Chinese Rating Agency Strips Western Nations of AAA Status
Dagong Global Credit Rating Co used its first foray into sovereign debt to paint a revolutionary picture of creditworthiness around the world, giving much greater weight to "wealth creating capacity" and foreign reserves than Fitch, Standard & Poor's, or Moody's....The US falls to AA, while Britain and France slither down to AA-. Belgium, Spain, Italy are ranked at A- along with Malaysia....Dagong rates Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, and Singapore at AAA, along with the commodity twins Australia and New Zealand. "The reason for the global financial crisis and debt crisis in Europe is that the current international credit rating system does not correctly reveal the debtor's repayment ability....
The 18 States Facing The Most Brutal Austerity Cuts
A slide type presentation telling you about these 18 states.
The U.S. Middle Class Is Being Wiped Out; Here's the Stats to Prove It
The 22 statistics detailed here prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America....The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace....The truth is that most Americans are absolutely dependent on someone else giving them a job. But today, U.S. workers are "less attractive" than ever. Compared to the rest of the world, American workers are extremely expensive, and the government keeps passing more rules and regulations seemingly on a monthly basis that makes it even more difficult to conduct business in the United States.
The U.S. Economy Is A Dead Horse And The American People Are Starting To Get Really Pissed Off And Frustrated
Record numbers of Americans are still going bankrupt. Record numbers of Americans are still losing their homes. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy is a dead horse at this point....At this point the U.S. economy is like an aging rock star that requires larger and larger doses of drugs each night just to be able to perform. The U.S. economy is addicted to "drugs" such as debt and government stimulus, and years ago those things really supercharged the U.S. economic system, but at this point they aren't provoking much of a response at all....And Americans are still losing their homes in record numbers. (OK, so it isn't the most elegant title ever, laugh out loud.)
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
WELCOME TO THE TREMAINE ZONE ALSO KNOWN AS THE REAL ZONE
USER GUIDE FOR THE CUSTOM REAL NEWS FEED
This is a continuously updated feed of the most important news, commentary, and videos from the world wide web, also known as the "Where in the hell has Tremaine Been? Version of the Unity-Progress Internet Project. (Tremaine refuses to be tied down to a few web sites for information; he goes pretty much everywhere.)
THE BASICS OF HOW THIS WORKS
Whenever I find something very important but I know I probably will never have time to directly incorporate it into one of my articles (which less face it, is most of the time) I will link to it here. I will almost always leave the titles alone but I will sometimes write my own description, or more often I will for the description extract out one or two or three major points that are in the content.
OH YES, THERE WILL ALSO BE VIDEOS AND MUSIC
The content will not be strictly limited to news and commentary (much of it quite depressing under the circumstances, to be honest). My favorite music videos and other much lighter stuff will be included from time to time, roughly once a month and hopefully more often than that.
QUALITY OVER QUANTITY AND FULL CUSTOMIZATION
Aside from efficiency and good organization, another primary feature and benefit of this custom feed is quality over quantity. There will be three or four items apprised and rejected for every one included in the feed.
Items are chosen according the following criteria:
--Accuracy of information
--Importance of information
--Correctness of information (and of any opinions)
--Timeliness of the information
--Forward-lookingness
--Quality of writing
Forward-looking means that I favor the items that describe not only exactly how things are now but how they will be in the near and long term future.
Notice that unlike with most publishing the amorphous and establishment oriented concepts of "credibility" and "authoritativeness" are NOT criteria. Reality has shown that those who are supposedly credible and authoritative are very often nothing of the sort. They have a hidden agenda which makes their pronouncements fraudulent.
Of course I know in the first place where to go to get the best items that have these characteristics. Most of the items I review for possible inclusion will be on the sites that most often have the best content. But my curiousity is endless and I am always checking out sites I have never been to before to see if I can find a new "top site" to add to the list of creme of the crop sites that I visit several times a week. And I am also always revisiting sites I seldom visit to see if I can find that one in a hundred article on that obscure site that usually has the more lame and/or the less accurate stuff that I should include in the feed.
This is a continuously updated feed of the most important news, commentary, and videos from the world wide web, also known as the "Where in the hell has Tremaine Been? Version of the Unity-Progress Internet Project. (Tremaine refuses to be tied down to a few web sites for information; he goes pretty much everywhere.)
THE BASICS OF HOW THIS WORKS
Whenever I find something very important but I know I probably will never have time to directly incorporate it into one of my articles (which less face it, is most of the time) I will link to it here. I will almost always leave the titles alone but I will sometimes write my own description, or more often I will for the description extract out one or two or three major points that are in the content.
OH YES, THERE WILL ALSO BE VIDEOS AND MUSIC
The content will not be strictly limited to news and commentary (much of it quite depressing under the circumstances, to be honest). My favorite music videos and other much lighter stuff will be included from time to time, roughly once a month and hopefully more often than that.
QUALITY OVER QUANTITY AND FULL CUSTOMIZATION
Aside from efficiency and good organization, another primary feature and benefit of this custom feed is quality over quantity. There will be three or four items apprised and rejected for every one included in the feed.
Items are chosen according the following criteria:
--Accuracy of information
--Importance of information
--Correctness of information (and of any opinions)
--Timeliness of the information
--Forward-lookingness
--Quality of writing
Forward-looking means that I favor the items that describe not only exactly how things are now but how they will be in the near and long term future.
Notice that unlike with most publishing the amorphous and establishment oriented concepts of "credibility" and "authoritativeness" are NOT criteria. Reality has shown that those who are supposedly credible and authoritative are very often nothing of the sort. They have a hidden agenda which makes their pronouncements fraudulent.
Of course I know in the first place where to go to get the best items that have these characteristics. Most of the items I review for possible inclusion will be on the sites that most often have the best content. But my curiousity is endless and I am always checking out sites I have never been to before to see if I can find a new "top site" to add to the list of creme of the crop sites that I visit several times a week. And I am also always revisiting sites I seldom visit to see if I can find that one in a hundred article on that obscure site that usually has the more lame and/or the less accurate stuff that I should include in the feed.
FOUR PER DAY BUT THERE WILL BE GREAT DAY TO DAY VARIABILITY
The feed begins as of July 1, 2010. For the first 30 days there will be four items per day. Starting on July 31, the number of items per day will become just three. Unfortunately, time limitations require that reduction. Fewer than three makes the whole thing virtually a waste of time and more than that is beyond the resources available for this project and is hopefully unnecessary because of the quality over quantity principal in operation.
There will be a post for each day with three links in each post. Unfortunately, however, time resources available will not always permit these posts to actually be made daily. I will often be in catch-up mode, making several days' posts in one day. (Note that the posts will still be dated as if they were made on a daily basis; fortunately, Google Blogger permits postings to be date stamped with dates in the past; so at least the archive will at least look like I was able to post on a daily basis.)
This is not by any stretch an up to the minute news service. In fact, most links will be to items that were posted at the source one week earlier. This is done so that I can often maintain a one week ahead cushion for my postings.
So we are definitely not all that concerned with being "up to the minute". Again, the value of this project comes from the quality of the items chosen and from the long term importance of maintaining a library of links. For example, several years from now, you or I can go back and find out what we were being warned about years ago, to among other things see if things did in fact turn out in accordance with the warnings made years ago. So don't think of this as a full scale news service but do think of it as a long-term repository of critical information.
I have other Internet sites that offer bigger quantity within their subjects. But here I guarantee three very accurate and very important items per day (90 items in a 30 day month) over the long term.
The feed begins as of July 1, 2010. For the first 30 days there will be four items per day. Starting on July 31, the number of items per day will become just three. Unfortunately, time limitations require that reduction. Fewer than three makes the whole thing virtually a waste of time and more than that is beyond the resources available for this project and is hopefully unnecessary because of the quality over quantity principal in operation.
There will be a post for each day with three links in each post. Unfortunately, however, time resources available will not always permit these posts to actually be made daily. I will often be in catch-up mode, making several days' posts in one day. (Note that the posts will still be dated as if they were made on a daily basis; fortunately, Google Blogger permits postings to be date stamped with dates in the past; so at least the archive will at least look like I was able to post on a daily basis.)
This is not by any stretch an up to the minute news service. In fact, most links will be to items that were posted at the source one week earlier. This is done so that I can often maintain a one week ahead cushion for my postings.
So we are definitely not all that concerned with being "up to the minute". Again, the value of this project comes from the quality of the items chosen and from the long term importance of maintaining a library of links. For example, several years from now, you or I can go back and find out what we were being warned about years ago, to among other things see if things did in fact turn out in accordance with the warnings made years ago. So don't think of this as a full scale news service but do think of it as a long-term repository of critical information.
I have other Internet sites that offer bigger quantity within their subjects. But here I guarantee three very accurate and very important items per day (90 items in a 30 day month) over the long term.
THEMES
In this feed there will be primary, secondary, and temporary themes. The primary and secondary themes match those of the Unity Progress project overall:
PRIMARY THEMES
--Health system failure in the US
--Labor market failure in the US
--Economic system failure in the US
SECONDARY THEMES
--Internet myths and realities
--The environment in general and the oil gusher in particular
--Haiti and Jamaica
Primary themes will continue indefinitely and will dominate the feed. For primary themes, in some weeks you will see all of them mixed well and in other weeks you will see just one of the primary themes very heavily represented. This is because sometimes I am in the mode of keeping up with all the primary themes at once (you can call this "news mode") whereas other times I am in the mode of digging down deep for very detailed information that almost no one knows about (how about calling this "deep mode"). In deep mode, you might for example all of a sudden see a dozen sophisticated articles about the health system failures of the US.
Secondary themes will appear only sporadically. Sometimes, it will be months between appearances of an item for a secondary theme.
TEMPORARY THEMES
There will be one or two temporary themes from time to time. These will generally involve disasters and catastrophes. It is possible that a temporary theme will evolve into a permanent theme. With the beginning of the theme as of July 1, 2010 there is a temporary theme: the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico.
A DREAM FINALLY COME TRUE
The ability to easily and efficiently include anything and everything that is on the Internet that I want to include in one seamless feed and in one place summarizes the power of this great new page. I have designed many web pages and many of them are quite good and/or quite informative. I can honestly say that this particular page is one of my best and most informative yet.
You are welcome to share and take advantage of my vast knowledge of what is real and true and what is not. I guarantee you that the untrue propaganda will never be included here except for rare accidents. I have taken the trash out and left only the good stuff in the kitchen. So let's proceed with the feast. Bon appétit.
In this feed there will be primary, secondary, and temporary themes. The primary and secondary themes match those of the Unity Progress project overall:
PRIMARY THEMES
--Health system failure in the US
--Labor market failure in the US
--Economic system failure in the US
SECONDARY THEMES
--Internet myths and realities
--The environment in general and the oil gusher in particular
--Haiti and Jamaica
Primary themes will continue indefinitely and will dominate the feed. For primary themes, in some weeks you will see all of them mixed well and in other weeks you will see just one of the primary themes very heavily represented. This is because sometimes I am in the mode of keeping up with all the primary themes at once (you can call this "news mode") whereas other times I am in the mode of digging down deep for very detailed information that almost no one knows about (how about calling this "deep mode"). In deep mode, you might for example all of a sudden see a dozen sophisticated articles about the health system failures of the US.
Secondary themes will appear only sporadically. Sometimes, it will be months between appearances of an item for a secondary theme.
TEMPORARY THEMES
There will be one or two temporary themes from time to time. These will generally involve disasters and catastrophes. It is possible that a temporary theme will evolve into a permanent theme. With the beginning of the theme as of July 1, 2010 there is a temporary theme: the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico.
A DREAM FINALLY COME TRUE
The ability to easily and efficiently include anything and everything that is on the Internet that I want to include in one seamless feed and in one place summarizes the power of this great new page. I have designed many web pages and many of them are quite good and/or quite informative. I can honestly say that this particular page is one of my best and most informative yet.
You are welcome to share and take advantage of my vast knowledge of what is real and true and what is not. I guarantee you that the untrue propaganda will never be included here except for rare accidents. I have taken the trash out and left only the good stuff in the kitchen. So let's proceed with the feast. Bon appétit.