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India’s inflation rate remained above 9 percent in November, leaving the central bank with little leeway to reverse interest rate hikes that have choked growth in Asia’s third-largest economy.

The plunging value of the rupee, which hit a fresh record low against the dollar Wednesday, is pushing up the cost of fuel and manufactured products even as big increases in food prices start to wane, government figures showed.

Although November’s 9.1 percent inflation rate was the lowest in a year, it remains far above government targets.

“The concern about inflation cannot be taken away from the monetary authority,” C. Rangarajan, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, told reporters.

The country’s economic problems have been exacerbated by a deadlocked Parliament and the weakness of the ruling Congress Party. Measures that could encourage investment and growth have been stalled by political bickering. Uncoordinated fiscal and monetary policy hasn’t helped either.

India’s economy grew 6.9 percent in the September quarter, the slowest in over two years and industrial output has contracted for the first time in over two years.

Many economists and business people say India needs to enact difficult but crucial reforms to kickstart the economy and reassure investors. Government officials, in contrast, have emphasized the global factors dragging on the investment cycle, and some seem to hope lower interest rates will offer a quick fix instead.

“There is a slowdown across the world,” said Ajay Shankar, secretary of the government’s National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council fast cash without a hassle. “The interest rate should come down. Then you get a better investment climate.”

Thirteen rate hikes since March 2010 haven’t tamed inflation, which has topped 9 percent in 20 of the last 22 months. The central bank is widely expected to hold rates steady this week.

D.K. Joshi, chief economist at research and ratings agency Crisil, said without the Reserve Bank of India’s aggressive rate hikes, inflation would have likely soared above 10 percent.

The central bank’s anti-inflation stance has been weakened by government spending in the run up to important state elections and fuel price hikes, which have been needed to keep the government’s ballooning fuel subsidy bill in check.

“The demand created through government expenditure has offset some of the moves of RBI, that’s having an impact,” Joshi said. “The fuel inflation has been kept suppressed. Now when you have a fiscal burden you have to pass that on to the consumer.”

The rupee has plunged over 20 percent since July and hit a fresh low of 53.76 on Wednesday. That’s bad news for a country that runs a current account deficit and imports about three quarters of its oil. Rising wages and raw material costs have also hit manufacturers.

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid defended Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko on Saturday, calling criticism by four other NRC commissioners “a politically motivated witch hunt.”

Reid’s defense of Jaczko, a former Reid aide, went far beyond statements of praise and included a sharp critique of the four NRC commissioners _ including two Democrats.

“It is sad to see those who would place the interests of a single industry over the safety of the American people wage a politically-motivated witch hunt against a man with a proven track record of ensuring that nuclear power is produced as safely and responsibly as possible,” Reid’s office said in a statement Saturday.

The four NRC commissioners said in a letter to the White House that they have “grave concerns” about Jaczko. They said his bullying style is “causing serious damage” to the commission and creating a “chilled work environment at the NRC.”

The letter was written Oct. 13 but was made public late Friday. It stops short of calling for the chairman to resign, but says Jaczko’s actions could adversely affect the agency’s mission to protect health and safety at the nation’s 104 commercial nuclear reactors.

Among other claims, the letter says Jaczko “intimidated and bullied” senior career staff, ordered staff to withhold information and ignored the will of the panel’s majority. The letter was signed by Democrats William Magwood and George Apostolakis, as well as Republicans Kristine Svinicki and William Ostendorff.

Jaczko, in a detailed response also sent to the White House, said problems at the agency were not his fault but instead stem from “lack of understanding” on the part of the other four commissioners.

Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., said Saturday that Jaczko should be fired.

Shimkus, who chairs an Energy and Commerce subcommittee on environment and the economy, said President Barack Obama “has a responsibility to correct deficiencies in the executive branch _ and obviously this is a clear deficiency payday loan lenders.” Shimkus led a hearing this spring that centered on Jaczko’s leadership style, and complaints that he is autocratic and ignores his fellow commissioners.

“I would have thought that would have given (Jaczko) an opportunity to kind of turn things around. It seems like things got worse, not better,” Shimkus said.

A spokesman for the White House declined to comment Saturday.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., supported Jaczko, saying Saturday that the NRC needs to move away from a “do nothing” culture.

Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, praised Jaczko for a “swift and effective response” to Japan’s nuclear crisis and said the NRC commissioners should support Jaczko “as he translates the lessons of Fukushima into an action plan that will make America’s nuclear plants the safest in the world.”

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., also backed Jaczko. Late Friday, Markey made public a 23-page report accusing the four NRC commissioners of trying to impede U.S. nuclear safety reviews after the Japan crisis.

“Instead of doing what they have been sworn to do, these four commissioners have attempted a coup on the chairman and have abdicated their responsibility to the American public to assure the safety of America’s nuclear industry,” said Markey, a longtime nuclear critic.

Jaczko was an aide to Markey before joining Reid’s staff.

The dispute comes after an inspector general’s report released in June exposed long-simmering internal strife under Jaczko. In August, Republican senators asked the inspector general to investigate whether Jaczko had authority to declare the Japan nuclear crisis an emergency _ which grants him additional powers _ since the crisis occurred on foreign soil.

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Premier Mario Monti has called a Cabinet meeting in Rome on Sunday to approve emergency austerity and growth measures aimed at saving the euro currency from collapse, his office said in a statement.

The premier, an economist who once was an EU commissioner, is under extreme pressure to come up with speedy and credible measures that will persuade markets to stop betting against the common currency.

The meeting was originally scheduled for Monday, when Monti is also expected to outline the measures to both houses of Parliament on Monday.

The premier has been briefing political parties, unions, business groups and consumer lobbies on his plans over the weekend.

Monti hasn’t disclosed details of his rescue plan, but has said it includes both austerity cuts and measures to boost growth in Italy’s anemic economy. He has promised it would be socially equitable, and that it would go after those who hadn’t paid their share of taxes before

Italian borrowing costs have spiked, which could spell disaster if Italy is unable to keep up on payments to service its enormous debt of euro1.9 trillion ($2.57 trillion), or 120 percent of its GDP.

Unlike Greece, Portugal and Ireland, which got bailouts after their borrowing rates skyrocketed, the eurozone’s third-largest economy is considered to be too big to bail out. An Italian default would be disastrous for the 17-member eurozone and reverberate throughout the global economy.

The head of Italy’s industrial lobby said Sunday that the survival of the common euro currency depends on Italy’s coming up with very strong austerity and growth measures _ followed by a concerted effort at the European level so that Italian sacrifices are not in vain.

The various parties briefed have said the package likely includes reinstating an unpopular home property tax abolished by Berlusconi, raising the sales tax and the income tax at the highest brackets by a few percentage points, and requiring Italians to work more than the 40 years now needed to receive a pension.

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A U.S. trade envoy has accused China’s government of increasing its role in the economy in violation of its free-trade pledges and he appealed to Beijing to reconsider its embrace of “state capitalism.”

The comments reflect a harder U.S. tone toward Beijing amid disputes over market access for banking and other services and complaints China is supporting its producers of solar power and other technology despite promising to allow free competition.

In a speech this week, the U.S. ambassador to the World Trade Organization cited a “troubling trend” of increased Chinese government intervention in the economy over the past five years despite its WTO commitments to open its markets.

The ambassador, Michael Punke, made the comments Wednesday in Geneva, according to a transcript on the website of the U.S. Trade Representative’s office. He was speaking at a WTO meeting for the tenth and final annual review of China’s compliance with its WTO obligations since it joined the body in 2001.

“China seems to be embracing state capitalism more strongly each year, rather than continuing to move toward the economic reform goals that originally drove its pursuit of WTO membership,” he said. “This is a troubling development, and the United States urges the Chinese government to reconsider the path it is on.”

During a trip through Asia last month, President Barack Obama called on Beijing to show more maturity in its economic relations with other nations.

“Increasingly, trade frictions with China can be traced to China’s pursuit of industrial policies that rely on trade-distorting government actions to promote or protect China’s state-owned enterprises and domestic industries,” Punke said.

China’s trade and economy have grown rapidly since 2001, propelling it past Japan as the world’s second-largest economy behind the United States and financing a military buildup that has alarmed its neighbors.

On Wednesday, China’s Defense Ministry criticized Washington’s strengthened military pact with Australia as a throwback to “Cold War thinking.”

Beijing has alarmed foreign companies by unveiling initiatives to build up state-owned corporate champions in an array of fields from telecommunications to wind energy.

Business groups complain Beijing appears to be trying to squeeze foreign companies out of its clean energy and other promising industries. They have questioned whether the communist government wants to live up to pledges to allow foreign companies to compete on an equal footing with Chinese rivals.

Punke said that in its first five years of WTO membership, Beijing took “impressive steps” to reduce tariffs, eliminate trade barriers and improve protection for intellectual property rights.

But he noted complaints that Beijing tries to intimidate foreign companies, threatening to retaliate if they speak up about problematic policies or cooperate with their governments in challenging them.

Punke complained that Beijing appears to resort to trade actions in response to legitimate steps by the United States and other trading partners under their trade laws.

Last month, China launched a probe of U.S. government support for its solar, wind and other renewable energy industries after American authorities agreed to investigate a complaint by a group of companies that Beijing improperly subsidizes exports of solar panels and hurts foreign competitors.

“This type of conduct is at odds with fundamental principles of the WTO’s rules-based system,” Punke said.

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Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh was in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to sign a U.S.-backed power transfer deal mediated by Gulf Arab states to resolve the impoverished country’s crisis, Yemen’s state television reported.

Saleh has repeatedly promised to sign the Gulf-brokered agreement, only to change his mind every time. Under the deal, Saleh would step down and transfer power to the vice president in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

The TV said Saleh arrived in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Wednesday morning but did not say when the deal would be signed. It said that along with Gulf Arab representatives who sponsored the agreement, European and American envoys would also attend the signing.

Saleh has clung to power despite an 8-month-old uprising, mass protests calling for his ouster and a June assassination attempt that left him badly wounded and forced him to travel to Saudi Arabia for more than three months of hospital treatment.

But things appeared to be shifting on Tuesday, when the U.N. secretary-general’s envoy to Yemen, Jamal bin Omar, said all parties had agreed on a plan that would have Saleh step down.

“All parties agreed today on the Gulf initiative and the implementation of its mechanism,” bin Omar said after meetings with Yemen’s vice president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, in Sanaa.

Security in Yemen has unraveled amid the uprising against Saleh’s 30-year reign. The situation is particularly bad in the south, where al-Qaida militants _ from what is perhaps the world’s most active branch of the terror network _ have taken control of entire towns, using the turmoil to strengthen their position.

The unarmed protesters have held their ground with remarkable resilience, flocking to the streets of Sanaa and other Yemeni cities and towns to demand reforms from the autocratic government and braving a violent crackdown by government forces that has killed hundreds.

But their uprising, inspired by other Arab revolts in the region that saw longtime rulers of Egypt and Tunisa go, has at times been hijacked by Yemen’s two traditional powers _ the tribes and the military _ further deepening the country’s turmoil.

Breakaway military units and tribal fighters have been battling in Sanaa with troops loyal to Saleh, in fighting that has escalated in recent months.

An impoverished nation of some 25 million people, Yemen is of strategic value to the United States and its Gulf Arab allies, particularly Saudi Arabia. It sits close to the major Gulf oilfields and overlooks key shipping lanes in the Red and Arabian seas.

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Throw a dart at a map of Europe now and it takes expert aim to hit a country run by a left-of-center government, especially after Spain’s Socialists were emphatically drubbed out of power over the weekend.

Although the shift to the right began years ago in such heavyweights as France and Germany, it is now all but complete three years into the continent’s grinding debt and economic crisis. Why? When times get tough _ when “the cows get thin” as the Spanish say _ political experts say edgy voters seek comfort with conservatives.

“The center-right is the natural preference in times of crisis,” said Piotr Kaczynski of the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels. “If you look at societies and how they make their preferences, they all tend to vote more conservative in times of crisis and more center-left in times of economic progress.”

Granted, on the European Union map there are scattered spots of leftist liberalism. A new Social Democratic government runs Denmark, there is a center left government in Norway and there is a broad Social Democratic-led coalition in Austria. And the Socialists might beat conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy in France’s presidential election next year.

But Kaczynski said there is no doubt the European left faces an uphill battle in re-establishing itself with an appealing message and the means to enact it, despite widespread disillusionment with go-go capitalism as seen in the Occupy Wall Street protests and Europe’s widespread anti-austerity marches.

In Spain, voters enduring a 21.5 jobless rate ejected the Socialists and install the center-right Popular Party by a crushing margin in Sunday’s election.

Voters dumped the Socialists in Portugal earlier this year and the Labour Party in Britain last year, in both cases shifting to conservative parties. A technocrat government has taken over in the last month from Greece’s Socialist prime minister.

Kaczynski said is not an ironclad rule that a government will be dumped from power during an economic crisis. He cited the cases of troubled governments being re-elected in Latvia, Estonia _ a member of the eurozone _ and Poland, and said as long as the public concludes the government is capable and taking the right approach to a financial crisis, it might get a second chance.

That was not the case for Spain’s Socialists, due to the poor record of outgoing Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in fighting unemployment and in resurrecting an economy that overcome nearly two years of recession in 2010 only to stall again last quarter.

His punishment: the conservative Popular Party won 186 seats in the 350-seat lower chamber of Parliament, up from 154, while the Socialists plummeted from 169 seats to 110, their worst performance ever.

“Clearly, Spain is the biggest loss for the European Socialists. That is absolutely the case,” Kaczynski said.

In his first public comments, Zapatero _ who did not seek a third term _ said Monday that the austerity measures he took _ and which caused supporters to flee in a stampede _ “put the national interests ahead of party interests.”

Spanish stock and bond markets shrugged off the Popular Party win because it was so widely expected and because leader Mariano Rajoy has yet to spell out how he will attack Spain’s unemployment debacle, deficit and growth woes.

However, some experts say Europe is not going right ideologically but rather seeking something _ anything _ new to get out of its quagmire.

“I wouldn’t say Europe is turning to the right. It’s basically the crisis is crushing the incumbents,” said Eurasia Group’s analyst for Europe, Antonio Barroso. “People are disappointed in the bad economic data, high unemployment and basically they are voting for the other alternative.”

He noted that in Italy, conservative premier Silvio Berlusconi was forced to resign this month as the eurozone crisis centered on his debt-laden country _ but that was to a technocratic administration, not to leftist politicians.

Barroso also mentioned the 2012 French presidential race and Sarkozy’s record low approval rating. The feisty French conservative is trailing the Socialist Francois Hollande badly in the polls, although he has recovered a bit in recent weeks.

Socialists are strong in local and regional politics in France: They head 24 of France’s 26 regional governments and run major cities including Paris, Lyon, and Lille. Most recently, in September, the Socialists wrested control of the Senate, Parliament’s upper house, for the first time in more than a half-century _ seen by many as a rebuff to Sarkozy.

In Germany, conservative Angela Merkel beat the center-left’s Gerhard Schroeder in 2005 after he pushed through labor market reforms and welfare state cuts. The moves angered his leftist supporters but they are credited with bolstering Germany’s strength in the current financial crisis.

However, Stephen Lewis of Monument Securities in London agreed it is perhaps natural for people to turn to the right in times of extreme financial hardship. He noted it happened in the 1930s during the Depression.

“It is not surprising that we are seeing all these right-wing governments appear as a result of elections or imposed from Brussels,” Lewis said.

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Carol Behr thinks she knows why many students at Southern Illinois University Carbondale are buying their books online, and it’s not just the convenience.

It’s the sales tax savings, says Behr, a vice president of Kennedy Book Store, which owns Southern Illinois Book & Supply in Carbondale. The company also has a store in Lexington, Ky., and of the two, she says the Carbondale store has lost more business to competitors such as Amazon.com.

The difference? Kentucky doesn’t charge sales tax on textbooks, but Illinois does.

To Behr, the slipping Illinois sales figures highlight an unfair competitive situation. “A business is a business,” she says. “Why do I have to charge sales tax and they don’t, if we’re in the same business?”

Ten senators, including Illinois Democrat Richard Durbin and Missouri Republican Roy Blunt, introduced a bill Wednesday that would remove Amazon’s competitive advantage over bookstores such as the one in Carbondale. And, surprisingly, Amazon has endorsed the bill.

The proposed Marketplace Fairness Act would require retailers to collect taxes on remote sales, including those made online or through mail order. It would apply only to businesses with at least $500,000 of remote sales, and only in states that adopt a simplified sales tax structure.

Large sums of money are at stake. William Fox, a professor of economics at the University of Tennessee, estimates that state and local governments lose $11.4 billion a year in revenue from online retail sales, and a total of $23.6 billion from untaxed online, catalog and business-to-business sales.

In the past, Amazon has fought hard to avoid collecting its share of that money. In Illinois, North Carolina and Rhode Island, it canceled relationships with local affiliates to get around so-called “Amazon tax” laws. In Texas, it threatened to close a warehouse rather than pay $269 million in sales taxes.

Now, though, Amazon says it ’strongly supports enactment” of the Marketplace Fairness Act. Not all companies agree: eBay, for example, says the bill “fails to protect small business retailers using the Internet.”

Past congressional efforts to address the sales tax issue

ROME—His legacy tarnished and his hopes of clinging to power dashed, Silvio Berlusconi faces daunting legal and financial challenges once he vacates the premier’s office and faces the prospect of life outside the international spotlight.

He has vowed he won’t run again for office, though few expect he’ll abandon Italian politics for good. Berlusconi himself has already said he might help out a campaign here or there because, well, “they’ve always turned out well for me.”

But with Berlusconi’s resignation as premier Saturday following months of market turmoil, a political era in Italy closes and the 75-year-old Berlusconi is just a billionaire businessman once again.

“What we are viewing now is not the end of a government, but the end of a system, of a political system,” said Massimo Franco, a political analyst for leading daily Corriere Della Sera.

Indeed, Berlusconi dominated Italian politics for the last 17 years, a polarizing figure who served three terms as premier. He held off political opponents and jousted with magistrates pursuing him on corruption and sexual misconduct charges, but was felled by massive international and market pressure.

The media mogul had thrived rubbing shoulders with the powerful, whether vacationing with Russia’s Vladimir Putin or getting a taste of Texas ranch life when hosted by then President George W. Bush in a meeting of Iraq war allies.

But seen as an impediment to economic reform, his exit came quickly as Italy was swept up by Europe’s debt crisis.

Whether he goes back to running his media empire or even returning to the vacant post as president of his beloved AC Milan soccer team, he faces an unpleasant agenda. Judging from how his media voices are reacting, it won’t be a completely quiet exit.

“Stop a Europe of technocrats,” clamoured a headline in the family newspaper Il Giornale of Italy’s presumed new government headed by economist Mario Monti. “This government is a coup.”

Berlusconi’s resignation will mean he can no longer claim official government business as a reason for missing hearings in his three trials, a tactic that has been used to delay proceedings. His attempt at fashioning a law that would have given him immunity was overturned by the constitutional Court.

But charges in two Milan trials related to his business dealings will run out due to the statute of limitations early next year — leaving little peril that the billionaire would face any penalty even if courts can reach a conviction in the first trial. The Italian system allows for two levels of appeal.

Berlusconi is expected to testify before Christmas in his trial on charges of paying British lawyer David Mills to lie for him on the stand in another case. A verdict is expected in late January, but with the statute of limitations set to expire in March, it is impossible that two levels of appeal could be completed to make any verdict final bad credit payday advance.

Berlusconi has denied the charge, and Mills saw his conviction overturned on appeal.

In the other trial concerning his Mediaset media empire, Berlusconi is charged with tax fraud in the purchase of TV rights. Berlusconi denies the charges, which also expire in the spring.

In Berlusconi’s most sensational trial, the 75-year-old is accused of paying for sex with a Moroccan teen — known by her nickname Ruby Rubacuore, “Ruby the Heartstealer” — and using his influence to cover it up. No fewer than 22 court dates have been scheduled through May.

A conviction would mean Berlusconi would be permanently barred from public office — but he has already pledged not to run again and his hopes of one day becoming Italian president were dashed by the sex scandal.

That leaves the billionaire back where he started: running his considerable empire. The economic crisis has made that more challenging.

Shares in Mediaset have lost half of their value since May, as the debt crisis lapped ever more perilously at Italian businesses, and dropped by as much as 10 per cent in trading sessions this week as Berlusconi’s political future was decided by the markets.

Mediaset — which is controlled by the family holding company Fininvest and includes private TV stations as well as newspapers and other publications — dropped from €4.242 a share in May to €2.142 on Friday.

“It could be that Berlusconi is very scared by the financial crisis. If you think that Fininvest is 95 per cent invested in Italy,” said Carlo Guarnieri, a political scientist as the University of Bologna.

Even more dangerous was his loss of a civil suit to rival media group over corruption in the acquisition of the Mondadori publishing empire. A court has ordered him to €560 million ($800 million) for corrupting a judge.

Alarmed by the amount, Berlusconi went as far as quietly introducing a measure into Italy’s austerity budget this summer that would have allowed the company to delay payment until the final appeal, but withdrew it after political opponents raised an outcry.

He can still count on friends in high places to look after his interests: his 41-year-old political heir, Angelo Alfano, now heads his People of Liberties party and he remains its founder.

But Franco, the Corriere della Sera analyst, said Berlusconi’s future in the near-term is probably not on Italy’s centre political stage.

“I think Berlusconi can just survive, maybe with a personal party, but I don’t think he is due to rule and lead Italy in the foreseeable future any more,” he said.

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The Federal Reserve, after employing a dwindling set of policy options at its last two meetings, may hit the pause button in hopes that the faint signs of the economy’s rebound will grow stronger.

By taking a wait-and-see approach, the Fed would be buying time to assess whether its actions in August and September are having the desired effect of lowering long-term interest rates enough to jump-start growth.

The Fed’s decision will be announced around mid-day Wednesday following two days of closed-door discussions.

The central bank will also release an updated economic forecast and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will hold a news conference to discuss the Fed’s new forecast.

It will be Bernanke’s third news conference after a Fed meeting and will continue a practice he began last April in an effort to give the public a better understanding of the Fed’s decision-making.

Most economists believe the Fed will leave policy unchanged, although it will be a close call.

“It is about 50-50 on whether they will do anything. There is evidence the economy is continuing to grow, but we still have a fundamentally weak economy,” said Brian Bethune, economics professor at Amherst College.

Financial markets in the United States and around the world were jolted Tuesday after Greece’s prime minister made the surprise decision to call a referendum on the country’s latest rescue package. The move sparked fears that the entire debt deal could unravel, that Greece could default on its debt and that the crisis could ripple through the global financial system.

Economists said Europe was sure to be a major discussion topic during the Fed meeting.

“They will talk about Europe, but I don’t expect any action,” said David Jones, head of DMJ Advisors, a Denver-based consulting group. “The Fed will not respond to the problems in Europe until it is clear they are causing a significant weakening in economic activity in the United States.”

David Wyss, former chief economist at Standard & Poor’s, said one reason for the Fed’s reluctance to do more is that they don’t have many policy options left.

“They know they are running out of tools so they don’t want to employ another one unless they have to,” he said.

The economy nearly stalled out during the first six months of the year, with growth slowing to an anemic 0.9 percent, the slowest pace since the recession ended in June 2009 low fee pay day loans.

However, the government reported last week that growth rebounded modestly in the summer with the economy expanding at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the July-September period, the best quarterly performance in a year.

While the economy would have to nearly double from the 2.5 percent rate to make a significant dent in high unemployment, the faster growth at least eases fears of a new recession.

At its Aug. 9 meeting, the central bank approved changing its guidance on future policy to say it hoped to keep a key interest rate, which has been near zero since December 2008, at a record low through at least mid-2013, as long as inflation does not become a threat.

The belief was that such an assurance would give investors more confidence that rates would not begin rising any time soon and help to push long-term rates down farther.

At the next meeting on Sept. 20-21, the Fed voted to shift $400 billion of its holdings from short-term to long-term Treasury securities in another effort to push already low long-term rates down further. These rates are critical for consumers borrowing to buy homes and cars and for businesses borrowing to make investments to expand their operations.

Both the August and September moves were approved on 7-3 votes with three regional bank presidents _ Richard Fisher of Dallas, Charles Plosser of Philadelphia and Narayana Kocherlakota of Minneapolis _ voting no because of concerns the actions raise the threat of future inflation.

That was the largest number of dissents in nearly 20 years from an action by the Federal Open Market Committee, the panel of Fed governors and central bank presidents who meet eight times a year to set interest-rate policies.

On the other side are at least four Fed officials, Vice Chair Janet Yellen, Governor Daniell Tarullo, Chicago Fed President Charles Evans and New York Fed President William Dudley who have expressed concerns that the economy is still at risk and may need more support.

If the Fed does move again, many believe it will not occur until either the December meeting or early next year. Some economists believe the likely next change would be a further tweaking of the Fed’s communication efforts.

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For three years now, Efrem Rone has been keeping a close eye on an Adelaide St. E. parking lot, watching for a condo sales centre to rise from the asphalt.

“I know how things work,” says Rone, 45. “If you don’t get on the list (to get into the sales centre early), the best units are gone, prices start going up and you’re stuck with the leftovers.”

His agent was getting nowhere, despite registering early to view floor plans for the 22-storey Ivory on Adelaide project. So Rone was surprised last weekend to walk past an Ivory on Adelaide sales centre bustling with activity.

“On the door was taped an ad from a Chinese newspaper with a picture of what the project would look like. Deals were being done,” says Rone. “It looked like the sales centre was open for business, but only to people of a certain ethnicity.”

Toronto’s condo market is on fire. And much of the frenzy is being fuelled by investors, many of them Asians, who are being given preferential treatment — early access to the best and cheapest units.

“It may look like discrimination, but these people have actually earned the right to be first in line. Any business will go to their best customers first,” says realtor turned condo developer Brad Lamb.

Almost 68,000 new units are now in the planning stages or under construction across the GTA as investors, a lot of them immigrants with ties to Hong Kong and mainland China, the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Russia and Brazil, look to cash in on the biggest condo boom in the world.

A record 20,729 units have been sold in the GTA as of the end of September — smashing the pre-recession record for the same period in 2007 of 17,285. An estimated 45 to 60 per cent have been snapped up by investors, with estimates closer to 90 per cent in some newer downtown condo projects.

They are looking for solid investments in a shaky world — the keys to hard assets like real estate.

“We are a tranquil island in a sea of despair,” says one of Toronto’s leading condo development consultants Barry Lyon. “If it wasn’t for the multicultural community, we would have no condo market to speak of right now in Toronto.”

Even realtors who find themselves, and their clients, with no hope of being among the first buyers in all these new glass and steel towers springing up on Toronto’s skyline understand why this is happening.

Targeting agents with strong ties to big buyers in the multicultural community — one developer calls them his “rainmaker list” — means developers can sell 70 per cent of the units in a project faster, which keeps costs down. That’s what most banks demand before they will free up loans to start construction.

The practice has paid off: In 2005, it took an average of 13 months for condo builders to sell 70 per cent of their units, says George Carras, president of RealNet Canada, which monitors building activity across the GTA.

This year, they’re hitting the threshold in just four months, largely because of their “growing sophistication” in wooing brokers who can deliver multiple investors.

Carras likens the process to Initial Public Offerings of stocks. Those willing to spend the most and not afraid of risk potentially get the biggest payback.

But some agents complain that a handful of condo builders, such as Plaza Corp., are being so aggressive at racking up early sales, it’s becoming impossible for the average buyer, looking for a home or little investment property, to get in before prices are less affordable.

It also gets tougher to find the most desirable units, such as the cheapest one-bedroom corner units high enough to have a view.

Several realtors spoke to The Star about the focus on investment buyers, but none would be named for fear of being blacklisted from getting access to any units at all, which are now essential to their livelihood.

One Asian agent who has sold numerous Plaza Corp. units, said he had to pull strings to get clients a peek at their York Harbour Club project on the Railway Lands: “I’m not part of their stable of VIP agents.”

“York Harbour Club was a little bit unfair to the public,” concedes Plaza Corp. vice-president Scott McClellan. “The (pre-sales) took off on us a little bit and we probably didn’t have as much as we wanted to have for the general public.”

By the time the public could buy, just 30 per cent of units were available.

“This isn’t new. Everybody does it,” says McLellan of what he calls his “rainmaker list” — realtors who can deliver 15 or more buyers willing to buy from floor plans, rather than wait for built units.

McLellan says all of the early buyers of Ivory on Adelaide are Canadian citizens, buying units as long-term investments or as homes for their kids or relatives who might be migrating from overseas.

No one knows how much is offshore investment.

Lyon points out that investors have become essential landlords in a city where almost no one is building apartments. He also sees the units as “warehousing” for first-time buyers who can rent while saving up a down payment. Often investors are willing to sell without requiring the 20 per cent down payment a bank demands.

“These investors bear no relationship to the speculators of the 1980s,” Lyon says. “They’re very sophisticated” and recognize Toronto as a bargain compared with other major cities in the world.

A lot of developers point out they hold back units so less high-achieving realtors, and the public, don’t miss out altogether. Often they are at higher prices — parking spots alone can be almost $10,000 more expensive — but McLellan says there are no plans to raise unit prices on Ivory on Adelaide when the public gets their first crack this weekend.

Rone is fairly savvy — he has been involved in the condo market since 2006 — but is still shaking his head: “This just seems unfair.”

He finally got his email invitation to the “grand opening” of the Ivory on Adelaide sales centre Friday. Like everyone else who may walk through the doors, he has no clue that almost half — 43.5 per cent — of the 358 units have already been sold.

McLellan insists that no buyer is being left out. Even those who’ve dropped by the last few days have been asked to leave their names.

But Rone’s agent now knows she gained nothing by registering early and that the smallest and most affordable places will likely be gone.

“I’m not going to lie and tell you that I haven’t heard this (complaints about the early sales process) before,” McLellan says. “I have people who have called me upset. We figure it out for them.

“Have him give me a call.”

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