Daily Digest 3/8 - Thailand Passes Canada's Car Production, Europe's Recession Deepens

Economy

The Chinese are so desperate about the new property taxes they are divorcing in droves to avoid them (westcoastjan)

Reckoning that primary residences owned for more than five years will remain tax exempt, some couples hope that divorcing and dividing up real estate assets will allow them to sell properties as individuals, and not pay tax. Once the sale is complete, they can remarry.

CP Rail may cut as many as 6,000 jobs: Harrison (westcoastjan)

CP has had the worst operating ratio of all North American top-tier railways in recent years, which led to a proxy battle which resulted in Mr. Harrison's appointment as chief executive last June.

Silvio Berlusconi convicted, sentenced to year in prison over illegal wiretaps (westcoastjan)

Still, the verdict does not directly affect Berlusconi’s eligibility to participate in a new government because Italy – despite several attempts to pass such legislation – has no law banning people convicted of minor crimes from parliament. His center-right coalition last week finished third in parliamentary elections that saw no clear winner. Talks on forming a new government are expected to begin March 20.

Thailand passes Canada in car production (westcoastjan)

Gomes's assessment jibes with official data from the International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, which shows Canada barely held on to its No. 10 overall ranking last year, with 2,463,732 Canadian-built vehicles.

Thailand built 2,483,043 vehicles in 2012, good enough for ninth overall.

Madrid's Renaissance of Occupied Spaces (westcoastjan)

At the moment, there are more than thirty social centers in Madrid occupying entire buildings. These spaces are used to organize concerts, practice yoga, teach new dance steps, rehearse theater shows and plan demonstrations. Counter-cultural leisure goes hand-in-hand with neighborhood services and political activity. The guiding principles of these okupas have to do with self-management and assembly-based decision making. Anarchy and autonomy are the prevailing ideologies but many people involved reject political labels, and prefer to build their own theory through actual modes of operation within the okupas.

Europe's Recession Deepens (Nervous Nelly)

President Mario Draghi said the weaker forecast was largely due to the impact of a poor fourth quarter in 2012, and did not reflect a significant change in the bank's view that a gradual recovery should begin in the second half of 2013. Eurozone GDP shrank by 0.6% last year.

"The Entire West Is In The Yo-Yo Years" (redinr08)

ECRI's Lakshman Achuthan holds firm to his belief that "a recession started around the middle of last year" and even as he notes consensus expectations for payrolls tomorrow at 160-170k, "year-over-year payroll jobs growth will go to a 16-month low." In this Bloomberg TV interview, the embattled prognosticator explains how "the entire West is in the yo-yo years. They have all been having growth stair-stepping down.

Poverty rate is highest in 15 years, says professor (Arthur Robey)

Seefeldt and Graham suggest several fixes in the book including a modernization of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Unemployment Insurance programs and the creation of an automatic link between the size of block grants to states and trends in the business cycle.

Energy

The Deluge (jdargis)

Kern River oil is particularly thick and viscous, with a consistency like molasses, which means it doesn’t flow easily. Analysts at the time predicted that the difficulty in extracting it meant they could get at only about 10 percent of the total that lay underground. By the early 1940s, oilmen had hauled 278 million barrels out of the field, but production was in steep decline; the most accessible oil was gone. Kern River seemed close to being effectively tapped out.

Environment

Beemster's Dancing Cows Greet Spring Greens With Unrestrained Joy (westcoastjan)

The video from 2010, which recently resurfaced on social news site Reddit, features a herd of ecstatic cows, leaping and prancing for joy after being released into pasture for the first time in months.

How to green the desert and reverse climate change (Ben Johnson)

Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert,” begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And it's happening to about two-thirds of the world’s grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos. Savory has devoted his life to stopping it. He now believes -- and his work so far shows -- that a surprising factor can protect grasslands and even reclaim degraded land that was once desert.

Antarctica: Engine of ocean life (westcoastjan)

In this film, head of open oceans at British Antarctic Survey Dr Emily Shuckburgh, lead scientist with The Nature Conservancy Dr M Sanjayan and veteran wildlife cameraman Doug Allan reveal why the seas around Antarctica play such an important role in the wealth of life found throughout the world’s oceans.

Gold & Silver

Click to read the Gold & Silver Digest: 3/7/13

Provided daily by the Peak Prosperity Gold & Silver Group

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