A water supply crisis might be the most likely and severe societal risk during the next 10 years. In response to this, both governments and business are increasingly engaging in dialogue to address water scarcity."
Full article can be read at
https://infocus.credit-suisse.com/app/article/index.cfm?fuseaction=OpenArticle&aoid=355403&lang=EN&WT.mc_id=Feed_Credit%20Suisse%20-%20In%20Focus
"Muddling through" the European debt crisis is no longer an option: Fundamental decisions must be taken, explained Credit Suisse Research Institute members and senior advisors at the recent bi-annual meeting in London. They agreed that although the announcements from the latest EU summit indicate concrete steps towards closer political and economic union, structural reforms and tightening of fiscal budgets are among further, long-term measures required to guarantee the union's stability. "
Read full article at
"This month's Absolute Return Letter picks up on the question we left hanging in the air back in May - is Asia a potential re-run of Europe? Although policy rates appear to be dangerously low, and thus encouraging further borrowing, Asia has come a long way since 1997 and there is no immediate risk of a financial meltdown. Australian property prices and commodity prices - in particular crude oil prices - are more likely 'credit event' candidates in our opinion.
Enjoy the read and the summer.
The impact of Quantitative Easing operations undertaken by Central Banks in the developed world is an intensely debated topic and has sharply polarised opinions across academia, financial markets and the popular media. However, as with the debate on austerity versus spending, the discussion tends to get clouded by firmly held ideological biases rather than focusing on empirical based arguments. With that aim in mind, below is the summary of recent note
By Roger Farmer, head of the economics department at UCLA, which argues why central banks should do a lot more to reduce unemployment and boost economic growth:
-In a series of recent academic work , Professor Farmer has argued that there is a stable, and causal, relationship between the stock market and the unemployment rate. And that the stock market crash of 2008, triggered by a collapse in housing prices, caused the Great Recession, and therefore the Fed can do a lot more to lower the unemployment rate by impacting the stock market..
-The chart below illustrates that in normal times the Fed's balance sheet consists mainly of treasury securities, and that after the Lehman shock of 2008 and the ensuing freefall of the stock market, its balance sheet went from $800BN to over $2 trillion in the space of a month, as it engaged in a variety of lending programmes.
-As the chart also clearly shows, the stock market rally began in March 2009 when the Fed began purchasing mortgage securities, and began to fall once the QE1 programme ended a year later. The market then began its ascent In August 2010 when the Fed announced QE2 at its annual Jackson Hole conference.
-Suppose an economist working in the 1970s was trying to predict the unemployment rate three months forward by looking just at the average unemployment rate and the real value of the stock market in the previous two quarters, his predictions would have been very accurate in that era as well as the more recent era.
By Roger Farmer, head of the economics department at UCLA, which argues why central banks should do a lot more to reduce unemployment and boost economic growth:
-In a series of recent academic work , Professor Farmer has argued that there is a stable, and causal, relationship between the stock market and the unemployment rate. And that the stock market crash of 2008, triggered by a collapse in housing prices, caused the Great Recession, and therefore the Fed can do a lot more to lower the unemployment rate by impacting the stock market..
-The chart below illustrates that in normal times the Fed's balance sheet consists mainly of treasury securities, and that after the Lehman shock of 2008 and the ensuing freefall of the stock market, its balance sheet went from $800BN to over $2 trillion in the space of a month, as it engaged in a variety of lending programmes.
-As the chart also clearly shows, the stock market rally began in March 2009 when the Fed began purchasing mortgage securities, and began to fall once the QE1 programme ended a year later. The market then began its ascent In August 2010 when the Fed announced QE2 at its annual Jackson Hole conference.
-Fed policy not only influences markets, it has a big impact on the average citizen as all forms of wealth tend to move up and down together. A person's wealth is tied-up in his future earnings, and when the stock market plummets the prospects of the average worker decline as well. His research has shown that when the stock market rises, unemployment falls and when the stock market crashes a recession ensues.
-The observation that the value of the stock market precedes changes in the unemployment rate does not imply a causal relationship. However, this has been proven by his recent academic work based on data since 1929. http://rogerfarmer.com/
-Market are moved by sentiment, but these movements have a big impact on our lives through the job market - as plunges in financial wealth can lead to devastating job losses. The Fed can do a lot more.
An interesting empirical argument which illustrates that central bank actions to expand balance sheets can positively impact the stock market as well as the real economy. While an environment of deleveraging and zero short-term interest rates can limit the full impact of monetary policy, it is all the more necessary to take aggressive monetary action, particularly given that governments across the developed world are constrained by their inability to do more on the fiscal front. Aggressive balance sheet expansion lowers the real interest rate (by increasing inflationary expectations) which is a powerful tool to boost aggregate demand and increase investment spending. It is therefore inevitable that the Fed and the ECB will have to do a lot more to buoy the stock markets and the economy, as the process of deleveraging and fiscal constraint continues.
The European Summit marked an important step in the long-term resolution of the European crisis by breaking the "vicious circle between sovereigns and the banks" by allowing direct recapitalisation of the banks by the ESM. However, the devil is in the details and we can expect renewed bouts of nervousness in the weeks and months ahead. As Gavyn Davies points out in the FT, the ESM has been asked to do more without the addition of funds (which are currently inadequate to fund Spain and Italy's financing needs over the next two years) and many details are obscure. Use the dips to add to exposure to risk assets, as the fat tail risk of a Euro break-up has receded significantly.
Lastly, Professors Krugman (Princeton) and Layard (LSE) have brought out an important "Manifesto for Economic Sense" which summarises the faulty ideas currently prevalent in policy responses to the crisis which started four years ago, and have directly led to a continued state of depressed economies in the developed world. These ideas were also widespread in the 1930s, causing the Great Depression, but were eventually rejected leading to a long period of economic prosperity. The purpose of the manifesto in to develop better evidence-based policies and people who agree with its arguments can support this by registering their agreement at www.manifestoforeconomicsense.org. "The whole world suffers more when men and women are silent about what they know is wrong".
Paul Krugman : Over the past few months I've read a number of optimistic assessments of the prospects for Europe. Oddly, however, none of these assessments argue that Europe's German-dictated formula of redemption through suffering has any chance of working. Instead, the case for optimism is that failure — in particular, a breakup of the euro — would be a disaster for everyone, including the Germans, and that in the end this prospect will induce European leaders to do whatever it takes to save the situation.
I hope this argument is right. But every time I read an article along these lines, I find myself thinking about Norman Angell.
Who? Back in 1910 Angell published a famous book titled "The Great Illusion," arguing that war had become obsolete. Trade and industry, he pointed out, not the exploitation of subject peoples, were the keys to national wealth, so there was nothing to be gained from the vast costs of military conquest.
Moreover, he argued that mankind was beginning to appreciate this reality, that the "passions of patriotism" were rapidly declining. He didn't actually say that there would be no more major wars, but he did give that impression.
We all know what came next.
The point is that the prospect of disaster, no matter how obvious, is no guarantee that nations will do what it takes to avoid that disaster. And this is especially true when pride and prejudice make leaders unwilling to see what should be obvious.
Which brings me back to Europe's still extremely dire economic situation.
It comes as something of a shock, even for those of us who have been following the story all along, to realize that more than two years have passed since European leaders committed themselves to their current economic strategy — a strategy based on the notion that fiscal austerity and "internal devaluation" (basically, wage cuts) would solve the problems of debtor nations. In all that time the strategy has produced no success stories; the best the defenders of orthodoxy can do is point to a couple of small Baltic nations that have seen partial recoveries from Depression-level slumps, but are still far poorer than they were before the crisis.
Meanwhile the euro's crisis has metastasized, spreading from Greece to the far larger economies of Spain and Italy, and Europe as a whole is clearly sliding back into recession. Yet the policy prescriptions coming out of Berlin and Frankfurt have hardly changed at all.
But wait, you say — didn't last week's summit meeting produce some movement? Yes, it did. Germany gave a little ground, agreeing both to easier lending conditions for Italy and Spain (but not bond purchases by the European Central Bank) and to a rescue plan for private banks that might actually make some sense (although it's hard to tell given the lack of detail). But these concessions remain tiny compared with the scale of the problems.
What would it really take to save Europe's single currency? The answer, almost surely, would have to involve both large purchases of government bonds by the central bank, and a declared willingness by that central bank to accept a somewhat higher rate of inflation. Even with these policies, much of Europe would face the prospect of years of very high unemployment. But at least there would be a visible route to recovery.
Yet it's really, really hard to see how such a policy shift could come about.
Part of the problem is the fact that German politicians have spent the past two years telling voters something that isn't true — namely, that the crisis is all the fault of irresponsible governments in Southern Europe. Here in Spain — which is now the epicenter of the crisis — the government actually had low debt and budget surpluses on the eve of crisis; if the country is now in crisis, that's the result of a vast housing bubble that banks all across Europe, very much including the Germans, helped to inflate. But now the false narrative stands in the way of any workable solution.
Yet misinformed voters aren't the only problem; even elite European opinion has yet to face up to reality. To read the latest reports from European-based "expert" institutions, like the one released last week by the Bank for International Settlements, is to feel that you've entered an alternative universe, one in which neither the lessons of history nor the laws of arithmetic apply — a universe in which austerity would still work if only everyone had faith, and in which everyone can cut spending at the same time without producing a depression.
So will Europe save itself? The stakes are very high, and Europe's leaders are, by and large, neither evil nor stupid. But the same could be said, believe it or not, about Europe's leaders in 1914. We can only hope that this time is different.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on July 2, 2012, on page A15 of the New York edition with the headline: Europe's Great Illusion.
The eye-tracking devices and "smart" software, which costs less than 40 pounds, can help patients suffering from multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, muscular dystrophy and spinal cord to interact with the computer freely.
According to a study, published in The Journal of Neural Engineering, the device could even allow people to control an electronic wheelchair simply by looking where they want to go or control a robotic prosthetic arm.
Composed from off-the-shelf materials, the new device can work out exactly where a person is looking by tracking their eye movements, allowing them to control a cursor on a screen just like a normal computer mouse.
Researchers from Imperial College London demonstrated its functionality by getting a group of people to play the classic computer game Pong without any kind of handset. Users were also able to browse the web and write emails "hands-off,"
Aldo Faisal, a lecturer in neurotechnology at Imperial's Department of Bioengineering, is confident in the ability to utilise eye movements given that six of the subjects, who had never used their eyes as a control input before, could still register a respectable score within 20 per cent of the able-bodied users after just 10 minutes of using the device for the first time.
The commercially viable device uses just one watt of power and can transmit data wirelessly over Wi-Fi or via USB into any computer.
The GT3D system has also solved the 'Midas touch problem', allowing users to click on an item on the screen using their eyes, instead of a mouse button.
"Crucially, we have achieved two things: We have built a 3D eye tracking system hundreds of times cheaper than commercial systems and used it to build a real-time brain machine interface that allows patients to interact more smoothly and more quickly than existing invasive technologies
that are tens of thousands of times more expensive," he said.
"This is frugal innovation. Developing smarter software and piggy-backing existing hardware to create devices that can help people worldwide independent of their health care circumstances."
The cameras constantly take pictures of the eye, working out where the pupil is pointing, and from this, the researchers can use a set of calibrations to work out exactly where a person is looking on the screen.
( Press Trust Of India )
While the whole country has been talking about her, it looks like Canadian adult content star Sunny Leone has decided to make hay while the sun shines. Latest buzz is that Sunny has been roped in as a guest judge on India's Got Talent on TV.
The show that will be hosted by Manish Paul and Cyrus Sahukar will also have Riteish Deshmukh and Kirron Kher as the other two judges.
And if things go as planned, Sunny will be stepping into Sonali Bendre’s shoes. The adult star is expected to arrive in India to begin shooting for her second film with Ekta Kapoor and also to promote her Bollywood debut film.
Source says, “Sunny will be available to shoot for the reality show. However, we have kept our options open and have even approached Dharmendra ji. But he has other work commitments. We will take the final call soon.” Sunny was also a part of Bigg Boss hosted by the same channel last year.
( Mid Day )
Close on the heels of a girl child who was made to drink her urine as a punishment in Shantiniketan, a dentist, who suspected his wife’s fidelity, allegedly forced her to drink his urine. Unable to bear his torture, the 27-year-old woman has filed a case against him and her in-laws.Sapna, a native of Davanagere, was married to Akash Raj, a dentist at Subramanyanagar in Puttur of Udupi district in June 2011. Sapna’s father, a businessman, had given one kg gold and five kg silver ornaments as dowry. But as they forced her to bring Rs 25 lakh more after the wedding and allegedly subjected her to cruelty, Sapna returned to her brother’s house in Nagarabhavi and filed a case with the Jnanabharathi police.
In the complaint, Sapna has alleged that the very next day after the wedding, Raj started to accuse her of running prostitution ring before the wedding. “He suspected my fidelity and warned me not to speak to any other men. On the same day, an electrician had come home for some repair work. That night, he asked me whether I had slept with the electrician. He also suspected me of having illicit affair with a neighbour. Every day, he checked the call details on my cellphone to check if I had an extra marital affairs,” she stated.
‘In-laws too involved’
“Even my parents-in-law, Vanita and Dharamaraj, sister-in-law Akshata and brother-in-law Anil Raj supported him and harassed me for more dowry. They demanded Rs 25 lakh to start a new clinic, but I did not ask my parents. Every day, he used to thrash me and threaten to kill me. Twice, I had returned to my parents and whenever I went to them, he would apologise and promised to change his behaviour. Trusting him, I used to return to him,” Sapna said.
"He told me that I was not beautiful and insulted me. He used to have sexual conversations with other women over the phone in front of me. Earlier this month, I was suffering from severe stomach ache during my menstrual cycle. He forcibly had an intercourse with me and made me drink his urine,” she alleged.
“Twice I had tried to commit suicide, but he foiled them. He had tried to set me ablaze but I managed to escape. After that, I started living with my brother and I was pregnant by that time. But, Raj came to my brother’s house in March and kicked me on my stomach, which resulted in an abortion,” Sapna said, adding, “Now, his family members are trying to get him married to another woman from Karkala and are threatening that they would kill me if I didn’t agree for a divorce.”
( The new indian express )
The girl claims the youth came to her house and served her a drink laced with sedatives before raping her. "He used to tell me that he loves me and wants to marry me. He took my advantage by finding me alone," she said.
The victim's family has lodged a complaint against the youth.
The products ThinkCentre M72e and ThinkCentre M92p Tiny desktop PCs are priced at Rs 23,500 and above (excluding taxes and without operating system).
Being the industry's first enterprise 1L PCs, the M72e and M92p offer superior performance and high reliability, the Chinese company said in a statement.
Trends in the enterprise PC industry suggest that an increasing number of organisations now prefer PCs that occupy less space and consume less energy yet perform at optimal levels, it added.
