World Bank Cuts Global Growth Forecast

From Bloomberg:

The World Bank cut its global growth forecast by the most in three years, saying that a recession in the euro region threatens to exacerbate a slowdown in emerging markets such as India andMexico.

The world economy will grow 2.5 percent this year, down from a June estimate of 3.6 percent, the Washington-based institution said. The euro area may contract 0.3 percent, compared with a previous estimate of a 1.8 percent gain. The U.S. growth outlook was cut to 2.2 percent from 2.9 percent.

“Even achieving these much weaker outturns is very uncertain,” the World Bank said in its Global Economic Prospects report released today in Asia and yesterday in the U.S. “The downturn in Europe and weaker growth in developing countries raises the risk that the two developments reinforce one another, resulting in an even weaker outcome.”

China, the world’s second-biggest economy, reported today that foreign direct investment declined in December by the most since July 2009, underscoring the World Bank’s warning that developing economies should “prepare for the worst.”.....read more

Marc Faber on the European Downgrades

DoomBoomGloom on Jan 17, 2012

Peter Cooper - You can't print Gold

mydubaimycity on Jan 10, 2012

Peter Cooper, Editor of ArabianMoney.net browses through some Gold stores and finds out what the current buying trends are in the market.

Liquid Silver used to print circuits

From Discovery.com

Printing electronics just got a boost from the University of Illinois, where the latest in electric inks has been made from silver.

Jennifer Lewis, a professor of materials science and engineering, and graduate student S. Brett Walker described the new ink in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Most inks for printing electronics have metallic particles in them. This ink is all liquid -- a solution of silver and ammonia. When printed, the liquid evaporates, leaving a trail of conductive material.

There are several big advantages over more conventional electronic ink. One is the size of the inkjet nozzle that can be used. Inks using particles require bigger nozzles -- on the order of a micrometer in size. The liquid silver ink requires much smaller nozzles -- 100 nanometers. It’s also easier to make than other electronic ink and it sticks to a wide variety of materials, including plastic, paper or fabric.

The other big selling point is temperature. A typical particle-based ink has to be printed at a relatively high temp in order to get good conductivity. That's why they aren't used on paper or some plastics. But the silver-based solution gets to its maximum conductivity at about 90 degrees Celsius, or about 194 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s warm, yes, but still cool enough to work most materials......read more

Keiser Report: Economics of Suicide

RussiaToday on Jan 17, 2012