Season of uncertainty for stores

NEW YORK (AP) — Will Washington be the Grinch who stole Christmas?

After weeks of bickering between Congress and the White House, President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed into law a plan that ended a partial 16-day government shutdown and suspended the nation's debt limit until early next year.

But the measure, which comes just weeks ahead of the holiday shopping season, only temporarily averts a potential default on U.S. debt that could send the nation into a recession.

Retailers hope that short-term uncertainty won't stop Americans from spending during the busiest shopping period of the year, but they're fearful that it will.

"I am not nervous, but I am mindful," said Jay Stein, chairman of Stein Mart, a 300-store chain that sells home goods and clothing. "The biggest enemy of consumer confidence is uncertainty."

Retailers and industry watchers say Washington gridlock already has caused shoppers to hold back on purchases.

The number of people going into stores nationwide dropped 7.5 percent for the week that ended Oct. 5 and 7.1 percent during the following week compared with a year ago, according to ShopperTrak, which measures foot traffic at 40,000 retail outlets across the country.

Men's clothier Jos. A. Bank Clothiers and furniture chain Ethan Allen said their customers cut back in recent weeks. And auto sales, which had been strong, trailed off last week, with experts blaming Washington lawmakers.

Retailers say the agreement that lawmakers approved, which funds the government until Jan. 15 and gives the Treasury the ability to borrow above its limit until Feb. 7, may not be enough to alleviate shoppers' concerns.

Robert N. Wildrick, chairman of Jos. A. Bank, which has 623 U.S. stores, said retailers can't afford more uncertainty during the holiday shopping season. "The more this nonsense goes on .... the more scared (consumers) become," he said.

Even before the stalemate in Washington, retailers had reasons to be cautiously optimistic about the holiday season, which accounts for up to 40 percent of retailers' annual revenue. While the job and housing markets are improving, that hasn't yet translated into sustained spending increases among shoppers.

But retailers spend money on ads, order additional inventory and add sales staff during the holidays hoping shoppers will spending freely. If they don't, stores have to discount, which eats away profits.

The National Retail Federation, the nation's largest retail group, had forecast in early October that sales would climb 3.9 percent in November and December to $602.12 billion, higher than last year's 3.5 percent gain. But the forecast didn't account for the prolonged shutdown.

Jack Kleinhenz, chief economist for the Washington, D.C.-based group, told The Associated Press that he may lower the projection after he sifts through retail sales and jobs data, reports that had been delayed because of the shutdown. The uncertainty could hurt sales.

"It's like having an ongoing fever that you would like to shake but just doesn't go away," Kleinhenz said. "That causes a backup in decision-making from consumers and businesses."

Take Nino Rodriguez, who was already planning to cut back spending on gifts for his four children ages 3 to 21 by about 25 percent to $1,500 as he juggles stagnant wage gains with college tuition costs.

Now, the Chicagoan plans to cut another $500 from the holiday budget because of uncertainty. In particular, he's concerned about having government aid checks suspended for teenage sons who have special needs.

"The doomsday clock is just one second less than what it was before," said Rodriguez, who works in the hospitality business. "All this just heightens our awareness of spending."

This isn't the first time that debt-and-spending stalemates have hurt shoppers' mood during the holidays. Last year, Americans worried about tense negotiations in Washington to resolve the fiscal cliff, a simultaneous increase in tax rates and a decrease in government spending.

Congress and the White House reached a deal on Jan. 1 that prevented income taxes from rising for most households, but many store executives blamed the uncertainty for a slowdown in sales in December. In November 2012, sales were up 4.7 over the year ago period, but rose only 2.4 percent in December.

And in August 2011 when there was market turmoil and political strife over raising the federal debt ceiling, consumer sentiment fell to a 31-year low, according to the Thomas Reuters/University of Michigan survey.

Jeff Landis of Chicago-based Montopoli Custom Clothiers recalls those days when business was quiet and he had to delay ordering fabric and call his wealthy customers. He said he's seeing the same scenario play out now.

"This is a buzz kill," he said.

Follow Anne D'Innocenzio at www.Twitter.com/adinnocenzio

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/season-uncertainty-stores-165925877--finance.html
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Ex-House Speaker Tom Foley dies at 84

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tall and courtly, Tom Foley served 30 years in the House when partisan confrontation was less rancorous than today and Democrats had dominated for decades. He crowned his long political career by becoming speaker, only to be toppled when Republicans seized control of Congress in 1994, turned out by angry voters with little taste for incumbents.

Foley, the first speaker to be booted from office by his constituents since the Civil War, died Friday at the age of 84 of complications from a stroke, according to his wife, Heather.

She said he had suffered a stroke last December and was hospitalized in May with pneumonia. He returned home after a week and had been on hospice care there ever since, she said.

"Foley was very much a believer that the perfect should not get in the way of the achievable," Ms. Foley wrote in a 10-page obituary of her husband. She said he believed that "half of something was better than none."

"There was always another day and another Congress to move forward and get the other half done," she wrote.

"America has lost a legend of the United States Congress," President Barack Obama said in a statement Friday, adding, "Tom's straightforward approach helped him find common ground with members of both parties."

Foley, who grew up in a politically active family in Spokane, Wash., represented that agriculture-heavy area for 15 terms in the House, including more than five years in the speaker's chair.

In that job, he was third in line of succession to the presidency and was the first speaker from west of the Rocky Mountains.

Though the politics of Foley's era was less sharp-edged than today, it was not without hardball. As he became speaker in June 1989, a Republican National Committee memo was circulated called, "Tom Foley. Out of the Liberal Closet," that said Foley's voting record was as liberal as that of openly gay Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.

Some lawmakers took the memo as hinting that Foley was gay, which he denied. The White House said then-President George H.W. Bush was "disgusted" by the incident, and Foley said he considered the episode closed.

As speaker, he was an active negotiator in the 1990 budget talks that led to Bush breaking his pledge to never raise taxes, which played a role in Bush's 1992 defeat. Even so, Bush released a statement Friday lauding Foley.

"Tom never got personal or burned bridges," said Bush. "We didn't agree on every issue, but on key issues we managed to put the good of the country ahead of politics."

Foley also let the House vote on a resolution authorizing Bush to use force against Iraq for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, despite "strong personal reservations and the strenuous objections of a good many" Democrats, Bob Michel, an Illinois Republican who was House minority leader at the time, recalled Friday.

"But he granted our request for a vote because it was the right thing to do. He was that kind of leader," Michel said in a statement.

Foley was also at the helm when, in 1992, revelations that many lawmakers had been allowed to overdraw their checking accounts at the House bank provoked a wave of anger against incumbents.

In 1993, he helped shepherd President Bill Clinton's budget through the House over solid Republican opposition. He also won passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, despite "no" votes from most Democrats.

He never served a day as a member of the House's minority party. The Republican capture of the chamber in the 1994 gave them control for the first time in 40 years and Foley, it turned out, was their prize victim.

He was replaced as speaker by his nemesis, Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., leader of a group of rebellious younger Republicans who rejected the less-combative tactics of established GOP leaders like Michel.

Foley was defeated in 1994 by 4,000 votes by Spokane attorney George Nethercutt, a Republican who supported term limits, which the speaker fought. Also hurting Foley was his ability to bring home federal benefits, which Nethercutt used by accusing him of pork-barrel politics.

On Friday, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called Foley "forthright and warmhearted" in a written statement.

"Tom Foley endeared himself not only to the wheat farmers back home but also colleagues on both sides of the aisle," Boehner said. "That had a lot to do with his solid sense of fairness, which remains a model for any speaker or representative."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called Foley "a quintessential champion of the common good" who "inspired a sense of purpose and civility that reflects the best of our democracy."

In a 2004 Associated Press interview, Foley spoke about how voters did not appreciate the value of service as party leader and said rural voters were turning against Democrats.

"We need to examine how we are responding to this division ... particularly the sense in some rural areas that the Democratic Party is not a party that respects faith or family or has respect for values," he said. "I think that's wrong, but it's a dangerous perception if it develops as it has."

Foley loved the classics and art, hobnobbing with presidents, and his steady rise to power in Congress and diplomacy. He had a fine stereo system in his Capitol office.

He also loved riding horseback in parades and getting his boots dirty in the rolling hills of the Palouse country that his pioneer forebears helped settle.

Legendary Washington Democratic Sen. Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson was his mentor and urged his former aide to run for the House in 1964, which turned out to be a landslide year for Democrats.

Foley worked with leadership to get plum committee assignments. Retirement, new seniority rules, election losses and leadership battles lifted Foley into the Agriculture Committee chairmanship by age 44, a post he used to help expand the Food Stamp program. He later become Democratic whip, the caucus' No. 3 job.

Similar good fortune elevated him to majority leader, and the downfall of Jim Wright of Texas, who was facing ethics allegations, lifted him to the speaker's chair, where he served from 1989 until January 1995.

"I wish I could say it was merit and hard work, but I think so much of what happens in a political career is the result of circumstances that are favorable and opportunities that come about," Foley told the AP in 2003.

He said his proudest achievements were farm bills, hunger programs, civil liberties, environmental legislation and civil rights bills. Even though his views were often considerably to the left of his mostly Republican constituents, he said he tried to stay in touch.

After leaving Congress, he joined a blue chip law firm in Washington, D.C., and earned fees serving on corporate boards. Foley and his wife, Heather, his unpaid political adviser and staff aide, had built their dream home in the capital in 1992.

In 1997, he took one of the most prestigious assignments in diplomacy, ambassador to Japan under President Bill Clinton. A longtime Japan scholar, Foley had been a frequent visitor to that nation, in part to promote the farm products his district produces, and he held the post for four years.

Foley's father, Ralph, was a judge for decades and a school classmate of Bing Crosby's. His mother, Helen, was a teacher.

Foley attended Gonzaga University in Spokane and the University of Washington Law School. He worked as a prosecutor and assistant state attorney general and as counsel for Jackson's Senate Interior Committee for three years.

Then came the long House career.

Cornell Clayton, director of the Foley Institute for Public Policy at Washington State University, said that growing up during the Depression and World War II made Foley part of a generation that worked in a more bipartisan manner.

"They saw us all on the same team," Clayton said.

___

Geranios reported from Spokane, Wash. Associated Press writers Matthew Daly, Libby Quaid and Henry Jackson contributed to this report.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-10-18-Obit-Tom%20Foley/id-f415a11011704dcdb2a90b0edd8ba89d
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Friday Morning Political Mix

Good morning.

As post-shutdown Washington struggles to squeeze itself into its ill-fitting "new normal" suit, this amazing, dispiriting, baffling week finally comes to a close with some same-old, same-old.

Republicans are refocusing on undermining Obamacare (which is doing a pretty good job of that on its own).

Democrats are taking gleeful potshots at Republican opponents who carried the banner for the failed shutdown/debt crisis strategy.

And the American people, particularly Republicans who say they see their ideals being undermined by incompetent Capitol Hill strategy, are left shaking their heads.

We'll start with the GOP's intraparty recriminations, which continue apace.

Here's what Matias Elliott, a Colorado Springs taxi driver, told the New York Times: "It's stupid that you shut down the economy just to get Obamacare off the list. Get Obama out of there, and get your candidate in there."

Noah Bierman and Tracy Jan report in the Boston Globe today that the motivated Tea Party base mainstream Republicans were happy to have in their corner in recent elections, has come to bite them in the behind.

They write: "The ironies are rich. Many in the mainstream GOP fed off the Tea Party movement's considerable passion in 2010 and 2012. Now those same Republicans face an environment in which, according to national polls, the entire party is suffering from a backlash over the fiscal showdown."

And over at Politico, Maggie Haberman and Anna Palmer find that some big GOP donors are lamenting the events of the past several months. They're also fretting, the reporters say, about the business community's diminishing influence and "rising clout of groups like the Senate Conservative Fund, which have run ads against incumbent Republican senators for not taking a hard enough line on the shutdown."

On the other side of the aisle, Democrats have been licking their chops, relishing the aftermath of the debacle - and no one more than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

In post-crisis/on-to-new-crisis Huffington Post interview, Reid called Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, the standard bearer for the failed GOP defund-Obamacare-or-else stratety, a "laughingstock to everybody but him." And, Reid, not a doctor, diagnosed Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter, who proposed stripping congressional workers of employer-provided insurance subsidies , as "not playing with a full deck."

Democrats have also immediately gone after the guy who, with Reid, brokered a final-hours deal to end the shutdown and avert default - Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

In emails to McConnell's home state Kentuckians, who will decide next year whether to return the incumbent to the Senate, Democrats had this to say: "McConnell's shutdown hurts Kentucky, creates disastrous political consequences for himself..."

In his own exit interview, McConnell, who faces a primary challenge, told the National Review that there will be no more shutdowns. "A government shutdown is off the table," he said. "We're not going to do it."

Cruz subsequently said, essentially, no guarantees.

Cruz also blocked the nomination of Democrat Tom Wheeler to Federal Communications Commission chair. Reuters reports that he "held up the vote over questions about the FCC's power to enforce disclosures of who sponsors political television advertising."

And, finally, the GOP push to cripple Obamacare moves to the House, where the Energy and Commerce Committee announced it would hold an Oct. 24 hearing on the health care system's disastrous launch.

Republican strategists are enthusiastically circulating accounts of the trouble-plagued program. Here's one from Wisconsin, where the state's insurance commissioner says fewer than 50 residents have signed up. Worth noting that Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker declined to have his state set up its own exchanges, choosing to rely instead on the national exchange. Next-door Minnesota, with its own state-based exchange program, has signed up more than 5,500, Gannett reports.

Republicans have also begun to highlight their weeks-long campaign to oust Health and Human Services chief Kathleen Sebelius, who has overseen Obamacare's rollout. Here's NPR's report.

To wrap up for the week, we'll let Chicago Sun Times Washington Bureau Chief Lynn Sweet tell you how "Obama's a sore winner."

We'll have Edward Snowden tell you that, really, he took no secret documents with him to Russia.

And have NPR's Marilyn Geewax fill you in on how declining gas prices, below $3 a gallon in some parts of the country, are giving the economy a boost.

Happy weekend.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/10/18/236868893/friday-morning-political-mix?ft=1&f=1003
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Apple says theoretical exploits be damned, they can't read your iMessages

Earlier this week security researchers presented their paper highlighting how a man-in-the-middle attack could let Apple, or an agency compelling Apple, read our iMessage despite the end-to-end encryption. Not so says Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller. AllThingsD:

iMessage is not architected to allow Apple to read messages. The research discussed theoretical vulnerabilities that would require Apple to re-engineer the iMessage system to exploit it, and Apple has no plans or intentions to do so.

Beyond that, it's simply not in Apple's best interests to be able to read, or to be able to enable any agency to read, our iMessages. It would hurt them not only as a company, but as a group of people dedicated to making great products.

My guess is - and I say this as someone who trusts no one and is paranoid of everybody - if there's a way to make even this theoretical attack impossible, Apple will find it.

Source: AllThingsD

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/p9eqv6M_42w/story01.htm
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The Fix: The Houston Chronicle un-endorses Ted Cruz -- a year later (Washington Post)

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Parks and Recreation made a sabermetrics funny - SBNation.com

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Halloween: Popular costumes for kids and teens - 19 Action News ...

CLEVELAND, OH (WOIO) -

This year adults will spend more than 1-billion dollars on kids costumes. the average cost for costumes and accessories, candy, you name it is about 75-bucks. So if you do the math it can add up to a pricey "trick or treat."
 
Trying to find a costume that jumps out at you can be a little tricky.
 
Employees at Spirit Halloween in Brooklyn are busy helping parents pick out the right look for their kid.
 
"Every year there's the one item that everyone's looking for that's hard to keep on the shelves," says Jimmy Hignite of Spirit Halloween.

Ninja turtles and just plain old ninjas top the list of favorite costume picks this year especially for boys.

For girls the 'Monster High" costume from the t.v. show is a winner. If you are opting for a scarier look zombie girls is a popular choice.
 
 "The kids are in the aisles begging for certain items. The parents of course can't say no," says Hignite.

 "Adventure Time" is a hit with boys and girls along with "rRgby" from the Regular Show.
 
 Safety and cost is a big concern for many parents.
 
"Price should be good and at the same time safety for the kids. I want to make sure that cans see and stuff," says Karmel Abutaleb.

Teens who really get into the Halloween spirit.
   
Super heroes always fly off the shelves.  Teen girls like anything from the Robin Hood series.
   
"The tweens like to be able to dress up as something that they're not everyday. So they get to also wear items that are crazy and fun," says Hignite.

Who doesn't want to be a nerd. you can for Halloween.
   
But it's the skin suits year after year that get a top vote across the board.

To get the costume you want it can cost you anywhere from 25 to 40 bucks.

 

Copyright 2013 WOIO. All rights reserved.

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