Friday 1 August 2014

Headlines

## Global Ponzi meltdown/House of Cards ##

## Cut, baby, cut! ##

## Airline Death Spiral ##
As I noted on July 23, "As the world becomes increasingly unstable, the skies will become increasingly unfriendly to commercial aircraft." -- RF
Most of the 184 domestic airports operate at a loss every year. The China Airport Development Fund, 6 percent of whose revenues Chinese carriers contribute, subsidizes the losses. Last year 144 airports, including a few classified as regional, posted a combined loss of $1.97 billion.

## Fault lines/flashpoints/powder kegs/military/war drums ##

## Global unrest/mob rule/angry people/torches and pitchforks ##
A Greek court's decision to acquit local farmers who admitted shooting 28 Bangladeshi strawberry pickers when they dared to ask for months of back pay has sparked outrage in the country.

## Energy/resources ##

## Infrastructure scavenging ##
ZAMBIA Railways Limited is losing millions of Kwacha through theft of the company’s installations.

## Got food? ##

## Lifestyle Solutions ##

## Environment/health ##
Germany's Environment Agency said it wanted to make fracking practically impossible to head off the risk that the technique for extracting gas could contaminate groundwater with chemicals.

## Intelligence/propaganda/security/internet/cyberwar ##
USB devices such as keyboards, thumb-drives and mice can be used to hack into personal computers in a potential new class of attacks that evade all known security protections, a top computer researcher revealed on Thursday.

## Systemic breakdown/collapse/unsustainability ##
Cracks emerged in concrete girders. A drainage hole on the bridge deck plugged up. Rust showed above piers. Seven years after the collapse of its predecessor, the new Interstate 35W bridge has been showing its age.

## Japan ##
Japanese industrial output fell the most since the March 2011 earthquake, highlighting the widening impact to the economy of April’s sales-tax increase.

## China ##

## UK ##
Police are to start seizing drivers’ mobile phones after a crash in order to check whether they were texting or calling while at the wheel.
They are the age when those in their parents’ generation would have hoped or even expected to have a family home of their own. But increasing numbers of people in their 40s are choosing to abandon the property market altogether to become lodgers because of soaring property prices and rents.

## US ##
It’d be tempting to think that the days of subprime loans fueling the economy were a product of the era of the aged or departed Ace Greenberg, Alan Greenspan and Angelo Mozilo. Except when you break down the growth in GDP, it’s clear that car and light truck purchases played a major role. And subprime loans, in turn, are financing those transactions.

And finally...

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