Politicians' bite, the sound bite- and truth

Open Channel - How do we keep candidates from lying over and over?: "After a presidential debate, even before the debate has ended, we're able now to read fact-checks from Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact and many news organizations.
But shouldn't the candidates get their facts straight and tell the truth in the first place?
"American politics has become a battle of talking points," said Bill Adair, editor of PolitiFact and Washington bureau chief for The Tampa Bay Times. "Once candidates find a talking point they like, they often stick with it — even when fact-checkers say it's wrong.""

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WHen the Tide turns...

P&G to Cut 1,600 Jobs, Bank on Digital for Long-term Savings | Digital - Advertising Age: "Facing flat market shares and growing investor pressure to cut costs, Procter & Gamble Co.plans to eliminate about 1,600 "overhead" or nonmanufacturing jobs, including some in marketing, and is banking on digital marketing to help contain media spending long-term, executives said on the company's earnings conference call today.
The move follows an announcement earlier this month that P&G would outsource to brokerage firms in-store merchandising work covering about 2,700 employees, most of the part-time, and expands a program put in place for some categories two years ago.
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"In the digital space, with things like Facebook and Google and others, we find that return on investment of the advertising when properly designed, when the big idea is there, can be much more efficient," Mr. McDonald said. He cited the 1.8 billion in free impressions generated by the Old Spice campaign in recent years, adding "there are many other examples I can cite from all over the world."

P&G still expects to spend between 9% and 11% of sales on advertising in the long term and is stepping up spending this quarter and next behind its global Olympics sponsorship-related efforts, which he said the company expects to add $500 million in incremental revenues.

Parking in a Parallel Universe

Bottom Line - Women are better at parking than men, study says: "Women are better at parking than men, study says
By msnbc.com staff and wire
After years of enduring sexist jokes and taunts from their male counterparts, women drivers can finally take heart -- a new study suggests they’re actually better at parking than men.
Covert surveillance of car parks across the United Kingdom shows that, while women may take longer to park, they are more adept than men at maneuvering into a parking space, and when they park they are more likely to leave their vehicles in the middle of a parking bay."

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Countries, Banks, and Debt

Greece should give up budget control: Germany - Yahoo! Finance: "BERLIN (Reuters) - Greece must surrender control of its budget policy to outside institutions if it cannot implement reforms attached to euro zone rescue measures, the German economy minister was quoted as saying on Sunday.
Philipp Roesler became the first German cabinet member to openly endorse a proposal for Greece to surrender budget control after Reuters quoted a European source on Friday as saying Berlin wants Athens to give up budget control.
"We need more leadership and monitoring when it comes to implementing the reform course," Roesler, also vice chancellor, told Bild newspaper, according to an advance of an interview to be published on Monday."

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Cup isn't overflowing with the benefits of drinking

Why drinking benefits Europeans, not Indians - The Times of India: "Are the health benefits of alcohol overrated? In the latest advisory on spirits, the UK House of Commons has requested the British to keep away from alcohol for at least two days a week. The lawmakers reason the body needs a break twice a week to repair the liver. This is a climbdown from earlier guidelines to drink moderately every day.

In the country's various watering holes, it's difficult to miss the flurry of advice: have beer to flush out kidney stones, wine to cut down risk of heart attack. Some even claim that diabetes can be kept at bay with a regular drink. But doctors say such claims cannot be given a simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down.
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Consider beer, whose popularity in urban India is increasing steadily because of its low alcohol content. Urologist Dr Manish Bansal says it is a myth that beer can treat kidney stones. "Studies in the US have shown that certain beers, such as stout, prevent calcium deposits and reduce stone formation by 30 to 35%. But beer contains a chemical called purine, which increases the risk of uric acid stones," he says. He adds that orange juice, or even tea or coffee, would have the same flushing-out effect as beer on kidney stones.

Then there is the widespread contention that alcohol is good for the heart. Malika Arora, of the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), points out that this contention doesn't hold for Indians. "We have done a study which shows that alcohol offers no cardiovascular protection for Indians," she says.

The study was done jointly by PHFI and the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, across 10 cities in 2010 and compared 4,000 Indians who drank alcohol to an equal number who didn't. The study, published in the Atherosclerosis medical journal in February 2010, showed that even low levels of alcohol increased the risk of coronary artery disease among Indians by 40%.

Why does this health reversal occur among Indians? PHFI's Arora points out that the kind of alcohol one drinks has a role. "Indians mainly drink hard liquor, like whisky or even scotch. Europeans drink a lot of wine and it has been shown to be beneficial for them," she adds. Alcohol has been a part of Indian society since ages, but there is better tracking of the drinking habit these days. Market research firm International Wine and Spirits Record had stated that the total consumption of spirits in India stood at 200 million cases in 2009 (a case has 12 bottles or nine litres). A World Health Organization survey a few years back showed that spirits made up for 88% of what Indians regularly drink, while beer only had a 10% share and wine was barely 2%.

Vassar's erors, NYT hyperbole

NYT: College's acceptance error crushes students - US news - The New York Times - msnbc.com: "Jeff Kosmacher, a spokesman for Vassar, said on Saturday that a “test letter” that had been intended as a placeholder for the real admissions decision had not been replaced before students checked their application statuses online. The error was discovered around 4:30 p.m., he said.
Between 6:30 and 7 p.m. Friday, the 122 students who had seen the test letter — 46 who were, in fact, accepted and 76 who were not — were sent a message from the college that cited a “system error” and apologized for the mistake, Mr. Kosmacher said. The correct decisions, the message said, were now available online."

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Avoiding questions, the Chinese way

New year, new fake partners for China's young singletons with parents to please | World news | guardian.co.uk: "Next week's lunar new year is China's biggest festival. It can also be a major headache for those returning home without a potential spouse. Pressure on young adults to settle down goes into overdrive, as gathering family members begin the inquisition and line up possible candidates.

Taking a boyfriend or girlfriend home is a fast way to curb the speculation, which is why Li, like other twentysomethings, has hired a fake partner through an online agency."

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Tim Cook and Newt Gingrich- both "outrage"eous

Both Tim Cook and Newty are complaining because the media are exposing their behaviors- corporate and individual, respectively.

We care about every worker: Tim Cook, Apple CEO - The Economic Times: ""We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain," Cook said. "Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern.

"Any suggestion that we don't care is patently false and offensive to us," he said. "As you know better than anyone, accusations like these are contrary to our values. It's not who we are.

"For the many hundreds of you who are based at our suppliers' manufacturing sites around the world, or spend long stretches working there away from your families, I know you are as outraged by this as I am," Cook said. "

Doing the Right thing is obvious but the CEOs are oblivious

Bottom Line - CEOs rake in huge sums when their companies go bankrupt: "When companies go bankrupt, the misery is shared among many: Bond holders are wiped out, retirees see their pensions and benefits vanish, and employees lose their jobs.
But some feel no pain at all: CEOs and other top executives of companies that go through Chapter 11 receive robust compensation in the form of salary, stock grants and other benefits.
In some cases, they earn even more money than they did before the filing, even while other stakeholders suffer. It's the most unlikely fast-track to a fat payout ever, and it goes on in spite of federal legislation meant to crack down on corporate honchos feasting while everyone else fights over crumbs. "

It wasn't supposed to be like this. In the wake of corporate catastrophes such as Enron, Congress passed legislation aimed at preventing companies from paying retention bonuses to executives at firms going through Chapter 11.

"You can't pay someone for just staying at a bankrupt company," said Robert Jackson, an associate professor at Columbia Law School at Columbia University, and former advisory to senior Treasury officials on executive compensation during the financial crisis. "But that's different from paying them from doing well at a bankrupt company," he said.

That distinction has become a loophole. Since the law allows performance-based incentives, huge executive payouts have morphed over the years to be little more than retention bonuses by another name, according to critics who say executives net outsized payouts even when they negotiate agreements that leave stakeholders out in the cold.

"There seems to be no sense of accountability at this level," said Steven Kropp, a professor at Roger Williams University School of Law. "In most of these cases, the unsecured creditors aren't being paid back in full, employees are being laid off, and in addition, they're finding their health insurance and pensions diminished." An investigation by The Wall Street Journal found that median compensation of CEOs at 21 companies that filed for bankruptcy was $8.7 million, just $400,000 less than the median compensation earned by CEOs at healthy companies.

Companies are required to go to court and argue their case for big bonuses with the bankruptcy judge, explaining why the CEO deserves the set level of compensation and what targets they must meet in order to earn their bonus. The problem is that often the bar is set so low that even lackluster performance will be measured as success.

"It's all fine and well to say you're going to pay people for performance, but the key is what kind of performance," Jackson said. "It's very hard for a judge to know if an earnings target is easy or hard to hit. Are they just window dressings?" To make this determination, the court has to rely on evidence from the company's executives and lawyers, who may have an incentive to give themselves easy assignments.

Judges also have to rely on the input of compensation experts — also hired by the company — to know if the bonuses being proposed are appropriate for the industry and the task at hand, which also raises the prospect of manipulation.

To keep companies from taking advantage of this, Jackson said, bankruptcy courts could have their own industry-specific experts to vet the numbers being proposed by people on the company payroll.

Critics of the current status quo say there are other legal ways to patch the ballooning-bonus loophole. "You could simply amend the bankruptcy code to preclude a company in bankruptcy from paying bonuses in excess of prior salary to its existing executives," John Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School, said via email. "Or you could limit the amount of any additional income in excess of their prior compensation from the firm to some reasonable percentage."

Kropp suggests using clawback provisions to cap executive compensation in the event of bankruptcy and funneling the recovered funds into employees' investment accounts. Even advocates of reforms like these, though, admit that they're a political no-go for lawmakers in today's contentious legislative environment.

The argument in favor of big bonuses, even when they come at the expense of employees, retirees and other unsecured creditors, is that successfully guiding a company through bankruptcy and emerging on the other side is a challenging, risky job, and most CEOs would bolt without the promise of millions in cash and stock for their trouble.

But research done by Ethan Bernstein, a Kauffman Foundation Fellow on leave from Harvard Law School, shows that CEOs of financially troubled companies quit or are ousted at the same rate whether or not they file for bankruptcy or muddle through with private restructuring.

For some, this raises the troubling possibility that Chapter 11 has become a back door for CEOs to grant themselves raises, especially in light of the fact that the Journal's research found CEOs at some troubled firms actually earned more after filing for Chapter 11.

"My belief is that CEOs and other senior executives can panic a board with the implied threat that they might desert the sinking ship if some formula is not found to give them extraordinary pay for their service in a crisis," Coffee said.

Pulling a teetering company back from the brink is hard, and it's an increasingly specialized job, which Bernstein said contributes to the high number — 37 percent — of CEOs brought on either during a bankruptcy reorganization or in the year leading up to it.

He said key stakeholders want a "bankruptcy guru," and they're willing to shell out enormous sums for the services of a CEO they think can pull the most money out of a troubled company. The catch is that this slate of decision-makers increasingly includes big creditors, negotiating with the kind of clout once limited to shareholders. What a creditor sees as the best return on its investment may very well be a bloodbath for the company's rank-and-file.

Airline CEOs- high on money-grubbing, hit the bottom in ethics

Aitline CEOs'  reaction to the requirement to show total fares illustrates how far these folks are from running their companies ethically.

Overhead Bin - Fight over full-fare rules takes bizarre turn: "On Tuesday, Spirit Airlines, which is currently contesting the rule in court, launched a website called KeepMyFaresLow.org with the headline: Warning: New government regulations require us to HIDE taxes in your fares.
That brought a swift denunciation from Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, an advocacy group for corporate travel buyers. “With this ill-considered attack on DOT, Spirit Airlines has reached a new low and no doubt secured the poster-child crown for 2012 for misleading consumers.”
Not so, countered Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza. “Our view is that fares should be transparent and clear and that you should know what you’re paying your airline and what you’re paying in taxes,” he told msnbc.com."

Airlines must now show fees, taxes up front - Yahoo! Finance: "US Airways Group Inc. President Scott Kirby said this week that he wasn't worried that passengers would cut back on travel — they've been paying those taxes and fees all along.
But, Kirby said, including taxes in the advertised price instead of listing them separately will make it easier for the government to raise the taxes "because it's the airlines that look bad, and not the government.""

Apple's Sales send a message- conditions at suppliers do not matter

Record sales at Apple, while media reports abound on the brutal working conditions for factory labour at Apple's contract manufacturers. It is clear that the public wants to outsource pollution and labour conditions in exchange for "affordable" gadgets.

Apple announces record sales of iPhones and iPads | Technology | The Guardian: "Record sales of iPhones and iPads resulted in record profits at Apple in the final quarter of 2011, the first since the death of its co-founder, Steve Jobs.

Apple more than doubled its profits: to $13.06bn (£8.35bn), compared with $6bn for the same quarter in 2010. The result easily beat analysts' forecasts, taking pressure off the chief executive, Tim Cook, handpicked by Jobs as his successor. Last October Apple shares recorded their biggest single-day dollar drop after iPhone sales missed their forecast.

Cook said he was thrilled the company sold a record 37.04m iPhones in the final quarter of 2011, a 128% rise on a year ago. "We could have sold more if we'd had more supply," he said. The recently launched iPhone 4S proved to be the company's best seller in the quarter. "We could not be happier," said Cook.

In record sales across nearly all product categories, Apple sold a record 15.43m iPads over the quarter, more than double a year ago. It sold 5.2m Macs during the quarter, a 26% unit increase."

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Preparing for austerity in U.S.- Greece and Ireland are not mailing a pretty picture

Top analyst warns of "big train" of federal cuts - CBS News: "Deschenaux said it's important to reach structural soundness in order to protect the state's triple-A bond rating and prepare for what he described as "the big train that is coming for Maryland and all other states."

"What is that train? That is the federal government's effort to balance its budget, which will inevitably result in fewer jobs in Maryland and less money coming from the federal government," Deschenaux said. "If we're going to be prepared for that and in a position to address it, we do need to deal with our own structural budget issues."

To do that without compromising support for public schools, higher education and, for the most part, social safety nets, O'Malley has put some controversial proposals before the General Assembly.

For one thing, he has proposed reducing tax exemptions for people who make more than $100,000 annually.

He also has recommended a significant shift of teacher pension costs from the state, which currently pays the entire bill, to the counties."


US Post Office Needs to Cut 260,000 Jobs: Rep. Issa - US Business News - CNBC: "The U.S. Postal Service needs to slash 260,000 jobs and end weekend delivery if it is to climb out of its "financially insolvent" condition, Rep. Darrell Issa said.


Despite a mandate to avoid deficits, the post office loses up to $15 billion a year, Issa told CNBC during an informal gathering of senior House Oversight and Government Reform Committee members.

"It's a combination of delivering what people want at a price they're willing to pay," the California Republican said. "We've restricted what the post office can charge for various classes of mail. But the biggest challenge is there are about 660,000 workers at the post office. In the private sector there would be about 400,000.""

American Airlines' version of free-market:shift burden to the taxpayer

American Airlines reassures workers on pensions - Yahoo! Finance: "AMR and its lawyers have said publicly that the company could terminate its retirement plans and turn them over to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. That's a federal agency that insures traditional "defined-benefit" plans that are still common in the airline industry, although not in most other sectors of the economy.
The PBGC limits the benefits it will pay to retirees, but the limit affects only people with relatively large pensions. A 65-year-old retiring this year could get up to $54,000, with lower limits for people who retire at younger ages.
Brundage didn't say how many American Airlines pilots have vested pensions above $54,000 a year, and a spokesman for the company, Bruce Hicks, said "We did not break out percentages by any specific work group."
But Brundage did say that excluding pilots and upper management, only 2 percent of employees would see their benefits limited if the company terminated the retirement plans."

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Getting both booze and buzz at Starbucks

On the menu at more Starbucks: Wine and beer - Yahoo! Finance: "SEATTLE (AP) -- Starbucks Corp., the company that proved there's no such thing as paying too much for a cup of coffee, is expanding its experiment with two other elixirs that Americans love, wine and beer.
The company said Monday it will start selling wine, beer and "premium" foods, like small plates and hot flatbread sandwiches, at four to six stores in Atlanta and another four to six stores in Southern California by the end of the year. That builds on the company's recent announcement of the same plans for about half a dozen stores in Chicago.
Starbucks first tested the wine and beer concept at a store in its headquarters city of Seattle in October 2010. It now serves beer and wine at five stores in Seattle and one in Portland, Ore. The company hasn't released numbers on whether the new drinks have increased traffic, but it says that the change has been popular with customers. The wine and beer lists will differ by region. The stores in Washington state and Oregon serve Dead Guy Ale and Stella Artois lager, among other drinks."

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Taxing for the tax-evading

Greece names and shames alleged top tax evaders - National Business - MiamiHerald.com: "ATHENS, Greece -- Debt-crippled Greece has named some 4,000 alleged tax dodgers, including a former media magnate and a prominent entertainer, with the worst offender owing the state nearly euro1 billion ($1.3 billion).

But much of that money might never be reclaimed, as some of the top offenders are in prison or their companies are bankrupt.

The list published by the Finance Ministry late Sunday is part of a campaign to crack down on rampant tax evasion, which - coupled with inefficient tax collection - is hampering the recession-hit eurozone member's painful efforts to avoid bankruptcy.

At the top of the list was a 58-year-old accountant, currently serving terms of more than 100 years in prison for tax fraud, who allegedly owes some euro950 million. Most of that sum, however, is in surcharges and fines.

At least another three people convicted over the same scam figure high on the list, which includes debts of more than euro170,000 ($221,000)."

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Oprah in India- asking the basic questions

India has more to it than poverty, feels Oprah Winfrey - The Economic Times: ""What is it with the red lights here. Is it there just for your entertainment? she asked to bursts of laughter from the audience.

"There is a red light on and everybody just keeps going," she said.

And she returned to the subject before finishing her talk. "Texting while driving is stupid. But in India it is insane," she said, tongue in cheek.

Oprah's meeting with the widows too left her quite moved and according to her "caused a shift in my consciousness".

She said she was all the more surprised by the fact that women who lose their husbands can be discarded in a country where families do so well to take care of their elders.

"I couldn't understand this paradox that a country where families have so much love for their elders could discard its women just because they did not have husbands," she said. "

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German strengths- the importance of culture

Germany has the economic strengths America once boasted - chicagotribune.com: "Yet the Krugers have a higher standard of living than many Americans who have twice that income.

Their secret: little debt, frugal habits and a government that is intensely focused on high production, low inflation and extensive social services.

That has given them job security and good medical care as well as well-maintained roads, trains and bike paths. Both of their adult children are out on their own, thanks in part to Germany's job-training system and heavy subsidies for university education.

For instance, Volkmar's out-of-pocket costs for stomach surgery and 10 days in a hospital totaled just $13 a day. College tuition for their son runs about $260 a semester.

Germany, with its manufacturing base and export prowess, is the America of yesteryear, an economic power unlike any of its European neighbors. As the world's fourth-largest economy, it has thrived on principles that the United States seems to have gradually lost."

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Evidence of the brilliant intellect of South Carolinians

Qualifications for Winning the GOP support:

Married thrice or more

Divorced twice or more

Must Abandon wives suffering from illness

Persecute others while having own merry affair

Loot the government

Bring ridicule to institutions

Must be Convicted of ethics violations, if not possessing criminal convictions

Gingrich Wins South Carolina Primary - NYTimes.com: "CHARLESTON, S.C. — Surprising his rivals and scrambling the Republican race for the presidency, Newt Gingrich won the pivotal South Carolina primary Saturday, just 10 days after a distant finish in New Hampshire left the impression that his candidacy was all but dead.

It was a striking development in a months-long Republican nominating contest that has seen the restive base of conservative voters ping-pong among the alternatives to the party establishment’s favorite, Mitt Romney.

With late-night tallies showing Mr. Gingrich beating Mr. Romney by 12 percentage points, it was no small win. Exit polls showed Mr. Gingrich had done it with a formidable coalition of groups that have resisted Mr. Romney’s candidacy all election season long: evangelical Christians, Tea Party supporters and those who call themselves “very conservative.”"

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Saving the Lungs of the World...An important effort

BBC News - Race to save Ecuador's 'lungs of the world' park: "The Yasuni National Park, known as "the lungs of the world" and one of the most bio-diverse places on earth, is under threat from oil drilling. The race is on to find the funds required to develop new sustainable energy programmes that would leave the oil - and the forest - untouched.

In the early light of dawn, the Napo River, running swiftly from its headwaters in the high Andes, swirled powerfully past the bow of our motorised canoe.

Suddenly, a dense cloud of green parrots swooped down from the canopy of the jungle and in a cackling din started scooping tiny beakfuls from the exposed muddy bank.

The heavy mineral rich clay, the birds seem to know, is an antidote to the toxins present in the seeds of the forest which are a major part of their daily diets."

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Mitt-Ingrich - Two politicians who keep lowering the bar for dishonest, self-serving politicians

Romney calls on Gingrich to release ethics violation report | World news | guardian.co.uk: "
Mitt Romney has moved to fend off a late surge in support for Newt Gingrich in South Carolina's Republican primary election by calling on him to release a secret congressional report that saw Gingrich become the first speaker of the House of Representatives convicted of ethics violations.

Romney's call comes as he attempts to deflect attention from his own refusal, repeated on Friday, to immediately make public tax returns on a fortune of more than $200m.

A series of opinion polls put Saturday's race too close to call following a sharp rise in voter backing for Gingrich as social conservatives coalesced around him in an attempt to block Romney, who is suspect for his previous support of abortion rights, gay marriage and government intervention in health care, from winning the nomination."

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Apple's humongous profits- on the backs of the Chinese poor, under-age children

Transcript | This American Life: "And the stories are fascinating. I talked to one young woman who works on the iPhone line. She cleans the screens of iPhones by hand in these huge racks, thousands and thousands of them every day. And she shows me how she does it. And I show her my iPhone. And I hand her my iPhone. I take a picture of her holding my iPhone. And I say to her, we'll never know, but you may have cleaned the screen of this iPhone when it came by you on the line. We'll never know. And she, quick as a whip, she takes my phone and she rubs it against her pants. And then she says there, I've cleaned it a second time.

And I say to her, you seem kind of young. How old are you? And she says, I'm 13. And I say, 13? That's young. Is it hard to get work at Foxconn when you're-- and she says oh no. And her friends all agree, they don't really check ages. The outside companies do have inspections, but workers told me Foxconn always knows when there's going to be an inspection. So what they do then, they don't even check ages then. They just pull everyone from the affected line, and then they put the oldest workers they have on that line."

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Capitalism for the 1%, Socialism for the 99%

AA is just one more example of a company that took care of its execs, but is shifting the burden of pensions to the government.

US says American Airlines underpaid on pensions - CBS News: "American Airlines contributed only $6.5 million of the $100 million that it was supposed to pay into employee pension plans this week.

The underpayment raised tensions between the company, which filed for bankruptcy protection in November, and federal pension-protection officials.

"This is a disturbing development, as the airline has more than $4 billion in cash," said J. Jioni Palmer, a spokesman for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which insures certain types of retirement plans. "American's actions hurt the financial health of the pension plans, and undermine the retirement security of American's workers and retirees."

American Airlines spokesman Sean Collins said, "The company has determined this is the appropriate course of action for the quarterly contribution amount due by Jan. 15, 2012. This action allows the company to preserve cash.""

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The patriotic feeling lacking among Indian Cricketers

The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : We’ve strangled India, says Siddle: "“The biggest thing so far in the series is the pressure we have been building against them. We have strangled them and I’d like to be part of doing that again,” Siddle said.

“Any opportunity to play for Australia is a great honour and I definitely don’t want to give my spot up to anyone else and let them have the opportunity,” added the pacer who has 17 wickets at an average of 19.58 from the series."

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Texas not happy to be on drugs, and makes J&J pay

Johnson & Johnson Settles Texas Lawsuit Over Drug : NPR: "A lawsuit in which Texas accused Johnson & Johnson of plundering the state Medicaid program by overstating the safety of an expensive anti-psychotic drug and improperly influencing officials and doctors to push the medication has been settled for $158 million, a subsidiary of the health care giant and state officials announced Thursday.

Texas had been seeking up to $1 billion from the drug maker.

Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., one of the J&J subsidiaries that had been sued, said in a statement it will pay $158 million in full resolution of all claims in Texas.

The settlement represents a resolution to claims brought by Texas for alleged Medicaid overpayment during the years 1994-2008, the company said.

"Janssen is committed to ethical business practices, and has policies in place to ensure its products are only promoted for their FDA-approved indications," the company statement said."

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Money Donated = Power Given- the mantra of OBC

What is the common thread tying Obama, Bush and Clinton? Using the White House to gobble up money in exchange for favors.

Open Channel - Obama's elite fundraisers receive plenty of perks: "President Barack Obama’s administration is rewarding elite campaign donors in the same ways that its predecessors did, helping them win influence and access to power in Washington, according to a Center for Public Integrity investigation published Thursday.
The investigation of so-called “bundlers” – fundraisers who solicit contributions of up to $2,500 and combine them in campaign donations that range from $50,000 to $500,000 – found that many have been appointed to advisory panels and commissions that can help set government policy. They also have been invited to exclusive White House briefings, holiday parties and social events, the investigation found. "

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QEn - Fed and the Unaccountable Balance Sheet

Fed's Latest Easing Could Cost $1 Trillion: Economists - Yahoo! Finance: "The Federal Reserve is likely to step in with $1 trillion worth of easing that could be announced as soon as this month, according to a growing consensus of economists who see the recent uptick in economic growth as unsustainable.
With the Fed's Open Market Committee set to meet next week, expectations are rising that the languishing housing market will drive the central bank to buy up mortgage-backed securities.
The goal of the purchases will be to drive down interest rates even further from current record-low levels, and, less obviously, to spur confidence that more monetary tools remain to stimulate the economy.
Of course, the announcement also could push stock prices higher, as did the Fed's last balance sheet expansion begun in November 2010."

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GOP-led House fiddles while Country suffers

While a multitude of firms including Kraft, Dean Foods, Northern Trust,and Takeda are cutting well-paying HQ jobs the GOP-led House is passing measures that have no benefit to the public, but helps them rail against Obama. The country is getting the politicians it deserves.

House passes symbolic measure against debt hike - Yahoo! Finance: "WASHINGTON (AP) -- The GOP-controlled House on Wednesday kicked off another session with a protest vote against raising the government's borrowing cap by $1.2 trillion, but the maneuver amounted to political theater under a process stacked on purpose in President Barack Obama's favor.
The nearly party-line 239-176 vote puts the House on record against Obama's use of unprecedented authority — awarded to him through a mechanism devised by the Senate's top Republican — to unilaterally raise the so-called debt limit unless Congress can muster the votes to block him."

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College student lifestyle = more debt later

Americans raid savings, putting recovery at risk - Business - Stocks & economy - msnbc.com: "At the same time, college students are borrowing twice as much as they did a decade ago when adjusted for inflation, according to the College Board, and Americans now owe more on student loans than on credit cards.
Household borrowing on cards, car loans, student loans and other installment debt jumped almost 10 percent from October to November, according to the Federal Reserve, its biggest jump in a decade.
Welcomed by some as a sign of confidence in the economic recovery, others worried it was really a reflection of desperation.
"Apparent stronger consumption at year-end was associated with falling savings rates, compensating for stagnating income growth," Dennis Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta said on Jan. 11."

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401Ks - the new ATMs

Americans raid savings, putting recovery at risk - Business - Stocks & economy - msnbc.com: ""Today, the saving rate is falling out of necessity. Food and energy prices have risen and folks don't have as much money to spend on the things that they would like."
Just as Americans used to borrow against the value of their homes before the property crash, now many are taking out loans from their 401(k) retirement savings plans.
Almost a third of plan participants currently have a loan outstanding, according to an upcoming survey of 150,000 holders of 401(k)s by consulting firm Aon Hewitt.
"People are at a loss, and they are struggling," said Pam Hess, director of retirement research at consulting firm Aon Hewitt."

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Not GOP-Lite but GOP-Heavy

Recommendations from Obama jobs council have a conservative tilt - chicagotribune.com: "President Obama's jobs council is recommending a series of job-creating proposals with a distinct Republican flavor — just the latest economic message to emerge as Obama prepares for his contest with the eventual Republican nominee.

Obama's jobs council is calling for an overhaul of the corporate tax structure, expansion of domestic petroleum drilling and a raft of reforms to federal regulation.

As first reported by Reuters, the new corporate tax rates should sink to "internationally competitive levels," the report says, as well as an "all-in strategy" to cut reliance on foreign fuels by promoting domestic sources."

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Conscience going faster (in reverse) while auto sales zoom forward

The Hindu : Cities / Bangalore : When conscience also flees the spot: "It occurs with depressing frequency, and the trend is on the rise: a vehicle knocks down a motorist, a cyclist or a pedestrian, and speeds away, leaving the hapless victim to fend for himself. And more often than not, the culprit is not traced.

According to statistics furnished by the Bangalore Traffic Police, 2,006 hit-and-run cases were reported in 2011 with 299 fatalities, compared with 1,935 cases (273 deaths) in 2010 and 1,731 (198 deaths) in 2009. These figures mark more than a 30 per cent increase in fatalities in the last three years."

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Chase and Discover - fun after Holiday shopping

Discover December card charge offs edge higher - Yahoo! Finance: "NEW YORK (AP) -- Discover Financial Services said Tuesday that more customers had their card balances written off as uncollectible in December
The Riverwoods, Ill.-based card issuer's default rate rose for the month, even though late payments continued to be at historic lows.
DEFAULT: Discover wrote off $46.4 million, or 3.15 percent of balances on an annualized basis, in December, up from 3.04 percent of in November. A year ago, the charge-off rate was 5.94 percent of balances.

Chase Dec. card defaults rise, late payments dip - Yahoo! Finance: "NEW YORK (AP) -- Chase on Tuesday reported an uptick in the rate its customers defaulted on their credit card balances in December, but said late payments declined slightly.
The rates for the credit card division of JPMorgan Chase & Co. are near levels that were typical before the economic crisis.

Drug makers and Doctors- a Fine Romance

U.S. to Tell Drug Makers to Disclose Payments to Doctors - NYTimes.com: "Under the new standards, if a company has just one product covered by Medicare or Medicaid, it will have to disclose all its payments to doctors other than its own employees. The federal government will post the payment data on a Web site where it will be available to the public.

Manufacturers of prescription drugs and devices will have to report if they pay a doctor to help develop, assess and promote new products — or if, for example, a pharmaceutical sales agent delivers $25 worth of bagels and coffee to a doctor’s office for a meeting. Royalty payments to doctors, for inventions or discoveries, and payments to teaching hospitals for research or other activities will also have to be reported."

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Having a good time, with or without a good education

Party Colleges Do Little to Curb Drinking - NYTimes.com: "University of Minnesota researchers tracked the drinking habits of students at 18 U.S. colleges with a reputation for heavy drinking. In 1993, 28 percent of students said they frequently binged on alcohol. A similar survey in 2005 found that 32 percent were frequent binge drinkers, according to a report last month in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs."

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Hydration and Diabetes

Really? The Claim: Drinking Water Can Help Lower the Risk of Diabetes. - NYTimes.com: "One of the largest studies to look at the consequences was published last year in Diabetes Care, a publication of the American Diabetes Association. French scientists tracked more than 3,000 healthy men and women ages 30 to 65 for nearly a decade. All had normal blood sugar levels at the start of the research.

After nine years, about 800 had developed Type 2 diabetes or high blood sugar. But those who consumed the most water, 17 to 34 ounces a day, had a risk roughly 30 percent lower than that of those who drank the least. The researchers controlled for the subjects’ intake of other liquids that could have affected the results, mainly sugary and alcoholic drinks, as well as exercise, weight and other factors affecting health. The researchers did not look at eating habits, something future studies may take into account."

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Taking the fizz out of Fish Brains

Carbon Dioxide Affecting Fish Brains : Discovery News: "Rising human carbon dioxide emissions may be affecting the brains and central nervous systems of sea fish, with serious consequences for their survival, according to new research.

Carbon dioxide concentrations predicted to occur in the ocean by the end of this century will interfere with fishes' ability to hear, smell, turn and evade predators, the research found.

The Australian Research Council's Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies said it had been testing the performance of baby coral fish in sea water containing higher levels of dissolved CO2 for several years."

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Apple of China

Two stories about Apple in China-

- NashuaTelegraph.com: "BEIJING – Apple Inc. halted sales of the iPhone 4S at its retail stores in mainland China after a massive crowd waiting outside its Beijing flagship turned unruly, pelting the windows with eggs, hitting a mall employee and refusing police orders to leave.
It was the first day of sales in China for Apple’s latest smartphone, and throngs of hopeful shoppers – many of them migrant workers who had been hired by scalpers to purchase the phones for later sale on the gray market – had waited overnight in freezing temperatures.
The size of the crowd, estimated to be about 2,000 people, alarmed police officials, who asked Apple not to open the store as planned Friday morning out of safety concerns."

Apple audit shows suppliers used child labor - Business - US business - msnbc.com: "SAN FRANCISCO — Apple Inc released on Friday an audit of its major suppliers, saying it found a number of violations including breaches in pay, benefits and environmental practices in plants in China.
The Cupertino, California-based company, notorious for keeping its supply chain a secret, also for the first time released a list of its major suppliers.
The company said it conducted 229 audits last year, representing an 80 percent increase over 2010.
Apple said it probed all levels of its supply chain, including final assembly and component suppliers."

Easy money on Main Street becomes Smart Money on Wall Street

Americans Clueless Paying Wall Street $20 Billion for Swaps - Businessweek: "Jan. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Seven months after Hurricane Katrina ripped holes in the Superdome’s roof in 2005, Louisiana State Bond Commission members made what they were told would be “the best of a bad situation” in financing the stadium’s renovation.

Acting against the recommendation of their staff, the commissioners voted for a Merrill Lynch & Co. plan to use debt and interest-rate swaps to pay for the job. While the deal helped keep the National Football League’s New Orleans Saints from leaving town -- and the arena got new scoreboards while 12,000 seats were converted to luxury class -- taxpayers became the losers for supporting a winning team.

The cost of financing the work has reached $42 million, almost a quarter of the $187 million spent on Katrina-related repairs and enhancements and three times as much as expected. The deal became so expensive that the state repurchased the debt sold by the New York investment bank to stop the bleeding.

“It was a flawed idea out of the gate,” said Robert Brooks, who teaches financial management at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

Scores of public officials, including Michael Bennet, now a U.S. senator from Colorado, and Jon Corzine, the former governor of New Jersey, bought the same Wall Street pitch: So-called auction-rate bonds would lower financing costs by allowing them to pay short-term rates, and interest-rate swaps would protect them if markets moved in the wrong direction.

Move Defended

Corzine didn’t respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Bennet, Adam Bozzi, defended the move made when the senator was superintendent of the Denver public schools, saying that the financing put the district “in much better financial shape.”

Brooks said that it was “no surprise that the leaders went for something with that level of complexity. An auction-rate security with a swap is much more exciting for the officials, but it’s terribly expensive for taxpayers.”

Government overseers often didn’t understand that the market was controlled by the banks that sold the derivatives they claimed would minimize risk, and that could impose penalties when deals unraveled.

From Portland to Puerto Rico, officials gambled with sewer, road, school, pension and stadium financing. Municipal securities made up about half of the $330 billion auction-rate market when it collapsed in February 2008, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Taxpayers have forked over $20 billion in fees for swap agreements in the past five years, according to Andrew Kalotay, chief executive officer of the debt-management firm Andrew Kalotay Associates Inc. in New York.

‘They’re Unsophisticated’

Public officials, Kalotay said, “think they know what they’re doing, and they screw up.” Few have acknowledged their mistakes. “No one wants to say out loud they’re unsophisticated,” said Marcus Stanley, policy director of the Washington-based nonprofit Americans For Financial Reform, a coalition of unions and civil rights and consumer advocates.

“In most cases, the elected political leadership are part- time amateurs,” said Roger Noll, professor emeritus of economics at Stanford University near Palo Alto, California. “They get a noisy political grassroots movement that wants to subsidize a team, and then they get sold a bill of goods.”

In Louisiana, Treasurer John Neely Kennedy, who serves as bond commission chairman, warned before the Merrill Lynch plan passed in March 2006 that the swaps could backfire. There was so much pressure to overhaul the 37-year-old stadium for the Saints that he said he felt as if he had “a gun to my head.”

Drew Brees

The NFL franchise did stay put in the arena, known since October as the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Not only that, the Saints acquired quarterback Drew Brees, won the Super Bowl in 2010 and will play the San Francisco 49ers in the second round of this year’s playoffs on Jan. 14.

Still, the costs to the state are “outrageously high,” Brooks said. That the auction-rate deal was done in part to satisfy team owner Tom Benson made it all the more imprudent, said Robert Baade, a professor at Lake Forest College near Chicago and co-author of a 2006 study that found subsidizing the Saints after Katrina wouldn’t make economic sense.

The Bayou State’s costs spiraled out of control after banks, reeling from the credit crisis, stopped acting as buyers of last resort at auctions of floating-rate securities.

Rates on the debt surged, going as high as 20 percent. The swaps didn’t cover the difference. Investors shunned the market. “If the banks were cardiologists, they would have been sued and thrown in jail years ago for what they have done,” Brooks said.

‘Ignorance No Excuse’

The Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District did sue, claiming bond-insurer Financial Guaranty Insurance Co., a unit of New York-based FGIC Corp., sold the agency protection that became worthless and that Merrill Lynch fraudulently failed to tell officials everything they needed to know.

Charles “Buddy” Roemer, Louisiana governor from 1988 to 1992, said he doesn’t buy the contention that Tim Coulon, who was the head of the stadium agency at the time of the deal and urged the bond commission to approve it, and the commissioners didn’t have enough information. “I don’t think ignorance is a good excuse here,” Roemer said. “I don’t think unsophistication is a good excuse. All these entities pay large sums for legal and financial advice.”

In May 2010, U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska dismissed the claims against FGIC. The state has appealed. Officials with FGIC didn’t respond to telephone calls seeking comment.

Court Action

Preska tossed out seven counts against Merrill Lynch, now a subsidiary of Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp., letting stand accusations of breach of fiduciary duty, intentional and negligent misrepresentation and fraud. The bank denied the claims in its response. “LSED and its sophisticated advisers fully understood the risks of the bonds and knowingly accepted those risks in exchange for a lower interest rate,” said William Halldin, a spokesman for the bank, in an e-mail.

Coulon, who left the agency in 2009, declined to be interviewed, saying in an e-mail that he was “proud of the work and creativity” that went into the Superdome project.

Jason Redmond, a spokesman for the treasurer’s office, said Kennedy declined to be interviewed. Greg Bensel, a team spokesman, didn’t respond to a request for an interview with Benson, who bought the Saints in 1985 for $70 million.

Democrat Kathleen Blanco, Louisiana’s governor in 2006, said that even in retrospect the auction-rate bond deal was worth it. “Losing the Saints was not an option, as far as I was concerned,” she said by e-mail. “With no crystal ball it was impossible to predict the colossal failure of the financial system and its attending costs.”

Other Money

In the end, the money spent to get the Superdome ready for the 2006 football season came mostly from other sources, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the NFL and the state general fund. The auction-rate bonds covered only about $40 million, according to financial reports from the stadium district.

Most of the rest of the $294 million the bonds brought in went to refinance earlier borrowing. The price tag -- which was originally expected to be $14 million -- will be at least $42 million, including fees for the securities and swaps, the cost of the auctions and expenses incurred when the bonds were repurchased, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The costs have been steep for other auction-rate borrowers. New Jersey, which got into the debt under Corzine, and the Denver schools, which issued the securities under Bennet, later borrowed money to end related interest-rate swap agreements. New Jersey paid $122.6 million in one case, and the school district spent about $62 million.

Denver Schools Respond

Michael Vaughn, a spokesman for the district, said the 2008 deal cut the cost of unfunded liabilities for retirees, facilitated the merger of its pension plan with a state fund and hire more teachers. It allowed the school system “to avoid severe budget cuts,” he said.

Louisiana didn’t need the burden, said state Representative Jim Fannin, a Democrat from Jonesboro. The state this fiscal year cut spending on health care and prisons, canceled workers’ pay raises and eliminated 4,000 positions.

“There are so many other needs,” said Fannin, chairman of the Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives.

The bonds were another chapter in the financial relationship between the state and the 45-year-old Saints, a team so popular fans filled the stadium during the 20 years it took to notch a winning season, though in the 1980s some started wearing paper bags on their heads during the games.

Keeping Saints

“We love our Saints,” said Tricia Miller, a lawyer in New Orleans. “The Saints are what keeps our city together, before, during and after Katrina.”

Before the hurricane, Benson had sought a new home for the team. The Superdome lacked the revenue-boosting amenities of stadiums in larger, wealthier markets. In 2001, after he complained it failed to meet league standards, Louisiana agreed to pay the Saints $180.5 million over 10 years, a subsidy meant to put it in the middle of NFL franchises in terms of revenue.

The state had to borrow, from Merrill Lynch and others, to make some of those payments. When the stadium agency in early 2005 started planning to restructure its debt, one goal was to free up money to help fund the subsidies, Whit Kling, director of the bond commission, said at the meeting where the Merrill Lynch auction-rate deal was approved. The bank had been hired after the agency issued a request for proposals through the bond commission in April 2005, according to court documents.

Difficult Spot

Katrina changed the equation. Louisiana was, as Kennedy, the state treasurer and commission chairman, put it at the meeting, “between a rock and a hard place.”

Revenue from the hotel tax dedicated to paying off Superdome debt had plummeted to about $24 million in 2006 from about $41 million before the hurricane, which killed an estimated 1,400 in New Orleans. The stadium, where more than 25,000 people had taken shelter after much of the city was flooded, needed repairs as well as enhancements.

The Saints were playing “home” games elsewhere, including San Antonio, where Benson owns car dealerships. Not only was he noncommittal about the team’s future, the mayor of San Antonio said they were talking about a relocation to Texas.

Before they voted, Kennedy told commissioners: “I’m not enamored with this proposal.” According to a transcript, he said he thought paying FGIC $13 million for insurance was “unconscionable” and that he was uncomfortable with the swap.

“I just want everybody to understand what we are doing,” Kennedy said. “This is a derivative. It can work in our favor. It can also work not in our favor.”

Best Course

For his part, Coulon called the deal “the best of a bad situation,” according to the transcript. The Superdome had been an economic force in the city, attracting conventions, concerts and events such as the Essence Music Festival. “It’s not all about the sports franchises,” Coulon said. “It’s about the economic viability of the city, the symbolism of the Dome.”

The plan was approved on a voice vote. And most everything about the deal that could go wrong did.

Credit markets began to melt down as the contagion from the sub-prime-mortgage market spread in 2007. FGIC lost its AAA rating in January 2008, and buyers became less interested in the securities because the lower grade meant there was more risk that they wouldn’t get paid in the event of a default. The auction-rate market fell apart the next month.

The state decided it couldn’t afford the $45 million fee to unwind the swaps associated with the bonds, nor the cost of issuing a new set to pay off the existing securities. It bought the debt back after the Legislature in March 2008 approved the move. Kling said the plan is to hold it until it matures.

IRS Fee

While federal law doesn’t allow such purchases, the Internal Revenue Service made exceptions after the auction-rate debacle. The state will have to pay a fee of about $8 million for the privilege, according to Kling.

The bonds earn 1.25 percent now, data compiled by Bloomberg show. “We’re paying ourselves,” Kling said.

In April 2009, the state committed to spending more than $400 million to secure Benson’s promise the team would stay in New Orleans through 2025.

The stadium agency made several improvements to the Superdome, including adding 15 boxes and 3,400 seats close to the team benches, at a cost of $85 million. A company Benson owns, Zelia LLC, bought a mostly empty 26-story building next to the stadium and Benson pledged to renovate it, and the state signed a $153 million, 20-year lease for 320,000 square feet of office space for more than 30 agencies. Benson and the stadium agency signed a contract to redevelop the nearby New Orleans Centre mall. The state promised the Saints as much as $6 million a year if stadium revenue doesn’t meet undisclosed targets.

In October, Superdome naming rights were sold to Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz unit for about $60 million. Republican Governor Bobby Jindal said that may produce enough to “significantly reduce or eliminate taxpayer funding currently spent to support the Saints.”

--Editors: Anne Reifenberg, Ted Bunker

To contact the reporters on this story: Darrell Preston in Dallas at dpreston@bloomberg.net; Aaron Kuriloff in New York at akuriloff@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gary Putka at gputka@bloomberg.net; Mark Tannenbaum at mtannen@bloomberg.net.