Salient to Investors:
Fareed Zakaria said:
- For 340 consecutive months, the Earth has been warmer than historic averages. 28 years ago, the Arctic was covered by ice throughout the year as it had been for centuries, but every summer two-thirds of it melts to water. In 2012, 46 commercial ships were allowed to sail the northern sea route which connects Northwestern Europe to Northeastern Asia through the Arctic, versus 34 in 20111 and 4 in 2010. In 2013, more than 200 ships have already been given the green light to sail.
- Nature Magazine found that the thawing of the permafrost beneath the East Siberian Sea is releasing large amounts of methane, intensifying the greenhouse gas effect and more extreme weather – at an estimated cost of $60 trillion, almost the size of the global economy.
- Nearly 1/3 of the world’s undiscovered gas lies under the Arctic along with vast reserves of metals and minerals. In reality, no one owns the Arctic. Russia, China and Canada have advanced systems to deal with navigating and policing these waters, but American does not. The UN’s Law of the Sea Treaty is signed by 164 countries but not by the US.
Meredith Whitney at Meredith Whitney Advisory Group said:
- Expect a wave of pensioners making concessions across the US. There was no transparency on pensions until 2009 and things are actually much worse than they seem as the US economy is not coming back in the areas that are under the most fiscal duress, a la Detroit.
- The US is grossly behind the rest of the world in terms of public/private infrastructure.
- We are in the process of rebalancing as a country, and things are going to get better in certain areas and worse in other areas.
Dean Baker at Center for Economic and Policy Research said we are through the worst of the municipality pension crisis.
Joseph Nye at Harvard said Obama was much more transformational in his rhetoric and in his first year but has turned out to be far more transactional and prudent. Transformational presidents like Woodrow Wilson and Ronald Reagan made great announcements, wanted to change the world. Transactional presidents like Eisenhower and George H.W. Bush were managerially prudent. George W. Bush was largely transactional in the campaign, but became transformational after 9/11.
Watch the video at http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/category/gps-episodes/ or read the full transcript at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1307/28/fzgps.01.html