Hat tip to a Top Dog.

"Listed communications firm Safaricom Limited has posted a 37 per cent increase it s profits before tax for the period ended March 31, 2010.

The firm recorded Sh20.9 billion compared to Sh15.3 billion it posted in the previous year, once again bringing into focus its profits margin.

Over the past month, the public discourse has been centered along the firms’ performance, which had been a subject of new industry regulations.

According to chief executive officer Mr Michael Joseph, the results were a reflection of the heavy investments that they put in to develop their network..."

Read more:

http://www.nation.co.ke/.../-/igoe2pz/-/index.html

Coinupdate.com reports that prices at which the Greek Central Bank is selling one ounce gold equivalents are as high as $1,700 (40% over spot), and prices on the black markets are even higher.

The punchline, as Athens slowly returns to a forced gold standard: " A popular spot for street vendors to sell their coins is near the Athens Stock Exchange. There the traders wait for citizens to bring payments received from unloading their paper assets like stocks and bonds."

That's good - downtown Manhattan close to the NYSE has some free space for gold vendors to set up shop as well, they just need to push some of the frontrunning/collocation boxes off to the side. And in other rhetorical ruminations, is it safe to say that the last days of the fiat experiment are among us now that people themselves are bypassing the government and enforcing their own gold standard?

Read more:

http://www.zerohedge.com...s-gold-price-1700-ounce

Apple is now worth more than Mister Softee. About $3 billion more.

Read more:

http://www.ritholtz.com/...valuable-than-microsoft/

Collateral damage from the European Debt Crisis. If you have family or friends working in the public sector in Europe or the United States, inform them that their job security is tenuous.

"Remittances from the Kenyan diaspora will maintain a downward trend as the debt crisis spreads among European nations, market analysts have said.

“There has been a significant drop in remittances from the European area in the last few months, we don’t know when the trend will reverse,” said Frida Nzilani of Sky Forex Bureau, an with MoneyGram and Western Union.

Europe, which accounts for 27 per cent of the total remittances from the diaspora, is reeling under the weight of huge domestic debts...."

Read more:

http://www.businessdaily...0/-/luthlc/-/index.html

The Euro was beaten with an ugly stick after the confessional by Hungary's new government. Former resistance level of 1.205 gave way like butter to a hot knife as markets were once more reminded of the grim days of Lehman. Should the Euro be unable to get back up above 1.205, its next magnet is 1.17.

"Pessimistic words on the economy from senior officials of Hungary's newly elected ruling party plunged the euro to a four-year low Friday, and refocused concern on a region that European Union leaders had hoped was recovering from the wounds it suffered in the early days of the financial crisis.

Lajos Kosa, vice president of the right-leaning Fidesz party, which won an overwhelming victory in the April elections, said Thursday that Hungary was in a Greek-style sovereign-debt crisis. And Friday, the prime minister's spokesman, Peter Szijjarto, roiled markets by saying the economic situation is severe and that Hungary isn't likely to meet budget-deficit targets prescribed by the International Monetary Fund...."

Read more:

http://online.wsj.com/ar...html?mod=wsj_india_main

A currency is the common share of a nation. It derives its value from the productive capacity of its people and the financial management of government. A heavily indebted nation largely depends on the "kindness of strangers". Once foreign investors question the ability of a government to meet its commitments as in the case of Greece, its currency suffers a crisis of confidence.

The U.S. Dollar is no long-term safe haven.

"The federal government is now $13 trillion in the red, the Treasury Department will announce Wednesday -- marking the first time the government has sunk that far into debt.

Lawmakers and staffers on Capitol Hill have been awaiting the milestone with macabre fascination for more than a week, and its arrival is likely to complicate efforts for Democrats as they try to pass several emergency spending bills this month....."

Read more:

http://www.washingtontim...-debt-hits-13-trillion/

"It's sleek fast, modern and likely to prove an enduring momento of the 2010 World Cup. We are talking about the high speed Gautrain that is poised to speed passengers from A to B under the traffic and buildings of Gauteng. Today (Tuesday) the authorities are going to launch the Gautrain just in time for the greatest soccer show on earth. We climbed aboard to find how a dream became a high speed reality

Well, with the launch of the Gautrain, arriving just in time for the greatest soccer show on earth, Jack Van de Merwe joins me now in studio. but before we get into our conversation with Jack, Celeste Baliraj an Bianca Barnard, employees here join us as well Celeste and Bianca amongst those to have taken the ride this morning...."

Read more:

http://www.abndigital.co...d-interviews/554460.htm

NIGERIAN SPAM OF THE YEAR

From: Dudley Caruthers Esq (Barrister at Law)

Subject: BP Related Agreement Entitlement

E-mail:

Dear Friend

I am the private solicitor for Mr Tony Hayward, the esteemed Chairman and Chief executive of British Petroleum. My client has various personal and family related holdings of BP stock and options. Due to his faithful long standing service to BP the total value of his holdings amounts to in excess of 100m pounds sterling. Mr Heywood is a British citizen but it has been my sorrowful duty to advise him that his personal and family wealth is at great risk of being wrongfully confiscated by US authorities acting extra-territorially under special powers authorised by the US government and with the secret consent of a supine UK political and legal establishment.

Mr Heywood is also at great risk of losing his personal liberty and becoming another victim of the long reach of the politicised USA legal system in the same way that was meted out to other British subjects including, most egregiously, the 3 bankers from Natwest (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NatWest_Three). Unfortunately I am not able to advise or assist him in this regard as my expertise lies in the structuring of executive compensation schemes and the management of private endowments; but I am horrified at the witch hunt being perpetrated on my client by the Obama administration and its agencies and I will do all that I can to safeguard my client's financial position.

I am reaching out to you as it has become clear that Mr Hayward's holdings must be liquidated and held in trust for the benefit of himself and his family beyond USA or UK legal jurisdiction. Exercise of his options and liquidation of his stock is now complete but it has proven necessary to assign title to the ensuing 100m pounds of cash to a person such as yourself who resides in a non recognised tax haven country and where there is a sound basis for UK and USA authorities to recognise the legal validity of local agreements. The taxation and legal recognition agreements between your jurisdiction of Australia and those of UK and USA present a unique opportunity to protect these assets whilst providing you with a benefit in accordance with your key role. I am a keen reader of your blog and greatly admire your economic and political acumen. I immediately recognised that, at this hour of great urgency and risk to my client, you are the man who is capable of securing protection of the Hayward estate.

It is with this in mind that I wish you to consider the possibility that you and I (as Mr. Hayward's agent) have previously entered into verbal agreements providing for you to become the beneficiary of all Mr Hayward's BP stock and stock option benefits upon their occurring a significant "force majeure" event affecting my client and British Petroleum. It is my legal interpretation that such an event occurred with the sinking of Deepwater Horizon and that title to Mr Hayward's rights and holdings transferred at that time.

If you do recollect our agreement then it is now necessary to transfer the 80m pounds of cash proceeds to yourself which are after payment of a 20m pound advisory and arrangement fee for the services rendered by my firm. Transfer of the cash will only occur to you upon you executing the correct documents which are (i) the force majeure beneficiary transfer agreement (ii) a statutory declaration that the force majeure beneficiary transfer agreement was properly entered into as a verbal agreement in January 2002 and (iii) details of your Australian bank account including account name, password and account number and most critically an agreement between yourself and myself as trustee for Hayward related entities granting the trustee the right to claw back 50% (40m pounds) of the transfer at any time and requiring you to escrow the 40m pounds in a separate account.

I sincerely trust that you will search your memory and recollect that we met in Sydney in 2002 and recollect the nature of our agreement.

Please contact me at my firm's Nigerian subsidiary's offices at the address below such that we can act with the speed required of us.

Source:

http://brontecapital.blo...spam-email-of-week.html

In a global village, there are no local problems. You have witnessed the "butterfly effect" of the crisis in Dubai which triggered the downgrading of Greek debt, thereafter, Europe proper came into focus.

Players, for instance, in the horticulture sector are caught between the sales of produce denominated in a weakening Euro and purchases of freight services in a strengthening Dollar.

"Some thoughts on the fiscal austerity mania now sweeping Europe: is anyone thinking seriously about how this affects the rest of the world, the US included?

We do have a framework for thinking about this issue: the Mundell-Fleming model. And according to that model (does anyone still learn this stuff?), fiscal contraction in one country under floating exchange rates is in fact contractionary for the world as a whole. The reason is that fiscal contraction leads to lower interest rates, which leads to currency depreciation, which improves the trade balance of the contracting country — partly offsetting the fiscal contraction, but also imposing a contraction on the rest of the world. (Rudi Dornbusch’s 1976 Brookings Paper went through all this.)...."

Read more:

http://krugman.blogs.nyt...-of-european-austerity/

Like the Sword of Damocles, the OTC derivatives markets hangs over the financial world.

"One of the biggest risks to the world's financial health is the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives market. It's complex, it's unregulated, and it ought to be of concern to world leaders that its notional value is 20 times the size of the world economy. But traders rule the roost -- and as much as risk managers and regulators might want to limit that risk, they lack the power or knowledge to do so.

A quadrillion is a big number: 1,000 times a trillion. Yet according to one of the world's leading derivatives experts, Paul Wilmott, who holds a doctorate in applied mathematics from Oxford University (and whose speaking voice sounds eerily like John Lennon's), $1.2 quadrillion is the so-called notional value of the worldwide derivatives market. To put that in perspective, the world's annual gross domestic product is between $50 trillion and $60 trillion."

See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/99t8PV