More than a third of Americans now believe that President Obama’s policies are hurting the economy, and confidence in his ability to create jobs is sharply eroding among his base, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

"Do you know what people are fed up with most of all? They’re fed up with a town where ‘compromise’ has become a dirty word," ~ US President Barack Obama

And what, pretel, would Mr. Obama think of this?

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"Government Considers Ways to Rent Foreclosed Homes" appeared in the Online edition of the Wall St. Journal:

The Obama administration is examining ways to pull foreclosed properties off the market and rent them to help stabilize the housing market, according to people familiar with the matter.

While the plans may not advance beyond the concept phase, they are under serious consideration by senior administration officials because rents are rising even as home prices in many hard-hit markets continue to fall due to high foreclosure levels.

Trimming the glut of unsold foreclosed homes on the market is "worth looking at," said Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in testimony to Congress last week.

From this we can deduce that the Obama gang is thinking upright! Now, if they would just figure out that the way to go is STIMULUS GRANTS for DOWNPAYMENTS on homes to needy renters! $20,000 per qualified American family! Barack can rebuild the country with this idea!

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Islamic banking necessitated by effect of global meltdown – ADO-EKITI— THE Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has said the introduction of Islamic banking into our financial system was “necessitated by the effect of global meltdown that castrated the Nigerian financial system and slowed down the growth of the economy.”

He, however, assured that Nigeria’s subscription to Islamic banking would revive the current downturn of the country’s economy.

Sanusi pledged to dialogue with the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, this week on the issue. [Gbenga Ariyibi has more...]

...this I find very interesting, because as society is growing and changing and you could almost compare recent developments on the world scene to the volcanoes and earthquakes that have been re-shaping the planet...

Gold Has Longest Run of Gains Since 1980...

...we need a new system to match up with some of the financial things happening, like the use of mobile phones for banking across Africa and Asia ... the 'micro-loan' concept ... online banking ...

Michelle Malkin

‘Lights Out’: Harry Reid Takes the Debt Ceiling Fear Up a Notch -

So, look at all of the news hitting the "financial fan" - try to make sense of it - and let's keep an eye on this development in Nigeria.

Islamic banking has the same purpose as conventional banking: to make money for the banking institute by lending out capital. Because Islam forbids simply lending out money at interest (see riba), Islamic rules on transactions (known as Fiqh al-Muamalat) have been created to avoid this problem. The basic technique to avoid the prohibiton is the sharing of profit and loss, via terms such as profit sharing (Mudharabah), safekeeping (Wadiah), joint venture (Musharakah), cost plus (Murabahah), and leasing (Ijar).

In an Islamic mortgage transaction, instead of loaning the buyer money to purchase the item, a bank might buy the item itself from the seller, and re-sell it to the buyer at a profit, while allowing the buyer to pay the bank in installments. However, the bank's profit cannot be made explicit and therefore there are no additional penalties for late payment. In order to protect itself against default, the bank asks for strict collateral. The goods or land is registered to the name of the buyer from the start of the transaction. This arrangement is called Murabahah. Another approach is EIjara wa EIqtina, which is similar to real estate leasing. Islamic banks handle loans for vehicles in a similar way (selling the vehicle at a higher-than-market price to the debtor and then retaining ownership of the vehicle until the loan is paid). [source: wikipedia]

Gas prices on the rise; top $4 in eight states...


Tags: World Economy, Islamic banking



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Perhaps they could have converted the old bookmobile into one of these snazzy weiners (not YOU, Anthony!) , and dispensed free hot dog lunches at designated locations across the city?

Nah!

In these economic times of trouble, when you can't even buy a junky used car for $2500, and the Albany Public Library is hurtin' for money (you would be too if you bought a bunch of $1000 apiece chairs for computer-users at the branches), I was shocked to see they sold the bookmobile for a sliver of what AllOverAlbany says it is worth!

Ah well, it was way too big for my driveway! Maybe the library got some sort of nice tax write-off or something - the behemoth costs around $100K a year to operate, according to the Times Union story...

Your tax dollars at work, Smallbanians!

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Take advantage of the "Extra" savings items: WATCH OUT when buying anything else!

A week ago today I mentioned the vast difference in prices on grocery items when comparing Price Chopper vs. Hannaford [read that here] ...now, with Shop-Rite breathing down it's neck, Price Chopper is loading up those "loss leader" items.

The other day my neighbor got out of his SUV with some Price Chopper bags and proclaimed (as we exchanged 'hello's'') "Look at this! I got two GIANT bottles of Hawaiian Punch for just $2.19!" I replied "up - I got the same at Hannaford for $1.49 each." He looked back at me incredulously.

Here's how it works, people: For most of june and early July, Price Chopper was selling HP for $2 a bottle. It was $1.99 at Hannaford and Sav-A-Lot.

Price Chopper has a new "Double Coupon" deal where they double any manufacturer's coupon up to a dollar. It seems that when a manufacturer's coupon comes out in one of the weekly fliers, they "adjust" the price.

Hawaiian Punch (when the mfg 50cents off coupon began circulating) went up to $3.19 at PC but stayed the same $1.99 at HFD and SAL.

So, when you buy the product and present the coupon, you're still paying more for the item! What I did was take my 50cents off coupon to Hannaford, and bought the item for $1.49.

MORAL ::: when couponing, watch your prices carefully. You may have similar differences between supermarkets in your onw area. DO NOT BASE YOUR SHOPPING LIST ON YOUR LAST TRIP TO THE STORE (especially if a new 50c or less coupon is out!) And be especially vigilant at the Price Chopper checkout. On more than one occasion the electronic scanner has rung up a price more expensive than the marked price. DO NOT BUY ANY ITEM THAT DOES NOT HAVE THE PRICE ON IT. If you do, you have "no proof" at the register.

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This flier came in Monday's mail. People always say "you should buy gold as a hedge against inflation" and "if something ever happened to our government and/or the monetary system, gold is the currency to hold and behold." NOT SO FAST!

If you look carefully at U.S. Gold Pieces, they have dollar amount face values written on them. If there was a crisis of some sort, they are only worth whatever particular dollar amount has been attributed to them!

I had been under the impression that in a financial collapse, bullion coins could buy more than regular green money. This is obviously a fable. Although perhaps it could be used, in my opinion, as an object of barter, knowing that the coin would always be worth more than its face value. However, it is indeed disappointing that you wouldn't be able to purchase goods at least in the ballpark of what the coin is worth, noting that the true value of the coin is always going to be at a premium to its face value. Interesting.

US Bullion coins can only be used in stores at their stated value. A silver eagle is worth one Dollar, a modern one ounce proof coin is worth fifty dollars, a double eagle is worth twenty bucks... you get the picture!

To get more than this you have to find a person who would be willing to take the coin of your hands.

That person could be a coin dealer or collector, jewelry shop attendant or a bank that trades in bullion. Another way of accessing a higher value for the item is to place it in an auction.

Your coin would generally trade at a discount to 'spot' metal price unless it has some numismatic value.

Of course if there was law and disorder and financial collapse, good luck at finding a shop or a bank open, let alone an auction!

Just musing...

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Stock indexes fell sharply Friday, erasing most of the week's gains, after a dismal report on the job market stifled hopes for a quick economic rebound.[1]

U.S. employment growth ground to a halt in June, with employers hiring the fewest number of workers in nine months, dousing hopes the economy would regain momentum in the second half of the year. [2]

President Barack Obama had this to say about the situation:
"We’ve always known that we’d have ups and downs on our way back from this recession. And over the past few months, the economy has experienced some tough headwinds -- from natural disasters, to spikes in gas prices, to state and local budget cuts that have cost tens of thousands of cops and firefighters and teachers their jobs. The problems in Greece and in Europe, along with uncertainty over whether the debt limit here in the United States will be raised, have also made businesses hesitant to invest more aggressively.

The economic challenges that we face weren’t created overnight, and they’re not going to be solved overnight."[3]

Let’s be clear: Today’s data comes on the heels of a similarly bad report in May and included revised downward data on jobs growth for April and May. This should be a sobering wake-up call to policy makers that addressing the jobs crisis should be priority number one. With Republican intransigence on quickly addressing the debt ceiling, it is increasingly uncertain whether Washington can address the deterioration in economic conditions.[4]

Extending the payroll-tax holiday, propping up the housing market and raising the U.S. debt ceiling are among the measures that would have the fastest short-term impact on the economy, President Barack Obama's top economic adviser said in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires Friday.

Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, also said it's "off base" for Republicans to suggest Obama's economic policies have failed.[5]

"For those worrying about a slow patch hitting the global economy during the second half of the year, this will provide further ammunition to fuel their concerns," said Simon Derrick, head of currency research at BNY Mellon.[6].

Tags: economy, money



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The U.S. jobs gap has been, for the Obama administration, a sore that will not heal. Observers note it's been the 'Worst recovery' since the Great Depression. And there's no end in sight.

"The problem is at the consumer level, confidence is low and that is because, as you showed, showed we had underemployment with one out of every six Americans. The worst element of that is that among the unemployed, against the American history, more than approaching half, have [been] unemployed for over six months. That is historically unprecedented in the United States. That is a phenomenon that is seen often in Europe, rarely seen here. In 2007 the average time to get a new job was five weeks. It's now near six months. And that implies a whole segment of the population, the more elderly or the middle-aged who may never get employed again," ~ Charles Krauthammer on FOX News

According to the L.A. Times ::: The challenging Obama era and 9.1% national unemployment rate do not include the 454 people now helping President Obama do presidential things.

This crowd is being paid a total of $37,121,463 this year. That's up seven staff members and nearly $4 million from 2008, the last year of George W. Bush's presidency.

Fully 141 Obama aides -- or nearly one-in-three -- earn more than $100,000 a year. That's also up from the 130 with that scale salary in Bush's last year.

Twenty-one Obama aides earn the top-dollar $172,200.

The staff names and salaries report, required annually by Congress, was released on Friday by the White House. The timing, however, was probably an accident because last Friday most Americans were not watching the news closely and were thinking of not working for a three-day holiday weekend.



Tags: economic recovery, US economy



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"I have not given birth to a bad woman..." ~ quote from the mother of NYC chambermaid Nafissatou Diallo ::: Ms. DIALLO is quoted in the New York Times ‘Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I’m doing,’ (Diallo is seen in the accompanying photo)

UPDATE 5 July 2011 ::: Prosecutors are planning to drop the sexual assault charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn within the next two weeks. The New York Post quotes a "top investigator" who said a scheduled court date on July 18 would be the latest the case would be dropped. The New York Times has published Housekeeper Nafissatou Diallo's Graphic Account of "the Attack". If you are able, you may read them HERE.

Nafissatou Diallo: THE BACK STORY w/DSK case details



Tags: DSK, Nafissatou Diallo, Dominique Strauss-Kahn



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Beginning Friday, Amazon.com and other large out-of-state retailers will be required to collect sales taxes on purchases that their California customers make online. Bold step in a new direction? Will other states soon follow?

The new tax collection requirement — part of budget-related legislation — is expected to raise an estimated $317 million a year in new state and local government revenue.

From FamousBloggers.net::: MOHAMED OSAM on JUNE 29, 2011 ·

In an email sent this afternoon to Californians participating in the famous eCommerce company Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) affiliate program, the company said, “California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com , Endless.com , MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com“. This decision was made Due to a sales tax measure recently passed in CA state legislature and on its way to be signed by GovernorJerry Brown.

This is not the first time, Amazon has actually terminated the associates program in Hawaii, Connecticut, Illinois, and North Carolina because of the passing of similar legal issues.

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In a sign of increasing pessimism about the direction of the U.S. economy, roughly 4 in10 Americans now believes it is in permanent decline, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll. (Hover and click on the image below for more details)

(Reuters) - If banks loaned out their $2 trillion cash hoard, if worker training programs were stepped up and if 3 million job openings were filled, the economic recovery would be far stronger, a panel assembled by former President Bill Clinton said on Wednesday. [Read Bill Clinton's remarks HERE]

So what the heck is going on with the economy? Gasoline is a big factor. American drivers are to big oil companies what puppets are to puppetmasters. Like a game, the masters rise the prices up to $4 a gallon and beyond, and just as our backs are beginning to crack under the weight, they ease off agin. Cat and mouse game-like. Torture. Push us to the edge of the cliffs, and pull us back a little bit just as we lose our footing. What else is eating away at our money?

Leading the way: HOUSING ::: AdAge reports "Data being released ... from Experian will show that in the first half of 2010, an estimated 275,000 people just walked away from mortgages they could afford to keep paying because they had become such awful investments. That adds up to roughly 17% of defaulters. While that figure is down 35% from the first half of 2009, as evidence of a double-dip housing crash mounts, "we expect the incidence of strategic defaulting to go up," said Ms. Bremmer.

Estimates of the number of mortgages under water in the U.S. hover just over 1 in 4 but that could jump to half in the coming years. Recent data from Corelogic suggests that almost 10% of mortgages originated just last year are already in the negative equity range. The Federal Reserve shows average homeowner equity at just 38% down from 61% a decade ago ...

...strategic defaulters... are no deadbeats in a traditional sense. The Experian data show that they are more likely to have had a jumbo-sized mortgage, have had excellent credit scores, have had more than one house or investment property, and have a higher than average household income. They also stay current on all their other bills. If you look at the incidence in these charts, the proportion of strategic defaulters keeps going up.

They should be owning and spending like home owners. But they're not, and for up to the next seven years they might have a hard time finding a mortgage while their credit recovers. "As many strategic defaulters as there are," said Ms. Bremmer, "there are many more people who are short-selling. Those people are renting, too."" (In other words, they are driving up rents and eventually will end up defaulting on their landlords).

As I have suggested before, if Barack Obama wants to create a REAL stimulus that will "save his presidency" he must give families a 20% cash down payment on a new or existing home that they can afford that is + or - $150 within the amount they are currently spending on rent.

John Sealander ::: Sound Familiar? "I paid all my June bills today. It's weird. Money comes in the door. Money goes out the door. And nothing really changes. There always seems to be enough to pay the bills on time, but I never really get ahead of the game. Maybe in this dismal economy, that's as good as it's going to get. I really need to invent something that I can sell for $19.95 on the cable TV channels and tell people that if they order right now, I'll send them not one, but two useless gizmos for the same price... with separate shipping and handling, of course."



Tags: economy, Bill Clinton



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Who says you can't earn an income via blogging?

Who says you can't earn an income via blogging?

There are a lot of bloggers out there who are hoping to turn that little weblog into a cash cow. Much easier said than done, but one can always try!

On this very weblog, there are opportunities hidden in plain sight! Feel free to click around - on badges - on images - wherever - and FIND them! Good Luck!

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Press Release from U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand ::: President Obama has decided to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). In a letter earlier this year to the President, Senator Gillibrand delineated the urgency of an SPR drawdown. Gas Prices across New York are 36 percent higher than this time last year. The drawdown of 30 million barrels will help to stabilize gasoline prices.

“I applaud President Obama’s decision to release oil from the SPR,” Senator Gillibrand said. “With our families already struggling in this difficult economy, the last thing we need is for gasoline prices to continue to skyrocket. This release will stabilize gas prices and provide crucial relief to families here in New York and across the country.” OK. Ripped from Drudge:


OIL PLUNGE AFTER RESERVES RELEASED...
30 million barrels will last U.S. -- a day and a half...
Dow plummets 200+ points...

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ALL DADS ::: Hope you're having a HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

World's First Coins With QR Codes Will Start Circulating in the Netherlands Wednesday: Technology marches on!

Beware, smartphone users, beware of sexting your ex!

BarackObama Barack Obama

Meet Alex: a father of four who's spending his summer learning how to be a community organizer. Watch the video: OFA.BO/Ve7ftJ

Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. K-pop group JQT heads to the USA to record while serving as models for The Skin Shop! Hover and click on the pic!

For all the talk of Internet freedom, little of it takes into account the bleaker reality of inhabiting Chinese cyberspace. Influential tech blogger William Long addresses this with a post criticizing the destructive bent to China's hacker communities, which then brought on a multi-front attack against Long. read »

blogadera : How are translations considered when it comes to copyright?

I just heard a Spanish language cover song of popular American hit and I started thinking? Are all translations of a song or any creative work like a blog post covered under copyright? How is this handled?

ALL DADS ::: Hope you're having a HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

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I'm big on both collecting unique gold coins as well as buying and holding bullion, selling when the price rises on the international market.

The Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle $20 gold coin is perhaps the most unique collector's coin available today, and it is MY ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE Collectible coin! When I have extra investment funds, I use them to buy bullion!

Here's the "back story" - In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned a personal friend and famous sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, to create a gold coin reminiscent of those used in Ancient Greece. The product was the Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle.The Double Eagle was first struck by the U.S. Mint in 1907. Although minting was halted in 1933 during the peak of the Great Depression, there were a number of these coins that remained in circulation, and today, they are among the most highly sought-after collectible coins.The coin features an image of Miss Liberty on one side and a majestic flying eagle on the other.

Spot Gold (NY Close): 1530.88 // +7.10 // +0.47%

It is perhaps foolish to have expected otherwise given the inconsistency in gold bullion price action over recent weeks, but after several days of seemingly forecast-able activity the yellow metal remains strong and stable.

Just last month, U.S. Mint buyers ordered 107,000 ounces of bullion Gold Eagles - the third-best May in the series' 25-year history!

Don't be afraid to buy gold bullion! Gold for centuries has been one of the most stable mineral monetary commodities on the market!

One thing you should make a mental note to do: always, if possible, take delivery of the gold bullion or coins you buy - and then and only then store them in a safe place, such as a bank deposit box - if you wouldn't feel right about having gold around or handling it, that's understandable! There are ways of empowering your dealer or mint to arrange to hold them for you in a vault. In come places and certain cases, this may be a requirement of law. (You really shouldn't keep a lot of gold in your house or apartment!)

Some people consider gold in an IRA (gold IRA) to be the ultimate asset. For U.S. residents, the 1997, the Tax Payer Relief Act made it possible for precious metals to be added to IRA accounts. This includes silver and platinum as well as gold. IRA account holders may place gold in IRAs as a means to diversify funds. The price of gold rises when stock prices drop. This can shore up your portfolio's value in a stock market down period.

Keep in mind that there is some level of risk in any financial investment transaction.

Among factors to consider: your age. The younger you are, the more room for risk.




Tags: gold, invest in gold


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Blogger tells me I've previously assigned the same title to another post, so let's see what happens with this one! I'm focusing on the Albany Times Union Sunday newspaper, in which the economy (real-estate) is a featured topic.

Business writer Chris Churchill asks "To buy, or not to buy, a home" - to which I reply - NOT (now) - because after Wall Street's wimpout last week I think home price will continue to decline, as banks will continue NOT to lend money to homebuyers. I am convinced that President barack Obama cansave his office and get re-elected via implementing a new stimulus plan whereby qualified buyers+++ would be given $20,000 to make the down-payment on a new or existing house.

New York Times Columnist Thomas L. Friedman delves into the mortgage mess:

"indeed, this mortgage mess just feeds the three other big problems undermining U.S. job growth today: weak aggregate demand, structural impediments and an epidemic of uncertainty about what the future holds for everything from health care to the rate of taxation to Social Security and Medicare spending to the availability of credit to the general direction of the economy — the sum of which has people holding back and thus undermining the government’s stimulus."

Friedman's ultimate warning: "do not underestimate uncertainty as a silent jobs killer". The TU's "Real Estate" section headline beckons "Why Sell Now?" Why indeed! There's a guy one street over from me, desperate to sell his house so he can move back to Texas where his wife and children and dying elderly parents are waiting for him... even though he's cut the price from $208,000 to $99,000 nobody's even stopped by the place to take a look! My advice was to rent it out, but he doesn't want the hassle of being a "long distance landlord" and he'll stick it out here as long as he can. I'm sure there are others in the same situation.

That brings me to RENT. Not covered in the TU articles, RENT is way too damn high, and now there are many local landlords stuck with vacancies. Problem is, they could be FORCED to rent to some of the people (students) they'd rather not rent to, unless they lower the rent to "reasonable". All of the above landlords will learn their lessons in due time.

Weiner, Weiner, & more Weiner

In my snapshot above you'll also notice an Anthony weiner (#WeinerGate) headline... the embattled politician still struggling to hang onto office, while, interestingly enough, another fellow from the Capital Region who endured his own "fall from grace" draws a headline story all his own. The Weekly Standard article linked above is quite interesting as well:

"Consider, for example, Post columnist Dana Milbank’s recent meditation on the Anthony Weiner scandal. Milbank is a curious case: a reporter-columnist whose contradictory stock in trade is (a) smirking accounts of public officials making fools of themselves, and (b) lamentations that the public doesn’t take public officials seriously. The Weiner case fits perfectly onto Milbank’s template: It enables him to poke fun at a member of Congress who sends naked photographs of himself across the Internet and at the same time to complain that the lurid details about Anthony Weiner distract us from pressing issues of greater importance."

Hmmmm... a lot of people, bloggers & journalists, have done that.

Back to Wall Street and The Financial World: BARRON'S INSIGHT is recommending Newspaper Stocks, some of which are available at very low rates... Lawmakers are meeting in Washington this week in a round of federal budget cut negotiations... RETAIL SALES FOR MAY will be released Tuesday; inflation figures for the month come out Wednesday.

On his tumblr blog, Robert Reich writes ::: "The real economy is catching up with the financial economy, as it always does eventually. Wall Street is built on smoke and mirrors, while the real economy is based on jobs and wages. Smoke and mirrors can only take you so far – as we learned so painfully three years ago." [Full Article]

The first laptops running the Google OS go on sale Wednesday, the same day PANDORA MEDIA launches an IPO.

Wishing you all a wonderful, blessed week ahead!
+++any family that has been paying rent for at least two years: the mortgage would be equal to or less than but not in excess of $100 above the monthly rent







Tags: #WeinerGate, Wall Street



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Stop rallying around all those icky "blogging gurus" who really want to dip into your paypal account more than they want to help you succeed!

This post is dedicated to all of you poor blogging scrubs who sincerely want to make money. You've heard the golden word: MONETIZE! Day after day new posts appear by "blogging gurus" who promise untold fortune and fame if you buy and download their PDF or eBook. Who gets rich here? They do!

These "blogging gurus" get tons of FREE publicity and rack up a lot of interviews by bloggers who fawn over their every word. Interviews that turn out to be nothing more than adverts for the same old stuff that everybody and his brother and then some are selling somewhere online! Michael Fortin calls it "A Disturbing Trend in Internet Marketing".

If you look at all of the "guru" stuff carefully, you'll find they essentially are all selling the same thing. These "gurus" practice "The law of subtraction," the process of getting YOU to subtract YOUR money from your account (and turn it over to them!)

Michael Fortin's words in a post about "The Secret" come to mind and apply to the "blogging secrets revealed by your friendly guru" craze: "And the people who sell the secret as such are the worse of the bunch, in my opinion. Those greedy vultures are masters in the art of repackaging material in a way that caters to a specific market in need of the package — and not the thing being packaged."

Want some fun, fabulous FREE blogging advice? I've put my entire FREE series "THE BLOGGING CLASS" online at The One Minute Blogger. There's $200 guru-dollarsworth of information and good advice, and you get it all FREE. Nothing to subscribe to. No annoying pop-up screens. Nothing to download. Just FREE!

RELATED ::: End of the road for Social Media "gurus"?






Tags: blogging tips, underground blogging secrets



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Night of the Living Dead Aid

Coincidences are funny things - I had taken the PC online while cleaning my desk out Friday. Just about the same moment I came across my Dambisa Moyo file and was looking thru the papers pictured above, this blog posting appeared in my RSS reader.

It began: This morning I accidentally stumbled on this old blog post from 2009, about Dambisa Moyo's book, Dead Aid, and I thought it was worth resurrecting its rotting corpse and taking another look.

It was a bit of a ranty rambly blog post at the time, and I also forgot to follow up one of the comments, which linked to this radio interview with Moyo, which I've now listened to.

Night of the Living Dead Aid

Phil aka "The Evil Flea" continued on... making valid points along the way. I remember well my interview with Ms. Moyo. The raw tape runs for about an hour. We not only chatted about "Dead Aid" - we touched on her next book and about taking tea among other pleasantries. One thing I didn't ask Ms. Moyo was about her marital status. I didn't think of it at that time, and didn't think it was important... but over the last year or so I see a lot of traffic from Bing and Google where websurfers have keyed in the phrase "Dambisa Moyo husband."

I enjoyed speaking with her and reading her work: she's quite intelligent and understands the global economy and its innermost workings.

A book can be compared to a hit record. The artist (writer) is driven by the publishing house to go forth and support it (book tours, appearances, interviews, etc.), which is exactly what brought Ms. Moyo and myself together in conversation way back when...






Tags: Dambisa Moyo, Dead Aid



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Philippines: Netizens follow Telecom merger deal issue

Latest BUZZZ ::: the always controversial Lady Gaga is rumoured to appear as closing act at Europride next Saturday (June 11th). There has been no official announcement, but artistic director of the facebook page EuroPride hints that the rumours may possibly be true. The official word is expected soon via press release by Gaga's record label.

(Translated from Italian news articles:) Lady Gaga has always been sensitive to issues of LGBT rights and has declared herself bisexual.Involved for some time to abolish the "Do not Ask Do not Tell" and the American campaign against homophobic bullying in schools, according to the website gay.it "must not remain indifferent when the Organising Committee explained the recent rejection of the law against homophobia and homophobic tones have done this last election campaign. A more expended for the presence of the pop star most Popular right now would be the Organizing Committee EuroPride, and even the National Arcigay ambiasciata American in Rome, which had a role in negotiating anything but minor. "

HOT97 The Real HOT 97

Remember- follow @HOT97SUMMERJAM for a play by play of everything going down at #HOT97SUMMERJAM!

Philippines: Netizens follow Telecom merger deal issue

Written for Global Voices by Karlo Mikhail Mongaya · East Asia

Netizens in the Philippines are closely following the developments of a merger deal between two of the country’s largest telecommunications companies. Some are worried that the merger would be bad for consumers. Here's the gist: The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) announced last March that it has bought off the Digital Telecommunications with P74.1 billion (US$1.7 billion).

If approved by government regulators, there would be two mobile carriers in the country left with PLDT’s Smart, Talk N’Text, Red Mobile and Digitel’s Sun controlling 70 percent of the market and Globe Telecom and TM controlling the remaining 30 percent. read »

A blog action day set June 8th to demonstrate the concern of Filipino bloggers about the destruction of Philippine marine resources. Coral reefs twice the size of Manila were destroyed by smugglers.

Featured Blogger: Sabrina Sultana - Blogging With Her Heart

Written for Global Voices by Bijoy · South Asia

Sabrina Sultana blogs from Bangladesh and she is one of the millions of bloggers in this world who express themselves using internet. But Sabrina is not like others; she blogs with her heart. She speaks for those who are deprived of their rights to lead a normal life. She expresses concern about the rights for the disabled and raises her voice for those who may not express their pains to the world. Sabrina also writes about her own feelings with simple but magical words. read »

VIRAL: 1,500 FACEBOOKers Crash Girl's 'Sweet Sixteen' B'day Party...

Argentina: Bloggers Discuss Inflation

Written for Global Voices by Fanny Rahmouni · Americas

Americans would be wise to study up on what these bloggers have to say, because inflation is rearing its ugly little head here in the states! Inflation has long been a subject of controversy in Argentina, and as such is a recurring topic for discussion among bloggers. As an important political issue, it is expected to be one of the main themes debated during the presidential race next October. read »

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