Wednesday, 23 July 2008

Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Above, Matt Harding traveled through many nations on Earth, started dancing, and filmed the result. The video is perhaps a dramatic example that humans from all over planet Earth feel a common bond as part of a single species. Happiness is frequently contagious -- few people are able to watch the above video without smiling.

Bush - Wall Street got drunk

There is no question, about it. Wall Street got drunk...that's one reason I asked you to turn off TV cameras...he's got drunk and now it's got a hangover, the question is, How long will it sober up and try not to do all these fancy financial instruments?" - G.W. Bush

Sunday, 20 July 2008

AL GORE: Green Energy by 2018 (7/17 Speech)

Green Energy by 2018, Al Gore's latest speech.

Jim Rogers Interview: Washington is Making "Mistake After Mistake."



Commodities investor and author Jim Rogers tells Moneynews Editorial Director Greg Brown that, much like the Asian crisis of a few years back, investors now should face up to an "American crisis" that will affect markets for some time to come. Rogers believes that Washington and the Federal Reserve are hurting, not helping, matters by propping up mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while punishing the dollar.

Welcome to the blame game

George Carlin on

George Carlin on "the American Dream

Saturday, 19 July 2008

Argentina's Economic Collapse - Part 1 of 12

Documentary on the events that led to the economic collapse of Argentina in 2001 which wiped out the middle class and raised the level of poverty to 57.5%. Central to the collapse was the implementation of neo-liberal policies which enabled the swindle of billions of dollars by foreign banks and corporations. Many of Argentina's assets and resources were shamefully plundered. Its financial system was even used for money laundering by Citibank, Credit Suisse, and JP Morgan.

Thursday, 17 July 2008

Wednesday, 9 July 2008

Bear Market -- be fearfull

Bloomberg

July 8 (Bloomberg) -- Michael Steinhardt, the investment pioneer whose hedge funds returned more than 20 percent a year for almost three decades, said U.S. stocks will keep falling even as ''contrarian'' buy signals abound.

Record oil prices and the credit-market slump that spurred more than $400 billion in asset writedowns and loan losses at banks worldwide will prevent the market from rallying, Steinhardt, 67, said in a Bloomberg Television interview today. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index declined 19.99 percent from its October record through yesterday, just short of the 20 percent threshold of a so-called bear market.

''There are genuine, solid, fearful reasons for a bear market,'' Steinhardt said. ''I don't think we're at a bottom.'' He added, ''I can think of only one quick fix, which is a dramatic, substantial drop in the price of oil.''

Steinhardt was 19 when he started his Wall Street career as a securities analyst after graduating in 1960 from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In 1967, he opened New York-based Steinhardt Management Co., which produced hedge-fund returns averaging 24 percent a year for the next 28 years.

He closed the firm in 1995 when it had $2.6 billion under management to pursue philanthropy. He is chairman of WisdomTree Investments Inc., a New York-based asset-management firm that offers exchange-traded funds.

'Inexplicable' Advance

Crude oil surged 88 percent in the past year and reached a record $145.85 a barrel on July 3. Some of that advance is sustainable, Steinhardt said.

''A lot of it's political, a lot of it is inexplicable, but I don't think oil at $100 a barrel is very difficult to imagine,'' he said. ''If there were a will in the key centers of power in this country to get the price of oil down, it would come down.''

The Federal Reserve, which cited rising oil prices last month after ending its most aggressive monetary easing in two decades, should raise interest rates ''a little bit'' to restrain inflation, which is on the verge of accelerating, Steinhardt said. Consumer prices in the U.S. climbed 4.2 percent in the year through May and probably rose at a 4.5 percent pace in June, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists.

Rising bets against U.S. stocks and growing pessimism among investors, usually indicators that it's time to purchase shares, are giving a false buy signal, he said.

'This Time It's Different'

''There is rarely a moment such as this where as a contrarian, one sees so many reasons technically, stock market- wise to be bullish. I can't imagine a circumstance where a market is more available, more ripe for a rally than this one,'' Steinhardt said. Still, ''this time it's different,'' he added.

General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., airlines, banks, mortgage lenders and brokerages, ''companies and industries that heretofore had been sacrosanct,'' are in jeopardy amid higher inflation and slowing economic growth, he said. GM, the biggest U.S. automaker, retreated 72 percent for the Dow Jones Industrial Average's biggest loss since the measure's record high in October.

''It's an extraordinary phenomenon where that which was the heartland of America is now so, so sick and not easily vulnerable to improvement,'' Steinhardt added.