U.S. Debt

The most valuable tool to assess the calamity in US finances here:
http://www.usdebtclock.org/index.html

Have you ever seen a $100 bill? Sure you have. one hundred in cash
Ever seen a wad of them totaling $10,000. Perhaps. ten thousand dollars in cash
What about our national debt amount, 15 trillion dollars? Ever seen that?
To give you an idea of how much money the United States' National Debt is, let us break it down for you:
one million in cash


This is $1 million in cash ($1,000,000). On a global average, it takes 92 years of work to total this much money. Not the heaping piles of cash we all expected like in the movies, huh?



one billion in cash
This is $1 billion dollars ($1,000,000,000): What can you get for a billion dollars? You could buy a really big submarine from Germany. Or the world's most valuable athlete, New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez, could give you an idea... to total $1 billion with his world record salary, he would have to play over 16 more years of baseball, every...single...day... (That's 5,890 games in a row...look out Cal Ripken, Jr.!)


Below is $1 trillion in cash ($1,000,000,000,000): In 2010, the US government had a 1.7 trillion deficit and this image shows the volume of cash the government borrowed in 2010, alone, to run itself. *Fun fact, if you spent $1 million a day since the birth of Jesus Christ, you would have not spent this much money by now. Rather your total would be around $700 billion which is actually the amount the banks received during the bailout.
one trillion in cash

Below is $15 trillion in cash ($15,000,000,000,000) – Unless the U.S. government fixes our budget, the national debt will surpass 15 trillion by Christmas of this year. That is 20% of the entire world's combined GDP and in 2011 the National Debt will exceed 100% of our GDP, and start going into the 100%+ debt-to-GDP ratio that has countries like Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Italy, and Spain (Euro PIIGS) are dealing with... bankrupcy.
15 trillion in cash
What to expect for our future? Let's show you...
Below is 114.5 trillion dollars ($114,500,000,000,000): This is the U.S. unfunded liabilities. This is calculated on current tax and funding inputs, and future demographic shifts in the U.S. population. This is the amount of money the U.S. government knows it does not have to fully fund the Medicare, Medicare Prescription Drug Program, Social Security, Military, and civil servant pensions. It is the money the United States of America knows it will not have to pay all its bills. (Our stacks of money are taller than what used to be two of the tallest towers in the world, the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center Twin Towers.)
115 trillion dollars in cash
Let us not forget that as US citizens, we owe this much as well. We are all in this one together, unfortunately, with each of us currently owing $46,137.73!

“As agências de rating não têm credibilidade nenhuma”

José Maria Ricciardi, CEO do BES Investimento, criticou duramente esta tarde a actuação das agências de ‘rating’.
"A Moody's cortou a nossa dívida para ‘junk', sem qualquer razão. Para mim tem a ver com a guerra Europa/ EUA. As agências de rating não têm credibilidade nenhuma", afirmou o responsável numa conferência que está a decorrer na Universidade Católica sobre os desafios da banca de investimento.
José Maria Ricciardi lembrou que poucos dias antes da Lehman Brothers falir a "Moody's deu-lhe um rating de Triple A". E explicou: "Todos estes activos tóxicos alavancados que inundaram a Europa tinham todos rating triple A. E continuam a dar rating triple A aos EUA, quando 30 Estados dos 50 estão numa situação dificilima, com a Califórnia à cabeça, que só não sucumbem por causa do Estado Federal".
E adiantou: "Não lhes dou credibilidade [as agências] mas não acredito que a resposta seja a criação de uma agência europeia. Isso seria um género de um Benfica-Sporting. Temos é que não lhes dar tanta importância e começar a fazer o trabalho de casa".
As agências de rating não foram o único alvo de críticas do CEO do BES Investimento. "Os analistas das salas de mercados tornaram-se gente preguiçosa e robotizada, que não analisam o risco. Antes estudavam, faziam o trabalho de casa, analisavam o risco. Agora limitam-se a olhar para os ratings das agências".
Fonte: Diário Económico

Brace for impact

First of all, i wish to explain why the title Brace for impact. Brace for Impact is an expression used in the airline industry, when the pilot of the plain foresees the imminent crash of the plain and has no means of stopping it. Which means, at no given time he has the capability of reversing the airliner accident.

I want with this title distress what has been happening with the financial markets, the sovereign debts and to the most of the worlds economies as a whole.
In my opinion, we have yet to see to full impact of this deep and enormous financial and economic crisis. This is perceived to to be a lack of trust between the financial agents in the market, but for me the truth lies even deeper.
What started out to be a financial crisis, with the sub prime mortgage and that then was followed with the bankruptcy of one of the biggest investment banks in Wall Street, Lehman Brothers, has been evolving is to one of the hugest challenges ever known to mankind.
After this event we became aware of the sovereign debt of some European countries like Greece, Ireland and most recently Portugal. But more dust is hidden under the rug as also Italy, Spain and even the United States and the United Kingdom pose the serious threat to the system collapse. Indeed, the euro zone's aggregate deficit and debt levels are healthier than America's.
This because to an effect called GLOBALISATION.
This is the word and act responsible to what's being happening thus far. The interconnectivity between major players in the markets poses a very serious systemic risk to the whole global market and capitalism as we know it.
America's debt is supposedly the world's safest, backed by trustworthy courts and an unrivalled capacity to raise taxes and print money. Yet thanks to a quirk law, talk of default is not confined to the European side of the Atlantic. American congress sets a ceiling limit on how much the country may borrow and if a deal cannot be reached before August 2nd the Treasury says it will be forced to default.  
 America's only known instance of outright default (other than refusing to pay debts in gold in 1933) occured in 1979 when the Treasury failed to redeem $122m of Treasury bills on time. It blamed unprecedentedly high interest from small investors, a delay in raising the debt ceiling and a word-processing equipment failure.

This dillema is summed up by Keynes adage: "If i owe you a pound, i have a problem; but if i owe you a million, the problem is yours."

Ayrton Senna: God given right to win



Ayrton Senna was born in March 21st 1960 in São Paulo, Brazil. He was a racing driver that won the F1 driver championship three times. He died while leading the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. 


Senna was often quoted using driving as a means for self-discovery and racing as a metaphor for life: "The harder I push, the more I find within myself. I am always looking for the next step, a different world to go into, areas where I have not been before. It's lonely driving a Grand Prix car, but very absorbing. I have experienced new sensations and I want more. That is my excitement, my motivation."


A absolute genius, a maverick, an outsider, a superstar, a legend. This is SENNA.


"A intensely religious God fearing men that actually believe that we had a God given right to win."


"The main thing is to be yourself. Everybody wants you to be different... You have to trust in your capabilities"
Ayrton Senna