Cameron hails quarterly rise of 0.5% but official figures show economy has hit plateau since last summer Britain’s recovery stalled over the last six months, according to official figures that showed key sectors of the economy struggled to make up lost ground after last year’s snow-induced shutdown. A lacklustre rise in GDP of 0.5% in the first three months of the year reversed a fall of 0.5% in the last quarter of 2010, to leave the economy with zero growth since last September. A sharp slowdown in the construction sector, which slumped 4.7% in the quarter, was the main reason. The services sector, which makes up 75% of the economy, grew by just 0.9%. Manufacturing, which grew at 1.1%, was the best performer. The Office for National Statistics said its analysis of figures stretching further back showed that the underlying trend for the economy had plateaued since last summer. In the House of Commons, the prime minister, David Cameron, dismissed critics of the government’s handling of the economy and hailed the positive growth figure as a sign of the economy’s improving health. Speaking at prime minister’s questions, Cameron said it was “clearly a success that the economy has grown”. He told MPs the opposition was talking down the economy to justify its warning of a double-dip recession. Cameron, who pointed to the positive news from the manufacturing sector and private sector job growth, demanded Labour leader Ed Miliband apologise. Labour said a closer study of the ONS data showed the coalition’s first budget last June had undermined business and consumer confidence after it jettisoned plans for growth in favour of spending cuts. Miliband accused the prime minister of “terrible complacency”, adding that the chancellor, George Osborne, was wrong to tell the cabinet on Tuesday that the economy was “on track” when he knew it would fall short of the 0.8% growth predicted last month by the Office for Budget Responsibility. “It’s not me who is talking down the economy – it’s your austerity rhetoric that has led to the lowest levels of consumer confidence in history in this country,” he argued. Several economists added their voices to fears that businesses were preparing for a difficult year as spending cuts began to bite and exports markets slowed down. A survey by GfK NOP found that consumer confidence in April fell to its lowest level since mid-2008 – in the midst of the banking crisis. Echoing previous surveys of household spending, the poll found a dramatic fall in the number of respondents prepared to make spending commitments over the next six months. Spokesman Nick Moon said: “Coming after six months of stagnant economic growth, this is a significant drop. It suggests that attempts to spur growth in last month’s budget have failed to convince the public, and this may well be sorely felt on the already beleaguered high street.” The economies of France, Germany and other eurozone countries have already slowed, fuelling fears for British exports. Manufacturing figures this week pointed to a more muted growth rate over the next year. Social tensions could also be exacerbated by a lack of job opportunities, especially outside the south-east. Several measures of economic activity reveal a widening gap with the rest of the country. While pockets of the country dependent on manufacturing have prospered as businesses exploit the low pound and turn to export markets for growth, large parts of the country could be described as still in recession . Ian Brinkley, of The Work Foundation, said the lack of growth would affect job creation over the next few months, “making any hope of an early reduction in unemployment remote”. John Hawksworth, chief economist at the accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers, said the risk of a double dip recession had increased. “The figures show that the UK is still teetering on the edge of a double dip recession and, in these circumstances, it would be premature in our view for the Bank of England to raise interest rates in the near future while the recovery remains so fragile. With a big fiscal squeeze still only in its early stages, monetary policy needs to remain very loose to support the economic recovery,” he said. “At sector level, the picture is much more mixed. The business services and finance sector recorded healthy 1% growth in the first quarter and manufacturing also grew solidly by 1.1%, helped by stronger exports. But the distribution sector showed only very modest growth and the construction sector has plunged back into recession following a strong rebound in the second and third quarters of 2010.” A collapse in commercial building was the biggest factor dragging down the figures as construction firms found it difficult to generate new business following the loss of the previous government’s multibillion-pound schools building programme and a drop in demand for new offices and shops. A mortgage drought has also hit the housebuilding industry. With only a few major buildings under construction, mainly in the south east, the industry is struggling to claw its way back from the worst recession since the early 1980s. Simon Ward, economist at fund manager Henderson, put a more positive spin on the figures, arguing that ONS figures showed construction orders were improving. He said without the drag effect from construction, the overall figures would reveal a healthier economy. Ward, like Bank of England interest rate setter Andrew Sentence, has consistently argued the economy is in better shape than the ONS figures show. He has called for interest rate rises to quell inflation, believing the recovery is entrenched and businesses well placed to withstand higher borrowing costs. Holidays hit growth While economists weighed the first quarter figures for signs of hope, experts faced the prospect of further volatility in the numbers for the current three-month period. One problem is the paucity of working days this month. How can the economy grow in the second quarter when there are only 18 working days? The royal wedding bank holiday and the mass exodus of workers linking Easter with May Day, usually a quiet time for long foreign holidays, could depress the figures. A similar extra day for the Queen’s golden jubilee in 2002 affected growth. The bank holiday might not show up in surveys of some sectors, but areas of the economy such as construction, which struggles to make up for lost time, can expect to suffer. In the fortnight before Christmas Britain lost several days to snow. British Airways suffered four days of closure at Heathrow while construction firms effectively shut down for the whole period. Snowfalls and ice conditions earlier in the month also contributed to a 0.5% fall in GDP, which the Office for National Statistics said would have been 0% without the adverse weather conditions. The loss of a few days to bank holidays will not have anything like the same effect, but with an estimated third of workers taking three days off work to gain a nine-day holiday, many of them jetting abroad, it could be a factor helping to depress growth. In addition, several large car makers such as Toyota, Nissan and Honda have all cut back on production this month because of shortage of parts caused by the Japanese tsunami. Economic growth (GDP) Economics David Cameron Ed Miliband George Osborne Phillip Inman guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …First pics: Gabrielle Giffords’ recovery from the shooting hits a new benchmark
April 27, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media It’s great to see Gabrielle Giffords in any capacity right now. Good for her. She’s going to see her husband’s liftoff. ABC News : A fragile but determined Rep. Gabrielle Giffords walked one careful step at a time today up the steps of a plane that will take her Florida to watch her husband blast off on the final mission of the space shuttle Endeavor.. The gritty walk by Giffords, who was wearing a padded medical helmet, was her first public steps since being shot in the head at a public event in January. The Arizona congresswoman left TIRR Memorial Hermann Hospital and boarded a waiting NASA plane at Ellington Airport in Houston. Giffords was spotted leaving the hospital in a wheelchair and with her face covered before being driven to the airport. At the airport, she walked under her own power and without assistance from the car to the plane stairway and slowly up the steps. Giffords’ staff has tried to keep her out of view from the public, and said she would not be making any public appearances during the Endeavor’s launch. Giffords will be joined on Friday by Kelly’s three daughters, President Obama and the first lady at Cape Canaveral to watch the launch. Giffords’ husband navy pilot and astronaut Mark Kelly arrived at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday. “She’s been working really hard to make sure that her doctors would permit her to come,” Kelly said Tuesday. NASA said Giffords would receive a “little more care and attention” as she visited Florida to watch the launch… read on
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Click here to view this media Dear Sarah Palin, You are an ass. A moose’s ass. You just opened the lid on Pandora’s Box — a lid you can’t slam shut easily, and now I’m gonna call you on it. Now that you’ve been completely hosed and defeated over the Birther issue that you so happily trump-eted, I see that you have fallen in lockstep with the newest Donald Trump stupidity; that is, the assertion that the president got into Harvard without having the academic credentials to belong there. All code for affirmative action, which I think you probably have even said aloud more than once. But this little rant of yours really cannot go unchallenged: Well, I think the media is loving this because they want to make Birthers as they call people who are just curious about the President of the United States and his background and his associations and his consistency with what he says today versus what he said in both the memoirs that he wrote — or Bill Ayers or whomever wrote — the media is loving the fact that some curious Americans are actually asking the questions and they’re trying to make those curious Americans sound kinda crazy, so the media is loving this issue and they’re perpetuating the issue trying to make sound really worse than it is. What the heck is wrong with asking the President of the United States to disclose what his college thesis was, what some of the um, uh, Harvard Law Review papers were that he wrote? I don’t care about his grades. I don’t care if he was a C student, more power to the C student. (You wish, Sarah, you just wish) What I care about is what goes into his thinking today, what is his foundation? From his background, a lot of that could be reflected in the writings he produced as a college and a grad student. Here’s my simple challenge, Sarah. You attended four universities in six years , before finally managing to eke out a degree from the University of Idaho in journalism. Over that fine university career, did you write anything? If so, would you be kind enough to produce it? And let’s say you can’t really produce any documents you wrote when you were in college. Let’s talk about the tens of thousands you’ve spent on ‘advisors’ to assist you with your knowledge of foreign affairs, your messaging, and your strategies. Let’s see. There’s the right-wing journalist Joshua Livestro , who you pay $4,000/month . What does he add to your thinking, your views? Is his background your background? How about Orion Strategies , who you pay $10,000 per month for “issue consulting”? What, exactly, does Randy Scheunemann contribute to your thinking for that 120K per year salary? Then there’s the matter of the $10,000 per month retainer your PAC pays North Star Strategies to ghostwrite your Facebook posts? Certainly you wouldn’t have a Bill Ayers of your own would you? You know, for the $59,500 per month you shell out to consultants like those I’ve named, you must be getting a hell of an education. That’s pricier than Harvard, and you didn’t even have to avail yourself of affirmative action to get in on the action. Plus, it’s all paid for by taxpayers!!! Wow, Sarah, that’s a real deal. So what the heck is the matter with me asking you, Sarah Palin, to satisfy my ordinary-person curiosity about what you’re learning from all these highly-compensated consultants? How do these people shape your views? Also, what the heck is wrong with asking a few questions about your husband and his secessionist ways? After all, you can’t really live with a man for over 20 years and not pick up a few of his attitudes, right? Kind of what you think about Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers? And if, by osmosis, you’ve picked up a few of your hubby’s radical right-wing anti-American secessionist thought patterns, don’t I, as an ordinary curious citizen, have a right to know? Anxiously awaiting your reply, Karoli Note: Dave N. has some notable insights into Palin’s academic background : A word about Sarah Palin’s journalism degree: She and I graduated from the same school, the University of Idaho. (She arrived at the school a year after I graduated.) The difference is that when I attended there, I was highly active in the communications community, and was editor of the school paper for a year. Sarah Palin, in contrast, never even wrote a story for the Argonaut, let alone for the J school’s other chief outlet, the UI News Bureau; no one at the school’s TV station remembers her or has any record of her doing work there. Indeed, the professor who signed her degree barely remembers her, as she was one of those students who simply showed up for class, got a grade, and went home. Given that kind of background, Palin was lucky to even get a shot at sports reporting for a small Alaska TV station, which was the extent of her actual experience as a journalist.
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Billionaire Donald Trump claims credit for forcing president to speak out on birther controversy That’s a relief. The 44th president of the United States, commander-in-chief of the world’s mightiest fighting force and leader of its sole superpower is a natural-born American and not an alien interloper. A previously unseen birth certificate produced to scotch a chorus of doubters revealed that Barack Obama was indeed born in Hawaii, not in Kenya – the claim at the heart of many of the wild conspiracy theories that have dogged him. On a day when he had other pressing matters to deal with – three military conflicts, massive national debt and rising oil prices to name a few – Obama appeared in front of television cameras to explain why he had decided to confront the “birthers” who have questioned his eligibility for the most powerful office on Earth. “We do not have time for this kind of silliness,” he said. “We’re not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers.” He didn’t name names, but there can be little debate about who he meant. Step forward Donald Trump, reality TV judge, self-publicist supreme and carnival barker-in-chief who has made birther doubts a central plank of his highly theatrical flirtations with a presidential run. Obama launched his counteroffensive on the day Trump was making his first visit to the electorally sensitive state of New Hampshire. That was a taste of the tactics that will become familiar as the presidential race gathers pace, though Trump pretended to be unfazed and even claimed credit for the release of the birth certificate. “I am very proud of myself. I have accomplished something nobody else has accomplished,” he said. The billion dollar question is this: by coming forward now with his detailed birth documentation, will Obama have contained the birther tide? The idea that he was not born on US soil, and therefore does not have the right awarded to any American citizen to be voted into the White House, began to pick up momentum in 2007 when Obama’s presidential ambitions became clear. It has grown steadily ever since, with polls suggesting that one in four Americans harbour doubts about his birth, a proportion that rises to an astonishing four out of 10 Republican voters. In 2008 Obama put out a shorter form of his birth certificate that acts as the legal proof of his Hawaiian birth, but birthers simply demanded to see the longer archived paperwork. Obama also pointed to a birth notice in the local Honolulu Star Bulletin newspaper from 1961 that said “Mr and Mrs Barack H Obama, 6085 Kalanianaole Highway, son, Aug 4.” But that, the detractors said, could have been planted. Senior Hawaiian officials who said they had met Obama as a newborn baby and had seen with their own eyes the long-form birth certificate also failed to have any impact. “I have watched with bemusement, I’ve been puzzled at the degree at which this thing just kept on going,” Obama said. The problem is, even this dramatic riposte by the president is unlikely to silence the nay-sayers. Prominent birthers contacted by the Guardian insisted this was not so much a battle lost as the start of a new engagement. Orly Taitz (place of birth: Moldavia) welcomed the release of the birth certificate but added: “Now we need a federal inquiry into Obama’s social security fraud.” Taitz said her fellow birther Neil Sankey (place of birth: UK) had discovered Obama had used multiple social security numbers suggesting he was covering up his ineligibility for the highest office. “We will continue our work,” Taitz said ominously. One of the earliest campaigners, Philip Berg, said he too had no intention of hanging up his birther boots. “The issue isn’t Obama’s birth in Hawaii. It’s whether he was adopted in Indonesia which would have removed his status as a natural born American,” he said. Berg, a former senior prosecutor in Pennsylvania, has lodged three lawsuits and four supreme court pleadings relating to Obama’s nationality. All were rejected by judges, but he said that he “absolutely” planned to continue the legal struggle. For John Avlon, Daily Beast columnist and author of Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America, this is yet more evidence of the paranoid style of politics that he believes is strangling debate in America. Birther conspiracies have brought the base of the Republican party and the extreme fringe together. “It has become a cycle of incitement,” Avlon said. “As Jonathan Swift once said, you can’t reason somebody out of something they were never reasoned into.” Obama administration United States US politics Barack Obama Donald Trump Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk
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Danny Cohen justifies decision to axe Rufus Sewell drama Zen, saying he wants to ‘broaden the palette a bit’ Television is in danger of airing programmes with “too many male detectives” and “too much crime”, according to the BBC1 controller, Danny Cohen. Discussing the decision to axe BBC1′s Rufus Sewell drama Zen two months ago, Cohen said: “You can’t keep on doing everything if you want to bring in new things. I felt that we risked having too many male detectives and arguably we have had maybe too much crime. He went on: “Detectives and crime is the real staple of quite a lot on the BBC but also a huge amount of ITV drama … I want to broaden the palette a bit.” Speaking at a Broadcasting Press Guild lunch in London, Cohen said: “I want to broaden the range and make sure we have got enough that is not detectives and crime.” Cohen pointed out that BBC1 already has hit series Sherlock and Wallander, starring Kenneth Branagh, which is returning next year. Other BBC1 male detective dramas include Luther and George Gently, while ITV1 has Lewis, Midsomer Murders, DCI Banks and the recent well-received one-off drama The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. ITV is also due to air new dramas starring female detectives – Vera and Case Sensitive. Following Life of Riley actor Caroline Quentin’s recent call for Cohen to address the issue of more television roles for older actresses, the BBC1 controller said: “I think we know there’s more work to do there. It’s not a BBC issue, it’s an industry issue, we have to get better.” When asked why one of his channel’s most famous faces, David Dimbleby, has yet to agree a new contract with the BBC, Cohen at first said Dimbleby has signed up to host more editions of Question Time. However he then corrected himself and said a deal has not yet been done and that it is being dealt with by the BBC News director, Helen Boaden. Cohen said “I want him to stay and do Question Time”, adding that part of the talks with Dimbleby include the veteran presenter doing a landmark series for BBC1 following the success of programmes such as Seven Ages of Britain. He went on to say that he sometimes wonders about “the degree of scrutiny of the BBC” on a daily basis in newspapers and warned: “Britain would be a poorer place without the BBC, we should be careful how far we kick it.” •
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More than half of the 650 sessions are already oversubscribed after last-minute surge on website London 2012 organisers said they were “thrilled” after revealing they had received applications for more than 20m Olympics tickets during the first phase of sales. More than half of the 650 sessions are already oversubscribed at the end of the first round of ticket sales, with track cycling, rhythmic gymnastics, triathlon and the equestrian cross country among the first sports to sell out. After a last-minute surge in applications that caused the website to slow to a crawl and forced a last-ditch extension of the deadline early on Wednesday, the London organising committee (Locog) said 1.8 million people had submitted applications for the 6.6m tickets available to the public. Locog also confirmed that anyone who had not applied for tickets in the initial 42-day phase would not get the chance to do so until much later this year. Instead, those applicants who have received none or only some of the tickets for which they bid will be offered further opportunities in June and July to apply for other events. The opening ceremony, for which tickets range from £20.12 to £2,012, was the most popular event and was more than 10 times oversubscribed. Successful applicants will have money taken from their accounts between 10 May and 10 June and will be notified which tickets they will receive before 24 June. That has drawn criticism from some consumer groups, which claim the system tilted the scales in favour of those able to rack up a large potential bill in the hope of securing the most sought-after tickets. Track cycling, in which Team GB won an unprecedented eight gold medals in Beijing, was always expected to be among the hottest tickets, as were the opening and closing ceremonies. But some of the other sports to sell out are more surprising. They include rhythmic gymnastics, modern pentathlon, the cross country equestrian events in Greenwich Park and the triathlon in Hyde Park. All have a committed following, a limited number of sessions and tend to be reasonably priced. Locog said that most swimming and tennis sessions had also sold out. Lord Coe, the chairman of Locog, said: “We are thrilled with the response right across the board, in all sports and all sessions. What is most encouraging is that the majority of applications are for multiple tickets and for several sports, which shows that friends and family are planning to go to the games together.” Locog did not reveal which sports have the most spaces remaining, though tickets for those with lots of sessions in relatively large venues will inevitably be among the most difficult to shift. They include volleyball, football, basketball and handball. There was also criticism of the technology underpinning the ticketing process from some who claimed they were unable to access the site in the hours running up to the midnight deadline. Locog said the site was overburdened for only 20 minutes, but some users reported being unable to process their orders for two hours or more. Locog, which extended the deadline to 1am, said all those who kept trying were eventually able to process their order. Andreas Edler, managing director of a web hosting company Hostway UK, said: “Irrespective of the sudden late surge of demand, you would expect ticketing websites in this day and age to build in adequate capacity and utilise better traffic management practices to cope with the excess of visitors.” Olympic Games 2012 Sebastian Coe Owen Gibson guardian.co.uk
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• BP takes additional $400m in charges from oil spill costs • UK budget changes cost BP £414m in extra taxes BP has predicted it will be back drilling in the Gulf of Mexico within a matter of months despite continuing legal threats and rows over pollution from last year’s Deepwater Horizon disaster. “We expect to be back and actively drilling during the second half of the year,” Byron Grote, the company’s chief financial officer, told financial analysts from the City of London on Wednesday. The comments are likely to infuriate environmentalists who believe BP should be kept away from the Gulf and could upset a US offshore regulator still considering whether to grant permits to BP. Verbal gaffes by former chief executive Tony Hayward in the wake of the Macondo well accident 12 months ago sent the company’s reputation in America into freefall as it attracted widespread criticism from the White House downwards. Grote was speaking as BP revealed it had taken a further $400m of extra charges relating to Macondo in its first quarter financial results which helped dent profits. The company has not drilled any wells in the US Gulf since a moratorium was introduced last summer but formally lifted again in October. Some rival firms have already been granted permission to drill new deepwater wells but not BP. A spokesman for the British company said it had applied to resume drilling production wells to keep up output levels at key fields such as Thunderhorse and Atlantis. “This is clearly subject to the regulator’s permission being granted,” he added. Hopes that drilling could begin soon come barely a month after the US Justice Department confirmed it was still considering a range of civil and criminal charges against BP. It also comes amid continuing arguments over how much oil or dispersant chemicals used in the aftermath of Macondo continue to damage the waters of the Gulf. The financial figures for the first three months of the year were boosted by much higher oil prices but were also damaged by chancellor George Osborne taking a billion dollar bite out of profits. Changes announced in the March budget on North Sea oil fields cost BP $683m (£414m) in extra taxes over the first quarter of the year while a further $400m is expected to go in 2012 owing to fiscal treatment covering the decommissioning of platforms. The higher tax charge in the first three months helped replacement cost profits dip to $5.5bn from $5.6bn during the same period a year ago but the figures were also hampered by an 11% slump in production volumes and higher operating costs. These special items outweighed a substantial increase in oil prices year on year and a very strong performance from its Russian business, TNK-BP, where BP is in conflict with its oligarch partners over a proposed tie-up with another local group, Rosneft. The tax hit from Osborne has infuriated a wider North Sea oil and gas industry which claims hundreds of jobs stand to be lost. There has been a series of meetings between company executives and government officials but so far Osborne has shown little sign of backing down. Osborne presented the move last month as a “fair fuel stabiliser” which would raise the tax rate on oil producers to avoid having to increase the tariff on pump petrol which has reached record levels. The chancellor said the change would raise £2bn of extra taxes but BP’s figure of $683m is the first from a company and BP is still one of the largest in the North Sea. The BP tax rate went up from 30% to 37% over the first quarter as a result of the move, said a company spokesman. The oil group has gradually been running down its UK interests and is talking to potential buyers about various gas fields it wants to sell along with the Wytch Farm onshore field in Dorset. BP has disposed of $24bn worth of assets worldwide as part of a cash-raising move to help pay for the $41bn cost of Deepwater. BP Oil Oil and gas companies Energy industry Tony Hayward BP oil spill George Osborne Terry Macalister guardian.co.uk
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Ben Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, holds his first ever live press conference to explain monetary policy 2.44pm: A silly question from a nameless interlocator, asking what can the Fed do about providing more jobs. Oh god, it was from the New York Times. Really. “Clearly it is the case that we have done extraordinary things” to get the economy moving, Bernanke argues. And now a question about the ineffectiveness of the second round of quantitative easing – in which the Fed attempted to push on a piece of string using a wodge of cash. Bernanke unsurprisingly thinks that the policy he piloted was effective. It wasn’t going to be a panacea, Bernanke says. 2.43pm ET: And now a question about the end of quantitative easing. Something something something. 2.38pm ET: At last a lovely British accent, via a question from Robin Harding of the FT, looking like a young Michael Caine. The question was about inflation expectations. The answer is so fascinating that words alone can’t convey it. 2.37pm ET: For how long will US economic growth and growth in the labour market continue to be moderate, asks a polite man from Bloomberg. “The pace of improvement is still quite slow, we are digging ourselves out of quite a big hole,” Bernanke says. Basically, a while yet. 2.33pm ET: What can or should the Fed do able Americans being upset about high gas and food prices, wonders the Wall Street Journal. “Gas is of course a necessity, people need to drive to get to work,” notes Bernanke. Well I walked to work this morning, but his broad point is accurate. Demand from growing economies has driven up the demand for oil, while disruptions in the Middle East has restricted supply. “This is a very adverse development,” says Bernanke. “There’s not much the Federal Reserve can do about gas prices per se.” “Our view is that gas prices will not continue to rise at the recent pace… that will provide some relief on the inflation front but we’ll have to wtach that very carefully.” 2.30pm ET: Critics say Fed policy has driven down the value of the US dollar. What does Mr Bernanke have to say to those critics? (That’s asked by someone called Steve.) Bernanke doesn’t really answer the question, and basically says that if the US economy is strong then the US dollar will be strong. Which is true. Low inflation and a strong economy, that’s the ticket. 2.28pm ET: Not a huge PR success so far, based on this tweet from uber-blogger Felix Salmon of Reuters. Still, it’s early days. I think it might have helped if Bernanke had provided a simultaneous translation from Latin. 2.25pm ET: Cracking stuff so far, assuming you have a PhD in macroeconomics from a decent university. If you don’t, it’s slightly on the dry side. 2.15pm ET: And right on time, Chairman Bernanke takes the stage and starts speaking from his prepared text. Alongside Bernanke’s press conference, the Federal Open Market Committee has issued its latest announcement regarding US interest rates: Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in March indicates that the economic recovery is proceeding at a moderate pace and overall conditions in the labor market are improving gradually. Household spending and business investment in equipment and software continue to expand. However, investment in nonresidential structures is still weak, and the housing sector continues to be depressed. Commodity prices have risen significantly since last summer, and concerns about global supplies of crude oil have contributed to a further increase in oil prices since the Committee met in March. Inflation has picked up in recent months, but longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable and measures of underlying inflation are still subdued. The upshot to all this is that the FOMC is leaving interest rates unchanged: The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 0.25 per cent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate for an extended period. 2.10pm ET: Here’s how the Fed explains today’s event: Chairman Ben S Bernanke will hold press briefings four times per year to present the Federal Open Market Committee’s current economic projections and to provide additional context for the FOMC’s policy decisions. The introduction of regular press briefings is intended to further enhance the clarity and timeliness of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy communication. The Federal Reserve will continue to review its communications practices in the interest of ensuring accountability and increasing public understanding. 2pm ET: Welcome to live coverage of an unusual event: for the first time the chairman of the US Federal reserve, Ben Bernanke, holds a press conference to explain the Fed’s interest rate setting decisions and to explain to outlook for the US economy and its monetary policy. The press conference kicks off at 2.15pm ET, and you can follow it on streaming video through this link – and the Guardian’s analysis right here. For background, here’s how the Financial Times’s Lex column [subscription required] reads today’s historic press conference: Longer term, however, conferences should strengthen the chairman’s control over the Fed’s message. Of late, Fedspeak has come largely from hawkish regional governors. This obscures Mr Bernanke’s feat at the last meeting in mustering unanimous support for a highly controversial policy. He is still guiding the Fed. Now he will have ample opportunity to demonstrate this, and lay out his case. Ben Bernanke US Interest rates US economy United States Economics Richard Adams guardian.co.uk
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• Bash F5 for the latest updates • Send your tiki-taka to scott.murray@guardian.co.uk • Click here for tonight’s other scores Scott will be here from 7pm. Ish. In the meantime, you can enjoy this superb animation of Barcelona’s 5-0 win earlier this season and also take a look at Sid Lowe’s pre-match report: This time it’s personal. Barcelona’s coach, Josep Guardiola, finally exploded, sending a year of pent-up anger and frustration gushing forth as he responded to José Mourinho on the eve of the Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid. The question now is whether Mourinho will feel that he has won the mental battle, dragging Guardiola into territory that is not his own, or if Guardiola will feel a release at having at last had his say. And what a say it was. The days of a respectful silence, of turning the other cheek, are definitively over. This was more like the aggressive weigh-in before a prize fight, complete with an air of “you and me outside”. Mourinho had pricked Guardiola’s pride once too often by accusing him of complaining about referees who get decisions right. It was an accusation that Guardiola, normally so measured, was not prepared to let pass – the last straw after a year that has been a war of attrition. Guardiola was finally drawn into battle. “He called me Pep, so I answered,” Guardiola said at the end of a breathtaking 45 minutes. “Normally, he talks in general terms about a team, a club or a manager, but this time he named me. If he says: ‘Pep,’ I say: ‘Hey, José.’” He said more than “hey”. Sitting down in the press room at the Santiago Bernabéu, he said: “As Mourinho has spoken so candidly about me and spoken about me by name, and using tú [the informal form of you], then I will do the same.” He then asked which of the gathered cameras was “Mourinho’s camera” and began. Article continues here Champions League Real Madrid Barcelona Scott Murray guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The first time I mentioned Ilya Sheyman, the progressive Democrat running for the northern Chicago suburban seat held by GOP freshman Robert Dold, it was in a long and rambling post lashing out against conventional wisdom . When I finally got to Ilya, former Field Director for Democracy for America and, more recently, National Mobilization Director at MoveOn, who Blue America was urging to run against Dold, he quoted Paul Wellstone to me: “Politics is not just about power and money games, politics can be about the improvement of peoples lives, about lessening human suffering in our world and bringing about more peace and more justice.” Candidates with this kind of mindset are candidates Blue America is looking for to help solve the country’s problems. That’s why we’re enthusiastic about endorsing him today and why we’d like to invite you to meet him in the live forum in the comments section below. Until Dold’s vote to phase out Medicare and replace it with a pathetic voucher system so that the wealthiest Americans get more tax breaks, not many people had heard of him outside the 10th CD between Arlington Heights and Waukegan. But that triggered an angry reaction at Dold’s town hall meeting in Buffalo Grove last week and now Dold has become another right-wing poster boy for Paul Ryan’s dystopian vision of a mean, dark, reactionary America. Rep. Robert Dold (R-Ill.) cut a presentation on the federal deficit short at a town hall meeting he held last week, after audience members began firing questions at him about the Ryan budget and its changes to entitlement programs, including Medicare and Social Security, according to the Chicago newspaper the Daily Herald . Senior citizens in the audience expressed their discontent with turning Medicare into a voucher program, calling the change a “shell game” that would bog senior citizens down with uncertainty in dealing with private healthcare companies. And senior citizens are getting to know Dold better now that he’s been in Congress for 4 months. He may be trying to hide his support for dismembering Medicare but he’s surprisingly open about his contempt for Social Security and what he insists is the need to trim it back. Dold has been the perfect little rubber stamp for the radical House leadership, buying into all their harebrained schemes. “Rep. Dold and the right wing of the Republican Party,” Ilya confirmed “are hell-bent on dismantling Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and eliminating the foundations of the American Dream that have made millions of middle-class lives possible– and we can’t let them get away with it… The fact that he continues to advocate for cuts in Social Security benefits shows just how out of touch he is with the voters of the 10th District [and] his vote for the radical Republican budget that ends Medicare in order to give tax breaks to giant corporations and the wealthiest 2% of Americans should put to rest any notion that he actually cares about the deficit.” A few weeks ago a staffer for a DCCC-approved candidate called and asked if Blue America would endorse him. I asked to speak with him and, embarrassed, the staffer said he isn’t familiar enough with the issues to speak with the media yet but he’s learning them. That’s not the kind of candidates Blue America is looking for and that’s about as far from what Ilya Sheyman is all about as you can be. “I am in this race,” he told us, “because I believe that government and politics are about doing good. They’re about helping every man, woman, and child with a dream– and the willingness to work for it– achieve his or her potential… I’m sick and tired of a Democratic Party that on issue after issue seems to pre-negotiate, pre-triangulate, and pre-capitulate rather than standing up for the progressive values we know make a difference in real people’s lives.” This is what he’s been doing as a grassroots activist for years. We need people like Ilya in Congress to save us from Beltway Democrats who are chosen by the Establishment for one reason and one reason only: an ability to self-fund campaigns– i.e., whore themselves out to corporate interests. That isn’t Ilya: “I can’t wait to organize together with grassroots advocates in our community, and allies inside Congress, to pass a real jobs bill that will put millions of Americans back to work and pave the way to a new green energy economy. “Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s ‘Fairness in Taxation Act’ is a model of the kind of progressive legislation we should be fighting for, and I’m eager to work alongside her to bring back fairness to our tax code so we can invest in America again.” enlarge Dold was caught asking the Tea Party to not publicly endorse him in the general election because it could blow his cover as a fake moderate. Since getting into Congress with a narrow 51-49% win, in a district Obama won with 61% in 2008, Dold has blown his own cover, voting for Ryan’s toxic budget, voting to renew the Patriot Act and just marching along in lockstep to everything John Boehner and Eric Cantor wanted him for. This time Chicagoland voters get a real choice. Please help us welcome Ilya to the Blue America family and, if you can, please contribute to his campaign through our ActBlue page . An active admirer of Raul Grijalva’s and Keith Ellison’s Put America Back To Work Act, Ilya will be working inside the Progressive Caucus helping to advance real solutions for working families. It’s what he’;s campaigning on and it’s what has drawn him into politics. And it’s why Blue America has endorsed him.
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