divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/17804?ns=guardianpageName=Society%3A+Charities+lose+faith+and+hope+as+funding+crisis+leaves+them+with+%26pound%3B2.3bn+black+holech=Societyc3=The+Guardianc4=Voluntary+sector+%28Society%29%2CRecession+%28UK%29%2CCredit+crunch+%28Business%29%2CBusiness%2CMoney%2CSociety%2CUK+newsc5=Society+Weekly%2CPersonal+Finance%2CCredit+Crunch%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CBusiness+Markets%2CSocial+Care+Societyc6=Robert+Booth%2CPatrick+Butlerc7=2008_12_01c8=1126633c9=articlec10=GUc11=Societyc12=Voluntary+sectorc13=c14=h2=GU%2FSociety%2FVoluntary+sector" width="1" height="1" //divpCharities are facing a multi-billion pound black hole in their finances as companies withdraw sponsorship and individuals cancel standing orders as the economic downturn bites, according to an authoritative study published today. /ppA survey of 362 charities by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the Institute of Fundraising and the Charity Finance Directors' Group reveals that charity incomes are expected to fall in real terms and costs to rise. PwC estimates that the shortfall could reach pound;2.3bn next year as the UK heads towards recession./ppThe forecast is the clearest sign yet of the crisis facing the charitable sector as a result of the credit crunch and has been met with warnings that charity services - often aimed at helping victims of financial hardship - will be curtailed, and some may even collapse./ppThe squeeze has already seen the value of corporate donations tumble. The British Red Cross was forced to cancel its winter gala ball beside the Thames this month as it could not find a corporate sponsor for an event which usually raises pound;500,000. Shelter, the housing charity, lost pound;400,000 in the space of six weeks this autumn when corporate sponsors, including the nationalised mortgage lender Bradford Bingley, cancelled donations./ppCharity chief executives will now press ministers further to release a pound;500m emergency fund to help see them through the slump. "There is no doubt that over the coming year we will see charities fail," said Stephen Bubb, director of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations. "We need help to help the victims of this recession."/ppDemand for services which deal with homelessness and mental illness has grown at the same time as a fifth of charities report increased cancellations of direct debits by individual donors - often a bedrock of income. Of the charities surveyed, 71% said they expected corporate donations to fall or stay static over the next year, and a fifth of those feared they could lose at least 15% of corporate income. Some reported declines of up to 50% already./ppAfter a decade of strong growth in revenues, the value of legacies and wills - which account for a third of the income of UK charities - has also plunged, and the charities' investment income has collapsed in line with the equity markets. According to the survey, the only growth looks set to come from charity shops, as bargain hunters turn to second hand goods. Even that is threatened by a lack of goods to sell, as some would-be donors try to raise extra cash by selling their bric-a-brac online./ppThis afternoon a group of 27 charities which have lost pound;46m in investments in Icelandic banks will lobby a creditors meeting for the release of their frozen assets. Among them are Cats Protection and the children's hospice Naomi House, which together invested pound;16.9m with Kaupthing Singer Friedlander./pp"In all but a technicality the recession is upon us and the economic climate is looking bleak," said Keith Hickey, chief executive of the Charity Finance Directors Group. "The one certainty is that our beneficiaries will need us more than ever. We must respond to this demand by ensuring that our charities are strongly led and able to ensure that we make the maximum possible use of resources."/ppThe crunch has come at a difficult time for Shelter, which offers advice on mortgage problems, homelessness, keeping warm and coping with rent arrears. Banking donors, who account for a third of corporate donations across the sector, pulled the plug on sponsorship deals as a rise in repossessions precipitated a 20% increase in demand for services. It had already laid off 30 staff./pp"If the situation worsens there will be an impact on our services," said Adam Sampson, Shelter's chief executive. "It is the speed with which it has happened which has made it very difficult to adjust. We have to plan for a significant proportion of our loyal donors not being able to afford their five pounds a month standing order payments."/ppDonations from the rich and legacies have slumped, according to the survey. Of charities polled, 86% expected legacies to either decline further or remain static over the coming year./pp"Giving from rich individuals, which had been flagged up as the next big thing, has gone down the pan," Mark Astarita, director of fundraising at British Red Cross, said. "The bulk of the value of legacies is in property and shares, and their value has plummeted. We have predicted a 20% decline next year." That would wipe more than pound;3m off the charity's pound;100m annual income./ppOverall, however, the British Red Cross, believes its income will grow modestly next year, largely from monthly direct debit donations gathered through face-to-face fundraising./pp"It is going to be tough, but it is not all doom and gloom," he said. "We are watching our individual donations closely and there is no detectable change."/ph2Short of funds/h2pWith more than two-thirds of charity bosses believing corporate donations will fall or stay static in the next year, charities which rely on this stream of income will be under pressure./ppThe strongMoney Advice Trust/strong, which provides free advice for individuals struggling with debts, relied on corporate donations for 65% of its pound;7.3m annual income in 2006-07. Five high street banks each gave it more than pound;500,000 in that year, including Royal Bank of Scotland, now nationalised./ppThe strongPrince's Trust/strong depends on the commercial largesse for around a fifth of its pound;22.5m fundraising income./ppstrongBreast Cancer Care/strong depended on corporate donations for 52.6% of its income, strongBreakthrough Breast Cancer/strong, for 16.6% and the strongRoyal Opera House/strong for 16.1%./ppThe crisis-hit UK financial sector accounts for around one third of UK charities' income from corporate donors. Figures from financial information group strongCaritas Data/strong show RBS gave pound;57m in cash and kind last year, Barclays pound;52.4m and HSBC pound;50.7m./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/voluntarysector"Voluntary sector/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/recession"Recession/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/creditcrunch"Credit crunch/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/926Ypjk1CSQjwUdlv-98U_M_fs4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/926Ypjk1CSQjwUdlv-98U_M_fs4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Industrial metallers VULTURE INDUSTRIES, who feature in their ranks producer Bjørnar Nilsen alongside a plethora of musicians from the Norwegian scene (including current and former members of BLACK HOLE GENERATOR, SULPHUR, ENSLAVED, DEATHCON, SYRACH, MALICE IN WONDERLAND and TAAKE), released their full-length debut, The Dystopia Journals, in Russia this month under license to Mazzar Records.

Le chanteur du groupe Muse, Matthew Bellamy, travaille en ce moment sur un nouvel opus. Le bassiste du groupe Muse, Chris Wolstenhome, aimerait voir l album sortir en 2009 plutôt qu'en 2010

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/31884?ns=guardianpageName=Comment+is+free%3A+Heed+the+visionaries+who+can+ease+the+pain+of+recessionch=Comment+is+freec3=The+Observerc4=Economics+%28Business%29%2CRecession+%28UK%29%2CCredit+crunch+%28Business%29%2CMarket+turmoil%2CEconomic+policy%2CPolitics%2CBusiness%2CObserverc5=Credit+Crunch%2CBusiness+Markets%2CNot+commercially+usefulc6=Will+Huttonc7=2008_11_30c8=1126411c9=articlec10=GUc11=Comment+is+freec12=blogc13=c14=Comment+is+freeh2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" //divpThis recession is terrifying because it's assuming the character of an economic black hole. Property prices and economic activity slide, so that soon the problem becomes not the banks refusing to lend but the borrowers' worries. That creates a further downward spiral. The banks become even more cautious. Unless this cycle is broken, the economy is sucked away./ppStandard economics and standard policy responses are useless because gloom creates its own rationality. A herd effect created the bubble. Now a herd effect is creating the opposite. A solution requires finding economics and policies that break the bearish psychology./ppStep forward Robert Shiller, a softly spoken and mildly eccentric Yale professor, who specialises in studying the psychology of booms and busts. Financial markets, left to themselves he says, reliably mismanage risk. They get carried away in booms. And in busts there's a collective hysteria in which all we see is risk, uncertainty and loss. Letting 'financial markets work', as happened in Britain and America from the 1980s to today, has been disastrous. Instead, we need to devise interventions that help the markets manage risk better, which they will not do of their own accord. This, he thinks, is practical Keynesianism. I agree./ppHe was in London last week, promoting his new book The Subprime Solution and between events he met the Chancellor, the Governor of the Bank of England, the Secretary of State for Business and Regulatory Reform and even - for a few minutes - the Prime Minister. One reason for taking him seriously is that he's the only prominent economist who can claim to have predicted today's bust./ppBut his solutions are so non-standard and outside conventional thinking, and his manner so self-deprecating and academic, that it takes a while to get the radicalism of his message. Minds seemed to wander last week - and it took me a good few meetings before I understood./ppIf we are going to get banks to lend and borrowers to borrow, argues Shiller, we have got to reduce decisively the risks they confront. He starts with the mortgage market and the collapse in house prices because they are at the centre of this crisis. /ppMortgages, he thinks, always unfairly contained too much risk for ordinary borrowers. Now they are a disaster. Who in their right mind would pledge hard-earned savings as a deposit for a house in a falling property market and, on top, take responsibility for repaying a big mortgage over 25 years when they may lose their job? It is far too much risk and reflects an unfair balance of power between borrower and lender. A left-of-centre government should insist that mortgages are redesigned so they contain far less risk for ordinary borrowers./ppHis radical 'Shiller' mortgage has two components. The first is that repayments automatically adjust to the economic circumstances of the borrower over the life of the mortgage. Repayments rise in line with your growing income, but fall or stop if you lose your job./ppAt a stroke there are no more repossessions or fear of repossessions. In any case, banks hate repossessions because of the terrible PR and the irrationality of crystallising a loss on their mortgage books. For the borrower, a mortgage becomes less daunting./ppThe second component is that the borrower should be able to insure their down payment - and their housing equity - against loss. Shiller does not stop there. He thinks that the government should launch 'livelihood insurance', so that people can insure themselves against the risk of their wages being reduced. And he advocates a massive boost to the Citizens Advice Bureau network so there is an infrastructure of trusted advisers who can help citizens understand the case for better mortgages and insurance and take up the new financial packages./ppThese measures will help make the world safer for borrowers. The next step is to do the same for lenders./ppI persuaded Robert Shiller to read the Crosby report on the British mortgage market released last week by the Treasury, along with the pre-Budget report. In my view, it is one of the most alarming reports published by the Treasury in my working life./ppJames Crosby, deputy chair of the Financial Services Authority and former chief executive of HBOS, believes that without intervention in 2009, new net mortgage lending in Britain is very likely to fall below zero, spelling calamity for house prices and the wider economy./ppLike Shiller, he thinks that essentially there is too much risk for the market. Every available penny of new savings has already been earmarked, leaving none left over for new mortgages. Lenders are shellshocked. Even if the banks were nationalised, they would face the same problem./ppCrosby has a Shiller-style solution. The government must reduce the risks that are terrifying the mortgage markets. It should offer a pound;100bn guarantee so creating a pound;100bn flow of new credit to home buyers./ppThe Chancellor has promised to do something, but perhaps not this. Shiller, unsurprisingly, wholeheartedly backs Crosby. The two ideas together - Shiller mortgages and Crosby insurance - would break the gloom, take the risk out of the markets and bottom out the recession./ppThese principles could be extended to other areas of lending. The trouble is that it is not just ordinary borrowers who don't understand finance. Neither do many bankers, committed to keeping their power and offering the same old mortgages where the borrower assumes all the risk. Nor do officials, who understand the pros and cons of measures like last week's cut in VAT, but are outside their comfort zone when it comes to banks./ppIt can't go on; the risk of a deep recession is too great. We need the state to take the risks out of finance./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/economics"Economics/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/recession"Recession/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/creditcrunch"Credit crunch/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/marketturmoil"Market turmoil/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/economy"Economic policy/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/ajVoUO1XoFUP5VvGMgBBMWIGPgU/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/ajVoUO1XoFUP5VvGMgBBMWIGPgU/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Like so many things in this crisis, the story of the public finances is one that makes everything that went before seem trivial. The long debate between the Treasury and independent experts came down to whether there was a “black hole” in the government’s projections that would have to be filled by a few billion of tax rises.

Bring us about and fire phasers on my mark,

You know in a sense, television shows like star trek and buck rogers, have done more damage to young minds then possibly calculable.

they fire the imagination with scientific terms often based "at least partly" in authentic science theory.

but the truth is, most people don't really know what a light year, or a black hole, or antimatter for that .. uhh.. matter.

Today though, i'd like to talk about a term you have all likely heard, but may not really know what the term means.

Spacetime,
An example of spacetime could be made at you own home with common place house hold items .

Imagine spacetime as sheet of rubber pulled tightly at all four corners, when you place a small marble "we will call this marble earth" on the sheet it sets there as it should, but notice the indentation our marbel made in the rubber around it, this indentation represents earths gravity, and it's effects on spacetime, if you place another heavier sphere on the rubber sheet, what happens? the heavier object will have a greater effect on the rubber sheet, err,or spacetime and pull the lesser object into its gravity,

now imagine placing a very very heavy object,"our black hole, for this model with an awesome impact on spacetime. like a metal ball barring on our model. this object, sinks down so far it sinks into an area known as hyperspace, and all we see is an empty spot on our model that looks like a hole.
"we call that an event horizon, once you cross the event horizon, that's it theres no turning back, you are back hole food"

with such a radical effect on spacetime,or all thing slowly gravitate to it.


Hey? what happens when two black holes have such an effect on spacetime,or that they meet each other in this area known as hyperspace?

You get what astro physics deem, a wormhole.

An anomaly where two black holes meet in hyperspace connecting one event horizon with another.

Congradulations, if you have read and understood this, you now possess a college level understanding of spacetime

:cool: