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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (367844)	1/22/2008 10:03:55 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1577338

Fukk you, Chris. You don't know what the hell you're talking about. Bernanke had no choice but to cut. You're out of touch. Sell your house and move to a desert island! You live in your own dream world. You got stopped out of your GLD because inflation is no longer problem. The rest of us knew that weeks ago. Let me add...Mr. Benanke is the worst fed chief in the last 50 years!

To: bentway who wrote (367844)	1/22/2008 11:41:34 AM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577338

Bernanke presses the panic button A global stock market sell-off on Monday, followed by a near instantaneous 400-point drop in the Dow Jones industrial average and a whopping three-quarters of a percentage point "emergency" cut in the Fed Funds rate (the biggest single downward slice since 1994) on Tuesday morning, are spurring some discouraging words on the economic frontier, and sparking comparisons with a century's worth of financial disasters. Monday's stock plunges around the world are already being called "Black Monday," an allusion to the crash of Oct 18, 1987. Economist Nouriel Roubini, who has been preaching doom for years, declares that the oncoming " recession will be ugly, deep and severe, much more severe than the mild 8-month recessions in 1990-91 and 2001." Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, observes that the housing bust "is creating the largest financial crisis since the Great Depression and might well lead to the most serious recession since World War II." The Federal Reserve, as usual, is more constrained, attributing its action to "a weakening of the economic outlook and increasing downside risks to growth." And Treasury Secretary Paulson did his best to give the bad news a positive spin, arguing that the Fed's rate-cut "shows to this country and the rest of the world is that our central bank is nimble and is able to move quickly to respond to market conditions. That should be a confidence builder.'' How the World Works has two immediate reactions: First: Ben Bernanke has proven, once and for all, that juicing the stock market is now considered Job #1 for the Federal Reserve Bank. The material effects of rate cuts do not show up in economic growth statistics for months or even years after their enactment. By making an emergency "inter-meeting" cut a mere eight days before its regularly scheduled meeting, Bernanke is conducting economic policy in order to appease market psychology. The fragile psyches of Wall Street traders who played such a pivotal role in creating this mess by romping through the derivatives wonderland, are now in control of government strategy. That can't be good. Second: When the "mild" recession of 2001 hit, it was tempting for some to blame George Bush, although fairer minds, no matter how partisan their inclinations, had to acknowledge that, economically speaking, one couldn't pin responsibility for the inevitable fluctuations of the business cycle on a newly arrived President. All one could do is critique how the new president handled the situation. But if the current economic downturn gets anywhere near as bad as some of the more gloomy observers are suggesting, there will be no escaping the verdict of history on this administration. The worst recession since World War II? Just another line on Bush's resumé, highlighted, underlined, in bold and italics. salon.com

To: bentway who wrote (367844)	1/22/2008 11:53:49 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577338

Look. I want to apologize for going off on you this morning. However, I don't think you fully understand how serious the situation is and continues to be. For an example, last week, one of the mortgage insurers, which are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, tried to raise more money by selling bonds. They had to withdraw the sale because no one was buying. The mortgage insurers don't have enough money to pay off all the defaulting loans. Had one or more of them failed the entire credit system would have collapsed. Everyone knows it.....that's why people are so worried. Meanwhile the LIBOR rate....a key rate for lending...is down to a level which should permit banks to lend, but the banks aren't lending. They are scared......cash is king....thats why the credit markets are freezing up. Bottom line: I am not stupid......I know this is taking a facile way to deal with all the problems but it had to be done. You can't get people to clean up their act with their feet in the fire and everything collapsing around them. Does lowering the fed rates solve the problems? No. But it does provide us with a platform to start making the reforms that need to be made. Will that happen? Depends on who we elect as president. For the past couple of years, we've talked about how much of a mess this country is in......well the chickens have come home to roost. Right now, we have a very lame duck president, a Congress that can't seem to get its stride and a Fed chief who doesn't have a clue. Scary times....IMO this is not a time for "taking your medicine" as you have suggested in the past.

To: bentway who wrote (367844)	1/22/2008 1:03:18 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577338

Volcano found under Antarctic ice Active volcano may contribute to rapid glacial melt. Quirin Schiermeier Radar surveys from the air can image what's under the ice.Radar surveys from the air can image what's under the ice.Carl Robinson/British Antarctic Survey Scientists have found an active volcano beneath Antarctic ice that last erupted just 2,000 years ago. The hotspot lies beneath the Pine Island region of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, where glaciers are retreating more quickly than elsewhere on the continent. The dramatic find might help to explain this particularly rapid loss of ice. Although the Antarctic is often thought of as a huge, sedate expanse of snow, the continent is known to host several active volcanoes, some of which poke out of the ice. Mount Erebus, on Ross Island in the Ross Sea, is the area’s most famous active volcano and its continuous activity has been observed since the 1970s. This volcanic activity has led some geologists to suspect that volcanoes lurking beneath the ice might affect how glaciers melt and flow on the continent. But no such hot-spots have been confirmed until now. Hugh Corr and David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey, which is has its headquarters in Cambridge, UK, analysed radar data from an airborne survey of the area conducted three years ago. They were stunned by an exceptionally strong signal showing the radar reflecting from a mid-depth layer in the ice — a stronger reflection than that from the bed rock lower down. The only valid explanation for this is that the ice contains a layer of ash from a recent volcanic eruption, they conclude in Nature Geoscience 1. “This is a small sensation,” says Karsten Gohl, a geophysicist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany. “We did suspect active volcanism in the region, but now we have solid evidence.” Blow hole The British team estimate that between 0.019 and 0.31 cubic kilometres of ‘tephra’ – lose fragments of volcanic ash — erupted around 325 BC. “It was probably the biggest volcanic eruption in Antarctica during the last 10,000 years,” says Vaughan. “It must have blown a huge hole in the ice sheet and generated a 12 kilometre-high plume of ash and gas.” The ashes, deposited over an area roughly the size of Wales, were subsequently buried by snowfall. The team determined the date of the eruption by modelling the rate at which snow would have accumulated on top of the ash, and looking at the depth of ice present on top of the ash today. The estimate of the eruption’s size is only a rough one, they admit. “It’s only a best estimate,” says Vaughan. “One day I hope we will able to drill a bore hole and check.” Other sub-glacial eruptions could have occurred recently in the vicinity as well, but evidence for this might be hard to find. Most ash layers would probably have been carried to sea by the fast-retreating ice. Gohl says that during a planned expedition in 2010 to western Antarctica he will search for traces of volcanic material in ocean sediments. Hot bottom The Pine Island Glacier shrinks in length by more than a kilometre every year, and thins by several vertical metres, as glaciers flow out to sea. In the unlikely event that all ice in this huge glacier region melts, it would raise the global sea level by 1.5 metres. Scientists think that most glacial melting occurs as the result of warmer ocean waters, which accelerate the calving of icebergs into the sea. But the existence of active volcanism in this part of western Antarctica suggests that geothermal heat, which warms the glaciers from below, might also play a big role in this fast-melting region. “A very basic condition – how hot is it under the glaciers – has changed with this finding,” says Sridhar Anandakrishnan, a glaciologist at Pennsylvania State University in University Park. “Anyone who wants to model the ice flow of West Antarctica in future must take this into account.” nature.com