TOP STORIES:
Cisco CEO to Obama: Stop
fiddling with our routers - (www.cnbc.com)
Cisco
System's chief executive officer has written a letter to
President Barack Obama urging him to curtail government
surveillance after evidence circulated showing the National Security Agency had
intercepted Cisco equipment, a company spokesman said on Sunday. In a letter
dated May 15, John Chambers, chief executive officer and chairman of the
networking equipment giant, warned of an erosion of confidence in the U.S.
technology industry and called for new "standards of conduct" in how
the NSA conducts its surveillance. "We simply cannot operate this way, our
customers trust us to be able to deliver to their doorsteps products that meet
the highest standards of integrity and security," Chambers said in the
letter.
Obamacare 'won't have a happy
ending': Langone - (www.cnbc.com) Burdensome levels of regulation are stunting
growth, and nowhere is that more prevalent than with the Affordable Care Act,
businessman Ken Langone said Wednesday. Speaking
at Skybridge Asset Management's SALT conference in Las Vegas, the founder of Home
Depot and namesake of the NYU Langone Medical Center railed
against the restrictions faced by American businesses. In particular, he cited
finance and medicine as two fields getting hit particularly hard. "This
act does not have a happy ending," Langone said of the universal health
care plan commonly known as Obamacare. "The biggest risk I see is the
discouragement of young people to go into the field of medicine. I believe the
way it's heading now, and the way we are, there's a very good chance of a major
shortage of doctors in the next 10 or 15 years." In his role with the
medical center, Langone said he's been raising money so that the best and
brightest minds can get their education without having huge debt burdens when
they are finished.
Russell 2000 nosedive means it’s time to take stock of
investments – (www.telegraph.co.uk)
The US index of small
companies shows we are heading for a major correction in the markets, and it is
crucial that investors are prepared. The
FTSE 100, the UK’s leading index of blue chip companies, has repeatedly knocked
on the door of record highs this year. However, once again and at the third
time of asking this year it failed to break the 6,930 level reached on the last
day of trading in 1999. While investors have been distracted the Russell 2000,
the US index of small companies, has been suffering a serious correction, and
that is sending an alert that we are on a collision course for a major sell-off
in the wider market here in the UK. Smaller companies are much more sensitive
to the underlying economy. As such they are often a very useful bellwether for
the equity market as a whole. This was proved in 2009 when they were the first
and fastest to recover from the financial crisis. The Russell 2000 has more
than tripled, providing gains of more than 300pc, from lows in March 2009. The
recovery has shockingly derailed during the past month, and that should cause
all investors pause for thought. The Russell has collapsed from its high at
1,212.7, on March 4, falling to a low of 1,082.9 on May 15 last week, a fall of
almost 11pc. Incredible considering the FTSE 100 has largely gone sideways from
6,824 to 6,840 during the exact same period.
Debt is one of the biggest disappointments of the recovery -
(www.finance.yahoo.com) Americans are swimming in debt and that's
holding back the economy, says Cardiff Garcia, U.S. editor of FT Alphaville. By
the end of the first quarter U.S. households were $11.65 trillion in debt,
according to the New York Fed. That's bigger than the GDP of any country or region in the
world except the U.S. and the European Union. The fastest growing debt
category: student loans, which top $1 trillion. Pew Research reported this week that
four in ten U.S. households (37%) headed by an adult younger than 40 have
student debt. Households with student loan debt have a median net worth of
$8,700 compared to $64,700 for households without student debt, Pew reports.
These high levels of debt are restraining household formations, which is
"hugely important," Garcia explains in the video above. Slower
household formation means less demand for buying homes or apartments, which, in
turn, translates into less construction and construction jobs. And even young
households looking to buy residential real estate have a harder time getting a
mortgage.
When
housing falls, you lose your equity but not your debt - (www.nytimes.com) “Our point is very simple,” said Mr.
Mian, a professor at Princeton. “Bernanke won. We did save the
banks. And yet the United States and Europe both went through terrible
downturns.” The focus on preserving banks, he said, “was an insufficient
mantra.” Mr. Sufi, at
the University of Chicago, said in a separate interview that he was baffled by
claims that the government’s efforts were successful. “If you actually look at
the argument that people like Mr. Geithner make, they almost always point to
financial metrics like risk spreads and interest rates,” he said. “But if you
look at the real economy, it just tends to come out in our favor.” Millions of
Americans remain unemployed almost five years after the formal end of the
recession. Christina Romer, who led President Obama’s Council of Economic
Advisers during the recession, said the research by Mr. Mian and Mr. Sufi had
convinced her that she and other administration officials underestimated the
importance of helping homeowners. But she said Mr. Mian and Mr. Sufi, in turn,
had underestimated both the economic impact of the financial crisis and the
effectiveness of the government’s response.
U.S.
Charges Five Chinese Military Officers With Spying - (www.bloomberg.com)
Thai PM in crisis meeting with Senate as protesters move to oust him - (www.reuters.com)
Thai PM in crisis meeting with Senate as protesters move to oust him - (www.reuters.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment