Defense Solutions Holding Incorporated is a company that is on the rise. Founded in 2001 in Exton, Pennsylvania, Defense Solutions is known as being one of the few American companies that does business in the U.S. and Iraq. Today, the company announced that one American refinery and two Asian refinery groups have asked them to secure oil contracts in Iraq.

One of the most unique aspects of Defense Solutions is how far their business has branched out. In 2005, when the company was merely four years in their history, Defense Solutions supplied 77 T-72 tanks to the Iraqi Army whom were under contracts with NATO at the time and the U.S. Army. Since then, Defense Solutions has entered into joint development agreements to produce the NATO-compatible armored personnel carrier, the BTR-4.

Leading the way at Defense Solutions is Colonel Timothy D. Ringgold, PhD who formed Defense Solutions upon

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Auerbach Grayson, a New York brokerage, has just become the first international company to trade in Iraqi securities.br /br /Auerbach has signed an agreement with Rabee Securities, a Baghdad brokerage, through which it will provide research and trade execution.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3742382075154765669-6896754392207411483?l=danfonds.blogspot.com'//div

That the president of the United States of America is now creating the business plan for an automobile company is surely a sign of something big.

Yesterday was a holiday in the US. Little news from that quarter.

But while Americans were enjoying their backyard barbecues, the rest of the world turned.

“Obama plans ‘leaner’ car industry,” says the BBC.

While most readers will focus on the last three words of that sentence, we direct your attention to the first two. The subject is the important part… not the predicate.

That the car industry may or may not get ‘leaner’ is of little interest to us. It will do what it needs to do. But that the president of the United States of America is now creating the business plan for an automobile company is surely a sign of something big. The world has already turned… perhaps more than we realize.

It was only a few

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Interesting article from April 24th’s Investment Dealers’ Digest (IDD) regarding Houlihan Lokey (“From Century City To Baghdad”, subscription required), a middle-market investment bank whose restructuring practice has given it an international reputation, and whose decision to rebuff various bulge-bracket suitors over the past decade or so now looks increasingly prudent.

In addition to working with the Russian government on its Soviet-era debt, as well as with the Seychelles, the firm’s sovereign advisory services team is in the midst of helping Iraq ease its debt burden, and has been successful with 42 creditor nations, through meetings and negotiations with various creditors’ central banks, ministries of finance and ministries of commerce.   Bankers are now working on the closing phase with eight nations, the article states.  “There is a lot of traveling to different capitals,” notes Derrill Allatt, a managing director.  “We have had success. There was an agreement with

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Form 10-K filed today to remove “E” on stock symbol

Defense Solutions, Inc., an international project management firm and a wholly owned subsidiary of Defense Solutions Holding, Inc. (OTCBB: DFSH, DFSHE), reports that the Company has filed its Annual Report on Form 10-K with the SEC today and the “E” that was added to its stock symbol for failing to file the Form 10-K on a timely basis is expected to be removed from its stock symbol shortly.

According to Defense Solutions’ Chief Executive, Colonel Tim Ringgold, U.S. Army (Retired), who is in Baghdad, “Defense Solutions regrets for failing to meet the timeframe in which to file its Form 10-K. However, as we enter a phase of tremendous growth and acclimate to public company status, we have taken the appropriate measures to secure the proper personnel in the appropriate positions to assure that going forward matters such as this

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As the markets would tell it, the swine flu epidemic is little more than a tempest in a teacup. But, sad to say, the danger here remains far greater than it seems…

Before we begin, a word in honor of Monday’s stage-five rocket launch of a rally. Or should I say, rally on top of rally.

As a caveat, these words are being written some two hours and change before market close. Regardless of where that close may be, however, it simply must be said – watching what seemed to be nearly every risk-related asset in the world catch a gigantic bid simultaneously was, in a word, awesome.

(Your humble editor was so transfixed by the sight, he felt verbally transported back to his seventh-grade skateboarding days.)

The world, it seems, is pounding the table for a V-shaped recovery. Maybe even a slightly leftward-tilting V, to

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Defense Solutions Holding, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: DFSH), an international project management, executive consulting, and business development firm, commented today on recent developments in Iraq, specifically in reference to the Iraqi budget that was passed on March 5, 2009. The Iraqi Parliament passed its 2009 budget of $58.6 billion to begin its country’s rebuilding process. Defense Solutions, a company “registered” with the Iraqi Ministry of Trade to conduct business in Iraq, is one of the few American companies working directly with the Iraqi government and is in a position to become a key supplier for all defense-related military hardware to the Iraqi government, as well as, a broker for additional contracts unrelated to the military that include the rebuilding of homes, businesses, fiber optic communication systems, and infrastructures like roads and bridges.

Defense Solutions’ core management team and its key strategic advisors have proven their true commitment to Iraq

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Can I take a moment to be indignant, to be infuriated at where we find ourselves?

Matt's blog takes a look at the stunning fall from grace of AIG in the form of $61.7 billion in quarterly losses. Quarterly losses! Meanwhile, the U.S. government announces it's pouring another $30 billion to add on to the $150 billion we've already poured into the black hole that is AIG.

It all brings to mind images of semitrucks full of hundred-dollar bills pulling out of Baghdad in the wake of the last invasion. I've got a question: How do we, the U.S. government, only own 80% of a company that we've poured $180 billion into when it's only got a market cap (as of yesterday) of $1.13 billion? Isn't anyone in jail yet? Lined up at the gallows? It feels like the biggest heist in the history of the

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From "Trade-Finance Pinch Hurts the Healthy," WSJ, 12/22/08:

The global financial crisis is drying up the financing that firms depend on for trade. That's making the global recession nastier and deeper than it otherwise would be.

As with all kinds of credit these days, financial institutions are making less trade finance available and charging more for it. But the squeeze in trade stands out because it pinches otherwise healthy companies that should be driving a recovery in global commerce. Already, the World Bank predicts trade will contract next year for the first time since 1982.

The Deteriorating Trade Outlook

Here's the IMF's recent forecasts for exports -- from October and then November -- for world trade, disaggregated into advanced and developing country groupings.

Figure 1: Real goods and services exports by country group. Source: IMF, World Economic Outlook Oct. 2008; Nov. 6 WEO update.

These developments in trade financing suggest that

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We pause this morning, while the rest of the world contemplates Mr. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and this week’s pending machinations of the Fed and OPEC, to ponder matters geopolitical. There’s something extremely telling about the reaction to the reporter who flung his shoes at That Lame Duck in the White House. And it doesn’t bode well for the next four years under the new president.

Something significant was missing from the main account of the incident, be it from the Associated Press or Reuters.

But McClatchy Newspapers (its pitiful financial state notwithstanding) got the real story. “Friends said Zaidi covered the U.S. bombing of Baghdad’s Sadr City area earlier this year and had been ‘emotionally influenced’ by the destruction he’d seen,” says its reporter in Baghdad.

This salient fact was otherwise missing from establishment media coverage.

If after nearly six years of war in Iraq, two of which were

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