Finance & Business World

Thousands of Romanians, including teenage students who cut class, marched through their capital on Thursday to demand the resignation of their government for imposing harsh austerity measures in order to receive international loans for the nation’s battered economy.

It was one of the largest protests in recent times in Bucharest and came after a week of sometimes violent anti-government demonstrations.

As the march reached University Square, protesters blocked traffic and shouted what has become a trademark slogan aimed at President Traian Basescu: “Get out, you miserable dog.”

The square _ a focal point of recent protests _ is historically significant for Romanians because it was a centerpiece of the 1989 anti-communist revolution that led to Romania’s birth of democracy.

On Thursday, some protesters pretended to hang Basescu and his close political ally, Tourism and Regional Development Minister Elena Udrea, by stringing their dummies to gallows set up in the square.

“Resign!” and “Down with Basescu!” other protesters screamed.

Some 14-year-old students at a school located along the route of the march abandoned class to join the demonstration. “To prison with you!” the students yelled at their president.

Police said 7,000 attended the rally, while organizers claimed the crowd was far larger.

In 2009, Romania took a two-year euro20 billion ($27.5 billion) loan from the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the World Bank as its economy shrank by 7.1 percent. It imposed harsh austerity measures under the agreement, reducing public wages by 25 percent and increasing taxes. Anger has mounted over the wage cuts, slashed benefits, higher taxes and widespread corruption.

On Thursday, Basescu made his first public appearance since the protests began a week ago in an address to ambassadors in Bucharest. He spoke about Iran, the Middle East, domestic reforms and the “Arab Spring,” but did not touch on the demonstrations or the anger over the state of Romania’s economy.

During the Bucharest rally, one protester who only identified himself as Tudor, a 43-year-old locksmith said: “We want decent salaries and pensions. We want change _ from the top to the bottom.”

Another protester, a 55-year-old nurse named Lorelei said, “We wouldn’t have needed to have austerity measures if our governments hadn’t stolen so much and bled us dry.” She said she has attended all this week’s anti-government rallies.

Three opposition parties organized Thursday’s march, with protesters arriving in the capital from all over the country. Opposition leaders and Romanian personalities addressed the crowd before the march.

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China is expecting foreign trade growth to slow this year to around 10 percent amid a grim outlook for exports, a state news agency reported Saturday.

The world’s second-largest economy’s foreign trade will be hurt by weak external demand, increasing trade competition, a stronger Chinese currency and other factors, the official Xinhua News Agency cited an official from the country’s top economic planning agency as saying.

“We expect more difficulties in foreign trade and the export situation will be grim in 2012, especially in the first half of the year,” said Zhang Xiaoqiang, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, according to Xinhua.

Last year, China’s foreign trade grew 22.5 percent to $3.6 trillion, according to data from the official General Administration of Customs released earlier in the week.

The data also showed that exports in December rose 13.4 percent, down slightly from November’s growth rate. In a new that sign the economy is slowing, import growth showed an unexpectedly sharp drop, falling to 11.8 percent, barely above half the previous month’s gain payday loans.

On Saturday, Zhang told a forum in Beijing that improving tax and insurance policies and providing financial support for small trading companies could help stabilize export growth, Xinhua said.

China’s relatively robust growth has been a rare bright spot for a struggling global economy. But growth has slowed in recent months after Beijing tightened lending and investment curbs to prevent overheating.

A slump in demand for Chinese goods abroad has prompted the government to reverse course and promise to help struggling exporters and shore up growth with more bank lending and other measures. It is unclear what impact the measures will have.

Chinese export growth has fallen steadily since August as Europe’s debt crisis and high U.S. unemployment hurt demand. But it has stayed in double digits, showing the competitive strength of Chinese exporters in global markets.

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Maybe the best person to take on issue number one — the economy — should be an economist?

At least, that’s the thought of Laurence Kotlikoff, an economics professor at Boston University. He’s planning on throwing his hat in the ring next week, announcing he’s running for president as a third-party candidate.

"I think I may be the first economist to run for president," Kotlikoff said. "We see economists now running Greece and Italy. It’s not everyday that an economist decides to work this way for his country — but I’m one of those cases."

Kotlikoff has never before run for public office. His goal is to secure a place on the 2012 ballot as an independent through a new online nomination site, AmericansElect.org.

The nonpartisan group, which has raised $22 million so far, aims to put an alternative candidate on the ballot, chosen by online voters through a three-stage primary.

CNN: New group paves way for alternative 2012 choice

In addition to his role as an economics professor, Kotlikoff is the author of 15 books and a regular columnist for Bloomberg.com. He has also served as a consultant to Fortune 500 companies, foreign governments, central banks and international agencies like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Kotlikoff’s platform centers on what he calls the "Purple Plan." Purple, because he hopes it will appeal to both blue Democrats and red Republicans, and all Americans in between.

Political observers question whether a nonpartisan candidate could have a serious shot at winning, and it’s not as if Kotlikoff is the only alternative candidate out there. Currently 165 people, not in the Republican or Democratic parties, are on file with the Federal Election Commission as presidential candidates.

Still, he hopes his campaign will have an impact saving account pay day loan.

"I’m hopeful that my candidacy will be taken very seriously," he said. "And that young people in particular will realize this is someone who is really focused on their interests."

If he does win, Kotlikoff pledges to eliminate income taxes on both individuals and businesses, as well as estate and gift taxes. Instead, he would institute a progressive sales tax and inheritance tax, and make the payroll tax highly progressive.

Kotlikoff would also replace the current health care system with one under which all Americans receive a voucher each year to purchase a standard health plan from the private-plan provider of their choice. In true economist speak, he says he would reallocate the roughly 10% of GDP that the federal and state government currently spend on Medicare, Medicaid and health exchanges, to pay for this program.

GOP 2012: What they (wouldn’t) cut

"I’m not suggesting that only an economist is qualified to be President, but I am suggesting that, other things equal, economic problems are likely to be better understood and fixed by an economist than a career politician or someone who has, for example, spent his life running a pizza chain," Kotlikoff wrote on his campaign website Kotlikoff2012.org.

Kotlikoff says he does not have a party affiliation and he plans to file an official statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission next week.

He previously worked as a senior economist on President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors, but voted for President Carter. He has also served as an economic adviser to former Senator Mike Gravel, who switched from the Democratic Party to the Libertarian Party amid his 2008 bid for president. 

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President Barack Obama is pushing his economic message in Ohio, brandishing his presidential megaphone in a politically important state to make certain his appeal to the middle class is heard amid the boisterous start of the Republican campaign for the White House.

Obama was traveling Wednesday to the most Democratic congressional district in Ohio, a Cleveland suburb, a day after Mitt Romney won Iowa’s Republican presidential caucuses by just eight votes. Obama’s trip signals the White House’s intent to keep the president in the public eye even as the political world focuses on the GOP’s selection process.

The White House’s choice of Ohio for Obama’s first presidential trip of 2012 underscores the state’s high-profile role in presidential politics. It is a swing state that went for George W. Bush in 2004 and for Obama in 2008. A top manufacturing state, Ohio has seen its jobless rate follow the national pattern; unemployment was 8.5 percent in November compared with 9.6 percent a year before.

Obama set the tone Tuesday for a White House strategy that aims to maintain pressure on congressional Republicans while promoting an economic plan that serves as much as a policy prescription as it does a political platform for the general election.

Addressing Iowa Democrats by teleconference as the GOP caucus counting was still under way, Obama described Republicans as embracing a “theory that says we’re going to cut taxes for the wealthiest among us and roll back regulations on things like clean air and health care reform, Wall Street reform, and somehow that automatically that assures that everybody is able to succeed.”

“I don’t believe that,” Obama declared.

Pressing his economic agenda, Obama has said expanding the middle class is “the defining issue of our time.” His spokesman, Jay Carney, on Tuesday called it “his No. 1 focus.”

As defined by the president and by his advisers, his economic argument is that the middle class is facing a “make or break moment.” On that score, Obama still has a few confrontations with Congress in the year ahead.

He still wants to extend a payroll tax cut for all of 2012. Republicans avoided being blamed for a tax increase last month when House GOP leaders agreed to a two-month extension personal loans for people with bad credit. A longer version will have to be decided by the end of February. Obama is also likely to point to elements of a jobs package he advanced last year that failed in the face of Republican opposition.

Obama is also at odds with Senate Republicans over his nomination of Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a central feature of new bank regulations that Congress approved and Obama signed in 2010. Republicans are blocking Cordray’s appointment, effectively hamstringing the bureau’s work. Battling Wall Street overreach has been a recurrent Obama theme as he advocates for the middle class.

Signaling that he would continue to draw sharp lines between the middle class and the wealthy, Obama told the Iowa Democrats in his videoconference Tuesday that he would insist on the rich paying more in taxes.

“If we’re going to make the investments that we need for our kids at the same time as we’re controlling our deficit, then there’s nothing wrong with saying to millionaires and billionaires that we’re going to let your tax cuts expire,” Obama said. “The other party has a fundamentally different philosophy.”

Administration officials say they were especially encouraged by the public’s response to Obama’s call for extending the payroll tax cut and indicate Obama will make such appeals repeatedly to gain leverage over Congress and Republicans, in particular.

“There are more things that need to be done,” Carney said Tuesday. “There are elements of the jobs act that we believe, as we did from the beginning, merit bipartisan consideration and support. This country is in crying need of work on its infrastructure.”

In speaking at Shaker Heights High School on Wednesday, Obama is returning to a Cleveland suburb that he visited in 2009 while pushing his health care overhaul plan. Obama also planned to meet with a family at their home, a tactic Obama has employed before to personalize his agenda.

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Boeing Co. beat Lockheed Martin Corp. to win a $3.48 billion, seven-year contract that lets it keep its role as the primary developer of the U.S. shield against intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The Missile Defense Agency announced the contract in a statement Friday. The agency oversees the Ground-based Midcourse Missile Defense, which includes interceptors in Alaska and California, ground- and sea-based radar, satellites and a command and control system.

The Boeing team, which included Northrop Grumman Corp. of Falls Church, Va., delivered “a cost-effective approach to program management and execution,” Dennis Muilenburg, chief executive of Boeing’s defense unit, said in a statement.

Lockheed, the world’s largest defense contractor, was seeking to dislodge Boeing from the contract it has held since 1998. Boeing has said the program totaled as much as $18 billion during the 10 years ending 2011.

Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, head of the Missile Defense Agency, said in August 2010, when the agency was preparing to call for bids, that it needed to contain costs.

“But before we get to cost, bidders have got to demonstrate they’ve the capacity and capability, and also an ability to do upgrades,” he said high risk personal loans.

Lockheed’s team included Raytheon, which makes the non-exploding warhead that is designed to seek and destroy enemy missiles. Raytheon was on both teams.

The news for Boeing officials came just one day after they and St. Louis leaders lauded a $30 billion deal for the company to provide Saudi Arabia with 84 new F-15 fighters. The deal will prolong production of the F-15, which is largely built at Boeing’s plant in north St. Louis County, by about five years, through 2020.

The Regional Chamber and Growth Association on Friday estimated that the F-15 work supports 1,000 manufacturing jobs at Boeing and contributes to nearly 4,000 more through local suppliers and spinoff activity.

The Boeing jobs generate $1.1 billion a year in wages and other economic activity, and the indirect impact is another roughly $1.8 billion, according to RCGA economist Ruth Sergenian.

Tim Logan of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

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Companies cranked out more goods in December and pending sales of existing homes jumped in November for a second month, pointing to a pickup in U.S. economic growth as 2011 comes to a close.

The Institute for Supply Management-Chicago Inc. said today its business barometer (CHPMINDX) was little changed at 62.5 from a seven- month high of 62.6 in November. The index of signed contracts (USPHTMOM) to buy previously owned houses rose 7.3 percent after climbing 10.4 percent the prior month, the National Association of Realtors said. Both figures surpassed the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

OTTAWA

The Obama administration will ask Congress to increase federal borrowing authority by $1.2 trillion as the nation approaches the debt limit set by law, according to a Treasury Department official.

The White House will send the request to Congress on Dec. 30, the day the debt is projected to rise to within $100 billion of the $15.194 trillion limit, the Treasury official told reporters today on condition of anonymity.

Congress will be notified under the terms of a deal to raise the limit worked out on Aug. 2 after months of wrangling between the administration and Republican lawmakers. Three days later, Standard & Poor

If you take a trip outside Canada, it

Wall Street is poised for further gains amid ongoing evidence of a strong start to the U.S. holiday shopping season and hopes for a plan to deal with the European debt crisis.

Dow futures are up 0.5 percent at 11,555. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 futures are up 0.6 percent at 1,198.

Markets overseas were boosted again on Tuesday by hopes that the 17 countries that use the euro will finally come up with a plan to deal with their crushing debt crisis.

Italy’s borrowing rates shot up Tuesday to above 7 percent, an unsustainable level on a par with rates that forced the others to seek bailouts.

The fear is that the crisis _ which already has forced bailouts of Greece, Ireland and Portugal _ could engulf bigger economies such as Italy, the eurozone’s third-largest. If Italy were to default on its debt of euro1.9 trillion ($2.5 trillion), the fallout could spell ruin for the euro project itself and send shock waves throughout the global economy.

Though no specific details have yet emerged of what will likely result from a Dec. 9 summit of EU leaders, the ministers are thought to be discussing ideas that would have been taboo only recently: countries ceding fiscal sovereignty to a central authority; some kind of elite group of euro nations that would guarantee one another’s loans _ but require strong fiscal discipline from anyone wanting membership.

On Tuesday, finance ministers also were likely to discuss the options _ plus a possible way to boost the region’s rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, at a meeting in Brussels easy payday loans.

On Monday, stocks advanced strongly, particularly in Europe, with the CAC-40 in France up a massive 5 percent or so.

As a result, the gains Tuesday were not as marked but did provide some further evidence of the hopes that European leaders will finally get their act together in around 10 days time.

In Europe, Germany’s DAX was up 0.2 percent at 5,756, while the CAC-40 fell slightly to 3013. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was 0.1 percent higher at 5,320. The euro, meanwhile, was up 0.2 percent at $1.3309.

Earlier, most Asian markets ended higher, with the Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo climbing 2.3 percent to close at 8,477.82.

Elsewhere in Asia, South Korea’s Kospi rose 2.3 percent to 1,856.52 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 1.2 percent to 18,256.20. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan and Australia were also higher.

Mainland Chinese shares advanced, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index gaining 1.2 percent to 2,412.39.

Oil prices tracked equities modestly higher _ benchmark crude for January delivery was up 49 cents to $98.70 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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