... ore that is. (Gold ore is the material from which gold is extracted and contains only a small percentage of the precious metal).
A vessel with a nine-person crew and 700 tons of gold ore onboard has disappeared in stormy seas off Russia's Pacific Coast.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012
Potential disaster of epic proportions
This storm has the potential to be a horrific event - a combination of 9/11, 9/18 (2008), Hurricane Katrina (2007) and Hurricane Wilma (2005). There may be two feet of snow fall after the storm passes. I hope it doesn't come to this but these are some of the things that may happen:
- power outage for a week, shutting down NYC
- Wall Street also being closed for a week with a resulting crash (20%+ drop) of the stock market
- grocery stores being stripped bare, gas stations running out
- people being trapped without food or heat, and hundreds of deaths of elderly people
- alarms shutting down because of the lack of electricity, allowing widespread theft and looting
- airlines, which always have a razor-thin profit margin, in danger of going broke and asking for a bailout
- the election being postponed because voting places can't open
- riots and the National Guard patrolling the streets with machine guns
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Caonima Style
草泥马 Caonima means "grass mud horse". It also means "f*** your mother". Since the party is your mother, it is also an internet meme that means "f*** the party", or more specifically protests internet censorship. So the phrase is very offensive to the party and will cause them to ban any page or site using it.
Since the Gangnam style is about riding horses, with dance moves that imitate galloping and swinging a lasso, the above video, starring political activist Ai WeiWei (艾未未) turns it into a protest against the Communist party (which doesn't like horses, of the grass mud type).
Symbol of defiance of internet censorship.
Friday, October 26, 2012
High national debt will cause a generational depression
These estimates of the economic growth effect of the rapid increase in the debt since President Obama assumed office, plus the Administration’s projection of debt based on its policies continuing, are alarming, absent greater productivity growth and health cost containment than seems warranted by its policies. Of course, President Obama’s successors could continue the do nothing on entitlements policy—at least until forced to do something by a crisis—or reverse course, as could Mr. Obama if he is re-elected and so chooses. If the Obama Administration policies (including the absence of Social Security and Medicare reform) were eventually reversed, and the debt-GDP ratio stabilized at a lower level than those in Table 1 or, better yet, gradually decreased, the harmful effects would be correspondingly attenuated, as the “debt stabilized at 2016 level” case developed above indicated. While substantial long-run damage would already have occurred, the economic “gain” from the political “pain” of seriously reforming entitlement cost growth is enormous. Failing to rapidly begin bending the long-run debt-GDP curve down risks a growth disaster, whose severity could be much worse even than the recent deep recession and tragically anemic recovery. Left unchecked, it eventually risks a lost generation of growth, a long-run growth depression.
Source: http://siepr.stanford.edu/?q=/system/files/shared/pubs/papers/briefs/pb_11_2012.pdf
GDP at $15,776 billion
"Current-dollar GDP -- the market value of the nation's output of goods and services -- increased
5.0 percent, or $190.1 billion, in the third quarter to a level of $15,775.7 billion."
(Source: http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm)
Previous numbers:
9/30/2011 15176
12/31/2011 15294
3/31/3011 15321
6/30/2012 15596
So, nominal GDP is up YOY at 3.95%.
(Source: http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm)
Previous numbers:
9/30/2011 15176
12/31/2011 15294
3/31/3011 15321
6/30/2012 15596
So, nominal GDP is up YOY at 3.95%.
Too big to fail
This isn't news, but these are the list of TBTF banks in the US.
Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), Bank of New York Mellon (BK) and State Street (STT).
(source: http://www.thestreet.com/story/11300685/1/8-us-banks-make-too-big-to-fail-list.html).
Since these are TBTF, any bonds or securities that they issue should be considered backed by the Federal Reserve and/or Treasury, the same as Fannie Mae (FNMA), Freddie Mac (FMCC), and Ginnie Mae (GNMA). They should possibly be included in the total national debt.
Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), Bank of New York Mellon (BK) and State Street (STT).
(source: http://www.thestreet.com/story/11300685/1/8-us-banks-make-too-big-to-fail-list.html).
Since these are TBTF, any bonds or securities that they issue should be considered backed by the Federal Reserve and/or Treasury, the same as Fannie Mae (FNMA), Freddie Mac (FMCC), and Ginnie Mae (GNMA). They should possibly be included in the total national debt.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Keynesian arrogance
To defend their radical attack, pseudoconservatives suggest that shrinking the government will help the economy. This is a canard. It ignores that by definition, GDP = C + I + G + E, where C is consumption, I is investment, G is government consumption expenditures and gross investment, and E is net exports. Any reduction in G is an immediate reduction in GDP. Because the reduction will diminish demand for goods and services, the eventual multiplied effect may exceed the amount of the reduction. Any dismissed government employees are consumers sent into unemployment. As for secondary effects, declaring that a smaller government is better for the economy does not make it so. It seem unlikely that businesses will order new equipment, or that consumers will buy more groceries, if they hear that the enormous government is smaller than it once was.This is what I mean by Keynesian arrogance. Any government spending by this definition is good, and the more government spending is better, up the the limit of full employment. But this ignores the fact that most government spending is either wasteful or even harmful. If you hire one man to dig a hole and another man to fill it back in then you have created two jobs. If you shut down this jobs program, then the above author would complain that you are hurting the economy.
--http://www.huffingtonpost.com/louis-m-guenin/why-voters-should-turn-fr_b_2005275.html
The G in the above equation refers to government deficit spending. But deficit spending can occur only by stealing the same amount of value from holders of US dollars. I've shown in a previous post, that each trillion dollars of deficit spending will cause inflation of about 5% (it adds to the total money supply of about $19 trillion).
So the Keynesians advocate stealing (which is what deficit spending is) from those who have money, and giving it to people who waste it.
A true economic recovery should not depend on deficit spending at all. Adjustment to this honest economy will cause some short-term pain to the looters, but will result in long-term prosperity, whereas an ever-expanding government will eventually cause the whole system to collapse.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Fastest growing cities on earth
- Puning, China
- Foshan, China
- Jinjiang, China
- Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast
- Shenzhen, China
- Dongguan, Guangdong, China
- Abuja, Nigeria
- Huizhou, China
- Quanzhou, China
- Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
- Zhongshan, China
- Fuyang, China
- Kigali, Rwanda
- Linyi, Shandong, China
- Taizhou, Jiangsu, China
- Zhuhai, China
- Lilongwe, Malawi
- Jieyang, China
- Sana'a, Yemen
- Shaoxing, China
- Haikou, China
- Maoming, China
- Jiangmen, China
- Shantou, China
- Huambo, Angola
- Yiyang, Hunan, China
- Kabul, Afghanistan
- Luanda, Angola
- Nanyang, Henan, China
- Niamey, Niger
- Xiamen, China
And in contrast, these are the fastest shrinking:
- Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine
- Budapest, Hungary
- Donetsk, Ukraine
- Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine
- Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia
- Saratov, Russia
- Monrovia, Liberia
- Busan, South Korea
- Perm, Russia
- Kharkiv, Ukraine
- St. Petersburg, Russia
- Samara, Russia
- Odessa, Ukraine
- Seoul, South Korea
- Tbilisi,Georgia
- Ufa, Russia
- Turin, Italy
- Voronezh, Russia
- Bucharest, Romania
- Volgograd, Russia
- Prague, Czech Republic
- Chelyabinsk, Russia
- Omsk, Russia
- Yerevan, Armenia
- Milan, Italy
- Novosibirsk, Russia
- Rome, Italy
- Havana, Cuba
What about Detroit?
Sunday, October 21, 2012
The Hong Kong dollar is the new safe haven
Reuters: - The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) stepped in to the currency market on Saturday for the first time since December 2009 as capital inflows strengthened the Hong Kong dollar, causing it to hit the top end of its trading range.
"The recent increase in demand for the local currency is related to a less strained European market, weakness in the USD and declining US interest rates, which have prompted capital inflows into currency and equity markets in the region," an HKMA spokesman said in a statement.
The Hong Kong dollar (HKD) is a pegged currency (to USD) with fairly low downside risk. If anything the HKD is more likely to be adjusted up. Hong Kong's equities sold off sharply in the spring but have been rallying since early summer as global asset managers are increasing allocations to the city-state. Some view Hong Kong as a safer play on China's market recovery. Whatever the case, it seems that traders have found a new "safe-haven" currency - for now. --http://soberlook.com/2012/10/what-is-displacing-yen-as-safe-haven.html
My uncle is a dictator
Kim Han Sol
http://www.koreabang.com/2012/videos/kim-jong-uns-nephew-in-rare-tv-interview-netizens-grow-fond.html
This is an interview with Kim Han Sol, Kim Jong Un's nephew. He is 17 and speaks English very well. He lives in Macau with his father, but will be going to college in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
It's Mormon in America
"Mormons enjoy levels of education and wealth higher than the national average, for example. Some 54 percent of LDS men and 44 percent of women have secured postsecondary education; the numbers for the general American population are 37 percent and 28 percent, respectively.
The best advertisement for Mormonism, though, is the kind of society that it seems able to create. Utah, 60 percent of whose population belongs to the LDS Church, has enjoyed one of the fastest job-growth rates in the nation over the past decade, taking a strong lead in a host of industries, from energy and software to composite manufacturing. It has also seen the highest population growth rate of any state, aside from neighboring Arizona and Nevada—and unlike those “bubble” states, Utah survived the housing bust in strong shape. The Beehive State’s success is less about low taxes—Utah is not a tax haven like Texas, Nevada, or Florida—than about support for wealth-creating industry. Utahans have a great interest in promoting business growth. Such cost advantages, plus the presence of an educated population, appeal to global companies. Goldman Sachs, for example, has set up its second-largest American operation in downtown Salt Lake City. “We consider Salt Lake a high-leverage location,” says Goldman managing director David Lang. “There’s a huge cost differential, and you have a huge, talent-rich environment.” Drive through Provo, and you’ll see office buildings, often just finished, for some of Silicon Valley’s signature companies, including Intel, Adobe, Twitter, eBay, and Fairchild Semiconductor. Over the past decade, the number of Salt Lake–area employees in STEM jobs (those relating to science, technology, engineering, or math) has increased 17.5 percent. The number of such jobs actually declined in Silicon Valley and stagnated in New York, Boston, and Los Angeles."
--http://www.newgeography.com/content/003164-it-s-mormon-america
The best advertisement for Mormonism, though, is the kind of society that it seems able to create. Utah, 60 percent of whose population belongs to the LDS Church, has enjoyed one of the fastest job-growth rates in the nation over the past decade, taking a strong lead in a host of industries, from energy and software to composite manufacturing. It has also seen the highest population growth rate of any state, aside from neighboring Arizona and Nevada—and unlike those “bubble” states, Utah survived the housing bust in strong shape. The Beehive State’s success is less about low taxes—Utah is not a tax haven like Texas, Nevada, or Florida—than about support for wealth-creating industry. Utahans have a great interest in promoting business growth. Such cost advantages, plus the presence of an educated population, appeal to global companies. Goldman Sachs, for example, has set up its second-largest American operation in downtown Salt Lake City. “We consider Salt Lake a high-leverage location,” says Goldman managing director David Lang. “There’s a huge cost differential, and you have a huge, talent-rich environment.” Drive through Provo, and you’ll see office buildings, often just finished, for some of Silicon Valley’s signature companies, including Intel, Adobe, Twitter, eBay, and Fairchild Semiconductor. Over the past decade, the number of Salt Lake–area employees in STEM jobs (those relating to science, technology, engineering, or math) has increased 17.5 percent. The number of such jobs actually declined in Silicon Valley and stagnated in New York, Boston, and Los Angeles."
--http://www.newgeography.com/content/003164-it-s-mormon-america
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Who is the Prophet Mormon?
This is according to the beliefs of the LDS.
The Nephite prophet Mormon
The prophet Mormon was born about AD 311 in what is today upstate New York. He was a member of the Nephite tribe. When he was 10, he was visited by the Prophet Ammaron, who told him about the location of the sacred Nephite records and told him to wait until he was 24 to retrieve them. Mormon had access to 1000 years of Nephite records and he redacted (edited) them into the Book of Mormon, which includes some of his own words. Mormon wrote on gold plates and wrote in a language called "reformed Egyptian". He buried them in a hill named Cumorah (near present-day Manchester, New York). He entrusted them to his son, the prophet Moroni. In about AD 385, the prophet Mormon then led the Nephites in a great battle against the Lamanites, and the Nephites were totally wiped out, except for Moroni, the last surviving Nephite.
Moroni (not to be confused with Captain Moroni) completed the work of his father, and added his own book, the Book of Moroni, which he added to the records at Hill Cumorah. After Moroni's death, he was resurrected and became an angel.
The angel Moroni first appeared to Joseph Smith Jr, on September 21, 1823. Joseph found the gold plates the next day, but the angel prevented him from taking them. He finally was able to retrieve them in September 1827. Over the next several years, he was able to translate them with the assistance of a seer stone. In about 1830, he was finished with the translation and returned them to the cave in the Hill. And then the angel Moroni took them back.
The Nephite prophet Mormon
The prophet Mormon was born about AD 311 in what is today upstate New York. He was a member of the Nephite tribe. When he was 10, he was visited by the Prophet Ammaron, who told him about the location of the sacred Nephite records and told him to wait until he was 24 to retrieve them. Mormon had access to 1000 years of Nephite records and he redacted (edited) them into the Book of Mormon, which includes some of his own words. Mormon wrote on gold plates and wrote in a language called "reformed Egyptian". He buried them in a hill named Cumorah (near present-day Manchester, New York). He entrusted them to his son, the prophet Moroni. In about AD 385, the prophet Mormon then led the Nephites in a great battle against the Lamanites, and the Nephites were totally wiped out, except for Moroni, the last surviving Nephite.
Moroni (not to be confused with Captain Moroni) completed the work of his father, and added his own book, the Book of Moroni, which he added to the records at Hill Cumorah. After Moroni's death, he was resurrected and became an angel.
The angel Moroni first appeared to Joseph Smith Jr, on September 21, 1823. Joseph found the gold plates the next day, but the angel prevented him from taking them. He finally was able to retrieve them in September 1827. Over the next several years, he was able to translate them with the assistance of a seer stone. In about 1830, he was finished with the translation and returned them to the cave in the Hill. And then the angel Moroni took them back.
Mitt Romney's Polygamous Ancestors
Of Mitt Romney's 4 great-grand-fathers, 2 were polygamous: Miles Park Romney (who had 5 wives and 31 children and moved to Mexico in 1885) and Helaman Pratt (who had 3 wives and 20 children and moved to Mexico in 1876).
Of Mitt Romney's 8 great-great-grand fathers, 4 were polygamous: Archibald Newell Hill (who had 5 wives and 14 children); Parley Parker Pratt, Sr. (who had 12 wives and 30 children and was murdered by the jealous husband of his 12th wife); Carl Heinrich "Charles Henry" Wilcken (who had 4 wives and 21 children and deserted from the US Army in 1857); and Lewis Robinson (who had 4 wives and 23 children).
In addition, his great-great-grandmother Elnora Warner Berry Dalton, (mother of Mitt's great-grandmother Rosetta Berry, whose father was Robert Berry), took as her 2nd husband Simon Dalton (who had 5 wives and an unknown number of children). She had two surviving children from her first marriage, and six from her second. In fairness to her, she believed that her first husband had abandoned her, but she never divorced him.
Also, great-great-grandfather Miles Romney (father of Miles Park Romney) was sealed to 11 women by proxy in 1872, but these could not be considered marriages.
See: A Brief Guide to Mitt Romney's Polygamous Heritage.
Mitt Romney's Ancestry
Of Mitt Romney's 8 great-great-grand fathers, 4 were polygamous: Archibald Newell Hill (who had 5 wives and 14 children); Parley Parker Pratt, Sr. (who had 12 wives and 30 children and was murdered by the jealous husband of his 12th wife); Carl Heinrich "Charles Henry" Wilcken (who had 4 wives and 21 children and deserted from the US Army in 1857); and Lewis Robinson (who had 4 wives and 23 children).
In addition, his great-great-grandmother Elnora Warner Berry Dalton, (mother of Mitt's great-grandmother Rosetta Berry, whose father was Robert Berry), took as her 2nd husband Simon Dalton (who had 5 wives and an unknown number of children). She had two surviving children from her first marriage, and six from her second. In fairness to her, she believed that her first husband had abandoned her, but she never divorced him.
Also, great-great-grandfather Miles Romney (father of Miles Park Romney) was sealed to 11 women by proxy in 1872, but these could not be considered marriages.
See: A Brief Guide to Mitt Romney's Polygamous Heritage.
Mitt Romney's Ancestry
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Chongqing is the Chicago of China
Chicago is the 6th most economically powerful city on earth, by my calculation, and it has 8.7 million in its metropolitan area. " The city is an international hub for finance, commerce, industry, telecommunications, and transportation, with O'Hare International Airport being the second-busiest airport in the world in terms of traffic movements." It has 1,209 high-rises (buildings between 35m and 100m), and 416 skyscapers (buildings taller than 100m) , including 108 that are taller than 150m.
Chongqing (重庆市)
has about 7 million in its urbanized area, and almost 29 million people in its greater metropolitan area. It has 49 buildings taller than 150m, with another 21 under construction. " “Chongqing is “an industrial gateway that opens the country to its vast, rural heartland”; its “warp-speed industrialization and drive toward modernization” makes it not so much like today’s Chicago as that of the 19th century—broad shoulders, The Jungle, and all that."
See also: Chicago on the Yangtze
America's 50 Best Cities
See: http://images.businessweek.com/slideshows/2012-09-26/americas-50-best-cities
The top 3 are:
#3 Washington DC
#2 Seattle
#1 San Francisco
The top 3 are:
#3 Washington DC
#2 Seattle
#1 San Francisco
China's problem with high-speed rail
The Wenzhou crash [on 7/23/11] killed forty people and injured a hundred and
ninety-two. For reasons both practical and symbolic, the government was
desperate to get trains running again, and within twenty-four hours it
declared the line back in business. The Department of Propaganda ordered
editors to give the crash as little attention as possible. “Do not
question, do not elaborate,” it warned, on an internal notice. When
newspapers came out the next morning, China’s first high-speed train
wreck was not on the front page.
The Mormon Nation
A nation is a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, or history. For example, the Navajo Nation or Cherokee Nation. A state refers to the government. A nation-state is the government for a nation, for example Albania or Estonia. Most states are multi-ethnic.
I argue that the Mormons are an emerging nation. They have a President, Thomas Monson. The President ("Pope") is selected by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles ("College of Cardinals"), making this a theocracy, like the Roman Catholic Church. As an emerging nation, if it contains to increase in power and size, it will want its own sovereign territory at some point.
The Church owns several for-profit companies (which pay tax), such as Property Reserve, Inc. which develops commercial real estate such as the City Creek Center, an upscale mall in downtown Salt Lake City costing $2 billion. Deseret Management Corporation (DMC) has over 2,000 employees. Through Hawaii Reserves (a subsidiary of DMC), it owns the Laie Shopping Center and other properties on Oahu island, Hawaii. Through AgReserves, it owns over 1 million acres of farmland in the US. A recent study claims that the church owns over $40 billion of assets, including $6 billion of stocks and bonds, and has $8 billion of tithe revenue per year.
"The LDS Church’s legions of missionaries and volunteers don’t merely spread the Mormon message around the world; they’re also vital to the church’s businesses." Some of the "missionaries" are like unpaid interns, doing work like data entry. They learn foreign languages, which are later useful in business.
The Church has 139 temples throughout the world (with another 15 under construction) which act as embassies.
There are 5 Mormon Senators (Harry Reid, D-NV; Orrin Hatch, R-UT; Mike Crapo, R-ID; Mike Lee, R-UT; and Tom Udall, D-NM). There are also 9 Mormon Representatives, and 1 governor, Gary Herbert of Utah.
Ok, so what is the big deal? JFK was a Catholic, Romney is a Mormon. He isn't going to try to force everyone to becoming Mormon. The difference is that JFK was only a member of the church, not part of the church hierarchy. His only involvement was really going to Mass once in a while. Whereas Romney is a very prominent church leader. A vote for Romney is a vote to increase the influence and power of the Mormon church. Is that better than the alternative?
I argue that the Mormons are an emerging nation. They have a President, Thomas Monson. The President ("Pope") is selected by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles ("College of Cardinals"), making this a theocracy, like the Roman Catholic Church. As an emerging nation, if it contains to increase in power and size, it will want its own sovereign territory at some point.
The Church owns several for-profit companies (which pay tax), such as Property Reserve, Inc. which develops commercial real estate such as the City Creek Center, an upscale mall in downtown Salt Lake City costing $2 billion. Deseret Management Corporation (DMC) has over 2,000 employees. Through Hawaii Reserves (a subsidiary of DMC), it owns the Laie Shopping Center and other properties on Oahu island, Hawaii. Through AgReserves, it owns over 1 million acres of farmland in the US. A recent study claims that the church owns over $40 billion of assets, including $6 billion of stocks and bonds, and has $8 billion of tithe revenue per year.
"The LDS Church’s legions of missionaries and volunteers don’t merely spread the Mormon message around the world; they’re also vital to the church’s businesses." Some of the "missionaries" are like unpaid interns, doing work like data entry. They learn foreign languages, which are later useful in business.
The Church has 139 temples throughout the world (with another 15 under construction) which act as embassies.
There are 5 Mormon Senators (Harry Reid, D-NV; Orrin Hatch, R-UT; Mike Crapo, R-ID; Mike Lee, R-UT; and Tom Udall, D-NM). There are also 9 Mormon Representatives, and 1 governor, Gary Herbert of Utah.
Ok, so what is the big deal? JFK was a Catholic, Romney is a Mormon. He isn't going to try to force everyone to becoming Mormon. The difference is that JFK was only a member of the church, not part of the church hierarchy. His only involvement was really going to Mass once in a while. Whereas Romney is a very prominent church leader. A vote for Romney is a vote to increase the influence and power of the Mormon church. Is that better than the alternative?
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