The problems with GIRLS::

hi, if you find this massage is interesting, share with your friends The problems with GIRLS:: If u TREAT her nicely, she says u are IN LOVE with her; If u Don't, she says u are PROUD. If u DRESS Nicely, she says u are trying to LURE her; If u Don't, she says u are from CHENNAI. If u ARGUE with her, she says u are STUBBORN; If u keep QUIET,! she says u have no BRAINS. If u are SMARTER than her, she'll lose FACE; If she's Smarter than u, she is GREAT. If u don't Love her, she tries to POSSESS u; If u Love her, she will try to LEAVE u.(very true huh?) If u don't make love with her., she says! u don't Love her; If u do!! she says u are CHEAP. If u tell her your PROBLEM, she says u are TROUBLESOME; If u don't, she says that u don't TRUST her. If u SCOLD her, u are like a CHACHA to her; If she SCOLDS u, it is because she CARES for u. If u BREAK your PROMISE, u Cannot be TRUSTED; If she BREAKS hers, she is FORCED to do so. If u SMOKE, u are BAD BOY; If she SMOKES, she is a GENTLELADY. If u do WELL in your exams, she says it's LUCK; If she does WELL, it's BRAINS. If u HURT her, u are CRUEL; If she HURTS u, u are too SENSITIVE!! & sooo hard to please!!!!! Still We Love girls because " Men will be Men"

'India to be 8th wealthiest place by 2017'

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'India to be 8th wealthiest place by 2017'

NEW DELHI: India with its increasing number of millionaires is projected to be in the 8th position among the world's top 10 wealth centres by 2017, says a report by banking giant Barclays. The report further says that emerging markets like India, China and Russia are fast catching up with the rich countries in terms of their wealth. "Over the coming decade, the gap in wealth between the world's most developed countries and the leading emerging markets will continue to narrow with many new millionaires being created in India, China, Russia and other countries which are undergoing rapid development," says Barclays Wealth Report. Moreover, by 2017 the four emerging markets-- India, China, Brazil and Russia-- will have so many millionaires that it would be inappropriate to call them emerging markets, Barclays added. The second fastest growing economy India is expected to join the league of top 10 wealth centres by 2017 by that time its neighbour China is likely to move up to third rank from its present seventh place. While Russia could experience considerable growth, moving to 11th place from 19th, Brazil will also move up the ladder to 12th from 15th. The report says a sudden spurt in the wealth of emerging markets has displaced more developed economies such as Australia, South Korea and Portugal from the list. In 2007, G7 countries -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US -- contained more than one million millionaire households.

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Five Things That Women Hate in Bed

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I believe that none of men could possibly be proud of being called “boring lover”, and none of the women would like spend their lives or even just one night with a “stallion” with such a reputation. Therefore, we are here to help you with a several tips on how avoid such a “label” on your back. Here are five things that women really hate in their sex life:

Don’t be too careful The phrases like “can I?” are NOT sexy. They just kill the mood. A good lover knows how to let the woman know their next step and how to prepare her for it with no questions asked. Sometimes it is enough just to look in “undressing” way or a provocative touch your girlfriends’ body to give a signal for sex.

“Mechanical sex” Most women would agree that sex with no passion is boring, just a time spent with no particular reason. No woman wants to become an “inflatable woman” (perhaps only with a very little exception). I’m not saying that every sex you have has to be exclusively tremendous, but just don’t ignore the fact that every woman want to be a “woman” and it's always a good idea to keep that in mind. Be sensitive and sometimes not just have sex, but also “make love” to her.

Monotony If your girlfriend or wife know every crack in your ceiling – you are in a huge trouble. But don’t panic yet. A simple change of a place will help you out. Try doing it in your bathroom, kitchen, your car or even on a beach (of course find a place with no viewers), the possibilities are endless. Turn on your imagination.

Moaning and talking Too loud moaning as well as too quiet is irritating for women. The silence is also not an option. You have to play careful here. Try to find the “golden middle” and to express your feelings to your girlfriend but not to all the neighbors. Try not to use all the same words during the sex as well, try to find phrases how to say how sexy she looks, how great she is in bed you don’t have to repeat all the same three words, which we all are so afraid of.

Unwillingness to experiment If you are in a long-term relationship, don’t be afraid to experiment. Sex life does get boring, and there is a lot you can do about it. Try different positions, role-playing give a freedom to your fantasies. Do whatever you want to if your partner agrees with it, and if it would spice up your love life.

Discuss you fantasies with your partner at the glass of a good wine, and you would be surprised how fast they can turn into reality.

These are the main guidelines how to improve your sex life. What I wanted to say here is that women do not seek Casanova in every man. They just want you to make an effort to your relationship.

Remember that opposite of “boring” is exiting and unexpected, so if you try from time to time to surprise your partner, you will not be in trouble. The most important thing is that you would have a partner who would be w...

Punjab students make 250 km per litre 'wonder car'

hi, if you find this massage is interesting, share with your friends Punjab students make 250 km per litre 'wonder car' CHANDIGARH: Imagine doing a 250-km journey from Delhi to Jaipur or Delhi to here in a car that will go the distance in just one-litre of petrol (just over $1)! That's exactly what students of a technical institute in Punjab - the Rayat Institute of Engineering and Information Technology near Ropar, 50 km from here - claim to have developed. "It is a rare solo car which can generate a mileage of up to 250 km per litre. Our team of students have not only achieved this feat, but are going to showcase it at a world super-mileage competition in the United States next month," Gurvinder Singh Bahra, vice chairman of the Rayat and Bahra group of institutes, told media persons here as he unveiled the 'wonder car' with the team. Though the students' team claims that the car will cost Rs.500,000, its research and development cost over Rs.2.13 million to the institute. The car, having a 92cc engine, has been developed by a seven-member team of students from the sixth semester of the institute's mechanical engineering course. The team is led by Gaurav Aggarwal as captain and other members are Mayank Tyagi, Bhavuk Makkar, Arun Salaria, Rahul Kumar, Ramandeep Singh and Navneet Kumar. The team had Jujhar Singh and Rajesh Chaudhary as faculty advisors. It took them one year to develop the car, said Bahra. The team is now headed for the world super mileage competition to be held in Michigan, US, next month. The competition is organised by the Society of Automotive Engineers in the US. "We have modified the engine as per rules supplied by the competition organisers. The frame of the 65-kg car has been developed by using special grade aluminium. It has hydraulic disc brakes and a modified carburettor and fuel supply system. The car has a lightweight outer body shell with an aerodynamic structure. "All safety and ergonomics features have been taken into account. The car even has a self-designed battery re-charging system," said Aggarwal. The Rayat team will be the second Asian team to participate in the 28-year-old contest that will have competitors from 35 countries.

The next 400 years // poly bags

hi, if you find this massage is interesting, share with your friends The next 400 years// poly bags

A friend, true lover of nature, rejected the lures of five - star comfort to stay at a forest lodge located deep in one of the most popular jungles in our country. The cup of tea, offered in a plastic container caught his attention. Ever the man for detail, and lacking a satisfactory response to his question on plastic disposal, he undertook a reconnaissance walk around the building. The huge pit piled with plastic refuse, and cheetal deer foraging therein for food, was the depressing result of his investigations. Almost at the same time, I was undertaking a railway journey - my previous rail travel being over a decade ago. Mile after mile of plastic trash – strewn across open fields, clogging canals, polluting rail - side slums – the change (for the worse), was impossible to miss. It is estimated that globally, a million plastic bags are consumed every minute. India is a major contributor to this staggering statistic. This is a disaster already in the making. Why? Unfortunately, the list is long – but here is a flavour: • Choked Drains : Light poly-bags settle in drains. They cause backflow and water logging. Poly-bag induced water logging triggers off landslides in the mountains. • Soil Degradation : Poly-bags are non-porous and non-biodegradable. They obstruct free flow of water and air, choking the soil and suffocating plant roots. Toxic chemical additives cause soil quality degradation. • Animal Deaths : Cows eat poly-bags and die. National Geographic estimates that over 100,000 marine animal deaths per year are directly related to ingestion of plastic bags • Food Hazards : Most plastics today come from petrochemicals. Laboratory studies show that some of these chemicals are linked to cancer and kidney damage and may interfere with the reproductive system. • Mosquito Breeding : Stray poly-bags act as receptacles of water, sufficient enough for mosquito breeding. • Polluting Industry : Manufacture of poly-bags, mainly in small moulding shops, with no environmental standards involve hazardous materials and emit obnoxious gases posing serious problems for workers and the environment. • Disposal Hazards : If disposed through landfills, poly-bags continue to pollute soil for many years. If burnt they emit hazardous gases that pollute the air.

Crude Effect: You may be taxed to keep Oil price

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	2008-05-27 16:25:00
	Crude Effect: You may be taxed to keep Oil price Commodity Online NEW DELHI: The skyrocketing crude oil price may take away a small part of your monthly salary, soon. The Indian government is planning to introduce a surcharge on income tax and corporate tax to help oil firms gap their mounting losses. In the past few months, India's state-owned oil companies have been reeling under the rising crude oil prices across the globe. Companies like Indian Oil, ONGC and Bharat Petroleum have been incurring losses of several hundreds of crores as they continue to dole out subsidsed petrol, diesel and cooking gas to the people. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has convened several Cabinet meetings in the past few months in an attempt to hike the prices of petroleum products. But so far, the government has not yet mustered up the courage to increase the fuel prices thanks to political pressure from Left parties. The government fears that a steep hike in fuel prices will result in a political backlash, as the ruling Congress party is preparing for the general elections in the next one year. Already, Congress lost out to the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state elections in southern state of Karnataka last week. Faced with no alternative, the government is now considering levying a surcharge on income-tax and corporate tax to bailout oil firms that are reeling under high international oil prices. Officials said this was one of the proposals discussed when Petroleum Minister Murli Deora met Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday morning. Deora told reporters that they discussed various options but nothing has been decided. "We will take a decision on what to do with oil pricing very soon," he said. The government has also been considering to hike the prices of petroleum products. Officials in the Ministry of Petroleum had hinted on Monday that petrol prices will be hiked anything between Rs 10-Rs20 per litre soon. In India, petrol is currently being sold at a loss of Rs 16.34 a litre and diesel at Rs 23.49 per litre. Officials said deregulating petrol price would mean that its prices would move in tandem with global crude oil prices. The rise in global oil prices that last week touched an all time high of $135 a barrel has forced the government to consider options to save state-run firms that expect a revenue loss of Rs 200,000 crore (Rs 2000 billion) this fiscal on sale of petrol, diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene. Officials said deregulating petrol would lower the revenue losses by just Rs 20,000 crore (Rs 200 billion). Half of the current estimates are on account of diesel rates.

Crude Oil Prices Set to Double and Double Again! // part 2

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Crude Oil Prices Set to Double and Double Again!

s you can see, for illustrative purposes the ELM assumes that, after a country's oil production hits peak it will decline at a rate 5% annually, at the same time that local consumption increases by 2.5%. The red line then shows the impact those two metrics will have on the ability of the country to export its excess production. Using these assumptions, the ELM shows that exports reach zero in 9 years.

Real-world data shows that the metrics used in the ELM are quite conservative. The chart below plots the hypothetical ELM against the actual data from the United Kingdom and Indonesia. While the ELM forecast hypothesizes 9 years between peak to the end of exports, Indonesia's exports ceased 7 years after peak, and the UK's exports stopped just 6 years after peak.

The important take-away here is not that the UK and Indonesia are no longer receiving the oil export income of the good old days -- that is entirely a localized concern.

Rather it is that the global market is now deprived of those exports; between UK and Indonesia alone, the change over just the last decade amounts to a swing in the wrong direction of a total of 2 million barrels per day. And those are just two of a number of important countries which have swung from exporters to importers in recent years.

China, for example, became a net importer in 1993, the result of flattening production against skyrocketing consumption. Over the last decade alone, China's oil consumption has almost doubled, to about 8 million barrels a day, about half of which is now imported.

So, again, while people tend to focus on production, they are overlooking the impact on exports forecasted by the ELM. In the case of China, they went from a net exporter in 1993 to importing 4 million barrels a day today ... with those imports projected to rise another 50% over the next 10 years.

This is what is creating so much international competition for the remaining supplies of oil. And why the trend to higher energy prices is so well entrenched. And if the ELM is right, things are about to get far worse ... far sooner than most people expect.

The #3 Source of Oil to the US Is About to Go Offline

Mexico provides about 14% of the oil the US imports. On any given day that makes it either the #2 or #3 leading source for US oil imports after Canada and Saudi Arabia. Given that the US currently imports close to 70% of its oil needs, the Mexican oil is critical.

But here's the thing. Using straightforward ELM calculations, Jeffrey Brown is confident that Mexico will ship its last barrel of oil to the United States -- or anywhere else, for that matter -- about 6 years from now, in 2014. In a recent interview with Brown, I asked about this forecast.

"Mexico was consuming half of their production at peak in 2004. And if you look at the '05, '06, '07 data, they're basically on track, on average, to approach zero net oil exports no later than 2014," he confirmed.

Of course, the US is completely unprepared to replace this source of oil, especially considering the growing stresses on global oil supplies causing by ballooning demand from emerging markets. That means the international competition for available supplies is only going to get more desperate in the months and years ahead.

What will this mean to oil prices, according to Brown?

"From this point out I think we'll see a geometric progression in prices ... you know, $50, $100, $200, $400, whatever. The only question now is how short the periods will be between prices doubling again."

Coincidentally, while this report was in preparation, on April 30, 2008, PEMEX, Mexico's national oil company, announced it would be unable to fulfill this year's scheduled oil export obligations to the United States ... falling short by about 11%, or 184,000 barrels a day.

(As an aside, I also have to believe that Mexico's coming transition to a net importer and the loss of almost 6% of the country's GDP, now earned from exporting oil, will trigger serious social issues in that country. But that is another story for another day.)

The Even Bigger Picture

In my interview, I also asked Jeffrey to share his thoughts on the situation globally. Here's his response.

"Global production peaked in 2005, and we're now into the third year of decline. And the critical point to keep in mind is, our model and case histories show that the decline rate accelerates, year by year. Using the Lower 48 in the United States as an example, you can see the annual declines going 2%, 3%, 5%, 7%, 10%, 15%, 20, on and on. So it's an accelerating decline rate."

Underscoring Brown's concerns:

• On April 15, 2008 the Russians, the world's second largest oil exporter, announced that their oil production appeared to have peaked, with production in the first quarter of this year declining for the first time in a decade. If they have indeed peaked then, based on the ELM, the world could lose Russia's current ~7 million barrels a day in exports within 6 to 9 years.
• Echoing the baseline premise of the ELM, Herman Franssen, president of International Energy Associates, projects that Iran, the world's fifth largest exporter, may consume an amount equal to their exports by 2015. A prominent oil analyst, the late Dr. Ali Samsam Bakhtiari, estimated that Iran is either at or near peak.
• Most concerning, this April Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah announced they were not going to raise oil production above 12.5 million barrels a day. Commenting on the news, Tom Petrie, vice president of Merrill Lynch, said "King Abdullah's quote speaks to the fast-emerging reality of what I call 'practical peak oil.' The Saudis and other exporters are placing a new emphasis on elongating the petroleum exploitation and depletion cycle. This stems from a growing awareness of the challenges of conventional resource maturity, as well as rising resource nationalism. This is likely to result in an earlier occurrence of global peak oil output than many consumers yet recognize."

Summing it up, Brown told me that "The reality is that this thing is coming so much faster and so much harder than even most pessimists were expecting."

Rice & Oil: a Useful Comparable

For a useful way to think about energy exports and prices, Jeff Brown points to the current situation with global rice supplies.

As long as there are abundant local supplies, countries are happy, eager in fact, to export excess production in order to generate foreign exchange. But as soon as local consumption exceeds locally available production, then all hell breaks loose, and the next thing you know countries are banning exports, a move that has already been undertaken by Vietnam and a number of other countries.

In that scenario, price is eventually no longer a factor in the availability of the commodity. Vietnam, for example, is not going to let its people starve just because higher global prices would allow it to earn an extra $10 per bag of rice.

And so in the face of the prospect of any serious shortage of an important resource -- energy being maybe the most important - export markets freeze up and the price begins to be set at the margin, literally based on a global competition for the dwindling supplies that manage to leak out around the edges.

"People are crazy not to be focusing on the oil export situation," Dr. Brown told me.

Any White Knights on the Horizon?

Of course, the question of energy alternatives is a big topic and one which needs a far more extensive discussion than space allows for here.

Will viable alternatives be developed to help mitigate a domino collapse of oil exports? Absolutely. Of those alternatives, nuclear, solar, and heavy oil seem to hold the greatest promise.

But the sheer scope of the problem - with the world now consuming the energy equivalent of 1 billion barrels of oil every 5 days - assures that we are probably decades away from a real solution.

In the words of Jeff Brown:

"If you look at the situation in US presidential terms, looking at fossil fuels plus nuclear, the world burned through the equivalent of 10% of all oil ever consumed in Bush's first 4-year term. And, in our model, we're going to burn 10% of all remaining conventional crude in the second 4 years of Bush's term.

"That is the equivalent of around 25 billion barrels a year. So that's 100 billion barrels every four years, and we've burned 1,000 billion barrels. It gets interesting when you consider that current estimates are that we've only got 1,000 billion barrels of conventional crude remaining. I think with natural gas liquids, we've got a little bit more. But of the conventional crude oil, we've got 1,000 billion remaining. Which then begs the question, how fast can we bring on the tar sands and everything else?"

Grasping for straws, I asked Jeff about an article I had read recently about the Bakken oil shale reserves around North Dakota.

"They're talking about somewhere between 200 billion and 500 billion barrels in situ, but the USGS recently came out with a mean estimate of between 2.5 and 4.4 billion barrels recoverable, as an outer limit," he replied, before continuing:

"In 1966 they said, if Lower 48 ultimately recoverable is 150 billion barrels, then the US would peak in 1966. If the recoverable oil from the Lower 48 ultimately came in at 200 billion barrels, then the US peak would come in 1971. The higher-end estimate probably turned out to more accurate, and the U.S. peaked in 1970. But the point is this: a one-third increase of estimated ultimate recoverable - a total increase of 50 billion barrels - postponed the peak by all of 5 years."

Rigging for Persistent High Energy Prices

The trend for sustained higher energy prices appears solidly in motion. If Brown and the ELM are correct, energy prices will double, then double again.

Even if he is wrong and prices don't rise geometrically, the global dogfight to replace declining supplies - decidedly exacerbated by the loss of Mexican and maybe Russian (and ??) exports in the near future - is going to get ugly and expensive.

So, what's the investment angle? Paradoxically, the larger energy companies are probably a bad bet, because they are forced to replace their depleting reserves, which is getting harder and more expensive to do with each passing day.

It is our contention that, because the solutions to the world's energy problems are going to involve a variety of energy sources and technologies, you have to build a portfolio that is equally varied.

That assures you are well positioned to profit from the broader trend, while avoiding the risks of being overly exposed to a single sector. (As an example, solar has had a great run, but most solar plays are now overvalued.)

The good news is that there are no shortage of high-quality energy-related investments available ... in coal, heavy oil, LNG, photovoltaics, natural gas consolidators, "run of river" hydroelectric, uranium, and small to mid-cap oil companies with the potential for significant near-term gains in reserves or production.

In the final analysis, it comes down to two choices: you can either suffer the consequences of persistent higher energy prices, or use the work Jeffrey Brown has done with the Export Land Model as an early warning and get positioned to profit.

The decision is yours, but don't wait long to make it.

David Galland is the Managing Director of Casey Research, publishers of the Casey Energy Speculator , a comprehensive newsletter dedicated to helping individuals and institutions uncover today's most undervalued and compelling energy investments. A no-risk three-month trial subscription is available that allows you to access all current recommendations and to decide for yourself if the service is right for you. Learn more by clicking here now .

Your believing the cure for high prices is high prices analyst,

Crude Oil Prices Set to Double and Double Again// part1

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Goldman Sachs recently forecasted that oil would be at $141 a barrel by the end of the year, and rising to $200 a barrel in the not too distant future. I have seen other forecasts calling for oil to slip significantly under $100 a barrel before starting yet another bull market.

I have written for years that we are not going to run out of oil or energy, just cheap oil. I was just in South Africa, where much of their gas and diesel comes from coal gasification. At one time this was an expensive way to make gas, and South Africans had to pay more for their gas than the rest of the world. Now, it is getting close to "par" to the cost of gas in the US, and is cheaper than gas in Europe.

In this week's Outside the Box, my friend David Galland at Casey Research presents some very troubling thoughts on why oil may rise higher than we think in the next few years. Many of the countries from which the US gets its oil are seeing production fall, not rise. Some of it is political ineptitude, but much of it is from oil production peaking.

Yes, we can move to coal gasification, and the US has centuries of coal for such purposes, but building such plants takes time and capital and political will, the latter of which is in short supply. In the meantime, and until we get a full-blown crisis, oil is going to continue on its path to $200 and higher. But such a rise will not only make gasoline prices higher, it will make a host of new technologies competitive for the first time. The shift in how we make energy is inevitable.

As a quick aside, if we would start a project to build a massive nuclear infrastructure, such as in France, which produces 80% of its energy from nuclear, while at the same time pushing ahead in a Manhattan-type project the development of electric cars (or some hybrid), we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil and lower travel costs by the middle to the end of the next decade. And the environment would be cleaner and safer.

We are headed to such a future. It would be nice if we did it sooner rather than wait for a real crisis. But in the meantime, the price of oil is going to rise and opportunities for investors will rise along with it. My friends at Casey Research publish an excellent newsletter highlighting the opportunities not just in exploration companies but in all manner of energy-related firms. As David writes:

"The good news is that there are no shortage of high-quality energy-related investments available ... in coal, heavy oil, LNG, photovoltaics, natural gas consolidators, "run of river" hydroelectric, uranium and small to mid-cap oil companies with the potential for significant near-term gains in reserves or production."

They have agreed to give my readers a risk-free three-month trial to the Casey Energy Speculator. If you like the research you read below and want more of it, you can click on this link and subscribe .

And now let's see one of the main reasons why the price of oil is going up.

John Mauldin, Editor Outside the Box

What the Export Land Model Means for Energy Prices By David Galland, Managing Director Casey Research - Casey Energy Speculator

Jeffrey Brown is someone you should know. That's because he can help you understand today's high energy prices and that, as an investor, can make you a lot of money.

I'll introduce to you to Jeff Brown in a moment. But first, as it's relevant to the discussion, I want to touch on an important concept related to investing in challenging times.

You might call it "the Davy Crockett principle" in honor of something that American icon said during the War of 1812: "Be sure you are right and then go ahead."

Simply, it's critical to step away from all the noise and clutter that passes for knowledge on the financial talk shows, and take the time to be very sure you are investing in close concert with a powerful unfolding trend. That accomplished, come what may, you'll come out okay once the dust has settled.

And the earlier you can get on board with a trend, the more money you can make.

In fact, Casey Research chief economist Bud Conrad has shown how, by making just four trades over the last four decades -- into exactly the right sector at the beginning of a strong new trend -- you could have turned $35 into $150,000. Or $350 into $1,500,000 ... or $3,500 into $15 million. And that assumes you don't use leverage. Toss in some options or futures and the returns run exponentially higher. Here's the chart.

While it is unlikely anyone actually made those exact trades, it is a certainty that many investors got in early on one or more of those big moves.

(Interestingly, replacing the last trade -- the move into crude -- with gold produces a final number of $131,496. Proving there is more than one path to the top.)

The key point I'm trying to make is simple: focusing your investments on big trends is a big leg up in your quest for investment success. By then digging in to find the right opportunities, whether they be in commodities or undervalued companies that benefit from those trends, assures you earn returns that are well above average.

More importantly, in the context of the current market environment, the combination of the right investment in the right trend makes your portfolio bullet-proof.

Which brings me to the work being done by Jeffrey Brown, a professional geoscientist with an avid academic and professional interest in something called the Export Land Model .

Turning off the Taps

You don't have to have an awful lot of gray hair to remember the excitement around England's massive North Sea oil fields. While discovered in 1969, it wasn't until well into the 1980s, on the back of surging oil prices, that the fields came into full production. Turning up the taps, the United Kingdom (as well as Norway and Germany, who also have North Sea production) became a significant exporter of oil.

But then, in 1999, something happened: the UK's North Sea production hit peak ... that tipping point after which reservoirs go into decline, setting in motion both reduced production and progressively higher costs related to extracting the remaining oil.

While the experience of North Sea oil production provides yet another useful example of the validity of the Peak Oil theory, what concerns us today is a critical but usually overlooked aspect of the discussion, exports.

At the time the North Sea peaked in 1999, the U.K. was exporting 1 million barrels of oil per day. By August 2004, it had become a net importer. What happened to cause the situation to turn around so quickly?

The Export Land Model

To understand the importance of exports when discussing peak oil, ask yourself the question, "What's more important: the fact that global oil production is falling ... or that the oil-exporting nations are cutting off their exports?"

While the two questions are clearly linked, it is the nuance of the export question that clearly matters the most. Especially if you live in a country such as the US, which currently imports about 70% of its oil.

Which brings us to the Export Land Model (or ELM, as I will refer to it from here). The basic thesis expressed by Jeff Brown and other students of the ELM is that, to fully appreciate the impact of peak oil, you cannot look only at the production declines so presciently anticipated by MK Hubbard in 1956. You also have to look at the rate of local consumption and the effect of that consumption on the ability of a country to export its oil.

The following ELM graph looks at both sides of the equation, and the result as it applies to exports:

stock market // asper astrology //Astrology: Bulls in crude oil; Bears in stock market

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	2008-05-26 08:50:00
	Astrology: Bulls in crude oil; Bears in stock market By Major Ajay As per financial numerology 21st week of year 2008 represents Jupiter. Jupier brings highest volatility in world future market through banking news. During this week Sun is with Mercury and Venus, Jupiter in his own sign, Mars with Ketu in "KARAK” Rashi. All these combinations and conjunctions may show highest volatility in world stock markets. Volatility may start from US stock market followed by European and Asian stock market. As per stars this week may start with flat to positive note with expectation of relaxation to the FIIs for investment in Indian market. Metal and bullion may also show strong upward movement in world commodity market. Stars say crude oil bulls may also come back during last 2 days of the week. Business astrology says that Bears may come back in Indian stock market in middle of the week. Metal especially copper may shoot up around 28th May 2008 onward. This sudden change will surprise all metal stocks also. Astrology says special attentions to be paid on Sterlite Ind from middle of the week in Indian stock market. Stock Market As per astro-technical calculations, this week is expected to open with flat to positive note in Indian stock market. Heavy volatility and profit booking is expected from middle of the week. Therefore, traders are advised to book profit at every higher levels. Mid term investors are suggested to keep buying in small batch at every lower level. Remember day traders are advised not take big risk in long positions from middle of the week. Since stars do not support upward one side movement in Indian stock market. Day traders may observes shipping, telecommunications, Oil and Gas, pharma sector for day trading. Special attations may pay on VIDEOCON IND, MYSORE PETRO, PRAJ IND IFCI, GE SHIPPING, SCI, ESSAR SHIPPING etc for short term investment. Important Sector Watch: Shipping, Tele-communications, Oil and Gas Nifty Levels Nifty Resistance 5000 5066 5144 Nifty Support 4922 4888 4822 Investors may trade in Nifty according to these levels Commodities Crude Oil: As per stars crude oil is expected to show volatility trend this week. Crude oil resistance levels US$ 134 to US$137 per barrel and support levels USD 129 or 124 per barrel in world future market. Upward movement is expected in last 2 days in crude oil. Metal: Stars support upward movement in copper, Zinc from middle of the week. Forex: As per planets British Pounds are expected to show weakness against US Dollars any time.

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4 Reasons Why Female Orgasms Are So Hard To Achieve

There seems to be a conspiracy. Men want women to climax, women want to climax. So why is that, according to studies, about 70% of women never reach an orgasm during intercourse?

We can of course focus on other methods women can orgasm (e.g., oral sex, fingering, etc.) but even those may not be enough to giver her an orgasm if she has negative sexual issues with herself.

Female Orgasm Difficulty #1: Shyness

One of the main things that prohibit women to let go between the sheets is good ol’ fashioned shyness. If this is what’s stopping your woman from reaching an orgasm, then there plenty enough ways to help her out.

For one, dim the lights or turn them off if that’s what she prefers. Many women have body and weight issues so the harsh reality of being naked in front of you will not only make her uncomfortable but make her mind focus on the wrong things (i.e., how she looks versus the pleasures her body’s getting).

Another way you can help her out is by actually encouraging her to keep her top on. Tell her how you like seeing her nipples hard and straining against her shirt or lingerie. This will make her think she’s doing you a favor by not removing her top, and help her be less self-conscious at the same time.

Female Orgasm Difficulty #2: Performance Issues

She knows she’s not your first and sometimes, this thought gives rise to nagging performance issues between the sheets. How does she compare to all your other love interests? Well, put her fears to rest and make her focus on reaching her own orgasm by compliment her or whispering her name often while making love.

Female Orgasm Difficulty #3: Physical Pain

Not everything you read or see in X-rated films is what they’re made out to be. A seemingly hot sexual position may actually be causing her a physical discomfort and may not be sexually stimulating at all.

So pay attention to how she REALLY reacts when you try out new moves in bed. If sexual position is not the cause of any physical discomfort she feels, a visit to a doctor may be necessary.

Female Orgasm Difficulty #4: Past Negative Experiences

A bad experience with a former flame may also be inhibiting your woman to let go and enjoy the pleasures of sex with you. For instance, one woman had a former boyfriend confess to her that she smelled funny down there.

This bothered the woman so much that long after the boyfriend had gone, she has never allowed anyone to perform oral sex on her again. Worse, she was so focused on this ‘bad thing’ that sex altogether became unpleasant and she was starting to wonder if she was frigid.

If you notice anything like this with your woman, discuss it while re-assuring her all the while that you do like making love to her and that all you want to do is make her experience the same physical pleasures you’re experiencing. It’s worth the sh

When Good Physic makes You Ugly !! (RARE IMAGES)

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When Good Physic makes You Ugly !! (RARE IMAGES)

Why India's Housing Bubble Similar to Japan's

hi, if you find this massage is interesting, share with your friends Why India's Housing Bubble Similar to Japan's A housing bubble is in place when property rates start rising at double-digit rates, and people start taking loans to invest in property, with the idea that the loan can be paid back easily and the property sold at a profit.

Once the bubble is burst, the property is worth a fraction of its purchase price and people get left behind with a negative asset, where the EMI is higher than what the asset can earn in a month. In such a situation, the balance outstanding loan cannot be paid off even if the asset is sold.

Japan is an excellent example of a housing bubble that went horribly wrong, and it has a glaring similarity to what is happening in India.

Read on and identify the similarities:

The Japanese real estate market boomed from 1985 to its peak sometime in early 1991.

During this time, Japan’s property prices rose much faster and more steeply as speculators used paper profits from a booming stock market to invest in property, insupportably leveraging the prices of both higher and higher.

The biggest speculators in Japan's frenzy were deep-pocketed corporations, and they pumped up the commercial property market at the same time that home prices were inflating.

Japan suffered one of the biggest property market collapses in modern history. At the market’s peak in 1991, all the land in Japan, a country the size of California, was worth about $18 trillion, or almost four times the value of all property in the United States at the time. A commonly-quoted claim was that the land beneath the Imperial Palace in Tokyo was worth more than the entire state of California.

Then came the crashes in both stocks and property, after the Japanese central bank moved too aggressively to raise interest rates. Both markets spiraled downward as investors sold stocks to cover losses in the land market, and vice versa, plunging prices into a 14-year trough. In 2005, the land in Japan was worth less than half its 1991 peak, while property in the United States has more than tripled in value, to about $17 trillion.

Homeowners were among the biggest victims of the Japanese real estate bubble. In Japan’s six largest cities, residential prices dropped 64 percent from 1991 to 2004. By most estimates, millions of homebuyers took substantial losses on the largest purchase of their lives.

By 2004, a prime “A” property in Tokyo's financial districts were less than 1/100th of their peak, and Tokyo’'s residential homes were 1/10th of their peak, and even at this time they were considered to be listed as the most expensive real estate in the world. At the end of the Japanese housing bubble, some $20 trillion (1999 dollars) was wiped out with the combined collapse of the real estate market and the Tokyo stock market.

Read next story in this series: Myth: Prices Will Keep Rising Forever

This article has been developed from the October 2005 issues of the New York Times. You can read it here

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gvr said...

Property Trouble? ARCHIVES | EQUITYMASTER HOMEPAGE 24TH APRIL 2008 In July 2006 I made a prediction: property prices in India will decline by 25% to 40% over the next 9 months. By July 2007, property prices had increased somewhere in the region of 20% to 30%. So much for my prediction. So much for sensible analysis. The property markets were in frenzy in 2006 and 2007. Large developers were listing their stocks via IPO’s and they were all lapped up. Well-paid analysts were talking about the embedded Net Asset Value in the stocks of these property developers and the land bank they all owned. The SEZ policy is the equivalent of the industrial license raj that ruled - and ruined -India’s economy till 1991. Land was acquired at maybe Rs. 10 per square foot. A few approvals later, the land was re-zoned and re-born as a pretty garden villa real estate project selling at Rs. 4,000 per square foot. The magic of the Indian rope trick. The magic of an opaque approval process. Land barons were born. They made it to the mega rich league of the market cap charts. Investing in India: real estate is overpriced? Sam Zell, the legendary real estate developer and investor from USA, gave a talk at a conference in Bombay in December 2006. Not more than 5 feet 6 inches in height, he stood above the frenzy of the crowd. Sam Zell had just sold his company, Equity Office, to the private equity firm, Blackstone, for some USD 35 billion in November 2006. Why are you selling Sam? - all the commentators seemed to be asking him - the US economy has a long way to run. I can picture Mr. Zell smiling in silence as he collected his cash. He sold out at a level that - in hindsight - was the peak of the US property market cycle. ADVERTISEMENT Your Family’s Future Depends On This. Read Now "There is no shortage of land in India", declared Sam Zell, "there is only a shortage of zoned land". Read that statement carefully. Read it again. And think of the SEZ policies and the land grab. Sure, India has a demand for some 20 million homes and some 5 million office units and some 200,000 hotel rooms. And schools and colleges to educate the one hundred million young children. And hospitals to take care of the 100 million elderly people in the country as they age in a changing society where the children don’t live with them anymore. And we need many more cricket stadiums to watch overpaid cricketers sell you some TV sets, washing machines, and mobile phones. A back of the envelope estimate indicates that India needs to build some 3 billion square feet of property in the next 5 years to partially meet some of this demand. How much is that? Well, visualise Nariman Point. And now imagine that we have to build a string of Nariman Points from Bombay to Bangalore. There is enough land to construct all of that. The shortage is in the zoned land. This is a man-made shortage. A shortage created by policy. Just as India had to suffer for 20 years with a regime that forced us to buy the Premier Padmini and the Ambassador - and we had to wait 3 years to get the cars delivered. At the end of the wait, we got a useless product for a lot of money. And Premier and Ambassador were profitable companies - whether their profits were declared in cash or cheque. Just like the sheltered real estate developers. Land is in abundant supply. There is some special mechanism to convert this useless land to useful, zoned land. My colleagues in our real estate arm tell me that there are 62 approvals required to get useless, un-zoned land converted into an end product that we can live on. Artificial barriers have created an artificial price of the end product. And this leads to a strange end market at today’s prices. The very rich can buy any property anywhere in the world - or any city in India. The rich can afford to buy one nice home in any one city. The middle class cannot really afford to buy in many cities. The poor have no hope of buying anything. ADVERTISEMENT

Bangalore realty today

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Bangalore Set on Ghost Town Path

"Bangalore realty developers have lost their heads," a senior contact in one of the Big audit firms told me. "They are providing their foreign investors with dreams of 100%, returns, by claiming ownership of lands they do not have in their possession," he added. This may well send Bangalore, known as the IT capital of India, and before this, as the city of gardens, into becoming India's first city of ghost towns. Large projects in areas like Whitefield may soon be dotted with half-completed projects, leaving investors and home buyers in a state of limbo. Many developers in Bangalore, who cannot be named, have invested in land by buying what can be called call options. They have paid a premium (or earnest money) of Rs 2 crore for purchase of land worth Rs 100 crore, and have signed up intent to purchase, developing project reports that show them as owners of these properties. The objective is simple. Once the foreign capital comes in, the money is used to pay the land owner. This may be one of the main reasons that was driving up land prices around Bangalore. Now, with a serious credit contraction in the US, most of this foreign capital has slowed down, as a result of which, we could soon see many such mega projects stalled. Bangalore, as I have said earlier, has already cracked about 40% in some areas, specifically Whitefield, and if this credit squeeze continues for another quarter, developers themselves would be seen scurrying for cover. It is only a matter of time foreign investors get wind of this scheme, which is developed by young managers of audit firm, freelancing for 3% - called carry - and local developers. Of course, the main objective is to list the company, and exit by palming of expensive stock in to the hands of retail investors, but with the IPO market in doldrums, its a matter of time before Bangalore becomes city of ghost towns instead of gardens.

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Realty: Greater Fool Theory in Slow Motion

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Realty: Greater Fool Theory in Slow Motion

Ever wondered why rates of homes are spiralling each month, despite large tracts of buildings remaining unoccupied? Several like Keki Mistry, MD of HDFC, say prices in India are 3 times more affordable than in the US and around the world. Basically, has Mr. Mistry lost his nuts? I have friends who earn more than Rs 25-50 lakh a year, and yet cringe at paying an EMI of Rs 1 lakh a month. And as someone said, try getting a 800-square feet home in Andheri and Goregaon (suburbs of Mumbai) for less than Rs 60 lakh (Rs 6 million). Everytime, the markets go up, Mistry and others talk of these ubiquitous genuine buyers driving up prices. This is definitely not true, because these so-called genuine buyers have themselves become speculators. The second reason they give is that the arrival of cheap home loans have made housing more accessible. This is indeed true, yet, not completely responsible for this manic rise of 300%. Contrast this to 1995. There were no home loans then, yet prices were driven up to what they are at current levels in India. Then came the huge fall where a correction went to almost 50-60%, and during this time, home loans were amply available; yet they did not take the market up. So somewhere we are missing out an important fact. Fact is, real estate is not being driven up by availability of cheap home loans or genuine buyers, but by the same bunch of speculators/investors who buy "call options" on homes - i .e. they book 100 flats by paying the price of one flat at booking time. A month or two later, the building is advertised to retail buyers. When these buyers approach the builder, they are told that the project is already full, but a flat is available only on resale. However, retail buyers, either driven by desperation for a home, or by sheer desire to make capital gains on a perpetually rising-in-value asset, are forced in to a purchase. It's the greater fool theory, in slow motion. This cycle was excellent as long as speculators could access easy money from the profits of stock markets and pump it in to real estate. However, this cycle now has faced a massive discontinuity -- the effect of which will become evident in April 2008. Huge losses in the stock markets and the subsequent broker payment crises of January 2008 will rear their ugly heads on these housing industry speculators at the end of March 2008. In May 2008, professionals will see their salaries cut, as is evident in the IT industry, which will turn in to less demand for new rentals and home purchases, since professionals buy homes in the May-June timeframe, after looking at their raises and perks in March. The next year, we will bear witness to a painful downturn in real estate prices, as current projects will experience a massive slowdown. An interestin phenomenon in the US is the emergence of "ghost towns", where large swathes of row houses and condiminiums have been abandoned by buyers who cannot afford the EMIs any more, as they see the cost of their homes fall to half of what they were when they purchased them. I will not be surprised to see this phenomenon here in India too. In the 1995 boom, we did not have massive projects like townships, cities etc. Today in 2008, real estate companies, flush with funds, are developing entire cities and towns. The main indicator is the advertisement of BL Properties of the UAE, which was advertising its Lakeview project in Mumbai newspapers. These chaps are selling "Ajman" a desolate emirate in UAE as a potential suburb of Mumbai. Now, I have heard of good salesmen selling snow to the Eskimo and sand to the Arab. However, this is the first instance of me seeing an Arab selling sand to an Indian. As I see it -- either Indians are super rich, super fools, or the real estate market has truly hit the peak

The Maya of Mumbai Real Estate Deals

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Saffron Group Talks Long-Term in Real Estate Now

The biggest real estate private equity fund invested in India, the Saffron Group, is now talking long-term about Indian real estate.

How many times has this happened in your life? You bought shares of a company in the hope of gaining 30% in a couple of months, and you waxed eloquently its virtues at a South Mumbai champagne party. You woke up groggy-eyed next morning, and winced as you found out that the stock you hold has crumbled 20%.

You are not worried, you tell yourself, because you have purchased these shares for the long term. Now, you are quoting Warren Buffet and how he made his billions holding on to good stocks. In the long term - never mind Keynes says we are all dead - you convince yourself, your share is sure to return 5 times. If you are sheepishly reading this and saying: Touche, how true; you are not to be ashamed. You are now in blue-blooded company; for some of the astute investors in Indian real estate, Saffron Group, said that it will remain put for a minimum of five years in upcoming properties and will buy out assets with assured rental income.

"Our strategy is to be a leading player in the field. We don't have any short-term view. The industry is growing and it will yield better results for another 10-15 years," Kapoor said. This means just one thing: upcoming projects are not expected to return in less than 5 years, and Saffron is waiting in the wings to pick up distress sales of properties. The Group, a brain-child of Ajoy Veer Kapoor and his peers from the banking fraternity, is the promoter of Euronext-listed Yatra Capital, an India-focused real estate fund. Yatra Capital has already raised $260 million in the Indian real estate market. A $350-450 million unlisted real estate fund, launched in February 2008, had an anchor investment of $75 million from Standard Life UK. It is expected to close by the end of 2008.

If you just purchased real estate in India, hold on to your property for the next 10-15 years, for gone are the super returns of 2004-07. No more 30% each year. For that matter, considering an 8 percent inflation tick-in, your interest rate on the home loan is certain to rise further.

Barclays Bank Pays Ludicrous Rent for Worli Office

Barclays Bank, a major global financial services provider, and Britain’s third-largest bank, has done a ludicrous rental deal for office space in Mumbai, where it has ended up agreeing to pay Rs 1.08 crore per month for a 15,000 sq ft office space. In the same quarter, the financial institution saw its Q1 profits fall, suffering a 1.0 billion-pound (1.25 billion-euro, 1.95 billion-dollar) hit from the global credit crunch. Earlier, the UK bank had announced £1.7 billion ($3.3 billion) in new write-downs amid speculation that it was preparing for a rights issue, to strengthen its capital position. Yet, the same bank has gone ahead and closed a ludicrous lease deal in Worli, Mumbai, where it is said to have paid Rs 725 per sq ft for 15,000 sq ft office space in an apartment block called Ceejay House (pictured left). This, at a time, when Citibank, in a bid to resurrect itself from the subprime crisis, is selling off global properties, including ones in Mumbai's poshest areas. This deal is particularly intriguing, considering it is unimaginable that a bank like Barclays would pay such a high rate, which even seasonsed real estate professionals in Mumbai are calling a "freak deal". The devil of course would appear in the details of the deal, not much of which has been reported. For one, Barclays already occupies 60,000 sq ft, in the same building, which it leased or purchased (we are not sure) in 2006. Interestingly, we do not know what rate Barclays has paid for the earlier deal, and whether the current deal includes the renewal of the older property. Property deals can include many things that do not get recorded in the lease document. One of my imaginative scenarios are as follows:

• Pay Rs 725 per sq ft for 15,000 sq ft but get the 60,000 sq ft. space for free.
• Pay Rs 725 per sq ft for 5 years and get another 5 years free.

These are shenanigans of the real estate lobby to create an illusion that real estate is a great investment. As an aside, Ceejay House is adjacent to Poonam Chambers, occupied by NCP minister and aviation minister, Praful Patel, whose duplex and swimming pool spans over 35,000 square feet.

This story appeared in the Mumbai edition of The Times of India, dated March 24, 2008. Surprisingly it was not found online on the web site, at the time of writing this post.

The Maya of Mumbai Real Estate Deals

It's a season of contradictions, and manipulations. While those with excess money are splurging on apartments, others despite their money, have nothing to own. The skewed Mumbai apartment markets has become a haven for either the super-rich or the denizens of the slums. The real estate market, perched on a precarious ledge, is about to topple, but this does not mean there is respite for middle-class home buyers. And this means, that unlike 1995, the real estate industry is using all the ammunition in its arsenal, to make sure that the illusion of real estate industry growth persists for some more time. Citibank, in a bid, to shore up money for its beleagured US operations, is selling all its expensive properties in Mumbai, and at the same time film actors and finance company executives are moving their excess cash in to apartments and property. Vinod Khanna, yesteryears's film actor and Osho devotee, has paid Rs 1.2 lakh a square feet for an 2,400 sq ft apartment in Mumbai's Malabar Hill building, built in 1972, called Il Palazzo. The apartment, whose total cost is Rs 30 crore, was sold by the usual suspect Citibank. The sale was done at an auction held at its office in Bandra-Kurla Complex, and particpants included former Citi India chief, Jerry Rao, and others. As the reporter quipped, each tile of this apartment is more expensive than a Nano car. Il Palazzo has another famous resident, i.e. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, who purchased an apartment for Rs 25 crore in 2006. Citi has been on a selling spree of Mumbai apartments since 2007. It had also sold an apartment in the NCPA Building, Nariman Point, for Rs 97,900 a sq ft to a London-based NRI. Unrealted to Citibank, an apartment at Rs 90,000 a sq ft, in Usha Kiran, another 1970's building on Carmichael Road, which is in the same area as the new Mukesh Ambani tower, Antilla. The sale was supposedly made to an executive of Indiabulls, as mentioned by the owner Nirmal Zaveri, of Tribhivandas Bhimji Zaveri, for Rs 27 crore, but there have been no confirmations on the identity of the buyer. Zaveri himself plans to move to a neighboring and cheaper Villa Orb tower, where rates are at Rs 55,000 and Rs 65,000 per sq ft. Aamir Khan, has agreed to pay Rs 33 crore, to pick up an entire housing society building in Santacruz, Mumbai. His objective: build an entire studio on the plot. The society was built around 32 years ago for SBI employees. There are 22 apartments in this complex, and each would get Rs 1.5 crore for their 730 sq ft home. In another development, Barclays Bank, negotiated a lease deal of Rs 1 crore a month, for occupying 15,000 sq ft, in CeeJay House, Worli, the rent working out to Rs 745 per sq ft. Barclays already occupies 60,000 sq ft, in the same building, but there is no comment on whether this previously occupied space is owned or leased. Further, the current lease details have not been specified, hence any add-ons, freebies, or back-end rebates in cash, cannot be detected. The magicians of the real estate business, providing back-end rebates, cheap funding with interest rate write-offs, and other tactics, are creating the ultimate illusion for the local-train traveler, that housing is the best business to put their money in to. Unfortunately, one just needs to check the sources of funds, to realize how the net cost of the apartment sold and rented is actually far less than what is made public through newspapers. P.S: There appears to be a huge demand for buildings around 30 years old. This appears to be a common thread through the entire Mumbai belt, and considering that apartments are being picked up by politicians, finance company heads, and film actors, it appears that some Maharashtra government ruling is expected for redevelopment of buildings over 30 years old.

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Santa Cruz Man Loses Shirt (and Everything Else) in Realty Bust

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Santa Cruz Man Loses Shirt (and Everything Else) in Realty Bust

Drunk on the real estate mania, splurging on negative amortization loans, and staying invested in denial, has finally left a Santa Cruz (Calif., US) man naked and playing in the sand.

Steven Forgaard, 37, [not the person in the picture] has defaulted on nine homes and expects the banks to close all of them. He now says he considers it a mistake to have invested in the real estate market.

Forgaard – a software project manager – has become an insignia for all Bangalore software professionals who have done exactly the same, and stand to face a similar future in 6-8 months.

"I knew I was sitting on time bombs," Forgaard said. “I knew the market was going to go soft and I knew that property values would decline. But I figured that I had enough equity to survive the storm and sell or take the loss and refinance. I didn't anticipate a downturn of epic proportions such that home values are 40 percent less than they were,” he said.

Forgaard bought his first investment home in the booming housing market of North Las Vegas in 2004, followed in the next two years by eight others in such hot markets as Phoenix and Palm Springs, California, before he realized in 2006 that the situation was worse than he had feared. “I knew that the market was soft but at that point I'm realizing that this could really get ugly,” he said. “At that point I had a bad feeling in my stomach.” Forgaard thought he still had enough equity in the homes to “take a huge hit,” possibly losing most of his investment, but thought for a while that he could still ride out the storm. He is slated to lose his car and primary (home) and will have to exit Santa Cruz, where he was born and raised, and live by the beach.

Experts say speculators like Forgaard, who count on real estate values to keep rising to pay off their debt, play a risky game and doubly so when they use neg-am loans. The Forgaards likely will sell their Santa Cruz home and declare bankruptcy before banks start foreclosing on his properties. With a newborn son, they intend to start over in his wife's Northern California hometown. “Where I went wrong is I invested heavily in an area that wasn't my passion and I had a really demanding full-time job so I couldn't pay attention to nuances, the little indicators telling you the housing market was going soft," he said. "I was in over my head."

Read the Reuters story here