Financial thoughts

The Federal Reserve on Tuesday drew fire from conservatives for its recent policy proposals on the downtrodden housing sector that the critics argued represented an overreach by the central bank.

Two Republican senators lashed out at the Fed’s “white paper” on housing, which suggested other officials should consider giving failed mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Freddie Mac (FMCC.OB: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) a bigger role in turning the market around.

The protests mark a rekindling of anti-central bank sentiment that reached fever pitch when the Fed launched its second round of bond buying in late 2010. At that time, conservatives accused the central bank of sowing the seeds for future inflation, though recent trends show price pressures ebbing.

The Fed’s detractors are now reacting to what they see as central bankers chiming in on fiscal policy matters that are not the appropriate realm for monetary authorities.

“I believe that it is important to the interests of the Federal Reserve, including the independence of monetary policy, that the Fed refrain from providing any hint of activism regarding what are clearly fiscal policy choices,” said Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

“I am sure that the Fed would not appreciate a white paper from Congress outlining how to think about and execute monetary policy,” he said.

Sen. Bob Corker, a member of the Banking Committee, directed his criticism at William Dudley, the influential president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, for his suggestion that principal write-downs be considered for distressed borrowers.

Such criticisms have some resonance among a minority of inflation hawks at the Fed one hour payday loan. Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Plosser and Richmond Fed chief Jeffrey Lacker have both expressed distaste over an earlier effort by the Fed to drive down mortgage costs by buying mortgage-related debt.

At the other end of the spectrum, Dudley and Eric Rosengren of the Boston Fed have said the central bank should consider further purchases of mortgage-backed securities.

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday was even more scathing, accusing the central bank of “rank electioneering” for issuing the housing proposal.

Fed officials have argued that, given their broad mandate to achieve solid economic growth, it would be irresponsible for them to ignore housing, which continues to be a major drag on the economic recovery.

Recent indicators have been mixed, pointing to some strength in construction but also a continued decline in home prices that bodes ill for a sustained housing rebound.

When Ben Bernanke first took over as chairman at the central bank in 2006, he vowed to steer clear of the type of fiscal debates that got his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, into trouble.

Greenspan had widely been criticized for giving intellectual cover to tax cuts during President George Bush’s administration.

In a letter to leading lawmakers that accompanied the “white paper” last Wednesday, Bernanke said the Fed had received questions and requests for input and that the policy proposals were being made in the “interest of a continuing dialogue.”

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Japan’s response to the nuclear crisis that followed the March 11 tsunami was confused and riddled with problems, including an erroneous assumption an emergency cooling system was working and a delay in disclosing dangerous radiation leaks, a report revealed Monday.

The disturbing picture of harried and bumbling workers and government officials scrambling to respond to the problems at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant was depicted in the report detailing a government investigation.

The 507-page interim report, compiled by interviewing more than 400 people, including utility workers and government officials, found authorities had grossly underestimated tsunami risks, assuming the highest wave would be 6 meters (20 feet). The tsunami hit at more than double those levels.

The report criticized the use of the term “soteigai,” meaning “outside our imagination,” which it said implied authorities were shirking responsibility for what had happened. It said by labeling the events as beyond what could have been expected, officials had invited public distrust.

“This accident has taught us an important lesson on how we must be ready for soteigai,” it said.

The report, set to be finished by mid-2012, found workers at Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility that ran Fukushima Dai-ichi, were untrained to handle emergencies like the power shutdown that struck when the tsunami destroyed backup generators _ setting off the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

There was no clear manual to follow, and the workers failed to communicate, not only with the government but also among themselves, it said.

Finding alternative ways to bring sorely needed water to the reactors was delayed for hours because of the mishandling of an emergency cooling system, the report said. Workers assumed the system was working, despite several warning signs it had failed and was sending the nuclear core into meltdown.

The report acknowledged that even if the system had kicked in properly, the tsunami damage may have been so great that meltdowns would have happened anyway.

But a better response might have reduced the core damage, radiation leaks and the hydrogen explosions that followed at two reactors and sent plumes of radiation into the air, according to the report.

Sadder still was how the government dallied in relaying information to the public, such as using evasive language to avoid admitting serious meltdowns at the reactors, the report said.

The government also delayed disclosure of radiation data in the area, unnecessarily exposing entire towns to radiation when they could have evacuated, the report found.

The government recommended changes so utilities will respond properly to serious accidents.

It recommended separating the nuclear regulators from the unit that promotes atomic energy, echoing frequent criticism since the disaster.

Japan’s nuclear regulators were in the same ministry that promotes the industry, but they will be moved to the environment ministry next year to ensure more independence.

The report acknowledged people were still living in fear of radiation spewed into the air and water, as well as radiation in the food they eat. Thousands have been forced to evacuate and have suffered monetary damage from radiation contamination, it said.

“The nuclear disaster is far from over,” the report said.

The earthquake and tsunami left 20,000 people dead or missing.

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Further signs of stress emerged Tuesday to indicate that Europe’s most recent summit agreement to get the euro countries to tighten rules against excessive government spending has only made limited progress in pulling the continent out of its debt crisis.

While figures showed that Europe’s banks parked more money at the European Central Bank than they have at any other time this year, Italy’s borrowing rates traded at levels not far from those that forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal into seeking financial bailouts.

The news that overnight deposits by banks to the ECB hit a year high are a sign of distress and mistrust in the system, and come just days after the continent’s banking regulator warned that they need to raise much more capital to plug potential losses from shaky European government debt.

The ECB said banks left euro346.4 billion ($458 billion) with the ECB at a low 0.25 percent interest rate rather than lend it to other banks, indicating they were concerned they might not be paid back. That topped a previous high from Friday of euro334.9 billion.

The rise in their deposits comes in the wake of an agreement by European leaders to forge a new treaty among the 17 members of the eurozone and as many as nine other EU members to toughen rules against accumulating excessive government debts. The treaty won’t be completed until March and tries to address long-term issues, while markets are questioning governments’ ability to pay their debts in the shorter term of the next several months.

“Market sentiment remains cautious regarding the strains in European debt markets,” said Nick Bennenbroek, an analyst at Wells Fargo Bank.

Fears of default have led to elevated yields on bonds issued by Italy, the latest focus of the crisis. Yields on Italian 10-year bonds traded at an elevated 6.66 percent on Tuesday, close to the 7 percent levels that led to the bailed-countries giving up on bond market borrowing. Italy is considered too large to bail out.

Banks have also been under strain because they hold government bonds and could suffer losses in case of a default. They are also being pressed by the European Union to find money to increase their financial buffers against losses.

Shares in Germany’s Commerzbank AG fell over 5 percent Tuesday amid speculation the bank might need more government support after the European Banking Authority last week said it was euro5.3 billion short of new capital requirements. The bank has said it won’t take more government help.

Italy did manage to raise euro7 billion ($9 online cash advance.4 billion) in a bond auction Monday, though the relatively strong demand was boosted by a bank association promotion waiving fees to buy the bonds.

Investors remain worried about the future of both Italy and the wider 17-nation eurozone despite an EU deal last week to tighten controls on spending. While that deal will boost longer-term budget discipline, it does little to lower current debt and exposed deepening political division.

Last Friday’s deal also does not fix the deeper imbalances within the eurozone, such as wide gaps between countries with competitive economies and trade surpluses and those which have poor business environments that limit growth and ability to pay debt.

The impact of the agreement to work out a new debt treaty has been blunted by Britain’s decision not to join and questions about how it would be enforced. EU officials sought an accord among all 27 EU states, but Britain did not join the agreement after its request to shelter its financial services sector from what Britain considers burdensome regulation was rejected.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso urged British Prime Minister David Cameron not to block EU institutions such as the European Court of Justice for supporting and helping enforce the treaty.

Barroso said “it is the European institutions that are the best guarantee that the interest of all European states, including the U.K., will be fully respected.”

There are other potential hitches. Through the new intergovernmental treaty, the participating countries can agree to go beyond the rules in the current EU Treaty _ but can’t sign up to new rules that contradict existing ones.

That is set to cause problems for one of the central summit decisions _ creating more automatic sanctions for budget sinners.

Under the current EU Treaty, the European Commission can declare a country to be in excessive deficit _ a move that forces the country to spell out in detail how it will bring down its deficit and debt or face sanctions _ only if a qualified majority of EU countries agree.

The summit decisions aim to simplify this procedure, by giving the commission the right to declare a state to have an excessive deficit unless a qualified majority of countries vote against it.

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Steinhauser contributed from Brussels. Frances D’Emilio contributed from Rome.

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U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner got little down time during his three-day dash through Europe. But what sleep he did get was in some of Europe’s finest hotels.

U.S. officials justify the luxurious bookings by explaining that where Geithner stays is often dictated by security concerns. The U.S. embassy in each country recommends hotels considered acceptable for overnight stays by high-level government officials like Geithner who get Secret Service protection.

In Milan, the hotel of choice for Geithner’s stay was the Hotel Principe di Savoia. It’s a five-star hotel graced by a grand foyer.

The top-of-the line Presidential Suite was featured in the 2010 movie “Somewhere” by director Sofia Coppola. The movie, set in Milan, also displayed the hotel’s opulent swimming pool.

Geithner’s digs were far less plush than the “Somewhere” suite _ just a standard room with a sitting area for meetings. And instead of a swim, he began his day in the hotel exercise room, walking on the treadmill while reading the morning newspapers.

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To meet with national leaders and financial officials in five cities in three countries in three days, you need a little help getting around. That’s where a police-escorted motorcade comes in handy.

Geithner’s caravan of limousines and vans for staff and reporters drew police escorts in each city he visited.

It all worked well until Geithner’s entourage hit Marseilles right at rush hour. The road from the airport to a downtown hotel where Geithner was meeting Spanish Prime Minister-elect Mariano Rajoy Brey was jammed.

Still, not to worry. The motorcycle escorts simply squeezed between the two lanes of cars headed into town. The cars were forced to both sides of the road, clearing a path in the middle for the motorcade.

Geithner’s meeting Wednesday night lasted about 40 minutes. Then it was back to the motorcade for the return to the airport. At least by then, the roads had cleared considerably, and the motorcycle escort had less work to do guaranteed payday loans.

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So much for legendary German efficiency. On Geithner’s three-country trip, it was the Italians who shined most in arranging a glitch-free meeting with reporters. The Germans and French ran into more difficulty.

Of course, the Italians had arguably more at stake. Geithner’s appearance with reporters in Milan on Thursday followed a meeting with new Prime Minister Mario Monti. By contrast, the sessions in Germany and France involved only finance ministers.

The Italians managed to position a crush of journalists and 15 television cameras well before the session began.

In France, Geithner and Finance Minister Francois Baroin made statements to the press in Baroin’s office. The French supplied no translator. After the session, non-French-speaking journalists found a kindly official who translated Baroin’s remarks by listening to a tape recording of it.

In Germany, reporters, TV crews and photographers crammed near a stage in the German Finance Ministry. Reporters had no chairs and instead crouched on the floor with laptops. When officials decided to move the crowd back and supply chairs, shouting and jostling erupted as photographers struggled to keep the prime positions they’d staked out.

Still, from reporters’ vantage point, the Germans fared best in one key respect: Alone among officials in the three countries, they allowed at least a couple of questions from journalists.

The French and Italian events were designed to have Geithner, Baroin and Monti give statements but take no questions. Given the sensitivity of the markets to Europe’s debt crisis, officials in France and Italy probably didn’t want to risk having an answer (or non-answer) to a question panic investors.

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Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, emerging as the biggest winner in the first round of parliamentary elections, sought Saturday to reassure Egyptians that it would not sacrifice personal freedoms in promoting Islamic law.

The deputy head of the Brotherhood’s new political party, Essam el-Erian, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that the group is not interested in imposing Islamic values on Egypt, home to a sizable Christian minority and others who object to being subject to strict Islamic codes.

“We represent a moderate and fair party,” el-Erian said of his Freedom and Justice Party. “We want to apply the basics of Shariah law in a fair way that respects human rights and personal rights,” he said, referring to Islamic law.

The comments were the clearest indication that the Brotherhood was distancing itself from the ultraconservative Islamist Nour Party, which appears to have won the second-largest share of votes in the election’s first phase.

The Nour Party espouses a strict interpretation of Islam similar to that of Saudi Arabia, where the sexes are segregated and women must be veiled and are barred from driving.

Egypt’s election commission has released few official results from the voting on Monday and Tuesday. But preliminary counts have been leaked by judges and individual political groups showing both parties could together control a majority of seats in the lower house of parliament if they did form an alliance.

The Brotherhood recently denied in a statement that it seeks to form an alliance with the Nour Party in parliament, calling it “premature and mere media speculation.”

On Saturday, el-Erian made it clear that the Brotherhood does not share Nour’s more hard-line aspirations to strictly enforce Islamic codes in Egyptians’ daily lives.

“We respect all people in their choice of religion and life,” he said.

Another major check on such an agenda is the council of generals who have run the country since President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in February. The military council, accused by Egypt’s protest movement of stalling a transition to civilian and democratic rule, is seeking to limit the powers of the next parliament and maintain close oversight over the drafting of a new constitution.

Egypt already uses Shariah law as the basis for legislation, however Egyptian laws remain largely secular as Shariah does not cover all aspects of modern life.

On its English-language Twitter account, the Brotherhood said that its priorities were to fix Egypt’s economy and improve the lives of ordinary Egyptians, “not to change (the) face of Egypt into (an) Islamic state.”

El-Erian urged the Brotherhood’s political rivals to accept the election results.

“We all believe that our success as Egyptians toward democracy is a real success and we want everyone to accept this democratic system. This is the guarantee for stability,” he said.

For decades, Mubarak’s regime suppressed the Brotherhood, which was politically banned but managed to establish a vast network of activists and charities offering free food and medical services throughout the country’s impoverished neighborhoods and villages.

It is the best organized of Egypt’s post-Mubarak political forces.

The vote for parliament’s lower house is taking place over three stages, with 18 provinces in Egypt yet to vote.

Meanwhile, the swearing-in of a new temporary Cabinet was delayed on Saturday due to disagreements over key posts, including over who will lead the ministry in charge of internal security.

An official in the Interior Ministry said several high-ranking security officials have been named as possible replacements but that some have turned down the offer.

Protesters have also strongly objected to the nominations put forward by newly appointed Prime Minister Kamal el-Ganzouri, who served in the same position under ousted President Hosni Mubarak from 1996 to 1999.

The country’s ruling military general, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, appointed el-Ganzouri as a new interim prime minister last month after the previous premier’s government resigned in the wake of a police crackdown on protesters that killed over 40 people.

The interim Cabinet will serve until after the parliamentary elections finish in March. A new government is to be formed after the legislature is seated.

Activist Hussein Hammouda, a retired police brigadier, is among those opposed to the names being considered for the Interior Minister post and says someone from outside the police force should be chosen instead.

Protesters in Tahrir Square, the epicenter of Egypt’s protests, released a statement saying they would continue their sit-in while allowing traffic to resume normally in the area.

There were tens of thousands of protesters in the square in the days leading up to the elections, but numbers have dwindled to several hundred since then. Protesters demanding el-Ganzouri be replaced as prime minister said they will keep up another sit-in outside the Cabinet headquarters.

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Trying to describe the topsy-turvy economy leads folks to reach for all sorts of analogies.

This week, the president of the National Retail Federation said the post-Great Recession consumer is kind of like the tortoise.

“We all remember the fable of the tortoise and the hare,” Matthew Shay said during a conference call with reporters. “Looking at this as a marathon versus a sprint, we think this year there’s nothing wrong with being the tortoise.”

He was talking about group’s forecast that holiday retail spending this year will grow 2.8 percent. In other words, while some people might be disappointed by the painfully slow recovery, at least the economy

The economy is showing signs of modest improvement

Italian luxury fashion house Prada SpA says first-half profit surged on strong sales of leather goods such as bags and wallets to Chinese and other Asian customers.

Prada said net income jumped 74 percent to euros 179.5 million ($244 million) in the six months to July 31, from euros 103 million the year before. Revenue rose 21 percent to euros 1.13 billion.

Asia-Pacific sales grew an “outstanding” 35 percent to euros 368 million in the first half, with the Greater China region making the biggest contribution, the company said Monday in its first earnings report since listing on Hong Kong’s stock exchange in June.

Asia accounted for the biggest portion of Prada’s sales, ahead of both Italy and Europe as a whole. The company’s other brands _ Miu Miu, Church’s and Car Shoes _ also had strong Asian sales growth.

Prada, which is known for stylish leather handbags, said leather goods played a big role in boosting sales in Asia.

Revenue growth in Asia was boosted by 31 percent sales growth at existing stores as well as the opening of nine new stores in the year to July 31.

Milan-based Prada became the first Italian company to go public in Hong Kong, raising $2.4 billion in an initial public offering aimed at raising awareness of its brand among China’s growing number of wealthy and brand-conscious consumers.

Prada and other foreign companies selling luxury goods are betting that China’s strong economic growth, increasing urbanization and higher spending by the rich will drive sales growth.

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About three million homes and businesses were without power at dawn Sunday as Hurricane Irene continued to roar up the East Coast and charge north.

Winds of up to 115 miles per hour whipped across the Eastern Seaboard, ripping power lines from poles and snapping trees in half.

More than one million of the homes and businesses without power were in Virginia and North Carolina, which bore the brunt of Irene’s initial march. Then the storm knocked out power overnight to hundreds of thousands in Washington, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the New York City area and Connecticut.

More than 480,000 New York City and suburban homes and businesses had lost power as the hurricane approached the metropolitan area.

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