Poverty Alleviation and G-8

News: "Jeffrey Sachs: 'Don't let the G8 leaders leave Scotland without a serious plan for ending poverty'
The Monday Interview: Economist
By Johann Hari
20 June 2005
Jeffrey Sachs has a simple message for the people of Britain. 'Don't let the leaders [of the G8 countries] leave Scotland without offering serious plans for ending poverty and climate change. They are not going to Gleneagles for a game, or for a little vacation, not for photo-ops, not for smiles. They are there to set us on a real path to ending extreme poverty. Give them a serious warning - don't leave here without doing your work. Don't leave here without putting in place solutions to these problems.'

Article Length: 1206 words (approx.)"

New standards in fuel efficiency

The sanetors who opposed tougher standard of fuel efficiency for American car makers should rethink.

Toyota, Honda given green light for fuel-cell cars - Yahoo! News: "Toyota, Honda given green light for fuel-cell cars "

TOKYO (AFP) - Toyota and Honda were given the the go-ahead from Japan's transport authorities to market certain types of fuel-cell cars without limitation. The two Japanese carmakers said they would aim to lease the environmentally friendly no-emission compact vehicles while stepping up efforts to lower costs for mass production in the future.

She is selling her Masters Thesis to pay off her loan- Buy my MASTERS THESIS & help me pay off student loans!!

eBay item 5589456397 (Ends Jun-19-05 00:54:41 PDT) - Buy my MASTERS THESIS & help me pay off student loans!!

Oh Boy! She is asking for $200 max. I just wonder would that be enough to pay off her loans. Well! She may think of keep auctioning off copies of her thesis and may be able to generate more money. I would say a $50 starting price would be good. As is it is not published, yet some people may be interested in her thesis for reference purposes.

Money makes Microsoft's Mare Go

Microsoft joins hands with Yahoo!, Google to censor China's web - Yahoo! News: Mon Jun 13, 3:57 AM ET
BEIJING (AFP) - Users of Microsoft's new China-based Internet portal have been blocked from using the words "democracy", "freedom" and "human rights" in an apparent move by the US software giant to appease Beijing.

Other words that could not be used on Microsoft's free online blog service MSN Spaces include "Taiwan independence" and "demonstration". Bloggers who enter such words or other politically charged or pornographic content are prompted with a message that reads: "This item should not contain forbidden speech such as profanity. Please enter a different word for this item". Officials at Microsoft's Beijing offices refused to comment.

When microsoft finally said it will support GL bill, I thought they are trying to project themselves as sponsors of free speech but from the above news it has just turned out that everything they do is for profit.

"Money makes the mare go"

Dull at Any Speed

washingtonpost.com > Print Edition > Sunday Outlook Dull at Any Speed: GM Never Learned to Shift Gears
By Maryann N. Keller Sunday, June 12, 2005; Page B01
In a Detroit suburb in the late 1980s, General Motors established a large technical facility it called the Mona Lisa center, where its engineers disassembled Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys in a desperate search for the secret of their Japanese competitors' success. They analyzed the smallest pieces trying to figure out the best attributes to include in future GM models. The reasons for GM's decline could have been found there on the floor of the Mona Lisa center, but not among the parts. It was the whole approach. Taking apart existing cars is a backward-looking exercise; it doesn't tell you what's going to sell four or five years down the road. So while GM was staring in its rearview mirror, its competitors were zipping ahead."

Maryann it sounds like you did find the right problem. Reverse engineering is for those who want to build something from scratch not for thsoe who are already producing something. GM should have tried to find out what will make their car sell.

As a consumer I can tell what average consumer says when it comes buying to a car.
1. Their car consumes more gas
2. The transmission dies out at less than 100,000 miles while Japanese on average last more than 200,000 miles.
3. GM cars may give you more comfort inside but how much time do we spend in our car on an average work day?

Is there going to be another belly landing for the economy?

Bond Market Baffles Many Observers - Yahoo! News: NEW YORK - Bond prices are rising and yields have plunged to levels not seen in more than a year — and all this is happening as the
Federal Reserve has tripled short-term interest rates over the last 12 months.

The situation has baffled many market-watchers, who had forecast just the opposite would happen. Even Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan says he is puzzled by what is going on here and elsewhere around the world where bond yields are generally falling.
. . . .
That may help make sense of the recent bond-market moves — which Greenspan himself said this week are "clearly without recent precedent." In February he called the situation a "conundrum."

Just listen to what he had to say this week about all the confusion.

In remarks to the International Monetary Conference, he talked about how the plunging yields could be a sign that the economy's growth is slowing down. But he then backed away from that argument when he said that "periodic signs of buoyancy" in some parts of the world have not stopped the retraction in the yield.

He also said that should the yield curve become inverted — which happens when short-term yields exceed long-term yields — that won't necessarily be a "forward indicator for softening economic activity" as it has been before. "We would not automatically assume that it would mean what it meant in the past," he said.