I Octane was blessed with one of the most forwards at Sting 2009. Blazing torches, bullhorns, hands in the air, jump up and swear. The works! I was looking forward to his performance and let me tell you how his performance hurt me the most!I wanted to hear him actually perform a song, ‘Bloodshed’ in particular, but instead he kept letting the crowd sing the songs for him and I’m sorry but that
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE scale of the current global economic problems has blown a hole in the region’s tourism industry and while there are faint signs of recovery, 2010 does hold some uncertainty for the industry.
This is according to the December 2009 instalment of the Caribbean Economic Performance Report issued by the Caribbean Centre for Money and Finance (CCMF). Although the tourism industry tends to be more resilient than other sectors of the economy during slowdowns, the report indicated that the ongoing economic crisis had “a significant negative impact†on tourism globally.
Entering 2009, the industry was backed by a strong performance in the first half of 2008, showing a six percent increase in global tourist arrivals. By the second half of 2008, total international tourist arrivals declined by one percent. According to the report, the industry suffered from a continued decline, although statistics show that the Caribbean performed better than the expected global average decline.
“The decline in demand intensified in 2009 as worldwide tourist arrivals are estimated to have contracted by 6% in the first six months of the year in the wake of a deep recession in source markets and the influenza H1N1 outbreak,†the CCMF report states. “As in previous downturns, tourism receipts suffered more than arrivals as tourists traded down to cheaper destinations, stayed closer to home and/or stayed for shorter periods.â€
Data from the report also suggests that the tourism sector may have suffered the worst of the crisis already, as the region now records smaller declines in tourist arrivals and worldwide airline capacity is showing “positive growth of 1.4%â€.
However, the main threats to the prospect for the industry are slow growth, sluggish employment growth in developed economies and the outbreak of a more virulent strain of the influenza H1N1 virus.
“For the Caribbean, weaker global growth will continue to create a drag on tourism demand but expected lower fuel prices, a weak US dollar and closer proximity to North America may shore up demand. If the downside risks materialise, however, it could do serious damage to the industry in the region. The forecast for tourism demand in the Caribbean is therefore subject to much uncertainty.â€
The Caribbean has seen an increase in cruise tourism, which has grown to be a critical component in the industry. However, the CCMF report noted that actual expenditure from cruise passengers is much lower.
Better coordination among Caribbean countries, a more carefully crafted policy and better infrastructure could “increase the economic footprint†of cruise tourism, according to the report.
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (Bloomberg) — Gruma SAB, the largest maker of tortilla corn flour in Mexico, said Venezuela’s seizure of the assets of arrested banker Ricardo Fernandez includes a minority stake in its Venezuelan subsidiary.
Monterrey, Mexico-based Gruma said it has no “financial relationship†with Fernandez’s banks. The company said in a statement to the Mexican stock exchange that Venezuelan Hugo Chavez had ordered the Finance Ministry to take custody of Fernandez’s assets.
“Is not possible to assure that a higher involvement from the Venezuelan government will not have an adverse material effect in the financial situation and operations results from Gruma,†the company said in a statement to the Mexican stock exchange.
Gruma fell 18 centavos, or 0.8 percent, to 23.57 pesos on the Mexican Stock Exchange. The shares have more than tripled the past year. The statement was released after the close of regular trading.
Venezuela charged Fernandez, the owner of four banks, with diverting deposits, improperly issuing credit to the owner’s companies and failing to prove the origin of funds.
No one answered at the office of Fernandez lawyer in Caracas, Reynaldo Gadea.
Part 1 – How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash
In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.
Goldman’s sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation’s premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.
Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk.
Now, pension funds, insurance companies, labor unions and foreign financial institutions that bought those dicey mortgage securities are facing large losses, and a five-month McClatchy investigation has found that Goldman’s failure to disclose that it made secret, exotic bets on an imminent housing crash may have violated securities laws.
“The Securities and Exchange Commission should be very interested in any financial company that secretly decides a financial product is a loser and then goes out and actively markets that product or very similar products to unsuspecting customers without disclosing its true opinion,” said Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor who’s proposed a massive overhaul of the nation’s banks. “This is fraud and should be prosecuted.”
John Coffee, a Columbia University law professor who served on an advisory committee to the New York Stock Exchange, said that investment banks have wide latitude to manage their assets, and so the legality of Goldman’s maneuvers depends on what its executives knew at the time.
“It would look much more damaging,” Coffee said, “if it appeared that the firm was dumping these investments because it saw them as toxic waste and virtually worthless.”
Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s chairman and chief executive, declined to be interviewed for this article.
A Goldman spokesman, Michael DuVally, said that the firm decided in December 2006 to reduce its mortgage risks and did so by selling off subprime-related securities and making myriad insurance-like bets, called credit-default swaps, to “hedge” against a housing downturn.
DuVally told McClatchy that Goldman “had no obligation to disclose how it was managing its risk, nor would investors have expected us to do so … other market participants had access to the same information we did.”
For the past year, Goldman has been on the defensive over its Washington connections and the billions in federal bailout funds it received. Scant attention has been paid, however, to how it became the only major Wall Street player to extricate itself from the subprime securities market before the housing bubble burst.
In 2009 signs of a recession were visible across Cayman’s key economic indicators and employment figures.
Data released in November by the Economics and Statistics Office showed that the Cayman Islands’ gross domestic product had contracted at an annualised rate of 7.1 per cent during the first six months of 2009.
The semi–annual report of economic indicators projected an overall shrinking of the Cayman economy by 5.8 per cent for the full year amidst “recessionary conditions in source markets†that impact the domestic economy.
A year earlier in 2008 Cayman’s economy had still delivered modest growth of 1.1 per cent, compared to an average GDP of between 4.4 and 6.5 per cent in previous years.
The recession impacted all of Cayman’s industry sectors.
In the retail segment merchandise imports fell by 13 per cent revealing lower demand and sales volume.
The tourism industry experienced a fall of air arrivals by 13.3 per cent and 6.1 per cent lower cruise passenger numbers than in the first half of 2008.
The construction industry which on the whole is strongly influenced by tourism activity saw a decline in the total value of building permits of 17 per cent.
The financial services sector, which is highly dependent on mutual fund and company registrations, had to deal with a drop in mutual fund registrations.
In September 2009 the number of funds had gradually increased to 9,838 from its low of 9,705 in the first quarter. Although numbers are expected to have slowly picked up in the fourth quarter, they will still be down from a record 10,291 in 2008.
New company registrations declined by an unprecedented 46.2 per cent compared to figures for the first half year of 2008.
Bank and trust company registrations fell by 3.9 per cent while stock exchange listings contracted by 16.1 per cent. Only the number of insurance licenses increased, by 1.9 per cent.
In the real estate market, property transfers fell by 21 per cent in number and 43.3 per cent in value.
All the negative development in the economy had a significant impact on the job market. Unemployment rates were forecast to increase for the third straight year, reaching 5.5 per cent in 2009, the highest unemployment rate in a decade.
Between November 2008 and November 2009 work permits and government contracts for non–Caymanian workers declined by 12.4 per cent or 3303 permits down from 26,659 permit holders.
In addition to the deteriorating global economy and its implications for the tourism and financial services industry, the reduction of the Caymanian labour force by several thousand workers in turn exacerbated the crisis for the local economy, as it significantly reduced the amount of money that was spent for example in the in the retail and real estate industry.
Government workers accounted for one of the largest drops in employment for foreign work permit holders in the Cayman Islands over the past year. The number of government contracts alone dropped by 10 per cent in 2009.
The largest reduction in the workforce took place in the construction industry, showing a decline of over 15 per cent.
The number of carpenters on permits fell from 923 to 773 in that time, heavy equipment operator permits went from 248 to 199, masons dropped from 629 to 545 and skilled and unskilled labourer permits went from 1,536 to 1,185.
The tourism and hospitality industry also saw employment numbers decline by more than 10 per cent.
In the financial services industry the number of accountants on work permits fell by more than 16 per cent, while professional managers declined by over 11 per cent.
While the immediate economic outlook is still gloomy, Cayman Islands Financial Secretary Ken Jefferson expects an economic recovery for the latter half of 2010.
Fort Lauderdale lawyer Scott Rothstein was a Republican ATM. In four years, he and his law firm gave $650,000 to Republican candidates and the state GOP. They gave nothing to Florida's Democratic Party and very little to state candidates.
With a win in the Champs Sports Bowl on Tuesday night, the Hurricanes will achieve their first 10-win season since 2003 and, more importantly, likely start next season ranked in the Top 10.
Miami officials Monday cut electrical power to Virginia Key landmark Jimbo's — a beer and smoked-fish joint that has been battling the city over its right to operate — one day after inspectors deemed it unsafe.
In exchange for a fishing boat named “Dream Girl,'' Richard Wolfferts told police, he planted the car bomb that infamously maimed a Miami divorce lawyer in 1989.
At least four other buildings — three in Miami and one in Miami Shores — had or have water filtering systems similar to the one at downtown Miami's Epic Hotel that stripped all chlorine from the water, leaving it susceptible to bacteria like the one that causes Legionnaires' disease, health officials said Monday.
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