Billions sold

From a story somewhere on the internet: “LONDON – In the last two decades, the world has spent more than $196 billion trying to save people from death and disease in poor countries. But just what the world's gotten for its money isn't clear, according to two studies published Friday in the medical journal Lancet. U.N. agencies, universities and others working on public health routinely take from 2 to 50 percent of a donation for "administrative purposes" before it goes to needy countries. Others said there is little incentive for health officials to commission an independent evaluation to find out what their programs have achieved. "The public health community has convinced the public the only way to improve poor health in developing countries is by throwing a ton of money at it," Stevens said. "It is perhaps not coincidental that thousands of highly paid jobs and careers are also dependent on it." That kind of expenditure translates to $27,223,000 PER DAY, in case anyone really cares. The money creates jobs for health professionals but it does not help unhealthy populations all that much – that’s for sure. If you want to stay healthy, just wash your hands frequently, and stay away from sick people and from doctors. Please.

The boss

From a Yahoo! News story: “BEIJING – China's premier didn't say it in so many words, but the implied warning to Washington was blunt: Don't devalue the dollar through reckless spending. Premier Wen Jiabao's message is unlikely to be misunderstood at the White House. It is counting on Beijing to help pay for its stimulus package by buying U.S. bonds. China already is Washington's biggest foreign creditor, with an estimated $1 trillion in U.S. government debt. A weaker dollar would erode the value of those assets. "Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a little bit worried," Wen said at a news conference Friday after the closing of China's annual legislative session. "I would like to call on the United States to honor its words, stay a credible nation and ensure the safety of Chinese assets." I told you so.

The end

This is from another story in Yahoo! News: "There is a high probability that the collapse of the United States will occur by 2010," Panarin told dozens of students, professors and diplomats Tuesday at the Diplomatic Academy. Panarin didn't give many specifics on what underlies his analysis, mostly citing newspapers, magazines and other open sources. He also noted he had been predicting the demise of the world's wealthiest country for more than a decade now. But he said the recent economic turmoil in the U.S. and other "social and cultural phenomena" led him to nail down a specific timeframe for "The End" — when the United States will break up into six autonomous regions and Alaska will revert to Russian control. Panarin argued that Americans are in moral decline, saying their great psychological stress is evident from school shootings, the size of the prison population and the number of gay men. Turning to economic woes, he cited the slide in major stock indexes, the decline in U.S. gross domestic product and Washington's bailout of banking giant Citigroup as evidence that American dominance of global markets has collapsed. "I was there recently and things are far from good," he said. "What's happened is the collapse of the American dream." Panarin insisted he didn't wish for a U.S. collapse, but he predicted Russia and China would emerge from the economic turmoil stronger and said the two nations should work together, even to create a new currency to replace the U.S. dollar.” What to do??? Who is Panarin anyway???

The future

Well, now it looks like the President must explain himself to a group of world leaders in New York. The papers are saying that the U.S. economy and the rest of the world are inextricably linked and they are right. Now, as a result of this greedy financial fiasco, you can bet that the rest of the world will be very cautious about linking up with the U.S. economy from now on. The U.S. is now beholden to all those foreign governments and big foreign investors for buying so much of the debt guarantees (in the form of bonds). What would happen if the U.S. defaulted? It is not unthinkable. A few months ago, who would have predicted that the country would be left with no large investment banks to speak of? Next up for your tax money? The auto manufacturers. Keep this in mind, the government is not bailing out the economy - it's bailing out the big Wall Street firms which lost billions. Wall Street is holding the economy hostage by saying that it is no longer credit worthy and no bank will lend it a dime so that their enterprises can keep going. Who knew thay had zero liquidity? Of course, a seizing up of the most important credit markets will cause the economy to sputter in a very big way. What a way to do business. The economy will survive this turmoil but the rest of the world will now ponder this sad and risky scenario very seriously and begin to stay clear of the U.S.