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The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan. The previously unknown deposits -- including iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium -- are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, US officials believe.

Ray Dalio is a billionaire hedge fund manager who makes more money in a day than most Americans in their lifetime. Hedge funds are the top of the Wall Street food chain, and Dalio runs the largest one of all, Bridgewater Associates.

Dalio, a self-described "hyperrealist," is author of a book of maxims leaked recently via the financial blog Dealbreaker. Dalio titled his collection "Principles," and he makes every Bridgewater employee memorize it. This is what Dalio has to say:

When a pack of hyenas takes down a young gnu, is that good or evil? At face value, that might not be "good" because it seems cruel, and the poor gnu suffers and dies. Some people might even say that the hyenas are evil. Yet this type of apparently "cruel" behavior exists throughout the animal kingdom.

Like death itself, it is integral to the enormously complex and efficient system that has worked for as long as there has been life. It is good for both the hyenas who are operating in their self-interest and the interest of the greater system, including those of the gnu, because killing and eating the gnus fosters evolution.

http://www.alternet.org/story/146964/top_billionaire_hedge_funder_sees_himself_as_a_hyena_devouring_wildebeests_/

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Great powers are complex systems, made up of a very large number of interacting components that are asymmetrically organized. They operate somewhere between order and disorder. Such systems can appear to operate quite stably for some time; they seem to be in equilibrium but are, in fact, constantly adapting. But there comes a moment when complex systems "go critical." A very small trigger can set off a "phase transition" from a benign equilibrium to a crisis.

Historians often misunderstand complexity; they are trained to explain calamity in terms of long-term causes. In reality, most of the "fat-tail" phenomena that historians study are not the climaxes of prolonged and deterministic story lines; instead, they represent perturbations, and sometimes the complete breakdowns, of complex systems. A small input to such a system can produce huge, often unanticipated changes -- what scientists call "the amplifier effect."

When things go wrong in a complex system, the scale of disruption is nearly impossible to anticipate. One day, a seemingly random piece of bad news will make the headlines. Suddenly, it will be not just a few policy wonks who worry but the public at large. This shift is crucial: A complex system is in big trouble when its component parts lose faith in its viability. Empires function in apparent equilibrium for some unknowable period. And then, quite abruptly, they collapse.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ferguson28-2010feb28,0,7706980.story

In a federal budget filled with mind-boggling statistics, two numbers stand out as particularly stunning, for the way they may change American politics and American power. The first is the projected deficit in 2011: nearly 11% of the country’s entire economic output.

The second number is the one that really commands attention: American deficits will not return to what are widely considered sustainable levels over the next 10 years. In fact, President Obama's budget draws a picture of a nation that simply cannot get above water.

Obama’s chief economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers, used to ask: "How long can the world's biggest borrower remain the world's biggest power?" The US may end up like Japan: as debt grew more rapidly than income, Japan's global influence eroded.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/us/politics/02deficit.html?hp

Through the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, we will work to provide immediate relief and long-term support to earthquake survivors. We will channel the collective goodwill around the globe to help the people of Haiti rebuild their cities, their neighborhoods, and their families. We ask each of you to give what you can to help ensure the people of Haiti can build back stronger and better than ever.

Both of us have personally witnessed the tremendous generosity and goodwill of the American people and of our friends around the world to help in times of great need. There is no greater rallying cry for our common humanity than witnessing our neighbors in distress. And, like any good neighbor, we have an obligation and desire to come to their aid. The people of Haiti now need us more than ever.

~ President William J. Clinton & President George W. Bush

http://clintonbushhaitifund.org/

Besides waging direct or proxy wars against elusive enemies on multiple fronts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, the Philippines, and Sudan, Yemen is now a new front in America's "war on terror" under a president, who as a candidate, promised diplomacy, not conflict, if elected.

The claim that Western embassy staff are being withdrawn from Yemen because of an alleged threat of a terrorist attack is utter rubbish. The embassies are being evacuated ahead of a major strike against Yemen's anti-government rebels by the US and its ally, the authoritarian government in Sana'a.

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/imperium/2010/01/201014122549187202.html