How long can the U.S. dollar defy gravity?

Secret U.S. effort aims to help dissidents: report

2011-06-12T11:30:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration is leading a global effort to establish "shadow" Internet and cellphone systems to help dissidents undermine authoritarian governments, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

The effort has quickened since former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's government shut down the country's Internet in the last days of his rule, said the Times report, which cited planning documents, classified diplomatic cables and sources.

The Internet has been used in recent months by anti-government protesters in North Africa and the Middle East to help coordinate demonstrations. Some governments have responded by disabling Internet access.

In one project, the U.S. State Department and Pentagon have spent at least $50 million to create an independent cellphone network in Afghanistan using towers on military bases in the country, the Times said, citing unnamed U.S. officials.

The operation is aimed at counteracting the Taliban insurgency's ability to shut down official Afghan services, the Times said.

The State Department is also financing creation of stealth wireless networks to enable activists to communicate beyond the reach of governments in countries like Iran, Syria and Libya, the Times said, citing participants in the projects.

Another project focuses on development of an "Internet in a suitcase" that could be smuggled across a border and deployed to allow wireless communication with a link to the global Internet, the Times reported.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is backing the U.S. effort, according to the report.

"We see more and more people around the globe using the Internet, mobile phones and other technologies to make their voices heard as they protest against injustice and seek to realize their aspirations," the Times quoted Clinton as saying in an email response to a query on the subject.

U.S. diplomats also are meeting with operatives who have been burying Chinese cellphones near the border with North Korea, where they can be dug up and used to make furtive calls, the Times reported.

(Writing by Paul Simao; Editing by Eric Beech)

Prince Philip marks 90th birthday with new title(Colonial Masters)

2011-06-12T11:27:00.000-07:00

Prince Philip marks 90th birthday with new title

LONDON (AFP) – Britain's Prince Philip received a new royal title from his wife Queen Elizabeth II as a gift on his 90th birthday Friday, as the outspoken consort said he would finally scale back his workload.

The queen made him Lord High Admiral -- the titular head of the British Royal Navy and an office until now held by her -- partly in recognition of the promising seafaring career Philip gave up to spend a lifetime at her side.

The gruff patriarch, the longest-serving consort in British history, opted to spend his birthday with a typical lack of fuss, as he hosted a charity reception and chaired a conference for military colonels.

Despite remaining sprightly for his age, if not the dashing blond naval officer of more than five decades ago, Philip admitted he would now take a step back from official duties.

"I reckon I've done my bit. I want to enjoy myself a bit now, with less responsibility, less frantic rushing about, less preparation, less trying to think of something to say," he told the BBC.

"On top of that my memory's going, I can't remember names. I'm just sort of winding down."

There has been speculation he could hand over some of his duties to his grandson Prince William's new wife, Catherine.

Since marrying the then princess Elizabeth in 1947, Philip has carved out his own role supporting the monarch, accompanying her on visits around the world and jollying people up with his off-the-cuff remarks.

Some have been near the knuckle.

On a visit to China in 1986, he warned a group of British students: "If you stay here much longer, you'll all be slitty-eyed." And he told a British student who had trekked in Papua New Guinea in 1998: "You managed not to get eaten, then?".

But in a sign of the public affection for him, the palace revealed that almost 2,000 birthday cards had been sent to the duke from across the globe, including New Zealand and Australia, Italy, Poland, France and Germany.

Known officially as the Duke of Edinburgh, he is patron of some 800 organisations, covering fields including conservation, design and developing life skills among youngsters.

Prince Philippos of Greece and Denmark, a nephew of Greek king Constantine I, was born on a kitchen table on Corfu on June 10, 1921.

After a turbulent childhood, Lieutenant Mountbatten, as he became, married Elizabeth but his stellar progress in the Royal Navy, including service in World War II, was halted when his wife became queen in 1952.

He told ITV it was "disappointing", but "being married to the queen, it seemed to me that my first duty was to serve her in the best way I could".

Buckingham Palace said in a statement that the award of the title of Lord High Admiral was a "gift to The Duke of Edinburgh on the occasion of his 90th birthday", and that an official ceremony would take place at a later date.

The queen has held the title, which dates back to the 14th century, since 1964.

Canada also named Prince Philip an admiral and general in the Canadian Armed Forces for his birthday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said, praising his "significant contribution to our national life".

The queen is Canada's head of state.

On Friday Philip was also honoured with a 62-gun salute and the striking of a Royal Mint coin with his image on one side and the queen's on the other.

At the event he attended for the Royal National Institute for Deaf People he was given a pair of ear defenders.

But the official celebration of his birthday will be on Sunday when there will be a service at Saint George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, attended by the royal family, with a reception to follow.

"There is no ceremony or anything today. The main event will be on Sunday," a Buckingham Palace spokesman told AFP.

The duke showed the accolades were unlikely to go to his head, as he showed when he was asked by the BBC if he thought he had been successful.

"I couldn't care less. Who cares what I think about it? I mean it's ridiculous," he said, adding that he had figured out how to perform his role by "trial and error".

Paying tribute this week, Prime Minister David Cameron said Philip had been "a constant companion and a source of rock-solid strength" to the queen, adding that Britons found the duke's down-to-earth style "endearing".

5 New Rules of Real Estate

2011-06-12T11:26:00.000-07:00

In the 20-odd years that I have been writing about real estate, I don't believe there has ever been a better time to buy a home.

Why? For starters, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages can be had for less than 5 percent. Recently, the 30-year rate hit 4.6 percent. If you want a 15-year mortgage, you can (for now) still get it for less than 4 percent. These are astounding rates. As Robert Fogel, a Nobel prize-winning economist from the University of Chicago, recently told me, it's like borrowing for free. That's how it feels to me, too: When my husband and I bought our first home in 1989, our interest rate was 11.75 percent.

At this point, it seems everyone wants the real estate market to get better:

• Realtors are selling a fraction of the homes they once were, taking a huge hit in income.

• Builders (at least, those that are still in business) are selling about one-eighth as many homes as they were selling in 2005.

• Appraisers continue to take some of the blame for the housing crisis, for over-appraising property in the boom years and under-appraising it now. Realtors say that more than 75 percent of the homes sales that fall apart do so because the appraisal comes in so far below the contract price that a deal can't be worked out.

• And homeowners are desperate for the housing market to rebound -- especially the more than 25 percent who are underwater with their homes -- so they can refinance or sell their homes and move on with their lives.

[Click here to check home equity rates in your area.]

There's no reason you shouldn't buy a home now and take advantage of super-low prices, historically low mortgage interest rates, and a significant supply of homes on the market. But to be successful in today's real estate market, you need to understand that the game has changed.

Here's my list of the biggest shifts:

1. R.I.P., Big Housing Price Jumps

If you want to buy a house, you have to have enough income to support the mortgage. Now, take it the next step: If everyone in a particular neighborhood earns around the same money, then all the houses in the neighborhood will be priced about the same and home values will only rise 3 percent per year.

That's about the typical raise most Americans used to get, but the decidedly old-fashioned expectation went out in the 2000s because banks told borrowers that exotic mortgages (like the infamous pay-option adjustable-rate mortgage, or ARM) would allow them to "leverage up" to a much more expensive house payment. It was a payment most clearly couldn't afford; the bulk of those loans started going delinquent within three months of closing. Now that every borrower has to have a job and some sort of down payment, and the only basic loan types available are 30-year and 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, you won't be able to leverage up with your mortgage, and housing prices will remain far more steady.

In short -- buy now, but don't expect a huge pop in home prices. It ain't going to happen.

2. Mortgage Lenders: Just Not That into You

Most home buyers don't have enough cash in their pocket to purchase a home without a mortgage. But, lenders are extremely risk-averse at the moment -- so they don't want to approve a mortgage application unless you have an extremely good FICO score (preferably 700 or higher, and at least 760 to get the best rates); you have plenty of cash in the bank (for your down payment, closing costs and a healthy cash reserve); you don't have anything weird or amiss in your financial data. And it helps if you have another loan application approved from a competing institution. Which is to say: They only want you if you don't really need them.

You'll also need to make sure the property appraises at or above the contracted price and the neighborhood is steady (without too many foreclosures).

3. The Best Deals Are in New Places

Sure, there are amazing short sales and foreclosures out there. To find them, you'll have to hire a great agent who really knows what he or she is doing, has connections with the foreclosure-sale (also known as real estate owned, or REO) departments of big lenders, and can help you navigate a tricky and frustrating negotiation cycle.

For example, if you want to buy a HUD home (an FHA foreclosure), you'll need a HUD-certified real estate agent who can help you make an offer at HUDHomeStore.com. But the agent may not tell you that short sales and foreclosures are often damaged properties that will require tens of thousands of dollars (or more) in deferred maintenance, rebuilding or renovating.

Instead, look for a property where the seller has plenty of equity and has to sell, but is confronted with a neighborhood full of foreclosures. The seller will have to price the home to compete with foreclosures, and you'll scoop up a property that is in much better shape and will, in all likelihood, require a lot less maintenance, renovation and upkeep.

4. Investing? Focus on Income

Somewhere along the way, ordinary civilians got the idea that there were massive profits to be made in real estate, if only they could flip the properties fast enough. The problem with that strategy became apparent when the real estate market crashed, and investors (who were leveraged to the hilt) couldn't get out of their properties in time. When you're paying thousands of dollars for a mortgage but don't have any income -- nor hopes of a sale -- it's a fast track to bankruptcy.

But now is an amazing time to buy investment property. Purchase a foreclosure or two (or up to 10, if you can find the financing), and focus on how much income you can get each month. If you buy a foreclosure in the Atlanta area for $75,000 and can get $800 to $1,000 per month in rent, that's a terrific return on investment.

5. Time to Think Medium Term ... at Minimum

I'm not sure where home buyers got the idea that they could buy and flip houses every 24 months and collect a king's ransom's worth of tax-free profits. But those days are over. Whether you're buying as an investor or plan to live in the property, you'll need a 7- to 10-year plan in order to make sure you won't lose money after factoring in the costs of sale.

Even those investors who are buying bottom-feeder foreclosures and fixing them up might not be able to resell them so quickly. And if they do, they might find that lenders won't finance their buyers. So come up with a long-term plan that will let you rake in money ... while the rest of the real estate market catches up.

The Bitcoin Triples Again

2011-06-12T11:24:00.000-07:00

The online currency has minted off-line millionaires. But for how long?

The world's fastest-gaining currency has tripled in price again. Last week, SmartMoney reported that the Bitcoin had exploded from an exchange rate near zero to more than $10 in about a year, making it one of the top-returning assets of any kind. On Wednesday the currency topped $30.

More from SmartMoney.com:

• Groupon and Pals: Worth More Than Google?

• The Most Expensive Stock in America

• The Invisible Stock Bubble

If returns like those seem otherworldly, perhaps its because Bitcoin is a world unto itself. To recap, it's is a purely online currency with no intrinsic value; its worth is based solely on the willingness of holders and merchants to accept it in trade. In that respect, it's not so different from fiat currencies like the dollar or Euro, but whereas governments back such money, Bitcoins lack central control.

In another way, the appeal of the Bitcoin echoes the appeal of gold. Instead of a central bank, a computer algorithm dictates their supply. Today there are six million Bitcoins, a number that will grow at a steadily slowing rate until it approaches 21 million, but no more. As with gold, some see such limited supply as built-in protection against inflation that could result from runaway government budget deficits. Gold, of course, has been a store of value for thousands of years and has at least some industrial use, whereas Bitcoins are brand new and exist only on the Internet.

For some early adopters, Bitcoins have turned from a hobby into a windfall. MtGox.com, the main exchange for users swapping Bitcoins for dollars and other currencies, charges buyers and sellers a fee of 0.65% for its brokerage service. (The name stands for Magic the Gathering Online Exchange, but the Bitcoin dabbler who bought the domain didn't bother to change it.) As recently as a few months ago, the site generated just pennies a day in income. By Wednesday it was making more than $40,000 a day.

Mt. Gox, needless to say, is not a regulated exchange, so its pricing and liquidity data aren't subject to any review or verification. Mt. Gox didn't respond to an email request for comment. The site offers no customer service phone number.

Click here for the Currency Center.

The largest Bitcoin account holder -- who is, of course, anonymous -- has 297,000 units of the start-up currency, according to Donald Norman, a spokesman for the The Bitcoin Consultancy, which offers advisory services for institutions interested in Bitcoin transactions. At $31 per Bitcoin, that's equivalent to $9.2 million.

Bitcoins are accepted by a limited number of merchants for services, such as website design, and some goods, such as music and clothes. The anonymous nature of the currency has also led to brazen use by drug dealers, including ones who hawk their merchandise on Silk Road, a website than can only be reached through a network that cloaks the identity of its owner. Lawmakers are not amused. "The only method of payment for these illegal purchases is an untraceable peer-to-peer currency known as Bitcoins," wrote Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Joe Manchin of West Virginia this week in a letter to the U.S. Attorney General and the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Cash, Bitcoin advocates are quick to point out, is also an anonymous payment system used to buy drugs, and Norman says the focus on drugs is sensationalistic and misguided. "It would be sad if the growth of Bitcoin was stunted because of this criminal byproduct," he says. "Bitcoin is going to change the world in the same way the Internet did and make societies freer."

It's not clear that U.S. law enforcement agencies could regulate Bitcoins if they wanted to. The currency runs on software similar to the file-sharing software used to download music and movies, technology the entertainment industry has been trying unsuccessfully to quash for years. There's no headquarters, main server or central bank to visit, just a network of thousands of users. It's also not clear whether U.S. regulators would have jurisdiction over a global, virtual currency. Last week, a spokesman for the F.B.I. said he was unaware of Bitcoins and would check into the Bureau's position on them. Subsequent calls for comment have not been returned.

Readers tempted to bet on the Bitcoin should resist, not least because it's unclear whether it will have any enduring worth. Beyond what fans say are the currency's design advantages, its chief appeal at the moment is surely that it's soaring in value. As of now, today is the first day in more than a week that the currency didn't hit a new high. And when the gains stall, the fall that follows may be as breathtaking as the rise.

Florida bank fails, 40th shuttered in 2011

2011-05-08T05:35:00.000-07:00

Florida bank fails, 40th shuttered in 2011

Regulators shut down small Florida bank; makes 40 US bank failures in 2011

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Regulators on Friday shut down a small Florida bank, bringing the number of U.S. bank failures this year to 40.

The pace of closures has slowed, however, as the economy improves and banks work their way through piles of bad debt. By this time last year, regulators had closed 68 banks.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized Coastal Bank of Cocoa Beach, with about $129.4 million in assets and $123.9 million in deposits as of March 31.

Premier American Bank N.A., based in Miami, agreed to assume the deposits and buy the assets of the failed bank. It also agreed to share losses on $108.2 million of Coastal Bank's assets with the FDIC.

The failure of Coastal Bank is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $13.4 million.

Coastal Bank's two branches will reopen on Monday as branches of Florida Community Bank, a division of Premier American, the FDIC said.

Florida has been among the hardest-hit states for bank failures.

Regulators shuttered 29 banks in the state last year. Coastal Bank is the fifth Florida lender shut down by the FDIC this year.

In 2010, authorities seized 157 banks that succumbed to mounting soured loans and the hobbled economy. It was the most in a year since the savings-and-loan crisis two decades ago.

The FDIC has said that 2010 likely would mark the peak for bank failures.

There were 140 bank failures in 2009, costing the insurance fund about $36 billion. The failures last year cost around $21 billion, a lower price tag because the banks that failed in 2010 were smaller on average. Twenty-five banks failed in 2008, the year the financial crisis struck with force; only three were closed in 2007.

From 2008, the year the financial crisis struck, through 2010, bank failures cost the fund $76.8 billion. The deposit insurance fund fell into the red in 2009, and its deficit stood at $7.4 billion as of Dec. 31.

The FDIC expects the cost of resolving failed banks to total around $52 billion from 2010 through 2014.

Depositors' money -- insured up to $250,000 per account -- is not at risk, with the FDIC backed by the government. That insurance cap was made permanent in the financial overhaul law enacted last July.

The number of banks on the FDIC's confidential "problem" list rose to 884 in the final quarter of last year from 860 three months earlier. The 884 troubled banks is the highest number since 1993, during the savings-and-loan crisis

Obama tries to reassure public on economy, jobs

2011-05-08T05:34:00.000-07:00

Obama tries to reassure public on economy, jobs

Obama says jobs, economy remain priority despite week's focus on bin Laden

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is reassuring the public that jobs and the economy are his top priority.

At the end of a historic and emotionally charged week that began with his nationally televised announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan during a raid by U.S. special forces, Obama on Saturday returned to promoting his energy agenda.

U.S. forces raided a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where bin Laden had lived for several years, killing the al-Qaida leader.

The news of bin Laden's demise dominated the week's headlines.

"So although our economy hasn't been the focus of the news this week, not a day goes by that I'm not focused on your jobs, your hopes and your dreams," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

He recorded the address Friday while visiting an Indianapolis transmissions plant that makes systems for hybrid vehicles.

Obama has been traveling around the country to talk up his plan to reduce U.S. consumption of foreign oil -- and the price Americans pay for it -- by increasing domestic oil production, encouraging a shift to alternative energy sources and building vehicles that use less fuel.

He says shifting to jobs like those at the Indianapolis factory will create more jobs and help the economy grow.

"The clean energy jobs at this plant are the jobs of the future, jobs that pay well right here in America," Obama said. "It's clean energy companies like this one that will keep our economy growing, create new jobs and make sure America remains the most prosperous nation in the world."

Republicans devoted their weekly message to bin Laden.

Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown praised years of diligent work by the military and by intelligence professionals to pinpoint bin Laden's location. The al-Qaida leader's death, Brown said, sends a clear message to others like bin Laden.

"The example will not be lost on other terrorists," Brown said. "Any escape they make will be temporary. Any sanctuary they find will be uncovered. Those who harm or threaten the American people will be dealt with, on our terms, however long it takes."

Stocks rally as hiring spree surprises Wall Street

2011-05-08T05:33:00.000-07:00

Stocks rally as hiring spree surprises Wall Street

Stocks reverse weeklong slump after report shows job growth well above expectations

NEW YORK (AP) -- The biggest corporate hiring spree in five years ended a weeklong slide in the stock market.

The Labor Department reported Friday that private employers hired 268,000 people last month, the most since February 2006. Taking into account job cuts of government workers, the economy added a total of 244,000 jobs overall last month, well above the 185,000 jobs that analysts had predicted.

It was the third straight month with an increase of more than 200,000 jobs.

The unemployment rate rose, however, to 9.0 percent from 8.8 percent in part because more people who resumed looking for work.

The news on job growth helped lift the dollar, nudged up oil prices and reversed a four-day slump for stocks.

"Everyone was a bit surprised by the jobs number," said Frank Fantozzi, the chief executive of Planned Financial Services, a Cleveland, Ohio-based firm. "It's a good indication for the markets that we are still in the growth stage."

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 54.57 points, or 0.4 percent, to close at 12,638.74. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 5.10, or 0.4 percent, to 1,340.20. The Nasdaq composite rose 12.84, or 0.5 percent, to 2,827.56.

Industrials companies that benefit from global building and expansion projects led the market following the jobs report. Caterpillar Inc. rose nearly 1 percent. Boeing Co. rose 1.1 percent.

But Friday's bounce failed to make up for losses earlier this week, when fears of an economic slowdown and weaker-than-expected earnings dragged down the major stock indexes. All three ended the week down more than 1 percent. The Russell 2000, an index of small companies that reached record highs just a week earlier, ended the week down 3.7%.

The higher jobs number helped stem a sell-off in commodities brought on by fears that the economy was sputtering. Regular investors and speculators had begun to flee commodities in an effort to lock in profits in case the economy slowed even further.

"The jobs report put an end to the idea that growth appeared to be weakening, which is what really fueled most of the declines in commodities this week," said Jeffery Kleintop, the chief strategist at LPL Financial.

The dollar also got a lift. An index that measures the dollar against six major currencies gained 1 percent.

Financial markets are markedly different from this time last year. Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the "Flash Crash." Stocks tumbled that day when one large trade overwhelmed the market's computer servers and sent prices into a tailspin. Though stock prices made up most of their losses that day, the sudden drop fueled skepticism that stocks were a safe investment. That led many investors to pull money out of the stock market.

Two shares rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. Trading volume was 4.4 billion shares.

Why some people can run on little sleep and get so much done

2011-04-10T12:11:00.000-07:00

For a small group of people -- perhaps just 1% to 3% of the population -- sleep is a waste of time.

Natural "short sleepers," as they're officially known, are night owls and early birds simultaneously. They typically turn in well after midnight, then get up just a few hours later and barrel through the day without needing to take naps or load up on caffeine.

They are also energetic, outgoing, optimistic and ambitious, according to the few researchers who have studied them. The pattern sometimes starts in childhood and often runs in families.

While it's unclear if all short sleepers are high achievers, they do have more time in the day to do things, and keep finding more interesting things to do than sleep, often doing several things at once.

Nobody knows how many natural short sleepers are out there. "There aren't nearly as many as there are people who think they're short sleepers," says Daniel J. Buysse, a psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and a past president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, a professional group.

Out of every 100 people who believe they only need five or six hours of sleep a night, only about five people really do, Dr. Buysse says. The rest end up chronically sleep deprived, part of the one-third of U.S. adults who get less than the recommended seven hours of sleep per night, according to a report last month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

[More from WSJ.com: How Much Sleep Do You Need?]

To date, only a handful of small studies have looked at short sleepers -- in part because they're hard to find. They rarely go to sleep clinics and don't think they have a disorder.

Normal Sleeper

Most adults have normal sleep needs, functioning best with 7 to 9 hours of sleep, and about two-thirds of Americans regularly get it. Children fare better with 8 to 12 hours, and elderly people may need only 6 to 7.

Wannabe Short Sleeper

One-third of Americans are sleep-deprived, regularly getting less than 7 hours a night, which puts them at higher risk of diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and other health problems.

Short Sleeper

Short sleepers, about 1% to 3% of the population, function well on less than 6 hours of sleep without being tired during the day. They tend to be unusually energetic and outgoing. Geneticists who spotted a gene variation in short sleepers were able to replicate it in mice -- which needed less sleep than usual, too.

A few studies have suggested that some short sleepers may have hypomania, a mild form of mania with racing thoughts and few inhibitions. "These people talk fast. They never stop. They're always on the up side of life," says Dr. Buysse. He was one of the authors of a 2001 study that had 12 confirmed short sleepers and 12 control subjects keep diaries and complete numerous questionnaires about their work, sleep and living habits.One survey dubbed "Attitude for Life" that was actually a test for hypomania. The natural short sleepers scored twice as high as the controls.

There is currently no way people can teach themselves to be short sleepers. Still, scientists hope that by studying short sleepers, they can better understand how the body regulates sleep and why sleep needs vary so much in humans.

"My long-term goal is to someday learn enough so we can manipulate the sleep pathways without damaging our health," says human geneticist Ying-Hui Fu at the University of California-San Francisco. "Everybody can use more waking hours, even if you just watch movies."

Dr. Fu was part of a research team that discovered a gene variation, hDEC2, in a pair of short sleepers in 2009. They were studying extreme early birds when they noticed that two of their subjects, a mother and daughter, got up naturally about 4 a.m. but also went to bed past midnight.

Genetic analyses spotted one gene variation common to them both. The scientists were able to replicate the gene variation in a strain of mice and found that the mice needed less sleep than usual, too.

[More from WSJ.com: What's a Good Night's Sleep Worth to You?]

News of their finding spurred other people to write the team, saying they were natural short sleepers and volunteering to be studied. The researchers are recruiting more candidates and hope to find more gene variations they have in common.

That All-Nighter Feels Good -- Temporarily

Sleep deprivation makes most people grumpy. It's sometimes used as a form of torture. Oddly enough, it can also bring on temporary euphoria, according to a study in the journal Neuroscience last month.

Researchers had 14 healthy young adults stay up all night and all the next day and then compared their reactions with 13 subjects who had slept normally. In one test, sleepless subjects asked to rate a series of images uniformly saw them as more pleasant or positive. "We saw this strange lopsided shift," says lead author Matthew Walker, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California-Berkeley.

Brain scans also showed that the subjects who had pulled all-nighters had heightened activity in the mesolimbic pathway, a brain circuit driven by dopamine, a neurotransmitter that typically regulates feelings of pleasure, addiction and cravings.

The boost of dopamine after an all-nighter may help explain why sleep deprivation can alleviate major depression in about 60% of patients, although the effect is only temporary. "As soon as they get recovery sleep, all that mood elevation is lost," says Dr. Walker.

Could the sleep-deprived brain be somehow compensating for the lack of downtime with a surge of dopamine to keep on going? Scientists don't yet know.

Earlier studies have also shown that sleep deprivation amplifies activity in the amygdala, the primitive emotional center of the brain, and reduces it the prefrontal cortex, where higher, more rational thought occurs. It may be that the brain reverts to a more basic mode of operating when it is sleep deprived, Dr. Walker speculates. Alternatively, he says, "we know that different parts of the brain are more sensitive than others to sleep deprivation. It may be that the prefrontal cortex just goes down first."

Although the feelings of euphoria sound great, Dr. Walker warns that operating more on emotion than reason can be very risky. "You are all gas pedal and no brake," he says. That can be dangerous, indeed, if you are in a job that requires both long hours and difficult decision making.

Potential candidates for the gene study are sent multiple questionnaires and undergo a long structured phone interview. Those who make the initial screening wear monitors to track their sleep patterns at home. Christopher Jones, a University of Utah neurologist and sleep scientist who oversees the recruiting, says there is one question that is more revealing than anything else: When people do have a chance to sleep longer, on weekends or vacation, do they still sleep only five or six hours a night? People who sleep more when they can are not true short sleepers, he says.

To date, Dr. Jones says he has identified only about 20 true short sleepers, and he says they share some fascinating characteristics. Not only are their circadian rhythms different from most people, so are their moods (very upbeat) and their metabolism (they're thinner than average, even though sleep deprivation usually raises the risk of obesity). They also seem to have a high tolerance for physical pain and psychological setbacks.

"They encounter obstacles, they just pick themselves up and try again," Dr. Jones says.

Some short sleepers say their sleep patterns go back to childhood and some see the same patterns starting in their own kids, such as giving up naps by age 2. As adults, they gravitate to different fields, but whatever they do, they do full bore, Dr. Jones says.

[More from WSJ.com: Using a Sleep Monitor to Track Healthy Sleep]

"Typically, at the end of a long, structured phone interview, they will admit that they've been texting and surfing the Internet and doing the crossword puzzle at the same time, all on less than six hours of sleep," says Dr. Jones. "There is some sort of psychological and physiological energy to them that we don't understand."

Drs. Jones and Fu stress that there is no genetic test for short sleeping. Ultimately, they expect to find that many different genes play a role, which may in turn reveal more about the complex systems that regulate sleep in humans.

Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Leonardo da Vinci were too busy to sleep much, according to historical accounts. Winston Churchill and Thomas Edison came close but they were also fond of taking naps, which may disqualify them as true short sleepers.

Nowadays, some short sleepers gravitate to fields like blogging, videogame design and social media, where their sleep habits come in handy. "If I could find a way to do it, I'd never sleep," says Dave Hatter, a software developer in Fort Wright, Ky. He typically sleeps just four to five hours a night, up from two to three hours a few years ago.

"It's crazy, but it works for me," says Eleanor Hoffman, an overnight administrator at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York who would rather spend afternoons playing mahjong with friends than sleep anymore than four hours. Sometimes she calls her cousin, Linda Cohen, in Pittsburgh about 4 a.m., since she knows she'll be wide awake as well -- just like they were as kids.

"I come to life about 11 at night," says Mrs. Cohen, who owns a chain of toy stores with her husband and gets up early in the morning with ease. "If I went to bed earlier, I'd feel like half my life was missing."

Are you a short sleeper? For more information on the genetic study, contact Dr. Jones at chris.jones@hsc.utah.edu

Managing your wealth in uncertain times

2011-04-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

Managing personal savings and investments is a quandary for many people. Finding your way through the hurly-burley of financial markets can be unnerving. But letting your money just sit there isn’t an option either. Low savings rates increase pressure for higher returns elsewhere.

But will interest rates remain low for much longer? Is the dizzying high of the stock market for real? Is it foolhardy to invest bank savings in the market? As people get richer the task of managing and retaining wealth becomes more complex. So how do you approach this?

Investors should take a long term perspective. Over time, various types of investments of asset classes will earn different rates of returns and risk, or losses. A well-diversified portfolio of investments matched to a person’s requirements and risk tolerance can lay the foundation for long term financial security.

This is wealth management. Stock picking and market timing are not consistent sources of returns. Avoid the temptation to chase markets and seek professional investment advice if you want to build wealth.

With recent changes announced in the Budget proposals, it is likely that Sri Lankans will be able to gain global investment exposure from early 2011. This will pave the way for truly diversified portfolios. This is an exciting period for Sri Lankan investors. However, investing globally also takes expertise, to understand the risks and rewards of various asset classes. Seek professional advice to make sure you and your investments match.

Prudent wealth management

Wealth management is about matching an investor to a portfolio. It is not stock picking or investing wisely in real estate. A concentrated portfolio faces greater risk of loss than a well-diversified one.

Wealth management begins by understanding yourself, understanding markets and finding a balance between capital preservation and future growth in your investment portfolio. It is important to do this in the context of your ability to tolerate losses and other constraints. The most important aspect of investing is to match the investor with a portfolio that is well diversified through asset allocation and suits individual needs and wants.

Know your weaknesses

Humans are emotional and operate on rules of thumb. When it comes to investing, this can be a risk. There is a large body of literature called behavioural finance which focuses on exactly this. Some of the key findings are that our behavioural biases figure prominently in our investment decisions and can lead to poorly diversified portfolios, because we are over-confident of our ability to pick winning stocks, or we don’t sell falling stocks, because we don’t want to realise the loss. There are many other examples. The message is to be precise and rational when making investment decisions.

Investors are often motivated by fear or hope. Fearful investors desire capital preservation. Hopeful investors aim for high returns even if it means more risk. In reality, there needs to be an optimal balance between the two.

Investors will often hold very concentrated holdings in one ‘winning’ stock. While this may be a great way to riches, there is also a risk the company may fail. One off events can have serious impacts on a company. For example, the global financial crisis has eroded returns on many financial service companies, which seemed bullet-proof only a few years earlier.

Wealth management means managing risks to your wealth and maximising returns.

Know who you are first

Know your goals and constraints before you start investing. In professional wealth management, the starting point is an Investment Policy Statement (IPS). The IPS is a detailed document that lays out an investor’s financial goals, appetite for risk, ability to take risk and constraints.

Financial goals can be short or long term and are sometimes conflicting. They can range from retirement, sending children to a university abroad or an Alaska cruise. It is important to prioritise your goals and ensure that the investments match them. For example, make less risky investments for goals you cannot do without, but take more risk with the Alaska cruise.

Risk is often difficult to identify and is prone to misunderstanding. Risk is the probability of loss. With fixed deposits, the risk of losing your capital is low, but erosion of your purchasing power is high due to inflation as the upside is also limited. With equities, there is a risk that you could lose money, but there is also a good chance of higher returns than fixed deposits. Different assets and investments exhibit varying degrees of risk. Cash and bonds are typically low risk, while equities and private equity are higher risk.

The ability to take risk and appetite for risk can be different for different investors. An investor close to retirement may have a large enough nest-egg that he or she may wish to take more risk. However, there is little time before retirement to recover from a market fall, so their ability to take risk is low. Conversely, a young person should invest in higher risk assets, because they can easily recover from market falls. However, some young people may not want to take too much risk, because they are saving for a first home or a car.

It is important to also know your other constraints. For example, some may wish to bequeath to their children or donate to charities. This may mean a larger than otherwise retirement fund.

Match yourself to a portfolio

After a thorough self-examination in an IPS, the next step is to make investments. The investments should be such that they meet your return requirements and also your risk profile. The key driver for sustainable returns over the long term is asset allocation and diversification.

There is a large body of literature that shows the benefits of diversification and asset allocation. In fact asset allocation is the most important driver of long term returns. Fund manager selection or stock picking are much smaller contributors. There is some scope for tactical changes in the portfolio to match market conditions. For example, a professional wealth manager will reduce exposure to equities when markets are hot and increase exposure after markets have fallen sharply.

In constructing a portfolio, particularly for high net worth individuals, it is important to have a well-diversified portfolio. There is a dizzying array of investment products out there. The typical breakdown is between traditional and alternative assets. Traditional assets include equities and bonds, both local and global. But there is also a large range of investment options, including commodity Exchange traded Funds (ETFs) such as oil and gold, real estate investment trusts (REITs), currency ETFs and private equity.

Many assets move in opposite directions. Building a portfolio with a number of assets that respond to different economic and policy signals can reduce risk and smooth returns. This is why literature focuses so profoundly on diversification and asset allocation. A professional wealth manager will find a selection of assets that together maximise long term expected returns depending on the investor’s risk tolerance level.

Understand your portfolio

Once your portfolio is all set up, it is important to review it regularly. Make sure you understand your portfolio, whether it is aggressive or conservative and whether the asset allocation is really providing the diversification you need. Compare your returns against benchmarks, like bank deposit rates but not returns on a single stock. Once a year, reassess yourself and your portfolio – make sure you still belong together. If not, reflect the changes in your personal circumstances in your portfolio.

Managing wealth

Managing wealth is about making an informed and long term investment decision that matches your needs and risk profile with an investment portfolio. The key to long term returns is diversification through appropriate asset allocation.

The universe of investments is large and risks vary. Investors have conflicting goals and risk profiles. Aligning everything can be a complex task. Seek advice from a qualified investment professional if you can’t do it yourself.

Managing wealth is not about getting rich quick, or speculating on the stock market. Wealth management is a well considered journey to prosperity.

Ravi Abeysuriya is Chief Executive Officer at Heraymila Securities Ltd., a subsidiary of Heraymila Investments Ltd. (HIL) UAE. HIL directly manages over 260 million dollars of private and public investments on behalf of Abdulaziz Al Mashal’s family office.

SEC weighs new rules for private companies' stock

2011-04-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

SEC weighs new rules for private companies' stock

Market regulators consider easing rules for private companies that issue stock

DALLAS (AP) -- The Securities and Exchange Commission is considering whether to ease rules on private companies that issue shares.

Chairman Mary Schapiro said in a speech Friday that she has asked the SEC staff to review the rules. The changes might make it easier for companies such as Facebook and Twitter to raise money by issuing stock, without facing costly reporting requirements imposed on public companies.

Private companies can keep their finances secret if they have fewer than 500 shareholders. If they have more, they must provide details on their companies and finances.

The new rules might replace the process by which technology companies and other startups offer shares publicly through initial public offerings. Companies that have IPOs must disclose financial details about themselves.

Earlier this week, Schapiro sent a letter to Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., notifying him of the review. Issa, who is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, had previously raised concerns with Schapiro that the current rules discourage investment and limit economic growth

The current rules are designed to stop insiders from trading shares using information that is not available publicly. In her letter to Issa, Schapiro said the agency must walk a fine line, protecting investors from insider trading while making it easier for private companies to raise money.

Companies "should not be overburdened by unnecessary or superfluous regulations," Schapiro said in the letter. "At the same time, all offerings must, of course, provide the necessary information and protections to give investors the confidence they need to invest in our markets," she said.

The staff review aims to develop ideas to reduce companies' cost of compliance without sacrificing investor protection, she said.

In addition to Facebook and Twitter, the rules would affect the daily discount site Groupon and Zynga, the maker the online game "FarmVille."

Many of these companies are startups in name only. They have thousands of employees and estimated billions of dollars in yearly revenue. But they have put off going public. That's partly because they already have access to capital from deep-pocketed investors and venture capitalists.

Going public also requires a time commitment from top executives. Facebook's 26-year-old CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, seems to prefer keeping his focus on the company's product development, rather than cashing out through an IPO or answering analysts' questions about earnings and revenue in quarterly conference calls.

Facebook has been trying to put off reaching the 500-shareholder threshold. For example, it has barred current employees from selling their shares. Nonetheless, it has indicated that it is likely to file its IPO plans by the end of April 2012.

Before the companies' IPOs, shares of privately held companies can be traded on private stock exchanges, such as SecondMarket, based in New York, and SharesPost, based in San Bruno, Calif. The shares are generally sold by former employees or early investors in these companies, and often there are more buyers than sellers. Only institutional investors or high net-worth individuals -- those worth more than $1 million -- can buy the shares.

Wagner reported from Washington. AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this report.

Stocks waver as government shutdown looms

2011-04-10T10:56:00.002-07:00

Stocks waver as government shutdown looms

Stocks waver as oil jumps above $112; government shutdown hangs over the market

NEW YORK (AP) -- A surge in oil and the threat of a government shutdown weighed on stocks Friday.

Investors kept one eye on Washington, where Republicans and Democrats were in the final day of talks to reach a budget agreement. Without a deal, the federal government is expected to stop all services that aren't considered essential. That means most economic reports would be suspended. Sales of debt would continue.

Benchmark crude oil jumped $2.49 to settle at $112.79 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That's the highest price since Sept. 22, 2008.

Over the past two months, most stocks have fallen following large jumps in oil prices as investors worried that higher transportation costs would cut into company margins and consumer spending.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 29.44 points, or 0.2 percent, to close at 12,380.05. The Standard & Poor's 500 index slipped 5.34, or 0.4 percent, to 1,328.17. The Nasdaq composite lost 15.72, or 0.6 percent, to 2,780.42.

The Dow ended the week flat, while the S&P and Nasdaq lost 0.3 percent. All three indexes made gains in the previous two weeks.

Transportation companies fell. Delta Air Lines Inc. dropped 3.9 percent, and United Parcel Service Inc. lost 1 percent. Energy companies rose, leading the 10 industry groups within the S&P 500. Occidental Petroleum Corp. rose 2.6 percent, and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. rose 1.6 percent.

Todd Salamone, director of research at Schaeffer's Investment Research, said most stocks tend to rise along with oil prices over the long term. "The recent breakdown in the pattern has largely been due to fears of supply shocks," he said. "But the oil rally could also be attributed to a stronger world economy."

World markets rose broadly. The Euro Stoxx 50, an index of European blue chips, gained 0.7 percent. Japan's benchmark Nikkei index rose 1.9 percent.

Expedia Inc. rose 13 percent, the most in the S&P 500 index, after it said it would split off its TripAdvisor.com division.

More than two stocks fell for every one that rose on the New York Stock Exchange. Trading volume was 3.7 billion shares.

Government lets Google buy travel software company

2011-04-10T10:56:00.001-07:00

Government lets Google buy travel software company

Approval of travel software deal underscores broader antitrust concerns about Google

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Google Inc. won government clearance with restrictions Friday for its $700 million purchase of airline fare tracker ITA Software in a deal that will give the Internet search giant a key role in online travel.

Google promises to give consumers more choices and better ways to search for plane tickets as it incorporates ITA technology, which powers the reservation systems of most major U.S. airlines and many popular online fare-comparison services, including Kayak, TripAdvisor and Hotwire.

The company had to accept significant conditions, though, in a sign that federal antitrust officials are becoming more concerned about whether Google's enormous clout as a major gateway to the Internet has the potential to stifle competition broadly online.

As Google expands far beyond its core search business into specialized markets such as travel, companies operating in all corners of the Web -- and government regulators as far away as Europe -- are taking notice.

Rivals and regulators alike are worried that Google could use its control over the Internet's dominant search engine to extend its monopoly into travel and other markets by steering users to its own sites and services and burying links to rivals far down in its search results. Indeed, Google's search results already highlight some of its own specialized services, including mapping, video and finance.

Although Justice Department officials did not tackle that danger outright Friday, they laid the groundwork for a potential government investigation into manipulation of Internet search results. Google agreed to ongoing federal monitoring of its behavior to win government approval.

"They clearly decided that they want to keep an eye on Google," said Thomas Barnett, an attorney who represents Expedia Inc., which opposed the ITA deal in a coalition with other online travel services including Microsoft Corp.'s Bing, Travelocity, Kayak Software Corp. and Farelogix Inc. Expedia owns TripAdvisor and Hotwire services.

"The ability to use search dominance to exclude competitors is not unique to travel," added Barnett, who was head of the Justice Department's antitrust division when it threatened a lawsuit to block Google from entering into a search partnership with Yahoo Inc. in 2008.

The agreement with the Justice Department comes at a time of mounting government scrutiny of Google's behavior in Washington and beyond.

The European Commission and the Texas attorney general are looking into whether Google manipulates search results to extend its monopoly into other online businesses. The European investigation started after competitors -- U.K.-based price comparison site Foundem, French legal search engine ejustice.fr and Microsoft-owned shopping site Ciao -- complained that their services were being buried in Google searches. The Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee also is investigating whether Google gives its services favorable treatment in search results.

In addition, a federal judge last month rejected a proposed legal settlement that would have given Google the digital rights to millions of out-of-print books after determining that the agreement would have violated U.S. copyright laws and given Google's already-dominant search engine an unfair advantage over its rivals.

And just last week, the Federal Trade Commission announced a landmark agreement with Google to settle charges that it deceived users and violated its own privacy policy when it launched a social networking service called Buzz last year. The settlement requires Google to adopt a comprehensive privacy program and submit to independent audits of that program every other year for the next 20 years.

Eric Goldman, academic director of the High Tech Law Institute at the Santa Clara University School of Law in Silicon Valley, said the agreements with Justice and the FTC "collectively indicate that the U.S. government has more and more hooks into Google and is subjecting Google to greater oversight and reduced operational freedom."

Nonetheless, Friday's approval by the Justice Department makes ITA the latest major deal that Google has managed to clear with Washington. Other big purchases include the 2007 acquisition of Internet advertising network DoubleClick and last year's purchase of mobile ad service AdMob, both of which were approved by the FTC without any conditions.

Google has said it wants to use ITA to improve its search results for travel and doesn't plan to sell airline tickets or book other travel arrangements on its own site. Rather, ITA would enable the company to command higher ad rates from airlines, hotels, rental car agencies and other leisure services trying to reach travelers.

Google offered a hint about what could be coming in a blog post Friday. It suggested that by simply typing in "flights to somewhere sunny for under $500 in May" into Google, a user would get not just a set of links but also flight times, fares and a link to sites for buying the trip.

To win Justice Department clearance, Google agreed to license ITA's software to other companies on fair terms through 2016. And it would continue to invest in research and development of new products, which it would also have to license. Google had previously promised only to honor all of ITA's current contracts, which expire over the next few years, leaving ITA customers to worry that Google would keep its innovations for itself. Under the terms of the approval, any disputes would be subject to binding arbitration.

Google also agreed to establish a separation between ITA and other Google operations to ensure that it cannot misuse proprietary customer data or technology that resides on or runs through ITA servers.

But most significant, the government will monitor Google to ensure it does not engage in anticompetitive behavior, which could include manipulation of search results. The company will be subject to broad requirements to report to government officials on its online travel operations, including travel search and advertising. In addition, the government will establish a forum for complaints about Google's behavior. This could eventually pave the way for a broader investigation of Google by either Justice or the FTC.

The coalition of online travel services that had expressed concerns about the ITA acquisition praised the government conditions, calling them a "significant step in the right direction." Still, the group added in a statement that although "consumers won this round, but we must remain vigilant" to ensure that Google does not abuse its search monopoly.

Google says it understands that it will face more government scrutiny as it grows bigger. But the company argues that most of the accusations of anticompetitive behavior come not from users, who like its services, but from competitors that are not pleased with their search rankings. And that, the company, is not necessarily an antitrust problem.

"We built Google for users, not websites," the company said in a statement.

AP Airlines Writer Samantha Bomkamp in New York and Technology Writer Jordan Robertson in San Francisco contributed to this story.

NYSE gets a facelift, its future unknown

2011-04-10T10:55:00.000-07:00

NYSE gets a facelift, its future unknown

Landmark stock exchange building undergoing major renovation as bidding war escalates

NEW YORK (AP) -- What do you do when a cathedral of capitalism becomes antiquated? You turn it into New York's best party space.

The New York Stock Exchange has lost most of its famous shoulder-to-shoulder bustle in the age of computerized trading. So it's hoping its status as an icon of American finance will be a popular draw for cocktail receptions, analyst presentations and other festivities.

The exchange, where traders have nervously watched tickers and shouted orders for more than 100 years, is already available for some events. It wants to expand to 1,000 a year, double the number from three years ago.

Think black tie, not Black Monday.

"Planners are always looking for something that's different and unique, and there's only one stock exchange," said Ken Edwards, an executive at SmartSource Rentals who serves as the president of the New York chapter of a national meeting planners organization. "From an experience standpoint, that it's getting a facelift now is an absolute sign that they think that there's a recovery going on."

In addition to the trading floor, the exchange rents out updated meeting spaces to companies and charities. They include vaulted-ceiling dining rooms and a lounge with gilt-edged walls that used to be a club for stock traders. Company officials wouldn't say what they were spending on the renovations, which are expected to be finished by the end of next year.

It's a renovation borne out of necessity. Hosting meetings is a small part of the company's overall profits, but shows how far the building has come from its days as the center of the daily churn global capitalism. Since the last renovation of the building in 1995, the business model of the stock exchange has changed drastically.

Fewer traders than ever actually work on the floor. Steven Grasso, the director of institutional sales at Stuart Frankel & Co., compared stepping onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for the first time in 1994 to walking out of the dugout at Yankees Stadium. Traders stood shoulder to shoulder on the trading floor, screaming at each other and into telephones, their feet littered with discarded orders.

"Now, I can do more with my hand-held device than I ever could back then," he says, swinging his arms wide on the trading floor.

No other trader was within 10 feet of him.

There are a couple of strategic reasons for the renovation, which comes while the company's future is uncertain. NYSE Euronext Inc. agreed in February to be acquired by a German exchange operator. Last week, however, its longtime domestic rival Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. announced that it had teamed up with derivatives operator IntercontinentalExchange Inc. to offer a 19 percent higher bid. Both proposals are still pending.

NYSE Euronext gets more and more of its profits from companies that list their shares on the exchange or rent out its rooms. The company brought in $3.1 billion in revenue from trading last year, down from $3.5 billion two years ago and the second year of decline. That figure includes both the conventional trading of stocks but also the far more lucrative business of trading more exotic financial instruments like options and futures contracts. At the same time its stock listings business has grown from $395 million to $422 million.

The company now brings in nearly 25 percent less money for each 100 shares handled compared with two years ago. At the same time, the number of shares it handles are dwindling. A decade ago, the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange accounted for roughly 80 percent of the volume of the blue chip stocks listed on it like General Electric Co. and Procter & Gamble Co. Now, thanks to regulatory changes and the rise of electronic exchanges such as the Kansas City-based BATS, the figure is closer to 25 percent.

The exchange building is seen as an asset that gives the company a premium brand. The prestige and media attention devoted to its trading floor have long allowed NYSE Euronext to charge companies more for listing their shares than its competitors. "The building itself is a part of our legacy and a big part of our (value)," said Joseph Mecane, an executive vice president at NYSE Euronext Inc. who oversees the listings of U.S. companies.

The building and trading floor are attractive for suitors like electronic-only exchange Nasdaq. "The trading floor is fantastic for marketing," said Michael Wong, an analyst at Morningstar. "Every company would like to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, and that's an intangible that BATS or another competitor can't duplicate."

The last physical upgrades to the exchange building were completed in 1995. Since then, NYSE Euronext has devoted more of its resources to upgrading its technology. The company opened a 400,000 square feet data center 30 miles outside of Manhattan in suburban Mahwah, New Jersey last year. Its servers are now at the heart of the exchange, routing trade orders coming from humans and computer programs.

Lou Pastina, the executive vice president of operations, said that the renovations to the building are the next logical upgrade. Each of the 11 brown trading posts in the center of the trading floor will be replaced. New, wider versions will have blue countertops, additional screens, and brighter lighting. The wall of dark glass at the front of the building will be replaced with windows that bring natural light onto the trading floor. And in the middle of it all, a small television set will allow CNBC anchors to conduct interviews from the floor itself.

Traders say the upgrades are part of the evolution of the stock market. Better data screens will make day-to-day orders run more smoothly, while the wider trading booths will make it easier to communicate with other human traders during large market swings, said Richard Rosenblatt, the head of Rosenblatt Securities who has worked in the building for decades.

"When I started here, the telephone was considered technology," he said. "The market is always moving forward."

Kremlin rejects FSB proposal to ban Skype, Gmail

2011-04-10T10:54:00.000-07:00

Kremlin rejects FSB proposal to ban Skype, Gmail

Kremlin rejects Russian security service proposal to ban Skype, Gmail, Hotmail

MOSCOW (AP) -- The Kremlin has rejected a proposal by a senior official of Russia's main domestic security agency who said authorities should ban Skype, Gmail and Hotmail because they are a major threat to national security.

The proposal made Friday by a senior official of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, followed cyber attacks on Russia's most popular blogging site and the website of a popular independent newspaper this week.

Commentators saw them as an attempt by authorities to tighten controls on communications before parliamentary elections in December and a presidential vote in March. The Internet has become the main source of independent news and commentary in Russia, where all nationwide television stations and most print media are under state control.

Alexander Andreyechkin, chief of the FSB's information security and special communications department, told a government meeting that encrypted communications providers such as Gmail, Hotmail and Skype "pose a large-scale threat to Russia's security" and proposed to ban them, Russian news agencies reported.

The Kremlin quickly responded that Andreyechkin had expressed his personal opinion and abused his authority by making the statement.

The FSB backtracked Saturday, saying it was not planning any measures to limit Skype and Gmail in Russia.

Communications Minister Igor Shchegolev also said in a statement Friday that his ministry has no plans to ban any Internet services.

But shortly after that, Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, came to Andreyechkin's defense, saying that what he said wasn't a private viewpoint, but a "well-reasoned position of his agency," according to Russian news agencies.

Putin, who has been accused by critics of rolling back Russia's democratic freedoms during two terms as president in 2000-08, has remained Russia's most powerful politician even after shifting into the premier's job.

Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev have said they would decide later which of them should run for president in the March 2012 election and wouldn't compete against each other, but Putin is widely expected to reclaim the presidency.

Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel and an one-time FSB chief, has surrounded himself with veterans of Soviet and Russian security structures. While FSB and other security agencies formally answer to the president, most commentators agree that Medvedev has little control over their activities.

Putin and Medvedev have recently disagreed over a number of domestic and foreign policy issues, but many observers see the differences as a stage-managed attempt to reach different constituencies. Putin's tough posture appeals to average Russians, while Medvedev's statements are intended to please the West and Russia's liberal circles.

Britney Spears this week becomes the first female solo artist in the history of Billboard's pop album chart to amass six #1 albums

2011-04-07T12:01:00.000-07:00

Britney Spears this week becomes the first female solo artist in the history of Billboard's pop album chart to amass six #1 albums before her 30th birthday. Spears, 29, achieves the feat with her new album, Femme Fatale, which enters the chart at #1. Until this week, Mariah Carey was the youngest female solo artist to gather six #1 albums. She was 38 when she picked up her sixth #1 album, E=MC2, in 2008.

Only two male solo artists have notched six #1 albums before turning 30. Elvis Presley nabbed his sixth #1 album (1961's Something For Everybody) when he was just 26. Elton John landed his sixth (1975's Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy) when he was 28.

Only four other female solo artists have amassed six or more #1 albums (no matter their age). Barbra Streisand leads the pack with nine, followed by Madonna with seven and Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson with six each.

Femme Fatale sold 276,000 copies in its first week, which is the second biggest one-week total so far in 2011. Only Adele's 21 sold more copies in one week (352,000). That said, this is the thinnest first-week total for a Spears studio album since her debut album, ....Baby One More Time, sold 121K in its first week in January 1999.

Femme Fatale (great title) sold far fewer copies in its first week than Spears' last album, Circus, which sold 505K copies in December 2008. But it sold nearly as many digital copies (113K for this album, compared to 118K for Circus), which means digital sales accounted for a much higher percentage this time out.

Five songs from Femme Fatale are listed on Hot Digital Songs, but "Hold It Against Me" isn't among them. How can that be? (The smash, which reached #1 on both the Hot 100 and Hot Digital Songs, was #66 on the digital chart last week.) It's the impact of returns due to customers' "Complete My Album" option. Enough fans took advantage of that clever gimmick that the song showed negative sales this week. (Whoever came up with that idea deserves a raise.)

Wiz Khalifa's Rolling Papers debuts at #2, with first-week sales of 197,000. This is the first time that two albums have debuted with sales north of 190K in the same week since Kanye West and Nicki Minaj scored in November. Wiz Khalifa's song "Black And Yellow" tops the 3 million mark in digital sales this week, but that was no guarantee that the album would sell well. There are dozens of examples of artists with giant singles whose albums sold modestly. You really just never know.

Adele's 21 holds at #3 in the U.S. (and may well return to #1 next week). It also holds at #1 in the U.K. for the 10th straight week. It's the first album by a female solo artist to spend 10 consecutive weeks at #1 since the U.K. album chart was introduced in 1956. The old record was held by Madonna's The Immaculate Collection, which held the top spot for nine straight weeks in 1990.

The Official Charts Co., which monitors U.K. sales, notes that 21 sold 250,000 copies in the U.K. this week. That's its biggest weekly total to date, which suggests that the album hasn't run its course at #1. If it spends one more week on top, it will tie Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill and Shania Twain's Come On Over for the longest run at #1 (continuous or not) by a female solo artist. Check back next week and see if Adele does it.

Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. drops from #1 to #4, but here's a stat that may surprise you. The album has sold more copies in its first two weeks (362,000) than Brown's last album, Graffiti, has in its entire run (342,000). Graffiti was released just 10 months after Brown's assault of then-girlfriend Rihanna. Memories fade. Fans forgive.

Radiohead's The King Of Limbs debuts at #6, with sales of 69K copies. The tally consists of 46K CDs and 23K digital copies. The album's previous digital sales, through the band's website, aren't counted in the album's "release-to-date" total.

Snoop Dogg's Doggumentary debuts at #8. It's Snoop's first album since he landed his biggest pop hit, Katy Perry's "California Gurls," which topped the Hot 100 for six weeks last year. This isn't the first Mr. Dogg has played with his stage name in an album title, witness Doggy Style, Tha Doggfather and No Limit Top Dogg.

Two contemporary gospel albums appear in this week's top 10 (perhaps to help us atone for all the "F word" hits). Kirk Franklin's Hello Fear drops from #5 to #9 in its second week. Mary Mary's Something Big bows at #10. It's the third top 10 album for both acts.

Adele and Justin Bieber this week become the first artists to sell 1 million or more albums in the U.S. in 2011 (combining all their releases). Adele has sold 1,070,000 albums since the first of the year. Bieber has sold 1,053,000. These artists don't otherwise have much in common, but that's pop music for you.

My headline for Chart Watch: Songs will be "And Then There Were Four." It has something to do with "E.T." by Katy Perry featuring Kanye West, which tops Hot Digital Songs for the fourth straight week and will probably lead the Hot 100 for the second week. But what does it mean? Check back later today and find out.

Here's the low-down on this week's top 10 albums.

1. Britney Spears, Femme Fatale, 276,000. This new entry is Spears' sixth #1 album; her eighth to make the top 10. Five songs from the album are listed on Hot Digital Songs, topped by "Till The World Ends," which jumps from #18 to #15.

2. Wiz Khalifa, Rolling Papers, 197,000. This new entry is the rapper's third album, but his first for a major label. Seven songs from the album are listed on Hot Digital Songs, topped by "No Sleep," which slips from #2 to #6.

3. Adele, 21, 94,000. The former #1 album holds at #3 in its sixth week on the chart. It has been in the top five the entire time. Three songs from the album are listed on Hot Digital Songs, topped by "Rolling In The Deep," which jumps from #11 to #9.

4. Chris Brown, F.A.M.E., 91,000. The former #1 album drops from #1 to #4 in its second week. Five songs from the album are listed on Hot Digital Songs, topped by "Look At Me Now" (featuring Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes), which jumps from #8 to #5.

5. Various Artists, Songs For Japan, 71,000. The digital-only compilation jumps from #6 to #5 in its second week; its first full week of sales. The arrival of the CD this week will help push it to #2 next week.

6. Radiohead, The King Of Limbs, 69,000. This new entry is the band's fifth top 10 album.

7. Jennifer Hudson, I Remember Me, 56,000. The album drops from #2 to #7 in its second week. "Where You At" drops from #77 to #149 on Hot Digital Songs.

8. Snoop Dogg, Doggumentary, 50,000. This new entry is Snoop's ninth top 10 album. He scored his first, Doggy Style, in November 1993.

9. Kirk Franklin, Hello Fear, 46,000. The album drops from #5 to #9 in its second week.

10. Mary Mary, Something Big, 42,000. This new entry is the sister duo's third top 10 album, following Mary Mary (#8 in 2005) and The Sound (#7 in 2008).

Five albums drop out of the top 10 this week. The Strokes' Angles drops from #4 to #18, Panic! At The Disco's Vices & Virtues dives from #7 to #32, Mumford & Sons' Sigh No More drops from #8 to #11, Bobby V's Fly On The Wall plummets from #9 to #60, and Lupe Fiasco's Lasers drops from #10 to #16.

The Sucker Punch soundtrack jumps from #31 to #22. It's the week's #1 soundtrack.

Jason Aldean's My Kinda Party jumps from #26 to #23. It's #1 on Top Country Albums for the fourth week. It's the first album by a male solo artist to top the country chart that long since Brad Paisley's 5th Gear in the summer of 2007.

The week's top TV soundtrack is Grey's Anatomy: The Music Event, which debuts at #24. The album features the cast performing such songs as Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" and The Fray's "How To Save A Life." (The cast's renditions of those songs enter Hot Digital Songs this week, though in each case, the original hit debuts a little higher.) This is the third album from Grey's Anatomy to make the top 30. Two albums of music that was featured on the show made the top 20 in 2006-2007, when Grey's was at its buzzy peak.

Two volumes of E-40's Revenue Retrievin' debut in the top 50. Graveyard Shift bows at #40. Overtime Shift opens at #42. The albums were just 200 units apart in sales, which suggests that most fans bought both.

Elton John's 2007 compilation Rocket Man-Number Ones re-enters the chart at #45 in the wake of American Idol's "Elton John Week." (Elton and Leon Russell also appeared on Saturday Night Live.) Rocket Man sold 13,000 copies this week. American Idol had 24.2 million viewers, which means about one in 2,000 Idol viewers bought the album. (That's the difference between watching TV for free and buying something.)

Elton's album is #1 for the first time on Top Catalog Albums. It's the first album with the magic phrase Number Ones in (or as) its title to top the catalog chart since Michael Jackson's Number Ones led the list for 28 weeks in 2009-2010. George Strait's 50 Number One Hits topped the catalog chart in May 2009. The Beatles' 1 and Elvis' Elv!s: 30 #1 Hits also topped the catalog chart.

Four Elton songs re-enter Hot Digital Songs this week. Details in Chart Watch: Songs.

A 25th anniversary concert rendition of Les Miserables is #1 on Top Music Videos. The concert features such notables as Nick Jonas (of Jonas Brothers) and Lea Salonga (the voice of Disney's Mulan and Princess Jasmine). A "10th Anniversary Concert" of the hit musical topped the Music Video chart for 22 weeks from October 1996 to March 1997.

Hop was #1 at the box-office over the weekend.

Coming Attractions: Hollywood Undead's American Tragedy is expected to be next week's top new entry, with first-week sales in the 60K range. Also due: Asking Alexandra's Reckless & Relentless, Robbie Robertson's How To Become Clairvoyant, Daft Punk's Tron: Legacy Reconstructed, Jim Jones' Capo, Mint Condition's 7 and a reissue of Rush's 1981 album Moving Pictures.

ECB raises rates, faces two-speed recovery

2011-04-07T12:00:00.000-07:00

ECB raises rates, faces two-speed recovery

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- The European Central Bank raised its key interest rate Thursday for the first time in nearly three years as it signaled its determination to fight inflation, even as some euro member countries still struggle with debt crises and high unemployment.

The quarter-point increase was widely expected and won't by itself hold back growth much. But Europe's increasingly two-speed recovery will be a challenge for the bank as it decides how high rates should go in coming months.

A day after Portugal finally accepted defeat in its battle to avoid a financial bailout, the ECB raised its refinancing rate to 1.25 percent from a record low of 1 percent, where it had been since May 2009. The refinancing rate determines the cost of central bank credit to commercial banks, and affects other short-term interest rates as well.

Europe's two-speed recovery presents the bank with a difficult challenge in the months ahead, as it seeks to return interest rates to more normal levels from the emergency lows that supported the economy in the wake of the global financial crisis. Higher rates help control inflation but can weigh on growth.

On the one side, Portugal is set to join Greece and Ireland in taking a rescue package and Spain is struggling with a 20 percent unemployment rate. On the other, countries like Germany are enjoying robust growth, booming exports and falling unemployment; leading economic institutes are predicting that the jobless rate will average only 6.5 percent next year, and that's including the former East Germany's lagging economy.

Some parts of southern Germany have unemployment rates at 4 percent or lower, and skill-intensive jobs are going begging. Those numbers indicate that some parts of Europe's biggest economy maybe on the verge of overheating and that's a recipe for higher prices.

Because the European Central Bank's mission is to control inflation, it is raising rates, even though that will put more pressure on hard-hit consumers with mortgages and the collapsed real estate markets in the so-called peripheral countries.

It was clear from bank President Jean-Claude Trichet's comments following the rate decision that the anti-inflation message was most important now, and that it was up to countries on the slow track to go through the painful process of reducing debt.

Trichet said keeping inflation in check would benefit all members. The key for countries in trouble was to stick to the requirements of their bailout agreements with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

"We have a number of countries which have to correct their situation, particularly on the fiscal side, not only the fiscal side, but economic policy in general," he said. "Plans are in place and they have to apply the plan."

ING economist Carsten Brzeski said higher rates risked increasing the growth divide as consumers paid more to borrow.

"Higher ECB rates will neither choke off the recovery in the periphery nor will they weigh on public finances but they will not make life of the eurozone periphery easier," he said. "The start of the normalization cycle will increase, not diminish, divergence within the eurozone."

The ECB is worried that inflation, which hit 2.6 percent in March, will remain stuck above its target of "close to, but just under 2 percent." Critics of a rate hike have noted that inflation has been mainly driven by higher oil and food prices, largely external factors the ECB cannot control through its policies.

Trichet said the bank was determined to move pre-emptively to keep higher prices from causing a spiral effect in which higher inflation expectations cause wages to go up, in turn boosting consumer prices further.

The ECB is charting a different course from the U.S. Federal Reserve, which has not yet signaled readiness to begin raising rates from the current rock-bottom 0-0.25 percent.

The Bank of England's monetary policy committee left rates untouched at 0.5 percent at its meeting Thursday even though inflation in Britain is running at 4.4 percent.

Trichet did not commit to a series of increases, but left the door open for what analysts think will be several more by the end of the year. "We did not decide that it was the first of a series of rate increase," he said, adding that each month "we always do what is necessary to deliver price stability."

He did not, however, express the need for "strong vigilance" against inflation -- a term regarded as a signal to markets that rates are going up the next month.

Instead, he said the bank would "monitor very closely" the risks of rising prices, which he said "remain on the upside" -- phrasing that seemed to leave the bank room to pause for a month or two before acting again.

Economist Marchel Alexandrovich at Jeffries International Limited said that the ECB's policy was clearly aimed at the overall economy for now: "With the periphery of Spain, Greece, Portugal and Ireland combining for less than 20 percent of euro area GDP, clearly the ECB's focus is predominantly elsewhere."

He cautioned however that as rates go higher, the impact would be felt more strongly by consumers paying down mortgages in Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy than in Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, where fixed-rate mortgages are the norm.

Business borrowing costs would also hit Spain, Portugal and Ireland harder than Germany and France because of higher levels of corporate debt.

"One more reason why the ECB would be wise to tread very carefully in the months ahead," Alexandrovich said.

Stocks fall after another earthquake hits Japan

2011-04-07T11:59:00.000-07:00

Stocks fall after another earthquake hits Japan

NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks fell Thursday after a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of northern Japan. The losses moderated after a tsunami warning was lifted.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell as many as 96 points in morning trading before recovering most of its losses. Japan's stock market had already closed by the time the earthquake struck.

The quake rattled investors, partly since it struck near the same area as the massive earthquake that triggered devastating tsunami on March 11. Stock indexes bounced back after the impact of the quake turned out to be less than initially feared.

The Dow was down 37 points, or 0.3 percent, at 12,388 in afternoon trading. The broader S&P 500 fell 3, or 0.2 percent, to 1,333. The Nasdaq composite index fell 2, or 0.1 percent, to 2,798. All three indexes had been higher in earlier trading.

In the U.S., economic news was mostly positive. The Commerce Department said 382,000 people applied for unemployment for the first time last week. That was the third drop in four weeks. The decline in applications suggests layoffs are slowing.

Major retailers also reported better-than-expected sales for March at stores that have been open at least a year. Analysts had predicted declines because of cold weather and higher gas prices.

Costco Wholesale Corp. rose 4 percent after reporting a 13 percent gain in sales. Limited Brands Inc. rose 1 percent after it said its revenue increased 14 percent because of strong sales at its Victoria's Secret stores. Nordstrom Inc. and Macy's Inc. also rose about 1 percent.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. rose 11 percent, the most of any stock in the Standard & Poor's 500 index. The home furnishings retailer posted strong results late Wednesday and said it expected earnings to rise 10 percent to 15 percent this year.

Constellation Brands Inc. rose 6 percent. The maker of Robert Mondavi wine and Svedka vodka recovered from a loss in the same quarter a year ago and reported a double-digit increase in wine sales in North America.

Bond prices rose, sending their yields lower. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 3.54 percent from 3.55 percent late Wednesday.

The European Central Bank raised its main interest rate by a quarter point to 1.25 percent, a day after Portugal asked for a bailout. The Bank of England kept its main interest rate unchanged at 0.5 percent.

Despite aid request, Portugal's outlook uncertain

2011-04-07T11:58:00.000-07:00

LISBON, Portugal (AP) -- Political and economic uncertainty clouded Portugal's future Thursday as it remained unclear who would negotiate the terms of its requested bailout, how much it would be and when it would arrive.

A day after the caretaker government asked for rescue loans from its fellow EU nations, bank stocks that have suffered recently led a rally on the Lisbon stock exchange Thursday. But the yield on Portugal's 10-year bonds barely budged from the unsustainable high of 8.5 percent as investors remained wary of the debt-heavy country's fate.

It was uncertain how much Portugal might receive in a bailout, how soon it could get the cash and -- crucially -- under what terms, as rescue packages come with fiscal policy strings attached and have to be paid back sooner or later.

The country is being run by a caretaker government ahead of a June election, making it hard for foreign negotiators to know who they'll be dealing with for the next four years. Added to that, Portugal is forecast to enter a double-dip recession this year, denying it the growth it needs to pull out of its debt hole. And trade unions, angrily blaming the bailout on bankers, promised more strikes and street demonstrations.

Cabinet Minister Pedro Silva Pereira said Portugal would send its formal request for a bailout to European authorities later Thursday. A delegation from the European Commission and the European Central Bank is expected in Lisbon "very soon" to begin negotiating the terms of a financial rescue package, including how much Portugal might need, he said without elaborating.

Analysts predict Portugal will need up to euro80 billion ($114 billion) -- equivalent to about half its annual gross domestic product.

The country's European partners have long pressed it to accept help, and some were angry that Lisbon left the bailout request so late.

"There is so much obscurity in this and there are so many things that have been handled badly, so first these things have to be sorted out," Sweden's Finance Minster Anders Borg said.

"In this difficult situation, we will end up with complex and arduous solutions, because it isn't possible to create a complete program if you don't have a government and instead it will be about forming different bridge solutions," Borg told reporters in Stockholm. "This means they have put the surrounding world in a very awkward situation."

But German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle welcomed Portugal's decision. "This will, we think, tend to calm the situation and it is a contribution to containing the problems and minimizing the danger of contagion," Westerwelle said in a speech in Berlin.

Portugal is already one of the eurozone's poorest countries, and a steep rise in its borrowing costs over the past year has made its financial situation unsustainable. Two rating agencies downgraded its bonds to one notch above junk level in recent days.

That deterioration, which raised the specter of bankruptcy, forced Portugal to announce late Wednesday it is following Greece and Ireland into asking for aid from Europe's bailout reserve and the International Monetary Fund.

Jeremy Batstone-Carr, an analyst at Charles Stanley & Co., said the risk remains that Portugal could soon default.

"The difference is that unlike Greece and Ireland, Portugal is, to all intents and purposes, already bankrupt and has no government to manage either the loan or the austerity program. This takes the peripheral eurozone crisis to another level," he said.

The European Commission, eager to stamp out any sign of a flare-up in the continent's debt woes, said it would act swiftly on any bailout request from Portugal. RBS European Economics said it expected Lisbon to receive a first lump sum by the end of May.

Authorities need to move quickly. Portugal has to repay a euro4.5 billion ($6.4 billion) loan that falls due next week, though analysts expect it can meet that. Then it must come up with almost euro7 billion to roll over a bond and make interest payments in June. Meanwhile, it still needs to collect funds to keep the country running.

There was good news, though, for Portuguese banks which have taken the brunt of investor fears and have had to rely heavily on liquidity assistance from the ECB. Their stock prices surged by up to 5 percent, helping the main Lisbon index rise 1.2 percent and making it one of Europe's best performers.

The outgoing government has battled for 12 months to avert a bailout, introducing tax hikes and cuts in pay and welfare benefits to restore market faith in its prospects. It quit two weeks ago after opposition parties rejected a fresh set of spending cuts.

The main opposition Social Democratic Party has said it supports budget cuts. Its leader Pedro Passos Coelho said he will back a request for "a minimum level of help" ahead of a full bailout, but did not elaborate.

The austerity measures, coupled with a decade of flimsy growth and rising debts, have squeezed domestic spending and worsened Portugal's dire financial condition. Bailout terms would likely tighten those measures, lowering living standards and raising unemployment, which last year stood at a record 11.2 percent.

Marc Ostwald, a market strategist at Monument Securities in London, said it remained to be seen whether the goals of a rescue package are achievable for Portugal.

He said "the more pertinent issue is whether the new government will have the stomach to implement long overdue reforms, which will clearly meet with much public resistance."

Recent policies to reduce the country's debt load have triggered a series protests and strikes, and the civil servants' union announced a walkout on May 6.

Some 340,000 Portuguese are on the minimum monthly wage of euro485 before tax, and 1.4 million take home less than euro600 a month, making further cuts unpalatable for many.

Malin Rising in Stockholm and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

Despite aid request, Portugal's outlook uncertain

Portuguese banks get relief from bailout request but uncertainty over future remains high

Japan tragedy seared into the world's imagination

2011-03-20T11:37:00.000-07:00

OKYO – There are events in history that sear themselves into the world's collective imagination, and enter the realm where myth meets heartbreaking reality.

Japan's tragedy is one of those events. Already, it seems reasonable to surmise it could prove one of the most significant calamities of our time — one that shapes policies, economies, even philosophies for decades to come in an increasingly interconnected world.

There is the sheer, surreal force of the images emerging from afflicted zones: cars perched on rooftops, ships sitting in rice paddies, helicopters in a David-and-Goliath battle against radiation-spewing nuclear reactors.

And the way it haunts us with some of our most basic fears: Death by water. Or rubble. Or nuclear fallout.

Add to that, it's a crisis with an impact that will be felt around the planet: Japan is one of the most advanced countries in the world, its third-largest economy, its most successful car-seller and its second-most generous giver of foreign aid.

"This event has the potential to be the most globally disruptive natural hazard in modern times," said Rob Verchick, a disaster expert at Loyola University in New Orleans. "And it may just be, in the context of globalization, of all time."

The Asian tsunami of 2004 killed more people. The fall of the Twin Towers launched two wars. The collapse of the Berlin Wall spelled the end of an empire.

But in this event, psychological, even philosophical, shock over the confluence of human tragedy and nuclear catastrophe yields some fundamental questions. If a technological power like Japan can be so vulnerable, who's safe? Is even minimal risk, as with nuclear power, too much risk? Do we need to rethink the role of government in protecting the public?

Shaking us from modern-day hubris, we're forced to think about whether even the most advanced societies, with almost obsessively meticulous safety backstops, are still pitifully at the mercy of the elements.

But amid tragedy, Francis Fukuyama, the eminent Stanford philosopher and author of "The End of History and the Last Man," sees the possibility for the crisis to become a galvanizing force for political change in the world.

"It does seem to me a natural disaster like this, because it reminds everybody of how commonly vulnerable they are, could be used as an opportunity to reshape the whole tone and character of politics," Fukuyama told The Associated Press.

The unbelievable sight of rich Japan — famous for trains running like clockwork, state-of-the-art gadgets, concern for safety and order — laid low by a freak force of nature beyond human control has been a terrifying wake-up call. On Friday, Japan's government acknowledged that the triple blow of quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster completely overwhelmed even its elaborately laid out, and fastidiously practiced, emergency response systems.

"The unprecedented scale of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, frankly speaking, were among many things that happened that had not been anticipated under our disaster management contingency plans," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano.

There's another great earthquake that changed the world: Lisbon, 1755. The tsunami-churning temblor flattened the Portuguese city, killed tens of thousands of people, and caused Enlightenment thinkers to re-imagine the role of government and community.

Experts say this crisis could become another historical turning point that may alter mankind's perception of its relationship to the world, and societies' relationship with one another in an age of globalization.

"What the Lisbon earthquake experience contributed to Western history (was) this move of government being responsible to its people and protecting them in a community-driven way," said Verchick. "Is there anything like that that might happen as a result of the Japan tsunami and earthquake and nuclear disaster? I think that the answer is yes. It's related to the idea of global community."

Already the crisis is triggering an urgent rethink of nuclear power around the world, from China to Germany, where pressure is building to sharply accelerate a plan to phase out nuclear energy.

"Fukushima, March 12: 15:36: The End of the Nuclear Age," read the cover of the Germany's prestigious Der Spiegel magazine — referring to the exact time an explosion rocked the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant where workers are racing to prevent a meltdown.

While the Asian tsunami and last year's earthquake in Haiti triggered an enormous outpouring of worldwide sympathy and aid, the Japan catastrophe is one where people in industrialized countries can more easily see themselves in the victims' shoes.

"One of the things that make this a unique situation is that it is a catastrophic event with incredible terrifying loss that's occurring in a country that is also wealthy," said Verchick, author of the book Facing Catastrophe: Environmental Action for a Post-Katrina World.

Verchick said that in New Orleans, many people who lived through Hurricane Katrina are watching the scenes in Japan with a sense of gut-wrenching familiarity, with some even experiencing symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Japan tsunami will go down in history as the more significant disaster, according to James Orr, professor of East Asian studies at Bucknell University. Not because of any difference in suffering, but because its effects will be felt around the planet in a more direct way. "Katrina was very much a regional disaster," he said.

And that global punch is given more force from the historic speed with which the images of devastation reached every corner of the planet.

"People all over the world have the ability to almost immediately see the disaster on the ground," said Verchick. "And that actually produces psychological and social changes in people and communities all over the world."

Gadhafi vows 'long war' after US, allies strike

2011-03-20T11:32:00.000-07:00

RIPOLI, Libya – A defiant Moammar Gadhafi vowed a "long war" after the U.S. and European militaries blasted his forces with airstrikes and over 100 cruise missiles early Sunday, hitting air defenses and at least two major air bases and shaking the Libyan capital with explosions and anti-aircraft fire.

Despite the strikes, Gadhafi's troops lashed back, bombarding the rebel-held city of Misrata with artillery and tanks on Sunday, the opposition reported.

In the overnight barrage, ship-fired Tomahawk cruise missiles and bombs and missiles from an international arsenal of warplanes including American B-2 stealth bombers and F-15 and F-16 fighter-bombers rained down on Libyan targets — including ground forces — in the widest international military effort since the Iraq war. The air assault came as Gadhafi's overwhelming firepower was threatening to crush the month-old rebellion against his 41-year rule. State television said 48 people were killed in the strikes.

The strikes gave immediate, if temporary, relief to the besieged rebel capital, Benghazi, in eastern Libya.

Airstrikes, apparently from French aircraft, devastated a Libyan tank force 12 miles (20 kilometers) south of Benghazi. At least seven demolished tanks were still smoldering in a field hours later, five of them with their turrets and treads blown off, alongside two charred armored personnel carriers and around a dozen damaged jeeps and SUVs of the type often used by Gadhafi fighters.

Jubilant rebel fighters climbed on the remains on the tanks, shooting assault rifles in the air in celebration. It was not known how many people were killed in the strike — any bodies had been taken away in the morning — but shredded boots and foam mattresses and tomato paste cans strewn around the scene suggested the Gadhafi forces had been camped at the site when they were hit.

U.S. and European military officials said the assault was only the first wave in the international operation in Libya. But already there were signs of differences over the goals. France took a more assertive stance, suggesting the allies' intervention must ultimately lead to Gadhafi's downfall. The U.S. military appeared more wary of overtly taking a side and getting pulled deeper into Libya's conflict, with the top American U.S. officer saying Gadhafi's ouster wasn't necessarily the goal.

Libya's claims of civilians among the dead from the strikes also appeared to make Arab countries nervous, after the Arab League took the unprecedented step of calling for a no-fly zone. On Sunday, Arab League chief Amr Moussa criticized the allied strikes, saying they went beyond what the Arab body had supported.

"What happened differs from the no-fly zone objectives," Moussa told reporters in Cairo. "What we want is civilians' protection not shelling more civilians."

The initial assault aimed to take out Gadhafi's air defenses to clear the way for enforcing a no-fly zone, targeting more than 20 radar systems, communications centers and surface-to-air missile sites. But the U.N. resolution authorizing the action goes much further, allowing "all necessary means" to protect civilians.

That means the U.S. and Europeans have a free hand in the next stages to attack Gadhafi's ground forces besieging rebel cities or other military targets. The rebels, who control most of the eastern half of Libya, hope the allied intervention will tip the scales back in their favor after an onslaught by Gadhafi's forces threatened to reverse their gains early in the uprising — and eventually lead to the toppling of the Libyan leader.

The strikes hit one of Libya's main air bases, on Tripoli's outskirts, the opposition said. Also hit, it said, was an air force complex outside Misrata, the last rebel-held city in western Libya — which has been under siege the past week by Gadhafi forces. Those forces have been bombarding the city from the complex, which houses an air base and a military academy.

Despite the strikes, Gadhafi forces resumed bombarding Misrata after daylight on Sunday, said Switzerland-based Libyan activist Fathi al-Warfali.

"Misrata is the only city in western Libya not under Gadhafi's control; he is trying hard to change its position," said al-Warfali, who told The Associated Press he was in touch with residents in the city.

In Benghazi, the rebel capital and first city to fall to the uprising that began Feb. 15, people said the strikes happened just in time. Libyan government tanks and troops on Saturday had reached the edges of the city in eastern Libya in fierce fighting that killed more than 120 people according to Gibreil Hewadi, a member of the rebel health committee in Benghazi. He said the dead included rebel fighters and civilians, among them women and children.

Sunday, the city was quiet. As part of the international assault, French warplanes hit targets in the Benghazi area.

"It was a matter of minutes and Gadhafi's forces would have been in Benghazi," said Akram Abdul Wahab, a 20-year-old butcher in the city.

Mohammed Faraj, 44, a former military man who joined the rebels, held a grenade in each hand as he manned a checkpoint on the outskirts of the city.

"Me and all of Benghazi, we will die before Gadhafi sets foot here again," Faraj told The Associated Press. "Our spirits are very high."

Asked on ABC's "This Week" if the allied effort aimed to get rid of Gadhafi, France's ambassador to the United Nations, Gerard Araud, said "We want the Libyan people to be able to express their will, I've said ...and we consider that it means that Gadhafi has to go."

Still, the top U.S. military officer said the goals of the international campaign are "limited" and won't necessarily lead to the ousting of Gadhafi.

Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether it was possible that the mission's goals could be achieved while leaving Gadafi in power, Adm. Mike Mullen said, "That's certainly potentially one outcome." Pressed on this point later in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union," Mullen was more vague, saying it was too early to speculate. He said the Libyan leader is "going to have to make some choices about his own future" at some point.

Gadhafi vowed to fight on. In a phone call to Libyan state television, he said he would not let up on Benghazi and said the government had opened up weapons depots to all Libyans, who were now armed with "automatic weapons, mortars and bombs." State television said Gadhafi's supporters were converging on airports as human shields.

"We promise you a long war," he said.

He called the international assault "simply a colonial crusader aggression that may ignite another large-scale crusader war."

Throughout the day Sunday, Libyan TV showed a stream of what it said were popular demonstrations in support of Gadhafi in Tripoli and other towns and cities. It showed cars with horns blaring, women ullulating, young men waving green flags and holding up pictures of the Libyan leader. Women and children chanted, "God, Muammar and Libya, that's it!"

"Our blood is green, not red," one unidentified woman told the broadcaster, referring to the signature color of Gadhafi's regime. "He is our father, we will be with him to the last drop of blood. Our blood is green with our love for him."

The overnight attack early Sunday shook coastal cities, including Tripoli, where anti-aircraft guns could be heard firing.

Libyan TV quoted the armed forces command as saying 48 people were killed and 150 wounded in the allied assault. It said most of the casualties were children but gave no more details.

Mullen said he had seen no reports of civilian casualties.

The cruise missile assault was the "leading edge" of a coalition campaign, named Operation Odyssey Dawn, said Navy Vice Adm. William E. Gortney, director of the Pentagon's Joint Staff.

He said it would take six to 12 hours to assess whether the main targets — Libya's SA-5 surface-to-air missiles — were taken out, then it would be safe to send an unmanned Global Hawk surveillance drone to get a better picture of the area.

French fighter jets fired the first salvos overnight, carrying out several strikes in the rebel-held east, around the Benghazi area, while British fighter jets also bombarded the North African nation. The cruise missile barrage was fired from five U.S. ships in the Mediterranean — the guided-missile destroyers USS Stout and USS Barry, and three submarines, USS Providence, USS Scranton and USS Florida.

The U.S. military announced that Navy electronic warfare aircraft and Marine Corps attack jets joined the international assault early Sunday. Navy EA-18G Growlers launched from unspecified land bases to provide electronic warfare support over Libya. Marine AV-8B Harriers from the USS Kearsarge sailing in the Mediterranean conducted strikes against Gadhafi's ground forces and air defenses.

President Barack Obama said military action was not his first choice and reiterated that he would not send American ground troops.

"This is not an outcome the U.S. or any of our partners sought," Obama said from Brazil, where he is starting a five-day visit to Latin America. "We cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people there will be no mercy."

The U.S. has struck Libya before. Former President Ronald Reagan launched U.S. airstrikes on Libya in 1986 after a bombing at a Berlin disco — which the U.S. blamed on Libya — that killed three people, including two American soldiers. The airstrikes killed about 100 people in Libya, including Gadhafi's young adopted daughter at his Tripoli compound.

GM cuts unnecessary spending after Japan disaster

2011-03-20T11:31:00.001-07:00

GM cuts unnecessary spending after Japan disaster

GM reduces nonessential spending after Japan earthquake and tsunami disrupts parts production

NEW YORK (AP) -- GM said Saturday it is cutting unnecessary spending companywide as it assesses the impact of production disruptions from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

The move will help the automaker preserve cash as it deals with the financial implications from shortages of parts made in Japan, a company spokesman said. The cost-cutting effort, which includes travel, took effect last week and will be in place for an undetermined period.

The news follows General Motors Corp.'s announcement Friday that two of three shifts will be canceled at a plant in Eisenach, Germany on Monday and Tuesday. Another plant in Zaragoza, Spain will remain closed Monday. The plants produce the Corsa compact car.

In the U.S., GM said Thursday it will halt production at its pickup plant in Shreveport, Louisiana, next week.

"The whole industry is still in the process of figuring out what the implications are from the disaster in Japan," said GM spokesman Klaus-Peter Martin.

On Friday, Honda Motor Co. said it expects to resume auto and motorcycle production in Japan on Wednesday. But in an e-mail Thursday to U.S. dealers, it said it can't guarantee when production will return to full capacity.

The carmaker also asked dealers to suspend May orders for Japan-made vehicles because they may be needed to fill existing orders that have been delayed because of disruptions. Typically, dealers order cars six weeks in advance.

More than 80 percent of Honda and Acura vehicles sold in the U.S. are made in North America. Models sold in North America but made in Japan are the Fit, CR-Z, Civic Hybrid, Insight, Acura TSX, Acura RL and a small number of CR-Vs.

Cisco announces first dividend

2011-03-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

Cisco announces first dividend

NEW YORK (AP) -- Cisco Systems Inc., the world's largest maker of computer networking gear, on Friday said its first-ever cash dividend will amount to 6 cents per share and will be paid on April 20.

The company has said since last year that it would start paying a dividend equating to an annual yield of 1 percent to 2 percent, but had not specified the amount or precise timing.

The dividend amounts to an annual yield of 1.4 percent at Thursday's closing price of $17. The shares hit a 52-week low of $16.97 in Thursday trading.

On Friday, the shares were up 14 cents to close at $17.14.

The dividend will be paid to shareholders of record as of March 31.

Technology companies like to hold on to their cash, investing it in their own growth rather than paying dividends. But several of them have started paying small dividends as they find their business maturing. Microsoft Corp. introduced a dividend in 2003 and now carries a 2.6 percent annual yield. Hewlett-Packard Co., which competes with Cisco in many fields, has a yield of 0.8 percent.

Among the holdouts that don't pay a dividend are Apple Inc., Dell Inc. and eBay Inc.

San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco said its "leadership position in the markets we serve is strong," making this the time to reward shareholders.

The dividend amounts to $1.3 billion annually. Cisco has already been transferring cash to shareholders through stock buybacks, at a rate of about $8 billion per year, according to analyst Brian White at Ticonderoga Securities. Most recently, Cisco authorized a $10 billion buyback program in November.

Cisco had $40.2 billion in cash in February, but only $3.1 billion of that was in the U.S. The rest sits at overseas subsidiaries.

Cisco has been reluctant to repatriate that money, because it will then be taxed at the 35 percent U.S. corporate tax rate. It's lobbying Washington for a tax amnesty on overseas earnings, and CEO John Chambers has linked that effort to the size of the dividend.

White said buybacks at the current rate plus the dividend will cost Cisco $6.5 billion to $7 billion more than its U.S. business generates in cash flow. Absent a tax amnesty, Cisco might have to repatriate money at the higher tax rate, borrow money or reduce its buybacks, White said.

Four Traditional Money Rules to Break

2011-02-21T09:42:00.000-08:00

Four Traditional Money Rules to Break

Never borrow against a 401(k). Avoid credit cards. Make a bigger down payment on your home or apartment to avoid paying extra mortgage interest. These are among the tried-and-true financial rules consumers have been told to live by for years. But now -- with interest rates still low and credit staging a comeback -- might be a good time to break them.

This solid financial advice isn't suddenly all wrong, but many of these axioms no longer result in higher savings or less debt. That's because the economic recovery has opened up more exceptions and loopholes to standard advice, says David Peterson, president of Peak Capital Investment Services, a financial planning firm. Advisers, for example, typically discouraged clients from taking a loan from their 401(k) -- but this is now the cheapest way to borrow money, with the average rate at 4.25%, lower than most personal loans, to pay back debt they racked up during the recession. But as some parts of the economy have improved -- equities are once again outperforming fixed income, banks are slowly returning to lending, and consumers are spending more -- the rules for making and saving money are changing, at least temporarily.

Here are four traditional money rules you can break -- at least for now.

401(k) Loans

Old school advice: Avoid taking one at all costs.
Now: The most affordable loan available.

For decades, borrowing from a 401(k) plan was synonymous to derailing retirement savings. But right now, the cheapest bank for many borrowers -- especially those who feel secure in their job -- is their own 401(k). Average interest rates on credit cards are 14% and on home equity lines of credit 5.22%. But a 401(k) loan charges a fixed average of prime (currently 3.25%) plus 1%, according to the Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America. Approximately 90% of employers offering 401(k)s permit employees to borrow from them, according to the PSCA, and the loans can last for up to 15 years. These loans make most sense for consumers stuck with high-interest credit card debt. In a year, a borrower can save around $800 in interest with a loan that eliminates a $5,000 balance on a card with a 20% interest rate.

And the money the borrower pays back goes into their 401(k) -- not to a bank. Repaying can also be easier than it is with a regular loan, says Olivia Mitchell, professor at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, who recently coauthored a study on 401(k) loans. About 60 million people contribute to a 401(k), according to the PSCA; once a loan is taken out, any contributions made via automatic payroll deductions first go toward paying down the loan. But, there are still some pitfalls: If you lose your job or leave it voluntarily and can't pay the loan back within 90 days you'll be hit with federal income tax on the outstanding amount, plus a 10% penalty if less than age 59 1/2. And you'll need to reallocate some of what remains into higher-yielding equities until the account is made whole, to avoid missing out on potential gains, says David Wray, president of the PSCA.

Roth IRAs

Old school advice: Convert a traditional IRA into a Roth to save on taxes.
Now: Stick with the IRA.

The Roth IRA's appeal has always been that contributions, rather than withdrawals, are taxed, shifting the tax burden to pre-retirement instead of years down the road when taxes could be higher. Roth IRAs became even more user-friendly last year when taxpayers were allowed to convert from a traditional IRA regardless of income (the limit for conversions had been $100,000 modified adjusted-growth income). But in many cases, staying put in a traditional IRA will lead to bigger savings -- especially for people five to 10 years away from when they plan to withdraw their money, says Peterson. Here's why: It can take years of tax-free growth to make up the taxes incurred during the conversion. For example, someone who converts $100,000 from a traditional to a Roth IRA and pays $30,000 in taxes will need at least five years to make that money back -- assuming a 7% rate of return. And that doesn't address the loss of compounding that would have occurred if that money didn't go toward paying taxes, says Sheryl Garrett, a fee-only certified financial planner.

There's also less time to pay taxes on this conversion now. Savers who converted from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA last year were able to spread the income from that conversion over 2011 and 2012. But now, all of the income from a conversion made in 2011 (and after) is taxable at once. Also, this conversion comes with the risk of getting bumped to a higher tax bracket during that year because the money counts as income -- so converting might not make sense for someone whose budget is currently stretched thin. Instead, savers might now want to convert a smaller amount gradually once a year that won't put them into different bracket, says Garrett.

Mortgages

Old school advice: Choose the mortgage with the smallest interest payments.
Now: Go with more interest.

Paying the least interest on a mortgage requires two steps: a down payment of at least 20% and paying down the loan quickly. But both strategies can create a setback for a borrower -- especially in still-uncertain housing and employment markets, says Chip Cummings, president of Northwind Financial, a training and consulting company for mortgage firms. With interest rates still low, instead of throwing most of their money into the home -- where some of it could be lost if home values decline -- consumers might want to make a down payment of 10%. Keep the extra cash in an emergency fund in case of sudden job loss or unexpected renovations and take on the added cost of private mortgage insurance.

PMI varies, but on average is 60 basis points. On a $300,000 30-year mortgage, a borrower keeps an extra $30,000 in cash and pays $1,800 a year just in PMI until he or she hits the 22% equity threshold. What's more, a 30-year mortgage, rather than a 15-year one, is one good way to build a savings safety net, says Keith Gumbinger, vice president at HSH Associates, which tracks the mortgage market. On average, monthly payments are 20% to 30% smaller with a 30-year mortgage, he says. That extra money could be stashed in savings for a rainy day or to pay the mortgage if you lose your job.

Credit Cards

Old school advice: Refrain from using them.
Now: Swipe -- with caution.

Stashing credit cards in a bank safe deposit box or freezing them in a block of ice were commonplace for many consumers during the recession in an attempt to lower spending and take time to pay down cards. But now, it seems that in order to hold onto a good credit score and access to credit cards in case of an emergency, borrowers need to make more purchases using them. Prime borrowers who stop using their credit cards will find their credit lines slashed or closed -- largely because their accounts are unprofitable since there's no balance to charge interest on, says John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education for SmartCredit.com, a credit-monitoring web site.

The median FICO score of borrowers with no trigger event, like a missed payment, who've been affected, is 770, according to a 2010 study by Fair Isaac. The result is a higher amount of credit card debt compared to total credit limits available, a ratio that can contribute to about 30% of their credit score. Use your credit cards at least once every three months -- and pay the balance off in full each time -- to avoid this, says Ulzheimer.

Washington: the 'blackest name' in America

2011-02-21T09:41:00.000-08:00

George Washington's name is inseparable from America, and not only from the nation's history. It identifies countless streets, buildings, mountains, bridges, monuments, cities — and people.

In a puzzling twist, most of these people are black. The 2000 U.S. Census counted 163,036 people with the surname Washington. Ninety percent of them were African-American, a far higher black percentage than for any other common name.

The story of how Washington became the "blackest name" begins with slavery and takes a sharp turn after the Civil War, when all blacks were allowed the dignity of a surname.

Even before Emancipation, many enslaved black people chose their own surnames to establish their identities. Afterward, some historians theorize, large numbers of blacks chose the name Washington in the process of asserting their freedom.

Today there are black Washingtons, like this writer, who are often identified as African-American by people they have never met. There are white Washingtons who are sometimes misidentified and have felt discrimination. There are Washingtons of both races who view the name as a special — if complicated — gift.

And there remains the presence of George, born 279 years ago on Feb. 22, whose complex relationship with slavery echoes in the blackness of his name today.

___

George Washington's great-grandfather, John, arrived in Virginia from England in 1656. John married the daughter of a wealthy man and eventually owned more than 5,000 acres, according to the new biography "Washington: A Life," by Ron Chernow.

Along with land, George inherited 10 human beings from his father. He gained more through his marriage to a wealthy widow, and purchased still more enslaved blacks to work the lands he aggressively amassed. But over the decades, as he recognized slavery's contradiction with the freedoms of the new nation, Washington grew opposed to human bondage.

Yet "slaves were the basis of his fortune," and he would not part with them, Chernow said in an interview.

Washington was not a harsh slaveowner by the standards of the time. He provided good food and medical care. He recognized marriages and refused to sell off individual family members. Later in life he resolved not to purchase any more black people.

But he also worked his slaves quite hard, and under difficult conditions. As president, he shuttled them between his Philadelphia residence and Virginia estate to evade a law that freed any slave residing in Pennsylvania for six months.

While in Philadelphia, Oney Judge, Martha Washington's maid, moved about the city and met many free blacks. Upon learning Martha was planning one day to give her to an ill-tempered granddaughter, Judge disappeared.

According to Chernow's book, Washington abused his presidential powers and asked the Treasury Department to kidnap Judge from her new life in New Hampshire. The plot was unsuccessful.

"Washington was leading this schizoid life," Chernow said in the interview. "In theory and on paper he was opposed to slavery, but he was still zealously tracking and seeking to recover his slaves who escaped."

In his final years on his Mount Vernon plantation, Washington said that "nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union."

This led to extraordinary instructions in his will that all 124 of his slaves should be freed after the death of his wife. The only exception was the slave who was at his side for the entire Revolutionary War, who was freed immediately. Washington also ordered that the younger black people be educated or taught a trade, and he provided a fund to care for the sick or aged.

"This is a man who travels an immense distance," Chernow said.

In contrast with other Founding Fathers, Chernow said, Washington's will indicates "that he did have a vision of a future biracial society."

Twelve American presidents were slaveowners. Of the eight presidents who owned slaves while in office, Washington is the only one who set all of them free.___

It's a myth that most enslaved blacks bore the last name of their owner. Only a handful of George Washington's hundreds of slaves did, for example, and he recorded most as having just a first name, says Mary Thompson, the historian at Mount Vernon.

Still, historian Henry Wiencek says many enslaved blacks had surnames that went unrecorded or were kept secret. Some chose names as a mark of community identity, he says, and that community could be the plantation of a current or recent owner.

"Keep in mind that after the Civil War, many of the big planters continued to be extremely powerful figures in their regions, so there was an advantage for a freed person to keep a link to a leading white family," says Wiencek, author of "An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America."

Sometimes blacks used the surname of the owner of their oldest known ancestor as a way to maintain their identity. Melvin Patrick Ely, a College of William and Mary professor who studies the history of blacks in the South, says some West African cultures placed high value on ancestral villages, and the American equivalent was the plantation where one's ancestors had toiled.

Last names also could have been plucked out of thin air. Booker T. Washington, one of the most famous blacks of the post-slavery period, apparently had two of those.

He was a boy when Emancipation freed him from a Virginia plantation. After enrolling in school, he noticed other children had last names, while the only thing he had ever been called was Booker.

"So, when the teacher asked me what my full name was, I calmly told him, `Booker Washington,'" he wrote in his autobiography, "Up from Slavery." Later in life, he found out that his mother had named him "Booker Taliaferro" at birth, so he added a middle name.

He gives no indication why the name Washington popped into his head. But George Washington, dead for only 60-odd years, had immense fame and respect at the time. His will had been widely published in pamphlet form, and it was well known that he had freed his slaves, Thompson says.

Did enslaved people feel inspired by Washington and take his name in tribute, or were they seeking some benefits from the association? Did newly freed people take the name as a mark of devotion to their country?

"We just don't know," Weincek says.

But the connection is too strong for some to ignore.

"There was a lot more consciousness and pride in American history among African-Americans and enslaved African-Americans than a lot of people give them credit for. They had a very strong sense of politics and history," says Adam Goodheart, a professor at Washington College and author of the forthcoming "1861: Civil War Awakening."

"They were thinking about how they could be Americans," Goodheart says. "That they would embrace the name of this person who was an imperfect hero shows there was a certain understanding of this country as an imperfect place, an imperfect experiment, and a willingness to embrace that tradition of liberty with all its contradictions."

Many black people took new names after the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the black power movement, says Ira Berlin, a University of Maryland history professor who has written books on the history of African-Americans.

"Names are this central way we think about ourselves," Berlin says. "Whenever we have these kinds of emancipatory moments, suddenly people can reinvent themselves, rethink themselves new, distinguish themselves from a past where they were denigrated and abused. New names are one of the ways they do it."

But for black people who chose the name Washington, it's rarely certain precisely why.

"It's an assumption that the surname is tied to George," says Tony Burroughs, an expert on black genealogy, who says 82 to 94 percent of all Washingtons listed in the 1880 to 1930 censuses were black.

"There is no direct evidence," he says. "As far as I'm concerned it's a coincidence."

___

Coincidence or not, today the numbers are equally stark. Washington was listed 138th when the Census Bureau published a list of the 1,000 most common American surnames from the 2000 survey, along with ethnic data. The project was not repeated in 2010.

Ninety percent of those Washingtons, numbering 146,520, were black. Only five percent, or 8,813, were white. Three percent were two or more races, 1 percent were Hispanic, and 1 percent were Asian or Pacific Islander.

Jefferson was the second-blackest name, at 75 percent African-American. There were only 16,070 Lincolns, and that number was only 14 percent black.

Jackson was 53 percent black. Williams was the 16th-blackest name, at 46 percent. But there were 1,534,042 total Williamses, including 716,704 black ones — so there were more blacks named Williams than anything else.

(The name Black was 68 percent white, meaning there were far more white Blacks than black Blacks. The name White, meanwhile, was 19 percent black.)

Many present-day Washingtons are surprised to learn their name is not 100 percent black.

"Growing up, I just knew that only black people had my last name," says Shannon Washington of New York City. Like many others, she has never met a white Washington.

She has no negative feelings about her name: "It's a reflection of how far we've come more than anything. I most likely come from a family of slaves who were given or chose this name."

As the creator of advertisements, events and http://www.parlourmagazine.com, she works with many Europeans, who often ask how she got her name. She plans on keeping it when she gets married, and likens her attachment to that of some black people for racist memorabilia like mammy dolls and Jim Crow signs.

"I don't exactly love it," she says of her name, "But I have to respect it."

Marcus Washington never thought much about his name as one of the few black people working in the overwhelmingly white William Morris talent agency. That changed after he filed a $25 million lawsuit in December accusing William Morris of racial discrimination.

"I'm sure that for some people there, my name triggered the thought that I was African-American, and automatically triggered biases that resulted in me not being given a fair shot," he says.

One 2004 study conducted by researchers at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business found that job applicants with names that sound white receive 50 percent more callbacks than applicants with "black" names.

The study responded to real employment ads with more than 5,000 fictitious resumes. Half the resumes were assigned names like Emily Walsh; the other half got names like Lakisha Washington. After calculating for the difference in resume quality, the study concluded that "a white name yields as many more callbacks as an additional eight years of experience on a resume."

But what about those 8,813 white Washingtons? What is their experience?

For the family of 85-year-old Larry Washington, who traces his family tree back to England in the 1700s, the experience has changed over the years. (He says he is not related to George, who had no children.)

When he moved to New Jersey in 1962 to teach at a college there, Larry Washington's family tried to scout housing over the phone, but nothing was ever available. "When we showed up, there were plenty of houses," he recalls. After that, he taught his six children to always apply in person.

Over the years, his name made him sensitive to racism: "We just simply recognized these things, and had full sympathy with the people who were really black and getting the real treatment."

His son Paul, who in the 1970s worked for a temporary agency in Long Island, NY, says people in the offices where he was assigned always betrayed their relief when he turned out to be white. He experienced housing discrimination into the `80s, but says that no longer happens.

He is now a geology professor who has lived in ten states from Louisiana to Pennsylvania. Sometimes he wonders if his name helps him get interviews at colleges looking to recruit a rare black geologist, and if it hurts him when the college discovers that he is white.

Paul's children have had much different experiences — like his 25-year-old daughter, an English professor who teaches foreign students, whose new pupils are always amazed to meet someone with "the ultimate American name."

When Paul's brother Larry Jr. was recently traveling through customs in Japan, the inspector looked at his passport and said, "Oh, Mr. Washington!"

"His politeness and the number of times he bowed clearly indicated that he thought I was the member of a very important family," Larry Jr. recalls.

His sister Ida, a veterinarian who lives in Seattle, says she has never experienced discrimination due to her name as an adult. She is married, but uses Washington as her professional name.

"It's very distinctive. I use it with a certain amount of pride," she says.

Back in high school, she became fascinated with black history. "I think my name has made me much more aware of what African-American folks struggle with. I feel in tune with them."

Perhaps her sentiments bring the name full circle — from blacks making a connection to the greatest white Washington to a white person choosing a name associated with blackness.

"I find it touching that freed blacks wanted to identify with the American tradition and the American dream," says Chernow, the biographer. "It makes a powerful statement."

"I have to think," he says, "that George Washington would be very pleased that so many black people have adopted his name."

___

Jesse Washington covers race and ethnicity for The Associated Press. He is reachable at jwashington(at)ap.org or http://www.twitter.com/jessewashington.

___

On the Web:

Census surname study: http://www.census.gov/genealogy/www/data/2000surnames/index.html

Nasdaq nears 10-year high; should you be nervous?

2011-02-21T09:39:00.000-08:00

Nasdaq nears 10-year high; should you be nervous?

Technology-heavy index nears levels from dot-com boom; why it may be different this time

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Nasdaq finished within 25 points of its highest level in a decade Friday, reminding investors of a time many would rather forget: The bursting of the dot-com bubble.

Today, tech is hot again. Facebook -- which hasn't even gone public yet -- is worth some $50 billion. Online content company Demand Media rose 33 percent on the day of its initial public offering last month. The Nasdaq composite index closed Friday at 2,834, still only a little more than half its all-time closing high of 5,049 in March 2000. But the index of mostly tech stocks is up 26 percent over the past 12 months.

Should investors be worried about another bubble? Not really, because there's a twist this time around: Technology companies are making money and may valued correctly.

"It is night and day compared to 10 years ago," says Barry Mills, the manager of the $400 million Dreyfus Technology Growth fund. "These business models are real. The revenues are real, and the cash flows are real."

Consider this: Judging by diluted earnings per share, a conservative method of valuing what a company's stocks are worth, the companies in the Nasdaq index were collectively earning $39.28 per share in December 1999 and priced at 103.6 times their annual earnings. Now, the index has diluted earnings per share of $127.64 and a price-earnings ratio of 22.11.

The economic recovery in the U.S. is one reason that technology companies are earning such high profits. Companies put off upgrading their computer systems and other large purchases during the worst days of the recession, and are making up for that now. Others are investing in new technology before they add employees.

International growth is another reason to be optimistic. Half of the profits of the technology companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index come from outside North America, says Bill Stone, chief investment strategist at PNC Asset Management. China is now the world's second-largest market for PCs, and consumers in emerging market countries are showing strong demand for smart phones.

Technology companies in the S&P 500, a close proxy for the Nasdaq composite, are up 8.4 percent so far this year, about 2 percentage points more than the index as a whole. Last year, tech companies returned 10 percent after dividends, compared with the 15 percent return of the full index.

And tech stocks as a whole may be doing better than index returns show. That's because large companies -- with the exception of Apple -- that were hot stocks 10 years ago have matured and their stocks have stalled. "The Microsofts, Yahoos, and Googles of the world aren't growing like they used to," says Michael Sansoterra, manager of the $510 million RidgeWorth Large Cap Growth fund.

Bigger companies have a larger weighting in the Nasdaq index than smaller ones. Microsoft, for instance, makes up 5.6 percent of the index. The company has fallen 6.6 percent over the past 12 months.

And now to the question on the mind of any investor who was once burned by a bubble: Is it too late to get in?

Stock valuations certainly don't suggest so. Tech stocks in the S&P 500 are priced at 13.3 times earnings, which is just 0.3 more than the broad index. Not only that, but they are cheaper than they were a year ago, when they cost 15.4 times earnings. With stocks trading at reasonable levels, it's harder to make an epic mistake. Such as, say, buying technology stocks in June 2001, when they cost 128.3 times earnings.

"I'm still finding a lot of good values out there," says Samuel Dedio, manager of the $108 million Artio U.S. Smallcap fund. "There looks to be a lot more upside ahead of this."