Japan's Energy Report

Informative report on Japan's energy situation as it stands now.  With the recent look at nuclear energy and its safety, thought it might be enlightening.  Find it here if the headline link doesn't work above.

Bill Gross on the Deficit

An easy and must-read from PIMCO's Bill Gross on the unsustainability  of the U.S. deficit.  You also may be interested in Mary Meeker's U.S.A. Inc paper that looks at the U.S. government as if it was a business.

Japan's Nuclear Crisis Report

The Congressional Research Service makes reports mainly for U.S. government use—like educating congress people on issues.  This report lays out the situation in Japan very well.  It's already a little dated, but informative nonetheless.

Budget Cuts ARE Possible According to the GAO

It's not that the government doesn't know what it needs to do; it's that politicians simply look out for their own constituents.  Everyone favors cutting others' programs, but their own programs are untouchable.  Let's hope the U.S. government doesn't default on that growing debt in our lifetime!

Inflation Seems to be Building, Maybe Even in Japan

It may be a good time to think about converting floating rate mortgages to fixed rate.  There's an aweful lot of money floating around and it my be just a matter of time before developed economies will be needing to raise interest rates.  Plus in Japan, there is a good chance the government will be financing earthquake and tsunami reconstruction by selling bonds, pushing rates up further—this is not advice, but something we should all keep in mind.

Stars and Stripes from 1918-1919 Available

History minded readers may be interested that the Library of Congress has scanned and made available the "Stars and Stripes" newspaper from 1918-19.

Kudos to Bloomberg News

Month after month Bloomberg news just gets it right. If there is any news organization that understands its civic responsibility it's got to be Bloomberg. Also, their site offers a wealth of information and doesn't bombard you with ads like other financial sites.

GE Doesn't Pay Its Share So You Can Pay More!

Another example of big corporations playing the game at other's expense. The most shocking insight from this NYT article was how corporations only pay around 6% of tax revenues these days yet a few decades ago they were paying around 30%. I wonder who's getting stuck with the tab? I bet it's all of us ordinary citizens without legions of lawyers to do our bidding!

More Financial Disclosure Coming

Big hedge funds will be required to disclose in plain language what they're doing. Should be some interesting reading courtesy of the S.E.C.

Privacy for Android

Finance In America

Insider Financial Scams at the Top of U.S. Finance

Corruption might be the norm if the Galleon case is any indicator.  The whole financial crisis made it much more politically feasible to prosecute the crooks near or at the top of corporate America.  

Japanese Survival and Perseverance

The earthquake and tsunami has been extensively reported on since it occurred on March 11, 2011.  The NY Times has a great article on getting back to a sense of normality.

Looking at These Numbers, We're Doing All Right!

Ran across this in Goldman Sach's recent annual report.  It seemed like such a nice summary of 2010 that I just had to post it to remind myself that it's not so bad!

 

Asia

In Japan, real GDP increased by an estimated 3.9% in 2010, compared with a decrease of 6.3% in 2009. Growth primarily reflected a significant increase in exports, as well as an increase in consumer spending. Measures of inflation remained negative during 2010. The Bank of Japan reduced its target overnight call rate from 0.10% to a range of zero to 0.10% and the yield on 10-year Japanese government bonds fell by 17 basis points to 1.13%. The Japanese yen appreciated by 13% against the U.S. dollar. The Nikkei 225 Index decreased 3% during the year. In China, real GDP growth was an estimated 10.3% in 2010, up from 9.2% in 2009. Economic growth was broad-based, with significant increases in exports, retail spending and business investment. Measures of inflation increased during 2010, reflecting continued growth in demand. The People’s Bank of China raised its one-year benchmark lending rate by 50 basis points during the year to 5.81% and the Chinese yuan appreciated by 3% against the U.S. dollar. The Shanghai Composite Index decreased by 14% during 2010, partially due to concerns over the effect of tighter policy on economic growth. In India, real GDP growth was an estimated 8.5% in 2010, up from 7.5% in 2009. Growth primarily reflected an increase in domestic demand, partially offset by the impact of lower net exports. The rate of wholesale inflation increased during the year. The Indian rupee appreciated by 3% against the U.S. dollar. Equity markets in Hong Kong ended the year higher and equity markets in India and South Korea increased significantly during 2010. 

 

Source:  GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP, INC. FORM 10-K FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2010

How About a $6,000,000,000 Payday?

That's what Warren Buffett has coming on April 18, 2011.  During the financial crisis in 2008 Mr. Buffett invested $5,000,000,000 into Goldman Sachs to keep it afloat.  That investment paid 10% a year or $500,000,000.  Goldman will pay it off early so they must pay a $500,000,000 penalty.  His total profit on the investment comes to nearly 6 billion U.S. dollars—in a little over 3 years!  And then Buffett also has options on additional Goldman Sachs stock worth nearly 2 billion dollars!  Buffett coined the phrase, "be careful when others are greedy and greedy when they are fearful."  Wow!  It almost makes you feel sorry for Goldman!  Here's an article from 2008 when he made the investment.

Free Books for All at Google

Google has a huge project where they are trying to make all books that have ever been published available in digitized form on the web (see link).  Of course, they will use that collection to advertise—like they do—but it will make a huge number of out-of-print books accessible to all of us.  And as you might expect, big book sellers like Amazon don't like that idea too much.  See a recent New York times article here.

New Orleans Police Department is Criminal

Ron Paul on Afghanistan and Hypocritcal Republicans

Streaming Japanese News in English

Streaming .TV shows by Ustream

Financial Services As a Percentage of GDP

I thought this chart was quite demonstrative of why the U.S. is angling toward class warfare.  Every dollar of GDP to financial services is coming out of the middle class in loss wages from the lack of well-paying manufacturing jobs.  This will be a difficult trend to stop as resources become more and more concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.  It may just perpetuate itself until the country implodes.

Great Site for Network Info

It Boils Down to Healthcare

 ‘‘USA per capita healthcare spending is 3x OECD average, yet the average life expectancy and a variety of health indicators in the US fall below average. But if you spend way more than everyone else, shouldn't your results (a.k.a. ‘performance’) be better than everyone else’s, or at least near the top?’’  That's a quote from Mary Meeker's "U.S.A. Inc." presentation. The U.S. demonstrates clearly why "for profit" is not appropriate for all endeavors.  Some things should be non-profit: healthcare and, for the most part, education come to mind.  There was no doubt that the U.S. system would have to change eventually.  The "for profits" have squeezed the system for all it's worth for decades.  Every other advanced industrialized country in the world provides some kind of health insurance for its citizens, yet in the U.S. over 40,000,000 people are left with no insurance at all.  It should be a great embarrassment for the U.S., but how does this occur?  Well, it boils down to special interests and their power over the politicians in the guise of "contributions."  It has tilted the system away from the middle class and toward corporate elites.  It will change over time as the younger generations gain power, but not before the U.S. gets very close to defaulting on their massive debt.  Let's see if it is faced before the crisis occurs!

Chinese Car Maker and "Warren Buffett's Investment

Interesting article with insights on the Chinese market.  Also interesting is that we get a fuller picture from some Wikileak's documents.  We should all be thanking Wikileaks, but instead the U.S. is attacking and looking for a way to prosecute!  That's an aside: getting back to the article, they call it the "Buffett investment," but actually it looks more like it's his Partner's, Charlie Munger, and David Sokol's, chairman of Berkshire units MidAmerican and NetJets, that made the actual call.  It certainly doesn't look like any sort of company that Buffett would go after.  My guess is he went along with it because it would be such a small percentage of Berkshire Hathaway's holdings.

Bill Gates on Government Deficits at TED

Just In Case of a Bear Attack

I think the chances of a bear attack are remote in my part of the woods, but just in case it might be a good idea to know what to do.  Good luck!!

Daily Report on the Missing Wisconsin Senators!

The Daily Show - Searching for the Wisconsin 14
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On Libya

Why Big Media Fails All of Us

"In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell."  That's a quote from the 1971 case where the Pentagon was trying to stop the New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers — documents that indicated the U.S. government lied  to garner support for the war in Vietnam.  The Pentagon lost and the American people were made aware that the government lied, but that seems to have not made any difference, for the whole thing repeated itself for justifying the Iraq war, based on lies in 2003. (governments still lie; please see Howard Zinn)  Virtually no media questioned the government propaganda that in every newspaper and on every news program day after day for months on end seemed to justify the illegal war in Iraq.

Fortunately, programs like DemocracyNow and Aljazeera English are delivering real news that is not beholden to the government or corporations.  Recently Hilary Clinton commented that the U.S. media is not as informative as Aljazeera!  She's right!  After watching a couple of hours of Aljazeera and then tuning into Fox News, it's so obvious that Americans would be blind to virtually any objective view point at all!

Androids Are Looking Real

A Great Weekend Project!

If you are into photography, here's a nice project to get some pictures from 90,000 feet up.  Good luck!

Great Letter from Roger Waters on Ilegal Occupation by Israel

Warren Buffett Comes to Japan

Pharmaceuticals

Great article on the current state of the pharmaceutical industry.

View From Space Shuttle Launch

Where Were Republicans During the Bush Big Deficit Years?

Suddenly the Republicans are concerned about the deficit.  It's odd we never heard a thing during the entire Bush presidency (8 years!) about the deficit.  As soon as Obama gets in there it's the only thing we hear about!  Republican hypocrisy is epic in its shrill, blatancy and caustic disregard for the future of the U.S.

Exercise - It May Keep You Young!

How Long Can the U.S. Get Away With This?

Over and over the U.S. kills innocents.  If this happened in the U.S. there would be a revolution!

Insurance Companies Will Do Anything to Avoid Their Obligations

Bloomberg's got an informative write-up on the insurance industry here.  These are the things that government should be regulating, but since special interests have pretty much made the rules to benefit specific industries at the expense of consumers we are pretty much on our own.

Financial Crisis and the Aftermath or Lack of It

Must read on the financial crisis.  Notice how the main stream media doesn't say much...