“People realize and it’s amazing how people don’t recognize you. They don’t expect to see me at Starbucks or at Chipotle.” — MICHELLE OBAMA telling Al Rocker about how she likes to get outside the White House and shop (via MSNBC)
Continue reading …
New retirement age plan benefits people born from 6 January-5 September 1954, at cost to taxpayers of £1.1bn The work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, has announced that the planned rise in the state pension age to 66 will be delayed until October 2020 in a move the government claims will benefit thousands of women. The original plans in the pensions bill meant women faced an increase in their state pension age to 65 from November 2018, followed by a further one-year increase to 66 from April 2020. That would have resulted in 33,000 women waiting an extra two years before they could claim the state pension. The new timetable will cap the increased wait to a maximum of 18 months, costing taxpayers £1.1bn. Campaigners had bombarded ministers, MPs and the media with letters demanding the rise in pension ages should be slowed down. They argued that women hit by the biggest increases in retirement age, most of whom are now aged 57, need more time to plan their finances or ensure they have work to cover any shortfall in retirement income caused by the later pension payments. Duncan Smith said: “We have listened to the concerns of those women most affected by the proposed rise in state pension age to 66 and so we will cap the increase to a maximum of 18 months. We have always made clear that we would manage any change fairly and ensure any transition is as smooth as possible.” However, only men and women born between 6 January and 5 September 1954 will benefit from the six-month delay. Lynda Hudson, a crown court employee in Birmingham who was born in December 1953, said: “I will still have to wait 18 months for my pension. What the politicians don’t appreciate is that it was very different for those of us born in the 50s: we didn’t have the same opportunity to go to university or help with childcare enabling us to work and build up our own pensions. It makes us feel that they don’t value anything that we’ve done. We’re just a burden.” The government said it had brought forward the increase in state pension age to 66 because of dramatic increases in life expectancy and the need to ensure no unfair burden was placed on the next generation. It said it would spend £45bn extra on pensioners by 2025 because of the triple guarantee to uprate the basic state pension by 2.5% or, if higher, the rate of increase in either earnings or prices. Chris Ball, chief executive of the Age and Employment Network, said: “The soundness of raising the state pension age and forcing people to go on working when the number of jobs available is shrinking will be rightly questioned.” He said asking people in physically demanding jobs to wait for their pension without making adequate provision to allow them to change roles and ease down in later life was “harsh at best”. Retirement age State pensions Iain Duncan Smith Pensions Retirement planning Work & careers Family finances Employee benefits Economic policy Jill Insley guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
President says US will call on international community to further isolate Iran – but doubts remain over whether plot was genuine The United States will apply the “toughest sanctions” to further isolate Iran over the alleged plan to murder the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Barack Obama said on Thursday, despite growing scepticism over the amateurish nature of the plot and the apparently shambolic nature of the main suspect. Obama repeated the US line that he would not take any options off the table in dealing with Iran, which is diplomatic code for the possibility of military action. Iran has vehemently denied any involvement in the plot. US authorities said on Tuesday they had evidence of a plot by two men linked to Iran’s revolutionary guard to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, by setting off a bomb in a Washington restaurant. In addition to prosecutions, Obama said he would continue “to apply the toughest sanctions, and continue to mobilise the international community to make sure Iran is further and further isolated and pays a price for this kind of behaviour.” He said: “We don’t take any options off the table in terms of how we operate with Iran. But we will continue to apply the sort of pressure that will have a direct impact on the Iranian government until it makes a better choice in how it interacts with the rest of the international community,” he said at a news conference with South Korean president Lee Myung-bak. The president’s comments came as two congressional committees held hearings on Iran on Thursday. In testimony to the Senate Banking committee, David Cohen, the US Treasury’s under-secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, told the committee that the administration was considering sanctions against Iran’s central bank. Cohen described the alleged plot as a “dramatic reminder that the urgent and serious threat we face from Iran is not limited to Iran’s nuclear ambitions”. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chair of the House Foreign Affairs committee, said the assassination plot “illustrates Iran’s active campaign” to partner with extremists groups and drug traffickers. But as more details have emerged, there has been growing scepticism over the true nature of the threat, not least because the main suspect has been revealed to be a car salesman, nicknamed “Scarface”, with a string of failed businesses behind him. Manssor Arbabsiar, a naturalised US citizen, was arrested last month, and stands accused of running a global terror plot that stretched from Mexico to Tehran. He is accused of having links to Quds Force, an elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The other suspect, Gholam Shakuri, is said by the US to be in Iran. But Tom Hosseini, a friend and former roommate of Arbabsiar’s, questioned his ability to carry out the plot and told the New York Times: “His socks would not match. He was always losing his keys and his cellphone.” Hosseini said when he last saw his friend two months ago, Arbabsiar told him he had been in Iran and was “making good money.” US officials concede that the plot and its alleged mastermind are unusual. ”We would expect to see the Quds Force cover their tracks more effectively,” one official told Reuters. Another said a plot to launch a violent attack inside the United States was ”very outside the pattern” of recent Quds Force activities. Kenneth Katzman, an Iran specialist at the Congressional Research Service, said there were elements of the alleged plot that did not make sense. ”The idea of using a Texas car salesman who is not really a Quds Force person himself, who has been in residence in the United States many years, that doesn’t add up,” Katzman said. ”There could have been some contact on this with the Quds Force, but the idea that this was some sort of directed, vetted, fully thought-through plot, approved at high levels in Tehran leadership I think defies credulity,” he said. Obama administration United States Iran Global terrorism Saudi Arabia US foreign policy Karen McVeigh guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …If you could find Bloomberg TV on your dial, you may have caught Newt Gingrich’s attacks on Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. In his warped version of reality, the global financial meltdown wasn’t about stock speculators, fraudulent rating agencies actions, corruption of the mortgage industry, CDO’s and the AIG Asset Management insurance scheme that and the rest of the crooks that collapsed the markets. Nope, in the last GOP presidential debate on Oct 11, he blames all their problems on two guys named Dodd and Frank and their usual meme about government regulations, : “If you want to put people in jail, you ought to start with Barney Frank, Chris Dodd,” Gingrich said, responding to a questioning about why Wall Street executives weren’t arrested after the financial crisis. Barney released a quote after the debate: “As to the facts, the Republicans — part of the time under Newt Gingrich — ran Congress from 1995 until 2006, the period during which the financial crisis began and then rose to disastrous proportions. Chris Dodd and I were in the minority during that time, and in fact no remedial action was taken by Congress until we became chairmen of our respective committees in 2007 and 2008.” “Apparently, Newt Gingrich — who considers himself one of the intellectual leaders of the free world — is so embarrassed by the fact that he is running behind Michele Bachmann in Republican polls that it has increased his already well-developed propensity to utter outlandish things.” Barney joined Chris Matthews and eviscerated Newt for almost ten straight minutes in response to Mr. Tiffany’s pompous remarks with both barrels blazing. Matthews: Well that was a portrait of malevolence, is this libel…I don’t know what to make of it. Frank: Well, you have to understand, when you think you are the intellectual leader of the free world and you find yourself struggling to pass Michele Bachmann in a poll in Iowa (laughs in background) it is unsettling. I understand that the poor man isn’t getting his due. But what was particularly extraordinary was he was talking about a period of time when he was in charge, not me. The run up to this crisis, this crisis began to bubble over in 2007-008, the Republicans controlled the Congress from 1995-2006, Newt himself was Speaker for four years, did nothing about the problems he accuses me and Chris of causing. And then it was Tom Delay and so apparently, and I’m regretful for this. Apparently I had some secret influence over the Republican leadership that I never knew about about because if I had I would have told them not to impeach President Clinton. I would have told them not to go to war in Iraq I would have told Delay not to go on the dance show. There are a lot of things I would have done. The second thing he is objecting to is the bill we passed. They don’t like an independent consumer protection agency and the work Elizabeth Warren did. They don’t want derivatives to be regulated. I, I, incredibly they want to go back to the situation where AIG was able to get itself into all this trouble. The don’t want a fiduciary responsibility on people who advise investors….
Continue reading …
European edition of Rupert Murdoch’s flagship title under scrutiny over allegations of artificially boosting sales figures The newspaper circulation watchdog is set to launch an investigation into Rupert Murdoch’s flagship Wall Street Journal Europe, following the resignation of its publisher amid allegations that it artificially boosted its sales figures. The Audit Bureau of Circulations said it had “recently” decided to take another look at the sales scheme that sold bulk copies to students at cut prices on the basis of “new evidence”, although it did not elaborate on when exactly it received the evidence. Andrew Langhoff, one of Murdoch’s most senior European executives, resigned on Tuesday after the Journal said he had inappropriately agreed to publish two articles as part of a commercial agreement with a Dutch company. On Wednesday the Guardian reported that the Dutch company had been involved in a scheme designed to artificially boost the newspaper’s sales figures. The scheme included a contract struck by WSJE’s circulation department and a Dutch consulting firm, called Executive Learning Partnership, which ran from May 2009 until April 2011 and involved sponsorship in the paper and an agreement to publish articles promoting the firm . Through Executive Learning Partnership and other companies, the Journal had effectively been secretly buying thousands of copies of its own paper at low prices, boosting its audited circulation . In total, 41% of the Wall Street Journal Europe’s audited circulation of 75,000 came via this method. ABC, the official body responsible for auditing the sales of newspapers in the UK, said on Thursday that it had originally reviewed the scheme when it began in 2009 and was “deemed to be compliant with the rules” that govern the category of circulation measurement called “multiple copy subscription sales”. A second audit of the WSJE’s circulation, carried out to provide a sales figure for the six-month period to the end of December, also gave the newspaper a clean bill of health with ABC stating that it “found the scheme to be in order”. However, in the light of the resignation of Langhoff and the further allegations, ABC has now changed its stance. “More recently we have re-examined the scheme based on some new evidence available,” said Jerry Wright, chief executive of ABC UK. “There now appears to be additional new information which may give grounds for further investigation.” According to the official ABC definition of what constitutes a “multiple copy subscription sale”, which it has deemed that the WSJE’s scheme fell into, is as follows: “These are multiple subscriptions purchased on a contractual basis by an organisation for their employees/members, or for students at educational establishments. The final recipients of these copies do not need to be known but the publisher must be able to demonstrate that the subscription copies are delivered to the same fixed pool of individuals. Payment may be by someone other than the recipient”. •
Continue reading …
Women working for Médecins sans Frontières taken hostage after gunmen target Dadaab camp near Somali border Gunmen have kidnapped two female Spanish aid workers and shot their driver in a refugee camp in northern Kenya in the latest attack on foreigners close to the Somali border. The women work for Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), which runs health centres for the more than 400,000 Somali refugees in the sprawling Dadaab refugee settlement, the world’s largest. The kidnappers struck at about 1.15pm in Ifo camp, wounding the Kenyan driver before escaping in the MSF four-wheel drive with the two women. The vehicle was seen heading in the direction of Somalia, 50 miles away. Kenyan police said they had launched a manhunt and sealed the border to prevent the kidnappers crossing. The border is in fact porous and impossible to close off. The kidnapping comes weeks after Somali gunmen abducted a British woman and a French woman from beach resorts in separate incidents along the northern Kenyan coast. Both women are being held hostage in Somalia. Security experts believe that the attacks are an extension of the sea piracy that has netted Somali gangsters tens of millions of dollars in ransom a year. MSF confirmed the attack on its staff in Dadaab. “One driver was injured; he is currently in hospital and is stable. Two international staff are missing. A crisis team has been set up to deal with the incident,” it said. The Spanish foreign ministry confirmed the nationality and gender of the kidnap victims. Osman Bare, a Somali refugee who works as a translator in Dadaab, said local reports suggested three gunmen had ambushed the MSF vehicle in a new section of Ifo camp that had not yet been populated. The driver was shot in the neck, Bare said. “The armed guys escaped towards Somalia. All the refugees are talking about this attack and some are fearing for their lives,” Bare said. The kidnapping was not the first attack in Dadaab. Last month a Kenyan driver for the international charity Care was abducted in the refugee settlement. Neither he nor his vehicle have been seen since. The latest kidnapping is likely to have an impact on humanitarian work in Dadaab. Oxfam said it had temporarily suspended work in the camps until the weekend, with staff staying within a secure compound until security conditions have been reassessed. Established in 1991, Dadaab has had a huge surge in arrivals this year due to fighting in Somalia as well as a famine that has cost tens of thousands of lives. The NGO Safety Programme, which advises charities on security in Somalia, said the armed groups responsible for the recent kidnappings appeared to be operating out of the Lower Juba region of Somalia. The al-Shabaab Islamist movement to overthrow the government in Somalia may be complicit. “It is also likely that the AS [Shabaab] administration in Kismayo is at least informed of the intended actions of the perpetrators, allows them to conducts the actions and could maybe benefit from them,” the NGO Safety Programme said in a statement to aid agencies following Thursday’s kidnapping. Kenya Africa Global terrorism Somalia Aid Refugees Xan Rice guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Women working for Médecins sans Frontières taken hostage after gunmen target Dadaab camp near Somali border Gunmen have kidnapped two female Spanish aid workers and shot their driver in a refugee camp in northern Kenya in the latest attack on foreigners close to the Somali border. The women work for Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), which runs health centres for the more than 400,000 Somali refugees in the sprawling Dadaab refugee settlement, the world’s largest. The kidnappers struck at about 1.15pm in Ifo camp, wounding the Kenyan driver before escaping in the MSF four-wheel drive with the two women. The vehicle was seen heading in the direction of Somalia, 50 miles away. Kenyan police said they had launched a manhunt and sealed the border to prevent the kidnappers crossing. The border is in fact porous and impossible to close off. The kidnapping comes weeks after Somali gunmen abducted a British woman and a French woman from beach resorts in separate incidents along the northern Kenyan coast. Both women are being held hostage in Somalia. Security experts believe that the attacks are an extension of the sea piracy that has netted Somali gangsters tens of millions of dollars in ransom a year. MSF confirmed the attack on its staff in Dadaab. “One driver was injured; he is currently in hospital and is stable. Two international staff are missing. A crisis team has been set up to deal with the incident,” it said. The Spanish foreign ministry confirmed the nationality and gender of the kidnap victims. Osman Bare, a Somali refugee who works as a translator in Dadaab, said local reports suggested three gunmen had ambushed the MSF vehicle in a new section of Ifo camp that had not yet been populated. The driver was shot in the neck, Bare said. “The armed guys escaped towards Somalia. All the refugees are talking about this attack and some are fearing for their lives,” Bare said. The kidnapping was not the first attack in Dadaab. Last month a Kenyan driver for the international charity Care was abducted in the refugee settlement. Neither he nor his vehicle have been seen since. The latest kidnapping is likely to have an impact on humanitarian work in Dadaab. Oxfam said it had temporarily suspended work in the camps until the weekend, with staff staying within a secure compound until security conditions have been reassessed. Established in 1991, Dadaab has had a huge surge in arrivals this year due to fighting in Somalia as well as a famine that has cost tens of thousands of lives. The NGO Safety Programme, which advises charities on security in Somalia, said the armed groups responsible for the recent kidnappings appeared to be operating out of the Lower Juba region of Somalia. The al-Shabaab Islamist movement to overthrow the government in Somalia may be complicit. “It is also likely that the AS [Shabaab] administration in Kismayo is at least informed of the intended actions of the perpetrators, allows them to conducts the actions and could maybe benefit from them,” the NGO Safety Programme said in a statement to aid agencies following Thursday’s kidnapping. Kenya Africa Global terrorism Somalia Aid Refugees Xan Rice guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Sometimes movement conservative actors perform deeds that are so dark and disgusting that it makes me ashamed. Ashamed of their cruelty towards their fellow human beings. I won’t trace the roots of the movement conservatives players here or repeat the stories of their bowing to the shrine of Ayn Rand narcissistic greed and arrogance, but we know the major players. Just think of Jack Abramoff , Paul Ryan, Alan Greenspan, Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist. For all his many transgressions against American families, Grover’s K Street Project ranks up there with the worst of the worst. At this moment in time, the U.S. has an incredibly bad economy, punctuated by high unemployment and staggering wealth inequality throughout the country. Students, recent and older college graduates, working class families and just about every one under the sun has been affected by the global financial collapse. As the Occupy Wall Street protests began to expand around the country, the conservatives tried to downplay the protests by saying the protesters were just too lazy to work. As a response to this unparalleled financial inequality that now pervades our nation, a small minded conservative pundit tries to counter the protests with his own idiocy. You know him because CNN hired him: Erick Erickson. His response to the ” We are the 99 percent ” website, in which regular people document all the hardships they’ve had to endure as the top one percent sits fat and happy is to create his own site, named ” The 53%ers ,” or something ludicrous like that. Gawker has a nice rundown on it . Did you know that if you are uninsured or jobless, you should just suck it up? That if you’re overworked or underemployed, you should be thankful? Learn all that—and more!—at “We Are the 53%,” the right wing’s incredibly depressing response to Occupy Wall Street! “We Are the 53%” was created thought up by CNN’s chief goat-fucking correspondent Erick Erickson as a response to ” We Are the 99 Percent ,” an Occupy Wall Street-affiliated blog that collects the stories of the underemployed, overworked, debt-ridden and uninsured victims of the recession. The blog, run by conservative filmmaker Mike Wilson, gets its name from the popular (and wildly simplistic !) Republican talking point that only 53 percent of households pay federal income taxes, and Erickson himself sets the tone: The poor dear has to work three jobs. Notice he doesn’t say what they are. My father had to work twelve hours a day down in Manhattan’s Flower Market from 5am, then drive a cab for about eight hours a night part time and then he took every carpentry job he could find on the side, but hey, going on CNN is really a heavy burden to behold. I haven’t seen anything this moronic in a long line. Clearly, Frank Luntz’s hands were nowhere to be found on this one. We’ll be honest: when your three jobs include “appearing on CNN” and “starting Tumblrs,” our sympathy is… somewhat limited. Also, if your house can’t sell, you probably should blame Wall Street, because the subprime mortgage crisis and housing market crash really is Wall Street’s fault. And the thing about “complaining” is that it’s kind of how politics works! But what makes “We Are the 53%” so heartbreaking isn’t that its contributors are enormous jerks—it’s that so many of them could just as easily be writing in to We Are the 99 Percent. Like the guy on the left, who can “barely afford” his rent. Or the “former marine” in the center who hasn’t had “4 consecutive days off in 4 years.” The phrase “I don’t have health insurance” pops up frequently on “We Are the 53%,” but not as a cry for help or an indictment of a broken system. Here, it’s a badge of pride… Really, this is what you’re going with, Erick? Alex Pareene has a nice take down of EE’s lamebrain exercise in gibberish-conservative thinking. The tragic, hilarious “We Are the 53 percent” movement The project was kicked off by Erick Erickson, who announced that he works “three jobs,” by which he means being a professional television pundit, radio pundit and Internet pundit. There is a stunning amount of cognitive dissonance, misplaced resentment and class revulsion going on, even for a conservative Web project. The site can’t even manage to correctly represent that 53 percent, with multiple contributors very clearly belonging to the 47 percent of people who make up the supposed parasite class. There is a blog dedicated to this confused minority. The best example is obviously this dog. Let’s get this out of the way early: Pretty much every adult American pays taxes. Workers who are too poor to pay federal income taxes still pay payroll taxes, and property taxes if they own their home. Even the unemployed pay sales taxes. The poorest Americans — people who make an average of $12,500 a year — pay, on average, 16 percent of their paltry income in taxes. That is less than every other demographic, but the point of a progressive tax system is that 16 percent of a poor person’s income is a hell of a lot more meaningful to that person than 30 percent of a millionaire’s. It’s a simple concept, and one that most Americans agree with. And that simplicity and popularity is why the conservative movement has spent 100 years attempting to muddy the debate with misinformation. (They are quite dedicated, actually, to class warfare, in that they seek to align the shrinking middle with the elites in a war against the downtrodden.) So a good number of people who pay no federal income taxes are simply lucky enough to be impoverished. The rest are beneficiaries of tax breaks and loopholes championed most vocally by Republicans. A member of “the 1 percent” (or, more accurately, the tenth-of-1 percent) likely considers these harried taxpayers Talk radio, Fox News and other transmitters of movement conservatism have fostered in a generation of hatred directed squarely at the left. It’s not just that they have to disagree with progressive policies, it’s that they train millions to reject the notion that the Democratic Party should exist. And they wish to delete us out of existence in the same way Glenn Beck eloquently wished that I would be wiped off the face of the map in a mudslide. Government programs like The New Deal were designed and implemented because the country witnessed the decades of destruction inflicted upon the American people who were not fortunate to be part of the upper class and they couldn’t bear it anymore. Most of these lunatic 53%ers probably have prospered from at least one government program already in their lives. Shame on Erick Erickson, Shame, shame, shame. enlarge Credit: connectthedotsusa. Family Income Growth
Continue reading …
Sometimes movement conservative actors perform deeds that are so dark and disgusting that it makes me ashamed. Ashamed of their cruelty towards their fellow human beings. I won’t trace the roots of the movement conservatives players here or repeat the stories of their bowing to the shrine of Ayn Rand narcissistic greed and arrogance, but we know the major players. Just think of Jack Abramoff , Paul Ryan, Alan Greenspan, Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist. For all his many transgressions against American families, Grover’s K Street Project ranks up there with the worst of the worst. At this moment in time, the U.S. has an incredibly bad economy, punctuated by high unemployment and staggering wealth inequality throughout the country. Students, recent and older college graduates, working class families and just about every one under the sun has been affected by the global financial collapse. As the Occupy Wall Street protests began to expand around the country, the conservatives tried to downplay the protests by saying the protesters were just too lazy to work. As a response to this unparalleled financial inequality that now pervades our nation, a small minded conservative pundit tries to counter the protests with his own idiocy. You know him because CNN hired him: Erick Erickson. His response to the ” We are the 99 percent ” website, in which regular people document all the hardships they’ve had to endure as the top one percent sits fat and happy is to create his own site, named ” The 53%ers ,” or something ludicrous like that. Gawker has a nice rundown on it . Did you know that if you are uninsured or jobless, you should just suck it up? That if you’re overworked or underemployed, you should be thankful? Learn all that—and more!—at “We Are the 53%,” the right wing’s incredibly depressing response to Occupy Wall Street! “We Are the 53%” was created thought up by CNN’s chief goat-fucking correspondent Erick Erickson as a response to ” We Are the 99 Percent ,” an Occupy Wall Street-affiliated blog that collects the stories of the underemployed, overworked, debt-ridden and uninsured victims of the recession. The blog, run by conservative filmmaker Mike Wilson, gets its name from the popular (and wildly simplistic !) Republican talking point that only 53 percent of households pay federal income taxes, and Erickson himself sets the tone: The poor dear has to work three jobs. Notice he doesn’t say what they are. My father had to work twelve hours a day down in Manhattan’s Flower Market from 5am, then drive a cab for about eight hours a night part time and then he took every carpentry job he could find on the side, but hey, going on CNN is really a heavy burden to behold. I haven’t seen anything this moronic in a long line. Clearly, Frank Luntz’s hands were nowhere to be found on this one. We’ll be honest: when your three jobs include “appearing on CNN” and “starting Tumblrs,” our sympathy is… somewhat limited. Also, if your house can’t sell, you probably should blame Wall Street, because the subprime mortgage crisis and housing market crash really is Wall Street’s fault. And the thing about “complaining” is that it’s kind of how politics works! But what makes “We Are the 53%” so heartbreaking isn’t that its contributors are enormous jerks—it’s that so many of them could just as easily be writing in to We Are the 99 Percent. Like the guy on the left, who can “barely afford” his rent. Or the “former marine” in the center who hasn’t had “4 consecutive days off in 4 years.” The phrase “I don’t have health insurance” pops up frequently on “We Are the 53%,” but not as a cry for help or an indictment of a broken system. Here, it’s a badge of pride… Really, this is what you’re going with, Erick? Alex Pareene has a nice take down of EE’s lamebrain exercise in gibberish-conservative thinking. The tragic, hilarious “We Are the 53 percent” movement The project was kicked off by Erick Erickson, who announced that he works “three jobs,” by which he means being a professional television pundit, radio pundit and Internet pundit. There is a stunning amount of cognitive dissonance, misplaced resentment and class revulsion going on, even for a conservative Web project. The site can’t even manage to correctly represent that 53 percent, with multiple contributors very clearly belonging to the 47 percent of people who make up the supposed parasite class. There is a blog dedicated to this confused minority. The best example is obviously this dog. Let’s get this out of the way early: Pretty much every adult American pays taxes. Workers who are too poor to pay federal income taxes still pay payroll taxes, and property taxes if they own their home. Even the unemployed pay sales taxes. The poorest Americans — people who make an average of $12,500 a year — pay, on average, 16 percent of their paltry income in taxes. That is less than every other demographic, but the point of a progressive tax system is that 16 percent of a poor person’s income is a hell of a lot more meaningful to that person than 30 percent of a millionaire’s. It’s a simple concept, and one that most Americans agree with. And that simplicity and popularity is why the conservative movement has spent 100 years attempting to muddy the debate with misinformation. (They are quite dedicated, actually, to class warfare, in that they seek to align the shrinking middle with the elites in a war against the downtrodden.) So a good number of people who pay no federal income taxes are simply lucky enough to be impoverished. The rest are beneficiaries of tax breaks and loopholes championed most vocally by Republicans. A member of “the 1 percent” (or, more accurately, the tenth-of-1 percent) likely considers these harried taxpayers Talk radio, Fox News and other transmitters of movement conservatism have fostered in a generation of hatred directed squarely at the left. It’s not just that they have to disagree with progressive policies, it’s that they train millions to reject the notion that the Democratic Party should exist. And they wish to delete us out of existence in the same way Glenn Beck eloquently wished that I would be wiped off the face of the map in a mudslide. Government programs like The New Deal were designed and implemented because the country witnessed the decades of destruction inflicted upon the American people who were not fortunate to be part of the upper class and they couldn’t bear it anymore. Most of these lunatic 53%ers probably have prospered from at least one government program already in their lives. Shame on Erick Erickson, Shame, shame, shame. enlarge Credit: connectthedotsusa. Family Income Growth
Continue reading …
• Slovakia votes in favour of EFSF expansion • US and European stock markets slide , after Asian markets jump overnight • Italy to hold vote of confidence on Friday • Today’s agenda • Lunchtime roundup • Blogging now: Graeme Wearden 5.32pm: The EFSF has said that it “stands ready to implement new activity”, once every member of the Eurozone has confirmed its expansion. The plan to enlarge the EFSF was agreed in July, after European leaders met to agree a new rescue plan for Greece. As well as being given €440bn of firepower, the EFSF would also be allowed to extend credit to countries who hit trouble, and make loans to cover bank recapitalisations. There’s a decent explainer here , showing how it differs from America’s TARP plan. 5.29pm: Robert Fico , chairman of the left-wing Smer-Social Democracy party, has said he is “satisfied” that the fund has been approved. “Slovakia is back on the map of Europe,” said Fico, a former prime minister who was replaced by Radicova last summer. Before the vote, finance minister Ivan Miklos warned MPs that it was now “necessary that Parliament approves” the bill. 5.07pm: Associated Press report that the Slovak MPs took just 30 minutes to discuss and approve the EFSF expansion. On Tuesday, the debate began at 1pm local time and we didn’t get a vote until 10pm . 4.49pm: Although the Yes vote is good news for Europe, it’s clear that expanding the EFSF to €440bn will not be enough to solve the debt crisis. At best, it’s a temporary fix – which would break if a large EU country needed rescuing. Here’s what Lutz Karpowitz, an analyst at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt, had to say (with thanks to Bloomberg): The second vote in Slovakia will pave the way for the EFSF, however, that does not constitute a solution. The EFSF would still be too small to support countries like Italy or Spain should the necessity arise. The recent recovery of the euro seems to have gone rather far considering the news flow. In the reader comments below, stomachtrouble suggests that Silvio Berlusconi may struggle to win tomorrow’s vote of confidence : Yesterday Napolitano (the President) effectively gave Berlusconi a dressing down for not coming up a with a plausible budgetary plan – the government lost an important technical vote; curiously Tremonti was late for it. Fini, ostensibly Berlusconi’s rival, was then dispatched from the Chamber of Deputies to brief Napolitano. Milan Borse is a mess today. Business sentiment is against Berlusconi, and increasingly the Northern League is seen as an acute embarrassment. Looking at the Milan stock market, the main index fell by 3.7% today. That’s a much bigger fall than other European bourses. Not encouraging. 4.27pm: Slovakia’s decision to approve the expansion of the European financial stability facility will be a relief to European leaders. It has come earlier than expected – frankly, I’d expected a vote on Friday. So how can a parliament soundly reject a bill on Tuesday night, only to confidently approve it on Thursday afternoon? The key lies in the complicated coalition government politics of Slovakia….. Prime Minister Iveta Radicova led a four-party coalition. One junior partner, the SaS, refused to support the enlarged Euro bailout fund. So, Radicova attempted to drive the bill through by making it a vote-of confidence….. ….but the SaS didn’t blink. Instead, it walked out of parliament on Tuesday, which meant Radicova couldn’t muster the votes she needed. Now, though, the Smes opposition party has voted in favour of expanding the fund [having, understandably enough, refused to express confidence in the coalition government]. 4.19pm: Slovakia MPs voted in favour of the EFSF by a large majority. • 114 voted for the EFSF • 30 against • 3 abstained and a further three were absent This means that every member of the Eurozone has now ratified the plan to expand the EFSF to €440bn and grant it new powers. 4.16pm: Just hearing from Bratislava that the Slovakian parliament has approved the ratification of the European financial stability facility (having rejected it two nights ago). Full details coming in now…. 3.55pm: My colleague in Brussels, David Gow , has been asking EU officials the burning question — how much money may need to be injected into Europe’s banking sector? Here’s his thoughts (in full, but they’re worth it) So, how much capital might Europe’s banks need as a “temporary buffer” until they get back to the normal business of lending to create growth and jobs as they put it in Brussels? The BBC’s Robert Peston, rummaging through the runes at the EBA, comes up with €200bn . The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) says the 55 biggest banks would require €150bn if the EBA sets the capital ratio at 9%. Senior EU officials, at one of those briefings that didn’t take place, refuse to put a number on it but insist that “it won’t be that large” or “it’s manageable.” The €150bn number is said to be closer to the likely outcome. There’s a clear sense that the EU institutions have been dragged into this by the markets. “We have to put in place the appropriate backstops because the markets simply don’t believe our numbers,” it was said today. “We’re deliberately over-shooting.” An EU official – someone pretty high up in the Berlaymont hierarchy – says the banks raised €55bn in fresh capital in the first four months of this year, they’re cleaning up their balance-sheets, disposing of assets, and, well, if they are forced to meet temporarily higher capital requirements they can do so without recourse to national governments, let alone the EFSF. Either way: all will be revealed soon, with the EBA number-crunching exercise – based on updated figures and asset prices reflecting market values – due to be finished “within the coming days,” and the EU/eurozone summits due to sign off on detailed plans for, say, the 60 biggest banks by the weekend after next. And the banks willl be given three to six months to implement the plans. In Berlin Josef Ackermann, Deutsche Bank boss, joins the chorus of bankers railing against the plan, saying it will only increase states’ budget deficits. Deutsche, Germany’s biggest bank, is said to require €9bn in fresh capital under the EBA’s likely scheme but Ackermann, so good at his job he’s being replaced by two other people, says it doesn’t need to go cap in hand to Schäuble or Merkel. “We anticipated that the banks would scream,” that official said. “And if we thought this proposal would damage the economy we wouldn’t be doping it, would we.” Oh, and don’t say “leveraging” the EFSF any more. It’s “optimisation of resources”. Leveraging is a toxic word, redolent of what caused the last financial crisis. And that doesn’t mean turning it into a bank, or a CDO, or something complicated or even dodgy. It will be “plain vanilla- whatever it is. 3.40pm: The UK government is fond of pointing to the record low interest rates on British debt as a reason for sticking to the current fiscal consolidation plan. Today, 10-year gilts yield just 2.55% – much lower than Spain (5.2%), Belgium (4.2%) and France (2.9%). As David Cameron told MPs yesterday: “We mustn’t abandon the plan that has given us record low interest rates.” Paul Krugman (winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences), is claiming today that Cameron is puling a fast one. On his blog , he writes: British rates are low for the same reason US rates are low — not as a reward for fiscal virtue, but because everyone know expects the economy to stay depressed, and policy rates near zero, for years to come. I’d add that if you want to give credit to Cameron’s policies for the recent fall in British rates, you’d have to ask why US rates have fallen even more. Anyone disagree? 3.22pm: Could Italy thrown the European debt crisis into yet more confusion? There’s a possibility that its government could collapse by the end of the week, as Silvio Berlusconi has called a vote of confidence tomorrow. Berlusconi took the step after months of allegations over his private life (M’Lud), and claims that he has mismanaged the Italian economy for many years. In an impassioned address to parliament earlier today, Berlusconi accused left-wing opposition MPs of “obsessively” pushing for his resignation (isn’t that what oppositions are supposed to do). He also claimed that only he could save Italy from the threat of a bailout: A government crisis now would be a victory for those who want to see (Italy) fall into decline, catastrophe and the kind of speculation we have seen for months in Europe and Italy. Looking at the bond market, Italian government debt has fallen in value today. That’s pushed up the yield on its ten-year bonds to 5.8%. Above 6%, and Italy has a problem…. 3.02pm: Afternoon all. It’s not a particularly cheery day on the financial markets. On Wall Street, shares are falling in early trading. In London, the FTSE 100 has now shed 1% (down 58 points at 5382). That’s not a major move for the Footsie, but within it some stocks have dipped sharply. Mining giants Antofagasta and Kazakhmys have lost 6%, driven down by fears over the global economy (following news of China’s shrinking trade gap ). Financial stocks are also suffering, with Barclays and Lloyds Banking Group both losing around 5%. Market reporter Nick Fletcher tells me that JP Morgan’s mixed financial results (released at 1.30pm our time), and Fitch’s decision to downgrade the UK banking sector, are both weighing on the sector. 2.45pm: I’m handing this blog over now to my colleague Graeme Wearden…. 2.23pm: A twitter spat between Sky News business editor Mark Kleinman and Lord Sugar spiced up the airwaves a few minutes ago. Sugar accused the Skyman of getting his facts in a twist and provoking a massive, and unnecessary sell-off in bank shares. Kleinman said his story was the same all day and was vindicated when the Fitch downgrade came through. Sugar posted: SKY said rating agency Fitch to announce possible downgrade of UK banks today and then corrected it. Result caused some banks to drop 3% Only for Kleinman to riposte @Lord_Sugar Afraid you’ve got facts wrong: no correction of our story about Fitch and the UK banks. It has just been confirmed. 2.06pm: Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland moved further away from their previously much coveted, pre credit crunch, AAA status after ratings agency Fitch confirmed the two banks would be downgraded. RBS and Lloyds were slapped with an A rating after Fitch said the insurance offered by the UK government had weakened and would cost more to fund. Fitch follows a similar move by Moody’s, which cited the same reasons for downgrading the banks. Overall UK banks are in a better condition than many of their continental rivals after a strict regime of asset sales and cuts to risky operations. Massive write-downs on bad loans have also helped UK banks to shed many of the bad loans built up during the boom. But they remain vulnerable to the domino effect of failing banks inside the eurozone. Fitch said that while government support remained in place “the potential for the provision of extraordinary support for senior bank creditors is relatively less certain than before”. Barclays also suffered. Fitch said the high street bank was well-run but was vulnerable to upsets from its investment banking arm Barclays Capital. It said: “Global trading and universal banks have business models that are particularly sensitive to market sentiment and confidence, that are complex and exposed to greater volatility.” 1.37pm: lunchtime roundup: • There is a sense that EU leaders are talking more and in increasingly definite terms about solutions to the debt crisis and market traders are eyeing the situation warily. • Markets are going sideways and slightly lower, but not really giving up the gains of the last week. However the tone from the Bank of England’s Charlie Bean and Martin Weale was decidedly downbeat yesterday and will weigh heavily for some time on investor sentiment and add to the gloom. • The ratings agency Fitch is planning to downgrade UK banks, according to reports • Exports improved, and the trade balance narrowed in August, but gains earlier this year in selling to China and other emerging markets appears to have reversed. • See today’s agenda 1.13pm: Blackberry said a few minutes ago that its mobile phone network is approaching normal service levels in Europe, India, middle east and Africa.The all important north American market is another matter and appears to still be suffering radio silence. Blackberry jokes have made little headway since the company suffered its weekend meltdown, which is understandable when one of the best lols follows the question “What did one BlackBerry user say to another BlackBerry user? Nothing!” Any better suggestions gratefully received. 1.00pm: JPMorgan Chase is managing to keep its head above water. But the second-largest US bank needed a $1.9bn accounting gain to beat analysts expectations. Third-quarter net income fell to $4.26bn from $4.42bn in the same period a year earlier and $5.43bn in the second quarter. JPMorgan would have reported a loss for its investment bank without the change in liabilities, that some analysts termed a debt-valuation adjustment. Boss Jamie Dimon, 55, was quick to point out the investment banking business was hit with a 13% decline in revenue from the prior quarter. He said the accounting gain was an artificial boost and “does not relate to the underlying operations of the company,” Shares in JPMorgan fell to $32.60 from $33.20 on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday. Bloomberg pointed out the shares are down 22% this year. 12.12pm: @zerozero is right to say EU politicians don’t know which way to turn and have decided to talk their way through the problem. I disagree with those who argue weakness is the reason. The divided nature of European politics means there is not much give and take from taxpayer groups, especially those who can lay claim to a majority of savings assets in their bank accounts, pensions and property portfolios. The over 55s are a majority of voters and politicians represent their interests. Woe betide a politician who argues for policies that jeopardise asset values. 11.47am: Joshua Raymond, chief market strategist at City Index believes the FTSE is now trading 44 points down on the day after the poor China data. Mining stocks are the big losers. It is the Chinese trade data that is the key drag and headline affecting trading today. Investor concerns regarding a slowdown in Chinese growth and underlying demand for metals has grown in the market turbulence since August and today’s data has emphasised those fears. Chinese exports grew by 17.1% last month compared to a year earlier, slowing from Augusts’ growth of 24.5%, whilst import growth also slowed to 20.9% from 30.2%, creating a trade surplus of $14.5bn last month. As a result we have seen investors use the Chinese data to lock in their profits after a very strong weeks’ trade in mining companies that has seen the FTSE 350 mining sector rally 20%. Anglo American and Antofagasta shares lost 3% on the back of the profit taking. We could see further investor reaction in mining firms tomorrow morning too with the latest release of Chinese inflation data. Concerns over slowing growth in China is being exacerbated this year by the hawkish monetary policies adopted by the Chinese authorities to reign in spiralling inflation and so investors will use Fridays inflation data to better gauge likely next steps for Chinese monetary policy. 11.40am: Sky business editor Mark Kleinman reckons Fitch is poised to follow Moody’s and downgrade the credit worthiness of UK banks. As with Moody’s, the downgrade is based on a weaker covenant from the UK government, though the idea that having saved all our banks in 2008 we will let them go next time seems for the birds. 11.16am: Italy’s bond auction was supported by the European Central Bank, which stepped in after the sale was complete to mop up unwanted bonds. The Italian treasury wanted to sell €6.5bn of bonds but found it could shift only €6.2bn and at a premium 5.87% yield for 10-year bonds. The yield, which determines the effective interest rate, was the highest the ECB has paid for Italian debt since it became a buyer in August, according to Reuters. Last month a major sale of Italian debt found very few buyers. It was the worst auction for more than 10 years in terms of the number of bidders. Silvio Berlusconi has been telling everyone he will survive a confidence vote later today and Rome’s budget will break-even in 2013. We’ll see. 11.07am: Inflation in Europe’s largest economy – that’s Germany – accelerated to the fastest in three years in September, led by energy costs. At 2.9% it hardly registers as inflation in UK terms, but Germany is different. It is hard to credit that the grandchildren and great grandchildren of those who lived through the hyper-inflation of the 1920s hold on to the paranoia of their forebears and won’t let go. Why did the European Central Bank last week keep its benchmark interest rate at 1.5% when any sane central bank would have cut to 1% or less given the state of the entire eurozone economy? Why, because it is dominated by German anti-inflation thinking. Even the departure of two prominent German central bankers from the ECB board in recent months is unlikely to change the tone of debate in Frankfurt. 10.24am: Squandido makes an excellent point. Why should Portugal et al accept a write down on Greek debt and not enjoy the same privilege for themselves. After all, they are basket cases as well. There are so many commentators who call for eurocrats to get out their heavy artillery, a big bazooka is often referenced, to blast the problem. Kick out Greece. Make it default. Make private investors pay. But they need to recognise that every way Brussels turns, there is another problem to confront. FT man Wolfgang Munchau made this point yesterday. 10.09am: UK Trade figures are in. They provide a more positive picture than expected after the deficit on seasonally adjusted trade in goods and services fell to £1.9bn in August from £2.3bn in July. The seasonally adjusted trade in goods fell to £7.8bn while the surplus in services pushed up to £5.9bn. The main reason for the smaller deficit is an increase in exports – up 1.3% on the previous month – that outstripped a small rise in imports – up 0.3%. Good to see we are enjoying the Irish crisis with a huge jump in goods sold to the Republic. China and Netherlands also bought more of our stuff, while the Germans, French and Americans bought less. The good news notwithstanding, there is a problem with trade figures these days because they can disguise more than they reveal now that multinationals export from one subsidiary to another not to sell goods, but to dodge local taxes and benefit from state subsidies. Also, Tesco is a big exporter to Ireland, but that just means shifting stock around from UK distribution centres to stores in Dublin, etc. Is that what we really mean by trade? 9.25am: Here’s the agenda for today … • All eyes will be on JPMorgan’s Q3 results. The results are expected at 12pm London time and boss Jamie Dimon’s words will be scrutinised for signs of gloom/optimism. • On the data front, Germany’s CPI, UK’s trade balance, and Spain’s business confidence are some of the notable data releases in Europe. • In the US we have trade balance on top of the usual weekly jobless claims. • Italy’s cabinet gets together today in the wake of their defeat in Parliament earlier this week. Berlusconi may seek a vote of confidence, though that requires the approval of the president to move ahead. • In London, the great and the good of the business world will be meeting at the annual CBI dinner. New boss John Cridland will speak and is expected to chastise the government for failing to support growth. London mayor Boris Johnson is the keynote and should trumpet the Olympics/Crossrail and all the many and various projects started by his predecessor or the previous government. • And London is gearing up for a weekend of banker bashing as the Occupy London Stock Exchange protest gets under way. Protesters inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US are planning on establishing a tent city in London’s financial district. What will Boris make of that? • Chancellor George Osborne is keeping his head down as usual, probably paying more attention to the Liam Fox affair than the economy. Tomorrow he arrives in Paris for a G20 finance ministers meeting that is due to stagger into Saturday evening. Another weekend at No11 ruined. 8.59am: A groggy squint at a fuzzy Reuters screen led us to value the Italian bond sale today at €8bn when an eagle-eyed reader cannyinvestor points out it is worth €6.5bn. Still worth watching. 8.45am: Barclays Capital asks why Brussels’ bank recapitalisation plans are so vague. In a note titled “Euro banks need a A Recap Or A ‘Pre Cap’?: … or why are banks raising capital?” it says the reasons to horde more capital are unclear. Recap or precap?: Is it because capital ratios are too low today – i.e. a recapitalisation – or is it a “pre cap”, giving banks enough capital to manage the (remote) future risk of financial calamity from a default in the world’s third largest bond market, Italy? So are today’s capital ratios sufficient?: On a Basel (ie, RWA) basis European banks capital ratios are the same/stronger than US banks, suggesting little obvious need for recapitalisation. However, they are much weaker on a (non risk weighted) nominal basis, which may now be informing policy makers’ views. We may be witnessing the further undermining of RWAs in Europe as the key balance sheet measure. The recap vs precap debate matters: If its a traditional recap to reflect low nominal leverage ratios, then its most likely going to be in the form of pure equity, which could see investors significantly diluted and – for parts of the sector – be a de facto nationalisation. If current capital ratios are seen as sufficient, however, then really it’s a “pre cap”, that could see capital in non equity/contingent forms that are loss absorbing, thus helping funding markets heal. That could partially or fully protect existing shareholders. 8.41am: Oh, and here’s a report from Athens by the Guardian’s Helena Smith, who is wary of declaring the EU/Greek crisis over, especially as workers remain unhappy and willing to make life difficult for George Papandreou’s struggling coalition. Shock and awe calls for shock and awe – or so say Greece’s powerful unions who this morning stepped up strikes, walk-outs and work stoppages ahead of parliament voting on a new round of austerity measures demanded in exchange for aid by international creditors. With lighting speed protesting civil servants, transport employees, refinery workers, tax collectors, customs officials, hospital staff, archaeologists and school teachers have brought large parts of the country to a standstill. Militant unions at GENOP DEH, representing employees at the cash-strapped nation’s Public Power Corporation, have added to rising tensions ahead of the vote by taking over the company’s account department in a determined bid to prevent it from printing bills that would include a hugely unpopular property tax. We are not going to be part of this government’s strategy to take everything away from us, our hard-earned rights, our dignity, our livelihood,” said Nikos Fotopoulos who heads the union. “This is war.” The reforms – which are expected to be voted through Athens 300-seat house ahead of the October 23 EU summit – have stirred outrage among increasingly disgruntled members of prime minister George Papandreou’s ruling socialist Pasok party. A repeat of the fiery protests that accompanied passage of reforms in July could be in the offing. 8.39am: Anyone wanting to take something positive from recent EU announcements was most likely dismayed by EU commission president José Manuel Barroso’s latest speech. He added to investor fears after he outlined a truly nonsensical solution to the debt crisis, which involves banks recapitalising themselves from their own resources. This means scrapping dividends and bonuses until such time as they, the banks, have reached a pre-determined level of reserves. Barroso is one of many EU officials who appears to believe there is free money lying around that can be used to rescue the eurozone project. Basically he’s asking investors to pay, which has a strong moral argument behind it, but ignores the nature of mobile capital. The tax on financial transactions, the so-called Robin Hood tax, is another idea Barroso has championed, precisely because it appears to be free money, painlessly extracted from “the Financial System”. The fact that any tax is paid by someone – in this case investors – who can choose to flee for another part of the world is lost on Barroso. The FT says banks will respond by selling off bits of themselves to raise capital rather than scrap dividends and bonuses or ask shareholders for more funds. 8.23am: The FTSE is down more than 20 points , joining other European markets in a wait and see mode. There is a general sell-off in London, with some notable exceptions – those being Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group, advertising group WPP, Tesco and ITV. 7.46am: There is a warm breeze blowing from the east. Asian markets, buoyed by the sightly improved mood in Europe, continued their recent rally. Japan’s Nikkei rose to a four week high on hopes that the Dexia bank rescue deal earlier in the week and renewed resolve among EU politicians will prevent a eurozone collapse. Shares in Sony and other major Japanese manufacturers, hammered last month on fears of a global downturn, led the rally. Cameron Peacock, market analyst at IG Markets, said in an early morning note that Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was the region’s best performer, higher by 1.3%, while the Nikkei 225 rose 1.2% to 8,839. He said: “With US markets enjoying another night of solid gains it is not surprising to see that strength playing out across the local market. Gains for the day are relatively broad based and once again being led by the cyclical materials, industrial and energy sectors. The financial sector is also enjoying a modest advance, with losses limited to the consumer staples, utilities and information technology sectors.” China’s trade balance closed last month, which is a double edged sword, as ever. It is an indication of global slowdown, but also pleases the US, which has threatened a trade war without strong action from prime minister Wen Jaibao’s. Looks like a lack of demand for Chinese goods may have delayed that particular day of reckoning. In Europe, the eagerly awaited Slovakian vote on the eurozone’s EFSF bailout looks like being delayed until tomorrow, but the picture is still uncertain, so more on that later. An €8bn auction of Italian debt was also making traders wary. A poor response from investors will add to the problems already facing Silvio Berlusconi’s administration. The FTSE is expected to follow Asia and continue its recent surge, though futures markets predict continental exchanges will fall back, with Germany’s Dax futures down 0.4% and the Paris CAC down 0.3%. Stock markets Financial crisis European debt crisis Phillip Inman Graeme Wearden guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …