Finance news. My opinion.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, acknowledged Sunday his sexual encounter with a New York hotel maid was a “moral failing” on his part, but didn’t involve violence, constraint or aggression.

In his first interview since his May 14 arrest over sexual assault accusations, Strauss-Kahn told France’s TF1 television channel what happened between him and the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, “was not only an inappropriate relationship, but more than that, it was an error.”

Strauss-Kahn, a Socialist politician who was widely considered a top contender in next year’s presidential race until the case broke, said “it was a failing, a failing vis-a-vis my wife, my children and my friends but also a failing vis-a-vis the French people, who had vested their hopes for change in me.

“I think it was a moral failing and I am not proud of it. I regret it infinitely. I have regretted it everyday for the past four months and I think I’m not done regretting it,” he said at the start of the 20-minute interview. Much of the exchange came off as staged, with Strauss-Kahn appearing calm and unruffled throughout and not surprised by the questions.

Strauss-Kahn’s initial contrition was peppered with anger at his accuser, a Guinean immigrant who maintained he attacked her after she came into his room at New York’s Sofitel hotel to clean.

He said the New York prosecutor concluded “Nafissatou Diallo lied about everything _ not only about her past, that’s of no importance, but also about what happened. The (prosecutor’s) report says, it’s written there, that ’she presented so many different versions of what happened that I can’t believe a word.’”

Strauss-Kahn suggested that financial motives might have been behind Diallo’s accusations.

He also dismissed as “imaginary” separate claims by a French writer that he tried to rape her during a 2003 interview, again insisting “no act of aggression, no violence” had taken place between the two.

The writer, Tristane Banon, has maintained she and Strauss-Kahn tussled on the floor during an interview in an empty apartment, with the politician trying to open her jeans and bra and putting his fingers in her mouth and underwear.

Because a police investigation into the claims is ongoing, Strauss-Kahn said he would not say anything more about the matter. If Paris prosecutors decide to pursue the case, Strauss-Kahn could face a possible trial.

New York prosecutors dropped all criminal charges against him in the Diallo case last month, though Strauss-Kahn is still facing a lawsuit brought by the maid.

Asked whether he had any intention of returning to politics, Strauss-Kahn said he would “take time to reflect” and rest first.

“But all my life was consecrated to being useful to the public good,” he said, adding “we will see.”

The AP does not name people who report being sexually assaulted unless they agree to be identified or come forward publicly, as Diallo and Banon have done.

Source

Thailand’s plan to pay its rice growers far above market rates is expected to push up prices for the staple that feeds almost half the world’s people as rice importing nations look to other countries for tightened supplies.

A new government in Thailand, the world’s biggest rice exporter, has promised growers higher prices for rice in a scheme that will take effect Oct. 7. It’s putting no limit on the amount of rice it will buy.

What’s good for Thai farmers, who have long complained of being shortchanged by middlemen, is proving less popular elsewhere in Asia. The effects of the rice policy are rippling through the region, where many countries are already struggling with fast rising food prices.

Thailand’s rice exporters say they will ship less overseas because they will be unable to compete with the price the government pays. That in turn will tighten the global rice market, forcing up the staple’s price in other countries.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts that Thailand’s rice exports will drop 20 percent to 8 million metric tons in 2012 because of the rice buying scheme. That could see Vietnam overtake Thailand as the No. 1 exporter.

“The rice prices in the global market will definitely escalate, since the supply from Thailand, the biggest exporter, is seeing a downturn,” said Witchuda Chummee, an analyst at Siam Commercial Bank’s Economic Intelligence Center in Bangkok.

“Using the Thai prices as a benchmark, other countries, like Vietnam, will likely increase their prices also.”

The Pheu Thai Party that swept to power in July 3 elections has said the government will pay farmers baht 15,000 ($500) per ton for unmilled paddy rice and baht 20,000 ($665) for unmilled jasmine rice. Before the election, unmilled paddy rice sold for baht 8,150 ($271) a ton and milled paddy rice sold for baht 13,000 ($432) a ton.

What’s causing particular angst for exporters is that the government intends to buy as much rice directly from growers as they want to sell.

“We will take as much as we can,” Commerce Minister Kittirat Na-Ranong told The Associated Press.

Chookiat Ophaswongse, the honorary president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, said the international price for “white rice 5 percent” _ long grain white rice with a 5 percent broken rice component _ could reach $830 per ton “as soon as the scheme is fully implemented,” compared with the current market price of $613 per ton.

“The government’s price is too high and will definitely undermine the nation’s competitiveness in rice exporting,” said Chookiat. “If exporters cannot compete with the subsidized price, they may have to switch to trade rice of other origins.”

Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, Thailand’s move has underlined the importance of boosting local production and having a broad range of possible sources.

“This just shows how correct we are in pushing for self-sufficiency,” said Proceso Alcala, Agriculture Secretary for the Philippines, which is the world’s top rice importer.

The country’s National Food Authority is assessing likely demand for rice from other Southeast Asian countries for 2012 and subsequent years to get a clearer picture of whether Thailand can maintain high prices or if “natural market forces will also get them to reconsider the plan,” said its administrator Lito Banayo.

Banayo said if local rice growing targets are met, the Philippines would need to import only a million tons or less for 2012 _ about the same amount bought for this year’s stocks.

Sutarto Alimoeso, chief of Indonesia’s state logistics agency, said the Thai scheme is a challenge to Indonesian farmers to improve their productivity.

The agency known as Bulog is currently importing 300,000 tons from Thailand and 500,000 tons from Vietnam for stockpiles, Alimoeso said.

In anticipating higher rice prices, Alimoeso said Indonesia is arranging possible imports from India and Pakistan. Imports from Myanmar and Cambodia are also an option.

Thailand first introduced a rice subsidy scheme in 2004 during the government of Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a coup two years later following prolonged protests in the capital Bangkok against his alleged corruption and CEO-style rule. The scheme was criticized for graft and its high cost.

Kittirat, the Thai Commerce Minister, told lawmakers last month that the rice scheme is expected to cost less than baht 100 billion ($3.32 billion) a year and will result in losses for the government of less than baht 10 billion ($332 million) a year.

A 2010 study by Thailand Develop Research Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Bangkok, found that the earlier rice buying program caused losses of baht 19.1 billion ($628 million) for the government in 2005. It said the program was “plagued with corruption at all stages” and that most of the benefits did not go to the farmers.

The latest plan, however, enjoys strong support from farmers, whose votes helped Pheu Thai, led by Thaksin’s younger sister Yingluck Shinawatra, win government with a strong parliamentary majority in July elections.

“This program directly benefits Thai farmers. We will no longer be taken advantage of by middlemen,” said Wichien Puanglumjiak, a representative of the farmers’ network in central Thailand.

Source

WASHINGTON

Residents with stranded solar projects caught a small break Friday.

Those waiting

Charter Communications lost $107 million in the June quarter in the face of weak revenue growth and large interest expenses.

The loss, amounting to 98 cents per share, compares to a 72-cent, $81 million loss in the same quarter a year earlier.

The company reported 1 percent growth in revenue, as customers dropped its cable TV service, while adding internet and telephone service via cable cashadvance.  Cable companies across the country have been facing stiffer competition for TV service from phone and satellite companies.

Charter, based in Town and Country, is the fourth largest cable operator in America.  It emerged from bankruptcy in 2009.

Source

British supermarket group Tesco says its sales rose 7.8 percent in the 13 weeks ending May 28 despite a relatively subdued performance in its home market.

Tesco, the world’s third-largest retailer, said Tuesday that overall sales excluding petrol were up 6.7 percent compared to a year earlier.

Its British operations underperformed, with sales there up only 3.4 percent on a same-stores basis. When taxes and petrol sales were excluded, sales were actually down 0.1 percent in Britain.

The company’s performance in Britain was likely to have been distorted by the royal wedding, which was a public holiday. Tesco’s trading statement did not comment on the impact of the extra holiday.

Philip Clarke, Tesco’s chief executive, said high fuel costs contributed to the sluggish U.K. performance.

“Customers have to direct some of their spending to petrol at the expense of their normal shopping and this remains a drag on both industry and our own like-for-like growth,” Clarke said.

Tesco shares were down 1.2 percent at 402.4 pence in early trading on the London Stock Exchange.

“A cocktail of anemic U.K. numbers, high expectations and a market in little mood to take prisoners have conspired to mark the shares down in early trade,” said Richard Hunter, head of U.K. equities at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers.

Tesco’s Fresh & Easy venture in the United States reported sales up 11 percent on a same stores basis, or 22 percent higher including recently opened stores.

Like-for-like sales excluding petrol were up 3.2 percent in Asia and 2 percent in Europe, Tesco said.

Source

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday acknowledged a slowdown in the U.S. economy but offered no suggestion the central bank is considering any further monetary stimulus to support growth.

He also issued a stern warning to lawmakers in Washington who are considering aggressive budget cuts, saying they have the potential to derail the economic recovery if cuts in government spending take hold too soon.

A recent spate of weak economic data, capped by a report on Friday showing U.S. employers expanded payrolls by a meagre 54,000 workers last month, has renewed investor speculation the economy could need more help from the Fed.

TMX Group (TSX: X) says its proposed US$3 billion merger with the London Stock Exchange Group has been cleared by the Canadian competition commissioner.

TMX, operator of the Toronto Stock Exchange and other Canadian exchanges, said Thursday the competition watchdog, Melanie Aitken, has issued a

SASKATOON

Ireland’s ailing banks need another euro24 billion ($34 billion) in cash, overwhelmingly from the government, in a move that is expected to leave all of them under state control and facing a complete overhaul, officials said Thursday.

The Central Bank of Ireland made that recommendation as it published pessimistic results for stress tests on four banks _ a condition of Ireland’s international bailout. The tests presume that the country’s real estate market will keep falling and produce tens of thousands of home foreclosures, a problem that is just starting to bite.

Central Bank Governor Patrick Honohan said all four banks would need enough money to cover mammoth write-offs of dud property loans and to boost their cash reserves to new, higher standards. He said these cash requirements can’t be met by any of the banks in question, so each will have to receive funding from Ireland’s emergency European Union-International Monetary Fund credit line.

Ireland’s new government welcomed the findings as grim but realistic _ and unveiled plans to shrink the country’s financial sector through a series of mergers and asset selloffs.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan told parliament that Ireland intended to create “two pillar banks” based on the market leaders, Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks.

Noonan said he planned to take majority state control of Irish Life & Permanent, sell off its lucrative pensions and investment arms, and transfer the remaining parts to one of the two survivors.

He said the fourth and smallest bank targeted by Thursday’s stress tests, Educational Building Society, would be merged into Allied Irish.

Noonan stressed that he wanted the extra billions to start flowing into all four banks “without delay.”

Honohan said Ireland would over-invest in all four banks now to ensure that foreign investors will start lending to them again. He said the four banks “should have the needed capital even to meet the market’s gloomy prognostications.”

The EU and IMF in November made the offer of loans, worth up to euro67.5 billion ($95 billion), conditional on Ireland’s banks being tested again to determine a worst-case scenario for funding. The EU-IMF bailout fund earmarked up to euro35 billion for bolstering the banks, so Thursday’s figures come in well below that daunting limit.

Nonetheless, the new figure would take the estimated total cost of Ireland’s bank-bailout efforts since 2009 to euro70 billion ($99 billion) _ some euro15,500 ($22,000) for every man, woman and child in Ireland.

Ireland has already put euro46 billion into its banks since 2009, when it began nationalizing them to prevent their collapse _ and took the country to the brink of bankruptcy as a consequence payday loans direct lenders.

Honohan said it was virtually certain that, as part of the next infusion of capital, the last two banks to avoid majority state ownership _ Bank of Ireland and Irish Life & Permanent _ would both be forced down that road.

The state already owns 36 percent of Bank of Ireland but has yet to take a stake in Irish Life & Permanent, Ireland’s major provider of private pensions and residential mortgages. The government already owns 93 percent of Allied Irish Banks and fully owns the Educational Building Society. It also fully nationalized and is shutting down two other banks, Anglo Irish and Irish Nationwide, that were not targets of Thursday’s stress tests.

Thursday’s plan calls for Allied Irish to receive euro13.3 billion more; Bank of Ireland euro5.2 billion; Irish Life & Permanent euro4 billion; and EBS euro1.5 billion.

The banks will be given the opportunity to raise funds themselves, but none has been able to borrow from foreign lenders over the past year because their dud and suspect loans greatly outstrip their market value.

Irish Life & Permanent, for example, has about euro19 billion in deposits and euro39 billion in loans, chiefly mortgages _ and a stock price that values the company at just euro110 million.

The bank announced its own plan to sell its most attractive units, its pensions and investment businesses, in two stock market flotations. That would leave its retail bank, Permanent TSB, to be folded into one of the two survivors.

Irish Life & Permanent’s chief executive, Kevin Murphy, called the announcement of the company’s planned dismantling “extremely disappointing.”

Irish Life & Permanent said it hoped its asset sales would net euro1.1 billion, while it could drum up a further euro600 million on its own. But the remaining euro2.3 billion required would come from the government, a step that will lead to issuing the government new shares and hand control of the bank to the state.

The Central Bank’s goal, in part, is to reduce the banks’ current loan-to-deposit ratios to 122.5 percent by 2013. The banks’ current ratio is more than 180 percent, meaning that the banks have loaned out nearly twice as much as they have on deposit.

Ireland’s Central Bank currently is providing euro89 billion in short-term loans to Irish banks, the European Central Bank a similar amount. Ireland has been pressing the ECB to provide a new medium-term loan product for Ireland’s banks rather than the short-term facility, which requires loans to be renewed every two weeks at relatively high interest rates.

Source