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

To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (71188)	2/22/2011 7:16:30 PM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Respond to of 218194

Give them all tin hats to wear. <Fiber is not affected so why worry <smile> all copper land lines will fry blowing all the central electronic switches, same with cellular relays stations which may die from voltage surges.> Mqurice

To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (71188)	2/23/2011 2:02:12 AM
From: elmatador	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 218194

"rather weak and is not expected to produce any strong effects at Earth other than perhaps some beautiful aurora in the high northern and southern latitudes" Relax. Just a plot for insurance companies to jack premiums... You know the caliber of the infrastructure fo the USSR era. And maybe some guys decide to blow the junk up to be replaced using the solar flares as an excuse... I know my electorate.

To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (71188)	2/23/2011 5:14:09 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 218194

Who is the competition to China? Only answering that question, we will be able to understand China’s position in the world economy and its actions. There are 2.5 billion people (Indian, Africans, S. East Asians) competing for food and energy with 1.3 billion Chinese. “The major source of higher inflation in China today is food. This factor could reverse later this year if there are good harvests or a decline in global commodity prices. But there is one new factor driving inflation which will not easily reverse: rising wages.” Then there is the sheer number of people. “The (Chinese) eastern provinces currently have a labor shortage of twenty million workers. The population of young workers is now declining. The total labor force will start to shrink after 2018. Africa’s workforce will grow from 600 million to 1.1 billion over the next thirty years while it will be shrinking in Europe, Japan, Korea, and China. With that in mind let's look to Africa: McKinsey identified some key factors which it believes can drive African growth. There is a treasure chest of raw materials such as oil, platinum, gold, iron ore, diamonds, cobalt, copper, and other base metals. Africa also has 600 million hectares of cultivatable crop land that is not currently being farmed, or 60% of the world total. McKinsey believes that there is great potential to boosting agricultural output as farming is modernized. It projects agricultural output could increase from $280 billion today to $500 billion by 2020 and $880 billion by 2030. Leaving India out of the picture let’s look to Africa. The Africans can pay their way out of poverty if they exploit their resources. And that's why Brazil wants to be a major player in Africa (and perhaps creating the US-Brazil Axis): (McKinsey and Company) pointed out that Africa’s GDP is now equal to $1.6 trillion, or the same level as Brazil and Russia. They project that it will grow to $2.6 trillion by 2020. They project that. McKinsey estimates that Africa will become 50% urban by 2030 and have fifty-two cities with more than one million people. They note that African countries spend far less on infrastructure than the BRIC countries and will have to increase it significantly during the future. South Africa’s power production and road density are comparable to the BRICs, but other countries lag far behind. At present, African countries spend about $72 billion per annum on infrastructure, which is 13% of the total in emerging markets. McKinsey believes that African countries will need to increase this investment to $118 billion per annum to keep pace with economic growth and become more competitive. SOURCE: The State of the World. A summary of his keynote address of David Hale chairman of David Hale Global Economicsat the Investing in African Mining Indaba 2011 conference. siliconinvestor.com

To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (71188)	2/27/2011 7:38:22 PM
From: TobagoJack	6 Recommendations Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 218194

open letter from jim walker of asianomics limited asianom.com e-mailed today Dear Mr Obama At the time that the Swedish Academy awarded you the Nobel Peace Prize we have to admit that we didn’t quite get it. All that we could find in favour of the award to you was that you weren’t your predecessor. Mr Bush, it has to be said, didn’t seem to be well-advised or to have the ability of making good decisions on his own account. He also started a war under false pretenses, the whole spurious weapons of mass destruction charade in Iraq, even though he was, belatedly, finishing a job that should have been done ten years previously. Saddam Hussein might not have had WMDs in 2003 but he certainly used them against his own people in Halabja in 1988. Now, we are even more puzzled by the Swedish Academy’s award. You see, you do possess weapons of mass destruction and there is conclusive proof that you have used one of them. You are the man in charge of the country which produces the world’s reserve currency. You have in your employ (well, his term is Federal Reserve Chairman although it seems that his organization is not strictly owned by the Federal government) the head of the most powerful central bank on the planet. It is hard to believe that he can completely act in a way that is not sanctioned by you. Unlike Mr Bush, you have presided over policies which have set alight revolutions, so far, in three Middle Eastern countries. Your Federal Reserve Chairman claims responsibility for raising equity prices at home (he conveniently fails to explain why house prices, a much bigger component of ordinary people’s wealth in America continue to fall) but says he is not to blame for any other price rises across the globe. Essentially, he claims that is down to the stupidity of emerging market central banks and governments which have pegged their currencies/monetary policies to the US dollar. Of course, he is right. No-one asked these unwitting people to peg their currencies and monetary policies to those of the US. But equally, the US never – as far as I can discern – gave them warning, let alone fair warning, that it intended to abrogate its responsibilities as the world’s central banker. You see, if that had been obvious we could all have sold our US dollars in favour of some other asset a long time ago. As a recipient of a global prize such as the Nobel Peace was it too much to ask for you to give us a heads’ up? OK, so maybe that was too much to ask. Let’s focus on these ‘extraordinary monetary’ measures that your Fed Chairman insists on experimenting with. Everyone in the world of finance knows that they are behind the unheralded increase in soft and hard commodity prices. Mr B has signaled long and hard that it is a mug’s game not to be overexposed to the assets that are most thinly traded. The more money printed, the faster and further thinly-traded asset prices rise. We are all capable of front-running that trade. But back to the main point, the carnage you have sanctioned in the Middle East. Are you really convinced this is a smart game? I didn’t like Mr Mubarak and even less Colonel Gaddafi but do we have any idea who is going to take their place and whether or not they will be better either for their own people or the rest of the world? Moreover, should US foreign policy really be handed over to an academic economist whose policies and theories over the last 10 years have wreaked havoc in the global economy. The truth is Mr Obama, it is time for you to take some responsibility for the actions of those you employ. Maybe it’s time to have a word with Professor Bernanke and tell him it is time to start behaving like a responsible money manager. After all, that is what is job is supposed to be. Or do we have to wait until the whole Middle East is afire and oil prices are at US$200/bbl before you get the message? Yours Puzzled, Worried and Confused