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Archive for the 'World' Category
Press: Naomi Wolf on S.Palin
Naomi Wolf, who also writes for Huffington Post, has published an interesting opinion piece at AlterNet (link below). If you like her point of view or not, this is definitely worth reading…
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Humor: The true story behind the U.S. 700 Billion Bail-out plan
Much has been said this week about the so-called USD 700 Billion bail-out plan for banks by the current U.S. administration and finally the right question was asked in congress yesterday - How did you arrive at that USD 700 billion number…
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Corruption: At least USD 13 Billion Iraq Aid wasted or stolen
The Washington Post today (link below) has a very interesting report on fraud, corruption and waste surrounding the U.S. Iraq reconstruction program.
Salam Adhoob, the former chief investigator of the Iraq’s Commission on Public Integrity (the equivalent to the U.S. FBI) estimated in a hearing of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee yesterday, that out of the about USD 50 Billion U.S. taxpayer money that has so far been disbursed to the Iraq reconstruction program, at least USD 13 Billion have been wasted or stolen through various fraud schemes.
The former chief investigator and head of a 200 strong auditors team was one of three Iraqis testifying before the committee yesterday - all providing evidence of widespread corruption and waste up to the point, as one of them said, that Iraqi government officials are financing al-Qaeda terrorists through some of these schemes.
An additional USD 9 Billion were estimated…
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Quote of the day: Different minds
Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884 - 1962, First Lady of the United States
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Quote of the day: Racketeering
Due to recent events last week when the US government has put up all government property and the (work of the) next two generations of American citizens as collateral to bail out a few thousand “bad apples” within the financial world, we thought the quote from MajGen. Smedley Butler below might also be a good fit for that.
Those guys in the financial world who now try to make others believe that they did not know the dangers and that they did not know that they were trading worthless paper for money just like before the great depression, have always put their greed, their profiteering and racking in other peoples money above everything and anybody else.
We are not talking about the simple employees who are…
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Today: Remember Hiroshima
On this day in 1945 80,000 people were killed instantly and thousands more have died from injuries or illness attributed to the nuclear attacks on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later with the bombing of Nagasaki ten thousands more of mostly civilian population in Japan was killed with the second atomic bomb dropped by the US…
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Climate Change: Canada we’re coming
Risk advisory firm Maplecroft has published a “Climate Change Risk Report” looking into the vulnerability of 168 countries to the impact of climate change. The study does not review the severity of the threats in general, but instead evaluates the ability of each of the countries to adapt and withstand potential change.
The report includes a vulnerability index and comparable country scorecards with risk indices, risk indicators, maps and graphics.
Not unsurprising the developed nations with…
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Video: How fair is fairtrade?
This short video / interview looks at some general aspects of the concept of fair trade and the brand with the same name.
Welcome to a very unfair edition of the Telegraph’s video show “Holy Cows”.
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World: The price of beer in 128 countries
How much will it cost you to shout out “Mine’s a pint!” in pubs around the globe? Well, a new online database of beer prices in 128 countries will provide the answer.
With the price of a pint of beer being a similar economic indicator as the BigMac index, there might be more to it then just finding the best watering hole. Pint Price - as the database is called - provides the most data in beer drinking countries like the UK (more than 50 cities listed), US (more than 20 cities) or Germany (4 cities list) but also more exotic destinations like…
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Visualizing the size of the banking crisis
Sizing the issue at hand seems to be the first problem. Banks keep the so called derivatives off their balance sheets (because when looking at it with a sense of black humor these instruments are a bit like the banks’ own print run of casino chips - As long as others exchange them freely for real money that’s what they are worth. When that situation changes their value changes too - well, worst case to nothing or - better said, whatever someone is willing to pay for the illusion of value)…
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