More boring stuff from the Net :|

• New Concern About Cuts in Oil Investment – NYTimes.com
  “Seven consecutive years of rising oil prices — unprecedented in the history of the oil industry — have come crashing down, thus burying the notion that the commodity price cycle was a historical relic,” said the report, a field-by-field study of production trends.

  Many experts have voiced even darker concerns in recent months. Christophe de Margerie, the chief executive of French oil company Total, recently said that producers would find it challenging to bolster supplies even to 90 million barrels a day by the middle of the next decade as projects get canceled.

  (tags: oil)
• Why Foreign Aid Is Hurting Africa – WSJ.com
  Then there is the issue of "Dutch disease," a term that describes how large inflows of money can kill off a country's export sector, by driving up home prices and thus making their goods too expensive for export. Aid has the same effect. Large dollar-denominated aid windfalls that envelop fragile developing economies cause the domestic currency to strengthen against foreign currencies. This is catastrophic for jobs in the poor country where people's livelihoods depend on being relatively competitive in the global market.
  (tags: africa)

More boring stuff from the Net :|

• China Tightens Purse Strings in Guinea and Other African Nations – NYTimes.com
  With a no-strings-attached approach and a strong appetite for risk, China seemed to offer Africa a complete economic and political alternative to the heavily conditioned aid and economic restructuring that Western countries and international aid agencies pressed on Africa for years, often with uninspiring consequences. Rising China, seeking friends and resources, seemed to be issuing blank checks.

  Today, China’s quest for commodities has not stalled. State-owned companies are bargain-hunting for copper and iron ore in more stable places like Zambia and Liberia. But Chinese companies are now driving harder bargains and avoiding some of the most chaotic corners of the continent. African governments facing falling revenues are realizing that they may still need the West’s help after all.

  (tags: china)

2008 Top Hedge Fund Moneymakers

George Soros again! This guy's a master in downtimes!!!

1 – James Simons, Renaissance Technologies Corp, $2.5 billion
2 – John Paulson, Paulson & Co, $2 billion
3 – John Arnold, Centaurus Energy, $1.5 billion
4 – George Soros, Soros Fund Management, $1.1 billion
5 – Raymond Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, $780 million
6 – Bruce Kovner, Caxton Associates, $640 million
7 – David Shaw, D.E. Shaw & Co, $275 million
8 – Stanley Druckenmiller, Duquesne Capital Management, $260 million
9 – (tie) David Harding, Winton Capital Management, $250 million
9 – (tie) Alan Howard, Brevan Howard Asset Management, $250 million
9 – (tie) John Taylor Jr, FX Concepts, $250 million
12 – James Chanos, Kynikos Associates
13 – Michael Platt, BlueCrest Capital Management
14 – Roy Niederhoffer, R.G. Niederhoffer Capital Management
15 – John Horseman, Horseman Capital Management
16 – Paul Touradji, Touradji Capital Management
17 – Henry Laufer, Renaissance Technologies Corp.
18 – Kenneth Tropin, Graham Capital Management
19 – (tie) Pierre Andurand, Dennis Crema, BlueGold Capital Management
19 – (tie) Christopher Rokos, Brevan Howard Asset Management
22 – (tie) Christian Baha, Superfund
22 – (tie) Christian Levett, Clive Capital
24 – William Dunn, Dunn Capital Management
25 – Andrew Hoine, Paulson & Co.

More boring stuff from the Net :|

• Why Microsoft Continues to Chase Internet Search – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com
  “There are only three things on the Internet that have made money: Amazon, eBay and Google,” he said. “If we’re going to make a lot of money on the Internet, we’ll have to challenge Google in search.”

  Mr. Ballmer added that when individuals use Microsoft products, it helps sales to business.

  “Getting people hooked on using Office in a collaborative mode at home is super-important to getting them to use it that way at work,” he said. “If you lose the consumer, you lose the enterprise.”

  (tags: tech)

More boring stuff from the Net :|

• The McGangBang: a McChicken Sandwich Inside a Double Cheeseburger [a chronicle] – Eat me daily
  The McGangBang ranks up there in the holy pantheon of WTF. It's a sandwich made from a double cheeseburger and a McChicken sandwich — where you put an entire McChicken sandwich inside a double cheeseburger. It's a creative manipulation of existing menu items, and an exercise in frugality: taking two items off of the Dollar Menu and creating an entirely new sandwich for a total of $2.16.
  (tags: food)