Obama Formally Enters Presidential Race

Abstract: SPRINGFIELD, Ill., Feb. 10 — Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, standing before the Old State Capitol where Abraham Lincoln began his political career, announced his candidacy for the White House on Saturday by presenting himself as an agent of generational change who could transform a government hobbled by cynicism, petty corruption and “a smallness of our politics.” “The time for that politics is over,” Mr. Obama said. “It is through. It’s time to turn the page.” Wearing an overcoat but gloveless on a frigid morning, Mr. Obama invoked a speech Lincoln gave here in 1858 condemning slavery — “a house divided against itself cannot stand” — as he started his campaign to become the nation’s first black president. Speaking smoothly and comfortably, Mr. Obama offered a generational call to arms, portraying his campaign less as a candidacy and more as a movement. “Each and every time, a new generation has risen up and done what’s needed to be done,” he said. “Today we are called once more, and it is time for our generation to answer that call.” It was the latest step in a journey rich with historic possibilities and symbolism. Thousands of people packed the town square to witness it, shivering in the single-digit frostiness until Mr. Obama appeared, trailed by his wife, Michelle, and two young daughters. (“I wasn’t too cold,” Mr. Obama said later, grinning as he acknowledged a heating device had been positioned at his feet, out of the audience’s view.) Still, for all the excitement on display, Mr. Obama’s speech also marked the start of a tough new phase in what until now has been a charmed introduction to national politics. Democrats and Mr. Obama’s aides said they were girding for questions about his experience in national politics, his command of policy, a past that has gone largely unexamined by rivals and the news media, and a public persona defined more by his biography and charisma than by how he would seek to use the powers of the presidency. “He’s done impressively so far, but at some point he’s really going to have to move to the next stage,” said Walter Mondale, the former Democratic vice president who made the phrase “where’s the beef” famous in his 1984 challenge to the credentials of a rival, Gary Hart, the former senator from Colorado. The formal entry to the race framed a challenge that would seem daunting to even the most talented politician: whether Mr. Obama, with all his strengths and limitations, can win in a field dominated by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who brings years of experience in presidential politics, a command of policy and political history, and an extraordinarily battle-tested network of fund-raisers and advisers. Mr. Obama has told friends that he views Mrs. Clinton as his biggest obstacle, though his aides said they remained very wary as well of former Senator John Edwards, another rival for the Democratic nomination . Mr. Obama hit the question of experience in the opening bars of his speech on Saturday, suggesting that he would seek to use his limited time in government as an asset by casting himself as an agent of change who was free from the pull of special interests and politics as usual. “I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness in this — a certain audacity — to this announcement,” he said. “I know that I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.” For Mr. Obama’s campaign, struggling to put this unlikely organization together in just three months, the first focus is Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Obama’s aides said they had spent weeks discussing how to derail what David Plouffe, Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, described as “the dominant political organization in the Democratic Party.” Mr. Obama’s decision to spend the first two days of his presidential campaign in Iowa, where he headed after his announcement, reflected one of the first important strategic decisions in that regard. His organization sees Iowa as a place where he could surprise Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Edwards with an early victory. The eastern part of the state, a critical region for Democrats to win and where Mr. Obama spent the rest of Saturday, shares a media market with neighboring Illinois. Mr. Obama has been a fixture in local news since winning his Senate primary nearly three years ago. In trying to undercut Mrs. Clinton’s claims of experience, Mr. Obama’s campaign has decided to borrow techniques that Bill Clinton used to defeat the first President Bush in 1992. Mr. Obama, reprising the role of Mr. Clinton, on Saturday presented himself as a candidate of generational change running to oust entrenched symbols of Washington, an allusion to Mrs. Clinton, as he tried to turn her experience into a burden. Mr. Obama is 45; Mrs. Clinton is 59. But more than anything, Mr. Obama’s aides said, they believe the biggest advantage he has over Mrs. Clinton is his difference in position on the Iraq war. Mrs. Clinton supported the war authorization four years ago. Mr. Obama has opposed the war from the start, and has introduced a bill to begin withdrawing United States troops no later than May 1, with the goal of removing all combat brigades by March 31, 2008, taking a far more explicit stance than Mrs. Clinton on ending the conflict. “America, it’s time to start bringing our troops home,” he said Saturday. “It’s time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of someone else’s civil war.” Yet even on a day that pointed to Mr. Obama’s strengths — a big, excited crowd, a speech that in its composition and delivery demonstrated yet again why he is viewed as a singular talent in the Democratic Party — it seems evident that Mr. Obama’s easier days as a candidate have passed. Unlike Mrs. Clinton, or to a lesser extent Mr. Edwards, Mr. Obama has not gone through a full-scale audit that will now come from Republicans, Democrats, journalists and advocacy groups, eager to define him before he defines himself. Some Democrats, including Mr. Obama’s opponents, seem increasingly game to challenge him, particularly when it comes to the substance of an Obama candidacy. Mr. Edwards offered a hint of what Mr. Obama faced in an interview the other day, as he discussed national health care, when he was asked his reaction to Mr. Obama’s views on providing national coverage. “I haven’t seen a plan from him,” Mr. Edwards said. “Have you all?” Mr. Obama has glided to his position in his party with a demeanor and series of eloquent speeches that have won him comparisons to the Kennedy brothers and put him in a position where his status as a black man with a chance to win the White House is only part of the excitement generated by his candidacy. But with perhaps one major exception, his plan to disengage forces in Iraq, he has avoided offering the kind of specific ideas that his own advisers acknowledge could open him up to attack by opponents or alienate supporters initially drawn by his more thematic appeals. Mr. Obama went so far as to tell Democrats in Washington last week that voters were looking for a message of hope, and disparaged the notion that a presidential campaign should be built on a foundation of position papers or details. “There are those who don’t believe in talking about hope: they say, well, we want specifics, we want details, we want white papers, we want plans,” he said then. “We’ve had a lot of plans, Democrats. What we’ve had is a shortage of hope.” But some Democrats were scornful. “That’s nonsense,” Mr. Hart said. “It posits that it’s either-or. Who’s saying you can’t talk about hope? I’m not talking about white papers: I’m talking about one big speech about ‘How I view the world.’ ” In an interview before he left for Illinois, Mr. Obama said he realized his powerful appeal as a campaigner would take him only so far. Other campaigns that have relied extensively on the life story of the candidate have typically foundered. “If a campaign is premised on personality, then no, I don’t think you can stay fresh for a year,” he said. “But if the campaign is built from the ground up and there is a sense of ownership among people who want to see significant change, then absolutely. It can build and grow.” And in his speech here on Saturday, Mr. Obama, trying to offer himself as the grass-roots outsider in contrast to a member of a political family that has dominated Washington life for 15 years, presented his campaign as an effort “not just to hold an office, but to gather with you to transform a nation.” “That is why this campaign can’t only be about me,” Mr. Obama said. “It must be about us. It must be about what we can do together.”

Democratic Party
Obama Barack
Presidential Election of 2008


Factors That Influence Blood Pressure Readings

Abstract: Q. I have always believed that leaving a tight belt around my waist when my blood pressure is taken is a bad idea. Right? Or not so right? A. “A tight belt compressing your waist, especially if it makes you uncomfortable, will increase your blood pressure,” said Dr. Holly Anderson, cardiologist at the Perelman Heart Institute at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital, but it is far from the only factor that can skew results. Others are the time of day, with the first waking reading usually the highest, as well as temperature, mood, coffee, tobacco and physical activity . “Blood pressures are often taken incorrectly, even by doctors,” Dr. Anderson said. Readings should be taken after a patient has been sitting quietly in a relaxed atmosphere for at least five minutes, “and how often does that happen?” she asked. The cuff should be the right size for the arm, which should be supported at heart level, and readings should be taken for both arms, Dr. Anderson said, with a significant difference warranting further investigation. When a patient is lying down, readings are generally higher than when sitting or standing. Having your blood pressure taken in a doctor’s office is often stressful, Dr. Anderson said, and readings at the end of the visit are often lower than at the beginning, but repeated high office readings are not normal and suggest that “pressure is likely being elevated too often by other stresses in your life.” C. CLAIBORNE RAY

Blood Pressure
Science and Technology
Medicine and Health


A Switch From Beer to Holiday Cheer

Abstract: AT 10:45 p.m. on Saturday, Justin Olsen stood behind the bar at the Gowanus Yacht Club, a seasonal outdoor beer garden on Smith Street in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, and made an announcement. “The last keg of the year has been tapped,” he said. And with that, the countdown began to the finale of one of the last remnants of summer in New York — even though the calendar says it is fall. So after the last sips of beer had been consumed, the Gowanus Yacht Club closed the doors on its fifth season, to become a Christmas tree farm. For those regulars who see the bar as the Brooklyn backyard they never had, the final night of the season had the feel of a going-away party. “It’s like now it’s back to the reality of down jackets and filling out my son’s middle school applications,” said Michelle Peters, an actress who lives in Manhattan, as she sat on a bar stool wearing a heavy coat to guard against the night chill. Mr. Olsen, the bartender, said that he planned to travel to France, where he lived for a short time, and stay with some of his friends in the off-season. Fong Savang, who has worked at the bar for two years, said that he would miss the establishment’s camaraderie. “We’re not going to see each other until next year,” he said. “I can’t wait until spring.” Alan Harding, a chef who is part of the partnership behind the Gowanus Yacht Club and several other Smith Street restaurants, said he intended to bring the bar back for another season. “We’ll go full speed ahead intending to open for next year,” he said, “but you never know, because there are so many government agencies that control the minutia of our lives.” As Saturday turned into Sunday, Mr. Olsen made an announcement at 2:15 a.m. “We’ve run out of beer,” he said, dumping a plastic cup of foam onto the eight-foot wooden slab that serves as the bar’s, well, bar. He turned off the music and started to shuffle people toward the door, until he realized that the end of daylight saving time meant that the bar could stay open for another hour. With a temporary stay of execution, summer lasted one more hour. At 3:30, Mr. Olsen and Mr. Savang walked out of the bar’s gate, and closed it behind them. Mr. Olsen took a chalkboard hanging on the gate and wrote: “Gowanus Yacht Club. Over and Sober. Thanks.”


Saying She Patented Bra, L.I. Woman Goes to Court

Abstract: Hear the phrase “intellectual property,” and the mind might wander to the epic struggle between the recording industry and Napster, or the more recent battle between J. K. Rowling and a fan who wanted to publish The Harry Potter Lexicon as a literary love note. One place it would probably not go is to lingerie — bras and litigation being an uncomfortable fit. But then there was the lawsuit filed on Monday in United States District Court in Manhattan: a patent matter relating to Victoria Secret’s “Very Sexy 100-Way Strapless Convertible Bra.” The bra is, according to the lawsuit, the intellectual creation of Katerina Plew, a Long Island paralegal, who registered it under United States Patent No. 6,733,362 in May 2004. Ms. Plew, who is 38, contends that Victoria’s Secret stole, then mass-produced, her specialized design. “The first time I thought of it I was getting ready for a christening,” Ms. Plew said in a telephone interview from her home in Selden, N.Y. “It was an idea that just popped into my head in — don’t know — like March of ’99.” The bra, with its various hooks and eyelets, is something like the Micronaut of the undergarment world. By a complicated series of maneuvers, it can be worn in as many as 100 ways. Which, of course, made it a prized commodity to underwear purveyors. Ms. Plew said that in 2006 she had arranged to meet with designers from Victoria’s Secret. But without warning and on the very day it was set to have occurred, she said, the designers canceled the appointment. Robin Olshavsky, a spokeswoman for Limited Brands Inc., Victoria Secret’s parent company, said she could not comment on pending litigation. Along with a screen grab from Victoria Secret’s online catalog promoting the bra, Ms. Plew included in her lawsuit a copy of her patent form with a history of previous bras (from the Capparelli to the Zweben) and detailed renderings of her own invention, complete with “diagrammatic rear elevational view.” Ms. Plew says she remembers precisely where she was when she first saw the bra she says she invented strapped across the bosom of a mannequin. “I was in the Smith Haven Mall, in Lake Grove, and there was my bra,” she said. “It was on a huge display. I had to buy the bra to actually prove they were selling it. And I cried. I actually cried while buying my own bra.”

Victoria's Secret
Suits and Litigation
Inventions and Patents
Lingerie and Underwear
Long Island (NY)


Connecting the Dots Isn’t Enough, Adobe’s Chief Says

Abstract: This interview with Shantanu Narayen , president and chief executive of Adobe Systems , was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant. Q. What’s the most important leadership lesson you’ve learned? A. I really honed a lot of my leadership skills and style at Apple. I worked for Apple for many years, and I had a mentor, Gursharan Sidhu, from whom I learned just a tremendous amount. I think two leadership lessons really stand out for me. He forced me to think about doing things that I did not think were possible. Challenging individuals by setting goals and then letting them use their ingenuity to accomplish them is something that I hope I can pass on as part of my leadership style. If you set a common vision and then get really scary-smart people, they do things that amaze you. The other aspect of being a good manager has always been getting gratification from what others do, because the higher you get in management, frankly, the less you do yourself. Q. How do you make sure goals are calibrated properly? A. I like to say that if you can connect all the dots between what you see today and where you want to go, then it’s probably not ambitious enough or aspirational enough. On the other hand, if people look at it and say there is no way that’s going to happen, then it’s probably a little too much. So it’s a balance. Q. Any other things that you learned from your time at Apple? A. Well, the other thing at Apple was that you really believed you were going to change the world. I think that if you do great work it can have just a tremendous and profound impact on society. I think it’s something that really can be very motivating. Q. How are you trying to shift the culture at Adobe? A. One of the things we have tried to do in the last couple of years is introduce this notion of general managers — you equip people with the responsibility to make the decisions that are required to drive their businesses. We’ve said to them, “Go run your business, make the decisions and make the trade-offs.” Some of them will be hugely successful and some of them will stumble, and I think that’s O.K. Creating a culture where you allow people to take risks and grow their careers, I think, is important. We’ve also created this notion of “seeds,” to bring the venture capital culture into Adobe, to allow people who have a creative idea to run with it, but in the structure of a larger company. Q. How does that work? A. The person who runs the seed is actually called an “entrepreneur in residence.” The way you budget for seeds is you don’t do the traditional, “O.K., how many engineers do you need and how many product marketing people do you need?” You say, “O.K., here’s a first round of funding, and tell me what your metrics are.” And if you accomplish those metrics, and if we still think we want to go from seed funding to first-round and second-round funding, then we’ll put more money into it. Q. Talk about how you build a team. A. My big belief in management is that people don’t change. You know, I’m highly unlikely at this age to fundamentally change what I am as a human being, and so my management philosophy also tends to be that if I can complement people’s strengths by surrounding them with people who can complement their areas of weakness, that’s probably a better recipe for success than trying to say, “O.K., you need to change.” If somebody is really all about creative ideas and driving the vision, then expecting them to be very organized and compulsive is probably not a winning proposition. Q. What are you looking for when you hire? A. For me, the biggest predictors of success are raw intelligence and a passion for what you do. And I try to look for people who are going to have tremendous passion for being here, as opposed to this being just another job. As I’m looking for people at very senior levels, I also look for whether they share the fundamental values of the company. Unless people really internalize and believe in the core values of the company, they’re highly unlikely to be successful. Q. Do you have favorite interview questions? A. Well, my first question is always, “Tell me what you think this job is all about.” And I think just allowing them to speak about what they want to do, and what they think the job is about, is actually very useful, because it sheds light on what they think they want to do in the company. I typically also end an interview with asking them how they can make a difference. And when I’m interviewing somebody who I plan to hire, I spend at least three or four sessions with them because you want them to also get a good sense of what the company is about. Q. What feedback do you get from your direct reports? A. I am actually very comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty, and I believe that allows for more inquiry, which I personally like. I’ve gotten feedback at times, saying that being more declarative in some instances about what I think, is important. One of my fundamental beliefs of management is that you accomplish great things by surfacing ideas that everybody has, and cutting off a conversation doesn’t accomplish that. But there’s a balance, because if you let a conversation go on too long, you could miss windows of opportunity. Q. Anything different about the way you run meetings? A. One of the ways I am trying to change my own management style is in the quarterly business reviews. I’m trying to focus more on getting people who are presenting to discuss their insights, and to lead the discussion of what they want to accomplish, and where the business is working, and where the business is not working, and what they are worried about — as opposed to sharing reams and reams of data and then expecting us to make pronouncements about the right thing to do. Because, frankly, they’re closer to the business. And the more you can get them to feel ownership for the decisions, I think the more successful you are. You certainly give them your input, you certainly coach and guide them, you channel them into areas that you believe they need to think about. But that’s one way in which I’m trying to change as we grow this next generation of general managers. I want them to feel like the business review is their opportunity to talk about where the business is going well, where the business is not going as well, and what’s keeping them up at night so that I can help them, as opposed to them feeling like they’re under the microscope, and all they have to do is show you they’re on top of the data, which I think is a meaningless exercise. Q. Any particular techniques for managing your time, the crush of e-mail? A. I try to go to sleep every night, wherever I am in the world, with fewer than 10 e-mails in my in-box. I try never to read an e-mail twice, so I delete it when I’m done. One of my philosophies is I respond as soon as I can, and if it’s important enough and I’ve deleted it, it’ll come back. And I say 10 only because sometimes there are attachments that require a little bit more effort, and so you don’t want to be flippant, either. But for ones that are F.Y.I., you know, I just delete them. I have another philosophy, which is, unless I am the sole person on the “to” line, I don’t feel the need to respond. Q. Why take the extra step of deleting it? A. I think it just feels cleaner. It feels like I’ve dealt with it. Q. What do you think business school should teach more of, or less of? A. I think business schools need to focus more on a cross-functional curriculum to help aspiring managers think about things not from the perspective of finance or marketing, or accounting, but cross-functionally. The second thing I would say is leadership and really talking about how you equip people to think and learn and adapt. I think that’s really more reflective of how successful somebody is going to be, as opposed to a mastery of a specific piece of work in one of those functional disciplines. Q. So leadership can be taught? A. Well, I believe that sharing experiences and enabling people to reflect on what’s important to them and how they would react is certainly a way for individuals to be able to think about what’s important to them and how they hone their leadership style. Q. Is there a question you ask other executives to get insights into how they manage and lead? A. I ask people to tell me the hardest issue that they have faced and how they worked around it, and how they think about it. I think that in dealing with adversity and dealing with challenges, you learn a lot more about how individuals react. I have a number of friends who run public companies. I tend to ask them about the tough times that they have faced and what they have done. You learn a lot from what others have gone through. You also realize that you’re not alone when you experience some of those challenges yourself. Q. How do you think about failure? A. You know, there is no such thing as failure. You’re always learning. You gain experience. I have looked back at aspects of my career where somebody might look at it and say, you know, that start-up was not successful, and I look at it and I say, “I learned how to build a team, how to raise money, how to sell a vision, how to create a product.” It was a great steppingstone for me.

Adobe Systems Inc
Executives and Management
Narayen Shantanu


Fuel Subsidies Overseas Take a Toll on U.S.

Abstract: JAKARTA, Indonesia — To understand why fuel prices in the United States have soared over the last year, it helps to talk to the captain of a battered wooden freighter here. He pays just $2.30 a gallon for diesel, the same price Indonesian motorists pay for regular gasoline. His vessel burns diesel by the barrel, so when the government prepared for a limited price increase this spring, he took to the streets to protest. “If the government increases the price of fuel any more, my business will collapse totally,” said the boat captain, Sinar, who like many Indonesians uses only one name. From Mexico to India to China, governments fearful of inflation and street protests are heavily subsidizing energy prices, particularly for diesel fuel. But the subsidies — estimated at $40 billion this year in China alone — are also removing much of the incentive to conserve fuel. The oil company BP, known for thorough statistical analysis of energy markets, estimates that countries with subsidies accounted for 96 percent of the world’s increase in oil use last year — growth that has helped drive prices to record levels. In most countries that do not subsidize fuel, high prices have caused oil demand to stagnate or fall, as economic theory says they should. But in countries with subsidies, demand is still rising steeply, threatening to outstrip the growth in global supplies. President Bush warned about the effects of subsidies on July 15. “I am discouraged by the fact that some nations subsidize the purchases of product, like gasoline, which, therefore, means that demand may not be causing the market to adjust as rapidly as we’d like,” he said. Indeed, the biggest question hanging over global oil markets these days may be how much longer countries can keep paying the high cost of subsidizing their consumers. If enough countries start passing the true cost of oil through to their citizens, many economists believe, demand growth will slow, bringing the oil market into better balance and lowering prices — although the long-term economic rise of China and other populous countries makes it unlikely that gasoline prices will plunge back to the levels of several years ago. China raised gasoline and diesel prices on June 21, though still keeping them below world levels. World oil prices plunged more than $4 a barrel within minutes on the expectation that Chinese demand would slow. In Indonesia, the government spends six times as much on energy subsidies as it does on agricultural investments, even as rice prices have skyrocketed this year. Many countries, like India, have raised oil prices considerably in recent months, only to watch world prices climb even further, pushing up the cost of subsidies once again. China’s estimated $40 billion in subsidies this year is up from $22 billion last year, mainly for this reason, although consumption has also risen, with Chinese buying 18 percent more cars in the first half of this year than in the period a year earlier. Political pressures and inflation concerns continue to prevent many countries — particularly in Asia, where inflation has become an acute problem — from ending subsidies and letting domestic prices bounce up and down. “You talk about subsidies, you’re not only talking about the economy, you’re talking about politics,” said Purnomo Yusgiantoro, Indonesia’s minister of energy and mineral resources. He ruled out further price increases this year beyond one in May that raised the price of diesel and regular gasoline to $2.30 a gallon. Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency, said that subsidies were clearly a big factor contributing to the mismatch in supply and demand that has helped push up world oil prices. “We think the price mechanism is not working enough to make consumers more efficient,” he said. Indonesia spends more on fuel subsidies, $20 billion this year, than any country except China. Some economists estimate that fuel use in Indonesia would fall by as much as a fifth if the government were to eliminate subsidies entirely. Malaysia’s government incited public anger on June 4 when it raised gasoline prices by 40 percent. The prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, announced the following week that he would retire, although he has since said that he will not do so until 2010. Before adjusting the prices, Malaysia was spending 7.5 percent of its entire economic output on fuel subsidies, a greater share than any other nation. Indonesia follows with 4 percent. Coming elections in Indonesia and India make further subsidy reductions less likely in both countries. And big oil exporters like Saudi Arabia have so much revenue right now that they can easily afford to subsidize fast-growing domestic demand. Chinese fuel policy is the hardest to predict: the country’s leaders are struggling to reduce inflation and are not expected to take any action on fuel until after the Olympics, at the earliest. But they are also campaigning for greater energy efficiency and less reliance on fuel imports. Many in Asia bridle at being told to reduce oil use, particularly by the United States, a country of sport-utility vehicles and big houses. “What about the energy consumption in the United States? Isn’t it one of the highest in the world?” said Irvan Saefurrohman, a student activist in Jakarta who organized a fuel-price demonstration in May that turned violent as protesters threw rocks at police and set cars on fire. Making matters worse, Asia’s own oil production has barely risen over the last decade. Indonesia, with extensive oil fields that made it a top target for Japanese conquest during World War II, became a net oil importer in 2004. Output from its aging fields has fallen almost 40 percent since 1995, and the country plans to withdraw from OPEC at the end of this year. So Asian nations increasingly compete with the West to import oil from the Mideast and Africa. In Asia, subsidies have been particularly prevalent for diesel, although many countries subsidize gasoline as well. The subsidies have been an important reason diesel prices have climbed almost twice as quickly as gasoline prices have over the last year in the United States. Many governments see diesel as more important because truckers and ship captains need it to distribute goods; if diesel prices rise, consumer prices often follow. Diesel is essentially the same fuel as heating oil, so high diesel prices mean high prices for heating oil. Spiraling prices already have some in the Northeast United States worried about how families will afford to heat their homes this winter. To be sure, subsidies are not the only cause of high crude oil prices. Strong global economic growth, particularly in Asia, is requiring a lot of energy. Political tensions between the United States and Iran and market psychology have played a role. Additional factors have contributed to strong demand for diesel in particular. European automakers have been shifting toward the production of more cars with diesel engines, which typically get more miles to the gallon than gasoline-powered cars — although the cost advantage of burning diesel is disappearing with higher prices. When Vietnam reduced fuel subsidies on July 21, it raised domestic gasoline prices by 31 percent, to $4.22 a gallon for 92-octane fuel. But Vietnam increased diesel prices by only 14.3 percent, to $3.54 a gallon. The fast-growing demand in China is skewed toward diesel as well. Automakers are on track to sell half as many gas-powered cars in China this year as in the United States. But in China they already sell at least 50 percent more medium- and heavy-duty trucks, the workhorses of a manufacturing economy. Virtually all of those run on diesel. The cheapest fuel per gallon in many Asian countries is not diesel but kerosene, commonly used for cooking by the very poor. In India, for example, the government subsidizes kerosene so heavily that it sells for just 97 cents a gallon, compared with $5 a gallon in the United States. While the subsidies encourage greater consumption, eliminating them is not easy. “If you reduce the subsidy for kerosene, people are likely to forage in the forests for fuel, and environmentally that is very bad,” said Ifzal Ali, the chief economist of the Asian Development Bank. Kerosene is similar to jet fuel, so strong Asian demand has helped push up costs for airlines. Some spending on subsidies is simply wasted: Mr. Yusgiantoro, the Indonesian official, said that fishing boats take drums of subsidized diesel out to sea for resale to foreign fishing vessels. But a lot of subsidies are delaying what could otherwise be a slowing of economic activity. Mr. Sinar, the freighter captain, said that his vessel hauls cement to outlying islands with limited cement production of their own. Higher diesel costs would make it much costlier to move the cement, which would force builders to accept the prices of their local cement producers and probably cause a construction slowdown. The nearly 30 percent increase in prices for low-octane gasoline, which Indonesia put in place in May, has already prompted some less affluent families to drive less. Subrata, a 34-year-old who sells gasoline in glass bottles to local motorcyclists in Karawang, Indonesia, said that the increase had halved his sales — and that plenty of motorists were upset. If the price rises further, he said, “people will not buy it and it will be a heavy blow for the lower classes.”

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

Far East South and Southeast Asia and Pacific Areas


Why Libraries Are Everywhere in the Czech Republic

Abstract: PRAGUE — In the age of Amazon and the internet, the idea of going to a public library to borrow a book may seem ever more quaint and old-fashioned in many parts of the world, but one country, at least, is clinging to it tenaciously: the Czech Republic . There are libraries everywhere you look in the country — it has the densest library network in the world, according to a survey conducted for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. There are more libraries than grammar schools. In fact, there is one library for every 1,971 Czech citizens, the survey found — four times as many, relative to population, as the average European country, and 10 times as many as the United States, which has one for every 19,583 people. Why so many Czech libraries? Well, for decades they were mandatory — every community, from a big city down to a tiny village, was required by law to have one. The law was enacted in 1919, soon after Czechoslovakia emerged as an independent country. The idea was to promote universal literacy and education after the country was free of the German-speaking Austro-Hungarian Empire. And it worked. “Czechs developed a strong reading habit, and even today, those who visit libraries buy more books — 11 a year, on average — than others,” said Vit Richter, director of the Librarianship Institute of the Czech National Library. The library law survived the German occupation, the communist era and even the breakup with Slovakia in the early 1990s. What it couldn’t survive, in the end, was budgetary pressure. To save money, the requirement was dropped in 2001, when there were about 6,019 libraries in the country; since then, about 11 percent have merged or closed. Rather than just linger on as an eccentricity from a bygone age, though, the surviving Czech libraries are doing what they can to stay vibrant and relevant. They serve as polling places for elections and as local meeting venues. They organize reading clubs and art exhibits and offer computer literacy courses, and they welcome droves of schoolchildren and retirees during the day. But mostly, they do what 92 percent of Czechs still want them to go on doing, according to the Gates Foundation survey: They lend books.

Library
Czech Republic
Literacy
Reading and Writing Skills


New York’s Transportation Command Prepares for the Papal Disruptions

Abstract: Inside New York City’s bustling traffic command center in Queens, a mosaic of screens fills a long wall, broadcasting dozens of live feeds of vehicles moving about the city. Operators sit at monitors, scrolling through incident reports and updating electronic road signs to alert drivers to accidents. On a regular day, officials adjust traffic signals and keep the city moving. But Thursday and Friday are not going to be regular days for city traffic. Pope Francis arrives on Thursday evening for a whirlwind 36-hour tour that will carry him back and forth across Manhattan, leaving a wake of travel disruptions in his path. It is here, at the city’s Joint Traffic Management Center, that transportation officials and police officers will be working to make sure things go as smoothly as possible. To limit the gridlock, the city has promoted a unified message: New Yorkers should avoid driving in Midtown Manhattan and use mass transit. And while officials have warned residents to expect congestion, they have also emphasized that the city is prepared to handle the flurry of events. Image Lt. Sallie Norris runs the effort to keep traffic moving in the wake of the motorcade; she will ride at its end, giving updates on its location. Credit Alex Goodlett for The New York Times The man overseeing the City Transportation Department’s efforts at the traffic center is John Tipaldo, the director of systems engineering. He has helped navigate most every type of traffic predicament since joining the department as an intern in 1980. “We’ve been through terrorist attacks, we’ve been through blackouts, we’ve been through pope visits, we’ve been through Super Bowl parades, we’ve been through scenarios that occur on a regular basis,” Dr. Tipaldo said on Wednesday. “We try to keep an even keel here.” On Thursday, the street closings begin near St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Midtown, where Pope Francis will attend evening prayers. More congestion is expected on Friday, when he travels between the United Nations General Assembly, the Sept. 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan and a school in East Harlem before a motorcade procession in Central Park that is expected to draw more than 80,000 people. The traffic center can monitor about 720 traffic cameras to keep an eye on roads, highways and bridges. At the command center, city and state transportation officials sit alongside police officers watching a kaleidoscope of traffic as tour buses, yellow cabs and Citi Bikes appear on screen. Dr. Tipaldo has slept in his office before — “not very comfortably,” he said — but he did not expect to have to do so this week. The city is accustomed, he said, to assisting when the president and other dignitaries visit. Mayor Bill de Blasio exhibited a similar calm this week, telling reporters that the city could handle the disruption. But he also urged residents who can work from home to forgo their usual commuting. “We’ll make every effort to keep things moving, but I think New Yorkers are resilient,” the mayor said on Monday. “We are certainly used to U.N. week every year. I think we’ll be fine in the end.” Local officials have been preparing for the visit for weeks. The police announced a series of street closings . Officials have urged riders to use the subway, not buses, because several lines will be rerouted . The transportation authority will add extra service on Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road on Friday, and the Port Authority will also provide extra PATH service . As for New Jersey Transit commuters, who have recently endured major rail delays because of problems at the century-old tunnels under the Hudson River, officials said they would be watching the tunnels closely. After delays last week because of power problems at the tunnels , only three of four power cables are working properly, but they should “support normal service levels,” said Craig Schulz, a spokesman for Amtrak, which owns the tunnels. At the center of the pope’s entourage, Lt. Sallie Norris will be running the police effort to keep traffic moving in the wake of the motorcade. She rides in a vehicle at the end of the procession, keeping officers updated on their location so they can reopen streets after they pass. Lieutenant Norris has helped plan presidential motorcades and other major events for years, but this is the first event to keep her up at night. “There are so many moving parts,” she said on Wednesday. “It’s a lot to know, and the more parts of the plan I know, the better prepared I am on game day.” Once Lieutenant Norris joins the motorcade, she cannot leave. So she plans to bring snacks — peanut butter and jelly sandwiches — and a book on Alexander Hamilton to read during downtime between events. The lieutenant, who also worked on Pope Benedict’s motorcade in 2008, said she was excited to be part of the festivities. “I love to see people’s reaction to the pope,” she said. “I have a front-row seat to this. And I love when the traffic plan works.”

Transportation
Pope Francis
Manhattan
Bill de Blasio
NYC Transportation Dept
Roads and Traffic
NYC
Public Transit


XM Satellite Radio Posts Narrower Loss

Abstract: McLEAN, Va. (AP) — XM Satellite Radio Holdings said on Thursday that it narrowed its fourth-quarter loss, helped by a 20 percent increase in revenue and a favorable comparison to last year, when the company took a significant write-down. XM, based in Washington, reported a loss of $239 million, or 78 cents a share, compared with a loss of $263 million, or 90 cents a share, in the comparable quarter a year ago. The latest quarter included charges of 25 cents a share related to a legal settlement and costs associated with the planned acquisition of Sirius Satellite Radio . Fourth-quarter results in 2006 were reduced by a one-time charge of $57.6 million to reflect the declining value of XM’s stake in Canadian Satellite Radio. XM’s revenue rose to $307.7 million from $257.1 million. XM and Sirius, which is based in New York, announced plans to merge more than a year ago and had hoped to have the $5 billion deal completed by the end of 2007. Shareholders have approved the merger, but regulators at the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission have not finished their reviews.

XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc
Company Reports
Sirius Satellite Radio Inc
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures


Seeing Perils Yet to Come, Fed Aims to Hold Down Rates

Abstract: The economy is finally improving, but enough potholes lie ahead that the Federal Reserve needs to keep interest rates close to zero, at least until unemployment begins to come down, the Fed’s chairman, Ben S. Bernanke , told Congress on Tuesday. “On net, the past few months have seen some notable improvements,” Mr. Bernanke said in his semiannual report to the House Financial Services Committee. The pace will pick up next year and accelerate in 2011, he said, but unemployment will remain high, damping down inflation for two more years. “Job insecurity, together with home values and tight credit, is likely to limit gains in consumer spending,” he said, noting that the unemployment rate has continued to rise steeply. If that were to continue, the current gradual recovery could “prove transient.” In his testimony, Mr. Bernanke addressed growing concerns in Congress and on Wall Street that a burst of inflation might be the inevitable result of the Fed’s decision to hold down rates indefinitely while pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy to rescue banks and bolster the credit system. In his answers to committee members’ questions and in an op-ed article that was published on Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Bernanke sought to allay that concern by outlining what he described as the Fed’s tools for withdrawing liquidity when the time comes. “He wanted to indicate that he does not have to execute that strategy yet,” said Nigel Gault, chief domestic economist at IHS Global Insight. “He was telling the committee that the economy was too fragile for the Fed to do that.” The markets seemed to agree. Yields on Treasury securities , which rise when traders become concerned about inflation, fell after Mr. Bernanke’s appearance. The Fed chairman and the central bank’s other policy makers argue that inflation is likely to fall, not rise. It will be “lower in 2009 than during 2008 as a whole,” they said in the monetary policy report that they submit semiannually to Congress. That is “in part because of the sizable amount of slack in resource utilization.” The huge sums of money that the Fed has injected are potentially inflationary as a recovery takes hold. Slack utilization, however, is an offset. With millions of people unemployed or underemployed, and factories operating well below capacity, there is plenty of room, in theory at least, to step up output and avoid inflationary shortages as demand rises. Mr. Bernanke also signaled that foreclosures on home mortgages might not have peaked, mainly because of the rising unemployment rate. In addition, he said, defaults are rising for commercial real estate, an unwinding that is beginning to require steps to shore up some lenders. “It is a sector we are paying a lot of attention to,” Mr. Bernanke said, adding that because commercial mortgages are a relatively small market, “I don’t think we need to have an enormous program to stimulate improvement.” More broadly, the questions posed by the House committee members reflected a concern that the Fed has acquired too big a role in managing the economy — a role born of the unprecedented measures that Mr. Bernanke took to address the credit crisis . Parrying these concerns, the Fed chairman argued that whatever steps Congress might take to audit or oversee the Fed’s operations, or limit them, it should not interfere with the central bank’s independence in setting interest rates and thus regulating economic activity. One proposal before Congress would give the Government Accountability Office expanded authority to audit the Fed. That expanded authority did not include “G.A.O. reviews of some highly sensitive areas, notably monetary policy deliberations,” Mr. Bernanke said, approvingly. Financial markets, he argued in his testimony, would interpret a grant of review authority over monetary policy as a serious weakening of the Fed’s independence and even an effort by Congress “to influence monetary policy decisions.” Several committee members, among them Representative Ron Paul, Republican of Texas, argued that the ballooning federal debt had to be reduced. The Fed chairman said that he agreed but that the reduction could not really begin until the economy was back on its feet. “If the fiscal stimulus did not exist, unemployment would be higher,” Mr. Bernanke said, and he suggested that the $787 billion now scheduled to be spent this year and next might not be enough. Nevertheless, he said in his written testimony, “maintaining the confidence of the public and financial markets requires that policy makers begin planning now for the restoration of fiscal balance.” The committee members’ questions, and Mr. Bernanke’s testimony, dealt with the Fed’s plans to withdraw the liquidity that has been injected into the system over the last year or more to keep credit flowing and huge banks from failing. The concern is that given the amounts involved, inflationary pressures will build up. Responding to that concern, Mr. Bernanke laid out the Fed’s step-by-step plan in his op-ed article and to a lesser extent in his Congressional testimony. One tool, for example — authorized by Congress last fall — gives the Fed power to raise interest rates on reserves that banks have on deposit at the Fed. If the rates are higher than what the banks can earn by lending their reserves to the public, Mr. Bernanke argued, then the banks will keep the money on deposit at the Fed rather than lend it to the private sector and in doing so encourage potentially inflationary spending.

Interest Rates
Federal Reserve System
United States Economy
House Committee on Financial Services
Bernanke Ben S


Off-Season Problems Cloud Hopes for Giants’ Connor and Hill

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Not every day of a football training camp is sunny, cheery and full of enthusiasm. At the Giants’ camp on Sunday, there was some off-season housecleaning to finish — like addressing the recent arrest of one player and the suspension of another. Before practice, linebacker Dan Connor explained how he was arrested and charged with possession of an offensive weapon after bringing a switchblade through airport security in Philadelphia earlier this month. Safety Will Hill said his four-game suspension , imposed by the N.F.L. on July 20, was for his repeated use of marijuana. Connor, a 27-year-old free agent signed by the Giants in March after four seasons in Carolina and one in Dallas, said: “I was flying to a friend’s wedding, and I had a pocketknife in my bag that I didn’t even know about. I hadn’t seen it in over a year, so I was a little shocked when they pulled it out.” Connor, who is one of several new Giants competing for three open linebacker spots, said he packed all of his belongings in Dallas in March and drove to New Jersey with his wife. The spring-loaded knife, which Connor said he had thought he had lost, was in a toiletries bag that he had with him as he prepared to board a flight from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. The knife was discovered by a luggage screening device. “It’s just unfortunate, but you know, at the same time, it’s my fault and I’ve got to prove to everyone that I’m not that type of guy,” Connor said. “I’m not the type of guy to get in trouble. That was the first time I had been arrested, so it was definitely pretty embarrassing for me.” Hill, a second-year player signed by the Giants as a free agent, said he smoked marijuana to handle the stress of living and growing up in a rough section of East Orange, N.J., where he said he was recently held up at gunpoint. Image Will Hill, who was given a four-game suspension, admitted to marijuana use. Credit Seth Wenig/Associated Press “I was going through a lot of stressful times last season, and I failed a lot of drug tests,” said Hill, who played 12 games for the Giants last year. “In the environment I grew up in, just walking down the street and having people put guns in your face, it’s stressful. You really don’t know how to deal with situations like that.” Hill, 23, said the Giants helped him enter a rehabilitation clinic in Boston this spring. He has continued with regular outpatient therapy. “I know right versus wrong,” Hill said. “The Giants helped me the best way they could. They got me help and helped me see other ways to cope with my problems. “I don’t fight it anymore. I’ve met a lot of people and made a lot of friends. A couple therapists that are on my team have helped me out with situations. I’m learning and staying with it.” Hill was suspended for four games in 2012 for using a performance-enhancing substance; he blamed the prescription use of Adderall . He said he was not suspended last year for his marijuana use because he and the Giants were negotiating with the league and setting up his treatment plan. But just before training camp opened last week, the N.F.L. decided on a four-game ban for his marijuana use, Hill said. Hill is allowed to practice with the Giants, and he said he thought he would still make the team. “I think I’ll be around,” he said. “The Giants have told me to stay positive and keep moving forward, just don’t have any missteps.” Coach Tom Coughlin on Sunday would not comment on whether Hill would make the team, but said, “Hopefully, Will’s going to get his life straightened out.” NOTES Shortly after catching a long sideline pass while sprinting at top speed, wide receiver Hakeem Nicks stopped practicing Sunday. Afterward, Tom Coughlin said that Nicks had tightness in a groin muscle. Nicks was not limping after the play and jogged lightly back down the field. The Giants’ medical personnel examined Nicks, and then he watched from the sideline for the remainder of practice. Nicks, a free agent at the end of the season, played through foot and knee injuries in 2012.

Giants
Football
Dan Connor
Will Hill
Hakeem Nicks


B.C.S. Picks Dates for Its Games

Abstract: The Bowl Championship Series chose dates for its five games, with flexibility to move the title game, in an effort to avoid conflicts if the N.F.L. lockout causes its schedule to be pushed back. The B.C.S. title game in New Orleans remains scheduled for Jan. 9, a Monday night, but it could be moved to Jan. 7 or Jan. 10. Bill Hancock, the B.C.S. executive director, said the Rose Bowl would be played on Jan. 2. The Sugar Bowl will be played on Jan. 3, a Tuesday, then the Orange Bowl on Jan. 4 and the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 5.

Bowl Championship Series
Football
College Athletics
Football (College)
Bowl Games


How the N.B.A. 3-Point Shot Went From Gimmick to Game Changer

Abstract: Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were rookies. Bill Walton’s move to the Clippers — the San Diego Clippers — was making headlines. Some N.B.A. finals games were still being broadcast on tape delay. And the league tried something new: a 3-point shot. Its debut, in the 1979-80 season, was inauspicious. The New York Times’s season preview called the shot a “gimmick” in its headline and twice in the first two paragraphs. “It may change our game at the end of the quarters,” Phoenix Suns Coach John MacLeod told The Times. “But I’m not going to set up plays for guys to bomb from 23 feet. I think that’s very boring basketball.” The Boston Celtics’ president, Red Auerbach, told The Times earlier that year: “We don’t need it. I say leave our game alone.” He theorized that the reason behind creating the shot was that “TV panicked over the bad ratings.” Oddly enough, a Celtic, Chris Ford, is credited with making the first official N.B.A. 3, on opening night against the Houston Rockets. Each team wound up with one in the game. The shot soon settled in as a rarely used weapon. At the end of that first season, teams had averaged less than three 3-point attempts per game. Thirty-six years later, the 3-point shot has gone from a gimmick to a vital part of every team’s offense, and few would call it boring. This season, teams were averaging 8.3 3-pointers — on 23.7 attempts — each game entering Wednesday. Both of those figures would be records, breaking marks set last season. Image Danny Ainge and the Celtics bench celebrated one of his 3-pointers in June 1987. His 148 3s in 1987-88 crushed the single-season record of 92. Credit Stan Grossfeld/The Boston Globe, via Getty Images It is not just desperate, long-shot teams that use the 3 as a weapon, as some early critics feared. The Golden State Warriors, one of the best teams of recent times, are averaging 30.2 attempts a game. There are many reasons for the rise of the 3-point shot, but one may simply be math. It took a while, but coaches finally stopped listening to the traditionalist naysayers and realized that a shot that is worth 50 percent more pays off, even if that shot is a little harder to make. “Teams have all caught on to the whole points-per-possession argument,” Lawrence Frank, the Nets’ coach at the time, said in 2009 as the 3 rate began to rapidly increase. While the idea of a 3-point shot had been kicking around basketball for decades, it really took off with the founding of the American Basketball Association in 1967. But even in the run-and-gun A.B.A., teams shot from long range only occasionally, five or six times per game on average. Three-point shots gradually increased in popularity through the 1980s and then jumped to 15 attempts per game, from 10, during a three-year experiment from 1994 to 1997 with a slightly shorter line. When the line reverted to its present distance, 23 feet 9 inches, the pace slowed only briefly. N.B.A. teams reached an average of 18 3-point attempts a game in 2007-8 and 20 in 2012-13. Brian Taylor, a point guard for the Clippers, became the first 3-point specialist in the first year of the shot. “Gene Shue believed in it,” Taylor told NBA.com recently, referring to his coach. “So we had set plays for it. It was amazing.” His efforts were not always appreciated. “People were real critical, saying: ‘Aw, that’s not a good shot. They’re taking a lot of bad shots,’ ” said Taylor, who led the league in made 3s that season with 90. Last season, 73 players reached that total. Danny Ainge was perhaps the first to demonstrate that the 3-point shot could be a key element of an elite team’s offense, crushing the single-season record of 92 made 3s with 148 in 1987-88 for an outstanding Celtics team. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, 5-foot-10 Michael Adams of the Denver Nuggets carved out a niche as a 3-point specialist, leading the league in attempts four years running. John Starks of the Knicks was the first to break 200 shots made — in 1994-95, he was 217 for 611 — and Ray Allen of the Seattle SuperSonics set a record of 269 in 2005-6. Then along came Stephen Curry. A strong 3-point shooter in college at Davidson, Curry was among the league leaders from his rookie season with the Warriors. But his breakthrough came in 2012-13, when he broke the record with 272 . He broke it again last season with 286 — more than all but five teams even attempted in the shot’s first season. If Curry’s totals were amazing the last few seasons, they are superhuman this season. Curry has made 196 3s in 41 games (on 437 attempts). He should easily become the first player to make 300 3s in a season, and depending on how many games he plays down the stretch, he could well make 400. Even in a world without Curry, the 3-point record would be tumbling. His teammate Klay Thompson, James Harden of the Rockets and Damian Lillard of the Portland Trail Blazers are among the many players who have been pouring in 3s at rates that would have stunned the players and coaches of the early 1980s. Despite the deluge, accuracy has risen, not declined. While the league’s 2-point field-goal percentage has been more or less flat for decades, at around 49 percent, 3-point shooting has gone from below 30 percent for the first seven years of the shot to above 35 percent in recent years. The skeptics of the 1980s have been proved wrong: The 3 is far from a gimmick that is useful only late in a game when a team is trailing big. Factor in the extra point it awards, and the 3 is one of the most effective shots on the floor. Teams have clearly figured this out, and the trend toward long-range shooting shows no sign of slowing.


Lessons From a Russian Oligarch

Abstract: LUXEMBOURG — This quiet little duchy-that-could was a fitting place to meet perhaps the least brash of Russian oligarchs, Vladimir P. Evtushenkov. Like other European pockets of wealth — Monaco springs to mind — Luxembourg exudes smugness in its smallness, and a velvety well-being. It is home to some 150 banks, most owned by foreigners, as are 90 percent of their assets. It is chunks of that stashed-then-reinvested wealth, presumably, that propel Luxembourg to rank as the third-biggest foreign investor in Russia (ahead of Germany). Politically, Luxembourg packs a punch above its ostensible weight: Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister since 1995, has headed the influential Eurogroup for seven years. Viviane Reding, currently justice commissioner of the European Union, is one of the very few powerful women in European government in Brussels. Places like Luxembourg, where power and money do not shriek their presence, are a preferred environment for the super-rich. Enter Mr. Evtushenkov, besuited 63-year-old graduate of Russia’s most prestigious scientific institute and holder of a Soviet-era doctorate in economics from Moscow State University. He now owns the majority share of a conglomerate, Sistema, Russia’s largest public financial corporation, listing roughly $46 billion in assets last year. A man who prefers the sidelines to the spotlight, he was in town to mark the restoration — in fine Russian Empire style — of Villa Foch, home to France’s famous marshal at the end of World War I, and now headquarters of the East-West United Bank. The bank was part of a handful in Western Europe set up by the Soviet state bank; established in 1974, it now belongs to Mr. Evtushenkov. Over tea, and precise half-teaspoon dollops of honey, this Russian businessman had a message: He and other wealthy compatriots who survived the past 20 turbulent years are not bling-loving, reckless philanderers given, as he put it, to dressing loudly or plastering €500 notes to waiters’ foreheads. Admittedly, he said, Russia’s rich “did everything” to earn the image of crass high-spenders with scant regard for the mores of the West. “It’s our cross to bear” when billionaires like Dmitry Rybolovlev make headlines for buying the most expensive apartment in New York. “Rybolovlev lived in 24 square meters, he was in prison,” said Mr. Evtushenkov of the 250-square-foot cell. “Now he’s like a diver coming out of deep water, suffering oxygen poisoning. Money is a drug. We can feel sorry for him.” Russian billionaires, Mr. Evtushenkov said, have matured. He himself has understood that besides luck, character and circumstances, successful business requires expertise and cool calculation. “We have plans to develop anywhere, according to two principles: One, it must be within the law and, two, make a profit,” Mr. Evtushenkov said of Sistema. “We have no preferences, because in business you cannot be emotionally attached. Business is not a woman,” he said. “To tell you frankly, being a leader is tough. But I love it anyway. It’s a condition of the soul.” And business can only prosper, he added, if the size of business is commensurate with the owner’s political influence. “We didn’t understand it” at first, he said. “Many businessmen grew their portfolios very fast but didn’t understand that one must invest time in connections, human relations, invest in human capital.” Mr. Evtushenkov is not alone in operating along Western lines. One Russian billionaire who also did was Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oil tycoon arrested in 2003 who has been in jail ever since. As Mr. Evtushenkov told the Russian Web television station Dozhd recently, he knew Mr. Khodorkovsky when the latter was a young man and worked for him at a Moscow plastics factory. “He was terribly hyper, ambitious,” Mr. Evtushenkov said — and thus, he implied, forgot the rule about operating commensurate with political influence. Mr. Evtushenkov got his break while working for the Moscow city apparatus. For 18 years, Mayor Yuri D. Luzhkov reigned over that multibillion-dollar enterprise. Mr. Evtushenkov acquired control of MTS — Russia’s biggest landline and mobile telephone concern, one cornerstone of his wealth. The exact nature of his ties to Mr. Luzhkov remains — like much else in the massive transfer of state assets to private hands in Russia — unclear. What is plain is that he has survived the 2010 fall of Mr. Luzhkov. “Success depends on personal relations with power,” said Mr. Evtushenkov, insisting that a tight personal network is as vital in New York as in Moscow. “I’m on friendly terms with the new mayor.” Another shift looms in Russia, with Vladimir V. Putin to be inaugurated on Monday for his third term as president, and rumors in Moscow of tougher times to come. Mr. Evtushenkov’s line: “What to expect from this president, we know exactly. This is not a young man who will change.” Mr. Evtushenkov noted that while it was hard to tell who was who in the Russia of the 1990s and early 2000s when “a doctor of science might be selling Chinese goods in the market, or the high colonel became a doorman,” now people’s rank and worth are clear. And it has become obvious that “there are just not so many people in Russia who know how to conduct business in Europe,” he said. “Making business in a foreign country is like walking on a minefield. A slight change in local law — and you’re selling your assets for half price!” With that message of his own suitability for Europe delivered, Mr. Evtushenkov headed out to see Mr. Juncker. In parting, the Russian noted that, a decade ago, it took two years of negotiation to get 25 percent of East-West United Bank. Gradually, that became 33 percent, 50 percent, 100 percent. Then the 2008 financial crisis struck, and wealthy Russians found themselves suddenly popular in Europe, being offered banks in Belgium or Italy. “Now, getting a meeting with the Luxembourg prime minister takes just 15 minutes. It’s easy for us to buy a company. The question is what do with the company you’ve bought.”

Russia
Luxembourg
Banking and Financial Institutions


Ugandan Move on Somali Militants Begins With Helicopter Crash

Abstract: NAIROBI, Kenya — The Ugandan military has shifted heavy weaponry, including assault aircraft, into Somalia over the past few weeks, vowing to strike a final and decisive blow against the Shabab Islamist militant group. But on Monday, Ugandan officials said that of four military helicopters that took off from Uganda for Somalia on Sunday, only one made it to a refueling stop in Kenya. Another plunged into the thickly forested slopes of Mount Kenya, about halfway between Uganda and Somalia, where the Kenyan authorities rescued seven Ugandan crew members. The two other copters might have also crashed somewhere in Kenya. On Monday evening, the authorities still did not know exactly what had happened. Uganda’s military spokesman, Col. Felix Kulayigye, said, “We have unconfirmed information about the other two, that they did indeed have a hard landing along the highway to Garissa,” a town in northern Kenya. The Ugandans have taken the lead of an African Union peacekeeping force that has steadily battered the Somali militants who are down to one major stronghold, Kismayo, a port town, which the African Union plans to attack soon. The botched flights seemed to bode ill for the planned offensive on Kismayo and were a reminder of the woes of Uganda’s fledgling air force. In 2005, John Garang, the charismatic southern Sudanese rebel leader, was killed when the Ugandan military helicopter he was riding in crashed into a mountain . In the 1990s, Uganda wound up buying what turned out to be “junk helicopters” in a scandal that cost the government millions of dollars, according to a World Bank file . A military journal said that a number of Uganda’s Mi-24 attack helicopters — the type that crashed on Mount Kenya — are “nonoperational.” And just last year, witnesses said a Russian fighter jet bought by the Ugandan air force crash landed at the Entebbe airport in Uganda, though the authorities played down the accident. On Monday, when asked about this record and the missing helicopters, Colonel Kulayigye said, “An accident is an accident.” The first Ugandan troops landed in Somalia in 2007 to a barrage of mortar shells, and since then the Ugandans have taken hundreds of casualties, making this mission one of the bloodiest of recent peacekeeping history. Still, the Ugandans, joined by Burundians, Djiboutians and smaller contingents from other African countries, have chipped away at the Shabab, a brutal Islamist insurgent group that is considered both a regional menace and an international threat, with possible cells in the United States and Europe.


North Korea Cites Rocket Problems

Abstract: HONG KONG — North Korea said Sunday that it might have to postpone a rocket launching it had previously said would take place as early as Monday, citing unspecified problems encountered by its technicians. North Korea was “at the final stage” of preparing for the launching when its scientists and technicians began “seriously examining the issue of readjusting the launching time of the satellite for some reasons,” said a spokesman for the Korean Committee of Space Technology. The spokesman offered no details in the remarks carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency. But by referring to the concerns of “scientists and technicians,” he appeared to be indicating that the reasons for any postponement were technical or related to the weather rather than political. South Korean officials have said that all three stages of the North’s Unha-3 rocket have been assembled at the launching pad in northwestern North Korea, and that trucks carrying rocket fuel have been detected in satellite imagery. But on Friday, the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University said on its Web site that preparations to launch the rocket might slow down because of heavy snow. The United States, South Korea and Japan have urged the North to cancel the launching, and China, the North’s main ally, called on it to show “restraint.”

North Korea
Korean Central News Agency
Rocket Science and Propulsion
Missiles and Missile Defense Systems


Supreme Court to Rule on Fairness in Sentencing

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to resolve a question that has vexed the lower federal courts since Congress enacted a law to narrow the gap between sentences meted out for offenses involving two kinds of cocaine. Selling cocaine in crack form used to subject offenders to the same sentence one would get for selling 100 times as much in powder. The new law, the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 , reduced the disparity to 18 to 1, at least for people who committed their offenses after the law became effective on Aug. 3, 2010. But what about people who committed their offenses before the statute came into force but were not sentenced until afterward? For such defendants, Judge Terence T. Evans wrote in one of the pair of cases the Supreme Court agreed to hear, the law “might benefit from a slight name change: The Not Quite as Fair as it could be Sentencing Act of 2010 (NQFSA) would be a bit more descriptive.” The usual rule is that new laws do not apply retroactively unless Congress says so, Judge Evans wrote, and here Congress said nothing. Edward Dorsey pleaded guilty in June 2010 to possessing 5.5 grams of crack cocaine in 2008 with the intent to distribute it. Under the law in effect at the time of his offense and his plea, and thanks to an earlier conviction, he was subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years. Under the new law, the mandatory sentence would not have come into play for fewer than 28 grams, and Mr. Dorsey would probably have received a sentence of three or four years. Judge Evans, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, said Mr. Dorsey had “lost on a temporal roll of the cosmic dice” and was “sentenced under a structure which has now been recognized as unfair.” But Judge Evans added that the courts were powerless to change things. A solution, he said, was up to Congress. The Justice Department initially supported that view but later changed its position. The full Seventh Circuit in August declined to revisit the issue by a 5-to-5 vote. “Thoughtful people might wonder what sense it makes for Congress, having decided that a 100-to-1 ratio is excessive, to leave the minimum and maximum sentences alone for persons whose crimes predate Aug. 3, 2010,” Chief Judge Frank H. Easterbrook wrote in explaining why the full court declined to rehear four appeals presenting the issue. “It is a good question, to which there is no satisfactory answer other than the observation that legislation is an exercise in compromise.” A dissenting member of the full court, Judge Ann Claire Williams, asked a different question. “Why would Congress want sentencing judges to continue to impose sentences that it had already declared to be unfair?” she asked, adding, “There is no good answer to this question.” In a second dissent, Judge Richard A. Posner, said that requiring sentencing under the old law after the new one came into force was “perverse” and “gratuitously silly.” The case involving Mr. Dorsey is Dorsey v. United States, No. 11-5683. The Supreme Court also agreed to hear a companion case, Hill v. United States, No. 11-5721, and it consolidated the two for argument. The second case involves Corey Hill, who was convicted in 2009 of selling 53 grams of crack cocaine in 2007. He was sentenced under the old law in December 2010, after the new one had come into force. In the lower courts, the Justice Department successfully urged the imposition of the harsher sentence called for by the old law. In the Supreme Court, it reversed course , urging the justices to hear Mr. Hill’s appeal and to rule in his favor.

Supreme Court
Fair Sentencing Act of 2010
Mandatory Sentencing
Cocaine and Crack Cocaine
Drug Abuse and Traffic
Sentences (Criminal)


Donald Trump Weighing Whether to Sign Pledge to Back Republicans’ Eventual Nominee

Abstract: GREENVILLE, S.C. — Donald J. Trump said in an interview on Thursday that he would soon decide whether to sign a pledge to support the ultimate Republican presidential nominee, something the South Carolina Republican Party is requiring to compete in the state’s critical primary. Mr. Trump, the only one of 10 Republican candidates in a Fox News debate this month who refused to rule out a third-party bid, said that he expected his showing in polls to “go up 10 or 15 percent” if he signs the pledge. He added that if he did sign but lost the nomination, he would not run as an independent, a concern among many Republicans. “I don’t make commitments and break them,” Mr. Trump said after speaking at an event here hosted by local chambers of commerce. If he violates the contract, he said, “they should sue. I would go before the court and say, ‘I’m guilty.’ ” Disputing a Huffington Post report that suggested he was assuring local party leaders that he would sign the pledge, he insisted, “I haven’t told anybody that.” South Carolina, the first Southern state to hold a primary next year, appears to like what it sees in Mr. Trump. A poll this week had him far ahead of his closest competitor, prompting what his aides said was a new demand that he sign the pledge. Ed McMullen, a co-chairman of Mr. Trump’s South Carolina campaign, said that the party had sent its news release on a day when Mr. Trump was shown crushing his opposition, but that “we’re not going to be taken off message.” That message is essentially that Mr. Trump is a winner, a theme the candidate took up in meandering but crowd-pleasing remarks before about 1,400 people. Image Deborah Masters of Townville, S.C., holds a Donald Trump doll before a campaign rally on Thursday. Credit Travis Dove for The New York Times Mr. Trump began by hailing the crowd as part of the new “silent majority.” He also contrasted the showing at his event with the turnout of a few hundred at a similar event this summer for Jeb Bush, a former Republican governor of Florida and a favorite Trump target. About 700 chamber members showed up for the Trump event but so did another 700 or so voters who paid $35 a plate “because the Trump people wanted to open it up,” said Ben Haskew, the president of the Greenville Chamber of Commerce. To the crowd’s delight, Mr. Trump offered a critical commentary on an article in The New York Times describing the adversarial view of him held by the Spanish-language news media. He then tossed the paper into the crowd. At another point, he invited the wife of a local elected official on stage to yank his hair (“I don’t wear a toupee, it’s my hair,” he said) and mocked Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina lawmaker who is also running for president, for how little support he is getting. Mr. Graham did not respond to the taunt. “My problems with Mr. Trump go to the substance of what he says,” he said in a statement. Though he spoke of how “beautiful” the wall he would build on the Mexican border would be, Mr. Trump said nothing specific about what he would do as president. He did, however, compare the beauty of the Qatar airport with that of La Guardia Airport in New York. Who’s Winning the Presidential Campaign? History suggests that each party’s eventual nominee will emerge from 2015 in one of the top two or three positions, as measured by endorsements, fund-raising and polling. “I’m thinking La Guardia, oy yoy yoy,” he said to the slightly bewildered crowd. Despite the idiosyncratic style, Mr. Trump has found strong support in the northern part of South Carolina, a surprise, according to Jim Merrill, Mr. Trump’s state director and a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives. “You would logically think it would be along the coast, just because there are so many people here that have moved here from other places to Hilton Head, Myrtle Beach,” Mr. Merrill said. To harness this growing support, the Trump campaign has recently added staff members in the state. James Epley, one of the new staff members, worked here in 2012 for Newt Gingrich, who won the state primary with 40 percent of the vote. Nancy Mace, another person brought on by the campaign, was the first woman to graduate from The Citadel and lost in a primary last year to Mr. Graham. Speaking with reporters after the rally, Mr. Trump tried to explain his use of the term “silent majority” to describe his supporters. “So you have a silent majority in this country that feels abused, that feels forgotten, that feels mistreated, and it’s a term that hasn’t been brought up in years as you know,” Mr. Trump said. “People haven’t heard that term in many years and it’s interesting as to why, there are all different reasons. But I think it is a very descriptive term.” The term was made famous by Richard M. Nixon when he was president. It is regarded by many historians as an appeal to white voters who believed that the civil rights and antiwar movement had gone too far. But Mr. Trump, whose former political adviser, Roger Stone, was a Nixon acolyte, said that he was not aware of any such echo. “I’m not worried about it,” he said. “It’s a very descriptive term. I’m just bringing it to modern day. “There is no better term for what’s happening.” Mr. Trump said in the interview that for him “silent majority” had no racial undertones, and that he meant only the Republicans who might have voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 but instead sat out the election. The crowd at the chamber event was anything but quiet, often applauding Mr. Trump’s rollicking version of a stump speech. Jim Yates, 68, of Laurens, wore a Trump sticker on a sombrero he had bought for the event because he approved of the candidate’s plan to build a wall “to stop not only the Mexicans but other foreigners.” Dan Heltness, a retired small-business man from Greenville, said he agreed with a lot of what Mr. Trump said and was drawn to the fact that Mr. Trump “doesn’t take guff from anybody, including the Hispanic reporter.” This was in reference to Jorge Ramos, the Univision news anchor, who Mr. Trump criticized from the stage. Mr. Trump ejected Mr. Ramos from a recent event for asking a question without being called on, before inviting him back. But Mr. Heltness also said that Mr. Trump’s willingness to speak his mind no matter what “is also a little scary.” “I’m old enough to have seen a few of these,” said Mr. Heltness, 72. “It’s an amazing thing to watch and a remarkable journey. But it also might end remarkably bad.”

Donald Trump
Republicans
South Carolina
Primaries
2016 Presidential Election


A.L.C.S. Game 4 — Misplays in Field Cost Yankees

Abstract: DETROIT — In 1,055 defensive chances during the 2012 regular season, Mark Teixeira was charged with an error only once: he flubbed a grounder in the seventh inning of a 4-3 loss to Tampa Bay on July 2. That stood as the lone blemish in another Gold Glove-caliber season for Teixeira, the Yankees ’ first baseman, whose reliability in the field has always been a hallmark. But in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series on Thursday, Teixeira misplayed two ground balls — one was scored as an error — that brought one run around and, more important, kept Yankees starter C. C. Sabathia on the mound for more pitches in an outing that fell apart quickly. The Yankees’ defense may not be considered the primary culprit in their 8-1 loss to Detroit. But two uncharacteristic botches by Teixeira, along with a key misplay by third baseman Eric Chavez and an error by shortstop Eduardo Nunez, cost the Yankees in what turned out to be their final game of their season. Teixeira said the infield dirt at Comerica Park had always been firm, often contributing to some abnormally large bounces around first base. It affected the Tigers on Thursday, too: Prince Fielder committed an error on a ground ball by Nunez in the top of the third. That did not ultimately harm his team, though. Teixeira’s untimely miscues did. With one out in the bottom of the third, Fielder laced a hard grounder over first base that seemed like a play Teixeira would normally make. But he could not complete it, and the Tigers had a runner aboard as a result. Three batters later, Andy Dirks bounced a high grounder that skipped above Teixeira’s right shoulder and past him for an error. “Nine out of 10 times, it hops up right to you, and it’s not a big deal,” Teixeira said. “But it just hopped up a little bit too much, and I just missed it.” The next batter, Avisail Garcia, singled to drive home Fielder. Sabathia threw 32 pitches in the inning and looked gassed by the fourth, when the Tigers jumped on him for four runs on five hits. Two runs came on a homer by Miguel Cabrera, who may not have batted so early in the inning had Teixeira handled those plays that came his way. Teixeira said he regretted not backing up only a few feet more on a ball he knew would take a high bounce. “We took a lot of ground balls the last two days, and I knew it was a hard ground to deal with,” Teixeira said. “If I would’ve backed up a little bit more, I could’ve played it closer to my chest and not over my head.” Teixeira was certainly not alone in his defensive culpability. In the first inning, Chavez did not react quickly enough to a ground ball by Omar Infante to get him at first. Infante later came around to score the game’s first run. “He just got down the line quicker than I thought,” Chavez said. “When I fielded it, I was really surprised he was already there.” Nunez, the shortstop, made an error in the fifth, dropping a line drive by Cabrera. He had nearly made one in the fourth, when he spiked his throw after ranging well to his left to field a grounder by Garcia. Teixeira bailed him out on that one. But Teixeira’s two blunders were as deflating as they were surprising for the Yankees, so accustomed to his casually vacuuming up every opportunity that found him. In fact, his first error in four postseasons with the Yankees came when he botched a ground ball by Nate McLouth on Oct. 8, in Game 2 of their American League division series against Baltimore. That ultimately did not cost the Yankees anything. Teixeira remained guilt-free in the field, until Thursday.

Teixeira Mark
Chavez Eric
Nunez Eduardo
New York Yankees
Baseball
Detroit Tigers
Playoff Games


Militants and Soldier Are Killed in Kashmir Gun Battle, Indian Official Says

Abstract: BARAMULLA, Kashmir — At least two people suspected of being militants and one soldier were killed in a protracted gun battle in a forested area near the disputed border with Pakistan in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, an Indian Army official said Saturday. The gunmen were attempting to sneak into Indian territory from Pakistan, when they were discovered by soldiers early Friday, an army spokesman, Lt. Col. N. N. Joshi, said Saturday from Baramulla, a town near the scene of the battle. One soldier was among those killed in the gun battle, according to an army statement on Saturday. Colonel Joshi said that the bodies of the two suspected militants were recovered along with three AK-47 rifles. “Throughout the night we heard heavy shelling in the forest,” Zahir Ahmad, a laborer who had fled a village near the fighting to Baramulla, said on Saturday. “We were scared and as soon as the dawn broke, we abandoned our home and came here.” Both India and Pakistan claim the disputed area of Kashmir, which has been scarred by two decades of armed insurgency.

Pakistan
Kashmir and Jammu
Military
Fatalities,casualties


Yankees’ Burst of Power Fades Away in Baltimore

Abstract: BALTIMORE — The Yankees had suddenly been living up to their Bombers pedigree, driving balls out of the park or taking ambitious cuts that chased outfielders to the warning track. It looked to be more of the same Tuesday when Chase Headley ripped a ball to deep center field that was chased down by Adam Jones, who put his Gold Glove form on display. The next batter, Carlos Beltran, rifled a ball off the right-field wall for a double. But those at-bats, along with the Yankees’ 11 home runs in the previous five games, did not prove to be a harbinger of their evening at Camden Yards. Like the intermittent drizzle, the Orioles right-hander Miguel Gonzalez cooled off the Yankees — striking out 10 and, in one stretch, retiring 10 in a row — as Baltimore beat the Yankees, 4-3. “It was one of those days,” shortstop Didi Gregorius said. “He was hitting the corners with all of his pitches, then he got us to chase the splitter out of the zone.” First baseman Mark Teixeira added, “He wasn’t making any mistakes.” It was a command performance that C. C. Sabathia was not able to match, but he did work seven innings — the longest by a Yankees starter this season — allowing four runs and seven hits while striking out seven and walking one. Sabathia has struck out 17 and walked one in his two starts, but when hitters have made contact against his diminished fastball, it has often been hard. He has allowed 15 hits and nine runs. “I was commanding the ball pretty good,” Sabathia said. “I just need to tighten up a few things, especially late in the game.” Jones, who is off to a red-hot start for the Orioles, ripped an 89-mile-per-hour fastball over the welcoming wall in left field for a solo home run in the first inning. He pushed across another run in the third when his fly ball to right scored Everth Cabrera, who reached on Sabathia’s lone walk. Caleb Joseph hit a run-scoring single in the fourth, and his triple, out of the reach of a diving Jacoby Ellsbury in center field, led to the final run. The only run the Yankees managed against Gonzalez came in the sixth when Ellsbury scored on Mark Teixeira’s two-out double. The Yankees narrowed the gap to 4-3 in the eighth after Gonzalez departed, with Gregorius scoring on Beltran’s groundout. Headley scored when left fielder Alejandro De Aza dropped Teixeira’s two-out fly ball. But Zach Britton came on to retire Brian McCann on a grounder, then finished off the Yankees neatly in the ninth.

Yankees
Adam Jones
Orioles
Baseball
C C Sabathia


U.N., Facing Abuse Scandal, to Withhold Pay of Peacekeepers Accused of Misconduct

Abstract: UNITED NATIONS — In his most extensive public remarks since a string of sexual abuse allegations against peacekeepers in the Central African Republic, Hervé Ladsous, the United Nations under secretary of peacekeeping affairs, said Friday that he had taken the unprecedented step of suspending the salaries of troops accused of misconduct and had proposed sending soldiers on “rest and recreation” breaks every few months to relieve stress. “We’re looking at ways and means to provide them with relatively cheap R-and-R trips,” Mr. Ladsous said. He did not say how these holidays would prevent sexual exploitation and abuse, which he called “inexcusable.” On the same day, his boss, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, said that entire military contingents that show a pattern of abuse against civilians should be sent home. Countries included in his annual reports on sexual violence in conflict would be barred from taking part in peacekeeping missions, Mr. Ban said. (Among the soldiers accused of sexual abuse, some are from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where rape has been used as a weapon of war.) Mr. Ban also said rapid response teams would be sent to investigate allegations of sexual violence. Currently the United Nations depends on the home countries of the peacekeepers to investigate and in turn, inform it of the results. Often, they do not. Mr. Ban’s proposals came as part of his response to a high-level panel’s report on upgrading peacekeeping more broadly. The secretary general said this year that he intended to name those countries that do not take action or are unresponsive to requests for information, but only after consulting with their national authorities. The spotlight on sexual exploitation and abuse in the Central African Republic began in May, when a United Nations official in Geneva, Anders Kompass, was suspended for having leaked information about accusations made by children against French soldiers in the country. The United Nations peacekeeping mission took over in the country a few months later. In the year since, Mr. Ladsous said, it has received 63 allegations of misconduct, including 15 of sexual abuse, several involving children. Mr. Ladsous spoke to reporters here after a four-day visit to the Central African Republic last week. In response to a question, Mr. Ladsous said he had not met with anyone who had alleged sexual abuse. His office received new misconduct allegations this week. Mr. Ladsous declined to give any details on Friday. His office later said one peacekeeper had been “engaged in a sexual relationship with a young woman who is now pregnant.” The mission is determining if the civilian was underage when the relations began. Suspending payments to soldiers of countries that contribute troops is a new policy, Mr. Ladsous said. He said the United Nations planned to suspend payments in nine cases. As for rest and relaxation, Mr. Ladsous said some of the soldiers he had met in the Central African Republic had spent more than a year on duty. His office was considering chartering planes “to get them some fresh air.”

United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations


Personal Income Rose but Spending Increased Only Slightly in January

Abstract: WASHINGTON (AP) — A tax cut that began last month gave consumers the biggest jump in their incomes in nearly two years. But Americans increased their spending only slightly, a sign that many people are uncertain about the strength of the economy. That uncertainty in the economy was reinforced by a report from the National Association of Realtors, which said that fewer Americans signed contracts to buy homes in January. In its report on spending and income, the Commerce Department said Monday that consumers increased spending 0.2 percent in January, the smallest gain since June. Personal incomes jumped 1 percent, reflecting the 2 percentage point reduction from the cut in Social Security taxes. The small spending gain pushed total spending in January to an annual rate of $10.59 trillion, up 7.4 percent from the recession low hit in December 2008. Economists are counting on spending to continue increasing this year to provide support for the economic recovery. The latest survey by the National Association for Business Economics, which was also released Monday, predicted consumer spending would rise 3.2 percent this year , up significantly from the actual spending gain of 1.8 percent in 2010. The Social Security tax cut will give the typical family an additional $1,000 to spend this year. But the recent surge in gasoline prices has raised worries that consumers may need to spend the extra money on fuel, and not new goods and services. The big rise in incomes and small increase in spending meant that the personal savings rate rose in January. Households saved 5.8 percent of their after-tax incomes, up from 5.4 percent in December. For all of 2010, the savings rate was 5.8 percent. That was down slightly from 5.9 percent in 2009. But it is well above the 2.1 percent savings rate in 2007, when Americans were spending freely as the value of their homes surged to record levels. Since the housing bust and steep recession, Americans have been more cautious. The savings rate has more than doubled from the 2007 level. The effort to increase savings has been a drag on consumer spending. But economists say it should result in stronger spending in the future after consumers pay down debt and boost their savings enough to feel more secure. Economists closely watch consumer spending because it accounts for 70 percent of economic activity. In the final three months of 2010, the overall economy grew at an annual rate of 2.8 percent , the government reported Friday. In the report on housing, the Realtors group said its index of sales agreements for previously occupied homes fell 2.8 percent last month, to a reading of 88.9 points. That was higher than the 75.9 reading from June, the low point since the housing bust. But it is below 100, which is considered a healthy level. The last time it reached that point was in April, the final month people could qualify for a home-buying tax credit. Sales of previously owned homes fell last year to the lowest level in 13 years. Economists say it will be years before the housing market fully recovers. High unemployment and a record number of foreclosures are deterring potential buyers, who fear home prices haven’t reached the bottom.

Income
Consumer Behavior
United States Economy


City Hall, in a Counterattack, Casts Uber as a Corporate Behemoth

Abstract: The most aggressive, ubiquitous broadsides leveled against Mayor Bill de Blasio in recent memory have come not from Republican foes or skeptics of the mayor’s housing plan, or even the Democratic governor with whom he is engaged in an open feud . They have arrived, in television ads, letters and strategically insulting app features, all courtesy of the car-hailing company Uber, which is fighting a New York City proposal to cap its growth. And over the last several days, in phone calls with supporters and strategy sessions at City Hall, the mayor’s team seems to have coalesced around its response plan: Equate Uber to the most polarizing of big-box boogeymen. “Uber is Wal-Mart on wheels!” read one sign on Monday at a City Hall rally, which the administration helped organize. “I never thought that I had a Wal-Mart in front of me,” Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez , a Manhattan Democrat and one of Mr. de Blasio’s allies in the Uber fight, said of his conversations with the company. Then there was the mayor’s own blessing of the analogy, sprinkled with a dash of Big Oil. “We wouldn’t let ExxonMobil or Wal-Mart or any other corporate giant operate in New York City without basic rules in place to protect the public,” he wrote in an op-ed article over the weekend in The Daily News. Faced with a determined, well-funded opponent eager to point out the mayor’s ties to an entrenched taxi industry, Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, and his allies have adopted a familiar political playbook, especially to the mayor — an erstwhile organizer and operative. Supporters from labor and advocacy groups have been recruited. Aides have noted the company’s fan base in the Republican Party. And in a play for the ideological high ground, Mr. de Blasio has cast Uber as a corporate behemoth with a singular goal. “Let’s be clear,” the mayor said at an unrelated news conference on Monday. “Uber is a multibillion dollar corporation, and they’re acting like one. They’re looking out for their corporate bottom line.” At issue is a City Council initiative, promoted by Mr. de Blasio, that would limit the growth of for-hire vehicle companies like Uber to 1 percent, pending a citywide study of traffic patterns. The city has suggested that Uber may be responsible for slower traffic speeds in Manhattan, noting that the number of all for-hire vehicles has grown by more than 60 percent, to about 63,000, since 2011, the year the company debuted. As of July 8, according to the city, Uber had more than 19,000 vehicles. Uber said it was experiencing vehicle growth of about 3 percent per month. Under a previous draft of the legislation, the traffic study was to be completed by the end of August 2016. According to the latest version on the City Council website, it will be done by April. Uber has described the proposal, which could be voted on this week, as a giveback to yellow taxi operators who have donated prolifically to Mr. de Blasio. “There is nothing progressive about protecting millionaire taxi donors who mistreat drivers and discriminate against riders,” an Uber spokesman, Matt McKenna, said, “and no amount of name calling by Mayor de Blasio will change that.” In a letter to the mayor on Monday, Uber’s general manager in New York, Josh Mohrer, argued that the city’s rationale has strayed far from traffic congestion, to other issues like wheelchair accessibility and data-sharing. Mr. Mohrer challenged the mayor to a face-to-face discussion on the proposed changes, to be live-streamed “so all New Yorkers can watch.” (The company deployed a similar tactic in London this year.) Mr. de Blasio declined. “I do not debate with the heads of private companies over their own self-interest,” he said. Yet in a fight that has called to mind the administration’s protracted struggle last year against another deep-pocketed opponent — advocates of charter schools — Uber has showed no signs of letting up. The company has broadcast ads, starring Uber drivers, that depict Mr. de Blasio as an obstacle to working residents. They began appearing days after Uber executives met with Mr. de Blasio and some of his top aides at City Hall last week. The company also introduced a “de Blasio” mode on its app, displaying lengthy estimated wait times for vehicles if the legislation is approved. Phil Walzak, the mayor’s senior adviser, said the ads made clear that Uber’s intentions were less than pure from the start. “This really was a premeditated attack, with no genuine attempt to have an honest dialogue,” he said. Uber said that while the ads were in production before the meeting, they had hoped to never run them. The company had little choice but to be ready, it said, given how quickly the legislation might come to a vote. (It could happen as soon as Thursday.) It is unclear whether the City Council has the support to pass the measure this week, though Mr. Rodriguez, the chair of the Council’s transportation committee, said at the rally that proponents had the necessary votes. For much of the event, advocates portrayed Uber as destructive to drivers’ long-term financial well-being — a claim that the company, and some of its drivers, have disputed. Beresford Simmons, 68, of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, suggested that Uber should be concerned about the public rebuke from scores of workers. “Uber is in trouble,” said Mr. Simmons, who has driven a yellow cab for more than four decades, “when they bring out an old guy like me.”

Uber
Bill de Blasio
NYC
Car Service
Roads and Traffic
New York City Council
Walmart Stores