In House, Obama Policy in Libya Is Called Violation of War Powers Resolution

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Several lawmakers from both parties on Wednesday accused President Obama of violating the War Powers Resolution by continuing American participation in NATO ’s air war in Libya without Congressional authorization, but they struggled with the question of what Congress can or should do about it. At a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, several members attacked Mr. Obama for failing to withdraw United States military forces from conflict after the expiration of a 60-day deadline for hostilities that have not been approved by Congress. The Libyan operation reached that deadline, which was imposed by the war powers law of the Vietnam era, on Friday. “The president is not a king, and he shouldn’t act like a king,” said Representative Dan Burton, Republican of Indiana. Representative Brad Sherman, Democrat of California, said the administration was treating lawmakers as “irrelevant” by failing to acknowledge that the deadline had passed or to explain itself. “It’s time for Congress to step forward,” said Mr. Sherman. “It’s time to stop shredding the U.S. Constitution in a presumed effort to bring democracy and constitutional rule of law to Libya.” Still, he added that he thought Congress should probably approve continuing the Libyan operation. The Obama administration has said it believes it is acting consistently with the resolution, although it has not explained why it thinks so. Congress enacted the War Powers Resolution in 1973, overriding President Richard M. Nixon’s veto, in an effort to restore its eroding role in deciding whether the country becomes involved in significant armed conflicts. Since then, many presidents, citing their power as commander in chief, have bypassed a section that says they need prior Congressional authorization to deploy forces into hostilities, except if the country is under attack. But there is far less precedent of presidents’ challenging another section that says they must terminate any still-unauthorized operations after 60 days. In 1980, the Justice Department concluded that the deadline was constitutional. Among those critical of the administration’s move, there was no clear consensus on how to react. Representative Chris Gibson, Republican of New York, proposed an overhaul of the war powers act that would prohibit presidents from using money to deploy the military into hostilities without prior permission from Congress, except in the case of an imminent attack on the United States or Israel or because of a treaty obligation. Representative Justin Amash, Republican of Michigan, proposed cutting off money for the Libya operation unless lawmakers authorized it. Several other lawmakers spoke favorably of a proposal introduced this week by Senators John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona, that would in effect end the debate by expressing legislative support for the Libyan operation. Still others voiced uncertainty about whether Mr. Obama was exceeding his legal authority in Libya, noting that many presidents in recent generations have initiated hostilities without prior authorization, and that Congress had not stood up to them. “There are no black-and-white answers here,” said Representative Howard L. Berman of California, the ranking Democrat on the committee. He also suggested that whether the 60-day deadline had elapsed might turn on the details of the United States’ current contribution to the NATO campaign. “Could one argue that periodic drone strikes do not constitute introducing forces into hostilities since the strikes are infrequent” and “there are no boots on the ground?” Mr. Berman asked. The Obama administration has described the American contribution as limited — supporting NATO allies, along with the intermittent use of drones to fire missiles at ground targets. Still, speaking in London earlier this week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton portrayed the American contribution in robust terms. “Even today, the United States continues to fly 25 percent of all sorties,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We continue to provide the majority of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets.”


Blake Griffin Off Olympic Team With Knee Injury

Abstract: WASHINGTON (AP) — Blake Griffin has officially withdrawn from the Olympics and Anthony Davis has been added to the U.S. basketball team’s roster. Griffin needs surgery to repair torn cartilage in his left knee and joins a lengthy list of American stars sidelined this summer. Davis replaced him in the Americans’ 113-59 exhibition victory over the Dominican Republic on Thursday in Las Vegas, scoring nine points in the fourth quarter. The No.1 overall draft pick couldn’t be put on the 12-man roster for London until Griffin had withdrawn Friday.

Griffin Blake
Davis Anthony
Olympic Games (2012)
Basketball
United States
Los Angeles Clippers
New Orleans Hornets


I.M.F. Reduces Next Year’s Growth Forecast to 3.9%

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The International Monetary Fund , unimpressed with the policy actions taken to stem the European sovereign debt crisis , on Monday cut its forecast of growth in 2013. In a periodic update of its economic forecast, the Washington-based institution warned that the measures taken in Europe have not done enough to quiet markets and restore growth. The fund maintained its forecast of 2012 economic growth at 3.5 percent, but it cut its forecast of growth in 2013 to 3.9 percent, down from the estimate of 4.1 percent it made in April . In 2010, the world economy expanded 5.3 percent. The monetary fund cautioned that even those tepid forecasts might be too optimistic, if Europe does not do enough to ameliorate its debt crisis and if policies to improve growth in emerging markets fail to gain traction. “Clearly, downside risks continue to loom large, importantly reflecting risks of delayed or insufficient policy action,” the fund warned. Countries experiencing the biggest reductions in expected growth include Brazil and India, whose economies have cooled this year; newly industrialized Asian economies, like Korea and Singapore, hit by a broader global slowdown; and Britain, struck by austerity budgeting. Prospects in high-income countries outside the euro zone and in emerging markets have dimmed, José Viñals, the head of the fund’s monetary and capital markets department, said in prepared remarks. “This has left them more vulnerable to spillovers from the euro area. It also reduces their ability to address homegrown fiscal and financial vulnerabilities.” The fund had stern words for American policy makers: avoid the “fiscal cliff” and lift the debt ceiling promptly, for the sake of the United States economy as well as the world’s. The monetary fund estimated that a failure to extend some of the Bush tax cuts and to reverse some of the automatic, across-the-board government spending cuts looming at the end of the year would cause the economy to stall on the brink of recession , “with significant spillovers.” It warned American policy makers that the country could experience considerably higher borrowing costs if they do not create a plan to reduce the country’s deficits in the medium term as well. The fund’s economists also noted the adverse market reaction caused by the brinkmanship over the debt ceiling last year in a separate analysis of the global capital markets. Policy makers should raise the statutory borrowing limit “well ahead of the deadline” in order to “mitigate risks of financial market disruptions and a loss in consumer and business confidence,” they warned. “Uncertainties about the fiscal outlook in the United States present a particular latent risk to global financial stability,” Mr. Viñals said. The fund reduced its estimates of American growth in 2012 and 2013 by a tenth of a percentage point, anticipating that the economy will expand just 2 percent this year and 2.3 percent next year. It warned that the recovery had seemed to experience an “underlying loss of momentum” recently. But it said that “distortions” from seasonal adjustment and “payback” from the unusually warm winter — which drew economic activity forward from the spring — seemed to be part of the explanation. As has become usual in recent years, the fund saved its starkest warnings for Europe. It said that the flood of cheap euro loans offered by the European Central Bank — the long-term refinancing operations — had eased the crisis this year. But yields have started spiraling upward again in countries including Spain and Italy, making further European bailouts seem a near inevitability, destabilizing the global financial markets and suppressing growth on the Continent. Europe needs a stronger banking union, including a cross-Continental guarantor of deposits; structural reforms to improve growth prospects; more monetary easing; and better plans for budget-cutting in the countries struggling to convince global investors of their financial stability, the fund said. “The utmost priority is to resolve the crisis in the euro area,” its economists wrote. “The recent agreements, if implemented in full, will help to break the adverse links between sovereigns and banks and create a banking union.” The news was not all bad. The fund said that global growth figures had come in surprisingly strong in the first three months of the year, even as the United States entered a sharper slowdown than many economists had expected. Financial markets had responded positively to measures taken by the European Central Bank to shore up European financial institutions, for one, and global trade and industrial production had turned up, helping countries including Germany and some big Asian exporters. The significant decline in oil prices also helped bolster growth around the world and ease inflationary pressures.

International Monetary Fund
Forecasts
European Sovereign Debt Crisis (2010- )
International Trade and World Market
Economic Conditions and Trends


Witten Guides Playoff-Starved Cowboys

Abstract: OXNARD, Calif. — Jason Witten has received the same old questions at the start of training camp ever since offering his haunting line two years ago that it could not be the “same old story” for the playoff-starved Dallas Cowboys. The phrase uttered by Witten, a nine-time Pro Bowl tight end, caught on because of his role as a leader and because it has been the same ending three years running: the Cowboys losing to an N.F.C. East opponent with a trip to the postseason on the line. Witten’s answers are a little different this time, though. An increasingly younger roster has Witten, the franchise leader in catches, more aware than ever of the weight of his words and actions. “The team’s gotten young in a hurry,” Witten said recently at training camp in California. “I don’t know that it changes, other than leadership’s more vital now than it’s ever been. To be able to show those guys the way. It’s important. It’s a big part of this game.” Witten’s reasoning? The Cowboys are not adding young players in backup roles. Three offensive linemen, all first-round picks, will be 23 when the season starts. Others who have not reached their 25th birthdays figure to be counted on throughout the much-criticized defense. Coach Jason Garrett said those younger players were in good hands. “I’m not so sure I have ever been around a guy who is a better leader for this team than Witten is,” said Garrett, a backup quarterback on Dallas’s Super Bowl-winning teams in the 1990s. “You think about some of the teams we had in the ’90s, there was leadership that was out there, outspoken, loud. And there was leadership that didn’t say a word. Leadership is about influencing a group of people that you’re close to. Witten has done that.” Witten was miffed after a team run that he and quarterback Tony Romo had organized the day before the Cowboys left for camp turned into an issue when Garrett said he had canceled a precamp conditioning test, something most teams require. The question became whether the players were trying to defy their coach, and it did not help when offensive lineman Ron Leary came out of the run with a hamstring problem — just the kind of injury Garrett had wanted to avoid by skipping the test. “We would never go against him,” Witten said. “It was always a group of guys with a shared commitment, goes a lot further than anything else, and that’s all it was. I thought it was really good on our end, and I think it says a lot about our football team.” Witten also dictates the pace for the tight ends, as the second-year player Gavin Escobar noted, saying that the off-season conditioning “definitely kicked up a notch” when Witten was around. “Whatever he says goes,” Escobar said. “We weren’t going to talk back. We were just going to do it.” Witten has outlasted the former coach Bill Parcells and the flamboyant receiver Terrell Owens, and his leadership hit a new level this year in part because the Cowboys parted ways with DeMarcus Ware, the franchise leader in sacks, and the former Pro Bowl receiver Miles Austin. After the retirement of Tony Gonzalez, Witten, 32, is entering his 12th season as the N.F.L.’s active leader among tight ends in catches (879) and yards (9,799). Witten has missed one game in 11 years. In 2012, 23 days after rupturing his spleen in a preseason game, he returned to play in the opener against the Giants. Witten’s signature moment came at Philadelphia in 2007, when his helmet was knocked off on a hit and he ran almost 30 yards without it before being tackled. “He’s a marvel,” the team’s owner, Jerry Jones, said. Witten remembers 2007 as the best year the Cowboys have had during his career. They were 13-3 and seeded No. 1 in the N.F.C. playoffs, but they lost their first playoff game, to the Giants. The Cowboys have had just one postseason win since Witten arrived — a stretch that actually goes back to 1997. “No one cares more about that more than Witten does,” Garrett said. “But there have been a lot of great players in this league and in other leagues who haven’t had Super Bowl championships or N.B.A. championships or World Series championships.” Witten does not figure to give up the goal of a title anytime soon. For one thing, he is signed through 2017. For another, Gonzalez played 17 seasons before retiring at 37. Shannon Sharpe was 35 when he quit after 14 years. It should not take Witten long in 2014 to join those two as the only tight ends with at least 10,000 yards receiving. But he is probably more focused on ending a four-year playoff drought that is just one season shy of the franchise record. “There’s no question there’s a lot of sleepless nights there, but really, nobody cares,” Witten said. “This is a tough league. Nobody cares about last year. You move on, so we’ve got to be better. I think we’ve got the right guys who will go do it, but it’s a long ways away.” Witten plans on showing them the way.


Schwarzenegger Whispers Become an Admission

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — The stories were flying around eight years ago, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was in the midst of his unlikely attempt to unseat Gray Davis , the Democratic governor: Mr. Schwarzenegger, married to Maria Shriver , had fathered a child with a woman who worked at the couple’s Brentwood estate. Mr. Schwarzenegger’s advisers had heard it. So had top aides to Mr. Davis, whom Mr. Schwarzenegger would go on to unseat. But in the closing days of what was a circus of a campaign, the rumors got pushed aside as Mr. Schwarzenegger dealt with a barrage of seemingly more credible allegations that he had groped and molested women during his years as a movie star, charges that Ms. Shriver battled back forcefully, contributing in large part to his victory. In fact, Mr. Schwarzenegger acknowledged on Tuesday, he had fathered a child with a member of his household staff a few years before running for office, a secret that he said he hid from his wife and that aides said he kept from them. Through much of her pregnancy and for the eight years that Mr. Schwarzenegger served as one of the highest-profile governors in the nation, the woman continued to work in the couple’s home. Some of their friends, looking back, said they now believe the child was an occasional presence in the house in the gated community at the end of Mandeville Canyon Road. That deception by Mr. Schwarzenegger ended Monday night when the governor, responding to an inquiry from The Los Angeles Times, released a statement acknowledging his child. Ms. Shriver — his wife of 25 years, a former television news correspondent and a member of the Kennedy family — issued her own statement Tuesday reflecting what her friends described as the devastating and utterly shocking collapse of a marriage that had captured national attention. Ms. Shriver had moved out of the house and into a Beverly Hills hotel earlier this year. “As a mother, my concern is for the children,” she said. “I ask for compassion, respect and privacy as my children and I try to rebuild our lives and heal. I will have no further comment.” On Tuesday evening, Ms. Shriver was among the guests onstage in Chicago at a taping for the final episodes of "The Oprah Winfrey Show," according to ABC.com. The family scandal unfolded in real time on social networks. One of their sons, Patrick, 17, posted his distress on his Twitter account, though he presented his name as Patrick Shriver, rather than Patrick Schwarzenegger. “Some days you feel” terrible, he wrote, borrowing lyrics from a Fort Minor song, including a profanity to convey that feeling. He added, “Some days you want to quit and just be normal for a bit, yet I love my family till death do us apart.” His sister Katherine, who is 21, wrote: “This is definitely not easy but I appreciate your love and support as I begin to heal and move forward.” The disclosure set off a clamor in a city that has always been intrigued by the celebrity wattage produced by this marriage of show business and politics. Reporters and camera crews crowded around the looming stone gates near the couple’s home, craning for a glimpse of the former governor. Mr. Schwarzenegger and Ms. Shriver found themselves back in the sights of two Web sites that have feasted on their marriage before: TMZ and Gawker . “The Schwarzenegger love child scandal has arrived,” Gawker announced. Associates of Mr. Schwarzenegger and Ms. Shriver, pointing to the request for privacy, offered only scant details. The child was said to be a boy, about 14 years old. Several friends said the mother was working around the house, pregnant, at the same time that Ms. Shriver was pregnant with the youngest of the couple’s four children, Christopher, who is 13. The woman and the child did not live in the house. By every account, Mr. Schwarzenegger made no mention of the situation to Ms. Shriver or to the team of political consultants he brought in during the 2003 recall election against Mr. Davis, and in the re-election campaign in 2006. Friends of both Mr. Schwarzenegger and Ms. Shriver expressed astonishment not only at his actions, but also that he had eluded detection by the public and his family over the course of his very public life. Mr. Schwarzenegger told his wife about the affair only late last year, at the end of his public service career, and shortly after the mother of his son left the job with severance after working for the family for 20 years. “After leaving the governor’s office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago,” he said in a statement. “I understand and deserve the feelings of anger and disappointment among my friends and family. There are no excuses, and I take full responsibility for the hurt I have caused. I have apologized to Maria, my children and my family. I am truly sorry.” Democrats who worked for Mr. Davis during the recall election said they were not surprised at the revelation, noting that rumors about Mr. Schwarzenegger’s infidelity were a constant backdrop of the campaign. “In 2001 when he first came forward and indicated that he might run for governor there were rumors coming to us constantly about affairs and children,” said Garry South, a Democratic consultant in Los Angeles . That year, Mr. Schwarzenegger threatened to sue Mr. South, who worked for Mr. Davis at the time and sent reporters copies of Premiere magazine detailing Mr. Schwarzenegger’s issues with women. “There were always stories about kids, how there was a son out there, some kid he had been supporting.” Peter Ragone, who was a senior adviser to Mr. Davis at the time, said: “There were all sorts of rumors flying around like this. Voters knew what they needed to know on this topic with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and honestly they just didn’t care.” None of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s political advisers agreed to speak on the record about the episode; nor did Ms. Shriver’s friends or family members. Ms. Shriver has always benefited from careful image management, and keeping a close cadre of friends and confidants who circle the wagons in times of trouble. One of the last public events Ms. Shriver and Mr. Schwarzenegger attended together was the funeral of her father, R. Sargent Shriver , who died in January. Some who attended said that the two were polite to each other but in no way warm; Ms. Shriver gave a heart-rending and pointed eulogy, as her husband looked on, praising her father for teaching her brothers how to properly treat women.

Arnold Schwarzenegger
Maria Shriver
Adultery


British Premier, Cameron, Plans Cuts in Legal Aid

Abstract: LONDON — In its latest effort to cut public spending, Prime Minister David Cameron ’s government took aim on Monday at Britain’s system of state-financed legal aid for litigants in civil cases — and, indirectly, at the country’s 150,000 lawyers. Declaring the 60-year-old legal aid system unaffordable, the government set out plans to cut by $560 million the program’s current annual cost of $3.4 billion, a figure that has nearly doubled in 10 years. In paying for some or all of the legal costs in two and a half million criminal and civil cases a year, the government spends almost as much as it does on the country’s prisons, and about 10 times as much, per capita, as the Netherlands, which has a similarly generous system of state social aid. “At the moment, no other country in the world has to pay for so much litigation over such a wide variety of areas,” said the justice minister, Kenneth Clarke. While the changes would leave the state’s role in financing the defense in criminal cases largely untouched, Mr. Clarke said, the government was concentrating on the costs of state-backed civil litigation and family legal disputes to “discourage people from resorting to lawyers whenever they face a problem.” In setting out the changes in Parliament, where the government will introduce legislation early next year, Mr. Clarke was meeting the government’s target of a cut of nearly a quarter in the Justice Ministry’s annual budget of nearly $15 billion by 2015. The proposed reductions follow similarly steep cuts that have been announced in recent weeks for defense, higher education and welfare, among other areas, as the government seeks a four-year, $130 billion cut in its annual spending. As the violence that erupted in central London during student protests last week demonstrated, each new step toward carrying out Britain’s harshest austerity measures in decades increases the potential for turbulence of a kind Britain has not experienced since Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s economic overhaul 30 years ago. For Mr. Cameron’s Conservatives, the risks are compounded by the fact that many cuts will hit the pocketbooks of middle-class voters who are the Conservatives’ political bedrock. So far, polls indicate that public opinion is backing the spending cuts, with as many as 60 percent of poll respondents saying they accept them as necessary. And in the case of the legal aid cuts, the risks appear to be on a minor scale, at least as judged by the government. Lawyers often show up in opinion surveys as one of Britain’s least popular employment groups. Many lawyers already face falling incomes as a result of the shrinkage of the British economy and of London’s scope as an international financial center. Some experts have predicted that as many as 10,000 lawyers could lose their jobs before Britain’s economy recovers fully from the recent recession. Lawyers’ groups responded angrily to the proposed cuts. Desmond Hudson, chief executive of the Law Society, which represents the solicitors who do much of the legal aid work, said the government was “playing fast and loose with the basic principle that our courts and justice system are available to all, irrespective of power or wealth.” A Law Society study released this month suggested that the government, in curbing lawyers’ earnings, should aim at the legal profession’s top tier here, barristers, who act in most proceedings in the higher courts. The study suggested that the government limit barristers to a maximum of $400,000 a year from legal aid cases. In some widely publicized cases, top barristers have earned more than $1.6 million a year from handling legal aid cases.

Budgets and Budgeting
Legal Aid for the Poor
Demonstrations Protests and Riots
Cameron David
Conservative Party (Great Britain)
Economic Conditions and Trends
Politics and Government


Concentrated Markets Take Big Toll on Economy

Abstract: Nobody believes AT&T’s $48 billion shot at buying DirecTV will be the last attempt by the nation’s communications leviathans to get even bigger. Verizon will inevitably try to bulk up in response to Comcast’s $45 billion grab for Time Warner Cable. Sprint, the No. 3 wireless carrier, is lusting for No. 4 T-Mobile. Each of these deals, of course, is justified by the drive to compete. Yet three decades after the United States dismembered its telecom monopoly, the melee of mergers is reshaping the backbone of the information age — including telephone, cable television and broadband Internet — into an oligopoly where competitors are in short supply. “They say they have to become larger because the other one is becoming larger,” said Eli Noam of Columbia University, who directs its Institute for Tele-Information. “What is the limiting principle?” Indeed. And it isn’t just the distributors: “Content” providers like Amazon, Google and Facebook dominate their markets as well. The question could be asked even more broadly. Four airlines — United, Delta, American and Southwest — serve 71 percent of domestic air traffic in the United States, according to Severin Borenstein of the University of California, Berkeley. From 1980 to 2009 the share of the top four fluctuated around 55 percent. In agribusiness, Monsanto has a legal monopoly over key genetic traits of most of the soybeans and corn planted by farmers across the United States. The top five banks in the United States hold nearly half of its banking assets, up from less than 30 percent in 2000. So what is the concentration of so many markets doing to the American economy? “I’m fairly convinced that things have gotten worse,” said Joseph E. Stiglitz, the Nobel-winning economist, who teaches at Columbia University. Technology companies have “been extraordinarily innovative in creating monopolistic innovations.” But, at the same time, policy has aided market concentration. “There are various ways,” Professor Stiglitz added, “that we undermine competition through rules and regulations.” The excess profits companies can extract from their customers when they face little or no competition — known to economists as “rents” — may be deepening income inequality, Professor Stiglitz and others have argued. The evidence shows up in fatter corporate bottom lines and a rising share of national income that goes to profits. “In a competitive economy, the real return to capital would be much smaller,” Professor Stiglitz said. Concentration in the financial sector might have something to do with the fact that finance and insurance amass 15 percent of corporate America’s pretax profits, employing 5 percent of its private sector workers. Consider health care, a sector that accounts for nearly one-fifth of the American economy. Hospital systems have been growing at breakneck speed, gobbling up independents and taking over physician practices. In 1992, the average metropolitan area was served by the equivalent of four rival hospital systems of equal size, according to estimates by Martin S. Gaynor, currently chief economist at the Federal Trade Commission. By 2006, the number was down to three, and 250 of the nation’s 332 metropolitan areas had highly concentrated hospital markets by the standards of the F.T.C. Mr. Gaynor counts more than 1,000 hospital system mergers since the mid-1990s, often involving dozens of hospitals. And yet between 1990 and 2007, the commission did not win a single case against a hospital merger. Consolidation, to be sure, is not always a bad thing. It can create efficiencies where there are economies of scale, such as sharing administrative costs over a broader market. In markets that remain competitive, some of these efficiencies are likely to be passed on to consumers in the form of better service or lower prices. The dominance of some high-tech firms, like Microsoft in its day or Facebook now, is to some extent inevitable given their low marginal costs — it costs practically nothing to produce an additional unit of software — and network effects, because a social media platform is much more useful to consumers the more people are on it. This will drive users to the dominant player — be it Facebook or Twitter — at the expense of all others. And the dominant Goliaths might even have a positive effect on innovation: The prospect of being bought out for billions by Google or Facebook is a great incentive for venture capitalists to invest in the kind of garage-level tinkerers who can come up with the new Instagram or Snapchat. “The tech sector is pretty awesome in delivering value to consumers,” said Carl Shapiro, a former member of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. “Some caution is appropriate before concluding that competition is lacking.” Yet there are reasons to worry about the nation’s concentrated markets. Start with prices: airline fares started rising in 2009 and are now at their highest since 2002, according to Professor Borenstein’s calculations. There are broader concerns. We might have better word processors had it not been for the market power of Microsoft Office. There may be better forms of search based on natural language that we may never see because of Google. “Successful incumbents are often tempted to acquire start-ups that begin to pose a disruptive threat, rather than face them down the road,” Professor Shapiro said. “Such acquisitions can harm competition and hinder innovation, but they are hard for antitrust authorities to challenge.” At the same time, many economists believe restrictive patent and copyright laws — which grant temporary monopoly rights to inventors over the fruits of their inventions — may be hindering innovation rather than encouraging it, discouraging creators from piggybacking on each other’s breakthroughs. The ultimate fear is that entrenched dominant companies sap business dynamism. The rate of new businesses entering the economy declined sharply from the late 1970s through 2011, according to research published this month by Robert E. Litan of the Brookings Institution and Ian Hathaway of Ennsyte Economics. It is not clear what caused this slowdown. Mr. Litan says tougher regulation and increasing economies of scale may be the main culprits, weighing against small new entrants. But the pattern also fits a picture of entrenched incumbents erecting walls against new contenders. “I wasn’t expecting this result,” Mr. Litan told me. “I’m still struggling with this puzzling fact.” What does this portend? As technology makes further inroads into the broader economy — bringing along its intellectual property protections and its dominant companies with their huge economies of scale — the potential risks that market concentration could stymie broader swathes of the economy cannot be discounted. Take broadband, the enabling platform of the Internet age, which allows young information technology companies to tap the vast troves of information with which to build new services and to cheaply reach large numbers of users. Broadband companies are not doing badly. Comcast’s earnings were up by a third in the first quarter of the year. AT&T’s were up 11 percent. And yet, the United States has some of the highest broadband prices among industrial nations, according to data compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in the fall of 2012, and comparatively slow speeds . The United States was in 16th place among 34 members of the O.E.C.D. in terms of broadband penetration. Future competition on the Internet “won’t be David versus Goliath,” Professor Noam said. “It will be a battle of Goliaths,” pitting big broadband oligopolies against big, dominant content providers riding on their pipes. Already the big media companies like Netflix are cutting deals with big dominant platforms like Comcast to get their content to subscribers faster. The question is, will there be a place in this world for any Davids?

Mergers and Acquisitions
US Economy
Competition law
Regulation and Deregulation
Telecommunication
Income Inequality


Despite Goalie’s Efforts, Rangers Fall to Senators

Abstract: Craig Anderson stopped 35 shots for his third shutout this season as the Senators ended a two-game skid Sunday with a 3-0 victory over the Rangers in Ottawa. Bobby Ryan, Mike Hoffman and Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored for Ottawa (23-20-6), and Anderson earned his 32nd career shutout. Henrik Lundqvist made 31 saves for the Rangers (26-17-5). The announced crowd of 18,940 at Canadian Tire Centre was treated to a goaltending duel for much of the afternoon. Both Anderson and Lundqvist made a number of big saves to keep the game scoreless. Aside from his goaltender, Rangers Coach Alain Vigneault could find few positives in his team’s performance. “We were on the outside the whole night and just didn’t have a good game at all,” he said. Leading, 1-0, early in the third, the Senators got a little breathing room as Hoffman scored his team-leading 22nd goal. Pageau made it 3-0 with a short-handed empty-net goal with just over two minutes remaining in regulation. It was not until the closing seconds of the second period that the Senators solved Lundqvist. Jared Cowen’s shot from inside the blue line hit the post, and Ryan got his stick on the rebound to give Ottawa a 1-0 lead. Ryan, with his 17th goal of the season, is one shy of tying his total from last season. “It was definitely tough to give it up that late,” Lundqvist said. “Sometimes you come out in the third and maybe try too much.” HURRICANES 5, FLAMES 2 Kris Versteeg scored twice to lead host Carolina over Calgary. Victor Rask, Elias Lindholm and Joakim Nordstrom also scored for Carolina. The Hurricanes led, 3-0, early in the second period and chased Calgary goalie Karri Ramo. Eddie Lack made 33 saves for Carolina. Calgary got goals from Jiri Hudler and Joe Colborne. The team fell to 0-15 when trailing after one period. BLACKHAWKS 2, BLUES 0 Corey Crawford stopped 25 shots for his league-leading seventh shutout, the rookie Artemi Panarin and Andrew Shaw scored, and Chicago beat visiting St. Louis to end a two-game losing streak. The Blues lost their second straight since ending a three-game winning streak.


Mutual Fund Fees Are Declining, but Still Vary Widely

Abstract: INVESTORS can’t count on very much these days. The economy remains troubled, the stock market is volatile and the bond market seems fraught with risk. Overseas options aren’t much better. With Europe in a nasty recession and problems growing in China and the rest of Asia, emerging markets are as vulnerable as ever. But one thing is quite predictable: the fees that investors pay in their individual mutual funds . “Finding low-cost funds becomes more important than ever,” said Russel Kinnel, director of fund research at Morningstar. “If you’re going down in fees, you’re boosting your return.” When it comes to mutual funds, fees have a huge range and vary across asset classes. Average annual fees are 1.44 percent on equity funds, 1.02 percent on bond funds and 0.24 percent on money market funds, according to the calculations of the Investment Company Institute, the mutual fund trade group. Fees for emerging-market funds or alternative-investment funds can be more than 2 percent. But fees also vary widely within asset classes. For instance, about 1 in 10 equity funds charge fees of 0.78 percent or lower, while another 1 in 10 charge 2.2 percent or higher. At the same time, investors who buy funds through a financial adviser may have to pay a separate load, or fee to compensate the adviser. Clearly, though, fee-conscious investors have been putting pressure on fund companies, and many of those costs have been coming down. The turning point came in 2002, during the bear market after the collapse of the Internet bubble. Until then, many new investors had piled into mutual funds without much experience of bear markets. “What happened in the early 2000s is that sensitivity to fees increased,” said Brian Reid, the institute’s chief economist. “We particularly saw it among 401(k) plan sponsors and financial advisers, which has contributed to the significant downward trend in fees since then.” Index funds tend to cost less than actively managed funds, which may require more — and more costly — labor. But there are also other reasons for the cost differences. Index funds tend to be far larger and thus better able to take advantage of economies of scale. Last year, the average equity index fund had assets of $1.6 billion under management, compared with $374 million for actively managed equity funds, according to the institute’s data. Regardless of the differences, the costs of index funds and actively managed funds have fallen over time by roughly the same proportion. From 1997 to 2011, the average expense ratio of equity index funds fell 0.13 percentage points, or 13 basis points, while the average for actively managed equity funds dropped 11 basis points. At the same time, the average for bond index funds fell 8 basis points, compared with 16 basis points for actively managed bond funds. Index funds are major beneficiaries of the increased focus on fees. Last year, $55 billion in net new cash flowed into index funds, bringing total net assets under management up to $1.1 trillion. In addition to traditional index funds, exchange-traded funds , which are typically also based on indexes and tend to have low costs, grew to $1 trillion total net assets. That’s not to say that actively managed funds are going away. “It’s not that people want to abandon active management, but they’re looking for low-cost ways of doing that,” Mr. Reid said. He said one trend he had seen was active management moving from the funds themselves to financial advisers. “Previously, financial advisers would invest a client’s portfolio in a group of actively managed funds with only an occasional adjustment,” he said. “Now we are seeing some advisers invest clients’ portfolio in a broad range of index funds, but the strategic investment decisions are now made by the financial adviser, who regularly adjusts allocations among the funds to actively manage these portfolios.” Low-cost investing sounds attractive, but what exactly does “low cost” mean? It’s a relative term. You might look at the fees of the cheapest 10 percent of funds across asset classes. According to the institute, they are 0.78 percent and below for equity funds, 0.5 percent and below for bond funds and 0.13 percent and below for money market funds. But even within that frugal 10 percent, fees vary widely. Consider large-cap growth funds. The cheapest group of funds in that category may have fees lower than 0.1 percent or higher than 0.8 percent. The average large-cap growth fund charges 1.22 percent. Virtually every asset class now has low-cost options. Categories like domestic large cap, intermediate bond and moderate allocation funds have a great number of low-cost alternatives. Low-cost funds have also entered areas that have typically charged higher fees. For instance, the average emerging-market fund charges 1.61 percent, and the average alternative fund charges 2 percent. But investors can now find funds in these asset classes charging significantly less. AND that’s exactly what many customers have been doing. For example, in 2011, the institute found that the simple average expense ratio of equity funds was 143 basis points, while the average expense ratio that equity fund shareholders actually paid was 79 basis points. In other words, the holdings of investors are more concentrated in low-cost funds. While the companies that profit from fees don’t want clients to focus exclusively on them, taking advantage of low-cost options can be great for investors. Understanding the costs and the various options may be an essential part of saving for retirement, especially if we truly are entering an era of low returns.

Mutual Funds
Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)
Investment Company Institute
Exchange Traded Funds


Evidence of Positive Drug Tests for Bonds

Abstract: Grand jury testimony given by Barry Bonds nearly five years ago was unsealed Friday and it revealed that prosecutors have evidence that Bonds had elevated levels of testosterone on two private tests. The testimony was unsealed by United States District Judge Susan Illston at a hearing regarding Bonds’s motion to have an indictment that federal prosecutors brought in November dismissed. Bonds, who was indicted for making false statements to a federal grand jury about his suspected use of performance-enhancing drugs, was not present at Friday’s hearing. Illston sided with the defense’s argument that the indictment was faulty but did not throw out the charges. She ordered the government to either narrow the indictment against Bonds or bring superseding charges. The government, which is expected to clarify the charges, has until March 21 to decide how to proceed. The unsealed transcript showed that when Bonds testified before the grand jury in December 2003, the government had evidence of at least two tests that showed Bonds had elevated levels of testosterone. Much of Bonds’s grand jury testimony was known because The San Francisco Chronicle published an article detailing some of the sealed testimony in 2004. The article did not specifically address positive steroid tests. When the government indicted Bonds, it said it could prove that Bonds, the holder of baseball’s single-season and career records for home runs, had made false statements about a 2000 positive test for steroids. The indictment hinted at another positive test, but did not provide specifics. But the grand jury testimony did just that. Bonds testified to the grand jury in 2003 as part of an investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative . Balco routinely tested its clients’ blood and urine for levels of various substances. As part of the government’s investigation of the laboratory, it obtained many athletes’ samples, including some belonging to Bonds. In the grand jury testimony, the second positive test emerged when the government asked Bonds about a January 2001 test conducted by Balco that showed Bonds had elevated levels of testosterone. That test came before the 2001 season, when Bonds set the record for home runs in a season with 73. The transcript showed that the government also asked Bonds about a third test — one conducted in November 2001 by Balco — that measured Bonds’s urine for levels of testosterone. The transcript appears to show that Bonds’s testosterone was within normal levels in that test. As for the judge’s ruling that the indictment must be revised, Carl Tobias, a professor of law at the University of Richmond, said that while Illston sided with the defense on that point, it would ultimately have little effect on the case. “The long-term affect on Bonds will be very minimal because it will be fairly easy for the government to go back and narrow the indictment or bring the matter back before a grand jury and bring a superseding indictment,” Tobias said in a telephone interview. He said it would not be hard for the government to satisfy the judge’s concerns and “for the case to move forward.” An official at the United States attorney’s office for the Northern District of California declined to comment on the matter. Michael Rains, a lawyer for Bonds, did not return an e-mail message seeking comment.

Bonds Barry
Testosterone
Tests and Testing
Steroids
Drug Abuse and Traffic
United States Attorneys
Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative


Amid Crackdown, ISIS Warns of New Attacks in Bangladesh

Abstract: DHAKA, Bangladesh — The authorities in Bangladesh began a broad effort on Wednesday to compile a list of young men who have disappeared and may have been recruited by militant groups for terrorist operations like last week’s massacre of 22 people at a restaurant in the capital, Dhaka. The attack was the deadliest in a series of murders since 2013, which initially targeted atheist bloggers but later also included foreigners, minorities and gay activists. The authorities have blamed local militant groups, although the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and a regional branch of Al Qaeda have taken credit for many of the killings. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for last weekend’s assault as it was underway, and released a video late Tuesday night warning that the attacks would not stop until an Islamic government was established. The police were setting up checkpoints around the city and said that anyone sharing, uploading or commenting favorably on jihadist activities online would face punishment. They also began what they described as a huge effort to focus on young people who have disappeared in recent months, like the men who carried out the 11-hour siege last weekend. All of them had vanished between December and February, family members and the police said. The Islamic State’s warning, in English and Bengali, heightened fears in Dhaka, which has been on high alert since the killing of 20 hostages in the restaurant, most of them foreigners, and two police officers. The nearly six-minute video, released on Twitter and the Telegram app, warned of more attacks to come. “What you witnessed in Bangladesh yesterday was a glimpse,” a militant said in the video, made public by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist websites. “This will repeat, repeat and repeat until you lose and we win.” Law enforcement officials struggled with how to get word out to families about the importance of reporting the sudden disappearance of young male relatives, a senior intelligence official said. The father of one of the attackers made an impassioned plea to other parents to keep an eye on their children and protect them from jihadist recruitment. “I request all parents give more time to their children, give more attention to their children,” said the father, Imtiaz Khan Babul, a former Dhaka politician, choking up as he spoke. Mr. Babul, a physical education teacher, said that after his son, Rohan, vanished in late December, he met several other parents whose boys had also disappeared. “One of the parents was a former army officer, and I can tell you all of the missing sons were from well-established, educated families,” he said. “One was a judge, another a banker.” Mr. Babul, 58, berated himself for failing to recognize warning signs, saying, “I feel I am a failed father.” The attackers included three young men from elite backgrounds, including Mr. Babul’s son, and two from low-income families in the northern part of the country, the police said. The three young men from affluent families had been reported missing, but the lower-income families had not filed reports, a police officer involved in the investigation said. The officer said the lower-income families had assumed that their sons, who had left home to live in Dhaka, had gone off in search of work and fallen out of touch. The senior intelligence official said he had no estimate of how many families had reported young men missing because there was no centralized system for gathering the reports. But he said that would change under a new procedure. Mr. Babul said Rohan — a top student, athlete and chess player — had been studying business at BRAC University, a private school in Dhaka, when he disappeared. Mr. Babul and his wife were on a trip to India when their son left home at 10 p.m. on Dec. 30, carrying a bag, he said. He conducted a frantic search, he said, going to numerous law enforcement agencies, none of which could help him find his son. “I’d like to apologize to the families who lost their near and dear ones in the restaurant,” Mr. Babul said. “I also apologize to the nation.” New details of the weekend’s attack were supplied by one of the hostages, a woman who asked that her name not be used because the police had ordered her not to speak to reporters. She said she had survived because she was among eight people whom the attackers believed to be Bangladeshi Muslims and gathered at a single table, saying not to worry, that their lives would be spared. Among them were two children, 8 and 13, the woman said. The attackers told the group to keep their heads down and they would be safe, the woman said, adding that the 20 hostages who were killed were shot and then hacked to death with knives within a half-hour after the siege began. The terrorists urged those they had spared to cover the children’s eyes and ears during the killings, but it was impossible for them not to understand what was going on, she said. After it was over, the attackers turned off the lights, she said, and the hostages at her table sat with their heads down in the dark for hours. The attackers seemed to grow nervous as morning approached because they could not decide what to do with the surviving hostages, the woman said. They took two men from the group onto the roof to discuss what to do with them and the others. The woman said she learned later that one of the men had persuaded the attackers to keep their promise to spare the Bangladeshi Muslims. And so, at around 6 a.m., one and a half hours before the army stormed the restaurant to end the siege, the attackers released the people at her table, she said. As they left the building, law enforcement officers leapt onto one of the men who had been involved in the rooftop discussions, apparently believing that he was part of the militant group, “and it was like they were going to kill him,” she said. The man was taken into custody for questioning and held at least through Tuesday, the police official involved in the investigation said. Since her release, the woman said, she has not been able to sleep. When she closes her eyes, she said, she sees the militants’ shadows on the wall and hears the sounds of their footsteps.

Bangladesh
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
Terrorism
Youth
Al Qaeda
Video Recordings
Downloads and Streaming
Dhaka
Men and Boys
Missing person


Inspired by the Shouting, Roger Federer Roars Back at Wimbledon

Abstract: WIMBLEDON, England — The eldest set of Federer twins, 6-year-old Myla and Charlene, were on the grounds Wednesday but not in the stands on Centre Court, where their father was playing five sets in the sunshine. Perhaps, when the girls are old enough to understand, they will get the chance to watch the endgame of this quarterfinal they missed. It will explain a great deal about why their father, Roger, was bringing them on the road and playing tennis deep into his 30s after he already had won everything there was to win. He is chasing a feeling as much as another big title. “This is why I train and why I’m still doing this,” Federer said. “To be in matches like this. Because the fans were really, totally into it.” It takes a great deal to make the Federer short list at this advanced stage, all the more so on Centre Court, site of so much triumph and disaster throughout his career. But his 6-7 (4), 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (9), 6-3 comeback victory over Marin Cilic will be one of those duels that will spring to mind very quickly when — sitting near his fireplace in the Swiss Alps — he finally starts looking back instead of forward someday. Rallying from two sets down and saving three match points is memorable at any age but all the more so at this awkward stage during a season that has been short on success, reassurance and matches. In his 17 previous Wimbledons, Federer had never arrived at the All England Club so uncertain of how his body might react after meniscus surgery in February and more back problems this spring. He had not played a five-set match in nearly two years, saving two more match points before defeating Gaël Monfils in the 2014 United States Open quarterfinals. It looked as though Federer would not get to play more than three sets on Wednesday when Cilic picked up where he left off in his straight-set rout of Federer in the 2014 United States Open semifinals. Federer soon fell behind, 0-40, on his serve at 3-3. But Cilic, a good-natured Croatian with a rumble of a voice and a big-bang serve, is not ranked 13th in the world without cause. Despite that unexpected United States Open title run in 2014, he still has a tendency to get brittle in the biggest situations, and he allowed Federer to wriggle free and hold serve. When Federer changed ends, he also changed shirts as if he were settling in for a long, sweaty tussle no matter what the scoreboard indicated. He turned out to be right, breaking Cilic in the next game — with a lot of help from Cilic — and then serving out the set. Federer was back in the match but hardly out of the woods. He needed to save a match point in the 10th game of the fourth set when Cilic missed a lunging forehand return off a second serve. He needed to save another match point in the 12th game with an ace and then a last at 6-7 in the tiebreaker when Cilic missed the shot that could and should haunt him for quite a while: another forehand return off another kicking second serve. “If we would go back to play again, I would try to be more aggressive on the chances when I had them in the fourth,” Cilic said. “Maybe there was a slight hesitation in some of them, obviously. The situation made it big. In those situations, I was not getting the best out of me.” As effective as Federer was in the final three sets, this was not Federer at his most ethereal, either. At his best, he has routinely made the difficult look effortless, but you could sense and even hear the effort throughout the afternoon as he barked and grunted on shots he would once have hit in silence, exhorted himself more than usual and even took a tumble changing direction. “He can make it all look so easy that you take it for granted,” said Justin Gimelstob, the American coach and analyst. “But between the grunting and the stretching and the emoting, there was no taking it for granted today.” That is also because we have seen Federer look so vulnerable so often of late — mis-hitting and struggling to glide into the corners — and because we have heard him be so unusually pessimistic about his own odds. Image Cilic returning a shot Wednesday during his 6-7 (4), 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (9), 6-3 loss to Federer in a quarterfinal. Credit Clive Brunskill/Getty Images Even in victory, he expressed surprise. “I was very worried coming here,” he said. But Federer has played his way into a much more promising place, and to watch him lift down the stretch against Cilic was to watch him adjusting to the brutal power and precision that none of his early-round opponents here this year could muster. At 34, Federer is the oldest Wimbledon men’s semifinalist since Ken Rosewall in 1974, which raises the question of whether he can recover quickly enough to get through two more potential five-setters. No ice baths for Federer. “I eat healthy, take a stretch, take a massage; that’s it,” he said. “Very normal, like old school.” But his odds of a record eighth singles title at Wimbledon are clearly much improved. Federer will get a rematch of his 2014 Wimbledon semifinal with Milos Raonic, a Canadian who, with the addition of John McEnroe to his team, has an even bigger coaching and support staff than Federer even if Federer’s former coach Stefan Edberg is here providing moral support. During the tournament, McEnroe has been shuttling between television commentary and his consulting duties with Raonic while Carlos Moya, another former world No. 1, handles the full-time coaching duties. “John’s not able to spend a lot of time with us here,” Moya said. “But still he’s someone who brings a lot to the team: positive energy, a good attitude, and we are talking about probably the best serve and volleyer ever. So he has something to say about that, and Milos listens to him very carefully. He’s been a great help so far for us.” Federer won the 2014 semifinal convincingly before losing to Novak Djokovic, but Raonic is a more complete and confident threat. His booming serve and forehand remain his pillars, but he is no longer as mechanical in transition to the forecourt as he demonstrated repeatedly in his four-set victory over Sam Querrey on Wednesday. Raonic won 35 of 47 points at net. “I’m convinced that he is now a much more stable tennis player than before,” Federer said. That may not be true of Federer, just one month shy of his 35th birthday, but he has rarely been a more inspirational player than he was on Wednesday with the roars of encouragement reverberating through Centre Court and carrying across the grounds from Henman Hill. “I could hear the echo,” Federer said. Perhaps his daughters could, too, and in the stands when the unlikely victory was secure Federer’s agent Tony Godsick turned to Federer’s wife, Mirka, and said, “This is why you still go on the road.”

Tennis
Wimbledon Tennis,Wimbledon
Roger Federer


Ryan Tax Returns Show 20 Percent Rate in 2011

Abstract: The Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul D. Ryan and his wife, Janna, paid 20 percent of their adjusted gross income in federal income taxes in 2011 and 15.9 percent in 2010, according to tax returns he released Friday. The couple reported an adjusted gross income for 2011 of $323,416 — about half of which came from Mr. Ryan’s salary as a congressman from Wisconsin and chairman of the House Budget Committee — and paid $64,764 in federal income taxes. In 2010, they reported adjusted gross income of $215,417 and paid $34,233 in federal income taxes. In addition to Mr. Ryan’s salary, for 2011 the couple reported more than $116,000 in income from rental property, investments and several trusts, assets that the campaign has said are owned mostly by his wife. Mr. Ryan’s financial disclosure forms estimate the couple’s net worth as between $2.1 million and $7.8 million, much of which is in Ms. Ryan’s trust, which is valued at $1 million to $5 million. The release of Mr. Ryan’s tax returns comes as his presidential running mate, Mitt Romney, has come under sustained pressure to disclose more information about the taxes he has paid on his fortune, valued at more than $250 million. Mr. Romney has disclosed less tax information than most other recent presidential candidates — releasing a 2010 return, which showed that he paid 13.9 percent of his adjusted gross income of $21.6 million in federal income taxes, and an estimate of his 2011 taxes. Mr. Romney has declined repeated urgings to disclose tax returns from other years, but said this week that he had paid an effective rate — the percentage of adjusted income — of least 13 percent in federal taxes in each of the past 10 years. The Romney campaign said that it reviewed several years of Mr. Ryan’s tax returns while vetting potential running mates, but would publicly disclose only two years’ worth. President Obama and his wife, Michelle, have released tax returns for the past 12 years, and reported paying 26 percent of their adjusted gross income in federal taxes in 2010 and 20.5 percent last year. Among the nonwage income reported by the Ryans in 2011 was $33,153 of capital gains and $29,987 in dividends. The couple also reported earning royalties from leasing land and mineral rights to energy companies. They also received income from the Prudence Little Living Trust, in which Ms. Ryan has an interest. The couple filed an amended return in 2011, because their original return understated their income by $61,122 — a mistake they attributed to accidentally omitting income from the trust. The Ryans reported making $2,600 in charitable donations in 2010 and $12,991 in 2011. They were subject to the alternative minimum tax of $786 in 2010 and $11,684 in 2011.

Vice Presidents and Vice Presidency (US)


CNBC Thrives as Hosts Deliver News With Attitude

Abstract: Was last week the worst one in CNBC’s 20-year history — or the best? The financial news network, a unit of NBC Universal , was savaged by “The Daily Show” in a viral video sensation. It was criticized for being too cozy with the corporations it covers. One of its stars, Jim Cramer , was ridiculed by the White House press secretary. And one of its reporters faced a new round of criticism for an on-air outburst about mortgage “losers.” All the while, CNBC covered the incessant downward slide of the economy with special reports on particularly bad days for the markets. Mr. Cramer, the host of “Mad Money,” barely had time for his usual shuffleboard games at the Elk’s Lodge near his home. The lodge “is a booyah-free zone,” he said, using his trademark exclamation. “I was not able to get away from the booyahs this week.” Whether the attention is positive or negative, it is certain that this tumultuous financial season is CNBC’s reason for being. One month shy of its 20th anniversary, CNBC is being jokingly called “the recession network” within the halls of its headquarters in New Jersey . After it achieved record ratings last fall, the network’s audience remains above its annual average. But CNBC’s executives and hosts seem well aware that their ratings have traditionally stagnated in down times for the Dow. “People do not want to come to a show each night and hear how poor they are,” Mr. Cramer said. But in a change from previous downturns, CNBC is now a place for politics, to borrow a phrase from its sister channel MSNBC. The network’s journalists have been encouraged to speak their minds, making the line between reporter and commentator almost indistinguishable at times. “When they are all sitting around the table it’s hard to tell a business pundit versus a reporter,” said Tom Rosenstiel, the director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. For instance, Larry Kudlow, a conservative economist who is considering a run for the United States Senate , is the co-host of an 11 a.m. news hour. Three CNBC employees, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said that the role of opinion on the channel had been a subject of frequent discussion. With economic attention focused on Washington , the network is spending less time on bullish stock picks and more time assessing the government’s actions. In recent weeks some have perceived the network to be leading the campaign against President Obama ’s economic agenda. Mr. Cramer, who calls himself a lifelong Democrat, said last week that the administration’s agenda was “destroying the life savings of millions of Americans.” One week earlier Mr. Kudlow declared that Mr. Obama was “declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private equity and venture capital funds.” Those investors and businessmen, of course, are CNBC’s core audience. What some critics have characterized as a “war on wealth” could affect the network’s brand because the moneyed class makes up much of its core audience. Partisanship aside, this is CNBC’s equivalent of a war. Just as the first cable news channel, CNN, rose to prominence during the gulf war in 1991, and another one, the Fox News Channel, became a ratings leader in the period before the Iraq war in 2002 and 2003, CNBC is on a war footing. Last Monday, when the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index reached 12-year lows, the network produced a special report from 8 to 11 p.m. CNBC’s moment in the spotlight has actually lasted nearly two years. An analysis of Nielsen ratings shows that the network’s home audience started to surge in August 2007 as the upheaval began in the credit markets. They peaked in March 2008 when Bear Stearns was sold to JPMorgan Chase in a deal arranged by Washington. After hitting a plateau that spring, the ratings soared last fall when other investment banks collapsed, setting records for the network. In the first two months of 2009, CNBC averaged 282,000 home viewers at any given time, up from 264,000 in the same period in 2008 and 233,000 in the same period in 2007. CNBC’s chief competitors, Bloomberg and the Fox Business Network, are not publicly rated by Nielsen. CNBC says the Nielsen ratings undercounts its audience, as they do not measure out-of-home viewership on trading floors and offices. (CNBC and The New York Times have a content sharing agreement.) Asked in a telephone interview about CNBC’s time in the spotlight Friday, the network’s president, Mark Hoffman, said it was a “unique time for the organization.” “It has certainly received a lot more notoriety, and along with that a lot more audience,” he said. He acknowledged that the notoriety has both “benefits and liabilities.” Twice in the last month, the White House has chastised CNBC’s personalities, first after the reporter Rick Santelli energetically expressed his opposition to Mr. Obama’s housing plans on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade . CNBC eagerly promoted the segment and conservatives seized on it, holding “tea party” protests across the country. Robert Gibbs , the White House press secretary, dismissed Mr. Santelli’s arguments and offered him a decaffeinated cup of coffee. Later, the “Today” show co-host Matt Lauer clashed with Mr. Santelli over the assertion that Mr. Gibbs had threatened the reporter. CNBC came up at Mr. Gibbs’s briefing again last week after Mr. Cramer accused Mr. Obama of causing “the greatest wealth destruction I have seen by a president.” Mr. Gibbs said that “if you turn on a certain program, it’s geared to a very small audience, no offense to my good friends or friend at CNBC.” Still, the headlines about CNBC are a testament to its relevance. On Wednesday, Jon Stewart , the host of “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central, spent eight minutes skewering CNBC after Mr. Santelli backed out of an interview on the show. Mr. Stewart played video clips from the network of faulty predictions about the economic crisis. “If I had only followed CNBC’s advice, I’d have a million dollars today,” Mr. Stewart said, “provided that I’d started with $100 million.” Mr. Stewart echoed the criticism that CNBC suffered after the dot-com bubble of the 1990s, namely that the network had acted as a booster for the markets. When the CNBC anchor Erin Burnett appeared on “Real Time With Bill Maher ” on HBO on Friday, Mr. Maher raised a similar issue. “This is the channel that Wall Street watches all day,” Mr. Maher said. “I think this is more than a channel; I think it affects what happens on Wall Street. Why didn’t anybody there predict what was going to happen?” Ms. Burnett said that the dot-com bubble was predicted, too. “It’s easy to say ‘a bubble.’ You don’t know when it’s going to burst,” she said, adding that the questions of timing and magnitude were missed by many financial experts. Separately, in a telephone interview Friday, the “Squawk Box” co-host Joe Kernen said of the market turmoil, “Ask yourself whether you really think it’s CNBC that caused it, or was it the housing bubble that caused it? I think we know what caused it.” CNBC is a boon to NBC Universal’s bottom line; it has posted record profits for at least the last three years, and Mr. Hoffman says the first quarter of 2009 has been “very strong” for the network. Mr. Cramer acknowledged he might have a harder time holding onto viewers in a bear market. To attract viewers he said he would continue to make “Mad Money” entertaining, and that means more predictions, even when they can be used against him by comedians like Mr. Stewart later. “If I get gun-shy, then I’m not going to be relevant,” he said.

CNBC
News media,journalism
James J Cramer
Rick Santelli
Jon Stewart
Rating
US Economy


Oil Field Operation Suspended After Attack by Nigerian Rebels

Abstract: DAKAR, Senegal — Royal Dutch Shell halted production of its Bonga field off the coast of Nigeria ’s volatile Niger Delta region after an attack on Thursday by militants on an enormous rig far offshore, the company said. “Indeed there has been an armed attack,” said Eurwen Thomas, a spokeswoman for Shell in London. “Production has been shut down.” Militants from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, a shadowy rebel group that has carried out an escalating series of attacks on oil installations in the creeks of the Niger Delta over the last few years, claimed responsibility for the strike. But the latest attack was on a rig 75 miles offshore, which requires much better equipment and military-style coordination. It was the first time militants had managed to hit Shell’s deep offshore platform, Ms. Thomas said. Jomo Gbomo, a spokesman for the group, said in an e-mail statement to journalists that the attack was intended to show that no oil installations would be spared. “The location for today’s attack was deliberately chosen to remove any notion that offshore oil exploration is far from our reach,” he said. Militants in open speedboats charged the oil platform, which is about two miles long, and tried unsuccessfully to enter and blow up the rig’s computerized control room, Mr. Gbomo said. The militants also kidnapped an American worker aboard an oil services ship they encountered on their way back to shore, but released him within hours. Nigeria is Africa’s top oil producer, exporting more than a million barrels a day to the United States alone, according to Energy Department statistics. The Bonga field produces about 225,000 barrels a day. Previous militant attacks had already cut Shell’s daily production in Nigeria by 400,000 barrels a day. Nigeria is seeking to increase production and is relying heavily on offshore operations to meet those goals, in part because rigs far offshore seem less vulnerable than the highly exposed pipelines and flow stations that dot the Niger Delta region. The oil giants Chevron and Total have large offshore fields that are scheduled to begin production this year. For years, armed groups in the Niger Delta have been agitating for a greater share of Nigeria’s oil wealth. Despite decades of production and record high oil prices, the Niger Delta remains one of the poorest and least developed regions of Nigeria, troubled by perpetual violence and chronic pollution. Nigeria’s government has been trying to forge a peace agreement with the militants in the Niger Delta, but so far most have refused negotiations.


Payroll Tax Cut Unlikely to Survive Into Next Year

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Regardless of who wins the presidential election in November or what compromises Congress strikes in the lame-duck session to keep the economy from automatic tax increases and spending cuts, 160 million American wage earners will probably see their tax bills jump after Jan. 1. That is when the temporary payroll tax holiday ends. Its expiration means less income in families’ pocketbooks — the tax increase would be about $95 billion in 2013 alone — at a time when the economy is little better than it was when the White House reached a deal on the tax break last year. Independent analysts say that the expiration of the tax cut could shave as much as a percentage point off economic output in 2013, and cost the economy as many as one million jobs. That is because the typical American family had $1,000 in additional income from the lower tax. But there is still little desire to make an extension part of the negotiations that are under way to avert the huge tax increases and across-the-board spending cuts, known as the fiscal cliff, that will start in January without a deal. For example, without any action, the Bush-era tax cuts will expire and the military and other domestic spending programs will be reduced. “This has to be a temporary tax cut,” said Timothy F. Geithner , the Treasury secretary, testifying before the Senate Budget Committee this year and voicing the view of many in the White House and on Capitol Hill. “I don’t see any reason to consider supporting its extension.” The White House has not pushed for an extension. “We’ll evaluate the question of whether we need to extend it at the end of the year when we’re looking at a whole range of issues,” Jay Carney , the White House press secretary, told reporters last month. The original point of the payroll tax holiday was to stimulate consumer spending and aid middle-income households. But now Congress needs the money as it struggles with vast deficits and believes the economy can withstand the expiration. Many Republicans vehemently opposed its passage last year, as it would divert money from the Social Security program. Many Democrats fervently supported it last year but show no such enthusiasm now. Nancy Pelosi of California , the top House Democrat, has told reporters she thinks it should expire. Support is lacking for two main reasons. First, both Democrats and Republicans would rather focus on the broader political and economic issue of the fate of the Bush-era income tax cuts. These cuts, too, were initially meant to be temporary, but are now deeply entrenched in the tax code and central to the budget battle. Second, though the economy has not become significantly stronger over the past year and the tax increases in addition to spending cuts coming next year could push the country into a recession, independent economists say that the economy could shoulder the payroll tax increase without undue harm. Moody’s Analytics, for instance, estimates that expiration of the payroll tax holiday would shave 0.6 percentage point off economic growth, adjusted for inflation, in 2013 — and that the economy could safely stomach government spending cuts and tax increases totaling up to 1.5 percentage points of economic output. Still, expiration of the payroll tax cut will increase the taxes of millions of middle-class families. The fragile state of the recovery and the frustratingly slow growth of the economy have heightened the stakes for the end-of-year negotiations. Economists estimate that if Congress fails to forestall or unwind the spending cuts and tax increases due to take effect next year, the hit could send country back into a recession . The Federal Reserve currently estimates that the economy will grow 2.5 to 3 percent next year, and that the unemployment rate will be 7.6 to 7.9 percent, still painfully high. The uncertainty in the United States is “currently a threat,” said Christine Lagarde , the managing director of the International Monetary Fund , pressing Congress last week to avoid the cliff. “It’s not a threat just for the United States of America. It’s a threat for the global economy.” Some economists have pushed for an extension of the payroll tax holiday to help support the recovery — or for its replacement with other measures to help the millions of low-income working families whose taxes will rise when it expires. The Economic Policy Institute , a liberal Washington-based research group, for instance, has said that the payroll tax cut has a stronger stimulative effect on the economy than many other tax cuts because the working households that receive it tend to spend the money rather than save it. Thus, it estimates that the tax cut’s expiration could erase 0.9 percent of economic output and put up to a million jobs at risk. It recommends replacing the payroll tax cut with infrastructure spending or fiscal aid to states, as a form of support for the recovery in the short term that would not have harmful long-term budget effects. Some conservative economists have pressed for its extension as well, arguing that no Americans should have their taxes go up next year. “Obama and Congress both need to hear this alarm clock, wake up, and get busy avoiding a payroll tax hike insult to the middle class’s injuries of stagnant wages and high unemployment,” wrote J. D. Foster, a fiscal specialist at the right-of-center Heritage Foundation . The payroll tax holiday this year has reduced workers’ tax on wages up to $110,100 to 4.2 percent from 6.2 percent. In 2012 that translated into a $700 tax cut for a person making $35,000 a year and a $2,202 tax cut for workers making $110,100 and up. Last winter, the White House pushed a resistant Congress hard for an extension, arguing it was needed to support the flagging recovery. The White House set up a campaign for Americans to send in stories about what they would do with the extra $40 in their paychecks, and denounced Republicans as not wanting to aid the middle class. “For the typical American family, it is a big deal. It means $40 extra in their paycheck. And that $40 helps to pay the rent, the groceries, the rising cost of gas,” President Obama said , standing with some of the families who had sent in stories. The other provisions at stake in the fiscal cliff negotiations overshadow the payroll tax cut. The Congressional Budget Office has calculated that according to current law, the federal deficit would fall by more than half a trillion dollars from the 2012 fiscal year to the 2013 fiscal year. The expiration of the Bush tax cuts and other provisions would reduce the deficit by $221 billion.


As China’s Largest Freshwater Lake Shrinks, Solution Faces Criticism

Abstract: HONG KONG — Long celebrated as China’s largest freshwater lake, Poyang reaches more than three times the expanse of Los Angeles in the summer wet season. It is home to the rare Yangtze finless porpoise, and its mud flats are the primary winter feeding grounds for thousands of birds that fly south each autumn to escape Siberia’s chill, including the critically endangered Siberian crane. Now it is Poyang itself that is at risk. In recent years, the average expanse of the lake, in the southeastern province of Jiangxi, has been shrinking , and winter water levels have declined sharply. The local government has a proposed solution, but it faces a chorus of opposition from scientists and environmental groups in China and beyond who argue that it could have disastrous effects on the lake’s fragile ecosystem and drive the Siberian crane and other migratory birds further toward extinction. Water levels in the lake have always fluctuated radically between the summer rains and winter dryness, but there is now concern that the levels are off balance. Culprits include the Three Gorges Dam, which stores water upstream on the Yangtze for winter electricity generation, lowering a nearby river channel and sucking water from the lake. Dredging to collect sand for construction projects has also lowered the lake’s bed and caused more runoff. This year, drought turned much of the lake into grassy plains. The local government has proposed building a sluice gate to keep more water inside the lake in the winter, but critics say the gate would essentially be a dam, and it could cause bigger problems. “I think you’re proposing a solution without understanding the causes of the problem,” said David Shankman, a professor emeritus of geography at the University of Alabama who has studied the lake’s hydrology. “The whole idea of the dam is that there would be some economic benefit, but there may be potential long-term ecological problems,” he added. The primary feature of the $1.9 billion Poyang Lake Water Conservancy Project would be a 10,000-foot sluice gate across a natural channel that connects the lake’s northern edge to the Yangtze, according to a November report by the Jiangxi provincial government. Image Fallen Star Boulder, a scenic spot in Poyang, was exposed on the dry lake bed on Jan. 2, 2015. Water levels have historically dropped in the winter months, but in recent years drought, dams and dredging have contributed to sections of the lake drying up. Credit Imaginechina, via Associated Press Among other benefits, the report said, the sluice gate would help to stabilize the drinking water supply and promote shipping on the lake. The report described the project as an ideal way to create “first-class water quality, first-class air, first-class ecology and a first-class environmental standard for residents.” The National Development and Reform Commission , the government agency that helps oversee economic planning, has been reviewing the proposal since 2009, and the Ministry of Environmental Protection began its environmental impact assessment in November. The proposal could still be derailed if senior officials turn against it. Scientists said in interviews that the project could irreparably alter the lake’s seasonal flood pulse, which causes water to rise and fall by up to 30 feet between the wet and dry seasons and has carried sediment into Poyang from as far away as the Tibetan plateau. The project would also allow water to rush in from the Yangtze during the winter dry season, the scientists said, drowning vegetation that grows in Poyang’s mud flats and provides a crucial food source for hundreds of species of migratory birds. “Whatever’s built is going to be able to drown that entire system during the winter,” said James Burnham, a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has researched how changes in China’s wetlands affect endangered water birds. The Siberian crane, whose estimated 4,000 remaining individuals winter almost exclusively at Poyang because it is the closest lake to Siberia that does not freeze, is among Jiangxi’s best-known birds. But more than a dozen other threatened or endangered bird species depend on Poyang as a wintering site and would be threatened by the project, Mr. Burnham said. Several prominent environmental groups have also criticized the project. WWF , which has been working to protect the endangered Yangtze finless porpoises that live in Poyang, has said that the project would “irreversibly and unpredictably” affect water quality and species diversity. Zhang Yunbo, who heads Let Birds Fly , an environmental group based in Beijing, said that he was not categorically opposed to reasonable engineering solutions at Poyang, but that the complexity of the hydrological problems there made him wary of a large-scale engineering solution. “Just because the water level is going down doesn’t mean we have to engineer the water levels,” Mr. Zhang said. Image Cargo boats on Poyang Lake in 2012. Credit Imaginechina, via Associated Press Some experts say that an alternative would be to stop the sand mining that appears to be lowering the lake bed and causing more water to escape from the water channels that appear in Poyang’s mud flats during the winter. Much of the sand is used for construction in Shanghai, about 400 miles east, and other Chinese cities along the lower Yangtze River basin. Officials at the Jiangxi Provincial Water Bureau declined a request for an interview and referred inquiries to the government’s report on the project. Separately, local officials released some details in November from its environmental impact assessment of the project. But critics, including Greenpeace , the international environmental organization, said that the details did not allow for a full assessment by outsiders of the project’s likely ecological consequences. A 2014 study in the journal Scientific Reports found that reservoirs covering a total area equivalent to the size of Vermont had been constructed across China over the previous six decades, and that most of China’s large freshwater lakes — not including Poyang and Dongting, another freshwater lake in the Yangtze River basin — were regulated for irrigation, flood protection and other uses. Lu Xixi , one of the study’s authors and a geography professor at the National University of Singapore , said the Chinese government’s approach to hydrological challenges was often driven by an “engineering mentality.” As a result, he said, the consequences of engineering projects — such as erosion — were often addressed with further engineering, even when less-intensive solutions might be more effective or less harmful to the watershed. “We think the mentality must be changed,” Mr. Lu said in an interview. Mr. Burnham said that stabilizing Poyang’s flood pulse would make its seasonal variations more predictable, potentially allowing for economic activities in places near the lake that were once at risk of flooding during the summer. But he said it was unlikely that the migratory birds that feed at the lake during the winter dry season would see any benefits from the proposed sluice gate. One of Mr. Burnham’s latest studies shows that when Poyang’s water levels were high during an unusually wet winter in 2011, Siberian cranes fled to nearby grasslands but did not absorb as many calories there as they normally do from vegetation in the lake’s mud flats. The study also says that grassland feeding could potentially slow the birds’ reproduction over the long term. “There aren’t many other places for these birds to go: Poyang is the last, best place around,” Mr. Burnham said. “And if that’s no longer available, or if it gets altered to the point where it can’t be used anymore, you’re going to see a collapse of these species in the wild.”

Lake
Endangered Species
Drought
Greenpeace
China
Jiangxi China
Environment
Fish


After Losses, Ted Cruz Picks Carly Fiorina as Running Mate and Bernie Sanders Retrenches

Abstract: Reeling from their losses in Tuesday’s Democratic and Republican primaries, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas abruptly reordered their campaigns on Wednesday, aiming to preserve some small hope that the race might yet turn in their favor. Mr. Cruz named a running mate, Carly Fiorina, to help bring down Donald J. Trump, the Republican favorite, and both spoke of Mr. Trump in the language of relentless opposition, casting him as a sinister figure who must not be allowed to become president. On the Democratic side, Mr. Sanders said he would scale back his upstart bid for the White House and lay off hundreds of campaign workers, a measure seemingly intended to extend the life of his candidacy but not to prepare for a general election. In an interview, Mr. Sanders acknowledged in the strongest terms yet that Hillary Clinton’s delegate lead might have closed off his path to the nomination, and he was less combative toward his party’s front-runner in his moment of apparent defeat, taking a tone of cold realism, if not quite resignation. Stymied in his efforts this week to challenge Mrs. Clinton’s dominance in the urban Northeast, Mr. Sanders said he would now refocus his efforts chiefly on the June 7 primary in California, a state laden with both delegates and political symbolism. By winning there, he said, he hoped to strengthen his hand ahead of the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, where he would push his core priorities into the party platform. “If we can win the largest state in this country, that will send a real message to the American people,” Mr. Sanders said, “and to the delegates that this is a campaign that is moving in the direction it should.” The Sanders campaign said late Wednesday that it would continue to maintain a staff of more than 300 as the race moved toward California. The campaign had roughly 1,000 workers during the initial nominating contests. Mr. Sanders did not rule out a comeback before the end of primary voting in June. But he has appeared to tone down his antagonism of Mrs. Clinton in recent days, abandoning his brief attacks on her qualifications for the presidency and instead focusing on her policy stances and ties to Wall Street. Video Senator Ted Cruz announced that if he is the Republican presidential candidate, his running mate would be Carly Fiorina, a former candidate herself. Credit Credit Michael Conroy/Associated Press If Mr. Sanders seemed on Wednesday to bow to political reality on the Democratic side — and to Mrs. Clinton’s apparent inevitability as the party’s nominee — Mr. Cruz took a far more defiant line in the Republican race. Walloped by Mr. Trump in the last six primaries and lagging behind him in polls before next week’s contest in Indiana, Mr. Cruz made a daring but somewhat desperate announcement: that in the event of his nomination, Mrs. Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard executive, would be his vice-presidential running mate. Appearing alongside Mrs. Fiorina in Indianapolis, Mr. Cruz delivered a stemwinder of a speech, castigating Mr. Trump as an untrustworthy narcissist. He and Mrs. Fiorina jointly criticized the news media for rushing to treat Mr. Trump’s victory in the nomination fight as a foregone conclusion. The Republican race, Mrs. Fiorina said, was a struggle “for the soul of our party and the future of our nation.” By rushing out a vice-presidential pick before the Indiana vote, which is becoming make-or-break for his candidacy, Mr. Cruz opted to tear open his party’s divisions even more widely, rather than to stand down in view of Mr. Trump’s growing strength. Mr. Cruz’s criteria for a pick, in his telling, seemed to be aimed squarely at Mr. Trump. “Do they think through decisions in a rash and impulsive way?” he asked. “Do they pop off the handle at whatever strikes them at any given moment?” He held up Mrs. Fiorina as someone who knows “where jobs come from.” Mr. Cruz’s selection of Mrs. Fiorina may present a perilous challenge for Mr. Trump, who is grappling with mounting criticism of his derisive remarks about women, including his repeated claims that Mrs. Clinton’s sole political asset is “the woman’s card.” Mindful of the gender gap often evident in Mr. Trump’s polling, Cruz allies hope that Mrs. Fiorina will prove a capable foil to him, as she did while besting him in a series of debate exchanges during her own candidacy. Since endorsing Mr. Cruz last month, Mrs. Fiorina has proved to be an eager surrogate, attacking Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton with zeal. 2016 Delegate Count and Primary Results According to the Associated Press, Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton have each won enough delegates to claim their party’s nomination for president. Mr. Trump, viewed unfavorably by most women in general election polls, has clashed savagely with Mrs. Fiorina in the past. He has mocked her business record, her voice and even her looks. “Look at that face,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine last summer. “Would anyone vote for that?” Another slashing comment directed at Mrs. Fiorina’s appearance or gender could have grave consequences for Mr. Trump, especially with female voters he would need to win over to compete in the fall. Mr. Trump responded to the surprise announcement with a degree of restraint. Referring to the “new relationship” between “Cruz and Carly,” Mr. Trump shook his head and raised his eyebrows as he dismissed the move. “He has set a record,” Mr. Trump said of his opponent. “He is the first presidential candidate in the history of this country who’s mathematically eliminated from becoming president who chose a vice-presidential candidate.” Mr. Cruz’s gambit was received chiefly as an act of beleaguered improvisation — the political equivalent of a student pulling a fire alarm to avoid an exam. In the short term, Mr. Cruz may have succeeded in shifting the focus away from Mr. Trump’s success in the last two rounds of voting, and from his own wheezing alliance with Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, who agreed to clear out of Indiana if Mr. Cruz withdrew from competition in Oregon and New Mexico. Yet his partnership with Mrs. Fiorina may prove of limited value if Mr. Trump clobbers them both in Indiana, where 57 delegates are at stake. Mr. Trump already leads Mr. Cruz by more than 400 delegates, and has gathered more than three-quarters of the delegates he needs to clinch the Republican nomination. Mr. Cruz acknowledged in his speech on Wednesday that he no longer had a chance of winning the 1,237 delegates required to become the nominee, but said he still planned to challenge Mr. Trump in an open convention. With his announcement, Mr. Cruz becomes the first candidate in 40 years — since Ronald Reagan in 1976 — to name a running mate before capturing his party’s nomination. Far more conventional is Mr. Sanders’s shift toward a strategy of dogged and benign persistence, rather than aggressive confrontation with Mrs. Clinton. Candidates for president routinely scale back their campaigns but forge ahead because they hope to advance a specific policy agenda, or out of a sense of obligation to their supporters. Mrs. Clinton, for one, insisted on fighting the 2008 Democratic race all the way through the last day of primary voting, even after Barack Obama had gained a permanent upper hand in the competition for delegates. Yet few losing candidates in recent memory have generated the kind of electric energy within the Democratic base that Mr. Sanders has in the 2016 election. Democratic leaders are especially sensitive to his following among young people, who have voted for him by staggering margins, and whose support Mrs. Clinton may rely on against Mr. Trump in the November election. Even if Mr. Sanders shies away from direct conflict with Mrs. Clinton, he could still be an irksome presence in the race. He is likely to win several primaries in May, and a large-scale effort in California could pressure Mrs. Clinton to spend time and money there to forestall an embarrassing upset. But unlike Mr. Trump, who appears determined to batter Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich into submission, Mrs. Clinton and her allies have taken a gingerly approach to Mr. Sanders in what seem to be the waning days of his campaign. They have urged Mr. Sanders to sand down the sharpest edges of his arguments against Mrs. Clinton and begin to prepare the party for a moment of coming together in Philadelphia. Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware, a Clinton supporter, said Democrats hoped for “a somewhat rapid conclusion” to the primaries, but viewed withdrawing from the presidential race as a “personal decision” for Mr. Sanders. “Obviously, as you get to this point, you want to see all Democrats focused on the Republicans and not focused on each other,” Mr. Markell said. Mr. Sanders, he added, “certainly believes that electing one of these Republicans as president would be a real nightmare for the country.”

2016 Presidential Election
Bernard Sanders,Bernie Sanders
Ted Cruz
Carleton Fiorina,Carly Fiorina
Primaries
Hillary Clinton
Republicans
Democrats
Layoffs


Computer Support, Can You Rock to This?

Abstract: Christopher Guest, the actor, writer and director famous for spoofs like “This Is Spinal Tap,” “A Mighty Wind” and “Best in Show,” has two music videos coming out today. His fans may recognize his signature style — lots of music and earnest self-parody — but not the products that the videos are pitching: the vPro and Centrino Pro from Intel , which are used by information technology professionals to maintain and repair computers securely and remotely. The videos’ soundtracks are two songs written by Mr. Guest and his longtime collaborator, C. J. Vanston, which incorporate technical terms specified by Intel. Samples include the Melissa virus (which arrived in many e-mail boxes a few years ago, usually with the message, “Here is that document you asked for ... don’t show anyone else ;-)”) and PEBKAC, which stands for “problem exists between keyboard and chair” and is used by I.T. folks to refer to clueless users. Intel hired Mr. Guest to create two two-minute videos about vPro, which was introduced in 2006, and Centrino Pro, introduced in the spring, as part of a decision to forgo more traditional advertising. Nancy Bhagat, vice president of integrated marketing for Intel, said she hoped the films would “help us break through and reach out to the audience” of I.T. professionals. The concept for the videos was developed by McCann Erickson and MRM Worldwide, a digital marketing company, both owned by Interpublic Group of Companies. Intel will post the videos on a variety of Web sites. Some of them, like InformationWeek.com and Gizmodo.com , are for techies, but others, like YouTube.com, are not. I.T. people are a “huge fan base” for Mr. Guest, Ms. Bhagat said, but Intel wants wider notice. “If it does go broader, whether people understand the technical terms or not, the pure entertainment value will be positive for our brand imagery,” she said. She declined to quantify Intel’s budget for the videos, but said they cost “significantly less” than a television commercial. In one video, a guitarist trails a soft-rock singer (representing Intel software) as he swans through a cubicled office. A hard-rock singer in studded, black clothing (representing Intel hardware) performs with his bandmates in the middle of the office. Then the two singers meet (note the heavy symbolism), and the office starts to look like a rock concert finale, with the smoke-engulfed performers watched by an audience — in this case office workers — swaying and waving cigarette lighters. Mr. Guest, who has been making commercials for more than 10 years for companies like Carrier (the air-conditioning manufacturer) and Kellogg’s, said that writing the Intel songs was “very difficult” given that while he is computer literate, he is not an “Apple genius.” “The premise was very arcane,” he said. “We had to write music and lyrics about things most of which we’d never heard of.” JANE L. LEVERE

Guest Christopher
Music
Computers and the Internet
Advertising and Marketing
Intel Corp