Archives for April 2018

Over $400bn illegally withdrawn from Russia in 17yrs

April 28, 2018 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

“According to independent estimates, about $430.7 billion dollars were withdrawn from our country from 2000 to 2017. These are huge financial resources that could have been invested in the development of the domestic economy,” the senator said in an interview with RIA Novosti. He added that if the problem is solved, it could provide a major boost to the Russian economy.

Russia to Britain: ‘You can keep the criminals, but return the money’

The illegal exodus of capital has been one of the biggest problems for the Russian economy since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Kremlin has offered various way for the money to be returned to Russia, including the amnesty of capital and Eurobonds with preferable tax regime. The returned money can become an alternative financing instrument for the state if new US sanctions prohibit foreign investors from buying sovereign bonds of Russia.

Earlier in April, Russia’s prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika, said there are 61 Russian criminals living in London who have stolen around $10 billion from their home country. London and other British cities have long been a safe haven for Russian runaway criminals since the 1990s. Chaika said the Russian state is afraid that the British government can pocket the money.

Russian business ombudsman Boris Titov has said that Moscow should allow the runaway businessmen to return home. They should have the opportunity to pay a fine equaling triple the amount in losses they caused, but there is no need to put them behind bars. If such permission is granted, the money could be returned into the Russian economy, otherwise it would just stay abroad.

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/425379-russia-illegal-capital-exodus/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

Russia-China trade booming, to hit $100bn this year

April 28, 2018 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

China is Russia’s largest trading partner, accounting for 15 percent of Russian international trade last year.

In January, trade turnover grew to 17.2 percent. It is expected to exceed the $100-billion mark this year, according to the deputy chairman of China’s Ministry of Commerce. In 2017, bilateral trade amounted to $84.1 billion, up by 19 percent year-on-year, he said at a press conference on Friday.

One of the world’s longest gas pipelines from Russia to China almost complete

A report of the General Administration of Customs of China showed that in January-March, Chinese exports to Russia grew by almost 24 percent, to $10.3 billion. Chinese imports of Russian goods increased by 32 percent, to more than $12 billion.

As trade grows, Russia and China are promoting settlements in ruble and yuan, bypassing the US dollar and other Western currencies. “It makes it possible to reduce the dependence on the influence of third countries,” the Russian Central Bank told RT.

According to the Russian regulator, both Russian and Chinese companies are willing to pay in ruble and renminbi, and this can be proven by real numbers. Last year, nine percent of payments for supplies from Russia to China were made in rubles; Russian companies paid 15 percent of Chinese imports in the renminbi. Just three years ago, the numbers were two and nine percent, respectively.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called Sino-Russian trade growth “visible and sound.” While meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang in November, Putin said Moscow and Beijing have established a strong link “fully corresponding to the level of our strategic partnership.”

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/425376-russia-china-trade-turnover/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

Bob Dylan’s Latest Gig: Making Whiskey

April 28, 2018 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

[Read a Times taster’s review of Bob Dylan’s whiskeys.]

The marketing of celebrity alcohol tends to lean on the perceived lifestyle of its mascots. Drink George Clooney’s Casamigos tequila, for example — sold last year to the beverage giant Diageo for up to $1 billion — and acquire some of his movie-star glamour. Want to party like Jay-Z? Buy an $850 Armand de Brignac.

“It’s about fairy dust,” said Michael Stone, the chairman of the brand licensing agency Beanstalk, who is not involved with Heaven’s Door. “People are looking for some of the fairy dust to be sprinkled on them from that celebrity’s lifestyle.”

Two Heaven’s Door executives, Marc Bushala, left, and Ryan Perry, sometimes puzzled over Mr. Dylan’s comments about the whiskey samples he tasted. “It should feel like being in a wood structure” was one. Credit Lyndon French for The New York Times

Heaven’s Door is meant to conjure a broader idea of Mr. Dylan that is part Renaissance man, part nighthawk. The label design is derived from his ironwork sculptures, with rural iconography — crows, wagon wheels — in silhouette. And in promotional photos lighted like classic movie stills, a tuxedo-clad Mr. Dylan, 76, gazes off in a dark cocktail lounge or lonely diner, glass in hand.

Like his recent albums of standards, they portray Mr. Dylan as an urbane but still gritty crooner — one who might well wind down his day with a glass of bourbon.

“Dylan has these qualities that actually work well for a whiskey,” Mr. Bushala said. “He has great authenticity. He is a quintessential American. He does things the way he wants to do them. I think these are good attributes for a super-premium whiskey as well.”

Mr. Dylan is entering the craft whiskey market as the business is exploding. Helped by a craze for classic cocktails, sales of American whiskey grew 52 percent over the last five years, to $3.4 billion in 2017, according to data from the Distilled Spirits Council.

But for those who have been listening closely, whiskey has been a decades-long thread throughout Mr. Dylan’s music, going back to the early outtake “Moonshiner” in 1963 and to Mr. Dylan’s version of the song “Copper Kettle (The Pale Moonlight),” on the 1970 album “Self Portrait,” which describes the distilling process in detail. (“Get you a copper kettle, get you a copper coil/Fill it with new made corn mash and never more you’ll toil.”)

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Mr. Bushala said that over four or five meetings — always at Mr. Dylan’s metalworking studio in Los Angeles — and a number of phone calls, he had learned that his partner has a sophisticated whiskey palate.

Yet communication was still a challenge. Mr. Bushala and Ryan Perry, the chief operating officer, struggled to interpret Mr. Dylan’s wishes. Often they came in the form of enigmatic comments or simply glances.

“Sometimes you just get a long look,” Mr. Bushala said with a laugh, “and you’re not sure if that’s disgust or approval.”

Mr. Dylan performing in Britain in 1962, the year before he recorded the outtake “Moonshiner.” Whiskey has been a musical thread throughout his career. Credit Brian Shuel/Redferns

He and Mr. Perry recalled Mr. Dylan’s tasting a sample of the double-barreled whiskey and saying that something was missing. “It should feel like being in a wood structure,” he said.

They struggled to decode the remark. What kind of wooden structure? A church? A railroad car? A barn? That led Mr. Bushala and Mr. Perry first to probing discussions about the nose — the liquor’s aroma in the glass — and then to experiments in how they toasted the barrels in which the whiskey is aged.

Months later, the men returned with a sample that they felt embodied “that sweet, musty smell of a barn,” Mr. Bushala said, and presented it to Mr. Dylan, who commented approvingly.

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His oblique feedback, Mr. Perry said, “really helped us think about barrel finishing in a different way.”

The first batches of Heaven’s Door were developed with Jordan Via, formerly of the Breckenridge Distillery in Colorado. Together, the team tried various novel finishes. The rye, for example, was aged in cigar-shaped oak barrels made from wood harvested in the Vosges region of France.

To preserve Mr. Dylan’s original name for the whiskey, the company will issue an annual Bootleg Series in limited editions, in ceramic bottles decorated with his oil and watercolor paintings. The first, a 25-year-old whiskey, will be released next year and cost about $300. (Heaven’s Door’s standard line goes for $50 to $80 a bottle.)

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The idea of Mr. Dylan’s being connected to a commercial venture always activates some level of outrage, as it did in 2014 when fans cried “sellout” for his involvement in two Super Bowl TV ads: one for Chobani yogurt, which used his song “I Want You,” and another for Chrysler, in which Mr. Dylan recited a patriotic script about the car industry.

▶ A 2014 Super Bowl commercial for Chrysler featuring Mr. Dylan. Video by Brenner Chrysler Jeep

But Mr. Dylan has never shied from commercial deals, and in the long run they have barely grazed his reputation. In 1994, he allowed Richie Havens to sing his anthem “The Times They Are A-Changin’” in an ad for the button-down accounting firm Coopers Lybrand. Ten years later, Mr. Dylan was mocked for appearing in a Victoria’s Secret commercial (in which he tossed his black cowboy hat to a supermodel wearing angel wings). Since then, he has done spots for Apple, Cadillac, Pepsi, IBM and Google.

Heaven’s Door labels were inspired by Mr. Dylan’s ironwork sculptures. Credit Lyndon French for The New York Times

Mr. Dylan has also made a novel licensing deal for his full song catalog to be available for use in a television drama now under development.

Bill Flanagan, a veteran music journalist who has interviewed Mr. Dylan, likens him to Hank Williams and Johnny Cash — self-made entertainers who saw no conflict in joining the marketplace.

And then there is simply Mr. Dylan’s talent for provocation.

“Dylan has always resisted any attempt to fence him in,” Mr. Flanagan said. “As soon as people start calling him king of the folkies, or patron saint of the counterculture, or beloved anticommercial leftist icon — he almost always does something to thwart that.”

Whether Heaven’s Door can compete is another question. Mr. Bushala was one of the founders of Angel’s Envy, which was introduced in 2011 and sold to Bacardi four years later after developing a reputation for quality and innovation. Yet the whiskey aisle keeps getting more crowded. According to Nielsen, more than 20,000 kinds of spirits are sold in the United States, and last year there were 27 percent more whiskeys on sale than in 2013.

Mr. Bushala said that in their first conversation, he had told Mr. Dylan that “whiskey drinkers are a very cynical crowd” and that the success of their enterprise would depend on the quality of the product, not Mr. Dylan’s image.

Yet a few months after their first meeting, Mr. Bushala said, he had a scare when Mr. Dylan was announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature — and then waited weeks to acknowledge the honor, leading to speculation that he might not accept. “Oh, no, a P.R. nightmare!” Mr. Bushala remembered thinking.

But then he realized that defying expectations was “very much on brand” for Mr. Dylan, and likened the Nobel episode — ultimately, a success — to their whiskey deal.

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“For people who are surprised that he did a whiskey,” Mr. Bushala said, “I guess they don’t really know Dylan. People who know him expect him to do things they would never expect.”

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/28/business/media/bob-dylan-heavens-door.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business

Wealth Matters: Getting Married? Forget Sweet Nothings; Let’s Talk About Money

April 27, 2018 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

This is where Nathan Dungan, a wealth educator and founder of Share Save Spend, a financial consulting firm in Minneapolis, is trying to take a smarter approach to any conversation around prenuptial agreements. He wants to require both partners to attend what could be called Prenup 101.

It is far from something couples can take casually. Mr. Dungan has developed work sheets and quizzes to complement extensive counseling that lasts at least six months, though ideally closer to a year. He calls the whole process “onboarding” — a far more welcoming description than “divorce planning.”

“You want to say, ‘We’re in this together,’ but then there’s this big wrench that gets put in place,” he said. “What if we looked at it as an opportunity and not this huge problem?”

Mr. Dungan, who founded a financial consulting firm in Minneapolis, with a book he uses with clients. Credit Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times

To this end, the work sheets ask open-ended questions about how people feel about money: “What is money to me?” “What things matter most to me in life?” “Why is it important to understand how each person is wired with respect to money?”

Mr. Dungan asks couples who are planning a marriage to think about their money habits. He said he wants them to have an honest conversation about money.

“They have homework assignments they need to do,” Mr. Dungan said. “Some are together, some are separate.”

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But emphasis is put on the discussion, he said.

“Part of this is to recognize that this is not a romantic conversation,” Mr. Dungan said. “We get that, but it’s an opportunity for them to step into this and talk about their own family of origin and their own money story.”

Mr. Dungan said his goal is to take the prenuptial agreement out of the conversation and present the couple with an opportunity to have an honest conversation about money. He wants them to learn if they are spenders, savers or sharers when it comes to money in their lives.

Andrew, who comes from a prominent Midwestern family and asked that his last name not be used, said his family had been a client of Mr. Dungan’s since he was a teenager. He’s in his late 20s now and has been married for four years.

His wife became part of the family’s financial discussions while they were dating. Still, when they got engaged and the process ramped up, the conversations were not easy.

“There were things that got brought up that my wife and I never knew were bothering us,” Andrew said. Mr. Dungan helped them ask about their attitudes toward money. “It allowed my wife and me to learn why this is important and to understand this isn’t a ‘me vs. you’ thing,” he said.

The process took about six months until a prenuptial agreement was signed.

“It can feel like you’re against each other from the start,” Andrew said. But in the end, he was glad they were both on the same page. “It lets you start your marriage on the right foot,” he said.

Mr. Dungan’s method appeals to people who are confident and open enough to at least discuss money within their own families. That’s usually how they know about him in the first place: as clients of his getting advice on wealth and inheritance.

But many prenuptial financial conversations are not well planned. More often, couples wait until weeks or even days before their wedding before talking about a prenuptial agreement — a hasty decision signed in what the industry calls “the shadow of the altar.”

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Casting that kind of uncertainty on a wedding can dim the sunny days most couples expect. But such an approach can also have unintended ramifications.

The person who is being presented with the prenuptial agreement can feel unprepared or, worse, ambushed. As for the agreement itself, that kind of rush also increases the likelihood that whatever is signed will not hold up in court.

Part of what makes a prenuptial agreement enforceable is a full disclosure of existing assets. To do this, there needs to be time for both parties to understand what is involved.

“It’s difficult to challenge a prenup in New York,” said Jacqueline Newman, managing partner at the New York law firm Berkman Bottger Newman Rodd. “But if it’s literally thrown to the person in the shadow of the altar, courts consider all of that. It’s not smart on the part of the person who wants a prenup to give it to someone last minute.”

Inherited assets and family gifts are generally protected in divorce proceedings. But if, say, income from a trust was used to pay for the family’s lifestyle, it could be subject to division in a divorce, said Silvana D. Raso, managing partner at Schepisi McLaughlin, a law firm based in New Jersey.

The same, she said, holds true for a family business, even if a new spouse is only partly involved in managing it and receiving income from it. Both concerns can be handled in a properly drafted agreement, but doing so takes time and discussions.

Ms. Newman, however, noted that for the so-called non-monied spouse, a prenuptial agreement can offer access to funds supporting the couple’s married lifestyle that would not be available in a divorce, such as otherwise untouchable inheritance funds.

There is consensus on what makes a good prenuptial agreement: time to discuss all the issues and draft a document that is fair to both sides and perhaps even has provisions to change over time.

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But getting to that document can cause lasting problems in a family if the process is not handled with care. Mr. Dungan’s classes attempt to fend off emotional distress, much of which can revolve around how families talk — or don’t talk — about money.

Alison Comstock Moss, chairman and chief executive of Paul Comstock Partners, which advises clients on a total of $2.2 billion in assets, recalled a client who told his future son-in-law that he would not get a dime from the family if the marriage ended. The son-in-law, who was himself financially successful, had not planned to ask for anything from his wife’s family in the prenuptial agreement.

Years later, the marriage is happy, but the two men still do not get along. “Knowing all the parties involved, I don’t think the intent was to be nasty,” Ms. Moss said. “I think they got bad advice and the way they communicated with each other was really hurtful.”

A better way to have handled the situation, she said, would have been to ask a simple question about expectations, which would have allowed the son-in-law to speak his mind.

But an approach like that requires planning, education and openness about financial expectations, which may not be possible if the focus is on the agreement itself.

Mr. Dungan said that his process still led to the same end — a prenuptial agreement — but that it got there in a way that required more thought.

“We’re not robotically moving through this process,” he said. “We’re creating a dynamic that allows them to have the best outcome.”

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/27/your-money/prenuptial-agreements.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Your Money

Your Money: Why Airline Credit Cards Have an Enduring Appeal

April 27, 2018 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

This week, Citi, clearly feeling the competitive heat, announced plans to add goodies to one of its American Airlines cards, including double miles on all restaurant and gas station purchases. While Citi did not offer up hard numbers like Delta and Amex, the company did tell me that the growth of its American Airlines card portfolio was outpacing the predictions of overall economic metrics.

A few years ago, Barclays made an aggressive bid for the JetBlue credit card business and won it. The bank now reports that it has doubled the overall size of the business in two years.

So what accounts for the continued appeal of the airline credit card, and who ought to have one?

Some things that have always been true about these cards remain so: If you travel a lot on the same airline and spend a lot of money in your everyday life, earning the same reward currency when you travel and when you’re using your card can help you quickly earn more and better free trips.

But things have also changed. In addition to the miles, many of the mileage cards now come with privileges. You might get a free checked bag. Or you can board your flight in the fifth group instead of the seventh, thereby getting space for your carry-on in the overhead bin.

This is clever and ought to inspire some healthy cynicism. After all, the airlines created the problem that the cards are now solving by charging for checked baggage. Now, for an annual fee of $95 or $150 or $450, you can avoid multiple $25 or $35 nicks for checking bags. And even if you can’t be sure what a free flight will cost in miles, at least the baggage giveaway is something tangible.

“As points become more confusing and devalued, people turn to perks — and they are easy to see and easy to value,” said Brian Kelly, the founder of The Points Guy, a website that makes money from referrals by channeling consumers to the most useful cards. (Wirecutter, a New York Times company, has also made money this way in the past and plans to again in the future.) “The issuers are doubling down on perks, and it appears to be paying off.”

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The card offerings are now complicated enough that it’s nearly impossible to offer generic advice about who ought to have one. For me, the sign-up bonuses for the Delta and American cards plus the baggage fee waivers on Delta were enough to persuade me. The top-tier American card also comes with airline lounge access, which I finally treated myself to (and deducted on my taxes) after too many years of hacking together standing desks at abandoned airport gates so I could work comfortably on my laptop.

A security checkpoint at Kennedy International Airport. In addition to the miles, many of the mileage cards now come with privileges. You might get a free checked bag. Or you can board your flight in the fifth group instead of the seventh. Credit Mark Lennihan/Associated Press

One bit of math should be obvious: If you’re carrying a balance and paying 18 percent annual interest, the rewards don’t come close to making that up. According to American Express, 21 percent of its outstanding credit card loans belonged to people with a Delta credit card as of the end of 2017.

Many people don’t spend or earn enough to justify switching cards. Sure, they might extract a bit more value from a simple card that refunds 2 percent of all purchases, but then they would have to change all automated payments, which is a giant headache.

It’s also possible that plenty of people simply do not know that generic points cards from the likes of Chase and its Ultimate Rewards program might offer more in the way of returns. Many bloggers offer helpful advice about this offering.

For those who don’t want to do the math themselves, Jay Sorensen did it for you. Mr. Sorensen, who runs the IdeaWorksCompany airline revenue consultancy, ran hundreds of simulations to come up with the following data for an award seat availability study he does with the rental site CarTrawler: The average value per mile redeemed for economy class travel ranges from 0.7 cents to 1.4 cents, depending on the airline. For long-distance business class seats, it ranges from 1.5 cents to 2.4 cents. So a 2 percent cash-back card would more often be a better value.

But some consumers simply do not care about the math — or perhaps are hypnotized by years of gauzy marketing and the daydreaming it inspires. “While you may be right that the value per mile has decreased, that’s a function of a lot of things,” said Denny Nealon, who runs Barclays’ United States partnerships business. “Airline miles are an incredibly aspirational and valuable currency.”

And those aspirations cement the emotional hook of credit-card airline miles: They offer the distinct possibility that you could use everyday spending to get yourself as far as possible from your everyday life.

“What we are in the business of doing is travel,” said Bridget Blaise-Shamai, vice president for loyalty and customer insights at American Airlines. “We could have this conversation 100 years from now, and it would remain relevant.”

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/27/your-money/airline-frequent-flier-credit-card.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Your Money

Tom Brokaw, in Email, Angrily Denies Harassment Claim

April 27, 2018 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

In a long email message on Friday, Tom Brokaw said he was “hurt, angry and unmoored” by allegations made by Linda Vester, a former correspondent at NBC News. Credit Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

Tom Brokaw, the longtime NBC News anchor, issued a pointed rebuke on Friday to a former colleague who has accused him of groping and harassing her during the 1990s, describing himself as “angry, hurt and unmoored from what I thought would be the final passage of my life and career.”

In a lengthy email message — written, by his account, at 4 a.m. — Mr. Brokaw angrily rejected the claims of the woman, Linda Vester, a former correspondent at NBC News and Fox News. “I was ambushed and then perp walked across the pages of The Washington Post and Variety,” Mr. Brokaw wrote, referring to the news organizations that on Thursday night published Ms. Vester’s account.

He added, of his accuser, “Hard to believe it wasn’t much more Look At Me than Me:Too.”

In the news reports, Ms. Vester described Mr. Brokaw tickling her in a conference room, asking her to drinks and, on two occasions in New York and London, inviting himself to her hotel room. There, she said, he grabbed her and tried to force her to kiss him.

She said that the encounters had left her feeling humiliated and isolated, and that she had been scared to report Mr. Brokaw’s behavior, fearful it could wreck her career. At the time, Ms. Vester was among the youngest correspondents at NBC News, and Mr. Brokaw, who has been married since 1962, was the most powerful figure in the news division.

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A lawyer for Ms. Vester, Ari Wilkenfeld, said on Friday that she “stands by the allegations, which speak for themselves.”

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/27/business/media/tom-brokaw-harassment.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business

U.S. Economy Grew by 2.3% in First Quarter, Easing Slightly

April 27, 2018 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

“The rest of 2018 seems well assured given the substantial support that is going to come from government fiscal policy,” Mr. Tannenbaum said, referring to the $1.5 trillion cost of the tax cuts.

He noted, however, that “longer term, the immediate benefits of tax reform will fade, and what we’ll be left with is the bill.”

Economists on Wall Street and in Washington have repeatedly warned that the economy’s upward streak is unlikely to extend beyond the next year or two. The nation’s debt has topped $21 trillion and is growing, a level many view as unsustainable. And if the Federal Reserve follows through on its plan to raise interest rates, the cost of paying off that debt will grow larger.

In the longer run, the Fed expects real annual growth in the United States to fall to 1.8 percent. The Congressional Budget Office’s 10-year outlook comes to the same disappointing conclusion.

The Winter’s Tale

Expectations about the first-quarter figure had fluctuated as pieces of the puzzle emerged. Imports fell and exports rose more than expected, narrowing the merchandise trade deficit for the first time in six months. Orders of durable goods remained sluggish, but revived somewhat as commercial aircraft orders surged in March. And although consumers continued to express a lot of confidence, they pulled back on their spending.

Holiday shopping in the final quarter of 2017 had revved up consumer spending — which accounts for more than two-thirds of the nation’s economic activity — to 4 percent. Businesses responded by replenishing depleted inventories. But the shopping surge receded when the new year started; consumer spending grew only 1.1 percent in the first quarter.

Although the tax overhaul promised to increase take-home pay, its effects may have been blunted for several reasons, including the time it took for the Internal Revenue Service to produce updated withholding tables and for payroll managers to adjust their systems. A poll of registered voters done in April and released this week by Politico/Morning Consult found that only about a fifth of those surveyed were noticing more money in their paychecks.

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“I think the fact that we didn’t see a big spurt in spending after the tax cut suggests it’s either too early in the game or consumers are going to continue to be a bit cautious,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief United States financial economist at Oxford Economics. Nonetheless, she added, “I think there is a legitimate question as to how much of the tax cuts get saved to pull down debt, and how much actually gets spent.”

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As for business spending, many of the tax incentives were aimed not at immediate investment decisions, but at those in the medium term. “It does take time for that to filter through,” Ms. Bostjancic said. Some businesses may have also sped up their timetables for purchases at the end of 2017 in order to take advantage of bigger deductions before the tax changes went into effect.

For several years, first-quarter growth rates have been weaker than the longer-term trends indicated, only to rebound in later months. This year, the result could reflect a falloff in spending after an unusual surge that followed the havoc wrought by late-summer hurricanes. Severe winter weather could have also slowed consumption. But some analysts wonder if data adjustments are part of the problem.

Government economists try to account for seasonal changes, but the corrective measures may be only partially successful. “There’s a little weakness in Q1 and then the other quarters are artificially inflated because of that,” Ms. Bostjancic said.

Shipping containers at the Port of Long Beach, Calif., waiting for processing. Friday’s report on economic growth is the latest that the Federal Reserve will have when its policymakers meet next week. Credit Bob Riha Jr/Reuters

Looking Ahead

In any case, the gross domestic product estimate released Friday by the Commerce Department is not the final word on the first quarter. The estimate will be revised twice in the next couple of months. In the past, the final number has been higher or lower by as much as a percentage point.

This G.D.P. report, though, is the latest that the Federal Reserve will have when its policymakers meet next week. At last month’s meeting, Fed officials raised interest rates and affirmed that they expected two more increases this year. Their concern is that a tight labor market will push up inflation as employers increase wages to compete for workers.

The number of workers applying for jobless benefits last week fell to its lowest level in nearly 50 years. Salary and benefit costs to employers also increased, according to new figures released Friday.

For most Americans, who have seen little income growth in recent decades, though, fears of steeper inflation seem overblown. That is why some economists warn against raising rates too much and too fast, arguing that the increases will choke off the recovery.

At the conclusion of the March meeting, Jerome H. Powell, the new Fed chairman, said, “We’re trying to take that middle ground.”

Michael Pearce, a senior economist at Capital Economics, said he did not expect the Fed’s outlook to change much, regardless of Friday’s report.

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“The Fed already acknowledged some of the incoming data and that they think it could strengthen this year,” he said. Last month, the central bank announced that it had raised its median estimate for annual growth this year to 2.7 percent, from 2.5 percent.

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/27/business/economy/gdp-economy.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Economy News

Yesterday in Styles: 2004: How Untucked Shirts Became a Male Uniform

April 27, 2018 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

Original headline: “Untucked Shirttails, the New Pennants of Rebellion,” from July 2004.

A new normal: Strange how some fashion fads that seem destined to last for months somehow endure for decades. The backward baseball cap, for example, blew up as a rebellious teenage fashion flourish in the 1980s, but instead of going the way of acid-washed jeans and Members Only jackets, the look evolved into a bedrock element of the bruh uniform for 30 years running. Every bit as rule-flouting, but even more ubiquitous, is the untucked dress shirt. This seemingly fleeting fashion trend attracted arched-eyebrow skepticism in this Styles article by Guy Trebay, which appeared on the front page of this newspaper at the peak of mid-aughts metrosexuality. “This may be remembered as the summer when new sartorial frontiers in the workplace were definitively breached — and in a manner destined to agitate bosses and parents everywhere,” Mr. Trebay wrote. “Men are letting their shirttails wave, a fact true not just of polo shirts or square-cut tropical styles designed to be worn outside of trousers but of broadcloth dress shirts with tapered tails never meant to see light of day.”

Winds of change: When it comes to launching a style trend into the mainstream, it takes an army of influencers, and the untucked shirt managed full mobilization. By 2004, fashion-forward editors like Jim Nelson of GQ and Nick Sullivan of Esquire, along with seemingly every male celebrity under 50, were doing their best to make respectable this once-slovenly look, which also happened to dominate the front rows of the Milan men’s wear shows that year. “It’s a kind of nonfashion fashion look,” Joe Zee, the well-traveled style editor, told Mr. Trebay in 2004. “All the young Hollywood types, the young heroes who are cool, like Jake Gyllenhaal, Orlando Bloom and Spike Jonze, wear their shirts untucked. It’s one of those looks that’s meant to seem like there’s no effort, although we know that it’s really thought out.”

The deeper context: Men under 30 might find it strange that anyone other than cops, accountants and Capitol Hill types ever tucked in a button-down shirt. But for decades, the untucked look was relatively rare on the fashion landscape, outside of slumming college students and madras short-clad preppies summering in Nantucket. O.K., the look had some precedent in American culture: the more rebellious of the bobby soxers, those rebellious teenage girls of the early Sinatra years, shocked grown-ups nationwide by rocking untucked shirts along with rolled dungarees, saddle shoes and, obviously, bobby socks. Among men, however, flapping shirttails were relatively rare. Even rock ‘n’ roll iconoclasts like the Rolling Stones of the 1960s and CBGB-era Blondie of the 1970s tended to politely tuck in their button-downs. That all began to change, however, in the casual-everything, dot-com era of the late ’90s. Suddenly, sneakers and hoodies transformed into office wear among proto-Mark Zuckerbergs. Even Wall Street banks and law firms dallied, fairly risibly, with “casual Fridays.” By the middle of the next decade, the untucked shirt became the “default for a generation still searching for a middle ground between the traditional coat-and-tie uniform for the workplace and the Internet-era alternative of outfits best suited for mowing the lawn,” Mr. Trebay wrote.

A new generation gap: This is not to say there was no pushback. “For decades, the sartorial establishment took the part of Mom and Dad,” Mr. Trebay wrote. “Tucked shirttails looked neater. They were more efficient, suaver and also, it should be noted, kept one from being taken for the pizza guy.” The squares, however, were destined to lose this battle. As much as employers initially pushed back against casual clothing in the workplace, “concerned that sloppy dress correlated with shoddy output,” the “march of casualization is not so easily stopped,” Mr. Trebay concluded. “Influenced, perhaps, by the crisp Latin American guayabera or by the adolescent ease of urban hip-hop clothes, the untucked dress shirt may not yet have made inroads at law offices or financial institutions. But the style is well-entrenched in Hollywood executive cadres — at the lineup on stage at a screening of the Harry Potter movie in New York last month nearly all sported the look — and among influential fashion types.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/27/style/untucked-shirts-male-uniform.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business

Bill Cosby Is Guilty. What’s Next?

April 27, 2018 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

Dennis McAndrews, a Pennsylvania lawyer who has followed the case closely, said that the most likely scenario, because of Mr. Cosby’s age and the similarity of the counts, is that Judge Steven T. O’Neill will merge the counts and base the sentencing on just one count. As a result, Mr. Cosby will probably face a maximum sentence of 10 years.

How long will Mr. Cosby be free on bail?

Mr. Cosby was ordered to stay at his home in Elkins Park, Pa., as part of the agreement under which the judge allowed him to stay free, on bail, until his sentencing. Credit Matt Rourke/Associated Press

No sentencing date has been set, but that would typically occur within two to three months. Until then, Mr. Cosby remains free on $1 million bail but is essentially confined by order of the court to his Pennsylvania home until the sentencing hearing.

Ms. Ashcroft said Mr. Cosby had not been shown any special treatment when he was allowed to leave on bail. Bail would have been revoked if he were an especially dangerous risk to society or was a flight risk. Where he did have an advantage was the ability to meet the $1 million bail, she said.

Now his lawyers will probably ask Judge O’Neill to postpone Mr. Cosby’s incarceration until after their appeal to the Pennsylvania Superior Court is decided. Weighed against that, however, is any flight risk, something emphasized by the district attorney, Kevin R. Steele, at the trial on Thursday.

In the interim, experts said, Mr. Cosby will be classified as a sex offender and will be required to register with the state police.

Where might Mr. Cosby serve his sentence?

Inmates with short sentences often serve them in a county jail, but Mr. Cosby is likely to enter the state correctional system, experts said. Susan McNaughton, communications director for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, said the state has 22 institutions to care for men, and it was too early to say which one he would go to. All are set up to cope with elderly inmates, and there is no facility that is especially designated for such prisoners.

What are the grounds for an appeal?

Mr. Cosby’s sentencing will be held inside the courthouse where he was tried, the historic Montgomery County Courthouse. Credit Corey Perrine/Associated Press

STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS Mr. Cosby’s spokesman mentioned that issue as a likely ground for appeal in a conversation he had after the verdict. Mr. Cosby’s lawyers argued in court that there is little evidence that the sexual encounter with Ms. Constand occurred in January 2004, as she testified. Any earlier and the state’s 12-year statute of limitations would have expired by the time he was charged in December 2015.

Continue reading the main story

TESTIMONY FROM THE FIVE ADDITIONAL WOMEN Ordinarily, prosecutors cannot introduce evidence or accusations of prior bad behavior. It is viewed as too prejudicial for a jury as it considers the facts of the single case before it. But here five women were allowed to describe their own encounters with Mr. Cosby. The judge did not provide a legal reasoning for his decision to allow five, compared with one other accuser he permitted to testify at the first trial, and the introduction of evidence like this has been allowed in other cases, but several experts said it is a likely target of the defense team.

“This is an enormous issue that is going to be argued on appeal,” said Shan Wu, a former sex-crimes prosecutor in Washington.

Continue reading the main story

THE JUDGE’S REFUSAL TO RECUSE HIMSELF Defense lawyers had sought to have Judge O’Neill replaced before the trial because the judge’s wife has been an active supporter of sexual assault victims. Judge O’Neill would not recuse himself, and experts said higher courts have typically not viewed spousal affiliations as grounds for judicial recusal, but the defense could revisit the topic.

THE DEFENSE’S INABILITY TO INTRODUCE EVIDENCE FROM SHERI WILLIAMS Ms. Williams, a friend of Ms. Constand, testified during Ms. Constand’s civil suit against Mr. Cosby. But Mr. Cosby’s lawyers had sought to have her testify at the trial, and when they could not find her, they asked that her deposition testimony be read to the jury. It’s unclear what the defense hoped to show with Ms. Williams’s testimony, but The Associated Press reported that the defense thought it would show that Ms. Constand was not as unaware of Mr. Cosby’s romantic intentions as she had indicated.

The judge denied, reasoning that prosecutors had been unable to cross-examine the witness when she gave the deposition. Mr. Wu said the defense’s inability to produce this witness may be something they emphasize on appeal, especially since the prosecution was allowed to bring five prior bad acts witnesses.

THE JUROR WHO WAS KEPT ON Before the retrial started, the defense lawyers had asked to bar one of the jurors who had been selected to hear the case. They said the juror had been overheard by another prospective juror saying he thought Mr. Cosby was guilty. After several hours of discussion with both sides, Judge O’Neill ruled that the juror could continue on the case, but he never made his reasoning publicly known.

What happens to the civil suits?

The review of Mr. Cosby’s behavior is now likely to shift to the arena of the civil courts, where he has been sued by several women. Many of the women are suing him for defamation because, they say, he or his staff branded them as liars by dismissing their allegations as fabrications. The suits had mostly been delayed, pending the outcome of the criminal trial but are now likely to draw momentum from the guilty verdict.

Continue reading the main story

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/27/arts/television/bill-cosby-guilty-next-steps.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business

Cargo transit along Russia’s Northern Sea Route expected to rise by 50% this year

April 27, 2018 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

From the current 9.93 million tons, “I would forecast the cargo flow at 12-14 million tons in 2018,” he told TASS, adding that “most likely it would be even bigger.”

Kostin said there was almost 200-percent growth since the first quarter of 2017. “The main cargoes are minerals, food and fuel to local settlements, and transit shipments,” he said, adding that more than 660 licenses were issued last year for the route’s transit.

The Northern Sea Route, which stretches the entire length of Russia’s Arctic and Far East regions, is expected to become a major trade route for goods shipped between Europe and Asia.

US demands shared use of Russia’s Northern Sea Route

In March, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the route would become “the key to the development of the Russian Arctic regions of the Far East.”

Putin said the goal was to make it a “truly global, competitive transport artery” and to significantly increase its cargo traffic up to 80 million tons a year. Ships will mainly transport liquefied natural gas (LNG), oil, and coal.

In 2016, the amount of cargo transported via the Northern Sea Route exceeded the Soviet record, reaching 7.5 million tons. The Arctic route from Southeast Asia to Europe cuts transportation time in half compared to traditional routes through the Suez and Panama canals. In Soviet times, the route was used mainly to supply goods to isolated settlements in the Arctic.

In 1991, the Northern Sea Route was opened to international shipping, though in official Russian documents, it was defined as a “historically established national transport communication.”

For more stories on economy finance visit RT’s business section

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/425325-northern-sea-route-transit/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

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