Economy

Prepping for the Well-to-Do (mg)

I note plenty of suggestions and websites galore for the budget-challenged to prep ranging from buying a little extra each week---see the LDS shopping list for newlyweds---to hunting, fishing and foraging on state land. At the other extreme are those who can afford survivalist-consultants to build and stock extensive underground bunkers, which require the employ of a staff including farmer/serfs and Blackwater-type security. But no one is targeting the reality of the well-to-do (WTD), so I'm going to. It's not for class reasons, but because that's the kind of income it will take to get up to speed at this late date. And up-to-speed has recently been sped up to two years of stored items from six months.

Chris Hedges "Death of the Liberal Class" at The Sanctuary for Independent Media (Arthur Robey)

Chris Hedges, whose book "Death of the Liberal Class" (Perseus) came out the day of this presentation, is also the best-selling author of "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning." Hedges, whose column is published Mondays on Truthdig, spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years. Produced by The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy NY, this event was co-sponsored by Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace.

The Waste-Lands Of The Euro (Arthur Robey)

Today’s guest, Yanis Varoufakis, is a Greek Political Economist and Professor of Economic Theory at the University of Athens, and an expert in game-theory. We discuss the flawed design of the Euro, Francois Mitterand and Jacques Delors, the ECB and the Germans, the rise of a Greek Nazi Party and the spectre of Kosovo and Euro Waste-Lands.

JP Morgan's Subprime Horror (westcoastjan)

The main allegation against Bear Stearns - and thus against Bear's owner JP Morgan - is that the investment bank claimed to be checking that the loans going into the bonds were of reasonable quality through what is known as "due diligence" - but in practice it grotesquely and consciously failed to keep out the rubbishy mortgages.

Energy

Chinese firm pleads guilty in oil sands workers’ deaths (westcoastjan)

Twenty-one other charges against Chinese contractors on the Horizon project were withdrawn.

Warren Buffet Purchases Two Huge Wind Farms in California (James S.)

MidAmerican Energy Holdings announced yesterday that it has agreed to buy the two phases for an undisclosed fee.

The Alta Wind VII has a capacity of 168MW, and the Alta Wind IX has a capacity of 132MW; they boost MidAmerican Renewable’s total renewable energy portfolio to over 1.2GW.

Environment

Drought forces India’s farmers to unearth their gold (westcoastjan)

The potential for recycling is huge with India’s 1.2 billion people estimated to have stored up about 20,000 tonnes of gold in the form of jewellery, coins and bars, according to an estimate from industry body the World Gold Council – about three times the holdings of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board.

How much in food do Canadians waste a year? Think billions (westcoastjan)

Keep in mind, we’re not talking about the strawberries that have been sitting in your crisper so long they’ve got grey fuzz on them, or those tomatoes with the gross green splotches that stink. The report is talking about edible food that simply gets chucked. Why? Partly because we load our plates with giant portions we can never finish, partly because we throw out food based on best-before labels, even if we’re not reading them properly or the food is still good. But mostly we toss food because, unlike so many other places on earth, food is cheap to us.

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