Author: Serkadis

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has an interesting column in today’s Telegraph arguing that the EU’s austerity “diktat” towards Southern Europe is creating a climate of anger, anarchy, and terrorism.

Greece’s Revolutionary Struggle detonated a car bomb at the Athens Stock Exchange in September. Citigroup’s branches have been targeted twice this year.

Hooded extremists attacked the rector of Athens University in his office this month, sending him to hospital with head injuries.

In Milan, the Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI) planted 2kg of dynamite last week at Bocconi University, the symbol of the free market in Italy.

What, specifically, is the issue?

The hard-Left resurgence cannot be blamed on monetary union as such, yet the two are linked. EMU has always been viewed as a capitalist conspiracy – a “bankers’ ramp” – in Left-wing circles. While their view may seem odd to us, they are entirely right to think that poor people in certain countries are victims of the experiment.

Unemployment is 19pc in Spain (43pc for youth) on Eurostat data. Greece is catching up fast. Labour minister Andreas Loverdos said Greek joblessness has jumped above 18pc over the last two months as EU-funded workfare schemes expire.

This will get worse. Southern Europe is being ordered to carry out IMF-style austerity, without the IMF-style devaluation required to rectify the massive imbalances that have built up between North and South under the euro. The victims are caught like France and Germany under the Gold Standard of the early 1930s, when society was broken on a wheel of deflation decrees.

Read the whole story at The Telegraph >

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See Also:

• 10 Looming Geopolitical Disasters
• Gartman: The EU Exodus Is Coming
• Gulf States Ignore Dubai And Greece And Pursue Unified Currency Because They’re So Worried About The Dollar

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If we could all just get along like these three unusual friends, we would live in a much different world.

In human society, people often do not like others simply because they are different. Humans kill over this matter. In more normal and everyday life, people may not kill each other but may not be as friendly or open to those from a different background, with a different color, with different views, or even with a different style.

In the animal kingdom, dangerous predators are not generally friends — they keep their distance. But in some cases (i.e. when being raised together), animals and humans alike can learn to be caring friends with those they might not have ever said hello to.

In the short story below, you can see how a lion, a tiger and a bear (Shere Khan, Baloo and Leo) became true friends, in the real world not a Disney story.

Read more of this story »

Here at Just A Guy Thing we try to write about stuff that’s of interest to men, but we know we can’t cover everything. That’s where The Toilet Paper comes in. It’s an email newsletter that provides a funny, smart burst of daily news delivered straight to your in-box.

Each day The Toilet Paper covers a single, relevant news topic ranging from front-page headlines to business, sports, and lifestyle/entertainment. All this in a one-page, easily digestible format. Oh, and did we mention it’s free?

The folks at The Toilet Paper know you’re intelligent, but also know you don’t have all the time in the world to keep up with the latest stuff. While it’s certainly journalistic, The Toilet Paper most definitely does not take itself too seriously, keeping things light and witty.

It’s just some dudes busting balls on breaking news. That’s why their motto is: Sign up. Sit down. Get smart.

Want to get smarter than the next guy? Want to impress that girl you’ve been chatting up? Then subscribe to the daily email – all you have to do is click here and enter your email address (and don’t worry, they hate spam as much as you do).

If you like Just A Guy Thing you’re going to love The Toilet Paper. Or at least like it a lot in a sort of non-committal kind of way because, hey, you can’t be tied down right now, can you?

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New range of Light & Medium Waste Water pumps with following features,

a) Equipped with automatic reset protector
b) Heavy duty bearings
c) Double side Mechanical Seal
d) Float switch for on/off operations
e) Inbuilt capacitor for single phase pumps
f) Inbuilt contactor for three phase pumps

The NFO filter is only for use with silos, closed containers etc., in which the direct inlet of transport air and material is required.

The filter can be designed to accommodate large quantities of air and contemn inant material and for either continuous operation or with a 15 minute cleaning pause every four hours.

The NFo filter can handle from 1 500 m3/h (900 cfm), and is for outdoor installation, or can be built into the silo.

Construction and operation

The NFO filter is a self-supporting structure with an open base. It requires a completely sealed silo design for high pressure, on which the filter is mounted directly. The high pressure within the silo forces the air through the filter, causing the filtered material to fall into the container.

The filter’s capacity is thus in practice limited only by the size of the roof area.

The NFO filter can be supplied with automatic filter bag cleaning.

(This guest post originally appeared at the author’s blog)

We continue our 2010 outlook series with the latest from UBS.  The European bank has an outlook that is dissimilar from two of the European teams we highlighted over the last few weeks (CS here and MS here).  They do, however, have many similarities with the majority of banks we have covered which are bullish about 2010.  The UBS outlook can best be described as a transitional recovery.  Despite recovery, they believe the risks are numerous and will likely result in a more risk averse investment community.  Investors will move out of the risk trade:

Over the last two years, markets have been driven primarily by the ‘risk trade.’ We see this trend moderating and anticipate a more balanced performance at both the sector and stock level as investor focus returns to fundamentals and valuation. We believe this should make 2010 a more investable market from a fundamental perspective, and we recommend investors seek out ‘quality’ in their stock selections.

This transition will result in a search for yield as investors move into higher quality dividend paying names (see our 8 high quality global dividend payers here) and out of the high beta names that performed so well in 2009.

UBS is not concerned about the value of the markets despite concerns that the markets have gotten overheated.  They believe the earnings rebound in 2010 will justify the current levels:

We continue to see equity markets as fairly valued, noting that the rise in multiples reflects investor expectations for earnings recovery. However, we also see structural challenges limiting further multiple expansion. This balance suggests that gains in equity markets will need to be driven primarily by earnings growth.  Despite modest GDP growth, both top-down and bottom-up estimates forecast a year of robust earnings growth in 2010. This growth, along with higher margins and strong balance sheet conditions, provides a solid backdrop for equity markets.

Like JP Morgan, they favor emerging markets over developed markets:

Our base case forecasts call for a continued, gradual recovery in demand from
developed markets, with emerging economies faring better.

This doesn’t mean the markets are without risks, however.  The broader macro trends of an end to the government stimulus, high unemployment and continued deleveraging will hang over the markets:

But just as the investment landscape looks better than it did 12 months ago, new challenges await. To that end, we expect 2010 to be a year of transition where cyclical and structural forces meet and the strength of the recovery is tested. For one, markets will be forced to consider the impact of government ‘exit strategies,’ where the Fed and other central banks begin a process of stimulus removal and interest rate normalization. Other concerns center on high unemployment, further de-leveraging and balance sheet repair, increased
regulation, and funding of large fiscal deficits.

How to play it?  UBS favors tech, consumer staples, and energy.  They are underweight consumer discretionary, telecomm and industrials.  They are neutral on financials and materials.  Globally, they prefer emerging markets, neutral on US and Europe and underweight Japan.

Read more market commentary at The Pragmatic Capitalist >>

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• 2010 Will Feel Like The 1890s, A Deflationary Recovery Except With Robots
• Goldman: Trading Corporate Buybacks Will Make A Killing In 2010
• Huge Surprises In 2010: An American Third Party, A Major Yuan Devaluation And The VIX Falling To 14

Google is one of the biggest players in the tech industry and one of the largest companies in the world, bringing in some serious revenue numbers every year. At those levels, the taxes the company pays for its operations are also significant, so much that choosing the right country to pay those taxes for its international revenue can save it several hundred million pounds a year, according to the Guardian.

Outside of its US operations, the UK market is the biggest revenue earner for Google, yet the company doesn’t pay any taxes whatsoever in the country. Instead it reports all revenue from the UK, from all over Europe in fact, in Ireland where the company has its headquarters for the continent. Thanks to the much lower corporation tax levels, Google can avoid paying as much as £450 million in the UK alone. And the savings can be significant, taxes are as two to three times lower in Ireland.

Google does have an affiliate in the UK, but it only files expense reports in the country which add up to about £177 million for 2008. It also reports a revenue of just £150 million meaning that, as far as the accounting is concerned, Google is running at a loss in the UK. However, if the company’s financial statements paint a rather different picture, the UK is the second biggest revenue earner after the US bringing in £13.5 billion ($21.8 billio… (read more)

The Democrats cleared a HUGE hurdle at around 1:00 AM, when they managed to get their 60 votes together in support of healthcare reform.

Technically it’s not the final vote, just one of these key procedural votes, but it was the one where they needed every single last member of the caucus to vote ‘aye.’

Next step: an official vote sometime this week int he Senate, and then a reconciliation between the Senate’s version of healthcare reform and that from The House.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• With Healthcare, Democrats Commit Unprecedented Act Of Political Suicide
• Why Does The Government Care About Healthcare When 30 Million Are Out Of Work?
• Lieberman Threatens To Go GOP In 2012, Torpedoing All Hopes Of Getting To 60 On Healthcare

It’s a pretty tiny market still, but there is actually trading in carbon permits. In some countries, where they have emissions limits, they actually have value. And if there ever is a cap & trade scheme put into place in more places, what’s worthless now may actulaly end up being valuable.

Well, here’s how you know the Copenhagen summit was a total joke. The cost of emitting carbon just plunged 8.7%.

Bloomberg: European Union carbon permits fell the most since February on the European Climate Exchange. The U.S., China, India and other nations attending the two-week Copenhagen summit that ended at the weekend agreed to voluntary, rather than binding, targets to reduce emissions. The accord isn’t enough to boost demand for permits, said Trevor Sikorski, an emissions analyst at Barclays Capital in London.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Copenhagen Ends With A Deal That Won’t Do Jack
• Lamest Leak Ever: Document From Copenhagen Says Climate Change Is A Really Big Deal
• Shocker: Copenhagen Climate Negotiations "Suspended"

Following Psystar’s big loss to Apple over selling PC’s with Mac OS installed on them, the company’s website has gone dark. However, Psystar claims that it’s going to stay in business and try to sell PCs with other operating systems and its $50 Rebel EFI software, which is what can apparently be used to allow individuals to install MacOS on their own. However, Apple still contends that even Rebel EFI is infringing. Again, this doesn’t make much sense if you think about it. Why should a piece of software that lets you run another piece of legally purchased software be illegal?

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The last ten years have been good to guy movies. You want sex and violence in equal measures? You’ve got hundreds of films to choose from.

But which are the very best guy movies of the decade? Here’s our take. These movies had to appeal primarily to guys, but did not have to be your typical crash-em-up, blow-em-up blockbuster.

10. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Ang Lee’s martial arts epic stands up to multiple viewings, even years later. The story is compelling, the acting is stellar, and the direction is fantastic.

9. Borat. Unbelievably crude and inappropriate. Unbelievably funny from almost start to finish.

8. The Bourne series. In Jason Bourne, Matt Damon creates a new kind of action hero – smart, controlled and deadly. Some of the best chase scenes around.

7. The 40 Year Old Virgin. The movie that made Judd Apatow, not to mention Steve Carell. The 40 Year Old Virgin proved that romantic comedies could actually appeal to guys.

6. Kill Bill. Quentin Tarantino’s wacky take on martial arts films. While not for everyone’s tastes, the fight scenes are hard to beat.

5. Gladiator. Russell Crowe at his manly best. An excellent cast conveys the intensity and gore of gladitorial combat.

4. The Departed. The best Scorcese film of the decade starred Leonardo DiCaprio in a role that was actually not annoying. Add in Jack Nicholson and Matt Damon and you’ve got a top-notch gangster drama.

3. There Will Be Blood. Now, one could argue that this is not strictly a guy movie. But it is about manly men doing manly things like drilling for oil, so it makes the list. The great Daniel Day Lewis does it again with an unflinching performance as a consummately evil man that is beguiling nonetheless.

2. Casino Royale. The best Bond movie of the decade and one of the best ever. Daniel Craig brings us a newer, manlier James Bond – one who can show emotion and still look great in a tux.

1. Memento. This is a truly great movie that many people forget about. It follows Guy Pearce as he pieces together fragments of his memory. A kaleidoscopic film about the all-consuming need for vengeance, this movie is the most original and entertaining of the last decade.

This list won’t make everyone (anyone?) happy, but what’s what lists like this are for – to encourage debate and get you thinking. So what would you add or take away from this list?

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Bond market expectations are changing pretty fast. The market for Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) no longer prices in the deflationary expectations it used to.

Bloomberg: The gap between yields on Treasuries and so-called TIPS due in 10 years, a measure of the outlook for consumer prices, closed above 2.25 percentage points four days last week, the longest stretch since August 2008. That’s the low end of the range in the five years before Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed, and shows traders expect inflation, not deflation in coming months, said Jay Moskowitz, head of TIPS trading at CRT Capital Group LLC in Stamford, Connecticut.

…

The securities pay interest on a principal amount that rises or falls based on the consumer price index. Inflation- protected bonds due in 10 years yield 2.29 percentage points less than Treasuries. That gap, known as the break-even rate, has risen from 0.04 percent in November 2008. It averaged about 2.42 percentage points in the five year’s before Lehman went bankrupt.

Given massive investor flows into bond funds this year, and their relatively blind nature (average investors looking at past bond performance, then simply ticking ‘bonds’ for their retirement allocations), expect the bond market to have a lagged response if signs of inflation, rather than deflation, pick up.

Combined with the prospect of higher interest rates, it seems bonds have only one way to go… unless of course you believe the U.S. will fall back into a deflationary recession (it must be both).

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• TIPS Spread Forecasting Higher Inflation? Not Necessarily…
• Citi: Prepare For The Great Bond Unwind, As Investors Pile Into Stocks In 2010
• Investors Push Junk Bond ETF To Highs Of The Year

9. Kanye West at the VMAs

The music world’s biggest egomaniac surpassed himself at the MTV Video Music Awards. As country music singer Taylor Swift accepted the award for Best Female Video, West interrupted her to explain that Beyonce should have won instead. The resulting wave of derision – even Barack Obama called him a “jackass” – led West to issue an apology.

Source: The Telegraph

Rumors of Google acquisitions are flying around at an incredible pace these last few days and a couple of companies are said to be of interest to the search giant. The document collaboration services DocVerse is apparently being courted for about $25 million. Another possible acquisition comes in the form of Trulia, the real estate search engine, which is said to fetch $200 million, maybe even more. On the other hand, the rumored Yelp deal is now said to be dead as the startup’s CEO is now walking away despite some pretty late-stage talks.

Google has just acquired Appjet, the startup behind EtherPad, a real-time document collaboration tool similar to DocVerse. Google though will pretty much kill off the project, which has now been open-sourced, and the team behind it will go on to work on Google Wave. If DocVerse gets bought, it will be for the product itself, which enables users to collaborate on Microsoft Office documents, which Google wants to use against the threat of Microsoft’s own online collaboration suite launching soon.

In the real estate market, things are moving forward fast online and Google is certainly interested. It has introduced a couple of features for Google Maps and a number of tools dedicated to real estate listings, search and related services, but it could take a much more decisive … (read more)

	Zombie meme alert: electric cars cause cancer Or so they say.		Coda shares low-life battery plan You have 15 miles left on your charge. This is how your car will react.
	REPORT: GM’s rumored 53 mpg Prius fighter canceled Was it ever seriously considered?	Other news: David Letterman demonstrates dangers of Cupcake Car Obama mulling more support for plug-in vehicle manufacturers Detroit 2010 Preview: BYD’s plug-in plans

AutoblogGreen for 12.21.09 originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 21 Dec 2009 06:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Want to wear the watch that the leader of the free world sports on his wrist? It’s not as expensive as you think. It was recently revealed that Barack Obama wears a Jorg Gray 6500 watch, which retails for just $325.

The U.S. watchmaker has seen a dramatic rise in sales after Obama was seen wearing it to various campaign events. Jorg Gray now sells a commemorative edition version of the same watch worn by the president, engraved with the date of his inauguration.

The Jorg Gray website describes the watch like this:

The Jorg Gray JG6500 watch is case cut from solid steel and features a matte black dial, Italian buffalo leather strap, high precision Japanese chronograph movement, scratch-resistant mineral crystal, date display, and is water resistant to 100 meters.

The watch was originally designed for the U.S. Secret Service. Obama was given the 6500 as a 46th birthday present by a member of his security team in 2007.

You can buy yours directly from the Jorg Gray website.

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For a little hip cat holiday cheer, check out the artwork of Chicago-based artist Anne Leuck Feldhaus. Her colorful stylized cats make an appearance in this line of holiday cards, mugs, magnets, and ornaments, available through her CafePress store.

Anne is strongly committed to using her work for promoting animal adoption and supporting animal welfare organizations and shelters whenever possible. More of Anne’s artwork can be found in her Etsy shop.

ENTER TO WIN A HOLIDAY PRIZE PACKAGE!

And, wow, has Anne put together a fabulous prize package for one lucky winner! The package includes a ‘Feline Tips Tree’ Holiday Gift Mug with Candy, a Porcelain Cat & Wreath Ornament, one Cat & Wreath Magnet, a 5 x 5 inch Mixed Feline Notepad, a 4 x 11 inch Mixed Feline Notepad, and one ‘Feline Tips Tree’ Holiday Greeting Card PLUS the winner will receive a $150 discount certificate toward a custom pet portrait box frame print!

To enter this giveaway, please leave a comment on this post. The winner will be chosen in a random drawing on December 24. One entry per person. This giveaway is only open to addresses in the US and Canada.