From the BBC….
Scientists from Porton Down have been deployed in the UK a “number of times this year”, the government’s head of counter-terrorism has told MPs.
The lab mainly specialises in nuclear and biological warfare but the reason for the deployments is not known.
Given that people in the U.K have been known to drink radioactive tea, I am not all that surprised that they keep them people busy.
The Wachovia Corporation announced a $23.9 billion third-quarter loss on Wednesday as it prepared to be taken over by Wells Fargo.
From the same article….
Wachovia’s quarterly loss appears to be one of the largest in banking history. It is bigger than the market values of 422 companies that make up the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, and slightly more than the gross domestic product of Panama.
From a different New York Times article….
For decades, Americans have considered money-market mutual funds as safe as bank accounts. On Tuesday, the Federal Reserve pledged $540 billion to make sure they really are.
From the Wall Street Journal……
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, known as Calpers, said its assets have declined by more than 20%, or at least $48 billion, from the end of June through Oct. 10.
Unless returns improve, Calpers is poised to impose an estimated increase in employer contributions of 2% to 4% of payroll starting in July 2010 for about two-thirds of its state employer members, and in July 2011 for the remaining third. Any decision will be made after Calpers knows its returns for the fiscal year.
From the Wall Street Journal….
The government said its reason for taking control of the private pension funds was to protect investors from losses resulting from the global turmoil. President Kirchner said in a speech: “The main member countries of the [Group of Eight] are adopting a policy of protection of the banks and, in our case, we are protecting the workers and retirees.”
But economists said the motive is to provide the government with about $5 billon in annual pension contributions to help plug the government financing gap and avert a second default. “They were in a tight situation and this was an accessible source of funds,” said Buenos Aires economist Aldo Abram.
Who would ever have thought that in oil-rich Western Canada we would see diesel fuel being rationed? That’s exactly the scenario taking place in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba where a severe shortage of truck diesel fuel was playing havoc with truckers throughout the region. Carriers were seeing their fuel supplies rationed by as much as 10% to 50%. The card-lock privileges for all new accounts were suspended by at least one oil company and the hours that card-lock service was being made available to existing customers were being restricted. We were being told that things would not be returning to normal for at least several weeks, if not for the rest of October and November.
All these shortages are beginning to bother me. It is as if even the first world is not first world anymore. It is one thing if prices go up and down, it is another if there is no fuel to be had at all.
It’s more of an emotional thing then anything else. Of all the problems we face, fuel shortages are least of our worries. The slowing economy is likely to cut demand by so much we will not be worrying about refinery capability for awhile. Though that is cold comfort to Canadian truckers who are trying to ship products right now.
From The New York Times…
“It doesn’t matter how much Hank Paulson gives us,” said an influential senior official at a big bank that received money from the government, “no one is going to lend a nickel until the economy turns.” The official added: “Who are we going to lend money to?” before repeating an old saw about banking: “Only people who don’t need it.”
A cash grain farm in the cornbelt sold recently for an eyebrow-raising price just shy of $9000 an acre. It sold for farmland, not industrial development. I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising when USA Today reports that yachts over 80 feet long are still selling at all time high levels despite these disastrous financial times. But I can’t see how corn and soybeans will pay for such high-priced land. The grain markets are way down from summer. Demand for grain from developing countries is down. At least five ethanol plants that were supposed to turn corn into fuel have declared bankruptcy. Fertilizer, seed, and fuel costs are still historically high— fertilizer is selling for as much as a thousand dollars a ton. Some farmers have already bought their seed and fertilizer supplies for next year, thinking that these costs would continue to rise along with grain prices. What if grain prices stay down? We could be looking at a possibility of what one farmer I talk to a lot calls “instant bankruptcy.”
It’s not easy, being an airline. Thanks to high fuel costs, United lost $252 million in the third quarter, on an operating basis. On the other hand, United was hedged. And as a result of those hedges, United ended up losing, um, $779 million. As a result, United stock rose by 9% today, to $13.75 a share.
From in the Pipeline (on Triazadienyl Fluoride)….
Now this is a fine substance. Also known in the older literature as fluorine azide, you make it by combining two other things that have already made my “Things I Won’t Work With” list. Just allow fluorine (ay!) to react with neat hydrazoic acid (yikes), and behold!
Well, what you’re most likely to behold is a fuming crater, unless you’re quite careful indeed. Both of those starting materials deserve serious respect, since they’re able to remove you from this plane of existence with alacrity, and their reaction product is nothing to putz around with, either.
The rest of the post details how they made the stuff without getting killed. I imagine that nobody got bored in the process.
These reports from Londonstani on the Darfur conflict are interesting. They don’t focus on atrocities like most other reports. Instead they focus on the combatants. They won’t change how you look at the conflict, but there are some interesting tidbits to be found in these reports.
Here is part one (don’t worry, they are all short). Here is part two. And here is part three.
“Bloom County” had five times the edge of the work I do now. In 1986 I had a cockroach scream, “Reagan sucks!” in print size that took up the entire cartoon box. Nobody blinked — 1,000 newspapers, quiet as a mouse. Now I draw a woman wearing a Muslim scarf, and the frantic publisher of the Washington Post Co. is on the phone at 9 p.m. telling me — I am not making this up — to adjust my character’s hair so she doesn’t look too unkempt.
Fear doesn’t so much rule the wood pulp news industry. More like pee-on-themselves existential terror.
This week’s poem of the week is Rich Mullen’s song Creed. In an ironical way, it goes along nicely with this week’s essay.