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For all the feelgood Obama was supposed to bring about, a bipartisan study from George Washington University says 20 percent of Americans describe themselves as "angry" about "the way things are going in the country today," and Republican pollster Ed Goeas says the enraged underclass could change the game in 2010. "There is the potential for this being a 1994 year of the angry white male," Goeas said, citing Republicans' underdog capture of both the House and Senate in the middle of Bill Clinton's presidency. Though only 5 percent of Democrats describe themselves as "angry," 26 percent of independents and 33 percent of Republicans do. Of the 1,000 likely voters surveyed, 56 percent said America was heading in the wrong direction. Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said the down economy and messy health-care battle is to blame, and notes a 13-point "enthusiasm gap" rendering angry Republicans more likely to vote in the upcoming election than their contented Democratic peers.
With Democrats hammering out a compromise and Republicans using every trick in the book to stall legislation, Christmas may come and go without a Senate vote on proposed health-care legislation, despite the self-imposed deadline by Majority Leader Harry Reid. Republican senators demonstrated a willingness to do whatever it takes to delay a vote today, demanding that the Senate clerk read a 767-page amendment in its entirety, while conservative Democrat Ben Nelson avoided making any firm pronouncements about his support of the bill. The Democrats hope to pass a bill by Christmas so that a final version can be delivered to President Obama by the State of the Union address—and so that they can move on to other legislative priorities. Republicans remained unapologetic: "We want to do what we can to defeat the bill," said Senator John Thune of South Dakota.
Well, at least one person in America was able to find a new job this month. Brian Moynihan, head of Bank of America's consumer and small-business banking operations, was named new CEO of the banking giant, succeeding Ken Lewis, who announced his retirement in September following the controversial acquisition of Merrill Lynch. BofA has experienced a turnaround in recent months with the resurgence of the stock market, and announced this month that it would pay back its $45 billion government loan.
On Wednesday Iran announced that it test fired a faster, more accurate version of its long-range solid-fuel missile. The Sajjil-2 is a high-speed, surface-to-surface missile that is "impossible to destroy" with "anti-missile systems because of its radar-evading ability," according to Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi's televised statement. The Sajjil-2, Iran's most advanced two-stage missile, has a 1,200 mile range that could reach Israel, as well as targets as far away as southeastern Europe. "Sajjil" means "baked clay" and references a Quranic story of birds sent by god that pelted an attacking army with baked clay stones.
Don't expect the Woods-Nordegren family Christmas to be as exciting as their Thanksgiving: According to People magazine, Elin is taking the kids to Sweden for the holidays, and possibly longer. Originally, the former model had planned on leaving in January, but apparently she will return to her home country sooner. Though no official announcements have been made, rumors are circulating that Nordegren will leave Woods, and she was photographed without her wedding ring recently.
Sarah Palin is going for a low blow: "Why is Governor Schwarzenegger pushing for the same sorts of policies in Copenhagen that have helped drive his state into record deficits and unemployment?" Palin wrote on her Facebook page Tuesday night. "Perhaps he will recall that I live in our nation's only Arctic state and that I was among the first governors to create a sub-cabinet to deal specifically with climate change." Palin was responding to Schwarzenegger’s question, “You have to ask: What was she trying to accomplish? Is she really interested in this subject or is she interested in her career and in winning the [Republican presidential] nomination?” Palin goes on in her Facebook post to claim that climate change is naturally occurring, “like gravity.”
In an effort to appease citizens angry at the state of the financial industry, the French government has proposed a 50 percent tax on bank bonuses for 2009, which the French finance minister called an "incentive to apply discipline and moderation in the payment of 2010 bonuses." The U.K. and France have very publicly encouraged other countries to take similar measures, but thus far have received little response. Based on the idea that bank earnings this year owe a great deal to government bailouts, the proceeds from the tax would go toward the extension of state guarantees on bank deposits. However, the tax is expected to be more symbolic than it is lucrative: "I doubt we will collect much money through this bonus tax," said one French lawmaker, "But it's an important political symbol of fairness."
He might not be much of a husband, or much of a driver, but Tiger Woods is the athlete of the decade, according to the Associated Press. The scandal-tainted golfer received 56 of the 142 votes in the AP's poll of member editors, even given that more that half of the ballots were cast after Woods' many affairs came to light. With victories at 12 majors—part of his 56 PGA Tour wins—this decade, Woods is only four behind Jack Nicklaus' record, and was the runner-up in six other majors this decade. Cyclist Lance Armstrong, tennis champion Roger Federer, swimmer Michael Phelps, quarterback Tom Brady, and sprinter Usain Bolt followed Woods in the voting.
The Tiger Woods adultery scandal still has a juicy center. People magazine reports, per a source, that his wife Elin "plans to leave" the golfer. "She's made up her mind. There's nothing to think about: he's never going to change," the source said. This comes as Us Weekly reports that not only did Woods pay alleged mistress Rachel Uchitel $3 million to keep quiet, but he recently texted her to find a time when the two could meet up. According to Us sources inside the Uchitel camp: "They are not over... Rachel said he told her he was going to leave his wife for her, that he needed to be with her."
The war of words between New York Times editor Bill Keller and Wall Street Journal editor Robert Thomson is entering the late rounds: Keller has responded to a claim by a Journal spokesman that he wrote a letter to the Polk Committee trying to harm the Journal’s chances of winning a Pulitzer. “First, I don’t think the Journal can blame me for its recent Pulitzer drought,” Keller wrote. “[The letter] did not ‘disparage’ or ‘cast aspersions’ on the series itself, which many of us at the Times admired as an example of the in-depth reporting the Journal used to do with some regularity.” The tiff was set off by a New York Times column by David Carr wondering if the Journal has drifted rightward under Rupert Murdoch.
Keep the cheap cash flowing: The Federal Reserve pledged Wednesday to keep interest rates “exceptionally low” for “an extended period.” The Fed is hoping to fight off what Chairman Ben Bernanke has called “significant headwinds” of declining credit and continuing job losses. The benchmark overnight lending rate, which is the rate at which banks lend to each other, will remain between zero and 0.25 percent, where it has been for a year.
Ben Shalom Bernanke, head of the Federal Reserve, is Time's Person of the Year for 2009 because "he is the most important player guiding the world's most important economy." Much of Time's profile focuses on how Bernanke's roots as an academic have influenced recent economic policy. As a Depression buff driven by his belief that the Fed failed to rev the economy by freely lending after the crash of 1929, Bernanke broke new ground this year by dropping interest rates to zero for the first time; reaching out globally to coordinate a six-nation rate cut to calm markets; pursuing new credit channels to help firms meet their payrolls; injecting cash into the battered housing market; and bailing out financial companies. As Time put it, "none of this was pretty," but on the other hand, "that's what happens when leaders actually try to preserve the financial system. The central bankers of the 1930s avoided moral hazard but betrayed the world." And Time makes a pretty good case that Bernanke hasn't.
Perhaps Chuck Schumer should look into a private jet? The senator from New York was overheard by a Republican aide on a flight from New York to Washington calling a flight attendant a “bitch” after she asked him to turn off his cellphone before takeoff. Schumer turned off his phone when asked, but then argued with the flight attendant about the rule, saying he had a right to use it until the cabin door was closed. After she walked away, Schumer turned to New York’s other senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, and used the epithet. “The senator made an off-the-cuff comment under his breath that he shouldn’t have made, and he regrets it," said a spokesman for Schumer. After Schumer hung up, his phone apparently rang again. “It’s Harry Reid calling,” the GOP aide quoted Schumer as saying. “I guess health care will have to wait until we land.”
After a prolonged battle with stomach cancer, Roy Disney has passed away at the age of 79. The nephew of Walt Disney, Roy started out making nature films and sat on the board of the Disney corporation, eventually overthrowing what he saw as an ineffective management team. After the shakeup, Disney restored the animation department and ushered in a new era of classics, including The Little Mermaid and The Lion King. "It was Roy who was the protector. It was Roy who was the godfather, the champion and believer in it," said a colleague. "Animation doesn't work without someone who believed, and Roy believed." Disney was hands-on in his work with the company, and made frequent appearances at Disney theme parks and events. “His identity is more wrapped up in this company than you can imagine,” said his daughter in a 2004 interview.
From one cheater to another: “Hang in there,” was Rudy Giuliani’s advice for Tiger Woods when asked at the premiere of Nine. Giuliani, whose 16-year marriage broke up in 2000 after allegations of two affairs (one with his current wife, Judith Nathan), said, “He’s going through a tougher period. I know him and at an early stage in my son's career, he was very kind and nice to him.” Giuliani was complimentary in particular of Tiger’s interpersonal skills with children: “He has a big heart for children. He's a very, very fine man. And people should know the way he treats children. We know he's going to get through it.”
Internet-hungry customers will enjoy McDonald’s latest value offer—free wireless Web connections. At approximately 11,000 of the chain’s 14,000 domestic locations, Wi-Fi is available for $2.95 for two hours, but beginning in mid-January the fee will be lifted. The shift comes as McDonald’s announces a partnership with AT&T, which will provide the Web access; the fast-food joint also plans to begin selling smoothies and frappes by mid-2010 to generate more of a coffee crowd. “We’re becoming a destination and free Wi-Fi just naturally fits,” said a McDonald’s exec. “This is another long-term investment that we see helps McDonald’s stay relevant as a brand in the marketplace.” Starbucks charges $3.99 for two hours of Internet service.
Protests at Copenhagen heated up on Wednesday as police used tear gas and batons to beat back hundreds of demonstrators and arrested 250 people. The demonstrators are protesting from the left and are angry over the slow progress and lack of transparency. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was reportedly stuck in the conference center for security reasons. Also in Copenhagen news, Danish environment minister Connie Hedegaard resigned as summit president and announced she will be replaced by Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen.
Until now, nothing has been less sexy than the race for New York state comptroller, but Kristin Davis, the former madam whose house Eliot Spitzer patronized and ruined when the scandal broke in 2008, says she will enter the Democratic primary if Spitzer does. Why? As Davis put it, "his abuse of some of the women I arranged for him to spend time with raises serious questions about his character," calling it "ludicrous" that Spitzer would run for office again and "even more ludicrous" the New Yorkers would vote for him. She added that her opposition platform will highlight "the inequities and sexism in our criminal justice system which penalizes women, minorities, and poor people while wealthy, connected white men like Eliot Spitzer evade justice." Plus, "his black socks in the boudoir are an additional affront to good taste."
The 30,000 new troops for Afghanistan aren’t even the half of it: The U.S. plans to send between 26,000 and 56,000 new private-sector contractors to Afghanistan as well, raising the total number of contractors in the country to anywhere between 130,000 and 160,000. Last December, contractors made up 69 percent of all Pentagon personnel in Afghanistan, which “apparently represented the highest recorded percentage of contractors used by the Defense Department in any conflict in the history of the United States” according to the Congressional Research Service.
Health-care reform moved forward slowly and unsurely, as senators rejected a proposal to make it easier to import prescription drugs from countries like Canada, where they are much cheaper. The 51-48 vote fell short of the 60 required votes. Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, meanwhile, was once again holding out, saying “I’m not on the bill.” The Hill also reports that the Republican most likely to vote in favor, Olympia Snowe, has “misgivings” and does not want to vote on the bill before Christmas. Nelson is most concerned about abortion provisions in the bill; Snowe supports abortion rights and so she might make for an easier 60th vote than Nelson.
Though he only served as finance minister of post-Soviet Russia for six months, Yegor T. Gaidar played a pivotal role in the country's economic distress after the fall of communism. Gaidar oversaw the financial transition from Communism to capitalism as the first finance minister of Russia from November 1991 until February 1992. During his time in office, rather than taking a gradual approach, Gaidar swiftly liberalized prices and privatized state industry. Though he has said he never regretted that decision, blame fell on Gaidar for the decade of poverty that followed. However, he did lay the foundation for the economic boom in Russia during the past decade. Russian news agencies reported Gaidar died Wednesday at the age of 53, allegedly due to a blood clot.
Forget Silvio Berlusconi's statuette to the face—in France, the headlines are all about the medical travails of Johnny Hallyday, a beloved and aging French music star who was put in a medically induced coma twice "in order to avoid suffering" after a postoperative infection from a herniated disk procedure. The 66-year-old Hallyday, who rose to prominence in the 1960s by first covering Elvis Presley tunes and then writing his own, is known as France's Elvis and hailed for his Springsteen-esque regular-guy attitude. France has been riveted by his illness. As the newspaper Le Monde put it, the rocker's health problems put all of France into "a national coma." Even French president Nicolas Sarkozy commented, saying that "for each of us" Hallyday's illness "means something personal," adding, "it is moving to see him fight adversity."
Microsoft has made a binding pledge to allow rival Internet browsers on its systems, ending a European Union antitrust lawsuit. Under the agreement, Microsoft will present users with 12 browser options beginning in mid-March, including its own Internet Explorer, plus Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari, and Google Chrome. Computer makers will also have the power to uninstall IE or install an alternate browser. The pledge will last for five years, although the European Commission, which filed the suit after a complaint from Norwegian browser maker Opera, will reevaluate the terms after two years. The suit charged that the company's practice of bundling IE with the ubiquitous Windows software harmed innovation and reduced customer choice. Previously, the European Commission fined Microsoft $2.44 billion for infringement of anti-competition rules.
After Tareq and Michaele Salahi's State Dinner gatecrash drew attention to deficits in White House security, a pair of tourists from Georgia has come forward explaining that they, too, crashed an Obama event—by accident. Over Veterans Day weekend, Harvey and Paula Darden mistakenly arrived at the White House a day early for a scheduled tour. There were no tours that day, so White House and Secret Security officials confirm that, after a routine security check, they were allowed to attend an East Room breakfast event at which the president was the guest of honor. "My wife looked at me and I looked at her, and I said, 'You know, I don't know if we're in the right place.'" Mr. Darden says he was told to "just go with the flow," despite being the only man in the room without a coat and tie. He adds that, though he posed for a photo with the president, he has yet to receive a copy.
Is John McCain recovering his maverick edge? The Republican senator plans to team up with Senator Marcia Cantwell (D-WA) on Wednesday to introduce legislation that would reinstate the Glass-Steagall Banking Act of 1933. That New Deal-era law prevented commercial banks from engaging in risky investment banking. Many say that its repeal in 1999 paved the way for the financial crisis of 2008 by permitting banks to merge with insurance and investment companies. Its repeal allowed Citicorp to merge with Travelers to form Citigroup.
Galleon hedge-fund founder and billionaire Raj Rajaratnam and co-defendant Danielle Chiesi were indicted for conspiracy and fraud Tuesday by a federal grand jury in what prosecutors call "the largest hedge-fund insider-trading case in history." The 17-count indictment says that an alleged insider-trading ring operated "from at least in or about 2003 up to and including in or about March 2009,” during which time, prosecutors say, the defendants made millions of dollars in illegal profits. With the help of wiretaps, 14 more people were arrested in November. Rajaratnam is free on $100 million bail and must soon make a formal plea.
The federal government decided to give up billions of dollars this week when the IRS issued an exception to its tax rules allowing Citigroup (and a handful of other companies partially owned by the federal government) to hold on to billions of dollars in tax breaks that would otherwise lose value when the government sells its shares to private investors. Friday’s decision is part of a deal the government made with Citigroup this week. The IRS has changed several rules to reduce tax burdens on financial companies during the economic crisis. Officials said the ruling will benefit taxpayers because the public’s shares in Citigroup will be more valuable and the company will be able to pay the government back on time. "The government is consciously forfeiting future tax revenue. It's another form of assistance, maybe not as obvious as direct assistance but certainly another form," an expert on tax accounting said.
Tiger Woods may have a new rival: TMZ reports that wife Elin Nordegren is “very close” to signing a deal with Puma, the rival of Tiger’s Nike. An official from Puma confirms that there have been “internal discussions.” Nike’s chairman, meanwhile, has called Tiger’s extramarital fiasco a “minor blip.”
No Joe Lieberman here to screw things up: According to The New York Times, negotiators at Copenhagen have “all but completed” a deal that would compensate countries for preserving forests and, in some cases, peat soil, swamps, and fields to help fight climate change. The Times says the agreement, which will give poor countries new income and allow rich countries to purchase carbon credits, may “turn out to be the most significant achievement to come out of the Copenhagen climate talks.” Rainforest destruction accounts for 20 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions.
Goldman Sachs hasn't always been motivated by the bottom line. According to The New York Times, the financial firm used to be filled with "discreet bankers" who gave advice to corporate clients and helped them raise capital, but under the rule of CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein, who came to power in 2006, the 140-year-old company has accelerated toward a trader-driven profit-motivated bottom line. The changes began when Goldman went public in the 1990s, but have sped up under Blankfein, 20 Goldman old-timers who wished to remain nameless said. The new ethos emphasizes short-term profits instead of long-term gains, and bankers have been urged to squeeze more cash out of customers, for example, by advising on a merger as well as financing it and investing in the transaction.
Does Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have a love child? Sources tell the New York Post that Putin has recently had a son with his girlfriend, 26-year-old former gymnast Alina Kabaeva. Russia shut down a paper last year that reported Putin was divorcing his wife to be with Kabaeva. Two years ago, Kabaeva was elected to the Dumas as a candidate for Putin’s party. The child has been named Dmitry, like Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Alan Blinder, a Princeton economics professor and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, says the economy is on its way out of the recession. First, he writes in The Wall Street Journal, the GDP is showing some evidence of a "slingshot effect," during which it rises rapidly. When component GDP is taken into account, GDP growth over the last year has taken a 6.7 percent swing upward between the first and second halves of the year. The economy is showing amazing productivity; with that rate growing in the nonfarm sector at a "shocking" 8.1 percent rate. Payrolls pared to the bone will create a need to hire more workers as sales grow. Plus, less than 30 percent of February's $787 billion stimulus has been spent and, as Blinder puts it, the effects of "the Federal Reserve's stupendously expansionary monetary policy" aren't likely to hit for another year, thanks to time lags between policy changes and real-world results.
