Forget oil, the new global crisis is food: "But Mr. Coxe warned U.S. corn exports were in danger of seizing up in about three years if the country continues to subsidize ethanol production. Biofuels are expected to eat up about a third of America's grain harvest in 2007.
The amount of U.S. grain currently stored for following seasons was the lowest on record, relative to consumption, he said.
'You should be there for it fully-hedged by having access to those stocks that benefit from rising food prices.'
He said there are about two dozen stocks in the world that are going to redefine the world's food supplies, and 'those stocks will have a precious value as we move forward.'
Mr. Coxe said crop yields around the world need to increase to something close to what is achieved in the state of Illinois, which produces over 200 corn bushes an acre compared with an average 30 bushes an acre in the rest of the world.
'That will be done with more fertilizer, with genetically modified seeds, and with advanced machinery and technology,' he said."
Friday, January 04, 2008
Forget oil, the new global crisis is food
Forget oil, the new global crisis is food: "A new crisis is emerging, a global food catastrophe that will reach further and be more crippling than anything the world has ever seen. The credit crunch and the reverberations of soaring oil prices around the world will pale in comparison to what is about to transpire, Donald Coxe, global portfolio strategist at BMO Financial Group said at the Empire Club's 14th annual investment outlook in Toronto on Thursday.
'It's not a matter of if, but when,' he warned investors. 'It's going to hit this year hard.'"
'It's not a matter of if, but when,' he warned investors. 'It's going to hit this year hard.'"
Friday, August 31, 2007
The Skeptical Optimist: The second law of thermodynamics isn't all it's cracked up to be
The Skeptical Optimist: The second law of thermodynamics isn't all it's cracked up to be
Hydrogen from Water using Gallium w/ non useful energy
Hydrogen from Water using Gallium w/ non useful energy
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Patterico’s Pontifications � Huang v. Hsu — 1996 v. 2008: Question — Will Hillary’s Rivals Attack Her While Her Husband Got a Pass?
Patterico’s Pontifications � Huang v. Hsu — 1996 v. 2008: Question — Will Hillary’s Rivals Attack Her While Her Husband Got a Pass?
Huang v. Hsu — 1996 v. 2008: Question — Will Hillary’s Rivals Attack Her While Her Husband Got a Pass?
[Posted by WLS]
The blogosphere is starting to buzz a little bit over Hillary’s “John Huang”. Articles in yesterday’s WSJ, a follow-up today, and even a piece in the LAT have got to have the Clinton camp worried about what to say about Norman Hsu.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118826947048110677.html?mod=Politics-and-Policy
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118835199704811801.html?mod=blog
John Fund at the WSJ has now posted a entry at the sites Political Diary that he made available to Powerline.
As a refresher, recall from 1996:
Bill Clinton benefitted from the political largesse of the Lippo Group, owned by the ruling Riady and Suharto families from Indonesia.
John Huang was a formerly the head of US Operations for the Lippo Group, controlled by the Riady family of Indonesia, before being named a mid-level Commerce Dept. official in the Clinton Admin. He enjoyed enormous access to the WH for such a mid-level employee. As a DNC fundraiser in 1996, he raised $3.4 million for the party and the Clinton re-election effort — mostly from the Aisan-American community. Huang had been hired in the early 1980s by the Riady Family-owned “Worthern Banking Group” in Little Rock.
Huang took a 50% pay cut to join the Clinton Admin in 1993, but the blow was softened by a $750,000 severance package from the Lippo Group. Among the dubious contributions obtained by Mr. Huang was $200,000 donated by an Indonesian gardner, who later had to return to Indonesia to avoid testifying in the Senate investigation into 1996 fundraising practices. Charlie Trie was the Arkansas restaurantuer and generous financial contributor who received wire transfers of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Bank of China, but mysteriously relocated to Bejing when subpoenas started to roll out.
Now Hillary has the ubiquitous Mr. Hsu.
As reported by the WSJ, Mr. Hsu — a wanted felon and fugitive from justice for a fraud conviction in California — has raised more than $1 million already for Hillary’s campaign, including more than $45,000 from the Paw family in San Francisco, who have contributed more than $200,000 to various Democrat candidates and organizations through Mr. Hsu.
Mr. Paw is a mail carrier, earning $49,000 a year. He donated $4600.
His wife is a homemaker. She donated $4600.
Their four adult children have various occupations — one is an executive at a mutual fund, while another is a local high school “attendance liason”. All donated $4600.
The recently refinanced their 1200 square foot house near SF Airport for $270,000.
What else they all have in common is that their contributions closely track the contributions made by Mr. Hsu to the same candidates and organizations.
The question is whether Hillary’s rivals on the Demo crowd will want to make an issue of this.
Bill got a pass in 1996 because he had no challenger, and the key facts didn’t come out until after the 1996 election.
Now such pass for Hillary.
FORGOTTEN PROPHETS: Hot Sex
FORGOTTEN PROPHETS: Hot Sex
Senator Larry E. Craig is a conservative Idaho Republican who has on a number of occasions voted against redefining "marriage" to include same-sex couples. He seems to believe that marriage is between one man and one woman at a time. He also seems to believe that marriage includes soliciting strange men in public toilets for sexual activity. He was arrested in June in a Minneapolis airport commode for just this proposition, and pled guilty to disorderly conduct. Now he's on TV recanting his plea. Hm. Every time I'm charged with a crime, I plead not guilty. To do otherwise would be perjury.
Similar charges have followed him throughout his quarter-century Congressional career. In 1982 he was accused of feeling up boy pages or somesuch. A Boise paper has just published a six month investigation of his alleged sexual inclinations. "I am not gay," says the Senator. Well, he should know.
Remember bill clinton? Wagging his chubby at us and saying ... ahem ... wagging his chubby finger at us and saying with stern assurance, "I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lowinsky"? Remember? Indeed, clinton did not have sex with that woman, as he equivocatingly redefined the meaning of the word sex in his head. Sex is intercourse, of course. He did not have intercourse with that woman. See? And there was no relationship with her. Truly. Because it depends on what the meaning of was was ... is is. Git it? There is no relationship [right now, at this very moment that I'm giving testimony] with that woman. When we're allowed to have secret definitions in our heads, we never have to lie out loud.
Is Sen. Larry E. Craig gay? Who the hell cares. I don't. I suppose his wife does, but she would have made her bargain with that devil long ago. We can only imagine the, uh, conversations that will be going on behind their closed doors. But we, we certainly need not care in the least about whether or not Craig is gay. We do need to care about whether he sucks the dicks of strange men in public toilets. It's not just that it's unhygienic, it's illegal. I myself have been known to engage in questionable behavior in public toilets. I once didn't wash my hands after urinating. I know, I'm dirty. But it was a long time ago, and I've grown up since then. I was six at the time. As for Craig, he looks to be in his 70s ... oh, he's only 62 ... hasn't been living clean, evidently.
Craig tapped his foot repeatedly outside the cop's stall, which means Let's have sexual relations in gay subcultural non-verbal argot. He ran his hand along the bottom of the partition, which means I want to fellate you. (Oh, the things I know.) That, as stated, would be unhygienic. But none of us are likely to come into intimate contact with him, say, kissing him, so we need not concern ourselves with his oral hygiene. Likewise, we need not concern ourselves with the apparent disconnect between his private -- or rather, public toilet -- inclinations and his public voting record in the Senate. Public policies such as gay marriage should have little to do with the bus station exploits of glory hole fetishists. The former has to do with principle and the values that one aspires to. The latter has to do with the darkest urges of a man's tormented spirit.
No, the idea that Craig is a hypocritical cocksucker is meaningless. We all have our flaws. We hope that they remain private. And that's the problem. Craig's judgment. His judgment. Judgment. If we require anything of our leaders, it must be that they display some sort of wisdom. There must be some indication of growth, over a span of, say, 25 years. Feeling up pretty page boys in 1982, and getting away with it, is one thing. But it's another millennium, and the behavior is unchanged. The behavior of getting caught. Aren't there bars for this sort of thing? -- where such conduct might even be legal? It's just stupid.
Craig likes weeners. Well, so do a lot of women. I like my own weener. Nothing wrong with liking weeners. And I'm at the point in my life when I don't have to worry about the legal conduct of other people. Tonight as I was rolling, there was a lot of chatter from some fellas about sex. Specifically, about two guys with one woman. Lots of debate -- you wouldn't do it even if she was really hot? ... you just know that somehow swords are going to cross ... that sort of thing. Really inappropriate. Frankly, it was a bit sickening. I have never had the slightest interest at all in sex involving more than two people, no matter the genders involved. It seems to be increasingly acceptable nowadays for guys to admit that they like watching lesbians. Yuck. Absolutely yuck. I honestly do not see the slightest difference between gay sex with men and gay sex with women. But I don't have to worry about it, any of it -- menages, or gay sex, or any of it. I'd prefer not to know about it, but if I do, I don't need to worry. The worst that would happen is that I'd lose respect for someone I like.
Yes, I do have a point. Hardly any sex should be made public. Talk is inappropriate enough, under most circumstances. Acting on it is unacceptable. And that's where Senator Craig is a hypocrite. So what if he's homosexual. That's between him and his wife, and God. So what if he makes an equivocal distinction in his head, about the difference between homosexual, which is a behavior, and gay, which is a political and social philosophy. Craig is a hypocrite not for these things. He is a hypocrite because he makes laws about social policy on the Senate floor, yet he breaks similar laws in public toilets. That sexual sin is taken into the body, and is therefore more damaging, more dishonoring -- that's a personal matter. Alcoholism or drug abuse is likewise damaging to the body and the character and the mind. God cares about these things, so that strangers don't have to.
Men can fall. Men can fail. We might meet such failures with forgiveness, when we see repentance. But repentance isn't a feeling. It's a behavior, of turning away from the troublesome act. In the absence of such change, forgiveness of consequences is inappropriate. Who will change, without consequences? But the senator's soul is not our affair. His judgment is, and he has demonstrated criminal judgment. He will resign. Of course he will. In private life his fetish will be a matter for local law enforcement, and we need have no feeling about it. It will not affect us, any more than the countless other anonymous sexual encounters that take place between lonely and self-loathing people in parking lots and under park bushes and in vomit-smelling alleyways.
Why does sex have to be so hard? Without temptation, we'd all be good. With it, we can at least tell who has good judgment.
Senator Larry E. Craig is a conservative Idaho Republican who has on a number of occasions voted against redefining "marriage" to include same-sex couples. He seems to believe that marriage is between one man and one woman at a time. He also seems to believe that marriage includes soliciting strange men in public toilets for sexual activity. He was arrested in June in a Minneapolis airport commode for just this proposition, and pled guilty to disorderly conduct. Now he's on TV recanting his plea. Hm. Every time I'm charged with a crime, I plead not guilty. To do otherwise would be perjury.
Similar charges have followed him throughout his quarter-century Congressional career. In 1982 he was accused of feeling up boy pages or somesuch. A Boise paper has just published a six month investigation of his alleged sexual inclinations. "I am not gay," says the Senator. Well, he should know.
Remember bill clinton? Wagging his chubby at us and saying ... ahem ... wagging his chubby finger at us and saying with stern assurance, "I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lowinsky"? Remember? Indeed, clinton did not have sex with that woman, as he equivocatingly redefined the meaning of the word sex in his head. Sex is intercourse, of course. He did not have intercourse with that woman. See? And there was no relationship with her. Truly. Because it depends on what the meaning of was was ... is is. Git it? There is no relationship [right now, at this very moment that I'm giving testimony] with that woman. When we're allowed to have secret definitions in our heads, we never have to lie out loud.
Is Sen. Larry E. Craig gay? Who the hell cares. I don't. I suppose his wife does, but she would have made her bargain with that devil long ago. We can only imagine the, uh, conversations that will be going on behind their closed doors. But we, we certainly need not care in the least about whether or not Craig is gay. We do need to care about whether he sucks the dicks of strange men in public toilets. It's not just that it's unhygienic, it's illegal. I myself have been known to engage in questionable behavior in public toilets. I once didn't wash my hands after urinating. I know, I'm dirty. But it was a long time ago, and I've grown up since then. I was six at the time. As for Craig, he looks to be in his 70s ... oh, he's only 62 ... hasn't been living clean, evidently.
Craig tapped his foot repeatedly outside the cop's stall, which means Let's have sexual relations in gay subcultural non-verbal argot. He ran his hand along the bottom of the partition, which means I want to fellate you. (Oh, the things I know.) That, as stated, would be unhygienic. But none of us are likely to come into intimate contact with him, say, kissing him, so we need not concern ourselves with his oral hygiene. Likewise, we need not concern ourselves with the apparent disconnect between his private -- or rather, public toilet -- inclinations and his public voting record in the Senate. Public policies such as gay marriage should have little to do with the bus station exploits of glory hole fetishists. The former has to do with principle and the values that one aspires to. The latter has to do with the darkest urges of a man's tormented spirit.
No, the idea that Craig is a hypocritical cocksucker is meaningless. We all have our flaws. We hope that they remain private. And that's the problem. Craig's judgment. His judgment. Judgment. If we require anything of our leaders, it must be that they display some sort of wisdom. There must be some indication of growth, over a span of, say, 25 years. Feeling up pretty page boys in 1982, and getting away with it, is one thing. But it's another millennium, and the behavior is unchanged. The behavior of getting caught. Aren't there bars for this sort of thing? -- where such conduct might even be legal? It's just stupid.
Craig likes weeners. Well, so do a lot of women. I like my own weener. Nothing wrong with liking weeners. And I'm at the point in my life when I don't have to worry about the legal conduct of other people. Tonight as I was rolling, there was a lot of chatter from some fellas about sex. Specifically, about two guys with one woman. Lots of debate -- you wouldn't do it even if she was really hot? ... you just know that somehow swords are going to cross ... that sort of thing. Really inappropriate. Frankly, it was a bit sickening. I have never had the slightest interest at all in sex involving more than two people, no matter the genders involved. It seems to be increasingly acceptable nowadays for guys to admit that they like watching lesbians. Yuck. Absolutely yuck. I honestly do not see the slightest difference between gay sex with men and gay sex with women. But I don't have to worry about it, any of it -- menages, or gay sex, or any of it. I'd prefer not to know about it, but if I do, I don't need to worry. The worst that would happen is that I'd lose respect for someone I like.
Yes, I do have a point. Hardly any sex should be made public. Talk is inappropriate enough, under most circumstances. Acting on it is unacceptable. And that's where Senator Craig is a hypocrite. So what if he's homosexual. That's between him and his wife, and God. So what if he makes an equivocal distinction in his head, about the difference between homosexual, which is a behavior, and gay, which is a political and social philosophy. Craig is a hypocrite not for these things. He is a hypocrite because he makes laws about social policy on the Senate floor, yet he breaks similar laws in public toilets. That sexual sin is taken into the body, and is therefore more damaging, more dishonoring -- that's a personal matter. Alcoholism or drug abuse is likewise damaging to the body and the character and the mind. God cares about these things, so that strangers don't have to.
Men can fall. Men can fail. We might meet such failures with forgiveness, when we see repentance. But repentance isn't a feeling. It's a behavior, of turning away from the troublesome act. In the absence of such change, forgiveness of consequences is inappropriate. Who will change, without consequences? But the senator's soul is not our affair. His judgment is, and he has demonstrated criminal judgment. He will resign. Of course he will. In private life his fetish will be a matter for local law enforcement, and we need have no feeling about it. It will not affect us, any more than the countless other anonymous sexual encounters that take place between lonely and self-loathing people in parking lots and under park bushes and in vomit-smelling alleyways.
Why does sex have to be so hard? Without temptation, we'd all be good. With it, we can at least tell who has good judgment.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Brutally Honest
Brutally Honest
Marriage
And I think a good starting place for us is a paragraph from the ‘Book of Alternative Services of the Anglican Church of Canada’ that I read at the beginning of every wedding service:
Marriage
And I think a good starting place for us is a paragraph from the ‘Book of Alternative Services of the Anglican Church of Canada’ that I read at the beginning of every wedding service:
Marriage is a gift of God and a means of his grace, in which man and woman become one flesh. It is God’s purpose that, as husband and wife give themselves to each other in love, they shall grow together and be united in that love, as Christ is united with his Church.
‘Marriage is…a means of God’s grace’. The phrase ‘means of grace’ is used in the Christian tradition to describe ways in which God channels his love and strength to us. So we talk about Bible reading and prayer, coming to worship and receiving Holy Communion, as ‘means’ of grace’. The paragraph is telling us that in the Christian understanding, marriage is also a way in which God channels his love and strength to us.
Let me try to unpack this. It’s as if God in his infinite love and kindness looks at one of the human beings he has created, and says to himself, “What can I do for her to help her experience my unconditional love and strength, day in and day out, for the rest of her life?” And then God has a brainwave and says, “I know what I’ll do! I’ve got just the guy for her! As he loves her in a gentle and faithful and unconditional way, she’ll experience not only his love, but my love as well”. And then God looks at the man she loves, and says to himself, “Hey, this is a really good idea, because it’ll work the other way around as well! As they each love the other in a gentle and faithful and unconditional way, they’ll both experience my love through one another”.
This is a beautiful thing, and I hope couples can see how significant this makes their marriage and their love. It’s wonderful enough that they’ve found each other and that they have been able to care for each other and love each other in a special way. But this view takes their love even higher than that, because each of them has been given the sacred calling of being a channel of God’s love to the other.
However, there’s a problem here, and it’s to do with the definition of the word ‘love’. We live in a culture in which ‘love’ is mainly an emotional word; ‘falling in love’ is not seen as a choice you make, but as something that happens to you. you’re the helpless victim of it, and if it chooses to leave you, there’s nothing you can do about it; best leave your partner and find someone else.
But in the Bible love is not a feeling but a choice and a way of life. To love someone, in the Bible, means to choose to be a blessing to them by caring for them and helping them in practical ways, whether you feel like it or not. And that’s why we can ask couples to make promises to each other. It’s pretty hard to make promises about feelings; feelings come and go, depending on all sorts of factors. But actions? Yes, we can make promises about them.
But we can get even more clarification than this. If we accept the idea that Christians are called in their marriages to act out the love of God toward their marriage partner, we can go further and ask, “Well, what’s God’s love like?”
God’s love is unconditional. It doesn’t depend on whether or not we’re good enough. We mess up every day, but God doesn’t give up on us in disgust; he forgives us and helps us get up and try again. He is infinitely patient and kind toward us. And thank God for that!
We all experience this in our marriages, if we’re honest. How many of us have asked ourselves from time to time, “Given the sort of person I can be when I’m not at my best, why on earth does she stick with me?” I’ve certainly asked that question, knowing how hurtful I can be when I’m doing my best grizzly bear imitation!
God’s unconditional love calls us as husbands and wives to accept the fact that just as we are not perfect, so our partners are not perfect either. Just as they forgive us, so we forgive them too. In another place Paul says, ‘Do not let the sun go down on your anger’ (Ephesians 4:26); in other words, be quick to apologise, quick to forgive, and quick to be reconciled. That’s what God’s love is like; we’re called to ask him to help us imitate his love.
Connected to this is the idea that God’s love is faithful. To be blunt, this means that God does not give up on us, or leave us when he sees a more attractive and deserving subject of his love around the next corner. God has pledged himself to us and he will be faithful to us throughout our lives and through all eternity as well.
So we’re called to live that out to one another as married couples, to be faithful to one another until death parts us. And here I want to declare war on a phrase that I hear so often: the phrase, “If it doesn’t work out”. I’ve been married for nearly twenty-eight years, and I have to say that I always knew that it was up to me to make it work out. I’m not a helpless victim of circumstances; I’m a free human being with the ability to make decisions and act on them, to say ‘No’ to my selfish nature and ‘yes’ to the way of love and gentleness and grace. So I say to the couples who ask me to officiate at their weddings, “Don’t sit back and wait to see if your marriage will work out! Rather, pray every day for God’s strength, and then you go and make it work out! You can do it, with God’s help!”
Thirdly, God’s love is practical. It’s not just about high-sounding ideas or feelings, but concrete actions, giving us the things that we need for life and health and safety. When Jesus is expressing this, he says that God makes his rain fall and his sun shine on us, righteous and unrighteous alike. In his infinite wisdom and kindness God has designed his universe in such a way that our needs can be met through the good things he has provided for us.
Romance is wonderful and every marriage needs it, but if there isn’t a huge helping of practical love too, no marriage can survive. One of my favourite books about marriage is called Sex Begins in the Kitchen. And the title isn’t talking about kinky sex either! It’s saying that if the partners aren’t willing to serve each other in practical ways like sharing chores and cleaning up and that sort of thing – well, don’t be surprised if things don’t go too well in the more intimate parts of their marriage, either. That’s a special challenge to me, I must admit.
But finally, and in contrast to that, we also need to say that God’s love is pure magic. I mean, imagine if a famous person who you really admire was coming to town, someone who is looked up to by hundreds of thousands of people, but someone who doesn’t know you from a hole in the wall. Now imagine getting a card in the mail from that person saying, “Could we have lunch while I’m in Edmonton? I’ve always wanted to get to know you better!” Wouldn’t you be amazed? Wouldn’t you just be thrilled out of your socks?
But the Christian gospel has even better news. The one who is responsible for everything that exists – the one my friend Rob Heath calls ‘The Chairman of the Board of Existence’ – loves you personally and wants to be your friend! Doesn’t that just blow you away? It’s hard to believe that such a thing could be true, but Jesus assures us that it is!
Married couples who are deeply in love with each other have this same sense of wonder. “How did I get so lucky? I mean, she could have picked anyone, but she picked me!” Of course, in the early days of our relationship this sense of wonder is very strong. In most marriages, as time goes by it wanes a bit – the emotion isn’t as strong as it once was – but wise Christian couples know that this is natural and so it doesn’t scare them. What they do is to concentrate on living out the other aspects of God’s love for their partner – accepting one another unconditionally, forgiving one another, being faithful to one another, caring for one another in simple and practical ways, day in and day out. And as they do this faithfully, as the years go by something deeper and more lasting starts to grow, and one morning you wake up and think “Wow! No one told me about this!” That’s why you see elderly couples in their seventies walking down the street holding hands like teenagers: they’ve found the magic.
I hope that all of us who are married will continue to find that magic as we live out God’s love for one another. God has brought us together, and so, as we pray for his help every day, God will help us to grow into the sort of relationship that is his dream for us – a relationship which will cause other people to say, “You want to see what God’s love is like? Look at that couple and the way they live together – that’s what it’s like!”
Friday, August 24, 2007
dormgrandpop: What does it take to stay married 50 years?
dormgrandpop: What does it take to stay married 50 years?
Monday, May 30, 2005
What does it take to stay married 50 years?
In a blog written some days ago, I quoted the response of a friend to my question “what does it take to remain married for 50 years?”. “It ain’t easy” the this wise octogenarian lady responded. When I recently mentioned to my counselor that I was attending a 50th wedding anniversary celebration, she remarked, “…one of the few marriages that survived the 60s.”
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
My Way News - Iraq Leader Lashes Out at U.S. Critics
My Way News - Iraq Leader Lashes Out at U.S. Critics
Iraq Leader Lashes Out at U.S. Critics
Email this Story
Aug 22, 7:54 AM (ET)
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA
Iraq Leader Lashes Out at U.S. Critics
Email this StoryAug 22, 7:54 AM (ET)
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA
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DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Iraq's prime minister lashed out at American criticism, saying Wednesday that no one has a right to put timetables on his elected government.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki blamed the U.S. presidential campaign for the recent tough words from the Bush administration and from other American politicians.
"No one has the right to place timetables on the Iraq government. It was elected by its people," he said at a news conference in Damascus at the end of a three-day visit to Syria.
"Those who make such statements are bothered by our visit to Syria. We will pay no attention. We care for our people and our constitution and can find friends elsewhere," al-Maliki said.
U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said Monday that al-Maliki should be ousted and replaced with a less sectarian leader.
In addition, both President Bush and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker on Tuesday voiced frustration and disappointment with the al-Maliki government.
The harsh exchange erupted just a few weeks before Crocker and the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, are to report to Congress on the success of the latest military campaign to reduce violence in Iraq, and the Iraqi government's progress in achieving political reconciliation.
Without naming any American official, al-Maliki said some of the criticism of him and his government was "discourteous."
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Curmudgeonly & Skeptical�
Curmudgeonly & Skeptical�
Top 10 "Hillary Actually Said This"
Top 10 "Hillary Actually Said This"
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(To Barbara Walters about the Republicans who impeached her husband; 20/20, Monday, August 20, 2007
Value Discipline: Fear, Corrections, and Regret- Crisis of Confidence
Value Discipline: Fear, Corrections, and Regret- Crisis of Confidence
The flurry of liquidation will subside as redemptions end, as valuations come to irresistible levels, and as anxiety diminishes. Though bargains, in my view do not yet abound, considerable valuation opportunity has opened in the last week. One day leaps of faith represent little indication of anything beyond traders' bravado. Risk adjustments are taking place fairly quickly in the corporate bond realm, and it is important to recognize that you as the owner of the equity have the bottom rung or the residual position.
The malaise of the junk bond market spills over into equity markets fairly easily. Spreads which had narrowed to silly levels of 60-70 basis points over Treasuries now find themselves in a more reasonable, but hardly generous 250-280 basis points over. Think of equities as being the lowest form of junk debt to put the proper perspective in place. Hence, risk premia in Discounted Cash Flow models must open up to reflect the fact that the bond guys are getting their pound of flesh, at long last.
Though the housing market has gone to hell in a handbasket, this is hardly news. There is no entitlement to home ownership for someone with bad credit or no dough...if you think otherwise, get real. If you are worried about your CDO holdings, despite having an "investment grade" tranche of BBB, get real. There is a reason that those who were yield hogs, got slaughtered and chances are, your going-in yield on the BBB tranche was some 200 basis points over where more "normal" credits traded. It ain't going to be pretty if you find yourself stuck in one of these situations. Liquidity dries up and the only enticement is offering your tainted merchandise with a lower price. The old investment adage "the first loss is the best loss" often applies. Being mesmerized by fear of taking a loss is a horrible trait that most of us (and especially men!) have.
Make an honest assessment of the quality of your investments. If it smells (i.e. cash flow from operations is negative, increased working capital is needed as a percentage of revenues as revenues grow, increased capital intensity, diminishing interest coverage, falling profitability) just sell it. If retained earnings is a negative number on the balance sheet, your company may be selling on hope rather than fundamentals. You probably shouldn't have been there in the first place. Take time to learn what the credit rating of the underlying bonds and debenture of your equity investments might be. Despite their poor timeliness and recently tainted reputation, the bond rating agencies can generally distinguish good interest coverage from bad. If your company is below investment grade in its debt ratings, you may be in for a rocky ride as the equity valuation adjusts to the increased yield on the debt.
There is little solace in this great Buffett quote, "You can't tell who is swimming naked until the tide goes out." Central banks around the world injected almost $300 billion in liquidity on Thursday and Friday of last week to try to fill in for where the tide had gone out. Fear is rampant out there, apparently even among central bankers. Don't let it mesmerize you!
Personally, this feels more like a panic than a crisis...more of a rough patch that may last weeks rather than a "drag your guts in the gravel" crisis. I have heard or read three warnings of the present market resembling a pre-crash 1987 scenario...I doubt it. Unless bond and money markets becomes so disabled that we need 150-200 basis points to clear merchandise, I don't sense more than another 5% of downside in aggregate averages. Who knows? Mr. Market seems quite despondent and may overshoot my objective.
Though many investors seem to want to see a Fed rate cut, its negative impact on the dollar could reverse the flow of foreign capital...I am not counting on such Fed action.
What to do? In my view, it is late to try to raise cash. In my view, you may regret not having taken sufficient risk in buying some equities in this weakness. What's on my shopping list?
Though it flies in the face of most strategists' advice, I like a number of financial services stocks. US Bancorp (USB) and Citi (C) are two of my choices among large domestic banks. I like Allied Irish (AIB) and Credit Suisse (CS) as well for international exposure. Even some community banks, which I have avoided for some time are starting to look more reasonable to me.
Some of the business services companies such as payment processors and tax preparation companies look interesting. Kartik Mehta of FTN Midwest Securities is interviewed in this week's Wall Street Transcript (subscription required.) These companies generate a significant amount of cash flow and a significant amount of recurring revenue and have low capex needs. Frequently, they tie into small business but also have some bank exposure. Companies like First Data (FDC) and Alliance Data (ADS) have already been chased down by private equity. By the way, I continue to believe that private equity deals will continue to be part of our investment scenario for at least the next year. In the business services I like Global Payments (GPN) and Total System Services (TSS)
Here is an interesting screen of companies that have bought back stock, every year for the last five years, in excess of stock issuance as well as pay better than a 2% yield, and that are down more than 10% in the last month. This is not a buy list, but an explore list. There are some companies hear that I would not touch!
Stick to your discipline and show some patience. Buy stocks that you feel comfortable with over a longer period of time. Buy into businesses that if Mr. Market continues in his anger, you will feel comfortable to step up to the plate again and adding to your positions at even better prices!
Ignore the histrionics and the hysteria. Like your batting coach told you in Little League, "You've got to keep swing ing the bat." There should be a fair number of fat pitches coming our way!
Disclaimer: I, my family, or clients have current positions in USB, C, AIB, CS, GPN, AZN, CMA, FII, and TOT.
Fear, Corrections, and Regret- Crisis of Confidence
Corrections happen. They are painful, come up spontaneously and unexpectedly, frequently take your breath away and replace your confidence with fear. It is important , at least in my view, to remember at times like these, all of those factors that brought you into capital markets or your specific investment holdings in the first place. Don't let yourself be spellbound with fear.
The flurry of liquidation will subside as redemptions end, as valuations come to irresistible levels, and as anxiety diminishes. Though bargains, in my view do not yet abound, considerable valuation opportunity has opened in the last week. One day leaps of faith represent little indication of anything beyond traders' bravado. Risk adjustments are taking place fairly quickly in the corporate bond realm, and it is important to recognize that you as the owner of the equity have the bottom rung or the residual position.
The malaise of the junk bond market spills over into equity markets fairly easily. Spreads which had narrowed to silly levels of 60-70 basis points over Treasuries now find themselves in a more reasonable, but hardly generous 250-280 basis points over. Think of equities as being the lowest form of junk debt to put the proper perspective in place. Hence, risk premia in Discounted Cash Flow models must open up to reflect the fact that the bond guys are getting their pound of flesh, at long last.
Though the housing market has gone to hell in a handbasket, this is hardly news. There is no entitlement to home ownership for someone with bad credit or no dough...if you think otherwise, get real. If you are worried about your CDO holdings, despite having an "investment grade" tranche of BBB, get real. There is a reason that those who were yield hogs, got slaughtered and chances are, your going-in yield on the BBB tranche was some 200 basis points over where more "normal" credits traded. It ain't going to be pretty if you find yourself stuck in one of these situations. Liquidity dries up and the only enticement is offering your tainted merchandise with a lower price. The old investment adage "the first loss is the best loss" often applies. Being mesmerized by fear of taking a loss is a horrible trait that most of us (and especially men!) have.
Make an honest assessment of the quality of your investments. If it smells (i.e. cash flow from operations is negative, increased working capital is needed as a percentage of revenues as revenues grow, increased capital intensity, diminishing interest coverage, falling profitability) just sell it. If retained earnings is a negative number on the balance sheet, your company may be selling on hope rather than fundamentals. You probably shouldn't have been there in the first place. Take time to learn what the credit rating of the underlying bonds and debenture of your equity investments might be. Despite their poor timeliness and recently tainted reputation, the bond rating agencies can generally distinguish good interest coverage from bad. If your company is below investment grade in its debt ratings, you may be in for a rocky ride as the equity valuation adjusts to the increased yield on the debt.
There is little solace in this great Buffett quote, "You can't tell who is swimming naked until the tide goes out." Central banks around the world injected almost $300 billion in liquidity on Thursday and Friday of last week to try to fill in for where the tide had gone out. Fear is rampant out there, apparently even among central bankers. Don't let it mesmerize you!
Personally, this feels more like a panic than a crisis...more of a rough patch that may last weeks rather than a "drag your guts in the gravel" crisis. I have heard or read three warnings of the present market resembling a pre-crash 1987 scenario...I doubt it. Unless bond and money markets becomes so disabled that we need 150-200 basis points to clear merchandise, I don't sense more than another 5% of downside in aggregate averages. Who knows? Mr. Market seems quite despondent and may overshoot my objective.
Though many investors seem to want to see a Fed rate cut, its negative impact on the dollar could reverse the flow of foreign capital...I am not counting on such Fed action.
What to do? In my view, it is late to try to raise cash. In my view, you may regret not having taken sufficient risk in buying some equities in this weakness. What's on my shopping list?
Though it flies in the face of most strategists' advice, I like a number of financial services stocks. US Bancorp (USB) and Citi (C) are two of my choices among large domestic banks. I like Allied Irish (AIB) and Credit Suisse (CS) as well for international exposure. Even some community banks, which I have avoided for some time are starting to look more reasonable to me.
Some of the business services companies such as payment processors and tax preparation companies look interesting. Kartik Mehta of FTN Midwest Securities is interviewed in this week's Wall Street Transcript (subscription required.) These companies generate a significant amount of cash flow and a significant amount of recurring revenue and have low capex needs. Frequently, they tie into small business but also have some bank exposure. Companies like First Data (FDC) and Alliance Data (ADS) have already been chased down by private equity. By the way, I continue to believe that private equity deals will continue to be part of our investment scenario for at least the next year. In the business services I like Global Payments (GPN) and Total System Services (TSS)
Here is an interesting screen of companies that have bought back stock, every year for the last five years, in excess of stock issuance as well as pay better than a 2% yield, and that are down more than 10% in the last month. This is not a buy list, but an explore list. There are some companies hear that I would not touch!
Stick to your discipline and show some patience. Buy stocks that you feel comfortable with over a longer period of time. Buy into businesses that if Mr. Market continues in his anger, you will feel comfortable to step up to the plate again and adding to your positions at even better prices!
Ignore the histrionics and the hysteria. Like your batting coach told you in Little League, "You've got to keep swing ing the bat." There should be a fair number of fat pitches coming our way!
Disclaimer: I, my family, or clients have current positions in USB, C, AIB, CS, GPN, AZN, CMA, FII, and TOT.
Entering the Tough Oil Era | EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse
Entering the Tough Oil Era | EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse
oil output in the United States and most other non-members of the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC) has peaked, or is about to do so, which means that the net contribution of non-OPEC suppliers will only diminish between now and 2012. That, in turn, means that the burden of providing the required additional oil will have to fall on the OPEC countries, most of which are located in unstable areas of the Middle East and Africa.
The numbers are actually staggering. Just to satisfy a demand for an extra 10 million or so barrels per day between now and 2012, two million barrels per day in new oil would have to be added to global stocks yearly. But even this calculation is misleading, as Eagles of the IEA made clear. In fact, the world would initially need "more than 3 million barrels per day of new oil each year [just] to offset the falling production in the mature fields outside of OPEC" -- and that's before you even get near that additional two million barrels.
In other words, what's actually needed is five million barrels of new oil each year, a truly daunting challenge since almost all of this oil will have to be found in Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Angola, Libya, Nigeria, Venezuela, and one or two other countries. These are not places that exactly inspire investor confidence of a sort that could attract the many billions of dollars needed to ramp up production enough to satisfy global requirements.
Read between the lines and one quickly perceives a worst-case scenario in which the necessary investment is not forthcoming; OPEC production does not grow by five million barrels per day year after year; ethanol and other substitute-fuel production, along with alternate fuels of various sorts, do not grow fast enough to fill the gap; and, in the not-too-distant future, a substantial shortage of oil leads to a global economic meltdown.
oil output in the United States and most other non-members of the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC) has peaked, or is about to do so, which means that the net contribution of non-OPEC suppliers will only diminish between now and 2012. That, in turn, means that the burden of providing the required additional oil will have to fall on the OPEC countries, most of which are located in unstable areas of the Middle East and Africa.
The numbers are actually staggering. Just to satisfy a demand for an extra 10 million or so barrels per day between now and 2012, two million barrels per day in new oil would have to be added to global stocks yearly. But even this calculation is misleading, as Eagles of the IEA made clear. In fact, the world would initially need "more than 3 million barrels per day of new oil each year [just] to offset the falling production in the mature fields outside of OPEC" -- and that's before you even get near that additional two million barrels.
In other words, what's actually needed is five million barrels of new oil each year, a truly daunting challenge since almost all of this oil will have to be found in Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Angola, Libya, Nigeria, Venezuela, and one or two other countries. These are not places that exactly inspire investor confidence of a sort that could attract the many billions of dollars needed to ramp up production enough to satisfy global requirements.
Read between the lines and one quickly perceives a worst-case scenario in which the necessary investment is not forthcoming; OPEC production does not grow by five million barrels per day year after year; ethanol and other substitute-fuel production, along with alternate fuels of various sorts, do not grow fast enough to fill the gap; and, in the not-too-distant future, a substantial shortage of oil leads to a global economic meltdown.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Monday, August 13, 2007
Gabor Steingart: America and the Dollar Illusion
Gabor Steingart: America and the Dollar Illusion: "America and the Dollar Illusion"
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
ASSE The Myths of Safety
ASSE The Myths of Safety EXXON Oil Spill
Think of the greatest environmental disaster in recent history. For many people, the Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound comes to mind.
Six years after the cleanup, a study was conducted to determine ecological recovery in the sound. What researchers found was that the areas that were not cleaned were in better shape – with more wildlife and cleaner water and soil – than the areas that had been cleaned. The chemicals and high-pressure washing used to "clean" the area had destroyed the ecosystem in some parts of Prince William Sound.
Think of the greatest environmental disaster in recent history. For many people, the Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound comes to mind.
Three hundred seals, 2,800 sea otters, 250,000 sea birds and a host of other wildlife were killed by that spill, acknowledged Corrie Pitzer, an industrial psychologist from SAFEmap International in Vancouver. However, he added, 250,000 birds are killed by flying into windows every year.
"The cleanup cost was $2.1 billion, with a 50 percent reach," Pitzer told an audience at a June 25 session of the American Society of Safety Engineers' (ASSE) 2007 Professional Development Conference in Orlando, Fla. "That means that only 50 percent of Prince William Sound was cleaned."
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"The environmental disaster was the cleanup," said Pitzer.
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