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I’m one of those people that once I try something new and love it, I then make it all the time. Lately I have been making such a simple yet delicious side dish that I even save leftovers as a snack the next day. I feel as though zucchini is often over looked as a vegetable, same goes for eggplant but that’s a different story! Zucchini is very healthy for you and not as expensive as other vegetables can be. This recipe is so simply it doesn’t require a lot of ingredients.

Image: sxc.hu

Ingredients:

Zucchini
Garlic (1 clove, sliced)
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper
Leeks (optional)

Directions:
1. Cut the zucchini up either in slices long ways, or like you would cut a cucumber. I prefer the longer strips but here I went with the half circles. (The strips are easier to eat as finger food as a snack the next day).

2. When the zucchini is still raw, sprinkle as much as you want of salt and pepper over the zucchini. The salt soaks in giving it a nice flavor once it is cooked through.

3. Add olive oil to a pan and let the oil heat up. Once the oil is nice and hot add the garlic. (You will know the oil is hot enough if it sizzles when you put the garlic in).

4. Add the zucchini (and leeks if you are using them) and mix for about 5 minutes. Add some more pepper and salt if you would like, and if you are feeling adventurous try adding some curry powder or chili pepper. However just plain salt and pepper is sometimes even more flavorful.

5. Keep stirring until the zucchini has turned a nice golden brown. I like mine a little bit more brown so leave it in the pan a little longer.

And presto  – something to add a little green to the plate other than salad or broccoli!

Post from: Blisstree

Don’t forget about Zucchini!

You were delicious.

(Oh, okay, Ben Bernanke may not be raising rates just yet — taking away the punchbowl — but it’s way more likely now than it seemed at 8:29 this morning!)

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See Also:

• Did Today’s Jobs Report Kill The Dollar-Stocks Correlation?
• The Backward Revisions To September And October Are Great News For Jobs
• BOOM: Unemployment Just 10.0%

Stocks are up today, following this morning’s fantastic jobs report, but we wouldn’t bet our life that they’ll stay in the black until 4:00 PM.

See, the dollar is up, too, in a violent reversal of the traditional inverse correlation between stocks and the currency. Ideally, for American investors and consumers, they could both rise at the same time.

But if the dollar is powering higher on expectations of Fed tightening, and that notion spreads to stocks, then watch out!

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• The Backward Revisions To September And October Are Great News For Jobs
• BOOM: Unemployment Just 10.0%
• Growing Signs Of A Double Dip And A Weak Jobs Report Guarantee Cheap Money As Far As The Eye Can See

Filed under: China, GM, Earnings/Financials

It has been a busy week at General Motors. The week started off with CEO Fritz Henderson’s abrupt resignation, then executives converged on the LA Auto Show where Bob Lutz was the keynote speaker and then the U.S. market Chevy Cruze was revealed. Now, the General is reportedly deep in negotiations halfway around the world with its Chinese partner, SAIC, to sell its partnership stake in what is now the largest auto market in the world.

Here is how the deal will reportedly break down: According to Reuters, GM will give SAIC a scant one percent of its interest in the China venture and 50% of GM’s India operations. In exchange, the General would receive what amounts to about 20% of the value of the China venture. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal considering the fact that GM isn’t exactly a big player in the Indian market – but there is a very big downside. If GM cedes one percent of its joint venture with SAIC, then the Detroit, MI-based automaker would no longer control its China operations. The rumored deal will contain a proviso that the General can later buy back its lost percentage for a “premium price.” That sounds a little like GM just got a loan from SAIC and put up one percent of its ownership as collateral.

While GM currently has over $40 billion in its cash coffers courtesy of its recent bailout and bankruptcy, The General is in a big hurry to pay back the money it owes the government. It also has to contend with what is still a very soft auto market – not to mention Opel restructuring costs that could tally $5 billion or more. But China is also a monster part of GM’s business plan, so any money gained from this deal could come at an even greater cost. We have to wonder if this deal had anything to do with Mr. Henderson’s abrupt exit stage left…

[Source: Reuters]

REPORT: GM selling control of Chinese joint venture to SAIC, half of India operations originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With just a few days until launch, Vevo has announced a new partnership with CBS which will bring some sort of Last.fm integration, as well as content from 90 CBS music radio stations. There aren’t too many details at the moment, but the deal should round out the content coming from the site’s parents Universal Music Group and Sony Music.

CBS Interactive Music Group will provide live concerts, as well as in-studio performances, from the radio stations it controls. There will also be additional material like interviews and ‘behind the scenes’ content. How exactly this fits into a video site remains to be seen.

Equally unknown is how Last.fm will be integrated, though CBS has been pushing to turn the site into a media brand rather than just a music streaming service and is set to launch Last.TV, a video component tied to the site featuring concert footage and the likes. Last.fm’s recent integration with Microsoft’s Xbox 360 games console proved a huge success and it’s clear that CBS has big plans for the site.

Vevo, a joint venture of Universal and Sony music, is set to be launched next Tuesday. The site has been in the works for quite a while now and will be dedicated to music videos and related content. It was the brainchild of Universal Music which later convinced Sony to join as a partner, th… (read more)

There’s something odd about this new Goldman report, ‘Health Buys Wealth.’

It talks about how rising standards of health can generate economic growth, and how some of the poorest places in the world are stuck in a poverty cycle whereby disease and early death prevents the economic growth necessary for improved living standards.

It’s not that this report isn’t interesting, it’s actually very much so.

It’s just that it doesn’t seem like investment research. While suggesting that private capital can help solve much of the world’s basic health problems, it never goes into much detail on how one would go about doing this to make money.

While a great piece of research, to us it reads like something from a charity organization. Thus something about this smells of PR. What is this piece of research actually used for? Pitching for health care deals? Enlighten us, or tell us if you think we’re wrong.

The need to look “beyond disease”

Yet millions remain vulnerable to diseases that are both preventable and treatable. Access to cost-effective healthcare today remains limited, in large part because health systems in low-income countries are woefully understaffed and under-funded. Looking beyond a disease-specific approach, governments and donors also need to strengthen health systems, expand infrastructure and extend education, particularly women’s education.

New opportunities: private funding and capital markets

Among the key developments in public health over the past decade are the dramatic expansion of funding and the diversification of funding sources. Public/private partnerships, advance market commitments and fundraising in capital markets are now critical to improving health in low-income countries. We see ample scope for this to expand.

GS Health Buys Wealth

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See Also:

• Goldman: Here’s How To Make A Killing In 2010
• Goldman: Gold’s Headed To $1450
• What Is Goldman Going To Eat At Its Big Christmas Party?

At the end of the BLS’s jobs report, this part stands out:

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for September was revised from-219,000 to -139,000, and the change for October was revised from -190,000 to -111,000.

Backwards revisions aren’t just interesting. All government data, especially numbers collected in real time, involve trends and statistical analysis. When you see backwards revisions like this, it means all of the governments estimates are behind the curve, and that the real data is much better.

It’s possible that if this months’ meager 11,000 jobs lost number is revised, we may have actually seen job creation this month, which would be mindblowing.

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• BOOM: Unemployment Just 10.0%

Brighton OR Glasgow, Project Design Services (East Anglia) Limited

Our client, an internationally renowned engineering consultancy and world leader in renewable energy technologies are recruiting for an Experienced Wind Resource Analyst to join their expanding wind resource team. Duties will include carrying out wind resource assessments, designing measurement campaigns, preparing and reviewing wind farm layouts, site classification, carrying out due diligence reviews.

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Analysts were looking for unemployment to hold steady at 10.2%, so this is way better than expected.

And job losses were expected at -125,000, but the economy only shed 11,000.

This is a great number.

Past months were also revised higher.

And the average work week of 33.2 hours is up from the all-time low of 33.0.

Stocks, the dollar, and interest rates are all up. This could be the end of cheap money!

Here’s the full announcement from the Department of Labor

——

The unemployment rate edged down to 10.0 percent in November, and nonfarm
payroll employment was essentially unchanged (-11,000), the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics reported today. In the prior 3 months, payroll job losses
had averaged 135,000 a month. In November, employment fell in construction,
manufacturing, and information, while temporary help services and health care
added jobs.

Household Survey Data

In November, both the number of unemployed persons, at 15.4 million, and the
unemployment rate, at 10.0 percent, edged down. At the start of the recession
in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons was 7.5 million, and the
jobless rate was 4.9 percent. (See table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups, unemployment rates for adult men (10.5 per-
cent), adult women (7.9 percent), teenagers (26.7 percent), whites (9.3 per-
cent), blacks (15.6 percent), and Hispanics (12.7 percent) showed little
change in November. The unemployment rate for Asians was 7.3 percent, not
seasonally adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed tem-
porary jobs fell by 463,000 in November. The number of long-term unemployed
(those jobless for 27 weeks and over) rose by 293,000 to 5.9 million. The
percentage of unemployed persons jobless for 27 weeks or more increased by
2.7 percentage points to 38.3 percent. (See tables A-8 and A-9.)

The civilian labor force participation rate was little changed in November at
65.0 percent. The employment-population ratio was unchanged at 58.5 percent.
(See table A-1.)

The number of people working part time for economic reasons (sometimes re-
ferred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed in November
at 9.2 million. These individuals were working part time because their hours
had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job. (See
table A-5.)

About 2.3 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in
November, an increase of 376,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not sea-
sonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and
were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12
months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched
for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-13.)

Among the marginally attached, there were 861,000 discouraged workers in
November, up from 608,000 a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally ad-
justed.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work be-
cause they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.5 mil-
lion persons marginally attached to the labor force had not searched for
work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attend-
ance or family responsibilities.

Establishment Survey Data

Total nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged in November
(-11,000). Job losses in the construction, manufacturing, and information
industries were offset by job gains in temporary help services and health
care. Since the recession began, payroll employment has decreased by 7.2
million. (See table B-1.)

Construction employment declined by 27,000 over the month. Job losses had
averaged 117,000 per month during the 6 months ending in April and 63,000
per month from May through October. In November, construction job losses
were concentrated among nonresidential specialty trade contractors
(-29,000).

Manufacturing employment fell by 41,000 in November. The average monthly
decline for the past 5 months (-46,000) was much lower than the average
monthly job loss for the first half of this year (-171,000). About 2.1 mil-
lion manufacturing jobs have been lost since December 2007; the majority of
this decline has occurred in durable goods manufacturing (-1.6 million).

Employment in the information industry fell by 17,000 in November. About
half of the job loss occurred in its telecommunications component (-9,000).

There was little change in wholesale and retail trade employment in November.
Within retail trade, department stores added 8,000 jobs over the month.

The number of jobs in transportation and warehousing, financial activities,
and leisure and hospitality showed little change over the month.

Employment in professional and business services rose by 86,000 in November.
Temporary help services accounted for the majority of the increase, adding
52,000 jobs. Since July, temporary help services employment has risen by
117,000.

Health care employment continued to rise in November (21,000), with not-
able gains in home health care services (7,000) and hospitals (7,000). The
health care industry has added 613,000 jobs since the recession began in
December 2007.

In November, the average workweek for production and nonsupervisory workers
on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 0.2 hour to 33.2 hours. The manufacturing
workweek increased by 0.3 hour to 40.4 hours. Factory overtime rose by 0.1
hour to 3.4 hours. Since May, the manufacturing workweek has increased by
1.0 hour. (See table B-2.)

In November, average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory workers
on private nonfarm payrolls edged up by 1 cent, or 0.1 percent, to $18.74.
Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.2 percent,
while average weekly earnings have risen by 1.6 percent. (See table B-3.)

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for September was revised from
-219,000 to -139,000, and the change for October was revised from -190,000 to
-111,000.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• JPMorgan: 10.4% Unemployment Coming This Friday
• Growing Signs Of A Double Dip And A Weak Jobs Report Guarantee Cheap Money As Far As The Eye Can See

Filed under: LA Auto Show, Hybrid, Sedan, Technology, Hatchback, Toyota, Electric

Toyota rather unceremoniously parked their plug-in Prius hybrid prototype at its North American market debut during the LA Auto Show, while their new Sienna minivan got a royal welcome at its coming out party. At a show that saw the production-ish Chevrolet Volt appearing in public for the first time, it might have seemed likely that Toyota would have made a bigger deal of this model, but we just sort of stumbled upon it while checking out its big brother, the Lexus LFA.

The company did issue a press release, which you can read in its entirety after the jump. In it, they announce that a global demonstration program will start this month in Japan and that the first batch of 500 Lithium-Ion batteries for those vehicles is moving down the assembly line as we speak. The 2010 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid (PHV) uses Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive package but adds their first generation lithium-ion battery so it can go all-electric further and more quickly than a traditional hybrid. The electric-only range is just 13 miles, but the Prius PHEV will be able to run all the way up to 60 mph in electric-only mode.

Beyond that, the plug-in Prius reverts to regular hybrid mode with the gas engine and electric motor trading off depending on load and demand. The gas engine is important on this Prius PHEV and cars like the Volt because it lessens the “range anxiety” drivers might feel in a pure electric – That uneasiness that comes from thinking you could be stranded when the batteries run down.

Japan and Europe split the first batch of 350 vehicles, but early next year, the next 150 examples are coming Stateside. These first PHEV vehicles will serve as a test program for real world driving needs, kind of like the MINI E program going on right now. Toyota has already announced that Boulder, CO is going to be the first community to get some of these plug-in hybrids – a surefire way for Toyota to see how cold temps affect battery performance. You can read the rest of the presser after the jump and there’s a gallery available by clicking any image below.

Photos copyright (C)2009 Frank Fillipponio/ Weblogs, Inc.
[Source: Toyota]

Continue reading LA 2009: Toyota debuts its plug-in Prius for North America

LA 2009: Toyota debuts its plug-in Prius for North America originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The oil services industry’s third-quarter results were respectable considering the speed and violence of the downturn over the last year. In most cases, we saw some sequential improvement in North American revenue and margins, thanks to a 13% sequential gain in the North American rig count and a seasonal bounce in Canadian activity. Overall, we believe the North American recovery is very fragile, as near-term oil demand and natural gas supply issues can easily shatter it. Internationally, we also saw the expected margin deterioration, which was led by contract resets, and a challenging Mexican market. Mexico was particularly weak this quarter, as flooding in the Northern and Central regions of the Chicontepec field reduced activity levels as well as the number of highly profitable well completions. In addition, Pemex is considering reworking both existing contracts and future awards to modify the services companies’ incentives toward boosting oil production after the Chicontepec field badly missed annual production targets. After reviewing the industry’s third-quarter reports, we present our key takeaways.

Key Takeaways
First, North American services pricing has reached the bottom. Services companies and oil and gas companies have indicated the pricing declines have generally halted. Going forward, future cost savings for the oil and gas companies are largely expected to be driven by reducing drilling times, as opposed to price concessions from services providers. However, we do not see any catalysts for improved services pricing in the near term, which means relatively flat pricing for the next few quarters.

Second, international shale gas plays are not viable in the near term.  Schlumberger  (SLB) CEO Andrew Gould mentioned that international infrastructure and drilling constraints make it unlikely that we’ll see a repeat of the industry’s success in the North American shale gas plays in the near term. Gould used the examples of Pakistan, which has large gas reserves but virtually no oil and gas infrastructure, and Germany, where oil and gas companies would not be permitted to drill as aggressively as they have in the Dallas/Forth Worth area. We think any type of success in breaking open the international gas shale plays is, at minimum, several years away.

Third, international markets still look weak.  Halliburton  (HAL) still believes contract resets will gradually force international margins down 300-500 basis points over next few quarters, while Schlumberger believes the situation may call for flattish margins, as contract resets and cost cuts offset each other. However, further out in 2011 and 2012, we think it will be difficult to boost international margins due to the long-term nature of the contracts, as well as the additional time needed by the services companies to upsell new technology to their customers.

North America 2010 Preview
In our opinion, the North American oil services market faces numerous challenges. The industry still needs to fix the persistent equipment oversupply problem, which has been in place for several years and is now causing problems in the highly demanding shale plays. As one of the few areas in North America experiencing strong demand, the shale plays have acted as a magnet for much of the industry’s excess capacity. For example, there are about 100 rigs (14% of the active natural gas rig count) and about 25%-30% of the industry’s pressure pumping capacity in Haynesville. Smaller players are working at near cash costs or even taking losses to work in the Haynesville for marketing purposes and to help equipment utilization.  Patterson-UTI Energy (PTEN) mentioned that its traditional pressure pumping business has nearly disappeared and has been replaced by shale-oriented efforts.

The services companies argue that the oversupply problem will slowly diminish as the demanding Haynesville and Marcellus wells wear out equipment. In this scenario, the well-financed larger services companies will gradually gain more market share and boost their margins as the smaller players drop out of the market after their equipment fails. The equipment will fail due its age, and is more suited toward handling the less demanding requirements of the Barnett Shale rather than the hot and deep Haynesville wells. In particular, Haynesville wells demand high levels of pumping capacity as well as an increased number of fracs, which the smaller players’ equipment is ill-suited to provide for the long term. However, we don’t think the smaller players’ presence and competitive threat will disappear completely.

The barriers to entry for some services in the shale plays appear to be quite low, or else the small companies would not be able to compete so effectively on price. Small companies have effectively doubled their overall share of the pressure pumping market in North America over the last few years to 40% from 20%, thanks to the increased use of methods such as water-fracking in plays like the Barnett Shale. Water-fracking techniques have been perfected by the industry, and commonly available pressure-pumping equipment can do the work. The lower barriers to entry have led to stiff price competition as smaller players have entered the pumping market and captured substantial amounts of market share. In our opinion, a similar evolution could take place in the Haynesville and Marcellus Shale plays. We believe as today’s drilling techniques become perfected and the knowledge is eventually widely dispersed throughout the industry, the techniques and equipment will essentially become commodified. As a result, we should see intensive price competition between the small and large services players, which should lower well costs as well as profitability for the services companies. We think this situation means that market share gains and margin gains will be capped well below 2005-08 levels for the larger services companies such as Schlumberger and Baker Hughes  (BHI(

A second challenge is the lowered demand from the oil and gas industry. For example,  XTO Energy plans to double its rig count in several shale plays in 2010. Still, the company’s expansion program means the company will be running around 70-75 rigs in 2010, up from 47 currently but down from over 100 rigs in 2008. The 2005-08 boom was lucrative for the services industry because the increase in demand was unexpected, and the industry was largely unprepared to meet its customers’ demands. The inability to meet demand led to substantial pricing power. In contrast, during this downturn the services companies are retaining employees and equipment, with the expectation of a recovery in the second half of 2010. We believe there will be a sustainable recovery in the second half of 2010, but since the services industry is already prepared for it, it will be a volume-driven recovery rather than a price-driven one. We expect services pricing to be up about 5% in 2010. As the gap between services demand and supply will be much narrower, margin expansion will be limited, and North American margins will remain far below 2005-08 levels for years.

We have modest expectations for 2010. We’re expecting single-digit revenue growth and operating margins to range between 11% and 13% for  Weatherford (WFT) Halliburton, and Schlumberger. Most of the growth and margin improvement will come in the second half as the oil and gas companies cautiously add more rigs and the services companies continue to improve their efficiency. We believe the North American rig count will average 1,100 active rigs and range between 1,000 and 1,200 rigs, with most of the changes due to the strong fundamental outlook for oil. We expect to see the oil rig count average 350 rigs and range between 300 and 400 rigs. The natural gas rig count should average 750 rigs and range between 700 and 800 rigs.

International 2010 Preview
Our international outlook for the oil services industry in 2010 is guardedly positive. In our opinion, there are large opportunities for new contract awards from the Middle East, North and West Africa, Russia, and Brazil, which should help boost revenue. For example, Gazprom plans to boost capital expenditures about to $28.5 billion in 2010, up 40% from 2009 levels. Over the past few years, Gazprom’s spending efforts have focused on acquiring assets, such as a stake in the Sakhalin-2 field, rather than reinvesting in its existing fields. The change in focus should benefit Schlumberger and Weatherford, which have large Russian presences. Also, we expect to see awards for offshore services from  Petrobras (PBR) as it continues to drill wells and learn more about the Santos Basin. In addition, about 50 new offshore rigs will be delivered, and each will require high-end services and equipment.

However, we believe contract resets will cause most services firms’ operating margins to gradually decline several hundred basis points in 2010 from 2009 levels. We think international oil companies will continue to delay certain projects to take advantage of raw-material cost savings and lower prices for oil services. The delays and contract resets, in our opinion, should result in services pricing down 10%-20% in 2010. As international services contracts tend to be for several years, this means any margin expansion in the international markets will be fairly limited in 2011 and probably 2012. We could see significant margin expansion if the new contracts awards are integrated-project-management (IPM) projects, which require significant startup costs but can offer performance-based bonuses. This is an unlikely near-term scenario, in our view, as one of the largest national oil companies, Saudi Aramco, is still in the experimental stage with IPM efforts.

We expect the international rig count to average 1,000 rigs and range between 950 rigs and 1,050 rigs in 2010. We think this indicates modest single-digit growth numbers for most in the industry and operating margins in the 15%-20% range for most large services markets. However, areas of strength for certain companies, such as the Middle East for Schlumberger and Latin America for Weatherford, will continue to turn in above-average margins. We expect Schlumberger’s Middle Eastern margin to decline to 28% 2010 from 32% in 2009 and Weatherford’s Latin American margin to expand to 18% in 2010 from 16% in 2009. Overall, we forecast Weatherford’s international performance to be one of the best in the industry in 2010.

Internationally, Weatherford turned in the one of the worst quarterly performances, yet it has one of the industry’s strongest international outlooks in 2010. Flooding in Chicontepec affected 14 of Weatherford’s 45 rigs in Mexico, which led to lower efficiency and a 800-basis-point decline in Weatherford’s Latin American margins sequentially. However, the company has secured numerous contracts for 2010, which should add about $2 billion in incremental revenue over our 2009 revenue estimate of $8.7 billion. In Mexico, Weatherford has won three Chicontepec contracts, which should deliver around $2 billion in 2010 revenue, an increase of $800 million over 2009. In addition, the company is earning another $300 million-$400 million in revenue from contracts in Iraq, as well as an additional $300 million in revenue from the acquisition of TNK-BP’s oilfield services arm. Weatherford also sees incremental opportunities for work in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. We believe Weatherford’s aggressive integrated-project management efforts are benefiting it immensely, and we expect it to gain market share in 2010.

Companies Worth Considering
Further out, however, our top picks are  Helmerich & Payne  (HP)  and Schlumberger. We believe both companies are the highest-quality oil services companies we cover, and they should outperform the industry over the full cycle. However, we would look for a better entry price, as both companies trade substantially above our Consider Buying price. Please see our Analyst Reports for further long-term investment opportunities within the industry.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Why Oil Dependence Was Always Going To Screw Dubai
• Bond Funds To Bet On A Dying US Dollar
• How To Bet On Emerging Market Banks

While the United Nations conference on climate change is running, Bright Green will be holding their exhibition. Billed as the “largest parallel event during the COP15 summit” it is an exhibition with an emphasises on innovation and intelligent technologies as solutions to global climate changes.


Combining a professional trade show and activities for the general public, Bright Green includes over 150 world leading climate solutions. It is also bringing kids into the fold, by offering games and activities designed for them, including “wind turbine treasure hunting” and a test track for Segways.


Bright Greens mission is to create a field of experience rich in content, and introduce visitors to a number of high technology ecological solutions. The exhibition will be organized around four theme areas: Energy, Living, Cities, and Business. It is designed and open to everyone who are seeking innovative solutions to make their activities more environmentally protective.



One such display is, The Energy Aware House. A partnership of leading Danish research institutions and business partners, whose main focus is home automation. They work with the objective to improve the possibilities of automating buildings making them more intelligent and energy efficient.


The 13 partners of the Energy Aware House have created a display to illustrate how the use of technology can save energy without compromising comfort. At their booth, visitors can enter one of four large tubes that suspended from the ceiling, and experience different technologies that help save energy in a comfortable way.


Of the 13 partners, The Danish Electricity Savings Trust and Z-Wave Alliance offer “hands on” two interesting ideas.


“My E-home” offered by The Danish Electricity Savings Trust, is a free internet-based platform, which operates as a control centre for intelligent monitoring and management of your energy consumption. My E-home, helps you to analyse and visualize energy consumption, weather data and indoor climate and point out specific, potential savings in your home and among your appliances. It also offers surveillance, control and automation of your home.


Z-Wave Alliance offers technology to let consumers control energy use of lighting, thermostats and other parts of their home via a smart phone or PC.


With all of this technology and critical thinking located in one central venue, Bright Green should be the first stop for every political leader who is attending that other conference in Copenhagen next week.

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related.posts:

1. Copenhagen Climate Change Conference: Day 9 Recap
2. Copenhagen Climate Conference: Day 4
3. Copenhagen Climate Change Conference: Day 8 Recap

Cisco has announced it plans to go ahead with the acquisition of Norwegian video conferencing services and equipment provider Tandberg. The company had previously made an offer to buy all outstanding shares with the Norwegian company valued at $3.4 billion. It now says it has managed to acquire 89 percent of the shares below the 90 percent minimum it set in the proposal. The company has decided to waiver its previous condition, presumably because of the small difference, and will now move forward with the acquisition.

All the details of the deal haven’t been finalized yet, but the company says it intends to complete the deal provided all the provisions of the initial offer are met or waived. “There may be adjustments to the preliminary result due to possible corrections and changes following registration with the Verdipapirsentralen (VPS). The final result will be published as soon as it is available,” the company said in a statement. “Cisco intends to complete the voluntary public cash offer subject to the satisfaction or waiver of the remaining conditions to the offer as set forth in the offer document.”

It hasn’t been all smooth sailing for Cisco. In its initial offer, the company was willing to pay up to $3 billion for the company. Tandberg shareholders were unimpressed and… (read more)

Nothing says Holiday Gift Gift giving for Kitchen enthusiasts quite like handmade items. We all take great pride to produce the best our kitchen possibly can and it’s always nice to be able to support independent artisans and crafters who take just as much pride as we do. The kitchen is truly where handmade can come full circle, especially with these 10 great finds!

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Filed under: Etc., Porsche

It may be getting colder across the country, but in Porscheland, things are heating up. The German automaker just took the wraps off its ultimate tribute to sun and fun, the new Boxster Spyder, in Los Angeles, and its merchandising counterpart is gearing up for sunshine with its new collection of gear for the spring and summer.

The latest sport collection has items for the driver, runner, golfer, swimmer, sailor and tennis player, all made in collaboration with sportswear giant Adidas. Highlights include weatherproof jackets, shock-absorbing sneakers, and even the odd Bermuda or two. You can check it all out in the press release after the jump and in the high-res image gallery below. The collection is available from Porsche Design stores worldwide, and the best part is you don’t have to own a Porsche to buy them (you little poseur, you!).

[Source: Porsche Design]

Continue reading Porsche Design gears up for the sunshine with new driving and sportswear collection

Porsche Design gears up for the sunshine with new driving and sportswear collection originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Best laptops to buy for Christmas 2009 ultimately depend on who is going to use it and for what purpose. A gamer would not be happy with a laptop that is set up for media playback and vice versa. Before any purchase is made, make sure you know what the interest of the intended user is.

There are many people that go by a brand’s name and think it is quality. This is true in a lot of items, but when it comes to computers, almost all of the components are used by nearly every manufacturer.

There are two major manufacturers of processors, Pentium and AMD. Pentium is the larger and better known name but I have never known anyone with an AMD chip that had any problems.

When it comes to RAM or as some places call it memory, 2GB is generally fast enough to watch live streams and chat. The processor should be near 2 GHz and the storage size should be over 100GB. If the laptop is intended for a person will use their new computer as a library, there are units that can have as high as 500GB of memory, but 320 is usually sufficient.

The difference in buying a laptop for a person who will mostly use their computer for surfing and word-processing is ok with what was stated above. If the person is a gamer, then a dual core processor is preferred along with at least 4GB of ram. This way the graphics will function as the programmers designed them too and the overall experience will be enjoyed.

Best laptops to buy for Christmas 2009 will be determined by the end user and not the brand name.

It’s hard to think of a more controversial — and crucial — subject right now than the dollar carry trade. If indeed, Ben Bernanke’s cheap money is becoming the world’s lead funding currency for all manner of risky bets, then we may be in the greatest bubble the world has ever seen.

If cheap money is only a modest force in the rise of global asset values, and if much of the rise is due to improved fundamentals (which is indisputable, when compared to March), then the recovery may be sustainable.

The connection between Fed liquidity and rising markets has been discussed for awhile, but Nouriel Roubini has been the flag bearer for this idea, ever since he wrote an FT piece on the subject last month.

Over at Roubini.com (formerly RGE Monitor; it’s been rebranded) Heiko Hesse sites IMF research showing that rising correlations between various assets and the dollar are what tell the whole story.

The results indicate that an index for the U.S. dollar has seen an increased negative co-movement with major asset price classes in recent months (here the MSCI Emerging Market index, the EMBI+ bond spread, S&P 500 as well as oil prices). For example, the negative co-movement between the U.S. dollar and oil prices is almost at its highest since the beginning of 2006 with -0.5. Jen (2009) recently provided a number of reasons why the correlation between the dollar and crude oil prices has been so negative.[3]

While the increased co-movement of the U.S. dollar with a range of risky assets does not provide any evidence for the dollar carry trade per se, the fact that the correlations have almost reached the highest magnitude since the beginning of the sample period in 2006 for all the asset classes in figure 2 does suggest that a dollar depreciation has gone hand in hand with a sharp appreciation of higher-yielding emerging market asset classes. This is consistent with a story whereby the unwinding of safe-haven flows has significantly led to the rebound of risky asset classes, and the U.S. dollar, bolstered by U.S. quantitative easing and low interest rates, could have increasingly served as a funding currency. In practice, it is very difficult to document the extent and strength of the dollar carry trade given data limitations so more research is surely needed in order to obtain a better understanding of these recent developments.

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See Also:

• Morgan Stanley: The Dollar Has Bottomed, Time To Play The Yen Carry Trade
• Roubini: The New Dollar Carry-Trade Is A Disaster In The Making
• The Dollar Carry-Trade Denialists Are Wrong

Economists make a handy, if mildly irreverent, distinction between “freshwater” and “saltwater” economics. Freshwater refers to economic theory that rests on the efficient markets hypothesis — a belief in the efficiency and rationality of free markets. It is associated with Milton Friedman and the University of Chicago school. It was the thinking behind Thatcher and Reaganomics and still more-or-less holds sway today, or it did up until the credit crunch.

Keynesian or saltwater economics by contrast holds that free markets often behave irrationally and inefficiently, and therefore need corrective policy from government. Saltwater economists say people and institutions often behave in ways contrary to the general good, or in ways that can bring markets (on which they depend) to their knees. Sound familiar?

Anyway, a recent Knowledge@Wharton article comments: “Like a natural science, freshwater economics lends itself to complex, often elegant mathematical modeling. The freshwater view is that consumers, offered an array of choices, will select the one that is best for them — a straightforward assertion that can be neatly expressed in mathematical formulae.

“In contrast, many assertions made in behavioral economics are more challenging to express mathematically. ‘Behavioralists’ argue that consumers don’t always act in their own interests, especially when they fail to understand the choices on offer or succumb to irrational impulses involving those choices… but such impulses are inherently vague and difficult to define.”

Cognitive bias

In other words mathematically modeling the economic future is possible if humans and the markets they create are rational, but far less possible if we act irrationally.

Now, as elaborated in Future Savvy, the fact that humans make irrational choices due to many cognitive biases and heuristics  is indisputable, not least since the work of  Tversky and Kahneman. Biases and heuristics such as “anchoring,” “recency effect,” “personal validation fallacy,” “herd mentality,” and so on, in which people make irrational choices, are well documented.

That’s why mathematical projections of economic behavior are unreliable. The economy may be counted in numbers, but it is still a human system, with associated inefficiency and irrationality. Blow this little debate in economic forecasting up large, and you have the essential problem with quantitative forecasting of any type. It assumes, erroneously, a freshwater view of humanity.

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KEI’s James Love ended up on an airplane with USTR Ron Kirk, and was able to ask him some questions about ACTA secrecy. Kirk’s response was that the document would be revealed after it was finished — i.e., after those who it will impact most could have a say in the matter. He also claimed that some of those in the negotiations would “walk away from the table” if the documents were made public. It’s difficult to see how that makes any sense — but if it’s true, is that a bad thing? Do you really want to be negotiating a big treaty like this one if some of the countries are afraid to stand behind the document to the public they’re supposed to represent? I think the fact that some countries would walk away from the negotiations if they were made public pretty much explains why this process is so broken in the first place.

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