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Some people paid a dollar for one of these pennies… other people paid between $6.95 and $50 for a 50-cent roll. They paid these prices despite the fact that when the 2009 rollout is complete, there should be about 635 million of these pennies in circulation.

Gotta love the EBay, StubHub culture where everyday thousands of people pay 50, 100, even 1,000 times more than what items and tickets are worth.

These have to be the same people who fall for financial newsletters that tout patently whacko get-rich-quick come ons.

Next to the story on CNN.com about the pennies was an ad for another website that claimed “New Poll: Americans Still Financially Illiterate.”

No shit.

Four variations of the new Lincoln penny will be introduced into circulation this year. The heads side continues the familiar image of Lincoln’s profile. The tails side features one of four different aspects of the 16th president’s life.

The initial coin represents Lincoln’s Hodgenville, Ky., birthplace. You have to bet that this one (above) will be very popular with the Log Cabin Republicans.

The next designs, scheduled for release in approximately three-month intervals, will depict his early years in southern Indiana, his career in Illinois and his presidential term in Washington, D.C.

SOURCE: CNN.com, Asia Business & Investing

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PATRON’S PENALTY: A patron slipped under the ropes and jumped into the greenside bunker just a few feet from Phil Mickelson on the 17th hole Sunday.

Steven T. Davis, 34, of Salt Lake City, jumped into the bunker right after Mickelson and Tiger Woods reached the green at No. 17.

Davis disappeared into the bottom of the deep bunker and sheepishly collected his sunglasses and billfold while patrons in the grandstands booed him.

Mickelson’s caddie, Jim “Bones” Mackay , went to rake the bunker, and Davis was seen apologizing to him and wishing Mickelson well as he climbed out and walked to a tournament security official, who escorted him to two Richmond County sheriff’s deputies.

“I apologize,” Davis said as he was escorted away. “I’m stupid. I hope Phil wins. That was dumb. Why did I do that?”

Tournament security asked for Davis’ badge, which he said fell off in the bunker. Mickelson said the incident didn’t affect his focus or lead to his missing a five-foot birdie putt.

“I thought it might even help me, but it didn’t have any effect,” he said.

Officer Jesse Jackson said Davis would likely be taken to the Richmond County jail and be charged with disorderly conduct.

It’s Augusta National and it’s CBS (which shamelessly didn’t stand by Gary McCord when he pissed off Augusta National for implying that its greens were bikini waxed), so it’s not surprising that we have yet to hear from Davis

SOURCE: Augusta Chronicle

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Yet, this nearly illiterate (notice hyphenated decouplings and Wall Street) and unintelligible drek is how you open a piece that contains your best ideas about China.

I thought we had gotten rid of the “de-coupling” theory. But I was wrong. It’s alive and well and enjoying a growing following on Wall-Street.
That’s probably enough to put most of you off right there and then.
But if an idea that wasn’t taken seriously until recently, now influences how analysts and investment researchers see the world, I guess maybe we should take a peek under the hood.
First of all, this isn’t the “de-coupling” theory that led people to invest in China, India, Brazil and other emerging countries. That theory held that if the U.S. economy went into the toilet, other economies around the world needn’t follow.
The theory got it all wrong. And it was Europe that did in the theory.
Once Europe’s economy began to suffer the same ignominious fate as the U.S.’, there was no way that Japan, China and other countries would survive the loss of both major export markets.
As we entered kicking and screaming into a global recession, the de-coupling theory became a joke.

Please help me here. Does anyone know what the EFF all that means? Is this English or some other language.

No wonder people don’t trust the financial media. It’s a bimbo that has put its hair in a bun, donned horned-rim glass and is now trying to pawn itself off as intellectual.

SOURCE: Asia Business & Investing

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A group of former prostitutes in South Korea have accused some of their country’s former leaders of encouraging them to have sex with the American soldiers who protected South Korea from North Korea. They also accuse past South Korean governments, and the United States military, of taking a direct hand in the sex trade from the 1960s through the 1980s, working together to build a testing and treatment system to ensure that prostitutes were disease-free for American troops.

While the women have made no claims that they were coerced into prostitution by South Korean or American officials during those years, they accuse successive Korean governments of hypocrisy in calling for reparations from Japan while refusing to take a hard look at South Korea’s own history.

South Korea has railed for years against the Japanese government’s waffling over how much responsibility it bears for one of the ugliest chapters in its wartime history: the enslavement of women from Korea and elsewhere to work in brothels serving Japan’s imperial army.

SOURCE: IHT, Asia Business & Investing

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 If you like fireworks, sometime in the next couple years you have to be in Sydney for New Year’s Eve. This year, the city shrugged off predictions of a gloomy 2009 with its biggest ever New Year’s party.

More 1.5 million party goers took in a wild fireworks show that kicked off at 9 p.m. on Wednesday.

This year’s party theme “Creation” was highlighted by a stunning pyrotechnic storm over Australia’s biggest city, with firework simulations of lightning, thunder and rain, all linked to Aboriginal creation myths.

It took about 120,000 firework shells and shooting comets to stage the show that was launched from barges, buildings and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The party, one of the first to kick off New Year celebrations around the world, comes against economist warnings that up to one million Australians will be unemployed by the end of 2009.

SOURCE: REUTERS

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The Shenzhen Airlines flight from China — along with a later TransAsia Airways flight to Shanghai from the Taiwanese capital, Taipei — inaugurated regular direct flights between Taiwan and mainland China. Direct ship traffic and mail service also began Monday, state media reported.

Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, reported that the flight from Shenzhen took off at 7:20 a.m. The TransAsia flight from Taipei left 46 minutes later. A total of 16 direct passenger flights were scheduled Monday.

SOURCE: New York Times… Full Story

SETTING SUN? - Japanese business confidence has suffered the biggest drop in 34 years, fuelling fears that the economy may face a deep and lengthy recession.

The quarterly Tankan survey by the Bank of Japan (BoJ) showed that the business sentiment index had plunged to minus 24 from minus 3.

It was the fourth quarter in a row that the index had declined. Many analysts believe Japan’s central bank might cut its already low interest rate of 0.3% to boost the economy.

That could can happen this week, but more likley it will happen in March.

SOURCE: BBC… Full Story

MADMAN FUND – List of victims in alleged US Ponzi scheme include world’s big banks, the rich and the famous

The biggest victims include international banking institutions HSBC Holdings PLC of Britain, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC and Man Group PLC, Spain’s Grupo Santander SA, France’s BNP Paribas and Japan’s Nomura Holdings.

They join a list of that include the Steven Spielberg charity, the Wunderkinder Foundation; New York’s Yeshiva University, former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman, New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon and J. Ezra Merkin, the chairman of GMAC Financial Services, among others.

All reported that they had fallen victim to Madoff’s alleged Ponzi, or pyramid, scheme. A criminal complaint says that for years Madoff paid returns to investors out of money he got from newer clients.

SOURCE: Associated Press… Full Story

Now comes news that HK’s luxury home sales fell in both quantity and value in November from a month earlier, as the slowing economy hurt the purchasing power of the wealthy.

Transactions of apartments and houses valued at more than HK$10 million ($1.3 million) fell 34% last month, with the deal value tumbling 62%, according to figures compiled by realtor Centaline Property. 

Both numbers are the lowest since September 2003, the agency said in a press release yesterday.

Homebuyers and banks may be concerned both about Hong Kong’s economy, which contracted 0.5% in the third quarter to put the city in its first recession since 2003. HK’s jobless rate rose to 3.5 percent in October. The benchmark Hang Seng Index has declined 46% this year.

Banks have raised mortgage rates, making financing home purchases more expensive.

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Ahn “Joseph” Cao was taken from war-ravaged Vietnam as an 8-year-old boy, leaving his parents behind for the safety and hope of America.

On Sunday, 33 years later, leaders at Mary Queen of Vietnam Church in east New Orleans introduced Cao (pronounced “gow”) as the USA’s first Vietnamese American elected to Congress, as the congregation stood and applauded.

“Never in my life did I think I could be a future congressman,” Cao, 41, said at a victory party Saturday after he beat out nine-term Democratic incumbent William Jefferson. “The American dream is well and alive.”

Cao’s victory represents not only a stronger voice for Vietnamese in America but payoff for generations of hard work and sacrifice by Vietnamese immigrants, said the Rev. Luke Nguyen Hungdung, a pastor at the main church in east New Orleans. “The older Vietnamese generation is especially proud to see a Vietnamese enter Congress,” he said.

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More than 20,000 striking workers have shut down a Nike shoe factory in Vietnam.

They are demanding higher wages that would offset Vietnam’s current 9.2% inflation rate. That comes on the heels of 10% last year.

The average monthly salary at the Taiwanese-owned plant is about $59. That’s about $14 more than the Vietnam’s monthly minimum wage.

The striking Ching Luh plant workers make about 12% of the 75 million pairs of shoes made for Nike in Vietnam each year.

The workers seek a 20% pay rise and better canteen lunches.

Strikes in Vietnam are becoming more common as living costs have surged there.

The Ching Luh plant is in southern Vietnam. It is one of 10 factories in Vietnam that produce footwear for Nike.

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A Nobel Laureate who documented some of Japan’s World War II atrocities on Okinawa has beaten back a libel charge that stemmed from his work.

Japanese judges threw out a libel case against author Kenzaburo Oe, who was accused of lying about the country’s wartime past.

In his book Okinawa Notes, Oe described how Japanese soldiers forced hundreds of civilians on Okinawa to commit suicide as US troops advanced during World War II.

The legal battle pitted two retired military officers – including one who thought he recognized himself in the book – against Japan’s best-known living author.

In claiming Oe lied, the officers demanded the book be banned and $200,000 (20 million yen) in damages.

Judge Toshimasa Fukami concluded: “The former Imperial Japanese Army was deeply involved in the mass suicides.”

The ruling likely chagrinned Japanese right-wing nationalists who have been locked in an overwrought ideological battle with intellectuals such as Oe, whom they see as unpatriotic.

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