NEWS,07.11.2012

How Obama won

US President Barack Obama confounded political logic by triumphing over a sluggish economy to win a second term in office.A gruelling and often unpleasant campaign yielded, in the end, a decisive victory, built on the strong foundations laid down months ago by his crack campaign team.Here are some of the keys to Obama's win over Republican Mitt Romney.The economy, despite tepid growth rates and high unemployment, was not bad enough to doom Obama, and he appears to have finally received belated credit for halting the slide into a second Great Depression.When he took office in January 2009, the economy was losing 700 000 jobs a month, and while Americans are still dissatisfied with the economy, exit polls suggest they still blame ex-president George W Bush as much as Obama.Obama endured months of grisly monthly unemployment numbers, which told a tale of an economy struggling to gain steam.He got a break over the last few months, as the unemployment rate dipped below the psychological barrier of eight percent.Consumer confidence and optimism began to rise along with the stock market, and Americans began to feel a bit more optimistic as house prices finally began a slow rise, despite a lingering foreclosure crisis.Often criticised as aloof and professorial, Obama, in the final days of his campaign, his voice hoarse, finally seemed to strike a chord with blue collar workers who enrich the Democratic coalition in the rustbelt.In a twist of political history, Obama was helped by the embrace of his former Democratic antagonist, ex-president Bill Clinton, who buried the hatchet after Obama's defeat of his wife Hillary in the 2008 Democratic primary.Clinton, remembered for leading an era of economic prosperity, often made the case for Obama better than the president himself.The two Democratic giants will now stand together in history as the only two Democrats to win a second term since World War II.The Obama campaign made a gamble soon after Romney captured the Republican primary to go negative.Searing Obama ads and rhetoric branded the former investment manager a corporate vulture, who bought and sold firms for his own profit and heartlessly put good Americans out of work or shipped their jobs overseas.The plan was to define Romney in a harsh light before he had the chance to introduce himself to Americans with a multi-million dollar blitz of television advertising in the swing states, like Ohio, which would decide the election.Romney's limp defence of his record as head of Bain Capital, and his missteps - including a refusal to divulge his complicated offshore tax arrangements and a video in which he was seen decrying 47% of Americans as freeloaders who paid no income taxes played into the stereotype.By the time of Romney's stellar performance in the first presidential debate in October, the damage had been done.The killing of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in a daring Navy SEAL raid in 2011 did not win Obama re-election.But it bolstered the image of the president as a steely commander-in-chief who kept Americans safe and defused the classic Republican attack that Democrats are weak and cannot be trusted on national security.Kudos Obama won with the Bin Laden raid, not to mention a ruthless drone war against terror suspects abroad, may have also insulated the president against a late-election furore over the killing of the US ambassador to Libya in Benghazi.For the second election running, Obama's campaign team has reinvented the way presidential elections are won.In 2008, Obama's political brain trust, led by the intense David Plouffe, outwitted the political machine of Bill and Hillary Clinton with a delegate collection strategy that redefined the way primary campaigns are won.This time around, they defied the strong headwinds of a slowly growing economy and re-elected their president in the face of ferocious Republican opposition.The path to victory lay in the most sophisticated voter targeting and turnout machine in history, which reached all the way down to neighbourhoods and was constructed over several years.Way back in October 2011, Obama's political high command insisted to sceptical journalists that the president, smarting from a drubbing in mid-term congressional elections, could and would win re-election.The strategy: position Obama as a populist warrior for the middle class, and brand his opponent as a rich plutocrat oblivious to the suffering of regular Americans.Obama's team insisted all along that his coalition of young voters, Hispanics and African Americans, as well as the educated white middle class, would show up for him in 2012, just as they did in 2008.Republicans scoffed, but they were proven wrong.According to exit polls, 93% of African Americans backed Obama, along with 69% of Latinos and 70% of Jewish voters, and he was able to limit his losses among white voters.Obama also won an important victory among unmarried women voters, 68% of whom backed him.

 

Obama has little time to savour election triumph

Fresh from a decisive re-election win, President Barack Obama returns from the campaign trail today with little time to savour victory, facing urgent economic challenges, a looming fiscal showdown and a still-divided Congress able to block his every move.Obama defeated Republican challenger Mitt Romney last night in a gruelling presidential race and used his acceptance speech in front of a huge cheering crowd in Chicago to strike a conciliatory note toward his political opponents.But in the cold light of the 2012 election's morning-after, it was clear that even though voters have endorsed a second Obama term, the president will have a hard time translating that into a mandate to push forward with his agenda.Obama need to get back to work straight away "because he's got major problems with the economy".The "fiscal cliff" a combination of expiring tax cuts and automatic across-the-board reductions in federal spending due to come in at the end of the year could take out over half a trillion dollars from the US economy.The fact that Obama won the popular vote as well as getting more than 300 Electoral College votes meant "he's got that mandate I guess that power a little bit behind him - where he can push on."However, Americans chose to preserve the status quo of divided government in Washington.Obama's fellow Democrats retained control of the Senate and Republicans kept their majority in the House of Representatives, giving them power to curb the president's legislative ambitions on everything from taxes to immigration reform.This is the political reality that Obama - who won a far narrower victory over Romney than his historic election as the country's first black president in 2008 - faces when he returns to Washington later on Wednesday.But that did not stop him from basking in the glow of re-election together with thousands of elated supporters in his hometown of Chicago early yesterday."You voted for action, not politics as usual," Obama said, calling for compromise and pledging to work with leaders of both parties to reduce the deficit, to reform the tax code and immigration laws, and to cut dependence on foreign oil.Obama told the crowd he hoped to sit down with Romney in the coming weeks and examine ways to meet the challenges ahead though the president may be more in need of mending fences with Republican congressional leaders who wield clout in Washington.The problems that dogged Obama in his first term, which cast a long shadow over his 2008 campaign message of hope and change, still confront him. He must tackle the $US1 trillion annual deficits, rein in the $US16 trillion national debt, overhaul expensive social programs and deal with the split Congress.The immediate focus for Obama and US lawmakers will be to deal with the "fiscal cliff," a mix of tax increases and spending cuts due to extract some $US600 billion from the economy at the end of the year barring a deal with Congress. Economists warn it could push the United States back into recession.House Majority Leader John Boehner moved swiftly on the fiscal cliff issue, saying he would issue a statement on it today citing "the need for both parties to find common ground and take steps together to help our economy grow and create jobs, which is critical to solving our debt."Concern about US fiscal problems after Obama's re-election contributed to a decline in global financial markets.World shares turned lower and Wall Street stocks, which had been expected to rise on relief over the clear election outcome, opened lower partly due to fears over economic weakness in Europe.Obama also faces international challenges like the West's nuclear standoff with Iran, the civil war in Syria, the winding down of the war in Afghanistan and dealing with an increasingly assertive China.Romney, a multimillionaire former private equity executive, came back from a series of campaign stumbles to fight a close battle after besting Obama in the first of three presidential debates.But the former Massachusetts governor failed to convince voters of his argument that his business experience made him the best candidate to repair a weak US economy.The nationwide popular vote remained extremely close with Obama taking about 50% to 49% for Romney after a campaign in which the candidates and their party allies spent a combined $US2 billion. But in the state-by-state system of electoral votes that decides the White House, Obama notched up a comfortable victory.Yesterday, Obama had 303 electoral votes, well over the 270 needed to win, to Romney's 206. Florida's close race was not yet declared, leaving its 29 electoral votes still to be claimed.Romney, 65, conceded in a speech delivered to disappointed supporters at the Boston convention centre. "This is a time of great challenge for our nation," he told the crowd. "I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation."He warned against partisan bickering and urged politicians on both sides to "put the people before the politics."In Boston there would be "plenty of soul-searching for the Republicans over the next few weeks to find out exactly what when wrong".The party is expected to look particularly closely at how it has alienated Hispanic voters, an important constituency in Obama's victory."The fact is Republicans are going to have to do a lot of rethinking at the presidential level," Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker who lost the Republican nominating race to Romney. In the election aftermath, there were indications that partisan gridlock would persist in Washington.Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell gave no sign that he was willing to concede his conservative principles, signalling potential confrontations ahead."The voters have not endorsed the failures or excesses of the president's first term, they have simply given him more time to finish the job they asked him to do together with a Congress that restored balance to Washington after two years of one-party control," McConnell said.Obama's win puts to rest the prospect of wholesale repeal of his 2010 healthcare reform law, which aims to widen the availability of health insurance coverage to Americans, but it still leaves questions about how much of his signature domestic policy achievement will be implemented.Obama, who took office in 2009 as the ravages of the financial crisis were hitting the US economy, must continue his efforts to ignite strong growth and recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. An uneven recovery has been showing some signs of strength but the country's jobless rate, currently at 7.9%, remains stubbornly high.Obama's re-election puts him in the company of three of his past four predecessors whom voters granted a second term. He now faces the need to reshuffle his cabinet, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton planning to step down soon.In keeping control of the 100-member Senate, Democrats seized Republican-held seats in Massachusetts and Indiana while retaining most of those they already had, including in Virginia and Missouri.The Republican majority in the 435-member House means that Congress still faces a deep partisan divide as it turns to the fiscal cliff and other issues."That means the same dynamic. That means the same people who couldn't figure out how to cut deals for the past three years," said Ethan Siegel, an analyst who tracks Washington politics for institutional investors.British Prime Minister David Cameron also said Britain and the United States should make finding a way to solve the Syrian crisis a priority following Obama's re-election.

What to expect in Obama's second term

US President Barack Obama is expected to pursue an active trade agenda during his second term, centred on tough final negotiations of a new free trade pact in the Asia-Pacific region and continued challenges posed by China.

Here is a glimpse of what's ahead:

Trans-Pacific partnership agreement

Talks on the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership pact date back to the administration of Republican George W. Bush, but the Obama administration relaunched negotiations in March 2010 and has overseen their expansion to 11 countries: the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Chile, Peru, Brunei, Canada and Mexico.A final deal could come in 2013, with negotiators just now beginning to grapple with the most politically sensitive issues. For the United States, the pact could require opening up protected sectors like dairy, sugar and textiles in exchange for new US export opportunities.Other countries such as Japan and South Korea could join the talks.

US-EU trade agreement

The United States and the 27-nation European Union are expected to announce a decision by the end of this year to negotiate a comprehensive trade agreement.US Trade Representative Ron Kirk, who is a member of the president's Cabinet, and EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht have led an effort over the past year to explore how to expand the already huge US-EU bilateral trade and investment relationship to create new jobs and economic growth.They are expected to release recommendations in December. Negotiations on the landmark agreement would likely start in early 2013 and take one to two years to complete.

China

Trade with China is expected to remain contentious during Obama's second term, with US manufacturers irritating Beijing by filing additional petitions for anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Chinese products.The Obama administration is likely to file more cases against China at the World Trade Organization, and will likely face continued pressure from US companies to confront growing competition from China's state-owned and state-supported enterprises.Early this year, Obama created a trade enforcement unit to bring together resources from across the executive branch to make sure China and other countries follow the rules.The Obama administration has filed eight WTO cases against China since January 2009, compared with seven by Bush in the previous five years.Obama is likely to continue to put pressure on China to allow its currency to rise more rapidly in value, but stop short of taking any provocative move like declaring China a currency manipulator or authorizing the use of countervailing duties against undervalued currencies.

Trade promotion authority

Trade Promotion Authority, also known as "fast-track" trade legislation, allows the White House to negotiate trade agreements it can submit to Congress for straight up-or-down votes within 90 days and with no amendments.The Bush administration used fast-track authority to negotiate trade deals with 16 countries in Latin America, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region before it expired in June 2007.Obama has not sought to renew the legislation, which is generally considered essential to encouraging other countries to make their best offers in trade talks with the United States.For four years, administration officials have said they would seek the authority "at the appropriate time." While the business community would like Obama to make an early push to renew the legislation, union groups oppose it and the White House has yet to signal when it might move forward.

Obama’s plans to fix US economy

President Barack Obama, who has convinced Americans to give him another four years in office, now faces the tough task of getting the US economy to grow more quickly.Gross domestic product has struggled to expand by more than 2% a year since the 2007-09 recession and unemployment remains high at 7.9%. About 23 million Americans are either unemployed, working part-time because they can’t find full-time work, or want a job but havegiven up the search.Here are Obama’s key plans for the economy:Obama has said his jobs plan would strengthen manufacturing, help small businesses, improve the quality of education and make the country less dependent on foreign oil.He envisions 1 million new manufacturing jobs by 2016 and more than 600 000 jobs in the natural gas sector, as well as the recruitment of 100 000 math and science teachers.Repairing and replacing old roads, bridges, airport runways and schools are part of his plan to put Americans back to work. Half of the money saved from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be used to fund infrastructure projects.Unlike at the start of his first term, when a Democrat-run Congress approved Obama’s $840bn in stimulus, the president will struggle to get any new major spending plans approved by the House, which remains under Republican control.Obama has proposed cutting the government budget deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next decade by allowing tax cuts for upper-income Americans enacted during the George W Bush administration to expire, and by eliminating loopholes. The goal is to balance the budget down the road.Obama backs cutting the top corporate income tax rate to 28% from 35%. He has offered a long list of corporate tax breaks to end, ranging from inventory accounting to interest on overseas profits and tax provisions benefiting oil and gas companies. He wants to eliminate tax breaks for companies that send jobs and profits overseas.Half of the money saved from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be used to reduce the deficit.Obama may want to offer Ben Bernanke a third term in charge of the central bank but Fed watchers say the former Princeton professor has probably had enough after eight grueling years in the job. Bernanke’s term as chairperson expires on January 31, 2014.Fed vice-chairperson Janet Yellen is viewed as a leading candidate to succeed Bernanke and would be at least as ready to keep monetary policy ultra-stimulative until the labour market has improved substantially. Obama is likely to stick to the path he laid out in his first term, which included a broad reform of Wall Street in response to the financial crisis that blew up in 2008. Regulators are due to put in place the small print of the so-called Dodd-Frank financial reform law. Obama has promoted efforts to help troubled borrowers refinance their mortgages and benefit from record low interest rates but far fewer American homeowners have been helped than originally planned.Obama has locked horns with the regulator of government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Edward DeMarco, failing to convince him to allow the mortgage finance firms to reduce principal for borrowers who owe more than their homes are worth. Resolution of the standoff is unlikely any time soon.Democrats and Republicans agree that the government’s outsized presence in the US mortgage market through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac needs to be curtailed. Fannie and Freddie account for about 60% of the mortgage market.

 

Re-elected Obama faces fiscal cliff

 

Barack Obama won re-election on Tuesday night, but the US president faces a fresh challenge confronting the "fiscal cliff," a mix of tax increases and spending cuts due to extract some $600bn from the economy barring a deal with Congress. At stake are two separate issues  individual tax cuts due to expire at year's end and tens of billions of dollars in across-the board federal spending cuts due to kick in the day after New Year's Day. Failure to prevent a dive off the cliff could rattle US markets, and push the US economy into a recession, which could have global implications. How Obama fares with a familiar set of challenges most notably a Republican-controlled House of Representatives could colour his second term.Obama, who defeated Republican challenger Mitt Romney based on television projections, will want to strike a deal with Washington lawmakers before December 31 or risk a recession in the first half of 2013, budget experts and Democratic aides say.His backers say his win gives him a mandate for an elusive "grand bargain" he sought in his first four-year term. Such a pact would raise new revenue, make changes to popular programs like the Medicare health program for the elderly and pare the federal deficit. "They have signalled that they want a big deal and I think Obama will be aggressive about getting it," said Steve Elmendorf, a former House Democratic senior adviser and now a lobbyist.Obama and most Democrats are at odds with Republicans in Congress over the stickiest issue  whether to let low tax rates for the wealthiest Americans expire on December 31.The president and most Democrats want to raise taxes on income earned above $250 000; Republicans want to extend the current low rates for all income levels. Financial markets and the business community crave long-term certainty and that is what a major deal envisioned by Obama is intended to tackle.A big X-factor is how congressional Republicans will respond to an Obama win. The hard line against raising revenue taken by many Republicans in the House may not abate after the election.House Speaker John Boehner said this week that his Republicans would stand firm on their position opposing any tax increases, even for millionaires, though he was speaking before the election results.Republicans kept control of the House, as expected, and Democrats were projected to maintain control of the Senate.An Obama victory "takes a lot of air out of the room for Republicans", Jim Walsh, a former Republican representative, who retired in 2009, predicted before the election. The odds of a grander deal with increased revenue though not in the form of higher tax rates goes up with an Obama victory, he said.Former Democratic representative Bart Gordon was unsure whether more conservative elements of the party, associated with the Tea Party movement, would go along so easily. "Those folks don't need much of a reason to fight," Gordon said.

Violence erupts in Athens over austerity measures

Greek police fired teargas and water cannons to disperse thousands of protesters who flooded into the main square before parliament today in a massive show of anger against lawmakers due to narrowly pass an austerity package.The violence erupted as a handful of protesters tried to break through a barricade to enter parliament, where Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is expected to barely eke out a win for the belt-tightening law despite opposition from a coalition partner.But the parliamentary session was briefly interrupted when parliament workers went on strike and opposition lawmakers walked out of the chamber in protest. Outside parliament, loud booms rang out as protesters hurled petrol bombs and police responded with teargas and stun grenades. Smoke and small fires could be seen on a street next to parliament.That came after a sea of Greeks braved a steady downpour holding flags and banners saying "It's them or us!" and "End this disaster!" stood before riot police guarding parliament.In all, nearly 100,000 protesters - some chanting "Fight! They're drinking our blood" - packed the square and side streets in one of the largest rallies seen in months, police said.Protesters held aloft Italian, Portuguese and Spanish flags in solidarity with other southern European nations enduring austerity."These measures are killing us little by little and lawmakers in there don't give a damn," said Maria Aliferopoulou, a 52-year-old mother of two living on 1000 euros a month."They are rich, they have everything and we have nothing and are fighting for crumbs, for survival."Public transport was halted, schools, banks and government offices were shut and garbage was piling up on streets on the second day of a two-day nationwide strike, called to protest against the vote.Backed by the leftist opposition, unions say the measures will hit the poor and spare the wealthy, while deepening a five-year recession that has wiped out a fifth of the country's output and driven unemployment to a record 25%.

NEWS,03.11.2012

President Barack Obama

As the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama, aged 51, passed a revamp of the national healthcare system and authorised the raid that killed Osama bin Laden but struggled to revive the economy and create jobs.Ahead of the US presidential election on Tuesday, here are key facts about Obama, the nation's first black president.Barack Obama has a personal background like no other president in US history. His mother, Ann Dunham, was a white woman from Kansas and his father, Barack Obama Snr, was a black Kenyan who saw little of his son after a divorce when the boy was a toddler. Obama spent much of his childhood in Indonesia and then Hawaii, where he lived with his maternal grandparents.Obama struggled with his mixed racial background while growing up, writing in a memoir that he wondered "if something was wrong with me". He also was troubled by the absence of his father, who he considered a "myth", and said that may have contributed to him using marijuana and cocaine in his youth.Obama graduated from New York's Columbia University in 1983 and then worked in the business sector in New York and for a Chicago community group. In 1988 he went to Harvard Law School, where he became the first black president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review.Obama's relationship with Congress is not great. Even when Democrats controlled the House of Representatives and the Senate, Republicans often stymied his initiatives. The situation became more difficult when tax-averse Republicans took over in the House in 2010.In the early 1990s Obama worked in a voter registration campaign in Chicago, taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago and joined a law firm that specialised in civil rights and neighbourhood development. He married Michelle Robinson, who he met at a law firm when he was an intern and she was assigned to be his adviser.In his rare spare moments, the lanky Obama pursues his lifelong love of basketball with semi-regular games at an FBI gym. He also makes time for school functions and sports events of daughters Sasha and Malia and tries to get out for an occasional "date night" with his wife.Obama's political career began with election to the Illinois State Senate in 1996 and soared in 2004 when he gave a rousing keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. In November of that year he was elected to the US Senate.Obama won the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination by defeating Hilary Clinton, the former first lady and New York senator, and then took the presidency by beating Republican Senator John McCain. His energetic campaign was built on a theme of "hope and change" fuelled by powerful oratory.A mood of national optimism prevailed at Obama's 20 January 2009, inauguration, which drew an estimated 1.8 million people to the National Mall in Washington despite bitter cold. He began his presidency with a 68% approval rating.Obama simultaneously oversaw wars in Iraq, which he ended in 2011, and Afghanistan, as well as the US military involvement in Libya that helped oust Muammar Gaddafi. In May 2011 he authorised the raid in which US Navy Seals killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan - a triumph he points to as indicative of a strong national security policy.Obama inherited an economic crisis so persistent that it remains a threat to his re-election. Almost 800 000 jobs were lost the month he took over. In the early days of his administration, he pushed through an $831bn economic stimulus package and renewed loans to automakers, even making the government a temporary part-owner of General Motors.The centrepiece of his domestic agenda was the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare reform law better known as Obamacare. Its purpose is to give all Americans affordable insurance and more protections but critics say it is expensive federal interference. A key aspect of the reform requiring most Americans to get insurance or pay a penalty survived a 2012 US Supreme Court challenge.Obama has a reputation as a charming communicator but he also is criticised for being aloof and not building better relationships with congressional leaders. Some have questioned his preparation skills, especially after a sub-par performance in a presidential debate with Republican opponent Mitt Romney.

Romney, Obama power into final weekend

President Barack Obama and Republican foe Mitt Romney on Saturday power into a final weekend of campaigning before handing their fates to voters after a bitter, gruelling White House race.The rivals will chase one another through the battleground states that will decide Tuesday's election, with Obama seeking to solidify his midwestern line of defence, while Romney seeks an eleventh hour breakthrough.Obama will campaign in Ohio, the possible tipping point state, before heading to Wisconsin and Iowa, his trio of "firewall" battlegrounds ahead of a late night rally in Virginia, where he still hopes for an insurance win.Romney, fresh from the biggest rally of his campaign, which drew around 18 000 people on a cold night in West Chester, Ohio, on Friday will travel to New Hampshire, Iowa and Colorado.In a show of close combat on the last weekend of the campaign, both candidates will be in the eastern Iowa town of Dubuque, within hours of one another.Romney warmed up for the frenzied last weekend with a huge rally in Ohio, bringing together his former primary rivals Rick Santorum and Rick Perry, along with Obama's 2008 rival John McCain.In all, 45 lawmakers and relatives of the candidate and running mate Paul Ryan wearing Romney jackets attended the rally near the Republican stronghold of Cincinnati."We're almost home. One final push will get us there," Romney said before a crowd police estimated to be at least 18 000 strong. "We are so very, very close. The door to a brighter future is there, it's open, it's waiting for us."Obama had earlier evaded a last-minute time bomb as the economy pumped out more jobs than expected in October, delivering a boost to his re-election hopes as the final weekend of campaigning begins.Romney, however, seized on an uptick in the jobless rate by a tenth of a point to 7.9% to bemoan an economy at a "virtual standstill".After several weeks of polls suggesting a neck-and-neck race, there were new signs that Obama's position, as he seeks a second term, may be solidifying.National polls of the popular vote now mostly show a tied race or with either man up one point but with time running out Obama's position in key battleground states seems to be holding.The candidate that wins the White House will need to mass 270 electoral votes on the state-by-state map.Obama is asking voters for a second term, despite the sluggish economic recovery, while Romney is seeking a quick comeback for Republicans after George W Bush left office in 2009 with the party in disarray.All Obama's polling leads were within the margin of error, however, and both campaigns, though expressing confidence, will face a nervous night as results roll in on Tuesday and test their assumptions about the race.Obama, perhaps mindful of millions of Americans suffering from the lingering impact of the worst recession since the 1930s, avoided a triumphal tone on the jobs data that sent relief rippling through his campaign team."We have made real progress," Obama said, in Hilliard, on the first stop of a day-long swing through small towns in Ohio, which could be a tipping point state in a tied-up election.Romney highlighted the fact that, although the economy is creating jobs at a moderate pace, unemployment remains at historically high levels."For four years, President Obama's policies have crushed America's middle class," Romney said in a statement."When I'm president, I'm going to make real changes that lead to a real recovery, so that the next four years are better than the last," said Romney, who started his day in Wisconsin and ended it in Ohio.The release of the final major economic data before the election had worried Obama aides who feared that a leap in the rate above the psychological 8% mark could have sent late-deciding voters to Romney.But although the data was far from spectacular - with 171 000 jobs created last month - there was enough in the report, including upward revisions of previous monthly figures, for Obama to argue the economy was improving.Obama, campaigning in Ohio on Friday repudiated Romney's claim to being an agent of change, accusing him instead of trying to "massage the facts", highlighting a Romney ad that claims that Chrysler plans to outsource jobs to China to produce its Jeep vehicles."I know we are close to an election, but this isn't a game. These are people's jobs. These are people's lives," Obama said, noting that auto bosses had directly contradicted Romney on the attack.The president repeatedly touts his decision to bail out indebted US automakers in a politically unpopular 2009 move that helped restore the industry to health.One in eight jobs in Ohio are linked to the sector, and Romney's opposition to the bailout has emerged as a liability for the Republican.A CNN/Opinion Research poll showed Obama up three points in Ohio, raising his average in the RealClearPolitics aggregate of opinion surveys in the state to 2.4 points.The president also leads Romney in enough of the eight or so swing states to assure himself of the 270 electoral votes needed for re-election, if polling data is confirmed by voting.

Romney hits Obama on 'revenge' vow

Republican nominee Mitt Romney chided President Barack Obama on Saturday for calling on Americans to vote for "revenge" as the battle for the White House raced to an ill-tempered climax.Three days before voters chose between giving Obama a second term or sending him packing back to Chicago, the rivals chased one another through a handful of states that will decide Tuesday's too-close-to-call election.Romney was up early in New Hampshire, which has only four of the 270 electoral votes needed to claim the White House but could punch above its weight in a tight finish, accusing Obama of "demonising" political foes."I won't represent just one party, I'll represent one nation," Romney told a crowd at an airport rally outside Portsmouth, and warned Obama would find it impossible to work with congressional Republicans if he wins re-election.Romney also debuted a new political ad on Saturday, seizing on Obama's comment in Ohio on Friday when he told supporters angry at the Republicans not to boo but to vote, saying "voting's the best revenge".The ad featured Romney telling his biggest crowd of the campaign in Ohio also Friday that Obama "asked his supporters to vote for revenge - for revenge"."Instead, I ask the American people to vote for love of country," Romney said.While Romney was campaigning, Obama was back in Washington visiting the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as New York and New Jersey struggle to deal with the aftermath of murderous superstorm Sandy."We still have a long way to go," said Obama, stressing he had no time for government "red tape" which could hold up the relief effort, after discussing the crisis with the governors of New Jersey, Connecticut and New York.The Obama campaign enjoys the comparison between Obama doing his job managing the government while Romney campaigns as polls show a majority of Americans approve of the president's handling of Sandy.With time running down until the election, Obama soon headed back to the campaign trail, with a long day of campaign stops planned in Ohio, the possible tipping point state before heading to Wisconsin and Iowa.He will wrap up his day with a late night rally in Virginia, a state where he and Romney are locked in a tight race.Romney, fresh from the biggest rally of his campaign, which drew at least 18 000 people on a cold night in West Chester, Ohio, left New Hampshire for trips to Colorado and Iowa.In a show of close combat on the last weekend of the campaign, both candidates will be in the eastern Iowa town of Dubuque, within hours of one another.Latest polls show Obama and Romney tied nationally, but Obama appears to be solidifying his position in enough of the eight or so swing states that will decide the election to support his hopes of a second term.New surveys by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News Saturday showed the president up by 47-49% in Florida and leading Romney by 51-45 % n Ohio, double the margin in the current RealClearPolitics average.A Mason Dixon poll for the Miami Herald, however, had Romney up by six points in Florida, which the Republican, who also needs Ohio, cannot afford to lose if he is to be elected America's 45th president.The Obama and Romney campaigns have sharply differing views of the race.The president's team believe that early voting and polling data, plus the president's grass roots turnout machine, mean that Obama will prevail in a close race.But Romney's camp believes opinion polls are overstating the proportion of Democrats in the electorate and that their candidate is poised to ride the support of independent voters to victory on Tuesday.On Friday, Obama earlier evaded a last-minute time bomb as the economy pumped out more jobs than expected in October.Romney, however, seized on an uptick in the jobless rate by a tenth of a point to 7.9% to bemoan an economy at a "virtual standstill".Obama, campaigning in Ohio Friday repudiated Romney's claim to being an agent of change, accusing him instead of trying to "massage the facts", highlighting a Romney ad that claims that Chrysler plans to outsource jobs to China to produce its Jeep vehicles."I know we are close to an election, but this isn't a game. These are people's jobs. These are people's lives," Obama said, noting that auto bosses had directly contradicted Romney on the attack.The president repeatedly touts his decision to bail out indebted US automakers in a politically unpopular 2009 move that helped restore the industry to health.One in eight jobs in Ohio are linked to the sector, and Romney's opposition to the bailout has emerged as a liability for the Republican.

NEWS,11.08.2012

Globalization and the Lessons of History

 

As the U.S. economy struggles to recover from the worst recession in 70 years, we face a new, much more challenging world. Economic globalization means that more countries are exporting their goods, generating first-rate research, and attracting investments: besides China, we compete with Brazil, India, South Korea, and Turkey. Although terrorism, elections, and natural disasters dominate headlines, globalization has been the most powerful trend over the last thirty years. Despite the recession, it shows no sign of abating. Dealing with globalization may tempt us to see other countries as simply our competitors or worse, as our enemies. If we are to deal with globalization more wisely, the lessons of history are crucial to understand.Globalization is not completely new. A century ago, the world economy went through a similar dramatic expansion. "For economic purposes all mankind is fast becoming one people," wrote James Bryce in 1903. For the first time, a world wide web of telegraph lines, centered on London, sent news and prices around the globe. The United States became an industrialized country because of millions of immigrants and a mountain of European investment. Tragically, the first era of globalization ended badly in two world wars, Communism, fascism, the Great Depression, and the Cold War. Why? Those who suffered from rapid economic change were often recruits for violent solutions; war could undo decades of economic progress. In short, those who gained from economic globalization became complacent about the need to maintain it and cavalier about the costs it generated. Old industries declining, migration, social problems in rapidly expanding cities all of these occur almost inevitably with economic growth. If social policies do not cushion the costs and help people adjust to the changes set off by economic growth, the entire system supporting economic growth can be undermined. At the same time, international peace and cooperation have been crucial to economic globalization. Prosperity in the long run depends on peace. The first era of globalization occurred in the late nineteenth century because Europe experienced the longest period of peace in its history. Only one, brief war the Crimean War occurred among more than two of the Great Powers. World War One broke out in part because leaders in Germany thought they could use violence to strengthen their country's position in the world economy. Instead, they nearly destroyed the entire world economy, and brought on more war. By the time Europe stabilized again, after a second, more awful war, the world economy was no bigger than it had been 35 years earlier, with a much larger population to feed.History also teaches us that we can do better. Nothing illustrates that nations can learn from the past as much as the difference between what the United States did in 1919, at the end of the First World War, and what we did in 1945-48, after the Second. In 1919, we turned our back on Europe and its problems. The world economy limped along and eventually collapsed into the Depression, while the unsolved problems of the War led to dictatorships and more war. After 1945, we did better. The United States created a range of international institutions in the late 1940s the UN, IMF, World Bank, NATO, the alliance with Japan, and the GATT, the forerunner of today's World Trade Organization. We also helped Europe set up what eventually became the European Union. With all their imperfections, these institutions and the cooperative agreements they support still provide a framework for worldwide economic growth. Because of them, we can travel, send money, buy and sell goods, and communicate among the nations of the world in a way that would have been unimaginable just a few decades ago.In tough times, it may be tempting to turn our backs on the rest of the world or to think that economic growth, once begun, runs on its own. But we depend on our global economic ties for future growth. By investing in our greatest resource  people  and improving our transportation and communications infrastructure, we can compete much more effectively than by tariffs or trade disputes. The history of the last century teaches us that dealing with the inevitable costs of globalization and working to maintain a peaceful world order are essential to all of us. Our generation has an opportunity to make great gains from a return to worldwide economic growth  but we must distribute the gains more fairly and work to build a cooperative international order. Our competitors are also our customers and our potential partners in a better world.

Federal Investigators Punt On Goldman Sachs Prosecutions

 

By 2006, Goldman Sachs traders knew that the investments packed with subprime home mortgages they had been selling at big profits for the last few years were more dangerous than they were letting on.Internally, they characterized these offerings as "junk,""dogs,""big old lemons" and "monstrosities." Nevertheless, the bank congratulated itself for successfully offloading the mortgage bonds onto others. The head of the bank's mortgage department extolled its success in reducing its subprime inventory, writing that his team had "‘worked their tails off to make some lemonade from some big old lemons.” These findings, included in the report released by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission nearly two years ago, helped inform at least one major regulatory enforcement action against the bank: a $550 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for misleading investors about the risks of a product known as Abacus. For a while, it seemed that a string of similar enforcement actions involving other mortgage investment products, whose eventual collapse in value brought down the housing market and very nearly the American economy, were imminent. On Thursday, Goldman Sachs announced in a regulatory filing that the SEC had dropped its investigation into a $1.3 billion mortgage bond known as Fremont Home Loan Trust 2006-E, even though it indicated earlier this year that charges were likely. Later in the day, the Department of Justice said it was ending its own Goldman investigation, launched after a congressional investigation chaired by senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) issued a report that found Goldman Sachs sold investments "in ways that created conflicts of interest with the firm’s clients and at times led to the bank's profiting from the same products that caused substantial losses for its clients.”"The department and investigative agencies ultimately concluded that the burden of proof to bring a criminal case could not be met based on the law and facts as they exist at this time," the Justice Department said in a statement late on Thursday. Reuters reported that David Wells, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs, said in an email, "We are pleased that this matter is behind us."The SEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. For industry critics, the decisions to drop the investigations are the latest indication that the federal government's law enforcement response to the greatest financial catastrophe since the Great Depression will end with a whimper. "I'm shocked but not surprised," said Simon Johnson, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, and a Huffington Post contributor. "It reflects a pattern of failing to hold these large institutions accountable. To not even try sends a double signal, that there are different standards for us and for Wall Street."Johnson said he still holds out some hope for a grand settlement that would provide some financial compensation for the homeowners most damaged by the inflated pricing that came as a result of the bubble built by Wall Street.Neil Barofsky, the former special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and a frequent critic of the Obama administration's handling of the financial crisis, said in an email that the announcements are "a stark reminder that no individual or institution has been held meaningfully accountable for their role in the financial crisis." "Without such accountability, the unending parade of megabank scandals will inevitably continue," Barofsky said. Of the two federal agencies, the record of the Department of Justice in pursuing financial crisis cases is the thinnest. So far, the Justice Department has brought just one case, which ended when a federal jury in 2009 acquitted two Bear Stearns hedge fund managers accused of lying to investors about the soundness of the securities they were selling. After that, the Justice Department decided not to pursue cases against two men whose actions most Wall Street observers agree brought on the crisis: Angelo Mozilo, the former head of the defunct mortgage giant Countrywide and Joseph Cassano, who ran the financial products division at AIG.The SEC's track record has been a bit better, at least in terms of dollar recoveries. The regulator won about $2 billion in penalties since 2008 in financial crisis-related cases, including a record $67.5 million from Mozillo. The agency has been dogged, though, by complaints including from federal judge Jed Rakoff that its penalties are too small, doesn't target individuals and doesn't require defendants to admit guilt as part of settlement agreements. In May, the SEC dropped its probe of Lehman Brothers, even though an independent examiner appointed by the bankruptcy court of the defunct bank concluded that there were "actionable claims" against senior Lehman officers for using an accounting tool known as Repo 105 to book billions of dollars in phony sales to disguise the true extent of the bank's financial woes. Financial cases of any stripe, especially those that involve complex transactions involving structured finance products, are difficult to prove, said Arthur Wilmarth, a banking law professor at George Washington University. Even so, he said, he believes the SEC could have brought additional cases against Goldman Sachs that involved conduct similar to the Abacus deal. The agency could prevail in civil penalty actions by showing that Goldman "intentionally or recklessly misled investors," he said. That, in essence, is the argument made by another regulator the Federal Housing Finance Agency which filed a lawsuit against Goldman over the Fremont investment and other offerings last year. Goldman bankers knew that Fremont, a subprime lender, was selling it mortgages certain to fail, the suit alleges.Goldman knew of the originators’ abandonment of applicable underwriting guidelines and of the true nature of the mortgage loans it was securitizing," the lawsuit claims. The decision to drop the Goldman Sachs investigation also comes on the heels of a disappointing loss for the SEC in one of the very few trials involving a Wall Street executive accused of misleading investors about a mortgage product. A few weeks ago, a federal jury acquitted Brian Stoker, a mid-level Citigroup executive, of wrongdoing over his role in selling a $1 billion mortgage bond. In an unusual move, however, the jury included a note with its verdict urging the agency not to give up. “This verdict should not deter the SEC from continuing to investigate the financial industry, review current regulations and modify existing regulations as necessary,” said the statement, which was read aloud by Judge Jed Rakoff.

NEWS,29.07.2012

The Countries That Will Win the Most Olympic Medals

 

According to a newly released report, the United States is predicted to win the most medals at the London 2012 Olympics. For a country with less than 5% of the world’s population, the U.S. is expected to win 103 medals at the XXX Olympiad, 10% more than the runner up China. This may come as no surprise to some, considering that it has won the most medals in 14 of the 25 Summer Games that it has participated in,including the past five Games.However, based on a report, published by the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, the number of medals a country wins supports the probability that it will win medals in subsequent Olympics. The report’s model predicted the medal count in Beijing in 2008 with 95% accuracy and has been the most accurate predictor of medal distribution among countries since it was unveiled for the Sydney Games in 2000. Based on the report, 24/7 Wall St. identified the ten countries that will win the most Olympics Medals at the London Summer Games.The accuracy of the formula is impressive, given that it only considers four main factors. It includes two economic measures population and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita which it assigns equal weight. The other two factors that it considers are unique to the Olympics and include total medals won, which it accords the most weight, and whether a country is hosting the Olympics, which has been assigned a different weight with each game.According to Emily Williams, author of the report and PhD candidate at London Business School and a recent graduate of Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, when looking at the results “the lagged medal share has the biggest impact and the hosting effect is also pretty substantial.” The model takes into account the total number of medals won by each country in every Olympiad since 1960. China and the U.S. have dominated in recent years, which was factored into their 2012 estimate. Meanwhile, Russia, Australia, and Germany, fell below expectations last year, which has hurt their projections for this year as well.The host effect is considerable and should be a boon to the United Kingdom this summer. “The U.K. stands ready to greatly benefit in terms of its overall medal count and especially its coveted gold medal total,” Williams observes in the report. For the United Kingdom, the model predicts that this advantage will assure third place this summer with 25 golds, up from fourth place in 2008 when it was awarded only 19. It will also increase its total medals won from 47 in 2008 to 62 in 2012.In the 2004 study which the Williams’ report is based on, the authors suggest that the host effect could be the result of diminished costs for athletes from the host nation to participate, the benefit of participating in a home facility or the motivational force of competing before family, friends and fellow countrymen.A look at the countries with the most medals demonstrates the impact that a country’s population can have on the eventual medal count. According to the report, “The larger the population a country has, the more chance it will have an athlete with the extraordinary natural ability necessary to become an Olympic champion.” Of the top ten countries that are predicted to win the most medals this year, seven of the 10 are among the 10 most populous countries in the world. The exceptions are Pakistan, Nigeria and Bangladesh.Neither the population size nor the GDP per capita can be considered in isolation of the other. The U.S. and Germany both do well because they have large populations and considerable wealth. But having an edge in one of these factors can help compensate for a weakness in the other. For instance, China, with its large population, wins more medals than many countries with a higher GDP per capita. Although Australia’s population size ranks just 51st in the world, its GDP per capita ranks seventh, and its standing in the medal count for 2012 is predicted to be seventh.Based on the report, “Jolly Good Show: Who Will Win the 2012 Olympic Games in London?,” by Emily Williams, which relies on the model developed by Dartmouth professors Andrew Bernard and Meghan Busse, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the countries that are likely to win the most medals at the 2012 London Games. To approximate the data which was used to calculate the projections, we considered 2011 GDP and population data from the World Bank for the 28 countries that the model predicts will win 6 or more gold medals. We obtained total Summer Olympics medal counts from the NBC website, also to approximate the data used for the formula. For countries that have not consistently had the same borders, including Germany and Russia, the medal counts for the entire area were included. For example, all medals won by the former USSR were included in Russia’s count.These are the ten countries that will win the most medals in the London Olympic Games.

Aurora Shooting: Mall's Troubled History Of Racism, Crime

Until last week, the Town Center at Aurora seemed like a typical mall.But the 37-year-old shopping center had problems even before July 20, when a gunman opened fire at a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" in the movie theater that sits adjacent to the mall in its parking lot.In recent years, shoppers have fled the aging mall for fancier centers like nearby Cherry Creek. Management, seeking to weed out what it perceived as undesirable customers, set a curfew for minors and enforced a dress code for shoppers. In 2004, a mall leasing agent was caught on audio tape explaining that the mall wanted to attract more whites and "reduce negative aspects" like "young, black customer(s)." "This is why we don't hang around aurora mall/Century 16," one resident tweeted hours after the shooting. "Aurora mall has always been ghetto, tho" said another.In some ways, Town Center's history follows the same rise and stumble as many American malls. When it opened in 1975, J.C. Penney and Sears fed the shopping appetite of new middle class fleeing Denver for cul-de-sacs and spotless mailboxes. In 1998, Simon Property Group, the largest mall owner in America with 221 U.S. properties and an annual revenue of $4.3 billion in 2011, acquired the mall. Simon rechristened the structure in 2005, calling it Town Center, an appropriate name in Aurora; the sprawling suburb of 325,000 had built its own municipal campus across the highway from the mall in 2003 -- an attempt to manufacture a downtown.When malls were first conceived, they were meant to be utopias. Early mall developer Victor Gruen called them "crystallization points for suburbia's community life." But these days, the rise of online shopping and a lingering economic crisis have sucked away malls' reverie. Many are abandoned, attracting crime and draining municipal budgets; others are losing shops. The average vacancy rate for regional malls is currently at 8.9 percent, according to Reis Inc., a real estate data and analysis firm. Once hovering around 5 or 6 percent in the mid 2000s, the rate nearly doubled over the course of the recession.While Town Center hasn't suffered from fleeing stores, it has coped with crime before. Gang activity surfaced at the mall in the early 2000s and was one factor that led Simon to announce it planned to spruce up the center with a $100 million renovation. In 2005, during the renovations, a woman was shot and killed outside the Champs store. The city of Aurora contributed $15 million in tax incentives to the renovations.At the time, the mall also faced accusations of racism. Before the shooting, a leasing agent was caught on audio tape by one of the mall's tenants saying the planned renovations were in part to attract more white people. After local television station 7NEWS aired the comments in August 2004, Simon suspended the agent, promising to hire more black staff and begin a parental patrol program that paid adults to supervise youth. Three months after the shooting in 2005, Simon also established a curfew for teens. The movie theater, where the shooting occurred Friday, was built in 1998 by Century Theaters now a part of Cinemark in the southeast parking lot of the oval-shaped mall complex. Though unattached, the Century 16 theater has always been considered part of the mall. The theater sits on land registered to Simon Debartolo Group, the former name of Simon Property Group, according to the Arapahoe County assessor database. The theater is owned by Century Theatres.Up until this week, the theater was also listed as a business on Simon's official website for the mall alongside the rest of the stores. But in the days following the shooting, Town Center removed Century 16 from its online directory. A cache of the old listing from July 7 is still available.In a written statement sent to The Huffington Post on Thursday, Simon said, "There is no connection between our operation of the mall and the terrible tragedy which occurred at the theater last Friday morning. Since 2004, we have invested nearly $60 million in Town Center at Aurora and have made it a great shopping venue for our tenants and customers." Les Morris, a spokesman for Simon, refused to answer questions or confirm facts about the mall. Since the shooting, store employees have been told by management not to talk to press, according to a cashier at the mall boutique Luxie.In a statement released on Friday, Cinemark said that it was "deeply saddened about this tragic incident."Locally, there is a history of complaints about racial profiling at the mall. In 1990, the NAACP spoke out about the mall's security guards, provoking then owner Corporate Property Investors to retrain staff and hire more minority guards.In wake of the scandal over the leasing agent's comments, residents hoped the mall's policies might change for good. Alvertis Simmons, 55, a community organizer in Aurora, flew to Simon's headquarters in Indianapolis that year to discuss how the mall could improve its relationship with minorities. He worked with the company to implement its parental patrol program.But Simon never followed through on its promise to hire more black staff, according to Simmons, even though it hired a few contractors during the renovations. "They could do better," he said this week. "Aurora mall would have never changed their culture had they not been taped."The leasing agent is no longer employed at Simon, the company said in its statement Thursday.In 2006, the local chapter of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) conducted a survey of 1,000 mall shoppers on discrimination and identified about 50 minority youth who said they were were profiled by mall security, mostly because of their clothing. "There was no clear demarcation [in the dress code] of what was gang attire and what was urban culture," said Ben Hanna, 31, who worked as head organizer for ACORN at the time. The Simon Property Group code of conduct posted on the websites and in the hallways of many of its malls does not mention "gang apparel" but requires shoppers to wear"appropriate" clothing. "Apparel that may provoke a disturbance or incite violence is prohibited," it states.Cinemark never adopted any of the mall's policies such as the dress code or parental patrol, according to Simmons. Still, the theater's clientele was affected as they also patronized the mall, he said. Freddie Hanns, 60, visits the mall almost every week and worked briefly as a contractor there during the renovations. Hanns, like Simmons, is black. "I think the mall has gotten better," he said. "It couldn't get any worse."But Aurora's racial tensions have mounted in the past decade as downtown Denver gentrifies and minorities move to the suburbs, according to Jeremy Nemeth, chair and professor of urban planning at the University of Colorado Denver. In 2000, Aurora was 13.4 percent black, 19.8 percent Hispanic and 68.9 percent white. In 2010, it was 15.7 percent black, 28.7 Hispanic and 61.1 percent white.Massacres like the one on July 20, however, are generally not caused by shifting demographics. Law enforcement officials call people like Aurora suspect James Holmes "active shooters," individuals who open fire in crowded areas and kill at random. Active shooter incidents are on the rise in shopping centers; besides the one in Aurora, there have been at least nine mall shooting sprees in the United States unrelated to gang or personal disputes since 2005."The mall is a victim of individuals who want to inflict as much carnage and get as much publicity as possible," said Malachy Cavanagh, a spokesman for the International Council of Shopping Centers. Like schools and churches, malls become targets because they draw large crowds and are publicly accessible, he said.In Aurora and many other suburbs, malls are also among the few public places teens can congregate. "Libraries close early. Recreation centers, they don't have them in the vicinity. And it's hot, hot, hot," said Simmons. "All they got is the mall."In the past decade, the Department of Homeland Security has partnered with the retail industry to develop training programs for dealing with active shooters, said Cavanagh.One way to deal with recurring crime like gang violence is to make malls more restrictive, as Town Center attempted to do. Unlike true public spaces, privately owned malls for the most part can expel anyone who looks suspicious; they aren't obliged to give patrons a right to free speech. There are a few exceptions: In five states, one of which is Colorado, courts have established rulings requiring mall owners to permit certain political activities like protesting and collecting ballot signatures."Malls are repressive spaces," said Michael Sorkin, an architect and critic who has written on malls and public space. "They have distorted the nature of the way in which one is able to participate in the life of a city as a citizen." This could make malls a target for violence on the part of those disenfranchised by consumer culture, Sorkin says.Yet few mall policies could have helped catch James Holmes. The 24-year-old graduate student at the University of Colorado grew up in a white, upper middle class family in San Diego as close as it gets to one of Town Center's target customers."It doesn't matter if you have 100 parent patrols at the mall or at the movies," said Simmons. "That guy was going to do what he did."