President-elect Barack Obama yesterday (Monday) formally unveiled his economic team, including the nomination of New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy F. Geithner as the new administration’s U.S. Treasury secretary. The team’s first challenge will be assembling an economic stimulus package that could be even larger than the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) the Bush Administration has deployed.

The nomination of Geithner to succeed current U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. was leaked over the weekend, and was reported by Money Morning yesterday.

Geithner (pronounced: GITE-ner) obtained a Master of Arts degree in International Economics and East Asian Studies from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in 1985. He also has studied Japanese and Chinese and has lived in present-day Zimbabwe, India, Thailand and China.

As

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Orbcomm Inc. (ORBC), a leading provider of wireless (satellite) messaging services, declared third quarter 2008 financial results, in-line with our estimates. While we view the satellite business to be extremely competitive, not to mention low margin and expensive to operate, we also believe the barriers to entry for such services are substantial. Should higher demand applications emerge, such barriers may lead Orbcomm to higher valuations. However, though original equipment manufacturer (OEM) customers and an increased subscriber base contributed to improved service revenues, the company's depleting cash position, coupled with weaker-than-expected cash from operations, may not be sufficient to fund capital spending objectives associated with emerging applications. We maintain our Hold rating with a reduced valuation target in view of near-term concerns and general equity market conditions. We continue to assess Orbcomm's business expansion initiative across Asia and the Americas.Nalak Das contributed to ...

World Beer sales are slipping, and dudes like Homer are drinking less.  That means beer companies are going to be making less money in 2009, so let's get drunk and short them all. So what stocks to short? These frosty mugs: Beer Company Ticker Share Price ($) Mkt Cap Companhia de Bebidas das Americas (ADR) ABV 46.59 28.61B Molson Coors Brewing Company TAP 42.55 7.81B Craft Brewers Alliance, ...

A batch of interesting video clips about the election of Barack Obama and the unfolding financial crisis has appeared over the past few days as all and sundry are attempting to make sense of a rather murky picture. A number of clips that have attracted my attention are shared below.

Firstly, back to basics with a rudimentary explanation by Enspire of how the mortgage crisis came about. (Click here in case you missed Enspire’s previous video, “Understanding the financial crisis”.)

Enspire Learning: The mortgage banking meltdown

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Not much. The world keeps turning. And the world economy keeps falling apart. Here in Australia, shares of port and rail outfit Asciano (AIO) fell off the table after a Citigroup analyst changed his valuation of the company and moved it from “buy” to “sell.” Asciano is down 93% from its all time high and was down nearly 60% yesterday before going into a trading halt.

Asciano has $4 billion debt on the books (much of it inherited from when the company was spun from Toll in 2007). But yesterday the company assured investors it wouldn’t be beefing up the equity on the balance sheet with another dilutive capital raising. And chairman Tim Poole told investors earnings were in line with forecasts.

The trouble is that with all that debt and, shall we say, challenging business conditions, investors aren’t convinced the equity in the company is worth anything anymore. This

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Taipan daily editor Justice Litle responds to some of his readers’ investment queries below. Is this the perfect time to get into the market, or is the market still a no-go zone?

In honor of this historic day – not to mention the risks of an unchecked majority in the senate – we’ll start things off with a little humor.

The inspiring message above is brought to you by despair.com, a tongue in cheek purveyor of de-motivational goods. If you’re getting ready to draw up your Christmas list, one of despair.com’s “government” plaques might be just the thing for the cranky libertarian in your life. (Nothing wrong with being cranky I might add.) Or if you work in a “progressive”

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If you are looking to retire, relocate abroad, or move some assets offshore, Panama the place to go says Bob Bauman. The country uses the US dollar and its banks are well positioned to survive the global credit crisis. Better still, there is no Federal Reserve or central bank to interfere in the markets…

More from Bob in The Sovereign Society:

Concerned about the gloomy economic situation and the liberal drift in U.S. politics, a good many Americans are seriously considering the possibility of moving themselves and their finances offshore - while they still are able to do so.

The Sovereign Society (and yours truly) have long suggested that the Republic of Panama is the ideal place for retirement, a second home, or even to house your asset offshore protection trust or family foundation. It’s one country in this turbulent world that is proud to be known as a tax haven.

Healthy, ...

The fact is that today’s stock markets were extraordinary in their strength. Emerging markets (proxy EEM) up about 20% and the S&P 500 (proxy SPY) up about 11%.

There are important positive facts to consider:

for the past couple of weeks SPY has been trading sideways — that’s good. SPY went up 11% today — that’s good (although going up 11% after going down about 41% in the past 52 weeks, puts the index at about 35% down from its starting point). according to Bloomberg, before today, the MSCI World Index was trading at about 10.5 times trailing earnings — an historically attractive multiple. according to a table published by dshort.com, today’s rise in the S&P 500 was the 7th largest percentage gain since 1928 — that’s good (although dshort.com points out that almost all of the really powerful one day rallies in the past were inside bear markets that continued after the rally). the Fed ...

I've been talking recently about how the credit crunch may slow project development in both energy and gold. Here are two examples ...Credit Crisis May Block, Delay 20% of Deepwater Rigs, Slow Petrobras Boom As many as 20 of the 100 deepwater oil rigs on order worldwide may be delayed or canceled as loan availability erodes, possibly slowing developments including the biggest petroleum discovery in the Americas in three decades.AngloGold, Gold Fields, Harmony May Spend Less as The Metal's Price Falls AngloGold Ashanti Ltd., Gold Fields Ltd., and Harmony Gold Mining Co., Africa's biggest gold producers, may review spending plans after metal prices tumbled and credit availability tightened. And here are some more stories of interest ...Gold Rises as Equities Pare Losses, U.S. Dollar's Rally Stalls Versus Yen Gold rose in Asia, erasing earlier losses, as equities pared losses and the dollar's rally against ...

Founded in 2002, SkyPostal, Inc. was created to fulfill a new standard for “time defined” mail delivery in the Americas. The SkyPostal management team became pioneers in the courier and mail delivery industry having founded the company in 1972 as the first courier and mail delivery service in Latin America.

Using an established “outsourced” private messenger network and linked together through their proprietary web-based PosTrac™ tracking software, SkyPostal satisfies a vast market need for reliable and affordable time defined mail service throughout the region. SkyPostal hand delivers mail within an average of 7 days. Through other methods, such as the national postal services, it takes 17 days on average for mail pieces to arrive from Europe to LAC.

SkyPostal is now the largest private mail network in Latin America handling over 25 million pieces of mail per month. All their

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