END OF OPEC??

Is this the end of OPEC?

The plunge from $148 a barrel to $50 a barrel in less than five months has opened huge fissures in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Some members, such as Iran and Venezuela, are desperate to raise oil prices so they can balance their national accounts. More-conservative members, such as Saudi Arabia, can balance their budgets even at current prices and have room to fear they will be the scapegoats if the global recession deepens.

We've sat deathwatch for OPEC before, but this time the cartel's future looks especially bleak. Its Nov. 29 meeting in Cairo, Egypt, ended with members deeply divided. The Venezuelas and Irans of OPEC have dug themselves into such a big spending hole that their only way out would be for OPEC to raise prices by cutting production while letting the cartel's hardest-pressed members cheat.

OPEC couldn't agree on any production cuts in Cairo but promised to revisit the issue Dec. 17. The burden of production cuts would fall almost totally on the Saudis and other conservative Middle Eastern oil producers. That's why the Saudis didn't buy into that deal in Cairo and why they might balk again. That result could leave OPEC standing but effectively end the cartel's power to change the balance of global supply and demand.

In the short run, that would be great for consumers. In the long run, it would lead to global energy chaos.

Where oil demand is growing

How did OPEC get into this mess? Consumers in OPEC countries are becoming just as addicted to oil as their counterparts in the United States. According to the latest forecast from the International Energy Agency, oil demand from the world's developed economies will fall by about 3 million barrels a day between 2007 and 2030. In that same period, the countries of the Middle East will be one of the three major sources of oil-demand growth in the world. Overall, about 43% of global oil-demand growth will come from China, according to the forecast, with India and the Middle East contributing 20% each.

It's easy to understand why China's and India's oil demand is growing so fast. They have immense populations -- 1.3 billion and 1.1 billion, respectively -- and emerging middle classes that are just starting to buy cars and the other high-consumption trappings of developed economies.

But the Middle East? Egypt, the most populous country in the region, has just 80 million people. Iran, 70 million. Saudi Arabia, just 27 million. So why are these countries projected to add as much to global demand for oil as India over the next two decades?

• Demographics certainly play a part. These are some of the youngest and therefore fastest-growing economies in the world.

• National investment plans heavily favor oil- and energy-intensive projects, such as chemical plants.

• And subsidies. In 2007, Iran spent almost $20 billion more on energy subsidies than China did. Three Middle Eastern countries -- Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt -- make the International Energy Agency's global top eight for energy subsidies in the developing world. Another OPEC member, Venezuela, also makes the top eight. That group is rounded out by China, India, Indonesia and Russia. Subsidize oil prices, and consumers will buy and consume more. Pretty simple.

Governments hooked on oil

The governments that provide these subsidies are even more hooked on oil than their populations are. Politicians in oil-producing countries have gotten used to oil revenue providing the bulk of the national budget, enabling them to keep taxes low and expand services. In Iran, for example, oil revenue provides between 40% and 80% of the national budget, depending on which oil industry analyst you believe. In Nigeria, oil and natural-gas revenues account for 85% of government revenue.

No problem with that -- until oil prices start to fall. Governments that pegged their budgets to $80- or $100- or $120-a-barrel oil are in deep trouble when oil falls to $50. Russia, for example, developed its national budget for 2008 based on $70-a-barrel oil.

According to consulting company PFC Energy, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria and Qatar would be the only OPEC nations able to balance their accounts in 2009 with oil below $50. Saudi Arabia would need oil prices just over $30 a barrel, according to Merrill Lynch, or slightly more than $50 a barrel, according to PFC Energy.

In contrast, Iran needs a price of $90 to $100 a barrel to break even in 2009. And because of President Hugo Chávez's soaring spending on social programs, Venezuela needs an oil price somewhere between $60 and $120 a barrel; the consensus seems to be somewhere around $90. On Nov. 24, Chávez told a news conference that $80 to $100 a barrel would be a fair price.

Investors are starting to worry about where all the money will come from for bonds. Governments need to sell $2 trillion in bonds in 2009 to pay for bailouts and stimulus packages. Jim Jubak wants to know who will be buying.

2 possible solutions

There are really only two ways out of this bind:

• A government could, of course, cut spending and live within its means. (No, I mean it. That's not a joke. Stop rolling on the floor.) That's no more likely among the ranks of oil-producing countries than it is in the good ol' U.S. of IOU.

• OPEC as a whole could cut production, raising global oil prices, while allowing the most hard-pressed countries to cut production only minimally. A cartelwide reduction in production might be able to raise prices, but that wouldn't solve the problem confronting Nigeria, Iran, Venezuela and the like. To fill the hole in their budgets, they need to see oil prices climb and to keep pumping at current rates.

The problem confronting OPEC is that it increasingly looks like it would take huge production cuts to just stabilize the price of oil. OPEC agreed to cut production by 500,000 barrels a day in September and then an additional 1.5 million on Oct. 24. It now looks like those two promised cuts -- not completely carried out -- reduced production in November to 30.98 million barrels a day, down from 32.2 million barrels a day in October.

Even cuts of that magnitude haven't stemmed the decline in the price of oil, however. And now some OPEC members are calling for production cuts of at least 1 million more barrels a day and perhaps as much as 2.5 million.

Taking (another) one for the team?

The burden of the cuts so far has fallen most heavily on Saudi Arabia. The Saudis accounted for about 44% of November's projected production cuts. And as OPEC's biggest producer, Saudi Arabia would be expected to pick up the bulk of the next round of cuts, too. The Saudis produced 9.45 million barrels a day in September. That's roughly a third of OPEC's total production.

OPEC's Nov. 29 meeting showed that the Saudis aren't yet willing to step up to the plate with another 500,000- to 1-million-barrel-a-day cut in production at a time when the government is announcing cancellations and delays in its plans to diversify the Saudi economy. Adding up all the cuts actually delivered showed that OPEC had cut production by only 850,000 to 1.2 million barrels a day instead of the 1.5 million promised in October.

And the Saudis seem convinced that Iran, OPEC's second-largest producer, and Venezuela have cut their output by less than they claim. No wonder that the Saudis wanted to wait for more production data before agreeing to further cuts. If what the Saudis hear, or think they hear, is that they've made cuts but that other OPEC members have reneged on their promises, then you can expect them to agree on Dec. 17 to cuts that are much less than Venezuela and Iran are talking about.

The Saudis also got in a not-so-subtle dig at Iran and Venezuela at the Cairo meeting by calling for a $75-a-barrel price for OPEC oil. That would be a huge improvement from current levels but noticeably short of the target championed by Venezuela and of the $90 to $100 a barrel that many experts believe Iran and Venezuela need to balance their budgets.

OPEC's inability to agree on any additional production cuts in Cairo means oil prices will fall further and that the problems confronting the governments of oil producers such as Nigeria, Venezuela and Iran will ratchet up toward crisis. That would pressure OPEC to do something dramatic at its Dec. 17 meeting.

Where Russia fits in

At the same time, the lack of production cuts in Cairo will increase short-term pressure on Iran and Venezuela to cheat on the October production targets and keep production above quotas. (Due to a near civil war in its oil fields, Nigeria's production is falling with or without OPEC quotas.) That, in turn, will make the Saudis even less likely to want to cut production to bail out OPEC members who haven't kept to their quotas.

Even though it isn't an OPEC member, Russia will play a big part in deciding how the future of OPEC plays out. Russia, which produces roughly as much oil as Saudi Arabia, has made noises about coordinating its production policies with OPEC. So far, those noises are exactly that, and the country shows no signs of following OPEC's lead by intentionally cutting production. The sight of a non-OPEC Russia taking advantage of improvements in oil prices created by Saudi Arabia's cuts in production will just increase Saudi resistance to disproportionately sacrificing for the profit of others.

If the September and October production cuts don't do the job (and almost nobody in the oil industry thinks they will) and OPEC goes into its Dec. 17 meeting faced with tumbling oil prices and massive quota flouting, the cartel could slip into public disagreement. An increased level of suspicion and recrimination entering 2009, a year that will see massive budget distress for many OPEC countries, could make it impossible for OPEC to agree on any course of common action.

A shadow of its powerful self

That wouldn't be enough to cause the formal breakup of OPEC. But it would be enough to reduce the cartel to a powerless shell. OPEC might effectively break up into regional or ideological subgroups, each pursing its own market agenda. A further breakdown could see individual oil producers inside and outside OPEC pursuing strategies based only on self-interest.

Consumers around the world would cheer at the breakup of OPEC or even at its devolution into a powerless shell organization. Without OPEC, individual oil producers would pump as much oil as they could in the short term, and oil prices would fall.

Investors are starting to worry about where all the money will come from for bonds. Governments need to sell $2 trillion in bonds in 2009 to pay for bailouts and stimulus packages. Jim Jubak wants to know who will be buying.

That's not good news, of course, for companies that make their money selling oil field infrastructure, because lower oil prices would mean less money to invest in oil field development. It would be really bad news for companies developing more-expensive unconventional sources of oil because they couldn't make a profit competing against cheaper oil. And it would be potentially devastating to emerging alternative-energy technologies, which would be forced back into reliance on government subsidies at a time when governments have plenty of other things to do with their money.

If you believe in some version of peak oil, which I do, then a post-OPEC free-for-all in the oil markets looks like a disaster. As it becomes more and more expensive to extract conventional and unconventional oil, the world is already looking at a bad case of underinvestment. The International Energy Agency has warned that a huge supply crunch awaits the world on the other side of the current supply glut because of underinvestment in new supplies of oil. Lower oil prices would just make that underinvestment worse.

Developments on past columns

"Is ExxonMobil's future running dry?": Devon Energy (DVN, news, msgs) continues to do all the right things -- not that it matters much in the short run in this punishing market for energy stocks.

On Nov. 5, the company announced third-quarter earnings of $3.09 a share, an increase of 97% from the third quarter of 2007. Revenue grew 116% year over year. Production fell 1% from the second quarter of 2008 due to disruptions from hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, but the company made important progress in bringing new resources into production. Production from the company's acreage in the Barnett Shale formation helped U.S. onshore production climb 16%. The company added 50,000 acres to its leases in the Haynesville Shale formation of eastern Texas and northwestern Louisiana, and had record production in the Wyoming's Powder River Basin.

In the Gulf of Mexico, production fell by more than a third under the impact of hurricanes. The storms also delayed drilling on the potentially big new finds in the gulf that the company announced in 2007. But one on Walker Ridge reached total depth, and the other in Keathley Canyon should reach total depth by the end of 2008. At that time, Devon Energy will have a better idea of the size of the resource.

Besides 25% and 50% interest in those two projects, Devon also owns a 25% interest in Petrobras' (PBR, news, msgs) Campos Basin offshore prospect that's being explored in the South Atlantic. A first exploratory well has reached total depth there, and the partners are evaluating the results.

Oil is perhaps less important than cash in the current state of the financial markets, and Devon finished the quarter with $1.2 billion in cash on its books. The company also has a $2.5 billion credit line. The company has suspended its share-buyback program, which certainly doesn't help the stock price but seems a prudent effort to conserve cash. Operating cash flow of $2.6 billion slightly exceeded capital expenditures of $2.4 billion in the quarter.

When all is said and done, however, lower oil prices will mean lower earnings for Devon in 2009. The Wall Street consensus is that earnings will tumble by 28% next year to $7.65 a share from a projected $10.56 a share in 2008. The 2009 projection would still be ahead of Devon's earnings per share in 2007 of $6.97.

In recognition of today's lower oil prices, as of Dec. 1 I'm cutting my target price for Devon to $85 a share by November 2009 from the recent target of $130 by December 2008. That's a projected 29% gain from the Dec. 1 close at $65.69 in a year. That's enough for me to keep this stock in Jubak's Picks despite the risk of falling oil prices in the short term.

By Jim Jubak

THE CAUSE OF UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE USA

After an intensive debate about fiscal stimulus that would be utilized to cure the recessionary downturn of the current year, there is a wide debate whether President Obama would extend the role of unions in the U.S. While President Obama agreeably supports the extension of the role of labor unions (link), there are several doubts that need to be discussed.

First, there is a significant panel of empirical evidence showing that high level of unionzation tarnishes the growth of potential productivity which is essential to the long-term increase in the standard of living. In countries of the Continental Europe such as Austria, Germany and France, there is an obvious and firm evidence showing strongly negative correlation between the level of unionization and the rate of unemployment. The cost of unionzation is usually beared by grimmy prospects of future youth employment. Data provided by Eurostat (link) fosters the hypothesis that a somewhat negative correlation between unionization and employment rate exists. On the other hand, in Anglo-Saxon countries, where labor markets are more flexible and elastic, the rate of unionization is lower than in Norway, Sweden and Netherlands and the rate of unemployment is lower in all age groups. The difference can be explained by the fact that in Continental and Nordic countries, government fosters the bargaining network between government, employer associations and trade unions while there is significantly less government engineering of labor market in Anglo-Saxon countries such as the U.S., Canada and the UK. The OECD data (link) on hourly earnings are a strong evidence respectively.

Second, the bargaining framework of union negotiation depends on the elasticity of labor supply. If the labor supply curve is more inelastic, it is also more likely that unions will gain an advantage in seeking an anticipated rent and regulate the market for particular professions by restricting the entry and raising the wage ceiling. If unions bargain the rent, lower rate of employment will be an inevitable result of this act.

And third, president Obama says that "you cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement." Unionization is indeed the long-term consequence of higher unemployment because higher union wages exceed competitive market wage rates which causes job losses and unemployment which is higher than hypothetical one. Larry Summers nicely outlined the consequences of unionization regarding welfare, employment and wages (link). It is also important to know the union membership has been declining. The union power of United Auto Workers in the U.S auto manufacturing industry is significant and it also contributes to the bailout problem given high labor cost. Since 1970s, the membership of UAW declined by more than one third. Consequently, foreign investors rather located the production activity in non-union plants in Southern U.S. Recently, professor Becker discussed the issue and perspectives of union membership (link). However, it should be noted that globalization and the rising mobility of labor has been slashing the bargaining power of unions significantly. Interestingly, union membership peaked in 1954 when it reached 28 percent of total employment and has had declined ever since with no reversal after president Reagan won the battle with PATCO (link).

Even though, president Obama's pro-union efforts may reverse the union membership trend, globalization and competitive regional and global labor markets will nonetheless diminish the power of domestic unions. While, in fact, there is no doubt that the long-term cost of unionization is higher rate of unemployment and employment rigidity that gives more economic power to the unions and derails productivity

IMMIGRATION OR BIRTH TOURISM

Anchors away

Immigration | The debate over birthright citizenship hits hardest on the hospital ward | Megan Basham

TUCSON, Ariz.—The evening after I gave birth to my daughter at Tucson Medical Center (TMC), a hospital administrator stopped by our post-delivery room and presented my husband with a bill for about $1,200—the amount we owed after our insurance deductible had been met but before we'd reached our annual maximum out-of-pocket. If we could pay in full that day, the hospital would knock 10 percent off the charge.

Less than half of the women who give birth at TMC receive such a visit. That's because Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), the state's public health program, offers free maternity coverage to women in low and lower-middle income classes as well as covering all labor and delivery charges for women in the country illegally. The hospital declined to say what portion of their AHCCCS-covered births involve illegal immigrants but revealed to the Arizona Daily Star in 2007 that around 20 percent of their deliveries are to noncitizen mothers. Considering that illegal immigrants make up between 7 percent and 8 percent of Arizona's total population—and that men in that group significantly out­number women—that accounts for a surprisingly high number. However, it is less surprising once another group of foreign-born mothers who are neither poor nor undocumented are factored into the picture.

Pregnant Mexican women with proper visas who can afford to pay cash for their deliveries are also crossing the border to give birth at TMC. The hospital is one of a few nationwide capitalizing on the cutting-edge practice of birth tourism, targeting specialized maternity packages to Mexican citizens who want to have their babies on U.S. soil.

Though TMC does not specifically advertise U.S. citizenship as a reason for delivering at its hospital, immigration experts say it has always been the main draw for noncitizens—both legal and illegal—who come to the United States to give birth. In a 2009 AP story detailing TMC's birth packages, the Mexican consul general in Tucson, Juan Manuel Calderon Jaimes, found nothing concerning about the practice and said it was nothing new: "Many families of means in Sonora [Mexico] send their wives here to give birth because they have the resources to pay for the services."

But a growing number of U.S. residents are worried about what's happening at hospitals like TMC and how it affects the future of the country. Their alarm is driving the recent push to amend or reinterpret the Constitution so that United States citizenship is no longer automatically conferred upon a person simply because he or she is born here.

According to a recently released study by the Pew Hispanic Center, 37 percent of illegal immigrants in the United States are parents of a citizen child. Even without a citizen in the household, they pose significant costs to states (particularly those that share a border with Mexico) when it comes to healthcare, education, and law enforcement. Once unauthorized residents give birth on U.S. soil, they have access to additional benefits. Mothers and fathers of so-called "anchor babies" are able to apply on behalf of their child for a selection of public programs including Medicaid, Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) subsidies, and food stamps. Should they be apprehended by immigration authorities, they can use the child as justification against deportation and as a reason to request preferred action that will prevent hardship to a U.S.-born citizen. And once the child turns 21, he or she can sponsor his family members' citizenship.

Though Steve Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, confirms that no one can concretely prove that illegal immigrants are intentionally trying to create anchors to the United States by having babies, he says he sees evidence that the parents are well aware of the advantages of giving birth here. He offers detailed statistics by state, noting, for example, that 40 percent of the unauthorized residents in Texas and California utilize food assistance and that a third of those in New York use Medicaid, most often on behalf of a citizen child. Says Camarota, "It is clear that a very large fraction of the illegal population with U.S.-born children learn to navigate certain welfare programs like Medicaid, WIC, and preschool lunch. And it's clear that a significant body of knowledge in regards to that is shared among them on how to sign their children up."

With states like California and Arizona facing crushing budget shortfalls, it's not surprising, says Camarota, that people are becoming upset over birthright citizenship. "So after [illegal immigrants] break the law coming here, they have a baby and get to benefit further by getting a green card and permanent residency? There's a lot not to like there." As for the wealthy, visa-wielding moms-to-be, he sums up the general objection succinctly: "It's the same as buying U.S. citizenship and turns something we should prize and respect into a game."

Eileen Walker, a labor and delivery nurse at Thunderbird Medical Center in Glendale, Ariz., agrees with Camarota's assessment and says in her work she sees illegal immigrants abusing emergency treatment laws and the AHCCCS program. "AHCCCS won't cover an illegal patient's doctor's visit, but the hospital is different. Anyone who walks into OB Triage claiming a health problem, we have to provide care. If they come in and say they're having headaches or have a cold or flu symptoms, we have to provide care." She says pregnant noncitizens understand that they can use emergency treatment as regular maternity care. "They know the right things to say and they know how to manipulate the system. They'll say, 'I'm not feeling my baby move,' because it is a guaranteed way to get the doctor to order an ultrasound. So they can get every benefit—top-of-the-line sonograms, epidurals, all the care a patient with insurance or who is paying out of pocket has—for free."

Some illegal immigrants fail to complete the paperwork that allows the hospital to get reimbursed by the state for its services, says Walker. "They'll get the care they came for and then just disappear, and we'll look around and say, 'Where did they go?' They leave and we find the AHCCCS application in the room," says Walker. "We eat those costs." As a result, she says, employees of Thunderbird have seen a drastic reduction in their own benefits as the hospital tries to cut expenses without resorting to layoffs.

Experience like Walker's and research like Camarota's are what's driving legislators who say it is time for the United States to reconsider its practice of granting citizenship to everyone born here. Among those who support hearings on the issue are Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as well as House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio. Graham is particularly vehement, calling birthright citizenship "a mistake" on Fox News in July and announcing possible plans to introduce a constitutional amendment to reverse it.

The concept of citizenship by birthright has its roots in past injustices. When the Supreme Court ruled in the 1857 Dred Scott case that blacks were not citizens, Congress responded by passing a statute that conferred citizenship by birth. After the Civil War, citizenship for freed slaves received constitutional grounding in 1868 with the 14th Amendment. It states, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." The frontline of the objection against anchor babies is that clause, "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." Those who believe that the children of illegal immigrants shouldn't be considered citizens argue that the 14th Amendment was never intended to apply to them because their parents are not U.S. citizens nor here with U.S. authorization, and therefore are not subject to its jurisdiction.

Recent polls show Americans split about 50-50 on whether birthright citizenship should be repealed—though in border states like Arizona support for the idea is stronger, with two-thirds favoring it. But even someone like Camarota—whose career is researching illegal immigration and publicizing the problems it creates—is hesitant to endorse such a constitutional change.

On the one hand, he says he agrees with Republican leaders who point out that the United States is one of the only industrialized democracies to give citizenship to everyone born within its borders. And he understands the frustration of those who feel that birthright citizenship makes it extremely difficult to solve the problems of illegal immigration, as groups opposed to enforcement can claim that it divides families. "Politically, it creates a much different environment in which to have the debate. One of the chief arguments for granting amnesty to unauthorized residents is that they have all these citizen children and we shouldn't do harm to citizen children," says Camarota. "The advocacy groups make that argument all the time and you get [President] Obama saying that we're tearing babies from their mothers' breasts by trying to enforce the law. Of course the child can always go with the parents so we're not really dividing families, but it allows that narrative to be constructed. So it matters enormously in the immigration debate and it greatly complicates our efforts."

Camarota says that the odds against changing the law are steep. "It'll be a tough, nasty political battle that will focus on children. If you're pro-enforcement, that's not what you want," he says. Even if Congress passed a law, it would by no means signal the end of the fight: "You'd still have an ambiguous outcome because it would have to wind its way through the courts for years. Then if you'd wanted to change it you'd have to get a constitutional amendment. To my mind it's just not where we should put our political efforts."

Instead, Camarota feels that pro-enforcement groups and individuals would better spend their time pushing for work site enforcement, mandatory e-verify for businesses, having an entry and exit system, getting the cooperation of local police, and controlling the border

The US$96,000 Carbon Fiber Renard GT

Estonia is not a country known for motorcycles, but the reemergence of a pre-WW2 motorcycle brandname could change all that. Tallinn-based Renard Motorcycles will begin production of its GT next year. The bike's carbon-fiber and Kevlar monocoque chassis weighs just 11 kg and incorporates the airbox and fuel tank while the metal components, other than the Moto Guzzi 1200cc Quattrovalvole v-twin engine, are all CNC milled from a solid aircraft quality aluminum. The carbon parallelogram front suspension and design are reminiscent of a Confederate Wraith, as is the limited edition, stellar price (EUR75,000), craftsmanship and beauty.

Let's hope they've done their homework, as carbon fiber frames on motorcycles have proven problematic for many manufacturers in the past – for all their lustrous beauty, engineering all the handling properties you require in a carbon fiber chassis has proven immensely difficult. If carbon is so good, why aren't there more such frames on the MotoGP grid? Whatsmore, MotoGP bikes only need to be good handling and make no concessions to rider comfort, so the rigidity of this wonder substance might cause even more headaches on a road bike.

The suspension units themselves are top class – a two-way adjustable Öhlins S36DR1L controls the movement of the carbon fiber Hossack/BMW Duolever type layout at the front up while a three-way adjustable Öhlins TTX36 handles the rear. Both wheels are carbon fiber, while the Grand Tourer's lightweight aircraft aluminum components are designed and modeled in 3D, then milled from a solid block by CNC machines.

The Renard’s 1200cc engine produces approximately 130 hp at 8000 rpm while peak torque of 120 Nm happens at 6000 rpm. The Moto Guzzi 90° V2 donk is no horsepower king, but remembering this is a roadbike, it's usable midrange and extremely light weight (190 kg dry) will no doubt contribute to what Renard's press material dubs a “surgeon’s blade on two wheels.”

The styling, price and carbon fiber will certainly set you apart from the crowd – if being the center of attention is what you crave, this machine will do it for

MOHAMMED: THE MAN

popular name for baby boys ahead of Jack and Harry

Mohammed is now the most popular name for newborn boys in England and Wales ahead of Jack and Harry, it emerged today.

The name, when 12 different spellings were included, was given to 7,549 youngsters in 2009, official statistics revealed.

Oliver was the second most popular and it was given to 7,364 boys in England and Wales in 12 months.

Name game: Mohammed is now the most popular name for new-born boys (picture posed by model)

Jack was third, Harry fourth and Alfie in fifth place in the league table of names.

However, because official figures did not take into account the variations in the spelling of Mohammed, Oliver was named as the most popular boys' name by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) who released the information.

Jack had been the top name for newborn boys in England and Wales for the previous 14 years.

While Oliver was beaten to first place by Mohammed, in the girls list Olivia came out on top.

SPELLING 'MOHAMMED'

1) Mohammed - 3,300

2) Muhammad - 2,162

3) Mohammad - 1,073

4) Muhammed -515

5) Mohamed - 387

6) Mohamad - 33

7) Muhamed - 27

8) Mohammod - 18

9) Mahamed - 14

10) Muhamed - 10

11) Mahammed - 6

12) Mohmmed - 4

TOTAL: 7,549

Ruby, Chloe, Emily and Sophie made up the top five list of girls' names in 2009, it emerged today.

The official list put Mohammed in only 16th place, but when the other 11 different spellings of the same name are taken into account it is the most popular.

Mohammed was given to 3,300 boys, while Muhammad was given to 2,162 youngsters.

The name is a common Anglicised spelling of an Arabic name taken from a word meaning 'praise'.

There is disagreement among scholars about why there are so many spellings of the same name - some argue it is because of phonetic translations while others say it is down to parental choice.

Muslim parents often use the name to honour the Prophet or to show a link to the religion.

There are 14 recognised variations of the spelling - although only 12 of them were given to newborn children last year.

Muslims make up around three per cent of the British population.

•  

The unusual names David and Victoria Beckham gave to their three boys seemed to be boosted in the annual league tables by their celebrity association.

There were 282 Brooklyns, 78 Romeos and 73 Cruzs born in 2009, the figures revealed.

TOP 10 OTHER BOYS' NAMES

1) Oliver
2) Jack
3) Harry
4) Alfie
5) Joshua
6) Thomas
7) Charlie
8) William
9) James
10) Daniel

Six new names made it into the top 100 boys' names this year - they were Aiden, Arthur, Frederick, Jude, Stanley and Austin.

In the girls' list, three names moved into the top 100 this year - Heidi, Mya and Sara.

Compared to names chosen for babies ten years earlier, there was a resurgence in the popularity of names which were associated with people of the inter-war generation, or earlier.

TOP 10 GIRLS' NAMES

1) Olivia
2) Ruby
3) Chloe
4) Emily
5) Sophie
6) Jessica
7) Grace
8) Lily
9) Amelia
10) Evie

Evie was the tenth most popular name given to baby girls in 2009, for example, moving up 157 places since 1999.

Ruby, the second most popular name for girls in 2009, was ranked 91 places lower 10 years ago.

Boys' names such as Alfie and Charlie have followed a similar trend.

Six names in the boys' top ten in 2009 were also there in 1999 - Jack, Joshua, Thomas, James, Daniel and William.

Five girls' names featured in both lists - Olivia, Chloe, Emily, Sophie and Jessica.

There were 706,248 live births in England and Wales in 2009.

Mothers of newborn and slightly older babies are urged by the ONS to include their babies’ details in the 2011 Census, taking place next March.

'Babies often go unrecorded in the census as new mothers sometimes don’t realise they need to enter the details of even the very newest member of the household,' ONS spokesman William Mach said.

'There is a strong link between filling in the census and the authorities being able to plan and provide public services in years to come - for example, in setting numbers of school places.'

A FAILED OBAMA HERO

A Failed Obama Hero

Let's think about President Obama's failed economic stimulus program. Before getting to the nitty-gritty of why stimulus packages fail, let's look at the failed stimulus program of Obama's hero, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR's Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, wrote in his diary: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. ... We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt to boot!"

Morgenthau was being a bit gracious. The unemployment figures for FDR's first eight years were: 18 percent in 1935; 14 percent in 1936; by 1938, unemployment was back to 20 percent. The stock market fell nearly 50 percent between August 1937 and March 1938. Columnist Walter Lippmann wrote, "With almost no important exception every measure he (Roosevelt) has been interested in for the past five months has been to reduce or discourage the production of wealth." The last year of the Herbert Hoover administration, the top marginal income tax rate was raised from 24 to 63 percent. During the Roosevelt administration, the top rate was raised at first to 79 percent and then later to 90 percent. Hillsdale College economic historian Professor Burton Folsom notes that in 1941, Roosevelt even proposed a whopping 99.5 percent marginal rate on all incomes over $100,000. Much more of the Hoover/FDR fiasco can be found in "Great Myths of the Great Depression".

The Great Depression did not end until after WWII. Why it lasted so long went unanswered until Harold L. Cole, professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania, and Lee E. Ohanian, professor of economics at UCLA, published their research project "How Government Prolonged the Depression" in the Journal of Political Economy (August 2004). Professor Cole explained, "The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes. Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened." Professors Cole and Ohanian argue that FDR's economic policies added at least seven years to the depression.

Where do the trillion-plus dollars come from that Congress and Obama are spending in an effort to stimulate the economy? How about Santa Claus, or maybe the Tooth Fairy? If you said, "Come on, Williams, you're being silly! The only way government can spend a dollar is to tax or borrow it," go to the head of the class. In the case of a tax, one should ask what would that taxpayer have done with the dollar had it not been taxed away. He would have spent it on something that would have created a job for someone. If the government hadn't borrowed the dollar, it might have been invested in some project that would have created a job. When government taxes, borrows and spends, it shifts unemployment from one sector to another. Of course, the sector that benefits tends to be a political favorite of the shifter.

Between 1787 and 1930, our nation has seen both mild and severe economic downturns, sometimes called panics, that have ranged from one to seven years. During that interval, no one considered it to be the business of the federal government to try to get the economy out of a depression because there was no constitutional authority to do so. It took Hoover, FDR and a frightened and derelict U.S. Supreme Court to turn what might have been a three- or four-year sharp downturn into a 15-year meltdown.

Walter E. Williams

Dr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well.
 

THE CROOKED HOUSE IN POLAND

The Crooked House is most famous building in Poland. This building is totally 4000 square meter hours which in Resident and in this buildings every types of shopping centers available.

HAVE YOU TRIED THIS??

Hot Mushroom Cabbage Recipe

You've never had vegetables quite like this

INGREDIENTS:

·                6 slices bacon

·                2 Tablespoons butter

·                1 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced, or 16-ounce can, drained

·                1/4 cup minced onion

·                4 cups thinly-sliced cabbage

·                1/2 cup water

·                3 Tablespoons vinegar

·                1 Tablespoon brown sugar

·                1 teaspoon salt

·                1 teaspoon dillweed

·                1/4 teaspoon pepper

TO PREPARE:

1.  Saute bacon in skillet.  Crumble and set aside.  Drain all but 2 Tablespoons bacon fat from skillet.
2.  Add butter to skillet and melt.  Saute mushrooms and onion for 5 minutes.  Add remaining ingredients and bring to boiling point..
3.  Reduce heat.  Cover and simmer for 7 minutes or until cabbage is crisp tender.
4.  Serve with crumbled bacon.

SHARIA LAW VS WOMEN POWER IN THE PERSIAN GULF

Woman Power


15 October 2010

Emirati women entrepreneurs have taken different paths to create their businesses with passion and determination

MOVING FROM the palace to the marketplace is a metaphor for a change. All over the Middle East, women are continuing to cross boundaries, going from being heads of households to small business owners to CEOs. While women entrepreneurs are a minority in most parts of the world, their presence in the Middle East and North African region (MENA) has been much lower in comparison to not only other middle-income regions but also predominantly Muslim countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia. As the cost of living steadily rises in the region though, and the need emerges for job creation for a growing labour force, women entrepreneurs are playing a role in creating new employment opportunities.

ASMA DARWISH

is the managing director and interior designer at A&D Interiors, she set up her own firm early on in her career and is a member of the Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Establishment for Young Entrepreneurs (SME). A graduate of the American University of Sharjah with a Bachelors degree of Science in Interior Design, Darwish set up A&D Interiors in 2007 from concept and design to a fully operational business which included complete responsibility for strategy setting, management, marketing and design and project management.

“I wanted to be different and I loved designs. I used to freelance, but then I felt that I wanted security for myself and most importantly I wanted to please my clients so I ventured into design and learnt from other designers and colleagues. Slowly and steadily, that’s how my baby was born,” says Darwish.

If you are renovating or building — or just want a fresh new look — you will need to solve important space issues and choose the design, finishes and products that will work for you and look the way you want. “We give good planning and professional advice. My first design was of a shop for a wedding planner and the most delightful one was a residential place at Palm Island,” she says.

The designs she chooses are a blend of contemporary and classic, a blend of mashreq and maghrib (East and West).  

Darwish is inspired by UK-based designer Kelly Hoppen and hopes to meet her someday.

The day she got the keys to her office Darwish knew she had arrived. “I was considered a serious businesswoman and that was my doorway to the world,” she says, adding, “But my most valuable experience is from the on-the-job training that I am always doing: with each new project I’m always learning new things.”

Darwish mainly works on residential projects 
and works collaboratively with her clients to create spaces that reflect “my client’s individual taste, personality and lifestyle.” “There are always challenges with projects. Not all projects go smoothly. I call them expensive experiences because there are times I’ve had to put in things with my own pocket just to make sure the clients are happy.”

Bright and bold colours are her favourites and she describes herself as a very colourful person, but yes, she draws a balance when it comes to splashing them on the walls.

“I could hit upon an idea just by looking at things around me; it could be a bookcover, the colour of a shirt or top or even if I hear some nice jingle on TV; sometimes what the client wants can inspire 
me to think out of the box,” she says.

With a tight schedule, she still finds time to hang out with friends. “Sometimes the work pressure can be very challenging when everything does not go down too well. That’s when I vent it out through kick-boxing; I also love running. When I feel generous, I treat myself to a spa or a week-long vacation,” she says.  

When Darwish feels that there’s something missing in her work, she could forego the money and walk out. “My work has to reflect me in it. The moment I find it’s missing, I will move out. I would never be fake and am too independent to let it affect me.”

She tells other women entrepreneurs, “There will always be problems on the job. Think of them as a challenge and mistakes as expensive experiments. Be optimistic and move on.”

NAYLA AL KHAJA

is breaking new ground in the UAE. She’s the first female filmmaker/producer in the emirates. In 2002, Khaja founded D-Seven Motion Pictures, producing commercial material, independent documentaries and films.

Becoming the UAE’s own Oprah, she’s developing a proposal for a talk show tackling sensitive issues. 

Besides her television work, Khaja is currently working on a short film about a young Emirati couple on honeymoon and a documentary on Dubai’s ruling family. “I just got back from India after shooting in Kerala, during monsoons,” she says, adding, “People, cultures and stories fascinate me and I’d like to bring about a fusion of cultures through my work.”  

She’s also the first Emirati to shoot a feature film in India. The film Malal (boredom) portrays an Emirati girl who is married to an Indian man and on her honeymoon in India. “We had good fun shooting, except for the leeches. We had to wear gum boots, all of us except for the poor lead actor who wore slippers and jumped up and down as soon as the camera stopped rolling,” she laughs.   

In 2006, she made Arabana which deals with the disturbing issue of child abuse, a subject which is taboo in the Middle East. Although it was very difficult to fit such an intense subject into a span of only six minutes, Khaja managed to do so quite efficiently and not without effect. The movie is hard-hitting, and makes you sit up and take notice. It premiered at the Dubai International Film Festival and received special recognition for its content.

Khaja is always on the move. “Filmmaking makes you travel a lot. I just came back from India; now I’ll be going to Japan for a shoot. My parents weren’t too happy with my decisions earlier, but now they have accepted it,” she says.     

She has been watching Hindi films from the time she was a kid and wants to make her company just as huge as YashRaj Films.

Knowing that filmmaking is tough business, she hasn’t given up, “When I complain to my mother that I have problems, she asks me — compared to who? Look at the world. People are suffering. I know I can find money even under a stone. It’s all about wanting to survive and all of us will; there’s lots of space on Earth and the universe is made up of billions of solar systems. I look at it and feel so humbled.” No wonder she is fascinated with the universe, the planets, the solar system and keeps track of NASA news.

“I don’t just believe in reaching for the moon, I find myself amongst the stars,” she smiles. 

TALA BADRI

When Badri was a kid and her mother asked her what she wanted to be, she would say, “the queen of England.” Born and educated in Dubai, at the age of 17, Badri was awarded a full scholarship by the Government of Dubai to study music at Royal Holloway at the University of London and became the only female Emirati music graduate.

“I had performed in front of 500 people in the late 80s and the press got a whiff of it and came and listened to me and when I got rave reviews, I was sent to study music,” she says.

Badri worked for the next 10 years in the financial sector (Barclay’s Bank) and the consumer sector (Mars) gaining experience in finance, human resources and management. Whilst working in the corporate sector, Badri continued to teach flute and piano regularly and was heavily involved in the performing arts community in Dubai, including being instrumental in the development of the Dubai Community Theatre and Arts Centre. “It was my daughter’s autism that actually inspired me to start this institute as music therapy helped her a lot.”

Music has helped heal many people she says. “Especially teens and youngsters who face daily dilemmas and it helps calm them.”

Badri then founded the Centre for Musical Arts, a non-profit organisation dedicated to providing high quality and affordable music instruction for people of all ages and walks of life.

The Centre has people from various corners of the globe who have signed up for saxophone lessons. “Each of them has never picked up a saxophone in their life before, and now they are coming along for lessons every Tuesday,” she says. “My long-term goal is to have a purpose-built academy in the UAE,” she says.

Running your own business is challenging and exciting — but hearing real stories from the trenches is quite soothing.