Recent Highlights

China successfully completed its first space walk 340km above the Earth surface. China plans to continue space technology development, put a space station in 2010-2020 time frame, and eventually a mission to the moon.

US space programs will get $17.6 billion for 2009. They continue to explore the origin and future of the universe and looking for Earth-like planets. There are plans to put a base on the moon to facilitate missions to Mars and other destinations. Well, the US budget is $2,700 billion, so we really aren't trying very hard in the space programs. The NASA budget grows on par or less than the inflation.

Warren Buffett, a wealthy investor, recently went shopping. He got good deals with $5 billion of Goldman Sachs and $3 billion of GE in preferred stocks. Response to this is two-sided. Some people think that if Warren Buffett is investing in these firms, they must be doing well. Some think that if these firms so desperately need cash, they must be in trouble. I think Warren Buffett is not stupid, and he is looking at the long-term prospects of these companies, so that just means he thinks the current price is cheap. Warren Buffett also said the congress needs to pass the bail-out plan.

Today the House of Representatives passed the revised bail-out plan 263-171. It was quickly signed into law by Bush. The bill authorizes $1.8 trillion from the government to help the economy. Reuters has a detailed coverage on this: http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/creditcrisis

The senate bill is 451 pages long and I wonder if each House Representative actually gone over it all in detail before voting yes. There are items in there that doesn't help the economy, like tax cuts for wooden arrow companies, rum industry, and renewable energy tax credits. They call these small items sweeteners, or "pork". Nonetheless, these items are valued at hundreds of million dollars each. The $700 billion of buying power that is granted to Secretary of Treasury is just scary, because Henry Paulson can now appoint whoever he wants to be the asset managers and buy anything he thinks would help the economy. We don't really know if this new law is going to help the US economy, and the potential for fraud is great.