Over at Ars, there’s an interview Ars had with Valve’s Director of Business Development, Jason Holtman. In case you are unaware, Valve is the game development company that has brought us Counter-Strike, the Half-Life series and Left 4 Dead. Valve is also the company behind the downloadable PC game store, Steam. In the article, Holtman discusses Valve’s success with Steam as a platform for digital distribution of games.

Steam and DRM

I have been using Steam since 2005. At first, I didn’t trust Steam very much. I think I was a little apprehensive about what would happen to the games that I buy if Steam should ever close it’s doors. Steam distributes the games it sells with a form of DRM – a non-obtrusive form of DRM mind you. Some games you buy require you to have a connection to the internet to play. Most do not and you can choose to take Steam “offline” if you want to play a game offline.

It has been my experience, so far, that you can download and install games as many times as you want. Some 3rd party games still come with Activation Limits or Install Limits. However, some of these games also come with programs that you can use to deactivate a game before uninstall, thereby saving you 1 activation.

While I have become more trustworthy of Steam, I can’t help but wonder what the hell will happen if/when Steam dies? I think this is a question that has been asked far too many times and that has not had a clear, precise answer. Will this DRM that Steam uses keep us from enjoying these games we purchase should they go the way of the Dodo?

Purchasing games on Steam within the European Union

There is a lot of [obvious] convenience when it comes to buying games on Steam. You don’t have to go to the store or order games from another online site that will deliver the physical medium to your door. Steam used to charge in US dollars but changed that well over a year or so ago. Since I live in Finland, I have to purchase each game in euros. Fair enough, but the problem is that Steam seems to be charging the same number amount in both euros and US dollars. For example, Steam is currently having a 5-day sale. A couple of days ago, they were selling Left 4 Dead 2 for 25% off. The price in euros was 37,49€. I checked with some Steam users in the States and the price was exactly the same in dollars, $37.49!

Now, $37.49 does not equal 37,49€;  it equals 25€ and 37,49€ equals $56. Now, I can understand and expect some price increase if this were a physical medium I was buying the game in, such as a DVD or a CD. Since you have to import the game into the country and we are talking supplies, shipping costs and import taxes. However, this is not the case. What about VAT (Value Added Tax) you say? Here is the price for a game that costs $37.49 with Finland’s VAT of 22% :

• Game in US dollars: $37.49 + $8.25 VAT = $45.74 or 30,55€
• Game in euros: 25€ + 5,5 VAT = 30,50€ or $45.65

So, I have to ask what the heck is going on here? Why is Steam price gouging it’s euro-using customers in Europe?

Steam isn’t the only company engaging in price gouging here in Finland. Finns have been complaining about this since the introduction of the euro. Products and services apparently used to cost way less under the old Finnish mark. My concern here is that some foreign and Finnish companies importing, physically or digitally, products into Finland are keeping their prices at the same number as they are in the States. Counting on the ignorance of Finns who do not understand what is going on here, either because of language issues or they genuinely do not understand. Meanwhile, hoping that the Finnish government will keep ignoring the will of the people as they have been doing in recent years.

I’ll end this by asking asking one more question, where the hell is Half-Life 2: Episode 3???

According to CharlieRose.com, the global financial crisis ended on March 10, 2009.

Prior to the week of November 22-28, 2009, the site had the “Financial Crisis” collection on its front page, with the last episode in the series on March 10, 2009.

Quite an interesting coincidence that the last episode from that collection was on the exact day that the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached its lowest level since the full crisis hit in September, 2008, at 6547.01.

What’s happened since then?

THEN: The official unemployment rate stood at 8.1%.
NOW: 10.2%.

THEN: The U.S. dollar was worth 84 on the USDX.
NOW: 75, a 10.7% decline.

THEN: Gold traded at a New York Mercantile Exchange closing price of $896.10 USD.
NOW: Gold traded at an all-time high of $1195.80 USD on Friday, November 27, an increase of 33%.

THEN: The federal budget deficit for 2008 was $438 billion.
NOW: $1.4 trillion.

Huffington Post – Will the Senate vote another term for Ben Bernanke as head of the Federal Reserve? Should it?

Two months ago, Bernanke looked like a lock. But now unemployment is over 10% and rising, while Wall Street bankers are stocking up on vintage champagne, ready to celebrate the highest bonuses in history. As head of the Fed, Bernanke committed trillions to bail out the banks while Main Street got left behind. Should the Senate vote to reward him with another term?

Many in the financial press consider Bernanke a hero in the piece. (See for example, the laudatory book by Wall Street Journal’s David Wessel, In Fed We Trust). He’s the button-down academic, calm in the midst of the tempests, who — once he (belatedly) figured out that the financial system was headed over the cliff — worked creatively, ceaselessly, making it up as he went along, doing “whatever it takes” to save the day. Denying him another term would seem a good case of no good deed goes unpunished. Moreover, with the dollar already shaky, Bernanke is one of the few financial stewards that global investors might trust to sell off the billions in junk that the Fed put on its balance sheet without once more throwing the economy over the cliff. If his nomination is questioned, financial barons from London to Shanghai will start rending their garments, and issuing jeremiads about impending doom.

But take another look. In the lead up to the financial crisis, Bernanke was Sancho Panza to Greenspan’s Quixote, gleefully touting banking deregulation while blind to the dangers of an $8 trillion dollar housing bubble. He celebrated an economy where incomes of most Americans were declining, household debt was soaring, and inequality reached Gilded Age extremes. Once named Fed Chair, he chose not to exercise the regulatory powers he had to curb predatory lending, police the Wall Street casino, or crack down on the derivatives that Warren Buffett among others warned were financial weapons of mass destruction. Instead he scorned the worriers, and predicted steady growth — even after the recession began.

When the bubble began to burst, Bernanke was late to recognize it, consistently underestimated its impact, and failed repeatedly to get ahead of the crisis.

It was only when he finally woke up to the spreading panic that Bernanke threw literally trillions into bailing out the banks — but without restructuring them, without replacing many of the folks that caused the mess, without requiring that they lend to Main Street or renegotiate mortgages. Bernanke and Treasury Secretaries Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner were the creative architects of a bailout that has resulted in a far more concentrated financial sector, with major financial houses enjoying an explicit guarantee that they are too big to fail, even as they reopen the casino, start up the same games again, and mobilize to fend off any serious regulatory reform.

The Federal Reserve is charged with pursuing price stability and maximum employment. Now we’re experiencing the highest levels of unemployment in over a quarter century, and the dollar is in decline. Foreclosures continue, and one in four mortgage holders owe more than they own. Bernanke and Geithner et al may have staved off a Depression, but we sure aren’t ending up where anyone would want to be.

More

G.M.I.C? I get into detail on that a bit later, but first I need to cover a couple of some key points.

Since late last year when the Global financial crisis hits which brings huge shock waves to the world’s financial system.That was just the beginning, as I dig in and gather facts and figures bit by bit further till I reach a point that its going to be bad as how I’ve see its unfolding.

I did mention by a couple of months or weeks ago that the rise in the stock market indexes and real estate price rises are not the leading indicators of economic activity.

These two are more prone to inflation where both government intervention and corporate spending goes like pump drugs into the system which is sick of debt and overload with money from other people’s savings or they print money out of thin air while currencies losing value particularly in the US.

You have already seen the Dubai World debt crisis where that state owned company owns $66 Billion, while all of the major stock markets around the world reacted in a bit of a panic for two reasons.

First, they sold off shares in fear of their share holdings are exposed to the Dubai World debt worries. Second, they are fearing for the possibility of the return the financial crisis back during late 2008. In Max Keiser’s view he thinks this is a second of the financial crisis that will lends the world into a depression.

To me, I think that is real possibility here, where as a lot of business and individuals in the next couple of months or two years will file for bankruptcy due to heavy leveraging such De leveraging is still continuing for a long period of time. These are the  signs that I’m looking out for the depression.

If you ever wondering what do mean by G.M.I.C?

It means Global Monetary Inflationary Crisis. I tell you why:

Globe: The most of the world’s economies will be hit hard the with the deepest depression that they have never seen before since the great depression due to the huge expansion of credit, money supply, bad government and monetary polices that lead us into this mess.

Monetary: The money supply will going to be tight and the value of currencies will face a huge correction, it means the value of currencies will fall or raise against each other depending on how well its economies are performing.

Inflationary: The rise of inflation will more prominent than ever before, due to the large supply of excess money being printed by the polices to support the US dollar from losing value and to stimulate the most of the world’s economies.

Crisis: There will be social problems, political tensions, trade pacts broken, trade protectionism, nationalistic leaders emerging, tighter immigration policies, civil unrest, failed countries and economies collapses.

Moving on from economics to Art!

Art is capturing the human spirit as the trends research forecaster points out that the US needs a rebirth, a Renaissance (a new Renaissance as I like to called it) just like Art brought Europe into the Renaissance from the black plague. Arts and entertainment will thrive on to lift up peoples spirits and let the good times goes on.

If you brave enough to read more about the Trends Research Institute top trends for this year, go to this link:

http://www.trendsresearch.com/journal.html

Thats all from me for this weekend and have a great weekend everybody.

Cheers

Khoa Huynh.

If recent history has taught us anything (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, Malaysia etc.), it is that events like the recent technical default of Dubai World (owned by Nakheel) are not things that go away quickly and without widespread pain. Aside from the high-level macroeconomic effects involving the foreign exchange markets and capital outflows, there is a huge technical implication here (not to mention the damage this could do to other middle eastern and emerging markets economies and the associated moral hazard implications).

An extremely disproportionate amount of the market is short the dollar and an event like this could be exactly the kind of thing that would break down the trade and have huge implications on the equity markets, especially in the US. The S&P 500 has been extremely correlated to the movement of the US Dollar of late and a rise in the Dollar would very likely cause a drop in the market. There is also a possibility that the increased strain on budgets in the United Arab Emirates could put pressure on the price of oil as they consider increasing output for additional revenue.

A very big thing to watch will be the market’s reaction and perception to this news over the next couple of weeks as volume comes back in following the Thanksgiving holiday. It will also be very interesting to see how money managers will be reallocating to reposition themselves for 2010. Will the chase for performance continue or turn into a race for the exits?

- Michael J. Burns

Disclosure: Long EEM, ILF, IVV, GXC, COP, CVX, several foreign stocks and foreign oriented mutual funds

The ‘Fall of the Republic’, Obama’s unkept promises and lies, the economic crisis as part of a bigger new world order strategy, the swine flu hoax, the fraud behind the Federal Reserve – Alex Jones talks about all this in an exclusive interview with RT’s Anastasia Churkina.

Today, the day after Thanksgiving, is commonly called Black Friday in the retail industry as this is the day where they expect to begin to show a profit (moving from the red to the black).

I’ve quite understood this mentality as one should expect to be able to show a profit throughout the year, not just during a holiday season. Personally, I believe the concept of Black Friday is one made up by inept executives to explain away their losses.

Who wants to wait until the end of the year before expecting a profit. That just seems to be asking for losses.

While that was a totally an aside and away from the real economic topics of day, it seems worth noting.

Gold on Thanksgiving reached new highs of close to $1195/ounce on foreign markets, only to undergo a sharp decline this morning, along with all precious metals and commodities and I expect the stock market to drop also once it opens. The decline, however, has nothing to do with gold, silver, commodities or stocks themselves, but rather it was reported in London that in the country of Dubai the state backed company Dubai World may be getting ready to default on $59B in debt.

This sent a “stampede to the US Dollar” sending it up and correspondingly sent metals and commodities down.

Gold Not Yet Considered Money

What does this tell us?

I probably have a different view of this than many people who write about these things. The common agreed up move in financial crisis’ is to move to the US Dollar and out of commodities, metals and foreign currencies. The reason for this is that the US Dollar is the International Reserve Currency and having dollars enables one to trade with other countries.

However, the underlying global economic situation has not changed one bit with the above announcement. Countries are still inflating their currencies, including the US. Gold still cannot be created out of thin air like fiat currencies can. The US Dollar’s increase in value this morning has caused over selling in other forms of currency, metals and commodities. Unfortunately for the US Dollar there is nothing of substance to warrant an increase in value.

What this also tells us is that Gold has not yet returned to being considered money. The operative word there is yet. The more Gold becomes considered Money the less it should act as a commodity. It will be some time before that takes place, if it takes place at all.

What I see happening is that this increase in the value of the dollar will be fleeting and momentary and Gold and other metals and commodities will rebound next week, if not later today.

Today just might be a good day to buy into foreign markets and metals while the US Dollar is at this momentary increase in value. Further flocking to the dollar could occur if Dubai were to actually default or for another large debt come under suspicion.

Gold Demand

I’ve read in a few places where gold demand has been down this year. I find this hard to believe. What I do believe is that the demand of jewelery has declined due to the increase in price for gold. However, if there were not either an increase in the demand for gold or a reduction in the supply of gold or some combination of these, then why has gold prices risen consistently this year.

The US Mint announced today that they are no longer going to produce gold or silver eagles because they can’t buy enough of the gold or silver. http://www.contracostatimes.com/business/ci_13869651?nclick_check=1 Notice that the mint isn’t saying they are stopping production due to a lack of demand.

A lack of supply of a commodity like gold is a form of demand. For example, if I don’t want to sell something I have and neither do most people who purchased that something, this reduces the supply of that something. But this is really demand as the reason the supply is low is because I want to keep this something and have a personal demand for it.

When the demand for jewelery, considered a luxury item by most, dropped due to the economic decline the price of metals dropped. This was the perfect time to buy the metals and people who bought those metals at that time, like myself, aren’t selling if they purchased the metals for future economic stability.

Dubai's Man-made Island "Sculpture"

UPDATE HERE: DUBAI AS COMMERCIAL RE CANARY IN THE COAL MINE

Dubai’s sovereign debt is the disaster du jour, Europe already took a 3% hit yesterday while we were ODing on tryptophan and cranberry relish.  We’re looking at a down 200+ open on the Dow as of this post (8am).

I’m still getting acquainted with the story, so I’ll post some headlines from the media below and comment later on today:

From Bloomberg:

Dubai World, the government investment company burdened by $59 billion of liabilities, sought this week to delay repayment on much of its debt.  Stocks fell around the world for a second day, commodities dropped the most since July, Treasuries rose and credit default swaps surged as Dubai’s attempt to delay debt repayments unnerved investors.

European banks like HSBC are most exposed, from the Wall Street Journal:

U.K. banks look the most exposed to Dubai debt worries says Credit Sights, and HSBC and Standard Chartered are estimated to hold half the U.K. total.  “Both HSBC and Standard Chartered had previously expressed concerns about weakness in United Arab Emirate economies and property markets, and both reported higher loan loss impairments in the region in 1H ‘09.”

The most interesting twist I’m seeing thus far is that investors are reacting by fleeing gold and reaching for US Dollars.  Bet ya didn’t see that one coming!  From Reuters:

Gold prices tumbled nearly 5 percent to a one-week low below $1,140 an ounce on Friday as investors fearing debt default in Dubai sought safety in dollars and cash.  “It’s mainly driven by this news out of Dubai (which) has had a large impact on risk appetite and resulted in a sharply stronger dollar,” said Daniel Major, a metals analyst at RBS Global Banking & Markets.

Never a dull moment.  Tune in later for more on the Dubai story as I get my arms around it.

Sources:

Commodities Drop, Emerging Markets Fall  (Bloomberg)

UK Banks Look Most Exposed  (WSJ)

Gold Tumbls as Dubai Triggers Stampede to Dollars  (Reuters)

The Dollar Bubble is a new documentary starring Peter Schiff, Ron Paul, Marc Faber, Gerald Celente, Jim Rogers, and others. Prepare now for the U.S. dollar collapse.

AFP – The dollar slumped to a 14-year low point against the yen on Thursday, prompting fears that a further surge could hurt a fragile recovery in Japan, the world’s second largest economy. Gold scored yet another record high, breaching 1,195 dollars an ounce as the US currency waned. During Asian trading, the dollar slid to 86.28 yen, the lowest level since July 1995.

In later European deals, the dollar stood at 86.64 yen compared with 87.38 yen late on Wednesday in New York. The euro fell to 1.5085 dollars from 1.5127 dollars late Wednesday.

Responding to the yen’s surge, Japan’s Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said his government must take measures to avoid a double-dip recession.

“We must take measures so that the economy will not fall into a double-dip” recession, said Hatoyama, without specifying what measures his government may take to boost the world’s second largest economy.

The premier stressed that “rapid and drastic movements in foreign exchange are not desirable” but added that the day’s fluctuations were due mainly to the fall of the dollar rather than a rise of the yen.

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gepostet in “diePresse.com”                      am 03.09.2009, 18:08

ATX: Beginnt jetzt der September-Crash ?

(PraisethLord)

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