Purveyor
Purveyor's JournalWATCH: Israeli Activists Detained For Filming Illegal Settlement Construction
In the video below (filmed by an Israeli Ta’ayush activist on Monday April 1 and subtitled quickly by yours truly) a policeman approaches Israeli activists who regularly go to the South Hebron Hills (he knows all their names already) and informs them they are being detained.
For what? For filming illegal construction at an illegal outpost in the area called Avigayil on a different day. That’s right. This was not an April Fool’s joke, but the way the law is actually being enforced by Israeli authorities in the West Bank.
MORE...
http://972mag.com/watch-police-detain-israeli-activists-for-filming-illegal-settlement-construction/68611/
No 2016 Republican Leader in Poll Showing Wide Disfavor
By Greg Giroux - Apr 3, 2013
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, whose handling of Hurricane Sandy and television appearances has drawn positive media coverage, runs fourth among potential party rivals in the 2016 presidential campaign, a new poll of Republican voters shows.
The survey by Hamden, Connecticut-based Quinnipiac University showed a wide-open field as the party works to rehabilitate its image five months after President Barack Obama became the first holder of the office in 56 years to win more than 51 percent of the popular vote twice.
No one attracted 20 percent support from Republican voters. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida got 19 percent, compared with 17 percent for Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the party’s vice-presidential nominee last year, and 15 percent for Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Christie, favored to win re- election in November, had 14 percent backing and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush received 10 percent.
“Three years before the nominating process, the Republicans have no clear favorite,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Polling Institute.
MORE...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-03/no-2016-republican-leader-in-poll-showing-wide-disfavor.html
WTI Crude Drops As U.S. Oil Stockpiles Gain To Highest Level In More Than 22 Years
Crude extended declines after a government report showed that U.S. oil stockpiles climbed to the highest level in more than 22 years. West Texas Intermediate’s discount to Brent narrowed for a second day.
Futures in New York fell as the Energy Information Administration said inventories rose 2.71 million barrels to 388.6 million last week, the highest level since 1990. The report was projected to show an advance of 2.05 million, according to a Bloomberg survey. Crude production was unchanged near the highest level since 1992. Exxon Mobil Corp.’s Pegasus pipeline, linking the U.S. Midwest to Texas refineries, will remain shut until regulators are satisfied with repairs.
“We’re looking at near record crude supplies,” said Carl Larry, a commodities broker at Atlas Commodities LLC in Houston. “We should be trading lower on the fundamentals.”
--clip
Surging Production
U.S. crude oil production has surged as the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has unlocked supplies trapped in shale formations in states including North Dakota, Texas and Oklahoma.
MORE...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-03/wti-crude-drops-as-u-s-oil-stockpiles-gain.html
FAA Should Shut Most Air-Traffic Radar Rooms, Study Says
By Angela Greiling Keane and Alan Levin - Apr 3, 2013
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration could save $1.7 billion up front and about $1 billion more annually by closing 187 air-traffic radar rooms and building consolidated centers to control flights over large regions, a study found.
Most of the U.S. centers and regional approach control facilities “can and should be shut down,” wrote the report authors, who included Robert Poole, transportation director for the Reason Foundation, and Michael Harrison, the FAA’s former director of architectural and systems engineering.
“They can be replaced by a much smaller number of facilities, many of which can be designed from the outset to function in the from-anywhere-to-anywhere paradigm,” the report said.
The study’s conclusions point to cost savings available to the FAA apart from automatic budget cuts imposed at most U.S. government agencies.
The $1 billion in annual savings, which the report said can be gained in productivity, equipment and facility maintenance, amounts to about 6 percent of the agency’s annual budget.
MORE...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-03/faa-should-shut-most-air-traffic-radar-rooms-study-says.html
U.S. Would Save $14 Billion Buying German Combat Vehicle
By Tony Capaccio and Nick Taborek - Apr 2, 2013
The U.S. Army would save $14 billion and get a better combat vehicle by choosing a German-made transport over versions being developed by BAE Systems Plc (BA/) and General Dynamics Corp. (GD), the Congressional Budget Office said.
Buying the German-made Puma was one of several options outlined in a report yesterday as improvements over the Army’s current plan for a tank-like Ground Combat Vehicle intended to replace the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
“Although none of those alternatives would meet all of the Army’s goals” for the Ground Combat Vehicle, “all are likely to be less costly and less risky in terms of unanticipated cost increases and schedule delays,” the nonpartisan CBO said.
The Puma, made by a joint venture of Krauss-Maffei Wegmann GmbH based in Munich and Rheinmetall AG (RHM) based in Dusseldorf, “is slightly more capable” than the Ground Combat Vehicle and might also be purchased “at only half the cost,” according to the report. It can accommodate six passengers, not the nine- member squad the Army considers a key capability, according to the CBO.
BAE, based in London, and General Dynamics, based in Falls Church, Virginia, are competing to produce the replacement for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Previous plans called for both companies to continue development work beyond 2014, after which one probably would have been selected for the production phase.
MORE...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-03/u-s-would-save-14-billion-buying-german-combat-vehicle.html
Fisker Hires Law Firm To Prepare For Possible Bankruptcy
NEW YORK/DETROIT (Reuters) - Fisker Automotive, the green-car company that has not built a car since July, has hired law firm Kirkland & Ellis to advise it on a possible bankruptcy filing, a person close to the matter said on Thursday.
Kirkland's Anup Sathy, a bankruptcy lawyer who handled the Chapter 11 filings of General Growth Properties and Innkeepers USA Trust, is advising the U.S. automaker, the source said, declining to be named because the matter is not public.
Neither Kirkland & Ellis nor Sathy were immediately available to comment.
Fisker, which furloughed its more than 200 U.S. workers this week to conserve cash, has been exploring bankruptcy as an option while it continues to look for a strategic partner, two other sources briefed on the matter said late on Wednesday.
A Fisker spokesman declined to comment on Thursday.
Next month, Fisker must make a payment on a U.S. Department of Energy loan that was extended to the company in 2009 as part of an Obama administration program to spur advanced vehicle development. Fisker declined to divulge the amount of the loan payment, which is due April 22.
MORE...
http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/sns-rt-us-autos-fisker-bankruptcybre92r0t9-20130328,0,3154415.story
Service Industries in U.S. Grow at Slowest Pace Since August
Source: Bloomberg
By Shobhana Chandra - Apr 3, 2013
Service industries in the U.S. expanded in March at the slowest pace in seven months as new orders and employment cooled.
The Institute for Supply Management’s non-manufacturing index declined to 54.4 from a one-year high of 56 in February, a report from the Tempe, Arizona-based group showed today. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey called for a drop to 55.5. A reading above 50 indicates expansion.
The figures follow a decrease in the group’s factory index and signal the economy may find it hard to accelerate this quarter in the face of across-the-board cuts in the federal budget. At the same time, job growth and low borrowing costs may underpin sales at auto dealers and retailers such as Macy’s Inc. (M), while a resurgent housing market benefits realtors, builders and lenders.
“It is a temporary pause after running at a pretty heady clip,” Brian Jones, a senior U.S. economist at Societe Generale in New York, said before the report. Jones, who projected the index would decline to 53.7, had the lowest forecast among economists in the Bloomberg survey. “Consumer spending is going to be fine. The economy will pick back up in the second half.”
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-03/ism-services-gauge-in-u-s-decreased-to-54-4-in-march-from-56.html
Unemployment In Euro Zone Reaches A Record High Of 12%
Source: New York Times
PARIS — While the euro zone has been transfixed lately by the Cyprus meltdown, another and potentially bigger European crisis has continued to simmer: record-high unemployment.
Spending cuts and tax increases aimed at trimming debt and addressing the financial crises in bailed-out euro zone countries, and the rising rate of joblessness in much of the currency bloc, “are feeding off of each other,” said Mark Cliffe, chief economist at ING Group.
“It’s a bit of a vicious circle,” he said. “Europe is pursuing a policy that is self-evidently failing.”
--clip
Both the jobless rates and the number of unemployed are the highest Eurostat has recorded in data that reach back to 1995, before the creation of the euro.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/business/global/unemployment-in-euro-zone-reaches-a-record-high-of-12-percent.html
JC Penney CEO's Pay Slashed As Company Struggles; $1.9m in compensation for 2012, down from $53.3m
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
J.C. Penney had a rough 2012, and it was reflected in Ron Johnson's paycheck.
The department-store chain revealed Tuesday that Johnson, its CEO, received a total of $1.9 million in compensation for 2012, down from $53.3 million in the year prior. None of the company's senior executives received bonuses, J.C. Penney said in a securities filing, "due to the company's financial results versus its goals."
Johnson's compensation dropped sharply from 2011 to 2012 in large part because he received a special $52.7 million stock award upon joining the company. He did not receive any stock award for 2012, and got only 44% of his target cash compensation in view of the company's poor results.
JCPenney (JCP, Fortune 500) shares have plunged nearly 60% over the past year as Johnson -- a former Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) executive who spearheaded the tech giant's retail strategy -- has struggled to lead a turnaround effort. He took over at J.C. Penney in November of 2011 and has since announced a series of new initiatives including overhauled prices, redesigned store layouts, and even free haircuts for kids.
MORE...
http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/02/news/companies/jc-penney-ceo-pay/
City Bankruptcies Loom Over Retiree Plans
By Matthew Heimer
A federal bankruptcy judge’s decision in California yesterday cleared the way for Stockton, Calif., to reorganize its finances through Chapter 9 bankruptcy. And employment experts will be watching the bankruptcy proceedings closely because of their potential impact on retirees – since the ruling, by Judge Christopher Klein, leaves open the possibility that Stockton could stop or reduce its payments to California’s public-employee pension plan.
Of the half-dozen or so cash-strapped citbies and municipalities that have filed for bankruptcy protection over the past year, Stockton, which has about 300,000 residents, has been one of the hardest hit, whipsawed by California’s housing bubble and bust. As Diana Marcum reports this week in the Los Angeles Times, Stockton’s single biggest debt is the $900 million it owes over the next decade to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or Calpers, which administers pension funds for most of the local governments in the state. Pension obligations are one of the biggest problems for most struggling municipal governments, and the issue in general puts federal bankruptcy law—which gives bankrupt institutions a lot of leeway in restructuring their finances—in tension with state laws (including California’s) that require pension funding to take precedence.
Klein’s ruling, which declares that Stockton is eligible for bankruptcy protection, looks on its surface like a win for the pension fund. (Calpers issued a statement yesterday praising the ruling.) Stockton’s other creditors had urged Klein to dismiss the filing, arguing that the city could pay more to its bondholders if it reduced its payment to Calpers. But while Stockton can now proceed with designing a debt-restructuring plan, Klein said the city’s pension obligations would remain open to consideration in future negotiations. And it’s hardly a given that bankruptcy judges will stand up for the state’s pension laws: In a related case, another bankruptcy judge ruled that Calpers couldn’t sue another struggling city, San Bernardino to force it to keep up with monthly pension payments to the fund.
MORE...
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/encore/2013/04/02/city-bankruptcies-loom-over-retiree-plans/
Profile Information
Member since: 2003 before July 6thNumber of posts: 29,876
