The government’s pick to head Japan’s central bank said on Tuesday he would be an independent governor at a critical time for the economy, but a senior opposition lawmaker warned that his appointment could be vetoed.
Toshiro Muto, currently a deputy governor at the Bank of Japan (BOJ), appeared in parliament after being nominated to replace governor Toshihiko Fukui, who retires next week.
Opposition parties who control parliament’s upper house have threatened to block the former finance ministry bureaucrat because of his ties to the government, raising the risk of a monetary policy vacuum at a time of financial market volatility.
Muto’s comments echoed those of cabinet ministers on Tuesday and supported the government’s argument that its nominees for the posts of governor and two deputies should be confirmed without delay as fears grow of a U.S americashadvance. recession.
“Japan’s economy is at a critical stage as it faces various risks at home and abroad,” Muto told a hearing in parliament’s lower house. “Signs of a U.S. economic slowdown are intensifying and downside risks for the global economy are rising.
“I would strive to gain the public’s trust and ensure the BOJ’s independence,” he said.
But Yoshito Sengoku, a senior lawmaker in the main opposition Democratic Party, told reporters Muto had not persuaded those planning to reject his appointment to change their minds.
“He answered as if he was an honor student, and it did not dispel our concerns,” said Sengoku.
For 2008, the tax rate on capital gains is reduced to 0 percent for income under the normal 15 percent bracket. If our income moves us into a higher bracket, do we get a 0 percent tax on a portion of the capital gains? Also, does this 0 percent rate apply to qualified dividends?
Long-term capital gains and qualifying dividends for the 2008 tax year will be taxed at 0 percent if your other taxable income does not exceed the 15 percent tax bracket for your filing status. For single filers, that is taxable income under $32,550; for married, filing joint that is taxable income under $65,100.
If your long-term capital gains and dividends are pushing you through the 15 percent bracket, they are taxed at 0 percent to the extent that gets you to the top of the taxable bracket, and the remainder of long-term capital gains and qualifying dividends are taxed at 15 percent no fax payday advance.
Once all of your other taxable income exceeds the 15 percent bracket, based on your filing status, your taxable income will be calculated based on the tables plus 15 percent tax on your long-term capital gains and qualifying dividends.
The intricacies of these new rules create planning opportunities throughout 2008.
Oil prices moved to a new record on Wednesday after the OPEC cartel decided to keep its production unchanged, ignoring calls from President Bush to pump more oil into an ailing economy.
OPEC rebuffed its top consumer, arguing that the world was well supplied with oil and blaming financial speculators and mismanagement of the United States economy for the current high prices.
But the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was not completely oblivious to the political and economic impact of $100 oil. The sharp surge in prices recently has deterred the group’s ministers from cutting their production, a move they seriously contemplated a few weeks ago to offset a seasonal slowdown in global oil demand in the second quarter.
With the U.S. economy slowing down, oil prices have risen sharply as investors seek refuge in commodities like oil and other hard assets to offset the drop in the value of the dollar and hedge against inflation.
Oil prices reached a record on Wednesday, rising to $103.98 a barrel in midday trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up $4.46 on the day. The spike came after U.S. fuel inventories unexpectedly declined while tensions escalated between Venezuela, an OPEC member, and Colombia.
As prices have risen in recent years, relations between energy producers and their consumers have been increasingly acrimonious. Oil producers are seeking better terms for their dealings with foreign oil companies, and often restricting access to investments. OPEC ministers are also increasingly confident in their ability to prevent prices from falling below $80 a barrel.
As a sign of growing impatience with oil producers, President Bush said on Tuesday that it would be a "mistake" for OPEC not to increase supplies. As the oil group was meeting in Vienna, Austria, the president repeated his assault on Wednesday, saying it was "obvious" that demand was stripping supplies, and pushing up prices.
"America’s got to change its habits; we’ve got to get off oil," Bush said at a conference on renewable fuels. "Until we change our habits, there’s going to be more dependency on oil."
Chakib Khelil, OPEC’s president this year, said the high price of oil was not due to a lack of supplies. Instead, he cited the "mismanagement of the U.S. economy" and blamed financial speculators for driving up prices.
"If the prices are high, definitely they are not due to a lack of crude," Khelil said in Vienna. "They are due to what’s happening in the U.S."
He added: "There is sufficient supply. There’s plenty of oil there."
Most energy analysts agree there is no physical shortage of oil today. Commercial oil inventories are at relatively high level and that refiners are not lacking oil.
Ali al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, said in Vienna that there was no need to increase supplies by "even one barrel of oil." He said the reason behind today’s soaring oil prices was "tremendous speculation."
"There are even those who buy futures and speculate that oil prices will reach more than $200 in 2013 and 2015," Naimi said in Vienna faxless cash advance. "The most important thing that OPEC and Saudi Arabia look at is the stability of market factors."
Still, OPEC recognized the threat posed by a slowing economy on its business.
"In reviewing the prospects for the oil market, the conference highlighted the economic slowdown in the U.S.A., which, together with the deepening credit crisis in financial markets, is increasing the downside risks for world economic growth and, consequently, demand for crude oil," OPEC said in its final statement.
The oil cartel, which is next scheduled to meet in September, indicated it might call for an emergency meeting before then to review the market situation in the spring.
Meanwhile, ExxonMobil, America’s top oil company, plans a significant increase in its capital spending on new oil and gas projects in coming years as costs increase across the industry and rising political constraints mean oil companies are finding it increasingly challenging to pump oil out of the ground.
The high price environment is making it more difficult for companies like Exxon to expand its production and replace reserves, while posing a threat to global growth at a time the United States economy is slowing.
"Clearly the persistent higher cost that everyone is facing is now making its way into the next trench of projects," Rex Tillerson, the company’s chairman and chief executive, said at the company’s annual analyst meeting in New York. "The costs are a significant challenge for the industry as a whole and they are a challenge to us as well."
Exxon said Wednesday it would increase capital expenditures to $25 billion this year, up from $21 billion last year. Over the next five years, the company plans to spend as much as $30 billion a year, Tillerson said.
Last year, Exxon beat its own record for earnings, posting net income of $40.6 billion, up 3 percent from the previous year. But even as it takes in record profits, Exxon, like most major oil companies, is facing tightening business terms as oil-rich countries seek to grab a larger share of their oil revenue as prices rise.
ExxonMobil is engaged in a nasty dispute with Venezuela over the seizure of an oil field. The governments of Russia, Kazakhstan and Nigeria are all seeking to renegotiate oil contracts signed when oil prices were much lower than today.
In its final statement, OPEC expressed its support to Venezuela "in the exercise of its sovereign rights over its natural resources" in its dispute against Exxon.
But the oil producers also called for the parties to "resolve their dispute through good faith and amicable negotiations."
A state banking regulator raised a warning flag about soaring agricultural land values on Tuesday, telling a congressional hearing that the U.S. farm land bubble could burst and unleash a fresh set of economic problems.
“If there has been too much leveraged or loaned against the inflated value of farm land, the bubble will burst, and we will once again experience an economic crisis similar to that of the 1980s,” Iowa Superintendent of Banking Thomas Gronstal told the Senate Banking Committee.
Gronstal, who represented the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, was one of several regulators who testified about the subprime mortgage and credit problems that banks are facing.
“My fellow state supervisors and I are closely watching the agricultural sector,” he said.
Gronstal warned that the current agricultural conditions appear similar to the conditions seen in the 1970s that led to the economic and financial collapse of the 1980s.
“The dramatic increase of farm land value in the last few years makes the agricultural sector look strong,” Gronstal said payday loan. “In the future, should the price of corn, soybeans and other commodities decrease, the price of farm land would most likely also fall.”
The average value of U.S. crop land hit a record high of $2,700 per acre in 2007, compared with $1,340 per acre in 1998, according to U.S. Agriculture Department data. The value of crop land in some key Midwestern states was much higher, with Illinois averaging $4,460 per acre in 2007, the data showed.
Gronstal also said that smaller or community banks have felt the impact of the declining U.S. housing market due to the subprime mortgage crisis.
AT&T Mobility, the nation’s largest cell phone carrier, has agreed to pay thousands of Florida consumers who were billed for third-party services such as ringtones and text messaging that were advertised as free.
The settlement announced Friday between Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum and AT&T Mobility could result in refunds of more than $10 million in all, depending on how many consumers seek compensation.
McCollum said the main culprits are third-party companies that advertise ringtones and other services on the Internet, often promising that the service will be free. When customers - often teenagers - sign up, they or their parents are then surprised to find charges on their wireless bill.
"They will download this thinking it’s free because the advertising on the Internet says it’s free," McCollum said. And when the charge shows up on the bill, it’s not always clear what it is, either, he added.
"This advertising is wrong, it’s deceptive … and it’s all over the Internet," he said.
AT&T Mobility has agreed in the settlement to police such agreements with third-party providers and make it clear what the charges are for.
"It’s going to say ‘ringtones,’ and it’s going to give them an opportunity to cancel," McCollum said.
McCollum said his office is in the process of investigating other cell phone companies to determine the extent to which they’re allowing fraudulent third-party billing, and plans to push for refund agreements with all the major providers.
Atlanta-based AT&T Mobility also noted in a statement that the problem is an industrywide one, and also emphasized that it didn’t sell the ringtones or other phone content, but simply billed its customers for third-party services that they had purchased.
AT&T said it has put safeguards in place to help customers understand what they’ll be billed for.
Under its practices, "the customer must take an affirmative action - sending a text message - before a third-party provider can sell the customer ringtones, graphics, games, or other content," AT&T said payday loans. "Third-party providers must also make clear the pricing for these services and how to unsubscribe.
"Said another way, our goal is no surprises," the company said.
While praising AT&T for agreeing to provide refunds and better police its third-party agreements, and noting that the fraudulent advertising was done by other companies, McCollum said the wireless giant wasn’t entirely blameless.
"They did have misleading billing," McCollum said. He also noted that AT&T got about 40% of the charges for third-party services billed to their customers.
AT&T Mobility, formerly Cingular Wireless, will also pay the state $2.5 million and contribute $500,000 toward consumer education on safe Internet use under the agreement.
McCollum said it was easier for the state to go after AT&T and pressure it to better police its contracts with third parties than to go after the actual companies selling the ringtones and other content - because there are so many of them.
"As soon as you close one of them down, another one of them is going to pop up," McCollum said.
McCollum’s office had received a few hundred complaints about the billing practice, but in investigating the issue found that AT&T (ATT) had received thousands of similar complaints.
Brad Ashwell, a spokesman for the consumer organization Florida Public Interest Research Group, praised McCollum for taking on the telecom giant and said the complicated nature of sales of services over the Internet and how they are billed needs to be carefully policed.
"The digital marketplace is sort of a Wild West right now," Ashwell said.
It’s tough to hold a standardbred horse race with the lights off, but officials at Woodbine Racetrack are looking at how to play their part during Earth Hour without putting the safety of patrons, jockeys and horses at risk.
"It’s on our radar," said Jane Holmes, vice-president of corporate affairs at Woodbine Entertainment Group, which runs the tracks at Woodbine and Mohawk. "We’re working with operations to see what we can do."
Expect a symbolic gesture – perhaps just a slight dimming of some lights – rather than darkness when the horses are called to the starting gates on the evening of March 29. But Holmes, recognizing the importance of Earth Hour and the awareness it will create, said Woodbine considers the reduction of its ecological footprint a year-round effort.
In the last two years alone, Canada’s premier horse-racing track, which opened in 1956 and draws seven million visitors annually, has spent roughly $5 million on an energy retrofit that has slashed the track’s energy bill by $500,000 a year.
It’s a big bill. Woodbine, located at the corner of Rexdale Blvd. and Highway 427, spent $3.2 million last year on electricity and natural gas. It used just over 27 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, enough to power more than 2,300 homes for a year. The gas it consumed was enough to heat and supply hot water to more than 700 homes.
Anchoring the track’s effort is a new building automation system installed by Direct Energy that lets John Marhong, director of facility services, monitor and control energy use throughout Woodbine, whether inside the building or on the track.
Sitting in front of his office computer in the basement, he pulls up a screen.
"I can control all of this from anywhere in the world," said Marhong. "Every minute, every hour that we can shave off using a piece of mechanical equipment saves us energy." Occupancy sensors, for example, will turn off lights in certain parts of the building if no movement is detected. Energy-efficient LED lights are used in all exit signs.
In the slot machine rooms, which are open 24 hours a day and are always bustling, carbon dioxide sensors are set up as part of a demand-control ventilation system. The more people in the room playing the slots, the greater the amount of CO2 released into the air. If the sensors detect an increase, they can speed up ventilation fans accordingly, keeping the air fresh and at a more consistent, comfortable temperature.
"It makes perfect sense," said Frank Cammalleri, manager of energy engineering services at Direct Energy. "At night there are three people to one slot machine. In the day it’s one-to-one. So the whole ventilation requirements change dramatically through that 24-hour period."
He says by far the most dramatic impact on Woodbine’s energy bill has been the installation of five new boilers – two for hot water that are about the size of a household refrigerator and three larger units for space heating instant payday loan. They replaced the facility’s 52-year-old steam boilers, massive dinosaurs of another age, which required four engineers to run them 24 hours a day.
"It’s a real winner," said Cammalleri. "You don’t need staff anymore to operate them." And natural gas savings alone amount to about $250,000 a year.
Outside, a new weather station sits on the inside of the track. Sensors monitor temperature, wind speed, particulate levels, ground-level ozone, and even how quickly moisture is leaving the track.
In the past, grounds workers had to guess when to water the track, resulting in the unnecessary use of water.
To further reduce the need for municipal water, storm drain water is collected in ponds and used for track watering.
Recycling doesn’t end there. The facility recycles most of its cardboard, glass, kitchen waste, grease, and up to 70 per cent of plastic. Betting tickets usually thrown onto the ground after each race are swept up and recycled. Even the horse manure is collected and sold to a farm that uses it to grow mushrooms.
Peter Love, Ontario’s chief energy conservation officer, said it’s important for high-profile destinations like Woodbine and the Rogers Centre, which recently completed its own energy retrofit, to take leadership roles on energy efficiency.
"A real challenge with a lot of this stuff is that it’s invisible," he said. "So it’s important to provide profile to these energy-efficient activities and these leaders."
Woodbine’s efforts are ongoing. Marhong is exploring the idea of installing solar-thermal panels on the facility’s rooftop for heating hot water. Direct Energy is also in the process of installing daylight harvesting sensors near windows that will shut off indoor lights if the ambient outdoor light is bright enough to do the job.
Outside, where 700 lights are used for evening racing, the potential for power reduction is huge. Each light is 2,000 watts, or 20 times more powerful than a household light bulb. Each minute they’re on costs the track $2.50. At the moment, lights can be turned off manually between races, but it’s an imperfect system that’s throwing money out the window.
"Manual control means the lights are on 30 minutes too much every day," said Marhong, who wants to move to a dimmable system that automatically turns down the lights during the 25 minutes between races. "We might be able to dim by 60 per cent."
It’s a good bet.
U.S. investment firm Aetos’ 900 billion yen ($8.6 billion) plus bid for Japanese property developer Daito Trust Construction Co (1878.T: Quote, Profile, Research) is moving forward but struggling to secure enough capital from banks, financial sources familiar with the matter said.
Aetos Capital LLC’s consortium, comprising real estate group Mori Trust Co and local private equity firm Unison Capital, have been left in the lurch by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp (SMBC), the lending arm of Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (8316.T: Quote, Profile, Research), which has decided not to help fund the deal, the sources said.
Other banks that Aetos has asked for loans, including Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Mizuho (8411.T: Quote, Profile, Research), Shinsei (8303.T: Quote, Profile, Research), Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) and Aozora (8304.T: Quote, Profile, Research), are still pondering how much they want to commit to the deal.
Nomura Capital Investment Inc, wholly owned by Japan’s largest brokerage Nomura Holdings Inc (8604.T: Quote, Profile, Research), is also considering stepping into the breach to help finance the buyout; but it is not clear whether it will be willing to shore-up the financing completely payday loan.
Both Aetos and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group could not be immediately reached for comment.
Among other issues, the prospective lenders are uneasy because Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group has historical ties to Daito, and is familiar with the inner workings of the company.
Another concern for the lender banks is that market conditions for condominium makers have deteriorated in recent months and vacancy rates may start to rise.
Daito Trust’s core business is to build, lease and manage apartment blocks and if vacancy rates rise, it would be left with a cash-flow shortfall.
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