Australian Dollar Falls, Snaps Five-Day Gain on RBA Comments. The Australian dollar fell, snapping a five-day gain, as the central bank said Europe’s debt crisis would “inevitably weigh” on global growth prospects, fueling speculation it will hold rates unchanged in the months ahead.
Caterpillar(CAT) 'Concerned' About Australian Mining Tax. Caterpillar Inc., the world’s largest maker of construction equipment, said Australia’s proposed 40 percent tax on mining profits may hurt the company’s sales in the country. “Along with our dealers and customers in the region, we are concerned about the potential impact the proposed change in tax policy will have on the manufacturing of mining equipment and our sales in Australia,” Caterpillar spokeswoman Kate Kenny said in an e-mailed response to questions from Bloomberg News.
South Korea Seeks 'Appropriate' UN Action Against North Korea. South Korea called on the United Nations Security Council to take “appropriate action” against North Korea for torpedoing the Cheonan warship, hours after the government replaced its top military commander. The Security Council’s response should be “commensurate with the gravity of the provocation,” South Korea’s Ambassador Park In Kook said in New York yesterday as officials presented evidence of North Korean involvement in the sinking. “We are just victims,” Pak Tok Hun, North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the UN told reporters before meeting privately with the Security Council, reiterating the country wasn’t responsible for the incident.
Wall Street Journal:
Obama's Political Oil Fund. In its Gulf spill panic, the White House runs roughshod over the rule of law. The BP oil spill is already a calamity for the Gulf Coast ecosystem and economy, but now that Washington is looking to deflect all political blame it could also became a disaster for the rule of law. Exhibit C, or perhaps it's now D, is the new White House demand that BP pay into an escrow account controlled by government to pay for the economic costs of the spill. Exhibit A was the public announcement by Attorney General Eric Holder that his Department had opened a criminal probe of the spill, a fact usually kept under wraps to protect the innocent. Then came the President's suggestion that BP suspend its dividend, which is crucial to the retirement of thousands of shareholders. BP may decide it is prudent to suspend its dividend while it gets a better handle on its ultimate liability. But the White House has no legal basis to compel such a decision. Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress are preparing to lift their own $75 million liability cap and apply that retroactively to BP, another move of dubious legality. No wonder Britain's Prime Minister and other officials are alarmed about the fate of one of their country's foremost corporations. This is the kind of treatment that Americans would protest if it were applied to U.S. companies by Venezuela or Russia.
(BP) Builds 'Responders Village' for Cleanup Crews. BP PLC is erecting a small village to house workers laboring to clean up the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil-spill responders have just started moving in to the camp-like collection of trailers, tents and portable toilets about eight miles from Venice. It will house up to 1,500 of the workers battling the spill in this southeastern corner of Louisiana.
Labor Board Explores Electronic Voting. The National Labor Relations Board is exploring electronic-voting methods for unionization elections, which employer advocates fear could be used to circumvent the current secret-ballot process and favor unions.
Welfare Reform Reduced Drug Use. When the U.S. government overhauled welfare programs in the 1990s the primary goal was to promote work, but a new study suggests reform brought another unexpected benefit: reduced drug use.
RIM(RIMM) Tests A Tablet and New BlackBerry to Rival iPhone. Research In Motion Ltd. is readying a slate of new devices and software as it looks to keep its BlackBerry smartphone from losing more ground to touch-screen devices like Apple Inc.'s(AAPL) iPhone and iPad.
UAW Fund: $45 Billion for Investing. The United Auto Workers union is gathering in Detroit this week to elect a union president. But a new center of the labor power is emerging 45 miles to the west. Here, a newly independent fund born out of the remaking of the Detroit auto business three years ago is busy figuring out where to place its roughly $45 billion in assets. That doesn't include ownership stakes in two of the three U.S. auto makers.
FDA to Propose Tougher Rules for Outsourcing Drug Manufacturing. The Food and Drug Administration said Monday it will propose stronger regulations for pharmaceutical companies that outsource manufacturing, putting more responsibility on the companies to ensure the purity and safety of products made by contractors.
MarketWatch:
Australian Mining-Tax Changes Reportedly Imminent. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd may be set to announce changes to his government's controversial mining-tax scheme, though the move likely will fall short of what some large mining firms want, according to a report Tuesday.
NY Times:
Fed Approves Trading of Box-Office Futures. Federal regulators on Monday approved a plan by Media Derivatives Inc. to begin trading futures contracts based on box-office revenue, though the film industry has continued to lobby Congress to ban such film-related trading. After delays to consider objections from movie studios and others, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved a request to trade futures and option contracts tied to the opening weekend box office revenue of the movie “Takers,” a crime-thriller set for release in the United States on Aug. 20 by Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Screen Gems unit. The Motion Picture Association of America, which represents Sony and the other major studios, has vehemently opposed such contracts, arguing that they will be easily manipulated and may hurt the performance of films, as market players begin looking for ways to affect a movie’s opening.
61% Underfunded Illinois Teachers Pension Fund Goes For Broke, Becomes Next AIG-In-Waiting By Selling Billions in Credit Default Swaps. Illinois Teachers Retirement System(TRS) has now become a shadow AIG. As Harris notes "TRS is largely on the risky side of the contracts, selling and writing OTC derivatives, including credit default swaps, insurance-like contracts that guarantee payment in the event of a default, that were blamed in part for the 2008 collapse of Lehman Bros. and bailout of insurance giant American International Group Inc., or AIG."
Chicago Sun-Times:
Accept Grim Truth - Illinois is Broke. We're Americans, we don't do austerity. Oh, we like conservation -- we embrace the idea of limiting ourselves, voluntarily, of being lean and mean and not wasting quite so much of our bounty, if we so choose. But the idea of difficult economic conditions being imposed upon us, against our will, the notion of limits being reached and exceeded, confounds us. What, the cupboard's bare? Really? Nah, c'mon! Bare? We've had years to get used to it, to adjust to Illinois being $13 billion in debt, our credit rating slipping, our bills unpaid. We clutch at any excuse for optimism. These hard times are just a passing dip, a bad patch. Look -- unemployment in Illinois has fallen from 11.5 to 11.3 percent -- happy days are here again! In 2006 it hit 3.9 percent. How completely we don't get our current predicament is demonstrated whenever key programs are being cut. What do the people directly affected do? They protest, they demonstrate, they get angry, as if we're still flush and the problem is merely one of allocating our plenty. They seem convinced that if only people understood -- if only the czar knew! -- then funding would immediately be restored. Everything's important, everything's untouchable. We can't cut and we can't raise taxes and we can't earn more -- so what can we do? The idea that the money isn't there, that broke is the new normal, that a program's being vital and important isn't enough to save it anymore, has yet to sink in. Need isn't the deciding factor, money -- or, rather, lack of money -- is the deciding factor. Get used to it.
Rasmussen Reports:
Generic Congressional Ballot: Republicans 46%, Democrats 36%. Republican candidates now hold a 10-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, June 13. That ties the GOP's largest ever lead, first reached in April, since it first edged ahead of the Democrats a year ago.
Politico:
Derivatives Language Picks Up Steam.Derivatives language in the Wall Street reform bill — once widely expected to become a casualty of the formal conference process — picked up significant momentum Monday, securing the endorsement of two regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents. The Fed presidents in Dallas and Kansas City sent letters of support Monday to Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), the architect of the controversial derivatives language, on the eve of the conference committee re-opening its negotiations Tuesday. The two officials argued that the derivatives “swaps desks” should be spun off to other entities, because of the danger they pose to banks’ balance sheets, which are backed by what they called a federal government “safety net” that could put taxpayer funds at risk. “Such activities should be placed in a separate entity that does not have access to government backstops,” they wrote.
Reuters:
Spain Sees Credit Squeeze, Denies EU Rescue Bid. Spain admitted on Monday that the European financial crisis is taking a toll on the country's banks, with foreign banks refusing to lend to some, while Germany said the EU stands ready to help if Madrid needs a Greek-style rescue.
Financial Times:
China's Banking Watchdog Speaks Out. As Chinese banks flooded the economy with new loans last year in response to a government order to boost flagging growth, the lone voice of caution seemed to be emanating from the China Banking Regulatory Commission. Liu Mingkang, CBRC chairman, repeatedly warned of the risks of indiscriminate lending and the commission introduced a range of policies to stem the deluge and try to avoid lending to borrowers that would eventually default. In its annual report for 2009, due to be released on Tuesday, the CBRC provides a summary of its attempts to rein in the excess as well as a glimpse of the likely aftermath of last year’s credit binge. Total outstanding renminbi-denominated loans increased by Rmb9,590bn ($1,400bn), or nearly 32 per cent last year from a year earlier, which means nearly one quarter of all outstanding loans in China at the end of 2009 were extended in the previous 12 months. Thanks to the sheer volume of lending and the resulting lack of scrutiny on where the loans were going or how they would be repaid “the possibility of the rebound of credit risks or losses remains high”, according to the CBRC annual report. The regulator is most concerned with loans to the overheated real estate sector as well as the proliferation of credit to special purpose vehicles set up by local governments specifically to borrow from the state-controlled banks. The CBRC estimates outstanding loans to the 8,221 funding vehicles set up by local governments surged 70 per cent last year to Rmb7,380bn. These loans now account for about 20 per cent of all outstanding bank credit. In its report, the CBRC criticises some banks for “inadequate risk controls” and “lax loan review procedures” in their dealings with local governments. The regulator also warns of the risks involved in property lending in China. “As uncertainties in the real estate sector ratchet up, the risks associated with home mortgages are building and the risk of chain effect might appear in real estate development loans as well,” it says.
TimesOnline:
China Primes House Tax to Halt Runaway Prices. China is considering a wealth tax on homeowners as it grasps at new weapons to halt a frantic rise in property prices that many fear poses the biggest threat to the Chinese economy. The Mayor of Chongqing, the world’s biggest metropolis, wants to tax the properties of its richest homeowners in order to stop the spread inland of a coastal property bubble that is pushing up prices in hotspots such as Shenzhen by 20 per cent a year. Huang Qifan believes that a levy on the value of luxury homes, a huge investment in low-income housing and a cut in land sales to high-end developers are needed to ensure that China’s poor are not locked out of the housing market. He said: “We are considering a levy of 1 per cent. For those people who can afford to buy luxury, they will pay extra.” China’s State Council is examining the tax proposals from Chongqing and Shanghai. The latter is expected to be the guinea pig in the latest policy initiative from the Government, which is fearful that a real estate bust will halt the advance of the Chinese economic juggernaut. The Government’s dilemma is how to prick the property bubble without causing economic collapse or alienating the newly powerful Chinese middle-class of homeowners and investors. According to Jonathan Fenby, a director of Trusted Sources, an emerging markets consultancy, real estate is one of the few assets still trusted by the Chinese middle class. “The question is where people put their money. They have gone off equities and the banks offer negative real interest rates.”
Telegraph:
Oil Spill: BP(BP) Shares Fall as Obama Says Spill Like 9/11. The slide came after US news website Politico released the transcript of a damaging interview with President Obama, describing BP's spill in his harshest language yet. "In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11…I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come," he said. President Obama went on to say, ahead of a two-day tour of the three affected Gulf states, that it is important the US "draw[s] the right lessons from this disaster". The incendiary comments came as BP's board met to discuss how to address the growing storm of public opinion against the company.
Investors Are Betting on a Black Monday-Style Collapse, BoE Warns. Investors are placing bets on a Black Monday-style crash in the British stock market at the fastest rate since the collapse of Lehman Brothers bank in 2008, the Bank of England has warned. In a survey of markets, the Bank warned that widespread fear over the possible collapse of a sovereign debtor, including Greece and Portugal, had sparked a mass of bets on a 20 per cent fall in the FTSE 100. The warning coincides with calculations from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) showing that Britain has major exposure to the Irish and Spanish banking systems, which many fear could be at risk in the next round of the financial crisis.
The Australian:
Europe's Debt is 'A Repeat' of the Global Financial Crisis. THE powerful Bank for International Settlements has judged that the European sovereign debt crisis is shaping up as a repeat of the US subprime mortgage debt meltdown. The Swiss-based institution, which acts as the official banker to the world's central banks, said wild swings in markets over the past three months had been caused by a global loss of investor confidence. "The swift reversal in market confidence evokes painful memories of (the northern) autumn 2008, when the collapse of Lehman Brothers brought money and capital markets to a virtual standstill," the bank said in its quarterly review of world financial markets, released yesterday. "In both cases, market sentiment deteriorated rapidly . . . with problems in one region spreading globally through the network of interbank funding markets and counterparty credit exposures."
Evening Recommendations Citigroup:
Upgraded (FINL) to Buy, target $20.
RBC Capital:
Rated (SFSF) Outperform, target $27.
Night Trading
Asian indices are unch. to +.50% on average.
Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 138.0 -1.5 basis points.
The Import Price Index for May is estimated to fall -1.2% versus a +.9% gain in April.
The Empire Manufacturing Index for May is estimated to rise to 20.0 versus a reading of 19.11 in April.
9:00 am EST
Net Long-term TIC Flows for April is estimated to fall to $70.0B versus $140.5B in March.
10:00 am EST
The NAHB Housing Market Index for June is estimated to fall to 21 versus a reading of 22 in May.
Upcoming Splits
(LNCR) 3-for-2
Other Potential Market Movers
The Fed's Bullard speaking, weekly retail sales reports, ABC Consumer Confidence reading, BofA Merrill Lynch Transports Conference, William Blair Growth Stock Conference, Wells Fargo Industrial Conference, Goldman Sachs Healthcare Conference, (MGM) shareholders meeting, (SIG) investor day and the (SRX) analyst meeting could also impact trading today.
BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly higher, boosted by shipping and technology shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open modestly higher and to weaken into the afternoon, finishing mixed. The Portfolio is 75% net long heading into the day.
North American Investment Grade CDS Index 120.65 bps -4.36%
European Financial Sector CDS Index 153.64 bps -.85%
Western Europe Sovereign Debt CDS Index 138.50 bps +8.91%
Emerging Market CDS Index 274.83 bps -3.86%
2-Year Swap Spread 38.0 -1 bp
TED Spread 49.0 +2 bps
Economic Gauges:
3-Month T-Bill Yield .05% -2 bps
Yield Curve 253.0 +4 bps
China Import Iron Ore Spot $143.10/Metric Tonne unch.
Citi US Economic Surprise Index -13.60 +.6 point
10-Year TIPS Spread 2.0% +3 bps
Overseas Futures:
Nikkei Futures: Indicating +41 open in Japan
DAX Futures: Indicating -35 open in Germany
Portfolio:
Higher: On gains in my Technology, Retail and Biotech long positions
Disclosed Trades: Added (IWM)/(QQQQ) hedges and added to my (EEM) short
Market Exposure: Moved to 75% Net Long
BOTTOM LINE: Today's overall market action is mildly bullish as the S&P 500 trades slightly higher despite a mid-day swoon after the S&P 500 failed again at its 200-day moving average. On the positive side, Gaming, Construction, Hospital, Disk Drive, Oil Tanker, Coal and Alt Energy stocks are especially strong, rising 1.0%+. Cyclical and small-cap shares are outperforming again. Copper is rising another +2.82% today. Oil is just slightly higher today despite the rise in the euro, rise in global stocks, less economic fear out of Europe and supply concerns. On the negative side, Education, I-Banking, Gold and Oil Service shares are under mild pressure, falling .50%+. The TED spread continues to grind to new 52-week highs, which remains a big negative. As well, the yield on 3-Month Treasuries continues to slide back towards zero. The Greece sovereign cds is rising +3.8% to 792.61 bps today. Despite the recent rise in the euro and stocks, the European Investment Grade CDS Index is just -17 bps off its high of three days ago, which is also a red flag. Moreover, the Asia Ex-Japan High-Yield CDS Index has soared +27.9% to 591.66 bps over the last week. The S&P 500's 200-day moving average has provided tough resistance again. I will wait and see if the average can penetrate this level convincingly before getting more aggressive on the long side again. I expect US stocks to trade modestly lower into the close from current levels on technical selling, tax hike worries, energy sector pessimism, profit-taking, more shorting and rising sovereign debt angst.
Greece Cut Four Steps to Junk by Moody's on Economic 'Risks'. Greece’s credit rating was cut four steps to non-investment grade, or junk, by Moody’s Investors Service, which cited the country’s economic “risks.” “It’s a significant downgrade,” said Kevin Flanagan, a Purchase, New York-based fixed-income strategist for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. “It’s not a surprise to people, but the timing and magnitude is what has taken Treasuries off the lows and is providing some support.”
Bullard Says Europe Woes Shouldn't Delay Fed Increase. Europe’s debt crisis shouldn’t postpone an increase in the Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate, a regional Fed president said, differing from at least two of his colleagues. “Unless events in Europe turn out to be much worse, I think that in the near term, the U.S. is probably a beneficiary of the crisis in Europe” because of lower Treasury yields and cheaper commodities, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said at a press briefing in Tokyo today. “I don’t think it should push back” the date for the Fed to begin tightening, he said.
Senate's Lincoln Considers Compromise on Swaps Desk Provision. Senator Blanche Lincoln is considering compromise language to her derivatives proposal that would phase in over two years a requirement that commercial banks push out their swaps trading desks to subsidiaries. The proposal also would allow the Federal Reserve to provide system-wide emergency assistance to swaps dealers in exigent circumstances, according to a draft of the compromise obtained by Bloomberg News and confirmed by Lincoln’s office today.
Human Trafficking 'Serious' in U.S., Report Says. The trafficking of men, women and children for labor and commercial sex is a “serious” problem in the U.S., according to the State Department. The department’s 10th annual report grades 175 nations on their efforts to fight this modern form of slavery. The U.S. is listed for the first time, placed among those countries that are doing best to comply with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the American law against human trade. Still, the report said the U.S. is a source as well as a transit and destination country for people forced into labor, debt bondage and prostitution. The International Labor Organization estimated there were 12.3 million victims of forced labor, sex trafficking, debt bondage and recruitment of child soldiers worldwide in 2009.
BlueGold Fund Said to Decline Almost 11% in Year Through June 4. BlueGold Capital Management LLP, the energy hedge fund manager overseeing $1.8 billion in assets, fell 10.7 percent in the year through June 4, according to two investors in the fund. A 2.9 percent drop in the first week of June and a 12.5 percent decrease in May erased gains in the first four months of the year, the two people said, declining to be identified because the information isn’t public.
Wall Street Journal:
Labor Unrest in China Leads to Rethinking. Japanese managers at a Honda Motor Co. lock factory here have tried everything from government mediation to intimidation to end a strike, but can't bridge what one executive called a "communication gap" with restless young workers—a problem confronting many foreign companies that are rethinking their labor practices amid a wave of industrial unrest.
Credit Spreads Jump as Investors Seek Safety. Credit spreads on high-yield and investment-grade debt hit six-month highs last week as money fled to the safe haven of Treasury bonds -- just as it seemed investors were getting comfortable with riskier debt.
NY Post:
TV Screen Test. Families may soon get the chance to watch in-theater movies from the comfort of their living room couch -- for between $20 and $30 a flick. That day appears to be approaching as Hollywood warms up to the "home theater" concept of putting movies on video-on-demand cable platforms while they're still playing in the cinema. It's an effort to compensate for declining DVD sales and to thwart companies like Redbox, whose kiosks rent first-run flicks for $1 a night.
You're Losing Your Plan. ObamaCare's True Face Emerges. Late last week saw the first leaks of the administration's draft regulations for imple menting the ObamaCare law -- and everything is playing out just as the critics warned. The 3,000-odd pages of legislation left most of the really important (and controversial) policy decisions to the regulations that government agencies were told to issue once the bill passed. Now that those regs are starting to take shape, it's clear that the Obama team is using its new power to exert tight control over the payment and delivery of all formerly "private" health insurance. The ObamaCare law references the Secretary of Health and Human Services almost 2,200 times and uses the phrase "the secretary shall" more than 725. Each reference requires HHS to set new rules on medical care, giving control to an existing federal office or one of 160 new agencies that the bill created.
Baltic Dry Index Rolls Over. The Baltic Dry index, which is the closest proxy for China's bubbleliciousness, has dropped to one month lows, and continues accelerating its drop to the downside.
HGS(HGSI) Awaiting FDA Approval on Lupus Drug Benlysta. After years of developing what could be the first drug in decades to treat systemic lupus, Human Genome Sciences could receive Food and Drug Administration approval for Benlysta in a matter of months. The Rockville-based company submitted its application to the FDA last week, and executives and Wall Street analysts said they anticipate a smooth and speedy review. If that's the case, Benlysta could be given the green light as early as December. Benlysta is one of three drugs in late-stage development that HGS has submitted to the FDA. Its approval would be a boost for the region's biotech sector. HGS is well-positioned after following an FDA testing protocol.
Retirements by Baby-Boomer Doctors, Nurses Could Strain Overhaul. Since the passage of the health-care law in March, much has been said about the coming swarm of millions of retiring baby boomers and the strain they will put on the nation's health-care system. That's only half the problem. Overlooked in the conversation is a particular group of boomers: doctors and nurses who are itching to call it quits. Health-care economists and other experts say retirements in that group over the next 10 to 15 years will greatly weaken the health-care workforce and leave many Americans who are newly insured under the new legislation without much hope of finding a doctor or nurse. Nearly 40 percent of doctors are 55 or older, according to the Center for Workforce Studies of the Association of American Medical Colleges. Included in that group are doctors whose specialties will be the pillars of providing care in 2014, when the overhaul kicks in; family medicine and general practitioners (37 percent); general surgeons (42 percent); pediatrics (33 percent), and internal medicine and pediatrics (35 percent). About a third of the much larger nursing workforce is 50 or older, and about 55 percent expressed an intention to retire in the next 10 years, according to a Nursing Management Aging Workforce Survey by the Bernard Hodes Group. New registered nurses are flowing from colleges, but not enough to replace the number planning to leave the profession. "Moving into the future, we see a very large shortage of nurses, about 300,000," said Peter Buerhaus, a nurse and health-care economist and a professor at Vanderbilt University. "That number does not account for the demand created by reform. That's a knockout number. It knocks the system down. It stops it." In an article for the Journal of the American Medical Association, Buerhaus and colleagues Douglas Staiger and David Auerbach predicted that there will be at least 100,000 fewer doctors in the workplace than the 1.1 million the federal government projects will be needed in 2020 under the health-care overhaul. Reform will add demand on top of shortages already projected, and as a result the health-care workforce might not be attractive. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 75 percent of nurses said in a survey they think the shortage "presents a major problem for the quality of their work life, the quality of patient care, and the amount of time that nurses can spend with patients." In a survey by New York University's Christine Kovner, 13 percent of newly registered nurses changed principal jobs after a year, and 37 percent said they were ready to change jobs.
Anti-Addiction Drug Gets Boost. It took seven turns at detox centers and more than a few brushes with the law before Jennifer Ulich was able to kick her heroin habit.
Daily Presidential Tracking Poll. The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 24% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -18 (see trends).
58% Favor Repeal of the Health Care Bill. For the second week in a row, 58% of Likely U.S. Voters favor repeal of the national health care plan adopted into law by Congress in late March. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds 36% oppose repeal. These findings include 47% who Strongly Favor repeal and 28% who are Strongly Opposed.
Politico:
Gulf Fuels New Energy-Bill Push. President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies plan a major new push for a broad global warming bill, fueled in part by public outrage over the BP disaster, according to top aides. Joel Benenson, a pollster for the Democratic National Committee and Obama’s presidential campaign, argues in a new briefing for top Capitol Hill officials that a comprehensive energy bill “could give Democrats a potent weapon to wield against Republicans in the fall.” “The oil spill is intensifying the public’s desire for clean energy investments and increased regulation on corporate polluters,” Benenson writes in the briefing, which he prepared on behalf of the League of Conservation Voters. “In the aftermath of the spill, people firmly believe Congress needs to do more than just make BP pay. Even when pressed with opposition messaging that now is not the time for some ‘job killing energy tax,’ people coalesce around comprehensive clean energy reform. Consequently, support for a comprehensive energy bill is very high.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:
European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso are in favor of European financial aid to ease Spain's debt. Trichet and Barroso are concerned about the difficulties of Spanish banks.
