Global finance blog - news, jokes, life…

Australia

Get free life insurance quotes for All Types of Life Insurance. Find rates for term, whole, veriable, universal life insurance.

Italy, mired in a fourth recession since 2001, is struggling to shake the threat of debt-crisis contagion even as the nation

Compare car insurance quotes from multiple companies. Lower your auto insurance rates by as much as $400 a year.

Hiring slowed in April and workers dropped out of the labor force in droves — not a good sign for the job market going forward.

The economy added just 115,000 jobs in the month, the Labor Department reported Friday, down from March when employers created 154,000 jobs.

.staticLauncher {width:218px;border:1px solid #e8e8e8;} .staticLauncher a {font:normal 12px Arial; text-decoration:none;} .staticLauncher a:hover {text-decoration:underline;} .staticLauncher .staticLauncherHeader {clear:both; color: #000;padding:10px 10px 5px 10px; letter-spacing: -1px;} .staticLauncher .staticLauncherDek {color: #575757;font: 11px Arial;padding: 7px;} .staticLauncher .staticLauncherHeader a { font:bold 18px Arial;} .staticLauncher .imageContainer {width:218px;height:120px;} .staticLauncher .imageContainer img {display:none;position:absolute;} .staticLauncher .imageContainer img.show {display:block;} .staticLauncher .staticLauncherMore {float:right;}

Obama battles job crisis

The U.S. lost 4.3 million jobs in President Obama’s first 13 months in office. Track his progress since then.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 8.1% as 342,000 workers dropped out of the labor force. At 63.6%, the portion of the working-age population participating in the job market is now at its lowest level since 1981.

That’s problematic mainly because it weighs on economic growth.

"If there are less people working, then your potential for what the economy can produce is reduced," said John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo.

Job market dropouts

The labor market has been on a roller coaster this year, with job growth starting off strong in the first couple of months of 2012. Then a disappointing slowdown in March led many to wonder whether the recovery was taking a turn for the worse. April’s weak growth compounded those fears.

But revisions from previous months also showed the economy gained 53,000 more jobs in February and March than originally thought.

Some economists believe the slowdown now is mainly due to the seasonal adjustments the government uses in calculating its figures. Warm weather earlier in the year may have given the job market an artificial boost in January and February, which is now tapering off.

"This is payback in terms of the weather," Silvia said.

Retailers added 29,000 jobs in April, while restaurants and bars added 20,000 workers. Temporary agencies hired 21,000 and manufacturers added 16,000 jobs. Meanwhile, the government continued to slash workers.

Recruiters say they’re still seeing plenty of demand for high-skill workers in technology, health care and professional services like accounting, but not enough of America’s unemployed have the right qualifications.

"Companies are changing and innovating, and therefore the jobs that they need are changing," said Kathy Kane, senior vice president of talent management at Adecco Group North America. "The hardest part for us right now is to keep up with those changes and find the workers with the skills for the new jobs, not the old jobs."

Indeed, workers with a bachelors degree or higher have only a 4% unemployment rate, while those with just a high school education have a 7.9% jobless rate.

Overall, the job market has a long way to go to climb out of the deep hole left by the financial crisis. Of the 8.8 million jobs lost, only about 3.7 million have been added back.

Roughly 12.5 million Americans remain unemployed, and 41.3% of them have been so for six months or more. 

Source

Socialist Francois Hollande defeated conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy on Sunday to become France’s next president, heralding a change in how Europe tackles its debt crisis and how France flexes its military and diplomatic muscle around the world.

Exuberant, diverse crowds filled the Place de la Bastille, the iconic plaza of the French Revolution, to fete Hollande’s victory, waving French, European and labor union flags and climbing the column that rises at its center. Leftists are overjoyed to have one of their own in power for the first time since Socialist Francois Mitterrand was president from 1981 to 1995.

“Austerity can no longer be inevitable!” Hollande declared in his victory speech Sunday night after a surprising campaign that saw him transform from an unremarkable, mild figure to an increasingly statesmanlike one.

Sarkozy is the latest victim of a wave of voter anger at government spending cuts around Europe that have tossed out governments and leaders over the past couple of years.

In Greece, a parliamentary vote Sunday is seen as critical to the country’s prospects for pulling out of a deep financial crisis felt in world markets. A state election in Germany and local elections in Italy were seen as tests of support for the national government’s policies.

Hollande promised help for France’s downtrodden after years under the Sarkozy, a man many voters saw as too friendly with the rich and blamed for economic troubles.

Hollande said European partners should be relieved and not frightened by his presidency.

“I am proud to have been capable of giving people hope again,” Hollande told huge crowds of supporters in his electoral fiefdom of Tulle in central France. “We will succeed!”

Hollande inherits an economy that’s a driver of the European Union but is deep in debt. He wants more government stimulus, and more government spending in general, despite concerns in the markets that France needs to urgently trim its huge debt.

Sarkozy conceded defeat minutes after the polls closed, saying he had called Hollande to wish him “good luck” as the country’s new leader.

Sarkozy, widely disliked for budget cuts and his handling of the economy during recent crises, said he did his best to win a second term, despite widespread anger at his handling of the economy.

“I bear responsibility … for the defeat,” he said. “I committed myself totally, fully, but I didn’t succeed in convincing a majority of French. … I didn’t succeed in making the values we share win.”

With 75 percent of the vote counted, official results showed Hollande with 51.1 percent of the vote compared with Sarkozy’s 48.9 percent, the Interior Ministry said. The CSA, TNS-Sofres and Ipsos polling agencies all predicted a Hollande win as well paydayloans.

Hollande has virtually no foreign policy experience but he will face his first tests right after his inauguration, which must happen no later than May 16.

Among his first trips will be to the United States later this month for summits of NATO _ where he will announce he is pulling French troops out of Afghanistan by the end of the year _ and the Group of Eight leading world economies.

Hollande’s first challenge will be dealing with Germany: He wants to re-negotiate a hard-won European treaty on budget cuts that Germany’s Angela Merkel and Sarkozy had championed. He promises to make his first foreign trip to Berlin to work on a relationship that has been at the heart of Europe’s postwar unity.

Germany’s foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, congratulated Hollande on Sunday night and said both countries will keep on cooperating closely in driving the European Union’s policies and be “a stabilizing factor and a motor for the European Union.”

At home, Hollande intends to modify one of Sarkozy’s key reforms, over the retirement age, to allow some people to retire at 60 instead of 62. He also plans to increase spending in a range of sectors and wants to ease France off its dependence on nuclear energy. He favors legalizing euthanasia and gay marriage.

Sarkozy supporters call those proposals misguided.

“We’re going to call France the new Greece,” said Laetitia Barone, 19. “Hollande is now very dangerous.”

Sarkozy had said he would quit politics if he lost, but was vague about his plans Sunday night.

“You can count on me to defend these ideas, convictions,” he said, “but my place cannot be the same.”

His political allies turned their attention to parliamentary elections next month.

People of all ages and different ethnicities celebrated Hollande’s victory at the Bastille. Ghylaine Lambrecht, 60, who celebrated the 1981 victory of Mitterrand at the Bastille, was among them.

“I’m so happy. We had to put up with Sarko for 10 years,” she said referring to Sarkozy’s time as interior and finance minister and five years as president. “In the last few years the rich have been getting richer. Now long live France, an open democratic France.”

“It’s magic!” said Violaine Chenais, 19. “I think Francois Hollande is not perfect, but it’s clear France thinks its time to give the left a chance. This means real hope for France. We’re going to celebrate with drink and hopefully some dancing.”

Source

Chinese tourists traveling to Europe to take advantage of savings as much as 50 percent on designer clothes and accessories are finding fewer bargains.

LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA (MC) and its peers are raising prices to make up for lost business in China and lower profitability outside the country, even if it puts items like 2,270-euro ($3,000) Lockit handbags further out of reach for Europeans whose disposable incomes are shrinking amid austerity.

McKendree University has acquired the 18-hole Locust Hills Golf Course in Lebanon for $1.4 million, nearly doubling the size of the school’s campus. 

McKendree bought the public golf course for its future development needs but plans to keep the course open for now, the school said in a statement. The golf course is located at 1015 Belleville St. and is adjacent to the school’s McKendree West student apartment complex on College Road.

The purchase increases the size of the school’s campus from 125 acres to 234 acres.

“Our immediate plans are to operate it as a public golf course and to make any necessary improvements or enhancements as we are able,” the university’s president, Dr. James Dennis, said in the statement.

Long-term, the school will evaluate potential educational uses for the property. “Owning the golf course allows us to offer our students a variety of educational opportunities in the future,” Dennis said in the statement. “Locust Hills has natural water features that our biology department could potentially use as an outdoor laboratory to study aquatic organisms and plant habitats. Our sport management majors could learn about golf course and recreational facilities management. It’s exciting to imagine the possibilities.”

Source

A bill designed to enact President Barack Obama’s plan for a “Buffett rule” tax on the wealthy would rake in just $31 billion over the next 11 years, according to an estimate by Congress’ official tax analysts obtained by The Associated Press.

That figure would be a drop in the bucket of the over $7 trillion in federal budget deficits projected during that period. It is also minuscule compared to the many hundreds of billions it would cost to repeal the alternative minimum tax, which Obama’s budget last month said he would replace with the Buffett rule tax.

The alternative minimum tax, originally aimed at ensuring that wealthy Americans pay taxes despite deductions and other breaks, has begun affecting upper middle-class families. Congress acts every year to minimize its impact.

The Buffett rule has become a leading symbol of Obama’s and congressional Democrats’ election-year efforts to persuade voters that they are the party championing economic fairness. Republicans have mocked it as one aimed at scoring political points that would have little real budgetary impact.

The plan is named for billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has said taxes on the rich are too low. Obama has proposed requiring that people earning at least $1 million annually pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes, but has provided few details.

In an analysis provided to The AP on Tuesday, Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that a bill introduced last month by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., attempting to enshrine Obama’s proposal into law would collect $31 billion through 2022. The measure has little chance of advancing soon, especially before the November elections.

“Now that we have this analysis, I hope the president will stop the class warfare and start leading by putting out real proposals to bring down our debt, get rid of the AMT and reform our broken tax code,” Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a written statement, using the alternative minimum tax’s acronym.

Hatch’s Finance committee GOP aides requested the study.

Whitehouse said other groups, including the respected bipartisan Tax Policy Center, have estimated that the proposal could earn more than $31 billion.

“No matter how you slice it, that’s real money that could help bring down our deficit. Most important: It’s simply the right thing to do,” he said in a statement.

Whitehouse’s bill would require people making at least $2 million a year pay at least 30 percent of their earnings in taxes, though they could deduct certain amounts for their charitable contributions. The tax would be phased in for people earning at least $1 million annually.

Source

European Central Bank council member Jens Weidmann said policy makers are already discussing ways to withdraw some of the emergency cash they injected into the banking system to fight the sovereign debt crisis.

The head of China’s central bank said Monday it has room to ease lending curbs to support economic growth but any changes would be gradual.

The rapid growth of the world’s second-largest economy has slowed over the past year as Beijing tightened controls to prevent overheating. Chinese leaders have responded to a decline in global demand by promising pro-growth policies, and companies and investors are closely watching what steps they will take.

There is scope to lower the level of reserves Chinese banks are required to hold _ a move that would free more money for lending to businesses _ after the minimum level was raised five times in 2010 and 2011, said Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan of the People’s Bank of China. The minimum stands at 20 percent of deposits for China’s biggest lenders.

“We have a lot of room to adjust the reserve ratio. On the other hand, it is necessary to see whether there is a necessity to adjust,” Zhou said at a news conference during the annual meeting of China’s legislature. He gave no indication when regulators might lower reserves.

“We need to take in to consideration the different restriction factors and we need to see the advantages and disadvantages of adjustment, especially its impact on financial flows,” Zhou said.

Zhou and other officials at the event said the central bank will closely watch Europe’s debt crisis and other global factors that might hurt the Chinese economy. But they emphasized that on a wide range of issues, policy changes will be gradual and cautious.

“Our monetary policy will have to follow conditions in China and also internationally. We will cope with problems responsibly,” Zhou said.

China’s economic growth eased to 8.9 percent in the final quarter of 2011 from the previous year’s double-digit expansion. The government’s growth target this year is 7.5 percent.

The latest trade data show both Chinese and global demand weakening.

Figures released Saturday showed export growth in the combined January-February period slowed to 6.9 percent, compared with December’s 13.4 percent. Analysts often combine the two months to screen out disruption from the Lunar New Year holiday, which falls at different times in that period each year.

Growth in imports for the two months declined to 7.7 percent from December’s 11.8 percent.

Also Monday, central bank officials said Beijing will press ahead with reforms to ease controls on its tightly regulated currency and give market forces a bigger role in setting the yuan’s exchange rate, but they gave no details.

“We will continue with the reform to have an exchange-rate regime that is more market-based,” said Yi Gang, the deputy bank governor in charge of foreign currency.

Washington and other trading partners complain an undervalued yuan gives China’s exporters an unfair price advantage and swells its trade surpluses. Some American lawmakers want to raise tariffs on Chinese goods if Beijing fails to end its controls.

Yi and other officials did not respond to a question about whether Beijing believed the yuan has reached its fair value after its gradual rise against the dollar stopped in recent months and China reported an unexpectedly large $31.5 billion trade deficit for February.

Yi also expressed confidence in the ability of Europe, China’s biggest trading partner, to solve its debt crisis. He said China will continue to invest in Europe, though he stressed that minimizing risk will be a priority. He gave no indication whether Beijing has decided to contribute to a bailout fund for countries that use the euro.

“We believe European countries will be able to cope with the euro crisis,” Yi said. “We will continue to invest in Europe as a responsible investor.”

Source

SCP Worldwide is suing a company it hired to maintain escalators at the Scottrade Center for damages related to a 2009 escalator malfunction that led to multiple injuries.

New York-based SCP Worldwide owns the Scottrade Center in downtown St. Louis at 1401 Clark Street, home to the St. Louis Blues hockey team. Following the team’s home opener on Oct. 8, 2009, the down escalator near the Clark Street entrance sped up and then came to a halt, according to witnesses interviewed at the time. Several people on the crowded escalator were treated for injuries. The escalator has since been repaired.

Now SCP is alleging in a lawsuit filed in St. Louis that the company it hired in June 2009 to maintain and repair escalators at Scottrade Center, Schindler Elevator Corp., failed to properly inspect and maintain the escalators. SCP also alleges Morristown, N.J.-based Schindler was negligent in ensuring its technicians were adequately trained.

The lawsuit was initially filed in St. Louis Circuit Court earlier this year and was moved to federal court today.

SCP is seeking damages for diagnostic and repair costs exceeding $105,000. SCP also is seeking an unspecified amount in damages for settlement claims for injuries related to the 2009 escalator malfunction.

Attorneys representing SCP and Schindler did not immediately return calls for comment.

Source