The 24-hour global news and current affairs channel Al-Jazeera English has been given a downlinking license to broadcast in India.
Al-Jazeera English’s Managing Director Al Anstey says this means cable and satellite companies in India will be able to add the Qatar-based channel to their lineup.
Anstey said in a statement that the channel, which applied for a license four years ago, already has a bureau in New Delhi.
Japanese politicians need to find ways to boost economic growth and can’t count on legislation that would reduce the Bank of Japan’s independence to cure deflation, a ruling Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker said.
“We can’t expect Japan’s economy to overcome its difficulties just because the law is revised — the issues aren’t so simple,” Shinichiro Furumoto, 45, chairman of the DPJ’s fiscal and finance policy panel, said in an interview on Nov. 26 in Tokyo. “Just implementing quantitative easing and churning out yen won’t spur demand.”
Some ruling and opposition lawmakers want to revise the BOJ law to force the central bank to adopt an inflation target to help conquer more than a decade of falling prices. Furumoto’s comments signal DPJ lawmakers calling for the change may have difficulty convincing party members that shape economic policy.
Discussions on how much influence the government should have over monetary policy must be conducted “carefully” and people need to take into account that the central bank’s independence is guaranteed under the current law, said Furumoto, whose panel is in charge of making fiscal-policy recommendations to the government.
Some 150 DPJ lawmakers, who call themselves the anti- deflation league, said last week the BOJ should adopt an inflation target to eradicate price declines and bolster employment. Opposition group Your Party this month submitted a bill to the diet calling for a revision to the law.
Tax Incentives
The government needs to boost personal consumption through subsidies and tax incentives that are similar to recent stimulus programs that have promoted purchases of energy-efficient cars and electronic goods, Furumoto said.
The DPJ lawmaker said bolstering consumption “will create the demand for money” and it is “only with such demand that the policy of printing money will become effective.”
BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said today that increasing growth expectations among companies and consumers and reviving demand are crucial in trying to overcome deflation.
Japanese companies have 164 trillion yen ($1.95 trillion) in cash on hand because they haven’t found attractive investment options, he said in a speech in Nagoya, central Japan.
The ruling party is considering increasing inheritance taxes while lowering gift levies to encourage older generations to pass on wealth to younger people who have more incentives to buy cars, houses and goods, Furumoto said.
Despite increased calls by politicians for a revision of the BOJ law, Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda haven’t openly discussed the need to overhaul the central bank’s policy goals.
Government Views
Furumoto, who has also served as a parliamentary secretary at the Finance Ministry, said government views on the economy have been reflected in BOJ policy because Kan and Noda have been in close contact with central bank officials.
“Some argue the BOJ is doing whatever it wants because it is protected by its independence,” Furumoto said. “But that would imply the prime minister and the finance minister haven’t played any role in policy, and I disagree with the view.”
Furumoto also said the BOJ is already adopting a price framework similar to inflation targeting, with its board members saying they consider price rises of around 1 percent as stable. The bank last month pledged to maintain a “virtually zero-rate policy” until an outlook emerges for sustained price increases.
Governments of countries such as the U.K. and New Zealand set inflation targets for central banks, and the banks decide themselves the policy steps needed to meet those goals. The Bank of England’s governor needs to write a letter of explanation to the Treasury if inflation fails to stay within the limits.
The 1998 Bank of Japan Law strengthened the bank’s independence by ending the government’s authority to dismiss the governor and deputy chiefs and its right over supervising BOJ operations. It states the bank should strive to achieve “price stability, thereby contributing to the sound development of the national economy.”
Furumoto said the law can be interpreted as making it part of the BOJ’s mandate to support employment even though it does not explicitly say so because policies to stabilize prices can also create jobs.
China’s reserve-ratio increases for banks and threats of price controls on essential goods are likely to prove insufficient to tame inflation, and the central bank will have to raise interest rates further, economists said.
The People’s Bank of China yesterday ordered a 50 basis point increase in the amount of money that lenders must set aside, two days after the cabinet announced measures to tackle inflation. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.
Stocks and oil fell on the central bank announcement, highlighting concern that Chinese efforts to cool the nation’s fastest rise in consumer prices in two years may cause growth to falter. Analysts at nine banks surveyed this week by Bloomberg News predicted the central bank will add to last month’s rate rise, the first since 2007, by year-end.
“Monetary policy is being tightened, as it should be, and a rate hike will follow sooner rather than later,” said Shen Jianguang, a Hong Kong-based economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd. who formerly worked for the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. The next move “inevitably” will be on rates, Shen said.
China’s benchmark stock index has had its biggest two-week decline since May amid concern that monetary tightening will hamper spending in the fastest-growing major economy. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and the MSCI World Index slipped after yesterday’s announcement. The Shanghai Composite Index earlier closed 0.8 percent higher, paring its weekly decline to 3.2 percent.
Wen’s Meeting
Concern that rising consumer prices will undermine the economy spurred Premier Wen Jiabao to hold a cabinet meeting on the issue this week. The measures contemplated by the State Council range from a crackdown on speculation in agricultural goods to the imposition of price caps on “daily necessities” if needed.
The meeting came amid concern at the threat increased food costs pose to the poorest people in the world’s most populous nation. More than 81 million people in disaster-affected areas may need food assistance from the government this winter, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said on its website on Nov. 18.
At Societe Generale, Hong Kong-based economist Yao Wei said this week that China’s “old-fashioned price stabilization policies” will not be enough to reduce the case for monetary tightening. The possibility of “more interest-rate hikes by the year-end remains relatively high,” she said.
Controlling Lending
The increase in banks’ reserve requirements, effective Nov cash advance loans. 29, was the second announced in two weeks. The aim is to step up liquidity management and “appropriately control” credit and loans, the central bank said on its website.
China’s inflation rate reached 4.4 percent in October, exceeding economists’ forecasts. Standard Chartered Plc analysts yesterday lifted their projection for the consumer price index for next year to an average of 5.5 percent, from about 3.2 percent for 2010.
While vegetable costs have helped to drive Chinese inflation higher this year, officials need to use tools such as interest rates to “prevent food inflation from spreading to the general economy,” Wang Tao, a Beijing-based economist for UBS AG. said yesterday.
Inflows of money from the trade surplus, foreign direct investment, and investors betting on gains by the yuan threaten to propel consumer prices after unprecedented lending by banks flooded the economy with cash from late 2008.
Rents, Wage Costs
Standard Chartered, HSBC Holdings Plc, BNP Paribas SA, Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse Group AG, Mizuho, Royal Bank of Canada, UBS, and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. predict that the central bank will add this year to the quarter- point increases that took the benchmark one-year lending rate to 5.56 percent and the one-year deposit rate to 2.5 percent.
“Inflation is showing up in food most obviously, but also in rents, service sector wages, and non-food commodities,” analysts including Stephen Green, head of research for Greater China at Standard Chartered, wrote in a report yesterday. The bank anticipates a rate increase by Dec. 31 and three more by June 30.
Across Asia, China’s inflation compares with deflation in Japan and, at the other extreme, a 9.8 percent rate in India. In the U.S., consumer prices rose 1.2 percent last month from a year earlier.
Besides possible price caps, the State Council’s plans to rein in prices include selling state food reserves.
“Price intervention could be counter-productive because it may cause panic and worsen inflation expectations,” said Liu Li-Gang, a Hong Kong-based economist at ANZ who previously worked at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and World Bank.
Excess liquidity is the “root of the problem” in China, Tao Dong, a Credit Suisse Group AG economist in Hong Kong said this week.
Magna International Inc. has confirmed its interest in acquiring Italyâs Pininfarina SpA, after speculation about a possible deal sent stock for the luxury automobile design company soaring.
âThis type of acquisition would be one that would earn us additional competence on development matters,â Dieter Althaus, vice president at Magnaâs European unit, told Bloomberg News on Wednesday.
âWeâre also very considerably engaged in the field of engineering and thatâs where design and technology also play a role,â he said.
Pininfarina, designer of Ferrari SpAâs Testa Rossa and Fiat SpAâs Alfa Spider, released a statement noting the company âwill communicate any advanced talks when they take place.â
Reports of a possible sale to the auto parts manufacturing giant sent Pininfarinaâs stock up 22.3 per cent by 11:30 a.m. EST, the biggest gain in 19 months.
Magna shares closed at $49.28, up 61 cents, or 1.25 per cent.
David Soberman, a professor of marketing with the Rotman School of Management said the move could signal aspirations by Magna to expand beyond being a supplier to become an automobile manufacturer.
But, he said it is more likely a move to offer âone stop shoppingâ or a broader range of services from design to supplying parts for major customers including Chrysler, Ford and GM payday loans.
âThere is obviously a skill or a talent that exists within that company,â said Soberman. âMagna clearly wants to expand the types of services where it is active,â he said.
Speculation about the deal was sparked by the publication of a story by Automotive News Europe published on Wednesday that said three sources with âdirect knowledge of the matterâ confirmed a deal was being discussed.
Reporter Luca Ciferri noted that Pininfarina had disclosed in a recent quarterly report that the company could be sold as soon as Dec. 31 2010.
Founded eight decades ago the Italian design company has offices in Italy, Germany, Sweden, Morocco, China and the U.S. and counts Ferrari, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Ford, Volvo, Tata Motors and Chery among its customers.
Pininfarina has well established relationships with several luxury brands, having collaborated with Alfa Romeo for almost 70 years and Ferrari for the better part of six decades.
With files from Bloomberg News
Greece’s governing Socialists have won mayoral races in Greece’s two largest cities for the first time in 24 years, extending gains in local government elections.
Socialist-backed mayoral candidates Giorgos Kaminis and Yiannis Boutaris won in the capital Athens and the northern city of Thessaloniki, interrupting a streak of conservative victories dating back to 1986.
Prime Minister George Papandreou praised Sunday’s result as a vote of confidence in his austerity program ahead of an inspection by EU and IMF officials on the implementation of a rescue loan agreement worth euro110 billion ($150 billion).
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) _ Greece’s governing Socialists won several key local election runoffs Sunday, including a mayoral race in Athens for the first time in 24 years, despite renewed pressure on the crisis-hit nation to further cut spending.
With 75 percent of the national vote counted, the governing party led in eight of 13 races for regional governors, clinching the contest in greater Athens and three other regions.
The result provided a badly needed boost for Prime Minister George Papandreou, who is facing growing discontent over austerity and rising unemployment _ as well as pressure from European partners to make deeper cuts.
On Monday, the European Union is expected to announce an upward revision of Greek budget deficit figures, including for the year 2009, while officials from the EU and International Monetary Fund are due in Athens for another inspection of cost-cutting efforts.
Papandreou called Sunday’s result a vote of confidence in his austerity reforms and a defeat for the conservatives who campaigned against the terms of a euro110 billion ($150 billion) bailout loan agreement with the IMF and EU .
“Today the citizens have shown the way forward as we proceed on our course, and have rejected cries of destabilization,” he said in a televised address.
Papandreou dropped a threat to call an early general election after the first round of voting Nov. 7, and on Sunday promised his 13-month-old government would serve a full four-year term.
“We have been given sufficient time, precious time to change in the next three years to do what wasn’t done in decades,” he said.
Late Sunday, Papandreou visited the newly elected greater Athens governor Yiannis Sgouros and the city’s mayor-elect Giorgos Kaminis, a mild-mannered outsider who had been written off by pundits at the start of the campaign.
In a weekend newspaper interview, Papandreou said Greece could seek an extension for repaying its rescue loans, and conceded the deficit revision would add pressure on his government to cut costs.
“It’s like running a marathon, and finding out during the race that they have added more kilometers to the course,” he told the Proto Thema newspaper.
Voter turnout Sunday hit record lows with just 34 percent in Athens and 45 percent nationally _ figures that opposition parties argued revealed popular discontent with the government.
“The electorate, and the high level of abstention, have sent a stern warning to all of us,” conservative opposition leader Antonis Samaras said.
“Voters have called on the government to change course, away from policies that have suffocated the economy and plunged society into despair.”
HFF Inc. today posted a second quarter profit of $2.7 million, or 14 cents per share, compared with a loss of $200,000, or 1 cent per share, in the comparable year-ago quarter.
For the quarter ended June 30, the Downtown Pittsburgh-based commercial mortgage broker (NYSE:HF) had revenue of $34.1 million, more than double the revenue of $16.4 million it posted a year ago.
For the first six months of the year, HFF had net income of $2.6 million, or 14 cents per share, on revenue of $53.5 million. That compares with a loss of $2.2 million, or 14 cents per share, on revenue of $29.7 million in the first six months of 2009.
Although gasoline prices did not drop by much in Southern California, it was a third-straight week of declines, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California's Weekend Gas Watch.
According to the Auto Club, the average price of self-serve regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area is $3.121 per gallon, which is six-tenths of a cent less than last week, a nickel higher than last month, and 17 cents higher than last year.
On the Central Coast, the average price is $3.185, down two cents from last week, four cents higher than a month ago, and 16 cents above last year.
In the Inland Empire, the average per gallon price is $3 cash advance loan no fax.105, which is four-tenths of a cent lower than last week, five cents higher than last month, and 17 cents more than last year.
"The gas price spread between this year and the same time last year has shrunk from a difference of about $1.10 in January to just four cents per gallon in early June, but now the gap has widened again. Right now, the difference between today’s pump price and the July 2009 price is 15 to 17 cents a gallon," Auto Club Spokesperson Jeffrey Spring said in a statement.
Out-of-pocket costs for the millions of Americans with employer-based health coverage rose again in the past year, although at a slower pace than the year before, according to a new industry report released Tuesday.
However, as employers prepare to make health reform’s mandated changes to their benefits plans later this year, the changes could shift some costs away from workers and raise them for companies.
American workers spent 7.4% more on their health care coverage over the past year, according to the sixth annual survey conducted by health care consulting firm Milliman Inc. The increase translates to about $506 more that workers contributed to their care - $321 for their company’s health plan and $185 for employee out-of-pocket expenses.
But, in a bright spot for workers, the increase was lower than the 10.6% boost in the survey a year ago.
"Although employers are still bearing about 60% of their workers’ health care costs, this is a pretty significant amount that employees are paying," said Lorraine Mayne, principal and consulting actuary with Milliman.
"If you think about a family of four with a household income of $50,000, they are paying about 8.7% of their income in employee contribution to their coverage," she said.
The report also showed that employers’ subsidies on their workers’ coverage increased about $797, or 8%, over the past year.
According to the Census Bureau, about 177 million Americans — more than half the population — are covered by employer-provided health insurance.
Under health reform, there are four major near-term changes that companies have to make to their coverage plan that will push up their share of health care costs.
These changes include expanding dependent coverage for adult children up to age 26, removing lifetime and annual limits, eliminating co-payments and co-insurance for certain preventive services, and prohibiting any restrictions of children’s coverage for preexisting conditions.
"For many employees, these changes will increase the value of their benefits," said Mayne. "But for many others, those who don’t have adult children for instance, the changes will have little effect."
Your medical costs
Including both what employees pay and what employers contribute, the total 2010 cost of health care for a typical family of four increased 7.8% to $16,771, according to the Milliman report.
Physicians made up the biggest chunk, at 33% of total medical costs, according to the report. However, the rate of increase in physician costs declined to 5.2% from 6% in 2009.
The fastest growing component of health costs is hospital outpatient care, up 11.6%, compared to an increase of 10.2% the prior year. The report said the increase was driven by increases in the cost of care rather than people using the facility more.
Elsewhere, hospital inpatient costs increased by 9.8% and pharmacy costs rose 6.1%
In a look at 14 metropolitan areas, the report cited Miami, New York and Chicago as three cities where health care expenses are about 10% higher than the national average.
Total health care costs for a family of four exceeded $20,000 in those three cities, with Miami topping out at $22,089.
The Milliman Index is based on a national survey of more than 4,000 employers as well as data from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Gibraltar Private Bank & Trust CEO and founder Steven D. Hayworth has replaced Adolfo Henriques as chairman of the Coral Gables-based bank.
In September, a group of more than 50 local investors led by Hayworth bought the bank from Boston Private Financial Holdings, where Henriques is a board member. During the negotiations to sell the bank to the local group, Henriques took over as chairman.
The former CEO of Florida East Coast Railway, Henriques remains on the board of Boston Private cash advance no fax.
“I will miss my friends on the Gibraltar Private board, but I leave knowing that Steve and his team have created a terrific private bank and wealth management company that will serve our community well in the future,” Henriques stated in a press release.
Gibraltar Private Bank lost $20.2 million in 2009 and ended the year with $1.5 billion in assets.
Consumer prices in February rose from a year ago amid higher energy costs, but the pace of price increases slowed for the second straight month, the government reported Thursday.
The Consumer Price Index, the government’s key inflation measure, rose 2.1% over the past 12 months, driven by a 37% climb in gasoline costs during the period. In January, prices climbed 2.6% from the previous year.
The so-called core CPI, which is closely watched by economists because it strips out volatile food and energy prices, rose 1.3% over the past year, the smallest gain since February 2004.
February. For the month, overall prices were unchanged as declining energy prices offset increases in prices of food and other items. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com were expecting prices to rise 0.1%. Prices rose 0.2% in January.
Food costs edged up 0.1% during the month, while energy prices fell for the first time since April 2009, posting a 0.5% decline. The drop was due to a 1.4% dip in gasoline prices.
Core CPI for the month rose 0.1%, in line with economists’ expectations and up from the 0.1% decrease in January instant payday loan.
Medical care costs rose for a second straight month and prices of new cars and used cars and trucks were also higher. The costs of clothing and airline fares decreased, while housing costs held steady.
The tame inflation reading supports the Federal Reserve’s decision to continue to hold its key interest rate near zero.
"Core inflation continues to be a non-issue in the near-future, so the Fed’s easy monetary policy can continue into the third and fourth quarter of this year without inflation being an issue," said Adam York, an economist at Wells Fargo.
He added that the oversupply in the housing market will continue to put downward pressure on home prices, which will hold core inflation low for up to a year.
"When the housing market returns to a normal level and then home prices begin rising, inflation will pick up, probably in early 2011" he said. "It will pick up steam throughout next year as we see the economy recover."
Powered by WordPress