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World Briefing | Europe: Russia: Ex-Defense Chief Faces Accusers

January 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment

State investigators on Friday accused the former defense minister, Anatoly E. Serdyukov, of obstructing a corruption investigation into real estate dealings by the Defense Ministry, and suggested that he might soon face criminal charges. Mr. Serdyukov, who was dismissed by President Vladimir V. Putin in November, invoked his constitutional right not to incriminate himself during an interrogation, a spokesman for the state Investigative Committee said. Several of his former aides have already been charged in the case.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/12/world/europe/russia-ex-defense-chief-faces-accusers.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

What the Latest Jobless Figures Mean for Obama

January 7, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The economy has added 1.5 million jobs over the last year, and the pace seems to be picking up. The unemployment rate last month, 8.5 percent, was at its lowest level since February 2009, Mr. Obama’s first full month in office.

Of course, the economy has been here before, only to fall back again. In both early 2010 and early 2011, job growth picked up briefly, before the continuing global financial crisis — including Europe’s problems — again reasserted itself.

The White House made the mistake of reacting too quickly and positively to some of that earlier news. It went so far as to refer to the summer of 2010 as “recovery summer.”

As they had in recent weeks, Mr. Obama and his aides noted the good news on Friday, though they said there was a long way to go, and urged Congress to extend the payroll tax cut and pass other parts of the president’s agenda.

“The economy is moving in the right direction,” Mr. Obama said. “We’re creating jobs on a consistent basis.”

But he added: “There are a lot of people that are still hurting out there. After losing more than 8 million jobs in the recession, obviously, you know, we have a lot more work to do.”

And the economy clearly remains a problem for Mr. Obama. Shortly after the release of the jobs report, Mitt Romney, the winner of this week’s Republican caucus in Iowa, said at a campaign stop in South Carolina, “This president doesn’t understand how the economy works.”

In a statement, Mr. Romney called the unemployment numbers “good news” but said it is “no cause for celebration.” He added: “President Obama’s policies have slowed the recovery and created misery for 24 million Americans who are unemployed, or stuck in part-time jobs when what they really want is full-time work.”

The big question is whether the economy will continue to improve. The recent job growth, on its own, is not enough to keep unemployment falling at a significant pace.

But there is some reason for optimism. The Labor Department conducts two surveys each month, one of households and one of businesses. The business survey produces the widely cited number on job changes — 200,000 in December.

The household survey, although usually more volatile, can sometimes provide a more accurate estimate at turning points. IT often captures jobs at new companies that are not included in the business survey.

Over the past six months, the household survey shows an average monthly gain of about 230,000, compared with a gain of only 142,000 in the business survey. Normal population growth means that the economy needs to add between 125,000 and 150,000 a month to keep unemployment from rising.

If the household survey is really the more accurate one, the good news on jobs may well continue, complicating a central point in the Republican case against Mr. Obama.

On the other hand, some of the recent strength comes from the restocking of warehouses, which will not continue. Europe still has not solved its problems. The troubles in Iran could cause oil prices to jump. And American businesses and consumers, still scarred by the financial crisis, are probably still easy to scare.

No one knows what the economy is going to do in 2012, but the chances of it improving markedly are higher than they were a couple of months ago.

Susan Saulny contributed reporting from Conway, S.C.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=3f23a527a1e44f5d4119bebe8a31053d

Filed Under: Economy News Tagged With: , ,

Pressured by White House, Treasury Secretary Is Expected to Stay at Post

August 4, 2011 by Leave a Comment

But Mr. Geithner has not yet notified the White House of his intentions, and family considerations could still win out, advisers say.

Speculation from Washington to Wall Street has intensified because Mr. Geithner, the only holdover at the center of Mr. Obama’s original economic circle, said a month ago that he would decide on his future after the White House and Congress reached a deal to increase the nation’s debt ceiling. Mr. Obama signed that deal into law on Tuesday.

Mr. Obama and his chief of staff, William M. Daley, have been urging Mr. Geithner to stay, administration officials say, not only for continuity when the economy has weakened and to avoid an all-but-certain confirmation fight in the Senate over a successor, but also because Mr. Obama has developed a close rapport with Mr. Geithner.

Whether the president persuades Mr. Geithner to stay will be a central development for the White House as it girds for a re-election race expected to turn on the economy and the continuing battle of the budget with Republicans.

Mr. Geithner has been considering an exit since early this year, administration officials say. None would speak directly on what Mr. Obama has said to his Treasury secretary because the two men have private meetings alone once a week.

On Monday, after the previous night’s announcement of the debt accord, Mr. Geithner convened advisers to talk about his future agenda, including dealing with the European debt crisis, housing and overhauling the corporate tax code. Aides say they took that as a clue he was staying, only to wonder on Tuesday, when a photographer came in to capture Mr. Geithner watching the final vote for the debt deal, if the photos were intended as a record of Mr. Geithner’s final days.

Especially in recent weeks, the issue has become a running joke, officials say: Mr. Geithner and Mr. Daley tease about the ankle bracelet that the White House makes him wear, or Mr. Geithner asks if Mr. Daley has yet read his resignation letter, to which Mr. Daley answers in unprintable language.

But the pressure from the top on Mr. Geithner was more serious one day about two weeks ago, officials say. Mr. Daley has also told Mr. Geithner’s top lieutenants — Deputy Secretary Neal S. Wolin and Mark A. Patterson, the chief of staff — that he wants them to remain, though Jake Siewert, Mr. Geithner’s counselor, is returning to New York as soon as this week.

Neither Mr. Geithner nor Mr. Daley would comment. “I haven’t made that decision yet,” Mr. Geithner said Tuesday in an interview with ABC. He added, “We’ve got a lot of challenges, president’s got a lot of challenges, and, you know, I got other pressures on me, too.”

Chief among those pressures are his family. Mr. Geithner’s wife and son moved back to New York in June so his son could complete high school there. And Mr. Geithner has been working at a breakneck pace since the early days of the financial crisis in 2007. Formerly president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, he has been among the three top stewards of the economy, along with Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, and the Bush administration Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson.

“He’s had a tough job during a tough time, and I think he’s really slogged through and made some really tough choices,” said Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia. “I can understand why he might want to cash it in.”

But, he added, “My fear is not only who would you get that would have the experience to grapple with another crisis but also, do we really need a massive confirmation fight?”

From the start, Mr. Geithner’s biggest critics have been on the left. But Jared Bernstein, a former member of the administration’s economic team and a liberal economist close to some of the critics, said: “To the extent people vilify Tim as only caring about banks, they’re way off.  He’s always understood that Main Street depends on credit from Wall Street, and I know for a fact that he advocated the steps we took for that reason, not to preserve anyone’s capital or profits.  I’ve actually heard him say some pretty nasty stuff about those guys.”

The prospects of being drawn into an election-year confirmation brawl could deter some who might be considered as Mr. Geithner’s successor. Among those named by people familiar with administration thinking are Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase; Jeffrey R. Immelt, the chairman of General Electric and of Mr. Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness; Roger Altman, a deputy Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration; and Erskine Bowles, a former White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and co-chairman of Mr. Obama’s fiscal commission in 2010.

Some Democrats say Mr. Bowles might be one of the few people who could surmount the opposition of Senate Republicans, given his good relations with some of them after his work on the bipartisan fiscal commission. “In rational times, absolutely” Mr. Bowles would be confirmed, Mr. Warner said. “But I’m not sure we’re in rational times.”

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=5eb9c530034718647068fde9467262f5

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: , ,