Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lou Weed who wrote (252317)	12/25/2007 11:39:40 PM
From: Elroy	Respond to of 281500

Kuwait enhances subsidy scheme Reuters Published: December 25, 2007, 23:13 gulfnews.com Kuwait City: Kuwait will improve its food subsidies system and tighten controls to prevent unjustified price increases to curb inflation which hit a record 6.2 per cent in September, state news agency Kuna said on Tuesday. The measures, which were approved by the country's cabinet on Monday, include allowing Kuwaitis to buy 25 per cent more of subsidised foods such as rice, vegetable oil and powder milk, commerce and industry Minister Falah Al Hajeri told Kuna. The Middle East's fourth-largest oil exporter has a system that allows Kuwaiti nationals to buy subsidised basic foods. Measures Other measures would be to improve quality of subsidised foods and remove the cap on the amount of subsidised baby milk citizens can buy, Al Hajeri said. The government will also intensify its monitoring of price increases at supermarkets, he said urging consumers to report shops charging exaggerated prices. "The ministry will step up its monitoring of the local market to track down unjustified price increases," he said. Kuwait, which pays for a about third of its imports in euros, broke ranks with its neighbours in May and dropped its dollar peg, saying the US currency's weakness was driving up import costs and fuelling inflation. Citing a study by Al Hajeri's ministry, Al Qabas newspaper said the government also wants to prevent private firms from entering the residential property market to dampen price increases in the booming sector. The government said in September it was worried about a jump in property prices and would try bringing them down to levels affordable to citizens. On average, property sales rose 59 per cent in the first eleven months compared with the year-earlier period, National Bank of Kuwait said in a research report published on Monday. Currency: Reference rate on hold Kuwait kept the dinar reference rate unchanged yesterday after allowing it to fall a day earlier to its lowest level in three weeks as the dollar gained on global markets. The dinar will trade around a mid point of 0.27450 per dollar, unchanged from Monday, the central bank said. It had allowed the dinar to fall 0.11 per cent on Monday after the dollar climbed a six-week peak against the yen and made gains versus the euro during the Eid Al Adha holiday last week.

To: Lou Weed who wrote (252317)	12/26/2007 2:15:57 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<<If CO2 is not implicated in GW, then it makes no sense to try to reduce its levels in the atmosphere, as it's perfectly harmless>> This statement is not controversial. Nobody denies it, not even Al Gore. You were saying that it made sense to reduce CO2 emissions whether they had anything to do with GW or not. I replied that this made no sense, as the only harm attributed to CO2 is GW; the stuff is otherwise harmless or even beneficial. So if CO2 isn't contributing to GW, there is no problem to solve. Now, the whole question revolves around whether C02 emission ARE responsible for GW, and if so, to what extent. This is precisely the point under dispute, with the alarmists claiming proof that GW will a) be very bad and b) is mainly caused by manmade CO2 emissions, and c) can be signficantly ameliorated by lessening CO2 emissions. Skeptics reply that the scientific evidence for both a) and b) is sketchy at best, and any improvements from c) will cost trillions and be insignificant. They believe that GW is a) unlikely to be very bad b) has not been proved to be mostly of manmade origin, and c) and cannot be significantly altered by current or future changes in CO2 emissions. Why do you think there is such a difference between us and the rest of the major industrialized countries??? Because our political position in the globe is so different from everybody else. The Euro politicians could happily sign onto Kyoto and mouth the GW words whether they believed it or not, knowing that they would reap a short term political benefit with no costs at all for nearly a decade - even then, nobody would pay much attention when they failed to actually reduce emissions as promised. For the US, it's different. The burdens imposed on the US would be disproportionately higher, and all the UN would notice every tit and jottle of treaty performance in their favorite game of gang-up-on-big-bad-America.