Johanna Ganthaler a retiree from the Bolzano-Bozen province, was on vacation in Brazil with her husband Kurt when the pair miraculously missed the doomed flight to Paris. But their luck ran out on an Austrian road earlier this week when their car swerved into the path of an oncoming truck outside the town of Kufstein, the Times (U.K.) reported.Read More......
During a recession, underwear is among the first things that people stop buying—because hardly anybody actually sees them. This creates pent-up demand, and so when underwear sales level off and increase, it should signal an uptick in consumer demand.Read More......
According to the underwear indicator, an old favorite of Alan Greenspan, there needs to be a return to 2 to 3 percent annual growth in sales in order to claim a recovery.
However, consumer research group Mintel predicted underwear sales will see a continuing decline of 2.3 percent this year and no recovery until 2013.
National Socialism was similar in many respects to Italian fascism (see Fascism). The roots of National Socialism, however, were peculiarly German, grounded, for example, in the Prussian tradition of military authoritarianism and expansion; in the German romantic tradition of hostility to rationalism, liberalism, and democracy; in various racist doctrines according to which the Nordic peoples, as so-called pure Aryans, were not only physically superior to other races, but were the carriers of a superior morality and culture; and in certain philosophical traditions that idealized the state or exalted the superior individual and exempted such a person from conventional restraints.Uh huh. Read More......
U.S. foreclosure activity for May ebbed from April's record, but mortgages still failed at a staggering pace as President Barack Obama's rescue programs had not had time to fully take root, RealtyTrac said on Thursday."Unprecedented" means "doubtfully included in stress tests." Read More......
Foreclosure filings dipped 6 percent in the month but increased 18 percent from May 2008, marking the third highest month on record.
"There were almost one million foreclosure filings in a three-month period, and that's simply unprecedented," Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac in Irvine, California, said in an interview.
AMID THE media frenzy and speculation over the disappearance of Air France's ill-fated Flight 447, the loss of two of the world's most prominent figures in the war on the illegal arms trade and international drug trafficking has been virtually overlooked.No proof that anyone tried to take them out. But still, anything is possible at this stage. Read More......
Pablo Dreyfus, a 39-year-old Argentine who was travelling with his wife Ana Carolina Rodrigues aboard the doomed flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, had worked tirelessly with the Brazilian authorities to stem the flow of arms and ammunition that for years has fuelled the bloody turf wars waged by drug gangs in Rio's sprawling favelas.
Also travelling with Dreyfus on the doomed flight was his friend and colleague Ronald Dreyer, a Swiss diplomat and co-ordinator of the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence who had worked with UN missions in El Salvador, Mozambique, Azerbaijan, Kosovo and Angola.
Legislative members are eligible to participate in health insurance and life insurance plans provided by the Louisiana Office of Group Benefits (OGB.) The state pays approximately 75 percent of the member’s portion of the premium and approximately 50 percent of the premium for the member’s dependents. Legislators are eligible to keep their benefits when they leave office only if they have retired or meet the definition of retirement as provided by the OGB Rules.Maybe it was different back when Mary was growing up. She should let us know.
The legislative Office of Human Resources offers members additional health benefits such as vision and dental coverage, however, the members themselves are responsible for payment of those premiums.
Real per person spending on health care has been increasing rapidly, rising over 40 percent in the past decade alone. Between 1980 and 2007, the share of gross domestic product (GDP) devoted to health care almost doubled. In 2007, the United States spent a total of $2.2 trillion on health care, which represents $7,421 per person or 16 percent of GDP. [Health and Human Services, accessed 3/11/2009] This is nearly twice the average of other developed nations. [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 12/10/2008]We're spending twice as much as other developed countries on health care, and our health care isn't all that. In fact, as Chris has written repeatedly, we rank pretty close to the bottom of the list of developed countries in terms of the quality of our health care:
The WHO ranking that puts France at the top (Freedom Health, perhaps?) and the US arriving at number 37, just behind global heavyweights Dominica and Costa Rica.The report has a ton of good summary information about health care in the US, even just on the summary page. The only fault I'd find with the report is the focus on, yet again, working families and businesses, as if our country existed of no one else.
While committed to the goal of affordable health insurance for all, the association had said in a general statement of principles that health services should be “provided through private markets, as they are currently.”Fools.
"One of the messages I had -- because we need to build trust and confidence in our number one creditor," said Kirk, "is that the budget numbers that the US government had put forward should not be believed. The Congress is actually gonna spend quite a bit more than what's in the budget, and the health-care bill probably being the lead driver of additional spending by the Congress.Nothing like selling out our leaders to a communist dictatorship. Okay, let me just say it: Imagine if a Democratic congressman did this to a Republican president? Went to an unfriendly foreign government and told them not to believe our government, and did so in an effort to influence legislation at home. It would be holy hell.
Kirk, who holds the rank of Commander, is a Naval Reserve intelligence officer and has served during conflicts with Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, and Bosnia. He recently became the first member of Congress to serve in an imminent danger zone since 1942 when he deployed as a reservist to Afghanistan in December. The U.S. Navy named Kirk “Intelligence Officer of the Year” in 1999 for his combat service in Kosovo.Do we have to worry about what Kirk is saying to other foreign governments, too?
The Federal Reserve lost $5.25 billion in the first quarter on the securities it acquired with last year's bailouts of Bear Stearns and insurer American International Group, according to a report issued Wednesday.Read More......
The loss on the holdings, which include mortgage-backed securities, reflected a decline in their value as the recession carried over into the first three months of this year. The cumulative loss on the Bear and AIG holdings come to $16.46 billion since they were taken over last year.
The Fed is hoping that if it holds onto the securities long enough, they will eventually rise in value once the economy returns to full health again, the housing market heals and the financial and credit crises are past.
Spiking U.S. mortgage rates drove down total home loan applications last week as demand for refinancing shriveled to the lowest level since November, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday.Read More......
The swift rate rise crimps affordability, likely cutting offer prices on home sales and prolonging a housing turnaround.
Borrowing costs have soared as bond yields have risen, even as the Federal Reserve has sopped up hundreds of billions of dollars in bonds to keep rates low and stimulate the housing market.
The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate jumped 0.32 percentage point in the June 5 week to 5.57 percent. That was nearly a full point, about 100 basis points, above the record low rate of 4.61 percent in March, the trade group said.
Staff at the asset management arm of Barclays were tonight looking forward to a collective personal windfall of at least £360m from the sale of the fast-growing division to its US rival BlackRock.Read More......
The precise terms of the sale of Barclays Global Investors will not be known until the deal is formally announced, but according to analysis by the Guardian the top four executives of BGI – including Barclays board member Bob Diamond – could own shares with a value of at least £115m if the deal is completed.
Terms were still being hammered out tonight and are expected to involve a combination of cash and shares in BlackRock to give a total value for BGI of about $13bn (£8bn).
Instead the mood of bonhomie turned frosty – and not just because there was no champagne, just red or white wine and a few canapes. The BBC's director-general, Mark Thompson, used the occasion to tell the corporation's biggest stars that the era of big pay deals was over.Read More......
In a lengthy speech from the floor of the room, which one witness claimed took more than an hour, Thompson said that any BBC television or radio star earning more than £100,000 a year faced a pay cut of 25% when his or her contract was renegotiated. For some highly paid stars, the cut could be 40%.
Flanked by the BBC's creative director, Alan Yentob, BBC Vision director, Jana Bennett, and other senior executives, Thompson reminded guests of the severe financial pressures and uncertainty facing the BBC, in what was clearly an attempted wake-up call to some of the BBC's top names, some of whom have commanded between £50,000 to £100,000 a programme.
The European Union, bowing to an outcry from traditional vintners, has reversed itself and decreed that the cut-rate technique of mixing red wine with white does not make an authentic rosé and thus cannot be used by Europe's winemakers.Read More......
The decision, announced Monday at the union's headquarters in Brussels, represented a victory for French winemakers who had risen up against plans by the E.U. agriculture commission to end its ban on mixing as a way to compete with down-market rosés concocted by producers in such countries as Australia and South Africa. More broadly, it was a rare retreat by the forces of globalization and profit margins in the face of resistance from traditional artisans.
"It's important that we listen to our producers when they are concerned about changes to the regulations," the union's agriculture commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel, said in a communique. "It's become clear over recent weeks that a majority in our wine sector believe that ending the ban on blending could undermine the image of traditional rosé."
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