Small business bill bogs down in Senate

WASHINGTON (AP) ? A small business investment bill that had appeared to enjoy wide bipartisan support was in danger of collapsing Tuesday after Senate Democrats and Republicans split over two attempts to amend it.

The legislation, which gives small businesses and startups a break from some federal regulations so they can more easily raise capital, hit a wall after Senate Republicans rejected Democratic attempts both to add investor protections and link the bill to extension and expansion of the Export-Import Bank.

The partisan clash came less than two weeks after the House passed the measure 390-23 and, with support from President Barack Obama, it seemed to be on a fast track toward becoming law.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Republicans were making a "huge mistake" in blocking the reauthorization of the Ex-Im Bank, an agency that provides finances for U.S. companies trying to sell their products abroad, and called a closed-door meeting of Democrats to discuss how to proceed.

Reid's office said later there would be another procedural vote Wednesday on keeping the bill alive, and Democrats suggested the leadership would try to bring up another amendment. But it was unclear whether the bill now had enough Democratic support to pass.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., one of the sponsors of the amendment to increase investor protections, said making small changes to the bill were insufficient, and he couldn't vote for it.

The Ex-Im Bank, which in the past has been supported by both parties, also became the unexpected subject for an angry debate.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said many Republicans support the Ex-Im Bank, but that adding it to the small business bill "would only delay passage of this bipartisan jobs bill." His Republican colleagues fell in line, including Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee and a supporter of the measure to reauthorize the bank.

Reid issued a statement saying Republicans voted against the Ex-Im Bank provision "simply to provide cover for tea party extremists in the House."

He said the crowded Senate agenda would make it difficult to return to the bill, hurting U.S. companies trying to do business abroad. The bank's authorization expires on May 31, but it may soon reach its lending ceiling of $100 billion. The Democratic amendment would have extended the bank for four years and raised the lending limit to $140 billion.

Bank financing last year supported $41 billion in U.S. exports from more than 3,600 U.S. companies.

Some conservative groups, such as the Club for Growth, have urged conservatives to kill the bank, saying it distorts the market and picks winners and losers. The bank also divides the aircraft and airline industry: Boeing Co. is a major beneficiary of Ex-Im Bank financing, while Delta Air Lines has criticized the bank for providing loan guarantees that allow foreign airlines to save money on new U.S.-made planes, resulting in unfair competition.

Both amendments were defeated on near-party line 55-44 votes. Sixty votes were needed to advance the measures.

The small business bill, which its House Republican supporters refer to as the JOBS Act, would exempt small businesses and startups from some Securities and Exchange Commission regulations. The centerpiece for the six bills in the package is a provision that would reduce the costs of companies seeking to go public by phasing in over five years SEC regulations that apply to what are categorized as "emerging growth companies." That status would be in effect for companies with annual gross revenue of less than $1 billion.

Senate Democrats argued that it would exempt more than 80 percent of current initial public offerings or IPOs. Their defeated amendment would have narrowed the qualified companies to those with less than $350 million in annual revenues.

The measure also removes SEC regulations preventing small businesses from using advertisements to solicit investors, raises from 500 to 2,000 the shareholders a company or community bank can have before it must register with the SEC and allows smaller companies to sell up to $50 million in shares, up from the current $5 million, without filing some SEC paperwork.

One of the more hotly-debated provisions removes SEC restrictions on "crowdfunding," a practice of using the Internet to raise capital from a large number of smaller investors. The measure limits individual contributions to $10,000 or 10 percent of the investor's annual income and requires the intermediary or issuer of the offering to provide the SEC with information about the transaction.

Within days of the House vote, questions arose about consumer protections. Mary Schapiro, chairman of the SEC, listed a number of concerns, including that the bill would remove the firewall between research analysts who are supposed to provide objective information about investments and investment bankers in the same firm whose main function is to encourage people to invest. AARP said the elderly are disproportionately the victims of investment fraud and said it agreed with Schapiro that, absent safeguards, the House bill "may well open the floodgates to a repeat of the kind of penny stock and other frauds that ensnared financially unsophisticated and other vulnerable investors in the past."

The White House, while maintaining support for the bill, issued a statement last week saying it supported Senate efforts to ensure there are sufficient safeguards to prevent abuse and protect investors.

"None of us wants this legislation to be a boon to boiler room operators and Ponzi schemers targeting our nation's retirees or anyone else," Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said.

Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, stressed Monday that the House bill contains strong investor protections and that Senate Democratic objections were part of a "cynical campaign strategy of running against a so-called do-nothing Congress."

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., the chief backer of the House bill, on Monday criticized what he said where "11th hour claims about phantom investor protection issues or adding partisan amendments like the Ex-Im Bank reauthorization that threaten to derail the bill."

Cantor's office said he was working on a separate Ex-Im Bank overhaul bill that he hopes to bring to the House floor before the end of the month.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/small-business-bill-bogs-down-senate-220129855.html

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Five nations to press N.Korea on rocket launch

Leaders of five nations will discuss ways to press North Korea to scrap a planned rocket launch when they meet next week at a Seoul summit, South Korea's president said in interviews published on Wednesday.

US President Barack Obama will attend the nuclear security summit, along with leaders of China, South Korea, Japan and Russia. All the countries have been involved since 2003 in talks to shut down the North's nuclear programme.

"The North's move to launch the so-called satellite has created a new topic of discussions at the summit, and it's an urgent timing," President Lee Myung-Bak said ahead of the talks to be held Monday and Tuesday.

"The five nations share similar views on this," Lee was quoted as saying. "The best option is for the five nations to try to persuade North Korea to cancel the plan."

The nuclear-armed North has announced it will launch a rocket next month to put a satellite into orbit, a move which the US and its allies see as a pretext for a long-range missile test.

A UN Security Council resolution passed after the North's missile and nuclear tests in 2009 bans a ballistic missile launch for any purpose.

Washington also says a launch would breach a bilateral deal announced on February 29, which offered 240,000 tonnes of US food aid in return for a partial nuclear freeze and a suspension of missile tests.

"No matter what the North's excuse is, the launch is a clear breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1874," Lee told the International Herald Tribune (IHT), South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper and other media.

"It is breaking a promise with all the countries around the world."

The US-North Korean deal had raised hopes of eased tensions under the North's young new leader Kim Jong-Un.

"We had high expectations, but now we have this happening," Lee said.

"Although we cannot say conclusively, this new development will have a great impact on the assessment of the North, particularly in trust."

The South Korean leader said the launch may bring the North "some domestic political gains, but its loss in the international community will be big".

The South's Unification Minister Yu Woo-Ik called the launch provocative and a senseless waste of money.

"I can't help expressing my regret for such senseless action by the North's regime to go ahead with an immensely costly long-range rocket launch while its people cross the border because of political repression and hunger, to become fugitives in foreign countries," Yu told a forum.

The Seoul summit will focus on ways to keep nuclear weapons material out of the hands of international terrorists and how to shrink stockpiles of plutonium and highly enriched uranium.

It was expected to produce an agreement to reduce the materials by an amount sufficient to make about 20,000 nuclear weapons, the IHT quoted Lee as saying.

"What threatens world peace and security the most is nuclear terrorism," he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/five-nations-press-n-korea-rocket-launch-023106272.html

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Source: http://thatonetime.net/unsecured-finance-key-points-worth-looking-at/1777/

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US builders began work on fewer homes in February

WASHINGTON (AP) ? U.S. builders started work on slightly fewer homes in February, but they began preparing for what could be the healthiest spring buying season since the housing bubble burst.

The Commerce Department says builders broke ground on a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 698,000 homes last month. That's down 1.1 percent from January.

But the government revised up its figures from January. And building permits, a gauge of future construction, jumped 5.1 percent last month to the highest level in more than a year.

Construction of single-family homes, which makes up roughly 70 percent of housing starts, dipped in February to 457,000 after rising for four straight months to an 18-month high. A jump in volatile apartment construction offset the decline.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-03-20-Housing%20Starts/id-1d28369727f4425bb06087d7f4a90292

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Why do cats stare? | Way of Cats blog

Many people have told me that a cat?s intent stare gives them ?the willies.?

I don?t know why those who dislike cats are quick to ignore aspects of their behavior that are like a human?s; things like affection, friendship, and a fondness for puzzles. Instead, ?cat dislikers? will choose something that simply indicates a cat?s predatory instincts, and then misinterpret it as a sign of malice.

Like the way a cat will stare at us.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

In humans, staring is rude. Or perhaps it is our own defensive instincts (am I prey?) that will lead to our mis-interpretation of a cat?s intent stare. But there?s another reason we both, humans and cats, stare at things. It indicates a strong interest.

Who are we to be judgmental? Most people spend a lot of time in their home? staring at the computer, the television, or the phone screen. We might get exasperated when our cat inserts themselves between our screens and our eyes, as RJ is so fond of doing with me. But it?s only that they want a bit of the Intent Stare for themselves. Cats feel equally free to give it to us.

In cat etiquette, an intent stare indicates friendly regard. A mouse is going to interpret it differently than a fellow cat will, of course. But we are getting The Stare because we are interesting.

The unblinking, unwavering, unnerving intentness of The Stare? That?s just cat physiology at work.

As desert creatures, cats evolved corneas that don?t need the constant blinking to wet their surface that humans do. So cats can stare, and stare, and stare. This has many advantages when they want to keep watch on their potential prey. But it also means they can commune with friends from across great distances. Using their incredible ability to see motion, cats can keep tabs on their friend?s state of mind, even send messages back and forth, through small, subtle, facial motions.

We can do the same thing. The next time our cat is staring at us, close our eyes in a cat kiss, or wiggle our eyebrows, or smile. Any facial movement will sharpen our cat?s attention, in a way we can see. We might then see them send a ?visual kiss? back, or stretch their paws in pleasure, or even roll over to show their belly.

A lot of cat language, among themselves, is body language. It?s actually a compliment that a cat finds us interesting.

Let them know we find them interesting, too.

I explain why staring is a game.

Got here from a Link or Search?
There?s more ways to understand our cat with The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See all of my posts on WHY CATS DO THAT.

Thanks for stopping by! Find me on Facebook. Sign up here and get the FREE eBook, Ten Cat Tricks (Every Human Should Know.)

Through her amateur cat rescue, she cured problem cats and placed them in new homes. Learn to maximize cat enjoyment!

Source: http://www.wayofcats.com/blog/whats-with-the-intent-stare/16430

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How To Make Money As A Personal Trainer Is The System We're ...

March 17, 2012 by sportinit

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Source: http://sportinit.com/how-to-make-money-as-a-personal-trainer-is-the-system-were-going-to-be-examining-on-this-page/

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Swedish rescuers find wreckage of crashed plane

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/swedish-rescuers-wreckage-crashed-plane-093037813.html

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