Finance & Business World

Seeking to protect local industry, the Brazilian government is sharply raising taxes on imported cars and trucks under a decree published Friday in the country’s Federal Register.

The measure initially announced at a news conference Thursday increases the industrialized products tax by 30 percentage points on vehicles that fail to meet rules about local content.

The new rates range from 37 percent to 55 percent, depending on a variety of factors such as vehicle and engine types. This is on top of import duties and other importing costs.

The decree has exemptions for companies that meet six of 11 new rules about local content. The rules include having at least 65 percent of their vehicles’ parts made in Mercosur countries, investing significantly in research or doing most of their assembly work in Brazil.

The measure is meant to protect Brazil’s domestic industry, Finance Minister Guido Mantega said Thursday.

“We are the fifth largest vehicle market in the world and the seventh largest producer, but we might lose our position if we don’t take measures,” Mantega said in Brasilia.

The duties take effect in two months.

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The Associated Press emphasized its efforts to strengthen state news reports and investigative and accountability journalism in its annual presentation to media executives Thursday.

AP leaders told the members of the Associated Press Media Editors that the news cooperative continues to beef up state news reports, despite staff reductions and budget pressures shared with the industry.

The news cooperative is continuing its “Broken Budgets” multimedia series launched this year. The joint reporting project with AP members expands statehouse coverage to explore cutbacks in state budgets. The series has examined dozens of aspects of state finances, from spending on roads and schools to the nuts-and-bolts of how states borrow and spend.

The AP has also changed staffing in some areas to expand early morning news.

“We have to take that breaking news and drive it faster than we ever had before,” said Kathleen Carroll, executive editor and a senior vice president for the AP.

The AP also told media executives that the company has expanded state photo reports and reaffirmed its commitment to investigative journalism, highlighting an award-winning “Aging Nukes” series that detailed problems at U.S. nuclear plants.

AP leaders said the company has never placed a higher priority on accountability journalism, putting a greater emphasis on seeking public records and fact-checking claims by political candidates and public officials. Across the company, AP staffers filed some 1,500 requests for public documents last year, said Kristin Gazlay, AP vice president and managing editor for financial news and global training.

Political editor Liz Sidoti said the AP is bulking up analysis pieces to check statements by politicians, at times assigning a dozen reporters to scrutinize facts at a single presidential debate fast cash advance loan. She told news executives to expect more analysis to guide political coverage, especially as politicians step up claims about the economy.

Sidoti said the cooperative considers its top assignment over the coming to year to cover “the economy intersecting with the presidential campaign.”

She predicted a lively year.

“We’re all going to have a very competitive presidential race to cover next year,” Sidoti said.

AP Director of Photography Santiago Lyon told the executives that increased cooperation has meant many more photos in the U.S.

Lyon said domestic photo transmissions were up 9 percent in the second quarter of this year. He also said AP is better sharing photo coverage plans with members to avoid overlap.

“We continue to make good progress toward increasing the quality, and the volume, of the state photo reports,” he said.

AP also presented a good-natured look at its famed AP Stylebook, created in 1953 and the definitive style guide for publishers in all formats. AP in the last year added a new guide on food and recipes to its 2011 Stylebook, and quizzed media executives on some of the year’s style changes.

Every hand in the room went up to identify the correct style on “email.” The editor of the AP Stylebook, David Minthorn, said it was the best-known style change of the year.

“It was the dropped hyphen heard by copy editors around the world,” he said.

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As a health official evaluating a $5.5 million state Medicaid contract, Christine Larsen in January signed off on the hiring of SynCare, a fledgling Indianapolis-based company.

Six months later, Larsen ended up on the company’s payroll, helping to preside over a debacle of a contract that lasted just three months amid outrage from patients, health providers and SynCare’s own employees.

In the wake of the company’s termination, politicians and other critics have questioned the wisdom of the Missouri health department officials who designed and approved the deal, wondering how SynCare got hired in the first place. Larsen surely played a key role, but she wasn’t the company’s only well-connected backer.

Corporate filings reveal that Clayton-based Centene Corp.

On Tuesday, Missouri lawmakers will start debating $360 million in proposed tax breaks to help turn St. Louis’ underused airport into a bustling international cargo hub.

Yet, as currently written, that bill could commit Missouri to spending $300 million of that to build factories and giant freezers

Employers added no jobs in August _ an alarming setback for the economy that renewed fears of another recession and raised pressure on Washington to end the hiring standstill.

Worries flared Friday after release of the worst jobs report since September 2010. Total payrolls were unchanged, the first time since 1945 that the government reported a net job change of zero. The unemployment rate stayed at 9.1 percent.

The stock market plunged in response. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 253 points, or more than 2 percent.

Analysts say the economy cannot continue to expand unless hiring picks up. In the first six months of 2011, growth was measured at an annual rate of 0.7 percent.

Companies are mostly keeping their payrolls intact. They’re not laying off many workers, but they’re not hiring, either. Without more jobs to fuel consumer spending, economists say another recession would be inevitable. Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of economic growth.

Like a wobbling bicycle, “you either reaccelerate or you fall over, said James O’Sullivan, chief economist at MF Global. “Something has to give.”

Consumer and business confidence was shaken this summer by the political standoff over the federal debt limit, a downgrade of long-term U.S. debt and the financial crisis in Europe. Tumbling stock prices escalated the worries.

Even before it stalled last month, job growth had been sputtering. The economy added 166,000 jobs a month in the January-March quarter, 97,000 a month in the April-June quarter and just 43,000 a month so far in the July-September period.

“Underlying job growth needs to improve immediately in order to avoid a recession,” said HSBC economist Ryan Wang.

The dispiriting job numbers for August will heighten the pressure on the Federal Reserve, President Barack Obama and Congress to find ways to stimulate the economy.

So far, the Fed has been reluctant to launch another round of Treasury bond purchases. Its previous bond-buying programs were intended to force down long-term interest rates, encourage borrowing and boost stock prices.

On Thursday, Obama will give a televised speech to a joint session of Congress to introduce a plan for creating jobs and spurring economic growth.

Even for people who do have jobs, income growth is stalled. That will hold back their ability to spend. The only sure way to reduce the risk of recession is with more hiring, economists say.

“The importance of job growth cannot be overstated,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc.

The economy needs to add roughly 250,000 jobs a month to rapidly bring down the unemployment rate. The rate has been above 9 percent in all but two months since May 2009. Roughly 14 million Americans are unemployed.

The weakness was underscored by revisions to the jobs data for June and July. Collectively, those figures were lowered to show 58,000 fewer jobs added than previously thought. The downward revisions were all in government jobs.

The average workweek and hourly earnings also declined in August. Cutbacks by federal, state and local governments have erased 290,000 government jobs this year, including 17,000 in August.

“There is no silver lining in this one,” said Steve Blitz, senior economist at ITG Investment Research. “It is difficult to walk away from these numbers without the conclusion that the economy is simply grinding to a halt.”

The unemployment rate for black men jumped a full percentage point in August to 18 percent. That’s the highest level for that group since March 2010. And unemployment for black people as a whole surged from 15.9 percent to 16.7 percent even as unemployment for white Americans ticked down to 8 percent from 8.1 percent.

Obama has faced doubts within his own party, including black lawmakers who say he hasn’t done enough to help chronic unemployment in black communities.

Yet Obama is unlikely to win support for any new stimulus spending from congressional Republicans, who oppose further spending and argue that the president’s economic policies have failed. They favor deeper spending cuts and less government regulation.

On Friday, Obama took a step toward winning their support. He directed the Environmental Protection Agency to abandon rules that would have tightened health-based standards for smog. Republicans and some business leaders have said the proposed rules would have cost jobs.

Kurt Karl, chief economist for the Americas at Swiss Re, said the August jobs report “implies a rising probability of recession.”

Still, he noted, employment fell for six quarters after the 2001 recession _ and the economy kept chugging along at an annual rate of 2.1 percent over that time.

The economy’s 0.7 percent growth rate in the first half of 2011 was the slowest six months of growth since the recession officially ended in June 2009.

Most economists expect growth to improve to about a 2 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter. Lower gasoline prices have provided some relief to consumers. And factories are revving up again after being interrupted by Japan’s earthquake and nuclear crisis.

Before Friday’s jobs report, the economy had been showing signs of better health. Consumer spending was strong in August. Auto sales were brisk. Manufacturing expanded. And fewer people applied for unemployment benefits.

Yet even 2 percent growth isn’t fast enough to generate many jobs. And the economy remains vulnerable to outside shocks _ a worsening European debt crisis or more political brinkmanship in Washington.

“The economy’s perforated at this point,” said Sean Snaith, director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Competitiveness. “Any additional strain on it will tear it apart.”

The Obama administration has estimated that unemployment will average about 9 percent next year, when Obama will seek re-election. The rate was 7.8 percent when he took office.

The White House Office of Management and Budget projects overall growth of just 1.7 percent this year.

“The economy continues to stagger,” said Sung Won Sohn, economist at California State University Channel Islands. “It wouldn’t take much (of a) shock to tip it onto a recession.”

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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.

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Retreating loyalists of Moammar Gadhafi killed scores of detainees and arbitrarily shot civilians over the past week, as rebel forces extended their control over the Libyan capital, survivors and a human rights group said Sunday.

In one case, Gadhafi fighters opened fire and hurled grenades at more than 120 civilians huddling in a hangar used as a makeshift lockup near a military base, said Mabrouk Abdullah, 45, who escaped with a bullet wound in his side. Some 50 charred corpses were still scattered across the hangar on Sunday.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said the evidence it has collected so far “strongly suggests that Gadhafi government forces went on a spate of arbitrary killing as Tripoli was falling.” The justice minister in the rebels’ interim government, Mohammed al-Alagi, said the allegations would be investigated and leaders of Gadhafi’s military units put on trial.

So far, there have been no specific allegations of atrocities carried out by rebel fighters, though human rights groups are continuing to investigate some unsolved cases.

AP reporters have witnessed several episodes of rebels mistreating detainees or sub-Saharan Africans suspected of being hired Gadhafi guns. Earlier this week, rebels and their supporters did not help eight wounded men, presumably Gadhafi fighters, who were stranded in a bombed out fire station in Tripoli’s Abu Salim neighborhood, some pleading for water.

Najib Barakat, the health minister in the rebels’ interim government, said Sunday that he does not yet have a death toll for the weeklong battle for Tripoli. Hundreds have died and more bodies, some in advanced stages of decay, are still being retrieved from the streets.q

Barakat said efforts are being made to identify bodies. At the least, the corpses of suspected Gadhafi fighters, especially non-Libyans, are being photographed before burial, to allow for possible future identification by relatives.

In fighting late Sunday, pro-Gadhafi elements fired Grad rockets at rebel forces gathering in the town of Nawfaliyah, not far from Gadhafi’s home town of Sirte, rebels said.

Rebels gave residents there 10 days to allow rebel forces in peacefully or face an assault. A rebel spokesman said many Gadhafi loyalists have fled to Sirte and are preparing for a fierce battle.

Rebels rode into Tripoli a week ago, then fought fierce battles with Gadhafi forces, especially at the former Libyan leader’s Bab al-Aziziya compound and the Abu Salim neighborhood, a regime stronghold.

As the rebels consolidated their control and Gadhafi fighters fled, reports of atrocities began emerging over the weekend.

Human Rights Watch said it has evidence indicating regime troops killed at least 17 detainees in an improvised lockup, a building of Libya’s internal security service, in the Gargur neighborhood of Tripoli. A doctor who examined the corpses said about half had been shot in the back of the head and that abrasions on ankles and wrists suggested they had been bound.

The group spoke to Osama Al-Swayi who had been detained there, along with 24 others.

On Aug. 21, detainees heard rebels advancing and shouting “Allahu Akbar!” or “God is great” he told Human Rights Watch.

“We were so happy, and we knew we would be released soon,” he said. “Snipers were upstairs; then they came downstairs and started shooting. An old man (and another person) were shot outside our door. (The rest of us) ran out because they opened the door and said, “Quickly, quickly, go out.”

He said the soldiers told them to lie on the ground. He said he heard one soldier saying, “Just finish them off.” Four soldiers fired at the detainees.

“I was near the corner and got hit in the right hand, the right foot and the right shoulder. In one instant, they finished off all the people with me. … No one was breathing. Some of them had head wounds,” he told the rights group.

Gadhafi forces set up another detention center in a hangar near their Yarmouk military base in southern Tripoli cash advance america.

Abdullah, who was at the hangar Sunday, said he had survived a massacre there last week. He said he had been detained in the city of Zlitan to the east on Aug. 16 and was brought to the hangar with other civilian captives. All were beaten and tortured, he said.

“They didn’t even ask us questions,” he said, “They just beat us and called us rats.”

On Tuesday, he said, more than 120 prisoners were in the hangar when a soldier told them they’d be released at dusk, Abdullah said. A short time later, guards hurled hand grenades inside, then opened fire. He was shot and wounded in his side, but fled the hanger. He hid outside when soldiers returned and fired on other survivors. When they left, he escaped.

Ahmed Mohammed, 25, also said he survived the massacre and told a similar story. Neither knew how many had been killed nor how and when the bodies had been burned.

Amnesty International spoke to another survivor, Hussein al-Lafi, who said three of his brothers were killed that day.

“They (the guards) immediately opened fire, and I saw one of them holding a hand grenade. Seconds later, I heard an explosion, followed by four more. I fell on the ground face down. Others fell on top of me and I could feel their warm blood … People were screaming and there were many more rounds of fire.”

On Wednesday, guards at a Gadhafi military base in the Tripoli suburb of Qasr Ben Ghashir shot dead five prisoners held in solitary confinement, Amnesty said, citing survivors. Other detainees panicked and broke out of their cells when they heard the shots, survivors said. By that time, the guards had fled, the report said.

In addition to the killings at detention centers, Human Rights Watch said it collected testimony about Gadhafi soldiers randomly shooting civilians. In one incident, on Wednesday, medical lab technician Salah Kikli said he saw Gadhafi fighters pull two unarmed men, including one in medical scrubs, from an ambulance and kill them.

Al-Alagi, the justice minister, said the reported atrocities did not come as a surprise because the regime acted in a brutal manner in the past. He said that the justice system would have to be “cleansed” before investigations can begin.

It remains unclear who is responsible for some of the other killings, including of dozens of dark-skinned men whose bodies were found in two areas of Tripoli.

Reporters saw bodies in advanced stages of decomposition at Abu Salim hospital, including in the parking lot, a ward and in the basement. Barakat, the health minister, said a total of 75 corpses were found at the hospital.

Another group of bodies was strewn across a roundabout near Bab al-Aziziya, Gadhafi’s compound. Five were in a field clinic, housed in a tent, and one of the corpses still had an IV sticking in his right arm.

Human Rights Watch counted a total of 29 bodies in that area, where Gadhafi loyalists, many from sub-Saharan Africa, had camped out in recent months. The group said it was not yet clear who was responsible for the deaths.

Some rebel fighters have mistreated detainees, pushing or hitting them, though others have tried to stop abuse. In many cases, wounded rebels and regime fighters were treated side-by-side in rebel-controlled hospitals.

On Sunday, in a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, rebels apprehended a dozen black men and accused them of being mercenaries in Gadhafi’s army. The detainees were occasionally punched before one of the rebels convinced his comrades the men were just migrant workers.

William Osas, a 32-year-old Nigerian, said he and other Africans had fled to a farm nearby to escape the fighting, and the men were detained while they were looking for food. Reporters from The Associated Press visited the farm and found hundreds of Africans living there, including many women.

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The European Central Bank says it spent euro14.3 billion ($20.6 billion) last week buying government bonds to keep the eurozone’s debt crisis at bay.

The amount disclosed on Monday was short of the previous week’s figure of euro22 billion ($32 billion) but close to market expectations.

Buying Italian and Spanish bonds on financial markets has driven down borrowing rates that were threatening those two countries with financial ruin fast cash.

European officials want the eurozone’s bailout fund to take over the purchases, but national parliaments will not give their approval to that move until this fall.

That has left the central bank with the main burden of fighting off market turmoil.

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I wish we had treated jobs the way we treated this debt ceiling, which was a bit of a manufactured crisis, which jobs isn’t. So what if we got everyone together and said let’s set a deadline to figure out how you actually create jobs in this country. Can you imagine if the passion and energy that went into this ridiculous debt ceiling had gone into how do we actually get jobs created?”

U.S. stocks fluctuated Wednesday after companies reported strong earnings but gave mixed forecasts for the future.

Target Corp., Staples Inc. and Dell Inc. all reported earnings for last quarter that were above analysts’ forecasts. Companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 are on track to report higher profits for a ninth straight quarter. But economic growth is weak around the world, and some economists worry that a second recession may be coming. That could pull down future results.

Target and Staples both gave profit forecasts that were above Wall Street’s expectations, but Dell cut its prediction for revenue growth this year.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 49 points, or 0.4 percent, to 11,357 at 1:30 p.m. in New York. It had been up as many as 120 around 10:30 a.m. The S&P 500 fell 4, or 0.4 percent, to 1,188. The Nasdaq composite fell 26, or 1.1 percent, to 2,497.

Six of the 10 sectors that make up the S&P 500 rose. Four fell, led by a 1.4 percent drop for technology stocks after Dell’s forecast cut.

“There are a whole bunch of contradictory signals in the system now, and it’s hard to tell which way to go,” said Charlie Smith, chief investment officer of Fort Pitt Capital Group, which has just over $1 billion in assets under management.

The increased role of automated trading by computers has increased volatility, making investing more difficult. “When you get a piece of news, it’s almost like the machines are trying to out-quick each other,” and they are sending stocks in straight lines up or down, Smith said. “That’s what really scares retail investors. We try to sit and wait in the weeds for good businesses at good prices.”

He has focused on telecom stocks and cable companies. Their relatively big dividend yields look more attractive given low yields on bonds. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note is at 2.17 percent, down from 3.34 percent at the start of the year.

Telecom stocks in the S&P 500 rose 1.1 percent Wednesday, the most among the 10 sectors that make up the index. Utility stocks also tend to pay dividends, and they rose 0.8 percent.

Energy stocks rose 0.4 percent after crude oil gained 95 cents per barrel to $87.60.

Dell said late Tuesday its profit rose 63 percent last quarter on strong demand from businesses and government agencies. But it also cited “a more uncertain demand environment” when it cut its forecast for annual revenue growth to a range of 1 percent to 5 percent paperless payday loans. That’s down from an earlier growth forecast for 5 percent to 9 percent. Dell stock fell 10.5 percent Wednesday.

Other companies are more optimistic. Retailer Target said it expects to earn between $4.15 per share and $4.30 per share this year. Analysts had expected $4.14 per share. Target also said its earnings last quarter rose 3.7 percent on sales of grocery, beauty products and other items. Target shares rose 1.5 percent.

Office products retailer Staples raised its profit forecast for the year after saying strong international sales pushed earnings up 36 percent last quarter.

Deere also raised its forecast for full-year earnings. It now expects to earn $2.7 billion this fiscal year, up from a May forecast of $2.65 billion. The maker of tractors and other heavy equipment said its profit rose 15 percent last quarter on strong demand for farm equipment.

Companies are making more money, but many have done so by raising prices to offset higher costs. Higher food prices helped push inflation at the wholesale level to 0.2 percent in July, according to a government report Wednesday. But that is still well below inflation levels earlier this year when oil prices were spiking because of violence in the Middle East. In February, wholesale inflation was 1.5 percent.

Stocks have been particularly volatile in August. Worries rose as the U.S. government said it may default on its debt unless it was allowed to borrow more. The government just beat the deadline to avoid a default, but the partisanship in the debate came at a cost _ Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. credit rating on Aug. 5 by one notch to AA+ from the top AAA rating. That triggered one of Wall Street’s wildest weeks: The Dow rose or fell by at least 400 points in each of the first four days of last week, the first time that has happened.

Markets appear to have calmed somewhat since then. Tuesday marked the first time since the Aug. 5 downgrade that the Dow rose or fell by less than 100 points. It fell 76 points on worries about Europe’s ability to contain its debt problems. Some European countries have borrowed so much that investors fear they won’t be able to repay their debts. The Dow had been down as many as 190 points earlier Tuesday.

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