Car slump in France, Spain and Italy spells gloomy 2013

PARIS (Reuters) - Car sales in France, Spain and Italy in 2012 fell to the lowest levels in years, with December registration data underscoring the challenges facing the broader European economy.

Automakers are facing a sustained slump in the European car market as the euro zone debt crisis and government austerity measures sap consumer demand.

"The new car market continues to decline - a trait which we anticipate will continue through the course of 2013," Credit Suisse analyst David Arnold said on Wednesday, adding European auto sales were unlikely to see growth in 2013.

Europe's stagnating auto market will have knock-on effects for other economic players including steel producers, Nomura analyst Matthew Kates said in a note, citing forecasts by consulting firm AutoAnalysis.

Italy's car sales, down 22.5 percent in December, slumped 19.9 percent for the full year to 1.4 million units, their lowest levels since 1979.

"The car market is suffering from an overdose of taxes aimed at hitting, if not criminalizing, the acquisition, ownership and use of autos," said Filippo Pavan Bernacchi, the president of Italy's car dealers' trade group Federauto.

He said he expected Italian car sales in 2013 to be close to 1.33 million units.

French car registrations fell 15 percent in December, leaving the full year down 14 percent to 1.90 million vehicles - the lowest since 1997, French industry group CCFA said.

Spain's monthly sales shrank 23 percent, after a 20 percent fall in November. Its full-year total of 699,589 cars, down 13 percent, was the lowest since industry association Anfac began keeping records in 1989.

Germany will report December data on Thursday.

Ford led December's declines among mass-market brands with sales down 40 percent in France, 31 percent in Spain and 33 percent in Italy. Opel - the European unit of General Motors - posted declines of 16 percent, 17 percent and 47 percent, respectively.

Volkswagen , Europe's biggest automaker, saw sales at its core brand slump 25 percent in France, 15 percent in Spain and 36 percent in Italy.

PSA Peugeot Citroen fell broadly in line with both markets, while Fiat brand sales dropped 11 percent in France, 28 percent in Spain and 20.5 percent in Italy.

Renault-brand registrations dropped 20 percent in Spain and 32 percent in France. Its home market is likely to shrink 2-5 percent this year, Renault France marketing director Nicolas Monnot said.

"This is completely coherent with the various macroeconomic forecasts available."

In a note on Italian data, auto think-tank Promotor said Italy's full-year fall in car sales was particularly worrying at a time when the global auto market was growing.

"The auto crisis does in fact involve only the euro area and is a direct consequence of the depressive effect of austerity policies on the real economy," it said.

The chance of a recovery in the euro zone economy has faded further into 2013 after the recession deepened in the final months of last year, a Reuters poll found last month.

KNOCK-ON EFFECTS

Falling business investment and persistently weak consumer sentiment are challenging French President Francois Hollande's efforts to stem rising unemployment and keep government spending within its 2013 deficit target.

Spain's year-old recession was expected to continue well into 2013, weighed down by battered economic sentiment and 25 percent unemployment, a record high. Manufacturing activity shrank for a 20th straight month in December.

Italy was seen recording a 0.2 percent economic contraction this year, according to government figures. The International Monetary Fund predicted a 0.7 percent decline.

With fast-growing markets such as China and Russia increasingly meeting their own demand for steel, European producers are more than ever at the mercy of domestic industry.

"It is difficult to get bullish on the outlook for European auto demand in the near term, with obvious implications for European steel demand," Kates at Nomura said.

German auto demand, which had long resisted the slump spreading north, turned negative in the second half to post a 1.7 percent drop for January through November.

In another sign of contagion, French delivery van sales contracted sharply in December, plunging 22 percent for their biggest monthly decline since the crisis of 2008, CCFA spokesman Francois Roudier said.

"We have already been seeing individual consumers holding back (on car purchases), particularly in the mass market," Roudier said. "Now company fleet sales are slowing down as well."

(Additional reporting by Paul Day, Gilles Guillaume, Gus Trompiz and Stephen Jewkes; Editing by Dan Lalor, James Regan and Hans-Juergen Peters)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/car-slump-france-spain-italy-spells-gloomy-2013-191029854--sector.html

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'Storage Wars: New York' Premiere: Joe P Talks About His Zen Philosophy For Picking Storage Lockers (VIDEO)

Joe "P" Pauletich is on his way to becoming the breakout star of the newest incarnation of the "Storage Wars" empire. The Queens native took center stage almost immediately during the premiere of "Storage Wars: New York" with his approach to buying storage lockers.

"I have a sixth sense when it comes to buying storage rooms," Joe explained. "They all talk to you in a different way. When that door opens, it?s like stepping into another dimension."

At another point he claimed to have ESP, defining it as "Extraordinary Storage Perception."

Strange, perhaps, but Joe's methods were working. He picked up a unit filled with original artwork for only $1,500. According to the show, he made over $16,000.

Get to know the personalities of "Storage Wars: New York" every Tuesday at 10 p.m. EST on A&E.

TV Replay scours the vast television landscape to find the most interesting, amusing, and, on a good day, amazing moments, and delivers them right to your browser.

Related on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/02/storage-wars-new-york-premiere-joe-p-video_n_2394235.html

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Azealia Banks Calls Fashion Industry 'Fickle,' Warns Artists They 'Will Get Let Down'

fashionista.com:

Azealia Banks might be one of fashion's newest music obsessions-but the feeling is not mutual.

Speaking to online music magazine HYPETRAK in a video segment, Banks said, "If you place your faith in the fashion world you will get let down as an artist. You absolutely will get let down."

Read the whole story at fashionista.com

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/02/azealia-banks-calls-fashi_n_2396110.html

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Top Goldman Sachs execs get shares on New Year's Eve

(Reuters) - Ten senior Goldman Sachs Group Inc executives, including Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein, were on New Year's Eve given stock pegged to earlier restricted awards worth tens of millions of dollars.

The executives, which also include Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn, Vice Chairmen Michael Evans and John Weinberg, Global Head of Human Capital Management Edith Cooper, Chief of Staff John Rogers, General Counsel Greg Palm, Global Head of Compliance Alan Cohen, and Chief Accounting Officer Sarah Smith, got a total of 508,104 shares, according to multiple filings late Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

These executives sold 245,838 of those shares to cover tax obligations, and held on to the rest, which were worth $33.1 million. The shares were sold at a price of $126.24 on Monday.

The shares were not awarded as 2012 compensation; rather, they were grants that were awarded in prior years.

A spokesman for the firm said Goldman had no comment on the stock delivery.

Although the executives did not sell shares for profits on Monday, in recent months, top Goldman executives have been cashing in on stock awards granted in prior years that would have expired in November. Blankfein took home $5.9 million in proceeds from such transactions.

The transactions come amid a broader rally in bank shares. Goldman's stock soared 41 percent in 2012, to close the year at $127.56.

(This version of the story has been corrected to show that executives sold some stock received from restricted grants to cover tax obligations. Also corrects the amount of stock each received and the number executives who got shares.)

(Reporting by Lauren Tara LaCapra, editing by G Crosse)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/goldman-execs-cash-26-8-million-stock-years-204549610--sector.html

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How to add new mailboxes to your email account right from your iPhone and iPad

If you've got an iPhone or iPad, odds are you've got your email accounts attached to it. If you use standard email services such as iCloud, Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo, you can better manage your messages by creating folders within your email account. The best part is that you can do it straight from your iPhone or iPad without ever having to access your mail from a desktop computer.

Not quite sure how? That's okay. Follow along and we'll have your email cleaned up and organized in no time.

1. Launch the Mail app from the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad.
2. Here you'll see two sections that are labeled Inboxes and Accounts. We will be working with the Accounts section towards the bottom.

3. Tap into the Account that you need to create folders within.
4. Tap the Edit button in the upper right hand corner.

5. You will see a new button appear in the bottom right hand corner titled New Mailbox. Tap on it.

6. Type in the name of the folder aka mailbox you'd like to create.

7. You can also change the Mailbox Location directly underneath where you type the name of the mailbox. This is nice for times when you want to nest mailboxes inside of each other. For example, you can have a general work mailbox and then a mailbox inside of that for each colleague if you really want to.

8. Once you're done deciding where you'd like the mailbox to be located at, tap Save in the upper right hand corner of the create mailbox screen.

That's all there is to it, you can now start moving messages to the mailboxes you've just created. Feels good to be organized doesn't it?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/HxSC4A1Wggg/story01.htm

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Despite last-minute scramble, still no debt deal

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The White House and Senate Republicans sorted through stubborn disputes over taxing the wealthy and cutting the budget to pay for Democratic spending proposals as Monday's midnight deadline for an accord avoiding the "fiscal cliff" drew to within hours.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., spoke repeatedly Sunday to Vice President Joe Biden, a former Senate colleague, in hopes of settling remaining differences and clinching a breakthrough that has evaded the two sides since President Barack Obama's November re-election. In one indication of the eleventh-hour activity, aides said the president, Biden and top administration bargainer Rob Nabors were all working late at the White House, and McConnell was making late-night phone calls as well.

Unless an agreement is reached and approved by Congress by the start of New Year's Day, more than $500 billion in 2013 tax increases will begin to take effect and $109 billion will be carved from defense and domestic programs. Though the tax hikes and budget cuts would be felt gradually, economists warn that if allowed to fully take hold, their combined impact ? the so-called fiscal cliff ? would rekindle a recession.

"There is still significant distance between the two sides, but negotiations continue," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said shortly before the Senate ended an unusual Sunday session. "There is still time to reach an agreement, and we intend to continue negotiations."

The House and Senate planned to meet Monday, a rarity for New Year's Eve, in hopes of having a tentative agreement to consider. Yet despite the flurry of activity, there was still no final pact.

"This whole thing is a national embarrassment," Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said Monday on MSNBC, adding that any solution Congress would swallow at this late stage would be inconsequential. "We still haven't moved any closer to solving our nation's problems."

In a move that was sure to irritate Republicans, Reid was planning ? absent a deal ? to force a Senate vote Monday on Obama's campaign-season proposal to continue expiring tax cuts for all but those with income exceeding $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples.

Attached to the measure ? which the GOP seemed likely to block ? would be an extension of jobless benefits for around 2 million long-term unemployed people. The plan was described by Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the chamber's No. 2 Democrat.

The House and Senate met Sunday ready to debate an agreement or at least show voters they were trying. But the day produced alternating bursts of progress and pitfalls, despite Senate chaplain Barry Black's opening prayer in which he asked the heavens, "Look with favor on our nation and save us from self-inflicted wounds."

In one sign of movement, Republicans dropped a demand to slow the growth of Social Security and other benefits by changing how those payments are increased each year to allow for inflation.

Obama had offered to include that change, despite opposition by many Democrats, as part of earlier, failed bargaining with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, over a larger deficit reduction agreement. But Democrats said they would never include the new inflation formula in the smaller deal now being sought to forestall wide-ranging tax boosts and budget cuts, and Republicans relented.

"It's just acknowledging the reality," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said of the GOP decision to drop the idea.

There was still no final agreement on the income level above which decade-old income tax cuts would be allowed to expire. While Obama has long insisted on letting the top 35 percent tax rate rise to 39.6 percent on earnings over $250,000, he'd agreed to boost that level to $400,000 in his talks with Boehner. GOP senators said they wanted the figure hoisted to at least that level.

Senators said disagreements remained over taxing large inherited estates. Republicans want the tax left at its current 35 percent, with the first $5.1 million excluded, while Democrats want the rate increased to 45 percent with a smaller exclusion.

The two sides were also apart on how to keep the alternative minimum tax from raising the tax bills of nearly 30 million middle-income families and how to extend tax breaks for research by business and other activities.

Republicans were insisting that budget cuts be found to pay for some of the spending proposals Democrats were pushing.

These included proposals to erase scheduled defense and domestic cuts exceeding $200 billion over the next two years and to extend unemployment benefits. Republicans complained that in effect, Democrats would pay for that spending with the tax boosts on the wealthy.

"We can't use tax increases on anyone to pay for more spending," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

Both parties also want to block an immediate 27 percent cut in reimbursements to doctors who treat Medicare patients. Republicans wanted to find savings from Obama's health care bill as well as from Medicare providers, while Democrats want to protect the health care law from cuts.

Both sides agree that a temporary 2-percentage-point cut in the Social Security payroll tax was likely to expire. That reduction ? to 4.2 percent ? was initiated by Obama two years ago to help spur the economy and has meant $1,000 annual savings to families earning $50,000.

A senior defense official said if the spending cuts were triggered, the Pentagon would soon begin notifying its 800,000 civilian employees to expect furloughs ? mandatory unpaid leave, not layoffs. It would take time for the furloughs to be implemented, said the official, who requested anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the preparations

___

Associated Press writers David Espo, Julie Pace, Robert Burns and Josh Lederman contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fiscal-cliff-disputes-remain-deadline-nears-082407825--politics.html

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Barbados Gov?t economic policies iffy ? union

(Barbados Nation) The?Barbados Workers? Union (BWU) has called on Government to implement immediate initiatives?which would stimulate business while improving Barbados? image as a place in which to invest.

Speaking yesterday at a news conference at Solidarity House, BWU general secretary Sir Roy Trotman said the ?stated policies? of the Freundel Stuart administration to deal with the economic crisis facing Barbados ?are much too ?iffy? for our comfort?.

He was at the time speaking about the recent downgrade by the international credit rating agency Moody?s.

He said the downgrade was of major concern but added that ?what we cannot afford to do is to close our minds and surrender our judgement to any of the self-seeking gurus who seem hell bent on twisting the evidence which is before us . . .?.

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