显示标签为“talks”的博文。显示所有博文
显示标签为“talks”的博文。显示所有博文

2011年4月22日星期五

Charlie Rose talks to David Beers of S & P

By Charlie Rose

The most important question in my mind is why - and why now - did you make this decision?
Why, we talked for some time the progressive deterioration in public finances U.S., which is not new, and it is not due to the recession. It is a process which has been unfolding for much of the last decade. And then of course, in addition, the cyclical slowdown due to the serious recession did worse. If the Administration and Congress move to address these trends, they will go to deterioration due to aging of the population - things like Medicare, Medicaid and social security.

Why now, we have taken this decision because when one looks at the highly polarized debate going on in Washington and very strong differences between Republicans and Democrats, including the Administration, about what could be done, we believe that it is unlikely that they will be able to narrow the gap, particularly on the course of the next few months. And there is no assurance, even after the 2012 election, that the two parties would be able to meet and begin to have a significant impact on what is still a rising burden of the debt of the U.S. Government. When we compare U.S. financial history with a number of other sovereigns key - level AAA - Europe and also the Canada in North America it see us Governments taking action and describing programmes to reduce their structural deficits. And the United States course, we always talk about it.

Some are characterize as draw a shot across the bow of the U.S. Government. You see it say that?
No.. The way we see it is our way to see all our credit ratings sovereign, who is to give an independent opinion of what we believe that the underlying credit trends are. We do take a position on what are good or bad policy for Governments to pursue. We analyze what we think are the implications of these choices credit. This is true to the United States and it is true with other sovereign Governments 126 we speed around the world.

How would you describe the way in which the markets have reacted?
It is early days yet. And don't forget that the step we have taken is a negative perspective. We have confirmed the AAA rating at the same time and we reminded people that means negative outlook, which means that it is at least, in our view, currently one in three chance that the rating would be lower. We also said that if we lowered the rating it would be by a single step to AA +. If in the spectrum of ratings from S & P (MHP), if this happens, it would be indicated only a very fresh credit of U.S. permanent degradation. Of course, it is also true that a sovereign credit rating AAA has special significance in General.

If you lowered the rating, what do you think that the impact would be?
I know, because we know from experience in the world, that sometimes markets that align with our opinions and sometimes not. And this is what happened in Europe over the last decade. There is an eloquent testimony to that: since many years, the market has been pricing all euros and the sovereigns, including those that we read on today as the Greece, Portugal, the Ireland and Spain, to AAA levels. In a number of these cases, we took a very different view for a long period, and the market ignored this opinion.

It is suggested that this gesture is really an attempt to regain the credibility that agencies, including yours, scoring lost by established rating mortgage-backed securities - that it is an attempt to get out in front of a problem.
There are two things to say about this. One is, it is important to actually read what we say. This is why we all have our mis research free of charge, including our sovereign research, on our public website - for people to read our analysis. If they agree with us or not, always is a good idea before reach you a conclusion to read what we say.

The second thing to say, is that our performance of sovereign credit ratings is very strong. These ratings to continue to exercise in the manner they are intended. If you look at the retroactive to the default settings of the Government, which we have had a number over the years, particularly in the years since 15 or 20, the odds of doing the work to provide a prospective view of the risk of default.

The President and his economic adviser Austan Goolsbee and Secretary of the Treasury Geithner say there is now a focus on debt and action is in progress.
Well, we will see if this assessment is true.

Watch Charlie Rose Bloomberg TV weeknights at 8 am and 10 pm.

Emmy Award-winning journalist Charlie Rose is the host of Charlie Rose, PBS program every night.

View the original article here

2011年4月15日星期五

Releases of opposition Yemen mediated talks - Xinhua

(BEIJING, April 15 Xinhuanet.com) - the opposition of the Yemen rejected an offer to join mediated by Gulf talks on a transfer of power in the country. Thursday comment has also set a deadline of two weeks for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign.

Protest leaders say that the offer of mediation is not clear, how fast would take a transition to place. Saleh agreed to the framework of the Gulf for talks, but the opposition continues to swing. Protest leaders first rejected the proposal outright, citing the lack of a transitional period, and seems to complain plan to protect the President from prosecution.

Saleh, who has already lost control of several provinces, a warning of civil war and split national if he is forced to resign before organize parliamentary and presidential polls in the coming year.

More than 116 demonstrators were killed in clashes with security since late January. There are also fears that the violence can escalate, as half of the 23 million people of the country own guns.

(Source: CNTV.cn)


View the original article here

2011年4月14日星期四

Yemen opposition spurns talks, defines Saleh deadline - Reuters

Protesters carry posters of the revolutionary leader Che Guevara (L) and the late president of North Yemen Ibrahim al-Hamdi during a demonstration demanding the ouster of Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the southern city of Taiz April 13, 2011. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

Demonstrators carrying posters of revolutionary leader Che Guevara (L) and the late President of the Northern Ibrahim al-Hamdi Yemen during a demonstration demanding the eviction of President Ali Abdullah Saleh of the Yemen in the South of Taiz city on April 13, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Khaled Abdullah

SANAA. Thu April 14, 2011 6: 11 am EDT

SANAA (Reuters) - the Yemen opposition has rejected an offer Thursday to join the talks mediated by the Gulf in Saudi Arabia on a transfer of power and set a deadline of two weeks for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign.

Gulf Arab Foreign Ministers had said that they would invite Saleh, who has faced two months of demonstrations demanding his resignation and his opponents talks mediation on a transfer of power. However, the opposition a fight on the offer.

"We renewed our focus on the need to accelerate the process of quality (Saleh) down for two weeks.". "So we go to Riyadh," said Mohammed al-Mutawakkil, a prominent opposition leader.

Allies Saudi Arabia and West of the Yemen fear a deadlock in the State of the Arabian Peninsula could ignite clashes between rival military units in the capital and elsewhere and cause chaos that would benefit from a wing based at the al-Qaeda Yemen active.

Opposition of the Yemen first rejected a statement by the Council of the Gulf cooperation framework for the discussions, had been to be held in Riyadh, because it seemed to offer Saleh a waiver of prosecution in the future and has not asked for an immediate transfer.

Later, they met the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia and the Kuwait, Oman Tuesday seeking clarification of the understanding of the "transfer of power," GCC that does not specify a time for Saleh to resign.

Some opposition leaders had suggested that the talks could begin as early as Saturday, before said Mutawakkil clarifications offered by the ambassadors of the Gulf had been insufficient.

"We did not find in the clarification that the ambassadors presented everything which responds to our requests for immediate removal," said Mutawakkil. "There was nothing new by the ambassadors of the Gulf Cooperation Council."

Saleh agreed to the framework of the talks, even if another player key, General Ali Mohsen, a relative of Saleh, whose units are protecting the demonstrators in Sanaa, have accepted the plan of the CCG.

Technically, a transfer of power to the Yemen could last until the next presidential election scheduled for 2013, a perspective the opposition considers unacceptable.

Saleh has offered for new parliamentary and presidential elections this year in political reforms, but said that he should stay in power to oversee the change or to submit to what he calls the "safe hands".

(Reported by Mohammed Ghobari.) Written by Cynthia Johnston. (editing by Andrew Dobbie)


View the original article here

Charlie Rose talks to Paul Ryan

By Charlie Rose

You have participated just the speech of the President on the reduction of the debt. Is this what you expected?
No, frankly, Charlie, it was quite the opposite of what I was expecting. I thought that with his invitation [to attend the speech]... He was extending an olive branch so that he could get back on the path to bipartisan solutions. And we have nothing else that. We have had dramatic distortions of our budget proposal. Earlier in the week when he sent his campaign manager mentioned that he was going to make this speech not his Budget Director or the Secretary of the Treasury, a small red flag went in my mind. But then when I got to the speech, and we heard it, it was extremely political, very partisan.

And it offers now - after the creation of a budgetary commission, he disavowed and did not in its proper budget - to create another commission to find ideas on how to correct the budget. It kicking in its budget. He said now we are going to have another commission, and oh, by the way, we will have this commission produce less deficit reduction, less savings than the prior commission produced. So I assume that we are going to do is to do without the President. We will have to talk to our colleagues here in the House and the Senate... because we have not any leadership of the President.

President Obama called your plan "a vision which says if crumbling roads and bridges to collapse, we can afford to fix their... but we can in a certain way more than $ 1 trillion in new tax breaks for the rich." How respond you?
I don't know even what to say on this subject. First of all, we don't talk even on the reduction of taxes. We are talking about keeping tax revenues where they [through permanent tax cuts Bush] and clean all the junk in the tax code for a flat, more equitable, more simple tax system. Therefore we are not talking about cutting taxes. We want to keep the tax revenues where they are and fix the tax code. All expenditure — you know, the partisan rhetoric of expenses - if you do set fees, Charlie, if you get spending under control, it will be money left for other things, roads, bridges, for education, of the environment. I am therefore surprised that he would use this kind of hyperbolic, rhetorical hyperventilation to describe our plan.

The Chairman said he may save money over the next 10 years by reducing the cost of health care, and which is more important than the creation of a program of good.
In fact, I think that he knows that this is not a good program. Its experts know that it is a premium support program. Good to give money to the person. They go on the market. This is not what it is. People get a choice. There is a difference of opinion here. And this is where he show us some recognition of the facts, the recognition was health care costs are growing too fast. President has said he wants this bureaucracy not elected without supervision or control of Congress to indiscriminately cut reimbursements Medicare, Medicaid, meaning the price of Government control. This does not occur.

You and President differ on the social pact between the country and its citizens?
I say Yes and I would like to explain why. We believe that we must repair our social safety net. Well, we believe that we need to have a. And that the social safety net must adapt to the 21st century. … We do not want to transform in a hammock that lulls people safety net in the life of complacency and dependency. We believe in social mobility, equal opportunities, not equality of results. There is thus a difference in philosophy here.

The Administration wants to treat as a single issue debt ceiling. Are you willing to do so?
Lol because it is the only game in town. It is a piece of must-pass legislation. We consider that the debt limit we want to attach the expenditure cuts and spending controls to it.

The President speaks much to win the future and suggests that because we can't that without investment in education and science.
I think that the investment is an another euphemism for expenses. Look, 42 cents on every dollar that the Government spends today is borrowed money. Half of which comes from other countries, no. 1, which is China. You cannot sustain a viable economy if rely you on others to your Government cash flow. We get spending under control.

Emmy Award-winning journalist Charlie Rose is the host of Charlie Rose, PBS program every night.

View the original article here

2011年4月9日星期六

Tense meetings, talks impasse led to Budget "Painful" Deal

反序列化操作“Translate”的响应消息的正文时出现错误。读取 XML 数据时,超出最大字符串内容长度配额 (8192)。通过更改在创建 XML 读取器时所使用的 XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas 对象的 MaxStringContentLength 属性,可增加此配额。 第 2 行,位置为 9240。
反序列化操作“Translate”的响应消息的正文时出现错误。读取 XML 数据时,超出最大字符串内容长度配额 (8192)。通过更改在创建 XML 读取器时所使用的 XmlDictionaryReaderQuotas 对象的 MaxStringContentLength 属性,可增加此配额。 第 1 行,位置为 11352。
April 10, 2011, 12:10 AM EDT By Lisa Lerer

(For more budget stories, see EXT6 .}

April 10 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama had finally reached his breaking point.

For more than an hour in an Oval Office meeting on April 7, House Speaker John Boehner had insisted that any compromise on the government’s budget include a prohibition on federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

Obama already had reluctantly agreed to a provision banning the District of Columbia from spending funds on abortion services -- and that was as far as he would go.

“Nope, zero,” he told Boehner, according to a senior Democratic aide. “John, this is it.” The room went silent.

The tense negotiations culminating in a last-minute deal the next night to avert a government shutdown underscored the challenges facing both Boehner and Obama as they tackle the fiscal issues that will dominate the debate during the next two years in Washington.

Looming battles to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling and craft next year’s budget will help shape the country’s economic future and define the 2012 presidential race. The fight to fund the government through the Sept. 30 close of the fiscal year resulted in what Obama said were some “painful” spending cuts. Yet it was only the initial test of how both leaders will navigate the dangers of divided government.

‘A Good Exercise’

“It’s the first time we all worked under these new parameters we are in, so we’ve had to learn each other,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, a Kentucky Republican, who participated in the talks. “It was a good exercise in that respect because we will know next time -- and there will be many times -- we will know next time more how to handle these kinds of things.”

The deal averted the furlough of 800,000 federal employees, the closure of federal facilities such as national parks and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and a delay in processing tax returns.

While officials warned of economic consequences from a shutdown, financial markets have shown little concern about U.S. fiscal health. The benchmark 10-year Treasury note yield was at 3.58 percent on Friday, below the average of 7 percent since 1980, reflecting expectations a deal would be reached, said John Lonski, chief economist at Moody’s Capital Markets Group.

Obama Draws Complaints

For weeks, Obama, 49, stayed out of direct negotiations over the budget accord, sparking complaints from lawmakers in both parties on Capitol Hill that he waited too long to get involved. He spoke to Boehner, 61, directly just twice between Feb. 19, when the House passed its budget bill, and April 2, according to Republican aides.

Serious negotiations only began after Republicans passed the sixth stopgap spending measure on March 15, funding the government through April 8. Fifty-four Republicans voted against the bill, forcing Boehner to rely on Democrats to pass the measure and making it clear that another short-term extension wouldn’t be tolerated by the Tea Party-wing of his conference, which is pressing hardest for deficit reduction.

The two sides struggled even to agree on a baseline for how much spending to cut. Formal talks stalled after a heated March 22 meeting, at which a Republican Appropriations aide insisted on using as a starting point the House bill that included $61 billion in spending cuts, said one of the people familiar with the talks. Democrats offered to cut $10 billion.

Another $20 Billion

Six days later, White House Chief of Staff William Daley reinvigorated discussions when he suggested that Democrats could accept another $20 billion in cuts. The staffs began working on a deal that would slash $33 billion in spending, according to aides.

Negotiations suffered another setback on March 30, however, when Vice President Joe Biden announced the $33 billion number to reporters after a meeting on Capitol Hill. That fueled reports of a tentative deal and angered Republican negotiators, who feared a Tea Party backlash.

As Tea Party activists protested outside the Capitol, chanting “shut it down” in a chilly drizzle, Boehner disputed the reports of a deal.

“There is no agreement on a set of numbers, and nothing will be agreed to until everything’s agreed to,” he told reporters.

Behind closed doors, however, he began selling the idea of a compromise to his caucus, reminding the 87 new Republican House members that his party controls only that chamber and lacks the influence to impose its will on the Democratic- controlled Senate and White House.

Catastrophic Effects

In private meetings, Boehner argued that a shutdown could have catastrophic effects for the party by handing Democrats a political “win.”

“He put it in context,” said Representative Dan Lungren, of California. “He said, ‘Look, nobody is going to get 100 percent of what they want,’ including him.”

The release of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s 2012 budget plan on April 5 helped convince some lawmakers to back a compromise, said House Republican aides. While party leaders debated whether releasing the Ryan proposal would complicate the talks, the Wisconsin Republican’s ambitious plan calling for an overhaul of Medicare and Medicaid and deep cuts reassured some members they would get additional opportunities to spotlight their efforts to slash spending.

‘Focus on 2012’

“We’ve got a few months left in this fiscal year; let’s reduce the size of government, and let’s focus on 2012,” said Representative Adam Kinzinger, a freshman from Illinois.

Republicans also introduced a weeklong funding bill that would cut $12 billion in spending and fund the Defense Department through the end of the year. The White House vowed to veto such a proposal, called the “troop funding bill” by Republicans.

Still, Republican aides say the measure put additional pressure on Democrats to agree to cuts by positioning them between funding soldiers and shutting down the government.

On April 6, Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Daley, Biden, Boehner, White House budget director Jacob Lew and top aides convened in the White House to try to design a framework for the deal. Boehner said he wouldn’t propose a bottom or top-line number, because the spending cuts depended on the number of so-called policy riders that Democrats would agree to include in the final deal.

Planned Parenthood

Democrats tried to force Boehner to accept $33 billion, according to Republican aides familiar with the negotiations. He refused, and Democrats left the meeting doubtful they would reach a deal, though the lawmakers agreed to reconvene.

The next night, the parties reached agreement on the broad composition of a bill that included $38 billion in cuts. Yet the sticking point remained the Planned Parenthood funding ban, which Republicans said was non-negotiable.

Democrats were adamant that it not be in the bill, knowing the provision would inflame their base and could alienate the independent voters whose support Obama will need to win a second term.

Toward the end of the meeting, after repeated efforts to insert the family planning rider, an exasperated Biden said the administration was prepared to “take it to the American people” and allow a shutdown over an issue unrelated to government spending.

Aides headed back to the Capitol around 11:45 p.m. and by 3 a.m., talks had stalled. Republican aides were asking for more than $40 billion in cuts and standing firm on the abortion provisions.

Relaying Frustrations

The following morning, after not hearing from Boehner, Obama called the speaker and relayed his frustrations that the current state of negotiations didn’t reflect their talks from the night before.

The breakthrough came on the morning of April 8, when Republicans embraced an idea originally proposed by Senator Dick Durbin, of Illinois, to hold an up-or-down vote on the most contentious policy amendments.

As aides hammered out the final language, the lawmakers stayed in constant contact. Obama and Boehner spoke four times on April 8, and the president called Reid repeatedly, with a few calls just minutes apart.

Boehner called his conference together at noon and again at 9:45 p.m. to present an almost-final version of the deal, rattling off a list of items including health-care and abortion votes to Republican applause.

“He went through item by item and said, ‘This isn’t all, this isn’t all,’” said Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican.

Best He Could

Boehner told members he had gotten the best deal he could, given that Republicans control only the House, and that they had changed the debate to focus on cutting spending rather than approving new programs.

“We control one half of one third of the government,” Issa told reporters as he left the meeting. “We don’t mandate anything.”

Forty-five minutes later, aides shook hands on a final deal and Daley, Obama’s chief of staff, called the president in his residence to tell him a deal had been reached. At 11:04 p.m., Obama addressed the American people from the White House Blue Room, with the Washington Monument lit behind him.

“Tomorrow, I’m pleased to announce that the Washington Monument, as well as the entire federal government, will be open for business.”

--With assistance from Julianna Goldman in Washington. Editors: Mark McQuillan, Mark Silva

To contact the reporters on this story: Lisa Lerer in Washington at llerer@bloomberg.net;

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net


View the original article here