“SYTYCD” Pro Dancer Alex Da Silva Gets 10 Years For Rape
Alex Da Silva, a salsa dance instructor who worked on the television show “So You Think You Can Dance”, has been sentenced to 10 years [...]
“SYTYCD” Pro Dancer Alex Da Silva Gets 10 Years For Rape Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? Park police used a Taser to subdue an anti-Wall Street protester during an arrest at a park near the White House on Sunday as tension rose ahead of a police order for the demonstrators to stop camping in the parks overnight.
"He was arrested for disorderly conduct. In the course of the arrest he was tased," Park police spokesman David Schlosser said, adding that he had no additional information on the man who was taken into custody.
The National Park Service has said it will begin enforcing a ban on Occupy protesters from camping in McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza, two parks just blocks from the White House where they have been living since October.
That order, if carried out as promised starting at noon on Monday, could be a blow to one of the highest-profile chapters of the movement, which denounces economic inequality.
Earlier on Sunday, Park Police posted notices on tents indicating their intent to start enforcing a ban on sleeping in the park overnight, the Washington protest group said.
A spokeswoman for the movement said police singled out, detained and tased a man who goes by the name "Lash" after protesters began removing the notices from tents. The group posted video of the incident on its website.
Sara Shaw, 24, said the group would "maintain a presence in the park," but she did not indicate whether Occupy members intended to defy the camping restrictions.
The so-called "Occupy" protests against economic inequality began last year in New York and have spread across the country. More than 400 people were arrested on Saturday night in Oakland, California during clashes with police. But protests have been peaceful in most cities, including Washington.
(Reporting By JoAnne Allen; Editing by Tim Gaynor and Greg McCune)
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? Anti-Wall Street protesters in the nation's capital face their first challenge from police on Monday as authorities seek to end overnight camping at two parks within sight of the White House.
The U.S. National Park Service said last week it would enforce a ban at noon against sleeping in McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza, where "Occupy" protesters have been staked out since October.
It ordered sleeping bags, pillows and other gear removed but said tents may remain as a protest symbol if flaps stayed open.
Fears of clashes mounted after police used a stun gun Sunday on one protester, who was later arrested. The deadline in Washington follows a new burst of unrest at "Occupy" protests in Oakland, California, over the weekend.
On Monday, about 10 police officers did a walk-through in both parks before the deadline. Some protesters had already complied with the order to move their sleeping gear, but it remained unclear whether all would do so by the noon deadline.
"Some said they would resist. Some said they won't take their stuff out of the tents, and some will," protester Feriha Kaya, 23, said in Freedom Plaza. "It will not stop anything."
At McPherson Square, participants were turning their tents and sleeping bags into symbols of protest using donated art supplies. One tent read, "We're still here." A sign on a bench read "Eviction?? Bring it!!"
In "Occupy" demonstrations that began in New York City in September and spread across the United States, protesters have targeted the growing income gap, corporate greed and what they see as unfair tax structure favoring the richest 1 percent of Americans. Protesters in Washington also cite the city's thousands of homeless people, some of whom sleep in the park.
The U.S. capital, site of historic demonstrations over the decades, had so far done little to deter the protesters, drawing a rebuke from congressional Republicans who accuse the Obama administration of sympathizing with the groups and refusing to enforce park rules - a charge denied by park officials.
The National Park Service regulates both parks and forbids camping on federal land not designated as a campground.
The protests have also has irked some city officials who are concerned about rats, trash and health issues.
Fitzgerald Scott, 40, who was putting up a tent in Freedom Plaza despite the order, said Friday's order came as a shock. "It flustered people, it got them scared," he said.
CALLS FOR REINFORCEMENTS
Protesters in McPherson Square said they were expecting reinforcements from New York, Boston, Philadelphia and other cities to show solidarity. The number of protesters in the Occupy DC camps fluctuate, but city officials estimate there are less than 100 in total.
Obama has seized on the debate to call for higher taxes on the richest Americans and has made economic inequality a central theme of his administration and bid for re-election.
The Occupy protests had faded over the last few weeks but flared anew on Saturday when violence broke out in Oakland, California and 400 demonstrators were arrested during a night of skirmishes with police. Oakland has become a flashpoint of the protests and the arrests there were one of the largest mass detentions since the movement began.
"It's injected solidarity and new energy. It's also injected a little bit of unease because we're not sure what the Park Police are going to do and I don't know if they're sure of what we're going to do," said protester Rusty Shackleford, 25.
"Nobody knows who's going to make the first move."
(Writing by Susan Heavey and Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Ross Colvin)
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CAIRO (Reuters) ? Polls opened on Sunday in an election for Egypt's upper house of parliament, with Islamists seeking to repeat the success they enjoyed in elections for the lower house.
The parliamentary votes, which began in late November, are the first since a popular uprising toppled President Hosni Mubarak last February.
The Muslim Brotherhood, which was banned during his rule, won 47 percent of lower house seats, far more than any other party, and a low turnout on Sunday was blamed by some voters on the feeling that the upper house vote now mattered little.
After the lower house election that saw an unprecedented turnout and was hailed as Egypt's most democratic since military officers overthrew the king in 1952, some Egyptians knew nothing of the upper house vote.
"I came to vote today because it is my right and I will be held accountable to God," said Nour Essam, a 28-year-old university teacher. "But I am sad to see that no one was there at my polling station."
"It is wrong - your vote will matter," said a young woman. "I will go now and urge all my family members to come and vote."
The powers of the upper house are limited and it cannot block legislation in the lower house. However, its members must be consulted before lower house MPs pass any bill.
Under an interim constitution, both houses are responsible for picking a 100-strong assembly that will write a new constitution to replace the one that helped keep Mubarak in power for three decades.
"The Shura council (upper house) elections are as important as the People's Assembly (lower house) elections," said Hussein Ibrahim, a member of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and head of its parliamentary bloc.
Voting for the upper house will be held over two stages ending in the middle of February.
Ninety of the 270 seats will be decided in the first round of voting on Sunday and Monday, with run-offs on February 7. Another 90 will be determined by voting on February 14 and 15, with run-offs on February 22.
The remaining 90 will be appointed by Egypt's next president, expected to be elected in June according a transition timetable drawn up by the military council to whom Mubarak handed power nearly a year ago.
"The elected part of the Shura council will convene without the appointed seats until presidential elections are held and the new president appoints the other 90 members," an official from the body overseeing the election told Reuters.
(Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)
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The company that owns the Costa Concordia is offering $14,000 to cover the cost of cruise tickets and travel expenses but many passengers have declined the deal. NBC?s Brian Williams reports.
>>> the company that owns the costa concordia is looking to cut a deal with passengers who were forced to abandon ship before it capsized off the coast of italy, looking to lessen the wave of class action lawsuits that are likely headed its way, the company is offering passengers a $14,000 settlement rye now, in addition to a refund plus travel expenses . as you can imagine, a lot of passengers decided to take a pass on accepting the deal.
The Top 20 Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows in North America. The previous week's ranking is in parentheses. The list is based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers.
TOP 20 CONCERT TOURS
1. (2) Cirque du Soleil ? "Michael Jackson: The Immortal"; $2,168,255; $110.16.
2. (1) Kanye West / Jay-Z; $2,015,303; $118.98.
3. (3) Taylor Swift; $1,184,267; $69.27.
4. (5) Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band; $702,897; $70.41.
5. (6) Trans-Siberian Orchestra; $571,979; $51.82.
6. (7) Zac Brown Band; $514,314; $44.12.
7. (8) Sting; $475,037; $92.43.
8. (10) Guns N' Roses; $415,202; $52.44.
9. (13) Jeff Dunham; $316,251; $47.63.
10. (14) Paul Simon; $255,730; $77.51.
11. (12) Andre Rieu; $247,074; $81.84.
12. (15) Lady Antebellum; $244,691; $45.25.
13. (16) Judas Priest; $204,372; $53.47.
14. (17) "So You Think You Can Dance"; $201,206; $53.96.
15. (18) John Mellencamp; $169,771; $90.14.
16. (New) Avenged Sevenfold; $160,113; $39.09.
17. (New) The String Cheese Incident; $147,062; $39.19.
18. (19) "Scream Tour" / Mindless Behavior / Diggy Simmons; $133,881; $41.41.
19. (20) Mannheim Steamroller; $125,841; $56.44.
20. (New) Celtic Thunder; $118,704; $55.73.
For free upcoming tour information, go to http://www.pollstar.com
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Sufi brotherhoods provide key support for Senegalese presidential candidates, but fragmentation within the groups could spill over into politics, writes guest blogger Alex Thurston.
? A version of this post ran on the author's blog,?Sahel Blog.?The views expressed are the author's own.
Skip to next paragraphSenegal's presidential elections are scheduled for Feb. 26, and politicians are courting the leaders of the country's large Sufi brotherhoods, also called "marabouts." They are one of four main Muslim communities who have contributed to shaping Senegal's democracy, reports Reuters.? President Abdoulaye Wade says he has never hidden that he is a Mouride, a 129-year-old order of Islam which counts millions of devotees within the West African country.
Wade?s affiliation with the Mouridiyya is definitely salient for many Mourides, including youth. When I was in Senegal in 2006-2007 I heard several young Mourides repeat with pride a prophecy that Senegal?s first president would be Christian (this was Leopold Senghor), the second Muslim but not Mouride (this was Abdou Diouf), the third Muslim and Mouride (they saw Wade as the fulfillment of this part of the prophecy), and all of the rest Mouride.
This feeling was not, however, universal. Even before the 2007 elections, many young Mourides were already dissatisfied with Wade?s performance, particularly with regard to the economy, and a shared religious affiliation did not seem to dilute their opposition to the president.
Another wrinkle in the relationship between Wade and the Mouridiyya is the growing complexity of the marabout ?field? in Senegal. The key lines for me in the Reuters article were these:
A heavily-set figure in a pristine white robe and with an earpiece connected to his Apple iPhone, Cheikh Abdoul Ahad Mbacke Gainde Fatma has seen more Dakar politicians in the last 24 hours than most Senegalese will see in a lifetime.
Ahad Mbacke is the great-grandson of revered Mouride founder Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba Mbacke and heads the organizing committee for the ?Grand Magal,? the annual Mouride festival which draws millions to Touba for a week of praying, eating and revelry.
Why did I bold ?great-grandson?? Let?s do a little math. Sheikh Amadou Bamba died in 1927. The Sheikh had a number of sons. In Senegalese Sufi brotherhoods the system of hereditary succession works laterally ? ie, leadership typically passes from one brother to another inside the same generation before passing to the next generation. In polygamous families, the number of descendants can multiply rapidly, to the point where there can be dozens of potential male heirs. As political scientist Dr. Leonardo Villalon wrote in 1995 with regard to Senegal (see his book Islamic Society and State Power in Senegal, p. 137),
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WASHINGTON ? Does House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi know some dark secrets about GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich? Twice, she offered tantalizing hints that she does. And then said she doesn't. Gingrich said Wednesday that the House Democratic leader should come out with it or shut up.
The latest back-and-forth in the contest of two former House speakers came in a CNN interview Tuesday night, when host John King suggested to Pelosi that she "could come back here next January or next February with a President Gingrich?"
"Let me just say this. That will never happen," Pelosi said.
When King asked, "Why are you so sure?" Pelosi responded: "There's something I know. The Republicans, if they choose to nominate him, that's their prerogative. I don't even think that's going to happen."
On Wednesday, Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said: "The `something' leader Pelosi knows is that Newt Gingrich will not be president of the United States. She made that clear last night."
Hammill's statement, however, acknowledged that this wasn't the first time that Pelosi hinted that she knows something about Gingrich that she hasn't revealed.
In December, Pelosi reminded an interviewer that she served on the ethics panel that investigated Gingrich's use of tax-exempt organizations. That case ended with a reprimand by the House and a $300,000 penalty against the then-speaker for misleading the committee and prolonging its investigation.
Pelosi said last month: "One of these days we'll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich. I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff."
Hammill repeated the explanation provided after those comments.
"Leader Pelosi previously made a reference to the extensive amount of information that is in the public record, including the comprehensive committee report with which the public may not be fully aware," the spokesman said.
Gingrich said Wednesday that Pelosi should come out with her information or stop talking.
"Look, I think if she knows something she ought to say it. If she doesn't know something she ought to quit saying it. But this is baloney. I don't think any Republican is going to be threatened by Nancy Pelosi. Frankly, I'd rather have her threaten me than endorse me. So I feel pretty good about it. If she has something, bring it out," he said.
Mitt Romney, Gingrich's chief rival for the GOP presidential nomination, has asked that all records from Gingrich's ethics investigation be released. In January 1997, when the case ended, the committee did make public its final report as well as exhibits ? which amounted to a comprehensive account of the committee's findings.
The chairman of the ethics committee during the Gingrich investigation, former Republican Rep. Nancy Johnson, said the committee traditionally does not publicly release investigative documents.
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To inquire into something is to open to it, to meet it, and to discover its meaning -- or lack of meaning -- from the inside of it.
Inquiry is generally recognized to mean investigating, and that definition serves the purpose well. However, in the sense in which I use Inquiry, it is not information that is provided by this investigation, but direct experience. To directly experience anything we first have to leave behind all preconceptions of that thing.
No matter how often we are told about a thing it is only when we experience that thing directly that we truly know it. We know the meaning of heat and pain and fire from the direct experience of coming into contact with fire. We can be taught that it is good to love and holy to show compassion, but those concepts will never have true meaning until they are real -- our direct experience. We know a true kiss or surrender to an embrace when we directly experience them. We may practice or imitate kissing and embracing for some time, just as we may practice or imitate love and compassion before we have the direct experience.
In imitation or mimicry we remember what we should do or feel, and then we think ourselves through the act. "Now I press my lips, now I put my arms around..." In directly experiencing there is no thought. While thought processing is extremely important, in many acts of a day -- giving or following directions, remembering the time of a meeting, checking a grocery list, studying complicated issues as well as the thousands of other sophisticated ways we think -- consciously surrendering to any act or any moment requires the suspension of all thought.
We surrender thought spontaneously in moments of awe or shock. Usually our most prized memories are the moments where we are directly in an experience. Moments of extreme focus and moments of complete open-mindedness are both without thought. In truth, thoughts stop many times within a day, but since our conditioned reference points are located in our thoughts, we generally overlook these moments of pure spaciousness of mind. We "think" ourselves from thought to thought.
To consciously choose to be without thought is the gateway to direct experience. If we are bound to our thinking process for our reference points of reality, we will ask only those questions guaranteed to keep attention on analysis, cause and effect and conceptual evaluation. While recognizing the value and power of thinking we can also recognize the power of actually choosing thought-free, direct experience.
People often fear being without thought as if it were the corollary to ignorance. Understandably, ignorance is feared. There is never a need to deny the harm that ignorance can cause, and use of the term thoughtless usually refers to some action taken without thoughtful consideration. What is overlooked in this corollary is the harm caused by being bound to thoughts. When we are bound to thoughts, our minds are already possessed by what we have been taught, by our latest conclusions, by beliefs of all kinds and by our fear of having no thoughts.
The invitation to inquire into what is present requires that we have no preconception of what that is. Since we have spent most of our lives being taught to accumulate concepts categorizing what we perceive, this invitation is also a challenge. We are ready for this challenge when we recognize that conceptual thinking is limited. We are ready when we want more, and when we realize we aren't finding more in what we already know. This readiness, coupled with the willingness to explore, allows us to face the fear that naturally arises when we no longer rely on knowledge.
If we don't rely on the knowledge we have for our experience of the world and ourselves, what is left? When we don't rely on our naming and defining particular emotions or particular states of mind, what is here?
For more by Gangaji, click here.
For more on consciousness, click here.
This blog is adapted from Hidden Treasure: Uncovering the Truth in Your Life Story, which was published by Penguin Tarcher in 2011. In this life-changing book, Gangaji uses the telling of her own life story to help readers uncover the truth in their own. Publisher's Weekly said, "This gently flowing but often disarming volume invites readers to examine the narratives that shape them, and is a call to pass beyond personal stories to find a deeper, more universal self." In February and March Gangaji will be offereing Retreats in Maui, HI. Visit www.gangaji.org for more information about Gangaji and her upcoming events, including the monthly Webcast / Conference Series, With Gangaji, which is currently undergoing an in-depth study of Hidden Treasure.
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Follow Gangaji on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Gangaji
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gangaji/thinking_b_1223829.html
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WASHINGTON/OTTAWA (Reuters) ? Canada and the United States extended a bilateral softwood lumber deal by two years to 2015 on Monday, underlining the two nations' close trade ties despite recent disagreements over an oil pipeline.
"This extension agreement will bring much-needed stability and predictability to the lumber industry," Canadian Trade Minister Ed Fast told reporters after a meeting in Washington with U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.
Washington and Ottawa signed the initial seven-year deal in 2006 in a bid to end prolonged legal fights. Producers in the United States have complained for decades that Canada unfairly subsidizes its lumber companies.
In recent years, the U.S. housing downturn and the lingering effects of the global financial crisis have created hard times for North American lumber producers.
Kirk, in a separate statement, said continuing the pact was important, "particularly when both sides of the border are facing weak demand."
The extension was signed less than a week after President Barack Obama's administration irritated Canada by vetoing a proposed pipeline that would have carried crude from Alberta's oil sands to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Fast declined to tell reporters whether he discussed the issue with Kirk but said he was optimistic the deal would eventually be approved.
At the same time, it is important Canada "diversify its markets" for both its oil and lumber, Fast said.
Canadian lumber producers are already enjoying increased sales to China, thanks in part to the efforts of the Canadian government, he said.
The original softwood lumber agreement, which was set to expire in October 2013, provided for a two-year extension.
Both sides will consult with industry on whether to pursue a longer renewal when the time comes, Fast said.
It is also possible that lumber issues could be addressed in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership talks, which Canada, Mexico and Japan have requested to join with the United States and eight other nations, he added.
The United States and Canada are the world's biggest goods trading partners. According to official U.S. data, two-way trade in 2010 totaled $525 billion.
Despite the new agreement, there are still tensions on the lumber file. Last year, Ottawa agreed to level small export charges on softwood shipped from Ontario and Quebec after an arbitrator ruled the two provinces had breached the deal.
Also in 2011, the United States accused Canada of violating the agreement by underpricing wood from trees killed in a massive insect infestation in British Columbia. That issue is expected to go to arbitration soon, and Fast expressed confidence that Canada would prevail.
(Reporting by Doug Palmer and David Ljunggren; Editing by Peter Galloway and Will Dunham)
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ISLAMABAD ? Anxious to accelerate peace moves, top-level U.S. officials have held talks with a representative of an insurgent movement led by a former Afghan prime minister who has been branded a terrorist by Washington, a relative of the rebel leader says.
Dr. Ghairat Baheer, a representative and son-in-law of longtime Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (Gul-bu-DEEN HEK-mah-tyar), told The Associated Press this week that he had met separately with David Petraeus, former commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan who is now CIA director, and had face-to-face discussions earlier this month with U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, currently the top commander in the country.
Baheer, who was released in 2008 after six years in U.S. detention at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan, described his talks with U.S. officials as nascent and exploratory. Yet, Baheer says the discussions show that the U.S. knows that in addition to getting the blessing of Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar ? a bitter rival of Hekmatyar even though both are fighting international troops ? any peace deal would have to be supported by Hekmatyar, who has thousands of fighters and followers primarily in the north and east.
Hizb-i-Islami, which means Islamic party, has had ties to al-Qaida but in 2010 floated a 15-point peace plan during informal meetings with the Afghan government in Kabul. At the time, however, U.S. officials refused to see the party's delegation.
"Hizb-i-Islami is a reality that no one can ignore," Baheer said during an interview last week at his spacious home in a posh suburb of Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. "For a while, the United States and the Kabul government tried not to give so much importance to Hizb-i-Islami, but now they have come to the conclusion that they cannot make it without Hizb-i-Islami."
In Washington, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden would not confirm that such meetings took place but said the U.S. was maintaining "a range of contacts in support of an Afghan-led reconciliation process."
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the high-level meetings, said Petraeus last met with Baheer in July 2011 when he was still commanding NATO forces in Afghanistan. Petraeus took over as CIA director in September.
On Saturday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he also had met recently with Hizb-i-Islami representatives. Baheer said he attended those meetings but added that the party considers the Afghan government corrupt and lacking legitimacy.
Karzai's announcement appeared intended to bolster his position as the key player in the search for peace. The U.S. repeatedly has said that formal negotiations must be Afghan-led, but Karzai has complained that his government has not been directly involved in recent preliminary talks with Taliban representatives and plans for setting up a Taliban political office in the Gulf state of Qatar.
Baheer said his meeting with Petraeus, whom he described as a "very humble, polite person," was marked by a few rounds of verbal sparring with each boasting a battlefield strength that the other dismissed as exaggerated.
"There was a psychological war in these first meetings," he said.
Baheer said Crocker and Allen tried to persuade Hizb-i-Islami to become part of Afghanistan's political network, accept the Afghan security forces and embrace the nation's current constitution. He said Hizb-i-Islami was ready to accept the security forces and the constitution, but wants a multiparty commission established to review and revise the charter.
"We are willing to make compromises," said Baheer. "We already have said we will accept the Afghan army and the police."
He said Hizb-i-Islami envisioned a multiparty government in postwar Afghanistan. At the same time, the group wants all U.S. and NATO forces, including military trainers, to leave Afghanistan, he said.
"The presence of any foreign forces will be not acceptable to us under any cover," he said. "Daily, there is another American killing of civilians. The longer they stay, the more they are hated by the Afghan people."
Overtures to Hekmatyar's group show not only the degree of U.S. interest in pursuing a settlement but also the complexity of putting together an agreement acceptable to all sides in factious Afghanistan. The U.S. formally declared Hekmatyar a "global terrorist" in 2003 because of alleged links to al-Qaida and froze all assets which he may have in the United States.
Hekmatyar, who is in his mid-60s, was among the major recipients of U.S. aid during the Afghan war against the Soviets in the 1980s. He and other anti-Soviet commanders swept into Kabul in 1992 and ousted the pro-Soviet government, only to turn against one another in a bitter and bloody power struggle that destroyed vast sections of the Afghan capital and killed an estimated 50,000 civilians before the Taliban seized the city.
A bitter rival of Mullah Omar, Hekmatyar fled to Iran and remained there until the Taliban were ousted in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. He declared war on foreign troops in his country and rebuilt his military forces, which by 2008 had become a major threat to the U.S.-led coalition.
Contacts with Hekmatyar's group as well as parallel efforts to negotiate with the Taliban have taken on new urgency following the NATO decision to withdraw foreign combat forces, transfer security responsibility to the Afghans by the end of 2014 and bring an end to the unpopular war, which is increasingly seen as a drain on the financially strapped Western countries that provide most of the troops.
On Sunday, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, completed two days of meetings about the peace process with Karzai and other Afghan officials. Grossman, who was to travel to Qatar on Monday, urged the Taliban to issue a "clear statement" against international terrorism and affirm their commitment to the peace process "to end the armed conflict in Afghanistan."
U.S. officials also have reached out to the Pakistan-based Haqqani militant network to test its interest in peace talks. Haqqani fighters, the second largest insurgent group after the Taliban, have been blamed for most of the high-profile attacks in the heart of the Afghan capital.
___
Kathy Gannon is AP special regional correspondent covering Pakistan and Afghanistan. She can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/kathygannon
___
Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann in Kabul and Kimberly Dozier and Anne Gearan in Washington contributed to this report.
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Mitt Romney is rich. Can American voters get beyond that fact? The Romney campaign is not doing the candidate any favors by trying to portray him as an ordinary American, says DCDecoder.
Remember Kim Jong Il Looking at Things? It?s about that awkward looking at Mitt Romney gnoshing on a Subway sandwich, filling up his staffer?s car with gas or dumping Tide into a coin-operated laundry.
Skip to next paragraphLet?s get something out of the way.
Mitt Romney is rich.
But not just ?rich.? He?s not like the dad next door when you were a kid, the guy who owned the hardware store, made it to upper middle management at IBM or made partner at the law firm.
That guy drove a car that was a model and few years better than your parents. That family took vacations to another house they also happened to own and you were jealous that their kids always had cooler clothes.
We now know that Mitt Romney had $21.6 million in income in 2010. He gave $3 million to church and charities.
Mitt Romney is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of quarter of a billion dollars. Do you know what your worth is as a fraction of a billion? No, and neither does Decoder.?
It?s just different. And people get that, Decoder thinks.
Very few people in America really begrudge their fellow citizens for being rich. Sure, there are cranks who assume all the wealthy stole their way to the top but the vast majority of Americans don?t see wealth in-and-of-itself as a bad thing.
Unfortunately, Mitt Romney/his campaign think Mitt needs to make sure he relates to ?ordinary Americans? (our words, not his.) And that?s why you get these cheesy, manufactured, down-homie clips of him banging around the laundromat.
As POLITICO wrote Monday morning, one of Romney?s chief problems is simply that he
?tries too hard. That was the issue in New Hampshire when the wealthy former CEO recalled the dread he once had of facing the prospect of a pink slip. And it was the same a week ago in South Carolina when he took the stage at a tented evangelical conference and noted that he was wearing jeans for what he said felt like a revival meeting (the connection between fundamentalist Christianity and denim somewhat less than self-evident).
?Romney the candidate seems to be constantly tugged between competing impulses. At a time of economic distress, the privileged son of a CEO-turned-governor is ever conscious of the need to appear in touch with the sort of financial strain he?s never known. That?s why his speeches center around his determination to improve the quality of life for the middle class, he dresses more casually and ostentatiously posts pictures eating fast food and flying budget airlines.And it?s why he?s so pained in discussing his fortune.?
If a candidate wants to convince middle America he/she is looking out for their interests, how about concrete policy proposals that help the middle class?
The difference between phony and revealing - this guy isn?t so stiff after all! - is whether a) people see your policies in line with your posturing and b) you are, actually, in touch with typical Americans.
If Mitt Romney wants to convince voters he feels their pain, he needs to actually feel their pain. This is what the media is there for - if Romney actually connects with voters, reporters will see it. And they?ll write it.
If Mitt Romney wants to get his Joe Sixpack on, it will ring much truer after a speech about helping the middle class.?
And let?s just say the road to either place isn?t paved with Subway flatbreads.
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Bob Dylan is one of the most popular, respected, legitimate musicians in history.
Miley Cyrus, is, well... not.
But the 19-year old doesn't embarrass herself in the following new video, which features her covering Dylan's classic 1975 single “You’re Going to Make Me Lonesome When You Go.”
The track is off "Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International," an album whose proceeds go toward that helpful organization. Make a purchase, donate today and take a listen to Miley's version of this song below:
Miley Cyrus - "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go"
Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/miley-cyrus-covers-bob-dylan-what-do-you-think/
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I am sure that there are some deep life lessons in this phenomenon but I am not a philosopher. I do see some investing and valuation lessons in snowmen and shovels. After all, you can divide the world of active investors into two broad camps: growth investors and value investors. Consider the extremes in each camp. Extreme growth investors (you know the ones.. they go for momentum, love IPOs and are dazzled by high growth) remind me of the happy children, looking at snow and seeing snowmen, whereas extreme value investors (and you also know these ones.. they love net net investing and read Ben Graham's Security Analysis for inspiration) ?more closely resemble the snow-shoveling parents. Each group views the other with disdain. Extreme value investors consider growth investors to be dilettantes, unserious and unwilling to grow up, who see the world through rose-colored lens. Extreme growth investors view value investors as boring, stuck-in-the-mud pessimists, who see only the dark side of things.
So, which side is right? I think both sides are right and both are wrong. While each side sees a portion of reality, each side is also missing a piece of the real world. While the value investing group is right in its view that most growth companies will not make it through the challenges of the real world, the growth investing group is also right in its view that some of these growth companies will be the big winners of the future. By staying dogmatic, both groups open themselves to significant investing/valuation mistakes.?A growth investor who closes his eyes to the very real likelihood that a growth company will not survive will over value that company. By the same token, a value investor who insists on incorporating only the worst case scenarios, estimates cash flows ?conservatively? and then applies a huge ?margin of safety? before investing will never find growth companies to be bargains.
The key to investing, as in so much in life, is to maintain balance, recognizing that dreams sometimes come true, while keeping your feet grounded in reality.?Put in valuation terms, the key to valuing a company well is to estimate what will happen (to earnings and cash flows) not only in good scenarios (let?s call these the snowman scenarios) but also in bad ones (the shovel scenarios). ?It is a challenge I face whenever I do valuation. As I value a company, I have to constantly stop and look at the assumptions I am making and whether I am tilting too much to one side (snowman or shovel). If I find myself tipping too much into the ?snowman? camp, I have to bring in some of my ?shovel? side to play to get back to synch. If, on the other hand, I am letting my pessimistic shovel side dominate, I have to consciously force my fun snowman side come into play.?
So, here is how I am going to start today?s path back to balance. I shoveled this morning, just before I came in and wrote this post. My kids are too ?old? to enjoy building snowmen, but I am not. I am going to go out and build a snowman, make a snow angel and perhaps throw some snowballs. Why should those kids have all the fun?
Source: http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2012/01/snowmen-and-shovels-investing-lessons.html
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In a Feb. 13, 2009, file photo, JP Morgan Chase and Co. President and Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon listens in the East Room of the White House in Washington. JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank, posted record profit for 2011. Morgan Stanley's latest quarter topped expectations as the bank trimmed costs and cleaned up mortgage-related problems. But CEOs Dimon and James Gorman aren't taking home bigger bonuses. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
In a Feb. 13, 2009, file photo, JP Morgan Chase and Co. President and Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon listens in the East Room of the White House in Washington. JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank, posted record profit for 2011. Morgan Stanley's latest quarter topped expectations as the bank trimmed costs and cleaned up mortgage-related problems. But CEOs Dimon and James Gorman aren't taking home bigger bonuses. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
In this Nov. 8, 2010, file photo, James P. Gorman, president and CEO of Morgan Stanley, smiles as he attends at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association "Invested in America" annual meeting, in New York. JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank, posted record profit for 2011. Morgan Stanley's latest quarter topped expectations as the bank trimmed costs and cleaned up mortgage-related problems. But CEOs Jamie Dimon, of JPMorgan Chase, and Gorman aren't taking home bigger bonuses. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
NEW YORK (AP) ? JPMorgan Chase, the nation's largest bank, posted a record profit for 2011. That didn't translate into a bigger bonus for CEO Jamie Dimon. Morgan Stanley's latest quarterly results topped expectations as the bank trimmed costs and cleaned up problems dating from the financial crisis. But CEO James Gorman saw the value of his stock awards for the year fall by half.
Across their ranks, Wall Street banks are curbing bonus pay for last year's performance, which was marked by big drops in stock prices and still-hefty costs for mortgage-related problems. In the last three months of the year, fear about the European debt crisis made the stock and bond markets volatile, and clients of all the major banks shied away from mergers and acquisitions and public offerings of stock. That sharply reduced investment banking and underwriting fees. The banks also faced a surge in populist anger, as the Occupy Wall Street movement went national.
Financial stocks were some of the worst performing in 2011. While the S&P 500 Index finished the year flat, Morgan Stanley shares plunged 44 percent, JPMorgan dropped nearly 22 percent and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. tanked 46 percent.
Compensation followed the downward trend. In a closely watched and politically charged gauge, JPMorgan Chase & Co. revealed earlier this month that it set aside 36 percent less than the year before to pay its investment bankers. Morgan Stanley shed 700 workers last year and capped the amount that workers can get in their bonuses immediately, deferring anything over $125,000. Rival Goldman eliminated 7 percent of its employees and cut 2011 pay by 21 percent.
And it appears the banks' CEOs are not immune. On Friday, Morgan Stanley's regulatory filing showed that the value of Gorman's stock award for the year dropped to $5.1 million from $10.2 million in 2010.
Gorman, who became CEO two years ago, has been slimming down the bank, selling off units like a mortgage servicing division and an asset management business. He's been emphasizing divisions like wealth management, which provide smaller returns than some investment banking operations but also carry a lot less risk because they're based on fees rather than markets. Unlike JPMorgan and some other big banks, Morgan Stanley doesn't have a large consumer deposit base to rely on when its investment bank stumbles.
JPMorgan's Dimon received restricted stock worth $12.6 million and stock appreciation rights reportedly valued at roughly $5 million for 2011, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday. That compares with about $17.1 million in stock and SARs that he was granted for 2010.
For the full year, JPMorgan posted a record profit of $19 billion, up from $17.4 billion in 2010. But the bank struggled amid the choppy financial markets, which hurt investment banking fees in the fourth quarter. The bank also disclosed that it spent $3.2 billion last year to fight lawsuits, almost all of them over poorly written mortgages. That's down from $5.7 billion in 2010, but Dimon acknowledged there's still a "huge drag" on earnings five years after the bubble burst.
Complete compensation details, including the value of the executives' 2011 cash compensation, perks and benefits weren't disclosed. None of the banks have filed annual proxy statements, which include those financial details.
Dimon received a total pay package for 2010 valued at $20.8 million, including a salary of $1 million and a cash bonus of $5 million. Gorman received compensation valued at $15.2 million, including a salary of $800,000 and a cash bonus of $3.9 million.
The Associated Press formula calculates an executive's total compensation during the last fiscal year by adding salary, bonuses, perks, above-market interest the company pays on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock and stock options awarded during the year. The AP formula does not count changes in the present value of pension benefits. That makes the AP total slightly different in most cases from the total reported by companies to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The value that a company assigned to an executive's stock and option awards for 2010 was the present value that the company expected the awards to be worth to the executive over time. Companies use one of several formulas to calculate that value. However, the number is just an estimate, and what an executive ultimately receives depends on the performance of the company's stock in the years after the awards are granted. Most stock compensation programs require an executive to wait a specified length of time to receive shares or exercise options.
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DES MOINES, Iowa ? Offering no explanation, the Iowa Republican Party has declared Rick Santorum as winner of the Iowa caucuses, days after saying incomplete vote results precluded it from doing just that.
GOP State Chairman Matt Strawn and the party's State Central Committee issued a statement late Friday naming the former Pennsylvania senator as the winner, "in order to clarify conflicting reports and to affirm the results" that were released Wednesday.
The committee's release Wednesday said Santorum was 34 votes ahead of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the final certified results from 1,766 precincts. But because eight precincts never turned in certified results, Strawn said in the statement Thursday that the party could not declare a winner. He congratulated both Santorum and Romney. Sixteen days earlier, Strawn had announced that Romney had won the caucuses by eight votes.
Saturday's statement offered no explanation of what had changed since Thursday, and Strawn did not return calls seeking comment.
Two central committee members told The Associated Press that the group held a conference call Friday night to discuss the "confusion" about the results of the caucuses and directed Strawn to issue a statement making it clear that the party considered Santorum the winner.
"There had been too much confusion and we needed to clear things up once and for all," said Steve Scheffler of the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, a committee member who was on the call.
Another committee member, Drew Ivers of Webster City, said the new statement declaring Santorum the winner was issued "to try to clarify the validity of the Iowa process."
Scheffler said there was no vote by the 17-member committee but it was clear from the call that the consensus was to issue the statement.
The certified results announced by Strawn on Thursday had Santorum with 29,839 votes and Romney with 29,805, a difference of 34. Ron Paul finished third with 26,036. Newt Gingrich finished fourth with 16,163 votes.
Unofficial election night results from the eight missing precincts gave Santorum 81 votes and Romney 46. If those results had been certified to state party officials by Wednesday's deadline, Santorum's lead in the final tally would have been 69 votes.
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WASHINGTON ? Outspent but hardly outgunned, online and high-tech companies triggered an avalanche of Internet clicks to force Congress to shelve legislation that would curb online piracy. They outmaneuvered the entertainment industry and other old guard business interests, leaving them bitter and befuddled.
Before Senate and House leaders set aside the legislation Friday, the movie and music lobbies and other Washington fixtures, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, had put in play their usually reliable tactics to rally support for the bills.
There were email campaigns, television and print ads in important states, a Times Square billboard, and uncounted phone calls and visits to congressional offices in Washington and around the country. That included about 20 trips to the Capitol by leaders of the National Songwriters Association International, often accompanied by songwriters who performed their hits for lawmakers and their staffs.
"We bring our guitars on our backs," said songwriter Steve Bogard, the association's president.
Such campaigns are often music to the ears of lawmakers. This time, however, it was smothered by an online outpouring against the legislation that culminated Wednesday. According to organizers, at least 75,000 websites temporarily went dark that day, including the English-language online encyclopedia Wikipedia, joined by 25,000 blogs.
"The U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet," said a message on Wikipedia's home page, which was shrouded in shadows and provided links to help visitors reach their members of Congress.
Thousands of other sites posted messages protesting the bills and urging people to contact lawmakers. Protest leaders say that resulted in 3 million emails.
Google, its logo hidden beneath a stark black rectangle, solicited 7 million signatures on a petition opposing the bills. Craigslist counted 30,000 phone calls to lawmakers and there were 3.9 million tweets on Twitter about the bills, according to NetCoalition, which represents leading Internet and high tech companies.
"It's still something we're trying to comprehend," said Google spokeswoman Samantha Smith. "We had such an overwhelming response to our petition that it honestly far exceeded our expectations."
As co-sponsors of the bills peeled away, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on Friday postponed a vote that had been set for this Tuesday on moving to the legislation. The vote seemed doomed well beforehand. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, also put off further work. "I have heard from the critics," he said.
Just weeks ago, the bills seemed headed toward quiet approval with bipartisan backing that ranging from liberals such as Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., to conservatives such as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. The turnabout was so unexpected that some think the online world's triumph signals a pivotal moment marking its arrival as Washington's newest power broker.
"This does serve as a watershed moment," said Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a communications professor at the State University of New York at Albany who studies how political groups use high technology. "Certain channels for communication that people routinely use have the power to get their users to become political activists on their behalf."
Both bills are aimed at thwarting illegal downloads and sales of thousands of American movies, songs and books, as well as counterfeit pharmaceuticals, software and other copyrighted products. They would do so by making it easier to stop American websites and search engines from steering visitors to largely foreign websites that pirate the items.
Supporters estimate that online piracy costs the U.S. at least $100 billion annually and thousands of jobs; even the bills' critics say sales of pirated products must be stopped. But foes say the legislation goes too far, threatening to curb Internet free speech, stifle online innovation and burden online businesses with damaging regulations.
"People love their Internet. They use it every day, they don't want it to change and they don't want Washington messing with it," said Maura Corbett, spokeswoman for NetCoalition.
Claims that "big brother" would oversee the Internet infuriate bill supporters, who say their opponents employed fear-mongering and distortion to foment an online frenzy.
"They've misidentified this issue as an issue about your Internet, your Internet is being jeopardized," said Mike Nugent, executive director of Creative America, a coalition of entertainment unions, movie studios and television networks. "In fact their business model is being asked to be subjected to regulation. They're misleading their huge base."
Misleading or not, the online community had a huge impact on members of Congress, with many saying they heard little from the entertainment industry but plenty from Internet users.
"Everyone's online, and a lot of people online are very inclined to complain about" new fees and other problems, said Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va. "It's a culture of fairly quick mobilization."
The bills' champions said they purposely avoided hauling entertainment celebrities to Washington, saying they preferred to focus on how the measure would help the entire economy.
"If we brought in Hollywood stars, that would play into the other side's narrative that this is all about Hollywood," said Steven Tepp, who helped guide the campaign for the Chamber of Commerce. "We want to keep the focus on the reality that this is much, much broader."
In the end, the outcome showed the lobbying world is changing, said Kathy Garmezy, an official with the Directors Guild of America, which supports the bills.
"Of course you say to yourself, `What can you change?'" she said. "I don't think we've come to conclusions or closure."
Participants say last week's online protests were spawned last fall, as Congress was writing the bills and Internet users started chatting and emailing about them.
The blogging service Tumblr called attention to the measures on its website in November. Other efforts also garnered attention, including a drive by owners to remove their domain names from GoDaddy.com, which sells domain names and was a supporter of the anti-piracy legislation.
Among the first to publicly say they would darken their sites on Wednesday were Reddit and Wikipedia.
"Like most things on the Internet, it was very unorganized and chaotic," said Erik Martin, Reddit's general manager.
In terms of their Washington presence, online businesses are adolescents compared to the well-established industries they are battling.
According to Maplight, a nonpartisan group that analyzes money's role in politics, current senators have received $14.4 million over the past six years from entertainment interest groups supporting the online piracy bills, seven times the $2 million they got from Internet groups opposing the legislation.
The differences are also stark when it comes to lobbying.
Google, one of the Internet world's largest players in Washington, spent $5.9 million lobbying on all issues during the first nine months of 2011, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics. The Chamber of Commerce spent $46 million, the most in town.
Even so, online businesses have been beefing up their representation in Washington, the center's figures show.
Google's $5.9 million paid for 112 lobbyists last year, more than double the $2.8 million it spent for 54 lobbyists in 2008. Facebook's $910,000 for lobbying during the first three quarters of 2011 paid for 21 lobbyists, compared with two lobbyists and $351,000 it spent a year earlier.
High tech companies are also learning the value of big names. One Google lobbyist is former Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt, a House Democratic leader and presidential candidate. Last year, Facebook hired Joe Lockhart, a press secretary for President Bill Clinton, as vice president of global communications.
Bill supporters lost one advantage because former Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, could not personally lobby senators. The Capitol Hill veteran retired from the Senate last year and is legally barred from lobbying his former colleagues for two years.
___
Online:
Senate's Protect Intellectual Property Act: http://tinyurl.com/7lqbgzh
House's Stop Online Piracy Act: http://tinyurl.com/75vtcxg
NetCoalition: http://www.netcoalition.com
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Zakaria: So when we talked when you were campaigning for the presidency, I asked you what Administration's foreign policy you admired, and you had said that you looked at Bush Sr.'s diplomacy, and I took that to mean the pragmatism, the sense of limits, good diplomacy, as you looked upon it favorably. Now that you are President, how has your thinking evolved? Do you still look at that as a hallmark of good diplomacy?
Obama: It is true that I've been complimentary of George H. W. Bush's foreign policy and I continue to believe that he managed a very difficult period very effectively. Now that I've been in office for three years, I think that I'm always cautious about comparing what we've done to what others have done, just because each period is unique. Each set of challenges is unique. But what I can say is that I made a commitment to change the trajectory of American foreign policy in a way that would end the war in Iraq, refocus on defeating our primary enemy, al-Qaeda, strengthen our alliances and our leadership in multilateral fora and restore American leadership in the world. And I think we have accomplished those principal goals. (See TIME's New Cover Story on Obama.)
We still have a lot of work to do, but if you look at the pivot from where we were in 2008 to where we are today: the Iraq war is over, we refocused attention on al-Qaeda, and they are badly wounded. They're not eliminated, but the defeat not just of bin Laden, but most of the top leadership, the tightening noose around their safe havens, the incapacity for them to finance themselves, they are much less capable than they were back in 2008.
Our alliances with NATO, Japan, South Korea, our close military cooperation with countries like Israel have never been stronger. Our participation in multilateral organizations has been extremely effective. In the United Nations, not only do we have a voice, but we have been able to shape an agenda. And in the fastest growing regions of the world in emerging markets in the Asia Pacific region, just to take one prominent example, countries are once again looking to the United States for leadership.
That's not the exact same moment as existed post-World War II. It's an American leadership that recognizes the rise of countries like China and India and Brazil. It's a U.S. leadership that recognizes our limits in terms of resources, capacity. And yet what I think we've been able to establish is a clear belief among other nations that the United States continues to be the one indispensable nation in tackling major international problems. (MORE: See Swampland's coverage of the 2012 election.)
And I think that there is a strong belief that we continue to be a superpower, unique perhaps in the annals of history, that is not only self-interested, but is also thinking about how to create a set of international rules and norms that everyone can follow and that everyone can benefit from. So you combine all those changes, the United States is in a much stronger position now to assert leadership over the next century than it was only three years ago.
We still have huge challenges ahead. And one thing I've learned over the last three years is that as much as you'd like to guide events, stuff happens and you have to respond. And those responses, no matter how effective your diplomacy or your foreign policy, are sometimes going to produce less than optimal results. But our overall trajectory, our overall strategy, I think has been very successful.
Mitt Romney says that you are "timid, indecisive, and nuanced."
Ah, yes.
I particularly like the third one. What do you say?
I think Mr. Romney and the rest of the Republican field are going to be playing to their base until the primary season is over. Once it is, we'll have a serious debate about foreign policy. I will feel very confident about being able to put my record before the American people and saying that America is safer, stronger and better positioned to win the future than it was when I came into office.
And there are going to be some issues where people may have some legitimate differences and there are going to be some serious debates just because they're hard issues. But overall, I think it's going to be pretty hard to argue that we have not executed a strategy over the last three years that has put America in a stronger position than it was when we, than when I came into office.
He says that if you get re-elected, Iran will get a nuclear weapon, and if he is elected, it won't. Will you make a categorical statement like that: If you get re-elected, Iran will not get a nuclear weapon?
I have made myself clear since I began running for the presidency that we will take every step available to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. What I've also said is that our efforts are going to be... Excuse me. When I came into office, what we had was a situation in which the world was divided, Iran was unified, it was on the move in the region. And because of effective diplomacy, unprecedented pressure with respect to sanctions, our ability to get countries like Russia and China that had previously balked at any serious pressure on Iran to work with us, Iran now faces a unified world community, Iran is isolated, its standing in the region is diminished. It is feeling enormous economic pressure.
And we are in a position where, even as we apply that pressure, we're also saying to them there is an avenue to resolve this, which is a diplomatic path where they forego nuclear weapons, abide by international rules and can have peaceful nuclear power as other countries do, subject to the restrictions of the NPT, the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
But the way the Iranians might see it is that they have made proposals -- the Brazilian-Turkish proposal -- and that they never go anywhere. They aren't the basis of negotiations.
Yes, I think if you take a look at the track record, the Iranians have simply not engaged in serious negotiations on these issues.
We actually put forward a very serious proposal that would have allowed them to display good faith. They need medical isotopes; there was a way to take out some of their low-enriched uranium, their LEUs, so that they could not -- so that there was clarity that they were not stockpiling that to try to upgrade to weapons-grade uranium. In exchange, the international community would provide the medical isotopes that they needed for their research facility. And they delayed and they delayed and they hemmed and they hawed, and then when finally the Brazilian-Indian proposal was put forward, it was at a point where they were now declaring that they were about to move forward on 20-percent enriched uranium, which would defeat the whole purpose of showing good faith that they weren't stockpiling uranium that could be transformed into weapons-grade. (MORE: The Obama Campaign's Romney Glossary)
But what is absolutely true is that there are portions of the country where that's not the case, where local governance is weak, where local populations still have deep mistrust of the central government. And part of our challenge over the next two years as we transition to Afghan forces is to continue to work with the Afghan government so that it recognizes its responsibilities not only to provide security for those local populations, but also to give them some credible sense that the local government -- or the national government is looking out for them, and that they're going to be able to make a living and they're not going to be shaken down by corrupt police officials, and that they can get products to market. And that's a long-term process.
I never believed that America could essentially deliver peace and prosperity to all of Afghanistan in a three-, four-, five-year time frame. And I think anybody who believed that didn't know the history and the challenges facing Afghanistan. I mean, this is the third-poorest country in the world, with one of the lowest literacy rates, and no significant history of a strong civil service or an economy that was deeply integrated into the world economy. It's going to take decades for Afghanistan to fully achieve its potential.
What we can do, and what we are doing, is providing the Afghan government the time and space it needs to become more effective, to serve its people better, to provide better security, to avoid a repetition of all-out civil war that we saw back in the '90s. And what we've also been able to do I think is to maintain a international coalition to invest in Afghanistan long beyond the point when it was politically popular to do so.
But ultimately the Afghans are going to have to take on these responsibilities and these challenges, and there will be, no doubt, bumps in the road along the way.
From the perspective of our security interests, I think we can accomplish our goal, which is to make sure that Afghanistan is not a safe haven from which to launch attacks against the United States or its allies. But the international community -- not just us, the Russians and the Chinese and the Indians and the Pakistanis and the Iranians and others -- I think all have an interest in making sure that Afghanistan is not engulfed in constant strife, and I think that's an achievable goal.
As the Chinese watched your most recent diplomacy in Asia, is it fair for them to have looked at the flurry of diplomatic activity -- political, military, economic -- and concluded, as many Chinese scholars have, that the United States is building a containment policy against China?
No, that would not be accurate and I've specifically rejected that formulation.
I think what would be fair to conclude is that, as I said we would do, the United States has pivoted to focus on the fastest-growing region of the world where we have an enormous stake in peace, security, the free flow of commerce; and, frankly, an area of the world that we had neglected over the last decade because of our intense focus on Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East.
So if you look at what we've done, we've strengthened our alliances with Japan and South Korea -- I think they're in as good of shape as they've ever been. We have involved ourselves in the regional architecture of -- including organizations like ASEAN and APEC. We've sent a clear signal that we are a Pacific power and we will continue to be a Pacific power, but we have done this all in the context of a belief that a peacefully rising China is good for everybody.
And one of the things we've accomplished over the last three years is to establish a strong dialogue and working relationship with China across a whole range of issues. And where we have serious differences, we've been able to express those differences without it spiraling into a bad place.
I think the Chinese government respects us, respects what we're trying to do, recognizes that we're going to be players in the Asia Pacific region for the long term, but I think also recognize that we have in no way inhibited them from continuing their extraordinary growth. The only thing we've insisted on as a principle in that region is everybody has got to play by the same set of rules, everybody has got to abide by a set of international norms. And that's not unique to China. That's true for all of us.
But do you think they're not?
Well, I think that when we've had some friction in the relationship, it's because China I think still sees itself as a developing or even poor country that should be able to pursue mercantilist policies that are for their benefit and where the rules applying to them shouldn't be the same rules that apply to the United States or Europe or other major powers. (MORE: Iraq's Government, Not Obama, Called Time on the U.S. Troop Presence.)
And what we've tried to say to them very clearly is: Look, you guys have grown up. You're already the most populous country on Earth, depending on how you measure it; the largest or next-largest economy in the world and will soon be the largest economy, almost inevitably. You are rapidly consuming more resources than anybody else. And in that context, whether it's maritime issues or trade issues, you can't do whatever you think is best for you. You've got to play by the same rules as everybody else.
And I think that message is one that resonates with other Asia Pacific countries, all of whom want a good relationship with China, all of whom are desperately seeking access to China's markets and have forged enormous commercial ties, but who also recognize that unless there are some international norms there, they're going to get pushed around and taken advantage of.
You think it's inevitable that China will be the largest economy in the world? It's now the second largest, even on PPP.
Well, they are -- assuming that they maintain stability and current growth patterns, then, yes, it's inevitable. Even if they slow down somewhat, they're so large that they'd probably end up being, just in terms of the overall size of the economy, the largest.
But it's doubtful that any time in the near future they achieve the kind of per capita income that the United States or some of the other highly developed countries have achieved. They've just got a lot of people and they're moving hundreds of millions of people out of poverty at the same time.
You have developed a reputation for managing your foreign policy and your foreign policy team very effectively, without dissention. So how come you can manage this fairly complex process so well, and relations with Congress are not so good?
Well, in foreign policy, the traditional saying is, partisan differences end at the water's edge, that there is a history of bipartisanship in foreign policy.
Now, obviously, there were huge partisan differences during the Bush years and during the Iraq war. But I do think there's still a tradition among those who work in foreign policy, whether it's our diplomatic corps or our military or intelligence services, that says our focus is on the mission, our focus is on advancing American interests, and we're going to make decisions based on facts and analysis and a clear-eyed view of the world, as opposed to based on ideology or what's politically expedient.
And so when I'm working with my foreign policy team, I -- there's just not a lot of extraneous noise. There's not a lot of posturing and positioning, and, how is this going to play on cable news, and can we score some points here or -- that whole political circus that has come to dominate so much of Washington applies less to the foreign policy arena.
Which is why I could forge such an effective working relationship and friendship with Bob Gates, who comes out of that tradition, even though I'm sure he would consider himself a pretty conservative, hawkish Republican -- at least that was where he was coming out of. I never asked him what his current party affiliation was because it didn't matter. I just knew he was going to give me good advice.
Have you been able to forge similar relationships with foreign leaders? Because one of the criticisms people make about your style of diplomacy is it's very cool, it's aloof, that you don't pal around with these guys.
You know, I have to say -- I mean, I -- look, I wasn't in other Administrations, so I didn't see the interactions between U.S. Presidents and various world leaders. But the friendships and the bonds of trust that I've been able to forge with a whole range of leaders is precisely -- or is a big part of what has allowed us to execute effective diplomacy.
I mean, I think that if you ask them -- Angela Merkel, or Prime Minister Singh, or President Lee, or Prime Minister Erdogan, or David Cameron would say, we have a lot of trust and confidence in the President. We believe what he says. We believe that he'll follow through on his commitments. We think he's paying attention to our concerns and our interests. And that's part of the reason why we've been able to forge these close working relationships and gotten a whole bunch of stuff done.
You just can't do it with John Boehner.
You know, the truth is, actually, when it comes to Congress, the issue is not personal relationships. My suspicion is that this whole critique has to do with the fact that I don't go to a lot of Washington parties and, as a consequence, the Washington press corps maybe just doesn't feel like I'm in the mix enough with them, and they figure, well, if I'm not spending time with them, I must be cold and aloof.
The fact is, I've got a 13-year-old and 10-year-old daughter. And so, no, Michelle and I don't do the social scene, because as busy as we are, we have a limited amount of time, and we want to be good parents at a time that's vitally important for our kids.
So in terms of Congress, the reason we're not getting enough done right now is because you've got a Congress that is deeply ideological and sees a political advantage in not getting stuff done. And I -- John Boehner and I get along fine. We had a great time playing golf together. That's not the issue. The problem was that no matter how much golf we played or no matter how much we yukked it up, he had trouble getting his caucus to go along with doing the responsible thing on a whole bunch of issues over the past year.
You've talked a lot about how foreign policy ultimately has to derive from American strength. And so when I talk to businessmen, a lot of them are dismayed that you have not signaled to the world and to markets that the United States will get its fiscal house in order by embracing your own deficit commission, the Simpson-Bowles, and that walking away from that,which is a phrase I've heard a lot -- has been a very bad signal to the world. Why won't you embrace Simpson-Bowles?
Yes, I've got to say, most of the people who say that, if you asked them what's in Simpson-Bowles they couldn't tell you. So first of all, I did embrace Simpson-Bowles. What I said was, first, I'm the one who created the commission. If I hadn't pushed it, it wouldn't have happened because congressional sponsors, including a whole bunch of Republicans, walked away from it.
The basic premise of Simpson-Bowles was we have to take a balanced approach in which we have spending cuts and we have revenues, increased revenues, in order to close our deficits and deal with our debt. And although I did not agree with every particular that was proposed in Simpson-Bowles -- which, by the way, all the folks on Simpson-Bowles would say -- which, by the way, if you asked most of the folks who were on Simpson-Bowles did they agree with every provision in there, they'd say no as well.
What I did do is to take that framework and present a balanced plan of entitlement changes, discretionary cuts, defense cuts, health care cuts as well as revenues, and said, we're ready to make a deal. And I presented that three times to Congress. So the core of Simpson-Bowles, the idea of a balanced deficit-reduction plan, I have consistently argued for, presented to the American people, presented to Congress.
There wasn't any magic in Simpson-Bowles. They didn't have some special sauce or formula that avoided us making these tough choices. They're the same choices that I've said I'm prepared to make. And the only reason it hasn't happened is because the Republicans were unwilling to do anything on revenue. Zero. Zip. Nada.
The revenues that we were seeking were far less than what was in Simpson-Bowles. We've done more discretionary cuts than was called for in Simpson-Bowles. The things that supposedly would be harder for my side to embrace, we've said we'd be willing to do. The whole half of Simpson-Bowles that was hard ideologically for the Republicans to embrace, they've said they're not going to do any of them.
So this notion that somehow we -- that the reason that it hasn't happened is because we didn't embrace Simpson-Bowles is just nonsense. And, by the way, if you talk to some of these same business leaders who say, well, he shouldn't have walked away from Simpson-Bowles, and you said, well, are you prepared to kick capital gains and dividends taxation up to ordinary income...
Which is what Simpson-Bowles...
...which was what Simpson-Bowles called for, they would gag. There's not one of those business leaders who would accept a bet. They'd say, "Well, we embrace Simpson-Bowles except for that part that would cause us to pay a lot more."
And in terms of the defense cuts that were called for in Simpson-Bowles, they were far deeper than even what would have been required if the sequester goes through, and so would have not been a responsible pathway for us to reduce our deficit spending. Now, that's not the fault of Simpson-Bowles. What they were trying to do was provide us a basic framework, and we took that framework, and we have pushed it forward.
And so there should be clarity here. There's no equivalence between Democratic and Republican positions when it comes to deficit reduction. We've shown ourselves to be serious. We've made a trillion dollars worth of cuts already. We've got another $1.5 trillion worth of cuts on the chopping blocks. But what we've also said is, in order for us to seriously reduce the deficit, then there's got to be increased revenue. There's no way of getting around it. It's basic math. And if we can get any Republicans to show any serious commitment -- not vague commitments, not "we'll get revenues because of tax reform somewhere in the future, but we don't know exactly what that looks like, and we can't identify a single tax that we would allow to go up" -- but if we can get any of them who are still in office, as opposed to retired, to commit to that, we'll be able to reduce our deficit.
Now, to your larger point, you're absolutely right, though. Our whole foreign policy has to be anchored in economic strength here at home. And if we are not strong, stable, growing, making stuff, training our workforce so that it's the most skilled in the world, maintaining our lead in innovation, in basic research, in basic science, in the quality of our universities, in the transparency of our financial sector -- if we don't maintain the upward mobility and equality of opportunity that underwrites our political stability and makes us a beacon for the world, then our foreign policy leadership will diminish as well.
Can we do that in a world with so much competition from so many countries? And one of the things you do hear people say is, you know, we have all this regulation. You're trying to make America more competitive, but you've got Dodd-Frank, you've got health care. There's all this new regulation. And in that context, are we going to be able to be competitive, to attract investment, to create jobs?
Absolutely. Look, first of all, with respect to regulation, this whole notion that somehow there's been this huge tidal wave of regulation is not true, and we can provide you the facts. Our regulations have a lower cost than the comparable regulations under the Bush administration; they have far higher benefits.
We have engaged in a unprecedented regulatory look-back, where we're weeding out and cleaning -- clearing up a whole bunch of regulations that were outdated and outmoded, and we're saving businesses billions of dollars and tons of paperwork and man-hours that they're required to fill out a bunch of forms that aren't needed. So our regulatory track record actually is very solid.
And I just had a conference last week where we had a group of manufacturing companies -- some service companies as well -- that are engaging in insourcing. They're bringing work back to the United States and plants back to the United States, because as the wages in China and other countries begin to increase, and U.S. worker productivity has gone way up, the cost differential for labor has significantly closed.
And what these companies say is, as long as the United States is still investing in the best infrastructure in the world, the best education system in the world, is training enough skilled workers and engineers, and is creating a stable platform for businesses to succeed and providing us with certainty, there's no reason why America can't be the most competitive advanced economy in the world.
But that requires us to continue to up our game and to do things better and to do things smart. We've started that process over the last three years. We've still got a lot more work to do, because we're reversing decade-long trends where our education system didn't keep pace with the improvements that were taking place in other countries; where other countries started to invest more in research and development, and we didn't up our game; where our infrastructure began to deteriorate at a time when other countries were investing in their infrastructure; and, frankly, where we have gotten bogged down politically in ways that don't allow us to take strong, decisive action on issues in ways that we've been able to do in that past.
And so my whole goal in the last three years and my goal over the next five years is going to be to continue to chip away at these things that are holding us back. And I'm absolutely confident there's no problem that America is facing right now that we can't solve, as long we're working together. That's our job.
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