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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (68366)	11/19/2010 1:15:02 PM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 217591

HSBC today announced the completion of a renminbi-(RMB) denominated trade settlement transaction in Brazil, South America. In settling this transaction, HSBC stands as the leading bank globally offering customers RMB trade settlement services in Asia Pacific, Europe, Australasia, Africa, North America and South America. The ground-breaking transaction was closed for Groupo Tellerina, a retailer of house and decoration products. voxy.co.nz

To: TobagoJack who wrote (68366)	11/20/2010 3:45:53 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 217591

Military gorging in easy money! "surge in military spending between 1999 and 2010 differed qualitatively from the 43 percent spending surge of the 1960s (Vietnam) and the 57 percent surge in the 1980s (Reagan) in that this was not just a peak in a fluctuating historical cycle but rather an unprecedented new baseline for U.S. military spending. From 1951 to 2002, U.S. military spending averaged $425 billion per year (in 2010 dollars) and never fluctuated more than 25 percent above or below that figure. Now it’s 63 percent above it and rising, and the government has no plans to scale back to the “normal” level established during the previous 50 years of U.S. military dominance. This dramatic increase in military spending contrasts sharply with what the taxpayers who are funding it say they want. A PIPA poll in 2005, when the US military budget was “only” $521 billion per year, found that the average American would choose to cut it by $163 billion. This would have brought the total military budget down to $358 billion, close to the 1998 level when adjusted for inflation, and well within the previous “normal” range. (http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/DefenseSpending/FedBudget_Mar05/FedBudget_Mar05_rpt.pdf) But of course that’s not what happened. Instead, military spending grew another 35 percent over the next 5 years to give the public double the military budget it said it wanted. Conetta explained the spending splurge in terms of the conflicting dividends of the end of the Cold War: the peace dividend and the power dividend. Even as bases were closed and the numbers of personnel in the U.S. armed forces were reduced in the 1990s, U.S. leaders were at the same time determined to capitalize on the collapse of the U.S.S.R. to expand American power around the world. As we now know, our leaders squandered the peace dividend and their pursuit of the power dividend led us into unwinnable wars and unsustainable hostile military occupations, but the disastrous results of their megalomania have yet to lead to a more rational policy or a genuine recommitment to peace. ... But how much more war will it take to bring our leaders to their senses and how many more innocents must die on the altar of their nightmares? We must find a way to restore sanity to U.S. policy before our deluded leaders squander what is left of our nation’s wealth on an unwinnable arms race, or, even worse, make the fatal mistake of unleashing their war machine against a country that can actually fight back. Demanding the enforcement of our own laws against aggression, torture and other war crimes would be a good place to start, along with immediate and substantial cuts in all offensive weapons programs in the U.S. military budget. onlinejournal.com