the century in which the properties of giant molecules were first seriously studied and applied to technology and commerce. Most certainly, the importance of giant molecules in industry will be amplified in the present 21st century. In plain English, take giant molecules out of our lives and our present civilization would quickly collapse. But there’s another 20th century marker. Above all, in the 20th century giant molecules became the central feature of the application of chemistry to biological science. What happened in the 20th century was that the puzzle of life, which had passed from philosophers to theologians to zoologists, finally passed to chemists. Life, as we now understand it, is a phenomenon in the chemistry of giant molecules. It’s jarring, of course: so many millions of words in old books have become irrelevant. A giant molecule is not merely an arithmetic agglomeration of small molecules stuck together. Put a million monomers together to form a polymer, and you can easily have an entity whose properties are not predictable from the properties of the monomer–an entity with new properties of vast importance in chemistry, biology, physics, and technology. DNA is a giant molecule. The polymers of plastics are giant molecules. Nanotubes are giant molecules. There will be giant molecules in the 21st century that we haven’t even imagined yet. And after the 21st century, who knows? Science and technology do not stop. One provokes the other, new science provoking new technology that provokes new science that provokes new technology and so on, the interacting spiral unpredictable–and with unpredictable transformations of our daily life. One of the most fascinating properties of some giant molecules is their ability to self-organize–to form solid or hollow spheres, sheets, tubes, sol/gel transformers, thermoplastic structures, all of them with a whole variety of emergent chemical and physical properties. Self-organizing polymeric domains are of considerable interest in materials science, and are essential for the existence of biological systems. Biological materials exhibit special physical or chemical functions as a result of special shapes or conformations that result from self-assembly. To act as enzymes, for example, proteins require specific amino acid sequences that result in specific foldings and conformational arrangements, the end product providing a “docking” site whose interaction with a transition state entity catalyzes a particular reaction. Biological self-organizing polymers such as proteins and nucleic acids are much more complicated than the self-organizing polymers known to polymer chemists outside biochemistry, and a recent trend is for polymer chemists to look to the data on self-organizing biological macromolecules for hints about special synthetic innovations. Given the importance of giant molecules in science, medicine, technology, and commerce, accessible information about giant molecules is important to the public interest. Walter Gratzer, a British biophysicist, presents a fascinating new book about giant molecules–their history, their chemistry, their use in technology. It’s a fine introduction to giant molecules, but especially fine for people in the general business world. The book is readable and the author is fully aware that giant molecules have been transformative for commerce. In addition, the focus of the book is on giant molecules in present and future technology–which should make the book required reading for any serious enterprising industrialist. Walter Gratzer. Giant Molecules: From Nylon to Nanotubes. Oxford University Press, 2009.

Read the full article →

Nelson Davis: The Call to Service

November 24, 2009

Business owners and entrepreneurs are very proactive people, which is one of the critical keys for a high level of success. Conversely, I believe that career politicians are tragically reactive, and that kind of behavior has left us in a mess. There was a time when their calling cards said that they specialized in fixing the messes, but today, the problems loom larger, and their abilities seem to have shrunk. These are times in which being only reactive is a very poor strategy and can be dangerous to an entire nation’s future. With our cities, states, and indeed the entire country in some level of crisis right now, I feel that the call must go out to seasoned business leaders who have a new and critically necessary role to play. I want those men and women to recognize our present difficulties as a loud and irresistible call to service. In the late 19th century and throughout the 20th century, when we found ourselves up the mythical creek without a paddle, it has been the private sector forming a posse to rescue the politicians, not the reverse. Whether it is the dysfunctional legislature in California or the dollar damaging spending in Washington, we really are a country searching for capable leadership and a way forward. As a business owner, I believe that clear goals provide the road map for any successful venture. Right now America needs some clearly articulated goals infused with inspired leadership. Have you recently heard any senior level politician lay out a list of real goals and strategies for us? What do we stand for, and what do we need to do to bring benefits to our country and the world? Even the smallest of businesses have to answer those questions if long term survival and prosperity is to be theirs. The natural laws of the universe apply equally to individuals, enterprises, and countries. When America was born, most of the founding fathers were business owners operating enterprises such as farming, import-export, and manufacturing. They learned hard and practical lessons in self reliance without the benefit of safety nets. These were the people who signed the declaration of independence and formed the scraggly legislative body that battled over where to establish our national capitol. Because they had businesses to run, hammering out legislation in Washington was a part time job. They took the lessons of business to Washington and the lessons of the capitol back home to their civic and business lives. The fact that we still exist as a nation lets us know it worked pretty well that way. I think the simmering anger and disappointment that seems pervasive in our country today can be traced back to an acute leadership vacuum. We have a surplus of politicians but a shortage of leaders who can get the necessary things done. In these confusing times I’m thrilled to see people of proven business abilities throwing themselves into the hurricane that running for office has become. A few weeks ago, while in New York, I saw Mayor Michael Bloomberg campaigning in the city’s Columbus Day parade and was reminded that he’s perhaps the most visible example of what I hope is a new movement: successful entrepreneurs who want to serve in elected office and relish the idea of tackling the big problems, those that have politicians cowering and dithering. The financial crises at all levels of government are revealing a horror list of just how poorly the pure politicians have done by failing to develop any long term strategy and hiding from hard decisions. Here in the tarnished golden state, ex business executives Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina have slipped on their pumps and begun running for office. I’m impressed not by their particular party affiliations, but by the fact that they don’t really need the job, and yet they are willing to trod the grueling path to elective office anyway. Surely there are other smart, capable, and accomplished entrepreneurs and senior executives around the country who care enough to make the Power Point pitch of their lives seeking to be elected! To me that is one of the highest forms of public service. Years ago I met Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau and instantly liked him a lot. I discovered that he was independently wealthy and that fact seemed to free him to make key decisions and lead without reading political polling data first. He showed no fear in taking on unions and other entrenched groups. That was a light bulb turning on for me. I’m reminded of historic notes on how America was able to mount a supreme effort during World War II when our armed forces and those of our allies simply didn’t have the equipment to win. The much revered President Roosevelt called upon industrialists such as Henry J. Kaiser, Henry Ford, and others to quickly turn their factories to shipbuilding and manufacturing tanks for the war effort. He knew they could reduce mountainous obstacles to mere nuisances. Kaiser created an unprecedented assembly line whereby ships could be constructed in less than five days. With Ford’s help the USA produced more tanks in WW2 than any other country, 60973; Russia, 54500; UK, 23202; Germany, 19926. These business owners changed much about America in less than two years. It wasn’t the legislative bodies. Right now key infrastructures such as air traffic control are shaky and crumbling, social services programs are basically broke, and we have young men and women in distant lands fighting undefined wars. Add to that the decline of the American dollar, banks that are “too big to fail,” and the very long list feels punishing. Doesn’t this all point to the need for a corps of experienced, butt kicking practical business people who know that getting it done is the only route to survival? The entrepreneurial spirit that brought us greatness in the first place can still be found across the country. It is time to harness that force to recalibrate large chunks of our present life. President John F. Kennedy got it right when he threw down the ultimate call to service. “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.” For more small business resources and to view past blogs, visit www.MakingItTV.com .

Read the full article →

Video: Commodity to Watch – Copper

October 9, 2009

Copper Mine in Mongolia Might Present Issues Due to Rio Tinto’s Strained China Ties (Bloomberg News)

Read the full article →

Climate Talks End in Bangkok With Dispute Over Abandoning Kyoto Agreement

October 8, 2009

By Daniel Ten Kate and Alex Morales Oct. 9 (Bloomberg) — United Nations climate talks among more than 180 nations end today in Bangkok with envoys disputing whether to preserve or replace the Kyoto accord, the only existing global climate-protection agreement. Developing countries yesterday said the European Union was trying to abandon Kyoto. That was spurred by an EU proposal to borrow elements from the 1997 pact and put them into a new international agreement. “The EU and others are moving to somehow kill the Kyoto Protocol , something that we could not accept as G77, as developing countries,” Mohammad Al Sabban, Saudi Arabia’s lead negotiator, said in an interview yesterday in Bangkok. EU officials discounted the assertion. Discord between the G-77, a group of 130 developing nations, and industrialized nations in the UN-led talks center on whether the Kyoto agreement should be extended or replaced with a new treaty that may appeal more to the U.S., which refused to ratify Kyoto because it gave no restrictions for developing nations. The Kyoto accord forces 37 developed nations to respect greenhouse-gas targets and penalizes them for exceeding their caps. Nations including Spain, Italy and Japan are headed to miss their targets. The UN aims to reach an agreement in Copenhagen in December. The discussions are split in two tracks: one to set new targets for developed countries to take after 2012 under the Kyoto pact, and another to lay out what the U.S. and developing countries will do, as they don’t have existing goals. The EU proposed unifying the two sets of talks into a “single legal outcome of the Copenhagen meeting,” Anders Turesson , Sweden’s chief climate negotiator, who speaks on behalf of the EU, said today in an interview from Bangkok. “All the basic elements of the Kyoto Protocol would be included.” Wrapping the Present Yvo de Boer , the UN’s climate chief, said negotiators should focus more on the substance of the eventual agreement, rather than the “packaging.” “There’s an awful lot of talk here about merging tracks, about abandoning the Kyoto protocol, which to me is a bit like arguing about the wrapping paper to go around the present you have yet to go out and buy,” said de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the agency that oversees global climate regulations. Industrialized countries are trying to force poorer countries to make commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to help pay for the effects of warming in a new accord, actions not envisioned by Kyoto, Saudi Arabia’s Al Sabban said. ‘Race to the Bottom’ “An attempt to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a new framework would be counterproductive,” Lumumba Di-Aping , a Sudanese negotiator who speaks on behalf of the G-77, told reporters in Bangkok. “What needs to happen is that those who are committed, the European Union, Australia, Japan, the rest of developed countries, need to rise up to the challenge rather than race to the bottom with the United States.” The U.S. has said it’ll cut emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020, a target developing nations say doesn’t go far enough. The U.S. has also said developing countries need to include in any international treaty their domestic pledges to boost energy efficiency, reduce deforestation and slash emissions. “We expect them to stand behind those actions the way we stand behind ours and reflect them in this international agreement with a willingness to be transparent about them,” Jonathan Pershing , the negotiator for the U.S., said last week. The claims of abandoning Kyoto were turned away by the EU. EU Defense “We’re not trying to kill Kyoto at all,” said Tony Carritt , a spokesman for the EU negotiating team, by phone from Bangkok. “We want to integrate Kyoto into whatever is agreed to in Copenhagen,” site of the final meetings for devising the treaty under a UN-set deadline in December. Developing countries and environmental campaign groups have said they don’t want to abandon Kyoto because the treaty ensures developed countries take the lead in making costly emissions cuts. It also requires them to help poorer nations adapt to climate change. “We think this is a high-risk strategy to call for a single protocol at this moment of the negotiation, because it’s not at all clear you can keep the key components of the old protocol in a new one,” Martin Kaiser , coordinator of climate politics for environmental advocate Greenpeace, said today in a telephone interview form Bangkok. Kaiser said a new protocol would have to be agreed by all countries, including the U.S. That would make it harder to get agreement on compliance mechanisms that are already enshrined in Kyoto, he said. To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net ; Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok at dtenkate@bloomberg.net .

Read the full article →

Lackman Commercial Group Addresses Commercial Real Estate Distress and Opportunities (PRWeb via Yahoo! News)

September 30, 2009

Colleen Canale, MBA, and Tom Lackman CPA (ret) to Present “The Distress Deluge: What Commercial Brokers Need to do to Prepare and Profit”

Read the full article →

Opportunities Await Those Who Think Ahead

September 22, 2009

no illusions that the commercial market is on the verge of revving back up to its 2007 velocity, real estate attorney David C. believes the upcoming opportunities will be enjoyed first by those who think ahead rather than focus on the present. As a case

Read the full article →

U.K. Consumer Confidence Climbs to the Highest Level in More Than a Year

September 9, 2009

By Jennifer Ryan Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) — U.K. consumer confidence rose to the highest level in more than a year in August as signs mounted that the economy is emerging from the worst recession in a generation, Nationwide Building Society said. An index of sentiment rose to 63, the highest since May 2008, from 61 in July, Britain’s biggest customer-owned lender said in an e-mailed statement today. TNS questioned 1,000 people for Nationwide from July 20 to Aug. 23. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research said yesterday that the economy has started growing again, and a separate report today signaled the first improvement in the labor market for 17 months. The Bank of England will tomorrow probably stick to its plan to keep spending newly printed money as policy makers try to entrench the recovery, economists say. “Consumers are beginning to feel more positive not only about the future, but also about the present situation,” Martin Gahbauer , chief economist at Nationwide, said in the statement. “A number of key economic indicators continue to show that we may have reached the bottom of the current recessionary cycle.” A measure of Britons’ assessment of their present situation rose 1 point to 17, and a gauge of willingness to spend increased to 97 from 96, the report showed. Nationwide’s index of future expectations increased 3 points to 94. Gross domestic product increased 0.2 percent in the three months through August, compared with a decline of 0.3 percent in the three months through July, Niesr, whose clients include the central bank, said yesterday. That’s the first time GDP has risen since the quarter through May 2008. Labor Market The labor market, where unemployment reached a 14-year high in the second quarter, may be showing signs of improvement, according to a separate report today by KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Federation. Their measure of hiring for permanent jobs rose to 50.6 last month from 46.1 in July. That’s the first result above 50, signaling expansion, since March 2008. The threat of deflation may convince policy makers to keep up their measures to stoke economic growth. Average U.K. shop prices fell 0.1 percent in August from a year earlier, the first annual decline since February 2007, according to a report released today by the British Retail Consortium. The bank will leave the benchmark interest rate at a record low of 0.5 percent tomorrow, according to all 60 economists in a Bloomberg News survey . All 35 forecasts in another survey are for no change in the 175 billion pounds ($290 billion) total that the bank plans to spend in U.K. debt markets with newly printed money. To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer Ryan in London at Jryan13@bloomberg.net

Read the full article →

Ned Goldreyer: Walking the Last Mile to Recovery

August 4, 2009

Hours of highly focused circular logic uncorrupted by the distractions of research or informed discussion have at last revealed the answer to our present fiscalamity.

Read the full article →