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Evelyn Robert de Rothschild: Monetary Express

by Evelyn Robert de Rothschild on March 14, 2012

Huffington Post…

I owe my life to the remarkable generosity of America’s political system, which under legislation from Franklin D. Roosevelt, welcomed thousands of children from England during World War II. It is out of this respect, and out of a fear for how money is corroding America’s political system, that I call for a rethink of how we approach campaign finance. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech…” Perhaps no other words have played as important of a role in shaping the freedom and prosperity of the United States as have the ones found in the First Amendment. And perhaps no other amendment in the constitution has led to more unintended consequences by America’s political and judiciary system. Under the cloak of freedom of speech, and thanks to the Supreme Court’s systematic effort to remove barriers preventing the unlimited use of money in political campaign, political spending has spiraled out of control in America. The pervasiveness of money in American politics is no more apparent than in presidential elections. In 2008, Barack Obama and John McCain collectively raised over $1.7 billion. That is more than double the money raised by George W. Bush and John Kerry in 2004. Obama alone spent $730 million to get elected to the White House in 2008. By contrast, the entire 2010 UK general election, which fielded over 4,000 candidates for Parliament, cost just £31.5 million ($49 million), £10.8 million ($16.8 million) less than the 2005 general elections. David Cameron spent a mere £14,000 ($22,000) on his campaign in 2010, and the average candidate spent just under £3,500. The rise of outside spending, and particularly of ‘SuperPACs,’ will push the cost of the 2012 election even higher. Going into Super Tuesday, outside groups had already spent over well over $88 million during this 2012 election cycle. SuperPACs alone have already spent $66 million, $1 million more than SuperPACs spent during the entire 2010 election cycle, and we are still nine months away from the general election. While factors, such as the advent of 24 hour news industry, have contributed, unbridled political campaign costs, shielded by the systematic misinterpretation of the First Amendment, have been the main barriers preventing those without access to vast amounts of money from running for political office. Beginning in the 1970s, and culminating in the Citizen’s United case in 2010, the Supreme Court has equated political spending to free speech, arguing that any restrictions to that spending curtails a candidates First Amendment rights. Many since abused this interpretation unethically, flooding campaigns with cash at the expense of those without similar financial power. In effect, those without money cannot compete in the US political system. Restricting political spending is not a ‘substantial burden’ on free speech rights of candidates, as Chief Justice Roberts recently put it when he struck down matching funds in Arizona last year. Quite the opposite. It broadens free speech to candidates with less money, and requires those with money to compete in a larger field. The monetary express that has taken over America’s politics has gotten out of hand. Only without the distraction of unlimited contributions will politicians be able to focus on their job of governing again. To do this, we must rebuild a campaign finance system predicated on competitive and balanced political spending. More importantly, we must stop abusing the First Amendment as the right to spend unlimited amounts and begin treating the freedom to speech more ethically.

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Evelyn Robert de Rothschild: Monetary Express

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The Schwartz Is Strong In This One

by CP on March 6, 2012

Huffington Post…

MONTREAL – Singer Celine Dion is part of a consortium that has purchased a landmark Montreal restaurant, famous partly for its food and partly for its generations-old decor. The Quebec diva and her husband, Rene Angelil, have teamed up with other investors to buy Schwartz’s, a downtown deli. The establishment is famous amongst Montrealers, and tourists, to a certain extent because of its smoked-meat sandwiches but also because of its appeal as a larger-than-average time capsule. Founded in 1928, the St. Lawrence Boulevard shop regularly draws long lineups of tourists eager to grab a seat in a place that looks untouched by the passing decades. In a news release Monday announcing the transaction, Angelil shared his memory of first going to Schwartz’s as a young musician in 1961 with his friend and manager, Ben Kaye. “I have so many great memories of being there with the guys, and with Celine and our families throughout the years. It’s the most unique restaurant in the world and we’re thrilled to be a part of it,” Angelil said. This won’t be the first smoked-meat venture for Dion and Angelil. They have also been partners in Nickels, a chain of retro 1950s diners that sells mostly fast foods including the famous Montreal sandwiches. Without referring to his previous chain venture, Angelil sought to assuage the concerns of any purists that he’ll create a similar business model out of Schwartz’s, a place immortalized in the literature of Mordecai Richler. Angelil promised not to allow franchises, and to keep the authenticity of the establishment. “Of course, we’ll make a few improvements as necessary, but we’re not interested in diluting the brand by franchising, or making the deli something that it isn’t,” he said. “It’s truly one-of-a-kind, and we intend to keep it this way.” The group of partners includes Angelil’s nephews and the Nakis family, longtime Montreal restaurateurs. The sale price was not disclosed.

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The Schwartz Is Strong In This One

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WATCH: Adorable 5-Year-Old’s Take On Brand Logos

January 30, 2012

Faith Ladd is drawn to the BP logo mostly because it’s bright, colorful and resembles a flower. So when the spirited 5-year-old and her father were driving to grab some food on Sunday, she spotted the sign and asked if someone designed the logo. “Yes,” said dad and graphic designer Adam Ladd , who told The Huffington Post he often discusses elements of his job with his daughter. Soon, the ride turned into a game of sorts, with Ladd pointing out several logos, and Faith identifying what she thought they were. For example, McDonald’s golden arches don’t just create an “M”; they’re two french fries pushed together. Intrigued by their exchange, Ladd decided to gather 35-40 logos and record his daughter’s interpretation of them. He encouraged her to describe what she saw and say the first things that came to mind. The result? A nearly three-minute video filled with insightful yet adorable explanations of today’s most popular brands. Faith might be able to identify a handful of brands she’s familiar with, but the 5-year-old’s interpretation of the Greyhound, Jaguar and Puma logos is just too cute for words (about 1:31 into the video). “I was kind of chuckling inside as I was recording her,” Ladd said, explaining Faith even stated her grandfather works for General Electric, a fact he had no idea she knew. The girl sure knows how to win over an audience, but that’s no surprise to dad, who says Faith “likes to ham it up for people.” “Faith, you’re getting famous in the design community,” Ladd said he told his daughter when the video began gaining steam on the web. All the 5-year-old could do was smile. Watch the video above to hear Faith’s clever takes on today’s most popular brands.

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Business And Social Media Leaders Tackle HIV In Babies

January 28, 2012

DAVOS, Switzerland — Business and social media leaders teamed up Friday to tackle the transmission of HIV from mothers to babies, saying the medicine and the money are largely in place, and with the right organizational skills they can eliminate HIV-infected births by 2015. John Megrue, CEO of Apax Partners U.S., will chair a business group that includes bankers and consulting experts and will help coordinate work being done by several governments and other international donors, as well as filling in gaps in the funding. Women need to receive antiretroviral drugs to prevent the virus being passed to their unborn babies. “There are no technological issues around it. There are no medical issues around it. It does not exist in the wealthy part of the world,” Megrue said. “But there are still almost 400,000 children a year born – primarily in sub-Saharan Africa – with HIV.” Ambassador Eric Goosby, a top U.S. AIDS official, said that although the group set a goal of zero transmission by 2015, in reality about 13 percent of babies born to HIV-positive mothers will unavoidably be born with the virus. Randi Zuckerberg, who founded RtoZ Studios after leaving the Facebook company that her brother Mark started, will lend the power of social media to increase awareness about the issue, by pulling in 1,000 influential Twitter and Facebook users in an expansion of an earlier social media effort to raise $200 million to fight malaria. “I’m calling this a social good broadcast experiment,” she said. “The long-term vision is for this to be a group of thousands or millions of people who can all broadcast in a coordinated manner where there is a global crisis.” Other business leaders involved in the project include Dominic Barton, managing director of consulting firm McKinsey & Co., and Cynthia Carroll, CEO of the mining company Anglo American PLC. “AIDS,” Carroll said, “should not be a disease of children.”

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Occupy Movement Responds To Obama’s State Of The Union

January 25, 2012

The Washington, D.C. faction of the Occupy movement is slated to issue a response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday. From their encampment in McPherson Square in D.C., Occupiers are expected to deliver their message via the “people’s microphone,” a system of call-and-response where one person reads part of a statement and the crowd then repeats it. An organizer for Occupy D.C. tells the Atlantic Wire that their group didn’t coordinate with the larger Occupy Wall Street movement. Choire Sicha at The Awl gives a preview from an embargoed press release sent around to reporters, writing that it’s strangely “off-key”: The language of the speech is bombastic yet vague, unspecific and sort of… narcissistic? Lots of rambling about how politics is bought and paid for, yadda yadda. (I mean, yes, that’s true! But it’s just atmospherics; why not name some names then?) About half of its claims are reminiscent of the Tea Party. (To be fair, Occupy and the Tea Party share about a 50% base common interest! Which is good and fascinating!) What’s worse about the planned speech is: it’s vaguely poetic without at all being poetry. Their rebuttal is expected to be streamed live, via Occupy DC’s UStream account . Below, Occupy’s entire statement: This 2012 “State of the 99%” response to the State of the Union will be delivered by a group of Occupiers assembled outside in a well-lit spot at McPherson Square following the conclusion of the President’s State of the Union address and/or the Tea Party response. The presentation will unfold this way: one participant will begin in the center/front of the group, in the middle of the camera frame, surrounded by the others. That person will deliver the first line of the speech, and will then be echoed by the People’s Mic. That person will then read their second line, and as the People’s Mic echoes the second line, that person will move off to the side and rejoin the group, while another person will step into the center spot to read the next two lines, with each line again echoed by the People’s Mic. This will continue, cycling through the crowd, with each person reading two lines and being echoed by the People’s Mic. Mic check! [mic check] Mic check! [mic check] Fellow Americans, good evening! [Fellow Americans, good evening!] We are men and women of the 99 percent Many of us have spent many months at Occupy Wall Street and at other Occupations across the country and around the world We are here tonight to report on the State of the 99 percent in America Of course most Americans know the state of the 99 percent very well But sometimes the one percent, on Wall Street and in Washington, need a reminder Financially, the state of the 99% is not strong That is an understatement. Never in our lifetimes have so many hard-working Americans Faced so many difficulties, so many uncertainties, so many indignities In Occupy camps around the country We find Americans from all walks of life [3 personal story couplets] Some of us have had it rougher than others And it turns out living in camps is no picnic either But we do not give up easily And we take inspiration from the brave Americans who came before us From Dr. King, who gave his life fighting for economic justice From the Suffragettes, who insisted the voice of women be heard From all of those brave or foolish enough to believe in America’s defining idea theidea of democracy That we are all created equal And we all have an equal voice in shaping the laws we all live by America Let’s be honest. When our courts tell us corporations have more right to speak than we the people do That’s not democracy. When pepper spray and midnight raids make a joke of the 1st Amendment right to assemble. That’s not democracy. When defrauding clients, blowing up our economy, forging thousands of documents and seizing people’s homes illegally is not a crime but protesting all that is a crime That’s not democracy. Our America is not a democracy, not yet. We all know why: Wall street owns Washington. Bribery is legal, and the laws we live by are for sale to the highest bidder That is why our government serves the very rich and powerful at the expense of the rest of us It protects the bonuses of bankers and Wall Street executives, while failing to keep hard-working families in their homes; It shields offshore tax havens for the very wealthy, while letting our bridges, schools, and infrastructure fall apart; There have been dark periods in our nation’s history, when corruption became the norm when grave injustices stood in the way of America living up to its best ideals. But time and time again, Americans stepped up to take back their government and correct our course. Today Occupy Wall Street and the 99% movement step into this proud American tradition. But fear not, one percent! We are not here just to help the 99% at your expense. We are here to help you too. For when you’ve begun to think rigging the game is fair game When you regard hard-working Americans as undeserving of a middle-class life and unworthy of the profit their own work creates When you treat the people who build your buildings and serve your food and raise your children and patrol your streets without respect You have not only lost touch with our humanity You have lost touch with your own humanity You need to find it again, for everyone’s sake Real democracy will do you good We are the 99% We are here to create the democracy we have all been promised. We are the 99%. Our finances are weak, but our spirit is strong. We are the 99%. Our spring is coming.

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Officials Not Prepared For Rising Number Of Homeless Female Veterans

January 24, 2012

The number of homeless female veterans is on the rise, and the Department of Veteran Affairs isn’t adequately prepared to handle it. In four years, the number of homeless veteran women more than doubled — rising to 3,328 in 2010 from 1,380 in 2006, according to a new Government Accountability Office report. But even as more veteran women are becoming homeless, the VA still isn’t prepared to deal with it, the report found. Nearly a quarter of VA Medical Center coordinators surveyed for the report said they didn’t have plans to temporarily house homeless women while those women wait for housing in other programs aimed at housing homeless veterans. The VA “does not have sufficient data about the population and needs of women veterans to plan effectively for increases in their numbers as servicemembers return from Iraq and Afghanistan,” the authors wrote in the report. “Further, without improved services, women — including those with children and those who have experienced military sexual trauma — remain at risk of homelessness and experiencing further abuse.” The report also found that nearly two-thirds of homeless female veterans are between the ages of 40 and 59 years old , many of them living with children. That’s an especially large problem, seeing as 60 percent of the VA’s Grant and Per Diem Programs that serve homeless women — an effort that gives community agencies funding to provide veterans with services — don’t house children. Overall, homelessness among veterans dropped 12 percent during the year-long period ended in January 2011, the Obama administration said last month. Still, the issue of homelessness among veterans looms large. There are more than 67,000 veterans living on the streets and veterans are 50 percent more likely to be homeless than the average American. In addition, homeless veterans are more likely to die on the streets than their non-veteran counterparts and tend to remain homeless for longer periods of time, according to another recent study. Veterans are also having a tougher time than ordinary Americans navigating the job market once they return home. The veteran unemployment rate was 13.1 percent in December compared to the national jobless rate of 8.5 percent, according to the Department of Labor. The situation is especially dire for young veterans: One in three veterans between the ages of 18 and 24 is unemployed.

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Hollywood Lobbyist To Politicians: Don’t Count On ‘Support’ If You Opposed SOPA

January 24, 2012

California Watch . By Will Evans Hollywood is threatening politicians with one thing they hold very dear: campaign cash. As anti-piracy legislation stalled in Congress last week, the movie industry’s top lobbyist, former U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, warned Democrats not to count on Hollywood money if they turn their backs on the industry’s legislative priority. Among the biggest recipients of Hollywood money are Californian members of Congress who remain supportive of the controversial anti-piracy bills. Eight Californians in the House of Representatives, as well as Democratic U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, co-sponsored the bills, representing more co-sponsors than from any other state. Boxer was the top Senate recipient of campaign contributions from the movie production industry over the last six years, picking up nearly $413,000, according to data compiled by MapLight.org and the Center for Responsive Politics. Democratic Rep. Howard Berman, whose Los Angeles district includes the famed Hollywood sign, is the industry’s top beneficiary in the House, picking up $106,500 in the last two years of reported contributions. Berman was an early co-sponsor of the Stop Online Piracy Act that the Motion Picture Association of America has been pushing. The movie industry and other supporters maintain that the bills, known as SOPA in the House and PIPA [PDF] in the Senate, are necessary to fight foreign websites that pirate American films and music. Opponents, including tech companies, claim the bills threaten freedom of expression on the Internet. The debate pits two powerful California industries against each other, but one gives much more political money than the other. In the Senate, for example, MapLight.org found that the entertainment industry gave $14 million in contributions over the last six years, compared with $2 million from Internet interest groups. The rare admission of the power of campaign contributions from Dodd, a former senator and past presidential candidate, puts a spotlight on the influence of money in this policy debate. “Candidly, those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake,” Dodd told Fox News last week. “Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.” Dodd, CEO of the movie industry association, added: “I would caution people don’t make the assumption that because the quote ‘Hollywood community’ has been historically supportive of Democrats, which they have, don’t make the false assumptions this year that because we did it in years past, we will do it this year.” Watch Dodd’s interview with Fox News : Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Howard Gantman, spokesman for the association, said in an e-mail that Dodd “was merely making the obvious point that people support politicians whose views coincide with their own. When politicians take positions that people disagree with, those people tend not to support those politicians.” Meredith McGehee, policy director of the Washington-based Campaign Legal Center, said Dodd’s statement “reveals how much the current system is legalized bribery.” “It’s notable that it’s coming from someone who was so steeped in the system,” she said. Art Brodsky, spokesman for Public Knowledge, an advocacy group that fought the anti-piracy bills, said campaign contributions have indeed factored into the policy battle. “You’d have to be totally naive not to think so,” he said. “Look at the contributions and look where people were on the issue.” Californian co-sponsors of anti-piracy legislation in the House include Los Angeles-area Democrats Karen Bass, who received nearly $30,000 from the movie industry; Brad Sherman, who got $23,000; and Adam Schiff, who picked up about $19,000. Another co-sponsor, Rep. Mary Bono Mack, a Palm Springs Republican, received almost $22,000 over two years. Technology companies and Internet activists succeeded in stalling the bills despite the fact that Hollywood gives more money. But that doesn’t mean that campaign cash didn’t matter, said McGehee, because the fight isn’t over. “We’re only in round one,” she said. Feinstein, who garnered about $146,000 over six years from movie production interests, is working toward compromise legislation. In a statement, Feinstein said: “The only way we can resolve the differences on this bill is by the key CEOs sitting down together.” Will Evans is an investigative reporter for California Watch, a project of the non-profit Center for Investigative Reporting. Find more California Watch stories here .

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Mitt Romney Releases Tax Returns

January 24, 2012

By Steve Holland and Kim Dixon TAMPA, Fla./WASHINGTON, Jan 24 (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney released tax records on Tuesday indicating he will pay $6.2 million in taxes on a total of $42.5 million in income over the years 2010 and 2011. Bowing to increasing political pressure to provide more detail about his vast wealth, the former private equity executive released tax returns indicating he and his wife, Ann, paid an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent in 2010. They expect to pay a 15.4 percent rate when they file their returns for 2011. Romney’s tax rate is below that of most wage-earning Americans because most of his income, as outlined in more than 500 pages of tax documents, flows from capital gains on investments. Under the U.S. tax code, capital gains are taxed at 15 percent, compared with a top tax rate of 35 percent for wage earners. Romney released the tax returns after a week in which his chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination, former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, questioned whether Romney was hiding information about his finances and cast him as being out of touch with most Americans. Gingrich’s attacks on Romney helped him upset the former Massachusetts governor in the South Carolina primary on Saturday. Since then, Romney has vowed to be more aggressive in returning fire. He has launched a series of attacks questioning Gingrich’s character, judgment and lucrative work as a Washington consultant, and released his tax returns to try to nullify Gingrich’s criticisms on that front. The tax rates Romney reported paying could add fuel to a national debate over the fairness of the tax code, and coincides with broader concerns about income inequality symbolized by the Occupy Wall Street movement. Romney’s campaign officials stressed that his tax rate is based mostly on income from investments that are held in a blind trust. Romney’s holdings include an undisclosed amount in funds based in the Grand Cayman Islands and other overseas entities. Romney advisers stressed that the holdings in the Caymans – along with those in a Swiss bank account that was closed in 2010 after an investment adviser decided it could be politically embarrassing to Romney – were reported on tax returns and were not vehicles to avoid taxes. They also stressed that Romney, whose holdings are in three blind trusts, makes no decisions as to how his money is invested. Regardless, the emerging picture was of a man of great means who contributes mightily to charity. The documents showed he and his wife contributed $7 million in charity over the two years, much of it going to his Mormon church. That represents more than 15 percent of the Romneys’ income for those years. Romney, whose estimated net worth is $190 million to $250 million, is among the wealthiest Americans ever to seek the presidency. Top campaign officials and the director of Romney’s blind trust, Brad Malt, briefed Reuters on the details ahead of a more general release of the information Tuesday morning. Campaign counsel Ben Ginsberg, asked why Romney was not releasing tax records for the years in the 1980s and 1990s in which Romney made his fortune at private equity firm Bain Capital, said the two years covered by the tax returns should give a broad picture of Romney’s financial situation. “We’re not going to get into the game of once you give them something, they demand more,” Ginsberg said. “This is a fulsome release and we’re proud of it.” The tax issue may have been a factor in Romney’s loss to Gingrich in South Carolina. It became a distraction to Romney’s campaign, and Romney’s fuzzy answers on when and if he would release his records aggravated the problem. First he said he might release them, or might not. When the questions kept coming, he said he would put them out in April, after his 2011 forms were completed. Only after he was defeated in South Carolina did his aides say he would release them this week. Gingrich has released his returns for 2010, but has not released an estimate for last year, as Romney did. Long considered the front-runner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, Romney was staggered by Gingrich’s lopsided win in South Carolina, and is looking to regain enough momentum to defeat Gingrich in Florida, which votes on Jan. 31. (Editing by David Lindsey and Paul Simao) Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions .

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Whole Foods Market Ending Ties With Hatchery In Chick Abuse Lawsuit

January 14, 2012

Whole Foods Market, one of the largest U.S. natural foods grocers, is ensuring it has no ties with the California chicken hatchery accused in a lawsuit this week of abusing baby chicks, a spokeswoman said Friday. Whole Foods “had about five degrees of separation” from Cal-Cruz Hatcheries Inc., said Beth Krauss, spokeswoman for the Austin, Texas, based chain of more than 300 markets. She looked into Whole Foods’ link to Cal-Cruz following a HuffPost email inquiry on Wednesday. A lawsuit was filed that day in Santa Cruz, Calif., by an animal rights group, asking a judge to halt abuse filmed by an undercover investigator that included hatchlings tossed into buckets of waste, piled into bins and left to die after being mangled by machinery. “Moving forward, we will not be working with any ranches that receive chicks from Cal-Cruz,” Krauss said. Whole Foods buys chicken from distributors that rely on ranches to raise the birds from hatchlings. Krauss explained that the company’s network of suppliers in some cases stretches back to Cal-Cruz, which sold chicks to Central Coast Fryer. Central Coast Fryer in turn sold chickens to Field to Family Natural Foods, which sold them to Whole Foods. The grower Bauer Family Farms was previously part of Central Coast’s network, but the companies no longer work together, Krauss said. She didn’t know why. Whole Foods will continue to work with Bauer, Krauss said, “but they are no longer going to have any Cal-Cruz chicks coming to them because they won’t be working with Central Coast any longer.” Within eight weeks, Whole Foods will stop receiving chickens born at Cal-Cruz, Krauss said. The supermarket chain needs that much time because another Cal-Cruz-linked supplier, Pitman Farms, is opening its own hatchery, she said. The decision to sever ties with Cal-Cruz was made by individual farms, not by Whole Foods, and Krauss said she couldn’t say if the moves were related to the abuse allegations. Bauer Family Farms and Central Coast Fryers did not return messages seeking comment. Field to Family declined comment. Cal-Cruz didn’t return calls. The lawsuit against Cal-Cruz was filed by Washington, D.C.-based Compassion Over Killing , represented by Animal Legal Defense Fund attorneys. A Compassion Over Killing undercover investigator’s video showed hatchlings with ripped skin being tossed into bins, trapped under machinery and drowned. Cal-Cruz has 30 days to admit or deny the allegations. Cheryl Leahy, Compassion Over Killing’s general counsel, said the hatchery is still operating and “we have no reason to think the hatchery has made any significant changes to its practices.” Whole Foods’ standards of quality prohibit animal abuse, Krauss said. Last year, the chain implemented a rating system for how well pigs, chickens and cattle are treated prior to slaughter. The non-profit Global Animal Partnership, which performs the inspections, hopes to begin assessments of hatcheries within two years, said Miyun Park, executive director. “The point of that was to encourage ranchers to improve their welfare practices and also better inform our customers about how the animals are raised,” Krauss said. “We’re one of the few retailers directly addressing animal welfare. Issues like this just prove how important that 5-step program is. But it’s a work in progress.” WATCH COK’s undercover video from within Cal-Cruz:

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Kardashians Shop Around Newest Idea: Their Own Magazine

January 6, 2012

The Kardashians may once again be expanding their empire, and this time in a realm they already seem to rule: tabloid magazines. Rumors are swirling that the reality stars are in talks with American Media Inc. to secure their own magazine. The New York Post’s Page Six reports that a source claimed the family has “been reaching out to several media outlets,” and that the magazine is a “Kardashian idea.” Sources muse that the family, fed up with negative media coverage, wants to feed its own news to the public. There have been no comments from American Media Inc. — the parent company to Star , Shape , Playboy and The National Enquirer — but the anonymous source says the Dash girls plan to be heavily involved in the editorial process. Several media outlets have toyed with the idea, wondering what the final result would look like . According to Page Six , sources suspect that the devoted glossy may be similar to Kim’s celebuzz blog , which posts personal stories and photos about the family and hosts ads for Kardashian-endorsed products.

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Kodak Prepares To File For Bankruptcy

January 4, 2012

(Reuters) – Eastman Kodak is preparing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing in case it is unable to sell its digital patents to raise capital, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The once-iconic photographic film pioneer is in talks with potential lenders to secure about $1 billion in debtor-in possession financing to sustain Kodak through bankruptcy proceedings, the Journal reported citing unidentified sources. The Chapter 11 filing could come as soon as this month or early February, the newspaper said. Kodak shares fell about 28 percent to 47 cents on the New York Stock Exchange following the online report, which dampened investors’ hopes that the company could arrange a quick sale of its patents or a financing lifeline to keep it afloat. A spokesman for Kodak declined to comment, saying its policy is not to comment on market rumors or speculation. Kodak warned in November that it might not survive 2012 if it was unable to secure $500 million in new debt or sell its patents. The company’s cash had been shrinking as sales of its consumer products have failed to keep up with its heavy cost base, which includes employees and offices around the globe. Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975 when one of its engineers developed a prototype that was as big as a toaster and captured black and white images. But it failed to capitalize on that innovation, and it was only when Kodak’s film business began to decline a decade ago that it tried to catch up with rivals by launching a mass-market line of digital cameras. The company has been beset by bankruptcy speculation since it drew down a credit line last September. It also hired restructuring firm FTI and confirmed that a law firm known for dealing with bankruptcy was doing work for it. Last week, Kodak announced the resignation of three directors, including two representatives of private equity firm KKR & Co and a professor from the University of California, leading some industry experts to speculate that a Chapter 11 filing was imminent. On Tuesday, Kodak said its stock may be removed from the New York Stock Exchange if the company cannot boost its share price over the next six months. Kodak, which had $862 million in cash at the end of September, down from $1.4 billion a year earlier, is scheduled to report fourth-quarter results on January 26. As part of its efforts to raise cash, Kodak has been looking since last July for a buyer for its 1,100 digital patents, with the help of investment bank Lazard Ltd. The Journal said Kodak is still trying to sell the patents, which could help it stave off a bankruptcy filing. If Kodak does seek Chapter 11 protection, it could try to sell its patents through a bankruptcy auction supervised by a court. (Reporting By Liana B. Baker; editing by Mark Porter and Carol Bishopric)

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Michigan Wants To Drug Test Welfare Applicants

December 29, 2011

Officials in Michigan’s Department of Human Services want to bring back drug testing of welfare recipients, a controversial practice that Michigan courts struck down more than a decade ago. The new policy would differ from the one enacted under Republican Gov. John Engler in 1999, which required a urine test to apply for benefits and would have subjected recipients to random drug screenings. The new screenings would target those applying for benefits from the Family Independence Agency (FIA). DHS Director of Marketing and Public Relations David Akerly told the Detroit News the department has already conducted a feasibility study and plans to work with the legislature to overcome potential legal challenges. “Our research shows it can be done. We have people in prominent roles here in the department who feel it should be done,” Akerly told the News . “Exactly how and when that would happen is to be determined. It is very early in the process.” Michigan state Rep. Jeff Farrington (R-Utica) introduced a bill on Dec. 13 that would require applicants take a drug test to qualify for FIA benefits . Under the proposed bill, which is still up for discussion, recipients who passed a drug screening would have the cost of the test deducted from their first benefits payment. Not surprisingly, the American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged Michigan’s original drug-screening measures in court, opposes the effort to resurrect the practice. Michael J. Steinberg, legal director for the Michigan ACLU, gave the Detroit News his evaluation of the renewed drug testing effort. “In some ways, it’s better in that it requires some degree of reasonable suspicion before they make people pee in a cup,” he said. “In other ways, it’s actually more harsh. Welfare recipients would have to pay for their own testing. If they can’t afford to pay, they’re cut off [from financial assistance] completely.” Demanding drug screening for government benefits has become a popular talking point for Republicans around the country. Florida Gov. Rick Scott began enforcing mandatory urine testing for all the state’s welfare applicants in July, until a federal judge blocked the move with an injunction in October. Scott’s crusade sparked similar legislation in other states, including Rep. Farrington in Michigan. And as HuffPost’s Arthur Delany has reported, Republican lawmakers in a dozen state legislatures also want to tie drug screening to unemployment benefits , even though little data supports their argument that drug use among unemployed workers is a major problem. Current federal law prevents most states from denying unemployment benefits for reasons not tied to the basis of a worker’s unemployment. But Republicans in the U.S. House, led by Michigan Rep. Dave Camp, are fighting to change the law. Part of the GOP jobs package passed this month allows states to determine their own drug testing guidelines . The bill is unlikely to become law however, because Democrats in the Senate are unreceptive to the measure.

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In-N-Out In Denver?

December 29, 2011

For burger lovers, Southern California-based In-N-Out Burger is nothing short of sacred. Their “fresh-never-frozen” style has made them a legend that has spread the family owned burger chain from its California roots into Utah, Nevada, Arizona and Texas, so why not Colorado? Denver City Councilman for District 8 and California transplant Albus Brooks is working on just that, according to a couple of recent Facebook posts . On Tuesday, Brooks wrote on his wall: Had a great conversation with folks tied to in-n-out execs. How hungry are y’all to have them come to Denver? Then after getting dozens of likes, posts and comments about the possibility of In-N-Out coming to Mile High City, he wrote this on Facebook : Getting a little bit of buzz from this story. It is my goal to support local businesses while also attracting investment from responsible businesses. I’m looking for win-wins. Glad this started a bigger conversation… What other businesses would you like to see come to District 8? To which an overwhelming amount of people posted “Trader Joes” — another California chain that has been forever-rumored to be coming to Colorado . But, perhaps In-N-Out and Trader Joes will eventually land in Colorado, following the recent successful arrivals of IKEA and H&M. With regard to In-N-Out, Brooks said that he supports buying locally and doesn’t intend to take away from local burger restaurants in Denver, 9News reports . Brooks told Kurtis Lee at The Denver Post that a member of his family has ties to the CFO of In-N-Out and that having the company look into setting up shop in Denver will be a part of his agenda in 2012. Fox31 notes that In-N-Out is not just famous for burgers, but also for their inclusion of bible verse notations on the bottom of their soda cups and some food wrappers. In-N-Out’s nearly 300 restaurants are still owned by the Snyders , the family that founded the burger joint in the 1940s and according to CNN , the Snyders are a religious family and since they continue to control the restaurant chain they can print whatever it is they like on the food wrappers.

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Rich Less Likely To Be Attuned To Others’ Suffering, Study Finds

December 22, 2011

Social psychologists are making an argument that Occupy Wall Street protesters have been saying for months: Many rich people just aren’t in the habit of thinking of others. According to researchers at the University of California-Berkeley, people who grew up in economically comfortable circumstances are less attuned to the suffering of other people . In multiple trials that involved both questionnaires and physical-response tests, the researchers found that young adults whose upbringing involved some degree of financial struggle were quicker and more likely to register signs of empathy than young adults who came from affluent backgrounds. Such conclusions are especially relevant now, as the Occupy movement continues to focus national attention and criticism on the growing divide between rich and poor . While some wealthy people have defended themselves as merely embodying the ideals of American capitalism — a system where, the argument goes, anyone can make it to the top if they’re willing to work hard — many Occupy protesters have offered a less flattering theory: that the rich, as a class, simply aren’t concerned with the well-being of anyone else. The findings of the UC Berkeley team seem to suggest that this might be true, though the researchers make a point of saying it’s likely the result of inexperience on the part of the rich, not necessarily malice. “It’s not that the upper classes are coldhearted,” Jennifer Stellar, a social psychologist at UC Berkeley and the lead author of the study, is quoted as saying in a press release. “They may just not be as adept at recognizing the cues and signals of suffering because they haven’t had to deal with as many obstacles in their lives.” This particular piece of research appeared earlier this month in the journal Emotion , but one of the academics involved in the study, psychologist Dacher Keltner, has published at least twice before on the correlation between economic struggle and empathetic response. Last October, Keltner was part of a research team that found that wealthy people had greater difficulty reading facial expressions . In August, Keltner and others argued that financial security seems to be associated with an impulse to think about oneself more than others — and that a dozen separate studies had produced the same implication . But the relationship between wealth and compassion may work both ways. In 2005, researchers found that if a stock trader suffers from some kind of emotional impairment — that is, brain damage that prevents them from fully experiencing their own emotions — it may allow them to make more profit on the market , since they can make decisions based more firmly in rationalism. And in what may be a more extreme example of the same phenomenon, research published earlier this year suggests that some stockbrokers actually have a more pronounced competitive streak than diagnosed psychopaths .

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Family Living On $22,000 A Year Reflects New Low-Income Stats

December 16, 2011

When doctor’s bills started to mount after Joe Gallardo’s daughter was born prematurely in September, the father of three took on a second job — upping his work hours to about 15 a day. But even with the additional time he clocks at Fiesta Pizza, Gallardo, 28, is barely scraping by. He lives with his fiancé’s parents, a home he shares with 14 other family members. The Gallardos, who live on less than $22,00 a year, are just one of a record 10.2 million low-income working families — the highest number this country has seen in at least a decade — according to a new analysis by the Working Poor Families Project and the Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit research group based in Washington. This new reality means that struggling parents, like Gallardo, are forced to sacrifice sleep, family time and their well-being in order to barely make enough money. The South Austin dad begins his workday at 3 a.m. at Getty’s Pizza, where he prepares pizza dough for about eight hours. He tries to catch a quick nap before he starts his second job at Fiesta Pizza at 3 p.m., but that’s not an easy feat for someone sharing a home with 14 others. He stocks shelves until 10:30 p.m. and takes one day off a week. “Basically, I had no choice,” Gallardo told The Huffington Post of his decision to work two jobs. “I have to do something to try and provide for my family.” Gallardo, who brings home about $1,800 a month, isn’t the anomaly when it comes to the face of struggling families, but he also has the added challenge of bearing a tarnished record. Since serving three years in prison for a burglary he committed in 2005, Gallardo said he’s committed to starting over, to dedicating himself to a crime-free life and providing the best he can for his family. But these days, such staunch determination isn’t always enough, especially in the West and the South, which have been hit the hardest, according to the Associated Press . Both Texas and California have the most low-income families, each with more than 1 million. “The reality is that prospects for the poor and the near poor are dismal,” Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan public policy professor who specializes in poverty, told the Associated Press. “If Congress and the states make further cuts, we can expect the number of poor and low-income families to rise for the next several years.” These economic woes have taken a visible toll on the Gallardo family. Though Gallardo carves out movie nights and family dinners for his one day off, he said it’s been about a year since he and his fiancé, Norma, 22, have spent any quality time alone. He said his kids, who are 6, 5 and 3 months, have been missing their dad since he started working around the clock in July. “The most difficult part is not spending as much time with my family as I would usually spend before I started working two jobs,” Gallardo said. “It gets kind of depressing sometimes.” While the Gallardo family has been able to seek help from Any Baby Can , an Austin nonprofit that serves the area’s poorest, sickest and youngest children and their families, the organization says it’s been inundated with requests from clients in need of its programs. While the organization is able to serve 6,000 clients a year, it has had to implement a waiting list, which has 104 people who are eagerly waiting the chance to get access to the therapy, financial and health programs Any Baby Can offers. “We are tightening our belts,” said Allison Daskam, communications manager. “They were already very tight.” Though Gallardo has had to squeeze his entire family into one of the four bedrooms in his fiancé’s parents’ house for more than a year, he hopes to start looking for a place to call his own after Christmas. “Sometimes I don’t have energy, but I just force myself to do it,” Gallardo said. “I just think about my kids and that’s just all the motivation I need.” Want to help Austin families in need like the Gallardos? Consider donating to Any Baby Can here.

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Poor Looking For Bargains, Rich Opting For Luxury As Christmas Nears

December 7, 2011

Adriana Garcia won’t be buying her family Christmas gifts this year. The 26-year-old from Huntington Park, California lost her job as a teacher’s assistant last year and now works part-time at a Jamba Juice near Los Angeles. Her husband, a security guard unable to work since hurting his hand three months ago, is not yet getting his disability checks. The couple spends on the basics: food and rent. “I don’t really care about the presents,” said Garcia. Kelly Lenehan, a 40-year-old ultrasound technician and former paparazzo from Los Angeles, lost her job in her new field in early November, and is also planning a low key holiday. “It can’t be the way I want it to be, and that’s the difficult thing about it,” she said. A record turnout two weeks ago on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, when tens of millions of Americans, lured by bargains, hit stores to kick their holiday shopping into high gear, belied how much many Americans still struggle. Stores such as Kohl’s Corp and Gap Inc’s Old Navy and J.C. Penney Co Inc all reported sales declines in November, as shoppers proved more frugal than television images of in-store bedlam would have suggested. Meanwhile, bargain basement chains like Dollar General have been on a tear. The National Retail Federation expects holiday retail sales to be up 2.8 percent, below last year’s 5.2 percent increase. In contrast, sales at luxury stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom Inc have soared all year and their November sales — Saks’ same-store sales rose 9.3 percent — show holiday sales are off to a strong start. “I’ve been fortunate to have a good year, so I am feeling good. Trying to kick start the economy,” said Andrew Rothstein, a 40-year-old investment banker with TD Waterhouse shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue’s flagship store in Manhattan last week. Unemployment slipped last month to 8.6 percent, in part because many job seekers simply gave up looking. The rising cost of food and fuel is adding to the pinch, curbing the spending power of millions and delaying a meaningful recovery in consumer spending. Adam Morales, a 64-year-old retiree from Louisiana on a fixed income, said he’ll spend less on gifts for his five children and seven grandchildren. “The price of living went up so much,” he said. “Last year, I spent $25 on each one. This year I will have to spend $10,” he said. Retailers know how hard it is for shoppers this year: Wal-Mart Stores Inc brought back its layaway program after a five-year break. Even people making decent money are being cautious. Aldo Inoster, a stock broker from Queens, New York, will limit his Christmas gifts to family members. “It has to be a very sweet deal to get us out shopping,” said Inoster, 50, while shopping at an Old Navy in New York’s Herald Square on Thanksgiving. FOR THE RICH, GETTING BACK TO NORMAL At the high end of the widening income gap, many Americans are shopping like it’s 2007 again. On Friday night, stores on Manhattan’s luxury avenues were packed, with people waiting several turns before being able to use the elevator at Tiffany’s store on Fifth Avenue. Luxury chain Neiman Marcus said last week it has sold out of the ten 2012 Ferrari sports cars it offered in its Christmas book of fantasy gifts for $395,000 each. Yet for all the talk of luxury’s rebound, sales at chains like Saks remain below levels prior to the 2008 financial crisis, which stopped high end shopping in its tracks. Many wealthy Americans don’t think the economy is out of jeopardy. Peter White, principal of a technology staffing company in Houston, said business is picking up though he is still not going gangbusters with shopping this year. “One of the reasons we’re up here is because things are starting to slowly turn around,” said White, who took his family to New York for a Christmas shopping trip that included a visit to Tiffany on Friday. “I would never have made this trip two years ago.” Nonetheless, the wealthy don’t pull back much on luxury even when markets are rough, as they have been, because their “spending money” is not tied up in the stock market, said Jonathan Bergman, a vice president at Palisades Hudson Financial Group, whose clients include CEOs and have median accounts of $5 million. Millionaires, who account for nearly half of U.S. luxury sales, have enough cash to keep up their spending habits even if their income droops for a year, said Boston Consulting Group senior partner Jean-Marc Bellaiche. “The fact that you make a little bit less this year will not affect your ability to buy a $3,000 watch,” he said. (Reporting by Phil Wahba and Dhanya Skariachan in New York, Lisa Baertlein and Martha Sanchez-Avila in Los Angeles; Editing by Steve Orlofsky) Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions .

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Unemployed Plead With Congress To Move On Jobs, Benefits

December 2, 2011

WASHINGTON — It’s been two long years since Wayne Person lost his sales job, and the 59-year-old from Mount Laurel, N.J., still hasn’t managed to find new work. After a seemingly endless string of rejections, he’s come to blame his long bout with unemployment on two primary factors: His age and unemployment itself. “It became almost impossible for me to get a job interview, let a lone a job,” Person says. Of the interviews he has had, “They concluded I was unqualified because I was not tech savvy, which is ridiculous, or because I was looking to retire soon, which is equally ridiculous.” He has a suspicion that many employers won’t consider him simply because he’s already out of work — a hunch not without merit . Person, who’s draining his 401(k) in an effort to stay afloat, is one of many out-of-work Americans who are urging Congress to pass reauthorization for unemployment insurance benefits — a safety net that Person himself exhausted long ago, and that nearly two million unemployed stand to lose come January if the benefits aren’t extended, according to the worker advocacy group National Employment Law Project. To highlight the plight of the jobless , an alliance of 23 progressive groups called USAction released a report Friday telling the stories of nearly 90 people who are out of work, including Person. On a call with reporters, members of the group argued that the numbers released Friday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics underscore the need for congressional action on jobs and unemployment insurance. The jobless rate actually dropped last month — from 9.0 percent to 8.6, marking the lowest rate since March 2009 — but that good bit of news was due partly to a shrinking labor pool, as many discouraged Americans stop looking for work. “I think there is a tendency to focus on what the unemployment rate is, as opposed to the devil in the details,” said Christine Owens, executive director of National Employment Law Project, who was on the call. “Although it’s certainly good news that the unemployment rate declined, a chunk of that decline is because several hundred thousand people dropped out of the labor force. We still have almost six million people who’ve been unemployed six months or longer.” Debating whether or not to reauthorize unemployment benefits is fast becoming a holiday-season ritual in Washington, with lawmakers now facing the same question they did last December. Democrats have stumped loudly for the extension, holding a press conference Wednesday with hundreds of unemployed workers to pressure their colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Republicans in both chambers, meanwhile, have shown quiet signs of support for the reauthorization. “There’s no reason not to renew this program,” Owens said. “It would be a huge body blow to the economy. These benefits do not prolong unemployment; they keep the unemployed engaged in the job search. Maintaining this program has that effect.” William McNary, director of USAction, said the group assembled their report, entitled “Hardly Working: Stories from Un- and Under-Employed Americans,” in order to show some of the people behind the jobless numbers. One of those people is Molly Wassermann, who recently moved to New York City from Toledo, Ohio, in search of better job prospects. She’s been without work since 2008. “What exactly is a person supposed to do who isn’t being hired?” Wassermann asked on the call. “Are we supposed to just die? … The attitude toward us is everything but Christian. They say we’re lazy. … The right is demonizing us.” “The vast majority of us just want to work,” she said.

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Cyber Monday Smashes Records

November 28, 2011

NEW YORK — Shoppers seem to be just as enthusiastic about shopping on their computers and smartphones on Cyber Monday as they were about finding deals over the weekend. Online sales on Cyber Monday, which was started in 2005 by a retail trade group to encourage Americans to shop online on the Monday after Thanksgiving, were up mid-afternoon by 15 percent from a year ago, according to data from IBM Benchmark. Meanwhile, sales from mobile devices were up 7.4 percent. The group did not give dollar amounts. The Cyber Monday numbers point to Americans’ growing comfort with using their personal computers, tablets and smartphones to shop. Over the past few years, big chains like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, have been offering more and better incentives like hourly deals and free shipping, to capitalize on that trend. It’s important for retailers to make a good showing during the holiday shopping season, a time when they can make up to 40 percent of their annual revenue. On Monday, Amazon.com offered its bigger, more expensive Kindle DX for $259, or $120 off the regular price. The Express clothing chain was giving 30 percent off and free shipping on all online orders. And Wal-Mart, which has been calling the holiday “Cyber Week” in ads, was offering an LG 47-inch LED TV for $879, or $320 off the regular price. “Cyber Monday is far more exciting to me than Black Friday,” says Jamie Minoso, a 40-year-old English teacher from Alabama. “I do not enjoy the traffic and chaos involved in shopping at a mall.” To be sure, the strong start to Cyber Monday, created by a unit of The National Retail Federation, follows an even stronger kickoff to the holiday shopping season over the weekend. Americans shopped in record numbers, driven by earlier store openings and a push by retailers for online sales. A record 226 million shoppers visited stores and websites during the four-day holiday weekend starting on Thanksgiving Day, up from 212 million last year, according to the NRF. And sales on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, rose 7 percent to $11.4 billion, the largest amount ever spent, according to ShopperTrak, which gathers stores’ data. Online sales were strong even over the weekend. Thirty-eight percent of all purchases were made online this year, up from 31 percent to 32 percent last year, says Sherif Mityas, partner in the retail practice of A.T. Kearney, who believes the increase was due to heavy promotions. Barneys, for instance, offered 40 percent off on its website on Thanksgiving Day, a day before it began its sales in stores. And Barnes & Noble offered 40 percent to 75 percent off online products, discounts that weren’t available in store. “Retailers are doing a good job of creating more excitement online in ways they can’t do in store,” Mityas says. “They’re creating that excitement of, `I’ve got to get that special deal,” that is really spurring traffic.’” It won’t be clear how well retailers will ultimately fare on Cyber Monday until Tuesday. But last year, sales on the day topped $1 billion for the first time, making it the heaviest day of online spending ever. Ahead of this week’s “Cyber Monday,” the NRF says nearly 80 percent of retailers plan to offer special promotions. And a record 122.9 million of Americans are expected to shop on the day, up from 106.9 million who shopped on “Cyber Monday” last year, according to a survey conducted for Shop.org. By early afternoon on Monday, traffic was up about 37 percent year-over-year, according to Akamai, an online content delivery company. Akamai says it expects online traffic to peak at about 9 p.m. Traffic has been up substantially since the Monday before Thanksgiving as retailers promoted online deals earlier than ever, says Lelah Manz, Akamai’s chief strategist of commerce. “There has been a huge volume of promotional activity being driven by daily deal sites, Facebook and other social networking sites,” she says.

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Occupy L.A. May Branch Out To Occupy Beverly Hills, Skid Row

November 28, 2011

WASHINGTON — After a tense all-nighter with the Los Angeles Police Department, Occupy L.A. activists and their tents outside City Hall have been given a temporary reprieve. The police re-opened the streets around City Hall to traffic Monday morning and essentially left Occupy L.A. alone. Four activists had been arrested — hardly the anticipated outcome from either side. Late Friday, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa declared 12:01 a.m. Monday as the deadline by which Occupy L.A. had to vacate City Hall Park. In a letter to the activists, he wrote: “The Occupy movement is now at a crossroads.” Villaraigosa did not give an explicit explanation as to why he wanted the park cleared of the occupation’s 500 tents, food service and library. Peter Sanders, the mayor’s senior press secretary, said in an email Monday afternoon that the mayor “respects Occupy L.A.’s right to exercise their freedom of speech but that going forward, tents will not be allowed in City Hall Park and the laws regarding city parks will be enforced.” If the mayor thought his threat Friday would send Occupy L.A. members scattering to off-site locations, he was wrong. Sunday night’s general assembly was packed . When a moderator asked how many people were attending the assembly meeting for the first time, many hands shot up. But Occupy L.A.’s continuing general assemblies might be short lived. Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck told reporters at a Monday morning press conference that the eviction will happen. “We will enforce the law on our own time schedule,” Beck said. Rumors had already begun that the eviction could come Monday at noon. The Occupy L.A. activists have been just as adamant about holding their ground. “We’re not going away,” PJ Davenport assured The Huffington Post. “We knew that the eviction order was coming down,” Davenport said. “But you can’t help but feel cheated yet again by your local government when they tell you that your time is up and you need to move elsewhere.” Yet some within Occupy L.A. are already considering such a move, Davenport conceded. Los Angeles is a sprawling city with 9.8 million residents and a nearly endless stretch of distinct neighborhoods, enclaves and cultures. Post-eviction, activists aren’t thinking about shrinking. They’re thinking about franchising. Instead of one space, how about 50 spaces? Instead of Occupy L.A., how about Occupy Beverly Hills and an Occupy Skid Row? “You will see tents across the metro area,” Davenport suggested. “If they’re not allowed at City Hall, you will see them around City Hall.” “None of us are interested in working out of an office,” Occupy L.A. activist Joan Donovan insisted. “We want real change. We hope that we show that by occupying, we are extremely serious.” Donovan said the idea of diversifying into several spaces may grow out of necessity — and a way to empower the leaders who grew up through the City Hall space. “We don’t know if we are going to get space this big again,” she explained. “The tactic would be to let all the people who became leaders here to begin the process somewhere else … It would be awesome if there was an Occupy Beverly Hills. It would be the perfect opportunity to talk to tourists about how to better spend their money, how to be better citizens. The idea is to get people to think.” There’s serious talk, Donovan said, of an occupation starting up in Los Feliz. And others are talking about Occupying Rodeo Drive. The greater Los Angeles area already boasts an Occupy Long Beach , an Occupy Venice and an Occupy Pasadena , among other spots. “There are people talking about doing a more permanent occupation of Skid Row,” said Jeremy Rothe-Kushel, an Occupy L.A. activist. “The other possibilities are fully on the table. I think there’s going to be a negotiation about centralization vs. decentralization.”

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Occupy Seattle Protester Alleges Miscarriage After Pepper Spray Incident

November 23, 2011

NEW YORK — In recent weeks, the repeated use of pepper spray by police officers against Occupy Wall Street protesters has elicited widespread criticism. (CLICK HERE OR SCROLL DOWN FOR LATEST UPDATES ) Whether it’s September’s use of pepper spray against young demonstrators in New York’s Union Square or last weekend’s forceful confrontation with seated student protesters at the University of California, Davis campus , many critics have questioned the deployment of such tactics against a largely peaceful and nonviolent movement. Meanwhile, in Seattle, a recent crackdown against Occupy protesters may have claimed its latest victim . On Monday, The Stranger , a Seattle-based alternative weekly newspaper, reported that one Occupy Seattle protester allegedly suffered a miscarriage. She said police used pepper spray and hit her in the stomach . “I was standing in the middle of the crowd when the police started moving in,” Jennifer Fox, 19, told The Stranger . “I was screaming, ‘I am pregnant, I am pregnant. Let me through. I am trying to get out.’” Fox is reportedly homeless, living in the Occupy Seattle encampment in Westlake Park without a working cellphone. The Stranger reported that immediately following last week’s incident , Fox was rushed to the Harborview Medical Center in downtown Seattle , where Fox said doctors performed a routine ultrasound and didn’t discover any evidence for alarm. But on Monday, after experiencing cramping and nausea, The Stranger reported that Fox returned to Harborview Medical Center, where she was later diagnosed as having suffered a miscarriage once the fetus’ heartbeat was no longer detected . As of Tuesday evening, Fox had neither provided medical records to substantiate her claim, nor filed a formal complaint with the Seattle Police Department. But despite the lack of a formal complaint, a Seattle Police Department spokesman confirmed to HuffPost that police are launching a formal investigation into the matter. “We are aware of a claim that a pregnant woman who attended the Nov. 15 Occupy Seattle march has been treated for a miscarriage,” said the SPD spokesman. “Consistent with standard procedure, the Office of Professional Accountability has initiated an internal investigation to look into the matter further.” In the coming days, investigators will be actively searching for information to support Fox’s claim, the spokesman confirmed. Until more information is made available, Kathleen Taylor, executive director of the ACLU of Washington, told HuffPost that she remains troubled by what she perceives as an uptick of pepper spray use by members of law enforcement against the movement’s protesters nationwide. “The police have the authority to use force when it’s necessary to prevent physical harm, but the use of pepper spray against non-violent protesters raises very serious questions,” said Taylor, who highlighted the Seattle Police Department’s policy of not using pepper spray and tasers as a first line of defense. “We condemn police violence in other countries,” Taylor said. “Let’s first be sure our own house is in order.”

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Sarah Damaske: Mom Is Buying and Making Thanksgiving Turkey This Year

November 22, 2011

As the holidays approach, more moms than ever are both buying and making the turkey that will be on the table Thanksgiving day. Last week, the Census published a report showing that 73% of new mothers aged 20 and older (and 76% of those 22 and older) worked during their pregnancies. Of those working, 80 percent returned to work within a year after giving birth. Not only are more moms working during pregnancy and soon after their first birth, but they are also increasingly returning to work once their children are school-aged. Preliminary results from a study I am conducting with Professor Adrianne Frech at the University of Akron suggests that only 10% of mothers remain out of the workforce until their youngest is 12, according to data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. As the holidays approach, it is often speculated that working brings moms guilt about whether they will have time to do it all — manage work, family and all of the holiday events. But my research suggests that working may mean something else to moms and their families: greater consumer confidence at the holidays . In my study of 80 randomly sampled women from New York City, I found that working increased women’s confidence about their family’s financial situation, regardless of their class position. While working and earning an income certainly increased the family’s overall economic well-being, it also increased the women’s sense of the family’s financial security. Women who worked explained that it gave them an increased sense of self-reliance and independence. We’ve known for a while that women are the main consumers in the family. But women who work may feel more comfortable in that role, as my respondents did. Irene explained, “When you go out to make a salary, you can go out and buy whatever [you] want, because [you] earned it.” Angela worked part-time and she concurred, telling me, “Not that I treat myself all the time but it makes me feel a little more at ease to say that we could. I could do some extra stuff and not feel like I’m just taking my husband’s money.” Even women who worked for low-wages explained that working gave them the ability to spring for the occasional pizza or child’s toy, because of the greater sense of economic security that came with paid employment. Maritza, a mom who worked full-time making $20,000 annually, said, “My first paycheck — I said, ‘Wow.’ It felt good.” All due respect to Norman Rockwell , but it’s time to repaint the portrait of America and show an accurate picture of family and holidays. Mothers are more likely than not to be earning part of the family income this year. And our best shot to improve our economy around the holidays (and throughout the year) may be to promote programs that support women’s continued employment. Greater access to paid maternity leave (the Census reported that only 50% of moms have this) and universal childcare for pre-school age children would be a step in the right direction. This holiday, let’s be thankful for our mothers and our fathers and all they do to raise the children of this country. And let’s take our thanks a step further by recognizing that American parents feel squeezed at work and at home and by developing federal and workplace policies that address the challenges parents face now that most adults in families are working.

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Sophie Gold: Your Little Box of Treasures

November 7, 2011

Friends are an integral part of your life, but every friend you have must live life at their own pace. When the time comes and they must leave you, there is no need to grieve over there parting from your life. It is the very essence of life that it should be so. But it hurts nonetheless and we grieve nonetheless, but we hold them in our hearts forever. Always cherish the joy, laughter, memories and love that they have brought in your lives. Always remember them with a warm smile for what they have given you. — A Beautiful Mind How long has it been since you last had dinner with a friend? When was the last time you put all work aside and went out with some loved ones for a couple of drinks and a laugh? How many times have you had to apologise to a family member for deciding your work, your dreams, were more important than spending time with them? I also know that feeling. I was recently privileged to some much needed free time from the day-to-day rigors of running a successful business, so decided to spend this pot of gold on something worthy and in desperate need of attention: Cleaning my office. In the process of clearing out some old clutter from under my desk I came across an old, dusty shoebox under a pile of paper that I did not recognise. As everything under the desk so far turned out to be worthless garbage I assumed this must also be the case with the shoebox as well, and went to throw it away. Right before I did the deed I decided to be sure I wasn’t throwing away a small box of treasure, I used to hide money in boxes when I was younger for safekeeping, and emptied the contents onto the floor. To my utter surprise the box was filled with treasure, and with a heart heavy with guilt I picked up long lost pictures of my deceased mother and father. Like a toy boat in a tidal wave of raw emotion I was picked up and submerged, a thousand questions bombarding me from all directions; How did those get there, how long have they been there, how could you have left those there for so long, left to decay in a pile of rubbish? As these questions were racing through my mind an even greater realization came to the forefront; When was the last time you called your sisters? I had not spoken to any of my family members for over a year. After getting myself together I sat down, looked at a calendar and remembered the birthdays missed, the holiday greeting cards not sent out, the missed phone calls from my nearest and dearest asking me how I was and to call them when I next get a chance. In my quest for success and glory I willingly became blinded to one of the few things that truly matter the most and that I already had, a family. Granted, we don’t always get along and we have our problems like anyone else, but I’m hard pressed to remember a time in my life when my money gave me a hug when I was down. So what does this have to do with the successful entrepreneurship, you might ask? Nothing, directly. However, out of all of the people I have met that most would classify as financially wealthy, the ones with longevity, who truly appreciate life and what they have achieved are the ones who have someone to share it all with. As the winter months and corresponding holiday seasons approach, it is important to remember the things right under your nose that are most important to you. And don’t be the little person who hides behind excuses. If you haven’t spoken to that someone in a few years and your feeling guilty, all you have to do is PICK UP THE PHONE! Worried about an argument that you’ve had and still hasn’t fizzled out yet? SO WHAT, BE A BETTER PERSON AND TAKE THAT FIRST STEP for yourself and your loved one as he/she might be here today but might not be here tomorrow. And if that special someone has already passed away, maybe it’s time you opened up your own little box of treasure and remembered the good times and the loved shared. After all, would anyone who really loved you want you to live a life of constant heartache and pain, or a life of happiness and remembrance? What are some of your own personal treasures? Is there someone in your life that you haven’t spoken to be know you should? Feel free to share.

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Police Arrest 5 At Occupy Atlanta Protest [LATEST UPDATES]

November 7, 2011

ATLANTA – Atlanta protesters aren’t going quietly, despite warnings from police and the mayor. In the latest act of defiance, five people were arrested early Monday at or near a downtown park that has been an off-and-on site of Wall Street protests similar to the ones being held in other U.S. cities. (CLICK HERE OR SCROLL DOWN FOR LATEST UPDATES) The developments came a day after 19 demonstrators were taken to jail by officers in riot gear when a rally spilled into the streets. Atlanta police said one protester draped in an American flag inside Woodruff Park was arrested after refusing to leave by a Sunday night curfew, and four other people on bicycles were arrested near the park – three for traffic violations and one for obstruction of a law enforcement officer. The 23-year-old woman in the park was warned three times in English and Spanish to leave before she was arrested, police spokesman Carlos Campos said. At the time, dozens more demonstrators chanting slogans like “We’re hungry! We’re poor! What are you wasting our money for?” stood behind barricades surrounding the park, where police had warned they would enforce an 11 p.m. curfew. Occupy Atlanta organizer Tim Franzen said having one person protesting was just as powerful as several. Atlanta police have arrested protesters several times since Mayor Kasim Reed revoked an executive order permitting the demonstrators to sleep in the park overnight. The protest group held its general assembly meeting earlier in the evening, then marched back to Woodruff Park. Campos said officers were watching and warned people to stay out of the park. Most complied. Occupy Atlanta organizers earlier said they planned to again camp at the park, setting up yet another showdown with police and the mayor. There have been other arrests at similar protests across the country in recent weeks, most for curfew violations. Some of the most intense confrontations between demonstrators and police have been in Oakland, Calif., where two Iraq War veterans have been hurt in separate clashes with officers. Over the weekend in Atlanta, 19 people were arrested on charges they refused to leave the park after curfew or blocked city roads, police said. Franzen said most got out of jail Sunday, while one person charged with aggravated assault and obstruction likely won’t be bailed out until sometime this week. Before Saturday’s 11 p.m. curfew, a crowd of several hundred protesters had set up tents at Woodruff Park, the scene of about 50 arrests of demonstrators last month. As the deadline approached, protesters began decamping peacefully. Dozens of officers were on hand, herding protesters away from the park’s entrances and installing barricades around it. A police helicopter flew overhead. While most protesters left the park, a few people stayed behind. Many spilled onto Peachtree Street, blocking roads. An officer on a motorcycle, with its lights and siren turned on, drove into a crowd marching on the street. Video of the incident appears to show two people pushing against the front of the motorcycle as the engine revs. A scuffle ensues when a third person intervenes, which leads to a sometimes tense confrontation between protesters and officers. Police officers in riot gear and on horseback filled the street, warning protesters to stay on the sidewalk. The protesters shouted at the officers, chanting slogans such as, “Shame! Shame!” and “What about your pensions?” A small group yelled more insulting things like, “Put the pigs back in their sty, we the people occupy.” Protesters began camping out in Woodruff Park on Oct. 7. Reed initially issued an executive order allowing them to stay overnight, but later revoked it after he said there were increasing security concerns. “Mayor Reed was clear earlier this week in his public statements that the City of Atlanta would arrest any persons who violated the law,” Police Chief George Turner said. —- Associated Press writer Kate Brumback contributed to this report from Atlanta. Atlanta police said one protester draped in an American flag inside Woodruff Park was arrested after refusing to leave by a Sunday night curfew, and four other people on bicycles were arrested near the park – three for traffic violations and one for obstruction of a law enforcement officer. The 23-year-old woman in the park was warned three times in English and Spanish to leave before she was arrested, police spokesman Carlos Campos said. At the time, dozens more demonstrators chanting slogans like “We’re hungry! We’re poor! What are you wasting our money for?” stood behind barricades surrounding the park, where police had warned they would enforce an 11 p.m. curfew. Occupy Atlanta organizer Tim Franzen said having one person protesting was just as powerful as several. Atlanta police have arrested protesters several times since Mayor Kasim Reed revoked an executive order permitting the demonstrators to sleep in the park overnight. The protest group held its general assembly meeting earlier in the evening, then marched back to Woodruff Park. Campos said officers were watching and warned people to stay out of the park. Most complied. Occupy Atlanta organizers earlier said they planned to again camp at the park, setting up yet another showdown with police and the mayor. There have been other arrests at similar protests across the country in recent weeks, most for curfew violations. Some of the most intense confrontations between demonstrators and police have been in Oakland, Calif., where two Iraq War veterans have been hurt in separate clashes with officers. Over the weekend in Atlanta, 19 people were arrested on charges they refused to leave the park after curfew or blocked city roads, police said. Franzen said most got out of jail Sunday, while one person charged with aggravated assault and obstruction likely won’t be bailed out until sometime this week. Before Saturday’s 11 p.m. curfew, a crowd of several hundred protesters had set up tents at Woodruff Park, the scene of about 50 arrests of demonstrators last month. As the deadline approached, protesters began decamping peacefully. Dozens of officers were on hand, herding protesters away from the park’s entrances and installing barricades around it. A police helicopter flew overhead. While most protesters left the park, a few people stayed behind. Many spilled onto Peachtree Street, blocking roads. An officer on a motorcycle, with its lights and siren turned on, drove into a crowd marching on the street. Video of the incident appears to show two people pushing against the front of the motorcycle as the engine revs. A scuffle ensues when a third person intervenes, which leads to a sometimes tense confrontation between protesters and officers. Police officers in riot gear and on horseback filled the street, warning protesters to stay on the sidewalk. The protesters shouted at the officers, chanting slogans such as, “Shame! Shame!” and “What about your pensions?” A small group yelled more insulting things like, “Put the pigs back in their sty, we the people occupy.” Protesters began camping out in Woodruff Park on Oct. 7. Reed initially issued an executive order allowing them to stay overnight, but later revoked it after he said there were increasing security concerns. “Mayor Reed was clear earlier this week in his public statements that the City of Atlanta would arrest any persons who violated the law,” Police Chief George Turner said. ___ Associated Press writer Kate Brumback contributed to this report from Atlanta.

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Sarah Damaske: Focus on Money Misses Mark on Why Women Work

November 1, 2011

The Working Mother Research Institute released a report last week in which the vast majority of mothers surveyed reported that the main reason they worked (or would work) was for a paycheck. When I conducted 80 interviews with women living in New York City about their decisions about workforce participation, I similarly found that women said that they participated in paid work because it financially benefited their families. But my research found that even though women emphasize the importance of financial needs in their explanations of their work, money is not the driving force behind their workforce decisions. In fact, women with greater financial resources are actually the ones who are most likely to remain employed. One respondent, Virginia, summarized the typical response: “Financially, women have to actually work for their kids to have more.” But a closer look at Virginia’s work-family circumstances revealed a much more complicated picture. Virginia continued working as a hairdresser after both her children were born and only left her job after new management bought the hair salon, reduced her schedule flexibility, and hired a new manager who treated the employees poorly. When she quit, Virginia’s husband had recently lost his job and the family faced several years of great financial instability. When Virginia went back to work, her husband was stably employed and the family was on much better financial footing. While the explanation Virginia gave focused on her family’s financial needs, her actions did not — she left a job she disliked when her family had no regular source of income but returned to work when she found a job she loved during a period when her family’s financial stability grew. Why did Virginia (and almost all of the women that I met with) tell a story about the role of financial needs in women’s workforce participation decision? Today, women face competing obligations to work and family and neither leaving work nor remaining at work can completely satisfy these twin demands. The Working Mother Research Institute found that the majority of both working and non-working mothers report feeling guilt about the work choices they have made. If everyone feels guilty about work decisions and worries about how these decisions are viewed, framing these decisions as being made for the family, rather than for themselves, may help alleviate this guilt (and defer blame) by suggesting that women’s work decisions are altruistic. The women’s explanations of financial need connect to a broader popular discussion that connects women’s paid labor to their families’ financial needs, i.e. women work because their families need the money. If financial needs dictate women’s work, we would expect to find higher employment rates among working-class women, who have less income and lower education level than middle-class women. But, just as Virginia’s account of why she worked did not match her workforce experiences, neither do national labor force trends match this stereotypical explanation of women’s work. As women’s income goes up, so, too, does their labor market participation. Highly educated women are most likely to work; according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics , 85 percent of women with postgraduate degrees work, compared to 80 percent of college grads, 68 percent of high school grads, and only 48 percent of women with less than a high school education. National trends in women’s workforce participation, then, do not support what we think we know about why women work. The popular discourse surrounding women’s work creates pervasive stereotypes in which middle-class women’s work is understood to be a choice and, therefore, self-indulgent, and working-class women’s work is understood to be a need and, therefore, unrewarding. But I found that women worked for far more complicated reasons than just money. Of course, money played an important role and women wanted to find work that paid what they considered a fair wage for the work being done. But they also stayed employed when they found work interesting, when it provided a sense of positive accomplishment, when it allowed them to balance work and family, when their work garnered peer or employer recognition and respect, when it included the possibility for advancement, and when it led to the possibility of improving their families’ social status. Explanations of women’s work that focus on financial need draw attention away from the problems that all women face in the workplace: a lack of workplace flexibility, few childcare options, few sick days, and little parental leave. Creating better work environments will mean more women will stay at work and that stability will be better for mothers, families and the economy in the long run.

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Donating Breast Milk? There’s A Groupon For That

October 11, 2011

Groupon offers deep discounts on food and drink, but historically, breast milk has not been on the menu. Last week, however, Groupon subscribers in Indianapolis received a $10 pitch for pasteurized donor human milk from the Indiana Mothers’ Milk Bank (IMMB). The fine print explained what was going on: philanthropy. People who purchased the deal weren’t getting cutthroat bargains on breast milk for themselves; instead, the money raised would be used by the milk bank to offset the cost of providing human milk to premature and sick babies in need.

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Hospital Drug Shortages Present Deadly, Costly Crisis

September 24, 2011

TRENTON, N.J. — A drug for dangerously high blood pressure, normally priced at $25.90 per dose, offered to hospitals for $1,200. Fifteen deaths in 15 months blamed on shortages of life-saving medications. A growing crisis in the availability of drugs for chemotherapy, infections and other serious ailments is endangering patients and forcing hospitals to buy from secondary suppliers at huge markups because they can’t get the medications any other way. An Associated Press review of industry reports and interviews with nearly two dozen experts found the shortages – mainly of injected generic drugs that ordinarily are cheap – have delayed surgeries and cancer treatments, left patients in unnecessary pain and caused hospitals to give less effective treatments. That’s resulted in complications and longer hospital stays. Just over half of the 549 U.S. hospitals responding to a survey this summer by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, a patient safety group, said they had purchased one or more prescription drugs from so-called “gray market vendors” – companies other than their normal wholesalers. Most also said they’ve had to do so more often of late, and 7 percent reported side effects or other problems with those drugs. Hospital pharmacists “are really looking at this as a crisis. They are scrambling to find drugs,” said Joseph Hill of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. At a hearing Friday before the health subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, hospital officials and other experts testified that the worsening shortages are preventing them from giving many patients the best care and are driving up costs. “Considering the nation’s budget crisis and our skyrocketing health care bill, these markups are nothing more than profiteering at the expense of patients and providers who are struggling to afford vital medicines,” said Mike Alkire, chief operating officer of Premier Healthcare Alliance, a group that helps U.S. hospitals and other health providers improve their patient care and finances. The shortages could cost hospitals at least $415 million a year, he said, citing data from health care providers across the nation. So far, hospitals have been absorbing the extra costs, but they’ll soon have to start passing them on to insurers and patients, according to the American Hospital Association. The scarcity of mainstay cancer drugs is not only hurting patients but is halting or disrupting clinical studies of potential new treatments, said Dr. Robert S. DiPaola, director of the Cancer Institute of New Jersey. “The drug shortages of today can have a ripple effect on the availability of new drugs and treatment combinations tomorrow,” he told the committee. On Monday, the Food and Drug Administration is holding a meeting with medical and consumer groups, researchers and industry representatives to discuss the shortages and strategies to fight them. The FDA says the primary cause of the shortages is production shutdowns because of manufacturing problems, such as contamination and metal particles that get into medicine. Other reasons include theft of prescription drugs from warehouses or during shipment, as well as the “gray market” vendors who buy scarce drugs from small regional wholesalers, pharmacies or other sources and then sell them to hospitals at many times the normal price. These sellers may not be licensed, authorized distributors. In addition, many companies have stopped making generic injected drugs because the profit margins are slim. Producing them is far more expensive than stamping out pills, and it takes about three weeks to produce a batch. Making things worse, companies don’t have to notify customers or the FDA that they’ve stopped making a medicine. That means neither FDA nor competitors can fill the gap in time. Only a half-dozen companies make the vast majority of injected generics. Even if other companies wanted to begin making a drug in short supply, they’re discouraged by the lengthy, expensive process of setting up new manufacturing lines and getting FDA approval. Hospitals that buy scarce medicines from the “gray market” are taking a gamble. The drugs may be stolen and hospitals can’t always tell whether a medicine was properly refrigerated – as required for many injectable drugs – or whether it’s past the expiration date, said Michael R. Cohen, a pharmacist and president of the institute. The active ingredient might have degraded and the drug might not work well or could even harm the patient, he said. Cohen attributes at least 15 recent deaths to drug shortages, either because the right drug wasn’t available or because of dosing errors or other problems in administering or preparing alternative medications. But many deaths and injuries go unreported, he said. In the worst known case, Alabama’s public health department this spring reported nine deaths and 10 patients harmed due to bacterial contamination of a hand-mixed batch of liquid nutrition given via feeding tubes because the sterile pre-mixed liquid wasn’t available. So far this year, 210 drugs have been added to the list of those in short supply, one less than the total for all of last year, according to the University of Utah Drug Information Service, which tracks the shortages. That’s triple the roughly 70 a year from 2003 to 2006, when shortages began to climb steadily. “The shortages aren’t resolving. They’re piling up on top of existing ones,” said Erin Fox, a pharmacist who manages the service. She said at least 55 drugs from shortages before this year are still unavailable or scarce. The average price markup on drugs sold by secondary distributors was 650 percent, according to an Aug. 16 report by the Premier Healthcare Alliance. The figure is based on an analysis of 636 unsolicited sales offers that were faxed and emailed to hospitals from secondary distributors in April and May. Virtually every offer was for at least double the normal price, the survey found. The drugs with the highest markups were for critically ill patients needing anesthesia or other medicines for surgery or for emergency care, cancer, infectious diseases and pain management. In an extreme case, one vendor was offering a generic beta blocker for dangerously high blood pressure, normally priced at $25.90 per dose, for $1,200. The FDA says it must uphold quality standards but also works hard to prevent shortages. “When FDA detects a contaminant, whether it be shards of glass or metal particles or an infectious agent, we have to take action to protect the public,” said Dr. Peter Lurie, a senior adviser in the FDA commissioner’s office. When such problems force a company to shut down production, the FDA urges other manufacturers to boost their output and expedites any approvals needed, said Valerie Jensen, associate director of the agency’s drug shortage program. When raw materials used to make drugs are in short supply, the FDA tries to find new sources. The agency averted 38 shortages last year, Jensen added. Another 99 have been prevented so far this year, Howard K. Koh, assistant secretary for health in the Department of Health and Human Services, told the committee. Legislation pending in the House and Senate would increase penalties for drug thefts from warehouses and tractor-trailers. Another proposal, which has bipartisan support, would require drug manufacturers anticipating a shortage to immediately notify the FDA. The pitches hospitals get from secondary distributors generally say they have small batches of specific drugs that are hard or impossible to find. “Are you enjoying this crazy `roller coaster ride’ of pharmaceutical shortages? … I utilize over 60 vendors to locate and procure needed pharmaceuticals to assist when you have shortage needs,” one reads. Several distributors who sent hospitals solicitations for scarce drugs didn’t return calls from the AP. One representative said he wasn’t authorized to discuss the issue. Another company, Novis Pharmaceuticals, defended the higher prices, saying secondary distributors have to charge far more because they don’t get the big rebates manufacturers give primary distributors. They also have high costs to locate and transport batches of scarce drugs, although the company, which mainly distributes blood plasma, would not disclose its profit margin. It’s illegal for companies to collude to create a medicine shortage and raise prices, and there’s no evidence of that. There’s no federal law against price-gouging on prescription drugs, according to the FDA, but it does urge pharmacists to report cases to its Office of Criminal Investigation. An agency spokeswoman said she could not discuss whether any cases are being investigated. The top three wholesalers say they try to alleviate problems by working with drug manufacturers, updating hospitals on shortages and rationing scarce supplies by giving their regular hospital customers a portion of their normal order. McKesson Corp. and Cardinal Health Inc. say they halt sales to any smaller distributors found to be diverting drugs or otherwise breaking rules. AmerisourceBergen Corp. does background checks on customers. The hospital association and other groups urge hospitals not to buy from unaccredited vendors, to insist on documentation of the drug’s source if they must, and to report price gouging to state authorities. But only three states – Kentucky, Maine and Texas – have price-gouging laws that specifically cover medicines. “Something has to be done here,” said pharmacist Michael O’Neal, head of drug procurement for Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, which has had to purchase medicines from secondary suppliers about 70 times over the past two years. “This is unethical,” he said. “We’re talking about people’s lives.” ___

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Boss Reportedly Told Grieving Mother To Pretend Deceased Daughter ‘Did Not Exist"

September 9, 2011

Almost two years after her daughter Tatiana’s death, Cecelia Ingraham was reportedly forced by her boss to remove photos of her daughter from her cubicle, as well as Tatiana’s ballet slippers, Courthouse News Service reported. Ingraham sued her workplace, Ortho-McNeil, Johnson & Johnson and DeStefanis for discrimination, constructive discharge and intentional infliction of emotional stress. The publication went on to describe the incident in question: “He [Ingraham's boss] allegedly told her that several of her co-workers had complained about her tendency to talk about her daughter’s death, which made them uncomfortable. And he said she could “no longer speak of her daughter because she is dead” and should act as if her daughter ‘did not exist,’ the ruling states.” ABC news had more on Ingraham’s reaction : “I was still in shock. Nothing was coming out of my mouth at the time because I was still in shock and I was in disbelief,” Ingraham testified. “And I said to him, I cannot believe that. I says, I don’t see anybody avoiding me. They always come over, they give me my work.” Afterward, Ingraham left work and didn’t come back, according to ABC. A few days later she had to have heart surgery for sudden heart palpitations. Soon after her recovery, Ingraham resigned from the job and entered the lawsuit. The New Jersey courthouse ruled against Ingraham, however, saying that the defendant did not intentionally inflict emotional stress on the mother. The reason? According to the presiding judge, Judge Victor Ashrafi, the workplace is too complex to concretely narrow down motives. “The workplace has too many personal conflicts and too much behavior that might be perceived as uncivil for the courts to be used as the umpire for all but the most extreme workplace disputes.” According to The Daily Mail , Tatiana was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia in 2003, but fought it into remission. Sadly, two years later the cancer returned, and she eventually died in May of that year. Court documents: Appellate Opinion

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Low Home Prices Mean It’s Cheaper To Buy Than To Rent In Many Cities

August 16, 2011

As the national real estate slump deepens, home prices in many cities have crossed a worrisome milestone. It’s cheaper to buy a home than to rent one in 74 percent of the country’s largest 50 cities, according to the real estate site Trulia — findings that confirm the national epidemic of depressed housing prices remains in full swing. Trulia’s research, which compared the median list price and median rent for two-bedroom apartments, condos and townhomes in America’s 50 largest cities, found that renting is more expensive than buying in dozens of markets, particularly in Miami and Las Vegas, as well as Mesa, New Mexico, and Arlington, Texas. In a minority of cities, including New York, Seattle, Kansas City and San Francisco, it’s still more expensive to buy than to rent. A spate of recent studies have shown that home prices remain low throughout the U.S. Earlier this month, the real-estate company Zillow reported that average prices were down 6.2 percent from a year before , and aren’t expected to touch bottom until 2012. Data from CoreLogic and Case-Shiller showed similar declines between 2010 and 2011. Low home prices are seen as delaying a recovery in the housing market, and by extension a turnaround in the broader national economy. When home values are low, homeowner wealth sinks accordingly, and many consumers end up spending less money than they might in a more prosperous market. Meanwhile, prospective homebuyers are more likely to delay a purchase if they believe prices will continue to fall. On Tuesday, figures from the Commerce Department showed that construction on new homes fell 1.5 percent in July — not as sharp a decline as economists had expected, but still an indication that the housing sector is far from rehabilitated. A number of forces stand in the way of a housing recovery, including high unemployment, falling wages and a growing inclination among homeowners to save for retirement, rather than try to upgrade to a better house. Last month, Morgan Stanley released data showing that the U.S. home-ownership rate is only 59.7 percent if delinquent borrowers are excluded from the count — an all-time low, and one that may herald a nationwide shift toward becoming a “rentership society” instead of an ownership society, a Morgan Stanley strategist said at the time.

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Judith Barr: Recession Regression? Not Again!

August 8, 2011

Sept. 15, 2008, Ugly Monday, the market fell 500 points. Last week it crashed again. The media says the market’s being driven by fear. It certainly is! Some of the fear is about what’s going to happen tomorrow and the next day. But the fear driving the market isn’t what people imagine, and it preceded current market turmoil, and the 2008 recession, by a long time. Not only that, it’ll be here even after the market chaos has calmed and we’re on seemingly solid financial ground again, nationally and internationally. For many, if not most, that fear exists all the time — perhaps unconsciously. It’s not going away any time soon. It’s not going away by itself. And it’s not going away as a result of things we do on the practical level in the outer world: cutting spending back, selling assets, protecting savings, finding another job, cashing in an IRA, buying lottery tickets. These may seem to help for the moment, but none will make the core fear disappear. In my three-plus decades as a psychotherapist, I’ve repeatedly witnessed that people’s relationships with money, at the root, are based on thoughts, feelings and decisions they made about money as children, and, even more than that, on what money symbolized for the child. I’ve also witnessed people under stress repeatedly regressing to a child’s thoughts, feelings and perceptions, even though they’re unaware of it. It happens in all of us, whether we realize it or not, whether we deny or know it. To summarize: under stress, we regress to children. The roots of our money relationships are those of someone regressed. In a financial crisis, we are profoundly regressed and don’t know it, even if we aren’t completely regressed, don’t act on the regression, or act on the regression blatantly or subtly! Most importantly, whatever we do from the regressed place inside us — conscious or unconscious, blatant or subtle — impacts us enormously, individually and communally. Imagine someone you thought was an adult, maybe even a sophisticated, successful businessman who “had it all together.” Imagine that the market just dropped 500 points, his holdings are deeply affected, and he finds out during an important negotiation that isn’t going his way. Imagine this 6-foot, 200-pound CEO throwing the proposal that’s been made to him into the air, letting the papers fall, picking up his own proposal, crumpling it, shooting it into the trash like a basketball, and storming out, slamming the door behind him! What you might see is an adult acting in a most inappropriate way. (Or you might even want to do the same thing.) What’s really happening is that the mask of grownup is dissolving to reveal a frightened little boy. If you asked him what he’s afraid of, you might hear, “Whaddya think? I’m losing all my money.” What he’s really saying is, “My worst fear’s coming true: I’ll never have enough.” If you asked him why that was his worst fear, you might hear him say, “We never had enough money when I was a kid.” Or, on a deeper level, “We always had more than enough, but I knew it was ’cause my dad was so smart, and I’d never be able to do that.” But what he’s really expressing is what he truly never had enough of, beneath the money. What the money came to symbolize for him. What got transferred onto the money. “What I really never had enough of was Mom’s love.” Or “What I really never had enough of was connection with Dad.” Or “What I never ever had enough of was my family seeing who I really was instead of who they wanted me to be.” As a therapist, I’d explore with him what he revealed to me as deeply as he could go, helping him step-by-step heal his relationship with money, and his mother, father or family (where he might not even know it was wounded), and tease apart his relationship with money from that with his family. This is a brief revelation of the essence of our relationships with money. The crux: Nothing we do with money could be truly sustainable individually or communally without working with the underlying relationship with money. This is complex and deep, but definitely resolvable, healable, transformable. This is the hope! We each have our own version of young relationship with money calling out to be healed in this financial crisis. We each impact our world with our current relationship with money, and have the power to help heal our world by doing our own inner work with money and what it really means to us. Just imagine the effect on you, our nation’s economy, our world! © Judith Barr, 2011

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Obama Adviser Points Fingers At Tea Party

August 7, 2011

WASHINGTON — A top White House adviser is blaming the downgrade of the U.S. credit rating on Tea Party Republicans, whom he says were unwilling to compromise on how to reduce the federal debt. The adviser to President Barack Obama, David Axelrod, tells CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the decision by the Standard & Poor’s credit agency to downgrade the U.S. from AAA to AA+ for the first time was strongly influenced by weeks of standoff between Democrats and Republicans over the debt. Axelrod calls the action, in his words, “a Tea Party downgrade” and says it’s clearly on the backs of lawmakers who were willing to see the country default to get their way. Axelrod also criticized GOP presidential candidates for not speaking up in favor of compromise. The Hill reported on Saturday on growing frustration among progressives over the president’s soft response to the role of the Tea Party in the deficit debate: Republicans and Democrats have unleashed fusillades of attack against each other in the wake of the announcement but Obama has stayed quiet, frustrating his party’s base. Howard Dean, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, didn’t hold back in taking aim at the conservative coalition of activists during an appearance on “Face the Nation” on Sunday morning. “This is a Tea Party problem,” he said on the program. “They are totally unreasonable and doctrinaire and not founded in reality. I think they’ve been smoking some of that tea, not just drinking it.”

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China Suggests Time Is Right For New Global Reserve Currency

August 6, 2011

PRESS ASSOCIATION — China’s state-run news agency says America’s ‘debt-addiction’ is threatening the world economy and that Washington must slash its defence and social welfare spending. The commentary published by China’s official Xinhua News Agency is Beijing’s first official response to the downgrading of US debt. The commentary says that if Washington fails to rein in spending, there would be more “devastating” credit rating cuts to come and global financial turbulence. It demands international supervision over US dollar issues and suggests a new global reserve currency is needed. See also: US suffers first-ever credit rating downgrade.

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G7 To Discuss Central Banks’ Action

August 6, 2011

PRESS ASSOCIATION — Financial officials from the Group of Seven industrialised nations will discuss how to coordinate action between their countries’ central banks, a source says. The move follows several days of market panic and a downgrade of the US credit rating. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the level and timing of the contacts had yet to be confirmed. French Finance Minister Francois Baroin, whose country currently holds the G7 presidency, said he had been in close contact with his G7 counterparts “throughout the previous days and also this very morning”. “We’ll be carefully watching the evolution of what might happen on Monday,” Mr Baroin told France’s RTL radio, without providing details on the contacts. The G7 members are Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US. Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the US credit rating yesterday added to growing fears over debt levels and economic growth in the world’s biggest economy and in large European nations, like Italy and Spain. The European Central Bank has so far been reluctant to intervene in the large Italian and Spanish debt markets in an attempt to stabilise plummeting bond prices, as it has previously done for Greece, Ireland and Portugal, the three eurozone countries that have already been bailed out. But Luc Coene, the head of Belgian’s central bank and a member of the ECB’s decision-making board, said yesterday that the ECB may be prepared to help Italy and Spain once the two countries have taken more concrete steps to get their public finances under control. Many investors have also been calling on the US Federal Reserve to start pumping money into the US economy again, as it has done through two large-scale bond buying programmes since the 2007 financial crisis, to help underpin the nation’s slowing economic recovery. Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi and EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn yesterday called for coordination between G7 countries. The downgrade of the US credit rating is also bad for Europe, whose economy is closely linked to the US and whose weak members depend on a healthy global economy.

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How Casual Is Too Casual During the Summer?

August 5, 2011

From Inc.: About three-quarters (74 percent) of employees think it’s acceptable for both men and women to dress “more casually” during the summer, according to a recent report. What does “more casually” mean? It depends on who you’re asking. (Hint: Perhaps not surprisingly, men are in favor of women wearing less.)

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American Children Receiving Less Money From Tooth Fairy: Report

July 28, 2011

It looks like American businesses aren’t the only ones hoarding cash these days. According to a survey recently released by Visa , so is the fabled Tooth Fairy. Last year, children who left teeth under their pillow received an average of $3 per tooth, according to the report. This year, in comparison, that amount plunged to $2.60. The total number of kids getting swindled by the winged home invader has also drastically increased. This year, 5 in 50 received no compensation for their missing teeth. Compare that to last year, when only 2 in 50 were passed over. The Tooth Fairy also seems to handing out varying amounts according to region. The further west one goes, the higher the rate of return kids are receiving for their dentures, with Northeast kids getting, on average, $2.10 a tooth, while their West and Midwestern counterparts are receiving $2.80. Melissa Hourigan of Denver didn’t know what to do for her 9-year-old when the Tooth Fairy failed to show, the Denver Post reports . Instead, she and her husband purchased a target card for their daughter “because we felt bad and wanted to do something,” Hourigan said. The below video shows how some parents justify ripping off their kids:

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Walton Family Foundation Gifts Teach for America $49.5 Million

July 27, 2011

NEW YORK — The Walton Family Foundation announced a $49.5 million grant Wednesday to help double the size of Teach for America’s national teaching corps over the next three years. Teach for America is a program for recent college graduates who sign up to teach in some of the nation’s most under-served schools for a period of two years. The Walton Foundation’s gift marks the single largest private donation to Teach for America in the organization’s more than 20-year history. Later this fall, the organization will send 9,300 corps members to 43 regions across the country. Over the next few years, half of the Walton Family Foundation grant will go towards growing that teaching corps to 15,000 by 2015. “With this critical investment, Teach for America will be able to develop more of our talented recent college graduates and professionals to become longterm champions of educational equity and excellence,” said Wendy Kopp, Teach for America’s founder and CEO, in a statement. “The support and partnership is a vital part of Teach for America’s effort to expand our network of corps members and alumni, who are dedicated to improving educational outcomes for children in our urban and rural communities.” In the world of education philanthropy, the donation solidifies Teach for America’s standing as the recipient of the most grant money directed towards the improvement of teaching and learning, according to a report released earlier this month by a team of researchers from the University of Georgia and Kronley & Associates focused on foundation giving to education. Between 2000 and 2008, researchers concluded that philanthropies donated $684 million specifically towards the improvement of teaching and learning. Of this money, 60 percent went towards 10 organizations. According to their analysis, Teach for America received the most, with more than $213 million in grant money. The report also concluded that 10 foundations accounted for exactly half of all grants given. In the world of education philanthropy, three foundations topped the list: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and the Broad Foundation. The Walton Family Foundation, which is overseen by Walmart founder Sam Walton’s three children, focuses the bulk of its giving on the issue of education reform. But it also funds conservative groups such as the Cato Foundation, Americans for Tax Reform and the American Enterprise Institute. In 2008, the foundation distributed more than $168 million in grants . Last year, it gave away $157 million. Since 1993, the foundation has donated more than $22 million to Teach for America. Besides helping to expand the organization’s operations, the other half of the new $49.5 million grant will go towards training and support for corps members in seven communities the foundation states are among its priority areas: Denver, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Newark, New Orleans, Washington, D.C. and the Delta region of Mississippi, where the Bentonville, Arkansas-based foundation is headquartered. Dorian Warren, a professor of political science at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and author of a forthcoming book about Walmart, believes the seven communities the Walton Family Foundation is targeting with Teach for America are relevant for another reason: they are all potentially overlap with Walmart’s expansion plans. “Besides six of the seven communities being comprised primarily of people of color, I wouldn’t be surprised if these also happen to be their store expansion targets,” Warren told The Huffington Post. “A lot of their giving is related to their expansion efforts, but I don’t know for certain whether this is one of those instances.” Jim Blew, who leads the Walton Family Foundation’s K-12 education reform efforts, was unavailable to comment. Some wonder whether the Teach for America gift signals an ideological shift in the priorities of the Walton Family Foundation. Jeffrey Henig, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College, sees a pattern of giving by the Walton Family Foundation. Its philanthropy, he says, while initially focused on hard-core conservative issues like vouchers and privatization has since expanded to include initiatives like charter schools. “While groups like Teach for America have done a good job of blurring partisan boundaries, I can’t help but think of this alliance as a pairing of strange bedfellows,” said Henig. “I keep waiting for what I expect are some serious disagreements on core principles to flare up and bring the implicit tension finally out into the open. But so far, it really hasn’t happened yet.” For Diane Ravitch, a New York University education historian and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education, the pairing raises more than a few alarm bells. “The Walton Family Foundation is the most conservative-leaning in the education philanthropy business,” she said. “Their giving is almost entirely to charters and vouchers. So now you have charters and vouchers and Teach for America — or the mainstreaming of their right-wing agenda.” But Rob Reich, a professor of political science at Stanford University, is less convinced that Teach for America is being influenced by Walton’s conservative-leaning stance. Rather, Reich wonders whether the size of the foundation’s donation marks a shift in its own giving trajectory — away from the promotion of vouchers and charters to instead devoting a large chunk of its resources toward developing a pipeline of highly effective teachers. “I see the size of their Teach for America donation as a clear departure from their typical grant-making pattern,” said Reich, who also co-directs Stanford’s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. “One way of thinking about the grant is that it’s a tacit admission that school choice as the lever for fundamentally changing education is politically fraught and they’re instead choosing to diversify their portfolio.” Sarah Reckhow, an assistant professor of political science at Michigan State University and a 2002 Teach for America corps member, noted that “of the top education funders, the Walton Family Foundation falls the farthest to the right.” But for Reckhow, the grant shows how well-legitimized an organization Teach for America has become, particularly among a certain sector of policymakers and education reformers. “Giving to Teach for America is now about as mainstream a thing as you can do,” she said.

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Ron Paul Challenges Both Parties On Key Issue

July 18, 2011

On Saturday, we sat down with U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) at the Village Bean Coffee Shop in Windham to discuss his run for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

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Earl Ofari Hutchinson: Obama Has No Choice but to Tap the Fat Cats

July 18, 2011

The news reports that President Obama was courting large campaign donors stirred complaints that this will put him even deeper into political hock to fat cat donors and the corporate rich if re-elected. This was the oft-heard knock against Obama in 2008. A study by the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute did confirm that a sizable number of large donors oiled Obama’s campaign. The big bucks Obama got from America’s leading top cap political financiers supposedly was smoking gun proof that he had broke his promise that his campaign would be a populist financed campaign based on the nickels and dimes of tens of thousands of individual contributors. The inference was that Obama would be a hopeless captive of Wall Street and corporate interests. This ignored too much then about what it takes to win the White House and it ignores it even more now. Obama, nor any other presidential candidate, could be competitive in a hard-fought general election fight without the tens of millions that lobbyists, PACs, corporations, Wall Street, and labor unions shove into a presidential candidate’s campaign coffers. With two exceptions, the best financially well-heeled candidate has won every presidential primary campaign since 1980. The 2008 presidential primary and general election was no exception. Hillary Clinton was the near consensus early odds-on favorite to bag the Democratic nomination. Her failure had nothing to do with campaign bumbles, policy stumbles, or voter rejection. She simply ran out of money to be competitive with Obama in the smaller state primaries. That enabled Obama to rack up what ultimately proved to be an insurmountable delegate lead. It was the same in the general election. Obama had a bulging campaign chest. Republican presidential foe John McCain didn’t. It was the financial head of stem that Obama had built up coming out of the primary battle with Clinton that made the difference for Obama in being able to saturate the airwaves with his campaign pledges and assaults on McCain. None of this comes cheap. In 2004, Bush and Democratic presidential contender John Kerry shelled out more than one quarter of a billion dollars on assorted media and advertising expenses alone. The figure spent on media was higher for Obama and McCain. There is no other way to reach and try to sell millions on the candidate’s message. The fault for the outrageous cost of a presidential campaign is certainly not with Obama. It just points up the bitter reality that politics is a hard, dirty, cash-soaked game, and those with the most cash will always have the edge. But Obama even while bound to play within the tightly constricted rules of the big money presidential financial money game, has taken two major steps that at least could point the way for shaving some of the hard edge off of the built-in advantage the rich have in determining elections. He has not taken money directly from corporate lobbyists and maintained that he would aggressively seek contributions from small donors. In 2008, more than 60 percent of his final take came from donors that gave less than $1,000. Obama took much heat for opting out of the public financing system. This again was supposedly more evidence that Obama had betrayed his pledge to be the little guy’s candidate and was a naked grab for big dollars from the wealthy. That was not the reason. Obama faced two behemoth obstacles that McCain didn’t. He had fought a bruising and costly Democratic primary fight with Clinton that drained millions from his campaign coffers. Given the past history of presidential campaigns the expectation was that McCain would be able to raise untold millions through independent expenditure committees. In the past that was the bread and butter for GOP candidates. These committees and donors are not bound by the strict reporting rules of the Federal Elections Commission. They’ve bankrolled GOP candidates with unlimited funds through this backdoor channel. This didn’t happen with McCain in part because he agreed to accept public financing and that sent a strong signal that his campaign would play it close to the vest in terms of where the dollars came from and how they were spent. Then there was the financial meltdown in the crucial two months before the November vote. McCain looked to many rich donors like a certain loser. It would have been money down the drain. The 2012 campaign will not be a rerun of 2008. The presumptive GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney is every bit the cash cow that Obama is. He will also have an advantage that McCain didn’t. That’s the Supreme Court’s decision that allows corporations to give directly to campaigns. The early signs are that corporations will again give big to the GOP. Romney will turn the tables and hammer Obama on his alleged financial and economic failures. He will ask the question Reagan asked Carter during their 1980 presidential debate “are you better off than you were four years ago.” The question worked again when Obama asked it about the GOP in 2008. History shows a president’s fate hinges on how voters answer that question. That costs money, and lots of it, to convince millions to answer yes. It’s money that Obama has no choice but to raise. Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst and Monday co-host of the Al Sharpton Show. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson.

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Alan B. Krueger: Doubt and Confidence on Hitting the Debt Ceiling

July 17, 2011

Alan Krueger, who served as Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy and Chief Economist of the U.S. Department of the Treasury 2009-2010, was interviewed by Yu Chen for this post on the debt limit. Yu Chen (YC): Do you think the debt ceiling will get raised? Alan Krueger (AK): There are some things like raising the debt ceiling that simply have to be done. For instance, the only thing that prompted the administration to put health care reform briefly on hold was working with Congress to raise the debt ceiling at the end of 2009 and beginning of 2010. This was one thing that I had the opportunity to work on that didn’t get much attention at the time — or since. I remember Secretary Timothy Geithner said at one point, “The American people don’t realize that one of our significant achievements was raising the debt ceiling without incident.” We are approaching the debt ceiling again. The debt ceiling is a funny animal. Congress tells Treasury to spend money on various programs, and it authorizes the collection of a certain amount of tax revenue, expecting Treasury to borrow to make up for any shortfall of revenues over spending. Yet, it also sets a limit on how much debt the government can accumulate. The Treasury isn’t borrowing money because it wants to; it is borrowing because Congress chose to spend more money than it chose to collect. If Congress wants to limit the debt, it should vote to cut spending and/or raise revenues — and it can do that independently of voting to raise the debt ceiling. So, in my view, the debt ceiling is an unnecessary constraint that can cause severe damage to the financial reputation of the United States and health of the world economy if it is not raised in an orderly way that is congruent with past spending and taxing decisions. I’m 90% confident that, despite all the attendant drama, the debt ceiling will go up without incident. And I suspect the debt ceiling might go up in steps rather than all at once, as it did last time. But I do think that Congress will do the right thing – the absolutely necessary thing — and avoid a fiscal meltdown by raising the debt ceiling. Of course, there may be some strings attached. Some Congressmen have said things like, “We don’t believe that August is the real deadline. The Treasury Department will have some opportunity to juggle the books and move things around.” YC: But the Treasury doesn’t play games with the debt ceiling. If it came to it — and I very much hope this is never tested — I think Treasury will pull out all stops to avoid defaulting on the debt. It could, for example, repo or sell the government’s gold supply or other assets to raise money to service the debt for a time. However, you reach a point where you’re legally required to default on some obligation, whether it’s an obligation to pay interest on Treasury bills, to pay the military or to pay social security benefits. If the debt ceiling is not raised, Treasury will soon need to default on some obligation and radically reduce spending. Given the amount of borrowing the government is doing, failing to raise the debt ceiling would require a widespread reduction in spending, and if we reach that point, I think it’s going to cause severe trauma for the economy — not just now, but for years to come. I think a default on our obligations would raise our borrowing costs and saddle the next generation with even more debt and a heavier burden as a result. YC: How did you play a role? AK: The Treasury Secretary is required to notify Congress 90 days in advance of when he expects to hit the debt ceiling. They used to always send up a letter that said, “We’re going to hit it on such and such day, plus or minus one week.” I asked, “Where did the plus or minus one week come from?” Treasury has an office that makes projections of how much the government will need to borrow in the future, called the Office of Debt Projections, which is staffed by career employees. They do the same thing for every administration — they project how much money the government is expected to borrow each day for months into the future. We’re a lot less certain about how much we will need to borrow now than we were three or four years ago, because the deficit has increased so much. Our borrowing needs are determined by many factors that are harder and harder to forecast: interest rates vary, tax revenues vary and spending rates vary from day to day. All of these factors affect borrowing needs. When a specific date for hitting the debt ceiling was reported at one of our meetings with an air of certainty in the fall of 2009, Tim Geithner asked, “How do you know for sure? Can’t you calculate some type of a range? What’s that thing you guys call it; you know, that interval?” I realized he was referring to a confidence interval. I’m not sure anyone else in the Department besides me remembered what a confidence interval was. This is something that I have taught in statistics classes, so I was pleased to put on my professorial hat. I explained what a confidence interval was and gave an example — a range calculated in such a way that 95% of the time it would contain the true date we were going to hit the debt ceiling. I took it upon myself, with my staff, to try to calculate some measure of uncertainty for when we were going to hit the debt ceiling. I’m really proud of my staff, because it wasn’t so easy to do. When we got the historical projections — the historical data on what actually happened and past projections of borrowing needs — we looked at how much error there was and how big the mistakes were to get some idea of the uncertainty that would accompany projections going forward. This calculation was difficult because spending and tax revenue tend to be very lumpy from day to day; some days a lot of money comes in and some days a lot of money goes out. Now, when the Secretary warns Congress about the debt ceiling, he includes a 99% confidence interval, and when we talked to Congress about this issue, we would bring a chart showing a range of uncertainty around the government’s projected borrowing needs. I think this is extremely helpful. Indeed, I once remarked that I was responsible for bringing the Treasury Department into the 20th century when it comes to statistics… I was also relieved that our confidence interval contained the true date that we would have hit the debt ceiling had Congress not raised the debt limit. A shrewd Congressman once called the Department and said, “We’re going to raise the debt ceiling in steps. We haven’t gotten it all worked out, but we’re going to give you enough money to get by for X weeks, and it’d be very convenient if we could hit the next ceiling just before the next recess.” (Congress often uses an upcoming recess to force it to act.) He then asked, “How much money do we need to make it to such and such holiday?” When the question reached me, my response was that, I can tell you the date plus or minus two weeks; I can’t tell you a specific time. It’s kind of folly to think that you can predict with that much certainty. Sometimes an understanding of statistics doesn’t intersect well with the way politicians think about issues, but I think confidence intervals are a useful addition for managing the nation’s borrowing needs. YC: Does the Treasury have any wiggle room once the debt ceiling is reached? AK: There is some wiggle room, but that is mostly taken into account in the forecasts. Treasury calls it “extraordinary measures” — things like withdrawing money that the Treasury has deposited at the Federal Reserve or delaying deposits to federal workers’ retirement accounts. The problem with taking the extraordinary measures is that more and more, they put the government at risk (e.g., the money deposited at the Fed gives the Fed some room to maneuver), or diminish the effectiveness of government programs. I already mentioned that there may be some new extraordinary measures that go beyond the previous canon that are not included in the forecast, such as repoing or selling assets, that can make it possible to pay for our bills a little while longer. Eventually, the government runs out of extraordinary measures. Unless there are some tricks that I’m not aware of, if the debt ceiling is not raised by August 2nd, the government will soon need to make some painful decisions that would likely irreversibly harm the country’s fiscal reputation and ability to borrow cheaply in capital markets, and that could throw the world economy back into a deep recession or a second Great Depression.

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Minnesota Government Shutdown Deal Pushes Budget Problems Down The Road

July 15, 2011

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota’s leaders made a deal that will probably end the nation’s longest state government shutdown in a decade, but they didn’t really solve their budget problem. Instead, they just shuffled it down the road to be faced another day. An agreement between Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton and GOP leaders will delay schools promised aid and convert future tobacco settlement money into cash now. If lawmakers sign off on the deal in the next few days, it would end a two-week shutdown that spread pain to all corners of the state. Thursday’s deal came after Dayton abandoned his long push for tax increases, a painful move he said he made after hearing in recent days from residents around the state who just wanted an end to the shutdown. Yet the deal – although Dayton got about $1.4 billion in new revenue that many Republicans will find hard to swallow – brought more criticism than relief. “There’s still going to be a deficit coming out of this that has to be resolved,” said Charlie Kyte, who heads a group of school administrators who have endured years of delayed aid payments. Democratic Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk called the deal “a borrow-and-spend proposal that does nothing to solve the long-term financial challenges.” In some ways, Minnesota is a microcosm of the budget standoff in Washington. Federal leaders are struggling to attack deep-rooted budget problems and may resort to short-term fixes as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling. The latest Minnesota plan follows the same formula that had the state gripped by deficit after deficit for much of the last decade. When Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty was in charge, the state dug into a billion-dollar tobacco endowment, tapped into federal stimulus money and emptied reserves to paper over budget problems. Deficits disappeared but quickly returned. It’s a fallback position stemming from intractable political divides: Democrats for years have pushed tax increases Republicans wouldn’t allow, and Republicans sought deep spending cuts that Democrats couldn’t stomach. Facing a $5 billion deficit this year, Dayton sought to raise income taxes on the highest earners to soften reductions in planning spending. Republicans were bent on holding spending to $34 billion, the amount already projected to come into the state treasury over the next two years. On Thursday, Dayton surrendered on raising taxes, while Republicans gave in on spending more money. Dayton said the state government would be back in business “very soon,” but he didn’t say exactly when. Disappointment came from some on the left who hoped Dayton’s push for top-tier income taxes would prevail, bringing the state permanent new revenue to protect funding for social programs. The Rev. Grant Stevensen heads a coalition of Twin Cities congregations that demonstrated earlier in the week at the Capitol, urging lawmakers to raise taxes. “We don’t live in a poor state, and there’s no real budget crisis, but there is a moral crisis,” Stevensen said. “We don’t seem to be thinking of each other as we put this budget together as people who are creating one great state together.” Some on the right weren’t happy, either. “Certainly we’re not doing any end zone dances,” said Rep. Mike Benson, a freshman Republican from Rochester. “Realistically there are some things that are going to go down hard. Sounds to me we’re kicking the can down the road a little bit with the education shift, but we’re not raising taxes.” Another first-term Republican, Rep. Ernie Leidiger of Mayer, said he hasn’t decided whether the deal will get his vote. “We should have spent less. It’s a problem all over the country, and it’s certainly a problem here in Minnesota, and we must continue to work on it,” he said. Tom Horner, who ran third in last year’s governor’s race as a third-party candidate, warned that the solution wouldn’t last. “We’ve tried short-term fixes and they aren’t working,” Horner said in a statement. “They’ll put us right back where we started two years from now, but with fewer options on the table.” The shutdown put Minnesota, a state once regarded as a model of good governance, in the national spotlight. The state laid off 22,000 workers, halted road construction projects, closed state parks and rest stops, made it impossible to get fishing licenses and cut off funding for many social services. It put lives in limbo, as nurses, cosmetologists, drivers and businesses couldn’t get licenses they needed to launch careers or expand. In recent days, it even threatened to cut off the flow of some beer because of licensing snags. In return for dropping his tax increase demand, Dayton won some conditions. Republicans agreed to drop a list of several policy changes such as banning state aid for stem cell research. They also agreed to back off a plan to cut the state workforce by 15 percent. Republicans conceded to higher state spending than they had wanted. The GOP spent months insisting that the two-year budget be capped at $34 billion, the amount the state was projected to collect without new sources of money. Instead, it will be closer to $35.4 billion. Yet many of the deal’s details remained murky, including exactly what will be cut from planned spending. The somber looks worn by Dayton, House Speaker Kurt Zellers and Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch as they announced the deal testified to a hard bargain. “It was about making sure that we get a deal that we can all be disappointed in, but a deal that is done, a budget that was balanced, a state that was back to work,” Zellers said. ___ Associated Press writers Brian Bakst and Jeff Baenen contributed to this report.

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USAID Chief: Climate Change, Food Prices Spur East Africa Famine

July 13, 2011

The long-suffering nations in the Horn of East Africa are enduring the worst drought conditions in more than half a century, and are at risk of “massive famine,” Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), told The Huffington Post Wednesday. The top American aid official said in an interview that the food crisis in countries like Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia is putting millions of lives at risk, and threatens to further destabilize a troubled region of the world. “It’s very severe,” Shah said. “We know from the data that we’ve been collecting that this is the worst drought in 60 years and it’s going to have severe consequences. Eleven and a half million people are at real risk of malnutrition and famine already.” In its most recent update on the crisis , USAID declared the food and water shortage in East Africa “the most severe food security emergency in the world today.” “The current humanitarian response is inadequate to prevent further deterioration,” the report warned. Aid workers in East Africa have spent months gearing up for the looming crisis, thanks in part to an early-warning system operated by USAID that first predicted a round of devastating crop failures and food shortages late last year. But the high number of malnourished children and families so early in the dry season has nonetheless taken them by surprise, and the growing figures suggest the scope of a problem that is only beginning to emerge. “It’s going to get worse because the next rains aren’t until October, and we’re already seeing people completely reliant on relief,” says Anna Ridout, a Nairobi, Kenya-based spokeswoman for Oxfam. Aid workers say the severity of the famine conditions has been exacerbated by spiking food prices and the increasing regularity of major African droughts over the past decade, which has made local communities less able to cope with new challenges. In the Horn of Africa alone, drought conditions have affected crop levels three of the past four years. “There’s no question that hotter and drier growing conditions in sub-Saharan Africa have reduced the resiliency of these communities,” Shah said. “Absolutely the change in climate has contributed to this problem, without question.” Last week, the UN’s top humanitarian relief official Valerie Amos also pointed to environmental change during a tour of a refugee camp in Somalia. “We have to take the impact of climate change more seriously,” she said. “Everything I’ve heard has said that we used to have drought every ten years, then it became every five years and now it’s every two years.” This year, aid workers say they are seeing new levels of starvation and suffering. On a recent visit to the refugee camps in the Ethiopian town of Dollo Ado, along the Somali border, World Food Program official Judith Schuler said she found the area flooded with refugees seeking food and water. “They are in a desperate state,” Schuler said. “I was there there a bit more than a year ago in the same refugee camp, and back then everybody that arrived told me that they came because of violence and conflict. This is not the case anymore. It’s regular people who are coming because they have nothing left to eat.” Some 2,000 hungry refugees arrive at Dollo Ado from Somalia every day, according to the UN , and two of the camps there are already at twice their maximum capacity. The vast majority of those arriving at Dollo Ado are children, and Schuler says many of them die at the camp despite finally receiving aid. “They’ve had nothing to eat during their journey, which often last several days or a week,” she said. “The only time they get food is if they can beg for it from villagers along the way. There are people here dying every day.” Save the Children has reported that malnutrition rates among children in Kenya and Somalia have reached 30 percent in some areas — well above the official rate to classify a famine. So far this year, USAID has facilitated the distribution of more than $350 million in aid to the Horn of Africa, but Shah says that emergency response efforts are not sufficient to curb a growing — and seemingly chronic — problem in the region. “To me, the reason this is so glaring is it simply doesn’t have to be this way,” Shah told HuffPost. “We know how to help countries and work in partnership with countries to build real modern agricultural systems. We know that every few years the lack of rainfall creates a huge depletion of assets that causes kids to be pulled out of schools to work on the farm. And we know that this cycle of agrarian fall-off results in chronic malnutrition for kids, and holds these countries back.” “This is happening precisely in a part of the world that our Defense Secretary Leon Panetta just said is a critical part of our fight against terrorism and our overall international security,” he added. “It just underscores the deep link between food security and national security.” Shah continued, “It’s so important to be promoting security and stability in these parts of the world, as opposed to be dealing with these devastating and difficult consequences of failure.”

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Struggling Americans Avoiding All But Essential Items At Dollar Stores

July 12, 2011

Some Americans have become concerned enough about their finances that even a spending spree at the local dollar store now seems excessive. Following the the economy’s dive into the recession, dollar stores like Family Dollar, Dollar Tree and Dollar General saw significant increases in sales and profits. But that successful run might be over, as all three companies failed to meet quarterly earnings targets, according to the Wall Street Journal . The weak numbers are only the latest example of American consumers tightening their belts. Due to a variety of factors including high gas prices and stagnant wages, Americans are coming to rely on dollar stores more for essential items, like food and cleaning products, than discretionary items like apparel and home decorations, which have higher profit margins and account for much of dollar stores profits, according to the WSJ . Dollar Tree CEO Bob Strasser recently told the Associated Press that expanding store inventory was a conscious decision that has contributed to recent successes. But while dollar stores suffer from the belt tightening, other businesses benefit from the debt that so often accompanies hard times. Look no further than pawn shops , which have seen rising profits and stock prices. Profits for the pawn shop operator Ezcorp Inc. for example, have increased 46 percent annually for five years, while its stock has doubled over the past year. Likewise, payday lenders and debt collectors also are enjoying substantial growth because of the dwindling financial security of Americans. Encore Capital Group, a credit card debt collection agency, has seen its profits rise by almost 50 percent over the past year . Rising stock prices of Rent-A-Center, a furniture and electronics rent to own chain, also indicate that consumers simply can’t afford to make big purchases at the moment, and instead are electing to rent. Indeed, with the future uncertain, a recent poll by Harris Interactive confirms that many Americans are looking for any means by which to save a couple bucks. Electing to buy generic brands, often found at dollar stores, over name-brand products has become the most popular means of saving. Of those polled, 57 percent said they had lately been buying more generic brands to get as much value as possible. The consumer patterns fall in line with a general shift in perspective, according to Mark Montagna, an analyst at Avondale Partners, who himself is one of the increasing number of high earners to shop at dollar stores. “People are broke,” he told Associated Press . “They’re all chasing value. It’s a seismic shift in mindset.”

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Wendell Potter: One Big Reason Why Small Biz Job Growth Has Slowed to a Crawl

July 11, 2011

Want to be an entrepreneur but also be certain you’ll have health insurance? Good luck with that. You might seriously consider moving to Denmark or Canada. Those countries have not only achieved universal health care coverage for their citizens–coverage that’s not tied to employment–but they have also moved ahead of the U.S. in the Small Business Administration’s ranking of entrepreneurial performance worldwide. Contrast that with our situation stateside. Many of America’s best and brightest are locked in soul-killing corporate jobs because of this country’s employer-based health care system. A lot of them undoubtedly would love to make a break from their corporate jails and start their own businesses. But they won’t–especially if there’s a family to support–because they fear losing health care benefits and not being able to find decent coverage on their own. When it comes to recruiting the best talent, big corporations have a hefty advantage over small business owners in this country. With hundreds and often thousands of employees, large firms can spread the risk of insuring their workers and offer coverage with richer benefits and lower premiums than small businesses. And most big employers are able to pay a larger portion of their workers’ premiums than small employers. Big companies that offer health care benefits also have historically enjoyed tax advantages that have not been available to small firms. This is one of the reasons the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents the interests of big business in Washington, was so adamantly opposed to the Affordable Care Act, which will begin to at least level the playing field for small firms. The insurance industry has been right there with the Chamber in opposing important parts of the reform law. Last year alone it funneled more than $85 million of policyholders’ premiums to the Chamber to help finance its ongoing campaign against provisions of the law they don’t like — especially the ones that make some of their standard operating business practices illegal. One of the industry’s common practices is “purging,” and it helps explain why fewer and fewer small businesses are able to offer coverage to their employees. Insurers routinely purge small business customers when a worker or dependent gets sick or injured and requires expensive care. The insurer jacks the rates up so high at renewal time that the small business owner often has no choice but to drop coverage for everyone. For other small firms, just the routine increases in premiums and deductibles become too much to bear. That happened to Luke Peterschmidt, an entrepreneur and video game designer in Lebanon, Pa. He reached the point that he simply could not continue paying what his insurer was demanding. He likely would have folded his business, Geek Dynasty, and looked for a corporate gig had his wife not landed a job that offered benefits. Peterschmidt said he bought insurance for his family on his own before his wife got her job. When they found themselves paying about $15,000 a year before their insurance would kick in, they knew one or both of them would have to find a job with a bigger company. Health care costs were taking more of a bite out of the family budget than they could afford. “Almost like clockwork, it seemed, one of us in the family would need a barrage of tests to check for some serious condition,” Peterschmidt said, “only to find out that we were fine each time. The doctors were just being thorough, and nothing seemed excessive, but it was pretty astounding how for four years or so we managed to always have at least one thing happen. “The killer for us, though, was when the ‘annual’ deductible plan only ran for nine months,” Peterschmidt said. “I signed [up for] a plan in January that had an annual deductible, but because the plan only lasted nine months and I started to approach the deductible, when October came around, they raised my deductible without ever telling me. This led to a situation where I should have been getting reimbursed for expenses, but they now fell under a much higher deductible. “It turned into a classic ‘little guy versus insurance company’ fight. They finally admitted that they never told me about the policy change, but they only reprocessed about 20 percent of the bills they should have paid me back for. At some point, I had to give up chasing them as it was cutting into the time that I needed to give to my paying clients.” Everything changed for the better–at least from an insurance point of view–when his wife got a job with benefits. “My wife’s plan is excellent,” Peterschmidt said. “We have some copays, and certain things, like dental and vision, aren’t covered at a high level, but now that I’ve experienced life with personal insurance, I really appreciate having it through an employer.” The drawback for the Peterschmidts–and it’s a big one–is that Luke and his family can’t relocate as they had once planned to do. “We live in Pennsylvania, but my clients are in LA and NYC,” Peterschmidt said. “This is undoubtedly slowing the growth of my business. In addition, because I know how much insurance costs, I can’t imagine ever providing it for my employees. This greatly reduces the pool of available talent. Who would leave a job with health care for one without? Health care really messes with the ability of potential employees to take risks and work for small risky companies. So now, my only potential hires are young people–who thankfully (because of the Affordable Care Act) will be able to get coverage from their parents, people with spouses who provide health care, and very rich people who can take the job out of love or a higher sense of risk tolerance. “It’s a mess,” he said. “Taking away workplace mobility is a huge hindrance on a small company.” The whole country is in an economic mess, and our expensive and inequitable health care system is at least partly to blame. Last week the Department of Labor delivered dismal news about job growth in the U.S. Far fewer jobs were created in June than expected, and the unemployment rate crept up to 9.2 percent. According to the SBA, small firms employ more than half of all private sector workers in the U.S., and they’ve generated 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years. Small businesses, not big corporations, are now this country’s economic job-creating engine. The Affordable Care Act contains a number of provisions that should make it easier and more financially feasible for small businesses to offer coverage to their employees. Among other things, small businesses are now eligible for tax breaks if they offer coverage and subsidize premiums. The exchanges the states must establish under the new law are also designed to help small businesses compete for talent with the big firms. But if the corporate-financed U.S. Chamber of Commerce is successful in blocking the implementation of Affordable Care Act’s provisions that make it easier for small firms to attract talent, the U.S. undoubtedly will continue to fall behind other countries that have more equitable and less expensive health care systems. And job growth will continue at a crawl.

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After 11 Years, Lexus To Lose Top Spot In U.S. Luxury Car Market

July 9, 2011

CHICAGO, July 8 (Rick Popely) – Toyota Motor Corp’s brand Lexus will end its streak of 11 years as the top luxury brand in the U.S. market due to lost sales in the aftermath of the Japan earthquake and tsunami, said Mark Templin, Lexus Division general manager. Templin said Lexus U.S. sales will fall about 17 percent to around 190,000 vehicles in 2011. The United States is the biggest market for Lexus. All Lexus models, except the RX 350 crossover sport utility vehicle, are made in Japan. Templin said the Cambridge, Ontario plant that makes the RX 350 will be back at full capacity in September. Most Japanese plants assembling Lexus models have already returned to full strength. However, the RX 450h hybrid SUV will not be at full production until October. The hybrid is typically 15 percent to 20 percent of RX sales in the U.S. market. Lexus U.S. sales fell 38 percent in June as dealers ran out of key products. At the end of the month, dealers had about half their normal stock. “June was the bottom of the trough, and we’ve turned the corner. We see the rest of the year being much better for us,” Templin said, speaking to reporters at a Lexus media event in Chicago. Lexus sales tumbled 18 percent in the first half of 2011 to 88,010, and German rivals BMW and Daimler AG’s (DAIGn.DE) Mercedes-Benz sprinted by. BMW’s sales rose 13 percent to 113,705, and Mercedes-Benz climbed 7 percent to 110,926. If 2011 full year results end as expected, it would be the first time that BMW has outsold Lexus in the U.S. since 1997. Templin shrugged off the significance of losing the luxury sales crown, and when asked if Lexus could reclaim the top spot in 2012, he said. “Whether we’re No. 1 or not, I don’t care. We’ve never focused on that. We won’t change our plan midyear because someone else is selling more cars than us.” BUICK SYNDROME? Industry analyst Aaron Bragman of IHS Automotive Insight said on Friday the slump at Lexus goes deeper than a shortage of vehicles. He suggested that Lexus could suffer from the same stigma as did General Motors Co’s Buick brand for the past several decades: old people’s car. Bragman said it would be “quite a challenge” for Lexus to reclaim No. 1 in luxury sales in 2012 even with full production because its lineup is not as alluring as it once was and it relies heavily on two models, the RX 350 and ES 350 sedan, a spinoff of the Toyota Camry. The RX so far this year accounts for 45 percent of Lexus U.S. sales and the ES sedan 19 percent. “Like Toyota, they’ve lost their momentum. They have an aging buyer base, and a lot of their dealers are afraid they will become the next Buick. Their new products haven’t resonated with younger buyers.” The median buyer age for Lexus is in the mid-50s, and Templin said he is comfortable with that because it is a result of high loyalty. Sportier models such as the IS sedan and CT hybrid sedan are attracting younger owners, said Templin. (Editing by Bernie Woodall; editing by Carol Bishopric) Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions .

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S&P Raises California Credit Rating To Stable

July 7, 2011

NEW YORK (Edith Honan) – Standard & Poor’s raised its credit outlook on California to stable on Thursday in one of the first significant pieces of good news for state and local governments as they work their way out of the Great Recession. The outlook was revised to stable from negative on what S&P said was the better balance between the money coming and cash being spent on state operations. The S&P action comes on the heels of a $129.5 billion budget agreement for fiscal 2012 that closed a gap projected to reach $26.6 billion through the end of fiscal 2012. “The state’s economy does seem to show some signs of life and I think the deficit that was projected six months ago ended up being a little smaller than most of us anticipated,” said Kenneth Naehu, a managing director at Bel Air Investment Advisors, a California firm that oversees $6 billion in assets. Like California, state and local governments suffered terribly during the financial crisis as tax revenues crashed and unemployment soared. That caused havoc throughout the $2.9 trillion municipal bond market where investors dumped their holdings on growing fears about the stability of municipal finances. S&P said its change for California covers the “two-year outlook horizon. “We believe the enacted budget makes a lot of progress in improving the state’s fiscal structure and should reduce the risk to its liquidity,” S&P said in the release. “The negative outlook had been linked to the possibility of a recurring cash deficiency that we now believe the enactment of the fiscal 2012 budget is likely to mitigate for the most part.” The rating agency also said California’s enacted budget “represents a bit of a missed opportunity” because it did not address the “backlog of budget obligation accumulated during the past decade.” S&P affirmed its A-minus long-term and underlying ratings on California’s general obligation debt, as well as affirmed the A-minus and BBB-plus long-term and underlying ratings on the state’s Proposition 1A and appropriation-backed debt. (Editing by Andrew Hay) Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions .

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Rare Ronald McDonald Costume Reveals Spokes-Clown’s Origins

July 7, 2011

In a more innocent age, Ronald McDonald was the most benign of media icons: a cheerful clown whose floppy red wig and striped clothes presented an image of family fun. But in recent years, another view of the spokes-clown has emerged: To detractors, he’s a heartless corporate shill bent on promoting morbid obesity to young children at the expense of good health. Is it possible that Ronald McDonald is just a victim of his own success? Of doing a job so well that he helped McDonald’s become the largest restaurant chain in the world, with a profound effect on both American society and meat prices? Believe it or not, the search for the origin behind a mysterious Ronald McDonald costume by Elyse Luray of the popular PBS series “History Detectives” turned into an investigation on the clown’s impact on both pop culture and waistlines. Recently, Luray got a request from Randy Liebermann, a collector of McDonald’s memorabilia man in Reston, Va., who wanted to find out whether a very old Ronald McDonald costume he had purchased several years ago was in fact the first one used in a national commercial. The costume was found at a sale for unclaimed storage locker items and came complete, including shoes, makeup and a bright red wig. But it’s unclear where and when the outfit comes from. “Maybe it’s simply just a Halloween costume,” Luray told Liebermann. “The only reason I think maybe not is that the label says Max Weldy and I know for a fact that he was a Parisian costume maker.” The search came at a unique time for the iconic clown. This year marks the 45th anniversary of his national debut. But what should be a happy time for the ad icon who introduced “Happy Meals” is one of controversy. On one hand, some public health advocates think he should be retired, and, on the other, McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner has had to declare that Ronald is still an ambassador for the company, even though he is getting downplayed as the corporation’s marketing focuses less on kids and more on adults. Whether or not Ronald McDonald is at all responsible for America’s obesity epidemic is a matter of debate, but Luray says it’s an indisputable fact that the clown has had a big impact on pop culture. “Ronald McDonald is one of the two most successful advertising icons of all time,” she told AOL Weird News. “McDonald’s changed how we eat and advertise and merchandise.” The hamburger harlequin made his national debut during the 1966 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, but the character originated three years before that in Washington, D.C., according to hamburger historian Andrew F. Smith. “McDonald’s was originally a local San Bernardino outfit with Maurice McDonald and Richard McDonald,” Smith told Luray. “When they expanded to about 10 different outlets, they made a contract with Ray Kroc, who lived in Chicago, to franchise nationally.” By the mid-1960s, the chain was cooking even faster than the burgers, adding about 100 new franchises annually. Although the chain worked on streamlining food preparation, menus and architecture on a national level, the brand didn’t yet boast the synergy in marketing and advertising that it’s famous for today. “That standardization was something that was very important to McDonald’s,” Smith said. “But they didn’t have standards on advertising, so each local franchise was responsible for its own advertising.” Around 1963, a McDonald’s in Washington, D.C., decided to boost business by sponsoring “Bozo’s Circus,” a children’s show featuring future “Today Show” weatherman Willard Scott. It was very successful, increasing sales by 30 percent fairly quickly. As part of the show, Scott created a new character, Ronald McDonald, that looked much different than the famed clown seen today. This Ronald had a food tray for a hat and a paper cup for his nose, but Smith says corporation executives were able to see the possibilities for something even more iconic. “Television in the 1950s and early 1960s really was a much more powerful media than it is today,” he said. “There were very few channels available in most communities, so, if you had a children’s program on, you had literally all the kids in a local community watching it.” Kroc recognized the possibilities of catering to families, especially because of something called “pester power,” which is when kids keep whining about something until parents give it to them. So he decided to promote McDonald’s to kids and families, Smith said. “The initial target were families in the suburbs,” he said. “Ray Kroc would fly over a community, look where the schools were, look where the new churches were being built and that’s where he wanted McDonald’s franchises.” It was a savvy maneuver since there were few food outlets in those suburbs. “Ray Kroc thought, ‘If I get all those children in here, they’ll eat a lot of hamburgers’ … And indeed they did.” The man who gets the honor for creating the Ronald McDonald we know today is Michael Polakovs, a circus performer who performed with Ringling Brothers under the name “Coco the Clown.” With the help of costume designer Max Weldy, Polakovs designed the outfit and makeup still in use today. He appeared in the first eight TV commercials featuring Ronald McDonald — including one that aired during the first Super Bowl in 1967. Polakovs died in 2009, but his widow, Hazel, said her late husband was always proud of the character. “Coco was always proud to be a part of this,” she said. “Anytime he was promoting Ringling and he got the chance he would promote Ronald McDonald together.” Thanks, in part, to Polakovs, Ronald McDonald’s first national campaign was a landmark from a culinary and pop culture standpoint. Not only was it the first national campaign for any fast food operation, it was the first time the industry recognized children as its real target market — and one it’s been catering to ever since. Though the clown has taken flak for marketing to children, Luray, the mother of two kids, 12 and 9, said Ronald McDonald has very little impact on her kids wanting to go to the restaurant. “It’s all about the toys,” she said. “Sometimes, we just go and get the toys and skip the food.” But Smith said that Ronald McDonald is the drop in the water that started an ocean of change. “It starts off with Ronald McDonald and the clown outfit,” he said. “It goes from there into Playlands and then the Happy Meal that comes on in the 1970s and then to tie-ins with movies and toys associated with those tie-ins.” As for the outfit that started Luray on his journey? Turns out that it wasn’t the first one on a national ad, but it does have significance for being one of the first costumes that was manufactured in bulk to send out to franchises around the country. As such, it has historical significance. But while Luray believes Ronald McDonald deserves his pop culture props, she doubts that he will ever have the popular acclaim he once had. “As a character, Ronald is too simple,” she said. “He doesn’t have the emotional impact to kids. He’s not a superhero. He’s just a clown. Plus, the Happy Meal tie-ins are what attracts the kid. He’s competing with, say, Green Lantern and he’s competing against his own food.” WATCH:

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Google+ Will Delete Non-Human Profiles

July 7, 2011

While Google+ is still invite-only, plenty of companies have already gotten onto the site to create business profiles alongside the personal profiles that other users have made. But Google doesn’t want that. According to a post written by Christian Oestlien on the Google+ blog, the company will remove profiles built for businesses. However, Google will run an experiment in the next few months testing brand profiles in an effort to please business owners. “We have been watching Google+ take shape over the last week and we’ve seen some really great companies get involved. But frankly we know our product as it stands is not optimally suited to their needs,” Oestlien wrote. Google noted that users communicate differently with each other than they do with brands, promising that they have “a great team of engineers actively building an amazing Google+ experience for businesses” to premiere later in the year. For now, however, Google is “discouraging” businesses from building profiles and say they will actively take down non-user profiles. Google will run a test with a few businesses to try out profiles for those companies, who can sign up to apply to participate at this link . Watch Oestlien’s video explainer below: (Having problems viewing this video? Click here .)

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Will Tabloid Scandal Stop Murdoch’s Latest Media Takeover?

July 6, 2011

NEW YORK — Rupert Murdoch has long thrived in opposition, still playing the scrappy outsider who just so happens to run a vast media empire. For over half a century, Murdoch’s thwarted a long list of regulators, media consolidation critics and journalism ethics scolds. He dropped $5 billion on Wall Street Journal -parent Dow Jones in 2007 despite protests that he’d ignore his promises of editorial independence — similar to those he made before purchasing The Times and Sunday Times — once he closed the deal. And, of course, he did . Now, Murdoch’s swashbuckling legacy is being put to a career-defining test, as the 80-year-old News Corp. chairman attempts to take over UK broadcaster BSkyB amid skyrocketing public outrage and increased political pressure surrounding the News of the World phone hacking scandal. BBC business editor Robert Person reported Wednesday that News Corp “will almost certainly have to delay their takeover of BSkyB — at least until it is apparent that the News of the World and News International have been cleaned up.” But could slowing down the machinery of the deal lead to its eventual derailment? That’s not yet clear. However, several long-time Murdoch watchers say the scandal has both tarnished News Corp’s reputation and, for now, helped create a dark cloud over the deal going forward. “The nature of these scandals is that you get to a point where ultimately everybody is touched by it, and everybody’s credibility is undermined, and so there’s no going back,” said Michael Wolff, editorial director of Adweek and author of a probing Murdoch biography . “You can’t repair that.” Wolff acknowledged that the NotW scandal already included celebrities and politicians, but until this week, “what you still didn’t have is that one thing that touched the chord of massive public outrage.” “That chord,” Wolff said, “was touched yesterday.” Since Monday, the Guardian and other news outlets have published damaging reports about tabloid journalists intercepting phone messages sent to a murdered teenage girl and terrorist victims, along with allegations that former NotW editor (and ex-Cameron spin doctor ) Andy Coulson sanctioned payments to police for stories. Rebekah Brooks, the NotW editor at the time of 13-year-old Milly Dowler’s murder and now a top Murdoch hand running News International, faces increasing pressure to resign. Murdoch, however, isn’t throwing Brooks overboard — at least not yet. On Wednesday, Murdoch said that “recent allegations of phone hacking and making payments to police with respect to the News of the World are deplorable and unacceptable,” yet signaled that the paper’s former editor will keep her job. “I have made clear that our company must fully and proactively co-operate with the police in all investigations and that is exactly what News International has been doing and will continue to do under Rebekah Brooks’ leadership,” Murdoch said. “We are committed to addressing these issues fully and have taken a number of important steps to prevent them from happening again.” So while the investigation into one News Corp. entity continues, Murdoch appears prepared to go forward with upping his minority interest into another and completing the takeover. Legally, it’s likely that Murdoch will be able to do that. Whether the move will be politically tenable is another story. Charlie Beckett, who directs POLIS, a journalism initiative by the London School of Economics and Political Science and the London School of Communication, said that if the BSkyB deal collapses it wouldn’t be “for any sensible legal reason,” but because “politicians decided” it should. “If they now unpick this, then Murdoch’s lawyers are going to go to town,” Beckett said. “It’s going to cost the government billions, and also it’s just unfair. You can’t have laws and rules and regulations where you go through the whole process, and then you say because of one scandal we are now introducing this concept that you have to be a ‘fit and proper’ person.” The political fight over who should be held accountable in the phone hacking scandal played out Wednesday in the House of Commons. Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday that there needs to be a public inquiry –- or inquiries –- into British journalism, but opposed Labour Leader Ed Miliband’s calls to bring the BSkyB issue to the Competition Commission, according to the Guardian . “On the issue of BSkyB, what we have done here is followed absolutely to the letter, the correct legal processes,” Cameron said. “That is what the government has to do.” Cameron added that UK communications regulator OfCom will still weigh in on the matter and “make a recommendation about fit and proper person.” Stewart Purvis, a professor of journalism at City University London and former OfCom regulator, said the latest allegations raise serious ethical questions but the law appears to be on News Corp.’s side. He noted that it is too late in the takeover process to hold up the deal over questions of media consolidation, given that Ofcom and the European Commission already dealt with such questions. “[A]t the end of the day the takeover tests are being passed on all sorts of other issues,” Purvis added. “And in law, that’s all that really matters.” Purvis pointed out that Ofcom could still raise the “fit and proper” question even after the deal was approved. It’s that uncertainty, he said, which could explain jittery trading. (BSkyB shares closed 2.1 percent lower at the end of trading in London Wednesday, and shares of NewsCorp. on Wall Street had fallen more than 3 percent by midday trading). “I don’t think anybody believes that suddenly before the deal goes through, there’s going to be another problem,” Purvis said. “They wonder whether there are problems further out that they don’t yet know about. Every day that the News Corp. problem gets bigger, that just creates more uncertainty in the market.” As Murdoch continues in his quest to own BSkyB, shareholders may grow increasingly concerned over public perception that the investigation isn’t leading to accountability. Steven Barnett, a professor of communications at the University of Westminster who’s been petitioning the government over Murdoch’s BSkyB acquisition for more than a year, said “rightly or wrongly, there is a growing sense that a fish rots from the head, and therefore behavior of this kind of unforgivable cruelty could not happen unless it was at least implicitly sanctioned from the very top.” Barnett acknowledged that “no one is suggesting that Rupert was signing checks for private detectives,” but said the fact that phone hacking was considered acceptable “required a measure of implicit, if not approval, then acceptance.” “For many people it is difficult to understand the distinction between behavior like that that is so utterly gross, and allowing even greater power to the same organization to run a major television station,” he said.

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Lydia Fisher: Is the "Glass Ceiling" Expanding, the Waiting Room Getting Bigger?

July 5, 2011

I received an email the other day (we’ll get to it shortly). It crystallized why writing, blogging, spotlighting and commenting, together as a community for humanity matters. Stay with me. I entered the workforce in 1980 at a trailblazing time for women. Yet, I found the corporate workplace easier to work in, to navigate, back then. My mentor taught me the business well, had my future and best interests at heart. I knew that if I worked hard, put in the requisite “rookie” time, had the tenacity to last, there would be an opportunity to advance, to be rewarded. Back then, the investment banks were small and entrepreneurial (before the age of conglomeration), some still private (where risk-taking was under control). So too, back then, individual entrepreneurship and independent thinking, within the field I was in, were encouraged. Over decades, I observed the corporate workplace change — some good, some not so good. Work hours and work load expanded. For example, used to be that corporate treasury departments were exactly that, departments — rather than a handful of people. Many young today find themselves working in environments without a sense of what’s next for them as individuals — moving around in the hopes for advancement. Frequent job change used to be dubbed as “job hopping” and frowned upon. Nowadays, many wait for signs of an improving economy just to make a switch. Not all are or desire to be “dot-comers,” or “Wall Streeters.” Work spills over into family or leisure time. Boundaries are less defined. No doubt, our devices give us mobility, flexibility. Yet, how do we rein in the ever present work connectedness? Children, for example, know when we’re distracted, but are they then distracted because we’re distracted? Yet, family and leisure time forms the basis of culture, so eloquently delineated in a book I read in college of like name — Josef Pieper’s Leisure, the Basis of Culture. At that young age, I wondered why my favorite philosophy professor wanted us to read and remember this book. Now I understand it’s meaning. The drive for profit is not the issue. It’s the drive for profit, at “any” cost, that has me worried. What about you? I read an article last week about those over 50, seeking internships to be noticed, for a job. For some, it’s on the heels of multi-decade long careers. Difficult. No doubt, painful. Like starting all over again, only this time you’re in your mid-fifties waiting, perhaps, at the back of the line. Feels like a waiting room. Many feel throttled. In some instances, education, wisdom and experience may no longer matter, or perhaps, are no longer valued. This comes on the heels of an article last year about college students seeking unpaid internships, striving to get a chance in a tough economy. Are we at an inflection point where the traditional “glass ceiling” is expanding across the spectrum of society, where education and hard work may not be the sole answer to getting ahead anymore? Look around the waiting room — millions unemployed (officially 9.1%), underemployed, or losing hope in their quest for a job. Are we cost-cutting our own now that the corporate quest for how and where to produce products more cheaply is in full swing, or is becoming more competitive? Yet, this. “Median pay for top executives” in 2010 jumped 23% over the previous year to $10.8 million. Corporate balance sheets swell with cash. The magnitude of the economic crisis resonates. Will many ever see prosperity, given the current construct of our existing economy? Will uncertain economic conditions impede the natural flow of life — setting up a household, having a family…? I am moved by the discourse and insightful comments on recent blogs — the desire by many for expression, the desire to be heard. The following hit me deeply to remind us that we are: …one family, one consciousness, one planet, one heart… I took note, when a note showed up in my email from a young aspiring professional. It came with a photo of a majestic view from the summit after a mountain climb. What I found touching, is the manner in which he reached out that I might spotlight “effort and reward” in an upcoming blog. Read on. …that connection between our effort and our reward; something I feel that we have lost. You scurry over loose rock, a precipitous plummet on either side, bereft of adequate oxygen to fill your lungs, a tug in your chest from your pounding heart, yet you persist and make the slow, steady climb to have tangible evidence of your labor: To look across the vastness of creation, and see the beauty — a witness only offered through the dedication of the climb. We have a society that expects everyone to climb, but at the final moment so many are denied the moment of satisfaction… Imagine the possibilities…

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Which American Restaurant Chains Might Go Under?

June 29, 2011

TheStreet.com recently analyzed the Z-score (a formula that measures a company’s financial health through factors such as working capital, total assets, total liabilities, market capitalization, sales, retained earnings and earnings before interest and taxes) of several chain restaurants to forecast the chances of the companies going bankrupt in the next two years. The article points out that although stocks from companies like McDonald’s, Chipotle and Starbucks are generally growing, restaurants like Sbarro’s and Marie Callender’s filed for bankruptcy this year. Below is a list of which other chains (market capitalization of at least $100 million) might follow suit, from least risky to most risky: 14. Red Robin 13. Sonic 12. Ruby Tuesday 11. Carrols Restaurant Group (Pollo Tropical, Taco Cabana) 10. Einstein Noah Restaurant Group 9. O’Charley’s (its namesake as well as Ninety Nine Restaurant and Stoney River Legendary Steaks) 8. Ruth’s Hospitality Group (Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Mitchell’s Fish Market) 7. McCormick & Schmick’s 6. Bravo Brio Restaurant Group (BRAVO! Cucina Italiana and BRIO Tuscan Grille) 5. Domino’s Pizza 4. DineEquity (IHOP, Applebee’s) 3. Morton’s Restaurant Group 2. Wendy’s/Arby’s 1. Denny’s Learn more about the financial struggles of the individual chains at TheStreet.com.

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Interest Rates Must Rise Globally To Curb Inflation: International Report

June 26, 2011

BASEL, Switzerland (Sakari Suoninen) – Global interest rates must rise to avoid high inflation becoming entrenched, the Bank for International Settlements said on Sunday. It also warned that delaying deficit cuts could risk intensifying the sovereign debt crisis and have grave consequences were investors to lose confidence in a major economy such as the United States. “With the arrival of sharper price increases for food, energy and other commodities, inflation has become a global concern,” the BIS said in its annual report. “Tighter global monetary policy is needed in order to contain inflation pressures and ward off financial stability risks.” Of the four major central banks, the European Central Bank is the only one which has raised rates since the intensification of the financial crisis in late 2008. Central banks may have to raise rates at a faster pace than previously, BIS said, adding that as long as global growth is robust, food and commodity prices may remain high or even rise further. The Group of 20 economic powers agreed in Paris on Thursday to tackle high food prices by boosting farm output, food market transparency and policy coordination, after world food prices hit a record high earlier this year. The deal is another sign that global policymakers are reaching beyond traditional economic policy tools to sustain global growth, which has shown signs of slowdown in recent months. BIS said inflation expectations suggest central banks’ long-term credibility has so far survived the inflation surge, but added that rates have to rise to ensure this anchoring. “The great danger is that long-term inflation expectations will start to climb, and current price developments and policy stances are sending us in the wrong direction.” The annual report also said the Bank of England should think about tightening its policy in the face of high inflation. “In the United Kingdom, CPI inflation had exceeded the Bank of England’s 2 percent target since December 2009,” it said. “As yet, there has been no move by the Monetary Policy Committee, but one wonders how long its current policy can be sustained.” FISCAL TIGHTENING Turning to fiscal policies, the BIS said that a major economy being drawn into the debt crisis could have catastrophic consequences. “We should make no mistake here: the market turbulence surrounding the fiscal crises in Greece, Ireland and Portugal would pale beside the devastation that would follow a loss of investor confidence in the sovereign debt of a major economy,” it said. “The time for public and private consolidation is now.” It added that markets might not continue to view U.S. public debt as favorably as now were it to continue carrying heavy deficits. “The current ability of the United States to easily finance its deficit cannot be taken for granted. Past examples of a number of smaller economies in deficit suggest that market confidence can evaporate quickly, forcing sudden and costly adjustment.” Emerging countries should do their part to reduce global imbalances by easing exchange rate pegs, the BIS said, adding that China should let the yuan appreciate against the dollar. “The large costs of monetary instability mean that adjustment should principally work through more flexible nominal exchange rates,” the report said. “In the case of the United States and China, the costs of that adjustment would probably fall mostly on China.” The BIS also said that while extremely low interest rates help commercial banks, they can delay necessary action. “At the same time as ultra-low interest rates have given banks the breathing space to take the necessary actions, they have weakened incentives to pursue the clean-up,” the report said. “When banks are not forced to write down loans, they are actually provided with incentives to “evergreen”, i.e.. to roll over non-performing loans to firms that should have been bankrupt.” (Reporting by Sakari Suoninen) Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions .

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