Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao
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Clayton-based Furniture Brands has named Vance Johnston as its new chief financial officer.
He is currently the company’s senior vice president for growth and transformation. He will begin the new position on May 18.
He will replace Steven Rolls, who is resigning business card.
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U.K. house prices dropped the most in 1 1/2 years in April as a stamp-duty exemption for first-time buyers ended and the economy fell into its first double-dip recession since the 1970s, Halifax said.
Prices dropped 2.4 percent from March, the largest monthly decline since September 2010, to an average 159,883 pounds ($258,700), the mortgage unit of Lloyds Banking Group Plc (LLOY) said in a statement in London today. Prices had risen 2.2 percent in March. From a year earlier, values were down 0.6 percent.
Surveys show the property market is struggling to gain traction as banks limit lending and consumers are squeezed by rising energy prices. Demand for homes was boosted earlier this year as first-time buyers took advantage of a tax exemption on purchases of homes costing less than 250,000 pounds before it ended in March. Consumer confidence may be undermined after data last week showed the economy shrank in the first quarter.
Fast-growing Etihad Airways has taken a nearly 3 percent stake of Aer Lingus as part of a strategy to build closer bonds with the Irish carrier, the Abu Dhabi-based airline said Tuesday.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. But it appears part of a wider Etihad effort to seek shares in smaller carriers to gain a possible edge in its rivalries with Gulf carriers Emirates and Qatar Airways.
Etihad said Tuesday the 2.987 percent stake in Aer Lingus reflects a “desire to forge a commercial partnership with the Irish national carrier.”
Etihad in recent months has bought large stakes in Air Berlin and Air Seychelles in a bid to challenge Emirates and Qatar Airways. Etihad operates 10 flights a week from its Abu Dhabi hub to Dublin.
The head of Qatar Airways, however, said the carrier is not currently looking to acquire another airline.
Qatar Airways Chief Executive Officer Akbar al-Baker said the airline is focused on building its own business, and doesn’t want to take on the financial problems of restructuring a weaker carrier. Al-Baker was in Dubai for a travel expo.
State-owned Qatar Airways competes for long-haul international passengers with Dubai-based Emirates airline and Etihad Airways.
Last month, Etihad said its sales jumped 28 percent to $989 million in the first quarter of the year as it pushed ahead with its rapid expansion.
In February, Aer Lingus reported a strong growth in profits for 2011 despite the country’s economic downturn. The Dublin-based carrier says in a statement Tuesday its full-year net profit rose 66 percent to euro71.2 million ($95.6 million). Sales rose 6 percent to euro1.29 billion ($1.73 billion).
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said the U.S. faces risks from the crisis in Europe while the confrontation with Iran has helped drive up oil prices.
Oil prices hovered above $104 a barrel Wednesday in Asia after a report showed U.S. crude supplies jumped more than expected for a fourth week, suggesting demand remains weak.
Benchmark oil for May delivery was up 17 cents to $104.37 a barrel at midday Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.27 to settle at $104.20 in New York on Tuesday.
Brent crude for June delivery was down 34 cents at $118.44 per barrel in London.
The American Petroleum Institute said late Tuesday that crude inventories rose 3.4 million barrels last week while analysts surveyed by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos., had predicted an increase of 400,000 barrels.
Inventories of gasoline fell 2.6 million barrels last week while distillates tumbled 2.4 million barrels, the API said.
The Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration reports its weekly supply data later Wednesday.
Crude has traded above $100 most of this year as an improving U.S. economy has bolstered investor confidence. However, crude demand has remained tepid.
“We look for a sizable U.S. crude supply surplus during the coming months to take some steam out of crude strength,” energy trader and consultant Ritterbusch and Associates said in a report guaranteed fast personal loans. “We still see fresh lows to below the $100 mark by next week.”
On Tuesday, President Barack Obama urged Congress to give oil market regulators more muscle to deter price manipulation by speculators amid rising gasoline prices.
Obama called on Congress to strengthen federal supervision of oil markets, increase penalties for market manipulation and empower regulators to increase the amount of money energy traders are required to put behind their transactions.
“Although President Obama’s comments on oil price regulation will occupy much headline space, it shouldn’t have much impact on oil pricing over the near term,” Ritterbusch said.
In other energy trading, heating oil was down 0.1 cents at $3.13 per gallon and gasoline futures slid 0.5 cents at $3.17 per gallon. Natural gas rose 0.2 cents at $1.95 per 1,000 cubic feet.
China watchers got a mixed view over the weekend of the country’s all-important manufacturing sector.
China’s government reported that manufacturing expanded in March, while a closely-watched private report said factories struggled with poor demand for their products.
The National Bureau of Statistics said Sunday that its official index of purchasing managers’ sentiment rose to 53.1 in March from 51 in February. Any reading above 50 indicates expansion in the sector.
The March report marked the fourth consecutive monthly increase and the index’s highest reading in a year.
At the same time, banking company HSBC issued a report that showed factory output fell in March for the fourth time in five months.
"Factory output was reduced largely in response to lackluster demand from domestic and external markets," the HSBC report said on line pay day loans.
The contrasting reports follow a pattern of recent months, as the two indexes have diverged.
Investors and analysts have been concerned that China’s extraordinary growth may be slowing too quickly.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao rattled investors recently when he said that China’s new gross domestic product growth forecast for 2012 is 7.5%, down from an earlier prediction of 8%.
A "hard landing" by China could ripple throughout the world. Troubles in Europe, the largest market for China’s goods, have intensified fears about a China slowdown.
Of course, China’s growth far exceeds what many developed countries are experiencing. China’s GDP rose 9.2% last year, while the U.S. economy grew 1.7%.
Central bankers at a Federal Reserve conference in Washington rekindled a debate over the best criteria for altering interest rates, pitting simple rules against complex models that estimate growth and inflation.
Lars Svensson, a deputy governor for Sweden
House Republicans resurrected the specter of Medicare rationing Thursday in an election-year vote to repeal cost controls in President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.
In the GOP crosshairs is a board that has yet to be named but would be empowered to force cuts to drug companies, insurers and other service providers if Medicare spending balloons. A Republican plan announced this week, laying down a dividing line between the parties, also would limit Medicare cost increases, but it would rely on competition among private insurance plans.
GOP lawmakers are hoping their symbolic 223-181 vote on Thursday to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board will help persuade seniors that Republicans, not Democrats, are the best stewards of Medicare.
The bill is likely to hit a dead end in the Senate. House Republicans all but guaranteed that when they paired the board repeal with caps on medical malpractice awards, which most Democrats oppose. The White House has issued a veto threat.
If it all sounds like a debate among Washington insiders, Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., says he will have no trouble explaining to constituents why he voted to repeal the cost-cutting board.
“Do you remember death panels?” said Kingston, referring to the debunked accusation by former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin that Obama’s health care law would allow the government to withhold life-saving care from the elderly.
“It’s not necessarily a death panel, but it is a rationing panel and rationing does lead to scarcity for some,” he added. “Who’s going to get the needed treatment, an 85-year-old or the 40-year-old with children?”
The health care law explicitly bars the board from rationing care, shifting costs to Medicare recipients or cutting their benefits. But critics say squeezing service providers will stifle medical innovation, achieving a similar result.
Many House Democrats also oppose the board _ dubbed IPAB for its initials _ but for different reasons. They feel it diminishes the role of Congress. But Republicans made it difficult to attract Democratic votes for repeal by adding other politically charged provisions to their bill.
“Republicans don’t want to see IPAB repealed now because they want to run against it,” said Scott Gottlieb, a former senior FDA official in the George W. Bush administration. “I think there will be an effort to repeal it after the election.”
The House vote came a day before the second anniversary of the health care law, and just ahead of next week’s Supreme Court deliberations on its constitutionality. Politics aside, the vote highlighted major differences between the parties on Medicare, the giant health care program for nearly 50 million seniors and disabled people.
All sides agree that Medicare as currently structured will not be able to pay its bills in the long run. The main options to control costs are unpalatable: tax increases, benefit cuts and cost shifts to middle- and upper-income retirees.
Most Republicans and Democrats also agree now that there has to be a limit on future Medicare increases payday loans no teletrack. The question is how.
Republicans would convert Medicare into a system dominated by private health insurance plans closely regulated by the government. Future retirees would get a fixed payment to buy either private coverage or sign up for a new government plan modeled on traditional Medicare. The plan counts on competition among the plans to help keep costs in check, but the annual government payment would also be limited by tying it to economic growth.
That’s the basic approach embodied in the new budget released this week by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chairman of the House Budget Committee, and seconded by GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Theoretically, such a system could help rein in Medicare cost increases, economists say. The question is whether it would be politically acceptable to seniors and future generations, with polls indicating that the public is resistant to major changes. Recognizing the sensitivity, Ryan’s plan would exempt anyone now 55 or older.
Obama and the Democrats would take a different approach to cost control, and that’s where the IPAB board comes in.
IPAB (pronounced EYE-pab) has the power to force payment cuts to service providers if costs rise beyond certain levels and Congress fails to substitute its own plan for savings. But the law explicitly forbids the board from rationing care, shifting costs to seniors, or cutting their benefits. The Democrats would put the burden on service providers, such as drug companies, insurers and eventually, hospitals.
Obama has yet to name anyone to the panel, whose 15 members would have to be confirmed by the Senate. Government economists are forecasting a period of manageable Medicare costs, meaning that IPAB’s services may not be needed until sometime around the end of the decade.
Democrats say they’d rather defend IPAB before older voters _ and attack the GOP’s Medicare overhaul.
“The rationing is in the Republican plan,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the ranking Democrat on the budget committee. “What they do is allow insurance companies to ration people’s health care.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this week that both Obama’s health care law and the new Ryan plan could potentially create access-to-care problems for Medicare recipients. The CBO cautioned that those could turn out to be greater under the GOP approach, which would squeeze Medicare growth harder. Republicans say that won’t happen because competition among health plans will keep costs down by reducing waste.
The House bill is likely to hit a dead end in the Senate. The White House issued a veto threat against it earlier this week. House Republicans all but guaranteed that when they paired by IPAB repeal with caps on medical malpractice awards, which most Democrats oppose.