It seems like there will be more than enough to cover by the year’s end regarding issues both political and economic. As a recap, I took the time to compile a list of milestones that define the time/space continuum between January and April 2008.
At the start of January, the U.S. Presidential Elections was already under the media spotlight. The first dozen primaries served as a sorting process for the candidates, calling for some to declare their withdrawl and others to feel confident that they may in fact gain their party’s nomination. For the Democrats, its left Clinton and Obama warring with one up and until this very day and for Republicans, its left McCain with no contender for the nomination. With regards to major controversies, McCain has only been pestered with the question of actual citizenship (since he was born and raised on a military base near the
On matters regarding economics, December ’07 and January ’08 were like day and night. The media started getting a hint a foreclosure rates, but those numbers were confirmed in late march sending a panic through the housing industry. Later onward, it was realized that those very same mortgage defaults had been bundled into financial instruments called Collateral Debt Obligations (CDOs) which were sold of to investors who really didn’t understand the risk entailed with those securities. In response, the Federal Reserve surprisingly lowered interest rates and tried to facilitate more liquidity. When a major investment bank by the name of Bear Stearns almost went bankrupt almost overnight, JP Morgan stepped in and bought it. That action and its approval by the Fed sent many economists debating it as necessary but also the worst policy decision ever made. And then came other write downs throughout the financial sector by large investment banks. They’ve only began to reckon with their investments in CDOs, that may not necessarily have rates of returns as they had originally expected. As for commodities, prices have sky rocketed especially amongst the popular ones like oil, copper, corn and etc.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071219/D8TK6TUG0.htmlAmericans have been providing Turkey with intelligence to go after Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. And a "coordination center" has been set up in Ankara so Turks, Iraqis and Americans can share information, two officials said Tuesday.
But defense and diplomatic officials in Washington and Baghdad told The Associated Press that U.S. commanders in Iraq knew nothing about Sunday's attack until it was already under way.
"Our job now is to engage in a productive debate, which focuses on privacy as a component of appropriate levels of security and public safety," Kerr said. "I think all of us have to really take stock of what we already are willing to give up, in terms of anonymity, but (also) what safeguards we want in place to be sure that giving that doesn't empty our bank account or do something equally bad elsewhere."http://story.news.ask.com/article/20071111/D8SRK2Q01.html
American military chiefs have been left dumbstruck by an undetected Chinese submarine popping up at the heart of a recent Pacific exercise and close to the vast U.S.S. Kitty Hawk - a 1,000ft supercarrier with 4,500 personnel on board.
Spanish King Juan Carlos, seated next to Zapatero, angrily turned to Hugo Chavez and said, "Why don't you shut up?"
Accompanying all this heightened activity has been a flurry of reports in the Israeli media about Hizballah's rearming, with claims that the Shi'ite group today possesses rockets that can strike Tel Aviv. Last week, a United Nations report on Lebanon carried information provided by Israel that alleged Hizballah was more heavily armed than prior to the 2006 war, with hundreds of long-range rockets and three times as many anti-ship cruise missiles.
