Global trade has collapsed like never before in recorded history.

By now we’re all aware that the economy is bad, but it’s sometimes hard to grasp the magnitude of what happened.

Luckily, economist Richard Baldwin at VoxEU has put together an amazing presentation detailing how the wheels came off the global economy.

It shows just how the global collapse unfolded at the speed of light.

How World Trade Collapsed Like Never Before >>>

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See Also:

• Asian Nations Threaten To Kill The Dollar Carry Trade
• U.S. Trade Expands At The Fastest Rate In A Decade
• SocGen: Prepare Yourself For The Worst Case Scenario!

Our love of brussels sprouts is well-documented on this site, but we’re tired of them being relegated to a side dish. We wanted main dish brussels sprouts, which inspired us to create this easy pasta. The sprouts are sliced super thin, like little grassy green ribbons running through the noodles.

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Press Release

SLIM-FAST READY-TO-DRINK MEAL REPLACEMENT SHAKE PRODUCTS MAY CONTAIN BACILLUS CEREUS BACTERIA

OTTAWA, December 3, 2009 – Unilever Canada Inc. has informed the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) that they are recalling certain Slim-Fast ready-to-drink products distributed in Canada.

Unilever Canada Inc. is warning the public not to consume Slim-Fast ready-to drink meal replacement shake products described below because these products may be contaminated with Bacillus cereus.

All lot codes and Best-By dates of the following Slim-Fast RTD (ready-to-drink) products are affected by this alert:

Product	Size	UPC	Format
Slim-Fast Strawberry RTD Shake (4 x 6 x 325 mL)	6 x 325 mL 325 mL	0 68400 20042 0 0 68400 20043 7	Case of six cans Single serve can
Slim-Fast Chocolatey Royale RTD Shake (4 x 6 x 325 mL)	6 x 325 mL 325 mL	0 68400 20110 6 0 68400 20220 2	Case of six cans Single serve can
Slim-Fast French Vanilla RTD Shake (4 x 6 x 325 mL)	6 x 325 mL 325 mL	0 68400 20120 5 0 68400 20230 1	Case of six cans Single serve can
Slim-Fast Cappuccino RTD Shake (4 x 6 x 325 mL)	6 x 325 mL 325 mL	0 68400 36400 9 0 68400 36251 7	Case of six cans Single serve can

These products have been distributed nationally.

There have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of these products.

Food contaminated with Bacillus cereus may not look or smell spoiled. The symptoms of Bacillus cereus food poisoning can include vomiting or diarrhoea, abdominal cramps and pain and may occur between 30 minutes and 15 hours after consuming the contaminated product. Infants, children and pregnant women are susceptible to dehydration resulting from diarrhoea.

Unilever Canada Inc. is voluntarily recalling the affected products from the marketplace. The CFIA will be conducting a food safety investigation and monitoring the effectiveness of the recall.

For more information, consumers and industry can call one of the following numbers:

Unilever Consumer Services Center at 1-800-896-9479 (Monday – Friday, 8:30 AM – 6:00 PM Eastern Time);

CFIA at 1-800-442-2342 / TTY 1-800-465-7735 (8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern time, Monday to Friday).

For more information on all food recalls, visit the CFIA’s Food Recall Report at: http://active.inspection.gc.ca/eng/corp/recarapp_dbe.asp

For information on receiving recalls by e-mail, or for other food safety facts, visit our web site at www.inspection.gc.ca.

-30-

Image: Slimfast.ca

Post from: Blisstree

Canadian Recall Slim-Fast Ready-to-Drink

Schon wieder dreht sich das Kontaktlinsen Karussell. Der nächste an der Reihe ist Johnson & Johnson. Der Hersteller von weichen Kontaktlinsen nimmt seine Tageslinsen Acuvue 1 Day aus dem Sortiment. Acuvue 1-Day waren so ziemlich die ersten Tageslinsen auf dem Kontaktlinsen-Markt. Noch bevor Focus Dailies und Soflens ihre Tageslinsen auf den Markt brachten, hatte sich der amerikanische Hersteller auf dem Markt profiliert. Nun nach ca 13 Jahren wird die “alte” Generation von Tageslinsen in den Ruhestand geschickt. Sie hat sich bestens bewährt und den Weg für neue Produkte geebnet. Bereits seit meherern Monaten ist der Nachfolger Acuvue Trueye auf dem Kontaktlinsen Markt gut eingeführt.

Auf der deutschen Homepage von Acuvue sind die alten Acuvue 1-Day schon gar nicht mehr aufgeführt. Ein weiteres verlässliches Zeichen, dass unser Informant uns richtig Informiert hat! Der voraussichtliche Termin wird mit dem 31.Dezember 2010 angegeben. Sie haben also noch genügend Zeit ihre Acuvue 1Day bei uns einzukaufen.

Twitter is a great service and its creators want to keep it that way. Not the ‘great’ part, presumably they want this as well, but the ‘service’ part. It always catered to third-party developers and avoided adding too much features to the basic product. This has changed slightly recently, but Twitter hasn’t lost its aim. Still, it needs to offer a decent product by itself too and, while the site has been getting some much needed attention in the past few months, the mobile version has been mostly neglected. Not any more though, Twitter is testing a brand new mobile site which offers a hugely improved experience compared to the previous iteration.

“It’s probably no secret that Twitter has an active developer community, using our APIs to create fantastically innovative apps. Nor is it a secret that Twitter and mobile phones go together like birds and flight. What may be a less known fact is: Lots of people access Twitter on their phones via our good ol’ mobile website, and trusty ‘m’ has been delivering tweets faithfully,” Leland Rechis, head of Twitter’s User Experience team on the mobile front, wrote.

“So, the mobile team here built a brand new mobile web client from scratch, using only Twitter APIs, and we’d like to share the results with you. Our new mob… (read more)

A new take on one of hackers’ favourite items, the Stolmen pole. Instead of stretching it all the way to the top, dragon_ll screws the poles to the underside of Lack shelves, which are then bolted to the wall.

“Back Story – I wanted a TV unit to mount my 52” LCD. I liked the ones that have a back panel where you can screw the mounting bracket on and have shelf space on the side for your A/V components. Most places were expensive including Ikea … So I decided to make my own using whatever from wherever. Ikea was a great place to start as their stuff was easy to modify. 

Hacking – I came across the Stolmen system that I liked a lot and it even had the back panel for the LCD TV. The problem was it was white. I needed black to match my decor.  So I searched the Ikea store for something to use as the back panels. The good thing about Ikea is that they have variety within each system… The annoying thing is that they don’t have each piece in all the colours.

Anyways I was limited to the Lack side tables that came in black. I used 5 Stolmen posts each spaced equally apart (Lack table plus connectors).  Used 4 Lack tables to create the back panel and 2 Lack tables per side for the shelves and because my ceiling was too high I used a Lack table and shelves at the top of the posts and then screwed the stablizers from the stolmen posts to the underside of the Lack tables to the wall.  That makes it look like it’s floating.

To connect the tables to the posts I used the Stolmen shelf connectors but with the standard wall hangers from any heavy shelf/wardrobe system.  Screw them into the sides (for back panels) or underneath (for shelves) and with nuts and bolts for Home Depot they attached nicely to the Stolmen connectors.  The LCD TV bracket was centered between the 4 back panels and each has 3 bolts with predrilled holes through each Lack panel for a total of 12 bolts.

Now I know the Lack tables have a semi hollow core but I knew it was strong enough.  It’s been almost 2 years holding up this 130lb LCD TV.  I later added the besta storage to the bottom to store my blurays and games (also using the Stolmen connectors and heavy duty metal angles from Home Depot).”

Simple decorations and basic table settings are perfectly fine for dinner parties and little gatherings. But when we’re throwing a big party, we love to go the whole nine yards and give the night a special glamour! The online store SaveOnCrafts has become our first stop when looking for affordable party supplies.

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Venezuela may be setting itself up to be the next mini financial crisis such as Dubai. has become

That’s because Hugo Chavez has decided to start nationalizing Venezuelan banks, which so far have mostly escaped his expropriating ways.

Venezuelan credit markets weren’t been happy about this at all.

Reuters: With rumors swirling about stability after the government closed four failing banks, Chavez twice this week stoked fears, threatening to nationalize banks involved in malpractice or failing to aid development in Venezuela.

But on Thursday he cooled his rhetoric after investors dumped Venezuelan bonds and the bolivar. Business groups and banks also released statements saying the system was solid.

“The government is putting out fire … We are fixing the problem,” he said, saying both the country and the bank system will benefit from his measures. “We will all emerge stronger.”

Read more here.

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See Also:

• Out of Capitalist Scapegoats, Chavez Asks Venezuelans To Prepare For Colombian War
• Hugo Chavez Jokes That "Comrade Obama" Is Making Him Look A Right Winger
• Chavez: Oil Is Going To $80

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

IF the title has you confused, I am referring to your trading station’s monitor(s) screen space. *Remember the more monitors you have the more $ you make* (J.k -trader joke).

Truthfully though, most day traders have many windows open (order entry/level II charts, executions, browser etc) taking up every available sq. inch with only the most important windows getting a parcel.

I only have the most pertinent data windows showing so I do not have to maximise and or dig for buried windows. (I utilize four monitors on my machine in addition to two screens shared with the trader next to me. *shared screens display index spot futures charts along with all our screeners)

Trust me, there is nothing worse than digging for an order entry window when your in a pinch.

SO why a Golden Slacks chart?

For the last two years or so I’ve been using Goldman’s trend as a leading indicator, in addition to all other real time leading indicators. I have found if Goldman’s relative weakness and or strength is contrary to the overall market trend the market will ultimately follow the golden boy’s.

Why is this? My thesis: the smartest money is involved with this stock and the smart money always shows up to the party first and ALWAYS leaves before the party is over. i.e. first ones in and first ones out, buy the dip and sell INTO the rip.

Supporting facts:
1.The chart above shows a clear reversal in GS’s long term trend with continued selling contrary to the S&P’s.
2.Goldman without a doubt is the strongest out of all the large cap financials
3.The financials have been leading this storm, the S&P’s will react to any major financial move

These might not be the most scientific supporting facts, but the fact of the matter is sometimes simpler is better in this market. Smart money/dumb money is a very simple concept in theory,but when applied to trading people miss the ball. Remember smart money leads. Lets take that phrase, apply it to my 1 min GS chart parcel to make some profits. The common most scenario I have seen plays out as follows:

The S&P’ futures are sitting on highs with the $PREM failing to make highs preceding the spike higher signaling a possible reversal. I glance up at my GS parcel, low and behold this thing is quietly selling through key support points as the cash market trades with no reaction. This is a good enough signal for me to start thinking about taking longs off and or get short a heavily weighted S&P component, possibly financial, so I can catch the move down before the sell program commences. I dip a feeler into a short by way of puts looking for a NYSE TICK reading of -1000ish indicating heavy business on the bid, this tells me the sell program is running. I add to the short and let the trade play out, if the trade works i will book the profits as i normally would with any trade, of course tight tops because program trading can really move the markets.

Of course this is not the only way you can use GS as a leading indicator, fool around with it. I guarantee you will find very interest correlations I might not have even discovered yet. The key correlation is, if Goldman is moving up or down without the market following chances are the market will end up moving in that direction.

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See Also:

• How To Set Up The Ultimate At-Home Trading Station
• The Retail Day-Trader Comes Out Of The Woodwork (MON, PCLN)
• The UUP Trade: Speculation Meets Supply & Demand (UUP)

If you’re a bull, what are you hoping to see when the unemployment number is released at 8:30?

Consensus is that the jobless rate remained steady at 10.2%, and that a payroll decline of 125,000 will prove to be the slimmest fall since March 2008.

Others, like JPMorgan see the jobless rate hitting 10.4%.

The JPMorgan number may be more bullish, medium-term, if it means more stimulus, and looser money out of the Fed.

In fact, the latest economic data has not been particularly pretty, and we may see cheap money and stimulus no matter what. The services sector is contracting. Global manufacturing activity is slipping. The Case-Shiller number disappointed.

As John Hussman recently noted, we’ve definitely gone from reports that surprised on the upside, to reports that surprised on the downside. Granted, we don’t want a severe double dip. But a tepid, in-and-out recovery may be just what the doctor ordered.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Hussman: Beware The Oncoming Tanks
• Case-Shiller: Home Price Recovery Stumbles, Results Worse Than Expected
• JPMorgan: The Global Recovery Stalled In November

Deflation doesn’t only cause Japanese consumers to hold back on retail spending.

It also causes large corporations to delay capital expenditures as well, since they anticipate lower prices in the future.

Thus crushing deflation in Japan has led to a shocking 24.8% drop in capital expenditures during the third quarter, according to latest government data. Worse yet, this was an acceleration of the previous 21.7% drop during Q2.

WSJ: Capital spending, which accounts for around 15% of GDP, isn’t likely to recover much while managers are worried about falling prices and the yen, analysts said.

“If I were an executive in charge of capital expenditures at a firm, I wouldn’t increase spending much for the time being as the recently rising yen makes the outlook very unstable for the export-reliant economy,” said Norio Miyagawa, an economist at Shinko Research Institute.

The finance ministry’s data showed that investment in the manufacturing sector fell at a record 40.7% pace, while outlays by automakers, whose bottom line is highly sensitive to exchange rates because of their reliance on exports, tumbled 59.7%.

Now you know why Ben Bernanke is so intent to stave off deflation in the U.S.

Read the whole thing >>

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See Also:

• Japan Denies Reports About It Dumping Treasuries
• Traders Freaking Out Over Rumors That Japan May Dump $100 Billion In Treasuries
• IEA: Japan Will Need 85 MPG Cars To Survive

Herb-infused olive oil is fantastic for making a special salad dressing, drizzling over a dish of pasta, or simply as an appetizer with chunks of great artisan bread. Making it yourself is super easy – and can make a great DIY gift to share with your friends!

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Ready to kick ass and make a boatload of money in 2010?

Goldman Sachs strategist Jim O’Neill recently unveiled his top trading picks for the coming year. O’Neill and his team hunted all around the world — from currencies, to pair trades to foreign equities — for the best moves.

As for what the global economy will look like, these are his basic premises:

–A benign (above-consensus) global growth outlook, alongside falling CPI inflation and ultra-
low US (and G3) real and nominal rates.   

–More differentiation than the market discount in growth and rate views, with a US growth
deceleration that puts our forecast well below consensus, but above consensus views in the
BRICs and in significant parts of the G10 (Australia, UK, Norway, Sweden) and increased
divergence within Europe – a theme Erik Nielsen and team have been focusing on.

–Ongoing concerns about the sustainability of growth in the US, more worries about deflation
than inflation and lingering credit issues in pockets of the market, associated with the high
amortization schedule of corporate securities.

–Risk and liquidity premia which are less extraordinary in the first half of last year but in
many cases still above average. An expectation from our Portfolio Strategy teams of positive
equity returns, but lower than this year and higher in Europe/Asia than in the US.

–A continued search for ‘carry’ in credit and beyond given low rates and a more balanced
macro outlook but with more differentiation across issuers as blanket policy stimulus is
removed. 

–Continued cyclical Dollar weakness for most of the year, alongside a view of positive, but
not extraordinary, commodity returns.

Knowing that, here are the top 10 trades >>

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See Also:

• Morgan Stanley: Here Comes A Brutal 2010

	LA 2009: Mitsubishi will bring an EV to U.S. in 2011, but it might not be the i-MiEV Really. Shoot.		LA 2009: First Fisker Karmas now expected to hit showrooms in Sept. 2010 Delays were expected, but this is still a disappointment.
	LA 2009: Bob Lutz keynote: “The automobile industry simply can no longer rely on oil” Quite a quotable guy, that Mr. Lutz.	Other news: LA 2009: Audi A3 TDI named 2010 Green Car of the Year in diesel repeat Tesla Brabus Green Package includes free electricity, at home and away LA 2009: The World’s Most Expensive Tesla Roadster

AutoblogGreen for 12.04.09 originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 04 Dec 2009 05:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s not exactly a surprise that Google wants to be involved with everything that has to do with the Internet, even marginally, and so far it’s been building towards this goal. From the front end, the web browser and now even a dedicated operating system, to the very basics of Internet communications, the HTTP protocol, Google has its hands on everything. Now it’s taking it one step further by launching its own DNS service, Google Public DNS, which it says can be faster and safer than the ones provided by the ISPs or the other DNS providers.

The vast majority of users aren’t even aware what DNS (Domain Name System) is, not to mention why they would want to switch to Google’s offering. In a simplified view, DNS translates domain names like www.google.com into IP addresses which is what computers and networking hardware use to identify themselves in a network environment. Regular, everyday web browsing involved hundreds, even thousands of DNS lookups, but these are handled by the ISPs, most of which provide their own DNS services, so the process is invisible to the user.

“The average Internet user ends up performing hundreds of DNS lookups each day, and some complex pages require multiple DNS lookups before they start loading. This can slow down the browsing experience. Our research has shown that… (read more)

EU countries are the biggest consumers of chocolate confectioneries in the world. A technique developed by the JRC Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM) to measure vegetable fats in milk chocolate has become the first such method to be adopted as a standard by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO). It has been developed to enable the enforcement of the so-called ‘Chocolate Directive’, which stipulates that European chocolate must not contain more than 5% vegetable fats, other than cocoa butter.

European legislation allows the addition of up to 5% of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter in chocolate products and stipulates that consumers be informed by appropriate labelling of the product. The threshold of 5% is also an essential requirement for these products to move freely within the internal market.

Pearltrees [pearltrees.com] is a new online visualization tool that allows users to organize their favorite content found on the Web as a network graph, which then reveals the connections between the interests of people. Or, in other words, Pearltrees is a somehow alternative visual version of the social bookmarking concepts that drive delicio.us, or a “collaborative network” that let users create, organize and share the world of their interests. However, in contrast to a tag-based system, Pearltrees connects people by the real content that is shared.

Users can save their favorite websites, organize what they find interesting, and explore what others have saved and are saying about specific web destinations.

You can watch a documentary video below. Via Mashable.

Eco Factor: Battery-powered underwater glider tracks the effects of climate change in inhospitable locations.

Designed to track the effects of climate change in the most inhospitable locations around the world, the Scarlet Knight is about to become the first underwater glider that will cross the Atlantic. The Scarlet Knight is expected to arrive in Spain after being released from New Jersey in April.

(more…)

Scott Rosenberg has a column up at The Guardian where he discusses Salon’s experience with a paywall back at the beginning of the decade, highlighting how the damage from a paywall can be a lot more troubling than many people take into account. He points out that Salon’s various paywall experiments did bring in some revenue, but they then limited Salon’s growth potential, first by confusing users on how they could get access to Salon content, and then with the psychological belief that Salon couldn’t be read without paying:

More important, by this point the public was, understandably, thoroughly confused about how to get to read Salon content. It took many years for our traffic to begin to grow again. Paywalls are psychological as much as navigational, and it’s a lot easier to put them up than to take them down. Once web users get it in their head that your site is “closed” to them, if you ever change your mind and want them to come back, it’s extremely difficult to get that word out.

Indeed. As an early reader of Salon, I used to read it all the time — and link to it. But as I got more and more confused over whether or not anyone reading Techdirt could read the links, I was less and less inclined to ever write about Salon stories — and eventually that resulted in me dropping Salon as a source I read as well.

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Following our decline yesterday, world markets sold off further, in sympathy. Some skittishness ahead of this morning’s jobs report (8:30 AM ET) may also be at play.

Bloomberg: Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Lloyds Banking Group Plc slid after the National Audit Office said the two banks are failing to meeting lending targets. Bank of America Corp. slipped in Germany after raising $19.3 billion selling securities. Greek banking stocks plunged after analysts at UBS AG cut their rating for Piraeus Bank SA, the nation’s fourth- biggest lender. Baloise Holding AG rose after UBS recommended buying the stock.

The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index of European companies declined 0.4 percent to 245.42 at 9:20 a.m. in London, paring its weekly gain to 1.2 percent. The gauge has rallied 25 percent this year on signs government spending and record-low interest rates are helping to drag the economy out of recession The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 0.2 today, retreating from a 15-month high.

The good news: US futures are ticking higher, though again, the jobs report renders most of this meaningless.

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See Also:

• JPMorgan: The Global Recovery Stalled In November
• JPMorgan: 10.4% Unemployment Coming This Friday
• Stocks Plunge In Final Hour Of Trading