Interesting Graph of stock market downturns

This is a kind of concerning graph. The patterns are the same, but we seem to be starting to follow the great depression one.

Fed's emergency loan program increases activity

Where is all this money coming from. It will have to be repaid at some point.


The Associated Press: Fed's emergency loan program increases activity: "The Federal Reserve boosted its lending to commercial banks and investment firms over the past week, indicating that a severe credit crisis was still squeezing the financial system.

The Fed released a report Friday saying commercial banks averaged $93.6 billion in daily borrowing for the week ending Wednesday. That was up from an average of $91.6 billion for the week ending Nov. 19."

Poverty spreading in suburbs: study | Reuters

Poverty spreading in suburbs: study | Reuters: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Poverty in the United States is spreading from rural and inner-city areas to the suburbs, according to a study, a situation that can worsen as the economy confronts what may be a protracted recession.

The study by the Federal Reserve's Community Affairs department and the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program found that poverty levels in the world's richest nation were on the rise."

NASA Mars photo leaked - wood found on mars! : thecrit.com

NASA Mars photo leaked - wood found on mars! : thecrit.com: "Someone at NASA released a photo that they shouldn’t have, a picture of a piece of timber the size of a railroad tie, a photo that could get someone killed. There is no mistaking that the object in the print below is a piece of wood. NASA claims that Mars is a desert planet with no life at all. NASA lies, repeatedly."
Someone at NASA released a photo that they shouldn’t have, a picture of a piece of timber the size of a railroad tie, a photo that could get someone killed. There is no mistaking that the object in the print below is a piece of wood. NASA claims that Mars is a desert planet with no life at all. NASA lies, repeatedly.

I don't know, to me this looks like a bit of the flat sedimentary rock, on its side.

Winter weather flying: How do they do that?

Winter weather flying: How do they do that?

Meteorite pieces found in Saskatchewan

Meteorite pieces found in Saskatchewan: "Fragments of a huge meteorite that lit up the skies across Alberta and Saskatchewan last week have been found near the border city of Lloydminster, University of Calgary scientists say"

Citigroup says gold could rise above $2,000 next year as world unravels - Telegraph

Citigroup says gold could rise above $2,000 next year as world unravels - Telegraph

The Associated Press: Meltdown far from over, new mortgage crisis looms

The Associated Press: Meltdown far from over, new mortgage crisis looms: "WASHINGTON (AP) — Black Friday's retail shoppers hunting for holiday bargains won't be enough to stave off what's likely to become the next economic crisis. Malls from Michigan to Georgia are entering foreclosure, commercial victims of the same events poisoning the housing market.

Hotels in Tucson, Ariz., and Hilton Head, S.C., also are about to default on their mortgages.

That pace is expected to quicken. The number of late payments and defaults will double, if not triple, by the end of next year, according to analysts from Fitch Ratings Ltd., which evaluates companies' credit.

'We're probably in the first inning of the commercial mortgage problem,' said Scott Tross, a real estate lawyer with Herrick Feinstein in New Jersey."

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Thai crisis exposes class struggle

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Thai crisis exposes class struggle

More info here

Thai protesters shut down airport

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Thai protesters shut down airport: "Flights from Thailand's international airport have been suspended after hundreds of anti-government protesters stormed the building outside Bangkok."

I am going to come back to this theme, but it seems like there is a large class divide and split in Thai society. Not fully explored I feel in the western media.

BBC NEWS | UK | Briton killed in Mumbai is named

BBC NEWS | UK | Briton killed in Mumbai is named: "A British national killed when gunmen mounted attacks across Mumbai has been named as Andreas Liveras."

This is shocking as he was interviewed live on the BBC the other night. Disturbing and sad.
Thoughts to family

Images of Moon from Chandrayaan-1

Images of Moon from Chandrayaan-1

Here are some of the initial results... finally & thanks

Indian Moon probe feels the heat - space - 27 November 2008 - New Scientist

Indian Moon probe feels the heat - space - 27 November 2008 - New Scientist: "India's first uncrewed lunar probe, ChandrayaanMovie Camera, is experiencing the hottest temperatures it has yet faced and is taking a 'summer break' - using its instruments sparingly until mid-January to get through the hot patch.

Chandrayaan is currently over the sunlit side of the moon, a place where spacecraft are expected to heat up because they receive energy directly from the Sun as well as infrared radiation given off by the Moon. The Moon radiates heat because it also receives energy from the Sun.

Chandrayaan project director Mylswamy Annadurai told New Scientist: 'It is local summer for the satellite.' The spacecraft is currently facing external temperatures of 100 °C, and cooling systems aim to maintain the spacecraft's interior at around 40 °C. When the craft passes by the dark side of the Moon external temperatures will fall to as low as -100 °C."

I am waiting to see pictures from this satellite. Not seen much so far.
Esp off the far side of the moon.

SPACE.com -- Backyard Skywatchers Find Tool Bag Lost in Space

SPACE.com -- Backyard Skywatchers Find Tool Bag Lost in Space: "Amateur astronomers have been monitoring a shiny tool bag that has been orbiting Earth ever since it was dropped last week by an astronaut during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station."

This is a good article. When does it re-enter?

CREDIT CARDS WILL BE THE NEXT BIG FINANCIAL BLOWUP - New York Post

CREDIT CARDS WILL BE THE NEXT BIG FINANCIAL BLOWUP - New York Post: "WASHINGTON is so nervous that credit cards will become the next financial sinkhole that the government will soon ask banks to go through the arduous task of running tests on hundreds of millions of their cardholders."

Bank of America: Is it next?

After the adventures of Citibank this week. Is BofA the next on the list.Remember the credit card shoe is still to drop too.

Meteor seemed really close, many western Canadians report

Great story, with pictures. Seems like there was a large object that entered the earths atmosphere on Thursday over Canada.


Meteor seemed really close, many western Canadians report: "From Edmonton to Edgeley, Sask., and points in between, people reported that the brilliant fireball streaking across western Canadian skies on Thursday seemed mighty close.

Hundreds flooded phone lines at police stations and media outlets with accounts of a multicoloured meteor.

No meteorite fragments have been found yet, but some of the witnesses who said they saw something fall are likely right, said Dr. Christopher Herd, a University of Alberta earth and atmospheric sciences professor."

Space station's new urine recycler has glitches - space - 21 November 2008 - New Scientist

I would not want to be drinking the water up there at the moment!!

Space station's new urine recycler has glitches - space - 21 November 2008 - New Scientist: "NASA is experiencing problems with a $250 million machine for recycling urine and other wastewater into drinking water for astronauts, the space agency said on Friday.

Glitches triggered two shutdowns during initial attempts on Thursday and Friday to begin the distillation process on pre-collected samples of urine.

NASA delivered the water regeneration system to the $100 billion International Space Station this week to prepare for its crew to grow from three members to six in May.

Residents of the station must recycle water because the space shuttles, which produce water as a byproduct of their electrical systems, will no longer fly to the outpost after 2010 and it is too expensive to haul as much water as the crew will need on unmanned cargo ships from Earth."

Remains of devoured planet discovered - 22 November 2008 - New Scientist

Remains of devoured planet discovered - 22 November 2008 - New Scientist: "A DUST cloud around a dead star may be all that's left of a planet that was eaten like a peach.

Observations of the cloud around the white dwarf G29-38 by a team led by William Reach of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena suggest it is most likely to be the shredded core of a gas-giant planet like Jupiter (The Astrophysical Journal, in press).

The planet's outer layers were apparently engulfed by the star's preceding red giant phase. The core survived but may have been dragged close enough to the subsequent white dwarf to be torn apart by its gravity, creating the dust cloud.

Earth, on the other hand, is likely to be totally vaporised during the sun's red giant phase billions of years from now."

Interesting

FT.com / Companies / Banks - Citi crisis deepens as shares fall further

FT.com / Companies / Banks - Citi crisis deepens as shares fall further: "Citigroup’s shares lost nearly a fifth of their value on Friday as its board met in an attempt to halt a crisis of confidence in the troubled financial services group.

People close to the situation said the board was discussing a series of options, including the position of Vikram Pandit, its chief executive, and the sale of some of its businesses or even the whole company"


This is a concern. I think there will be a run on Citi next week.
If this happens this will create another dive and loss of confidence in the market.
Dow <6,500>

We will see what happens, and I am not sure what will if this does.

Market Skeptics

Market Skeptics: "Deflation will be in terms of gold, like in 1929

As deleveraging occurs and debt is destroyed, prices of commodities and other assets will fall in terms of real money, which is gold and other precious metals. The price of oil, for example, will continue to fall in terms of gold. (Investors need to start thinking of values in terms of ounces of gold instead of dollars, because that is where we are headed) What this means is that, while it is possible that the price of oil could still increase in terms of dollars, the price of gold will increase to an even greater degree."

Cheap, 'safe' drug kills most cancers - health - 17 January 2007 - New Scientist

Cheap, 'safe' drug kills most cancers - health - 17 January 2007 - New Scientist: "It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their 'immortality'. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.

It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs."

This is an interesting story that has been not mentioned in the wider media.

BBC NEWS | Americas | 'Car sleepers' the new US homeless

BBC NEWS | Americas | 'Car sleepers' the new US homeless: "Santa Barbara boasts a classic laidback California lifestyle, with uncongested beaches, wholesome cafes and charming Spanish-style architecture.

Of course there's a hefty price tag: nestled between the gentle Santa Ynez mountains and the inviting Pacific Ocean are multi-million dollar homes.

But in this sun-washed haven of wealth, many live far from the American dream.

In a car park across the street from luxury mansions, the evening brings a strange sight.

A few cars arrive and take up spaces in different corners. In each car, a woman, perhaps a few pets, bags of possessions and bedding.

Across the street from homes with bedrooms to spare, these are Santa Barbara's car sleepers.

Homeless within the last year, they are a direct consequence of America's housing market collapse."

This is a move on from the tent cities that have been springing up.

NASA's Dirty Secret: Moon Dust

NASA's Dirty Secret: Moon Dust: "The Apollo Moon missions of 1969-1972 all share a dirty secret. 'The major issue the Apollo astronauts pointed out was dust, dust, dust,'"

Douwe Osinga's Projects: Google Chat Bot

Douwe Osinga's Projects: Google Chat Bot: "Use Google talk by entering three or four words below. The system will search for this sentence at Google, find the next word and print that. Than it will remove the first word of the search string, add the found word and repeat. The result seems to be meaningfull sometimes. Other times it is giblish. But always fun."

This is a great tool, seems like webbots!

How the Soviets Drilled the Deepest Hole in the World

How the Soviets Drilled the Deepest Hole in the World: "At the Kola Institute, pictured, the Russians drilled for more than 15 years to reach a crust depth of 40,226 feet, a record that's never been broken. But however successful the mission was as an exploration, the geological findings from the site remain murky and obscured by the way they emanated out of the fading Soviet scientific machine."

Credit Cards Replace Small Business Loans - BusinessWeek

Credit Cards Replace Small Business Loans - BusinessWeek: "As commercial loans become harder to find, small business owners give in to aggressive credit card marketers and get slammed with 30% interest rates"

This is part of the slide

7 Email Myths That Plague the Workplace - Stepcase Lifehack

7 Email Myths That Plague the Workplace - Stepcase Lifehack: "1. Good organization is the best way to stay on top of email.

It’s not. Turning emails into actions and archiving everything else is the best way to stay on top of email. Organizing each message into a different folder might be handy for other reasons, such as digging out a paper trail for your lawyer when you get sued, but it’s not handy for “staying on top of” email. There is no correlation between the folder your message is in (unless we’re talking about the inbox) and your level of email efficiency.

2. You need to reply to every message.

Some messages simply don’t need a reply. You should only reply if you have something valuable to add to the communication. Sure, you might feel the sting of guilt as you get used to this concept and stop replying to every message you get, but if you want to reclaim your time, it’s an adjustment you must make.

If there are people you communicate with regularly who expect a reply even when you have nothing to add, you need to educate them rather than succumb to their demands. The biggest problem with email productivity is that people simply won’t put up a little resistance to those who don’t know how to use email effectively.

3. You need to reply to every message…"

The M2-F1 - An Aircraft Without Wings

The M2-F1 - An Aircraft Without Wings: "The planned retirement of the space shuttle fleet in 2010 will bring to a close an era that opened in the Antelope Valley nearly a half century ago.

The vehicle which began that era - the M2-F1 - was an unlikely forefather to the shuttle. The world's first manned lifting body, the M2-F1 was made of wood, had an internal framework of steel tubes, looked like a bathtub sitting on a tricycle, and had no wings."

Newsvine - How to be a Successful Journalist With No Prior Experience

Newsvine - How to be a Successful Journalist With No Prior Experience

U.S. Cities Would be Locked Down, Quarantined Under Pandemic Flu Response Plan

U.S. Cities Would be Locked Down, Quarantined Under Pandemic Flu Response Plan: "The federal government would need to quarantine infected households and ban public gatherings to contain pandemic flu, according to a computer simulation study conducted by researchers from Virginia Tech and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

Slashdot | Why Shoot Down a Satellite? Analyzing an Analysis

Slashdot | Why Shoot Down a Satellite? Analyzing an Analysis: "'Writing in the IEEE Spectrum, James Oberg analyzes whether there was, in fact a significant risk to humans from the satellite which the US military shot down on 21 February, purportedly 'to head off the possibility of its splashing a half ton of toxic hydrazine fuel somewhere on Earth.' Previous experts had 'scoffed' at the rationale put forth, pointing out that there was trivial possibility that any significant amount of toxic fuel would make it to the ground intact. Oberg's analysis, titled 'the inside story,' purports to debunk this, and claims that indeed it's possible, and even likely, that there could be a danger to the ground. Unfortunately, the analysis is full of flaws and lack of rigor — indeed, lacking any sort of numerical reasoning. It seems to be too much repeating official 'spin,' and could have used a hefty dose of skepticism — and could also use a little bit of actual analysis using numbers, rather than handwaving.'"

Remember this story

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Buran - the Soviet 'space shuttle'

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Buran - the Soviet 'space shuttle': "Some 20 years ago, on 30 September 1988, many readers of the Pravda newspaper - the official mouthpiece of the Soviet communist party - could not believe their eyes.

Published somewhat inconspicuously on the second page, there was a photo depicting the familiar shape of the US space shuttle, but with Soviet insignia on its wings.

Finally, years of rumours about a Soviet 'copy' of the shuttle had been confirmed."

What is the Higgs Boson?

What is the Higgs Boson? | astroengine.com: "What is the Higgs boson? The Short Answer
Predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs boson is a particle that carries the Higgs field. The Higgs field is theorized to permeate through the entire Universe. As a massless particle passes through the Higgs field, it accumulates it, and the particle gains mass. Therefore, should the Higgs boson be discovered, we’ll know why matter has mass."

This is the reason for the importance of the new particle accelerator in Europe.

Emerging Killer Virus Starts Like a Cold, But Kills Many

Emerging Killer Virus Starts Like a Cold, But Kills Many: "A newly discovered and highly lethal virus strain begins with symptoms similar to that of a cold but can quickly lead to severe respiratory crisis.

'This virus has the capability of causing severe respiratory illness in people of all ages, regardless of their medical condition,' said John Su, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The virus was discovered by infectious-disease expert David N. Gilbert, who noticed that otherwise healthy patients were being stricken by pneumonia so severe that they would die without oxygen treatment. The dangerous symptoms developed within only one or two days of initial cough and fever symptoms."

There have been a lot of colds going around recently, and I wonder if this is related.

Website articles

I have been making a few changes to Quetag website. This has included, revamping the news section to link in directly with my delicious feed, rather than emailing via feedburner.
Also included a weather page too (hopefully this will be useful).

Have also added some Adsense adverts and affiliate links, which I will blog about later.

Any way with all the changes I thought I would send more news clippings to the main site. These are some interesting articles since August.

UPDATE: I have now created a new section for Opinion and comments. The main page is dedicated to interesting developments from the web

Market Skeptics

Market Skeptics

This is worth a read too

"Deflation will be in terms of gold, like in 1929

As deleveraging occurs and debt is destroyed, prices of commodities and other assets will fall in terms of real money, which is gold and other precious metals. The price of oil, for example, will continue to fall in terms of gold. (Investors need to start thinking of values in terms of ounces of gold instead of dollars, because that is where we are headed) What this means is that, while it is possible that the price of oil could still increase in terms of dollars, the price of gold will increase to an even greater degree."

Saudi untouched? | The Economist

Saudi untouched? | The Economist

There is a lot of discussion of a new gold standard and the heights that gold could reach.
However there are a couple of points that I think are worth still bearing in mind.

1. The world still runs on energy. We need it to live and have the standard of living we do. Oil is still the densest form of energy we have available that is easy to obtain. It is what our society runs on.
2. I was sitting in a taxi chatting to the driver. He had worked in Saudi and said that they had mountains of gold.

I still feel we are on the oil standard.
Either way Saudi is in a good position and buying a middle eastern currency is probably a good place right now.

Citigroup and JPMorgan Still at Risk Says Analyst: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance

Citigroup and JPMorgan Still at Risk Says Analyst: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance

I have been following this for a while.
All the news is troubling. There is more bad news to come I fear.

microblog-purple - Google Code

microblog-purple - Google Code

Great source for hooking twitter up to pidgin again.