In the Coming Year Insurance Regulators Will Be Busier than ...

For the most part, public attention on insurance-related matters in 2012 will center on the on-going health care debate. This is a presidential election year, and the conservative opposition to the Obama administration will drive home the ?failure? of the ?Obamacare? package, which has actually caused an 8-9 percent increase in health care premiums. There will also be considerable focus on the Supreme Court?s review, scheduled for March, of aspects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Off the radar, however, other elements of insurance regulation are still on the table.

Major Insurance Actions Take Place Behind the Scenes

In January, the Federal Insurance Office will deliver its report to Congress on the modernization of insurance regulation in the U.S. Additionally, provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act will be implemented this year, and the extension and regulation of the National Flood Insurance Program is an ongoing problem for lawmakers. Most industry analysts agree that while few insurance laws are likely to be passed during an election year, regulators, who have the power to define and to implement existing policy, will be busy in 2012.

The FIO report on regulation modernization will set the stage for the interaction of the federal government, the states, and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners for the next few years. It is, in essence, a spotlight on the insurance industry that will no doubt bring new issues to the forefront of lawmakers? attention. Granted, most politicians play it safe in an election year, thus seeming to gridlock the legislative process, but it?s also important to remember that those same legislators will also be picking their next tier of ?battles? for their post-election agendas.

Wall Street Regulation a Response to Factors That Triggered the Recession

The implementation of Dodd-Frank, particularly as it applies to the activities of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, is aimed at clarifying how companies that could pose a systemic economic risk will be subject to regulation. The law was passed in response to the perceived rogue behavior of large Wall Street companies whose internal policies in regard to bonuses, profits, fees and the like contributed directly to the recession that began to cripple the American economy late in 2008. The social unrest about these activities and the growing inequality of wealth in the country was a major driving force behind the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Insurance and its role in the financial well-being of the nation is more complex than efforts to simply reign in skyrocketing health care costs. While the presidential candidates and the voters themselves will be focused on that debate, regulators are always faced with translating the language of legislation into reality. A vivid example of this interplay of policy and regulation can be found in the decision by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to allow the states to define key portions of the health exchanges mandated by the Affordable Care Act. The exchanges, which are to be operational by 2014, were becoming a political liability for President Obama as an instance of the federal government meddling in state prerogatives. Insurance in any form is a hot potato issue, and in an election year, the regulators, not the politicians are the ones to deal with the singed fingers.

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Source: http://www.cheapinsurance123.com/blog/2012/01/04/in-the-coming-year-insurance-regulators-will-be-busier-than-lawmakers/

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France says Syrian regime committing massacres

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, an Arab League monitor speaks with a Syrian student at Al-Sabil area, in Daraa, Syria, on Tuesday Jan. 3, 2012. The Arab League called Tuesday for an emergency meeting to discuss whether to withdraw the group's monitors from Syria, where security forces are still killing protesters despite the observers' presence, an Arab official said. (AP Photo/SANA) EDITORIAL USE ONLY

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, an Arab League monitor speaks with a Syrian student at Al-Sabil area, in Daraa, Syria, on Tuesday Jan. 3, 2012. The Arab League called Tuesday for an emergency meeting to discuss whether to withdraw the group's monitors from Syria, where security forces are still killing protesters despite the observers' presence, an Arab official said. (AP Photo/SANA) EDITORIAL USE ONLY

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA and according to them, flames raise from a gas pipeline caused by an explosion attack, near the town Rastan in the restive Homs province, Syria, on Tuesday Jan. 3, 2012. An explosion struck a gas pipeline in central Syria in an attack the government blamed on terrorists, the state-run news agency said. There were no casualties. The pipeline feeds two power stations. French President Nicolas Sarkozy says the Syrian regime is committing massacres and he is calling on President Bashar Assad to leave power. (AP Photo/SANA) EDITORIAL USE ONLY

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Arab League monitors check Al-Sabil area, in Daraa, Syria, on Tuesday Jan. 3, 2012. The Arab League called Tuesday for an emergency meeting to discuss whether to withdraw the group's monitors from Syria, where security forces are still killing protesters despite the observers' presence, an Arab official said. (AP Photo/SANA) EDITORIAL USE ONLY

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Arab League monitors check Al-Sabil area, in Daraa, Syria, on Tuesday Jan.3, 2012. The Arab League called Tuesday for an emergency meeting to discuss whether to withdraw the group's monitors from Syria, where security forces are still killing protesters despite the observers' presence, an Arab official said. (AP Photo/SANA) EDITORIAL USE ONLY

BEIRUT (AP) ? French President Nicolas Sarkozy accused Syrian leader Bashar Assad of "barbarous repression" Tuesday and demanded that he step down, saying the regime is massacring its own people.

Sarkozy said Syrians should be allowed to determine their own future.

"The massacres being committed by the Syrian regime rightly arouse disgust and revolt in the Arab world, in France, in Europe and everywhere in the world," Sarkozy said during a New Year's address at a Navy air base in Lanveoc-Poulmic, France.

"The Syrian president must leave power," he told members of the French military.

In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney insisted the violence in Syria must be stopped. "We have made clear that if the Arab League initiative is not implemented, the international community will have to consider new measures to compel a halt to the regime's violence against its own citizens," he said.

The U.N.'s last estimate, announced several weeks ago, estimated that more than 5,000 people have been killed in the government's military crackdown on the revolt that erupted in mid-March, inspired by uprisings across the Arab world. But since that report, activists say hundreds more have been killed.

The violence has drawn broad international condemnation and sanctions, but Assad remains defiant. The Arab League sent in about 100 observers a week ago to verify Syria's compliance with the organization's plan that requires the regime to remove security forces and heavy weapons from city streets, start talks with opposition leaders and free political prisoners. Syria agreed to the plan, intended to halt the crackdown completely, on Dec. 19.

The Local Coordination Committees, an umbrella group of activists, put the death toll at more than 390 people since Dec. 21.

Activists reported more bloodshed Tuesday.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that as dozens of soldiers were defecting in the southern village of Jassem, they came under fire from security forces in a clash that killed at least 18 of the government troops. The Observatory said security forces later launched raids in the area, detaining more than 100 people in and around the village.

The group also said security forces shot dead three people in the restive city of Homs and three in the central province of Hama. The LCC had a higher toll, saying security forces killed four people in Homs, one in the Damascus suburb of Kfar Batna and four in the central province of Hama.

The Arab League's chief acknowledged Monday that killings have continued even with the monitors working on the ground.

The League called an emergency meeting on Saturday to discuss whether to withdraw the monitors because security forces are still killing people, an Arab official said. The meeting will be in Cairo, where the Arab League is based.

Syrian opposition groups have been deeply critical of the Arab League mission, saying it is simply giving Assad cover for his crackdown. The LCC says the observer mission is witnessing mainly regime-staged events, and they move about the country only with the full knowledge of the government.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said the regime must not be allowed to interfere with the observers on the ground.

"The conditions in which this observer mission is taking place need to be clarified," he told French television I-Tele. "Does it really have completely free access to information? We await the report that it will submit in the coming days to see more clearly."

On Monday, Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby acknowledged ongoing bloodshed but insisted the observer mission has yielded important concessions from the Damascus regime, such as the withdrawal of heavy weapons from cities.

"Yes, there is still shooting and yes there are still snipers," he said. "Yes, killings continue. The objective is for us to wake up in the morning and hear that no one is killed. The mission's philosophy is to protect civilians, so if one is killed, then our mission is incomplete."

Syria has banned most foreign journalists from the country and prevented independent reporting, making it difficult to confirm claims from either side.

The Arab League's deputy secretary-general, Ahmed bin Heli, said the meeting on Saturday will look into the first report by the head of the monitoring mission.

Another official told The Associated Press that the ministerial meeting will discuss whether to pull out the monitors because of the ongoing violence. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The Saturday meeting will not make a final decision, but will send its recommendations to another, high-level ministerial meeting. No date was set for that meeting.

While most of the violence reported early in the uprising involved Syrian forces firing on unarmed protesters, there are now more frequent armed clashes between military defectors and security forces. The increasing militarization of the conflict has raised fears the country is sliding toward civil war.

Also Tuesday, an explosion struck a gas pipeline in central Syria in an attack the government blamed on terrorists, the state-run news agency said. There were no casualties. The blast happened near the town Rastan in the restive Homs province, SANA reported. The pipeline feeds two power stations.

There have been several pipeline attacks since the Syrian uprising began in mid-March, but it is not clear who is behind them at a time when violence across the country spirals out of control, unearthing long-standing grievances and resentments.

___

Michael reported from Cairo. AP writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Sylvie Corbet in Lanveoc-Poulmic, France, contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-03-ML-Syria/id-5ba56b047f1c4a45a53e90136681b6ee

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Anglicans have new US home in Catholic church (AP)

VATICAN CITY ? Pope Benedict XVI named a married former Episcopal bishop Sunday to head the first U.S. organizational structure for disaffected Anglicans and Episcopalians who want to join the Roman Catholic Church.

The Rev. Jeffrey Neil Steenson, a father of three and Catholic convert, will lead the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, the equivalent of a diocese, that will be based in Houston, Texas, but will operate nationally.

The Vatican created the first such ordinariate in Britain last year. Other ordinariates are being considered in Australia and Canada.

Steenson stepped down in 2007 as the Episcopal Bishop of Rio Grande, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after the Episcopal Church elected the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. Steenson had said he was "deeply troubled" about the direction of the U.S. denomination and he described the Catholic Church as the "true home of Anglicanism."

The Episcopal Church is the U.S. Anglican body in the United States.

Benedict in 2009 issued an unprecedented invitation for Anglicans to become Catholic in groups or as parishes, at a time when traditional Anglicans in several countries were increasingly upset by the ordination of women and gay bishops. Formerly, Anglican converts to Catholicism were accepted on a case-by-case basis.

The pope's decision created tensions with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the world Anglican Communion, who like his predecessors had been in talks with Vatican officials to bring Anglicans and Catholics closer together.

The 77-million-member Anglican fellowship has its roots in the Church of England, which split from the Holy See in 1534 when English King Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment.

At the time of the pope's announcement, Anglicans were already fracturing over Robinson's election and other issues. Williams had little advance notice of the Vatican announcement. Still, after meeting privately with the pope soon after, the archbishop of Canterbury said he was convinced that there was no "dawn raid" on his church by the Holy See.

Under the pope's plan, Anglicans who become Catholic will be allowed to keep some of their heritage in liturgy and other areas. Married Anglican priests who convert can stay married and be ordained in the Catholic Church, an exception to the Vatican's celibacy rule. Married Anglican bishops, however, cannot retain that position, and will serve the Catholic Church as priests.

More than 100 Anglican clergy have applied to become Catholic priests in the U.S. ordinariate. Church officials said more than 1,400 individuals are seeking to join. The U.S. Episcopal Church has just under 2 million members. Many Anglo-Catholics in the United States had never been part of the Episcopal Church.

Steenson, 59, who has a doctorate from the University of Oxford, has been married since 1974 and has three adult children. His wife also converted to Catholicism. He was ordained as a Catholic priest in 2009 in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and helped create the education and training program for Anglican priests seeking to join the Catholic Church.

______

AP Religion Writer Rachel Zoll contributed from New York.

______

U.S. ordinariate: http://www.usordinariate.org/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120101/ap_on_re_eu/eu_vatican_anglicans

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Spoleto Festival USA unveils lineup for new season (AP)

CHARLESTON, S.C. ? The American premiere of the Philip Glass opera "Kepler," a concert by vocalist k.d. lang, and the return of Dublin's Gate Theatre highlight the 36th season of the Spoleto Festival USA this spring.

Chamber music, acrobatic performances and orchestral concerts are also on the schedule for the festival that will light up 13 venues including theaters, churches and open-air sites from May 25 through June 10.

The festival, which released the lineup this weekend, features more than 140 shows by 60 groups and performers.

To commemorate Glass' 75th birthday and his long relationship with Spoleto, the festival is staging a full production of "Kepler," which in this country has only been presented in concert form. The opera is about astronomer Johannes Kepler.

A second Spoleto opera is the American premiere of "The Phoenix Pavilion" by contemporary Chinese composer Guo Wenjing. It features an orchestra of four traditional Chinese instruments playing with musicians playing 11 traditional Western instruments.

This year's festival includes concerts by Grammy Award-winning lang and well-known gospel singer Mavis Staples as well as the Rebirth Brass Band from New Orleans, and "Doghouse" by Jonny Greenwood of the rock band Radiohead.

Dublin's Gate Theatre will make its eighth appearance at Spoleto with a production of Noel Coward's "Hay Fever." The British theater collaborative known as 1927, which appeared at Spoleto in 2008, is back with "The Animals and Children Took to the Streets." The production is a dark fairy tale told with acting, music and animation.

The theater offerings also include Jack Hitt, who performs on public radio, and Mike Daisey in one-man shows.

The dance lineup includes performances by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet.

In the visual arts, the festival offers "Return to the Sea: Saltworks," works crafted entirely of salt by Japanese artist Motoi Yamamoto. The works are the artist's effort to keep alive the memory of his sister who died of brain cancer at 24.

The Spoleto Festival also features jazz, choral performances, the popular chamber music series and the festival orchestra in a contemporary music program. The orchestra features 83 musicians selected in nationwide auditions.

The internationally known arts festival was started in Charleston in 1977 by composer Gian Carlo Menotti as a companion to his Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy.

He left the Charleston festival almost two decades ago in a dispute over his successor and died in 2007 at age 95, still estranged from the America festival.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120101/ap_en_mu/us_spoleto_festival_usa1st_ld_writethru

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Sears closings: After store closures, little hope for a rebound

Kmart and Sears closing will effect 120 stores nationwide. But these Sears closings might not save the company, says one analyst.

Sears' decision to?close?up to 120 Sears and Kmart stores shows a retailer struggling to draw shoppers at a time of increasing competition, Credit Suisse retail analyst Gary Balter told CNBC.

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"I don't know how they're going to turn it around," he said Tuesday. "This was a company making $3.6 billion in?Ebitda?four years ago," compared to $400 million this year "at a time when others are turning things around."

Balter, with a $20 price target and "underperform" rating on the stock, said Sears?has been losing market share to?Home Depot?and?Lowe's?on sales of power tools, and?Wal-Mart?and?Target?on drawing shoppers seeking discounts.

Home Depot?and Lowe's?in particular stand to benefit from Sears closing stores because they've already been aggressively pricing appliances, which make up about 7 percent of Home Depot sales and 10 percent at Lowe's. Those who won't benefit are Sears suppliers, such as?Whirlpool, one of the companies that makes Sears' Kenmore appliance.

"They?ve done a very nice job online," Balter said of Sears' website, "but they can?t get people into the stores, and that?s where most of their asset base is."

He said Chairman Eddie Lampert has limited choices. Land's End, which Sears bought in 2002, is a well-managed subsidiary with $1.5 billion to $2 billion in sales that can "be easily separated from Sears," Balter said. After that, however, the problem is "how do you separate the other assets without destroying the franchise?"

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Additional Views: Cramer's Play on Retail and Housing

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/-56tWrqCP7w/Sears-closings-After-store-closures-little-hope-for-a-rebound

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Jared Bernstein: Obama and the Economy: Then vs. Now

I was recently asked how some of the key economic indicators are trending right now from the perspective of the president's record. So I crunched some numbers.

Caveats: Election-relevant opinions on the economy are not yet formed, but since I expect 2012 to be a slight improvement over 2011 (with some real risk factors, like Europe, oil, and fiscal drag from fading stimulus), things that look good now could look a little better by the end of 2012. Others, as I point out, might not.

And, of course, there's the argument as to how much this has to do with stuff the president... um... actually did, as opposed to what you'd expect anyway. Normally, that's a strong caveat and presidents get all kinds of undeserved praise and blame. But that caveat should be dialed back, I'd say pretty significantly, given the interventions of the administration, not to mention the Federal Reserve.

All told, I think the president's team will be able to make the argument that things are getting better. Too slowly, for sure. And there are some treacherous holes in the argument -- particularly sagging real wages amidst soaring profits. But see for yourself.

[Data caveat: picking the right dates to compare here is more art than science. I tried to pick ones that made sense to me... you're welcome to suggest others. Also, since we don't have December 2011 data yet, I can't use comparisons for the last quarter or month of the year, but I don't think this should matter much, with one exception noted below.]

Employment: When the president took office in January 2009, employment was absolutely cratering. Now it's growing, and, in the private sector, has been since the spring of 2010. The figure shows average monthly job losses and growth in the first six months of the administration and over the most recent six months. The swing from huge negatives to positives, albeit small positives, is notable and helpful to the president.

Source: BLS

Unemployment: Here, timing and the choice of dates matters. As the table below shows, averaging over a few months, the unemployment rate is about where it was in the first half of 2009. But what probably matters more in terms of how people experience the jobless rate is the recent trend, and here, from the president's perspective, thing look better. The November jobless rate of 8.6% is significantly off its peak of 10.1% in October of 2009. I suspect it will drift down a bit further in 2012, though there's a wildcard here: if job growth picks up, it could draw more people back into the labor force, and that puts upward pressure on the unemployment rate.

This problem -- the fact that people who've given up looking for work don't show up in the unemployment rate -- is not present in the EMPloyment rate: the share of the population working. That's fallen over the past couple of years and has been basically flat-lining for a year. It's probably the most pessimistic labor market indicator out there, and is a reliable sign that labor demand remains weak.

Similarly, the persistently and historically high shares of long-term unemployment are flashing the same thing -- people stuck in joblessness with not enough opportunities to find work.

On the other hand, unemployment insurance claims have been consistently falling in recent weeks, and that suggests possible improvements to come. Based on claims, private sector job growth, and the tick down in the unemployment rate, my guess is that labor demand will slowly improve next year.

Source: BLS, DOL

Growth: Though it's not something people tangibly feel the way they do unemployment or job growth, you've got to look at the path of real GDP. Like employment it was falling fast when the president took office, 3.7% per year through the first half of 2009.

Here, the Recovery Act and Fed policies of that year seemed to make a real difference. The economy, led by housing, credit, and labor markets was a downright mess in early 2009, yet following the aggressive interventions of those early days of the administration's tenure, the loss rate of GDP was cut sharply, from -6.7% is 2009Q1, to -0.7% in the second, to +1.7% in the next quarter.

Clearly, this growth didn't translate into jobs for a while -- there's always a lag, one which has gotten longer in recent business cycles (and was no longer in this one than in the last two "jobless recoveries"-see figure B here). And, as shown in a moment, GDP growth has not reached paychecks the way we need it to. But while growth doesn't insure better outcomes for the middle-class, nothing good happens without it (it's necessary, not sufficient).

Note that I assume 3% real GDP growth for the current quarter. At this point, we can make a pretty good guess at the initial GDP estimate for 2011Q4, and most analysts have it coming in above 3%.

Source: NIPA; I assume 3% for 2011Q4, a bit below most estimates.

Profits, prices, and wages: The next figure shows one of those treacherous holes I referred to above. Real weekly wages are down in real terms. The figure shows the year-over-year changes in the real weekly earnings of blue-collar, non-managerial workers (it's a good proxy for the median, or middle-class wage). It was already falling slightly in 2009 (Dec/Dec) but is falling faster now (down 1.5%, Nov10-Nov11).

Source: BLS, *production, non-supervisory workers.

Part of this do with faster inflation, as seen in the bars of the left side of the chart.

The other pothole indicator for the president is the increase in profit shares of GDP along with the decline in compensation shares. The figure shows these movements from 2009 compared to now, and while they don't look like big changes in the figure, they're actually quite significant-these variables usually move pretty glacially.

Source: NIPA

Profits as a share of GDP are way up and compensation/GDP is way down. Now, it's not like high profits are a bad thing, and they often recover before wages. But their distribution is highly skewed, and they clearly signal the return of rising income inequality, a major concern for a lot of people today, myself included.

The decline in the compensation share is a symptom of the weak job market, high unemployment, and weak wage growth. It's why a lot of families still feel squeezed while flush corporations sit on trillions in cash.

Like I said, we're a long way out and all of these indicators will change in ways we can't foresee. The president has some strong trend reversals to point to, though while the trend is his friend, the levels still bedevil. And the distribution of growth -- profits up, wages down -- doesn't help either. Of course, here he has a very strong case to make that the Republican's game plan will only make that problem a lot worse.

Stay tuned.

This post originally appeared at Jared Bernstein's On The Economy blog.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jared-bernstein/obama-economy-2012_b_1177556.html

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