Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Bonanza S03E27 The Gamble

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Puerto Rico’s Governor Says Island’s Debts Are ‘Not Payable’

Puerto Rico’s Governor Says Island’s Debts Are ‘Not Payable’

By and
Gov. Alejandro García Padilla plans to discuss the island’s fiscal crisis on a televised broadcast on Monday night. Dennis Rivera for The New York Times

Puerto Rico’s governor, saying he needs to pull the island out of a “death spiral,” has concluded that the commonwealth cannot pay its roughly $72 billion in debts, an admission that will probably have wide-reaching financial repercussions.
The governor, Alejandro García Padilla, and senior members of his staff said in an interview last week that they would probably seek significant concessions from as many as all of the island’s creditors, which could include deferring some debt payments for as long as five years or extending the timetable for repayment.
“The debt is not payable,” Mr. García Padilla said. “There is no other option. I would love to have an easier option. This is not politics, this is math.”
It is a startling admission from the governor of an island of 3.6 million people, which has piled on more municipal bond debt per capita than any American state.
A broad restructuring by Puerto Rico sets the stage for an unprecedented test of the United States municipal bond market, which cities and states rely on to pay for their most basic needs, like road construction and public hospitals.
That market has already been shaken by municipal bankruptcies in Detroit; Stockton, Calif.; and elsewhere, which undercut assumptions that local governments in the United States would always pay back their debt.
Puerto Rico’s bonds have a face value roughly eight times that of Detroit’s bonds. Its call for debt relief on such a vast scale could raise borrowing costs for other local governments as investors become more wary of lending.
Perhaps more important, much of Puerto Rico’s debt is widely held by individual investors on the United States mainland, in mutual funds or other investment accounts, and they may not be aware of it.
Puerto Rico, as a commonwealth, does not have the option of bankruptcy. A default on its debts would most likely leave the island, its creditors and its residents in a legal and financial limbo that, like the debt crisis in Greece, could take years to sort out.
Still, Mr. García Padilla said that his government could not continue to borrow money to address budget deficits while asking its residents, already struggling with high rates of poverty and crime, to shoulder most of the burden through tax increases and pension cuts.
He said creditors must now “share the sacrifices” that he has imposed on the island’s residents.
“If they don’t come to the table, it will be bad for them,” said Mr. García Padilla, who plans to speak about the fiscal crisis in a televised address to Puerto Rico residents on Monday evening. “What will happen is that our economy will get into a worse situation and we’ll have less money to pay them. They will be shooting themselves in the foot.”
With some creditors, the restructuring process is already underway. Late last week, Puerto Rico officials and creditors of the island’s electric power authority were close to a deal that would avoid a default on a $416 million payment due on Wednesday.
With other payment deadlines looming, Mr. García Padilla and his staff said they would begin looking for possible concessions on all forms of government debt.
The central government must set aside about $93 million each month to pay its general obligation bonds — a crucial action in Puerto Rico because its constitution requires such bonds to be paid before any other expense. No American state has restructured its general obligation debt in living memory.
The government’s Public Finance Corporation, which has issued bonds to finance budget deficits in the past, owes $94 million on July 15. The Government Development Bank — the commonwealth’s fiscal agent — must repay $140 million of bond principal by Aug. 1.
“My administration is doing everything not to default,” Mr. García Padilla said. “But we have to make the economy grow,” he added. “If not, we will be in a death spiral.”
A proposed debt exchange, where creditors would replace their current debt with new bonds with terms more favorable to Puerto Rico, signals a significant shift for Mr. García Padilla, a member of the Popular Democratic Party, who was elected in 2012. His party is aligned with the Democrats on the mainland and favors maintaining the island’s legal status as a commonwealth.
He said that when he took office, he tried to balance the fiscal situation through austerity measures and fresh borrowing. But he saw that the island was caught in a vicious circle where it borrowed to balance the budget, raised the debt and had an even bigger budget deficit the next year.
Residents began leaving for the mainland in droves, and Puerto Rico’s credit was downgraded to junk, making borrowing extremely expensive.
Only a few months ago, the administration was considering borrowing as much as an additional $2.9 billion, which would be paid for by a fuel tax.
But recently, Mr. García Padilla’s team has been laying the groundwork for more drastic action. The governor commissioned a study of the financial situation by former officials at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Concluding that the debt load is unsustainable, the report suggests a bond exchange, with the new bonds carrying “a longer/lower debt service profile,” according to a confidential copy reviewed by The New York Times. The García Padilla administration made the report public on Monday.
“There is no U.S. precedent for anything of this scale or scope,” according to the report, one of whose writers was Anne O. Krueger, a former chief economist at the World Bank and currently a research professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
The “Krueger Report,” as it is being called, also seems aimed at the Obama administration and Congress, both of which have taken a largely hands-off approach to Puerto Rico’s fiscal problems. United States Treasury officials, however, have been advising the island’s government in recent months amid the worsening fiscal situation.

In June, Puerto Rico hired Steven W. Rhodes, the retired federal judge who oversaw Detroit’s bankruptcy case, as an adviser. The government is also consulting with a group of bankers from Citigroup who advised Detroit on a $1.5 billion debt exchange with certain creditors.
In Washington, the García Padilla administration has been pushing for a bill that would allow the island’s public corporations, like its electrical power authority and water agency, to declare bankruptcy. Of Puerto Rico’s $72 billion in bonds, roughly $25 billion were issued by the public corporations.
Some officials and advisers say Congress needs to go further and permit Puerto Rico’s central government to file for bankruptcy — or risk chaos.
“There are way too many creditors and way too many kinds of debt,” Mr. Rhodes said in an interview. “They need Chapter 9 for the whole commonwealth.”
Hedge funds holding billions of dollars of the island’s bonds at steep discounts are frustrated that the government has not seemed willing to reach a deal to borrow more money from them.
“We want to be a part of the solution to the commonwealth’s fiscal challenges,” a group of investment firms, including Centerbridge Partners and Monarch Alternative Capital, wrote in a letter last week.
An aide to the governor said the hedge funds’ debt proposal was too onerous. And the deal would only postpone Puerto Rico’s inevitable reckoning.
“It will kick the can,” Mr. García Padilla said. “I am not kicking the can.”
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Bonanza S09 E19 The Price of Salt

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Sassy Siri: "What's zero divided by zero?"

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California cities show biggest water savings yet in drought

California cities show biggest water savings yet in drought

Jul. 1, 2015 3:25 PM EDT

 
 
 
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California's drought-stricken cities set a record for water conservation, reducing usage 29 percent in May, according to data released by a state agency Wednesday.
Regulators hope the savings will last through summer as California communities are under order to cut water use by 25 percent compared to 2013 levels. Gov. Jerry Brown announced his mandatory conservation order in April.
Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the State Water Resources Control Board enforcing Brown's order, said the results show it's possible to meet steep conservation targets.
"It's gratifying that far more communities are stepping up and we want to see this much more through the summer," Marcus said. "It ends up putting off the need for much harsher rationing which has greater impacts on people and the economy."
The May water savings were the best showing since the state started tracking conservation last year. It followed several months of tepid conservation, 13.5 percent in April and 4 percent in March.
The data is self-reported by California water departments and includes residential and business consumption. All regions of the state showed improvement.
The southern coast, which includes Los Angeles and San Diego, conserved 25 percent in May after months of tepid savings. Sacramento and its surrounding suburbs were the state's top performer, cutting water use nearly 40 percent.
The conservation may have been skewed by rain in parts of the state, which reduces the need to water lawns. Regulators have been encouraging Californians to let their lawns go dry this summer as the easiest way to save large amounts of water and maintain local supplies if the drought continues.
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Bank closures taking their toll on businesses across Greece

Bank closures taking their toll on businesses across Greece

Consumption apparently down 70%, tourism drying up and companies face struggle to pay for wholesale food ahead of 5 July referendum
A butcher waits for customers
A butcher waits for customers at his store in the central meat market in Athens. Photograph: Socrates Baltagiannis/dpa/Corbis
in Athens

Giorgos Kourasis knows exactly how many people have walked through the door of his tavern since Monday, because he has had nothing to do but wait and count.
“The number,” he says in full knowledge of the ironic punch he is about to pull, “is zero. Absolutely no one has come and sat at a table for the first time in the 80 years that we’ve had our family business. “
Less than 72 hours have elapsed since banks were closed and capital controls imposed on Greece, but the effect has been devastating.
An economy, already labouring under an unprecedented liquidity squeeze, has come to a juddering halt.
Shops have closed, factories have stopped operating and firms have told employees to take enforced leave until the country holds a referendum on July 5 over the terms of further financial assistance from international creditors. Many larger companies have refused to pay staff altogether.
“Consumption has dropped by 70%,” said Vassilis Korkidis, who heads the National Confederation of Hellenic commerce. “No one trusts anyone anymore, so no transactions are taking place between wholesale and retail,” he said.
The confederation, which represents some 280,000 small and medium-sized businesses, has been badly hit by capital controls. More than half of Greece’s food and raw materials are imported, but without a functioning banking system there was no way to wire money abroad and pay for supplies, said Korkidis.
“Multinationals can, but local companies can’t,” he sighed. “Shortages are manageable this week because traders have stock, but next week that won’t be the case. We are experiencing things we never thought we’d see.”
The cap on cash withdrawals of €60 a day has attributed to the precipitous drop in consumption. And amid fears of it only being a matter of time before banks completely run out of notes and coins , there is mounting speculation that the limit may be reduced to a paltry €20.
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“People are very worried about spending anything because they don’t know what they will wake up to tomorrow,” said Kourasis, who will have to lay off staff to make ends meet. “We’re a family business so we can afford to stay open, but I’ve heard of dozens of stores deciding not to open because they just can’t afford running costs.”
The signs of mega economic gridlock were evident all over Athens on Wednesday – and not only in the form of closed shops, empty restaurants and queues outside cash dispensers. Ferry boats sailing from the city’s port of Pireaus were bereft of passengers. Public transport was noticeably thinner, the result of fuel reserves running low, while supermarkets were showing signs of panic buying, with food staples at an all-time low.
The newspaper Ta Nea – apologising for appearing much thinner itself – declared “the country is diminishing.”
“The newspaper that you hold in your hands is only 32 pages because there are only enough reserves of paper left for a few days,” it wrote in an editorial. “And there is no possibility to buy new amounts because of the enforced closure of banks.”
The new downturn came on top of official data showing Greek manufacturing activity shrank for the 10th month in a row during June. The last three months were the worst quarter for manufacturing for two years.
At what is almost the height of the tourist season, hotels are also feeling the heat with a reported 40% drop in airline and tour operator bookings.
Athens’ failure to meet a debt repayment of €1.6bn to the IMF on Tuesday has resulted in mass cancellations of bank transactions by US travel companies.
“American tour operators were ready to make wire transfers,” said Ioannis Retzos, president of the Panhellenic Federation of Hoteliers. “But they couldn’t when US authorities warned them that money transactions to Greek banks would be impounded.”
If voters reject proposed reforms as the radical left prime minister Alexis Tsipras has urged them to do, telling the nation on Wednesday that it will strengthen Athens’ hand in negotiations with the EU and IMF, there are fears that plans to open banks next Tuesday will be revoked.
Reserves at the Bank of Greece, estimated at €1.6bn last Friday, are being depleted fast. “Even if there was an agreement today, it would take two to three weeks for banks to get back on their feet,” said Korkidis.
“And cash is running out very quickly. By Monday there is a very strong chance that ATMs won’t be dispensing any at all.”
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Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Adult content policy on Blogger

Adult content policy on Blogger

Starting March 23, 2015, you won't be able to publicly share images and video that are sexually explicit or show graphic nudity on Blogger.
Note: We’ll still allow nudity if the content offers a substantial public benefit, for example in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts.

Changes you’ll see to your existing blogs

If your existing blog doesn’t have any sexually explicit or graphic nude images or video on it, you won’t notice any changes.
If your existing blog does have sexually explicit or graphic nude images or video, your blog will be made private after March 23, 2015. No content will be deleted, but private content can only be seen by the owner or admins of the blog and the people who the owner has shared the blog with.

Settings you can update for existing blogs

If your blog was created before March 23, 2015, and contains content that violates our new policy, you have a few options for changing your blog before the new policy starts:
If you’d rather take your blog down altogether, you can export your blog  as a .xml file or archive your blog's text and images using Google Takeout .

Effect on new blogs

For any blogs created after March 23, 2015, we may remove the blog or take other action if it includes content that is sexually explicit or shows graphic nudity as explained in our content policy .

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Sunday, November 16, 2014

Report: Amanda Bynes Threatens Parents in New Audio Recording

Report: Amanda Bynes Threatens Parents in New Audio Recording

Nov 15, 2014 05:49 PM ET
by Sadie Gennis

Amanda Bynes
Amanda Bynes threated to kill her parents in an audio recording obtained by TMZ.
The website posted what it claims is a recording of the actress taped last week by one of Bynes' roommates. In the recording, Bynes says, "I haven't decided how I want to murder [my father] ... Nothing would give me greater pleasure than, like, slitting his throat. That is what I would love to do."
"So like I'm not gonna, like, ever do such a thing, but, like, I call my mom and, like, I threaten to kill her, and I threaten to slit her wrist, and I threaten to, like, burn down her house and, like, I said a bunch of sh-- like that," Bynes continues.
"I'm gonna continue telling you guys I'm gonna murder my family, like, 'cause that's the thing that, like, they're in control of my money, and that's why I don't have much money right now," the actress says. Bynes' complaints on the recording echo her recent tweets in which she complains about the latest conservatorship she's been placed under.
Bynes also went on a cruel rant against the roommate who shared the tape, allegedly with the intention that it might incite Bynes to get medical help. "I will make fun of you, but it will be subtle... like, I will shoot you in the face with an ugly insult. Like, congratulations -- that's what you guys get. ... You're the unhottest guy ever... You're so gay it hurts my feelings," Bynes told her roommate.
After the tapes were released, Bynes apologized for verbally attacking her roommate, but not her parents. "Oh my god I am so sorry I called my friend wayne ugly he's not ugly," Bynes tweeted. "I apologize to everyone that I called ugly but everyone has been making me act so ugly by posting horrible shots of me that i cant help but."


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G20 summit: Much promised, less delivered

G20 summit: Much promised, less delivered

Climate protesters in BrisbaneClimate change finally made it onto the closing G20 agenda

More from Linda

The G20 summit of world leaders has concluded with a communique, a fancy way of describing a joint statement, that has both delivered more, but also somewhat less, than expected.
Where they've delivered more is by putting issues such as climate change in the message from world leaders. Those weren't on the formal agenda as the host, Australian PM Tony Abbott, had nixed climate change, for one.
But, after US President Obama mentioned the urgency of dealing with climate change at a speech in Brisbane before the summit, it's unsurprising that it was discussed after all.
Ebola is also in the final statement.
So, the G20 didn't just focus on the purely economic issues. I wrote before about how most of these issues are linked to the world economy in any case.
But, where they have delivered less is with respect to concrete commitments on those issues.
For instance, the gist of the G20 statement on climate and Ebola is that they are concerned, and support effective action - without committing money or quantitative targets. Maybe that's too much to expect given that these originally weren't on the agenda.
Fighting tax evasion was on the agenda, and the G20 agreed to automatically share tax information, but I've already heard criticism from Transparency International and others that it doesn't go far enough because the information won't be in the public domain.
Going for growth
Of course, economic growth was top of the agenda, and is, as expected, the main focus of the G20 statement.
World leaders reaffirmed their goal of lifting the GDP of G20 economies - which represent 85% of the world's economy - by an additional 2% within four years, by 2018. It's equivalent to adding $2 trillion to global output, and they say that will create millions of jobs.
How they can achieve that, of course, is the big question.
What is the point of the G20 summit? In 90 seconds
The statement says that they'll deliver jobs through increasing "investment, trade and competition".
Each country will have their own plans, but the mechanisms outlined include getting another 100 million women into the workforce, increasing trade, and setting up a Global Infrastructure Hub.
What is notable is a focus on youth unemployment, with details to come next year. They also emphasised a commitment to poverty eradication and reducing inequality, which are certainly important.
Who's paying is, of course, key.
My understanding is that private businesses are being targeted for investment funds in infrastructure, for instance. We'll see more detail soon enough when individual countries work through their country plans in the coming months.
Jobless recovery
Raising global growth by 2% has been an aim of the G20 all year, and in prior years in various forms, yet the eurozone economy is teetering and emerging markets such as China and Brazil have been slowing. So, another statement may ring a bit hollow.
On the other hand, it's unclear what co-ordinated action could be taken since it's not 2008/09 where governments and central banks were jointly acting to save the global financial system.
I'm told that countries will monitor each other's actions to ensure that there's no negative impact on others. That may be what's realistic, but also it is also unsatisfying to those who have been waiting for their governments to do more jointly to create jobs.
After all, how to address the so-called jobless recovery, where output has recovered but employment has not, is a key issue in a number of major economies. Perhaps when the G20's employment working group reports back in 2015, there will be more detail.
However, if it takes until November in 2015 at the G20 in Turkey to see specific policies to address the jobless recovery that has been with us for more than six years, taxpayers may begin to balk at paying for these big summits that promise much but tend to deliver somewhat less.
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Putin plans to leave G-20 early after criticism

Putin plans to leave G-20 early after criticism






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COMMENTSJoin the Discussion
Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to leave the G-20 summit early, a member of his delegation said, after Western leaders blasted Moscow on Saturday for the crisis in Ukraine and threatened more sanctions.
The Russian official told Reuters that Putin planned to skip a working session on Sunday at the two-day summit in Brisbane and bring forward his departure because he needed to attend meetings in Moscow.
Russian President Vladimir Putin
Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin
Russia denied it was involved in a recent escalation of military activity in Ukraine, where fighting has claimed more than 4,000 lives, but faced strong rebukes from Western leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
"I guess I'll shake your hand but I have only one thing to say to you: you need to get out of Ukraine," Harper told Putin at the summit, according to his spokesman Jason MacDonald.
Putin's response to the comment wasn't positive, MacDonald said in an email, without elaborating.
Obama said Russian aggression against Ukraine was a threat to the world, while the European Council demanded Moscow withdraw troops and weapons from the neighboring nation and put pressure on rebels there to accept a ceasefire.
Speaking on the sidelines of the summit, Obama placed security and climate change at the center stage of the leaders meeting, overshadowing talks on how to lift flagging global economic growth.
Obama said the United States was at the forefront of "opposing Russia's aggression against Ukraine, which is a threat to the world, as we saw in the appalling shoot-down of MH17".
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the European Union was considering further financial sanctions against Russian individuals because of the crisis in Ukraine.
"The present situation is not satisfying," Merkel told reporters at the summit. "At present the listing of further persons is on the agenda."
Europe's foreign ministers will meet on Monday to assess the situation in Ukraine and whether further steps including additional sanctions were needed against Russia, said European Council President Herman Van Rompuy.
Putin's isolation at the G-20 summit was also evident with his placing on the outer edge for the formal leaders photograph. While Obama and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping were met by Australia's governor general and attorney general when they arrived in Brisbane, Putin was met by the assistant defense minister.
Despite being under intense pressure, Putin was all smiles, shaking hands with host Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who had threatened to "shirt front", or physically confront, him over the downing of Malaysian airliner MH17 over Ukraine, in which 28 Australians died.
Only topic discussed
A Kremlin spokesman said the Ukraine crisis was the only topic discussed at a one-on-one meeting between Putin and British Prime Minister David Cameron, but he added both expressed interest in "ending confrontation" and rebuilding relations. Putin also met French President Francois Hollande, and both agreed to protect their ties from the effects of sanctions, the spokesman said.
Outside the summit, Ukrainian Australians staged an anti-Putin protest, wearing headbands reading "Putin, Killer".
Draped with the flags of the nations that lost citizens when the flight MH17 was shot down, the demonstrators lay on a large Ukrainian flag, in what they said was a protest at the "murderous acts" Russia's president was responsible for.
G-20 host Australia had hoped that the two-day summit would focus on global economic growth, not security or the environment.
Obama also said the United States would renew commitment to its strategic pivot to the Asia-Pacific in comments seen as a veiled warning to China.
Obama insisted that Asia's security order must not be based on "coercion or intimidation ... where big nations bully the small, but on alliances for mutual security".
He did not explicitly point the finger at China, but there was little doubt that he was alluding to Beijing's maritime disputes and growing concern about its military build-up.
Despite Australia's reluctance to allow climate change on the summit agenda after it abolished a tax on carbon emissions, Obama spent a large part of his speech urging action on the environment. He pledged a $3 billion U.S. contribution to an international fund to help poor countries cope with the effects of climate change.
But Australia stuck to its economic script.
A plan to increase global economic growth by an additional 2 percentage points over the next five years was on track, Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey said.
"This ambition translates into about $2 trillion in additional global economic activity and millions of new jobs," he said.
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The NHS starts to implode – right on target as predicted in 2004

4bitNEWS

The NHS starts to implode – right on target as predicted in 2004

Posted by  on . -- UK
  1. It’s not often The Daily Mail comes to the defence of the NHS. It spends many column inches damning the service and all of its doctors as the mouthpiece of a government whose Raison d’être is of a privatisation agenda. However, even The Daily mail has conceded with it’s headline “Full extent of NHS cash crisis revealed” – The NHS is on a ‘knife edge’ which could lead to ‘unexpected disasters’, a senior boss has admitted”.
  2. It continues – Paul Baumann, the health service’s finance chief, gave a stark warning after it emerged hospital waiting times are at their worst for six-and-a-half years. It came as a report revealed the number of hospitals needing emergency government bailouts has doubled in 12 months.
  3. The National Audit Office said 31 trusts had handouts last year, costing more than half a billion pounds. MPs and health experts said the situation was ‘deeply alarming’. Figures released yesterday show 3.2million patients are waiting for operations, scans and treatment – the most since April 2008. This includes 37,712 waiting for surgery longer than the Government target of 18 weeks – nearly double the number in May 2010.
  4. So, there we have it. Proof that the NHS is finally imploding under this governments deliberate mismanagement that will require the magical powers of private vested interests to solve all of it’s woes. In just a few years time all NHS services will be up for bid and the people of Britain will wonder why they allowed such a dreadful act of societal betrayal to happen. But, they were warned weren’t they! Tory MP Oliver Letwin predicted in 2004 that the NHS would no longer exists after 5 years of a Tory government. And, it’s smack on target; just one little election in it’s way.
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Controversial TTIP could have disastrous results for the British economy

4bitNEWS

Controversial TTIP could have disastrous results for the British economy

Posted by  on . -- UK
New research has found that the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership or TTIP could have disastrous results for the British economy.
The free trade agreement between the EU and the US is touted by David Cameron as providing a much-needed boost to the UK economy. However a peer- reviewed research paper by Jeronim Capaldo of Tufts University, Massachusetts, predicts that over a ten-year period impacts would include:
• The average working person in Britain would be over £3,300 worse off as a result of lower wages.
• Europe as a whole would lose nearly 600,000 jobs – more job losses than in the crisis years of 2010 and 2011.
• Ordinary workers would lose out but profits and rents would increase. In total 7% of GDP would shift from labour to capital.
A representative from World Development Movement, a group campaigning against TTIP, said: “TTIP falls down even on its own terms, as it’s supposed to bolster growth in the EU, but in fact it will result in fewer jobs and lower wages. This is truly a deal for the 1%, and we have to stop it.”
Meanwhile the Stop TTIP Coalition, made up of over 300 campaign groups, today filed a lawsuit against the European Commission over its decision in September to reject a European Citizens’ Initiative against TTIP signed by more than a million EU citizens. Despite the Commission’s rejection of the European Citizen’s Initiative, campaign groups and trade unions launched asecond self-organised petition calling on the Commission to scrap the trade deal that has so far garnered almost 850,000 signatures in just over a month.
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