Clipmarks | deb2012's clips

Stock Market Bull's best friend

Mon, 05 May 2008 03:59:29 GMT

clipped by: deb2012
clipper's remarks: following the yield curve

According to the editor of the Systems & Forecasts newsletter, Marvin Appel, the S&P 500 performs best when the difference between the 10 year treasury note and the 90 T-Bill is between 1.41% and 2.57% with the following week providing an unheard of 13.3% return.

What today’s yield curve is telegraphing is that the economy is about to kick into gear (again). A steep yield curve is usually observed at the end of a recession and/or just before major economic expansion. Sure, that may sound like crazy talk with all the bad news floating around. But that is how the market works. Everything is priced in. The bond market is, for the first time, holding the 90 day T-Bill rates steady even as the Fed lowers rates to meet it.

Looks like the puppy finally is willing to get caught. The gap between the 90 day T-Bill and the Fed rate is now down to just 54 basis points.

Tags: stocks, economy

Govts around the world going nuclear

Mon, 05 May 2008 03:23:25 GMT

clipped by: deb2012
clipper's remarks: I get google alerts on nuclear energy and what I'm seeing is that many countries are determined to move toward nuclear energy to solve their energy crisis. We the people, might want to get ourselves educated about this before it just happens to us.

Clip Source: www.motherjones.com

a new plant will have a harder time breaking even: An Areva reactor may start at $3 or $4 billion, already twice as much as a coal plant, but actual construction costs and interest will probably boost total plant cost to $9 billion

Which is why not a single one will get built without help from the government

So far, Congress has pledged up to $6 billion worth of production tax credits for new nuclear plants.

Since 1957, plant operators have been protected by the Price-Anderson Act, which limits their liability in a catastrophic accident. The 2005 energy bill updated the act, which required reactor operators to carry insurance policies worth $300 million and contribute $95 million to an accident compensation fund. The rest is covered by taxpayers—not a bad deal, considering that it cost $1 billion to clean up after Three Mile Island.

The debate over whether nuclear power deserves this kind of public investment is second only to the debate over whether reactors can ever be safe.

Tags: energy, nuclear

Do you use Dove Soap?

Sun, 04 May 2008 20:15:58 GMT

clipped by: deb2012
clipper's remarks: Ironically, Unilever, the makers of Dove soap, are on the list of The 2008 Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World, yet this video shows they have a slight problem living up to that reputation.
http://www.csrwire.com/News/10851.html

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: environment

Astronaut Re-entry thriller

Sun, 04 May 2008 18:14:48 GMT

clipped by: deb2012
clipper's remarks: I've been followering her career for a while.

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson has painted a dramatic picture of her return journey to Earth from the International Space Station on 19 April, when her crew's Soyuz capsule took an unexpected trajectory that gave the astronauts a very rough ride.

During re-entry, the capsule switched to "ballistic re-entry mode". This set the craft on a much steeper, more direct trajectory to Earth than intended and it landed 475 kilometres away from the intended site.

Whitson described the ordeal today during press interviews at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. For one "very long" minute, she said, the astronauts suffered forces of 8.2 times normal gravity - nearly double the force they'd expect on a normal descent.

"There's an old pilot saying - any landing you can walk away from is a good one," she said. "That probably applies here."

"They have no desire to kill their astronauts or cosmonauts any more than we do," she said.

Tags: spaceflight, transporation

World's Fastest streetcar

Sun, 04 May 2008 18:11:17 GMT

clipped by: deb2012
clipper's remarks: cool

Clip Source: www.gizmag.com

The crudely-named "Faster One" from Weber Sports might not have the Bugatti's dashing good looks, but if you ever found enough straight road to give them both a gumboot full, the Faster One's claimed top speed of 260mph (420kmh) would see it crawl away from both the Veyron and the SSC Ultimate Aero. With only 900hp to the Veyron's 1001, the Faster One lives up to its name by virtue of its superior aerodynamics - which appear to have been achieved partially through a boisterous application of the ugly stick. The price of ultimate velocity? A little over US$1.5 million.

Tags: transportation

The founding creeds of America

Sun, 04 May 2008 16:33:37 GMT

clipped by: deb2012
clipper's remarks: What were the intents of the founding fathers regarding church and state? This is an interview from a student and teacher of this issue.

Clip Source: powervoyeur.blogspot.com

Slavery – the owning of human beings – is morally indefensible wherever and whenever it occurred. But it was a global institution that existed virtually everywhere from time immemorial that Western European culture first ended. And in America from 1861-65 we paid a big price in blood for our “sin” of slavery.

I do think America’s Founding offers moral meaning to us in the 21st Century. And the way in which the key Founders believed in liberty and equality of religious rights for all people, including atheists is one such part of America’s religious history of which I am particularly proud.

The primary problem with the Christian America idea is that it seems to only recognize the Bible/Christian principles as a source of ideas for American government and practically pretends the other ideological traditions didn’t exist.

the Founders were greatly concerned with religious rights and wanted to take sectarian disputes out of politics.

Tags: america, constitution, religion

Is 44 million too much?

Sun, 04 May 2008 16:19:57 GMT

clipped by: deb2012
clipper's remarks: corporate vs labor on compensation
greed vs. value
I have to wonder if salary increases for laborers would better promote long term corporate value?

Clip Source: www.forbes.com

The chairman and chief executive of Nabors Industries Ltd. received compensation valued at $44.6 million in 2007

For the full year 2007, Nabors' earnings dropped 9 percent to $930.7 million, or $3.25 per share. Nabors attributed the drop in profit to a decline in operating income from the company's North American rig operations, excluding Alaska.

Central Laborers' Pension Fund, which holds 1,616 Nabors shares, proposed that the board revise its executive compensation plan to more closely tie awards to superior corporate performance. The shareholder noted that the CEO's compensation is determined by his employment agreement and there is no upper limit on his annual incentive award.

Nabors recommended that stockholders vote against the proposal, arguing that its executive plan is already designed to promote long-term corporate value.

Tags: economy

Best Concert Film of all time

Sun, 04 May 2008 15:24:06 GMT

clipped by: deb2012
clipper's remarks: Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii 1971
http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=6352095

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: music, culture