Archive for the 'Economy' Category
Whither the Price of Oil?
May 26th, 2008WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. This is the best read on oil that I’ve found in a while. It also, weirdly and frighteningly, correlates to my interpretation of the chicken entrails in Oil Correction Likely. Via: TradingGurus: Jakab Spencer noted in his always interesting Dow Jones […]
New Zealand: Business Booming for Debt Collectors
May 25th, 2008Via: New Zealand Herald: The credit crunch has hit home for thousands of New Zealanders as debt collection agencies report up to a 500 per cent increase in workload over the past few months. Debt collectors who have been in the industry for more than 15 years say they have never been busier, with small-time […]
California Home Prices Drop 32% Amid Foreclosures
May 25th, 2008Via: Bloomberg: California home prices tumbled 32 percent in April from a year earlier as “distressed” properties and a lack of financing cut demand, the state realtors group said. The median existing home price fell to $403,870, the California Association of Realtors said in a statement today. Sales increased 2.5 percent, ending 30 months of […]
Oil Correction Likely
May 24th, 2008WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. The U.S. Dollar Index is getting down into a support zone, along with a low band daily stochastic. A crank rally on the dollar would likely blow the columns out from underneath the oil; short term, anyway. Why? Look at the […]
How Japan Helped Ease the Rice Crisis
May 23rd, 2008Fascinating. Weird. Must read. Via: Business Week: With prices now falling, the global rice crisis seems to be subsiding. That’s thanks in part to a policy announcement by a Japanese bureaucrat. On May 19, Japan’s Deputy Agriculture Minister, Toshiro Shirasu, said that Tokyo would release some of its massive stockpile of rice to the Philippines, […]
Former CIA Chief Puts Terrorism and Global Warming on Even Par
May 22nd, 2008Occasionally, when I get irritated, I write rants—that usually contain jokes… That eventually come true. For example, when I joked about the upcoming War on Global Warming… Here’s part of a comment that I wrote on, “Green Confessions” to Help Eco-Sinners Find Forgiveness: Do you notice how there’s some form of pointless distraction for every […]
“Computer Glitch” at Moody’s Awarded AAA Credit Ratings to Debt Products that, “Were Like Something Out of a Sci-Fi Blockbuster”
May 21st, 2008Via: Financial Times: When the craze for CPDOs erupted in financial markets in late 2006, some observers quipped that these new products were like something out of a sci-fi blockbuster. Not only was the ingracious acronym amusingly close to C3PO, one of the hapless robots from the Star Wars movies, but also like the heroes […]
Salvage Economy: Texas Man Builds Electric Car for $4750
May 21st, 2008Via: NBC5: With gas pushing $4 per gallon, many people are looking for ways to save some green at the pump. One North Texas man found a way to help the environment and commute to work for just pennies a day. David Murray may drive the quietest car in North Texas, powered only by a […]
Italian Crime Group Worth More Than Some Nations’ GDP
May 21st, 2008Via: Reuters: The ‘Ndrangheta, the Italian organised crime group, does yearly business equivalent to some 3 percent of Italy’s economy and more than the total of that of some small European nations, according to a study on Wednesday. The crime group, which has overtaken the Sicilian Mafia for control of drug trafficking, was responsible for […]
Squatters “Rent Out” Foreclosed Homes
May 20th, 2008Via: Reuters: They enter through a broken first-floor window each night to sleep on a moldy bed in the abandoned four-family house at 827 Main Street, part of a new generation of squatters emboldened by America’s housing foreclosure crisis. “For squatters, foreclosed homes like this are like a camp-ground with free camping,” says real-estate broker […]
