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OPM Postpones New Dental-Vision Benefits
By Stephen Barr
Tuesday, September 20, 2005; B02
Here's one that will make you grind your teeth:
A new program to offer enhanced dental and vision benefits to federal employees and retirees is being delayed until December 2006, the Office of Personnel Management announced yesterday. OPM had previously said the program would begin in July.
Many federal employees have eagerly awaited the program's launch. The government offers meager dental and vision coverage to its workers, with reimbursement levels and annual maximum benefits that are much less than those provided by private-sector employers.
Rather than offer enrollment in the spring, OPM said, the dental-vision benefit will be launched next autumn and coincide with the November-December open season for health insurance and flexible spending accounts.
"OPM favors this approach, noting simultaneous open seasons will give individuals access to the full complement of information they need to compare features of each program and to make informed choices on benefits and coverage levels," the agency said in a news release.
Congress approved the program last year, in large part because it will require enrollees to pay all premium costs. Supporters of the legislation, which was sponsored by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), said they intended that OPM harness the government's purchasing power to obtain affordable and favorable group rates for employees and retirees. The law creating the program calls for it to be established in 2006.
OPM had drafted a proposal for the program and had planned to issue the "statement of work" this week. But regional insurance companies faulted the program, raising concerns about overhead costs, the role of health maintenance organizations, the maximum benefit design and whether OPM would be limiting competition by restricting the types and numbers of participating plans.
Susan Bryant , OPM spokeswoman, said the agency had asked for comments, and "they are being considered." She said a revised statement of work will be issued within the next few weeks.
Bryant said tying the start of dental-vision benefits to the health insurance enrollment period next December will make it easier for employees to do their financial and tax planning.
L Funds Take Off
More than 100,000 participants in the Thrift Savings Plan have invested more than $3 billion in lifecycle funds since they became available six weeks ago, officials said yesterday.
The L Funds also lived up to their goals, assuming that any insights can be drawn from the mixed returns in the stock market last month. In their inaugural month, the L Funds were not the best performer nor the worst performer in the TSP portfolio.
The five L Funds ended August on a positive note, posting returns that ranged from .07 percent to .17 percent. Two popular stock funds, large U.S. stocks (C) and small-to-midsize U.S. stocks (S) were down -- the C Fund by .9 percent and the S by 1.01 percent.
Three other TSP funds -- international stocks (I), U.S. bonds (F) and government securities (G) -- were winners. The I Fund returned 3.23 percent, the F Fund 1.23 percent and the G Fund .37 percent.
Although the first-time returns of L Funds drew the attention of the TSP board at its meeting yesterday, officials cautioned against reading too much into the data and urged federal employees to not base their investment decisions on short-term results.
The L Funds are geared for long-term investing and emphasize diversification, rebalancing of assets and assuming the right level of risk for the participant's draw-down date. Over time, the funds should produce smoother returns than TSP stock funds, said James B. Petrick , the TSP's chief financial officer.
The L Funds use the TSP's other five funds as their foundation and allocate money among those funds based on when a participant expects to begin withdrawals. There is a current income fund for those in retirement or very close to it, and 2010, 2020, 2030 and 2040 funds for projected withdrawals in those time frames.
The funds shift from aggressive to conservative investments as participants near the time they will start drawing down their savings.
Of the L Funds, the 2020 Fund appears to be the most popular. It ended August with $1.24 billion in assets. That may reflect interest among employees who are well along in their careers but not ready to retire in the next few years.
The TSP is in the midst of a major education campaign to encourage investors to consider the L Funds. Officials created them out of concern that too many employees were not taking the time to rebalance their accounts or were making bad investment decisions by trying to chase hot market sectors.
Mike Causey's Federal Report
Front Loading Your TSP
Sep. 20, 2005
Next year federal investors will be able to "front-load" their Thrift Savings Plan accounts, if they can afford it, by putting all of their after-tax paycheck into the federal 401(k) plan each pay period.
This is the ideal situation for someone who wants to retire early or in mid-2006 but who also wants to invest the maximum amount ($20,000 in the case of 50-plus feds or military people) in the TSP as quickly as possible.
It would help to have a spouse or significant other who is employed and will help you with odds and ends, like rent and food, so you can channel all of your net paycheck into the TSP. The current percentage limits on employee contributions will not apply in 2006.
Front-loading would be ideal for individuals who want to retire earlier in the year while also getting the maximum tax break by putting the maximum allowed in their TSP. This year that maximum is $14,000 plus an additional $4,000 for people who are 50 or older. Next year that limit goes to $15,000, with an additional $5,000 tax-deferred catch up contribution allowed for people 50 and older.
Recently, reader Carlos from the NRC, asked about the possibility of front-loading. I told him it sounded too good to be true, but that I would check. I did. Guess what! Carlos was right on the money. And this could be a very helpful tip whether you plan to retire next year or five years from now.
Starting in 2006, some feds can cram the entire amount of their after-deductions biweekly check into their tax-deferred Thrift Savings Plan. That would enable some people to retire early or mid-2006 but still have taken advantage of the maximums allowed by the IRS for the TSP.
The source for all this is Tammy Flanagan, top benefits expert for the National Institute of Transition Planning.
This is part of what she wrote:
Yes. Carlos is correct. Next year employees will be able to "front-load" their TSP account (as they say in the financial planning world!). There will no longer be percentage limits on employee contributions (currently FERS employees are limited to no more than 15% of their biweekly salary and CSRS employees are currently limited to 10% of their biweekly salary). 2006 and beyond...no limit!
So, what Carlos is explaining can start happening next year. I recently prepared an article that talks about this as a potential benefit for someone who wants to take advantage of one last big boost to their TSP account before they retire. This is an employee (who) is not as concerned about cashing out 448 hours of annual leave, but is more interested in sheltering up to $20,000 of tax-deferred income to their TSP account.
For information on NITP, check out: http://www.nitpinc.com/main/
Four Day Week
Earlier this year the government of the Republic of the Philippines put most of its civil servants on a mandatory 10 hour day, 4-day week. That was an energy conservation move during the especially hot months of April and May.
Now some American civil servants, specifically postal clerks, will try out the 4-day week. As part of the extended contract with the Postal Service and the American Postal Workers Union, the 4-day week, 10-hour day will be tested in 18 sites. Stay tuned...
Show-me
09-20-2005, 07:22 AM
Greg wrote:
Mike Causey's Federal Report
Front Loading Your TSP
Sep. 20, 2005
Now some American civil servants, specifically postal clerks, will try out the 4-day week. As part of the extended contract with the Postal Service and the American Postal Workers Union, the 4-day week, 10-hour day will be tested in 18 sites. Stay tuned...
Bring it on!
pyriel
09-20-2005, 07:37 AM
Thanks Greg, I didn't even think about front loading my tsp... This will require additional planning...
Greg, does this mean that I can put in 5k per month for the first three months and be done with it for the year?
Dollar up after suggested rate rises
Tuesday September 20, 8:54 PM EDT
TOKYO (Reuters) - The dollar held near a seven-week high against the euro and a six-week peak versus the yen on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates and appeared to leave the door open for even higher rates.
In its post-meeting policy statement, the U.S. central bank repeated a "measured" pace of rate rises was likely, saying that economic disruptions triggered by Hurricane Katrina did not pose a persistent threat.
"The Fed's statement confirmed the strength of the U.S. economy, which improved dollar sentiment," said Takehiko Jimbo, forex manager at Mitsubishi Trust and Banking.
The dollar rose as far as 112.03 yen -- its highest level in six weeks -- in early Asian trade, before easing to around 111.90 yen , little changed from the level in late New York trade.
Traders said the dollar's advance would likely slow with selling from Japanese exporters seen lined up above 112 yen.
The British pound also hit a three-week low of $1.7961
The euro hovered around $1.2125 , near the seven-week low of $1.21 hit on Monday in the wake of indecisive German election results.
Traders expect the dollar to keep the upper hand in the near term as the Fed did not suggest it would pause the gradual tightening it started back in June 2004.
Rising short-term interest rates in the United States have been one of the main drivers of the dollar's rise this year, as higher rates are thought to attract more funds.
The Fed raised its fund rate by 0.25 percentage point to 3.75 percent on Tuesday, improving the dollar's rate advantage over the euro and the yen.
The comparable rate in the euro zone is 2.0 percent, and near zero percent in Japan.
Allstate says it won't pay for Katrina flood damage
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Insurer's operating chief responds to Mississippi suit
Sep 20, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Allstate Corp. won't pay flooding claims stemming from Hurricane Katrina, Chief Operating Officer Tom Wilson said on Tuesday, in a direct challenge to a lawsuit filed last week by Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood.
Katrina, a Category 4 storm that hit Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama on Aug. 29, may end up being the most expensive catastrophe in U.S. history, costing insurers as much as $60 billion, according to one estimate.
Controversy has emerged surrounding the devastating flooding that followed the storm. Standard homeowners' insurance policies typically exclude flooding, partly because a national, government-run program covers those risks. However, many homeowners hit by Katrina may not have bought this extra coverage.
Mississippi's Hood sued Allstate and four other leading insurers in the state on Sept. 16, arguing that their flood exclusions should be voided and that they should pay flood claims.
"The Mississippi attorney general's view [is] that we should pay for claims -- flood claims even though we never insured those," Allstate's Wilson said during a speech at a Banc of America Securities conference in San Francisco. "We do not intend to do that."
Allstate has contracts that specifically exclude flooding that were enforced and approved by regulators in all the states affected by Katrina, Wilson added.
Allstate hasn't had problems with customers not knowing that their policies excluded flood damage, partly because the government flood-insurance program advertises heavily in flood-prone areas every year, Wilson continued.
"Exhibit one for us will be just the national flood-insurance programs -- advertising programs, which they put on very aggressively every year," he said. "People know this is a separate coverage, so we're not having many issues with our customers."
Analysts have been concerned that the insurance industry may be vulnerable to political pressure to cover some of the costs of flood damage, especially in New Orleans, where it's been estimated that about a quarter of the city's inhabitants didn't have flood insurance.
This problem is accentuated because the industry has more than $400 billion in capital after several years of rising premiums.
"The nature of the industry's 'deep-pocket' risks are especially acute in the case of Hurricane Katrina, since only a fourth of policyholders are reported to have purchased flood insurance, which could severely raise the cost, and limit the availability, of funding for rebuilding efforts," Ken Reed, an analyst at rating agency Fitch, wrote in a note to clients on Monday.
Allstate's Wilson did concede that there will be "issues" when assessing what damage was caused by wind and what was the result of flooding.
Wilson also said that Allstate hasn't finalized an estimate of its Katrina-related losses yet.
Allstate shares fell 31 cents to $53.11 on Tuesday. The stock has dropped more than 8% since Katrina hit on Aug. 29.
Consumers' gloomy mood gets worse
Sep 20, 2005
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. consumer confidence dropped again this week, according to a weekly survey released Tuesday by ABC and the Washington Post.
The ABC/Post consumer-comfort index fell to negative 23 this week from negative 20 last week. It's the lowest since May 2003.
With 60% saying the economy is worsening and 11% saying it's getting better, pessimism about the near-term future was at its highest level since December 1991.
Consumer attitudes have plunged since Aug. 29, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and other Gulf Coast regions. The slide in consumer sentiment began before the storm hit, as gasoline prices crept higher.
The retreat in gasoline prices from $3.07 to $2.79 over the past two weeks has little impact on consumer's psyches.
The index is down 16 points in the past five weeks and down 11 points since Katrina.
Despite the gloomy assessment by consumers, the Federal Reserve boosted its short-term interest rate target on Tuesday to 3.75%, saying the dislocations caused Hurricane Katrina won't pose a "persistent threat" to the economy in the long run, while higher energy prices could fuel a new wave of inflation.
In the ABC/Post survey, fewer than a third of consumers said that it's a good time to buy things, the lowest since November 1993.
Consumers aren't buying as much, according to a separate index that tracks retail chain-store sales. Same-store sales fell 2.1% last week, the International Council of Shopping Centers reported Tuesday. The shopping industry group is forecasting a 3% year-over-year increase in September sales.
Personal finances remain in good shape, with 55% expressing comfort in their own pocketbooks.
The ABC/Post index is a four-week moving average of the responses to its weekly polls. The average this year is negative 12, while the average over the past 19 years is negative 9.
A separate daily tracking poll of consumer attitudes shows a similar trend, according to Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports. The Rasmussen Consumer Index fell to 98.9 on Tuesday from 102.6 on Monday.
The index was established in October 2001 at 100.
"Today's reading means that the nation's level of economic confidence is slightly lower than it was in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks," Rasmussen said.
FEMA OKs Mobile Homes for Katrina Evacuees
Tuesday September 20
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — The Federal Emergency Management Agency ordered tens of thousands of mobile homes and travel trailers on Tuesday to accommodate Katrina evacuees, approving manufacturer bids totaling at least hundreds of millions of dollars, an agency spokesman said.
FEMA spokesman Butch Kinerney said the specific number of units and dollar totals were not immediately available Tuesday evening.
The nation's largest mobile home manufacturer, Clayton Homes Inc. of Maryville, received a government order Tuesday to build 2,000 single-wide models, company spokesman Chris Nicely said, with delivery requested by Dec. 1.
"That won't be a problem," Nicely said.
But some manufacturers have complained that FEMA's pace of responding to bids they submitted by Sept. 9 could mean production delays. FEMA officials earlier said they did not want to make spending decisions too hastily.
Riverside, Calif.-based Fleetwood Enterprises Inc. received orders for 7,500 travel trailers and 3,000 single-section mobile homes, Elden L. Smith, the company's president and chief executive, said in a statement Tuesday. Smith said the "total value of the order to our company is upwards of $170 million."
FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said Monday that at least 30,000 travel trailers would be ready in Louisiana by Oct. 18, with another 170,000 to be installed soon after.
State officials were working to identify plots of land where the trailers could be placed and outfitted with plumbing and electricity, Andrews said.
Andrews said FEMA awarded another contract to Fluor Corp. of Aliso Viejo, Calif., to build temporary housing units and that other contracts were pending.
Clayton — which had already shipped 1,800 homes from retail lots as far away as Delaware and Wyoming to a FEMA staging area at Texarkana, Texas — submitted a bid to build 3,000 units, but FEMA ordered only 2,000.
"I think they are trying to spread it around, to keep everybody happy and so they don't get delayed by a bottleneck in one operation," Nicely said.
Nicely declined to provide his company's price information but said the single-wide units typically range in cost from $25,000 to $35,000. He said the mobile homes would likely be built at Clayton plants "closest to the Gulf," including some in Texas, Georgia and Tennessee.
FEMA estimates Katrina displaced 200,000 households, far more than the 15,000 households that needed shelter last year after the Florida hurricanes last year.
Mike Causey's Federal Report
Sep. 21, 2005
FrontLoading Your TSP
Yesterday's column about front-loading your TSP prompted a number of readers to warn of the downside (loss of matching contributions) of front-loading for workers under the FERS retirement system.
As Mary Johnson of Clifton, Va., writes:
Please let your readers know that making all of their TSP contributions in the first few weeks or months of the year will greatly reduce their TSP benefits. While this approach will allow an employee to have more money in the fund for a longer period, it will reduce the matching funds from their employer - losing up to 5% of matching contributions.
The key to ensuring matching funds for the entire year is to make sure you contribute in every pay period for the year. If the employee does not contribute in a given pay period, the government doesn¹t contribute either.
The key to maximizing contributions AND earnings is to contribute a higher amount during the first part of the year and then a reduced amount during the back end."
The vast majority of the people retiring next year, and over the next couple of years, will be under the CSRS system which has no government match. But for FERS employees front-loading does have its downside.
Good point!
Oil prices may be threat to growth - IMF
Wednesday September 21, 6:32 PM EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Surging oil prices are becoming a much greater threat to world economic growth, the IMF warned on Wednesday, as a second hurricane threatened the big oil producing and refining areas of the United States.
In its twice-annual World Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund said global growth was set to grow a swift 4.3 percent this year and next -- above the 3.9 percent average of the past decade, despite the higher oil prices.
It downgraded its forecast for global growth in 2006 from the 4.4 percent expected in April but retained this year's projection.
But IMF chief economist Raghuram Rajan told Reuters oil prices are surging increasingly because of supply disruptions.
Before Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf of Mexico, a major oil producing and refining area, in late August oil prices had risen mostly on demand from China and the United States, he said.
"We are getting more and more into supply-driven price increases which are going to be more constraining for growth going forward," Rajan said. "We are at a point where further substantial increases will start mattering far more."
He said when oil prices are driven by demand, it indicates strong economic growth. Supply-fueled increases, in contrast, are caused by fundamental factors such as constraints in production or fears of shortages.
Rajan said consumers would start to get nervous as oil prices rose further and would hurt confidence.
As he spoke, Hurricane Rita headed toward Texas, threatening to disrupt 18 oil refineries, which have a combined capacity of 4 million barrels of a day, or 23 percent of U.S.'s total refining capacity.
U.S. crude oil futures jumped sharply then pared to settle up 60 cents at $66.80 a barrel. Last month, crude prices hit record levels above $70 a barrel, more than double the levels at the start of last year.
LURKING THREATS
Earlier, the IMF also warned that other risks to global growth loomed large, including a lack of government savings, widening current account imbalances and regional growth distortions.
However, global financial market conditions remained benign amid low borrowing costs, high equity prices and strong corporate balance sheets, it said.
Emerging markets' financing conditions were also favorable, it said, reflecting strong economic fundamentals and an increased presence of long-term investors.
The IMF shaved its 2005 forecast for the world's largest economy, the United States, to 3.5 percent from 3.6 percent it envisioned in April, due to the impact from Hurricane Katrina, lower consumer confidence and rising interest rates slowing house price growth.
It also trimmed the U.S. outlook for 2006 to 3.3 percent from 3.6 percent.
Rajan said Katrina would reduce U.S. growth this year, but it would regain its footing next year because of the post-hurricane reconstruction.
He said the U.S. should not add to its already hefty budget deficit to pay for the reconstruction, but should find funds elsewhere.
"The right thing to do is if your spending priorities are altered to find savings elsewhere and hopefully that is the process that will take place now," he said.
In the World Economic Outlook, the IMF criticized Washington's "unambitious" plan to cut the U.S. budget gap in half by the time President George W. Bush leaves office in early 2009.
The U.S. budget deficit hit a record $412 billion last year. While recent tax receipt data suggest the shortfall has been narrowing, the potential cost of reconstruction after Katrina -- which some lawmakers say could hit $200 billion -- has led analysts to raise their deficit forecasts.
Elsewhere, the IMF said Japan's economy looked poised for a recovery and would grow 2 percent this year and next.
It said the growth outlook for the euro area remained somber amid weak domestic demand, with projections drifting down to 1.2 percent for 2005 and 1.8 percent next year.
"Europe's citizens do not seem convinced that the bitter medicine of continued structural reforms will cure the stasis that afflicts much of the continent," Rajan said. "Of course economists can only prescribe but it takes politicians to persuade," he added.
The IMF said the European Central Bank should be ready to cut interest rates if the economy falters again.
On China, it cautioned that the country may need to tighten monetary policy if investment growth intensifies.
The fund said 2005 Chinese growth was now poised to reach 9 percent, up from 8.5 percent predicted in April. In 2006, Chinese growth was likely to ease to 8.2 percent.
©2005 Reuters Limited
Stocks due for an upswing post-Rita
12:01 AM ET Sep 24, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Stocks are expected to rise next week, boosted by tame energy prices and renewed buying interest in the aftermath of what looked likely to be a slightly weaker-than-expected Hurricane Rita, analysts predicted on Friday.
While analysts conceded that a last-minute shift in the storm's direction or a sudden strengthening of its winds could change their outlook, they said the refinery-rich Texas/Louisiana coast was likely to weather the storm, keeping energy prices stable and allowing stocks to move ahead.
Early last week, the major indexes dropped to their lowest levels in three months as traders unloaded stocks amid fears that Hurricane Rita would paralyze the other half of the energy sector off the coast of Texas and Southwest Louisiana that Hurricane Katrina missed three weeks earlier.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell Friday 2.46 points 10,419.59, wrapping up a week in which the benchmark index fell 2.1%, while the S&P 500 Indexclosed 0.67 point higher at 1,215.29; the broad gauge booked a weekly loss of 1.8%.
"Stocks are already discounted," said Al Goldman, chief market strategist at AG Edwards. "If Rita is horrible, they are already discounted. If it's less than horrible, they are over discounted," he said.
While a host of economic data highlighting consumer confidence is scheduled for release next week, the main force driving stock movement will be oil prices, say analysts.
Oil prices on the mind
Though some analysts differed on whether stocks would improve next week, all agreed that investors would take their cues from oil prices.
"Anyway you slice it, if energy is high, stocks are low," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co.
Crude prices drifted lower at the end of the week as forecasters lifted their doomsday scenario for the oil industry that many had feared earlier in the week as Rita was gathering strength.
Crude for November delivery closed at $64.19 a barrel, down 3.5%, or $2.31, for the session, but up 1.3% from the week-ago close on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Some analysts say that even if the Gulf of Mexico's refining complex takes another major hit, the market knows that President Bush is willing to tap the strategic petroleum reserves to relieve refiners in distress, as occurred after Hurricane Katrina paralyzed oil and gas operations.
Furthermore, global demand for crude is falling, while the U.S.'s need for gasoline eases after Labor Day, which should keep crude prices from creeping back above $70 a barrel, said Goldman.
"It would take a truly catastrophic event to top out already high [oil] prices," he said.
Hurricane redux
Other analysts note that the major indexes are sitting at levels similar to where they were in late August, just prior to Katrina, and that stocks are due to bounce if investors react the same as they did then during the aftermath of Rita.
"If looking at some of the major indices we're at or near the short-term bottom end of the range," said Joe Sunderman, director of research at Schaeffer Research. "If we have a similar reaction [post-Rita] this could be a bullish development," he said. "There might be a bounce or consolidation of recent volatility."
However, it could take months to fully evaluate whether the Gulf Coast's one-two hurricane hit seriously damaged the economy, which could result in lower stock prices in the months ahead, even if stocks bounce next week.
"Clearly stocks were to some degree discounted [last week], but the hurricanes' impacts aren't immediate, it will take months to digest their effects," said Stephen Sachs, head of trading at Rydex Investments.
Pre-earnings season
This week is also the unofficial start of the "pre-earnings" season, offering a glimpse of what is to come during earnings season, which kicks off the second week of October.
"My only real bet [for this week] is on single-stock volatility on pre-earnings announcements," said Sachs.
Companies are starting to update their guidance from earlier announcements to include the potential impacts from the storms, which threw much of the southeastern U.S into disarray, and hopefully mitigate reactions against their stocks whey the do start reporting, said Sachs.
Several economic indicators are scheduled for release this week that should shed further light on how consumers are reacting to the vagaries of energy prices and Mother Nature.
Beginning Monday, existing home sales statistics are scheduled for release, followed by new home sales data and the consumer confidence index on Tuesday. Consumer spending and consumer sentiment surveys are due out on Friday, as well as the second quarter GDP update.
Copyright © 2005 MarketWatch, Inc
Dollar near peaks as higher rates seen
Tuesday September 27, 11:37 PM EDT
TOKYO (Reuters) - The dollar stayed near two-month highs against the yen and the euro on Wednesday as a swelling chorus of comments from Federal Reserve officials suggested the currency's interest rate advantage would keep strengthening.
Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig said late on Tuesday that the central bank must ensure price stability after the damage wrought by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
That echoed comments he made earlier in the week and San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen's remarks on Tuesday that an unacceptable rise in inflation was not an option, signaling the Fed's 15-month streak of rate rises would not end soon.
"The market is saying what we're not going to get is a surprise in terms of rates -- we're not going to get some cuts because of storm-damage problems," said Luke Waddington, head of forex trading at Royal Bank of Scotland in Tokyo.
Market worries about higher costs for consumers intensified in the wake of Katrina as oil prices soared on the hit to production in the U.S. Gulf Coast, and stayed on the back burner as Rita made its run at the region.
Some in the market were cautious about getting carried away over Fed officials' playing down concerns about the bruising of the U.S. economy after the hurricanes.
"That's how they have to act," said the chief trader at a European brokerage in Tokyo. "They cannot show weakness."
The dollar's rise to fresh two-month highs against the euro and the yen on Tuesday was tempered by data showing a steep fall in U.S. consumer confidence in September -- one of the first monthly reflections of how the economy was faring after Katrina.
The dollar was also capped by disappointment that Fed chief Alan Greenspan's speech on Tuesday had little bearing on the interest rate outlook.
YEN PINNED
The dollar was little changed on the day at 113.30 yen , near the two-month high of 113.52 yen struck in the previous session.
Some traders said the dollar had consolidated somewhat after it failed to breach the year's high just above 113.70 yen, while the Japanese currency was supported by rising Tokyo stock prices.
Japanese exporters' selling of the dollar against the yen was seen offset by investors buying U.S. bonds as they adjust portfolios before the fiscal half year ends on September 30.
The euro was a tad higher at $1.2025 , after hitting a two-month low around $1.1980 a day earlier.
Sterling and the Swiss franc were also mired in sight of two-month lows against the dollar.
After three lean years, the dollar has risen this year on its widening rate advantage over the yen and the euro.
The Fed raised overnight rates last week for an 11th straight time to 3.75 percent. That compares with 2.0 percent in the euro zone and near zero percent in Japan.
The U.S. central bank said in its latest policy statement that Katrina's blow to the economy would not pose a "persistent threat," and it repeated that more "measured" monetary tightening was needed.
©2005 Reuters Limited.
Heating homes to cost more
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Utilities board hikes natural gas rates 45% locally
Heating North Alabama homes with natural gas just got a lot more expensive.
The Huntsville Utilities Natural Gas Board on Tuesday adopted a 45 percent natural gas rate increase that would drive up the typical residential bill by $46 a month this winter.
North Alabama Gas District customers in Madison, Madison County and Limestone County will see a similar hike.
"It's going to be a rough winter for the customer," Huntsville Utilities General Manager Bill Pippin told the board.
The latest rate increase is the third in a year for natural gas customers. Rates have increased 66 percent during that time. Huntsville Utilities had 39,227 residential customers last month and another 4,800 commercial and industrial customers.
The increase adopted Tuesday is effective immediately and will show up on customers' October bills.
But Pippin said during the meeting that if the price of natural gas the utility pays drops in November, the utility could cut rates to customers.
"Hopefully," Pippin said, "it will be a mild November and we can bring the rates down in November."
The average residential customer who uses 10,250 cubic feet of natural gas during the coldest months of the year will see the natural gas portion of his or her bill go from $101.99 to $148.11. The cost for 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas will go from $9.95 to $14.95 with the latest increase.
"It will be a bad year for the customer," Pippin said. "They will see a $40 to $45 increase."
Huntsville Utilities customers are not alone. The North Alabama Gas District Board raised its residential rate starting this month from $10.73 per 1,000 cubic feet to $15.73. The district supplies natural gas to customers in Madison and Madison, Limestone and Colbert counties.
Huntsville Utilities officials will urge customers to conserve energy in its quarterly newsletter to be mailed to all customer in the next few weeks. Pippin said customers could lower their thermostats to 65 degrees to save money.
The only comment by a board member during the discussion was by Stanley Statum, who asked what the utility could do to help the elderly with higher bills.
Pippin said the utility will work with customers to give them more time to pay their bills. The normal three-month period for paying a bill could be stretched to four or five months, he said.
Pippin cited the cost of natural gas to the utility for the increase. The former residential rate was based on the utility paying $6.37 for 1,000 cubic feet of gas, but that cost had increased to $10.62 last week. The utility adds a $3.02 per 1,000 cubic feet pipeline distribution cost and a tax equivalent charge to the cost of gas to set the rates it charges to customers. The tax equivalent is increasing from 56 cents to 81 cents per 1,000 cubic feet.
Huntsville Utilities will buy natural gas on a monthly basis instead of tying itself to a long-term contract to take advantage of any price decreases, Pippin told the board.
"We do feel gas prices will come down, but we don't know how much they will," he said.
Pippin presented a graphic that showed how natural gas prices that the utility pays have fluctuated and increased over the past three years. He said the price it pays for natural gas has been higher than the rate it charges for more than a year.
Hurricane Katrina took out 38 percent of production and disrupted the natural gas supply from the Gulf Coast, driving up costs. Pippin said that both Tennessee Gas Pipeline and Southern Natural Gas Co. have curtailed natural gas shipments to the utility.
Rates for industrial and commercial customers will increase from 45 percent to almost 53 percent.
Industrial and commercial natural gas customers who have interruptible contracts with Huntsville Utilities saw their gas supply cut off Friday, Pippin said. But utilities officials think those 20 or so customers will be restarted soon.
Businesses with interruptible contracts pay less for natural gas than a customer with a non-interruptible contract, but they do so knowing their gas could be cut off during a shortage.
© 2005 The Huntsville Times
© 2005 al.com
Money supply has tenuous relationship to stock market
By Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch
Last Update: 12:01 AM ET Sep 28, 2005
ANNANDALE, Va. (MarketWatch) -- My wife, who is a clinical psychologist, accuses me of having a narcissistic streak. So I may be overreacting.
Nevertheless, I confess to being amazed at the number of advisers who ignore what I've written and continue to make a big deal about trends in the money supply.
After all, I devoted one of my columns in April to what I considered to be conclusive evidence that the money supply is not correlated with the stock market's performance.
When I wrote that column, I had naively hoped that advisers would stop basing their market forecasts on money supply trends, or produce statistical evidence showing why I was wrong.
Yet neither of those things occurred.
So let me try again.
Statistically speaking, the growth rate of the money supply has an exceedingly small correlation with the stock market's subsequent performance. And to the tiny extent that it does, it is correlated in just the opposite way that advisers are asserting.
I reached these conclusions by studying the Federal Reserve's data back to 1959 for each of the three major definitions of the money supply, from M1 (the narrowest definition) to M3 (the broadest definition). For each month I calculated the growth rate for each of these three definitions over the previous one, three, six and 12 months. I then correlated those growth rates to how the stock market performed over the subsequent same periods. I looked at the raw as well as the seasonally adjusted data.
In the vast majority of cases, I found no statistically significant correlation between the stock market and any of the money supply's growth rates.
But here's the real kicker: In each of those few cases in which a modest statistical relationship did show up in the data, there was an inverse correlation between the growth rate of the money supply and the stock market's subsequent performance.
That's directly contrary to what is being assumed by most of the newsletter editors who are basing their market forecasts on the money supply. They evidently believe that faster money supply growth must be bullish, on the grounds that some of the newly-created cash will find its way into equities.
At least over the last 45 years, however, faster money supply growth has not led to a higher stock market.
So my advice is to ignore all market forecasts based on money supply growth rates, until and less the advisers making those forecasts can show that there is a statistically significant basis for those forecasts.
I'm not holding my breath.
Monster Mold Threatens Health in the South
Sep 27 3:22 PM US/Eastern
Associated Press Writers
NEW ORLEANS- Wearing goggles, gloves, galoshes and a mask, Veronica Randazzo lasted only 10 minutes inside her home in St. Bernard Parish. Her eyes burned, her mouth filled with a salty taste and she felt nauseous. Her 26-year-old daughter, Alicia, also covered in gear, came out coughing.
"That mold," she said. "It smells like death."
Mold now forms an interior version of kudzu in the soggy South, posing health dangers that will make many homes tear-downs and will force schools and hospitals to do expensive repairs.
It's a problem that any homeowner who has ever had a flooded basement or a leaky roof has faced. But the magnitude of this problem leaves many storm victims prey to unscrupulous or incompetent remediators. Home test kits for mold, for example, are worthless, experts say.
Don't expect help from insurance companies, either. Most policies were revised in the last decade to exclude mold damage because of "sick building" lawsuits alleging illnesses. Although mold's danger to those with asthma or allergies is real, there's little or no science behind other claims, and a lot of hype.
"We went through a period when people were really irrational about the threat posed by the mere sight of mold in their homes," said Nicholas Money, a mold expert from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and author of "Carpet Monsters and Killer Spores," a book about mold.
"If you give me 10 minutes in anybody's home, I'll find mold growth somewhere," he said.
Mold is everywhere. Most people have no problem living with this ubiquitous fungus. It reproduces by making spores, which travel unseen through the air and grow on any moist surface, usually destroying it as the creeping crud grows.
Mold can't be eliminated but can be controlled by limiting moisture, which is exactly what couldn't be done after Hurricane Katrina. Standing water created ideal growth conditions and allowed mold to penetrate so deep that experts fear that even studs of many homes are saturated and unsalvageable.
In fact, New Orleans is where mold's health risks were first recognized.
A Louisiana State University allergist, the late Dr. John Salvaggio, described at medical meetings in the 1970s what he called "New Orleans asthma," an illness that filled hospital emergency rooms each fall with people who couldn't breathe. He linked it to high levels of mold spores that appeared in the humid, late summer months.
"These are potent allergens," but only for people who have mold allergies, said Dr. Jordan Fink, a Medical College of Wisconsin professor and past president of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.
Molds produce irritants that can provoke coughing, and some make spores that contain toxins, which further irritate airways.
"The real pariah is this thing called Stachybotrys chartarum. This organism produces a greater variety of toxins and in greater concentrations than any other mold that's been studied," Money said.
Doctors at Cleveland's Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital blamed it for a cluster of cases of pulmonary hemorrhage, or bleeding into the lungs, that killed several children in the 1990s, but the link was never proved.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there is no firm evidence linking mold to the lung problem, memory loss or other alleged woes beyond asthma and allergy. However, the sheer amount of it in the South could trigger problems for some people who haven't had them before, medical experts said.
"The child who didn't have a significant problem before may be in a much different scenario now," said Dr. Michael Wasserman, a pediatrician at Ochsner Clinic in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie whose office and home were flooded and are now covered in mold. He plans to tear down his house.
Even dead mold can provoke asthma in susceptible people, meaning that places open to the public _ restaurants, schools, businesses _ must eliminate it.
This is most true for hospitals, where mold spores can cause deadly lung diseases in people with weak immune systems or organ transplants. Such concerns already led Charity Hospital's owners to mothball it.
Tulane University Hospital and Clinic's cleanup is expected to take months.
"The first floor's got pretty much mold. It's going to be pretty much a total loss," said Ron Chatagnier, project coordinator for C&B Services, a Texas company hired by the hospital's owner, HCA.
"It might be difficult or impossible to reopen some of these medical centers," said Joe Cappiello, an official with the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.
"It's not just the physical destruction that you see," but ventilation systems and ductwork full of mold, ready "to seed the rest of the hospital with spores" if the heat or air conditioning were turned on, he said.
As for houses, "anything that's been submerged probably will be a tear-down," said Jeffrey May, a Boston-area building inspector, chemist and book author who has investigated thousands of buildings for mold problems.
Clothes can be washed or dry cleaned, but most furniture is a loss. Ditto for carpeting, insulation, wallpaper and drywall, which no longer lives up to its name. Mattresses that didn't get wet probably have mold if they were in a room that did.
"Anything with a cushion you can forget about," May said.
The general advice is the same as when food is suspected of being spoiled: when in doubt, throw it out.
When is professional help needed?
"It's simply a matter of extent. If you've got small areas of mold, just a few square feet, it's something a homeowner can clean with 10 percent bleach," said Anu Dixit, a fungus expert at Saint Louis University.
She studied mold after the Mississippi River floods in 1993 and 1994, and found cleaning measures often were ineffective, mainly because people started rebuilding too soon, before the surrounding area was completely dry.
In the New Orleans suburb of Lakeview, Toby Roesler found a water line 7 feet high on his home and mold growing in large black and white colonies from every wall and ceiling on the first floor.
Wearing goggles, a mask and rubber gloves, he sprayed down the stairwell with a bleach solution. A crew will arrive soon to gut the lower floor.
"I think it's salvageable," he said, but admitted, "It's going to be some gross work to get it ready."
Others won't try.
Dionne Thiel, who lives next door to the Randazzo family, was only 7 when Hurricane Betsy raced through her neighborhood 40 years ago. Returning on Monday, after Hurricane Katrina, something was instantly familiar.
"The mold and the water," she said. "It's the exact same smell."
Mold covered her dining room walls, snaked up doorframes and even found its way into the candles she sold for a living. She and her husband salvaged his golf clubs but left the rest. They'll move to Arizona.
"I would never want to live here again," said her husband, Don Thiel. "It's not going to be safe."
___
Associated Press
Overdue Credit Card Bills Hit Record High
Sep 28 5:12 PM US/Eastern
AP -WASHINGTON
Charge it! That familiar refrain is producing an unwanted response for more Americans: Your bill is overdue! Surging energy prices, low personal savings and the higher cost of borrowing have combined to produce a record level of overdue credit card bills.
The American Bankers Association reported Wednesday that the percentage of credit card accounts 30 or more days past due climbed to an all-time high of 4.81 percent in the April-to-June period. It could grow in the months ahead, experts said.
The previous high of 4.76 percent came during the first three months of the year, in keeping with a generally steady rise over the past several years.
"The last two quarters have not been pretty," said Jim Chessen, the association's chief economist.
Chessen and other analysts mostly blamed high prices for gasoline and other energy products, but said that low savings and higher borrowing costs also played a role.
"The rise in gas prices is really stretching budgets to the breaking point for some people," Chessen said. "Gas prices are taking huge chunks out of wallets, leaving some individuals with little left to meet their financial obligations."
Pump prices were high before hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast. After Katrina, prices jumped past $3 a gallon. Prices have moderated since but remain high.
The personal savings rate dipped to a record low of negative 0.6 percent in July. The negative percentage means that people did not have enough left over after paying their taxes to cover all of their spending in July. As a result, they dipped into savings to cover the shortfall.
When people have less money available money to pay for energy costs or emergencies such as a big car repair, many resort to credit. That option is getting more expensive, too.
The Federal Reserve has been tightening credit since June 2004. That has caused commercial banks' prime lending rate to rise to 6.75 percent, the highest in four years. These rates are used for many short-term consumer loans, including credit cards and popular home equity lines of credit.
Late payments may be bad news for consumers, but credit card companies do not necessarily mind them because late fees are a source of revenue.
"Credit card companies are increasingly addicted to their fees," said Daniel Ray, editor-in-chief at Bankrate.com, an online financial service. "Six years ago, all fees _ including late fees _ contributed only a minor portion to overall revenue. Today it accounts for more than 30 percent."
About half of all credit problems stem from poor money management. Credit problems due to the loss of a job, sickness or divorce play less of a role, said personal finance expert Susan Tiffany, director of consumer publishing at the Credit Union National Association.
"That tells us people have some ability to do a better job. They are not completely helpless in the situation, and that's good," said Tiffany, whose trade group also is involved in efforts to improve people's financial literacy.
Getting back on the road to financial health takes discipline and hard choices about what can be cut back or eliminated. If credit card problems are plaguing a family, all the members should work together to come up with a plan and pare down spending.
From an economic perspective, the current rise in delinquent credit card payments is not overly worrisome. But if the trend were to continue for a sustained period, it could spell trouble for the overall economy, said Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Bank of America's Investment Strategies Group.
"It's a flashing yellow light that we need to watch," she said.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press[
Million-dollar homes are now a dime a dozen
Demand for housing still outstripping supply in many U.S. markets
The Associated Press
Updated: 3:57 p.m. ET Sept. 27, 2005
NEW YORK - Everything about Frank Fazio’s new two-bedroom apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side is decidedly average, including its price: a hair under $1 million.
With five rooms and about 1,050 square feet of space, the place is a nice size, by New York standards, but it is no mansion. There are no chandeliers, no soaring cathedral ceilings and no doorman downstairs to help with groceries.
"There is nothing that would make you say, 'Wow this place must have cost a million bucks,'" said Fazio, 42, a banker who relocated from Chicago.
Yet pay a million he did, something more Americans are doing these days.
For the first time, there are more than 1 million owner-occupied homes in the United States worth $1 million or more, according to a Census Bureau survey published late last month.
Once a symbol of unusual wealth, million-dollar dwellings now seem like a dime a dozen in some places. San Francisco alone has more than 20,000 of them. There are another 46,000, or so, in Orange County, Calif.
In Manhattan, even someone with a million dollars in their pocket can't buy luxury. The average price for an apartment in all but Harlem and the borough’s northern tip climbed above $1.2 million in the second quarter of 2005, said Gregory Heym, chief economist for Terra Holdings, an owner of real estate brokerages in the city.
"For a million dollars, you couldn’t get a two-bedroom on the East Side," Heym said.
The surge in high-end prices has happened quickly. The Census Bureau’s 2004 American Community Survey found 1,034,386 homes worth at least $1 million in 2004, compared to 595,441 in 2002 and only 394,878 in 2000.
Demand for housing is still outstripping supply in many U.S. markets, said John M. Clapp, a professor of finance and real estate at the University of Connecticut. Low interest rates have made it easier for people to afford more house, as have some new financing methods, like interest-only adjustable mortgages, which initially allow buyers to lower their monthly payments.
Even in land-rich cities like Phoenix, the demand for housing in mature neighborhoods has outstripped supply.
In a few exclusive communities, $1 million won’t buy you more than “an acre of dirt,” said Kristy Ryan, a broker at Re/Max Fine Properties in Scottsdale.
In other parts of town, $1 million is still enough to build a 4,000-square-foot villa with a pool and a three-car garage, but Ryan noted that the same house might have sold for $700,000 just five years ago.
"Some people are disappointed when they get here," she said of the northerners who continue to arrive in droves. "They don’t realize how much it has appreciated in the last few years."
How will homeowners fare?
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has warned that housing prices in some markets have been driven to “unsustainable levels,” and some homeowners have borrowed heavily against their homes’ equity to fuel their consumer spending. If mortgage rates rise, that spending will have to drop and homeowners will be forced to save, Greenspan said in a speech to a bankers group Monday. But he added that homeowners on average have enough equity to absorb the hit if home values drop.
The losers in this hot market, Clapp said, are people buying a home for the first time. At current interest rates, the monthly payment on an $800,000 mortgage is about $4,700 a month. The financial hit is especially bad in places like New York, where the city’s many condominiums and co-ops require monthly maintenance fees that often exceed $1,000 a month.
“I think they are stretched to the limit at this point,” Clapp said. “In some markets, renting makes more sense.”
Real estate has become so hot that the boom has spread to neighborhoods formerly written off by many investors as hopelessly impoverished.
Urban success story
In Bedford Stuyvesant, the section of Brooklyn that was the setting for Spike Lee’s 1989 film, “Do the Right Thing,” some owners were asking more than $950,000 this week for their brownstones.
The prospect that a neighborhood that experienced rioting in the 1960s and a crack epidemic in the late 1980s would fetch such high prices now is both an urban success story, and potentially dismaying, said Richard Weeks, an agent at Coldwell Banker Mid Plaza Real Estate.
If a working-class family can’t afford a home in Bed Stuyvesant, he asked, just where can they buy?
“As an African American, I worry about it,” said Weeks, whose listings include a limestone town house in a fast-gentrifying section of the neighborhood, priced at $975,000. “It is definitely going to become harder for the people who aren’t well off to purchase there.”
If prices stop rising, other potential losers could be speculative investors who were counting on a quick resale of a home at a profit to pay back debt. Economists have split over whether the rise in housing prices constitutes a bubble that could burst at any time.
“In the long run, things have to come back into equilibrium,” Clapp said.
© 2005 The Associated Press.
Twinkies Maker Works Through Bankruptcy
Sunday October 2, 2:57 PM EDT
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A year after bankruptcy, the maker of Wonder Bread and Hostess Twinkies has taken steps to solve a host of internal problems but is still not out of trouble.
Interstate Bakeries Corp. has consolidated operations, announced more than 4,000 layoffs and is renegotiating more than 500 separate union contracts than cover a majority of its 32,000 employees as part of its efforts. Also part of its recipe: new products to reach new customers, something that had been a blind spot for the 78-year-old company.
Interstate Bakeries, based in Kansas City, filed for Chapter 11 protection from its creditors last September, blaming inflexible costs and low sales it said were caused by consumers' preference for foods low in carbohydrates.
The company had spent decades amassing national and regional brands and ended up with a glut of bakeries and distribution centers that loaded the company down. New management installed after the bankruptcy filing reviewed operations in five of its 10 regions, closing six low-performing bakeries and consolidating delivery routes, distribution centers and thrift stores along parts of the east and west coasts and the Midwest.
"What they're doing is getting smaller to get more profitable, something we've been advocating for years," said Janney Montgomery Scott analyst Mitchell Pinheiro, who covers the food industry.
Interstate Bakeries also has in recent months begun rolling out new products, a weakness for which analysts frequently lambasted the company in past years.
Under its Wonder brand, the company has test-marketed White Bread Fans, a high-tech bread made with whole wheat but featuring the taste and texture of white bread. The company also has introduced a Wonder brand fortified with minerals and vitamins, aimed at children.
For the first time in decades, Hostess packaging and other marketing efforts received a facelift, designed to look more contemporary and attract greater attention on supermarket shelves. Interstate Bakeries also rolled out Las Delicias de Hostess, a separate line of treats aimed at the Latino market.
Josh Sosland, editor of the Kansas City-based Milling & Baking News, said the products wouldn't change the company's slow-moving image in the industry — the company only released a reduced-carb bread last year, far behind most baking competitors. But he said its recent moves are a start.
"Really what's important is they've shown us they know what's going on in the market," Sosland said. "But it still remains to be seen if these will translate into sustained success for this business."
Investors have at least found something to like in the company's moves. Interstate Bakeries' stock now trades on the highly speculative over-the-counter market but has seen its price rise from $3 to as high as $13 this summer. The stock closed at $9.70 a share on Friday.
While the company has seen monthly sales between $250 million and $270 million since last September, high operations costs and the price of the restructuring have led to $86.5 million in losses. July saw the first monthly profit since bankruptcy and that was thanks to a property sale in California and Idaho.
Meanwhile, even company officials can't say when Interstate Bakeries will resurface from bankruptcy.
After filing for bankruptcy, the company's directors got rid of its former management and brought in New York-based turnaround firm Alvarez & Marsal LLC. John Suckow, one of the firm's partners and now Interstate Bakeries' chief restructuring officer, said he wouldn't know when the company could come out of bankruptcy until the end of the year, at least.
"Timing of our exit is uncertain given the challenges in front of us," Suckow said in response to e-mailed questions from The Associated Press. He said once costs are under control and sales and product development are more consistent, management will work out a plan to emerge from Chapter 11 protection.
Also working against Interstate Bakeries is that, aside from monthly revenue and expense reports ordered by the bankruptcy court, the company hasn't released audited financial information in more than a year. The company, which reported massive problems with its accounting system shortly before filing for bankruptcy, told securities officials in May it won't release the delinquent numbers until Dec. 31.
Last month, Interstate Bakeries said it had renegotiated its first of 500 union contracts, a pair of agreements covering about 500 employees in New York City affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents roughly half of the company's unionized workers. Company officials said that while the contracts were small, they could be used as a blueprint for negotiating hundreds of other deals.
They also said the agreements could slow down their review of operations in the remaining five regions and reduce the number of layoffs already announced.
Pinheiro said the company should focus on developing new products, marketing and overseeing manufacturing, and leave getting the product on the shelves to local distributors who likely have better contacts with retailers and know what sells.
He said that would ensure the company got into the most profitable markets and didn't waste resources trying to have a presence in all markets.
"They're focusing on strengthening areas where they do have critical mass, but, man, they're way behind," he said. "Ultimately, the success or failure of Interstate Bakeries will be on the distribution side."
Speak Less, Listen More
October 2, 2005
As told to EVE TAHMINCIOGLU
I WAS always very U.S.-centric, and my wife, Noveline, was the first one to encourage me to travel abroad. She thought it was important to learn about the world and that it would be influential for my career and me.
The first trip we took was a 16-day trip to Europe, seeing pretty much a country a day. We landed in London and ended up in Paris, seeing Germany, Austria, Italy, among others, in between. I realized right away that we were in a different world. We were sitting in London for our first breakfast in Europe, and the young lady serving us did something that would be considered nonhygienic in the United States. She sneezed into her hand and did not go back and wash her hands. She continued to serve us. We decided we were either going to be here and take things as they came or not enjoy our trip. At that very moment, we decided to just enjoy things. The world was different.
I've been to 73 countries since then.
My first job after college was as a district manager in Houston overseeing eight stores in the Jack in the Box chain. The restaurant business was new to me. But I fell in love with it in the first 90 days. It was an opportunity to run something. I was responsible for that space, running a million-dollar business that had it all - labor-management relationships, responsibility for executing the company's plan, serving customers.
I remember a customer stood in one of our dining rooms and asked me, "Are you the boss?" I said I was in charge of this store, but I thought to myself that there was someone who managed that location. But I realized, I was indeed the boss. The customer looked around the dining room and said, "Is this the best you can do?" I looked at the dining room and, you know, he was right. It didn't look that good. Within a week we devised a dining room improvement program for all my restaurants that ended up increasing our mystery-shopper scores.
From then on, I always listened to customer complaints and treated them all as real. Once a month, I would go on the 1-800 complaint line and answer customer complaints for an hour. Hearing real-life customers talk about how disappointed they are is one of the best reality checks.
And listening to employees is also important. I gave a speech once about nine years ago, and a comment came back from someone at the company that I gave four closings and that it was really long. Since then, if I have 30 minutes to speak, I give them a 22-minute speech. I used to write my speeches out completely and memorize them. Now I put an outline together and address key points, more of a conversation.
I learned that from one person who influenced me in my career: Bob Nugent, the chairman and C.E.O. of Jack in the Box. He was the first guy I saw walk into a meeting and sit down at a table and roll up his sleeves and talk about business without giving a canned presentation. We were in a turnaround situation, and he was making road trips and talking to people about plans to change the company. Typically that meeting would not have been held at my level, and it would have lasted an hour with charts and graphs. He just sat down and talked. He listened to me. You could tell he was listening. He answered the questions from us, and they weren't canned answers. My jaw dropped. That meeting lasted four or five hours.
One bad boss I had long ago, whom I won't name, used to have a lot of dinners after meetings with his underlings. He would drink a lot and become a bad drunk, obnoxious, profane and disrespectful. The next time you saw him he didn't remember a thing. But that had a demoralizing effect on the team and his relationship with the team. People didn't respect him. As a leader you are always on stage, and you don't have the room to be self-indulgent. He only lasted a year.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
U.S. stocks face oil, earnings, jobs report next week
Sept. jobs report on tap; Yum!, Costco report earnings
Oct 1, 2005
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Stocks are set to kick off the fourth quarter assailed by concerns over high energy prices, their impact on corporate earnings and uncertainty over the financial and economic cost of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
"Market action will continue to be driven by the price of oil futures until we begin to see actual third-quarter earnings reports and assess the impact of the hurricanes and the accompanying higher fuel prices left in their wake," said Robert Pavlik, portfolio manager at Oaktree Asset Management.
Pavlik said there is optimism on Wall Street that the fourth quarter will be the market's "saving" quarter for the entire year.
But "this optimism is at best described as tentative and could likely be swayed by 180 degrees depending on the guidance given over the next two to three weeks."
Historically stocks have performed well in the last three months of the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has posted fourth-quarter gains for the last seven years. Both the Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 Index have gained for the last four years in a row.
On Friday, stocks closed higher, as the Dow industrials posted its first gain for the month of September in seven years and all three major averages realized gains for the third quarter.
The Dow rose 15.92 points to 10,568.70, with the benchmark index up 0.8% on the month, and up 2.9% for the third quarter.
The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 10.47 points to 2,151.69, making for a small 0.1% loss for the month but a 4.6% gain for the quarter.
The S&P 500 Index was up 1.13 points at 1,228.81, giving the broad gauge a 0.7% gain for the month of September. The index logged a 3.1% gain for the third quarter.
Even as investors remain cautiously upbeat the fourth quarter could see solid gains for stocks, near-term the market still faces an uphill battle to break out of its trading range, according to Joe Liro, equity strategist at Stone & McCarthy Research Associates.
"We've been stuck in a range, that for the S&P is roughly between 1,125 and 1,250," said Liro. "This is a very large range for a period of time that stretches back to the end of last year."
Liro said the natural proclivity of the market would be to drift back down to the middle of that range on the absence of any significant news allowing it to break out to the upside.
A strong September employment report however could prove a catalyst for gains, according to Liro.
"If it's stronger than expected it will confirm the Fed view, the hurricanes will have a temporary impact the economy can easily handle. If that's the case, the market will feel more optimism about earnings for the fourth quarter and into the first half of 2006."
Conversely, said Liro, an employment report showing weaker-than-expected jobs growth and rising wage pressures would be a "decided negative" for the stock market. It would show the economy is not as strong as the Federal Reserve thinks while inflation, through rising labor costs, is beginning to pick up.
The latest forecast is that the U.S. economy will have lost around 155,000 jobs in September, according to economists polled by MarketWatch . The fall is due primarily to the impact of Hurricane Katrina.
Excluding the effect of the hurricane, economists estimate payrolls rose around 185,000. The unemployment rate is expected to tick up to 5.1% from 4.9% in August.
Among other data of note, investors will be hoping the Institute for Supply Management's September national manufacturing survey confirms last Friday's regional report of the Chicago area showing factory activity in robust health. The ISM index is expected to come in at 51.7% versus 53.6% in August. Any reading over 50% indicates expansion.
"I'll be looking at the Sept. Auto sales on Monday for signs of spending being impacted by higher energy prices," said Pavlik of Oaktree Asset Management.
"This will be hard to figure because the automakers have extended their factory discounts. However a large drop from the August results will likely be attributed to higher fuel prices and displacement of the Gulf Coast residents."
Other reports slated for release include August construction spending data on Monday and August factory orders on Tuesday. After the release of its manufacturing survey, the ISM comes back to the market with the publication of its September services index on Wednesday at 10 a.m. Eastern Time. The index is forecasts to come in at 60.2%, down from 65% in August.
August wholesale trade data and consumer credit figures are set to be released on Friday.
Dollar Rises to Nearly Three-Month High
Monday October 3, 6:00 PM EDT
BERLIN (AP) — The dollar rose to the highest level against the euro in almost three months Monday amid confidence over the U.S. economy and prospects of rising interest rates.
The 12-nation euro stood at $1.1909 in late New York trading, down from $1.2018 in New York late Friday. That was its lowest since July 5, when it dipped to $1.1868.
The British pound also dropped to $1.7540 from $1.7633. The dollar was up against the Japanese currency, rising to 114.20 yen from 113.60 yen. The dollar rose to 1.3026 Swiss francs from 1.2911, and fell to 1.1649 Canadian dollars from 1.1700.
The U.S. economy has weathered the impact of Hurricane Katrina better than forecast, economic reports Monday showed. Meanwhile, the latest inflationary measures came in higher than expected — bolstering expectations that interest rates will continue to rise. Higher rates boost the appeal of assets denominated in particular currency.
The Institute for Supply Management said its manufacturing index advanced to 59.4 percent in September from 53.6 percent the month before, for the industrial sector's 28th consecutive month of growth.
But manufacturers reported another sharp jump in prices last month as higher crude oil costs and transportation problems caused by the hurricanes boosted input costs. The price index rose to 78 percent in September, a 15.5 percentage point rise from 62.5 percent in August, the institute said. The price index had jumped 14 percentage points the month before.
Even a better-than-expected purchasing managers' index from the euro zone Monday failed to lift the euro. The dollar rose against the yen after the Bank of Japan's quarterly survey of corporate sentiment fell short of expectations.
"The fact that these moves occurred despite better-than-expected European data underscores the fact that U.S. developments — primarily higher U.S. yields and general dollar momentum — are more important drivers in the market at present, rather than European developments," Robert Lynch, a currency strategist at HSBC in New York, wrote in a research note.
Tokyo stocks seen up
Monday October 3, 7:53 PM EDT
TOKYO (Reuters) - Tokyo stocks are seen moving higher on Tuesday with high-tech stocks and other exporters such as Honda Motor Co. advancing after the dollar rose to a 16-month high against the yen on Monday.
However, gains may be limited by investors selling shares in banks, insurers and others that depend on domestic demand, because of concerns that the recent rally has been overdone.
"Semiconductor-related shares, which are also benefiting from stronger global sales, may get a push from the dollar's level of around 114 yen," said Hiroichi Nishi, general manager of equity marketing at Nikko Cordial Securities Inc.
Shares in companies that rely on domestic demand, which have helped push the market higher until now, are likely to see much less buying, he added.
On Monday the dollar rose as high as 114.37 yen its highest since May 2004, after a U.S. manufacturing survey bolstered expectations for further official interest rate hikes.
A stronger dollar is a boon for Japanese firms that rely on export sales, as it makes their products more competitive in foreign markets and increases profits when dollar-denominated revenues are brought home.
Traders expect the Nikkei to move between 13,450 and 13,650 on Tuesday.
On Monday, it fell 0.36 percent to 13,525.28 after the key tankan business sentiment survey came in just short of expectations, spurring investors to sell insurers, banks, builders and other stocks seen as overvalued.
U.S. blue chips ended lower on Monday, after heavily weighted Exxon Mobil Corp. declined on receding oil prices, while stronger-than-expected manufacturing activity underpinned technology stocks.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.31 percent to 10,535.48, while the Nasdaq Composite Index was up 0.17 percent at 2,155.43.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 0.17 percent and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index rose 0.59 percent.
©2005 Reuters Limited.
Miers' Qualifications Are 'Non-Existent'
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Posted Oct 3, 2005
Handed a once-in-a-generation opportunity to return the Supreme Court to constitutionalism, George W. Bush passed over a dozen of the finest jurists of his day -- to name his personal lawyer.
In a decision deeply disheartening to those who invested such hopes in him, Bush may have tossed away his and our last chance to roll back the social revolution imposed upon us by our judicial dictatorship since the days of Earl Warren.
This is not to disparage Harriet Miers. From all accounts, she is a gracious lady who has spent decades in the law and served ably as Bush’s lawyer in Texas and, for a year, as White House counsel.
But her qualifications for the Supreme Court are non-existent. She is not a brilliant jurist, indeed, has never been a judge. She is not a scholar of the law. Researchers are hard-pressed to dig up an opinion. She has not had a brilliant career in politics, the academy, the corporate world or public forum. Were she not a friend of Bush, and female, she would never have even been considered.
What commended her to the White House, in the phrase of the hour, is that she “has no paper trail.” So far as one can see, this is Harriet Miers’ principal qualification for the U.S. Supreme Court.
What is depressing here is not what the nomination tells us of her, but what it tells us of the president who appointed her. For in selecting her, Bush capitulated to the diversity-mongers, used a critical Supreme Court seat to reward a crony, and revealed that he lacks the desire to engage the Senate in fierce combat to carry out his now-suspect commitment to remake the court in the image of Scalia and Thomas. In picking her, Bush ran from a fight. The conservative movement has been had -- and not for the first time by a president by the name of Bush.
Choosing Miers, the president passed over outstanding judges and proven constitutionalists like Michael Luttig of the 4th Circuit and Sam Alito of the 3rd. And if he could not take the heat from the First Lady, and had to name a woman, what was wrong with U.S. appellate court judges Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owens and Edith Jones?
What must these jurists think today about their president today? How does Bush explain to his people why Brown, Owens and Jones were passed over for Miers?
Where was Karl Rove in all of this? Is he so distracted by the Valerie Plame investigation he could not warn the president against what he would be doing to his reputation and coalition?
Reshaping the Supreme Court is an issue that unites Republicans and conservatives And with his White House and party on the defensive for months over Cindy Sheehan and Katrina, Iraq and New Orleans, Delay and Frist, gas prices and immigration, here was the great opportunity to draw all together for a battle of philosophies, by throwing the gauntlet down to the Left, sending up the name of a Luttig, and declaring, “Go ahead and do your worst. We shall do our best.”
Do the Bushites not understand that “conservative judges” is one of those issues where the national majority is still with them?
What does it tell us that White House, in selling her to the party and press, is pointing out that Miers “has no paper trial.” What does that mean, other than that she is not a Rehnquist, a Bork, a Scalia or a Thomas?
Conservatives cherish justices and judges who have paper trails. For that means these men and women have articulated and defended their convictions. They have written in magazines and law journals about what is wrong with the courts and how to make it right. They had stood up to the prevailing winds. They have argued for the Constitution as the firm and fixed document the Founding Fathers wrote, not some thing of wax.
A paper trail is the mark of a lawyer, a scholar or a judge who has shared the action and passion of his or her time, taken a stand on the great questions, accepted public abuse for articulating convictions.
Why is a judicial cipher like Harriet Miers to be preferred to a judicial conservative like Edith Jones?
One reason: Because the White House fears nominees “with a paper trail” will be rejected by the Senate, and this White House fears, above all else, losing. So, it has chosen not to fight.
Bush had a chance for greatness in remaking the Supreme Court, a chance to succeed where his Republican precedessors from Nixon to his father all failed. He instinctively recoiled from it. He blew it. His only hope now is that Harriet Miers, if confirmed, will not vote like the lady she replaced, or, worse, like his father’s choice who also had “no paper trail,” David Souter.
Copyright © 2004 HUMAN EVENTS
Disappointed, Depressed and Demoralized
William Kristol
Mon Oct 3,11:11 AM ET
I'M DISAPPOINTED, depressed and demoralized.
I'm disappointed because I expected President Bush to nominate someone with a visible and distinguished constitutionalist track record--someone like Maura Corrigan, Alice Batchelder, Edith Jones, Priscilla Owen, or Janice Rogers Brown--to say nothing of Michael Luttig, Michael McConnell, or Samuel Alito. Harriet Miers has an impressive record as a corporate attorney and Bush administration official. She has no constitutionalist credentials that I know of.
I'm depressed. Roberts for O'Connor was an unambiguous improvement. Roberts for Rehnquist was an appropriate replacement. But moving Roberts over to the Rehnquist seat meant everything rode on this nomination--and that the president had to be ready to fight on constitutional grounds for a strong nominee. Apparently, he wasn't. It is very hard to avoid the conclusion that President Bush flinched from a fight on constitutional philosophy. Miers is undoubtedly a decent and competent person. But her selection will unavoidably be judged as reflecting a combination of cronyism and capitulation on the part of the president.
I'm demoralized. What does this say about the next three years of the Bush administration--leaving aside for a moment the future of the Court? Surely this is a pick from weakness. Is the administration more broadly so weak? What are the prospects for a strong Bush second term? What are the prospects for holding solid GOP majorities in Congress in 2006 if conservatives are demoralized? And what elected officials will step forward to begin to lay the groundwork for conservative leadership after Bush?
William Kristol is editor of The Weekly Standard.
Thanh Nien News | Special report | Experts mull ways of boosting property supplies
Experts mull ways of boosting property supplies
Dr. Nguyen An Binh
In an interview with Thanh Nien, Dr. Nguyen An Binh, a real estate expert in Vietnam’s commercial hub Ho Chi Minh City, discusses how make property more available to low-income buyers.
Sky-high prices are now an obstacle for low-income home buyers, but Mr. Binh, chairman of the HCMC says it is impossible to reduce prices with administrative measures as proposed by a government agency.
Below are his comments on the property market and a full transcript of his interview.
“The real estate market is stagnant mainly because of slow property sales caused by speculation, which drives up market prices based on a fictitious demand. But projects that build houses for rent or lease-to-own houses still attract a lot of customers.”
“A recent decision by banks to tighten control over loans for property development has affected such projects. In my opinion, it is necessary to encourage these kinds of projects to boost property available to low-income buyers.”
What should the government do to make property more accessible to low income earners who have high demand for it?
In my opinion, the government should increase investment and provide land for housing projects that benefit low-income people. In the long rum, the government has to establish control on rising house prices.
Particularly, the government must gather information over property sales and impose reasonable taxes. For example, if one buys one home, they should enjoy low taxes, but would face heavier duties if purchasing two or three homes.
Or the government can determine different levels of duties on different types of homes. For instance, taxes on a villa must be different from that on an apartment.
You could then invest the tax money into housing projects for low-income people. Many countries have adopted this measure, and thus, can boost property available to the poor.
Can house prices, which remain very high, be reduced?
Normally, house prices are determined by the market. In my opinion, it is impossible to reduce prices with administrative measures only.
But I think house prices for low-income people can be reduced if the government launches property policies. For example, the government can provide state land for housing projects and offer concessionary credits.
The most important thing is lower prices do not mean lower quality. And the government must formulate detailed policies to govern the issue.
What do you think of the measures proposed by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE) (with one being temporarily curbing property supplies) to heat up the sluggish real estate market?
I think these are hasty decisions by the MNRE in the face of a long slowdown in the property market. But prior to ‘treatment’, you must make a proper ‘diagnosis’ if you want an effective and long term solution.
Thank you
Reported by Tran Thanh Binh – Translated by Hieu Trung.
Story from Thanh Nien News
Published: 03 October, 2005, 21:08:12 (GMT+7)
Copyright Thanh Nien News
Slowing Is Seen in Housing Prices in Hot Markets
October 4, 2005
By DAVID LEONHARDT and MOTOKO RICH
A real estate slowdown that began in a handful of cities this summer has spread to almost every hot housing market in the country, including New York.
More sellers are putting their homes on the market, houses are selling less quickly and prices are no longer increasing as rapidly as they were in the spring, according to local data and interviews with brokers.
In Manhattan, the average sales price fell almost 13 percent in the third quarter from the second quarter, according to a widely followed report to be released today by Miller Samuel, an appraisal firm, and Prudential Douglas Elliman, a real estate firm. The amount of time it took to sell a home was also up 30.4 percent over the same period.
In another sign that the housing market might have reached a peak, executives at big home builders have sold almost $1 billion worth of company stock this year.
Outside Washington, in Fairfax County, Va., the number of homes on the market in August rose nearly 50 percent from August 2004. In the Boston suburb of Brookline, Mass., where many three-bedroom houses cost $1 million or more, the inventory of homes for sale has increased in just the last few weeks, said Chobee Hoy, a broker there.
For-sale listings have also swelled throughout California, according to the California Association of Realtors. In the San Francisco Bay area, they have increased 16 percent in the last year, Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage said.
"We are seeing a market in transition," Leslie Appleton-Young, the association's chief economist, said.
Brokers said that some houses seemed to be on the market longer because sellers priced them too high, assuming that their value was still rising sharply. In other cases, people who otherwise would have waited a year or two to sell their homes - like empty nesters ready to move into smaller quarters - had listed them now out of fear that prices would soon fall.
The question remains whether all of this represents a momentary cooling off of some overheated housing markets, or it presages a more pronounced downturn that would end a decade-long boom.
Some economists and commentators have for years predicted the bursting of a real estate bubble, and previous slowdowns have turned out to be relatively brief pauses before prices started accelerating again.
But with mortgage rates now rising, the cost of gasoline hovering at or near $3 a gallon and house prices in some areas out of reach for many families, brokers and analysts said they thought that this slowdown could be the real thing.
For now, the change remains a far cry from the bursting bubble that some have predicted.
In Massachusetts, for example, the median house price remained flat from July to August, and the median condominium price fell only slightly, according to the Realtors' association there. At the start of the year, prices had been rising at an annual rate of more than 15 percent.
If anything, some brokers said, the recent slowdown meant a return to a healthier, more sustainable market.
"What we had was abnormal," said Dottie Herman, chief executive of Prudential Douglas Elliman. "People get used to abnormal times and then when they're normal, they think there's something wrong."
Alexander Shakhov, 47, listed his two-bedroom house in Frederick, Md., an outer suburb of Washington, for $529,000 in July, and it remained unsold for the rest of the summer. A month ago, he reduced the price to $499,000 at the suggestion of a broker. A week ago, Mr. Shakhov accepted an offer at the lower price.
The market "is not as hot as the last two years," Mr. Shakhov, a scientist at a biotechnology company, said, "but I'm pretty happy."
He bought the house three years ago for $230,000. He now lives in Cleveland, where he has bought a home that is nearly twice as large as his Frederick house for less money.
The cooling off has forced both sellers and real estate agents to begin changing their attitudes about residential property, many said.
Houses that are priced too high are sometimes on the market for weeks or months now, rather than fetching even more money than their owners had imagined they could get.
In Manhattan, the average sales price of co-op and condominium apartments fell 12.7 percent, to $1.15 million, in the three months that ended on Sept. 30 compared with the second quarter, according to the Prudential Douglas Elliman report. The median sales price - which means half of homes sold for more and half for less - fell 3.2 percent, to $750,000.
Still, the average sales price was 10 percent higher this summer than it was a year earlier, according to the study.
Nationally, housing prices rose at the fastest rates since 1979 in the 12 months through August, the National Association of Realtors said last week.
But the changes that real estate agents have seen in recent weeks - increased inventories and longer sales times - have often preceded market slowdowns in the past.
One reason properties are remaining on the market longer is that sellers still expect to reap double-digit price appreciation each year.
"What will slow this market down, and has slowed certain segments of the market down, is overpricing," said Pamela Liebman, chief executive of the Corcoran Group, a large real estate firm in New York. "Back in the spring, there was such a frenzy that very pedestrian product was drawing multiple bids."
Some of today's sellers appear to be pricing their homes as if the frenzy were continuing.
"Their neighbors sold their house when the market was red-hot, and everybody thinks their house is better than their neighbor's house," said Maggie Tomkiewicz, the president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors and a broker in South Dartmouth. "But when the neighbor sold, there may not have been five other houses on the market" in the area.
The slowdown has also jolted the thousands of people who have become licensed brokers in the last few years. Until now, many of them knew only galloping price appreciation.
"I've gotten these calls from newer agents saying: 'I've had this property on the market for 60 to 90 days. What do I do?'" related Buzz Mackintosh, an owner of Mackintosh Realtors in Frederick, who has been selling houses for two decades. "And I say, 'It's called, 'Reduce your price.' "
Indications of a slowdown have appeared before. Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, said the last time that average and median sales prices dropped below those the previous quarter at the same time that inventories and sales duration rose in Manhattan was in the fourth quarter of 2002. But by the end of 2003, the market had come back.
An important difference now, though, is that mortgage rates are creeping up, whereas previous comebacks have been fueled by ever-lower rates.
On five-year adjustable-rate mortgages - a popular loan with a fixed interest rate for the first five years - the initial rate has risen to 5.59 percent on average, from 5.14 percent in June, according to BankRate.com.
What is more, some mortgage lenders have started to tighten credit standards, making it harder for buyers to get loans.
"Low interest rates and easy credit standards are just about over," said Kenneth Rosen, chairman of the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at the University of California, Berkeley.
Ron Nixon, in New York, and Matt Richtel, in San Francisco, contributed reporting for this article.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
First Lady, Democratic Leader Helped Miers
Laura Bush wanted a female justice. Harry Reid suggested the White House counsel.
October 4, 2005
WASHINGTON — When Harriet E. Miers sat down Sunday for supper with President Bush in the private quarters of the White House, she had an influential ally at the table: Laura Bush.
Twice this summer, Mrs. Bush had publicly expressed the hope that her husband would name a woman to replace Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
Before the dinner of fried shrimp, polenta and chocolate mousse was over, the first lady's wish came true. Bush's nomination offer to Miers brought to a surprising end a professional courtship between the president and his White House counsel that he launched discreetly less than two weeks earlier.
"I don't think this was something that she expected," said White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. "She was not seeking this out."
Indeed, Miers was among the top White House aides who were vetting potential candidates for the court, and her name was put forward by an unusual source — the leader of the Senate Democrats, Harry Reid of Nevada.
On Sept. 21, during a breakfast meeting with Bush and other senators, Reid suggested that Miers would make a good nominee, citing his favorable impression of her during the confirmation process for the new chief justice, John G. Roberts Jr.
In addition, senators of both parties were urging Bush to consider a nominee who has never served as a judge. Such a candidate, they said, would bring different experiences and perspectives to a court whose members had risen through the ranks of the judiciary.
The same day that Reid suggested Miers as a potential justice, Bush broached the topic with her. She was, said McClellan, one of as many as 15 candidates the president considered — "a diverse" group from "all walks of life," including at least half a dozen women.
Bush and Miers talked again Wednesday and Thursday. White House officials began sounding out some conservative allies as early as Thursday, testing their reaction to Miers and two other possibilities, according to Paul M. Weyrich, head of the conservative Free Congress Foundation.
Bush continued pondering the matter during the weekend at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains. There, he conferred several times with White House chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr.
The president returned to the White House on Sunday morning for an annual church service honoring the legal profession on the day before the Supreme Court's new term. "He's still working … still considering lots of options," Card told reporters as Bush got off Marine One.
By 7 p.m., Bush told Card of his decision, and Card called Vice President Dick Cheney.
In the end, McClellan said Monday, Bush recognized Miers as "someone who had the kind of qualifications and experience and judgment that was needed to serve."
On Monday morning at 7, an hour before he announced Miers as his choice, Bush called the new chief justice to inform him of the nomination. Then the president called O'Connor. A short time later, he attended Roberts' investiture.
Bush initially had selected Roberts to succeed O'Connor, who at the time rued that her seat would not be filled by a woman. But when Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist died a month ago, Bush nominated Roberts to be chief justice.
In selecting Miers to succeed O'Connor, Bush clearly made his wife happy. As Susan Whitson, the first lady's press secretary, noted, "Mrs. Bush is pleased with the pick."
"The president certainly takes into account her advice, I can assure you of that," added McClellan.
Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
Crude Oil Prices Slide Below $64/barrel
AP Business - Tuesday October 4, 8:52 PM EDT
Crude oil prices slid more than $1 a barrel Tuesday in a sign that market jitters have eased with the summer driving season over and the winter heating season yet to begin, analysts said.
Light sweet crude for November delivery fell $1.57 to settle at $63.90 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gasoline futures fell 4.65 cents to close at $2.0157 a gallon, while heating oil futures fell 3.12 cents to $2.0497 per gallon.
In London, November Brent futures dropped $1.58 to settle at $61.22 a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange.
"Demand growth is in the process of slowing," said James Cordier, president of Liberty Trading in Tampa, Fla. "Everyone knows we're in a seasonal soft patch."
The psychology of the market may also be shifting as a result of the Bush administration's recent requests of Americans to conserve fuel. And on Monday, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman sought to address the supply side of the equation by saying the government was "prepared to do what is necessary with strategic reserves" — a response to a question about the U.S. Northeast emergency heating oil inventory.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency has said it would consider releasing additional petroleum supplies to help the U.S. avert an energy crisis in the aftermath of back-to-back hurricanes that crimped oil and natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico.
The U.S. Minerals Management Service said Tuesday that 90 percent of the region's daily oil production remains shut, while 72 percent of its daily natural gas output is down.
Analysts are waiting for a U.S. petroleum inventories report due later in the week for fuller details of the impact of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
One big issue, analysts say, is the loss of Gulf Coast refining capacity needed to manufacture gasoline, heating oil and jet fuel. Twelve refineries accounting for about 3 million barrels a day, or 18 percent, of U.S. refining capacity remain shut in the aftermath of Katrina and Rita.
Another concern is the potential for a prolonged loss of natural gas output. Unlike oil, the U.S. government does not have an emergency stockpile of natural gas and the country does not have the infrastructure in place to substantially increase imports.
Natural gas for November delivery rose 20.7 cents to $14.224 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Fed watching US inflation
Tuesday October 4, 9:02 PM EDT
SEATTLE (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve will keep raising interest rates to keep inflation at bay and has no timetable to halt this tightening campaign, three of its top officials made plain in remarks on Tuesday.
"To keep cyclical price pressures and any transitory spike in energy prices from permanently disrupting the price environment, the Fed will have to continue shifting monetary policy from its current somewhat accommodative stance to a more neutral one," Philadelphia Federal Reserve President Anthony Santomero told an audience in Williamsport, Penn..
Investors bet the Fed will keep raising short-term rates until the end of this year and then pause, probably at its meeting in January -- a view reinforced by the latest policy statement that it would continue to move at a measured pace.
St Louis Fed boss William Poole said that no timetable to alter the bank's policy statement existed, but when they did act, it would mean the long rate hike campaign was over.
"We don't have any schedule in front of us," Poole told reporters after delivering a speech on Fed transparency.
"I think the change will come when the committee is ready to stop raising rates. It would probably confuse the market to change the language and continue raising rates," he said.
Fed officials worry that soaring energy prices after hurricanes Katrina and Rita could feed wider inflation and see this as a bigger danger than the fallout from the storms' destruction on economic activity.
But Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee this year, said the central bank was alert to the risks.
"The inflation rate is near the upper end of the Fed's tolerance zone, and it shows little inclination to go in the other direction," Fisher told the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce. He said hefty energy price rises were adding "demand pressures" to the economy that had to be watched.
Separately in Seattle, Poole said the U.S. central bank would be flexible if inflation risks become heightened and said financial markets, which have grown used to more transparency in policymaking, understand that is so.
FED MORE OPEN
The Fed in 2003 introduced forward-looking language into its policy statements which accompany each FOMC meeting. Since then, the degree of surprise in markets to subsequent policy action has been very muted and this was good, Poole said.
"It is quite clear that the markets understand Fed policy to a much better extent than before," Poole said.
Over the past few weeks, a number of Fed officials have emphasized the central bank's determination to keep inflation under control, leading financial markets to believe the rate-rise cycle may not be as near an end as some had previously thought.
Fed officials have said they are moving interest rates toward a "neutral" level that neither boosts nor slows the economy, suggesting further rate hikes are still needed.
Santomero, when asked after his speech to give an idea of what the Fed considers to be a "neutral" level of official rates, said there is no single level of "neutral" because the economy changes from one quarter to the next.
"As we move upward we have to analyze how the economy is absorbing these changes in (interest) rates and monitor this data as we go forward. A single number in truth will not be the same number quarter after quarter," he said.
At its last policy meeting two weeks ago, the Fed raised the benchmark overnight lending rate by a quarter percentage point to 3.75 percent. It was the 11th straight increase in a series of hikes that started in mid-2004, when the bank-to-bank rate stood at a 1958 low of 1 percent.
In a statement outlining its September 20 decision, the Fed expressed concern Katrina could boost inflation pressures and said the hit to economic growth from the storm was likely to be fleeting. It also repeated its expectation that it could continue to push rates higher at a "measured" pace.
Poole said the Fed wanted to keep so-called core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, within a fairly narrow range to prevent a threat to expansion.
"Our aim is to keep inflation, in general, down," Poole said. "If I had to pick a point, it is to keep these broad measures in a one to two percent range."
August core inflation grew by a year-on-year rate of 2.1 percent while headline consumer inflation rose 3.6 percent and could top 4.0 percent in September, economists say.
©2005 Reuters Limited.
Dollar falls against euro ahead of data
Thursday October 6, 12:00 AM EDT
TOKYO (Reuters) - The dollar fell against the euro on Thursday on worries that its recent rally on expectations for higher U.S. interest rates might have gone too far and on caution ahead of U.S. jobs data.
Talk that Venezuela was moving its reserves out of U.S. Treasuries and that Russia may revalue the rouble to keep inflation in check also weighed on the dollar, traders said.
A Venezuelan central bank director, Domingo Maza Zavala, was quoted in the Financial Times newspaper on Thursday as saying the country had transferred a large part of its $30.4 billion foreign reserves out of U.S. Treasuries over the last four months.
"The Venezuela story was the trigger for the taking out of stop-loss levels" that propelled the euro higher, said a trader at a Japanese bank.
Reuters had already reported on Monday, in an interview with Maza, that Venezuela had reduced U.S. Treasuries in its reserves.
Traders said that market players used the Venezuela story as an excuse to take profits on the dollar's recent run higher ahead of the U.S. payroll figures on Friday.
Economists surveyed by Reuters expected to see a loss of 129,000 jobs in September as layoffs in the wake of Hurricane Katrina offset gains in the rest of the country.
The dollar had risen to 16-month highs against the yen and three-month peaks versus the euro earlier in the week on prospects for higher U.S. interest rates.
By 0330 GMT, the euro bought $1.2050, up 0.6 percent from the level in late U.S. trade and well above the three-month low of $1.1900 hit earlier in the week on electronic trading platform
Traders said the euro was bumped higher after it breached a series of stop-loss levels at and above $1.20.
They also said talk of a Russian media report that the Russian central bank was contemplating revaluing the rouble had given the euro additional support. Reuters has not been able to verify the report.
Against the yen, the dollar was slightly down at 113.85 yen, still in sight of the 16-month high around 114.40 yen marked on Wednesday.
FED SUPPORT
The dollar had risen on a chorus of comments from Federal Reserve officials expressing concern about U.S. inflation, supporting expectations the central bank would stick to its tightening campaign.
The latest person to pipe up was Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig, who said on Wednesday that U.S. policy-makers must be alert to price pressures, although he said a huge surge in inflation was unlikely.
"The market is cautious about the speed of the dollar's rise but the scenario for the higher dollar remains," said Mitsuru Sahara, a senior trader at UFJ Bank.
The euro rose about 0.6 percent to 137.25 yen. Traders said the single currency got a lift higher after stop-loss levels were taken out around 136.80 yen.
Traders said demand from Japanese retail investors for foreign bonds boosted currencies with large rate advantages, such as the New Zealand dollar and the Australian dollar. Both currencies traded at levels not far from multi-year highs versus the yen hit earlier this week.
The market will keep an eye out for rate decision announcements from the Bank of England and the European Central Bank later in the day, though both are expected to leave interest rates unchanged.
©2005 Reuters Limited.
washingtonpost.com
The Relatively Charmed Life Of Neil Bush
Despite Silverado and Voodoo, Fortune Still Smiles on the President's Brother
By Peter Carlson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 28, 2003; Page D01
Ah, it's nice to be Neil Bush.
When you're Neil Bush, rich people from all over the world are eager to invest money in your businesses, even though your businesses have a history of crashing and burning in spectacular fashion.
When you're Neil Bush, you'll be sitting in a hotel room in Thailand or Hong Kong, minding your own business, when suddenly there's a knock at the door. You answer it and a comely woman strolls in and has sex with you.
Life sure is fun when you're Neil Bush, son of one president, brother of another.
Just how much fun was revealed in a deposition taken last March, during Bush's very nasty divorce battle. Asked by his wife's attorney whether he'd had any extramarital affairs, Bush told the story of his Asian hotel room escapades.
"Mr. Bush," said the attorney, Marshall Davis Brown, "you have to admit that it's a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with her."
"It was very unusual," Bush replied.
Actually, it wasn't that unusual. It happened at least three or four times during Bush's business trips to Asia, he said: "I don't remember the exact number."
"Were they prostitutes?" asked Brown.
"I don't -- I don't know," Neil replied.
"Did you pay them?"
"No."
Not surprisingly, the revelation made headlines around the world. Equally unsurprisingly, the sex story overshadowed the curious financial revelations that came out in the same deposition.
In 2002, for instance, Bush signed a consulting contract with Grace Semiconductor -- a Shanghai-based company managed in part by the son of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin. Bush's contractual duties consist solely of attending board meetings and discussing "business strategies." For this, he is to be paid $2 million in company stock over five years, plus $10,000 for every board meeting he attends.
"Now, you have absolutely no educational background in semiconductors, do you Mr. Bush?" Brown asked.
"That's correct," Bush responded.
Meanwhile, back home in Texas, Bush serves as co-chairman of a company called Crest Investment. Crest, he revealed in the deposition, pays him $60,000 a year to provide "miscellaneous consulting services."
"Such as?" Brown asked.
"Such as answering phone calls when Jamal Daniel, the other co-chairman, called and asked for advice," Bush replied.
Ah, it's nice to be Neil Bush, who seems to be living the lifestyle immortalized in those famous Dire Straits lyrics: "Money for nothin' and chicks for free."
Unique, Relatively Speaking
Neil Bush is the latest manifestation of a long tradition in American life -- the president's embarrassing relative.
There was Sam Houston Johnson, who used to get drunk and start blabbing to the press until his brother, Lyndon, sicced the Secret Service on him.
And Donald Nixon, who dreamed of founding a fast-food chain called Nixonburgers and who accepted, but never repaid, a $200,000 loan from billionaire Howard Hughes. His brother, Dick, had the Secret Service tap his phone.
And Billy Carter, who drank prodigious quantities of beer, authored a book called "Redneck Power" and took $200,000 from the government of Libya.
And Roger Clinton, a party animal who spent a year in prison for cocaine dealing and who later appeared in a movie called "Pumpkinhead II" playing a pol called Mayor Bubba.
But Neil Bush has surpassed them all. Bush has done something that no other American has ever accomplished: He has become the embarrassing relative of not one but two presidents.
In the late '80s and early '90s, Bush embarrassed his father, George H.W. Bush, with his shady dealings as a board member of the infamous Silverado Savings and Loan, whose collapse cost taxpayers $1 billion.
Now Bush has embarrassed his brother George W. Bush with a made-for-the-tabloids divorce that featured paternity rumors, a defamation suit and, believe it or not, allegations of voodoo.
And Bush's career as an embarrassment may not be over. At 48, he is still relatively young and, judging from his deposition, still virile and vigorous. If his brother Jeb, governor of Florida, is ever elected president, Neil could conceivably embarrass him, too, pulling off an unprecedented hat trick of presidential embarrassment.
Obviously, it's time for a mid-career retrospective on the life and work of Neil Bush.
Or maybe not. His father, mother, brothers and ex-wife all declined to be interviewed. White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan uttered a curt "no comment."
Neil also declined to be interviewed, although he agreed to respond to e-mailed questions, provided they did not pertain to his divorce. He reports that he's too involved with Ignite!, his educational software company, to pay much attention to media coverage of his misadventures.
"Seriously," he writes via e-mail, "I'm too busy being a good father and promoting Ignite! to worry about that kind of thing."
The Wheeler-Dealer
Neil Mallon Bush was born in 1955 and named after his grandfather's Yale buddy Neil Mallon, the corporate CEO who gave George H.W. Bush his first job in the Texas oil business.
The third of the five Bush children, Neil was so thoughtful and helpful that siblings dubbed him "Mr. Perfect."
But Neil had trouble reading, and a counselor at St. Albans prep school in Washington told his mother he might not graduate. His problem was dyslexia, and his mother spent countless weekends taking him to special reading lessons.
It worked. He graduated, then went to Tulane University, where he received a degree in international economics and, in 1979, an MBA. That year, while working on his father's unsuccessful campaign for the 1980 Republican presidential nomination, Neil met Sharon Smith, whom his mother later described in her memoirs as "a darling young schoolteacher from New Hampshire."
They married in 1980 and moved to Denver, where Neil got a $30,000 job negotiating mineral leases for Amoco. Denver was an oil-fueled boomtown, and soon the handsome son of the vice president was charming the swells at the soirees of Denver's social set.
In 1982, Neil and two co-workers quit and formed an oil exploration company, JNB Exploration. His partners were geologists; Neil was in charge of raising money.
"Neil knew people because of his name," one partner, Evans Nash, said later.
Among the people Neil knew were two high-powered Denver real estate barons -- Bill Walters and Ken Good. Walters was a flamboyant Rolex-wearing, Rolls-driving mogul known as "the Donald Trump of Denver." Good owned the largest home in Colorado, a $10 million mansion with a special plumbing system that pumped Scotch, gin and vodka throughout the house.
After listening to Bush's sales pitch, Walters invested $150,000 and set up a $1.75 million line of credit for JNB at a bank he owned. Good invested $10,000 and pledged loans worth $1.5 million. Good also lent Bush $100,000 to gamble in the commodities market and said Neil didn't have to pay it back unless he made money.
"It was," Bush later admitted, "an incredibly sweet deal."
He set up an office, decorated it with a bust of his father and paid himself $66,000 a year -- double his Amoco salary. But JNB floundered. In five years, the company drilled 26 wells in four states, but it never found a drop of exploitable oil. JNB would have gone bankrupt if not for the money from Walters and Good.
But Bush was able to help the men who helped him. In 1985 he joined the board of Silverado Savings and Loan, which had already lent millions to Walters and Good. Over the next three years, Silverado lent an additional $106 million to Walters and $35 million to Good, although the two men's real estate empires were collapsing.
Good used some of that money to buy JNB, although it was still losing money. He raised Bush's salary to $120,000 and awarded him a bonus of $22,000. He also hired Bush as a director of one of his companies, at a salary of $100,000.
Neither Good nor Walters ever repaid a nickel of their Silverado loans, and in 1988 Silverado went belly up, leaving U.S. taxpayers holding the bag for $1.3 billion in debts.
Picking through the wreckage, regulators from the federal Office of Thrift Supervision concluded in 1991 that Bush's deals with Good and Walters while serving on Silverado's board constituted "multiple conflicts of interest." Bush became a public symbol of the $500 billion savings and loan scandal. Protesters picketed his home and pasted mock wanted posters around Washington: "Jail Neil Bush."
Bush proclaimed his innocence, declaring at a news conference that "self-serving regulators" were persecuting him because he was the president's son. But when he appeared before the House Banking Committee in 1990, he admitted that some of his deals looked "a little fishy."
Ultimately, Bush paid $50,000 as his part of a federal lawsuit against Silverado and was reprimanded by the OTS. Good and Walters ended up declaring bankruptcy, and JNB, which had never found oil or made money, quietly perished.
Today, Bush maintains that he did nothing wrong.
"I happened to be one of hundreds of other American businessmen and women who served as an outside director on the board of a savings and loan institution that failed during the 1980s," he writes in an e-mail. "I regret that the institution's failure cost taxpayers so much money."
Strictly Business
During his high-rolling days in Denver, Neil had told reporters that he was thinking of running for Congress. At home, he spoke with his brothers about running for governor.
"They'd talk about how GW was going to run for governor of Texas and Jeb would run for governor of Florida and Neil would run for governor of Colorado," recalls Douglas Wead, a Bush family friend who served as a special assistant in the first Bush White House. "The family would have bet on Jeb, but if you just observed their personalities, you'd say Neil."
Neil was the most charming of the Bush brothers, Wead says. "He's relaxed, he's funny, he's a better speaker than anybody in the family. . . . He could easily have been a congressman."
The Silverado scandal killed Neil's dream of a political career. But, thanks to his father's friends, it had little effect on his business career.
Thomas "Lud" Ashley, an ex-congressman and bank lobbyist, "came to the rescue," Barbara Bush wrote in her memoirs, and raised money to pay Neil's legal bills.
"I'm a family friend," Ashley explains today, "and he was in real difficulty."
With Silverado and JNB both belly up, Bush started Apex Energy, a methane gas exploration company. He invested $3,000 of his own money and got $2.3 million from two companies run by his father's friend Louis Marx, heir to the Marx toy fortune.
Neil used Marx's money to pay himself a salary of $160,000, and he sold a Wyoming gas lease that he owned to Apex for $150,000. The lease proved worthless -- no methane there. In fact, Apex, like JNB, never found anything worth pumping.
After two years, Apex went broke. Bush had received more than $300,000 in salary but Marx got zip, and the Small Business Administration, which had backed Marx's investments, was left holding the empty bag.
An investigation by the House Small Business Committee found nothing "illegal or improper" but noted that a $2 million federally guaranteed investment to an applicant who risked only $3,000 of his own money seemed like "a very high leveraging of funds."
A few months after Apex crashed in 1991, Bush was rescued by another of his father's rich friends. Bill Daniels, a multimillionaire cable TV baron who raised $330,000 in 1987 for George H.W. Bush's presidential campaign, hired Neil to a $60,000 job at TransMedia Communications.
"Anyone who hires Neil Bush is going to get some heat," Daniels said at the time, "but somebody had to do it."
TransMedia was headquartered in Texas, so Bush sold his $500,000 house in Denver and moved Sharon and their three kids -- Lauren, Pierce and Ashley -- to Houston.
Peter Wehner of Colorado Business magazine called TransMedia to find out exactly what Bush would be doing for the company.
"I'm trying to find a title for him, if you want to know the truth," said Dick Barron, TransMedia's president. "He'll be learning the business, basically."
Traveling Salesman
In April 1993, shortly after leaving the White House, George H.W. Bush flew to Kuwait, accompanied by his wife, his sons Marvin and Neil, and his former secretary of state, James Baker.
The ex-president received a hero's welcome, a medal from the emir and an honorary degree from the university. After he left, Baker and Neil Bush went to work, attempting to win contracts from the Kuwaiti government. Ultimately, Bush's efforts failed to bear fruit. But over the next decade, he frequently traveled to the Middle East, Europe and Asia to negotiate deals and raise capital for various businesses. In 2000 he made $1.3 million, according to his deposition testimony -- $642,500 of it paid as a commission for introducing an Asian investor to the owners of an American high-tech company.
During his travels, he met with several Arab princes and enjoyed a private dinner with Jiang Zemin, then China's president, who serenaded Bush with a military song.
"I probably have access to people who wouldn't meet with a development-stage company," Bush told an Associated Press reporter in 2002, "but I feel I'm held to a higher standard."
For the last several years, Bush's main business interest has been Ignite!, the educational software company he co-founded in 1999. To fund Ignite!, Bush has raised $23 million from U.S. investors (including his parents), as well as businessmen from Taiwan, Japan, Kuwait, the British Virgin Islands and the United Arab Emirates, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Last year, Ignite! also entered into a partnership with a Mexican company, Grupo Carso Telecom. The partnership enabled Ignite! to lay off half of its 70 employees and outsource their jobs to Mexico.
"That's turned out to be great," says Ignite! President Ken Leonard.
But Ignite!, which pays Bush $180,000 a year, is not his only business interest. Last year, Winston Wong -- a Taiwanese businessman and an investor in Ignite! -- signed Bush to that $2 million consulting deal with Grace Semiconductor, the company that Wong founded in partnership with the Chinese government. Bush has not yet received any compensation because the contract calls for him to be paid after board meetings and, he said by e-mail, "I was unable to attend their one and only board meeting."
A spokesman for Grace declined to comment.
Kevin Phillips, historian and author of the forthcoming book "American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush," sees Neil Bush as a man who has made a career of cashing in on his famous name.
"He's incorrigible," Phillips says. "He seems to be crawling through the underbelly of crony capitalism."
Bush vehemently denies that contention. "I have never used my family name to 'cash-in,' " Bush wrote by e-mail. "Unfortunately, such ridiculous charges come with the territory of coming from a famous and public family."
Fire and Disdain
"We create these prisonlike environments," Neil Bush said, "then we take our hunter-warrior types and label them attention-deficit disordered and put them on drugs."
It was the spring of 2002 and Bush was speaking about education at Whitney High School in Cerritos, Calif., considered one of the best public schools in America. He was touting Ignite!, which was being tested there. In the audience was writer Edward Humes, taking notes for his book on Whitney, "School of Dreams," published last summer.
Ignite! is designed, Bush said, to make learning fun for "hunter-warrior" kids who don't like reading. It's a computer curriculum that uses music, graphics and animation to teach middle school kids.
The program's first course -- eighth-grade American history -- was tested over the last two years in schools in a dozen states. Available commercially for the first time this year, it is being used by about 40,000 students in 120 school districts, mostly in Texas, at a cost of about $30 per pupil.
One school that uses Ignite! is Mendez Middle, a predominantly poor and Hispanic school in Austin. After three years of using the program, says Principal Connie Barr, the number of students who passed the state's eighth-grade history test has risen from 50 percent to 87 percent. "That's incredible," says Barr. "It doesn't replace the teacher or the textbook. What it does is give the teacher another way to deliver the information."
However, Ignite! has been attacked by other educators for dumbing down history. Among its controversial aspects is a lesson that depicts the Seminole Wars in a cartoon football game -- "the Jacksons vs. the Seminoles" -- the animated Indians smashing helmets with animated white settlers. The Constitutional Convention is taught in a rap song:
It was 55 delegates from 12 states
Took one hot Philadelphia summer to create
A perfect document for their imperfect times
Franklin, Madison, Washington -- a lot of the cats
Who used to be in the Continental Congress way back.
Ignite! is working well, Bush wrote in an e-mail: "Teachers and students have given anecdotal feedback that confirms the powerful impact our program is having on student achievement, student focus and attitudes, and teacher success in reaching all of their students."
But at Whitney reviews were less laudatory. "The kids felt pretty strongly that what this was about was lowering the bar," says Humes.
Humes wasn't impressed, either. "There was a lot of rhyming and games," he says. "It reminded me of what my son uses -- but he's in kindergarten."
When Bush spoke at Whitney, several students began arguing with him.
"He was very surprised," Humes recalls. "You had to see the look on his face when one young woman got up and said she liked calculus. He said it was useless. This is the branch of mathematics that makes space travel possible, and he said it was useless."
Tabloid Heaven
Even before the voodoo story and the paternity rumor and the defamation suit about the paternity rumor, Neil Bush's divorce was a candidate for the Nasty Breakup Hall of Fame.
It all began in 2002, when Bush informed his wife -- via e-mail -- that he no longer loved her and wanted a divorce.
At least that's the way Sharon Bush told the story back when she was still talking to reporters. Neil has never discussed the divorce in public, except in that now-famous deposition, in which he described his marriage as "loveless" with "no affection" and "very little sexual activity over the past 10 or 12 years."
Sharon, 51, claimed she was shocked to learn that her husband of 22 years had taken up with Maria Andrews, 40, a volunteer helping Neil's mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, with her correspondence. Andrews is the ex-wife of a Houston oil executive and the mother of three children.
Andrews is "very pretty -- petite is the best word for her," says John Spalding, a Houston lawyer and a friend of Neil Bush's. "She's just great, and she and Neil are great together."
Sharon Bush did not want a divorce, particularly on her husband's terms, which she considered insufficiently generous. She launched a counterattack by hiring New York PR whiz Lou Colasuonno, a man who knows tabloids, having served as the editor of both the New York Post and the New York Daily News.
Colasuonno's opening gambit was a sure-fire attention-getter: In April 2003, he announced that Sharon was seeking a publisher for a tell-all book about the Bush family.
"This is a woman who has had some wonderful times with the Bushes," Colasuonno told the New York Observer. "But she has seen the dark side, too. And she intends to provide a view of the family that everyone will want to read."
Next, Colasuonno arranged -- and publicized -- a lunch date between Sharon and Kitty Kelley, the celebrity biographer from Hell, who is working on a book on the Bush dynasty.
"I learned a great deal about the Bush family from Sharon," Kelley told The Washington Post after the lunch. "She told me he's only offering $1,000 a month in support -- take it or leave it. . . . She said that when she told Neil she needs more to live on, Neil Bush said, 'Just get remarried.' Sharon was sobbing as she told me, 'Kitty, I just won't sell my body!' "
Whew! After that, Colasuonno says, Neil increased his offer considerably, and the final settlement gave Sharon about $30,000 a year in alimony, plus $750 a month for her two minor children, Pierce, 17, and Ashley, 14. (The couple's oldest child, Lauren -- a Princeton student and a fashion model -- is 19.)
But on the day the divorce was to be finalized -- April 28 -- Sharon told the judge that she wasn't sure she wanted to go through with it. "I believe in working through a marriage," she testified, "and I don't believe in divorce with three children."
Then, under oath, Sharon asked the judge to order "a DNA sampling of Maria Andrews's youngest child," a 2-year-old boy, because she "had cause for believing that it could possibly be his [Neil's] child."
The judge denied the request. The divorce became final that day, but the battle raged on.
In July, Sharon appeared on Houston's KHOU-TV News, telling her tale of woe. Somehow the station obtained a videotape of Neil Bush's deposition and aired juicy bits from his account of his Asian hotel exploits.
That upped the ante in the publicity war. Soon, Neil's friend Spalding was calling reporters with a choice morsel of his own: Sharon had yanked hair out of Neil's head, Spalding said, so she could make a voodoo doll and put a curse on her ex-husband.
"It was bizarre," Spalding says. "She literally pulled his hair and yanked it out of his head. He told me about it."
Sharon admitted doing that and also said she collected some from his hairstylist's floor. But it was not for voodoo, she told the Houston Chronicle. Neil was acting so erratically, she said, that she wanted to test the hair for signs of drug use. The tests were inconclusive, she said.
Neil responded by authorizing his lawyer to say he didn't use drugs.
At that point, it looked like the Bush divorce couldn't get much cheesier. But in September, Robert Andrews, ex-husband of Maria Andrews, sued Sharon Bush for defamation over her claims that Neil is the father of the 2-year-old. She spread the rumor, his lawsuit alleged, to news outlets, friends and "fast food restaurant employees." He demanded $850,000 in damages.
Then Sharon responded by asking the court to order Neil as well as Robert Andrews to provide DNA samples.
Then Andrews's attorney, Dale Jefferson, suggested a novel Texas-style "put-up-or-shut-up" solution: "We'll put up $850,000 and Sharon Bush can put up $850,000," Jefferson said. "And if she's right and Neil Bush is the father of that child, she gets Mr. Andrews's $850,000, and if we're right, we get her $850,000."
Then . . . no, that's enough of this folly. It's time to stop wallowing in the gutter. It's time to take the high road, to raise the sensitive questions worthy of high-minded people.
Like: How is Neil Bush holding up under the relentless onslaught of embarrassing publicity? How is the son of one president and the brother of another doing these days?
Just fine, thank you, his friends say.
"He's very optimistic and he's got very thick skin," says Spalding. "He's a very happy guy and he's in a great relationship, and he says, 'This will all blow over.' "
"He has real pluck about him," says Lud Ashley. "He keeps his chin up."
These days Bush divides his time between Texas -- home of his children and Ignite! -- and Paris, where Maria Andrews is living so her children can learn French.
"Neil is very much in love," says Rex John, a Houston PR man who is the godfather of Bush's daughter Lauren. "As his friend, I just really enjoy seeing him so happy because for so many years he was not happy."
"Neil and Maria are incredibly affectionate with each other and with friends," says Spalding's wife, Laura, who is Maria Andrews's attorney. "It's fun to watch them together because they're so in love."
Somehow, even after all his travails, it's still nice to be Neil Bush.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
Democrats need to cut the “Kumbayah crap” from their rhetoric, James Carville said Thursday night.
Carville: Dems need stronger narrative to win
October 07, 2005
The problem with Democrat campaign speeches is “litany,” and they need more narrative like Winnie the Pooh stories, political consultant and pundit James Carville said.
At a speech sponsored by the Northwestern College Democrats Thursday evening, Carville told the audience that Democratic candidates can’t succeed by shouting out to every group in a crowd. Instead candidates should tell stories with the three elements of any good story — setup, conflict and resolution.
“No Kumbayah crap,” Carville said.
College Democrats brought Carville to speak in Cahn auditorium with funds from the $60,000 allotted by the Student Activities Finance Board for the group’s fall speakers.
Jenna Carls, president of College Democrats, said the group decided to bring Carville after polling about 50 students in the spring.
The organization will use the remaining funds to bring another speaker later this quarter, Carls said.
All 1,000 available tickets for the free event were taken by 1:05 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Norris Box Office. Tickets went on sale Sept. 23, the same day as NU’s Activities Fair. During the past few days, College Democrats worked to spread the word by placing more flyers and sending more messages to campus listservs, Carls said.
Carville helped lead Bill Clinton to victory in the 1992 presidential election. He has also worked on several foreign campaigns and co-hosted CNN’s “Crossfire” for more than two years before the network canceled the show in June.
At NU Carville focused on what Democrats need to do to reclaim the presidency. The vocal impressions of President George W. Bush and former presidential candidate John Kerry and Carville’s bouts of shouting in his southern accent had the audience alternatively giggling and freezing in silence.
In addition to breaking away from a laundry list of special interests, Carville said, Democrats need to learn that a candidate who can’t campaign can’t succeed.
“If you’re not competent in campaigns, you don’t have a chance to be competent in government,” he said.
Using Al Gore as an example, Carville said being a smart candidate is not enough.
“It’s actually possible to be wise, right and strong,” he said.
But Carville added that no one in Washington likes anyone who is right too often. Howard Dean’s accurate assessment about the failure of the war in Iraq helped kick him out of the running for president despite his passion, Carville said.
In the same way that intelligence and accuracy can’t stand alone, strength without accuracy is a catastrophe, he said. His example: the Republican administration.
“If we just had mediocracy I’d be the happiest person in the world,” Carville said. “You put political hacks in an important position and there are consequences.”
Weinberg freshman Amy Weiss said the College Democrats achieved their goal of exciting students with Carville’s speech.
“I’ve been a big James Carville fan for several years,” she said. “And I’ve been at school, so I feel so out of touch with current events. I feel I’d be interested in anything he’d talk about.”
But it’s not all about party spirit, Carville said.
Democrats need to bring their causes together and work for them actively, he said. For example, the political consultant suggested taking the specific issue of racial affirmative action and helping those of all races with income-based affirmative action.
If Democrats try to single out every issue, they’re back to litany, Carville said. He also said Democrats just can’t say “no” to causes from gay rights to abortion to the poor.
“Sometimes the problem with being a Democrat is being a Democrat,” he said.
© 2005 The Daily Northwestern
Twitty learns true meaning of team at Sewanee
Sunday, October 09, 2005
Huntsville Times
Natalee Holloway's stepbrother deals with grief on field
SEWANEE, Tenn. - The spats of white tape wrapped around the football cleats were wet and dirty and grass-stained after a day's hard labor. The tape was frayed like the collar of an ancient shirt.
Still, the letters written in black ink on the tape were clearly visible.
N, on the left heel.
H, on the right heel.
N.H.
The initials of Natalee Holloway.
It was a tribute to the Birmingham teenager, missing in Aruba since May 30.
The initials were on the football cleats of George Twitty, a junior defensive back at the University of the South.
George Twitty is Natalee's stepbrother.
No matter how much tragedy life throws at you, you must move on. You cry. You get angry. You try to make sense of it. You cry some more.
You don't forget.
You also go to school. You go to work.
You even play a game.
And sometimes that game helps against the pain.
"It is (tough), especially right before a game when I go out there,'' Twitty said, standing in a soft mist late Saturday afternoon.
"But I've got some good friends here, and we've got a suite of guys that I live with that helps. Being on a team, and having people with you the whole time keeping you going, it's been good.''
Twitty then pulled back the cuff of his left glove, revealing an orange rubber bracelet with the words "One Nation.'' Most of his teammates wore one, too.
The wristbands were ordered for a prayer vigil for Natalee in Birmingham last summer. "George brought back a sack of them and we all grabbed 'em up in about a second,'' said assistant coach Carter Caldwell.
"It's nice having a team around you that you can talk to, and who help you out,'' Twitty said.
"He has such strength of character, the way he's dealt with it,'' said Sewanee head coach John Windham. "As hard as I can imagine it is, he's dealt with it beautifully. He's been encouraging all of us while we try to encourage him.''
They have needed each other.
Only a few days after Twitty returned from Aruba to join his family in the search for Natalee, he was back at Sewanee for a memorial service for a teammate, wide receiver Stephen Motley.
He was killed in a car wreck. He was 18.
The season has been difficult as well. The 34-0 loss to DePauw left the Tigers at 2-4. They don't play again until Oct. 22, at Rose-Hulman.
October 21 is Natalee Holloway's 19th birthday.
"I thought I was smart in high school (at Mountain Brook), but she just blew me out of the water,'' Twitty said. "She would tell me she got mad when she made a 97. I'm keeping my A's, making a 90, and it's, 'Yea!'
"She was always happy, always excited,'' he said. "Just a good person. She always worked hard and she liked to have fun.''
Natalee was headed to Alabama on scholarship. As good an athlete as George may be - "he's a natural,'' Caldwell said - he wasn't big enough to play for the Tide. But, he said, "I just wanted to play football.''
Sewanee was perfect for him. He's been perfect for Sewanee.
In his first game, he intercepted a pass and returned it 100 yards for a touchdown, tying an NCAA record. He was all-conference last year. He returned another interception for a TD this season. He's No. 2 in tackles on the team.
He had seven tackles Saturday, then retired to the bench in the fourth quarter, scanning the sparsely populated stands, looking for family.
Looking, as he had done on happier, sunny days, to even see Natalee there.
On Saturday, George's father "Jug'' Twitty was there, collar turned up against the cold and wearing a Mountain Brook cap. Father and son found each other on the damp field.
After 10 minutes or so, they said their goodbyes. Jug gathered his son in a consoling hug.
How many hugs has this family had in these five months, offering or seeking consolation?
How many hugs will it take before the ache subsides a little?
And how much must it help, after the touch of those hugs is no longer felt, to be surrounded by teammates, one team as one nation, gathering around you like the perfect circle of an orange bracelet?
© 2005 The Huntsville Times
Inflation Fears May Overshadow Earnings
Sunday October 9, 9:23 PM EDT
NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices fell substantially last week, yet the stock market dropped to its lowest levels since early July. People who are used to seeing stocks rise as oil prices fall could very well wonder what happened. Richard Fisher happened.
Fisher is the president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank and, as such, sits on the Federal Reserve's committee that sets interest rate policy. In two speeches last week, Fisher said inflation was rising near the high end of the Fed's tolerance level. Inflation, of course, is bad for the economy because consumers would have to pay higher prices for goods and services and would thus consume less.
The Fed's chief weapon against inflation is interest rates. By raising the nation's benchmark rate, the Fed makes it more expensive for corporations and individuals to borrow money. Business can't fund expansion as cheaply, and consumers pay more on their credit cards and variable rate mortgages. Prices remain stable, but the economy slows and corporate earnings shrink, making stocks less valuable.
Given the choice between runaway inflation and slowing the economy, the Fed will choose the latter, and it's a safe bet the central bank will continue raising rates through the end of the year. As a result, stocks headed south last week, with the Dow Jones industrial average falling 2.62 percent, the Standard & Poor's 500 dropping 2.68 percent and the Nasdaq composite average losing 2.84 percent.
Faced with higher interest rates and consumers paying more for gas and heating bills, stocks will be hard-pressed to make up the losses this week. Strong corporate earnings and reassuring forecasts for the fourth quarter would help, but investors will look to the government's economic data in hopes that, in the end, it won't be as bad as they fear.
ECONOMIC DATA
The nation's key inflation report, the Labor Department's consumer price index, is due Friday. CPI for September is expected to rise 0.9 percent, up from an 0.5 percent increase in August. Core CPI, with energy and food prices removed, is expected to climb 0.2 percent versus August's 0.1 percent increase.
Obviously, higher-than-expected CPI figures won't help Wall Street recover from the past week, but lower numbers could spark a rally as investors anticipate the Fed backing off on rates.
The other key piece of the economic equation, the consumer, also will see scrutiny on Friday as the University of Michigan's widely watched consumer sentiment index is released. The preliminary reading for October is expected to rise to 80 from a reading of 76.9 last month, with economists and market watchers banking on slightly lower gasoline prices — and perhaps short memories — for a boost in sentiment.
Finally, the Commerce Department will release its aggregate report on September retail sales Thursday morning. Sales are expected to edge 0.2 percent higher in September, compared to a 2.1 percent drop in August. With volatile auto sales removed, sales growth is expected to drop to 0.6 percent in September from 1 percent the previous month, a troubling sign heading into the holiday shopping season.
EARNINGS
As has become Wall Street tradition, the quarterly earnings season starts Monday afternoon with the first Dow industrial to report, Alcoa Inc. The aluminum producer's stock has been hammered this year due to higher energy prices, and is down 34 percent from its 52-week high of $34.99 on Nov. 29, 2004. The company is expected to earn 29 cents per share in the third quarter, down from 34 cents per share a year ago. Alcoa closed Friday at $23.04.
Fellow Dow component General Electric Co., due to report earnings Friday morning, said last week it expects its earnings forecasts to hold firm — a move meant to assuage Wall Street, though it did little to stem the market's decline. GE is expected to earn 44 cents per share, compared to 38 cents per share in the third quarter of 2004. The company's stock has suffered along with the industrial sector, falling 9.4 percent from its 52-week high of $37.75 on Dec. 14, 2004, to close Friday at $34.22.
Apple Computer Inc. is expected to continue riding high on the success of its iPod line of music players, updated late in the quarter with the super-thin iPod Nano. The continued innovation of the instantly iconic technology has nearly tripled Apple's share price from its 52-week low of $18.825 on Dec. 12, 2004. The company is expected to earn 36 cents per share, compared to 16 cents per share last year, when it announces third-quarter earnings after Tuesday's trading session. Apple closed at $51.30 Friday.
EVENTS
On Tuesday afternoon, during the trading session, the Federal Reserve is expected to release the minutes from the Fed's Sept. 20 meeting. The Fed raised the nation's benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point to 3.75 percent at that meeting, though for the first time, the vote was not unanimous. Investors will closely scrutinize the report for the Fed's take on inflation — perhaps to see whether Fisher is speaking for his colleagues or just himself.
Refco puts CEO on leave over debt
Monday October 10, 10:03 AM EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Refco Inc. (RFX) on Monday said it placed its chief executive on leave after the discovery of his involvement in a $430 million debt rendered years of financial statements unreliable, sending its shares down 34 percent.
The company, which went public in August and is one of the world's largest and most powerful commodities dealers, also said it would probably delay filing its 10-Q quarterly financial statement with securities regulators for the quarter ended August 31.
Refco said it asked CEO Phillip Bennett, who is also chairman, to take the leave of absence after discovering a receivable of about $430 million owed by an entity he controlled. The debt has since been repaid with interest.
Santo Maggio, president and chief executive of Refco Securities LLC and Refco Capital Markets, Ltd., was also asked to take a leave of absence.
A company spokeswoman could not provide further details on Maggio's departure.
Refco has hired independent counsel and forensic auditors to help its board investigate issues related to Bennett.
An internal review thus far has shown Bennett, without telling the company, gained control of the $430 million receivable it had considered possibly uncollectable.
Had Bennett disclosed his control of the receivable, the company's financial statements would have reflected that.
But given the way the debt was accounted for, Refco said it determined that financial statements for 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 are not reliable.
The broker said it cannot estimate when its 10-Q filing will be made or when the audit committee will finish its investigation.
William Sexton, who recently announced his resignation as Refco's chief operating officer, will instead remain with the company and has been appointed CEO.
Refco said it believes all customer funds on deposit are unaffected by the issues surrounding the receivable.
The company's shares did not yet open on the New York Stock Exchange, but they were down $9.83 at $18.73 on the Inet electronic brokerage.
Mattel to consolidate divisions
Monday October 10, 4:55 PM EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mattel Inc. (MAT) said on Monday it was consolidating its Mattel Brands and Fisher-Price Brands divisions into one division called "Brands."
The toy maker said former Fisher-Price Brands president, Neil Friedman, has been promoted to president of brands, and Matthew Bousquette, the former president of Mattel Brands, will "pursue other business ventures."
©2005 Reuters Limited.
WHEN THE EARTH MOVES
Robertson: Disasters point to 2nd Coming
Evangelist observes quakes, hurricanes 'starting to hit with amazing regularity'
Posted: October 9, 2005
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – This weekend's catastrophic earthquake in South Asia in the wake of recent U.S. hurricanes and December's tsunami is catching the eye of televangelist Pat Robertson, who says we "might be" in the End Times described in the Bible.
"These things are starting to hit with amazing regularity," Robertson said on CNN's "Late Edition."
Robertson, a former GOP presidential candidate and host of the "700 Club" daily Christian TV show, noted, "If you read back in the Bible, the letter of the apostle Paul to the church of Thessalonia, he said that in the latter days before the end of the age that the Earth would be caught up in what he called the birth pangs of a new order. And for anybody who knows what it's like to have a wife going into labor, you know how these labor pains begin to hit. I don't have any special word that says this is that, but it could be suspiciously like that."
"What was called the blessed hope of the Bible is that one day Jesus Christ would come back again, start a whole new era, that this world order that we know would change into something that would be wonderful that we'd call the millennium," he continued. "And before that good time comes there will be some difficult days and there will be likened to what a woman goes through in labor just before she brings forth a child."
When asked if the world was approaching that moment, Robertson said, "It's possible. I don't have any special revelation to say it is but the Bible does indicate such a time will happen in the end of time. And could this be it? It might be."
Hurricane Katrina left more than 1,200 people dead in the Gulf Coast region of the U.S., while the rising death toll from this weekend's earthquake in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India is in the 20,000 to 30,000 range thus far.
On Dec. 26, an estimated 275,000 people lost their lives from a tsunami sparked by an undersea earthquake in the Indian Ocean.
Some New Testament verses often cited by Christians regarding signs of the end of this present age before the return of Jesus to Earth include:
"For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows." (Matthew 24:7-8)
"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;" (Luke 21:25).
Robertson isn't the only one raising the End Times issue, as author and WorldNetDaily columnist Hal Lindsey has weighed in.
"It seems clear that the prophetic times I have been expecting for decades have finally arrived. And even worse, it appears that the judgment of America has begun," Lindsey said on the Sept. 9 broadcast of the "International Intelligence Briefing" on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. "I warn continually that the last days lineup of world powers does not include anything resembling the United States of America. Instead, a revived Roman Empire in Europe is to rule the West, and then the world. "
As WND reported last month, Robertson suggested the assassination of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.
"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," he said, though he later backed away from the suggestion of assassination, stating he was taken out of context.
Robertson revisited his concerns about Chavez today, telling CNN, "The truth is, this man is setting up a Marxist-type dictatorship in Venezuela, he's trying to spread Marxism throughout South America, he's negotiating with the Iranians to get nuclear material and he also sent 1.2 million dollars in cash to Osama bin Laden right after 9-11."
"I've written him. I apologized and I said I will be praying for him, but one day we will be staring at nuclear weapons and it won't be [Hurricane] Katrina facing New Orleans, it's going to be a Venezuelan nuke," Robertson said.
When asked where he got the information about cash going from Chavez to bin Laden, Robertson said it was from "sources," though WND has previously reported on the connection.
"That's what I was told," Robertson said. "And I know he sent a warm, congratulatory letter to Carlos the Jackal. He's a friend of Moammar Gadhafi. He's made common cause with these people who are considered terrorists."
Harriet Miers contributed to Hillary's election in 2000
Posted: October 9, 2005
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
On May 17, 2000, while Harriet Miers was managing the law firm of Locke Liddell from the firm's Dallas office, she contributed $415 to the law firm's political action committee. Federal Election Commission reports show that two days later, Locke Liddell's PAC contributed $1,000 to Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate Campaign Committee. For an unexplained reason, Harriet Miers listed herself as a "self-employed attorney," according to the FEC Report on her 2000 contribution to the Locke Liddell PAC.
FEC records also show a $500 contribution on Feb. 15, 2000, by the Locke Liddell PAC to Democrat Nicholas Lampson, who ran unsuccessfully against Tom DeLay.
Locke Liddell's contributions also reached out to out-of-state Democratic congressmen. According to FEC records, on July 27, 2000, the Locke Liddell PAC contributed $1,000 to Richard Gephardt's congressional re-election campaign in Missouri. Locke Liddell also supported Democrats in Louisiana, contributing $1,000 to Mary Landrieu, on Dec. 4, 2000, and $1,000 to the campaign of Louisana Congressman William Jennings Jefferson on June 6, 2000.
Locke Liddell's PAC contributed to the re-election campaign of Houston Democratic Congressman Kenneth Edward Bentsen Jr., nephew of Congressman Lloyd Bentsen. The law firm also supported the congressional campaigns of Texas Democrats Lloyd Doggett, Chet Edwards, Martin Frost, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Max Sandlin. In 2000, three separate contributions were made to the campaign of Texas Democrat Regina Montoya Coggins, who ran unsuccessfully against Congressman Pete Sessions – the records also reflect two contributions to Pete Sessions in 2000.
Of the 24 candidates supported by Locke Liddell's PAC in the years 1999-2000, a majority of 14 were to Democrats. These were years in which Harriet Miers was co-managing partner of the law firm.
Harriet Miers has already indicated that she switched from Democrat to Republican, suggesting she voted for Ronald Reagan, despite making campaign contributions to Al Gore and Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Until now, there had been no discussion that Harriet Miers' campaign contributions had also ended up supporting Hillary Clinton, as well as opposing the re-elections of Majority Leader Tom Delay and Republican Texas Congressman Pete Sessions.
The records came to light over the weekend, in an FEC response to a request by the Republican Study Committee to see Harriet Miers' campaign contributions, dating back to 1980. Searching the FEC records for the contributions made by Locke Liddell's PAC brought to light the 2000 contribution to Hillary Clinton's campaign and the contributions made to oppose the re-election of Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
The Republican Study Committee is a group of over 100 conservative House Republicans, chaired by Representative Mike Pence of Indiana.
Why Miers must be defeated
Posted: October 10, 2005
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
Imagine if Bill Clinton had nominated his personal attorney and White House counsel to a post on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Somehow, I can't imagine my conservative friends supporting the nominee – particularly if there were questions about controversial documents being destroyed that might actually shed light on scandals of the past.
The stunning series of articles by WND columnist Jerome Corsi, raising serious and nagging questions about Harriet Miers' role as chairman of the Texas Lottery Commission and the cover-up of the way that story intersects with George W. Bush's National Guard service, points up why this kind of cronyism was frowned upon by the Founding Fathers.
In fact, this is the very reason the framers of our Constitution called for the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate in all Supreme Court nominations.
If we are all honest with ourselves, it is clear Miers' name was put forward for one major reason – she is a friend and confidante of the president. Her selection is clearly a reward for services rendered and for her loyalty to the president.
Those do not make for qualifications for the Supreme Court, but, according to the men who debated and authored the Constitution, they should disqualify her.
For instance, in Federalist Paper 76, Alexander Hamilton explains why his colleagues gave the Senate power to confirm or reject Supreme Court nominees:
To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment ...
The idea clearly was to shame a president from promoting cronies to the high court.
[The president] would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.
Can anyone argue, on the basis of these clear statements, that the Founders steadfastly opposed the idea of Supreme Court appointments such as Harriet Miers or Abe Fortas during the Lyndon Johnson era?
The idea was to create an independent judiciary, not one beholden to the executive branch of the federal government.
But George W. Bush does not shame so easily.
Now it's up to the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate to decide if it, too, is little more than a rubber stamp for the president.
There have been many perfectly rotten Supreme Court nominations in the past. Harriet Miers is certainly not the worst. But with the American people clamoring as never before for real judicial reform – starting in the Supreme Court – and with an abundance of qualified potential nominees from which to draw, this nomination should be withdrawn or defeated by the U.S. Senate.
I know few in Congress care about the original intent of the Founders. I know few in Congress understand the original intent of the Founders. I know most members of the House and Senate violate the spirit and the letter of the Constitution on a daily basis. But senators who claim to be voting for Harriet Miers because she is an "originalist" should indeed be ashamed.
Her very nomination is in direct contradiction to the vision of the heroic and inspired men who shaped and framed all that made America great and unique in the history of the world.
Delphi Bankruptcy A Piviotal Point That Can Shape Detroit's Future
DETROIT, Oct 10, 2005; Tom Brown writing for Reuters reported that courtroom proceedings in a landmark case that could reshape the U.S. auto industry and hurt many people who depend on it for their livelihoods get under way on Tuesday.
That's when opening motions are due to be heard in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York on the Chapter 11 filing by auto parts supplier Delphi Corp. that rocked the American auto industry over the weekend.
With its move, Delphi -- in effect going to war with the United Auto Workers union -- announced plans to downsize domestic operations while slashing union wages and health-care benefits.
The largest U.S. parts maker also wants to free itself from pension obligations to tens of thousands of employees it inherited from General Motors Corp. when it was spun off from the automaker in 1999. Delphi argues that GM is liable for the pension obligations under terms of the spinoff.
There are many issues at stake in the case, which came to a head after talks among Delphi, the UAW and GM failed to produce agreement on a bailout plan for the struggling supplier.
Among the thorniest problems will be deciding who is responsible for post-retirement and health-care benefits that GM, which shares many of the same problems that sent Delphi into Chapter 11, has said could cost it up to $11 billion.
The broader issue, however, is whether Delphi will get a court-ordered mandate to tear up its labor contracts with the UAW and set dramatically lower wage and benefit levels for its U.S. hourly employees.
Alluding to that possibility, UAW leaders said in a statement on Saturday that it would be "an extremely bitter pill" to swallow.
"I think this case is, in fact, a watershed. I think what it does is -- in the most dramatic way we've seen to date -- it introduces the wages of the global economy into Main Street in Michigan, Ohio and elsewhere," said Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley specializing in labor issues.
"SET IN CHINA"
"Delphi has essentially said: 'We need competitive wages.' Those wages currently are being set in China, not Flint, (Michigan)," Shaiken said.
Auto industry analyst Maryann Keller said the Delphi case could change the face of Detroit and the U.S. auto industry by ending decades of UAW de facto control over wages and benefits and putting it in the hands of a bankruptcy judge.
If Delphi gets its way, every other supplier and automaker with UAW labor contracts will seek to to match the terms of Delphi's court-ordered labor agreement, Keller said.
"I don't know how any of this will be resolved except to say that, ultimately, UAW workers are going to get paid less and they're going to have fewer benefits," she said.
"It doesn't have to mean the end of the UAW. But it certainly means that the promise that somebody could have an upper-middle income compensation within the auto industry is over," she added, referring to hourly or blue-collar workers.
In court papers filed over the weekend, Delphi said it would ask a judge to void its labor contracts if it cannot reach a restructuring agreement with its unions by mid-December. The company said it plans to submit written proposed contract changes to the unions on or before Oct. 21.
Shaiken warned that the UAW remains a force to be reckoned with, however, and said the outcome of the Delphi bankruptcy was far from certain.
"Because they (Delphi) have considerable leverage at a moment of bankruptcy is not the same as saying the UAW is out of the game," Shaiken said.
Among other tactics, he said the UAW could stage potentially crippling strikes, affecting not just Delphi but the industry at large, if the union sees itself as having nothing left to lose.
"There is more than one way out of this canyon they are in right now," said Shaiken, referring to the UAW and the possibility that it could still reach a negotiated settlement with Delphi in the coming weeks.
"They're going to try to make an argument that simply cutting wages, slashing benefits, etc., is not the only way to go. Whether the bankruptcy judge buys that remains an open question."
If things do swing Delphi's way, it seems clear that even GM -- its potential courtroom adversary -- would be happy, however. Globalization could finally signal an end to what Detroit auto executives often bemoan as their onerous labor costs and "Cadillac-style" UAW benefits.
"The choice is no longer between keeping the same job or keeping the same job at a lower wage," GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz told local radio on Monday. "The choice is now keeping the same job at less compensation or having no jobs at all in this country."
One in eight Americans depend on the auto industry directly or indirectly for their livelihoods, Shaiken said.
Copyright ©The Auto Channel
Delphi pensions underfunded: fed agency
Tuesday October 11, 5:36 PM EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pensions at bankrupt auto parts supplier Delphi Corp. (DPHIQ) are under funded by an estimated $10.8 billion, the federal agency that insures corporate retirement accounts said on Tuesday.
Should Delphi decide to terminate its pension obligations during Chapter 11, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. said it would cover less than half of the shortfall, $4.1 billion.
Underfunding is the difference between plan assets and what a company has promised in benefits. Delphi pension assets are roughly $9 billion, the agency said.
The deficit cited by the PBGC is sharply higher than the Delphi's latest figure of $4.3 billion at the end of 2004 because the government calculates what it would cost the company to cover the difference with private insurance.
The pension agency insures defined benefit plans, a dying feature of old-economy companies that usually promises a generous, fixed monthly payment. More than 40 million people participate in these plans.
Delphi, the largest domestic parts supplier, filed the biggest bankruptcy petition in U.S. automotive history on Saturday in New York. The company has been hurt by high wage and benefit costs and market share losses at GM that lowered demand for its parts.
It was the latest blockbuster insolvency in the transportation sector this fall, following bankruptcy filings by Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL) and Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWACQ) in September. Both of those companies have multibillion-dollar pension shortfalls as well.
Analysts believe that Delphi, based in Troy, Michigan, will push its pension deficit on to the deficit-ridden federal insurance programs like big steel companies and major airlines -- including bankrupt United Airlines, a unit of UAL Corp. (UALAQ) -- have done in recent years.
Delphi's pension picture is complicated by its close relationship with its biggest customer, General Motors Corp. (GM). GM spun off Delphi in 1999 and may be called to back some benefits. GM says its range of exposure under guarantees it made to Delphi extends from "no material impact" to $11 billion.
A spokeswoman for Delphi, Claudia Baucus, said the future of its pensions is unresolved. The company considers the matter on the table in bankruptcy and could negotiate an agreement with labor. Delphi could also choose to default to the PBGC.
"It still needs to be addressed with unions and GM," Baucus said. "We're going to be discussing this issue in the coming months."
Baucus said Delphi is current on its contribution schedule, having invested $625 million in its pensions last June. The payment deadline for 2006 is next June. While many companies with pension plan troubles continue to make contributions, retirement accounts lost billions of dollars when stocks and other market-based returns weakened earlier this decade.
What remains unclear is whether legislation working its way through both houses of Congress to overhaul pension funding rules and hold companies more accountable for keeping their promises would impact Delphi.
One proposal would help Delta and Northwest put off contributions but so far there is nothing in either House or Senate bills to help any other industry.
©2005 Reuters Limited.
Nasdaq slips, Dow gains limited
Tuesday October 11, 7:46 PM EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The tech-laden Nasdaq fell on Tuesday to a 3-month low on weakness in semiconductor stocks, while the Dow's gains were limited by concerns about corporate profits and rising crude prices.
The Dow's biggest boost came from International Business Machines Corp., which rose 2.4 percent, or $1.94, to $83.19 on the New York Stock Exchange. Credit Suisse First Boston raised its investment rating on IBM. Citigroup upgraded IBM on Monday.
After the closing bell, shares of Apple Computer Inc. slid more than 10 percent to $46.20 in after-hours trading on the Inet electronic brokerage system after the computer maker reported quarterly revenue that fell short of Wall Street expectations. It closed on Nasdaq at $51.59, up 2.4 percent.
"Expectations for Apple's results were pretty high, and they needed to beat estimates for us to see a boost in the stock this afternoon. Revenue came a bit lower than expected and that's why we are seeing Apple dip a bit," Jim Fisher, a fund manager at Univest Wealth Management who owns Apple shares, said.
During the regular session, a drop in Xilinx Inc., a maker of programmable microchips, and other semiconductor stocks cast a shadow over the Nasdaq for the second straight day. Xilinx, down 3.1 percent at $22.07, extended Monday's slide after it cut its sales estimate for the September quarter.
The Dow Jones industrial average was up 14.41 points, or 0.14 percent, to end at 10,253.17. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 2.46 points, or 0.21 percent, at 1,184.87. The technology-laced Nasdaq Composite Index was down 17.83 points, or 0.86 percent, at 2,061.09.
"We need to see a decent number of earnings coming through with good numbers before we see the market able to hold a rally," said Larry Peruzzi, senior equity trader at The Boston Co. Asset Management, a Mellon subsidiary.
The Dow climbed as high as 10,312.88 earlier in the day.
SigmaTel Inc., which supplies memory chips for Apple iPod Shuffles, sank 20.5 percent, or $3.52, to $13.69 on Nasdaq after a profit warning on Monday.
Shares of General Motors Corp. gained after U.S. antitrust authorities said they would not oppose a plan by billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian to increase his stake in GM. Shares of GM rose 3.7 percent, or 94 cents, to $26.42 on the NYSE and helped the Dow finish higher.
Alcoa launched the quarterly earnings reporting period on Monday, with the aluminum maker posting better-than-expected results. Its shares rose less than 1 percent, or 19 cents, to $22.85 on the NYSE.
Rising oil prices also may have discouraged some investors from loading up on stocks. U.S. crude oil for November delivery surged $1.73 to settle at $63.53 a barrel.
But the jump in oil prices buoyed the shares of oil company Exxon Mobil Corp., which gained 1.5 percent, or 90 cents, to $59.40 on the NYSE. Exxon was the Dow's third-biggest positive influence.
The Nasdaq's biggest percentage gainer was RealNetworks Inc., up 34.2 percent, or $1.96, at $7.70 after Microsoft Corp. said it would pay $761 million to settle an antitrust dispute with the Internet media software company. Microsoft shares dipped 0.2 percent, or 5 cents, to $24.41.
Minutes from the last Federal Reserve meeting, released Tuesday afternoon, eased some investor concerns about more aggressive interest-rate hikes. Investors were relieved that the Fed will keep to its pledge of raising interest rates at a "measured pace."
The policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee raised the fed funds rate by a quarter-percentage point on September 20.
"I think people are perceiving that the worst is baked in. But it's inevitable that we're going to have more rate hikes," said Mike O'Hare, head of listed trading at Lehman Brothers.
Trading was heavy on the New York Stock Exchange where decliners beat gainers by a little less than 2 to 1. About 1.73 billion shares were traded, above the 1.46 billion daily average for last year.
On Nasdaq, decliners outnumbered gainers by a ratio of 2.5 to 1, with about 1.88 billion shares changing hands, almost matching the 1.81 billion daily average last year.
©2005 Reuters Limited.
Northwest seeks to void labor contracts
Wednesday October 12, 3:00 PM EDT
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWACQ) on Wednesday said it has asked a bankruptcy judge for permission to void its labor contracts if its employee unions do not agree to concessions worth $1.4 billion a year.
The annual labor reductions would be part of $2.5 billion in overall savings the No. 4 U.S. airline would seek through steps including the return of passenger jets with leases that are too expensive, Northwest said in a statement.
"We must quickly reduce our labor costs by $1.4 billion annually," Northwest's Chief Executive Doug Steenland said in a statement. "Our court motion gives union leaders and Northwest management time to reach the necessary agreements, before the court would be compelled to intervene and impose new contracts."
Most of the U.S airline industry has been battered by weak revenue and soaring fuel costs. Northwest and No. 3 U.S. carrier Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL) filed for bankruptcy protection in September.
"Northwest has been losing a fair amount of money for a while now," said Standard & Poor's analyst Philip Baggaley. "I expect they feel they need to move forward quickly on these cost savings given where fuel prices are and going into the weak winter season."
Companies in bankruptcy can use court protection as leverage to extract savings from their labor forces that otherwise might be unattainable. Unions at UAL Corp's (UALAQ) bankrupt United Airlines, for example, agreed to wage and benefit concessions this year after the carrier asked for court permission to void its labor contracts.
Northwest also said it plans to freeze its defined benefit plan and implement a cheaper defined contribution plan that would take effect when the airline exits bankruptcy. Northwest now faces unfunded pension liabilities of about $3.8 billion, of which almost $3 billion is due between 2005 and 2007.
Will Holman, spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association, said Northwest's action was expected and the union is hopeful of reaching a consensual deal with Northwest.
"We viewed it as a matter of when, not if," Holman said. Northwest has asked the pilots for $358 million in savings in addition to earlier concessions.
In a court filing, Northwest complained that its labor costs are the highest in the industry, putting the carrier at a distinct competitive disadvantage.
The company said such expenses have contributed to losses that will exceed $1 billion for the first nine months of 2005.
"Time has run out. Northwest must achieve competitive labor costs quickly or it too faces the prospect of failure," the carrier said in the filing.
Northwest has already managed to achieve some of its labor cost savings by replacing its 4,400 striking mechanics and related staff with cheaper workers and outside vendors.
The mechanics represented by the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association have been on strike since August after failing to agree on a contract with Northwest. AMFA said its negotiating committee would meet with Northwest's management on Thursday to discuss the status of their dispute and to see if open issues could be resolved.
The carrier said its salaried and management employees also would take a second round of pay and benefits reductions in the near future.
Another cost-savings measure would be cutting the late fall schedule. Along with previously announced reductions, Northwest anticipates that its fourth-quarter system mainline capacity would be down 7 percent to 8 percent from a year earlier.
Northwest said it would cut domestic mainline capacity by 9 percent to 10 percent and international mainline capacity by 4 percent to 5 percent.
The company is planning additional schedule reductions beginning in January. The airline said it expects its first-quarter 2006 system mainline capacity to be down 11 percent to 13 percent. Eventually, the Northwest mainline flight schedule could be reduced by as much as 15 percent or more, the carrier said.
©2005 Reuters Limited.
Harriet Miers's nomination resulted from a failed vetting process.
Thursday, October 13, 2005 12:01 a.m.
"There's a standard vetting process that we go through with all nominees."--White House spokesman Scott McClellan
"The president is very, very confident in his judgments about people, and he likes to reward loyalty."--Brad Berenson, an associate White House counsel in the first Bush term
President Bush has told friends that he learned how to manage from three places: Harvard Business School, his experiences working in the Texas oilfields and with baseball teams, and from watching his father. In all three places he learned valuable skills: flexibility, the importance of team effort, discretion, how to delegate. The one thing he apparently didn't learn was that you never short-circuit the standard vetting process when filling an important job, even when doing so has worked out in the past.
The vetting of Harriet Miers leaves questions that demand answers, not more spin or allegations that critics are "sexist" or "elitist." It was so botched and riddled with conflicts of interest that it demands at a minimum an internal White House investigation to ensure it won't happen again.
Not only did the vetting fail to anticipate skepticism about her lack of experience in constitutional law or the firestorm of criticism from conservatives, but it left the White House scrambling to provide reporters with even the most basic information about the closed-mouthed nominee. Almost every news story seemed to catch the White House off guard and unprepared.
The skepticism is not abating. Back home, the Liberty Legal Institute, the only conservative legal foundation in Texas, has declined to endorse her. Several large GOP donors in Texas have met to discuss spending large sums to run ads calling on Ms. Miers to withdraw. "They include both male and female friends of hers who don't think the confirmation process will be good for her or the country," one told me. "They're not sexists, they're realists." This even though the White House has ominously put out the word in Texas: "If you oppose this nomination, you oppose the president." Everyone knows what the political ramifications of that can mean in the world of George W. Bush and Karl Rove.
How could this have happened? In his Harvard Business School courses, Mr. Bush was taught the importance of fully vetting job candidates. In 2000, when he was preparing to name his running mate, he conducted a months-long vetting process that had a couple of dozen top political players copying tax records, speeches and medical files and filling out an exhaustive questionnaire. In the end, Dick Cheney, the man in charge of the vetting, got the job. To preserve the secrecy Mr. Bush loves, he wasn't replaced when he was asked to consider joining the ticket. So Mr. Bush relied upon his friend to evaluate his own shortcomings.
A real vetting process involves sitting down with potential nominees and grilling them with hard-charging and probing questions that go beyond the existing paper trail--or, in the case of Harriet Miers, the lack of a paper trail. In picking his No. 2, Mr. Bush personally handled the questioning of Mr. Cheney. But the strong "comfort level" he had with him would have predisposed him to avoid no-holds-barred questions. "I expect Cheney tried to be candid, but no one can truly scrutinize their own past--there is too much room for judgment, interpretation, wishful thinking, self-deception," says Steven Lubet, a professor of legal ethics at Northwestern University.
In Mr. Cheney's case, Mr. Bush was lucky. He picked someone who had previously been vetted for secretary of defense, someone who had a 30-year public record and a nationwide reservoir of respect. But mistakes were made. No one anticipated all the questions about Halliburton, the construction company he led as CEO. Columnist Robert Novak reported that no one had even checked Mr. Cheney's House voting record, which included votes against South African sanctions and funding for Head Start. "But in the end, Bush thought the Cheney pick worked out so well the seeds for the Miers decision were sown in that impulsive process," Mr. Novak told me.
The Miers pick had its origin in the selection of John Roberts last July. Ms. Miers was praised for her role in selecting him and the wildly positive reaction. At that point, a senior White House official told the Washington Post that William K. Kelley, the deputy White House counsel who had been appointed to his post only the month before, stepped in. The Post reported that Mr. Kelley "suggested to [White House Chief of Staff] Andy Card that Miers ought to be considered for the next seat that opened."
To most people's surprise, that happened with stunning swiftness when Chief Justice William Rehnquist died Sept. 3. Judge Roberts's nomination was shifted to fill the vacancy for chief justice, thus opening up the seat of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. A quick political consensus developed around the White House that the nominee should be a woman.
Even though several highly regarded female lawyers were on Mr. Bush's short list, President Bush and Mr. Card discussed the idea of adding Ms. Miers. Mr. Card was enthusiastic about the idea. The New York Times reported that he "then directed Ms. Miers' deputy . . . to vet her behind her back."
For about two weeks, Mr. Kelley conducted a vetting he has described to friends as thorough. It wasn't. A former Justice Department official calls it "barely adequate for a nominee to a federal appeals court." One Texas lawyer called by the White House was struck by the fact "that the people who were calling about someone from Texas and serving a Texas president knew so little about Texas." (Mr. Kelley didn't return my telephone calls.)
It is unlikely that the vetting fully explored issues surrounding Ms. Miers that are sure to figure in her confirmation hearings, such as her work as Mr. Bush's personal lawyer. Another issue will involve Ms. Miers's tenure as head of the Texas Lottery Commission, where lottery director Nora Linares was fired in a scandal involving influence-peddling and lottery contracts. In a curious move, the White House announced this week that regarding the Linares matter, "Harriet Miers has never commented and will not now on what was a personnel matter." That is unlikely to remain a tenable position.
Regardless of whether or not the vetting process was complete, it presented impossible conflicts of interest. Consider the position that Mr. Bush and Mr. Card put Mr. Kelley in. He would be a leading candidate to become White House counsel if Ms. Miers was promoted. He had an interest in not going against his earlier recommendation of her for the Supreme Court, or in angering President Bush, Ms. Miers's close friend. As journalist Jonathan Larsen has pointed out he also might not have wanted to "bring to light negative information that could torpedo her nomination, keeping her in the very job where she would be best positioned to punish Kelley were she to discover his role in vetting her."
Mr. Lubet, the Northwestern professor, says "all the built-in incentives" of the vetting process were perverse. "In business you make an effort to have disinterested directors who know all the material facts to resolve conflicts of interest," he told me. "In the Miers pick, the White House was sowing its own minefield."
"It was a disaster waiting to happen," says G. Calvin Mackenzie, a professor at Colby College in Maine who specializes in presidential appointments. "You are evaluating a close friend of the president, under pressure to keep it secret even internally and thus limiting the outside advice you get."
Indeed, even internal advice was shunned. Mr. Card is said to have shouted down objections to Ms. Miers at staff meetings. A senator attending the White House swearing-in of John Roberts four days before the Miers selection was announced was struck by how depressed White House staffers were during discussion of the next nominee. He says their reaction to him could have been characterized as, "Oh brother, you have no idea what's coming."
A last minute effort was made to block the choice of Ms. Miers, including the offices of Vice President Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. It fell on deaf ears. First Lady Laura Bush, who went to Southern Methodist University at the same time as Ms. Miers, weighed in. On Sunday night, the president dined with Ms. Miers and the first lady to celebrate the nomination of what one presidential aide inartfully praised to me as that of "a female trailblazer who will walk in the footsteps of President Bush."
Although President Bush is ultimately responsible for the increasingly untenable selection, the nominee bears some responsibility. She could have, as blogger Mickey Kaus has suggested, told the president to appoint her to a federal appeals court with the understanding she would be on the short list for the next Supreme Court vacancy. Or she might have said. "That's very flattering, Mr. President. Maybe another time after I'm in another job. But right now I need to keep my wits about me and give you the best possible advice I can about the other candidates. That's my one and only job, and I don't want to blow it."
She did, he did, and the Senate must now deal with a nominee who keeps her thoughts so close to her vest that the number of people outside the White House who have ever discussed judicial philosophy with her appear to be countable on the fingers of one hand. Jim Martin, the man she was engaged to for a year after law school, told the Dallas Morning News they didn't discuss politics and she rarely shared her private thoughts or ambitions. "Harriet was content to be focused on the job at hand," he told the News. "She thought if you do the best job you can, everything will take care of itself."
Things have certainly worked out well for Harriet Miers. But even some of her friends wonder if her Super Glue closeness to the man who appointed her represents the best vehicle or role model to promote the advancement of women in the legal profession. Harriet Miers has taken care of herself. But what about the country?
Copyright © 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Harriet Miers's nomination resulted from a failed vetting process.
Thursday, October 13, 2005 12:01 a.m.
"There's a standard vetting process that we go through with all nominees."--White House spokesman Scott McClellan
"The president is very, very confident in his judgments about people, and he likes to reward loyalty."--Brad Berenson, an associate White House counsel in the first Bush term
President Bush has told friends that he learned how to manage from three places: Harvard Business School, his experiences working in the Texas oilfields and with baseball teams, and from watching his father. In all three places he learned valuable skills: flexibility, the importance of team effort, discretion, how to delegate. The one thing he apparently didn't learn was that you never short-circuit the standard vetting process when filling an important job, even when doing so has worked out in the past.
The vetting of Harriet Miers leaves questions that demand answers, not more spin or allegations that critics are "sexist" or "elitist." It was so botched and riddled with conflicts of interest that it demands at a minimum an internal White House investigation to ensure it won't happen again.
Not only did the vetting fail to anticipate skepticism about her lack of experience in constitutional law or the firestorm of criticism from conservatives, but it left the White House scrambling to provide reporters with even the most basic information about the closed-mouthed nominee. Almost every news story seemed to catch the White House off guard and unprepared.
The skepticism is not abating. Back home, the Liberty Legal Institute, the only conservative legal foundation in Texas, has declined to endorse her. Several large GOP donors in Texas have met to discuss spending large sums to run ads calling on Ms. Miers to withdraw. "They include both male and female friends of hers who don't think the confirmation process will be good for her or the country," one told me. "They're not sexists, they're realists." This even though the White House has ominously put out the word in Texas: "If you oppose this nomination, you oppose the president." Everyone knows what the political ramifications of that can mean in the world of George W. Bush and Karl Rove.
How could this have happened? In his Harvard Business School courses, Mr. Bush was taught the importance of fully vetting job candidates. In 2000, when he was preparing to name his running mate, he conducted a months-long vetting process that had a couple of dozen top political players copying tax records, speeches and medical files and filling out an exhaustive questionnaire. In the end, Dick Cheney, the man in charge of the vetting, got the job. To preserve the secrecy Mr. Bush loves, he wasn't replaced when he was asked to consider joining the ticket. So Mr. Bush relied upon his friend to evaluate his own shortcomings.
A real vetting process involves sitting down with potential nominees and grilling them with hard-charging and probing questions that go beyond the existing paper trail--or, in the case of Harriet Miers, the lack of a paper trail. In picking his No. 2, Mr. Bush personally handled the questioning of Mr. Cheney. But the strong "comfort level" he had with him would have predisposed him to avoid no-holds-barred questions. "I expect Cheney tried to be candid, but no one can truly scrutinize their own past--there is too much room for judgment, interpretation, wishful thinking, self-deception," says Steven Lubet, a professor of legal ethics at Northwestern University.
In Mr. Cheney's case, Mr. Bush was lucky. He picked someone who had previously been vetted for secretary of defense, someone who had a 30-year public record and a nationwide reservoir of respect. But mistakes were made. No one anticipated all the questions about Halliburton, the construction company he led as CEO. Columnist Robert Novak reported that no one had even checked Mr. Cheney's House voting record, which included votes against South African sanctions and funding for Head Start. "But in the end, Bush thought the Cheney pick worked out so well the seeds for the Miers decision were sown in that impulsive process," Mr. Novak told me.
The Miers pick had its origin in the selection of John Roberts last July. Ms. Miers was praised for her role in selecting him and the wildly positive reaction. At that point, a senior White House official told the Washington Post that William K. Kelley, the deputy White House counsel who had been appointed to his post only the month before, stepped in. The Post reported that Mr. Kelley "suggested to [White House Chief of Staff] Andy Card that Miers ought to be considered for the next seat that opened."
To most people's surprise, that happened with stunning swiftness when Chief Justice William Rehnquist died Sept. 3. Judge Roberts's nomination was shifted to fill the vacancy for chief justice, thus opening up the seat of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. A quick political consensus developed around the White House that the nominee should be a woman.
Even though several highly regarded female lawyers were on Mr. Bush's short list, President Bush and Mr. Card discussed the idea of adding Ms. Miers. Mr. Card was enthusiastic about the idea. The New York Times reported that he "then directed Ms. Miers' deputy . . . to vet her behind her back."
For about two weeks, Mr. Kelley conducted a vetting he has described to friends as thorough. It wasn't. A former Justice Department official calls it "barely adequate for a nominee to a federal appeals court." One Texas lawyer called by the White House was struck by the fact "that the people who were calling about someone from Texas and serving a Texas president knew so little about Texas." (Mr. Kelley didn't return my telephone calls.)
It is unlikely that the vetting fully explored issues surrounding Ms. Miers that are sure to figure in her confirmation hearings, such as her work as Mr. Bush's personal lawyer. Another issue will involve Ms. Miers's tenure as head of the Texas Lottery Commission, where lottery director Nora Linares was fired in a scandal involving influence-peddling and lottery contracts. In a curious move, the White House announced this week that regarding the Linares matter, "Harriet Miers has never commented and will not now on what was a personnel matter." That is unlikely to remain a tenable position.
Regardless of whether or not the vetting process was complete, it presented impossible conflicts of interest. Consider the position that Mr. Bush and Mr. Card put Mr. Kelley in. He would be a leading candidate to become White House counsel if Ms. Miers was promoted. He had an interest in not going against his earlier recommendation of her for the Supreme Court, or in angering President Bush, Ms. Miers's close friend. As journalist Jonathan Larsen has pointed out he also might not have wanted to "bring to light negative information that could torpedo her nomination, keeping her in the very job where she would be best positioned to punish Kelley were she to discover his role in vetting her."
Mr. Lubet, the Northwestern professor, says "all the built-in incentives" of the vetting process were perverse. "In business you make an effort to have disinterested directors who know all the material facts to resolve conflicts of interest," he told me. "In the Miers pick, the White House was sowing its own minefield."
"It was a disaster waiting to happen," says G. Calvin Mackenzie, a professor at Colby College in Maine who specializes in presidential appointments. "You are evaluating a close friend of the president, under pressure to keep it secret even internally and thus limiting the outside advice you get."
Indeed, even internal advice was shunned. Mr. Card is said to have shouted down objections to Ms. Miers at staff meetings. A senator attending the White House swearing-in of John Roberts four days before the Miers selection was announced was struck by how depressed White House staffers were during discussion of the next nominee. He says their reaction to him could have been characterized as, "Oh brother, you have no idea what's coming."
A last minute effort was made to block the choice of Ms. Miers, including the offices of Vice President Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. It fell on deaf ears. First Lady Laura Bush, who went to Southern Methodist University at the same time as Ms. Miers, weighed in. On Sunday night, the president dined with Ms. Miers and the first lady to celebrate the nomination of what one presidential aide inartfully praised to me as that of "a female trailblazer who will walk in the footsteps of President Bush."
Although President Bush is ultimately responsible for the increasingly untenable selection, the nominee bears some responsibility. She could have, as blogger Mickey Kaus has suggested, told the president to appoint her to a federal appeals court with the understanding she would be on the short list for the next Supreme Court vacancy. Or she might have said. "That's very flattering, Mr. President. Maybe another time after I'm in another job. But right now I need to keep my wits about me and give you the best possible advice I can about the other candidates. That's my one and only job, and I don't want to blow it."
She did, he did, and the Senate must now deal with a nominee who keeps her thoughts so close to her vest that the number of people outside the White House who have ever discussed judicial philosophy with her appear to be countable on the fingers of one hand. Jim Martin, the man she was engaged to for a year after law school, told the Dallas Morning News they didn't discuss politics and she rarely shared her private thoughts or ambitions. "Harriet was content to be focused on the job at hand," he told the News. "She thought if you do the best job you can, everything will take care of itself."
Things have certainly worked out well for Harriet Miers. But even some of her friends wonder if her Super Glue closeness to the man who appointed her represents the best vehicle or role model to promote the advancement of women in the legal profession. Harriet Miers has taken care of herself. But what about the country?
Copyright © 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
American Dream at stake in Delphi-UAW showdown
Sun Oct 16, 2005 1:21 PM ET
DETROIT (Reuters) - At first glance, the showdown between turnaround specialist Steve Miller and organized labor would seem to be good news for the U.S. auto industry. For auto workers, though, it could mean the end of the American Dream.
The hard-charging Miller, who took over as chief executive at giant auto parts maker Delphi Corp. <DPHIQ.PK> in July, and steered it into Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 8, wants steep wage and benefit concessions from the United Auto Workers and other unions as part of its reorganization.
If he gets what he wants, it could open the door to dramatic cuts in pay and benefits for UAW-protected hourly workers at General Motors Corp. <GM.N> and Ford Motor Co. <F.N>, giving Detroit's distressed automakers sorely needed labor-cost relief.
At the very least, Delphi could exert strong influence on the UAW's negotiations with GM, Ford and the Chrysler arm of DaimlerChrysler <DCXn.DE> <DCX.N>, when new labor contracts are hammered out in 2007.
"More than anything it tells the UAW that their bargaining power is gone," said David Cole, who heads the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based, Center for Automotive Research. "The market is defining wages and benefits of the future and the best they can hope for is to work collaboratively with the companies to survive."
By indicating that he wants to slash UAW wages of $27.50 to as little as $10 an hour, Miller is asking for a fight, however, and UAW leaders have already warned that he may face a potentially crippling strike. In Detroit, where working-class Americans have long been able to lift themselves into the middle-class through well-paid jobs in the auto industry, he also risks becoming Public Enemy No. 1.
Until now the UAW, which is Delphi's largest union, has enjoyed wages and benefits that are the gold standard of industrial America, even as other unions including the Teamsters and United Steelworkers suffered serious setbacks. But with Miller, who took Bethlehem Steel into bankruptcy in 2001, the good times may finally be over.
"THE GREAT AMERICAN DREAM"
In remarks last week, which angered the UAW's leaders, Miller said globalization had swept over the workers in Delphi's factories, effectively ending their pursuit of "the Great American Dream."
His trump card lies in the fact that he could quickly start selling off Delphi's assets. Apart from job losses, shortages of key components could have an industry wide impact. GM, former parent of the top U.S. parts supplier, is its biggest customer and most vulnerable.
"If we do all this right, Delphi will remain one of the world's leading global automotive suppliers," Miller said. "But if we do it badly, Delphi may be broken up into small pieces. The impact of the collapse could potentially injure most of the world's automakers and perhaps fatally wound General Motors."
Henry Ford was credited with a stroke of genius by creating a whole new group of consumers for his company's products back in 1914. Ford doubled the pay of his workers, saying he wanted them to make enough to buy the Model T's they built. But 91 years later Delphi workers could soon find a new car, built with the parts they produce, totally out of their reach.
"This is a total reversal of Henry Ford's landmark insight," said Alan Tonelson, a research fellow with the U.S. Business and Industry Council, who blames many of the domestic auto industry's problems on bad U.S. trade policy, outsourcing and globalization, not U.S. labor costs.
"You have these U.S. parts companies and the U.S. automakers themselves trapped in this cost-cutting spiral which winds up driving down the wages of many of the customers that they're relying on to buy their products," he said.
"The bottom line that Delphi and companies like it seem to be serving up is that it is not possible to manufacture sophisticated products in the United States while paying First World costs. But that is not an acceptable message for this country," he said.
"Whether it be in the trade union movement or the captains of industry, the vision that we have for America ought to be for a better America," said Richard Shoemaker, the UAW vice president responsible for contract negotiations with both GM and Delphi.
"It ought to be a vision of how we make life better for those people that live here; not a vision for dismantling the manufacturing base and taking the quality of life that we've known and enjoyed down to that of a Third World country," Shoemaker told Reuters.
He did not elaborate, but the UAW's membership has fallen by about half from a peak of 1.5 million in the 1970s as the number of well-paid, unskilled manufacturing jobs declined across America.
© Reuters 2005.
an article from the The Tennessean.
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Temporary workers get hefty share of new jobs
Rutherford County has led the nation in job growth, but companies add positions they can fill with temp workers — lower wages, fewer benefits.
Published: Sunday, 10/16/05
SMYRNA —After a 10-year hiatus as a stay-at-home mom, Teresa Henry re-entered the job market four years ago and discovered things had changed.
Instead of hiring on directly with a warehouse company, she had to go through a temporary employment service to land one of the many warehouse jobs in Rutherford County.
She started working at Goggin Express warehouse about a year and a half ago and hopes to become a permanent employee in about six months.
Henry is part of a growing trend in today's labor force. She's a full-time temporary worker, in search of a permanent job.
Temporary service employment is one of the fastest-growing job sectors in the nation.
Rutherford County is one of the more prominent examples of this trend.
For the past year, the county enjoyed some of the fastest job growth in the nation. It added 6,500 jobs last year, racking up a nation-leading 8.9% job growth rate in the fourth quarter and a 7.9% rate for the whole year.
The county's growth rate in manufacturing jobs, 4.6%, was better than that of 40 states, and average annual wages for all industries topped $35,000, a 2.4% increase.
But lurking beneath those rosy numbers is this statistic: Almost half of the jobs created in the county last year were through temporary help agencies, jobs that aren't known for high wages or generous benefits.
A segment that accounts for about 6% of all jobs in the Rutherford County provided about 45% of the job growth last year.
The trend toward temporary workers has been boosted by manufacturers who have discovered that they can apply the same cost-cutting principles of "just-in-time" inventory control to their work force, said Jared Bernstein, a senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute.
"At a time like this, it signals a type of job growth that's more likely to meet employers' needs versus workers' needs," Bernstein said.
Companies such as Nissan North America in Smyrna and its suppliers across the Midstate use temporary workers for special projects or to supply manpower when production demand is high.
"It's a peaks-and-valleys type situation," Nissan Human Resources Director Mark Stout said. "It's really important to us to have that flexibility in this tough environment."
Flexibility is a key focus, Stout said. There are jobs at Nissan that don't require year-round attention. Right now, the company is using temporary staffing firm Randstad to supply engineers, administrative assistants and other white-collar workers for a project aimed at improving the plant's quality scores. It also is using more temporary workers on its production line.
For Nissan, in many instances it's easier to get Randstad to provide workers for a few days, weeks or months, than to go through the task of advertising, interviewing and screening workers and then having to let them go when the job is done.
The same holds true for other companies that use temporary staffing agencies, said Lisa McMahan, who heads Randstad's Smyrna office.
"This is what we do every day," she said. "They're running a business with other facets besides employment. We're able to do the screening quicker. Over the last few years, there are more screens required, drug screens and background checks. We're able to do the references because that's what the main part of our job is."
Nashvillian Leslie Bell said the temporary agency helped her when she started looking for a job.
"I was having a little bit of trouble trying to find a job," she said. "I looked for a month and called a temporary service. They asked me to come out the next day and go to work."
Bell spent a year on Nissan's assembly line, working the night shift building trucks as a temporary worker. She liked the work but hated the hours, so now she's working with Henry packing boxes at the Goggin warehouse in Smyrna while attending Southeastern Career College.
"I'm going to school to be a medical assistant," she said. "It's just something to pay the bills right now."
A souvenir of recession
Although the trend in the use of temporary employees started several decades ago, the slow recovery from the recession of 2000 made many employers reluctant to bring back permanent workers. This was especially so among manufacturers and logistics companies, which account for 30% of all temporary jobs.
"There was enough demand for the goods and services they were producing to warrant bringing some new people on, but they've been uncertain about whether this recovery really had enough legs to warrant permanent hires," Bernstein said. "To avoid those fixed costs, they've relied on temporary workers."
Temporary jobs aren't bad jobs. They often lead to permanent employment and good wages. But in general, they pay 5% to 10% less than similar permanent positions and lack significant health-care and retirement benefits.
"This is a group that doesn't have much bargaining power," Bernstein said. "Typically, the temp worker isn't the one who can hold out for a pay increase. The employer would just as soon replace them with another temp worker."
"One of the motivations for using temp workers is to hold down labor costs,"he said. "That can be helpful for employers but it can be pretty difficult from the perspective of the temp workers themselves."
A study by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics found that only 8% of the people who work through a temporary help service have health-care or pension benefits provided by the service. Some are covered by other plans but more than 60% don't have health-care benefits at all.
Companies such as Randstad and Murfreesboro-based Holland Employment Service offer a variety of health-care benefits to employees, but most temporary workers don't use them.
"A college student who's working a temporary assignment for the summer won't," Jim Holland of Holland Employment said. "But for most temporaries who are looking long term and try to go temp to hire, it's really an opportunity for them to have benefits they may not have otherwise."
Randstad offers a major medical policy that costs $20-$30 a month, but there are few takers.
"We don't see a lot of employees who take advantage of that," McMahan said. "We'd like to see it more for their benefit. … It's not going to be as good ... coverage, but if there was a catastrophe or in an emergency, you're going to have some coverage."
Bell and Henry are covered by their husbands' insurance plans. Henry has worked long enough to qualify for a week's paid vacation and paid holidays. She also gets a raise every six months.
An evolution of the niche
Pay could be improving overall for temporary employees because the Rutherford County job market is tightening, McMahan said.
Wages run between $8 an hour and $9 an hour for non-skilled assembly jobs. Forklift drivers, a hot commodity at Rutherford's plethora of warehouses, can bring in between $9 and $10 an hour, depending on the client.
"The companies that are still in the $9 range are having much more of a difficult time retaining employees than the companies that have realized that we need to pay them closer to what we're going to be bringing them on at," McMahan said.
Rising job growth has been positive for Rutherford County and its efforts to attract better-paying jobs, said Holly Sears, who heads economic development efforts for the Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce.
The chamber began a new initiative two years ago called Destination Rutherford, with the goal of bringing more business services and manufacturing operations to the area.
"I think we're doing a good job," Sears said.
She's not concerned that much of the job growth last year was in temporary jobs because many of them will be converted into permanent positions due to the nature of the business these days.
"I think part of it is that a lot of companies are using temporary workers just for screening and training reasons," Sears said. "That's a growing trend among the manufacturing and distribution sector, especially with the way benefits are increasingly a cost issue when hiring new hires."
"But also what I'm hearing from a lot of the local industries is they are keeping a good part of them and then making them permanent employees," she said.
"It's an evolving economy in Rutherford County," Sears said. "I think we're going to have to continue with some of the evolution of diversifying our economy and continue to bring in different types of manufacturing and more professional services."
an article from the The Tennessean.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Winter heating costs projected to increase
Record prices could result in a 'devastating' winter, TRA chief says
Published: Tuesday, 09/27/05
Gas prices are hitting consumers at the pump, but there's more energy shock to come.
Local natural gas companies yesterday briefed state regulators on record-breaking natural gas prices, expected to be brutal this winter.
"I firmly believe this winter will be devastating,'' said Tennessee Regulatory Authority Chairman Ron Jones, saying the increases will be particularly tough on working families barely able to pay their bills now.
Passing on the cost of rising natural gas prices, Piedmont Natural Gas, the parent company of Nashville Gas, has proposed a 39% increase in Nashville-area consumers' total rates compared to last winter. Piedmont's increase will take effect in November.
Atmos Energy Corp. has proposed an increase this year of about 62%.That doesn't include taxes or customer service charges, which would remain unchanged at $13 for Nashville Gas residential customers and at $6 for Atmos residential customers. This increase is to take effect in October.
Although the TRA must approve the rate increase proposals, approval is expected.
Actual bill increases will vary based on usage, and no one knows how cold it will get this winter.
Natural gas utilities are not the only ones announcing price hikes. Nashville Electric Service already has announced increases of about 8% or 9%, depending on usage, starting in October.
Meanwhile, gasoline prices at the pump in Nashville are more than 50% higher than the same time a year ago.
The American Automobile Association reported regular gasoline averages of $2.81 as of 3 a.m. yesterday in the Nashville area. A spot check yesterday showed a wide variance in prices, from $2.759 per gallon at an Exxon station at West End Avenue and Murphy Road to $2.999 per gallon at Phillips 66 at Wedgwood and 12th Avenue South.
The average wholesale price in Nashville, which distributors pay oil companies, stayed about the same yesterday as over the weekend, according to business information service DTN. Wholesale prices are a good predictor of the next day's retail price.
But some are projecting higher prices at the pump this week as the oil industry continues to assess the damage from the double whammy of two hurricanes back-to-back in the oil-dependent Gulf of Mexico.
"Most areas of the country will see price increases in gasoline this week," said Tom Kloza, analyst at Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J.
Further from now, but potentially just as ominous, are this winter's heating bills.
Years of low prices have acted as a disincentive to drilling for natural gas, while demand has soared as many utilities have adopted natural gas for new power plants.
That combination has driven up the price of natural gas, which utilities in Tennessee pass through to customers without a profit, according to the Tennessee Regulatory Authority. At the end of each year, TRA audits the companies to make sure they passed on their actual cost increases to customers.
Both Piedmont and Atmos Energy told state regulators yesterday that they will set up payment plans for customers who can't pay their full bills. Customers also can request a rolling average bill over a 12-month period to mitigate the spikes from winter bills.
"This is of grave concern to us and our customers,'' said June Moore, vice president of customer service for Piedmont Natural Gas. "We request that customers let us know as early as possible if they are having trouble paying their bills."
With historically high prices, the utility executives yesterday couldn't estimate how many customers would be unable to pay.
The TRA is charged with the responsibility of setting the rates and service standards of privately owned telephone, natural gas, electric and water utilities, according to the state's Web site.
an article from the The Tennessean.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Winter heating costs projected to increase
Record prices could result in a 'devastating' winter, TRA chief says
Published: Tuesday, 09/27/05
Gas prices are hitting consumers at the pump, but there's more energy shock to come.
Local natural gas companies yesterday briefed state regulators on record-breaking natural gas prices, expected to be brutal this winter.
"I firmly believe this winter will be devastating,'' said Tennessee Regulatory Authority Chairman Ron Jones, saying the increases will be particularly tough on working families barely able to pay their bills now.
Passing on the cost of rising natural gas prices, Piedmont Natural Gas, the parent company of Nashville Gas, has proposed a 39% increase in Nashville-area consumers' total rates compared to last winter. Piedmont's increase will take effect in November.
Atmos Energy Corp. has proposed an increase this year of about 62%.That doesn't include taxes or customer service charges, which would remain unchanged at $13 for Nashville Gas residential customers and at $6 for Atmos residential customers. This increase is to take effect in October.
Although the TRA must approve the rate increase proposals, approval is expected.
Actual bill increases will vary based on usage, and no one knows how cold it will get this winter.
Natural gas utilities are not the only ones announcing price hikes. Nashville Electric Service already has announced increases of about 8% or 9%, depending on usage, starting in October.
Meanwhile, gasoline prices at the pump in Nashville are more than 50% higher than the same time a year ago.
The American Automobile Association reported regular gasoline averages of $2.81 as of 3 a.m. yesterday in the Nashville area. A spot check yesterday showed a wide variance in prices, from $2.759 per gallon at an Exxon station at West End Avenue and Murphy Road to $2.999 per gallon at Phillips 66 at Wedgwood and 12th Avenue South.
The average wholesale price in Nashville, which distributors pay oil companies, stayed about the same yesterday as over the weekend, according to business information service DTN. Wholesale prices are a good predictor of the next day's retail price.
But some are projecting higher prices at the pump this week as the oil industry continues to assess the damage from the double whammy of two hurricanes back-to-back in the oil-dependent Gulf of Mexico.
"Most areas of the country will see price increases in gasoline this week," said Tom Kloza, analyst at Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J.
Further from now, but potentially just as ominous, are this winter's heating bills.
Years of low prices have acted as a disincentive to drilling for natural gas, while demand has soared as many utilities have adopted natural gas for new power plants.
That combination has driven up the price of natural gas, which utilities in Tennessee pass through to customers without a profit, according to the Tennessee Regulatory Authority. At the end of each year, TRA audits the companies to make sure they passed on their actual cost increases to customers.
Both Piedmont and Atmos Energy told state regulators yesterday that they will set up payment plans for customers who can't pay their full bills. Customers also can request a rolling average bill over a 12-month period to mitigate the spikes from winter bills.
"This is of grave concern to us and our customers,'' said June Moore, vice president of customer service for Piedmont Natural Gas. "We request that customers let us know as early as possible if they are having trouble paying their bills."
With historically high prices, the utility executives yesterday couldn't estimate how many customers would be unable to pay.
The TRA is charged with the responsibility of setting the rates and service standards of privately owned telephone, natural gas, electric and water utilities, according to the state's Web site.
Sony Chairman: China Is Key to Growth
By ELAINE KURTENBACH
The Associated Press
Monday, October 17, 2005; 10:49 AM
BEIJING -- Sony expects China's fast-expanding market for both entertainment and electronics to be a main source of growth in years to come _ despite the occasional political tension between Japan and China, chief executive Howard Stringer said Monday.
Stringer sidestepped questions about the potential repercussions from a visit by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to a war shrine on Monday that drew immediate protests from both China and South Korea.
In the spring, Chinese resentment over Japanese wartime atrocities decades earlier swelled into violent protests and calls for boycotts of Japanese brand products. Those antagonisms died down as diplomats sought to restore calm, but are bound to resurface in the future.
"Sony is a global company with 70 percent of its earnings outside Japan and so local politics like that is less clear and appropriate for me to comment on," Stringer said at a news conference introducing company strategy in China.
"I have never actually met any Japanese politicians and I seem to be doing fine," said the Welsh-born Stringer, the first foreigner to head Sony.
"We look forward to a continuing strong relationship with China in many years to come and growing our businesses," he said.
During anti-Japanese protests earlier in the year, Sony's China Web page was attacked by hackers. But the Tokyo-based electronics maker said its sales and other business in China were unaffected. Six months on, Japanese products appear just as popular among Chinese as ever.
Sony is on a campaign to build up its image here as a brand that is "more energetic, cooler and much more fashionable than it was only a few years ago," said Kei Kodera, president of Sony (China) Ltd.
Sony products now reach only 10 percent to 20 percent of the population, leaving huge room for growth, he said.
"The fact you have GDP growth of almost 10 percent a year means millions of people are coming to a new stage where they can consume more consumer durable products," Kodera said, likening that growth to the addition of a new European country every year.
"At this moment we are quite confident about growth in China in the next four to five years," Kodera said. "We expect quite steady growth."
To develop products best suited for Chinese consumers, the company is boosting use of local software and designers, Kodera said.
Sony announced a revival plan last month aimed mainly at boosting profits at its loss-making electronics unit by slashing 10,000 jobs or about 6 percent of Sony's global work force by the end of March 2008, closing 11 of its 65 plants and shrinking or eliminating 15 unprofitable electronics operations.
Sony has 21,000 employees in China, almost all of whom are local Chinese, turning out US$4 billion (euro3 billion) worth of products every year. Its electronics sales in China in fiscal 2004 totaled US$3 billion (euro2.5 billion).
Although Sony has not said where the layoffs will be, they will not be in China, Kodera said.
"China is one of the few countries where I believe we are free from restructuring," he said.
© 2005 The Associated Press
$1 out of $5 in 9/11 loans in default
By FRANK BASS
Oct 17, 11:15 PM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Roughly $1 of every $5 in loans the Small Business Administration directly made to companies hurt by the Sept. 11 attacks has fallen into default, leaving the government with an uphill effort to recover millions of dollars in taxpayer money.
The agency is just now learning about the magnitude of businesses that went under or stopped making payments. Its Sept. 11 direct disaster loan program often gave recipients two years before their first payments were due, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
The SBA directly lent $1.2 billion to more than 10,000 companies that made specific arguments about how their businesses were hurt by the suicide hijackings in 2001 that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and damaged the Pentagon in suburban Washington. A plane bound for Washington crashed in rural Pennsylvania.
Of that amount, $245 million is in default, the records show. The SBA investigators consider a loan in default if it has been charged off or liquidated or is more than 60 days delinquent.
SBA officials say they have written off less than $10 million of the default total and will make strong efforts to recover much of the rest of the money by collecting collateral, negotiating settlements with borrowers, or bringing delinquent loans up to date.
The $245 million "does not represent the actual loss to the government, which, because of settlements and recoveries on collateral, will be less than this amount," SBA spokesman Michael Stamler said.
Among the loans already written off, taxpayers are picking up the tab for a $992,000 loan made to an Atlanta hotel; $986,000 to a Florida boat dealer; $620,000 to a Maine broccoli farm; and $38,900 to a Lubbock, Texas, computer store.
Even some who are making their payments are concerned about their recovery.
"Business just isn't doing as well as it was in the past," said Winnie Mou, owner of Manhattan Travel Inc., located about a mile from the World Trade Center site. Her company began paying back its $11,600 loan last year.
Rep. Nydia Velazquez, who represents New York City and is the top Democrat on the House Small Business Committee, wants the SBA to extend the period of time before companies are required to make loan payments, hoping to ease the burden.
"A lot of these companies are just beginning to have to pay back their loans," said Velazquez. "What is the government going to tell them when they can't?"
A second SBA-backed Sept. 11 program, which guaranteed loans made by banks to businesses across the country more broadly hurt by the economic downturn, has a much smaller default rate, records show.
Of the $3.7 billion lent by the Supplemental Terrorist Activity Relief program, only $191 million has been charged off or liquidated or become 60 days overdue. That's a 5 percent default, compared to 20 percent for the SBA's direct lending program.
Historically, other government disaster lending programs have written off about 5 percent of loans. The largest SBA write-off in the last quarter-century came in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, when taxpayers absorbed $122 million of $356 million in loans, slightly more than a third.
The SBA loan programs received increased scrutiny from Congress and elsewhere after an AP story in September disclosed that some companies with Sept. 11 relief loans from banks under the STAR program weren't harmed by the attacks and didn't even know their money was being drawn from the program.
AP also reported that some businesses far removed from New York and Washington - like a Utah dog boutique and a Virgin Islands perfume bar - got loans directly from the SBA while businesses closer to the World Trade Center were either turned down or unaware of the aid.
The SBA says that while some loans might have been made in haste, the agency is vigorously prosecuting people who obtained tax dollars or loan guarantees under false pretenses.
In June, for example, a former New York attorney pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering after receiving a $247,000 SBA loan. The attorney claimed his offices at 40 Wall Street were damaged by the Sept. 11 attacks and the firm lost clients as a result.
A joint investigation with the IRS found that the firm's offices had never been located at that address.
Dow may dip below 10,000 by yearend - JPMorgan
Mon Oct 17, 2005 04:18 PM ET
By Vivianne Rodrigues
NEW YORK, Oct 17 (Reuters) - The Dow Jones industrial average may end 2005 below 10,000 as lower margins and higher interest rates are likely to hurt corporate profits, pushing stock prices down, JPMorgan's global equity analyst Abhijit Chakrabortti said.
"The margin squeeze story is beginning to catch up, and many investors who are betting on a fourth-quarter rally in stocks may be bound for disappointment," he said in an interview.
Chakrabortti said companies in sectors including consumer discretionary, industrials, materials and pulp & paper are among the most vulnerable as "they have no pricing power."
The analyst predicts the current quarter, more than most others in the past two years, has the potential to miss consensus expectations for earnings growth.
"Energy costs are still very high and borrowing costs are also rising, and that is not a supportive combination for companies and of course, their stocks," the analyst said. "We are in a situation where the return on cash investments is increasing, and that is appealing for many investors given the volatility and risks traditionally involved in the equity market."
Federal Reserve policy makers raised the benchmark lending rate 11 times since June 2004 to 3.75 percent in attempt to ward off mounting inflationary pressures as crude oil prices reached record highs.
Higher interest rates may also hurt capital spending and pave the way for further declines in benchmark stock indexes at the start of 2006, Chakrabortti added. The three most widely-watched stock indexes in the U.S. are down for the year. The Dow Jones lost 4.2 percent, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index slid 1.9 percent. The technology-laced Nasdaq Composite is down 4.9 percent.
"The start of 2006 is not looking good for the U.S. equity market," said Chakrabortti. "Still, there are some bright spots."
Chakrabortti said investors should favor stocks in the aerospace, defense, consumer staples and food and beverage sectors. Investors should also favor shares in oil equipment and refineries, as well as foreign stocks in countries including Japan, he said.
"The largest companies in those sectors are very well managed and are in good position to absorb higher rates," he said. "As for international stocks, I would simply just buy Japanese stocks and wait a while - it will pay off."
Big spender Bush runs out of credit with conservative allies
By Bronwen Maddox
The Times October 18, 2005
YOU can almost see power sliding from the White House to Republicans on Capitol Hill. Their problem is that they don’t know how to use it.
Many Republicans in Congress are appalled at President Bush’s handling of Iraq, Supreme Court appointments and Hurricane Katrina. They are jittery about the effects on their own electoral chances.
So far, this has liberated them mainly to feud with each other. But it has suddenly put within reach changes in policy which had seemed taboo.
This week, some Republicans in the House of Representatives will draw up a list of up to $50 billion (£28 million) of cuts in next year’s budget. Their target is programmes that have until now been sacrosanct — healthcare for the poor, food stamps and farm support.
With mid-term elections in the House and Senate just over a year from now, that is risky, even though Democrats face a tough battle to regain a majority in either house. Republican leaders have resisted until now. But this week’s moves mark a rebellion by conservatives worried at the President’s expensive interpretation of Republicanism.
For the five years of Bush’s presidency, a large bloc of Republicans in Congress has been uneasy about his high-spending policies. Bush predicted that his huge tax cuts would restrain spending; they didn’t.
The federal budget has gone up by a third to $2.47 trillion since he came to power. This summer’s $286 billion Transportation Bill was an exercise in indulgence, including 6,371 special favours, known as “pork” and worth $24 billion. A surplus has turned into a record deficit.
Fiscal conservatives, who believe that Republicans should pursue small government and balanced budgets, have been appalled. But until now, they have not been in a strong position.
The unpopularity of Newt Gingrich’s “Republican Revolution” in 1994, with its plans to slash the size of government, has made budget-cutting taboo.
So why now? The spark for the budget rebellion came from Hurricane Katrina. Bush offered tens of billions of dollars in aid, without saying how he would pay for it.
At first, the House Majority Leader Tom DeLay backed Bush. He challenged House Republicans to find cuts after so many years of “lean” and “pared-down” government.
Well, they called his bluff, and named them. They saw it as a chance to bounce through cuts in social programmes they had long wanted to make. At the same time, DeLay was removed brutally, if temporarily, from the stage by criminal indictments on charges of misuse of electoral funds. He may yet be back; what matters is that, for now, he is gone.
At present, the budget rebellion is confined to a largeish minority who have always called themselves fiscal conservatives. That is a long way from saying that these cuts will actually be made in the run-up to the mid-terms. Many other Republicans are nervous of earning again the label of the party that cuts social programmes.
But even those who are less exercised about the deficits have been rattled by recent Bush decisions. They can see how support for Iraq is dropping. Many in Congress who supported the war are appalled by the execution of it.
And Harriet Miers? Don’t get them started. The incredulity of the conservative intelligentsia thrusts itself into conversations on any subject.
The question is whether those outside the capital will feel as strongly — or might even warm to her.
Republicans on Capitol Hill are displaying all the panicky incoherence of those used to iron leadership and now suffering its absence. But they do show a common conviction that they now need to save themselves — even if they cannot agree with each other on how that should be done.
Copyright 2005 Times Newspapers Ltd.
Farewell to tax breaks?
Presidential panel presses for simpler income tax paperwork, computations
By Mary Dalrymple
AP Tax Writer
WASHINGTON — Most deductions, credits and other tax breaks would be eliminated along with much of the paperwork and equations that baffle taxpayers under a drastically simplified income tax proposed by a presidential commission on Tuesday.
The President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, charged with developing ideas to make taxes fairer, simpler and more economically productive, endorsed two alternatives for inclusion in a report due Nov. 1.
Both would drastically simplify the tax system for individuals and families but also would rewrite or remove some of the most popular deductions and credits. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, warned the panel that some of the ideas had been promoted, and soundly rejected, before.
"Some of the things they're recommending were hot issues in the 1990s, and they were dropped after being pushed by predecessors of mine very strongly and just didn't get anywhere," he said.
The White House made no commitment to stick to the panel's recommendation when forwarding its tax-simplification proposal to Congress, a move that White House spokesman Scott McClellan said is not expected before next year.
"We're going to take into account all the work that they have done and the recommendations that they are making," McClellan said. "We share a common goal of reforming our tax code to make it simpler and fairer."
President Bush appointed all of the panel's members.
The two alternatives would make nearly identical changes for individuals and families, laid out in a rough outline that left some details undecided. Individuals' investment income and businesses would be treated differently.
Under both plans, three out of four taxpayers would fall into the lowest, 15 percent, tax bracket. Under one plan, individuals would pay no tax on dividends paid by U.S. companies and exclude 75 percent of their capital gains from taxation. Under the second plan, all investment income would be taxed at 15 percent.
Both proposals would abolish the alternative minimum tax, a levy originally drafted to prevent wealthy individuals from escaping taxation but increasingly reaching into the middle class. They also would eliminate federal deductions and credits for mortgage interest, state and local taxes and education, among others.
The nine tax advisers would replace those withdrawn tax breaks with new, simpler benefits, including three savings plans that supplant dozens currently available for retirement, medical expenses and education.
Retirement savings
Individuals could continue to save for retirement by setting aside part of their untaxed salary in a work account. Taxpayers also could stash up to $10,000 each, for a total of $20,000, into a retirement savings account and a family savings account, used for health expenses, education or buying a home.
Two of the biggest tax breaks now available would be limited and redesigned to spread the benefits to more moderate- and low-income taxpayers. The home mortgage interest deduction would be converted to a credit worth 15 percent of interest paid during the year, with a cap on the size of a mortgage eligible for the benefit.
The unlimited tax breaks for health benefits would be limited to total value of health insurance provided to members of Congress, $11,500 in premiums for family coverage and $5,000 for individuals.
The ideas immediately came under fire from Republicans and Democrats worried that taxpayers in their states would lose out under the new rules.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., called both proposals a "bait and switch." "What the panel seems to offer with one hand, it apparently wants to take away with the other," they said.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said eliminating the state and local tax deduction would slap a $12 billion tax on New Yorkers.
Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., and Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Fla., said shrinking homeowners' tax breaks will hurt families in states with expensive housing. "Reducing the interest deduction is a shortsighted attempt to balance budgets on the back of the middle class," they said.
Panelist Charles O. Rossotti, a former Internal Revenue Service commissioner, urged taxpayers and lawmakers not to jump to the conclusion that they would be worse off under their simpler plan.
"Take a look at what your bottom line is," he said.
On the Net: President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, www.taxreformpanel.gov (http://www.taxreformpanel.gov).
Recommended income tax reforms
Options likely to be in the tax panel's final report include:
Simplified income tax:
Four tax brackets would replace the current six, with 75 percent of filers in the lowest 15 percent tax bracket and 75 percent of capital gains on profits from U.S. company stocks tax-free. Under this plan:
The deduction for state and local income, sales and property taxes would die.
The Alternative Minimum Tax projected to hit one third of taxpayers by 2010 would die, too.
The current $1 million home mortgage and $100,000 home equity deductions would be replaced with a mortgage credit for the principal residence, whether the homeowner itemizes or not. The credit would equal the average Federal Housing Administration insured loan by region, which ranges from $172,000 to almost $313,000.
The $500,000-a-couple tax break on profits from home sales would expand to $600,000 and be adjusted for inflation, but any capital gains on a home sale above that limit would be taxed as ordinary income.
Health insurance through work would be tax-free up to $11,500 for families, $5,000 for individuals. Taxpayers without employer-provided coverage would get an equivalent tax break for individual policies they buy. Other fringe benefits would be taxed as income.
A single-family tax credit would replace the plethora of personal exemptions and family tax breaks, and charitable contributions above 1 percent of income could be deducted even by non-itemizers.
Savings accounts for retirement, health and education would be replaced with three savings accounts, all funded with after-tax income that grow tax-free and are tax-free at withdrawal. One would be for workplace retirement savings, the second for personal retirement savings and the third for family savings.
'Progressive consumption' tax
The six tax brackets would shrink to three — 15, 25 and 35 percent — for wages and salary, but investment income would be tax-free. Alternately, capital gains, dividends and interest could be taxed a flat 15 percent rate to ensure that high-income people who live off investments pay at least a little. Under this plan:
A streamlined business tax of 35 percent of cash flow after costs would compensate for ending or lowering individual taxes on dividends and capital gains.
The Alternative Minimum Tax would be eliminated, and a family tax credit similar to the streamlined income tax's provision would adjust for family size.
There would be a similar home-mortgage credit and charity deduction for contributions above 1 percent of income. Health-care benefits through work would be tax-free only up to $8,400 a family, or $4,000 for singles.
— Mary Deibel, Scripps Howard News Service
Copyright 2005 Associated Press.
Australian study finds alcohol linked to croc attacks
Oct 19 1:33 PM US/Eastern
Almost one in three people bitten by deadly saltwater crocodiles in Australia had been drinking alcohol before the animal attacked, new research has found.
An Australian review of unprovoked crocodile attacks on humans between 1971 and 2004 found that 29 percent of the 62 attacks had involved some alcohol consumption by the victim.
"About one-third of the people who had been attacked had actually been drinking alcohol," study co-author Charlie Manolis told AFP Wednesday.
"But it doesn't mean they were ... (drunk) when they fell into the river -- although it did happen."
Manolis said the research found that crocodiles were opportunistic predators and that when people took risks while in their habitat, they sometimes paid the ultimate price.
"Sometimes when people do drink they throw caution to the wind," he said.
The study, published in the US-based Wilderness Medical Society journal, found that fatal attacks had remained roughly stable at about two per year since the 1970s.
"But the number of non-fatal attacks has increased markedly," Manolis said.
Non-fatal attacks increased sharply from about 0.1 per year between 1971 and 1980 to 3.3 per year from 2001 to 2004, according to the study.
The research found that most attacks (81 percent) occurred while the victim was swimming or wading and that all fatal attacks involved water.
Manolis said the dramatic increase in the saltwater crocodile population since the species was protected in the early 1970s was not necessarily responsible for the increase in attacks.
The number of wild "salties" estimated to live in the Northern Territory has jumped from as few as 3,000 in 1971 to more than 75,000 currently.
But he said because the average size of crocodiles had increased over that time, the animals attacking humans had often changed from a small "hatchling" to a four-metre giant weighing hundreds of kilograms.
Last month a man was killed by a five-metre crocodile while diving near Darwin, five days after a British snorkeller was taken and killed by a croc.
But Manolis does not think culling is the answer.
"It's people being sensible," he said.
Copyright AFP 2005
http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/ATA/24822BP.jpg
cowboy
10-19-2005, 03:55 PM
Greg wrote:
Australian study finds alcohol linked to croc attacks
Oct 19 1:33 PM US/Eastern
Almost one in three people bitten by deadly saltwater crocodiles in Australia had been drinking alcohol before the animal attacked, new research has found.
An Australian review of unprovoked crocodile attacks on humans between 1971 and 2004 found that 29 percent of the 62 attacks had involved some alcohol consumption by the victim.
"About one-third of the people who had been attacked had actually been drinking alcohol," study co-author Charlie Manolis told AFP Wednesday.
"But it doesn't mean they were ... (drunk) when they fell into the river -- although it did happen."
Manolis said the research found that crocodiles were opportunistic predators and that when people took risks while in their habitat, they sometimes paid the ultimate price.
"Sometimes when people do drink they throw caution to the wind," he said.
The study, published in the US-based Wilderness Medical Society journal, found that fatal attacks had remained roughly stable at about two per year since the 1970s.
"But the number of non-fatal attacks has increased markedly," Manolis said.
Non-fatal attacks increased sharply from about 0.1 per year between 1971 and 1980 to 3.3 per year from 2001 to 2004, according to the study.
The research found that most attacks (81 percent) occurred while the victim was swimming or wading and that all fatal attacks involved water.
Manolis said the dramatic increase in the saltwater crocodile population since the species was protected in the early 1970s was not necessarily responsible for the increase in attacks.
The number of wild "salties" estimated to live in the Northern Territory has jumped from as few as 3,000 in 1971 to more than 75,000 currently.
But he said because the average size of crocodiles had increased over that time, the animals attacking humans had often changed from a small "hatchling" to a four-metre giant weighing hundreds of kilograms.
Last month a man was killed by a five-metre crocodile while diving near Darwin, five days after a British snorkeller was taken and killed by a croc.
But Manolis does not think culling is the answer.
"It's people being sensible," he said.
Copyright AFP 2005
http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/ATA/24822BP.jpg
LoL! :DI wonder how much this guy is raking in from the Australian government annually. Increase in population of gators from 3,000 to 75,000 but it had no impact. Lets see now. Thepopulation increases 25 fold and possibly 3 out of 4 people on the beach are having a brewskie. Gators are optunistic creatures so it was the alcohols fault. The reasoning is the gators got bigger. LOL! With more gators I believe,yes, you would have more bigger gators. Sounds like Australia needs to start a gator season! If you are a diver would you be drinking? mmmm? Seems like it would give a new definition to the bends. :shock:
Amex Sues CEO Over $241,000 Topless Bill
Oct 21 12:37 PM US/Eastern
By SAMUEL MAULL
NEW YORK
American Express is suing the CEO of a communications company for payment of $241,000 worth of disputed credit card charges at a Manhattan topless club.
American Express says in papers filed in state court that Savvis Inc. chief executive officer Robert A. McCormick was in the club Scores in October 2003 with at least three other men.
After McCormick got the $241,000 corporate credit card bill, Savvis called American Express and complained that some of the charges were fraudulent, the lawsuit says. The communications company said its chief disputed all but about $20,000, according to the lawsuit.
"We firmly believe that Mr. McCormick was the victim of fraud," said Deena Williamson, Savvis's deputy general counsel. She declined to comment further.
Lonnie Hanover, a Scores spokesman, said he had not talked to all of the employees involved with McCormick and could not say what the CEO purchased.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday against McCormick and Savvis is at least the third in the past two years involving contested credit card charges at Scores. One patron sued the club after he got a $28,000 bill and another disputed $129,000 in charges.
After a lawsuit last year, Hanover said that "high rollers" visiting Scores' "super elite Presidents' Club" spend thousands of dollars on single bottles of champagne and tip strippers as much as $10,000 for lap dances and for spending time with them.
The district attorney's office has said it is investigating alleged overcharging at Scores.
Hanover said that each time a patron spends $10,000, Scores calls the customer's credit card company to get the charges approved. Scores even fingerprints the customer and requires him to get on the telephone with a credit card representative, he said.
"We got authorization for all of the charges," Hanover said of McCormick's visit. "We followed proper procedures and documentation, and we were paid."
Court papers say American Express asked McCormick several times to provide in writing his basis for calling the charges fraudulent. McCormick failed to respond, and when he was billed again he once again objected to the charges, the lawsuit says.
American Express says McCormick finally responded in writing in September 2004, reiterating that some charges on the Scores bill were bogus, the lawsuit says.
Scores has been paid in full, American Express's court papers say, while neither Savvis nor McCormick has paid any of the charges. Failure to pay is a violation of the American Express corporate credit card agreement, court papers say.
An American Express spokeswoman, Judy Tenzer, said she had no comment.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.
Delphi Asks UAW to OK Large Wage Cuts
Tuesday October 25, 7:31 PM EDT
DETROIT (AP) — Delphi Corp., which filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this month, is asking the United Auto Workers to agree to pay cuts of more than 60 percent for hourly workers and to relinquish health and pension benefits and vacation time, according to a summary of the auto supplier's proposal distributed to union members in Indiana.
The summary was posted Tuesday on the Web site of UAW Local 292 in Kokomo, Ind., as well as a Web site run by Kokomo-area union members.
According to the summary, Delphi wants to cut base wages to $9.50 to $10.50 an hour for production workers and to $19 for skilled trades workers. New production workers would start at a base rate of $9 an hour. Right now, Delphi hourly workers make $27 an hour or more.
Under the proposal, Troy-based Delphi would eliminate a jobs bank that gives full pay and benefits to around 4,000 laid-off workers, which Delphi says costs it $400 million each year. It also would have the right to sell, close or consolidate any plant.
Delphi's pension plan would be frozen and accept no new participants after Jan. 1, according to the summary. Delphi also could reduce retiree benefits or terminate the pension plan, but no further details were given in the summary.
Delphi and its former parent, General Motors Corp., are still settling how much GM owes Delphi's retirees. GM has said it could be liable for up to $12 billion in pension obligations but expects to pay much less.
Hourly workers would be asked to pay health care deductibles for the first time, of $900 per individual and $1,800 per family. Dental and vision care would be eliminated. The proposal would drop annual paid holidays from 16 to 10, including a paid week of vacation between Christmas and Jan. 1. It also would eliminate annual cost-of-living adjustments.
Neither Delphi nor UAW leadership has officially released details of the proposal, since U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain granted Delphi's request to keep its contract proposals confidential. Delphi is scheduled to appear in bankruptcy court Thursday.
A Delphi spokeswoman did not immediately return a call for comment Tuesday night.
A spokesman at the UAW's Detroit headquarters declined to comment Tuesday. Union leaders criticized the proposal harshly when Delphi presented it to them last week.
"Delphi's proposal is designed to hasten the dismantling of America's middle class by importing Third World wages to the United States," UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and Vice President Richard Shoemaker said in a joint statement.
The UAW represents most of Delphi's approximately 34,000 U.S. hourly workers.
Delphi Chairman and CEO Robert S. "Steve" Miller has said he understands workers are angry, but the company is paying wage and benefit packages worth $65 an hour, which is two to three times more than its competitors.
Miller has expressed optimism that a deal with Delphi's unions can be reached by mid-December. If an agreement to cut wages and benefits isn't reached, Delphi could ask the bankruptcy court to void its contracts. The court could then impose new contracts in the first part of next year.
Todd Jordan, 28, who works at a Delphi plant in Kokomo, said there is no way he and his wife, who also works for Delphi, could support their two children on the proposed wages.
On Tuesday in Dayton, Ohio, approximately 70 Delphi workers, local UAW leaders and city officials marched from a plant to a union hall to protest any possible plant closings. The Dayton area has five Delphi plants that employ 6,000 people.
Details of the proposals also have been leaked by other unions. In a memo posted on its Web site last week, the International Union of Electrical Workers-Communications Workers of America said Delphi wants to reduce the number of IUE-CWA-represented workers from 8,500 to 3,000 through plant sales, plant closings, retirements and layoffs. Delphi also wants to sell or close six of IUE-CWA's 10 facilities and reduce wages to $9-$10 an hour, the memo said.
The real price of gold
It weighs 1oz. It costs £1,000. And it creates 30 tons of toxic waste
By Daniel Howden
Published: 26 October 2005
The lust for gold has reached record levels worldwide as India and China have joined developed nations in demanding more jewellery. On the back of this surge, gold prices have reached a 17-year high, and yesterday rose $7.70 (£4.30) to more than $474 per ounce. But the world's remaining gold deposits are microscopic and the environmental costs of extracting them are profound.
A £1,000 wedding ring - equivalent to one ounce of gold - creates up to 30 tons of toxic waste. To produce that single ounce, miners have to quarry hundreds of tons of rock, which are then doused in a liquid cyanide solution to separate the gold. Payal Sampat, the campaign director for Earthworks, the mining watchdog, told The Independent: "Gold mining is arguably the world's dirtiest and most polluting industry."
A growing alliance of conservationists and local communities affected by mining operations is pushing governments, corporations and consumers to consider the real cost of gold. "The industry has not been under public scrutiny and people don't really know where their gold is coming from," Ms Sampat said. "The mining industry could be making changes which could provide consumers with a product which is far more clean."
Writers from Shakespeare to Shelley have lamented the lure of this precious metal, but today's gold fever neither seeks to bolster empires nor underpin currencies. It is fuelled by our desire for jewellery.
Of the gold mined today, a total of 80 per cent is produced to feed the demand for status symbols. Campaigners are trying to dissuade shoppers from buying "dirty gold", which is extracted using cyanide leaching. But they face an uphill struggle. Newly affluent consumers have pushed jewellery sales to a record $38bn this year, according to the World Gold Council.
With the best ore already mined in most developed countries, the industry is turning to the poorest countries in the world. Up to 70 per cent of gold is mined in developing countries such as Peru and the Philippines. Vast tracts of the developing world are being laid to waste, leaving a multibillion-pound toxic time-bomb.
Environment agencies in the US have described disused heavy metal mines as an equivalent to nuclear waste dumps, which must be secured and maintained for the foreseeable future. America's Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the costs associated with the clean-up of metal mines could rise to $58bn, according to The New York Times.
The mining industry argues that it is bringing much needed investment, infrastructure and jobs to the poor. And it is an argument that is backed by the World Bank, which has pushed more than 100 governments into making tax breaks and subsidies to big mining companies.
A flood of complaints, protests and lethal spillages prompted the bank into a two-year moratorium on financing mining in 2001. That resulted in calls for the mining industry to reduce the use of cyanide and stop dumping toxic waste.
However, these calls were dismissed by the industry as impractical and the World Bank is now giving multimillion-pound loans to multinationals. The first loan after the moratorium went to the Canadian company Glamis Gold, for a project in Guatemala that has faced heavy opposition from Mayan Indians.
At the root of the environmental problem is the industry's reliance on old mining technology called "heap-leaching". Leach mining allows miners to coax tiny flecks of gold from low-grade ore. Cyanide is the chemical of choice and more than 90 per cent of the 2,500 tons of annual global gold production is extracted in this way.
In a typical heap-leach operation, huge quantities of rock are crushed and stacked on top of clay and plastic liners to create piles the size of pyramids, which are then drizzled with the cyanide solution for years. As the chemical passes through the rock layers, it teases the gold out of the ore, where it is collected at the bottom and processed further. As little as one ounce of gold can be extracted from 30 tons of low-grade ore.
Cyanide is a toxic chemical - one teaspoon of 2 per cent cyanide solution is enough to kill a human being. This dangerous chemical is used in gold extraction operations from Peru to Ghana. And it has left a toxic legacy in its wake.
The cyanide waste produced from gold mining is stored in reservoirs. Spills from these lakes have made their way into water systems with fatal consequences for the environment, wildlife and local communities.
Just such a leak in Romania in 2000 led to the worst environmental disaster in the region since the meltdown of the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl. Tons of cyanide-laced water broke through a dam and poured into the Tisza and Danube rivers from the Aural gold mine near Baia Mare. The results were devastating; more than 1,000 tons of fish were killed, while plantlife and birds along the river were devastated.
The Tisza disaster has been replicated at mines all over the world. In the five years since the Baia Mare accident, mines owned by international corporations have been responsible for spills in Ghana, Western Australia, Papua New Guinea, China, Honduras and Nicaragua. During that time the UN Environment Programme has been locked in negotiations with the mining industry to produce a self-regulatory code.
Desta Mebratu, a Unep official, admitted that the mining industry's activities presented a serious environmental hazard but said they were working towards lessening this. "We're working with the mining companies to help prevent the occurrence of accidents," he said. But the code, which was finally unveiled this month, has been dismissed by environmental watchdogs as toothless. A review of the voluntary code by Bankwatch and Friends of the Earth Europe said the code was "greenwashing intended to create the appearance that mining companies are addressing environmental issues".
Australia's remote Lake Cowal in New South Wales is the latest battleground between mining multinationals and indigenous peoples. Neville Williams, 61, who represents the Mooka traditional owners council clan of the Wiradjuri nation, says the fight is essential, although he knows the odds are stacked against them as the mining companies enjoy government backing.
"We have no resources but we are taking the fight for all the peoples because of the prospect of cyanide poisoning."
© 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.
Erotic images can turn you blind
* 18:09 12 August 2005
* NewScientist.com news service
* Gaia Vince
Researchers have finally found evidence for what good Catholic boys have known all along – erotic images make you go blind. The effect is temporary and lasts just a moment, but the research has added to road-safety campaigners’ calls to ban sexy billboard-advertising near busy roads, in the hope of preventing accidents.
The new study by US psychologists found that people shown erotic or gory images frequently fail to process images they see immediately afterwards. And the researchers say some personality types appear to be affected more than others by the phenomenon, known as “emotion-induced blindness”.
David Zald, from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and Marvin Chun and colleagues from Yale University in Connecticut, showed hundreds of images to volunteers and asked them to pick a specific image from the rapid sequence. Most of the images were landscape or architectural scenes, but the psychologists included a few emotionally charged images, portraying violent or sexually provocative scenes.
The closer these emotionally charged images occurred prior to the target image, the more frequently people failed to spot the target image, the researchers found.
“We observed that people failed to detect visual images that appeared one-fifth of a second after emotional images, whereas they can detect those images with little problem after neutral images,” Zald says.
Primitive brain
“We think there is essentially a bottleneck for information processing and if a certain type of stimulus captures attention, it can jam up the bottleneck so subsequent information can’t get through,” Zald explains. “It appears to happen involuntarily. The stimulus captures attention and once allocated to that particular stimulus, no other stimuli can get through” for several tenths of a second.
He believes that a primitive part of the brain, known as the amygdala, may play a part. That region is involved in evaluating sensory input according to its emotional relevance and has an autonomic role, influencing heart rate and sweating.
“It is possible that emotionally-charged stimuli produce preferential rapid routing of the impulse that bypasses the slower cortical route via the amygdala," Zald told New Scientist. "Patients with amygdala lesions pick out the target image without reacting to violent images, although they show normal blindness reactions when sexual images are introduced, which suggests another mechanism may also be involved.”
Harm avoiders
The researchers think emotion-induced blindness could lead to drivers simply not seeing another car or pedestrian if they have just witnessed an emotionally charged scene, such as an accident or sexually explicit billboard.
The effect could exacerbate the more obvious problem of drivers simply being distracted by large, arresting images. "It's the responsibility of drivers to ensure that when they are behind the wheel they keep their eyes on the job in hand," says a spokeswoman from Brake, a UK road safety organisation.
And some people are more vulnerable than others. The study assessed participants using a personality questionnaire, rating them according to their level of “harm avoidance”. Those scoring highly were more fearful, careful and cautious; those scoring low were more carefree and more comfortable in difficult or dangerous situations.
The researchers found that those with low harm avoidance scores were better able to stay focused on a target image than those with high harm avoidance scores.
“People who are more harm avoidant may not be detecting negative stimuli more than other people, but they have a greater difficulty suppressing that information,” Zald suggests.
The Brake spokeswoman says companies should think about the consequences of placing emotionally charged billboards at dangerous road junctions: “We should be concerned if drivers are experiencing split-second breaks in concentration, which could result in an accident or death on the roads.”
Journal reference: Psychonomic Bulletin and Review (August 2005 issue)
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a242/elvis256/buzzy.jpg
Fed's Fisher-Flat yield curves reflect inflation
Thu Nov 3, 2005 06:02 PM ET
BOSTON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - The convergence of bond yields along the maturity spectrum is a worldwide phenomenon and has been helped by central bank action to keep inflation expectations at bay, Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher said on Thursday.
Fisher made no mention of the current economic outlook in the United States, beyond observing that he had voted to raise interest rates at the Fed's policy-setting committee on Tuesday. The central bank raised rates by a quarter point to 4.0 percent.
"Over the past few years there has been a noticeable convergence of rates all along the yield curve," Fisher said.
"I seriously doubt that had central bankers here and elsewhere in the world not managed their affairs in a manner that discouraged inflationary expectations, this would be anywhere near possible," he said.
© Reuters 2005
US stocks rise on Merck ruling, economy and techs
Thu Nov 3, 2005 06:03 PM ET
By Vivianne Rodrigues
NEW YORK, Nov 3 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Thursday as drug maker Merck & Co. (MRK.N) won a key Vioxx liability trial, while reports on labor productivity and the services sector boosted optimism about the economy.
Tech shares rallied, led by Qualcomm (QCOM.O) and International Business Machines Corp.(IBM.N) Qualcomm helped push the technology-laced Nasdaq Composite Index to its highest close in six weeks. IBM gave the Dow a big lift.
"Stocks started the day on a positive note and the verdict on Merck gave the bullish investors out there another incentive to buy," said Martin Yokosawa, senior portfolio manager at Oberweis Asset Management in Lisle, Illinois.
The Dow Jones industrial average gained 49.86 points, or 0.48 percent, to end at 10,522.59. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index advanced 5.18 points, or 0.43 percent, to finish at 1,219.94. The technology-laced Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 15.91 points, or 0.74 percent, to close at 2,160.22.
A rise in oil prices limited stocks' gains. U.S. crude oil futures for December delivery (CLZ5) added $2.03 to settle at $61.78 a barrel.
Shares of Dow component Merck climbed 3.8 percent, or $1.07, to $29.48 on the New York Stock Exchange and ranked among the major advancers in the blue-chip average.
Merck won a major victory when a jury decided on Thursday that the drug maker had given doctors adequate warnings about the health risks associated with its painkiller, Vioxx, which it withdrew from the market in September 2004.
The American Stock Exchange Pharmaceutical Index gained 1.13 percent. Shares of Merck rival Pfizer Inc. (PFE.N) , the world's largest drug maker, rose 1.3 percent, or 27 cents, to $21.87 on the NYSE.
In the tech sector, shares of Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM.O) , the wireless technology company, rose a day after the company reported a higher fiscal fourth-quarter profit.
Qualcomm stock jumped 9 percent, or $3.64, to $44.02, and was the biggest positive influence on the Nasdaq 100. The stock was one of the largest contributors to the S&P 500's gains.
IBM shares rose 2.2 percent, or $1.81, to $82.87 on the NYSE. Intel Corp. (INTC.O) shares climbed 2.6 percent, or 60 cents, to $23.89 on Nasdaq.
"Technology shares are among the most undervalued," said James Huguet, president of Great Companies LLC in Florida, with $1 billion in assets under management. "Investors who are betting on a year-end rally are probably going to favor the sector."
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress the U.S. economy has weathered the blow from the recent devastating hurricanes and still has good momentum.
"More uncertainty, however, surrounds the outlook for inflation," Greenspan said.
Economic reports also helped to lift stocks, including business productivity data for the third quarter, which showed unit labor costs declined, easing worries about inflation.
In another report, the Institute for Supply Management's services index rose to 60.0 in October, beating Wall Street's forecast for an increase to 57.0.
Chain stores such as Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF.N) reported sales that beat Wall Street estimates.
Abercrombie's stock shot up 4.5 percent, or $2.42, to $56.27 on the NYSE.
Retailer J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (JCP.N) , said on Thursday that sales at department stores open at least a year rose 2.4 percent in October and raised its quarterly profit forecast. J.C. Penney's stock rose 3.8 percent, or $1.95, to $53.40 on the NYSE.
Trading was heavy on the New York Stock Exchange, with about 2 billion shares changing hands, above last year's 1.46 billion daily average. On the Big Board, gainers outnumbered decliners by a ratio of less than 3 to 2.
On Nasdaq, volume was also heavy, with 2.37 billion shares traded, above last year's daily average. Advancers outpaced decliners by a ratio of about 8 to 7.
© Reuters 2005
What's in Bush's pockets?
Wed Nov 2,10:09 AM ET
Inquiring minds want to know. What does President George W. Bush carry in his pockets? Not much, it turns out.
A Latin American journalist at a briefing on the president's trip to the region this week told Bush he wanted to ask the "unofficial" question that he asks all presidents -- what does he carry in his pockets?
Bush magnanimously answered by pulling out a white handkerchief with a flourish and then rummaged around in both pockets.
And finally, showing that he had nothing to hide, Bush pulled both pants pockets inside out. They were empty.
"Es todo. No dinero," ("That's all. No money.") Bush joked in his own brand of Spanglish. "No wallet, no bolsa (wallet)."
He even showed off his Timex wristwatch, but quickly added: "I'm not supposed to be endorsing products."
Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited.
Wartime "sluts" caused diplomatic waves
By Gideon Long
Tue Nov 1,11:44 AM ET
London's "young sluts" wreaked such havoc among U.S. troops during World War Two that the British government feared Anglo-American relations would suffer, files released Tuesday showed.
Thousands of prostitutes and "good-time girls" were drawn to Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square in search of young American men in uniform.
They took advantage of blackouts, which plunged London into darkness during Nazi night air attacks, to evade the police.
The government was so concerned by the problem that it asked the Metropolitan Police to write a report on it in 1942.
The report described how prostitutes working in upmarket Mayfair tended to be French and caused few problems while those around Piccadilly Circus were "a lower type of prostitute, quite indiscriminate in their choice of client."
By early 1943, with thousands of U.S. soldiers pouring in to Britain ahead of the allied invasion of Europe, the Foreign Office was growing increasingly worried.
"Our attention has been drawn to the scale on which the American troops are subjected to accosting by prostitutes and we are beginning to be apprehensive about the long-term effect it may have on Anglo-American relations," Junior Foreign Office Minister Richard Law wrote in a letter to the police.
"If American soldiers contract venereal disease while in this country, they and their relatives in the United States will not think kindly of us after the war."
The government organized a conference to address the issue and mulled a ban on women in certain notorious London streets, according to the police files, which have been secret for 50 years but have now been released by the National Archive.
Britain was worried the Nazis would use the issue to undermine morale by goading British soldiers into believing their wives were cheating on them.
Admiral Sir Edward Evans, head of London's Civil Defense unit, wrote to the police in September 1943 to complain that "Leicester Square at night is the resort of the worst type of women and girls..."
"Of course the American soldiers are encouraged by these young sluts, many of whom should be serving in the forces," he fumed. "At night the square, with its garden, is apparently given over to vicious debauchery."
The police and many government officials played down the issue, saying it was nothing new.
One old-timer at the Home Office recalled the streets and brothels of Paris during World War One.
"London at the moment is by comparison a Sunday school," he wrote.
Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited.
Greenpeace to pay fine for damaging reef
Tue Nov 1,11:42 AM ET
Greenpeace said Tuesday it will pay nearly $7,000 in damages after the environmental group's flagship, the Rainbow Warrior II, hit a coral reef at a world heritage site in the southern Philippines.
The accident Monday was "very regrettable," Greenpeace said in a joint statement with the Tubbataha National Marine Park, but it laid some of the blame on maritime charts showing its ship was 1.5 miles from the reef.
Officials from the marine park assessed the area of damaged reef at 96 square metres (113 square yards) and valued it at 384,000 pesos.
"This accident could have been avoided if the chart was accurate," Red Constantino of Greenpeace Southeast Asia said in the statement. "We feel responsible, however, and this amount will be transferred Wednesday."
The visit to the reefs in the Sulu Sea was part of a four-month tour by the Rainbow Warrior II to Australia, China, the Philippines and Thailand to raise awareness about global warming and promote renewable energy.
The ship suffered no serious damage while briefly running aground, Greenpeace said.
The area of the maritime park is designated as a world heritage site by the United Nations.
Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited.
Mike Causey's Federal Report
Investing: Dare To Be Dull
Nov. 1, 2005
The last time anybody checked, only about 160 of the 3.5 million people in the federal Thrift Savings Plan were "actively" managing their accounts. That is making two or more transactions a week, jumping from one fund to another in an attempt to time the market.
Most financial planners would say that's the smart way to do it. Timing the market, that is buying low and selling high, requires incredible self-confidence, a bold heart, and (many would say) a brain of mush.
Last week on our Your Turn radio show (live Wednesdays at 10 a.m. EST) our guest was Allan S. Roth, CFP, CPA, MBA. All those initials indicate that he probably knows more about investing than most of us.
He said there are 10 smart things that investors should know and 5 dumb things that investors should avoid. Lots of listeners asked for the list, so here, courtesy of Roth, it is. You may want to pass it on to a friend. Or an enemy.
10 Smartest Things an Investor Can Do
1. Know we don't know: Understand that in the world of investing, it's knowing we don't know that leads to better investing. The role of the expert is to keep the Wall Street Fantasy alive and keep the market efficient. Okay, a little entertainment too!
2. Understand the arithmetic of investing: Keep costs low. Low cost index investing must beat higher cost active investing as a whole over any period of time.
3. Get Real: Think in real, inflation adjusted terms, and how much of your return you want to give away in costs and taxes. Think realistically, we all want to believe we beat the market - The average investor thinks they are trouncing the market. This is similar to the Las Vegas effect where 2/3 of visitors actually think they won money.
4. Understand our emotions: We are hard wired to buy high and sell low. Highly recommend learning more about behavioral finance (I can expand here later if you want).
5. Explore both your willingness and need to take risk: We think we are pretty fearless in an up market and risk adverse in a down market.
6. Diversify!
* Among several asset classes.
* Within each asset class by owning a large number of securities. Failing to do this increases risk without increasing expected return. This is known as gambling.
7. Think long-term: Once you've built an efficient portfolio, you should first let the power of inertia take over, then the magic of compounding. (Albert Einstein called compounding the most powerful force in the universe.)
8. Rebalance: It's the only proven way to time the market though it's the most daring part of this dull strategy. It's hard to increase ones stock portfolio after 3 straight years of losses.
9. Pick the low hanging fruit: Why do average CDs and money market accounts exist? Why earn 4% on your cash when you are paying 5.5% on your mortgage? If you shop, government backed CDs pay significantly more than treasuries. One of the few advantages for the main street investor.
10. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). With just a few funds, such as those in the TSP, you can execute this strategy.
5 Dumbest Things an Investor Can Do
1. Chase the market: Buy a hot stock or mutual fund or get into the market after it has gone up. The vast majority of investors will do this.
2. Finding patterns out of randomness and following the fad: Were the believers of the Dogs of the Dow method contrarians or followers of a fad? I argue the latter.
3. Buying or selling a security based on a hot tip you heard on a national financial show. You weren't the only one listening and the experts are usually wrong. The cocktail party hot tip is probably just as bad though.
4. Do your investing through insurance vehicles: You are far more likely to make your insurance agent rich with these high cost, tax inefficient vehicles.
5. Getting excitement through investing: That emotional well-being is probably proving quite costly. When you get that irresistible urge to buy a sure winner, just let it pass.
And there you have it. Our humble thanks to Allan Roth for proving, yet again, that some of the best columns I write are in fact written by other people! For more about Roth and his monthly personal finance columns in the Colorado Springs Business Journal, check out his website: http://daretobedull.com
Holloways say Arubans botched case
ORANJESTAD, Aruba (AP) — The family of a U.S. teenager who vanished on a school trip to Aruba urged Thursday that three law enforcement officials be removed from the case, saying they ignored promising leads and did not take the investigation seriously in the crucial early stages.
Natalee Holloway's family made the charges in a letter released as the missing teen's mother, Beth Holloway Twitty, left the Dutch Caribbean island after she said prosecutors and the police chief refused to meet with her.
The honors student was last seen early on May 30 leaving a bar with Dutch national Joran van der Sloot and Surinamese brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe. They were arrested on June 9 but released after a court ruled there was not enough evidence to hold them.
Twitty, who arrived Tuesday, told reporters she wanted to meet with prosecutors and police to discuss a taped interview in which Deepak Kalpoe allegedly says all three had sex with Holloway, who would have turned 19 last month.
Twitty said she was "disheartened" with the response of Police Chief Gerald Dompig, Chief Prosecutor Karin Jansen and Detective Dennis Jacobs to the disappearance of her daughter.
"They have placed barriers to the advancement of the investigation," Twitty said. "They should be replaced."
The police chief said he and the chief prosecutor were willing to meet with Twitty but first wanted her to clarify statements she made about an investigator whose name he did not disclose. Dompig declined to discuss her criticisms.
In the letter, Dave Holloway, the missing teen's father, said two days after her disappearance, he was told by Jacobs there was no point searching for the girl.
He says the detective told him "She probably just got drunk or fell in love and ran off with someone for a few days," according to the letter.
The father also said that detectives waited too long to question van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers after it became clear they were the last seen in public with the missing teen.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press.
FERS Folk: Steak or Cat Food
by Mike Causey
Nov. 8, 2005
Unless you plan ahead, or are okay living in a shack on Hamburger Helper™ sans hamburger, check this one out. It's for the majority of working feds who are under the newer Federal Employees Retirement System. Benefits expert John Elliott, who researched and wrote what follows, says there are three things you must do to maximize your benefits.
Here's what he says:
What we want is no surprises in retirement, at least about the money. (You may have many surprises of the non-financial kind, some pleasant, some not so pleasant.)
Your FERS Basic Benefit, or annuity, or pension. You will get one percent for each year of service, prorated monthly, of your high-three average salary. Your high-3 is the highest three consecutive years of total pay, divided by three. So a FERS person with 30 years and six months of service will get 30.5% of their high-3 average salary. If you manage to hang on until age 62 you'll get 1.1% for each year of service, if you have at least 20 years of service at retirement. If you're a law enforcement officer, firefighter (in the literal sense) or air traffic controller, you'll get 1.7% for each of 20 years of service, and 1.0% for all years above 20. So, it should be easy for most of you to come up with a ballpark estimate of your FERS Basic Benefit. You may also get an additional amount of money, called an annuity supplement, if you retire before 62, to bridge the gap until you reach Social Security eligibility. This can be a significant amount of extra money above and beyond the FERS Basic Benefit. Take the number of full years you have under FERS, divide by 40, and multiply by your estimated Social Security Benefit at age 62. You can also visit your HR office where they typically have software to calculate this for you.
Your Social Security Benefit. You can collect your Social Security retirement benefit as early as 62. Each year, three months before your birthday, you get a statement from the Social Security Administration giving you an estimate of your Social Security Benefit at age 62, and your full retirement age, which varies depending upon your year of birth. Or, you can go to Social Security's website and use their calculator to compute an estimate of your benefit.
Your Thrift Savings Plan. This is where most of your money should come from, that is, if you've faithfully contributed the maximum under the law. There is a great tool at to help you gauge how much of a TSP account you'll have at retirement. Go to the website and click on calculator.
The calculator can perform the following functions in helping you plan for retirement, and I quote from the calculator page:
"Estimate the growth of your TSP account by calculating the growth of your future contributions and/or the growth of the money already in your account.
Estimate what your account balance would provide in monthly annuity payments under a variety of TSP annuity options.
Estimate how many monthly payments you can receive from your account when you choose a specific dollar amount, or estimate how much you can receive each month if you choose monthly payments based on life expectancy.
Link to the Ballpark Estimate calculator to estimate how much you will need to save each year to meet your retirement goals."
Use these tools and you should be able to successfully plan for your retirement. It also is very important to attend a retirement seminar offered through your agency at the beginning of your career, mid-career and shortly before retirement. John Elliott.
Yes, it's like math, but it's also your future we're talking about here. I assure you, your steak may taste great to the cat, but the cat's kibble won't taste as good to you.
Wall St Week Ahead: Stocks may rally on cheaper oil
By Ellis Mnyandu
NEW YORK, Nov 11 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks are poised for a rally next week as lower crude prices fuel investors' optimism that businesses and consumers will get a break from high energy costs and have more cash to spend this holiday season.
With the quarterly earnings period almost over, investors will have more time to sift through a raft of economic data next week. Those numbers could help set the market's tone.
Wall Street's denizens will tune in to the U.S. Senate Banking Committee's hearing on Tuesday on Ben Bernanke's nomination to be chairman of the Federal Reserve.
But the price of oil appears to have the most sway over the market's direction.
This past week, crude extended its slide below $60 a barrel to the lowest levels since late July. The government reported a surprising increase in U.S. oil inventories in the latest week, while unseasonably warm weather enveloped the U.S. Northeast, the biggest energy-consuming region in the United States.
"As long the weather stays warm, the heating bills will stay down, so next week the market should resume a little bit of the upside after some consolidation this week," said Marc Pado, U.S. market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald & Co.
So far this month, stocks have advanced after a dreary October, thanks in part to growing expectations for a year-end rally. Market strategists said these perceptions could lure investors away from valuation-rich sectors like energy into undervalued sectors like technology.
At Friday's close, stocks scored their third straight week of gains. The Dow Jones industrial average and the Nasdaq Composite Index both climbed 1.5 percent, while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 1.2 percent.
THE FED'S POINT OF VIEW
When the Fed talks, Wall Street listens. The coming week features a heavy roster of speeches from Fed officials, including Chairman Alan Greenspan on Monday via video conference at a Bank of Mexico event.
On Tuesday, Michael Moskow, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, will speak to Chicago business leaders about the economic outlook. The same day, Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed, will tell a Dallas forum about the impact of globalization on the Fed's decision making.
On Wednesday, Philadelphia Fed Bank President Anthony Santomero will speak in New York.
On Thursday, St. Louis Fed Bank President William Poole will talk about tracking inflation. The same day, Sandra Pianalto, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, and the Chicago Fed's Moskow will speak at a conference sponsored by the Cleveland Fed.
INFLATION WATCH
Investors will keep an eye out next week for any signs of inflation. The government is set to release the U.S. Producer Price Index on Tuesday, and the U.S. Consumer Price Index on Wednesday. Both reports are for October.
Economists polled by Reuters expect the core PPI, excluding more volatile food and energy items, rose 0.2 percent in October, after a 0.3 percent gain in September. They forecast that core CPI went up 0.2 percent in October, after a 0.1 percent gain in the previous month.
"The numbers are hopefully going to give investors a sign that the Fed may slow interest-rate hikes," said Andre Bakhos, president of Princeton Financial Group.
HOUSING STARTS AND HOLIDAY HOPES
Investors will pay close attention to a reading on the state of the U.S. housing market, a key driver of the economy's growth, after luxury home builder Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL.N) cut its fiscal 2006 profit outlook this past week. The warning from Toll Brothers sparked concerns about a possible slowdown in the housing sector.
The October housing starts report is due on Thursday.
Market strategists said the housing data would be scrutinized as its release will follow quarterly earnings from home improvement chains Lowe's Cos. (LOW.N) on Monday and its bigger rival Home Depot Inc. (HD.N) , a Dow component, on Tuesday. They are among the companies whose fortunes are closely tied to the U.S. housing market.
"You've got a situation where if we have this housing sector slowdown and there's some sort of slowdown in the retailers, the place where it's first going to start to show up is in those 'big box' Home Depot-type companies," said Christopher Johnson, director of quantitative analysis at Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT.N) is scheduled to report its quarterly earnings on Monday. But investors probably will concentrate more on what the world's largest retailer says about the prospects for the year-end holiday shopping season.
"Investors will be paying lots of attention to what companies have to say about what they're seeing, in terms of what their plans might be to try to capture the incremental dollar through the holiday season," said Jack Caffrey, equity strategist at JP Morgan Private Bank, which oversees $280 billion in assets.
© Reuters 2005
Management Guru Peter Drucker, 95, Dies
Saturday November 12, 2:33 PM EST
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Peter F. Drucker, revered as the father of modern management for his numerous books and articles stressing innovation, entrepreneurship and strategies for dealing with a changing world, died Friday. He was 95.
Drucker died of natural causes at his home in Claremont, east of Los Angeles, said Bryan Schneider, a spokesman for Claremont Graduate University, where Drucker taught.
"He is purely and simply the most important developer of effective management and of effective public policy in the 20th century," former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Friday. "In the more than 30 years that I've studied him, talked with him and learned from him, he has been invaluable and irreplaceable."
Drucker was considered a management visionary for his recognition that dedicated employees are key to the success of any corporation, and that marketing and innovation should come before worries about finances.
His ability to explain his principles in plain language helped them resonate with ordinary managers, said former Intel Corp. Chairman Andy Grove.
"Consequently, simple statements from him have influenced untold numbers of daily actions. They did mine over decades," Grove said.
Drucker championed concepts such as management by objective and decentralization, and his motivational techniques have been used by executives at some of the biggest companies in corporate America, including Intel and Sears, Roebuck & Co.
Business Week magazine hailed him as "the most enduring management thinker of our time," and Forbes magazine featured him on a 1997 cover under the headline: "Still the Youngest Mind." President Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002.
In the early 1940s, Drucker was invited to study General Motors' inner workings, an experience that led to his 1946 management book, "Concept of the Corporation." He went on to write more than 30 books and start a foundation for non-profit management.
"He's very much an intellectual leader, and that's not common," said Harvard Business School professor D. Quinn Mills.
Drucker showed a knack for identifying sea changes in business and economics years in advance. He foresaw the emergence of a new type of worker whose occupation would be based on knowledge, not physical labor or management.
After the big stock market decline of October 1987, Drucker said he had expected it, "and not for economic reasons, but for aesthetic and moral reasons."
"The last two years were just too disgusting a spectacle," Drucker said. "Pigs gorging themselves at the trough are always a disgusting spectacle, and you know it won't last long."
Drucker termed Wall Street brokers "a totally non-productive crowd which is out for a lot of easy money."
"When you reach the point where the traders make more money than investors, you know it's not going to last," he said.
"The average duration of a soap bubble is known. It's about 26 seconds," Drucker said. "Then the surface tension becomes too great and it begins to burst.
"For speculative crazes, it's about 18 months."
Drucker was born in Vienna, and educated there and in England. He received a doctorate in international law while working as a newspaper reporter in Frankfurt, Germany. He remained in Germany until 1933, when one of his essays was banned by the Nazi regime. For a time, he worked as an economist for a bank in London, then moved to the United States in 1937.
He taught politics and philosophy at Bennington College in Vermont and for more than 20 years was a professor of management at New York University's graduate business school.
Beginning in 1971, he taught a course for midcareer executives at Claremont Graduate School in California, which named its business school after him.
Drucker's management books included: "The Effective Executive," 1966; "Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices," 1974; and "Managing in a Time of Great Change," 1995. In 2004, he put out "The Daily Drucker: 366 Days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done."
He also wrote scores of articles for the academic and popular press, two novels and a 1979 autobiography, "Adventures of a Bystander."
While much of his career was spent studying employees in the workplace, Drucker also dedicated time to the service sector, founding the New York-based Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management, known since 2003 as the Leader to Leader Institute.
Jack Beatty, a senior editor at Atlantic Monthly magazine who wrote the book "The World According to Peter Drucker," described the management guru as "uproariously funny (with) a great rapport. You ask him a question and it can go on for some time."
Drucker is survived by his wife, Doris, and four children.
Greg wrote:
Management Guru Peter Drucker, 95, Dies
Drucker termed Wall Street brokers "a totally non-productive crowd which is out for a lot of easy money."
"When you reach the point where the traders make more money than investors, you know it's not going to last," he said.
It is so true even today.
Birchtree
11-13-2005, 05:23 PM
Greg,
Keep up the great postings - you are appreciated. Does Sr remind you of anyone?
Dennis
Gold grinds on, with Fed lending a hand
By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch
Last Update: 9:11 AM ET Nov. 14, 2005
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Even gold's friends seemed surprised by its strength last week, rallying by 2.5% on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The gold game may not be over yet.
Australia's Privateer, which bills itself as "the private market letter for the individual capitalist," summarized the recent action:
"This was a 'recovery' week for the ... gold correction. ... On the daily chart, last week's $16.90 gold fall pushed gold well below both its 10- and 20-day moving averages. The $11.50 rise this week has reversed the process." See The Privateer's site for more.
The previous week's pummeling was severe. And this last week saw a rampage by the dollar. Oil -- which many presume sets the tone for gold -- was soft, world equities were strong. If that were not enough, Germany's fledgling government has started talking about selling part of the country's gold reserves.
Yet gold did well -- better, in fact, than the simple dollar-denominated price suggests. As The Privateer says in its omniscient way:
"By November 11, gold was at new bull market highs in terms of almost every other major currency in the world. And this time, that includes at least one of the 'commodity currencies,' the Aussie dollar ... all in the face of a U.S. dollar index which has set new 2005 highs almost every day this week."
Gold in euros was particularly impressive. It closed on Friday at an all-time high -- actually above 400 euros per ounce, based on the Nymex close.
This is important, because on both occasions this year when euro gold has broken into new high ground, considerable follow-through buying appeared.
Equally impressive was that fact that the gold shares noticed. They've rudely ignored gold's strength this year, but maybe not this time.
Chartist Martin Pring, a believer in the predictive powers of the sector's equities, assessed the Amex Gold Bugs Index (HUI: 231.23, -3.03, -1.3%) on Thursday in his InterMarket Update as follows:
"The shares typically lead the metal at bottoms, and the Chart shows that they have diverged positively with it in recent weeks. ... If the shares can now rally above the 230 level on a daily close basis, the odds would favor a successful assault on September's high. In that event, we would expect the metal to be close on its heels."
(Pring's price point was pinged -- Friday's close was 234.26!)
Gold's friends have dark theories about why gold went down the previous week. As Bob Bishop of Gold Mining Stock Report put it:
"Q: What's the best time to rob a house? A: When nobody's home. This was the same rationale behind last week's short raid on the gold market, timed to coincide with the holiday closure of the Indian markets."
'Make believe' at the Fed?
Why gold went back up, though, divides the letters.
The Gartman Letter, for one, has suggested there's been some purchasing by smaller central banks. And Bill Murphy has a correspondent identifying South Korea's central bank.
Those who incline to a macro view, however, had an arresting fact to consider. It was well put by gold veteran James Turk of the Free Market Gold & Money Report. Turk wants to:
"Berate the Fed for an unbelievable announcement made this past week. Without explanation, the Fed disclosed: 'On March 23, 2006, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System will cease publication of the M3 monetary aggregate.' "
Not unreasonably, Turk concludes:
"Why does the Fed no longer want to report the total quantity of dollars in circulation? They know what's coming -- massive amounts of dollar creation to fund the worsening trade and federal government budget deficits. The Fed is just doing what other government agencies already do when they don't like the result of their statistical calculations. Like children, they play 'make believe.' "
The Fed might have been more discreet. But is gold watching?
GM shares fall to 23-year low
Tuesday November 15, 5:03 PM EST
DETROIT (Reuters) - Shares of General Motors Corp. (GM) fell to a new 23-year low on Tuesday as news of a new incentive program spread amid concerns about a possible bankruptcy filing at the world's largest automaker.
GM on Monday announced a "red-tag" sale, and new profit-eroding discounts, that will allow anyone in the United States to buy vehicles at the same price employees of GM's auto suppliers pay.
"Their cost structure isn't changing," T. Rowe Price analyst Brian Ropp said. "The new incentives are just bringing down the top line and killing margins which are already negative."
Shares of GM, which has lost nearly $4 billion this year, fell by as much as $1.23 to $22.51, their lowest point in 23 years, before closing at $22.61 in Thursday trade on the New York Stock Exchange, Shares have fallen almost 46 percent this year.
GM's October U.S. sales slipped 23 percent in the absence of new incentives following a highly-publicized summer employee discount program, which pulled many potential car buyers into the market earlier than they might have been otherwise.
The new red-tag sale comes as GM, the world's largest automaker, grapples with high health-care and commodities costs, stalled sales of big sport-utility vehicles -- its longtime cash cows that have now lost popularity due to high gasoline prices -- and the loss of U.S. market share to foreign rivals.
After its "employee discount" program ended in August, GM launched its "value pricing" system, a process that brings sticker prices closer to transaction prices, thus narrowing the room for any bargaining.
"The move to value pricing offered (price) declines that just weren't great enough to attract buyers," Argus Research Group auto analyst Kevin Tynan said.
"Under the value pricing system, on average, the sticker prices are down a couple hundred bucks. To be effective, value pricing has to be four times that, and incentives required to sell vehicles must be removed."
Worries about the carmaker's new discounts amid large losses are compounded by fears of a possible strike at GM's main parts supplier, Delphi Corp. (DPHIQ), that could shut down some plants and force GM to file for bankruptcy, analysts have said.
©2005 Reuters Limited.
U.S. Senate panel to vote Wed. on Bernanke for Fed
Tue Nov 15, 2005 08:41 PM ET
WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (Reuters) - The Senate Banking Committee will vote on Ben Bernanke's nomination to be chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday, Nov. 16, the panel said on Tuesday.
The committee said in a statement the vote on the nomination, which requires Senate confirmation, would occur during a previously scheduled business meeting set for 10:30 a.m. (1530 GMT).
If approved by the committee, the nomination would then be cleared for a final confirming vote in the full Senate.
Bernanke is expected to handily win confirmation.
© Reuters 2005.
Home Construction Drops on Rising Rates
Thursday November 17, 8:39 AM EST
WASHINGTON (AP) — Home construction in October plunged by the biggest amount in seven months, providing dramatic evidence that rising mortgage rates are beginning to ice the housing boom.
The Commerce Department reported that construction of new homes and apartments fell by 5.6 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.01 million units.
The decline was double what analysts had been expecting and indicated that rising mortgage rates are beginning to take a toll on housing, the economy's star performer in recent years.
Oil Prices Fall 4 Percent in Past Week
Friday November 18, 4:43 PM EST
Oil prices fell 4 percent in the past week and settled Friday at a five-month low just above $56 a barrel.
The steady move lower since then coincided with mild U.S. weather, the recovery of oil production and refining facilities that were shut down by hurricanes Katrina and Rita and signs that gasoline demand had tapered off.
The average retail price of gasoline in the U.S. is down 25 percent from its early September high of $3.07 a gallon.
Traders are hesitant to declare that oil prices have bottomed out, but said a move higher would not be surprising either given the magnitude of the decline in such a short period of time.
"A lot of the reasons that took us up last year are still there," said oil broker Tom Bentz of BNP Paribas Commodity Futures in New York.
After falling as low as $55.40, light sweet crude for December delivery settled at $56.14 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, a decline of 20 cents. That is the lowest settlement price since June 15, when front-month crude settled at $55.57, and prices are about 20 percent below the late August peak of $70.85.
There are still plenty of factors supportive of prices, traders said, including the limited amount of excess oil-production capacity around the globe, the war in Iraq and the threat of a cold winter, which would drive up demand for home-heating fuels.
Bentz added that if oil prices continue to slide, OPEC may begin to try to prop them up by talking about, and possibly enacting, a production cut.
A lot will depend on the weather, analysts said.
"The expectation now is that sustained cold weather in the U.S. Northeast is just a matter of time, and that's keeping crude from falling too low," said analyst Victor Shum of Purvin & Gertz in Singapore.
Many parts of the United States experiencing chilly weather in the past few days will see an even colder blast next week, according to Accuweather.com.
December heating oil and gasoline futures were essentially unchanged, settling at $1.6962 a gallon and $1.462 a gallon, respectively.
Natural gas for December delivery declined by 52.8 cents to settle at $11.414 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, Brent crude futures rose 3 cents to $54.88 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
Oil Prices Fall 4 Percent in Past Week
Friday November 18, 4:43 PM EST
Oil prices fell 4 percent in the past week and settled Friday at a five-month low just above $56 a barrel.
The steady move lower since then coincided with mild U.S. weather, the recovery of oil production and refining facilities that were shut down by hurricanes Katrina and Rita and signs that gasoline demand had tapered off.
The average retail price of gasoline in the U.S. is down 25 percent from its early September high of $3.07 a gallon.
Traders are hesitant to declare that oil prices have bottomed out, but said a move higher would not be surprising either given the magnitude of the decline in such a short period of time.
"A lot of the reasons that took us up last year are still there," said oil broker Tom Bentz of BNP Paribas Commodity Futures in New York.
After falling as low as $55.40, light sweet crude for December delivery settled at $56.14 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, a decline of 20 cents. That is the lowest settlement price since June 15, when front-month crude settled at $55.57, and prices are about 20 percent below the late August peak of $70.85.
There are still plenty of factors supportive of prices, traders said, including the limited amount of excess oil-production capacity around the globe, the war in Iraq and the threat of a cold winter, which would drive up demand for home-heating fuels.
Bentz added that if oil prices continue to slide, OPEC may begin to try to prop them up by talking about, and possibly enacting, a production cut.
A lot will depend on the weather, analysts said.
"The expectation now is that sustained cold weather in the U.S. Northeast is just a matter of time, and that's keeping crude from falling too low," said analyst Victor Shum of Purvin & Gertz in Singapore.
Many parts of the United States experiencing chilly weather in the past few days will see an even colder blast next week, according to Accuweather.com.
December heating oil and gasoline futures were essentially unchanged, settling at $1.6962 a gallon and $1.462 a gallon, respectively.
Natural gas for December delivery declined by 52.8 cents to settle at $11.414 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, Brent crude futures rose 3 cents to $54.88 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
Wall St Week Ahead - U.S. stocks set for gains in holiday week
Fri Nov 18, 2005 05:49 PM ET
By Ellis Mnyandu
NEW YORK, Nov 18 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks could make fresh gains next week as sectors such as technology draw new money, but overall trading volumes will likely be limited as many investors hit the road for the Thanksgiving holiday, according to analysts.
Stock markets will close all day on Thursday for Thanksgiving Day and will pull down the shutters early on Friday at 1 p.m. (1800 GMT).
But before investors head for home, they will have to contend with economic reports that should provide further clues about the health of the U.S. economy.
Among the reports scheduled for release are the Redbook Research weekly store sales report on Tuesday, initial jobless claims report on Wednesday and the final University of Michigan consumer sentiment index for November.
In addition, the holiday-shortened week has a roster of speeches by several Fed officials, including one on the U.S. economy by Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Michael Moskow on Monday.
On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President William Poole will speak on "Communicating the Fed's Policy Stance" at an event in London.
With inflation still very much a concern, analysts said investors may spend time sifting through economic reports and comments from Fed officials for signs showing when the Fed may stop raising interest rates, or just how far it is willing to go with its recent spate of increases.
But despite lingering interest rate and inflation worries, U.S. stock rallied this week, helped in part by increasing interest in sectors such as technology, which until recently were on the back burner as investors piled into areas such as energy.
Declining crude oil prices have also lent support to the market, raising hopes consumer will have more cash to spend this holiday season as heating costs ease.
Oil sank below $56 a barrel on Friday for the first time since the end of June, as investors grew confident that large fuel stockpiles will see the world's consumers through cold winter weather.
POSITIVE STREAK
At Friday's close, the Dow Jones Industrial average closed at its highest level in 8 months. For the week, it was up 0.8 percent, the fourth straight week of gains.
Both the tech-laden Nasdaq Composite Index and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index surged to their highest closes in almost 4-1/2-years. The Nasdaq rose for a fifth consecutive week, up 1.12 percent, while the S&P rose 1.10 percent, its fourth straight weekly gain.
"Psychologically, the market obviously feels a lot better than it did in October and, typically, you'll get some sort of year-end kind of rally, and we feel that's what's going on," said Evan Olsen, head of equity trading at Stephens Inc.
But he noted that, with the holiday, a lot investors may be less inclined to be in the market. In addition, corporate earnings reports for the recent quarter are winding down, leaving the market with little to go on.
Among a few remaining earnings reports likely to help set the tone for stock investors is Campbell Soup Co.'s (CPB.N) fiscal first-quarter results, fiscal fourth-quarter results for farm equipment maker Deere & Co. (DE.N) and fiscal second- quarter results for ketchup and packaged food producer H.J. Heinz Co. (HNZ.N) .
Another event closely watched by investors will be the release on Tuesday of the Federal Open Market Committee's minutes for its Nov. 1 meeting at which short-term rates were raised for the 12th time since June 2004.
"We're coming off a very positive week, so the wind is clearly at our backs right now," said Hans Olsen, chief investment officer at Bingham Legg Advisers in Boston.
"The good news is that probably the Santa Clause rally will happen, but the bad news is it takes the focus off some of the real issues that will impede the market going forward."
Analysts said the upcoming week could also see investors tread cautiously after this week's surprise announcement from the European Central Bank that it is ready to raise rates in December for the first time in five years.
"One area that was expected to resist raising rates was Europe, but now with the ECB set to throw in the towel and start raising rates, I think that puts a little bit of inflation fears back into the market," said Larry Peruzzi, senior equity trader at The Boston Company Asset Management, a Mellon subsidiary.
© Reuters 2005
Ford to cut 4,000 jobs in North America By Poornima Gupta
11/17/05
Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F), facing a deepening financial crisis, said on Friday it plans to eliminate 4,000 salaried jobs, or 10 percent of its North American white-collar work force, as part of a larger restructuring plan.
A majority of the job cuts -- announced to employees in an e-mail distributed by Mark Fields, president of Ford's Americas business -- will be made in the first quarter of 2006, spokesman Oscar Suris said.
The cuts will come through attrition, layoffs and the elimination of some agency and contract positions, Suris said.
They will be in addition to the 2,750 job losses already announced by the automaker this year,
Ford lost $284 million in the third quarter and its automotive division is in the red. Its North American vehicle operations have lost more than $1.4 billion before taxes so far this year.
The company's shares have dropped more than 40 percent since the end of 2004. They hit $7.57 per share on Thursday, the lowest in more than two years, before rebounding to $8.41 per share on Friday.
Ford Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Ford Jr. said last month that the automaker will announce its long-awaited restructuring plan -- dubbed "Way Forward" -- in January.
He also warned that the plan would include "significant plant closings" to help slash costs in North America.
Fields and his team are expected to present Bill Ford with the restructuring plan in December.
Ford, like cross-town rival General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM - news), has seen its margins squeezed by intense competition in the U.S. market and by a dramatic slowdown in sales of cash cows such as mid-size and large SUVs due to high gasoline prices.
The two companies are also facing higher costs and a cut in their credit ratings to high-yield, or "junk," status.
Ford has taken a number of steps this year to strengthen its balance sheet, including the sale its Hertz Corp. rental car unit.
It also agreed to bailout former parts subsidiary Visteon Corp.(NYSE:VC - news) and announced that it intends to increase the production of hybrid vehicles tenfold to 250,000 annually.
Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited.
GM prepares to wield job ax By Jui Chakravorty
Fri Nov 18, 2:45 PM ET
As General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM ) prepares to announce much-awaited job cuts and U.S. assembly plant closings, analysts wonder if the cuts will be aggressive enough to convince people of a possible turnaround at the ailing auto giant.
The world's largest automaker, which has lost nearly $4 billion this year, has said it will provide details by the end of 2005 about its previously announced plan to cut at least 25,000 manufacturing jobs as part of a broader restructuring plan.
"Announcing the plan alone will not be enough," Standard & Poor's equity analyst Efraim Levy said on Friday. "If the plan is not concrete, not enough, or not realizable, Wall Street could take it negatively."
Chief Executive Richard Wagoner has committed to a series of plant closings and the elimination of nearly a quarter of GM's U.S. factory work force through 2008.
"They need to lose a lot more jobs through 2008. The 25,000 number is the natural attrition rate, and they need to go beyond the ordinary to accomplish any change. They need more, a lot more," Levy said.
GM has been grappling with high health-care and commodities costs, loss of U.S. market share to foreign rivals, and slumping sales of large sport utility vehicles which used to be its profit center, but have now lost popularity due to high gasoline prices.
To make matters worse, GM's main parts supplier -- bankrupt Delphi Corp. (Other OTC:DPHIQ) -- is battling with its unions and will ask the court to void its labor contracts if a deal is not reached by mid-December. A strike at Delphi could shut down some GM and Delphi plants and could force the automaker to burn through billions of dollars a week, analysts have said.
A work stoppage could also cripple GM, Delphi's largest customer, as it prepares to roll out its GMT-900 truck series, a crucial component of its recovery plan.
PRESSURE MOUNTS
Wagoner in June said the proposed cuts would save the automaker $2.5 billion a year. But analysts worry about expenses associated with the cost cuts, and some estimates predict that early retirement and employee relocation costs could total up to $2 billion.
As investors await the changes, the Detroit News on Friday reported GM plans to make the announcement as early as next week.
"We have said that we will make announcements by the end of the year and that's what we will be doing," GM spokesman Stefan Weinmann said. "And we won't provide any more specifics."
Wagoner has said he plans to cut manufacturing capacity to match demand by 2008. Some experts believe The Lansing Craft Center, where GM builds the Chevrolet SSR, will likely be shut down because the convertible sport pickup has not been selling very well and GM has idled the plant for several months this year.
At least two other plants likely to be shut down are the Doraville, Georgia, plant, which builds GM's minivans, and an SUV plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, analysts said.
The new plant closings will add to three assembly plants that GM has already closed or stopped production at this year: a car plant in Lansing, Michigan, an SUV plant in Linden, New Jersey, and a van plant in Baltimore.
GM will also have to shed its old habit of keeping furloughed workers on the payroll and typically cutting factory jobs only by retiring workers after 30 years of services, analysts say.
Analysts also worry that GM's proposed sale of a 51-percent stake in its finance arm will reduce pressure to undergo a major restructuring, as the sale could bring in as much as $15 billion.
Still, GM shares rose 96 cents, or 4.3 percent, to $23.60 in Friday trade on the New York Stock Exchange.
Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited.
Last 12 months - Google stock
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Safest and Most Dangerous Cities in U.S.
Nov 21 12:06 AM US/Eastern
By The Associated Press
Following are the safest and most dangerous cities with populations
over 75,000, according to Morgan Quitno Press.
Safest Cities:
1. Newton, Mass.
2. Clarkstown, N.Y.
3. Amherst, N.Y.
4. Mission Viejo, Calif.
5. Brick Township, N.J.
6. Troy, Mich.
7. Thousand Oaks, Calif.
8. Round Rock, Texas
9. Lake Forest, Calif.
10. Cary, N.C.
Most Dangerous Cities:
1. Camden, N.J.
2. Detroit
3. St. Louis
4. Flint, Mich.
5. Richmond, Va.
6. Baltimore
7. Atlanta
8. New Orleans
9. Gary, Ind.
10. Birmingham, Ala.
____
Source: Morgan Quitno Press
Court's custody order draws Parker dissent on religious grounds
11/21/2005, 5:46 p.m. ET
By SAMIRA JAFARI
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The Alabama Supreme Court upheld a lower court's decision granting a Madison County father custody of his 6-year-old daughter, based in part on evidence the child had been beaten and alienated from her family.
But Justice Tom Parker, the lone dissenter in the 8-1 ruling Friday, took issue with the majority's view of the mother's strong religious convictions, saying the decision restricted the mother's right to teach her child "the worship of God."
The mother had custody of the couple's daughter after they divorced in May 1997, when the girl was about 6 months old. She married her second husband, Brian Snider, nearly two years later and almost immediately conflicts arose about the girl's upbringing, according to court papers.
The Sniders became members of a conservative Baptist denomination and moved a few years later to a rural area of Indiana to take part in missionary work.
The trial court, which gave the girl's father William Mashburn custody in 2002, said the move isolated the child from "the large and loving family" the girl enjoyed in Alabama. Court records show that Brian Snider hit the child on occasions for watching a PG-13 movie with Mashburn during visitation and "for saying something that (her stepfather) felt was wrong." The girl, who was homeschooled, was 5 at the time.
The Sniders also told the child her father and maternal grandfather are "going to hell," even though the Sniders knew the father and grandfather "are loved and cared for very much by the child," according to trial court documents.
The trial court said the mother, Laura Snider, should be teaching religion "by example," and not in a way that would be disparaging or critical of the father's beliefs.
Parker, in his 23-page dissent, said that while he agreed with some of the majority's findings, he dissented because of the court's stand concerning Laura Snider's religious rights.
Parker said that she tried to follow Biblical standards in child-rearing and that Mashburn initially agreed to her requests, but reneged later. He said that Mashburn drank beer daily in front of the child, "uttering profanity in her presence."
"Laura also followed the Bible by using corporal punishment to discipline the child when she misbehaved," Parker said.
"Given the exceptional importance of these rights," Parkers continued, "I believe this Court has a duty to fully consider the claims of the infringement of these rights now."
The majority opinion, written by Justice Champ Lyons, said Parker's dissent brings up the constitutional right to exercise religion — which was not specifically addressed in Snider's appeal.
The court said the custody battle was settled based on the child's welfare and not religious beliefs alone, and suggested Snider return her case to the trial court level if she wants to continue the custody battle.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press.
Smoker tried to open airliner door
Monday, November 21, 2005
BRISBANE, Australia (AP) -- A French woman who is terrified of flying admitted in an Australian court Monday that she drunkenly tried to open an airplane door mid-flight to smoke a cigarette.
Sadrine Helene Sellies, 34, was placed on a good behavior bond after pleading guilty in Brisbane Magistrates Court to endangering the safety of an aircraft.
Sellies was traveling on a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to the east coast city of Brisbane on Saturday when the incident occurred at the start of a three-week Australian vacation with her husband, the court heard.
She walked toward one of the aircraft's emergency exits with an unlit cigarette and a lighter in her hand and began tampering with the door, prosecutors said. But a flight attendant intervened and took Sellies back to her seat.
Sellies was arrested and charged by police on arrival at Brisbane airport.
Defense lawyer Helen Shilton told the court Sellies was terrified of flying and had taken sleeping tablets with alcohol before takeoff.
Shilton said Sellies has no memory of what happened on the flight and that she has a history of sleepwalking.
But Magistrate Gordon Dean sternly warned the woman: "You must understand, if you are on a plane you must behave yourself."
Sellies, who did not speak in court and was aided by a translator, was placed on a 1,000 Australian dollar (US$734; euro623) bond -- meaning she will have to pay that amount if she commits another offense in the next 12 months.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.
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GM, Ford U.S. sales seen down again
Wednesday November 23, 4:21 PM EST
DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., Detroit's downhill racers, will post another big drop in their U.S. sales when they report November results next week, industry analysts said on Wednesday.
They said GM and Ford, which both saw their sales drop 23 percent in October compared with the same month a year ago, were likely to report November sales declines of as much as 15 percent.
The sales projections are adjusted for one more selling day in November this year and exclude the Detroit automakers' foreign brands.
By contrast, and despite weak industrywide results, Toyota Motor Corp. is expected to report a double-digit increase in sales, the analysts said in notes to clients.
They said Chrysler will also report a decline in sales, ending 19 consecutive months of year-over-year gains at the U.S. arm of Germany's DaimlerChrysler.
Like its crosstown rivals, Chrysler is hurting from what Merrill Lynch analyst John Casesa described as an "inhospitable" market for big trucks and sport utility vehicles.
The recent drop in U.S. gasoline prices apparently has not done much to reverse a shift in consumer sentiment away from fuel-thirsty SUVs and pickups.
The domestic automakers all sweetened their consumer incentives earlier this month, in a fresh bid to lure shoppers into their dealerships. But Casesa said November got off to "an excruciatingly slow start" and predicted that Detroit's long-running price war, which has eroded industry profits, will heat up again in the coming weeks.
"We expect the promotional environment to intensify between now and year-end," he said.
Chrysler is still expected to gain U.S. market share this year and will close 2005 with a share of about 13.3 percent, up from 12.7 percent at the end of 2004, according to Burnham Securities analyst David Healy.
GM and Ford have been bleeding share to rivals led by Toyota, however, and have seen the wheels fall off of their North American auto business as they struggle with high labor and health-care costs and problems attracting consumers.
In October, according to data compiled by Reuters, Toyota had a 15.1 percent share of the U.S. light vehicle market. That was better than the 14.4 percent monthly share at Chrysler and compared with 16.1 percent at Ford and 22 percent at GM.
Healy said he sees GM's ending the year with a market share of about 25.8 percent, down from 27.2 percent in 2004, while Ford will close out 2005 with a U.S. share of 18.3 percent, down from 19.3 percent in 2004.
Toyota, Japan's largest automaker, grabbed more U.S. retail market share than Ford in early November and was less than one share point behind GM, according to a report last week from J.D. Power and Associates.
Vehicle sales across the industry slumped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 14.7 million units in October, their slowest pace in seven years. November U.S. sales -- which automakers will report on December 1 -- are seen coming in at a rate of about 15.7 million, down from 16.6 million in the same month last year.
©2005 Reuters Limited
Ben Franklin's Politically Incorrect Thanksgiving
Posted Nov 23, 2005
Did you know that the day we celebrate as Thanksgiving was supposed to be a fast?
It took one politically incorrect farmer to change the course of history. When the government tried to impose a fast, he called for a grand feast—thanksgivings—so that Americans could celebrate their bounty and nourish their bodies, not lament their hardships through hunger.
The Compleated Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin takes up where Franklin's original autobiography left off—in 1757. This new volume covers Franklin's final 33 years, including some of the most important in our nation's history.
"The Real Story of the First Thanksgiving," as told by Franklin himself (below), is just one of the many topics covered in The Compleated Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Real Story of the First Thanksgiving
By Benjamin Franklin (1785)
“There is a tradition that in the planting of New England, the first settlers met with many difficulties and hardships, as is generally the case when a civiliz’d people attempt to establish themselves in a wilderness country. Being so piously dispos’d, they sought relief from heaven by laying their wants and distresses before the Lord in frequent set days of fasting and prayer. Constant meditation and discourse on these subjects kept their minds gloomy and discontented, and like the children of Israel there were many dispos’d to return to the Egypt which persecution had induc’d them to abandon.
“At length, when it was proposed in the Assembly to proclaim another fast, a farmer of plain sense rose and remark’d that the inconveniences they suffer’d, and concerning which they had so often weary’d heaven with their complaints, were not so great as they might have expected, and were diminishing every day as the colony strengthen’d; that the earth began to reward their labour and furnish liberally for their subsistence; that their seas and rivers were full of fish, the air sweet, the climate healthy, and above all, they were in the full enjoyment of liberty, civil and religious.
“He therefore thought that reflecting and conversing on these subjects would be more comfortable and lead more to make them contented with their situation; and that it would be more becoming the gratitude they ow’d to the divine being, if instead of a fast they should proclaim a thanksgiving. His advice was taken, and from that day to this, they have in every year observ’d circumstances of public felicity sufficient to furnish employment for a Thanksgiving Day, which is therefore constantly ordered and religiously observed.”
Copyright © 2005 HUMAN EVENTS.
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Bob Dylan's college poetry auctioned for $78,000
Tue Nov 22,11:11 AM ET[/i]
A collection of poems written by legendary rock poet Bob Dylan as a student at the University of Minnesota in 1960 sold for $78,000 Monday in a Rock & Pop Memorabilia auction at Christie's.
The 16 pages of poems hand-written in pencil formed the earliest Dylan manuscript ever offered for auction and it fetched the highest auction price to date for the acclaimed songwriter, according to Christie's.
A title page was inscribed in blue ink "Poems Without Titles," with the majority of the poems signed Dylan or Dylanism.
The poetry was acquired by an unidentified private European interest.
Dylan arrived at the college in 1959 as freshman Robert Zimmerman from upstate Hibbing and left at the end of 1960 as folk singer and songwriter Bob Dylan, headed to make his mark on the folk scene in New York's Greenwich Village.
The second-highest priced item in the sale that grossed $661,536 was Eric Clapton's Fender composite Stratocaster electric guitar, circa 1959, which sold for $36,000.
Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited.
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And Now for the Second Half of the Rally
By MICHAEL J. MARTINEZ AP Business Writer
Posted: 11/27/2005 12:53 PM
(AP) NEW YORK
During each of the past four years, Wall Street has celebrated the year's end with a big rally that bolstered returns and burnished the reputations of investors and money managers who might otherwise found themselves with poor showings.
Once again, the market appears to be turning a year of negative returns into something worth bragging about. If this week's important slate of economic reports continue to encourage Wall Street, this year's rally could give 2005 better returns than anyone thought were possible just a few weeks ago.
When the rally started in November, it seemed more of a psychological phenomenon _ enough investors believed in the so-called "Santa Claus" rally to start buying stocks, and when enough people buy stocks, you have a rally.
Yet the foundation of this rally may have solidified last week when, in the Federal Reserve's Nov. 1 meeting minutes, monetary policy makers hinted that they may soon end their program of modest, incremental interest rate hikes. The market's been wary of the Fed's rate hikes, worried that while inflation would be kept in check, the more expensive lending rates would bring the economy to a standstill.
But with the Fed, for the first time, illustrating that it is indeed paying heed to the economy as well as inflation, the November rally regained momentum and surged higher. For the week, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 1.54 percent, the Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 1.6 percent and the Nasdaq composite index climbed 1.61 percent.
And with worries about interest rates mollified, the market could have room to extend its advance.
ECONOMIC DATA
The week ahead features an unusual concentration of important economic reports that will likely shape not only this week's trading, but the month's as well.
While inflation remains in check and energy prices have fallen somewhat, the labor market is still a question for many investors. That unease will make the Labor Department's job creation report critical to the continuation of this rally. Economists expect the economy to have created 220,000 new jobs in November, up from an anemic 56,000 jobs created in October.
Last month's predictions for job growth were high, as many on Wall Street underestimated the continuing impact of the Gulf Coast hurricanes, so any surprise in this number will likely be negative.
Also Thursday, the Institute for Supply Management will release its manufacturing index for November. Wall Street expects manufacturing growth to have slowed modestly, with the ISM index coming in at 58, down from a 59.1 reading in October.
On Wednesday, the Commerce Department will release its latest projection of the third quarter's gross domestic product. Economists predict the economy to have grown 4.1 percent for the July-September period, up from a previous estimate of 3.8 percent.
EARNINGS
While the calendar of economic releases is full, there are very few noteworthy earnings reports due out in the week ahead, most of which are in the retail sector.
Department store operator Dillard's Inc. is expected to lose 17 cents per share, compared to a 23 cents per share loss a year ago, when it reports its earnings Thursday morning. The stock has fallen 23 percent from its 52-week high of $28.60 on April 6, closing Friday at $21.91.
Specialty clothing retailer Chico's FAS Inc. has been a better performer, more than doubling from a 52-week low of $18.85 on Nov. 30, 2004, to close Friday at $45.72. The company is expected to post profits of 28 cents per share, up from 20 cents per share a year ago, when it reports after Tuesday's session.
EVENTS
The monthly deluge of retail sales reports will take on added meaning as investors try to discern whether November's sales will translate into a strong December. The vast majority of sales reports will be out Thursday, with a few stragglers coming Friday and early next week.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press.
Investors flock to Bush's dollar despite declining presidency
2005/11/26
By Alison Fitzgerald NEW YORK/LONDON, Bloomberg
The Bush dollar is doing a lot better than the Bush presidency.
George W. Bush's approval rating last week fell to the lowest since he took office, according to the latest Harris Interactive poll, just as investors pushed the U.S. currency to its highest level since 2003 against the euro and the yen.
"The political backdrop in the U.S. isn't great, but when I look across the Atlantic to Europe, it isn't any better," said David Mozina, a currency strategist at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in New York. "The U.S. is on firmer footing, so buy dollars."
Since the end of 2004, the dollar has appreciated about 15 percent against the euro and 16 percent against the Japanese yen. Among the so-called Group of Seven industrialized nations' currencies, only the Canadian dollar shows a gain against the U.S. currency this year, about 2.5 percent.
Bush has Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to thank. Investors scooped up dollar assets because returns rose as the Fed quadrupled the benchmark U.S. interest rate to fight inflation, while the European Central Bank kept its main rate steady. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note on Nov. 23 was one percentage point higher than on the corresponding German government bond.
The dollar's rise helps Bush "because it's a reflection of a strong economy," said Phillip Swagel, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and the former chief of staff at the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Politically, Bush is struggling. His job approval rating fell to 34 percent in the Harris poll, conducted Nov. 8-13, from 50 percent a year ago. Polls show a majority of Americans say the war in Iraq was a mistake, and lawmakers including Representative John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and decorated Vietnam war veteran, want U.S. troops brought home.
The decline in the polls coincides with Congress's rejection of Bush's top legislative goal, a plan to partially privatize the Social Security pension system. The indictment of an aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, I. Lewis Libby, on obstruction of justice charges in a CIA leak probe has added to White House woes.
Through it all, the dollar continued to climb and investors from overseas poured money into the U.S. The dollar has risen about 4.5 percent this year, according to the Federal Reserve's broad currency trade-weighted dollar index. The dollar traded Nov. 23 at US$1.1808 per euro, compared with US$1.3552 at the end of last year; it traded at 118.85 yen versus 102.62 at the end of 2004.
International investors added to their net holdings of U.S. assets by a record US$101.9 billion in September, bringing total net foreign investment into the U.S. to about US$660 billion this year, 17 percent more than a year earlier.
"We've had a big move in interest rate differentials, which has overshadowed Bush's political problems," said Jens Nordvig, a currency strategist with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in New York. "Domestic politics haven't been pretty in the U.S., but that has come at a time when there've been political problems in Germany and France."
Greenspan led the Fed in raising the central bank's benchmark interest rate to 4 percent from 1 percent in 12 quarter-point moves starting in June 2004. That pushed the U.S. rate from one percentage point below the ECB's main rate to two percentage points above. The ECB rate is now 2 percent.
"The dollar didn't need Social Security reform, or the tax cuts made permanent," said Greg Anderson, a foreign-exchange strategist at ABN Amro Bank NV in Chicago. "These reforms have died along with the president's popularity."
Among major central banks, only the Bank of England is setting higher interest rates than the Fed. Central-bank rates in Canada and Japan are also lower than in the U.S.
"The level of the dollar reflects very simply the interest rate differential between the U.S. and other countries," said Greg Valliere, chief political strategist at Stanford Washington research Group.
The troubled political situation in the U.S. isn't unusual in advanced economies today, analysts said. In Germany, Angela Merkel was sworn in yesterday as chancellor, more than two months after an election that gave neither her Christian Democrats nor the opposition Social Democrats leeway to form a government without the other. In France, two weeks of riots in ghettos around Paris abated this week after more than 9,000 cars were torched and police imposed curfews.
The strong dollar may do little to help Bush politically, said analysts including James Lucier of the Prudential Equity Group Inc. in Washington.
Copyright © 2005 The China Post.
Stocks fall on housing worry
Monday November 28, 4:00 PM EST By Ellis Mnyandu
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Monday as a bigger-than-expected drop in a gauge of home sales had investors worried that a slowdown in housing would shake consumer confidence and a drop in oil prices weighed on energy shares.
In the final hour of trading, Nasdaq Composite index fell 1 percent.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 46.35 points, or 0.42 percent, at 10,885.27. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 10.54 points, or 0.83 percent, at 1,257.71. The technology-laced Nasdaq Composite Index was down 22.76 points, or 1.01 percent, at 2,240.25.
Despite an initially strong start to holiday shopping, shares of retailers like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) were among the biggest decliners amid concerns that retailers may be sacrificing profit margins to increase store traffic.
Drug maker Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK) fell 5.3 percent to $29.33 and was the biggest drag on Dow after announcing a major restructuring involving as many as 7,000 job cuts.
The disappointing home sales data and doubts about holiday buying took a toll on stocks in those sectors. The Dow Jones U.S. home-builders index registered its biggest one-day percentage drop in nearly 3 weeks, and the Standard & Poor's Retail Index shed 1.4 percent.
Among home builders, shares of KB Home (KBH) fell 2.7 percent to $69.94 on the New York Stock Exchange and shares of D.R. Horton Inc. (DHI) fell 2.9 percent to $35.56.
A National Association of Realtors report showed that U.S. existing home sales fell in October to 7.09 million units, compared with analysts' expectation of 7.17 million.
The inventory of unsold houses rose to the highest level in nearly 20 years.
"There are questions with housing appearing to slow a bit," said Jonathan Golub, U.S. equity strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management in New York. "A housing slowdown is obviously a headwind," he added.
A decline of more than a dollar in crude oil prices sent energy stocks lower, with shares of Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), losing 1.9 percent to $58.96 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Chevron Corp.'s (CVX) shares fell almost 2 percent to $57.40.
On the retail front, shares of J.C. Penney Co. (JCP) fell 1.7 percent to $53.16 while Federated Department Stores (FD) lost 2.8 percent to $65.20.
©2005 Reuters Limited.
I Bonds are looking good, but don't give up on stocks
By Scott Burns
Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 12:00 AM
Q: Should I continue investing in the stock market if I can make more than 6 percent in I Savings Bonds and retire in the next five or six years?
We have invested in Fidelity Funds since 1996 and have earned a 3 percent total return.
(We invested in Equity Income, Growth and Income, and Tech Sector funds through 2002. Now we are invested in the Total Stock Market index, the Standard & Poor's 500 index and a bond index fund. The bond index fund is losing money.)
Should we pull out of the market if we have accumulated enough to live comfortably in retirement? Is this situation of no loss but no real gain worth it?
— E.B., Houston
A: Discouraging, isn't it? Many people are thinking the same thing.
More important, I Savings Bonds are beating a lot of the alternatives cold.
I Savings Bonds will earn at a 6.73 percent annual rate between now and April. The yield is based on the trailing rate of inflation plus a premium over inflation.
That premium was reduced from 1.2 percent for the May-to-October period to 1 percent for the November-to-April period.
That 6.73 percent yield is 200 basis points (there are 100 basis points in 1 percentage point) higher than the yield on Treasury bonds, well over the 6.24 percent yield on government-guaranteed mortgages, and right in the ballpark with General Motors Acceptance Corp. paper.
So it's a good deal.
Be aware, however, that the yield will change in May if the trailing inflation rate changes.
The next rate may be lower.
Then again, the yield can decline to an annualized rate of only 4.5 percent and still be competitive with current five-year Treasury notes.
If interest rates continue to rise, I Savings Bonds are likely to be the best fixed-income choice in the near future.
If interest rates continue to rise, the 1 percent real annual return on I Savings Bonds may also beat the return on equities.
Your equity investments, meanwhile, will have five years to deliver a higher return. They may or they may not, but I've never liked all-or-none investing, so I'd keep some position in domestic equities.
You should also think about real diversification.
Owning Total Stock Market and S&P 500 funds is like owning two funds with an overlap of about 70 percent because the S&P 500 stocks represent about 70 percent of total U.S. market capitalization.
You can achieve broader diversification in equities by retaining the Total Market fund, selling the S&P 500 index fund and replacing it with a total international stock fund.
Had you done this, year to date (as of Nov. 11) you would be in somewhat better shape.
The iShares EAFE index exchange-traded fund (ticker: EFA) has returned 7.33 percent year to date, while the iShares Total Market Index (ticker: IYY) has returned 3.3 percent and the SPDR 500 ETF (ticker: SPY) 2.4 percent. The Lehman aggregate bond index ETF (ticker: AGG) has lost 2.3 percent.
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company
DAILY BRIEFING December 2, 2005
November yields solid earnings in TSP
By Karen Rutzick
govexec.com
All of the funds in the Thrift Savings Plan grew in November, offsetting losses incurred the month before.
The TSP - a 401(k)-style retirement savings program for federal employees - had the largest growth in its S fund, which invests in the stocks of small- and mid-size companies. The S fund gained 4.72 percent in November, followed closely by the C fund, which invests in common stocks and was up 3.75 percent.
The S fund also has overtaken the I fund, which is made up of international stocks, in terms of longer-term performance. Over the past year, the S fund saw a 14.64 percent gain, while the I fund grew by 13.35 percent.
For November, the G fund, which consists of government securities, and the F fund, made up of fixed-income bonds, showed more modest returns of 0.36 percent and 0.38 percent respectively.
All five of the life-cycle (L) funds, which blend the stand-alone funds based on expected retirement dates and automatically becoming more conservative as participants age, were boosted by the robust performance of the underlying funds.
The L funds designed for older participants, such as the L Income and the L 2010, had a smaller increase in November because of their heavier use of the G fund, which is dependable but has less opportunity for growth.
L 2040, designed for young employees planning a retirement date around the year 2040, grew 3.08 percent in November. L 2030 grew 2.80 percent, L 2020 rose 2.42 percent, L 2010 increased 1.89 percent and L Income grew 1.03 percent.
November's gains counteract October's negative returns. The ever-reliable G fund had a 0.36 percent gain, but every other fund lost ground in October. The I fund lost 2.90 percent that month, the S fund lost 2.33 percent, the C fund lost 1.66 percent, and the F fund lost 0.75 percent.
In an exact reverse of November's performance, the 2040 L fund was the least successful of the life-cycle options in October, and L Income was the most. All of the funds had negative returns; the L Income fund just lost the least.
©2005 by National Journal Group Inc.
UAW negotiator: Delphi strike "appears more likely than not"
12/7/2005, 2:06 p.m. ET
The Associated Press
DETROIT (AP) — A key United Auto Workers negotiator has told local union leaders that a strike against auto supplier Delphi Corp. "appears more likely than not," a UAW spokesman said Wednesday.
UAW spokesman Paul Krell said Vice President Richard Shoemaker discussed the possibility of a strike with around 250 union leaders Tuesday at a closed-door meeting in Detroit.
Shoemaker said "under current circumstances, a strike appears more likely than not. That can change, and we hope it does," according to Krell, who attended the meeting.
Shoemaker didn't give a time frame when a strike might occur, Krell said.
Delphi spokeswoman Claudia Piccinin said Wednesday that the company is hoping to avoid a strike.
"We're going to continue on with our discussions with the unions toward a consensual restructuring plan, and that's where our focus is right now," she said. "We think a strike would not benefit any parties."
Delphi, which filed for bankruptcy protection in October, has asked its unions to agree to cut hourly workers' wages by more than 60 percent, from $27 an hour to between $10 and $12.50. Delphi says those wages are competitive with other union and nonunion suppliers.
Delphi said last week it's making progress in talks with its former parent, General Motors Corp., on a plan that could soften the blow for Delphi's hourly workers. No details were given, but analysts suggested GM may provide cash for Delphi employee buyouts or may agree to allow Delphi workers to flow back to GM.
Because of those talks, Delphi delayed a plan to ask a bankruptcy court judge on Dec. 16 to void its union contracts, an action that could lead to a strike. Delphi now says it could ask the judge to void its contracts on Jan. 20.
In a news conference Tuesday, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said he hasn't taken part in the discussions between GM and Delphi and won't restart talks with Delphi until the company takes its current wage offer off the table.
"The last proposal that Delphi presented to this union is a road map to confrontation," Gettelfinger said.
A strike could be devastating to Delphi as well as GM, which relies on Delphi for billions of dollars worth of parts. GM spent $14 billion on Delphi parts last year, or around 16 percent of its total spending on parts.
Birchtree
12-07-2005, 08:39 PM
There will be plenty of Latinos and Mexicans that will cross that picket line and do those jobs and do them better than the union workers. Let them strike - if I were a part of the membership of UAW, I'd resign and keep working. Some income is certainly better than no income. It won't be long China will be building cars here.
Unions rally against personnel changes as Pentagon issues new details
By Karen Rutzick
December 8, 2005
Unions representing both federal and nonfederal employees joined in a rally Thursday to protest limits on collective bargaining in the federal government.
On the steps of the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, hundreds of union members gathered in what they described as a rally for the human right to union representation, giving special notice to federal employees.
"Bush has turned the government into America's No. 1 union buster," AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson said.
Chavez-Thompson was referring to personnel reforms under way in the Homeland Security and Defense departments that, in addition to replacing the General Schedule with a performance- and market-based pay system, are designed to limit union influence. Administration officials argue the limitations provide them with the necessary flexibility to defend the country against terrorist attacks.
On Wednesday, the department released new details on the performance evaluation aspect of the planned system.
The union rally featured two speakers from the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union and an AFL-CIO affiliate.
"The bottom line is that union federal employees have dutifully and successfully protected this country for decades," AFGE member and Defense Department employee Keith Hill said. "Union members are not the enemy."
AFGE president John Gage told the crowd that curtailments of federal workers' union rights will pave the way to limitations outside the government.
"We know that if it happens to us, state and local governments will be next," Gage said, followed by the private sector, including transportation and communications workers.
While the event was notable for its attention to federal employees, it was just one of dozens worldwide coordinated by the AFL-CIO to mark the anniversary of the United Nations' adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The declaration includes the right to join and form unions.
The Air Line Pilots Association, American Federation of Teachers and Communication Workers of America were some of the unions present at the event.
But even as labor organizations do their best to halt the personnel reforms at Defense and Homeland Security, including filing lawsuits, the Pentagon is forging ahead.
The Defense Department released a new 25-page handbook on the National Security Personnel System Wednesday on its Web site. The handbook addresses the human resources elements of the new system and does not discuss collective bargaining. Its contents are still subject to union consultation.
"The purpose of this primer is to provide you with an understanding of what is proposed in the human resources portion of NSPS," the Web site stated.
The primer clarifies that the performance "shares" employees will earn based on how they are rated in relation to their peers can be paid out in the form of either a permanent raise or in a one-time bonus, at the discretion of supervisors.
The Defense Department recommends that supervisors use bonuses for employees who are paid at the top of the market range for their type of job. Bonuses also could be awarded for good work that is considered a one-time achievement, the handbook says.
Supervisors should recognize, however, "that bonuses do not contribute to employee retirement benefits or Thrift Savings accounts," the guidelines state. "Inappropriate overuse of the bonus could result in morale, recruitment and retention problems."
The handbook also outlines the five steps required for performance-based raises: plan, monitor, develop, rate and reward. The outline calls for objectives to be set from the start, ongoing feedback and reviews, continuing training and development, clear evaluations, and finally, rewards based on good performance. Each year, this process will run from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.
According to the primer, pay pools from which the raises will be divided up will have between 50 and 300 employees. The pools could be created based on job function, location, mission or organizational structure.
©2005 by National Journal Group Inc.
TSP board mulls loan restrictions, automatic enrollment
By Karen Rutzick
November 30, 2005
Board members and high-level staff running the Thrift Savings Plan are trying to figure out how they can persuade Congress to approve desired improvements to the plan without inviting any unwelcome additions.
Gary Amelio, executive director of the TSP, the government's version of a 401(k) retirement savings plan, wants Congress to pass four legislative initiatives that would change the plan significantly by placing limits on loans, automatically enrolling new hires, changing the default fund and revising fund definitions.
But Amelio and the board are concerned that if Congress endorses these changes, it might at the same time approve other proposals to add funds to the TSP. The unwelcome additions could include funds that invest in real estate or precious commodities, and socially conscious funds that, for example, do not invest in Sudan.
In testimony this spring before a House Government Reform subcommittee, Amelio and TSP Board Chairman Andrew Saul voiced particularly strong opposition to the potential addition of a real estate fund. Both have said funds should not be added due to political considerations, including pressure from real estate interests or humanitarian concerns.
Additions should be made solely for the benefit of plan participants, Amelio and Saul have said.
At a meeting Tuesday, Amelio told the board that it needs to be careful about bringing any of its initiatives to Congress, because lawmakers could tack on changes of their own.
"I think to be prudent, we're just not ready," Amelio said. "If we were to go up and ask for a group of features to be passed, [we need to make sure] nothing else will be added to it."
Amelio said he would like to limit participants to one outstanding loan from their TSP fund. Right now, employees can take out one general purpose loan and one residential loan at a time.
He added that his "greatest concern as to the pushback" from Congress is that the proposal to limit outstanding loans could be perceived as an attempt to eliminate a benefit for federal employees. But he argued that multiple loans are not in the best interest of participants because such loans hamper the TSP's growth potential.
Federal employees should be automatically enrolled in the TSP upon being hired, with 3 percent, for example, of their income automatically invested in the funds, Amelio said. Automatic enrollment still would give employees the ability to opt out of the TSP.
It's a problem of inertia," Amelio said. "If you don't get them signing up when they come in the door, they'll never get it."
Amelio also said he wants to make the life-cycle (L) fund the new default fund for indecisive participants. The government securities (G) fund is currently the fallback choice.
The director said Congress needs to correct a technicality as well, by revising the definitions of the common stock (C) fund and the small- and mid-sized companies (S) fund in the law to clarify the difference between the two.
All of these changes are still just suggestions. Amelio said he feels more strongly about some--particularly the L-fund default--than others. The changes would have to be approved by the TSP board before being presented to Congress.
Saul said at the meeting that the board, along with Amelio and his staff, should "come to grips with [which initiatives to push] during this year." If the board and the staff decide the initiatives are worthy, he said, "I think we should go for it."
The board could consider recommending just one or two of the initiatives rather than the whole group, to avoid group add-ons, Saul said.
©2005 by National Journal Group Inc.
Federal offices in New Orleans area gradually open doors
By Daniel Pulliam
govexec.com (mailto:dpulliam@govexec.com)
December 7, 2005
Federal government offices and buildings in the greater New Orleans area are gradually getting back on their feet as the region recovers from one of the worst natural disasters in the nation's history.
More than three months after the Hurricane Katrina slammed into the central Gulf Coast, resulting in the death of more than 1,300 people and the displacement of more than 1 million, about half of government offices in New Orleans are estimated to have at least partially re-opened.
There are about 70 federal agencies and field offices in the greater New Orleans area, including military commands, according to Kathy Barre, executive director of the New Orleans Federal Executive Board.
Barre -- an employee of the Agriculture Department's National Finance Center in New Orleans -- has been gathering information on other government agencies in the area and has been finding ways for them to communicate during the rebuilding phase.
"It's hard for people to imagine what has taken place here," Barre said. "When you talk about the entire evacuation of a federal city ... how can we begin the process of trying to pull back together?"
Barre said she is still trying to get in touch with some of the agencies that are moving back to the city. Some were up and running by the end of September, but others won't move back until next year, she said.
"You will see this continuing into January and February, but with each passing month you will see more agencies come back into this area," Barre said. "It appears that about 50 percent or so have at least started reconstituting in this area."
Of the 33 government buildings in the region that are managed by the General Services Administration, 11 remain closed. Agencies housed at these locations are either in new locations or the employees are teleworking, according to GSA.
Gil Hawk, director of the National Finance Center's information resources management division and chief information office, said a building rented at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility reopened Nov. 1 and about 550 of the 1,300 employees have returned to work.
A second NFC-rented building that houses Thrift Savings Plans operations and is located a half mile from the Michoud facility sustained major flood damage and is unlikely to reopen, Hawk said. NFC is negotiating with Michoud to rent more space for the TSP operations, he said.
"Almost everything was destroyed in [the TSP] facility," Hawk said. "The facility is not fit for use and we don't know what the owner is going to do with [it]."
Patrick Scheuermann, chief operations officer at Michoud, which is run by the Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. and produces the space shuttle's external fuel tank, said 120 of the 2,000 employees have yet to return to the 832-acre facility. Employees who have not returned were relocated to Huntsville, Ala., and are expected to move back by January at the latest, he said.
Michoud, one of the largest employers in New Orleans, has yet to receive city water, but Scheuermann said he decided in mid-September to have a well drilled. By Oct. 15, about 400 employees had returned to work at the facility, he said.
Scheuermann, who took the helm at Michoud about a week before the hurricane landed, said at least 800 employees have been unable to return to their homes.
"It's just incredible for me and I'm just blessed to be a part of this ... to see the dedication of these folks," said Scheuermann, who recently finished the Senior Executive Service Federal Candidate Development Program.
Of the eight New Orleans Social Security Administration offices that closed, three have reopened, the first on Oct. 31, the agency said. An office is scheduled to reopen in January 2006 and another in spring 2006. There are no dates for reopening the remaining three.
In the meantime, two new locations have been opened to fill gaps in service.
The Agriculture Department's Farm Service Agency offices in Louisiana are all open, but there are still problems with sporadic e-mail and Internet service, according to a Dec. 7 status report.
The Forest Service's building in the region is still inaccessible, according to the report, and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's plant protection and quarantine office at the U.S. Customs House remains closed.
On Oct. 26, the National Labor Relations Board reopened its New Orleans regional office in the city's central business district. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's New Orleans office opened in a new space on Nov. 29.
U.S. Postal Service spokesman David Partenheimer said undamaged mail was delivered to the New Orleans area as soon as it was safe to do so, and was returned to the sender if it was not deliverable.
"There is no backlog of mail," Partenheimer said. "Mail that was contaminated was recently sanitized and is now being delivered in the New Orleans metropolitan area."
©2005 by National Journal Group Inc.
Best in Class
By Karen Rutzick
govexec.com (mailto:krutzick@govexec.com)
December 8, 2005
In a federal employee's pay and benefits utopia, the government would pay higher salaries, provide more substantial health care subsidies, cover dental and vision costs, offer more retirement investment options and contribute more to employee retirement plans.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation does all of that. The agency took top honors for pay and benefits in rankings published this fall by the Partnership for Public Service, and it's easy to tell why.
The rankings, which were compiled using data from the Office of Personnel Management's 2004 Human Capital Survey, were based on employee satisfaction with pay, retirement, and health benefits. The FDIC received a score of 84.2 out of 100, more than 11 points ahead of the Office of Management and Budget, which came in second.
What's so special about the FDIC's compensation?
For starters, its 4,700 employees get paid more than typical federal employees, says Glen Bjorklund, the agency's deputy director in the division of administration. The FDIC has a 15-grade system which mirrors the General Schedule, but the agency's exemption from standard civil service rules allows it pay higher salaries at each grade level to attract top-level bank examiners and other employees.
An FDIC Level 15 job opening for a senior IT project manager in Washington has a range from $95,971 to $155,221. A standard GS-15 position in Washington tops out at a salary of $135,136.
There's more. In addition to the benefits offered to federal employees across government, including the Thrift Savings Plan, the two retirement pension plans, health coverage and annual leave, the FDIC boasts a number of supplementary offerings.
FDIC employees, for example receive dental and vision coverage. Unlike the governmentwide coverage that's in the works for next year, FDIC subsidizes the premiums. And, if employees opt out of the dental and vision coverage, in some cases they even get compensated.
In addition to the Thrift Savings Plan option, the FDIC runs its own 401(k) retirement savings plan through T. Rowe Price. The plan offers 15 different no-load mutual fund options and a matching contribution from the agency, although employees still can't exceed the Internal Revenue Service restriction on 401(k) contributions, including contributions to the TSP.
What's more, the FDIC even matches contributions from employees in the Civil Service Retirement System, which is the older of the two pension plans and has a more generous pension and less of a focus on the TSP. CSRS employees don't receive any government contributions to their TSP accounts.
The FDIC participates in the governmentwide Federal Employee Health Benefits program, but whereas the Office of Personnel Management subsidizes around 72 percent of total FEHBP premiums, FDIC pays for an average of 85 percent.
Agency employees are also set up with accounts worth $650 each year to cover "life-cycle" needs, such as premiums for health benefits, gym membership or a mountain bike.
Bjorkland attributes the above-average compensation package to a need to retain high-quality workers and to the FDIC's requirement to negotiate pay and benefits with an employee union, in this case the National Treasury Employees Union.
The generous package has one downside, however. Bjorkland said that $690 million of the agency's $1.1 billion budget is spent on compensating employees.
"It's a major cost issue for us," Bjorkland said. "But we've always believed that we hire the best, and we want to hold on to them and provide a good lifestyle and work style. We expect a lot out of them."
Despite these advantages, the FDIC still only ranked 25th on the Partnership for Public Service's overall Best Places to Work rankings.
"There are other things at play that are bigger drivers of employee satisfaction than pay and benefits," said John Palguta, the Partnership's vice president for policy and research. "What you want to do is make sure that you're paying fairly and are at least within the general marketplace."
The top ten agencies for pay and benefits satisfaction are listed below. The Veterans Affairs Department ranked last in this category.
1) FDIC
2) OMB
3) SEC
4) NASA
5) Nuclear Regulatory Commission
6) GSA
7) Commerce
8) AID
9) OPM and SBA (tied)
©2005 by National Journal Group Inc.
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a242/elvis256/20051210.jpg
Blue Chip raises US growth forecast, cuts inflation
Sat Dec 10, 2005 12:59 AM ET
WASHINGTON, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Top forecasters raised their U.S. growth outlook and cut inflation expectations for the fourth quarter and into 2006, but warned consumer spending could drop in the final months of 2005, a survey released on Saturday showed.
Panelists surveyed in the Blue Chip Economic Indicators newsletter bumped up their projection for gross domestic product growth in the fourth quarter to a 3.2 percent annual rate, up from 3.0 percent predicted a month ago but still well below the third-quarter's robust 4.3 percent pace.
They also raised their outlook for 2006 growth to 3.4 percent from 3.3 percent forecast in November, saying inflation would be lower than first thought and corporate spending and profits stronger.
The panelists remained pessimistic about consumer spending in the final three months of the year, predicting an anemic 1.0 percent increase, and said personal consumption expenditures could even shrink once inflation is taken into account.
"Unless spending picks up considerably in December, real consumer spending risks suffering its first quarterly contraction in 15 years," the newsletter said.
But they said a rebound in business inventories and still-healthy capital spending would offset some of the consumer weakness and a probable drag from trade on growth in the fourth quarter.
Housing was seen as a wildcard in the fourth-quarter outlook. Building permits have fallen to the lowest level since April, suggesting the pace of growth in residential investment might slow appreciably in the final three months of the year.
"However, reconstruction efforts along the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast could produce a rebound, if only temporarily, in housing starts for November and December," Blue Chip said.
As 2006 begins, lower inflation, improving job growth and faster wage gains are expected to boost consumer spending, fueling 3.5 percent economic growth in the first quarter and 3.4 percent in the second, the survey showed.
"While near-record high natural gas prices will produce some nasty home heating bills this winter, headline inflation is set to decline in coming months, boosting gains in real incomes and spending," the newsletter said.
It forecast the Consumer Price Index to increase only 2.3 percent on a fourth-quarter over fourth-quarter basis in 2006, down from its predicted 3.9 percent rise in 2005, as energy prices decline. Core inflation, which strips out energy and food costs, will rise 2.4 percent on a December-over-December basis in 2006, similar to the 2005 gain.
The Blue Chip consensus said the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates at least three more times -- slightly more than anticipated by financial markets -- taking the federal funds target to between 4.75 percent and 5.0 percent. It currently stands at 4 percent after 12 straight quarter-point increases since June 2004.
About 23 percent of the panel think the Fed will cut rates by the end of 2006, however.
While the housing market is expected to cool next year, the job market should be healthy, Blue Chip said. Nonfarm payrolls were forecast to post average monthly gains of 179,000 in 2006, slightly higher than in 2005.
"However, the unemployment rate is not expected to fall much from current (level of 5 percent) as more people seek to rejoin the labor force," the newsletter noted.
Business investment was projected to grow 7.9 percent next year, down from 8.9 percent in 2005, with equipment and software spending up 8.6 percent.
© Reuters 2005
Wall St Week Ahead: Stocks hope Fed will play Santa
Fri Dec 9, 2005 06:40 PM ET
By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK, Dec 9 (Reuters) - For the stock market, getting the stalled Santa Claus rally back on track next week will depend on the Federal Reserve's call on interest rates, retail sales and resurgent energy prices.
Another quarter-point rate increase is expected at Tuesday's Fed meeting.
But investors are hoping the Fed will change its statement and indicate its long streak of rate increases will end soon.
"Everybody's kind of set on the fact that we're going to see an increase. It's kind of baked into the cake. The language is going to be key, and investors are expecting we're near the end of this cycle," said Christopher D. Johnson, director of quantitative analysis at Schaeffer's Investment Research.
Anthony Chan, managing director and senior economist, at JPMorgan Asset Management, said, "If the Fed says it sees more upside inflation risk, that would be devastating to the market."
Crude oil prices, meanwhile, ended the week below $60 a barrel, after rising above $61 on Friday. Forecasts that extremely cold weather could linger for another two weeks in the U.S. Northeast, the world's largest heating oil market, reignited fears about the impact of higher energy costs on consumers and corporations.
January crude oil futures (CLF6: Quote, Profile, Research) fell $1.27 to settle at $59.39 a barrel on Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
NYMEX January natural gas futures (NGF6: Quote, Profile, Research) tumbled 68.2 cents to close at $14.312 per million British thermal units on Friday following a two-day spike of 11 percent.
This week, the blue-chip Dow average dipped into negative territory for the year. But strategists polled by Reuters still expect the Dow to end the year with a gain of about 2 percent.
The S&P 500, meanwhile, is nearly where strategists expect it to finish the year.
All three major indexes ended the week lower, with the Nasdaq snapping a 7-week streak of gains, its longest weekly winning streak in nearly six years. The Dow ended down 0.91 percent for the week, while the S&P 500 slipped 0.45 percent, and the Nasdaq dropped 0.73 percent.
"This week, what we experienced was a catch-up because the Santa Claus rally came in earnest, almost a towering force, and it had to take a breather," Chan said, adding that "it gives the market a firmer footing from which to make a much deeper move next week as it starts to chew on some fundamental data."
WILL THE FED BE NAUGHTY - OR NICE?
Wall Street is likely to be in a holding pattern until the announcement from Tuesday's Fed meeting.
Stock investors big and small are hoping the Federal Open Market Committee will give them a gift -- in the form of some change in wording or a new phrase or two that will signal that rate increases will end sometime early next year.
Since June 30, 2004, the central bank has raised interest rates 12 consecutive times. That campaign of credit tightening has pushed the benchmark federal funds rate up to 4.00 percent from a historic low of 1.00 percent.
Another quarter-percentage-point rate increase -- No. 13 -- is expected at the FOMC's Tuesday meeting, which happens to be Dec. 13.
A Reuters poll published on Thursday found that a majority -- 11 out of 20 economists polled -- expected to read at least some changes in the language of the Fed statement issued at the end of the Dec. 13 Fed meeting, while a few expect no change until January or March.
HOLIDAY SALES, CPI TOP DATA MENU
The coming week will bring a holiday menu brimming with data, with November retail sales on Tuesday and the November U.S. consumer price index on Thursday.
Economists in a Reuters poll expect that retail sales rose 0.5 percent in November, after October's 0.1 percent decline.
The strong Thanksgiving week helped November sales, though reports were mixed on sales over the Black Friday weekend in the three days after the holiday.
But November's retail sales data will be just a dress rehearsal for future reports on holiday spending.
"Everyone's waiting to see what that final weekend before Christmas brings," said Marc Pado, U.S. market strategist for Cantor Fitzgerald & Co.
CPI, the widely tracked gauge of inflation at the consumer or retail pricing level, is forecast to have dropped 0.4 percent in November after rising 0.2 percent in October, according to a Reuters poll. Excluding food and energy costs, the core CPI for November is likely to have risen 0.2 percent rate, matching October's increase.
Data from the Fed on industrial production and capacity utilization for November will be released on Thursday, while the U.S. international trade deficit for October will be reported on Wednesday.
Still, the market could find it tough to push forward next week, despite the economic indicators and other news, Pado said.
"We're in this sort of mid-December slump, and what the big funds will be doing is getting rid of positions that did not perform," Pado said.
"Then there's window dressing, which is when the funds try to dress up their portfolios at the end of the year by buying the stocks that look good."
Among the sectors that analysts have said could see gains are financial services, energy and technology.
"The financials really kicked in a couple of months ago," said Tim Heekin, director of trading at Thomas Weisel Partners, a San Francisco investment bank, and the sector "will be strong, along with tech and energy right through the end of the year."
© Reuters 2005
Birchtree
12-10-2005, 05:02 PM
Greg,
I like it when you are staying busy hunting down the good stuff - thank you, you really save me valuable time while trying to stay in touch myself. I also like your new more aggressive fund allocations - right on.
Dennis
US dollar: What's going on?
Surjit S Bhalla | BS | December 10, 2005 | 14:04 IST
The US dollar has defied all forecasts. The dollar index is trading at a 7-month high, and this at a time when its current account deficit is approaching 7 per cent of GDP. The Japanese yen, the euro and the Indian rupee are trading at 19-month lows.
If there are any fundamentals that are driving the dollar to these multi-year highs, I don't know of them. Let's consider interest rates.
European interest rates have begun to rise again, after having declined since October 2000. Japanese interest rates are scheduled to increase from their near zero levels of the last four years. Let's consider stock markets. This calendar year, European stocks have risen about 20 per cent, Japanese stocks about 30 per cent. US stocks, despite the year-end rally, are barely in positive territory.
Let's consider growth rates. US growth is slowing down marginally, whereas both Japan and Germany are no longer the sick men of the world.
The Indian growth rate has exceeded 8 per cent for the first time in a year not following a drought, and India has just displaced the US as the second-most attractive FDI destination. Yet on December 6, the dollar traded at 121 yen, 1.17 euros, and 46.35 rupees. As Marvin Gaye would say, "What's going on?"
Besides these fundamental factors (interest rates, GDP growth, stock markets), there is another small surprise in the fundamental mix-up -- the value of the Chinese yuan. After complaints from all over the world for its mercantilist exchange rate, and therefore trade policies, the Chinese finally 'relented' and signalled to the world that they were ready to play by the 'rules of the game.'
They appreciated their currency by a minuscule 2.1 per cent on July 21, 2005. This appreciation, by all accounts, was too insignificant to make a dent in the overall mercantilist trade imbalance.
Even the major US investment banks -- who, perhaps due to $ signs, have been reluctant to point out in their research that the Chinese currency is today significantly more undervalued than the yen was at the time the world was forced to take notice in 1985 -- were expecting some movement in the Chinese currency after the initial 2 per cent pinprick.
But this was not to be. While there is internal dissension, and significantly from the Chinese Central Bank, the powers that be in China know how it can laugh its way to the bank at the expense of growth in other countries. So it has kept the yuan under wraps -- i.e. only a 0.5 per cent appreciation against the dollar since the momentous day of July 21.
This lack of movement has not only disappointed American politicians but also policy makers around the world. To date, when currencies did go out of whack, there was a correction induced by either the market (e.g. the famous Soros play on the British pound in September 1992, or the Thai baht devaluation in July 1997) or by policy makers, e.g. the Plaza agreement pertaining to the yen, and to a lesser extent, the European currencies, in 1985.
But none of these historic landmarks has affected the Chinese view of exchange rates: "Listen, we have tied ourselves to the dollar through thick and thin, and we did the world a favour by not devaluing along with Asian currencies in 1997."
If the policy is one of fixed exchange rates, then how can the question of a 'favour' arise, especially if fundamentals favour an appreciation (as it did with China) or fundamentals favour a depreciation (as was the case with Thailand). If the concern is with the "need" of devaluation in 1997, the Chinese conveniently forget that they pioneered the concept of large-scale 'beggar thy neighbour' devaluations, i.e. in 1980 one dollar bought 1.5 yuan, in 1990 4.78 yuan, and in 1994 8.62 yuan.
The last devaluation was 80 per cent in nominal terms, and 30 per cent in real terms!
Since 1993, the Chinese currency should have further appreciated in nominal terms, to reflect differences in inflation and productivity growth. But the Chinese authorities, obviously, are not moved.
They have thumbed their reserve dollars at the world, gleefully adding that they could cause major financial instability by dumping dollars if provoked enough. Given this Chinese power play, and intransigence, Marvin Gaye might have said, "You know we've got to find a way, To bring some fairness (lovin') here today."
And this is what I believe happened to the US dollar over the last few months. Perhaps aided by a wink-wink and a nod-nod from both developed and developing country policy makers, the 'world' has decided that if China does not come to the table, the mountain will go to China.
Since the world needs a Chinese revaluation, and China won't do it on its own, the world will do it for China. Note the exchange rate changes in the table since mid-July, the time of the beginning of the so-called Chinese reval.
The yen has depreciated by 7 per cent, the euro by 2 per cent; this, when the expectation was that both would appreciate by at least 10 per cent (remember the targets of 100 yen to the dollar and 1.40 for the euro?). Besides the Philippine peso, the ostensibly ultra-strong Asian currencies have generally stayed flat, or depreciated -- with the Indian rupee depreciating the most, 6.1 per cent.
It must be that the Indian authorities have (correctly) decided that if undervaluation was so good for its major competitor, China, it should also be good for India. In Latin America, Brazil shows an oversized appreciation, but this is more a function of the very large devaluation that occurred there in the last few years.
How long can this unusual adjustment pattern continue? Until China realises that globalisation is a multi-player game.
© 2003 rediff.com India Limited.
Christopherson in place as Agriculture Department CFO
12/09/05
By Mary Mosquera,
Washington Technology
Charles Christopherson took the reins as chief financial officer at the Agriculture Department this week, where he will oversee $128 billion in assets and $77 billion in total annual spending.
Deputy CFO Patricia Healy has been acting CFO since Ted McPherson left Agriculture for the Education Department two years ago.
Christopherson's duties involve accounting and reporting responsibilities for program funds totaling more than $90 billion. Among the CFO programs and offices, the National Finance Center processes the payroll for one-fifth of the federal workforce—550,000 individuals—and operates components of the more than $100 billion Thrift Savings Plan for federal employees, the world's largest 401(k) retirement plan.
Prior to coming to USDA, Christopherson was president of CB Solutions LLC, a Texas-based business consulting firm specializing in high-technology, accounts-receivable collections.
He earned a bachelor of science degree from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and an M.B.A. from the University of Oregon.
© 1996-2005 Post-Newsweek Media, Inc.
Katrina evacuees accused of cooking meth in Gulf Shores motel
12/10/2005, 4:43 p.m. ET
GULF SHORES, Ala. (AP) — Two Hurricane Katrina evacuees were arrested and charged after they were found cooking methamphetamine in a Gulf Shores motel room paid for by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, authorities said.
Gulf Shores Police Narcotics Investigator Tommy Green said the Pascagoula, Miss. man and woman were charged with manufacturing methamphetamine, unlawful possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Green said Jason Alan Cook, 22, was pulled over for a traffic violation Friday morning and the arresting officer found he was in possession of meth and drug paraphernalia.
Cook led police back to the Phoenix All Suites where investigators found Jamie Lyn Murphy, 25, and a makeshift meth lab, Green said.
"It was a very dangerous, volatile situation that could've been tragic if they'd have had a fire or explosion," he said.
Murphy, who also was charged with possession of marijuana, had rented the room through a FEMA hurricane displacement program, according to Gulf Shores police.
Police did not know how long the two had been staying at the hotel, Green said.
FEMA spokesman Jay Eaker confirmed that Phoenix All Suites billed the agency.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press.
Jury sides with white fire captains in Mobile discrimination suit
12/10/2005, 2:11 p.m. ET
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — A federal jury has awarded four white fire captains in Mobile $135,000 each in a discrimination suit over promotions.
The officers in the Mobile Fire-Rescue Department claimed they were passed over for promotion two years ago that went to a black co-worker.
The plaintiffs, Melvin Stringfellow, Stanley Vinson, Kenneth Tillman and Onrie "Diddy" Brown, sued the city last year after they failed to win promotion to district chief.
The promotion instead went to Johnny Morris, a black co-worker with less education, less experience and lower scores on the promotion exams, according to testimony.
Attorney Paul Carbo, who represented the city, said he disagreed with the jury's decision Friday to award money to all of the plaintiffs. He said he plans to take up the issue in post-trial motions.
"It's our basic position that there was only one promotion at issue, and that they all couldn't have gotten the promotion," he said.
An attorney for the officers, Ed Smith, said he was "appreciative of the jury and think they — where others couldn't — did the right thing."
The eight-member panel, which included one black juror, ruled unanimously that Fire Chief Steve Dean discriminated against the captains. They awarded $10,000 to each plaintiff in lost wages and benefits and $125,000 to each for emotional pain and anguish.
Chief U.S. District Judge Ginny Granade later could add more money to compensate the men for wages they would have earned in the future had they been promoted.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press.
Surfin' USA dealt heavy blow by factory closure By Jill Serjeant
Thu Dec 8, 9:44 AM ET
The southern California company that helped turn surfing into a mass popular sport has closed for business, marking the end of an era immortalized by The Beach Boys and Baywatch.
Gordon "Grubby" Clark, who with surfboard pioneer Hobie Alter invented the foam and fiberglass process that made surfboards lighter, faster and more responsive, stopped production and sales from his Laguna Niguel factory on Monday after 44 years in business.
In a seven-page letter to suppliers seen by Reuters on Wednesday, Clark cited weariness in a lengthy battle with environmental regulators over the manufacture of the foam blanks, or rough surfboard shapes, that go inside about two-thirds of U.S.-made surfboards.
"For owning and operating Clark Foam, I may be looking at very large fines, civil lawsuits, and even time in prison," Clark, 73, said in the letter.
Clark said authorities in California and Orange County, where his factory is located, were waging an ever tougher crackdown on the company's use of a toxic chemical called TDI, which can cause breathing problems.
The sudden decision to close hit California's normally laid-back surfer dudes hard.
"It is like taking the tires off cars. It was a real sudden impact for the entire industry including Asia and Europe and everywhere that sells foam surfboards," said Jefferson Wagner, of Zuma Jay Surfboards on Malibu's legendary Zuma Beach.
"A major component of the surf board is no longer available. There is one other guy in southern California making these but nowhere near that volume level. There is a large manufacturer in Australia but they'll never be able to handle the volume in the United States," Wagner said.
In 1958, Clark and Alter developed the first reliable method for mass producing the core of surfboards, using polyurethane foam plastic in a departure from the balsa wood used since the sport's Hawaiian origins.
Clark established Clark Foam in Laguna Niguel in 1961 and it rapidly became the world's largest maker of foam surfboard blanks, fueling an explosion in both the sport and southern California's beach lifestyle.
Cheaper, mass produced alternatives from Asia have been making inroads into the surfboard market for several years.
But many surfers say there is no comparison to U.S.-produced boards, which can sell for up to $900.
"Those boards are all mass produced and there is no quality control. Hard-core surfers can tell the difference and they can't live with that," said Wagner.
Demand has already soared for U.S. boards, with stores reporting prices rising by between 30 and 50 percent because of the expected supply shortage.
"One guy came in and bought four and another bought 12 this week," Wagner said.
Copyright © 2005 Yahoo! Inc.
HILLARY'S SECRET WAR
The real story behind the Clinton body count
July 13, 2005
Editor's note: The following is an eye-opening look into New York Times best-selling author Richard Poe's revealing book, "Hillary's Secret War." Whereas Edward Klein's book on the New York senator reveals previously unknown aspects of her personal life, Poe's expose focuses on how Hillary Clinton and the left's "shadow government" have labored to put her and her far-left agenda in the White House by controlling the still-uncensored flow of real news to Americans – via the Internet.
If that sounds too fantastic to be true, read on.
By Richard Poe
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"When Clinton lied, nobody died," says a popular bumper sticker.
While untrue, the slogan makes good propaganda. Democrats can repeat it ad infinitum without fear of rebuttal from Republicans. No conservative in public life is willing to broach the topic of the Clinton body count in 2005. Yet the Clintons are more vulnerable on this issue than on any other.
Nixon's articles of impeachment did not accuse him of ordering the burglary of Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. They accused him only of covering up the burglary, after the fact.
Likewise, no one can prove that Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster met his death through foul play. It is quite possible that he committed suicide. However, it has been proved beyond doubt that the Clinton White House obstructed, corrupted and undermined every effort to investigate Foster's death.
Nixon was held accountable for his obstructive acts. The Clintons were not.
A nation in denial
British journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is one of the most knowledgeable investigators of the Foster cover-up. The Cambridge-educated Evans-Pritchard is less easily dismissed than many Clinton critics. He covered war-torn Central America for the Economist and the Sunday Telegraph. As the Telegraph's Washington bureau chief from 1992 to 1997, he "was known in Washington for accuracy, industry and courage" in the words of Washington Post pundit Robert Novak.
Evans-Pritchard has commented on the cocoon of denial into which many decent, well-meaning people retreat when their governments go bad. He has seen it in many countries. "You tell the people in San Salvador that their air force is carpet-bombing the campesinos, they say that's impossible," he remarked to New York Times Magazine writer Philip Weiss. Evans-Pritchard saw a similar self-delusion proliferating in Clinton's America.
According to Evans-Pritchard, he became "radicalized" in Nicaragua. "I could see that what the [foreign] press was writing was not true about the Sandinistas," he told Insight magazine in 1997. "They had a love affair with the revolution. They were all sitting around Managua and going to parties with Sandinista officials. There was a very romantic side to it all. But out there in the countryside, the Sandinistas were doing horrible things to the campesinos ... people were being killed in quite large numbers."
Evans-Pritchard did what his colleagues would not. He traveled the countryside and interviewed campesinos. They were only too glad to tell him about Sandinista atrocities. "For the first time in my life, I realized that what you read in the papers is not true, and this quite shocked me. I started writing from a different point of view, and I found myself very quickly in a big dispute with my colleagues, and it never ended."
In Clinton's America, Evans-Pritchard saw journalists behaving little differently from their colleagues in the Managua press corps. "The way [American reporters] cover Arkansas is exactly the way they covered Nicaragua, which is they didn't go out into the hills and talk to ordinary people," he noted in 1997.
Evans-Pritchard undertook the task himself. He presented his discoveries in a 1997 book titled, "The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories" – in my view, the most accurate, thorough and fearless account of Clinton corruption yet produced. It offers a detailed expose of the Clintons' ties to drug lords and death squads, in an America rapidly descending into Salvadoran-style lawlessness.
"To a foreign eye, America looks like a country that is flying out of control," writes Evans-Pritchard.
It is under Clinton that an armed militia movement involving tens of thousands of people has mushroomed out of the plain ... People do not spend their weekends with an SKS rifle, drilling for guerrilla warfare ... in a country that is at ease with itself. It takes very bad behavior to provoke the first simmerings of armed insurgency, and the militias are unmistakably Clinton's offspring.
Regarding Vincent Foster's peculiar death and the ensuing cover-up, Evans-Pritchard wrote in 1997, "The Foster case is taboo for American journalists. In private, many concede that the official story is unbelievable, but they will not broach it in print ... It has nothing to do with party affiliation. If anything, Republican journalists are even more susceptible to the spell."
'Cleaning house'
Jerry Luther Parks was reportedly watching a news bulletin on the death of Vincent Foster when he turned from the television and muttered, "I'm a dead man." His son Gary was with him in the room. It was July 21, 1993. The White House Deputy Counsel had just been found dead in Fort Marcy Park, about seven miles from the White House, across the Potomac River in Virginia. Foster had been shot through the head, said the bulletin, an apparent suicide.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard interviewed the Parks family extensively. In "The Secret Life of Bill Clinton," he reports that Parks was a nervous wreck for the next two months. He packed a gun and drove evasively to shake off any possible pursuers. At one point, Parks told his family that Bill Clinton was "cleaning house" and that he was "next on the list." Parks had been security chief for Clinton-Gore campaign headquarters in Little Rock, Ark., in 1992.
On Sept. 23, 1993, as Parks was driving to his suburban Little Rock home along the Chenal Parkway, a white Chevrolet Caprice with two men inside drove alongside and peppered Parks' car with semiautomatic gunfire. Parks's car ground to a halt. A man emerged from the white Chevy, fired two rounds into Parks' chest with a 9-mm pistol, then sped off.
Several witnesses watched the murder. The killers were never found. As with so many other "Arkancides" – the name given to the long list of suspicious deaths among Arkansas associates of the Clintons – Big Media ignored the event.
One of the last people to see Vincent Foster alive was Linda Tripp, who then worked as a secretary for Foster's boss, White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum. Tripp testified before Kenneth Starr's grand jury on July 28, 1998, that the reason she had leaked Monica Lewinsky's story to Michael Isikoff at Newsweek was that Tripp hoped the spotlight of national publicity might protect her from physical harm.
"I am afraid of this administration," Tripp told the Grand Jury.
I have what I consider to be well-founded fears of what they are capable of ... I had reasons to believe that the Vince Foster tragedy was not depicted accurately under oath by members of the administration ... I knew based on personal knowledge, personal observations, that they were lying under oath. So it became very fearful to me that I had information even back then that was dangerous.
"But do you have any examples of violence being done by the administration to people who were a threat to them?" asked a juror.
Tripp named Jerry Parks. "[T]he behavior in the West Wing with senior staff to the president during the time the Jerry Parks [murder report] came over the fax frightened me. He had been killed," said Tripp. The "flurry of activity," the closed-door meetings, and the "hush-hush" atmosphere in the White House all struck her as ominous and frightening.
"Maybe you had to be there," said Tripp.
[The news of Parks' death] was something they wanted to get out in front of. There was talk that this would be another body to add to the list of 40 bodies or something that were associated with the Clinton administration. At that time, I didn't know what that meant. I have since come to see such a list.
Some skeptics might discount Tripp's fears as fanciful, even hysterical. But Tripp was no hysteric. On the contrary, she had been trained to deal with stress and intrigue to a greater degree than most. According to the New York Times, Tripp worked for "highly classified Army intelligence and commando units in the 1980s," including as an aide to the top-secret Delta Force. "[I]'ve worked on the covert side of the Department of Defense," Tripp told congressional investigators. In short, Linda Tripp was a spook, a professional denizen of the intelligence underworld. Her observations should not be lightly dismissed.
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
Welles: Looking back at 2005
It has been a year of mixed blessings for federal employees and retirees
By Judy Welles
Published on Dec. 12, 2005
At the beginning of this year, I predicted that 2005 would bring a mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly. Although some of that came true, particularly in the battles about pay for performance, it has mostly been a year of mixed blessings for federal employees and retirees.
It was a weary but heroic year as federal employees volunteered for other duties and donated leave to those who needed time off to help during hurricane disasters. It got ugly, too, with the specter of New Orleans' flood victims and the questions about the government's response, which are still under examination.
Some had feared significant erosion on the subject of competitive sourcing, but it did not come to pass. The Republican Study Committee proposed cutting retiree benefits, but the proposal went nowhere in 2005. It may rear its head again in 2006.
Pay increases for federal and military employees went up, as did health insurance premiums. But more people used health savings to defray some health care costs and paid premiums with pre-tax dollars. Despite a concerted effort, premium conversion legislation to give retirees the same benefit of paying for health insurance with pre-tax benefits died on the table.
Pay-for-performance plans stalled at the Homeland Security Department because of union litigation but moved ahead successfully in areas of the Defense Department, notably at the Navy Department.
Dental and vision benefits, which many hoped would be available for this year's open season, were delayed a year. But the Office of Personnel Management announced that flexible spending accounts would be expanded and could cover dental and vision costs for those who choose.
The Thrift Savings Plan's new L funds were a popular alternative. The Lifestyle Funds provide appropriate investment allocations based on when people intend to withdraw funds. Retirees invested more than $1 billion in those funds in the first four days they were available. Also this year, TSP open seasons ended, so participants could change enrollment or contributions at any time.
While Congress focused on the costs of disaster assistance in the worst hurricane season ever, it ignored the battle to eliminate the onerous Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision. Those provisions permit Social Security benefits to offset part of Civil Service Retirement System benefits for those eligible for both.
Federal travelers conducting agency business got an 8-cent increase in gas reimbursement, bringing the amount to 48.5 cents a mile. But it will fall to 44.5 cents a mile for 2006.
Surveys showed employees feel they do important work and are generally satisfied with paid vacations, health benefits and alternative work schedules. But few felt satisfied with telework or child care subsidies. Also, few believe that the government properly recognizes high performance, and they don't give high marks to managers. All in all, not much changed. Best wishes for the new year!
Welles is a retired federal employee who has worked in the public and private sectors. She lives in Bethesda, Md., and writes about work life topics for Federal Computer Week.
Hurricane Katrina blows in tax breaks
By Curtis Rockwell
hattiesburgamerican.com
Dec 14, 2005
When Pine Belt residents prepare their income tax returns for 2005, they could be eligible for several tax breaks designed to ease the pain of Hurricane Katrina.
The tax break package were included in the Hurricane Katrina Emergency Relief Act that President Bush signed.
Some tax breaks now in place are available to people who suffered casualty losses, withdrew funds from retirement accounts and sheltered storm evacuees for more than 60 days free of charge.
In addition, the breaks protect displaced evacuees from losing their child tax credit or earned income credit due to lost wages as well as rewarding employers who hired displaced workers with certain tax credits.
"I think without a doubt, the biggest benefit to most people will come in the casualty loss break," said Annette Turner, a Hattiesburg certified public accountant.
"In the past, that was a provision that no one talked about much. Because the way the law was worded, not many people could take advantage of it. But now it will be very feasible for a lot of people."
Basically, the casualty provision waived an adjustment tied into a person's adjusted gross income. For example, an owner of a $2,000 lap top that was stolen if the owner had an adjusted gross income of more than $20,000 could not claim the item; now the full amount can be deducted.
"That is definitely one of the new deductions people should take a long look at, because basically they can deduct the full amount of uninsured losses," said Matt Odom, a spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service.
"There are several that could be very helpful to taxpayers, much as they were designed to be. The casualty loss along with the retirement funds provision, I think, are two of the key deductions."
As for the retirement funds, a person under the age of 60 that withdrew money from an IRA, a 401K plan and thrift savings plans because of the storm will not suffer the normal 10 percent early withdrawal penalty.
"There are still some technical corrections being made on some of these provisions, mainly because Congress passed it so fast so people could take advantage of it," said Jim Koerber, a CPA with Smith, Turner and Reeves in Hattiesburg.
"In the case of the retirement funds, one does not have to pay taxes on the amount of money withdrawn if they pay that principal amount back within three years."
Both Turner and Koerber conducted a seminar on the Hurricane Katrina tax breaks at the end of October at the Payne Center on the Southern Mississippi campus.
Due to the expansive amount of deductions included in the tax break package, they urged everyone who thought they could be affected in some way to confer with their tax consultants for more information.
Each also stressed the fact that you cannot "double-dip," or claim losses on income taxes that had already been covered by insurance companies.
In addition, taxpayers who filed for extensions this year before the storm hit were given an automatic extension from Oct. 15, normally the "drop-dead date" according to Turner, to Feb. 28.
Construction company owner Chuck Roberts, who has hired several workers that came to the Hattiesburg area because of the hurricane, said he will look into the tax breaks.
"I just really started hearing about them," said Roberts, whose workers have been helping in the recovery efforts in the Pine Belt.
"I hired three guys from the Coast and two more from down in south Louisiana since the storm hit, and if I can benefit from giving them a job thanks to the new legislation I'd be silly not to take advantage of it."
Winn-Dixie's creditors want all of company's stock
Associated Press
Dec. 15, 2005
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Winn-Dixie's creditors want a bankruptcy judge to give them all the supermarket chain's stock -- which would leave its current stockholders with nothing.
The creditors committee's demand is contained in court documents in which they oppose Winn-Dixie's third request for a 90-day extension to file a business plan. The creditors say the supermarket giant should only be granted another 30-day extension.
In a Chapter eleven reorganization case, secured and unsecured creditors are paid before stockholders since shareholders are the owners of the company. If there isn't enough money to pay the creditors, they are sometimes issued common stock.
In over-the-counter trading, Winn-Dixie shares were trading at 85 cents per share, down nine cents.
The creditors committee has also tried to have a committee of shareholders dissolved. The issue is still before a U.S. District Bankruptcy judge.
A hearing on the extension is scheduled for today.
Pryor's flawed legacy
by Stanley Crouch
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Monday, December 12th, 2005
New York Daily News
This past Saturday Richard Pryor left this life and bequeathed to our culture as much darkness as he did the light his extraordinary talent made possible.
When we look at the remarkable descent this culture has made into smut, contempt, vulgarity and the pornagraphic, those of us who are not willing to drink the Kool-Aid marked "all's well," will have to address the fact that it was the combination of confusion and comic genius that made Pryor a much more negative influence than a positive one.
I do not mean positive in the way Bill Cosby was when his television show redefined situation comedy by turning away from all of the stereotypes of disorder and incompetence that were then and still are the basic renditions of black American life in our mass media.
Richard Pryor was not that kind of a man. His was a different story.
Pryor was troubled and he had seen things that so haunted him that the comedian found it impossible to perform and ignore the lower-class shadow worlds he had known so well, filled with pimps, prostitutes, winos and abrasive types of one sort or another.
The vulgarity of his material, and the idea a "real" black person was a foul-mouthed type was his greatest influence. It was the result of seeing the breaking of "white" convention as a form of "authentic" definition.
Pryor reached for anything that would make white America uncomfortable and would prop up a smug belief among black Americans that they were always "more cool" and more ready to "face life" than the members of majority culture.
Along the way, Pryor made too many people feel that the N word was open currency and was more accurate than any other word used to describe or address a black person.
In the dung piles of pimp and gangster rap we hear from slime meisters like Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent, the worst of Pryor's influence has been turned into an aspect of the new minstrelsy in which millions of dollars are made by "normalizing" demeaning imagery and misogyny.
What is so unfortunate is that the heaviest of Pryor's gifts was largely ignored by so many of those who praised the man when he was alive and are now in the middle of deifying him.
The pathos and the frailty of the human soul alone in the world or insecure or looking for something of meaning in a chaotic environment was a bit too deep for all of the simpleminded clowns like Andrew Dice Clay or those who thought that mere ethnicity was enough to define one as funny, like the painfully square work of Paul Rodriguez.
Of course, Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam is the ultimate coon show update of human cesspools, where "cutting edge" has come to mean traveling ever more downward in the sewer.
In essence, Pryor stunned with his timing, his rhythm, his ability to stand alone and fill the stage with three-dimensional characters through his remarkably imaginative gift for an epic sweep of mimicry.
That nuanced mimicry crossed ethnic lines, stretched from young to old, and gave poignancy to the comedian's revelations about the hurts and the terrors of life.
The idea of "laughing to keep from crying" was central to his work and has been diligently avoided by those who claim to owe so much to him.
As he revealed in his last performance films, Pryor understood the prison he had built for himself and the shallow definitions that smothered his audience's understanding of the humanity behind his work.
But, as they say, once the barn door has been opened, you cannot get all of the animals to return by whistling. So we need to understand the terrible mistakes this man of comic genius made and never settle for a standard that is less than what he did at his very best, which was as good as it has ever gotten.
2005 sees several noteworthy changes in personal finance
December 16, 2005
By Michelle Singletary
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — Can it be another year is nearly over?
Typically in the last weeks of December, I like to reflect on my personal financial life. I take stock (sorry, just like that pun) of whether I followed all the advice I got during the year from my financial adviser. (I did.)
OK, I did 75 percent of what she told me to do.
Year-end also is a time to catch up on what's happened in personal finance. Here's a rundown of some noteworthy money matters from 2005:
New bankruptcy rules. It's now harder to declare yourself broke. Under the new law that went into effect this year, debtors have to meet a means test to be eligible for Chapter 7. Under the old bankruptcy rules, most people decided for themselves which type of bankruptcy they wanted to file. And most chose Chapter 7, where you can generally wipe out all your unsecured debt. Now more people may have to file a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, in which you have to pay back some of your debts.
Credit reports became free to everybody. It used to be only residents in seven states could get their credit reports for free. Everyone is now entitled to get free credit reports once every 12 months from the three nationwide credit bureaus — TransUnion, Experian and Equifax. To order your free credit reports so you can look out for fraudulent accounts or charges go to www.annualcreditreport.com (http://www.annualcreditreport.com) or call 1-877-322-8228.
Minimum credit card payments increased across the board. Federal regulators ordered credit card issuers to increase the minimum monthly payments consumers have to make. The regulators want the banks and other financial institutions to require that cardholders cover at least 1 percent of their outstanding balance each month. This is in addition to any finance charges or fees owed.
Savings rate falls below zero. In October, the U.S. Department of Commerce reported a negative national personal savings rate of 0.7 percent. That means people are spending more than they make by using credit cards, borrowing against the equity in their homes, tapping their savings or selling assets, such as stocks. "Americans are not saving as much as they used to and this spells potential disaster (in) the future," said Phillip Fournier, vice president of Legacy Advisors, an investment management and financial planning firm based in McLean, Va.
I once had a reader ask me if it was OK to take out a home equity line of credit instead of creating an emergency savings fund. His theory was if he got into financial trouble, he could just draw down on the line of credit.
He could do that.
But the point of having a savings cushion is so that it can carry you through a financial disaster or hardship using your own money — not borrowed funds.
Investing in lifecycle mutual funds was up. Assets in lifecycle funds have more than doubled since 2000, making it one of the fastest-growing parts of the mutual fund world. Lifecycle funds were added this year to the federal government's Thrift Savings Plan and the funds have become a huge hit.
Lifecycle funds are a way to diversify your retirement savings plan by relying on professionally determined investment mixes that are tailored to when you think you will need the money.
Surveys show people often don't change their asset allocations once they sign up for a retirement plan because they don't know what to do. Investing in a lifecycle fund is essentially like putting your retirement account on automatic pilot — except there is a pilot. It's just not you. And we all know that saving for retirement is going to be important since there is a projected shortfall in Social Security in the near future.
Seventy years ago this year, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. And thankfully this past year, President Bush was pushed back from making a change to the Social Security safety net by creating personal accounts. It was a plan that had lots of problems.
Seventy years later the need is still great for a social safety net.
If time is money, I hope in 2006 you'll take the time to learn more about personal finance.
SpaceX plans Monday launch
Takeoff couldn't come during a worse time for Boeing
By Eric Fleischauer
Decatur Daily (mailto:eric@decaturdaily.com)
A potential rival of Boeing Co. hopes to do Monday what strikes and technical problems have prevented Boeing from doing recently: Launch a rocket.
If it goes forward Monday, the launch will be SpaceX's first. The customers are the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Air Force. It will carry a satellite that it hopes will measure space plasma, which can adversely affect GPS and other space-based civil and military communications.
California-based Boeing spokesman Dan Beck said SpaceX's planned launch will not affect Boeing.
"We wish them the best as they try to enter this difficult market," Beck said.
Space X recently filed a lawsuit aimed at blocking a proposed joint venture, dubbed the United Launch Alliance, between Boeing and its satellite-launch competitor, Lockheed-Martin Corp. If the troubled venture passes muster from the Air Force and the Federal Trade Commission, Lockheed's production facility for its Atlas series of satellite-launch rockets would move to Decatur, adding hundreds of jobs.
Beck called the lawsuit meritless. He said Boeing and Lockheed continue their efforts to obtain approval of the venture.
"We understand that the Department of Defense and the Air Force are meeting soon, within days, to decide what they will recommend to the Federal Trade Commission. If they recommend it, we hope we will receive (FTC) approval."
Boeing and Lockheed said their alliance would reduce production costs, thus benefiting governmental customers.
SpaceX claimed it would increase the cost of governmental contracts by reducing competition.
Difference in price
Of greatest concern to Boeing, SpaceX's Falcon 1's price tag is $6.7 million. It has less lift capacity than Boeing's Delta 2, but competes directly with Orbital Sciences' Pegasus rocket, which costs about $30 million. A successful launch, though, could accelerate production of the Falcon 5, which competes directly with Boeing's Delta 2. Boeing's Decatur-made Delta 2 costs about $60 million per launch.
The Falcon 5, SpaceX says, will cost about $12 million.
Decatur strike
The SpaceX launch could not come at a worse time for Boeing. Its 305 hourly workers at the Decatur plant — the only facility that assembles Delta rockets — have been on strike since Nov. 2. Another 1,200 workers are on strike in Florida, California and Alabama. Most work on the Boeing Delta rocket program.
Beck said there "are no negotiations planned at this time" with the machinists union.
Bob Wood, a spokesman for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said the strikers are resolute. Other union members are donating toys to the picketers to give to their children for Christmas, Wood said. The striking workers lost their health insurance Dec. 1.
Of the rockets that were being assembled at the time the strike began, only one is proceeding on schedule. Despite machinists' complaints, Boeing plans to supply a solid-fuel propellant stage for the launch of the Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft next month.
The Boeing stage is part of the Lockheed Atlas 5 that will launch the satellite. Boeing supervisors and managers are making the final modifications before a planned January launch.
Grounded missions include a rocket that was to carry an advanced weather satellite for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a NASA atmospheric science mission and a classified flight for the National Reconnaissance Office.
"We don't know how many launches will be delayed by the strike, but certainly those in the next month or two will be delayed," Beck said.
SpaceX is a private company founded by Elon Musk. He made his millions co-founding PayPal, an Internet payment system, and then selling it to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.
FBI probe results key to increased funding for state Boy Scouts
BIRMINGHAM (AP) — United Way of Central Alabama board members say the organization plans to increase its 2006 contribution to the Greater Alabama Council of the Boy Scouts of America, but only if there's a "favorable resolution" of an FBI probe into Scout membership rolls.
Next year the United Way plans to match the $940,855 it gave to the Scouts in 2005. An additional $19,758 will stay in a United Way bank account until the investigation concludes, giving the Scouts the fifth-highest allocation.
The Scouts are being investigated on allegations they padded their membership numbers to receive more money from agencies such as United Way.
The Greater Alabama Council initiated an audit of the membership, which Scout leaders predict will be finished in the next few weeks, along with the FBI probe.
"We have been in touch with the Scouts and we have followed this very closely," Bill Hamilton, who oversees the board's allocation committee, said. "We are in communication with their board, who are business leaders in Birmingham. When they tell us they feel it is OK, we believe that."
Randy Haines, chairman of the Greater Alabama Council of the Boy Scouts, said in an e-mail statement, "We are looking forward to a progressive 2006 and are grateful for United Way's confidence in our program. The membership audit we initiated earlier this year should be completed in January."
United Way board members approved about $30 million for 69 agencies that request approval each year or noncontractual agencies.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press.
Late Trading May Not Send Dow Over 11,000
Sunday December 18, 4:27 PM EST
NEW YORK (AP) — Traditionally, the last two weeks of the year are a time of light volume but rising stocks on Wall Street. Yet this year, there may not be enough of a rise to take to the bank.
The stock market's "Santa Claus" rally marched through Wall Street through November, but seemed to have made an exit along with the Macy's parade. Stocks have been flat for weeks, with investors concerned about a difficult winter and conflicting reports about 2006.
Wall Street is still hoping the Dow Jones industrial average will crack the 11,000 mark before year's end. While generally meaningless to serious investors, it is hoped such an achievement, which would represent the best showing for the market in four years, would provide a psychological boost.
Despite the Dow Jones industrial average reaching 10,997.50 intraday on Nov. 28, the index slumped throughout December and could not mount a sustainable rally of note last week. For the week, the Dow gained 0.9 percent and the Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.63 percent, but the Nasdaq composite index fell 0.19 percent as investors moved out of tech stocks and small-cap companies and into larger, less risky holdings.
There's still a chance the Dow could reach 11,000 over the next two weeks. Mutual fund and hedge fund managers will likely try to polish their year-end returns by buying up stocks in the last nine days of trading for 2005. It's possible.
But even if 11,000 happens, the Dow won't stay there long. Come the new year, the funds that bought up stocks in December will cash out in January. And there are likely enough investors out there who see 11,000 as a signal to sell to make sure the market doesn't head back there any time soon.
ECONOMIC DATA
Mediocre economic data won't help the markets much in the week ahead. On Tuesday, the Labor Department will release its producer price index, a measure of inflation on the wholesale level. The PPI is expected to drop 0.4 percent for November, after a 0.7 percent October rise, due to falling energy costs. But so-called "core" PPI, with energy removed from the equation, is expected to rise 0.2 percent after a 0.3 percent drop in October. At best, that's a middling result that will likely leave investors unimpressed.
On Wednesday, the Commerce Department will release the final word on the third quarter's gross domestic product. GDP is expected to have grown 4.3 percent in the July-September period, on par with previous estimates.
Finally, on Friday, the University of Michigan releases its revised consumer sentiment index for December, which is expected to rise to 89 from an 88.7 reading a few weeks ago. Unless the number is substantially better — or worse — the usually market-moving index is unlikely to move anything.
EARNINGS
A handful of important corporate earnings reports could boost a few sectors during the week. On Tuesday, Wall Street investment firm Morgan Stanley will release its fourth-quarter earnings Tuesday morning, and investors will look closely to see what new Chief Executive John Mack is doing to reverse the firm's fortunes.
Morgan Stanley stock has climbed 19 percent from its 52-week low of $47.66 on May 13, mostly due to Mack's ascension. The company is expected to earn $1.10 per share, up from $1.09 per share last year. Morgan Stanley closed Friday at $56.88.
Investors with a stake in the retail sector will be interested in Circuit City Stores Inc.'s earnings, due out Monday morning. The electronics retailer is expected to post a 3-cent-per-share profit, reversing a loss of 3 cents per share in the year-ago quarter. Circuit City shares have climbed steadily throughout the year, rising 59 percent from a 52-week low of $13.40 on Jan. 12 to close Friday at $21.25.
On Wednesday, shipper FedEx Corp. will release its earnings before the trading session, and is expected to earn $1.40 per share, compared with $1.25 per share a year ago. Despite high fuel costs, the company's stock rallied sharply in the fourth quarter of the year, rising 30 percent from a 52-week low of $76.81 on Sept. 20, closing Friday at $99.90.
EVENTS
Christmas falls on this coming Sunday, so while the bond and stock markets will be closed Monday, Dec. 26, in observance, both markets will be open during regular hours throughout this week.
Elton turns down $10m
By Rob Singh, Evening Standard
Sir Elton John has turned down £5.6 million for the exclusive rights to his wedding to David Furnish.
The singer was offered $10 million by an American company to cover his wedding on Wednesday, the Evening Standard has learned.
A friend said: "Elton was approached to do a huge thing with an American media organisation which wanted to cover everything including the build-up and the wedding day itself. They were offering $10 million, but Elton is just not interested. He wants it as private as possible."
The offer dwarfs amounts paid to other couples. The rights for Victoria and David Beckhams' wedding were sold for a reported £1 million to OK! which is said to have paid Jordan and Peter Andre £1.75 million. Sir Elton's wedding, on the day civil partnerships become legal in Britain, will be held at Windsor's Guildhall. Seven hundred guests will attend a reception at Sir Elton's Berkshire home, Woodside.
Prior to the wedding, Sir Elton's "hen night" tonight will be played a video message from Bill Clinton. The minute-long recording will be played at a cabaret party at the Too2Much nightclub in Soho. A source said: "We were running through rehearsals when the tape was played. We knew Elton had good connections, but to see the ex-US president was something else."
Mr Clinton congratulates Sir Elton, 58, and David Furnish, 42, and says: "If there were more people like Elton, the world would be a better place."
TSP life-cycle investors won't let go of other funds
December 20, 2005
By Karen Rutzick
govexec.com
Many investors in the Thrift Savings Plan's life-cycle funds are tempering their effectiveness by continuing to invest in traditional stand-alone funds too, officials said at a board meeting Monday.
The 401(k)-style retirement savings plan for federal employees began offering life-cycle funds in August. The funds automatically move from a more aggressive to a more conservative mix of investments as participants approach their target retirement dates.
But TSP officials said they are finding that 55 percent of participants still have money in at least one of the five stand-alone funds too. The life-cycle funds were designed to hold the entire balance.
The most striking number may be this: 16 percent of life-cycle investors also have money in all five of the TSP's stand-alone funds. Those funds are the government securities (G) fund, fixed-income securities (F) fund, common stocks (C) fund, international stocks (I) fund and the small- and mid-sized companies (S) fund.
Six percent of life-cycle participants also have money in four stand-alone funds, 11 percent have money in three, 9 percent have money in two and 13 percent also have money in one additional fund.
One of the primary reasons TSP officials developed the life-cycle option was to wean participants from their overdependence on the G fund. That fund has no risk because its returns are guaranteed by the government, but it also doesn't offer an opportunity for the high returns that are important to funding a comfortable retirement.
Participants still seem attached. Of investors with one stand-alone fund in addition to the life-cycle option, 74 percent were in the G fund.
That instinct is understandable, said Andrew Saul, chairman of the TSP board.
"[The G fund] is such a great investment, let's be honest," Saul said. "It gives you such a great rate at no risk at all. So you'll always have more investors in the money market than you would in other plans."
There is another reason the G fund may still be popular, said Gary Amelio, executive director of the TSP. For new participants, the first month's assets go directly into the G fund regardless of fund selection. Participants might unknowingly be keeping one month's investments in that fund.
TSP officials said they will consider sending targeted educational mailings to investors who are using the life-cycle funds improperly.
The good news is that 95 percent of life-cycle investors are putting their money into just one of the five life-cycle options, as intended. The TSP offers distinct life-cycle funds for federal employees planning retirement around the year 2040, 2030, 2020, 2010 or in the next few years. Employees are meant to choose the one that most closely matches their target retirement date.
Participation in the life-cycle funds has been very strong. To date, about 214,000 investors have poured $7.3 billion into the funds. In less than five months, those figures already have surpassed the TSP board's goal for the first year.
©2005 by National Journal Group Inc.
It's a lucrative time of year for top federal managers
December 18, 2005
THIS YEAR, federal workers may have noticed that many members of the senior executive service, the government's top managers, had a little extra spring in their step. It could have been caused by the bonuses they received.
The Office of Personnel Management recently reported that about 60 percent of the government's almost 6,000 career executives received an average bonus of over $13,000.
Not all departments recognized their executives the same way. Here are the top 10 ranked by average bonuses, and the percentage of executives receiving them:
Agriculture: $15,861, with 81.4 percent of 280 eligible executives receiving a bonus.
Commerce: $12,299, with 77.9 percent of 263 eligible executives getting an award.
Defense: $16,968, with 43.4 percent of 1,049 eligible executives receiving a bonus.
Education: $10,325, with 67.8 percent of 60 executives getting an award.
Energy: $8,863, with 64 percent of 347 eligible executives receiving a bonus.
Homeland Security: $16,424, with 46.6 percent of 204 eligible executives getting an award.
HUD: $8,092, with 60.9 percent of 69 eligible executives receiving a bonus.
Interior: $13,017, with 30.1 percent of 219 eligible executives getting an award.
Justice: $11,858, with 56.5 percent of 523 eligible executives receiving a bonus.
Labor: $11,999, with 89.4 percent of 141 eligible executives getting an award.
OPM reported that the Small Business Administration topped the independent agency list with 100 percent of its 30 senior executives receiving an average bonus of $9,512.
I know that to the average federal worker and to many taxpayers, these bonuses might seem excessive. However, they pale in comparison to what many executives receive in the private sector and are a modest way to reward career executives who do a good job. These bonuses also serve as an essential recruitment and retention tool. If you want the "best and the brightest" to run your government--you have to pay for it.
KEVIN WILKINSON of Spotsylvania County is a veteran federal employee.
Copyright 2005 The Free Lance-Star Publishing Company.
from December 26, 1938 issue of Life Magazine
THE BOYHOOD OF JESUS
Portraying Christ as if He were born and raised in New England, a devout artist proves that His life is timeless and universal
Out of her deep desire to bring home the beauty of Christ and His teaching to the modern world, Lauren Ford has created the following scenes Here in the familiar setting of her farm near Bethlehem, Connecticut, among barns and silos, pumps, and rail fences, she has depicted the birth and boyhood of Jesus. And far from sacrificing any of its majesty, she has bought new truth and universality to the immortal story. By painting the Holy Family as if they were country neighbors, Miss Ford follows the old masters who portrayed the Son of God as if He lived in their own towns and times. Her paintings are supplemented by text from Matthew and Luke.
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Job cuts dash blue-collar dreams
Poornima Gupta / Reuters
December 23, 2005
FLINT - For nearly three decades, Charles Coe has made a good living as a worker for General Motors Corp. and Delphi Corp. in Flint.
Coe, 60, planned to retire comfortably in two years with his sizable pension, a benefit that is still a cornerstone of blue-collar workers' compensation in the auto industry.
But that dream is unraveling as Delphi, which filed for bankruptcy protection in October, is now demanding unprecedented wage and benefit concessions from the United Auto Workers union.
"I stand to lose everything I have worked a lifetime for," Coe said as he arrived for an afternoon shift at Delphi's Flint East plant.
Delphi wants to cut jobs, slash paychecks in half and free itself from the pension obligations of tens of thousands of employees it inherited from GM when it was spun off in 1999.
The mood in Flint, a factory town that has been in economic malaise since GM closed its Buick City complex six years ago, is grim. Families are now staring at the prospect of losing their comfortable middle-class lifestyles.
Delphi's move, combined with the plant closing and layoff announcements from mighty GM and Ford Motor Co., may have far-reaching consequences beyond the industrial city, say local union officials.
"This is bigger than us," said Steve Grandstaff, chairman of UAW Local 651, which represents workers at the Delphi-Energy and Chassis Systems facility in Flint.
"It's almost like there is this wildfire that's going to take down the middle class," Grandstaff said.
Working-class Americans have long been able to lift themselves into the middle class through well-paid jobs in the auto industry. UAW-represented workers have enjoyed benefits that are the gold standard of industrial America.
Some Detroit auto executives even call them "Cadillac-style" benefits.
"I think what we are looking at here are exit roads from the middle class," said Harley Shaiken, a University of California-Berkeley professor who specializes in labor issues.
"Economic growth in the United States in the 20th century was based on building entrances to the middle class, from Henry Ford in 1913 to strong unions in the '50s and '60s," Shaiken said.
The 21st century is marking a reversal of that logic and Delphi's showdown with organized labor symbolizes the reversal, Shaiken added.
"They want us to go back 20-something years (on wages)," said Russ Reynolds, president of UAW local 651, which represents Delphi workers. "It's going to devastate everything."
GM and Ford made the United States an industrial force through much of the 20th century.
Ford founder Henry Ford was credited with a stroke of genius in creating a whole new group of consumers for his company's vehicles back in 1914. He doubled the pay of his workers saying he wanted them to be able to afford the Model Ts they built.
Now, GM and Ford are in a cost-cutting spiral, battling decades of market share losses. In recent months, the two Detroit automakers have worked out deals with the UAW to roll back some of the health care benefits of retired workers.
GM plans to cut 30,000 blue-collar jobs and close 12 facilities. Ford has said it will announce its list of plant closures and worker layoffs in January. The automaker is already in the process of cutting 4,000 white-collar jobs and scaling back some of the salaried benefits.
"Ford and GM are now in a race to shrink," Merrill Lynch analyst John Casesa said in a recent note, adding that Detroit is entering an increasingly volatile and difficult environment as labor and management tensions come to a head.
In a bright spot for workers, Delphi in recent days dropped its aggressive stance and said it is willing to work with the union, citing talks with largest customer GM.
Delphi also said it will delay filing motions in bankruptcy court to reject current labor contracts.
But union officials are still skeptical as the company has not totally scrapped its steep cost-cutting proposal.
"We hope the company's announcement results in a meaningful change in its position, but only time will tell if that is the case," the UAW said.
Stocks Barely Budge in Light Trading
Friday December 23, 7:16 PM EST
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks barely moved Friday, even though durable goods orders jumped by the largest amount in six months.
Volume was light on Wall Street, as it often is before Christmas. With little in the way of year-end gains to lock in, traders yawned their way through one of the final sessions of the year.
The major economic news came from the Commerce Department, which reported factory orders for big-ticket items were up 4.4 percent to a record $223 billion last month, following a 3 percent gain in October. The data reflected soaring demand for commercial aircraft; durable goods numbers would have fallen had the aircraft figures been removed. So the biggest one-month advance since last May was treated on Wall Street as a non-event.
In afternoon trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 6.17, or 0.06 percent, to 10,883.27.
Broader stock indicators were nearly unchanged. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.54, or 0.04 percent, to 1,268.66, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 2.93, or 0.13 percent, to 2,249.42.
For the week, the Dow is up 7.68, or 0.07 percent, the S&P has risen 1.34, or 0.11 percent and the Nasdaq is down 3.06, or 0.14 percent.
Bonds rose, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury note falling to 4.37 percent from 4.43 percent late Thursday. The dollar was higher against other major currencies in European trading. Gold prices also rose.
Crude oil futures rose slightly. A barrel of light crude settled at $58.43, up 15 cents, on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
In company news, General Motors Corp. rose 19 cents to $18.83. GM said it is expanding a recall of sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks with possible antilock brake corrosion to include another 553,000 vehicles in six states and the District of Columbia. The automaker said in August that it was recalling about 800,000 of the vehicles in 14 northern states. The recall will be expanded to include Delaware, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.
UPS Inc. rose 30 cents to $77.14 after the federal mediator overseeing negotiations between UPS Inc. and its pilots union called for an indefinite recess in contract talks. The recess comes a day after the Independent Pilots Association threatened to ask to be released from federal mediation so it can strike, citing three years of contract negotiations with the world's largest shipping carrier that have failed to produce an agreement.
Fashion brand Tommy Hilfiger Corp. agreed to be purchased by Apax Partners, a private investment company, for $1.6 billion, or $16.80 a share, in cash. The offer is a 5 percent premium to Hilfiger's Thursday closing stock price of $16 on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock closed unchanged at $16.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. fell 26 cents to $48.34 after California court awarded $172 million to thousands of employees who claimed they were illegally denied lunch breaks. A jury on Thursday found the world's largest retailer violated a 2001 state law that requires employers to give 30-minute, unpaid lunch breaks to employees who work at least six hours. Wal-Mart said it will appeal.
Affiliated Computer Services Inc. rose $2.92 to $61 after a New York Times report that a consortium of private-equity firms are in talks to buy the information-technology outsourcing company for $62 a share, or about $8 billion. A deal could be reached as early as next week, the paper said.
Drug maker AstraZeneca PLC rose 13 cents to $48.53 after it said it will buy a privately held biotech company with a cancer compound, underscoring its commitment to bolstering its thin pipeline of future pharmaceuticals. AstraZeneca said it will pay $210 million to purchase British company KuDOS Pharmaceuticals Ltd.
Boeing Co. rose 17 cents to $71.49 after it said it has booked 870 net jetliner orders so far this year, which may put it on track to beat a record set in 1988. Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, which have since merged, booked 877 net orders that year.
Advancing issues led decliners by roughly 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where final consolidated volume was 1.33 billion shares, down from 1.91 billion at the same time Thursday.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 2.36, or 0.35 percent, to 686.44.
Overseas, Japan's stock market was closed for Emperor Akihito's birthday, a national holiday. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.03 percent, Germany's DAX index gained 0.38 percent, and France's CAC-40 rose 0.12 percent.
The Dow Jones industrials ended the week up 7.68, or 0.7 percent, finishing at 10,883.27. The S&P 500 index gained 1.34, or 0.11 percent, to close at 1,268.66.
The Nasdaq fell 3.06, or 0.14 percent, during the week, closing Friday at 2,249.42.
The Russell 2000 index closed the week up 3.35, or 0.49 percent, at 686.44.
The Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Composite Index — a free-float weighted index that measures 5,000 U.S. based companies — ended the week at 12,711.690, up 23.00 points from last week. A year ago, the index was 11,933.81.
Japan's population starts shrinking
Wed Dec 21,11:28 PM ET
Japan's population fell for the first time in 2005, the government said, calling it a "turning point" that will force the world's second largest economy to adapt to a rapidly aging society.
With its young people increasingly finding children a burden to their careers and lifestyles, Japan joins Germany and Italy among a club of nations whose populations have started to shrink.
Deaths are likely to outnumber births by about 10,000 this year, the first decline since 1899 when Japan began compiling the data, health ministry figures showed.
"Our country is now standing at a major turning point in terms of population," Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Jiro Kawasaki told a news conference.
"We must take countermeasures against the falling birthrate along with measures to support and foster our future generations," Kawasaki said.
Japan's population stood at 127,687,000 as of October 2004. The health ministry said births were set to fall by 44,000 to 1,067,000 this year, with deaths going up 48,000 to 1,077,000 year-on-year.
"Although there may be some temporary gains in population in the future, it cannot be helped to foresee a further decline in the mid- and long-run," a health ministry official said.
The declining population fuels fears for the pension system as a smaller workforce supports a mass of pensioners.
Historically homogeneous Japan has so far rejected wide-scale immigration, accepting only foreign workers with particular skills.
The latest study shows the population is dropping at a faster pace than thought. Just last week the Cabinet Office forecast the population would start shrinking in 2006 -- itself a revision to a previous estimate that the decline would begin in 2007.
The Cabinet Office predicted that the population will halve to 60 million people by 2100.
Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse.
Wall St Week Ahead: Dow's gain down to the wire
Fri Dec 23, 2005 06:12 PM ET
By Jennifer Coogan
NEW YORK, Dec 23 (Reuters) - In the final week of 2005, the U.S. stock market will be banking on last-minute investments in retirement accounts and other equity funds, with traders hoping the infusion will help the Dow end the year in positive territory.
If the blue chips can hang onto their meager year-to-date gains, it will mean a three-year winning streak for all three major stock indexes -- something that could set the stage for a bullish 2006.
"The last week of December and the first few weeks of January will be a clue to how the market will act next year," said Bernie Myszkowski, executive vice president and director of equity investments at ABN Amro Asset Management in Chicago.
Traders expect volume to be low, with many market players taking a week off between Christmas or Hanukkah and New Year's Day.
Corporate news will be thin since no major companies are scheduled to report earnings.
"The influence (on the stocks) will be that at the end of the year, there's lots of bonus money that goes toward profit-sharing plans and retirement and some of that money will go into the market," said Carl Birkelbach, founder and chief executive of Birkelbach Investment Securities in Chicago.
For the week, stocks were mixed. The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average eked out a gain of just 0.07 percent, while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 0.11 percent. But the technology-laced Nasdaq Composite Index finished the week down 0.14 percent.
For the year to date, the Dow is up only 100.26 points, or 0.93 percent. The S&P 500 is up 56.74 points, or 4.68 percent, for the year so far, while the Nasdaq is up 73.98 points, or 3.40 percent.
"I think we'll end higher (on the Dow). It's been a tough year with a lot of negative news -- the hurricanes, the war in Iraq, the strike in New York," said Victor Pugliese, managing director and head of New York equity trading at First Albany Corp. "People will be a little disappointed. But all in all, it wasn't terrible."
DOW MAY CLIMB ON MOUNTAINS OF CASH
In the Dow's favor, analysts point out that corporations are sitting on excess cash and are likely to spend some of it next year replacing old equipment. This forecast, if it comes true, may help nudge the Dow average of 30 large-capitalization industrial shares climb safely into positive territory for the year.
In addition to watching to see whether the Dow finishes 2005 in the black, investors will stay tuned to see if the blue-chip average can cross the 11,000 milestone.
"There's all this money sitting out there, with individuals and corporations, plus from countries," Birkelbach said, referring to foreign governments looking for places to invest their piles of cash. "They're sitting there ready to buy into the market.
"But I would guess that the Dow will have to break above 11,000 in order for this whole thing to transpire," he added.
"I know it's only psychological. But that's what we humans are -- emotional."
Still, with so little news expected during the holiday lull, investors may have to wait until after New Year's to see the Dow take a crack at beating 11,000.
"It seems like we can't get through that number," Pugliese said. "Maybe we can on an intraday basis, but it doesn't seem like there's that much of a reason to hold."
A CHRISTMAS SNAPSHOT
Coming on the heels of Christmas, a weekly report on U.S. chain store revenue may get special attention. Independent firm Redbook Research will report sales for the week ending Dec. 24 on Wednesday.
"People are still concerned with Christmas sales. We get mixed reports," ABN Amro's Myszkowski said.
"We're not going to have all the final data on retail sales, but we'll have an indication of who did well."
The consumer confidence index for December also is set for release on Wednesday from the Conference Board, a private research group.
On Thursday, December purchasing managers' data from New York and Chicago will give a glimpse of business growth in two major U.S. regions.
The National Association of Purchasing Management-New York, also known as NAPM-New York, is scheduled to release its December report at 9 a.m. EST (1400 GMT). The NAPM-Chicago report, also known as the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index or Chicago PMI, is due an hour later.
Of the two reports, the market pays more attention to the Chicago PMI and looks at it as a preview of what to expect in the monthly Institute for Supply Management data. The ISM's December report on U.S. manufacturing activity will be released in the first week of January.
Thursday's round of data will include U.S. existing home sales for November.
The forecast calls for November sales of existing homes to have slowed slightly to a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 7.00 million units from 7.09 million units, according to economists polled by Reuters.
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Disappearing Dividends
By Karen Rutzick
govexec.com (mailto:krutzick@govexec.com)
Let's solve a mystery about the Thrift Savings Plan: What happens to the dividends earned from stocks in the TSP funds?
Dividends are a share of company earnings paid out to investors. They are declared by a company's board of directors and are often paid quarterly.
The reason TSP participants never see dividends on their statements even though some of the funds earn them, is they are automatically reinvested into holdings. So the fund's value increases, but the dividends' contribution is hidden.
The TSP is the federal employee version of a 401(k) retirement savings plan. Not all the funds are composed of publicly traded stocks. In fact, the five stand-alone funds in the plan get their earnings from a blend of sources.
Only the common stocks (C) fund, the small- and mid-sized companies (S) fund, and the international stocks (I) fund make part of their earnings from dividends. The rest of the earnings for the C and S funds are derived from fluctuations in the market value of the stocks making them up. I Fund earnings stem from both these factors and from changes in value of American currency relative to foreign currency.
The government securities (G) fund's earnings are derived solely from interest, paid by the U.S. government. The fixed-income (F) fund's earnings come from changes in market prices as well as interest. Neither of those funds have any dividends.
The earnings of the F, C, S and I funds are reduced by administrative costs (which are the lowest anywhere, by a wide margin) and management costs from Barclays Global Investors, which runs the investments. Share prices are calculated after deducting these costs.
Automatic reinvestment of dividends in the TSP means federal employees, perhaps unknowingly, are investing more in their retirement.
Did you ever notice that returns on the C Fund are sometimes higher than the returns on the Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 Index, which the C Fund tracks? That's because the S&P 500 does not include reinvestment of dividends, and the TSP does.
Don't confuse the TSP's system of reinvesting dividends with DRIPs (dividend reinvestment plans). DRIPs are programs where an individual company automatically reinvests dividend earnings for stockholders by providing additional shares of stocks, often with no extra charge.
Thirty years ago, retirees often lived off of dividends alone, keeping their principal intact, according to certified financial planner Karen Schaeffer. Longer retirements make that practice rare today. TSP participants should worry much more about the funds in which they invest, than they should about how those funds make their earnings, Schaeffer said.
"Generally, what we're trying to get people to focus on when we're looking at their investment is not so much the difference between dividends, capital gains and interest, but the difference between what they invest in and what is worth--total return," Schaeffer said. "It's the total return that gives us the confidence that we're keeping pace with, or maybe even staying ahead of, inflation."
©2005 by National Journal Group Inc.
U.S. business spending seen on upswing in 2006
By Mark Felsenthal
WASHINGTON, Dec 23 (Reuters) - U.S. business investment will pick up in 2006 as companies spend on buildings and inventories, helping propel economic growth and offsetting an expected slowdown in consumer spending, economists said on Friday.
Businesses have cash to invest as economic growth has strengthened, economists said.
"The fundamentals suggest that despite the higher energy prices and somewhat higher interest rates, at least on the short end, that spending pace remains above trend," said Ford Motor Co. (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Chief Economist Ellen Hughes-Cromwick.
Economists played down a November drop in orders for U.S. durable non-transportation goods, expensive products built to last three years or more, which they said reflects setbacks from the storms that battered the United States and disrupted energy supply in the early fall.
"I'm not convinced the decline was all that great, because the hurricane effect may have been reported in November rather than October," said Daniel Meckstroth, chief economist for the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, Inc.
The durable goods report also showed that unfilled orders in November rose by the highest level since mid-2000, suggesting higher factory output in store for months ahead.
Before the report came out, Richmond Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Jeffrey Lacker had forecast earlier this week that business spending growth would outpace output in 2006.
"Business investment should expand substantially faster than overall output and residential investment should expand more slowly, perhaps even falling in real terms," he said in Washington on Thursday.
Businesses were slow to resume making big investments after the 2001 recession, as uncertainty about corporate scandals and the Iraq war clouded the outlook. Meanwhile, free-spending consumers, buoyed by fast-rising home values, spurred much of the early stages of economic recovery.
But business investment grew by about 6.5 percent in 2005 and should gain by between 7 percent and 9 percent in the coming year, based on hurricane recovery and income growth, said David Huether, chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers.
"Once people saw the recovery had legs, people started spending," he said.
Much of that growth is likely to come from investment in structures, with mining and utilities leading the way as the Gulf Coast rebuilds and as the high cost of energy makes it economical to pursue harder-to-reach oil and gas, Meckstroth said.
But as the economy grows, business inventories, which include the components of unfinished goods, and are another component of investment, will also expand, he said.
In addition, businesses are likely to have beef up technology or invest in new equipment to keep up with growth, Huether said.
© Reuters 2005
Woman Swallows Cell Phone After Argument
December 24, 2005
BLUE SPRINGS, Mo. (AP) - A lovers' dispute over a cell phone ended suddenly when the woman swallowed the phone whole, police said.
Police said they received a call at 4:52 a.m. Friday from a Blue Springs man who said his girlfriend was having trouble breathing. When they arrived at the house they found the 24-year-old woman had a cell phone lodged in her throat.
"He wanted the phone and she wouldn't give it to him, so she attempted to swallow it,'' Detective Sgt. Steve Decker of the Blue Springs Police Department. "She just put the entire phone in her mouth so he couldn't get it.''
Police said an ambulance transported the woman to St. Mary's Medical Center in Blue Springs. A hospital spokeswoman said she couldn't give details about the woman's health since police have not released her identity.
NORAD Marks 50th Year of Tracking Santa
Sun Dec 25, 1:45 AM ET
For half a century, the military agency dedicated to detecting threats against the United States and Canada has reported Santa's sleigh ride to curious youngsters around the world.
With help from several civilian companies, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, reports Santa's progress on a Web site in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish. It also answers telephone calls and e-mails as part of the Christmas Eve tradition.
The reported track began at the North Pole, of course, and NORAD said Santa Claus was spotted in North America — on Canada's eastern coast — followed by New Zealand, Australia, Japan, China, Nepal and India.
Last year, the tracking Web site at http://www.noradsanta.org (http://www.noradsanta.org) received 912 million hits from 181 countries, and the Santa Tracking Operations Center answered nearly 55,000 phone calls on Christmas Eve.
According to NORAD lore, the tradition began in 1955 when Sears-Roebuck placed an ad in The Gazette in Colorado Springs telling kids to dial a number if they wanted to talk to Santa.
But the number was one digit off. When the first call came to NORAD's predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command, Col. Harry Shoup told an eager child he would check the radars for Santa.
Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press.
Researchers Seek to Bring Back Chestnuts
By ALAN SCHER ZAGIER, Associated Press Writer
Fri Dec 23, 5:50 AM ET
A group of researchers have a message for those who want to confine the chestnut to a holiday open fire: They aren't just for Christmas anymore.
Agricultural researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia's Center for Agroforestry are experimenting with more than 50 varieties of chestnuts at a research farm. The goal is to create a new nut industry and bring back the American chestnut.
"I don't think there's an image problem or a misperception," said Mike Gold, associate director of the center. "I think there's just a flat-out unfamiliarity."
A century ago — before an Asian blight devastated most of the country's millions of chestnut trees — marketing the chestnut wasn't necessary. Chestnuts were a staple of American diets, particularly for recent immigrants. The trees' rot-resistant timber was used to build barns and beams, its bark providing tannin for leather.
While the chestnut remains a oddity for most Americans, commercial production of a heartier, disease-resistant Chinese variety is increasing as growers struggle to keep up with demand.
"Usually, by the end of October all the chestnut growers start calling each other looking for chestnuts because we're all sold out," said Greg Miller, a commercial grower in Carrollton, Ohio.
Still, domestic production is just a fraction of the global market, said Gold, who estimates that American chestnut growers produced 1.5 million pounds last year, compared to 200 million pounds worldwide.
A university-sponsored market survey earlier this year of 90 growers in 50 states showed that most producers generate less than $5,000 annually — with 35 percent yet to realize their first sale from trees that take up to 10 years to produce commercial amounts.
"There's room to greatly expand the market," Miller said. "But first we have to prime the pump."
To do that requires a public relations campaign of sorts for the chestnut. It can be a hard sell, with a starchy taste that is decidedly acquired, and a shell that's tough to crack.
As a food source, the chestnut is high in fiber, antioxidants, vitamin C and unsaturated fatty acids, more akin to a grain, such as brown rice, than other nuts. Some call it the "un-nut."
As a crop, it is more profitable than walnuts and pecans, its closest rivals, with wholesale prices of $3 to $3.50 per pound. The other nuts fetch 80 cents to $1.40 per pound on average.
The nut also deserves a place on the cultural mantle as a symbol of fall harvest alongside pumpkins and maple syrup, said Gold. It's also lovingly crooned by Nat King Cole and Perry Como's versions of "The Christmas Song."
"It tends to have an Old World sensibility," he said. "The song, linked to the holiday, creates an image. It means family."
While the notion of chestnut bisque, chestnut-stuffed quail and other such dishes might make finicky eaters recoil, Gold said it wasn't long ago that Americans made similar observations about "exotic" avocados and kiwis.
In addition to an annual fall harvest festival, researchers also plan to offer seminars for prospective chestnut growers, said Gold, who is also an associate professor of forestry at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
"Our focus is really on creating a new nut industry," he said.
Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press.
Stock markets in Japan and Europe make double-digit gains in 2005
Stock markets in Japan and across Europe traded lower on Friday but finished the year with double-digit gains, significantly outperforming U.S. stock markets.
(AP) December 31, 2005
For the year, the Nikkei gained 40.24 percent -- the biggest annual gain since 1986 amid encouraging signs of an economic recovery in Japan.
European stock indexes ended the year with smaller double-digit gains, propelled by buyout activity, a weaker dollar and corporate restructurings. The FTSE 100 climbed over 16 percent, Germany's DAX 30 gained 28 percent and the French CAC 40 jumped around 24 percent.
By way of comparison, the Dow Jones industrials fell 0.61 percent for the year, closing in the negative territory for the first time since 2002, while the S&P rose 3 percent and the Nasdaq gained 1.37 percent.
On Friday, Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell 232.77 points, or 1.42 percent, to finish Friday's half-day session at 16,111.43. The broader Topix index of all shares on the Tokyo Stock exchange's first section shed 13.99 points, or 0.83 percent, to 1,649.76.
European markets slipped on the last working day of 2005 because of profit taking in a thin market.
The German DAX 30 fell 1.1 percent at 5,398; the French CAC 40 fell 1.2 percent at 4,718; and the U.K. FTSE 100 index dipped 0.5 percent at 5,609 in a half-day of trading before the New Year's holiday. The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 dropped 0.7 percent at 309.57.
"We are just having a dipping day," said Bob van Wijk, equity strategist at Dutch broker Wesa Effecten.
Despite the Nikkei's gains, Japan's benchmark index is far below its all-time closing high of 38,915.87 set Dec. 29, 1989. The plunge that followed in the early 1990s contributed to the economy's nearly 15-year slump.
Trading was also very active this year, with both trading volume and turnover in value terms marking record highs on the exchange's first section. The total market capitalization on the section came to 522.07 trillion yen (US$4.46 trillion) as of Dec. 30, up 48 percent from the previous year's 353.56 trillion yen.
On Friday, Japanese stocks fell as investors took profits in such issues as banks, retailers, machinery markers that led the year's strong rally. The Nikkei rose nearly 1 percent on Thursday to finish at 16,344.20, its highest close since Sept. 20, 2000.
After hovering around the 11,000-point level for the first seven months, the Nikkei gradually gained ground in August, when the benchmark index moved to above the 12,000. It further accelerated in September on the back of growth in corporate earnings and a strengthening economy.
Adding to the upbeat outlook was the government's forecast this week that the economy would pull out of deflation sometime next year, ending the spiral of declining prices that has undercut corporate profits, harmed wages and prolonged the economic slump.
Japan's central bank has kept a low interest rate policy for four years to help spur a recovery after nearly 15 years of slow or no economic growth. Lower interest rates make it easier for businesses to borrow money to expand.
By way of comparison, the U.S. economy remained strong, which encouraged the Federal Reserve to raise rates, creating uncertainty for investors and pressuring stocks.
Analysts remain positive about the Japanese market's movement in the coming year.
Masayoshi Yano, senior market analyst at Tokai Tokyo Research Center, is more bullish. "It wouldn't be surprising if the Nikkei targeted 20,000 next year," Yano said.
Copyright 2004-2005 THE MAINICHI NEWSPAPERS.
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Fed's Moskow says more rate hikes still likely
Thu Jan 12, 2006 07:17 PM ET
By Ros Krasny
CHICAGO, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Michael Moskow on Thursday called for more rate hikes to snuff out any potential for higher inflation, even though rates are now at the bottom end of a neutral range.
"Appropriate monetary policy ... likely entails some further policy action," said Moskow, who is not a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee this year.
"If inflation or inflation expectations were to rise persistently, then policy clearly would have to be tightened further," he added at a University of Chicago Graduate School of Business outlook meeting.
A neutral level on fed funds is one that neither stimulates or hinders growth.
U.S. year-on-year core inflation eased in November but for most of the past year has been "close to 2 percent, which is at the upper end of the range that I feel is consistent with price stability," Moskow said
Still, the central banker said he was confident that inflation would stay contained, even given possible pass-throughs of high energy costs to other goods, and a tight labor market that has little slack remaining.
Moskow said the policy outlook was less certain now than when the fed funds rate was very low -- consistent with ideas that the bank is depending more on incoming data as the monetary tightening cycle progresses.
"Future policy will not be a mechanical reaction to the next number on inflation or employment," he said. "The policy firming that is likely to be appropriate over the near term is less certain now than it was earlier."
Moskow said the United States has "self-sustaining economic growth" and that a Blue Chip consensus forecast for real GDP growth averaging about 3.25 percent over the next two years was "reasonable."
December's U.S. jobless rate of 4.9 percent was "roughly consistent with an economy operating at potential," Moskow said. Labor force participation, which has lagged in the current expansion compared with past economic cycles, is not likely to have a large increase, he said.
The Fed has raised benchmark interest rates 13 times over the past 1-1/2 years, pushing the fed funds rate to 4.25 percent. Financial markets are pricing in a rate hike at the Fed's Jan. 31 meeting, with a strong chance that another increase in March will be the final installment in the tightening cycle.
© Reuters 2006
COMMON LAW SPOUSES ELIGIBLE FOR TSP BENEFITS
1/13/2006
The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board is clarifying criteria needed for it to recognize a common law marriage.
According to regulations published in Thursdays edition of the Federal Register, the Board will rely on a Thrift Savings Plan participants marital status stated on a federal income tax reform.
If a TSP participant dies without having withdrawn his or her account and without designating a beneficiary, the Federal Employees Retirement System Act of 1986 stipulates the account will be paid to the surviving spouse, if any.
The Board determines spouses by the law of the state in which the participant was domiciled at the time of death when determining if the participant was married. Most states require a valid marriage license, but 15 states and the District of Columbia recognize common law marriages in some form. Every state, however, is required to recognize as valid a common law marriage that was recognized in another state.
To determine if a TSP participant has a valid common law marriage, the Board can base its decision on the participants most recent federal income tax form. FRTIB decided to use the tax form because such a form is submitted to the Internal Revenue Service under penalty of perjury and, therefore, is presumed to be reliable.
The regulations can be found at http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20061800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2006/E6-207.htm (http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20061800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2006/E6-207.htm).
'Divine mission' driving Iran's new leader
By Anton La Guardia
(Filed: 14/01/2006)
As Iran rushes towards confrontation with the world over its nuclear programme, the question uppermost in the mind of western leaders is "What is moving its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to such recklessness?"
Political analysts point to the fact that Iran feels strong because of high oil prices, while America has been weakened by the insurgency in Iraq.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2006/01/14/wiran14.jpg
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
But listen carefully to the utterances of Mr Ahmadinejad - recently described by President George W Bush as an "odd man" - and there is another dimension, a religious messianism that, some suspect, is giving the Iranian leader a dangerous sense of divine mission.
In November, the country was startled by a video showing Mr Ahmadinejad telling a cleric that he had felt the hand of God entrancing world leaders as he delivered a speech to the UN General Assembly last September.
When an aircraft crashed in Teheran last month, killing 108 people, Mr Ahmadinejad promised an investigation. But he also thanked the dead, saying: "What is important is that they have shown the way to martyrdom which we must follow."
The most remarkable aspect of Mr Ahmadinejad's piety is his devotion to the Hidden Imam, the Messiah-like figure of Shia Islam, and the president's belief that his government must prepare the country for his return.
One of the first acts of Mr Ahmadinejad's government was to donate about 10 million to the Jamkaran mosque, a popular pilgrimage site where the pious come to drop messages to the Hidden Imam into a holy well.
All streams of Islam believe in a divine saviour, known as the Mahdi, who will appear at the End of Days. A common rumour - denied by the government but widely believed - is that Mr Ahmadinejad and his cabinet have signed a "contract" pledging themselves to work for the return of the Mahdi and sent it to Jamkaran.
Iran's dominant "Twelver" sect believes this will be Mohammed ibn Hasan, regarded as the 12th Imam, or righteous descendant of the Prophet Mohammad.
He is said to have gone into "occlusion" in the ninth century, at the age of five. His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war and bloodshed. After a cataclysmic confrontation with evil and darkness, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace.
This is similar to the Christian vision of the Apocalypse. Indeed, the Hidden Imam is expected to return in the company of Jesus.
Mr Ahmadinejad appears to believe that these events are close at hand and that ordinary mortals can influence the divine timetable.
The prospect of such a man obtaining nuclear weapons is worrying. The unspoken question is this: is Mr Ahmadinejad now tempting a clash with the West because he feels safe in the belief of the imminent return of the Hidden Imam? Worse, might he be trying to provoke chaos in the hope of hastening his reappearance?
The 49-year-old Mr Ahmadinejad, a former top engineering student, member of the Revolutionary Guards and mayor of Teheran, overturned Iranian politics after unexpectedly winning last June's presidential elections.
The main rift is no longer between "reformists" and "hardliners", but between the clerical establishment and Mr Ahmadinejad's brand of revolutionary populism and superstition.
Its most remarkable manifestation came with Mr Ahmadinejad's international debut, his speech to the United Nations.
World leaders had expected a conciliatory proposal to defuse the nuclear crisis after Teheran had restarted another part of its nuclear programme in August.
Instead, they heard the president speak in apocalyptic terms of Iran struggling against an evil West that sought to promote "state terrorism", impose "the logic of the dark ages" and divide the world into "light and dark countries".
The speech ended with the messianic appeal to God to "hasten the emergence of your last repository, the Promised One, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace".
In a video distributed by an Iranian web site in November, Mr Ahmadinejad described how one of his Iranian colleagues had claimed to have seen a glow of light around the president as he began his speech to the UN.
"I felt it myself too," Mr Ahmadinejad recounts. "I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there. And for 27-28 minutes all the leaders did not blinkIt's not an exaggeration, because I was looking.
"They were astonished, as if a hand held them there and made them sit. It had opened their eyes and ears for the message of the Islamic Republic."
Western officials said the real reason for any open-eyed stares from delegates was that "they couldn't believe what they were hearing from Ahmadinejad".
Their sneaking suspicion is that Iran's president actually relishes a clash with the West in the conviction that it would rekindle the spirit of the Islamic revolution and - who knows - speed up the arrival of the Hidden Imam.
Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Group Limited
Consultants advise TSP not to change investment mix
By Karen Rutzick
January 17, 2006
govexec.com (k@govexec.com)
An outside consulting firm on Tuesday advised Thrift Savings Plan administrators to stay the course with all investments.
The TSP, which is a 401(k)-style retirement savings plan for federal employees with assets of almost $175 billion, hired Chicago-based consulting firm Ennis Knupp & Associates to perform the first-ever external review of the plan's investment practices.
The consultants presented the first of what will be four recommendations to the TSP Board at a monthly meeting Tuesday. The initial review focused on the indexes that the TSP tracks for its common stocks (C), small- and mid-size companies (S), fixed income securities (F) and international stocks (I) funds.
The TSP is managed passively, meaning its holdings simply mirror indexes as opposed to using mutual fund managers to attempt to beat the market. For each of the four funds reviewed, the consultants told the board its current indexes remain the best choice.
The TSP board subsequently passed a resolution to retain the indexes.
The C Fund, which follows the S&P 500 Index of the top 500 stocks, and the S Fund, which tracks the Dow Jones Wilshire 4500 Index of the next 4,500 stocks, cover the universe of domestic stocks for TSP participants, consultants said.
Ennis Knupp advisers Russell Ivinjack and Neeraj Baxi told the board this combination is optimal for investors because the indexes are widely-followed and provide access to all U.S. markets.
The consultants also said switching to the next-best option, the Russell 1000 and Russell 2000 for the C and S funds respectively, would cost about $225 million.
For the F Fund, Ennis Knupp recommended sticking with the Lehman Brothers Aggregate Bond Index. The consultants noted that it is the most widely accepted index and provided the most diversification. Switching to another index would cost about $15 million, they said.
The I Fund was perhaps the toughest decision for the board and its consultants. The current index used -- the Morgan Stanley Capital International Europe, Australasia, Far East Index -- does not include Canada or emerging markets like Latin America.
"In the theoretical world, the all-inclusive fund is better because it is more diversified," TSP Executive Director Gary Amelio said.
But a number of factors stand in the way of switching to an index that includes stocks from these countries. The current index is valued daily, as are all of the other TSP funds, allowing participants to change the makeup of their holdings on a daily basis. But indexes which include emerging markets and Canada are valued monthly. Switching to monthly valuation of the I fund would require a change in policy and could create confusion and inconvenience for investors.
Also, the current index is the largest, and the board favors larger indexes so that nonfederal investors can carry the weight if TSP participants move their billions of dollars around dramatically.
Once indexes with emerging markets and Canada become daily-valued and grow larger, the board will reconsider the I Fund's index, TSP Board Chairman Andrew Saul said. The growing economies of China, India and other countries eventually will be too valuable of an investment opportunity for TSP participants to miss out, he said.
"We're going to have to look at this thing," Saul said. "I think we'd be remiss not to."
Future presentations from Ennis Knupp will cover potential changes in asset management, which is currently performed by Barclays Global Investors.
The consultants also will review the possibility of adding funds such as a real estate investment trust, which is an option some lawmakers are advocating. Amelio said key staffers on the House Government Reform Committee called a meeting Friday to discuss progress on the REIT option.
The TSP also announced at Tuesday's meeting that it is retaining the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. to provide annuities for TSP participants. TSP participants have the option, upon retirement, of converting their savings into a stable annuity. About 11,000 retirees now have such annuities, officials said.
2005 by National Journal Group Inc.
Milkman stole cash from his round to go to France http://icsurreyonline.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0500dorkingleatherhead/tm_objectid=16599909&method=full&siteid=50101&headline=milkman-stole-cash-from-his-round-to-go-to-france-name_page.html
Village milkman's secret sex shame
http://icsurreyonline.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200surreyheadlines/tm_objectid=16598619&method=full&siteid=50101&headline=village-milkman-s-secret-sex-shame-name_page.html
Jan 18 2006
A FORMER village milkman who sexually abused two boys has been jailed for nine months.
John Hunt, 67, molested the lads over an 18-month period while he was working in Sharpthorne, near Forest Row, in the late 1980s.
Hunt, who is now retired, admitted two counts of indecent assault on the teenagers at Lewes Crown Court on Monday.
Prosecutor Christine Laing said that one of the youngsters had met Hunt, when he was working as the village milkman.
She said: "The defendant was working as a milkman. The defendant told bawdy stories and swore a lot and so the defendant was very impressive to a young lad."
She said the abuse had started "in a fairly innocent way" but had later taken a "more serious turn".
The court heard the lad would become upset and sometimes cry during the abuse but that did not have any effect on Hunt.
The abuse only came to light years later when the boy, now an adult, contacted police. The second victim was then traced by the police.
The second victim told officers that Hunt had told him during abuse that it was "things he would need to know as an excuse for why this was happening".
Defending, Dianne Chan told the court that at an earlier hearing Hunt had offered a public apology to his victims and their families.
She said: "Mr Hunt is now 67 years old. Aside from these charges he is a man of good character. There is no suggestion that anything had happened before these incidents.
"He still does not understand why he had these feelings which revolt him as much as anyone else.
"He said the feelings stopped and life carried on as normal. It was placed into a box and packed to one side."
Hunt, of Alders Avenue, East Grin-stead, admitted two counts of indecent assault.
Sentencing him to nine months', Judge David Rennie said: "Each of these two boys felt what you did to them was so distressing they were reduced to tears.
"You were unmoved by their tears, motivated by what you felt you needed to do."
Hunt's name was also ordered to be added to the Sex Offenders' Register for 10 years.
© owned by or licensed to Trinity Mirror Plc 2006
mlk_man
01-22-2006, 08:35 PM
Greg, mind if I ask what this thread has to do with "retirement planning"?
Thanks and good luck,
M_M
mlk_man
01-22-2006, 08:53 PM
Ah, okay thanks..........:rolleyes:
Tennessee woman says foot her husband's, lawman says
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
By DAVID BREWER
SCOTTSBORO - Authorities are trying to determine if a foot found on an island near Scottsboro Saturday belonged to a man who fell from his boat during a fishing trip two years ago at Nickajack Dam near New Hope, Tenn.
Chief Investigator Chuck Phillips of the Jackson County Sheriff's Department said the wife of Jerry Leon Killian, 58, of Altamont, Tenn., is 95 percent sure the boot containing the decomposed foot is her husband's.
Phillips said Killian and his 23-year-old son were in a boat fishing on Jan. 1, 2004, when the Tennessee Valley Authority opened the floodgates at Nickajack Dam. The turbulent water caused them to be thrown overboard, he said.
The son made it to shore, Phillips said, but his father was never seen again. He said Killian was wearing a lifejacket, but it was not zipped.
The Marion County Sheriff's Department is having the foot DNA tested to determine the identity.
Two duck hunters found the foot inside a boot on a Tennessee River island north of the B.B. Comer Bridge in Scottsboro. The site is about 20 miles south of Nickajack Dam.
2006 The Huntsville Times
Winchester production to cease in the U.S.
By Thomas Mulligan
Los Angeles Times
Published: Tuesday, January 24, 2006
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - In one of the final scenes of the Western ``Big Jake,'' John Wayne could have been talking about the Winchester rifle as he reflected on the passing of the Old West.
``Well,'' says Big Jake to his Apache sidekick, ``times change - usually for the better.''
The sign of changing times for the Winchester - the ``gun that won the West'' and the brand most closely associated with Wayne's long film career - is that it will no longer be made in America.
After years of losses and dwindling sales, U.S. Repeating Arms Co. announced last week that it would close its New Haven factory by March 31, idling 186 workers. The Winchester brand will continue, but with firearms made in Japan and Europe.
In New Haven, an old-line industrial city, the main surprise is that the ax didn't fall sooner. The low-slung, modern Winchester plant - built with state, city and bonding support in 1994 - produced no more than 80,000 guns last year, about one-fourth of its capacity, according to Mayor John DeStefano Jr.
``It's ironic that an icon of America is going to be made overseas,'' DeStefano said.
The relative handful employed by the plant today is a far cry from the peak production period of World War II, when Winchester's sprawling old brick factory employed 19,000 people who turned out rifles for the war effort. At that time, nearly every worker was a New Haven resident; today only 40 percent of the plant's employees live in the city.
A symbol of the forces behind last week's announcement is the black-yellow-and-red flag of Belgium that flies between those of the United States and Connecticut just outside the plant. Belgium is home to the Herstal Group, which owns U.S. Repeating Arms as well as Browning firearms.
``After 10 years of desperately trying to make that facility profitable, our owners said, `Fix it,' '' said Scott Granger, spokesman at Repeating Arms headquarters in Morgan, Utah.
For years, Herstal has manufactured some Winchester shotgun models in Belgium and assembled them in Portugal, Granger said. A number of 19th-century Winchester rifle models, sold mainly as collectors' items or for use in the fast-growing sport of cowboy action shooting, have been made in Miroku, Japan, he said.
The Miroku guns are well made, said William H.D. Goddard, a weapons historian in Providence, R.I., but the New Haven plant closing may cause some gun enthusiasts to turn away from Winchester.
``The American population that still hunts and shoots and collects is by and large more conservative and has a great reverence for things that are American made,'' Goddard said.
About 150 of the 186 workers in New Haven are members of International Association of Machinists Local 609. Everett Corey, business representative of IAM, said the union some time ago negotiated exclusive rights for the New Haven plant to produce the Model 1300 pump shotgun and two American classics, the bolt-action Model 70 and the lever-action Model 94.
U.S. Repeating Arms plans to retire the Model 70 and Model 94, although Corey said the union was hoping to generate some interest from another manufacturer to resume production in New Haven.
http://freepatriot.com/imagewarehouse/88winchester/winchester73.jpg
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-vote1906jan19,0,7391879.story?coll=orl-news-headlines-state
Voting bill takes aim at hunters
'Shooter Voter' plan also targets Florida's anglers and trappers for voter registration.
Jason Garcia
Tallahassee Bureau
January 19, 2006
TALLAHASSEE -- First there was "Motor Voter," a law that allows people to register to vote when they get their drivers license.
Now get ready for "Shooter Voter."
At the request of the National Rifle Association, Florida lawmakers will consider a proposal that would allow people who are getting hunting, fishing and trapping licenses or permits to register to vote at the same time.
Backers say the idea is simply another way to make it easier for people to participate in democracy.
"The bottom line is convenience: to make it more convenient for working men and women to register to vote," said Marion Hammer, a lobbyist for the NRA.
But others think the Republican-controlled Legislature's real aim is to sign up more GOP-friendly voters before Election Day. After all, pollsters say, hunters and anglers are much more likely to support Republican candidates.
The measure, which the House Ethics and Elections Committee will take up next week, would become law just months before Florida voters go to the polls to elect a successor to Gov. Jeb Bush, replace at least two members of the state Cabinet and decide a U.S. Senate seat.
About 2.3 million people purchased sports licenses or permits in Florida last year, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
"It's rather transparent as to what they're trying to do," said House Minority Leader Chris Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale.
The legislation (HB 125 and SB 208) is nearly identical to a law that the Georgia General Assembly passed two years ago, when it was dubbed the "Shooter Voter" bill. It is modeled after the federal National Voter Registration Act -- commonly known as the Motor Voter Act -- which requires states to let people register to vote by mail or when they renew their drivers license or apply for welfare or disability benefits.
Under the Florida proposal, any place people can buy fishing, hunting or trapping licenses and permits would double as a voter-registration site. A store that did not offer a customer the chance to register could be slapped with fines as high as $2,500.
Fish and Wildlife officials say about 680 businesses throughout the state -- from Wal-Mart and Sports Authority to riverside bait-and-tackle shops -- sell permits and licenses, along with about 250 local tax-collector offices. Hammer, the NRA lobbyist, said people who buy licenses by telephone or online also would be offered the chance to register.
The idea surfaced in Tallahassee last year as an amendment offered by Rep. Will Kendrick, a conservative, pro-gun Democrat from Carrabelle, in the Panhandle. But Republicans embraced the concept this year.
The sponsors in the House and Senate -- Rep. Greg Evers, a Panhandle farmer from Baker, and Sen. Carey Baker, a gun-shop owner from Eustis -- are Republicans. An additional 12 GOP lawmakers have signed on as co-sponsors, as has Kendrick.
"The purpose is to get folks more active and get folks more involved," Evers said, adding that supporters are still trying to figure out how to ease the extra workload the proposal would create for businesses and local elections offices.
Such a law, however, could also be a boon for Republican candidates come November.
Analysts say hunters and anglers are natural allies for the Republican Party. Making it easier for them to register should help the GOP expand its base, said Jim Kane, a Fort Lauderdale-based pollster.
"Those types of voters who do get hunting licenses are more likely to vote Republican," Kane said. "I'd say the odds are probably well over 60 percent."
About 3.9 million people in Florida are registered Republicans, according to the Division of Elections. Slightly fewer than 4.3 million are registered Democrats.
Of course, Kane and other pollsters say registering voters is one thing, getting them to vote is another.
They point to Motor Voter, which many Republicans feared would help Democrats in much the same way. But while the federal law led to dramatic gains in voter registration, it did not have the same impact on turnout in elections.
Still, the Republican Party prides itself on a powerful get-out-the-vote machine. The party turned President Bush's 537-vote victory in Florida during the 2000 presidential election into a nearly 400,000-vote win in 2004, in large part by rooting out natural supporters who had not been voting.
Supporters insist the idea has nothing to do with partisan politics.
"Personally, I don't care what party they register with," Baker said.
Hammer called such concerns "silly." "Anybody that would attempt to prevent any other citizen who has a legal right to vote from being able to conveniently register, I would be suspect of their motives," she said.
Smith, the House Democratic leader, said it would be hypocritical for Democrats, who have led calls in the past to expand voting access, to oppose this plan.
He also noted that the legislation could be the perfect opportunity to expand voter-registration sites even further -- such as at legal-aid clinics.
"It's a great bill to do some amendments on," he said.
Copyright 2006, Orlando Sentinel
More at Stake for Workers Than the 2007 Pay Raise
By Stephen Barr
Sunday, January 29, 2006; C02
Within the next two weeks, the White House and Congress will start setting priorities, and federal employees will have a stake in how some play out.
One of the top agenda items will be the Bush administration's recommendation for the 2007 pay raise. President Bush will make his pay recommendation in his fiscal 2007 budget, scheduled for release Feb. 6, and Congress will take it up during the spring and summer. Federal pay raises have averaged more than 3 percent annually in recent years.
Administration officials plan to renew a push for changes in the government-wide pay system. The plan would abolish the General Schedule by 2010 and move federal employees into more rigorous systems that would link pay raises to job performance. The proposal, however, has not found a congressional sponsor.
Other pay systems also may get scrutiny this year. House members, for example, are interested in reviewing federal judicial salaries and the pay of administrative law judges. Pay and retirement benefits of federal law enforcement officers also are up for renewed discussion.
Legislation that would add a real estate investment fund to the Thrift Savings Plan is under study in the House. The bill's backers have met with TSP officials on the proposal. Congressional aides also are looking into whether TSP rules could be changed so that bonuses could be counted as retirement contributions.
Except for the pay raise, Congress seems likely to move slowly on all civil service issues this year, aides to senators and House members said.
The deployment of troops in Iraq, the recovery and relief efforts in Gulf Coast states devastated by Hurricane Katrina, the president's fiscal 2007 budget recommendations and efforts to tighten lobbying laws will draw the most attention in Congress, including from the House and Senate committees that oversee the civil service.
The investigations into the government's tardy response to Katrina may lead to recommendations to revamp management practices across government, according to House aides. The rush to revamp lobbying laws to address corruption issues raised in the case of a former GOP lobbyist could spill over into the executive branch, affecting senior executives and managers.
Federal retirees may face another year of frustration on three legislative issues.
A bill that would allow retirees to pay for health insurance premiums on a pretax basis, known as "premium conversion," appears stalled in the House Ways and Means Committee.
Bills that would repeal or modify parts of Social Security law, called the government pension offset and the windfall elimination provision, also seem to be on the back burner this year. Many retirees contend that the offset and provision unfairly reduce, and sometimes wipe out, government annuities for their surviving spouses or for themselves. One House bill has broad support (292 co-sponsors), however, and retiree groups plan to keep pushing for passage.
Other legislative issues that could affect government employees include efforts to overhaul operations at the U.S. Postal Service, to increase telecommuting in the federal workforce and to encourage wider use of electronic medical records and health savings accounts, which offer tax advantages, in the federal employee health insurance program.
Congress probably will also revisit efforts by the Bush administration to contract out federal work, which has been stoutly opposed by federal unions. In the House, a debate is underway on whether to authorize a special task force to study a proposal that would consolidate employee complaints and disciplinary cases, handled by at least five agencies, into a "federal employee appeals court."
Lobbyists for employee groups, including unions, say they will be watching on the Hill and at the White House for any proposals that would reduce federal benefits. A group of conservative House members, the Republican Study Committee, called last year for savings in federal retirement benefits and for reducing health benefits for retirees with relatively short federal careers.
The ideas won scant support but could return in coming months as Congress and the Bush administration look for ways to reduce federal spending.
Diary associate Eric Yoder contributed to this report.
2006 The Washington Post Company
Uncle Sam to G-Fund Investors: Thanks for Loaning Us Your Money
By Ralph Smith
2/17/2006
How much control do you have over your investment in the G-fund in your Thrift Savings Plan? Perhaps not as much as you might think.
The Federal Government has a problem that will have a short-term impact on some investors in the Thrift Savings Plan.
The government needs money--or perhaps it needs to cut down on expenses. Of course, most people think the government could cut back on any number of expenses and the nation would be better off. The federal debt is projected to reach $423 billion in 2006 :eek: . But, for now, Uncle Sam is hard pressed for cash and needs to come up with it quickly. The problem is the federal government is up to the debt ceiling authorized by Congress.
This is a short-term problem because Congress will eventually pass a new limit. But, while it will undoubtedly do so in the future, Congress has not yet acted. For the government to spend money, it has to borrow more and it can't do this without Congressional authorization. No doubt, politics and political strategy is lurking in the background.
And that is where you come in. It may surprise some readers to find that investors in the G-fund will be donating some of the money.
The G-fund is a big pot of money. Right now it has about $65 billion just sitting there. By using some of this money-- the super-safe investment vehicle of choice for a large number of federal employees through the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP)--the debt ceiling problem goes away. Anyone, including the federal government, can do a lot with $65.266 billion. By withdrawing investments from the G-Fund, the Treasury is able to avoid hitting the debt ceiling.
Treasury Secretary John Snow is urging Congress to raise the debt ceiling by the middle of March. Right now it is limited to borrowing 8.18 trillion :eek: :eek: :eek: .
"Once I am able to make the G-Fund whole, the effect on the G-Fund and its beneficiaries will be the same as if this temporary action had never taken place" Treasury Secretary Snow said in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN).
This same event has occurred before and for the same reasons--the federal government's authority to borrow money was expiring. Most employees will never know the difference since, as Secretary Snow indicated, the people giving up the money for a short time will be made whole including any interest that may be due.
Still, if it was my money in the G fund, I would want to know what was happening to it. And, for a short time, it is being used to prop up the daily spending for your employer. It's a patriotic gesture--but you really don't have any choice.
2006 FedSmith.com
Legendary sportscaster Curt Gowdy dies
2/20/2006
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) - Curt Gowdy, one of the signature voices of sports for a generation and a longtime broadcaster for the Boston Red Sox, died Monday at 86.
He died in Palm Beach after a long battle with leukemia, Red Sox spokeswoman Pam Ganley said.
Gowdy made his broadcasting debut in 1944 and went on to call the first Super Bowl in 1967 as well as 13 World Series and 16 All-Star games. He also called the famous "Heidi" game in 1968.
In 1951 Gowdy became the main play-by-play voice on the Red Sox broadcast team. He left the Red Sox in 1966 for a 10-year stint as "Game of the Week" announcer for NBC. He also was the longtime host of the "American Sportsman" series.
"He's certainly the greatest play-by-play person up to this point that NBC sports has ever had," NBC Universal Sports chairman Dick Ebersol said Monday. "He literally carried the sports division at NBC for so many years on his back. ... He was a remarkable talent and he was an even more remarkable human being."
Gowdy brought a warm feel to the broadcast booth, his commentary always full of good humor and enthusiasm. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig called Gowdy "one of the legendary broadcasters of our game."
"His distinct voice was a comfort to a generation of baseball fans in New England and throughout the country," he said.
In his 1960 essay "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu" published in The New Yorker, John Updike said Gowdy sounded like "everybody's brother-in-law."
George Bodenheimer, president of ESPN and ABC Sports, said Gowdy was a "pioneer in our business and set the highest of standards for everyone in sports broadcasting."
"His many contributions to ABC, as host of "American Sportsman" and other ABC Sports' programs, are indelible," he said.
Red Sox player John Pesky, speaking from Red Sox training camp in Fort Myers, remembered Pesky as "a peach of a guy." Pesky said Gowdy was always in the clubhouse before games and always eager to talk.
"He was really easy to speak to," he said.
The award-winning broadcaster began his career in Cheyenne, Wyo., in 1944 standing on a milk crate, giving a football play-by-play in subzero temperatures. By 1949 he was calling games for the New York Yankees and two years later he began calling games for the Red Sox.
Gowdy has been honored with dozens of awards. He was inducted into the broadcast wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984, the American Sportscaster's Hall of Fame in 1985. The Curt Gowdy State Park was established in Wyoming in 1971.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press.)
http://www.scifirstforhunters.org/images/db/static/Gowdy.jpg
Milkman arrested for fibbing about robbery
http://www.wqad.com/Global/story.asp?S=4533283&nav=1sW7
Evangelist's fiery words turn funeral into family fracas
Monday, July 1, 2002
By GARRY MITCHELL, Associated Press
LOXLEY, Ala. Orlando Bethel moved his big tent and evangelical work from Miami to rural Alabama about 18 months ago, settling onto land in his wife's family. When her uncle died, he was asked to sing at the funeral.
He did experiencing a revelation in the process, he says and that's when all hell broke loose in the Greater Pine Grove Baptist Church.
Bethel, suddenly preaching over the microphone to about 100 mourners in the sanctuary, told them they were "fornicators" and "whoremongers." And he said the deceased, Lish Devan Taylor, had gone to hell.
The microphone was abruptly disconnected. The church pastor wanted Bethel stopped. When Bethel reached into a gym bag, some thought he was going for a gun it apparently was a bullhorn and about half the crowd fled their seats, with a few dragging Bethel unceremoniously out a side door.
"Those boys picked him up when the preacher said he wanted him out of there," said Glenita Andrews, a cousin of Taylor.
Stephen Taylor, who came from California for his uncle's funeral, said it appeared Bethel had planned the denunciation of Taylor and his family.
Rather than Bethel getting a revelation from above, Andrews said she suspected it stemmed from a dispute over the property inheritance of Bethel's wife.
"The Taylor family is large. Orlando and Devan had some problems," Andrews said.
According to witnesses at the June 14 funeral, Taylor, who died of prostate cancer at 56, was eulogized fondly by other ministers before Bethel commandeered the microphone. They said Taylor had gone to "a better place."
"They were lying," Bethel said recently.
Bethel, in his 30s, acknowledges that he made statements about fornicators and hell during the funeral. He said he spoke words that "the Lord revealed to me."
"God is the final authority," said the tall, lanky Bethel, who held a hand on a Bible as he was interviewed sitting at a picnic table outside his camper home. He and his wife, Glynis, live in two campers beside their big, blue-striped gospel tent off U.S. 90 in the Ellisville community.
They said they have no plans to erect a church building on their acre of land, which she inherited from a grandfather and which is fenced off from a pecan grove and a herd of cattle.
Mrs. Bethel said her deceased uncle had run-ins with the law and was "so mean he would toss shotgun shells into a burning fire and yell, 'Run!'"
She defends her husband, saying he was mobbed by "unbelievers," one of whom followed Bethel from the church back to the gospel tent and tackled him on the sandy road. Both Bethels contend they've been denied justice because no one has been arrested.
Loxley police Chief Cliff Yetter said Friday that he's still investigating, but no one has been charged. He said three officers went to the church between 11 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. in response to the 911 call on June 14.
He said some people were questioned, but the evangelist said no one was arrested because officers declined to enter the church while the funeral continued. Bethel said he wanted to point out those who allegedly assaulted him, but the officers declined "to call them out."
Yetter said Bethel's only apparent injury was a scrape on his shoulder. Bethel was examined at a hospital emergency room five days after the incident, but was not admitted.
The church pastor, the Rev. Tim Amey, had complained that a glass door was broken in the ruckus, but police said he decided against pressing a charge against Bethel.
Anger over the funeral lingers in this farming community just south of Interstate 10 on the main route to Alabama's beaches.
"If you're going to criticize, criticize before they're dead. And when you pray, pray in silence," said a furious Charlesetta Thomas, sitting with a group of friends under a shade tree after working crops in a field.
Thomas isn't a preacher, but she had a sermon for the Bethels. She said she had helped care for the ailing Taylor in his final days.
The Bethels, she said, should have been "up there giving him a drink of water and a bath."
Copyright 2002 Naples Daily News.
Editorial from The Tampa Tribune
Dear Hillary: Don't Run
Published: Feb 25, 2006
Dear Hillary:
We'd like to welcome you to Tampa for your fundraiser today, and thank you for your long service to our country and your party.
We expect that after your re-election this fall as junior senator from New York, you will dedicate yourself to seeking a higher office. But you're a pragmatist, Hillary, so we urge you to be satisfied with the Senate.
If you run for president, chances are good that you'll secure your party's nomination. But realistically, how do you think you can win the White House? You are the most polarizing figure in the Democratic Party, and your negatives among likely voters are prohibitively high. Many people simply don't trust you. You may share your husband's name, but what people liked about him is not transferable to you.
You are not the person to help define a party that needs to convince voters it can govern from the vital center.
Even yellow dog Florida Democrats express profound reservations about your presidential ambitions. They worry that you cannot attract moderate and independent voters and that your presence will hurt the election chances of other Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.
They fear, Hillary, that you would doom Democrats to impotence for decades. Republicans might relish that prospect, but on reflection, they would acknowledge the importance of a strong two-party political system.
Should the Democratic Party be crippled, the Republican Party is likely to become complacent, uninspired and unaccountable.
Fair or not, you are identified with the far left, and you are not the person to convince voters that Democrats have ideas for keeping families safe and the country secure.
You are not the one who can assure Americans they will have a chance to get ahead.
You may be a champion for women's rights and a strong advocate for children, but you are too much the Washington insider to convince voters you would fix a political system that seems remote from everyday life.
If you run, you'll position yourself from the center, knowing full well that even if you alienate your base, they'll support you, because they have no one else to turn to.
But even if you moderate your positions, you do so at some political risk. When you suddenly support a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning, your changing position seems superficial and self-serving. Hillary the "moderate progressive" candidate would be a hard sell.
Although you apparently work well with your Senate colleagues, your candidacy would remind voters that you are not a consensus builder. Your health care plan failed during your husband's first term because you were largely tone-deaf. You shut people out, and when things went awry, you blamed the media.
By the time George Bush leaves office in 2009, this country will have had 20 years with either a Bush or Clinton at the helm. Citizens want a break from that White House tradition.
Think, Hillary, not about what you want, but what's best for your party and country.
Please, don't run.
TBO.com is Tampa Bay Online 2006 Media General, Inc.
KAPLOWD
02-27-2006, 01:24 PM
All she has to do is win Ohio or anyone of the battle states.
Birchtree
02-27-2006, 06:53 PM
Ya, I think Bill was the one that got all the head - please not again.
Hillary Clinton wears many faces, but none a winner
By Jonah Goldberg
TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES
Article published Jan 31, 2006
Liberals are sizing up Hillary Clinton for the umpteenth time, and they don't like what they see.
To be honest, I never understood what they saw in her in the first place.
The amazing thing about Clinton is that she's so unappealing. She isn't a particularly gifted speaker. She's smart, but in a conventional and lawyerly way. She doesn't connect well with audiences. Her idea of improvisation seems to be leaping from the prepared text to prepared note cards.
However, she has defied the rules of nature and gotten better looking over the years, which, along with her soap-opera marriage, probably explains some of her success with supermarket checkout-aisle publications.
Indeed, her greatest success has been at exploiting expectations others have for her. For some fans, she was the struggling career woman who could bring home the bacon. For some detractors, she was ''Lady Macbeth,'' cold and calculating in an obviously political marriage. She was also the apotheosis of the 1960s, for friends and foes alike. For the Children's Defense Fund crowd, she was the baby boomer idealist who worked her way through the system. For the American Spectator gang, she was the former Black Panther sympathizer and acolyte of Chicago radical Saul Alinsky who finally achieved power. After the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Hillary - who was no stranger to her husband's weaknesses - suddenly became the victim in a culture with a fetish for victims.
At every turn, Hillary Clinton's Zelig-like public persona has been a fabrication - either by her fans, her enemies or herself. One telling episode came when she published her massively successful autobiography, ''Living History.'' The book tour was nothing short of a coronation, confirming her gravitas and commitment to ''the issues.'' She portrayed herself as resigned to the fact that she'd have to answer Barbara Walters' questions about her personal life, but she always made it seem like she'd rather wrestle with the hard issues of public policy.
But when The Washington Post actually tried to ask her about something other than how she cried over her husband's sexcapades with an intern, the senator from New York ''declined to be interviewed about the political content of her book.''
Hillary Clinton's latest reinvention paints her as a moderate, even an Iraq war hawk. Few people buy it. Reporters regularly assume her motives are opportunistic rather than sincere, focusing on how every pronouncement will position her for the 2008 presidential race.
Some liberals have had enough. ''I will not support Hillary Clinton for president,'' wrote Molly Ivins, the voice of conventional thinking on the left. ''Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone.'' The segment of Democrats who sanctified Cindy Sheehan can hardly countenance a presidential candidate who unapologetically voted for the war and positioned herself to the right of President Bush on foreign policy.
The New Republic offers perhaps an even more devastating critique of Clinton for Democratic pragmatists: She can't win. Marisa Katz dismantled the myth that Clinton can appeal to ''red state'' voters because she won in upstate New York. Turns out former Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John Kerry each did better in upstate New York than she did. And Gore, a Southerner, couldn't even win his home state of Tennessee. Meanwhile, a recent Gallup poll showed that 51 percent of Americans won't even consider voting for Clinton.
Hillary Clinton's success over the last decade and a half has been in pretending to be her own woman while really playing one part or another for the benefit of the media, her husband or various feminist constituencies desperate for a role model to confirm all of their comfortable stereotypes.
That's why there's something oddly satisfying in the possibility that Clinton being herself is politically disastrous. And, if she's really just playing one more role according to some classically Clintonian political triangulation, there's something equally satisfying to the prospect that even her fans aren't falling for it anymore.
Copyright 2006 Tallahassee Democrat.
Civil rights icon tapped to defend Wal-Mart
Mon Feb 27, 2006 4:34 PM ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Civil rights leader and former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young will become the public face of a Wal-Mart-backed group whose aim is to combat criticism of the world's largest retailer, the group said on Monday.
Young, who was an aide to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights protests of the 1960s and served as ambassador to the United Nations under President Jimmy Carter, will serve as chairman of Working Families for Wal-Mart's national steering committee, the group said in a statement.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. was among the financial backers of Working Families for Wal-Mart, a group of people "who understand and appreciate Wal-Mart's positive impact on the working families of America," according to its Web site.
The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer has stepped up efforts to counter criticism from unions and other groups who say the company pays poverty-level wages, discriminates against women and drives competitors out of business.
Image has become increasingly important for Wal-Mart as it reaches out to wealthier shoppers and grapples with growing opposition to its expansion, particularly into urban areas.
"The critics have it wrong," Young said in a statement. "For those who care about the poor it is time to step up, speak out and join this national discussion."
Wake Up Wal-Mart, a union-backed group critical of Wal-Mart, called on Young to use his position to push for changes at the retailer.
"Ambassador Young is now in a unique position to reach out to Wal-Mart and CEO Lee Scott and urge them to change," Paul Blank, campaign director for Wake Up Wal-Mart, said in a statement.
Reuters 2006.
Tampa, not Richmond, to host 2012 General Conference
Written: 2/17/2006
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - The United Methodist Church's top legislative assembly won't be meeting in Richmond, Va., in 2012, as announced last fall, but will convene in Tampa, Fla., instead.
In making the change, the United Methodist Commission on the General Conference cited a church policy regarding meeting in cities that are home to professional sports teams with Native American names.
The 2012 General Conference will be held April 25 to May 4 in the 600,000-square-foot Tampa Convention Center.
At the time of the initial selection, commission members were unaware that Richmond is home to the Richmond Braves, a minor league baseball team affiliated with the Atlanta Braves.
"We reviewed many issues when considering the finalists, but the name of the minor league sports team never came up in our discussions," said Gail Murphy-Geiss of Centennial, Colo., chairperson of the Commission on the General Conference. "We had earlier eliminated Atlanta from consideration because it was home to the major league baseball team, the Braves.
"When the minor league Braves issue was quickly brought to our attention after the original announcement, we believed we were obligated to revisit the issue.
"We are sad for the great United Methodists in Virginia who were excited about hosting the General Conference but are pleased to take a strong stance against teams with offensive names. However well intended, sports teams named after Native Americans demean the heritage of native peoples. They perpetuate unhealthy and unfair stereotypes."
Murphy-Geiss said the commission is working with the Rev. Alan Morrison, the business manager of the General Conference, to develop detailed written procedures and policies to help the commission consider future sites of the General Conference, including reviews of cities' major and minor professional sports team names.
Tampa was a finalist in the original search process for the 2012 General Conference. When the commission reopened its search, negotiations resulted in Tampa offering the strongest proposal, Murphy-Geiss said.
In addition to the 1,000 or so delegates, the 10-day gathering is expected to attract about 4,000 other people to the Tampa area and will generate about $20 million in anticipated direct spending.
Tampa is part of the Florida Annual (regional) Conference, which is third in membership size, behind Virginia and North Georgia. It has 728 local churches and a total membership of more than 329,000.
*This report was adapted from a press release by the Public Information Office at United Methodist Communications.
Five Tampa Police officers in hot water
Feb 16, 2006
By: Sara Dorsey
Tampa, Florida Thirteen pages of documents sum up why female officer Martha Gearity asked for a transfer out of her all male street anti-crime last August, even though it's one of the most elite teams to work for at the Tampa Police Department.
"To be involved in this type of behavior the behavior is outrageous it's highly unacceptable it's unbecoming a police officer and it's a sad day at TPD that we're even standing here discussing it."
The behavior according to the investigation includes constant flagellation, belching and excessive sexual joking by male officers. It says quote "officer Gearity said that they talked about anal sex, they watched pornographic movies at work, talked about their sex lives in the open, made reference to her menstruation, joked about having homosexual relations with one another in graphic detail and took pictures of a penis with a camera phone."
Those involved include Officer Gregory Cotner, Officer David Duncan, Officer Ryan Sigler, and their superiors Corporal David Watt and Sergeant Gene Strickland.
"We immediately disbanded the members of this squad and then launched our own investigation and then we learned about the sexually charged and offensive environment of the squad."
In the documents Officer Gearity recalled Officer Cotner simulating as if he was grabbing her behind. Gearity goes on to say, "Officer Sigler was simulating that, like he was grinding me like having sex."
The sexual harassment isn't the end of it. Both the Corporal and Sergeant were found guilty of carrying and firing unauthorized weapons on duty and violating the responsibility of supervisors for letting a traffic stop escalate out of control.
It was also found the team did not have jurisdiction when it went into Hillsborough County to arrest Eugene Betts in that case Sergeant Strickland was struck in the ankle by cross fire.
"The discipline that these officers will face will certainly reflect the disappointment that this department feels."
The Sergeant has been moved to desk duty and the three officers and corporal are on patrol under strict supervision while the disciplinary process moves forward. Tampa police say an advisory board will recommend to the chief what actions should be taken, but the chief has the ultimate say.
All the men face anything from suspension to demotion to termination.
Sara Dorsey, Tampa Bay's 10 News
Tampa Officer's Gun, Gear, Car Stolen
By VALERIE KALFRIN vkalfrin@tampatrib.com
Published: Jan 31, 2006
TAMPA - A Tampa police officer lost his 9 mm handgun, Taser, laptop computer and gun belt when someone stole his patrol car from his Manatee County house this weekend, officials said.
The Manatee County Sheriff's Office speculated Monday that whoever stole Tampa police Officer Roderick Glyder's car and gear also swiped a patrol car belonging to a Sarasota police officer, who lost an AR-15 rifle that was in the car. Manatee deputies recovered both cars, although not the equipment, within a few blocks of each other, Manatee sheriff's spokesman Dave Bristow said.
The FBI was not aware of the thefts Monday afternoon, an agency spokeswoman said.
The thief most likely will not be able to access criminal records, driver registrations and other databases on the Tampa officer's computer because of multiple passwords, police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said.
The department recommends officers take belongings inside at night. Investigators are not sure why Glyder did not. McElroy said Glyder left the state before the theft because of a family emergency and has not been interviewed.
Glyder, 40, has worked for the Tampa Police Department since 1994. His wife reported the patrol car stolen about midnight Friday, officials said.
Manatee deputies found the car about 11:50 a.m. Saturday, parked in the 6700 block of Tuttle Avenue in Bradenton, a few miles from the officer's home, Bristow said.
The car was not damaged. Bristow would not say how investigators think the thief entered the car.
About 9:30 p.m. Saturday, a patrol car parked at the home of Sarasota Officer Leeylvester Scales vanished, Bristow said. Manatee deputies found that car about 2:30 a.m. Sunday - with the engine running and a window broken - on Tuttle Avenue near where the Tampa car was abandoned.
Allowing officers to take cars home is common. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, St. Petersburg Police Department and Pinellas County Sheriff's Office allow it.
There are some restrictions. Pinellas deputies who live outside the county must leave the car locked at a sheriff's district station or substation or at another location designated by the sheriff, officials said.
Tampa police officers may take cars home if they live in a county adjacent to Hillsborough, McElroy said. Those who live in a county farther away, such as Hernando County, must park the car overnight in a safe location at the county line, such as a toll plaza, she said.
Even with the commute, parking the car overnight and during the officers' days off reduces wear and tear on the vehicles, according to a study conducted for the Tampa police, McElroy said.
In addition, having the cars allows officers to respond to calls quicker when traveling to and from work, and they act as a crime deterrent in neighborhoods.
Gilligan
02-28-2006, 03:32 AM
Tampa Officer's Gun, Gear, Car Stolen
The department recommends officers take belongings inside at night. Investigators are not sure why Glyder did not.
Greg,
Notice that this PD does not require their officers to bring their equipment inside their homes, its only a recommendation. I know of officers that leave their equipment in the trunk because they have kids at home. There have been several cases where an officers kid has gotten a hold of the service weapon and shot themselves or someone else. Even if the weapon is under lock and key because in some of those cases the kids found the keys.
Smoothing the Transition (into Federal Retirement)
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0606/062306rp.htm
Special Report | Channel leaders: Trust is a foundation you cant do without
By Nick Wakeman
Washington Technology
06/26/06
For William Smithson, a successful project starts with trust.
When building a team to work on projects with the federal governments Thrift Savings Plan, Smithson, vice president of financial systems applications development at SI International Inc., brings in experienced people he can trust. I let them hire their own staffs, so they have people under them that they trust, he said.
The results speak for themselves. The original project was for Web development and needed about 20 people. Today, more than 300 SI and subcontractor employees are working under Smithson.
In 2000, he won the first contract with Matcom International Corp. SI acquired Matcom at the end of 2003, and Smithson continued to run the Thrift projects. I was tickled pink when Bills team was brought under me at SI, said Tom Pettit, SIs senior vice president of applications development.
Projects at the Thrift include building a new application to manage the retirement plans, moving a data center and building a call center to serve members of the plan. The Thrift Savings Plan manages about $186 billion in assets and has 3.6 million participants in the plan, which is open to government employees and is similar to 401(k) plans in the private sector.
Im not much of a babysitter as a supervisor, Smithson said. My basic style is to hire good people and get out of their way.
The team-building approach also extends to subcontractors. Teammates on the projects include Computer Access LLC, Computer Sciences Corp., Keane Federal Systems Inc., Integrated Benefits Solutions Inc., Jacob and Sundstrom Inc., Savantage Solutions Inc. and SunGard Data Systems Inc.
Having good teammates is critical, Smithson said. Often, theyll have knowledge and expertise that SI might not have inhouse, he said.
Before the SI acquisition, Smithsons team took on a troubled project that had failed under American Management Systems Inc. Without commenting on the AMS situation, Smithson said that what happens on many large efforts is they get bid conservatively and then staffed with inexperienced people. When problems arise, they have not run into the situation before.
Smithson said he tries to bring in experienced people and let them work, but he supplements that strategy with a trust-but-verify approach that includes regular meetings with his staff and progress reports.
In June 2005, SI won an $18 million Thrift contract to replace a call center in New Orleans with one in Virginia. Two days before the center was to open, Hurricane Katrina struck. Smithsons team opened the new center early and supported the New Orleans center until all of its operations could be moved.
Smithson is quick to praise the Thrift for its role in the success Matcom, and now SI, have had.
I like having a close working relationship with them, he said of Thrift staff. We have conference calls; they are invited to watch my developers; they have access to everything.
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/newspics/channel9.gif
William Smithson, vice president, SI International Inc.
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