One of my favorite blogs, Business Monitor International's Risk Watchdog, had a post yesterday discussing the wider historical context of the Berlin Wall's fall. The discussion of the persistence of Communism and the comparison between 1979 and 1989 I personally found to be the most thought-provoking observations but the entire posting is worth reading, accessible here.

Observation 6: Communism did not entirely die.

China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, and Laos all retain Communist leaderships, although in the former two countries the free market has largely prevailed. Many of the 'Communists' in Eastern Europe merely changed their names to 'social democrats' and returned to power, albeit in reconstructed form. Overall, the phenomenon of significant state interventionism in economies lives on long after 1989,

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The AP offers us the strangely poetic tale of the Aral Sea.  Under the aegis of Soviet industrial planners, the Central Asian Sea, at one point the world's fourth-largest body of fresh water, became little more than a glorified irrigation system for immense cotton fields supplying the USSR and Cuba.  This resulted in the disappearance of 90% of it, an act of ecological pillage described as 'unprecedented in modern times', which almost entirely extinguished the local fishing economy.  Most unusually for a news story, particularly one that concerns the ineluctable pace of environmental destruction in industrial Russia, it looks like there may be a happy ending in sight for some. ...

 

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Wednesday September 9, 2009

PennyOmega.com Stock Report!

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CIB Marine Bancshares, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: CIBH) today announced that, due to a clerical error on the part of a third party fiduciary, certain holders of its trust preferred securities were informed that the deadline for voting on the holding company’s pre-packaged plan of reorganization is September 15, 2009, rather than the

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Mexican airport operator Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S.A.B. de C.V., aka ASUR (ASR) announced the total passenger traffic for the month of August 2009. During the month, total passenger traffic decreased 12.8% year over year. Total passenger traffic fell to 1.3 million from 1.5 million in August 2008. Domestic passenger traffic was down 5.6% from August 2008. It fell from 694,360 passengers in August 2008 to 655,242 passengers in August 2009. International passengers reached 664,445 from 818,491 in August 2008. The decline in international passenger traffic resulted mainly from a decline of 20.2% in international traffic at the Cancun airport, a main tourist attraction. ASR’s business is highly dependent on international tourists; the Cancun airport generates 70% of the company’s revenues. Thus, we believe that the company’s principal competition comes from the other tourist destinations of Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos in Mexico, and ...

Empire Film Group Inc. is an independent film finance, production, and distribution company. The company’s commitment is to developing and producing low-cost, high quality commercial films that will attract talent and strong distribution. They have a management team that has more than twenty-five years of experience in the areas of development, production, distribution, finance, and marketing of feature films and television programs.

The company focuses their efforts on what they believe is a lucrative market segment. Empire Film looks to produce and/or acquire modestly budgeted, theatrical-quality films. They then look to distribute these to theaters, video, and television in the U. S. marketplace.

Filming is done by the company in many locations around the world, including Vancouver, Toronto, France, Cuba, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and various locations throughout the United States. In addition to filming, Empire also owns and operates a free standing distribution for books, Blu-Ray HD videos, CDs

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Data Call Technologies, Inc. announced today that it has finalized agreements and development initiatives to provide global meteorological conditions, Doppler radar images, and weather forecasts. According to the press release, the company has already begun marketing these products to entities outside the U.S.

Jim Tevis, Data Call’s Chief Technology Officer, commented, “Many of our U.S. clients are beginning to deploy digital signage networks in markets outside the United States. As such, requests for global additions to the Direct Lynk product line have become more and more frequent. With weather content topping the request list, we completed the development of that product and will now turn our attention to developing and testing global additions to the rest of the Direct Lynk product line.”

Presently, Data Call offers comprehensive weather coverage to a total of 215 countries and territories, including Antarctica, Argentina, Cuba, the Czech

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In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Martin Feldstein, Ronald Reagan’s top economist and a Harvard professor, claims the current health care proposals are all about rationing.  I have to disagree. Excerpts from his article are below, along with my critique. "Although administration officials are eager to deny it, rationing health care is central to President Barack Obama's health plan. The Obama strategy is to reduce health costs by rationing the services that we and future generations of patients will receive. "The White House Council of Economic Advisers issued a report in June explaining the Obama Administration's goal of reducing projected health spending by 30% over the next two decades. That reduction would be achieved by eliminating 'high cost, low-value treatments' by 'implementing a set of performance measures that all providers would adopt' and by 'directly targeting individual providers . . . (and other) high-end outliers.'" First and ...

In the New York Times, a special report examines the motivations behind the closure of the 'hell-hole', as one official described Cherkizovsky market: health and safety regulations, a crackdown on vice or revenge for owner Telman Ismailov's lavish opening of the Mardan Palace hotel?  An op-ed piece in the Moscow Times suggests that of the 'conflicting interpretations', the threat the market posed to Russia's light industry is the most convincing.  The Central Bank is considering closing non-bank office located currency exchanges, as an attempt to reduce fraud in independent kiosks.  Moscow real estate prices have continued to plummet, to less than $4,000 a square meter last week. The Finance Ministry says it will sell $20 billion of eurobonds in 2010 in its first international sale since 1998.  The world's largest construction company, Vinci, has signed a $2 billion deal ...

Avtovaz has warned that with its gargantuan losses, it may be difficult to face the future without more state help.  Unilever intents to build an $140 million ice cream factory, which will be the biggest plant in Russia to make the frozen dessert.  Medvedev has warned regional leaders that they must use 'all means available' to pay wage arrears.  The government is planning to launch measures to combat unemployment in 20 one-company towns.  Shipbuilder Sevmash has been berated by Medvedev, after there were delays in building an aircraft carrier for a $1.6 billion deal with India.  Apparently Chinese state-run carmaker Beijing Automotive Industry Holding is gearing up for an offer for Opel, but Sberbank has said it does not 'see any serious competition'.  President Medvedev has said that economy class housing should cost no more than ...

Stephen Blank has an interesting new article on Forbes in which he assesses the economic damage being caused by Russia's inability to effectively reduce legal nihilism and corruption, both of which are dragging on the country's attempt to recover from the crisis.  Sticking out like a sore thumb is of course the second trial of Mikhail Khdorkovsky, which will be in full session during the first state visit of President Barack Obama.  Blank describes the Khodorkovsky trial as a "palpable judicial farce," and if President Dmitry Medvedev is unable to take action to solve the situation it will "confirm the widespread belief that he is merely a tool of his predecessor, a placeholder until Putin resumes the presidency."

When he was a candidate to lead Russia, Dmitry Medvedev denounced the country's "legal nihilism." Now, as president, he has often spoken

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