Today’s Daily Angle comes from  Wikinvest Wire member  Contrarian Profits . You can read  the full article on the Contrarian Profits Blog . Flash Player 9 or higher is required to view the chart Click here to download Flash Player now View the full INDEX:SSEC chart at Wikinvest Baltimore — Who do you trust more, the  Chinese government or the politically connected folks at the helm of  Goldman Sachs

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Who is telling the truth about China?

The following sample of stories from the past year show that much of the world has been experiencing a cold spell: Heaviest snowfall in Northern China in six decades (and 2008 was called “the coldest winter in 100 years”) Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years, experts predict Across the South, Midwest, and Eastern seaboard [of the United States], a stubborn “arctic outbreak,” tacked onto an already cold return to work for many Americans, augurs what meteorologist at AccuWeather.com are calling “ the coldest winter in many people’s memory .” Arctic blast cripples country Fla. freezes as arctic blast makes its way south ‘Brutally cold’ in Midwest — again More Snow Coming for Already Frigid Europe Arctic chill in South; record snow in East Frozen Britain may run short of gas China and S Korea gripped by freeze Seoul battles heaviest snow in 70 years Calgary’s cold weather causes record power demand and a call to conserve Peru’s mountain people face fight for survival in a bitter winter Avalanches bring misery to the frozen Alps The big freeze: Warnings of a Siberian snap Record cold wind chills of -50 C recorded overnight in Saskatchewan London colder than Antarctica Poor burn books to stay warm in chilly India, 55 dead Cold streak breaks 1892 record, Saskatoon experiences 24 consecutive days of -25 C Record cold weather payouts triggered as temperature hits -11C Record-breaking cold -37 in Moose Jaw, Canada Temperature in Germany Falls to Minus 34.6 Degrees Slovenia with record low temperature -49 Flint’s 95-year-old record low falls as 19 below zero hits city Shocking cold wave drops temps to 40 below zero Dutch canals freeze over for the first time in 12 years Americans suffer record cold as temperatures plunge to -40C Arctic front freezes US, Canada in record cold snap Heavy snow causes 6,000 traffic accidents, 24 deaths in Moscow Cold snaps 124-year-old record in Fredericton, Canada Thailand temperatures are coldest in a decade Low temperature ties 1951 record in Hawaii Record Low Temperatures in Western Cuba Record-breaking cold -50°F temperature reached in Maine Snowstorms wreak havoc in the Balkans GUINEA: Record cold snap destroys crops, kills hundreds of animals ‘Snow bomb’ brings record snowfall across New Brunswick 84-year-old cold temperature record falls in Baltimore Cuba’s winter among its coldest Record-brrrrrrrrreaking cold -34.8 C in Regina, Canada Record snowfall (102 inches) a concern in Kotzebue, Alaska Australian Ski Resort has it’s earliest start to the season in the resort’s 45-year history Melbourne shivers through coldest April in 60 years NOAA: April Temperatures Slightly Cooler Than Average for U.S

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How Long Will the Cold-Snap Last?

Arianna Huffington and Rob Johnson’s campaign for people to move their money from the giant “too big to fail” banks to local community banks and credit unions is quickly going viral. Numerous financial writers have endorsed the campaign, including: Justin Fox (Time) Tim Fernholz (Newsweek) Rolfe Winkler and Felix Salmon (Reuters) Andrew Sullivan (The Atlantic) Peter Rothberg (Nation) Keith Olbermann and other commentators have also endorsed it.

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Campaign to Move Money From Giant Banks to Community Banks Is Going Viral

Huffington Post editor Roy Sekoff told Ed Schultz today: “[The government has become] “Of the bankers, for the bankers, and by the bankers.” I agree, and said the same thing in February.

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We’ve Become a Government "Of  The Bankers, By The Bankers, And For The Bankers"

“In view of the remedies proposed, the Commission has concluded that the operation would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any substantial part of it.” …

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Construction remains subdued: Economy Roundup – Business news …

Historically Latin America has been of great importance to the United States on numerous counts: the region has in the past, provided the US with a trade surplus; its outflows of licit and ill-begotten funds to US banks, numbers annually in the tens of billions; the US has been, up to recently, the major trading partner in the region; Latin America has provided a lucrative outlet for US buyouts of oil, telecoms, banking and related strategic mining companies during the golden age of imperial pillage (1975 – 1999). By James Petras – The People's Voice read more

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[analysis] U.S. – Venezuelan Relations: Imperialism and Revolution

There has been a lot of discussion in recent months about the scale of tax reliefs in Ireland and I’ve been planning to write a couple of posts on this topic.   In relation to this issue, an opinion that is commonly expressed by leading figures in the Irish media is that the very richest in Ireland pay very little in tax because of these reliefs.   For instance, on his TV3 show on Tuesday night, Vincent Browne said: The Department of Finance published a document in July of last year to estimate what the effect on the top 400 earners was of the closing off of tax reliefs in the 2007 budget and it found that the top 400 earners paid an effective tax of 20 per cent

Excerpt from:
Tax Breaks and Tax Rates for Top Earners

In an encouraging sign to those who despair about investors receiving full justice in a compulsory arbitration process financed by the brokerage industry, a California FINRA panel last month (December 2009) awarded compensatory damages of $319,798 to a 96-year old investor as well as treble damages of $959,394 under the California Elder Abuse Act.

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FINRA Arbitration Panel Metes Out Harsh Punishment for Elder Fraud

The chairman (Tom Keane) and chief counsel (John Farmer) of the the 9/11 Commission wrote an op-ed in the New York Times Tuesday stating: Others in the intelligence community, according to [White House counterterrorism director John] Brennan, were aware that Al Qaeda in Yemen was training a Nigerian, perhaps named Umar Farouk, to carry out an attack. Given that the crotch bomber’s name is Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, wouldn’t that have warranted a little attention? Nah …

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American Intelligence Knew That That Al Qaeda In Yemen Was Training A Nigerian Named "Umar Farouk" To Carry Out An Attack

From the NY Times : Is the National Football League a single entity, or a collection of 32 teams that compete against one another every week? The question forms the core of an antitrust case that will be heard by the United States Supreme Court next week.

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The Single Entity Theory of Sports Leagues

The release can be found here . While 2007 seems a long time ago it is interesting to see that county level household disposable incomes have been converging (since 2001 the differences between counties have converged back roughly to mid 90’s levels) but GVA has continued to diverge

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CSO releases 2007 County Incomes and Regional GDP

P@SHA President Jehan Ara speaking at the Pakistan IT & ITES Sector Business Agenda launch event in October 2009. (photo: CIPE) CIPE has been supporting advocacy efforts of the Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA)

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Public Hearing of E-Crime Law – P@SHA Advocacy Efforts Start Reaping Benefits

The Financial Times reports today that Ineos has postponed plans for an initial public offering. It says this “was one of a range of options that had been considered by the company to strengthen its balance sheet, which was burdened with more than €7bn ($10bn) of debt “

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INEOS postpones plans for IPO

Today’s Daily Angle comes from Martin Hutchinson of  Wikinvest Wire members MoneyMorning.com. You can read the full article on the Money Morning blog . Existing home sales surprised the markets by rising 7.4% to an annual rate of 6.54 million units in November, the highest since February 2007, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR)

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Don’t Be Fooled by the Housing Market’s False Bottom

Noozhawk caught up with Kristen Amyx, president of the Goleta Valley Chamber of Commerce , who was recently appointed chairwoman of the group for 2010. She explained what it has in store for the coming year.

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Chambers of Commerce Alliance Gets Down to Business – Noozhawk.com

VeteranOwnedBusiness.com is proud to welcome Cars4Vets of Tucson , Arizona ( Pima County AZ ) to the Veteran Owned Business Directory Non Profit Section . Cars4Vets Details: Cars4Vets is a non-profit organization here to help the homeless veterans reestablish their role in society by equipping them with the reliable transportation needed to locate and maintain gainful employment and education.

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Donate your car to help homeless veterans | Cars4Vets | VeteranOwnedBusiness.com Directory

Not many Londoners can be happy as they grope through the frozen murkiness of the commute to their first days back at work after the winter break. Adding to their misery is London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, who has made their journey much more expensive with huge fare rises. By Alex Holland – The Samosa read more

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[analysis] No fare deal for London or Venezuela

As AFP notes : A BBC investigation has cast doubt on key evidence in the case against the Libyan convicted of blowing up a US jet over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988, the broadcaster said Wednesday. A tiny fragment of the timer allegedly used to blow up Pan Am flight 103 — crucial in linking Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi to the bomb — was not properly tested and was also unlikely to have survived the explosion, it said…

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Does Lockerbie Parallel 9/11?

[Editor: This is the third of a five-part series on virtualization and cloud topics from Ivo Dujmovic, an architect in our Applications Technology Integration group.] In my two previous articles, we announced the availability of our EBS Oracle VM (OVM) templates, and then announced the availability of the EBS Virtualization Kit.

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On Clouds and Virtualization in EBS Environments (OpenWorld 2009 Recap)

Downtown Winter Haven sparkles with new pavers, lighting and landscaping, a beautiful new library , a variety of great restaurants and a growing number of special shops. But quiet and little-noticed is an emerging technology sector anchored by a unique fiber optic crossroads and the USF Polytechnic technology accelerator

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Downtown’s Emerging Technology Hub …

A couple months ago, in a widely read FT op-ed , Nouriel Roubini warned that the “mother of all carry trades,” one funded in U.S. dollar denominated debt, could pump up asset bubbles around the world.

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RGE’s Wednesday Note – The Carry Trade in 2010

Last year I posted an entry calling attention to the weak evidence of an upward trend in the temperature data for Dublin. As we learned from the debates about climate data before the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, it is important for scientists to explore data that do not neatly fit their models. So I thought it would be worth adding another year to the material I posted last year

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Cool Dublin

January 6, 2010 (Housing Market Monitor) By Dean Baker January 6, 2010 Pending home sales in the Northeast and Midwest were down 25.7 percent. The National Association of Realtors reported that pending home sales fell 16.0 percent in November, hitting their lowest level since June. Remarkably, this decline appeared to surprise many analysts.

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Pending Home Sales Plunge in November, Exactly as Predicted

by Edward Hugh: Barcelona Not necessarily, but he is causing one hell of a fuss today. The Stark in question here is, of course, ECB Executive Board member Juergen Stark, who stated in an interview with the Italian Newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore that, in his opionion, the European Union would not help bail out Greece if the need were to arise. Certainly the initial reports of his statements sent shock waves round the globe

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Stark Raving Mad?

The report released today by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) on pending home sales shows that housing is down: Associated Press notes that the housing market may be headed for a “double-dip” downturn over the winter, and that the report “adds to worries industry is mostly propped up by government stimulus”. Remember that pending home sales figures are based on contracts which have been written, but have not yet closed. As NAR notes : The Pending Home Sales Index [is] a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed …

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What Do the Pending Home Sale Numbers Mean?