Is That a Library in Your Pocket…?

Can you imagine how the world will change, when people can truly walk around with their personal libraries with them, carrying tens if not hundreds of books, without 1. Internet access, 2. hauling a heavy laptop, 3. hauling any device where the battery dies in approximately 4 hours of usage? Reference books, technical manuals, fiction, non-fiction, comics, you name it, anything can be handily carried in your pocket, as if you were carrying a paperback book.
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“Thank you, I will be here all night”

The Vice Chairman of the insurance giant American Insurance Group, Mr. Jacob Frenkel, entertains us with this quote about their crisis:

“The left side of the balance sheet has nothing right and the right side of the balance sheet has nothing left. But they are equal to each other. So accounting-wise we are fine.”

AIG already got $85 billion from the Fed, and the total sum might even go up to $120 billion. With that amount of money, I might consider becoming a stand-up comedian as well!

Finance Crisis in Graphics

BBC provides us with nice graphical illustrations of the mindbogglingly huge impact of the ongoing finance crisis.

Contrast e.g. the rescue plans of United Kingdom with the annual spending in health and education. With numbers that large, they will need snowploughs to move all that money. Yes, of course nowadays it’s all digital, but I like the mental image.