The Coming Crash (no later than 1H2012)?

[yeokiwi]

If you abstain from voting, after you got strike off, there will be subsequent action taken against you if i remember correctly, as is an offence.

http://www.elections.gov.sg/voters_compulsory.html

Not that I know of. I had yet to heard of anyone being charged for not voting. Have you?
Besides, I think the no. of non-voters were in thousands and easily, you would read their sorrow stories on the net if they were charged.

[wsreader]

".....Yes, i think that's why until today our education system has not produced a Nobel prize winner....."

Do not be too overwhelmed by the Nobel Prizes. There are politics involved in deciding the winners.

[Temperament]

".... There are politics involved in deciding the winners. " Agree fully. If not, we are not human being. Still a NOBEL PRIZE winner is really something "extraordinary".

[yeokiwi]

".... There are politics involved in deciding the winners. " Agree fully. If not, we are not human being. Still a NOBEL PRIZE winner is really something "extraordinary".

Literature and Peace. Yes. There are politics involved.
Physics, Chemistry, medicine, Hardly. With the way we manage our local universities, it is difficult to produce a local nobel laureate.

[karlmarx]

where there is competition for scarce resources (oil, food, power, money, prestige, etc), there will be politics.

just like there is much politicking amongst corporate executives competing for promotions and bonuses, there is politicking between research teams for funding/grants, and even within team members vying for the coveted position of principal investigator.

there is much power-play involved even among seemingly-benign academic circles. there are scientists rewarded with prestige and position (and even a Nobel Prize) despite producing results based on conducting experiments that run contrary to the scientific method.

here's one such controversial story:
'set the controls for the heart of the sun: the strange story of the missing solar neutrinos' by trevor pinch.

[Jared Seah]

LOL! If there's more than 1 person, there will be "jiang hu".

Even if there's ample resources, it will not be long before one person starts asking innocently: "Why your one bigger?"

[Behappyalways]

Just thinking..............


Is Merkel a silly person? Why is she resisting using European Central Bank to shore up the European countries? Or is she in a brinkmanship to gather more influence for Germany while allowing some instabillty at the moment to achieve her aims? A Germany's EU???(could be out of necessity because you cannot allow a few errant countries to misbehave and throw the EU into abyss) She has risen to become Chancellor in a man's world and see how she pulls the rug off Italy's former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and Greek's prime minister....is she simple or silly???

We are seeing countries losing their sovereignty. As read in The Straits Times, the people of Ireland learnt last week what national impotence means when, to their atonishment, they discovered that a draft of the Irish budget was being examined by German legislators before Ireland's own Parliament even saw it.

The answer to the crisis is more, not less, Europe.....what does Merkel means......

A lot of question marks........


When the time comes, she will allow the central bank to save the European economies when she gets what she wants, a German's 'controlled/influenced' EU?????? She seems to be in control right now although market is acting with panic. Are we underestimating her? Or is she really a fool?

She might be playing a dangerous game for the plan might backfire on her and throw all the EU countries including Germany into the abyss

[weijian]

hi behappyalways,
nice conspiracy theory?
Conventional wisdom tells us that the main mandate of ECB is to control inflation and they are supposed to be politically neutral as well.

From what i understand, the germans are ready to vote out any political party that supports the below:
(1) Print $ - Moral hazard, will result in inflation and hurt the germans
(2) Eurobonds - increase their cost of finance/doing business and hurt the germans

On the other hand, Germany has benefited tremendously from the formation of the EU. My guess is that any politician needs to wait for catastrophe to be at the doorstep before they can do either (1) or (2). This is because if they act earlier for pre-emption, they might get voted out by a short-sighted electorate first, before the results show them to be correct. (remember the greek PM who wanted a referendum on whether to get a bailout or not?)

my 2cents worth above, interesting to hear alternative views/corrections.

[Behappyalways]

If the euro economies collapse...you might get bank runs(lending by banks might just freeze), deflation and surge in unemployment and etc etc.... we are already seeing the drop in economic numbers......

I believe those in ECB could clearly see the dangers....

[corydorus]

Seems like either they have to Print as a single economy. Not sure would anyone even consider a singe european bond as safe as "before".
A good option maybe to divorce.