Monday, January 30, 2012

Sunday, January 29, 2012

RBS boss Stephen Hester rejects £1m bonus Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Stephen Hester has turned down his controversial bonus, worth nearly £1m. BBC business editor Robert Peston said Mr Hester would renounce the £963,000 shares-only payment after succumbing to "enormous political pressure". Chancellor George Osborne said it was a "sensible and welcome" decision that now let Mr Hester focus on getting back billions of pounds for the taxpayer. Labour leader Ed Miliband said the RBS boss had "done the right thing". Earlier, Labour said it would force a vote on the issue after Prime Minister David Cameron refused to block the bonus from the mostly publicly owned bank. But when it looked as though MPs were going to vote against it, the general consensus amongst the directors was that the "game was up", he added. Last week, the prime minister drew criticism after he said it was up to Mr Hester whether he accepted the bonus. Mr Miliband said: "It is a shame that a feeble, out of touch David Cameron did not realise he should do the right thing and stand up for the interests of the British people. "Labour was right to seek a parliamentary vote on this so that the people's voice could be heard. But the debate about fair executive pay and responsible capitalism is only just beginning. We need a government that will tax bankers' bonuses and bring responsibility to the boardroom." Shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna said Mr Hester was already being adequately rewarded for his performance. "He received £1.2m a year - that's 46 times the average salary of an average employee in this country - to do that job," he said. "He's very well remunerated as it is. Usually you receive a bonus when you've done something above and beyond - exceptional, extraordinary. "But many of the things that have been cited in terms of things that he's done for the bank are things that you would expect him to do." But William Wright, investment bank analyst for Financial News told the BBC: "It sets a very dangerous precedent for RBS. "It raises the level of political risk and political interference in the day-to-day running of RBS to what some people many consider to be intolerable levels. "It raises very serious questions about who actually is running RBS day to day. "Shareholders, in this case the UK government, appoint a board, which in turn appoints an executive team to run the bank, and here we have a situation where the board agrees something, which has been signed off by shareholders and then they have been forced into a U-turn by political opinion." Former Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott said Mr Hester's decision was "better late than never". "I'm glad that eventually Stephen Hester has seen sense and seen the outrage of most people in this country, and Lib Dems who have been complaining bitterly about this for weeks," he said. Bob Diamond Mr Hester's bonus would not look big compared with that of Barclays boss Bob Diamond, Mr Peston says "I'm very sorry that David Cameron and George Osborne didn't see that, and have been defending the indefensible right up to today." Mr Hester was appointed chief executive at the end of 2008 to replace Sir Fred Goodwin, after the bank had to be bailed out by the government, which now owns 82% of it. RBS chairman Sir Philip Hampton had already announced that he would waive his payout. He had been on course to claim 5.17 million RBS shares in February, but it is thought he told the bank's remuneration committee it would "not be appropriate" to take a £1.4m payout. Robert Peston said RBS's directors now recognise it would have been better to delay Mr Hester's bonus decision until after it was revealed how much Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond received. "Mr Hester's bonus would not look big in comparison," he explained.

Peththa

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Muslim 5 Wives Photo

U.S. Will End Retiree-Health Subsidies to Companies, Unions

A $5 billion program to help companies such as AT&T Inc. (T) pay health premiums for retirees under age 65 will end because it’s almost out of money, the U.S. said. Claims to the reinsurance program filed after Dec. 31 will be rejected, the U.S. said in a notice today. The Obama administration said in February that money for the subsidies would last through the end of fiscal 2012. A total of $4.5 billion has been paid out as of today, the U.S. said. The program “has significantly benefited employers across the country,” the government said in a statement. A trust fund for retired members of the United Auto Workers union received $387 million from the program through Dec. 2, more than any other organization. AT&T was paid $214 million and Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) got $163 million. Two retirement systems in Ohio for public employees and teachers received a combined $256 million. Similar systems for public employees or teachers in California, New Jersey, Kentucky, New York and North Carolina were also among the top 10 beneficiaries, records show. Republicans in Congress have criticized the effort as a giveaway of taxpayer dollars to profitable businesses and unions. Retirees’ Coverage Costs “This program is a microcosm of the fundamental, underlying problems with the president’s partisan health spending law,” said Antonia Ferrier, a spokeswoman for Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, in an e-mail. Recipients must use money from the program to pay the cost of retired workers’ health insurance, said Bennett Blodgett, a spokesman for the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight. The agency oversees the program, which was created by the 2010 health-care law. The government said in its statement that more than 5 million people have benefited from the program. The percentage of large companies providing early retirees with insurance fell from 66 percent in 1988 to 29 percent in 2009, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research organization based in Menlo Park, California.

යට කලිසම Yata Kalisama

Credit Curb By Jayantha Kovilagodage China's trust companies asked to halt bill discounting BEIJING, Jan 12 (AsiaPulse) - China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) on Wednesday required trust companies to suspend the issue of bill-related trust products in an oral notice, according to a Shanghai Securities News report on Thursday. The surging bill-related trust products to certain degree have affected the regulators' control of banks' lending scale. Due to tight credit in 2011, enterprises showed strong demand for bill discount. However, banks were under pressure to meet the bill discount demand due to high reserve requirement ratio requirement and drop in the deposits. Thus, banks cooperated with trust companies to issue bill-related trust products to provide financing for their clients. By the end of November, 2011, a total of 235 trust products were issued to invest in bills and notes, of which, 146 bill-related trust products were issued after December and accounted for 21.86 per cent of the total. Market insiders said that banks could avoid regulators' supervision on their lending by cooperating with the trust companies in issuing bill-related trust products.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Nona Marenawa

Birinda gena Sekaya

IMF warns over risk of Iran oil price shock The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned of a 20-30% oil price spike if Iranian exports are disrupted. The IMF warned that if the West imposed financial sanctions on Iran, it would be tantamount to an oil blockade, and the shock to the market could be as bad as from Libya's revolution last year. Iran produces 5% of global oil output. Moreover, if Iran goes ahead with a threat to blockade oil exports via the Straits of Hormuz in the Gulf, the IMF said the shock could be even greater. About a quarter of all oil produced globally, and some 40% of all oil exports - including those from Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia - are shipped through the Straits each year. "A blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would constitute, and be perceived by markets to presage, sharply heightened global geopolitical tension involving a much larger and unprecedented disruption," the Fund said in a regular note to the Group of 20 leading industrialised countries. The market is already pricing in a small risk of an escalation of tensions between Iran on the one hand, and the US, Europe and Israel on the other, according to the IMF's estimates. Western countries have been threatening sanctions if Iran does not halt its nuclear programme, which they maintain is being used to develop weapons. The fund warned that the impact on oil prices of either scenario would be accentuated by the current tightness of oil supplies. The oil stockpiles of major oil consuming countries are lower than usual, while the big oil exporting countries have limited short-term ability to increase supply, the IMF said. Iran is the world's fifth-largest oil producer, extracting 3.5 million barrels a day. Other members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) have some 3.8 million barrels in spare capacity that could eventually be made available. However, in the case of an oil blockade by Iran, access to oil supplies from other major Opec countries - including crucially Saudi Arabia - would also be cut off.

ඔබ දැන් පියෙක්

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s 2010 tax returns and the 13.9 percent rate he paid highlight how wealthy investors can use the preferential treatment of income classified as capital gains and dividends to minimize payments to the U.S. government. The returns provide a glimpse into the financial life of Romney, whose campaign estimates his fortune at between $190 million and $250 million. Romney and his wife, Ann, receive money from blind trusts that invest in hedge funds and receive profits that flow from the private-equity investments Romney made during his career at Bain Capital LLC. The couple donated about 16 percent of their income to charity. “The most affluent Americans in recent years have pulled away from the rest of us, and the reason is at least in part that they are able to compound their wealth at very, very low tax rates,” said Edward Kleinbard, a law professor at the University of Southern California. “Romney’s tax return, with its heavy reliance on income taxed at low capital gains rates, demonstrates that.” The Romneys earned $21.6 million in 2010 and paid $3 million in income taxes. More than half of the former Massachusetts governor’s earnings were considered capital gains and dividends, which are taxed at a top rate of 15 percent rather than the 35 percent top rate for ordinary income. His campaign released the returns yesterday. “Oh, I’m sure people will talk about it,” Romney, 64, said during a debate in Tampa, Florida, on Jan. 23. Near the Top Romney’s income puts him near the top of U.S. taxpayers. In 2008, according to the Internal Revenue Service, the median adjusted gross income was $33,048, which Romney earned in less than a day. Reaching the top 1 percent of taxpayers required $380,354 in adjusted gross income, about Romney’s earnings in a week. The Romneys received a $1.6 million refund after filing their 2010 return because they overpaid taxes during the year. They had the refund applied to their 2011 taxes. The campaign also released an estimated tax return for 2011 showing that Romney had an effective tax rate of 15.4 percent on $20.9 million in adjusted gross income. That return hasn’t been filed with the IRS. Rekindling Debate The discussion of Romney’s returns has reignited the political debate over the tax treatment of investments and particularly carried interest, or the profit stake that private- equity managers receive from successful investments even if they don’t invest their own money. Carried interest is taxed at capital gains rates, and President Barack Obama and many Democrats want to reverse that policy, calling it unfair. Romney’s 2010 income included $7.4 million in carried interest, said Ben Ginsberg, national counsel for the campaign. Romney, who touts his track record in investing in companies such as Staples Inc. (SPLS) and The Sports Authority Inc., received $5.5 million in carried interest in 2011. During 2010 and 2011, Romney paid $7.5 million less in taxes than he would have if various Obama tax proposals were implemented, including allowing the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 to expire and taxing carried interest as ordinary income, said Seth Hanlon, director of fiscal reform for the Center for American Progress Action Fund. The Washington research group is often aligned with Democrats. Ginsberg said Romney has paid 100 percent of what he owes the government. Just Capital Gains Romney’s carried interest income stems from his tenure at Bain, which ended in 1999. The returns show that the Romneys’ trusts received additional partnership interest in Bain funds, and it was unclear exactly why. “His position on carried interest is that it’s capital gains income, and capital gains should be treated as capital gains,” Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom told reporters in Tampa yesterday. Romney’s return indicates that he carried forward $4.8 million in capital losses from previous years, an indication that he didn’t report positive capital gains on his 2009 return. The campaign didn’t release tax returns from before 2010, and Democrats are pressing the Romney campaign to provide more returns to give a fuller picture of his income and how it has changed. “It’s an extensive disclosure and we feel it satisfies” the requests for Romney to release his returns, Ginsberg told reporters yesterday. Better Under Gingrich Romney, who lost the South Carolina primary on Jan. 21 and is competing in the Jan. 31 contest in Florida, would fare better financially under rival Newt Gingrich’s tax plan than under his own. Gingrich would end all taxation of capital gains; Romney wouldn’t let high-income taxpayers receive that break. Romney’s $7 million in charitable contributions in 2010 and 2011 topped the $6.2 million he and his wife paid in taxes during the period. The couple gave $1.5 million cash in 2010 and $2.6 million cash in 2011 to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the tax documents show. At first glance, the dollar amount of the Romneys’ charitable giving is “shocking,” Russell James, director of a graduate program in charitable financial planning at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “But it’s a different story when you compare it to total wealth. It’s not a shocking amount when you have a quarter- billion dollars in wealth.” ‘Squeaky Clean’ Romney didn’t take travel deductions related to his income from public speaking, said Ken Brier, a tax attorney in Needham, Massachusetts, who described his returns as “pretty squeaky clean.” “He’s gone pretty light on his deductions,” Brier said. “I guess he doesn’t want anyone to question it.” The returns also demonstrate how, using sophisticated estate planning, Romney has been able to give millions of dollars to his children free of estate and gift taxes, because of a legal structure known as a “grantor trust.” Romney established three trusts to which he contributed assets. The campaign said his children were listed as beneficiaries, though didn’t specify of which trusts. The income generated by the trusts triggers a tax obligation for Romney. By picking up that tax bill, he found a legal way to transfer money to his children free of gift taxes, said Mark G. Bosswick, managing partner at Berdon LLP, an accounting firm in New York. ‘Great Technique’ In addition, any appreciation of the stock after it was donated to the trusts grows free of gift and estate tax, assuming a gift tax was calculated at the time of the donation. The estate tax won’t be applied to the appreciation of assets that are no longer in his estate. “It’s a great technique because not only are you doing the initial gift, but by him paying the taxes on the trusts’ income each year he’s making additional gifts to the trust beneficiaries free of gift tax,” Bosswick said. “Plus, any appreciation of the investments will not be subjected to estate and gift tax.” The Romneys paid $232,989 because of the alternative minimum tax, which is designed to prevent people from avoiding taxes legally. That parallel tax system doesn’t eliminate the preference for investment income. The tax returns shed no new light on Romney’s considerable individual retirement fund, worth as much as $101.6 million, according to a financial disclosure he filed in August. It’s unclear why the value is so high, given that contribution limits to IRAs are relatively low. Cayman Investments Kleinbard speculated that Romney claimed low values on carried interest in various Bain funds that he contributed to the IRA. The 2010 return shows that the Romneys’ blind trusts have invested in an array of funds in tax-favored jurisdictions, including the Caymans, Ireland and Luxembourg. Such offshore funds attract investments from overseas investors who don’t want to file disclosures with the IRS, said Bradley Smallberg, a CPA at Smallberg Sorkin & Co. LLP in Melville, New York.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Ayya

Prom Dress and Undergarments for Night parties

Prom night is one of the first times in a teenage girl's life when she gets to experience the glamorous lifestyle of a princess. Fancy prom dresses, boys in tuxedos, and prom royalty all contribute to the larger-than-life feeling of the prom. At your prom, be sure to look your best and fully enjoy your night of glamour and royalty by following the tips below for a truly stunning look.
What you wear under your dress:
What you wear under your dress is just as important as what the world sees! It's essential that you wear a supportive bra or controlling underwear.
For the right look in your prom dress, you will need to think about what to wear on the inside and outside. A beautiful prom dress can be unfortunately marred by the wrong underwear and bra. Look for a bra that fits you well and is consistent with the style of your dress. This bra will save you from the embarrassment of falling or visible straps, so it is definitely worth the investment. You should also always remember to check for panty lines when you choose a pair of underwear to wear with your dress, especially if it is a sleek style. You might never have worn thong underwear before, but it may just be the best option for a sexy, smooth silhouette. Finally, if your prom dress is full in the skirt, you may need to purchase a full slip to help your dress fall just as it should.

Investments in “unsustainable” and “high-carbon” industries

Climate Change Capital Ltd. said it joined a group of more than 20 investors, academics and environmental campaign groups urging the Bank of England to probe the U.K’s exposure to investments in “unsustainable” and “high-carbon” industries. Banks, funds and institutional investors may end up with “stranded assets and poor returns” because of investments in industries with high carbon emissions, the groups said today in a letter to Bank of England Governor Mervyn King that was e- mailed by Climate Change Capital. Signatories include Aviva Investors Chief Executive Officer Paul Abberley. “The depth and breadth of our collective financial exposure to high carbon, extractive and environmentally unsustainable investments could become a major problem as we transition to a low carbon economy,” the letter’s authors said. Five of the 10 biggest companies in the U.K.’s benchmark stock index, the FTSE 100, were “almost exclusively high-carbon” in July, they said. The value of U.K. pensions could be at risk because of investments that may lose value as “policy and technology work consistently over time to reduce returns in high carbon areas while supporting low carbon ones,” according to the letter. It urged policy makers on the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee to assess the risks and devise options for addressing any threats identified. Other signatories include Conservative Party lawmaker Zac Goldsmith; Solarcentury Holdings Ltd. Chairman Jeremy Leggett, Penny Shepherd; the U.K. Sustainable Investment and Finance Association; and David King, former chief government scientific adviser and now director of Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. The U.K. heads of the environmental groups Greenpeace and WWF also put their names to the text. A spokesman for the central bank confirmed it had received the letter and offered no further comment.

Podu Linda

Women's jeans, denim dresses, jackets and shirts
If you're looking for Ladies designer clothing, The choice of clothing for women is much more varied than the selection available for men and for this reason increasing numbers of males are sourcing their clothes from online sources. The typical high street store generally devotes around 75% of it total floor space to womens clothing leaving men little option but to source their Replay jeans from an online supplier. The choice of Yen jeans and Nudie jeans for men has increased significantly in tandem with the online shopping phenomenon.
There can be few types of material to have had such a universal and long lasting appeal as Denim. From the prairies of the Mid West in the mid 19th century to the busy streets of Tokyo today, this wondrous material has transcended every border and culture and is as popular today as it has always been. Perhaps the most popular utilisation for this special fabric are jeans. Hardworking, durable and practical are just three adjectives that could be used to describe this item of clothing.
Slim-fit pants or skinny jeans have a snug fit through the legs and end in a small leg opening that can be anywhere from 9" to 20" depending on size. Other names for this style include pegs, drainpipes, stovepipes, Asian tight-pants, cigarette pants, skinny pants or skinnies. Skinny jeans taper completely at the bottom of the leg, whereas drainpipe jeans are skinny but then the lower leg is straight instead of tapering and so they are often slightly baggier at the bottom of the leg than skinny jeans.
Creative Disgner Clothings
Creative Contrast specializes in offering exclusive collections of designer clothing, jewelry, handbags & fashion accessories from the world's top fashion.
Designer clothing for men and women including brands like G Star Raw, Ben Sherman, G-Shock, Carrera sunglasses, Creative Rec shoes.