The firm that launched a proxy battle at Research In Motion Ltd. says it is riding a wave of investor discontent over the cozy corporate structure that combines the roles of chief executive and board chair at publicly traded companies.
Greece wants to conclude negotiations for a second bailout by the end of the summer “at the latest,” the country’s new finance minister said Monday, at the start of a parliamentary debate on unpopular but crucial austerity measures.
A new euro28 billion ($40 billion) Greek austerity package and implementation law must be passed in parliamentary votes this week so the European Union and the International Monetary Fund release the next installment of Greece’s euro110 billion ($156 billion) bailout loan.
Without it, Greece faces the prospect next month of becoming the first eurozone country to default on its debts _ a potentially disastrous event that could drag down European banks and affect other financially troubled European countries.
Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, who only assumed the post in a June 17 cabinet reshuffle, said the euro12 billion ($17 billion) installment will cover the country’s borrowing needs until mid-September.
“And between now and the end of the summer at the latest, we must seriously negotiate the new program with our partner _ the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF _ and guarantee viability of the national debt with the participation of private investors internationally,” Venizelos said.
It has become clear that the initial bailout from May 2010 is not enough to pull Greece out of its financial crisis. The country’s international creditors are now discussing a second bailout, which Prime Minister George Papandreou has said it will be roughly the same size as the first. Many investors, meanwhile, believe that Greek’s debt burden is too great to handle without defaulting regardless of the bailouts.
Venizelos on Monday urged Greek opposition parties to back the government in negotiations with the country’s international creditors.
The main opposition leader, the conservative New Democracy party’s Antonis Samaras, has so far resisted intense European pressure to back the new austerity bill. While Samaras supports cost-cutting measures and the sale of some government assets, he has called the thinking behind the austerity bill flawed. He says tax rates should be lowered rather than raised in order to stimulate an economy in recession.
“I call on New Democracy and the other parties: Come, let’s negotiate together. And once we have negotiated, we will have a better result because it will have greater national strength,” Venizelos said.
Parliament is to vote on the austerity bill Wednesday, and on an additional law on implementing the measures Thursday. The new cuts have caused widespread anger, and unions have declared a 48-hour nationwide general strike for Tuesday and Wednesday to coincide with the parliamentary debate and vote.
Protesters also say they will encircle parliament on Wednesday to prevent deputies from entering the building to vote.
President Barack Obama says technological innovations can help create jobs and spur growth in clean energy and advanced manufacturing.
In his radio and Internet address, the president promoted a plan he outlined Friday in which the government would join with universities and corporations to re-ignite the manufacturing sector with an emphasis on cutting-edge research and new technologies.
“Their mission is to come up with a way to get ideas from the drawing board to the manufacturing floor to the marketplace as swiftly as possible, which will help create quality jobs, and make our businesses more competitive,” Obama said in the address aired Saturday.
It was taped Friday during his visit to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he saw a display of mini-robots that explore water and sewer pipes.
He marveled at robots that can defuse a bomb, mow a lawn, even scrape old paint.
With growing interest from the military, businesses and consumers, the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute has more than 500 technical experts and a $65 million annual budget.
The $500 million initiative is the latest effort by Obama to promote job creation in the midst of an economic slowdown that has reduced hiring and weakened his job approval standing with the public.
Obama has tried to brave the weak economy by featuring job creation measures during weekly trips outside Washington and in his radio addresses. On Tuesday, he will visit an Alcoa factory in Bettendorf, Iowa.
The goal of his manufacturing plan, he said, is “to help make sure America remains in this century what we were in the last - a country that makes things.”
As he prepares to meet with Senate leaders on Monday in hopes of restarting budget negotiations, Obama said he is “committed to working with members of both parties to cut our deficits and debt.”
But he said he would not cut spending on education or infrastructure or in the type of innovative technologies he witnessed at Carnegie Mellon. “Being here in Pittsburgh, I’m hopeful about the future,” he said.
In the Republican’s weekly address, Rep. Renee Ellmers of North Carolina proposed a different remedy to boost businesses.
Ellmers, who owns a small medical practice with her husband, said the Republican plan would reduce regulations, expand domestic energy production and require the government to consider the effect of federal rules on hiring.
“The job creators we hear from, they don’t have their hand out,” she said. “They don’t want a bailout. All they ask us to do is get government out of the way.”
European Union leaders appointed Italy’s Mario Draghi as the next president of the European Central Bank on Friday _ a move that gives investors much-needed certainty over who will lead the institution in its pivotal role in the fight against the crippling debt crisis.
The timing of Draghi’s appointment had come under doubt as fellow Italian executive board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi had until Friday refused to leave his post.
With Bini Smaghi staying on the executive board, France would not have a representative on the six-person board once current ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet departs on Oct. 31. The French had previously implied they would only support Draghi if a Frenchman or woman takes Bini Smaghi’s spot.
However, a European official said Friday that Bini Smaghi had now agreed to step down by the end of the year. The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because the moved had not officially been announced yet.
The European Parliament and the ECB board had already given their approve to Draghi’s appointment.
Delaying his appointment until their next summit in September would have underlined divisions among EU leaders, who have already struggled to find a common line on debt-stricken Greece and the best way of containing the financial crisis that has also pushed Ireland and Portugal into needing massive bailouts.
The ECB has played a central role during the debt crisis that has afflicted the 17-country eurozone over the past 18 months or so payday loans guaranteed no fax. For example, Trichet overrode criticism from some of the more hawkish officials at the bank when he backed a multibillion euro (dollar) bond-buying program intended to ease the pressure on the more indebted countries.
More recently, the ECB has found itself in the difficult position of raising interest rates to keep a lid on above-target inflation levels even though the weaker eurozone economies remain weak.
The decision on Draghi was expected a day after EU leaders gave their clearest sign yet that Greece will get a second bailout in the coming weeks, on top of last year’s euro110 billion ($156 billion).
“We agreed that there will be a new program for Greece,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The stronger language on aid for Greece was also made possible after debt inspectors from the EU and the International Monetary Fund reached a final deal Thursday with the government in Athens on euro28 billion worth of new austerity measures.
The measures have to be passed by the Greek Parliament next week for the bailout funds to be released. If lawmakers fail to back the package, then Greece will likely be staring at a default on its debts.
Even if it gets a second bailout, many economists think that Greece will have to restructure its debts in some shape or form in the coming years, especially if the economy shrinks further.
We may be into the second year of the economic recovery, but Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues are still facing plenty of challenges as they try to keep a fragile expansion on track.
A host of economic indicators have slowed in recent weeks and a sharp spike in gasoline prices earlier this year has made consumers and businesses more cautious about spending. The central bank, wrapping up a two-day meeting on Wednesday, is expected to acknowledge the recent soft patch but insist that growth should rebound in the second half of the year.
In a speech earlier this month, Bernanke maintained that the slowdown is temporary and said the economy should pick up later this year as the impact of high gas prices and supply disruptions caused by the March earthquake and tsunami in Japan abate. However, the Fed is now confronting renewed jitters that a debt crisis in Greece could spread to other heavily indebted European nations and send shockwaves through U.S. and global financial markets.
On Wednesday the Fed is expected stay the course, keeping interest rates unchanged and declaring that it will end on schedule a $600 billion Treasury bond purchase program at the end of this month. The central bank also is expected to repeat a pledge to maintain its current level of securities holdings, which stand at a record $2.6 trillion. The belief is that this sizable stockpile will keep interest rates from rising even though the Fed is not adding to its holdings.
Many private economists believe it will be another full year before the economy has recovered enough for the Fed to actually start raising interest rates.
The Fed will release an updated economic forecast which analysts believe will trim growth expectations slightly while predicting that inflation outside of volatile food and energy prices will remain under control. Bernanke will explain the new forecast at a news conference following the Fed’s closed-door discussions. The media event _ part of the chairman’s efforts to make the central bank less mysterious _ follows his first regular news conference in April. Bernanke is expected to hold four sessions with reporters each year.
The Fed is winding down its bond buying program, dubbed QE2 not for the Queen Elizabeth ocean liner but as short-hand for “quantitative easing payday loans.” That’s the wonky term that economists use to characterize the Fed’s effort to drive down long-term interest rates by buying up Treasury bonds. QE2 marked the second round of such easing the Fed had taken; the first was in March 2009 at the depths of the recession.
Supporters say the bond purchases have worked, in part by keeping rates low and encouraging spending. Low long-term rates are vital for consumers buying homes and cars and for companies making investments.
They also argue that those lower rates fueled a stock rally. When Bernanke outlined plans for QE2 in late August 2010, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index was down 6 percent for the year. Eight months later, the S&P 500 was up 28 percent. The lower rates made stocks more attractive to investors than bonds, whose yields were falling.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said the bond purchases gave a sagging economy a lift by slightly reducing borrowing costs for businesses and consumers and by raising stock prices to make people feel wealthier. Still, it didn’t much energize home buying or other major purchases.
“It wasn’t a slam-dunk success, but it was worthwhile,” Zandi said.
Critics, including some Fed officials, saw things differently. They warned that by pumping so much money into the economy, the Fed increased the risks of high inflation later. They have complained that the Fed’s outpouring of dollars hurt the dollar and contributed to a spike in oil and food prices. They also feared the bond purchases fed speculative buying that could inflate bubbles in prices of stocks or other assets.
Bernanke hit back at those critics in a speech last month. He argued that higher oil prices were due to Middle East turmoil and demand in fast-growing countries like China and blamed food-price inflation mainly on crop shortages caused by bad weather. And he said the falling dollar was largely linked to slower U.S. growth and the U.S. trade deficit.
Aircraft leasing company Air Lease Corporation says it has signed a commitment to order 50 of Airbus’ new A320neo aircraft, including options for another 14.
The A320neo is Airbus’ single-aisle mid-range jet engineered for fuel savings.
The Los Angeles-based company also made a firm order Monday for 11 Airbus 330s and one A321.
Excluding the options, the deal is valued at $6 billion at list prices, Airbus said.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
LE BOURGET, France (AP) _ GE Capital Aviation Services has ordered 60 A320neo jets, a version of the workhorse jet revamped to be more fuel efficient, Airbus said Monday.
The European planemaker announced the deal at the Paris Air Show, where the search for a cheaper and cleaner way to fly is emerging as a major theme.
The deal would be worth about $5.5 billion at list prices, though buyers often strike discounts.
With airlines squeezed by skyrocketing fuel prices, Airbus has booked 390 orders and commitments for the A320neo since its commercial launch last December, even though the plane won’t be available until 2015 cheap credit report.
Airbus also announced an order for four of its A330-300 aircraft from Saudi Arabian airlines. The wide-bodied, twin-engined medium to long range A330-300 has a list price of euro223 million ($318 million). The Saudi airline already has 8 of the 330-300s in service.
Swedish airline group SAS ordered another 30 of Airbus’ A320neo aircraft for around 18 billion kronor ($2.8 billion) at list prices as part of an effort to renew its fleet.
SAS’s order includes an option to buy an additional 11 airplanes.
Delivery of the aircraft will start in the second half of 2016 and should be completed during 2019.
The acquisition is part of SAS’s move to concentrate its short-and medium distance fleet into two types of aircraft: Airbus A320 and Boeing’s 737NG.
A gray muck swallows their boots as they dig into it, snatch clams from between cracked shells and sea worms, then crouch low to do it again. It’s unforgiving, often dreary work, and all these Boston-area clammers want is the chance to keep at it.
But they say pending safety upgrades to the runways at Logan International Airport will claim important shellfish beds and nursery grounds and kill an industry segment that’s already staggering from a recent die-off of the soft-shell clams they uncover.
John Denehy, head of The Boston Clammers Association, said the airport’s manager _ the Massachusetts Port Authority _ is moving ahead with no regard for whether the 30 or so Logan diggers survive the changes.
He said there’s no talk of money to make up for the lost business. And though Massport plans to relocate the soon-to-be-lost wetlands, the areas they’re discussing are either too far away or no good for clamming, Denehy said.
“They believe they’re bigger and stronger than we are, and they’re just going to overwhelm us,” said Denehy, 39. “We’re going to fight them to the last clam, and we want them to know that.”
Massport spokesman Matthew Brelis said the agency, in fact, values the clammers as another “set of eyes and ears” to boost security around the airport.
He added that the clammers have been consulted about the crucial safety upgrades, including during a March meeting, and there was a public comment period before permits were issued in April.
And Brelis said nothing is final about the new shellfish beds: Discussions are ongoing with the state Division of Marine Fisheries about what they’ll pay to establish them. Any new shellfish beds, though, can no longer be located close to airports, under Federal Aviation Administration guidelines, he said.
“Shellfish attract birds. Birds are a hazard to aircraft,” Brelis said.
Logan’s clammers have taken on Massport before, when they were shut out of the land for security reasons after the Sept. 11 terror attacks were launched from the airport.
Fourteen months later, the clammers returned to Logan’s prolific flats after persuading state lawmakers to pass regulations allowing them back under tighter screening, including background checks and fingerprinting.
The coming $70 million safety upgrades are required by the FAA to improve two so-called runway safety areas, which include granite fill and sections with collapsible concrete blocks to slow or protect airplanes that overshoot or undershoot the runway.
The expansion takes away 62,370 square feet of shellfishing at the end of one runway, 22R, and about 5,400 square feet at the end of runway 33L, according to a final environmental impact statement. The area at the end of 33L is scheduled to be closed next month; the end of 22R will shut down in two years.
Denehy said both areas are crucial to the local industry’s future, especially after local clammers were whacked by an unexplained die-off of soft-shell clams at Logan’s most productive flats personal loans for people with bad credit.
The clammers blame an October 2010 jet fuel spill by cargo and baggage handler Swissport, saying it’s no coincidence live clams disappeared shortly afterward. But Brelis said that’s doubtful.
“Because only one species (soft-shell clams) was affected, it is likely that a virus was the cause rather than petroleum contamination,” he said.
Massport owns the land around the airport up to the high water mark, but the public has the right to dig beyond that, Denehy said.
Diggers pay various annual fees to do their work, including $100 for a state license and $75 to Massport, he said.
The shellfishing areas the clammers will lose with the safety upgrades haven’t been nearly as prolific as the beds affected by the die-off. The environmental impact report describes the larger one as “rarely, if ever, harvested.”
Clammers say those areas are important nursery grounds and argue that the coming construction will alter the tidal flow, affecting the habitat in a way that further erodes the overall catch.
Clam digger J.J. Gold, 34, compared the flats to farmland that’s productive in cycles but can’t ever yield clams again once they’re lost.
“We have to just surrender our farmland here,” Gold said. “We understand you need to have Logan airport here for Boston and the state, but we still matter, too.”
Clam digging is seasonal work for some, but guys like Gold and Denehy work all year, whether the mud is soft or hard as winter.
They dig in with a clamming fork _ sort of a five-pronged pitchfork bent on an angle with a short handle. The clams are tossed into a pail and eventually end up in chowder bowls, fried clam baskets or steamed and dipped in butter.
Most of the soft-shell clams caught in Massachusetts (70 percent) are dug up between Gloucester and Newburyport, in the state’s northeast corner, with Boston Harbor clams accounting for 12 percent of the total harvest, according to the state Executive Office of Environmental Affairs.
The airport flats are by far the most productive in the harbor area, producing 47 percent (145,250 pounds) of the 2010 total, worth nearly $165,000 at an average price of $1.14 per pound.
If they must exit the airport area because of the die-off and lost land, the diggers may look north, to sites in nearby Revere or Salem. But the historically productive area is essentially irreplaceable, Denehy said.
Bob Wells, 67, is a third-generation clam digger who got his start at age 12. The work “just destroys your body,” he said, noting he’s had a back operation, a bypass on his leg, and every nerve in one of his arms is dead. The approaching eviction from the land near the airport without what he feels is fair compensation makes a tough trade even tougher.
“I’ve been trying to make a living at this,” Wells said. “You wouldn’t do this. Anybody in their right mind wouldn’t.”
President Barack Obama says being a dad is sometimes his hardest job, but also the most rewarding.
Just ahead of Father’s Day, the president devoted his Saturday radio and Internet address to fatherhood. He talked about growing up without a dad, his own failings as a father and the values he hopes to teach his daughters Malia, 12, and Sasha, 10.
He described the responsibilities that all fathers have to their children and said his administration is trying to help during tough economic times and long deployments for U.S. troops.
The president spoke of helping to coach Sasha’s basketball team. “In the end, that’s what being a parent is all about _ those precious moments with our children that fill us with pride and excitement for their future; the chances we have to set an example or offer a piece of advice; the opportunities to just be there and show them that we love them.”
Obama, who was raised largely by his grandparents in Hawaii after his father left when Obama was very young, also talked about what he wishes he’d done differently.
“I felt his absence. And I wonder what my life would have been like had he been a greater presence,” the president said.
“That’s why I’ve tried so hard to be a good dad for my own children. I haven’t always succeeded, of course _ in the past, my job has kept me away from home more often than I liked, and the burden of raising two young girls would sometimes fall too heavily on Michelle.”
The president said he’s learned that what children need most is their parents’ time and a structure that instills self-discipline and responsibility, noting that even in the White House, Malia and Sasha do their chores and walk the dog. “Above all, children need our unconditional love,” the president said, “whether they succeed or make mistakes; when life is easy and when life is tough.”
Republicans used their weekly address to call for progress on pacts to expand trade with South Korea, Panama and Colombia.
The Obama administration wants lawmakers to expand retraining assistance for American workers who lose their jobs because of foreign competition. Republicans say that issue should be addressed separately by the president.
“For the good of our economy _ and our country _ he needs to send these free (trade) agreements to the U.S. Senate for approval now, so that U.S. workers and businesses can begin to realize their benefits,” said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D.
“Our country needs the kind of pro-jobs, pro-growth policies that will help us live up to our vision of a strong, peaceful, prosperous America,” Hoeven said. “We have an opportunity right now to advance that vision and jumpstart the nation’s economy. Robust international trade can help us do it.”
Unemployment rates fell in fewer than half of U.S. states, evidence that slower hiring has affected many parts of the country.
The unemployment rates in 24 states dropped, the Labor Department said Friday. Rates rose in 13 states and Washington, D.C, and were flat in 13. That’s a significant decline from April, when 39 states reported falling unemployment rates.
And only 22 states reported a net gain in jobs in May, while 27 states lost jobs. That’s much worse than April, when 42 states gained jobs.
The changing trend in state unemployment rates reflect a weaker economy that has been hampered by high gas prices and lower factory output. Nationally, employers added a net gain of only 54,000 jobs in May, compared to an average of 220,000 per month in the previous three months. The U.S. unemployment rate ticked up to 9.1 percent.
California, New York and Pennsylvania reported large job losses, partly reversing gains earlier this year. California said employers cut 29,200 jobs last month, with big losses in professional and business services, which includes accounting, engineering, and temporary services. The construction sector also lost jobs.
New York said employers cut 24,700 jobs and Pennsylvania reported a drop of 14,200 jobs.
But those drops follow large gains in April and don’t represent a longer-term trend, said Marissa DiNatale, a regional economist at Moody’s Analytics. New York added 53,000 jobs in April, and Pennsylvania added 23,900.
“The actual picture of what’s going on is somewhere in the middle” of the April and May figures, she said.
Florida, meanwhile, reported the biggest job gains. Employers in the Sunshine State added a net total of 28,000 positions. The state’s unemployment rate dropped for the fifth straight month to 10.6 percent. The gains were mostly in education and health services and in leisure and hospitality, which includes amusement parks, hotels and restaurants.
The gains reflect some pickup in tourism that is boosting the state’s theme parks and resorts, said Sean Snaith, an economist at the University of Central Florida.
While the state is adding jobs and unemployment is falling, the improvement is “moving at the speed of a glacier,” Snaith said. He doesn’t expect hiring to really accelerate until next year.
Earlier this year economists had expected much stronger job growth. But a payroll tax cut enacted in December hasn’t spurred the additional consumer spending that many economists expected. Americans have had to spend most of the extra money to pay higher prices for food and gas.
The economy grew by only 1.8 percent in the January-March period, a sharp slowdown from the 3.1 percent annual pace in the October-December quarter.
Nevada had the highest unemployment rate among the states, at 12.1 percent, though that was down sharply from April’s 12.5 percent. California had the second-highest rate, at 11.7 percent, down from 11.8, followed by Rhode Island at 10.9 percent, which was unchanged.
North Dakota reported the lowest unemployment rate, at 3.2 percent, followed by Nebraska at 4.1 percent and New Hampshire and South Dakota at 4.8 percent.
ST. CHARLES COUNTY