Thailand’s prime minister says she hopes the process of draining floodwater through Bangkok can be sped up now that peak high tides have passed.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said Monday that “if there is no more additional water, the current runoff might not cause heavy flooding in Bangkok.” She said there was still a massive amount of water that needs to pass through the capital’s drainage network as it makes its way down from flooded provinces in the north quick cash.
Record high tides pushing up the Chao Phraya River from the Gulf of Thailand have made draining the water from Thailand’s worst flooding in a half-century more difficult. That has put extreme pressure on Bangkok’s flood defenses, though they have largely held and most of the city remains dry.
With financial help from St. Clair County, a Michigan company will build a perishable-goods warehouse at MidAmerica St. Louis Airport in Mascoutah. The facility will handle fresh fruit and vegetables bound for international markets.
The deal announced Thursday includes $2.15 million from the county in upfront money and for refrigeration equipment for the warehouse, which will cost up to $5.7 million.
North Bay Produce Inc. of Traverse City, Mich., will build the 36,448-square-foot warehouse, which will be completed by the middle of next year, officials said.
In exchange for the county’s help, the airport will own the warehouse after 15 years, officials said.
North Bay specializes in year-round production and marketing of fresh fruit and vegetables for customers in North America, Latin America and Europe Business Card Holders. County officials said the warehouse will help North Bay open a shipping route to Asia.
“A large portion of the product they will handle at Mid-America flies, and we look forward to hosting their worldwide air activity,” said County Board Chairman Mark Kern. “This is the anchor tenant for our international trade route linking Latin America with Asia.”
North Bay’s president, Mark Girardin, said the company searched for three years to find a distribution center in the Midwest.
The refrigeration equipment the county is contributing to the project came from a MidAmerica warehouse the Boeing Co. began using last year for assembly operations.
As Europe’s leaders struggle toward a solution to its debt crisis, hopes are growing that cash-rich China will take a major role in a rescue _ expectations that are likely to be dashed.
On Friday, the chief executive of Europe’s bailout fund visits Beijing to talk to potential investors. Beijing has expressed sympathy for the 27-nation European Union, its biggest trading partner, but has yet to commit any cash.
Joining in a bailout could help Beijing in its campaign to join the top ranks of governments that manage the global economy _ a leadership role that many around the world have been urging China to take.
So far, Beijing has promised to help only by continuing business as usual, trading with Europe and stockpiling some of China’s multibillion-dollar trade surpluses in the safest European government bonds.
“For China, this could be a very big break in its efforts to take the seat at the head of the table in the international monetary hierarchy,” said Carl Weinberg of High Frequency Economics in a report.
Still, getting directly involved would put Chinese leaders in a position that is fraught with political risk _ spending public funds to bail out European countries that despite their debt crisis are still far richer than China per person.
Managers of China’s sovereign wealth fund, a potential investor, have tried to maintain an image as careful financial guardians after they faced criticism when early investments abroad failed to perform well.
During a visit to Paris this month, the Chinese fund’s chairman said Europeans should “respect yourself” and stop “expecting charity from China.”
European leaders are looking for investors outside the 17 nations that use the euro common currency, including sovereign wealth funds, for a fund to backstop the main bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility.
That is part of a complex plan under development to have the EFSF act as an insurer for bonds issued by weaker governments such as Italy and Spain, making them more attractive to investors.
The head of the EFSF, Klaus Regling, is due to explain the insurance scheme during his visit Friday to Beijing.
On Thursday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was set to telephone his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao.
Even if China contributes, Beijing needs to limit its risk, said Huang Wei, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think tank. She said that could mean the best Europe could hope for is a Chinese purchase of bonds guaranteed by the region’s stronger governments.
“I don’t think the Chinese government will invest directly in sovereign debt, such as Greek debt, because that’s very dangerous,” she said.
Still, China’s robust economy and $3.2 trillion in foreign reserves have fueled hopes in weaker economies that Beijing might emerge as a last-minute alternative to European aid and austerity measures that have fueled protests guaranteed online personal loans.
“You will hear some less-serious people in Ireland or Greece say, We don’t need you Europeans with your conditions because the Chinese will bail us out,” said Katinka Barysch, an analyst at the Centre for European Reform, a think tank in London.
But the vast scale of Europe’s needs _ as much as 1 to 2 trillion euros for the bailout fund _ makes that unrealistic, Barysch said.
“This is just not something the Chinese will give them,” she said.
China’s foreign and finance ministries did not respond Thursday to questions about whether Beijing would contribute to a bailout and the status of talks with Europe.
Asked on Wednesday about a possible Chinese role in a European bailout, foreign ministry Jiang Yu expressed hope the crisis could be resolved by the EU.
“I believe the Chinese side, with an open attitude, will discuss with the European side multiple ways of cooperation,” Jiang said.
Some Europeans are looking to Chinese companies, still financially strong after the 2008 global crisis battered Western business, as potential buyers of public assets such as power companies that might be sold to raise money.
But Chinese buyers that picked up European companies and other assets earlier at fire-sale prices have run into trouble managing them. They have shifted to pricier but more reliable blue-chip acquisitions such as China National BlueStar Corp.’s purchase this year of Norway’s Elkem, a maker of silicon and carbon parts, for a hefty $2 billion.
Chinese help also might carry a political cost, which has sparked unease for some in Europe.
Last month, Wen Jiabao repeated Beijing’s longstanding appeal to Europe to grant it market economy status _ a move that would make it harder for European companies to press trade complaints against Chinese rivals _ though he refrained from linking it directly to possible Chinese help in the debt crisis.
The top EU economic official, Olli Rehn, has distanced himself from a proposal floated by Brazil for China and other developing countries to jointly contribute.
“That would however have very far-reaching political consequences,” Rehn said in an Oct. 21 interview with Handelsblatt, a German business newspaper.
“It would mean that the Chinese, the Russians and Brazilians would indirectly have a place at the table in the eurozone,” Rehn said. “Such a decision would have strategic significance that is not to be underestimated.”
DETROIT
Stock indexes closed at the highest point since the U.S. debt limit showdown in August Monday. The market was driven higher by a round of big corporate takeovers and reports that Europe’s bailout fund will be larger than originally thought. The Nasdaq composite turned positive for the year.
Netflix Inc. plunged 22 percent in after-hours trading after the DVD-by-mail and video streaming company forecast a sharp drop in fourth-quarter profits.
Investors are still waiting for a resolution to Europe’s debt problems. European leaders said they made progress at a weekend summit and plan to unveil concrete plans for containing the crisis by Wednesday.
The Dow was up about 40 points in the first hour of trading but moved steadily higher through midday following reports that Europe’s takeover fund will be greatly expanded. It finished with a gain of 104.83 points, or 0.9 percent, at 11,913.62.
“The market is expecting that there will be some kind of deal worked out Wednesday,” when European financial ministers are scheduled to meet, said Uri Landesman, president of Platinum Partners. “If there’s not a deal by then, the market is going down significantly.”
Even with concerns about Europe, U.S. companies are still reporting bigger profits. “Although there is a good deal of economic and political uncertainty in the world, we are not seeing it much in our business at this point,” Caterpillar Chief Executive Doug Oberhelman said.
The maker of construction equipment reported a 44 percent surge in income, more than Wall Street analysts were expecting, thanks to strong growth in exports. The company said it expected the global economy to continue recovering, albeit slowly. Caterpillar jumped 5 percent, the most of the 30 companies in the Dow.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose to 1,254.19. That is just 3.45 points, or 0.3 percent, below where it started the year. It’s the highest close for the S&P 500 since Aug. 3, just as Washington was resolving a showdown over raising the country’s borrowing limit. If the S&P 500 finishes the year with a gain, it will be its biggest turnaround since 1984.
The Nasdaq composite rose 61.98, or 2.3 percent, to 2,699.44. The gains turned the Nasdaq positive for the year. The S&P 500 is the only major market index that remains lower than where it started the year.
The Russell 2000 index of small companies rose 3 payday loans.3 percent as investors moved money into higher-risk assets.
Netflix sank 21.6 percent post-market trading after forecasting fourth-quarter income that was far below what analysts were expecting. Through Monday’s close the stock had plunged 59 percent since July 12, when it raised prices and announced a plan to break its DVD-by-mail business into a separate company. The company abandoned the plan after it triggered a revolt among subscribers.
Other major U.S. companies due to report earnings this week include UPS Inc., Ford Motor Co. and Procter & Gamble.
Analysts expect companies in the S&P 500 to report earnings growth of 14 percent for the third quarter, according to data provider FactSet. They expect a 10 percent gain in revenue.
Expenses are also expected to climb. Higher costs for raw materials helped drag down income 8 percent at Kimberly-Clark Corp., which reported results Monday. The stock fell 5 percent. The company is a major consumer products maker whose brands include Huggies and Kleenex.
Higher costs also hurt cigarette maker Lorillard, which reported a 3 percent drop in income. Lorillard’s stock fell 0.6 percent.
A series of corporate deals helped lift the market, said Phil Orlando, chief equity strategist at Federated Investors. “This is telling us that companies think stocks are cheap, and they’re willing to spend some of the cash that’s sitting around on their balance sheets,” he said.
Deals announced included:
_ HealthSpring Inc. jumped 34 percent after Cigna Corp. said it will buy the health insurer for about $3.8 billion in cash. Cigna rose 1.4 percent.
_ RightNow Technologies Inc. gained 19 percent after Oracle Corp. said it will buy the tech service company for about $1.5 billion. Oracle rose 2.3 percent.
_ Mattel Inc. rose 2 percent after it agreed to buy Hit Entertainment, the owner of the Thomas & Friends and Barney brands, for $680 million in cash.
_ The J.M. Smucker Co. added 0.7 percent after it bought most of Sara Lee Corp.’s North American foodservice coffee operations for about $350 million.
Five shares rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was average at 4.2 billion shares.
When it comes to the intersection of energy and geopolitics, few know more than economist Daniel Yergin.
Yergin cofounded and now chairs the IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an energy consultancy. But he’s better known for his epic tale on the history of the global oil industry, “The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, & Power,” a No. 1 best-seller that won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 1992 and was later made into a PBS miniseries.
Yergin spoke Friday at the St. Louis County Public Library about his latest book, “The Quest: Energy, Security and the Remaking of the Modern World”
Toronto
Choosing a much-detested raccoon as its mascot made a clear statement: Porter Airlines was going to be a daring, different kind of airline.
And the upstart that some doubted could ever succeed given the volatility of the aviation industry is celebrating its fifth birthday on Sunday.
Robert Deluce, president and CEO of Porter Airlines, uses the mascot, whom they call Mr. Porter, an alter-ego of sorts, to illustrate why they
France’s finance minister said Tuesday that 2012 growth may be lower than estimated, a day after a leading agency warned that it may put the country’s cherished triple-A rating on notice for a possible downgrade.
Ahead of the 2012 budget debate in parliament, Finance Minister Francois Baroin warned on France-2 television that the growth estimate of 1.5 percent for next year was “probably too high.”
He blamed the risk of a global slowdown, which he said could be “very vast” and “severe.”
Baroin said the government would “put everything in place to avoid falling into a recession… and to protect our country from a downgrade” of its triple A rating, a day after Moody’s said it was assessing the country.
However, Baroin said he wouldn’t change the forecast just yet, especially in the run-up to the meeting of eurozone leaders in Brussels this Sunday and the early November meeting of the Group of 20 leaders from the industrial and developing world.
“If we are capable in the next two weeks of …. measures powerful enough to stop speculation so that we can make people understand that we will not let 60 years of European construction collapse … then I will have no worries, there will be growth in 2012 and 1.5 percent will be achieved,” he said.
Being the eurozone’s second largest economy, France could well have a big bill to pay for sorting out Europe’s debt crisis.
It’s in that context that Moody’s said it will be studying whether to put France’s rating on notice for a possible downgrade over the next three months. It said it will focus in on the government’s ability to implement its fiscal and economic reforms as well as any other potential adverse economic or financial market developments.
It said the French government has much less room for maneuver in terms if stretching its balance sheet than it had in 2008 Low fee payday loans.
“France may face a number of challenges in the coming months _ for example, the possible need to provide additional support to other European sovereigns or to its own banking system, which could give rise to significant new liabilities for the government’s balance sheet,” Moody’s said.
Moody’s warning comes ahead of Sunday’s meeting of eurozone leaders in Brussels. For days, markets have been hopeful that they would unveil a comprehensive solution to Europe’s debt crisis that would include a big ramp up in the bailout fund, a recapitalization of a large segment of the banking sector and a strategy for Greece.
However, on Monday German officials sought to downplay market expectations and the market mood has turned sour once again. France’s CAC-40 index of leading shares was underperforming its main peers in Europe on Tuesday, trading 1.7 percent lower as against the 0.6 percent fall on the German DAX.
Ahead of the meeting on Sunday in Brussels, the markets will be closely monitoring comments from all round Europe.
Jan Kees de Jager, the Netherlands finance minister, said the meeting needs to produce concrete results even though his counterpart in Germany, Wolfgang Schaeuble, said Monday that the weekend summit would not provide a “definitive solution.”
De Jager is quoted in Germany’s Die Welt newspaper Tuesday as saying that the markets “are awaiting a long-term solution. The overall package must involve a wide-reaching and irreversible agreement over enhanced controls in the eurozone in the future.”
____
David Rising in Berlin contributed to this story.
The Toronto Historical Board plaque is the first hint to would-be buyers that 7 Wellesley Ave. is every bit as special as its $775,000 price tag.
And it is.
This classic Cabbagetown Victorian is a historic home without a history.
It
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