"The company behind some of Dubai's best-known landmarks is considering a stock market listing to raise as much as $15bn (£10.3bn) to reinforce its finances.

Nakheel, which owns the Palm Jumeirah, the world's biggest artificial island, and Nakheel tower, the world's tallest building at 1km high, is in talks with investment bankers about plans for a flotation in 2009.

Bankers at JP Morgan have been working on various ideas, including a dual-listing for Nakheel on its home exchange, Nasdaq Dubai, and also in London, although the timing of the move has not yet been decided. "

Hmmm, I wonder how much of our bail out $$ is actually going to end up on this vulgar display of financial inequity? Have you ever 'been' to Dubai via Google earth? Man, there's a LOT of money there...and just absolute poverty a few 'inches' over.

Here's a good marketing video on the artificial island resort:
video of THE GOLDEN MILE (gag)

Owner of Dubai Landmarks Eyes Float (Artificial island resort needs a bail out)

Up to 10,000 staff at the New York office of the bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers will share a bonus pool set aside for them that is worth $2.5bn (£1.4bn), Barclays Bank, which is buying the business, confirmed last night.

Excuse me?! You're a bank that just FAILED and, dodging your bankruptcy responsibilities, you've managed to set aside $2.5 BILLION for BONUSES to the people who presided over your FAILURE?

If anyone wants to know why Main Street is pissed off at Wall Street, look no further than this. This is Wall Street saying, "Fuck you!" in giant letters, to Main Street. Main Street is not amused.

Fury at $2.5bn bonus for Lehman's New York staff - Business News, Business - The Independent

The engineering enterprise is a pillar of U.S. national and homeland security, economic vitality, and innovation. But many engineering tasks can now be performed anywhere in the world. The emergence of offshoring the transfer of work from the United States to affiliated and unaffiliated entities abroad has raised concerns about the impacts of globalization.

The Offshoring of Engineering helps to answer many questions about the scope, composition, and motivation for offshoring and considers the implications for the future of U.S. engineering practice, labor markets, education, and research. This book examines trends and impacts from a broad perspective and in six specific industries software, semiconductors, personal computer manufacturing, construction engineering and services, automobiles, and pharmaceuticals.

The Offshoring of Engineering will be of great interest to engineers, engineering professors and deans, and policy makers, as well as people outside the engineering community who are concerned with sustaining and strengthening U.S. engineering capabilities in support of homeland security, economic vitality, and innovation.

The executive summary begins:

Spurred in part by a decades-long decline in manufacturing employment, the implications of globalization for the United States are a source of considerable debate. The emergence of "offshoring" -- the transfer of work from the United States to affiliated and unaffiliated entities abroad -- has raised additional concerns about the impacts of globalization. Among the occupations subject to offshoring are highly paid professions, including engineering, that are essential to US technological progress, economic growth, and national security.

The National Academy of Engineering recognizes that offshoring raises significant challenges not only for engineers themselves, but also for industry, educational institutions, government, and professional societies. Many engineering tasks can now be performed anywhere in the world by qualified professionals with access to appropriate connectivity. To sustain and strength US engineering capabilities in this new environment, the United States may need to consider new approaches to education, career development, management, and policy, and make changes where appropriate.

The Offshoring of Engineering: Facts, Unknowns, and Potential Implications

I'm putting this one under business - oh, it IS a freebie if anyone wants to check it out - right now if you watch some ads, you can get Popular Mechanics, Good Housekeeping, or ODE magazine.

But it is the CONCEPT that I find particularly interesting.

I was interested in ODE magazine, and so I thought, I'll watch these commercials, I have multiple monitor screens anyway. lol But I found that I really LIKED the commercials, and ended up even signing up for one website that was advertised. It was really, really, well targeted, you see.

Interesting concept.

Now, when I GET the magazine, they'll be more ads in it no doubt. ;)

Watch online ads.......for free magazines?

At least Korvorkian is out of jail, but somehow I doubt they will make assisted suicide legal. (Sounds like a better out to me than living in extreme poverty on the streets.)

The big problem is what happens when you become disabled. Do you know how hard it is to get disability in America? It is over a 2 year wait in most cases and the paperwork is horrendous.

I guess they think "Who needs food and shelter? We have all these bombs!"

Why you'll never retire...

The phrase “The customer is always right” was originally coined by Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of Selfridge’s department store in London in 1909, and is typically used by businesses to:

1. Convince customers that they will get good service at this company
2. Convince employees to give customers good service

Fortunately more and more businesses are abandoning this maxim - ironically because it leads to bad customer service.

Here are the top five reasons why “The customer is always right” is wrong.

Positive Sharing » Top 5 reasons why “The Customer Is Always Right” is wrong

1) Profits are up, but the wages and the incomes of average Americans are down.
2) More and more people are deeper and deeper in debt.
3) Job creation has not kept up with population growth, and the employment rate has fallen sharply.
4) Poverty is on the rise.
5) Rising health care costs are eroding families' already declining income.

Short and to the point.

via the Economic Policy Institute.

What's wrong with the economy?

Chinese state-controlled oil and gas company CNOOC Ltd. is waging a high-stakes public relations campaign to focus its bid for U.S. energy producer Unocal Corp. on shareholder value, and away from politics.

Even before making public its $18.5 billion for Unocal last week, competing with a $16.6 billion deal with Chevron Corp., members of Congress sent President Bush a letter warning him of the threats posed by China's "pursuit of world energy resources."

"This is a commercial deal, a commercial bid from one New York Stock Exchange listed company to another New York Stock Exchange listed company designed to improve shareholder value for both," said Mark Palmer, a managing director at Public Strategies Inc. of Austin, Texas, one of two public relations firms hired by CNOOC.

Paul Krugman thinks we should be worried about this.

Two things that have been said often apply here. First, Chinese foreign policy consists of one word: oil. Second, its likely that any conflicts with China would be fought out on an economic battlefield.

So what does everything think? Should we be concerned about this?

I agree. I'm worried about this. Our dependance on oil is our biggest weakpoint. Its like having a insecure modem pool bypassing your firewall.

CNOOC: Unocal Bid Not About Politics - Yahoo! News

pjammer wrote:
Looks like a link-farming site. A few 'articles' that regurgitate obvious facts, and a bunch of advertising. What is this?! :P

That's because essmeier is a piece of shit link spammer. Memestreams has implemented measures so the Google bot doesn't follow his links, or anyone's links who doesn't have a "good" reputation (ie their memes are read/recommended by others). Link spamming Memestreams does nothing for him now.

Memestreams is constantly improving. Personally I am working on several security issues with the site, and plan to move to enhancing the Memebox. Decius and I have talked in the past about a kind of killfill for Memestreams, where you simply wouldn't see assholes like essmeier. Regardless of whether he ultimately decides to do this, there are 3 simple ways you can get rid of his posts now:

-Don't read anything he posts if you see it.

-Meme nteresting articles, that people will read and thus are placed on the front page. Link spam only gets to the front page when there aren't any more popular stories to display.

-Get more legitimate users for Mememstreams. The more users we have, the more data Memestreams' presentation and recommendation algorithms have to work with. Shit like essmeier will sink to the bottom and you will not see their posts.

Link spammers are the sux.

] He said that while the U.S. economy was "doing well," the
] danger was that deficits would keep rising as a
] percentage of total national output.
]
]
] "Unless that trend is reversed, at some point these
] deficits would cause the economy to stagnate or worse."

Thanks for the update Alan, I think there is a long list of people who have been saying this for decades.

Greenspan Warns Deficits Endanger Economy