Iran Currency Protests - Business Insider

Earlier this week we wrote about how Iran's currency (the Rial) is in a state of total collapse, in part due to oil sanctions.

It's obvious that the spiraling cost of things is having a major destabilizing effect.

The BBC reports on protests:

Riot police in Iran have clashed with protesters in the capital over sharp falls in the currency, the rial.

Tear gas was used to disperse the demonstrators, some of whom were setting fire to tyres and rubbish bins. There were many arrests, reports say.

Eyewitnesses told the BBC that scores of people gathered outside the central bank, calling for the governor to stand down, chanting anti-government slogans.

Via Finans Akrobat, here's a video:

And here's a ground-level video of the protest in the bazaar:

And here's a chart showing the dollar against the Rial over the last 70 days (note that it's the year 1391 on the Persian calendar).

?

rial

And it seems Ahmadinejad is getting mocked by the media for the crisis.

From journalist Reza Asadi:

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/iran-currency-protests-2012-10

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#Meditation for Dummies 11 Ways to Survive 21st Century #Yoga ...

Can you learn to meditate from a book? I used to be pretty sure it took lots of practice and some serious lack of children and distractions to even come close to meditating.? Having read many books on the subject from Vipassana Meditation to Yoga Nidra (yogic sleep/guided relaxation) I can tell you I have never been clear on what meditation is exactly from the standpoint of ?how do I know when I am meditating? and never thought I would find a book that could help me meditate. I received a review copy and was not compensated in any way, all opinion expressed are my own.

Enter, Meditation for Dummies. As reader may know already I am a big fan of the for Dummies line.? There are well written, concise and a wealth of knowledge.? This book is no exception. Meditation is easier than you think is the premise of the book written by Stephan Bodian, an author with an impressive background and credentials.? He was the editor-in-chief of Yoga Journal from 1984-1994 back when magazine was more closely related to yoga and less concerned with selling ad space to companies touting half-naked stick thin yoga models.? He has 40 years of experience teaching meditation and a graduate degree in psychology. I absolutely enjoyed this book and its tips ? it would be a welcome addition to any yoga instructor or meditation teacher as it has a whole chapter on All Purpose Meditations with instructions, and the book is full of great information that can be used in class.? A superb reference book on meditation!

Curing the Postmodern Problem: Meditation For Dummies? Shares Eleven Ways in Which This Ancient Practice Can Help You
Survive the 21st Century

Hoboken, NJ (September 2012)?These days, it feels like everything is a race: A race to get all the boxes on your to-do list checked off. A race to make it to the next rung of the professional ladder. A race to keep up with and perhaps even beat out ?the Joneses.? A race to make sure your kids have the perfect academic, extracurricular, and personal qualifications so that they can get into a good college. A race to make sure all the bills get paid, even though you?re on a reduced budget.

????????? However, instead of building the perfect lives we want, what we?re really doing is racing each other into the ground?and over the edge. If this last description of manic modern life sounds all too familiar, it?s high time you stepped off the merry-go-round (for at least five to ten minutes), sat down in a quiet place, and participated in a simple practice that has been around for millennia: meditation.

????????? ?When people operate on low margins with time and money (which is everybody I know right now), their stress levels can go through the roof,? points out Stephan Bodian, author of Meditation For Dummies?, 3rd Edition, (Wiley, August 2012, ISBN: 978-1-1182-9144-3, $24.99). ?In many ways, meditation is the perfect antidote to the postmodern predicament because it effectively reduces stress, increases energy, and enables you to enjoy better overall health?and much more.?

????????? Bodian, who is a licensed psychotherapist, served as the editor of Yoga Journal for many years and has also practiced and taught meditation for over 40 years. He has packed a fascinating array of facts and best practices into this easy-to-read volume, which also includes a foreword by Dean Ornish, MD.

????????? ?Since our culture programs us to expect a perfect life that is impossible to achieve, our best efforts only cause us to become overstressed, overscheduled, overstimulated, and overtired,? explains Bodian. ?This is all compounded by the fact that your body and mind have been ?programmed? to respond to life?s inevitable ups and downs with stress, anxiety, and dissatisfaction. But you have the power to change all of that through meditation. You can program yourself to experience inner peace, harmony, equanimity, and joy.?

????????? Before any false assumptions you?re harboring cause you to give up on meditation before you even begin, Bodian assures that you can keep it simple (you?ll see positive results after just five to ten minutes of meditation a day) or explore the practice?s subtleties in great depth. It?s entirely up to you.

????????? If you?re intrigued but still not entirely sure that meditation is for you, then read on for 11 more reasons why this ancient practice can help you live your best, most healthy and fulfilling life:

Improving your mental and physical health. If you?re a skeptic at heart, then you?ll be reassured to know that studies have proven that meditation offers numerous benefits, including:

  • Lower blood pressure
  • Quicker recovery from stress
  • Fewer heart attacks and strokes
  • Reduced cholesterol levels
  • Muscle relaxation
  • Reduction in the intensity of pain
  • More happiness and peace of mind
  • More loving, harmonious relationships
  • Enhanced creativity and self-actualization
  • Reductions in both acute and chronic anxiety
  • Heightened perceptual clarity and sensitivity
  • ?and much more!

?While scientific studies of meditation weren?t conducted until the 1930s (and have really taken off in the past 10 to 15 years), practitioners have been experiencing these significant benefits for centuries upon centuries,? points out Bodian.

Awakening to the present moment. When you rush breathlessly from one moment to the next, anticipating another problem or anticipating a coming pleasure, you miss the beauty and immediacy of the present, which is constantly enfolding before your eyes.

?Meditation teaches you to slow down and take each moment as it comes?the sounds of traffic, the smell of new clothes, the laughter of children, the coming and going of your breath,? explains Bodian. ?In fact, as the meditative tradition reminds us, only the present moment exists anyway?the past is just a memory and the future is a fantasy.?

Making friends with yourself. When you?re constantly trying to live up to expectations (your own or someone else?s) and adapt to an ever-changing, competitive environment, you rarely have the opportunity or the motivation to get to know yourself just the way you are. But when you meditate, you learn to welcome every experience and facet of your being without judgment or denial. You begin to treat yourself as you would a close friend, accepting (and even loving) the whole package.

Connecting more deeply with others. As you awaken to the present moment and open your heart and mind to your own experience, you naturally extend this quality of awareness and presence to your family and friends. And when you start to accept others the way they are?a skill you can cultivate through the practice of meditation?you open up the channels for a deeper love and intimacy to flow between you.

Relaxing the body and calming the mind. As contemporary health researchers have discovered?and traditional texts agree?mind and body are inseparable, and an agitated mind inevitably produces a stressed-out body.

?As the mind settles, relaxes, and opens during meditation, so does the body?and the longer you meditate (I mean both minutes logged each day as well as days and weeks of regular practice), the more this peace and relaxation ripples out to every area of your life, including your health,? says Bodian.

Lightening up! Have you ever thought and worried yourself into an uncontrollable frenzy?or even a meltdown? It?s easy to do: fears feed on one another, problems get magnified exponentially, and the next thing you know, you?re feeling overwhelmed, panicked, and desperate to take a leave of absence from your own life.

?The good news is, meditation encourages an inner mental spaciousness in which difficulties and concerns no longer seem so threatening, and constructive solutions can naturally arise,? promises Bodian. ?Meditation also fosters a certain detachment that allows for greater objectivity, perspective, and even humor.?

Enjoying more happiness. Research reveals that the daily practice of meditation for just a few months actually makes people happier, as measured not only by their subjective reports but also by brain-mapping technology. In fact, meditation is apparently one of the only things that can permanently change your emotional set point?your basic level of relative happiness that scientists say stays the same throughout your life, no matter what you experience.

Experiencing focus and flow. Have you ever been so fully involved in an activity that all sense of self-consciousness, time, and distraction dissolved? If so, you?ve experienced what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls a state of flow.

?You might experience a state of flow when you?re creating a work of art, playing a sport, working in the garden, or even making love,? explains Bodian. ?Athletes call it being ?in the zone.? Through meditation, you can discover how to give the same focused attention to?and derive the same enjoyment from?every activity.?

Feeling more centered, grounded, and balanced. For many people, living in an increasingly flat and rapidly-changing world can foster feelings of insecurity and of not having a ?place? to call one?s own. To counter these negative mindsets, meditation offers an inner groundedness and balance that external circumstances can?t destroy.

Enhancing your performance at work and at play. Studies have shown that basic meditation practice alone can enhance your perceptual clarity, creativity, self-actualization, and many of the other factors that contribute to superior performance. Plus, specific meditations have been devised to enhance performance in a variety of activities, ranging from sports to schoolwork.

Aligning with a deeper sense of purpose. When you practice making the shift from doing and thinking to being (one way to describe this is fully experiencing the present moment with love and without ego), you?ll discover how to align yourself with a deeper current of meaning and belonging.

?For instance, you might get in touch with personal feelings and aspirations that have long remained hidden from your conscious awareness,? suggests Bodian.

????????? ?If there?s any such thing as a ?magic bullet? that can help you survive and even thrive throughout the 21st Century, then meditation is it,? assures Bodian. ?If you allow it to become a regular part of your life, it will relieve your stress, disappointment, fear, anger, outrage, and hurt while focusing your energy, making you more effective, and even improving your mental and physical health.?

# # #

About the Author:
Stephan Bodian
is the author of Meditation For Dummies?, 3rd Edition. He is a licensed psychotherapist and former editor-in-chief of Yoga Journal, has practiced and taught meditation for over 40 years, and has written extensively on meditation, stress management, and spirituality. His articles have appeared in Fitness, Cooking Light, Natural Solutions, and other national magazines.

About the Book:
Meditation For Dummies?, 3rd Edition, (Wiley, August 2012, ISBN: 978-1-1182-9144-3, $24.99) is available at bookstores nationwide, major online booksellers, or directly from the publisher by calling (877) 762-2974.

Source: http://skyyogastudio.com/2012/10/02/meditation-for-dummies-11-ways-to-survive-21st-century-yoga-spirituality-skyyogastudio-com/

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The Impact Of U.S. Real Estate Investors ... - New York City Marketing

As we already covered in ?The $9.2 Billion Impact of 28.1 Million U.S. Real Estate Investors,? the impact of real estate investor on the housing market has been substantial, to say the least, over the past few years. Our Joint BiggerPockets.com / Memphis Invest National Survey of Residential Real Estate Investors outlined a slew of important data points about investor intent has received national press coverage, and has help illustrate the real power of the individual real estate investor.

Not only have they been spending billions of dollars annually on rehabilitating and renovating our neighborhoods, but they have demonstrated their long-term commitment to their investments by signifying their intent to put down large down payments in order to receive unlimited financing of future properties.

Source: Biggerpockets.com, Memphis Invest

Source: http://themainstreetanalyst.com/2012/10/01/the-impact-of-u-s-real-estate-investors-infographic/

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Iran rial plunges as Western sanctions bite

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's rial plunged against the U.S. dollar in open-market trade on Monday, taking its loss in value over the past week to more than a quarter in further evidence that Western sanctions are shattering the economy.

The freefall suggests sanctions imposed over Iran's nuclear program are undermining its ability to earn foreign exchange and that its reserves of hard currency may be running low.

The rial traded at 34,200 per dollar according to currency-tracking website Mazanex, down from about 29,720 on Sunday. It was trading at 24,600 last Monday, according to website Mesghal.

There is no clear sign that economic pain in Iran has reached levels that would prompt the government to compromise on its nuclear program, which Western nations say aims to develop an atomic bomb but which Tehran insists is peaceful.

However, the currency crisis is exposing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to criticism from enemies in parliament.

The rial's losses have accelerated in the past week after the government launched an "exchange centre" designed to supply dollars to importers of some basic goods at a special rate slightly cheaper than the market rate.

Instead of allaying fears about the availability of dollars, the centre seems to have intensified the race for hard currency by linking the special rate to the market rate, meaning that even privileged importers will face sharply higher costs.

"The government's initiative ... brought to the surface a tremendous lack of confidence in its ability to manage the currency," said Cliff Kupchan, a Middle East expert at the Eurasia Group, a political risk research firm. "The attempt to fix it triggered a worse crisis via market psychology."

The rial's sinking value will fuel inflation, officially running at about 25 percent; economists estimate the real rate is even higher. Rising costs could worsen the job losses which Iranians say are hitting the country's industrial sector.

DOLLAR DEMAND

On Sunday, Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said Iran's economy was "on the verge of collapse" and estimated the government had lost $45-50 billion in oil revenue because of the sanctions, which have slashed the country's oil exports and largely frozen it out of the international banking system.

But that kind of language is premature, said Hassan Hakimian, of the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, because Iran has stockpiled some basic goods.

"I am not aware of any shortages of basic necessities as yet," he said. "Well before that, the government will resort to some kind of basic rationing so as to introduce a safety net."

Some Iranian officials continued to insist on Monday that the exchange centre, which is supposed to be funded by dollars earned with Iran's oil exports, would eventually meet demand for hard currency and thus strengthen the rial.

"The exchange centre is operating and once the next phase of the plan is implemented, the price of currency will drop," said Gholamreza Mesbahi-Moghaddam, who heads parliament's planning and budget committee, according to the Mehr news agency.

But the rial's accelerating slide indicates many Iranians have lost faith in authorities' ability to support it, and are scrambling to buy hard currencies to preserve their savings.

"There is very little, effectively, the central bank and authorities can do to calm the situation because even when they take extraordinary measures to calm the market ... the market interprets those additional measures as a sign of abnormality," Hakimian said.

At the end of last year, Iran had $106 billion of official foreign reserves, enough to cover an ample 13 months of imports of goods and services in normal times, according to the International Monetary Fund.

But Nader Habibi, economist at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University in the United States, estimated last month that the government now had about $50-70 billion of hard currency reserves left.

Iran does not disclose timely data on its reserves but if they have dropped steeply, the central bank may have become reluctant to run them down by supplying dollars to the market.

In a statement on Sunday, the central bank said just $181 million had been traded on the new exchange centre since its launch six days earlier - a fraction of Iran's imports of goods and services, which total around $2 billion per week in normal times.

"The president has deliberately kept the market agitated," Elias Naderan, who sits on parliament's economic committee, said on Sunday, according to Mehr.

"I really don't know what Mr. Ahmadinejad is thinking. What plan does he have, what is his expectation of the system, and how does he plan to manage this disorder?"

The crisis has also prompted criticism of the central bank and authorities by private businessmen.

"When the exchange centre provides only 10 to 20 percent of the market's demand, one cannot expect it any more to play a role in the exchange market," Mohammad Nahavandian, head of Iran's Chamber of Commerce, was quoted by Mehr as saying on Monday.

(With additional reporting by Zahra Hosseinian; Writing by Andrew Torchia; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iran-rial-plunges-western-sanctions-bite-141133523.html

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Video: Plouffe touts progress on U.S. foreign relations

A Second Take on Meeting the Press: From an up-close look at Rachel Maddow's sneakers to an in-depth look at Jon Krakauer's latest book ? it's all fair game in our "Meet the Press: Take Two" web extra. Log on Sundays to see David Gregory's post-show conversations with leading newsmakers, authors and roundtable guests. Videos are available on-demand by 12 p.m. ET on Sundays.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/vp/49229985#49229985

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Undersea 6.2 magnitude quake strikes off northeast Japan

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's most senior military commander has promised better training and more modern weaponry for the army in an apparent effort to satisfy officers' demands for change, which have multiplied after an uprising last year. Commander-in-Chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is also the defence minister, was appointed by the country's first Islamist president Mohamed Mursi only last month and is under pressure to shake up a military which until recently had held the balance of power in Egypt for decades. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/undersea-6-2-magnitude-quake-strikes-off-northeast-225502617.html

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You Don?t Need A Prototype To Raise A Seed Round

Mike HirshlandEditor's note:?Editor's note:?Mike Hirshland is the founder of?Resolute.VC, a seed-stage venture capital firm. Prior to?Resolute, he was a General Partner with?Polaris Venture Partners?where he led the creation of Dogpatch Labs as well as Polaris's investments in companies including Automattic (WordPress), Quantcast, KISSmetrics and Q1 Labs (IBM). Follow him on his Resolute.VC blog?and?Twitter. ? Back in the ?old days? (as in 5 or 10 years ago) the very definition of a seed investment was investing before any product had been built or prototyped. Since then, the ability to build a startup on far less capital has made seed investing less risky. But, oddly, it seems that seed investors have become more risk averse.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/fk9B8FXn96c/

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As race stands, Obama within reach of second term

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) ? Five weeks to Election Day, President Barack Obama is within reach of the 270 electoral votes needed to win a second term. Republican Mitt Romney's path to victory is narrowing.

To overtake Obama, Romney would need to quickly gain the upper hand in nearly all of the nine states where he and Obama are competing the hardest.

Polls show the president with a steady lead in many of them as Romney looks to shift the dynamics of the race, starting with their first debate Wednesday in Denver.

"We'd rather be us than them," says Jennifer Psaki, an Obama spokeswoman.

But Romney's political director, Rich Beeson, insists, "You still have an incumbent who's going to have a hard time getting over 50 percent in a lot of these states."

If the election were held today, an Associated Press analysis shows Obama would win at least 271 electoral votes, with likely victories in crucial Ohio and Iowa along with 19 other states and the District of Columbia. Romney would win 23 states for a total of 206.

To oust the Democratic incumbent, Romney would need to take up-for-grabs Florida, Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Virginia, which would put him at 267 votes, and upend Obama in either Ohio or Iowa.

The AP analysis isn't meant to be predictive. Rather, it is intended to provide a snapshot of a race that until recently has been stubbornly close in the small number of the most contested states.

It is based on a review of public and private polls, television advertising and numerous interviews with campaign and party officials as well as Republican and Democratic strategists in the competitive states and in Washington.

In the final weeks before the Nov. 6 vote, Obama is enjoying a burst of momentum and has benefited from growing optimism about the economy as well as a series of Romney stumbles. Most notably, a secret video surfaced recently showing the Republican nominee telling a group of donors that 47 percent of Americans consider themselves victims dependent on the government.

To be sure, much could change in the coming weeks, which will feature three presidential and one vice presidential debate. A host of unknowns, both foreign and domestic, could rock the campaign, knocking Obama off course and giving Romney a boost in the homestretch.

Barring that, Romney's challenge is formidable.

Obama started the campaign with a slew of electoral-rich coastal states already in his win column. From the outset, Romney faced fewer paths to cobbling together the state-by-state victories needed to reach the magic number.

It's grown even narrower in recent weeks, as Romney has seen his standing slip in polls in Ohio, with 18 electoral votes, and Iowa, with six. That forced him to abandon plans to try to challenge Obama on traditionally Democratic turf so he could redouble his efforts in Ohio and Iowa, as well as Colorado, Florida, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Nevada and Virginia.

Romney is hoping that come Election Day, on-the-fence voters tip his way. But there are hurdles there, too.

Early voting is under way in dozens of states, and national and key states surveys show undecided voters feel more favorably toward Obama than Romney.

The Republican is in a tight battle with Obama in Florida, as well as Colorado, North Carolina and Nevada.

But Ohio's shifting landscape illustrates Romney's troubles over the past few weeks.

Republicans and Democrats agree that Obama's solid lead in public and private polling in the state is for real. Over the past month, the president has benefited from an improving economic situation in the state; its 7.2 percent unemployment rate is below the 8.1 percent national average. Obama's team also attributes his Ohio edge to the auto bailout and GM plant expansions in eastern Ohio.

Obama and his campaign have hammered Romney on his tax policies, arguing that the former Massachusetts governor favors the rich while the president as a defender of everyone else.

The president has seen the same good fortune in Iowa. A poll released Saturday by The Des Moines Register illustrates his advantage, showing Obama with 49 percent to 45 percent for Romney. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

"It's a direct result of the time and resources he's been forced to spend here," Iowa Republican strategist John Stineman said.

Indeed, Obama intently focused on the state ahead of an early voting period that began last week. He campaigned in Iowa aggressively this summer and dumped in a ton of TV advertising, much of it depicting Romney as wealthy and out-of-touch with working Americans.

Obama doesn't just have the wind at his back in those states.

The president also appears to be in stronger shape than Romney in Virginia, which has nine electoral votes, and in New Hampshire, with four votes, even though Romney vacations often in the state where he has a lakeside home. Romney and GOP allies are being outspent in that state considerably, a sign of trouble for the Republican challenger.

Underscoring his challenges, Romney also has been forced to spend millions of dollars a week defending himself in North Carolina, a GOP-leaning state that's more conservative than most of the states that will decide the election.

Polls now show a competitive race there. Democrats boast of having registered 250,000 new voters in the state since April 2011. It's an eye-popping total in a state that Obama won by just 14,000 votes four years ago. A flood of new voters, presumably a chunk of them Democrats, could help keep that state within Obama's reach this year.

Also, Romney's effort to challenge Obama in Democratic-leaning Wisconsin, home state of running mate Paul Ryan, appears to have fizzled. Despite millions of dollars spent on TV in the last few weeks by both sides, polls show Obama with a clear lead in Wisconsin.

Romney's goal of forcing Obama to defend Michigan ? Romney's native state ? and Pennsylvania never materialized.

"The big strategic moment coming out of the conventions in my view was whether or not Romney and his campaign could succeed in expanding the parameters of the battleground," said Tad Devine, a top adviser to 2000 Democratic nominee Al Gore and 2004 nominee John Kerry. "They have not been able to do that."

All this has left Romney with an extraordinarily tight path and few options but to bear down in the states where he is competing aggressively. Time, though, is running out.

___

Deputy polling director Jenifer Agiesta and Dennis Junius contributed from Washington, Dan Sewell from Ohio, Beth Fouhy from New York and Julie Pace from Chicago.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/race-stands-obama-within-reach-second-term-121119020--election.html

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Mitt Romney Has Failed To Convince ... - Business Insider

mittromney via YouTube

President Barack Obama leads?Republican nominee?Mitt Romney by a much smaller margin ? just 2points ? in a new?Washington Post/ABC poll released Monday, a smaller margin than other surveys released over the past week.

It's better news than what the past week threw at Romney, but a dive into the poll reveals some reasons why the race has swung 4 points in the?Post/ABC poll over the past month ? and where Romney has failed to take advantage throughout the campaign.?

Like other polls, Romney's major advantage ? trust on handling the economy ? has become a tie. This is due, in part, to Romney's failure to persuade voters that are "somewhat," rather than "very," worried about the economy.

As can be expected, Romney leads among voters who are very concerned about the direction of the country and its economy. He leads by about 50 points among voters who say the country is on the "wrong track." And he lead by nearly?60 points among voters who are "very" concerned about the economy's direction.?

But among voters who are only "somewhat" concerned about the economy's direction, Obama actually has a commanding 60-36 lead.?

The reason for that? Perhaps a recent poll question from Fox News can provide some clues. It asked:?"Do you?think Mitt Romney has a clear plan for improving the economy, or not?"

Just 42 percent said yes. And 49 percent said no.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/romney-obama-poll-washington-post-economy-concern-doubts-2012-10

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