Analysts: S&P downgrades could have been worse

French finance minister Francois Baroin leaves the Elysee Palace Friday Jan. 13, 2012, following a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in connection with the downgrading of France's credit rating by Standard & Poor's. (AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

French finance minister Francois Baroin leaves the Elysee Palace Friday Jan. 13, 2012, following a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in connection with the downgrading of France's credit rating by Standard & Poor's. (AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

A trader watches a graph showing the fall of the Euro in Paris, Friday, Jan. 13, 2012. The euro fell to a 17-month low against the dollar on news reports that France's credit rating might be downgraded by Standard & Poor's. If France were downgraded it could hurt efforts to resolve Europe's debt crisis. (AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

French finance minister Francois Baroin leaves the Elysee Palace Friday Jan. 13, 2012, following a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in connection with the downgrading of France's credit rating by Standard & Poor's. (AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

French President Nicolas Sarkozy walks in the lobby of the Elysee Palace Friday Jan. 13, 2012, following a meeting with his finance minister Francois Baroin, in connection with the downgrading of France's credit rating by Standard & Poor's.(AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The decision by Standard & Poor's to strip France of its prized AAA credit rating and downgrade eight other European countries slammed a continent struggling with a debt crisis and an economic slowdown.

But beleaguered Europeans can take some comfort: It could have been worse.

Investors had plenty of time to brace for the bad news. S&P put 15 countries, including Germany and France, on notice last month that they faced potential downgrades. The advance notice means the downgrades likely won't panic financial markets and drive up European governments' borrowing costs much higher than they already are.

"People knew it was coming, and it was only one rating agency," said Marc Chandler, head of global currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman. Moody's and Fitch Ratings have yet to follow S&P.

Stocks fell Friday as downgrade rumors reached the trading floors of Europe and the United States. But the declines were nothing like the wrenching swings of last summer and fall, when the debt crisis threw the markets into turmoil.

When the news came Friday, it wasn't as harsh as it might have been. S&P had threatened last month to knock France's credit rating down two notches. Instead, it settled for one, demoting France to AA+, just where it put the U.S. credit rating in an August downgrade.

S&P spared Europe's mightiest economy the indignity of a downgrade, leaving Germany with its AAA rating intact.

Austria lost its AAA status, while Italy and Spain fell by two notches and Portugal's debt was consigned to junk. S&P also cut ratings on Malta, Cyprus, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Analysts note that S&P's decision to downgrade long-term U.S. government debt in August did nothing to stop investors from continuing to buy U.S. Treasurys, though it did temporarily shake the U.S. stock market.

The downgrades in Europe are "going to create bad headlines for a day or two," said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. But "there's no underlying new information ... This will be quickly forgotten."

The Dow Jones industrial average declined 0.5 percent Friday, while stocks sank 0.1 percent in France and 0.6 percent in Germany.

European countries, which borrowed heavily before the Great Recession, have struggled with high government debts after the weak economy depleted tax revenues and drove up spending on unemployment benefits and other social programs. Greece, Portugal and Ireland have already required bailouts.

And bigger countries like Italy and Spain are under financial pressure, partly because nervous investors are demanding higher interest rates to purchase their bonds.

The downgrade of France could have consequences. It will put pressure on the fund that Europe uses to bail out the weakest countries that use the euro. The fund, after all, is only as strong as the countries that contribute to it, and France is the second-biggest contributor after Germany. The bailout fund may have to pay higher interest rates to borrow ? and may have to charge higher rates to countries like Ireland that rely on it.

For now, the fund still has a rating of AAA. That means that it can borrow on the bond market at low rates.

The rating agency's verdict could also shake up French politics. If the loss of its top-notch credit rating means France has to pay higher interest rates, the government will find it harder to cut its budget deficit.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has staked his credibility ? and his re-election hopes ? on meeting a series of deficit-reduction targets and balancing France's budget by 2016. In order to stay on track, his government was forced twice last year to make extra cuts.

French Finance Minister Francois Baroin said the downgrade was "bad news" but not "a catastrophe."

"You have to be relative, you have to keep your cool," he said on France-2 television. "It's necessary not to frighten the French people about it."

Fred Cannon, chief equity strategist at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, shrugged off the news. "A lot of folks have not thought France was a AAA country for a long time," he said.

France hasn't balanced a budget in three decades, and its deficit hit 7.1 percent of its gross domestic product last year ? more than twice the legal limit of 3 percent for the 17 nations that use the euro. It also is paying a significant amount to help bail out other troubled eurozone members such as Greece, Portugal and Ireland.

Since S&P issued its downgrade threat in December, new European governments have taken "substantive actions" to bring debts under control, noted Jeff Kleintop, chief market strategist for LPL Financial.

Budget cuts in Italy and Spain have made investors more willing to buy their government bonds, pushing down the interest rates they have to pay.

Earlier Friday, Italy had capped a strong week for government bond auctions. Its borrowing costs dropped for the second straight day as it successfully raised as much as ?4.75 billion ($6.05 billion). Spain and Italy completed successful bond auctions on Thursday.

Italy's ?1.9 trillion in government debt and heavy borrowing needs this year have made it a focal point of the European debt crisis. Italy has passed austerity measures and is on a structural reform course that Premier Mario Monti claims should bring down Italy's high bond yields, which he says are no longer warranted.

The European Central Bank has relieved some of the pressure, too. It has provided banks with ?489 billion in cheap loans, some of which they have used to buy government bonds.

ECB President Mario Draghi noted "tentative signs of stabilization" in Europe.

Chandler at Brown Brothers Harriman warns that Europe still faces big problems. Italy and Spain together must refinance hundreds of billions of euros in debt this year. And the European economy is almost certain to slip into recession, if it hasn't already. A deteriorating economy across the continent could worsen the debt crisis by reducing tax collections and driving up social spending.

Europe's troubles are already having an impact in the United States. The Commerce Department reported Friday that exports to Europe fell 6 percent in November.

___

AP Business Writer Greg Keller in Paris contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-01-14-Europe%20Financial%20Crisis-Downgrades/id-390357037f0f443cad189ab77e6c6d91

ama awards 2011 ama awards 2011 uekman uekman music awards music awards giants eagles

Banks start playing games with your money (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? A new video game has gotten its hooks into Brian Kealer, a 26-year-old San Francisco software engineer. He's not killing birds or using his vocabulary to impress his friends. No, Kealer is after real prizes, like the iPad2 he just scored. And he's playing with his bank account.

At least once every day, Kealer signs into SaveUp.com, a new financial website, and does some financial activity that wins him credits he can then use to play for big money prizes. To earn those credits, he can pay a credit card bill, deposit money into his savings account, or watch a sponsored video about personal finance.

To be clear, Kealer's not making any real dollar bets; he's just paying his bills. But by participating in SaveUp, he is playing into the financial services industry's latest attempts to attract and keep engaged consumers. Call it, inelegantly, "gamification." It involves the use of game-like attributes and mechanics -- contests, prizes, scorecards, badges, friendly competitions and the like -- to make the boring business of money more appealing to hard-to-snag consumers.

"It's a word that everybody hates, but it is descriptive of what's going on," says Jim Bruene of Netbanker, a banking technology consulting firm.

Financial firms are turning to games to attract a younger demographic that may be impervious to advertising. Online games afford banks a cheaper way to attract customers in an era when interest rates on savings are practically nil, debit card fees are capped and banks have small margins and little leeway to throw rewards at consumers. "It doesn't cost much" for bankers to market this way, he says. And the ability to push games out in smart phone and tablet applications probably contributes to the interest, too.

But financial games may have a more serious social purpose too: Some policymakers believe that bank-run lotteries can encourage lower income people to save more money.

Of course, it's not just banks that are "gamifying." Zynga, the company that creates social-network games like Farmville and Mafia Wars, raised $1 billion in its recent public offering on the expectation that its commercial tie-ins with companies like Pizza Hut and Paramount Pictures would pull real cash from the 200-million monthly active users the company claims. Web network marketing companies like Groupon and FourSquare offer participants badges, crowns and other awards.

$2.8 BILLION OUTLOOK SETS UP HYPE

Gamification is a $100 million market that should grow to $2.8 billion by 2016, according to M2 Research, an Encinitas, California, analysis firm, that is assessing the trend across the board. Another consulting firm, Gartner Inc, says it expects that by 2014 "more than 70 percent of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified application."

But because game attributes are hard to define these numbers can be dicey; it's a little bit difficult to isolate what counts as gamification and where the profits come from. So loud is the buzz that Gartner recently placed gamification on its "hype cycle" -- a list of technology trends -- at a place where it is approaching the "peak of inflated expectations."

Banks have been a little bit slower to come to the game table than other companies, perhaps worried that using frivolous games to market serious financial products would be perceived negatively.

But in 2011, CapitalOne did a promotion inside a couple of Zynga games, and credit card companies have been running sweepstake-like promotions for years. Since the early 2000s, for example, Visa has been running contests in which cardholders would be entered into lotteries every time they used their cards, for prizes like 100 times their purchase amount or a year's worth of bills.

Currently, Chase is gamifying its bank account promotions; in the third quarter of 2011 it ran a $6 million sweepstakes for customers who paid a Chase bill (like a mortgage or credit card) with a Chase checking account.

The new players are a little bit different. SaveUp, a San Francisco startup, isn't a bank; it's an intermediary that hopes to attract banks as marketing clients, but consumers can play regardless of what bank they use. Behind the games, SaveUp is an aggregator that claims to use the same technology as Mint.com to bring in user accounts from hundreds of financial institutions.

Another new intermediary firm, Bobber Interactive, has created "GoalCard" - a Facebook-linked debit card that lets users play games with friends to win rewards points that they can trade for cash prizes. Some of the games are financial literacy quizzes, and players who do well enough on them can graduate to a level that allows them to play "Credits and Debits," a game that is bejeweled with dollar signs and piggy banks, instead of emeralds and diamonds.

All of the financial games get really serious when they have a higher policy purpose. A paper published a year ago by the National Bureau of Economic Research suggested that savings accounts with a lottery component could encourage low-income families to save more money. These prize-linked accounts, which offer savers a chance to win a specified (and potentially large) amount of money, are already offered in various countries, including many in Latin America and Europe. In Great Britain, the government issues Premium Bonds that pay off in lottery chances instead of interest.

"This is a well-tested product. (and its ). appeal is fairly widespread," the study's authors, led by Melissa Schettini Kearney of the University of Maryland, concluded.

Prize-linked savings accounts were piloted in the U.S., starting in 2009, by a group of Michigan credit unions, and now some in Nebraska have launched a new "Save to Win" program at the beginning of this year. Depositors who put at least $25 in a share certificate at a participating credit union will be entered into a drawing. Every $25 (up to $250 a month) is another entry. Monthly prizes range from $125 to $1,000; there will be one $25,000 grand prize at the end of the year.

In the last two years, six states (Rhode Island, Nebraska, Washington, Maryland, Maine and North Carolina) have changed their state laws to allow savings promotional raffles.

"No one can deny that people love lotteries," Peter Orszag, President Obama's first budget director, wrote in a Financial Times op ed last year. "Let's give savings accounts linked to lotteries a chance. It's a gamble but it could well pay off handsomely."

BIG PRIZES

SaveUp, the site that Kealer frequents, isn't messing around. Its top prize is a $2-million annuity; it also has airline tickets, cars, scholarships and a $5,000 Apple gift card in the mix. Many of its prizes are furnished through sponsorships; and they are all bonded and insured, according to CEO Priya Haji, who founded the start-up with Sammy Shreibati, an engineer who has worked on education products.

To win awards, customers sign up for the site, and link it to their bank and credit card accounts. Every time they save $10, they are entered with a chance to win. They get three chances to play every time they watch a sponsored educational videos. Titles include "Harnessing the Power of Mutual Funds," for example.

Haji sees gamification as a way to engage financial customers who might not be tempted by net worth reports, even if they are in colorful pie chart form. She says her site capitalizes on the top three trends in the banking sector: (1) consumers being more concerned about reducing debt; (2) the industry moving beyond conventional financial management to behavioral approaches of modifying financial behavior, and (3) social networking.

Progress mechanics, like a thermometer that shows you how much you've saved for a goal; socializing mechanics (how much you spend at Starbucks compared to your friends, or even compared to other people at your salary level); leaderboards and badges "are all elements of games that make you feel like you are achieving something," says Gabriel Zichermann, a gaming expert and editor at Gamification.co.

But not everyone is a believer. "If that works to get some people to have good behavior, I'm all for that," said Mark Schwanhausser, a senior analyst with Javelin Strategy & Research, a Pleasanton, California, consulting company that monitors financial services trends. "But it's like mixing a game into something that is pretty darn serious, and I don't think it's going to be a widespread winner with banks."

Gartner analyst Stessa Cohen doesn't think banks can afford to ignore this trend. Basic bank services are becoming commoditized, and intermediaries like SaveUp and Bobber could easily induce gamers to switch financial services companies. That's because consumers banking through intermediary firms could easily switch banks if another deal came along. "That's a big problem for banks," she said. "They may think 'we don't have to pay attention to that,' but then all of the sudden, 10 percent of their customers are just using them as a storage facility."

And it's not clear that the financial gamesmanship will win over those coveted Gen Y customers, either, despite the blatant pitch. "GoalCard is integrated completely into the Facebook ecosystem, which our Gen Y user Nathan uses as his primary filter for relevance and validation around all aspects of his life," Bobber Interactive's CEO Eric Eastman says of the model Gen Y customer he uses in his presentations.

That sounds like a challenge to a pretty cynical generation. "They don't believe anything a brand says," says Zichermann. "'Oh, really? That's the fastest car? And the tastiest burger?'"

It's a short step from that attitude to the one expressed by one 20-something who Reuters recently introduced to SaveUp for this story: "I don't want my personal finance tied up with marketing ploys," he said.

Said another: "That sounds like a site that is probably just selling your info, which is scary." SaveUp claims bank-level security and "does not sell any information to third parties," according to Shreibati, the company's chief technology officer.

But a free iPad is a free iPad. Kealer, a Gen Y-er who says his job involves discovering new mobile apps, has cast his cynicism aside after winning the coveted tablet and a $100 Macy's gift card.

"This is a good time to play because fewer people are participating," he says.

He makes a good point. As more players join the games, and the financial games themselves proliferate, it may get harder for consumers to win at these contests. Just choosing which games to play may start to feel a lot less like play and more like work.

(Reporting By Linda Stern)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/videogames/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120113/wr_nm/us_usa_gamification

kindle fire glen davis kobe bryant war of the worlds a christmas story prime rib derek fisher

Showtime making documentary about Dick Cheney (AP)

PASADENA, Calif. ? The Showtime television network says it is preparing a new documentary on former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Showtime said Thursday that filmmaker R.J. Cutler, who made "The War Room" about Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992, will make the film. No date was set for airing.

Cutler calls Cheney, who was George W. Bush's vice president, "perhaps the single most influential non-president in the nation's political history." He promises a balanced and multi-dimensional look at Cheney.

Showtime says it has begun an effort to produce high-end profiles. Its other project is about rap mogul Suge Knight.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120113/ap_en_mo/us_tv_showtime_cheney

sonny rollins sweet caroline lottery winning numbers pro bowl roster quirky chrissy teigen chia seeds

'Desperate Housewives' won't end like 'SATC'

?Desperate Housewives? ends its run on ABC at the end of its current season, but don?t expect the ladies of Wisteria Lane to take a vacation together in a big screen installment of the franchise.

Story: Gabby suspects Carlos of murder on 'Housewives'

?I?m just never sending these gals to Dubai,? ?Desperate Housewives? creator and executive producer Marc Cherry said on Tuesday at the Television Critics Association Winter Session in Pasadena on Tuesday, referring to ?Sex and the City 2.?

VIEW THE PHOTOS: The Always Fabulous Teri Hatcher

1. More Entertainment stories
   1. 'New Girl' gets new blood in 'True' hunk Kwanten

      Could frequently shirtless Schmidt, played by Max Greenfield, on Fox?s ?New Girl? be getting some abs-olutely tough compet...

   2. Dempsey: I'll stay on 'Grey's Anatomy' if ...
   3. '30 Rock' moms didn't get the Beyonce treatment
   4. 'Hunger Games' tickets go on sale Feb. 22
   5. Perry distances self from dad's anti-semitic rant

Cherry said that while he?s actually congratulated ?SATC? boss Michael Patrick King on the HBO series? leap to the big screen, he knows his show is different and won?t follow that path.

Story: Eva Longoria gets baby fix with young Beckham

??Sex and The City? only did a total of, I think, 69 episodes, so I always thought that the advantage for them was that they hadn?t really plumbed the depths of those characters,? Cherry said. ?After eight years, boy, I think we?re done. And I?m happy about that. That?s not a bad thing. I feel very satisfied with where we are.?

VIEW THE PHOTOS: "Desperate" Diva Eva Longoria

Cherry said he knows what the ending of ?Desperate Housewives? is, but declined to give any hints.

Story: Stars share Thanksgiving thoughts on Twitter

He also refused to address his comments at the last TCA session several months ago, where he said that he wanted to pay ?homage to everyone who?s been there? ? which would include Nicollette Sheridan?s Edie Britt.

?I?m sooooo not revealing what the end is gonna be,? Cherry said. ?It?s a surprise and I?m being hyper-protective of it. No comment on that.?

VIEW THE PHOTOS: "Desperate Housewives" Scenes & Stars

The show boss did reveal that they will bring back Susan Delphino?s (Teri Hatcher) daughter Julie (Andrea Bowen), and that Cherry, himself, will appear in an upcoming episode before the show is over.

?Yeah, I?m gonna do a Hitchcock,? he said, referring to when the boss walks through a scene. ?And the hair and makeup people will go through more hell that day than they?ve ever gone through.?

VIEW THE PHOTOS: The Lovely Ladies Of Primetime Television

The cast, who were all present at the panel, said they are still surprised by the effect their show has had on fashion, culture and even television.

?All the 'Real Housewives' shows,? Eva Longoria (Gabrielle Solis) said when asked for an example of the things they?ve seen as a result of the show?s influence.

?I want a residual,? Cherry chimed in, referring to the Bravo franchise.

Copyright 2012 by NBC. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45955391/ns/today-entertainment/

new madrid fault current time earthquake today earthquake today droid razr oklahoma news atomic clock

Romney: Politics For The Rich

BuzzFeed:

Mitt Romney suggested in today's debate that only rich people should run for office, and then quickly celebrated the fact that he'd forced a rival to take out a loan against his house.

Read the whole story: BuzzFeed

'; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/08/mitt-romney-politics_n_1192860.html

tomb of the unknown soldier reo reo chilis snow white and the huntsman snow white and the huntsman philip rivers

Google shares slide after Motorola earnings warning (Reuters)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) ? Shares of Google Inc fell nearly 4 percent on Monday, after Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc's warning of worse-than-expected financial results raised concerns about Google's pending acquisition of the smartphone maker.

The $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola, the largest in Google's history, is expected to close early this year.

Motorola's weak results "may suggest further deterioration in the business since the acquisition was announced, and they highlight the uphill battle for Motorola" in the competitive smartphone market, JP Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth wrote in a note to investors on Sunday.

The weak financial results could also serve as a reminder to investors about the operational challenges that Google will face as it enters the hardware market, and of "clouded optics surrounding an overall slower growth, lower margin Google once the deal closes," Anmuth wrote.

Google, the world's dominant Internet search engine, has become the No. 1 provider of smartphone software with its freely distributed Android operating System used by handset vendors including Samsung, HTC and Motorola.

By acquiring Motorola, Google will be able to develop its own line of smartphones with tightly integrated hardware and software, as it competes against iPhone-maker Apple Inc.

The acquisition of Motorola, which Google says will be run as a stand-alone business, will also give Google access to one of the largest patent libraries in the wireless industry.

On Friday, Motorola Mobility said its fourth-quarter financial results would miss Wall Street expectations due to tough competition and higher legal costs associated with intellectual property litigation.

Motorola said that fourth-quarter sales would total $3.4 billion, below analysts expectations of $3.88 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Motorola said it expects to report "modest profitability on a non-GAAP basis in the quarter. "Friday evening's pre-announcement underscored that for investors. Google has become a complex hardware/software media/tech global behemoth," Stifel Nicolaus analyst Jordan Rohan wrote in a note to investors on Monday.

"Over time, we believe this complexity will pressure Google's multiple, at least when compared with the multiple of companies with similar 20 percent plus growth in earnings," he wrote.

Shares of Google were down 3.8 percent at $625.38 in mid-day trading on Monday.

Last week, Google's stock reached a four-year high, breaching the $650 level for the first time since January 2008.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic. Editing by Gunna Dickson)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/earnings/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120109/bs_nm/us_google

arian foster calvin johnson calvin johnson patsy cline portlandia detroit lions new orleans saints

Tegra 3 devices (read: Transformer Prime) getting Ice Cream Sandwich starting today

NVIDIA's Jen-Hsun Huang just told the crowd here at his company's press conference that the Ice Cream Sandwich is coming to Tegra 3, which can only mean one thing when there's just one Tegra 3 tablet on the market: the Transformer Prime is getting a sweet dose of frozen desert, and it's getting it a few days earlier than expected.

Tegra 3 devices (read: Transformer Prime) getting Ice Cream Sandwich starting today originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/TvuV86pnNBo/

icam patrice o neal. osteopathy osteopathy diphtheria diphtheria del rio