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Sunday, September 15, 2013
Obama: Budget tightening could widen income gap
FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2008 file photo, Lehman Brothers world headquarters is shown in New York, the day the 158-year-old investment bank, choked by the credit crisis and falling real estate values, filed for bankruptcy. After weeks of intense focus on the crisis in Syria, the White House is set to use the five-year anniversary of the Lehman Bros. collapse next week to lay claim to an economic turnaround and to press congressional Republicans to not use the threat of a shutdown or a unprecedented debt default to extract a delay of President Barack Obama's signature health care. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, file)
FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2008 file photo, Lehman Brothers world headquarters is shown in New York, the day the 158-year-old investment bank, choked by the credit crisis and falling real estate values, filed for bankruptcy. After weeks of intense focus on the crisis in Syria, the White House is set to use the five-year anniversary of the Lehman Bros. collapse next week to lay claim to an economic turnaround and to press congressional Republicans to not use the threat of a shutdown or a unprecedented debt default to extract a delay of President Barack Obama's signature health care. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, file)
FILE - In the Sept. 14, 2009, file photo President Barack Obama speaks about the financial crisis on the anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers at Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York. After weeks of intense focus on the crisis in Syria, the White House is set to use the five-year anniversary of the Lehman Bros. Sept. 15, 2008, bankruptcy filing next week to lay claim to an economic turnaround and to press congressional Republicans to not use the threat of a shutdown or a unprecedented debt default to extract a delay of President Barack Obama's signature health care. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2008, file photo tourists take pictures in New York's Times Square as the days financial news about the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers is displayed on the ABC news ticker. After weeks of intense focus on the crisis in Syria, the White House is set to use the five-year anniversary of the Lehman Bros. collapse next week to lay claim to an economic turnaround and to press congressional Republicans to not use the threat of a shutdown or a unprecedented debt default to extract a delay of President Barack Obama's signature health care. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? On the fifth anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse, President Barack Obama says the Republican focus on budget tightening could widen income disparities in the nation even as the economy climbs out of a debilitating recession.
Trying to lay claim to an economic turnaround, Obama acknowledged that despite progress, middle- and low-income Americans have not benefited as much as the top 1 percent in the country.
"We came in, stabilized the situation," he told ABC's "This Week" in an interview broadcast Sunday. He cited 42 months in a row of growth, 7? million jobs created and a revitalized auto industry.
"The banking system works. It is giving loans to companies who can get credit. And so we have seen, I think undoubtedly, progress across the board," he said. Obama will kick off a series of economy-related events with a Rose Garden speech Monday. His National Economic Council released a report Sunday detailing the economic advances.
For Obama, the Lehman anniversary is an opportunity, after weeks devoted to the Syrian crisis, to confront public skepticism about his stewardship of the economy and to put down his marker for budget clashes with Congress in the weeks ahead. Lehman's was the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, and its demise marked the beginning of the global financial crisis and was a major catalyst of the financial meltdown.
Obama emphasized that when it comes to a crucial deadline to raise the nation's borrowing limit next month, he would not negotiate with Republicans. They want to use the debt ceiling as leverage to cut spending further and to delay Obama's signature health care law.
Sunday's National Economic Council report is a catalog of Obama administration and Federal Reserve actions that the council's director, Obama economic adviser Gene Sperling, said "have performed better than virtually anyone at the time predicted." They range from the unpopular Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that shored up the financial industry and bailed out auto giants General Motors and Chrysler, to an $800 billion stimulus bill to sweeping new bank regulations.
Obama can point to a growing economy, rising housing prices, 35 straight months of hiring and a rebounding stock market. The financial sector has also recovered and banks are better capitalized. Five years after the federal government stepped in and infused banks with $245 billion in taxpayer money to avert a financial meltdown, the government has been paid back nearly in full.
This week, Obama intends to draw attention to that with daily events, including a speech Wednesday to the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs from the top U.S. companies, and a trip to Kansas City Friday to visit a Ford plant where he will promote the strength of the auto industry.
But the public is not convinced that the economy is on the mend. Only one-third say the economic system is more secure now than in 2008, and 52 percent say they disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy, according to a Pew Research Center poll. There is still plenty of pain to justify their pessimism.
Despite job growth, the unemployment rate remains high at 7.3 percent. Though the rate has fallen, one of the reasons is because some people have dropped out of the labor force and no longer are counted as job seekers. The share of unemployed workers who have been unemployed for more than six months is more than double what it was in 2007 before the recession began. And the income gap between the very rich and the rest of the population is the biggest since 1928.
What's more, some banks that received government aid because they were deemed "too big to fail" are now bigger than they were in 2008, but they are smaller as a share of the economy than the largest banks in other big economies. Three years after Obama signed a sweeping overhaul of lending and high-finance rules, execution of the law is behind schedule.
This glass-half-empty-glass-half-full state of the economy has produced competing story lines about the role Obama's administration has played in getting the country to this point. Did Obama's approach validate the philosophy of spending your way out of crisis or did some of his policies actually slow the recovery?
In the ABC interview, Obama said globalization and new technology have contributed to the income gap in the country, and it has been building since before the recession.
He argued that his proposals to increase spending on education and public works projects are designed to counter that trend, but face Republican opposition.
"There's no serious economist out there that would suggest that, if you took the Republican agenda of slashing education further, slashing Medicare further, slashing research and development further, slashing investments in infrastructure further, that that would reverse some of these trends of inequality," he said.
Much of the credit for the current recovery, tepid as it may be, goes to the Federal Reserve. It has held short-term interests rates near zero and has undertaken a massive bond purchase program that has supported spending, lifted stocks and kept home mortgage rates at near record lows.
"The Fed was the single biggest policy move in the crisis. No question about it," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and top economic adviser to Republican Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign.
Now many say the economy needs long-term measures that would reduce spending on entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security and that would overhaul and simplify the tax system.
"We've done too much temporary targeted intervention, we're passed the time for that," said Holtz-Eakin, who now heads the American Action Forum, a conservative public policy institute. "It's no longer 2008 when things were falling like a rock. It's time to have long-term growth policies. We don't have them."
Obama and Republicans are at a stalemate, however.
Obama has proposed some changes that would reduce spending on Social Security and Medicare, including an adjustment that would lower cost-of-living adjustments. But he has insisted on more tax revenue by closing what he says are loopholes for the rich, a step Republicans won't take.
The impasse has revived threats of a government shutdown after the current budget year ends Sept. 30 and, more economically damaging, a default if Congress can't agree to raise the debt ceiling later in October.
Some conservative Republicans say they will only extend current spending levels or increase the debt ceiling if Obama delays putting in place his health care law, a condition Obama has flatly rejected.
"Never in history have we used just making sure that the U.S. government is paying its bills as a lever to radically cut government at the kind of scale that they're talking about," Obama said.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has tried to keep the focus on spending reductions, even as some on his right insist on defunding or delaying the health care law.
"This year the federal government will bring in more revenue than any year in the history of our government, and yet we will still have nearly a $700 billion budget deficit," he said. "We have a spending problem. It must be addressed, period."
___
Follow Jim Kuhnhenn on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jkuhnhenn
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Saturday, September 14, 2013
HP ZR30w
Geared toward professional users who require lots of screen real estate and accurate performance, the HP ZR30w is a gargantuan 30-inch desktop monitor that uses S-IPS (Super In-Plane Switching) panel technology to deliver very accurate grayscale reproduction and wide viewing angles. It also offers a four-port USB hub and an ergonomic stand, but its color accuracy is less than ideal, which looms large since you can't adjust color settings on this monitor. Additionally, it only has two video inputs, which is unusual for such a large display. Although the ZR30w is reasonably priced for a big-screen monitor there are similarly priced 30-inch monitors out there that offer more features and better performance.
Design and Features
The ZR30w is huge. The business black cabinet measures 17.9-by-27.3-by-3.4 inches (HWD) and weighs 20.9 pounds, and that's without the black rectangular stand, which adds another 7.5 inches to the depth and almost eight pounds to the weight. The stand offers tilt, swivel, and height adjustability but lacks a pivot adjustment like the one found on the NEC MultiSync PA301W.
A wide band of brushed aluminum trim adorns the outer edge of the cabinet, and a small HP logo is affixed to the screen's upper bezel. The bottom bezel contains four buttons, including the power switch, but their use is limited. The only setting you can adjust on the ZR30w is brightness; there are no settings for color temperature, contrast, or sharpness, and you can't adjust color saturation or hue. The 30-bit S-IPS panel has a maximum resolution of 2,560-by-1,600 pixels and a 16:10 aspect ratio, and it sports a matte anti-glare coating that effectively eliminates reflection.
On the left side of the cabinet, facing outward, are two downstream USB ports. Two additional downstream ports and an upstream port are located at the rear of the cabinet. Unfortunately, these ports use USB 2.0 technology rather than the newer and faster USB 3.0 technology used on the Dell UltraSharp U3014. Also disappointing is the video input selection; all you get is a single DisplayPort and a single dual link DVI connection. There are no HDMI, component, or VGA inputs. This monitor doesn't come with built-in speakers either, but you can pick up an optional speaker bar (part #NQ576AA) for around $40 or so and connect it to an audio output at the rear of the cabinet.
HP covers the ZR30w with a three-year parts, labor, and backlight warranty that includes on-site service. The monitor comes with a DVI dual link cable as well as DisplayPort and USB cables.
Performance
When it comes to grayscale performance, the ZR30w rocks. It clearly and cleanly displayed each swatch of the DisplayMate 64-Step Grayscale test and delivered outstanding highlight and shadow detail in my test photos and while watching the movie 2012 on Blu-ray. Video played smoothly while watching movies but there was minor ghosting while playing Far Cry 2, which is not surprising given the panel's 12-millisecond (black-to-white) pixel response.
Viewing angle performance was superb. Color fidelity remained intact and the screen remained bright from every angle. Likewise, small text was crisp and legible down to 5.3 points (the smallest font available on the DisplayMate Scaled Fonts test).
The ZR30w didn't fare as well on my color accuracy test, which is performed with a colorimeter and DisplayMate and SpectraCal diagnostic software. The boxes on the chart below represent the ideal coordinates for each color as determined by the CIE (International Committee On Illumination) and the dots represent the panel's actual color coordinates.
As you can see, green and blue colors are fairly close to their zones but not ideal, while red is way oversaturated. As mentioned above, the ZR30w's lack of color adjustments means you are stuck with these color attributes. Other high-end monitor such as the NEC PA301w and LG ColorPrime 27EA83-D provide extensive picture adjustments that allow you to calibrate the monitor to your exact specifications.
The ZR30w has a 7-millisecond (black-white) pixel response and does a good job of displaying smooth video, but demanding gamers may want to look elsewhere as it does produce some motion blur and isn't really equipped for gaming.
The ZR30w is a power hog. It used 163 watts of power during testing, which is significantly more than both the Dell 3014 (60 watts) and the NEC PA301W (98 watts). Unfortunately this monitor lacks an Eco mode feature.
The HP ZR30w offers very accurate grayscale performance and excellent viewing angles, but it comes up short in other areas. Its oversaturated reds are hard to overlook, especially since you can't go in and make the necessary adjustments to tone them down, and its input options are severely limited. Moreover, I'd expect a $1,259 monitor to utilize the latest USB technology. The ZR30w's shortcomings make it hard to recommend over the Dell UltraSharp U3014, which delivers much more accurate colors and gives you a slew of picture settings as well as USB 3.0 connectivity and a variety of video ports.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/bu3HnZ7DzTQ/0,2817,2424420,00.asp
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California poised to raise minimum wage to $10 an hour
Washington state currently has the top minimum wage at $9.19 an hour, an amount that is pegged to rise with inflation. Some cities, including San Francisco, have slightly higher minimum wages.
The state Senate approved AB10 on a party-line 26-11 vote, sending it to the Assembly for a final vote that will be a mere formality before it goes to the governor. Brown indicated earlier this week that he would sign the bill, calling it an overdue piece of legislation that would help working-class families.
The bill would gradually raise California's minimum wage from the current $8 an hour to $10 by 2016.
It would be the first increase in the state's minimum wage in six years and comes amid a national debate over whether it is fair to pay fast-food workers, retail clerks and others wages so low that they often have to work second or third jobs.
Democrats said the bill by Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Watsonville, would help workers left behind during the recent recession. The California Chamber of Commerce fears it would drive up businesses' costs by ratcheting up other wages and workers' compensation payments.
"We have it tagged as a job killer, given the increased costs businesses will be faced with," Jennifer Barrera, an advocate for the chamber, said before the vote.
The bill generated a detailed, statistic-laced, 40-minute debate in the Senate.
"If you give people a couple more dollars an hour ... to spend in their communities, spend it they will. They're not going to put it into a hedge fund," said Sen. Marty Block, D-San Diego.
He added that, "Nothing will make small businesses happier. This will stimulate the economy, as well as helping people's lives."
But Republican lawmakers said it would harm the economy, price low-skilled workers out of the market and encourage businesses to cut jobs and automate.
"This is a classic example with how out of touch state leaders are," said Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber.
Sen. Ted Gaines, R-Rocklin, said liberals want to raise the cost of tobacco to discourage its use without realizing the same principle applies to labor: "If you make something more expensive, people will buy less of it."
Democrats who make up the majority of the Legislature called the wage hike a matter of economic justice.
"The American Dream is clearly fading fast," said Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco. "The income disparity in this country has not been this severe since 1917."
If it becomes law, California would gradually overtake Washington state. Neighboring Oregon and Nevada also have higher basic wages.
Federal law sets a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, but California is among 19 states and the District of Columbia that set a higher state minimum wage.
The federal minimum provides $15,080 a year assuming 40-hour work week, which is $50 below the federal poverty line for a family of two. More than 15 million workers nationally earn the national minimum, which compares compared to the median national salary of $40,350, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
President Barack Obama has sought an increase of the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour.
San Francisco currently has the nation's highest minimum wage at $10.50 an hour.
California's minimum wage would increase to $9 an hour next July 1, and to $10 on Jan. 1, 2016.
A $10 minimum wage would increase earnings for a projected 2 million Californians by $4,000 a year and put $2.6 billion into the economy, Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, estimated in a statement supporting the increase.
Opponents say businesses would suffer because owners also face voter-approved increases in sales and income taxes, and because of the uncertain costs of the federal Affordable Care Act.
Businesses are likely to cut jobs, increase consumer prices or both, they argue, citing a study by the National Federation of Independent Business. The group projects that mean the loss of between 46,000 and 68,000 jobs by 2023, depending on other factors including inflation.
Source: http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsNational/~3/ZfuBhuKiBU0/
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Rescues accelerate as floodwater inundates Colorado
LYONS, Colo. (AP) ? By air and by land, the rescue of hundreds of Coloradoans stranded by epic mountain flooding was accelerating as food and water supplies ran low, while thousands more were driven from their homes on the plains as debris-filled rivers became muddy seas inundating towns and farms miles from the Rockies.
For the first time since the harrowing mountain floods began Wednesday, Colorado got its first broad view of the devastation ? and the reality of what is becoming a long-term disaster is setting in. The flooding has affected parts of a 4,500-square-mile area, almost the size of Connecticut.
National Guard choppers were evacuating 295 people ? plus pets ? from the mountain hamlet of Jamestown, which was isolated by flooding that scoured the canyon the town sits in.
Mike Smith, incident commander at Boulder Municipal Airport, said helicopters would continue flying in and out late into the night.
The outlook for anyone who'd rather stay is weeks without power, cellphone service, water or sewer.
"Essentially, what they were threatening us with is, 'If you stay here, you may be here for a month,'" said 79-year-old Dean Hollenbaugh, who was evacuated by Chinook helicopter from Jamestown, northwest of Boulder.
For those awaiting an airlift, Guardsmen dropped food, water and other supplies in Jamestown and other small towns in the winding, narrow canyons that dot the Rocky Mountain foothills.
Thousands of evacuees sought shelter in cities that were nearly surrounded by raging rivers spilling over their banks.
One was Mary Hemme, 62, who displayed a pair of purple socks as she sat outside the Lifebridge Christian Church in Longmont. They're a memento of the more than 30 hours she spent in an elementary school in the flood-stricken mountain town of Lyons. Many evacuees ? eventually rescued by National Guard trucks ? got socks because most of them had wet feet, Hemme said.
She recalled the sirens blared at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday.
"Mary we have to go, this place is flooding," she recalled her friend Kristen Vincent saying as they clambered out of a trailer.
"And we stepped out of the trailer, onto the ground where the cars were parked, and it already like this, almost to our knees," she said. "It wasn't just sitting there. It was rushing at us."
Soon the trailer, like others in the park where she was staying, was submerged.
Hemme said she walked up at hill a daybreak and surveyed the trailer park.
"The most terrifying thing was when I climbed up on that cliff and looked down. It was the meanest, most ? I mean, no wonder it carries cars like toys," Hemme said. "I was so afraid that I was going to die, that water came so fast."
The dayslong rush of water from higher ground has killed four people and turned towns on Colorado's expansive eastern plains into muddy swamps. Crews used inflatable boats to rescue families and pets from stranded farmhouses. Some evacuees on horseback had to be escorted to safe ground.
Boulder County officials said Friday night that the number of people unaccounted for had risen to 172, according to local television and newspaper reports. The officials said earlier that the unaccounted for figure doesn't necessarily represent missing people.
"It means we haven't heard back from them," county spokesman James Burrus said.
Near Greeley, some 35 miles east of the foothills, broad swaths of farmland had become lakes, and hundreds of roads were closed or damaged by floodwaters. A 70-mile stretch of Interstate 25 was closed from Denver to the Wyoming line.
Rocky Mountain National Park closed Friday, its visitors forced to leave via the 60-mile Trail Ridge Road to the west side of the Rockies.
It will be weeks, if not months, before a semblance of normalcy returns to Lyons, a gateway community to the park. The town, surrounded by sandstone cliffs whose color was reflected in the raging St. Vrain River, consisted of six islands Friday as residents barbecued their food before it spoiled. Several people set up a tent camp on a hill.
Some 2,500 residents were being evacuated from Lyons, but Hilary Clark was left walking around her neighborhood Friday.
Two bridges that led into the area were washed away. Unlike other parts of Lyons that had been reached by the National Guard in high clearance trucks, no such help had arrived for Clark.
"We're surviving on what we got," she said. "Some of us have ponds in our backyard and we're using that water and boiling it."
Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said recovery would be long and expensive ? similar to wildfires the state is more familiar with.
"Please be patient. This is an unprecedented event," Pelle said.
___
Neary reported from Longmont. Associated Press writers David Martin in Boulder, Mead Gruver in Fort Collins, and Colleen Slevin and Thomas Peipert in Denver contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rescues-accelerate-floodwater-inundates-colo-040504046.html
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Friday, September 13, 2013
US 30-year mortgage rate steady at 4.57 pct.
A home for sale sits behind a sign that reads, "sale pending," Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2013, in San Diego. Southern California's recovering housing market remains red-hot, with sales hitting an eight-year high for July. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
A home for sale sits behind a sign that reads, "sale pending," Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2013, in San Diego. Southern California's recovering housing market remains red-hot, with sales hitting an eight-year high for July. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Average U.S. rates on fixed mortgages held steady this week, hovering near two-year highs. But rates could change quickly next week when the Federal Reserve addresses its bond purchase program.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate on the 30-year loan was unchanged from last week at 4.57 percent, just below the two-year high of 4.58 percent reached Aug. 22.
The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage held at 3.59 percent. The two-year high of 3.60 percent was hit on Aug. 22.
Long-term mortgage rates have risen more than a full percentage point since May, when Chairman Ben Bernanke first signaled that the Fed could reduce its bond purchases this year. The purchases have been intended to keep long-term loan rates extremely low.
Most analysts expect the Fed to decide at its meeting next week to scale back its bond purchases.
Even with the recent gain, mortgage rates remain low by historical standards. But higher rates have spurred some homebuyers to close deals quickly and could slow the market's momentum if they continue to rise.
Mortgage rates have been rising because they tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note. The yield has climbed 1.3 percentage points in the past four months as bond traders have anticipated that the Fed will slow its bond buying.
The 10-year note's rate was 2.92 percent on Wednesday, down from 2.97 percent Tuesday but up from 2.89 percent a week earlier.
To calculate average mortgage rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country on Monday through Wednesday each week. The average doesn't include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.
The average fee for a 30-year mortgage rose to 0.8 point from 0.7 point. The fee for a 15-year loan was steady at 0.7 point.
The average rate on a one-year adjustable-rate mortgage fell to 2.67 percent from 2.71 percent. The fee declined to 0.4 point from 0.5 point.
The average rate on a five-year adjustable mortgage dipped to 3.22 percent from 3.28 percent. The fee was unchanged at 0.5 point.
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Another Lohan Mugshot?! Dina Lohan Arrested for DUI
Uh-oh -- it looks like the apple doesn't fall too far from the Lohan tree!
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