THE MYTH THAT “MINORITIES” GET MORE SCHOLARSHIPS DEBUNKED SINCE 5EVER

European Credit Manager Avoca Sells

The Europe's Avoca Capital Holdings is an employee owned investment management firm. They have recently announced that they will be selling to the American private equity firm KKR.

Avoca Capital Logo This sale should be a good deal for both companies, which should complement each other well. Fitch ratings claims that the transaction should not affect Avoca Capitals highest standard's asset manager rating. Fitch also claims there will be good synergy between the two companies. The combined assets of both firms is approximately $28 billion, of which $8 billion is under management by Avoca Capital. There may be some conflicts of interests between assets of the two firms but this should not create any major problems. Fitch believes that Avoca will grow supported by KKR's brand and distribution capability. In addition KKR will assist Avoca to meet new European risk retention regulations. These rules make operations more expensive for smaller firms who are unable to handle the burden. The operational transaction risk for the two companies is relatively low. Moving forward all Avoca staff will become KKR employees, however there will be no change in reporting lines or processes, systems or locations. Short term measures have been taken to retain senior Avoca staff through incentives. operational risk associated with transaction will be low. avoca staff will become kkr employees, but there will be no change in reporting lines processes, systems or locations on the short term. measures have been taken to incentivise the retention of senior staff.

French scientists have managed to generate red blood cells from stem cells and inject them back in to the donor. This major achievement opens up the possibility of a stem cell-based alternative to donated blood cells.

New Technology to Watch as phones and audio devices expand into the watch world. 

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Gear: A Review

The Galaxy Gear smartwatch, with a 1.67-inch OLED display, serves as a watch, a pedometer, a voice recorder, and a 2-megapixel camera/camcorder. When paired with the Note 3 via Bluetooth 4.0, this wrist-strapped device can make and take phone calls, send and receive text messages, and access Samsung’s Siri-like S-Voice assistant to make appointments, dictate messages, and more.

The Note 3 offers significant improvements over its successor: a larger, higher-definition display; a faster processor; a higher-capacity battery; and all of the advanced wireless sharing and gesture controls available on the Galaxy S 4. 

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Blue sunset by MiljanMladenovic

With everyone’s attention turning to the debt ceiling X-Date of October 17 (or sooner now that the Pentagon is once again spending money like a drunken sailor following the recall of 400,000 workers or half of the total number fuloughed), some are wondering why is the stock market not reacting more violently. The generic response that has formed is that despite all the feamongering by Obama and the Treasury, even crossing the X-Date will hardly result in the apocalyptic outcome that so many predict as the Treasury can “prioritze payments”, i.e., paying some bills and not others, which as we explained before, means paying down debt obligations first, and everything else - whose non-payment does not constitute an event of default under US debt - last. In other words, if the US were to merely live within its means, it should have no problem remaining current on its interest expense even if that means slashing most other government programs.

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Cost of Shutdown?

Furloughed federal workers protest outside the U.S. Capitol $24 billion dollars is the answer. The 16 day long government shutdown over financing a healthcare reform for America's poorest citizens, that almost crashed the economy, cost the American Taxpayer $24 billion dollars. This was published in an estimate by Standard and Poor's. Another way to look at this is, it cost $1.5 billion dollars a day. The shutdown had a large affect on the economy, and it was estimated that fourth quarter GDP growth  will be reduced from 3% to 2.5%. A breakdown of losses: $3.1 billion was lost to government services according to research firm IHS. $152 million was lost each day to travel spending by the U.S. Travel Association. $76 million per day was lost because the National Parks were closed. $216 million per day was lost in contractor wages in the D.C. area alone. The shutdown affected hundreds of thousands of federal workers. It affected small businesses and stalled many business loans. It put a halt on tourism in many areas and affected military families who rely on child services. Many federal workers will receive furloughed pay, but contractors will not. Financial predictions expect this to affect spending during the holidays. It is still amazing that our politicians would be so irresponsible to let the U.S. government shutdown for over two weeks. The future does not look promising either. The decision made last week to reopen the government is not a solution to the problem but merely a delay until January when the fight over spending and the debt ceiling will come down to another deadline. Hopefully our leaders in Washington can figure this out before then, as usual I am skeptical.

http://aclassasset.blogspot.com/2013/10/how-much-did-that-shutdown-actually-cost.html

Not a day goes by without a story in the MSM by some industry shill like Daniel Yergen about the imminent energy independence of the Great American Empire. Shale oil and gas will revolutionize the American energy prospects. We have hundreds of years of oil and gas under our feet. We will be a net exporter in the next few years. A glorious future awaits. Politicians tout the billions of barrels to be extracted from Bakken, Eagle Ford and the hundreds of untapped shale formations across the country. Wall Street puts out glowing investment analysis papers promoting the latest IPO. There’s just one little problem. It’s all hype.

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