Finance & Business World

Global stocks gave up some of their recent gains Monday amid concerns over Italy’s ability to get a handle on its colossal debt pile, while the yen slid in the wake of another attempt by the Japanese monetary authorities to weaken the currency.

Last week, stocks enjoyed one of their best weeks in months as investors breathed a sigh of relief that eurozone leaders finally presented the broad outlines of a convincing anti-crisis strategy. The three-pronged strategy of boosting the bailout fund, getting private creditors to take a bigger hit on their Greek debt holdings and the banks to raise more capital was largely viewed favorably by the markets, though details need to be ironed out.

Many analysts, however, think that Europe will end up having to do more, especially if bond market investors continue to ask for more in return for buying up Italian debt _ a poorly received auction last Friday has fueled concerns over the country.

Italy is the eurozone’s third largest economy and only Greece has more debt as a percentage of national income. Its debts dwarf the euro1 trillion ($1.4 trillion) Europe’s bailout fund will have at its disposal if last week’s commitments are delivered.

“We remain sceptical that the plan will prove enough to restore financial market stability for long, with some signs of disappointment already starting to creep into the market as Italian 10 year yields continue to march above 6 percent,” said Lee Hardman, an analyst at The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.

Investors more cautious view of last week’s plan weighed on stock markets Monday.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 1.1 percent at 5,641 while Germany’s DAX fell 1.6 percent to 6,260. The CAC-40 in France was 1.1 percent lower at 3,282.

Wall Street was also poised for a lower opening _ Dow futures were down 0.8 percent at 12,070 while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 futures fell 1 percent to 1,268.

Earlier, the main point of interest in financial markets was the Bank of Japan’s latest intervention to weaken the yen, which had hit a new post World War II high against the dollar.

The strong yen has dented earnings of Japanese corporations such as Nintendo Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. and hurt the economy’s recovery from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Finance Minister Jun Azumi said monetary authorities could continue intervening.

The dollar surged about 5 percent to above 79 yen for a while, before slipping back to 77.81 yen. Japan’s export sector _ whose fortunes are largely tied to the relative strength of the yen _ rose abruptly. Isuzu Motors Corp. jumped 3.7 percent. Canon Inc. rose 1 percent and Nikon Corp. added 1.8 percent. Nintendo Co. gained 1.5 percent.

Those gains helped limit the losses on Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index. It closed 0.7 percent lower at 8,988.39.

Analysts are skeptical over whether the intervention will have a long-lasting impact. Previous efforts this year have provided short-term relief.

The intervention is likely to feature at a summit of leaders from the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations in Cannes, France, later this week. How to get the global economy moving again is likely to the main topic of debate.

There’s also a lot of U.S. economic data to digest this week, culminating in Friday’s monthly jobs report on Friday.

“This month is going to be another watershed insight into whether we are looking at a low growth environment or something worse,” said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney. “To maintain the low growth environment view, the market is going to want to see positive employment growth.”

The Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank also meet to decide on their monetary policies this week. Mario Draghi will on Thursday hold his first meeting and press conference as chief of the ECB and successor to Jean-Claude Trichet. Investors will be looking for signs that the bank is considering cutting interest rates and that it will continue its program to buy bonds. The program, used intermittently by the ECB, has helped keep bond yields down so far this year in Italy and Spain.

Elsewhere in Asia, mainland Chinese shares were mixed. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index snapped a five-session winning streak by falling 0.2 percent to 2,468.25, while the Shenzhen Composite Index added 0.5 percent to 1,040.93.

In Sydney, shares of Australian flag carrier Qantas Airways Ltd. jumped 4.3 percent after a court ordered employees of the world’s 10th-largest airlines back to work. The airline had grounded its entire fleet on Saturday following weeks of strikes by its workers, but an arbitration court on Sunday ordered an end to the strikes and canceled the staff lockout.

Oil prices tracked equities lower, with the benchmark rate for December delivery down 49 cents at $92.85 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Source

MADISON COUNTY

Tropical Storm Rina battered Mexico’s Caribbean coast and the island of Cozumel with winds and rain Friday, as the navy forcibly evacuated some residents who refused to leave a low-lying island north of the storm.

Rina was a far cry from the Category 3 hurricane that some had feared would hit the resort-studded region and many tourists abandoned Cancun and the Riviera Maya ahead of its arrival. The storm was expected to weaken further on Friday.

Playa de Carmen, a resort town across from Cozumel, was left without electricity and streets were largely empty as Rina swept the coast just 20 miles (30 kilometer) west of Cozumel with winds of about 60 mph (95 kph). The storm was moving north at about 7 mph (11 kph).

The Mexican Navy took mandatory evacuation orders so seriously that it sent boats to Holbox island, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of where the storm was expected to hit, to haul out by force about 80 residents who had refused to leave the island during an earlier evacuation of about 2,300 people.

At least eight cruise ships changed itineraries away from the storm’s path.

Lines snaked from ticket counters in Cancun’s crowded airport as airliners heading to Canada and Europe waited in pouring rain. State Tourism Director Juan Carlos Gonzalez Hernandez estimated 10,000 tourists had left by Wednesday night.

NASA cut short an undersea laboratory mission near Key Largo, Florida, bringing the crew back to land.

Schools were ordered closed in communities along the coast and on Cozumel in anticipation of the storm.

Ports also closed to navigation for recreational, fishing and small boats in the state of Quintana Roo, home to Cancun, and neighboring Yucatan state, while the island of Cozumel was closed to larger vessels, including the ferry that connects the island and Playa del Carmen.

But some decided to ride out the weakened Rina. Early Thursday in Playa del Carmen, tourists and residents strolled along the promenade and the beach Thursday under cloudy but not-yet-rainy weather. At the beach, lifeguards were placing red flags warning people not to swim.

“We would prefer to lie on the beach and get in the ocean, but right now all we can do is walk around and go shopping,” said Vera Kohler, a 27-year-old tourist from Frankfurt, Germany, who arrived Wednesday and planned to stay in the area until Sunday.

Domenico Cianni, a retired restaurateur from Vancouver, Canada, said he also prepared for a hurricane by buying extra food and beer and putting shutters on the windows of his rental home. But after hearing Rina had been downgraded to a tropical storm he decided to join tourists in Playa del Carmen’s pier.

“We were curious about what’s happening. We wanted to be part of the action,” Cianni said.

A tropical storm warning was in effect for the Caribbean coast from Punta Allen to San Felipe.

Source

Bangkok residents jammed bus stations and highways on Wednesday to flee the flood-threatened Thai capital, while others built cement walls to protect their shops or homes from advancing waters surging from the country’s flooded north.

“The amount of water is gigantic,” Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said. “Some water must spread into Bangkok areas but we will try to make it pass through as quickly as possible.”

Some neighborhoods on the city’s fringes were already experiencing waist-high flooding, but central areas remained dry.

Flood waters breached barriers protecting Bangkok’s second largest airport on Tuesday, halting commercial flights and underlining the gravity of the Southeast Asian nation’s deepening crisis, which has seen flood waters inundate a third of the country and kill 366 people over the last three months.

Yingluck’s government declared a five-day public holiday on Tuesday in affected areas, including Bangkok, while the Education Ministry ordered schools to close until Nov. 7. Many anxious city residents were taking advantage of the holiday to leave the capital or prepare for a possible watery siege.

Panic buying of food and other necessities emptied the shelves of many supermarkets, and walls of sandbags or cinderblocks covered the entrances of many buildings.

Yingluck urged everyone in the capital to move their belongings to higher ground and warned that the city could be swamped if flood barriers at three key locations fail.

“If the three spots 100% free credit score… remain intact, the situation will improve. However, if we can’t protect one of the spots, then the surrounding areas will be flooded. In the worst case, if we can’t protect all three spots, all of Bangkok will be flooded,” she said.

A day earlier, she warned that the floods could range from 4 inches to 5 feet (10 centimeters to 1.5 meters) deep in the capital.

Thousands of people heeded advice to evacuate to official shelters, including many fleeing for a second or third time after their original refuges were overtaken by the flooding.

The exodus included hundreds of inmates from three prisons _ many on death row _ who were taken by bus from Bangkok’s northern suburbs to facilities in other provinces.

Residents living near Mahasawat Canal in western Bangkok evacuated on Wednesday after a rapid overnight rise in water.

“I decided to leave because the water came in very fast,” said Jong Sonthimen, a 57-year-old factory cleaner. A boat carried her and two plastic garbage bags with her belongings to a Buddhist temple, where pickup trucks waited to take residents to a safer area.

Last week, Yingluck ordered key floodgates opened in Bangkok to help drain runoff through urban canals to the sea, but there is great concern that rising tides in the Gulf of Thailand this weekend could slow critical outflows and flood the city.

Source

FedEx expects to handle more than 17 million packages on its busiest day of the year in mid-December, as holiday shoppers continue to buy more online.

That volume represents a 9 percent increase from last year’s busiest day, and is almost double what FedEx ships on a normal day. The world’s second-largest package delivery company thinks its busiest day will fall on Dec. 12.

The number of shipments handled on the busiest day has climbed steadily through the recession as holiday shoppers skip stores and have gifts shipped after buying them online.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, FedEx Corp. expects more than 260 million shipments. That’s a 12 percent increase from 2010.

The Memphis, Tenn. company plans to add about 20,000 seasonal workers to handle the surge.

Source

Politicians hate yielding power. But in recession-hit Greece, more governing Socialists are choosing to do so rather than back Prime Minister George Papandreou’s deeply hated austerity measures.

In growing numbers, Socialist lawmakers are calling for an end to their single-party government, unable to face their angry constituents after two years of punishing tax hikes and slashed pensions, jobs and salaries.

Pressed hard by Papandreou, parliament this week approved some of the harshest cuts since the financial crisis began in order to appease international creditors and keep Greece solvent.

But for many, it was a step too far: Two days of rioting outside parliament left one man dead and nearly 200 wounded. Unions staged a 48-hour general strike that shut down schools, shops, offices and transportation around the country and occupied ministry buildings.

“Papandreou now has large sections of society against him,” said Spyros Tritsas, chief editor of the weekly current affairs magazine Epikaira, which has been critical of Papandreou’s handling of the crisis.

The Socialists themselves showed increasing signs of discontent, as popular support for their party continues to fall dramatically.

Greeks are heading into a fourth year of recession with 16.5 percent unemployment and a rapidly expanding class of poor. Now they face yet more emergency tax hikes, pension cuts, and steep levies on their homes.

One prominent government deputy choked back tears before voting for the tough new measures Thursday, and promised it was the last time she would bow to leadership pressure. Others said they had simply had enough.

“At this point, we have reached our limit … No (party) can carry this burden alone. There must be an emergency government that will be in power for as long as is required,” Socialist deputy Nikos Salagiannis said.

Four other Socialists during the debate also openly demanded that Papandreou hold talks with opposition parties on an emergency power-sharing deal.

In the end, lawmakers approved the latest round of cuts late Thursday, but the vote gnawed at Papandreou’s grip on power, midway through his four-year term in office.

A dissenting Socialist vote cut his majority in parliament to just three seats _ raising new doubts that he will be able to see through two more years of unpopular reforms.

The Greek political crisis comes as European leaders grapple over possible solutions to stop the eurozone debt crisis spreading from the three smaller nations that have already received bailouts _ Greece, Ireland and Portugal _ to major economies that are struggling, such as Italy and Spain.

Since May 2010, Greece has been surviving on rescue loans worth euro110 billion ($152 billion) from eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund. But it has tried to meet deficit-cutting demands mainly by raising taxes, arguing that structural reforms to ease long-term spending on health care and its bloated public sector will take longer to show results.

Attempts at cross-party support for Greece’s recovery effort have fallen flat.

Opposition parties on the left and right oppose the measures as unfair and doomed to fail, while the government says it must meet its commitments as each rescue loan installment _ paid out roughly every quarter _ is essential to prevent a chaotic default payday loans with no fax.

So far, the austerity has hammered Greece’s once-booming private sector.

Since the debt crisis started in late 2009, more than 275,000 people have lost their jobs and store closures have exceeded 20 percent in some parts of Athens and other cities.

“The government is heading toward a state of collapse … because it is unable to stop the rapid decline in people’s living standards,” Tritsas told The Associated Press. “The middle class is being pulled apart, as the measures are now hurting average people and small businesses who had little financial reliance on the state.”

A poll commissioned by the magazine and published in mid-October found that 81 percent of respondents thought Greece’s financial situation had got “much worse” in the past 12 months, and that 55 percent said they would be unable to pay the new emergency taxes. Nearly nine out of 10 Greeks now disagree with Papandreou’s policies in general.

No margin of error was available for the VPRC poll of 1,000 adults conducted earlier in the month.

The Socialists won the 2009 election by a landslide, with nearly 44 percent of the vote and a 10-seat majority in the 300-member parliament. Rival conservatives were widely discredited for corruption scandals, tipping Greece into recession, and hiding the true extent of the country’s economic troubles.

Two years later, seven of Papandreou’s deputies have become anti-government independents and three others have quit politics due to their opposition to the austerity measures.

“If those three deputies had not given up their seats in parliament, the government would already have fallen,” Tritsas said. “Do I think the Socialists themselves could bring down the government? I think it’s likely. It’s hard to see (early) elections being avoided.”

Tritsas said he did not expect deeply entrenched dominance by the country’s two main parties to disappear, but predicted those parties would be forced to reinvent themselves.

Support for the Socialists has sunk to around 20 percent, according to recent opinion polls which give the conservatives a double-digit lead.

And labor unions, once a pillar of Socialist support, are now openly calling for the government to go.

“This government has ignored the popular uprising by approving this terrible law,” Ilias Iliopoulos, secretary-general of the civil servant union, Adedy, told the AP on Friday after two days of riots shook Athens. “Our answer is: get out as fast as you can, there is no place for you in Greece any longer.”

Meanwhile, the remaining 153 members of Papandreou’s parliamentary group dread weekend visits to their constituencies, where opposition-organized groups of “angry citizens” often greet them with eggs, yogurt, and chants of abuse.

Cell-phone videos of the attacks have been frequently posted on the Internet and shown on television.

The Socialists, government lawmaker Andreas Triantafilopoulos told parliament, have been handed an unendurable task.

“We have been insulted, mocked, heckled, and assaulted,” he said. “That’s because we’ve had to shoulder the weight of these reforms alone.”

Source

The European Union and Moscow on Friday announced a major breakthrough in negotiations to let Russia become a member of the World Trade Organization by the end of the year.

The last bilateral issues with Russia were resolved over the car industry, the export of EU farm products and quotas for wood imports, EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said.

Russia is the last major economy that isn’t a member of the WTO, the international free-trade body, and accession to it is crucial to a broader partnership agreement the European Union wants to establish with the country.

“We have struck a deal on the final outstanding bilateral issues, leaving the way open for Russia to join the WTO by the end of this year,” De Gucht said.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with three major radio stations that “all the issues related to Russia’s bid to join the WTO have been settled.”

De Gucht insisted that Russia still needed to overcome a dispute with neighbor Georgia over trade transparency and offered to mediate. Georgia has the power to block Russia’s membership, which has been in the works since 1993, and has been virtually doing so over border control issues in breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia Business Card Holders.

Lavrov said that “the issues that Georgia is raising have nothing to do with the WTO,” adding that “if we are guided by the WTO’s charter, then Georgia is not an obstacle” to Russia’s accession.”

De Gucht said Russia would now continue negotiating with the WTO at its Geneva headquarters to deal with remaining multilateral trade issues and held out hope Moscow could still join the trade organization in December.

Russian membership would make it easier for two-way trade and improve the overall business climate.

In the past, for example, Russia’s high export duties on wood have hit Nordic paper makers hard, and royalties airlines have to pay when they fly over Siberia have been a major concern. Both issues have now been settled, De Gucht said.

The EU is Russia’s largest trading partner, accounting for 46 percent of its foreign trade. The 27-country bloc is also the biggest investor in the Russian economy.

_____

Nataliya Vasilyeva contributed to this story from Moscow.

Source

The personal computer industry, already reeling from depressed demand, has been dealt another setback: Massive flooding in Thailand has curtailed production of a critical component

TORONTO

Dear Jeanne & Leonard:

My sister is stiffing our elderly father. Six years ago, “Madeline” and her husband borrowed $50,000 from Dad for a down payment on a house, the deal being that they’d pay him back when they sold it. Well, they did sell the house a few years later. But instead of repaying our father, they bought a larger one. Long story short, when the housing market collapsed, they decided to stop making payments, and the bank foreclosed on them. So Madeline and her husband moved out, and they’re making no attempt to repay Dad, though they both have jobs. Dad’s asked me to help him get his money back, and I’d like to know where to start. - Jill M.

Dear Jill:

The first thing your father needs to do is change his will so that it takes into account the amount of money Madeline owes him. That’s at the very least. In our book, Madeline’s dishonorable behavior puts disinheriting her on the table.

Next, you and your father should talk to a lawyer and find out what legal options exist for collecting from your sister and her husband. Given the way they’ve treated him, your father shouldn’t hesitate to be as tough as the law allows.

Finally, if you haven’t already done so, it’s time for you to get tough with your sister—very tough. By this we mean letting her know that if she doesn’t start repaying the loan, you’re prepared to cut her off from the family and are prepared to tell everyone—your extended family, your family’s friends, her friends and anyone else she knows—that she’s blown off a large debt to her elderly father. Then cross your fingers and hope it sinks in: That walking away from her obligation will not be cost-free.

* * *

Dear Jeanne & Leonard:

When a guy starts bragging about money, what can you do? Last weekend our neighbors had my wife and me over for dinner to meet the husband’s brother and sister-in-law, “Eric” and “Allison.” At one point during the evening, Eric began telling me about a wonderful meal he and Allison had had on a recent vacation guaranteed payday loans. When Eric said the dinner cost $900, my jaw must have dropped, because he quickly added “But there was real value there, especially in the wine.” I was dumbstruck. I’m sure our neighbors can’t afford dinners that cost one-third that much, and, as Eric could surely tell, neither can we. What’s the appropriate response in a situation like that? - Flabbergasted

Dear Flabbergasted:

So, what do you think? Were you caught in the crossfire of some insane sibling rivalry, or is this guy always this boorish?

Not that it matters. There’s nothing you can say to people like Eric, and there’s no point in trying. All you can do is laugh about him later, while enjoying a much less expensive meal with much more civilized friends.

* * *

Dear Jeanne & Leonard:

I’m wondering if I need to give some money back to my insurance company. Here’s the story: A leaking pipe under my house caused extensive mold damage—damage that the company’s claims adjuster estimated would cost $5,500 to repair. But once I filed a claim, the insurance company decided the damage wasn’t covered by my policy. So I had to file a complaint with the Insurance Commission, which ultimately forced the insurance company to pay me the $5,500. This took a long time, though, and meanwhile I found someone who fixed the damage for $2,000. Now I’m wondering, is it wrong for me to keep the $3,500 difference between what I paid for the repair and what the insurance company paid me? - W.G.

Dear W.G.:

We don’t know what your policy states, but in the moral arena, you’re entitled to the entire $5,500 - $2,000 to pay for the repair and $3,500 for the trouble the insurance company made you go to collect what it owed you.

Please e-mail your questions about money and relationships to Questions@MoneyManners.net. © 2011 by Jeanne Fleming and Leonard Schwarz

Distributed by King Features Syndicate

Source