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Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Retail sales down three months in a row: why economy is cooling

Behind the economic gloom that has seen retail activity decline for three straight months are a weak job market, high debt loads, even fears of the looming 'fiscal cliff.'

By , Staff writer / July 16, 2012
A shopper is seen through a window on display at a Lowe's store in Atlanta in this June 19 file photo. Americans cut their spending at retail businesses for a third straight month, as retail sales fell 0.5 percent in June from May, the Commerce Department reported on July 16.
David Goldman/AP
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US shoppers spent less at retail stores in June for the third straight month, a sign of the economic doldrums weighing on the job market – and on voters as they prepare to cast ballots in a presidential election this fall.
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Overall, retail sales fell 0.5 percent in June compared with the prior month, the Census Bureau reported Monday. Weakness was visible across the board, from auto sales to building supplies and department stores.
Taking the past three months together, second-quarter retail sales declined by 0.2 percent compared with the first three months of the year.
In a normal economic recovery, growth in spending by consumers provides fuel for employers to add jobs. And as people see more jobs being created, they feel more confident to spend. That "virtuous cycle" of progress has been operating at only a tepid pace since 2009.
The recent backsliding on the retail front comes just asPresident Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney have been ramping up their campaigns. If the cooling trend persists, that would make the electoral road tougher for Mr. Obama and boost Mr. Romney’s pitch that it's time for turnover at the White House.
The grim retail sales have coincided with a slack period for job creation. The Labor Department's latest employment report, released July 6, marked the third straight month in which the economy added fewer than 100,000 new jobs.
What's going on?
Consumer spending has been held back in part by high debt loads, slow wage growth, and worries by many families about job security. A disappointing stock market, gyrating in part on concerns about economies overseas such as in Europe and China, hasn't helped.
Those headwinds come alongside some positive developments. Gas prices have eased, and the housing market has shown signs of stabilizing.
But a widely watched index of consumer confidence from the Conference Board has also sagged, in a sign that Americans are less optimistic about the future.
One factor, some economists say, may be the looming expiration of tax cuts currently scheduled for the end of the year. Congress may find a way to extend many of the tax breaks after the election, but between now and then the worry is that consumers may base their decisions around the possibility that they'll soon have less money to spend.
This so-called "fiscal cliff" of expiring tax breaks include both Bush-era income tax rates and a payroll-tax reduction, among others.
"While the retail industry remains confident in an incremental recovery, today’s statistics should concern every policymaker in Washington, and compel them to revisit burdensome regulations and job-killing tax increases set to take effect early next year,” Matthew Shay, president of the National Retail Federation, said in a statement Monday.
Despite the tough economic climate, many forecasters expect the US will avoid falling into recession this year. One prominent forecasting firm, MacroEconomic Advisers, predicts the nation's gross domestic product will grow at a 2.4 percent annual pace during the third quarter.
The firm Capital Economics cites the debt crisis in Europe and the fiscal cliff as risks that weigh on US consumers. But economist John Higgins also cites reasons for guarded optimism – including the way a decline in the oil prices acts as a boost to inflation-adjusted incomes.
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Monday, July 16, 2012

NY bus driver catches girl, 7, in three-story plunge


View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.



Dramatic video captured a seven-year-old falling from a third-story window and being caught by a neighbor. NBC's Katy Tur reports.
By NBCNewYork.com
A city bus driver says he was thinking of his own young daughter when he rushed to catch a 7-year-old girl plunging three stories from a New York building Monday – an action caught on video.


View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.

"Please let me catch her, please let me catch her," Stephen St. Bernard, 52, recalled thinking. "That's all I could say. Let me catch the little baby."
"I think about my daughter, and you know, she's a little kid," he said.
St. Bernard, an MTA bus driver of 10 years, was returning home to Coney Island from his job at about 2 p.m. when he heard screams coming from a building courtyard.
He rushed toward the commotion and saw a girl standing on top of a third-floor window air conditioning unit. He immediately ran underneath the window.
She just stood up there teetering, teetering," he said.

Amateur video shows St. Bernard shouting up to the girl, trying to talk the girl into going back into her apartment. Suddenly, the girl falls, eliciting horrified screams from neighbors.
But St. Bernard catches her in his arms, stumbling slightly forward to the ground with the girl still firmly in his grasp.
"I picked her up and carried her, and I was holding her, rubbing her, and she just more or less kept looking around," he told NBC 4 New York. "She never closed her eyes, she didn't lose consciousness."
The girl was not wearing pants, and St. Bernard wrapped her in his MTA uniform shirt as he waited for paramedics to arrive.
She was taken to Coney Island Hospital with very minor injuries.
"He's my hero," said the girl's aunt, Monique Harding. "He definitely did our family a favor today."
Police sources said the girl has autism. Her mother was inside the apartment watching her other child and did not see the girl standing outside on the A/C, the sources said.
St. Bernard sustained a torn tendon in his shoulder but he is expected to be OK.
The girl's mother did not want to speak with reporters Monday.
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AP NewsBreak: Feds OK Fla. access to citizens list

By CHARLES BABINGTON 
Associated Press
 Jul 14, 9:15 PM EDT
AP Photo
AP Photo/J Pat Carter




WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a victory for Republicans, the federal government has agreed to let Florida use a law enforcement database to challenge people's right to vote if they are suspected of not being U.S. citizens.
The agreement, made in a letter to Florida Gov. Rick Scott's administration that was obtained by The Associated Press, grants the state access to a list of resident noncitizens maintained by the Homeland Security Department. The Obama administration had denied Florida's request for months but relented after a judge ruled in the state's favor in a related voter-purge matter.
Voting rights groups, while acknowledging that noncitizens have no right to vote, have expressed alarm about using such data for a purpose not originally intended: purging voter lists of ineligible people. They also say voter purges less than four months before a presidential election might leave insufficient time to correct mistakes stemming from faulty data or other problems.
Democrats say that the government's concession is less troubling than some GOP-controlled states' push to require voters to show photo identification.
But Republicans count it as a victory nonetheless in their broad-based fight over voter eligibility, an issue that could play a big role in the White House race. That's especially true in pivotal states such as Florida, Colorado, Nevada and North Carolina.
Republican officials in several states say they are trying to combat voter fraud. Democrats, however, note that proven cases of voter fraud are rare. They accuse Republicans of cynical efforts to suppress voting by people in lower socio-economic groups who tend to vote Democratic.
The Homeland Security decision may affect places beyond Florida, because Colorado and other states have asked for similar access to the federal database.
After a judge recently ruled against federal efforts to stop Florida's aggressive voter-list review, Homeland Security agreed to work on details for how the state can access the federal SAVE database - Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements - to challenge registered voters suspected of being noncitizens.
Florida has agreed that it can challenge voters only if the state provides a "unique identifier," such as an "alien number," for each person in question. Alien numbers generally are assigned to foreigners living in the country legally, often with visas or other permits such as green cards.
Unless they become naturalized citizens, however, they cannot vote.
The agreement will prevent Florida from using only a name and birthdate to seek federal data about a suspected noncitizen on voter rolls.
The SAVE list is unlikely to catch illegal immigrants in any state who might have managed to register to vote because such people typically would not have an alien number.
Scott, whose administration had sued Homeland Security for access to the SAVE list, said the agreement "marks a significant victory for Florida and for the integrity of our election system."
"Access to the SAVE database will ensure that noncitizens do not vote in future Florida elections," Scott said in a statement Saturday.
In a letter Monday, the department told Florida it was ready to work out details for providing access to the SAVE list. The letter was signed by Alejandro Mayorkas, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
It follows a flurry of legal actions between Florida and the federal government. On June 11, the Justice Department said it would sue Scott's administration on grounds that the state's voter-purge efforts violated voting rights laws.
The same day, Scott announced a lawsuit against Homeland Security seeking access to the SAVE list. He said it could be a valuable tool in determining who is a citizen. Two weeks later, a U.S. judge blocked the federal attempts to stop Florida's voter review efforts; the Mayorkas letter soon followed.
A Homeland Security spokesman said Saturday the agency had no further comment.
Department officials told the Orlando Sentinel last month they had concerns about using the SAVE list for voter-review purposes. They said the list's information is incomplete and does not provide comprehensive data on all eligible voters, the newspaper reported.
Scott's administration hopes to restart a suspended voter registration purge that was hampered this year by faulty data and bad publicity. The review, using driver's license information, initially produced 180,000 voters' names considered worthy of checking. County election supervisors examined 2,625 people on the list. But more than 500 were soon found to be citizens, and the review was halted.
State records show that 86 noncitizens were removed from the voter rolls since April 11, and more than half of them had voted in previous elections.
Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner asked election officials Saturday to restart the review. He said it will "include a carefully calibrated matching process" between the state's driver and voter data "before any records are verified through SAVE."
But Florida Sen. Arthenia Joyner, a Tampa Democrat, said Scott and his team should not be purging voter lists so close to a big election.
"This is just another in the continuing saga of his efforts to suppress the vote, along with a lot of the other Republican governors," Joyner said. "They are all caught up in trying to keep this president from getting re-elected."
While some noncitizens who are legal residents may knowingly try to register and vote, others apparently do so unwittingly. After obtaining a driver's license, some assume they also can vote, officials say.
Access to the federal SAVE list may catch such ineligible voters in Florida. They presumably would have an alien number and be listed in state motor vehicle records.
Voter-rights groups expressed concerns about Florida's efforts.
"No matter what database Florida has access to, purging voters from the rolls using faulty criteria on the eve of an election could prevent thousands of eligible voters from exercising their rights," said Jonathan Brater, a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. "Florida must use a more transparent and accurate process and must leave enough time for voters targeted for removal to be notified and correct errors," he said.
Some state governments have sought access to the federal database for years. Federal officials told Washington state in 2005 they saw no way to compare voters and the Homeland Security information.
Colorado has sought the federal data for a year. Colorado, which has a Democratic governor but a Republican secretary of state, Scott Gessler, has identified about 5,000 registered voters that it wants to check against the federal information.
Officials in the politically competitive states of Ohio, Michigan, New Mexico and Iowa - all led by GOP governors - are backing his efforts.
Gessler said 430 registered voters have acknowledged being ineligible, but an "unenforceable honor system does not build confidence in our elections."
Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.
In 2007, five years after the George W. Bush administration launched a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department found virtually no evidence of organized efforts to influence federal elections with ineligible voters.
---
Associated Press writers Gary Fineout in Tallahassee, Fla., and Mike Baker in Olympia, Wash., contributed to this report.
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McDonnell Declares Bain Off Limits

 Drawing a line in 1999.  Who made him chief cook and bottle washer. And he should talk, Gov. VaJaJa Sonogram.

McDonnell and Romney in June. Image by JASON REED / Reuters
Posted 
WILLIAMSBURG, Virginia — Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a leading Republican figure, said Friday that Mitt Romney's time at the helm of Bain Capital isn't part of the record voters should consider in choosing a president.
Asked during a press conference here whether he thought Romney's experience at Bain should be part of his "record," McDonnell shook his head and said "No. No."
"All of these attacks are things that happened after Mitt Romney left as the managing director of Bain — he left to run the Olympics, some of the best Olympics in history in 2002," McDonnell said. "He left to do that in 1999. To the degree that there is any truth to these sorts of outsourcing allegations, they happened after 1999 when he was not the managing director."
McDonnell added that Obama "ought to pull those ads," that attack Romney on Bain.
McDonnell also rejected the notion that Romney would need to release more tax returns, saying "he’s released everything he needs to and more," and accusing President Barack Obama of running a negative campaign.
Providing Obama with "a warm welcome" to the Commonwealth of Virginia today, McDonnell sharply criticized Obama's plan to raise taxes on the wealthy, and highlighted his opposition to the health care exchanges implemented by ObamaCare.
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All 5 Of Mitt Romney's Network Interviews On Bain In 60 Seconds

In case you missed all five interviews, you can watch the highlights in 60 seconds.posted 




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35 Questions Mitt Romney Must Answer About Bain Capital Before The Issue Can Go Away


TJ WalkerTJ Walker,


|
7/14/2012 @ 12:25PM |
Mitt Romney conducted numerous TV and other media interviews yesterday in order to minimize the damage his campaign has received regarding discrepancies surrounding his tenure at Bain.

During times of crisis it is often a smart strategy to give virtually unlimited access to the media in order to push out your message aggressively and satisfy reporter curiosity so that the issue can be pushed off the front burner. John McCain famously did this well earlier in his career when dealing with his own Keating Five controversies.
Unfortunately for the Romney Campaign, the slew of TV interviews did little to satisfy the media. In times of crisis, a strong candidate will come up with answers that satisfy the basic questions surrounding the controversy and will make people want to move on to another subject. Romney, however, could not seem to come up with basic messages that resolved the controversies. Many of his answers seemed evasive or overly legalistic. The biggest problem for Romney is that all of his interviews have only increased the questions that political observers, voters and the media have regarding the subject of Bain Capital.
Specifically, Romney is going to have to answer the following 35 questions before this issue subsides:
1. Are you contending that an individual can simultaneously be the CEO, president, managing director of a company, and its sole stockholder and somehow be “disassociated” from the company or accurately classified as someone not having “any” formal involvement with a company?
2. You have stated that in “Feb. 1999 I left Bain capital and all management responsibility” and “I had no ongoing activity or involvement.” It depends on what the definition of “involvement” is, doesn’t it? Clearly you were involved with Bain to the extent that you owned it. Are you defining “involvement” in a uniquely specific way that only means “full-time, active, 60-hours-a-week, hands-on manager?”
3. How exactly are you defining “involvement?”
4. Surely someone from Bain occasionally called you up and asked your opinion about something work-related from 1999 to 2002. Wouldn’t that qualify as “involvement,” if only on a minor level?
5. You earned at least $100,000 as an executive from Bain in 2001 and 2002, separate from investment earnings according to filings with State of Massachusetts. Can you give an example of anyone else you personally know getting a six figure income, not dividend or investment return, but actual income, from a company they had nothing to do with?
6. What did you do for this $100,000 salary you earned from Bain in both 2000 and 2001?
7. If you did nothing to earn this salary, did the Bain managers violate their fiduciary duty by paying you a salary for no discernible reason?
8. Are there other companies that pay you six figures a year as earned income, not investment income, for which you have no involvement?

9. In 2002, you are listed as one of two managing members of Bain Capital Investors LLC in its annual report. What does this mean?
10. On the very day after you took over the Winter Olympics, the BostonHerald reported that “Romney said he will stay on as a part-timer with Bain, providing input on investment and key personnel decisions.” Do you now contend this was factually inaccurate?
11. Do you have records of having written to the Boston Herald asking them to make a correction on this story?
12. On July 19, 1999, a news release about the resignation of two Bain Capital managing directors describes you as CEO and “currently on a part-time leave of absence to head the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee.” Was this wrong?
13. Did you ask for a retraction?
14. Why would Bain say this if you had severed all ties in Feb 1999?
15. Isn’t it possible that if Bain had made an investment during 1999 to 2002 that you felt was truly odious, for example ownership of a legal Nevada brothel, that you could have and would have used your authority to veto such a decision?
16. If, in fact, you did not veto any major investment decision during your 1999 though 2002 ownership, doesn’t that imply your broad consent of management’s decisions?
17. According to the Boston Globe, “In a November 2000 interview with the Globe, Romney’s wife, Ann, said he had been forced to lessen, but not end entirely, his involvement with Bain Capital.” Did your wife misspeak?
18. Did you correct her?
19. According to the Boston Globe, “Romney also testified that ‘there were a number of social trips and business trips that brought [him] back to Massachusetts, board meetings’ while he was running the Olympics. He added that he remained on the boards of several companies, including the Lifelike Co., in which Bain Capital held a stake until 2001.” You testified that while running the Olympics you took a number of business trips to Massachusetts  for board meetings for companies including Lifelike Co. Bain had a stake in this company until 2001. Are you contending that you could attend board meetings for Lifelike Co. at the same time Bain Capital had a stake in Lifelike Co and at the same time you owned the stock of Bain Capital, but that somehow your attending a board meeting for a company partially owned by Bain had nothing to do with Bain because you were on the board as Mitt Romney the individual, not as the representative of Bain?
20. If yes to the previous question, do you understand that anyone who did not graduate in the top 5% of his class from Harvard Law School, as you did, may have a hard time understanding this?

21. You seem to be suggesting that once you stepped down from full-time, 7-day-a-week, 18-hour-a-day management that you were no longer “involved.” You claim you had “no role whatsoever in the management.” Assume for the moment that everyone, even in the Obama campaign concedes that after Feb 1999 you were no longer the 100% full-time, hands-on manager of Bain. Isn’t it fair to suggest that an individual could still have a role in managing a company through the occasional phone call, meeting and email, even if they didn’t involve monumental decisions, such as hiring and firing?
22. When you demanded an apology from the Obama Campaign you seem to suggest that they have stated that you deserve blame for outsourcing done at Bain from 1999 to 2001 because they stated that you were the full-time active manger of Bain during that time. Can you cite a single ad, press release or statement from the Obama Campaign where they specify that you were the full-time manager of Bain from 1999 to 2001?
23. Every time a reporter asks you “why were you listed by Bain in SEC documents as the CEO in 2000-2002,” you respond that everyone knows you were no longer the active manger after Feb. 1999 and that you owned stock in Bain but did not manage anything. That may well be, but that doesn’t answer the question as to why Bain listed you as CEO, president and managing director. Why won’t you answer a simple question that involves basic facts that are undisputed?
24. Why do SEC documents claim you were Chief Executive Officer, President, and Managing Director of Bain Capital 2000 and 2001 if you were merely the sole owner?
25. Did you sign this SEC document?
26. Is this accurate or not?
27. If you didn’t sign it, is someone guilty of lying to the SEC?
28. True or false, it is a felony to lie on SEC filings?
29. When asked “Did you attend board meetings for Bain after 1999,” you responded by saying “I did not manage Bain after 1999,” or that you didn’t attend any meetings involving things like firing people. This seems to suggest the possibility that you did attend Bain meetings in 2000 and 2001 that did not involve hiring or firing people or where you made the final decisions on investments. Is that possible?
30. If not, why not just give a blanket statement that you never attended a single board meeting for Bain after Feb. 1999?
31. If Obama owned slum apartments in Chicago that horribly mistreated poor people and didn’t provide them heat or running water, but Obama hired a real estate management firm to manage the building and collect rent, do you think it would be fair to criticize him for being a hypocritical slum lord who showed no compassion for poor people?
32. You seem to stress the word “management” a great deal. You had no role in active “management” of Bain after Feb 1999. You then seem to suggest that the only other role for a person to be involved with a company is as an investor. Isn’t there a third role?

33. Couldn’t you have been an active adviser or consultant, the way many chairmen of the board are?
34. You are obviously bright, hard working and energetic. Isn’t is possible that you put in 60 hours a week on the Olympics but still put in 5 hours a week as an active consultant or adviser by phone, email and the occasional meeting with the full time managers of Bain?
35. In general, don’t full-time hired managers often seek the “advice” of absentee owners and then do everything they can to implement that “advice?”
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Ships that pass in the pixels

check it out pretty kool; you can see where the ships are destination speed  try it out.

;Will Femia   By - Sat Jan 14, 2012 3:29 AM EST

Ships Map

  

  

 



Notation & Display options:

 Show Ship Names

 Wind 





  More...

 Passenger Vessels

 Cargo Vessels

 Tankers

 High Speed Craft

 Tug, Pilot, etc

 Yachts & Others

 Fishing

 Navigation Aids

 Unspecified Ships



Way at the southern tip of Manhattan Island in New York City is the riverfront neighborhood of Battery Park City. Battery Park City is served by a tiny, hyperlocal newspaper called The Battery Park City Broadsheet - an extra large, four-page fold out that looks like this. (pdf)



There isn't a lot of space on those pages, but every edition includes a "Riverwatch" photo of a ship on the Hudson River or in New York Harbor, as well as the "Arrivals & Departures" schedule (scroll down to the top of page 4 of the pdf above) for the cruise ships that dock up in midtown. I don't know if you've ever seen a cruise ship roll by but it's impressive enough that you really would want to know when the next one was coming so you could plan to see it again.



Anyway, before I digress too far, being fluent in river traffic is a cool thing and the fact that someone on what I presume is a small staff has taken it upon themselves to inform the members of their community what's passing by is also a cool thing.



The map above is a real time depiction of marine traffic around the world. The squares are docked. The pointy ones are moving. When you click them to get details and often even a photo. That's the mouth of the Hudson, above, but the site is hosted by the University of Aegean, Greece, and if you wanna see some boat activity, scroll over their neck of the Mediterranean. It's madness!



The project is open and community-based, which means if you live near the water, you can get the software and some equipment and contribute to the data. The data comes from the the ships AIS (Automatic Identification System) transponders. According to the FAQ, AIS was initially meant to keep ships from crashing into each other. The signal carries identification information as well as position and movement and reaches 10-15 miles. If you want to participate, you hook up an antenna to receive the signal and the software does the rest.



As soon as I read about the community aspect I immediately thought of the Broadsheet guy taking pictures of passing ships out his apartment window. I bet he or she would be into this. So I googled up the the Broadsheet's website to see if they have a tip line or something for sharing. Wouldn't you know, right there next to the masthead, that thumbnail picture of a cruise ship is linked to MarineTraffic.com.

















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