Arnold Schwarzenegger has expanded his political lexicon into the time-honoured realm of bar-room vulgarity.

As an action hero, his catchphrases ranged from "hasta la vista" to "I'll be back". As a cigar-chomping legislator he branded "gutless" opponents "girlie men". Now Arnold Schwarzenegger has expanded his political lexicon into the time-honoured realm of bar-room vulgarity.
The California governor yesterday found himself attempting to play down the revelation that a blunt email he sent to one of San Francisco's Democratic Assemblymen contained what US news bulletins have somewhat prudishly described as an "X-rated rebuke".
At first sight, the message that Mr Schwarzenegger sent to Tom Ammiano, explaining why he'd vetoed a boring bill about financing the city's port, seems straightforward enough. It begins "for some time now", and concludes: "I believe it is unnecessary to sign this measure at this time." However, a vertical reading of the first left-hand letter in each of the seven lines of the main body of the email suggests that the former Kindergarten Cop actor, who is due to leave office next year, was passing on an altogether less statesmanlike message.

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The Governor's press secretary, Aaron McLear, insisted yesterday that it was simply a "weird coincidence" that the email had acrostically spelled out an obscenity. He claimed that the sheer volume of the vetoes that Mr Schwarzenegger has been forced to pass in recent years meant "something like this was bound to happen".
In recent months, Mr McLear noted, the left-hand margin of the Governor's veto emails has spelled out such harmless words as "poet" and "soap". That's as may be. But the claim met with a healthy dose of scepticism: the words cited by McLear are four letters long, a length relatively likely to crop up at random. The mathematical probability of the seven-letter phrase "fuck you" doing the same is 26 to the power of seven – or about 8,031,810,176 – to one.
Mr Schwarzenegger certainly has "form" for tasteless political gestures. This year, he sent a bronze statue of a pair of bull's testicles to California's Democratic senate leader, urging him to have the cojones to take tough budget choices.
Adding to suspicions that Mr Schwarzenegger was merely trying to goad Mr Ammiano is the fact that the duo recently enjoyed a very public falling-out. Earlier this month, they crossed swords when the Republican governor decided to show up, unannounced, at a Democratic party fundraiser that was being held at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. Video footage of the event shows that Mr Ammiano began heckling about a string of budget cuts that had recently been passed in an effort to ease California's spiralling debt. He shouted "you lie!" before leaving the room hollering that Mr Schwarzenegger could "kiss my gay ass!"
Though Mr Schwarzenegger's obscenity caused much controversy on the airwaves, a spokesman for Mr Ammiano said that he was neither fazed nor offended by it. "Kudos to the governor for his creative use of coincidence," he said. "You certainly have to have a sense of humour in politics... We will call it even and start with a clean slate with the governor from here on out."

Sri Lankan-born billionaire is not the "ogre"

My coverage of Raj Rajaratnam, the Wall Street hedge fund manager accused of orchestrating a sophisticated insider trading ring with tipsters at firms such as IBM and Intel, has prompted an email from an acquaintance of the accused who says the Sri Lankan-born billionaire is not the "ogre" he is being made out to be.
Vijay Dandapani, chief executive of a budget hospitality company in Manhattan called Apple Core Hotels, writes to say that he was invited by Rajaratnam on a cricket trip a few years back and has since seen him "off and on" in New York.
"I do know Raj, though not well, and find it hard to believe that he is the ogre he is being made out to be," says Dandapani.
"All I can say with certainty is that I came away with the impression that he is a stellar individual on many counts, not least of it being probity on a personal level," he continues. "I do know others who know him far better who have recounted stories of his seemingly endless personal generosity while, at the same time, striving to keep his wealth and stature out of the social mix."
Rajaratanam was arrested alongside five others on October 16 and charged with 13 criminal counts of fraud and conspiracy, through alleged insider tips that produced profits of $20m for his Galleon Group hedge fund, which is winding down after an abrupt exodus of clients.In court papers, the department for justice said it swooped on Rajaratnam because the financier had become suspicious, correctly, that one of his associates was wearing a wire. The feds moved in as Rajaratnam was preparing to catch a flight out of New York's Kennedy airport to London, and then on to Switzerland.
The Rajaratnam camp argues that there was nothing fishy about this trip, and that he certainly wasn't fleeing justice. Those around him told Bloomberg News that he was heading to London to explore an AIM flotation of his hedge fund and to see a movie he had invested in, called "Today's Special", at the London Film Festival. His Swiss travel plans, according to sources close to Rajaratnam, were to meet investors in Geneva.
Rajaratnam, who is ranked by Forbes as the world's 551st richest man, is facing a litany of lawsuits. His business is liquidating and he has been accused by one group of litigants of channelling money to the Tamil Tigers in the country of his birth. We've not heard much of his side of the story yet. But this is proving to be an intriguing saga.

Bernard Madoff's $65bn (£40bn) Ponzi scheme has died

A Florida billionaire who was a top beneficiary of Bernard Madoff's $65bn (£40bn) Ponzi scheme has died, apparently by drowning in the swimming pool of his mansion in the exclusive seaside enclave of Palm Beach.
Jeffry Picower, 67, was found by his wife and housekeeper shortly after midday on Sunday. Emergency services were unable to revive him and he was pronounced dead at the Good Samaritan medical centre.
An accountant turned wealthy investor, Picower was a friend of Madoff's and was named in court papers as the biggest beneficiary of returns from the Wall Street fraudster's corrupt investment empire.
Although Picower insisted he was unaware of any wrongdoing, bankruptcy trustees for Madoff's firm sued him for $7.2bn earlier this year, claiming that he "knew or should have known" that his phenomenal payouts were fraudulent and that, at a minimum, he had "failed to exercise reasonable due diligence".
A suit filed by lawyers for the trustee Irving Picard claimed that Picower was receiving even greater returns than other investors, topping 100% some years, and that the money ought to be refunded for distribution to the fraudster's victims.
Picower's abrupt death is yet another tragic twist to the saga surrounding Madoff's record-breaking fraud, which has been blamed for at least two suicides among victims.
Palm Beach police said Picower's wife, Barbara, told emergency dispatchers she had "just found her husband at the bottom of their swimming pool".
Don Taylor, acting battalion chief for Palm Beach's fire service, told the Palm Beach Post emergency workers had been unable to revive him.
"We had no pulse and he was not breathing on his own," said Taylor. "We worked on him to try to stabilise him as best we could."
Picower's wealth was estimated by Forbes magazine at $1bn, putting him among the 400 wealthiest people in the US. He used to head a charitable foundation that gave money to educational and health-related causes, although this shut down after losing its endowment in Madoff's fraud.
A lawyer for Picower's family, William Zabel, said the billionaire had suffered from Parkinson's disease and "heart-related issues".
Picower consistently said his charity and his own personal finances had suffered from Madoff's crimes. But his withdrawals from Madoff's fund were viewed with suspicion after the fraudster's unmasking.
The bankruptcy trustee sifting through the remnants of Madoff's firm has taken an aggressive approach towards "clawback" from those to whom Madoff paid out gains.
In August, Picower described efforts to force him to hand back money as a "paradigm of excess", and his lawyers have said he was "in no way complicit" in corruption.
Madoff, considered the biggest fraudster in Wall Street history, is serving a 150-year sentence for theft, fraud and money laundering at Butner prison in North Carolina.

capital boost of 300 billion yen

Japan Airlines Corporation (JAL) is likely to suffer record losses amounting up to 5.5 billion dollars this year, according to newspaper reports on Thursday. The major causes for the losses are believed to be the costs pertaining to a major overhaul of the company which included a great deal of pay cuts as well.
The Yomiuri has said that a report presented by a taskforce appointed by the government to oversee the restructuring shows that the company would have to bear potential losses of 500 billion yen leading up to March next year. The task force has asked for a capital boost of 300 billion yen and a debt relief of 250 billion yen by means of a debt-waiver and debt for equity exchange scheme.
The newly estimated loss figure of 500 million yen is more than eight times the 63 billion yen deficit predicted in May, as demand fell due to the global recession and fear of swine flu. In the April- June quarter itself, JAL had suffered losses greater than 1 billion dollars. If the situation remains the way it is now, JAL may need another government bailout to remain in business.
According to reports in the Nikkei economic daily, the Transport Minister Seiji Maehara would request Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii to save the airline by pumping in public money. The decision on this bailout and to rescue the airline is likely to be taken in a few days.
JAL had announced plans to reduce 6800 jobs last month, in addition to a huge reduction in routes and tying up with a foreign airline. As of now, JAL is seeking new loans amounting to 350 billion yen from both public and private backs.

Mr Roubini - like many other economists

Nouriel Roubini told the BBC that he is concerned about the growing gap between the "bubbly and frothy" stock markets and the real economy.
Over the last six months, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen about 45%.
But Mr Roubini says he sees an economy where consumers are "shopped out" and "debt burdened".
'Crisis not over'
Based on the run up in share prices in recent months, investors appear to be betting that good times are around the corner. A view not shared by Mr Roubini.
"The crisis is not yet over," the New York University professor said.
I think that there is a growing gap between what is the asset prices and the real economy
Nouriel Roubini
"I see an economy where the consumers are shopped out, debt burdened, they have to cut back consumption and save more.
"The financial system is damaged... and for the corporate sector I don't see a lot of capital spending because there is a glut of capacity."
Mr Roubini believes US house prices have further to fall, straining America's fragile recovery.
'Frothy markets'
Property prices have already declined sharply. According to the National Association of Realtors, the national median has dropped almost 13% from a year ago to $177,700 (£110,100).
Many believe the crises in the residential market could spread to the commercial real estate market causing more headaches for the banks.
So where does the "froth" in the markets come from?
Mr Roubini - like many other economists - believes it is engineered by the Federal Reserve and the government which has been pumping cash into the economy to dampen the pain of the recession.
"There is a wall of liquidity chasing assets," he said. "But I think that there is a growing gap between what is the asset prices and the real economy."
Although he thinks there will be a correction, he believes some of the mistakes of the past can be avoided if reforms are implemented .

Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii made the remarks last week

The BOJ had been expected to say when it would begin withdrawing measures such as buying corporate bonds and offering low-interest loans.
It upgraded its view of the economy, saying it "had started to pick up".
There has been some pressure from the government to keep the stimulus going because the economy is still unstable.
'Too risky'
Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii made the remarks last week, although he later stressed that it was up to the BOJ to decide what to do.
Comments from ministers "revealed the gap in views between the government and the Bank of Japan on corporate financing conditions," said Hirokato Kusaba, senior economist at Mizuho Research Institute.
"After that, the BOJ probably judged it was too risky to announce an end to corporate fund support now."
The current strength of the yen against the US dollar may also have encouraged the BOJ to delay its decision.
The stimulus measures had been expected to start being wound down at the end of the year, but some analysts have said they could now continue until March.

UK too is coming out of recession

The Office for National Statistics figures showed manufacturing fell 0.1% in the second quarter, which was half the amount previously estimated.
The rate of decline in construction was 0.8% instead of 2.2%, the ONS said.
Savings rise
ONS data also showed that people are saving more of their incomes than at any time in the past five years.
The household savings rate rose to 5.6% in the second quarter from 3.9% from the previous three months, its highest since 2003.
ANALYSIS

Stephanie Flanders, BBC economics editor
Coupled with other, more recent evidence, the GDP data adds to the view that the economy started growing again in the summer.
But the end of the recession does not necessarily spell a strong recovery. In fact, it reminds us that the economy could be battling headwinds for some time to come.
The rise in the household saving rate is a necessary - and welcome - adjustment. But obviously, that extra saving is money that isn't being spent in the shops.
There are also still only limited signs that the Bank of England's £175bn quantitative easing policy is reaching the broader economy. The Bank's preferred measure of the money supply rose by just 0.2% in August.
Mortgage approvals dip in August
The BBC's economics editor Stephanie Flanders said that although this was a necessary and welcome adjustment, given the levels of personal debt seen in recent years, it could affect the strength of any recovery.
"Obviously, that extra saving is money that isn't being spent in the shops," she said.
Recovery hopes
Several other countries, including Germany and Japan, emerged from recession in the second quarter.
Chancellor Alistair Darling suggested this week that the UK was approaching the end of its recession.
"Germany, France and Japan are showing signs of growth. Many independent forecasters now believe the UK too is coming out of recession," Mr Darling said on Monday.
"I think it is too early to say so with total confidence. But I stick with my Budget prediction that, as long as we continue to support the economy, recovery will be underway in the UK by the turn of the year," he said at the Labour Party conference in Brighton.
The year-on-year decline in GDP remained at 5.5%. It was revised from a fall of 5.6% last month.
Economists had expected the annual rate of decline to rise to a 5.4% contraction.
'Slow recovery'
"There is some good news in the mass of UK data released today, but generally the figures highlight the fragility of the economic recovery," said Vicky Redwood, an economist at Capital Economics.
"It still looks likely to be a long, slow recovery."
Separately, the CBI employers' body said in its distributive trades survey that UK retail sales rose unexpectedly in September.
The survey's respondents were also optimistic that sales would continue to increase next month.
QE progress
The official data comes as the Bank of England met economists from the City to discuss its policy of adding money into the economy is working - known as quantitative easing (QE).
The Bank initially had the authority to create up to £150bn on the balance sheet and surprised many by increasing the amount by another £25bn in August.
"I think it's great that the Bank is doing this," said Colin Ellis, a former senior economist at the Bank who attended the meeting, told the BBC.
Mr Ellis declined to discuss the details of the meeting.
"There are massive uncertainties over QE still, but it was very useful for me to understand the Bank's thinking on this."
"I went in quite sceptical about QE, and that view hasn't changed," he added.

Labour Minister Akira Nagatsuma

But the number of people unemployed hit a six-year high of 3.61 million in August, a figure which was up 32.7% on the same month of 2008.
Official figures also showed that household spending rose 2.6% in August from a year earlier.
Also on Friday, US figures for September showed 263,000 jobs had been lost, taking the jobless rate to 9.8%.
'Worst levels'
Analysts had been expecting the Japanese jobless rate to rise again in August.
"The unemployment rate fell earlier than expected, but we don't know yet whether it is just a dip for one month or something more continuous," said Masamichi Adachi, senior economist at JPMorgan Securities.
The quarterly Tankan survey of business confidence on Thursday had indicated that companies were feeling better than they had three months before, but that they still felt they had too much capacity and too many workers.
The number of workers employed in manufacturing fell almost 10% year on year, but the number employed in the care and hospitality sectors rose.
There was a cautious response to the figures from the government.
"The figures may give the impression that the situation has improved a bit," said Labour Minister Akira Nagatsuma.
"However, it continued to be around the worst levels in the post-war period."

5.3 percent of emissions

EDAYANCHAVADI, INDIA — Another piece of land was denuded around here last month. It started early on a Monday morning. A group of men, armed with shovels and saws, aided by a yellow excavator, cleared eight acres by a road. They cut down neem trees, acacia trees, palmyras and a couple of thick jackfruit trees.
About 40 trees were felled. By the time they were done, the land was a tangle of branches and dead leaves. A few wizened stumps and roots were left behind, strewn around the upturned earth like corpses.
I went looking for the owners of the land. I met one of them, a 44-year-old man named K. Murugayian, on a hot Tuesday afternoon. He told me, in a slightly sheepish but deliberate way, about why the land had been cleared.
He said the property had been in his family for over a century. His father — and his father before him — used to farm it, but then, about 15 years ago, it became harder to turn a profit from farming. Recently, the family was approached by a real-estate broker. He had some buyers in Chennai, about 160 kilometers, or 100 miles, away. The money offered was astronomical; Murugayian said it was more than five times what the family had been offered just a few years ago.
Murugayian and his three uncles, the four titleholders to the land, discussed the offer. One of his uncles was eager to sell; he was childless, getting old and having a hard time making ends meet. Murugayian said he wasn’t in a hurry, but he wasn’t complaining about the money. He had three daughters that he needed to marry off, his wife wanted a washing machine, and he was thinking of buying a car so his family could go on road trips.
Still, it wasn’t an easy decision. The land had been in the family for so long. Murugayian told me that when he saw the trees being cut, he felt like he was losing a part of himself.
This is how it is all around here now days: the rural economy is booming, development is sweeping over the South Indian countryside like a wave, and villagers are being forced into choices they would rather not have to make. Too often, it’s the environment — the trees and the water and the air — that suffers.
Down by the beach, unauthorized construction and a government-built port are eroding the coastline, changing the contours of the Bay of Bengal and disrupting fishermen’s livelihoods.
In the farms and fields that surround my home, farmers struggle with declining yields and land that is turning barren. Decades of chemical pesticides have reduced the fertility of the soil. A new generation of electric pumps has overexploited the water table.
Behind the village of Edayanchavadi, where Murugayian and his uncles grew up, a waste dump spews toxic fumes into the air. Some nights I smell the fumes in my living room. I know the air is filled with dioxins; I worry for my children.
India faces some of the most severe environmental challenges in the world. A government report published earlier this year estimates that 45 percent of the country’s geographic area suffers some form of land degradation; three million deaths a year are attributable to air pollution; and almost 70 percent of the nation’s surface water is contaminated.
According to the World Bank, environmental sustainability could represent the biggest obstacle to the nation’s development.
But the politics — and morality — of environmentalism in a country as poor as India are complicated. Indira Gandhi, a former prime minister, famously announced at the United Nations’ first environmental conference, in 1972, that “poverty is the biggest polluter.”
Those sentiments were echoed recently when Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh snubbed the U.S. secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, by telling her in public that India could not accept binding carbon emission targets because doing so would stunt the nation’s economic growth.
It’s a widely held view in a country where the global environmental movement has sometimes been seen as a form of colonialism — a Western attempt to slow India’s development, to deny the country the fruits of industrialization enjoyed by the developed world.
The United States, with under 5 percent of the world’s population, accounts for more than 20 percent of total carbon emissions. India, with more than 17 percent of the global population, accounts for just 5.3 percent of emissions. Why, people ask, should India pay a price for the West’s profligacy?
It’s a fair question; the American and European positions have a whiff of hypocrisy. Still, when I see what’s going on around me — when I see how the farms are drying up, how forests and the coastline are disappearing, when I smell the dioxins in my house — I can’t help but feel that it’s a form of hypocrisy we had better learn to live with.
If we sacrifice nature at the altar of material progress and global fairness, we risk, as Murugayian put it to me, losing a part of ourselves. Poverty is a serious problem. But pollution, I’ve come to believe, is itself a form of poverty.
There’s a woman who lives in a village next to Edayanchavadi. Her name is R. Ponngavanam; she’s in her late 50s. She walks past Murugayian’s land every day on her way to work. She told me that the sight of the fallen trees made her sad. She was especially dismayed that so many neem trees were cut down. For her, as for many of her generation, neem trees are holy; they’re venerated for their medicinal properties.
She remembers, as a child, brushing her teeth with neem branches. When her children were injured, she would cover their wounds with neem leaves.
I asked why she didn’t voice her objections to the men clearing the land. She laughed. She said she was an old woman, and they were young. She said she was poor. She lived in a small house without running water. She said: “The landowners are rich now. I’m nobody. Who am I to say anything to them?”

DoFE stopped issuing work permits to new workers

Kathmandu (AsiaNews) – The number of Nepali migrant workers leaving for foreign destinations during the first 11 months of the current fiscal year is down by 10 per cent from last year. Departures dropped from 219,458 a year ago to 197,347. However, the number of jobseekers going to foreign lands by using personal contacts surged.
The trend of finding employment through personal contact had increased due to fear among manpower agencies caused by the global recession, said Mohan Krishna Sapkota, director general of the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE).
Agencies “are afraid of sending fresh workers, and entertain only genuine demands from foreign employers,” Sapkota explained.
By contrast, departures because of personal contacts rose from 12,637 to 40,658 individuals, an increase of 234.99 per cent during the same period.
Manpower agencies complain that part of the problem is DoFE’s red tape, which is not the case for individuals who do it alone.
Nepalis are working in more than 50 countries. Qatar (68,844), Saudi Arabia (44,741) and Malaysia (31,157) top the list.
The current slump has especially affected migrant workers going to South Asia. For instance, the number of Nepalis going to work in Malaysia began declining in mid-August 2008 due to falling demand.
In January of this year the DoFE stopped issuing work permits to new workers after the Malaysian government announced it would stop recruiting foreign workers citing the worldwide financial crisis.
Nepal’s recent political crisis has also had an impact on migrant labour.
The resignation of Prime Minister Prachanda and the tug-of-war between the Maoist leader and President Ram Baran Yadav have weakened the government’s ability to protect the rights of Nepalis working abroad.
As fewer Nepalis go abroad to work less foreign money flows back into the country, and this is having a significant impact on the national economy.
For example, according to the Non-residential Nepalese Association (NRN), remittances by the almost seven millions Nepalis working abroad represent 40 per cent of the government’s annual budget.

the world saw dramatic spikes in food prices

The following post is from One Table, a Mercy Corps campaign to fight world hunger by investing in the world's women.
Today almost a billion people worldwide are unable to buy or grow enough food to avoid malnutrition. That's 120 million more than were hungry in 2006.
What happened? Basically, the world saw dramatic spikes in food prices. But there were many underlying causes of what's known as the global food crisis:
Drought and other climate-related problems that resulted in smaller harvests
Changing diets — rise of the middle class in India and China and an increased demand for food, especially meat, which requires large amounts of grain to raise
Diversion of crops from food production to the production of biofuels
High fuel prices during 2008 — if it costs more to transport food, prices go up
Declining investments in agricultural productivity — total agriculture development aid to poor countries plunged from $8 billion in 1984 to $3.4 billion in 2004. At the same time, the developing world's cities have been ballooning with people who do not grow any of their food
Export bans and restrictions last year in several major grain-producing countries like China as governments sought to lower food prices for their own citizens, with the result of reducing the global supply on hand.
While food prices have come down from their highs of 2008, they remain substantially above historic levels. Many economists feel this trend, which most severely affects those who can least afford it, is likely to continue for some time.
The economic, health and societal costs of the global food crisis have been severe. One of the first things Mercy Corps did to figure out how and where to direct our efforts was to survey the communities where we work. We discovered that within communities Mercy Corps serves, roughly 70 percent of income is spent on food, and 80 percent of the population had been affected by rising food prices over the past year. The survey also confirmed something we already suspected: that families were coping with higher prices by eating fewer meals, selling off household belongings, going into debt and removing children from school so that they can work.
In addition to being a record year for food prices, it's also been a record year for our food security team, allowing Mercy Corps to aggressively respond to this crisis. We now have 17 programs in 13 countries designed specifically to respond to this on-going problem. Through support from donors including USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Gap Foundation, the Hunger Site, and private individuals, our Food Crisis Response employs a strategy designed to ensure that the groundwork for increased prosperity in the future is laid — even while addressing the immediate problem of accessing sufficient food.
Food distributions, much of which are specifically targeted to improve child nutrition, are taking place in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, in the Central African Republic, India, Indonesia, Liberia, Nepal, Niger, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Uganda and again Zimbabwe, Mercy Corps is helping hungry households to access food by providing employment opportunities, agricultural training and inputs (such as seeds and tools), and helping people establish and grow small businesses.
Combined, these programs are reaching almost 1.5 million individuals who have been directly impacted by higher food prices. Overall, Mercy Corps’ Crisis Response will lead to a sustainable increase in income for these people, leading in turn to greater food security over the long-term.

Worldwide recession has pushed 100 million

18 September 2009 – The global economic crisis continues to push millions of the world’s most vulnerable people into poverty, hunger and early death, a new United Nations report warns, stressing that “green shoots” of recovery are not being felt by the poor in the developing world.
Estimates suggest that the worldwide recession has pushed 100 million more people below the poverty line and 61 million people have been added to the number of jobless over the last two years, according to the report.
“The ‘near poor’ are becoming the ‘new poor,’” Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro told reporters in New York at the launch of the Voices of the Vulnerable: the Economic Crisis from the Ground Up report.
“Workers in both the formal and informal sectors are being badly hit, particularly in manufacturing, commerce and construction,” said Ms. Migiro, before quoting one construction worker who said that the “monster” economic crisis is “devouring the poor.”
She added that migrants are finding their situation increasingly precarious, with forecasts predicting that remittances to developing countries will be reduced by over seven per cent this year.
“Youth unemployment is dramatically increasing,” Ms. Migiro stressed. “The number of unemployed youth has increased by as many as 18.2 million over the last year.”
In addition, the report – part of a new UN initiative to monitor and draw attention to emerging crises – notes that an increase of 100 million people suffer from hunger and infant mortality rates are set to rise by an additional 200,000 to 400,000 deaths each year from now to 2015, if the crisis persists.
“Many of the poor and vulnerable are running out of coping strategies,” said Ms. Migiro. “They are being exhausted by crisis after crisis,” including the global food and fuel price hike crises that struck last year, on top of local floods, droughts and conflicts.
The crises may have long-term consequences, with tens of millions of children suffering from cognitive and physical injury caused by malnutrition as a result of the food and economic crises.
Ms. Migiro warned that the spread of the H1N1 influenza pandemic to countries already devastated by the economic crisis, or the onset of new natural disasters, are among the last straws that may “break the back of overstretched populations and governments.”
The report is part of larger UN initiative called the Global Impact and Vulnerability Alert System (GIVAS), developed to provide early, real-time data to the international community on how external shocks, such as the economic crisis, are affecting the welfare of the vulnerable and poor.
The Secretary-General is slated to present the report to the annual high-level debate at the General Assembly in New York next week, which takes place ahead of the summit in Pittsburgh, United States, for the Group of 20 (G20) leading economic nations.
Both forums will address the impact of the ongoing economic crisis, with the report underscoring the need to protect not only the poor and vulnerable but also the increasing number of middle class families slipping into poverty

Brecon Mountain Railway in Merthyr Tydfil

The local mine is a mere three miles away and is clearly visible from the offices of the Brecon Mountain Railway in Merthyr Tydfil.
But regulations about how it can be transported mean that coal for the railway's newly converted steam train comes not from the south Wales valleys but from Siberia, 3,000 miles away.
Coal from the Ffos-y-Fran opencast mine in Merthyr has to be moved by rail rather than road. As there is no rail link from the mine to the railway, coal for the converted engine comes from the wilds of Siberia via rail to the ports, then container ship to Hull, then by road to Merthyr.
The railway owner, Jayne Hills, said: "It seems ludicrous that we could get coal from three miles away but instead are being forced to import it from 3,000 miles away. I dread to think what the carbon footprint must be like of moving that coal but we have no choice."
Hills said it was even more galling because the local coal was perfect for use in a steam locomotive. It generates steam quickly and maintains its heat.
The railway would like to convert another of its locomotives to steam from oil but is reluctant to do so in case it becomes impossible to get the coal.
"Being from Merthyr, where everyone has a relative who was a coal miner, or knew somebody who was a miner, this seems just crazy," she said.
The mine operator, Miller Argent, said it was not just the railway that had to source coal from faraway locations despite there being a mine close by. Local coal merchants who supply homes, pubs, schools and hospitals were also having to look elsewhere for their supply because the mine's planning permission stipulated it could only move coal by rail.
The joint managing director, James Poyner, said: "Welsh dry steam coal used to power the world's railways and ships. It seems odd that local people and businesses are not allowed access to it."
Up to 20,000 tonnes of coal a week is dug at the site and the bulk of it goes to the Aberthaw power station, near Cardiff. The company has its own sidings, connected to a branch line and then to the main line so that coal can be moved farther afield. But the Brecon railway and others have found that it makes more sense to go to the Siberians rather than try to get the Merthyr coal back to their area.
Miller Argent is now applying for permission to move a relatively small amount of coal by road rather than rail, though some residents have objected because they don't want more lorries on the road.

Worcester, Massachusetts, 25 miles away from the launch site

The duo claim to be the first people to send a do-it-yourself space camera to the edge of the Earth's atmosphere. In the past, capturing these kind of images has been reserved for big-budget agencies like NASA.
The idea was 20-year-old Oliver Yeh's, a student studying computer science and electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in America.

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To create the budget space camera, the students bought a normal camera on eBay and fastened it inside a styrofoam cooler. They then poked a hole in the side of the cooler for the camera lens. To keep track of the space camera's whereabouts they attached a mobile phone and a wireless router to send GPS coordinates back down to Earth.
They set the camera to take a photo every five seconds.
The handwarmer - the type skiers put in their gloves - was taped to the phone's battery to prevent it freezing. The whole package was strapped to a spherical weather balloon filled with helium and sent to the edge of space to take the extraordinary images.
The students calculated that after 17 miles upward, the air pressure would force the weather balloon to pop so they attached a parachute to lower it down to Earth safely. The GPS in the phone would then help them track where the camera had landed.
To avoid the balloon landing in the ocean or Boston City Centre, Yeh and Lee, looked online for the wind speed and direction. Using this information they calculated the best date, time and location to launch the balloon. In case their calculations were wrong, they attached their contact details and offered a £25 reward to anyone finding the box.
The students launched the balloon on the morning of September 2 after travelling 60 miles inland to a warehouse in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. The balloon was in the air for five hours before the air pressure forced it down.
The duo were amazed when they found the camera unharmed at a construction zone outside Worcester, Massachusetts, 25 miles away from the launch site.
Yey's partner in the project, 23-year-old mechanical engineering grad student Justin Lee, said: "We were like placing bets on whether we thought it would work or not. Early on, we were optimistic that it would work. About 4 hours after, [when] we hadn't heard any news about the device, we had sort of given up hope. We'd thought we'd lost it."
After finding the signal, Lee added: "We were so excited, we jumped right back into the car, and we drove out to Worcester, and we found it. That was a great moment.
"There's something that's fascinating about seeing the Earth from high - I can't quite put my finger on it. There's something just beautiful about seeing that."

The biggest loser was industrialist Oleg Deripaska

The most powerful monuments to failure are sometimes the most unremarkable. About two and a half miles from the Kremlin, a dusty windswept parcel of land lays untended.
It was here that the Russia Tower skyscraper was supposed to rise, soaring over the brash capital of the world’s largest energy exporter. Had it been built, it would have been the tallest building in Europe. But then the crisis bit. Moscow’s city fathers have since opted for a project more in keeping with the country’s austere times: a car park. It’s a painful comedown for the world’s largest country.

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Shortly before Lehman Brothers went under last year, Russia was riding high. The price of oil, its biggest export earner, had hit a high of almost $150 a barrel, it was sitting on the world’s third largest foreign currency reserves, its stock indices were roaring, and it was enjoying the most spectacular consumer boom of the post-Soviet era.
Backed by eight straight years of growth, its increasingly healthy economic and financial indicators had emboldened its ruling tandem of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev. The country’s finance minister spoke of Russia as “an island of stability,” Mr Putin cast caution to the wind and lambasted a leading businessman on state TV, and Russia fought and won a short war with its smaller neighbour Georgia. All that, it would later emerge, was the high watermark of what some Russian analysts were without irony calling the “golden age.”
It’s been a bumpy ride since. As the price of oil plunged like a stone and approached the $30 mark, talk of a repeat of Russia’s traumatic 1998 debt default crisis grew louder, billions of dollars of foreign capital fled the country, and its two leading stock indices plunged more sharply and more swiftly than anywhere else.
There were weeks when it seemed that the Russian stock market was closed more than it was open – a desperate and ultimately futile measure to stem its downward spiral. The cost of borrowing money - always steep here – doubled. The ruble slid, forcing the government to fritter away a third of its foreign currency reserves to slow the devaluation in order to avoid panic.
Moscow’s red hot property market ground to a halt, several oligarchs who had binged on cheap credit in the good years couldn’t afford to service their debts, and the consumer boom unwound like a broken yoyo. Car sales collapsed, unpaid back wages grew, joblessness hit a 9-year high, and property developers began to go bankrupt. When the smoke cleared, Russia’s oligarchs found themselves poorer if not humbler.
According to Forbes magazine, the number of dollar billionaires shrunk to 32 from 110 within a year while the value of their assets plunged by a dizzying 70pc. The biggest loser was industrialist Oleg Deripaska. In 2008 and with an estimated fortune of $28.6bn, Forbes said he was Russia’s richest man. A year later, it said he was now worth “only” $3.5bn. Government figures recently showed that the gap between rich and poor – yawning even before the crisis – was now even greater. But with oil trading around the $70 a barrel mark and with stock indices having staged a solid recovery, Kremlin officials say a cautious recovery is now underway.
It will, they concede, probably not be before 2012 when things return to how they were pre-Lehman.

sending out cheques of $900 to millions of Australians

Australia may have escaped the worst of the global financial crisis, recording a less than 2pc increase in unemployment and enjoying a 1pc growth in GDP in the last 6 months, but life in the lucky country has been altered by the shockwaves of the downturn that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
The ostentatious acquisition of flashy cars, designer shoes and expensive waterfront homes with large mortgages that characterised the boom years have been replaced in many suburbs with sustainable, or even frugal, living, a focus on steadily repaying debt and a new "moral consumer".

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Bernard Salt, a cultural commentator and demographer from KPMG, said the fallout from the crisis had resulted in a fast and brutal change in outlook and lifestyle among Australians.
"During the boom years everyone could live in the moment and not worry about the future, but all of a sudden we started to be very concerned about a longer range view," Mr Salt said. "It is now time to repent, to pay back debt, to live within our means, you now need a moral authority to spend money."
The financial crisis has also transformed the way in which Australians interact with each other. A fervent focus on the individual has given way to a growing sense that there is strength in numbers.
"Celebrity chef culture and Australian Idol came out of the boom, it was a celebration of the individual and everything was about being different and quirky and setting yourself apart from the crowd," Mr Salt said.
"But during the downturn you see a return to the idea of the family, the herd, the tribe, the community." Mr Salt said Australians felt "greatly chastened" by the last 12 months, but probably not as much as people in other countries, such as America and Britain.
While society is still grappling with the consequences of the crash, the economy is on the steady road to recovery.
Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital, said that, in an economic sense, the crisis had been positive for Australia. "We went into the crisis with a housing shortage and now we're seeing signs of recovery in housing and China's demand for our exports held up, it's a fairly rosy outlook," he said.
"For many Australians this recession has been good because if you go back a year the standard variable mortgage rate was 9.6pc, petrol was $1.70 a litre and inflation was quite high. Now, as a result of the crisis, ordinary Australians have seen big falls in their interest rates, petrol prices have fallen back dramatically and many Australians got a cheque in the post from the Prime Minister."
Mr Oliver said the while some had struggled with unemployment and having their working hours cut back, many Australians who had kept their jobs were "doing pretty well".
"In some ways most Australians may think if this is what a recession is, then bring it on, which is probably a radically different situation to the UK. Most Australians are feeling pretty relaxed about things."
As well as aiding the ordinary Australian citizen, the global financial crisis has also helped strengthen Kevin Rudd's dominance of Australian politics. While condemned by the opposition, his government's stimulus plan or "fiscal Viagra", which included sending out cheques of $900 to millions of Australians, has been widely credited with pulling the economy back from the brink.
The generous government handouts and building projects kept consumer spending up and prevented unemployment from climbing. The electorate now has renewed confidence that Mr Rudd and the Labour party can negotiate difficult economic times.
But Mr Oliver warned that while a return to 4pc growth was on the cards in the next 12 months, Australia's outlook was not without its dark spots.
"Many foreigners will look at Australia with disbelief, but the Achilles heel is that Australians still have a lot of debt and we have still got expensive houses, but until something really breaks the economy and sends unemployment spiralling it's unlikely these things will become a problem."

management fee of $40m from the bank to look after the loans

Two top bankers are leaving Barclays to manage a fund in the Cayman Islands that is buying $12.3bn (£7.47bn) of the bank's most troublesome assets.
The deal was criticised by analysts who questioned its complexity, but it will enable the British bank to report a more stable performance in future. Throughout the financial crisis, Barclays has been forced to defend the way it was pricing and accounting for these troublesome assets and is now hoping to smooth out the effect of the investments on its profits.
The assets will not actually be removed from the bank's balance sheet for regulatory purposes but the accounting treatment will be changed, allowing Barclays to avoid taking further big hits by no longer needing to price its assets at current market values through the convention known as "mark to market".
Under the deal terms , Stephen King and Michael Keeley will set up C12 Capital Management which, while based in New York, will manage the new Cayman Islands-registered fund Protium and buy the assets from Barclays.
The pair are leading a team of 45 traders who are leaving Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm of the bank, to join C12. It will receive an annual management fee of $40m from the bank to look after the loans, which have turned toxic since the credit crunch.
The complexity of the transaction surprised analysts at a time when the regulators had been calling for more clarity in the structure on banks. Others expressed astonishment that the Financial Services Authority had sanctioned such a deal.
Protium will be funded by $450m of working capital provided by two major investors in the US and other unnamed partners, as well as by a $12.6bn 10-year loan from Barclays itself. Analysts believe that the undisclosed backers of Protium should generate a lucrative return on their investment in the fund.
There was a sceptical response from analysts to a conference call with Barclays's finance director, Chris Lucas, who admitted that the bank might need to hold more capital as a result of the deal which in itself would not create a profit or a loss for the bank.
Credit Suisse analysts described the transaction as "a little strange" as Barclays appears to be giving up any benefit from the value of the assets. Ian Gordon, analyst at Exane BNP Paribas, said: "It's being presented as providing a more stable, certain outturn, but you could argue they are giving away the upside but not really being sheltered from much of the downside."
The $12.3bn of assets being sold to Protium forced Barclays to record a £1bn loss in 2008 and include residential mortgage assets, collateralised debt obligations and other complex financial instruments at the heart of the credit crunch.
Analysts had predicted the bank would incur further writedowns on the loans, two-thirds of which are insured by monoline insurers, which became well known during the credit crisis for having provided insurance to some of the complex instruments that are now under water.
The bank will remain exposed to the cash flow on the assets through the $12.3bn 10-year loan from which Barclays expects to make $3.9bn of profit on interest payments. The loan could become impaired if the cash flow of the assets is affected by any falls in value.
Lucas said: "We are not seeking through the transaction to effect a change to our underlying credit-risk profile. But we are restructuring a significant tranche of credit market exposures in a way that we expect will secure more stable risk-adjusted returns for shareholders over time. We also bring in investors with an appetite for the cash flows arising from the assets."
"For Barclays, this represents a good opportunity to create greater predictability of income and economic capital utilisation," Lucas said

unemployment benefit, rose by 24,400 in August to 1.6 million

Unemployment has jumped to its highest level since mid-1995, pushing the jobless rate in Britain up to nearly 8%, official data showed today.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the jobless total on the broad International Labour Office measure rose by 210,000 in the three months to July, taking the total to 2.47 million. That rise was broadly in line with those of recent months and economists said there was little to suggest that the increases in unemployment were slowing.
The narrower claimant count measure, which only includes those claiming unemployment benefit, rose by 24,400 in August to 1.6 million, the highest since May 1997, and a rate of 5%, the worst since September of that year. That increase was also in line with those of the previous two months.
The ONS reported that average earnings growth slowed sharply to just 1.7% in the three months to July versus the same period last year, down from 2.5% in the three months to June.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "There are now over a million people out of work for more than six months, one in three of them under 25. There are no signs of recovery here.
"This is not the time to take risks with policies that could make unemployment worse. It might look rosier in city dealing rooms but out in the real world unemployment is the number one issue."
Catherine Matthews, a partner at licensed insolvency practitioners Tomlinsons, said: "With so many firms folding, the prospects of re-employment are proving increasingly slim for those that have been unfortunate enough to lose their jobs.
"The big problem for Britain's businesses, the reason why so many of them are going bust and laying off staff, is the banks aren't lending. The funding and financial support needed to survive just isn't there. It's what small and medium-sized business owners, and the accountants we work closely with, are saying to us day in, day out."
Economists were concerned about the slowdown in pay growth, which could prevent the economy recovering quickly from recession. Vicky Redwood at Capital Economics said: "As [Bank of England governor] Mervyn King highlighted yesterday, even if the recession is technically over, it will continue to feel like one for many people for a long time yet."
OECD sees 25 million unemployed
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development also warned today that the recession could push unemployment across the developed world to a record high.
In its latest employment outlook report, the OECD predicted that the jobless rate across the world's 30 richest countries could come close to hitting 10% by the end of 2010. That would equate to 25 million people having lost their job in the downturn.
The OECD said that 15 million jobs had already been lost since the end of 2007, and called for more government action. "A major risk is that much of this large hike in unemployment becomes structural in nature," the Paris-based group warned.
"This unwelcome phenomenon occurred in a number of OECD countries in past recessions when unemployment remained at a new higher plateau compared with the pre-crisis level even after output returned to potential, and it took many years, if ever, to bring it down again to the pre-crisis level," it added.

astounding 231 million percent

Naison and his friends are spending the afternoon fishing on the banks of southeastern Zimbabwe's Save River, hoping to catch a trout or an eel to bring home to their families. They are using the mosquito netting from Naison's home as a makeshift fishing net.
This netting is supposed to protect him and his siblings from malaria infection. Naison knows the danger: Earlier this year, he contracted a case of the debilitating disease. But when there's no food and no money to speak of, the nets are needed more for fishing than disease prevention.
Hard choices
Zimbabwean families are facing hard, even unimaginable choices these days.
Unemployment rates are soaring. Even wage earners face crippling inflation rates, which have reached an astounding 231 million percent, according to the government's own figures. Under these conditions, it is extremely difficult to purchase food, let alone save money.
You can help protect Naison and others like him from the worst effects of Zimbabwe's ongoing economic meltdown.
Strengthening food security
Mercy Corps is helping vulnerable families in three impoverished districts in Zimbabwe to set up communal gardens that will benefit the entire community. We're teaming with local government officials to offer training on how best to prepare the soil and keep out pests, and supplying families with vegetable and herb seeds.
The goal is to let the people who tend to the gardens use the spinach, squash, mint and rosemary for their own cooking — and then sell the surplus to pay for other household needs.
Naison is excited. The garden his sister is tending will be growing his favorite vegetable: cabbage. And it means less time worrying over makeshift fishing nets or where his next meal is coming from. Instead, many meals to come will be harvested from gardens tilled and tended to by the hands of his family and his community.The Economic Report of the President is issued by the Executive Office of the President and the Council of Economic Advisers. It includes:
Current and foreseeable trends and annual numerical goals concerning topics such as employment, production, real income and Federal budget outlays.
Employment objectives for significant groups of the labor force.
Annual numeric goals.
A program for carrying out program objectives.
The Economic Report of the President is transmitted to Congress no later than ten days after the submission of the Budget of the United States Government. Supplementary reports can be issued to the Congress which contain additional and/or revised recommendations.
Included in the Economic Report of the President is the Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisers. Each year, the Council of Economic Advisers submits this report on its activities during the previous calendar year in accordance with the requirements of the Congress as set forth in section 10(d) of the Employment Act of 1946 as amended by the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978.
The Economic Report of the President has been published since 1950 and is available on GPO Access from 1995 forward. A searchable database of the Economic Report of the President is available from 1996 forward. Documents are available in ASCII text and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), with many of the tables also available for separate viewing and downloading as spreadsheets in xls and comma delimited formats.

37-year-old rice farmer with a black baseball cap perched atop

The wider world seems a long way from the rice paddies of Naga Umbang, a quiet village of 395 people backed by thrusting green mountains in Aceh province, at the tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island. These days, farmers draped in hats and t-shirts against the beating sun are bent over working seedlings into their rice paddies.
But all you have to do is mention food and fuel prices and the winds of a global crisis come rushing in. It's top of mind for nearly everyone working these paddies, and even those who used to have a semblance of financial security aren't spared.
Zainbon is a 37-year-old rice farmer with a black baseball cap perched atop her pink headscarf. Her husband mans a desk as a temporary, low-level bureaucrat in the district transportation office nearby, but still they struggle to find the rupiahs each month to get by. She pulls at her scarf explaining how they stretch six or seven dollars a day across the needs of cooking staples, school fees, fuel and now, in the fall planting season, fertilizer and rice seed. A Mercy Corps survey in the area recently found staple food prices climbing between 10 and 25 percent, on top of fuel prices that jumped 40 percent earlier this year.
"This is hugely important for us - the staples are rising and the salary isn't keeping pace," Zainbon says. "What about others whose husbands are just farming? They're struggling even worse."
This worldwide crisis is striking an area just starting to find its feet again after a vicious cycle of calamity. For decades, a rural separatist conflict kept many farmers out of their rice fields and fruit plantations for fear that they would be caught in the crossfire. Then in 2004, the Asian tsunami sent a wall of water up to 30 feet deep and flattened everything in the area, including the entire village of Naga Umbang.
With the houses now rebuilt, the rice paddies cleared of debris and new water buffalo roaming the yards, villagers are now teaming with Mercy Corps to strengthen their rice farming techniques and improve crop yields. And with food prices bearing down on locals, it couldn't come at a better time.
"We're working to bring the spirit and enthusiasm back to the farming sector because we really think there's great potential there," says Isnaini Djalil, Mercy Corps' rice project officer in Banda Aceh.
On a recent morning under the blazing equatorial sun, Mercy Corps partner and agricultural consultant Khainullah led a dozen Naga Umbang farmers to a test plot. Khainullah is staffing Mercy Corps' farmer field schools, which offer updated technique clinics to villagers in Aceh up to a dozen times throughout the three- to four-month rice season.
Khainullah waded into the plot in bare feet and, sinking into mud to his shins, planted green rice seedlings out in a gridded pattern 20 centimeters from each other. The technique, called legowo in Indonesian, spreads out the plants from the villagers' typically tight rows and is supposed to yield stronger harvests from increased exposure to the sun. It also cuts down on cover for pests such as mice and eases weeding.
Zainbon and two others stepped into the paddy to try out the new method. "Have you said a prayer?" an onlooker asked, as the crowd of farmers and NGO workers broke up laughing. In the deeply spiritual and Islamic Aceh, even this simple act might demand some offering. Zainbon shoved the plants into the mud without one.
Khainullah later explained how to use the fruits from certain palm trees to ward off snails in the paddy, how to bury weeded grass back underground to improve soil and save effort and how straight rows maximized space and yields. He also gave Zainbon some personal coaching on transplanting seedlings from a bed, telling her to move them at a younger age and without banging soil off the root ball, which can stress the plant.
Zainbon seemed rapt through most of the two-hour clinic.
"We need to modernize," she said through a translator. "We're already thinking about when Mercy Corps leaves here and this transfer of knowledge is one way we can build independence. Money from an NGO would go quickly, but knowledge and technology sticks in your mind."
The improved techniques are aimed at boosting incomes. Typically most of the rice harvest in villages like this goes to feed families. But if farmers in Naga Umbang can grow more efficiently, they will begin to see surplus rice from the same backbreaking labor they currently put into the season. And they will hopefully have the resolve to plant a second crop each year, which they can take to market in nearby cities.
That's the sort of security that the poor in Naga Umbang and around the world are seeking in these turbulent times.
"We need to pay attention to agriculture and go back to it," Zainbon said. "It's difficult if we just depend on income from government or other office jobs. But our prospects are better if we pay attention to the land and plant better crops."

Saraswati's husband makes about $4 a day hawking snacks and drinks

It's never been harder to make a living in the crowded, open-sewered slums of North Jakarta.
Most of the neighborhood's two million residents are poor migrants from other parts of Indonesia who aren't legally employable. So they're forced to scrape by in a vast informal economy — encompassing everything from pushcart restaurants to cheap t-shirt vendors — and pay ever-higher prices for staple foods and other necessities.
Saraswati's husband makes about $4 a day hawking snacks and drinks. The couple and their four children squeeze into a 150-square-foot house with unreliable electricity and no running water. They buy jerry cans full of water for cooking and drinking — water that could be contaminated.
Drinking dirty water is life-threatening. In 2002, more than 3.5 million people died as a result of poor water, sanitation and hygiene, according to the UN.
And the cost of that water alone eats up nearly 10 percent of Saraswati's family income — a heavy burden on a family budget already under siege from skyrocketing food and fuel costs.
"Life is getting harder these days," explains Saraswati, 45. "Everything is expensive now. I spend the money only for our daily meals and monthly regular expenses like electricity, water and gasoline for cooking. The only way to survive is sacrificing the children's education. We can't afford it, so they only went until high school."
You can help families increase their resiliency in a time of uncertainty.
In her neighborhood of Penjaringan, Mercy Corps field teams are building a communal water-supply system. We're working with a private-water company, Palyja, to construct a 900-meter pipeline from a tank that will store filtered water. By mid-December, 60 families will get clean drinking water piped directly into their homes for a monthly fee — cutting water bills by an estimated 40 to 80 percent.
Yet huge challenges remain: including securing better job opportunities, getting garbage service and upgrading rickety and overcrowded housing conditions.Bureau of Economics Reports: Major, published reports, usually containing original research and entailing a substantial commitment of resources, concerning an issue of current policy interest or of long term impact on Federal Trade Commission antitrust or consumer protection missions.
The more recent Economic Reports are offered in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.
If you have trouble accessing one of these reports, please email ReportRequests@ftc.gov.
Consumer Fraud in the United States: The Second FTC Survey, Keith B. Anderson (October 2007)
This study reports the results of the Federal Trade Commission’s second statistical survey of fraud in the United States. The survey found that 30.2 million adults – 13.5 percent of the adult population – were victims of one or more of the frauds included in the survey during the year studied. More people – an estimated 4.8 million U.S. consumers – were victims of fraudulent weight-loss products than any of the other frauds covered by the survey. Fraudulent foreign lottery offers and buyers club memberships tied for second place in the survey, with an estimated 3.2 million people were victims of each of these frauds during the period studied. Fraudulent prize promotions and work-at-home programs ranked fourth and fifth.
Text of the Commission Staff ReportRequest Mailed Copy of ReportNews Release
Credit-Based Insurance Scores: Impacts on Consumers of Automobile Insurance: A Report to Congress By the Federal Trade Commission (July 2007)
This study examines the effect of credit-based insurance scores on the price and availability of automobile insurance and the impact of such scores on racial and ethnic minority groups and on low-income groups. Using a large database of insurance policies, the study shows that scores are effective predictors of risk under automobile policies. At the same time, scores are observed to be distributed differently among racial and ethnic groups, and this difference is likely to have an effect on the insurance premiums that these groups pay, on average. Nonetheless, scores appear to derive a relatively small amount of their predictive power from their correlation with race and ethnicity. Finally, the Commission could not develop an alternative scoring model that would continue to predict risk effectively, yet decrease the differences in scores among racial and ethnic groups.
Text of the Commission Report Statement of Chairman Majoras, Commissioner Kovacic, and Commissioner RoschDissenting Statement of Commissioner HarbourConcurring Statement of Commissioner LeibowitzRequest Mailed Copy of ReportNews Release
Improving Consumer Mortgage Disclosures: An Empirical Assessment of Current and Prototype Disclosure Forms, James M. Lacko and Janis K. Pappalardo (June 2007)
This study presents the results of 36 in-depth interviews with recent mortgage customers, and quantitative consumer testing with over 800 mortgage customers, that examined how consumers search for mortgages, how well consumers understand current mortgage cost disclosures and the terms of their own recently obtained loans, and whether better disclosures could improve consumer understanding of mortgage costs, consumer shopping for mortgage loans, and consumers’ ability to avoid deceptive lending practices. The results of the study show that current mortgage cost disclosures fail to convey key mortgage costs to many consumers, and that prototype disclosures developed for the study significantly improved consumer recognition of mortgage costs, demonstrating that better disclosures are feasible.
Executive Summary of the ReportText of the ReportSample Prototype Disclosure FormSample Current Disclosure FormsRequest Mailed Copy of ReportNews Release
Children's Exposure to Television Advertising in 1977 and 2004: Information for the Obesity Debate, Debra J. Holt, Pauline M. Ippolito, Debra M. Desrochers, and Christopher R. Kelley (June 2007)
This study provides a comprehensive assessment of the amount and type of television advertising seen by children in 2004 and compares these results to similar studies conducted for the Federal Trade Commission's 1978 Children's Advertising Rulemaking. This study finds that children in 2004 are exposed to more television ads, fewer paid ads, and fewer food ads compared to 30 years ago. Over half of children's exposure to food advertising comes from children's shows in 2004 compared to about 25 percent in 1977. Sixty-one percent of children's ad exposure and 72 percent of their food ad exposure is from cable programming, but nearly 30 percent comes from primetime broadcast programming. This report also provides a baseline against which to measure future changes in children's exposure to television advertising as parents, firms and children react to obesity concerns.
Text (color version) of the ReportText (black and white version) of the ReportRequest Mailed Copy of ReportNews Release
Supplementary MaterialsAn Analysis of Exposure to Non-Network Television Advertising, Prepared for the Children's Advertising Proceeding by J. Howard Beales, III, Economist, Federal Trade Commission (November 21, 1978)
Network and Non-Network Sources of Programming and Advertising for Children, Prepared for the Children's Advertising Rulemaking Proceeding by John D. Abel, Associate Professor, Department of Telecommunication, Michigan State University (November 24, 1978), As Supplemented By Letter Dated April 16, 1979
Consumer Fraud in the United States: An FTC Survey, Keith B. Anderson, (August 2004)
This survey will help the FTC better serve fraud victims through law enforcement and education. The survey was designed, in part, to assist that agency in determining whether information in the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel database of fraud complaints is representative of consumers’ actual experiences with fraud in the marketplace. The survey provides the agency with a broader snapshot of fraud in America which, in addition to helping target law enforcement actions, will allow the FTC to target education campaigns more precisely towards particular consumer groups who are at risk of falling victim to fraud but who may not complain to the FTC about their experiences.
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The Petroleum Industry: Mergers, Structural Change, And Antitrust Enforcement: A Report of the Staff of the Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Economics (August 2004)
This report updates two earlier FTC studies on mergers and structural change in the U.S. petroleum industry. Reviewing industry developments since the 1980s, this report finds, among other things, that concentration in crude oil at the country or company level has remained relatively low and that mergers among private oil companies have not significantly affected crude oil concentration.. There have been some increases in industry concentration at other vertical levels in the domestic industry such as refining and gasoline marketing, but industry concentration for most levels of the industry has remained low to moderate. Economies of scale have become increasingly important in shaping the industry, although the incentives for firms to be vertically integrated throughout all or most levels of production and distribution have diminished. The report also describes in detail the FTC’s antitrust merger enforcement policy in the petroleum industry since the1980s.
Text of the Bureau of Economics ReportStatement of the Commission Appendix: Commission Testimony Concerning Market Forces, Anticompetitive Activity, and Gasoline Prices (July 15, 2004) Statement of Commissioner ThompsonStatement of Commissioner Harbour
Earlier ReportsMergers In the U.S. Petroleum Industry 1971-1984: An Updated Comparative Analysis (May 1989)Mergers In the Petroleum Industry (September 1982)
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To receive a paper copy of this report, please email ReportRequests@ftc.gov.
The Effect of Mortgage Broker Compensation Disclosures on Consumers and Competition: A Controlled Experiment, James M. Lacko and Janis K. Pappalardo (February 2004).
This report presents the results of a study that uses a controlled experiment with over 500 recent mortgage customers to examine the mortgage broker compensation disclosure proposed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as part of its July 2002 RESPA reform proposal. The focus of the disclosure is on any “yield spread premium” paid by the lender to the broker for loans originated with “above par” interest rates. The study finds that the disclosure is likely to confuse consumers, cause a significant proportion to choose loans that are more expensive than the available alternatives, and create a substantial consumer bias against broker loans, even when the broker loans cost the same or less than direct lender loans. The report concludes that a better way to help consumers obtain less expensive mortgages would be to encourage and facilitate consumer comparison shopping on loan costs.
Full Report [PDF 2.9MB]Executive Summary [PDF 261KB]Text of the Report [PDF 1.1MB]Appendices [PDF 1.14MB] Request Mailed Copy of ReportNews Release
Advertising Nutrition & Health, Evidence from Food Advertising 1977-1997, Pauline M. Ippolito and Janis K. Pappalardo (September 2002)
This report reviews data collected by Commission staff on the types of claims made in 11,647 advertisements taken from a sample of eight leading magazines between 1977 and 1997. The primary focus of the study is on advertising claims related to health and nutrition, but it also examines other types of advertising claims. The report further reviews how nutrition-related claims in advertising changed under the various regulatory policies in place during these years. It is revealed that nutrition-related claims were a major focus of food advertising and an important focus of competition during the two-decade period covered by the report. Moreover, data indicate a sustained movement toward specific nutrient claims, such as "low fat," in place of, or in addition, to more general nutrition claims, such as "nutritious." The study finds that changes in advertising content appear to be associated with changes in regulatory rules and enforcement policies.
Executive Summary [PDF 599KB]Text of Report [PDF 3.25MB] Request Mailed Copy of Report
Competition and Consumer Protection Perspectives on Electric Power Regulatory Reform, joint report of the Bureau of Economics with the Bureau of Consumer Protection, Bureau of Competition, and Policy Planning, (July 2000).
This policy analysis examines various competition and consumer protection issues that arise in restructuring the electric power industry. The topics were addressed by FTC staff in comments to state regulatory commissions and to FERC, and include existing market power in generation services; vertical discrimination in transmission access; affiliate transactions; horizontal mergers; vertical and convergence mergers; retail competition entry conditions; and advertising claims, information disclosures, and deceptive business practices. The report also incorporates information on these topics gathered at the FTC's public workshop on market power and consumer protection issues in this industry.
Survey of Rent-to-Own Customers, James M. Lacko, Signe-Mary McKernan, and Manoj Hastak (April 2000)
This report presents the results of a nationwide survey of rent-to-own customers. The survey found that most rent-to-own merchandise is ultimately purchased by the customer, most customers are satisfied with their rent-to-own transactions, and most customers are treated well if they are late making a payment, although some customers are subject to possibly abusive collection practices. The report recommends that the total cost of purchasing merchandise through a rent-to-own transaction be disclosed on product labels that the consumer can see while shopping, in addition to disclosures in rental agreements and advertisements.
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Transformation and Continuity: The U.S. Carbonated Soft Drink Bottling Industry and Antitrust Policy Since 1980, Harold Saltzman, Roy Levy, and John C. Hilke (November 1999)
This report analyzes the U.S. carbonated soft drink ("CSD") industry, with its primary focus on the 1980s and early 1990s, a period of rapid structural change that transformed the industry. In addition to documenting these changes, an empirical model is developed to evaluate the antitrust merger policies that were pursued by the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") during this period -- the FTC challenged large horizontal acquisitions of Dr Pepper and 7UP franchises by Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola bottlers, but did not challenge vertical acquisitions of CSD bottlers by their franchisors or other horizontal bottler acquisitions. The findings tend to support or are consistent with these policies, but also identify areas that seem to warrant further study.
Executive SummaryText of Report [PDF 500KB]
The Pharmaceutical Industry: A Discussion of Competitive and Antitrust Issues in an Environment of Change, Roy Levy (March 1999)
The report reviews significant informational, institutional, and structural changes that have influenced price and non-price competition strategies of brand-name pharmaceutical companies, particularly during the last 15 years. The study considers the possible antitrust implications of these changes by examining alternative anticompetitive and procompetitive explanations for the pricing, vertical contracting, and vertical and horizontal consolidation strategies that have emerged in this environment of change in the pharmaceutical industry.
Executive SummaryCopy of Report [PDF 19.4MB]
A Generic Copy Test of Food Health Claims in Advertising, Dennis Murphy (principal author), Theodore H. Hoppock and Michelle K. Rusk (contributing authors) (November 1998) [a joint report of the Bureau of Economics and the Bureau of Consumer Protection].
Executive SummaryCopy of Report [PDF 199Kb]
Appendix A [PDF 2MB]
Appendix B [PDF 220KB]
Competition and the Financial Impact of the Proposed Tobacco Industry Settlement, joint report of the Bureau of Economics with the Bureau of Competition and the Bureau of Consumer Protection (September 1997)
The report analyzes the potential impact of the proposed tobacco industry settlement on cigarette prices, industry profits, and government revenues. The main conclusions of the report are that (1) the antitrust exemption may reduce competition in the industry and allow the industry to profit from the settlement by raising prices more than enough to cover the annual payments requires; (2) since the annual payments are essentially equivalent to an excise tax, even if the settlement does not have anti-competitive effects, we can expect that cigarette prices will rise by enough to generate revenues to make the annual payments; and (3) the government revenues will increase due to the settlement.
Executive Summary Copy of Report [PDF 207KB]
Information and Advertising Policy: A Study of Fat and Cholesterol Consumption in the United States, 1977-1990, Pauline M. Ippolito and Alan D. Mathios (September 1996)
The study examines changes in the consumption of fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol from 1977 to 1990, a period when federal policy governing diet-disease claims changed. The study finds that dietary improvements occurred more rapidly in the post-1985 years, when the rules were relaxed. The study also includes a variety of detailed data on differences in consumer knowledge and sources of dietary fats over the period.
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The Effectiveness of Collusion Under Antitrust Immunity: The Case of Liner Shipping Conferences, Paul S. Clyde and James D. Reitzes (January 1996) [PDF 162KB]
This study analyzes whether ocean shipping rates are affected by the presence and practices of ocean liner conferences. The study provides some support for the conclusion that some aspects of the conference system may contribute to higher shipping rates, particularly when the conference has a sizable market share.
Disentangling Regulatory Policy: The Effects of State Regulations on Trucking Rates, Timothy P. Daniel and Andrew N. Kleit (November 1995) [PDF 165KB]
This study estimates the relationship between intrastate trucking rates and three different types of state-level regulations: 1) the strictness with which rates are regulated; 2) the requirements placed on motor carriers seeking to enter the market; and 3) whether the state provides antitrust immunity for decisions made by motor carrier rate bureaus.
The Salt Producers Discount Practices Before and After the Robinson- Patman Act and the FTC's Challenge to Them: The Morton and International Salt Cases, John L. Peterman (October 1995)
This study describes the pricing and distribution of salt during the National Industrial Recovery Act period and beyond (1930-1945). Two FTC cases brought to enforce the Robinson-Patman anti- discrimination law during this period are examined in some detail. Also included is a statistical description of industries in which the FTC brought Robinson-Patman Act cases between 1936 and 1980.
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Measurements of Market Power in Long Distance Telecommunications, Michael R. Ward (April 1995) [PDF 504KB]
This study assesses empirically the competitiveness of the long distance telephone market. To do so, it estimates firm-specific long- run demand elasticities for AT&T and its rivals for long distance service marketed to households and small businesses during 1988-91.
Older Economic Reports
To receive a copy of one of these reports, please email (include mailing address) to:ReportRequests@ftc.gov.
1994
1. Resale Price Maintenance: An Economic Study of the FTC's Case Against Corning Glass Works, Pauline M. Ippolito and Thomas R. Overstreet, Jr., January 1994.
The study is intended to help increase understanding of the economic motivation for RPM when the products at issue are relatively simple goods that do not fit the most well-known efficiency rationales for the practice. The study found no evidence of collusion among Corning's dealers or competitors, and stock market movements (as well as the value of sales) for Corning and some of its competitors do not support anticompetitive theories. The authors find the results "consistent with the theory that RPM may at times be used as a method of increasing distribution of 'simple' products sold through multiproduct dealers."
2. Effects of Unfair Imports on Domestic Industries: U.S. Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Cases, 1980-1988, Morris E. Morkre and Kenneth H. Kelly, February 1994.
The study analyzes the effects of dumped and/or subsidized imports on the domestic industries with which they competed. The authors found that, in nearly 90 percent of the 179 cases analyzed, unfair imports caused reductions in domestic industry revenue of less than 10 percent.
1993
No reports available from 1993.
1992
1. Case Studies of the Price Effects of Horizontal Mergers, Laurence Schumann, Robert P. Rogers, and James D. Reitzes, April 1992.
The study examines the aftermath of mergers in three industries: titanium dioxide, cement, and corrugated paperboard. The study finds a mixture of results with likely pro-competitive outcomes in cement and paperboard, and a potentially large anti-competitive outcome in titanium dioxide (depending on the model specification).
2. An Analysis of Department Store Reference Pricing in Metropolitan Washington, Ronald S. Bond and R. Dennis Murphy, September 1992.
This report presents empirical evidence on the likely consumer injury associated with department store reference pricing, the common pricing strategy in which sale prices are contrasted prominently with regular prices in newspaper advertising. The study concludes that although regular prices claimed by department stores are higher than consumers would likely find elsewhere, the so-called sale prices are generally quite competitive.
1991
1. Petroleum Tariffs as a Source of Government Revenue, Keith B. Anderson and Michael R. Metzger, February 1991.
The study evaluates the desirability of import tariffs on crude oil and refined petroleum products. Such tariffs would cost consumers between $2 and $5 per dollar of revenue raised. Excise taxes, on the other hand, would cost consumers $1.05 to $1.13 per dollar of revenue raised.

Elizabeth Daniels is no exception

Small-business owners quickly realize the tremendous devotion that's required just to keep the lights on. Elizabeth Daniels is no exception.
Daniels opened a Portland home-décor store in May that mostly sells furniture "reinvented" by local artists, along with smaller items like gift cards and hand lotions. Between scouting new products, meeting vendors, placing ads, restocking inventory, networking and just minding the store, she has little time for anything else.
"I have forgone any hint of personal life," says Daniels, 35. "I have sacrificed everything — my finances, my time, my energy, my friendships and relationships — to try and make this work."
So far, customers rave about her store, called Ease. But like an acclaimed yet obscure arthouse film, she laments, "I've got great reviews, but nobody's buying."
Opening a retail store is a scary proposition anytime. Doing so in a downturned economy can be downright terrifying. Mercy Corps' U.S. economic-development arm is helping vulnerable businesses like Daniels' weather the storm.
In the last 10 years, Mercy Corps and our microfinance partners have disbursed more than $1 billion in loans to more than 1 million hardworking entrepreneurs around the world — including many here in the U.S. After Hurricane Katrina, we awarded loans and grants to dozens of New Orleans businesses to help them restock and reopen.
Each year, our Portland-area microlender, Mercy Corps Northwest, assists dozens of low-income borrowers— mostly women and new immigrants — realize their business dreams. Our matched-savings programs, financial literacy classes and business advice help hundreds more.
Daniels needed a loan to pursue her interests in design and décor after working for the federal government for 13 years. "Mercy Corps was my first and last stop," Daniels says. With no retail experience and no steady income, she says, "I wouldn't have been able to get into this any other way."
Mercy Corps loan officers helped her fine-tune her business plan, gather more detailed market research, and access other valuable resources, such as a retired accountant — all crucial to her success. They also extended a $15,000 loan to fund part of Daniels' start-up costs, including retail inventory, exterior signage and installation of an HVAC system. Daniels invested another $10,000 of her own money to cover remaining expenses before opening her doors.
The storefront she chose sits along an up-and-coming retail stretch a few blocks from her childhood home. Other new arrivals include a motorcycle-repair shop, a piercing studio, a wine bar-and-nursery and a wellness center. "It really seemed like the place to be," she says.
And it was — at first. Sales over the first three months exceeded her expectations. Then in August gas climbed to $4 a gallon, Daniels says, and things came to a "screeching halt." The economic outlook hasn't brightened since. "My sales have dropped by 75 percent from May."
She says Mercy Corps continues to offer its support, most recently by introducing her to a retail-marketing expert and a group of young people willing to build a low-cost website. She's also been encouraged to make use of other local resources, and is working with nearby retailers — most of whom are struggling, too — to put on events and promote the district's new identity, "West Tabor Village."
If things don't turn around, she'll consider trying to sell directly to design firms, representing some of her artist clients to East Coast galleries hungry for West Coast art, and opening her retail space only on Saturdays.
Daniels had hoped to bring fresh ideas in color, design and style to her neighborhood, sharing and promoting local talent. "I can only hope that I have succeeded, if only for a short while," says Daniels. "If now is not the time, I hope to be able to work with Mercy Corps in the future and rebuild my dream."
Your support gives us the resources to help entrepreneurs — including immigrants and low-income families — get the training and opportunities they need to keep their businesses open.