BUCHAREST (AFP) – East European neighbours Romania and Moldova on Tuesday set up a strategic partnership to boost Chisinau’s bid to join the European Union, Romanian President Traian Basescu said.
“Romania and Moldova, two states with a common heritage, have a privileged relationship,” Basescu told a joint press conference with acting Moldovan president Mihai Ghimpu, on a two-day visit to Bucharest.
“We have a unique chance to emphasise our value together, within the European Union,” he said.
Both presidents agreed to deepen bilateral political, economical and cultural cooperation, with a detailed action plan to be signed shortly.
EU member Romania also signed a financial assistance agreement, providing a non-refundable 100-million-euro grant to Moldova for infrastructure and education projects.
Moldova is one of six eastern European countries within the EU’s so-called Eastern Partnership which holds out the prospect of political association and economic integration with the EU.
It was part of Romania until 1940, when it was forcibly integrated into the Soviet Union as part of the Nazi-Soviet pact.
Ties soured last year after Moldova’s former Communist government accused Romania of inciting riots following a disputed parliamentary election in April.
Romania denied stoking the unrest, which broke out after Moldova’s liberal pro-European opposition accused the Communists of fraud.
The Communists lost a re-run of the election in July and a pro-EU government, headed by Ghimpu, has taken office although there remains stalemate over the identity of the next president.
Basescu travelled to Moldova in January in a bid to relaunch “special relationships” with Chisinau.
In a speech to Romania’s parliament, Ghimpu thanked Bucharest for its “constant help” to his country.
Ghimpu said he regretted the “indifference” in ties under the Communist regime, and that his presence in the Romanian parliament, 20 years after Moldova adopted the colours of Romania’s flag as its own, was “historic.”
Romania rallies behind Moldova EU bid
AG: Court challenge possible on immigration law
WASHINGTON – Attorney General Eric Holder says the federal government may challenge Arizona’s new law on immigration.
The attorney general told reporters Tuesday that he fears Arizona’s new law is subject to abuse.
At a news conference, Holder said that the Justice Department and the Homeland Security Department are in the midst of conducting a review of the state law.
The Arizona law requires state law enforcement officials to ask people for documentation if they are suspected to be in the country illegally.
The attorney general says a number of options are under consideration including the possibility of a court challenge.
Greece downgraded as Europe’s debt crisis worsens
ATHENS – Europe’s government debt crisis worsened ominously Tuesday when Greece’s credit rating was downgraded to junk status and Portugal’s debt was lowered on fears the trouble could spread. Stocks slid on the news.
The Portuguese downgrade was a sign the European Union’s fears of that the debt crisis would spread beyond Greece — and further undermine the euro currency — might be coming true.
For its part, Greece has already admitted it can’t pay debts coming due shortly and reached for a bailout. But the reluctance of the largest country using the euro — Germany — to fund the largest share of the euro45 billion rescue by European government and the International Monetary Fund is sending shudders through markets.
Investors fear the money may not reach Greece to enable it to avoid default by May 19, when euro8.5 billion in bond payments come due.
Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said on Greek television that the country will “absolutely and without any doubt” be able to service that debt.
“Everyone now understands that there is no more time for delay,” he said, adding that there was no chance Greece would restructure its debt, a concept he called “outside every negotiation.”
“I am categorical on this point,” Papaconstantinou said.
The minister said Athens was close to reaching an agreement with the IMF, the European Central Bank and the European Commission on details of the rescue package, and that talks could “easily” be completed by Sunday.
The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares closed down 2.6 percent, Germany’s DAX slid 2.7 percent and the French CAC-40 in France ended 3.8 percent lower. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 132.25 points, or 1.2 percent, at 11,072.78 around midday New York time while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index tumbled 18.17 points, or 1.5 percent, at 1,193.34.
Greek and Portuguese share were pounded, down 6.7 percent and 5.4 percent. The interest rate gap, or spread, between Portuguese and benchmark German 10-year bonds trading on financial markets — a key indicator of market skepticism — rose 57 basis points, or more than half a percentage point, to hit 5.86 percentage points. The higher the gap, the less confidence in Portugal — and it was the widest gap since the shared euro currency, which Portugal and 15 other nations use, came into circulation.
Both governments have imposed budget cutbacks against political resistance from unions at home. Markets have been skeptical that they can push through enough cuts, given political resistance, to put their finances in order.
Greek government spokesman Giorgos Petalotis, speaking to AP after news of downgrade, said, “This shows that the problem is broader, and concerns all the other countries and not just Greece. As a country, we are doing everything necessary to overcome this difficult situation — we are taking the measures and decisions that have been asked of us for sometime now.”
Asked if the downgrade news means bailout negotiations need to be speeded up, Petalotis answered, “I think the need to them speed up, is something everyone can assess.”
Portugal’s finance minister said the downgrade would only make things worse.
“This is a decisive moment,” Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos said in a statement, urging political parties in opposition to his minority Socialist government to help swiftly enact debt-reduction measures he has outlined in his austerity plan.
“Regardless of the opinion we have in relation to the fairness and update of the rating, the fact is that this decision will not help markets to calm down, but will, on the contrary, contribute for their turbulence,” Teixeira dos Santos said.
The spreading trouble threaten more woes for the shared euro currency, and raise the possibility of trouble spreading even further to Spain, whose economy is far larger than that of Greece or Portugal. Eurozone governments, themselves facing higher debt levels from the global recession, would be hard pressed to find enough money to bail out Spain if it comes to that.
The crisis has highlighted the inability of the rules set up to support the euro to keep governments from undermining the currency by running up big debts. Those rules limited deficits to 3 percent of grosse domestic product but have been widely flouted, and EU officials are talking about ways to strengthen them.
Nicholas Skourias, chief investment officer at Pegasus Securities, said that markets were already pricing in a Greek default or restructuring, while rising spreads on Portuguese bonds showed that “the more important and main risk is the contagion effect. And I think that the Germans do not realize this risk.”
Germany wants to see a commitment to deep, long-term cutbacks in Greek government services and benefits before it agrees to provide its euro8.4 billion euro of the bailout cash. But investors remain highly skeptical that Greek voters used to generous benefits and worker protections will accept a drop in living standards. They also worry that the proposed bailout will not cure Greece’s long-term imbalance between its soaring debt and tepid prospects of economic growth.
Papaconstantinou said it was out of the question for Berlin to prevent the rescue from working.
“It is totally inconceivable for German to block this mechanism … And the Germans have said that that they have no intention of doing anything like this,” he said, adding that as far as drawing funds was concerned, “some countries will come first, some countries will follow.”
If there was a delay in Germany’s parliament in approving the package, “the other countries, together with the IMF will be there, so that there is no problem,” the minister said.
The move deprives Greece of an investment-grade rating on its bonds, meaning it would pay higher costs to borrow if it taps debt markets again. The agency said Greece’s weak long-term growth prospects made it less credit-worthy.
“The Greek bond market is now in full scale meltdown,” said Jeremy Batstone-Carr, head of private client research at stockbrokers Charles Stanley. “The nightmare scenario from an investor stand point is that either Greece defaults, forcing investors to take a severe ‘haircut’ on their investments-loans, or the Greek authorities could honor the country’s debts and simply shut down all nonessential operations, markedly escalating the strife for the nation’s people.”
Default would hurt the shared euro currency and could lead to the debt crisis spreading to other countries with shaky finances such as Portugal and Spain, threatening them with the same vicious spiral of default fears leading to higher rates.
A debt downgrade immediately preceded Greece’s call for the bailout last week. While Portugal has less debt, economists have focused on it as the next possible victim if concerns over high levels of government debt in Europe spread. Standard & Poor’s downgraded its credit rating on Portugal amid mounting concerns about the country’s ability to get a handle on its debt load, saying that the two-notch downgrade to A- reflects its view of “the amplified risks Portugal faces.”
Greek company shares plunged for a fifth straight session Tuesday, with the benchmark Athens stock index shedding 6.75 percent to reach 1,683.08 points in late afternoon trading. The message from the markets is clear — there are real doubts that Athens will be able to service its debts.
“The market is pricing in the realistic prospect that Greece may not be in a position to meet all its debt obligations,” said Jane Foley, research director at Forex.com.
Athens now faces a long, nail-biting wait with far from guaranteed results before its mid-May payment date.
“Until that day, everything must be concluded,” Papaconstantinou said. “I have absolutely no doubt that we will get there.”
Prime Minister George Papandreou said his country stood “naked before international market storms.”
“We are going through Greece’s hardest time in recent decades,” Papandreou told his Socialist party lawmakers. “The challenges our country faces are unprecedented, not only for Greece, but also for Europe and even the world economy. … And what I say is no exaggeration.”
WASHINGTON – Top Goldman Sachs officials defended their conduct in the financial crisis on Tuesday, flatly disputing the government’s fraud allegations against the giant financial house. “I did not mislead” investors, insisted a trading executive at the heart of the government’s case.
But they ran into a wall of bipartisan wrath before a Senate panel investigating Goldman’s role in the financial crisis and the Securities and Exchange Commission fraud suit against it and one of its traders. Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan accused Goldman of making risky financial bets that “became the chips in a giant casino.”
Fabrice Tourre, a 31-year-old trader at Goldman and the only company official directly accused in the SEC suit — testified that he does not recall telling investors that a Goldman hedge fund client had bought into an investment that soured. Instead, the hedge fund, Paulson & Co., bet against the security — and profited handsomely.
“I deny — categorically — the SEC’s allegation,” Tourre said. “And I will defend myself in court against this false claim.”
Federal regulators said Tourre marketed an investment designed to lose value. In a brash January 2007 e-mail, one of many by him that have come to light, Tourre called himself “The fabulous Fab standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leverage exotic trades.”
Tourre told the panel under questioning: “I regret the e-mails. They reflect very bad on the firm and myself. I wish I hadn’t sent them.”
About a half dozen protesters were in the committee room, dressed in prison stripes with names on signs around their necks of Tourre and Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who was also scheduled to testify. “Fabulous Fab is not so fab when he takes from the poor,” the protesters spoke as a chorus before the hearing started. “We want to see these guys behind bars.”
Ten days after the SEC action, the panel is looking into allegations that Goldman used a strategy that allowed it to profit from the housing meltdown and reap billions at the expense of clients.
Levin, the committee chairman, said actions by Goldman Sachs wreaked havoc on the economy. “Its conduct brings into question the whole system of Wall Street,” Levin said.
He pressed Daniel Sparks, former head of Goldman’s mortgages department, on whether the company felt it had a moral obligation to disclose to clients that it was making side bets against the same risky investments it was selling to them.
Sparks said the clients “should look at the assets themselves” that made up the mortgage-based securities they were buying. “Clients who did not want to participate in that deal did not,” he said of one particular transaction.
Levin also asked Sparks about a $1 billion product called Timberwolf that Goldman sold to investors while betting against it. Levin cited an e-mail sent to Sparks from another Goldman executive using an expletive to describe Timberwolf as “one s—-y deal.”
“Your top priority is to sell that s—-y deal,” Levin said. “Come on, Mr. Sparks, should Goldman Sachs be trying to sell a s—-y deal?”
“I didn’t use that term,” the Goldman executive responded.
Criticism of Goldman’s behavior came from both sides of the aisle.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican on the panel, said Goldman officials were “celebrating the collapse of the housing market when the reality for millions of Americans is loss of homes and disappearing jobs.”
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said that while there may not be proof that Goldman did anything illegal, a reading of e-mails from Goldman officials bragging about profiting from bets against the housing market showed “there’s no doubt their behavior was unethical and the people will render a judgment as well as courts.”
And Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., accused Goldman of “pure and simple raw gambling.”
The hearing came as the Senate grapples with Democratic-sponsored legislation to overhaul the nation’s financial regulation system and prevent another meltdown. The legislation would crack down on the kind of lightly regulated housing market investments that helped set off the crisis.
On Wall Street, Goldman’s stock rose as much as $4.16 early in the hearing, but pulled back as the wider market declined. Still, it was one of the relatively few winning stocks, rising 88 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $152.91.
Edward Yardeni, an independent market analyst, said investors may have been reassured by the fact that the testimony hadn’t revealed new details about the bank’s dealings in risky investments.
“Despite the interrogation, the Goldman team hasn’t really provided any new information,” Yardeni said.
The SEC says Goldman concocted mortgage investments without telling buyers they had been put together with help from a hedge fund client, Paulson & Co., that was betting on the investments to fail. The agency also charged Tourre.
Goldman disputes the charges and says it will contest them in court.
Blankfein, in prepared testimony, repeated the company’s assertion that it lost $1.2 billion in the residential mortgage meltdown in 2007 and 2008 that touched off the financial crisis and a severe recession.
He also argued that Goldman wasn’t making an aggressive negative bet — or short — on the mortgage market’s meltdown.
“We didn’t have a massive short against the housing market, and we certainly did not bet against our clients,” Blankfein said. “Rather, we believe that we managed our risk as our shareholders and our regulators would expect.”
Levin asserted: “I think they’re misleading the country.”
The Senate panel provided excerpts of company e-mails showing a progression from late 2006 through the full-blown mortgage crisis a year later. Levin said they show Goldman shifted in early 2007 from neutral to a short position, betting that the mortgage market was likely to collapse.
“That directional change is mighty clear,” Levin said. “They decided to go gangbusters selling those securities” while knowing they were sour.
“We have a big short on,” Tourre wrote in a December 2006 e-mail.
Sparks wrote to other executives in March 2007, “We are trying to close everything down, but stay on the short side.”
Baby ballerinas: Celebrity toddlers in tutu
Celebrity tots go ballerina look for 2010!
These children grow up in the spotlight – from their first baby pics on magazine covers to their daily routine chronicled by photographers – we get regularly updated on the newest and most exciting in their lives, including their fashion choices and latest trends they follow.
Tutu is something young Hollywood is absolutely crazy about. Regardless of the color and number of layers, tutus are huge with A-list toddlers. And when paired with tiny ballet shoes, tutus look their cutest, and girls look like real baby ballerinas.
Here are some of the tutu trend setters.
When it comes to fashion and toddlers, Suri Cruise, 4, definitely leads the line of baby fashionistas. The girl who’s said to have a $3 million designer wardrobe, just loves tutus. Every now and then she’s photographed in her fave clothing item and ballet shoes. Lovely!
Young dancer, Harlow Madden, daughter of Nicole Richie and Joel Madden, looked gorgeous in a pink tutu while heading home from a dance class last week.
Other toddlers who love pink tutus are Madonna’s adopted daughter Mercy James (here pictured in January 2010) and Helena Bonham Carter’s daughter Nell (pictured in March 2010).
PETA TO KIM KARDASHIAN: “LET THE POOR KITTY GO!”
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has attacked socialite Kim Kardashian for posting a photo on her Twitter. The pic taken in Australia shows Kim picking up a black kitten by the scruff of the neck.
The TwitPic goes with the words: “Pic from my shoot yesterday…good kitty cat!”
PETA immediately reacted to the photo saying Kim gave a wrong example of how to hold a cat a mother-cat style.
Kim Kardashian isn’t the only person who mistakenly thinks that because a mother cat picks up her kittens by the scruff of the neck that a supportive hand under the rump isn’t needed,” PETA said in the statement.
According to AceShowbiz.com, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals echoes PETA’s anger saying that “the manner in which Ms. Kardashain is holding the kitten could lead others to mishandle animals.”
Defending the pic, Kim posted the following on her blog:
Rest assured, the owner and vet were on set and showed me how to pick him up. The cat was not harmed in any way and is perfectly fine! I love animals and would never do anything to harm animals.”
Don’t touch animals, Kim. PETA’s watching you!
US and Europe rethink role of Cold War alliance
WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is heading to a meeting of NATO ministers in Estonia at a time when the 61-year-old organization is suffering from a kind of mid-life crisis.
Almost 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the 28-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization is in the midst of an intense self-examination, trying to rethink its basic purpose.
NATO was founded to blunt the long-extinct threat of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.
Now it finds itself divided on many fronts: doubts among some members about its combat mission in Afghanistan, unease with the continuing presence of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe, prickly relations with Moscow and concerns about the wisdom of expanding NATO deeper into Russia’s backyard.
Clinton and 27 of her NATO counterparts will gather Thursday in Tallinn, capital of the former Soviet state of Estonia, where they’re expected to take stock of the alliance and the challenges it faces.
Among the most difficult issues on the agenda are NATO’s outlook for success in Afghanistan and the prospects for putting the Balkan nation of Bosnia on track toward NATO membership.
The foreign ministers also are expected to debate the future of the U.S. nuclear umbrella for Europe, which boils down to a question of whether to withdraw the remaining Cold War-era U.S. nuclear weapons there.
The Tallinn meeting, in fact, could split over the question of whether it’s time to remove an estimated 200 U.S. nuclear bombs that remain at six air bases in five NATO countries.
The Obama administration hasn’t taken a public position on the fate of this small but politically nettlesome nuclear arsenal. Administration officials say NATO should debate the matter and make a collective decision.
But the U.S. is trying to persuade Russia to match any Western reductions of these short-range nuclear weapons with cuts of its own. Some in Europe, including the Germans, are less certain that such linkage is needed.
The meeting also is likely to review progress in rewriting what NATO calls its “strategic concept,” updating its mission statement for the first time since 1999.
That document predated the Sept. 11 attacks, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the August 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia, which is eagerly pursuing NATO membership.
A final draft spelling out NATO’s new mission is to be endorsed when President Barack Obama and other alliance leaders meet in November.
U.S. relations with Europe have deteriorated in recent years, in part due to opposition inside the alliance to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
One of Obama’s main foreign policy goals upon entering the White House was to repair ties with Europe, while also “resetting” relations with Russia, which regards NATO expansion as a threat to its influence in the former Soviet Union.
There is no serious talk inside NATO of dismantling the alliance but, as analyst Stephen Flanagan of the Center for Strategic and International Studies put it in an interview, “Some are questioning what it’s for.”
The original purpose was framed in purely defensive terms: to protect Western Europe from a potential land invasion by the USSR.
Today there is no USSR, and no credible military threat to NATO as a whole. But the Russia-Georgia war served as a reminder to other former Soviet republics that are now NATO members — like the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — that their neighborhood is still dangerous.
NATO’s Western European members, including Germany, are more likely to view Russia as a major trading partner and source of natural gas and oil.
Central and eastern European members of the alliance view Russia more uneasily because of Moscow’s history as an imperial power. The new members of the NATO club tend to see the alliance’s nuclear arsenal as a counterbalance to Russia’s military might.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the NATO secretary-general, thinks the organization should work more closely with other military alliances far beyond Europe’s borders — to include rising powers China and India. He says the Afghanistan war experience has shown the need for such global linkages.
“But some fear NATO stretching itself too thin,” he told a University of Chicago audience on April 8. “Others are afraid that NATO wants to rival the U.N. For these reasons, among others, there is hesitation about NATO engaging more systematically with countries like India or China.”
Cybersecurity is emerging as a major worry for NATO, and Estonia is a fitting venue for discussing this emerging threat.
In April and May 2007, during heightened tensions between Russia and Estonia, hackers unleashed a wave of cyber attacks that crippled dozens of Estonian government and corporate sites in one of the world’s most wired countries.
Estonian authorities traced the attacks to Russia and suggested they had been orchestrated by the Kremlin — a charge Moscow denied.
Adm. James Stavridis, the top NATO commander in Europe, says the 2007 case — and the prospect of others to come — poses a hard question for the alliance.
The NATO credo of “an attack on one is an attack on all” is the fundamental pledge by all signatories to the NATO founding treaty. But does a cyber attack against one NATO member compel the alliance as a whole to come to that country’s defense?
“In 1949 when the treaty was written, no one could have conceived this cyber world,” Stavridis said in a Feb. 2 speech.
“In NATO in particular, in my view, we need to talk about what defines an attack … because in this unsettled sea in which we sail, I believe it is more likely that an attack will come not off the bomb rack of an aircraft but as electrons moving down a fiber optic cable.”
While the meeting is expected to focus on security issues, some see the upcoming meeting in Tallinn as, in part, a chance for a little marriage counseling.
Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb says the meeting could help the U.S. and its European allies air pent-up frustrations and ease tensions. “I feel it is time for the grumpy old Atlantic couples to renew their wedding vows,” he said.
Chrysler reports $197M 1Q loss, cash balance grows
DETROIT – Chrysler Group LLC lost a staggering $3.8 billion from the time it left bankruptcy protection June 10 through the end of last year, but the automaker says its fortunes improved dramatically in the first quarter.
The struggling company, now run by Italy’s Fiat Group SpA, cut its net loss to $197 million from January through March and said it posted an operating profit from selling cars and trucks, before interest and taxes.
Moreover, Chrysler said it generated $1.5 billion in cash during the quarter, raising its reserves to $7.4 billion and reducing the likelihood that it will need more government aid. And the company predicted its operations would break even or be slightly profitable this year.
The Auburn Hills, Mich., automaker said Wednesday that it made an operating profit of $143 million in the first quarter, excluding taxes and interest.
“This positive operating result in the first quarter is a concrete indication to our customers, dealers and suppliers that the 2010 targets we have set for ourselves are achievable,” CEO Sergio Marchionne, who also heads Fiat, said in a statement. “We are also generating cash to finance the investments being made in our product portfolio and brand repositioning.”
First-quarter revenue was $9.7 billion, up 3 percent from the fourth quarter, the company said. Revenue for the post-bankruptcy period of last year was $17.7 billion.
Chrysler said its operating loss for the last half of 2009 was $895 million.
The company also said the huge net loss for the second half of the year included a noncash charge of $2 billion as the company moved blue-collar retiree health care liabilities off its books to a trust fund run by the United Auto Workers union.
Chrysler last reported earnings in August 2007, just after it became a private company when it was sold by Daimler AG to private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management. At that time, it reported a second-quarter profit of $549 million, although it said it would have lost money without a $946 million gain because it didn’t book scheduled depreciation and amortization that quarter.
Cerberus didn’t invest the cash needed to weather the worst auto sales decline in more than 25 years, and as a result, Chrysler came close to running out of money at the end of 2008. The U.S. government stepped in, authorizing $15.5 billion in aid and appointing Marchionne to run the company after it emerged from Chapter 11. Chrysler said it has not drawn $2.4 billion of U.S. and Canadian government aid.
Marchionne said the improved performance came from discipline in pricing its vehicles, a larger proportion of its sales coming from the profitable Ram pickup, and cost efficiency mainly from adopting Fiat’s manufacturing system.
The company said its U.S. market share grew from 8.1 percent at the end of last year to 9.1 percent in the first quarter. Sales worldwide grew 5 percent over the fourth quarter of 2009 to 334,000 vehicles.
But there were also were signs that Chrysler could have a rough go in the future, especially in the U.S., its key home market. The company’s U.S. sales grew 5 percent for the quarter, but lagged behind other automakers as the whole market grew 15.5 percent. About 40 percent of Chrysler’s sales for the period were to rental car companies and other fleet buyers, which generally yield lower profits than retail sales to individuals.
Dealers also reported slow sales due to an aging product lineup. But Chrysler said that by the end of the year it plans to redo the slow-selling Chrysler Sebring midsize sedan and the Dodge Charger muscle car, as well as unveil a new Jeep Grand Cherokee sport utility vehicle and a new Chrysler 300 large car. Also coming in December is the Fiat 500 minicar.
Some industry analysts were skeptical of Chrysler’s performance gains.
Max Warburton, an industry analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein in England, wrote in a note to investors last week that he thinks Chrysler’s accounting profits are “almost irrelevant” and not comparable to other automakers.
“Positive cash flow is being driven by dealer restocking and stretching payables,” he wrote in anticipation of Chrysler’s earnings release. “We remain unconvinced Chrysler will survive in its current form despite Marchionne’s blood, sweat and tears.”
While Marchionne’s cost cuts have been impressive, Warburton wrote that the company’s capital investments have been minimal, and it has been arguing with parts suppliers about payments for machinery to build future products.
But Marchionne, during a presentation on Fiat’s five-year financial plans in Turin, Italy, took a swipe at analyst reports that have taken a dim view of Chrysler’s operating profits. He compared the writings to the “Boulevard press,” meaning tabloid journalism.
“As we all know, in business it is ultimately only facts that prevail,” Marchionne said.
Chrysler’s last full-year profit was in 2005, when it made $1.8 billion. The last time Chrysler reported a quarterly profit was in the second quarter of 2006, when it earned $65 million.
Fiat on Wednesday reported a $34 million first-quarter loss and forecast that its auto business will be hurt this year by the elimination of cash-for-clunker programs in Europe.
LO POST PREGNANCY BODY
Marc Anthony has just completed his Euro concert tour in Spain, Belgium and Italy. All of this time the entire Lopez – Anthony family hung out together. And for the perfect end they all went to the sea.
J Lo is vacationing with her family and her close friend world famous fashion designer Stefano Gabbana in Italy. After giving birth to twins Max and Emme this February Jennifer seems to work a lot on her post pregnant body. During the pregnancy she gained as twice as she usually weighs.
At the luxurious boat in Italy Lopez stripped down to two pieces bikini to reveal the a little bit damaged figure. She is not as curvy anymore, but hey, she’s got herself babies!
Moreover, J Lo has revealed she is not in the rush to lose weight saying that she even found it cute to have something to play with:
I like to play with my leftover belly.”
Lucky ‘Jenny from the block’ has a team of famous fitness instructor Gunnar Peterson, few babysitters and a chef, who makes sure singer eats only low fat, high energy and delicious food.
Her program now includes 20-30 minute walks with sets of push-ups and lunges. Of course, she better work her famous ass hard to make it to her planned number of film projects. J Lo will star in romantic comedy Love and Other Impossible Pursuits.
Yes, no matter where she goes she knows where she came from. So don’t get fooled by the fat that she got.
Dems stand by $50B fund
Senate Democratic leaders plan to stand behind the $50 billion fund maligned by Republicans as perpetuating Wall Street bailouts, agreeing at a leadership meeting Monday that they wouldn’t give it up without gaining GOP votes in return, according to a Democratic aide familiar with the discussions.
Democrats have been put on the defensive by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has cited the fund as reason to oppose the financial regulatory reform bill, and the administration, which described the fund late last week as not “essential” to the overall legislation.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told her Monday that he was willing to eliminate the fund, which would be financed by large firms and used to wind down failing institutions.
But Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and his leadership team intend to put up an aggressive defense of the fund – at least for now.
The decision could be viewed as strategic. Democrats don’t want to give up elements of the bill without hard commitments from Republicans to support the measure. By holding firm to the fund — which even some Republicans, including Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, say isn’t central to their opposition of the bill — Democrats are protecting themselves from having to make major concessions too soon.
Even though Geithner had previously stated his concerns with the fund, Senate Democrats were caught off-guard by statements from administration aides last week re-affirming that opposition.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) said the White House called him over the weekend and “apologized for getting out ahead” on the fund.
“They’ve had a different view on a lot of issues,” Dodd said. “We believe the Republican idea had value because it avoided taxpayer exposure.”
Dodd suggested there was another idea on the table: creating a trust that could be used only to wind down a failing institution. This concept could address the concerns of some Republicans, such as Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who say Washington lawmakers would try to raid the fund for other purposes.
Geithner has preferred recouping the cost of winding down a failing firm after the event occurs — as opposed to the front end — citing the “moral hazard” that such a fund might generate by companies knowing that the money is there.
But Sheila Bair, the chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, has come out in support of creating a fund at the outset. As a Republican, Bair’s support for the fund has been cited repeatedly by Democrats.
Following a negotiating session Monday with Dodd, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Banking Committee, told reporters “we’re closer than we’ve ever been” to getting a deal.
Dodd wasn’t quite so bullish, saying only that “we’re getting there.”
Still, asked if he’d hold off pushing the bill to the floor if a deal was at hand, Dodd said: “We’ve got to move forward. The bill is going to come up either way.”
If Democrats fail on the first procedural motion, they will keep filing them until one Republican flips to their side, Dodd said.
