my best friend for the next 24 hours

Hello Best Friend (John Maynard Keynes), please be nice to be more the next 24 hours and the rest of my life since I’ll be learning your concepts, graphs and wise words. But, at least please be nice to me tomorrow okie dokie?

Thank you bestfriend

In my earlier post, I expressed some bafflement that LLoyds say:

“Basis of Rights Issue 1.34 New Shares for every 1 Existing Ordinary Share”

since if you divide the number of new shares to be issued by the number of existing shares you get 1.34399. Suspicious those 9s, aren’t they?

I now suspect that what Lloyds meant to say was 1.344 new shares for each existing share. This would result in 36,505,301,100 new shares, 200,000 odd above the 36,505,088,579 stated. This is much closer to what would be expected since there will be some rounding down of the number of rights as 1.344 times the number of existing shares will not in general be a whole number. (Perhaps Lloyds had the data on shareholdings to calculate the number of new shares exactly).

If I’m right, the cash you need to find is 1.344 * 37p = per share or 49.728p, closer to what I was expecting than 1.34 * 37p which is only 49.58p.

Confidence-inspiring, eh?

I recently stumbled upon a great op-ed where the always-interesting Steven Landsburg compares protectionist policies to racism

He begins:

Not long ago in American history accidents of birth were considered legitimate grounds for employment discrimination. Political platforms contained phrases like: “Federal contracts, whenever possible, should be performed by white workers.” Politicians demanded tax incentives to reward firms for hiring whites instead of blacks or showing other kinds of favoritism. Those same politicians endorsed “Right to Know” legislation to alert consumers when products were produced by the “wrong” kind of workers. They embraced slogans like “Buy white!”

When I say this kind of thing was commonplace “not long ago,” I really mean not long ago. Except for one minor and morally insignificant difference, I got all of the above from John Kerry’s Web site. The only change I made is this: Where Kerry said “American,” I substituted “white.”

Click here to continue reading.

I made a confident prediction yesterday that Lloyds would price its rights issue at 33.13p.

In fact the rights are being priced at 37p.

How and why did Lloyds arrive at this price?

I first saw a calculator on Tomorrow’s World when it was so valuable it had to be guarded. The programme claimed that such devices would eventually cost less than £5. Everyone scoffed. Of course they understated their case. Today I have a calculator included in my PC at an additional cost to me of effectively nothing – if it didn’t exist I’m sure I could download some freeware.

So, luckily I can easily check Lloyds’ figures.

First off, let’s see what’s accurate and what isn’t.

The various reports e.g. on Yahoo! are traceable back to this statement from Lloyds.

1. 37p is accurate

Lloyds provide the following data:

Number of Ordinary Shares to be issued by Lloyds Banking Group pursuant to the Rights Issue…. 36,505,088,579

Expected gross proceeds of the Rights Issue receivable by Lloyds Banking Group…. £13,506,882,774

The proceeds divided by the number of new shares to be issued is precisely 37p.

2. 1.34 is not accurate

Lloyds provide the following data:

Number of Ordinary Shares in issue as at the date of this announcement… 27,161,682,366

Number of Ordinary Shares to be issued by Lloyds Banking Group pursuant to the Rights Issue…. 36,505,088,579

The number of new shares divided by the number of existing shares is in fact 1.3439921757…

I confess myself slightly baffled, since I can’t find a more detailed statement from Lloyds.

Is there a rounding error? But to issue more shares than implied by the 1.34 entitlement per existing share would imply rounding the millions of small shareholders’ entitlements up, whereas I would expect the number to be rounded down (you can’t have part of a right).

3. What is the discount to TERP?

The 3rd November Prospectus defined the TERP as follows (p.240):

“Theoretical Ex-Rights Price or TERP:

the theoretical ex-rights price of an Existing Ordinary Share calculated by reference to the volume weighted average price on the London Stock Exchange’s main market for listed securities of an Existing Ordinary Share on 23 November 2009″ [my stress]

Today’s statement says this:

“The Issue Price represents a discount of 59.5 per cent. to the Closing Price of the Company’s Ordinary Shares on 23 November 2009 (being the latest practicable date prior to the publication of this announcement) and a discount of 38.6 per cent. to the theoretical ex-rights price based on this Closing Price.” [my stress]

Yahoo! gives yesterday’s closing price as 91.47p, but, as can be seen from the graph in my post yesterday, it seems “the volume weighted average price” of Lloyds shares yesterday must have been maybe 90.7p.

At 90.7p, the total value of the existing shares is (27,161,682,366 * 0.907) = £24,635,645,906.
Add in the £13bn net being raised and divide by total number of shares after the rights issue (all in millions): £37,636/(27,162+36,505) gives TERP = 59.11p.
37/59.11 = 0.626, so on this basis the discount to TERP is only 37.4%, outside the range they gave of 38-42%.

Why 37p, then?

It seems Lloyds have been very bullish on the rights issue price.

Maybe they’re right – the shares right now are trading up more than another penny at 92.73p, according to Yahoo!

But a company’s share price is an arbitrary value. What matters is how many shares you have multiplied by the share price.

It seems to me that it is in shareholders’ interest to price rights issues as low as possible. This makes it much less likely that a rights issue will fail, because the rights will have more value. This in turn will reduce the underwriting fee. As I pointed out a while back, the underwriting fee is not a trivial sum.

I can only explain a desire to price the rights at a higher price than necessary in psychological terms – macho posturing, perhaps.

I still don’t expect this to happen in the case of this rights issue by Lloyds, but the risk is that the normal effects of trading I described yesterday depress the share price and hence the rights price so much that the rights become effectively an option to buy the shares. Shorting the stock (and buying the rights) then becomes an attractive trade, since, if the rights issue fails, the new shares that would have been bought in the rights issue have to be sold in the market by the under-writers. This depresses the price further, added to the speculators’ profits. Of course, it also undermines confidence in the company itself, further depressing the share price…

The reason this won’t happen with Lloyds is I don’t believe the issue is so much underwritten as that commitments to take up rights have been obtained from the holders of the majority of the shares (possibly of a large majority). I suspect Darling’s 43% (discussed previously) is not the whole story.

I wasn’t expecting a twist in the story quite so soon! Let’s hope everything goes smoothly…

Increasingly, bankruptcies and foreclosures are hitting the middle class as job losses mount.  Although the official national unemployment rate is about 10%, that statistic does not reflect the underemployed (i.e. people working reduced hours or for reduced pay) or those who’ve simply given up looking for work.  I believe that fully a quarter of the US is unemployed or underemployed at this point.  Many jobs are permanently lost and that means that previous lifestyles can not be sustained as reflected in the stories below.

Although our current circumstances may have surprised an American public diverted by credit fueled consumption, many of the banks did prepare by pushing for a change in the bankruptcy laws, which effectively force those in bankruptcy to pay debts that would have been discharged under the old provisions.   

The Great Recession (or Great Depression II) will be a pivotal event for the baby boom, X and Y generations just as the Great Depression was for an earlier generation.  Financial crises don’t occur in vacuums but do influence social outcomes.   The thing we will learn is to forgo debt,  live below our means and save for the rainy day.  That will be painful at first as consumer demand for ”things” continues to dry up, but we’ll be better off in the long haul.  

Staci Schubert and her son, Lincoln, 2, watch Curious George at her Costa Mesa, Calif., home. Schubert, who had career success and started her own business, filed for bankruptcy

By Christine Dugas, USA TODAY

Staci Schubert’s career has taken her from New York to California, from graphic designer to website designer to sales executive. Most recently, she launched a business as a designer of handbags and accessories.At 40 and with such accomplishments, Schubert is Middle Class America. She and her counterparts have long been the nation’s backbone, because their steady jobs and purchasing power have helped drive our economy.

But Middle Class America has two faces, a new study shows. Schubert is that other Middle Class America, too.

After earning $275,000 annually, Schubert used most of her savings to start her business in 2003. The earliest days of the recession in 2007 slowed sales, and she fell behind on business and personal bills. Credit card debt reached $65,000.

She tried to find a full-time job without much luck, because the job market was saturated. Temporary freelance design work couldn’t cover her bills.

So in January 2008, she filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, becoming one of nearly 1.1 million consumer filers that year.

A new study by Elizabeth Warren, Harvard Law School Leo Gottlieb professor of law, and Deborah Thorne, Ohio University associate professor of sociology, finds that personal bankruptcy has become a largely middle-class phenomenon led by filers who are college-educated and owners of homes. According to the study, “The Vulnerable Middle Class: Bankruptcy and Class Status,” the shift occurred even before the Great Recession.

More than 100,000 middle-class families filed for personal bankruptcy every month in 2007, says the report, which was provided to USA TODAY but will be released in a book next year. Those who filed in 2007 were in worse financial shape than those who had filed in 2001.

“The bankruptcy filings are a warning about the risks now facing middle-class Americans,” says Warren, chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). No longer can they count on a college education, a good job and homeownership to protect them from financial collapse.

“It’s horrifying for people who are not used to anything but an upward trajectory,” says Bob Anderson, a bankruptcy lawyer in Wilmington, N.C. “They are used to calling the shots.”

Schubert agrees.

“I’m a highly educated, middle-class woman,” says Schubert, who is the single parent of a 2-year-old son, Lincoln. “Until now, I have never in my life been unemployed.”

More filings ahead

In 2005, the bankruptcy law was changed to make it harder to file bankruptcy. After it took effect, filings dramatically dropped. But this year, filings are climbing and are expected to total 1.5 million, the level they were at before the tighter law took effect.

Warren and Thorne say their data show that the change in the law was not a scalpel that cut out only those deliberately not paying their bills. These days, it’s ordinary middle-class Americans, not a marginalized underclass or high-stakes gamblers, who are most apt to experience financial failure.

Poor savings habits, health problems and excess spending have traditionally been causes of bankruptcy. But the study finds that college education and homeownership, the traditional strategies for wealth building, may not be enough to guarantee financial security.

“As these time-honored wealth-building strategies become higher-risk undertakings, the middle class may face even greater economic instability in coming years, suggesting that in the modern economy, the path to prosperity may be far more perilous than anyone imagined,” the authors conclude.

The proportion of bankruptcy filers who have been to college, whether they dropped out or graduated, increased from 46.5% in 1991 to 58.9% in 2007, the study finds.

“The data was taken from the boom years,” Warren says, noting that it takes a long time to analyze and produce it. “I’m almost afraid to look at the data now.”

Instead of graduating from college with upward mobility, many Americans are overwhelmed with college debt and few job opportunities, according to the study.

Schubert, who didn’t have college loans, thought she had it figured out.

“I graduated from a top art design school in the country,” she says of the Rhode Island School of Design. “Opportunities always came.”

After filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Schubert hasn’t found a full-time job but has been doing freelance design work. She says she has designed a new handbag line and is looking for investors to help recharge her business.

Home, sweet …?

Homeownership, like higher education, guarantees little, the study finds.

“For decades the middle class counted on homes as an economic lifeboat,” Warren says. With a fixed-rate mortgage and a home that appreciated in value, families had a financial nest egg they could rely upon.

Now, homes are sinking families instead of stabilizing them, as home values plummet. When Diane and Nicholas Spano of Long Island, N.Y., ran into financial problems, they thought that the home they have owned for 29 years could save them.

Diane had a kidney transplant, and Nicholas temporarily couldn’t work at the post office because of a back problem. Diane went back to work at a drug and alcohol center, but it closed.

They applied for a home-equity loan, without realizing that there was no way they could afford the payments. House payments totaled $3,200 a month, and Diane had $200 a month in medical bills.

This summer the couple, who are both 66, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

“I feel bad,” she says. “But if we had not filed for bankruptcy, I don’t know where we’d be.”

The home went into foreclosure, but the Spanos are trying to work out a loan modification. Diane is working part time at CVS; Nicholas has retired.

“Carrying debt is like carrying a backpack full of bricks,” says James Doan, a bankruptcy attorney in San Clemente, Calif. “It weighs people down. They feel like failures. The are embarrassed and ashamed.”

 The job-loss domino effect is catastrophic. In cities such as Boise, for example, the economy is dependent on the high-tech industry. Many of those workers have seen salaries shrink and bonuses disappear, while others were laid off.

“They were making good money, and now, many are working at Lowe’s and Home Depot,” says C. Grant King, a Boise bankruptcy lawyer. “Now, we’re seeing a wave of people who never thought they’d be coming in here, filing for bankruptcy.”

The housing market collapse, which devastated the construction industry, also brought in waves of filers. Builders, roofers, concrete workers, real estate agents and mortgage lenders are among bankruptcy filers now, King says.

Spend, spend, spend

During the boom years, many middle-class Americans lived beyond their means.

“People have been negligent with their finances,” says Doan. “They’ve taken a lot of money out of their homes like it’s an ATM.”

Middle-class families were encouraged to spend. But that often turned into a disaster when their bills increased and wages dwindled.

“My wife and I were great at lubricating the economy,” says Rock Macke, who lives with his wife and two children in Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif. “We loved to spend money, as is the middle-class thing to do.”

Macke says a $400,000 tax bill related to stock from his now-defunct employer wiped out the couple’s savings. He was able to keep working, but he says the couple lived paycheck-to-paycheck as debt mounted to about $225,000. They filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in March.

Since then, they’ve gotten rid of their expensive cars and downgraded. Macke takes care of the yard instead of paying for a gardener.

“I got wrapped up in materialism. But in a painful way, this reminded me of important things, like a healthy family, that you lose perspective on when you’re trying to chase the American dream,” he says

 http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/general/2009-11-19-bankruptcy19_CV_N.htm

Topic for Sunday, Nov. 29, 2009

Is it’s the right time

• to look back what we have achieved so far?
• to see if our prediction was right or wrong?
• and to adjust our vision/strategies?
• …

Prior to the discussion, ALL participants are strongly encouraged to update as much as you can about the status of  of Vietnam economy’s health.

By: Cao Tuấn Vũ

The Social Science Research Network has released a free iPhone application. This allows iPhone and iPhone Touch users to search and view full text papers from the database. The application is available from the iTunes store.

The Social Science Research Network contains working papers in economics, accounting, entrepreneurship, finance and management.

Hello Friends here we come up with the Latest News round up from Indian Economy and various industrial Sectors of the country.

News Round Up

Economy

·  Wholesale price of food items rose 14.55% for the week ended November 7 from a year earlier due to dearer cereals, dairy items as well as mutton and eggs.

However, wholesale prices of fuel-related products dipped 1.51% in the week under consideration, compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.

Oil & Gas

· Cairn India and its joint venture partners have decided to take up 4 dimensional (4D) seismic survey of Ravva field in the Krishna-Godavari Basin to further explore oil and gas reserves.

· Liquefied gas importer, Petronet LNG Ltd (PLL), is keen to acquire up to 10 per cent stake in ONGC Petro-additions Ltd (OPaL), which is setting up a cracker complex in Gujarat.

OPaL is, a Rs 12,440-crore petrochemicals project, being set up by ONGC at Dahej in Gujarat.

Infrastructure

The Adani group-promoted Mundra Port and Special Economic Zone (MPSEZ) is all set to develop a non-LNG port at Hazira.

Hazira Port, which is a joint venture of Shell Gas BV and Total Gaz Electricite Holdings France, issued a letter of intent to the Adani group for developing the port in the booming southern Gujarat industrial belt.

Capital Goods

· State-run Bharat Heavy Electrical (BHEL) has set up a new transformer manufacturing facility at Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh.

This new facility would enable BHEL to produce an additional 12,000 MVA (mega volt ampere) of transformers per annum.

· Pollution control equipment maker Thermax bagged an order worth Rs 477.77 crore from an Orissa-based company for construction of a captive power plant.

Aviation

· The Vijay Mallya-led Kingfisher Airlines led the chart of the loss-making carriers by reporting a massive Rs 1,602 crore in losses in 2008-09, followed by Jet Airways with a loss of Rs 1,032 crore.

Oil Drilling

· Jindal Drilling & Industries has bagged an order worth Rs 635 crore from Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) for hiring a drilling unit for five years.

Metal

· Tata Steel, the world’s sixth largest steel maker, is raising its annual iron ore production by 55 per cent to 17 million tonnes in India over the next two years.

The expansion is expected to cost about Rs 1,100 crore.

Information Technology

·  Satyam Computer Services (rebranded Mahindra Satyam) has received legal notices from 37 companies claiming a refund of $265 million (approximately Rs 1,230 crore), allegedly given as temporary advance.

Automobile

· Mahindra & Mahindra, India’s largest manufacturer of sports utility vehicles, is believed to be in advanced talks with the Tamil Nadu government for establishing an integrated auto facility in the state.

Forging

·  The Kalyani Group’s flagship company Bharat Forge is planning to make a big foray into the power sector with an investment of up to Rs 50,000 crore and a targeted generation capacity of up to 10,000 Mw, over the next 10 years.

Note : For More Latest Industry, Stock Market and Economy News and Updates, please click here

FRANKFURT — The International Monetary Fund has approved a $1.4 billion loan arrangement with Angola to help the African country restore macroeconomic balances and rebuild international reserves. The 27-month program provides space for 30% of total central government expenditures on social issues, the IMF said. “Angola has suffered a significant terms-of-trade shock because of the sharp drop in oil prices,” the IMF said in a statement late Monday. “The subsequent large drop in oil revenues caused a sharp slowdown in the economy, weakening of fiscal and external positions, depreciation of the exchange rate, and a rise in inflation.” The IMF welcomed Angola’s plan to establish a sovereign wealth fund. It also said that the resumption of foreign exchange auctions by the National Bank of Angola has contributed to normalizing conditions in the foreign exchange market. Angola’s real GDP is projected to be broadly flat in 2009, reflecting a big drop in oil production and a sharp slowdown in the pace of non-oil growth, the IMF said.

IMF Approves $1.4 Billion Loan For Angola

Oh Please!

Jobs…..Jobs….Jobs!

Are you kidding me?  After a year of losing jobs and economic clout, the White House wants a jobs summit?  Let me see….for a year now it has been important to make sure that the banks get their backing for the gambling …..than to make sure that John Q. Public fed his family…and NOW it is important……excuse me if I feel that this is a bit late in coming….or is it just a response to the political attacks from the Right?

As written by Jerry White wrote for wsws.org:

Indeed, the administration has provided unlimited resources to stabilize “the financial system,” i.e., the bankers who are responsible for the financial collapse. But this has had nothing to do with a revival of lending, let alone slowing the wave of foreclosures and personal bankruptcies. On the contrary, the big banks have used the public funds to extend their grip over the financial system, hand out billions in bonuses and resume the same type of reckless speculation that produced the economic catastrophe.

Obama then declared that the Recovery Act had “created and saved more than a million jobs”—a claim that has been exposed as a wild exaggeration. And even if it were the case, the number pales in comparison with the more than 3.5 million jobs that have been lost since the stimulus package was approved last February.

In reality, the administration is pursuing a deliberate policy of high unemployment and reducing workers to a state of perpetual insecurity. The constant threat of job losses is being used to force workers to accept a drastic and permanent reduction in their living standards and a sharp increase in exploitation. US corporations have already seen a nearly 10 percent increase in productivity this year, as they force fewer and fewer workers to produce more and more.

In other words, American workers must accept a harsh reduction in consumption as credit is reduced, homes are lost, social programs slashed and they are forced to live on much less. At the same time, the labor cost gap with Third World countries must be closed so the US can be transformed into a cheap labor platform to send US exports around the world.

If you believe that the admin is concerned about Main Street then I suggest to take another hit of the bong….you are delusional.  This should have been issue ONE from the very beginning…not some lame promises of a jobs creation that has not materialized….But a jobs summit?  A bunch of gamblers from Wall Street will get together and decide which direction the government will…all the while children go to bed hungry….what a country!

If Americans are not working, then Americans are not spending and it Americans are not spending then consumption sucks…..If we want a good consumer price index and want Americans spending, then JOBS should have been the answer 12 months ago…..not a second thought after throwing billions maybe trillions at Wall Street so that they could continue their evil ways……

It boils down to the truth…….banks had a feeding frenzy at the banquet provided by the taxpayer…..and in return they, the taxpayer, gets the scraps that was left by the banks..is that about it?  What a great thing for the country to do for its revenue base…..

We all have an opinion on whether the bank bailout was a good thing…the problem for Wall Street is that more Americans feel betrayed by their government for handing over massive amounts of cash to these thieves while they have to struggle just to keep food and clothing and shelter….and yet there is still NO demand from the people for the heads of these gtamblers that have pissed away America’s economic future…….

The WSJ is reporting that the CEO of Goldman is talking and apologizing:

Blankfein made a startling confession Tuesday. He apologized for Goldman’s role in the financial crisis, saying that the bank “participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret.”

This is the same egotistical bastard that last month said:

he made an embarrassing comment in an interview with the Financial Times, saying that he was just “doing God’s work.”

YOU should be mad as hell at the audacity of this a/hole….why?

He got paid $400+ million last year…the year that he was a driving force in the demise of an American economy……he is the a/hole that is setting aside billions to give bonuses to the employees……this is the a/hole that got a massive transfusion of taxpayer money and in return he is spitting in the face of every taxpayer in America.

But Professor he apologized…..did he?……what did he apologize for?  Did he apologize for wrecking the economy?  Is he apologizing for stealing from the taxpayer to pay himself?  Just what is he apologizing for?

If this is a PR ploy then it is piss poor….Americans need to stand up and DEMAND that these thieves be held accountable for the destruction of the American economy….We do NOT need to accept their apologies….why?…..these bastards are insincere…if they were truly remorseful then they would be handling all this situation differently….the people need to send the message…….a FAKE apology is NOT accepted!

As many of you are aware, this December Denmark will be the site of the United Nations Climate Conference. Several weeks ago there was a video posted on this site, I don’t remember who posted it, by Lord Christopher Monckton. He was giving a speech at Bethel University and was discussing the upcoming conference, the treaty that was being discussed, and the ramifications of such treaty for the United States. I remember watching the video and wondering, “how much of what he says is real and how much of it is ‘Glenn Beckish’ in its conclusions?” So I began to read more, study more, and figure out what I could about the upcoming conference and the treaty being discussed. I was stunned to find that Lord Monckton was pretty accurate with what he was saying. And I decided that I was going to write about the subject. I have been attempting to gather information in the weeks since then. I am now ready to present to all of you what I found. Because there are only 12 days to this insane conference…

Before I begin, I wanted to offer what I could find as a link to view the video for anyone who missed it the last time it was posted. The site that I am linking to is the Dakota Voice. I am sure there are those who will attack the information in the video because of the site. I say to you, stuff it. The site has nothing to do with the content of the video. Clicking the link will open a new window:

Lord Monckton Delivers a Warning on the Climate Treaty

For those who are unable to view the video, the transcript of this part of the speech is here:

At Copenhagen, this December, weeks away, a treaty will be signed — Your president will sign it. Most of the third-world countries will sign it because they think they’re going to get money out of it. Most of the left-wing regimes around the world, like the European Union, will rubber-stamp it. Virtually nobody won’t sign it.

I have read that treaty and what it says is this: That a world government is going to be created. The word, government, actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity.

The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to third-world countries in satisfaction of what is called, coyly, a ‘climate debt,’ because we’ve been burning CO2 and they haven’t and we’ve been screwing up the climate. We haven’t been screwing up the climate, but that’s the line.

And the third purpose of this new entity, this government, is enforcement.

How many of you think that the word election or democracy or vote or ballot occurs anywhere in the 200 pages of that treaty? Quite right. It doesn’t appear once.

So, at last, the communists who piled out of the Berlin Wall and into the environmental movement and took over Greenpeace so that my friends who founded it left within a year because they’d captured it. Now the apotheosis is at hand.

They are about to impose a communist world government on the world. You have a president who has very strong sympathies with that point of view. He’s going to sign. He’ll sign anything. He’s a Nobel Peace Laureate. Of course, he’ll sign it.

And the trouble is this: If that treaty is signed, your Constitution says that it takes precedence over your Constitution. And you can’t resile from that treaty unless you get the agreement from all the other states, parties. And because you’ll be the biggest paying country, they’re not going to let you out.”

So thank you America. You were the beacon of freedom to the world. It is a privilege merely to stand on this soil of freedom while it is still free. But, in the next few weeks, unless you stop it, your president will sign your freedom, your democracy and your prosperity away forever and neither you nor any subsequent government you may elect will have any power whatsoever to take it back again.

That is how serious it is. I have read the treaty. I have seen the stuff about government and climate debt and enforcement. They are going to do this to you whether you like it or no.

But I think it is here, here in your great nation which I so love and I so admire. It is here that, perhaps — at this 11th hour, at the 59th minute and 59th second — you will rise up and you will stop your president from signing that dreadful treaty. That purposeless treaty for there is no trouble with the climate — and even if there were, economically speaking, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

So I end by saying to you the words that Winston Churchill addressed to your president in the darkest hour before the dawn of freedom in the Second World War. He quoted from your great poet, Longfellow: “Sail on, oh Ship of State. Sail on, oh Union, strong and great. Humanity, with all it’s fears, with all the hopes of future years, is hanging, breathless, on thy fate.” Thank you.

I think after watching that video you can see how disturbed I might be. I am more disturbed now to find that much of what he said is true. So away we go…..

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was created in March of 1994 and can be summed up by their own description (from their own website):

The Convention on Climate Change sets an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenge posed by climate change. It recognizes that the climate system is a shared resource whose stability can be affected by industrial and other emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The Convention enjoys near universal membership, with 192 countries having ratified. Under the Convention, governments:

• gather and share information on greenhouse gas emissions, national policies and best practices
• launch national strategies for addressing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to expected impacts, including the provision of financial and technological support to developing countries
• cooperate in preparing for adaptation to the impacts of climate change

There you have its purpose. According to their own description, they share information, launch national strategies, and prepare for adaptation to the impacts of climate change. Oddly I don’t see anything about forming a world government in that charter, or global redistribution of wealth through something called a “carbon debt.” Yet that is exactly the type of work that this body has continued to put forth.

We have given a fair amount of discussion to the conventions last major contribution to the world, the Kyoto Protocol. For those unfamiliar with the Kyoto Protocol, it was a cap and trade type program done on a global scale. The United States did not participate in the Kyoto Protocol and did not sign it. Lefties have spent the last 4 years lambasting the US government for failing to do our part and sign the accord and take part. The Kyoto Protocol was a global effort to reduce greenhouse gases and save our climate in crisis, after all, and as leaders in the world we should be leading the way. And I say we did lead the way, by rejecting this garbage outright. Because the Kyoto Protocol has been a monumental and VERY expensive failure. Just about every country that implemented it has seen it fail. Emissions actually rose in many of them. Kyoto is about to expire, thank goodness. So the last attempt at a major move like this…. was a bust. I wrote about this subject previously here:

Coming Soon… The Breathing Tax « Stand Up For America

and here

Man Made BullCrap… « Stand Up For America

and here

Strike While the Crisis is “Hot” « Stand Up For America

In fact, I have written many more times than these three about global warming. I have done so because I believe that man made global warming is bullshit. Now that they have realized that the earth is cooling, they have switched to man made climate change. I believe that man-made climate change is bullshit. I think all this global climate stuff is a hoax pulled by the elite who stand to either gain great power or gain great wealth by spreading the lie. And I believe that, at this point, global warming/climate change is the greatest threat to American freedom. This is not because of any change to the climate, but because of all the bullshit legislation being passed in the name of this lie. Can I make it any more clear than that?

So fast forward to the upcoming conference in Copenhagen. The treaty that Lord Monckton was speaking of has not officially been finalized. However, the working copy is available on the UNFCCC website:

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/awglca7/eng/inf02.pdf

While I don’t expect you all to read that entire nonsense, I figured it was important that you have access to the working document from the source. Otherwise, I would be accused of offering my opinion and little else. After all, I did say above that “I believe” global warming is a fraud. To point you in some of the right directions, the entire document is under revision, and parts of the topics I am going to discuss below are covered everywhere in the document. But some of the highlights are found in the following sections. Please keep in mind that these are early on and are amendments to the original document, which is 181 pages long:

The paragraph discussing developed nations accepting responsibility for their part in causing the problem and determining what percentage of the problem they are responsible for… Page 15, paragraph #29

The paragraph discussing the payment of carbon debts and the financing of technology and education in developing countries by those evil developed countries that caused the problem…. Page 16, paragraphs #32 and #33

The paragraphs discussing the creation of a government entity that will control the process, the financial aspects, the implementation, and enforcement…. Page 18, beginning with paragraph #38

You see, here is my issue with the entire thing (and this is besides the fact that I think man made climate change is bull and therefore makes all of this stuff illegal and irrelevant): The treaty being proposed takes away US sovereignty in a big way. It gives this new UN entity many controls over the United States that we should not be turning over to anyone. EVER. It redistributes American money to developing countries as a payment for the carbon debt. Think that part is made up? I am sure some will argue that it is, especially based on the section I gave above, which is confusing. So how about this section from page 122:

17. [[Developed [and developing] countries] [Developed and developing country Parties] [All Parties] [shall] [should]:]
(a) Compensate for damage to the LDCs’ economy and also compensate for lost opportunities, resources, lives, land and dignity, as many will become environmental refugees;
(b) Africa, in the context of environmental justice, should be equitably compensated for environmental, social and economic losses arising from the implementation of response measures.

In other words, we pay developing countries for the damage we have done to them, including loss of dignity! It says it right there in the damn treaty! This is “reparations” on a global scale. The unelected international government is to have authority to legislate how much and what kind of carbon-based activity Americans may engage in before they will be taxed on such activity (now we are getting taxed by the world, as if it isn’t bad enough here already). None of these taxes or penalties will be subject to presidential veto, congressional oversight, or review by the federal Judiciary.

Another link from the official Copenhagen Conference site is important here as it is an interview with Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. He explains that there are 4 key things that this conference must accomplish in December (he is backing off having the treaty done because it is delayed to possibly 2010, which I will discuss below). These are his four areas of focus and the link to the article:  The essentials in Copenhagen – COP15 United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009

1. How much are the industrialized countries willing to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases? The US has come up with a number they will offer in Copenhagen
2. How much are major developing countries such as China and India willing to do to limit the growth of their emissions? They gave their answer, I will cover it below.
3. How is the help needed by developing countries to engage in reducing their emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change going to be financed? The treaty intends to make the US pay for it.
4. How is that money going to be managed? I will guarantee the honest answer to that is poorly and corruptly.

Another part of that interview that I found relevant is that they are making sure that they can come up with a treaty that can pass muster in the US Senate. They knew Kyoto would never make it through the Senate and that was a big mistake in their eyes. Unfortunately, we have John Kerry on board with the madness coming out of Copenhagen, and he will be running point on the issue in the Senate.

Adding to this issue is the fact that China and India have recently determined their path forward, and it looks as though their answer is to tell the UNFCCC to stick it. President Obama’s new BFF, China, is not such a BFF. From the long link below: We “agreed to work toward a successful outcome in Copenhagen,” Obama said after his meeting last week with Chinese President Hu Jintao.” This is really weird, because there is also this in the news (from the American Thinker article below):

On October 22, an accord was signed by Xie Zhenhua, China’s vice minister at the National Development and Reform Commission, and Jairam Ramesh, India’s environment minister, in New Delhi. The memorandum provides an alternative framework to counter pressure from America and Europe to adopt mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions in a new UN treaty. The two Asian powers will collaborate on the development of renewable power projects and improved energy efficiency programs, while rejecting any outside mandates that would slow economic growth.

It seems that the two largest population countries in the world are not exactly on board with this whole climate treaty business. In fact, they have the testicular fortitude to do what our lame President (and the lame Presidents before him, although the hated GW ignored Kyoto as he should have done) doesn’t seem to have the guts to do. They are telling the rest of the world that they are taking care of number one first. If your climate change hoo ha gets in the way of our economic prosperity, we reserve the right to use it as toilet paper. So while China and India protect their sovereignty and ensure what is best economically for their people, the United States seems intent on giving US wealth away and making the country economically vulnerable during one of the more powerful recessions in our country’s history.

Does something not make sense here?

This is yet another massive issue that the people of the United States must rally against. The President, the Senate, and the rest of the bullshit artists in Washington DC need to be made aware that we see through the AGW bull and we are not going to sit idly by while our sovereignty and our economic well being are sacrificed by the Great Apologizer. How many Trillions of dollars do we have to throw at a problem that doesn’t exist and that even if it did, we couldn’t affect if we wanted to?

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/power_derives_from_lawful_auth.html (this is an excellent article assessing the Constitutionality of the President signing this treaty)

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/23/propose-emissions-reduction-target-copenhagen-month/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Fpolitics+%2528FOXNews.com+-+Politics%2529&utm_content=My+Yahoo

American Thinker: China-India Accord to Scuttle UN Climate Treaty

Reading the latest anthology of essays by Orhan Pamuk, Other Colours I found one in particular that triggered some thought:  Who do you write for?

He describes periods in history in which literary writers wrote for the nation. Then, towards the end of the 20th century literary novels gained the status of high art.

His conclusion is that today, the answer for the generalised question: for whom do writers write? is that they write for their ideal reader, their loved ones, themselves or no one. Concisely, they write for those who read them.

He argues that literary writers are writing less for their national majorities, who don’t read them, but for the small minority of literary readers that do.

Analogous to what happens in the literary space, and trying to disregard the lack of romanticism in the business world, executives should view their role in society in a similar way.

Share registries turnover with vivacious rapidity. An analysis of such listings might be worth less than the resources put into doing it.  

Then, directors and executives should always work with the ideal investor in mind. That marginal minority that, at any one moment, might own the companies which they manage and control.

Like writers and politicians, executives must attempt for the best, while remaining loyal to their ethical standards. They should strive to engage with the world in which they live and understand their own changing place in that world.

Just as the ideal reader and novelist do not exist, ideal politicians or executives don’t either.

However the ideal investor or citizen could exist, in Orham Pamuks’ words, “first by imagining him into being, then by working with him in mind.”

WWW

Introduction:

Let us imagine a city. Enough jobs have been created that the labor market is tight, wages are rising, and increased consumption fuels a thriving economy. Enormous amounts of affordable housing have been built, despite the unending flow of people into the city. Does this city work? Does it fulfill the hopes of the “new urbanists”?

Not necessarily. Because the city I have described is the New York of the Five Points, or Dickins’ London, or Detroit on June 20th 1943 or Los Angeles on August 11, 1965. Making the city work goes far beyond the concrete reality of real estate and employment – there are a vast number of services that have to work for a city to be livable.

And to understand why this is, we have to understand the political and social movement known as “municipal socialism.”

History:

One of many books that every progressive should read is Daniel Rodger’s Atlantic Crossings, a history of the early progressive movement as a trans-atlantic conversation between American and European reformers confronting corporate capitalism and its social consequences. One of the reasons why American reformers were driven to attempt a total reconstruction of economic life was that when they encountered the European city, they felt an unaccustomed feeling of inferiority at how advanced European civic reform had gone. Beginning in Britain in the 1840s, urban social reformers horrified at the unhealthy and dangerous state of water, sanitation, and public health had been forced to confront the reality of private waterworks, garbage collectors, ice companies, and hospitals who saw no profit in meeting the needs of the working classes. In the face of cholera and influenza, the industrial giants of Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Belfast, Liverpool, and London were forced to break the taboos of laissez-faire and provided public services to the masses.

American reformers returning from Europe came back with visions of public water companies and sewers in cities in which one in eight had access to running water, public gas and ice companies to deal with the depths of winter and the unbearable heat of the summer, public subways and streetcars to replace the anarchy of competing private firms who would rather cut off entire sections of the city than allow rivals access to a permanent market, and public housing to replace  the overstuffed and dilapidated tenements.

More importantly, they brought with them an understanding of the city as a “web of mutual dependency,” where daily survival relied upon farms and factories whose goods came to the city through the labor of sailors and longshoremen, railroad workers and teamsters and flowed through a massive network of retailers, shopkeepers, and salesmen to satisfy the needs of the people. Even in a capitalist system, the maintenance of this delicate machine was the charge of the city itself: public markets where consumers could be sure of fair dealing thanks to public inspectors and licenses; public roads, docks, train stations, and warehouses where goods could be moved and stored; and public fire, police, and public heath services to keep the public safe.

Through a series of grueling political battles that lasted from the 1880s through the 1930s and 40s, generations of progressive activists established the principle that we cannot allow the necessities of urban life to be left to the mercies of the market. It is hardly a coincidence that  we began de-regulating utilities and privatizing government in the 1970s at the same time that the cities began to decline – cities need public and regulated services to prosper.

Rebuilding Public Services:

If “new urbanism” is to actually make the city once more a functioning organism, one of the elements of constructing the “new urbanism” must be the re-publicization of services.

Electricity, Water, Climate Control, and Garbage Services:

These services have two things in common: first, they are very much necessities, and second, at the same time they are also public goods. Garbage services, for example, benefit both the individual (who gets a home that is clean and healthful) and the community (who are protected from the “great stench” that once characterized urban life, and the epidemic diseases that made it so precarious). Water is a human necessity for life, but it also benefits the community in that it allows people to cook and clean in their own homes, which aids in sanitation and public health. By the way, if the emphasis on cleanliness and disease strikes you as a bit odd, consider the ease by which epidemic diseases swept the great cities of the 19th century and then imagine the scale by which similar diseases would speed through cities that are ten times larger and where people can travel from country to county in a few hours.

Climate control is normally somewhat marginal in terms of human survival – except at the extremes. In the middle of winter, people do get sick and a smaller number die from extreme cold, especially the young and the infirm. Likewise, in major heatwaves, we also see that the elderly and infirm often succumb to heat stroke and similar conditions. Beyond the extremes, however, there is the issue of “livability.” Given how densely-developed cities function as “heat islands,” and similarly how canyonization can amplify the effects of high winds, having some kind of climate control is important for keeping urban residents happy in close quarters. There is a reason why major urban riots in the 20th century were most frequent in the summer – extreme temperatures can have a catalyzing effect on existing tensions.

In terms of making a city livable, the immediate purpose is to make these services both abundant and affordable – without sacrificing the long-term goal of making cities more sustainable when it comes to power, water, and waste disposal. Given the extremely mixed results of privatization of utilities, especially in regards to equitable distribution of goods and the impact this has on class inequalities in quality of life, one strategy that the “new urbanism” movement should support is the re-publicization of basic services, especially models that combine decentralized production (rooftop solar panels) with public “yardstick” utilities to create both competition with private corporations and outlets for new strategies in the sustainable production of services.

Mass Transit:

Mass transit is something of a given when it comes to municipal socialism – spatially, a city is essentially a network that allow people to move between different buildings and open spaces. Beyond just saying “mass transit is good,” there is a larger point that needs to be made: contrary to the conventional wisdom that “there’s no Republican or Democratic way to fill a pot hole,” there are different ways to make mass transportation work. Choosing between highways and subways, or between more car lanes or more bike lanes, or between systems that privilege ex-urban commuters over intra-urban commuters have both practical and ideological consequences.

In most American cities, there is a disparity between how we treat roads and how we treat public transit – roads are generally free to the user (with the obvious exception of tolls, but these are rather rare) but funded by the public via taxes or bonds, whereas public transit is viewed as a service that the user pays for at the point of use. If we are to make mass transit the hallmark of new urbanism, one mental change that has to happen is a rethinking of public transit as something that should be made cheap, if not free – because the city has a vested interest in making it more attractive than low-density methods of transportation. To that end, establishing free passes for the elderly and working poor families, as well as subsidized passes for regular commuters should be a standard part of the new urbanist toolbox, especially because such programs also act as a mechanism of wealth redistribution that can nurture a “bell-curve” city.

Free Higher Education, The Arts, and Wireless Broadband:

Here, we move from the realm of practical necessity to what once was called “the civilizing arts.” Free higher education is not a necessity – but it a public good that both ensures the social mobility necessary for preserving the “bell-curve” of a healthy democratic society and the robust economic development and the intellectual and cultural innovation that are the hallmarks of a great city, and its true justification as a social organization. Likewise, creating a vibrant artistic nexus where talented people can gather and collaborate both provides additional routes for upward mobility, and allows the city to develop its own voice and its own conscious identity. Wireless broadband is a newer entry onto this list, but the potential benefits of freeing up communication, business startups, and facilitating political mobilization are too strong not to include it.

Together, these items help to incubate the base elements for a true, Deweyian democracy, a city that can think, and debate, and act collectively. They’re not sufficient – you need political and social organization before you can really have a self-directing city – but they do create the raw material of experts, ideas, means of communication, and so on that the organizing process relies upon.

Conclusion:

The role of “municipal socialism” in creating the new, livable city ultimately comes down to the very origins of urban life. Civilization began in the cities, with the creation of an agricultural surplus that allowed for the seperation of a population from the all-consuming task of acquiring food. Civilization in this sense begins by transcending necessity.

To this end, the livable city must be one in which people spend as little time and resources on the basic necessities of life as possible, and thus can devote themselves to the progress of society.

Hello Friends here we come up with the Latest Agri Commodities updates from various parts of the country.

Rabi sowing picks up in State

Rabi sowing picks up in State:

The recent rain in several parts of Karnataka seem to be playing a key role in rabi sowing with farmers going in for large-scale coverage of jowar, Bengal gram and sunflower, particularly in the northern districts.

As sowing is in progress, data from the Agriculture Ministry shows that rabi crops were sown on 27.05 lakh hectares of land accounting for 73 per cent progress against the target of 37 lakh hectares as on November 18.

Sowing of maize, wheat, Bengal gram and sunflower continued in the northern districts while transplanting of paddy and sowing of black gram was in progress in parts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi.

Bengal gram has been sown on 8.78 lakh hectares of land against 7.67 lakh hectares during the corresponding period last year, while jowar, the major rabi crop, has been sown on 9.25 lakh hectares, wheat on 1.9 lalkh hectares, and sunflower on 2.90 lakh hectares.

Overall coverage of pulses such as Bengal gram, horse gram, black gram, green gram, cowpea and avare stood at 9.93 lakh hectares against the coverage of 8.99 lakh hectares last year.

However, the area under cereals — rice, jowar, ragi,maize, wheat, and minor millets — trails at 12.32 lakh hectares against 14.39 lakh hecatres during the corresponding period last year.

In Other major Commodities Updates we can see  FMC has recently instructed bourses to ensure compliance of the PMLA and Sugar production in India may exceed estimated figures.

Commodity bourses must follow PMLA norms : “FMC”

In order to step up the regulatory grip on commodity derivatives market, Forward Markets Commission (FMC) has recently instructed bourses to ensure compliance of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002 (PMLA) by their members.

“This is more of a pre-emptive step to prevent unscrupulous money coming into our (commodity futures) market,” BC Khatua, chairman, FMC, said.

Sugar output may beat estimates “Survey”:

Sugar production in India, the world’s second-largest grower, may be 11 percent more than estimated after farmers boosted planting and yields improved because of increased fertiliser use.

Output may jump to 17.68 million metric tonne in the season started Oct. 1, according to interviews with 631 farmers across six states by Geneva-based SGS SA for Bloomberg.

Note : For More Latest Industry, Stock Market and Economy News and Updates, please click here

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This evening I watched an extraordinary documentary titled A Crude Awakening (which can be found at Amazon here), and in the film three numbers jumped out at me:

• 25
• 5
• 2

And what do these numbers represent?

• 25 is the percentage of the world’s annual oil production that Americans consume
• 5 is the US percentage of the world’s population (actually, it’s even less than that; 1 out of every 22 people on Earth is a US citizen) 
• 2 is the estimated percentage of the world’s remaining oil reserves to be found beneath US soil.

Given the rapid rise of China and India in the global economy, it doesn’t take an economist or petroleum geologist to tell you that our country’s consumption of fossil fuels is completely unsustainable (even if global oil production was not peaking, which it clearly is). Here are those numbers again:

• 25% (US consumption of annual global oil production)
• 5% (US population as a percentage of total global population)
• 2% (US share of estimated global oil reserves)

Let those numbers sink in. Political and economic turmoil, cultural upheaval, wars, and rumors of wars are in those numbers. Here’s a segment from the A Crude Awakening  documentary:

The current crisis is taking its toll on EU labor markets, reversing most of the employment growth achieved since 2000. If we want EU to fully recover and get back on a growth train again, though, we must focus our employment policies on preparing for the transition to a low-carbon economy.

The invitation is included in the latest Employment in Europe Report just released by the European Union.

Men, young people, the low-skilled and workers on temporary contracts have borne the brunt of the employment contraction. Employment in the EU has shrunk by over 4 million jobs since the start of the crisis, although the effect has been somewhat mitigated thanks to the use of shorter working hours and other schemes. But these short term measures, however important, are not in themselves sufficient to ensure a successful exit from the crisis.

Vladimír Špidla, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities said: “This report shows how important it is to reconcile our short-term response to the crisis with our longer-term structural reforms. These reforms are essential for the EU economy and labour markets to emerge from the current downturn well prepared for future challenges, in particular the transition to a low-carbon economy.”

With this challenge in mind, the 21 st annual edition of the Employment in Europe report takes a deeper look at two key issues for future EU labour market policy: movements to, from and between jobs and the implications of climate change for the job market.

EU labour markets are more dynamic than often believed, but long-term unemployment remains a serious threat

European labour markets have shown considerable dynamism in recent years, as every year, around 22% of European workers change jobs. Such dynamism is not just limited to countries usually seen as ‘flexible’, such as the UK or Denmark, but concerns all EU countries, although the figures range from 14% of workers in Greece and 16% in Sweden to over 25% in the UK, Finland, Spain and Denmark. This appears to be part of a more sustained rise, since the late 1990s, in transitions from inactivity and unemployment towards employment in the EU, suggesting a fundamental structural improvement in our labour markets.

However, not all workers have benefited equally from this positive trend. Although the number of long-term unemployed has declined since the 1990s, this problem remains a serious challenge. In recent years, close to 45% of all unemployment spells lasted longer than a year in the EU, compared with only about 10% in the US. Tackling this issue has become even more urgent since the start of the crisis. Policies aimed at supporting workers’ transitions toward employment in line with the principles of flexicurity are key to lowering long-term unemployment and preserving employability.

Low-carbon policies will significantly change EU employment structures

The EU’s moves towards a competitive low-carbon economy will become important driving forces from a labour market perspective. Although the total net job creation effects may not be very large – as creation of new ‘green’ jobs and greening of existing jobs will partly be offset by loss of some existing jobs – the underlying structural changes will involve re-allocation of workers across economic sectors and skill types.

Climate change and related policy measures will therefore have an important impact on the future demand for skills. The new competencies required by the low-carbon economy will, at least initially, favour high-skilled workers. However, with market deployment of new technologies, lower-skilled workers should also be able to fill the new jobs – provided they receive adequate training. Hence, policy focus on skills – to ease transitions towards new jobs and to limit emergence of skills gaps and shortages – together with adequate social dialogue are the main ingredients needed to facilitate the shift to low-carbon economy.

RIL See Retail Sector as an Major Value Creator : Ambani

Reliance Industries has identified retail sector as an important component of its five-platform roadmap for value creation.

The other value creators include conventional and renewable energy space, innovation and rural transformation, RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani said.

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Reliance’s efforts would be on expanding the edifice created by Reliance Retail at the customer end and reinforcing supply chain and logistics,” the chairman said.

Ambani added that Reliance Retail would expand to new cities, markets and form strategic alliances.

This would be done through nearly 1,000 stores, while it has 900 stores across 86 cities.

The retail company has run up losses over Rs 450 crore in last fiscal.

Ambani said RIL would diversity its conventional energy space with new accumulations in three years.

RIL proposes to accelerate their campaign in the Krishna-Godavari basin,as per the chairman.

Meanwhile, the gas production levels have crossed six billion cubic metres and the D6 field is slated for plateau production by the second half of the year 2010.

Oil production from the D26 field has 2.8 million barrels with daily peak production expected by the end of the year.

With current cash balance of nearly Rs 19,420 crore, the company expects to be debt free in 21 months, Ambani said.

Even in difficult economic environment, RIL’s capital expenditure was Rs 24,713 crore ($4.9 billion).

However, the stock market was not enthused.

On the BSE, RIL stock saw a marginal drop of 0.65 per cent to close at Rs 2,133.75 per share.

“Whatever Mr Ambani has said is old. There is nothing to cheer investors.However, overall sentiment is positive.”

Jagannadham Thunuguntla, head, SMC Capital, and other market analysts feels so.

Insightful blog entry, “3 crystal clear cases why social entrepreneurship is an economic development tool“.

Have a listen to my March 2008 chat with Marie So and Carol Chyau, co-founders of Shokay (one of the 3 featured cases).

[via Austin]