Beach Ball Distraction

Resourceful People

Somali pirates in small boats were able to hijack the MV Faina, a Belize-flagged cargo ship owned and operated by "Kaalbye Shipping Ukraine." The ship is carrying a cargo of Ukrainian T-72 tanks and related equipment. It had no on board security when it was attacked on Sept. 25 and was forced to proceed to an anchorage off the Somali Coast. (Official U.S. Navy Photo.)

On its website, the Kaalbye company proclaims its adherence of, and priorities, safe and ecological safety of vessels and coastal divisions are all staffed by a professional and qualified personnel. But they are navigating in the real world and the Somali pirates give no much credit for ecological safety nor qualified personnel. They are what Eliezer Yudkowsky call capable people, who act resourceless, without procedures manuals or bosses to give them orders. On the other hand, really effective peoples such as the Spartans are proud to obey orders of their leaders and live by laws. Yudkowsky is a babbling idiot.

Run on the Hedge Funds

Hedge Funds, which are supposedly market indifferent, must be cleaning up. Except that shorting is now somewhat illegal in America. Out of fear, no one is opening its mouth so I dont know what is really happening out there. Ah, Happy New Year to all the Jews!

A Socialist America

The bailout packet was rejected. It is very difficult to understand what is going on, but I feel Arnold is right and America is moving to the left. With about 50% of its population unable to maintain the head above the water, the strengthening of the left seems probable. The left or socialism tends to promote and favour the left-behind half, and to punish those trying to improve their situation by personal effort. In all socialist regimes, trying to work in two places or making money by private enterprise is severely punished. Enforced equality is the ideal. Socialism ends in economic stagnation and collapse. America used to have a strong capitalist free enterprise environment, but with the collapse of the financial system, the left may take over.

Arnold Kling as Prophet

Kling: If Obama wins, then the Democrats will spend the next two months pouncing on every negative economic indicator, to build the case for massive economic restructuring under his Presidency--making the bailout seem libertarian by comparison.

Silicon Valley for Obama, Houston for McCain

As the campaign progresses, things are becoming clearer.

(1) Offshore oil drilling and the construction of 45 nuclear power plants are linchpins of McCain's policy. Contributors in the oil and gas industry had given the McCain campaign more than $1.6 million.

(2) Obama proposes a $150 billion government plan based on cleantech (pie-in-the-sky) technologies. Obama believes big government programs are good. Cleantech is a great business opportunity for the Silicon Valley and there is massive support there for Obama.

Boarding Party

Thanks God the Americans are patrolling the Gulf. Without them, piracy would become the norm. The world needs them.

Listening to B´Tzelem

Journalist: Your aerial images show a number of striking things about the details of the landscape, which nevertheless need to be "read" with guidance. One was the politics of pine trees versus olive trees. The Ottoman rules were that the state could acquire any land that had not been cultivated for a certain amount of time. So now the Palestinians are rushing to plant olive trees and the Israelis are planting pine trees, which grow a lot faster.

B'Tzelem's Photographer: That's true, but it's not only that they grow faster. Another reason for planting pine trees is to make a difference from the olive tree as a separate national symbol. A third reason is that pines have an acidic drop on the ground. There are no bushes under pine trees, so grazing and shepherding is very difficult in these areas that have been planted with pine. Even if you cut the pine trees, the subsequent acidity of the land is such that it does not allow agricultural cultivation. Right now we are working on an enlargement of one particular image in a similar fashion to the kind of work that intelligence analysts do during wartime. They can see things that the untrained eye cannot. We try to reveal the hidden narratives engraved on the landscape.

j's comment: I dont really understand what they are trying to do. All Samaria is open to Israelis including Israeli Arabs and can be reached by car in maximum 20 minutes from Tel Aviv. Why to make intelligence analysis from the air when anyone can go and take all the pictures he may want from zero distance? People can be asked and things understood. OK, there is always the danger that some Palestinian terrorist shoots at your car or the shabab throws stones to your car travelling at 60 mph and kills you. B'Tzelem, in my opinion, is choosing the indirect way in order to misunderstood, to misinterpret what is obvious at soil level. By the way, I have never heard about the devious purpose behind planting pines. I always thought Israelis, in their minds, all wanted to live in an Alpine forest, and were trying to remake this Middle Eastern wasteland planting pinetrees and building Swiss chalets. Moreover, as the price of olive oil has shot up astronomically, all the settlements where there is some land, they are planting olive trees like crazy.

UN Security Council Debating Samaria

The meeting was requested by Saudi Arabia with the backing of Arab foreign ministers, who met in New York to discuss the settlements issue on Wednesday. The debate is based on a report by Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, Israeli authorities and settlers have seized land in the West Bank for security zones around Jewish settlements beyond an Israeli-built barrier. The barrier is deemed illegal by the World Court because it is being built in part on occupied territory.

Speaking at the Security Council, Saudi Prince Saud Al-Faisal said the settlement problem is the "one issue that threatens to being down the whole peace process."

Statistics released by Peace Now in August showed a 550 percent increase in the number of housing tenders published for West Bank settlements in the first eight months of 2008, when construction contracts were sought for 417 units, compared with 65 in 2007.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, in the first six months of 2008 there was a 42 percent increase in the number of new homes under construction in the West Bank, from 700 in 2007 to 1,010 in 2008.

I too want a house in Ariel. Pity I didnt buy when I had the money.

Jews ridiculing Greeks, 2,000 years ago

Ancient Judeans has a very low opinion of their Greek contemporaries, and ridiculed and rejected their philosophy. Josephus, for example, reminds them that they learned everything including writing from the ancient Middle Eastern peoples.

1. I mean this, - if we will not be led by vain opinions, but will make inquiry after truth from facts themselves; for they will find that almost all which concerns the Greeks happened not long ago; nay, one may say, is of yesterday only. I speak of the building of their cities, the inventions of their arts, and the description of their laws; and as for their care about the writing down of their histories, it is very near the last thing they set about. However, they acknowledge themselves so far, that they were the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, and the Phoenicians (for I will not now reckon ourselves among them) that have preserved the memorials of the most ancient and most lasting traditions of mankind; for almost all these nations inhabit such countries as are least subject to destruction from the world about them; and these also have taken especial care to have nothing omitted of what was [remarkably] done among them; but their history was esteemed sacred, and put into public tables, as written by men of the greatest wisdom they had among them. But as for the place where the Grecians inhabit, ten thousand destructions have overtaken it, and blotted out the memory of former actions; so that they were ever beginning a new way of living, and supposed that every one of them was the origin of their new state. It was also late, and with difficulty, that they came to know the letters they now use; for those who would advance their use of these letters to the greatest antiquity pretend that they learned them from the Phoenicians and from Cadmus; yet is nobody able to demonstrate that they have any writing preserved from that time, neither in their temples, nor in any other public monuments. This appears, because the time when those lived who went to the Trojan war, so many years afterward, is in great doubt, and great inquiry is made, whether the Greeks used their letters at that time; and the most prevailing opinion, and that nearest the truth, is, that their present way of using those letters was unknown at that time. However, there is not any writing which the Greeks agree to he genuine among them ancienter than Homer's Poems, who must plainly he confessed later than the siege of Troy; nay, the report goes, that even he did not leave his poems in writing, but that their memory was preserved in songs, and they were put together afterward, and that this is the reason of such a number of variations as are found in them. As for those who set themselves about writing their histories, I mean such as Cadmus of Miletus, and Acusilaus f Argos, and any others that may be mentioned as succeeding Acusilaus, they lived but a little while before the Persian expedition into Greece. But then for those that first introduced philosophy, and the consideration of things celestial and divine among them, such as Pherceydes the Syrian, and Pythagoras, and Thales, all with one consent agree, that they learned what they knew of the Egyptians and Chaldeans, and wrote but little And these are the things which are supposed to be the oldest of all among the Greeks...

I shall not dwell on the Jew´s opinion of the Greek´s sexual practices, such as pediphilia. No wonder Ancient Greeks accused Judeans of misanthropy, hate of humanity...

Active Denial Fries You Alive

The Active Denial system focuses a beam of millimeter waves of 94 GHz frequency. The effect is a rapid heating of the human target's skin that is extremely uncomfortable and ultimately prompts the individual to flee the beam. It can also be used to make microwave popcorn. I wonder what happens if the human target is carrying a copper wire coil or a simple metallic spring in his pocket. I find the American Army's use of words most imaginative. Active Denial. Genius.

Are Americans Paying Their Debts?

If they are not, the world is in trouble. Investors are growing concerned that a host of banks nationwide, both large and small, could come under fresh pressure to either raise more capital or else find someone willing to buy them. The trouble stems in part from the fact that a broad range of borrowers, not just mortgage holders, are now starting to default on their debt. For instance, about 2.4% of payments on credit cards are more than 90 days overdue, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the highest level since 1991.

Run on Gold - US Sales Suspended

The panic intensifies. The Mint had to temporarily suspend sales of its American Eagle one-ounce gold coins on Aug. 15 and then later that month announced sales would resume under an allocation program to designated dealers. Bad news.

Oktoberfest

It is not only all that beer. It is also wurst!

The Krach of 1882 and the Bailout of the Paris Bourse

A hundred years ago, the Paris Bourse stopped settlements and was rescued by a very large loan by a syndicate of Jewish bankers headed by Rothschild and Heine. The krach evolved into a lasting hurricane of popular antisemitism, witnessed by the Viennese correspondent T. Herzl, who concluded that Jews had to leave without delay the toxic continent of Europe.


The Paris Bourse had been founded by Napoleon and financed the railway infrastructure of Europe. It had a corporative structure, where the brokers (agents) maintained a caisse comune, which assumed joint responsibility to guarantee the successful execution of all trades. This institution was absent from New York and London. Established in 1822 as a mutual insurance fund that could provide temporary credit to an illiquid broker or in case of insolvency and permit an orderly liquidation that would not tie up other agents operations. Given that a mutual guarantee was offered, moral hazard became a problem. In 1875, the common fund was called upon to manage the failure of a broker, Alexis-Alphonse Jumel.

The krach or crash of 1882 is identified with the collapse of the investment bank (banque des affaires) Société de l’Union Générale, founded by Paul-Eugène Bontoux . An engineer, Bontoux had worked from 1860 to 1877 for the Austro-Hungarian railroad company controlled by the Rothschilds. Bontoux organized a new financial network for the Austro-Hungarian Empire to channel French capital to Central Europe, aiming to challenge the position of the Rothschild-Creditanstalt group in Vienna. His plans also had a very strong political agenda. The early years of the Third Republic were a time of considerable frustration for French conservatives, especially legitimist nobility and clergy. Bontoux used Ultramontane and anti-Rothschild rhetoric to induce conservative Catholic investors to buy shares and deposit their savings in his banks. The newspaper Cote Lyonnaise (January 24, 1882) described Bontoux as attempting to establish a Catholic financial institution to rival the “numerous banks of Jewish origin.”

In February 1882, Union Générale went into bankruptcy, then in March 1883, the Cour d Appel de Paris condemned Bontoux to five years in prison for fraud. Bontoux fled France. Bontoux claimed that the Jewish and Freemason (Protestant) bankers wanted to see him fail. His defenders claimed that he was a victim of a “syndicat à la baisse” a bear pool run by the Jewish bankers, Crédit Lyonnais, and the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas. The press on the right took up Bontoux’s claim that Jewish finance and freemasons in the government had conspired to bring down Union Générale. This idea gained wide currency, and was spread by non other than Emile Zola in his novel L’Argent. In this novel the Christian financier Saccard and his Banque Universelle are destroyed by the Jewish banker king, Gundermann. The pic shows Gundermann in the film version of Zola´s novel. The rest is a horror story. Or a parable?

The Run on the Banks continues: WaMu is no more

The collapse of the Seattle thrift, which was triggered by a wave of deposit withdrawals, marks a new low point in the country's financial crisis. In what is by far the largest bank failure in U.S. history, federal regulators seized Washington Mutual Inc. and struck a deal to sell the bulk of its operations to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

World panic is growing. When will it reach Kever Benjamin? The illustration shows the start of the ongoing run on the banks, in England.

The New York Times Confused about Samaria

The august New York Times writes today about the Jewish villages in Samaria. From Yitzhar, the battlefront. But the writer is unable to even remotely imagine what is seeing and presents a confused image of charismatic gurus and fanatic terrorists, which exist only in her imagination.

Avri Ran, a charismatic guru of the hilltop youth, formulated the concept of the outposts around the time that Israel started negotiating with the Palestinian leadership in the early 1990s. The idea was to populate empty spaces of the West Bank with Jews to preclude their being handed over to the Palestinians.Mr. Ran and his wife, Sharona, started out in Itamar, a settlement just south of Nablus, and moved from hilltop to hilltop, finally establishing a private ranch more than a mile east of the mother settlement majestically named Givaot Olam, or hills of the universe. Like many of the settlers in this area who see themselves as guardians of Joseph’s Tomb, a site sacred to Jews that lies in the heart of Nablus, the Ran family exudes a deeply religious, almost mystical attachment to the land.

The farm is said to be the largest Israeli producer of organic eggs. Mr. Ran’s son-in-law, Assaf Kidron, an artist who works in stone, says the inclement winds that used to whip around the mountain have dropped significantly since Jews came to live here, proof of a divine hand.

Outside the settlement of Har Bracha on Mount Grizim, settlers have taken over a former army lookout post on the ridge overlooking Nablus and Joseph’s Tomb, and just started operating a yeshiva to ensure a permanent presence there. Nobody has tried to remove the settlers, although there is an army position a short distance along the ridge.

Wait a minute, right wing religious mystics dominating the organic egg business? A fanatic sculptor named The Guardian of the Tomb of Joseph? Less wind on Itamar hilltop, a miracle attributed to divine hand? The New York journalist scandalized because the IDF, the Israel Defense Army, did not use its weapons to remove Jewish youth camping around? The New York Times is supposed to be a Zionist paper! I never heard such imbecilities.

Hinnanit

Hinnanit is a 30 years old settlement in Northern Samaria, in the group of settlements called Gush Shaked. Its nucleus is formed by former immigrants from the Caucasus, and it has about 800 inhabitants. It is near Hermes, the settlement that was evacuated and destroyed by the Israeli government, within the framework of delivering the Northern Samaria to the future state of Palestine, that is, free of Jews. It is also possible that Hinnanit and Shaked, because of their nearness to the Green Line, will be included in some kind of land exchange and be absorbed by Israel. I dont know, probably no one knows. What is clear is that there are some 800 Jews living there and need water and sewage, and that they have some agricultural plots than can be irrigated with recycled wastewater. There is engineering work to be done in Hinnanit!

The place is beautiful, on a high mountain top surrounded by deep ravines, green and near the natural reserve Umm-Reyhan. During the Jewish rebellion against the Roman Empire it was called Beyt Ganya and was part of the Galilee commanded by the priest Joseph ben Matatiyahu (Flavius Josephus). I had been in Shaked but I dont remember Hinnanit. It is such a quiet place in the mountains that it was never attacked by the Arabs and I could not find a picture of it on the internet. Hinnanit means Daisy in Hebrew, so I illustrate this note with the flower. Later, if I get the reuse project, I will put up some pics. Hinnanit, there I go!

Explosively Formed Penetrators

The Pentagon blog informs what are these EFP weapons used by the rebels in Iraq. Simply it is a steel pipe, like water or irrigation pipe, cut to measure, with a soft-metal concave top, like the copper plate shown in the pic, inserted in it. The pipe is filled with plastic explosive and the lower end closed with tape or carton, and connected to the triggering device. When the explosive is initiated, the metal liner collapses, forming the disk into a high-velocity slug that penetrates metal like a white hot knife blade cuts a block of butter.

The blogs calls for information on metalworking equipment, but that is available everywhere. We have arrived to such a point that technology is available and almost everybody has the capability to manufacture WMD. Very worrying.

Ballistra Projectiles in Judea

From the Judean Wars against the Roman Empire. Judea is such an arid desert that one wonders why the Romans wanted it.

225 mm HDPE water line in a new settlement

The union between the pipes was done in situ with electric soldiering.

POT: Red Light

Valor Economico:

- Brazilian farmers bought 29% less fertilizer in August compared with a year earlier. The decline follows early orders this year ahead of the 2008-2009 grains season and the weakening of the Brazilian real, which made fertilizer imports more expensive.

Veolia Israel's Big Plans

Uri Starkman, Veolia's President, intends to increase the group’s turnover in Israel to NIS 5 billion (USD1.24 billion). Currently it is NIS 1 billion (USD250.25 million). Veolia Environment Israel was established as part of the local investment strategy and will be structured into four divisions: Veolia Water, Veolia Environmental Services, Veolia Energy and Veolia Transportation. Veolia Environment began its operations in Israel in 1993, which include the Ashkelon desalination plant. Investment into future projects will include the establishment of power stations fuelled by natural gas, the light railway lines across the country, etc. Yakov Tzemah, former assisstant of the Head of the Water Authority and then Head of the Sewage Administration, heads one of Veolia's divisions in Israel. It is a classic jump from the public administration to the private sector - in the same field.

The current financial crisis in two sentences

by Erik Falkenstein, by far the smartest commenter on the blogosphere.

(1) .... a banking crisis caused by a run, because the nature of banking is that if all the lenders try to withdraw their money, the banks are all insolvent because their assets are illiquid. This is especially so for banks that have lots of mortgages whose prices are currently unknown,and so assumed to be of very low value.

(2) .... underwriting standards (unlike in) the bad old days, where people needed to verify income, have a proven credit record, and a 20% down payment.

That's all, folks.

Occupational Safety in Israel

Not very safe. Every year a few workers die in earth wall collapses and heavy drainage pipes falling on their unprotected heads.

Soft Cheese Factory

This early morning I went with my occasional partner Eddie (The Gingerhead) to a farm in the South, with about 150 milching cows and a soft cheese factory. The cheese is sold to fill "burekas", a Sepharadi pastry. The owner has been adding new spaces but has no master plan for the whole business, and in addition, he is trapped in a Catch 22 situation, where he will lose his permit the moment that it is known that he is making changes in the factory or the process. Eddie is thinking on how to solve the bureaucratic trap, while I am designing the production floor including drainage and so on.

Pidgeons are a plague, stealing the cow's feed, and hunters are hired to kill them.

Window of Opportunity

Another drawback for the dollar is that the Fed's key rate is 3.4 percentage points less than the rate of inflation, the most since 1980, so investors lose money by investing in short- term U.S. fixed-income assets.

Bloomberg.

It is profitable to take dollar denominated debts that will be paid back in inflated, cheaper dollars, as illustrated by the Zimbabwean national on the pic.

The Next China - USA War

The question is not rethorical. If the American government will have no choice but pay back all the bad loans he is buying these days with worthless pieces of printed paper, then the dollar will be worth less in the future. And we think that a dollar in 2015 will be worth, say, 30% of what is worth today, then we should be selling everything related to dollars and buy something else, that will conserve its value. Once the Chinese and others realize what is happening, that the current crisis will be solved by settling public debt with inflated dollars, they will sell their T bonds and invest in something else. America will at last contract to its natural size. Which still is Numero Uno.

As a commenter in Prof. DeLong's Blog wrote:

...the claim that the credit crunch is driven by a mismatch between long term assets and short term liabilities is the bank run theory. That is, financial intermediaries made sound loans and investments; the problem is that they can't meet their short term demands for payment.

This is not a "reality-based" claim. Financial intermediaries have made immense investments in real estate loans that will never be repaid. With the economy in recession, the volume of non-performing and never-to-perform loans will only increase. The run is not the result of mismatches in the term structure of the financial intermediaries portfolios, but because people know that some folks aren't going to get paid, ever.

The Fed is taking these actions because it has no choice, not because it thinks these assets will pay off later. By inflating, the Fed can ensure that in nominal terms these investments will pay off. In real terms, it is hopeless. The alternatives are years of economic stagnation as the lawyers fight over the scraps, or wholesale nationalization and default (apparently unthinkable in the USA). Inflation is the most efficient way for the US government to impose a settlement on creditors and debtors.

The US dollar is now finished as the global reserve currency.

Another scenario contemplates solving the problem with a war, which will use up much productive capacity and reserves. The war has to be waged against America's competitors and creditors: the PR of China.

he last Chinese - American War started in November 1950, when the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army intervened in Korea, inflicting heavy losses on UN (American) forces driving them out of North Korea. In 1953 an armistice was signed.

We must be something special

Of course, eveybody and his dog think they are very special. Thus it is most normal for me to think my own ethnic group is special. Not better, but there is a je-ne-sais-quoi about us Hungarische Yidn. I always knew it but it became clear as someone else articulated it. Gary Brecher's long article "...Modern Warfare and Demography" in Takimag May 06, 2008 says that the the emblematic battle of the late 20th century was the Green March, when Morocco took over Spanish Sahara. The Moroccans just marched in in mass and unarmed, and Spanish troops did not shoot them down. Brecher finds this battle precedentless, not once in history an unarmed army won over a well armed army. It was a battle of wills, and the civilized lost. Since then armed battle is just out and only human numbers count. Democracy and vote counting has won.

We are special because in the non-military war we are having with the Palestinians, we have been able to remake ourselves and are starting to reverse the supposedly God-given demographic trends and are starting to overcome our enemies. While American White Nationalists are only ranting and lamenting, we are doing. Babies.

The pic shows the pre-war Roz family in Hungary. They are not my own family, but I have seen Abelesz family pictures before the War, the parents sitting in the middle and twelve grown up boys and girls standing behind, and we are exactly like the Roz. I mean the pic on the wall of my Ilus neni's home is almost a copy of the pic shown above. That is the way we used to look.

Contaminated Air in Golda

The Golda School, near the end of Kever Benjamin´s main pressure main, still smells like sewage and is a source of bad odors in the neighborhood. Two years of protests did not move the Local Authorities and the school decided to strike. A year ago, the Municipality hired an environmental advising firm, that identified the problem: each time that the main pumping station started operating, the bad air in the main line was pushed to the atmosphere through a manhole sited in the school. They advised to install an air purification system. Nothing was done since then. The Parents Committee hired an attorney, Mr Yoav Manny. Good luck.

Olive Oil Press in Bakkah

I visited this morning a large and traditional olive oil press in the City of Bakkah, near Kalansuwah, whose health permit has not been renewed in the last two years. For two years they could not sell their oil to Israeli supermarkets, etc. The owners tried the legal way and hired an Arab protest lawyer. He did not succeed so they called me. I read the letter detailing the demands of the Ministry of Health and it was very reasonable, it only mentioned that the sewage disposal problem has not been solved and nothing is being done to solve it. What is true. That sewage was running in the factory floor. I havent seen it, but the factory is not working, because the olive season is just starting. The factory´s problem is that the whole village has no sewage system, although there are projects to connect it to the Djatt - Bakka Al Garbiyya town, a larger Arab settlement that has a WWTP, or to the Emek Hefer system. According to Israeli law, a factory has to be connected to a central sewage system is there is one at a distance of 800 meters. If not, it has to provide a private solution. I will design a program for them and they will have their permit renewed. It is Ramadan and they explained to me that because of their religion, they cannot invite me to the traditional Arab coffee. I dont like oversweet bitter coffee anyway.

Carmel City Sewage Flood

An unrepaired rotten sewage main forced the closure of the Ir HaCarmel (Carmel City) pumping station (see pic) and bypassing crude sewage into the wadi. The sewage contaminated nearby drinking water well and stopped the supply in the Haifa and Carmel area. The problem is that the Druse city is unwilling to accept the responsability for the maintenance and repair of their main sewage line. This situation, of Arab villages unwilling to maintain their infrastructure, is typical of Israel. And it works: the Government has established an emergency fund to do what the local municipalities are failing to do.

KOOR Collapsing

KOOR, my favorite stock, is collapsing on the TASE. It is a holding company with two main properties: 1% of Credit Suisse Bank, and the generic agrochemical factory Makhtashim Agam. Only yesterday I bought more of it. But this morning Panic has seized the financial world, people has lost its confidence in the creditworthiness of many banks and insurance companies. Credit Suisse is the most capitalized bank in Europe, yet there are people saying that it is not the time to be in banks, not in European banks.

¡Maldición!

Boomtime in Israel

As am growing old, I am believing less and less in government statistics and more and more in what I see with my own eyes. Yesterday it was a busy day and in the early morning I went to inspect a factory being built supposedly on the basis of my design (to my surprise, the owner sacked the Palestinian contractor and he is managing the work. Terrible and I shall have to sign that it is OK). The Ariel Western Industrial Park Extension is starting to take form, 200 factory sites have been sold and the building activity is starting (I am the first). 200 factories is at least 10,000 work places, mostly for the surrounding Palestinian villages, like Salfit. The Industrial Park is full of Palestinian construction workers, with Palestinian cars, and already they have stolen the Park's electricity cables ! In the site I am working, there are large painted signs "This site is guarded by Dodo", in Hebrew and in Arabic, and mysterious signs that must mean something to the people alluded to above. 10,000 workers will develope seriously the area, and I am sorry I did not bought the apartment in Ariel I planned to buy (when the stock exchange was high! Now it is too late.)

Also yesterday I received three new projects, and I am rising my fees. If to judge from what I see, it is boomtime in Kever Benjamin and its Samarian hinterlands.

The pic shows how the factory is supposed to look in the end.

Kever Benjamin Welcomes Toshiba

YOKOHAMA, Japan, Sept 16 (Reuters) - The head of Toshiba Corp's (6502.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) semiconductor division said on Tuesday he was interested in SanDisk (SNDK.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), its partner in the flash memory chip business.
The comment from Corporate Senior Vice President Shozo Saito came after rival Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said this month that it may buy SanDisk.

The Future of Banking

(1) The American investment banking model, based on securitization of debt and complex instruments, is dead. The message from the disappearance of three of the top five investment banks within a few months is clear - any entity that raises short-term money and invests long term is basically a bank, and should be treated as a bank, with all that that entails in terms of regulation.

(2) Financial institutions will be regulated even more heavily, to the point that many activities will be forbidden. A vast grey market of unregulated financial instruments will be created, based in exotic islands or some other kind of sovereign entity, could be a Church or a religion. Jews will be once more the world's financiers, indispensable but morally condemned as risky and dubious.

(3) Hard productive activities, like mining, farming, manufacturing will be once more the center of economic activity. Financial operations and leveraged takeovers will be outlawed as "immoral".

KOOR lost half of its worth

Koor owns Credit Suisse stock and controls Makhteshim Agam. These are serious, solid businesses. The market is acting in panic and over reacting. I think there is value hidden in Koor and am buying more.

I know I started buying at the top and buying all the while it is falling. I have already sizeable losses in Koor. Should I stop now? No, I keep accumulating. Wish me foresight and luck.

Lehman 94.59% Down, POT1 % Up

Remarkable. American debt clearing is going on, all debts are being paid back by the debtor or the creditor. In a few months no one will owe anything to anybody and we will start again. Today the banks, that are based on the confidence of the people, are failing. The Asians, that have real money, will end owning all.

NYSE LAST CHANGE
LEH 0.20 94.59%
AIG 6.41 47.20%
BAC 28.77 14.73%
MER 21.50 26.07%
WM 2.22 18.68%

POT on the other hand is rising. It is a real money machine. has no debts.

Lehman Shares Worth Nothing

Lehman has hired law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP to prepare a potential bankruptcy filing, according to a person familiar with the situation. The New York-based Weil has a leading bankruptcy practice and advised Drexel Burnham Lambert on its 1990 bankruptcy filing. This is called capitalism.

Chavez, Correa, Morales, General Hugo Carvajal, Ahmedenijad and Timochenko

The gygabites captured by Colombian Armed Forces in the raid on FARC camp in Ecuador are revealing the picture of a worldwide conspiracy. The files contain e-mails and other documents that show how Venezuela's Hugo Chavez had formed such a tight bond with FARC guerrilla commanders that his key lieutenants like the General Carvajal had offered help in obtaining sophisticated weaponry such as surface-to-air missiles while delivering lighter arms. The files also document links between the FARC and Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, a close ally of Chávez. One email, sent by a FARC commander known as "Timochenko" to the guerrillas' ruling body in March 2007, describes meetings with Venezuelan naval-intelligence officers who offer the FARC assistance in getting "rockets." The Venezuelans also offer to help a FARC guerrilla travel to the Middle East to learn how to use the rockets.

At the meeting with Gen. Carvajal, another Venezuelan general is described as offering the port of Maracaibo to facilitate arms shipments to the guerrillas. The general suggests piggybacking on shipments from Russia — from which Venezuela itself is buying everything from Kalashnikovs to jet fighters — to "include some containers destined to the FARC" with various arms for the guerrillas' own use.

Two countries, Venezuela and Ecuador, had conspired to deliver the country between them, Colombia, to its Communist rebels, the FARC. A Middle Eastern Country, probably Iran, was ready to provide training ground to the Colombian insurgents. All this conspiracy was directed against the United States.

Timochenko (pic), on the other hand, was an Ukranian peasant who fought in the WWI but was jailed for slapping an officer. He escaped and joined the Red Army where advanced very rapidly. In 1938 was ascended to marshal and led the Red Army to victory against Finland and the Wehrmacht.

Lehman Gone, AIG Going, Merril Endangered

The ongoing run on Wall Street banks has arrived to the door of Merril. Should it fall, only two independent securities groups would remain: Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley. If Merrill took markdowns comparable to Lehman's, it could face an additional $3.5 billion beyond the $5.7 billion hit announced on July 28 that accompanied Merrill's sale of mortgage assets to Lone Star Funds. That, some analyst say, could require Merrill to raise even more capital, further diluting investors, after the firm raised more than $23 billion in several different steps since last December to shore up its balance sheet. If I am not wrong, Merril debt is sold 70 cents on the dollar. On Friday, Lehman's stock closed at $3.65 -- an all-time low and down nearly 95 percent from its 52-week high of $67.73 as investors grew more convinced that Lehman may be auctioned at fire-sale prices. In 1929 hundreds of banks failed, the same is happening these days. I am uncertain what is the meaning of these large financial institutions going broke one after another, but the real economy and the stock exchange are holding up quite well. Which is impossible. Therefore, a sudden, unexpected, deep, prolongued, worldwide recession is quite possible.

I said it.

Lehman Recruiting Credit Risk Managers ?

From Lehman´s Corporate Website, today, Trying to Recruit Credit Risk Managers.

"The effective management of risk is one of the core strengths that has made Lehman Brothers so successful. We rely on it to identify, measure and monitor the issues associated with doing business in the global capital markets. The Credit Risk Management team manages the credit exposure that may arise in our capital markets transactions to help protect the capital and reputation of the Firm, while preserving our market position and optimizing long-term profitability. As a Credit Risk professional, you will work closely with every business unit within the Firm in a highly challenging and dynamic professional environment."

Disarray

This is J's dog writing. The mortgage market is in increasing disarray and the cracks are spreading to the midprime and prime arenas as well. The next wave of stories will emerge from the Alt A market. The market break will come like a thief in the night, and mostly likely from some entity in the thick of the credit quality unwinding. It is like 1929. If Obama wins, it will be worse, because his economic experience is limited to milking the State for the underclass. On the other hand, Saraleh may lead us to a cute little war and that will save the economy. Anyway, I am hiding in the garden 30% of the bones J throws me for when he finally goes broke. I asked the cat to take a pic of me through her eyes.

Wipeout

Recent developments highlight the extent to which the banking system as a whole lacks sufficient capital to comfortably navigate this period of sharp deleveraging.(Mohamed El-Erian, co-CEO of Pacific Investment Management Co (Pimco).)

I don't know about you, but when the chief of the largest fixed-income asset manager in the world ($812 billion) says things like that I tend to get really, really concerned. The amplitude and frequency of the waves in the financial pond are both increasing, causing the keepers of the public purse (Paulson, Bernanke & Co.) serious nausea. It is time to "get off the boat". The real possibility of a total wipeout should bring people to their senses, sharply reducing their expectations for what they will be left with after the ongoing credit contraction.

Board Chats on POT

POT is 7.5% UP. The Board comments:



Z: HUGE DEMAND DESTRUCTION

HAWK: Dont you have school today?

ABBA: The only demand destruction I see is for your expressed views to be curtailed, given how inane they are. Magical thinking just won't get it done, Mr. Maestro.

News flash: POT nears its high for the day at $161.70. Oh, no, Mr. Bill. The market is not listening to you. Oh no, Mr. Bill. It keeps going up but I can type only so fast. Now it is $162, up over $11 a share. Enjoy.

Z: My facts are that you are all cheerleaders. Rah Rah. The POT just initiated the poison pill.

HAWK: POT doesn't have a poison pill but it is possible that you have ingested something you shouldn't have. Oh, and you don't have any "facts." Just a weird emotional pull to a bizarre fantasy world in which what you have to say means anything.

Uh, oh, Mr. Bill. POT still up about $11 on the day. I am still waiting for the steep decline you warned us about. Don't you ever get tired spouting nonsense? Maybe it is because of what you ate and perhaps getting your stomach pumped is what is called for. Sorry that I can't help further

Z: Fantasy? I'm not the one talking about Mr. Bill. You sir are off your rocker. You have fallen and can not get up. Try life alert, let someone else know that you are alive.

HAWK: This is a classic example of a narrow minded individual who listens to cnbc and hears a new buzz word. he tries to impress others with his very broad vocabulary by using a new term like demand destruction to make himself sound as if he has any idea about the company or industry. Yea, we all know pot is finished, global growth is done, the us housing mkt failure is going to cause the decline in the demand for global food production....idiot...

ABBA: Keep watching CNBC, the same folks who told you to buy financials and consumer staples. Here is a new word that I would like you to try to say out loud and then try to learn its meaning: GLOBAL. As in global potash sales. American farmers are only a piece of the equation but they will not listen to you in any event because they, unlike you, operate in the real world. Instead, they will do what it takes to continue generating maximum revenue from their farming activities which will require significant nutrient purchases including potash. Here is another word for you to learn: ALLOCATION. As in I can't give you all the potash you want so I will have to put you on allocation.

Crop nutrients represent about 3% of the cost of production; even at today's prices, they remain the sine qua non without which crop yields will never be able to meet world food demands. So dream on. In your CNBC besotted world, farmers would rather idle their land than farm it and make money. Just more magical thinking from the mouth of the guy who told us the steep decline has started. What a buffoon.

Ken: Isn't this the same moron who just called his play long two hours ago? This is why they need parental locks on computers once preschool is out in the afternoon.

Tango: Chorra

Por ser bueno, me pusiste en la miseria,
me dejaste en la palmera, me afanaste hasta el color.
En seis meses me fundiste el mercadito,
la casiya de la feria, la ganchera, el mostrador...
Chorra!
Me robaste hasta el amor...
Aura
tanto me asusta una mina
que si en la calle me afila
me pongo al lao del boton.
Lo que mas bronca me da
es haber sido tan gil.

Si hace un mes me desayuno
con lo qu' he sabido ayer.
No era a mi que me cachaban
tus rebusques de mujer...
Hoy m'entero que tu mama,
"noble viuda de un guerrero",
es la chorra de mas fama
que piso la treinta y tres.
Y he sabido qu' el "guerrero"
que murio lleno de honor,
ni murio ni fue guerrero
- como m' engrupiste vos -
Esta en cana pronturiado
como agente 'e la camorra,
profesor de cachiporra,
malandrin y estafador.

Entre todos me pelaron con la cero
tu silueta fue el anzuelo donde yo me fui a ensartar.
Se tragaron, vos, "la viuda" y "el guerrero",
lo que me costo diez años de paciencia y de yugar...
Chorros!
Vos, tu vieja y tu papa.
Guarda!
Cuidense porque anda suelta,
si los cacha, los da vuelta,
no les da tiempo a rajar.

Lo que mas bronca me da
es haber sido tan gil.

(For being nice, you drove me into misery,
you left me hanging from a palm tree, you even stole my color.
In six months you bankrupted my little market,
the stand at the fair, the hooks, the counter...
Thief!
You even stole my love...
Now
a woman scares me so much
that if one approaches me on the street
I hide behind a cop.
What really pisses me off the most
is to have been so stupid.

For a month I have suspected
what I've learned yesterday.
It wasn't me who were after,
your woman's fleeting love...
Today I learned that your mother,
"noble widower of a warrior",
is the most famous thief
that set foot on the 33rd precint.
And I found out that the "warrior"
who died with full honors,
didn't die, nor was a warrior
-as you lied to me-
He's in jail booked
as a hit man of the mafia,
professor of truncheon,
scroundel and swindler.

The three of you took me to the cleaners
your silhouete was the hook where I happened to get caught,
You, the "widow" and the "warrior" went through
what I worked hard and patiently for ten years...
Thieves!
You, your old lady and your dad.
Watch out!
Take care because she is on the loose,
if she catches you, she flips you upside down
she won't give you time to run.

What really pisses me off the most
is to have been so stupid.)

Ethiopian Girls

Lucy is the great mamma of all of us.



Lucy is the big mamma of all of us.

Kibbutz Kfar Giladi: Once Pure-Soul Pioneers, Now Polluters of the Earth

Kibbutz Kfar Giladi in the Galilee is one of the first Jewish settlement in Israel, a model of the reborn Hebrew man, living in a just society without money nor private property. Yesterday, the Palestinian Chief Justice of the Galilee sentenced them to pay 250,000 shekel penalty for contaminating the Ayun River. He wrote that "the kibbutz's economic considerations (aka greediness) made it disregard the long term environmental damage it was causing (by allowing its compost site to leak into the river). The circumstance that the kibbutz was undergoing economic difficulties does not gives it a free hand to commit crimes against the environment."

No Cold Wars with Saraleh

In her first interview as the Republican vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin called for NATO to admit Georgia, acknowledging that such a move could lead the United States into a war with Russia. "We will not repeat the Cold War."

Thanks Global Warming

The Neanderthal man was adapted to the Ice Age. When it was over, he disappeared with the Ice Age fauna. He had became a circus muscleman with a bovine neck that no lion could break. When the ice melted, the light boned Gracilis man, evolved in the African savanna, peopled the territory.

Israel's Exports Increase 27%

Israeli exports continue to surge ahead, according to figures for August published by Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Industrial exports have grown by about 27%, high technology exports climbed at an annualized rate of 18.2%, while mixed high-tech exports increased by an annualized rate of 33.4%. TASE is falling.

Fatal Encounters

Neanderthals first appeared in Europe at least 300,000 years ago but they disappeared after the arrival of modern humans, who first arrived in Europe 50,000 years ago. The latest evidence, an analysis of DNA recovered from a 38,000-year-old fossilised thigh bone, suggests the Neanderthals did not interbreed with modern humans but were eradicated by them.

TASE Logic (II)

ONE

Merrill Lynch is out with a bullish Fertilizer call noting the recent sharp fall in fertilizer sector valuation multiples is unprecedented, with share prices down 44% since peaking in mid-June. Firm attributes most of the decline to investor fears that the commodity boom is over as the dollar has weakened and energy prices have declined sharply. While corn prices have declined 31% since their flood-induced late-June peaks, fears of demand destruction from high fertilizer prices appear overblown. US corn growers would still be profitable with fertilizer costs twice current levels, by firm's calculations.

For the last month they have been saying that fertilizer valuations indicate that the market believes that earnings will peak in 2009 and decline rapidly thereafter. With little new supply set to come on line before 2011-12 depending on the nutrient and with a likely multi-year grain cycle sustaining high demand levels they believe that peak earnings are still several years away. One potential catalyst for the sector could come post this fall’s harvest as investors once again focus on the need for growers to raise global grain production to rebuild grain inventories which are hovering at 35-year lows relative to demand.

Potash supplies have tightened even further with the month-long strike affecting 30% of Potash Corp.’s production. Firm is trimming their Q3 EPS estimate for POT by $0.10 to $3.65 due to lower potash shipments. They believe Canadian producer supplies are now at all-time record lows, likely leading to further price increases this fall. Firm expects China to settle its 2009 contract with Canadian and Russian producers prior to year-end at $900/mt cfr, which could prove to be low.

TWO

Israel Chemicals (כיל) lost 7% today on TASE. It has halved its worth during the last month.

No Water in the High Andes Cities

Now it is Tumbaco, a city in the high Cordillera de los Andes, Ecuador. The local Water Company suspended the service once more, for several days, and the people is filling their house's tanks with water purchased from the "tanqueros". The company is refusing to supply the "tanqueros", that are forced to drive to faraway manantiales (sources). The same is happening in several Quito neighborhoods. There is also the issue of arsenic, as the high valleys draw water from volcanic sediment aquifers.

TASE Logic

ONE:

Koor (TASE: KOR) recorded a capital gain of NIS 73 million on the latest tranche of Credit Suisse shares that it sold over the past few days. This will be added to the NIS 208 million it recorded in the third quarter, which takes the total capital gain on Koor's sale of Credit Suisse shares to NIS 281 million.

TWO:

Koor shares lost 7% today on TASE.

No Gas Exports from Bolivia

Sabotage stopped natural gas exports from Bolivia to Argentina, and reduced 10% the volumes exported to Brazil. A valve on the 32" pipe "exploded" near the San Alberto field. between lost income, compensation to the Brazilians and the maintenance work, the sabotage will cost about 100 million dollars to the impoverished Republic. Pic shows recent protests against Evo, the first Ameroindian (Aymara) President of Bolivia.

SamSung Welcome to Kever Benjamin

I hope Samsung will buy Kever Benjamin's SanDisk and start soon launching their products here. The pic is from a new auto model presentation in Korea. I expect Koreans to bring us their Confucian work habits and Confucianing bikini girls.

Parents Patrol Attacked

Mr Ofer Gil (pic) was attacked by a drunk hooligan in Kever Benjamin on Friday Night. Mr Gil is a volunteer in Kever Benjamin's Parents Patrol, an organization dedicated to combat drunkenness among the city's youth. They are specially active on Friday Nights near the night clubs where the teenager population tends to congregate for their weekly courtship rites. Ofer tried to make a citizen's arrest and take the presumably underage fellow to Kever Benjamin's police station.

No Hope for Fatties

Sci Am discovers that ...

physically active people who carry gene mutations linked to obesity are no more likely to be overweight than those without the variants — as long as they exercise at least three hours a day.

Three hours a day! That imppossible for a hard working middle aged consulting water engineer like myself. So now I know that diet does not work, and the quantity of excercise required is incompatible with being the urban Jew I am. Smoking works, but it kills fast. My only hope is they will discover a wonder slimming pill soon. Very soon.

The pic shows Herman Kahn from the Hudson Institute, when he was young and skinny.

Javelin in Afganistan

Pic by the Pentagon of an American soldier firing a hi-tech fire-and-forget Javelin missile against Taliban target. Isn't a Javelin too expensive to destroy a mud hut (see the mud wall in the background)? Maybe the American Army is just training its soldiers in battle conditions and/or creating the need for purchasing new models. Anyway, it is clear that the American Army in war is never restricted by budget considerations.

The Keep Coming

Young American Jews keep flowing to Israel. G-d knows why. ONE pic to combat my low spirits (my stocks are worth much less than two months ago).

Burning Showers

The showers in the best country club of Israel had caused ugly burns to a few naked people sprinkled with boiling water, and after a first round of emergency plumbing works and opinions of several plumbers, the problem remained, so they invited the Israeli Water Engineer to emmit his expert opinion. I found that there was a problem of pressure differencials, as well as lack of maintenance, as it always is. I wrote my 3 pg opinion and bill of quantities, and got my 100 dollars. One plumber happened to be there and I observed his behaviour. First the man demanded all the HDPE poliethylene pipes to be changed by copper pipes. That is most unusual in Israel, because we dont use metals. I told him in private, it costs five times the plastic and is of lesser quality. He said that we were in S.. Israel's richest neighborhood, and people here wanted the best and could afford it. And copper kills the algae and bacteria growing in the pipes (copper is a biocide, is poisonous for people too). And he told me about really fantastic prices he quotes, 70 thousand dollars for a private house replumbing, 200,000 dollars for a big villa, etc. I told him that I was there for 100 dollars, he was worried that I was ruining the "bran-dja", the installation business in S.. The least I had to ask was 1000 dollars per professional opinion. That I am a professional engineer, and expert, no "hantarish". I need to acquire this simple man's "hutzpah". Worse than simple, he was a very bad plumber, with not the vaguest idea how the system works, how pressures play within the pipes, he failed to recognize some standard element (I had to explain him what the prestostat did), and in general he was a complete analphabeast. He could teach me a lot.

The pic shows a Chinese shower head that changes colors according the temperature of the water. Nice.

SamSung + SanDisk = San Sung or Sam Disk?

The Samsung Sandisk combination brings to the surface that Samsung is paying royalties to SanDisk which net present value is worth $4 billion to $5 billion, well above SanDisk’s current $3 billion market cap.

And one other thing: Merrill Lynch convertible analyst Alan Yu notes today that a SanDisk takeover by Samsung would likely trigger the change-of-control provision of SNDK’s 1% convertible due 2013. That provision would allow holders to put the convert back to the company and demand payment at par plus accumulated interest. They advise investors looking to play the deal to swap out of the equity and into the coverts.

As for me, I am for the combination, so Samsung will introduce in Kever Benjamin the Korean custom of launching new products with cute Korean girls.