Congo Republic Declares Polio Emergency

Abstract: An explosive outbreak of polio is taking place in the Congo Republic , with 201 cases of paralysis found in two weeks and 104 deaths, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. The government in Brazzaville, the nation’s capital, has declared an emergency and announced plans to vaccinate the entire population with oral drops three times with help from the W.H.O., Unicef and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Pointe Noire, the port city where most of the cases are concentrated, “We’ve got two hospitals with hundreds of paralyzed people and many dead,” Dr. Bruce Aylward, the W.H.O.’s director of global polio eradication, said in an interview from Geneva. “And a couple of things about this outbreak are different and deeply disturbing.” Polio normally strikes young boys and girls equally, killing no more than 20 percent of those it paralyzes; death ensues when paralysis moves up the spine to the nerves that control the breathing muscles. In Pointe Noire, 85 percent of the cases are in teenagers and adults, most victims are male, and the death rate is much higher. However, Dr. Aylward said, as his team on its way there learns more, the outbreak could begin to look more typical, albeit still serious. “We’ve only heard about this in the last seven days,” he said. “This is very much under investigation.” Pointe Noire is unusual in that rebel activity has so cut off its roads that the city is “almost like an island,” he said, with few outside children visiting. Routine polio vaccination in central Africa began only in the 1980s and focuses on children under age 5, so few adults are protected. Also, the weakened live virus in the vaccine spreads in the same way the disease virus does, shed in feces. Because mothers and sisters tend to change babies’ diapers, they may have picked up that accidental form of protection. Also, the hospitals are probably seeing only serious cases, making the death rate artificially high. “We’re still dealing with the fog of war,” Dr. Aylward said. “We don’t have exact data.” In 1996, he noted, there was an adult outbreak in long-isolated Albania after a few years in which only children got the modern vaccine. It will take a few weeks to see whether the intense central African vaccination campaigns of the last few years can fence off this outbreak, Dr. Aylward said. He called the situation in the Congo Republic an unexpected setback in what had otherwise been a great year in fighting polio. Nigeria, long Africa’s polio hot spot, had a 98 percent drop in cases since 2009, and 14 of the 15 countries with outbreaks of the Nigerian strain snuffed them out. The Congo Republic outbreak is of an Indian strain that was first found in Angola in 2007 and is creeping north. Meanwhile, in northern India, another polio epicenter, “it’s the middle of the high season, and we’ve had no cases in five weeks,” Dr. Aylward said. The worldwide polio-eradication campaign has $800 million less than it estimates it needs to finish the job, he said, “and we’ll never have an opportunity like this again.”

Congo Republic of (Congo-Brazzaville)
Poliomyelitis
Vaccination and Immunization


Some Economists Doubt Dire Effects From Tax Increases

Abstract: As anxious investors assess their portfolios in light of expected tax increases on investment income, hedge fund manager Douglas Kass has a simple message: Relax. Mr. Kass, the founder of Seabreeze Partners Management, thinks much of the investing world has overestimated how hard the markets and investors would be hit if tax rates on dividends and capital gains rise at the end of the year, as the White House has proposed. Mr. Kass can look for support to several economists who have studied past changes in tax rates and found that the shifts had less of an impact on investor behavior than was initially expected. That’s largely because a dwindling number of investors are subject to the taxes on investment gains that are set to rise at the end of the year, with most stocks held in accounts that are exempt from taxes. For example, only 14.7 percent of American households have mutual funds in taxable accounts, down from as high as 23.9 percent in 2001, according to data from the Investment Company Institute. Douglas A. Shackelford, an economist who has examined the 2003 legislation that lowered the tax rates on capital gains and dividends, said that when those changes were being put in place “people thought this would be revolutionary,” setting off a wave of changes in the way companies rewarded their investors, and how investors evaluated companies. In the end, “it made a difference, but it certainly was not revolutionary,” said Mr. Shackelford, a professor of taxation at the University of North Carolina’s business school. The limited number of investors who were subject to the changes in 2003 has grown even smaller today, he said. While data on the tax status of all stockholders is hard to come by, many economists agree than an increasing proportion of the entire equities market is now held by retirement investors whose holdings are not subject to current tax law; by foreign investors who don’t pay American taxes, or by institutional investors like insurance companies and pension funds that are exempt from taxes. Sam Stovall, the chief investment strategist at S&P Capital IQ, said that even among individual investors who do pay the taxes, many have incomes under $250,000 and would not be subject to the increased rates on investment income proposed by the White House. The result Mr. Stovall is anticipating is that the coming changes will cause “a lot less of a hit than most people are making it out to be.” Mr. Stovall and others who share his views are not discounting the potential disruption to the financial markets if the White House and Congress fail to reach any agreement on the broad set of tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to hit at the start of the year. The largest of these changes are not on investment income. An increase in the payroll tax , for example, could remove $95 billion from the take-home pay of Americans. But even if a broad agreement is reached, many strategists are expecting that taxes will rise on investment income, with the White House proposing that for households earning over $250,000 the rate on dividends rise to a peak of 39.6 percent from the current 15 percent, and the rate on capital gains increasing to 20 percent from 15 percent. Wealthy households will face an additional 3.8 percent charge on most investment income to help pay for the recent health care legislation. Neil J. Hennessy, the founder of Hennessy Funds, said at a year-end investing event last week that if politicians allow the rates to rise as much as the White House has proposed, dividends will become much less attractive and there could have a “disastrous effect” on the willingness of investors to put money into stocks. Some companies have already acted ahead of the changes, with Costco and Las Vegas Sands leading the way in issuing special dividends before the end of the year so their shareholders can take advantage of current tax rates. Some investors have sold off stocks that issue regular dividends expecting the companies to become less valuable once a greater proportion of dividend income is lost to taxes. Andrew Garthwaite, an analyst at Credit Suisse, has predicted that if the White House’s view on investment taxes prevails, it could lead to a long-term reduction in the value of the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index of as much as 5 percent. Mr. Garthwaite cautioned that the figure is likely to be lower, and that investors have already incorporated some of those losses into the market by selling stocks. Mr. Kass disputed Mr. Garthwaite’s estimates in a note to clients, and said he was looking at market losses of at most 1.6 percent and more likely closer to 0.8 percent. Part of the disagreement arises from Mr. Kass’s contention that many people who are subject to tax are either uninformed about tax law — and unlikely to respond to changes — or more focused on the long-term performance of their portfolio than on short-term tax payments. Mr. Kass said that even the losses he has predicted assume that wealthy people will be willing to cash out of their stock positions and stay out, something that he said is unlikely given the small returns available in other financial investments. But an even larger source of misunderstanding has come from the difficulty of ascertaining the amount of all United States stocks held by people who will have to pay the new, higher tax rates. Foreign investors controlled 12.4 percent of American stocks in 2011, up from 8.8 percent in 2004, Treasury Department data shows. Among the stocks that are held in the United States, 48 percent are held directly by households, down from 65 percent in 1988, according to Federal Reserve figures. And 40.7 percent of households have mutual funds in tax-exempt accounts. But only some of these have income over $250,000 a year, and a portion of those people have their money in accounts protected from taxes. Eric Toder, a co-director of the Tax Policy Center, said as a result market prices should have little to do with the taxes paid on gains because prices are largely “being determined by tax-exempt investors and by foreign investors.”

Mutual Funds
Taxation
Capital Gains Tax
Federal Taxes (US)
Kass Douglas
Stocks and Bonds


Austin Offers Broad Range of Events for Fans, on the Track and Beyond

Abstract: The United States Grand Prix at Austin, staged this weekend for the third time in the Texas capital, is considered by many fans to be one of the best events on the racing calendar in terms of both the track experience and the attractions of the city. The track is near the Austin airport and not far from downtown, where spectators are welcomed to the so-called “music capital of the world” by a weekend festival in the city streets linked to the race featuring an abundance of great food and live music. Austin has a population of 885,000 and is adept at holding international festivals, including the South by Southwest music, film and interactive festival and the Psych Fest and City Limits music festivals, among others. It’s a relatively small city, making it easy for spectators to take in most of the sights and downtown neighborhoods in a single weekend. The local race promoters have organized a variety of activities at the track as well as downtown. “Hand on heart, this is probably the date on the calendar I look forward to the most,” said Daniel Ricciardo, a driver at the Red Bull team. “I’ve loved every minute of being in Austin. When they picked this place for the U.S. Grand Prix, they absolutely nailed it. The city is awesome. I love listening to live music and this is a great place for that, plus Texas feels like real America, and that’s something I’ve really enjoyed just sinking into the last two seasons. And then, there’s the important bit: The Circuit of the Americas, in my opinion, is the best of the new breed of circuits.” Track Action: The Formula One practice sessions on Friday are at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and Saturday morning from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., with qualifying on Saturday afternoon from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. The race starts at 2 p.m. on Sunday. Support races are the Ferrari Challenge and the Porsche Supercup series, with track action on each day. Track Fan Activities: At the Austin360 Amphitheater within the circuit grounds, there will be team-by-team driver autograph and Q&A sessions Friday, Saturday and Sunday between the track action sessions. After the race on Sunday, fans will be allowed to walk around the track. Local food and entertainment is found throughout the circuit area. The Texas Saloon village features Western-themed activities for all ages and there is also a Latin-themed Pachanga village and a Sports Bar broadcasting American football games. Special Events in the City: For the third year, Austin and the Circuit of the Americas will host a Fan Fest, with a variety of entertainment for all ages. Several streets are closed off in the city, and there are exhibits, racing games and children’s activities in the warehouse district and Republic Square Park. The race coincides this year with Halloween, so the festival features Austin Ghost Tours and fortune-telling with a psychic medium. There will be car displays and a “Yoga in the Park” session Sunday morning. Concerts will be held all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday on four stages, featuring acts including Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, De La Soul, Heartless Bastards, Texas Tornados, Devotchka, Red Baraat, Black Joe Lewis and Dirty Heads. V.I.P. passes, from $69 to $199, are available for special viewing areas, a lounge area and other deals. Nightlife and Tourism: Few cities on the Formula One circuit have better nightlife than Austin. In addition to the music and fan festival, bars and other sites that feature live music can be found throughout the city. If you have to choose one area to start with, that would be the famed 6th Street, which is lined with music venues and bars. The Amber Lounge, an exclusive Formula One pop-up nightclub, will operate in Austin on both Saturday and Sunday nights, from 10:30 p.m. until “late” at 612 West 4th Street. Attracting Formula One team personnel, drivers and other celebrities, the Amber Lounge chooses its locales carefully, mostly in the series’s glamour venues, such as Monaco, Singapore or Abu Dhabi. This weekend its official charity partner — it holds charity events during the weekend — is Eva’s Heroes, co-founded by the Texas-born actress Eva Longoria. Tourist sites in Austin include the Capitol Building, which was once the tallest capitol building in the country; the natural limestone spring-fed Barton Springs pool; and the L.B.J. Presidential Library, which focuses on the public career of former President Lyndon B. Johnson. Where To Stay: Hotels can be found throughout the city and its outskirts. The circuit is a short car drive from most places and there are shuttle buses to the circuit from downtown. Hotels at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, next to the circuit, are also an option. Ticket Prices: Three-day tickets for the main grandstand and Turn 1 grandstand were sold out long ago. Prices range from $299 to $550 for grandstand seats elsewhere around the circuit.

Austin
Formula One
Car Racing
Travel,Tourism


Harvard and Yale Pick Up the Pace, Reshaping Ivy League Basketball

Abstract: Forty minutes before the start of another late-season game with Ivy League title implications at the Palestra, Yale Coach James Jones strolled through the building’s concourse looking at exhibits celebrating Pennsylvania’s storied basketball history. For Jones, the hour before tip-off is mentally taxing, so he often takes a walk to clear his mind. Inside the Palestra, the 87-year-old arena in Philadelphia, he read about the heroics of players like Penn’s Michael Jordan and Matt Langel, who led the Quakers to a 13-1 league record in 1999 and then a 14-0 league record in 2000. In Jones’s 15 seasons at Yale, the Bulldogs have never reached the N.C.A.A. tournament. In a reversal of roles this season, Yale is still in contention for the conference’s automatic bid, awarded to the league champion, while Penn is not. The second-place Bulldogs (15-11, 9-3) will host first-place Harvard (24-4, 11-1) on Friday night in New Haven. Trailing the Crimson by two games with two games remaining for each team, the Bulldogs have a chance to tie for the title and force a one-game playoff for the automatic bid. If Yale beats Harvard, as it did in Boston on Feb. 8, Saturday’s games become all-important: Harvard travels to Brown; Yale hosts Dartmouth. Since 2008, Cornell and then Harvard have loosened Penn and Princeton’s stranglehold on the Ivy League title: The P’s, as they are sometimes called, represented the league in every N.C.A.A. tournament from 1989 to 2007. A more athletic, up-tempo style of play now championed at Harvard has become prevalent in the league — replacing the typecast of Princeton’s deliberate offense, which milks the shot clock and waits for backdoor cuts — and the Crimson have earned the Ivy’s last two N.C.A.A. bids. “Before I went into the Ivy League, everyone had a preconceived notion of the Princeton offense, a bunch of white guys passing the ball around and chucking up a lot of 3s,” said forward Justin Sears, a sophomore who leads Yale with 16.3 points a game. “The game is changing.” Last Friday, at Princeton, Sears displayed the type of athleticism common in the league these days. In one stretch of the first half, he scored 13 straight points, highlighted by an emphatic one-handed dunk after he had easily beaten his defender off the dribble and a layup in which he elevated to the basket with the ball in one hand and hung in the air longer than his opponent to get the shot off uncontested. Jones mentioned Sears, Wesley Saunders of Harvard and two injured players — Shonn Miller of Cornell and Gabas Maldunas of Dartmouth — as being among the top athletes in the league. “People that don’t know, that’s the first thing that comes to mind,” Jones said, referring to the old Princeton style of play. “That couldn’t be further from the truth. We’ve never had a team like that. Princeton hasn’t played that way for years.” Coach Kyle Smith of Columbia (18-11, 7-5), whose team has a chance to win 20 games for the first time since 1970, pointed to Brown as a team that had changed philosophies and run up and down the floor more. “It’s fun to watch,” he said. Smith was an assistant at St. Mary’s College in California right before he was hired by Columbia in May 2010. He said he “was a little naïve in thinking” the Ivy League was full of “glorified Division III players.” Image Yale's Justin Sears shooting against Connecticut earlier this season. Yale is still in contention for the Ivy League’s automatic bid to the N.C.A.A. tournament. Credit Yale Athletics In high school, Sears was told by coaches that with his raw talent, he could play in the Big East if he played a year at a preparatory school first. “There are bona fide guys who can play in high-major programs,” Smith said, adding: “We’re a solid midmajor league. Everybody has good players.” Columbia’s success has renewed interest in the men’s basketball program. Although the Lions were eliminated from title contention last week, Smith said he expected capacity crowds for the team’s final two games at home this weekend. Packed crowds have become the norm at Harvard. It could be intimidating to work on a campus where history and tradition permeate every building, Coach Tommy Amaker said, but the students and the city of Boston have embraced the team’s newfound success. Before Amaker’s arrival, in 2007, Harvard never won an Ivy League championship. Now, the Crimson have won or shared the last three titles. This season, for the first time since official Ivy League play began, in 1956-57, Harvard swept the season series with Penn and Princeton, something Yale accomplished last season, also for the first time. When Jones was an assistant at Yale in 1995, he said, Princeton and Penn were so dominant that “teams thought of being 0-4 before the league season even started.” Ed Breslin, the author of “The Divine Nature of Basketball,” a chronicle of Yale’s 2011-12 season, began following the league in 1960. He believes that it will not be long before Penn and Princeton contend again, but that they are unlikely to dominate the way they once did. “It’s no longer the big two and the little six,” he said. This season, Princeton has fared well over all, at 17-8, including wins over Rutgers and Penn State, but is 5-6 in the Ivy League. “There aren’t any easy wins in this league,” said Coach Jerome Allen of Penn, whose team is 7-18 over all, 4-7 in the league. While Penn and Princeton largely shaped the conference’s tradition, Robin Harris, the Ivy League’s executive director, said she was enjoying watching new teams rise to the top. “From a conference office perspective, that’s exactly what we want to see,” she said. Coach Mitch Henderson of Princeton recently said, “We’re not in the position we’d like to be in,” but added, “Nobody’s feeling sorry for us because of where we are.” Not far from where Jones took his pregame walk through the Palestra, there is a large sign keeping score of the Penn-Princeton rivalry, which Penn leads, 124-105, and a plaque noting the importance of the series. But when the two teams close out the conference schedule on Tuesday, only bragging rights will be at stake. The focus in the final week of the season instead will be on New Haven, where Yale will continue its quest for its first N.C.A.A. tournament appearance since 1962. “The campus atmosphere is great right now,” Sears said. “At the end of freshman year, guys would ask, ‘Are you D-I?’ Now people are asking about the tournament.”

Harvard
Yale
Brown
Cornell
Princeton
College basketball
University of Pennsylvania


After Drubbing, U.S. Will Face Dutch in World Baseball Classic

Abstract: MIAMI GARDENS , Fla. — As baseballs rocketed around numerous patches of Dolphin Stadium and out of it, too, the atmosphere escalated from eager to exciting to enthusiastic. A serious baseball party blossomed here, but Puerto Rico, not the United States, provided the entertainment. It was more of a fiesta than a party. Puerto Rico performed so comfortably and skillfully that this game Saturday night might as well have been played in San Juan. The Puerto Ricans scorched Jake Peavy for six runs in the first two innings, gave their noisy fans a chance to wave flags and blow horns, and cruised to an 11-1 victory in the World Baseball Classic. How embarrassing was the loss for the Americans? When Mike Aviles blooped a two-run single in the seventh inning to boost Puerto Rico’s bulge to 10 runs, the umpires sauntered off the field. The game ended because of the 10-run rule, meaning the Americans felt like high school players for one depressing night. “We got hit by a truck,” David Wright said. Mark DeRosa, playing second base for the United States because Dustin Pedroia had a strained oblique muscle, was unaware that Aviles’s single had ended the game until he saw the Puerto Rican players mobbing Aviles. DeRosa could not recall a similar baseball experience. “The only time you can remember it is when you’re in Little League,” he said. After being stifled by Javier Vázquez and battered by Puerto Rico, the Americans have a do-or-die game against the surprising Netherlands on Sunday. The Dutch lost to Venezuela, 3-1, in the first game Saturday. Now the Netherlands could eliminate the Americans, which is a sobering place for American baseball to be in this tournament. Carlos Beltrán homered and drove in two runs and Carlos Delgado also had two runs batted in, so Wright, their teammate on the Mets, watched them celebrate over and over. By the time the first 13 Puerto Ricans had batted, the score was 6-0. It was early, but it was already late for the Americans. Several players said they were embarrassed, but Derek Jeter distanced himself from that description. “We lost,” Jeter said. “You got to get over the embarrassment. We got a game tomorrow.” Before the Classic started, Delgado said it seemed that participating in the event was more meaningful for Latin American players and fans than for American players and fans. “We’ve got that passion for baseball,” Delgado said. “I’m not saying other countries don’t have it. But we seem to show it a little more.” VENEZUELA 3, NETHERLANDS 1 The Netherlands lurked one run behind Venezuela and threatened in the eighth inning of the opener, making another baseball power antsy. The Dutch had two men on with two outs and were trying to duplicate their two stunning victories against the Dominican Republic. The Venezuelans had an answer. They had Francisco Rodríguez. If the Dutch players needed evidence that Venezuela took them seriously, it came when Manager Luis Sojo asked Rodríguez to secure four outs. Rodríguez did not do that even once last season, never mind in the middle of March. “It’s awesome knowing that people are respecting us like that,” the Netherlands’ Randall Simon said. The respect delighted the Netherlands, but the result did not. Rodríguez collected the save, Carlos Silva tossed seven solid innings, and Miguel Cabrera and José López each socked home runs for Venezuela. The Dutch, who have scored only seven runs in five games, were damaged by a risky decision by Wim Martinus, their third-base coach. Still, the Dutch were trailing by only 2-1 when Rodríguez, the Mets’ closer, retired Sharnol Adriana on a groundout to end the eighth. No major leaguer has had more saves than Rodríguez’s 62 for the Los Angeles Angels last season. Now K-Rod has one against the Netherlands, too. “I would have done the same thing,” Rod Delmonico, the Dutch manager, said about using Rodríguez in the eighth. The vocal fans cheered for Venezuela while verbally bombarding Magglio Ordóñez. Ordóñez, an outfielder who is a vocal supporter of Hugo Chávez, the country’s president, was repeatedly booed and was the recipient of obscene gestures because of his political views. Other Venezuelan players waved with disgust at some spectators. “They may have their own reasons for booing me, but I’m a person that they should respect on the team because I am not Venezuela,” Ordóñez said. “Venezuela is the entire team. And when they boo me, they’re booing everybody.” The decision that haunted the Netherlands came in the second. With Yurendell DeCaster on first, Bryan Engelhardt drilled a shot to the gap in left-center field. At worst, the Dutch figured to have runners on second and third with no outs. But Martinus sent DeCaster home, and he was thrown out. Because there were no outs, it was a dubious decision. Vince Rooi’s run-scoring single tied the score, 1-1, but Silva retired the next two batters. After the second, the Dutch had two more base runners off Silva, who struck out four and allowed four hits. Cabrera’s homer against Sidney Ponson put Venezuela ahead by 2-1 in the fourth. The Venezuelans maintained the edge until the eighth, when the Dutch made Venezuela anxious. That is when Sojo surely made the Mets nervous by asking Rodríguez to do something that he had not done since July 1, 2007: pick up a four-out save. “I had no scouting report,” said Rodríguez, who evidently did not need one. He remembered how to collect four outs in a game.

World Baseball Classic
Baseball
Venezuela
Silva Carlos


Rangers Can Spend, but They Would Rather Be Smart

Abstract: Surprise, Ariz. Lance Berkman does not wear his championship ring from the 2011 World Series. It is too gaudy, he said, and he would rather not draw attention to himself. But that should not imply he is shy about the achievement. Berkman earned the ring with the St. Louis Cardinals by hitting .423 against his new team, the Texas Rangers. In the 10th inning of Game 6, when the Rangers were one strike from their first title, Berkman denied them with a game-tying single off Scott Feldman. The Cardinals won that night, and the next, and now Berkman is here, at 37, with a chance to make amends. He gladly reminds teammates that he has what they wanted. “It’s fun to dig these guys on occasion about it,” Berkman said. “Those are bragging rights that will last for a long time.” Berkman considered retirement after last season, when he played only 32 games and had two operations on his right knee. He was not a priority for the Rangers, who had hoped for much bigger moves after losing the American League West to Oakland on the final day of the regular season and dropping the wild-card game to Baltimore. The Rangers tried to retain the star outfielder Josh Hamilton. They negotiated with the free-agent starter Zack Greinke. They explored trades for starter James Shields and outfielder Justin Upton. The off-season seemed full of possibility. “We all know that you don’t win by making announcements in the winter — but they’re fun,” General Manager Jon Daniels said. “We all like doing them. We all want to put the big gift under the tree.” Berkman was not exactly coal in the stocking. Two years ago, he hit .301 with 31 homers and 94 runs batted in. Mickey Mantle is the only switch-hitter in major league history with a better career on-base percentage than Berkman’s .409 (minimum 3,000 plate appearances). But with last season’s injury, and his own ambivalence, Berkman was not in high demand. When all their targets wound up elsewhere, the Rangers had to overwhelm him with a one-year, $11 million offer. “I was O.K. with not playing,” Berkman said, “and they made it tough to turn it down.” The Rangers made other short-term commitments, signing catcher A. J. Pierzynski to replace Mike Napoli and the setup man Joakim Soria to replace Mike Adams. They also traded Michael Young, the team’s career leader in hits, to Philadelphia for reliever Josh Lindblom and a prospect. It was an off-season without sizzle. But it was consistent with the Rangers’ sensible approach under Daniels, who was promoted this month to president for baseball operations but still reports to the chief executive, Nolan Ryan. The Rangers have made high-impact moves, signing third baseman Adrian Beltre after their appearance in the 2010 World Series and starter Yu Darvish before last season. But they have avoided the kinds of debilitating long-term deals that have handcuffed so many of their peers. Image Lance Berkman, 37, considered retirement before signing a one-year, $11 million free-agent deal with Texas. Credit Gregory Bull/Associated Press Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, the Chicago Cubs, the New York teams, the Los Angeles teams, even Seattle and Cincinnati have absorbed significant risk in keeping their stars or chasing free agents. The Rangers, hardened by the lessons from Alex Rodriguez’s first free agency in 2000, never act out of desperation. “It’s almost like we’re a big-market club with big-market resources, but you try to have a little bit more of that smaller-market mind-set and discipline,” Daniels said. “Because, really, that’s why we were good in the first place,” he said. “We had a $65-70 million payroll in 2010. It was making good baseball decisions. We just don’t want to do anything that’s going to short-circuit our ability to win long-term.” The Rangers seem to have a sharper understanding of value than most of their rivals. Consider that they paid Hamilton a little more than $28 million for the last five seasons, during which he made five All-Star teams and won a Most Valuable Player award. The Angels will pay him $125 million for the next five years. Which five-year period is likely to be more productive? The Dodgers will pay Greinke $147 million for the next six years, even though he has only once ranked among his league’s top five in innings or earned run average. Greinke has been slowed by elbow trouble this spring, raising more questions about his durability. Of course, the Rangers pursued both players, and flirted with the idea of blockbuster trades. But the contracts for Hamilton and Greinke, and the price in prospects for Shields and Upton, did not seem responsible to Daniels. “Had we wanted to sign Josh to the kind of deal he got, or more, we could have done it,” he said. “We knew what the prices were on Shields and Upton; we weren’t willing to do it. Greinke was probably the one we were closest to, but he gave us a price, at one point, that was more than he ultimately got with the Dodgers, and we chose not to do that. I’d love to have those guys.” Instead, he has a team without anyone making more than $16 million, including three starters — Darvish, Matt Harrison and Derek Holland — signed through at least 2016. The bullpen might be thin, with Alexi Ogando joining the rotation and Soria still recovering from elbow surgery, but the Rangers should contend. “The winning is the No. 1 thing,” said Pierzynski, the longtime White Sox catcher, explaining why Texas appealed to him. “I know from playing against them, it always seemed like it was fun. They always seemed like they were having a good time and they always had good players. They want to win, they expect to win, and that’s a good, fun thing to walk into.” The Rangers have enough depth in young position players — Leonys Martin, Mike Olt, Jurickson Profar — to expect to stay competitive this season and beyond. Daniels has a track record of acquiring talent in midseason, and believes the players will trust him to do so, if needed. Yet he knows, deep down, that the fans and the core of the team probably expected more this off-season. Smart shopping and careful long-term planning feel only so satisfying in a competitive industry. “It’s good and it’s bad,” Daniels said. “You want to get the guys you want, too.”

Lance Berkman
Texas Rangers
Zack Greinke
Jon Daniels
Baseball


Even at Home, Flyers Are Unable to Stop Penguins

Abstract: PHILADELPHIA — Ryan Whitney is a defenseman for the Pittsburgh Penguins , which explains why he had not scored in the Stanley Cup playoffs. But the Penguins and Whitney are charmed these days. His pass to Sidney Crosby hit Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Jason Smith, then the puck skipped past goaltender Martin Biron. That gave the Penguins a quick goal Tuesday night in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals on their way to a 4-1 victory, their first this season at Wachovia Center. “That’s a bounce you’ll take to get the first goal,” Whitney said. “It was a good feeling.” Marian Hossa scored twice for the Penguins, who took a 3-0 lead in their third straight playoff series. Pittsburgh, which has won 11 of 12 games this postseason, could earn a trip to the Stanley Cup finals as early as Thursday in Game 4. The Penguins, whose only playoff loss was to the Rangers, are fast and efficient, and they appear to be unstoppable. “Well, things could still go a lot better,” said Penguins left wing Ryan Malone, who scored a critical goal midway through the third period that stretched Pittsburgh’s lead to 3-1. “We’re not looking at stats right now. We’ve got to bring our hard hats and go to work, and they’re not going to lay down.” The Flyers, who had the worst record in the league last season, unexpectedly ousted Washington and Montreal in the first two rounds. As a result, they were thought to be resilient enough to give the Penguins a test, particularly at home. Pittsburgh, though, scored twice in the first 7 minutes 41 seconds. Whitney’s goal came first, and Hossa scored 2:38 later. He steered around Flyers center Jeff Carter and snapped a shot that went through the legs of defenseman Lasse Kukkonen and Biron. The Flyers had a long way to climb back. R. J. Umberger scored later in the first — his 10th goal of the playoffs — but Pittsburgh goaltender Marc-André Fleury stopped the final 13 shots he faced. “They are a patient team,” Philadelphia center Mike Richards said. “They turn a lot of pucks over when we try to do too much with the puck, and then their forwards counter the other way. They have the speed and capability to beat you off the rush.” Malone’s goal came after Evgeni Malkin intercepted a cross-ice pass by Philadelphia right wing Steve Downie in the Pittsburgh zone. The Penguins took off the other way, and Malone soon took a pass from Petr Sykora before shoveling a backhand shot past Biron. The Flyers pushed the pace in the first three minutes of the game, but Malkin’s line took the puck into the Philadelphia zone and kept it there long enough for Malkin to draw a hooking penalty on Flyers defenseman Derian Hatcher. The power play lasted only 90 seconds; it featured several cross-ice passes before Whitney took a pass from Crosby and flicked a wrist shot toward the net from the left face-off circle. The puck went in after only 5:03 had been played. “We knew that if we could score first, that would be huge for our team, and we could quiet the crowd,” Hossa said. “The people here are unbelievable. They’re really loud.” The Flyers were so insistent on clamping down on the Penguins in their zone that they took only three shots in the second period. But they did have a good chance while Flyers right wing Scottie Upshall was serving a tripping penalty. Richards, who scored a short-handed goal in Pittsburgh’s 4-2 victory Sunday, rustled up a loose puck and steamed toward Fleury on a breakaway. Richards was upended before he could shoot, and he took Fleury into the net. The crowd thundered its disapproval when the replay was shown on the scoreboard. Play continued, and the Flyers resumed trying to catch up to the Penguins. It was a futile chase. “We have a great attitude, but I guess that’s the reward you get for making sure that you take each game seriously and that you’re consistent,” Crosby said. “But I don’t feel like we’ve achieved anything.”

Pittsburgh Penguins
Philadelphia Flyers
Playoff Games
Hockey Ice


BP’s $20 Billion Deal Helps Steady Market

Abstract: An agreement by the oil giant BP to put $20 billion into a fund for victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill lifted the stock market off its lows and sent the major indexes to a narrowly mixed finish. BP also canceled a dividend payment totaling about $2.6 billion that was scheduled for Monday and it said it would not declare a dividend for the second and third quarters. Investors viewed the news as an end to the uncertainty about BP’s stability, and that helped steady the overall market. The Dow Jones industrial average rose about 4 points, while the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index fell less than a point and the Nasdaq composite index was virtually unchanged. BP’s plans to place $20 billion in a fund to compensate victims were announced after a meeting between BP executives and President Obama. Traders had been questioning how BP would handle the mounting costs of the spill, which began April 20 when a rig owned by BP exploded. “One source of uncertainty has been at least partially resolved,” said Brian Gendreau, a market strategist with Financial Network Investment Corporation. The market began the day by falling on news that home construction and applications for building permits slumped in May after a home buyer tax credit ended. Meanwhile, FedEx Corporation released a disappointing profit forecast for the fiscal year that began June 1, and that raised more questions about a recovery. FedEx is often considered a barometer of the economy because shipping demand tends to increase as business conditions improve. The stock fell almost 6 percent. The Commerce Department’s report on housing raised concerns that weaker demand for homes would hurt an economic rebound. Construction of homes and apartments fell 10 percent from a month earlier to an annual rate of 593,000, well below the 650,000 economists had forecast. A 17 percent drop in construction of single-family homes was the largest since January 1991. Applications for building permits fell 5.9 percent to the lowest level in a year. Analysts had forecast an increase. Demand for permits is an indicator of home-building activity. The weaker-than-expected numbers followed the expiration in April of a tax credit for home buyers. Kevin L. Smith, a housing market analyst at Chapdelaine Credit Partners in New York, said the drop in the home construction and permit numbers extended a string of choppy readings since October, and that it was too soon to tell how housing would hold up. He noted that the previous month had been the best in more than two years. “It’s going to be a bumpy ride,” Mr. Smith said. He said housing would not make a strong recovery until unemployment fell and overall confidence grew. The home buyer’s credit was part of the government package of stimulus measures intended to help the economy recover from the mortgage and financial crises of 2008. Investors have been uneasy about what would happen when the government started to pull back on those measures. The Dow rose 4.69 points, or 0.05 percent, to 10,409.46, its fourth advance in five days. During morning trading, the Dow was down as much as 72 points. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index fell 0.62, or 0.06 percent, to 1,114.61, and the Nasdaq crept up 0.05 to 2,305.93. Wednesday’s trading reflected the juggling act by investors for months. While many of the economic signs continue to show the recovery is proceeding, news like the home construction figures and the FedEx forecast have created doubt. And the still unresolved economic problems in several European countries remain a threat to the market’s own recovery from its sharp losses of the last six weeks. The Dow is still down more than 7 percent from the 2010 high of 11,205.03, reached April 26. Bond prices edged higher, pushing down interest rates. The price on the 10-year Treasury bond rose 12/32 to 102. The yield slipped to 3.26 percent from 3.30 percent late Tuesday. FedEx fell $4.94, or 6 percent, to $78.07. The company said its fiscal 2011 outlook was based on the assumption of a continued “moderate recovery” in the global economy. Shares of the cellphone maker Nokia fell 10.7 percent on Wednesday to $8.77 after it said that its earnings this year would face tough competition from rivals. Crude oil rose 73 cents to $77.67 a barrel in New York trading.


Once Booed, Tajh Boyd Puts Clemson in National Championship Picture

Abstract: In this era of texting and Twitter and message boards, disgruntled Clemson football fans are old-fashioned when it comes to holding a quarterback accountable. They do not write. They boo. “Yep, I heard it,” said Tajh Boyd, the Tigers’ redshirt sophomore quarterback. “Didn’t really read about the unhappy people; I heard it, though. You kind of get a little offended, but then you move forward and accept people’s passion for football here.” Boyd, a first-year starter, heard the unrest after completing 8 of 24 passes in the spring game. He heard it again coming off the field after an unimpressive first half against Troy in the season opener. Then, abruptly, the melody of murmurs, sighs and boos was switched off. Boyd started distributing the ball as if he understood the concepts of Clemson’s fast-paced spread offense. The Tigers clicked off a 38-24 win over Auburn, a 35-30 victory over Florida State and a 56-45 win over Maryland. Now, Boyd, whom some fans were not sure they could trust in September, has thrust No. 6 Clemson (8-0) into the national championship picture. Boyd, the 6-foot-1 ½, 230-pound son of a military man, is tied with Boise State’s Kellen Moore for the most touchdown passes in the country with 24. He has thrown only three interceptions in 278 attempts, and the Tigers are averaging 40 points a game going into their Atlantic Coast Conference game at Georgia Tech (6-2) on Saturday night. “You hear people say after the spring, ‘Oh, our season is going to be this, it is going to be that’, so that was a little disappointing because I put a lot of work into this,” Boyd said. “I really didn’t play last year. I needed some time.” The fans were not the only ones uneasy after Boyd’s performance in the spring game. The offensive coordinator Chad Morris, hired in January and a protégé of the Auburn offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn, said Boyd was only memorizing the offense and did not understand the design and concepts. “He was being like any other kid with a brand new coordinator; he was trying to impress and learn each day’s install by memorization and not understanding why we are doing things,” Morris said. “You can’t memorize concepts. You have to learn the offense.” Boyd certainly has a better understanding of it after eight games and has produced a dazzling offensive show. He threw for five touchdowns in a 59-38 win over North Carolina last week and is averaging 297 yards passing a game. The freshman wide receiver Sammy Watkins (54 receptions, 9 touchdowns) is on the verge of breaking A.C.C. receiving records for a first-year player, but Boyd also has three other receivers with at least 18 catches averaging more than 13 yards a catch. Clemson fans who were impatient with Boyd should understand how close they came to not having him. He wanted to go to Tennessee, but that was before Phillip Fulmer was fired as coach. He committed to West Virginia, but a coaching change there ended the courtship. Clemson was the last university added to his list of official visits, and he made the trip to appease his mother because it was close to the family’s home in Hampton, Va. “I wasn’t expecting anything from the trip and then, well, I just liked it here,” Boyd, 21, said in a phone interview. His father, mother, sister and brother moved with him and settled in Seneca, S.C., eight miles from Clemson’s campus. Boyd’s father, Tim, who is retired from the Navy, devoted himself to his son’s development as a quarterback. Even in the cold of the Tidewater winter, Boyd worked nearly every day throwing toward netted targets in the backyard. “My dad kept saying, ‘Do the work, do the work, it will add up,’ ” Boyd said. It did. Boyd is connecting with his moving targets at a rate of 61.9 percent this season. Boyd did more than work. He stayed out of trouble. He did not get his driver’s license until he arrived at Clemson, which helped him avoid typical teenage calamity. He became a fan of animated movies; “Polar Express” is one of his favorites, along with “Cars.” There is a familiarity to Boyd’s success. He is in his first season as the leader of a spread offense that has a goal of running 80 plays a game and strives for a balance between finesse and physicality. Morris, the offensive coordinator, spent 16 years as a high school coach and is a former Tulsa assistant. In 2010, Auburn’s Cam Newton was new to a spread offense run by a longtime high school coach, Malzahn, also a former assistant at Tulsa. Boyd does not want the similarities to end there. He is not campaigning for the Heisman Trophy, which Newton won in 2010, but he acknowledges enjoying a nice stroll down Heisman Drive on the Clemson campus. (John Heisman coached Clemson from 1900 to 1903.) It is quite a turnaround, considering some fans wanted him to walk down the road that led out of town.

Football
College Athletics
Clemson University
Football (College)
Boyd Tajh


United States Can Exhale After World Cup Draw, but Injuries May Tell

Abstract: The United States got a favorable draw Friday for the 2010 World Cup against England, Slovenia and Algeria and will be expected to reach the second round of soccer’s world championship. Anything less would be considered a failure at the 32-team tournament, to be held in South Africa from June 11 to July 11, although injury has left the Americans uncertain at forward and on defense. “Any time now that we don’t advance, we’re going to be disappointed,” midfielder Landon Donovan said on a conference call. The United States drew a top seed in England, the 1966 World Cup champion, but avoided a second European power and a top African team. Bob Bradley, the American coach, called the draw fair and said, “It gives us an opportunity to find a way to advance.” Defender Carlos Bocanegra was more emphatic, saying, “We need to get out of our group and we need to make some noise.” Two nations from each of the eight four-team groups will advance to the knockout round. But the United States may need at least a point from the England game to avoid a relatively early exit. If the Americans finish second in their group, their opponent in the round of 16 will probably be Germany, a three-time world champion. At least the Americans avoided the Group of Death, a forbidding assemblage that includes Brazil, a five-time World Cup champion; the Ivory Coast, considered the first African contender; and Portugal, which finished fourth at the 2006 World Cup. The United States will open play against England on June 12 in Rustenberg, northwest of Johannesburg. The Americans are 2-7 all time against the English but achieved perhaps their greatest World Cup triumph with a stunning 1-0 win at the 1950 World Cup . It was the teams’ only meeting in the World Cup. That was more than half a century ago, but the current United States players seemed more excited than unnerved by the chance to play England. Goalkeeper Tim Howard, midfielder Clint Dempsey, forward Jozy Altidore and defender Jonathan Spector play in the English Premier League and are accustomed to the physical, fast-paced style there. The Americans lack the technical skill of the English players but think they can match up with fitness, unity and insistence. The United States has gained assurance from defeating top-ranked Spain at the Confederations Cup in South Africa last June and taking a two-goal lead over Brazil before losing, 3-2, in the championship game . “They’re physical and they’re big and they’re used to playing the game at a very high pace,” Donovan said of English stars like Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard. “That kind of game favors them. The good thing is, we have a lot of guys playing in Europe now who have played in big games. We can match that. Are we as talented? Probably not, but on a given day, we feel we have a chance to beat them.” Donovan also said it was “pretty incredible” that he might face David Beckham, his teammate with the Los Angeles Galaxy. In the teams’ most recent meeting, England won, 2-0, in a friendly last year in London. “I think the next game will be different,” Fabio Capello, the England manager, told ESPN. “I think it will be not an easy game. Another thing important — the U.S.A. will have more time to prepare for the World Cup. It’s very important the first game. The U.S.A. knows, we know, if you win the first game, it’s easier to play the other games.” World Cup history suggests that a team losing its opening match struggles to reach the knockout phase. And the United States has often played poorly in openers, getting pounded by Czechoslovakia 5-1, in 1990; by Germany, 2-0, in 1998; and by the Czech Republic, 3-0, in 2006. Even with a loss to England, the Americans should advance. Still, Slovenia and Algeria — which the Americans have never faced — are not considered pushovers. Slovenia defeated Russia in a playoff to reach the World Cup, and Algeria defeated the African power Egypt. The Americans will meet Slovenia on June 18 in Johannesburg and Algeria on June 23 in Pretoria. One thing to note: The Americans are 1-9-2 against European teams in the World Cup since 1990. But they are also familiar with these stadiums and the altitude, having played there in the Confederations Cup. Even though Friday’s draw was favorable for the Americans, the team has endured some significant setbacks since the Confederations Cup. Forward Charlie Davies is said to be making an encouraging recovery from a broken leg, a broken elbow and facial fractures from a car wreck, but he remains unlikely to play in South Africa. The Americans would miss his threatening speed. Oguchi Onyewu is out an expected four more months after surgery to repair a ruptured patellar tendon in his left knee. He gives the United States an imposing defensive anchor, but his availability for the World Cup remains unknown. His absence could prove troubling, especially against England and its strength on set pieces. There is more encouraging news about center back Jay DeMerit, who may rejoin his English club, Watford, this weekend after a corneal transplant. The midfielder Jermaine Jones, yet to play for the United States, has returned to training with his German club, Schalke 04, but he has been slow to heal from a hairline fracture in his left shin. His World Cup participation is uncertain. Dempsey seems likely to move upfront in Davies’s absence, but he remains inconsistent with the national team, imposing in one match and frequently uninvolved in the next. Perhaps the speed of Robbie Findley of Real Salt Lake will make him a candidate to replace Davies. Or maybe Eddie Johnson will re-emerge with fulfilled promise. Edgar Castillo remains a possibility at left back, although he played quietly in his debut in midfield in a recent exhibition loss to Denmark. An unavoidable factor in South Africa will be the altitude in some cities. Johannesburg is more than a mile high at 5,750 feet (1,753 meters), while Pretoria is about 4,400 feet (1,341 meters). Many of the American strengths — running hard, counterattacking, playing physically — may be compromised in thinner air. Thus, greater ball possession may be necessary for success at the World Cup. The American players were breathing heavily as they blew a 2-0 lead to Brazil in the Confederations Cup final in Johannesburg. “I think we ran out of gas, more than anything,” Bocanegra said after the game.


Grudgingly, Japanese Voters Appear Set to Stick With Abe

Abstract: SANYO-ONODA, Japan — In the final stretch before parliamentary elections on Sunday that may determine the fate of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic program, this gritty industrial city on Japan’s island-studded Inland Sea has been quiet. Nowhere to be seen this week were the squads of female campaign workers in brightly colored jackets who ordinarily before an election would be out by now, handing out fliers and waving at motorists. Missing, too, were the fleets of campaign cars bellowing their candidates’ names via loudspeakers. In fact, the governing-party candidate is so strongly favored to win that he has rarely bothered visiting to woo voters. Mr. Abe called the snap elections last month after economic data showed Japan to be in full-blown recession following an ill-timed tax increase, and opinion polls showed his own support levels declining along with the economy’s. He said he wanted to use the vote to get a new mandate to first enact more of his growth-inducing policies, known as Abenomics — which so far have amounted to the central bank’s flooding the economy with cash — before enacting further tax increases to rein in the ballooning national debt. So far, the polls suggest his decision to hold the vote may well pay off in a big win for his governing party despite what many call tepid support. With just a few weeks to prepare for the sudden elections, the opposition Democrats have not been able to field enough candidates to win a majority, even if they won every contest. People on the streets of Sanyo-Onoda and neighboring communities in western Japan expressed deep dissatisfaction in recent days with Mr. Abe’s economic policies, which they said was lifting the stock market but not the lot of average Japanese, whose real wages continue to decline. Still, when asked whether they would protest by voting for the opposition, most strongly shook their heads. “The economy is still terrible here,” said Tatsuo Kametani, 62, a plumber in the nearby city of Mine. “But I’m still for the Liberal Democrats. We gave the opposition a chance, and they blew it.” This is exactly the sentiment that analysts say Mr. Abe, who took office two years ago with promises of economic revival, is counting on. They contend that he made a cold political calculation that he could lock in four more years in power if he held the vote now, before opposition parties had time to regroup from their 2012 defeat. He may also be counting on voters’ lack of interest, since a low turnout is expected to benefit the Liberal Democrats and their still formidable regional vote-gathering machines. According to some recent opinion polls, the party might even win two-thirds of the 475 seats in the powerful lower house, up from the 295 it held in the recently dissolved chamber. That would be enough to put Mr. Abe within reach of one of his long-held political goals: rewriting Japan’s antiwar Constitution to allow a full-fledged military. Still, if the polls are accurate, the expected election blowout could prove a hollow victory. Voters, political analysts and even the candidates and their supporters agree that public support of the Liberal Democrats and Mr. Abe is lukewarm at best. They say a victory will not be an embrace of the Liberal Democrats so much as a continuing rejection of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, which is seen by most voters as having badly bungled a stint in power a few years ago. “This will be a most tepid of landslide victories,” said Kenichi Kawamura, the son of the Liberal Democratic candidate in the district that includes Sanyo-Onoda, who has done much of the campaigning for his father. “The public does not enthusiastically support the Liberal Democratic Party, but it does have a phobia of the opposition.” Indeed, voters appear confused about what Mr. Abe is asking of them, analysts say. None of the opposition parties are against his call to postpone a planned, and highly unpopular, second increase of the national sales tax, making many Japanese wonder why the elections were even necessary. “There is nothing to debate,” said Yoshiaki Kobayashi, a political scientist at Keio University in Tokyo. “No party is going to say they want a tax increase or a bad economy.” Tadashi Tomishige, 63, a restaurant owner in Sanyo-Onoda, who noted that the election would be costly, said, “Why do we need another election so soon? We all know who will win.” Analysts say Mr. Abe wants to extend his term to pursue noneconomic parts of his agenda that have proved even less popular with voters than his economic policies, including restarting the country’s nuclear plants, expanding military cooperation with the United States and possibly changing the Constitution, something postwar Japan has never done. But Mr. Abe has shied away from these issues in the campaign, and the disorganized opposition has appeared unable to capitalize on them. In the district including Sanyo-Onoda, a six-hour bullet train ride from Tokyo, only two opposition parties were able to field candidates: the Democrats and the tiny Communist Party. Neither appears to pose much of a challenge to the incumbent, Takeo Kawamura, 72, a former education minister. Mr. Kawamura spent only four days in his district during the campaign. On a recent morning, his son, who is also his political heir apparent, made the rounds of traditional Liberal Democratic supporters riding in the back of an unmarked Prius. At every stop, the younger Mr. Kawamura, 38, got an earful of complaints, mostly about how Abenomics had failed to improve the still-depressed economy in the region’s farming towns and smokestack cities. “I have a lot that I want to say to the Liberal Democratic Party,” said Akemi Tokunaga, the director of a nursing home where Mr. Kawamura asked for the support of deeply bowing employees. “But in the end, we have no choice. It is still better than the useless Democratic Party.”

Japan
Voting
Election
Shinzo Abe
Liberal Democratic Party Japan
Democratic Party Japan


In a Stellar Quarter, Three Funds That Went Over the Top

Abstract: NEARLY every style of stock fund rose in the fourth quarter of 2013, and the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index continued its long sprint, returning 9.9 percent. But the stewards of three of the top-performing mutual funds beat even that heady return, finding gains in sectors as diverse as trucking, technology and automotive paint shops. Hauling Profits George A. Henning, manager of Pacific Advisors Small Cap Value fund, used the venerable strategy of buying value stocks of small-capitalization companies. When Mr. Henning likes a stock, he hangs on for years. His fund’s recent turnover ratio was a tiny 12 percent, compared with 70 percent for the average stock fund tracked by Morningstar. Mr. Henning is a generalist — meaning that his fund can invest in any sector — but he has lately favored old-school fare. The portfolio, which contained 30 stocks at the end of September, was heavy on energy and industrial companies, like DXP Enterprises, an industrial equipment maker, and light on technology names. Mr. Henning has been buying shares of Saia, a trucking company, since 2003, after it was spun off by YRC Worldwide, another freight hauler. He said he likes truckers because their revenue tends to grow with the economy. The better ones also have pricing power when the economy slows because weaker players will go out of business, he said, and the remaining outfits can raise rates. Image When George A. Henning, manager of the Pacific Advisors Small Cap Value fund, likes a particular stock, he tends to keep it for years. The fund’s turnover rate was recently just 12 percent. Credit J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times The fund’s expenses are high, with an expense ratio of 2.71 percent. That compares with an average of 1.37 percent for stock funds followed by Morningstar. Investors have been attracted to the fund: it recently reached $211.6 million in assets, compared with $92.5 million at the end of 2012; that should bring economies of scale, and so, he said, the ratio should fall. The fund’s long-term performance also partly justifies its high cost, Mr. Henning said. The fund “is not a closet index fund — our returns have come from stock picking,” he said. Morningstar ranks it as the best performer in its niche of small-cap blend funds over the last decade. Mr. Henning has run the fund since 1993, starting it after a career in insurance, where he helped the Chubb Group start its first variable annuity life insurance policy. That piqued an interest in investing. Since then, the fund has returned an annualized average of 11.45 percent. It returned 14.29 percent in the fourth quarter. Tech and Low Turnover While Mr. Henning shies away from tech companies, Zachary H. Shafran scurries to them. They’re his specialty at the Waddell & Reed Science and Technology fund. In some ways, though, his style resembles Mr. Henning’s. Mr. Shafran too, holds fewer stocks than average — 58 at the end of November — and often clings to them. The fund’s recent turnover ratio was 50 percent, versus nearly 140 percent for the average technology fund tracked by Morningstar. The portfolio’s holdings in September — the last reported list — included two stocks with more than a decade of history in the fund: Euronet Worldwide and Samsung Electronics. Mr. Shafran has also favored health care stocks more than many other tech managers; his health care stake was nearly five times that of the average tech fund tracked by Morningstar. “No sector is off limits,” he said. “We’re looking for growth that’s technology driven, and we find opportunities in every sector and every geography.” He surmised that retail was the only sector where the fund had not invested in his 12-year tenure. Image “We’re looking for growth that’s technology driven,” says Zachary H. Shafran at Waddell & Reed Science and Technology, “and we find opportunities in every sector and every geography.” Credit Dave Kaup for The New York Times A recent bet was Qiwi, which processes electronic payments in Russia and Ukraine. Mr. Shafran invested because of Qiwi’s strong market position and its partnership with Visa to create the Visa Qiwi Wallet, a payment app for smartphones. According to its last report, the fund was also invested in Brazil, China, India and South Korea. Most technology funds hew more closely to the developed world. One of the fund’s more typical tech holdings was Cree, at nearly 5 percent of the portfolio at the end of November. Cree makes light-emitting diodes, “taking a systems-based approach” by building light bulbs and arrays, Mr. Shafran said. “LED lighting makes more sense every day — the technology is getting better, and that’s continuing to drive the cost down,” he said. The Y shares of his fund, which are available to institutional investors, have an expense ratio of 1.01 percent and returned 13.9 percent in the fourth quarter. An Eye on Mispricing Unlike Mr. Henning or Mr. Shafran, Ralf A. Scherschmidt, manager of the Oberweis International Opportunities fund, zips in and out of investments. The fund’s recent annual turnover was 280 percent. Image Ralf A. Scherschmidt of Oberweis International Opportunities uses behavioral economics in his stock picking, studying how people depart from economic orthodoxy in their market decisions. Credit Ángel Franco/The New York Times He said he trades more often than average because he bases his approach on behavioral economics, which studies the ways that people depart from economic orthodoxy in decision-making. A main behavioral finding is that people exhibit confirmation bias, giving greater credence to information that supports their beliefs and less to contradictory information. This bias can create temporary stock mispricings, he said. When a company reports higher earnings than the analyst consensus, some investors won’t immediately update their views, he said. Weeks or months can pass before the stock price fully reflects the new information. Mr. Scherschmidt sells once the price has adjusted. “The tendency to stick to established beliefs is one of the most ingrained human tendencies,” he said. “And when companies are undergoing change, analysts have a tendency to discount information that disagrees with their established views.” Earnings surprises are only part of his formula. He also scrutinizes company fundamentals, screening the markets in which he invests — mainly developed countries abroad — for businesses with improving prospects. The companies may be introducing a promising product or technology, entering a market or undergoing a restructuring. Usually, he will sell once a stock’s price has doubled. Occasionally, he will hang on if he expects improvements. Such has been his experience with Duerr, a German maker of equipment and software for automakers’ paint shops. The fund first bought the stock in 2010. Mr. Scherschmidt said he liked Duerr because it sells hardware and software, which isn’t typical in its niche, and because its technology uses less energy than competing ones. The company has shown multiyear, double-digit growth in emerging markets like China and has reported higher operating margins, he said. He began managing the fund in 2007. It has an expense ratio of 1.6 percent and returned 12.66 percent in the fourth quarter.


Iraq Arrests Woman Tied to Bombings

Abstract: BAGHDAD — She went by the code name “the mother of believers,” Samira Ahmed Jassim al-Azzawi confessed. Ms. Jassim recruited women to join extremists in Diyala Province, escorting them to a farm for training and ultimately to their targets. Speaking stiffly in a crude police video, Ms. Jassim recounted the fate of a woman she called only Um Huda, whom she had led to a neighborhood bank that served as her rendezvous point. “When I was talking to her, she was not answering or looking at me,” Ms. Jassim said. “She was mumbling verses of the Koran.” “I got her to the bank and left her there,” she went on, unemotionally. “She detonated herself at a police station in Muqdadiya.” The attack she described appeared to be a suicide bombing in August 2007 that killed 12, most of them police recruits. Her account, which could not be independently confirmed, came in a confession that the Iraqi authorities showed on Tuesday as they belatedly announced Ms. Jassim’s arrest and claimed that she had been involved in recruiting 80 women to carry out suicide bombings in Diyala and Baghdad, though in her own words she recruited only 28 women, “maybe a bit more or less than that.” The authorities provided little information about Ms. Jassim, her background and her crimes. Maj. Gen. Qassim Ata al-Moussawi, the chief military spokesman in Baghdad, announced that she had been arrested on Jan. 21, but he declined to provide additional details because, he said, an investigation was continuing. Her confession nevertheless offers a glimpse into the wave of suicide attacks by women that has alarmed Iraqi and American commanders in the past two years as insurgents have adjusted tactics to avoid detection. At least 17 women carried out suicide bombings last year in Diyala Province, a region northeast of Baghdad that remains a turbulent base for insurgents and extremists. Cultural mores here generally mean women are subject to less intrusive searches, while their loose robes more easily hide explosive vests or belts. Iraq ’s police and military have responded by trying to hire more women as security officers to search women at checkpoints. Ms. Jassim, who said she was born in 1958, making her 50 or 51, appeared in the video in a black abaya covering all but her face. In the excerpts shown, she flatly answered the questions of an unseen interrogator. According to her account, she met Shakir Hamid Malik, a leader of Ansar al-Sunna, a Sunni insurgent group in Diyala believed to have links to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia , and joined the group as a recruiter. Her remarks suggested that she had to work diligently to persuade women to become bombers, speaking to them many times. She also appeared to confirm what many military and intelligence officials had asserted: that insurgents prey on women in dire social and economic situations who are often suffering from emotional or psychological problems, or abuse. “Another woman was Amal,” she said, recounting another attack, this one a suicide bombing in December 2007 that killed 15 at a meeting of the Sunni Awakening movement in Diyala. Amal was a teacher, she said. “I met her, and for more than two weeks I tried to convince her,” she said. “She was living in difficult conditions. Her husband and his family were having problems with her brothers. She was in bad psychological shape.” In the parts of her confession shown, Ms. Jassim did not explain what drove her to join the insurgency, whether ideology or despair. A security official in Muqdadiya, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly, said that Ms. Jassim was the mother of five children, three of them grown daughters, and that she peddled goods door to door in her neighborhood in Muqdadiya. Another police official said she had been arrested last September. The reason for the discrepancy was not clear; Iraqi officials often provide contradictory details of investigations. It is also not clear what happened to the other women she is accused of having recruited.

Iraq
Women
Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia
Bombs and Explosives
Azzawi Samira Ahmed Jassim al-
Iraq War (2003- )
Terrorism


Still Games to Coach, Players to Teach, Miles to Go

Abstract: Kay Yow, the North Carolina State women's basketball coach, has had three bouts with breast cancer. Although she has undergone operations as well as hormone and radiation treatments, and changed her diet radically, Yow does not know if she is cancer free. But she does know that there are still games to coach, players to teach and money to raise for breast cancer research. She will turn 64 next week, and she will not slow down. Yow coached the 1,000th game of her career on Jan 22; the only other active Division I women's coaches to reach that mark are Jody Conradt of Texas and Pat Summitt of Tennessee. She has guided N.C. State to a 17-10 record entering the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament today in Greensboro, N.C. The fifth-seeded Wolfpack, 7-7 in conference play, opens against 12th-seeded Clemson (8-20, 2-12). In 31 seasons at N.C. State, Yow has won 634 games, posted 20 or more victories 19 times, reached the N.C.A.A. tournament 18 times -- including 9 of the last 11 years -- and advanced to the Final Four in 1998. In 1988, Yow coached the United States women's team to a gold medal in the Olympic Summer Games in Seoul, South Korea. She has been inducted into at least six halls of fame, including the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., which she entered in 2002 with Magic Johnson and Larry Brown, among others. Yow was hired by N.C. State in 1975, not long after the passage of Title IX, the federal law guaranteeing equal opportunity in sports. She was paving the way for women's basketball years before Sylvia Hatchell arrived at North Carolina and Gail Goestenkors at Duke, and lifted those programs to national prominence. In part because of Yow, the state has become the hub for the best college basketball in the country. North Carolina and Duke are 1-2 in The Associated Press poll. It has been hard to keep up at N.C. State, which was faced with the challenge of recruiting head-to-head against them and was ranked No. 23 entering the season. . "I came and I think we began to set a standard and a level," Yow said, "and other people began to try to match that. And so now, they've not only matched it, they've gone right to the top." As for Yow, she has no plans to sit in the rocking chair she received when inducted into the Guilford County, N.C., Hall of Fame in 2005. Illness has never been a reason to stop competing. When her cancer was first diagnosed in the summer of 1987, Yow had surgery and recovered in time for basketball season. After her second diagnosis in November 2004, she chose an alternative route to radiation or chemotherapy. After surgery, she left the team to travel to HealthQuarters Ministries Lodge in Colorado Springs, where she concentrated on healing spiritually as well as physically, and embarked on a strict diet that eliminated meat, sugar and dairy products. "I had this on my mind about a more natural kind of treatment," Yow said. "Remember, I'd had cancer before. So I felt like if there's something that's causing it to come back, I'm sort of aiding and abetting in the process, and I need to know how to care for myself better. "It's a place where you can go and you can learn about nutrition, you can learn about what your body needs to fight disease, and it's a spiritual element with it. It's combined faith and natural substances." Yow said she received support from her family and doctors. But with it came some concern as well. "You do wonder," said her sister Susan Yow, a longtime coach who played at N.C. State, where her retired jersey hangs in the rafters at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh. "I remember talking with Kay about it. I just felt like she had to do what she really felt strongly doing. You wouldn't want to have any regrets." Yow kept her diet for eight months before discovering two more lumps in her breast last July. After surgery to remove the tumors, Yow agreed to hormone and radiation treatments and was advised to go off her diet to gain strength. Her final treatment came in November, the day before she went with the team to the Bahamas. She is scheduled to have a test in April to determine if she is cancer free. Yow refuses to feel sorry for herself. "I don't think, 'Why me?' " she said. "I think, 'Why not me?' I don't think anything. It's life. And as you go through life, it's just, to me, inevitable that you're going to face some tough times." What better place to face those tough times than a basketball court? "This court is like, for everybody, it's like our psychologist," said the senior guard Monica Pope, whose father is battling colon cancer. "You just deal with it. It just makes you happy just being out here. Each and every one of us has a love for basketball. Just being out here just brings joy, and I'm sure it does the same for Coach Yow." Yow has a revolving contract and says she plans to stay at N.C. State, although she wonders if there is something more to her legacy than basketball. She has raised millions for cancer research and is considering starting a foundation to aid charities. In the meantime, Yow wears two bracelets, a pink one for breast cancer awareness and a charm bracelet for cancer survivors. Her players wear pink laces on their right sneakers. But they don't talk about it. Beyond a tear-filled meeting in January 2005, when Yow revealed her illness to the players, the team has focused on basketball. But cancer remains in the background. "I think during games, we used it as a pickup," said the junior guard Ashley Key, whose grandmother died of cancer, "that we're out here battling, but Coach Yow is battling something a lot stronger than what we are." Yow tells them to live for the moment. That message is easy to understand.

BASKETBALL
CANCER
NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY
YOW KAY
COACHES AND MANAGERS


Investors Are Tilting Toward Windmills

Abstract: Correction Appended It's hard to be in a business where you literally -- as well as figuratively -- are tilting at windmills. But that business may have just gotten its biggest tail wind yet. When President Bush called last month for more effort in alternative energies, a business that last year attracted only about $7 billion in investment nationwide, the 300 engineers and financiers at GE Energy Financial Services were already in the game. But that does not mean they were not happy that the White House acknowledged the sector. "The president's speech changed zero for us; it was simply a recognition of what we already knew," said David L. Calhoun, vice chairman of GE Infrastructure, the group that includes both turbine manufacture and energy financing. For now, wind energy is the only profit star in G.E.'s alternative energy galaxy, and both the finance and equipment sides of the company know they are gambling when it comes to solar and other fledgling technologies. Still, analysts applaud their decision to move on them. "When you get the president talking about renewable energy, it has to be turning up the dial at G.E.," said Deane M. Dray, an analyst at Goldman Sachs who has an outperform rating on General Electric shares. Certainly, it is getting attention from Energy Financial Services. The unit recently bought a wind farm in Germany and is installing new turbines there at a rapid pace. It has invested in solar energy farms in California and is in the end stage of negotiations for a large solar project in Europe. Indeed, renewable energy projects already account for $1 billion of the unit's $11 billion portfolio and are its fastest-growing niche. "The renewables space has really heated up, and I hope it will account for 20 or 30 percent of our investments in five years," J. Alex Urquhart, the unit's president, said. Today, alternative energy financing is barely a footnote in G.E.'s revenue stream. But the G.E. machine is gearing up for change. On Jan. 30 -- a day before the president bemoaned the nation's "addiction to oil" -- Mr. Urquhart carved out a separate group to focus solely on renewable energy projects. Lorraine Bolsinger, who runs G.E.'s Ecomagination program, says she has begun to "run the financial projects through our scorecard process" to see which ones she should include in her group of G.E.'s "green" products. The pace is quickening in G.E.'s industrial camp, too. Energy equipment and related services, which accounted for about $42 billion of G.E.'s $149.7 billion in revenue last year, is G.E.'s largest industrial business. Alternative energy products like wind generators accounted for less than $6.3 billion of last year's sales. Four years ago, G.E. bought Enron's wind-turbine unit, and it is now a $2 billion business, heading rapidly toward $4 billion. In five years, G.E. expects that alternative energy products will account for more than a quarter of energy equipment revenue. If that happens, it will probably be a boon for Energy Financial Services, too. Last year, energy financing got plucked out of G.E.'s financial stable and placed under Mr. Calhoun's umbrella, along with the equipment makers. The financial team members say that working side by side with the technical equipment gurus is helping them pick and choose among potential investments. They get early alerts, they say, on which blade designs and composites make for the most efficient wind turbines, on whether solar energy is gaining momentum, or whether the technologies will have any resale or reuse value if a project does not work out or a borrower defaults. "Only 60 percent of our projects involve G.E. technologies, but the global research center helps us decide which technologies to invest in," said Kevin Walsh, managing director of Energy Financial's new renewable energy group. The potent mix of expertise is already paying off. Energy Financial, for instance, invested in a solar farm in California after G.E.'s industrial experts gave the project -- which does not use G.E. equipment -- a thumbs-up. The energy finance specialists are helping Mr. Calhoun evaluate the economic potential of a coal gasification project; if it proves viable, they will help promote and finance similar projects elsewhere. G.E. is not alone in backing renewables, of course. In November, Goldman Sachs committed to investing $1 billion in renewable energy, and it is already "well on its way" to achieving that, according to Lucas van Praag, a Goldman spokesman. J. P. Morgan Chase, too, has said it will invest more than $250 million in wind-energy projects. And venture capitalists have for some time been investing in smaller renewable energy projects and technologies. Over all, says Michael T. Eckhart, president of the nonprofit American Council on Renewable Energy, the $7 billion invested in renewable energy projects last year should increase by 25 percent a year over the next few years. He and many others say they believe that, if the president's imprimatur results in new regulations or tax incentives, even more Wall Street money will be attracted to such projects. Wind power has been the leading alternative energy source in recent years. The costs of turbines have come down even as their reliability and efficiency have increased; G.E., Goldman, J. P. Morgan Chase and others are snapping up wind farms across the world. By contrast, persistent shortages of silica, needed to make solar panels, have kept the solar energy sector from taking off on a similar trajectory. And few Wall Street dollars are going to projects that involve wresting megawatts from agricultural waste, be it crops like corn or the switchgrass Mr. Bush mentioned. And there has been almost no interest, at least so far, in methane generated from manure. Industry supporters see President Bush's speech as sending a new signal that might favor some of the more exotic energy sources, though. "Now that the president has put the power of the bully pulpit behind ethanol," Mr. Eckhart said, "a lot of conservative people who thought biofuels were silly will view them as a mainstream investment." For now, investors say that the logistics of selecting sites for factories and transporting biofuels keep them from being economically competitive. "George Bush said interesting things about potential opportunities in biomass, but we need a better understanding of any legislative or regulatory changes his comments might spur," Mr. Van Praag of Goldman said. GE Energy Financial Services has taken a few tentative steps toward biomass. It has a longtime, if small, investment in plants that burn woodchips for fuel. It is seeking advice about potential biofuel investments from colleagues at Jenbacher, an Austrian company G.E. bought in 2003 that makes generators that run on the gases emitted from landfills. And Mr. Urquhart said he is "going to keep calling our people in Washington, and see what kind of rule-making is evolving around the biofuel idea." In the meantime, he is keeping his eye out for projects that might merit investment even without additional government incentives. Mr. Calhoun has his eyes on Mr. Urquhart's quest, in case it turns up something G.E. should buy or make. "Alex helps us decide where to put our development dollars, and we help him evaluate where to invest," Mr. Calhoun said. "And if he finds a great biomass plant, we'd be delighted." Correction: February 17, 2006, Friday An article in Business Day on Wednesday about investment in alternative energy sources referred incorrectly to a shortage that is among factors slowing the growth of solar energy. The substance in short supply is purified silicon, needed to make solar panels; silica is in ample supply.


In New Economic Plan, China Bets That Hard Choices Can Be Avoided

Abstract: BEIJING — As economic growth has fallen while debts and excess industrial output have risen, Chinese leaders have faced growing questions about whether they will carry out the painful policy surgery many experts say is needed to cut away the financial dead weight on the economy. But the answer that Prime Minister Li Keqiang gave on Saturday was to wager that China could enjoy a relatively painless cure that avoids hard choices between spurring growth and restructuring. Chinese leaders’ usual two-sided rhetoric about their options — peril is close at hand, but so is a sure cure — was especially striking in Mr. Li’s latest annual report to the legislature, the National People’s Congress. “Domestically, problems and risks that have been building up over the years are becoming more evident,” Mr. Li told the roughly 3,000 delegates to the congress, a Communist Party-controlled body . But “there is no difficulty we cannot get beyond,” he said in the speech, which was broadcast live nationwide. Continued economic growth of at least 6.5 percent can be achieved in 2016, and a similar rate is foreseeable until 2020, he said. That, Mr. Li suggested, would help dull the pain from cuts to wheezing state-supported industries that must shed millions of workers, as part of a program that China’s powerful president, Xi Jinping, has promoted as “supply-side structural reform.” The Chinese economy, Mr. Li said, is “hugely resilient and has enormous potential and ample room for growth.” Those may have been reassuring words for workers worried about losing their jobs at failing mines, steel mills and industrial plants. Mr. Li said the government’s policies could help create more than 10 million jobs in towns and cities this year, and more than 50 million by the end of 2020. But many economists and investors have become much less confident that China can manage such rates of unstinted growth without piling up more bad lending and misused capital. Video Here are excerpts from the annual news conference by a spokeswoman for the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature, outlining crucial government policy positions. Credit Credit Wu Hong/European Pressphoto Agency “I think the 6.5 percent growth target is very challenging,” Shen Jianguang, the Hong Kong-based chief Asia economist at Mizuho Securities Asia, said after hearing Mr. Li’s plans. “They want to choose a path that maintains real growth now and defers tough times for later.” A growth rate of 6.5 percent a year is the minimum needed to achieve President Xi’s often-declared goal of doubling the size of the Chinese economy by 2020, relative to its size in 2010. “As the government report said, setting this target is also aimed at anchoring expectations and confidence,” Tao Wang, the chief China economist for UBS in Hong Kong, said in emailed comments. “We think this ambitious growth target signals more policy easing.” But such financial easing implies more debt, at a time when many Western economists and policy makers are already worried that total leverage in the Chinese economy has far outstripped economic output. The increased debt may help the government achieve its target of 6.5 percent to 7 percent economic growth this year, but at the price of burdening banks with even more loans to struggling businesses, or even effectively insolvent ones. That policy may also water down leaders’ promises to shut companies that are producing unwanted industrial goods. Some economists said the Chinese government had little choice but to shore up demand through such policies until the benefits of restructuring accumulated. But several also warned that the gains from such spending were tapering off and that the efforts to revamp the economy had lagged, despite bold promises made by Mr. Xi at a Communist Party meeting in 2013. “In China we have a new saying: ‘Reform running idle,’ ” said Yao Yang, an economics professor at Peking University. “We talk of the reforms, but the reforms are never being implemented. That’s the problem,” Mr. Yao said. “We know that monetary expansion is not going to have a huge effect.” In his speech, Mr. Li appeared guarded about saying how any cuts would be administered. He did not specify how many workers could lose their jobs as part of the government’s plan to close, merge or restructure mines and factories weighed down by excess capacity. The government will set aside $15.3 billion to support laid-off workers and hard-hit areas, he said. On Monday, a labor official estimated that 1.8 million workers in the steel and coal sectors would be laid off, around 15 percent of the work force in those industries. “They definitely are relatively cautious in those areas like how boldly we tackle excess capacity, because they still want to grow,” said Louis Kuijs, the chief Asia economist for Oxford Economics, an independent research firm. “What I am particularly worried about is the overcapacity is probably going to get worse before it gets better, given the timidity of the approach.” To a surprising extent, the economic vision unveiled by Mr. Li echoed policies in the United States, the European Union and Japan, all of which have depended heavily on their central banks to expand money supply and keep growth aloft. The International Monetary Fund and many independent economists have strongly called for the world to shift from this reliance on monetary policy. Of the Chinese government’s plan, Mr. Kuijs said: “The wording is that we will have proactive fiscal policy and prudent monetary policy, but if you look at the numbers, it’s actually the other way around.” The government’s plan said the target for this year’s fiscal deficit at the national level would rise to 3 percent, from a target of 2.3 percent last year. But by most estimates, the actual deficit last year was already over 3 percent. China’s central bank, like the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, has been wary of carrying almost the entire burden for sustaining economic growth through monetary policy, and one of its officials even publicly suggested recently that the fiscal deficit could be safely pegged as high as 4 percent. China’s central government has a fairly low debt by international standards; what are deeply indebted are the country’s corporate sector and local governments. But the Ministry of Finance has nonetheless been reluctant to allow a large, persistent deficit to form, particularly as China may yet face very heavy costs to help banks with the costs of large loans to nearly insolvent state-owned enterprises. To be sure, the plan announced Saturday did call for some structural changes. One of the most surprising was a proposal to expand China’s value-added tax to financial services. Banks would face a 6 percent tax on the interest that they collect on loans. Since the global financial crisis, there have been many calls in the West for broadening value-added taxes to encompass financial services, which could encourage more orderly and systematic accounting for many transactions. But Lachlan Wolfers, the head of indirect taxes in China for KPMG, a global accounting and professional services firm, said he was not aware of any countries other than Argentina and Israel that had taken steps as specific as China’s to tax financial services.

China
Economy
Li Keqiang
National People's Congress China
Unemployment
Communist Party of China