Archive for the 'Economy' Category
Texas University Takes Delivery of Nearly $1 Billion in Gold Bars; Vaulting it in New York
April 17th, 2011That’s a lot of shiny. Which other funds are going to ask COMEX to cough it up? Via: Bloomberg: The University of Texas Investment Management Co., the second-largest U.S. academic endowment, took delivery of almost $1 billion in gold bullion and is storing the bars in a New York vault, according to the fund’s board. […]
7 Million Afghans Will Go Hungry Without Aid
April 17th, 2011In other news: Afghanistan: U.S. Spends $20 Billion Per Year for Air Conditioning in Tents Via: Reuters: The United Nations warned on Friday of a looming food aid shortage in Afghanistan that could leave more than 7 million people hungry unless it received urgent cash donations of over $250 million to buy more supplies. Most […]
Jingle Mail: Morgan Stanley Failed to Make $3.3 Billion Debt Payment by Friday Deadline, Handed Over Keys to Central Tokyo Office Building to Blackstone; Largest Ever Repayment Failure of Its Kind in Japan
April 17th, 2011Via: Reuters: A Morgan Stanley property fund failed to make $3.3 billion in debt payments by a deadline on Friday, handing over the keys to a central Tokyo office building to Blackstone (BX.N) and other investors, the largest repayment failure of its kind in Japan. It marks the latest fallout from a series of highly […]
U.S. Meat Widely Contaminated with Drug-Resistant Bacteria
April 16th, 2011Via: Los Angeles Times: Meat in the U.S. may be widely contaminated with strains of drug-resistant bacteria, researchers reported Friday after testing 136 samples of beef, chicken, pork and turkey purchased at grocery stores. Nearly half of the samples — 47% — contained strains of Staphylococcus aureus, the type of bacteria that most commonly causes […]
Belarus: Central Bank Halts Sales of Gold for Roubles
April 15th, 2011This is what the beast looks like when the mask finally comes off. Via: Reuters: Belarus’ central bank has stopped selling gold to local retail customers for Belarussian roubles, it said on Friday, after demand for precious metals soared due to expectations of a currency devaluation. The bank did not explain its decision. Belarus is […]
BRICS Take Aim at Dollar
April 15th, 2011The U.S. Dollar Index has not yet crossed into the crisis territory that I wrote about recently, but here’s what I thought might happen if it does: I’d say that capital controls, some kind of IMF SDR (Special Drawing Rights) ‘Global Reserve’ confetti bucks, and a global financial crisis management organization, like the IMF on […]
Google Trades Down Over 5% in After Hours on Earnings Miss
April 14th, 2011WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. After hours GOOG: 546.70, -31.81 (-5.50%). That’s down through the 200 day moving average which is currently at 559.09. The chart has looked like shit on a stick since February. I’d say continuation lower is a strong possibility, with some sucker […]
China Foreign Reserves Soar Past $3 Trillion
April 14th, 2011Via: Reuters: China’s foreign exchange reserves soared to a record of more than $3 trillion by end-March, while its money supply growth blew past forecasts, threatening to aggravate the nation’s inflation woes and trigger more policy tightening.
ABB FRIDA Concept Robot for Industrial Dual-Arm Assembly Applications
April 14th, 2011Foxconn assembly line workers make about $3480 per year, or $34,800 over a decade. How much will one of those ABB FRIDA robots (and associated systems) cost? My guess is that Foxconn could pay two human factory workers for a decade for less than the cost of one of those robots. Eventually, though, a single […]
Arnie Gundersen: “This is about a thousand times worse than ever anticipated by the nuclear planners.”
April 14th, 2011Fukushima Accident Severity Level Raised to ‘7’: Gundersen Discusses Lack of US Radiation Monitoring Data from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.
