Tuesday, March 8, 2011

US Economic Forecast The End of 2011 Will Be Stronger: Arlington Richfield

PRLog (Press Release)– Mar 08, 2011– News US Economic Forecast The End of 2011 Will Be Stronger

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US Economic Forecast The End of 2011 Will Be Strong

Economists like to talk about the shape of the economic recovery. Ideally, it would have been V-shaped: a rapid, dramatic upswing following the recession. Several months into the recovery, which technically began in June 2009, economists were predicting a still-not-shabby U-shape. All held out hope that it wouldn't be an L-shaped recovery.

At the 47th Annual Economic Forecast Luncheon, co-sponsored by the economics department at the W. P. Carey School of Business and JPMorgan Chase, two prominent national economists shared their thoughts about the shape of things to come -- in 2011 and beyond.

Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, Inc. said that there is no letter to describe the kind of economic rebound this is shaping up to be. Clearly, he said, it has not developed in the V-shape we would have liked. "The recovery is a race and though we all wanted the hare we wound up with the tortoise."

But a V-shaped recovery was "never possible given what caused the recession," Naroff said. Past V-shaped rebounds were led by the housing and financial markets -- two areas that have this time been drags on the economic recovery. "In previous recoveries the first quarter or two we would see increased housing activity. And typically banks emerged from recessions ready to extend credit, which powered growth. Neither of those is happening now."

So instead Naroff sees the recovery as an inverted square root sign. "We're on the plateau now, where growth is somewhere between modest and moderate. That's likely to continue for a while. But the factors that have been holding the economy back are in the process of being eased," Naroff said. He predicts a big surge in growth next year, before a small downward readjustment to a "new normal" rate of growth.

James Glassman, managing director and senior economist at JPMorgan Chase, calls the shape of the current recovery "frustrating -- if that is a shape." He explained, "Frankly, most things will look like a 'V' shape on paper in the history books, but that reveals little about the feel."

Like Naroff, Glassman sees the current sluggish recovery as relatively temporary -- one that will turn into robust growth in the latter half of next year. "Ironically, despite recent downbeat news, and the possibility that the U.S. economy may grow no faster than 3 percent for the rest of 2010, a number of new developments are pointing to a better economic performance in 2011 than was predicted only three months ago," Glassman said.

Forecasted Growth In 2011:

While both Naroff and Glassman see the economic recovery as on relatively firm footing, they said that the trajectory is not yet straight upward.  Naroff forecasts GDP growth in the 2 percent to 2.5 percent range until mid-2011, when he predicts growth will spike to between 4 percent and 5 percent. Glassman forecasts 2 percent GDP growth in the first and second quarters next year, 3.5 percent growth in the third quarter, and 4 percent growth in the fourth quarter.

For Naroff, the biggest factor keeping the economy back right now is the job market. But he believes that it is improving. "It will be another three, four, six months, but that labor market improvement will become clear," he said. Comparing one month to the previous one doesn't show much improvement, Naroff explained, but comparing this year to last makes "massive" improvements quite clear. "Six months from now, we'll see even bigger improvements."

Once improvements in the job market become clear, Naroff said, that will be the trigger that ignites growth. "Once people begin believing their jobs are not in danger, confidence will rise. That will lead to a loosening of the purse strings, generating more spending. The rising demand will require firms to add workers. As hiring increases, job security, consumer confidence, and household spending will improve further," Naroff explained, adding, "That is already starting to happen."

While Naroff sees negative perceptions about the labor market as the biggest reason for still-sluggish growth this year and the first half of next, Glassman said that it will be the unwinding of fiscal stimulus that will slow growth in the first half of 2011 (he predicts growth will slow from an average of about 3 percent this year). "Particularly in the state and local sectors, the federal stimulus bought some time, but as that stimulus winds down, governments will have to tighten spending."

But Glassman, too, sees improvements on the horizon -- "developments pointing to a better economic performance in 2011 than was predicted only three months ago." That is in large part, he said, due to the fact that "markets have finally embraced the idea that the Fed will hold its policy rate down for longer than earlier assumed" and to the Fed's decision to buy Treasury securities, as well as hints that Congress will extend the tax cuts set to expire at the end of this year.

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The Real Estate Council Features Richard W. Fisher, President & CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

speakerseries.  For more information, contact TREC at 214.692.3600.

Fisher, who assumed this post in 2005, is a member of the powerful Federal Open Market Committee, the Federal Reserve's principal monetary policymaking group. He is former vice chairman of Kissinger McLarty Associates, a strategic advisory firm chaired by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and began his career in 1975 at the private bank of Brown Brothers Harriman. A first-generation American, Fisher is fluent in Spanish and English, having spent his formative years in Mexico. His international experience includes service from 1997 to 2001 as deputy U.S. trade representative where he oversaw the implementation of NAFTA and various agreements with Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Chile and Singapore. He was also a senior member of the team that negotiated the bilateral accords for China's and Taiwan's accession to the World Trade Organization.

About The Real Estate Council: Founded in 1990, The Real Estate Council (TREC) is a dynamic organization of more than 1,300 commercial real estate professionals and 500 companies representing 95% of the top commercial real estate businesses in North Texas. TREC pursues industry advocacy efforts on local and statewide public policy issues and works to improve the quality of life in Dallas with initiatives that address housing, education, job creation and the environment. Over the last 20 years, The Real Estate Council's FightNight, Giving Gala and Community Partners Program have raised more than $20 million. TREC is a leader of efforts shaping the future of Dallas including the original $1.5 million investment that spearheaded Woodall Rodgers Park, as well as $6.3 million in pro bono legal and title services and $250,000 in funding that helped create Dallas' Urban Land Bank. In 2010 the City of Dallas was awarded a $2.225 million U.S. Housing and Urban Development grant made possible by a $275,000 Transit Oriented Development study funded by The Real Estate Council and two of its Community Partners. Find out more at www.recouncil.com or by calling 214.692.3600.


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Silver Dollar Values Prices Will Continue To Be Skyrocketing In 2011, Buy Silver Now!

PRLog (Press Release)– Mar 07, 2011– Whilst the U.S. dollar has dropped, gold prices, silver prices together with other precious metals are actually growing steadily over the past ten years. Investors all over the world have been running to the safety also as stability that gold as well as silver will continually provide. Individual traders and also buyers have been gobbling up hoards of silver dollar values although silver prices are still very inexpensive. Gold bullion coins are likewise a great investment for these considerably troubled times we live in. CLICK HERE to check out Silver Dollar Values Silver Prices now! http://silver-dollar-values.com has all the details for an intelligent investing choice.

Gold and silver costs eased off heights Monday as profit taking struggled with safe haven purchasing. Gold for April delivery added $5.90 to close at $1,434.50 an ounce at the Comex section of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The gold cost traded as high as $1,445.70 and as low as $1,428.30. The spot gold price was up $2, according to Kitco's gold index. Silver costs followed gold, and rose 53 cents to settle at $35.86 following hitting a 31-year high of $36.74.

As oil costs go, so do gold and also silver. The precious metals markets followed black gold higher in overnight trading. Gold hit a new high, silver shattered to a 31-year high and oil prices surged to a two-and-a-half year new high. Investors were purchasing gold and silver as a protection against uncertainty within the Middle East, an ongoing civil war in Libya, rising inflation led by high oil prices and loose financial policies. Mid-way through the trading day all three commodities moved off their recent levels as investors took profits. CLICK HERE to check out Silver Dollar Values Silver Prices now! http://silver-dollar-values.net has all of the details for an intelligent investing choice.

New highs in silver could trigger profit taking, but with the situation within the Middle East and North Africa region is still extremely volatile with oil continuing to rise, both gold and silver are likely to expand on a mix of safe-haven and anti-inflationary hedging with silver set to challenge $38-40 an ounce but also ultimately the all-time record of $50 an ounce.

In the event that the scenario in Libya resolves itself, nevertheless, then commodities could see much more of a selloff. At Monday it was gossiped that Lidyan leader Gadhafi would cede power if his family members were allowed to leave the country safely. With that being said; the scenario of a steeper correction is not in the forefront of traders' thoughts.

Value wise, silver is still the better play. Presently, the silver to gold ratio (how many ounces of silver it requires to purchase an ounce of gold) is roughly 40:1 and I think the ratio could very well sink as low as 16, which, at current gold prices could very well put silver at $90 an ounce. CLICK HERE to check out Silver Dollar Values Silver Prices now! http://silverdollar.cc has all of the tips and details for an intelligent investing choice.

Silver prices are rising every day, so now is a great time to purchase silver prior to the silver price goes a lot higher soon. Silver coins are truly the way to go from here to protect whatever assets one might have that one can use to purchase them. Morgan Silver Dollars are a good buy, so long as one does not choose the rare years coined. The price of all silver coins is rising each day, as the dollar continues on its slide.


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Saturday, March 5, 2011

Magic C Howard faces 1-game suspension for techs

Howard, who leads the NBA in technicals this season, was whistled for another one with 1:41 left in the first half Friday night against Chicago. If the call is upheld following a review by the league, Howard would be suspended for Orlando's next game against Portland on Monday night.

With the Bulls leading 43-29, the Howard was hit on the top of his head by Kyle Korver as Howard came down with an offensive rebound.

Korver was whistled for a foul, but took a swipe at the ball moments after the play. That prompted Howard to swing his elbows. Referee Ed Malloy stepped in to separate them and also called a technical on Howard.

The Bulls led 49-35 at halftime.


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Fairholme's Berkowitz to helm new St. Joe board

St. Joe Co.'s newly formed board of directors has elected Fairholme Capital Management founder Bruce Berkowitz as chairman and appointed ex-chairman Hugh Durden to fill in temporarily as CEO.

The move, announced in a regulatory filing on Friday, caps a week of sweeping changes in the Jacksonville, Fla., real estate developer's leadership, prompted by a months-long battle with the company's largest shareholder, The Fairholme Fund. The changes come as St. Joe weighs its strategic options, including a possible sale, after suffering massive losses during the real estate downturn.

On Monday, ex-CEO Britt Greene and three other St. Joe directors were ousted and replaced by Berkowitz, Fairholme Capital Management President Charles Fernandez, former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and Carnival Corp. Chief Operating Officer Howard Frank.

On Friday, the new board also elected Fernandez as vice chairman. The board said it has begun to search for a new CEO and expects Durden to serve as acting chief for no more than 60 days, or less, if a new CEO is appointed more quickly.

In a letter addressed to St. Joe employees Friday, Berkowitz called the company a "national treasure," and said he and Fernandez bring to St. Joe's Fairholme's shareholders, clients and potential partners for "win-win" solutions to the company's problems.

But he warned that the company is in difficult shape.

"St. Joe is losing money, selling valuable assets to cover losses and is under attack," he wrote. "We cannot continue on this course for long or there will be no Joe. Starting today, we will not continue down this road."

St. Joe's stock has taken a beating in the last year. The developer suffered a double-whammy from the real estate slump and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill last summer, which polluted coastal lands it owned along Florida's panhandle. The company has sued Halliburton Co. and others involved in the spill over the decline in the value of 577,000 acres in Northwest Florida and in its development.

Those problems took a back seat in recent weeks as Berkowitz stepped up his campaign to reshape the company's management.

Two weeks ago, Berkowitz released a letter to St. Joe shareholders in which he argued that the entire board needed to be replaced in order to turn the company around. He cited issues with board compensation and corporate governance.

Greene, who had been with the company for 13 years, resigned his seat on the board Monday and agreed to step down as CEO. Three other directors — Michael Ainslie, John Lord and Walter Revell — also agreed to step down.

But Berkowitz's effort stopped short of a complete ouster of the St. Joe board. The company said it had reached an "understanding" with Fairholme on certain corporate governance matters, and Fairholme agreed it will not press for further changes on the board.

Berkowitz and Fernandez were elected to St. Joe's board in December. The two left the board in early February and shortly after the company announced plans to explore financial and strategic alternatives.

On Tuesday, St. Joe reported it lost $2.7 million, or 3 cents per share, in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with a loss of $58.7 million, or 64 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Revenue was flat at $37.1 million. The results trumped Wall Street's expectations.

St. Joe shares slipped 14 cents to $27.28 in aftermarket trading on Friday. The stock had closed the regular session up 76 cents, or 2.9 percent, at $27.42.


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Thursday, March 3, 2011

Northwestern U. to investigate class' sex toy demo

The school's president promised an investigation after news of the demonstration appeared in local media reports and set off a blizzard of comments on social networking sites.

"I am troubled and disappointed by what occurred," President Morton Schapiro said. "I feel it represented extremely poor judgment on the part of our faculty member."

The demonstration took place on Feb. 21 after professor John Michael Bailey's human sexuality class, which focused that day on kinky sex. Bailey, a popular professor who teachers what some students say is one of the university's most popular classes, often ends sessions with an invitation for students to stay after regularly scheduled lectures to hear from sex therapists, swingers, transgender women and others.

According to students and one of the participants, Bailey had invited a guest lecturer named Ken Melvoin-Berg, the co-owner of a group called Weird Chicago Tours, to discuss bondage and sexual fetishes.

Also there to answer questions were a man named Jim Marcus and his fiancée, Faith Kroll, who, according to student Justin Smith, was introduced as an exhibitionist "turned on by the thought of sex acts in the nude in front of large groups of people."

Students were warned repeatedly that they were about to witness explicit material and that they could leave. Smith and another student, 22-year-old Nicholas Wilson, said most of the students left to get to their other classes. Those who stayed saw a movie, and the couple, concerned that the film contained misinformation, asked if they could give a live demonstration with a mechanical device.

"The main guy (Melvoin-Berg) said, 'Are you ready for a sex show?'" said Smith. He said the professor repeated to students that if they were uncomfortable, they should leave. Most of the roughly 100 students didn't go anywhere.

"If you stay, don't complain later," Smith said Bailey told the class.

Within seconds, Kroll had taken off all of her clothes except a bra, climbed on stage and lay down on a towel as Marcus operated the motorized device.

Students they could not see very much because the couple was fairly far back on the stage and Marcus was in the way.

But, said Wilson, "A fair number of people tried to get a better view."

Marcus, an acquaintance of Melvoin-Berg, said he was surprised that the demonstration had created such a stir, though he added that the outcry illustrates a larger point.

"People say it's not necessary to demonstrate sex acts," he said. "That's one of the things that's kept research in some of these areas hobbled, there is a squeamishness about this conversation."

Human sexuality classes often include the showing of graphic and explicit films, and are offered at several universities. Bailey did not respond to an e-mail message asking him to comment, and his voice mail box at the school was full Thursday afternoon.

But in a message that was posted by the university's newspaper, The Daily Northwestern, he defended his decision to allow the demonstration, saying it was relevant to the day's discussion of kinky sex.

"The demonstration, which included a woman who enjoyed providing a sexually explicit demonstration using a machine surely counts as kinky, and hence is relevant," he wrote.

But he also seemed to recognize that he might have gotten himself into some trouble.

He wrote that as he watched the demonstration, "I was worried that there could be repercussions that would threaten the valuable speaker series that I have built over the years."

Schapiro, NU's president, said that many members of the Northwestern community were disturbed by the incident. And university officials said they had received many emails from upset parents and alumni.

"I simply do not believe this was appropriate, necessary or in keeping with Northwestern University's academic mission," Schapiro said.


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Federal researchers declare eastern cougar extinct

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday declared the eastern cougar to be extinct, confirming a widely held belief among wildlife biologists that native populations of the big cat were wiped out by man a century ago.

After a lengthy review, federal officials concluded there are no breeding populations of cougars — also known as pumas, panthers, mountain lions and catamounts — in the eastern United States. Researchers believe the eastern cougar subspecies has probably been extinct since the 1930s.

Wednesday's declaration paves the way for the eastern cougar to be removed from the endangered species list, where it was placed in 1973. The agency's decision to declare the eastern cougar extinct does not affect the status of the Florida panther, another endangered wildcat.

Some hunters and outdoors enthusiasts have long insisted there's a small breeding population of eastern cougars, saying the secretive cats have simply eluded detection — hence the "ghost cat" moniker. The wildlife service said Wednesday it confirmed 108 sightings between 1900 and 2010, but that these animals either escaped or were released from captivity, or migrated from western states to the Midwest.

"The Fish and Wildlife Service fully believes that some people have seen cougars, and that was an important part of the review that we did," said Mark McCollough, an endangered species biologist who led the agency's eastern cougar study. "We went on to evaluate where these animals would be coming from."

A breeding population of eastern cougars would almost certainly have left evidence of its existence, he said. Cats would have been hit by cars or caught in traps, left tracks in the snow or turned up on any of the hundreds of thousands of trail cameras that dot Eastern forests.

But researchers have come up empty.

The private Eastern Cougar Foundation, for example, spent a decade looking for evidence. Finding none, it changed its name to the Cougar Rewilding Foundation last year and shifted its focus from confirming sightings to advocating for the restoration of the big cat to its pre-colonial habitat.

"We would have loved nothing more than for there to be a remnant wild population of cougars on the East Coast," said Christopher Spatz, the foundation's president. "We're not seeing (evidence) because they're not here."

Others maintain that wild cougars still prowl east of the Mississippi.

Ray Sedorchuk, 45, an avid hunter and outdoorsman, said he got an excellent look at a cougar last June in rural Bradford County, in northern Pennsylvania. He was in his truck when a reddish-brown animal with a long tail crossed the road. He said he jammed on the brakes, and the cougar stopped in its tracks.

"I could see the body, the tail and the head, the entire animal, perfectly. It's not a bobcat, it's not a housecat, it's a cougar," he said. "It's a sleek animal. It ran low to the ground and stealth-like. It moved with elegance."

Sedorchuk, a freelance writer who spends copious amounts of time in the woods, said he'd always been skeptical of the eastern cougar's existence, even as two of his friends insisted to him that they had seen them in the wild.

And now?

"I believe that they're here, without even thinking twice about it," he said. "I believe there aren't that many, but there are enough where they can get together and breed."

Once widely dispersed throughout the eastern United States, the mountain lion was all but wiped out by the turn of the last century. Cougars were killed in vast numbers, and states even held bounties. A nearly catastrophic decline in white-tailed deer — the main prey of mountain lions — also contributed to the species' extirpation.

McCollough said the last wild cougar was believed to have been killed in Maine in 1938.

The wildlife service treated the eastern cougar as a distinct subspecies, even though some biologists now believe it is genetically the same as its western brethren, which is increasing in number and extending its range. Some experts believe that mountain lions will eventually make their way back East.

The loss of a top-level predator like the cougar has had ecological consequences, including an explosion in the deer population and a corresponding decline in the health of Eastern forests.

"Our ecosystems are collapsing up and down the East Coast, and they're collapsing because we have too many white-tailed deer," said Spatz. "Our forests are not being permitted to regenerate."

Cougars and wolves, he said, would thin the deer herd through direct predation while also acting as "natural shepherds," forcing deer to become more vigilant and "stop browsing like cattle."

Spatz's group would like the federal government to reintroduce cougars and wolves to the eastern United States, though he acknowledged any such plan would come up against fierce resistance.

The wildlife service said Wednesday it has no authority under the Endangered Species Act to reintroduce the mountain lion to the East.

___

Online:

http://www.fws.gov/northeast/ecoug ar/


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