Alaska is on sale soon!

A two-day Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) of 27 EU member states and 16 Asian countries was set to open on Friday.

The front-page commentary in the overseas edition of the People's Daily said that Asian and European countries should banish the U.S. dollar from their direct trade relations for a start, relying only on their own currencies.

A meeting between Asian and European leaders, starting on Friday in Beijing, presented the perfect opportunity to begin building a new international financial order, the newspaper said.
(Naked Capitalism)

FYI: U.S. private consumption peak at the rate of 9.1 trillions dollars a year with a population of 300 millions. The rest of 1.3 billions Chinese and 1.2 billions Indian combining about 2.5 billion Chindian only consume about $1.8 trillions dollar. The abrupt vacuum of U.S. consumer slow down is not easy to be replaced anytime soon. The world leaders need to get over the denial stage and admit that we are in at least a deep recession if not a looming depression.

US might be facing with limited choice in paying off its $10 trillion dollars debt = 620 miles of $100 dollar bills stacking side by side.

1. Facing default of the USD
2. Selling off Alaska

Put it in perspective

A few pictures of the day to pull us back for a few min, slow down, reflecting on our life, appreciate what we had and put things in perspective.


Left: A cobbler waiting on the street of Afghanistan. Making a humble living day by day. The psychological emotion he has to go through each day waiting for customers. Hoping that he would make enough to earn a meal for his family.

Below: a Chinese farmer harvesting his hard earn vegetables. Hard labor with little pays. Their earnest wishes are just to have a nice meal and some saving. Our over spent and over consumed society. Living outside of our means as becoming the norm and the way of life. It is sickening to see how materialistic the society has becoming the past decade. Now as we are entering a hard economic time, people would have to learn it the hard way and experience a period of much reduced standard of living.

So, from time to time, take a few min, be grateful. Live within your means. Do not chase after material as a source of happiness. Find it from the inside.