Of Philodendron,Ping Pong,Wall Street and All Streets

drawing by marguerita

“It is not really about money,”

said Timothy Congdon, an economist and professed euro skeptic who foresees an exodus of savings from banks on Europe’s periphery to Germany as doubts build about these countries’ staying power in the Eurozone. “It is about how much pain the people in periphery can stand in order to keep this thing going. Once the confidence is gone, and Greeks and Spaniards move their deposits to Frankfurt, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the whole thing implodes.

The Greek “rescue” package announced last weekend is dramatic, unprecedented and far from enough to stabilize the euro zone.

They have abandoned previous rounds of optimistic forecasts and have now admitted to a profoundly worse situation. This new program calls for “fiscal adjustments” — cuts to the fiscal deficit, mostly through spending cuts — totaling 11 percent of gross domestic product in 2010, 4.3 percent in 2011, and 2 percent in 2012 and 2013. The total debt-to-G.D.P. ratio peaks at 149 percent in 2012-13 before starting a gentle glide path back down to sanity.”http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/its-not-about-greece-anymore/?hp

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/business/global/06imf.html

Note: Change of Subject:philodendron, a common creeping houseplant whose name means 'love tree'.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1272698/Picasso-painting-Nude-Green-Leaves-Bust-fetches-record-106-5m-Christies.html#ixzz0n7Lc96J0

Lulama-ZONAS a la recherche du temps perdu

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This may have been the best month for Brazil since about June 1494.

That's when the Treaty of Tordesillas was signed granting Portugal everything in the new world east of an imaginary line that was declared to exist 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands. This ensured that what was to become Brazil would be Portuguese and thus develop a culture and identity very different from the rest of Spanish Latin America.

http://rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/10/07/the_world_s_best_foreign_minister

Segundo a colunista da Folha Eliane Cantanhêde, Lula quer liderar os países amazônicos na conferência do clima (COP-15), em Copenhague. "Lula caminha assim para abrir mais e mais espaço para o Brasil, como um player internacional", comenta.

A moins de dix jours du Sommet de Copenhague, j’ai eu envie de voir ce qui se faisait et se disait sur la Toile, à l’exception des sites d’information. Pour commencer cette petite revue de web française, un tour par Facebook s’imposait. Une trentaine de groupes ont été créés sur le sujet. Un seul sort du lot : L’Ultimatum climatique, mis en place par les onze ONG à l’origine dudit appel, qui affiche plus de 20 000 membres. Les autres groupes, eux, sont loin de déplacer les foules, avec des noms peu engageants et très proches les uns des autres, voire quasiment identiques :Destination Copenhague, Copenhague 2009, En route pour Copenhague ou Sommet de Copenhague. A une époque où les noms de groupes qui cartonnent sont ceux décalés ou humoristiques, on peut comprendre que le réchauffement climatique ne rencontre pas un franc succès.

Peu d’innovations et de nouveautés sur ces pages : les internautes se donnent rendez-vous pour des événements ou des flahshmobs, invitent les autres à signer la pétition ou encore déplorent certains gestes anti-écolos pratiqués par leurs connaissances.http://ecologie.blog.lemonde.fr/2009/11/27/le-sommet-de-copenhague-inspire-guere-les-internautes/

“Warming of the oceans and increased uptake of CO2 is of increasing concern for the marine environment. The loss of biodiversity due to upper ocean warming, ocean acidification and ocean de-oxygenation will add dramatically to the existing threads of overfishing and marine pollution".

Professor Martin Visbeck, Professor of Physical Oceanography and Deputy Director of IFM-GEOMAR.

"The climate system does not provide us with a silver bullet. There is no escape but to start reducing greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible."

Professor Nicolas Gruber, Professor for Environmental Physics, ETH Zürich.

"Climate change is coming out even clearer and more rapidly in the recent data. The human contribution is not in doubt."

Professor Corinne Le Quéré, University of East Anglia School of Environmental Sciences, UK

"Climate change is accelerating towards the tipping points for polar ice sheets. That’s why we’re now projecting future sea level rise in metres rather than centimeters." Professor Tim Lenton, University of East Anglia School of Environmental Sciences, UK

"Reducing tropical deforestation could prevent up to a fifth of human CO2 emissions, slowing climate change and helping to maintain some of the planet’s most important hotspots of biodiversity."http://www.temoignages.re/copenhagen-diagnosis-statements-by,40246.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/16/copenhagen-treaty-denmark-minister

http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/videocasts/ult10038u657162.shtml

Davos,Schmavos and Abracadabra

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they are pragmatic about the need for new thinking, without conceding that past gatherings may have had some responsibility for inflating the bubble that has just burst.

So, in the newly emergent world of government intervention and its panoply of regulatory interference, is Davos Man, like the dinosaur, headed for extinction?

Or can he evolve to survive?

Niso Abuaf, a University of Chicago-trained economist and former investment banker who now teaches at New York University. “Government is intervening. It’s a crisis.”

He draws the analogy of a young child with a very high fever. Much of the medical literature says that giving that crying child an analgesic like Tylenol will only increase the recovery time. But it would be a stern parent who would not do it to mitigate the child’s suffering.

Still, Abuaf argues, the collapse of the free market model has not made the Davos conclave any less relevant, or necessary. The global economy that it championed may be broken, but that is all the more reason for this year’s annual meeting - a place for seasoned players to sift the debris, jettison the rubble and start the process of pinning together the remnants into new structures.“I wouldn’t advocate that just because we’re going through a period of crisis you should pull your horns in and not look for creative solutions,” he said.

“The critics do ask if those who have been part of the problem can be part of the solution”

Schneider noted, before providing his answer: “Yes, that’s the only way to find the solution because these are the leaders and important actors.'Davos Man' Loses His Swagger - DealBook Blog - NYTimes.com

Of Bubbles and Wrath or Grapes of Dust

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We’re living in an age when a vast excess of capital sloshes around the world fueling cycles of bubble and dust ,as smoke clouds typically promise..Op-Ed Columnist - Revolt of the Nihilists - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

Talking within your Mind:Replace Defeatism with Hope

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Pandemonium are Us

drawings by Marguerita
In 1667 John Milton bestowed (some beleaguered students might say 'inflicted') his great masterpiece, Paradise Lost, upon the world. In 1674 the revised second edition was published, where he divided the original ten books into twelve and added the following introductory summaries or "Arguments" for each book at the request of confused early readers.

BOOK I

This first book proposes, first in brief, the whole subject: man's disobedience and the loss thereupon of Paradise wherein he was placed; then touches the prime cause of his fall, the serpent, or rather Satan in the serpent, who, revolting from God and drawing to his side many legions of angels, was by the command of God driven out of heaven with all his crew into the great deep. Which action past over, the poem hasts into the midst of things, presenting Satan with his angels now fallen into hell--described here, not in the center (for heaven and earth may be supposed as yet not made, certainly not yet accursed) but in a place of utter darkness, fitliest called chaos.
Here Satan with his angels lying on the burning Lake, thunder-struck and astonished, after a certain space recovers, as from confusion; calls up him who, next in order and dignity, lay by him; they confer of thir miserable fall. Satan awakens all his legions, who lay till then in the same manner confounded. They rise; their numbers, array of battle, their chief leaders named, according to the idols known afterwards in Canaan and the countries adjoining. To these Satan directs his speech, comforts them with hope yet of regaining heaven, but tells them lastly of a new world and new kind of creature to be created, according to an ancient prophesy or report in heaven; for that angels were long before this visible creation, was the opinion of many ancient fathers.
To find out the truth of this prophesy, and what to determine thereon, he refers to a full council; what his associates thence attempt. Pandemonium, the palace of Satan, rises, suddenly built out of the deep; the infernal peers there sit in counsil.

Talk about it : Shit Happens

Good disposal of human excreta can reduce diarrhea by 40 percent. Washing hands reduces it still further. Health economists reckon that every dollar invested in sanitation can save $7 on health costs and lost productivity. No wonder the readers of The British Medical Journal last year voted sanitation the greatest medical milestone ever, over penicillin and anesthesia.This year, the International Year of Sanitation, is a fine time to address a pointless and damaging conversational taboo. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/19/opinion/19george.html
http://www.bmj.com/