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Monday, March 4, 2013

Sylvia Mathews Burwell: back at the White House after Walmart detour

Obama's 'bright-as-hell' nominee for OMB worked in the Clinton administration before joining the world's largest retailer

Sylvia Mathews Burwell's nomination to one of the most influential jobs in politics marks her return to Washington after a remarkable career with some of the world's most powerful charities and people. It also marks the most senior government appointment to date for a Walmart alumnus – an appointment that has critics of the mega-retailer worried.

Announcing her nomination for head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on Monday, President Obama said Mathews Burwell was somebody who "understands that our goal, when we put together a budget, is not just to make the numbers add up, but to reignite the true engine of economic growth in this country that is a strong and growing middle class."

Walmart president Mike Duke called Mathews Burwell a strong leader with a "clear vision for making big things happen." Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan also praised the appointment and her "impressive career in both the public and private sectors." In 1996, the pair appeared in an article in the Washingtonian magazine about "young guns" making an impact in DC.

Not everyone is so happy with the news, however. "What better place to plant a partisan corporation heavyweight than as budget chief in the Office of Management and Budget?" said Kenneth J Harvey, a filmmaker and author of the WalmartSucks blog. "Obama is an intelligent and fair man, which makes it highly unnerving to suddenly find him so lovingly in bed with Walmart."

Scott Nova, the executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, said: "The administration is apparently wedded to filling key economic posts with executives from corporations, like Goldman Sachs and Walmart, that bear substantial responsibility for the burgeoning inequality and general economic morass the nation is suffering. Presumably, the president is aware that there are talented people in this country who are not on the payroll of some giant corporation with a dismal record on ethics and worker rights."

Dean Baker, the co-director of Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), said the appointment was a "cause for concern". "Obviously Walmart has a lot of interests in, say, labor rights that are not in alignment with the best interests of the country. If she shares those views that would be an issue." Baker said it was highly unlikely that her appointment would be challenged.

The OMB is the largest of the president's offices. Its director is a cabinet member and helps the president prepare the budget and to assess whether other programmes and policies meet the president's standards. The appointment could hand Burwell significant influence over federal policy-making. The OMB can review and even block federal regulations and her appointment has Walmart critics worried about the retail giant's growing influence in Washington.

Peter Orszag, the previous head of the OMB, was a high-profile and influential policy adviser. But Dean said other appointees have been more low-key. "The influence of the role is very much about the appointee," he said.

Mathews Burwell grew up in Hinton, West Virginia (pop. 3,000) to Greek American parents. After graduating from Harvard, she went to Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar. She then spent two years at consulting firm McKinsey, picking up, by some accounts, a love of management jargon, before joining Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992.

Bob Rubin, who was to become Clinton's Treasury secretary, was an early champion. He would speak to Mathews Burwell when she was working on Clinton's presidential campaign in Little Rock, Arkansas, offering up economic talking points for the team. She had "good political sense, was extremely well-organized, bright as hell, very well-motivated," Rubin told the Washington Post in 1999.

Rubin wasn't the only one to notice her smarts. Mathews Burwell served as one of Clinton's two deputy chief of staffs and was an aide to Clinton's OMB director Jack Lew – now Obama's Treasury secretary.

After two terms she clearly found the hours grueling. "It was a wonderful experience. I feel very privileged I had the opportunity to serve. But I was ready to move on, in terms of just the sheer physical ability to go at that speed. I made a rule in my last year that unless it was an extraordinary circumstance I would try to leave by 9 or 9.30. And when I was deputy chief of staff, our first meeting was at 7.15. It's weekends as well. It is a very rare occasion you would have a weekend off," she told the Seattle Times.

Not that she's afraid of hard work – even in her personal life. She married attorney Stephen Burwell in 2007. "About five dates in, he asked if I wanted to go on a 100-mile, two-day bike ride. Even though my bike still had the sticker on and flat tires from when I moved from Washington, DC, I said 'absolutely'," she told the Seattle Times.

After Washington, Mathews Burwell went on to work for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, eventually serving as president of the global development program from 2006 to the end of 2011. She joined the Walmart Foundation in late 2011.

The Walmart Foundation focuses on hunger relief and healthy eating, sustainability, women's economic development and career opportunities. Last year, Michelle Obama and Walmart launched an initiative to make healthy food available in so-called "food deserts" – urban and rural areas with little or no access to large grocery stores. Walmart and the Walmart Foundation announced they would be donating $2bn to fight hunger.

It was a major PR coup for Walmart, which has had often tetchy relations with Democrats in the past. And Obama has continued to sing the firm's praises as she champions health eating. "For years, the conventional wisdom said healthy products just didn't sell," Obama said on a visit to a Minnesota store earlier this month. "Thanks to Walmart and other companies, we're proving the conventional wisdom wrong," she said. Praising Walmart's commitment to affordable healthy food, Obama said: "You didn't just dip your toe in the water. You went all in."

But the foundation has its critics, too. In a recent article, The Nation highlighted the foundation's giving in areas where Walmart is pushing to expand. The article also mentioned a foundation memo that calls for its sponsors to " spread the word" in the press and social media.

Walmart Foundation has regularly contributed to charities in areas where it is lobbying to open new stores. New York City has fought off Walmart for years, arguing that it would have a negative impact on small business. Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz has opposed the retailer's plans to open a store there. In 2011, Walmart spent about $150,000 to become a corporate sponsor of Markowitz's summer concert series, prompting the headline "Just call him Wal-Marty Markowitz" in the New York Post.

Markowitz had "softened his once-staunch criticism of the store," said the Post. Markowitz said he was "not philosophically opposed to Walmart, but I have been consistent in demanding they show a commitment to Brooklyn by paying a fair wage, offering health benefits [and] using union workers in any construction projects in New York City." Walmart backed out of plans to open a store in Brooklyn last year, a year after the sponsorship deal.

The foundation's activities pale beside Walmart's political lobbying. The company spent over $6m lobbying last year and $7.8m in 2011, according to the Center for Responsive Government. The retailer lobbied OMB to block the employees free choice act – which aimed to make it easier for workers to unionize. Last year, Walmart faced unprecedented strike action from staff over pay, hours and benefits. Union and other labour rights groups will be watching carefully to see how the new OMB head will treat possible legislation that affects her old bosses at Walmart.


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Justine Frangouli-Argyris: Greece's Desperate Call

Bravely, the Greeks forge on. Its leaders may, indeed, as the Foreign Minister said, be exploring and defining areas of potential foreign investment and fast-tracking new rules to eliminate much of the red tape surrounding these endeavors.

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Comedian-Turned-Politician Suggests Leaving The Euro

Headline-grabbing comedian Beppe Grillo, Italy's latest political sensation, has some in the country concerned with his calls to drop the euro. Grillo's party, the "Five...

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Qatari emir buys six Greek islands for a song

Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani pays €8.5m on Ionian retreats for family with seller happy to strike deal after 18 months of red tape

The suitor is one of the world's wealthiest men; the location happens to be the eurozone's poorest country. But in an unlikely coming together of economic circumstances, the emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, has opted to splash out €8.5m (£7.35m) on six idyllic isles in the Ionian sea.

Closure of the deal – the latest in a global shopping spree that has seen the sheikh's property portfolio spread from London to Beijing – has been met with glee in Greece, the west's most bankrupt state, and Doha, where the royal household experienced 18 months of excruciating drama to take possession of the outcrops.

"Greece is that kind of place," said Ioannis Kassianos, Ithaca's straight-talking Greek-American mayor. "Even when you buy an island, even if you are the emir of Qatar, it takes a year and a half for all the paperwork to go through."

The isles, known as the Echinades, caught the oil-rich monarch's fancy when he moored his super-yacht in the turquoise waters off Ithaca, took in the view and liked what he saw. That was four summers ago.

When the royal eventually got off the yacht, he inquired about the pine-covered chain as he strolled about Ithaca in sandals and shorts. "They have a fund with a couple of hundred million in it," enthused Kassianos, a former US economics professor who assumed the mayorship of Homer's fabled isle three years ago. "And as far as I know they want to buy all 18 of the islands, the whole lot."

The purchase, the biggest private investment in Greece, appears to have been a windfall for the emir, who drove a hard bargain in a market where investors are few and far between. The first island, Oxia, initially came with a price tag of €7m before its Greek-Australian owners agreed to let it go for just under €5m. Last week, Denis Grivas, whose family has owned the title deeds to the other five almost since the foundation of modern Greece, also settled on a price.

"The islands have been in my family for over 150 years but we are not rich enough to be able to keep such valuable properties any longer," he said, ruing the soaring taxes the crisis-hit Greek state has slapped on real estate. "We are very, very happy to see them go. They have been on the market for nearly 40 years."

With their pristine beaches, ancient olive orchards and natural coves, the uninhabited isles are "an ideal opportunity for a solid business investment with unlimited possibilities", says the high-end "private island online" site, describing the properties as Mediterranean pearls. "The potential for development is very big … from developing tourist-style Club Meds or hotel facilities, to villas to sell or rent."

But the Gulf royal does not appear in any mood to create tourist resorts on the retreats. Instead, said Kassianos, his aim is to build palaces for the exclusive pleasure of his 24 children and three wives. The architects have already moved in, drawing up plans to create a private idyll, although he has run into trouble with Greek law.

"There is a stupid law because in Greece we do everything upside down," lamented Kassianos. "That law says that whatever the size of your land, your home can be no bigger than 250 sq m. The emir has reacted to this saying his WC is 250 sq m and his kitchen alone has to be 1,000 sq m, because otherwise how is he going to feed all his guests?"

To appease the locals, the Qatari, who is also being heavily courted by the government to invest in Greece, has promised to come bearing gifts. "His people said 'what present can we give you?' and I said the island needs water desperately," said Kassianos. "A study to lay a pipeline from the mainland is already under way. That's not bad when we've been trying to get a new port here for the past 40 years."

The emir plans to moor his yacht off his new property this summer. Locals on Ithaca are getting ready. An honorary citizenship beckons along with a feast fit for a very modern Homeric hero.

"The next time he comes we hope to get him and his family off his yacht and into our restaurants," said Ithaca's mayor.

Emir's Grecian passion

This is not the first time the 56-year-old emir of Qatar has shown interest in Greece. Three years ago, when the country's economic crisis erupted, the Gulf kingdom pledged to invest as much as €5bn in real estate, tourism, transport and infrastructure, including habours and airports. But perennial delays and the perils of Greece's Byzantine bureaucracy were such that Qatar pulled out of the projects.

Last month, following a visit to Doha by the Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras, interest was rekindled when Qatar signed up to take part in an international tender to develop Athens' former international airport at Elliniko, one of the most sort after slices of real estate in Europe. The Gulf state has also shown interest in purchasing the famous beachfront Astir Palace hotel, once a stomping ground for celebrities outside the capital.

The emir may be rich but he is business savvy. He had wanted to buy the Ionian isle of Skorpios, where Jackie Kennedy married Aris Onassis. The deal fell through when the late shipowner's granddaughter, Athina Onassis, refused to come down in price. She is selling for €200m.


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Eurogroup calls Greece to fully implement the agreed milestones for March


Eurogroup calls Greece to fully implement the agreed milestones for March
NASDAQ
In a statement published on Monday, the Eurogroup notes that the MoU milestone for February, agreed between Greece and the Troika, has been achieved. The Eurogroup said Greece has introduced expenditure ceilings and has gone beyond the milestone, ...

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Easyjet poised to fly into FTSE 100

Airline founded by Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou could secure place among UK blue-chip firms on Tuesday bar share collapse

EasyJet, the airline founded in 1995 by Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou with two borrowed planes, should by close of trading on Tuesday secure its place among Britain's blue-chip companies as a member of the FTSE 100.

Bar a last-minute collapse in easyJet's shares, the FTSE group will confirm on Wednesday the remarkable rise of the upstart airline from Luton that now operates more than 1,000 flights a day across 600 routes.

The airline's share price has more than doubled in the last year to 1018p – valuing the company at more than £4bn, not far off that of British Airways' parent firm, International Airlines Group at £4.4bn.

EasyJet's chief executive, Carolyn McCall, who took over in July 2010, would bring to three the number of women at the helm of a FTSE 100 company.

The airline's valuation has soared as traditional carriers have retrenched and cost-conscious business travellers have increasingly been filling its seats.

Haji-Ioannou started painting the aviation world a garish orange 18 years ago by flying from Luton to Scotland with two Boeing 737-200s on a "wet-lease" – hired complete with air and ground crew. The airline took delivery of its first fully owned plane the following year and started international flights to Amsterdam. In 2000 it floated on the stock exchange.

Significant milestones were the acquisitions of Go and then GB airways, greatly expanding easyJet's fleet and reach. Over the last decade it has opened bases in France, Germany, Spain and Italy, allied to its early Geneva base, capitalising on broader shifts in the airline industry and the problems besetting traditional carriers.

Douglas McNeill, investment director at stockbrokers Charles Stanley, said: "It doesn't have the inefficiencies of legacy carriers but now has the size to make economies of scale. Now it's not the upstart, it's the benchmark for others."

Yet easyJet's growth has also been accompanied by denunciations of the board from its founder, now no longer in charge but the largest single shareholder with around 37% in his family's control. Some of Haji-Ioannou's harshest words have been reserved for the outgoing chairman, Michael Rake – particularly aircraft orders – and excessive boardroom pay. This culminated in a stormy 2012 annual meeting when he attempted to make the airline part of the "shareholder spring" by ousting Rake.

For his part, Rake this year warned that elevation to the FTSE100 would mean shareholders should protect "London's reputation, and the company's reputation" by keeping dialogue constructive and private – a warning to which Haji-Ioannou responded he could "go fish".

But where the board and Haji-Ioannou were on Monday united was in expressing delight at the impending elevation.

EasyJet director of communications, Paul Moore, said that while the airline had never targeted a FTSE 100 place, it would be pleased to join the list. "The share price reflects our successful strategy. We want to become Europe's preferred short-haul airline," he said. "But it's not about size – it's about being the passenger's choice."

While Moore says the airline still operates on a low-cost basis, minimising unnecessary overheads – the headquarters are still the distinctly unglamorous address of Hangar 89 in Luton "and will be for some time to come" – he believes consumers no longer have that label in mind. In terms of passenger numbers it is the largest airline in Britain and the fourth largest in Europe, just behind Ryanair.

Moore added that only in Britain does consumer perception lump easyJet with Ryanair, and that the historic low-cost airline association is being gradually unpicked.

Easyjet believes allocated seating, on every flight since November, has broadened its appeal, with the previous boarding scramble having put off many travellers. The airline continues to expand in Europe: in the next month it will start providing competition on Italy's major domestic Rome-Milan route, as well as starting flights from the UK to Moscow.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Haji-Ioannou said the Greek entrepreneur was delighted with the easyJet share price – which has doubled his £2bn fortune – and particularly proud to have made the rare journey from startup to the FTSE 100 in under 20 years.

He said that being an "active investor" had proved an ideal role for the founder, who was still concerned that the airline could be jeopardised with a large aircraft order. He said higher fares had been charged on fuller planes because routes had not been "flooded with seats" as a result of keeping aircraft capacity down, and that costs had been controlled. "Those factors, all of which Stelios has been involved in, have clearly done wonders for easyJet's prospects.

It's the fact that he's always on their case makes them a better board."


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Financial experts scrutinize Greek austerity efforts 04.03.2013


Press TV

Financial experts scrutinize Greek austerity efforts 04.03.2013
Deutsche Welle
Stavridis knows what he is talking about: he heads the Greek Anti-Bureacracy Movement and was a liberal party candidate for parliament in the 2012 elections, though unsuccessfully. Now he aims to fight bureaucracy at the helm of a state-owned company, ...
Greek teachers, students stage protest against budget cuts in AthensPress TV
Raw: Greek protest against austerity reformsUSA TODAY
Troika auditors in Athens to scrutinise Greek accountsFRANCE 24
Live Trading News -Reuters -San Antonio Express
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As Turkey's economy booms and Greece's sputters, former enemies find ...


As Turkey's economy booms and Greece's sputters, former enemies find ...
Public Radio International PRI
Greece is the poster child of European economic crisis. But across the Aegean Sea is Turkey, with a booming economy. The two neighbors, though, are long-time enemies. This new economic disparity, however, is alleviating old pains and bringing the two ...


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Greek ex-minister Akis Tsohatzopoulos imprisoned for eight years for tax fraud

Socialist party politician who almost became prime minister in 1990s becomes latest target of crackdown on corrupt politicians

A Greek court has sentenced a former defence minister to eight years in prison for failing to disclose the source of lavish wealth that made him a symbol of the corruption that has plagued the country.

Once a powerful Socialist politician who almost became prime minister in the 1990s, Akis Tsohatzopoulos has been in jail pending trial since April last year as prosecutors investigated allegations of fraudulently acquired wealth.

In the highest-profile conviction of a politician in decades, the Athens appeal court ruled on Monday that his income statements between 2006 and 2009 were false and he had failed to declare a neo-classical mansion at the foot of the ancient Acropolis when he bought it in 2009.

Greek politicians are required under law to declare the origin of their wealth.

Tsohatzopoulos told reporters shortly before he was sent back to prison that he would appeal against the sentence. "The truth was covered up and this is a legal failure. It is an unacceptable decision," he said.

During the trial, details emerged of an opulent lifestyle that confirmed popular impressions of a self-serving elite that used public office for personal enrichment.

Soaring unemployment and painful austerity measures have deepened popular anger against the generation of politicians who led Greece into a debt crisis in 2009.

The government is trying to appease some of that anger by stepping up efforts to crack down on high-level tax evasion and fraud.

On Thursday, a former mayor of the country's second city, Thessaloniki, was jailed for life for embezzling about €20m (£17m) in the first big corruption trial since the crisis erupted.

Tsohatzopoulos faces a further trial on charges of money laundering and using offshore companies to buy the luxurious mansion in Athens.

In addition to the prison term, he was also fined €520,000 and the mansion will be confiscated.

Tsohatzopoulos nearly became prime minister in 1996 but was narrowly defeated in an internal party vote to become chairman of the then-ruling Socialist Pasok party, now a junior partner in the ruling coalition under the prime minister, Antonis Samaras.

He last served as minister in 2004 and quit politics in 2009. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in a series of affairs investigated by prosecutors, including the use of offshore companies to buy the mansion and the purchase of German submarines by Greece.


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Greece humiliated as it is rebranded an 'emerging market' by index firm


CNBC.com

Greece humiliated as it is rebranded an 'emerging market' by index firm
MarketWatch (blog)
Rival index firm MSCI, with around $7 trillion tied to its benchmarks, had warned in June 2012 that Greece could be ripe for a downgrade to emerging status when it completes its next review, while FTSE has also warned of a potential downgrade. And the ...
Greece ETF Down on Emerging Markets DemotionNASDAQ
Greece Reclassified as an 'Emerging Market'CNBC.com
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Greece, in trouble elsewhere, boosts cooperation with Turkey


euronews

Greece, in trouble elsewhere, boosts cooperation with Turkey
Reuters
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Beset by economic crisis at home, Greece took a symbolic step towards improving relations with long-time arch rival Turkey on Monday by pledging to double annual trade with its eastern neighbor over the next three years. Greek ...
Turkey, Greece vow dialogue to overcome differences; sign 25 cooperation dealsFox News
Regional rivals talk Turkey and Greece as relations improveeuronews
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Qatar's emir seals purchase of Greek private island: local mayor


Greek Reporter

Qatar's emir seals purchase of Greek private island: local mayor
Shanghai Daily (subscription)
In statements to local media, Mayor of the neighboring island of Ithaka Yannis Kassianos confirmed the sale of Oxia, an uninhabited island of about 4,200 acres from the previous Greek-Australian owners for 4.9 million euros (6.37 million U.S. dollars).
Qatari royals buy another five Greek Ionian islandsDigitalJournal.com
Qatar's Emir Buys Islets Near IthacaGreek Reporter

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Greek cement maker Titan posts first loss in nearly two decades


Greek cement maker Titan posts first loss in nearly two decades
Reuters
Before the Greek crisis, Titan had been distributing dividends without interruption since the mid-1950s. The company said it swung to a net loss for 2012 of 24.5 million euros ($31.8 million) from a profit of 11 million in the previous year. This is ...

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Former Greek Defense Minister Convicted in Corruption Case

The former minister, Akis Tsochatzopoulos, was sentenced to eight years in prison in the second high-profile corruption conviction in a week in Greece.


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Financial experts scrutinize Greek austerity efforts

Auditors from the EU, ECB and IMF are back in Athens to review the bailout program. The so-called troika of Greece's creditors demands
cutting jobs in the public sector to enable greater efficiency.

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Golden Dawn's "national awakening" sessions


The Economist (blog)

Golden Dawn's "national awakening" sessions
The Economist (blog)
GOLDEN DAWN, Greece's extreme right-wing party, already has a growing presence in public high schools around the country. Teenage supporters have been spreading its racist message despite complaints by the Greek teachers' union and left-of-centre ...
Golden Dawn to Open Greek-Only Nursery SchoolIBTimes.co.uk
Grim times mean bonanza for Greek's far right as Golden Dawn shinesGlobal Times
Petition to Keep Golden Dawn Out of AustraliaGreek Reporter

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On the social conditions in Greece, now


On the social conditions in Greece, now
FXstreet.com
And here lies the great paradox: Greece, along with Yugoslavia, out up the most dogged, bloody, successful resistance against the Nazis during the Second World War, giving the Nazis a serious run for the money, so to speak. The bulk of the population ...


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The new emerging market… Greece


The new emerging market… Greece
Financial Times (blog)
It's easy to see why Russell Indices, the US index and fund management company, is relegating Greece from its developed economies' league. About time too. But why is Russell moving Greece into its emerging markets' list. Emerging? Submerging, more ...


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Greek ex-Minister Gets Jail Term

A Greek court found former defense minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos guilty of lying on his income statements, the second legal judgment to be handed down by a Greek court against a high-profile political figure in as many weeks.

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Russell Indexes to reclassify Greek equities as emerging


Telegraph.co.uk

Russell Indexes to reclassify Greek equities as emerging
Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) - Russell Indexes, which has $3.9 trillion tracking its market indices, will become the first major index provider to relegate Greek equities from the top-tier developed markets category to emerging markets. The company said on Monday ...
Greece Downgraded From 'Developed' To 'Emerging' by RussellValueWalk

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Greek ex-Minister Gets Jail Term Over Undisclosed Assets


Wall Street Journal

Greek ex-Minister Gets Jail Term Over Undisclosed Assets
Wall Street Journal
ATHENS—A Greek court on Monday found former defense minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos guilty of lying on his income statements, the second legal judgment to be handed down by a Greek court against a high-profile political figure in as many weeks.
Greek court jails former top politician for graftReuters
Former Greek minister sentenced to 8 years in jail for tax dodgingShanghai Daily (subscription)
Former Greek defence minister found guilty ofEurope Online Magazine
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