stream(news.feed.keyword)

News feed with keyword search:
currency,
africa economy,
real disposable income
africa mobile phone
oil
greek financial
US debt restructuring mortgage
china consumer confidence

News feeds from sites:
SPIEGEL ONLINE - International (german)
RIA Novosti (russian)
NY Times - Home
BBC News - Home
World - Google

stream(currency.real disposable income)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16695133

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16676222

IMF boss Christine Lagarde

She also said the European Central Bank should "provide the necessary liquidity support to stabilise bank funding and sovereign debt markets."
And she repeated her view that "across-the-board, across-the continent, budgetary cuts will only add to recessionary pressures".

//debts not going away anytime soon.//

http://news.investors.com/Article/598411/201201201552/per-capita-income-falls-over-five-years.htm

//this article says nothing! income inequality since 1980s please! Need comparison, and specific income across income quintiles please to actually see the disparity, instead of "hiding" it in per-capita. This overall average is of course down in this recession times. Am I missing something here?//

http://www.gamespot.com/news/microsoft-phasing-out-virtual-currency-system-6349074

//fake money already exist. Hallo?! credit cards!//

stream(credit agency)

##Fitch.Moody.S&P500
>query: Who are these agencies and how much trust can we put into their analysis?

stream(South-Africa.economy.currency)

 ##.january.2012
//Global debt investors favor SA bonds almost as much as "safe" US bonds. An indication of growth of SA or decline of US?
http://www.fin24.com/Economy/More-bad-news-for-SA-from-Fitch-20120115

Treasury last week had no difficulty in disposing offshore of $1.5bn worth of government bonds with a 12-year maturity. The auction attracted bids worth $3bn and the bonds were sold at a 4.66% rate of return.
This rate was only 270 basis points higher than that investors receive on US government bonds with a 10-year maturity.
This means that investors require only 2.7 percentage points more in interest than that offered by US bonds – which are regarded as a safe haven – to lend the South African government money.
Henk Viljoen, head of fixed-interest investments at Stanlib, says the return is considerably lower than the rates Spain and Italy have to pay.
“As South Africans, we can pat ourselves on the back that we can now borrow at rates that compete with the yields from countries we have always looked up to.”

##.january.2012
//US transnational company.profits funnel back to US.
//Do profits "trickle down" to help rebuild SA's infrastructure? Education?

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/584.php

>random correlation: WalMart entering South Africa ->query: Why could it not enter Germany?

stream(Guatemala.poverty.violence.drug-trade)

##.january.2012.bbc-news
//new president.poverty.drug-trade driving violence.US cocaine use driving violence.US policy of stability without investments in infrastructure. Stability only to enable predatory nature of capitalism. Where is the trickle-down effect in Guatemala?
//US cocaine use.Mexican drug cartels.violence.Guatemala corridor.violence.Market forces are strong. Main driving force is US drug consumption.
>query: if we believe in capitalism, then how due we change DEMAND. We have been futilely fighting SUPPLY with not much effort in DEMAND.
>solution: NOT JAIL TIME but large fines! If caught using cocaine, then lean on pay, (ie a drug tax!)
>association query: why always this focus on SUPPLY side economics?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-16563638

Guatemala has one of the highest murder rates in the world, with much of the violence blamed on criminal street gangs.
Its security forces have been battling against the rising influence of Mexico's powerful drugs cartels, who use it as a corridor for smuggling South American cocaine.
Mr Perez Molina, who leads the right-wing Patriotic Party, campaigned on a promise to restore security with an "iron fist" approach

//iron fist like Bashar? no. constitutional limit. If Molina is partially successful, will he try to change constitution so he can stay in power.
//irrational culture-of-personality: "only I can lead the country out of crisis"

stream(oil.Iran.China.sanctions.nuclear-proliferation))

##.february.2012
//Iran preemptive smack! But as you can see, France and UK are not the biggest importers anyways//
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17089953

(taken from BBC, which was taken from US EIA)

 

##.january.2012.bbc-news
//sanctions.oil: threat+Iran.nuclear.destabilizing.middle-east;
//sanctions.oil: threat.side-effect+China.energy.continued.economic.growth.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-16565563

The US said on Thursday Zhuhai Zhenrong was one of three international firms to be punished for dealing with Iran.

Later on Saturday, Beijing denounced Washington's decision to punish Zhuhai Zhenrong.
"Imposing sanctions on a Chinese company based on a domestic (US) law is totally unreasonable and does not conform to the spirit or content of the UN Security Council resolutions about the Iran nuclear issue," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said.

 //doesn't China have veto power in UN Security Council resolutions? And Russia?

Washington has accused Zhuhai Zhenrong of being the largest supplier of refined petroleum products to Iran.
The US state department said the sanctions - preventing the firms from receiving US export licences, US Export Import Bank financing or any loans over $10m from US financial institutions - were part of efforts to persuade Iran to rein in its nuclear ambitions.

The sanctions on Iranian oil exports are of particular concern to China, which is under pressure to secure enough energy supplies to keep its economy going.
Iran is currently China's third largest supplier of oil, followed by Angola and Saudi Arabia.

 "If the oil producing nations on the Persian Gulf decide to substitute Iran's oil, then they will be held responsible for what happens," he added, in the Sharq newspaper's report.

 >query: what EXACTLY will happen? Iran currently does not have nuclear weapons...

##.january.2012.old blog.
//i was thinking about this in 2006.Forbes article.randomly found while testing Googles blog search.//

http://spaceslices.blogspot.com/2006/02/iranian-govnt-shrewd-or-idiots.html

//i should copy the content, because the links are never permanent! like this one. it is gone.#query: AI short term memory?//

stream(Pakistan.middle-east.stability)

##.january.2012.bbc-news
//kin-self vs. community.Islam.God
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16567052

In recent years, there have been a number of bomb blasts and shootings targeting the minority Shia community, carried out by Sunni militants.

stream(Iraq.middle-east)

#notes.//

2012015.
>push.news.BBC.//Iraq city of Ramadi hit by attacks on police station

It is early still. Again, like Syria, Muslims killing Muslims. Kin-self vs Community.greater-self.God
query: how to stop the violence with force? Unrealistic?

The AFP news agency quoted two police officers, speaking on condition of anonymity, as saying that two car bombs went off near the Dawlah Kabir Mosque in central Ramadi at around 11:30 local time (08:30 GMT).

A third car bomb also went off in the city centre, and a fourth car bomb detonated near the police building a short while later.

Two suicide bombers then blew themselves up inside the building before armed insurgents moved in.

Clashes were continuing into the afternoon, the officers said.

stream(Dutch.violence.repressed)

##
//aggregate here from FB. Goog&FB will integrate. Also Tw

//Dutch movie.#FB.#Shane comments.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdlxHmmCxKA
//Dutch Catholic sexual abuse.#FB.#Chou comment.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16216174
//Dutch serial killer.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/joran-van-der-sloot-pleads-guilty-2010-peru/story?id=15340249

stream(Syria.2012.middle-east)

##.february.2012
//Business leader says government is in Catch-22 and has about 6 months before collapse, and that sanctions are also destroying the economy. Therefore, when Bashar is gone, the international community is responsible for rebuilding the infrastructure/economy which was collateral damage in this hardball diplomacy. The trick is to help without appearing to influence the eventual choice of the Syrian people, who of course will also be divided.//
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17088270

Faisal al-Qudsi, the son of a former Syrian president, told the BBC the military action could only last six months and then there would be "millions of people on the streets".

Mr Qudsi now chairs a London-based investment banking firm and has been heavily involved in private sector investment in Syria.

He said the military phase against protesters could only last another six months "because the army is getting tired and will go nowhere".

"They will have to sit and talk or at least they have to stop killing. And the minute they stop killing, more millions of people will be on the streets. So they are in a Catch 22."

##.january.2012.bbc-news
//crisis continues. Bashar will not let go.
>query: is outside military invention good? even if Arab?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16565567

On Saturday, the ruler of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, said Arab countries should send troops into Syria to end the bloodshed.

"For such a situation to stop the killing... some troops should go to stop the killing," he told US television channel CBS for a programme to be aired on Sunday.

It is the first time an Arab leader has publicly called for military intervention in Syria.

##
//bbc guide
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13855203

//really Bashar?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16483548

President Assad's speech, broadcast live from Damascus University, was his third televised address since protests against his rule began in March, and lasted nearly two hours.
"Regional and international sides have tried to destabilise the country," he said.
"Our priority now is to regain the security in which we basked in for decades, and this can only be achieved by hitting the terrorists with an iron fist.
"We will not be lenient with those who work with outsiders against the country."

stream(human.empathy.aggression.evolution)

##
>association:
//role of empathy. empathic drive
http://youtu.be/l7AWnfFRc7g

//the role of aggression, us vs them innate in our biology. Jared Diamond: The Third Chimpanzee, and Gun, Steel and Germs.//
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Diamond
http://www.amazon.com/Jared-Diamond/e/B000AQ01ZS

//religion can be used for both. complex nature of us: cooperativity.mutualism.empathy vs aggression.self.kin vs all others are bad (and for most of our evolution this is a good rule of thumb for survival!)
//Christopher Hitchens thinks religion, for the most part, drives this aggression, nonempathic nature of us. Partly right.
http://youtu.be/mQorzOS-F6w

>conclusion: we are a complex, balancing duality.

Books (2008 - 2011)

//I guess its been awhile since I listed the books I've read.

2008
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff's, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore's

2009
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer
Of Mice & Men (again) by John Steinbeck

2010
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge

2011
The Drunkard’s Walk by Leonard Mlodinow
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in the Markets and in Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
Kiln People by David Brin
The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Squirrel meets Chipmunk by David Sedaris

stream(Germany.energy.wind.offshoring)

##.january.2012.der Spiegel
//nuclear offshoring because of slow wind development

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,805505,00.html

stream(global.warming.climate.change)

##
//quick primers for skeptics

http://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/11/08/362108/study-simultaneous-warming-of-hemispheres-climate-change/

stream(Germany.neo-nazi)

##
>prediction: As economic conditions deteriorate, the old dynamics starts again.
/*(old dynamics): highly nationalistic people who have been marginalized by their nation revert to violence to express their anger at being marginalized.  In this case, there are very good reasons why they have been marginalized. Everything repeats but what is the new wrinkle? What are we missing in this reiteration? How do we minimize the threat without marginalizing the people.*/

>random correlation: A Clockwork Orange.
//that is not the solution!

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,797569,00.html

At first, there was little to distinguish the three Thuringia residents from so many other young people in the states of the former East Germany who drifted into the right-wing extremist scene after German reunification.

 Zschäpe was born in 1975 and grew up in a drab, prefabricated apartment building in the eastern city of Jena. Böhnhardt, three years younger than Zschäpe, was a construction worker who was often out of work. Mundlos, born in 1973, was the son of a professor and had originally planned to obtain the Abitur, the German school-leaving certificate that is required to enter university.

Mundlos enrolled at the Ilmenau College in Thuringia in 1995 to complete his high-school education and get the Abitur. Former fellow students describe him as "ambitious and hard-working" and say that he was particularly strong in physics and mathematics. But his habits seemed odd to them. He always wore "black, uniform-like clothing." They also say that there was a self-drawn portrait of Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, tucked away in the back corner of the desk in his room at a Christian student dormitory. Mundlos apparently went to see his far-right friends in Jena whenever he could.

 //Does this sound like some American's? USA is going to shit. I don't have a job, but I have a gun.

Stream(currency.France.China.Iran.Iraq)

##.january.2012.currency
//the Euro will get stronger?
>qeury: Who is Fitch? =>FB.note

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/31/us-euro-noyer-idUSTRE7BU0FO20111231

The euro could become the world's leading currency in the next decade if leaders of the single-currency bloc succeed in tightening fiscal integration, European Central Bank policymaker Christian Noyer

Ratings agency Fitch has said it doubts a comprehensive solution to the crisis can be found and urged more decisive action from the ECB.

>random correlation = Christian Noyer is also governor of the Bank of France

##.january.2012.currency
//prediction(2012.jn): Renminbi floats in five years.
//prediction(2012.jn): It will take more than five years to modernized China's banking system.
//conclusion: dissonance 
>query: what are the odds for the two scenarios?



http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2012/01/01/china-says-yuan-will-be-fully-convertible-soon/ 

##.january.2012.iran.nuclear proliferation.regime-change.diplomacy 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/02/iran-currency-plunges-us-sanction

Reflecting possible fears about liquidity and the flight of hard currency, Iran over the past few months has restricted cash withdrawals and only allows those travelling abroad to take $2,000 a year.US sanctions already forbid imports of Iranian oil. France is pressing the EU to follow suit. Iran sells large volumes to China, India, South Korea and Japan but Italy, Spain and Greece are also big importers and an EU embargo would pile further pressure on the Iranian economy.

//random correlation: France pressuring ->query: Why not Germany?

##.january.2012.India.Iraq
//fake currency in India.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/400-percent-rise-in-fake-currency-circulation-finmin-report/articleshow/11499047.cms

The STRs, which gave rise to a reasonable ground of suspicion that the transaction may involve the proceeds of crime or financing of activities related to terrorism or were made in circumstances of unusual complexity, increased three times in 2010-11 as compared to 10,067 in 2009-10 fiscal.

The FIU report, submitted recently to the Finance Ministry, stated that "private Indian banks contributed majority of CCRs".

//currency trading.making money on sanctions.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-12/iraq-deplores-currency-attack-as-dollars-flow-to-syria-iran.html

Iraq’s central bank said it’s under a “currency attack” as traders buy U.S. dollars in daily auctions and resell them on the black market in Syria and Iran, which face hard currency shortages due to sanctions.
Demand for the greenback at the central bank auctions has risen since November to about $200 million to $300 million a day, compared with about $160 million in the prior 12 months, the deputy central bank governor, Mudher Salih, said in an interview in Baghdad Jan. 10.