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Which ones from the "green sector" do you recommend? I have been following TRTC, but missed the big run.
Why do you think everything will drop? IMHO everything has to go up to keep up with Dollar devaluation which already has started.
Did you just cover your short position? And/Or did you go long?
From the PR today:
We believe that the dilution attributable to warrants issued in the offering during the first quarter is the reason for the pressure on our stock price and that such dilution could continue for the next several months.
At the opening of the second quarter, the Company had 93.6 million issued and outstanding common shares. On June 30 and August 12, 2015, the Company had 139.9 million and 182.3 million issued and outstanding common shares, respectively. The increase in the Company's outstanding shares during the quarter and subsequent to quarter-end through August 12, 2015, results from the issuance of 31.6 million common shares upon exercise of pre-funded Series C warrants and 56.8 million common shares upon the alternate cashless exercise of Series B warrants issued as part of our previously disclosed March 2015 $37 million public equity financing. As of August 12, 2015, all pre-funded Series C Warrants had been exercised and of the 29.8 million Series B warrants initially issued, there remain an additional 20.9 million Series B warrants available for exercise into common shares, including through the alternate cashless exercise feature.
TNGN saw highest volume since Feb 13th.
Also just broke above the 50-day moving average.
The news and the CC were very positive.
We will see what tomorrow brings.
Great call on MPET.
India widens climate rift with west
By James Lamont in New Delhi, Joshua Chaffin in Are and Fiona Harvey in London
Published: July 23 2009 22:05 | Last updated: July 24 2009 09:57
A split between rich and poor nations in the run-up to climate-change talks widened on Thursday.
India rejected key scientific findings on global warming, while the European Union called for more action by developing states on greenhouse gas emissions.
Jairam Ramesh, the Indian environment minister, accused the developed world of needlessly raising alarm over melting Himalayan glaciers.
He dismissed scientists’ predictions that Himalayan glaciers might disappear within 40 years as a result of global warming.
“We have to get out of the preconceived notion, which is based on western media, and invest our scientific research and other capacities to study Himalayan atmosphere,” he said.
“Science has its limitation. You cannot substitute the knowledge that has been gained by the people living in cold deserts through everyday experience.”
Mr Ramesh was also clear that India would not take on targets to cut its emissions, even though developed countries are asking only for curbs in the growth of emissions, rather than absolute cuts.
His stance was at wide variance with that of Andreas Carlgren, his Swedish counterpart. Sweden holds the European Union’s revolving presidency until a conference in Copenhagen in December at which governments will try to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto protocol on curbing greenhouse emissions – the main provisions of which expire in 2012.
Mr Carlgren said in Are, Sweden, that developing countries such as India, China and Brazil must propose more ambitious plans to reduce emissions if they were to receive finance from wealthy nations.
Rich and poor countries have been squabbling over the issue of financing for months, imperilling the outcome of the Copenhagen talks. Rich countries have not agreed to provide the funding that poor nations say is necessary to help them cut their emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change.
Mr Carlgren went on the offensive on Thursday, saying poorer countries must come up with firm plans to cut emissions before financing will be forthcoming.
States such as China and India have produced plans for curbing the growth in their emissions but these have not been formalised within the negotiating process.
Mr Carlgren also criticised rich countries for failing to agree to cut their emissions by the amounts needed. “So far, what we have seen from other countries is too low. We expect more from developed countries,” he said.
But the Swedish environment minister said poor countries must also do more to forge an agreement. “We are prepared to put money on the table. But it should also be said that if we don’t see significant reductions that will really deviate from business as usual . . . then there is no money,” Mr Carlgren said, singling out China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia. “We are also prepared to deliver financing, but we must see that there is something to pay for.”
India has taken the hardest line in the negotiations so far. Along with China, India refused at the meeting of the Group of Eight industrialised nations this month to sign up to a target of cutting global emissions by half by 2050. The countries were holding out to gain concessions from the west on financing.
The claims from Mr Ramesh that Western science was wrong on the question of melting Himalayan glaciers appeared to reinforce Delhi’s recalcitrant stance.
Mr Ramesh on Friday reiterated that India would not accept emissions caps to held curb global warming, Bloomberg reported. “The world has nothing to fear from India’s development ... An artifical cap is not desirable and not even necessary as we haven’t been responsible for emissions in the first place,” he said.
Earlier this week, he also challenged Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, over her appeal to India to embrace a low-carbon future and not repeat the mistakes of the developed world in seeking fast industrialisation.
The consequences of depleted glaciers – sensitive to rising temperature and humidity – would be dire.
Seven of the world’s greatest rivers , including the Ganges and the Yangtze, are fed by the glaciers of the Himalayas and Tibet. They supply water to about 40 per cent of the world’s population.
Water supply is likely to become an increasing national security priority for both India and China as they seek to maintain high economic growth rates and sustain large populations dependent on farming. Some scientists have warned that rivers such as the Ganges, Indus and Brahmaputra could become seasonal rivers as a result of global warming.
Indians are also fearful of weakening monsoon rains. Some parts of India, including Delhi, the capital, are still waiting anxiously for this year’s rains to come in earnest. A late, or a poor, monsoon would be a drag on economic growth.
Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, has described melting glaciers as a “canary in the climate-change coal mine”, warning that billions of people depend on these natural water storage facilities for drinking water, power generation and agriculture.
Mr Ramesh said the rate of retreat of glaciers in the Himalayas varied from a “couple of centimetres a year to a couple of metres”, but that this was a natural process that had taken place occurred over the centuries. Some were, in fact, growing, he said.
The glaciers – estimated by India’s space agency to number about 15,000 – had also been affected by debris and the large number of tourists, he said.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c2896b88-77bd-11de-9713-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
Where is AJ?
Did he move to a different site?
FAS has been going down since the open today while SPX has been going up.
Also I see a H&S top formation on DGP daily chart which targets 15-15.50. Do you agree?
We got our bailout money … did you get yours!!
http://club.ino.com/trading/2009/03/we-got-our-bailout-money-did-you-get-yours/
Global Warming: On Hold?
Michael Reilly, Discovery News
March 2, 2009 -- For those who have endured this winter's frigid temperatures and today's heavy snowstorm in the Northeast, the concept of global warming may seem, well, almost wishful.
But climate is known to be variable -- a cold winter, or a few strung together doesn't mean the planet is cooling. Still, according to a new study, global warming may have hit a speed bump and could go into hiding for decades.
Earth's climate continues to confound scientists. Following a 30-year trend of warming, global temperatures have flatlined since 2001 despite rising greenhouse gas concentrations, and a heat surplus that should have cranked up the planetary thermostat.
"This is nothing like anything we've seen since 1950," Kyle Swanson of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee said. "Cooling events since then had firm causes, like eruptions or large-magnitude La Ninas. This current cooling doesn't have one."
Instead, Swanson and colleague Anastasios Tsonis think a series of climate processes have aligned, conspiring to chill the climate. In 1997 and 1998, the tropical Pacific Ocean warmed rapidly in what Swanson called a "super El Nino event." It sent a shock wave through the oceans and atmosphere, jarring their circulation patterns into unison.
How does this square with temperature records from 2005-2007, by some measurements among the warmest years on record? When added up with the other four years since 2001, Swanson said the overall trend is flat, even though temperatures should have gone up by 0.2 degrees Centigrade (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) during that time.
The discrepancy gets to the heart of one of the toughest problems in climate science -- identifying the difference between natural variability (like the occasional March snowstorm) from human-induced change.
But just what's causing the cooling is a mystery. Sinking water currents in the north Atlantic Ocean could be sucking heat down into the depths. Or an overabundance of tropical clouds may be reflecting more of the sun's energy than usual back out into space.
"It is possible that a fraction of the most recent rapid warming since the 1970's was due to a free variation in climate," Isaac Held of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Princeton, New Jersey wrote in an email to Discovery News. "Suggesting that the warming might possibly slow down or even stagnate for a few years before rapid warming commences again."
Swanson thinks the trend could continue for up to 30 years. But he warned that it's just a hiccup, and that humans' penchant for spewing greenhouse gases will certainly come back to haunt us.
"When the climate kicks back out of this state, we'll have explosive warming," Swanson said. "Thirty years of greenhouse gas radiative forcing will still be there and then bang, the warming will return and be very aggressive."
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/03/02/global-warming-pause.html
Do you still think GE is going to $10 today?
What does HFTOM stand for
TIA.
Alaskan Glaciers Grow for First Time in 250 years
A bitterly cold Alaskan summer has had surprising results. For the first time in the area's recorded history, area glaciers have begun to expand, rather than shrink. Summer temperatures, which were some 3 degrees below average, allowed record levels of winter snow to remain much longer, leading to the increase in glacial mass.
"In mid-June, I was surprised to see snow still at sea level in Prince William Sound", said glaciologist Bruce Molnia. "In general, the weather this summer was the worst I have seen in at least 20 years".
"On the Juneau Icefield, there was still 20 feet of new snow on the surface [in] late July. At Bering Glacier, a landslide I am studying [did] not become snow free until early August."
Molnia, who works for the US Geological Survey, said it's been a "long time" since area glaciers have seen a positive mass balance -- an increase in the total amount of ice they contain.
Since 1946, the USGS has maintained a research project measuring the state of Alaskan glaciers. This year saw records broken for most snow buildup. It was also the first time since any records began being that the glaciers did not shrink during the summer months.
Those records date from the mid 1700s, when the region was first visited by Russian explorers. Molnia estimates that Alaskan glaciers have lost about 15% of their total area since that time -- an area the size of Connecticut.
One of the largest areas of shrinkage has been at the national park of Glacier Bay. When Alexei Ilich Chirikof first arrived in 1741, the bay didn't exist at all -- only a solid wall of ice. From that time until the early 1900s, the ice retreated some 50 miles, to form the bay and surrounding area.
Accordingly to Molnia, a difference of just 3 or 4 degrees is enough to shift the mass balance of glaciers from rapid shrinkage to rapid growth. From the 1600s to the 1900s, that’s just the amount of warming that was seen, as the planet exited the Little Ice Age.
Molnia says one cold summer doesn't mean the start of a new climatic trend. At least years like this, however, might mark the beginning of another Little Ice Age.
As DailyTech reported earlier, Arctic sea ice this year has also increased substantially from its low in 2007.
http://www.dailytech.com/Alaskan+Glaciers+Grow+for+First+Time+in+250+years/article13215.htm
Aj,
Do you think we can see a rebound later this afternoon, like the rebound on Thursday before the option exp of September?
I remember the C Sept 15 calls went up from $.15 to $6 in that period.
Aj,
I think Louise Yamada in the interview below has similar time frame and targets as you have been mentioning. Let me know if you disagree.
http://news.moneycontrol.com/india/news/fii-view/nifty-may-touch-2800-if-3k-breaks-louise-yamada/22/00/360871
Louise Yamada, Managing Director, Louise Yamada Technical Research Advisors, fears the Dow could retest its 2002 lows of 7,200.
Q: What's your sense of what is going on in the world? Do you see further southward movement or a huge rebound from here?
A: We have been very cautious on the market for about a year and many of our targets are on the downside. The Dow has hit some levels below the 2003 breakout and that's probably making people little nervous as to whether or not the 2002 low of 7,268 or thereabouts might be tested. There has been a 50% retracement on the Nifty and if 3,000 can't hold here then there maybe further risk for both indices, for many indices.
Q: The other question everyone battling with is aside from the price damage how long is this process going to take. On your charts are you getting any sense of how prolonged this bear cycle will be for us?
A: We made comparisons to as far back as 2004 to this structural bear market that began in 2000. It has been very parallel to the 1932 to 1942 period and right now we are in something very similar to the 1937-38 period decline, which was 49% for the Dow.
The credit bubble is so large that the deleveraging process, this unwinding of the bubble can take quite sometime. Whether or not we have seen the lows is questionable. But once we have the degree of the damage it's just that it's going to take long time to repair. 1938 to 1942 saw about three-four years of up and down movement and we may have something very similar to look forward to.
Q: What is your own sense of where developed markets like Dow and the S&P might be headed? Last week of course there were scary numbers been thrown in the air like 7,000-7,200?
A: I think the 7,200 level would bring you right back to the 2002 lows and it is looking more like that maybe a possibility since it broke below the 9,000 level which was where the Dow broke in 2003. Till now all the gains that people have made from 2003 to 2007 have been reversed.
Q: Does it look like a vicious bear market or a prolonged bear market to you globally?
A: I think it already has been a vicious bear market in many of the global markets which were down. The Nifty and the US markets are approaching those levels. We only had two bear markets that were worse; one was in 1929 which took the market down 89% and then the one in 1937 which took the market down 49%.
Q: You referred to 1938 to 1942 period. What was the typical trading pattern in that period if you are predicting that to happen over the two-three years here as well?
A: There were some very dramatic rallies and then a series of decline, rallies in declines, I wouldn't say it was very severe but were sharp and the markets ended up at a slightly lower low in 1947 than 1938 but it never went back to the 1929 low. There is going to be a erratic period. Our research and market leadership has suggested that capital versus consumer tends to shift positions quickly without a defined leadership identity for the markets as a whole. There is no market leadership, everything is going down even the defensive stocks although they are outperforming.
The Commissars Of Climate Change
Claudia Rosett 10.23.08, 12:01 AM ET
It's not just income taxes that might trash the dreams of Joe the Plumber.
Ready or not, Joe and the rest of us are also about to get mugged by the commissars of climate change. On this, I've got a bipartisan beef, since both John McCain and Barack Obama have bought into the panicked Al Gore storyline that the earth has a man-made "fever." Both candidates are promising to meet it with dramatic and costly new forms of government control.
This comes even as Europe, after its fling with the Kyoto treaty, is backing off from grand pledges to cut carbon dioxide emissions, having decided that the whole thing is too expensive. But United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls climate change the "defining issue of our time," and the U.N. early last year announced that scientific "consensus" had been reached: The climate is in crisis, and it's man-made. At the U.N. this has morphed into calls for wealthy countries to choke their own productivity and compensate the rest of the world for the weather.
So the plan now is that America, along with its bailouts and other burdens, will sacrifice to the global climate gods. Nevermind that an emissions cap-and-trade bill died in the Senate in June, sunk by the titanic price tag and regulatory overload it would have entailed. America's top politicians, not entirely averse to finding ever-new ways to control and plunder the electorate, are still chugging the climate-change Kool-Aid. Once this starts, where does it stop? Carbon is the basis of life itself; carbon dioxide is exhaled with every breath. Regulating and taxing such matters is a road map to state meddling in every aspect of daily life.
And is the alarm even justified? U.N. proclamations to the contrary, there are numerous dissenting scientists. Among the dissenters is MIT professor of atmospheric sciences Richard Lindzen. In a recent, richly documented paper, he warns that the huge shift over the past half century toward government funding of scientific research has "led to extreme vulnerability to political manipulation." He argues that today's climate "consensus" is much more a product of politics than of science. Big government begets a push toward more of the same. Grants, prizes and jobs go chiefly to those who produce what eco-activists and U.N.-o-crats want to hear.
Who are these folks setting the climate agenda?
Most Americans have never heard of Yvo de Boer, and certainly never voted for him. De Boer is a Dutchman, appointed by former Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2006 to head the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
De Boer is not a scientist; his bio says he has a "technical degree in social work." Before joining the UNFCCC in the 1990s, he worked in the Dutch ministry of housing. These days, de Boer jets around the world presiding over conferences--such as last year's two-week climate summit at a Bali beach resort--aimed at creating a global "climate change regime." This regime rests on schemes for massive international wealth transfers, with multilateral bureaucracies calculating who owes, who pays and who gets special breaks--while related arms of these proliferating outfits crank out reports in which "science" is invoked to justify the entire set-up.
But didn't the Nobel Peace Prize go last year to Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for their eco-warnings? Yes. And the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by a committee of five Norwegian politicians, appointed by the Norwegian parliament. They may be nice people, but their judgment seems an odd basis for sweeping new controls on the U.S. economy.
As for the U.N.'s Nobel-winning IPCC--it is a joint enterprise of two other U.N. outfits, both shot through with back-scratching politics. One is the Nairobi-based U.N. Environment Program, whose director, Achim Steiner, a German, was appointed by Kofi Annan in 2006, just after serving on a panel that awarded a $500,000 environmental prize to Annan, for his personal use (which Annan surrendered only after that potential conflict of interest emerged in the press).
The other parent of the IPCC is the World Meteorological Organization, based in Geneva. The president of the WMO's executive council is an envoy of Russia, Alexander Bedritsky; his No. 2 man, First Vice President Ali Mohammad Noorian, has been at the WMO since 1981 as the permanent representative of Iran.
Among world leaders, there is almost no one left with the courage and vision to challenge any of this. A rare exception is Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who in the 1980s struggled to free his country from Soviet domination and is now sounding the alarm about the growing global tyranny of climate edicts. Last year he published a short book, Blue Planet in Green Shackles. In the subtitle of this book, he asks: "Which is endangered: climate or freedom?"
It's a pity that in America, a country built on free speech and free markets, neither presidential candidate seems willing to take a cue from Klaus. By now, the real question on climate is: Which candidate, once elected, is most likely to back off the campaign promises enough to leave America free to breathe?
Claudia Rosett, a journalist in residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, writes a weekly column on foreign affairs for Forbes.com.
http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/10/22/climate-united-nations-oped-cx_cr_1023rosett.html
Lorne Gunter: Thirty years of warmer temperatures go poof
Posted: October 20, 2008, 10:26 AM by Kelly McParland
In early September, I began noticing a string of news stories about scientists rejecting the orthodoxy on global warming. Actually, it was more like a string of guest columns and long letters to the editor since it is hard for skeptical scientists to get published in the cabal of climate journals now controlled by the Great Sanhedrin of the environmental movement.
Still, the number of climate change skeptics is growing rapidly. Because a funny thing is happening to global temperatures -- they're going down, not up.
On the same day (Sept. 5) that areas of southern Brazil were recording one of their latest winter snowfalls ever and entering what turned out to be their coldest September in a century, Brazilian meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart explained that extreme cold or snowfall events in his country have always been tied to "a negative PDO" or Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Positive PDOs -- El Ninos -- produce above-average temperatures in South America while negative ones -- La Ninas -- produce below average ones.
Dr. Hackbart also pointed out that periods of solar inactivity known as "solar minimums" magnify cold spells on his continent. So, given that August was the first month since 1913 in which no sunspot activity was recorded -- none -- and during which solar winds were at a 50-year low, he was not surprised that Brazilians were suffering (for them) a brutal cold snap. "This is no coincidence," he said as he scoffed at the notion that manmade carbon emissions had more impact than the sun and oceans on global climate.
Also in September, American Craig Loehle, a scientist who conducts computer modelling on global climate change, confirmed his earlier findings that the so-called Medieval Warm Period (MWP) of about 1,000 years ago did in fact exist and was even warmer than 20th-century temperatures.
Prior to the past decade of climate hysteria and Kyoto hype, the MWP was a given in the scientific community. Several hundred studies of tree rings, lake and ocean floor sediment, ice cores and early written records of weather -- even harvest totals and censuses --confirmed that the period from 800 AD to 1300 AD was unusually warm, particularly in Northern Europe.
But in order to prove the climate scaremongers' claim that 20th-century warming had been dangerous and unprecedented -- a result of human, not natural factors -- the MWP had to be made to disappear. So studies such as Michael Mann's "hockey stick," in which there is no MWP and global temperatures rise gradually until they jump up in the industrial age, have been adopted by the UN as proof that recent climate change necessitates a reordering of human economies and societies.
Dr. Loehle's work helps end this deception.
Don Easterbrook, a geologist at Western Washington University, says, "It's practically a slam dunk that we are in for about 30 years of global cooling," as the sun enters a particularly inactive phase. His examination of warming and cooling trends over the past four centuries shows an "almost exact correlation" between climate fluctuations and solar energy received on Earth, while showing almost "no correlation at all with CO2."
An analytical chemist who works in spectroscopy and atmospheric sensing, Michael J. Myers of Hilton Head, S. C., declared, "Man-made global warming is junk science," explaining that worldwide manmade CO2 emission each year "equals about 0.0168% of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration ... This results in a 0.00064% increase in the absorption of the sun's radiation. This is an insignificantly small number."
Other international scientists have called the manmade warming theory a "hoax," a "fraud" and simply "not credible."
While not stooping to such name-calling, weather-satellite scientists David Douglass of the University of Rochester and John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville nonetheless dealt the True Believers a devastating blow last month.
For nearly 30 years, Professor Christy has been in charge of NASA's eight weather satellites that take more than 300,000 temperature readings daily around the globe. In a paper co-written with Dr. Douglass, he concludes that while manmade emissions may be having a slight impact, "variations in global temperatures since 1978 ... cannot be attributed to carbon dioxide."
Moreover, while the chart below was not produced by Douglass and Christy, it was produced using their data and it clearly shows that in the past four years -- the period corresponding to reduced solar activity -- all of the rise in global temperatures since 1979 has disappeared.
It may be that more global warming doubters are surfacing because there just isn't any global warming.
lgunter@shaw.ca
http://www.nationalpost.com/893554.bin
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/10/20/lorne-gunter-thirty-years-of-warmer-temperatures-go-poof.aspx
People with Home Equity Loans and and other loans which depend on Prime Rate.
Four Ways to Help Us Out of the Crisis
By RealMoney Guest Contributor
9/26/2008 9:07 AM EDT
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This column was written by Michael Kao, CEO and portfolio manager of Akanthos Capital Management, a hedge fund specializing in convertible, capital structure and event-driven arbitrage strategies.
The catastrophic turn of events in the financial markets this month were actually exacerbated by the Treasury's "fixes" themselves.
From my "front lines" perch as a hedge fund manager that traverses up and down capital structures (loans, bonds, convertibles, preferreds, equities, options, etc.), let me offer four key observations and solutions that the equity-centric media coverage may have missed:
Problem No. 1: The Fannie (FNM - commentary - Cramer's Take)/Freddie (FRE - commentary - Cramer's Take) "bailout" eviscerated the preferred markets.
When Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson put Fannie and Freddie into conservatorship, he also eliminated the dividends on $36 billon of preferred stock, and that move sent formerly AA-rated securities to mere cents on the dollar overnight. Treasury's flawed assumption was that the agencies are special entities and that the treatment of their preferred shares ought not to affect the preferred securities of other financials. How utterly wrong and naive.
In the days following the "rescue" of Fannie and Freddie, the market for financial preferreds was essentially eviscerated, virtually eliminating any hope of recapitalization through public markets.
Why is this relevant? Aside from the direct consequences of many regional banks having to write their agency preferred investments to nearly zero and further eroding already-thin capital ratios, the overall market for preferreds is significantly larger than the amount of agency preferred outstanding. In fact, this market was one of the only capital markets that remained open to financial institutions in the last eight to nine months, and it raised nearly $80 billon during this period from straight and convertible preferred issuance.
It's one thing to "punish" common equity holders who arguably have lived off the "fat of the land" when Fannie and Freddie reaped abnormal profits, but it's entirely another thing to pull the rug out from under a class of investors (senior to the common) who stuck their neck out to recapitalize financial firms in need less than one year ago! This has caused preferred holders to hedge their exposure by heavily shorting the underlying stocks, further blowing out their cost of capital for the underlying companies.
Although Korea Development Bank walked away from purchasing a stake in Lehman for various reasons, the rapid erosion in financial preferred shares didn't help instill confidence in the prospective buyer.
Solution: Treasury should reinstate the dividends on Fannie and Freddie preferred shares and emphasize a renewed commitment to keeping the preferred asset class viable. The increased cost to taxpayers (roughly $644 million quarterly) is paltry compared with the hundreds of billions we're currently debating about in Congress, and it paves the way for private capital to re-enter the marketplace. This is ultimately what is needed to sustain any recovery.
Problem No. 2: Lehman's bankruptcy has severely eroded confidence between counterparties.
While it was arguably OK to draw the line and appease the "moral hazard" hawks by letting Lehman go, it was a disastrous mistake to not guarantee Lehman counterparty risk -- especially when Barclays was allowed to feast on its carcass. We have not even begun to see the shoes that are about to drop here, as Lehman was a very pervasive counterparty to innumerable sell-side/buy-side accounts.
While the face amount of credit default swap contracts has never been released, as of May 31, Lehman's net derivative position was $47 billon, cash collateral was $45.6 billion, and cross-product and counterparty netting was $43.3 billion. Keep in mind that the face amount of the derivative portfolio could be orders of magnitude greater than its net value. As a result of the bankruptcy, any over-the-counter trades done with Lehman have now been terminated.
To make things immeasurably worse, any associated profits from these trades have to be treated as senior unsecured claims in bankruptcy court. (By the way, Lehman's senior unsecured bonds are now trading at 15 cents on the dollar. This means that if I hypothetically had $1 million of profit in any over-the-counter trade I had on with Lehman, $850,000 of that "profit" just evaporated, and it would remain to be seen when I'd even get the remaining $150,000 back.
Furthermore, if I had cash collateral against any of these trades, or if I had prime-brokered my portfolio at Lehman (there is supposedly more than $40 billion of prime brokered assets that might be stuck), the cash and positions that are rightfully mine have yet to be returned, and the word is that it could take months. The knock-on effects of this disaster could be huge, and this will be widely felt, not only financially but also psychologically, because it undermines the validity of any and all transactions involving counterparty risk.
Ultimately, our financial system revolves around mutual trust, and not backstopping Lehman's counterparty obligations severely damages that trust. Perhaps the only good thing is that this debacle will speed up the move to a clearinghouse mechanism for the CDS market -- something that should have happened years ago.
Solution: Treasury should backstop Lehman's counterparty obligations. It may cost a lot now, but it could obviate future bailouts, since we don't yet know how widespread the damage is. They should have done this already by imposing counterparty guarantees as a condition for letting Barclays buy the assets for a song, but now it might be too late for that. Once again, Treasury needs to take on the mantle of leadership. The "moral hazard" problem should be dealt with, but not at the expense of confidence in the financial system as a whole.
Problem No. 3: The FDIC protection threshold is too low, and the FDIC is undercapitalized as it is.
With the collapse of IndyMac, "Main Street" mom-and-pop depositors already got a frightening dose of what a bank run could mean to their life savings. With Washington Mutual (WM - commentary - Cramer's Take) on the brink, we are running the risk of overwhelming the FDIC, since WM's roughly $145 billion in retail deposits is three times the size of the FDIC's reserve. Obviously, depositors with more than $100,000 should be worried, but even much smaller, theoretically insured accounts are running scared in this environment.
Solution:To prevent bank runs, the feds must make it abundantly clear that the current limits on the FDIC should in no way mean that insurance is about to run out. Depositors must know that their cash is safe. In addition, the FDIC protection limit should actually be increased to multiples of the current $100,000. While it might cost more for existing thrift failures being processed by the FDIC, the psychological impact of knowing you have a bigger umbrella will prevent potential bank runs and obviate the need for a massive FDIC bailout of a giant bank or thrift failure.
Problem No. 4: Grudging incrementalism plus a short-sale ban equals death spiral
As the fallout from Fannie/Freddie cascaded into Lehman, which then careened into AIG (AIG - commentary - Cramer's Take), the Treasury devised yet another incredibly punitive, confiscatory "bailout": taking 80% of the equity in AIG in return for making an $85 billion bridge loan at an interest rate of more than 12%. Wow. When did the U.S. government get into the loan-sharking business? Was this seizure meant to engender confidence in our free market system?
The mistakes that the Fed and Treasury have repeatedly made since the onset of this crisis have been ones of grudging incrementalism. Each time they act, the timidity with which they apply Band-Aids instead of the required tourniquets ultimately results in even lower confidence in the system. Even worse, these Band-Aids are laced with a toxic ointment that kills both good and bad cells, so that the wound is never allowed to heal cleanly.
The culmination of these actions led to the harrowing near-deaths of yet another two bastions of Wall Street, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. It was the fear of government-inspired intervention and seizure that caused the run on these companies, not the "evil shorts," as the SEC and Treasury would have everyone believe. Yet, incredibly, the response was to ban short-selling of financials (and the list is expanding).
This is yet another example of a ham-fisted response to a problem that the feds themselves created, and this particular action may have the most insidious unintended consequences. If one is not allowed to hedge one's exposure via short-selling of equities, one is forced to get creative in how to limit one's exposure.
The resultant creative hedging practices inspired by this ban on short-selling is leading to wholesale panic-selling in the rest of the capital structure (everything senior to the equity, from preferreds to bonds to even secured bank loans), not to mention countless equity indices, precipitating a self-fulfilling "death spiral" in many of the names that are ironically on the no short-sale list.
Not only that, the short-sale ban has effectively shut down one of the most important asset classes that was once available to the financial sector -- the convertible bond/preferred market - because its main participants are arbitrageurs who require the ability to short out their equity exposures for bona fide hedging purposes. Over the last eight or nine months, financial institutions raised close to $40 billion in this asset class, when almost all other financing avenues were effectively shut. The law of unintended consequences has obviously struck again with this short-sale ban, basically shutting down another public capital market.
Solution: Lift the short-sale ban, albeit gradually, by reducing (not expanding) the list day by day. The old uptick rule could be reinstated as a compromise. Market participants must be allowed to hedge their exposures, or the resulting damage to other parts of the capital structure will force the underlying companies into a "death spiral."
Let the Pakistan ban on short-selling this year be a model for what not to do. After short-selling was banned on June 23, the Karachi SE-100 Index staged a massive 1,300 point rally for three days before collapsing 26% in the weeks and months after. Does the market response in the U.S. sound eerily familiar so far? Let's not wait for a 26% drop to find out.
http://www.thestreet.com/p/rmoney/marketcommentary/10439432.html
What House Republicans Want
Minority Leader John Boehner appointed a working group headed by Rep. Eric Cantor to craft a set of "economic rescue principles" that should be reflected in any emergency program adopted by Congress. Last night, the working group articulated this set of principles:
Common Sense Plan to Have Wall Street Fund the Recovery, Not Taxpayers
• Rather than providing taxpayer funded purchases of frozen mortgage assets, we should adopt a mortgage insurance approach to solve the problem.
• Currently the federal government insures approximately half of all mortgage backed securities. (MBS) We can insure the rest of current outstanding MBS; however, rather than taxpayers funding insurance, the holders of these assets should pay for it. Treasury Department can design a system to charge premiums to the holders of MBS to fully finance this insurance.
Have Private Capital Injection to the Financial Markets, Not Tax Dollars
• Instead of injecting taxpayer capital into the market to produce liquidity, private capital can be drawn into the market by removing regulatory and tax barriers that are currently blocking private capital formation. Too much private capital is sitting on the sidelines during this crisis.
• Temporary tax relief provisions can help companies free up capital to maintain operations, create jobs, and lend to one another. In addition, we should allow for a temporary suspension of dividend payments by financial institutions and other regulatory measures to address the problems surrounding private capital liquidity.
Immediate Transparency, Oversight, and Market Reform
• Increase Transparency. Require participating firms to disclose to Treasury the value of their mortgage assets on their books, the value of any private bids within the last year for such assets, and their last audit report.
• Limit Federal Exposure for High Risk Loans: Mandate that the GSEs no longer securitize any unsound mortgages.
• Call on the SEC to audit reports of failed companies to ensure that the financial standing of these troubled companies was accurately portrayed.
• Wall Street Executives should not benefit from taxpayer funding.
• Call on the SEC to review the performance of the Credit Rating Agencies and their ability to accurately reflect the risks of these failed investment securities.
• Create a blue ribbon panel with representatives of Treasury, SEC, and the Fed to make recommendations to Congress for reforms of the financial sector by January 1, 2009.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/09/021614.php
Why do you think we are following the pattern of 9/2001 and not Oct 1987? And how about Oct 1929?
But it seems we are getting close to the end. AIG, WM, WB and C are all the next ones to fail or be bought. The time frame is days not weeks.
That's why I am thinking this week is going to be like the week before the black Monday in 1987.
Do you think we are following a path like the one in Oct 1987? I mean, down big this week and then black Monday next Monday after the expiration?
The only difference is that it is happening in Sept and not Oct.
Old Farmers Almanac: Global cooling may be underway
DUBLIN, N.H. — The Old Farmer's Almanac is going further out on a limb than usual this year, not only forecasting a cooler winter, but looking ahead decades to suggest we are in for global cooling, not warming.
Based on the same time-honored, complex calculations it uses to predict weather, the Almanac hits the newsstands on Tuesday saying a study of solar activity and corresponding records on ocean temperatures and climate point to a cooler, not warmer, climate, for perhaps the next half century.
"We at the Almanac are among those who believe that sunspot cycles and their effects on oceans correlate with climate changes," writes meteorologist and climatologist Joseph D'Aleo. "Studying these and other factor suggests that cold, not warm, climate may be our future."
It remains to be seen, said Editor-in-Chief Jud Hale, whether the human impact on global temperatures will cancel out or override any cooling trend.
"We say that if human beings were not contributing to global warming, it would become real cold in the next 50 years," Hale said.
For the near future, the Almanac predicts most of the country will be colder than normal in the coming winter, with heavy snow from the Ozarks into southern New England. Snow also is forecast for northern Texas, with a warmer than usual winter in the northern Plains.
Almanac believers will prepare for a hot summer in much of the nation's midsection, continuing drought conditions there and wild fire conditions in parts of California, with a cooler-than-normal season elsewhere. They'll also keep the car packed for the 2009 hurricane season, as the Alamanac predicts an active one, especially in Florida.
But Editor Janice Stillman said it's the winter foreasts that attract the most attention, especially this year, with much higher heating prices.
So, in line with the weather and economy forecasts, the Almanac includes information on using wood for heat: the best wood, how to build a fire in a fireplace, whether to use a wood stove and how to stay warm — all winter — with a single log.
Here's the secret, popularized in 1777: Throw a log out an upstairs window, dash down the stairs and outside, retrieve the log, dash upstairs, throw the log out the window and so on.
"Do that until you work up a sweat and you'll be warm all winter," said Stillman.
Last year, the Almanac correctly predicted "above-normal" snowfall in the Northeast — an understatement — and below-normal snowfall in the mid-Atlantic states.
New Hampshire, home of the Almanac, saw the most snow in 134 years and missed an all-time record by 2.6 inches.
Established in 1792, the Old Farmer's Almanac is North America's oldest continuously published periodical. The little yellow magazine still comes with the hole in the corner so it can hang in outhouses.
Boasting 18.5 million readers, this year's edition contains traditional tips on gardening and astronomical information and tide charts so accurate the government considered banning them during World War II, fearing they would help German spies.
The Old Farmer's Almanac is not to be confused with the Maine-based Farmer's Almanac, published "only" since 1818.
The 217th edition also predicts social trends such as sofas that measure body temperature, shopping carts that sound an alarm when filled with too much junk food and closet shelves and hangers that talk to give advice on matching shirts and ties.
"I would really hate that," Hale said. "What do you mean these don't match? Of course they match! You kidding me? Pink goes perfectly well with yellow," he joked.
Upholding its tradition of being "new, useful and entertaining," the Almanac offers tips on how to keep gardens alive, even in snow, and how to keep people alive, even for 100 years. (Some examples: Take it easy, use your brain, laugh and flirt!)
As printed publications fold around the country because of falling readership, Stillman says the Almanac is keeping pace with the 21st Century with a website that offers the printed version and supplements that can be personalized based on a reader's ZIP code.
Hale said the magazine with the familiar features remains popular in a digital age because, well, it's an almanac, and readers have said they like it being predictable.
"'Oh good,' they say, 'Not everything is disappearing."'
This year, after 154 pages of words of wisdom from scientists and other experts, the 2009 edition closes with words from children — letters to God from first- and second-graders.
One, signed Joyce, shows little kids know not to be ungrateful, even when faced with a big disappointment.
"Dear God," she wrote. "Thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy."
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2008-09-09-farmers-almanac_N.htm
Who knows, maybe a margin call.
Hope we get some good news soon.
Someone bought 127,000 shares at half a penny today. WOW.
Prof,
I listened to the CC today. Very positive IMHO. Company is forecasting a very strong second half 2008, revenue of $10.8+ million. Using a crude calculation, that translates to $.03 to $.04 per share for 2008.
VCST is trading at less than 10 times this year's earnings and .5 times this year's revenue. And will be growing at 20% YOY.
Is this company undervalued or what?
Nice action today.
Looks like we maybe ready to move up again.
Good luck to all.
Moving Toward Energy Rationing
By Charles Krauthammer
WASHINGTON -- I'm not a global warming believer. I'm not a global warming denier. I'm a global warming agnostic who believes instinctively that it can't be very good to pump lots of CO2 into the atmosphere, but is equally convinced that those who presume to know exactly where that leads are talking through their hats.
Predictions of catastrophe depend on models. Models depend on assumptions about complex planetary systems -- from ocean currents to cloud formation -- that no one fully understands. Which is why the models are inherently flawed and forever changing. The doomsday scenarios posit a cascade of events, each with a certain probability. The multiple improbability of their simultaneous occurrence renders all such predictions entirely speculative.
Yet on the basis of this speculation, environmental activists, attended by compliant scientists and opportunistic politicians, are advocating radical economic and social regulation. "The largest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity," warns Czech President Vaclav Klaus, "is no longer socialism. It is, instead, the ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism."
If you doubt the arrogance, you haven't seen that Newsweek cover story that declared the global warming debate over. Consider: If Newton's laws of motion could, after 200 years of unfailing experimental and experiential confirmation, be overthrown, it requires religious fervor to believe that global warming -- infinitely more untested, complex and speculative -- is a closed issue.
But declaring it closed has its rewards. It not only dismisses skeptics as the running dogs of reaction, i.e., of Exxon, Cheney and now Klaus. By fiat, it also hugely re-empowers the intellectual left.
For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous knowledge class -- social planners, scientists, intellectuals, experts and their left-wing political allies -- arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism).
Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher's England to Deng's China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted more people out of poverty more rapidly than ever in human history.
Just as the ash heap of history beckoned, the intellectual left was handed the ultimate salvation: environmentalism. Now the experts will regulate your life not in the name of the proletariat or Fabian socialism but -- even better -- in the name of Earth itself.
Environmentalists are Gaia's priests, instructing us in her proper service and casting out those who refuse to genuflect. (See Newsweek above.) And having proclaimed the ultimate commandment -- carbon chastity -- they are preparing the supporting canonical legislation that will tell you how much you can travel, what kind of light you will read by, and at what temperature you may set your bedroom thermostat.
Just Monday, a British parliamentary committee proposed that every citizen be required to carry a carbon card that must be presented, under penalty of law, when buying gasoline, taking an airplane or using electricity. The card contains your yearly carbon ration to be drawn down with every purchase, every trip, every swipe.
There's no greater social power than the power to ration. And, other than rationing food, there is no greater instrument of social control than rationing energy, the currency of just about everything one does and uses in an advanced society.
So what does the global warming agnostic propose as an alternative? First, more research -- untainted and reliable -- to determine (a) whether the carbon footprint of man is or is not lost among the massive natural forces (from sunspot activity to ocean currents) that affect climate, and (b) if the human effect is indeed significant, whether the planetary climate system has the homeostatic mechanisms (like the feedback loops in the human body, for example) with which to compensate.
Second, reduce our carbon footprint in the interim by doing the doable, rather than the economically ruinous and socially destructive. The most obvious step is a major move to nuclear power, which to the atmosphere is the cleanest of the clean.
But your would-be masters have foreseen this contingency. The Church of the Environment promulgates secondary dogmas as well. One of these is a strict nuclear taboo.
Rather convenient, is it not? Take this major coal-substituting fix off the table and we will be rationing all the more. Guess who does the rationing?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/moving_toward_rationing.html
I still hold a big chunk.
Congrats on taking the role of moderator for this board.
Thanks and good luck to you.
By the way, IMHO this company is not a scam.
Great quarter. At the end of CC, Craig Tuttle, TBIO's President and CEO hinted that more contracts would be announced shortly.
IMHO, this is just the beginning of multi-year revenue and earning explosion.
Maybe BLLZ had a very good Q1.
Prof,
IMHO the following paragraph is very significant:
"Gross margin for fourth-quarter 2007 improved, which is the result of not only reduced manufacturing costs among our product lines but also new policies implemented on October 1, 2007, that brought pricing more in line with the market," Stoner added. "Based on our business plan and industry trends and outlook, we feel that the levels of gross margin and operating efficiency we achieved during the quarter should be sustainable in future periods. Therefore, we feel that fourth-quarter 2007 represents an operational foundation on which we can build sales momentum in 2008 and further improve bottom-line performance."
That means each Q of 2008 should be stronger than Q4 of 2007. And that translates to more than $.04 in earnings for 2008. Using a conservative PE ratio, one can see VCST to be much higher over next 6 to 12 months.
VCST
ViewCast Reports 2007 Fourth-Quarter & Year-End Financial Results
Monday March 31, 6:00 am ET
Revenue Reaches Record Levels, Net Profits for Quarter and Year, 22% EBITDA for Quarter
PLANO, Texas, March 31 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ViewCast Corporation (OTC Bulletin Board: VCST - News), a leading developer of hardware and software for encoding live and on-demand audio and video content for streaming over Internet, corporate and mobile networks, today reported net income on higher revenues for fourth quarter and twelve months ended December 31, 2007.
Revenues for fourth-quarter 2007 were a record $4.5 million, compared to $4.2 million in fourth-quarter 2006, with higher sales of Niagara streaming encoding systems being the primary contributor. Gross profit rose to $3.0 million, or 66 percent of revenues, from $2.3 million, or 55 percent of revenues, in fourth-quarter 2006.
ViewCast President and Chief Operating Officer Dave Stoner said, "During fourth quarter we saw higher sales that reflect the effects of stronger direct sales and marketing that we established during the last quarter of the year. In addition, the ongoing trend toward live and on-demand streaming of an increasing variety of programming and other content is continuing to drive demand for our Niagara encoding systems."
"Gross margin for fourth-quarter 2007 improved, which is the result of not only reduced manufacturing costs among our product lines but also new policies implemented on October 1, 2007, that brought pricing more in line with the market," Stoner added. "Based on our business plan and industry trends and outlook, we feel that the levels of gross margin and operating efficiency we achieved during the quarter should be sustainable in future periods. Therefore, we feel that fourth-quarter 2007 represents an operational foundation on which we can build sales momentum in 2008 and further improve bottom-line performance."
Operating expenses for fourth-quarter 2007 were $2.1 million, compared to $2.0 for fourth-quarter 2006. Operating income improved to $899,000 from $320,000 for fourth-quarter 2006.
Net income for fourth-quarter 2007 rose to $787,000 compared to net income of $141,000 in the fourth quarter of 2006. After preferred dividends, the fourth-quarter 2007 net income per share was $0.01 per share on a fully diluted basis compared to a net loss of less than a penny, or $(0.00) per share, in the fourth quarter of 2006.
EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and other income/expense items) for fourth quarter 2007 was $1.0 million, or 22 percent of revenue, compared to $461,000, or 11 percent of revenue, in fourth-quarter 2006. EBITDA is a non-GAAP measure that ViewCast management believes can be helpful in assessing the Company's overall performance and considers as an indicator of operating efficiency and earnings quality. The Company suggests that EBITDA be viewed in conjunction with the Company's reported financial results or other financial information prepared in accordance with GAAP.
Fiscal Year 2007 Results
Revenues for 2007 grew more than 14 percent to a record $16.0 million, from $14.0 million in 2006, primarily from higher sales of Niagara encoders. Gross profit was $9.6 million, or 60 percent of revenues, compared to $7.7 million, or 55 percent of revenues, for 2006. Higher gross profit in 2007 was largely attributable to higher production levels, adjustment in product pricing and ongoing manufacturing cost control.
Operating expenses for 2007 were $8.7 million, compared to $8.5 million for 2006. Operating income improved by more than $1.7 million to $909,000 from an operating loss of $847,000 in 2006.
Net income for 2007 improved by $2.6 million to $843,000 compared to a net loss of $1.8 million for the twelve months of 2006. After preferred dividends, the fiscal year 2007 net income per share was less than a penny, or $0.00 per share on a fully diluted basis, compared to a net loss per share of $(0.10) for the twelve months of 2006.
ViewCast Chief Financial Officer Laurie Latham said, "Our higher sales, improved gross profit and reduced interest expense during 2007 were significant factors in improved net result for the year. In addition, we maintained nominal increase in our operating expenses during 2007. We anticipate increased investment in sales, marketing and engineering during 2008 to contribute to our growth capabilities."
EBITDA for 2007 improved to $1.3 million or 8 percent of revenue from negative EBITDA in 2006 of $509,000.
The growing trend to live and on-demand viewing over the Internet is driving demand for encoding hardware by broadcasters, enterprises and content delivery networks. That demand is being reflected in ViewCast's product sales, which is shifting toward its Niagara line of fully integrated encoding systems that include front-end capture and back-end management software.
According to Stoner, those factors are characteristics of a maturing market, where demand is for complete, cost-effective capability rather than new technology to simply enhance a function. ViewCast marketing and sales management has noted that sales are being motivated by business considerations more so than technology per se, the implication being that investing in enabling hardware for streaming over the Internet is increasingly becoming an important part of companies' business plans.
That view appears to be supported by rising demand for streaming capabilities and the competitive performance of ViewCast's capture cards and encoder product lines. "To-date our new pricing policy has met with success, and we feel this is indicative not only the quality and performance benefits of our Osprey and Niagara product lines but also general market demand for streaming programming over the Internet," Stoner stated. "With this in mind, we feel that our larger and more aggressive sales and marketing team, active partnerships with industry leaders, and favorable industry conditions offer substantial opportunities for stronger sales growth in 2008 than in recent periods and past years."
Latham stated that revenue growth in 2007 was driven primarily by sales of Niagara encoding systems, which grew 41 percent over 2006 and accounted for more than 40 percent of revenues, compared to 33 percent of revenues in 2006. Sales of Osprey cards grew three percent year-over-year and accounted for 59 percent of 2007 revenues, compared to more than 65 percent of revenues in 2006.
According to Latham, ViewCast sales of encoders in 2008 are expected to continue to grow over 2007; in addition, the sales growth rate of Osprey is expected to increase during 2008.
As a result, "we are reiterating our guidance for revenue growth for full-year 2008 to be 20 percent or more, compared to full-year 2007," Latham stated.
Latham added that, according to first-quarter indications and management's plan for 2008, further sales growth anticipated along with the potential for net income in subsequent periods is expected to play an important role in the Company's strategic plan to accelerate growth and further enhance shareholder value through additional strategic initiatives to expand within the industry and strengthen the Company.
Conference Call Information
A conference call with management is scheduled today at 11 a.m. EDT to discuss the Company's financial results, business strategy and outlook for 2008. The call may be accessed by dialing 800-762-8779 five minutes prior to the scheduled start time and referencing ViewCast. For callers outside the United States, dial 480-248-5081. A live web cast of the call will also be available at http://www.viewcast.com/irconferencecall. An archive of the webcast will be available at the same web page beginning approximately 30 minutes after the end of the call.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080331/lam078.html?.v=101
Prof,
This is the first time ViewCast is scheduling a conference call to discuss the earnings. To me this is a very good sign.
ViewCast Corporation to Report 2007 Fourth Quarter, Year-End Financial Results
Tuesday March 18, 2:10 pm ET
Conference Call Also Scheduled
PLANO, Texas, March 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ViewCast Corporation (OTC Bulletin Board: VCST - News), a leading developer of hardware and software for encoding live and on-demand audio and video content for streaming over Internet, corporate and mobile networks, will release before the market opens on Monday, March 31, 2008, financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2007.
ADVERTISEMENT
A conference call with management is scheduled for 11 a.m. EDT on March 31 to discuss the Company's financial results, business strategy and outlook for 2008. The call may be accessed by dialing 800-762-8779 five minutes prior to the scheduled start time and referencing ViewCast. For callers outside the United States, dial 480-248-5081.
A live web cast of the call will also be available at http://www.viewcast.com/irconferencecall. An archive of the webcast will be available at the same web page beginning approximately 30 minutes after the end of the call.
About ViewCast Corporation
ViewCast, a pioneer in the Internet streaming industry, develops and markets hardware and software for processing and managing live and on-demand audiovisual content for streaming over Internet, corporate and mobile networks. ViewCast's award-winning products are utilized worldwide by broadcasters, businesses, governments, content-delivery networks and others. ViewCast is a leader in video capture cards through its Osprey® product line. ViewCast's encoding and streaming platforms, Niagara® Pro and GoStream, incorporate Osprey reliability and performance with its Niagara SCX® control and management software and Niagara SCX SDK development software. ViewCast is partnered with strategic providers of networks, equipment, software, and services for Internet and mobile applications. For more information, visit http://www.viewcast.com.
Researcher: Basic Greenhouse Equations "Totally Wrong"
New derivation of equations governing the greenhouse effect reveals "runaway warming" impossible
Miklós Zágoni isn't just a physicist and environmental researcher. He is also a global warming activist and Hungary's most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol. Or was.
That was until he learned the details of a new theory of the greenhouse effect, one that not only gave far more accurate climate predictions here on Earth, but Mars too. The theory was developed by another Hungarian scientist, Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA's Langley Research Center.
After studying it, Zágoni stopped calling global warming a crisis, and has instead focused on presenting the new theory to other climatologists. The data fit extremely well. "I fell in love," he stated at the International Climate Change Conference this week.
"Runaway greenhouse theories contradict energy balance equations," Miskolczi states. Just as the theory of relativity sets an upper limit on velocity, his theory sets an upper limit on the greenhouse effect, a limit which prevents it from warming the Earth more than a certain amount.
How did modern researchers make such a mistake? They relied upon equations derived over 80 years ago, equations which left off one term from the final solution.
Miskolczi's story reads like a book. Looking at a series of differential equations for the greenhouse effect, he noticed the solution -- originally done in 1922 by Arthur Milne, but still used by climate researchers today -- ignored boundary conditions by assuming an "infinitely thick" atmosphere. Similar assumptions are common when solving differential equations; they simplify the calculations and often result in a result that still very closely matches reality. But not always.
So Miskolczi re-derived the solution, this time using the proper boundary conditions for an atmosphere that is not infinite. His result included a new term, which acts as a negative feedback to counter the positive forcing. At low levels, the new term means a small difference ... but as greenhouse gases rise, the negative feedback predominates, forcing values back down.
NASA refused to release the results. Miskolczi believes their motivation is simple. "Money", he tells DailyTech. Research that contradicts the view of an impending crisis jeopardizes funding, not only for his own atmosphere-monitoring project, but all climate-change research. Currently, funding for climate research tops $5 billion per year.
Miskolczi resigned in protest, stating in his resignation letter, "Unfortunately my working relationship with my NASA supervisors eroded to a level that I am not able to tolerate. My idea of the freedom of science cannot coexist with the recent NASA practice of handling new climate change related scientific results."
His theory was eventually published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal in his home country of Hungary.
The conclusions are supported by research published in the Journal of Geophysical Research last year from Steven Schwartz of Brookhaven National Labs, who gave statistical evidence that the Earth's response to carbon dioxide was grossly overstated. It also helps to explain why current global climate models continually predict more warming than actually measured.
The equations also answer thorny problems raised by current theory, which doesn't explain why "runaway" greenhouse warming hasn't happened in the Earth's past. The new theory predicts that greenhouse gas increases should result in small, but very rapid temperature spikes, followed by much longer, slower periods of cooling -- exactly what the paleoclimatic record demonstrates.
However, not everyone is convinced. Dr. Stephen Garner, with the NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), says such negative feedback effects are "not very plausible". Reto Ruedy of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies says greenhouse theory is "200 year old science" and doubts the possibility of dramatic changes to the basic theory.
Miskowlczi has used his theory to model not only Earth, but the Martian atmosphere as well, showing what he claims is an extremely good fit with observational results. For now, the data for Venus is too limited for similar analysis, but Miskolczi hopes it will one day be possible.
http://www.dailytech.com/Researcher+Basic+Greenhouse+Equations+Totally+Wrong/article10973.htm