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Friday, August 3, 2012

Obama and Romney trade barbs over economic plans

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney holds up a "presidential accountability scorecard" comparing himself to President Barack Obama, as he campaigns at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds in Golden, Colo., Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama speaks at a campaign event at Rollins College, Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012 in Orlando, Fla. Obama is campaigning in Florida and Northern Virginia today. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigns at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds in Golden, Colo., Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama greets supporter at a campaign event at Rollins College, Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012, in Orlando, Fla. Obama is campaigning in Florida and Northern Virginia today. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigns at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds in Golden, Colo., Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) ? Mitt Romney promised Thursday that his economic program will create 12 million new jobs in the next four years, and likened President Barack Obama to a "dog trying to chase its tail" when it comes to strengthening the sluggish recovery.

Firing back instantly, Obama said his rival favors "trickle-down fairy dust" that has failed to fix the economy in the past, and unleashed a new television ad with a scathing summation of Romney's tax plans: "He pays less. You pay more."

The two men campaigned in battleground states hundreds of miles apart, the incumbent in Florida, his challenger in Colorado, both on a mission to convert undecided voters to their side in a race dominated by the economy and high joblessness.

Nor was there any summer lull in the television ad wars. Americans For Prosperity, an independent group that backs Romney, intends to launch a $25 million ad campaign beginning next week, according to officials familiar with the arrangements. The organization was founded by David and Charles Koch, billionaire brothers, and has spent about $15 million in swing states this year on ads attacking Obama.

For Romney, the day meant a return to domestic campaigning after a weeklong overseas trip. Aides say he intends to disclose a vice presidential pick before the Republican National Convention opens on Aug. 27 in Tampa, Fla., but the former Massachusetts governor told reporters: "I've got nothing to give you" by way of information on his decision.

Instead, he unveiled what aides called Romney's plan for more jobs and more take-home pay, backed by an eight-page paper arguing that the economic stimulus and other policies backed by Obama "exacerbated the economy's structural problems and weakened the recovery ... At the present rate of job creation, the nation will never return to full employment," it said, on the eve of the release of the government's official report on July joblessness.

Following the release of Friday's jobs report, Obama planned to use the backdrop of the White House and surround himself with families who would benefit from the election year middle-class tax cut he's pushing Congress to adopt. "As dysfunctional as Washington can be, this fight is far from hopeless," White House senior adviser David Plouffe said in an email.

In remarks in Golden, Colo., Romney said his economic policies would lead to creation of 12 million jobs in the four years of his term, if he is elected, and help make North America energy independent, a pledge that aides said included Canada and Mexico as well as the United States.

Romney pledged expanded international trade, particularly with Latin America, and vowed to confront China over its own policies. "I'm finally going to sit down with the Chinese and they're going to understand that if they cheat there are going to be consequences, because we're not going to let them walk all over us," the former Massachusetts governor said.

He said he would help small business owners, improve the education system and cut spending to reduce the deficit, but he offered relatively few specifics.

Romney previously has said he wants to extend the tax cuts due to expire on Dec. 31 and grant a new 20 percent cut in tax rates, in addition, to stimulate growth. He has also said he will reverse some of Obama's proposed defense cuts, and simultaneously reduce spending on other programs in a way that deficits would gradually subside.

But he so far has refused to identify which existing tax breaks he would curtail to accomplish his goals, and generally avoided naming individual programs he wants to cut or eliminate.

In his remarks during the day, Romney said he wants federal education funds that aid the disadvantaged and disabled to be tied to the student rather than flow to school districts, as is now the case. But he did not specify how much he would cut from them to achieve his goal of reducing federal deficits.

He also criticized Obama for signing legislation that cut $500 billion from Medicare over a decade. Aides said he would restore the funding, which was reduced as part of the president's health care bill. But they had no additional details.

Romney said Democrats have a different view. "They think we should just raise taxes. ...The problem is when you raise taxes you lower growth," he said.

Obama's approach is "like a dog trying to chase its tail, you just don't ever get there," he added. "So the right answer is not to raise taxes. The right answer is to cut taxes and cut spending."

Obama and other Democrats support extending existing tax cuts except for individuals making more than $200,000 a year and couples with incomes over $250,000 ? and their disagreement with Romney and the Republicans on this point has emerged as arguably the most fundamental one of the campaign.

It's an argument that Obama seems eager to have ? using campaign appearances and paid television advertising to do so.

For the second day in a row, Obama cited a study by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center that says Romney and other millionaires would receive a tax cut of approximately $250,000 a year if the former Massachusetts governor gets his way.

"This analysis also found that if Gov. Romney wants to keep his word" about reducing deficits, "the average middle-class family with children would be stuck with a tax increase of more than $2,000," he added.

The president's new campaign ad was delivering the same highly personalized message. It says Romney has paid a lower proportion of his income in taxes than many people of lesser means and adds:

"He pays less, you pay more," the ad says.

Romney's personal wealth has been estimated as high as $250 million, but he has not so far made public a detailed disclosure of his holdings. His aides have sought to dismiss the report as a partisan attack by former aides to the president.

But Obama, picking up on what his own campaign staff said Wednesday, told an audience near Orlando, Fla., that the Tax Policy Center was headed by a former aide to President George W. Bush.

Romney, too, rolled out a new ad, giving a less-than-warm welcome to Obama on a day Air Force One touched down in Florida. It notes that the state still suffers from high unemployment, record home foreclosures and an increase in poverty.

"Barack Obama: What a disappointment," it says.

The president's stop in Florida reflected his campaign's efforts to build support among Hispanic voters, particularly Puerto Ricans. He was greeted on the tarmac of Orlando International Airport by Kenneth McClintock, the lieutenant governor of Puerto Rico and Alejandro Garcia-Padilla, a state senator in Puerto Rico.

___

Associated Press writers Beth Fouhy in New York and Philip Elliott in Washington contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-08-02-Presidential%20Campaign/id-458df5a1476448168fd1071e92b1d738

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Thursday, August 2, 2012

Bristol-Myers suspends hepatitis C treatment study

NEW YORK (AP) ? Drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. is suspending a midstage study of a potential hepatitis C treatment because of a serious patient safety issue.

The New York company did not elaborate on the problem in a brief statement released Wednesday night after markets closed. It said the cause of the issue and potential relationship to the drug are unknown.

Bristol-Myers shares are down more than 5 percent, or $1.80, to $33.80 in premarket trading Thursday.

The drug company is making a push to become a player in the hepatitis C drug market, and it acquired the potential treatment, labeled BMS-986094, as part of a $2.5 billion acquisition of drug developer Inhibitex Inc. it completed earlier this year.

Hepatitis C is a virus that can lead to life-threatening liver damage and is the main cause of liver transplants in the United States. Analysts say the market for treatments is potentially lucrative for drugmakers. More people are expected to be diagnosed with the tough-to-treat disease as the baby boomer generation ages.

After a two-decade drought, the first two new hepatitis C drugs were approved last year: Victrelis from Merck & Co. and Incivek, marketed by partners Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Johnson & Johnson. Both significantly improve the cure rate over what has long been the standard of care ? a mix of injections and pills with nasty, flu-like side effects that takes several months and still doesn't cure many patients.

Bristol-Myers is an important maker of medicines for viruses, including Baraclude for hepatitis B and several HIV drugs. It also sells the world's second-best-selling drug, the blood thinner Plavix, but revenue from that is expected to plunge due to competition from cheaper generic drugs in the U.S. market.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bristol-myers-suspends-hepatitis-c-treatment-study-121544153--finance.html

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Comeback athletes for the London Olympic 2012

The comeback tales have always fascinated and motivated us in numerous ways. Olympic Games have a list of such stories that has always inspired the athletes to perform better and set higher standards of sportsmanship spirit. It is always the combination of single minded focus on the set goals and the never dying attitude of the athletes towards the sport that has led to achieve such comebacks. What goes on behind the minds of such athletes,who tend to define the physical limitation which comes with every sport?

American swimmers like Anthony Ervin, Brenda Hansen; Romanian gymnast Catalina Ponor; American sprinter Justin Gatlin and American cyclist Kristin Armstrong are few of those athletes who have made a successful comeback in the Olympic Games. It is possible to buy imagesof these athletes who have set new benchmark and are an inspiration for the millions of their fans. Nearly all of them had given upon games earlier for some reason or the other. Few had retired due to physical injuries and others for the age factor. Kristin Armstrong has suffered a collar-bone injury, in spite of which at the age of 38 she made a sensational comeback just after 23 days of her injury by qualifying for the 18-mile time trial and road race. Romanian three times Olympic winner Catalina Ponor in 2005 had decided to retire from the sport but now it is the great Romanian Nadia Comaneci who is mentoring the gymnast for the comeback in London Olympic 2012.

Similarly Australian swimmer Libby Trickett, who had won three Olympic gold medals and in all six medals is planning for a comeback in 2012 for London Olympics for 4x100m freestyle relay squad after announcing the retirement in the year 2009. American sprinter Nellum qualified for the London Olympics after undergoing three surgeries on his left hamstring. Not only that, he also set a personal record of 44.80 seconds in 400m race. Anthony Ervin had won a gold medal for 50m freestyle in Sydney Olympics in the year 2000;he had announced his retirement in the year 2003 along with selling his medal for $17000 and donating the amount to Tsunami relief fund has also decided to make a comeback for the London Olympic 2012. Sprinter Justin Gatlin was banned in the year 2004 during the Athens Olympics on the charges of doping; for which he also had to miss the Beijing Olympics 2008. This did not stop the America sprinter from setting a gold winning record of 9.80s. It is possible to buy content and keep yourself updated about the sportsperson like that of Anthony Ervin and Libby Trickett, who have been inspiring the newer generation.

The picture is not always filled with colours of success for the comebacks. There have been many legendary athletes who could not make a successful comeback; one of them is Slovenian track athlete Merlene Ottey; who holds the record of participating in the Olympic Games seven times and also for winning the World Championship for fourteen times. It was the Sydney Olympics 2000 where she was charged for doping and since then could not make a comeback in Olympics. You can buy news articles to know more about the athletes who could not make a successful comeback in the sport they loved the most.

Source: http://www.artipot.com/articles/1321318/comeback-athletes-for-the-london-olympic-2012.htm

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Report: Afghan militants have mafia-like financing

ISLAMABAD (AP) ? One of the deadliest militant groups in Afghanistan, the Haqqani network, has developed a sophisticated, "mafia"-style financing operation that relies on extortion, kidnapping, smuggling and ties to legitimate businesses, according to a new report by a U.S.-based think tank.

The report by the Combating Terrorism Center in West Point, N.Y., suggests the system has become so lucrative that maintaining it could be as much of a goal for the group as driving foreign forces out of Afghanistan. That could complicate U.S. efforts to negotiate an end to the war since much of the network's cash flow is dependent on instability and lawlessness bred by the conflict.

"Life at war has become lucrative ? even if highly risky ? while an end to the fighting would almost certainly produce a decline in wealth and power," said the report, which was released Tuesday and was based on archival records, documents captured in Afghanistan and interviews with Western, Afghan and Pakistani officials, as well as locals in areas where the Haqqani network operates.

The U.S. has identified the Haqqani network, allied with al-Qaida and the Taliban, as one of its most potent enemies in Afghanistan, partly because of its record of carrying out high-profile attacks on the capital Kabul. The leaders of the group are based in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area, having fled there from their homeland in eastern Afghanistan following the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

The U.S. has repeatedly demanded that Pakistan prevent Haqqani fighters from using North Waziristan as a base to attack troops in Afghanistan, but Islamabad has refused, saying it is stretched too thin fighting domestic militants. Most analysts believe Pakistan is reluctant to target a group with which it has strong historical ties and could be a useful ally in Afghanistan after foreign forces withdraw.

The diplomat nominated to be Washington's next ambassador to Pakistan, Richard Olson, said during a Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday that getting Islamabad to crack down on the Haqqani network would be his "most urgent" responsibility.

The group's founder, Jalaluddin Haqqani, began developing his financial support network in earnest decades ago following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. During the decade-long war, he was largely reliant on money, weapons and supplies provided by Pakistani intelligence, which received billions of dollars from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

Foreign assistance dropped sharply after the Soviets withdrew in 1989, prompting Haqqani to search for new sources of funding, including Arab donors in the Gulf and proceeds from protecting drug traffickers and extorting businessmen in eastern Afghanistan and areas across the border in Pakistan, said the think tank report.

Haqqani's ability to earn money from drug trafficking and other smuggling activities increased after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in 1996 and named him minister of tribal and border affairs.

Following the fall of the Taliban in 2001 and relocation to Pakistan, the group continued its outreach to Arab donors, with senior leaders making regular trips to the Gulf, and deepened involvement in illegal activities by broadening the types of businesses it extorted and kidnapping local businessmen and their relatives, said the report.

"Local sources ... say it is virtually impossible to conduct business in Haqqani areas of operations unless the network approves and profits off that business in some way," said the report.

The most lucrative target for extortion is NATO and other foreign-funded construction projects in Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the report. Although it is impossible to pinpoint a precise figure the group earns, multiple sources say extortion has become the network's largest source of income. But this type of predation risks turning locals against the group.

The network's reliance on illicit sources of financing reportedly increased after Haqqani had a stroke in 2005 and handed over responsibility for day-to-day operations to his son, Sirajuddin. The son is credited by some analysts with expanding into the smuggling of minerals and timber, said the report. The group is also believed to be deeply involved into importing chemicals needed to process opium into heroin, it said.

The Haqqani network also maintains a portfolio of legal business interests, although leaders appear to disguise their ownership through front men and companies, said the report. The group is believed to own real estate from Kabul to Dubai and to run transport and trucking firms, construction companies and import-export operations ? some of which appear to exist mainly to launder illicit profits.

The report suggested that targeting the group's financial infrastructure could be a key way to hamper the network.

"In partnership with the ongoing tactical campaign, a stepped-up U.S. effort to identify and disrupt Haqqani business activities and logistical supply lines, modeled on previous successful campaigns against other transnational crime networks around the globe, could significantly degrade the network's capacity to cause trouble," said the report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/report-afghan-militants-mafia-financing-150806789.html

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Wednesday, August 1, 2012

BPW Career Center: Real Estate/Property Management jobs, Site ...

About Pinnacle.

We invest in great people. That's why clients trust us with their real estate investments!
At Pinnacle, we consider our employees our most valuable asset. In fact, our number one key business objective is to attract and retain the best talent in the industry! At Pinnacle, the key to our continued success and competitive advantage is our people.

We offer a total compensation and benefits package to help with your needs today and build for your future tomorrow. We recognize that each employee is an individual with individual needs, lifestyles, and interests. Our benefits package was created with the flexibility to support employees who are at different places in their lives and careers.

Pinnacle values diversity and is committed to equal opportunity in employment. We offer a safe, healthy work environment for employees through a commitment to maintaining a drug-free workplace.
Pinnacle has ongoing employment opportunities at our headquarters in Seattle, our more than 40 branch office locations nationally and our many managed communities throughout the country.

Pinnacle is the national leader in third-party fee management of investment real estate encompassing multi-family, commercial space, affordable housing and military housing. Pinnacle is built on four basic principles:

Quality people

Strong customer service

Solid market knowledge

Superior systems and support capabilities

At Pinnacle, success is about more than having a healthy bottom line. Guided by our principles and values, we are committed to making Pinnacle an amazing and unique place to work for each member of our team.

About the job..

As a Leasing Consultant at Pinnacle you will play an important role with the onsite management team. Our Leasing Consultants look forward to working with an exceptionally skilled and highly trained team, geared to support your efforts to be successful. Our Leasing Consultants are people who make a big impact in many small ways - a friendly smile, a welcoming handshake, a genuine interest in the people walking through the property office door. Our Leasing Consultants create a positive and lasting influence on visitors, prospects and residents, and understand the importance of first impressions.

As a Leasing Consultant, you manage your own success by attaining leasing goals, such as occupancy and rent growth, and by building rapport with prospects and residents.

Essential Responsibilities:

Generate interest in the community by touring the property with prospects as you answer questions about the numerous amenities, local community and beautiful grounds.

Drive the sale by highlighting the quality of the community and the lifestyle available Pinnacle apartment home.

Assist prospects in qualifying for an apartment home by collecting appropriate information and initiating background checks.

Ensure apartments are prepared for move-in.

Deliver unmatched service to residents to exceed their expectations, while maintaining resident retention.

You will also use your attention to detail, planning and organizing skills to perform required office activities and coordinate paperwork related to apartment home rentals.

Personal Competencies:

Articulate

Organized/Detail Oriented

Customer oriented

Persuasive

Enthusiastic

Team player

Goal oriented

Qualifications:

High School or equivalent, Bachelor's Degree is preferred.

Minimum of one year experience in a customer service or sales position

Basic computer skills in a Windows environment.

Effective communication and customer service skills.

Ability to interact with others in a team environment.

Pinnacle has grown to become America's largest apartment manager through many different successes. Yet, in today's ultra-competitive market, each success must fuel the next and speed is essential in the ongoing race to lead the industry.

If you are ready to work hard and be empowered and encouraged to innovate, contribute ideas and discover solution to provide current and potential residents with unparalleled, world class customer service please click Apply Online.

Source: http://careers.bpwusa.org/jobs/4864285/leasing-consultant

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