united-states

Nick Jefferson: Bring Back Public Execution in 2012

January 13, 2012

A lot of tough decisions will need to be taken in 2012. In politics, in Washington, Brussels, and in business. Are we ready? I’m not sure we are. And that’s because of the western hemisphere’s obsession with ‘strategy’, and its concomitant eschewal of execution. These days, everybody wants to be ‘strategic,’ to work on ‘strategy.’ Folk are desperate to have the ‘S’ word in their job title, to be seen as a ‘strategic thinker.’ ‘You must be really good at ideas and strategy, Nick,’ they say, ‘because you’re an entrepreneur.’ Well, I hope that I can have (and have had) the odd good idea, developed a half-decent strategy. But that’s not what makes a successful entrepreneur, or a successful anything. Because being successful — in any walk of life — is ultimately about Getting Things Done. It’s about execution. But this simple truth is still not recognised by many people. Why not? ‘Strategy,’ whilst sometimes being intellectually complex, is comfortable. Indeed, ‘doing strategy’ flatters those of us who believe we have been well-educated. It feeds our egos. The education point is particularly germane: ‘strategy’ very often is, effectively, essay-writing; it’s back to school, it’s about showing how clever we are, our ability to develop a line and pursue it, overcoming objections and tying up any loose ends in a neat conclusion. And we, the liberal arts graduates of the big schools of Britain and America, the people who now, in different ways, hold key positions of authority and responsibility, measure each other on our ability to do this. With glee. We love nothing more than an intellectual tussle over a glass of Malbec; it’s how we unwind. ‘Strategy’, and ‘strategic thinking’, therefore have a disproportionate currency among decision-makers. This preference for ‘strategy’ is compounded by the (helpful, if you’re a ‘strategist’) fact that strategy and ideas per se are notoriously difficult to value. It’s a deeply subjective affair. And even a half-decent ‘strategist’ can usually ensure that their ‘strategy’ is sufficiently malleable and flexible to accommodate a total volte-face, if necessary: We have always been at war with Oceania. But as well as being comfortable and deliciously vague, ‘strategy’ — by definition — enjoys the luxurious position of being theoretical. It does not involve sleeves-rolled-up, I’m-ready-to-have-a-difficult-conversation grind. This of course suits a startling amount of many senior people who, as I have written elsewhere , seem to have a cultural ‘allergy’ to such work. Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are especially guilty . Time after time, speech after speech, campaign after campaign their behaviour suggests that they believe, consciously or otherwise, that ideas in themselves are good enough. Depressingly, this is doubly so if those ideas capture the attention of the press and dominate tomorrow’s headlines. This is partly because, increasingly, many politicians, of all parties, have never done a ‘real job’ before entering politics. But even on the off chance that they do make a brilliant speech, have a fantastic idea or develop a sensible policy, their ability to actually ‘make it happen’ is directly dependent on the ability of public servants to execute. And this compounds the problem — because public servants, certainly the senior ones, often have very little incentive to execute (execution risking measurement, and measurement risking failure) and every incentive to write more papers, to critique, to hold ‘strategic offsites’ and planning days. Many a latter-day Sir Humphrey might easily have received his or her knighthood for ‘services to displacement activities.’ Anglo-American procrastination however, is nothing compared to what we see across the Channel. The scale of the eurozone crisis, now over a year old, is such that one might have expected even Nero to buckle down. Yet the people of Europe, not to mention the bond markets, still wait to see real action, as opposed to increasingly vacuous words. Tragically, the private sector is often little better. Naturally more predisposed than government to ‘get things done’, through the profit motive, it is surprising just how fatigued Marx’s workers of the world are from years of corporate jargon and management ‘speak.’ Equally, corporations themselves are fed up of consultants who come in and, at extortionate day rates, elegantly and eloquently define the specific nature of a problem — but have no real interest in sticking around to actually make any difference. None of this is to say that strategy has no place. That would be absurd. One has to have a clear idea on one’s direction of travel, otherwise one can very quickly become a busy fool. And we’ve all met plenty of those. Ideas and creative thinking, as I discussed recently on The Huffington Post , are absolutely vital and might just provide the spark to reignite our cooling economies. It is simply that ideas alone do not get the baby bathed. Strategy is, to steal from the language of the MBA (itself long on strategy, short on execution) necessary but by no means sufficient. And that is doubly the case when we are — jointly — faced with the scale of the crisis that confronts us all in 2012. We are not living in ‘strategic’ times. We are living in ‘survival’ times, where the only strategy in town is not to go under; as an individual, a business, a nation. Comparisons of our times with those of war are specious, and insulting to those who know what suffering really means. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from more dangerous times. Particularly when it comes to execution. And in this respect, in 2012 we might do well to remember the pithy words of Lord Nelson, who knew a thing or two about Getting Things Done: “Nevermind about maneuvers, go straight at ‘em”.

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Cordray Dialing CEOs Of Major Banks To Win Support

January 13, 2012

* Top bankers among scores of introductory calls * Says protecting consumers and supporting honest businesses * Tells reporters: 20-yr member of local Chamber of Commerce By Dave Clarke WASHINGTON, Jan 12 (Reuters) – New consumer financial chief Richard Cordray has been calling the heads of some of the top U.S. banks in an effort to build support for his agency, which is viewed skeptically by the financial industry. In a controversial decision, President Barack Obama installed Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Jan. 4 to get around Senate Republicans’ efforts to block his nomination. Since that time, an agency spokeswoman said Cordray has reached out to about 100 people at banks, trade associations and consumer groups to make introducations and get feedback. Among those at the top of the banking food chain he has chatted up are Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit, JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon, US Bancorp CEO Richard Davis and PNC Financial Services Group’s James Rohr. Cordray has also spoken with leaders of consumer groups such as the Consumer Federation of America and Public Citizen and trade groups like the American Bankers Association and the Consumer Bankers Association. The bureau was created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial oversight law to police financial products like mortgages and credit cards. Consumer groups have heralded its creation while the business community has warned an overzealous regulator could hurt the economy by making it harder to get loans. Through his outreach and public statements Cordray has been eager to show that he is not a wild-eyed activist but a level-headed regulator who will seek feedback from all sides. Cordray, a former Ohio attorney general, told reporters on Thursday that he has belonged to the Chamber of Commerce in his hometown of Grove City, Ohio for 20 years. He said his pitch to the business community is that his goal is to go after those breaking the law or abusing consumers and that will help the majority of lenders who are on the up and up. “They should embrace the bureau because not only are we going to protect consumers but we are going to support the honest and responsible businesses,” he said. Cordray’s elevation to director has kicked up a political sandstorm because it was done through a recess appointment rather than by a Senate vote. Republicans were blocking a vote on his nomination because of concerns about the bureau’s power and they argue Obama may have broken the law by making the appointment when the Senate was technically in session. The administration disagrees and said the president’s decision is on firm legal ground. Cordray is scheduled to appear at a Jan. 24 House of Representatives hearing to discuss his agency’s work. POSSIBLE LAWSUIT The bureau and the Obama administration continue to face questions over whether the appointment will be successfully challenged in court, which could jeopardize rules and any enforcement actions taken while Cordray was in charge. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce held its 2012 kickoff event on Thursday where its president, Thomas Donohue, said the organization was keeping the option of a lawsuit open but tempered any expectation it would come soon. “Let me put that into context – we take decisions on law suits in a big damn hurry,” he said. “On this one we are working our way through it.” (Reporting By Dave Clarke and Alexandra Alper; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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Big Bank’s Profit Plunged Last Quarter

January 13, 2012

NEW YORK — JPMorgan Chase’s income fell 23 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 after the bank set aside a large sum for litigation reserves and its investment banking income declined. The largest bank in the nation said Friday it earned $3.7 billion, or 90 cents per share. The results fell short of the 93 cents per share estimated by analysts surveyed by FactSet. Revenue fell 17 percent to $22.2 billion. For the full year, JPMorgan Chase & Co. posted record net income of $19 billion, compared with $17.4 billion in the prior year. The New York bank set aside $528 million for additional litigation charges in the quarter, the latest sign that the banking industry is still dealing with the fallout from poorly-written mortgages from years past. Volatility in stock and bond markets caused by Europe’s debt crisis also hurt JPMorgan’s investment banking business. Fees declined 39 percent to $1.1 billion. Debt underwriting fell 40 percent, and stock underwriting fell 65 percent. JPMorgan also had to book a loss of $567 million loss from an accounting rule that applies to the value of its own corporate debt. Because the value of its debt rose in the fourth quarter, the bank would theoretically have to pay more to buy it back in the open market. When that happens, accounting rules require that the bank record a charge against earnings. Corporate bond prices recovered in the fourth quarter after declining sharply in the third quarter. In another sign that American households are becoming more stable financially, JPMorgan said more credit card customers have been paying their bills on time, leading to lower losses for the bank. JPMorgan was able to take a profit of $730 million by reducing its loan reserves set aside for credit card defaults. That was good news. As the largest bank in the country serving 50 million customers, JPMorgan’s results provide a pulse for how well the U.S. economy is performing. JPMorgan’s stock fell 2.3 percent to $36.01 in pre-market trading.

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’30 Rock’: Jack Seeks Advice From His Baby Daughter

January 13, 2012

After a much longer than usual break, “30 Rock” (Thu., 8 p.m. EST on NBC) returned to the Peacock’s Thursday night lineup. It’s a bitter pill to swallow for fans of the network’s quirky comedies, as “Rock” nestles into the time slot “Community” has held since 2009. But while one fanbase laments, the other rejoices — and fans of both feel conflicted. The show picked up after the holiday break of “TGS,” with a wholly different Liz Lemon. She’s happy and positive. It’s very disconcerting. Meanwhile, Jenna has found tremendous success as the mean judge of a new kid’s singing reality show. Ratings are through the roof as she reduces toddlers to tears with her comments. But that was the trouble for Jack, as his own daughter is now nearly one. Suddenly, there was a conflict between the ruthless executive Jack Donaghy and the new dad Jack Donaghy. So he had a heart to heart with his daughter about what was the right thing to do. Some convenient mishearing gave him all the answers he’d wanted to hear all along, and the show would go on with no format changes whatsoever. Surprisingly, Liz came by her newfound happiness naturally, as part of a dance troupe, and her satisfaction and fulfillment hadn’t been shattered by the end of the episode. How long can this possibly last? Find out as “30 Rock” continues each Thursday at 8 p.m. EST on NBC. TV Replay scours the vast television landscape to find the most interesting, amusing, and, on a good day, amazing moments, and delivers them right to your browser.

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Tech Leader Joins Google Board

January 12, 2012

By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc appointed Diane Greene, a co-founder of technology company VMware Inc, to its board of directors on Thursday. Greene, 56, will also serve on Google board’s audit committee, the company said. Greene will become the 10th member of Google’s board, filling a spot left vacant when former Genentech CEO Arthur Levinson resigned in 2009. Levinson, who is also a director at Apple Inc, resigned after federal regulators began looking into the “interlocking directorates” between the two companies. Greene, who co-founded VMware in 1998, served as the company’s CEO from 1998 to 2008. She also is a member of Intuit’s board of directors. Shares of Google, the world’s No.1 Internet search engine, were off 52 cents at $629.12 in after hours trading on Thursday after closing the regular session up $3.68. (Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Bernard Orr)

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Liz Ryan: Get Some Branding Mileage Out of Your LinkedIn Headline

January 12, 2012

I grabbed a few LinkedIn headlines (real ones, from people I’m not connected to) in order to rewrite them. Here are the old headlines, and my suggested replacements: Old LinkedIn Headline: Wile E. Coyote Innovative, customer-focused business professional Wile E. has forgotten that when a LinkedIn user searches the 100+million-member LinkedIn database, the search results show up in the form of names and headlines. The only things that LinkedIn user — the one who conducted the search — is going to learn about Wile E. (or any LinkedIn user) are the user’s name and his or her LinkedIn headline. Wile E.’s old headline (“Innovative, customer-focused business professional”) isn’t doing Wile E. any favors. Anyone could say he or she is innovative and customer-focused. That’s pretty much like saying “I breathe oxygen.” We can do better. New LinkedIn Headline: Wile E. Coyote Marketing Manager (50/50 mix of traditional and social) taking consulting projects & exploring startup assignments You get 120 characters, including spaces, for your LinkedIn headline. Wile E.’s new headline squeaks in under the wire, character-count-wise. Now, when somebody performs a search on the LinkedIn user database and comes up with Wile E.’s name, he or she will learn something useful — namely, that Wile is a Marketing guy and a startup-focused one, at that — from the headline, and have an incentive to click through the list of search results to Wile E.’s full LinkedIn profile. What’s the lesson? Don’t make empty boasts (Resourceful! Innovative!) in your branding, and don’t use the term “business professional” — it’s dreck. It means nothing. Here’s another headline: Old LinkedIn Headline: Ziggy Stardust Nonprofit professional with expertise in communications, health, grantmaking, program development and planning Yikes! “Nonprofit professional” isn’t much of an improvement over “business professional,” and this LinkedIn user gives us a tedious list of tasks he’s performed. That is unfortunate branding. We could go one step down in granularity and say “I get up, I go to work, I drive a car, I use the microwave. I take showers.” We can’t tell what this person is about, or why he or she does the work s/he does. We get no sense of the person behind the profile. We want to know what you do for your employers or clients from a business standpoint — what sorts of pain you solve for them, in other words. We want to know what impact you;ve had on their businesses. Otherwise, you look like someone who does what he or she is told, and performs tasks as some manager (or a written job description) dictates. That’s not you standing in your power, not by a long stretch. Let’s rewrite Ziggy’s headline: Ziggy Stardust Not-for-profit Program Manager passionate about building buzz and participation for important causes and securing the grant and donor funding to carry them out Now we get a sense of Ziggy’s personal mission, and how he views his work. There’s more heft coming through the words when Zig frames up his experience (and future direction) rather than breaking down his amazing background into task-y sub-functions and duties. Lesson: don’t minimize your accomplishments by taking the context out of the story. Even in a brief LinkedIn headline, you can get across more power than you think. Take a look at your own LinkedIn headline. Is it doing the heavy lifting for you that it should be? If not, leave your current headline in a comment below, and I’ll give you suggestions for strengthening it.

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Republicans Finally Rally Around Romney

January 12, 2012

GREER, S.C. — An array of Republicans and conservatives – including some of Mitt Romney’s sharpest critics – rushed to the GOP presidential front-runner’s defense Thursday to counter efforts to paint the former venture capitalist as a job-killer. Under fire, Romney rivals Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry backed off from directly attacking Romney’s tenure at the helm of Bain Capital. “We’re disappointed” with the line of criticism, said Thomas Donohue, the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The business group doesn’t endorse in presidential campaigns, but Donohue said: “We think Romney has had a pretty good track record. Perfect? Hell no, but damn good.” Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who ran against Romney four years ago, wrote in an online letter: “It’s surprising to see so many Republicans embrace that left-wing argument against capitalism.” And another 2008 foe, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, told Fox News Channel: “I’m shocked at what they are doing. I’m going to say it’s ignorant. Dumb. It’s building something we should be fighting – ignorance of the American economic system.” Romney’s new defenders – many of whom have long histories of disagreeing with the former Massachusetts governor – argued that the attacks on his business record undermined the GOP’s identity and weakened the party’s chief argument against Democratic President Barack Obama, that federal intrusion has stymied the economy’s recovery. And while the latest comments were more a rejection of attacks on Romney’s record at Bain than an endorsement of Romney as a candidate, they signaled a warming toward Romney by a cross-section of the GOP as his party struggles to settle on a more conservative alternative. They also signaled that attempts by Gingrich, a former House speaker, and Perry, the Texas governor, to cast Romney as a cold-blooded predator in the business world appeared to be backfiring badly – and playing right into the Romney campaign’s hands. A prominent fundraiser in South Carolina – Barry Wynn – shifted his support from Perry to Romney in light of those attacks, which he said had crossed the line in a political party that values free-market capitalism. “I’ve been fighting for this cause most of my life,” Wynn said. “It’s like fingernails on the chalkboard. It just kind of irritated you to hear those kind of attacks.” The controversy over Romney’s Bain tenure began last weekend when Gingrich, seeking a rebound for his candidacy if not revenge for attack ads that crippled his campaign in Iowa, sought to undercut the central rationale of his chief rival’s candidacy – that Romney’s business background made him the strongest Republican to take on Obama. Perry, whose campaign also is in trouble, joined in. Both are accusing Romney of being a fat-cat venture capitalist during his days running Bain, laying off workers as he restructured companies and filled his own pockets. But the criticism of both Gingrich and Perry has been swift, with opponents Rick Santorum and Ron Paul refusing to attack Romney’s time at Bain, and others fearful about bloodying the Republican most likely to become the party’s nominee. “If you believe what the Obama administration is doing is a direct assault on the private sector and as Republicans we believe that’s the wrong approach, you can’t turn around and say what is going on in the private sector is wrong,” said Jim Dyke, a GOP strategist in South Carolina who is uncommitted to a candidate in the Jan. 21 primary. The backlash against Gingrich and Perry snowballed Thursday when the U.S. Chamber, one of the nation’s most prominent pro-business lobbying groups, weighed in. Earlier in the week, conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, often a Romney critic, called Gingrich’s comments “out of bounds for those who value the free market.” Club for Growth President Chris Chocola labeled the attacks “disgusting.” And South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, who endorsed Romney in 2008 but is unaligned this year, suggested that Romney critics don’t understand “the principles of our party.” “To have a few Republicans in this race beginning to talk about how bad it is to fire people…it really gives the Democrats a lot of fodder,” DeMint, arguably South Carolina’s most popular Republican, told conservative radio host Laura Ingraham. Although presidential contender Jon Huntsman had criticized Romney for a comment he made about firing people, Huntsman said on Wednesday: “If you have creative destruction in capitalism, which has always been part of capitalism, it becomes a little disingenuous to take on Bain Capital.” Gingrich and Perry seem to have gotten the message – to a point. While Gingrich said “I’m not going to back down” during a campaign stop in Columbia on Thursday, he made no mention of Romney nor did he repeat his criticism of Romney’s record as a venture capitalist. Instead, Gingrich tried to shift blame, saying that it was his calls to audit the 2008 federal banking bailout that had “rattled a number of so-called conservatives.” “When you have crony capitalism and politicians taking care of their friends, that’s not free enterprise, that’s back-door socialism,” said Gingrich, who is airing a TV ad describing Romney’s economic plans as timid. An outside group supporting Gingrich – called Winning Our Future – pressed ahead with plans to launch an advertising attack on Romney’s time at Bain, complete with a bruising ad and longer-form video in South Carolina assailing Romney as a vicious corporate raider. Perry, who had likened companies like Bain to vultures, avoided attacking Romney for his role at Bain during two stops in South Carolina on Thursday. Yet, he defended the approach later, arguing Republicans were better off airing concerns now than letting Democrats exploit it this fall. “I don’t want to be out there defending practices that put people out of work,” Perry told The Associated Press in Walterboro. “My point is if we’re going to be the party of positive job growth, we need to be really careful about creating these types of situations.” Romney, for his part, has tried in recent days to explain the private equity business. He told reporters in Greer as the day began that in the private sector, some businesses grow and thrive while others have to be cut back in order to survive and become stronger. “Sometimes you’re successful at that and sometimes you’re not,” Romney said. Meanwhile, his team was working behind the scenes to blunt the force of the criticism, distributing talking points to surrogates warning against attacking the free-market economy. On Wednesday night, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, chided Gingrich and Perry indirectly in introducing Romney, whom she has endorsed, during a campaign event in Columbia. “We have a real problem when we have Republicans talking like dang Democrats against the free market,” Haley said. “We believe in free markets.” ___ Associated Press writers Julie Pace and Brian Bakst in South Carolina, and Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington contributed to this report.

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Strictest Rules Yet Proposed For Unemployment Benefits

January 12, 2012

Republican lawmakers in South Carolina want unemployed people to prove they’re not on drugs to qualify for unemployment insurance. And they want the long-term jobless to volunteer part-time to continue receiving benefits. Proposals to drug test poor and unemployed people have ricocheted from state to state over the past year, even landing in the U.S. House of Representatives . The South Carolina proposals, taken together, thus far represent the strictest measures targeted at unemployed people. State Sen. Kevin Bryant (R), who led last year’s successful effort to reduce state unemployment insurance from 26 to 20 weeks, authored the drug testing legislation. “Here’s my logic,” Bryant told HuffPost. “If you’re working, in most occupations you could be subject to a random drug test. Those working, paying taxes have to stay clean and might get drug tested. So I think it only makes sense that those receiving benefits paid for by the taxpayer ought to have the same accountability.” Bryant doesn’t care that in Florida, the one state where the legislature enacted a drug testing statute (for welfare applicants), a federal judge quickly halted the policy on constitutional grounds: “I can’t make that a determining factor on legislation I would pursue,” he said. “I can’t go call up a local liberal activist judge and ask if they’re going to it throw it out before I put it in a bill.” The federal judge who stopped the Florida drug testing law cited the Constitution’s ban on unreasonable search and seizure. When HuffPost asked Bryant if he had any concern about whether testing would be an affront to citizens’ constitutional rights, he said, “You also got a duty to protect what you’re taking out of the taxpayer’s pocket.” When asked about the Florida judge’s finding a lack of evidence that the policy saves money, Bryant said, if it prevents unemployed people from spending money on drugs, testing is worthwhile even if it costs the government. “I do think the benefits outweigh the costs. Hopefully folks will choose not to use drugs.” Bryant’s bill won the approval of a state Senate subcommittee this week and is on its way to the full Senate Labor Commerce and Industry Committee, along with a measure by state Sen. Paul Campbell (R) that would require claimants to take available jobs and do community service. “It says if you’ve been out of work six months and there’s a job that you are physically and mentally able to do, you have to take it,” Campbell said. “And then it says that if you’ve been out of work for six months, you need to volunteer for 16 hours a week. And whether we make it mandatory or not, I don’t know. We’ve got to look at how federal law here sets with it.” Federal law may be a problem for both the drug testing and volunteering requirements, since the relevant statute says the only legitimate reasons to deny or reduce eligible workers’ benefits must involve a discharge for misconduct, claim fraud or disqualifying income. But the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in December that would change federal law to allow states to disqualify unemployment claimants who test positive for drugs. Campbell, a chemical engineer, said he has had lots of experience hiring people at chemical plants and that people who are already employed, or are at least volunteering, make better candidates. “You’re telling your future employers No. 1, I’ve got good work habits. I can get to work. I get to work on time. I’m not in trouble. I’m working currently,” he said. “There’s been a couple cases that have been given to me that say that people have volunteered and gotten jobs through their volunteer activities.” Two-thirds of Fortune 500-sized companies make job offers contingent on applicants passing drug tests, according to a 2011 survey of 80 recruiters by Corporate Executive Board , a business research and advisory firm. While it’s true employers can drug test their workers, it’s different for the state to do it, said Sue Berkowitz, director of the South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center, a anti-poverty advocacy group. Proposing testing is a deliberate effort to poke the jobless in the eye, she said. “People who’ve lost their jobs feel really bad. It’s one more message to make them feel even worse,” Berkowitz said. It’s “the one place they can turn, this insurance they paid for while they were working, and then they have to go through all this indignity in order to help support themselves and their families.” Last year, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R), a supporter of drug testing unemployed people, said hundreds of local job applicants couldn’t pass drug tests. Upon investigation, her claim was proved completely false . In response to Republicans’ drug testing bills, Democrats in several other states have introduced legislation to require drug testing of lawmakers . Both Campbell and Bryant said they would support drug testing for the state legislature. Bryant pointed out that he had supported a 2008 bill that would have allowed drug testing of state legislative candidates. The bill passed the state Senate but not the House.

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Samuel Arie: Ten New Year Resolutions for Capitalism

January 11, 2012

The Occupy Wall Street movement arrived at St Paul’s on 16 October 2011, so in a week’s time the camp will have been going for three full months. Yet the signs are that the protesters will soon be evicted, and infrared cameras have shown that 90% of the tents are already empty much of the time. So the question we should be asking is not whether the camp will go, but what will happen when it is gone? In other words, what will be different this year, because of this extraordinarily successful protest last year? Thinking about it this way, it seems that a few New Year Resolutions might be in order. How about the following 10 to get us started: I will not pay myself a stratospheric salary just because I am the Chief Executive – the CEOs of Britain’s largest companies earn 300 times more than their lowest paid employees and last year 25 of the highest paid American CEOs earned more than their companies paid in federal income taxes. I will pay taxes in proportion to my wealth because the distribution of wealth is even more extreme than the distribution of income – in Britain over half the nation’s wealth is owned by the richest 10% of citizens, and in the US a similar share is owned by just the richest 5%. I will not run a good business into the ground and walk away with millions – not one of the individuals named in Time Magazine ‘s 25 people to blame for the financial crisis has had to join the dole queue, most if not all are still millionaires. I will not sell a security to my customers while betting with my own money that it will fail – because that’s just, well, crazy when you think about it. I will not collect a bonus based upon a forward looking calculation of the value of some deal I have cleverly concocted , because that calculation is more likely to be bogus than not so. I will take responsibility for the decisions I have made – and will not rely on securitisation to kick the can on down the road hoping someone else will carry my losses. I will honour the natural world and look after it for my children, because there is only one natural world to look after; I will not take short cuts (in the Gulf of Mexico or anywhere else) in the name of a short run profit; if I sell something that will end up in landfill, in our rivers, oceans or atmosphere, then I will pay hefty fines and taxes; I will not dump my toxic waste in the Ivory Coast or any other of the world’s poorest nations. I will not donate money to politicians through my company – despite the 2010 Supreme Court Ruling allowing me to do so, which 80% of Americans do not support, and which led John McCain to pronounce that “campaign finance reform is dead.” I will watch my weight – as I promise myself every year – and I will not become too big to fail . And finally, perhaps most relevant for most of us: I will not continuously covet more stuff – instead, I will work hard, focus more on the people around me than on things I own, and I will save more for my retirement . Quite a long list, of course, but perhaps that is the point. The task of turning resolutions like this into real changes in society is not easy, with each idea presenting as it does endless possibilities for disagreement. But there must be little doubt that these are the intuitive issues of most concern to most people, and that the behaviours in question have seemed unimaginably thoughtless, corrupt or insane – even sometimes to the individuals most deeply involved in carrying them on. So perhaps it is not a bad idea to start the year with a few strong but self-imposed rules that unambiguously set out the path to a higher standard. We should thank the protest campers for pushing our society in this direction.

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Health Experts Push EPA To Protect PA Residents With Contaminated Water

January 10, 2012

Dimock, Pennsylvania residents may be on the least fun roller-coaster ride ever. For nearly three years, 11 families with tainted water wells in the small town received daily deliveries of bulk and bottled water from Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. The natural gas company began arranging for the water deliveries after it was blamed for polluting the families’ drinking water. But back in November, the payments stopped, leaving residents fending for water on their own. Vanity Fair reported that shortly after drilling operations began near one family, their water turn so brown it stained the laundry. Their daughter experienced dizzy spells which left her lying on the floor, and their son developed sores lining his legs. Pennsylvania’s DEP found that the family’s water contained high levels of methane. According to the Associated Press, regulators previously connected Cabot’s drilling to high methane levels in Dimock’s water wells. Although the company denied responsibility, they were banned from drilling near Dimock. Cabot stopped paying for the water deliveries this November, as approved by Pennsylvania’s environment department. This sparked outrage among many activists, and sent residents scrambling for access to water that they would consider safe to drink. Last Thursday, an EPA spokeswoman told Reuters that after receiving more data from Dimock residents, “EPA is considering next steps including conducting some samples of well water in the area.” According to Water Defense , this past weekend, EPA Region 3 officials told Dimock residents that the EPA would provide them with clean water, and then reneged on the offer a day later. In an e-mail to the Associated Press, EPA spokeswoman Betsaida Alcantara said, “We are actively filling information gaps and determining next steps in Dimock. We have made no decision at this time to provide water.” Meanwhile, residents again felt they had been slighted, as Dimock resident Craig Sautner told AP, “You can’t be playing with people’s lives like this.” His well was found to be polluted in 2008, shortly after Cabot’s drilling operations began nearby. On Tuesday, health experts wrote a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson , urging her to protect the residents of Dimock by continuing to investigate the water wells contamination and by providing them with access to safe drinking water. The letter was signed by over 20 health experts at a conference on fracking health risks, sponsored by Physicians Scientists and Engineers for Health Energy (PSE) and the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health and the Environment (MACCHE). The letter states: In the face of the complete abdication of responsibility by the polluter and the state of Pennsylvania, it is incumbent upon EPA to ensure that these families have access to safe, potable water. We are 65 percent water by weight. Drinking water becomes our blood plasma, our cerebral spinal fluid, our sweat, and our tears. It is the steam of our exhaled breath on a cold winter’s day. There is no other human right as fundamental as the right to clean water, which is the right to life itself. The timing is notable — the letter was sent on the same day that President Obama praised the EPA , remarking, “You help make sure that the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the foods we eat are safe.” Actor and Water Defense founder Mark Ruffalo joined the call for action, stating in the group’s press release , “Truth, like fracking fluid, has a way of finding its way to the surface. History will not be kind to elected officials who choose to side with corporate interests over the health and well being of the constituents they are supposed to protect.” But will the present be kind to the residents of Dimock, Pennsylvania?

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Why Was Rupert Murdoch Tweeting About Arts Site? Oh, Right

January 10, 2012

In case you haven’t heard, Rupert Murdoch is on Twitter. Here, he says such cheerful and grammatically questionable statements as “Education only way to real equality. US a disgrace. Millions every year headed for underclass or worse. Half kids drop out in LA , others,” and “Re complaints about my spelling! Problem is my pathetic typing. Sorry, if anyone really cares” (touché, Mr. Murdoch). His latest zany message to his 123,428–and counting!–followers? “For those interested in art try beautiful new site art.sy.”

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Are Rich Countries Fat Countries?

January 10, 2012

Usually, when people append the hashtag #firstworldproblems to their tweets, they’re invoking situations that are, when it comes down to it, lesser boons, or merely subjective problems. ( Prombles , some would say.) But a recent post at Food Service Warehouse reminds us that there is such a thing as a true First World problem. It focuses on a major drawback of largesse — namely, largeness. The author did some digging to find the 20 countries that eat the most and least calories, on average, per day, then compared that data to data on income. Here’s the ensuing visualization: Source: Food Service Warehouse The chart clearly demonstrates that the countries that eat a lot also spend relatively little of their incomes on food. Americans, the biggest eaters on the chart, munch on a whopping 3700 a day. The obvious takeaway here might be that people living in countries that spend the least money on food become fat because they buy mostly processed, unhealthy food . This line of thinking mirrors the prevalence, in America, of obesity in low-income populations. But it’s not quite as simple as that — because 6.9 percent of the average American’s per capita income of $46,000 is, at $3200, still far higher than 55% of the Eritrean per capita income of $683. America doesn’t spend less on food than other countries; it just spends a lot more on other things. That’s not to say that there’s nothing weird about America’s food habits, of course: recent research has supported the link between America’s macroeconomic stance and its obesity problem . But the idea that spending more will definitely lead to better health is a little misguided.

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Sunil Chacko: World Bank Board: Time to Step Up for an Open and Transparent Selection Process for the Next Bank President

January 10, 2012

Unlike the chaotic and haphazard manner in which IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn was replaced by another European, Christine Lagarde, the next president of the World Bank ought to be selected carefully and in an open and transparent manner. It is January now and the next president should be selected before June 30 when Robert Zoellick’s term ends. The Toronto G-20 attended by heads of government issued its communique in June 2010 that reiterated the

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U.S. Employers Step Up Hiring In November Even While Job Openings Dip

January 10, 2012

WASHINGTON — U.S. employers stepped up their hiring in November but pulled back slightly on the number of jobs they advertised. The mostly favorable report shows companies are gaining more confidence in the economy and filling more of their open positions. It follows other encouraging data on hiring that suggest 2012 may be a better year for job growth. Employers filled almost 4.15 million jobs in November, a 3 percent increase from the previous month, the Labor Department said Tuesday. It also nearly matched September’s hiring level, which was the highest since May 2010. Since the recession ended more than two years ago, most of the improvement in the job market has been because of a sharp drop in layoffs, which have returned to pre-recession levels. Henry Mo, an economist at Credit Suisse, said hiring hasn’t rebounded as quickly. “In that regard, it is encouraging to observe that hiring rose,” Mo said. Overall hiring has picked up since plummeting to 3.6 million in October 2009 – the lowest level in the 10 years the government has tracked the figure. That same month, the unemployment rate hit 10 percent, the highest level since the recession began in December 2007. Hiring still has a long way to go before returning to pre-recession levels. Gross hiring exceeded 5 million each month in the three years before the downturn. Companies and governments posted 3.16 million job openings in November, according to the Labor Department’s monthly survey on Job Openings and Labor Turnover. That’s down from 3.22 million job postings in October and 3.4 million in September, which was a three-year high. It generally takes one to three months for employers to fill job openings. Given November’s modest decline, job gains may fluctuate in the first couple of months of this year. The number of available jobs has increased 30 percent since the recession officially ended in June 2009. Still, the postings are far below pre-recession levels of 4.5 million. And there is heavy competition for each available job. About 13.3 million people were unemployed in November, which means there was an average of 4.2 people out of work for each opening. That’s slightly better than October’s ratio of 4.3. The survey follows Friday’s encouraging read on job growth in December. The economy added 200,000 net jobs last month, and the unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent – its lowest level in three years. Job gains have now topped 100,000 for six straight months, the first such stretch in more than five years. Tuesday’s report offers more details on the churn that takes place each month at U.S. companies. For example in November, employers hired 4.15 million people, while almost 4 million people either quit or were laid off from their jobs. The difference is similar to November’s net gain of 100,000 jobs. The modest improvement indicates that employers are not only advertising new jobs, but filling them as well. That’s a turnaround from 2010, when employers posted more jobs but hired at a slower pace. Some companies were extremely selective and only hired candidates that exactly matched their needs, recruiters said. Other companies may not have been able to find candidates with the necessary skills. That may be changing. Businesses “aren’t as picky as they were a year ago,” said Mike Starich, president of Orion International, an employment agency in Austin, Texas. “It’s a confidence issue,” he said. Even when companies approve a new position, “they still might be leery about hiring that person if they don’t think things are going to get any better. Yet if they … feel confident about the future, they’ll hire.” Paul Forster, CEO of Indeed.com, a jobs listing website, said more companies are willing to pay to advertise their jobs. That suggests they are trying harder to find the employees they need. “Companies are more willing to hire and spend more on recruitment advertising,” Forster said. His company has more than doubled its revenue in the past year and is adding jobs itself. Dan Schneider, chief executive of SIB Development & Consulting, says he plans to hire roughly 30 new employees this year. That’s up from 20 in 2011. His company, which is based in Charleston, S.C., helps businesses cut their operating costs by scouring routine bills and looking for savings. Business has “really picked up” in recent months, Schneider said. “Before we used to sign on maybe one new client every week. Now, we bring one on every other day.”

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Intel Readies Biggest Ad Blitz In Nearly A Decade

January 10, 2012

LAS VEGAS — Intel Corp. says it is betting big on its “ultrabook” concept with its largest advertising campaign since 2003. The campaign to push the new thinner and lighter notebook computers will start in April, says Kevin Sellers, Intel’s head of advertising. Sellers didn’t say how much Intel Corp. would spend on the ads and other initiatives. He spoke to the press on Monday, ahead of the opening of the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Intel hasn’t planned a launch this big since the company introduced Centrino chips for Wi-fi-capable laptops eight years ago. Though it chiefly makes processors, Intel often prods PC makers to build their products in certain ways. The “ultrabooks” are similar to Apple’s MacBook Air, which launched three years ago. PC makers have responded well to the ultrabook idea, and Intel says there are 75 models on the way. The Consumer Electronics Association expects 30 to 50 ultrabook models to be on display at CES. More news is expected out of Intel on Tuesday, when CEO Paul Otellini speaks at the show. Intel watchers expect that the news will have something to do with the company’s long-standing ambition to get its chips into smartphones.

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Despite Detroit Auto Show Buzz, Demand For Hybrids Lags Gas Guzzlers’

January 10, 2012

DETROIT — Judging from the hype at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week, one might think electric cars and hybrid cars are about to take over the world. Nearly a dozen cars at the show, which runs until Jan. 22, come with advanced battery power instead of just gas-fueled engines. But speak to industry veterans and it’s clear that gasoline will be king for many years. Consumers’ enthusiasm is mild for the alternative fuel cars. Few auto executives think there will be mass acceptance of electric and hybrid cars until at least 2025, when the country’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, regulations kick in, forcing automakers to make cars that attain 54.5 miles per gallon on average. Until then, relatively low gas prices and cheaper technology will keep motorists humming along in regular gasoline-powered internal combustion engines. “Internal combustion engines are not going away anytime soon,” said Gary Silberg, head of KPMG’s automotive unit and a partner at the firm. Silberg released a report last week that demonstrated the skepticism that global auto executives have for electrifying cars: About 65 percent of those surveyed say electric vehicles and hybrid cars will account for just 6 percent to 10 percent of global annual sales worldwide through 2025. Even though hybrid and electric car sales have been on the rise in recent years, consumer demand could start waning. A tax credit aimed at making it more economical for Americans to plug in an electric car expired on Jan. 1. Consumers can no longer obtain $1,000 to install at home a 220-volt electric car-charging device. A $7,500 federal tax break given to those who purchase electric vehicles could also be on the chopping block as legislators seek more ways to balance the budget. Hybrids are more expensive than regular engines for one primary reason: They use two different systems to drive the car; one gas powered and the other electric, adding about $3,000 to the vehicle’s price. And the technology for electric cars is brand-new and highly expensive –- although automakers won’t say how much the new battery systems cost. “I think the level of skepticism is well justified,” Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Chrysler and Fiat told reporters on Monday. “But if an American auto executive thinks he can get to the CAFE standards of 2025 on combustion engines alone, he’s probably smoking an illegal substance.” Chrysler has just one electric car coming to market in the near future, with an electric version of the Fiat 500 going on sale at the end of this year. But other automakers are making a bigger push into electric vehicles, despite the uncertainty. Ford will have five such cars by the end the year, including the 2013 Ford Fusion hybrid and 2013 Ford Fusion Energi plug-in electric shown at the Detroit auto show Monday. The automaker is betting that gas prices will keep rising, making hybrids and electric vehicles more appealing. Ford expects that by the end of this decade, 10 percent to 25 percent of its overall sales will have some sort of battery or hybrid technology. Other electric or hybrid vehicles shown in Detroit include the 2013 Volkswagen Jetta hybrid, the Volkswagen E-Bugster concept car, the Smart for-us pint-sized electric pickup, the BMW Active Hybrid 3 compact sport sedan, the BMW Active Hybrid 5 and the Nissan e-NV200 concept minivan. Flexible manufacturing facilities will be key for Ford, said Mark Fields, the company’s executive vice president. Ford will make hybrid, battery and regular internal combustion systems interchangeable, so if demand for one kind of engine slackens, it can start producing another kind within the same plant. “It’s dependent on what happens with gas prices,” Fields said. “So our strategy is to give people a choice and have the manufacturing processes in place that allow us to be flexible. Then whatever the market does, we’re in position to deal with that.” And with five hybrids or electrics on the market, Ford is able to capture the marketing cachet that comes with a green lineup. Even if consumers choose not to buy a hybrid or plug-in, they like them. That’s a lesson General Motors learned since rolling out its electric and gas vehicle, the Chevy Volt, in late 2010. “Volt has cause a lot of people to consider Chevrolet” who hadn’t looked at the brand before, said Mary Barra, GM’s global product development chief. Even when sold in small volumes, electric cars lend a buzz that automakers can’t resist. Chevy sold just 7,600 Volts last year, out of GM’s total of 2.4 million cars and trucks sold in the U.S. in 2011. The automaker showed off at the Detroit show the two-seater electric Chevy EN-V, which goes about 25 miles before losing power. Fuel economy is the way to grab consumers: Even Bentley, which sells its Continental GT for about $189,000, is promising better gas mileage. Its new Continental has an engine downsized from a whopping V10 to a V8 and achieves a fuel economy that’s 40 percent better. By contrast, many of Ford’s vehicles are equipped with V4 engines, which are lighter and more fuel efficient. Ultimately, there is not much car companies can do right now to try to reaach the stringent new fuel economy standards unless they embrace some sort of alternative fuel solution. That could mean hybrid cars, pure electric cars, natural gas vehicles or hydrogen-powered cars. “Part of this is looking at the fundamental drivers long term, not over the next five years,” said Oliver Hazimeh, a partner at accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers’ PRTM e-mobility division. “If you were looking at this in 2018 or 2019, the answers will be quite different.”

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For Baby Boomer Geri Brin, Fabulous Begins At 50

January 10, 2012

Geri Brin is an Internet entrepreneur who’s confident and chic, with a loyal fan base, an inner circle of hip friends and big plans for her growing digital empire. Not bad for a 64-year-old baby boomer. After a lengthy career in magazine publishing at Fairchild Publications, Brin set out on her own at 50 and started a custom print and publishing business, luring clients like American Express, Citigroup and Liz Claiborne. A go-getter, she says she “loved wearing all the hats: editor, marketing person and publisher.” As she took more control of her life, she realized that she wanted to do something special for her “vibrant” generation. In less than two years, Brin has created a lively, unique online community at FabOverFifty.com, where she inspires boomer women to not only use what they’ve got, but love it, too. At 50 years old, you did something most adults fear — you started over. What motivated you to create your own business? I wanted to do something for women in my demographic, because it’s such an incredible group of women. The women in my generation have done fabulous things and now the world is waking up and realizing we are what we’ve always been. Marketing people, companies are starting to realize how vibrant we are. I spoke to people in the publishing industry and realized that a book or magazine about women in my generation was not the way to go — they said, “Why not do a website?” Here I was, 61 years old, and I was going to start a website. But in fact, if you do anything creative and learn how to research, you can do almost anything in communications, so starting a website was based on the same principles as starting a magazine. I wanted FabOverFifty to have more depth than just a fashion and beauty site. The idea is to celebrate women of my generation, not by patting us on the back but by showing to each other and to the rest of the world what we’ve accomplished and what we’ve yet to accomplish. We find that it’s resonating with women. We cover beauty, fashion and health, but not from the angle of “senior.” When anyone uses the word “senior,” it makes me nauseous. Who are the “founders” of FabOverFifty? There seems to be quite a group of successful women with that title. We call them “founders,” which is a slight misnomer. When I founded the site, I connected with the owners of 25 really cool apparel stores and specialty shops across the country in major cities like Miami, Chicago, L.A., because I knew that the women who shopped in those stores would be unique. I wanted to find women who didn’t necessarily have a lot of money, but who had a lot of taste and accomplishments. Those women — I think I interviewed 80 to 90 when I launched the site — are the original group of founders and they are from all fields, and we keep adding to them. The community is anyone who joins the site, but with the founding people, we do interviews and features on them. What is the most unique feature of the website? I think the section called “Ask an FOF.” We have over 1,000 women across the country that we call “gurus,” and these women are experts in certain categories — they have a passion for different subjects. So you can ask a question about anything, from gardening to health. Let’s say you’re going to your daughter’s wedding and want to know what to wear on a Saturday afternoon ceremony — you plug in your question, and that question gets sent out to all the gurus listed as style experts, and they will answer you. Some women get 45 answers, some get three answers, and you generally get answers pretty quickly. It’s women recommending to other women. I you consider the concept of Angie’s List, where people write reviews, this is really similar, with women in your age group who have passions for different subjects giving advice and recommendations. We find that that section is doing really well and getting a lot of traction, and nobody else has that on their site. Your son Colby played an integral part in launching FabOverFifty. How did he contribute to this women-centered site? In the beginning, Colby helped launch the site by feeding it with content and doing all the PR work, and he’s still involved with it in terms of content and stories. He’ll do interviews and health stories. He’s now in the sports marketing business, but I would call this his satellite job. He’s 32, and he’s worked with me for about seven of the 10 years since he graduated from college. He still spends about two days per week with us working on projects for the website. I love working with him, and he’s a very smart, intuitive guy. I’ve helped him learn things about marketing and he teaches me. That’s what I love about young, smart, passionate people, because you never do stop learning. The idea for your spinoff dating blog — “Date My Single Kid” — really made me laugh. It’s every mom’s dream and every kid’s nightmare, but we’ve all been there. Where did the idea come from? That has truly been a little journey for us. We launched that over a year ago, in July 2010, Every time my editor, Lena, and Colby, who are both 32, transcribed an interview I had done for the site, inevitably part of the transcription would be me and the woman discussing our single kids. “How old is your daughter? Oh, she’s 23! And what does she do? Is she married? Does she have a boyfriend?” My son would laugh because he knows that’s how I am, and all of sudden it popped into my head as we were sitting and brainstorming, what a great idea it would be to start a feature on the site that would reflect what we do in real life anyway. Women are constantly trying to fix up their children — I mean, I’m a Jewish mother, but all mothers do it. So, we launched it, and the goal was just to have another fun feature on the site. Then the New York Post picked up the story in July 2010 and we started getting phone calls from “The Today Show” and “The View,” asking if we’d be on TV. The hosts positioned it that I had started a website to get my son married, which could not be further from the truth. Then we started getting calls from Hollywood producers pitching sitcoms and reality shows, and we are now in conversation to do a reality show. It’s funny — people really respond to the concept because today it’s hard to meet the right person. There is so much going on in all of your lives that we didn’t have to deal with in our lives, and this is just another tool to help young people meet the right person. We’re not replacing your interactions at work or out having fun — this is just another way to help your son, daughter, niece, nephew or grandkid out. It’s been fun, and in fact, if there is a show, it would be great fun and the show would not be a typical reality show — it would really be about moms connecting with other moms to help their kids. We’ve got about 900 kids registered, and we got a real rush of kids after being on “The View” and “The Today Show,” and every week kids get added, but we really don’t promote it. It’s a feature that we’ll always keep on the site because we think it’s cool, but we haven’t really promoted it so instead of there being hundreds of thousands, we’ve got a respectable number for a free service. You gave up a salaried position to launch this site. How do you plan on making it profitable? The whole site is free of charge, and the only thing that is paid on the site at this point is if you want to become a premium member, and that’s $35 for the year. You get a gift and some great perks, it’s a great membership and we have a few hundred people who are premium members. The site isn’t profitable yet, but our business model is constantly evolving. We have a couple of revenue streams. We have a shop with merchandise that is unique to our audience — stuff you won’t find in Bloomingdales or Macy’s — the premium membership and events. We hosted a Beauty Bash this year in New York City and had about 900 women. There were dermatologists, plastic surgeons, one-on-one consultations, L’Oreal was a major player and they had skin damage sessions, we had makeup artists and free haircuts from Mark Garrison, who gives $300 haircuts and consultations. Because my background is in publishing, the way we approach advertising is through content-related programs, and I look at our site as a marketing tool for companies. You won’t see huge banners splashing across the site, but we have 45,000 registered members, and about 25,000 of those are signed up for our email list, so if someone wants to promote to our email list and it’s a product that we like or have serviced before, they will pay us for that. We integrate into editorial content as well — for example, the FDA just approved this company’s product that you strap onto your body several times a day and it helps tone and slim your body, and we have developed this whole program with them to test their product. So we rounded up 1,700 women who wanted to test their product, and we’ve narrowed that down to 21 women, and we’ll follow these women for two months and write up the results in a feature. So we’re promoting the product but in a much more personal, intense, authoritative way than if we just sold this company an ad on the site. It’s really a marketing partnership, and that’s the biggest part of our revenue. L’Oreal wants to do a series of Beauty Bashes this year with us, so that’s going to be another source of revenue beyond the fact that it’s wonderful to have such a prestigious company supporting us because they are very much after this demographic. What are the best and worst parts of being a boomer? The greatest part about being a boomer is that you really can take all of your accumulative experiences in life, whether it’s relationships, your job or friendships, and you can apply all that experience into this new section of your life and feel good about it. When you’re young, you’re going through all the relationship struggles, boyfriends, husbands, friends, all of that goes away when you get older, and yet you have all that experience behind you. Boomers don’t sit and dwell on the bad things, you take what happened to you, some which is great, some which is not so great, and you apply it to what you’re doing in your life now. You apply it without the tension that you had when you were younger. There’s nothing that is the end of the world, other than the end of the world. When you’re young, you want to get married, have kids, have a career — we’ve done all of that. Now it’s time to live life really to its fullest without tensions. Boomers have things in perspective. The bad part of being a boomer is that we’re not going to have enough time to use all our knowledge, which is sad, but it’s true: youth is wasted on the young. I don’t want to be 30, I don’t want to be 20, but I wouldn’t mind being 45 right now. And that’s only because I’d have more time than I do right now. A lot of boomers complain that they feel invisible — “people don’t see me.” I think that’s baloney. When I was 41, construction workers whistled at me because I had a hot body. Well, I don’t have a hot body at 64 but you know what, I don’t care! I don’t want to be 41 again to get whistled at — I want to be 41 again so I’d have more time. I don’t feel invisible at all, in fact, I feel much more visible than I ever did in my life because I feel good about myself, I’ve accomplished things in my career in the last 40 years, I have two great kids, I have a nice apartment, I have great friends, I have my health … I’m lucky! Boomers are so important because they’re the ones spending the money, and companies realize that now. We’re very vibrant and want to look good, and makeup companies want to sell us cosmetics. We, as contemporaries, just have a different mindset. We got into colleges that only males were getting into — Princeton, Yale, Harvard. We forged the way and now we’re running universities, and we’re in science and math and on Wall Street. I’m no female liberator — we women just somehow forged the way. Look at Arianna Huffington — she would have never been Arianna Huffington 40 years ago. It was a man’s world. We’re not what our mothers were. What’s your advice for boomer women who have fallen on hard times, or are having difficulty accepting this new stage in their life? Times have been tough for boomers, and for women who are hitting that 50 mark and may have lost their jobs or are feeling unhappy because of the economy. Fifty is a huge transition in any women’s life. Even if you have a successful career, marriage, kids, everyone goes through a transition at 50. If you’re facing other challenges and extra burdens, I would say that this is truly the best time of your life, because you’re vibrant, you’re still young and you have to look at it as the beginning of something instead of the end of something. There are new men around the corner, you’re talented because you’ve had a job, and you have to apply those talents to the future. You may have to even change your career, but that’s not a bad thing. Women are a resilient bunch. I find women complaining less, even in this economy, than men. I know a women who was a big TV producer that lost her job, and she decided to work for J. Crew during the holiday season. A man would never do that — it’s beneath them. Women find they can survive, and they do. Entrepreneur Spotlight Name: Geri Brin Company: FabOverFifty.com Age: 64 Location: New York Founded: 2010 Employees: 8 Website: www.FabOverFifty.com

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Unpaid Taxes: The Other Foreclosure Threat

January 9, 2012

Eleanor Laidler wants to stay in the same home on Detroit’s west side where she has lived for 19 years. Now she’s among the owners of 42,000 Wayne County properties — 60 percent more than a year earlier — who could lose their homes or other property because they didn’t pay their taxes.

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For Apple CEO, A Rich Stock Award

January 9, 2012

By Alexei Oreskovic (Reuters) – Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook received a one-time stock award worth nearly $400 million, the largest given by a company in a decade. The company’s board granted Cook 1 million restricted stock units (RSUs) to signal its confidence in Cook after Steve Jobs turned over the helm of the iPhone and iPad maker to his long-time lieutenant in August. The stock award, half of which vests in 2016 and the remaining half in 2021, was worth more than $376 million, based on the closing price of Apple’s shares on August 24, 2011, the company said in a Monday proxy filing. “As far as a singular award, we haven’t seen anything this large in a long time,” said Aaron Boyd, head of research at Equilar, an executive compensation data firm. The only one-time stock award in recent memory that was worth more, said Boyd, was the January 2000 stock option package that Apple gave co-founder Steve Jobs. The 40 million options in that award were valued at more than $600 million at the time, Boyd said. Jobs, who was ousted from Apple in the mid-1980s, returned to the company in 1997 and went on to transform Apple into the world’s most valuable technology company with a string of hit products including the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Jobs, who died in October after a years-long battle with cancer, owned 5.5 million shares of Apple, according to the filing. Jobs received $1 a year in salary during the past three years, according to the filing, while Cook received a salary of about $900,000 in 2011. Apple said Cook’s award was a retention and promotion tool, as well as recognition for running the company during Jobs’ previous medical leaves of absence. “The Board views his retention as CEO as critical to the Company’s success and smooth leadership transition. The RSU award is intended as a long-term retention incentive,” Apple said in its statement. Shares of Apple closed Monday’s regular trading session down 67 cents at $421.73, after reaching an all-time high of $427.75 earlier in the day. (Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic and Edwin Chan; Editing by Richard Chang and Steve Orlofsky)

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Donald Cohen: Liberty for Light Bulbs — The Next Battle In America’s Fight for Freedom

January 9, 2012

Two hundred and thirty six years ago, in January 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense , the wildly popular pamphlet that made the case for American freedom and helped to spark a revolution. This year, the Tea Party hopes to turn the 2012 elections into a fight for American freedom. Their first salvo — the electric light bulb. Last month, they threatened to shut down the government unless new energy efficiency standards for light bulbs were delayed. They succeeded and the final budget deal prohibits the Deparment of Energy from spending on the new rules. In 2007, Congress passed The Energy Independence and Security Act that included a provision authored by Republican Congressman Fred Upton giving light bulb manufacturers until 2012 to produce light bulbs that used 25 percent less energy than old-fashioned, energy wasting incandescent bulbs. Upton’s press release stated that “Current incandescent bulbs on store shelves are obsolete and highly inefficient — only 10 percent of the energy consumed by each bulb is for light with 90 percent wasted on unnecessary heat. Today’s incandescent bulbs employ the same technology as the bulbs Thomas Edison first created over 120 years ago.” The bill passed in a lopsided 319-100 vote and the support of 49 percent of the Republicans who voted. (Today, Edison, one of history’s most prolific inventors with nearly 1,100 patents, would be rolling over in his grave at GOP opposition to progress.) President Bush called the bill “a major step toward reducing our dependence on oil, confronting global climate change, expanding the production of renewable fuels and giving future generations of our country a nation that is stronger, cleaner and more secure.” He also noted that the light bulb standards were similar to his executive order that had required federal agencies to “lead by example in efficiency and renewable energy use.” Since lighting accounts for 30 percent of all electricity use, the new standard would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by millions of tons. And we’d all breathe a little easier. Electricity generated to power our lighting threatens us all. Producing more electricity creates more pollution. More pollution creates more illness — asthma, cancer, heart disease — and adds greenhouse gases (many conservatives don’t believe humans are responsible for global warming, but they must believe toxic chemicals cause cancer). So, almost every time each one of us turns on light in our homes, something is burning to keep it lit. More than 70 percent of the time our electricity comes from burning coal, oil or natural gas and another 20 percent comes from nuclear fission reactions. The incandescent light bulb is partly responsible, then, for the pollution that comes from power plants. And that pollution contains mercury, fine particulate matter that causes asthma and other toxic gases such as arsenic, lead and cadmium, spewed through smokestacks. Studies show that eight percent of women of child-bearing age in this country have mercury levels in their blood that could cause lower IQ in their children. Using more efficient light bulbs is one thing we can all do to reduce energy use, and thus pollution that harms us all. But after the GOP took control of the House of Representatives in the November 2010 elections, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh attacked Rep. Upton as a “nanny state socialist” for authoring the efficiency measure. Upton did an about-face and promised, “If I become chairman [of the House Energy and Commerce Committee], we’ll be reexamining the light bulb issue, no problem.” Major bulb manufacturers like General Electric, Philips and Osram Sylvania, lobbied unsuccessfully to keep the standards. Knowing that the new standards were nearing, the bulb makers created more efficient, brighter, compact fluorescent light bulbs that brighten immediately. (Older versions annoyingly brightened gradually.) The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) — no friend of environmental regulations ( here , here and here ) — argued for a consistent set of rules and accused the GOP of creating more uncertainty for the industry. The light bulb battle isn’t about dollars and cents, it’s the latest talking point designed to stir up the GOP right wing base about “big government” limiting Americans’ freedom by allegedly limiting their consumer choices. But the GOP and Tea Party won’t acknowledge that freedoms have limits — especially when our actions harm others. Speed limits prevent reckless driving that endangers other motorists or pedestrians; smoking bans protect non-smokers (and children) from cancer-causing second-hand smoke; we aren’t allowed to throw our trash on the street; businesses can’t create dangerous workplaces that injure or kill workers. Tea Party conservatives branded the light bulb rules as just another big government intrusion in our lives. It’s “them” telling “us” what to do; how to live; what we can buy; what we can’t buy. Michele Bachman introduced the Light Blub Freedom of Choice Act last year to repeal the new standards. “President Bachmann will allow you to buy any light bulb you want in the United States of America,” she said after announcing her presidential bid. Bachman is today’s freedom fighter — but for whom? Or what? She said in a speech in November, “I believe in liberty for light bulbs.” In 1776, the nation’s founders believed their fight for freedom was a struggle for genuine civil and political rights. In 1941, FDR expanded on those aspirations to include “freedom from want” that would translate into economic security and health for all. In 2011, the GOP’s cartoon-like fight for freedom to use polluting light bulbs is hard to take seriously. The tea party controlled GOP complain that faceless government bureaucrats are limiting consumers’ freedom. Yet it was government action that prevented Americans from using Thalidomide in the early 1960s, that required auto companies to install seat belts, air bags and collapsible steering columns, or that removed cancer causing chemicals such as asbestos and benzene from our workplaces. That’s what government SHOULD do — to weigh dangers created in the market against the common good. Newer, more efficient light bulbs will actually save consumers $12 billion per year. And the energy standards will make new energy saving technologies like the LED bulbs that lit the new Times Square Ball that dropped on New Year’s Eve become cheaper as more consumers buy them. But even if the new standards did cost more, it would be worth the price. If they require more care to dispose of used bulbs, it’d be worth the effort. We don’t have the right to pollute, poison or harm others — whether it saves money or costs. That’s not freedom and certainly not democracy.

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GOP Candidate Struggles With Bold Argument

January 8, 2012

WASHINGTON — After months of getting a pass on the subject from his rivals, Mitt Romney was challenged in the Republican presidential debate Saturday night on his frequent claims that he created great numbers of jobs in the private sector. Newt Gingrich, for one, said Romney’s record as a venture capitalist was one of flipping companies, taking out all the money and “leaving behind the workers.” Who’s right? The bottom line remains unknown about how many jobs were gained or lost from Romney’s work at the Bain Capital private equity company. But this much is clear: His accounting behind the assertion that he created more than 100,000 jobs at companies he helped start up or turn around has been flawed. A look at some of the claims in the latest GOP debate and how they compare with the facts: ROMNEY: “But in the business I had, we invested in over 100 different businesses and net … net, taking out the ones where we lost jobs and those that we added, those businesses have now added over 100,000 jobs.” GINGRICH: “I’m not nearly as enamored of a Wall Street model where you can flip companies, you can go in and have leveraged buyouts, you can basically take out all the money, leaving behind the workers.” THE FACTS: Romney has never substantiated his frequent claim that he was a creator of more than 100,000 jobs while leading the Bain Capital private equity company. His campaign merely cites success stories without laying out the other side of the ledger – jobs lost at Bain-acquired or Bain-supported firms that closed, trimmed their workforce or shifted employment overseas. Moreover, his campaign bases its claims on recent employment figures at three companies – Staples, Domino’s and Sports Authority – even though Romney’s involvement with them ceased years ago. By that sort of charitable math, President Barack Obama could be credited with creating over 1 million jobs even though employment overall is down about 2 million since he came to office. But Romney accuses Obama of destroying jobs while using a different standard to judge his own performance – cherry-picked examples that leave everything else out. By its nature, venture capitalism often results in lost jobs because profitability and efficiency are key to investors, not how many people are on the payroll. Bain Capital profited in cases where employment went both up and down. Staples, now with close to 90,000 employees, and Sports Authority, with about 15,000, were startups supported by Romney. The direct work force at Domino’s has grown by nearly 8,000 since Romney’s intervention. But Romney got out of the game in 1999, which has not stopped his campaign from crediting him with jobs created at those companies since then. Romney toned down the braggadocio in the latest debate, saying that of the Bain-supported companies that grew, “we’re only a small part of that, by the way.” But he insisted his claim of more than 100,000 jobs was a “net net” figure that takes into account job losses elsewhere, even though his campaign has defended the assertion only by reporting on the performance of Sports Authority, Domino’s and Staples. No one has been able to produce a full accounting of job gains and losses from the scores of companies Romney dealt with at Bain. But a Los Angeles Times review of Bain’s 10 largest investments under Romney found that four of the big companies declared bankruptcy within a few years, costing thousands of jobs and often pension and severance benefits. ___ RON PAUL about RICK SANTORUM: “So he’s a big government person, along with him being very associated with the lobbyists and taking a lot of funds. And also where did he get – make his living afterwards? I mean, he became a high-powered lobbyist in Washington, D.C. And he has done quite well. We checked out Newt, on his income. I think we ought to find out how much money he (Santorum) has made from the lobbyists as well.” SANTORUM: “When I left the United States Senate, I got involved in causes that I believe in…. I was asked by a health care company to be on their board of directors. Now, I don’t know whether you think boards of directors are lobbyists. They’re not.” THE FACTS: Santorum was not, as Paul suggested, a registered lobbyist after he left the Senate. But Santorum did trade his Washington experience for lucrative work afterward, not unlike Gingrich, who has faced plenty of tough questions about money he earned from the corridors of power despite never being registered as a lobbyist. Financial disclosure records show that from January 2010 to August 2011, Santorum earned at least $1.3 million working as a corporate consultant, political pundit and board member. Santorum reported that the American Continental Group, a Washington lobbying group, paid him $65,000 in consulting fees. The firm’s lengthy client list includes Microsoft Corp., Comcast Corp. and the American Gaming Association. “The senator did general consulting and provided his advice and opinion on which way the Senate may go, based on his record in the Senate and his history in leadership,” said David Urban, president of American Continental Group. ___ ROMNEY: “I was in a state where the Supreme Court stepped in and said, marriage is a relationship required under the Constitution for – for people of the same sex to be able to marry. And John Adams, who wrote the Constitution, would be surprised.” THE FACTS: John Adams would be surprised to hear he wrote the Constitution. He was a minister to Britain at the time, after having been minister to France. He was not a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He was, though, an architect of the Declaration of Independence. And he constructed the Massachusetts Constitution. ___ SANTORUM, on Obama’s approach to large street protests of the elections in Iran in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected over a perceived moderate: “We had a president of the United States who stood silently by as thousands were killed on the streets, and did nothing. Did nothing. In fact, he tacitly supported the results of the election.” THE FACTS: Santorum appears to have substantially exaggerated the death toll, for which there is no authoritative estimate. Opposition supporters in Iran claimed hundreds may have died; the Iranian government claimed several dozen. Obama indeed reacted cautiously – tepidly in the opinion of critics. Wisely or not, he had reasons for doing so. Iran analysts had warned against overt U.S. support for Ahmadinejad’s foes, saying such backing might taint them as well as give the Iranian government evidence that the unrest was caused by outsiders. Iranian opposition figures wanted distance from the United States over fears that U.S. support would impugn their credibility. Once the severity of the crackdown became known, Obama condemned the violence and said the Iranian government should respect the rights of free speech and assembly. When it became clear that opposition protesters were relying heavily on social media to get their message out and organize, the State Department intervened with Twitter to delay a planned upgrade that would have shut down the service in Iran. ___ ROMNEY, on Obama: “He wants us to turn into a European-style welfare state.” GINGRICH: “His desperate efforts to create a …. European model.” THE FACTS: Republicans seldom make clear what they are talking about when they accuse Obama of trying to turn the U.S. into a “European-style welfare state.” They no doubt are referring at least in part to Obama’s health-care overhaul, but that falls far short of many European plans of government-sponsored, universal health-care coverage. There’s little evidence that any of Obama’s proposals are modeled on European laws, policies and practices. And in finance, European nations appear to be moving in the direction of an American model, with tighter restrictions on banking practices and deficit-reduction programs. ___ Associated Press writers Nancy Benac, Charles Babington, Joan Lowy, Matthew Lee and Tom Raum contributed to this report.

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7 Worthy Resolutions For Retirees

January 7, 2012

— Retirees may be past the days of resolving to work out more or buy fewer $4 coffees. Yet when it comes to money in particular, resolutions may be even more important for those living on fixed income. From financial nuts and bolts to more holistic aims, here’s a look at seven worthy resolutions for retirees to commit to in 2012: 1. Get disciplined about money matters. Retirees should set up a formal budget and stick to it. Being thrifty without a plan only goes so far when unexpected expenses arise, especially at an age when health care costs can start to mount. It’s also wise to record your financial goals and plans, such as how much money you expect to withdraw from savings every month. “The more detailed the information about your spending requirements and investment goals, the greater your chances of success,” says Bob Stammers, director of investor education for the nonprofit CFA Institute for financial analysts. 2. Attack your debt. Along with putting on pounds, new retirees are prone to running up debt with their newfound freedom. Paying off credit card debt should be a top priority. After the card debt is zeroed out, use only one card and pay off the balance monthly. If an emergency expense leads to a balance, don’t let it linger or it will erode retirement savings. If your savings are languishing in a money market account or certificate of deposit earning practically nothing, you can put a chunk of it to greater use by paying off a credit card with an interest rate of 15 or 20 percent. Having savings yields at rock-bottom lows presents a rare opportunity to instantly improve your finances. “There may never be a better time than now to clear up all of your credit card debt,” says Michael Kresh, a certified financial planner in Islandia, N.Y. 3. Invest in dividend-paying stocks. It’s tough for retirees to get meaningful income on their money from the traditional sources. The best-paying money market and savings accounts yield just 1 percent, five-year CDs no better than 1.95 percent, according to Bankrate.com. Even the U.S. government’s 10-year Treasury note has been hovering around 2 percent. For a bit more risk in the short term, blue chip stocks that pay dividends offer a combination of reliable income and good odds for share price appreciation over the long haul. Income investors have few alternatives to dividend stocks in this environment, says Howard Silverblatt, senior analyst for Standard & Poor’s. The average dividend stock yielded 2.8 percent in 2011, and investors can better that with such blue chips as General Electric Co., 3.8 percent, or Pfizer Inc., 4.7 percent. Other good options include dividend-heavy mutual fund T. Rowe Price Equity Income (PRFDX), which gets a gold-medal rating from Morningstar, and exchange-traded fund Vanguard Dividend Appreciation (VIG), which carries a five-star rating. 4. Get your estate plan in order. Make sure your estate plan and financial documents are updated. Tax laws change and documents may be out of date. Beneficiaries may need to be revised. A basic estate plan includes a will, living will, durable power of attorney and health-care proxy or living will. 5. Be more generous. Resolve to be more charitable, giving to worthy causes for others as well as your loved ones. It’s rewarding and makes tax and financial sense too. Remember that you can give gifts of up to $13,000 annually without triggering taxes. Helping a younger family member can also set an admirable precedent that reinforces the importance of charitable giving. You may want to consider a charitable gift annuity, in which you donate to a large charity and receive regular lifetime payments in return. “In times of very low interest rates and declining returns on assets, this is a good way for retirees to increase their cash flow and get an income tax deduction while helping a charity,” says Michael Dribin, a trusts and estates attorney for Harper Meyer in Miami. 6. Check into long-term care insurance possibilities. Consider getting a long-term care policy. It may already be too expensive if you have health issues or are well into retirement. But note that roughly a fifth of those who sign up for coverage do so at age 65 or older, according to the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance. About 70 percent of people over 65 will require long-term care services at some point. And neither private health insurance nor Medicare pay for the majority of the services people need — help with personal care such as dressing or using the bathroom independently. That can be a devastating financial burden without coverage. An assisted living facility costs an average of $38,280 per year, a semi-private room in a nursing room runs $73,000 and home health aides charge $19 to $21 an hour, according to the insurance association. A typical long-term care policy costs upwards of $4,000 per year for a 65-year-old couple. By 70, for those still able to qualify, that more than doubles. So don’t delay on this one. 7. Stretch your body and mind. Choose daily pursuits that keep you physically, mentally and socially engaged. There’s abundant evidence that continued physical activity helps people live longer, feel better, avoid depression and keep their mental skills sharp. “Functional disabilities shouldn’t keep you from exercising,” says Dr. Amy Ehrlich, a geriatrician with Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y, She puts frail elderly patients on a walking program. If they can’t walk, she puts them on a swimming program. And if they can’t swim, she has them take a water aerobics class. Studies show that people benefit from efforts to stay cognitively sharp – from doing a daily crossword to playing games to reading. Maintaining social ties also is critical. Older people who volunteer in schools, for example, feel happier, more useful and more satisfied with their lives. _____

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The Next Big Franchise Opportunity?

January 6, 2012

Dunkin’ Donuts has kicked off 2012 with big plans for an aggressive expansion — and that includes a range of new opportunities and incentives for potential franchisees. The quick-service coffee and doughnut chain seeks to double its U.S. locations over the next 20 years, providing exponentially more opportunities for franchisees, job seekers and doughnut consumers alike. Currently, the company has about 9,500 locations, 7,000 of which are in the U.S. and predominantly franchisee-operated. Why the big push now? “The opportunity is there,” said Grant Benson, vice president of franchise and market planning for Dunkin’ Brands, the Canton, Mass.-based parent company of Dunkin’ Donuts, noting that the first part of the expansion plan will be in the Southeast and Midwest states, as well as in other regions where the company is already seeing strong growth opportunities, including western Pennsylvania, Texas, Denver, Nebraska and Mississippi. “We will ramp up growth,” he said. “There’s an embracing of our opportunities by existing franchisees looking to grow and add to their networks and by new franchisees seeking business opportunities.” According to Benson, the company’s key criteria for potential franchisees includes previous business experience, primarily restaurant and/or quick-service restaurant experience, and background in building teams and managing P&Ls. To serve as incentive for franchisees in these new markets, Dunkin’ plans to provide fee reductions, such as a “material reduction” in royalties, for the first few years of operation to “help reduce some of the early pressures” of buying a franchise. The availability and specifics of the incentives vary on a market by market basis. As far as helping franchisees get the rest of the capital they need to start, Benson said Dunkin’ doesn’t guarantee financing, but works “very closely with certain national lenders to help bring them together with franchisees.” He added, “The best sources of capital tend to be local sources in the areas franchisees are locating their businesses. We help franchisees make presentations to those banks and get information to the banks to help them understand the company.” Besides adding locations, Dunkin’ plans to add jobs. According to Dunkin’, each new store adds an average of 20 to 25 new full-time and part-time employees. “In some of the smaller or rural communities, the effect will be noticeable if even three or four more stores open,” Benson says. “It doesn’t take a lot of units opening to create a lot of jobs and increase the tax bases in these communities.” While Dunkin’ claims each new store adds an average of 20 to 25 new full-time and part-time jobs, aggressive expansion is often accompanied by potential problems, such as encroachment, in which franchisees’ locations open so closely together, they end up competing with each other. But with Dunkin’s expansion, Benson said he expects “just the opposite. Growth is moving away from markets that are already heavily penetrated. We’re going into markets where there’s a lot of room, and even in markets we have heavily penetrated, we have a good performance of not impacting existing stores.” One of Dunkin’s biggest competitors, Starbucks, with about 11,000 U.S. locations, also expanded aggressively before the recession, doubling its number of company-owned stores from 2005 to 2007 before having to close hundreds of stores and laying off thousands of employees. Benson said he isn’t concerned about the Starbucks precedent. “It gives you reason to learn and be careful. But it’s about taking a look at the proximity and the impact of putting stores too close together, and analyzing and planning that very carefully. We’re not experiencing that [issue] even in markets more heavily penetrated than Starbucks. And we continue to be cognizant of it and to look at each and every site.”

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Maureen Ryan: ‘House of Lies’ Cast Can’t Save The Business Comedy

January 6, 2012

When it comes to corporate shenanigans, it’s safe to say that the American public is not exactly in a forgiving mood. So it would take an especially deft TV program to make us enjoy the antics of sharklike business consultants whose sole goal is to make millions by offering worthless advice to hapless or arrogant Fortune 500 clients. To make those engaged in such cynical transactions appealing, or merely interesting, a show’s writing would have to be very, very smart and its characters would have to be extraordinarily charismatic indeed. Despite an insanely talented cast, ” House of Lies ” (Sundays at 10 p.m. EST on Showtime) fails on those counts. In the cable realm, “dark comedy” can often mean “depressing comedy,” and that’s not necessarily a bad thing; challenging programs are practically duty-bound to spend time on the less savory aspects of human behavior. But “House of Lies” does nothing but confirm our worst fears about the shadiest aspects of business culture; its overall grimness overpowers its ham-fisted attempts at complexity. You may have always wondered what management consultants actually do, so lead character Marty Kaan (Don Cheadle) turns to the camera regularly to explain that they don’t really do anything except find ways to bamboozle corporate types into signing multi-year contracts that will keep the more-or-less useless advice flowing. “The only thing that we need to figure out is what makes them think they can’t live without us for the next three years, while we infect the host and bleed them dry,” Kaan tells his hot-shot team, which travels the country with him, picking off new fat-cat targets each week. With its snappy pace, its driven characters and its many airport scenes, “House of Lies” superficially resembles Jason Reitman’s 2009 feature “Up in the Air”; but Marty and his crew are far less interesting than the characters in that film, which ended up telling a rather hopeful and aspirational story, despite being set in clinical first-class lounges and business-traveler hotels. “House of Lies” not only doesn’t possess those shreds of optimism, it festoons Marty’s life with a bunch of baggage that feels like it came from a book entitled, “How to Build a Conflicted Cable Character in Five Easy Steps.” Marty’s got a standard-issue crazy ex-wife, a disapproving father, a painful secret about his past and a son with gender identity issues. I’d give “House of Lies” more credit for being courageous about including that last character if he didn’t seem like a direct rip-off of a very similar character from “The Riches.” As for the ex-wife, well, she’s crazy, slutty and hot. Isn’t that all we expect of female characters on cable TV? (Yes, that was a rhetorical question. And yes, Showtime gave us a fantastically complex female character in the first season of ” Homeland ,” which is what makes the women of “Lies” all the more disappointing). The biggest problem with “House of Lies” is that it gives all of its actors so little to do with their many talents. The wonderful Cheadle is never less than 100 percent committed to the role, but Marty is too shallow and predictable to give the actor much to work with. As his second-in-command, Jeannie Van Der Hooven, Kristen Bell rarely gets a chance to show off her astounding range, which is a disappointment to this hardcore “Veronica Mars” fan. Ben Schwartz (best known as Jean-Ralphio on ” Parks and Recreation “) is very good as well, but each of these actors could anchor their own series. Here, they’re cramped by obvious, unsubtle writing and a show that doesn’t seem to have much of an idea of where to take these sardonic characters. This fine cast (which includes the great Glynn Turman as Marty’s dad) deserves better than the perfunctory problems and challenges they’re saddled with here. ” Mad Men ” has taught us that sad, lonely, ambitious people who frequently drink in the middle of the day can be wonderful company, and that business people can be thoughtful and kind as well as tough and ruthless. Perhaps it’s just best to wait for Don Draper and company to come back to our screens (and their return can’t come soon enough). My HuffPost TV colleague Chris Harnick talked to Kristen Bell about her new role. You can check out the full “House of Lies” pilot here . Also, Ryan McGee and I talk about “House of Lies,” as well as PBS’ “Downton Abbey” and IFC’s “Portlandia” on this week’s Talking TV With Ryan and Ryan podcast , which you can find here and on iTunes here . The RSS feed for the podcast is here .

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Nicolás Eyzaguirre: Latin America: What’s Ahead in 2012?

January 6, 2012

A few days after the first sunrise of 2012 kissed the shores of Latin America, it is natural to ask: What does the New Year hold for the region’s economies, especially with Europe still under stress? For sure, a dimmer economic environment, here and abroad. Growth has softened in the larger countries of the region. Looking North, the United States is growing a bit more, but elsewhere activity is softening, including in China — an increasingly important customer for the region’s commodities. Perhaps more importantly, global financial markets are still strained, because many questions about advanced economies remain unanswered: The future course of the European crisis remains the biggest risk. Progress so far toward a comprehensive solution has not yet calmed financial markets. The United States has yet to strike the right fiscal policy balance, with both near-term support for growth and long-term sustainability. Reasons for caution How do we at the IMF add this up to arrive at a new outlook for the Americas in 2012? While our official forecasts won’t be public for a few weeks, we can say that the outlook for the year ahead will not be better than what we thought in October, when our last forecasts were published (we publish new ones on January 24, in the World Economic Outlook Update ; look for our blog update around then). To be sure, we don’t see a recession coming in Latin America if the European crisis remains contained, but weaker growth is clearly in the cards, not least because confidence and commodity prices have been falling. Financial risks continue to dominate the outlook. These days, all eyes are on Europe. While deteriorating conditions there have not yet spilled over to Latin America, we will not be immune if the risks move to the foreground. Eurozone banks account for one-quarter of banking assets in the larger Latin American countries, on average, and many of those banks are not lending or rolling over existing lines in an effort to shore up their balance sheets. But if the simmering crisis in Europe comes to a boil, that process could speed up, especially if euro zone banks are starved for short-term dollar funds (though these banks have prudently funded their Latin American activities largely through local-currency deposits, reducing their vulnerability to a dollar funding squeeze). Fewer external credit lines available to banks could trigger a credit crunch in Latin America, coming on top of a decline in confidence and slower investment and, if the malaise spreads to Asia, falling commodity prices: a toxic mix for growth and stability. Maintaining stability What should countries do in the face of this risky outlook? A lot depends on their current macroeconomic situation. On the monetary policy front, some countries are already taking preemptive steps, moving to neutral or easing, because they have inflation under control and activity is ebbing. (Easing may not be an option in countries with higher inflation or heavy dollarization.) On the fiscal front, the major lesson from Europe today — and from Latin America’s past — is that sound public finances are crucial. In countries where fiscal room permits, there may become a time to spend public money to fight a downturn as was done in 2009. But that time is later, if the risks appear; not now. The European crisis shows how countries with wide fiscal deficits can suffer a sudden loss of credibility that triggers capital flight, even when public debt is at manageable levels. Meanwhile, financial systems should be under extra scrutiny for signs of stress, with a particularly watchful eye for liquidity strains. The good news is that many countries in the region are entering 2012 from a position of strength . These countries have managed their economies and markets skillfully since the 2008 crisis. In particular, the 2008 crisis taught Latin America the importance of maintaining healthy liquidity conditions to avoid a credit crunch, which is very difficult to combat with macroeconomic policies. Moreover, for the most part, banks are sound, monetary policy frameworks are increasingly credible, international reserve coverage is adequate, and public finances are strong. The key will be to hold that position. Overall, as 2012 kicks off, our advice is to hope for good news, but prepare for the bad. From iMFdirect blog and Diálogo a Fondo

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Newt Calls Criticism ‘Nuts’

January 6, 2012

NEWPORT, N.H. — Newt Gingrich is on the defensive in New Hampshire, fielding questions about a remark on blacks and food stamps as well as his work for Freddie Mac. The head of the NAACP on Friday issued a statement calling the former House speaker’s remarks inaccurate and divisive. Gingrich said Thursday he would speak to the group and urge them to demand “paychecks instead of food stamps.” Gingrich said his words had been distorted and called the criticism “nuts.” Gingrich also faced fresh questions about his work for Freddie Mac. He said he is “perfectly happy” to make his contracts with mortgage giant public but the decision must be made by lawyers for the Center for Health Transformation, which he founded. There was no immediate comment from the Atlanta-based center.

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Ian Fletcher: Greg Thanos Interviews Me on What’s Wrong With Free Trade

January 6, 2012

Here I am in a video interview with documentary filmmaker Greg Thanos on what’s wrong with free trade:

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New Gym Only Welcomes Overweight Clients, Skinny Uninvited

January 6, 2012

The fitness industry has long featured toned and perfect figures effortlessly gliding on a elliptical machine or treadmill. But at Downsize Fitness , skinny people aren’t welcome. Instead, eligible clients must be at least 50 lbs overweight, according to the company’s website . When members reach their goal, they “graduate” from the gym. With locations in Chicago and Las Vegas, the gym first opened its doors last fall with the goal of creating a non-intimidating environment where members can focus on working out, Headline News reported . Though some 42 million Americans joined health clubs in 2011 , according to a report by IBISWorld, the Chicago Tribune notes gyms are guilty of alienating obese members who most need the fitness industry’s help. So far, the gym’s members are happy with the atmosphere the club provides. Club member Tara Lawton told the Tribune she’s lost 20 pounds since joining in October. “I want to cry sometimes at how it changed my life,” Tara Lawton, 42, said in an interview with the paper . “My body is responding positively to being pushed.”

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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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Charles Kolb: The American Business Community’s Collective-Action Problem

January 6, 2012

The Occupy Wall Street movement has not been kind to the American business community. Among other things, OWS highlights the income disparity between the top 1% of U.S. income earners and the 99% “rest of America.” Guess who’s among that top 1%? Too many Americans see Wall Street and American business as gaming the system to promote personal profit. CEO compensation is now at least 400 times the average employee compensation in many companies. Thirty years ago, that multiple was 40. Certainly neither productivity nor performance explains this disparity, so populist rhetoric turns to the simplest rationale: greed. Many observers question whether today’s business leaders have a heart when it comes to their role in the country’s growing income disparity. Far too many business leaders also turn a blind eye to the nation’s urgent needs: on fiscal and deficit policy, health care, education, the environment, and our campaign finance system. A more appropriate question might be to ask whether they have a head. What is surprising is that the reluctance of business leaders to pay serious attention to these policy issues cuts against their own self-interest. Doesn’t every CEO care about the cost of capital, health care inflation, whether the workforce has sufficient skills, whether energy costs can be reduced, and whether their organizations are being shaken down by the taxpayer-funded professional politicians who dominate our Congress? (Insider trading can send business leaders to prison. In Congress, it appears to have been tolerated for years.) Now, Gillian Tett in the Financial Times observes that former Clinton White House Chief of Staff and North Carolina businessman Erskine Bowles — co-chair with former Republican Senator Alan Simpson of the Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction panel created and then ignored by President Obama — has convened at Harvard a new “CEO fiscal reform council” to see if a business voice can help break the Washington political logjam. Erskine Bowles is an exceptionally thoughtful, energetic, patriotic, and optimistic business leader. He should be a model for every U.S. CEO, along with Honeywell’s CEO Dave Cote , who served on the Simpson-Bowles panel, and Dow Chemical’s CEO Andrew Liveris who is trying to address many of the issues highlighted above. For much of the last year, the 70-year-old Committee for Economic Development has been trying to mobilize American CEOs to address our fiscal-health challenges. We now have some 85 endorsers of the standards by which we felt the now defunct Super Committee should have been judged. These endorsers included Dave Cote, PIMCO’s Mohamed El-Erian, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, George Conrades of Akamai Technologies, former Blackstone co-founder Peter G. Peterson, and even Erskine Bowles himself. But the effort has been slow-going when it should have been much easier. Why the difficulty? The answer lies in what economists call the collective-action problem, where a wedge exists separating a company’s or a CEO’s private interests from their public interests. Cornell University economist Robert Frank explains how individual incentives often conflict with those of the larger group in a terrific new book, The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition and the Common Good . How the collective action problem plays out to frustrate CEO engagement in sound public policy can be seen clearly in the way one major business association addressed health care reform in 2009 and 2010. America’s employer-sponsored health care system has been a key factor in weakening the global competitiveness of our large companies. A few years ago, General Motors reported that more than $1,000 of a new car’s sticker price went to cover the health insurance costs of its existing and retired workforce. Today, fewer U.S. companies are offering health coverage, and the employer-sponsored system faces inexorable decline. It was clearly in the collective interests of all American businesses to move to an incentive-based, market-oriented health care system and jettison the model that emerged during World War II by accident as a way to skirt wartime wage and price restrictions. Instead of abandoning this anachronistic, uncompetitive approach to health care costs, this business association blocked reform and supported the status quo. The rationale offered for this position was interesting: since many of their member companies could afford the costly premiums, they saw providing gold-plated health insurance benefits as a way to compete for scarce talent in the workforce. If this zero-sum rationale was so compelling, then why did General Motors file for bankruptcy? On the day General Motors filed for bankruptcy protection, one of their former senior officers told me that two reasons accounted for the company’s sorry situation: taking the focus off quality and the consumer, and health care costs. In a private conversation, this association’s president admitted what everyone knew: that the employer-sponsored system was doomed but the association’s individual members preferred to stick with the shorter-term goal of attracting talent. They chose to ignore the longer term, more fundamental, competitiveness issues that are harming their interests. The collective-action problem explains why so many companies and their leaders often behave in this manner. Additionally, other factors reinforce this shortsightedness. Ms. Tett notes that many U.S. corporate leaders today think of their companies and employees as being more global than American. She writes: “American companies might spend heavily to lobby special interests; but it is unclear whether they have [a] similar incentive to change wider American policies.” The Committee for Economic Development is betting that they do — but the headwinds are, indeed, strong. Corporate leaders and their boards are still bewitched by quarterly earnings reports, and CEOs often face shorter tenures at the top. So much of short-term behavior in corporate America is rationalized in the name of “maximizing shareholder value.” Perhaps a rejuvenated shareholders’ rights movement can make a needed, and positive contribution by stiffening the spines of more CEOs and their boards to follow the splendid example of leaders like Dave Cote . We need more American business leaders who put their country first rather than bend to narrow short-term pressures. ______________________________________________________________________________ Charles Kolb is the President of the Committee for Economic Development in Washington, D.C. He served in the first Bush White House from 1990-1992 as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and in the Department of Education as Deputy Undersecretary for Planning, Budget and Evaluation (1988-1990). The views in this article are solely the author’s.

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European Retail Feeling The Pain Of Austerity Measures

January 6, 2012

BRUSSELS — Retails sales in the 17-nation eurozone dropped in November, official statistics showed Friday, as consumers felt the bite of austerity measures and feared the currency union could slip deeper into crisis. Retail sales in the eurozone fell 0.8 percent compared with October and were down 2.5 percent from November 2010, according to Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency. The steepest declines were seen in Portugal, which had to be bailed out in April and where sales fell 2.6 percent during the month and were down a massive 9.2 percent from a year earlier. But even in richer states like Germany and the Netherlands, consumers were more reluctant to part with their money, with retail sales slipping 0.9 percent in both countries during November. That shows how the eurozone’s worsening debt crisis is taking its toll even on countries with strong economies. For the whole European Union, which includes non-euro members like the U.K. and Sweden, November retail sales dropped 0.6 percent from October and 1.3 percent compared with a year earlier. Consumers appear worried by high unemployment, which remained stuck at 10.3 percent in November – unchanged from October but above the 10 percent seen a year earlier – and a darkening outlook on the economy. The weak data also underlines how many people found themselves in a worse position at the end of 2011 than at the end of 2010 – when there were hopes that the continent was turning a corner after two difficult years brought on by the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008. Spain’s unemployment rate was highest at 22.9 percent, up from 20.4 percent a year earlier. That’s more than four times as high as in Austria, where only 4 percent of people were looking for work. For the whole EU, the unemployment rate remained at 9.8 percent. The dark mood is set to continue in the eurozone, with a Eurostat economic sentiment indicator falling 0.5 of a point to 93.3 in December, far below the long-term average of 100. Italy and Spain, the eurozone’s third and forth largest economies which have been pulled into the eye of the crisis in recent months, grew especially pessimistic about the economy. Economic sentiment fell 4.6 points in Italy and 1.3 points in Spain. In the 27 EU countries, economic sentiment was down 0.8 point at 92.

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Top 1% of Mobile Users Consume Half of World’s Bandwidth

January 6, 2012

The world’s congested mobile airwaves are being divided in a lopsided manner, with 1 percent of consumers generating half of all traffic. The top 10 percent of users, meanwhile, are consuming 90 percent of wireless bandwidth.

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Ex-MF Global CFO Tapped For Board That Oversees Billions In Assets

January 6, 2012

(Adds details about violations in 7th paragraph) By Tim McLaughlin BOSTON, Jan 5 (Reuters) – An exclusive group of funds at Fidelity Investments is seeking shareholder approval to extend the brief tenure of a former executive of MF Global Holdings Ltd on a board that oversees billions of dollars in assets, according to U.S. regulatory filings. Independent trustees for Strategic Advisers Inc, a unit of Fidelity, had appointed Amy Butte Liebowitz, a former MF Global chief financial officer and board member, as a director in September, and want her reelected at a Jan. 20 meeting in Boston. Liebowitz earned plaudits at MF Global for helping raise about $2.9 billion in a July 2007 initial public offering. But just months later, some investors accused the company of misrepresenting its risk management prowess in IPO registration documents she and other top executives signed. Strategic Advisers manages about $98 billion in assets. Its funds are not open to the public, but exclusive to clients enrolled in Fidelity’s customized Portfolio Advisory Service. Liebowitz declined to comment for this story. Fidelity spokesman Vincent Loporchio said she was recruited for her significant experience in business and finance. Liebowitz represents a link to MF Global’s short-lived honeymoon as a publicly traded company. Even before MF Global’s collapse into bankruptcy on Oct. 31, the company had been repeatedly cited for lax risk controls. During her tenure of about 17 months, MF Global and its divisions were ordered to pay more than $75 million in restitution and settlements over regulatory violations. Liebowitz, however, was not personally accused of any violations. In a December 2007 settlement involving the collapse of a Philadelphia hedge fund, the alleged violations happened before Liebowitz joined MF Global and its predecessor company. Just months before Liebowitz became a trustee for Strategic Advisers’ funds, MF Global agreed to pay $2.5 million of a $90 million in a preliminary settlement to resolve a shareholder lawsuit that accused the company of lax risk management over a rogue wheat trader in February 2008. Liebowitz and other former MF Global executives were defendants in the civil case in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. In court papers, they denied any wrongdoing. The dispute preceded Jon Corzine, who became MF Global’s CEO in 2010 and led the company’s collapse with wrong-way bets on European debt. Without explanation, Liebowitz, 43, abruptly quit MF Global in January 2008, just before the rogue trader case helped push the company’s stock down 94 percent that year, wiping out $3 billion in shareholder equity. The trades happened about a month after Liebowitz left the company. But some investors pounced on MF Global with lawsuits, alleging that the company senior management team, including Liebowitz, glossed over a shaky risk management system when they took the company public in 2007. A Wall Street veteran and star financial-stocks analyst at Bear Stearns earlier in her career, Liebowitz joined MF Global in September 2006 to spearhead the spin-off and initial public offering of the former Man Financial from Man Group. As the CFO of the New York Stock Exchange, she helped the Big Board go public with its acquisition of Archipelago Holdings Inc. As part of her separation from MF Global, she received a $3 million transition payment and IPO-related restricted stock worth about $11.5 million at the time, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. About a month after Liebowitz left the company, MF Global’s credibility as a risk manager suffered a major blow. On Feb. 27, 2008, an MF Global broker made more than 100 trades from his home computer, placing a bet of nearly $1 billion to buy thousands of wheat futures contracts, according to a lawsuit by several investors. The next day, MF Global said it would take a $141.5 million loss from those trades. At MF Global, Liebowitz’s base salary was $1 million. At Strategic Advisers she would receive about $80,000 a year to attend a handful of meetings for the funds. After leaving MF Global, Liebowitz founded TILE Financial Inc, a financial education firm in Manhattan. The company’s biography on her says she is a new mother and has four stepchildren. (Reporting By Tim McLaughlin; Editing by Richard Chang, and Carol Bishopricu)

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Major Oil Producers Look For New Way To Exploit Natural Gas In Alaska

January 6, 2012

(Adds background on overland pipeline plans) By Yereth Rosen ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Jan 5 (Reuters) – The chief executives of BP and ConocoPhillips, two of Alaska’s three major oil producers, said on Thursday that the only profitable way to exploit a vast but stranded quantity of Alaska’s North Slope natural gas is to export it to Asian Pacific markets. In a dramatic change from decades-old plans to send North Slope natural gas to domestic U.S. markets by overland pipeline through Canada, the BP and ConocoPhillips CEOs said they will work with Exxon Mobil, the third major North Slope oil producer, to develop an LNG project that would export to Asia. North American producers and LNG shippers are scrambling to develop export plans after a sudden surge in domestic natural gas production, thanks to shale gas, that swamped the market and pushed gas prices way below global levels. BP CEO Bob Dudley and ConocoPhillips CEO Jim Mulva made the comments to reporters after an unprecedented meeting in Anchorage of the chief executives of all three major North Slope oil producers. Exxon, whose CEO Rex Tillerson also attended the meeting, said the parties are in early discussions on an export plan, but added that the pipeline plan through Canada is still under consideration. Once expected to be a major importer, the United States now has up to a century’s worth of supply, prompting plans to ship the cheap fuel to thirsty markets in Europe and Asia where prices are up to five times higher. Five projects across the United States and two in western Canada have applied for construction and export licenses, seeking long-term deals predominantly with buyers in Asia However, critics say that exporting gas may drive prices higher at home and discourage use of a homegrown resource. TransCanada Corp and partner Exxon Mobil have been unable to win customers for the 1,700-mile (2,735 km) natural gas pipeline they proposed building from Alaska’s North Slope to Alberta, at a cost of up to $41 billion. BP and ConocoPhillips in May abandoned a rival natural-gas proposal for a similar route and similar delivery volumes after they also failed to attract shipping commitments. TransCanada has also floated the concept of a line to the port of Valdez, which would move 3 billion cubic feet of gas a day and cost up to $26 billion. (Writing by Bill Rigby, additional reporting by Edward McAllister in New York; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Bob Burgdorfer)

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Models Take To Twitter To Extend Careers

January 5, 2012

NEW YORK (AP) — Social media is giving a voice to models who, for the most part, have built their careers as pretty, non-speaking faces. They’ll tweet what they had for breakfast, post behind-the-scenes photos on Tumblr and use Facebook to cultivate “friends” around the world. Tech-savvy fashion followers are eating it up, gaining entry to a world that is so often behind velvet ropes. “I realized there was an audience interested in what I had to say, not just the images from my work,” said model Coco Rocha, who alternates personal posts and lighthearted tidbits with a more businesslike platform to highlight brands and magazines she’s shooting for as well as her favorite social and charitable causes. At age 23, Rocha is no longer the new girl in town, but her fan base of more than 200,000 Twitter followers and 66,000 Facebook friends (plus Tumbler, Google Plus and Instagram accounts and blog readers) gives her “longevity,” she said. “Because I have a voice and I’m sticking to having that voice, I feel like I have extended my career.” Name recognition increases a model’s value, said Sean Patterson, president of the Wilhelmina agency. Models who become celebrities, online or otherwise, might even help reverse the trend of movie and pop stars with “relatable” personal stories taking the A-list advertising jobs and magazine covers that used to go to models. With the day of the supermodel over, models have become more “interchangeable and disposable,” Patterson said. But social media may change that by letting models define themselves: “With fan sites, blogs and Facebook, all of a sudden you can follow a model and know who she is.” Models with online followings can also create extra buzz for brands they represent. “I imagine, for example, that Victoria’s Secret likes that Doutzen (Kroes) has so many Twitter followers and that she tells them, ‘Watch the Victoria’s Secret show I’m in at 9 p.m.,” Patterson said. In addition, social media lets models show the interesting lives they lead off the runway, and it’s a way for chatty, likable personalities to shine. That could tip the balance of who makes it big and who doesn’t, said Michael Flutie, of the E! show “Scouted.” “If you have 10 beautiful girls, all diamonds in the rough to be the next Christy Turlington or Cindy Crawford, you have to narrow it down somehow and you’re going to narrow it down to the four who can communicate really well digitally,” he said. Flutie, a veteran agent and manager, added that being photogenic is no longer the only requirement: “If you can’t walk and talk, you can’t really be a successful ambassador of a brand. You have to be able to communicate.” Models should also know how to Google. There’s no excuse for a model with thousands of cyber followers to not know the name of a company’s CEO when she shows up to shoot its catalog, Flutie said. In the 1990s, Turlington, Crawford and their pals like Linda Evangelista, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell were household names, but they didn’t get to create their own personas the way Rocha or Kroes do today. The public got to know those supermodels in gossip columns and paparazzi photos; this newer generation posts notes about their yoga poses. “I started out doing all this as a fun thing by myself,” said Kroes. “My big thing was how I could give back and how I could tell people I was involved in charity, but then I figured out how it all fits together: I realized I could build my own profile.” Liane Mullin, co-founder of Modelinia.com, an online industry hub, notes that models have a lot of credibility when it comes to posts about “fashion, beauty, fitness, nutrition and food. That’s what they’re experts in. If they recommend a mascara, they’ve had it put on them 10,000 times, and I’ve never worn that much mascara myself, then I trust her opinion.” Hearing about their everyday lives is icing on the cake, she said. “When you see who their friends are, who they are getting congratulations from, who is sending birthday wishes, it’s the popular group that you’re watching from the sidelines that you always wanted to be a part of.” Models also tend to be very active online once they start. “They’re traveling all over the world, sometimes with people they don’t know, and they’re lonely at times. Social media keeps them company and connected,” Mullins said. Model Heide Lindgren wasn’t sure about social media at first. She worried about alienating friends and family, fans or potential employers. But when she wanted to promote a pet cause, Models4Water, which supports clean drinking water efforts, doing it online was the best way. It put her in touch with people in the renewable energy industry, pet lovers and fashion fans. From there, she was hooked. “You can make yourself into more than a model this way. … It introduces me to a new audience, and it might be more people seeing my posts than something that’s in Vogue,” Lindgren said. She mentions products occasionally, but not as paid endorsements. She’s not sure pitchwoman is the online personality she wants: “I want it to be 100 percent real.” Kroes said she’s still trying to strike the right balance in presenting herself as new wife and mother, celebrity and do-gooder. Sometimes, she slips and sends something personal, not thinking about the thousands of people who might be reading her post. “Sometimes it’s scary. I can tweet and 160,000 can see what I’m doing or cooking at home. I forget that because I’m just doing it on my phone, but I’m always trying to reach people in a positive way so I don’t think it’s a bad thing.” Rocha is posting more than ever, but she’s vowing to self-censor a little after tweeting last month from the U.S. premiere of “Iron Lady” that she was excited to see Glenn Close. The movie stars Meryl Streep. “People tweeted back right away: ‘dumb model,’ but it was A LOT of people,” she said. “When I started, models were booked only for their cheekbones. Now I think I get bookings because people will say they respect me, or we stand for the same things, or they think what I have to say is interesting. It’s better to hear that than just, ‘You have gorgeous cheekbone structure.’” ___ Online: https://www.facebook.com/HeideLindgrenPage https://twitter.com/(hash)!/Doutzen https://twitter.com/(hash)!/cocorocha

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Quinn Signs Pension Reform Into Law

January 5, 2012

CHICAGO– Public employees can no longer rely on some loopholes to inflate their state benefits, including one that allowed two union officials to qualify for teachers’ retirement perks after a single day in the classroom, under a law signed Thursday.

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HBO Swipes At Netflix In Latest Move

January 5, 2012

The complicated relationship between Netflix and HBO just got a bit more complicated. The New York Times’ Brian Stelter is reporting that HBO is no longer selling its DVDs at a discount to Netflix as of January 1, a move that continues the battle between the two entertainment giants for the eyes of paid content buyers. Though Netflix will certainly lose money having to buy its DVDs of HBO series from retail outlets, HBO’s non-cooperation here is perhaps more important as a further declaration of war between Netflix and HBO, two companies that often name-check each other in public as both rivals and potential partners, true frenemies in the big entertainment world. Recent highlights of the HBO-Netflix feud include HBO co-president Eric Kessler telling an audience in December that Netflix would never get its shows for streaming, which followed by six months HBO’s decision to hook up with Dish Network’s Internet streaming service DishOnline rather than Netflix in April (with, as a bonus, a Dish Network exec taking a shot at Netflix’s service model in the press release); a Time Warner exec anonymously telling the Hollywood Reporter in January that HBO might consider listening to Netflix’s overtures if the company started charging $20 per month; and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings saying that the show he wants most on Netflix streaming is HBO’s narco-drama “The Wire” in April and that the direct competitor his company is most concerned with is HBO, whose streaming service HBO GO is included for most customers who pay for HBO with their cable and satellite subscriptions. Of HBO as a rival, Hastings said the following in December : The competitor we fear the most is HBO Go. They aren’t competing directly with us now, but they can. HBO is becoming much more Netflix-like, and we’re becoming much more HBO-like. That Netflix and HBO aren’t directly competing is not quite true, in fact, as the two previously battled over the upcoming drama “House of Cards,” created by David Fincher and starring Kevin Spacey. Netflix eventually won that battle , securing exclusive rights to “House of Cards” for a reported 100+ million dollars . It was the first original programming deal for Netflix; the company soon followed up with exclusives for a fourth season of cult classic “Arrested Development” and the Steven Van Zandt mobster drama “Lilyhammer”, which debuts next month . HBO is indeed becoming more Netflix-like, however, with its HBO GO streaming service and its agreement with Dish. Netflix, meanwhile, is also becoming more HBO-like, with its content deals for premium shows. The HBO-Netflix War certainly escalated in 2011, and this latest monetary swipe by HBO once again puts the two at odds in 2012.

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Jeff Reeves: Jobs Numbers Rise, but Big Businesses Still Make Big Layoffs

January 5, 2012

Wall Street seemed upbeat this week thanks to a number of headlines, include positive jobs numbers in a private-sector payroll report from ADP. Specifically, jobs increased 325,000 in December, led by the service sector and small businesses. Additionally, November’s employment numbers were revised slightly higher. But lest you think everything is coming up roses, keep in mind that many big corporations in America still are reluctant to hire. In fact, they are continuing to cut back, based on recent news. For starters, PepsiCo is considering cutting about 4,000 jobs, according to a New York Post report. Citing inside sources , the paper also said Pepsi might be reducing pension contributions to boost its earnings, too. Also Thursday, we learned that Kansas-based employees of Boeing will be looking for work soon . The iconic aircraft maker will be out of Wichita entirely by 2013, leaving more than 2,160 workers in the lurch. Boeing has called Kansas home since the 1920s but decided the facility no longer would allow the company to produce planes “competitively” in the current market. While the ADP improvement is mildly encouraging and the drop in unemployment from above 9 percent to the mid-8 percent levels is nice, these mass layoffs show that the labor market still has a long way to go. What’s more, these cuts signal what likely is a disturbing trend in big corner offices beyond just Pepsi and Boeing. Aerospace workers nationwide are bracing for protracted cuts in Pentagon spending as federal budget cuts take center stage in this election year. The Boeing headline is worrying to workers at competitors like Lockheed Martin, but perhaps of greater concern is that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is reviewing plans to trim $450 billion from the military budget over the next 10 years. Military contractors already have begun to consolidate manufacturing facilities and eliminate thousands of jobs from coast to coast in anticipation of this plan. This is just the latest chapter from Congress in a long story of killing jobs, not creating them . As for Pepsi, the company employs about 300,000 workers globally, so the layoff might seem small-time. But the move to cut back on benefits is very telling. Eliminating a 401(k) match would save Pepsi $75 million, according to the Post , but don’t think for a second that cash is needed to keep the lights on. Pepsi is sitting on eight consecutive quarters of year-over-year revenue gains — and is on track to see its fiscal 2011 earnings jump about 37 percent from 2008 numbers. Pepsi isn’t in dire straits. It’s just squeezing employees to impress Wall Street. I wrote recently on The Huffington Post that the ONLY thing that will fix this economy is more confidence . Folks mostly laughed me out of the room — but these layoff announcements continue to show a defensive posturing from corporate America that simply must stop for us to make meaningful progress. Like it or lump it, businesses cannot accept falling profits. And if they don’t have confidence in their growth prospects, the only way to achieve that is to cut costs. Some might argue these recent layoffs are just more money-grubbing tactics from the wealthiest 1 percent to boost corporate profits. Maybe, in part, they are. But let’s stop being naive for a second and admit that businesses are out to make as much money as they can — not employ as many people as they can. This is capitalism, not charity. Pleasant jobs reports like the one from ADP this morning are nice, but workers need to read between the lines. The sad reality is that while small businesses might be hiring and more jobs in the service industry might be available, blue-chip corporations continue to slash costs and benefits to improve their profits. Simultaneously, these big corporations are buying back their own stock at a breakneck pace to inflate numbers. In a nutshell, businesses won’t hire significantly unless they see sustainable growth. And in lieu of sustainable growth, they will settle for juicing numbers via layoffs and buybacks. The result is that even the most bullish of investors are targeting, at best, an unemployment rate of 8 percent in 2012 . Breaking this cycle is no easy task. It will take innovation, compromises on both sides and a little help from broader economic growth. Until that happens, don’t expect a big drop in unemployment any time soon. Jeff Reeves is the editor of InvestorPlace.com. Write him at editor@investorplace​​.com.

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Swiss Central Bank Chief To Break Silence Over Insider Deals

January 5, 2012

ZURICH — Switzerland’s central bank chief was breaking his silence Thursday over a private currency deal that appeared to net his family big profits at a time when he was spearheading efforts to lower the value of the Swiss franc. In a bid to counter a national uproar, the Swiss National Bank said its President Philipp Hildebrand would hold a news conference in Zurich to discuss “financial transactions and events of recent days.” Swiss media say Hildebrand’s appearance could make or break the 48-year-old financial prodigy who is considered key to Switzerland’s success in riding out the worst of the European financial crisis largely unscathed. “SNB’s Hildebrand – today his head is on the line,” read the front page of Switzerland’s mass market tabloid Blick. The Neue Zuercher Zeitung, which is widely read in business and political circles, saw the pressure on Hildebrand growing. “It’s now up to the central bank president to ensure complete transparency,” the influential paper wrote in an op-ed piece Thursday. The public furor over Hildebrand’s private deals marks a fall from grace for the former champion swimmer. As recently as last week, one Swiss newspaper described him as the “rock star of the euro crisis” for keeping a cool head while Switzerland’s neighbors trembled amid the turmoil affecting the euro currency. It was Hildebrand who led the Swiss National Bank’s efforts to vent steam out of Switzerland’s overheating currency by setting the minimum value of the euro at 1.20 Swiss francs on Sept. 6. When details of Hildebrand’s account at the exclusive private bank Sarasin surfaced late last year, the Swiss central bank declared that its chief had done no wrong and that the case was considered closed. But the recent drip-drip of claims – some of them pitting Hildebrand’s word against those of a magazine hostile to his leadership of the bank – has reignited debate over the future of Switzerland’s top banker. Much of Hildebrand’s defense rest on his claim that it was his wife Kashya, a former currency trader now running an art gallery in Zurich, who bought more than half a million U.S. dollars on Aug. 15 without telling her husband. Kashya Hildebrand, a Pakistan-born U.S. citizen, told Swiss television Tuesday that she invested in the dollar “because it was at a record low and almost laughably cheap.” It is unclear whether she was aware that her husband’s central bank would two days later increase the liquidity of the franc, thereby lifting the value of the dollar. The SNB says the deal, along with two other Hildebrand transactions totaling over $1.6 million, were within the rules set for senior bank officials to prevent them profiting from insider knowledge. That take was challenged by a senior figure in the powerful conservative Swiss People’s Party. “That those close to the central bank chief are making currency deals is an absolute no-go,” Christoph Moergeli told Swiss TV. “You don’t even need to put that in writing.”

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Is Obama Creating More Summer Jobs For Teens?

January 5, 2012

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is looking to boost summer job prospects for kids. The White House says that with help from the private sector it’s gotten commitments for nearly 180,000 youth employment opportunities for next summer and is aiming for tens of thousands more. Obama says that with young people facing record unemployment the government must do everything it can to make sure they have opportunities to learn skills and a work ethic. The summer jobs plan is to be announced Thursday. It’s the administration’s latest “We Can’t Wait” initiative to go around Congress. Many of the positions would be unpaid training opportunities. Republicans charged that the White House is taking credit for positions at places like CVS and Bank of America that were going to be created anyway.

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Brendan McMahon: Unemployment Is A Lifestyle For Actors, And Now Too Many Others

January 4, 2012

Recently, I was hired by a family friend to remove the walls and flooring of a house he needed to sell. This family friend is as nice as you can get. I got the feeling he normally would have done the work himself, but he knows I’m an actor. Like most actors and many Americans, I’m unemployed. Right now, the country is running an 8.6 percent unemployment rate. At the same time, the average unemployment rate for actors, according to the Actor’s Equity Association , hovers around 90 percent. Whereas being unemployed is a rather new phenomenon for most of the workforce, it is a way of life for actors. Every day I hear or read about folks looking for work. “With my experience, I just still don’t understand why I’m not being picked up quickly by a permanent job someplace,” said Ray Meyer recently on a National Public Radio report regarding unemployment. Meyer had a 30-year career in Banking before being laid off in 2008. He has since had a series of temporary assignments. This kind of uncertainty is typical fare for Actors who “endure long periods of unemployment, intense competition for roles, and frequent rejections in auditions,” states a report by the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to the same report, with Acting jobs typically lasting from ” between 1 day and several months ,” Actors ” must hold other jobs in order to make a living .” This is becoming commonplace for many workers, including those who are college graduates. It is generally accepted that training for an occupation and becoming a contributing member of society is why we attend college. For actors, attending University for a degree in performing has become a practice in absurdity. There is not enough work for most of them to pay the debts they’ve incurred. Unfortunately, this seems to be becoming a truth for many professions. According to FinAid.org, about two-thirds of all college students graduate with debt, borrowing between $27,000 and $114,000 . Increasingly those who can find work often find work in jobs that don’t require a college degree. A report from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity states “Total college graduate employment in below college level jobs increased from 953,000 in 1967 to 5.06 million individuals in 1990.” The report goes on to show that this trend has grown exponentially in the current recession, from 16.6 percent of college grads working such jobs in 1998 to 35.3 percent in 2008. Again, for actors this situation is an old hat. In a 2005 New York Times article , Scott L. Steele, the executive director of the University/Resident Theater Association, a consortium of graduate theater programs and professional theaters stated: “We’re producing too many people… many of them poorly trained or moved into the field without the connections or relationships necessary to make their transition to a career possible. It’s as if medical school were graduating people without giving them internships at a hospital.” In the same article, Alan Eisenberg, the executive director of Actors Equity followed a similar train of thought: “These schools are just turning out so many grads for whom there is no work.” Such sentiments were echoed throughout: “How do we effectively prepare our students for a career that has no interest in them being part of it?” The idea of paying off the loans for our expensive educations seems like it might take some kind of miracle, especially while working in temporary jobs with low wages. Again, this is sadly becoming true for graduates of higher education in all fields. Certainly, a Master’s Degree qualifies one to teach at the College level, but with the above figures and testimony, there’s something rather unsettling about taking students money for an education that will not help them find work. Loaded with college debt, and without steady work, anxiety and depression are becoming prevalent among the ranks of the unemployed. “I am so down,” states Jennifer Barfield, an out of work IT professional, also interviewed recently by National Public Radio . “I am just questioning everything from spiritual issues to what’s the point of living life if this is all it is.” These sentiments are commonly revisited in my conversations with other performing arts professionals, but now hopelessness seems to be a prevailing theme for all of the unemployed. According to the online journal Live Science : “The primary issue the unemployed are dealing with is the loss of identity.” Doing a job we have trained for and are good at makes us feel as though we have meaning and purpose in our lives, and as though we are contributing to our society. For many actors, indeed for many artists, the sense that what we have to offer isn’t necessary in our society leads to lifestyles dogged by the depression and anxiety that many outside the arts are now experiencing through lack of work. For all of the suffering unemployment causes, it is amazing how little it takes to reverse some of the effects. Working on the house, it felt great to engage in the work at hand, to know that it would help me to buy Christmas presents, buy groceries and pay bills. Sadly, the job was finished in one day. Short term. Itinerant. Unskilled. This is an old story for many actors, and unfortunately also the story for many of the currently unemployed.

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Disney, Comcast Reach Deal

January 4, 2012

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Walt Disney Co. said Wednesday that it reached a long-term agreement with the nation’s largest TV signal provider, Comcast Corp., that extends their partnership into the next decade. The 10-year deal covers major pay channels ESPN, Disney Channel and ABC Family and the retransmission of free ABC broadcast network programs through seven ABC TV stations. It allows Comcast subscribers to gain greater access to shows on demand over the Internet on multiple devices. Terms were not disclosed. The deal comes as TV distributors and content owners continue to spar over fees to carry programming. In the New York area, a dispute between Time Warner Cable and The Madison Square Garden Co. has left some cable subscribers without access to Knicks basketball or Rangers hockey games since early in the new year. Disney and Comcast agreed on the package covering 70 channels or services even though only a few agreements covering ABC Family, Disney Channel and Disney XD had expired at the end of 2011. The companies agreed that a long-term comprehensive deal was in both their interests. Comcast and Disney called the scope and range of the deal “unprecedented.” “It reinforces the value of the multichannel subscription and takes full advantage of new technologies, which serve all of our viewers,” said ESPN executive chairman George Bodenheimer in a statement. The deal incorporates Comcast’s Xfinity TV online suite of programs and gives its 22.4 million video subscribers online access to services such as ESPN3, which offers live feeds of games that are sometimes not on the television network. Comcast subscribers will also be able to watch ABC shows such as “Castle” and “Grey’s Anatomy” on demand, but they won’t have the option of fast-forwarding through commercials. Comcast also agreed to carry the pay TV channel Disney Junior, a rebranded network focused on children up to age 7 that will replace the SOAPnet channel in February. Disney shares rose 49 cents to $38.80 in afternoon trading. Comcast shares rose 10 cents to $24.59.

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Michael Bociurkiw: ‘Occupy’ Protests Become Major Challenge to Nigerian Government

January 4, 2012

Whether commuting to and from my job to my office in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, or racing down the back roads of the country’s parched and neglected North, I would often shake my head in amazement at the lack of any display of discontent from ordinary Nigerians. Power outages that drag on, in some cases, for days; crumbling roads; rampant corruption and rising food costs — these are common complaints among the tens of millions of Nigerians that have been left behind by the country’s oil wealth. My bewilderment came from the knowledge that Nigeria is among the ten largest oil exporters globally, and yet it can hardly manage to power the street lamps in the showcase, man-made capital city of Abuja. Most people live on less than $2 a day; malnutrition and even cases of polio can be found in the northern states. During national elections last year, government workers had to use candles and flashlights to check voters’ IDs. “Nigerians will just sit back and tolerate whatever fate that is handed to them,” said a driver for an international NGO. “They will say it is God’s will — or they will lean on their extended family members for help.” I spent several months in Nigeria last year — just as the “Arab Spring” was sending convulsions through the precincts of many North African and Middle Eastern power centers. I even travelled to Cairo to see empowered protesters staring down armed riot police in Tahrir Square. Yet even though Nigeria is just a few hours flight from Egypt or Libya, no one believed for a moment that the winds of change would reach Africa’s most populous nation. But that all changed on January 1, when the Nigerian Government moved ahead after months of deliberation and removed a long-cherished fuel subsidy that more than doubles the price of fuel and transport fares. The impact has been so great that many ordinary Nigerians can no longer afford to get to work. Over the past few days Nigerians have been taking to the streets in great numbers, in the first mass protests against the relatively new government of Goodluck Jonathan and his powerful PDP ruling party. “The subsidy was the only benefit that we have been getting from the oil wealth and now that is gone,” tweeted one angry Nigerian. (Because of the subsidy Nigerians have the cheapest pump prices in Africa; but many use the petrol to power generators that have been made necessary by shoddy infrastructure). To be sure, there are few parallels between the ‘Arab Spring’ protests and what is now transpiring in Nigeria. But one significant similarity is the use of social media to share feelings of outrage and to mobilize people. One brief, revolting video of a young man being beaten by Lagos police during a protest went viral as soon as it was posted on YouTube. So paranoid is the government of the situation galloping out of control that it is reportedly considering a move to shut down Blackberry messenger services in the country. The service has been a vital link for protest organizers and supporters. In many cities there are reports of police arrested and beating protesters. Just yesterday indications were that the massive and powerful trade unions will join the protests, a move which could effectively bring the country to a standstill. Even though Nigeria is the continent’s biggest oil producer, it imports refined oil. Plans to install refinery capacity have never gotten off the ground, due to corruption and mismanagement. Most Nigerians harbor well-grounded suspicions that billions of dollars in oil wealth have been salted away in the offshore accounts of current and past leaders. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reportedly been pressuring the government to remove the subsidy, which costs the treasury an estimated $8 billion a year. If this is indeed the case, the IMF could be repeating the horrendous mistake of the last 1990s, when pressure on countries like Indonesia to remove subsidies and devalue their currencies triggered the East Asian financial crisis. A general strike has been declared for Monday and on Twitter and Facebook the outrage is palpable. Said one Tweet posted by a Nigerian: “Nigeria is a fool at 51 (years old) and a fool forever. No electricity, no transportation, no fuel, no education, no good governance, no nothing.” Even members of the Diaspora are in awe at the growing ‘Occupy’ protests. “I’d like to see Nigerians truly have a revolution and be willing to die for what they believe in,” said Oluwa Uduak, a Nigerian-American lawyer, on her Facebook page. To be sure, Jonathan is not the first president to try to do away with the cherished fuel subsidy — his predecessors tried but quickly backed down in the face of widespread opposition. Promises to plow the extra $7.5 billion of revenue from the scrapping of the subsidy into health, education and infrastructure have been poorly communicated and met with skepticism by ordinary Nigerians. In order to quell unrest, promises could be made to install additional refineries, which could help to bring down the real cost of fuel. But such actions take months if not years and, with anger past the boiling point, the Jonathan administration may not have the luxury of time to bring about major reforms.

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Jackie Barrie: Why Social Media Doesn’t Mean Business

January 4, 2012

Don’t imagine that social media will directly win you business. They might. Just like face-to-face networking might. But just as it’s unlikely that you’ll meet someone on day one who says: “Hoorah, you sell exactly what I need, let me give you my money”, it’s unlikely that a presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ or Twitter will automatically result in increased income. Face-to-face networking works because of what you do and say in between your one-minute presentations and weekly or monthly meetings. Social media can work for profile-raising, SEO, inbound links, customer research in order to change your service offering, and monitoring mentions and sentiment. If engagement is the key, then you have to be engaging. If you want to attract business, you have to be attractive. And if you want to charm people into buying, you have to be charming. Perhaps surprisingly, one of the tweets that generated business for me recently was a link to a kids’ game on the Innocent Drinks website, where you had to squeeze fruit into cartons (so it was a logical fit with the product but it was fun as well which is consistent with the brand personality). The phone rang, and the caller said: “Can you hear that music playing in the background?” “Yes,” I replied. “Do you know what it is?” he asked. “No,” I said. “It’s the music to that Innocent Drinks game you just tweeted. Will you rewrite my website?” Networking is not right for every sector, business or individual. It absolutely works if you do it right. But for some people, industries and brands, it’s not a suitable route to market. Similarly, social media marketing is not compulsory or appropriate for everyone, but depending on your objective, it can absolutely work. Tip: Before you start, be clear about why you’re doing it and what you want to achieve, then measure the time you invest against what you get back.

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Oil Industry Chief: Rejecting Pipeline Would Be ‘Huge Mistake’ For Obama

January 4, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — The oil industry’s top lobbyist is warning the Obama administration to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline or face “huge political consequences” in an election year. Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said it would be a “huge mistake” for President Barack Obama to reject the 1,700-mile, Canada-to-Texas pipeline. Obama faces a Feb. 21 deadline to decide whether the $7 billion pipeline is in the national interest. Speaking at the trade association’s annual “State of American Energy” event Wednesday, Gerard said: “Clearly, the Keystone XL pipeline is in the national interest. A determination to decide anything less than that I believe will have huge political consequences.” Many unions support the pipeline, which would create thousands of jobs. Environmentalists fear it could lead to an oil spill disaster.

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Development Barred In Puerto Rico Coastal Strip

January 4, 2012

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A lush region along Puerto Rico’s north coast will be off-limits to developers until a lawsuit filed by conservationists is resolved, an appeals court ruled on Wednesday. The ruling temporarily bars any Puerto Rican agency from issuing construction permits for the so-called Northeast Ecological Corridor located just north of El Yunque rainforest. At least five major developments have been proposed for the area, including three resorts and one mall. In June 2011, a group of conservationists filed a lawsuit to protect the region, which is considered one of the last remaining nesting sites of the U.S. leatherback turtle. Joining the cause were celebrities such as actors Benicio Del Toro and Edward James Olmos and environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The government earlier had proposed to change the region’s zoning to allow for development in a plan that conservationists say would leave nearly 700 acres (280 hectares) of the roughly 3,200-acre (1,300-hectare) area without protection. A proposed bill that designates the Northeast Ecological Corridor as a natural reserve is still awaiting debate in the Puerto Rico Senate.

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Montana Supreme Court Brushes Aside ‘Citizens United’

January 4, 2012

WASHINGTON — The Montana Supreme Court has put itself on a collision course with the U.S. Supreme Court by upholding a century-old state law that bans corporate spending in state and local political campaigns. The law, which was passed by Montana voters in 1912 to combat Gilded Age corporate control over much of Montana’s government, states that a “corporation may not make … an expenditure in connection with a candidate or a political party that supports or opposes a candidate or a political party.” In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its landmark Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision , struck down a similar federal statute, holding that independent electoral spending by corporations “do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption” that such laws were enacted to combat. That reasoning — described by the Citizens United dissenters as a ” crabbed view of corruption ” — compelled 23 of the 24 states with independent spending bans to stop enforcing their restrictions, according to Edwin Bender, executive director of the Helena, Mont.-based National Institute on Money in State Politics . Montana, however, stood by its 1912 law, which led several corporations to challenge it as unconstitutional. By a 5-2 vote this past Friday, the Montana Supreme Court declined to recognize the common understanding that Citizens United bars all laws limiting independent electoral spending. Instead, Chief Justice Mike McGrath, writing on behalf of the majority, called on the history surrounding the state law to show that corporate money, even if not directly contributed to a campaign, can give rise to corruption. McGrath’s opinion in Western Tradition Partnership v. Attorney General harkens back to the turn of the 20th century, when Montana’s ” Copper Kings ” — the natural resource-rich state’s version of the robber barons — competed “for political and economic domination” so effectively that by the time the Montana voters banned corporate spending in a voter initiative, “the State of Montana and its government were operating under a mere shell of legal authority.” One such Copper King, wrote Mark Twain in a quotation cited by McGrath, was “said to have bought legislatures and judges as other men buy food and raiment.” Paul S. Ryan, associate legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center , characterized the Montana Supreme Court’s reliance on factual findings culled from a century of state history, plus the trial testimony from contemporary politicians of both parties, as “an antidote to the crabbed view of corruption” adopted in Citizens United . Nevertheless, most observers, including Ryan, do not anticipate the U.S. Supreme Court accepting that antidote. The ruling in Citizens United that independent spending does not give rise to corruption introduced a categorical rule that no factual reality can overcome as long as the decision’s five-justice majority remains on the Court. To make this point, dissenting state Justice Beth Baker wrote that Montana “made no more compelling a case than that painstakingly presented in the 90-page dissenting opinion of Justice [John Paul] Stevens and emphatically rejected by the majority in Citizens United .” And state Justice James Nelson, also dissenting, put the point more bluntly. Even while lambasting Citizens United ‘s reasoning as “utter nonsense” and “smoke and mirrors,” among other insults, he found himself duty-bound to defer to the decision of the highest court in the land. “The Supreme Court in Citizens United rejected several asserted governmental interests,” wrote Nelson, “and this Court has now come along, retrieved those interests from the garbage can, dusted them off, slapped a ‘Made in Montana’ sticker on them, and held them up as grounds for sustaining a patently unconstitutional state statute.” Nelson wrote that it “would not surprise me in the least” if the U.S. Supreme Court reversed his court’s decision without even asking for briefs or oral argument from the opposing parties. To reverse the Montana Supreme Court, however, the justices would have to extract themselves from a quandary of their own making, noted professor Rick Hasen of the University of California-Irvine Law School on his popular Election Law Blog. “If the Court were being honest in Citizens United ,” Hasen wrote, “it would have said something like: We don’t care whether or not independent spending can or cannot corrupt; the First Amendment trumps this risk of corruption.” But by “dress[ing] up its value judgment … as a factual statement,” continued Hasen, the U.S. Supreme Court must now explain why the Montana Supreme Court was not correct to consider the factual record when it came to justifying corporate spending limits in campaign finance laws. How the Citizens United majority will deny the force of Montana’s factual record or, for that matter, Mark Twain’s observations — and whether the Citizens United dissenters will express their schadenfreude at their colleagues’ efforts — remains hypothetical for now. Donald Ferguson, executive director of lead plaintiff American Tradition Partnership (formerly known as Western Tradition Partnership), wrote in an email to HuffPost that his organization has “not yet made a decision on future actions regarding the suit.”

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2.1 Million Fords Sold Last Year

January 4, 2012

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co.’s U.S. sales rose 11 percent in 2011 thanks to strong demand for its trucks and SUVs. Ford sold 2.1 million vehicles last year, a sign of the industry’s continuing recovery. It was the first time the Ford brand has passed the 2 million mark since before the recession in 2007. Strong sellers included the new Ford Explorer SUV, which more than doubled sales from 2010. The Escape small SUV and Ranger small pickup also posted big increases. Ford’s car sales rose 4 percent. Sales of the Fiesta subcompact nearly tripled over 2010, but Ford didn’t get much traction with its new Focus small car. Ford’s Lincoln brand sales were flat. Ford says December sales climbed 10 percent over the same month last year.

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Michael J. Hunt: What If Hunter S. Thompson Had Twitter?

January 4, 2012

Des Moines, IA — Every Presidential election year since 1824 has produced a biography of a candidate who has set his or her sights on the White House. The 2011 election is no different. But a combination of fewer print journalists on the trail, a heavy reliance up to the minute information provided via social media, particularly Twitter, and an overall sense of disillusionment with government and politicians could perhaps signal an end to this tradition. “The books I am selling the most of these days have to do more with government corruption and budgetary restraint,” said John Heitzman on Tuesday. Heitzman, who spoke by phone from his business, is the owner of The Book Store, a small independent book store just yards from most of the hotels that candidates, campaign staff and media members call home when they make the quadrennial pilgrimage to the state in the lead up to the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses. He has owned the store for 12 years and lives in Des Moines. Another reason “retail politics” doesn’t directly translate to retail business for Heitzman, he said, could be due to the fact that Iowa voters have plenty of opportunities to meet the presidential candidates in person and, thus, hear many of the same stories that are typically told in a lengthy biography. “Everything is syndicated these days, so I think where I used to get more print journalists, we’re now seeing more of the television and Associated Press style coverage,” he said. “And I imagine they’re pretty busy too while they’re here. I know in the past I would get them as they get ready to leave so they have something to read on the plane.” So is the standard presidential biography template used by candidates a technique from a bygone era? “Maybe,” said Heitzman, who suggested that biographies now are mostly useful to a candidate like Herman Cain, who came from relative obscurity to become one of the leading candidates in the Republican field before suspending his campaign indefinitely in Early December. “Cain’s book did well, because he basically came out of nowhere, and people didn’t know what to make of him.” According to Steve Grubbs, a veteran operative and former Republican Party of Iowa chairman who led Herman Cain’s Caucus effort in Iowa, Cain’s book played an important role in his sudden surge in the polls. “It created a deeper relationship for those among his passionate base of supporters who read it,” said Grubbs on Tuesday. At least one political insider has found a few spare moments to read during the current caucus season. Iowa Democratic Party Communications Director Sam Roecker said Tuesday that he recently finished Hunter S. Thompson’s renowned “Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72,” a collection of articles covering the 1972 presidential campaign. Years after it was published, Presidential candidate George McGovern’s strategist Frank Mankiewicz called Thompson’s reporting “the least factual, most accurate account” of the election. Too bad Thompson didn’t live long enough to have a Twitter account. Consistent with Heitzman’s experience at his store, Jessi Allard, a shift leader at Half Price Books in West Des Moines, also said Tuesday that politically themed book sales did not spike over the holidays, nor over the course of the caucus season. “For our store, it mostly has to do with how new the book is, but there has not really been a noticeable difference because of the caucuses,” said Allard. “Maybe it will, the closer we get to the general election.” As for the books that are selling at Heitzman’s store on Locust Street, he named two: “Throw Them All Out,” by Peter Schweizer, and “Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress — and a Plan to Stop,” by Lawrence Lessig. Both would generally be considered a far cry from Sarah Palin’s latest book, “America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag.” “Throw Them All Out,” which explores a brewing scandal in Washington, examines how the political class in Washington enriches itself at the expense of average Americans through insider trading on Wall Street. “Both of those books reflect a real dissatisfaction with government,” said Heitzman, an attitude he said has gotten worse during the budget stand-offs of the last year. Tonight is the Iowa Caucus, and nearly a year of combative campaigning will pass before the country goes to the polls to select a president. With Washington lawmakers running in the opposite direction of cooperation to improve much of anything, let alone the economy, Mr. Heitzman will probably have to make room on his shelves for more bitter books about politics in 2012. Michael J. Hunt, @MJH510, is a political observer, trained in Oakland, based in the Heartland. If you would like to contribute as a citizen journalist to The Huffington Post’s coverage of the 2012 elections, please contact us at www.offthebus.org .

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Harlan Green: 2012 Will Be Better

January 3, 2012

The elements seem to be in place for a better 2012 economy. Why? Banks are lending again, and it was tight bank credit after bursting of the housing bubble that basically stopped businesses from growing. Banks stopped lending because of their losses from the Great Recession, which finally ended in June 2009. So after three years of Scrooge-like underwriting following 2008′s financial crisis, banks have finally turned on the spigot, boosting lending at annual rates as high as 8.2 percent since July, according to Federal Reserve statistics. Lending had fallen from mid-2008 through this year’s second quarter, deepening what became the worst recession since the Great Depression. The data seem to allay fears that making banks keep more capital on their books as a cushion against future downturns and loan losses will take away the cash flow businesses need to keep the recovery moving. Even small businesses have seen a difference, says Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist of the National Federation of Independent Business. In a monthly NFIB survey , only 3 percent of small-business owners say lack of credit is their most important problem, trailing taxes, regulation and still-sluggish demand. Then the Conference Board’s Index of Leading Economic Indicators continues to show 3 percent plus GDP growth for the next 6 months. Graph: Wrightson ICAP The LEI is a weighted gauge of 10 indicators designed to signal business cycle peaks and troughs. Among the 10 indicators that make up the LEI, seven made positive contributions in November. The index rose a very solid 0.5 percent following October’s 0.9 percent surge. The leading positive is the rate spread which reflects the Federal Reserve’s zero interest rate policy, said its press release. The second positive is building permits which appear to be building steam in what is very good news for the construction sector. Consumer expectations are also a big positive in the month and judging from this month’s consumer sentiment report look to be a big positive for December. Another positive that’s likely to extend through this month is the November improvement in jobless claims which gave the fifth strongest contribution to the month’s 0.5 percent gain. The sharp decline in weekly initial unemployment insurance jobless claims means fewer workers are being fired. Layoffs are on a steady decline in what is good news for the jobs market and for the December employment report. Though initial claims worsened by 15K in the week of December 24, reversing roughly half of their early-December improvement, the 4-week moving average fell for the ninth consecutive week to 375K, which is still a marked improvement from the levels seen in October and November. Graph: Econoday Both the University of Michigan and Conference Board sentiment surveys continue to improve. The U. of Michigan reading implies a very strong 72.1 over the last two weeks which points to momentum for January. The bulk of the gain is centered in expectations, at 63.6 in December for a more than eight point monthly gain that points further to momentum in the New Year. The assessment of current conditions, likely held down by bad news out of Europe, rose only two points in the month to 79.6. Graph: Inside Debt The New York-based Conference Board said that its December Consumer Confidence Index rose almost 10 points to 64.5, up from 55.2 in November. The surge builds on another big increase in November, when the index rose almost 15 points from the month before. One likely positive for sentiment is improvement in the jobs market as well as the stock market which has been on the recovery, said Econoday . Another positive may be gasoline prices which, despite $100 oil, are on the decline. One-year inflation expectations eased one tenth in the month to 3.1 percent with five-year expectations unchanged at 2.7 percent. Small businesses are important because they account for 70 percent of new jobs. Though slack demand is still making entrepreneurs wary of borrowing, says NFIB chief economist William Dunkelberg: Only 12 percent think business will be better in 12 months than it is now. “Two-thirds of business owners say, “Who wants a loan?” says Dunkelberg, who is chairman of a small Pennsylvania bank. “In thirty years, I’ve never seen anything like it. The banks all have money to lend, but there’s a shortage of eligible customers coming in.” Small businesses are the key, so we know the recovery will become sustainable if they can continue to borrow. Increased bank lending is a sign of increased demand for products and services in 2012, a good sign for all businesses.

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