Daily Digest 9/7 - French Strike To Protest Retirement Age, Public Safety Radio Not Ready, Dutch Bio-Fuel Technology

• 1) UCLA business school to end public funding

"A leading business school in the University of California system is preparing to forgo public funding amid increasing uncertainty about the state’s economic health and California’s ability to pay for higher education.

The UCLA Anderson School of Management plans to fill the funding gap with money from private donors, bolstering a roster that includes business figures such as Larry Fink, the founder of BlackRock, and Bill Gross, the founder of Pimco.

Its decision to opt out, which is awaiting the approval of Mark Yudof, president of the UC system, is a clear indication of the broad changes that lie ahead for the network, which was established in the 1960s with a public mandate to provide world-class education to deserving students regardless of their ability to pay.

The system, which includes colleges in Berkeley and San Diego, is seen as one of California’s jewels yet has struggled in recent years as the state has grappled with the recession and plunging tax revenues.

California faces a budget deficit of more than $19bn while the UC system itself has a funding shortfall of $800m, forcing schools and colleges in the network to cut classes and raise tuition fees. This has prompted a wave of protests on campuses across the state.

Judy Olian, dean of UCLA Anderson, told the Financial Times that opting out of public funding was a “creative solution” that would allow the UC system to reallocate the money to UCLA’s underfunded undergraduate programmes."

• 2) Housing Faces the Fall (Nearly half reduced their price)

"After 18 months of tax credits, July housing sales sank 26 percent from July 2009 and inventories soared to their highest level in recorded history. Now that the average American home takes more than a year to sell, sellers are cutting prices in despair.

ZipRealty reported Friday that the number of price-reduced homes on the market increased 3.26 percent in August compared to July, ZipRealty’s monthly review of MLS-listed properties in 26 major markets found that 47 percent of “for sale” homes had at least one price reduction and the average seller actually slashed their list price twice to attract buyers.

The growing number of price-reduced homes outpaced newly listed homes in August, which increased less than one percent, with sellers nationally reducing their asking price by an average of $19,092."

• Other news, headlines and opinion:

Europe's Banks Stressed By Sovereign Debts Regulators Ducked

Euro Falls on Concern Europe Banks Will Struggle to Raise Funds

Bank Default Swaps Rise Most in Month on Bets for More Capital (Europe)

Euro Hit As Sovereign Debt Fears Resurface

Hungary, Romania, Serbia Struggle to Sell Debt After Receiving IMF Funds

Romania Sells Fewer Six-Month Bills Than Planned on Government Demands

Irish-German Bond Spread at Record as Bank Concern Resurfaces

Weaker US Outlook Prompts Warnings by Central Banks in Japan, Australia and Bank of Japan holds rates unchanged, signals outlook worry

Dubai Holding Delays Repayment of Part of $1.8 Billion Debt Due This Month

Welfare debt stands at £15k a person (UK)

Greece default risk is 'substantial,' Pimco man says

Bankruptcy lawyers in demand in U.S. and Needed: US bankruptcy lawyers

Is Harrisburg closer to considering bankruptcy?

Small Business Association loan declines even further (Nevada)

Older workers without jobs are taking Social Security early

Medicare: The $60 Billion Fraud (60 Minutes video)

NY cigarette tax plans raise reservation tensions

'I think I'm never going to be able to retire'

London gridlock as transport strike brings chaos

The true cost of the Iraq war: $3 trillion and beyond (Opinion)

Banks leave some customers in 'dire poverty' (UK)

Russia's retirement age should be raised - pension fund

Thousands strike as unions protest pension reform (France)

City's Focus Shifts To Retiree Health Liability (San Diego)

Saxplayer,

Another thank you for ALL your efforts here.

Nate

It's all very well to say "only waste" is needed to make this biofuel...  but you have to ask yourself, "how come we have so much waste, we can turn it into biofuel?"

And the answer is ladies and gentlemen, excess fossil fuels, and still cheap at that...

Mike

Pennsylvania has done a very good job with their Emergency communications.

Peak oil has taken a back seat lately but I suspect that before too long something rather game changing will take place.

Supposedly by 2012 (or sooner) a break will occur between demand and supply. The way I expect it to come to the worlds attention is through Saudi Arabia announcing it can't produce as much as it has claimed. Wether by saying it will only export "x" amount or actually adminting it cannot produce more than that I see the announcement as being the line between "more of the same" and "we're in trouble." 

By Jon Erlichman and Dakin Campbell

Sept. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Michael Burry, the former hedge-fund manager who predicted the housing market’s plunge, said he is investing in farmable land, small technology companies and gold as he hunts original ideas and braces for a weaker dollar.

“I believe that agriculture land -- productive agricultural land with water on site -- will be very valuable in the future,” Burry, 39, said in a Bloomberg Television interview scheduled for broadcast this morning in New York. “I’ve put a good amount of money into that.”

Burry, as head of Scion Capital LLC, prodded Wall Street banks in early 2005 to create credit-default swaps to bet against bonds backed by the riskiest home loans. The strategy paid off as borrowers defaulted, letting his investors more than quintuple their money from 2000 to 2008, according to Michael Lewis’s book “The Big Short” (Norton/Allen Lane).

Burry, who now manages his own money after shuttering the fund in 2008, said finding original investments is difficult because many trades are crowded and asset classes often move together.

“I’m interested in finding investments that aren’t just simply going to float up and down with the market,” he said. “The incredible correlation that we’re experiencing -- we’ve been experiencing for a number of years -- is problematic.”

By Carlos Manuel Rodriguez - Sep 8, 2010 5:30 AM GMT+1000

Petroleos Mexicanos, Latin America’s largest oil producer, said its 235,000 barrel-a-day Cadereyta refinery outside the city of Monterrey was hit by an explosion, the second such incident at the company in the past six weeks.

One person died and 10 were injured, two seriously, after a compressor exploded today in a desulfurization unit at the plant, the company said in a statement. The refinery is continuing to operate, said a spokesman who declined to be named, citing Pemex policy, without giving more information.

Mexico imported 432,000 barrels a day of petroleum products from the U.S. in June, according to the U.S. Energy Department and is the second-largest supplier of oil to the U.S. Cadereyta processed 104,063 barrels a day in July, a 56 percent drop from December 2006 when the facility peaked at 239,388 barrels daily, according to the website of Mexico’s Energy Ministry.

http://www.peakoil.org.au/charts/gold.price.7sep2010.gif

By GREGORY ZUCKERMAN, NEIL SHAH And BRIAN BLACKSTONE

8 Sep 2010

New concern about Europe's debt woes sent the euro down, pressured global stock markets and drove up borrowing costs for some European nations on Tuesday.

Gold prices reached exchange-record highs and U.S. Treasury prices rose, as investors searched for safer investments.

The focus of investors' renewed anxiety: questions about the rigor of recently completed stress tests imposed on European banks. The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday reported that the tests, results of which were released in July, understated some lenders' holdings of potentially risky government debt.

Fears that Europe's banks are still vulnerable to losses on risky bond investments sent shivers through Europe's bond markets, and refocused investors' attention on the health of various European nations, especially Ireland, Portugal and Greece.

With the Dow holding above 10,000, investors are beginning to feel more comfortable.
 
The question is… Is it real or smoke and mirrors?

Let's take a look at the facts:

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?i...