A little at a time more of your life is being migrated into ‘the cloud’. Not in the conspiracy sense where big brother is following your every move. Those kinds of issues are for other discussions (example 1). Instead, this article is about how more and more of our personal and professional lives are taking place in the digital world.

There has been a lot of talk recently about ‘the cloud’ or ‘cloud computing’. Let’s clear that up first. The idea is pretty simple: Instead of buying software cds, you can access it via the internet; games, office software, music; whatever. You put a request in and you get what you need, downloaded to your computer. Easy right? A lot of articles have been written about how ‘the cloud’ is the next big thing. (2) (3)

I think something much more profound is occurring. We are now living larger and larger sections of our lives online. The idea of serving people content or information on-demand from somewhere else is happening everyday. The cloud is already here, in fact the cloud has descended, it has come down to Earth, to everyday life.

What do you call a cloud that is on the ground? Fog.

Today, we are living in Fog. Drive to work and your cell-phone navigation software is interfacing with the cloud. You are not, you are driving, but there is a fusion, between normal life and online life. This is the Fog and the Fog is all around you. Most phone apps are cloud based, delivering information or services or friend’s messages (think ‘What’sApp’) via the cloud. You are at work and your friend sends you a photo they took with their phone. Again, the fusion between the real world and the online world, so easy, so effortless. Facebook, Skype, Tumblr, these programs bring us together from various places but we meet somewhere online. You sit in your room but your attention, your mind is somewhere else, this is Fog.

Of course, it is not just free time or entertainment, let’s not forget about work. Most desk jobs have long been in the ‘mini-clouds’ of the company computer system. Accounting, production tracking, logistics, design, drafting, layout, editing, payroll, administration, and on and on. A recent report highlights the ‘disappearing’ of middle manual jobs (4). The authors do not argue that good jobs are going to China or India, they are going to automation or algorithms. The authors called it “routine-biased technological change (RBTC)” (5).

The ‘good jobs’ operate in the real world but also in the computer realm. Executives, bankers, importers, managers, salespeople, marketers, some types of production and inspection, truck drivers etc. These jobs have integrated with their online components and operate in ‘the Fog’.

In my own job, teaching English, I operate half in the world and half in the cloud. In other words my life is completely Fogged up.

Once outside of the classroom, my students transmit their homework via email or upload it to server storage. I also upload lectures that one or all students can access simultaneously. So while work is prepared in the real world it is still prepared via computer and then shared through the mini-cloud that is the university server system.

For editing I frequently check idioms or technical jargon online, I verify translations or alternatives via Linguee (5) or Google (6). Again, I am working in the real world (albeit on my computer) but the knowledge resources I need are accessed via cloud. I scour news sites for stories I can use as reading exercises for students while at the same time monitoring the stock markets to ensure my investments are performing. I do not use newspaper for these things, rather streaming feeds and news websites.

When I am at home I spend more time ‘in the cloud’ than I do in my living room. This is what I mean by Fog, to perform my work in the real world I depend on ever greater access to the online world. Sometimes I have no idea what the weather is like, even though there a window right in front of me.

I am not alone, neither are you, and this is only the beginning.

On February 7th the stock plunged 6 € upon the opening bell on much higher than normal volume for an immediate loss of 8%. Recovery was poor and the stock closed down more than 5% for the day. I could find no news or trading gossip to explain the plunge. I wondered if it was an algorithmic ‘flash crash’.
The next day the stock lurched another 4% a mere hour after opening and languished again, having shed some 10% of value in the space of 2 days on no detectable news.

At this point I decided to pull the plug. This was the 2nd and 3rd high volume, surprise plunge in per share value in 3 months. My stake was modest and even though selling the stock would result in a net 5% loss, I felt that the stock had behaved too erratically for such an expensive issue. Recurring slow building value followed by large high volume sell-offs on an otherwise low volume equity seems suspicious to me.

I ate a modest loss and split the returned funds, reinvesting them in other, less expensive, higher volume shares. I increased my stake in two companies I have been holding on a small scale since late December which have performed very well over the past month. I could have held Fielmann of course, I am sure the stock will return to  the purchase levels over the coming months and will probably pay a dividend in April. However, it seemed to me that the return to break-even price would once again be quite slow. I could likely earn greater returns by putting that money into better performing issues both of which are also scheduled to pay dividends in the spring.

In the interim, feel free to browse the extensive photography archives: For example: London

cobalisk

With one notable and, to many, surprising exception: The United Kingdom. British unemployment continued to rise throughout 2011 and it now tops 8.3%. 1 I wondered, why is this happening? Of course most news articles and economic analyses blame the Eurozone crisis. Europe is Britain’s largest trading partner and if the EU gets sick, Britain gets sick too. It’s a convenient argument; timely, topical and it sounds good over a few beers.

Unfortunately, it’s dead wrong.

The EU crisis is not the cause of Britain’s unemployment.
There are two easy to spot reasons why this argument is wrong:
1) Britain is a net Importer from the EU, that means that Britain imports more from EU countries than it sells to EU countries. 2 Since the UK buys more than it sells to the EU, the EU crisis should not overwhelm the UK economy. That does not mean there is no effect. There are some effects and they are being seen; according to the latest data, recent British exports to the EU have dropped about 3% 3. However, a 3% drop in the 3^rd Quarter’s exports does not make national unemployment rise for the entire year. Exports do not affect an economy retroactively.

2) Britain in comparison to Germany. Unlike the UK, Germany is a net Exporter to the EU. Germany is not a service economy like Britain, it is an export driven economy and while the Germans sell plenty everywhere, the EU forms the core of Germany’s export machine. Thus, Germany has also been experiencing the effects of reduced exports to the EU. In fact, Germany’s exports to the EU have dropped close to 4%, even more than Britain’s 4.
This makes sense; an ailing EU should have a much more pronounced effect on German exports than British. However, despite this drop in exports, Germany’s unemployment rate has been going down all year, even after the darkest days of the EU crisis. 5

So Germany’s exports go down more but unemployment also goes down? Britain’s exports drop less but unemployment goes up?  This does not add up.
Clearly, the EU crisis is not the reason. It’s not helping of course but facts are facts and these facts are clear and indisputable.

I suspect there something else at work, something in the UK economy itself.

I have been to the UK twice in the last 3 years. I think it’s a charming place and the people are lovely. I really mean that, I like the UK, a lot.  After my second visit though, I started incorporating into some of my lessons a simple little diagram when explaining something that I noticed while in London.  It seemed to me that London had two labor levels, a top level and a bottom level. Those at the top, with higher standards of living worked for, or peripheral to, either government or finance. The rest, the bottom level worked in much lower paying jobs centered on sales (retail or business), service or repair.  To sum this up in a simple way I started drawing a chart that looked similar to this:

Government Employment                                              Financial Services
Government sponsored contracts

Retail + Sales                                                               Services or Repair

The blank box symbolized the middle, the part of the economy that I simply never saw. The part of the economy that actually produced something or was in some way related to the production of something, even if it was an ink pen. Producing a pen requires multiple market segments: chemicals, plastics, metal stamping, paper manufacture, graphic design, printing, packaging, etc. In other words, a company that produces a pen supports other companies that produce other things, such as the package the pen comes in, or the chemical company that makes the ingredients for the ink.

Interestingly, everything I saw in the UK was made somewhere else, the tea boilers, the washing machines, the phones, even the pens and pencils.
(Food is the exception of course, the UK, much like the US, makes a lot of packaged food.)

Over time I discovered that everyone I met in the UK fell into one of the ‘big four’ labor categories I described above. The well off worked in or with government, or in or with big banks. Now, I am not saying no one in the UK makes or supports anything, I am saying I never met anyone who did and I remember that because it really bothered me.

The above graphic became the key to my understanding why the UK unemployment is rising and why I believe it will continue to rise for years. I fear that, for the UK, the struggle with unemployment is only beginning.

Because of its high rate of debt, the UK is undertaking strong government cost-cutting measures. Pensions are being slashed, the retirement age lifted and spending reduced. The UK government is also reducing its large payroll. According to recent estimates, the UK will reduce its public sector by some 700,000 people in the coming years 6. That is a lot of people and a lot of people in the upper part of my diagram who currently are, or will soon be, looking for work. So this begs a question: Where does a formerly well paid government worker (or contact worker for a now cancelled project) go to find a decent job?
Some will of course suggest the other side of the upper part of my diagram, the one occupied by Financial Services. Government workers frequently get jobs at banks right? Well, that used to be true, but it certainly isn’t anymore. Why? The big British Banks (along with many other countries’ largest banks) are laying people off too, lots of people 7.

This begs a question: Where does a formerly well paid bank or investment adviser go to find an equivalent job?

Let’s look at my diagram again.

Government Employment                                              Financial Services
Government sponsored contracts

Retail + Sales                                                               Services or Repair

We can now see that BOTH sides of the top level of Britain’s economy are being squeezed, at the same time. Where are these people going to go to find equivalent work? Some of the most productive, educated and well compensated people are being taken out of the UK economy in the middle a long period of slow growth/recession. This is a terrible kick to any real hope of a rapid recovery.

Unfortunately, it only gets worse because after the squeeze at the top, comes the crunch at the bottom.

Consider: After a few months of unsuccessful job hunting and seeing their severance packages getting smaller, how much less will these formerly well paid people spend? If hundreds of thousands of government workers, former contractors, as well as bankers and investment advisers reduce their spending to conserve cash, what will happen to the bottom level of the UK economy? Upper middle class and middle class wage earners spend a lot on retail, repair, and services. When many of them feel the pinch of income reduced to a still working spouse plus government assistance they will slash spending. This will then put a strain on the lower parts of the UK economy. In fact, it has already started with a gloomy November retail sales figure and expectations of a weak Christmas 8. Some industry analysts are using words like ‘miserable’ and, instead of blaming Europe are correctly highlighting that consumer spending  is the big worry moving forward 9.

Their concerns are well founded. With increasing pressure on the top level earners through layoffs, spending will drop. This will naturally put pressure on stores and service centers to first cut their prices, and then later, cut their own staff. Once the bottom level of the UK economy starts cutting jobs then the damage will cut much closer to the bone. UK Unemployment, spiked with government cuts and bank downsizing will be jolted again when the sales and service sectors contract due to reduced middle class spending.

As of this writing official UK unemployment is 8.3% 10. I take no joy in saying here that I expect that figure to reach double digits within the next 2 years.

But this isn’t an article about teaching; it’s actually an article about keys.  I just wanted to see if you were paying attention.
We have lots of keys, car keys, house keys, key cards for work and when we are at work we are told about the keys to our success. As a self-employed teacher it is hard to know the keys to my success, there are no managers above me who will tell me. I have to figure it out on my own.
Recently, I had a class of students who wanted to talk about the Greek Crisis. Well, some of them wanted to talk about it, others were just confused. I thought this would be a great test of my ability to teach. If I could tech them about this, I could really pat myself on the back.
After almost 2 hours of talking about how all the Greek crisis issues are connected; the way Greece got in trouble (Goldman Sachs), the yield on Irish government bonds (8.5%) and why the German Chancellor is so keen on keeping the Euro zone together (Domino effect), the truth became clear…
The people who were confused before were still confused, probably even more confused. No keys to success here.
Because, once again, it’s not really about teaching, it’s about keys. The keys that helped me understand the crisis did not work for these students. You can’t use your car keys to open your office door, (assuming you are one of the few who still has an office with a door).
When you get the key card to your hotel room, it looks a lot like a credit card, but it’s not. Trying using your room key to pay for a new TV, I don’t think it works that way.
The point is, not all keys fit all locks. When the key does not fit, try a different key, don’t keep banging away at the same lock with the same key like I did in class. When the key doesn’t fit, and you keep trying to make it fit, things can get confusing.

I think next time I want my back patted, I’ll just ask my wife Nina to do it.

I’m Steve Sackinger, and I hope you have a good week.

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Andy Rooney passed away yesterday. I was sorry to hear that. I wanted to write this blog entry in his style. He would do a much better job of course, but unfortunately he is not available at the moment.  :-(

I would like to offer a different explanation, one that reeks of both heresy and thought provoking depth.

The ‘hot money’, the big foreign investors (hedge funds, institutions and large scale pensions) that were lobbying insults at European leaders and claiming that Europe needs to break apart and the Euro was an utter failure…have done their worst. They did not get their way and so they left.  See, all that ‘hot money’ is already long gone from Europe.
Why are the markets rallying in a week of bad news? Because the foreign investors really cannot ‘punish’ the Euro markets any more. They took their ball and went home, so all they can do is piss and moan from the sidelines.

Think about it:

1) The key investors pulled out of funding EC banks several months ago. The ECB then stepped into to offer unlimited inter-bank lending and dollar repurchasing upon request.

2) Foreign investors spiked the government bond markets over the summer driving Greece to absurdity and then launched a coordinated attack on Italy and Spain. Again the ECB was forced to step in and repurchase bonds and then offset (sterilise) the purchases.

3) From July to late August the DAX (the big German exchange) dropped over 2,000 points (!) as foreign investors sold every European bank and industrial firm they were holding.

4) CDS spreads (credit default swaps) blew out on huge bets that the Euro would crash, Greece or Italy would default, etc. The short sellers loaded up on shorts to the point were all the major exchanges simply banned short selling for the rest of 2011.

All that sound, all that fury. All gone…
Well timed ECB intervention has kept the worst at bay. I suspect the politicians simply waited the storms out and applied selective treatment where needed.

Don’t believe me? Then please think about these points:
For the last 2 months the bond market has been calm, Greece is on schedule for the next aid tranche and the DAX has gained close to 1,000 points in 2 WEEKS as people snap up the bargain blue chips left on the floor during the stampede.
Slovakia ‘No’ vote and even the collapse of a large European bank (Dexia) both of which happened in the last week did little to dent the business climate here.

I think the explanation is shockingly simple…that locals and local investors are the only ones left in European markets.

They can see that the needed work is being done and they are voting with their Euros through buying under priced equities and assets. Some internationals are coming back of course but mostly the savvy value investors. The low key types who are hunting for a good return.
The screaming headlines in the Anglo press still promise imminent doom but the current climate is proving this false.

I think the Eurocrats won and I am glad they did, the rebuilding will be slow and for many quite difficult but now that the storm is passing we can get to work building the kind of Europe that will be better positioned between the east and the west.

The ‘hot money’ will come back of course and once again try to tell everyone what to do. Hopefully we will remember then that with hot money comes mostly hot air.

There are hundreds, nay thousands of places to go to get stock picks. All that is required is to give them your money and they will tell you what to buy.

I think this model is good for those firms that use it but completely sucks for the rest of us. Therefore, I am putting my writing where my money is. I will update my blog about once a month and I will tell you what stock I like. I will either be holding or looking to hold the stock.
In addition, I will do follow up and tell you how the recommendations are doing over time and how I am doing in general. Feel free to ignore my picks and make you own.

Feel free to use my picks yourself, that is why they are being made. Feel free to contact me if you have made money off my picks and tell me about it. (just use the contact link on the left of the page). At the moment I am concentrating on German stocks. These can be acquired from almost any service for minimal fees.

Pick 1 – Fielmann AG (I am currently holding this stock)
FIE:GR ISIN # DE0005772206

This stock is a rock. Since 2008 the stock has delivered solid year end returns for its’ investors. Caution: This pick falls well outside my normal zone so first let me present the negatives:
1) Expensive – as I write this the stock is trading at 74€. This is a bit steep for my tastes as it reduces the potential upside.
2) Smallish, youngish – Est. in 1972 the company has strong sales and assets (assuming good bookkeeping of course) but is several orders of magnitude smaller than the real blue chips.
3) Older founder - could create problems with succession upon retirement.
4) Retail related – retail firms are notoriously unreliable and I avoid them like the plague. Fielmann is partially retail. They make their own glass but sell many brands of eyeglass frames. Thus, some worrisome volatility still exists.
5) Insane P/E ratio – the stock’s P/E is way more than its contemporaries.

Positives:

1) The company is retail but also controls their own fabrication and distribution networks. They make their own stuff, distro their stuff and their stores sell their own stuff. Due to their size the firm has achieved economies of scale.
2) Regional penetration in Central Europe. While primarily German, the firm has good market share in several others countries making it more resilient to single country shocks.
3) Tight Share control. Only 43% of the stock is free floating. In times of valuation decline the family and / or foundation ownership can always enact buybacks to increase the share price and protect investors.
4) Good secure value. The 5 year retrospect shows that the stock has be surprisingly resilient and steadily improving despite some truly challenging conditions in the European economy.

Expectations: Barring a messy dispute in the event of the founder’s retirement or death (Günther Feilmann is 72) the stock should be a steady performer over the next 2 to 3 years.

Barring a crisis or some scandal, I expect steady returns leading to a solid topline of 105€ at which point I would advise selling the stock and booking the profits. As Fielmann is a brick and mortar, traditionally built German firm, it will not achieve real rock star values and I think a doubling of share value is unrealistic. However a 30% gain is achievable (over the next 2 to 3 years) once the market stabilizes and a few quarters of solid central european consumption reports bolster the stock.

Recommendations: Buy at any price under 80€, (hold) - sell at 95 - 105€ booking 15 – 30% returns.

So why the hell did I do it? Why did I put skin in the game? After all, I refuse to bet, even for pennies, I will not enter a casino, and I am arguably the poorest person within my circle of friends.
Well, on paper picking stocks is easy: Buy low - sell high. Don’t buy stuff you know nothing about, pick companies you think make good products and whose products you use. Set limits, what goes up must come down, etc. Like Hal Holbrook said in Wall Street ‘Stick to the fundamentals…good things take time.’

Of course if it was that easy, all the warnings and horror stories would not be necessary. All of the above is still true but the devil is in the details.
The difference is I believe that I understand a few of those details. For example, just because your valuations are up does not mean you made any money. Do not borrow against (leverage) your valuations. The money does not exist until you SELL the stock.

I also know that picking stock is not about having unique knowledge. If you have unique knowledge, do not enter the stock market, you will get fleeced. The stock market is actually about lots of other people ALSO knowing what you know. The trick is you need to know it first, or at least early. You make money after many other people figure out what you have already figured out.
For example: If a company makes a new multi-billion dollar deal in Brazil the stock should (and almost always will) rise. When you know that information and when you buy that stock will determine how well you do.
1) If you already own the stock, you need do nothing and your valuation will rise.
2) If you buy the stock at the beginning of the day you will see the stock go up and your valuation will rise.
3) If you buy the stock at the end of the day you can only hope that other people are slower than you and that the stock will go up some more tomorrow allowing your valuation to rise.

In the end, timing is everything. But to know the how and the when, you have to put in work. Lots and lots of work. You have to read news, follow indices, read corporate reports, track term trends and the like. It is not easy; this is why people at brokerage firms are paid lots of money to do this stuff.

I am not paid to do this stuff, I am paid to teach. Therefore, my friends are right and I am a fool. Except…reading financial news and pulling it apart is a hobby of mine and has been for years. I have been secretly dreaming of buying stock since I was in high school. Most of my friends didn’t know that. Now, they do.

My picks are up +8.61%

It was fresh produce that caused this outbreak, not tainted meat, and after a spectacular false start, the culprit was finally, mercifully, found. It was bean sprouts. Those cute little baby plants that people often put on salads because they are supposedly so very, very healthy. Sprouts are supposedly full of vitamins and are really easy to grow. A quick online search will yield hundreds of separate sprout businesses, all centered around the health benefits of eating sprouts.

Unfortunately, recent research has shown that sprouts can be very far from healthy eating. The risks associated with sprouts are considered so great that Health Canada launched a web-page on the risks of eating sprouts in 2007.  (link)
In the United States a search for the word ’sprouts’ on the CDC (Center for Disease Control) website turned up almost a thousand articles. Most of them detail food poisoning linked to sprouts, including the famous Saint Paul Salmonella outbreak in 2009 which affected hundreds of people in 14 states. The outbreak was finally traced to contaminated alfalfa (luzerne or lucerne) sprouts. (link)

So what is going on? How can sprouts be so good for you and so bad for you at the same time? E. Coli does not occur naturally in plants, nor does salmonella, how is this happening?

The problem it seems, is the seeds. According to Health Canada, and research from the University of Georgia, seeds can come in contact with animal diseases (like E. coli or Salmonella) through manure either during harvesting, or storage (link) (link). A few microbes are all that is needed. Since sprouts are grown in warm, moist conditions, such as hydroponic systems, or in greenhouses or hot rooms, the bacteria can flourish. Despite their being outside of a living host they survive and multiply because the conditions in a greenhouse are close enough to the warm, wet organs of animals or people.

The problem is sprouts, once harvested, are often not cooked. Because sprouts are eaten raw, any bacteria on or in the sprout goes straight into the body and the trouble begins within a few days or weeks at the most. To make matters worse, thoroughly washing the seeds before growing them, even in chlorinated water, seems to have no effect. (link) To kill the various bacteria, the sprouts must be thoroughly cooked.

A study on sprout based diseases, from the University of Georgia, published on the CDC website shows the problem of food poisoning via sprouts is significant, having become a global concern. Infectious outbreaks have occurred in many countries and continue to this day. (link)

I’ve always liked sprouts, plain or in salads. I even did some promotional work for a sprouting company some years ago. I particularly like alfalfa sprouts, and often found that they were a great addition to sandwiches. I do not think this way anymore.

Sprouts are actually really bad for you.

Cobalisk Blog:

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I feel that this analysis is short sighted and misses several important factors in recent years, all of which are good for the western nations. The original Al Qeada leadership was very smart, the 2nd and 3rd generations, not so much. Additionally, terror activity has morphed over time away from the western nations and into the Arab world. Lastly, the Arab Spring has, unfortunately created some massively brutal civil wars in several Arab nations that pose a much greater threat to Islam than anything the west has been doing as of late. The future of terrorism is in the vulnerable Arab states, not the much more secure western nations.

The original Al Qeada, between 2001 and 2005 was horribly successful, with major attacks in NYC, Bali, and London among others. However, the price of that success was a worldwide effort by multiple nations to destroy Al Qeada, which, while costly, was actually pretty successful. You can see the who’s who list here 1 (scroll down to see the captured or killed, its a long list). Consider this, Al Qeada has not had a successful attack outside the arab world in over 5 years. In addition, the Navy Seals did not just kill Bin Laden, they took his computer and all his files. The future of Al Qeada looks grim indeed.

Recent arrests of western terror cells, particularly in Germany, highlight how inept the newest generation of terrorist wannabes really is. Cells are being breached so fast that they are seldom beyond the initial planning stages. For example, the arrest of the ‘Düsseldorf Cell’ just last week found no device and no concrete plans of what to target. Instead they obtained a collection of unrefined bomb making materials which indicate the cell was at best many months away from even rehearsing an operation. 2 The original Al Qaeda was a collection of very well educated, highly trained fighters (courtesy of Pakistan’s ISI and the CIA), seasoned in the Mujahideen of Afghanistan. They were well financed and operationally hardened by gorilla tactics against the soviet army. Today’s terrorists, at least those in the west, have no such credentials.

Iraq and Afghanistan are where the action is now, not New York and London. IED (improvised explosive device), sniper actions and gorilla warfare are still going on and a reasonable argument is that those fighters of today will become terrorists of tomorrow, just like Bin Laden and his ilk. However, these fighters are not being trained and equipped by elite secret services like the Al Qeada members of the past. The predictable result is that their tactics are far more primitive and perhaps less portable to the world at large.
This does not mean they are incompetent, soldiers are killed and wounded by these devices and this is a real hazard for those serving in these combat zones. Besides, it is possible to plant an IED in a major western city but compared to Al Qaeda’s very sophisticated tactics the ‘yield’ of such devices would be much, much smaller. We have seen this principle demonstrated because in the last 5 years almost all terror attacks have occurred on a much smaller scale and in Arab countries. Terror attacks have become smaller and more regional.

Speaking of Arab countries, we have been fortunate to witness a tectonic shift in the Arab world and unfortunate to witness a brutal counter response to this massive regional shift. The Arab Spring which resulted in the ousting of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubrak in Egypt has given way to a civil war in Libya and a massive culling of protesters underway in Syria. Instead of supporting their people like the Egyptian military, these nations have descended into tribal or sectarian violence of the highest order pitting Shia against Sunni and various sub-groups against each other. The failure of the Arab Spring to fully take root has created new hotspots where religious fanaticism can, and likely will, be put to use.

These faltering nations, much to the suffering of their citizens promise to be the new targets of terrorism. Europe and the United States have, in sanctioning Syria and attacking Libyan forces directly, created an opportunity to stand on the side of the arab people. This will go a long way toward deflecting hostilities. For an Arab fighter what sense is there to attack Switzerland to strike a blow for Islam when there is so much oppression and violence against Muslims is these failed states? The Arab spring is not about fighting the west or restoring a strong theocracy, it is about people’s rights, access to good governance, sharing prosperity, and putting an end to corruption and oppression. The dictators, in trying to crush these popular uprisings are posing a much greater threat to the future of Muslim and Arab peoples than the western nations.

Bin Laden is dead, and I can appreciate that, nevertheless, when viewed in context we can see that this may signal something more profound. Today’s known terrorists are not of the same caliber of the original Al Qeada. Today’s hotspots of terror have gotten smaller and are almost totally confined to war-torn regions such as Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, through support of arab peoples, the hatred of the west is being diffused by the Arab spring and turning toward the oppressive and genocidal Arab dictatorships trying to strangle the Arab spring. I see these factors, coupled with the bonanza of information captured in the operation to kill Bin Laden as not a new chapter in global terror but instead, the beginning of the end.