This from Al Ghad courtesy of Google Translate. http://www.alghad.com/?news=557323 Amman – commissioned His Majesty King Abdullah II today Marouf Bakhit to form a new government, replacing the government of Mr. Samir Rifai, whose primary function is to “take practical steps, quick and concrete, to launch a process of genuine political reform, reflecting the vision of reform retrofit development overall, the move by the confident steps on the road promotion of democracy, and the completion of the process of construction, which opens prospects for the achievement and the wide range in front of all the sons of our people dear, and … Continue reading King Abdullah of Jordan has sacked his government, using language we are hearing more and more after Tunisia and Egypt

I did up this post on evolution of bank business models last week in anticipation of reading Umair Haque’s new book, “The New Capitalist Manifesto”.  It was worthwhile and here are some thoughts after finishing it. Banks have generally sufferred a great loss of trust and respect following the credit and banking crisis that centres on financial products and activities that feel to people as they are all for the benefits of banks and little for the benefit of people. This is part of a larger thread that predates the crisis and really became highlighted following the advent of internet … Continue reading Book review | The New Capitalist Manifesto – Umair Haque

Reading between the lines of economy and business stories confirms that the massive injections of government money (Quantitative Easing) over the last 3 years is coming home to roost as expected in higher interest rates and inflation. Look for 1983 style interest rates (in some countries), inflation and sovereign defaults in the next few years. Britain triggers global inflation alarm | FT Data this week showing the UK’s consumer price index hit 3.7 per cent in December fuelled that concern and sent benchmark British borrowing costs to an eight-month high of 3.72 per cent.   Technorati Tags: Economy,inflation,defaults Continue reading Early warning signs showing up for higher interest rates and inflation

I thought this quote from David summarised his article perfectly as we watch the second bear market of the century wend its way. Why this market rally will end in tears | DAVID ROSENBERG Globe & Mail ‪Just as the 2003-07 bear market rally was built on a shaky foundation of unsustainable credit and house price appreciation, the current bear market rally has been built on even shakier ground of surreal public sector intervention. This may well have “saved the system” or “prevented a depression” back in the opening months of 2009, as many like to believe. However, the reality … Continue reading Why this market rally will end in tears | DAVID ROSENBERG Globe & Mail

There is an interesting post on the American Banker Bankthink blog that references an article in AB about safety of and access to information stored in the Amazon ‘cloud’. The reference point is the closure of Wikileaks site by Amazon at the apparent behest of the US government.  The article refers to this as censorship and sees it as a hurdle to cloud adoption. They have this all wrong and here is why.  The ‘cloud’ is no more than a big server and set of services.  At some levels it is theoretically equivalent to a server in a co-location facility;   … Continue reading American Banker are wrong to categorise the Wikileaks Amazon matter as a cloud issue