May 06, 2011 CNN MOXNews.com

OK, I’ll try to make this short. Though of no social class myself, I am of lower middle class stock with no inheritance which means I’ll have to make my own way in the world.
That is only fair, to be sure, and I would not want to be pampered and bored, but for me it comes with a special dilemma attached.

I do not play lotteries of any kind, do not even consider the stock exchange, do not indulge in crime for profit and I am quite convinced I will absolutely never take any form of bank loan, not even buying an item in several payments.

So unless I “find” housing I will have to either stay with my parents or take to the streets, rent being a soft option which should be kept temporary. Right now I’m closing in on my final college year (hopefully).

It’s my pleasure to think that I will have my own home before I hit thirty, like nigh everybody else (in my country at least). That’s eight years and change from now, and I’m an outsider when it comes to finances. What are my options? Can I realistically get a house (or a flat, or whatever) under the rules I’ve set for myself, or be forced to remain with my parents and/or rent?

I live in Romania, a flawed democracy with a faulty market economy and real estate prices have been skyrocketing for years and continue to do so, perhaps until they align with the prices in the richest countries of Europe. I don’t have kids, don’t really want them – not at any rate until I sleep under my own roof, and I will never keep a housewife even if she’s a goddess – nor will I accept to be a house-husband.

“Decoding the Kremlin’s exact intentions is as tricky now as it was in the days of the Cold War of the 1960s and 1970s. But the outlines are clear. Russia wants to recreate a “lite” version of its old Soviet empire in eastern Europe and to neutralise the rest of the continent. Unlike in the old Cold War, military action today is a last resort: for the most part, it is banks and pipelines, not tanks and warplanes, that do the dirty work.
This may sound strange, given what has happened in Georgia. But it is vital to realise this was not the beginning of a new Russian push, but part of something that began in the mid-1990s. Russia has nobbled Belarus — the only other country, apart from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, that is ready to recognise the statelets of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It props up the narco-state of Tajikistan, cossets the dictatorship in Uzbekistan and woos the benighted despots of Turkmenistan. It has a cautious alliance with China, in the form of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation; it has stitched up energy deals in North Africa; it flirts with Iran and sells weapons to Hugo Chavez, the America-hating windbag of Venezuela. And by using energy, diplomacy and divide-and-rule tactics, it is stitching up Europe, country by country, from Cyprus to the Netherlands.
And it works. Over the crisis in Georgia, Europe has shown astonishing softness. The leaders of the EU have been all but invisible. Where is the supposed foreign-policy chief, Javier Solana? Or the foreign-affairs commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner? Meanwhile, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has been humiliated by the Russian breaches of the ceasefire agreement he negotiated.
Europe’s weakness is the result of multiple forms of soft-headedness and short-sightedness. Partly it is simple anti-Americanism: if Vladimir Putin is making life difficult for George Bush, he must be a good guy. That attitude lies behind astonishing opinion polls in countries such as Germany. There is also a mistaken belief that Russia is an ally in the struggle against globalisation.
Although the Kremlin makes life difficult for Western oil companies and tightly restricts foreign investment in any industry it dubs “strategic” at home, it is another story abroad. Russia delights in the possibilities of the global economy. If regulators in New York are sniffy about listing stolen companies on the stock exchange, there is always London. And if you fail even London’s undemanding test, Dubai, Bombay and Shanghai await with open arms.”

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/weak-west-letting-putin-punch-above-his-weight-1467241.html

A new global fund that invests in the world’s top clean-energy companies is to be launched in Canada today by Criterion Investments Ltd., which sees huge opportunity in efforts to “de-carbonize” the environment.
Ian McPherson, president of Criterion, an affiliate of VenGrowth Asset Management Inc. of Toronto, said clean energy has matured beyond being a niche sector that until recently could only be tapped by seeking out and placing bets on individual companies.
“The sector has matured; it’s no longer nascent,” said McPherson. “You have very strong capital flows and now there’s some investment management talent in the area, whereas historically there’s been a real shortage.”
The timing is right to launch a managed fund, he said. “It’s on people’s radar screens. Clean energy has more mainstream acceptance.”
The company is billing the RRSP-eligible Criterion Global Clean Energy Fund as the first Canadian fund of its kind focused on the clean-energy theme. Geneva-based Pictet Asset Management SA is investment adviser for the “high-risk” fund, which the Swiss company launched in May and is currently available throughout Europe and parts of Asia.
Phillipe de Weck, senior fund manager from Pictet, said in a phone interview from Geneva that concern over climate change and a worldwide drive to reduce greenhouse gases, backed by ambitious government targets and incentives, has primed the sector for long-term growth.
“We believe it will outperform the economy as a whole,” he said, pointing out that the fund has jumped 7 per cent in its first four months compared to a drop of 2 per cent on the MSCI World Index, which measures the performance of market indices in 23 developed countries.
“We’re at the phase where policymakers have set targets, and now they have to move to the next stage where regulations are needed to move to those targets,” he added. “We want to take advantage of that, and we think it’s a long-term trend. The transition to clean energy is a trend that will last our lifetime.”
The fund was most recently invested in 59 companies, about 40 per cent located in the United States. Top 10 holdings included wind giants Gamesa and Vestas, and solar suppliers Suntech Power and Q-Cells.
Three Canadian companies are currently in the fund: hydropower developer Plutonic Power of Vancouver; wind and hydro developer Canadian Hydro Developers Inc. of Calgary; and Westport Innovations Inc., a developer of natural gas and hydrogen combustion engines in Vancouver.
De Weck said natural gas fits within the theme because it’s an important “transition fuel” to clean energy, though the fund doesn’t invest in nuclear power technologies or providers.
“The safety and waste issues are still unresolved,” he said. “Yes, there are plans for more nuclear, but let’s be realistic. We’ve been in a nuclear winter in terms of skills and expertise. We haven’t had that brain influx in the field and we simply don’t have the experience.”
Nicholas Parker, co-founder and chairman of the Cleantech Group, a provider of research and investor services targeted at the clean technology sector, predicted the Criterion fund would be received well in Canada.
“Canadian retail and institutional investors have been underserved in this space relative to their European and American counterparts, so I think this is going to meet demand,” he said.
Parker’s group launched a Cleantech Index in partnership with the American Stock Exchange last year that tracks more than 70 publicly traded U.S. companies in the sector. He said his main concern is that the Criterion fund is focused on clean energy and excludes technologies aimed at cleaning up water and soil, reducing waste and creating “green” materials.
Limiting the fund to just energy makes it more volatile, he argued. “Which is why we’re advocating the broader cleantech space.”
Last October, PowerShares Capital Management LLC launched an exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on the Cleantech Index.
Like most ETFs, the fees are more affordable than managed funds – for example, 0.7 per cent for the PowerShares fund compared to between 2.65 per cent and 2.75 per cent for the Criterion fund, which is near average for the mutual fund industry.
McPherson said the Criterion fund adds value by being actively managed. “Our portfolio manager will be trading to take a view on valuation, whereas those ETFs are a static portfolio for certain periods of time and don’t take into account if something is undervalued or overvalued as an index.”
So far, however, the passively managed PowerShares fund, while traded in U.S. dollars and vulnerable to foreign exchange exposure, is performing well – it’s up more than 20 per cent since its launch 11 months ago.
Since mid-May, when the Pictet fund was launched in Europe, the PowerShares fund has increased nearly 9 per cent.