Thursday, July 28, 2011
Jesus’ apostle’s tomb unearthed in Turkey
An Italian professor has announced the apparent discovery of the tomb of St. Philip, one of Jesus Christ’s apostles, at the ancient city of Hierapolis in the Aegean province of Denizli.
The discovery of the grave of the biblical saint, who was killed by the Romans 2,000 years ago, will attract immense attention around the world, said Francesco D’Andria. St. Philip, one of the 12 apostles, came to Hierapolis 2,000 years ago to spread the Christianity before being killed by the Romans, the professor said.
D’Andria has been leading archeological excavations at the ancient city for 32 years.
“Until recently, we thought the grave of St. Philip was on Martyrs’ Hill, but we discovered no traces of him in the geophysical research conducted in that area. A month ago, we discovered the remnants of an unknown church, 40 meters away from the St. Philip Church on Martyrs’ Hill. And in that church we discovered the grave of St. Philip,” said D’Andria.
D’Andria and his team have not opened the grave but are planning to do so soon.
“St. Philip is considered a martyr. In fact, the church built in his name on the Martyrs’ Hill is, for this reason, also called Martyrion, despite the fact there were no traces of the grave of St. Philip. As we were cleaning out the new church we discovered a month ago, we finally found the grave. With close examination, we determined that the grave had been moved from its previous location in the St. Philip Church to this new church in the fifth century, during the Byzantine era. We are extremely happy and proud to have discovered the grave of a saint whose name appears in the bible – this surely is an important discovery for religious tourism, archaeology and Christendom,” the professor said.
Daily News
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A surprise meteor shower spotted in February was likely caused by cosmic "bread crumbs" dropped by an undiscovered comet that could potentially pose a threat to Earth, astronomers announced today (July 27).
The tiny meteoroids that streaked through Earth's atmosphere for a few hours on Feb. 4 represent a previously unknown meteor shower, researchers said. The "shooting stars" arrived from the direction of the star Eta Draconis, so the shower is called the February Eta Draconids, or FEDs for short.
The bits of debris appear to have been shed by a long-period comet. Long-period comets whiz by the sun very infrequently, so it's tough to predict when they last cruised through our neck of the woods — and when they'll come back, researchers said.
That uncertainty is cause for some concern in this case, they added. [Close Encounters of the Comet Kind]
"If the meteoroids can hit us, so can the comet," said FEDs discoverer Peter Jenniskens, of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute and NASA's Ames Research Center. "We don’t know whether the comet has already passed us by or is still on approach."
Still, Jenniskens stressed that the chances of such a collision are extremely remote.
Scanning the night sky
Jenniskens heads the Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance (CAMS) project, which has been monitoring the San Francisco Bay Area's night skies with low-light video cameras in an effort to map meteor showers.
CAMS cameras picked up the FEDs, bringing the tally of officially recognized meteor showers to 64.
The comet that produced the meteor shower is unknown. It may have last zipped by the sun just a few hundred years ago, or many thousands, researchers said. But it apparently came relatively close to Earth on its last trip through the inner solar system. [Comet Dive-Bombs Sun During Big Solar Eruption]
At that time, the comet released a cloud of dust, which is now making its own way around the sun.
"Earth gets hosed typically only once or twice every 60 years by such streams," Jenniskens said. "The stream of dust is always there, but quite invisible just outside of Earth’s orbit. Only when the planets steer the dust in Earth’s path do we get to know it is there."
Learning more about the comet
Jenniskens teamed up with a colleague, Finnish astronomer Esko Lyytinen, to investigate when the FEDs might have another encounter with Earth. Lyytinen calculated a possible return in 2016 or 2023, and after that not again until 2076, researchers said.
Whenever the FEDs show up again, astronomers will study them closely. Future observations of the shower may reveal key information about its parent comet — including whether or not it poses a real danger of ever slamming into Earth.
However, it can be tough to gauge a comet's path based on how its sloughed-off pieces are moving around the solar system.
"The bits from the comet are not subjected to the same forces that the comet is," said Bill Cooke, head of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
Dusty comet debris is affected primarily by things like radiation pressure and gravity, explained Cooke, who was not part of the FEDs discovery team. But comets' orbits are more of a wild card, since the icy wanderers tend to spawn gaseous jets as they approach the sun and begin heating up. These jets can have a big impact on comet trajectories.
"That's why tracking a comet can be quite a tricky business," Cooke told SPACE.com.
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Dollar Falls to Record Against Australian, N.Z. Currencies on Debt Impasse
The dollar slumped to record lows against the Australian and New Zealand currencies as President Barack Obama and lawmakers struggled to end an impasse over raising the U.S. debt limit and preventing a default.
The euro fell against the yen and retreated from a three-week high versus the dollar as Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said his country opposes a “blank check” for the euro-area rescue fund to purchase bonds on the secondary market. The dollar touched a four-month low against the yen and approached a three-year low versus the Canadian dollar.
“The foreign-exchange market is acting like this is the only thing going on in the world,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director in London at Forex.com, a unit of the online currency trading company Gain Capital Holdings Inc., referring to the U.S. debt impasse.
The dollar slipped 0.1 percent to 77.81 yen at 7:11 a.m. in New York, from 77.88 yesterday, after touching 77.57, the lowest level since March 17. The euro dropped 0.3 percent to $1.4472, from $1.4511, after touching $1.4536, the highest since July 5. The euro slid 0.4 percent to 112.59 yen, from 113.01.
The U.S. currency sank to a record 87.66 cents per New Zealand dollar before trading at 87.47 cents, down 0.5 percent. The greenback dropped to a record $1.1081 against the Australian currency before trading at $1.1047.
Bloomberg
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Missile shield will spark nuclear arms race: North Korea
(Reuters) - If U.S. plans to deploy a missile shield to protect Europe against a possible attack by Iran are realized, it will spark a new nuclear arms race, North Korea's U.N. ambassador said Wednesday.
The U.S. plan, which is being developed in consultation with NATO, calls for the gradual deployment of interceptor missiles, based on land and sea, by 2020.
"The MDS (missile defense system) being pushed under the pretext of responding to so-called ballistic missile developments by what they call 'rogue states' is far from carrying logic," North Korea's U.N. Ambassador Sin Son-ho told a U.N. General Assembly meeting on disarmament.
Sin said that the real purpose of the missile shield is "none other than the gaining of absolute superiority and global hegemony over the other nuclear power rivals."
"This dangerous move will eventually spark a new nuclear arms race," he said.
Sin's remarks come as North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan arrived in New York, where he is expected to meet Washington's envoy for Korean peninsula affairs, Stephen Bosworth.
North Korea withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the global anti-nuclear weapons pact, in 2003 and tested nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009. This prompted the U.N. Security Council to impose two rounds of sanctions on Pyongyang to pressure it to end its missile and nuclear programs.
Last month the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security bloc that includes Russia, China and four former Soviet Central Asian states, signed a declaration condemning any unilateral build-up of missile defenses.
The previous U.S. administration had planned to deploy interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic, but the government of President Barack Obama scrapped that idea. The Obama administration's current missile-shield plan is a scaled-back version of the previous one.
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Trojan asteroid tags along on Earth's orbit
We are able to see what's outside the galaxy but Upss!!! we have not seen what is attach to the earth.....Are you going to believe that?
Turns out the moon's not the Earth's only traveling companion. Space scientists have discovered an asteroid that's been following our fair planet for thousands of years, at least — and there may be many more where it came from, according to a recent study.
If other so-called Trojan asteroids are found, they could turn out to be ideal candidates for a visit from astronauts, something NASA hopes will be possible within the next 15 years.
Most of the asteroids in the solar system populate the belt of rocky debris between Mars and Jupiter. But planets can pull asteroids into their orbits, too. More than 4,000 Trojan asteroids have been discovered around the gas giant Jupiter, along with a few around Neptune and Mars.
But no such asteroid had ever been found near Earth. That led some scientists to believe that our planet lacked an entourage.
But others proposed a different explanation: Perhaps there were Trojan asteroids in Earth's orbit around the sun, but they were simply hidden from view.
The problem was this: In order for an asteroid to attain a stable position in a planet's orbit, it must find the spot where the gravitational pull of the planet and that of the sun cancel each other out. Two of these spots, called Lagrangian points, lie along a planet's orbit — one ahead of the planet and one behind it. Drawing straight lines between the Earth, the sun and a Lagrangian point produces a triangle whose sides are equal in length. An asteroid there would hover in the sky at a 60-degree angle from the sun.
Any object that close to the sun would be difficult to see from Earth because it would be overhead mostly during broad daylight, as invisible as the stars.
But Martin Connors, a space scientist at Athabasca University in Alberta, Canada, had an idea. Maybe NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, which aims its lens 90 degrees away from the sun, would be able to pick up an oddball Trojan with an eccentric orbit.
Indeed it did. Connors found one candidate whose strange path over six days in late 2010 seemed to match the unevenly elongated orbit typical of Trojans. His team confirmed the Trojan's identity by spotting it a few months later with another telescope in Hawaii.
"This is pretty cool," said Amy Mainzer, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who wasn't involved in the study, which was published online Wednesday by the journal Nature. "It's a new class of near-Earth object that's been hypothesized to exist."
And if more Trojan asteroids can be found, researchers said, they could be ideal for astronaut visits and the mining of precious resources. (This particular asteroid is too tilted with respect to the solar system to make a good candidate, Mainzer said.)
If other so-called Trojan asteroids are found, they could turn out to be ideal candidates for a visit from astronauts, something NASA hopes will be possible within the next 15 years.
Most of the asteroids in the solar system populate the belt of rocky debris between Mars and Jupiter. But planets can pull asteroids into their orbits, too. More than 4,000 Trojan asteroids have been discovered around the gas giant Jupiter, along with a few around Neptune and Mars.
But no such asteroid had ever been found near Earth. That led some scientists to believe that our planet lacked an entourage.
But others proposed a different explanation: Perhaps there were Trojan asteroids in Earth's orbit around the sun, but they were simply hidden from view.
The problem was this: In order for an asteroid to attain a stable position in a planet's orbit, it must find the spot where the gravitational pull of the planet and that of the sun cancel each other out. Two of these spots, called Lagrangian points, lie along a planet's orbit — one ahead of the planet and one behind it. Drawing straight lines between the Earth, the sun and a Lagrangian point produces a triangle whose sides are equal in length. An asteroid there would hover in the sky at a 60-degree angle from the sun.
Any object that close to the sun would be difficult to see from Earth because it would be overhead mostly during broad daylight, as invisible as the stars.
But Martin Connors, a space scientist at Athabasca University in Alberta, Canada, had an idea. Maybe NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, which aims its lens 90 degrees away from the sun, would be able to pick up an oddball Trojan with an eccentric orbit.
Indeed it did. Connors found one candidate whose strange path over six days in late 2010 seemed to match the unevenly elongated orbit typical of Trojans. His team confirmed the Trojan's identity by spotting it a few months later with another telescope in Hawaii.
"This is pretty cool," said Amy Mainzer, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who wasn't involved in the study, which was published online Wednesday by the journal Nature. "It's a new class of near-Earth object that's been hypothesized to exist."
And if more Trojan asteroids can be found, researchers said, they could be ideal for astronaut visits and the mining of precious resources. (This particular asteroid is too tilted with respect to the solar system to make a good candidate, Mainzer said.)
Stuffed into a forgotten closet in the sky, such relics could also give scientists a fresh glimpse into the early formation of the solar system.
Los Angeles Times
A Short History of US Credit Defaults
By: John S. Chamberlain
On July 13th, the President of the United States angrily walked out of ongoing negotiations over the raising of the debt ceiling from its legislated maximum of $14.294 trillion dollars. This prompted a new round of speculation over whether the United States might default on its financial obligations. In these circumstances, it is useful to recall the previous instances in which this has occurred and the effects of those defaults. By studying the defaults of the past, we can gain insights into what future defaults might portend.
The Continental Currency Default of 1779
The first default of the United States was on its first issuance of debt: the currency emitted by the Continental Congress of 1775. In June of 1775, the Continental Congress of the United States of America, located in Philadelphia, representing the 13 states of the union, issued bills of credit amounting to 2 million Spanish milled dollars to be paid four years hence in four annual installments. The next month an additional 1 million was issued. A third issue of 3 million followed. The next year, they issued an additional 13 million dollars of notes. These were the first of the "Continental dollars," which were used to fund the war of revolution against Great Britain. The issues continued until an estimated 241 million dollars were outstanding, not including British forgeries.
Congress had no power of taxation, so it made each of the several states responsible for redeeming a proportion of the notes according to population. The administration of these notes was delegated to a "Board of the Treasury" in 1776. To refuse the notes or receive them below par was punishable by having your ears cut off and other horrible penalties.
The notes progressively depreciated as the public began to realize that neither the states nor their Congress had the will or capacity to redeem them. In November of 1779, Congress announced a devaluation of 38.5 to 1 on the Continentals, which amounted to an admission of default. In this year, refusal to accept the notes became widespread, and trade was reduced to barter, causing sporadic famines and other privations.
Eventually, Congress agreed to redeem the notes at 1,000 to 1. At a rate of 0.82 troy ounces to the Spanish milled dollar and $36 (2011) dollars to the troy ounce of silver, this first default resulted in a cumulative loss of approximately $7 billion dollars to the American public.
Benjamin Franklin characterized the loss as a tax. Memory of the suffering and economic disruption caused by this "tax" and similar bills of credit issued by the states influenced the contract clause of the Constitution, which was adopted in 1789:
No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts.
The first default of the United States was on its first issuance of debt: the currency emitted by the Continental Congress of 1775. In June of 1775, the Continental Congress of the United States of America, located in Philadelphia, representing the 13 states of the union, issued bills of credit amounting to 2 million Spanish milled dollars to be paid four years hence in four annual installments. The next month an additional 1 million was issued. A third issue of 3 million followed. The next year, they issued an additional 13 million dollars of notes. These were the first of the "Continental dollars," which were used to fund the war of revolution against Great Britain. The issues continued until an estimated 241 million dollars were outstanding, not including British forgeries.
Congress had no power of taxation, so it made each of the several states responsible for redeeming a proportion of the notes according to population. The administration of these notes was delegated to a "Board of the Treasury" in 1776. To refuse the notes or receive them below par was punishable by having your ears cut off and other horrible penalties.
The notes progressively depreciated as the public began to realize that neither the states nor their Congress had the will or capacity to redeem them. In November of 1779, Congress announced a devaluation of 38.5 to 1 on the Continentals, which amounted to an admission of default. In this year, refusal to accept the notes became widespread, and trade was reduced to barter, causing sporadic famines and other privations.
Eventually, Congress agreed to redeem the notes at 1,000 to 1. At a rate of 0.82 troy ounces to the Spanish milled dollar and $36 (2011) dollars to the troy ounce of silver, this first default resulted in a cumulative loss of approximately $7 billion dollars to the American public.
Benjamin Franklin characterized the loss as a tax. Memory of the suffering and economic disruption caused by this "tax" and similar bills of credit issued by the states influenced the contract clause of the Constitution, which was adopted in 1789:
No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts.
The Default on Continental Domestic Loans
In addition to its currency issuance, the Continental Congress borrowed money both domestically and abroad. The domestic debt totaled approximately $11 million Spanish dollars. The interest on this debt was paid primarily by money received from France and Holland as part of separate borrowings. When this source of funding dried up, Congress defaulted on its domestic debt starting on March 1, 1782. Partial satisfaction of these debts was made later by accepting the notes for payments of taxes and other indirect considerations. By the Funding Act of 1790, Congress repudiated these loans entirely, but offered to convert them to new ones with less favorable terms, thereby memorializing the default in the form of a federal law.
In addition to its currency issuance, the Continental Congress borrowed money both domestically and abroad. The domestic debt totaled approximately $11 million Spanish dollars. The interest on this debt was paid primarily by money received from France and Holland as part of separate borrowings. When this source of funding dried up, Congress defaulted on its domestic debt starting on March 1, 1782. Partial satisfaction of these debts was made later by accepting the notes for payments of taxes and other indirect considerations. By the Funding Act of 1790, Congress repudiated these loans entirely, but offered to convert them to new ones with less favorable terms, thereby memorializing the default in the form of a federal law.
The Greenback Default of 1862
After the Revolutionary War, the Congress of the United States made only limited issuance of debt and currency, leaving the problems of public finance largely to the states and private banks. (These entities defaulted on a regular basis up to the Panic of 1837, in which a crescendo of state defaults led to the invention of the term "repudiation of debts.") In August of 1861, this balance between local and federal finance switched forever when the Civil War induced Congress to create a new currency which became known as the "greenback" due to the green color of its ink. The original greenbacks were $60 million in demand notes in denominations of $5, $10, and $20 which were redeemable in specie at any time at a rate of 0.048375 troy ounces of gold per dollar. Less than five months later, in January of 1862, the US Treasury defaulted on these notes by failing to redeem them on demand.
After this failure, the Treasury made subsequent issues of greenbacks as "legal-tender" notes which were not redeemable on demand, except through foreign exchange, and could not be used to pay customs duties. Depending on the fortunes of war, these notes traded at a discount ranging from 20 percent to 40 percent. By the stratagem of monetizing this currency with bonds and paying only the interest on those bonds in gold acquired through customs fees, Lincoln's party financed the Civil War with no further defaults.
After the Revolutionary War, the Congress of the United States made only limited issuance of debt and currency, leaving the problems of public finance largely to the states and private banks. (These entities defaulted on a regular basis up to the Panic of 1837, in which a crescendo of state defaults led to the invention of the term "repudiation of debts.") In August of 1861, this balance between local and federal finance switched forever when the Civil War induced Congress to create a new currency which became known as the "greenback" due to the green color of its ink. The original greenbacks were $60 million in demand notes in denominations of $5, $10, and $20 which were redeemable in specie at any time at a rate of 0.048375 troy ounces of gold per dollar. Less than five months later, in January of 1862, the US Treasury defaulted on these notes by failing to redeem them on demand.
After this failure, the Treasury made subsequent issues of greenbacks as "legal-tender" notes which were not redeemable on demand, except through foreign exchange, and could not be used to pay customs duties. Depending on the fortunes of war, these notes traded at a discount ranging from 20 percent to 40 percent. By the stratagem of monetizing this currency with bonds and paying only the interest on those bonds in gold acquired through customs fees, Lincoln's party financed the Civil War with no further defaults.
The Liberty Bond Default of 1934
The financing of the United States government stepped up to a whole new level upon its entry into the Great War, now known as "World War I." The new enterprises of the government included merchant-fleet maintenance and operation, production of ammunition, feeding and equipping soldiers entirely at its own expense, and many other expensive things it had never done before or done only on a much smaller scale.
To finance these activities, Congress issued a series of debentures known as "Liberty Bonds" starting in 1917. The preliminary series were convertible into issues of later series at progressively more favorable terms until the debt was rolled into the fourth Liberty Bond, dated October 24, 1918, which was a $7 billion dollar, 20-year, 4.25 percent issue, payable in gold at a rate of $20.67 per troy ounce.
By the time Franklin Roosevelt entered office in 1933, the interest payments alone were draining the treasury of gold; and because the treasury had only $4.2 billion in gold it was obvious there would be no way to pay the principal when it became due in 1938, not to mention meet expenses and other debt obligations. These other debt obligations were substantial. Ever since the 1890s the Treasury had been short gold and had financed this deficit by making new bond issues to attract gold for paying the interest of previous issues. The result was that by 1933 the total debt was $22 billion and the amount of gold needed to pay even the interest on it was soon going to be insufficient.
In this exigency, Roosevelt decided to default on the whole of the domestically-held debt by refusing to redeem in gold to Americans and devaluing the dollar by 40 percent against foreign exchange. By taking these steps, the Treasury was able to make a partial payment and maintain foreign exchange with the critical trade partners of the United States.
If we price gold at the present-day value of $1,550 per troy ounce, the total loss to investors by the devaluation was approximately $640 billion in 2011 dollars. The overall result of the default was to intensify the depression and trade reductions of the 1930s and to contribute to fomenting World War II.
The financing of the United States government stepped up to a whole new level upon its entry into the Great War, now known as "World War I." The new enterprises of the government included merchant-fleet maintenance and operation, production of ammunition, feeding and equipping soldiers entirely at its own expense, and many other expensive things it had never done before or done only on a much smaller scale.
To finance these activities, Congress issued a series of debentures known as "Liberty Bonds" starting in 1917. The preliminary series were convertible into issues of later series at progressively more favorable terms until the debt was rolled into the fourth Liberty Bond, dated October 24, 1918, which was a $7 billion dollar, 20-year, 4.25 percent issue, payable in gold at a rate of $20.67 per troy ounce.
By the time Franklin Roosevelt entered office in 1933, the interest payments alone were draining the treasury of gold; and because the treasury had only $4.2 billion in gold it was obvious there would be no way to pay the principal when it became due in 1938, not to mention meet expenses and other debt obligations. These other debt obligations were substantial. Ever since the 1890s the Treasury had been short gold and had financed this deficit by making new bond issues to attract gold for paying the interest of previous issues. The result was that by 1933 the total debt was $22 billion and the amount of gold needed to pay even the interest on it was soon going to be insufficient.
In this exigency, Roosevelt decided to default on the whole of the domestically-held debt by refusing to redeem in gold to Americans and devaluing the dollar by 40 percent against foreign exchange. By taking these steps, the Treasury was able to make a partial payment and maintain foreign exchange with the critical trade partners of the United States.
If we price gold at the present-day value of $1,550 per troy ounce, the total loss to investors by the devaluation was approximately $640 billion in 2011 dollars. The overall result of the default was to intensify the depression and trade reductions of the 1930s and to contribute to fomenting World War II.
The Momentary Default of 1979
The Treasury of the United States accidentally defaulted on a small number of bills during the 1979 debt-limit crisis. Due to administrative confusion, $120 million in bills coming due on April 26, May 3, and May 10 were not paid according to the stated terms. The Treasury eventually paid the face value of the bills, but nevertheless a class-action lawsuit, Claire G. Barton v. United States, was filed in the Federal court of the Central District of California over whether the treasury should pay additional interest for the delay. The government decided to avoid any further publicity by giving the jilted investors what they wanted rather than ride the high horse of sovereign immunity. An economic study of the affair concluded that the net result was a tiny permanent increase in the interest rates of T-bills.
The Treasury of the United States accidentally defaulted on a small number of bills during the 1979 debt-limit crisis. Due to administrative confusion, $120 million in bills coming due on April 26, May 3, and May 10 were not paid according to the stated terms. The Treasury eventually paid the face value of the bills, but nevertheless a class-action lawsuit, Claire G. Barton v. United States, was filed in the Federal court of the Central District of California over whether the treasury should pay additional interest for the delay. The government decided to avoid any further publicity by giving the jilted investors what they wanted rather than ride the high horse of sovereign immunity. An economic study of the affair concluded that the net result was a tiny permanent increase in the interest rates of T-bills.
What Will Happen in August of 2011?
Many people are wondering about the possibility of a default by the Treasury on August 3, 2011, when, according to the Treasury's projections, it will no longer be able to meet all expenses without additional borrowing.
In this event, it is unlikely a default will occur. Historically, governments prioritize debt service above all other expenses. If the expansion of funds via debt becomes impossible, the Treasury will cease paying other expenses first, starting with "nonessential" discretionary expenditures, and then move on to mandatory expenditures and entitlements as a last resort.
In extremis, what will happen is that all the losses will be foisted onto the Federal Reserve. The Fed holds something on the order of $1.6 trillion in debt issued by the Treasury of the United States. By having the Federal Reserve purchase blocks of Treasury debt and defaulting on these non-investor-held securities, the United States can postpone a default against real investors essentially forever.
John S. Chamberlain lives in Natick, Massachusetts, and works as a software engineer specializing in earth science and artificial intelligence. He has an A.B. in politics from Princeton University and an M.S. in computer science from Northeastern University.
Europacific
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Many people are wondering about the possibility of a default by the Treasury on August 3, 2011, when, according to the Treasury's projections, it will no longer be able to meet all expenses without additional borrowing.
In this event, it is unlikely a default will occur. Historically, governments prioritize debt service above all other expenses. If the expansion of funds via debt becomes impossible, the Treasury will cease paying other expenses first, starting with "nonessential" discretionary expenditures, and then move on to mandatory expenditures and entitlements as a last resort.
In extremis, what will happen is that all the losses will be foisted onto the Federal Reserve. The Fed holds something on the order of $1.6 trillion in debt issued by the Treasury of the United States. By having the Federal Reserve purchase blocks of Treasury debt and defaulting on these non-investor-held securities, the United States can postpone a default against real investors essentially forever.
John S. Chamberlain lives in Natick, Massachusetts, and works as a software engineer specializing in earth science and artificial intelligence. He has an A.B. in politics from Princeton University and an M.S. in computer science from Northeastern University.
Europacific
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US military chief nominee warns Iran
The nominee to be the next chief of the US military on Tuesday warned Iran not to pursue nuclear weapons or sponsor attacks in Iraq, saying it would be making a "serious miscalculation."
At his confirmation hearing, General Martin Dempsey pledged to guide the world's most powerful military through a new era of tighter budgets and challenges such as cyber war. He promised to carry out orders for a drawdown in Afghanistan and to keep up pressure on Pakistan to fight Islamic militants.
But Dempsey, now the US Army's chief of staff, saved some of his toughest criticism for Iran. In prepared testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, he called the clerical regime a "destabilizing force."
"With its nuclear activities and its surrogate activities in southern Iraq, there is a high potential that Iran will make a serious miscalculation of US resolve," said Dempsey, nominated to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Dempsey said that Iran may be seeking a "Beirut-like moment" in Iraq -- a reference to the devastating 1983 attack against US and French forces in the Lebanese capital claimed by Iranian-linked Islamic militants.
Dempsey said Iran wanted to "send a message that they have expelled us from Iraq." The United States plans to pull its remaining 47,000 troops from Iraq at the end of the year, ending a deeply polarizing military mission.
"As long as we've got those soldiers there, we're going to do whatever we have to do to protect them, and I want to make sure that's clear to everyone," Dempsey said during questioning.
Iran, which has had tense relations with the United States since the 1979 Islamic revolution, has refused to halt uranium enrichment, which it contends is for civilian energy. The United Nations has imposed four rounds of sanctions, with Western nations accusing Iran of building a nuclear bomb.
Iran has repeatedly denied US accusations of arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran is led by Shiite Muslim clerics, who share the faith of Iraq's majority, which was suppressed under late dictator Saddam Hussein.
Dempsey, who led units in Iraq during some of the war's bloodiest years, admitted candidly during the hearing that he did not fully appreciate Islam's Shiite-Sunni divide before president George W. Bush ordered the invasion.
"I didn't understand the dynamic inside that country, particularly with regard to the various sects of Islam that fundamentally on occasion compete with each other," Dempsey said.
"When we took the lid off of that, I think we learned some things ... and I'm not sure we could have learned them any other way," he said.
Dempsey, whose four-decade career has included teaching English to West Point cadets, would oversee the military as Obama begins the pullout of some 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of next summer.
Dempsey said he supported Obama's decision. But grilled by Senator John McCain, a Republican and staunch military advocate, Dempsey said of the pullout plan: "I think it did increase the risk, yes."
Obama has tripled troop numbers in Afghanistan since taking office. But the war is increasingly unpopular with a public that questions the human and financial cost of the longest war in US history.
The United States has stepped up its focus on neighboring Pakistan, launching drone attacks in border areas and killing Osama bin Laden in May.
Dempsey voiced concern that Pakistan was more preoccupied with historic rival India than with Islamic extremists in its western region.
The United States is working to convince Pakistan that extremists are "as great a threat and probably a greater threat to them than any threat that India might pose," Dempsey said.
Dempsey acknowledged he had limited experience with China, whose defense spending has been rising sharply. He echoed outgoing military chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, who recently traveled to China and encouraged further exchanges.
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US fails to halt slide towards debt default
A day of volatile trading saw gold touch a new high of $1,630, the FTSE 100 slide more than 1pc, the Dow Jones drop 1.6p - the biggest fall in eight weeks - and US government bonds sold off as the world's eyes again focused on a deeply divided Washington.
President Barack Obama, as well as the Republican House of Representatives and the Democratic Senate, are running out of time to agree to lift the country's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling. The US Treasury has said that it won't be able to pay all its bills by next Tuesday, raising the spectre of the country's first major default in its history.
While there was no sign of panic selling in any market, the breezy confidence that investors once had over a deal being struck is fading with each passing day. Leaders in Washington have been engaged in fruitless talks for weeks, and yesterday offered markets little hope the impasse will be resolved before the weekend.
"The uncertainty that is out there is obviously troubling for people - the thing with the debt ceiling and just our own fiscal structure in the country is you have this overhang, this cloud," said Jason Clark, a fund manager at AFAM.
The White House and top Congressional leaders have been working on an ambitious plan to cut the country's deficit by up to $4 trillion as a condition of raising the debt ceiling. Since the collapse of talks between President Obama and John Boehner, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the US's top Republican, late last week, politicians from both sides have instead worked on competing plans to raise the country's borrowing limit. Public comments from each side suggested the divisions between them are hardening as the deadline approaches.
Is gold a good investment?
Is gold a good investment? Yes! For quite some time
now, people have been placing all their wealth into
non tangible investments. They have overlooked gold
bullion for supposedly more profitable ventures like
real estate, forex trading, and stock options. These
people are currently loosing their shirts right now in
this recession. If they could do it all over again, what
do you think they would invest in? Gold. At the
beginning of the Bush administration, gold bullion
prices were around $400, at the end of the Bush regime
Gold bullion now sells for upwards of $1000. On the
other hand, the stock market has done nothing but plummet.
To truly recession proof your investment portfolio, you
need to invest in gold bullion. But is now the time to
make such an investment, gold prices have tripled in the
past 10 years, is it truly a good investment? In short, yes.
Here's why:
During a recession institutions run for gold. It is a safe-
haven investment as it never looses it's value. The gold
market never has crashed in thousands of years. The
demand for gold will remain high for some time, and the
price of gold will continue to rise as the world scene
shows only more and more instability.
As global inflation is on the rise, more and more will be
seeking out assets that are inflation proof. Gold
bullion has historically proved itself to be a hedge
against inflation. Oil and food will continue to inflate
in price, or crash altogether, gold is secure and solid.
Unusual market conditions can wreak havoc on our
investment portfolio of stocks, bonds, equities and so
forth. People who are intelligent will naturally look into
investing in gold as it does not behave badly in bad
markets, it only continues to rise in value.
Currencies fluctuate rapidly, faster than some can keep
up with. Right now the dollar is falling in value, some
predict inevitably it will crash. Investor demand for gold
bullion will continue to rise as the dollar denominated
commodities such as gold bullion continue to fall, which
makes it cheaper if you hold other currencies.
Gold is a highly liquid asset, it can be bought and sold
anywhere in the world. It is universally recognized as a
valuable asset. Right now, many countries will not
exchange dollars, or buy US currency outright. In economies
like this, having assets that are liquid is essential should
an emergency occur.
If you take a truly objective look at the world economy,
you will see nothing but continued problems and disputes.
All of these things make for an increase in the value of
gold. So if you truly want to invest for success, and want
your investments to last far into the future, invest in gold
Forecast Tomorrow
hostgator coupon 2011
Insurance Cost Against US Default Hits Record
The cost of buying insurance against a default by the U.S. rose to a record on Wednesday, in a sign of growing unease that gridlock in Washington over raising the federal debt ceiling may result in the Treasury failing to pay interest to bondholders.
The market for buying and selling insurance on the creditworthiness of the U.S. is thinly traded, denominated in euros and dominated by European and UK banks in London. But trading in so-called credit default swaps has picked up as the threat of a default has grown.
In a CDS, a buyer of protection is compensated by the seller should there be a default or missed payment, known as a “credit event”.
“The U.S. CDS market is much less liquid than other sovereign markets as up until recently no one thought the chance of a U.S. credit event was very high,” said Ira Jersey, strategist at Credit Suisse. “The market is getting nervous over the risk of a default.”
Premiums for one-year U.S. sovereign CDS rose sharply this week and traded at about 90 basis points in London on Wednesday, overtaking the previous high set in March 2009.
In a sign of greater concern of a near-term default, U.S. one-year CDS was trading higher than premiums for the more liquid five-year sector, at about 65bp, for the first time.
Otis Casey, director of credit research at Markit, said: “Typically you see an inversion of the short end in [issuers] that are fairly well distressed.”
The net size of the U.S. CDS market, or actual market exposure, is $4.9 billion. The U.S. has risen above Greece’s $4.6 billion in net exposure but is below the UK’s net size of $12.3 billion, according to data at the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp.Analysts said that, given the cost of buying protection for one year and the risk of the Treasury missing a debt payment in the next month, there is potentially a massive pay-out for investors under that scenario.
CNBC
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