NEW YORK — U.S. consumer confidence pulled back in July as consumers were less optimistic about the outlook for the economy and labor market, according to a private sector report released Tuesday.
The industry group’s report was shy of economist expectations for the index to hold steady at June’s original reading of 81.4.
The expectations index dropped to 84.7 from 91.1. Still, consumers weren’t so gloomy about their current standings, with the present situation index rising to 73.6 from 68.7, the highest level since May 2008.
NEW YORK — U.S. consumer sentiment tumbled to a nine-month low in April, with Americans especially gloomy about the long-term health of the economy, a survey released on Friday showed.
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s preliminary reading on the overall index of consumer sentiment fell to 72.3 in April, a level last seen in July, 2012, and below economists’ forecasts of 78.5. The index stood at 78.6 last month.
The barometer of current economic conditions fell to 84.8 this month from 90.7, while the gauge of consumer expectations hit 64.2, down from 70.8.
Americans’ long-term outlook was even more gloomy, with many anticipating a higher unemployment rate and lower after-tax income in the year ahead, Richard Curtin, the survey’s director, said in a statement.
But more immediate plans for buying homes and vehicles were positive, Curtin said, while rising home and stock values were expected to support spending this year.
Economists have worried that higher payroll taxes and government belt-tightening could cause consumers to keep a closer watch on their wallets as the year goes on.
Consumer pessimism this month did suppress inflation expectations, with the one-year outlook dipping to 3 percent, the lowest in the past year, from 3.2 percent in March. The survey’s five-to-10-year inflation outlook held at 2.8 percent.
The Federal Reserve has repeatedly pointed to tame inflation expectations and a still fragile labor market as reason to press ahead with its aggressive monetary stimulus.
Alan Diaz/APGladys Fundora plays a sweepstake game at the New York New York Arcade in Hialeah, Fla., on Thursday. Gaming centers also known as “Internet cafes” are now illegal in Florida.
By GARY FINEOUT
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Up to 1,000 strip-mall parlors where people can play slot-like computer games became illegal Wednesday in Florida, with the governor signing a ban on the heels of a federal investigation into a charity that authorities say was an illegal gambling front.
The law took effect immediately after Gov. Rick Scott signed it, roughly a month after nearly 60 people were arrested in connection with the racketeering investigation into Allied Veterans of the World. The arrests prompted the resignation of former Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, who did consulting work for the group but hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing.
The Legislature and governor acted with dizzying speed, leaving many questions as to the law‘s impact and how the centers known as Internet cafes would react. The ban is also expected to directly affect adult amusement arcades that cater to senior citizens.
Scott, who quietly signed the bill behind closed doors, called the ban the “right thing to do for our state.”
Enforcing the ban will fall to local authorities. But some arcade operators said they weren’t taking any chances.
Johnny Figueria, manager of the Tropicana Bingo & Arcade in Hialeah, said nearly 100 machines were shut down Tuesday as a precaution until he and other arcade managers understood the law.
“This law will affect everyone here,” he said in Spanish. “There are people who come here in the morning to play bingo and then stay later to play the machines until their son comes to pick them up, so they won’t be home alone.”
Four employees were told not to show up for work Wednesday, and bingo manager Kenia Landa said she was worried she may lose her job.
“I feel so sorry, including me, because I don’t know what is going to happen,” she said. “The only support I have is this job.”
During a brief question-and-answer session with reporters, Scott brushed aside questions as to jobs that could be lost by the new ban. Scott, who has made job creation his primary focus, instead said legislators should pass tax-cut measures he is pushing this year.
But Scott could soon have another legal battle on his hands.
Bruce Rogow, a well-known constitutional lawyer in Florida, met behind closed doors with more than 100 arcade operators in Pompano Beach.
“I think that there is probably no choice but to file a lawsuit,” said Rogow.
Scott and legislators acted in the wake of the Allied Veterans of the World charity scandal. The charity — which was affiliated with dozens of storefront parlors — was accused of
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service says it will delay plans to cut Saturday mail delivery because Congress isn’t allowing the change.
The Postal Service said in February that it planned to cut back in August to five-day-a-week deliveries for everything except packages, as a way to hold down losses.
But a statement Wednesday from agency’s Board of Governors notes that Congress has passed a spending bill that continues the long-time prohibition against reducing delivery days.
As a result, the board says it believe that Congress “has left it with no choice but to delay implementation” of the five-day-a-week plan.
Philippe Wojazer/AP Google CEO Eric Schmidt, left, and French President Francois Hollande sign an agreement at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Feb. 1. On Tuesday, more than a dozen technology companies filed a complaint against Google, alleging unfair trade practices in Europe.
By JUERGEN BAETZ
BRUSSELS — Google is using unfair practices to cement its control over mobile Internet usage on smartphones, a group of companies led by Microsoft alleged in a European antitrust complaint Tuesday.
The “FairSearch” initiative of 17 companies — which includes Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Nokia Corp. (NOK) and Oracle Corp. (ORCL) — claims Google is acting unfairly by giving away its Android operating system to mobile device companies on the condition that the U.S. online giant’s own software applications like YouTube and Google Maps are installed and prominently displayed.
“Google is using its Android mobile operating system as a Trojan horse to deceive partners, monopolize the mobile marketplace, and control consumer data,” said Thomas Vinje, the group’s Brussels-based lawyer.
Android operating systems have the largest share of the smartphone market worldwide, followed by Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) iOS platform with systems from Blackberry (BBRY), Microsoft and others far behind.
“Google’s predatory distribution of Android at below-cost makes it difficult for other providers of operating systems to recoup investments in competing with Google’s dominant mobile platform,” FairSearch said in a statement.
The European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s executive arm and antitrust authority, is not obliged to take any action other than reply to the group’s complaint.
Google Inc. (GOOG) didn’t address the complaint’s charges in detail. “We continue to work cooperatively with the European Commission,” said Google spokesman Al Verney.
The U.S. company is already under investigation by Brussels for practices related to its dominance of online search and advertising markets.
That complaint, filed in 2010, alleges Google unfairly favors its own services in its Internet search results, which enjoy a near-monopoly in Europe. Google has proposed a list of remedies to address the Commission’s concerns to achieve a settlement. The Commission is currently examining the proposed changes.
In China, Google has already come under official scrutiny because of Android’s dominance of the mobile smartphone market there.
Several European data privacy regulators have also launched an investigation into Google’s practices, alleging the company is creating a data goldmine at the expense of unwitting users.
Last year, the company merged 60 separate privacy policies from around the world into one universal procedure. The European authorities complain that the new policy doesn’t allow users to figure out which information is kept, how it is combined by Google services or how long the company retains it.
The policy allows Google to combine data collected from one person as they use …read more
WASHINGTON — Airline passenger complaints to the Transportation Department surged by a fifth last year even though other measures such as on-time arrivals and mishandled baggage show airlines are doing a better job, according to a report being released Monday.
Private researchers who have analyzed federal data on airline performance say it’s not surprising that passengers are irritated. Carriers keep shrinking the size of seats in order to stuff more people into planes. Empty middle seats that might provide a little more room have vanished. And more people who have bought tickets are being turned away because flights are overbooked.
“The way airlines have taken 130-seat airplanes and expanded them to 150 seats to squeeze out more revenue I think is finally catching up with them,” said Dean Headley, a business professor at Wichita State University in Kansas who has co-written the annual report for 23 years.
“People are saying, ‘Look, I don’t fit here. Do something about this.’ At some point airlines can’t keep shrinking seats to put more people into the same tube,” he said.
The industry is even looking at ways to make today’s smaller-than-a-broom closet toilets more compact in the hope of squeezing a few more seats onto planes.
“I can’t imagine the uproar that making toilets smaller might generate,” Headley said, especially given that passengers increasingly weigh more than they use to. Nevertheless, “will it keep them from flying? I doubt it would.”
The rate of complaints per 100,000 passengers also rose to 1.43 last year from 1.19 in 2011.
In recent years, some airlines have shifted to larger planes that can carry more people, but that hasn’t been enough to make up for an overall reduction in flights.
The rate at which passengers with tickets were denied seats because planes were full rose to 0.97 denials per 10,000 passengers last year, compared with 0.78 in 2011.
It used to be in cases of overbookings that airlines usually could find a passenger who would volunteer to give up a seat in exchange for cash, a free ticket or some other compensation with the expectation of catching another flight later that day or the next morning. Not anymore.
“Since flights are so full, there are no seats on those next flights. So people say, ‘No, not for $500, not for $1,000,'” said airline industry analyst Robert W. Mann Jr.
Regional carrier SkyWest had the highest involuntary denied-boardings rate last year, 2.32 per 10,000 passengers.
But not every airline overbooks flights in an effort to keep seats full. JetBlue Airways (JBLU) and Virgin America were the industry leaders in avoiding denied boardings, with rates of 0.01 and 0.07, respectively.
United Airlines (UAL) had the highest consumer complaint rate of the 14 airlines included …read more
NEW YORK — Verizon and AT&T are looking at making a joint bid for Vodafone, the British cellphone company that owns 45 percent of Verizon Wireless, a report says.
New York-based Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) owns the 55 percent of Verizon Wireless that Vodafone Group PLC (VOD) doesn’t own, and has been openly interested for years in buying out Vodafone. But tax and pricing issues have gotten in the way.
According to the Financial Times, the joint bid would mean Verizon would get Vodafone’s stake in Verizon Wireless, while AT&T Inc. (T) would take over the rest of Vodafone, which has widespread international interests. It operates in Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and India, among other countries.
The newspaper cited “usually reliable people” that it didn’t further identify.
There has been speculation that AT&T is interested in international expansion, but few signals from the company that this is the case. Cross-border deals in telecommunications have few benefits.
What effect, if any, the deal would have on Verizon Wireless customers isn’t clear. With some 92.5 million subscribers, Verizon Wireless is the nation’s largest wireless-service provider. AT&T has about 70.5 million contract customers, making it second among U.S. carriers.
Verizon had no comment on the report. AT&T didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The London-based newspaper put the value of the bid at $245 billion, which would make it the largest corporate deal ever.
Vodafone shares rose 65 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $28.99 in midday trading, after spiking as high as $29.95 in earlier U.S. trading. Shares of AT&T and Verizon were up about 1 percent, slightly more than market indexes.
Mark Lennihan/AP Job-seeker Susan Paul shakes hands with a recruiter at a job fair in New York on March 14. A survey released Friday showed consumers are more upbeat about the economy, in part because of an improving labor market.
NEW YORK — U.S. consumer sentiment rose in March from February, as Americans discounted the effects of government budget cuts and instead saw continued healing in the labor market, a survey released on Friday showed.
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s final reading on the overall index of consumer sentiment came in at 78.6, up from 77.6 the month before.
The final March figure was up sharply from the preliminary reading of 71.8, and above the median forecast of 72.5 among economists polled by Reuters. It was also the highest reading since November.
Consumer confidence jumped sharply in the second half of the month, erasing the decline of the first half of March, survey director Richard Curtin said in a statement.
That surge came from two factors, he said.
“Consumers have discounted the administration’s warning that economic catastrophe would follow the reductions in federal spending, and consumers have renewed their expectation that gains in employment will accelerate through the rest of 2013.”
The survey’s barometer of current economic conditions rose to 90.7 from 89.0 the previous month and above a forecast of 87.8.
The survey’s gauge of consumer expectations rose to 70.8 from February’s 70.2 and an expected 62.
The survey’s one-year inflation expectation fell to 3.2 percent from 3.3 percent, while the survey’s 5-to-10-year inflation outlook was at 2.8 percent from 3.0 percent.
Reporting By Luciana Lopez; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama.
If you’re fed up with hearing people complain, imagine being the Consumer Sentinel Network. This online database for law enforcement compiled and categorized more than 2 million complaints in 2012 — instances of fraud, scams, schemes, and violations consumers reported to everyone from the FTC to the Better Business Bureau to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
So which industries or groups of people cause us the most grief? Here are the CSN‘s findings for the top 10 complaint categories and the percentage of the total complaints that each represents:
1. Identity theft (18 percent)
2. Debt collection (10 percent)
3. Banks and lenders (6 percent)
4. Shop-at-home and catalog sales (6 percent)
5. Prizes, sweepstakes, and lotteries (5 percent)
6. Impostor scams (4 percent)
7. Internet services (4 percent)
8. Auto-related complaints (4 percent)
9. Telephone and mobile services (4 percent)
10. Credit cards (3 percent)
Stolen identities
It makes sense that identity theft tops the list. Detecting, uncovering and correcting the fallout from identity theft is a long, labyrinthine process. Sure, it’s terrible if you lose, say, $500 or $1,000. But with identity theft, some people have not only lost a lot of money but have spent years trying to undo the damage done, encountering many frustrations along the way.
Most of us know to shred documents containing personal information before discarding them, and to be careful to whom we divulge personal information. It can be easy to imagine that identity theft won’t happen to us. But according to the CSN, nearly one-fifth of all complaints — a whopping 369,132 — were about identity theft.
Military variations
The distribution of complaints was different among military personnel than other Americans. For example, while their top two complaints were the same as the overall results, their No. 6 complaint category was mortgage foreclosure relief and debt management, while it was just 15th for the overall nation.
Foreclosures and debt problems have been major issues for many service members. That’s because they often receive orders to pick up and move to a new location and assignment, but with our economy struggling and home prices depressed, they can end up owing more than their homes are worth. Worse still, hundreds have had their homes illegally foreclosed upon by big banks — JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), Bank of America (BAC), and Citigroup (C) — as has been reported by The New York Times. Military members should know that settlements have been struck with big banks to address these and other wrongs, and that entities such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are looking out for their interests.
You know your credit score gets checked when you apply for a credit card, a job, an apartment, insurance or a loan. But these days, even potential dates may be asking about your fiscal health when they’re checking you out.
While not every prospective date will come right out ask you for your FICO digits, some singles we talked to say they want to know a potential partner’s financial status.
Websites such as Creditscoredating.com and Datemycreditscore.com have received plenty of attention in the media. Both are based on the idea that singles want to date others with an excellent credit score. In fact, the motto of CreditScoredating.com is “Good Credit is Sexy.”
Practical Romance
The concept may sound a little mercenary, but since a low credit score can keep you from doing everything from buying a house to landing a job, singles interested in a finding a life partner may have a point.
“I’ve never been asked about my credit score, but I wouldn’t mind it,” says Kathy (not her real name), a single woman from Maryland. “I think financial compatibility is critical at this stage in life, especially if there is even the flicker of a thought that the relationship could lead to something long term.”
Kathy says a friend of hers rushed into the arms of a man who, despite his $100,000-plus salary, had a bleak financial picture. “She didn’t want to believe his finances were as disastrous as they were, and he ended up costing her thousands and a hard lesson in protecting her assets,” she says.
Credit counselors say many of their customers come to them because their romantic partners refuse to get married before they eliminate their debt. Some debt-laden clients have simply made pacts with themselves to get rid of debt before they wed.
We polled a group of five accountants and asked whether they would like to check a potential date’s credit score. Most of them said yes, because “a responsible individual makes a better partner.”
Naturally, not everyone is buying it.
You’re More Than Just a Number to Me
One naysayer among the accountants asked “What do you want, a good person or a good credit score?”
“As much of a stalker as I am, I think it’d be creepy to know someone’s credit score before a date,” says J., a Washington, D.C.-area single. “There could be many contributing factors to a poor credit score, and I wouldn’t want to rule someone out. In fact, if someone had a poor credit score because he’s in over his head for, say, helping out a family member, I may want to hear that story, not rule out the candidate. And what about the person who’s working really hard to improve their credit score? They may be …read more Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
Mel Evans/AP New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie signed an online gambling bill into law on Feb. 26, although no casino has yet begun an Internet betting operation.
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Opposition to gambling over the Internet is lessening in New Jersey, even though a new poll finds more people against it than for it.
The Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll released Wednesday finds 46 percent of respondents oppose the state’s recent decision to legalize Internet betting, with 41 percent favoring it. That’s down significantly from just two years ago, when 67 percent of respondents to the poll said they were against Internet gambling.
Gov. Chris Christie signed an online gambling bill into law on Feb. 26. It authorizes any game currently offered at an Atlantic City casino to be offered online, although no casino has yet gotten an Internet betting operation up and running.
The law won’t take effect until the state Division of Gaming Enforcement sets a start date, sometime between three and nine months after the law was signed. Casino executives have estimated it could take six months to a year to get the system up and running.
“It’s possible that the growth in support for the practice is a consequence of the legislation’s passage,” said Krista Jenkins, the poll’s director and a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University. “Voters may be accepting the inevitable, or have acquired new information that brought about a change of heart, given the heightened exposure any new legislation brings with it.”
Two thirds of those who support Internet gambling said additional revenue for the state is the main reason they favor it. Only 10 percent cited the convenience of being able to gamble online.
Those who oppose Internet gambling are clearly worried about potentially harmful effects it could have on society.
A third believe families and children will be hurt by caregivers who engage in compulsive gambling, and half are about evenly divided between those who say online gambling will make it too easy to gamble (26 percent) and those who are opposed to gambling in all forms (24 percent).
Among all respondents to the poll, nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of those who said they visited a casino in the last 12 months did so in Atlantic City, rather than going to Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York, or Las Vegas.
The poll also found that most respondents say individual states are better equipped than the federal government to decide if they should be allowed to offer legal sports betting. New Jersey recently lost a federal court battle to overturn a federal law restricting sports betting to four states that met a 1991 deadline to approve it: Nevada, Delaware, Oregon and Montana.
As if parents didn’t have enough on their minds, now they have to worry about making sure their offspring aren’t in the crosshairs of financial scammers. According to AllClear ID, an identity-theft protection company, children are 35 times more likely than adults to be identity theft victims.
It’s hard to nail down exactly how pervasive the crime really is.
And according to a recent report by AllClear based on a survey of 27,000 financial records between September 2010 and December 2011, nearly 11 percent of kids had their personal information stolen. “The reason the data on this is incomplete is that people often don’t know an identity theft has taken place,” says Larson. “They don’t realize it for years sometimes.”
The way most young people find out they have been victimized is that they turn 18 and apply for their first job, first credit card, or a student loan and discover they already have bad credit.
“In the Boston area, a 17-year-old applied for a job and the employer pulled his credit,” says Larson. “It turned out someone had used his Social Security number and bought a $47,000 houseboat and then defaulted on the loan. The boat had been purchased when he was just 7 years old.”
A Different Sort of Crime Family
Larson says that 27 percent of all identity theft victims know their perpetrator: someone in their family, a co-worker, or a friend. That number may be higher for child victims.
“It happens unfortunately far too often that a parent, stepparent, uncle, or, almost worst of all, a foster parent will steal a Social Security number from a child to open new credit card accounts or to establish a new utility company account,” says Larson. “Foster kids are particularly vulnerable because they’re in and out of many homes.”
In one case in New Jersey, a mother stole the Social Security numbers of each of her five children to open credit card accounts and then didn’t pay the bills, says Larson. Someone who knew her tipped off the police and she was arrested for fraud.
Even if you catch the family member, there may be more damage to come.
Larson says that sometimes a Social Security number will be sold to a network of criminals and new problems can crop up over the years, including even a criminal record associated with your child’s identity.
According to AllClear, one victim’s Social Security number had been used to open more than 40 accounts, in which more than $1 million had been fraudulently charged.
NEW YORK, Feb 26 – U.S. consumer confidence picked up much more strongly than expected in February as Americans shrugged off earlier worries over fiscal policy and tax increases, a private sector report showed on Tuesday.
The Conference Board, an industry group, said its index of consumer attitudes accelerated to 69.6, from a downwardly revised 58.4 in January, handily topping economists’ expectations for 61. It was the highest level since November.
