Finance topics

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says the United States and other rich nations could re-learn a few lessons from developing countries: Adopt disciplined budget policies, embrace free trade, make public investments and support education.

Bernanke’s speech about the explosion of growth in the developing world was largely academic. But in his conclusion, he appears to criticize U.S. lawmakers and others in developed countries who he says have failed to embrace some key economic principles.

Bernanke has cautioned U.S. lawmakers against cutting deficits too quickly to reduce budget deficits. He has said that could put the fragile economy at risk.

In his speech, Bernanke suggests many emerging countries have enjoyed three decades of strong economic growth with support from their governments. .

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Someone is about to play the fool _ Wall Street analysts or investors.

For months, analysts who write reports praising or panning stocks have been saying they were cheap. Investors were unconvinced, buying one day, selling the next. Last week, they mostly sold, and stocks got cheaper yet.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose slightly Friday but closed the week down 6.4 percent, its worst showing since the depths of the financial crisis three years ago. In the broader Standard & Poor’s 500, the selling pushed down all variety of stocks _ sexy high techs and staid utilities, risky small companies and cash-rich big ones.

Stock prices compared to expected profits are now nearly as low as they were in March 2009, a 12-year nadir that marked the beginning of one of the greatest bull markets in history.

Have investors sold too much, as they did back then?

“I’d be buying the market,” says Citigroup’s chief U.S. strategist Tobias Levkovitch, who warned that prices were too high in the spring. Says Harris Private Bank’s Jack Ablin, who sold $6 billion or so of stock in August, “We’re sharpening our pencils to figure out when to get back in.”

Who’s right _ or who’s about to play the fool _ may turn on earnings, or rather, analysts’ estimates of how fast they will grow.

Recently, they’ve been cutting them for companies in the S&P 500 as fears of another recession spread. But they’re still predicting they will earn 13 percent more earnings in the three months through September than they did in the same period a year ago, according to data provider FactSet. That would mark the eighth straight quarter of double-digit gains. And for the full year, analysts say earnings will hit a record.

“You can throw toss (those estimates) in the garbage,” says Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at brokerage Miller Tabak & Co. “Will Greece go bankrupt? What will be the extent of the global economic slowdown? I can’t get that out of an analyst report.”

If history is any guide, more cuts from analysts are coming.

One ominous sign: Those who changed their estimates this month chose to cut them more than six out 10 times, according to Citigroup. Early last month, raised estimates outnumbered lowered ones by nearly the same ratio.

Analysts are easy to bash. They usually tend to far too optimistic, cheering on stocks long after they’ve headed down. Now they want us to believe that companies can continue making record profits in the face of falling housing prices, tightfisted consumers, sputtering U.S. growth and a European debt crisis that is pushing a crucial market for U.S. exports closer to recession.

But it’s worth remembering that it’s been the naysayers, the investors, and not the optimistic analysts, who’ve mostly been wrong lately.

At the start of the bull market, investors worried that companies couldn’t generate enough profits in such an anemic economy. Then companies cut expenses to the bone, and profits soared. Investors next worried that companies wouldn’t be able to sell more, and that profits were bound to fall. And then companies defied expectations again with higher revenue, much of it overseas.

In fact, if anything, analysts haven’t been optimistic enough. For several quarters, nearly three out four companies have posted profits greater than analysts had estimated, FactSet says.

At Friday’s close, the S&P 500 was trading at 10.6 times analyst estimates for earnings over the next 12 months. That’s low for this so-called earnings multiple, which could mean stocks are cheap. When stocks bottomed on March 9, 2009, they were trading at 10.4 times estimated earnings. The 10-year average is 15.

Of course, the multiple might not look so appetizing in hindsight if companies’ results show the estimates were too high.

That won’t be clear at least for another two weeks when companies start reporting third-quarter results. But already investors are getting a taste of might be in store.

On Thursday, FedEx Corp., the world’s second-biggest package delivery company, met earnings expectations for the three months that ended in August. But it cut its target for full-year earnings, citing a slowdown in shipments from Asia. The stock fell to a two-year low.

Then, after the markets closed, some good news. Nike, the world’s largest athletic shoe maker, posted surprisingly strong earnings. It cited robust sales in India and China. The stock rose 5.3 percent Friday.

“The highest growth for companies has been in the emerging markets,” says John Butters, senior earnings analyst at FactSet. “We’re getting mixed signals.”

The good news is that even if analysts ended up playing the fools this time, stocks could still rise.

Harris Private Bank’s Ablin says analysts are “out to lunch” with their cheery projections. But he thinks investors may have overreacted, too. He says they’re selling as if earnings will fall 20 percent or so next year, which he thinks won’t happen.

“Investors are so dour, reality could surprise,” he says.

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The United States is about to adopt the Canadian way of granting patents for new inventions, which may not necessarily be a good thing.

That is the opinion of some people from the arcane field of intellectual property rights, which is nowhere near as glamorous as what viewers see on Dragon

Dominique Strauss-Kahn returned home to a mixed welcome in France on Sunday, for the first time since attempted rape accusations by a New York hotel maid unleashed an international scandal that dashed his chances for the French presidency.

New York prosecutors later dropped their case against Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund, because of questions about the maid’s credibility.

But the affair cost Strauss-Kahn his job at the helm of the IMF and exposed his personal life to worldwide scrutiny that has stained his image and left the French divided over what he should do next. His high-profile return home Sunday reflects how large he looms here.

Smiling and waving silently, he stepped off an Air France flight Sunday at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport a different man from the one who, just four months ago, had been the pollsters’ favorite to beat President Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s presidential elections.

Few expect Strauss-Kahn to return to French politics soon _ his Socialist Party is already in the throes of their presidential primary _ but his supporters have been eagerly awaiting his return after a monthslong legal drama in the U.S. that they saw as unfairly hostile to him.

Jack Lang, a former Socialist government minister and a neighbor of Strauss-Kahn, told The Associated Press that his friend would play a “very important role, not necessarily in the campaign, but in the life of France, the life of Europe.”

Lang said that the French people will eventually forget the scandal. “What scandal? In my eyes, he is innocent.”

As head of the IMF, Strauss-Kahn was widely praised for his management of the institution and its role in the European debt crisis _ an expertise some in France may covet as the problems of deficit and debt deepen.

Residents of Sarcelles, a working class Paris suburb where Strauss-Kahn is mayor, were largely enthusiastic and empathetic about his return.

“I’m happy for him. It’s the end of an ordeal. Now … we should leave him alone a little bit,” resident Laurent Giaoui told The Associated Press.

But a prominent member of Sarkozy’s conservative UMP party, Xavier Bertrand, shrugged off Strauss-Kahn’s appearance in Paris. “Like many French people, I have lots of others worries in my head,” he said on Europe-1 radio. “I have a hard time imagining” Strauss-Kahn back in politics, he said.

Strauss-Kahn flew in to Paris from New York’s JFK Airport early Sunday and gave a brief wave upon leaving the arrivals hall. Pushing a luggage cart, he did not speak to the large crowd.

His wife, respected former TV personality Anne Sinclair, was at his side, beaming widely. Riot police protected him and the area. The two then drove to one of their homes, on Paris’ tony Place des Vosges. The crush of reporters was so thick that Strauss-Kahn had trouble reaching and opening his front door.

The last time he tried to take an Air France flight out of JFK, Strauss-Kahn was pulled out of first class minutes before takeoff by police. They were investigating the maid’s claim that hours earlier, Strauss-Kahn had forced her to perform oral sex and tried to rape her payday loan lenders.

He quit his job, spent almost a week in jail, then six weeks of house arrest and nearly two more months barred from leaving the country before Manhattan prosecutors dropped the case last month, saying they no longer trusted the maid, Guinean immigrant Nafissatou Diallo.

Diallo is continuing to press her claims in a lawsuit. Strauss-Kahn denies the allegations.

Strauss-Kahn faces another investigation in France based on accusations by French novelist Tristane Banon, who says he tried to rape her during an interview in 2003. He calls the claim “imaginary.”

Banon’s mother, Anne Mansouret, told the AP that Strauss-Kahn’s return “is a good thing for my daughter’s complaint because he will have to answer to police.”

Banon says she didn’t file a complaint after the incident because her mother, a regional Socialist official, urged her not to.

Mansouret, who now says she regrets that decision, called it “profoundly indecent” that Strauss-Kahn’s homecoming Sunday was like that of a “star.”

The AP does not name people who report being sexually assaulted unless they agree to be identified or come forward publicly, as Diallo and Banon have done.

Strauss-Kahn, known in France by his initials DSK, is also dubbed a “great seducer” by French commentators for his reputation for sexual adventures.

That reputation _ and France’s overall attitude toward keeping politicians’ private lives private _ came under scrutiny after Strauss-Kahn’s arrest. Many called for more openness about questionable private behavior that might reflect on a politician’s public life.

The Socialist Party is now in a fierce campaign for primaries next month to choose its candidate for April and May presidential elections. The front-runners, while relieved that the New York case was dropped, do not appear keen for Strauss-Kahn to make a comeback.

Strauss-Kahn, an eloquent economist and former finance minister, still has many fans in France, and there remains a small chance he could play a role in the presidential campaign. Strauss-Kahn himself has remained silent about his political plans.

In welcoming Strauss-Kahn back Sunday, many French people expressed concern for his wife _ who was more famous in France than her husband before they married 20 years ago _ and what she’s been through in recent months.

One supporter belted out an ode to Strauss-Kahn in a performance at the Paris airport Sunday morning, accompanied by a Verdi opera played on a portable stereo, before police officers asked him to stop.

“Dominique! Dominique!,” shouted Gregoire Vandevelde, who said he was a former student of Strauss-Kahn’s at a prestigious economic institute. “He is extremely brilliant, full of humor and very competent, warm with his students,” Vandevelde said.

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Missouri solar installers scored a legal victory Thursday when a Cole County Circuit Court judge set aside an earlier ruling that state-financed solar rebates violate the state’s constitution.

Judge Daniel Green’s decision to erase his June 29 judgment gives Missouri’s solar industry at least a temporary reprieve and seems to guarantee the rebate, which was authorized by voters in 2008, will stay in place while the legal wrangling continues.

“It’s back to business as usual,” said Eric Swillinger, vice president of business operations for StarightUp Solar, an Olivette-based solar installer.

The judge’s ruling last month cast a cloud of uncertainty over the solar business in Missouri, especially after Ameren and Kansas City Power & Light asked regulators for permission to suspend rebate payments.

The $2-a-watt rebate provided cash payments of up to $50,000 for customers who installed solar arrays on their houses and businesses

Adam Moore once drove 500 miles just to eat a burrito at a Chipotle he’d never been to.

Alan Klein is working on a smartphone app to help fellow enthusiasts track down the transient McRib sandwich.

And Ben Skelton made an unusual choice for best man in his upcoming wedding: the Chick-fil-A cow.

“I’ve already told my best man that he’s going to be my second-string best man,” said Skelton, a 28-year-old chaplain’s assistant in the Air National Guard. “I just haven’t told him that he got beat out by a cow.”

Call it fanaticism or simply dedication, but these are the type of ultra-enthusiastic fans that every restaurant craves. Restaurant groupies have always been around, but they’re more valuable at a time when the economy is forcing consumers to choose carefully when they eat out, and a few online posts can inform the opinions of thousands. While there are no known statistics on these fanatics or even agreement on who qualifies as one, restaurant chains realize that influencing a few hyper-excited fans with free food and T-shirts can sometimes be more effective _ and much cheaper _ than a big advertising campaign.

“You really can’t buy publicity like that,” said Chris Arnold, spokesman for Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., referring affectionately to “lunatic customers” who do things like dress up as burritos to score free meals at the Colorado-based chain. He adds that the company tries to cultivate “loyalty and, in extreme cases, even evangelism.”

Fast food has indeed become the gospel for many. About 23 percent of Americans eat fast food at least 20 times a month, according to Jeff Davis at Sandelman & Associates, and another 20 percent indulge 12 to 19 times a month. But few restaurants inspire cult-like dedication. Those that do usually offer only one or two main products, or they’re able to create an aura of scarcity.

That’s why the ubiquitous McDonald’s usually sells its pork sandwich, the McRib, in only a few markets at a time. Last year, when McDonald’s briefly made the McRib available at all U.S. locations, it said that the “obscure availability,” as well as the barbecue sauce, led customers “to perform extraordinary feats” for a taste of the sandwich. McDonald’s Corp. said the McRib helped fuel November sales, but declined to give details.

Perhaps no one knows that better than Alan Klein, a 29-year-old meteorologist in the Minneapolis area. He’d never go out of his way for a Big Mac, which are hawked at every McDonald’s. But he loves the McRib because it’s hard to get. He even created a website, the McRib Locator, so fellow fans could report sightings.

“That’s the whole lure of it,” said Klein, whose enthusiasm for the pork sandwich started when he was a child, growing up in a hog-raising family. “If it’s around, you never know when it’s coming back.”

His website is a labor of love that’s hard to police. For accuracy’s sake, check marks indicate that someone has sent a receipt proving their McRib purchase. But, Klein warns on the website, “Please call ahead to confirm the McRib is available before traveling any great length to purchase one.”

According to the McRib Locator, the sandwich is currently being sold in parts of Canada, but Klein doesn’t have a passport. “If someone’s making a trip across the border, we’d definitely be interested in them bringing us one,” said Klein, whose wife, Kimberly, is also a fan.

Some restaurant groupies are willing to go great lengths for the object of their affection. Take Moore, the Chipotle fan. He got the idea to visit all 71 restaurants in Colorado while eating lunch with his sister at, naturally, Chipotle fast payday loan no faxing.

It took almost three years. By the end, Moore had logged 3,839 miles on his 1987 BMW and spent $528 on burrito bowls.

“There would be periods of lethargy,” he said, “and then periods of `OK, let’s get this done.’”

Moore, 25, divides his time between Denver and Lake Placid, N.Y., where he is training to try out for the 2014 Olympic skeleton team. He had hoped Chipotle would let him eat lunch with founder Steve Ells when he completed his quest, but the restaurant sent the head of customer relations instead.

“Steve’s schedule is very, very busy and as much as he loves to meet great customers, he has many demands on his time,” said Arnold, the Chipotle spokesman.

Chick-fil-A, an Atlanta-based chain with a big presence in the South, has a whole rulebook for how to reward super fans.

Whenever it opens a new restaurant, the first 100 customers get 52 coupons for free meals. Fans usually have to be in line 24 hours in advance to make the cut __ and sometimes even that’s not enough.

The restaurant turns the overnight wait into a party in the parking lot, with hula hoop contests, karaoke, and lots of free chicken. It does line checks to make sure people don’t leave, and distributes wristbands to make sure they don’t split shifts. Sometimes Dan Cathy, the president and chief operating officer, shows up in Chick-fil-A pajama pants.

“There’s no better way to get to know your customers,” said spokesman Mark Baldwin.

John Ruck, an 82-year-old retiree in St. Petersburg, Fla., has road-tripped to 48 Chick-fil-A openings __ not for the coupons but for the camaraderie. He went to his first in January 2006, while grieving his wife’s recent death, and found them therapeutic.

He said he doesn’t mind sleeping in parking lots because he brings a comfy chair. The only time he suffers is during the karaoke. “I’ve never been subjected to such torture for 52 meals,” he said with a laugh.

Still, Ruck plans to keep coming “as long as the good Lord lets me,” and compares the parking lot gatherings to a family reunion where he sees friends he’s met at other openings. Last year, he drove more than 1,000 miles round trip to an opening in Louisiana, then turned around and did it again the following week.

Ruck is so enamored that he decided to make Chick-fil-A part of his wife’s memory. A couple years ago, he had their wedding bands melted into one ring. When the jeweler asked him if he wanted an insignia, he had it stamped with the Chick-fil-A logo. Though his wife, Joanne, never slept in a Chick-fil-A parking lot, the chicken chain “was the only place she’d let the grandkids eat when she took them to the mall.”

Skelton, who will stand beside the Chick-fil-A cow at his wedding, certainly understands the desire to marry his favorite restaurant fare with the love of his life. The managers at a Chick-fil-A in Concord, N.C., who will provide his bovine best man, are also enthusiastic, Skelton said. Conveniently, Chick-fil-A already has a cow tuxedo, which it designed last year for some marketing programs during the Oscars.

Skelton’s fiancee, Heather Harmon, said she’s on board too. “I’m more than OK with it, I’m super excited,” said Harmon, a 26-year-old preschool teacher. “We’d been working really hard to put a lot of personal touches in this wedding. We didn’t want it to be stuffy.”

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_ November 2005: News of the World royal reporter Clive Goodman writes story saying Prince William has a knee injury. Buckingham Palace complaint prompts police inquiry.

_ August 2006: Goodman arrested along with private investigator Glenn Mulcaire for suspected hacking into voicemails of royal officials.

_ January 2007: Goodman jailed for four months; Mulcaire given six-month sentence. News of the World editor Andy Coulson resigns.

_ May 2007: Conservative Party leader David Cameron taps Coulson to be his media adviser.

_ July 2009: Coulson tells parliamentary committee he never “condoned use of phone hacking.”

_ September 2009: Rebekah Brooks, former editor of the News of the World and its sister paper The Sun, named chief executive of News International, News Corp.’s British arm.

_ February 2010: Parliamentary committee finds no evidence that Coulson knew about phone-hacking but states it’s “inconceivable” that only Goodman knew about it.

_ May 2010: Conservative David Cameron becomes prime minister; Coulson named his communications chief.

_ January 2011: British police reopen investigation into phone hacking. Coulson resigns Downing Street post.

_ May: News of the World agrees to pay actress Sienna Miller 100,000 pounds ($161,000) to settle claim her phone had been hacked.

_ June: News of the World pays another settlement, this time with former football player and Sky Sports pundit Andy Gray.

_ July 4: The Guardian newspaper publishes report saying phone of 13-year-old murder victim Milly Dowler was hacked by News of the World when Brooks was its editor. Brooks refuses to resign, says she knew nothing about the hacking.

_ July 5: News of the World advertisers boycott the paper.

_ July 7: News International announces it will close 168-year-old News of the World.

_ July 8: Coulson arrested over phone hacking; he’s not charged. Goodman arrested again, this time for suspected illegal payments to police. Cameron announces inquiries.

_ July 10: 168-year-old News of the World publishes final edition. Rupert Murdoch flies into London to deal with the crisis.

_ July 11: News Corp. withdraws offer to spin off Sky News in attempt to save bid for complete control of satellite broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB).

_ July 12: Cameron backs opposition motion urging Murdoch to back out of BSkyB bid.

_ July 13: News Corp. pulls its bid to take full control of BSkyB.

_ July 14: Rupert Murdoch agrees to appear before a parliamentary committee; defends News Corp.’s handling of scandal in interview with The Wall Street Journal. Reports emerge that FBI opens inquiry into possible phone hacking of 9/11 terror victims.

_ July 15: Brooks resigns as CEO of News International, is replaced by Tom Mockridge, former head of News Corp.’s Sky Italia television unit. Les Hinton, former News International chairman, resigns as CEO of Murdoch’s Dow Jones & Co. and publisher of The Wall Street Journal. Murdoch meets with Dowler’s family to apologize.

_ July 16: News Corp. runs a full-page ad in seven British newspapers apologizing for “serious wrongdoing” at the News of the World.

_ July 17: Brooks is arrested by U.K. police in the hacking scandal. Murdoch publishes another ad in British newspapers titled “Putting right what’s gone wrong.”

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Asian shares posted modest gains Tuesday after confidence got a boost from Europe’s vow to contain the Greek debt crisis.

Oil prices hovered above $93 a barrel. The dollar was lower against the euro and the yen.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.9 percent to 9,437.38, a day after the government upgraded its economic assessment for the first time in four months, as the world’s No. 3 economy continued to battle back from a devastating earthquake on March 11.

Shares of Nissan Motor Co. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. rose after announcing joint development of a mini-vehicle for the Japanese market in the first half of fiscal 2013. Nissan rose 3.1 percent and Mitsubishi was up 1.1 percent.

Signs that the European financial crisis may be contained helped ease investors’ concerns. European Union officials in Luxembourg said Monday that the EU would take steps to prevent Greece’s debt problems from affecting other struggling countries like Ireland and Portugal.

“This eased concerns significantly and saw currencies and equity markets rally strongly from the lows,” said Ben Potter, a strategist at IG Markets in Melbourne.

South Korea’s Kospi was 0.1 percent higher at 2,022 payday loans for bad credit.24 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.4 percent to 21,694.34. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was 0.8 percent higher at 4,489.20.

Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia and the Philippines were higher. Shares in New Zealand were lower.

In New York on Monday, investors largely put aside their concerns about the Greek financial crisis and focused on value, analysts said, snapping up shares at bargain prices.

The S&P 500 index rose 0.5 percent to close at 1,278.36. The Dow Jones industrial average added 0.6 percent to 12,080.38. The Nasdaq composite gained 0.5 percent to 2,629.66.

Benchmark oil for July delivery was up 4 cents to $93.33 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 25 cents to settle at $93.26 on Monday.

In London, Brent crude for August delivery was down 30 cents to $111.39 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

In currencies, the euro rose to $1.4330 from $1.4190 late Monday in New York. The dollar sank to 80.17 yen from 80.32 yen.

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A handful of flights were delayed this morning but an early crush at self-serve kiosks cleared before 7:45 a.m. as Air Canada responded to a strike by 3,800 customer service workers.

Inside Terminal 1, managers pitched in to help passengers check in and get boarding passes for flights.

What you need to know about the strike.

Air Canada has hired replacement workers from Garda World Security to, another other things, replace striking workers by helping passengers at kiosks, Garda confirmed to the Star.

The Garda workers at various airports are in addition to the regular Garda screening officers who work for and wear the uniform of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority.

Air Canada managers, wearing the airline uniform, were working at check-in counters.

Outside, dozens and dozens of pickets marched and chanted, carrying a giant banner that read