Finance topics

House Democrats are advising Congress’ supercommittee to create jobs, raise revenues and avoid damaging cuts to crucial public works, education and health programs as the panel searches for ways to curb the government’s growing debt.

A day ahead of a deadline for submitting advice to the supercommittee, minority Democrats from 16 House committees released letters they are sending the panel with their recommendations. Some propose specific savings such as boosting government fees on financial firms and defunding old water projects. All emphasize the need to protect programs that keep the economy strong, especially at a time of high unemployment and a faltering economy.

“Democrats strongly believe that economic growth is an integral component of such a proposal, because creating jobs is the most effective way to reduce the deficit,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wrote in her own letter to the supercommittee.

The fact that House Democrats wrote their own letters _ as opposed to joint letters co-signed by committee Republicans _ underscores the wide partisan divide over how the $14 trillion federal debt should be tamed. Congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama want some tax increases included in any debt-reduction package, an idea that the GOP rejects.

Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee, which controls over $1 trillion in annual agency spending, proposed no specific cuts but emphasized the damage that would be done by across-the-board cuts that would be automatically triggered if the supercommittee doesn’t produce a package of savings that Congress approves.

Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees taxes and large health care programs, wrote that the supercommittee must “spur job creation and economic health today.” They urged higher taxes on the wealthy while providing tax incentives for companies that create jobs, and protection for Social Security, unemployment benefits and health care coverage.

Republicans and Senate committees will be sending additional letters to the supercommittee over the next two days. The panel is charged with finding at least $1.2 trillion in savings over the coming decade.

Among letters already sent to the supercommittee, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who heads the Senate Health and Education Committee, asked the panel to take “bold and immediate action to create jobs” while embracing deficit reduction that would take effect after the unemployment rate drops.

Harkin suggests raising taxes and saving money by giving brand-name drugmakers fewer years of patent protection against generic competitors and encouraging students to take education loans directly from their colleges _ both policies that have been favored by the Obama administration. Harkin wrote that the supercommittee should avoid cuts to programs including job training, Obama’s health care overhaul and aid to the disabled.

The leaders of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Chairman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., combined on a letter asking the supercommittee to “not neglect America’s transportation needs.”

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, encouraged the committee to pare savings from Social Security by gradually raising the future retirement age from 67 to 69 and, in some years, trimming annual inflation adjustments in benefits by 1 percentage point. Hutchison has been offering that proposal for weeks; it’s opposed by the seniors group AARP.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said he and the panel’s top Republican, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, hope to write a bipartisan letter that other Armed Services members could support.

The top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he is trying to unite minority Republicans on that panel behind their own letter.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., who is also on the supercommittee, is considered unlikely to send a recommendation letter, as is another supercommittee member, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich.

The supercommittee has until Nov. 23 to send a package of savings to Congress. Lawmakers will have until Dec. 23 to vote on the measure, with failure meaning $1.2 trillion in cuts in defense and many domestic programs will begin taking effect in 2013.

Warren Buffett has also brought his fight to raise taxes on the super-wealthy to the deficit-reduction panel.

In an exchange of letters between the billionaire investor and a Republican congressman that Buffett sent the committee this week, Buffett is offering to release his federal tax returns _ with a condition.

“If you could get other ultra rich Americans to publish their returns along with mine, that would be very useful to the tax dialogue and intelligent reform,” Buffett wrote.

Buffett’s views have become central to the struggle between Obama and Congress over how to control the federal debt. Obama has used the “Buffett Rule” to describe his fight to clamp taxes on the wealthy that are at least as high as those paid by lower earners, a drive that Republicans oppose.

Source

Just 18 months after taking the top job, Charter Communications CEO Michael J. Lovett plans to quit.

Lovett, 50, said he will resign on April 30 or earlier if the board of directors names his successor.

“With Charter on strong footing, I believe this is the right time for me to move on to the next chapter of my career,” he said in a company press release.

The decision to leave was Lovett’s, said Charter spokeswoman Anita Lamont.

Charter emerged from bankruptcy in 2009, lost $237 million last year and $217 million loss in the first half of this year.

The company still faces a tough road ahead in a consolidating business, said analyst Juli Niemann of Smith Moore & Co. The company announced an emphasis on improving customer service, but still hasn’t won over customers.

“I have not seen any meaningful changes,” she said.

Charter, based in Town and Country, is the fourth-largest cable company in the U.S. and the dominant cable provider in St Payday Loan for Bad Credit. Louis.

Lovett last year replaced former CEO Neil Smit, who left to oversee Comcast Corp.’s cable distribution operation.

Lovett is a 31-year veteran of the cable business. He joined Charter in 2003 as vice president of operations, and became chief operating officer in 2005.

Eric L. Zinterhofer, Charter’s chairman, praised Lovett for setting a “solid foundation for growth” and his willingness to help in an “orderly transition.” Lovett will remain in his post while the board seeks a successor, Zinterhofer said.

Charter sought bankruptcy after being overwhelmed by more than $21 billion in debt. The company eliminated $8 billion of debt in its Chapter 11 reorganization. Former chairman and Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen retained a 35 percent voting stake in the company.

Source

The maker of Robert Mondavi wine and Svedka vodka says its second-quarter profit jumped 78 percent on lower costs and improved wine and spirits sales in North America.

Constellation Brands Inc.’s earnings beat Wall Street estimates. Its shares rose 4 percent to $19.49 in premarket trading.

The Victor, N.Y.-based company reported net income climbed to $162.7 million, or 76 cents per share, in the June-to-August quarter. That’s up from $91.3 million, or 43 cents, a year earlier.

Excluding one-time items, the Victor, N business card design.Y., company earned 77 cents per share. Wall Street expected 65 cents per share.

Its revenue fell 20 percent to $690.2 million largely because it sold the bulk of its Australian and British wine business in January.

Its wine and spirits sales in North America rose 5 percent to $690.2 million.

Source

California Attorney General Kamala Harris said Friday that she will not agree to a settlement over foreclosure abuses that federal officials and other state attorneys general are negotiating with major U.S. banks.

Her announcement is the latest to undermine a resolution that had been in the works between the banks and attorneys general in all 50 states. Other states including New York also have expressed reservations about the deal, which would help keep people in their homes and compensate borrowers who faced improper foreclosures.

The agreement was supposed to settle claims of poor mortgage and foreclosure practices, including document fraud known as “robo-signing” _ approving documents in foreclosures without actually reading them.

However, Harris said the pending deal is “inadequate for California homeowners” and gives bank officials too much legal immunity.

The state is being asked as part of the settlement “to excuse conduct that has not been properly investigated,” she wrote, promising to continue her own investigation.

Without agreement from the nation’s most populous state _ and one of the hardest hit by foreclosures _ the settlement could end up doing little to resolve the issue. Foreclosure fraud class-action lawsuits are also piling up against major banks across the country.

Harris noted that more than 2.2 million California residents are underwater, meaning they owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Since the negotiations began 11 months ago, foreclosures have begun against more than 560,000 additional California homes.

“No state has been harder hit than my home state of California,” Harris wrote in a letter to Associate U.S. Attorney General Thomas Perrelli and Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, who have been leading the talks.

Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. are among the banks that have been involved in the talks.

“We will continue to work with all parties, including our customers to restore home ownership nationally and locally,” Wells Fargo spokeswoman Vickee Adams said, adding that the bank has helped more than 700,000 people nationwide with new low cost loans or modifications.

JPMorgan Chase spokesman Thomas Kelly and a Bank of America spokesman Lawrence Grayson declined to comment.

Harris said California will go it alone in negotiating a settlement with the banks that would keep more families in their homes. She also promised to seek regulations and legislation to prevent future problems.

Assistant Iowa Attorney General Patrick Madigan said California had been an important part of the negotiations, which already have had lasting effects, delaying foreclosures in many states.

“However, the multistate effort is pressing forward and we fully expect to reach a settlement with the banks,” he said in a statement. The settlement will still be presented to all 50 states, he said.

States need to move quickly to prevent more foreclosures, Madigan said.

“Providing relief after the foreclosure crisis is over would be a hollow victory indeed,” he warned.

Community organizations praised Harris for rejecting the settlement.

“The first step in restarting our economy is keeping people in their houses and holding banks’ feet to the fire,” Rick Jacobs, chairman and founder of the Courage Campaign, said in a written statement.

“This settlement would have only been able to help around 20,000 California homeowners out of 2.2 million, while giving away all future rights to pursue investigations and litigation around a broad list of fraud that has been committed,” said a news release from People Improving Communities Through Organizing.

The talks have been designed to institute new guidelines for mortgage lending nationwide. It was anticipated to be the biggest overhaul of an industry since the 1998 multistate tobacco settlement.

However, over the last year, issues have arisen that have caused significant obstacles, including the amount of money in a reserve account for property owners who were improperly foreclosed upon, and how much civil liability the lenders should face.

The issues have caused attorneys general, including those in New York and Delaware, to withdraw from the talks. Attorneys general in Minnesota, New Mexico and Kentucky in recent weeks have criticized aspects of the deal in media reports.

Banks’ responses to the scrutiny have varied.

Many, including Bank of America and Ally Financial Inc.’s GMAC Mortgage, temporarily halted their foreclosure cases in October after allegations surfaced that employees signed but didn’t read documents that may have contained errors. Wells Fargo also admitted it had made mistakes in thousands of foreclosure cases and promised to fix them but did not stop its foreclosures. All three lenders have said they’re fixing the problems.

One of the biggest sticking points in settlement talks has been the amount of penalties the mortgage lenders would pay for their role in improper foreclosures. Federal and state officials have sought a figure greater than $20 billion while banks have pushed for about $5 billion.

A “monetary relief fund” was agreed upon in principle by May. But the formula for how much states and federal agencies would get became contentious.

Some states, upset with the slow movement on the settlement, have already taken action on their own.

Attorneys general in Arizona and Nevada, two of the states hardest hit by defaulted mortgages, have filed lawsuits against Bank of America, the country’s largest bank, saying the lender misled and deceived homeowners who have tried to modify mortgages.

Source

Since James Carrington landed the lead role at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, the center has seen an infusion of cash, adding to an already impressive endowment. In January, the Danforth Foundation announced its final gift to center

The International Monetary Fund says the global financial system is more vulnerable than at any point since the 2008 financial crisis.

Risks to banks and financial markets have increased in recent months, the global lending organization said in a report Wednesday. The European debt crisis is affecting its banking system to the point where banks may pull back on lending to conserve cash, which threatens to worsen growth in the region.

Meanwhile, there are growing doubts that the U.S. lawmakers can forge the political consensus needed to reduce its growing budget deficits. Rising deficits were a key reason Standard & Poor’s downgraded long-term U.S. debt last month.

European leaders should quickly implement an agreement reached in July that provides the region’s bailout fund with more flexibility, while the U.S. and Japan must phase in steps to reduce their deficits, the IMF said.

“Risks are elevated, and time is running out to tackle vulnerabilities that threaten the global financial system and the ongoing economic recovery,” the IMF said in its semi-annual Global Financial Stability report.

The report is the second warning from fund in as many days. On Tuesday, the IMF sharply cut its growth forecasts for the global economy, the United States and Europe for this year and 2012.

The 187-member group is holding its annual meeting at the end of this week in Washington. The meeting brings together finance ministers and central bankers from around the world.

The IMF has been stepping up its pressure on Europe to resolve its financial problems, which the fund sees as major threats to the global economy. Political squabbling between European leaders has interfered with the region’s ability to reach a sustainable solution, the report said pay day loans.

Olivier Blanchard, the IMF’s chief economist, said Tuesday that “Europe must get its act together.” He criticized its leaders for being “one step behind the action.”

The IMF contributed $41 billion to a $150 billion rescue package for Greece assembled by European leaders in May 2010. Officials from the IMF and European Central Bank are reviewing Greece’s progress in cutting its government budget deficit before providing the next installment of funds from that loan.

Europe’s larger banks, which hold substantial amounts of Greek and other troubled government bonds, should boost their capital reserves, the IMF said. That would protect them in case the bonds lose more of their value or Greece defaults on its debts.

The capital should come from private markets, the IMF said. But if that isn’t available, governments should provide the funds.

In the United States, policymakers should take steps to improve the financial position of U.S. households, the report said. One way to do that would be to reduce mortgage debt for those Americans who owe more on their homes than they are worth. About one-quarter of U.S. homeowners are in that position. Reducing that debt burden would improve consumer demand and support growth, the report said.

“Restoring confidence in the stability of the U.S. housing market is the key to bolstering the prospects for U.S. banks,” which have been hurt by slower growth, the report said.

Source

A magnitude-6.6 earthquake shook the east coast of Japan off Honshu early Saturday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. No tsunami warning was issued, and no damage or casualties were immediately reported.

The 4:26 a.m. Friday (1926 GMT Thursday) quake was shallow, at 22.6 miles (36.3 kilometers) beneath the surface, the USGS said.

The USGS said the quake hit some 67 miles (108 kilometers) southeast of Hachinohe, in Honshu, Japan, and about 356 miles (574 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, Japan

Source

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

Greece’s cash-strapped government said Sunday that it would impose a new property tax on top of existing austerity measures in order to combat a revenue shortfall.

The government also decided, in a symbolic move aimed at a public angry at politicians, to dock a month’s pay from all elected central and local government officials.

Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said the tax will be levied over the next two years and will cost citizens an average of euro4 ($5.53) per square meter (10.76 sq. feet).

Debt-crippled Greece urgently needs to keep a program of cutbacks on track to secure the continued flow of international rescue loans _ worth euro219 billion ($302.6 billion) _ protecting it from catastrophic bankruptcy.

Over the past 20 months, the Socialist government has cut pensions and salaries while raising taxes and retirement ages. But its efforts to cut back while reviving a fast-contracting economy amid record unemployment have faltered, sparking new market distress.

Speaking after a three-hour cabinet meeting in Greece’s second-largest city of Thessaloniki, Venizelos said the new property levy _ in addition to public sector reforms announced last week _ will make up for lagging revenues this year by providing more than euro2 billion ($2.76 billion), about 1 percent of annual gross domestic product.

Venizelos added that top Greek officials from the head of state to senior ministry executives will lose one month’s pay.

“The levy and the reforms are enough for us to pull through, but that also depends on the response of Greek society,” he said. “It will be sufficient for us to achieve our targets.”

Venizelos added that, if the measures work, Greece can expect a 2012 budget deficit of euro17.1 billion, about 8 percent of GDP, higher than the previously predicted 7.6 percent.

He warned, however, that the economy was expected to shrink at an even faster pace than expected, contracting 5.3 percent in 2011.

On Saturday, Prime Minister George Papandreou, in a keynote speech on the economy in Thessaloniki, pledged to meet fiscal targets despite the economic slowdown.

As the prime minister spoke, riots raged on the streets outside during an anti-austerity protest by some 25,000 people. Police arrested nine suspected rioters, while nine officers and 10 demonstrators were injured.

Source

CLAYTON