Finance Blog number 1

The outer bands of Tropical Storm Gert are approaching Bermuda with the storm’s center expected to pass just east of the wealthy British archipelago.

A tropical storm warning is in effect for Bermuda and people there have been installing storm shutters and hauling boats onto beaches in preparation.

Gert’s maximum sustained winds early Monday are near 45 mph (75 kph) with some strengthening forecast during the next day or so.

The U no fax payday loans.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami says large swells generated by Gert are approaching Bermuda and are likely to cause life-threatening surfs and rip current conditions.

The storm is centered about 130 miles (210 kilometers) southeast of Bermuda and moving north-northwest near 12 mph (19 kph).

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It doesn’t matter how many weeks of vacation you have, it never seems like enough. By the time you book off a summer week, March break, plus time for your childrens’ soccer tournament and parent-teacher interviews, you’ve run out of paid time off. But employees of the Toronto-based Social Media Group don’t have that problem. In October, 2010, CEO Maggie Fox did away with tracking vacation days and introduced an unlimited paid vacation policy for her 20 employees.

The company helps organizations develop strategies around the effective use of social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and Linked in. Clients include Fortune 500 organizations like 3M, Ford, CNN, Thomson Reuters and a top global bank. Fox says, “We’re playing with the “big boys” and our incredible team has to deliver their A+ game – Every. Single. Day. What shouldn’t an employee be able to taking an afternoon off to play with her kids?”

The “golden rule” is that each employee is responsible for his own mental health, his colleagues and his clients. Time off has to be cleared with supervisors, but it’s an informal process. “Obviously if you said I want to take six weeks off starting tomorrow, it would not be feasible. But if you gave us a couple of months notice and a plan for structuring your work, it is not impossible.” The company doesn’t keep formal statistics, but Fox believes people are taking more time off overall, and she says that’s a good thing. “It’s not so much that people are saying let me take a week or a month four times a year. But they are taking more long weekends in addition to scheduled family vacations.” The only negative she can think of is that often when offers are extended to new employees, they don’t believe her. She explains that the starting point is the minimum vacation required by law, and that’s what staff are paid  if they leave the company with unused time off. But while they are working for the company, the unlimited paid vacation policy applies. Fox agrees that unlimited vacation would be impossible in a manufacturing company or where essential services are provided, but she says the size of her organization isn’t really a factor. Netflix in the U.S. introduced open-ended vacations for over 500 salaried employees in 2004 and IBM Canada has eliminated tracking of vacation days (except in their Quebec manufacturing plant). IBM Guidelines say employees get a three week vacation to start but there is no policing and employees are empowered to take vacation whenever they want. While unlimited vacation appears to be the ultimate perk, a 2010 Expedia Survey reveals that almost half of Canadian employees do not fully take advantage of the number of vacation days they have now. Top reasons cited are they do not schedule a vacation long enough in advance, they are too busy to get away, or their significant other can’t get away. Do people at the Social Media Group abuse the program? Not at all, says Fox. “We work hard and play hard. I hire people who do great work. If I hire someone who takes advantage of the program, it’s my problem, because I’ve made a bad decision.” Also see: Top civil servants lose their perks  and 13 things to know about your benefits plan .

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Drugmaker Merck says it has received a subpoena from federal prosecutors investigating the company’s marketing of three drugs acquired through its 2009 acquisition of Schering Plough.

Merck & Co. Inc. disclosed the request for information from the Department of Justice in a regulatory filing Monday morning. The government is investigating marketing and selling of the brain cancer drug Temodar and hepatitis C drugs PegIntron and Intron A. The probe involves company activities between 2004 and today. Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, said it is cooperating with the government.

Merck and Schering Plough completed their merger in November 2009.

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Today, answers to some of your questions:

Q: I will soon have to begin repaying my student loans for undergraduate and graduate degrees. Because the total is about $82,000, I fear that I will never be able to pay it off. The statements I have received in the mail recommend I pay $900 per month. I love my job at a young Web company, but I don’t make much, and there is no chance I can pay $900 a month. Is there anything I can do?

A. If you have federal loans, you can make use of new government rules that give people a break on student loan payments they cannot afford.

Under the relatively new “income-based repayment” plan, you get relief if the regular payments you would have to make over 10 years will exceed about 15 percent of your discretionary income. That’s calculated based on a formula related to the U.S. poverty line. Besides income, the calculation involves the size of your family.

Simply put, most borrowers will be required to pay less than 10 percent of their adjusted gross income, said Finaid.org publisher Mark Kantrowitz.

For a quick assessment, typically, if you owe more on your loans than you earn annually, you are a likely candidate for some relief. For married couples, both spouses can be eligible, depending on income. And the income requirements apply to Stafford, PLUS and consolidated federal student loans.

To see how you stand, try this calculator: http://www.tinyurl.com/l3ktdx.

Based on the calculator, if you are single and earning $70,000 a year, you would be expected to pay $670 a month.

Of course, you don’t escape your obligations indefinitely. If you are getting relief and not paying all your interest each month, it gets tacked on to the end of the loan.

Thus, you might end up paying off your loan for longer than the 10 years. But if after 25 years you still have not paid off all you owe, the government will forgive what’s left. Also, if you happen to take a public service government job, you can get your loan forgiven.

For more information, visit http://www.tinyurl.com/mjvuue.

Keep in mind that this program applies to federal student loans, not to private loans that you may get from a bank or other lender. So for people who have not yet finished college, this is one reason, before borrowing, to carefully consider who is giving you your loans and the rules that apply.

Also, it is wise to consider your likely salary before taking on significant debt. Look up your profession at Salary.com.

It’s painful to finish college and wonder how you will pay your loans. And paying interest for more than 10 years is expensive, even if your monthly payments are manageable.

To see if you might qualify for relief after graduating, call your lender and ask about the options for alternative payment plans, Kantrowitz said.

If your lender doesn’t offer any options based on your income, Kantrowitz said, you can go through a process called “consolidation.”

Make sure you use the government’s “direct loan program.” This means you combine all your old student loans into a new federal loan, and once your loans are consolidated in the government program, you can then qualify for the income-based repayment plan.

For information on consolidation, see http://loanconsolidation.ed.gov.

Q. Is our money safe in the bank if the government can’t pay its debt?

A. You are one of many people who have asked me this, and it is sad that Americans find themselves worrying again

Ontario

A car bomb outside a Christian church wounded 23 people on Tuesday morning, police said, as security forces found and disabled vehicles packed with explosives outside two other parishes in northern Iraq.

The bombing and the two averted attacks in the northern city of Kirkuk signal continued violence against Iraqi Christians, nearly 1 million of whom have fled since the war began in 2003.

“The terrorists want to make us flee Iraq, but they will fail,” said the Rev. Haithem Akram, the priest of one of the churches that was targeted. “We are staying in our country. The Iraqi Christians are easy targets because they do not have militias to protect them. The terrorists want to terrorize us, but they will fail.”

The assault began at 6 a.m., when the car blew up outside the Syrian Catholic church, severely damaging the church and nearby houses, said police Col. Taha Salaheddin.

The parish’s leader, the Rev. Imad Yalda, was the only person inside at the time of the blast and was wounded. The 22 other wounded were people whose nearby homes were hit by the blast, said Kirkuk police chief Maj. Gen. Jamal Tahir cash advance today.

Following the blast at the Syrian Catholic church, police discovered two more car bombs parked outside the Christian Anglican church and the Mar Gourgis church, both in downtown Kirkuk.

The ethnically and religiously mixed city of Kirkuk is located 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of Baghdad. Sunni extremists often target Christians who are seen as unbelievers.

Violence against Christians stepped up late last year, climaxing in the Oct. 31 siege of a Catholic cathedral in downtown Baghdad that left 68 dead and scored wounded when al-Qaida suicide bombers held worshippers hostage for hours before detonating their explosives belts.

Since then, the Vatican and the U.S. Congress have pleaded for Iraq’s government to do more to protect Christians in Iraq.

A State Department report says Christian leaders estimate that 400,000 to 600,000 Christians remain in Iraq, down from a prewar level of as high as 1.4 million by some estimates.

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The GOP-controlled House and the Democratic Senate remain at loggerheads over debt legislation that’s required to avoid a first-ever default on U.S. financial obligations as lawmakers and the White House head into the weekend in search of compromise.

Weekend talks follow a week of extraordinary partisanship that was capped by a power play by Senate Democrats killing a GOP-drafted debt limit increase and budget-cutting bill less than two hours after it squeaked through the House bad credit payday advance. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid set up a test vote for the wee hours of Sunday morning to break a GOP filibuster.

Before then, however, the House was set to even the score by voting Saturday to reject an alternative measure by Reid even the Senate has taken it up.

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A British lawmaker says James Murdoch could be asked to clarify his testimony to a parliamentary committee investigating phone hacking after two former employees challenged his claim he had not seen evidence suggesting eavesdropping went beyond a jailed rogue reporter.

Murdoch’s former legal adviser and an ex-editor say they told Murdoch years ago about an email that suggested the rot at the News of the World was more widespread than previously claimed.

News International said James Murdoch stood by his statement payday advance low fees.

Conservative legislator James Whittingdale, who heads the committee, said Friday that Murdoch could be asked to address the contradiction in writing _ but he would not be recalled before the committee.

James and Rupert Murdoch gave evidence on Tuesday.

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Eurozone leaders are moving closer to signing off on a second bailout for Greece but markets are fretting that any deal that emerges later Thursday may imply a Greek debt default after a plan to slap a tax on banks appears to have been shelved.

Reaching a deal _ it had looked unlikely earlier this week _ became easier after Germany and France agreed on a common position on how to get banks and other investors to share the burden of a second rescue during last-ditch talks in Berlin Wednesday.

The offices of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy did not release any details on their common plan, but the prime minister of Luxembourg said it was unlikely to include a tax on banks to help pay for the second rescue package.

“I have the impression that there is no agreement on a banking tax,” Jean-Claude Juncker, who as the chairman of the Eurogroup is one of the key officials of the currency union, said as he arrived in Brussels.

Juncker’s comments sparked a bout of euro selling in the markets, as investors now think that any private sector involvement may well mean that the credit rating agencies will consider that Greece will be in default of its debts. By late morning, the euro was 0.8 percent lower at $1.4150, having earlier traded above $1.42.

Juncker conceded that the final deal could well see the agencies slapping a “selective default” rating on the country.

That could trigger fresh financial turmoil, especially if the European Central Bank insists on cutting Greek banks from emergency support, as it threatened to do if the country is considered to be in default.

Leaders have been struggling to find an agreement that makes sure that banks and other private investors help pay for a bailout, without triggering panic on financial markets that the crisis could spread to larger economies like Spain or Italy.

Juncker also said that any deal should include more “flexibility” for the currency union’s bailout fund. Such flexibility is usually shorthand for lower interest and longer maturity for bailout loans as well as wider powers for the fund, such as the ability to buy up distressed bonds.

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Rupert Murdoch said he was the best person to clean up News Corp. Investors agreed.

The company’s stock had its best day since the phone-hacking scandal broke, rising more than 5 percent Tuesday while Murdoch and his son and deputy, James, testified before a committee of the British Parliament in London.

The gains restored about $2.2 billion of the $8.3 billion in market value the company had lost during the furor.

Murdoch, 80, said he was ashamed at revelations that the News of the World, a News Corp. tabloid, had broken into the voicemail of a murdered schoolgirl, potentially interfering with investigators and giving false hope to her family that she was alive.

But Murdoch declined to take personal blame in a crisis that has extended to the top levels of the British police and to the prime minister. Asked whether he was considering resigning as head of News Corp., he said: “No.”

“I feel that people I trusted, I’m not saying who, I don’t know at what level, have let me down,” Murdoch said. “And I think they behaved disgracefully, betrayed the company and me, and it’s for them to pay. I think that frankly, I’m the best person to clean this up.”

News Corp. stock was up all day, with some cable channels in the United States showing its price changing, cent by cent, while Murdoch spoke in London. The stock rose steadily throughout his testimony and closed at $15.79, up 82 cents.

“It became more certain from comments from Rupert that he intends to stay in place. That certainty is something that markets like,” said Laura Martin, an analyst for Needham & Co., an investment banking and asset-management firm.

She gave Murdoch “an A” and James Murdoch, 38, his son and heir apparent, an “an A-plus” for showing a good grasp of facts, appearing contrite and describing how they reacted appropriately when they learned of wrongdoing.

Martin said the succession plan that markets believed was in place, with James assuming the top job in a few years and Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey staying in his role, was now believed to be unchanged.

Late Monday, Thomas Perkins, a News Corp. board member, said top management had the board’s full support. He denied a report that it was considering an immediate change.

News Corp. owns media properties around the world, including Fox television, the 20th Century Fox movie studio, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. It closed the News of the World earlier this month.

The company employs 52,000 people around the world. Its stock is still down about 13 percent since the scandal broke, a loss of about $6.1 billion in market value.

At the hearing, British lawmakers pushed for details about the Murdochs’ ties to Prime Minister David Cameron and other members of the British political establishment payday loan lenders in states. They questioned London police about reports that officers took bribes from Murdoch’s journalists.

David Joyce, an analyst with trading firm Miller Tabak & Co., said the father-son pair did a good job distancing themselves from wrongdoing by saying they run a decentralized company and trust their employees.

“I think the stock is up as their apologies point to a desire to salvage the company as-is, and that significant asset sales are not likely,” Joyce said.

Rupert Murdoch also said he had seen no evidence that victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks had been victims of hacking by his journalists.

“Rupert came across very direct, very clear that this doesn’t touch U.S. soil,” said Jeffrey Logsdon, an analyst for BMO Capital Markets. “So if the scorched earth is going to remain unfortunately somewhere else, that’s a relief.”

Some investors may have bought News Corp. stock because it seems cheap, said Morningstar analyst Michael Corty.

“In the long run, the fundamentals in the business aren’t changed by all these headlines and the scandal,” Corty said. “We think it’s undervalued, but it’s not a screaming buy.”

News Corp. made $2.5 billion on $32.8 billion in revenue in its last fiscal year, putting it in the same league as Time Warner and Disney among the world’s largest media companies. Analysts have valued the company primarily on its money-making TV and movie businesses and have considered newspapers a drag on profits despite Murdoch’s attachment to them.

More than two hours into the hearing, a spectator wearing a plaid shirt walked up to the table where the two Murdochs sat and appeared to hit the elder Murdoch squarely in the face with a paper plate full of shaving cream.

Murdoch’s wife, Wendi Deng, who was sitting behind Murdoch and had touched his elbow occasionally to stop him thumping the desk, lashed out, slapping the man in the face before falling down.

Police quickly took the man away. As he left the room, Deng picked up the plate and hurled it at the man. The panel took a 10-minute recess. When it resumed, the elder Murdoch was without his suit jacket but apparently cleaned up. That’s when he was asked if he was considering resigning over the affair.

News Corp. stock edged up about a percentage point after the incident. Thomas Eagan, an analyst at Collins Stewart, said the attack may have caused investor sentiment to shift “from animosity toward sympathy.”

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