The last week was a interesting, confusing and destroying week for me. But lets start on the nice side, the visit from the leweb09 was a great event for me and Rene. We have a lot of fund and enjoy the show. Also we meet a lot of interested people and yes I can say next year we will come back again. But this time not longer as two Directors of the the TO9 Inc. no because one day after on Friday we where kicked out … Yes sure it was my own company I founded it together with Rene and we build it over the years merging our own business together. And sure we are successful and have a log of great new products and services in the pipe, but thats not enough our shareholders believe. They told us they don`t longer want to go the “Web 2.0” way, they want more the “Wall street”  way. So ok the voting on Friday was 61% agains us (this is the amount the investor owns) and the rest  was for us, but yes 61% wins every time. So Rene and me have to leave the T09 Inc. It feels for me like loosing the ground under my feed. Like lost my identity. Well after a few days later and a long family based weekend I can say. Its still a bad feeling about the way they go. Sure if they even ask or say something before we maybe could do the hole stuff more gentleman like. But yes it has to go on. On this way I wish the T09 stuff all the good. We together had a great time.

So what to do now for me ? Retirement ? No I am to young for this kind of stuff. Also I think about to buy my own private wine yard but nah, its not my business. I love wine and all the stuff around but to work the rest of my life on my own wine ? No not yet.

Rene and me today incorporate the next company. The name and the project is still top secret. It has something to do with Twitter, Facebook, and all the stuff behind it. So stay tuned and thanks once more for the nice words I get via Email, Twitter , Phone from all my friends, business partners and the great guys and girls outside on the twitter planet.

Also I want to take the chance to say thanks Rene (@heavycreator) you are not only a great business partner of mine, now you are my best friends. Thanks for all.

On this way cheers!

Arne

Hacked messages about global warming caused controversy

Climate skeptics have seized on several e-mails from Phil Jones to other researchers as evidence that prominent scientists have sought to silence their voices in the debate over global warming. Jones’s e-mail account was apparently hacked and his e-mails were posted online last month.

“What is most important is that CRU continues its world leading research with as little interruption and diversion as possible,” Jones said in a statement. “After a good deal of consideration I have decided that the best way to achieve this is by stepping aside from the Director’s role during the course of the independent review and am grateful to the University for agreeing to this. The Review process will have my full support.”

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Singapore Airlines Ltd. cut Chief Executive Officer Chew Choon Seng’s salary by 20 percent and parked planes in response to a global travel slump. It didn’t touch the S$11 million ($8 million) it spends annually on wine and Dom Perignon champagne for first-class passengers.

Luring travelers back into premium seats is key for Chew to end a run of two consecutive quarterly losses, the airline’s worst streak in at least seven years. First-class and business- class passengers account for about 40 percent, or S$6.4 billion, of the carrier’s annual sales.

“Coach-class business just doesn’t produce the kind of income that will make the likes of Singapore Air profitable,” said Jim Eckes, the Hong Kong-based managing director of industry consultant Indoswiss Aviation. “High-yield traffic is ego-driven.”

Worldwide, the number of people flying in first and business class on international flights declined for 16 straight months through September, according to theInternational Air Transportation Association, as companies cut spending due to the recession. With the economy picking up, business is returning.

“We are starting to see bankers in suits back in first class and business class,” said Chew. The airline filled an average of 81.1 percent of its seats, including business and first class, in October, the best occupancy rate in almost two years.

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Stocks gained from London to Hong Kong as concern about Dubai’s debt eased and metals prices rose after U.S. manufacturing expanded for a fourth straight month.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.5 percent to a six-week high of 120.07 at 2:20 p.m. in Tokyo as record gold prices boosted Zijin Mining Group Co. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 1.2 percent to 1,108.86 yesterday. Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index jumped 2.7 percent, the most since July. Gold for immediate delivery gained 1.1 percent to $1,209.32 an ounce after rising as high as $1,210.59.

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Microsoft Corp said on Tuesday it could find no evidence that recent security updates were causing problems with its new Windows 7 operating system, which some have dubbed the “black screen of death.”

The problem, which has caused a small number of users to see a completely black screen after logging on, was identified by British software security firm Prevx last week, and received widespread attention after a report by the BBC on Tuesday.

Prevx had claimed that changes to Microsoft’s operating system’s registry — the database that stores configuration settings — were the most likely cause of the error, but Microsoft denied that.

“Microsoft has investigated reports that its November security updates made changes to permissions in the registry that are resulting in system issues for some customers,” said Microsoft representative Christopher Budd.

“The company has found those reports to be inaccurate and our comprehensive investigation has shown that none of the recently released updates are related to the behavior described in the reports,” he said.

He added that Microsoft’s support teams were not seeing this as a big issue for users, but urged Microsoft customers to contact support for free assistance in the event of problems.

Reviled by the public and spurned in private, bankers have been looking for solace in adultery, according to a dating website for people seeking affairs.

IllicitEncounters.com said it has seen a huge increase in the number of financial workers signing up to have affairs after the collapse of the markets in October last year, and that “finance” continued to be one of the most represented professional areas on the site.

The website said in a statement that it has over 380,000 members across Britain of which more than 20,000 work in “financial services” and said it surveyed over 600 men and women bankers to compile a top 10 list of reasons why they embarked on extra-marital affairs.

The list shows that public revulsion for bankers combined with a lack of affection in private was the top reason for having an affair, followed closely by the excitement of doing something risky, escaping boredom, feeding the ego and one-upping the boys with a trophy mistress.

“We were surprised at the honesty of some responses,” IllicitEncounters representative Sara Hartley said of the replies, which also showed that long work hours and commuting left many bankers with very little time at home for romance.

“The more time they spend away from home, the less time they have to rekindle that spark.”

A common reply from male respondents had to do with boosting egos and giving in to the peer pressure of having a mistress for the sake of status.

“Where I work, many of the tops (sic) dogs are open about their affairs,” the website quoted “member 23*56″ as saying in its statement. “Having a mistress is like having a flash car.”

A list of the top 10 reasons bankers gave for having affairs follows:

1. To feel loved

2. For the thrill

3. Unstable home life

4. To escape the mundane

5. Ego boost

6. To avoid costly divorce

7. To lavish attention on someone

8. Because they feel entitled

9. Because they can/opportunity

10. Peer pressure

Taken all in all, Dubai’s debt crisis is the most significant financial development of 2007. Here in late 2009 it amounts to far less.
Back in the day it would have been a newsflash that apartments ultimately require occupants, that investment needs to be ratified by cash flows, and that debt, Sharia-compliant or garden variety, someday must be repaid.
Dubai’s difficulties are being sold as the commercial real estate debacle somehow morphing into a sovereign debt crisis and it is true that the effective borrowing rates of the more raddled national borrowers such as Ireland have been driven up in recent days.
Dubai’s government said on Monday that it is not responsible for the borrowings of Dubai World, a state-controlled development conglomerate saddled with huge debts amid a property market where the going rate has halved.
Dubai last week applied for, or imposed depending on your point of view, a six-month repayment freeze for Dubai World and its property developer Nakheel.
“Creditors need to take part of the responsibility for their decision to lend to the companies. They think Dubai World is part of the government, which is not correct,” said Abdulrahman Saleh, director general of Dubai’s department of finance.
Quite, and hopes that credit extended to Dubai World would be made good by the state of Dubai or by the richer emirate of Abu Dhabi seem to be foundering. This is bad news for those creditors, with the worst potential losses traceable to banks in Britain and Europe, but its probably just not that big of a deal.
For one thing, the amount potentially at issue, even if you allow for an extra 50 percent off balance sheet taking it to circa $125 billion, is simply not big enough in the scale of things to tip significant players over the edge.
And it tells us very little about the state of the world or the likely outlook for real estate. It is very hard to call something a canary in the coal mine when you are already cleaning up after a mining disaster.
For a time the magical thinking behind Dubai, “build it and they will come”, worked and despite it being remote, having an inhospitable climate and little inherent commercial reason for existing, the city boomed. It’s a bit like having a feast so the harvest will be good rather than when it actually is, but it was effective for a time as prices rose and investment was attracted.
DUBAI WORLD MEETS MORAL HAZARD WORLD
The nub of the meme in financial markets is that this is about sovereign exposure and that creditors will be shocked if the state support they thought they had coming never arises.
But is it terribly bad news for the rest of us? Probably not. Investors should have seen it coming – there have been quite a few headlines recently about the real estate crash-  and should not have conflated “implicit” with “explicit”.
Dubai has made clear in its own bond prospectuses that it might lend support but that it was under no obligation to do so. Teaching investors the difference between “quasi-state” and “state” is a good thing.
So why then did the cost of borrowing for Greece and Ireland, as expressed in insurance contracts against default, go up?
Nothing about Dubai’s predicament will have much of an impact on Irish or Greek tax revenues clearly, and the banks and the pool of lendable capital has not been diminished by much.
Nor is it easy to draw a new connection between Dubai and the emerging European countries which represent a much more substantial and potentially grave threat to banks in Europe.
Perhaps this is ultimately about moral hazard – risk taking under the belief that you are “insured” -  as are all stories involving the words “quasi,” “government,” and “debt.”
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s quasi-government status fed moral-hazard driven risk taking, as did Dubai World’s, as is most certainly the case where government insurance allows for cheap borrowing.
Markets went down on Dubai because they have become addicted to moral hazard and anything that doesn’t conform with the idea that all shall be bailed out is scary.
It is apparently terrifying that a government should say “hard luck” to anyone anywhere, no matter how difficult the government’s situation is or how ill-founded the investors claim to relief.
None of this is to say that the commercial real estate crash isn’t terrifying, or that countries like Ireland and Greece don’t face difficult times and huge risks, but only that Dubai tells us little new about those things.
There is definitely a moral hazard trade out there, but Dubai is not the event which will cause it to unwind.

A man accused of shooting to death four police officers in a Washington State coffee shop was shot and killed by police on Tuesday.

The suspect, Maurice Clemmons, was shot by a police officer in south Seattle, Pierce County Sheriff’s Department said. It did not disclose additional details.

Clemmons was wanted in the Sunday morning shooting that killed four officers in a Tacoma, Washington-area, coffee shop. The officers were preparing for their day shift when they were shot.

A handgun belonging to one of the officers was found in Clemmons’ possession, police said. A suspected getaway driver and three other people who may have helped Clemmons evade police for two days have also been arrested, police said.

Authorities have described the shootings at the Forza Coffee Shop as an ambush, but have not ascribed a motive. The attack occurred 40 miles southwest of Seattle.

Gulf markets dropped again on Tuesday, taking little comfort from Dubai World’s plan to restructure about $26 billion of debt, while the rulers of Abu Dhabi and Dubai talked up their economic strength.

Dubai stocks fell a further 3.6 percent and the Abu Dhabi bourse lost 5.6 percent on their second trading day since Dubai last week asked creditors of Dubai World and its property arm Nakheel for a six-month delay on debt repayments. Qatar’s bourse was also more than 8 percent lower.

State-controlled Dubai World, which led the emirate’s transformation into a regional hub for finance, investment and tourism, unveiled details late on Monday of its plan covering $26 billion of debt owed by its main property firms, Nakheel and Limitless.

Global markets took a pounding when the Dubai news broke last week, though on Tuesday Asian and European stocks were up, following the lead from Wall Street overnight.

Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, who is also the United Arab Emirates’ vice president, prime minister and defense minister, said the global reaction had shown “a lack of understanding.”

“We are strong and persistent,” he told reporters.

Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, president of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi, said the UAE economy was showing signs of growth in the fourth quarter.

Dubai’s troubles could shift political power in the UAE, a seven-emirate federation celebrating 38 years of independence on Wednesday, toward oil-producing Abu Dhabi and away from its exuberant neighbor.

The Dubai World group, whose total liabilities are estimated at nearly $60 billion, said the restructuring would exclude “financially stable” units such as Infinity World Holding, Istithmar World and Ports & Free Zone World, which includes DP World, Economic Zones World, P&O Ferries and Jebel Ali Free Zone.

Dubai World would look at options for cutting its debt, including asset sales, it added.

In London, ratings agency Moody’s said it estimated the Dubai government and its related entities carried $100 billion of debt, above the market estimate of around $80 billion.

Moody’s also said ports operator DP World and Jebel Ali Free Zone had approximately $10 billion in debt.

HIGH-YIELD MARKET

“Dubai’s corporate landscape is now effectively a high-yield market,” said Philip Lotter, senior vice president of EMEA corporate finance group at the ratings agency.

Mardig Haladjian, general manager of Moody’s EMEA banking group, said possible multiple defaults related to Dubai World’s restructuring could hit the credit ratings of UAE banks, but not those of international banks exposed to the group.

In a sign that concern among local banks was subsiding, however, UAE interbank offered rates eased, with the 3-month rate falling to 1.90500 percent from Monday’s 1.94125 percent fix.

And the cost of insuring Dubai debt against restructuring or default fell, with its five-year credit default swaps dropping to 526 basis points from Monday’s close of 570, according to CMA Datavision. It stood around 300 basis points before last week.

Jebel Ali Free Zone, a unit of Dubai World which is not part of the restructuring, said it had made a coupon payment on Monday on its 7.5 billion dirham ($2 billion) Islamic bond.

Dubai World’s restructuring plan appeared to calm global fears of contagion and reassured some investors in the region.

“This is definitely good news, it shows they are still committed to their payments, and it removes all fears that this is a complete default,” said Hassaim Arabi, chief executive at Gulfmena Alternative Investments.

A Dubai-based strategist said the plan was a positive step because it disclosed the scale of the problem. “But the main concern remains unchanged. What is the outcome of those negotiations with regard to the Nakheel problem?” he asked.

The Abu Dhabi market had plunged 8.3 percent on Monday, its worst one-day drop on record, while Dubai’s fell 7.3 percent, its biggest in more than a year.