Finance & Business World

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 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

A Shanghai subway train crashed into another that was stopped underground Tuesday afternoon, injuring more than 210 people in the latest trouble for the rapidly expanded transportation system in China’s commercial center.

The crash occurred after Shanghai Shentong Metro Group blogged that line 10 was having delays due to equipment problems. Line 10 opened just last year as one of the city’s newest subways.

At least 212 people were hurt, three seriously, the metro operator said. It said none had life-threatening injuries, though some of the injured were carried away on stretchers.

One train rammed into the back of another that was stopped. Reports said problems with signaling equipment had prompted the line to switch to manual operations.

The trains were relatively crowded when they crashed between stations downtown in midafternoon. Photos posted online by passengers showed some of the injured covered in blood and lying on the floor of the train.

Firemen helped evacuate the approximately 500 passengers on the trains, taking them out through emergency exits and walking them through the subway tunnel.

The crash snarled downtown traffic as police blocked roads to clear the way for ambulances, and hundreds of gawkers gathered to watch as passengers were escorted from the subway.

Shanghai, a city of 23 million, has rapidly expanded its subways in recent years and some lines have seen problems with faulty signaling, windows shattering, doors not opening properly and poorly trained train operators.

Shanghai’s No. 10 line was among several opened last year that were built hastily ahead of the 2010 World Expo, which brought more than 72 million visitors to the eastern city.

Source

The Justice Department is seeking to block AT&T Inc.’s $39 billion plan to buy T-Mobile USA Inc., claiming that combining the two wireless giants could stymie competition and innovation.

The agency filed a civil antitrust lawsuit Wednesday morning in federal court in Washington that would prevent AT&T, which has the second-largest subscriber base in the country, from acquiring fourth-largest T-Mobile.

The deal, according to the Justice Department, would displace Verizon Wireless as the largest wireless carrier in the U.S., leading to higher prices, lower-quality services, a smaller pool of choices and fewer pioneering technologies for millions of Americans.

Consumers in rural areas or with lower incomes would be especially hard-hit, Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole said.

AT&T said it was ’surprised and disappointed” by the Justice Department’s move, saying that it had met often with the agency to work over the potential pitfalls of the deal.

The proposed purchase had sparked heavy protests from consumer groups and rival telecom companies. With more than 300 million phones, tablets and other mobile wireless devices in service across the country, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon dominate more than 90 percent of the market, the government said easy pay day loans.

Taking T-Mobile out of play would eliminate AT&T’s need to compete on operational efficiency and aggressive pricing, the Justice Department said.

After asking AT&T and T-Mobile for more information about the competitive concerns, the Federal Communications Commission last week continued its review. Though the process is still incomplete, Chairman Julius Genachowski said Wednesday that what his agency has seen so far “also raises serious concerns.”

“Vibrant competition in wireless services is vital to innovation, investment, economic growth and job creation, and to drive our global leadership in mobile,” he said in a statement.

Earlier in the day, AT&T announced it would repatriate 5,000 call center jobs to the U.S. that had been outsourced overseas if the takeover of T-Mobile goes through.

Source

BYD Co., a Chinese car and battery maker backed by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, is moving ahead with a share offering meant to raise cash for a major expansion.

BYD said Wednesday in a notice to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that it was beginning price consultations with investors after receiving regulatory approval for the initial public offering on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

The company plans to list 79 million shares, or 3.4 percent of its enlarged capital. MidAmerican Energy, a subsidiary of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, holds a 9.9 percent stake in BYD.

BYD, which branched into auto making after becoming the world’s biggest battery maker, has been investing heavily in expanding its vehicle production capacity despite a 33 percent drop in its profit last year.

BYD postponed its listing in Shenzhen, China’s smaller, second market, last year in hopes of tapping a better market environment.

Proceeds from the IPO will go to a 2.2 billion yuan ($338 million) expansion mainly focused on an auto research, development and production base in the company’s hometown of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong.

The company also plans to build a lithium battery factory.

BYD launched China’s first homegrown hybrid vehicle, the F3DM, for the retail market in late 2008. Its inexpensive, conventional sedans are consistent best-sellers.

But auto sales have slowed recently and intense price competition has squeezed profit margins.

The company has branched into production of electric buses and energy storage systems. It says it also plans to launch an SUV and other higher-end vehicles, expanding its lineup to include more profitable segments.

BYD and Germany’s Daimler AG have a 50-50, 600 million yuan ($88 million) electric car joint venture.

Source

The White House says a meeting between President Barack Obama and House Republicans was worthwhile even if it didn’t bridge the partisan divide that exists over how to reduce the deficit.

Press Secretary Jay Carney said it’s useful for Republicans and Democrats to sit down and talk in a non-confrontational environment. But also he said that a large meeting like the one between Obama and dozens of House Republicans Wednesday isn’t the right forum for specific advances in negotiations.

House Republicans pressed Obama at the session for more specifics, and more leadership. One leading Republican also asked Obama to stop “mischaracterizing” a GOP Medicare proposal that’s at the center of the spending debate. But Carney made clear that Obama will continue to criticize the Medicare plan.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

Top House Republicans said they pressed President Barack Obama Wednesday for more leadership and a detailed plan on budget cuts, with one leading lawmaker accusing him of mischaracterizing a GOP Medicare proposal at the center of a partisan divide over spending.

The meeting at the White House came as the GOP sought to build pressure on Obama for trillions in spending cuts in exchange for any increase in the government’s ability to borrow. The White House had no immediate comment.

After the meeting, dozens of rank-and-file GOP lawmakers streamed out of the front door of the White House and into a caravan of blue buses waiting for them on Pennsylvania Avenue, while members of the GOP leadership stopped on the driveway to speak to reporters and camera crews awaiting them in under a steaming sun.

“Any day Republicans and Democrats are actually having a dialogue, this is a good thing, said Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas.

Yet it was hard to see any concrete progress from a meeting that, based a description by Republican lawmakers, amounted to a face-to-face accounting of each side’s positions, but no breakthrough on how to reach a debt-reduction deal. The talks came as Aug. 2 deadline approaches for the federal government to raise the debt limit or go into unprecedented default.

“Unfortunately what we did not hear from the president is a specific plan of his to deal with the debt crisis,” Hensarling said. Instead, according to a GOP official briefed on the meeting, Obama noted that he’s deputized Vice President Joe Biden to lead talks on deficit reduction.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said, “I told the president, one more time, this is the moment. This is the window of opportunity where we can deal with this on our terms. We can work together and solve this problem. We know what the problems are. Let’s not kick the can down the road one more time.”

According to the GOP official briefed on the meeting, Boehner and other leaders told Obama that he hadn’t put a specific plan for spending cuts on the table. They brought up a speech he gave at George Washington University in April in which he called for deficit reduction totaling $4 trillion through spending cuts, tax increases and other measures. The Republicans said a speech isn’t a plan.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., had attended the speech only to hear Obama excoriate Ryan’s proposal to have future Medicare beneficiaries shop for insurance in the private market. On Wednesday Ryan told the president he’d viewed that as a sign that Obama was thinking about the 2012 elections and wanted fellow Democrats to turn up the political heat, according to the GOP official.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting, said Ryan told the president that leaders have to lead and Obama hadn’t shown leadership.

Pressed on that after the meeting Ryan said: “I just said we got to take on this debt and if we demagogue each other at the leadership level then we’re never gonna take on our debt.”

Ryan said he explained his Medicare plan to the president to get him to stop mischaracterizing it. Obama and Democrats routinely label Ryan’s proposal a “voucher” plan that would undo Medicare as it is now known.

“It’s been mis-described by the president and many others and so we simply described to him precisely what it is we’ve been proposing so that he hears from us how our proposal works so that in the future he won’t mischaracterize it,” Ryan said.

Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, Boehner released a statement signed by more than 150 economists backing his position on coupling spending cuts with any debt limit increase.

“Increasing the debt ceiling without significant spending cuts and budget reforms will send a message to American job creators that we still are not serious about ending Washington’s spending addiction,” the Ohio Republican said in the statement.

The session between Obama and House Republicans came on the heels of a symbolic and lopsided vote the day before against a GOP proposal to raise the cap on the debt limit by $2.4 trillion. The proposal, intended to prove that a bill to increase the borrowing cap with no spending cuts is dead on arrival, failed badly Tuesday on a 318-97 vote.

Democrats said the vote was aimed more at giving tea party-backed Republicans an opportunity to broadcast a “nay” vote against the administration’s position that any increase in U.S. borrowing authority should be done as a stand-alone measure uncomplicated by difficult spending cuts to programs like Medicare. A more painful vote to raise the debt ceiling looms for Republicans this summer.

In fact, Biden is leading talks on attaching spending cuts to the debt measure in advance of the Aug. 2 deadline set by the Treasury Department.

In Tuesday’s vote, House Democrats accused the GOP of political demagoguery, while the Obama administration maneuvered to avoid taking sides _ or giving offense to majority Republicans.

The House floor debate was brief, occasionally impassioned and set a standard of sorts for public theater, particularly at a time when private negotiations continue among the administration and key lawmakers on the deficit cuts Republicans have demanded.

Roughly two months remain before the date Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has said the debt limit must be raised. If no action is taken by Aug. 2, he has warned, the government could default on its obligations and risk turmoil that might plunge the nation into another recession or even an economic depression.

The government already has reached the limit of its borrowing authority, $14.3 trillion, and the Treasury is using a series of extraordinary maneuvers to meet financial obligations.

By no longer making investments in two big pension funds for federal workers and beginning to withdraw current investments, for example, the Treasury created $214 billion in additional borrowing headroom.

___(equals)

Associated Press writers Ben Feller and Erica Werner contributed to this report.

Source

The euro erased its gain versus the dollar and fell below $1.43 for the first time in more than two weeks as Standard & Poor’s reduction in Greece’s credit rating renewed concern the region’s debt crisis is worsening.

The 17-nation currency rose earlier as a report showed exports in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, jumped in March, bolstering the case for higher interest rates in the euro region. The pound depreciated after the Confederation of British Industry lowered its economic growth predictions and a report showed house prices unexpectedly fell.

“The S&P downgrade is just rubbing salt in a wound and confirmed everyone’s suspicions that Greece is essentially in a quasi default state,” said Boris Schlossberg, director of research at the online currency trader GFT Forex in New York. “You are still seeing some relatively good data out of the euro zone, so we are living in a bifurcated world.”

The euro decreased 0.2 percent to $1.4290 at 10:13 a.m. in New York, compared with $1.4316 on May 6, after touching $1.4273, the lowest level since April 19. The currency earlier rose 0.9 percent to $1.4442. The euro traded at 115.33 yen, compared with 115.44, after earlier rising 0.9 percent to 116.48. The dollar fetched 80.71 yen, compared with 80.63.

Futures traders increased their bets that the euro will gain against the U.S. dollar as of May 3, figures from the Washington-based Commodity Futures Trading Commission show. Net longs increased to 99,516 last week, the most since 2007, compared with 68,279 a week earlier.

Greece’s Rating

Greece’s credit rating was cut to B from BB- by S&P, which said further reductions are possible, with private investors at risk if maturities are extended on the nation’s emergency-aid package. Another rating cut would make Greece the lowest-rated country in Europe as today’s move left it even with Belarus after the fourth reduction by S&P since April 2010.

“It raises the stakes just that little bit more, in view of the ongoing debate on how Greece is going to deal with its ongoing problems,” said Jeremy Stretch, executive director of foreign- exchange strategy at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in London. “It’s another short-term headwind for the euro to take onboard. International investors sitting on the outside looking in probably regard it as another reason to fight shy of the euro.”

Officials in Athens spent the weekend denying speculation that Greece was headed out of the euro or into default after a gathering of finance ministers and a Spiegel magazine report that Greece was considering a return to the drachma.

Aid for Greece

Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker told reporters after the meeting that a new aid package for Greece was in the works. The extra money may require Greece to provide collateral or expand a plan to sell 50 billion euros of state assets, said a person with direct knowledge of the situation. Greece may also win easier repayment terms and deficit conditions on the original bailout.

Europe’s currency has risen 2.9 percent this year, according to Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Currency Indexes, a measure of the currencies of 10 developed nations. The yen has weakened 4.6 percent, while the dollar is down 5.1 percent.

The euro rose earlier versus the dollar as a government report showed that Germany’s exports jumped 7.3 percent in March from a month earlier. The median forecast of 10 economists in a Bloomberg News survey was for a 1.1 percent increase.

Norway’s krone rallied 0.7 percent to 5.4966 versus the dollar in the best performance among the most-traded currencies as crude rose after its biggest weekly drop since 2008. The Canadian dollar erased its gain, trading at 96.64 cents versus the U.S. currency after appreciating 0.6 percent on the rebound in crude oil.

Rebound in Crude

Crude for June delivery rose 2.1 percent to $99.20 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Norway is the world’s seventh-largest exporter of crude oil, while Canada is the biggest exporter of crude oil to the U.S.

The pound weakened versus the euro as the Confederation of British Industry, the U.K.’s biggest employers’ group, said U.K. gross domestic product will rise by 1.7 percent in 2011, compared with a February estimate of 1.8 percent. U.K. house prices fell the most in seven months in April, a report from Halifax, the mortgage unit of Lloyds Banking Group Plc, showed.

Sterling declined 0.2 percent to 87.63 pence per euro and slid 0.3 percent to $1.6369.

IntercontinentalExchange Inc.’s Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against the currencies of six major U.S. trading partners, was little changed at 74.901 after decreasing 0.5 percent to 74.436. The gauge rose to 74.925 on May 6, the highest level since April 20.

Payrolls in the U.S. grew by 244,000 last month in the seventh monthly gain after increasing by a revised 221,000 in the prior month, the Labor Department reported May 6.

Source

More people sought unemployment benefits last week, the second rise in three weeks, a sign the job market’s recovery is slow and uneven.

The Labor Department says applications for unemployment benefits jumped 25,000 to a seasonally adjusted 429,000 for the week ending April 23. That’s the highest total since late January.

The four-week average of applications, a less volatile measure, rose to 408,500, its third straight rise and the first time it has topped 400,000 in two months.

Applications near 375,000 are consistent with sustained job creation. Applications peaked during the recession at 659,000.

Some economists predicted that auto factory shutdowns, stemming from supply disruptions in Japan, would cause applications to rise. But a Labor Department analyst said only one state reported auto-related layoffs and the increase was modest.

Source