Flying Dog Brewery - Microbrewery in Maryland has International Market

 Just a short while ago in the USA overall beer sales were down one percent, but micro or craft breweries have enjoyed a 12 percent growth over the same period.

Flying Dog Brewery in Frederick, Maryland is one micro brewery doing well.

Their brewery fills 250 bottles every single minute of production, and have both a domestic and international market. Flying Dog ships its beer around the USA and to a dozen or so European countries.

For more information on Flying Dog Brewery beer or if you want to have a tour of their Maryland brewery please visit:
flyingdogales.com/contact-us/brewery-tours/

Flying Dog Brewery - Learn How Beer is Made
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Aquaponics Could Signal Future of Food - fish farming and soil-less plant cultivation in a sustainable closed system

Aquaponics Could Signal Future of Food
Technique combines fish farming, soil-less plants
VOA - Faiza Elmasry

Hydroponic gardener and author Sylvia Bernstein discovered she could use the waste water from fish to grow organic vegetables and fruits.

Imagine growing vegetables and fish in the same space. That’s the idea behind aquaponics, a marriage of fish farming and soil-less plant cultivation in a single, sustainable closed system.

Supporters believe aquaponics can play a key role in alleviating food insecurity, addressing the problems of climate change, ground water pollution and overfishing.

Recirculating wetlands system

Aquaponics is really as old as nature itself.

“Aquaponics is really a recirculating wetlands system, so it’s happening right on the banks of our lakes," says Sylvia Bernstein.

Bernstein was a hydroponic gardener for years - growing plants without soil using a water-soluble chemical fertilizer - before discovering she could use the waste water from fish to grow organic vegetables and fruits.

“Honestly, I was very skeptical and just couldn’t believe that something as simple as fish waste could become a complete fertilizer," she recalls. "So I had to actually see a system that was in a friend’s basement. But when I did, it changed my life.”

That was three years ago. Bernstein built her first aquaponics system with her 15-year-old son on a concrete pad outside her home in Boulder, Colorado. In her greenhouse today, she mainly raises tilapia and trout - feeding them once a day.

There are no weeds in her aquaponics garden, and she doesn’t have to worry about watering. The plants are growing in containers at a table height for easy access.

“I, just this morning, pulled four radishes and some lettuce for lunch," Bernstein says. "In my greenhouse right now, I grow all sorts of herbs, tomatoes, peppers.”

Megaupload Site Shut Down for Copyright Infringement

File-Sharing Site Shut Down for Copyright Infringement 
VOA - Thursday, January 19th, 2012


Federal authorities in the United States have shut down one of the world’s largest file-sharing sites, and its founder and six others have been charged with violating piracy laws.

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom was arrested in New Zealand Thursday along with three other top executives at the request of U.S. authorities. Three others facing charges remain at large.

A statement by the U.S. Justice Department and FBI says the action is “among the largest criminal copyright cases” ever brought by the United States. If found guilty, the suspects face up to 20 years in prison. Authorities say Megaupload cost copyright holders more than $500 million.

Megaupload allowed users to upload and transfer very large files. Federal officials say the website used this ability to make copyrighted material, like Hollywood movies, available for free, often before the film was even released in theaters.

But the company, and many celebrity supporters, say the site was mainly used for legitimate file transfers.

The arrests follow Wednesday’s widespread online protest of anti-piracy legislation under consideration in the U.S. Congress. News of the Megaupload bust prompted a protest, from the hacker group known as Anonymous, which took down several websites, including that of the Justice Department.

The online blackout Wednesday whittled away support for The Stop Online Piracy Act currently before the House of Representatives, and the Protect IP Act under consideration in the Senate.

Online encyclopedia Wikipedia blacked out its English language website for 24 hours, as did the popular blog, Boing Boing. Social news website Reddit also went dark for part of the day. Popular search engine Google joined other websites that, instead of going dark, posted editorial comments. Google replaced its normally colorful and interactive logo with a black censor bar and directed users to a petition against the legislation.

For now, the bills are pitting the entertainment industry, which sees online pirates increasingly eating away at profits, against technology companies that see the bills as a burden and threat to future growth.

The blackout caused some U.S. lawmakers to withdraw support for the bills and the speaker of the House of Representatives, Republican John Boehner admitted Wednesday that there was now a lack of consensus on the measures.

Last week, the White House acknowledged online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response. But a statement said, “We will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”

Membership Nonprofit Virtual Village Helps Elderly Stay in Own Home

'Virtual Village' Helps Elderly Stay in Own Home
Membership nonprofit provides services for older people
January 10, 2012 - VOA

Tom Banse | Seattle, Washington

VOA - T. Banse

Philip and Midori Kono Theil bid goodbye to NEST director Judy Kinney.

At 91, Philip Theil lives in a century-old house in Seattle's University District and that's the way he wants to keep it.

"As far as I'm concerned, I would not like to leave this place," says the naval architect. "Living in a group situation is something I couldn't tolerate. I'd kill myself before I had to do that."
Many elderly Americans, who can no longer manage on their own, spend their final years in a nursing home or assisted living facility. However, the vast majority of seniors would prefer to live in their own homes as long as possible.

Theil says he and his wife manage pretty well right now. Their two-story house is stuffed to the rafters with the books, artwork and projects of a life well lived. But the couple can feel their advancing age and realize they'll soon need more help with basic household chores, like changing that light bulb at the top of the stairs.

"To change that tube, I have to bring in a stepladder and put it partly on the landing and partly on the stairs and climb up," Theil says. "It's kind of trepiditious."

In the old days, the Theils could ask their children to climb up there or maybe the teenager from down the street when he came over to mow the lawn. But those young helpers have grown up and gone.

"We have kids and we call them occasionally, but one lives in Munich, Germany, another lives in London and a third lives in Los Angeles," Theil says. "They're not going to drop around for a weekend call type of thing."

Aging in place

So the Theils are looking into joining a "virtual village," a new breed of nonprofit which provides a local network of volunteers and service providers dedicated to helping the elderly age in place.

They assist seniors with anything from transportation and grocery delivery to home repairs and dog walking. The concept originated in Boston a decade ago and has since grown into what you might call a national movement. An informal network of villages includes more than 150 others in development or already serving clients.

"The 'silver tsunami' is the term that's tossed about," says Tom La Pointe, who was recently hired to start a village organization in the small town of Moscow, Idaho. "We are trying to get ready for what is anticipated to be a glut of baby boomers retiring within the next 20 or so years."

La Pointe's nonprofit, My Own Home, aims to serve a vast middle ground of seniors; those who are too well off to qualify for public services, but not rich enough to afford their own staff to do things like change light bulbs.

Helping hand for a fee

In most cases, the villages charge a membership fee, which can range from about $100 to more than $1000 per year. Once you're a member, some of the services are free, while others are provided by a vetted third party vendor that might offer a discounted rate.

Judy Kinney directs an aging in place startup called North East Seattle Together (NEST).

"When someone calls us, they may say, 'I need help with transportation.' We're going to work with them to see if it is a volunteer that helps, if it's a vetted vendor that helps or there is a community service in place," Kinney says. "That's the process we're going to do when someone picks up the phone. People have called it a concierge. People call and say I need this help. We help you figure out the best choice."

Kinney's group is one of about half a dozen in the Pacific Northwest expected to launch in the next several months. At a village already in operation in central Oregon, the most-requested services are rides to the doctor, simple home repairs, help with grocery shopping and picking up prescriptions or big items.

In Moscow, Idaho, Tom La Pointe imagines snow shoveling, yard work or computer-tech support will also rank high.

"On the other hand, if you need daily care, 24/7 care, that is not what we do," La Pointe says. "We don't do bathing services for example. We are here and we exist for the folks who might need a little extra assistance."

La Pointe says his nonprofit is not a charity. It, like the others, will charge elderly clients a membership fee. He hopes 40 seniors will sign up by the end of this year.

Those who do might find out if it's possible to recreate old-fashioned social connections to suit a modern world.

Marriott Hotels - rapid expansion in China and other emerging economies

Hotel Magnate Sees Bright Future for Hospitality
VOA - Jeff Seldin | Washington, DC
December 16, 2011

The man credited with turning his father's soda stand into a global hotel business is stepping down after 39 years running Marriott International. The change at the top of the company (announced this week) comes during rapid expansion in China and other emerging economies.

A global hotel empire, built on a simple recipe for success... “Take good care of your employee and they’ll take good care of the customer. And that applies around the world. I don’t care what country you’re in, everybody wants to be treated with warmth, with precision, good food, hot food hot, cold food cold," Marriott explained. "They want to be able to have a good experience.”

Coworkers and competitors credit the now 79-year-old Bill Marriott with using that mantra - and his personal touch - to help turn what began as a small soda stand, and restaurant chain, into Marriott International with 3,600 hotels spanning more than 70 countries, and growing.

Now, it's up to incoming Chief Executive Aren Sorenson - who takes over in March - to keep the global expansion going. "We stand today, we think, at the dawn of a new golden age of travel. And that golden age of travel is driven by explosive growth in the developing world. China and India and Brazil are well known to everybody. But sub-Saharan African is exploding in many markets in a positive way,” he said.

Both Sorenson and Marriott, who will remain on the company's board of directors, say there are reasons to be concerned, especially with Europe's ongoing debt crisis and continued fallout from the Arab Spring. But they stress there is no shortage of need or opportunity.

“The business is good in sub-Saharan Africa. We’re going into several countries down there and we just feel there’s a great opportunity there. They’ve got a lot of minerals. They’ve got a lot of oil. They’ve got a lot of things that are going on that the world is going to continue to buy and develop and grow in sub-Saharan Africa and we want to be part of that growth,” Marriott stated.

Marriott International reported sales of $12 billion in 2010, with strong growth in China and Brazil.



Bill Marriott says his global hotel empire was built on a simple recipe for success.... “Take good care of your employee and they’ll take good care of the customer"

Investor Citizenship Abroad - Chinese and others emmigrate to United States, Canada, Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore

China's Wealthy Set Their Sights Abroad
Stephanie Ho | Beijing
VOA - December 13, 2011

As China's wealth increases, so does the number of well-off Chinese seeking to emigrate to other countries.

Their reasons vary: some say they want to switch citizenship to improve educational opportunities for their children, others say they are trying to “hedge their bets” against an uncertain economic future.

The U.S. state of Florida, with its sunshine and beaches, is on the other side of the planet from the southern Chinese commercial center, Guangzhou.

The distance does not deter one ambitious Guangzhou resident who is in the process of obtaining an investor immigrant visa to the United States.

She says she is willing to leave because she thinks her two children will have better opportunities for education. She says holding a U.S. passport also will make it easier to obtain visas to go to other countries.

Many wealthy Chinese do not publicly talk about their desire to immigrate since such a move can be seen as disloyal to their country. This would-be emigre agreed to speak to VOA only on the condition that she not be identified.

To qualify for her visa, she and her husband are planning to invest in a wind farm in South Dakota. She says they made their decision after a trip to the United States in 2009.

She says her friends in the United States introduced her to lawyers, and then after she returned to China, she said she was bombarded with “all sorts of advertisements” about immigrating to other countries.

She says they were considering moving to two U.S. cities, Chicago or Tampa, because that is where their friends live. They decided Chicago is too cold, she says, and because they come from a warm climate, they chose Tampa.

For more than 20 years, the United States has had an immigration program under which a foreigner can qualify for U.S. citizenship if he or she invests one million dollars in a venture that creates at least ten jobs for Americans.

Charles Bennett, the head of consular affairs at the U.S. embassy in Beijing, says in China, most of the interest in the program so far has come from American companies that are trying to find Chinese investors. But, he notes that it is only recently that many Chinese could even meet the steep financial requirements for the program.

“The interest has grown over the life of the program of course because 20 years ago, there weren't the same number of people that there are now who would be able to qualify for this type of visa. So, there has been more interest recently," Bennett says.

China’s economy has recorded some of the world's highest annual growth rates for more than a decade, and the trend is expected to continue this year.

The apparent paradox of those growing riches is that there is also an increasing number of the newly-wealthy who are seeking to emigrate.

Charles Qi is the president of Beijing East J&P Star Consulting, a company that helps Chinese people obtain visas to other countries. When he started 16 years ago, he mostly helped people apply for skilled worker status. Now he helps customers who have the means apply for investor citizenship abroad, especially to Canada, Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore and the United States.

Qi says before 2000, he only had about 20 to 30 business applications each year. Now, more than ten years later, he says the applications have increased ten-fold, to a few hundred business investor applications each year.

Qi says he thinks that, although his clients may leave behind their Chinese citizenship when they emigrate, many of them are still Chinese in their actions and in their hearts.

Most of his clients still have their equipment and business in China, and he thinks this type of immigration will help make China more open in the future and will have a positive impact on China's economic development.

The American economy has not been growing as strongly as in China, in recent years, but William Zarit, a commercial officer at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, says he believes many Chinese still see the United States as a safer investment.

“We don't know what's going to happen here in the next three to five years economically, how hard that landing is going to be," says Zarit. "So, I think investors here in China are thinking of that also, you know, let's diversify and get a steady [return]. We might not be getting the return on investment that I possibly would get here [in China] in whatever the industry, maybe, but I think I will go to America anyhow, to hedge my bet.”

Although Chinese who are thinking of emigrating abroad do not generally talk publicly about their decision making, there is a heated debate on the topic in Internet chat rooms.

In those online discussions, commentators suggest that the decision to leave China is not solely an economic one.

One real estate mogul recently posted an online comment bemoaning China's overall lack of a sense of basic security for things like property, food, air, education and basic rights. He says this is not only the main reason motivating people to leave the country, it is also the main thing threatening China's overall stability.

Unemployment Claims Rise in USA

US Jobless Claims Rise
VOA - Thursday, December 1st, 2011


The number of people signing up for unemployment compensation rose slightly last week in the United States, a sign that the labor market remains troubled.

Thursday’s report from the Labor Department says new jobless claims rose 6,000 to a nationwide total of 402,000.

On Friday, government experts will publish the latest unemployment data, which is expected to show that the unemployment rate stayed at 9 percent.

Economists surveyed by news agencies also predict that the economy will have a net gain of 150,000 jobs in November, which is just slightly above the number needed to accommodate new entrants to the work force.

Facebook Valued at $100 Billion May Go Public

Facebook May Go Public Valued at $100 Billion
VOA - Tuesday, November 29th, 2011

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Facebook is moving closer to an initial public stock offering that could value the company at more than $100 billion.

The newspaper said “people familiar with the matter” told a reporter late Monday that the company could go public in the second quarter of 2012. The sources said Facebook is looking into raising $10 billion in its IPO, dwarfing other technology companies initial offerings.

The company has been vague in the past about the timing of its inital public offering. A Facebook spokesman refused comment on the latest report.

The Wall Street Journal says Facebook is in talks with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission about filing for the IPO as early as this year.

Facebook has said it will exceed 500 private shareholders in 2011, forcing the company under U.S. law to file a public financial report by the end of April 2012.

The world’s largest social media network has more than 800 million users. The company’s 27-year-old CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, founded the company in his Harvard dorm room in 2004, before dropping out of the prestigious American university.

Small Business Saturday

Obama Shopping Supports Small Business
November 26, 2011 - VOA

U.S. President Barack Obama marked “small business Saturday” by taking his daughters shopping at a bookstore a few blocks from the White House.

The president said he and first daughters, Sasha and Malia, were getting an early start to Christmas shopping and supporting a local business.

Among the president's purchases were The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever by Jeff Kinney and Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid.

The retail industry designated Saturday as the day shoppers can support small, independently owned businesses during the busy pre-Christmas shopping season. It is a counterpoint to Black Friday and the sales offered by chain department stores and other large retailers.

Rent-A-Grandma - Hiring Older Workers News

Rent-A-Grandma Focuses on Hiring Older Workers
VOA - Elizabeth Lee | Los Angeles
October 21, 2011



As the United States struggles with a high unemployment rate, many older Americans looking for work say it is especially difficult for them to find employment because of their age. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, it takes unemployed people who are 55 and older longer to find work than younger people. But one company, recently started by a former teacher, is looking specifically for older female employees.

Finding child care can be stressful for many parents who do not have trusted relatives, especially grandmothers close by to help.

Anna Marie Caldwell did the next best thing. She rented a grandmother to care for her three girls when she is not home.

“She was part of the family; she was helping out cooking, cleaning; helping with homework; playing with the kids,” explained Caldwell.

She found Jane Mertes through Rent-A-Grandma.

$3 Trillion Deficit, Debt Plan - President Barack Obama has unveiled

Obama Proposes $3 Trillion Deficit, Debt Plan
Dan Robinson | White House
VOA - September 19, 2011

Presenting his second major set of economic proposals in 10 days, President Barack Obama has unveiled a plan for more than $3 trillion in spending reductions over the next decade, saying all Americans, and specifically the wealthy, will be asked to share the burden of fixing the economy. Republicans already are criticizing the proposals.

In battles with Congress over deficit and debt reduction and taxes, Obama has always stressed the need for balance in fixing the nation's fiscal mess, and shared sacrifice while not harming the most vulnerable Americans.

Coming after his $447-billion jobs proposal, his recommendations to a joint congressional deficit reduction panel raise the stakes again in the political wrestling match with opposition Republicans.

Combo of cuts, taxes

The plan contains more than $3.2 trillion in deficit savings over the next decade, combining spending cuts with new tax revenue - including a new minimum tax on millionaires.

With the earlier $1 trillion in cuts from a difficult compromise with Republicans, this makes for $4.4 trillion, on the level of the so-called grand bargain that Obama advocated earlier this year, but Republicans ultimately rejected.

"It is a plan that reduces our debt by more than $4 trillion, and achieves these savings in a way that is fair, by asking everybody to do their part so that no one has to bear too much of the burden on their own," said the president.

Obama's plan takes aim at tax loopholes favoring the wealthy, and assumes an expiration of tax cuts approved by Congress under former Republican President George W. Bush. It also seeks broad tax reforms.

Ending certain tax breaks

Included are steps Republicans have resisted, such as eliminating tax breaks for oil and gas companies, ending tax advantages for highly-paid Wall Street fund managers, and eliminating benefits for those who own corporate jets.

It also envisions $1.1 trillion in savings from the drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, $250 billion in other so-called mandatory programs, reducing government waste, and streamlining federal agencies.

Obama proposes more than $300 billion in savings from Medicare and Medicaid, the so-called "entitlement" programs burdening the economy, part of more than $500 billion in cuts to mandatory programs.

The president responded to Republican and conservative Tea Party critics who have accused him of conducting "class warfare" by targeting the wealthy for tax increases.

He said he will reject anything that reduces benefits for those depending on major government health programs and Social Security, unless wealthy Americans and large companies are asked to pay more.

"I will not support any plan that puts all the burden for closing our deficit on ordinary Americans. And I will veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on Medicare, but does not raise serious revenues by asking the wealthiest Americans or the biggest corporations to pay their fair share," he said.

Showdown with Republicans

The White House says implementing the plan would put the United States in a position by 2017 where government spending does not add to the national debt, currently more than $14 trillion, with debt beginning to fall as a share of GDP.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said, "Why $4 trillion? That is what you need to bring the deficits down to a level that that we can sustain over time."

Under the previous deficit compromise, which Republicans linked to the national debt ceiling, the joint congressional committee must find $1.5 trillion in additional savings by November. Failure to do so would lead to automatic cuts.

The House of Representatives speaker, Republican John Boehner, accused Obama of "pitting one group of Americans against another." He said it is evident that "barriers" remain between himself and the president over tax increases and entitlement programs.

With polls showing most Americans favor more sacrifice from the wealthy, Obama wants to increase public pressure on Republicans, as the congressional committee works on its decisions, and reduce criticism from within his Democratic base.

The White House believes that by finally "drawing the line" on the need for tax increases on the wealthy, a president with low approval numbers on his handling of the economy will be able to draw an even clearer contrast with Republican positions as the 2012 election draws near.

Saying the changes he is proposing are neither easy nor politically convenient, Obama said it's the responsibility of leaders in Washington to "put country before party" in a debate he says is as much about fairness as it is about facing up to a legacy of debt that threatens the economy.

Nearly one-sixth of U.S. population lives in poverty

Poor Americans Struggle With High Health Care Costs
Suzanne Presto
VOA - September 13, 2011


Census data released Tuesday show that 46 million people live in poverty in the United States. The 2010 census also shows that a slightly higher figure, almost 50 million people, in the U.S. do not have health coverage.

Nearly one-sixth of the U.S. population lives in poverty. Garrett Adams, a medical doctor in the southeastern United States, says financial constraints are preventing people from getting the life-saving health treatments they need.

Adams' voice choked with emotion as he addressed federal lawmakers Tuesday. For several minutes, he spoke of people he knew personally, saying there is a cycle in which poverty can be a death sentence and illness can be a poverty sentence.

"Clay Morgan, an automobile mechanic in Henry County, Kentucky, owned his own business. He got malignant melanoma [a form of cancer], was treated, improved, and thought to be cured, but now was bankrupted. Cancer returned. Depressed, and unwilling to bring more medical debt on his family, Clay went into the backyard and took his own life," Adama said.

Dr. Adams founded a not-for-profit medical clinic in a poor area of Tennessee last year. He said he was tired of seeing friends in the mountain town being taken advantage of by for-profit hospitals and deprived of affordable health care.

In 2010, nearly 50 million people in the United States did not have health insurance, a slightly higher number that the previous year. Most of those uninsured are younger than 65, the age at which the government provides health care.

Dr. Adams told U.S. lawmakers that health care options for younger Americans and the working poor are limited, and when they do find care, it can be too late.

"Doris, [age] 58, and her husband operated a small, local restaurant before her illness forced them to close the restaurant. Estimated annual income $13,000. No insurance. No medical care. She heard we offered mammograms. We diagnosed breast cancer. Paula, 32, cervical cancer surgery two years ago, but no follow-up because of no insurance and no money," Adams said.

In the United States, most people who have health coverage have such insurance through their employers.

Robert Greenstein is an economist and president of the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

"The number of people who are uninsured grew in 2010 due principally to continued erosion in employer-based coverage," said Greenstein.

The unemployment rate in the United States remains above nine percent, as it was last year, and not all employers are required to provide health benefits.

Elise Gould is the director of health policy research at the Economy Policy Institute in Washington. She told reporters that young adults aged 18 to 24 are the least likely to be covered by their employers.

Gould credited recent government initiatives with improving their access to health care.

"Health reform played a key role in stemming the fall of workplace coverage for young adults. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as 'health reform', included provisions that allowed young adults up to age 26 to secure health insurance coverage through their parents' employer-sponsored health insurance policies," Gould said.

The officials say one-third of people without insurance live in poverty. According to the 2010 census figures, the official poverty rate was 15.1 percent - up from 14.3 percent in 2009.

In the United States, a family of four is considered to live in poverty if the household income is below about $22,000.

Dr. Tim Hulsey told lawmakers Tuesday that poverty has different meanings throughout the world. A cosmetic surgeon, Hulsey has provided medical care to children with cleft palates in Central America. He described cardboard houses, polluted water sources and no sanitation, which he said can be a death sentence.

Hulsey said in the United States, Americans have opportunities to adopt healthy lifestyles and more care options such as free clinics, charity organizations, and doctors who are willing to volunteer their services, as he does.

"In other words, there is little reason other than failure to seek care that poverty should be a death sentence in this country," Hulsey said.

Economist Greenstein acknowledged to reporters that just as Americans are dealing with health care issues, U.S. lawmakers are dealing with budget shortfalls.

"Even before today's grim figures, the United States had higher degrees of poverty and inequality than most other Western industrialized nations. We need deficit reduction, but it need not make these problems even more severe than they already are," Greenstein said.

While the number of people living in poverty and the number of uninsured are similar, it is not only impoverished people who do not have health insurance.

One-fifth of America's 50 million uninsured have a household income of more than $75,000 a year.

Food prices remain near record high levels - Expected to climb even higher

High Food Prices Expected to Climb Further
UN world food price index hit a high in January
Steve Baragona | Washington, D.C.
VOA - September 09, 2011

World food prices remain near record-high levels, according to the latest UN world food price index, and they're expected to climb even higher.

The index hit a record in January and has not come down much since.

Today's high prices come less than three years after the index hit its previous peak in 2008.

"I'm not surprised at all," says Shenggen Fan, head of the International Food Policy Research Institute. "The factors that pushed food prices higher remain the same."

Food for fuel

He says one of the biggest factors pushing up food prices is the growing use of food crops to produce fuel.

In just the last few years, ethanol production from maize has skyrocketed in the U.S. In Brazil, it's sugar cane. And in Europe, fields of canola are sprouting up to produce biodiesel.

That means food and energy prices are more closely linked today than they were before the biofuels boom, says Iowa State University economist Dermot Hayes.

But that's just one way food and fuel prices are connected, he adds, "the second one being the increase in transportation costs."

Transporting food from field to fork costs more when fuel prices are high. And it also costs more to run the trucks, tractors and machinery to produce it.

The cost of prosperity

Meanwhile, the demand for food is growing where prosperity is increasing and diets are changing, especially in emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil.

"They deserve a good life. So they want to eat more meat, more diversified food," Fan says. "And that all demands more feed, more grains."

Fan notes that it takes several kilograms of grain to produce each kilogram of meat.

The tremendous global growth in the demand for grains means farmers in the major producing countries need to produce ever-larger harvests.

Bad weather

But last year the weather did not cooperate.

"The midwestern part of the U.S. had too much rain," Hayes says, "and just about everywhere else in the world had too little rain. In particular, Eastern Europe had too little rain. It caused both Russia and Ukraine to literally cut off exports of wheat."

Russia and Ukraine's export ban started prices climbing last July.

Eastern Europe is doing better this year, but the midwestern U.S. is not, Hayes says.

"We're really dry right now, so it's the opposite of last year," he says. "But I personally am getting more and more concerned about the size of the U.S. crop, both for corn and soybeans. So, potentially, things could evolve next year as they did last year and we could see higher prices next year as well."

Hayes says high prices are actually good news for farmers. They will encourage farmers around the world to produce more.

The question is whether they will produce enough to keep up with the ever-growing demand, and if weather extremes brought on by climate change will make it harder for them to do so.

U.S. Postal Service Could Shut Down Warns Postmaster General

Postmaster General Warns the USPS Could Shut Down in 2012
VOA - September 6th, 2011

U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe is warning that the centuries-old agency could shut down next year if Congress does not allow it to restructure.

Donahoe told a Senate committee Tuesday that the post office is on the brink of default. He said action is needed by the end of the month or it will default on its $5.5 billion in health benefits for retired workers.

Donahoe said he is not looking for a government handout — just permission from Congress to make changes in the way the postal service operates. Among the cost-saving measures it is considering are closing unprofitable post offices and eliminating Saturday delivery.

The U.S. Postal Service gets no federal funding. It is an independent federal agency responsible for its own revenue.

The post office is losing billions of dollars as many customers turn to e-mail to send messages and letters.

But it still handles more than half-a-billion pieces of mail a day and its operations pre-date the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Franklin was the first Postmaster General

U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman said Tuesday that the post office is not a 18th century relic, but a 21st century asset.

Unemployment To Stay High Through 2012 in USA

White House: US Unemployment To Stay High Through 2012
Kent Klein | White House
September 01, 2011
VOA

White House economists predicted Thursday that U.S. unemployment will stay at or near its present level throughout next year. They also say that economic growth will be slower than previously projected.

A report from the Office of Management and Budget forecast the nation’s jobless rate to remain near its current level of nine percent through 2012.

Continued high unemployment could threaten President Barack Obama’s prospects for re-election.

Mr. Obama is scheduled to lay out his plan for job creation and economic recovery next week, before a joint session of Congress.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday the president’s initiatives, if implemented, would help to reduce the jobless rate.

“Economists will be able to look at this series of proposals and say that, based on history, based on what we know, based on their collected expertise, that it would add to economic growth and it would cause an increase in job creation,” Carney said.

The administration report also forecast overall growth of just 1.7 percent this year, one percent less than predicted earlier this year.

The economy grew at seven-tenths of one percent in the first half of 2011, its slowest pace in two years.

The White House predicts a federal deficit of $1.3 trillion for the fiscal year which ends September 30. That is a slight increase over last year’s deficit but more than $300 billion below February’s forecast.

The administration delayed release of the report, which had been due in July, because of legislative battles over the debt limit and the budget.

Homes For Sale - Second US Recession, If It Hits, Could Hit Hard - Some economists are worried...

Economists: Second US Recession, If It Hits, Could Hit Hard
VOA - Laurel Bowman | Washington


Some economists are worried that the United States is poised for another recession. They warn that a so-called "double-dip," if it comes, could be more painful for average Americans than the 2007-2008 recession. Jobs, incomes, output and industrial production are all weaker now than they were then. One sector that has been hit especially hard is housing.

Mark Hudson is a real estate agent in Washington, D.C., one of the areas that has been least affected by the housing and construction bust. He peruses the day’s list of homes for sale.



“We are down about 40 percent from June 2005 to June 2011 in home sales. That affects every potential area of the economy everywhere and we are, frankly, being close to Washington, in better shape then a lot of the areas of the country," he said.

One of the homes Hudson is currently trying to sell is in a historic district in a suburb of Washington.

He says he’ll sell the house for much less than he would have several years ago. And that reduced housing prices have a real impact on peoples’ personal wealth.

“If they had sold it a few years ago they would have cleared 'X,' now they are going to clear $100,000 to $150,000 less. That is money they could use in retirement or for buying a new house or for putting their kids in college, so it absolutely affects their personal wealth,” Hudson said.

Robust home sales and construction can help drive an economic recovery. But economist Karen Dynan says that probably won’t happen this time around.

“The real issue now is that demand is so weak because people don’t want to buy homes when their income prospects are so weak. When they are worried that house prices are going to fall further and until we can see that demand rise again we are not going to see home-building rise in a way that is contributing to economic growth,” Dynan said.

Many economists say that fear of the unknown is feeding consumers’ hesitancy. That fear has rocked global financial markets, following a downgrade of U.S. Treasury debt and a long-running and highly fractious political debate over raising the nation’s debt ceiling.

“Pessimism can be self-fulfilling. If a consumer wakes up one day and is worried about the future and doesn’t go out and spend, then retailers are going to see weak demand and they are not going to hire as much and income will weaken and that in turn will leader consumers to have even less inclination to spend,” Dynan said.

Hudson says that with his personal income down by more than 50 percent, he’s certainly spending less. And he’s worried about what’s to come.

“If there’s a recession, I don’t know what I would do because I have cut as much as I could, I believe. I guess I could do more but it would be difficult. I have cut as much as I can at this point, so it’s kind of a scary question,” Hudson said.


VOA - August 15, 2011

USA Credit Rating Downgraded - S&P Downgrades US Credit Rating for First Time Ever

S&P Downgrades US Credit Rating for First TimeFriday, August 6th

The credit rating agency Standard & Poor's has downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time ever from the country's elite triple-A status to double-A-plus.

In a statement late Friday, S&P said it made the move because the deficit reduction plan passed by Congress on Tuesday did not go far enough to stabilize the country's debt situation.

S&P also said the downgrade reflects the agency's view that the “effectiveness, stability and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges.”

U.S. media reports quote an official as saying the White House found “serious errors” in Standard & Poor's analysis of the debt ceiling plan.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Congress reached a deal a few hours before the deadline on Tuesday to increase the nation's $14.3 borrowing limit and avoid an unprecedented default on the government's financial obligations.

The downgrade comes on the same day the U.S. government announced a net gain of 117,000 jobs in July, and a slight decline in the unemployment rate to 9.1 percent. Friday's report from the Labor Department was better than economists had predicted.

The data also show the unemployment rate declined because some unemployed people gave up their job hunt in the belief that there is no work available for them. Washington does not count people as unemployed unless they are actively seeking jobs.

U.S. President Barack Obama welcomed the job gains, but said the country must do better. Mr. Obama said the economy will improve, and pledged to press Congress for legislation to create jobs when lawmakers return to Washington next month.

The U.S. is the world's largest economy, but investors have voiced little confidence in the country's sluggish recovery, even with the agreement on the debt ceiling plan.


S&P Downgrades US Credit Rating for First Time Ever
Article from VOA

Low-cost irrigation system designed to improve crop yields and help small farmers...

Entrepreneur Helps World's Poor While Turning a Profit
Mechanical engineer Peter Frykman's low-cost irrigation system is designed to improve crop yields for small farmers

Jan Sluizer | Mountain View, California - VOA - July 25, 2011

Photo: VOA - J. Sluicer
Peter Frykman has a working model of his Driptech system in his California office.

Mechanical engineer Peter Frykman created a low-cost drip-irrigation system designed to improve crop yields for small farmers in India and China. One of his primary goals is to be socially-conscious entrepreneur who makes life better for the world’s poor while also turning a profit.

As a graduate student at Stanford University, Frykman took a course called ‘Enterpreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability.’ As part of that class, he went to Ethiopia to look for irrigation solutions for small farms. It didn’t take him long to come up with an answer.

Rare Earth Elements - Prices for some rising rapidly

Rare Earth Elements Becoming Hot Commodity VOA - George Putic | Washington - July 14, 2011 If you follow the economic news, you have probably heard that rare earth elements are a hot commodity on international markets.  China, which has a disproportionate share of the world's supply of these valuable minerals recently began restricting their export.  These minerals are important parts of many advanced electronic equipment, including batteries for electric cars.  But many people are puzzled by the term "rare earth." Cell phones, tablet computers, video games, 3D TV sets:  Practically all advanced electronic devices - including lots of critical military hardware - contain parts made with a group of exotic minerals called "rare earths."  If you remember the Periodic Table of Elements from your high school chemistry class, rare earth refers to a group of 17 elements, also called lanthanide elements, with similar metallic characteristics, but differing from other metals.  That is exactly the reason why they are such a hot commodity. But how rare are the rare earth elements and why are they called earths? "Rare is a bit of a misnomer here. In some cases a better word for rare might be 'hidden,' because these rare earth elements are found, in most cases, fairly commonly in the earth's crust," noted Jeffrey Post, a research geologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, in Washington, DC. Post says many rare earth elements are actually as common as tin, nickel, copper or zinc, but they tend to be widely dispersed in very small quantities.  There are only a few places where natural processes concentrated these elements enough to be mined.  So "rare," in fact, means that there's not enough of them in one place. Nevertheless, rare earths have become a very hot commodity on the world's markets and prices for some of them are rising rapidly.  According to mineralprices.com, last December, a kilogram of yttrium cost $82 while now it costs around $200.  Dysprosium was $700 per kilogram and now it is $1,000.  Jeff Post notes that in our electronic age, many everyday devices depend on rare earth metals. "The color images you see on LCD screens, on the computer screens… in many cases the phosphorus that produces these are based on rare earth elements," Post added.  "Many of the electronic components, the very miniature, smaller components that we need to drive these small cell phones, the small computers in a very efficient way depend on some amount of rare earth elements. The batteries, the magnets that are used in these devices, again make use of rare earth elements." There are places on earth where natural geological processes created mineral deposits that contain large quantities of rare earth elements in crystallized form.   As the prices of rare earth metals increase it becomes profitable to mine mineral deposits that contain even small percentages of these metals.  A former iron ore deposit in China's inner Mongolia has become the world's largest mine for rare earth elements providing up to 90 percent of world's production. Jeff Post notes that separating rare earth metals from other minerals is a complicated process. "You need to have a specialized chemical process that will separate the rare earth elements, not only from the ores but from each other.  Almost every rare earth element ore, like this one, contains not just one rare earth element but typically some amount of all the rare earth elements." The rare earth elements are chemically very similar, so separating them from each other is a complex operation.  Geologists around the world are constantly looking for new deposits of these valuable minerals.  At the same time, the interest in recycling the elements from electronic waste is also on the rise.

Rare Earth Elements Becoming Hot Commodity Article and video about Rare Earth Elements from VOA

Twitter 'Town Hall' on Economy

President Obama Hosts Twitter 'Town Hall' on Economy

VOA - July 06, 2011

U.S. President Barack Obama says he takes responsibility for the fact that Americans may not have been prepared for how long it would take to recover from the financial crisis.

The president spoke Wednesday at a "town hall" session featuring questions from users of the social networking site Twitter.

In response to a question on what he would do differently in handling the recession, Mr. Obama said he would have explained to the American people that it was going to take a while for the country to "get out of this." He said even he did not realize the magnitude of the recession until fairly far into it.

The president's economic policies have come under increased scrutiny in recent months as the nation's unemployment rate has edged higher, to more than nine percent.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner used Wednesday's Twitter session as an opportunity to air his party's concerns about the president's approach to the economy. He tweeted his own question to Mr. Obama, asking "where are the jobs?" following what he described as a "record spending binge" undertaken by the administration.

President Obama acknowledged that the country has not seen job growth that is fast enough relative to the need, but outlined several efforts he has undertaken to boost jobs, including providing tax cuts for small businesses. He also said he hopes to see Republicans cooperate on an initiative to put people to work rebuilding the country's infrastructure.

President Obama responded to the Twitter questions in a live webcast from the East Room of the White House.