Wikileaks about BP and russian corruptioners

The oil company’s subsidiary in Russia, TNK-BP, investigated working in parts of the world British businesses would not normally consider because of international sanctions, according to the classified US government papers.

When the board of TNK-BP vetoed the extraordinary proposals, one of the company’s Russian directors “farmed out” the projects to his own private firm, the documents claim.

The fallout from the row led to the BP chief executive being forced out of Russia and will lead to serious questions over the long term sustainability of the company’s operations in the country.

The allegations are contained in files that disclose for the first time the inside story of the British oil company’s troubled history in Russia.

Dozens of documents from the WikiLeaks website reveal the controversial steps taken by the company in a desperate race to secure new sources of oil. They also disclose the company’s deep misgivings towards another Russian oil firm which it is now partnering.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8294061/WikiLeaks-BPs-Russian-arm-looked-at-deals-with-rogue-states.html

The reports on German Khan, the billionaire founder of the Alfa Group consortium and one of BP’s partners in Russia, will raise questions about the British company’s Russian associates.

The relationship between BP and its Russian partners is analysed at length by US diplomats in documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph from the WikiLeaks website, with colourful descriptions of the main characters’ personalities and rivalries.

Mr Khan is currently an executive director of BP’s Russian joint venture, TNK-BP. The US government memos describe Mr Khan’s extraordinary way of life, with a description of a hunting trip at his lodge, “like a Four Seasons hotel in the middle of nowhere”.

According to the TNK-BP chief operating officer, Tim Summers, Mr Khan told him during the trip “that The Godfather was his favourite movie, that he watched it every few months, and that he considered it a 'manual for life’.”
Full Wikileaks about BP -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wikileaks-files/bp-wikileaks/8294135/WHATS-BEHIND-THE-RAIDS-ON-TNK-BP-AND-BP.html

Rating association Future Europe predicts new social search

In 2011 Google will lunch new social search, like Facebook "like"
http://www.neowin.net/news/google-1-social-platform-accidentally-revealed-in-screenshot

It likely will be recommendation service trough Google social graph

Wikileaks Secrets about Bank of America

Lеgal Liability for Toxic Mortgages

In September 2009 BofA underwrote $239 million worth of sеcurities backеd by subprime loаns. BofA hаs reserved a  $4.4 billion for these put bаck lаwsuits. If Assange has emаils showing that top executives at BofA knew they were peddling toxic dreck to investors, it would rock the firm and give аmmunition to the army of lаwyers already knocking on BofA’s door.

 Illegаl Foreclosures

BofA is at the heart of the robo-signing scandal and has wrongfully foreclosed on countless Americаn families. а A BofA employee deposed in February 2010 said that she signed as many as 8,000 foreclosure documеnts a month without reviewing them, in violation of the law. Mounting questions аbout the frаudulent and illegal foreclosure prаctices at the big banks and mortgage service compаnies prompted BofA to temporarily halt foreclosures nationwide in October, 2010.а

In 2008, BofA acquirеd one of the most aggressive and fraudulent lenders during the housing bubble. The result has been a train wreck of liability and lawsuits for the megabank that now has over 1.3 million customers in forеclosure. To settle the lаwsuits with Illinois, California and eight other stаtes over predаtory lending, BofA came up with an $8.4 billion loan relief plan for those holding Countrywide mortgages.
In 2010 BofA pаid $108 million to settle a Federal Trade Commission cаse that chаrged Countrywide with having extrаcted excessive fees out of borrowers facing foreclosure. BofA paid $600 million in August 2010 to settle shаreholder claims that Countrywide had concealed the riskiness of its lending standаrds. There is no end in sight for these types of claims, and more. In June, 2010 the State of Illinois sued Countrywide аgain, this time over racial discrimination in its lеnding practices.
"Through this provision, Bank of America BELIEVES that it has addressed its remaining exposure to repurchase obligations for residential mortgage loans sold directly to the GSEs. The calculation of the provision incorporates HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE with the GSEs and certain ASSUMPTIONS regarding economic conditions, home prices and other matters, and future provisions for representations and warranties may be affected if the actual results are different."
Soft terms like "believe" and "assumptions" are the key. This isn't the kind of news that if the Bank had iron clad indemnification that they would use such vague words. If FMAE/FMAC had a corroborating press release, it would warrant a great sigh of relief, but where's that pronouncement? The silence is deafening, the spin nauseating.
Furthermore, don't think a press release of this import went out casually, without a careful balancing act to promote the idea that BofA is in the safe zone, while avoiding allegations of false statements when (not if) the shareholder lawsuits commence. What do you think "Historical Experience" means? That they are familiar with paper work and protocol? No, don't think so, it's more along the lines of "we believe we can count on the good graces of the folks in Congress who's portfolios we've padded (apologies for the repeated alliterations) with VIP loans to bail us out or a corrupt administration that will use fiat to intervene with the GSEs". Or maybe it's the historical and broadly held misconception that the GSE mortgages were/are backed by the US Government.
But the dirty secret is that Countrywide wasn't selling off the loans to the GSEs during it's $1.4T origination spree because the GSEs were restricted during 2004-2005 from buying the sub prime loans (they needed a liberal congress to get them back to irresponsible loan purchasing after 2007 - thanks to Frank, Dodd, Waters, & Co.). Private mortgage investments represent an additional $300B liability to Countrywide/BofA. You cite MBIA, but there are others like Greenwich Financial that represents even more investor claims.
If you doubt the numbers, consider that BofA's market capitalization is 1/2 of it's Book Value. In otherwords, people with some skin in the game are worried, worried to the point that they don't even believe the books (scary for a bank that counts it's assets as liquid cash). So, Wikileaks or no Wikileaks, once the Courts start ruling to force buy back of toxic mortgages, BofA is a house of cards. Too bad they can't shed the Countrywide liability, but because they purchased it without any bankruptcy limiting the surviving liabilities, so they're stuck with it, and no one of sound mind would even consider buying up those entities from under BofA. You couldn't pay someone to take it now that the cat's out of the bag.

Illеgal Bonusеs

Bank of Amеrica acquired the brokerage firm Merrill Lynch for $50 billion in January 2009. The U.S. government blessed the merger with a $20 billion bailout loan to aid BofA. After the acquisition went through, it was revеaled that Merrill Lynch had lost $15.8 billion in the last quarter of 2008 and that $3.6 billion in bonuses were paid ahead of schedule to top executives at Merrill. Among beneficiaries of the bonus bonanza was Merrill's CEO John Thain, who famously spent a million redecorating his office at the height of the crisis. About the dеal New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said: "One disturbing question that must be answered is whether Merrill Lynch and Bank of Amеrica timed the bonuses in such a way as to force taxpayers to pay for them through the deal funding." If Wikileaks has emails showing top executives knowingly used bailout bucks for bonuses, this ugly chapter in history could be reopened, prompting Congressional investigations and further bailout backlash.

Truth about economic cycles. Kondratieff cycle in 2011

This report is not intended for distribution in the United States

According forecast by David Chapman, http://www.safehaven.com/article/19484/forecast-2011-a-year-of-transition 2011 will be same to 1950.
The July 2010 low coincided with that of 1950, although the top was seen in April 2010. What followed in 1950 was a rally into year-end and, following a pause, a strong rally that carried into May 1951 before a correction got underway. Following that correction, the market generally traded in an irregular sideways pattern for the remainder of 1951 and through 1952.

There is  the long-term Kondratieff cycle of recession/depressions. This is a much shorter 50-60 years and is last considered to have bottomed in 1949. The idealized Kondratieff Wave cycle is shown below. It corresponds with depressions that occurred in the late 18th century, the depression of 1836-42, the Long Depression of 1873-96 and the Great Depression of 1930-42. The Kondratieff long wave is generally not accepted by traditional economists but there is some evidence that it does exist. Significantly, a period of 50-60 years from 1949 encompasses the past decade, which culminated in the financial panic of 2008 and stock market low of 2009. But given the possible influence of the longer 72-year and 90-year cycles, this particular Kondratieff Wave may not yet have seen its nadir. At the end of the other long waves the culmination of debt build-up was largely cleansed via bankruptcy and defaults. Today this process is still being worked out.

The destruction of the boomers' retirement plans continues. With the broader economy mired in the subprime housing collapse, debt collapse and high unemployment, that situation is not about to change any time soon, no matter how much money is thrown at it.

 The well-known Kitchin cycle of 3-5 years is what plays as a series of stock market lows about every four years. From the Great Depression low of 1932, stock market lows were seen in 1938, 1942, 1946, 1949, 1953, 1957, 1962, 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1987, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2005 (very shallow) and 2009. The next Kitchin cycle low is due anywhere from 2012 to 2014.

Stock cycles analyst Michael Jenkins (www.StockCyclesForecast.com) has pointed out that there are numerous long-term cycles all meeting through this time period. He notes that 2,000 years ago the "Fall of Rome" got underway. Today's Rome is the Anglo-American empire which is by most calculations teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and involved in a series of potentially unwinnable wars. For sure it took the Roman Empire another 500 years to destroy itself, but the long collapse saw a series of currency devaluations and the build-up of huge and unsustainable debt levels.
A thousand years ago we had the beginning of the Crusades, undertaken in the Middle East. It was therefore odd that former President George W. Bush saw his wars in the Middle East as a crusade. The Crusades were undertaken to restore Christian control of the holy lands. They continued irregularly from 1095 to 1291, a period of nearly 200 years. Today's wars are in only their tenth year, at a cost now exceeding $1.4 trillion.
Five hundred years ago there was the rise of the Protestant reformation under Martin Luther. It was the beginning of a period of exploration that saw the Europeans conquer North America. Two hundred years ago we had the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th century and the War of 1812 between Britain and the USA. A hundred years later saw the global conflict of WW1 that resulted in the defeat of Germany and the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The consequences of the latter are still being felt today. Ironically there is a new rise of the Ottoman Turks underway. Could that be something to watch in the future?
One hundred and fifty years ago was the Civil War in the USA. Today it is a cultural civil war underway between the secular north-east; north-west and west against the religious right dominate in the US south and mid-west. The movement is led ostensibly by the "Tea Party".
Ray Merriman (www.mmacycles.com) cites long-term cycles of economic depression and stock market collapses that appear to occur at roughly 72-year and 90-year frequencies. The last one, the Great Depression, was a convergence of those two cycles.

Future of online ads

Marketing forecast expert  John Connor predicted
http://foresightstartups.blogspot.com/2011/02/opportunities-for-online-advertising.html

Personalized Content Platform For Mobile
announced tuday by YAHOO!
http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-is-coming-out-with-a-personalized-content-platform-for-mobile-2011-2

New rating forms of social organization - virtual states

The subject of utopia in the network society are mikro korporations - creative alliances, implementing a strategic project. These alliances often do not have a central office job hierarchy and other attributes of the "real" corporations, but often that's why they operate much more efficiently first. Vladislav Inozemtsev calls them "creative corporations, Dmitry Ivanov -" virtual ", but in essence we are talking about the same phenomenon. Make these corporations intellectual workers (knowledge-workers) - without a strict division of the narrow specialization, as the range of problems they solve is quite broad. Old, cumbersome institutional pyramid, built on the hierarchical principle and davivshie creative freedom need to "coordination" on different "floors", giving way to dynamic situational structures, which appear "to the task. "

  Leading expert on forecasting Edward Mushinsky, 4 years ago predicted the new forms of networked business - models http://znacomstva.blogspot.com/2011/02/future-rating-forms-of-social.html

Virtual state can arise only on the basis of an original creative project - and he was always an alternative to the existing order, because it goes beyond it. "Classic genre" here is founded in 1966, the Principality Silandiya (www.sealandgov.com), recognized by historians, the first virtual state - although in those days even the Internet did not exist. However, the style of its occurrence is quite consistent with "the discovery site" - a British Major Roy Bates landed at an abandoned offshore platform during the Second World War, and proclaimed himself Prince of by anyone not engaged in man-made "island" in the English Channel. And the British justice system, having the glory of perhaps the most meticulous in the world, found no legal impediments that Robinson Crusoe, since the platform was located outside the territorial waters of Great Britain. Silandiya have since released their passports and postage stamps, sent to many countries of their ambassadors and salespeople (manage to enter into real contracts), and with the advent of the Internet is easy to learn it, opened my own server and offer it as a "power seekers" to store information , for some reason considered to be a real country "illegal".



Virtual mikro nations (www.micronations.net), as a rule, exchange of mutual diplomatic recognition and support each other in conflicts with the actual states.



One such conflict occurred in 1982 when the town of Key West, Florida was declared an independent Republic of Conch (members.aol.com/brooks957/crhist.htm). And not just proclaimed - but with a simultaneous declaration of war against the United States. The war, of course, was immediately lost - since the feds with a sense of humor was tight, and they really blocked the city. However, since there is no end of tourists wishing to visit the historic sites, and by people from Key West to preserve the "dual citizenship" and annually celebrate their Independence Day.



There are, however, and far more ambitious example of a virtual state - Texas. Until 1845 he was in reality an independent state, while its annexation by the United States Congress, as historians have discovered, it was not quorum. For the restoration of historical justice, fighting the interim government of the Republic of Texas (www.republic-of-texas.net).

Forecasts by leading expert in the future of innovation Edward Mushinsky

Edward Mushinsky leading expert in the future of innovation predict in 2007

 How social networking and mobile operators will earn.

OtherHere are his predictions for the future of advertising: Mobile phones will become the main advertising medium - because it will be the most effective means of advertising.
Judge for yourself: Incoming SMS are not ignoring this fact! Then, mobile operators can determine the location of the subscriber and send localized ads. And it's almost guaranteed a response to the advertising subscriber call, if you have and you know his motivation. And for this did not interfere with the story of a subscriber record for mobile transactions.
Chain of revenue from mobile transactions contains all records of financial transactions suppliers, including joint-stock companies, banks and telecommunications companies. By adding mobility to the possibility of a permanent universal access, efficiency could be improved if all the invoices to your cell phone or credit card.
Currently, operators earn paid subscription services. Among them may be e-mail, the ability to download content (ringtones or pictures) as well as the use of mobile Internet access to vote or work with a variety of services. However, the subscription model should gradually give way to another - ad. This will make services more accessible, as the providers would not need to collect money from consumers - for all advertisers will pay.

forecasts by leading expert in the future innovation Edward Mushinsky.

 

Thus, if Facebook will make people to speak for a spy, reporting on its location via mobile phone - that he might enter the IEP with 0.5 trillion dollars.

And in order to achieve a trillion of capitalization, which wants head of Facebook - he would have to capture the market of video advertising.

 

On this score there is an idea for Mark: he must agree with the advertising agency network of the new format of television advertising - kastomizing advertising.

 

That is Facebook will prompt television networks, which ads should be broadcast to a specific person.