By MAYA JACKSON RANDALL
January 22, 2008 8:17 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Tuesday he is optimistic that the Bush administration can work with congressional leaders to quickly enact a temporary fiscal stimulus package this winter.
On Friday, President Bush put forward the broad outlines of a stimulus plan of around $150 billion that would include tax cuts for individuals and businesses.
"I am optimistic that we can find common ground and get this done long before winter turns to spring," Mr. Paulson said in prepared remarks Tuesday, noting that he has had very positive discussions with Republican and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill.
He added that it's important that measures meant to boost the economy be enacted very quickly.
Immediate tax relief for income taxpayers and incentives for businesses to invest and hire are often effective in creating growth and jobs in the near-term, he said.
"By working together, we can disprove the old Washington axiom that partisan politics prevents most short-term growth packages from being enacted fast enough to do any good," said Mr. Paulson. He reiterated that legislation should be "swift, robust, broad-based and temporary in order to be effective."
A package that falls short of approximating 1% of gross domestic product won't be effective, he said. "I look forward to engaging intensely with the Congress to get money into our economy quickly," he said.
Copyright © 2008 Associated Press
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Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Paulson Makes Push For Stimulus Measures
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Apple annouces ultra-thin laptop
The computer, which is 0.76 inches (1.93cm) at its thickest, was unveiled at an event in San Francisco.
The Apple head also launched online film rentals for iTunes users in the US from almost every major film studio, including Disney and Fox.
Mr Jobs admitted that Apple's first attempt to put online video in the living room had failed.
Of the laptop, Mr Jobs said: "It's an amazing feat of engineering."
It does not have a CD or DVD drive in order to save space.
"It was built to be a wireless machine," he added.
The laptop will compete with a range of portable devices, from companies such as Sony, Dell and Asus, which are building so-called sub-notebooks, designed to be lighter and more mobile.
The machine goes on sale in two weeks and costs from $1,799 in the US and comes with either a hard disc drive or solid state drive.
Apple worked with chip maker Intel to produce a smaller version of its Core2Duo processor for the laptop.
Movie rentals from the key Hollywood movie studios will be available in the US immediately.
"We're dying to get this international as well," said Mr Jobs, saying it would roll-out to other countries later in the year.
Movie lovers will be able to download films to their computers, and transfer them to the latest iPods and iPhone, in standard and high-definition.
The company also announced it was revamping the Apple TV device so that it can now download content independently of a computer.
"[Apple TV] was designed to be an accessory for iTunes and your computer.
"It is not what people wanted. What people really wanted was movies, movies, movies
"We weren't delivering that. We're back: With Apple TV Take Two."
Mr Jobs also announced a wireless back-up system called Time Capsule, offering a combined wi-fi router and hard drive.
BBC NEWS
Read more!
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Kohn Says Fed Is Trying to Signal When Views Shift `Materially'
By Scott Lanman and Steve Matthews
Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn said the central bank has increased its communication on policy views to the public in the wake of the financial-market ``turmoil'' that began in August.
Fed officials have tried to signal when the central bank's reading on the economic outlook shifted ``materially'' in between regular meetings, Kohn said in a speech in New Orleans. ``We have tried to provide more information than usual to reduce uncertainty and clarify our intentions.''
Kohn spoke before a week in which Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and six other Fed policy makers are scheduled to deliver remarks. The speeches come amid increasing signs of danger to the U.S. economic expansion, including a jump in the unemployment rate to a two-year high and a contraction in manufacturing. Traders anticipate the Fed will cut interest rates again Jan. 30.
Still, investors ``should understand'' that officials ``do not coordinate schedules and messages, and that members' views are likely to be especially diverse'' when circumstances are rapidly changing, Kohn said.
Kohn held out Bernanke's last speech on Nov. 29 as a signal of a change in the Fed's views. The chairman said at the time that volatility in credit markets had ``importantly affected'' the economic outlook and declined to repeat the Federal Open Market Committee's October statement that inflation and growth risks were about equal. The Fed then cut rates on Dec. 11.
`Let People Know'
``We have attempted to let people know when our views of the macroeconomic situation had changed materially between FOMC meetings,'' said Kohn said in prepared remarks at the National Association for Business Economics panel discussion, part of the Allied Social Science Associations annual meeting.
The vice chairman didn't comment on the outlook for monetary policy or the economy in the text of his remarks.
Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Kazumasa Iwata and European Central Bank Vice President Lucas Papademos were also scheduled to speak in the same session.
Traders yesterday shifted to bets on 50 basis points of interest-rate cuts by the Fed this month from 25 basis points after U.S. hiring slowed more than forecast in December and unemployment rose to 5 percent. The Fed lowered its main rate a quarter percentage point to 4.25 percent at its last meeting on Dec. 11. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.
Fed Speakers
Bernanke speaks Jan. 10 in Washington. Other Fed officials giving talks include Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren and Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig, the last two policy makers to cast dissenting FOMC votes. Charles Plosser, head of the Philadelphia Fed, votes as an FOMC member for the first time this month; he will discuss his economic outlook Jan. 8.
The FOMC is scheduled to meet Jan. 29-30 in Washington.
Separately, Kohn said today that the FOMC's new forecasts for inflation three years out do not represent an ``explicit numerical definition of price stability,'' something the committee decided against, but rather the inflation rate that is ``acceptable and consistent with fulfilling our congressional mandates.''
Kohn, who said in 2003 that he was ``skeptical'' about a price target, chaired a subcommittee of officials that coordinated work on the Fed's communication review that began in 2006. He suggested in September that his doubts about the idea had eased.
Inflation Expectations
``I expect that our new projections will provide some of the benefits of an explicit target in better anchoring inflation expectations while not giving up any flexibility to react to developments that threaten high employment,'' Kohn said today.
He also echoed remarks by Bernanke that the Fed will continue to look for ``additional steps'' to improve communication.
Fed officials decided last year not to report members' assumptions of the ``appropriate'' path of interest rates because of concern that investors would ``infer more of a commitment to following the implied path than would be appropriate for good policy,'' the vice chairman said.
Kohn, speaking yesterday at the same conference, said diverse views on the 19-member FOMC lead to better monetary- policy decisions. ``The authority of the chairman rests on his ability to persuade the other members of the committee that the choices they are making under his leadership will accomplish their objectives,'' he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Scott Lanman in Washington at slanman@bloomberg.net ; Steve Matthews in New Orleans at smatthews@bloomberg.net .
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Pound at record low against euro
The pound has fallen to a record low against the euro, as dealers expect more Bank of England (BoE) interest rate cuts in 2008.
The pound bought just one euro 37.6 cents in quiet Christmas Eve trading.
"There are increasing signs that the British economy has hit a brick wall triggered by the decline in the housing market," said analysts at BNP Paribas.
The European Central Bank (ECB) president Jean-Claude Trichet's recent comments have also boosted the euro.
Inflation and growth
In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Trichet hinted that the ECB was more worried about inflation than economic growth.
He said that interest rate cuts in the US and Britain should not distract the ECB from tightening its monetary policy.
"Other colleagues are in a different situation," Mr Trichet said.
Britain's record trade deficit has also helped push down the value of sterling.
BBC NEWS
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Federal Reserve’s Attack on Deflation Like Charge of the Light Brigade
Posted by Bill Bonner on Dec 14th, 2007
Our whirl-wind tour continues… Last night, we arrived in Baltimore, after about 24 hours of travel. A word of travel advice: avoid the American carriers. Their planes seem older…more worn out than, say, Singapore Airlines or Lufthansa – and so do their cabin crews.
The problem with modern travel is that humans were not made for it. During the thousands of generations in which our species evolved, no one ever had to reckon with jet-lag…or airline food…or security checks. All these things are unnatural and should be avoided.
What has happened in the world of money since we got on the plane?
Ah…
“The Charge of the Central Banks,” begins a Bloomberg story. Seems the Fed, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank got together to announce a program of coordinated inflation. Well, they didn’t call it that. They said they were merely making sure that the markets had credit, by increasing the supply of liquidity.
You see, they’re all caught in a tight spot – between the unstoppable force of inflation and the immoveable object of falling prices. So, into the Valley of Death go the central bankers.
Do you remember the Charge of the Light Brigade, dear reader? The British called Lord Cardigan from his private yacht in the Black Sea. His lordship, being new to the battlefield in the Crimean War, got mixed up…and sent his 600 cavalrymen in the wrong direction – right into the Russian’s guns. “Cannon to the right of them,/ cannon to the left of them,/ cannon in front of them,/ volleyed and thunder’d,” says Tennyson, until they were almost all dead. Except for Lord Cardigan himself, who miraculously survived without a scratch and went back to England to be declared a national hero.
Well, here come the central bankers – fresh from their caviar and foie gras – ready to ride into battle. But against what? Inflation? Or deflation? Against the unstoppable force…or the immoveable object?
There’s the problem, isn’t it? They’ve got cannons to the left…and cannons to the right.
For the moment, they regard the artillery of deflation as the greater worry. So Bernanke fired a weak volley in that direction on Tuesday. The markets fired back…saying the Fed wasn’t using enough firepower.
Yesterday, the Dow shot off a few rounds, inconclusively and half-heartedly. And the cannons on the other side opened up again. The CRB, measuring the price of commodities, hit a new high. Oil rose to nearly US$95. And gold hit US$818.
Still our guess is that the Fed is right. The cannons on the left – the side of deflation – will do the most damage in the near term. The threat of recession is growing. Or maybe we’re already in a recession. How bad will it be? Nouriel Roubini says it will be worse than 2001. We should hope so! That recession was so wimpy it did nothing at all.
Consumer spending continued to grow. Nothing was corrected – except the price of tech shares.
This next recession will be worse. Tech shares affected relatively few people. Now it is the housing market that is going down – and stocks too. A lot more people have houses than had dotcom stock.
It still looks to us as though we were headed for that “Japan-like slump” we were expecting seven years ago. Interest rates will continue to go down – if we’re right. And the US economy will go into an on-again, off-again recession that will last for many years.
And what about the unstoppable force of inflation? We doubt it will stop…not with the central banks all over the world charging in such hell-for-leather fashion. But we will see.
So here’s a little advice to the Fed:
Stop trying to fight deflation. It’s a losing battle. You’re ‘pushing on a string’. Instead, fight a battle you can win. Fight inflation!
The Fed could bring a correction on easily…simply by raising rates. Higher lending costs would stifle growth…reduce spending…lower prices…and knock tottering humpty dumpties off the wall. But don’t expect it: there are a lot of humpties; and every one of them has the right to vote in next year’s elections. Not only that, the economics profession has insisted that it can AVOID recessions by adroitly manipulating interest rates and lending standards. If the economy sinks now, Bernanke’s peers are going down to blame him – not only for the recession, but for undermining his colleagues’ pretensions.
But what America – and the world – needs is not a boom, but a correction. So, Feds – wherever you are – listen up: While a central bank clearly has the ability to trigger a recession, it may not have the ability to stop one. Like a hitman, a central banker can always kill a boom; but he can’t necessarily bring his victim back from the dead.
You’re better off pulling the trigger on a boom that needs to die…rather than pretending to heal the poor thing with your voodoo medicine. At least, you’ll look as though you know what you are doing.
Bill Bonner
The Daily Reckoning Australia
Get Paid For Online Surveys - Avoid Mistakes, Make Money
by: Jorge Chavez
Filling out survey questionnaires to get paid for online surveys is a great way to make extra money. All you need is an Internet connection and your opinions. There are traps out there, but you can avoid them if you know how to. And your can then go on to make very good money...
Imagine yourself sitting at home or at your favorite place (anywhere you have an Internet connection) and making money filling out paid surveys. Sounds like an impossible dream? Maybe it is for some... but for thousands of others it is a daily reality. Actually, it's easy to get paid for online surveys, and paid well.
Paid online surveys are a huge business on the Net, with thousands of new surveys being made every week. Many thousands of survey participants are receiving checks in the mail or deposits in their PayPal accounts every month. You could join them, get paid for online surveys and make money, if you do it right.
To succeed you must understand that only about 20% of survey makers offer the legitimate paid online surveys that pay well, on time in cash or equivalent. Another 40% are so-so. Sometimes they pay enough to make it worthwhile, sometimes not.
The final 40% are simply time-wasters who expect you to work for free or will try to sell you things. Or worse, they will sell your contact info to shady high-pressure sales companies which will bombard you with trashy offers.
To get paid for online surveys and make money you will need a good list of legitimate paid survey panels with a high proportion of survey makers that pay (those in the top 20%. The secret is in getting that list. In reality, you will have to pay something for your list, either in a lot of work or or with $30 to $50 in cash.
Yes, there are "free lists" out there. They're one of the traps to be avoided. Few things are really free. So who is paying for "free lists"? The 80% of no-pay/low-pay survey makers must have new recruits to replace those that quit. They pay recruiting fees to anyone who sends them more recruits to exploit
For those "free lists" the list distributors collect recruitment fees and make money, the survey makers make money on the recruits. However, the list users, the survey participants, get the short end of the deal.
They don't really get paid for online surveys by those low-pay/no-pay survey makers that exploit participants. They eventually get tired of working for nothing and quit, just like those before them, the ones they were recruited to replace.
To get a good list, make sure that YOU pay for it so the seller is trying to please YOU! Look to paid survey membership sites that maintain lists of good survey makers. For a small one-time fee you can join them. get a copy of their list and get started fast, on the right track.
Only consider those paid survey sites that offer a strong money back guarantee, backed up by a bank or financial company like PayPal or ClickBank. If they won't guarantee your satisfaction, then they are not serious. Don't even think about trusting your membership fee with any site without a strong guarantee.
From this group with strong guarantees (there are at least 75 that should qualify) choose one with a low refund rate. The refund rate is the way to determine the opinions of their current and past clients regarding the quality and value or the service they provide.
Low refund rates mean happy clients. Clients who used their list, got paid for online surveys, made money and were satisfied. High refund rates indicate unhappy clients who tried their list, did NOT get paid for online surveys, did not make money, became dissatisfied and demanded their money back.
So choose a paid survey membership site with a low refund rate, join up, get their list and then apply to all of the survey makers on that list. That way you will get a good list, get paid for online surveys, make money and join the happy clients of that paid survey membership site.
To get more information and details on how to get paid for online surveys you can follow the links below...
About The Author
Jorge Chavez
To get paid for online surveys, make money with them, see: http://surveysentinel.ya23.com/Get_Paid_for_Online_Surveys.html For more about refund rates and comparing paid survey sites, see: http://surveysentinel.ya23.com
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Greenspan: Odds rising for a recession
By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer 2 hours, 7 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan says the odds the U.S. will fall into a recession are "clearly rising" and he believes economic growth is "getting close to stall speed."
Greenspan, who ran the central bank for 18 1/2 years, until early 2006, offered his views on the economy in an interview on NPR News' Morning Edition that will air on Friday. Excerpts of the interview were released on Thursday.
A severe slump in the housing market, a stubborn credit crisis and turbulence on Wall Street are endangering the country's economic health. Growth in the current October through December period is expected to have slowed to a feeble pace of just 1.5 percent, or less.
Economists, including Greenspan, have warned that the chances of a recession are growing.
Asked whether the economy will tip into a recession — something that has not happened since 2001 — Greenspan said, "It's too soon to say, but the odds are clearly rising."
He said he felt this way because of the slowing pace of growth. "We are getting close to stall speed," he said. "We are far more vulnerable at levels where growth is so slow than we would be otherwise," he added. "Indeed, it's like someone who has an immune system that's not working very well is subject to all sorts of diseases and the economy at this lever of growth is subject to all sorts of shocks."
Greenspan's remarks come just days after the Federal Reserve, under Chairman Ben Bernanke, sliced a key interest rate for a third time this year to prevent the housing and credit troubles from sinking the economy.
The situation poses the biggest challenge yet to Bernanke since succeeding Greenspan in February 2006.
Some analysts have questioned whether Bernanke waited too long to cut the Fed's key rate and whether he has acted aggressively enough to soothe the economy's woes. The Fed initially dropped its key rate in September, the first reduction in four years. That was followed up by additional rate cuts in late October and then again on Tuesday.
Greenspan again rejected criticism that his policy actions helped to feed a housing boom that eventually went bust. Critics say Greenspan held interest rates too low for too long after the 2001 recession.
To have prevented such euphoria in housing that fed a bubble in prices, Greenspan said the Fed would have had to jack up interest rates so high that it would have damaged the economy. "That would have broken the back of the economy, and brought the housing boom down," Greenspan said.
