For Abortion Foes, a Victory in Health Care Vote

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and ROBERT PEAR
Published: November 8, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/us/politics/09abortion.html?_r=1&hp

Abortion rights advocates charged Sunday that the provision threatened to deprive women of abortion coverage because insurers would drop the procedure from their plans in order to sell them in the newly expanded market of people receiving subsidies. The subsidized market would be large because anyone earning less than $88,000 for a family of four — four times the poverty level — would be eligible for a subsidy under the House bill. Women who received subsidies or public insurance could still pay out of pocket for the procedure. Or they could buy separate insurance riders to cover abortion, though some evidence suggests few would, in part because unwanted pregnancies are by their nature unexpected.

Insurance plans would have been permitted to use only consumer premiums or co-payments to pay for abortions, even if individuals who received federal subsidies used them to buy health plans that covered abortion. But the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, was unable to hold on to enough moderate and conservative Democratic votes to pass the health bill using that approach, forcing her to allow a vote Saturday night on the amendment containing the broader ban.

Five states go further than the amendment to the health care overhaul. The five — Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, North Dakota and Oklahoma — already bar private insurance plans from covering elective abortions.

The federal employees’ health insurance plan and most state Medicaid programs also ban coverage of abortion, complying with a three-decade old ban on federal abortion financing. Seventeen state Medicaid programs, however, do cover the procedure, by using only state money.

On Sunday, some abortion rights advocates lashed out at the bishops. “It was an unconscionable power play,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, accusing the bishops of “interceding to put their own ideology in the national health care plan.”

FBI: Former H. Rap Brown leads violent sect from prison

By Christian Boone

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/fbi-former-h-rap-178148.html
Thursday, October 29, 2009
A Detroit imam shot and killed Wednesday in a gunfight with federal agents belonged to a Muslim separatist sect led by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, better known as 1960s militant H. Rap Brown, according to a federal complaint filed Wednesday.

Luqman Ameen Abdullah, imam of the Masjid Al-Haqq mosque in Detroit, was killed Wednesday after he pulled a gun on federal agents arresting him on federal charges including conspiracy, receipt of stolen goods and firearms offenses.

Charges were also filed Wednesday against 11 of Abdullah's followers. In the federal complaint Abdullah, 53, is identified as a "highly placed leader" in "Ummah," the black Muslim group headed by Al-Amin. Ummah advocates creation of a separate state within the U.S. governed by Sharia law.

Gov. Pat Quinn: CTA, Metra must not raise fares in return for state help

Posted by Monique Garcia and Ray Long at 1:42 p.m. 10/29
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2009/10/gov-pat-quinn-cta-metra-must-not-raise-fares-in-return-for-state-help.html
SPRINGFIELD --- Gov. Pat Quinn today said public transit leaders need to commit to no short-term fare increases in return for getting help from state government.

"We need a commitment, not only from CTA, but Metra and Pace that they are going to have a moratorium on any fare increases for the next year or two," Quinn said. "I think it's important to make that clear. I think the people of northeastern Illinois need to be able to get to work and get to school and get to where they need to go without having to pay more."

Bankers Expect Rising Bonus Pay to Break Records in Global Poll

By Robert Schmidt and Ian Katz
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a1ZlLqcUMvZg
Oct. 30 (Bloomberg)

“The large banks are knocking the cover off the ball,” said Daniel Alpert, managing director of New York-based investment bank Westwood Capital LLC. The industry is “making money, though with government help.”

The findings “give some fuel to the people who claim that Wall Street hasn’t really gotten it,” said Mark Borges, a compensation consultant at Compensia Inc. in Corte Madera, California. “There really hasn’t been a dramatic cultural shift in these organizations.”

Toyota Enters Korea, Threatens Hyundai’s Market Hold

By Seonjin Cha
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aN6Xo8cZK22Q
Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s biggest automaker, began sales of its namesake brand in South Korea, challenging Hyundai Motor Co. and affiliate Kia Motors Corp. in a country where they have a 72 percent market share.

Toyota’s entrance into Korea, Hyundai’s most profitable market, may distract the Seoul-based automaker in the U.S., where it has won market share helped by promotions and a weaker won. Hyundai faces increasing competition at home as Korea eases trade restrictions and automakers such as Toyota look for new markets to offset plunging sales in the U.S., Europe and Japan.

Hyundai “will keep a close eye on its bigger rival for the long term,” said Chae Hee Gun, an analyst at Taurus Investment Securities Co. The Korean company’s position in its home market “is absolutely abnormal.”

South Korea’s biggest carmaker had 46 percent of the country’s 1.25 million passenger-vehicle market last year, according to the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association. Kia, the nation’s second-biggest, controlled 26 percent.

Yoon Concerned by Drop in South Korea’s Retail, Industrial Jobs

By Seyoon Kim
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aWwJswO.syKg

Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- South Korean Finance Minister Yoon Jeung Hyun said he is concerned by the decline in retail and manufacturing jobs during the nation’s economic recovery.

“Job market conditions aren’t improving significantly,” Yoon said at a government meeting at the Finance Ministry in Gwacheon today. “It’ll be difficult for employment to improve in the short term to the level before the crisis.”

The number of South Koreans without jobs rose by 103,000 to 826,000 in September from a year earlier, even as the unemployment rate fell and the economy expanded at the fastest pace in almost six years in the second quarter.

People working in the public service or self-employed increased 5.5 percent in September, a report showed last week, while those employed in the manufacturing industry declined 3 percent and jobs at retail outlets, hotels and restaurants fell 2.8 percent.

Yoon said today the government plans to provide incentives for companies to invest in factories as part of efforts to create more jobs.

Hyundai Supplanting Toyota as Won Undermines Japanese Exports

By Jason Clenfield
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aQvjW4hXIp2U

Oct. 21 (Bloomberg)

Japan, which barely emerged from recession in the second quarter, may see its expansion cut short as the exporters it depends on for growth cede business to South Korean rivals. Toyota is contending with a yen that has risen against all 16 major currencies in the past two years, including the dollar, euro and Korean won, eroding profit and leaving little room for price cuts. The won’s 22 percent slide versus the dollar let Hyundai give discounts and almost double its U.S. market share.

“Korea’s done much better over the last year and the exchange rates tell you a lot of the reason,” said Richard Jerram, chief economist at Macquarie Securities Ltd. in Tokyo. “Look at the earnings coming out of the two countries: the ones from Korea are strikingly better.”

The yen has soared 61 percent over its Korean counterpart over the past two years, trading at 12.90 won at the close yesterday in Tokyo.

In contrast, the won’s drop has allowed Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. to lop off more than $100 from the price of a $1,000 television and stay profitable. Earnings at Suwon-based Samsung climbed 5.2 percent to 2.3 trillion won in the quarter through June. LG, which posted record profit of 1.1 trillion won in the period, says it will overtake Sony this year as the world’s second-largest TV maker.

Japan’s exporters, whose shipments overseas fell 36 percent in August from a year earlier, have received little sympathy from their government over the yen’s appreciation so far. Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii says companies shouldn’t rely on a weaker yen to prop up sales abroad. Japan hasn’t intervened in the foreign-exchange market with yen sales since 2004.

By contrast, South Korean officials are acting to keep their currency cheap. The country’s foreign-exchange reserves soared 9.7 percent to $254 billion last quarter as officials sold won to contain an 8.1 percent rally against the dollar.

The collapse of General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC created an opening in the U.S. market that the South Koreans were quick to seize. Hyundai has won U.S. customers with a marketing blitz and incentives that include cash rebates, gasoline discounts and an offer to repurchase cars from buyers who lose their jobs.

South Korean Economy Probably Expanded in Third Quarter on Cars

By Seyoon Kim
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aOb.AKdX8lTM
Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- South Korea’s economy probably grew in the third quarter as automakers and electronic goods producers boosted sales in the U.S. and China, and government spending strengthened domestic demand.

Gross domestic product increased 1.9 percent in the three months through September, according to the median forecast of 14 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The economy expanded at the fastest pace in almost six years in the second quarter. The report will be released at 8 a.m. in Seoul on Oct. 26.

South Korea has led a regional rebound with China and Singapore as companies including Hyundai Motor Co. and Samsung Electronics Co. reported a surge in profits, driven by overseas sales. The government in Seoul frontloaded spending this year to try to cushion the economy from the global recession and the central bank slashed interest rates to a record-low 2 percent.

Korea Development Forms $1.8 Billion Fund on Ship-Finance Slump

By Kyunghee Park

Oct. 24 (Bloomberg)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=av4dGo90eK3w
Korea Development Bank, the state- owned lender, formed a $1.8 billion fund to help pay for vessels at the nation’s shipyards as commercial banks pare ship- financing on tumbling vessel prices.

“State companies like us have to step in and fill some of the gap left by the global commercial banks,” Kim Joong Gon, a senior manager in KDB’s ship-finance team, said at the Marine Money Forum in Busan yesterday. “There are still many uncertainties in the shipping industry as global trade hasn’t improved and asset values have fallen.”

“There are conflicts between banks and shipping lines because there’s a big gap on the valuation of assets,” Kim said. “Reaching a compromise is a very long process.”

So far 16 shipping lines have applied to KDB for funding to pay for 44 vessels, said Lee Dong Hae, head of the lender’s shipping financing team.

The price of ships has dropped as much as 40 percent from their peaks in the third quarter of last year, according to Yang Jong Seo, a researcher at the state-run Export-Import Bank of Korea.

Asia Aims to Succeed Where Bernanke Failed on Bubbles

By Shamim Adam and Seyoon Kim
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ap4GtIrNzEYQ

Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Policy makers from South Korea to Singapore, confronted with rising real-estate values that threaten to mimic in Asia the U.S. mortgage bubble that roiled the global economy, are stepping up efforts to rein in prices.

Regulators in South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore told banks in recent weeks they need to tighten lending standards. Central banks including India’s and South Korea’s have signaled a readiness to raise interest rates in the coming months.

“Asset bubbles are something that authorities have to contend with quickly and not let run away,” said Tai Hui, head of Southeast Asian economic research at Standard Chartered Plc in Singapore. “Central banks are ready to take some of the wind out of the sails whether through interest rates or administrative measures.”

In Hong Kong, where mortgage rates are the lowest in at least 19 years, home prices have climbed 26 percent this year, spurring authorities to tighten down-payment requirements for luxury homes. A one-bedroom, 816-square-foot apartment in the city’s Kowloon district last month sold for HK$24.5 million ($3.2 million).

In Singapore, the government barred interest-only loans for some housing projects last month. It also stopped allowing developers to absorb interest payments for apartments that are still being built.

Hong Kong authorities on Oct. 23 limited buyers of homes costing more than HK$20 million to borrowing 60 percent of the property’s value, down from 70 percent before. The Hong Kong Mortgage Corp., a government-backed home-loan insurer, suspended insurance for homes that aren’t owner-occupied.

South Korea’s financial regulator said Oct. 8 it plans to tighten regulations on non-banking finance companies’ lending to households, and authorities have cut loan-to-value ratios in mortgages to 50 percent from 60 percent in some Seoul areas. In the past month, China’s five largest banks were told to increase write-offs against bad loans and maintain their capital adequacy.

South Korea Posts Eighth Current Account Surplus

By Saeromi Shin and Seyoon Kim
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aOqnIjhYfh1c

Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- South Korea posted a current account surplus for an eighth consecutive month in September after the nation sold more cars and semiconductor chips as overseas demand strengthened.

The surplus was $4.2 billion last month, compared with a revised $1.91 billion in August, the Bank of Korea said in Seoul today. The current account is the broadest measure of trade, tracking the flow of goods, services and investment income.

A key challenge facing the region’s leaders “will be to devise a way to return to sustained, rapid growth in a new global environment of softer G-7 de

By Jacob Greber
Oct. 29 (Bloomberg)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aHZk3hFi6.i0

Asian economies are “rebounding fast” from the global crisis, helped by fiscal support that the region’s governments must maintain due to sluggish world export demand, the International Monetary Fund said.

Growth in Asia including Japan, Australia and New Zealand will probably accelerate to 5.8 percent next year from 2.8 percent this year, “well below” the 6.8 percent average over the past decade, the Washington-based lender said today.

Asian governments have pumped more than $950 billion into their economies by cutting taxes, distributing cash and boosting spending after the global credit crunch cut world demand for the region’s exports from cars to flat-panel televisions. A rebound in shipments may be slow as consumer spending in the U.S. and Europe is “likely to remain weak for some time,” the fund said.

Asia’s biggest customers, the Group of Seven economies, are forecast by the IMF to expand just 1.25 percent in 2010 as households and businesses in the U.S. and Europe remain “hobbled by the legacy of the crisis.”

Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens this month became the first Group of 20 policy maker to increase borrowing costs since the height of the global recession after his nation’s economy expanded 1 percent in the first half of the year amid a surge in household spending.

A key challenge facing the region’s leaders “will be to devise a way to return to sustained, rapid growth in a new global environment of softer G-7 demand,” the IMF said.

“In this ‘new world,’ Asia’s longer-term growth prospects may be determined by its ability to recalibrate the drivers of growth to allow domestic sources to play a more dynamic role.”

The region will also need to be “willing to live with smaller current account surpluses and more flexible exchange rate management.”

Public must learn to 'tolerate the inequality' of bonuses, says Goldman Sachs vice-chairman

Kathryn Hopkins
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 October 2009 13.53 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/oct/21/executive-pay-bonuses-goldmansachs

In remarks that will fuel the row around excessive pay, Lord Griffiths, vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, said banks should not be ashamed of rewarding their staff.

Speaking to an audience at St Paul's Cathedral in London about morality in the marketplace last night, Griffiths said the British public should "tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity for all".

"I believe that we should be thinking about the medium-term common good, not the short-term common good ... We should not, therefore, be ashamed of offering compensation in an internationally competitive market which ensures the bank businesses here and employs British people," he said.

Obama Lays Plans to Tackle Deficit

By GERALD F. SEIB
OCTOBER 20, 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125599128538995091.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTTopCarousel


Beyond that, the administration sees real economic risk in turning too hard or too quickly toward a focus on deficit cutting. From the most Keynesian thinker to the biggest deficit hawk on President Barack Obama's team, nobody wants the administration to take its foot off the accelerator pedal of economic-stimulus spending just yet. All are deeply worried about cutting off the oxygen too fast and snuffing out a weak economic recovery and a sickly job market.

On Monday, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke said during a speech in California that the U.S. government needs "to develop a fiscal exit strategy which will involve a trajectory towards sustainability." Translation: If Washington doesn't show it has a plan for whittling down big deficits, international confidence in both the economy and the dollar is bound to erode.

Part of what Mr. Obama will try to do is convince Americans that they were headed for a big deficit problem even before both the economic crisis and his administration arrived -- along with the added strain of stimulus spending, financial-sector bailouts and a recession-induced shrinkage of tax revenue.

Basic Medicare Premium to Rise 15% Next Year

By ROBERT PEAR
Published: October 19, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/health/policy/20health.html?hpw

The basic Medicare premium will shoot up next year by 15 percent, to $110.50 a month, federal officials said Monday.

About 12 million people, or 27 percent of Medicare beneficiaries, will have to pay higher premiums or have the additional amounts paid on their behalf. The other 73 percent will be shielded from the increase because, under federal law, their Medicare premiums cannot go up more than the increase in their Social Security benefits, and Social Security officials announced last week that there would be no increase in benefits in 2010 because inflation had been extremely low.

The higher premiums will impose “an additional and significant burden” on states, which help pay Medicaid costs, along with the federal government.

California 'first failed US state'?

By Rob Reynolds in Los Angeles
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/10/2009101881543377434.html

California is the world's eighth-largest economy, but its unemployment rate is over 12 per cent - the highest in 70 years.

Millions of people lost their homes when the housing bubble burst. Millions more have been thrust into poverty by the recession.

In July, the state legislature haggled for weeks over how to close a $26bn budget gap. Instead of increasing taxes for corporations or the wealthy, the budget deal that emerged to be signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state's Republican governor, ordered deep spending cuts, laying off tens of thousands of state workers.

Reduced funding for education, coupled with big tuition increases, sparked a student and faculty strike at California's public universities. Programmes for ex-prison inmates and parolees have been slashed.

And the social safety net of healthcare and services for the poor, children and elderly - the least powerful and least vocal members of society - has been systematically shredded.

"The people that are going to be effected first and foremost will be the poor, those who are in great need," Williams says sadly. "They are not considered to be human beings."

But as part of the effort to pare down the budget deficit, California has cut many programmes for the elderly poor.

New rules would limit seniors to three days a week in adult day care. That is a big problem for the Fedeli family. Without the daily care she gets at the senior centre, Amy says, Margaret might not survive for long.

"She would probably end up in a nursing home," Amy says. "She would probably pass. She would probably die, God forbid."

To care for Margaret, Amy would have to quit her job, leaving the little family without any income. Why has she accepted so much responsibility at such a young age?

"It's family, that's all I can say," Amy says. "Your family, you stick with them - that's all."

Donna Calame, who runs a state programme that provides in-home care for seniors, told me the attitude of Schwarzenegger and the legislature makes her livid.

"For me, it's really obscene," she said in an interview.

"We are a rich state. I think it is because of the wealth in California that, to me, makes the choices that have been made this year so morally reprehensible."

Back at the soup kitchen, Robert Shirley has some blunt advice for the people in charge of the Golden State.

"If our politicians don't get their heads out of their asses, this state is going to be - let's put it this way: some of those Third World countries are going to look a lot better than California."

Bolivia summit adopts new currency

Saturday, October 17, 2009
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/10/2009101712255748516.html

Leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean have agreed during a summit in Bolivia on creation of a regional currency aimed at reducing the use of the US dollar.

Earlier, Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, described the new currency as a "revolution of paradigms".

Executives Keep Low Profile at CEO Convention on Energy

By BOB TITA
OCTOBER 19, 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703816204574481631476557084.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_business

Some complained the government's pursuit of Mr. Lewis's pay and scrutiny of his decision to purchase crumbling investment bank Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. last fall merely reinforces the public's negative perception of CEOs as reckless managers concerned more about their own compensation than the fates of their companies.

"It's a false representation of who we are and what we're about," said Wick Moorman, chairman and CEO of railroad Norfolk Southern Corp. "The people who run these companies are concerned about the United States and want to do the right thing not only for their companies but for their country."

In a survey of 115 Business Council executives released last week, 46% of them said the federal government's should begin dismantling its credit- market supports to avoid a spike in inflation. In the council's previous survey, which was released in May, just 15% of the executives supported unwinding federal credit supports.

Despite executives' usual preference for free-market solutions, many appear willing to accept a government-mandated structure for energy use and climate-change policy.

The Business Council survey showed that 34% of the respondents disagreed that market-based approaches are a better way to address energy conservation and reduce carbon emissions, while 38% agreed and 28% were neutral.

CEOs Tally Health-Bill Score

By JANET ADAMY and GREG HITT
OCTOBER 19, 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125590875879693189.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

The drug industry stands to gain in a health-care overhaul by getting tens of millions of newly insured customers, while insurance companies -- especially those that cater to the individual market -- look like they are in for a tougher time.

The spread of insurance would help drug makers, pharmacies and hospitals. All of them sometimes have to give away their services -- or lose business altogether -- because their customers don't have a way to pay under the current system.

Insurance companies would get more customers, too, but not necessarily the ones they want. The Finance bill bars insurers from rejecting people because of pre-existing illness. And the committee weakened the requirement that all Americans carry coverage. Insurers also face the heaviest new taxes under the bill.

The health-insurance industry over the past week has emerged as one of the Finance bill's most vocal opponents. President Barack Obama fired back in his Saturday radio address, saying the criticism was "smoke and mirrors." The president backed a congressional review of the industry's antitrust exemption.

Among other slaps at insurers, the bill makes them pay $6.7 billion a year in new taxes, distributed by their market share.

Insurers Humana Inc. and WellPoint Inc. have the highest percentage of their earnings at risk based on the proposed changes, according to research by Goldman Sachs. Humana derives much of its profit from administering Medicare plans, which face more than $100 billion in cuts under the Finance bill. WellPoint provides insurance to many individuals and small businesses -- a market that would move to a government-run health-insurance exchange under the legislation.

Kerry Backs Troop Surge Coupled With Strategy

By JOSEPH BERGER
Published: October 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/us/politics/19talkshows.html?ref=us

“Those are critical components of counterinsurgency strategy,” Mr. Kerry said, speaking from Kabul in an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It would be very hard, I think, for the president to make a commitment to X number of troops, whatever it might be, or to a new strategy, without knowing that all of the components of the strategy are indeed capable of being achieved.”

“I think General McChrystal is asking the questions about the underlying assumptions,” Mr. Kerry said. “This is not Vietnam in many respects. We are here in Afghanistan because people attacked us here in the most significant attack against the United States since Pearl Harbor. We are here because there are still people at large who are plotting against the United States of America. And we are here because the stability of this region is of critical strategic interest to the United States.”