iCharts Discussions

[ajayhkaul]

History Repeats , only the players change ?

In 64 AD, Emperor Nero gave his Roman troops a draconian order to torch the city.

For days the citizens of Rome watched their city burn while he stood on the summit of the Palatine playing his lyre, until an estimated half a million people were made homeless. In this way, Nero could then remake the city in his own image.

On Saturday, the citizens of Athens, besieged by riots, watched their own city burn, as Germany's Angela Merkel ordered her own draconian budget cuts, including 150,000 government jobs and a 22% cut in the private sector minimum wage (32 per cent for workers under 25), deregulation of the labor market to facilitate worker layoffs, and overall higher taxes, attempting to remake Greece in Germany's image.

In addition to the loss of jobs and pay cuts, Germany demanded that Greece agree that they would not renegotiate these terms, thereby forcing Greece to relinquish any claim to democracy.

Greece already faces an unemployment rate of 19%, up from 12.5% in 2010. Given a workforce of under 5 million, adding another 150,000 to the unemployed could increase the rate by another 3%, a number too staggering to be sustainable. 49-year-old engineer Andreas Maragoudakis summed it up completely when he said, "By 2020 we will be the Germans' slaves."

Where are the democratically elected leaders of Greece ?

What about our own country ? Are we vigilant enough to stop such - Greek Like- leadership from emerging?

At the moment , don't just sit and watch the illiterates vote and elect your government...it will come back and bite you.

[pkholla]

ajaykaul: have you noticed that every time Greece accepts a condition, Germany, France and ECB immediately call it provisional and pile on more agony for Athens. They WANT Greece to default. They want to remake the EU in a new mould after breaking it! where does this leave italy and spain? prakash holla

[vinay28]

have you seen angela dancing?

[ajayhkaul]

[vinay28]

now you know why you should never give alms to a begger?

Probably everyone would have heard of Adnan Khashogi, the notorious and extremely wealthy iternational arms dealer. Adnan's father, a doctor, was king Fahd's personal physician in good (?) old days. In those days, he had his own mansion in Saudi Arabia.

One day, Adnan, then a child, brought a begger to the mansion to live and, when asked "why" by his father, said that he felt bad when he saw the begger. The father asked Adnan what he would do with all the beggers in the world and whether he could house and take care of all of them. Thus the son learnt his lesson.

[ajayhkaul]

Game Changer ?


Natural gas is dirt cheap right now and not nearly as glamorous as oil. But a convergence of new technologies and techniques are leveling the playing field for natural gas — which is cleaner, cheaper and more efficient than oil.

Natural gas is also a bargain compared to alternative forms of fuel. Just take a look at how the alternatives stack up ...


Cost of Natural Gas Compared to Other Energy Sources
Source Cost Per Kilowatt Hour Comparison
Natural gas $0.066 Baseline
Hydro-electric $0.086 30% more expensive
Coal $0.095 40% more expensive
Solar Photovoltaic $2.11 320% more expensive
Solar thermal $3.12 470% more expensive
Wind power $0.099 to $0.12 50% to 81.8% more expensive
Sources: US Energy Information Administration & New York Times


Maybe that’s why President Obama just announced that the Energy Department will sponsor a new $30-million research competition to find ways to use natural gas in passenger vehicles.

"We can’t just allow ourselves to be held hostage by the ups and downs of the world oil market. We have to keep developing new sources of energy," Obama said in a speech at the University of Miami.


This natural gas transformation is ALREADY spreading to the fleets of big freight-hauling trucks that rule the American highway ...

Two companies have teamed up to build truck engines and refueling stations for trucks that run on compressed natural gas (CNG). At current prices, truckers save a comparative equivalent of a dollar a gallon by running their trucks on CNG rather than diesel.

A dollar a gallon may not sound like all that much, but remember; we’re talking about whole fleets of trucks that are on the road for usually at least eight hours a day.

So if three million heavy trucks converted to running on natural gas, that would displace about 1 million barrels of oil — PER DAY.

At today’s prices, that’s a savings of about $110 million each day!

And just this past week, one of America’s biggest manufacturers announced that it was forming a partnership with a large natural gas producer to develop less-expensive, higher-performance, lighter and higher-capacity fuel tanks for natural gas-powered vehicles.

These are the kind of developments that are going to really jump-start the market.

America’s Ultimate Stimulus Package:
A New Fuel Revolution

Expect natural gas prices to go higher — and even if it doubles or triples in price, nat-gas will remain a bargain compared to oil.

Experts estimate that low-cost domestic natural gas will save $11 billion per year in U.S. manufacturing costs over the next ten years and create more than a million new jobs.

This new low-cost energy reality is expected to increase disposable income by $2,000 per year per household in the United States.

the best days in natural gas are yet to come ?— what happens to oil , middle east etc?


Calling our own energy expert vinay for his views.

[vinay28]

it's like shifting from gold to silver to platinum to other rare earth elements. Scarcity will come in that also as demand shoots up. It will only postpone death by putting one on the ventilator. That's the problem with non-renewable resources.

All alternate energy sources have fallen far short promises they showed since the wild imagination of the 70s e.g. "small is beautiful" is just not working. South Africa virtually pioneered coal gasification. Their company,SASOL, has a plant somwehere in middle east also. They have now set up a joint venture with Tata Steel to set up a plant in India and design is going on. The only advantage of this process is that it helps recovering energy from deep coal mines, which otherwise can never be mined for coal.

By the way, Mozambique is a poor country north of south africa and on the east coast of africa. That is till yesterday. BPCL and Videocon have found gas (and oil) reserves that will make mozambique one of the largest exporters of gas in the world.

There is no escape from nuclear energy! No wonder oil producing countries in middle east are going for it.

[phoneix]

Mr.Ajay.

There was a good quote about the Duck Quacking, it was with reference to people buying in market & you said some good note about how duck quacks?

Waiting to hear from you.

[ajayhkaul]

[beowulf]

[ajayhkaul]

[ajayhkaul]

Guys , but don't be surprised if they come back for seconds....

[phoneix]

[ajayhkaul]

Thanks ...you guys give me energy !

[vinay28]