...and tomorrow is Friday. I think.

Who Could Have Predicted?

IT Salaries: Want to Earn More? Fire People | CIO - Blogs and Discussion

The CEOs who oversaw the largest layoffs at their companies during the recession earn more than their peers, new research shows.

New research from the Institute for Policy Studies shows a direct correlation between compensation (in particular, CEO compensation) and layoffs. The CEOs who oversaw the largest layoffs at their companies during the recession earned more money in 2009--42 percent more--than their peers at S&P 500 firms.

The Institute for Policy Studies' data demonstrates that the larger the layoffs a CEO oversees inside his company, the more money he will make.

What makes the layoff-as-salary-boosting-strategy even more ironic is that companies allegedly conduct layoffs and institute pay cuts and salary freezes for staff to make or maintain their numbers when business goes down the tubes--yet CEO pay rises at the same time that the business appears to be suffering the most. 

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

Peruvian priest, German anti-racist group receive Aachen Peace Prize | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 02.09.2010

The Aachen Peace Prize and its 2,000-euro award have been given to a German anti-racist society as well as a Catholic priest and human rights advocate from Peru. 

The Duisburg anti-racism group Phoenix Society and Peruvian priest and human rights activist Marco Arana received the Aachen Peace Prize on Wednesday for their advocacy and fieldwork.

"Both believe in the respect for human dignity," said Karl Heinz Otten, chairman of the prize committee, at a ceremony in Aachen with about 500 guests on Wednesday evening. "We would like to help them by honoring their fieldwork."

The Aachen Peace Prize comes with a 2,000-euro prize and is awarded annually to organizations and individuals who have shown exception work toward peace and international understanding.

Charges that unification was really an annexation stir up memories | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 01.09.2010

Germany marked the 20th anniversary of the signing of the treaty that sealed German unity, even as some eastern politicians were questioning the deal, which they say was more like annexation than unification. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel led a ceremony in Berlin on Tuesday to commemorate the signing of the Unity Treaty, which led to the eventual reunification of a divided Germany.

In her speech at the ceremony, Merkel said that Germany must fight around the world for the freedom and democracy that it achieved in its reunification.

"If we weaken in this regard, we weaken in our prosperity and success," she said. "The Unity Treaty should be a good example for other treaties that have yet to be signed around the world."

German Trains in the Channel Tunnel?: Plans Move Ahead for Germany-Britain Rail Connection - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Germany's national railway has long resented the fact that its high-speed ICE trains are not allowed to operate through the Channel Tunnel. But a test run is planned for October and, if rules are eased, the company could be on track to introduce passenger services direct from Cologne to London in time for the 2012 Olympics.

In October, German national railway operator Deutsche Bahn will take its high-speed InterCityExpress (ICE) trains through the Channel Tunnel for the first time. Those trips will only be trial runs and will include the testing of evacuation procedures. But if all goes according to plan, official permission for German ICE trains to operate through the Channel Tunnel could be given as early as 2012.

Dutch Christian Democrats limping back to coalition talks | Radio Netherlands Worldwide

The Dutch Christian Democrat Appeal party (CDA) has closed ranks after a deep crisis over coalition talks with Geert Wilders' anti-Islam Freedom Party.

But anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders, who is the ultimate cause of the crisis, indicated he will question CDA's reliability as a future coalition partner. The Christian Democrats are hoping to resume coalition talks with the free-market liberal VVD and Geert Wilders' Freedom Party in the course of Thursday.

Dutch politics, usually devoid of drama, seemed about to witness a fatal split in the Christian Democrat party, both among MPs and at grassroots level. But opting for a typical compromise solution, deputy coalition negotiator, mild-mannered rational protestant Ab Klink, stepped back and his place at the negotiating table alongside party leader Maxime Verhagen will be taken by MP Ank Bijleveld. The coalition talks will resume on Thursday. Ab Klink and two other dissident Christian Democrat MPs will reserve judgement, taking a back seat until the new government accord is presented.

Greece aims to extinguish its addiction to smoking - Europe, World - The Independent

A fresh crackdown on smoking started in Greece yesterday, with the government outlawing cigarettes in enclosed public spaces and placing new limits on tobacco advertising.

Under new regulations, anyone who breaks the rules by lighting up indoors in public will face fines of between €50 and €400. Business owners could be fined up to €10,000 or lose their licences.

It is the second such attempt to curb tobacco addiction in Europe's biggest-smoking nation in just over a year. It is estimated that more than 40 per cent of Greek adults smoke - well above the EU's average of 29 per cent.

Prime Minister, George Papandreou, says the smoking ban is aimed at protecting public health.

IFA 2010: Europe's largest technology fair in pictures - Telegraph

Oil Rig Explodes In The Gulf Of Mexico Off The Louisiana Coast

An offshore oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, west of the site of the April blast that caused the massive oil spill.

A commercial helicopter company reported the blast around 9:30 a.m. CDT Thursday, Coast Guard Petty Officer Casey Ranel said. Seven helicopters, two airplanes and four boats were en route to the site, about 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay along the central Louisiana coast.

The Coast Guard said initial reports indicated all 13 crew members from the rig were in the water. One was injured, but there were no deaths.

The platform owned by Mariner Energy is in about 2,500 feet of water, the Coast Guard said, and was not currently producing.

FT.com / Companies / Banks - RBS cuts further 3,500 jobs

Royal Bank of Scotland is axing another 3,500 jobs, taking to almost 27,000 the number of staff cut since Stephen Hester took over as chief executive of the troubled UK bank less than two years ago.

The cuts are part of a process to rationalise the RBS's back-office operations, halving to 10 the number of its key processing centres. As part of the exercise, sites in Leeds and Bolton will close next year, followed by Bristol, Liverpool, Milton Keynes, Plymouth, Telford, Bradford, Norwich and Harrogate in 2012. There will also be job losses at sites in Enfield and Borehamwood.

About a third of the cuts are understood to be related to the £1.65bn sale of 318 branches to Santander last month. Although branch staff are being transferred as part of the sale, back-office resources are not. RBS currently employs about 160,000 people globally.

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

never let desperation get in the way of judgement.

Facebook faces campaign to switch to renewable energy | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Social networking site under fire over intention to run giant new data centre mainly on coal-powered electricity

Social networking website Facebook is coming under unprecedented pressure from its users to switch to renewable energy. In one of the web's fastest-growing environmental campaigns, Greenpeace international says at least 500,000 people have now protested at the organisation's intention to run its giant new data centre mainly on electricity produced by burning coal power.

Facebook will not say how much electricity it uses to stream video, store information and connect its 500m users but industry estimates suggest that at their present rate of growth all the data centres and telecommunication networks in the world will consume about 1,963bn kilowatt hours of electricity by 2020. That is more than triple their current consumption and more electricity than is used by France, Germany, Canada and Brazil combined.

`You Got Belgians Running Europe?' « The Enterprise Blog

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's memoir A Journey: My Political Life hits bookstores today, and Blair has a big profile in today's Style section of the Washington Post. The book includes many fascinating anecdotes about former President George W. Bush, but one stands out. The scene is Bush's first G-8 meeting in Genoa in 2001, where he has just been lectured by the prime minister of Belgium, Guy Verhofstadt, on America's responsibilities to combat global warming:

never let desperation get in the way of judgement.

You can't be me, I'm taken

The current is back on!

dances in the street

"Beware of the man who does not talk, and the dog that does not bark." Cheyenne

Liberal conspiracy - Sunny Hundal - NYT's Andy Coulson expose raises big questions about Scotland Yard

The explosive New York Times story is mostly about the News of the World and its practices.

But it is also, perhaps more significantly, about Scotland Yard and how it conducted investigations during the episode. Here is what it has written about Scotland Yard (quoted from the paper, emphasis mine).

Seems like the relationship is waaaay too cosy for the good of anyone.

keep to the Fen Causeway

Liberal conspiracy - Liberal mag attacks `Neo-Liberal Democrats'

s the Liberal Democrats prepare for their first party conference since entering coalition, The Liberal magazine has published a savage attack on Libdem ministers, arguing the government's wide-ranging and ambitious public sector reforms will erode the liberal architecture of the welfare state.

The Liberal offers an in-depth analysis of the party's rapidly changing identity.

Contributing editor Simon Kovar charts the rise of the `Orange Bookers' and argues that the leadership has left behind not just the party's membership and voting base but its political and philosophical traditions - a radical departure that has given birth to `The Neo-Liberal Democrats'.

keep to the Fen Causeway

With land value tax, Labour is getting it right | Benjamin Fox | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Labour leadership hopeful Andy Burnham provoked a minor storm on Cif last week with his proposal to introduce a land value tax (LVT). This was unsurprising - introducing LVT would be the most radical change to the tax system in a generation. But some of the comments need closer examination. This is a complex issue, and the benefits of a Burnham-style LVT are not immediately obvious. So what are the potential problems and benefits, how can they be overcome, and why abolish council tax, stamp duty and inheritance tax?

The case for abolishing council tax (CT) is easy. Council tax is an unfair tax that disproportionately hits the poor. A person living in a property worth £100,000 pays around 40% of the tax paid by someone owning a property worth £1m. This is palpably unjust. Taxation should be proportionate and based on the ability to pay. CT utterly fails these tests. We all know that the CT bands are a farce. Indeed, there has been no UK-wide revaluation since CT was introduced in 1991, because it is so unpopular, and politicians are well aware that average house values have more than trebled since then.

This article on Land Value Tax - which is now being advocated by one of the candidates for the Labour leadership, Andy Burnham - has without doubt brought out the finest crop of completely idiotic and self contradictory comments - from Stalinist Left to Austerian Right- I have ever seen from people trying to justify the unjustifiable.

As one of the wiser heads - manningtreeimp - ruefully observes....

Great how a discussion on an alternative system of taxation which historically has its roots on the right suddenly becomes a socialist ploy to destroy the country...unbelievable

Modern conservatives engage in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.Galbraith

Chris Brooke (virtualstoa) on Twitter

Blair, p.518: "The Daily Mail, in particular, was vicious. As I say, Gordon was close to Paul Dacre, the editor-in-chief of the Mail Group."

never let desperation get in the way of judgement.

Those in the industry knew we were in a rocky period since the ongoing financial meltdown, but virtually all, myself included, assumed it was a phase. There were even signs that orders for 2011 were increasing.

Moventus Says Otherwise

Moventus is at the head of the quality gearbox queue for wind turbines, and one of the three top global suppliers.  This negative news from them has me rethinking my perception of where we are as an industry.

On Tuesday 24 August Moventas announced negotiations with staff in Jyväskylä, with the aim of shedding 150 man-years. The cut in man-years will not directly translate into 150 redundancies.

At the moment, Moventas's wind power business employs more than 600 people, some of whom in turn have been temporarily laid off since April of last year.

"We were picking up new customers as recently as the spring, but during July-August we've received a lot of negative messages, and some customers have tried to cancel orders. We won't be able to offer full employment to our entire staff for the next year," Jäämaa predicts.

This is the worst bit of news i've seen in the industry for some time. Perhaps it's just for Moventus' sphere in the industry, but it's very recent, and is at least a marker.

The offshore wind industry is certainly a separate market, this news is for the far larger onshore sector. At the very least, it means that we're now reaping the hesitating energy policies of the cowards who are in power.

The energy prices with which our industry must compete have always been artificially low, as externalities, though computed relatively accurately, are not included. So in addition to our market being skewed anyway, we are now dealing with the likelihood that financial decisions more focused on short term survival in meltdown stage two are drawing funds from the global onshore wind industry.

As this industry is an absolutely key sector of hint of recovery, this is a canary in the coal mine warning.

For example, the US looks to drop some 30% or more from last year.  Last year i was almost the only analyst to correctly predict US growth, this year i'm still in the dark, despite the lateness. The sign from Moventus was not expected, and is a strong predictor.

In this comment I will not go into the passed ball (own goal) by the Obama admin, chalking it up to the US being owned already. Though the US is a large sector of the global market, it is only one sector, This news is not healthy.

This is where the accent should be...


Skennah Kowa

New Statesman - William Hague's duty to the party

"Well, if you're not gay, why haven't you got that nice girl pregnant yet?" It's the sort of question one expects only from atrocious, senile grandparents and the British press in silly season.

Beset by trollish gossip about his relationship with his former aide Christopher Myers, the Foreign Secretary has felt obliged to make an extremely intimate public announcement about the state of his wife's uterus to satisfy the snarling attack-dogs of the sweltering summer media hiatus. Poor William Hague. Poor Chris Myers. And poor Ffion Hague, whose multiple miscarriages have now been offered to the world as evidence of her husband's integrity and virility.

never let desperation get in the way of judgement.