Is it really true? The fact is developing countries do have overpopulated areas and poverty is the main problem they face. However, there are many examples which disprove this, such as the one of the Netherlands and its former colony Indonesia. Though the Netherlands has four times the population density of Indonesia, it is the latter which has a severe poverty problem and is considered overpopulated. Furthermore, contrary to what is expected, the gross national product in overpopulated developing countries is rising. This means that the economic state of countries with a large population isn’t necessarily worsening, and if so- population growth is not responsible for it.

Though we have seen that population growth is not the cause of poverty, some experts blame population growth of reducing available quantities of food. Actually, it is quite the opposite that is true. The largest increases in the production of food is in the third world countries, which happen to be where there are the largest increases of population.

Given what we know, we can surely say that population growth is exempted of being responsible for the poverty in the world or the reduction in the output of food per person. Researchers should more pay their attention to other problems caused by overpopulation, such as environmental pollution and natural resources degradation.

Source: EasyArticles.

Source: EasyArticles.

The strength of the recent boom in private equity has many analysts concerned that a growing percentage of the United States’ gross domestic product is moving “off the radar”. Because private investors are under no obligation to share financial information in the way that society has grown accustomed, these analysts are concerned that the resulting information opacity increases the risks of unexpected economic shocks.

Private equity refers to investment in assets that are not available on for public trading. Virtually all small businesses are organized as private businesses, but in the rarefied environs of the nation’s largest companies the preferred organization is the public corporation.

When private equity firms approach a public company with an offer to buy the company and take it private, they typically offer a substantial premium to the market value of the company. For example, when private equity firm KKR purchased First Data for over $25 billion, this represented a 26% premium over the prevailing market rate for the shares of the company.

Private equity firms are capable of purchasing any business, public or private, but many of the larger firms have concentrated on purchasing distressed companies that have recently undergone troubles. These so called turnaround jobs have been a significant source of acquisitions recently. Two private equity giants, Blackstone and Centerbridge, are engaged in a bidding frenzy for the troubled Chrysler arm of DaimlerChrysler. Chrysler lost over $1 billion last year, but DaimlerChrysler will receive in excess of $6 billion for the company.

While private equity investments carry their own risks, they also are uniquely suited to reward the greater economy. Private equity’s ability to look beyond the day to day shifts in stock price and concentrate on building long term wealth could allow enhanced risk taking. When TXU was purchased by a consortium of private equity firms, the staid energy giant changed its culture. The firm shelved plans to build coal-powered plants and now is working on the largest nuclear facility in the United States. This change from safe investments to much more risky operations could only occur thanks to private equity.

The real concern with private equity, however, is the high debt load taken on by the acquired company to leverage the investment made by the principals. These so called leveraged buyouts result in companies with huge amounts of debt. And the risk of companies becoming unable to service that debt in an economic downturn is no small matter. The IMF has publicly warned regulators around the world to pay close attention to rising levels of private debt.

All of these concerns notwithstanding, private equity is clearly the way of the future. The reason is clear - enormous profits are possible. When Google purchased DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, it also allowed a private equity firm to get out of an investment it only paid $1.1 billion for, just a few years ago. These substantial profits will attract a growing part of the investment world.

The increasingly global economy is also becoming an increasingly private economy. New risks abound in this changing landscape, but the rewards for success will be substantial.

Source: EasyArticles.

Source: EasyArticles.

Finnair’s total traffic, measured in passenger kilometers, increased by 22.0% in November, while the capacity was up by 18.8%, resulting in a passenger load factor of 71.4% or 1.9 points higher than last year. All Finnair Group airlines transported 619 630 passengers, which is 6.3% more than a year ago. In January-November, Finnair carried over eight million passengers.

Finnair’s Tallinn-based subsidiary Aero AS, carried 21 035 passengers (-62.2%) on routes between Helsinki and the Baltic capitals and within Southern Finland. Aero figures are respectively included in Finnair Group total figures. At the end of June, Finnair sold its Stockholm-based subsidiary airline FlyNordic and its traffic performance is no longer reported as part of Finnair Group statistics. For better comparison, equivalent figures for last year have been adjusted accordingly.

Arrival punctuality of scheduled flights was 76.5% (based on a fifteen minute standard), 1.6 points lower than in January 2006. Including leisure flights arrival punctuality was 74.3% (-1.7 p.p).

Scheduled traffic

1 In scheduled traffic (international + domestic) revenue passenger kilometres increased by 27.3%. The change in capacity was 22.5%. Passenger load factor was 67.7%, 2.5 percentage points higher than last year.

2 In scheduled international traffic, total number of passengers was up by 18.8%. Capacity in ASKs was 27.1%, while RPKs increased by 31.3%.

* In European scheduled traffic, ASKs increased by 18.3%, and as RPKs increased by 14.5%, the passenger load factor was 57.6%, down 1.9 points from previous year.
*
* In North Atlantic scheduled traffic, capacity decreased by 5.1%. Change in RPKs was 5.7%, and passenger load factor for November was 78.6%, 8.1 points higher than previous year.
*
* In Asian scheduled traffic, capacity increase was 38.7%. The passenger traffic was up by 46.1%. Passenger load factor was 75.9%, 3.8 percentage points up.

3 Domestic scheduled traffic decreased by 12.5% on a capacity decrease of 14.6%. Passenger load factor increased by 1.3 percentage points to 55.4%.

Leisure traffic

4 ASKs for leisure traffic increased in November by 7.9%, and RPKs increased by 10.0%, resulting in a passenger load factor of 83.5%, 1.6 points higher than last year.

Cargo

5 Cargo traffic increased by 12.0% in terms of cargo tonnes carried. Growth in scheduled traffic was 22.9%. Increase in Asian traffic was 39.1%. Volume in European traffic increased by 6.3%. In North-Atlantic traffic cargo volume decreased by 10.2%. Cargo traffic carried on chartered cargo flights cut by 64.9% due to discontinuation of a weekly New York cargo route. The cargo load factor was 60.4%. The cargo load factor in the Asian traffic was 83.7% and in the North Atlantic traffic 86.6%.

Full traffic performance data available at
http://www.finnairgroup.com/linked/en/s … 2007en.pdf

The former chairman of the Federal Reserve told ABC’s This Week programme that the least harmful way of intervening would be to provide direct financial aid to distressed homeowners.

“Cash is available and we should use that in larger amounts, as is necessary, to solve the problems of the stress of this,” Mr Greenspan said. “It’s far less damaging to the economy to create a short-term fiscal problem, which we would, than to try to fix the prices of homes or interest rates. If you do that, it’ll drag this process out indefinitely.”

Mr Greenspan said it was vital that policymakers allowed the markets to reach a “selling climax” after which volumes would pick up as buyers were attracted back by low prices. He did not endorse any of the existing plans for more public action.

His remarks came in an interview in which Mr Greenspan said the US – which reported annual inflation of 4.3 per cent on Friday – was seeing the “early symptoms” of stagflation.

He said he was “most concerned” about the risk of inflation moving up, particularly over the medium term, and said it was “critically important that the Fed is allowed politically to do what it has to do” to keep inflation down.

Mr Greenspan said he thought the probability of a US recession had “moved up close to 50 per cent” – though he still puts it a fraction below the 50 per cent mark.

He said the minimum likely loss on subprime and related housing securities was now $200bn (€139bn, £100bn) and said the number could be as high as $400bn.

Mr Greenspan said the probability of recession was not higher than 50 per cent because the US corporate sector had taken advantage of the long period of very low long-term interest rates that preceded the crisis to lock in long-term funds at attractive rates, insulating business from the credit squeeze.

While ordinarily a sharp tightening in financial conditions “would have been a very major problem for the American economy”, he said, “it is clearly less so today”. He added: “The credit needs have not been all that large.”

Mr Greenspan also noted that consumer spending remained resilient, in spite of the many factors that would be expected to hold it back – such as falling house prices, high oil prices and reduced availability of credit.

The combination of a corporate sector insulated from the credit squeeze and a still robust consumer could keep the US out of recession, he suggested.

However, he warned that the US economy was “going to stall speed” and would be vulnerable to additional shocks that could tip it over the brink into recession.

Mr Greenspan said it would be impossible for financial markets to stabilise until there was greater certainty about where house prices would level off. This is because most housing-related securities are based on recent vintage loans with only a tiny cushion of home equity, making their value dependent on house prices.

He said prices would begin to stabilise when the rate of liquidation of the stock of unsold homes peaked, rather than when the excess stock was completely exhausted.

The Des Moines Register said Mrs Clinton was the most tried and tested of the would-be Democratic nominees. “Every stage of her life has prepared her for the presidency,” it said.

The backing is a welcome fillip for the New York senator, who is locked in an increasingly acrimonious three-way struggle to win Iowa with Barack Obama and John Edwards, and has seen her once-commanding lead in national polls erode.

However, the Boston Globe, which is the most widely read newspaper in New Hampshire, the second state to hold a contest, backed Mr Obama, saying the Illinois senator had the “leadership skills to reset the country’s reputation in the world”.

John McCain – the one-time Republican frontrunner, now running an underdog campaign – won both influential papers’ backing for his party’s nomination.

The Boston Globe said: “The iconoclastic senator from Arizona has earned his reputation for straight talk by actually levelling with voters, even at significant political expense.”

Mr McCain is far behind in Iowa, and is pinning much of his hopes on New Hampshire, though even there he is trailing in the polls.

Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee, the dark horse who has emerged as a leading Republican challenger, criticised the Bush administration’s handling of foreign policy, saying it had an “arrogant bunker mentality”.

Mr Huckabee wrote in the a new year edition of Foreign Affairs magazine: “My administration will recognise that the [US] main fight today does not pit us against the world but pits the world against the terrorists.”

He said: “American foreign policy needs to change its tone and attitude, open up and reach out.”

The White House declined to comment, according to news agencies reports, but the campaign of a rival Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, said: “The attack on the presidency was something uncalled for.”

The weekend press endorsements set the stage for a tough Iowa caucus on January 3. In the last race, the backing of the Des Moines Register helped Mr Edwards, the former vice-presidential candidate, to perform much more strongly than expected, propelling him into the Democrats’ number-two slot.

This time the paper said of Mr Edwards: “We too seldom saw the positive optimistic campaign we found appealing in 2004.”

Mr Edwards, who remains a strong contender in Iowa, told ABC’s This Week programme that he did not apologise for promising to take on vested interests.

He said the US needed a “Teddy Roosevelt” style of president who would be tough on big corporations, for instance in healthcare.

“Don’t remind me. I’m trying to forget about it,” the Raleigh, N.C., resident said of the price shortly after checking in at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge. “We’re just kind of biting the bullet.”

In a city where even residents often pay more than half their salaries for a place to lay their heads, visitors in need of lodging have long faced a shortage of hotel rooms and rising prices.

Now, with 8,500 hotel rooms under construction in the city — a growth of more than 10% — that crunch could ease ever so slightly in the coming months. By comparison, it took from 1998 to 2007 to make a leap of the same size.

“One of the challenges that New York has always had is having enough rooms for tourists,” said Sean Hennessey, CEO of industry consulting firm Lodging Investment Advisors. “Most of the time the corporate travelers are willing to pay more than the tourists, and the tourists kind of get crowded out.”

New York sees more overseas and domestic visitors than any other U.S. destination except Orlando, according to analysts at Global Insight Inc. But it has fewer hotel rooms than less-popular spots including Las Vegas, Chicago, the Los Angeles metro area and Atlanta, according to Smith Travel Research.

The resulting shortage leads many travelers seeking an affordable room to head far afield of the usual tourist draws, and hotel developers have taken notice, with new lodging under construction or recently opened in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Long Island and beyond.

Even with the weak dollar making his trip to New York a bargain, London resident Mike Jones still found the price tag on his Brooklyn hotel room shocking.

“All the hotels in Manhattan are pretty much full at whatever rate they want to charge,” said the 56-year-old, whose travel agent advised him to a book a room in an outer borough because of the cost. “They’re operating at pretty much capacity, and they can charge pretty much what they like.”

Even when he decided to stay in Brooklyn for its cheaper prices, he ended up with a bill for close to $600 a night, he said, adding, “That’s crazy.”

Indeed, the city’s occupancy rate is much higher than elsewhere around the country — averaging 85% in Manhattan during the first nine months of this year, compared with the national average of 65%, according to Smith Travel Research. Manhattan’s hotels are at or near capacity most nights of the year, said Hennessey, adding that the current growth is the largest he’s seen in the city in 25 years.

While hotel developers are doing well around the country, the high demand and rising prices in New York City have convinced investors that it’s a particularly good time to build hotels here. Even the current influx of rooms is unlikely to glut the market and knock down prices, Hennessey said, although he noted that an economic downturn could lead companies to cut back on business travel — a move that could lead to cheaper rates.

As of October, New York had 59 hotels under construction — more than any of the 26 other U.S. cities with the largest number of hotel rooms, according to Smith Travel Research. It also had 103 hotels in the planning stage, beating out all those other markets.

With most of those new properties expected to charge what Hennessey called “mid-market” prices, the new hotels should be a boon for tourists, although mid-range in New York — $200 to $300 per night — may still seem far too expensive for some.

In part, the building boom has been driven by developers like McSam Hotel Group LLC, which has made a business of buying properties not zoned for residential use but too small to be attractive as office space, then converting them into functional hotels with small rooms, Hennessey said. As of September, the company had nearly 30 hotels expected to open around the city by 2009, according to city tourism office NYC & Company. Representatives of McSam Hotel Group were unavailable for comment.

While properties already under construction are unlikely to be called off, the mortgage crunch has some in the industry wondering if future projects might be slowed by the rising price of financing. Either way, it seems unlikely that a city with such high real estate prices will soon be offering truly cheap hotel rooms.

And, says New York City Marriott spokeswoman Kathleen Duffy, they’re unlikely to find such prices in Brooklyn, where, she says, rates are increasingly competitive with Manhattan. The Brooklyn Marriott where Werness and Jones were staying recently added a new tower with 280 rooms to keep up with demand, Duffy said.

A short drive away, on a stretch of Brooklyn’s Fourth Avenue that is home to auto body shops and discount liquor stores, the boutique Hotel Le Bleu, which opened last month, charges upward of $300 a night.

That, says general manager Robert Gaeta, is a “good value.”

“There’s no foreseeable decrease in the demand for New York City as a destination for travelers,” he said. “I have no doubts that we’ll be at 90% occupancy on a consistent basis.”

The mounting number of home foreclosures in Michigan is among the highest in the nation. These homes are being sold at a fraction of their value throughout Wayne County, Oakland County, Macomb County and other counties in Michigan. This is good news for people looking to buy affordable housing and property in Michigan, however, for real estate agents, mortgage brokers, loan officers and realtors it poses a challenge. The one web site that is free to search for these great deals and foreclosures is http://www.TheQuickHomeFinder.com

According to Mark Maupin of Budget Realty LLC, “The problem is that there’s an amazing amount of homes for sale in Michigan at rock bottom prices.” In fact, affordable homes are so abundant that anyone looking to buy a house may not need a realtor. Companies like The Quick Home Finder.com, which specializes in finding and listing homes and property for sale in Michigan, are seeing the repercussion. This climate has caused Maupin and others like him to rethink their tactics.

As Maupin of Budget Realty LLC, explains, “We have to be able to collaborate with other real estate companies in order to provide the best rates for anyone trying to find homes for sale.” Rather than competing with other companies, they’ve focused their efforts on joining forces with Michigan’s premier real estate company, http://www.TheQuickHomeFinder.com . “Together,” says Maupin, “we’re virtually a home depot for clients to find their dream house at an affordable price.” Perhaps this sort of team work will become a trend in Michigan’s real estate market as the struggle for survival continues.

The Quick Home Finder.com services the following Counties, Townships and Cities:

Oakland County
–Addison Township, Auburn Hills, Berkley, Beverly Hills, Bingham
Farms, Birmingham, Bloomfield Township, Clawson, Commerce Township,
Farmington, Farmington Hills, Ferndale, Franklin, Hazel Park, Highland
Township, Holly, Holly Township, Huntington Woods, Independence
Township, Keego Harbor, Lathrup Village, Lyon Township, Madison
Heights, Milford, Milford Township, Northville, Novi, Oak Park,
Oakland Township, Orchard Lake, Orion Township, Oxford Township,
Pleasant Ridge, Pontiac, Rochester, Rochester Hills, Royal Oak,
Southfield, South Lyon, Troy, Walled Lake, Waterford Township, West
Bloomfield Township, White Lake Township, Wixom

Wayne County
–Belleville, Brownstown Township, Canton Township, Dearborn, Dearborn
Heights, Grosse Ile Township, Grosse Pointe Shores, Grosse Pointe
Woods, Hamtramck, Inkster, Livonia, Northville Township, Plymouth,
Redford Township, Riverview, Romulus, Taylor, Trenton, Wayne,
Westland, Wyandotte.

Washtenaw County:
Ann Arbor, Bridgewater, Chelsea, Dexter, Manchester, Salem, Saline,
Superior Township, Whitmore Lake, Whittaker, Willis, and Ypsilanti

Livingston County:
Brighton City, Cohoctah Township, Deerfield Township, Green Oak Township, Handy Township, Howell City, Iosco Township, Village of Fowlerville, Brighton Township, Conway Township, Genoa Township, Hamburg Township, Hartland Township, Howell Township, Marion Township, Putnam Township, Unadilla Township, Village of Pinckney

For more information: http://TheQuickHomeFinder.com

But how easy is it for an illegal drug user to defeat such tests? A Google search for “beat drug tests” returns nearly 3 million hits. Web sites make brazen promises such as “Have a drug test coming up? Don’t worry!” while offering advice for fooling testing facilities and selling adulterants to mask drug use undetectable. The promises aren’t empty.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, recently sent undercover agents to 24 drug testing facilities and found that 22 did not follow federal protocols to ensure that there was no cheating. Agents found they could use phony IDs (allowing someone else to take a drug test for the intended driver), adulterate urines samples, swap urine samples and otherwise elude tests. This raises substantial legal and moral liability questions for companies thinking they are sending drug-free drivers onto the roads — and any employer who requires drug tests for employees should wonder about the efficacy of the results.