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"Nuclear fusion poses the exact problems of nuclear fission in the production of radioactive waste, the risks of accidents and proliferation," said Frederic Miller, head of Greenpeace France's nuclear campaign, in an e-mailed statement. "France seems hypnotized by this absurd project."

The fact that your business is 100 years old indicates it's not making those kind of errors - at least not on a regular basis.

That's why we have such powerful computers in the stores now. Not only does windows require a lot of memory and processor speed, but all those other tasks that need to be running have to be accomodated.
Currently, I am running XP with Norton firewall and antivirus. I'm supposed to feel safe with those two icons in the tray.
By the time you read this, I have rebooted into my LiveCD linux OS, (see signature), and I feel safer yet with that running on this box. Kinda makes you wonder when intrusions like this have happened.

No "professionaly type" investor worth his salt would get his financial advice from the likes of CNN money. Moms thinking they are going to make millions off the stock market watching CNBC maybe, not not the serious kinds.

They would much rather look at something like Bloomberg, or approach their bank for financial consultancy services.

(How do I know this? My company has a product that caters to this market segment.)

The iPod had an 82 percent share of the market in U.S. retail stores in the 12 months ended in August, up from 64 percent in the same period a year earlier, and 33 percent two years ago, according to Port Washington, New York-based NPD Group Inc.

That's ccording to Bloomberg.

In fact, on the client side, Windows accounted for 87 percent of all sales in 1999, a figure that will decline to 85 percent by 2004.

That's ccording to CNET.

Both iTunes and IE are "bundled" products. Although you can get either by itself, the most common way to get them is to have them bundled with either your iPod or your Windows OS respectively. Neither IE or iTunes started out with commanding market share, but they both built share very quickly.

So now we have it on record: the music store is a loss leader. Jobs said Apple would pay its dues to the RIAA, then seek to make money where it could, from its line of hardware accessories. When the conversation turned to rivals such as eTunes and Napster, Jobs said: "They don't make iPods, so they don't have a related business where they do [make money]".

Don't bother with the other replies to you post. You have it right. Clearly they don't understand what the term trade deficit means.

Imports of all goods and services fell 2.5 percent in March, the biggest drop since December 2001, to a three-month low of $157.2 billion. Exports rose 1.5 percent to $102.2 billion.

That means that in March alone, the US spent nearly 50% more on goods than it managed to sell (in previous months it was more than 50%). Those extra U.S. Dollars are currently being held by various organizations around the world who use it for things like buying oil investing in U.S. stocks or real estate. If foreign confidence in the dollar drops due to a large trade deficits (i.e. too many dollars available outside the U.S.) then the dollar value will drop, and foreign investors will divest of U.S. investments, causing a massive drop in the affected markets. Think of the dot-com stock bubble on steroids. Oops.

Yup. Its the US who has the restrictive trade. That is why we have a $61 billion dollar trade surplus with our trading partners (more info: http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006& sid=a3EW2L1Gdkow&refer=home)

If we continue to run up $700 billion dollar annual surpluses, our trading partners are pretty soon going to pack up shop and refuse to trade with us. Can you imagine the barriers we must have set up to make this happen? Evil. Pure evil.

I don't blame Canada for this trade war at all. Obviously, the US needs to revamp its trading policies.

So far, the market seems to think Adobe is paying too much. They were paying a 33% premium when the deal was announced. ADBE is down over 11% so far today. MACR is up slightly.

So far, the market seems to think Adobe is paying too much. They were paying a 33% premium when the deal was announced. ADBE is down over 11% so far today. MACR is up slightly.

The same things were said when Japan made a move to dominate the car industry, so what happened?

The US manufacturers have steadily lost market share. Toyota passed Ford to become the #2 automaker (based on worldwide sales) and is steadily gaining on GM for #1. Further Toyota is about to pass Chrysler in the US market (~11% vs ~12% market share respectively) Chrysler nearly went bankrupt and was eventually bought by Daimler-Benz. Lexus (Toyota again) passed Cadillac and Lincoln to become the #1 selling luxury car brand in the US. US automakers sell nearly every small/compact car for a loss because of inefficient manufacuturing and high labor/pension costs. Toyota and Honda are leading the charge into hybrid automobiles, well ahead of US auto firms. Hybrids are very likely to be the next dominant technology in autos. The light auto segment the US manufacturers have held onto is pickups/SUVs that have accounted for the majority of their profits in recent years, and they are starting to lose their death grip on that segment too. Recent gas prices won't help SUV sales either.

While I'm painting a bit more bleak picture than it actually is for Ford and GM but if you think nothing happened in the industry due to the Japanese, you simply don't understand the industry. I wouldn't say the Japanese or US manufacturers dominate (no one does) but I can say that Japanese automakers have had a HUGE impact on the industry, largely at the expense of the US manufacturers. Most of the recent innovations in manufacturing processes (Just-in-time, lean manufacuturing, etc) were pioneered by Japanese manufacturers. I'm a manufacturing operations engineer and I've been to and conducted statstical analysis of plants for most of the big auto companies and the Japanese simply are better manufacturers overall. You don't even have to take my word for it, there is plenty of evidence out there to support me. But I've been there and I can tell you that Ford & GM are playing catch up. The reason they haven't lost (read gone-bankrupt/aquired) is that auto manufacuturing isn't strictly a price game. Styling, dealer/sales networks, and historical buying preferences matter. And the US manufacturers aren't complete incompetents. But if it were strictly a matter of price/performance GM and Ford would already be gone.

Also, Comcast will swap its stock in Time Warner Cable for some Adelphia systems. This will unwind the relationship between Time Warner and Comcast.

First of all, the Chinese government is *not* funding them. They are giving them a loan on which they charge interest.

Secondly, the US government can hardly complain about subsidies. A recent bloomberg article states that the US government has spent $117 billion on the war in Iraq (almost 8 x more than the Chinese loan).

Now...I wonder which companies benefit from that?

I would think that the news agency would want to be featured on Google to attract more visitors to its site! Apparently they are simply out for money when no damage has actually been done. Sure it's copyrighted material...

The words are copyrighted. The news isn't. AFP might want to recognize this if they'd like to continue to compete in the modern world.

Being the "oldest" news organization in the world can be a hindrance if you fail to recognize that you're no longer the only one in existence.

Getting yourself taken off Google does not seem a prudent business decision in such a competitive news market.

Judging by today's market reaction, the above is just one of many miscalculations on GM's part. This morning, the company forecast its largest quarterly loss since 1992, lost a chunk of its market value, and riled the corporate bond market. Fitch, a major credit ratings agency, has already downgraded the company's debt to BBB- while rumors of imminent downgrades by other agencies are circulating the investment community.

Detroit's 800-pound gorilla is looking rather emaciated this afternoon.

So GM scrapped them. That was probably unfortunate for the company, as people no longer are buying GM's trucks and SUVs, which they made the highest profits off of... and people aren't buying them thanks to Big Oil's Big Prices.

It's okay... I look forward to the next innovations from Honda and Toyota... and I never considered buying American automobiles anyway. The world hasn't really changed.

Sony continually goes up against competitors they can never win against. Apple has too strong of a hold on this market for Sony to even budge them. It's no surprise that they are 60 million in debt.

What's amusing about all this is that ClearChannel has been seen as heavily pro-Bush. But it seems that Bush's "activist FCC" may not be good for business, as they reported a huge one-time loss. That same article reports that their radio business is stagnating. Frank Rich said it best: Basically, FCC regulation is on the upswing, but you get between the people and their "Desperate Housewives" at the risk of your business model.

Read about it here

The other BG news out of Davos is that he's short the dollar. He thinks that the trade imbalance is getting too big to sustain with the current (already low) dollar valuation. Of course, you cannot graphologically analyze his spoken words, so it must not be important.

Even the most secure cars can be stolen, like this car owned by the head of Mercedes

This Bloomberg article has a little more substance than the Xinhua version. There's a little more in there on the espionage aspects that Xinhua left out.

It's not a troll - a Harvard professor has had to apologise after apparently saying women lack the ability to excel at math and science

• The Bond and Money Markets: strategy, trading, analysis by Moorad Choudhry
• Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis
• When Genius Failed by Roger Lowenstein
• FIASCO by Frank Partnoy
• Bombardiers by Po Bronson (fiction, but absolutely hilarious and well worth a read)

Obviously, these are all about the fixed income markets, as opposed to equities.

Anyway, having said all that, you can read all the books you want, but the best way of learning the business is to sit on a trading floor, next to the traders.

Jack

Yup, start a fund with $5k at 21 years of age and with an average return of 8% and another $5k/yr over the life of the investment until 65 you will retire with just under $2 million dollars. Of course that will be worth less than it is today, but still that's not bad. Kick the annual contribution up to $10k and you've got $3.7 million.

Someone near 35 will have to do some catching up but you can play with the numbers and see how well you might do.

Columnist denying it.

USA Today nailing him on it.

Washington Post doing the same.

FCC investigation into Armstrong Williams payola.

Seriously, this is not a conspiracy; it happened. You can argue whether (as USA Today states) he was contractually obligated to be favorable towards vouchers, but he definitely took money to run ads on them... and immediately afterward, wrote columns favorable of the Bush administration's position on the issue. This would be *incredibly* questionable, in and of itself. If he took the money with an additional obligation of running those columns, it is quite possibly illegal.

Since when does Hong Kong care about copyright/patent enforcement?

It is probably an example to puff up US Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans who was just in China pushing for more IP enforcement. It seems that in the last few years China has put a bunch of copyright laws on the books, but enforcement has been rather lax resulting in more "piracy" than before China got Most Favored Nation trading status.

China wants the US to confer "market economy" status to their country (which makes it even easier to "dump") and the US wants copyright cartel enforcement. This arrest is probably just headline fodder to bostler whatever promises China made to Evans.

Bummers for the defendant, it sucks to be made a political example in any country, but he'll probably get something ridiculous like 20 years to life, or maybe even executed.

First off, the thesis of the idea being discussed here is that essentially there will be a major cooling event, not a warming event. Temperatures in some areas in North America and Europe could drop 10-20 degrees C on average, and that's a LOT.

However, your other point about needing lots of arable land is valid. What you're ignoring is that in addition to possible drastic climate change, we are also faced with exponential human population growth at the same time. We need more food production in short order if we are to avoid a massive global die-off (Hi, Malthus!). These issues were discussed in the 60's in a book called "The Limits of Growth", and while its modeling and timescale were flawed, its essential message was correct.

I read recently that China's population just passed the 1.3 billion mark. That's scarier than climate change. Developing countries, which are some of the worst polluters per capita and habitat destroyers, have the fastest growing populations.

Given the pressures the human race faces, and the timescale we're looking at, the only hope for a reasonably "good" outcome (one that doesn't involve billions of people dying an untimely death) is massive technological progress to dig us out of the hole we're in. Otherwise, it's looking pretty grim - and we're not talking particularly long timescales either.

So, it's time to get busy...quit paying so much attention to trivial stuff people!

Andy Mukherjee, a Bloomberg columnist wrote this article; to paraphrase their argument "Yes, [they argue that] disasters can generate economic growth so long as they are predictable and frequent. Every time annual floods or hurricanes levels a house or factory or some other physical capital, the replacement usually involves some technological improvement, which is good for economic growth.".

To which one blogger on Mises.org responded "Would he argue that beatings administered to economists can do them a world of good, as long as they are predictable and frequent? That way, their old and broken hypotheses can be beaten out of them and replaced with newer, better hypotheses."

as of now, amazon claims to have collected $2,120,581.09. the us federal government pledged $35 million while the entire eu pledged $4 million. overall, nations pledged "at least $102 million" (see first link). amazon alone has collected over 50% of the eu's pledge and 2% of total aid pledged by all nations. i wonder what the red cross has collected (without amazon), as well as unicef, cidi, etc. i imagine that compared to the $102 million, private collections are NOT insignificant.

if you think that immediate response is insignificant compared to long term initiatives, then you are insane. while long term initiatives are important, people eating TODAY is more important than any long term aid. if you disagree, i challenge you to live out of a destroyed mud hut, drink dirty water and eat only what you find on the side of the road knowing that in a few weeks/months/years things may be better. see how much consilation that is...

Just to be complete was this your article, I think that you will find the complete publication more informative than the story based on the Press Release. I did a quick read of the material, and while the publication is really slick they don't do any footnoting, nor do they seem to tell you specificly where they got the figures or what those figures include and exclude (I might have missed it, I'll read the rest later). I wonder if it includes personal giving, or is some kind of 'net' figure (elimating say the amount payed to US farmers for grain). In fairness there is a list of unqualified references at the bottom of the report, which makes fact checking only marginally easier. Also, I find it interesting that they harp on the percentages, in the middle of the paper they say that the best way to improve the encomomy is an increase of the exports from the country (but that doesn't show up in the press report or the executive summary. Kinda like the old saying "give a man a fish...teach him to fish...". In that case you can consider our trade deficit as part of the aid!

All the whining aside, those poor people need our help today. Since you seem to be keeping track, right now, we (the U.S.) lead Japan by 5 million, Germany by more than $32 million, and that is jut what the Feds are putting up.

Not any more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000102&si d=ash4iKmCSW6Y&refer=uk

And from http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html:

U.S. is the world's Scrooge

"The United States is not stingy," Colin Powell said on CNN this morning. "We are the greatest contributor to international relief efforts in the world."

Powell was responding to comments yesterday by Jan Egeland, the United Nation's emergency relief coordinator, who suggested that wealthy countries' initial pledges of assistance in response to the Asian disaster had been insufficient. "It is beyond me, why are we so stingy, really," Egeland said. So far, the U.S. has pledged $35 million in relief aid for victims of the earthquake and tsunamis, and Powell insisted today that the U.S. will give much more -- possibly into the billions -- as the scope of the disaster becomes better known.

Let's hope so, because as it is, despite Powell's assurances, the rest of the world regards the U.S. as a heartless Scrooge -- and for good reason. A couple weeks ago Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University economist who heads the United Nation's Millennium Project to reduce poverty, hunger, and disease in developing nations, stopped by Salon's offices to discuss how the United States was shirking its responsibilities to the world's poorest people. In much of the world, Sachs told us, there remains the impression that the U.S. is interested in helping people only when it has something to gain -- and these days we only engage with the rest of the world on anti-terrorism policy, more often than not through war. The United States contributes about a tenth of one percent of its income in aid to poor countries -- an abysmal rate that falls below that of all industrialized nations, and is dwarfed by the giving rate of Canada (0.26 percent), Germany (0.28 percent), the United Kingdom (0.34 percent), and France (0.42 percent).

What's worse, this situation doesn't seem to be improving. Indeed, in just the past two months, the Bush administration has quietly reduced its commitments to global anti-poverty programs, cutting its contributions to groups like Save the Children and Catholic Relief Services by as much as $100 million. The move prompted the New York Times to ask in an editorial: "The administration can conjure up $87 billion for the fighting in Iraq, but can it really not come up with more than $15.6 billion -- our overall spending on development assistance in 2002 -- to help stop an 8-year-old AIDS orphan in Cameroon from drinking sewer water or to buy a mosquito net for an infant in Sierra Leone?"

When the state of Florida suffered four hurricanes this summer, the Bush administration quickly and admirably pried open the federal wallet, and so far Floridians have received more than $3 billion in federal and state disaster assistance. Nobody's saying that Floridians didn't deserve that aid; they surely did. But what happened in Asia over the weekend may turn out to be one of the worst natural disasters in human history. More than 40,000 people are now believed dead, and officials fear that the toll may surpass 60,000. A good test of the Bush administration's generosity -- not to mention the generosity of all Americans -- is whether our government can now muster as much money for far-off foreigners as we could for Americans in an all-important swing state.

The PRChina is actually the second-biggest holder of US debt AFTER Japan. According to Bloomberg China holds $174.4 billion of Treasury notes and bonds at the end of September, while Japan holds more than $720 billion of the securities.

There was a huge earthquake (8.1 on Richter) south of Tasmania 3 days before. It made headlines http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000081&si d=aUIanL7wC_m8&refer=australia/ but fortunately no victims. However if you look at a map of tectonic plates http://geology.about.com/library/bl/maps/blplatesw topoehem.htm/ and compare it with the location of the earthquake http://www.iris.edu/seismon/ you can see it happened at the southern tip of the Indian plate. Now 3 days later on the middle of the eastern edge of the same plate another huge earthquake...looks like plate movement to me.

All one has to do is a simple google to see that there are several anylysts who question this move.

HERE

Analysts downgraded both companies. Legg Mason analyst Todd Weller wrote in a note to clients that Symantecs' 20 percent sales growth rates will be dragged down by Veritas's slower sales, which are forecast to rise 10 percent. ``From a near-term perspective, the negatives outweigh the positives.'' The merged company will have a low-teens growth rate, he wrote.

Standard & Poors Downgraded it as well

Sure the acquirer MAY lose value, but not usually 25% but the Coward that posted the above is too busy showing his own ignorance.

Here is an article from Bloomberg about the DS launch.

A choice paragraph:
Not to be outdone, Sony has erected PSP displays in train stations throughout Tokyo, mirroring the company's campaign for its PSX combination game console and DVD recorder last year. Each PSP is displayed behind a clear plastic case. Uniformed guards prevent passersby from touching the devices.

Touching is BAD!

(bet they don't even work)

I thought for sure this would be an article about IT workers moving to Canada where they're actually hiring people

Crap, I forgot the link... Here you go. http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=nifea&&si d=a3REW5hf9CJM

Who Is Governor Arnold? George Shultz's Hunch: Andrew Ferguson

Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Former U.S. Treasury Secretary George Shultz, sitting in serene retirement in his office on the campus of Stanford University, likes to tell this story about Arnold Schwarzenegger.

``Buffett and I'' -- that would be billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who with Shultz heads the soon-to-be-governor's team of informal economic advisers -- ``were doing a conference call with Arnold back in September. A number of businessmen had joined us. And one of them, a Latino restaurant owner, starts to push this driver's license thing.''

That would be the new California law, signed by a desperate Governor Gray Davis shortly before last Tuesday's recall election, allowing illegal immigrants to obtain drivers licenses.

``This fellow says, `Arnold, all my employees are for it. All my customers are for it. You sup

Now maybe Bush can get around to doing some of the things that he thought might not get him re-elected during the first term...lets see. Iran, North Korea, ummm...who else? Also...anybody else see what oil prices are doing?

Uh, check the number of murders and fatal car accidents in the United States. I think you'll find them to be frightenly high.

US Murder rate: 5.7 per 100,000 = 17100 murders.

Vehicular deaths = 41,000.

So, in the United States, which is not undergoing major upheavals and bombings, had over 50,000 people die.

Not to mention conservative groups bulk-challenging votes in Ohio.

After SWVFT, Diebold, and this, how can anyone defend the mentality of the right in America? Oh, right, if Kerry wins the economy will tank and the terrorists will invade Wyoming, like they did under Clinton.

This is the best interactive electorial college map I found on the Internet. Clicking on the button 'Electorial votes' changes the proportions of the states to reflect the electorial college. Lot of stats and fun to play with too.

As of now, I believe after reading this that the states are going to be voting almost exactly as the did in 2000, and it will come down to Florida making the call, yet again!

Read it you communist and Weep.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=71000001& ; refer=home&sid=avn64.gOLNdI

Employment Growth Accelerated in October: U.S. Economy Preview
Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) - U.S. employers probably added 175,000 workers to payrolls in October, the most in five months, while the unemployment rate held at a three-year low of 5.4 percent, the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of economists shows.
The Labor Department's report will be released three days after the Nov. 2 presidential election, which polls show is a toss- up. President George W. Bush says his tax cuts have helped the economy, while Democratic challenger John Kerry says they haven't boosted jobs.
"The focus this week will be jobs related - will President Bush keep his job and by how much will payrolls rebound in October," said Joseph Abate, senior U.S. economist at Lehman Brothers Inc. in New York.
The projected employment gain would follow September's rise of 96,000, less than forecast in part because of hurricanes in the Southeast. Faster job growth is needed to help boost incomes, spending and the economy. A Commerce Department report tomorrow is forecast to show Americans spent more than they earned last month.
Employment growth cooled from earlier this year, when a quarter million jobs a month were added through May. Less job growth in September probably helped hold incomes to a 0.3 percent gain during the month, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey. Personal spending probably rose twice as much as incomes last month, the survey showed.
Fed Policy
The jobs statistics will be the last Federal Reserve policy makers will see before their Nov. 10 meeting. All 46 economists in a Bloomberg News survey forecast central bankers to raise their benchmark overnight lending rate a quarter point to 2 percent. Fed officials have signaled as much in recent comments.
"No doubt, the recent run-up in energy prices poses some challenges, but the evidence indicates that, without some further material shock, aggregate demand is on track, consistent with sustained economic growth," Fed Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson said in a speech two days ago.
Manufacturing, responding to increased third-quarter consumer demand and business spending on equipment, probably expanded in October, a report tomorrow is forecast to show. The Institute of Supply Management's gauge of factory activity is forecast to hold at 58.5 in October. Readings above 50 signal expansion and the index has shown growth since May 2003.
A survey last week showed that record crude oil prices have so far led to little change in corporate spending plans. More said they plan to boost spending instead of reduce it. Eighty-six percent of manufacturers said their "spending plans are little changed" this year, according to the National Association for Business Economics. Ten percent expect to buy more business equipment, while 5 percent said they plan to reduce spending.
Energy Costs
People are drawing down savings to spend at a time when energy costs have increased. Energy prices may increase consumers' fuel bills by $60 billion and may subtract as much as 0.9 percentage point from fourth-quarter growth, according to an Oct. 22 research report by economists at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.
"We are seeing retail as OK," said Joseph Galli, chief executive of Newell Rubbermaid Inc., the maker of Rubbermaid plastic containers, in an interview last week. "For our products it certainly hasn't been gangbusters, but its held up OK."
The economy grew 3.7 percent at an annual rate in the third quarter after a 3.3 percent pace in the second, the government said two days ago. Consumer spending rose at a 4.6 percent annual rate, almost three times the pace of the prior quarter. Since 2001, the economy has grown an average 3.5 percent, faster than the 3.2 percent average since 1970.
`Rapid Expansion'

read and weep you fucking communist:

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=71000001& refer=home&sid=avn64.gOLNdI

Employment Growth Accelerated in October: U.S. Economy Preview
Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) - U.S. employers probably added 175,000 workers to payrolls in October, the most in five months, while the unemployment rate held at a three-year low of 5.4 percent, the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of economists shows.
The Labor Department's report will be released three days after the Nov. 2 presidential election, which polls show is a toss- up. President George W. Bush says his tax cuts have helped the economy, while Democratic challenger John Kerry says they haven't boosted jobs.
"The focus this week will be jobs related - will President Bush keep his job and by how much will payrolls rebound in October," said Joseph Abate, senior U.S. economist at Lehman Brothers Inc. in New York.
The projected employment gain would follow September's rise of 96,000, less than forecast in part because of hurricanes in the Southeast. Faster job growth is needed to help boost incomes, spending and the economy. A Commerce Department report tomorrow is forecast to show Americans spent more than they earned last month.
Employment growth cooled from earlier this year, when a quarter million jobs a month were added through May. Less job growth in September probably helped hold incomes to a 0.3 percent gain during the month, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey. Personal spending probably rose twice as much as incomes last month, the survey showed.
Fed Policy
The jobs statistics will be the last Federal Reserve policy makers will see before their Nov. 10 meeting. All 46 economists in a Bloomberg News survey forecast central bankers to raise their benchmark overnight lending rate a quarter point to 2 percent. Fed officials have signaled as much in recent comments.
"No doubt, the recent run-up in energy prices poses some challenges, but the evidence indicates that, without some further material shock, aggregate demand is on track, consistent with sustained economic growth," Fed Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson said in a speech two days ago.
Manufacturing, responding to increased third-quarter consumer demand and business spending on equipment, probably expanded in October, a report tomorrow is forecast to show. The Institute of Supply Management's gauge of factory activity is forecast to hold at 58.5 in October. Readings above 50 signal expansion and the index has shown growth since May 2003.
A survey last week showed that record crude oil prices have so far led to little change in corporate spending plans. More said they plan to boost spending instead of reduce it. Eighty-six percent of manufacturers said their "spending plans are little changed" this year, according to the National Association for Business Economics. Ten percent expect to buy more business equipment, while 5 percent said they plan to reduce spending.
Energy Costs
People are drawing down savings to spend at a time when energy costs have increased. Energy prices may increase consumers' fuel bills by $60 billion and may subtract as much as 0.9 percentage point from fourth-quarter growth, according to an Oct. 22 research report by economists at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.
"We are seeing retail as OK," said Joseph Galli, chief executive of Newell Rubbermaid Inc., the maker of Rubbermaid plastic containers, in an interview last week. "For our products it certainly hasn't been gangbusters, but its held up OK."
The economy grew 3.7 percent at an annual rate in the third quarter after a 3.3 percent pace in the second, the government said two days ago. Consumer spending rose at a 4.6 percent annual rate, almost three times the pace of the prior quarter. Since 2001, the economy has grown an average 3.5 percent, faster than the 3.2 percent average since 1970.
`Rapid Expansio

What? How did this get rated insightful?
Brazilian Currency Rises for 3rd Day in 4 Against U.S. Dollar

Being the second largest economy in Latin America does not exactly qualify it as "poor". I've seen quite a few posts comaring developing nations being equal to a dirt poor african nation.

It's just plain ignorant to bundle all non-developed countries in one bunch. Don't act surprised when these "poor" countries start buying up companies from the "prosperous" countries.

CEMEX (Mexico)
EMBRAER (Brazil)
TELEVISA (Mexico)
WIPRO (India)
KOLA REAL (Peru)

Being the second largest economy in Latin America does not exactly qualify it as "poor". I've seen quite a few posts comaring developing nations being equal to a dirt poor african nation.

It's just plain ignorant to bundle all non-developed countries in one bunch. Don't act surprised when these "poor" countries start buying up companies from the "prosperous" countries.

CEMEX (Mexico)
EMBRAER (Brazil)
TELEVISA (Mexico)
WIPRO (India)
KOLA REAL (Peru)

Being the second largest economy in Latin America does not exactly qualify it as "poor". I've seen quite a few posts comaring developing nations being equal to a dirt poor african nation.

It's just plain ignorant to bundle all non-developed countries in one bunch. Don't act surprised when these "poor" countries start buying up companies from the "prosperous" countries.

CEMEX (Mexico)
EMBRAER (Brazil)
TELEVISA (Mexico)
WIPRO (India)
KOLA REAL (Peru)

BEGIN TRANSACTION

Personally this worries me a bit, specifically after Wally O'Dell, the Diebold CEO, stated that he is committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president. .

The recent referendum in Venezuela looks like rock solid democracy as compared to the current US banana republic touch screen voting charade.

Prove it.
http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/