October, together with August are very bad months for stocks. I would be more worried about long term decline on the stock market than on Chinese currency deal. Stock market is the a few areas that gave people return on the investments. Savings, MMA, were not giving big returns for years. China owns very little of US debt in comparison to whole US economy. Most of the US debt is held by American institutions than foreigner government. China has own debt problem, somewhere it is around 250% of GDP including its private sector, so their options are also limited.
Posts by kaik
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4Reserve currencies and China.
by zeb inin october 2015 there will be a huge move likely to include china into the worlds "reserve currencies".. this is likely to see a run on the us dollar and trading that is done in us dollars.. i am not predicting gloom but it will impact on all of us and perhaps may be behind the obsession of the wt to stack up as much real estate and the green stuff as they can..
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How dishonest was the Apostle Paul?
by opusdei1972 inmay be some of you will be shocked by this question.
however, when i was studying the bible with critical eyes i detected that paul ( or saul of tarsus) misquoted the hebrew bible in order to get false support for his arguments.
of course, this tricky kind of use of the "scriptures" was not only used by him, but others, like the author of the gospel of matthew got unsupported doctrines misquoting verses.
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kaik
I would also add regarding long hair.. Paul was a Roman citizen and as such influenced by customs normal in the Roman Empire. He lived during the reign of Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, where behavior, fashions and standards were dictated by imperial court. What was fashionable in the court, entire empire followed. The long hair fashion was disapproved by Caligula, who was bald by age 25 and had very big handicap from it. He did not allowed men with long hair around him or hoovering over him due balding.
When I read Paul with view that it was written by Roman person who acted on it when it was profitable and suitable, I cannot shake negative feeling on him. Additionally, it is rather ridiculous when Paul demanded a justice from the hand of Emperor Nero.
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Ray Franz and You.
by John Aquila inif ray franz would have kept his mouth shut and not disfellowshipped, and remained part of the governing body how many of us ex-jw would still be trapped in the cult?.
would we have come this far?.
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kaik
He did not had effect on my decision. I have only read his book some years later after I had left. There were people who left WT cult before him and they will be people leaving regardless if he stayed in highest circle of the borg. -
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Human Potential is Awesome - We Visited Pluto Today
by cofty innasa's probe "new horizons" was launched in 2006 and since then has been speeding across 3 billion miles of space to the most distant planet in our solar system.. the first pictures arrived today with higher resolution images due tomorrow.. i fu~~ing love science.. more details from the bbc here.... .
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kaik
I wish we have technology that would allows us to investigate space beyond the solar system like Oort clouds that would tells us more about origin of our Sun and Earth. Unfortunately by the time the satellites reach Kuiper belt, the communication with Earth is not possible as the batteries and power in them is too weak or depleted. New Horizon is would provide interesting information on Kuiper belt all the way till 2030 or so. If any new satellite are launched to investigate the edges of our solar system, by the time it reaches, we will not be alive to see it. -
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Youth Unemployment in Europe - Will there be Social Consequences?
by fulltimestudent inthink for a moment about this chart and wonder as to effect that unemployment may have on young people.. .
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kaik
As you can see there is a huge gap between southern Europe and countries north of the Alps. The issue in the south is that entire generation is growing without gaining employable skills and working habits like waking up for work and having responsibilities. Also it is crucial that youth unemployment rate in USA is also high, officially around 13-15%, which is on level UK, but higher than Germany. Also the statistics should look overall entire workforce where labor participation in many EU countries is much higher than in USA. In Germany, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Austria, the number is about 70% for 18-65 year old, much higher than in USA where is hoovering around 60%. Actually, Germany has the highest labor participation rate since 1990. Czech Republic since 1994. Big issue in EU is the mobility, but USA youth labor force is skewed by such thing as much higher incarceration rate and higher military participation than in EU. -
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The 1995 Generation Change
by sloppyjoe2 ini was just a teenager and have a vivid memory of sitting in a chair doing a microphone for the sunday meeting.
everyone was commenting that it didn't mean the end was far off, and it didn't change the condition of the dead, or the 144,000, or the trinity so we should still remain faithful.
this is my first memory as a kid being just a teen that i ever had a single doubt.
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kaik
I left prior this overlapping generation nonsense. After my family informed me on the new light as "yeah, the generations of 1914 can mean multiple biogenesis", I knew my decision to walk away from JW was alright. My sibling explained that last generation was in fact, generation spanning of several centuries, because people were the witnesses of the last day. In the KH they explained that renaissance generation was all generations between 1450 and 1600 because all these people were part of the same event. -
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My sister is being harassed by the elders
by opusdei1972 insometime ago i wrote here in this forum about the case of my sister, who decided to stop attending the meetings because she realised that the watchtower society is an evil organization.
this happened more than one year ago.
i am not living in the same country of my sister, so i learn about her case when she calls me or when she write me through whatsapp.
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kaik
Your sister should call police and file police report subsequently. -
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The end of a Chinese 'nail' house
by fulltimestudent indisputes between residents of resumed property in china, often become dramatic, as in these two cases.. .
these problems are not unique to china, but can arise in any society when the community (government) wants to use the land on which a house stands for somethings different (e.g.
a new school, roads, railways, etc).
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kaik
This is a problem in the Czech Republic where after the fall of communism people insist to hold on property and would not negotiate a sell while it is often necessary for many infrastructure project. At the extreme cases the sales has to be forced by the court, but people often accuse the government of communist theft practice. Some cases it is a disaster, where government cannot build flood barriers after disastrous floods of 1997/2002 because people would not sell the land and would let tens of thousands people to suffer as consequences. One place there was old guy who refused to sell a part of the land for city bypass, and it was not until his granddaughter was run over and killed by a truck. He was the loudest afterwards accusing the municipality for not building the bypass. Unfortunately in many cases, the government has very little ways to prevent speculation on properties or forcing a sale of the land for the better good of the community. -
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Try Other Religions
by Sofia Lose insometimes i get a strong curiosity to start dabbling into other religions, other faiths, you know?
really different ones such as islam, judaism, hinduism, etc.. has anyone here looked into something else?
has your spirituality been satisfied by any other than christianity?.
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kaik
My conclusion dealing with Christianity, it is a fraud faith by selling snake oil for a promise of reward after someone have died. It is unverified, unconfirmed assurance to make present life on this earth at this time worthless by promising something after death. To me, spirituality is an invention of mind. I love medieval Christianity with all these Gothic churches, cathedrals, and abbeys, other non-european non Christian crowd feel ambivalent to it, and thus make spirituality ethnocentric.
I have studied with rabbi and my in-laws are Jewish ranging from non-practicing Jews in sense of religion but maintain Jewish customs and culture as way of life to my mother-in-law who is born into Orthodox family. Jews do not have centralized faith. My in-laws do not proselyte me nor have forced me to follow their customs and traditions. We do not talk about religion unless we have a reason to bring it up.
Anyway, chasing a spirituality is like chasing the castle in the air, while distracting society from dealing with real issues like social inequality, environment, mismanagement of public finances. If someone is spiritual and hopes to live on that castle in the air, he or she can care less what this earth looks like.
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Greece-China-United States-Financial collapse. But Jehovah protects the Watchtower.
by John Aquila inthe financial collapse that might happen in greece---could it happen in the u.s. .
if so, how would it affect the watchtower?
or is the wt impervious to everything?
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kaik
Financial booms and busts are part of the market cycle and were known already in the 19th century as a natural course of the economy. Economic collapses happened in every type of economy everywhere, from Roman Empire to medieval European economy to industrial economies of the 19th to 21st century. What we see is happening is return to normal cycle of economy after robust stock growth in the last seven years (while incomes have not grew up), and market corrections are inevitable. Some economists already describe the economy of the 21st century as a return to cycle of several years of growth followed by recession to similar phenomena that happened between 1870 and 1907 with on and off economic growth. Income grew only due better productivity and plunging value of raw materials.
Recession will hit WT money flow as there will be less donations and much of the real estate won't be worth much. Some sales were KH were postponed after 2008 recession due plunging values. In Prague, the local bethel suppose to be sold in 2009 after its closure, but collapse of the real estate prices and weakening Czech crown made this sale less profitable. The branch sale was postponed indefinitely and what I have heard because the value is less than was six years ago.