Monday Business Edition
This is not an easy story to tell in other’s words, so you’ll have to rely on mine. I’m not an economist.
You’ll read today that Ireland has accepted a bailout. They’ll get from 30 to 100 Billion Euros from the European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund (which includes the U.S), Sweden, and Britain (with minor chunks from others). In return for that they’re accepting an austerity plan that includes things like-
Middle class Irish families face the loss of tax credits and low paid workers, totalling 50 per cent of the labour force, will start to pay taxes for the first time.
Ireland’s minimum wage is to be cut 13 per cent and all Irish households face a new £257 property tax from 2012. Welfare payments, including jobseekers allowance and child benefit, will be cut five per cent.
As well as the steep tax increases, the EU has demanded extra public sector job cuts with a demand to cut the Irish civil service by 28,000 between 2011 and 2014.
The job cuts are double the level the Irish has agreed with trade unions and are expected to fuel protests and strikes. A trade union demonstration, predicted to be the biggest in decades, will take place in Dublin on Saturday.
As you might imagine, this is not very popular with the voters on whom politicians depend for their phony baloney jobs-
Irish ministers are so concerned over protests that austerity plans to cut chauffeur driven cars and police outriders have been shelved to protect the government amid heightened post-EU bail-out security.
Support for Fianna Fail, Ireland’s ruling party, has collapsed to 17 per cent the lowest level in 88-year history of the Irish Republic as pressure to hold a general election builds, threatening to plunge the country into more chaos.
What’s not changing, yet? Corporate Tax Rates.
Corporate tax in Ireland is 12.5 per cent, compared to 34 per cent in France, 30 per cent in Germany and 28 per cent in Britain and the policy is credited with attracting over 1,000 multinational companies such as Google and Pfizer to Ireland.
Now, why is a bailout of Ireland ‘necessary’ at all? Well, to prevent senior ‘secured’ creditors from having to take a haircut in the form of simply defaulting on the debt or alternatively converting it to equity and then having its market value drop to zero. In this case senior ‘secured’ creditors means the ECB (European Central Bank) and the Central Banks of France and Germany (British banks also have major exposure).
In fact the total exposure of France, Germany, and the other members of the ‘Eurozone’ to the failed and insolvent banks of Portugal, Spain, and Italy (the next dominoes in the inevitable demise of the Euro) makes them insolvent should they have to mark their assets to market instead of the delusional values they’re now claiming on their books. This has major political ramifications for the Very Serious People who have guided State Policy in the direction of a European Common Currency and a European Political Union for over 50 years now.
It exposes them as idiots.
What are the lessons to be taken away? For one thing I invite comparison to the recommendations of the Catfood Commission, especially their insistence on imposing additional burdens on the middle class and the poor while cutting taxes on Corporations and the rich.
Trickle Down Supply Side Economics is a failure. There is absolutely no evidence at all that it works. Deregulation is equally a failure, Ireland was the Texas of Europe- a wild wild west. As it turns out Texas was the biggest failure of Ronald Wilson Reagan’s Savings and Loan bubble, followed closely by other ‘Red’ states like Oklahoma that are smaller but experienced higher per capita losses.
Politicians, particularly Democrats, who support these policies are going to lose their phony baloney jobs. This includes Barack Hussein Obama. Street protests like you’ve seen in Europe are not our style, but as we saw in 2010 we voted for change and we’ll keep voting until we get it.
Republicans realize this which is why their goal is to block economic progress and hope that the disaffected vote either goes their way or stays home. There is no reason to vote for a Democrat to enact Republican policies.
If Bloomberg runs in 2012 he’ll be much more successful than Ross Perot.
Business News below.
1 Euro, equities falter amid questions over Ireland bailout
by Roland Jackson, AFP
9 mins ago
| LONDON (AFP) – The euro and European stock markets faltered on Monday, giving up early gains as investors questioned whether Ireland’s EU/IMF bailout would really herald the end of the eurozone’s debt crisis.
“News that the Irish government were going to accept assistance with a debt bailout package certainly gave traders something to cheer about at the start of the week,” said sales trader Will Hedden at betting firm IG Index.
“But there seems to be a creeping realisation that this won’t necessarily mark the end of the eurozone sovereign debt crisis.” |
2 Ireland secures bumper international bailout
by Roddy Thomson, AFP
Sun Nov 21, 4:44 pm ET
| BRUSSELS (AFP) – European finance ministers agreed late Sunday to bankroll a massive bailout for Ireland, the eurozone’s second emergency rescue this year.
“The government has made a request to the European Union and they have agreed,” Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen said after an emergency cabinet meeting in Dublin.
His finance minister, Brian Lenihan, said the euro partners “have not determined a precise figure,” although Didier Reynders, the finance minister of the EU’s Belgian presidency, suggested “less than 100 billion euros” (137 billion dollars). |
3 Ireland set to finalise crisis plan as bailout looms
by Loic Vennin, AFP
Sat Nov 20, 4:08 pm ET
| DUBLIN (AFP) – Ireland moved Saturday towards finalising its four-year crisis plan for cutting its budget deficit which could pave the way for a multi-billion euro bailout.
As concerns grow on the continent about European economies feeling the knock-on effects of Ireland’s plight, Prime Minister Brian Cowen’s cabinet was set to gather for an emergency meeting to put the finishing touches on its austerity plan.
“A cabinet meeting is likely on Sunday, in the afternoon,” Cowen’s spokesman said. |
4 Concerns over eurozone as Ireland debt crisis looms
by Hugh Dent, AFP
Sun Nov 21, 12:12 am ET
| PARIS (AFP) – EU-eurozone institutions are fighting the second debt crisis in six months and analysts now ponder openly how they would cope with a third and discuss how the single currency can be given a new lease on life.
There are concerns that the strains could become systemic across Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, the so-called weaker PIGS members of the eurozone, and infecting potentially even Italy.
There is uncertainty about the structure of expected help for Ireland, and concern about what happens when an underlying EU-IMF rescue scheme for eurozone countries expires in two years’ time. |
5 Spain struggles to avoid link to debt-stricken Ireland
by Katell Abiven, AFP
Sat Nov 20, 11:45 pm ET
| MADRID (AFP) – As debt-stricken Ireland heads for a Greek-style EU bailout, Spain is desperately trying to avoid being lumped in the same basket but analysts warn it will have to do more to keep investors happy.
There is “absolutely no reason” to compare Spain with Ireland, Finance Minister Elena Salgado said on Friday.
“We are able to borrow fresh funds at practically the same (cost) as Italy and do much better than Ireland, Portugal and most certainly than Greece. |
6 Fed faces ‘stiffest challenge to authority’ in years
by Andrew Beatty, AFP
Sun Nov 21, 5:17 pm ET
| WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Federal Reserve is printing billions of dollars to aid the US recovery, but acting when politicians could not or would not has sparked the fiercest challenge to its authority in decades, analysts said.
In the weeks since the Fed boldly began to pump 600 billion dollars into the US economy, a swirl of criticism has encircled the central bank.
Abroad, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has been accused of recklessly devaluing the dollar — destabilizing global trade by making US exports cheaper — and of hypocrisy for criticizing similar moves by China. |
7 GM’s Wall Street return marks US auto rennaissance
by Veronique Dupont, AFP
Sun Nov 21, 5:31 pm ET
| NEW YORK (AFP) – The triumphant return of General Motors to Wall Street less than 18 months after its bankruptcy marks a renaissance in the US auto industry, even though Detroit faces tough competition with Asian rivals and an uncertain outlook in Europe.
GM, Ford and Chrysler were among the hardest hit by the 2008 collapse in US auto sales amid the worst economic downturn in decades.
Hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost at the Detroit Three automakers and their suppliers which had just begun to reap the rewards of years of painful restructuring when the crisis hit. |
8 News Corp. set to unveil iPad newspaper, ‘The Daily’
by Chris Lefkow, AFP
Mon Nov 22, 1:21 am ET
| WASHINGTON (AFP) – After months of top secret development, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. appears poised to take the wraps off a digital newspaper for the iPad called “The Daily.”
News Corp. has been tight-lipped about the project but the Australian-born media mogul acknowledged its existence for the first time in an interview last week with his Fox Business Network.
Asked what “exciting projects” his sprawling media and entertainment company was working on, the 79-year-old Murdoch cited The Daily but offered no further information about the tabloid for Apple’s touchscreen tablet computer. |
9 US, EU urge major economies to avoid currency battle
by David Williams, AFP
Sat Nov 20, 4:04 pm ET
| LISBON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama and European Union leaders called on major economies once again Saturday to avoid waging a war of competing currency devaluations.
The two economic powers met at a time of global market concern over the fragile state of indebted European economies, amid fears that countries may fight to lower their currencies’ values to boost exports.
In a news conference after the summit, Obama took a veiled stab at economies such as China’s, which he has blamed for suppressing the yuan’s value despite a bulging trade surplus. |
10 US tanker decision delayed to 2011: Air Force
by Dan De Luce, AFP
Sat Nov 20, 1:35 am ET
| WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Air Force said a final decision on a lucrative contract for a new aerial refueling tanker will be delayed until early next year, instead of a December 20 deadline.
The announcement marked the latest setback in a protracted contest that pits the US aerospace giant Boeing against rival EADS, the parent company of France-based Airbus.
“Certain aspects of the source selection have taken longer than we originally anticipated,” spokesman Colonel Les Kodlick told AFP. |
11 Irish government partner demands election
By Padraic Halpin and Kirsten Donovan, Reuters
13 mins ago
| DUBLIN/LONDON (Reuters) – Ireland’s Greens pulled the plug on the deeply unpopular coalition government on Monday by calling for a national election in January after an EU/IMF bailout package is in place.
The Greens, junior partner in the coalition, withdrew their support a day after the European Union and International Monetary Fund agreed to rescue Ireland with loans to tackle its banking and budget crisis, which have stirred up deep public anger.
European and IMF officials began thrashing out details of the package — expected to total 80 to 90 billion euros — on Monday, while the government put finishing touches to a drastic 15 billion euros ($20.5 billion) austerity plan. |
12 UK to commit around 7 billion pounds to Ireland
By Keith Weir and Estelle Shirbon, Reuters
1 hr 29 mins ago
| LONDON (Reuters) – Britain will commit around 7 billion pounds ($11 billion) to help neighbor Ireland resolve its financial crisis, a policy the government will find hard to sell to struggling British taxpayers at a time of spending cuts.
George Osborne, the finance minister, said Britain would offer Ireland bilateral aid as well as honoring its commitments as an IMF shareholder, but did not want to be part of a permanent bailout mechanism for euro zone members.
The EU and the IMF agreed on Sunday to help bail out Ireland with loans to tackle its banking and budget crisis in an attempt to safeguard Europe’s financial stability. |
13 Analysis: Irish EU bailout may not stop Portugal follow-up
By Jan Strupczewski, Reuters
Sun Nov 21, 7:22 pm ET
| BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union’s bailout of Ireland may give short-term relief to markets, but despite euro zone hopes, may not prevent markets from pushing Portugal to get EU assistance too, unless a more general solution is found soon.
On Sunday, Ireland applied to the EU and the International Monetary Fund for a financial aid package to cover its fiscal needs and potential future capital requirements of its banking system.
EU finance ministers backed the request for aid, which an EU source put at 80-90 billion euros, to stop market concerns about Ireland’s debt from spreading to other countries with big budget gaps such as Spain and Portugal, threatening a systemic crisis. |
14 Special Report: The stock, the Web, the CEO and his lawyers
By Rosalba O’Brien and Matthew Scuffham, Reuters
18 mins ago
| LONDON (Reuters) – As a CEO, David Bramhill could handle the online attacks on his looks and his character. “You get used to the personal stuff that goes up: ‘Fat bastard,’ etc.,” says the burly one-time boxer and oil industry veteran. “I don’t like it but I suppose being in the position I’m in, OK, they can take pot shots at me.”
But when the messages on internet bulletin boards became a concerted campaign of criticism against his oil and gas exploration company, Bramhill snapped. “When it comes to dishonesty, and not running the company the way it should be run, and spreading untrue rumors — this is where we’ve got major, major issues,” a disillusioned Bramhill told Reuters in early September.
Bramhill’s experience is part of a bigger story of insults and untruths involving a clutch of firms listed on AIM, London’s junior stock market. According to the companies, they are victims of a kind of financial cyber-bullying in which discussions among investors on internet bulletin boards have turned abusive. Executives of the targeted companies, typically small and often in commodities, suspect an organized hand may be directing those behind the comments — and then cashing in on the reaction. |
15 China takes aim at inflation expectations
By Aileen Wang and Alan Wheatley, Reuters
Mon Nov 22, 12:34 am ET
| BEIJING (Reuters) – China sought Monday to reassure people that inflation will remain in check, voicing confidence that ample grain supplies and excess capacity in industry will keep a lid on price pressures.
Economists said the effort to manage inflation expectations was meant to reinforce an array of measures in recent days to curb actual inflation, including Friday’s order to banks to hold more of their deposits in reserve instead of lending them out.
“We can understand the worries of residents about the relatively quick rise in food prices and other daily necessities,” the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s economic planning agency, said. |
16 Reality check for Fed forecasts
By Emily Kaiser, Reuters
Sun Nov 21, 3:01 pm ET
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy, to mix two Federal Reserve catch phrases, may be disappointingly slow for an extended period.
The central bank will release updated economic forecasts on Tuesday as part of the minutes from its latest policy-setting meeting, including a first stab at estimating growth, inflation and unemployment levels for 2013.
At first blush, the forecasts would seem destined to take a back seat to the section detailing the Fed’s discussions around launching its new $600 billion bond-buying program. |
17 S&P warns on New Zealand ratings and currency skids
By Wayne Cole, Reuters
Mon Nov 22, 1:01 am ET
| WELLINGTON (Reuters) – Standard & Poor’s warned on Monday that New Zealand’s foreign currency rating could be downgraded if the country continues to pile up more foreign debt, sending its currency reeling by a full U.S. cent.
The ratings agency said it was revising New Zealand’s foreign currency outlook to negative from stable, citing a widening current account deficit and credit risks in its banking sector. An actual cut in the AA+/A-1+ rating could well lead to an increase in borrowing costs for the country and its banks.
“The outlook revision on the foreign currency ratings reflects our recognition of the risks stemming from New Zealand’s projected widening external imbalances in the context of the country’s weakened fiscal flexibility,” said S&P sovereign ratings credit analyst Kyran Curry. |
18 Authorities may be close to filing insider trader cases
By Matthew Goldstein, Reuters
Sun Nov 21, 1:42 pm ET
| NEW YORK (Reuters) – Federal authorities may file a series of insider trading cases against hedge fund traders, consultants and Wall Street bankers within weeks, several lawyers familiar with the situation said.
Prosecutors and securities regulators are likely to file a number of cases targeting the $1.7 trillion hedge fund industry rather than a single spectacular case, said the lawyers, who have knowledge of the investigations but did not want to be identified since details have not been made public.
The new round of prosecutions could start in the next few weeks or early next year, the lawyers said, but it is too soon to say whether they will rival last year’s arrest of Galleon Group hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam and nearly two-dozen others, one of the largest insider trading cases ever. |
19 Black Friday to grab investor attention
By Caroline Valetkevitch, Reuters
Sun Nov 21, 12:13 pm ET
| NEW YORK (Reuters) – Expectations about “Black Friday,” when Americans traditionally get serious about holiday shopping, could sway stocks this week if it looks like the economy will get a pop from consumer spending.
The outcome of talks to shape a bailout for Ireland could also move stocks, analysts said, but they cautioned that other highly indebted euro zone countries could still be a source of worry.
Ireland will seek a bailout from international lenders, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said on Sunday, ending weeks of speculation that it would need aid to prop up its banks and help it secure cheaper state funding. |
20 Wells Fargo to pay Citi $100 million over Wachovia
By Maria Aspan and Jonathan Stempel, Reuters
Sat Nov 20, 3:01 am ET
| NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) will pay Citigroup Inc (C.N) $100 million to settle multiple lawsuits over the contentious 2008 purchase of Wachovia Corp, closing another chapter in the receding financial crisis.
The banks said the settlement will resolve all claims related to the dispute.
Citigroup had originally sought as much as $60 billion of damages from Wells Fargo for derailing its September 2008 agreement to buy large portions of Wachovia and quadruple its U.S. branch presence. |
21 Bernanke hits back at Fed critics
By Gavin Jones, Reuters
Fri Nov 19, 2:17 pm ET
| FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke hit back on Friday at critics of the U.S. central bank’s bond-buying program and issued a thinly veiled attack on China’s policy of keeping its currency on a leash.
Bernanke, facing a chorus of protests about the asset-buying spree from within and outside the central bank, said a more vigorous U.S. economy was essential to fuel the global recovery and dismissed charges he was debasing the dollar.
“The best way to continue to deliver the strong economic fundamentals that underpin the value of the dollar, as well as to support the global recovery, is through policies that lead to a resumption of robust growth in a context of price stability in the United States,” Bernanke told a conference at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. |
22 Bank analyst Whitney to start credit-rating firm
Reuters
Fri Nov 19, 5:07 pm ET
| NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wall Street bank analyst Meredith Whitney, who shot to fame correctly predicting the industry’s carnage in 2007, is regearing her nearly 2-year-old research company into a credit-rating agency.
Meredith Whitney Advisory Group said on Friday that the firm plans to compete against long-time credit-rating heavyweights — Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings — while continuing to do research.
In early 2009, Whitney left her job as banking analyst at Oppenheimer & Co to set up her own equity analytics firm, and less than two years since its inception began dipping into the credit market, writing bearish notes on municipal bonds. |
23 BP fights court bid to lift oil-spill damages limit
By Moira Herbst, Reuters
Fri Nov 19, 2:45 pm ET
| NEW YORK, Nov 19 (Reuters Legal) – BP Plc (BP.L) had said for months it would pay all legitimate damages for the largest oil spill in U.S. history, but now it’s fighting a bid to legally force it to waive a $75 million statutory cap.
Lawyers for local businesses and individuals filed a motion this month asking U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, who is overseeing the oil-spill litigation in New Orleans, to rule that a cap is inapplicable in this case.
Noting that BP itself had told the court it would waive the cap, the plaintiffs’ lawyers asked Barbier to rule on the matter to preclude BP from “re-urging this defense” in the future. |
24 Regulators part curtain on swaps and hedge funds
By Christopher Doering and Rachelle Younglai, Reuters
Fri Nov 19, 2:40 pm ET
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Regulators moved on Friday to bring more transparency to the sprawling derivatives market, hedge funds and private equity, all dimly lit corners of the financial world getting more scrutiny.
Proposed rules issued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission showed regulators stepping cautiously as they implement hundreds of new regulations mandated in July by Congress.
Shining a brighter light on derivatives was one of the key goals of the landmark Dodd-Frank reforms, pushed through by Democrats and President Barack Obama over the resistance of most Republicans and a host of Wall Street lobbyists. |
25 Auto industry pulls back from pension brink
By John Crawley, Reuters
Fri Nov 19, 1:26 pm ET
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. automakers and suppliers, led by a resurgent General Motors Co (GM.N), have retreated from the brink of a pension crisis, to the relief of the deficit-heavy pension insurance program.
Pension plans at bankrupt companies did not collapse as feared in the recession-fueled auto industry downturn. More companies are now maintaining plans, beginning with a restructured GM which assured investors ahead of this week’s public offering that it wants to fully fund those accounts.
“As the economy recovers, we’re seeing fewer pension terminations, including the auto sector,” said Jeffrey Speicher, a spokesman for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp (PBGC). |
26 Irish bailout boost to markets proves short-lived
By PAN PYLAS, AP Business Writer
14 mins ago
| LONDON – Ongoing worries that Europe’s debt crisis is a long way from being solved despite Ireland’s request for a massive bailout rescue kept investors on edge Monday and sent stocks and the euro lower.
In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 48.74 points, or 0.9 percent, at 5,684.19 while France’s CAC-40 fell 24.76 points, or 0.7 percent, to 3,834.40. Germany’s DAX was trading 11 points, or 0.2 percent, lower at 6,832.55.
Wall Street was poised for a modest retreat despite earlier signaling a higher opening – Dow futures were 34 points at 11,135, while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 futures fell 4.2 points to 1,194. |
27 Ireland swallows bitter pill, asks EU for loan
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press
Sun Nov 21, 9:34 pm ET
| DUBLIN – Debt-crippled Ireland formally applied Sunday for a massive EU-IMF loan to stem the flight of capital from its banks, joining Greece in a step unthinkable only a few years ago when Ireland was a booming Celtic Tiger and the economic envy of Europe.
European Union finance ministers quickly agreed in principle to the bailout, saying it “is warranted to safeguard financial stability in the EU and euro area.” But all sides said further weeks of negotiations loomed to define the fund’s terms, conditions and precise size.
Ireland’s crisis, set off by its foundering banks, drove up borrowing costs not only for Ireland but for other weak links in the eurozone such as Spain and Portugal. Ireland’s agreement takes some pressure off those countries, but they still may end up needing bailouts of their own. |
28 Security protest could disrupt Thanksgiving travel
By MICHAEL TARM, Associated Press
1 hr 43 mins ago
| CHICAGO – As if air travel over the Thanksgiving holiday isn’t tough enough, it could be even worse this year: Airports could see even more disruptions because of a loosely organized Internet boycott of full-body scans.
Even if only a small percentage of passengers participate, experts say it could mean longer lines, bigger delays and hotter tempers.
The protest, National Opt-Out Day, is scheduled for Wednesday to coincide with the busiest travel day of the year. |
29 TSA chief: Body scan boycott would be mistake
By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press
17 mins ago
| WASHINGTON – With one of the year’s busiest traveling days fast approaching, the Obama administration’s top transportation security official on Monday urged passengers angry over safety procedures not to boycott airport body scans.
John Pistole said in nationally broadcast interviews he understands public concerns about privacy in the wake of the Transportation Security Administration’s tough new airline boarding security checks.
But at the same time, he said a relatively small proportion of the 34 million people who have flown since the new procedures went into effect have had the body pat downs that have come under withering criticism in recent days. |
30 A grope too far: Fliers’ anger at TSA boils over
By ADAM GELLER, AP National Writer
Sun Nov 21, 7:37 pm ET
| How did an agency created to protect the public become the target of so much public scorn?
After nine years of funneling travelers into ever longer lines with orders to have shoes off, sippy cups empty and laptops out for inspection, the most surprising thing about increasingly heated frustration with the federal Transportation Security Administration may be that it took so long to boil over.
Even Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is not subjected to security pat-downs when she travels, understands the public’s irritation. She, for one, wouldn’t want to go through such scrutiny. |
31 Hopes wane at NZ mine; gas prevents rescue of 29
By JOE MORGAN and RAY LILLEY, Associated Press
1 hr 49 mins ago
| GREYMOUTH, New Zealand – Hopes waned Monday for the survival of 29 New Zealand coal miners who have been trapped for three days underground, where the presence of explosive gases has prevented a rescue.
Family members expressed frustration with the pace of the response as officials acknowledged for the first time it may be too late to save the miners, who have not been heard from since a massive explosion ripped through the Pike River Mine on the country’s South Island on Friday.
A buildup of methane gas is the suspected cause of the explosion, though officials say that may not be confirmed for days. And now the presence of that gas and others – some of them believed to be coming from a smoldering fire deep underground – are delaying a rescue over fears they could still explode. |
32 Engines just latest trouble for Airbus superjumbo
By GREG KELLER and ANGELA CHARLTON, Associated Press
1 hr 50 mins ago
| PARIS – Many wondered whether the world’s largest passenger plane would ever be born.
Skeptics called the 7-story-tall Airbus A380 too big and ambitious when it was just a blueprint. There were wiring problems and debilitating management disputes. Time and again, the planemaker announced delays, exasperating investors and costing the company billions.
The A380 surmounted the problems, made its first passenger flight in 2007 and even became something of a celebrity – a roomy, smooth and quiet jetliner sought out by many business travelers and aviation enthusiastics. |
33 Report: Qantas oxygen tank blowout ‘unique’
By ROD McGUIRK, Associated Press
Sun Nov 21, 10:58 pm ET
| CANBERRA, Australia – An oxygen bottle explosion that tore a hole in a Qantas jumbo during a flight two years ago was a unique event that is extremely unlikely ever to happen again, investigators said Monday in their final report into the incident.
But the investigators concluded the exact cause of the incident would never be known because the key piece of evidence – the oxygen tank – fell into the South China Sea and was never recovered.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau report into the July 2008 incident is unrelated to the blowout of a Rolls-Royce engine on a Qantas superjumbo earlier this month, but both events are part of a string of safety incidents in recent years that have tested the Australian airline’s reputation as one of the world’s safest. |
34 BP claims a gamble: Get check now, risk less later
By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press
Sun Nov 21, 4:25 pm ET
| OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. – Fishermen and business owners stung by a summer of lost revenue from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill have until Wednesday to file their compensation claims for short-term damages, and then they have to ask themselves: Do I feel lucky?
Many will eventually be offered a final settlement from BP PLC’s compensation fund – but accepting that check is a gamble. To cash it, they’ll have to sign away their right to ever sue the oil giant and let a court decide how much they’re owed. And if the long-term damages end up amounting to more than the settlement, they’ll be out of luck for additional payments to cover those future losses.
They also could wait and risk getting an even lower settlement offer later if the shrimp, oyster, crab and fish industries rebound faster than expected, and tourists return in droves. |
35 Welfare funding runs out in Iraq
By LARA JAKES, Associated Press
Sun Nov 21, 1:54 pm ET
| BAGHDAD – Iraq has run out of money to pay for widows’ benefits, farm crops and other programs for the poor, the parliament leader told lawmakers, who have collected nearly $180,000 so far this year in one of the world’s most oil-rich nations.
In only their fourth session since being elected in March, members of Iraq’s parliament on Sunday demanded to know what happened to the estimated $1 billion allocated for welfare funding by the Finance Ministry for 2010.
“We should ask the government where these allocations for widows’ aid have gone,” demanded Sadrist lawmaker Maha Adouri of Baghdad, one of the women who make up a quarter of the legislature’s 325 members. “There are thousands of widows who did not receive financial aid for months.” |
36 Regulators close 3 banks in Fla, Pa, Wis
By MARCY GORDON, AP Business Writer
Fri Nov 19, 9:00 pm ET
| WASHINGTON – Regulators on Friday shut down three banks in Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, lifting the number of U.S. banks that have failed this year to 149 as soured loans pile up and the economy limps forward.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over the banks, the largest by far being First Banking Center, based in Burlington, Wis., with $750.7 million in assets.
First Michigan Bank, based in Troy, Mich., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of First Banking Center. In addition, the FDIC and First Michigan Bank agreed to share losses on $515.6 million of First Banking Center’s loans and other assets. |
37 Bernanke on perilous ground for Fed chairman
By PAUL WISEMAN and JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writers
Fri Nov 19, 5:40 pm ET
| WASHINGTON – Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is taking some highly unusual steps to counter widespread opposition to his $600 billion plan to jump-start the economy. He’s pressing China to let its currency rise and pushing Congress to pass more stimulus aid.
Yet as he veers into these political debates, Bernanke may be putting at risk the Fed’s strongest tools – its credibility and independence.
Bernanke has been under fire since Nov. 3, when the Fed announced a bold plan to buy $600 billion in Treasury bonds. The bond purchases are intended to lower long-term interest rates, lift stock prices and encourage higher spending to energize the weak economy. |
38 Cyberthieves still rely on human foot soldiers
By ALICIA A. CALDWELL and PETE YOST, Associated Press
Mon Nov 22, 3:33 am ET
| WASHINGTON – Sitting at a computer somewhere overseas in January 2009, computer hackers went phishing.
Within minutes of casting their electronic bait they caught what they were looking for: A small Michigan company where an employee unwittingly clicked on an official-looking e-mail that secretly gave cyberthieves the keys to the firm’s bank account.
Before company executives knew what was happening, Experi-Metal Inc., a suburban Detroit manufacturing company, was broke. Its $560,000 bank balance had been electronically scattered into bank accounts in Russia, Estonia, Scotland, Finland and around the U.S. |
39 MSHA warns 13 mining sites to improve safety
By VICKI SMITH, Associated Press
Fri Nov 19, 7:19 pm ET
| MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Federal regulators late Friday warned 13 mining operations in seven states, including two owned by troubled Massey Energy Co., to show improvement on safety or face stricter enforcement.
The Mine Safety and Health Administration says a 14th mining operation, Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine in southern West Virginia, also meets the criteria for inclusion on the list that might qualify as having a pattern of serious violations.
But the agency says actions against Upper Big Branch and a Massey subsidiary, Performance Coal Co., are on hold until the completion of an investigation into an April blast that killed 29 men. |
40 Harrah’s folds hand on planned stock offering
By ELLEN GIBSON and BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Business Writers
Fri Nov 19, 5:46 pm ET
| NEW YORK – Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. canceled its planned initial public offering Friday, folding its hand for now on what was already a money-losing bet on returning to the stock market just three years after the casino giant went private.
It’s a big setback for the investors who paid top dollar for the largest American casino company right before the economy tanked and took the gambling industry with it. The cancellation is also a sign that an improving market for stock offerings, highlighted by General Motors Co.’s successful return to the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, isn’t ready for debt-laden companies in industries that are still near the bottom.
Apollo Management Group, led by buyout titan Leon Black, and Texas Pacific Group paid $17.1 billion and took on $12.4 billion in debt in 2007 to take Harrah’s private in one of the biggest leveraged buyouts ever. At the time, private money was on a shopping spree for casino operators, considered hot targets for their cash-generating ability and real estate holdings. Then the financial crisis hit, taking with it many of the dollars that kept slot machines spinning and blackjack tables full. |
Life actually had its start earlier in the 20th century as a different kind of magazine: a weekly humor publication, not unlike today’s The New Yorker in its use of tart cartoons, humorous pieces and cultural reporting. When the original Life folded during the Great Depression, the influential American publisher Henry Luce bought the name and re-launched the magazine as a picture-based periodical on this day in 1936. By this time, Luce had already enjoyed great success as the publisher of Time, a weekly news magazine.
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