Stocks bounce on low interest rate promises

The Dow rose 83 points to close at 12758, its highest close since May 2011, after the Federal Reserve pledged to keep interest rates near zero for almost three more years.

The stock market bounced to its highest close since last spring Wednesday after the Federal Reserve pledged to keep interest rates near zero for almost three more years.

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Bond yields dropped sharply, then climbed back later in the day when investors began looking more closely into the Fed's deliberations. The yield on the five-year Treasury note touched an all-time low.

The big moves in both markets came at 12:30 p.m. (1730 GMT), when the Fed's monetary policy committee said it was unlikely to raise interest rates before late 2014. It had previously promised to keep rates low into the middle of 2013.

The Fed cut rates to near zero in December 2008, during the financial crisis, and has held them there ever since. The announcement was a sign that the Fed expects the economy, which is improving, to need significant help for three more years.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down as much as 95 points in the morning and about 60 points before the Fed announcement. It shot to a gain of 103 points during the afternoon.

The Dow closed up 83.10 points, or 0.7 percent, at 12,758.85. That's the highest close since May. The Dow peaked for last year in April at 12,810. Before that, it had not been so high since May 2008.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note was at 2.05 percent an hour before the announcement and quickly fell to 1.92, a significant move. It rose to 1.99 percent two hours later.

The bounce-back happened at about 2 p.m. (1900 GMT), when the Fed released details of how the committee voted. Six of its 17 members had favored an interest rate increase this year or next ? well before late 2014 in either case.

The yield on the five-year Treasury note hit 0.76 percent, an all-time low. Bond yields fall when their prices rise.

The Fed's extension of low rates signaled that it expects inflation to stay low. Low inflation makes Treasurys more attractive by helping to maintain the value of bond owners' fixed returns. Rising prices would eat into those returns.

The announcement guaranteed that short-term loans will remain cheap, making it easier for investors to finance longer-term purchases, such as 10- and 30-year Treasurys, said John Canally, investment strategist and economist for LPL Financial.

Monetary decisions by the Fed can change the market's momentum in the short term but rarely have a longer-term impact, Canally warned.

The market changed directions after 22 of the past 24 Fed policy announcements, he said, yet the change evaporates quickly. The market essentially has an equal chance of rising or falling in the five days after Fed meetings, he said.

"It's a coin flip, really," Canally said.

Keeping rates ultra-low for a longer period increases the likelihood that the Fed will engage in more bond-buying programs to help the economy, a policy known as quantitative easing, said Anthony Chan, chief economist with JPMorgan Private Wealth Management. Those tend to boost bond prices by increasing the overall demand in the market.

Chan called the Fed's move insurance against the European debt crisis and a recession across the Atlantic Ocean. Stock buyers, he said, were happy about the prospect of low inflation and a Fed leaning toward promoting economic growth.

The promise of lower rates pushed the dollar lower against other major currencies. Low interest rates make the dollar less attractive because they reduce the returns traders get on U.S. debt and other bonds priced in dollars.

Markets had opened mostly lower on fears about Greece's slow progress in talks with bondholders aimed at reducing that nation's crushing debt load.

Technology stocks rose all morning, bucking the wider market, after Apple reported its best quarter and blew away analyst estimates because of strong holiday sales of the iPhone and iPad.

Apple once again passed Exxon Mobil as the company with the biggest market value. Wall Street was watching the results closely because they were for the company's first quarter since the death of founder Steve Jobs.

Apple stock jumped 6.3 percent, helping lift the Nasdaq composite index by 31.67 points, or 1.1 percent, to close at 2,818.31. The Nasdaq is up 8.2 percent this year, nearly twice the gain for the Dow Jones industrial average.

Netflix Inc., the DVD-by-mail and video streaming provider, jumped 13 percent in after-hours trading after reporting earnings that far exceeded Wall Street's expectations.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 11.41 points, or 0.9 percent, to 1,326.06. The S&P is up 5.4 percent for the year and more than 14 percent from its Nov. 25 low.

As fears recede about Europe, big-time investors such as hedge funds will be drawn back into the market, fueling more gains, said Joe Bell, senior Equity Strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

After such a strong rally, there might be a slight decline, but "overall we're bullish," Bell said.

Among the other companies making big moves after announcing earnings:

? US Airways Group Inc. jumped 17.3 percent and Delta Air Lines Inc. rose 6.2 percent. Both airlines reported profits far better than Wall Street analysts expected. The airlines raised fares during the fourth quarter while keeping costs under control. Delta also cut the number of flights it makes to keep pace with demand.

? WellPoint Inc., the largest U.S. health insurance company based on enrollment, fell 4.8 percent. Its quarterly profit dropped 39 percent, far more than analysts had expected. Its full-year forecast also fell short of forecasts. Medical claims, its largest expense, rose nearly 10 percent in the quarter.

? Guidewire Software Inc. soared 37 percent on its first day of trading. The company, which makes software for the insurance industry, rose to $17.80 after selling initially at $13. The 11-year-old company raised $115 million in its debut ? or about $27 million less than the profit Apple turned in an average day last quarter.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/j3ipt6LDQAQ/Stocks-bounce-on-low-interest-rate-promises

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U.S. to Iraq: don't "blow this opportunity" (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The United States has warned Iraq not to "blow this opportunity" to become a prosperous, unified nation, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday, saying it must start to act like a democracy and embrace compromise.

Iraq has suffered its worst political crisis in a year with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's move to arrest Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi last month, which has raised fears of renewed sectarian violence following the U.S. troop withdrawal.

Speaking in a question-and-answer session with State Department employees, Clinton said U.S. ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey has taken the lead in urging Iraqi politicians including Maliki, a Shi'ite, to settle their differences peacefully.

"He is constantly ... reaching out, meeting with, cajoling, pushing the players, starting with Prime Minister Maliki, not to blow this opportunity," she said. "This is an opportunity to have a unified Iraq and the only way to do that is by compromising."

Hashemi, a Sunni, was accused of running death squads. He has denied the charges and sought refuge in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, where he is unlikely to be arrested.

The current political crisis threatens to break up the country's fragile coalition government, raising fears it could slip back into the sectarian carnage that broke out following the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Clinton said despite the downfall of Saddam Hussein, whose Sunni-dominated regime oppressed Iraq's Shi'ite majority, Iraqis' "minds are not yet fully open to the potential for what this new opportunity can mean to them."

She said the United States would do whatever it could to help "but at the end of the day, Iraq is now a democracy but they need to act like one and that requires compromise."

(Reporting By Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Vicki Allen)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120126/wl_nm/us_iraq_usa

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Obama?s tax deform agenda

In his State of the Union address, President Obama offered?a?laundry list?of new tax subsidies but said almost nothing about a top-to-bottom rewrite of the Tax Code.?

For a while there, I thought President Obama was going to embrace tax reform in his?State of the Union?address.? Instead, following the lead of his predecessors, he offered?a?laundry list?of new tax subsidies, bragged about some old ones, and said almost nothing about a top-to-bottom rewrite of the Tax Code.

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Here?s just a partial list of the targeted tax breaks Obama promoted: Tax credits for clean energy and college tuition, as well as?tax?cuts for small business that create jobs,?domestic manufacturers,?high-tech manufacturers, and?companies that close overseas plants and move production back to the U.S.

At the same time, he?d require individuals making more than $1 million to pay an effective income tax rate of at least 30 percent, in part by eliminating their ability to take many deductions. And, he?d use the tax code to punish companies that do business overseas, creating a new minimum levy that is supposed to assure that all multinationals pay some U.S. tax.

Obama?s embrace of the tax code as a vehicle to pick winners and losers sounded more than a little discordant in a speech whose theme was ?everyone gets a fair shot and plays by the same set of rules.?? Not so much in a tax code where you get special rules for the government?s favored activities.

As Obama was tossing out his tax baubles, I kept wondering about those firms that somehow didn?t get on his gift list. I can just imagine lobbyists? cell phones abuzz from furious clients wondering why they weren?t getting a tax break of their very own.

For instance, think about a start-up software company that has to compete with an established firm. Because new businesses rarely make money in their first years, extra tax deductions do them no good. By contrast, a more established competitor, especially if it can qualify for Obama?s high-tech tax break, would benefit?perhaps substantially.

The?multinationals??minimum tax?would be entirely unworkable. Even if Congress passed the levy, which it won?t, those firms will find ways around it. Minimum taxes are Band-Aides for a flawed tax system. The solution is not to create a new?penalty for firms that learn to manipulate the law, it is to fix the basic law in the first place.

If Obama wants to prevent companies from gaming the system, he could lower the corporate rate and eliminate tax preferences. He raised this in last year?s?state of the union address?but did nothing about it. That?s too bad. With a low enough domestic tax rate, companies would have less incentive to shuffle income overseas.

Or he could go in the opposite direction and eliminate deferral, the practice that allows multinationals to avoid U.S. tax until they bring earnings back to the U.S. But this minimum tax seems to be a half-measure that may play to his populist base but will achieve little.

I suppose it is inevitable that a president beginning his fourth year in office and facing a deeply divided Congress would go small-bore. After all, there will be no fundamental tax reform in the current environment and even proposing such a step would only open him to criticism from the usual suspects in housing, non-profits, finance and other industries that are very happy with the system as it is.

Still, it is a shame that, instead, Obama would make things worse.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/JFVefhF4B30/Obama-s-tax-deform-agenda

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Arduino hack gives a second screen to Android phones, isn't very useful (video)

Who knows why tech tinkerers do what they do. We're just happy to see those idle hands try the untested. Like this latest Arduino hack from modder Michael of Nootropic Design, who's seen fit to rig a 16 x 32 LED matrix up to an Android phone for use as a secondary display. The outputted video, downscaled via OpenCV software to an appropriate resolution and 12-bit color, is admittedly unimpressive, as it chugs along at a paltry four frames per second. But that's not the point of this can-do experiment -- it's all about the possibilities, however blurry and pointless they may be (although, we're sure Barbara Walters would beg to differ). Ready to see this modjob in motion? Then head on past the break for a brief video demo.

Continue reading Arduino hack gives a second screen to Android phones, isn't very useful (video)

Arduino hack gives a second screen to Android phones, isn't very useful (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/25/arduino-hack-gives-a-second-screen-to-android-phones-isnt-very/

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In GOP response, Daniels blames Obama for economy

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama has resorted to "extremism" with stifling, anti-growth policies and sought to divide Americans, not unite them, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said Tuesday in the formal Republican response to the president's State of the Union address.

Eight months after deciding against a bid for his party's presidential nomination, Daniels used his nationally televised speech to lash out at Obama and cast the GOP as compassionate and eager to unchain the country's economic potential.

He took particular aim at Obama's efforts to raise taxes on the rich and castigate them for not contributing their fair share to the nation's burdens. Joined by Republicans on Capitol Hill and the presidential campaign trails, the GOP goal was to both blunt and shift the focus away from Obama's theme on Tuesday of fairness, which included protecting the middle class and making sure the rich pay an equitable share of taxes.

"No feature of the Obama presidency has been sadder than its constant effort to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others," Daniels said, speaking from Indianapolis. "As in previous moments of national danger, we Americans are all in the same boat."

"This election is going to be a referendum on the president's economic policies," which have worsened the economy, said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. "The politics of envy, the politics of dividing our country is not what America is all about."

Also drawing frequent GOP attacks were Obama's proposed tax increases, which included making sure millionaire earners pay at least a 30 percent tax rate.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said Obama's proposals to boost taxes on the wealthy and give tax breaks for domestic U.S. manufacturers and others were "nothing more than the usual Washington game that has led to a tax code already littered with lobbyist loopholes."

Daniels is a rarity in the GOP these days ? a uniting and widely respected figure, contrasting with the divisiveness emanating from the contest for the presidential nomination being waged among former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and others.

President George W. Bush's first budget chief and a two-term Indiana governor, Daniels often rails against wasteful spending big budget deficits, though critics note he served during the abrupt shift from fleeting federal surpluses to massive deficits early in Bush's term.

"When President Obama claims that the state of our union is anything but grave, he must know in his heart that this is not true," Daniels said. He added that while Obama did not cause the country's economic and budget problems, "He was elected on a promise to fix them, and he cannot claim that the last three years have made things anything but worse."

The night's rhetoric come at the dawn of a presidential and congressional election year in which the defining issues are the faltering economy and weak job market and the parties' clashing prescriptions for restoring both. Obama and congressional Democrats have focused on the more populist pathway of financing federal initiatives by taxing millionaires, while Republicans preach the virtues of less regulation and smaller government.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called Obama's address "a campaign speech designed to please his liberal base," and warned that he should keep legislation advancing his priorities "free from poison pills like tax hikes on job creators."

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who heads large group of House conservatives, said Obama's speech was riddled with "the ridiculous idea that America isn't fair because successful people get to keep too much of the money they earn."

Republicans fired back at Obama's vision of "an economy built to last," saying it was their party that understood the best way to trigger economic growth was to get the government out of the way.

"The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly sane pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy," Daniels said.

Obama has halted, for now, work on the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from western Canada to Texas' Gulf Coast. Republicans say the project would create thousands of jobs, a claim opponents say is overstated. The administration has also pursued policies aimed at reducing pollution and global warming.

To underscore Obama's decision on Keystone, Boehner invited three officials from companies he said would be hurt by the pipeline's rejection to watch the speech in the House chamber, along with a pro-pipeline legislator from Nebraska, through which the project would pass.

?????Obama was delivering his address during a rowdy battle for the GOP presidential nomination that has ended up providing ammunition for Obama's theme of fairness.

????? That fight has called attention to the wealth of one of the top contenders, Romney, and the low ? but legal ? effective federal income tax rate of around 15 percent that the multimillionaire has paid in the past two years. Romney, in Florida campaigning for that state's Jan. 31 primary, released his tax documents for the two-year period on Tuesday.

???? ?"The president's agenda sounds less like 'built to last' and more like doomed to fail," Romney said in Tampa, Fla.?"What he's proposing is more of the same: more taxes, more spending, and more regulation."

???? ?Romney's chief rival at this point, Gingrich, said in a written statement that the top question about Obama's speech was whether he "will show a willingness to put aside the extremist ideology of the far left and call for a new set of policies that could lead to dramatic private sector job creation and economic growth."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-25-State%20of%20Union-GOP%20Reaction/id-e99da6f0a3b44ccb93b20682865a8b09

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Heaven help us. |ooc&su|

In 2018, the United States and North Korea exchanged nuclear bombs. Two to each country. The two in the U.S took out most of Los Angles, and a good part of Sacramento. And then for a whole year or so, it seemed as if Californians were the only ones who really suffered...but in 2019, the entire nation was subject to nuclear fallout. The past year, the radiation from the bombs had hung in the air and was pushed along by wind currents, and eventually, it came down to earth. Everyone was subject to a bit of it at first. Some more than others, of course. But almost as soon as the first person went to the hospital for minor effects of it, the nation panicked and everyone took all measures possible to prevent from it. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough for some people.

During that time of radiation babies, were born, naturally. For the women with little radiation, births went just as births are expected to, with mother and child going on perfectly healthy. But those with more radiation weren't faced with such happy endings. In those cases, it wasn't uncommon for mother or child to die. In fact, in most cases neither made it. But there were quite a few occurrences also where the baby made it...although they all suffered from radiation poisoning passed down through their mother.

In eight of those cases in which the babies survived, the radiation didn't effect them in the harmful way it would be expected to. It actually altered them in such a way that gave them special abilities...superpowers, if you will. Of course no one knew this until the children were around three, and started to exhibit these powers. When a man named Gary Batts caught word of this, he adopted, or in some cases even kidnapped, these special children. After he had acquired all of them, he made it his mission to train them. To teach them how to use and control their powers, and not let having them corrupt them. They were all home schooled, and rarely saw life outside of the house...but since it was what they knew, they all seemed to be content with their situation. Well, all accept for the one child that disappeared when they were all around the age of ten.

---

The year is now 2036. All of the children are either seventeen or eighteen years old now. They've mastered their powers, and have been allowed to experience the outside world for the last two years...they'd even been offered the chance to move out. But none of them did. Not even after Mr. Batts passed away. That particular event actually left them lost, not knowing what to do with themselves.

As if coming from a comic book, they've decided that they must become a team of protectors for the dirty New Jersey city riddled with crime. Because they think it's probably what Mr. Batts would want from them. A couple of them have taken up jobs in order to privide for the essentials, but the rest of them usually stay at home. They'll occasionally go out and act as regular citizens...but only a couple times a week or so. They prefer to stay in the comfort of their own home most of the time. But whenever there's word of some kind of crime to be taken care of, they're all in the action.

Also not unlike a comic book, they have their own nemesis who is trying to destroy them. Due to this person also having powers, it can only be assumed that they are the run away member of their little family. And they have obviously chosen to use their powers for 'evil'. What their overall plan is is unknown. They just seem bent on killing their 'siblings'...maybe, just maybe, it could be to leave them the only one with powers. Maybe it's that they want to be the one to actually protect the city instead of harming it.. But again, that information is not known to anyone just yet.

So for now, they just fight.

The children
+TheOneAndOnly+
+TheOneAndOnly+
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight (now their nemesis)

There is a lot to read, I'm sorry =\ Please don't be put off by that...or if it seems confusing. Because I will explain anything that needs explaining if you just ask =)
Also, I want an equal gender count. 4 boys and 4 girls. I may or may not ask people to double, depending on how much interest this gets.
Anyway, that's about it out of me for now I suppose =p

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/sFLMYCdTa8g/viewtopic.php

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Experts Say Joe Paterno's Dismissal Could Have Hastened His Death

The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Did the hammer blow to Joe Paterno's lifelong legacy hasten his death?

At least one national expert on aging said Paterno's firing as football coach at Pennsylvania State University, and the accusation that he should have done more to prevent a sex-abuse scandal, could have diminished his will to live.

Read the whole story: The Philadelphia Inquirer

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/23/paterno-dismissal-death-will-to-live_n_1223434.html

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