The International Monetary Fund said Britain requires further monetary easing to boost the economy and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne should consider budget stimulus including temporary tax cuts.
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Greek party leaders are to resume power-sharing talks Monday as negotiations to create a government drag into a second week, raising the specter of fresh elections that could threaten the crisis-stricken country’s international bailout and its membership of the euro.
President Karolos Papoulias has summoned party leaders back to negotiations at 7:30 p.m. (1630GMT), after talks on Sunday failed to lead to the creation of a coalition government.
The conservatives New Democracy party won May 6 general elections, but the poll failed to produce an outright winner. The second-placed left wing party, Syriza, has refused to join a coalition, demanding that the terms of an international bailout be scrapped or radically renegotiated.
Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras will not attend Monday’s meeting, party officials said.
“They are looking for an accomplice to continue their catastrophic work _ we will not help them,” Panos Skourletis, a spokesman for the party, told Mega television.
The political turmoil has taken a toll on markets across Europe, with shares on the Athens Stock Exchange 3.5 percent lower at 590.38 in midday trading.
“Voices of support (in Europe) to Greece … are becoming fewer and fewer, while there is a frenetic increase of those that are predicting the country’s exit from the euro,” an editorial in Greece’s top-selling Ta Nea said. “The dramatic drop in state revenues during the election campaign and the serious souring of the atmosphere in Europe toward Greece mean that after almost certain repeat elections there will be a need for even tougher austerity measures.”
Greece’s two traditionally dominant parties, New Democracy and the Socialist PASOK were hammered on May 6, as the bailed-out country suffers through a fifth year of recession, with more than one in five Greeks out of work.
Since the election, Syriza has gained support, and in a survey published Monday led with a projected 20.5 percent of public support, pushing New Democracy to second place with 19.4 percent, while PASOK was third with 11.8 percent. No margin of error was given in the Rass poll of 1,002 people, conducted May 10-11 for the Eleftheros Typos newspaper.
New Democracy and PASOK could form a government without Syriza, but the small Democratic Left party that would provide the required support is insisting that such a coalition would be unworkable.
“The president has invited us to a new meeting and I will attend,” Democratic Left leader Fotis Kouvelis told Antenna television. “I will repeat my position, that without the participation of the second largest party, the government would not have sufficient popular and parliamentary support.
Shut out of main debt markets, Greece is surviving on rescue loans from other euro countries and the International Monetary Fund, who have repeatedly warned that payments will only continue if the country continues its draconian cost-cutting program.
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Defying expectations, Congress has reached the homestretch on a major overhaul of federal transportation programs that is critical if the nation is to avoid steep cutbacks in highway and transit aid.
The bill is driven partly by election-year politics. Both Congress and President Barack Obama have made transportation infrastructure investment the centerpiece of their jobs agendas. But the political imperative for passing a bill has been complicated by House Republicans’ insistence on including a mandate for federal approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The White House has threatened to veto the measure if it retains the Keystone provision.
And there are other points of disagreement between the GOP-controlled House and Democratic-controlled Senate, including how to pay for transportation programs and how much leverage the federal government should have over how states spend their aid money. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has said it’s unlikely Congress will pass a final bill until after the November elections.
Despite LaHood’s pessimism, lawmakers and transportation lobbyists said they believe prospects are improving for passage of a final bill by June 30, when the government’s authority to spend highway trust fund money expires. The fund, which pays for roads and transit, is forecast to go broke sometime next year.
A House-Senate conference committee is scheduled to begin formal negotiations May 8.
It has taken Congress years to get this far. Work on a transportation overhaul began before the last long-term transportation bill expired in 2009. The Senate finally passed a $109 billion bill with broad bipartisan support in March. The bill would give states more flexibility in how they spend federal money, step up the pace of road construction by shortening environmental reviews and impose a wide array of new safety regulations.
House Republicans, after failing to corral enough votes to pass their own plan, recently passed a placeholder bill that allows them to begin negotiations with the Senate. That bill included the Keystone provision, as well as provisions limiting the public’s ability to challenge transportation projects on environmental grounds and taking away the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate toxic coal ash.
“I feel like people are worn out on this issue and would like to get something done,” said Jeff Shoaf, a lobbyist with the Associated General Contractors of America, a trade association for the construction industry. “I think the prospects are good.”
Winning approval of the Keystone provision, which would give federal regulators no choice but to approve a pipeline to transport oil from Canada’s tar sands, appears to be House Speaker John Boehner’s top priority, lawmakers and transportation lobbyists said instant payday loan.
Republicans portray Obama’s delay in the pipeline as a contributor to high gasoline prices. “Boehner wants to push Keystone as hard as he can because he sees it as a political winner,” said Joshua Schank, president and CEO of the Eno Center for Transportation, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to improving transportation.
Senate Democratic conferees on the bill appear to have enough votes to block inclusion of the Keystone provision in the final product. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., one of four Senate committee chairmen responsible for a portion of the bill, has announced he’ll oppose Keystone and other House environmental provisions.
An open question is whether House Republicans will balk on an overall transportation bill if they can’t get Keystone. Similarly, despite their public statements, it’s unclear whether Senate Democrats would be willing to sacrifice the bill in order to block a Keystone provision, and whether Obama would follow through on his veto threat, especially if the Keystone language were softened in negotiations.
The president painted a bleak picture of America’s infrastructure in a speech Monday to union workers in the construction industry, saying U.S. highways are clogged, railroads are no longer the fastest in the world and airports are congested. A transportation construction bill would boost employment and the economy, but “the House Republicans are refusing to pass a bipartisan bill that could guarantee work for millions of construction workers,” Obama said, referring to the Senate bill.
“Instead of making the investments we need to get ahead, they’re willing to let us all fall further behind,” he said.
The transportation bill “is incredibly important to the president,” said Ed Wytkind, president of the transportation trades department of the AFL-CIO.
Both sides ultimately must decide whether they want an issue to be used as a campaign weapon or an accomplishment they can tout to voters.
Dave Bauer, a lobbyist for the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, cautioned against reading too much into what congressional conferees say at this point.
“Before they even get to a conference table, some seem to be trying to make this all about Keystone, and it’s not,” he said.
If you’re in your mid-40s, you should expect an unpleasant retirement surprise from Uncle Sam.
The Social Security trust fund is scheduled to run out of money in 2033, about when today’s 40-something workers hit retirement age. When that day arrives, all Social Security checks would have to be reduced by about 25 percent.
For most retirees, that’s a doomsday scenario. A 25 percent cut would leave them unable to pay their everyday bills.
Unfortunately, doomsday keeps drawing closer. As recently as 2005, the Social Security trustees thought insolvency was 47 years in the future. Their latest report, issued last week, moved it up 3 years, and it’s now just 22 years away.
The recession, which caused a drop in payroll tax revenue and forced some people to retire earlier than they had planned, played a major role in eroding the system’s finances. In the past year, the trustees said, workers’ hours – and thus the taxes they paid – didn’t grow as fast as had been projected.
If the job market remains weak for a couple more years – which wouldn’t surprise a lot of economists – we’ll keep moving closer to Social Security’s moment of crisis.
Congress, however, doesn’t seem to feel the urgency. As has been said often, some relatively small tweaks now could make it solvent for 75 years or more. Plenty of reasonable fixes have been proposed, but all of them can be labeled as a combination of tax increases and benefit cuts.
Republicans balk at tax increases, and Democrats refuse to accept benefit cuts, so nothing gets done.
It also would have made Social Security more progressive, making steeper cuts for wealthier retirees while protecting the poor. Simpson-Bowles was a sensible package, but it was pronounced dead on arrival. Congress would rather risk long-term calamity than make some politically unpopular choices.
The trustees’ report contains some good arguments for acting soon. For one thing, the disability portion of the trust fund is headed for exhaustion in 2016. Congress can address that insolvency by moving money from the old-age fund, but it may as well look for a comprehensive solution instead of a Band-Aid.
The report also makes clear that the necessary combination of benefit cuts and tax increases will be about 50 percent larger if we wait 20 years to address the problem.
How do we convince Congress to make those relatively small tweaks now? Josh Gordon, policy director at the bipartisan Concord Coalition, thinks the debate should focus on Social Security’s negative cash flow instead of on a faraway insolvency date.
Social Security added $45 billion to the deficit last year, and that amount will rise sharply by the end of this decade as Baby Boomers retire. “It really is a federal budget urgency,” Gordon said. “If we wait 20 or 30 years to make changes, there will be too much debt growth.”
Perhaps we need a law that would divert all congressional salaries and benefits into the Social Security trust fund when it becomes insolvent. It wouldn’t be enough to solve the problem, but might be enough to spur action.
There is no convincing evidence that cellphone use poses a threat to human health, according to an extensive review of scientific evidence released Thursday.
A team of scientists with the UK
Germany’s finance minister says he’s confident a German-backed pact enforcing more fiscal discipline among European governments will be ratified despite new political uncertainty.
Wolfgang Schaeuble said that the treaty “will be ratified in all countries, I have no doubt about that.”
French Socialist Francois Hollande, who led in the first round of president elections Sunday, has called for renegotiating the pact.
Meanwhile, the Netherlands faces early elections after its minority government collapsed over a failure to agree on austerity measures needed to bring the country’s deficit within EU-stipulated limits.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
BERLIN (AP) _ Germany mounted a spirited defense of its pro-austerity stance on Tuesday, with both Chancellor Angela Merkel and her foreign minister calling for a continued drive for fiscal discipline across Europe in spite of the latest bout of political uncertainty.
Investors took fright of the 17 countries that use the euro Monday on concerns that the so-called fiscal compact of strict austerity and deficit controls agreed by European leaders earlier this year was beginning to unravel.
French Socialist Francois Hollande edged ahead with a narrow lead in Sunday’s first round of presidential elections with a pledge to renegotiate the pact to give greater emphasis to growth over austerity. Meanwhile, the Netherlands faces early elections after its minority government collapsed over a failure to agree on austerity measures.
On top of this, Spain _ which is currently going through a harsh program of cuts and tax increases _ announced it was entering a recession and a survey of purchasing managers across Europe pointed to a contraction in the region’s economy.
Merkel didn’t specifically mention the fiscal pact in a speech in Berlin but noted that, in its early years, West Germany ran up barely any debt. She said that “today, we have to get back to that situation.”
“One can talk about how we do it … but to act as though it were an imposition to get by with what we are earning, (to say) we will carry on carting around the rucksack with debt _ no one will accept it from us, in any European country,” Merkel said.
“I want to say clearly, it is not the case that we say saving solves every problem but, if you at home talk about how you want to shape your life tolerably, then one of the first conditions is that you somehow get by with what you earn,” she said.
Germany’s budget deficit is well under the limit of 3 percent of gross domestic product that eurozone countries are supposed to observe, but its total debt amounts to 81.2 percent of GDP _ well above the official 60 percent limit.
Germany and France, under incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy, have piloted rescue efforts for other eurozone countries as the region has been swept up in a succession of debt crises over the past two years. Berlin has insisted on an often-criticized emphasis on budget discipline and cuts.
Merkel pushed hard for other European countries to agree to the fiscal compact, designed to limit government overspending, and 25 national leaders signed it earlier this year.
Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Tuesday that “we agreed on the pact after long negotiations. It is necessary.”
“What we have agreed on in Europe to overcome the debt crisis is agreed and it holds. It will not be made dependent on election results,” he said. “Governments act for their countries and not for themselves.”
It isn’t yet clear when the German Parliament will vote on the pact, which needs a two-thirds majority in Parliament.
That means it needs the support of the main center-left opposition Social Democratic Party, which wants the government to agree to introduce a financial transaction tax _ though leaders have stopped short of saying that is a condition.
Merkel’s government aims to get the fiscal pact passed before the summer. Social Democrat leader Sigmar Gabriel has argued that a vote could take place later.
Ever known a woman who drives a forklift?
Neither has Melinda Barbaglia. She has yet to meet one, even though she and her sister sell, service and stock replacement parts for forklift trucks.
“They didn’t teach Forklift 101 at Webster University,” said Barbaglia, who holds a graduate degree in marketing from the school.
A recent Post-Dispatch story that detailed how other cities are outpacing St. Louis in the growth of businesses owned by women struck a chord, for obvious reasons, with Barbaglia. She agrees that female entrepreneurs have been held back by a shortage of support from state and local governmental interests. And she can also make an argument that, to a lesser degree, a male-dominated business community is slow to lose its grip.
At the same time, Barbaglia, her sister Teresa Pippen and mother, Linda, can make a pretty strong case for the ability of a business owned and operated by women to flourish in a good ol’ boy network.
Of the two sisters, Melinda was the one without a single intention of joining C&B Lift Truck Service — the company their father, Charlie, started from scratch 36 years ago.
Degree in hand, Melinda was about to launch a career in pharmaceutical sales when her father suggested he could use an extra hand at C&B.
She reported to work soon after and has been there ever since.
Charlie Barbaglia ran C&B up till the day he and the family celebrated his 60th birthday in 2005.
“He must have thought it was a retirement party, because he never came back to work,” laughs Linda Barbaglia.
“So, I said, ‘I guess we’re on our own, girls.’”
Fortunately, Melinda and Teresa were already immersed in the business.
Melinda, the “take charge” extrovert, applied her education by working the sales and marketing end.
To compensate for the absence of Forklift 101 in the Webster course catalog, Melinda indoctrinated herself in the nuances of pneumatic tires, monotrol transmissions and liquid petroleum to the point that she’s qualified to serve as an instructor in the mandatory safety courses OSHA demands of forklift operators.
Teresa, an introvert with a communications degree from Maryville University, was more than happy to handle bookkeeping and the office side of the business.
C&B’s seven other employees (including service manager Charlie Pippen, the service manager) are all men.
The Barbaglias admit that running a business in what remains a man’s world is not always easy.
For starters, not to stereotype, neither sister plays golf.
As for the other topic that breaks the ice among men — such as sports — the lifelong St. Louisans by necessity can be semi-conversant should the conversation turn to the fortunes of the Cardinals, Blues or Rams. But don’t expect them to tell you how many Detroit Tigers Bob Gibson struck out in the 1968 World Series. The vast majority of the company’s male clients “take their jobs very seriously,” Melinda said.
“They just want their forklift fixed,” Teresa added.
But some of them can be flirtatious, Melinda said.
A lot of years remain before the sisters retire. Melinda is 42 and Teresa is 36.
Still, looking ahead as she cradled Melinda’s 3-month-old daughter Abigail, Linda Barbaglia is fairly sure the second generation of Barbaglias to run C&B Fork Lift Truck Service will be the last.
Linda says the business that has sustained her family for 36 years is fast moving toward the day that favors neither male nor female — when robots take the wheel.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“I was offered an unpaid internship at a law firm but turned it down. If you can’t pay me $10 an hour, you don’t deserve to be in business. The job market makes me feel like stabbing myself in the face. - Adrienne Delibert, unemployed college graduate
Source: The New York Times
BY THE NUMBERS
37 percent of U.S. companies vet job candidates through social networking sites.
15 percent of U.S. employers prohibit the practice.
Source: CareerBuilder
FINAL WORD
“… While my Facebook page is private, my friends do include plenty of people I’ve worked with or for, or might hope to work with or for in the future. I also take it as given that any potential future employer or reference would use all the available tools to check me out – including finding out who we know in common via social networks.
And I think the effects can be subtle: Future employer X calls colleague Y to ask about me; colleague Y checks Facebook to get the latest….and instead of a link to a story I’m proud of, or even a video I find funny, he finds a photo of me and my baby boy making snuggly faces.
Whether he’s consciously wondering when, if ever, I’m going back to work or how dedicated I’ll be when I get there, I’ll never know. But I’d rather not wonder.” - Janet Paskin on a possible pitfall of TMI.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
The number of people filing for unemployment benefits fell last week, pointing to continued job growth in March.
The Labor Department reported that 357,000 people filed for their first week of jobless claims, falling roughly in line with economists’ expectations. That marks a decrease of 6,000 initial claims from the week before.
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Obama battles job crisis
The U.S. lost 4.3 million jobs in President Obama’s first 13 months in office. Track his progress since then.
Amid the worst of the recession in 2009, Americans at one point filed as many as 659,000 claims in one week. Since then, the job market has come a long way, albeit gradually cash advance loan.
Initial claims are now near levels not seen since April 2008, a sign that layoffs are slowing and hiring is picking up.
"Initial claims continue to head in one direction and that’s what makes it beautiful," said Jennifer Lee, a senior economist with BMO Capital Markets.
Weekly jobless claims can be volatile, so economists often prefer to look at the average number of claims over a four-week period. That figure also fell.
Meanwhile, about 3.3 million people filed for their second week of unemployment benefits or more in the week ended March 24, the most recent data available. That’s marks the lowest since August 2008.
Unemployment rate: How low can it go?
The downward trend in unemployment filings raises hopes that employers continued hiring at a strong pace in March. The Labor Department is scheduled to release the latest update on job growth and the unemployment rate on Friday morning.
Economists surveyed by CNNMoney expect that report to show employers added 200,000 jobs in March and the unemployment rate fell to 8.2%.
In February, the economy added 227,000 jobs.
Japan’s quarterly central bank survey shows no improvement in business confidence from the previous quarter. The worse-than-expected result reflects a deteriorating outlook among medium and smaller manufacturers despite easing worries over the crisis in Europe.
The Bank of Japan’s quarterly “tankan,” released Monday, showed the main index for big manufacturers was at minus 4 for the January-March quarter, unchanged from the last quarter of 2011. Many analysts had forecast an improvement to minus 1 faxless pay day loans.
A negative reading indicates greater pessimism than optimism among those surveyed.
Data released last week showed weaker than expected factory production in February, underscoring the fragility of the economic recovery as growth in Asia slows.
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