U.K. retail sales fell for a second month in February as a drop in purchases of clothing countered gains at food stores, the British Retail Consortium said.
Sales at stores open at least 12 months, measured by value, fell 0.3 percent from a year earlier, the London-based trade group said in an e-mailed report today. That followed a 0.3 percent decline in January, the second worst for that month since the survey began in 1995.
The Bank of England is counting on slowing inflation to ease the squeeze on consumers and help generate a pickup in consumer spending later this year. Any recovery in demand may be curbed by rising unemployment and an increase in oil prices that is increasing the cost of gasoline.
Canada
Gas prices are on the rise, and so like clockwork, politicians are now selling the promise of lower prices at the pump.
Newt Gingrich, struggling to regain momentum in the Republican presidential primary, is leading the way, promising to get prices down to $2.50 per gallon.
"I’ve developed a program for American energy so no future president will ever bow to a Saudi king again and so every American can look forward to $2.50 a gallon gasoline," Gingrich said during his self-introduction at Wednesday’s CNN debate.
The promise might garner attention on the campaign trail, but there’s little politicians can do to influence the price of gasoline in the short-term, and long-run efforts are likely to be complicated by the global nature of the crude oil market.
"Political rhetoric is all it is," said Guy Caruso, an economist who led the Energy Information Administration and worked as an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency.
"Short of price controls, which were a disaster during the Nixon administration, politicians can’t do much to change the price of gasoline," he said.
See what you’re paying for gas
Other industry experts CNNMoney surveyed echoed those sentiments.
"This is absurd," said Paul Bledsoe, a Bipartisan Policy Center scholar who spent more than 20 years working on energy policy in Washington. "Obviously the price of oil is set on a global market. In the immediate term there is almost nothing you can do."
Gingrich’s plan for lowering prices revolves around increasing domestic energy production to levels that would make geopolitical concerns an afterthought. The way to do that, according to Gingrich, is by eliminating the EPA, building the Keystone pipeline and allowing more drilling.
"And at that point, if, in fact, the Iranians want to do something with the Strait of Hormuz, maybe the Chinese have a problem or the Indians have a problem or the Europeans have a problem," Gingrich said in a 28-minute video his campaign has produced on the subject. "But I am not sure at that point that the Americans will have a problem."
But unless the way crude oil is bought and sold in the global market is drastically changed, the United States would still have a very real problem.
Oil is a global commodity — it can be shipped anywhere around the world. Its price is determined largely by global supply and demand.
The United States would have to remove itself from the global trade in oil and gasoline to set its own prices, a move that could set the country up for a supply shortage and that most economists would not support.
Caruso said it’s just not a practical idea. "This is a global market with fungible supplies," he said. "We can’t isolate ourselves."
There’s also the question of whether Gingrich’s targeted production level is possible.
According to a 2009 study from the government’s Energy Information Administration, opening up to drilling areas off the East Coast, West Coast and Florida’s Gulf Coast would yield just 500,000 extra barrels a day by 2030 — not enough to replace U.S. imports or bring global prices down.
The world currently consumes 89 million barrels a day, and by then would likely be using over 100 million barrels. By the time OPEC finished cutting production to adjust for the increased supply, Americans might save 3 cents per gallon.
"The notion that somehow we can produce so much domestically that we will move the global price is incorrect," Bledsoe said.
Meanwhile, the oil industry says that by expanding beyond offshore areas and drilling everywhere that isn’t national park, an additional 10 million barrels of oil a day could come online by 2030 — more than enough for the U.S. alone.
Fear of Iran is inflating gas prices
All of this is not to say that oil production or prices are impenetrable to policy changes. Increasing domestic production is feasible, and even desirable — but the impact on price will hit around the margins.
"We need to be doing more energy, across the board," said Peter Beutel, an oil analyst at Cameron Hanover.
"There are ways forward here that would be very positive," he said, while acknowledging that even with a massive production increase, it is difficult to predict a certain price point, as Gingrich has. "Who’s to say whether it will be $1.75 or $2.75?"
The Gingrich campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how the predicted $2.50 price point was reached.
Of course, it’s not only Republicans who have proposed tinkering with government policy in an effort to combat high gas prices.
During the Bush administration, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged the president to release crude oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to combat high prices.
The White House rejected her call, saying that using the reserve to manipulate prices was "ineffective."
But catch a politician in a rare moment of candor and you might hear an acknowledgement that gas prices are largely out of their control. Here’s what President Obama had to say last year about high gas prices during the 2008 campaign:
"We were at the height of political season. You had all kinds of slogans and gimmicks and outraged politicians — they were waving their three-point plans for $2 a gallon gas," Obama said.
"And none of it was really going to do anything to solve the problem," he continued. "The truth is, none of these gimmicks, none of these slogans made a bit of difference."
The ruling this week overturning a new state fund for science startups is likely headed to higher court.
Attorney General Chris Koster said Wednesday he plans to file an appeal of a Cole County judge’s ruling that declared the Missouri Science and Innovation Reinvestment Act to be unconstitutional.
Circuit Judge Dan Green tossed out the law in a ruling late Monday, saying it was invalid because lawmakers included a “contingency clause” when they passed it last fall, requiring a broader tax credit reform bill to be passed before MOSIRA could take effect. The tax credit bill never passed, and opponents of MOSIRA sued when Gov. Jay Nixon started implementing the science fund no fax pay day loan.
In a statement, Koster said MOSIRA is too valuable to let die on a technicality.
“(MOSIRA) is an important economic development tool that can bring high-tech jobs to Missouri and preserve jobs that are already here,” he said. “I don’t want to see important job-creating legislation fail. We intend to appeal this matter to its conclusion.”
Supporters of MOSIRA have said they also plan to push for a clean up-or-down vote on the matter in the General Assembly this session.
It should be a no-brainer: a popular bill with bipartisan support that bans insider trading by members of Congress.
The legislation is known as the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or the Stock Act. It gained momentum last year after an explosive 60 Minutes report that accused several prominent representatives of insider trading using government information. President Obama urged the bill’s passage in his State of the Union address last month.
Now, however, the bill is stuck in part due to a disagreement over a provision that requires so-called "political intelligence" professionals to register with the government and disclose their activities in the same way that lobbyists do.
The disagreement puts the spotlight on an industry that has previously escaped the notice of most Americans. But despite its relatively low profile, political intelligence is big business.
Political intelligence professionals get paid big bucks to gather information about government policy and pending legislation, often through lawmakers or other public officials. Their clients include hedge funds, mutual funds, pension funds and wealthy individuals who use the information to guide investment decisions.
Under one version of the Stock Act, political intelligence practitioners would have to reveal who their clients are, how much they get paid for their research, and what issues they’re hired to gather intelligence on.
"If you seek information from Congress in order to make money, the American people have a right to know your name and who you’re selling that information to," Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa said in congressional debate earlier this month.
The idea is that shining a light on the industry will help ensure that such firms are confined to objective research and analysis and are not simply providing insider trading tips based on government knowledge.
Amazingly, there are no clear prohibitions on these kinds of insider tips at the moment.
The Senate passed a version of the Stock Act by a margin of 96-3 that included the registration requirement. The House version sailed through last week with similar support — a 417-2 vote — though it scrapped the registration requirement and called only for a government study of the political intelligence industry.
Even without the political intelligence provision, the Stock Act would prohibit Congressmen and other federal employees from exploiting non-public government information or using it to tip off others, and would require them to report investment transactions within 30 days.
Rep. Louise Slaughter told a congressional committee in December that the political intelligence industry brings in $100 million a year in the U.S., and Mayhew estimated that there are roughly 300 firms worldwide providing political intelligence and policy research.
"Political intelligence firms have increasingly become an issue — they have proliferated — and I think part of the issue here is that until the Stock Act, most Americans didn’t even know about the political intelligence industry," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the progressive watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
The political intelligence field bears some similarities to so-called "expert networking" firms in the corporate world, which connect hedge funds and mutual funds with consultants who provide insight about particular companies.
While such firms offer legitimate market research, some have also been accused of passing non-public, inside information to clients as part of the government’s ongoing crackdown on insider trading at hedge funds.
"There is an increasing problem with Wall Street recognizing that they can get inside information not just from corporate insiders, but from the government," Sloan said.
Some in Congress worried that the political intelligence registration requirement was drafted too broadly and required further study. Laena Fallon, a spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, said in an email that it could affect a range of people from "local rotaries to national media conglomerates."
But Grassley, who added the registration requirement to the Senate bill, called it "astonishing and extremely disappointing that the House would fulfill Wall Street’s wishes by killing this provision." Grassley’s amendment passed the Senate by a vote of 60-39, and included an exception for journalists "disseminating news and information to the public."
"If Congress delays action, the political intelligence industry will stay in the shadows, just the way Wall Street likes it," the senator said in a statement.
Why three senators said no to an insider trading ban in Congress
Looking ahead: A spokeswoman for the Senate’s Governmental Affairs Committee said staffers were unsure of when the two congressional chambers would resolve their disagreement and when the Stock Act might be finalized.
Should the registration requirement go into force, hedge funds and other political intelligence customers who don’t want their identities disclosed may pull back from such services, Mayhew said.
Yet even if it passes without the registration requirement, the Stock Act will still likely have an impact on political intelligence firms, as it will become illegal for them to pass on non-public information gleaned from government officials.
Just as they did during the expert networking crackdown, Wall Street firms will have to beef up their internal regulations to make sure they don’t receive non-public information in the guise of legitimate research, Mayhew said.
"The information will continue to be extremely important, but ultimately, they’re going to be a lot more careful about how they use it," he said.
Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean- Claude Juncker said he
Japan
Heather Mills, the former model who was once married to Paul McCartney, testified forcefully Thursday that there was no doubt her phone had been hacked by a U.K. journalist.
Speaking before a judge-led inquiry into British media ethics, Mills said dozens of messages between her and the former Beatle were intercepted by a journalist working for British newspaper group Trinity Mirror. She said the incident happened after a fight she and McCartney had had in January 2001, when McCartney, then her boyfriend, bombarded her with phone calls.
“There were about 25 messages, all asking for forgiveness, (asking:) ‘Would I come back?’” Mills said. “One of them said: ‘Please forgive me,’ and he sang a little ditty of one of his songs into the voicemail.”
She said she found it strange that the messages were listed as having been listened to even before she had accessed them, but said she didn’t realize what had happened until the Mirror journalist _ unnamed for legal reasons _ called her up and confronted her with details of the battle.
“I said: ‘There’s no way that you could know that unless you have been listening to my messages,’” she told the inquiry. “And he laughed.”
The messages left for Mills by McCartney are at the center of the allegations against CNN star interviewer Piers Morgan, who was editor of the Daily Mirror tabloid at the time. Morgan wrote in 2006 that he had once been played an apologetic message left by McCartney for Mills, describing it in detail and noting that McCartney “even sang ‘We Can Work It Out’ into the answer phone.”
Called before the U.K. inquiry last year, Morgan denied ordering anyone to hack a phone or writing stories based on hacked messages. He acknowledged listening to Mill’s voicemail message but stubbornly refused to say anything about how he had gotten it.
Morgan even left open the possibility that the voicemail had been played to him with Mills’ approval, but Mills said Thursday that was impossible.
“Never,” she said. “Never ever.”
Mills married the popular McCartney in 2002 and had a daughter with him before they divorced in 2008. She sought and got a substantial divorce settlement, becoming a tabloid hate figure after they separated. She is a fierce critic of tabloid journalists in general and Morgan in particular.
Morgan, who has become a media celebrity in the United States since taking over from Larry King, has returned the favor, casting aspersions on her credibility and calling her a “monster.”
Greek riot police have fired tear gas at hundreds of anti-austerity protesters who tried to break a cordon outside Parliament.
No arrests or injuries were reported after Tuesday’s clashes, during a demonstration by Greece’s two biggest labor unions against new harsh cutbacks demanded to avoid the country’s looming bankruptcy.
Police said up to 8,000 people took part in the protest outside Parliament. Another 6,000 joined in a separate, peaceful demonstration organized by a Communist union.
Heads of the three parties backing Greece’s interim government will confer with Prime Minister Lucas Papademos later Tuesday on new income cuts and job losses demanded by the country’s bailout creditors.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) _ Greek party leaders on Tuesday will seek a long-delayed agreement on harsh cutbacks demanded to avoid looming bankruptcy, amid intense pressure from its bailout creditors to reach a deal, a general strike disrupting public services and thousands of protesters taking to the streets of Athens.
Heads of the three parties backing the interim government will confer with Prime Minister Lucas Papademos on new income cuts and job losses, which Greece’s eurozone partners and the International Monetary Fund are demanding to keep the country’s vital rescue loans flowing.
A general strike against the impending cutbacks stopped train and ferry services nationwide, while many schools and banks were closed and state hospitals worked on skeleton staff.
Police said up to 14,000 people took part in two peaceful anti-austerity demonstrations in Athens. The separate marches were to converge on central Syntagma Square, outside Parliament, which has been the focus of demonstrations over the past two years of economic pain.
On Monday, Prime Minister Lucas Papademos’ government caved in to demands to cut civil service jobs, announcing 15,000 positions would go this year, out of a total 750,000. The decision breaks a major taboo, as state jobs had been protected for more than a century to prevent political purges by governments seeking to appoint their supporters.
Athens must placate its creditors to clinch a euro130 billion ($170 billion) bailout deal from the eurozone and the IMF and avoid a March default on its bond repayments.
Among the measures the EU and IMF are pressing Greece for is a cut in the euro750 ($979) minimum wage to help boost the country’s competitiveness. This reduction would have a knock-on effect in the private sector _ because private companies also base their salaries on the minimum wage _ and even unemployment benefits. Unions and employers’ federations alike have deplored the measure as unfair and unnecessary.
“It is clear that there is a lot of pressure being put on the country. A lot of pressure is being placed on the Greek people,” Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said during a break in talks with EU-IMF debt inspectors late Monday.
He called on coalition parties to work more closely together.
“To save Greece … will involve a huge social cost and sacrifices,” Venizelos said. “On the other hand, if the negotiations fail, bankruptcy will lead to even greater sacrifices.”
“No one is as strong as Hercules on his own to face the Lernaean Hydra,” a swamp monster in Greek mythology, he said. “We must all, together, fight this battle, without petty party motives and slick moves.”
A disorderly bankruptcy by Greece would likely lead to its exit from the eurozone, a situation that European officials have insisted is impossible because it would hurt other weak countries like Portugal.
But on Tuesday, the EU commissioner Neelie Kroes, in charge of the bloc’s digital policies, said Greece’s exit wouldn’t be a disaster.
Kroes told Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant that “It’s always said: if you let one nation go, or ask one to leave, the entire structure will collapse. But that is just not true.”
Greece has been kept solvent since May 2010 by payments from a euro110 billion ($145 billion) international rescue loan package. When it became clear the money would not be enough, a second bailout was decided last October.
As well as the austerity measures, the bailout also depends on separate talks with banks and other private bondholders to forgive euro100 billion ($131.6 billion) in Greek debt. The private investors have been locked in negotiations over swapping their current debt for a cash payment and new bonds worth 50 percent less than the original face value, with longer repayment terms and a lower interest rate.
Greek government officials say they expect private investors to take losses of an estimated 70 percent on the value of their bonds.
The EU-IMF bailout will also provide an estimated euro40 billion ($52 billion) to protect Greek banks from immediate collapse. Domestic lenders and pension funds hold some 34 percent of the country’s privately-owned debt.
However, the bailout has to be secured for the deal with private investors to go ahead as about euro30 billion from the bailout will be used as the cash payment in the bond swap deal.
Greece’s coalition party leaders held a first key meeting on the austerity measures on Sunday, and postponed a second round of talks by a day so Papademos could complete negotiations with EU-IMF debt inspectors that ended early Tuesday.
The leaders have already agreed to cut 2012 spending by 1.5 percent of gross domestic product _ about euro3.3 billion ($4.3 billion) _ improve competitiveness by slashing wages and non-wage costs, and re-capitalize banks without nationalizing them. But the details remain to be worked out.
Creditors are also demanding spending cuts in defense, health and social security.
European Commission spokesman Amadeu Altafaj Tardio said Monday that Greece was already “beyond the deadline” to end the talks.
Also Monday German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that “time is pressing,” and “something has to happen quickly.”
While Greece remains cut off from international bond markets _ where it would have to pay interest of about 35 percent to sell 10-year issues _ it maintains a market presence through regular short-term debt sales.
On Tuesday, the public debt management agency said Greek borrowing costs dropped slightly as the country raised euro812 million ($1.06 billion) in an auction of 26-week treasury bills. The coupon was 4.86 percent, compared to 4.90 percent in a similar auction last month, while the auction was 2.72 times oversubscribed.
The fracking-led oil and natural gas boom that’s received widespread attention in the mainstream press has moved to a new medium: reality TV.
"Bayou Billionaires," a new reality show on Country Music Television, follows the lives of the Dowdens, a Louisiana family that’s struck it rich off natural gas.
"I bought me a new pickup" says Gerald Dowden in the trailer posted on CMT’s website. "And I bought a dually," says his wife Kitten, referring to a pickup with four tires on the rear axle. "I got the special edition Polaris," says Gerald, clearly excited about his all-terrain vehicle. "She put the pool in."
"We got a new hot tub," says Kitten. "Jet skis," says Gerald.
"I have 50 hounds" and one horse, he adds. "But my wife has nine. We’re spending it, that’s what it’s for."
Ohio set to see oil boom thanks to fracking
Billionaires may be stretching it, but the Dowdens sure have come into some serious cash.
Thanks to new drilling technology, a small Texas firm called Exco () was able to put four new natural gas wells on the Dowden’s 80 acres of land outside Shreveport, La. in the last three years.
Each month, the wells generate a royalty check for the Dowdens that can be as high as $40,000. The wells are expected to produce for 16 to 20 years. And their royalty checks could grow considerably.
Exco, has plans to add up to 16 wells on the Dowden’s land over the next few years, Gerald says in an interview with CNNMoney.
Their royalties are also pegged to the price of natural gas, which is currently at a decade-long low. But if natural gas returns to the the highs it hit in 2008 and the other wells are drilled, the Dowdens could potentially see a check for nearly a million dollars a month.
"We’re going to make a lot of money," says Gerald.
Not that the family was poor before. The Dowdens previously had four smaller natural gas wells on their land, which used to generate royalty checks of between $3,000 and $5,000 a month. Plus, they own a small construction business that employs around 20 people.
Striking it rich hasn’t seemed to change their work pattern that much — Kitten is still the bookkeeper at the construction company, and Gerald says he’s yet to officially retire.
But in addition to their new toys the couple has carved out time for three cruises over the past year, one to the Persian Gulf.
Opponents of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking for short, fear the process of injecting pressurized water and chemicals into the ground to ease the extraction process is contaminating the water business cards design. Others with gas wells on their property have regretted the decision, saying the compressors are loud and the wells produce nauseating fumes.
But the Dowdens say they aren’t worried. And they say noise or fumes aren’t a problem either.
"They’re a community-oriented company," said Gerald. "They’re really safe."
The reality show, which was filmed over an eight-week period last year, profiles the adventures of not just Gerald and Kitten but their extended family.
Gerald says neither their new wealth nor having a television crew on their land has strained relations with their neighbors, who are out of eyesight anyway.
"They’re excited, they all want to be in it," says Kitten.
Despite claims by the show’s producer and the Dowden family that the program doesn’t aim to celebrate or exploit redneck stereotypes, clips on CMT’s website leave some room for doubt.
"I love my new teeth," says the couple’s daughter Chantal in the episode trailer, which is also filled with lots of ATV riding and yee-haws partially set to a steel guitar soundtrack.
Obama’s energy plan: The winners, and winners
"She really needed ‘em," responds Chantel’s boyfriend in the trailer, which gives his name as Carl, Albert or Jimmy, "depending on what part of the country," he’s in, and where Gerald affectionately calls him the "burnout biker."
Still, show producer Brian Flanagan says the aim was to simply profile a tight- knit family that’s come into some money.
"I wasn’t trying to make a redneck show, I was trying to make a sweet show," says Flanagan, who got the idea from an employee who has family in the area and saw first hand how normal people were getting rich off the energy boom.
Flanagan, whose company is behind other reality shows including the Discovery channel’s "Moonshires" and TLC’s "Long Island Medium," says the Dowdens fit the part perfectly.
"They love their property, they love each other, and they are having a blast together thanks to their newfound fortune," he says.
He notes the show is devoid of some of the more unsavory aspects on reality television.
"I don’t need anyone flipping a table over on this show," he says. "It’s a show for the whole family, not a train wreck."
Bayou Billionaires’ third episode airs Saturday at 9 PM on Viacom’s (, Fortune 500) CMT.
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