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Personal bankruptcies soar to all-time high
Bankruptcies jumped 30% to nearly 2.1 million last year as debtors rushed to file petitions before new restrictions took effect.
CNNMoney.com
New York
Friday, March 24, 2006: 4:36 PM EST
http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/24/pf/personal_bankruptcies
/index.htm?cnn=yes
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
The number of Americans filing for bankruptcy jumped 30 percent last year to the highest on record as debtors rushed to file petitions before new restrictions took effect, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
Personal bankruptcies filed in the federal courts totaled 2,078,415 in 2005, up from 1,597,462 petitions filed in 2004, the office said in a statement on its Web site Friday.
It was the largest number of bankruptcy petitions ever filed in any 12-month period in the history of the federal courts, according to the office, which collects information for the federal judiciary.
Bankruptcy filings for the period between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, 2005, also hit a record high for any quarter, the office said.
The increase was largely in response to the passage of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, which went into effect on Oct. 17, 2005.
Under the new law, it became harder for individuals to file for bankruptcy under Chapter 7, which would let them clear their debts and get what's known as a "fresh start."
The law made it more likely that debtors file under Chapter 13, which requires them to repay at least some of their debts within five years.
In a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, your assets, minus those exempted by your state, are liquidated and given to creditors, and many of your remaining debts are cancelled. Since many Chapter 7 filers don't have assets that qualify for liquidation, credit-card companies and other creditors can get nothing.
In a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, you're put on a repayment plan of up to five years. Any debts not addressed by the repayment plan don't have to be paid.
Of the total number of bankruptcy filings, there were 1.7 million Chapter 7 filings, up 46 percent from 1.1 million in 2004. Chapter 13 filings fell 8 percent.
Global warming yields “glacial earthquakes,” future sea level rise
World Science
Thursday, March 23, 2006
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/060323_glacialfrm.htm
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
In new studies, scientists report that global warming may cause sea levels to rise dramatically in a century—and is now producing a newfound and growing phenomenon, “glacial earthquakes.”
Three studies published in the March 24 issue of the research journal Science warn of the events.
Two studies found that the Earth may be warm enough by 2100 for widespread melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and partial collapse of the Antarctic Ice Sheet.
In one paper, Jonathan Overbeck at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Ariz., and colleagues wrote that based on reconstructions of past climates, conditions could be ripe to raise sea level by several meters (yards) by this century’s end.
Most scientists believe the melting is due to global warming, a gradual increase in the Earth’s temperature caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
In a third study, seismologists reported an unexpected offshoot of global warming: “glacial earthquakes,” in which Manhattan-sized glaciers lurch unexpectedly. Glaciers are normally slow-moving masses of ice.
The lurches yield temblors up to magnitude 5.1 on the moment-magnitude scale, which is similar to the Richter scale, the researchers said. Glacial earthquakes in Greenland, they added, are most common in July and August, and have more than doubled in number since 2002.
The researchers, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. and Columbia University in New York, first described glacial earthquakes in 2003, but without reporting on their seasonality or changing frequency.
“People often think of glaciers as inert and slow-moving, but in fact they can also move rather quickly,” said Harvard’s Göran Ekström, one of the researchers. “Some of Greenland’s glaciers, as large as Manhattan and as tall as the Empire State Building, can move 10 meters (11 yards) in less than a minute, a jolt that is sufficient to generate moderate seismic waves.”
As glaciers and the snow on them gradually melt, water seeps downward. When enough water accumulates at a glacier’s base, it can serve as a lubricant, causing giant blocks of ice to lurch down valleys known as “outlet glaciers,” the team explained. These funnel Greenland’s glacial runoff toward the surrounding sea.
“Our results suggest that these major outlet glaciers can respond to changes in climate conditions much more quickly than we had thought,” said Meredith Nettles, a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia and member of the research team.
“Greenland’s glaciers deliver large quantities of fresh water to the oceans, so the implications for climate change are serious.”
Greenland is not a hotbed of traditional seismic activity associated with the grinding of the Earth’s tectonic plates, the traditional source of earthquakes, the scientists noted. But seismometers worldwide detected 182 earthquakes there between January 1993 and October 2005, they added.
They examined the 136 best-documented of these events, ranging in magnitude from 4.6 to 5.1. All temblors were found to have originated at major valleys draining the Greenland Ice Sheet, they said, implicating glacial activity.
While glacial earthquakes appear most common in Greenland, the scientists reported finding evidence of them also in Alaska and at the edges of Antarctica.
China should tap FX reserves to buy gold - banker
Reuters
Beijing, China
Monday, March 27, 2006
http://today.reuters.com/investing/FinanceArticle.aspx?type=bondsNews
&storyID=uri:2006-03-27T022935Z_01_PEK157569_RTRIDST_0_
ECONOMY-CHINA-RESERVES.XML
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
China should use part of its fast-growing foreign exchange reserves to buy gold as it seeks to adjust the asset mix to hedge against risk, a Bank of China official was quoted on Monday as saying.
Analysts say China has been gradually diversifying away from the dollar -- although fears of a collapse in the U.S. currency will prevent any dramatic shift. Chinese officials have denied reports they plan to sell current dollar assets in the reserves.
"China should appropriately reduce the proportion of dollars in its foreign exchange reserves while increasing the proportion of currencies such as the euro," the Financial News quoted Wang Yuanlong, a director at Bank of China's Australian operations, as saying.
"We can use part of the foreign exchange reserves to buy gold, which would help make the reserves more diversified and help guarantee and increase their value," said Wang, former economist at Bank of China, the country's largest foreign exchange bank.
China's foreign exchange reserves swelled 34 percent in 2005 to a record $818.9 billion, but the central bank has not disclosed the composition.
Last month, state media quoted Wang as saying China should ideally hold between $300 billion and $400 billion in foreign exchange reserves.
China has been a big buyer of U.S. government bonds, helping to finance a heavy U.S. current-account deficit and to keep American interest rates low. Investors watch closely for any sign that Beijing might shift the government's investment mix.
Central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan said earlier this month that China would adjust the mix of its reserves in light of global market conditions. In doing so, China's criteria would be safety, liquidity and profitability, in that order.
China's currency reserves have soared in recent years as the central bank, in order to hold down the yuan, bought most of the dollars generated by a growing trade surplus, inflow of foreign direct investment and speculative capital.
The fast-growing foreign exchange holdings signal persistent upward pressure on the yuan, despite China's landmark 2.1 percent revaluation of the currency in July, analysts say.
Oil prices hold above $64 per barrel
by Kim Khan and Charley Blaine
MSN Money
Monday, March 27, 2006 2:20 pm ET
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/CNBC/Dispatch
/060327markets.aspx
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
Oil prices edged down just slightly this morning, despite the release of three hostages by Nigerian militants intent on disrupting the country's oil production.
New York light crude futures dipped 26 cents, to $64 a barrel just before Monday's close.
Nigerian militants released the last remaining foreign hostages today. The group kidnapped nine oil workers on Feb. 18 and has managed to cut crude production in the country by 20%, Reuters reported. Shell said it won’t reopen its facilities in the region until it’s safe for workers to return.
"The Nigerian attacks have really sparked concerns about supply," David Thurtell, commodity strategist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, told Reuters. "People are wondering how deep is it going to go and how long will it go on for?"
[Two and a half years ago, in Eating Fossil Fuels, FTW made the serious and very direct connections between how food gets to your table and what kinds of energy are required to do so. That story—which is in much greater depth than this one—remains the most alarming story we have ever published. In this intriguing and well-written look at a simple breakfast, Chad Heeter gives us the great, printable story to hand out to friends or family to start them thinking about the real issues that are coming straight at us. This is a great piece of writing. – MCR]
The oil in your oatmeal
A lot of fossil fuel goes into producing, packaging and shipping our breakfast
by Chad Heeter
SFGate.com
Sunday, March 26, 2006
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/03/26/
ING3PHRU681.DTL&type=printable
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
Please join me for breakfast. It's time to fuel up again.
On the table in my small Berkeley apartment this morning is a healthy-looking little meal -- a bowl of imported McCann's Irish oatmeal topped with Cascadian Farms organic frozen raspberries, and a cup of Peet's Fair Trade Blend coffee. Like most of us, I prepare my breakfast at home, and the ingredients for this one probably cost me about $1.25. (If I went to a cafe in downtown Berkeley, I'd probably have to add $6 more, plus tip, for the same.)
My breakfast fuels me up with about 400 calories, and it satisfies me. So for just over a buck and half and an hour spent reading the morning paper in my own kitchen, I'm energized for the next few hours. But before I put spoon to cereal, what if I consider this bowl of oatmeal porridge (to which I've just added a little butter, milk and a shake of salt) from a different perspective. Say, a Saudi Arabian one.
Then what you'd be likely to see -- what's really there, just hidden from our view (not to say our taste buds) -- is about 4 ounces of crude oil. Throw in those luscious red raspberries and that cup of java (an additional 3 ounces of crude), and don't forget those modest additions of butter, milk and salt (1 more ounce), and you've got a tiny bit of the Middle East right here in my kitchen.
Now, let's drill a little deeper into this breakfast. Just where does this tiny gusher of oil actually come from? (We'll let this oil represent all fossil fuels in my breakfast, including natural gas and coal.)
Nearly 20 percent of this oil went into growing my raspberries on Chilean farms many thousands of miles away, those oats in the fields of County Kildare, Ireland, and that specially raised coffee in Guatemala -- think tractors as well as petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides.
The next 40 percent of my breakfast fossil-fuel equation is burned up between the fields and the grocery store in processing, packaging and shipping.
Take that box of McCann's oatmeal. On it is an inviting image of pure, healthy goodness: a bowl of porridge, topped by two peach slices. Scattered around the bowl are a handful of raw oats, what look to be four acorns and three fresh raspberries. Those raw oats are actually a reminder that the flakes require a few steps 'twixt field and box. In fact, a visit to McCann's Web site illustrates each step of cleaning, steaming, hulling, cutting and rolling that turns the raw oats into edible flakes. Those five essential steps require significant energy.
Next, my oat flakes go into a plastic bag (made from oil), which in turn is inserted into an energy-intensive, pressed wood-pulp, printed paper box. Only then does my breakfast leave Ireland and travel 5,000 fuel-gorging, carbon-dioxide-emitting miles by ship and truck to my grocery store in California.
Coming from another hemisphere, my raspberries take an even longer fossil-fueled journey to my neighborhood. Though packaged in a plastic bag labeled Cascadian Farms (which perhaps suggests birthplace in the good old Cascade mountains of northwest Washington), the small print on the back, stamped "A Product of Chile," tells all -- and what it speaks of is a 5,800-mile journey to Northern California.
If you've been adding up percentages along the way, perhaps you've noticed that a few tablespoons of crude oil in my bowl have not been accounted for. That final 40 percent of the fossil fuel in my breakfast is used up by the simple acts of keeping food fresh and then preparing it. In home kitchens and restaurants, chilling in refrigerators and cooking on stoves using electricity or natural gas gobbles up more energy than you might imagine.
For decades, scientists have calculated how much fossil fuel goes into our food by measuring the amount of energy consumed in growing, packing, shipping, consuming and finally disposing of it. The caloric input of fossil fuel is then compared with the energy available in the edible product, the caloric output.
What they've discovered is astonishing. According to researchers at the University of Michigan's Center for Sustainable Agriculture, an average of more than 7 calories of fossil fuel is burned up for every calorie of energy we get from our food. This means that in eating my 400-calorie breakfast, I will, in effect, have consumed 2,800 calories of fossil fuel energy. (Some researchers claim the ratio is as high as 10 to 1.)
But this is only an average. My cup of coffee gives me just a few calories of energy, but to process 1 pound of coffee requires more than 8,000 calories of fossil-fuel energy -- the equivalent energy found in nearly a quart of crude oil, 30 cubic feet of natural gas or about 2 1/2 pounds of coal.
So how do you gauge how much oil went into your food?
First check out how far it traveled. The farther it went, the more oil it required. Next, gauge how much processing went into the food. A fresh apple is not processed, but Kellogg's Apple Jacks cereal requires enormous amounts of energy to process. The more processed the food, the more oil it requires. Then consider how much packaging is wrapped around your food. Buy fresh vegetables instead of canned, and buy bulk beans, grains, and flour if you want to reduce that packaging.
You may think you're in the clear because you eat strictly organically grown foods. When it comes to fossil-fuel calculations though, that isn't relevant. However it is grown, a raspberry is shipped, packed and chilled the same way.
There is some energy savings in growing organically, but it's probably slight. According to a study by David Pimentel at Cornell University, 30 percent of fossil-fuel expenditure on farms growing conventional (nonorganic) crops is found in chemical fertilizer.
This 30 percent is not consumed on organic farms, but only if the manure used as fertilizer is produced very close to the farm. Manure is a heavy, bulky product.
If farms have to truck bulk manure more than a few miles, the savings is eaten up in diesel-fuel consumption, according to Pimentel.
One source of manure for organic farmers in California is chicken producer Foster Farms. Organic farmers in Monterey County, for example, will truck tons of Foster's manure from their main plant in Livingston (Merced County) to fields more than 100 miles away.
So the next time we're at the grocer, do we now have to ask not only where and how a product was grown, but how far its manure was shipped?
Well, if you're in New York City picking out a California-grown tomato that was fertilized with organic compost made from kelp shipped from Nova Scotia, maybe it's not such a bad question.
But should we give up on organic? If you're buying organic raspberries from Chile each week, then yes. The fuel cost is too great, as is the resulting production of the greenhouse gases.
But if there was truth in packaging, where my oatmeal box now tells me how many calories I get from each serving, it would also tell me how many calories of fossil fuels went into the product.
On a scale from one to five -- with one being nonprocessed, locally grown products and five being processed, packaged imports -- we could quickly average the numbers in our shopping cart to get a sense of the ecological footprint of our diet.
What appeared to be my simple, healthy meal of oatmeal, berries and coffee looks different now. I thought I was essentially driving a Toyota Prius hybrid by having a very fuel-efficient breakfast, but by the end of the week, I've eaten the equivalent of more than two quarts of Valvoline.
From the perspective of fossil-fuel consumption, I now look at my breakfast as a waste of precious resources. What I eat for breakfast connects me to the planet, deep into its past with the fossilized remains of plants and animals which are now fuel, and into the future, when these nonrenewable resources will probably be in scant supply.
Maybe these thoughts are too grand to be having over breakfast, but I'm not the only one on the planet eating this morning. My meal traveled thousands of miles to reach my plate.
Then there's the rise of perhaps 600 million middle-class Indians and Chinese, already demanding the convenience of packaged meals and foreign flavors.
What happens when middle-class families in India or China decide they want their Irish oats for breakfast and topped by organic raspberries from Chile? They'll dip more and more into the planet's communal oil well. And someday soon, we'll all suck it dry.
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Personal bankruptcies soar to all-time high