"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia

The place is amazing; street traffic is crazy, folks are really nice and the temperature was cooler than I expected: 27C (it was 31C in Paris).

The big news item over there was the recent high court decision to decriminalize gay relationships, a pivotal moment everyone agreed.

Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.

The new government of Honduras says it no longer recognizes the charter of the Organization of American States and is withdrawing its membership from the group.

Honduras made the announcement late Friday, a day before the OAS was due to vote on suspending the Central American country, following its refusal to adhere to demands by OAS to return toppled President Manuel Zelaya to office. The OAS has called an emergency meeting in Washington on Saturday.

The Supreme Court of Honduras told OAS chief Jose Miguel Insulza Friday that its decision to oust Mr. Zelaya is irreversible, and that the leftist leader would be arrested if he returned home.

Most Latin American governments, which, in the last decade, came to recognize the benefits of orthodox economic policies coupled with targeted antipoverty programs, have managed to prevent a free fall in their economies and appear to be on their way back to decent growth next year. Key Latin American economies were growing at near double-digit rates before the economic crisis--driven by high commodity prices and reinforced by responsible economic policies. That ground to a halt after the economic meltdown last fall, and only a handful of countries are expected to record any growth this year. Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina are expected to shrink by up to 2 percent in 2009, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and independent analysts; Mexico's U.S.-dependent economy (hit hard by panic over drug violence and the flu pandemic earlier this year) may suffer a historic contraction.
High commodity prices (oil and gas, copper, and soybeans) had fueled growth in many regional economies. Reduced demand for these goods due to the global downturn has hurt export revenues. For example, Venezuelan oil is down to $61.30 a barrel, down from a peak of $129 in July 2008--although crude oil prices have rebounded by over 30 percent since April.[1] Copper prices are at $4,569 a ton today, compared to a peak of $8,443 at this time last year. Soybean prices have been a bit steadier, but today they are about 20 percent below the average price they commanded in 2008.[2]
Foreign direct investment (FDI) also poured into the region over the last several years, posting substantial gains just before the crisis. The brakes were put on late last year, and FDI peaked at about $130 billion in 2008--a 13 percent increase from the previous year. But this rate of growth was down sharply from the 52 percent gain recorded in 2007.[3] The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean predicts that FDI may drop by 45 percent this year.[4] Inasmuch as the United States accounts for about a quarter of FDI to the region, a prolonged recession and uncertainty in the financial markets may threaten the nascent Latin recovery.

This week was the biggest ever, with more than a 1000 seminars, and pretty much the entire Swedish ruling class was there.

Two great speeches were produced, really some of the greatest Swedish political speches in the last decade or two, one by Prime minister Reinfeldt, and one by Social minister Hägglund (chairman of the Christ dems).

If you know Swedish, here they are.

Reinfeldt: http://svtplay.se/v/1615909/rapport/hela_reinfeldts_tal

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

you are the media you consume.

Central Banks rewarded for failure with new powers

As Obama's campaign promise of finally introducing universal provision of basic health care in the United States (and thereby finally catching up with 19th-century Germany) is being quietly shelved, the transfer of power to the banking community is coming close to completion.

The former head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York--for all practical means and purposes the true central bank of the United States--in his current role as U.S. treasury secretary has proposed to give more powers to the privately owned U.S. central bank. The ostensible excuse is that it should be given the allegedly new brief of ensuring the health and stability of the overall financial system--as the "systemic risk regulator." Apparently the Federal Reserve Board needs more staff, more resources and greater legal powers to do this.

But this brief was precisely why the Fed was founded in the first place in 1914, against much resistance from Congress. It was argued at the time that only by having a privately owned cartel of bankers' interests, which is given the government's prerogative to create and allocate money, can the bankers ensure that their speculative excesses won't create massive recessions, bankruptcies and large-scale unemployment.

It was hardly a convincing argument--just as it has hardly been a convincing case that bankers need to be given billions and trillions of taxpayers' money in the past half year or so as soon as some of their big bets went sour, after they had made billions and trillions of profits from their speculative gambling.

Then, just as now, the bankers got their way nevertheless. They are a persuasive lot. Their powers of persuasion may have to do with the fact that already at the time (just as today) they were the creators of the majority of the money supply. If money speaks volumes, money creators have a monopoly on the library.....continued