Clipmarks | tabsey's 'economy' clips

Ecuador Giving U.S. Air Base the Boot

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:34:21 GMT

clipped by: tabsey

Clip Source: www.democraticunderground.com

Prevailing Nationalism, Investment From Elsewhere Make American Presence Obsolete

MANTA, Ecuador -- When U.S. officers stationed in this humid coastal city give reasons they should continue their decade-old airborne surveillance mission, they talk not only about fighting drug runners on the open seas but about the $71 million they've spent to renovate and maintain the city's airport, and the $6.5 million they inject each year into the local economy.

But the government of Ecuador has decided, and Washington has apparently agreed, that one of the most important foreign outposts in the United States' war on drugs will close. The 450 U.S. Air Force personnel and contractors stationed at a military base that shares the airport's runway will be leaving next year.

"This is a problem for us of sovereignty," Larrea said. "It's as if we had a base in New York. This would be incomprehensible for North Americans."

Fuel prices worse than SARS, 9/11: Virgin boss

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:28:33 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Travel may soon be like it was Forty years ago.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Virgin Blue chief executive officer Brett Godfrey says rising fuel prices are doing more damage to the aviation industry than SARS or the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Mr Godfrey says his airline has cut flight capacity by 12 per cent and introduced a new surcharge for checked baggage to try to minimise operating costs.

He told ABC's Radio National the company might be forced to resort to staff cuts if fuel prices continue to rise.

"We're probably carrying, with this last set of announcements, a few more staff than we actually will need to to operate the program in the next 12 months," he said.

"I feel that where fuel is, if it continues to head north, it has dramatic impacts not just for aviation but the entire economy.

"And not just our economy but every economy in the world."

Last week, Qantas axed 1,300 staff in Australia because of soaring oil costs.

Tags: train, spotting, anyone

McCain rejects comments from his economic adviser

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:56:31 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Guess Mr Gramm won't be in the job long. Still, he has been noticed by the GOP, as he is pushing their line, which McCain is trying to disassociate himself from.

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

BELLEVILLE, Michigan (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Thursday sharply rejected a top economic adviser's description of the United States as "a nation of whiners" who are in a mental recession.

Democratic White House rival Barack Obama pounced on the remarks and said they proved McCain was out of touch on the economy, a critical issue in November's presidential election.

McCain moved quickly to limit the political damage caused by the comments of adviser Phil Gramm, a former Texas senator who questioned the extent of the U.S. economic downturn in an interview with the Washington Times.

"Phil Gramm does not speak for me. I speak for me. So, I strongly disagree," McCain said. "America's in great difficulty and we are experiencing enormous economic challenges."

The Arizona senator responded sharply when asked if Gramm would have a key role in a potential McCain administration.

Tags: politics, permutations, pharynx

Plane soared past destination as pilots slept: report

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:19:19 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: I thought of the auto pilot in Flying High when I read this.

Clip Source: www.smh.com.au

An Air India flight headed for Mumbai overshot its destination and was halfway to Goa before its dozing pilots were woken out of a deep slumber by air traffic control, a report said.

The high altitude nap took place approximately two weeks ago, the Times of India reported today.

Some 100 passengers were on board the state-run flight that originated from Dubai and flew to the western Indian city of Jaipur before heading south to Mumbai when both pilots fell asleep, a source told the paper.

"After operating an overnight flight, fatigue levels peak - and so the pilots dozed off after taking off from Jaipur," the source, who was not identified in the report, said.

The plane flew to Mumbai on autopilot, but when air traffic there tried to help the aircraft land, the plane ignored their instructions and carried on at full speed towards Goa.

Tags: let's, all, fly, economy, so, no, snoring, pilots

Gas crisis serious for all Australians: PM

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:53:44 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Wonder how much the Chinese would charge to sell our contracted gas back to us.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

The damage at Apache Energy's gas plant on Varanus Island is hurting WA.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has issued a strong warning about the potential economic impact of Western Australia's gas crisis, telling Parliament the Commonwealth is working with the WA Government to deal with the impact of the crisis.

The Treasurer has also warned of a flow through to the national economy if the crisis seriously affects WA's economy.

Mr Rudd says WA Premier Alan Carpenter has established a Gas Supply Coordination Group which will involve some Commonwealth and Government agencies working with key State Government agencies and industry bodies.

"This is a serious matter for Western Australia therefore it is a serious matter for all Australians," he said.

"We believe that is an appropriate level of coordination between the two governments."

The Varanus Island explosion on June 3 has slashed WA's gas supply by one-third.

Tags: economics

Granholm: McCain Not Good for Women

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:13:28 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Isn't McCain the type to consult, in this case women, and find out if they have any right to rights under the Republican policies.

Clip Source: www.truthout.org

Seeking to block an effort by John McCain to draw support from Hillary Clinton supporters, Gov. Jennifer Granholm on Saturday called for women to unify behind Barack Obama and attacked McCain's record on women's issues and the economy.

McCain's outreach to Clinton-backing women "is an effort to mask his effort on the issues important to the women who supported (Clinton)", said Granholm, who supported Clinton during her primary campaign against Obama.

Granholm spoke to reporters on a conference call organized by the Obama campaign.

McCain on Saturday was holding a "virtual town hall" teleconference with former Clinton supporters, other Democrats and independents, seeking to capitalize on divisions created by Democrats' long and at times bitter primary campaign. The McCain campaign released a list of more than two dozen Democrats and independents it said were supporting McCain.

Tags: politics

The Renewable Revolution: World's Biggest Solar Farm Is About to Open—Is the End of Oil Near?

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 10:21:44 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Portugal, hopefully to be copied by many.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

The world’s largest solar photovoltaic farm is strangely beautiful. Fields lined with solar panels tilting sunward seem almost like a massive environmental art project—one with an empowering message to the world. We can find ways to run the world predominantly on clean energy if we choose to. It’s already beginning. By 2020, Portugal plans to generate over a third of its energy from renewables, with that percentage increasing every year.

The farm, located high on the Alantejo Plain near the small town of Mouro, will be twice as large as any other project of its kind. The farm is comprised of 2520 giant solar panels, positioned at a 45 degrees angle to track the sun as it moves across the sky.

Portugal has already made its mark as a world leader in switching to clean energy. Why? Partly because unlike other developed countries, Portugal doesn't have an economy dominated by coal, gas and uranium extraction industries.

Tags: energy

Mugabe and Ahmadinejad off the menu

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 09:36:47 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Cause enough indigestion without being there.

Clip Source: www.smh.com.au

The Italian and UN hosts of a United Nations crisis summit on rising food prices left the presidents of Zimbabwe and Iran off the guest list of a ceremonial dinner for the leaders attending the meeting.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is able to take part in the conference only because an European Union travel ban on him does not apply to UN forums.

And Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on his first visit to Western Europe as Iranian president, made sure of a frosty welcome by offending Israel on the eve of his departure.

Neither was named on the list of guests for the official dinner being given on Tuesday by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for the heads of state attending the June 3-5 summit, Italian media reported.

Western ministers said Mr Mugabe was responsible for the food shortages faced by millions in Zimbabwe's shattered economy.

Tags: dinner, at, macca's

A quarter of US PCs infected with malware: OECD

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 10:25:19 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: That's a lot of malware cleaners to sell. They are at freebie sites

Clip Source: www.theage.com.au

An OECD study into online crime says that increased activity by cyber criminals has left an estimated one-in-four US computers infected with malware.

The report, entitled Malicious Software (malware): a Security Threat to the Internet Economy, gives an impression of two worlds engaged in an uneven war of virus invasion and belated defence.

Cyber crime, to steal data, spy and attack government and business computer systems "is a potentially serious threat to the internet economy," the study, published on Friday, warns.

Organisations involved in "fighting malware offer essentially a fragmented local response to a global threat," the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development says.

"Over the last 20 years, malware has evolved from occasional 'exploits' to a global multi-million-dollar criminal industry ... Cyber criminals are becoming wealthier and therefore have more financial power to create larger engines of destruction."

Tags: computer

Internet to run out of addresses 'within 3 years'

Sun, 25 May 2008 15:13:00 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Will be some weird names used in the lead up too. Should be a real laugh for those of us who can forget similar facts very easily.

Clip Source: technology.newscientist.com

IF YOU thought it was hard finding the email address that some other john.smith hasn't already bagged, that's nothing compared with the difficulty you'll have getting an internet connection for your computer after 2011.

As of this month 85 per cent of the 4.3 billion available Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, which identify devices connected to the net, are already in use. Within three years they will all be used up, according to a report by the OECD. "The situation is critical for the future of the internet economy," it says.

The report urges governments and businesses to upgrade from the current version, IPv4, to IPv6, which effectively has an unlimited number of IP addresses. IPv6 has been available for more than a decade but service providers have been slow to adopt it.

Tags: doom, - who, said, that

Iraq war disappearing in US media

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:25:16 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Taking advantage of the disasters, hip pockets and the election campaign, the media begins to treat each death with boredom. Thus the people are lulled.........

Clip Source: www.michaelmoore.com

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US death toll in Iraq had just passed 4,000, but on Monday the most viewed story on Yahoo News was "Oil fluctuates as dollar, stocks rise." And the most emailed story was: "1986 message in bottle drifts 1,735 miles."

Five years after the US-led invasion of Iraq began, Americans' interest in the war, and press coverage of it, is flagging.

With slugfest for the White House going on and an economy that is plummeting toward recession, there is less and less interest in news, positive or negative, from Iraq, where US soldiers have been fighting since March 20, 2003.

"People see gas going up and the price of their house going down .... It's more immediate than the Iraq war," said Bob Stover, managing editor of Florida Today in Melbourne, Florida.

Australia facing homeless avalanche:St Vinnies

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:37:25 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Catching up with the world.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Crisis: St Vincent de Paul says even middle income families are vulnerable to being made homeless (AFP: Jewel Samad)

A leading figure at the St Vincent de Paul Society says homelessness is the worst he has seen it in his 42 years with the charity.

Queensland senior vice-president Brian Moore says middle income earners are joining the ranks of the homeless due to higher living costs.

The Society has warned that the demand for help is so high, it may have to stop providing rent assistance altogether, because costs will increase by more than $250,000 this financial year.

Mr Moore says the problem is close to spiralling out of control.

"There's a lot of people homeless out there and a lot of people are hurting and it's just getting worse," he said.

"The fact is that Australia is facing an avalanche of homelessness, there's no doubt about that."

Tags: economy, run, by politicians

The 17 most-wanted jobs

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:49:27 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Hopefully will be able to attract the children of migrants, who lead aimless lives as far as work and self esteem are concerned,

Clip Source: www.theage.com.au

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has released a list of 17 occupations that will be priorities for the Government's first batch of 20,000 new skilled training places.

The training places, to be funded by Canberra, will be the first of 450,000 the Government has promised to finance over the next four years as its key policy to tackle the skills shortage, seen as one of the key drivers of inflation, and hence of interest rate rises.

"By significantly increasing the skills base of the Australian workforce, the extra skills training places will ease a capacity constraint in the Australian economy, and put downward pressure on inflation," Mr Rudd said.

But in a sign that the Government lacks the resources to meet its own ambitious timetable, training providers cannot submit tenders until March 7 — only three weeks before the program starts on April 1.

Tags: work, training

White House threatens veto of Senate foreclosure bill

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:06:11 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: The million dollar question is, "Who runs the country?"

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Tuesday that advisers to President George W. Bush would recommend vetoing a U.S. Senate bill aimed at preventing home foreclosures stemming from the subprime mortgage crisis.

If the bill "were presented to the president, his senior advisors would recommend he veto the bill," said a statement from the Bush administration.

With a housing market slump threatening to tip the economy into recession, the Senate was expected to debate a bill this week that would let bankruptcy judges erase some mortgage debt and provide more money for fixing abandoned properties.

Democrats drafted the bill amid election-year concerns about falling home prices and a surge in home foreclosures.

Tags: bush, heartless

Judge’s landmark ruling could slow foreclosures (Subprime loans presumptively unfair)

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:55:31 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Good decision for many.

Clip Source: www.democraticunderground.com

A Suffolk Superior Court judge has issued a potential landmark order slowing down thousands of Massachusetts foreclosures and declaring whole classes of subprime mortgages “structurally unfair” under state law.

“It is both imprudent and unfair to approve mortgage loans that the borrowers cannot reasonably be expected to repay if housing prices were to fall,” Judge Ralph Gants wrote in a preliminary injunction against notorious subprime mortgage lender Fremont Investment and Loan. “Just because we as a society failed earlier to recognize that (many subprime loans) were generally unfair does not mean that we should ignore their tragic consequences and fail now to recognize that unfairness.”

Issuing a ruling in a lawsuit brought by Attorney General Martha Coakley, Gants ordered Fremont to work with state officials for up to 90 days to resolve late-mortgage cases before initiating foreclosure proceedings.

Tags: cooked, economy