GOLDMAN SACHS recently released their very own New Year message of “HOPE” with the forecast rising from “despair”. It seems to me they don’t really care, they make money anyway.
The Goldman Boys are now strategically placed to determine the economic future. President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, just pulled a neat Christmas bonus whereby 500+ Euro banks help themselves to cheap funds totalling a half TRILLION euros and then banks turn round and put the money BACK IN the European Central Bank. WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT ????? Is this Goldman Sachs master plan for the future, keep printing money and everyone that touches it gets rich ?
Goldman expects the Footsie to hit a low of 4700 before staging a gradual recovery in the second half of the year – but all bets are off if the euro falls apart. The bank says: “Our economic forecasts assume some resolution to the eurozone debt crisis in the next few months. But the chances of a more chaotic outcome, in particular a break-up of the euro, although still small, have grown.”
Goldman’s economists expect eurozone GDP to contract by 0.8% in 2012, with a short-lived recession in Germany and France, and a longer and much deeper one in the peripheral eurozone countries. “But if a political breakthrough is not achieved before the refunding cycle picks up in earnest in mid-January, the probability of [the European economy] spiralling out of control towards a break-up would substantially increase,” it said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/22/goldman-sachs-forecast-for-2012
AND A HAPPY, “RENEWABLE” NEW YEAR TO YOU TOO !
In a year when “Time” magazine awarded the “Person of the Year” to “The Protester” we are bound to examine the society that gave rise to the nomination. If we are unable, in truth, to question the viability of the society that gives the protester this status, then that society is not free. It is captive to a mindset that is totally subjective.
29 experts, including Herman Daly, were asked, “What do you think should be the two or three highest priority political outcomes of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), scheduled for Rio de Janeiro in June 2012?”
Royal Dutch Shell’s Nigerian drilling operations in the highly productive Bonga Field were officially brought to a halt yesterday after “less than 40,000 barrels of oil” (1.7 million gallons) were reportedly leaked during a transfer of crude to a tanker. We’ve just processed a radar satellite image taken this morning (December 21, 2011) of the field, with the spill clearly visible. Here it is showing the slick outlined in yellow; it is about 70 km (45 miles) long, 17 km (10 miles) wide at it’s widest, and covers 923 square kilometers (356 square miles) of ocean:
The most recent image we were able to get that wasn’t cloud-covered is from November 12, 2011. It shows an apparent oil slick originating from the drilling location and extending over 2,379 square kilometers (the south end of the slick gets entrained in an interesting clockwise eddy in the ocean currents). At 1 micron thickness, that’s a volume of 628,000 gallons (14,954 barrels) of oil
The recent U.N.F.C.C.C. climate change conference in Durban was largely greeted with howls of derision by the majority of NGO’s and the environment movement. “Just another talk fest with no reductions in targets” was the common response. “Another wated decade”, a “win for the polluters.”
Naomi Klein’s advocacy is gaining important discussion space as the following post from New York Times columnist Andrew Revkin shows. The discussion centres around her article “Capitalism v Climate” (see below) and her call for a realistic approach to climate change and the massive change that must occur to return to a safe climate.
Looking remarkably “compatible” with Tony Blair, Cameron has carried out the coup of the millenium by NOT replacing him after Gordon Brown’s election defeat. It was Blair and Brown who guided the U.K. to the edge of bankruptcy with the “LIGHT TOUCH” regulatory approach over the financial sector. But it was Cameron who claimed he would head, “the greenest government ever”
PETER KENT, Canadian “ENVIRONMENT” minister.
Canadian Youth Delegation turn their backs on Peter Kent as he speaks at COP 17.
The 194-party conference agreed to start negotiations on a new accord that would ensure that countries will be legally bound to carry out any pledges they make. It would take effect by 2020 at the latest.
Amy Goodman is at the Durban COP 17 for Democracy Now ! and looks at perceptions of America and highlights the brave young lady who stood up to say that the U.S. delegate did not represent the people. Great applause met her remarks as she was ejected from the hall, nevertheless, the point was made.
The standard “he says/she says” coverage of the issue keeps to what is called “balance”: the overwhelming majority of scientists on one side, the denialists on the other. The scientists who issue the more dire warnings are largely ignored.
Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about 
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), delivers the 2011 Robert Schuman lecture TO THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY in Lisbon PRE DURBAN.
No place like home. 