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

To: Chas. who wrote (72298)	3/23/2011 8:54:04 AM
From: Cogito Ergo Sum	Respond to of 217777

Yes we are talking economic downfall... then again 20 billion is not a light switch... pressure from 12 billion could do it considering middle class is apparently growing... but no idea about the trigger... I've seen two market meltdowns in my relatively short investing career.. second was worse IMO... I expect to see a worse one...

To: Chas. who wrote (72298)	3/23/2011 12:20:44 PM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 217777

Chas, Peak People will be in 2037. I predicted that years ago. It has been obvious for decades that there is a vast cultural paradigm shift happening in demographics. Africa and mush of the Moslem zone are still in the old population wars in which tribes. expand flat out, conquer neighbours if they can and live by Malthusian rules. But the rest of the world has entered an era of children by choice and the choice has been below population replacement. Women in Japan and Italy and Germany have for decades not been replacing themselves. China joined in on a compulsory basis but the trend is so established that even if they allow anyone to have as many as they like, they are too late to avoid the plunge. Over the last few years in New Zealand there has been an echo of the echo Baby Boom. There are babies and young children everywhere. But they are still only having none, 1 or 2, with just a few having 3. They are doing it later too, not when they turn 16 followed by a fast marriage as happened a few decades ago. Now women are getting fertility treatment in their 30s to beat the biological clock. Eugenics is the name of the game now, not mass production followed by tribal genocidal war. Women are eliminating genes by sexual discrimination on a grand scale. In China, there are swarms of males whose genes are going to be thrown on the scrap heap as women reject them in droves [there are far too many men for the supply of women - thanks to female abortion which was amusingly denied by TJ years ago]. The planet can easily sustain 20 billion people. Not in the manner to which the average obese SUV driving freeway dweller has become accustomed, but happiness doesn't come from roaring around roads in tons of steel and hurtling through the stratosphere in aluminium tubes while heating the Arctic with furnaces and cooling the tropics with air conditioners. New York T bone giant steaks are not an essential ingredient of life either. Hordes are happily vegetarian which makes for much more efficient food production. Not that there is a shortage of land for growing food. Look were ElM is laying fibre - vast acreages of wilderness. It could be covered with crops if needs be. By 2100, the people population will be not much more than it is now. Vicious rumour has it that I won't be here. 5 billion others who are alive now won't be either. That leaves a couple of billion who will have to hurry and replace themselves. What if they'd rather just relax and play Angry Birds and cerf cyberspace, with robots growing genetically enhanced crops? Already machines growing vast acreages of wheat, soy and other crops with a few people tending them. Peak People 2037. That's even if we don't get an H5N1 or other decimation of the population. Reglaciation in 2020 could be a big problem too. People will be too busy moving house and adapting to bother with the fun of reproduction. In 1967, I had a maths lecturer who made the interesting observation that God was quite cunning. To ensure population, God didn't just leave the joys of little feet running around to be the reward for reproduction, he also made the production process highly enjoyable. That amused me then. At about the same time, the contraceptive pill and other simple contraceptive means were becoming easily available. So it's now just the joys of little children. Since then, there has been another development - the failure of marriage and other long term stable sexual relationships as people seek self-satisfaction and personal power over subsuming themselves in family. Japan's population is already on the way down. Italy is being invaded by Moslems as are other European countries, so they might be over-run which will delay the decline, then accelerate it as it implodes economically as civilized productive people flee. Welfare is already an unmanageable burden. Greece is in the process of collapse. Wisconsin too. Mqurice

To: Chas. who wrote (72298)	3/25/2011 11:04:22 AM
From: elmatador	2 Recommendations Respond to of 217777

Something for the UN Security Council. 1 million flee Ivory Coast in fear of civil war By MARCO CHOWN OVED , 03.25.11, 10:17 AM EDT ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast -- With possessions balanced on their heads, about 1,000 people frantically crowded around buses rented by Mali to evacuate its citizens Friday from Ivory Coast, joining an estimated 1 million people who already have fled amid fears of civil war. More than 2 million Malians live in neighboring Ivory Coast, and human rights groups say the foreigners are facing growing threats of violence as the Ivorian political crisis intensifies. Evacuation efforts have been hampered by a lack of buses so far. ELMAT: This does not make the UN council send in the FGrench, UK and the US to take any action? Why? I will tell you. Because there is not fields of light oil to pay for juicy contracts. 700 today. 700 tomorrow. Everyone who wants to leave will be able to as long as I'm here," said Hamet Diawara, president of the council of Malians in Ivory Coast. Incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo has refused to cede office despite his rival Alassane Ouattara being recognized by the international community as the rightful winner of November's presidential election. Pro-Gbagbo forces have attacked foreigners from the region whose countries have supported Ouattara. "We're afraid. Everyone's leaving," said Abdias Goita, a father of two who sat patiently in the shade next to the Malian buses. "My brother had his door broken down by pro-Gbagbo militias. He gave them all the money he had - about 200,000 francs ($430) - but they slit his throat anyway." The United Nations said Friday that up to 1 million people have fled the ensuing violence. "The massive displacement in Abidjan and elsewhere is being fueled by fears of all-out war," Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, told reporters in Geneva. The closure of banks and businesses is causing economic chaos in the already impoverished West African country, she said. Unemployment is rising, as are food prices. On the main road between Abidjan and the border with Ghana, an AP cameraman saw hundreds of vehicles backed up more than 9 miles (15 kilometers) waiting to cross over. Fleming said previous estimates had put the number of displaced in the whole country at 500,000, indicating a sharp rise in recent days. The global body is concerned that the fighting could spread to neighboring Liberia, which itself is recovering from years of conflict. Fleming said there are indications that Liberian mercenaries are arriving in Ivory Coast through the countries' porous 435-mile (700 kilometer)border. The U.N.'s human rights office said at least 462 people have been killed in fighting since December, with at least 52 killed in the past week. The Geneva-based office also has received unconfirmed reports of 200 foreigners being killed in the west of the country, said spokesman Rupert Colville. Associated Press writer Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed to this report. Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

To: Chas. who wrote (72298)	3/26/2011 5:24:07 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 217777

Unrest is the price of soaring food costs By Javier Blas Published: March 23 2011 09:06 \| Last updated: March 23 2011 09:06 The political unrest in Libya and surrounding regions, which has hit global crude oil markets, is overshadowing the other big story for commodities markets: high food prices. But agricultural commodities prices remain high, with corn nearing the all-time highs set during the food crisis of 2007-08. Analysts and traders fear they could continue to move higher for the foreseeable future, pushing up global inflation. The International Monetary Fund has just published an interesting working paper shedding new light on the political problem of high agricultural commodities prices. The IMF research study – “Food prices and political instability” by Rabah Arezki and Markus Brückner – considers the impact on political stability of high prices in the world’s poorer countries. It concludes, after reviewing data from 120 countries over the 1970-2007 period, that high agricultural prices are feeding into political unrest. The working paper’s results confirm years of anecdotal evidence, including the 30-or-more countries that suffered from riots during the 2007-08 food crisis. The paper’s relevance is that it builds for the first time a systematic database of countries and their democracy indices and internal stability, with a focus on “more minor forms of intrastate instability, such as anti-government demonstrations and riots”, and income inequality, and then it links the data with food prices. “In low income countries, increases in the international food prices lead to a significant deterioration of democratic institutions and a significant increase in the incidence of anti-government demonstrations, riots, and civil conflict,” the authors say. “All in all, our empirical results are broadly consistent with the often-made claim by policymakers and the press that food price increases put a stake in the socioeconomic and political stability of the world’s poorest countries.” The results will be important for the G20 group of leading economies, which are holding the first ministerial meeting on agriculture in Paris on June 22-23, to debate rising agricultural commodity prices and the threat to global food security. Commodities markets are interlinked more than any time in the past. The cost of food is not the only reason behind the wave of protests in the Middle East and north Africa, but in the end, high food prices are feeding into political unrest, which in turn is affecting global energy markets. Chas, invest in Brazil. Seating on huge fresh water supplies. Self sufficient in energy. Huge internal market. Tradition in agricultural and animal husbandry Lots of farm land Lots of efficiencies gain still to be realized. Brazil is going to be rich beyond belief!