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Iconic Photos
Sorry, but the previous post about China and bankers prompted me to (re)post this…
[Quote]:
Carter eventually won the Pulitzer Prize for this photo, but he couldn’t enjoy it. “I’m really, really sorry I didn’t pick the child up,” he confided in a friend. Consumed with the violence he’d witnessed, and haunted by the questions as to the little girl’s fate, he committed suicide three months later.
Shorting China: Panda bears
[Quote]:
The view that China is heading for a sharp slowdown has now caught on. Few go so far as to predict an Emirate-style crash, but talk of a “hard landing” is rife. Concerns abound that a sharp Western slowdown could cripple demand for Chinese exports, that shadow lending and local-government debt are out of control and that property prices are bound for a correction. Fraud allegations against several Chinese firms have made investors jittery, too.
So pervasive is the gloom that one Chinese hedge-fund manager who isn’t “that bearish on China” describes his position as “contrarian”. Société Générale recently released a report saying China is the “world’s most crowded short”. In Hong Kong, where many bears express their views on China because it is not possible to short mainland stocks, long positions still outnumber shorts by six to one. But that’s down from 11 to one in January, according to Data Explorers, a research firm.
Fuck it all.
The whole financial sector has long been described as “oil for the economic engine”.
But just like regular oil for a regular engine, too much of it will destroy an engine.
Remember when Japan was going to ‘buy it all’?
Note how Greece, with just being 3% of the entire European Union GPD is causing this whole ‘credit crisis’?
[Forget Greece, how about China?]:
China’s local governments have piled up a mountain of bad debt, some of it to finance bridges to nowhere and other white elephant projects, which now threatens to constrict growth at a time when the global economy is sputtering. It is adding to other systemic risks in China, including a sharp downturn in the property market and a rapid rise in problematic loans.
At some point in the near future, the financial sector will get what’s coming to it. Perhaps bankers will finally hang from lamp posts, perhaps hedge – or even pension – fund managers will be against the wall. Whatever finally triggers it, it will be ugly.
So China is the “world’s most crowded short”? Really? It’s just another financial game to these bastards?
They’ll hang. Mark my words.
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Geraldo Driven Out Of Occupy Wall Street Protest!
Cheryl Cole tops fantasy poll
I don’t get it.
How can a bondage session with Keira Knightley, Kate Winslet and Emma Watson only be in second place?
Here’s to you, Steve.
Panic of the Plutocrats
[Quote]:
It remains to be seen whether the Occupy Wall Street protests will change America’s direction. Yet the protests have already elicited a remarkably hysterical reaction from Wall Street, the super-rich in general, and politicians and pundits who reliably serve the interests of the wealthiest hundredth of a percent.
[..]
What’s going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They’re not John Galt; they’re not even Steve Jobs. They’re people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.
Yet they have paid no price. Their institutions were bailed out by taxpayers, with few strings attached. They continue to benefit from explicit and implicit federal guarantees — basically, they’re still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.
This special treatment can’t bear close scrutiny — and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage. In fact, the more reasonable and moderate a critic sounds, the more urgently he or she must be demonized, hence the frantic sliming of Elizabeth Warren.
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iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Top One Million in First 24 Hours
[Quote]:
Apple® today announced pre-orders of its iPhone® 4S have topped one million in a single day, surpassing the previous single day pre-order record of 600,000 held by iPhone 4.
Woa.
Row over photo in shopping centre
[Quote]:
Supt George Nedley, of Renfrewshire and Inverclyde division, said: "I can confirm we have received a complaint regarding this incident and one of my senior officers has spoken to Mr White regarding this.
"As a result a full review of the circumstances surrounding the incident and the allegations made is under way."
Translation: we know we fucked up, but we don’t dare admit it.
SS100
[Quote]:
In the Summer of 1953 my father Geoffrey Gander and his friends set off on their annual Motor Cycling holiday around Europe.
It was probably quite an adventurous trip to take at the time.
They would ride through France, Germany, Austria, Italy and Switzerland.
We think of old bikes as being unreliable, but my father and his friends were keen riders and engineers and completed the trip without much more than a puncture.
(many pictures at the link)
Microsoft retail store plans
If you wanted to build a retail store with four curved tabletops at the front and rear side walls and a rectangular band displaying changing video images on the walls, well, Microsofts intellectual property department would like to have a word with you.
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Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese
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Apple Store window, Houston TX
The Cabs Drove at Half-Speed
Chaos feared after Unix time-zone database is nuked
[Quote]:
The internet’s authoritative source for time-zone data has been shut down after the volunteer programmer who maintained it was sued for copyright infringement by a maker of astrology software.
David Olson, custodian of the Time Zone and Daylight Saving Time Database, said on Thursday he was retiring the FTP server he’s long maintained. Also known as the Olson database, it’s the official reference Unix machines use to set clocks to local time and is used by countless websites and applications to reconcile time differences across the world.
“A civil suit was filed on September 30 in federal court in Boston,” Olson wrote in the message posted to the mailing list for the FTP site. “I’m a defendant; the case involves the time zone database.” He then permanently disbanded the list. Olson wasn’t immediately available to comment for this article.
The suit was filed in federal court last week by Astrolabe, a Brewster, Massachusetts-based maker of astrology-related software. It claimed the database Olson has maintained as public service for years unlawfully included data contained in The ACS Atlas, which Astrolabe sells for commercial profit.
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For the Birds!
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This is Why They Hate You and Want You to Die
[Quote]:
You want to know why everyone in this country hates you and wants you dead, you big stupid fucking bank?Here’s why, pay attention:
(Reuters) – Bank of America Corp will pay $11 million to ousted executives Joe Price and Sallie Krawcheck, a large payout at a time when banks face protests over pay but smaller than the eight-figure packages some executives received before the financial crisis.
Krawcheck — a former Citigroup Inc executive who came to Bank of America in 2009 and was one of the top-ranking women on Wall Street — will receive a one-time payment of $5.15 million, according to separation agreements filed by the bank on Friday.
Price, a Bank of America veteran, gets $4.15 million. Each will also receive $850,000 over a one-year period.
Price was head of consumer banking and Krawcheck led wealth and investment operations.
Elevenmilliondollars? What the hell world are you inhabiting? Eleven million dollars for two departing executives because things didn’t work out? I’m sorry, but were these two executives of Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez-level importance for your organization? Is that why there are severance deals like this in place? Or are you just completely psychotic?
It’s not that this isn’t your prerogative as a private company – it is. But seriously, numbers like these at a time when you’re instituting added fees on customer accounts just sound farcical, almost like you’re making these payments to get a reaction out people.
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The Kings English – 100 phrases in 3 Minutes
Tough immigration law leads to Ala. exodus – CBS News
[Quote]:
Alabama’s strict new immigration law may be backfiring. Intended to force illegal workers out of jobs, it is also driving away many legal immigrant workers who work in construction and on farms doing backbreaking jobs that Americans generally won’t.
The vacancies have created a void that will surely deal a blow to the state’s economy and could slow the rebuilding of Tuscaloosa and other tornado-damaged cities.
Employers believe they can carry on because of the dismal economy, but when things do turn around, they worry there won’t be anyone around to hire. Many legal Hispanic workers are fleeing the state because their family and friends don’t have the proper papers and they fear they will be jailed.
Rick Pate, the owner of a commercial landscaping company in Montgomery, lost two of his most experienced workers, who were in the country legally. He spent thousands of dollars training them to install irrigation systems at places like the Hyundai plant.
"They just feel like there is a negative atmosphere for them here. They don’t feel welcome. I don’t begrudge them. I’d feel nervous, too," Pate said.
[..]
Farmer Chad Smith said his family farm stands to lose up to $150,000 because there are not enough workers to pick tomatoes spoiling in the fields.
“We will be lucky to be in business next year,” he said.
[Quote]:
Mr. Harold, a 71-year-old Vietnam War veteran who drifted here in the late ’60s, has participated for about a decade in a federal program called H-2A that allows seasonal foreign workers into the country to make up the gap where willing and able American workers are few in number. He typically has brought in about 90 people from Mexico each year from July through October.
This year, though, with tough times lingering and a big jump in the minimum wage under the program, to nearly $10.50 an hour, Mr. Harold brought in only two-thirds of his usual contingent. The other positions, he figured, would be snapped up by jobless local residents wanting some extra summer cash.
“It didn’t take me six hours to realize I’d made a heck of a mistake,” Mr. Harold said, standing in his onion field on a recent afternoon as a crew of workers from Mexico cut the tops off yellow onions and bagged them.
Six hours was enough, between the 6 a.m. start time and noon lunch break, for the first wave of local workers to quit. Some simply never came back and gave no reason. Twenty-five of them said specifically, according to farm records, that the work was too hard.
I bet if they upped the ante to 20-25/hr with medical they’d have Americans fighting over those jobs. But the growers won’t do that, because they know people expect to go to Walmart and buy shitty flavorless tomatoes for a buck a pound.
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North cliff collapses
[Quote]:
The largest cliff collapse in Britain since Beachy Head fell in on itself in 1999 has been caught – live – on camera in Cornwall.
Geologists are raving over the amazing You Tube film which they say is ‘of global importance’ to scientists who study rock-falls.
The dramatic rock-fall happened over Dead Man’s Cove, which is part of the North Cliffs range half a mile East of Hells Mouth.
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Kevin Carter taking his own life (in his suicide note he talked about being “haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain … of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners”) reminds me of stories of detectives becoming badly messed up after investigating paedophiles and their horrors. Or war veterans not being able to talk about what they experienced in battle.
The sanitized life in our western world doesn’t give us the ability to face the depth that human spirit can reach
I don’t think this dreadful situation is inevitable. I think peace, order and good government can be available throughout the world.
Living in a “western world” environment, not subjected to these horrors, is definitely a gift, one that I don’t take for granted. What human being on this planet doesn’t want a life of freedom and happiness. Some may think living in this environment makes one immune to the suffering of others – it makes me appreciate what I have and makes me want to fight all the harder to keep it and make it possible for others to have it as well. Having these kinds of photos spread around the world is one venue that makes it possible for us all to see graphically what is going on around us so we can take action. I’m sorry Mr. Carter became so despondent he took his life, but so grateful for his work.