NEWS,28.01.2013

Sweden directs jobless youth to Greece

Sweden's government-funded employment agency on Monday launched a campaign encouraging unemployed Swedish youths to look for summer jobs in crisis-stricken Mediterranean countries including Spain and Greece.The jobs, most of them in the hotel and entertainment sectors, will mainly serve Swedish tourists."We hope our Swedish youths will get every single one of these jobs. These companies have had good experience of young Swedish workers," said Kristina Gaerdebro Johansson, a European Employment Services (EURES) advisor at the Swedish agency.Hundreds of jobs in Greece, Spain, Italy and Cyprus - all popular tourist destinations for Swedes - will be marketed at a special event organised by the country's employment agency and EURES in the southern city of Malmoe next week.The positions include football coaches, aerobics instructors and dancers at hotels and resorts around the Mediterranean. Some of the jobs require Scandinavian language skills, but not all of them, said Gaerdebro Johansson.Youth unemployment in Greece and Spain currently stands at more than 50%.Although Sweden's export-driven economy is beginning to feel the effects of Europe's economic woes, it has posted strong growth since making a quick recovery from the 2008 recession. It also has a low level of government debt.But youth unemployment has remained above the European average, reaching a seasonally adjusted 23.9% in December.Sweden's employment agency is offering to reimburse those who want to travel to the Mediterranean job fair from other parts of the country."This is a great opportunity if you want to enter the job market," Gaerdebro Johansson said.

WTO to probe Argentina trade disputes

The World Trade Organization on Monday established a dispute resolution panel to probe allegations of unfair trade practices lodged against Argentina by the United States, the EU and Japan.It also created a panel to look into Argentina's claim that the United States has imposed unfair barriers to its meat exports.In the first case, the three complainants have attacked Argentina's import licencing rules, which among other things require firms eager to export goods to the country to import Argentinian goods in exchange.One of the most well-known examples is that of German car maker Porsche, which was forced to commit to purchasing Argentinian wine and olive oil in order to get around 100 of its cars into the country.Canadian mobile phone maker RIM, which makes Blackberry, was meanwhile forced to open a production unit in southern Argentina in order to continue selling its phones.On Monday, Argentina told the WTO's Dispute Settlement Board that it had taken measures since January 25 to calm the tensions, stressing that it had repealed "all non-automatic import licences".The complainants however told the board they were "not convinced" by the measures taken by Argentina, a source close to the matter said. The WTO's dispute settlement board also established a second panel Monday to look into Argentina's claims that Washington has blocked meat imports.Buenos Aires has accused the United States of imposing measures over the past 11 years that have in effect closed off the US market to Argentinian beef.Argentina has also criticised the US for not recognising that the Patagonia region is free of the foot and mouth disease, despite a clean bill of health from the World Organization for Animal Health.The United States meanwhile insisted Monday that it was fully compliant with its obligations under the WTO agreements, but said US authorities were in the process of evaluating sanitary issues related to Argentinian products.According to WTO rules, the panels each have up to six months to report their findings.

Eurozone break up fades - survey

The prospects of a country being forced to leave the euro zone have all but vanished since the middle of last year, a survey released on Monday showed. The poll of 956 investors by research group Sentix showed just 17.2% expected one or more states to leave the 17-state bloc over the next 12 months.This was down from 25% in December, and a high of 73% in July 2012, a month after the index began."A euro breakup is almost no issue anymore," Sentix said in a statement. Since the start of the index, the European Central Bank has unveiled a plan to buy the bonds of stricken euro members, and Greece successfully completed a debt buyback, easing financial market tension and prompting policymakers to say the worst was over. Greece remained the country deemed most likely to exit the eurozone in the survey but the percentage of those who expect a "Grexit" within the next year fell to 13.9% from 22.5%  in December. For Cyprus, which applied for a bailout in June last year, the percentage fell by 2% points to 7.5%.

 

Gas drilling boon for ordinary US folks

Private landowners are reaping billions of dollars in royalties each year from the boom in natural gas drilling in some US states, transforming lives and livelihoods even as the windfall provides only a modest boost to the broader economy.In Pennsylvania alone, royalty payments could top $1.2bn for 2012, according to an analysis by The Associated Press that looked at state tax information, production records and estimates from the National Association of Royalty Owners.For some landowners, the unexpected royalties have made a big difference."We used to have to put stuff on credit cards. It was basically living from paycheck to paycheck," said Shawn Georgetti, who runs a family dairy farm in Avella, about 50 kilometers southwest of Pittsburgh.Natural gas production has boomed in many states over the past few years as advances in drilling opened up vast reserves buried in deep shale rock, such as the Marcellus formation in Pennsylvania and the Barnett in Texas.Nationwide, the royalty owners association estimates, natural gas royalties totaled $21bn in 2010, the last year for which it has done a full analysis. Texas landowners received the most in gas royalties that year, about $6.7bn, followed by Wyoming at $2bn and Alaska at $1.9bn.Exact estimates of natural gas royalty payments aren't possible because contracts and wholesale prices of gas vary, and specific tax information is private. But some states release estimates of the total revenue collected for all royalties, and feedback on thousands of contracts has led the royalty owners association to conclude that the average royalty is 18.5% of gas production."Our fastest-growing state chapter is our Pennsylvania chapter, and we just formed a North Dakota chapter. We've seen a lot of new people, and new questions," said Jerry Simmons, director of the royalty owners association, which was founded in 1980 and is based in Oklahoma.Simmons said he hasn't heard of anyone getting less than 12.5%, and that's also the minimum rate set by law in Pennsylvania. Simmons knows of one contract in another state where the owner received 25% of production, but that's unusual.By comparison, a 10 to 25% range is similar to what a top recording artist might get in royalties from CD sales, while a novelist normally gets a 12.5% to 15% royalty on hardcover book sales.Simmons added that for oil and gas "there is no industry standard," since the royalty is often adjusted based on the per-acre signing bonus a landowner receives. While many people are lured by higher upfront bonuses, a higher royalty rate can generate more total income over the life of a well, which can stretch for 25 years.Before Range Resources drilled a well on the family property in 2012, Georgetti said, he was stuck using 30-year-old equipment, with no way to upgrade without going seriously into debt."You don't have that problem anymore. It's a lot more fun to farm," Georgetti said, since he has been able to buy newer equipment that's bigger, faster and more fuel-efficient. The drilling hasn't caused any problems for the farm, he said.Range spokesman Matt Pitzarella said the Fort Worth, Texas-based company has paid "well over" $1bn to Pennsylvania landowners, with most of that coming since 2008.One economist noted that the windfall payments from the natural gas boom are wonderful for individuals, but that they represent just a tiny portion of total economic activity.For example, the $1bn for Pennsylvania landowners sounds like a lot, but "it's just not going to have a big impact on the overall vitality of the overall economy," said Robert Inman, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school."I think the issue is, what difference does it make for the individual families? "Pennsylvania's total gross domestic product in 2011 was about $500bn, according to the US Department of Commerce.Inman noted that total gas industry hiring and investment can have a far bigger effect on a state or region, and companies have invested tens of billions of dollars just in Pennsylvania on pipelines, infrastructure, and drilling in recent years.For example, in North Dakota the shale oil and minerals boom contributed 2.8% of GDP growth to the entire state economy in 2011, according to Commerce Department data.Another variable in how much royalty owners actually receive is the wholesale price of gas. That has dropped significantly over the past two years even as production has boomed in Pennsylvania and many other states. Average wholesale prices went from about $4.50 per unit of gas in 2010 to about $3 in 2012. For many leaseholders, that meant a decline in royalties.The boom in natural gas royalties has even led to niche spinoff companies that look for lease heirs who don't even know they're owed money.Michael Zwick is president of Assets International, a Michigan company that searches for missing heirs."It was an underserved niche," Zwick said of oil and gas leases. When a company can't find an heir to lease royalties, the money often goes to state unclaimed property funds.Zwick said he has found a few dozen people whose gas lease money was being held in escrow, including one who was owed about $250 000 in drilling royalties. But the average amount, he said, is far lower.

Wall Street execs fret about talent drain

As the titans of Wall Street banks gathered to network, gossip and consider the future of their beleaguered industry in Davos over the past week, one common worry emerged: who is going to take over when we leave?Some of the most ambitious minds in finance are leaving the industry after years of losses, scandals, bad press - and perhaps most importantly new regulations that have curbed some previously free-wheeling ways. The issue, executives say, is not pay, but how much scope there is to innovate and build businesses, which is why more bankers and traders are leaving the big Wall Street firms for Silicon Valley, joining private investment partnerships like hedge funds and private equity funds, or going into energy and other industries. David Boehmer, head of financial services in the Americas for the recruiting firm Heidrick & Struggles, said he hears this message from Wall Street employees looking to leave the industry. "I get people saying, 'I'm bored and I need to do something about it - this isn't a challenge anymore,'" he said. The problem is particularly acute for big banks such as Goldman Sachs Group or JPMorgan Chase & Co, several senior bank chief executives, managers and consultants told Reuters in interviews at the World Economic Forum here. "There is a massive talent drain in our business," said a senior Wall Street executive, who declined to be identified. For some of Wall Street's harshest critics this is likely to be perceived as good news. Former US Federal Reserve chairperson Paul Volcker and other experts have argued for years that innovation has little place in the financial sector, and having more conservative bankers and fewer heavy risk takers running Wall Street will reduce the chances of another blow-up like the financial crisis. It will also help to increase wealth generation in more important parts of the economy, such as manufacturing and software, they argue. The financial implosion in 2008 was partly triggered by the best and the brightest on Wall Street engineering products that helped inflate a massive housing bubble, and then magnified the losses that resulted. The financial sector globally received trillions of dollars of government support during the worst of the crisis, and new regulations are designed to ensure that bailouts are not necessary in the future. But many of the biggest global banks have gotten only bigger, making them potentially even more dangerous to the financial system. And having talented executives who understand complicated financial products and know how to control risks will become even more important, executives say. "It will become more of a problem five or 10 years down the road, but ultimately someone is going to have to manage these beasts," the Wall Street executive said. It isn't difficult to find examples of the exodus from big banks. After nearly 15 years in finance- with stints at American International Group, Barclays Capital and PineBridge Investments- Jacques-Philippe Piverger left Wall Street in 2011 to launch a company called Micro Power Design, which makes solar-powered lamps. Piverger's ultimate goal is to get the devices into the hands of poor people in developing countries whose access to electricity is limited. "Isn't it cool?" he asked as one of the lamps was placed on the bar of the posh Belvedere Hotel in Davos. Piverger was well-paid in finance but said his career had left him wanting. His startup gives him the ability to "address business and societal and environmental imperatives from under one roof," he said. Another example is the Twitter-linked tech startup Dataminr, which is staffed by ex-employees from Wall Street firms, including Mark Dimont, who left Morgan Stanley last year to head a business development team there. Of course, there have been previous waves of departures to hedge funds as bankers and traders have sought to strike out on their own - or to make more money - but this time the departures appear to be broader in nature. The departure of employees may force Wall Street to consider a wider range of people for positions. Heidrick & Struggles' Boehmer gave a presentation to a group of young professionals in Davos about his biggest challenge recruiting for big banks these days: getting executives to think creatively when filling positions. In the presentation - called "Hiring an oddball" - Boehmer described how hard it is to get bank executives to hire creative and "quirky" leaders who do not "fit in" with the prototypical suited-up Wall Street mold, but who could help revolutionise the industry. Instead, those quirky types are sought by Silicon Valley, and they may be happier there. Many prefer the laid back atmosphere, not to mention the challenges of building a business, and the promise of lucrative rewards at companies like Google, Facebook and smaller startups, Boehmer said. "Banks are not getting top-level talent out of universities anymore, so in 10 to 15 years, there could be a big problem when it comes to leadership at the senior level of these firms," Boehmer said. "They're seeing big gaps in talent." Boehmer said he performed a search for a technology position at a major investment bank, calling on candidates from Silicon Valley who might be lured to New York with mega-paychecks. He was denied by everyone he approached, he said. On the flip side, Heidrick & Struggles also did a search for a mobile-payments company on the West Coast that was looking for someone with financial expertise but offered just one-quarter of the pay. In that case, "we got tons of applicants," said Boehmer. Jack Dunn, president and CEO of FTI Consulting, recalled a recent conversation with a friend's son who is about 35 years old and works at a major Wall Street bank. Despite having a lucrative pay package and senior title, all the son talked about was finding an exit strategy, Dunn said. "When I was young and didn't know any better, I would have thought it was a dream job," said Dunn, a former investment banker. "It's a problem because we're going to need someone to pick up the pieces, and a lot of the best people are leaving these firms."

Japan forecasts 2.5% growth in 2013

Japan on Monday said the world's number three economy was on track to expand 2.5 percent in the fiscal year starting in April, thanks to fresh stimulus and a recovery in overseas markets.Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet approved the forecast higher than an estimate of one-percent growth for the current year to March on Monday morning, government officials said.The estimate is slightly higher than those from economists who have also upped their outlook on the back of a weaker yen and new stimulus measures, Dow Jones Newswires reported."We are forecasting that the economy will recover as the global economy is expected to pick up gradually, while we're also expecting a steady recovery in demand and an increase in jobs" at home, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press briefing.The government's top spokesman warned that several factors could impact the final growth figure, including swelling public debt and fluctuations in the yen, a key factor for the country's trade picture.But Economic revitalisation minister Akira Amari said he was confident the new target would be hit, telling Jiji Press: "Overseas risks are decreasing."Last week, the Bank of Japan raised its growth forecast for the same fiscal year to 2.3 percent from a previous 1.6 percent estimate, as it announced an open-ended asset buying programme and new inflation target aimed at ending the deflation that has haunted the economy for years.Abe, who took office late December after a landslide national election victory, unveiled a 20.2 trillion yen ($222 billion) stimulus package this month in the latest bid to stoke growth in the limp economy. The figure also includes local government and private-sector spending.Tokyo's new forecast will be used to produce a fresh budget, with Abe's cabinet set to endorse 92.6 trillion yen in spending on Tuesday, Japanese media reported.

NEWS,01.12.2012

Little apparent progress in US 'fiscal cliff' talks

With barely a month left before the 'fiscal cliff', US Republicans and Democrats have remained far apart in talks to avoid the across-the-board tax hikes and spending cuts that threaten to throw the country back into recession. While President Barack Obama visited a Pennsylvania toy factory to muster public support for tax hikes on the rich, portraying Republicans as scrooges at Christmas time, his primary adversary in negotiations, Republican House Speaker John Boehner, continued to describe the situation as a stalemate. The argument will resume on Sunday when Boehner, along with Obama's Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, and others, take to weekly political talk shows and pick up further steam next week with a possible confrontation in the House of Representatives between Democrats and Republicans over the timing of a vote on tax hikes. Lawmakers are nervously eyeing the markets as the deadline approaches, with gyrations likely to intensify pressure to bring the drama to a close. The markets, in turn watching the politicians, fell as Boehner spoke, but recovered afterward. It was a repeat of the pattern earlier in the week when the speaker offered a similarly gloomy assessment. The latest round of high-stakes gamesmanship focuses on whether to extend the temporary tax cuts that originated under former President George W Bush beyond their December 31 expiration date for all taxpayers, as Republicans want, or just for those with incomes under $US 250,000 , as Obama and his fellow Democrats want. After five days of increasingly confrontational exchanges, the work week drew to a close with an announcement by Democrats of a long-shot effort next week to force an early tax-hike vote in the Republican-controlled US House to break the deadlock. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said she would undertake the rarely successful effort unless Boehner agreed by Tuesday to bring a bill to the floor allowing taxes on the wealthy to rise, something Boehner is highly unlikely to do until he is ready. "The clock is ticking," Pelosi said at a news conference. "The year is ending. It's really important with tax legislation for it to happen now. "We're calling upon the Republican leadership in the House to bring this legislation to the floor next week. "While Boehner offered no immediate response to Pelosi's threat, Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state, recently elected by Republicans to be the fourth-ranking party leader in the House,in an interview not to expect any tax vote next week.Amid the competing statements from the two sides, there were some actual, albeit modest, signs of potential movement. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell threw Republican proposals into the mix for reform of Medicare, the government health insurance program for seniors, which has exploded in cost in recent years and is a major contributor to the country's soaring deficit. McConnell of Kentucky told the Wall Street Journal in an interview that Republicans would agree to more revenue although not higher tax rates if Democrats agreed to such changes as raising the eligibility age for Medicare and slowing cost-of-living increases in the Social Security retirement program.Rodgers, in her Fox News interview, declined to completely rule out a much-discussed potential compromise in which Republicans would accept some increase in tax rates on the rich, but not to the level desired by Obama.More House Republicans although still just a handful expressed flexibility beyond that of their party leaders about considering an increase in tax rates for the wealthy, as long as they are accompanied by significant spending cuts. Most House Republicans refuse to back higher rates, preferring to raise revenue through tax reform. Obama, speaking in Pennsylvania, said he was encouraged by the shifting views of some Republicans, and urged House approval of a bill that has already cleared the Democratic-controlled Senate that would lock in the middle-class tax cuts and raise the rates for the rich. "If we can get a few House Republicans on board, we can pass the bill. I'm ready to sign it," Obama said. But neither he nor the other principals in the debate budged from their basic positions. Instead, Obama turned up the pressure on Friday, hitting the road to drum up support for his drive to raise taxes on the wealthy and warning Americans that Republicans were offering them "a lump of coal" for Christmas. In a visit to the Pennsylvania toy factory, Obama portrayed congressional Republicans as scrooges who risked sending the country over the fiscal cliff rather than strike a deal to avert the tax increases and spending cuts that begin in January unless Congress intervenes. "We already all agree, we say, on making sure middle-class taxes don't go up. So let's get that done. Let's go ahead and take the fear out for the vast majority of American families so they don't have to worry," Obama said at the Rodon Group factory, which makes K'NEX building toy systems as well as Tinkertoys and consumer products.In Washington, Boehner said Obama's plan to raise taxes on the rich was the wrong approach. "There is a stalemate. Let's not kid ourselves," the Ohio Republican said. "Right now we are almost nowhere."

Europe Is Divided AGAIN THIS Time It's Creditors vs. Debtors

The European Union used to be what psychologists call a "fantastic object," a desirable goal that fires people's imagination. I saw it as the embodiment of an open society -an association of nations which gave up part of their sovereignty for the common good and formed a union in which no nation would have a dominant position. The euro crisis is now threatening to turn the European Union into something fundamentally different. The member countries are divided into two classes creditors and debtors with the creditors in charge. Germany, as the largest and most creditworthy country, occupies a dominant position. As a result of current policies, debtor countries pay substantial risk premiums for financing their debt and this is reflected in their cost of financing in general. This has pushed the debtor countries into depression and put them at a substantial competitive disadvantage that threatens to become permanent. This is the result not of a deliberate plan but of a series of policy mistakes. Germany did not seek to occupy a dominant position and is reluctant to accept the obligations and liabilities that it entails. I have called this the tragedy of the European Union. Now, some recent developments give grounds for hope. The authorities are taking steps to correct their mistakes. I have in mind the June summit's decision to form a banking union, and the EU Central Bank's plan for unlimited intervention in government bond markets. Financial markets have been reassured that the euro is here to stay. This could be a turning point if it were reinforced by additional positive steps. Unfortunately, it has merely reinforced German resistance to further concessions. A distinguishing feature of the tragedy I am talking about is that it feeds on hope. Germany is willing to do the minimum but nothing more to hold the euro together. That is how the eurozone becomes permanently divided between creditors and debtors. This is such a dismal prospect that it must not be allowed to become reality. There must be a way to avoid it after all, history is not predetermined. When the European Union was only an idea, a fantastic object, it was conceived as an instrument of solidarity. Today, Europe hangs together out of grim necessity. That is not conducive to a harmonious partnership. The only way to reverse this seemingly inexorable fate is to recapture the spirit of solidarity.Since I am a fervent believer in the European Union as the embodiment of an open society, I have set up an Open Society Initiative for Europe OSIFE for short  and I have been looking for ways to achieve this goal.I realized that the best place to start would be where current policies have created the greatest human suffering. Clearly, that place is Greece. Within Greece, the fate of the many migrants and asylum seekers stuck there particularly resonated with me. Clearly, their plight cannot be separated from that of the Greeks themselves. An initiative confined to migrants would reinforce the hostility they face from some in the majority. The problem seemed intractable, and I couldn't figure out how to approach it. But I was in Stockholm recently to commemorate the centenary of Raoul Wallenberg's birth. This reawakened my memories of the Second World War the calamity that eventually gave birth to the European Union.Wallenberg was a heroic figure who saved the lives of many Jews by establishing Swedish protected houses in Budapest. During the German occupation of Hungary, my father was also a heroic figure. He helped to save his family and friends and others. He taught me to confront harsh reality rather than to passively submit to it. That is what gave me the idea. We could set up solidarity houses in Greece which could serve as community centers for the local population where migrants could also find food and shelter. There are already many efforts under way, and civil society is already heavily engaged, but the scale of the problem is overwhelming. I am talking about reinforcing existing efforts. The asylum policy of the European Union has broken down. Refugees have to apply in the country where they enter the EU, but the Greek government cannot process the cases, and some 60,000 refugees who sought to register have been put into detention camps here conditions are inhumane. Migrants who avoid registering and live in the streets are attacked by the hooligans of the Golden Dawn.Norway has expressed an interest in the fate of refugees in Greece and within the European Union. Sweden has made migration and asylum policy a priority. So Norway and Sweden are the primary candidates for supporting solidarity houses. Hopefully they would be joined by Germany and other member countries.Currently, the Golden Dawn is providing social services to Greeks while attacking the migrants. The initiative I propose would offer a positive alternative. It would be based on solidarity solidarity of Europeans with Greeks and Greeks with migrants. This would be a powerful demonstration of the spirit of solidarity that ought to infuse the European Union.

Walmart's New Health Care Policy Shifts Burden To Medicaid, Obamacare

 

Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, plans to begin denying health insurance to newly hired employees who work fewer than 30 hours a week, according to a copy of the company’s policy.Under the policy, slated to take effect in January, Walmart also reserves the right to eliminate health care coverage for certain workers if their average workweek dips below 30 hours  something that happens with regularity and at the direction of company managers.Walmart declined to disclose how many of its roughly 1.4 million U.S. workers are vulnerable to losing medical insurance under its new policy. In an emailed statement, company spokesman David Tovar said Walmart had “made a business decision” not to respond to questions from and accused the publication of unfair coverage. Labor and health care experts portrayed Walmart’s decision to exclude workers from its medical plans as an attempt to limit costs while taking advantage of the national health care reform known as Obamacare. Among the key features of Obamacare is an expansion of Medicaid, the taxpayer-financed health insurance program for poor people. Many of the Walmart workers who might be dropped from the company’s health care plans earn so little that they would qualify for the expanded Medicaid program, these experts said.“Walmart is effectively shifting the costs of paying for its employees onto the federal government with this new plan, which is one of the problems with the way the law is structured,” said Ken Jacobs, chairman of the Labor Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. For Walmart, this latest policy represents a step back in time. Almost seven years ago, as Walmart confronted public criticism that its emplyees coudn't afford its benefits, the company announced with much fanfare that it would expand health coverage for part-time workers. But last year, the company eliminated coverage for some part-time workers those new hires working 24 hours a week or less. Now, Walmart is going further. “Walmart likely thought it didn’t need to offer this part-time coverage anymore with Obamacare,” said Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “This is another example of a tremendous government subsidy to Walmart via its workers.”In pursuing lower health care costs, Walmart is following the same course as many other large employers. But given its unrivaled scale, Walmart’s policies tend to influence American working conditions more broadly. Tom Billet, a senior consultant at Towers Watson, a professional services firm that works with large companies to develop benefit plans, said other companies are also crafting policies that will exclude some part-time workers from medical coverage. Billet portrayed the growing corporate interest in separating out part-time workers as a reaction to another aspect of Obamacare the new rules that require companies with at least 50 full-time workers to offer health coverage to all employees who work 30 or more hours a week or pay penalties.Several employers in recent months, including Darden Restaurants,owner of Olive Garden and Red Lobster, and a New York area Applebee's franchise owner, said they are considering cutting employee hours to push more workers below the 30-hour threshold.“In the past, firms were less careful about monitoring whether someone was full- or part-time,” Billet said, noting that some of his clients were planning to track workers’ hours more carefully. “I expect health plans like Walmart’s won’t be uncommon as firms adjust to this law.” For Walmart employees, the new system raises the risk that they could lose their health coverage in large part because they have little control over their schedules. Walmart uses an advanced scheduling system to constantly alter workers’ shifts according to store traffic and sales figures. The company has said the scheduling system improves flexibility and efficiency. But in recent interviews with The several workers described their oft-changing schedules as a source of fear that they might earn too little to pay their bills. Many said they have begged managers to assign them additional hours only to see their shifts cut further as new workers were hired.The new plan detailed in the 2013 "Associate’s Benefits Book" adds another element to that fear: the risk of losing health coverage. According to the plan, part-time workers hired in or after 2011 are now subject to an “Annual Benefits Eligibility Check” each August, during which managers will review the average number of hours per week that workers have logged over the past year. If part-time workers hired after Feb. 1, 2012, fail to reach the 30-hour threshold, they will lose benefits the following January, according to the book. Part-time workers hired after Jan. 15, 2011, but before Feb. 1, 2012, must work at least 24 hours a week to retain coverage and will also be subject to an eligibility check each year. Those hired before 2011 aren’t subject to the minimum hours requirements or eligibility checks.As for full-time workers under the plan, those who lose hours and slip to part-time at any point during the year will see their spouses’ health coverage dropped immediately. Those workers will also lose their dental and life insurance policies in the following pay period, according to the plan.Some Walmart workers who are excluded from the company’s health care plans are likely to become eligible for Medicaid under the Obamacare expansion, which aims to replace a patchwork of standards now set by individual states with one minimum federal threshold income below 133 percent of the federal poverty line, which for an individual currently comes to $14,856. However, the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that the decision to expand the program is voluntary for the states. At least eight states, including Texas, have said they will not expand the program, which would leave Walmart workers there with one less option. Part-time workers who lose their Walmart insurance but earn too much to qualify for Medicaid should be able to buy insurance through the health care exchanges to be established under Obamacare  essentially, online marketplaces offering an array of health care plans. For workers who do qualify for health coverage under Walmart's new policy, the latest package represents an upgrade over previous plans. Walmart’s health plans began covering 100 percent of spine and heart surgeries this year at select hospitals and medical centers. They also include a smattering of preventative care services required by Obamacare. But the company’s plans still leave many workers facing significant financial distress in the event of major illness. Under the new policy, one major offering, the so-called Health Reimbursement Account Plan, costs nonsmoking workers $34.80 a month a seemingly affordable sum. Yet it comes with an annual deductible of $2,750, a hefty expense given that half of Walmart’s hourly workforce earns no more than $10 an hour. While a shifting of Walmart employees to Medicaid rolls may increase the burden on American taxpayers, it is likely to be a better deal for the workers themselves. “The packages Walmart is providing for low-income people aren’t offering very much coverage except for catastrophes,” said Linda Blumberg, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, a left-leaning think tank. “It’s likely they’ll be better off going with a government-sponsored plan.”

NEWS,02.11.2012

How many presidential campaign ads is too many?

It's 6:10pm on a Thursday in October, just days before the US elections. Before the clock hits 6.29pm, 11 political ads will have aired on the local NBC channel in Columbus, Ohio.One tells voters that Democratic President Barack Obama has not proposed a legitimate economic plan for the country.Another suggests that policies of Republican candidate Mitt Romney would undermine the future for America's children.Yet another says Romney would effectively deny many women crucial cancer screenings by proposing cuts to Planned Parenthood.The very next ad calls Obama an extremist on abortion who supports leaving babies "out to die."Ohio is being inundated with such dueling ads in the final days before the November 6 presidential election, as Obama and Romney both look to the state's 18 electoral votes as a crucial step toward the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.The presidential race is now a fight in eight or so politically divided "swing" states, but nowhere more so than Ohio.Amid the chaos of the campaign's closing days, the state has become an arena for credibility-stretching banter, and a testing center for the growing science of political advertising.New research predicts that total spending in this election could reach $US6 billion , making it the most expensive in US history.The campaigns and free-spending independent groups have poured close to $US1 billion into political ads - many of those ads directed at Ohio - and have given analysts a high-profile chance to examine some simmering questions about such ads.Among them: How many ads is too many, before viewers tune them out? And what do campaign ads lead voters to do, exactly?Election-year political ads are a meticulously studied subject, and increasingly are used to target specific groups and encourage specific outcomes.Some research, for example, suggests that pro-Democrat ads are particularly effective at swaying voters' opinions, while pro-Republican ads typically are more effective at getting party supporters to show up at the polls.For all the analysis that has been done on campaign ads, academic and commercial research has yielded few answers on the precise impact that ads have in determining who wins an election.That is especially true, analysts said, in the type of advertising free-for-all that Ohio residents are seeing on their televisions now - wave after wave of ads with overlapping and similarly dark, daunting messages.Campaign ads became tiresome long ago for many Ohio residents, but some viewers figure that the ads must be working, or the campaigns wouldn't keep running them."I think poorly of those ads and don't think they work, but there are so many of them I think it must be not so," said JoAnne Harvey, a Columbus small business owner who, as an undecided female voter, is much coveted by both campaigns.In a reflection of how so many ads can essentially nullify one another, Harvey and another dozen Ohioans interviewed generally could not recall the details of a single campaign ad that stood above the others.Those who could acknowledged that they weren't sure which side the ad was meant to benefit.Political advertising has become a multibillion-dollar market that some television station sales managers predict soon could be a year-round category of advertising.It has become increasingly sophisticated in "micro-targeting," the art of going after specific groups of viewers.For example, Democrats have been found to be more frequent television watchers than Republicans, and Democrats candidates in 2008 ran more than twice as many ads as Republicans during science-fiction shows, reality dating programs and telenovelas, according to research by Washington State University professor Travis Ridout and others.Those programs as well as talk shows and court shows tended to skew Democratic in viewership while crime and sports programs skewed Republican, Ridout's study found.But does the science of political advertising work?One study completed last month found Obama's ads moving voters away from Romney, while Romney's ads were much more likely to encourage Republicans to vote, rather than shift preferences among voters.The findings were based on a survey of more than 2,300 registered voters who said they were independents or not deeply committed to one party.They were shown one or several of the campaigns' ads by the research software company Qualtrics and the research firm Evolving Strategies."Romney doesn't seem to have a lot of ability to have people moving in and out of the independent pool, but he has a lot of room to change the equation in determining who turns out to vote," said Adam Schaeffer of Evolving Strategies.If the targets of this year's ads are any guide, the presidential election will be decided by middle-aged and older white women, according to a survey of more than 1,000 buying agencies done by STRATA, a software firm whose systems help air some $US50 billion worth of ads a year.The question is whether the barrage of ads - the vast majority of them attacking a candidate, rather than promoting one will become so overwhelming that they provoke a backlash.Such ads "did work on me at first, and then I became a lot more cynical and realized that a lot of it is political warfare," said Harvey, who added that she voted for Obama in 2008 but was leaning toward Romney now."It seems almost epidemic; they can't stop now that they've started."A rule of thumb in advertising is that an ad needs to be viewed at least three times and up to 10 to be effective, said STRATA Chief Executive John Shelton."There's no question that once you start to go over (10), you start to, well, at least bore people," he said. "Then they might tune out. Then they might actually get ticked off."Barbara Berry, a healthcare professional and Obama supporter from Columbus, said she pre-records TV programs and skips ads."I don't pay attention anymore," she said.Since late August, more than 915,000 presidential campaign ads have aired on broadcast and national cable TV, according to the Wesleyan Media Project. In Columbus during October, ads by the campaigns and outside groups aired more than 7,000 times."Some of them just disappear in the noise," said Dan Bradley, general manager at the Columbus NBC affiliate WCMH-TV.Each presidential campaign has been producing about a dozen new ads a week, basing them on daily news events a practice that ensures that most of the ads have a short shelf life.Romney in particular tends to place and replace ads at the spur of the moment, often in response to the news of the day.Obama's campaign runs two ad tracks: one that changes every one or two days, the other every couple of weeks.Ads this year "just seem to be rushed," said John Geer, a political ad researcher at Vanderbilt University.It's "almost like they've fallen prey to the fact that the campaigns have so much money, and the ability to make all these ads."

New York fuel 'panic' grows even as ports open

A third day of "panic buying" of gasoline among Sandy-struck New York area motorists on Friday has prompted action from authorities.The US government waived the Jones Act barring foreign-flagged vessels from carrying fuel between US ports in a bid to boost supplies from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he would temporarily lift tax and registration requirements on tankers docking in the New York Harbor, which had just reopened to oil vessels.While the waivers sent benchmark New York gasoline futures 2% lower, they will do little to address the biggest obstacle to getting fuel to consumers: the power outages that have shut nearly two-thirds of the service stations in the New Jersey and New York City area and are still hindering service at major oil terminals and refineries along the harbour.Faced with the prospect of another day of hunting for fuel or losing out on business, New York City cab driver Mohammad Sultan parked his yellow taxi at a Hess station on Coney Island Avenue, Brooklyn at midnight on Thursday so he could be first in line when a rumoured fuel shipment arrived at 6 am.At 9 am with 180 vehicles behind him, the pumps were still empty. Officials said the number of cabs on the road by Friday morning was down 24% from last week."Because of the gas problem, there are thousands of yellow cabs sitting around wasting time and money," Sultan said.There were some signs that the complex New York Harbor network of storage tanks and pipelines was finally returning to service after Sandy dealt it a direct hit, crippling the ability to fuel the nation's most dense consumer population.The region's biggest pipeline, Colonial, restarted much of its northern line, and an oil tanker carrying 2 million gallons of gasoline docked overnight in Newburgh, New York, 60 miles north of New York city. Other ships were finally offloading cargoes in the harbor after being stuck at anchor for the past week.But those measures were cold comfort for residents stuck in hours-long queues, often with no guarantee that supplies would be available when they got to the front of the line or that enough power would be restored to get more stations open.The situation is wearing on New Yorkers. Juliana Smith, a full-time student, spent 2-1/2 hours in line to fill two five-gallon containers on Friday, an hour more than on Thursday."It's psychotic," she said. "People are angry. We have no power. No heat. We need gas for the generator and our Ford Explorer, which is a monster."Prices at the pump have remained steady despite the shortages, motorist group AAA said, averaging just below $4 a gallon in New York City, 2 cents lower than last week.However, on Long Island, where only a third of all stations were working, average gasoline prices jumped 5 cents from a day earlier.But online, Craigslist users started offering gasoline at as much as $15 a gallon to motorists and homeowners not wishing to brave the lines.There were signs the situation could improve in the coming days as wholesale markets begin to work again.Colonial Pipeline, a 5,500-mile (8,900-km) network that runs from the Gulf Coast refining center up the eastern seaboard, said late on Thursday it had resumed fuel deliveries at its Linden facility in New Jersey, the terminus of the line.It expects to pump around 700,000 barrels a day into the area, which is a normal volume, spokesman Steve Baker said.Fuel barge shipments into New York Harbor will be allowed on Friday, the Coast Guard said, if they have a place to offload.Environmental Protection Agency waivers for clean diesel and gasoline specifications, granted earlier this week, should make it easier for suppliers to meet demand in the days ahead.News of the Jones Act waiver sent NYMEX gasoline prices sharply lower. The December RBOB contract fell 6 cents, or 2.3%, to close at $2.5736 a gallon, just below where it was trading last week prior to Sandy's arrival.Rates to charter fuel tankers to the Northeast nearly doubled as traders scrambled to sell to the region, where supplies were constricted by the closure of two New Jersey refineries that make up one-third of the region's capacity.The Phillips 66 Bayway refinery in New Jersey, known as "the gasoline machine" by oil traders, may be shut for weeks due to flood damage, although the company has said internally it is "optimistic of restarting soon," a source familiar with operations said. The company has said that a decision on when to reopen will be made "once all assessments are complete."Phillips' Linden fuel terminal was supplying only emergency response vehicles as of Friday afternoon.

Obama, Romney return to attack

President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney went back on the attack on Thursday, breaking a storm-induced campaign truce to hit the road and pound home their closing messages in the final stretch of a tight battle for the White House.With five days left until Tuesday's election, Obama received an endorsement from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, resurrected his 2008 "change" slogan and said he was the only candidate who had actually fought for it.Romney criticised Obama as a lover of big government who would expand the federal bureaucracy.National polls show the race deadlocked, and Obama and Romney will spend the final days in eight swing states that will decide who wins the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the White House.Obama made Wisconsin the first stop on a four-state swing on Thursday that also took him to rallies in Nevada and Colorado before going to Ohio for the night. Romney had a full day of campaigning across Virginia."You may be frustrated at the pace of change, but you know what I believe, you know where I stand," Obama told a crowd of 2 600 people on an airport tarmac in Wisconsin, a state that is a vital piece of his electoral strategy. "I know what change looks like because I've fought for it."At a rally in Doswell, Virginia, Romney criticised Obama's comment that he would like to consolidate government agencies that deal with business issues in a new department under a secretary of business."I don't think adding a new chair to his Cabinet will help add millions of jobs on Main Street," Romney said.Jobs will again be the focus of fierce debate on Friday when the government releases the unemployment figures for October. Any big change from the 7.8% number in September could potentially sway voters.Obama and Romney had put campaigning on hold for several days as the historic storm Sandy pounded the eastern seaboard, leaving a trail of destruction and forcing Obama to turn his attention to storm relief.That pause produced some unexpected political benefits for Obama, who won warm praise from Republican Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Romney supporter, and he spent days directing federal relief efforts in a show of presidential leadership that largely sidelined Romney.New York's Bloomberg a Republican-turned-independent who did not back a candidate in 2008 endorsed Obama and cited the Democrat's record on climate change, an issue that has gained more attention since the storm.Bloomberg said Obama had taken significant steps to reduce carbon consumption, while Romney had backtracked on earlier positions he took as governor of Massachusetts to battle climate change. Obama said he was "honoured" by the backing of Bloomberg, who flirted with White House runs in the past.On their first day back on the trail, both Obama and Romney returned to political attacks but struck a slightly more positive tone than usual in trying to woo undecided voters and push their own supporters to vote.In Doswell, Romney proclaimed his faith in the future and said, "The American people have what it takes to come out of these tough times."In Wisconsin, Obama drew distinctions with Romney but dropped his usual reference to "Romnesia" the term he uses to describe what he calls Romney's tendency to shift positions.Obama has a somewhat easier path to 270 electoral votes than Romney, fueled primarily by a small but steady lead in the vital battleground of Ohio a crucial piece of any winning scenario for either candidate - and slight leads in Wisconsin, Iowa and Nevada.Barring any surprises elsewhere, Obama can win a second term by capturing the Midwestern bastions of Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa, and his schedule was aimed at shoring up his safety net there.Obama plans to visit Ohio on each of the last four days of the campaign, and plans two more trips to Wisconsin and Iowa. He will conclude his campaign on Monday night with rock singer Bruce Springsteen in Iowa, where a 2008 caucus win launched his run to the presidency.So far, Obama has planned just one visit each in the final days to Florida and Virginia, where most polls give Romney a slight lead. Romney will hit Wisconsin and Ohio on Friday, and New Hampshire, Iowa and Colorado on Saturday.Romney plans to finish up his campaign on Monday night in New Hampshire, the state where he launched his bid last year.Romney's campaign has aired ads in recent days in the Democratic-leaning states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Minnesota, hoping to put them in play after polls showed the races tightening but Obama still ahead.The campaign said Romney would visit Pennsylvania on Sunday, marking his first campaign visit since the nominating convention to one of his new target states. A win in Pennsylvania would be a crippling blow to Obama, but most public polls still show Obama leading there.Romney aides said the moves into those three new states were a sign of their growing momentum, although Obama aides described them as a desperate ploy to find new paths to 270 electoral votes.A  online poll on Thursday showed the race remained effectively deadlocked, with Obama at 47% to Romney's 46%. Most national polls showed roughly similar results.Most swing-state polls have found Obama clinging to slender leads in five of the eight most heavily contested states - Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire. In most polls, Romney has a slight lead in Florida, while Virginia and Colorado were effectively tied.Online poll on Thursday showed Obama with a 5-point lead in Virginia, and 2-point leads among likely voters in both Ohio and Florida. Romney led by 1 point in Colorado in the polls.

NEWS,30.10.2012

Dozens dead as US reels from devastating superstorm

Millions of people have awoken to scenes of destruction wrought by monster storm Sandy after it smashed into the eastern United States, killing an estimated 35 people in seven states, cutting power to swathes of the nation's most densely populated region, swamping New York's subway system and submerging streets in Manhattan's financial districtSandy, one of the biggest storms to ever hit the country, dropped just below hurricane status before making landfall on Monday night in New Jersey.The storm interrupted the presidential campaign a week before Election Day posing both risks and opportunities for President Barack Obama as he seeks a second term in a tight race - and closed US financial markets for a second day.As a weakened but still massive storm system continued its trek inland, more than 1 million people in a dozen states were under orders to evacuate. Sandy left behind a trail of damage homes underwater, trees toppled and power lines downed - caused by epic flooding and fierce winds all along the Atlantic coast.The storm is expected to bring snow to eight US states, and Canada is bracing itself for the onslaught, even as its eastern areas have already experienced the storm's force.More than 100,000 Canadians were still without power on Tuesday after the huge storm Sandy toppled trees and power lines in Canada's most populous provinces, killed one person, and halted units at an Ontario refinery.In the storm's wake, Obama issued federal emergency decrees for New York and New Jersey, declaring that "major disasters" existed in both states. One disaster-forecasting company predicted economic losses could ultimately reach $20 billion, only half insured."It's total devastation down there, there are boats in the street five blocks from the ocean," said evacuee Peter Sandomeno, one of the owners of the Broadway Court Motel in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey. "That's the worst storm I've ever seen, and I've been there for 11 years.Sandy, which was especially imposing because of its wide-ranging winds, brought a record storm surge of almost 14 feet (4.2 metres) to downtown Manhattan, well above the previous record of 3 metres during Hurricane Donna in 1960, the National Weather Service said.Two people in New York City reportedly died in the storm - a man in a house hit by a tree and a woman who stepped into an electrified puddle of water. Two other people were killed in suburban Westchester County, north of New York City, and two others were reported killed on suburban Long Island.A motor vehicle death in Massachusetts was blamed in part on the bad weather. Two other people were killed in Maryland in storm-related incidents, state authorities said, and deaths also were reported in Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, CNN said.Toronto police also recorded one death a woman hit by flying debris.Sandy killed 66 people in the Caribbean last week before pounding US coastal areas.The unprecedented flooding hampered efforts to fight a massive fire that destroyed more than 50 homes in Breezy Point, a private beach community on the Rockaway barrier island in the New York City borough of Queens.New York University hospital was forced to evacuate more than 200 patients, among them babies on respirators in the neonatal intensive care unit, when the backup generator failed. Four of the newborns had to be carried down nine flights of stairs while nurses manually squeezed bags to deliver air to each of the baby's lungs, CNN reported.More than 8.1 million people in several US states were without electricity due to the storm, which crashed ashore late on Monday near the gambling resort of Atlantic City, New Jersey.Obama, who has made every effort to show himself staying on top of the storm situation, faces political danger if the federal government fails to respond well in the storm's aftermath, as was the case with predecessor George W Bush's botched handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.With Obama and Republican presidential rival Mitt Romney keeping campaigning on hold for a second day instead of launching their final push for votes ahead of the November 6 election, the storm's onslaught added a new level of uncertainty to an already tense, tight race for the White House.In an address on Tuesday local time, Obama said the federal government would do all it could to help local authorities cope with damage caused by the massive storm Sandy.The president, speaking at the national headquarters of the American Red Cross, said the storm, which slammed into some of the most densely populated areas of the eastern United States on Monday, was "not yet over" and that there were still risks."It is still moving north," he said. "There are still communities that could be affected. So I want to emphasise there are still risks of flooding, there are still risks of downed power lines, risks of high winds.""I want everyone leaning forward on this," an aide quoted Obama as telling his disaster-response team in the White House Situation Room. "I don't want to hear that we didn't do something because bureaucracy got in the way."Obama will travel to New Jersey to survey the damage and meet those affected on Wednesday local time.With politics cast aside for the moment, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican, heaped praise on the Democratic incumbent for the government's initial storm response."The federal government response has been great," Christie, a staunch Romney supporter, told NBC's Today show. "I was on the phone at midnight again last night with the president personally ... and the president has been outstanding in this."Federal government offices in Washington, which was spared the full force of the storm, were closed for a second day on Tuesday, and schools were shut up and down the East Coast.The storm was plowing westward over south-central Pennsylvania, still packing near hurricane-force winds as strong as 105 km/h, the National Weather Service said.Wind gusts, rain and flooding were likely to extend well into Tuesday, but without the storm's earlier devastating power, said AccuWeather meteorologist Jim Dickey."Overall, the worst has past," Dickey said.The storm's wind field stretched from North Carolina north to the Canadian border and from West Virginia to a point in the Atlantic Ocean halfway to Bermuda, easily one of the largest ever seen, the National Hurricane Center said.Heavy snow fell in higher elevations of the Appalachian Mountains inland.Water poured into the subway system and tunnels that course under the city, raising concerns that the world's financial capital could be hobbled for days."Hitting at high tide, the strongest surge and the strongest winds all hit at the worst possible time," said Jeffrey Tongue, a meteorologist for the weather service in Brookhaven, New York.Hurricane-force winds as high as 90 miles per hour (145 km per hour) were recorded, he said. "Hopefully it's a once-in-a-lifetime storm," Tongue said.As residents and business owners began the daunting clean-up effort, large sections of New York City remained without power, and transportation in the metropolitan area was at a standstill.It was the worst disaster to strike the storied New York subway system in its 108-year history, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said it could take up to four days to get the water out of the flooded train tunnels.New York City's subway is likely to be out of service for another four to five days after monster storm Sandy, Mayor Bloomberg said on Tuesday.The mayor said at a press conference that the city was hoping to resume limited bus service on Tuesday and full bus service on Wednesday.New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said at a separate press conference that all bus fares would be suspended on Tuesday.New York City experienced 23 fires during the storm, with a severe one in Breezy Point, Queens, that burned more than 80 houses.Throughout New York state, 15 people died in connection with the storm, which touched down in New Jersey late on Monday, Cuomo said.Three towns in New Jersey, just west of New York City, were inundated with up to 5 feet (1.5 metres) of water after a levee on the nearby Hackensack River was overtopped or breached, officials said. Rescuers were using boats to aid the marooned residents of Moonachie, Little Ferry and Carlstadt.In New York, a crane partially collapsed and dangled precariously from a 90-story luxury apartment building under construction in Midtown Manhattan.Much of the city was deserted, as its subways, buses, commuter trains, bridges and airports were closed. Power outages darkened most of downtown Manhattan as well as Westchester County, affecting more than 650,000 customers, power company Consolidated Edison said.Neighborhoods along the East and Hudson rivers in Manhattan were underwater, as were low-lying streets in Battery Park near Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center once stood.US stock markets were set to be closed on Tuesday. They closed on Monday for the first time since the attacks of September 11, 2001.Most areas in downtown Manhattan were without power on Monday morning. As the sun rose, most of the water in Manhattan's low-lying Battery Park City appeared to have receded.A security guard at 7 World Trade Center, Gregory Baldwin, was catching some rest in his car after laboring overnight against floodwaters that engulfed a nearby office building."The water went inside up to here," he said, pointing to his chest. "The water came shooting down from Battery Park with the gusting wind."In Lower Manhattan, firefighters used inflatable orange boats to rescue utility workers stranded for three hours by rising floodwaters inside a power substation.One of the Con Ed workers pulled from the floodwater, Angelo Amato, said he was part of a crew who had offered to work through the storm."This is what happens when you volunteer," he said.

New York City floods as Sandy slams into eastern US

Millions of people in the eastern United States awoke this morning to flooded homes, fallen trees and widespread power outages caused by the giant storm Sandy, which swamped New York City's subway system and submerged streets in Manhattan's financial district.At least 15 people were reported killed in the United States by Sandy, one of the biggest storms to ever hit the country, which dropped just below hurricane status before making landfall yesterday night in New Jersey.More than 1 million people in a dozen states were under orders to evacuate as the massive system plowed westward.One disaster forecasting company predicted economic losses could ultimately reach $20 billion, only half insured.The storm interrupted the presidential campaign a week before Election Day and closed U.S. financial markets for two days.Sandy, which was especially imposing because of its wide-ranging winds, brought a record storm surge of almost 4.2 meters to downtown Manhattan, well above the previous record of 3 meters during Hurricane Donna in 1960, the National Weather Service said.Water poured into the subway system and tunnels that course under the city, raising concerns that the world's financial capital could be hobbled for days."Hitting at high tide, the strongest surge and the strongest winds all hit at the worst possible time," said Jeffrey Tongue, a meteorologist for the weather service in Brookhaven, New York.Hurricane-force winds as high as 145 kph were recorded, he said."Hopefully it's a once-in-a-lifetime storm," Tongue said.Large sections of New York City were without power, and transportation in the metropolitan area was at a standstill."In 108 years our employees have never faced a challenge like the one that confronts us now," Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joseph Lhota said in a statement.It could take anywhere from 14 hours to four days to get the water out of the flooded subway tunnels, the MTA said."The damage has been geographically very widespread" throughout the subway, bus and commuter train system, MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said.The unprecedented flooding hampered efforts to fight a massive fire that destroyed more than 50 homes in Breezy Point, a private beach community on the Rockaway barrier island in the New York City borough of Queens, the Fire Department of New York said.Two people in New York City reportedly died in the storm a man in a house hit by a tree and a woman who stepped into an electrified puddle of water. Two other people were killed in suburban Westchester County, north of New York City, and two others were reported killed on suburban Long Island.A motor vehicle death in Massachusetts was blamed in part on the bad weather. Two other people were killed in Maryland in storm-related incidents, state authorities said, and deaths also were reported in Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, CNN said.Toronto police also recorded one death a woman hit by flying debris.More than 7 million people in several states were without electricity due to the storm, which crashed ashore late on Monday near the gambling resort of Atlantic City, New Jersey.The storm was plowing westward over south-central Pennsylvania, still packing near hurricane-force winds as strong as 105 km per hour, the National Weather Service said.Wind gusts, rain and flooding were likely to extend well into Tuesday, but without the storm's earlier devastating power, said AccuWeather meteorologist Jim Dickey."Overall, the worst has past," Dickey said.The storm's wind field stretched from South Carolina north to the Canadian border and from West Virginia to a point in the Atlantic Ocean halfway to Bermuda, easily one of the largest ever seen, the National Hurricane Center said.Heavy snow fell in higher elevations of the Appalachian Mountains inland.Three towns in New Jersey, just west of New York, were inundated with up to 1.5 metres of water after a levee on the nearby Hackensack River was overtopped or breached, officials said. Rescuers were using boats to aid the marooned residents of Moonachie, Little Ferry and Carlstadt.In New York, a crane partially collapsed and dangled precariously from a 90-story luxury apartment building under construction in Midtown Manhattan.Much of the city was deserted, as its subways, buses, commuter trains, bridges and airports were closed. Power outages darkened most of downtown Manhattan as well as Westchester County, affecting more than 650,000 customers, power company Consolidated Edison said."This is the largest storm-related outage in our history," said John Miksad, Con Ed's senior vice president for electric operations. The previous record was the more than 200,000 customers hit with outages last year during Hurricane Irene, the utility said.Neighborhoods along the East and Hudson rivers in Manhattan were underwater, as were low-lying streets in Battery Park near Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center once stood.A security guard at 7 World Trade Center, Gregory Baldwin, was catching some rest in his car after laboring overnight against floodwaters that engulfed a nearby office building."The water went inside up to here," he said, pointing to his chest. "The water came shooting down from Battery Park with the gusting wind."Power and back-up generators failed at New York University Hospital, forcing patients to be moved elsewhere for care.In Lower Manhattan, firefighters used inflatable orange boats to rescue utility workers stranded for three hours by rising floodwaters inside a power substation.One of the Con Ed workers pulled from the floodwater, Angelo Amato, said he was part of a crew who had offered to work through the storm."This is what happens when you volunteer," he said.With a week to go before the election, President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney canceled scheduled campaign events. Obama left the campaign trail to return to Washington to monitor the storm and Romney curtailed political events to show respect for the storm's victims.U.S. stock markets were set to be closed today. They closed yesterday for the first time since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.The federal government in Washington was closed for a second day today, and schools were shut up and down the East Coast. Sandy killed 66 people in the Caribbean last week before pounding U.S. coastal areas.