Treasurys Up On Sovereign Debt Concerns, After Fed Buying - Wall Street Journal

By Deborah Lynn Blumberg

Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Treasury prices pushed up Monday as a financial aid package for cash-strapped Ireland failed to soothe concerns about the finances of other struggling euro zone nations.

Nervous investors swept up low-risk U.S. government debt after Ireland applied for tens of billions of euros in aid from the European Union and the International Monetary fund. Nerves were frayed after Ireland's junior coalition party said that it was asking for a general election to be held in January, and following word from Moody's that Ireland's sovereign credit rating could be in for a multi-notch downgrade. Investors were also concerned that financially-strapped Spain and Portugal will also eventually need to be bolstered.

"The issues with Ireland beg the question of, what happens next with Portugal and Spain?" said Carl Lantz, a fixed income strategist at Credit Suisse in New York. "The more countries that end up needing support, the fewer countries there are to provide that support."

The fear is that sovereign debt issues could cause the prospect for growth across euro zone nations to deteriorate sharply, derailing the global recovery.

"The outlook for growth is not exactly positive" in countries accepting bailout money given the concessions and cuts the nations will be required to make, said Tom Tucci, head of government bond trading at RBC Capital Markets Corp. in New York.

Gains Monday were the most pronounced in 10- and 30-year Treasury securities after a Fed purchase Monday of eight to 10-year notes. The purchase was part the Fed's second large scale bond buying program, known as quantitative easing, or QE2.

The Fed bought $8.257 billion Treasurys in its first of two Treasury buying operations in the holiday shortened week. The market will be shuttered on Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday and will close early on Friday; $33.513 billion in bids were submitted. In its next operation, the Fed will buy Treasury inflation protected securities on Tuesday morning.

In recent trade, the 10-year note was up 14/32 to yield 2.824% and the 30-year was 31/32 higher to yield 4.190%. Shorter-maturity Treasurys were lagging ahead of a healthy dose of supply this week.

The government is set to sell $99 billion in short-term Treasurys this week. Auctions kick off Monday afternoon with a sale of $35 billion in two-year Treasurys. The sale size is unchanged from the previous two-year Treasury auction. The two-year was flat in recent trade at 0.509%; the when-issued was at 0.528%.

Treasury traders said demand should be decent, though the auction could tail, meaning the yield on the new notes will be higher than that on the when-issued notes just before the sale, as market participants jockey to get the notes at higher yields.

"Two-year note auctions have gone swimmingly no matter what the yields and foreign interest have been," said William O'Donnell, head of U.S. government bond strategy at RBS Securities Inc. in Stamford, Conn. He expects another good auction Monday with auction statistics very close to the six auction averages, a bid to cover near 3.34, indirect bid of 36.4% and direct bid around 14.8%.

The indirect bid represents demand from domestic and foreign institutions, including foreign central banks, while the so-called direct bid is made up of large money managers and hedge funds and foreign investors, which have their own accounts with the Treasury.

If the notes are sold near 0.53%, that will be the highest yield at auction since July, which should help to lift demand.

The Treasury market Monday climbed back from a rough week last week when prices dropped and yields pushed up amid a global backlash against QE2. Strategists said that investors were feeling a bit better about the Fed bond buying program after recent growth and inflation data remained weak, supporting the buying effort.

The Fed is buying $600 billion of Treasurys through June in an effort to ward off deflation and stimulate the economy.

Tucci believes the Fed could ramp up its buying the week before Christmas rather then buy during the holiday period, leaving him positive on 10- and 30-year Treasurys into the end of the year.

-By Deborah Lynn Blumberg, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2206; deborah.blumberg@dowjones.com

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Gold fluctuates on European debt fears, dollar - MarketWatch

By Claudia Assis, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) ? Gold futures wavered between gains and losses Monday as a rising dollar put a crimp on prices but worries about European sovereign debt again spurred investors toward the safety of bullion.

Gold for December delivery /quotes/comstock/21e!f:gc\z10 (GCZ10 1,355, +2.60, +0.19%) �retreated 40 cents, less than 0.1%, to $1,352.70 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. It traded as low as $1,350.90 an ounce and as high as $1,364.80 an ounce.

?It?s going to be a pretty quiet week, so we?re going to see choppy, sideways market action,? said Matt Zeman, a trader at LaSalle Futures Group in Chicago.

Other metals got off on a mixed note to begin the holiday-shortened trading week, with silver rising but copper declining in early action.

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?Gold prices should remain sensitive to sovereign-risk developments,? said James Steel, analyst at HSBC in New York.

?Bullion prices are likely to be influenced in the coming week by the Irish elections and the release of (Federal Open Market Committee) minutes,? he wrote in a note to clients.

Gold wobbled earlier on news that Ireland late Sunday had formally applied for aid from its European partners. As the size and scope of the bailout remained unclear, however, traders moved back toward the precious metal.

Worries also centered around problems that Portugal and Spain may be facing.

?Even with Ireland out of the day, people are going to start to look at Spain and Portugal? where problems, particularly in Spain, may be greater, LaSalle?s Zeman said.

Meanwhile, silver for December delivery /quotes/comstock/21e!f1:si\z10 (SIZ10 2,747, +28.60, +1.05%) �also wavered, most recently adding 2 cents to $27.20 an ounce. December copper /quotes/comstock/21e!f:hg\z10 (HGZ10 374.75, -8.60, -2.24%) �retreated 9 cents, or 0.7%, to $3.74 a pound.

The dollar index /quotes/comstock/11j!i:dxy0 (DXY 78.74, +0.23, +0.29%) , which compares the U.S. unit to a basket of six currencies, recovered to move up 0.2% to 78.72 on Monday.

A stronger dollar is negative for commodities as it makes them more expensive to holders of other currencies, diminishing their investment appeal.

Gold futures had edged lower on Friday, mostly amassing weekly losses, as China once more raised its reserve requirements for banks, rekindling fears of further steps to rein in inflation and, by extension, growth.

Gold lost 1% on the week, while silver and most other metals advanced on a weekly basis.

Claudia Assis is a San Francisco-based reporter for MarketWatch.

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FTC is proposing new rules for collecting debt from dead people - Washington Post

The Federal Trade Commission is seeking to revise the protocol surrounding two of life's touchiest subjects: debt and death.

Debt collection has become an increasingly controversial practice as more Americans default on loan payments. Government data show the charge-off rate on consumer loans spiked to 6.71 percent during the second quarter - the highest level in at least 25 years. (Five years ago, the charge-off rate - loans written off by their lenders as uncollectable - was 2.4 percent.) Meanwhile, debt collection ranked second on the FTC's list of most common consumer complaints last year after not even cracking the top 20 two years ago.

The rise in debt collection has spawned a niche market devoted to recouping money from those who die with unpaid bills. The FTC began investigating the practice several months ago and found confusion among collectors over whom they were allowed to contact and what they could say, said Joel Winston, the agency's associate director of financial practices.

"The debt doesn't disappear when the person dies," he said. "It's still a valid debt, and the collector can still collect it."

But the question is: From whom?

The federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act limits the people that collectors can contact to those with authority to pay the debt - typically a spouse or family member, and possibly a third-party executor of an estate. But in a proposed policy statement, the FTC said changes to court procedures have widened the pool of those who may be able to pay to include a host of other legal representatives.

Some consumer activists have criticized the FTC proposal as giving too much leeway to debt collectors. In addition, they have questioned details such as use of the word "spouse" vs. "widow" or "widower," arguing that marriages end upon death. Just whom debt collectors can contact is a particularly sensitive issue because the calls often come during what can be a time of high stress for friends and family of the deceased.

"Presumably we're dealing with elderly people at the most vulnerable time that you could imagine," said Richard Rubin, a consumer rights lawyer in Santa Fe, N.M.

Locating those who can pay the debt creates another challenge. Often, collectors may contact several friends or relatives in their attempt to find the right person. Current law allows collectors to only ask for "location information" without revealing that a debt is owed. The FTC is considering relaxing that rule for those who are deceased.

But that could pave the way for collectors to persuade unobligated consumers to pay the debt, consumer groups say. In its investigation of the practice, the FTC listened to thousands of phone calls and found debt collectors often operating in a gray area, Winston said.

"Without actually saying anything inaccurate, a collector can kind of maneuver the consumer into paying something they didn't have to pay," he said.

The FTC proposal states that collectors appealing to consumers' "moral obligation" to close the debt could violate federal law. In addition, it emphasized that collectors cannot imply that those with authority to pay the debt must do so out of their own pockets. All debts should be paid out of the deceased's estate.

"We are determined to ensure that the collectors play by the rules," Winston said.

But consumer groups said the language used in the FTC's proposal is too loose and could have the opposite of the intended effect.

"The FTC should strengthen protections for grieving families and friends, not open the door to debt collection efforts that often aim to exploit the vulnerability of the bereaved," Robert J. Hobbs, a lawyer with the National Consumer Law Center, said in a statement.

The FTC has extended the public comment period 0n the proposal to Dec. 1.

Those wishing to comment can go to ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/deceaseddebtcollection.

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Sunset Village bankruptcy douses water system repair hopes

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Another angle on debt reduction - Washington Post

WE WROTE this month about the deficit reduction blueprint issued by the co-chairs of President Obama's fiscal responsibility commission. Now comes a second plan, released last Wednesday, that differs in key respects and also merits close study. The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) proposal, overseen by Democrat Alice Rivlin and Republican Pete Domenici, demonstrates that reasonable people in both political parties, if not elected officials, can agree on a deficit reduction plan: The 19-member bipartisan task force included not only Ms. Rivlin, who served as President Clinton's budget director, and Mr. Domenici, a former Republican senator from New Mexico, but also Republicans such as former Oklahoma governor Frank Keating and former commerce secretary Carlos Gutierrez and Democrats such as former Michigan governor Jim Blanchard and Clinton housing secretary Henry Cisneros.

The similarities of the two proposals bear emphasizing because they underscore the likely path should the president and Congress decide to stop bemoaning the debt and start doing something about it. Both rely on spending cuts and tax increases, although the BPC would split the two about evenly while the plan outlined by the commission co-chairs, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, would rely on a three-to-one ratio of spending cuts to tax increases. Both would lower marginal tax rates by reducing or eliminating hundreds of billions in tax breaks. Both would treat the value of employer-sponsored health insurance as taxable income, helping put a brake on rising health-care costs. Both put yearly caps on defense spending and domestic programs.

One major difference is that the BPC plan attempts to stimulate the economy with a one-year payroll tax holiday for 2011, eliminating the 12.4 percent tax that employers and employees pay jointly into the Social Security trust fund. This would cost a lot but, the group says, create 2.5 million to 7 million new jobs as the cost of hiring a new employee is reduced and workers spend money from fatter paychecks. The plan would credit the lost $650 billion in revenue to the Social Security trust fund and save enough elsewhere to make up the difference.

Another key distinction is that the BPC, in addition to overhauling the tax code, would add a 6.5 percent tax on goods and services. This consumption tax, in place in every other major world economy, represents a better way to encourage savings and investment than taxing income. A broad-based consumption tax, including food and clothing, can be unfair to low- and middle-income families, but the plan offsets the effect with refundable credits to low-income families for children and earnings. Such a tax should be an element of future discussions.

The BPC plan would have government spend 23 percent of the gross domestic product rather than the 21 percent level of the Bowles-Simpson plan. Given rising health costs and an aging population, even getting to 23 percent - the current level is 26 percent - is going to require sacrifice.

No task force can supply what is missing from both proposals: political will to get the plan enacted. The coming months will show whether that will exists, from President Obama or members of Congress.

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Ireland asks for bailout as debt spirals - National Business Review

Ireland has been convinced by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to seek a bailout after its government failed to overcome its growing debt mountain alone.

The de-fanged ?Celtic Tiger,? once the envy of other European countries for its rapid economic growth, is the second euro member to require a rescue package since the financial crisis began.

Greece received a bailout of ?110 billion in May after its government debt reached crisis point, sparking talk of the break-up of the euro.

Ireland?s bailout won?t be as big: Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said the loan would be less than ?100 billion but wouldn?t give more specific details.

Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn told Reuters the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF would prepare a three-year package of loans by the end of the month.

?Providing assistance to Ireland is warranted to safeguard the financial stability in Europe,? he told Reuters.

?The program under preparation will address both the fiscal challenges of the Irish economy and the potential future capital needs of the banking sector in a decisive manner.?

Britain, which is not a part of the euro, has pledged about �7 billion in aid.

Ireland?s government debt blew out after it bailed out some of the country?s biggest banks, which became insolvent when the property bubble burst.

Despite a series of budget cuts the Irish government was unable to gain the confidence of bond markets, which continued to price its debt higher.

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Question by Dan: Can a Chapter 7 bankruptcy affect the possible outcome of getting a FAFSA Loan or Pell Grant?
I filed for Chapter 7 in april '09 and had all my debts discharged. I recently applied for a FAFSA loan. At the end of the filing, the file said I might be eligible for a certain amount of pell grant money.

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It's not just debt, it's productivity. - Newsweek

Charles Platiau / Reuters-Landov

At an October protest in Paris, a man holds up a sign that in English reads ?Listen to the people?s anger.?

Europe?s economy is weak and growing weaker. Many households will be trying to pay back debts rather than spending, and aging populations will bear down on consumption too. Austerity has replaced stimulus as the watchword of governments seeking to pay down deficits.

The real problem behind the debt, however, is productivity. Europe?s per capita GDP is 24 percent lower than that of the United States, a gap that amounts to a total of $4.5 trillion in annual income. While Europe has made a societal choice of more leisure time over more work, the major reason for slower growth is a widening productivity gap. Even when Europeans do work, they work less productively. The only way to unleash the dynamism and growth Europe needs to pay its debts is a new wave of structural reform.

Europe?s productivity had been catching up with that of the United States for decades, but the gap has been widening since the mid-1990s. New research by the McKinsey Global Institute finds that Europe would need to accelerate productivity growth by about 30 percent (or opt to work more) just to maintain past GDP growth?and by much more to start catching up to the U.S.?s per capita GDP.

Skeptics will argue that Europe has long balked at tough reform, and its reluctance is peaking in these austere times. Look at the public protests that erupted when the French government proposed raising the retirement age. But the skeptics may be wrong.

Europe has undergone a quiet revolution over the past 10 to 15 years. Easing labor-market rules has led to a 6 percentage-point increase in labor-market participation in 20 years, with many more women and seniors working. Contrary to popular perception, Europe has become a more dynamic job machine than the United States, creating 24 million jobs between 1995 and 2008, compared with 20 million in the United States.

Europe is reforming in its own style, not by importing ideas. In less than 20 years, the share of employment accounted for by seniors has gone up 24 percent in the Netherlands and 21 percent in Germany as a result of new incentives, training, and protection from ageism among employers. Sweden has brought 88 percent of women into the workforce?the highest share of any developed economy?by providing affordable child and elder care. By tying parental-leave benefits to earnings, and day care to jobholding, Sweden provides a strong incentive to work. In addition, only 14 percent of Swedish working women are in part-time jobs, a very low share that is due in large part to smart tax incentives. So reform is underway. The challenge is to push it forward. Action on three fronts is vital: further labor-market reform, boosting the productivity of service sectors, and investing in innovation.

Despite recent strides, Europe still lags the United States on most key indicators of labor-market competitiveness. It has fewer seniors ages 55 to 64 in the workforce (by 51 percent to 65 percent), a higher unemployment rate (averaging 2.5 percentage points higher over the past 10 years), more women working part time, and vacations and other paid leaves that average five weeks more per year than in the United States. If all of Europe were to match European best practices in key labor-market policies, it could raise its rate of labor utilization by 9 percent?without touching vacation or increasing hours worked per week.

Service industries account for two thirds of the productivity-growth gap with the United States. Retailing, for instance, suffers from rules that make it difficult to open new stores when and where it makes the most sense. Dutch towns still have the power to prevent furniture stores from selling televisions. Yet when Sweden liberalized zoning rules in retail, the result was a big boost to productivity. If Europe could spread best practices across the regional service industry, it could add 20 percent to overall productivity. The third front?investing in R&D and innovation?would lay a foundation for growth in emerging economies and industries, like clean tech.

Europe mustn?t use tough times as an excuse to delay reform. The model is Sweden, which responded to an economic crisis in the 1990s with a wave of reform from which it still benefits today. Europe should seize this crisis as an opportunity to transform the entire region.

Roxburgh is the London-based director of the McKinsey Global Institute, McKinsey & Co.?s business and economics research arm.

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Irish plan 4-year cuts as IMF studies debt crisis - The Associated Press

Irish plan 4-year cuts as IMF studies debt crisis

(AP) ? 2 hours ago

DUBLIN (AP) ? Ireland's government gathered Sunday to finish a four-year plan for slashing ?15 billion ($20.5 billion) from its annual deficits, an unprecedented austerity push designed to keep the country from bankruptcy and minimize the need for an IMF-EU bailout.

The office of Prime Minister Brian Cowen said the 15-member Cabinet would put the finishing touches on the austerity plan. It has been in the works since September, runs to 160 pages and is expected to be publicly unveiled Tuesday.

The government says the still-confidential plan has been endorsed by dozens of experts from the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank, who descended Thursday on Dublin to begin poring over the debt-riddled accounts of the government, treasury and banks.

Speaking before Sunday's meeting, Cowen stressed that Ireland would not raise its 12.5 percent rate of tax on business profits, its most powerful lure for attracting and keeping 600 U.S. companies based here. France, Germany and other eurozone members have repeatedly criticized the rate as unfair and say it should be raised now given the depth of Ireland's red ink.

Cowen said he wouldn't be budged by such arguments, calling the 12.5 percent rate ? less than half the eurozone average ? "a cornerstone of our industrial strategy."

Eurozone governments launched the IMF-EU mission after the European Central Bank ? the ultimate arbiter of the 16-nation euro currency area ? expressed private misgivings about the flight of corporate deposits from Ireland's banks since the summer.

In recent weeks Dublin banks have reported losing 10 percent to 17 percent of their deposits, and the Frankfurt-based ECB had to fill the gap with its own loans totaling a reported ?130 billion, one quarter of the central bank's entire loan book.

Ireland's ECB representative, Irish Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan, says he expects Cowen's government to accept an EU-IMF emergency fund worth tens of billions of euro that would be used by Ireland's banks as a credit facility. He says the measure would reassure foreign banks and clear the way for Irish banks to resume borrowing on open markets at lower rates.

Ireland is struggling to reduce its deficits to the eurozone limit of 3 percent of GDP by 2014. This year's deficit is set to reach a modern European record of 32 percent, chiefly because of Ireland's ever-escalating costs of bailing out five Irish banks.

Analysts say the flight of capital from Ireland's banks accelerated in August as rumors swirled that Ireland had greatly underestimated the bailout costs. Finance Minister Brian Lenihan in September published a Central Bank report claiming the total bill would fall in a range of ?45 billion-?50 billion ($62 billion $69 billion) bailout of five banks, presuming no further shocks to the system.

Since then, however, the size of the recent cash flight from Ireland's banks has appeared to catch the government off guard.

Ireland this year is expected to collect ?31 billion in taxes but spend more than ?50 billion, chiefly on its bloated civil service and welfare programs. The plan in the works would narrow this gap by ?6 billion in 2011 through ?4.5 billion in cuts and ?1.5 billion in new taxes.

The 2011 budget faces a difficult passage through parliament when it is unveiled Dec. 7. Cowen has an undependable three-vote majority. It is expected to be reduced to two following Thursday's by-election to fill a seat that had been left empty for 17 months.

Analysts expect Cowen's Fianna Fail party to lose that by-election as well as three others tentatively scheduled for the spring. That would leave him without a majority and force an early election.

Cowen and his long-dominant party are languishing at record lows in opinion polls. The latest survey published in the Sunday Business Post newspaper said Fianna Fail has just 17 percent support, whereas the two main opposition parties, Fine Gael and Labour, command 33 percent and 27 percent respectively.

Those two parties are widely expected to form a center-left government after Cowen loses his majority ? either by failing to pass the 2011 budget next month or, more likely, after losing all four by-election races.

Reflecting the national mood, the Sunday Independent newspaper displayed the photos of Ireland's 15 Cabinet ministers on its front page, expressed hope that the IMF would order the Irish political class to take huge cuts in positions, pay and benefits ? and called for Fianna Fail's destruction at the next election.

"Slaughter them after Christmas," the Sunday Independent's lead editorial urged.

Copyright � 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Concerns over eurozone as Ireland debt crisis looms - AFP

Concerns over eurozone as Ireland debt crisis looms

By Hugh Dent (AFP) ? 7 hours ago

PARIS ? EU-eurozone institutions are fighting the second debt crisis in six months and analysts now ponder openly how they would cope with a third and discuss how the single currency can be given a new lease on life.

There are concerns that the strains could become systemic across Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, the so-called weaker PIGS members of the eurozone, and infecting potentially even Italy.

There is uncertainty about the structure of expected help for Ireland, and concern about what happens when an underlying EU-IMF rescue scheme for eurozone countries expires in two years' time.

Unicredit bank chief economist Marco Annunziata, commenting that help for Ireland might calm markets temporarily, also referred to these broader issues of contagion to other countries and strains in the eurozone.

"The real question which the markets are asking is what will happen after two years, at the end of the support programmes? Will it be really possible to avoid a restructuring of debt for these countries as EU leaders say?" he observed.

There is a growing view that any follow-up scheme to shore up eurozone countries in deep financial trouble would ensure that investors who had financed budget deficits with loans would end up losing a large part of their shirts because states would refuse to underwrite all the bills.

It is the policy line stated by German Chancellor Angela Merkel three weeks ago, which many analysts, and Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, say was the trigger which blew the latest fuse.

Regarding Ireland, the government insists, and analysts largely accept, that the state has funded its state borrowing requirements up to the middle of next year and has set in hand a robust framework of corrective measures.

Analysts agree also that the main problem is a medium-term but temporary cost of bailing out the broken banking system, that Ireland has a good record of correcting public finances, and that its economy is flexible and open and will benefit quickly from the corrective measures and from exports as world recovery picks up. This contrasts with the Greek debt crisis, the result of profound structural weaknesses throughout the economy.

This goes some way to explaining the irritation of Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen in insisting at the end of the week that much of the pressure for a rescue was driven by media assertions and was the result of the market behaving "irrationally".

The reasons why Ireland has become the immediate lightening rod for storm release in the eurozone are more complex.

There is uncertainty over the extent to which Ireland has factored in all risks from guaranteeing the banks, and concern that a vicious circle of weakening confidence will weaken the whole economy.

Announcements that AIB bank has suffered an outflow of 13.0 billion euros (17.8 billion dollars) of deposits so far this year, and Bank of Ireland 10.0 billion euros or 11.0 percent of its deposit base in three months, illustrate this.

Barclays and UBS banks, for example, mapped the mix in notes to clients.

Barclays said that the spark for a sudden rise in borrowing costs for Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Spain and Italy, was a "combination of common and country-specific factors."

It said: "We think markets have reacted to press reports and wire agencies suggesting large potential losses and recapitalisation needs for the Irish banking system."

Markets had reassessed the budget implications of such costs and had apparently concluded that "sovereign solvency is at risk."

This had occurred after Germany had proposed a permanent safety mechanism to follow the current EU-IMF scheme expiring in 2013 "which would include an explicit provision on investors' 'burden sharing' in the event of insolvent countries."

Barclays commented: "So far, lack of clarity on the proposal has left the market guessing whether the mechanism would make sovereign default more likely."

UBS said: "This time Ireland is the focal point, though concerns are spreading to Portugal as well. Jitters stem from concerns that banking losses will swell Ireland's debt burden at a time when the political resolve to impose austerity is coming into question and when the European Union may take a tougher stand on sovereign risk."

UBS said that although the Irish government "doubtless" had enough funding until next year "Ireland requires the confidence of the markets to fund a whole host of private-sector activities too.

"Even if funding is available at current elevated levels, these are unaffordable for most businesses and, indeed, the government as well."

UBS stressed that the governing Fianna Fail and Green coalition held only "a very slim majority" with by-elections pending and a high probability that the government would be dislodged.

The government might not be able to pass its budget for 2011 on December 7. A general election would "damage Ireland's prospects further, in our view," UBS said.

Regarding Portugal, UBS said that if it wanted to "square the circle" of correcting public finances "it needs external support to take the borrowing rate back to a 'reasonable' level."

At ING bank, debt strategy analyst Padhraic Garvey said that Ireland, ironically, had a strong bargaining chip because one of the arguments from within the eurozone, including Portugal, why it should accept help held that this would minimise contagion to other eurozone countries.

Ireland might then be viewed as "doing the right thing for the greater good", and could use this to defend a red line the Irish government has drawn: refusal to accept help if a condition is that it raise its 12.5-percent rate of corporate tax.

Several EU countries have long objected that this is unreasonable tax competition, but an increase would strike at the heart of the low-tax, inward-investment policies behind the now wounded "Celtic Tiger" and would therefore compromise recovery.

On Saturday French President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed the "unprecedented effort" being made by Ireland to sort out its budget but said he could not imagine that Dublin would not raise tax rates.

At BGC Partners in London, senior strategist Howard Wheeldon asked: "Are the markets right to be so troubled about Ireland's plight? With the problems of Greece far from over yet, and given that the euro is increasingly being seen as a powder keg waiting to blow up, it seems to me that unless the fast-growing heat can suddenly be doused the answer to that question can only be yes."

He said that the key issue about Ireland now was "getting this dangerous problem off the books."

The OECD said that a decision by Ireland to opt for help would send an "extremely beneficial" message. But there was a deeper problem. The EU now had to enforce budget discipline with penalties, make the support system permanent, but make clear that countries with solvency problems would not be bailed out and that bond holders would lose money.

The week ended with the head of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, saying he had "grave concerns" about how economies in the eurozone have been managed, and that the ECB was "calling for a quantum leap of governance."

Copyright � 2010 AFP. All rights reserved. More �

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Debt cutting blues: All plans call for tax hikes - Leader-Telegram

WASHINGTON - Just in time to dash holiday cheer, recently unveiled debt-reduction plans underscore how huge are the fiscal challenges facing the U.S. They also make clear how tough the trade-offs must be to tame federal budget deficits and the national debt.

Major overhauls of the entire U.S. tax code are at the heart of all these plans. They'd eliminate popular deductions and radically change taxation across the board.

None of this will happen unless Congress and President Barack Obama enact these proposals into law. However, the gravity of the nation's debt problem and the stature of these commissions add political urgency to grappling with these proposals.

The most influential panel is the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Earlier this month the panel's co-chairmen - Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson - released their preliminary report on how to bring down deficits and debt. It sent shock waves rumbling nationwide.

"We can't grow ourselves out of this problem. We can't tax our way out of it," Bowles told PBS' Charlie Rose last week. "People who want to do just taxes, you'd have to raise the maximum marginal rates to 80 percent. You'd have to raise the corporate rate to 70 percent. You'd have to raise the capital gains rate to 50 percent, if you're just going to do taxes.

"We can't cut our way out of it. People say, 'Oh, well, let's just cut the budget.' If you just rely on deficit reduction through cutting, and you want to exclude Social Security, Medicare and defense and, of course, interest (on the national debt), then you'd have to cut everything else by about 60 to 65 percent. You can't do that either," Bowles said.

"What we've got to do is some combination. Alan and I have come out with a plan that's balanced that takes $4 trillion out of the deficit over the next 10 years. I think that's the kind of thing we have to do. And if we don't, the markets are going to force us to."

Their report drew cautious praise from moderates and conservatives, but many liberals insisted instead that reducing unemployment, not deficits, should be the government's most urgent priority.

Budget experts disagree.

"Some politicians and economists present a false choice: Reduce unemployment or stabilize the debt. Restoring America's future, however, requires that we do both - and begin now," said a second similar report this week from the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank featuring former Washington leaders from both parties.

A third similar report was issued jointly this month by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which is devoted to reducing the national debt, and the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Driving all the plans is this cruel reality: The federal deficit is projected at $1.3 trillion this year, almost as much as last year - a scale not seen since the end of World War II. Left untamed, experts insist, this monstrous debt threatens the nation's future prosperity and security. Simply paying interest on the nearly $14 trillion national debt will cost more than $1 trillion in 2020 - 17 percent of all federal spending - unless big changes are made.

The biggest change that all three plans emphasize: overhauling the U.S. tax code. All three plans would restructure income tax brackets. Current tax brackets - set to sunset this year - are 10 percent, 15 percent, 25 percent, 28 percent, 33 percent and 35 percent. The corporate rate is 35 percent.

All three plans would broaden the tax base subject to the lower rates to ensure that sufficient revenue comes to the Treasury. They'd do that by eliminating or limiting popular tax deductions, such as those for interest paid on mortgages and for charitable donations.

Bowles-Simpson suggests three individual income-tax rates: 8 percent, 14 percent and 23 percent. It also would drop the corporate tax rate to 26 percent.

An alternative option would establish three rates: 15 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent.

The policy center proposes only two income-tax brackets, 15 percent and 27 percent. Its corporate rate would be 27 percent.

In the final accounting, almost everyone would pay higher federal taxes under Bowles-Simpson.

"In 2015, the lowest earners would face an average cut in their after-tax income of 3.4 percent, or about $400. Middle-income households (those earning an average of about $60,000) would see their after-tax incomes fall by 4 percent, or about $1,900," according to analysis by Howard Gleckman, a researcher at the Tax Policy Center, a joint operation of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, two leading Washington policy research centers.

The wealthiest 1 percent would see their after-tax income shaved by $77,000, Gleckman wrote, while the top one-tenth of 1 percent of earners would see after-tax income fall by 8 percent, or almost $500,000.

In short, everyone would share the burden of reducing the debt, some more than others.

"Some individuals and corporations will certainly pay more, being the heavy users of deductions, and that's what makes tax reform so hard," said Rudolph Penner, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and now a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. "There are a large number of losers, and they always seem to howl louder than those who praise the tax reform."

Many of the proposals are certain to be controversial, none more than one featured by all three plans - a sharp reduction in popular mortgage-interest deductions.

Mortgage holders now can deduct from their federal income taxes the amount of interest they pay on any outstanding mortgage debt of $1 million or less.

Under Bowles-Simpson, this deduction could be reduced by 20 percent, or by 15 percent under a second option.

Under a third option, some interest costs would be excluded from the deduction: interest paid on mortgages for vacation and/or second homes; interest paid on home equity loans; and interest on any mortgage valued above $500,000.

The Bipartisan Policy Center would eliminate the entire mortgage-interest deduction. It would replace it with a 15 percent tax credit for interest expenses on a mortgage for principal residences only. The tax credit would be capped at $25,000.

Taxpayers no longer would file a tax return to claim the credit; it would be applied by mortgage lenders, who'd lower a borrower's annual mortgage interest payments by 15 percent.

The Peterson-Pew report would replace the mortgage-interest deduction with a 20 percent tax credit. It estimates this would reduce the deficit by $190 billion by 2018.

Real estate interests don't like these proposals.

Walter Molony, a spokesman for the National Association of Realtors, said his group "is opposed to any change in the mortgage interest deduction and will make an assessment when definitive proposals are released."

"The mortgage interest deduction is one of the pillars of our national housing policy, and limiting its use will have negative repercussions for consumers and home values up and down the housing chain," Michael Berman, the chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said in a statement.

Other tax proposals also promise to be unpopular, at least when viewed in isolation rather than as components of national debt-reduction.

Among them: Bowles-Simpson would impose a 15-cents-a-gallon federal gasoline tax to fund road and bridge projects.

For the employed, both Bowles-Simpson and the policy center would end the practice of not taxing the value of employer-provided health insurance.

In addition, if an employer health insurance plan is valued above the standard plan that most federal workers have, Bowles-Simpson would tax the difference in value. Currently, employees' health care premiums are deducted from their paychecks before taxes, lowering their taxable income.

Business interests and investors would have to pony up too.

Capital gains would be taxed at the rate of ordinary income, not the current 15 percent rate.

Businesses would lose deductions such as writing off the declining value of equipment. Under Bowles-Simpson, corporations could still count on a tax credit for research and development.

Even so, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a positive reaction.

"The U.S. Chamber is encouraging the entire business community not just to calculate the cost of specific deficit reduction proposals to their individual companies, but to weigh the long-term costs to our country, our economy and future generations if we fail to act," Martin Regalia, the group's chief economist, said in a statement. "All solutions will require shared sacrifices, and we must be prepared to make them."

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Debt cutting blues: All plans call for tax hikes - Leader-Telegram

WASHINGTON - Just in time to dash holiday cheer, recently unveiled debt-reduction plans underscore how huge are the fiscal challenges facing the U.S. They also make clear how tough the trade-offs must be to tame federal budget deficits and the national debt.

Major overhauls of the entire U.S. tax code are at the heart of all these plans. They'd eliminate popular deductions and radically change taxation across the board.

None of this will happen unless Congress and President Barack Obama enact these proposals into law. However, the gravity of the nation's debt problem and the stature of these commissions add political urgency to grappling with these proposals.

The most influential panel is the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Earlier this month the panel's co-chairmen - Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson - released their preliminary report on how to bring down deficits and debt. It sent shock waves rumbling nationwide.

"We can't grow ourselves out of this problem. We can't tax our way out of it," Bowles told PBS' Charlie Rose last week. "People who want to do just taxes, you'd have to raise the maximum marginal rates to 80 percent. You'd have to raise the corporate rate to 70 percent. You'd have to raise the capital gains rate to 50 percent, if you're just going to do taxes.

"We can't cut our way out of it. People say, 'Oh, well, let's just cut the budget.' If you just rely on deficit reduction through cutting, and you want to exclude Social Security, Medicare and defense and, of course, interest (on the national debt), then you'd have to cut everything else by about 60 to 65 percent. You can't do that either," Bowles said.

"What we've got to do is some combination. Alan and I have come out with a plan that's balanced that takes $4 trillion out of the deficit over the next 10 years. I think that's the kind of thing we have to do. And if we don't, the markets are going to force us to."

Their report drew cautious praise from moderates and conservatives, but many liberals insisted instead that reducing unemployment, not deficits, should be the government's most urgent priority.

Budget experts disagree.

"Some politicians and economists present a false choice: Reduce unemployment or stabilize the debt. Restoring America's future, however, requires that we do both - and begin now," said a second similar report this week from the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank featuring former Washington leaders from both parties.

A third similar report was issued jointly this month by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which is devoted to reducing the national debt, and the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Driving all the plans is this cruel reality: The federal deficit is projected at $1.3 trillion this year, almost as much as last year - a scale not seen since the end of World War II. Left untamed, experts insist, this monstrous debt threatens the nation's future prosperity and security. Simply paying interest on the nearly $14 trillion national debt will cost more than $1 trillion in 2020 - 17 percent of all federal spending - unless big changes are made.

The biggest change that all three plans emphasize: overhauling the U.S. tax code. All three plans would restructure income tax brackets. Current tax brackets - set to sunset this year - are 10 percent, 15 percent, 25 percent, 28 percent, 33 percent and 35 percent. The corporate rate is 35 percent.

All three plans would broaden the tax base subject to the lower rates to ensure that sufficient revenue comes to the Treasury. They'd do that by eliminating or limiting popular tax deductions, such as those for interest paid on mortgages and for charitable donations.

Bowles-Simpson suggests three individual income-tax rates: 8 percent, 14 percent and 23 percent. It also would drop the corporate tax rate to 26 percent.

An alternative option would establish three rates: 15 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent.

The policy center proposes only two income-tax brackets, 15 percent and 27 percent. Its corporate rate would be 27 percent.

In the final accounting, almost everyone would pay higher federal taxes under Bowles-Simpson.

"In 2015, the lowest earners would face an average cut in their after-tax income of 3.4 percent, or about $400. Middle-income households (those earning an average of about $60,000) would see their after-tax incomes fall by 4 percent, or about $1,900," according to analysis by Howard Gleckman, a researcher at the Tax Policy Center, a joint operation of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, two leading Washington policy research centers.

The wealthiest 1 percent would see their after-tax income shaved by $77,000, Gleckman wrote, while the top one-tenth of 1 percent of earners would see after-tax income fall by 8 percent, or almost $500,000.

In short, everyone would share the burden of reducing the debt, some more than others.

"Some individuals and corporations will certainly pay more, being the heavy users of deductions, and that's what makes tax reform so hard," said Rudolph Penner, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and now a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. "There are a large number of losers, and they always seem to howl louder than those who praise the tax reform."

Many of the proposals are certain to be controversial, none more than one featured by all three plans - a sharp reduction in popular mortgage-interest deductions.

Mortgage holders now can deduct from their federal income taxes the amount of interest they pay on any outstanding mortgage debt of $1 million or less.

Under Bowles-Simpson, this deduction could be reduced by 20 percent, or by 15 percent under a second option.

Under a third option, some interest costs would be excluded from the deduction: interest paid on mortgages for vacation and/or second homes; interest paid on home equity loans; and interest on any mortgage valued above $500,000.

The Bipartisan Policy Center would eliminate the entire mortgage-interest deduction. It would replace it with a 15 percent tax credit for interest expenses on a mortgage for principal residences only. The tax credit would be capped at $25,000.

Taxpayers no longer would file a tax return to claim the credit; it would be applied by mortgage lenders, who'd lower a borrower's annual mortgage interest payments by 15 percent.

The Peterson-Pew report would replace the mortgage-interest deduction with a 20 percent tax credit. It estimates this would reduce the deficit by $190 billion by 2018.

Real estate interests don't like these proposals.

Walter Molony, a spokesman for the National Association of Realtors, said his group "is opposed to any change in the mortgage interest deduction and will make an assessment when definitive proposals are released."

"The mortgage interest deduction is one of the pillars of our national housing policy, and limiting its use will have negative repercussions for consumers and home values up and down the housing chain," Michael Berman, the chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said in a statement.

Other tax proposals also promise to be unpopular, at least when viewed in isolation rather than as components of national debt-reduction.

Among them: Bowles-Simpson would impose a 15-cents-a-gallon federal gasoline tax to fund road and bridge projects.

For the employed, both Bowles-Simpson and the policy center would end the practice of not taxing the value of employer-provided health insurance.

In addition, if an employer health insurance plan is valued above the standard plan that most federal workers have, Bowles-Simpson would tax the difference in value. Currently, employees' health care premiums are deducted from their paychecks before taxes, lowering their taxable income.

Business interests and investors would have to pony up too.

Capital gains would be taxed at the rate of ordinary income, not the current 15 percent rate.

Businesses would lose deductions such as writing off the declining value of equipment. Under Bowles-Simpson, corporations could still count on a tax credit for research and development.

Even so, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a positive reaction.

"The U.S. Chamber is encouraging the entire business community not just to calculate the cost of specific deficit reduction proposals to their individual companies, but to weigh the long-term costs to our country, our economy and future generations if we fail to act," Martin Regalia, the group's chief economist, said in a statement. "All solutions will require shared sacrifices, and we must be prepared to make them."

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I am filing a chapter 7 bankruptcy and need to find old debt (12+ years), how do I locate it?

Question by seven nyne: I am filing a chapter 7 bankruptcy and need to find old debt (12+ years), how do I locate it?
I have some debt from 12 or more years ago and I am filing a chapter 7. How do I locate these and is it necessary since they are so old?


Best answer:
Answer by bdancer222A 12 year old debt is probably beyond the Statute of Limitation (SOL). But check with your attorney to see if you still need to list these debts. Maybe you just need the name and approximate amount.

What do you think? Answer

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What do debt consolidation companies offer for people who are in debt?

Question by nariko sapp: What do debt consolidation companies offer for people who are in debt?
Can anyone tell me about debt consolidation companies and their services?


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IMF Announces Staff Level Agreement with Ukraine on First Review of the Stand-By Arrangement
“The IMF mission has reached staff-level agreement with the Ukrainian authorities on the conclusion of the first review under the SBA. The authorities’ Letter of Intent will now be submitted to IMF Management.
Read more on

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I am real estate investor with substantial credit debt. Can I declare bankruptcy and still keep my homes?

Question by ParvardigarBaba: I am real estate investor with substantial credit debt. Can I declare bankruptcy and still keep my homes?
I am real estate investor with substantial credit debt. Can I declare bankruptcy and still keep my homes? I purchased a large commercial property in 2006 and the tenant went south. I could not find a tenant for the property and used my credit to pay the large mortgage and now it has caught up to me. I am barely able to keep the mortgage payments going because of all the credit payments. I am getting into serious trouble. Can anyone give me some sound advice?


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Answer by Drew CAs I understand it you can only keep the home that you live

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The Complete Idiot's Guide to Personal Bankruptcy

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Personal Bankruptcy

The essential chapters for those facing Chapter Seven or Chapter Eleven. With the percentage of personal bankruptcies soaring to over 10% nation?wide, and the process for filing now more complicated, many are investigating their options. This guide, by a business journalist and bankruptcy expert, offers the reader comprehensive information on: all chapters of personal bankruptcy; the most current legal information; and a detailed explanation on filing. *Jargon free, pragmatic financial advice *Clear, complete and up-to-date information about all aspects of personal bankruptcy *State by state exceptions under new laws

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Q&A: Debt panel chairmen warn that inaction would be costly - MiamiHerald.com

WASHINGTON -- Fending off criticism from the right and the left, the co-chairmen of a special debt-reduction panel warned politicians on Friday that inaction on the soaring national debt would be a job-killer on a scale worse than they can imagine.

In a wide-ranging interview with a small group of reporters, Erskine Bowles and his co-chairman, Alan Simpson, said they had tried to spread the pain across all income classes when they offered their draft debt-reduction proposals last week to members of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

That 18-member commission is scheduled to vote by Dec. 1 on proposals to shrink federal budget deficits and tame the skyrocketing national debt, which they say menaces the nation's future prosperity and security.

Some prominent Republicans, such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, have called their plan a "job-killer," which angers the co-chairmen.

"You know what's a job-killer? Doing what we're doing now," said Bowles, who was the White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton and is the president of the multi-campus University of North Carolina system.

Simpson, an acid-tongued retired Republican senator from Wyoming, said the pair's proposals - ranging from raising taxes to slowing the growth of Medicare spending to raising the retirement age for Social Security - were apolitical.

"I just describe it as an honest plan. There's no other way to describe it," he said.

The two discussed the politics of debt reduction. Here's some of what they said, edited into a question-and-answer format.

QUESTION: Will something finally get done?

BOWLES: I think for years and years, politicians have been afraid they'd be punished if they took the tough decisions, if they made choices. And I think the world's changed; I think they're going to be heavily penalized if they don't make these tough choices, if they try to take a walk. And what we try to do is throw a realistic plan out there, and I can tell you the two of us have gotten more "thumbs up" than anything else.

Q: How are you arguing for tough choices?

BOWLES: The things we are asking people to do are not popular. They are tough choices just like any organization goes through. I have over 35 percent fewer employees in administration at the university today than when I walked in there five years ago. None of that was easy. I can tell you none of the people there believed it could be done. We're operating just as effectively now, and obviously a lot more efficient. But we had to do it, because the state has to balance its budget; there was no choice. The only incentive for elected people doing this is it has to be done. Staying "as is" is simply not a choice. I can promise you that if we do nothing, if we stay on automatic pilot, the choice will be made for us. The markets will come, they will be swift, they will be severe, and this country will never be the same.

Q: How do you build consensus on a panel full of politicians?

SIMPSON: It took us three months to establish trust within this commission, because the first blast was, "We wouldn't be here if George W. Bush hadn't done what he did." And then the second blast was, "But this president has done four times more than that." So ... we cooled their juices on both sides on that. We said, "Forget it."

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Weekly remarks: Mitch McConnell on jobs, tax cuts, debt; Obama wants start to ... - Los Angeles Times (blog)

>

Weekly remarks by Sen. Mitch McConnell, as provided by Republican Party leadership�

Good Morning. I?m Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky.

As Americans across the country prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving this coming week, we?re reminded of the many blessings we enjoy as a nation.

We?re grateful for the sacrifices of the brave men and women in our armed forces who will not be home with their families next week, and who make these blessings possible.�

And we?re also conscious this Thanksgiving of the many Americans who are struggling with serious hardships, including the many millions of Americans who are struggling to find work.

At the moment, about 15 million of our fellow citizens are looking for jobs and can?t find one. The unemployment rate has remained stubbornly close to ten percent for a year and a half. We are experiencing what can only....

...be described as a jobs crisis, a sustained period of chronic unemployment; and two years of policies that have vastly increased the size and scope of government and added trillions to the debt and have done little to alleviate this problem.

Take the stimulus, for example.

Here was a bill that was supposed to create millions of jobs and keep unemployment from rising above 8%. Yet, since Democrats passed it nearly two years ago, more than�3 million people have lost jobs and the economy barely has a pulse. The American people delivered a clear verdict on this and other failed experiments in the government-as-economic-stimulator on Election Day. But Democratic leaders in Washington continue to act as if nothing has changed, including their priorities.

The top priority of most Americans is to create jobs and get the economy moving. And the single best thing we could do in Washington to achieve that goal is to prevent a tax hike that?s about to hit every taxpayer and hundreds of thousands of small businesses at the stroke of Midnight on December 31st.

And that?s what I proposed a bill in September that would take care of this giant tax hike and prevent it from going into effect. Unfortunately, Democratic leaders have shown little interest in the idea.

After adding trillions to the debt on big-government policies most Americans didn?t ask for and which we couldn?t afford, Democratic leaders say they need more money, which they intend to take from small business, even though small businesses create the majority of new jobs.

Americans don?t think we should be raising taxes on anybody, especially in the middle of a recession.

But instead of giving Americans what they want, Democratic leaders plan to use the last few days that lawmakers expect to spend in Washington this year focusing on everything except preventing this tax hike, which will cost us even more jobs: immigration,�a repeal of the ?don't ask, don't tell,?�a reorganization of the FDA, more environmental regulations.

Democrats put off all these things until after the election, along with the most basic task of funding the government. By focusing on them now, and not on legislation to promote job creation and reduce spending, they?re showing where their priorities lie.

This should be an easy one. The bill that job creators and out-of-work Americans need us to pass is the one that ensures taxes won?t go up ? one that says Americans and small-business owners won?t get hit with more bad news at the end of the year.

It's time Congress got its priorities straight. It's time Congress focused on job creation ? and that means preventing tax hikes. It's time to set aside the political votes and government spending that the administration and Democratic leaders have put above all other priorities for two years.

Time is running out. But it?s not too late for both parties to work together and prevent this massive tax hike from going into effect. It?s not too late to focus on the priorities of the American people. And Republicans in Congress are eager to work with anyone, Republican or Democrat, who is willing to do so.

Americans spoke loudly and clearly on Election Day. We owe it to them to show we heard them ? to work together to get this done. Thanks for listening. �� ####

Weekly remarks by President Obama, as provided by the White House

Today, I?d like to speak with you about an issue that is fundamental to America?s national security: the need for the Senate to approve the New START Treaty this year.

This treaty is rooted in a practice that dates back to Ronald Reagan. The idea is simple�-- as the two nations with over 90% of the world?s nuclear weapons, the United States and Russia have a responsibility to work together to reduce our arsenals. And to ensure that our national security is protected, the United States has an interest in tracking Russia?s nuclear arsenal through a verification effort that puts U.S. inspectors on the ground. As President Reagan said when he signed a nuclear arms treaty with the Soviet Union in 1987, ?Trust, but verify.?

That is precisely what the New START Treaty does. After nearly a full year of negotiations, we completed an agreement earlier this year that cuts by a third the number of long-range nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles that the United States and Russia can deploy, while ensuring that America retains a strong nuclear deterrent and can put inspectors back on the ground in Russia.

The Treaty also helped us reset our relations with Russia, which led to concrete benefits. For instance, Russia has been indispensable to our efforts to enforce strong sanctions on Iran, to secure loose nuclear material from terrorists, and to equip our troops in Afghanistan.

All of this will be put to risk if the Senate does not pass the New START Treaty.

Without ratification this year, the United States will have no inspectors on the ground, and no ability to verify Russian nuclear activities. So those who would block this treaty are breaking President Reagan?s rule ?- they want to trust, but not verify.

Without ratification, we put at risk the coalition that we have built to put pressure on Iran and the transit route through Russia that we use to equip our troops in Afghanistan. And without ratification, we risk undoing decades of American leadership on nuclear security and decades of bipartisanship on this issue. Our security and our position in the world are at stake.

Indeed, since the Reagan years, every president has pursued a negotiated, verified arms reduction treaty. And every time that these treaties have been reviewed by the Senate, they have passed with over 85 votes. Bipartisan support for New START could not be stronger. It has been endorsed by Republicans from the Reagan administration and both Bush administrations ?- including Colin Powell, George Shultz, Jim Baker and Henry Kissinger. And it was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by a strong bipartisan vote of 14-4.

Over the last several months, several questions have been asked about New START, and we have answered every single one. Some have asked whether it will limit our missile defense�-- it will not. Some, including Senator Jon Kyl, have asked that we modernize our nuclear infrastructure for the 21st century --�we are doing so, and plan to invest at least $85 billion in that effort over the next ten years, a significant increase from the Bush administration.

Finally, some make no argument against the treaty. They just ask for more time. But remember this: It has already been 11 months since we?ve had inspectors in Russia, and every day that goes by without ratification is a day that we lose confidence in our understanding of Russia?s nuclear weapons. If the Senate doesn?t act this year�-- after six months, 18 hearings, and nearly a thousand questions answered�-- it would have to start over from scratch in January.

The choice is clear:�A failure to ratify New START would be a dangerous gamble with America?s national security, setting back our understanding of Russia?s nuclear weapons, as well as our leadership in the world. That is not what the American people sent us to Washington to do.

There is enough gridlock, enough bickering. If there is one issue that should unite us�-- as Republicans and Democrats�-- it should be our national security.

Some things are bigger than politics. As Republican Dick Lugar said the other day, ?Every Senator has an obligation in the national security interest to take a stand, to do his or her duty.?

Senator Lugar is right. And if the Senate passes this treaty, it will not be an achievement for Democrats or Republicans�-- it will be a win for America. Thanks.���� ####

Related Items:

Weekly remarks: Obama wants earmark reform; Greg Walden heads GOP House transition

Weekly remarks: Rubio says both parties must change; Obama-We can't afford tax cuts

Weekly remarks: Obama seeks GOP economy help: John Boehnersays, 'Stop the spending spree!'

Weekly remarks: Thune sees failed Obama experiment; Obama fears GOP repeals

Weekly remarks: Obama on more jobs; Mike Pence says U.S. debt now $44,000 per person

You sure don't want to miss any of these weekly speeches. Click here for Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot.�Our Facebook Like page is over here. Also available on Kindle now.ReTweet or forward this item on Twitter, Facebook, etc. with the buttons down below.

Photos: Manuel Balce Cene / Associated Press; Jonathan Ernst / Reuters (McConnell); Dominique Faget / AFP /Getty Images (Hillary Clinton and Obama at NATO meeting in Lisbon, 11/19/10).

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Student Loan Consolidation - When we talk about college graduation, several promising life changes occur in our minds?

Student Loan Consolidation - When we talk about college graduation, several promising life changes occur in our minds?


Getting Out of Debt : When we talk about college graduation, several promising life changes occur in our minds? Potential careers, independence as well as new beginnings. However, although it means beginning of something, it still signifies something less enjoyable too? The repayment of student loans.As you all know, the repayment of ample student loans can be off-putting for both students and their parents. It was found out by the Public Interest Research Group in the US that the averag






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Q&A: Debt panel chairmen warn that inaction would be costly - MiamiHerald.com

WASHINGTON -- Fending off criticism from the right and the left, the co-chairmen of a special debt-reduction panel warned politicians on Friday that inaction on the soaring national debt would be a job-killer on a scale worse than they can imagine.

In a wide-ranging interview with a small group of reporters, Erskine Bowles and his co-chairman, Alan Simpson, said they had tried to spread the pain across all income classes when they offered their draft debt-reduction proposals last week to members of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

That 18-member commission is scheduled to vote by Dec. 1 on proposals to shrink federal budget deficits and tame the skyrocketing national debt, which they say menaces the nation's future prosperity and security.

Some prominent Republicans, such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, have called their plan a "job-killer," which angers the co-chairmen.

"You know what's a job-killer? Doing what we're doing now," said Bowles, who was the White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton and is the president of the multi-campus University of North Carolina system.

Simpson, an acid-tongued retired Republican senator from Wyoming, said the pair's proposals - ranging from raising taxes to slowing the growth of Medicare spending to raising the retirement age for Social Security - were apolitical.

"I just describe it as an honest plan. There's no other way to describe it," he said.

The two discussed the politics of debt reduction. Here's some of what they said, edited into a question-and-answer format.

QUESTION: Will something finally get done?

BOWLES: I think for years and years, politicians have been afraid they'd be punished if they took the tough decisions, if they made choices. And I think the world's changed; I think they're going to be heavily penalized if they don't make these tough choices, if they try to take a walk. And what we try to do is throw a realistic plan out there, and I can tell you the two of us have gotten more "thumbs up" than anything else.

Q: How are you arguing for tough choices?

BOWLES: The things we are asking people to do are not popular. They are tough choices just like any organization goes through. I have over 35 percent fewer employees in administration at the university today than when I walked in there five years ago. None of that was easy. I can tell you none of the people there believed it could be done. We're operating just as effectively now, and obviously a lot more efficient. But we had to do it, because the state has to balance its budget; there was no choice. The only incentive for elected people doing this is it has to be done. Staying "as is" is simply not a choice. I can promise you that if we do nothing, if we stay on automatic pilot, the choice will be made for us. The markets will come, they will be swift, they will be severe, and this country will never be the same.

Q: How do you build consensus on a panel full of politicians?

SIMPSON: It took us three months to establish trust within this commission, because the first blast was, "We wouldn't be here if George W. Bush hadn't done what he did." And then the second blast was, "But this president has done four times more than that." So ... we cooled their juices on both sides on that. We said, "Forget it."

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