In the meanwhile, in China...

Nothing. No mention of anything happening in Egypt. Pic from today's army paper.

Hussein Salem with Stolen Money

Hussein Salem, a businessman of Hosni Mubarak's regime, was detained in Dubai with half a billion (?) dollars - cash. He was fleeing Egypt. Dubai's police is starting to look effective.

Update: He and his money made it to safety in Switzerland. I was starting to worry ...

Disorder in Egypt

The disorder in Egypt is one week old. The police has been beated out of the big cities and the military is waiting while the mobs calm down. The main oposition figure is Al Baraday, a bad man for Israel. Today is a general strike and tomorrow a general meeting has been called in the Liberation Plaza. World leaders are urging Mubarak to leave.

Egypt is an African basket case, feeding its people with pittah bread baked from imported wheat. Its sole sensitive point is the Suez Canal, which moves about 3% of the world oil. Its population base is mulatto (about 40% African genes), which makes for chronic unstability and ungovernability. Egypt may be in for a prolonged transition phase, till the next strongman appears and takes charge. Pic.: Africans in Ancient Egypt.

Mubarrak Fighting Back

The man has staying power. He is not giving up. El Baraday, who is now speaking in the Liberation Plaza, is a sworn enemy of Israel. While in the Int. Atom. Agency, he covered Iran's military nuclear program (still now he is saying that there is none). The Muslim Brotherhood is another name for Al-Qaida terrorism. If Mubarrak fails, all the other Middle East dictators will fall. America has abandoned Mubarrak and his other friends and allies in this part of the world. Big mistake. Funny it will be not.

Ramle's Mosque

State Department: How to Lose Allies

U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Margaret Scobey cabled: “He (an Egyptian subversive) told us that the other activists at the summit were very supportive, and that some even offered to hold public demonstrations in support of Egyptian democracy in their countries.”

The embassy helped keep the identity of the dissident secret from Egyptian police, the Telegraph said, but he has been arrested in the recent demonstrations.

The leaked documents reveal that Scobey sent a cable to the Secretary of State two years ago, in which she wrote, “April 6 activist on his US visit and regime change in Egypt.” She added that embassy sources said the plan for “a transition to a parliamentary democracy [was] “so sensitive it cannot be written down.”

In summary, the US was supporting Mubarrak's regime with about 3 billion dollar foreign aid a year, while secretely cultivating the "democratic" revolutionary underground. Why am I surprised?

Aluf Benn, a HaAretz commenter, writes:

Jimmy Carter will go down in American history as "the president who lost Iran," which during his term went from being a major strategic ally of the United States to being the revolutionary Islamic Republic. Barack Obama will be remembered as the president who "lost" Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, and during whose tenure America's alliances in the Middle East crumbled.

For Strong Sphincters Only

Yesterday, Sandisk lost 9% of its worth on Nasdaq. Is it reasonable or the speculators have lost the control of their sphincters? All Israeli shares went down. TASE today: For Investors, a luckless day; For fearless speculators, an opportunity to make more money.

Bardak in Egypt

The disorganized, leaderless, programless mob in the streets is degenerating into looting and burning vandalism. Yet vital services are operating and food is available. Soon the organized forces - the military - will start to move in to stop the bardak (бардак, disorder in Hebrew slang). The Saudi king has expressed its support for Mubarrak. Once more, America have been cought betraying its friends and allies.

I got troubles

Oh, is it true that we were young once?

The Arab Street

The excitement in Cairo is wounding down but it is growing in Amman, Teheran, Lybia and even China (they blocked the searchword "Egypt").

Recent Evolution in Human Populations

French Canadians offer an extraordinary example of recent evolution. One example of recent selection is the decline in Amerindian admixture. According to a genealogical study of parish registers, Amerindians made up 1.2% of all founders but now account for only 0.1 - 0.3% of current ancestry (Bherer et al., 2010). The explanation sounds reasonable to me:

Beginning in the 19th century, the inhabitants were split into two social groups. In one, the inhabitants were stable, hardworking, preoccupied with their heritage of land and family, and governed by an increasingly strict ethic. In the other group were the marginal folk, the métissés [mixed with Amerindians], the less rich, and those who mucked about. They would settle on the periphery of the parish, in “the concessions” …

Tay Sachs in French Canadian population

Once thought to be a Jewish marker, Tay Sach’s disease is unusually common among French Canadians, particularly in eastern Quebec. In Rimouski, the heterozygote frequency is 7.6%, compared to 4.2% for Ashkenazi Jews and 0.3% for French Canadians in Montreal (De Braekeleer et al, 1992). French Canadian Tay Sach’s is produced by two different mutations: one that originated on the south shore of the lower St. Lawrence and another that originated on the north shore (Charlevoix County). Neither mutation has been reported from France. Thus, on two separate occasions and in a very small population, something has maintained a genetic mutation that has failed to maintain itself in a much larger population.Nor does a founder effect easily explain how 2 out of 8,500 founders (0.02%) could have produced the incidences we now see in eastern Quebec or even French Canada in general.

The simplest explanation is that the TS gene provides some kind of reproductive advantage. Evolution in action. Pic.: Maxime Lepine, a well known French Canadian metisse.

Tanks in the Streets

The Army has taken over in Egypt. The rebellion is being repressed. Hillary Clinton made a mistake in sending a weak message, like Carter's order to the Shah of Persia to leave the country. Mubarrak is what Egypt needs.

Mubarrak Staying

Egypt's strongman Hosni Mubarak has survived Friday, shown himself on TV with the message that he is not going anywhere. The Arab street mob phenomenon is notoriously coward and short-lived, so facing a determined dictator, protests are due to weaken and die down. America, as always, is in the wrong side: against the order and development provided by Mubarrak's tyranny.

The Bosnyak Zoltan affair

Bosnyak (pic) was a Hungarian teacher who before WWII published six books on Hungary's Jewish problem, founded the ZsidoKutato Intezet (Institute for Studying the Jews) and wrote innumerable newpaper antisemitic articles. After the war he was condemned in absentia to be hanged, and he went to live in hiding with his wife's parents in Transylvania. But he could not keep quiet and wrote letters to foreign personalities about the Romanian authorities repression of the Hungarian population. His secret reports were discovered by the Securitate and he was condemned to forced labor in the Black Sea channel project. After an year the Romanians delivered him to the Hungarian brother Socialist regime.

Now comes the interesting part. The Hungarian Communist Party was then preparing the mass repression of the Jewish population, following Stalin's example. They arrested the HIAS people (the American Assistance Organization that maintained so many poor Jewish families), the leaders of the local Jewish community and anyone connected to the Zionist movement. The star culprit was to be Peter Gabor (ne Eizenberger Benjamin), the hated Secret Service's Director General. But the Communist Party leadership was composed by ethnic Jews, and they felt spiritually inhibited to mount a credible antisemitic show trial. The deportation and extermination in Auschwitz of Hungarian Jewry was too fresh in their memories. So they asked Bosnyak, a bona fide antisemite, to supply ideas and to write the material. Bosnyak wrote a 300 page proposal, including the creation of „Államvédelmi Hatóság Tudományos Kutató Intézetének” (The Institute for Scientific Research for the Protection of the State).

Then, unexpectedly, Joseph Stalin died or was killed by his collegues before he could implement his evil plans. Peter was given a job as librarian and the HIAS people allowed to make aliyah. Now there was no more need of the creative energies of Bosnyak and he disappeared. Only now we learn that his death sentence was carried out and he was hanged in the prison yard at 7.00 AM on October 4th., 1952. Hungary is no America, there are no tall L-shaped wooden structures, but a simple 2.5 m post. The pic shows the hanging of Szalasy, the leader of the Hungarian Arrow Fascist Party.

Keep Calm and Carry On

Middle East Food Riots

Gulf Arabs are in no danger of a food riot.

Feeding Egypt

Egypt's economy has been growing nicely in the last decade, but it is a very poor country and MOST of the people survives on free bread supplied by the government. It is something like the Roman system. The participation in the system costs three Egyptian pounds (50 US cents) a month, allowing to buy 20 loaves of flat pittah bread. The subsidization of bread costs the government $3 billion per year. (Pic.: Buying subsidized bread in Cairo).

Rationing food is, in my opinion, an infallible method of population control. I dont recall any successful rebellion or revolution in Ancient Rome or against a Communist regime. I dont think Mubarak's regime will collapse, except if he loses his nerve, like the Tunisian Ali did, and leaves the country.

Tomorrow: Post-Mubarak?

Friday is the traditional street protest day in Muslim countries. Let see if ancient soldier Hosni Mubarak stays to face the music or flies to Saudi Arabia.

Coevolving with Modernity

Let me paste here a thought:

Part of the reason that there were no significant Jewish scientists before 1800 is that the Ashkenazic Jewish population did not really exist before 1700. Eastern European Jews underwent a sort of ethnogenesis and population expansion during the 18th century. They represent a coevolution with the modern civilization, a group which has literally evolved in response to certain niches created by modernity.

Are we a group that evolved in response to certain niches created by modernity? But modernity started in Northern Italy, France, Holland, England. We evolved in rural Eastern Europe.

The pic shows an example of coevolution. An orchid from Madagascar has a whip-shaped nectary eleven inches long, with a drop of nectar tucked away at its very base. Only an animal with a suitably long tongue can drink it. Darwin predicted that somewhere in Madagascar there must live just such an insect. Long after Darwin's death, the Madagascar hawkmoth was discovered.

Countercurrents: American Jews on the way to Inclusion

Allow me to say that Jews are confusing. While Israeli religious establishment is fighting among itself about who is more Orthodox, here in Kever Benjamin city the Reform community (we have one) is about to conquer a seat in the official Moatzah HaDatit (the Committee in charge of religion). Rabbi Gregory Kotler is the candidate. What proves that showing up is 90% of everything. Pic: Instead of black bearded Kotler, see pic of a goodlooking German rabbi.

Speculating

Governments in Egypt (pic), Algeria, Morocco and Yemen are beginning to stockpile food to prevent unrest. Wheat futures are surging. Unfortunately, I have no instruments to ride the trend from Kever Benjamin. But apparently Nochi Dankner is selling Clal Bituach at 1.9 billion dollars, and I shall get a small share of his profits. I wrote about Clal Bituach (Insurance) a few months ago and for once, I followed my advise.

ARIMA options modelling: Does it work?

I have been observing moving average predictions and making some modest efforts of my own in modelling. I cant find any investable idea. Stock prices seem to move following "moods" which are impacted by the morning news. Makes no sense.

(ARIMA models are easy to implement on a spreadsheet. The prediction equation is simply a linear equation that refers to past values of original time series and past values of the errors. Thus, you can set up an ARIMA forecasting spreadsheet by storing the data in column A, the forecasting formula in column B, and the errors (data minus forecasts) in column C. The forecasting formula in a typical cell in column B would simply be a linear expression referring to values in preceding rows of columns A and C, multiplied by the appropriate AR or MA coefficients stored in cells elsewhere on the spreadsheet.)

American Jews on the road to Exclusion

Israeli Judaism is hardening and becoming more exclusive. There is a big problem with converts here, who are being rejected by the hard core of the religious establishment. The Army's rabbis tried to establish a military conversion channel that would allow soldiers to become Jews, but it is failing, as their conversions are not accepted by the establishment. Simply put, Israeli rabbinate is against conversions.

This situation has created a large group of Israelis who were born here and live full Israeli-Jewish life, but float in a religious limbo, not discriminated against in any way but considered not Jews or doubtful Jews (which is the same) by the religious establishment. And the tendency is not towards gradual integration but towards ever harder exclusion.

These people are already in Israel and in any religious reform (BTW, we had none in the last thousand years) or in any national emergency (like the Tchelmietzky children born to kosher Jewish girls kidnapped by the Kossacks) - they will be assimilated. Not so with American Jews. There will be a point when they are so intermarried and so unschooled in Orthodox Judaism that they will be unable to prove their belonging to the Jewish people and they will not be covered by the Law of Return. Even today there are many problems, which are not public because no one wants to alienate American Jewry. But the point is near where only Orthodox are recognized automatically as Jews, and the large mass of Reform Jews are finding growing difficulties to prove their Judaism. As my Mea Shearim uncle said: What kind of Jew are you if you dont keep the Shabbat?

The issue is not an important one today, because few American Jews are making aliyah to Israel. But Israel is fast becoming one of the most prosperous countries on Earth while American living standards have not improved in thirty years. May be I am imagining things, but American Jews may discover one day that their children are considered doubtful Jews, like the current immigration from Russia. Pic.: Rabbi Lewittes from the Sha'ar Community, Canada. She seems a nice person. She even seems to think that she is Jewish.

Tired

Sunday and Monday I worked 14 hs a day and am so tired that I didnt go to a meeting in Rishon. Tired or fainting, tonight I am going to a Russian marriage fiesta. Russians have the maldita costumbre of celebrating their marriage any number of times: these distant relatives of my wife celebrate their 50th anniversary. There will be a monster bottle of Absolut on every table.

Plutocracy in Phoenicia

Polybios describes Carthage, a settlement of Tzidon, as ruled by a senate composed by its richest people. Contemporary Lebanon, made up by Phoenician descendants, has fallen back to plutocracy. Hariri, a billionaire, was replaced today by Najib Mikati, who happens to be also a billionaire and is Lebanon's richest politician. We should have no problems with him.

War in Ciudad Juarez

A veritable civil war is being waged in Ciudad Juarez, which is the twin city of El Paso in the USA. Three thousand persons have been killed last year. Yesterday gangsters opened automatic weapons fire on a soccer game, senselessly killing seven bystanders. It is like Medellin a decade ago.

Rakott Krumpli

We are famous! An ordinary meatless plate frequently prepared by my Mother called "rakott krumpli", that is layered potatoes, appears in the holy New York Times! The author waxes extatic: "I was so excited by the simple and tasty sound of it, that..." I had eaten it innumerable times and never knew that it was so exciting. Moreover, all this time I had been ignorant of the fact that it is a special plate of ultra-religious Hungarian Jews. I went trough life believing we were simple folks eating ordinary food, while in fact we had been tasting exotic gourmet plates.

Israel's Demise

International economic commenters are debating Israel's demise because of the discovery of oil and gas, which will make us a very wealthy country. They are already lamenting the passing of Israeli startup culture, and Israelis becoming lazy hedonists.

I am soooooo worried...:-)

Lucky Strike

Investing Daily:

Less than a month ago, Noble Energy (NYSE: NBL), a Texas-based oil & gas producer, issued a press release that shocked the entire energy industry: it had made a HUGE natural gas discovery. According to Noble CEO Charles Davidson, “this latest major discovery for Noble Energy is easily the largest exploration discovery in our history.”

As my friends already know, there is one well near Kever Benjamin city that found oil. People meet at the site on weekends to observe the flame and speculate about the share's next morning's price in TASE. There are other partnerships out there. For example:

U.S. company – Zion Oil & Gas (NasdaqGM: ZN) was founded by John Brown, a fundamentalist Christian from Dallas, Texas. Mr. Brown asked the Lord whether he will find oil in Israel and the Lord – reportedly – told him yes. He also refers to biblical passages for evidence that significant oil will be found in Israel:

Genesis 12:1-3

Now the LORD had said to Abram:

Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.

I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Genesis 49:25

The Almighty will bless you
with blessings of heaven above and blessings of the deep that lies beneath

Deuteronomy 33:24

Asher is most blessed of sons;
Let him be favored by his brothers,
And let him dip his foot in oil.

John Brown was right.

Pic.: Jim Fink, the "Hopelessly overeducated" author of Investing Daily.

Ashkenazi Genes

Personal genomics is upon us and its implications are revolutionary. The US Army alreay has comprehensive health data on its personnel, now they are considering to add genomic data.

Ashkenazi genes are identifiable through a 100 dollar saliva analysis. About 2% of American White Christians have identifiable Ashkenazi ancestry, Forward says. Hispanics carry identifiable Sepharadi genes (I dont know the proportion). The new world of genetic transparency is already here. Pic.: Fatness is a Jewish disease.

Fasting Prayer

After fasting, the following prayer is said:

Ribon Kol-HaOlamim (Owner of All the Worlds), When a man sinned, he used to bring a victim to the Temple and you took its blood and fat and in your greatness, you pardoned the sinner. But we have no Temple and we have no priests who could present the expiation to you. Therefore please count the little blood and the little fat that I lost today as my expiation and be forgiving towards me.

The scan shows the page from my late Mother's Hungarian-Hebrew prayer book.

Creating water scarcity: California 2011

Milton Friedman observed "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there'd be a shortage of sand."

California's precipitation this season has gone off the charts. Statewide snow water content is 198 percent of normal; in the all-important Northern Sierra snowpack is 174 percent of normal. This is not only a wet year — it is one of the wettest years on record.

Yet despite unprecedented abundance of water, the Bureau of Reclamation will only guarantee delivery of 45 percent of the California Central Valley's contracted water supply south of the Delta. This is the same percentage they received last year with barely average rainfall.

This is of crucial importance to the entire nation, since the Central Valley of California is one of the largest producers of our nation's food supply. California produces half of the U.S.-grown fruits, nuts and vegetables on the nation's grocery shelves and the prices you pay are directly affected by the California harvest.
The deliberate decision by this administration in 2009 and 2010 to divert hundreds of billions of gallons of water away from the Central Valley destroyed a quarter million acres of the most productive farmland in America, it threw tens of thousands of families into unemployment and it affected grocery prices across the country.
At the time, the administration blamed a mild drought, but never explained why a drought justified their decision to pour 200 billion gallons of water (that we did have) directly into the Pacific Ocean.

Why would our rulers behave as if they were utterly insane? Because they are moonbats.

The real reason for this irrational policy, of course, is that they were indulging the environmental Left's pet cause, a three-inch minnow called the Delta Smelt. Diverting precious water to Delta Smelt habitat was considered more important than producing the food that feeds the country and preserving the jobs that produce the food.

Now that libs' precious minnows have more than enough water for their habitat, can farmers have some water to grow food? No they cannot. The insanity continues:

At the same time this Administration is denying California Central Valley agriculture 1.1 million acre feet of their rightfully contracted water in one of the wettest years on record, it is dumping 1.4 million acre feet of additional water into the Pacific Ocean.

Maybe this isn't about useless minnows after all. Maybe it's about a government hostile to the people it rules that deliberately creates shortages so that it can hold more power over us by rationing.

Strangling Solar Energy

The NYT describes the red tape that is strangling the solar panel industry. Our situation here in Israel is the same but no one is writing about it - here it is traditional and normal.

Ken Button, the president of Verengo Solar Plus, a residential solar panel installer in Orange, Calif., says his company — and his industry — are being strangled by municipal red tape.

Fifteen Verengo employees are dedicated solely to researching and tailoring permit applications to meet the bureaucratic idiosyncrasies of the dozens of towns in the company’s market. And because most jurisdictions require applications to be submitted in person, Verengo employs two “permit runners” whose only job, Mr. Button said, is to “take those permit packs and physically drive them around, stand in line, and pay the fees.”

“We have 50 different permitting authorities within 50 miles of our office,” Mr. Button said. “They all have different documentation requirements, different filing processes, different fee structures. It’s like doing business in 50 different countries — just in Southern California.”

His lament is being echoed by solar companies across the country.

In a new study, the industry estimates that the permit dance adds an average of $2,500 in costs to each installation, and streamlining things could provide a $1 billion stimulus to the residential and commercial solar power market over the next five years.

1.5 Tonnes of Gold Stolen

Tunisia's state coffers are missing 1.5 tonnes of gold. The ousted president and his wife had collected the ingots before fleeing the country.

According to French intelligence cited by French daily Le Monde, Ben Ali's wife Leila Trabelsi (pic) had gone to the bank to withdraw the gold. The governor initially resisted, but backed down under pressure from Ben Ali himself.

Cloud Computing (Virtualization)

Cloud computing has arrived and it is big business. Citrix (NASDAQ:CTXS) sells virtual computing that help companies deliver IT as an on-demand service. Meaning: it allows to transform a desktop into a virtual computer.

Citrix combines virtualization, networking, and cloud computing technologies into a full portfolio of products that enable virtual workstyles for users and virtual datacenters for IT. More than 230,000 organizations worldwide rely on Citrix to help them build simpler and more cost-effective IT environments. Citrix partners with over 10,000 companies in more than 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2009 was $1.61 billion.

Is there any Israeli start-up in this field?

Carisma

The Obamas have it.

Mr Hu doesnt.

Michelle's presence is royal. Hu is impressed, his expression betrays it.

Aluminium Foundry Project

Old aluminium foundry that produced automobile parts in the Jerusalem mountains, near Bet Shemesh Engines factory. It is being dismounted and re-engineered. I discovered that the factory is not connected to the new municipal sewer system but has an underground absorption chamber. The whole place is full of metallic junk and old foundry remnants (pic), so it can be assumed that the soil is contaminated with mineral oil and metal compounds. I wonder what is the situation in the nearby Mano'ey Beyt Shemesh plant.

About Managing One's Portfolio

One of arguments for paying a money manager or a fund to manage one's account is that they are professionals, they buy lower and sell higher than an individual trader. Well, here is a counterargument: PSAGOT, Israel's largest fund management house, is under investigation. Its nostro manager has been playing the market in his personal account AGAINST the fund, buying for example some derivative in the morning, then driving up its price by large purchases by the fund, and them selling high his own holdings. A cakedance. His profits were in the millions. Those millions were stolen from those investors that ceded the management of their savings to a "professional".

Fortunately, I discovered this phenomenon about five years ago (I noticed it but to say the truth, I was never 100% sure that my suspicions were true, one thinks this may be is a special case, or as usual, one tends to accept that they have more information and there are things ignored by an individual and so on). Since then, I do everything by myself.

The only fund manager I know who says that professional managers have no alpha is Falkenstein. He has the old American Protestant virtues of honesty, integrity and generosity.

Exports to Asia 42% Up in 2010

Israel's exports to Asia grew 42% last year. We too are getting absorbed by the new Co-Prosperity Area. We should be happy to have a role in the new world economic order. A century ago, Argentina was the world richest country thanks to its role in the world economic order as supplier of wheat and meat to Sheffield market in London. In the thirties it lost its role; since then it has been all downroad. We are conquering a good place in the new, Chinese, century.

Foreign Stock Markets in 2010

I am not sticking with my decision to spend one or two early morning hours thinking about investments. Discipline is not my forte. What happened in world stock markets in 2010?



Canada +33.33%
Mexico +19.02%
U.S. +12.97%
Brazil +1.11%
Russia +22.13%
Germany +16.06%
U.K. +10.53%
France -2.00%
Ireland -3.08%
Portugal -9.27%
Spain -16.81%
Greece -35.48%
Thailand +40.60%
South Korea +21.88%
India +16.74%
Singapore +10.87%
Taiwan +8.79%
Hong Kong +5.15%
Australia +0.08%
Japan -3.01%
China -15.79%

I intuit that mineral exporters like Canada did well, industrial exporters like China did badly. High tech exporters like Singapur did excellently. Thailand is curious: What is that country? Pic.: Thai garlic+shrimp dish.

Are we responsible for Palestinian Water Supply?

From Shoher:

The international law on tendering to the needs of occupied populations is questionable. The benevolent treatment of the surrendered population is very different from actually providing for it. An obligation to provide for only applies to interned populations and POWs, and even then is scarcely adhered to. The population in general is free to go on with its normal life after surrender.

In the case of Gaza, there is no surrender. The official, duly elected ruling party of Gaza—Hamas—rejects ceasefire, and the level of hostilities launched from Gaza clearly defies the notion of surrender. Indeed, Hamas routinely proclaims its hostility toward Israel. There is no moral or legal reason for Israel to supply Gaza with water and electricity.

Persecution of Christians

In sixty years, Israel has succeeded in changing the position of the Jews in the world. We are not really being persecuted anywhere. The Catholic Church, our main enemy for centuries, is positively friendly towards us. It is not easy for us to aknowledge this new reality. And for a change, Christians are persecuted all over the world, and are leaving their homes in the hundreds of thousands in search of physical safety.

Ugly pogroms were reported in Egypt, Pakistan and Iraq already this year. The most incredible case, in my view, is Asia Bibi, a Christian woman in Pakistan that was sentenced to death for blasphemy. What is blasphemy? A crime against Political Correctness, I would say. Pic: Stoning of a Christian in Somalia.

Bunga Bunga

"Rituale in cui un primo ministro mafioso, pedofilo ed impotente assume viagra in endovena, si sdraia e fa passare sopra di lui una schiera di minorenni e future ministre, le quali poi si siedono sul fallo del Premier simulando un organsmo anale onde ottenere una parte in TV e/o un posto come deputato, ministro, assessore ecc. nelle file del "Partito dell'Amore".

Pic: A candidate to become next Italian minister.

2011 Strategy: The End is Not Near

Thinking about the markets, it seems that the world will not end in 2011. Europe seems to have steadied and is recovering. Germany is saying that it will do whatever is needed to sustain the Euro. The USA is expected to grow 5% in 2011. China is steaming ahead. Apparently, the crisis has ended and we are in for a phase of expansion. Gold futures for February delivery fell $22.40, or 1.6 percent, to $1,364.60 an ounce on the Comex in New York.

Commodities are in demand. Semiconductors and the internet are advancing. It seems that manufacture will be like agriculture today, important but economically minuscule, mostly relegated to China. The industries of the future are the internet.

The economic cycle in which I lived most of my life is ending and another cycle is beginning.

Glaciers disappearing in the Altos Andes

The Glacier Ururashraju, at 15,000 feet in Cordillera Blanca of Peru, is disappearing.

Soon also the glacier feeding water to La Paz (Bolivia's capital) will be no more.

Everybody is watching hypnotized, doing nothing.

Bureaucratic Layers Suffocate Enterprise

New law approved in the Knesset: Cleaning up land. Before approval of any project, the possible contamination of the land will have to be analyzed and if there is suspected contamination, the contaminer will have to clean up the land. The law is retroactive for 25 years. The estimated cost of the studies and the soil purification is 35 billion shekel (10 billion US$).

Basically it will start with petrol stations, then chemical plants, and metal foundries. Makhteshim better moves fast to China before it is forced into bankrupcy.

The idea is to be like the EPA but I think we are becoming like Mexico. Mexico has translated American legislation and its regulations are extremely severe. In fact, the regulators pass their time attending courses and writing interministerial memos, and never go out because there are no official cars nor other resources.

May be it is the rainy winter weather, but this soil decontamination initiative makes me feel depressed.

PS: This anti-soil-contamination effort's goal is, in part, to protect the all-important Coastal aquifer. It is the only underground freshwater reservoir that is not disputed by our thirsty neighbors. However, climate is changing and this aquifer will get shrink and get saltier as the Eastern Mediterranean rises as much as 25 inches over the next century. Seawater will contaminate coastal rivers, lakes, and groundwater, turning potable water into salty, brackish water. Why are we trying to save something that is doomed? Instead we should invest in desalination.

Daphna De Grut

She and her husband met in a TV reality show. If that is reality, what is fantasy in Israel 2011?

Foolproof Plans

Many, including Mangan, are betting on a gold bubble. The last one is Georg Soros who bought 60 million dollars worth of iShares Gold Trust. The Trust holds metallic gold in vaults and tries to reflect the price of gold owned by the Trust at that time, less the expenses and liabilities of the Trust.Gold bubble is a high probability event, because the euro and the dollar are weak. Gold seems a fair investment, but quoting Wile E. Coyote, "Foolproof plans are for geniuses".

Protalix (II)

An analyst wrote two weeks ago that Protalix will not dilute. Last week it did and its price collapsed. I should invest more time in thinking by myself.

The manufacturing process of bioenzimes is very difficult. Genzyme, protalix's competitor, had to close its Allston plant for viral contamination. Dividends went fayfen.

The Chinese Circle of Life

From the discussion of Amy Chua's "Tiger Mother" book.

To many Chinese people of our generation and earlier, life is a string of obligations. Meeting them = success and pride. Abandoning them = failure and shame. There's not much said about the pursuit of happiness and personal fulfillment. We're supposed to do what we're supposed to do to make our family look good, and to prepare ourselves to do the same for the next generation. And so goes the Chinese circle of life.

Amy herself seems to reject the common interpretation of her book. She says that it is about how she was becoming an American mother. The best comment is Prof. Hsu's. I recommend his blog. I choose to illustrate this note with a pic of William Sidis, to remind us that over-pushing childen is not a Chinese invention (the Yiddische Mame has been doing it for gnerations) and that it tends to end tragically.

Strategy 2011

Gary reports that America will grow more than developing markets. Investors will be pouring money into the USA. However...

... Human beings are hard-wired to run with the herd. For millions of years, when the herd stampeded, the smartest move wasn't the hang around and wait to see why. It was to run.

And that's how they act on the stock market as well. But when it comes to investing, it's a bad idea. Your feelings are a bad guide. And there is no safety in numbers.

Contrarians have a point. In three years we may have understood that Europe is contracting and German industrial stocks were cheap. German stock markets are honest and Germany is not far from Kever Benjamin City.

Follic Non-HBD

The Telegraph takes PC non-discrimination and color blindness to biodiversity to new heights. The pic's caption: "Some men are more follically well endowed than others."

Men?