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FILING expenses is one of Baobab’s least favourite things to do, never more so than after a trip to Angola. It is painful to explain to The Economist bosses that Luanda, the capital, really is that expensive. A by no means luxurious hotel room costs $400, a non-alcoholic drink in the lobby $10 ($2 in a supermarket). The underwhelming hotel buffet will set you back $75 and a pizza on a street corner $25. A regular taxi ride easily adds up to $50, especially since the taxi company (the only one in town) starts the meter as soon as the car leaves the depot.

Expensive Angola: Eye-wateringly expensive | The Economist

http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2011/02/expensive_angola

Steven D. Levitt is an economist. Stephen J. Dubner is a writer. They co-authored Freakonomics , a book about cheating teachers, bizarre baby names, self-dealing Realtors, and crack-selling mama’s boys.

Freakonomics

BEIRUT—The Middle East and North Africa region has yet to see the sort of explosive Internet growth that has gripped other parts of the world, but it is coming, says the man responsible for organizing one of the region’s most important conferences. ArabNet, now in its third year and run by Omar Christidis in Beirut, has brought together venture-capital firms, start-ups, officials and others from right across the region to meet, network, learn and swap ideas. Over the past 10 years, growth in Arabic-language online usage has grown by 2,500%, and by the end of 2015 Arabic is expected to be the fourth-largest language group online (it is currently seventh), with some 150 million users (currently around 72 million). At present, for a region that is awash with cash, the Internet economy is tiny.

Tech Europe - WSJ

http://danericselliottwaves.blogspot.com/

Daneric Elliott

So in all 3 instances we have not yet had a confirmation of a break in the uptrend. That is not to say today did not inflict technical damage - it certainly did - however the bottom line is the bears likely have more work cut out for them. Tomorrow's trading day prior to a holiday is seasonally positive. The triangle on the Wilshire5000 is technically still intact although it has been damaged materially and does not work on most indexes - really only the Wilshire.

Krugman

I’ve been getting the predictable hysterical reactions to today’s column. And it’s true — I’m a Sharia Jewish atheist Marxist who hates America! Bwahahaha! But one thing actually worth reacting to is the assertion I keep getting that this is all a distraction, that even if we seized all the money of the top 0.1% it would make no difference to the fiscal outlook. Here’s a piece of advice nobody will take: before you make assertions about numbers, look at the numbers. So, what we learn from IRS data is that in 2007, before the Great Recession depressed everyone’s income, the top 0.1% had around $1 trillion in taxable income.