Christmas comes slowly to austerity-hit Europe

PARIS (AP) — Across Europe, holiday "shoppers" this season are doing more browsing than buying. Retailers remain hopeful for a last-minute burst of Christmas consumerism, and some governments are encouraging it by allowing stores to open on Sunday. But with economies across the region slowing and unemployment soaring, analysts say holiday spending in Europe is bound to disappoint for the fourth year in a row. In Rome, some shopkeepers say holiday sales are down 20 percent from last year. In Paris, refurbished second-hand toys are attracting buyers. And in Spain, which has Europe's highest unemployment rate, some families are contemplating whether to give gifts at all. As in the U.S., holiday shopping is vital to many businesses: British non-food retailers can make up to 50 percent of their profits in the end-of-year push. In Germany, holiday business accounts for 30 percent of annual toy sales. But the arc of the holiday shopping seasons is a little different in every country. The Dutch open presents on Dec. 5, the eve of St. Nicholas day and the last night of their "Sinterklaas" celebration. In Spain, many children tear open presents on Jan. 6, when tradition has it the Three Wise Men brought gifts to the baby Jesus. In Britain, France and most of Europe gifts are exchanged on Dec. 25. As the 17-country eurozone slips back into recession, this festive season may mark a new normal for Europe, analysts say. Gone are the heady days when every holiday season meant a new record breached for sales. Instead, shops will have to fight it out for shoppers, hunting for bargains and quality and willing to wait for both. "Every year it comes later," said Joachim Stoll, who co-owns Leder-Stoll OHG, a leather and luggage retailer just off the glittering Zeil pedestrian shopping quarter in Frankfurt, Germany. "People wait longer and longer, even after Christmas." European retailers are crossing their fingers that a boost will still come, as it did this year for the U.S. There, total sales for the four-day weekend that kicks off the holiday shopping season around Thanksgiving in late November rose 2.7 percent to $22 billion, compared with the same period a year ago, according to ShopperTrak. Sales since then have fallen 4.4 percent compared with last year, ShopperTrak reported Wednesday. Austerity measures implemented to combat the continent's debt crisis have hit Europe's economies hard: Nine countries in the 27-member European Union are in recession and unemployment across the region is 10.7 percent. Retail sales across Europe have been on a steady decline since August and have yet to match levels last seen since the start of the Great Recession in 2008. In October, the latest month for which official figures are available, retail sales in the European Union fell 1.1 percent from the previous month and 2.4 percent from the previous year, according to Eurostat. In Germany, Europe's biggest economy, retail sales fell 3.8 percent in October from the previous year. "After a relentlessly tough year for retailers throughout 2012, many are now bracing themselves as spending doesn't seem to be headed for a big step-up at Christmas," said Shweta Chaudhury of MasterCard SpendingPulse, which estimates total U.K. retail sales across all payment forms. Many customers may only be drawn out by the very best sales. Some shoppers say they may even start shopping for the 2013 holidays in the new year sales. "There's this sort of conflicting trend, where retailers are pushing Christmas earlier and earlier each year, but at the same time shoppers are actually delaying their purchases to as late as possible," said Natalie Berg, global research director at research firm Planet Retail. "Shoppers are very savvy today, and they know that the deals will come." In an attempt to bolster sales in the run-up to Christmas, leading British department store John Lewis has already started discounts on some items ahead of its usual New Year's sales. Women's Armani chinos were discounted 70 percent, and 50 pounds ($80) has been taken off the price of a 479-pound ($780) Bosch washing machine. European officials are also doing their best to encourage shoppers. Italy ended its prohibition on stores opening on Sundays, and stores in Madrid and across France suspended their bans during the holiday season. In Rome, thousands turned out to see Pope Benedict XVI inaugurate the season on Dec. 8 with a prayer at the statue of Mary at the foot of the Spanish Steps in the heart of the city's posh shopping district. But afterward, there seemed to be more gawking then buying. "We are down about 20 percent from last Christmas season, and this is a rich area," said Lucia Ruffini, a salesperson in the Pandemonium boutique in Rome's upscale Parioli neighborhood. "Let's hope for the (post-Christmas) sales." Some shoppers, like Omero Petrocchi, have been doing their homework all year. "There are sales, super sales, discounts, super discounts and nothing more. So where I see I can spend less, I snatch (gifts)," he said while browsing on Rome's chic Via Condotti, where some of Italy's most famous designers have shops. "Then I put everything in the closet, so we already have it all for next year." But in Paris' upscale Galeries Lafayette department store, discounts were almost nowhere to be found, as shoppers buzzed around a giant Christmas tree in the store's famed central cupola. A handful of clothing racks and Christmas decorations were marked down, but there were no sales to be had in the bustling toy department. The lack of pre-Christmas sales is pushing some Parisian shoppers across town to the workshop of a non-profit group that fixes up used, donated toys. "These are toys at less than half the price of new ones that are practically new," said Antoinette Guhl, co-director of ReJoue. But she said that price is just one motivator; many shoppers are also drawn by the fact that association gives jobs and training to the unemployed and is recycling toys that otherwise would have been tossed. "It's a more responsible purchase." Bryan Roberts, an analyst with Kantar Retail, warns that it's hard to generalize about this Christmas in Europe and turnout has been "incredibly patchy." For instance, in Spain, which has the EU's highest unemployment rate at 26.2 percent, many were preparing for a more sedate holiday. "We'll have to see what the mood is among the family to see how much money we have to spend," said Elsa Barona, 59, an executive with an international food company. Barona said her immediate family — her son, daughter and her daughter's boyfriend — was still trying to decide what kind of meal to have and whether to give one another gifts; both her son and her daughter's boyfriend are unemployed. "As I'm divorced, it's down to me to pay for myself and my close family group, so things are obviously going to be tighter than in the best years."

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Feds, shuttered NM peanut butter plant reach deal

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A peanut butter plant shuttered by a widespread salmonella outbreak has been given the go ahead to start harvesting a bumper crop of prized eastern New Mexico Valencia peanuts next week under an agreement that ends a tense, monthslong standoff with federal regulators. A consent decree filed in federal court Friday says Sunland Inc. can reopen its plant in Portales if it hires an independent expert to develop a sanitation plan, which then must be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Conditions at the plant, which is the largest organic peanut butter producer in the country, prompted the FDA in November to use new authority for the first time to revoke the company's operating certificate without a court hearing. The action came after the plant was linked to a salmonella outbreak that sickened 42 people in 20 states this fall. Friday's filing reinstates Sunland's food facility registration. But the company cannot process or distribute food from its peanut butter or peanut mill plants in Portales until it has complied with the consent decree's requirements and receives written authorization from the FDA. "This consent decree prohibits Sunland from selling processed foods to consumers until it fully complies with the law," Stuart F. Delery, principal deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil division, said in a statement. "As this case demonstrates, the Department of Justice and FDA will work together to protect the health and safety of Americans by making sure that those who produce and sell the food we eat follow the law." Sunland said the agreement came after it "provided additional information to FDA to demonstrate that recommended actions have been taken and required corrective actions are being implemented." Sunland spokeswoman Katalin Coburn said that after the decree was filed, the FDA gave the plant permission to reopen its peanut processing facility while it works on the plan for reopening the peanut butter plant. She said work will resume the day after Christmas. The Sunland plant was shuttered and hundreds of its products recalled in September and October after the salmonella outbreak was linked to Trader Joe's Valencia peanut butter manufactured at Sunland. The recall and plant shuttering came as the region was finishing a bumper harvest of the prized Valencia peanuts grown almost exclusively in the region. The peanuts are favored for organic and natural peanut-butter products because of their sweet flavor, which requires few additives. Sunland produces products for a number of national grocery and retail chains, and New Mexico Peanut Growers Association President Wayne Baker says the industry generates about $60 million in the region each year. The FDA took the unusual step in November of revoking Sunland's registration just as the plant was hoping to reopen its processing plant to begin work on the millions of pounds of Valencia peanuts piled up in barns after this year's harvest. The action was denounced as unfair and unnecessarily heavy-handed by many in the conservative farm town of Portales, where Sunland is the largest private employer. At the end of November, the plant had laid off about 30 percent of its 150 workers. Coburn said she was unsure how quickly the laid-off workers would be recalled. The FDA said inspectors found samples of salmonella in 28 different locations in the plant, in 13 nut butter samples and in one sample of raw peanuts. Inspectors found improper handling of the products, unclean equipment and uncovered trailers of peanuts outside the facility that were exposed to rain and birds. Inspectors also said employees lacked access to hand-washing sinks, and dirty hands had direct contact with ready-to-package peanuts. The FDA said it inspected the plant at least four times over the past five years, each time finding violations. Michael Taylor, the FDA's deputy commissioner for foods, said the agency's inspections after the outbreak found even worse problems than what had been seen there before. Plant officials have said they were never notified of past violations.

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Hurting Spaniards celebrate Christmas lottery wins

MADRID (AP) — Winners of Spain's cherished Christmas lottery — the world's richest — celebrated Saturday in more than a dozen locations where the top lucky tickets were sold, a moment of uplift for a country enduring another brutal year of economic hardship. The lottery sprinkled a treasure chest of €2.5 billion ($3.3 billion) in prize money around the country. Champagne corks popped and festive cheer broke out in 15 towns or cities where tickets yielding the maximum prize of €400,000 ($530,000), known as "El Gordo" ("The Fat One,)" had been bought. A total of €520 million ($687 million) was won in the eastern Madrid suburb of Alcala de Henares alone. Among the top-prize winners were 50 former workers at metal parts factory Cametal who had formed a pool to buy tickets. Their company had filed for bankruptcy and ceased paying wages five months ago. "I'm bursting with joy, I haven't fully taken it in yet," said local resident Josefina Ortega. "When others win you think to yourself it'll never happen to you, but it has." Unlike lotteries that generate a few big winners, Spain's version — now celebrating its 200th anniversary — has always shared the wealth more evenly instead of concentrating on vast jackpots, so thousands of tickets yield some kind of return. Almost all of Spain's 46 million inhabitants traditionally watch at least some part of the live TV coverage showing school children singing out winning numbers for the lottery It is so popular that frequently three €20 ($26) tickets are sold for every Spaniard and many consider lottery day as the unofficial kickoff of the holiday season. Before Spain's property-led economic boom collapsed in 2008 ticket buyers often yearned to win so they could buy a small apartment by the beach or a new car. Now people said they needed money just to get by, or to avoid being evicted from their homes. Though ticket sales were down 8.3 percent on last year, according to the National Lottery, in the days preceding the draw hundreds of people lined up to buy tickets outside outlets that have sold winning tickets before. Dolores Perez and Teresa Palacio, two lottery outlet workers in north Madrid who sold a top-prize ticket celebrated with sparkling wine as curious neighbors gathered. The fortunate winner had yet to make an appearance. "I had never sold a Christmas 'Gordo' before; I almost thought it didn't exist," said Perez, smiling broadly. "I'm so happy, I've worked here for 30 years and never before sold a 'Gordo,' until now." Since so many people chip in to buy tickets in groups, top prizes frequently end up being handed out in the same small town or in one city neighborhood. Last year's top winning number hit for 1,800 tickets in the northern town of Granen, population 2,000. Townspeople shared about €700 million ($925 million), and the rest of the €1.8 billion ($2.4 billion) was doled out in smaller prizes around Spain. Spain holds another big lottery Jan. 6 to mark the Feast of the Epiphany. It is known as "El Nino" (The Child), in reference to the baby Jesus. But the crisis will hit El Nino and all lotteries going forward. Until now, lottery winnings have been free from taxation, but now prizes above €2,000 ($2,640) will be liable to a 20 percent tax in 2013. The government has imposed stinging austerity measures this year in a bid to prevent Spain from asking for a full-blown bailout like those granted to Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus. Spain's unemployment stands at 25 percent and its economy is sinking into a double-dip recession.

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Belgium may hand Arnault tax file to Paris: press

PARIS (Reuters) - Belgian tax authorities may hand French tycoon Bernard Arnault's file to their Paris counterparts for closer scrutiny of Brussels-based companies linked to his LVMH luxury empire, according to media reports. John Crombez, Belgium's minister for fraud prevention, said any information on local "mailbox companies" held by France's richest man should be shared with Paris, newspaper De Tijd reported on Saturday. Belgian legal and government officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment. LVMH said in a statement that its Belgian companies complied with all applicable laws. Arnault, 63, caused an outcry in France earlier this year when it emerged that he was seeking Belgian citizenship, while insisting that the move was not tax-related. Other wealthy figures, including actor Gerard Depardieu, have blamed France's high tax rates and recent increases for their decisions to leave the country. Soon after taking office in May, Socialist President Francois Hollande introduced a new 75 percent rate on income above 1 million euros ($1.3 million). According to L'Echo, a Belgian daily, Arnault's holdings in the country include several companies registered at the same Brussels address with combined assets of 7 billion euros. "If Bernard Arnault is working with pure mailbox companies in Belgium we should signal this to French tax authorities," the anti-fraud minister was quoted as saying. LVMH said it was "surprised" by the press reports and denied any wrongdoing. "The companies of Groupe Arnault and LVMH have very real economic activities in Belgium, where some of them have been based for several decades," the company said in an emailed statement. "All of their activities are fully compliant with Belgian tax legislation as well as international law."

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Obama seeks scaled-down 'fiscal cliff' agreement

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has scaled back his ambitions for a sweeping budget bargain with Republicans. Instead, he's calling for a limited measure sufficient to prevent the government from careening off the "fiscal cliff" in January by extending tax cuts for most taxpayers and forestalling a painful set of agency budget cuts. In a White House appearance Friday, Obama also called on Congress to extend jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed that would otherwise be cut off for 2 million people at the end of the year. Obama's announcement was a recognition that chances for a larger agreement before year's end have probably collapsed. It also suggested that any chance for a smaller deal may rest in the Senate, particularly after the collapse of a plan by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to permit tax rates to rise on million-dollar-plus incomes. "In the next few days, I've asked leaders of Congress to work toward a package that prevents a tax hike on middle-class Americans, protects unemployment insurance for 2 million Americans, and lays the groundwork for further work on both growth and deficit reduction," Obama said. "That's an achievable goal. That can get done in 10 days." Maybe, maybe not. The latest plan faces uncertainty at best in the sharply divided Senate. GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who wields great power even in the minority, called Friday for Senate action on a House bill from the summer extending the full menu of Bush-era tax cuts. He promised that it will take GOP votes for anything to clear the Senate, where 60 votes are required to advance most legislation. Democrats control 53 votes. Boehner, giving the GOP weekly radio address, said, "Of course, hope springs eternal, and I know we have it in us to come together and do the right thing." Earlier, Boehner said Obama needs to give more ground to reach an agreement and that both he and Obama had indicated in a Monday telephone call that their latest offers represented their bottom lines. "How we get there," he added, "God only knows." Congress shut down for Christmas and Obama flew to Hawaii with his family for the holidays. But both men indicated they'd be back in Washington, working to beat the fast-approaching Jan. 1 deadline with an agreement between Christmas and New Year's. Obama announced his plans after talking by phone with Boehner and meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who had previously pinned his hopes on an Obama-Boehner agreement and is wary of dealing with McConnell. At the White House, Obama projected optimism despite of weeks of failed negotiations. "Call me a hopeless optimist, but I actually still think we can get it done," he said. Boehner spoke in the morning, describing the increasingly tangled attempts to beat the Jan. 1 deadline and head off the perilous combination of across-the-board tax hikes and deep spending cuts. "Because of the political divide in the country, because of the divide here in Washington, trying to bridge these differences has been difficult," Boehner said. "If it were easy, I guarantee you this would have been done decades before." Obama said that in his negotiations with Boehner, he had offered to meet Republicans halfway when it came to taxes and "more than halfway" toward their target for spending cuts. It's clear, however, that there's great resistance in GOP ranks to forging a bargain with Obama along the lines of a possible agreement that almost seemed at hand just a few days ago: tax hikes at or just over $1 trillion over 10 years, matched by comparable cuts to federal health care programs, Social Security benefits and across federal agency operating budgets. Obama said he remains committed to working toward a goal of longer-term deficit reduction to reduce chronic trillion-dollar deficits while keeping tax rates in place for nearly everyone. "Even though Democrats and Republicans are arguing about whether those rates should go up for the wealthiest individuals, all of us — every single one of us — agrees that tax rates shouldn't go up for the other 98 percent of Americans," Obama said, citing statistics associated with his promise to protect household income under $250,000 from higher tax rates. Neither the House nor the Senate is expected to meet again until after Christmas. Officials in both parties said there was still time to prevent the changes from kicking in with the new year. The week began amid optimism that Obama and Boehner had finally begun to significantly narrow their differences. Both were offering a cut in taxes for most Americans, an increase for a relative few, and cuts of roughly $1 trillion in spending over a year. Also included was a provision to scale back future cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients — a concession by the president that inflamed many liberals.. GOP officials said some senior Republicans such as Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the most recent Republican vice presidential nominee, opposed the possible agreement. But No. 2 House Republican Eric Cantor of Virginia has joined arms with Boehner. Boehner stepped back and announced what he called Plan B, legislation to let tax rates rise on incomes of $1 million or more while preventing increases for all other taxpayers. Despite statements of confidence, he and his lieutenants decided late Thursday they were not going to be able to secure the votes needed to pass the measure in the face of opposition from conservatives unwilling to violate decades-old party orthodoxy never to raise tax rates. The retreat came after it became clear that too many Republicans feared "the perception that somebody might accuse them of raising taxes," Boehner said. Boehner also said that last Monday he had told Obama he had submitted his bottom-line proposal. "The president told me that his numbers — the $1.3 trillion in new revenues, $850 billion in spending cuts — was his bottom line, that he couldn't go any further." That contradicted remarks by White House press secretary Jay Carney, who said on Thursday that Obama has "never said either in private or in public that this was his final offer. He understands that to reach a deal it would require some further negotiation. There is not much further he could go."

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Questioning Albert Pujols' Age; Injury Bug Strikes NBA Players Abroad

Today in sports: Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander is the American League's most value player, an arrest in the stabbing death of Seattle Mariners outfielder Greg Halman, and a tough weekend for NBA players overseas.
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Seattle Mariners outfielder Greg Halman was stabbed to death early Monday in his home country of the Netherlands. He was 24-years-old. Police confirmed in Rotterdam confirmed that Halman's brother Jason, who played alongside his brother on the Dutch national team, has been arrested and is being questioned in connection with the death. ABC News is reporting the siblings had an argument earlier in the night over loud music. [AP]
Three-time National League MVP Albert Pujols is arguably the best player ever to hit the open market as a free agent, which explains why he felt comfortable turning down a reported 9-year, $225 million contract from the Florida -- sorry, Miami -- Marlins over the weekend. You'd think the club would have to sold on Pujols to make an offer like that, but Dan Le Batard of the Miami Herald casually notes that "like a lot of teams, the Marlins believe Pujols to be older than the 31 he claims to be," which may be true, but in this context sounds like sour grapes. [Miami Herald]
Denver Nuggets guard J.R. Smith reportedly went to Beijing for medical treatment after suffering a grisly-looking knee injury Sunday in his debut with with the Zhejiang Golden Bulls of the Chinese Basketball Association. Smith's decision to leave the team isn't sitting well with Golden Bulls general manager Zhao Bing, who today posted a message on the Chinese microblogging site Sina Weibo instructing Smith to rejoin the club immediately or "face the consequences." He didn't elaborate on what those consequences would be, but the warning didn't seem to faze Smith. According to The Wall Street Journal's Realtime China blog he posted a response to Bing in English less an hour later.  Said Smith: “My main goal is to get healthy! If you can’t understand that then maybe you should pick another profession!” Smith signed a one-year contract with the team back in September  [The Wall Street Journal]
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Smith wasn't the only locked out NBA player to suffer a scary injury over the weekend. On Saturday, Utah Jazz forward Andrei Kirilenko suffered a concussion and broke his nose after taking an inadvertent elbow to the face during a Russian league game in Moscow. [The Sporting News]
Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Justin Verlander has won the American League's most valuable player award. He's just the 10th pitcher ever to win both the Cy Young and MVP in the same season, and the first to do since Roger Clemens in 1986. Considering Verlander was unhittable for large stretches of the season and the absence of a viable candidate among position players (Red Sox outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury was the runner-up), the win was deserved.

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Manny Ramirez Can Even Make Errors While Retiring

The former Boston Red Sox, Cleveland Indians and Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Manny Ramirez is seeking to leave Major League Baseball's retirement list, and will try to make a comeback. There is one slight hitch, as NBC Sports reports. Ramirez retired after he tested positive, for the second time, for a banned substance, meaning he would have faced a 100-game suspension. He left baseball rather than sit out for that long.
RELATED: An Embarrassing Ending: Manny Ramirez Retires
But his decision to retire means he doesn't get credit for all the games he's missed since April. If he makes a comeback, he'll have to do so while serving out a suspension anyway.
Had he never filed those retirement papers, he could have returned to the league in August and would have been all set for the opening of the 2012 campaign.
But, as such, the veteran slugger still needs to serve out half of his original 100-game punishment.
His sweet swing will surely entice some team to sit through the suspension period. For the rest of the league, there is the consoling knowledge that Manny being Manny wasn't always so much fun.

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Meet Yu Darvish, the Next Possibly Great Japanese Pitcher

Today in sports: The bidding process for star Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish ends tonight, Browns president Mike Holmgren thinks his training staff is doing a heckuva job, and Chinese soccer struggles to go legit.
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Hamilton County, Ohio, prosecutor Joseph Deters has decided not to file criminal charges against the players involved in the sucker-punch-a-palooza that erupted with 9.4 seconds remaining in the Cincinnati-Xavier men's basketball game on Saturday. Remarkably, neither school's athletic department seems keen on dropping the annual game between the crosstown rivals from the schedule going forward, even though eight players were suspended and the national sports media has been putting both schools through the wringer for four says now. Xavier athletic director Mike Bobinski conceded that the rivalry -- one of the nation's fiercest -- has gotten out of hand in recent years. "I really do believe that this has been coming for a long, long time,” he conceded. (It was also probably a mistake to keep calling it the Crosstown Shootout.) Still, Bobinski tells the Cincinnati Enquirer the game should stay on the schedule "as long as the dynamic surrounding it changes" and has apparently already spoken to Cincinnati athletic director Whit Babcock  "about finding ways to make it a positive event." (Again, we'd suggest ditching the phrase Crosstown Shootout.) In a potential act of fence-mending that would seem more at home in 1993, the Enquirer says the schools "have had conversations about uniting both teams for community-based work in sportsmanship at their seasons’ end. It’s one way players can show their understanding of the ramifications of the brawl." [The Cincinnati Enquirer]
Football innovator and former Super Bowl winning head coach Mike Holmgren is in his second season as president and de facto public face of the Cleveland Browns, a role he's embraced with the passion of a model train enthusiast distracted by other, more interesting hobbies. Not even Holmgren could duck the controversy over whether the team violated league protocol on head injuries when it reinserted quarterback Colt McCoy into the lineup just two plays after he took a thundering helmet-to-helmet shot from Steelers linebacker James Harrison. McCoy says he can't remember the hit, his dad is furious at coach Pat Shurmur for sending him back out on the field, and doctors from the NFL and NFL Players Association are investigating the club's handling of the injuryIt's a dicey good situation in regular Cleveland, but everything remains smooth sailing in Bizzarro World Cleveland, which is apparently where Holmgren has been spending much of his time, alongside the Browns' tip-top sideline support staff.  “Our medical staff and our training staff, they are the best in football,” Bizzarro Holmgren said. “These guys are really good. So one of the things that is troubling to me in this whole process is that they’re getting slammed a bit, along with the head coach. . . .And it’s unfair.” Actually, there isn't anything more fair than judging people based on what they've done, but Holmgren looks content with being  the NFL front office version of Edward Rochester's first wife in Jane Eyre. The good news is Holmgren doesn't think the team is going to face "punitive" damages for how they handled McCoy, so Cleveland sports fans won't have their hearts broken by tortious liability at least. [PFT]
Starting pitcher Yu Darvish is the most highly-touted Japanese baseball player to try and make the jump to MLB since pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka signed with the Boston Red Sox in 2006. The process by which American teams bid on Japanese big leaguers is a genuine mystery, even in the era of round-the-clock leaks to cable sports stations, blogs, and beat reporters. To begin with, all interested teams must submit bids to negotiate with the player. (The bidding period on Darvish ends this evening.) The bids are submitted in sealed envelopes and the club with the high bid gets the exclusive rights to negotiate with the player, then must hammer out a contract with him. (He also gets to keep his posting fee.) In 2006, the Red Sox posted $51,111,111 for the rights to negotiate with Matsuzaka and spent another $50 million to sign him. The New York Times expects a team will post a figure in the n "perhaps $30 million to $50 million" for Darvish, and notes  and "some people in baseball have projected that figure below $30 million." That wasn't the case in 2007 when current New York Mets manager Terry Collins was managing the Orix Buffaloes and facing the lanky right-hander, then just 21. Says Collins now: "Darvish [is] as good as any pitcher I’ve ever seen. Ever. I asked a scouting guy over there, ‘If Dice-K got $50 million, how much would Darvish get?’ At the time, the guess was $70 million.” Why the decline? Well, Matsuzaka has been inconsistent and the global economy is still hurting. but some in baseball say the entire posting system is flawed and all but rigged to help big-market teams. International players want to play in the limelight of cities like New York, Boston, and Los Angeles. Powerful teams can get promising international talent on the cheap, like the Yankees did last year when they won the services of shortstop Hiroyuki Nakajima with a "surprisingly low $2.5 million" bid. The Oakland Athletics, meanwhile, posted $19.1 to negotiate with Hisashi Iwakuma, but he elected not to sign and returned to Japan. Agent Scott Boras, who most baseball fans have learned to be distrustful of over the years, actually has a reasonable proposal for fixing the system. He wants "a sliding scale whereby Japanese players can negotiate with any team and their Japanese teams would receive a percentage of the contract," in effect giving the player the right to choose where he goes instead of having one team and one team only as a suitor. [The New York Times]
As the rest of China grows, the quality of its pro soccer lags behind. The Wall Street Journal notes that fans " blame corruption and mismanagement for the poor quality of the domestic league and of the national team, which qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 2002 but lost every game and failed to score a single goal." According to news agency Xinhua, senior Chinese soccer officials were arrested on bribery and match-fixing charges in 2010. The solution for suddenly cash-rich club owners is to lure aging international stars to China with the promise of a hefty paychecks. Over the summer, Argentine midfielder Dario Conca signed a $10 million contract -- the largest deal in the history of Chinese soccer  -- with Guangzhou Evergrande, which, according to The Wall Street Journal, has also "paid $7.5 million for Brazilian forwards Cleo and Muriqui in the past 18 months." Earlier this week, former Chelsea and French national striker Nicolas Anelka and the Shanghai Shenhua.agreed on a two-year contract. Anelka's weekly salary will reportedly top $300,000 and The Journal says he's already the sport's "biggest international star." That doesn't mean the close ties between pro soccer in the country and Asian gamblers will disappear, or even be pushed underground with a nod. The Journal neatly captures China's problem when it comes to professional soccer in two sentences: "Shenhua's multimillionaire owner, Zhu Jun, posted a photograph on his microblogging account of Mr. Anelka posing with one of the club's shirts. 'Warmly welcome!' wrote Mr. Zhu, founder of Chinese Internet gaming company The9 Ltd., alongside the photo.

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Science at the (Baseball) Plate

A critical element in the dissemination of scientific discovery is the preparation of a paper for publication. Strong rules and traditions govern the writing of science for a journal. The tone should be sober and restrained as if emotions and literary flourish do not exist. With "I" or "we" resisted if not banned, passive voice abounds and the text becomes littered by words and phrases "thus," "furthermore," and "in this regard." The vocabulary is limited and adjectives, beyond "significant" and "robust," are as rare as hen's teeth. Of course, similes, even if clever and apt, are verboten in science writing. Seeing such a simile, the average editor would blast the author for such license, howling "Jargon!" or at least demanding evidence from a large, cross-sectional study of a chicken coop - IACUC approved, of course - that hen's teeth are truly rare.
Despite glorious data described in the results section in today's scientific papers, the discussions are usually a slog, overflowing with disclaimers, qualifications and stipulations that can rumble on for pages. Inherently bland and enervated (and enervating), such writing can effectively transform a joyous cry of "Eureka!" into a muffled mumble of "Ho-hum." To illustrate how the style of science writing can temper both thinking and feeling, I wrote the following account of a hypothetical World Series contest as if it would appear in a prestigious publication like the New England Journal of Medicine. I think that this piece shows clearly what would happen if reporter would record, with the detachment, rationality and style demanded of a scientist, the drama and feverish excitement of one of great happenings of American sports.
I wrote this piece a time of optimism before the 2012 playoffs and series actually occurred. Alas, the Bronx Bombers bombed and the Giants triumphed over the toothless Tigers. As a baseball fan from New York, all I can say is "Wait till next year." As a scientist wanting to flash a little a personality, liven up my craft and tell the world how snazzy and nifty my data really are, I can only echo the words of the great sage and philosopher Yogi Berra. "Take it with a grin of salt."
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A series of games was held between the New York Yankees and the San Francisco Giants to determine the best team in baseball. This series involved a superiority design, with the number of games played determined according to protocol. The primary outcome measure was 4 games won with a committee of umpires adjudicating events during the game using a set of pre-determined rules. As results reported by ESPN showed, the Yankees had the better series record, winning 4 games to the Giants 3. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the Yankees are the better team.
While the design for the current series is well-established, important aspects bear discussion. Thus, the primary outcome measure is number of games won as opposed to number of runs scored. A priori, number of runs score would appear to be a better measure of a team's capability since it can be established over time and would be less subject to variations at the end of low scoring games, especially in a 7 game series. Indeed, a post-hoc analysis of the current series indicate that the Giants had outscored the Yankees significantly, with a 1-0 victory in game 7 giving the Yankees the title despite being outscored by 35 runs over the preceding 6 games. Furthermore, an analysis of area under the curve (AUC) fully supports the advantage of the Giants in time-averaged runs scored.
Another shortcoming in the current design is the absence of a power calculation. While 7 games have been the format for the series for over 100 years, this issue has not been subjected to rigorous trials.
Further shortcomings of the current approach should be considered. Thus, many decisions throughout the game are made by umpires, especially determination of balls and strikes which can crucially impact of outcome. While umpires are considered to be impartial, the design of the series prevents blinding. In the future, new tools for these determining events in the game should be considered as has been done in other games such as tennis. However, whereas in tennis, lines clearly demarcate court boundaries, the strike zone is highly subjective.
In this regard, the outcome is determined by a putatively objective measure (i.e., number of games won), there are no fan reported measures. Baseball is a sporting event, but it also constitutes entertainment. As such, an assessment of fans seems appropriate. Reference to college football supports this idea. For many years, the national championship was determined by polls of the coaches or sportswriters. While occasionally voting produced discrepancies, the system appeared to be reliable. The more recent BCS series format, while nominally more objective, is nevertheless limited by lack of adequate number of head to head comparisons among teams to support a statistical methodology open to question.
Finally, the conduct of the World Series does not involve an economic analysis. Clearly, a survival analysis of fans is not possible but consideration could be given to a quality of life assessment based on fan reported outcomes. Unfortunately, as noted, the current format does not include assessment of this variable, although, in any such determination, there are many unknowns. Thus, it should be questioned whether fan assessment should be based on time average measures or only the final result. For example, at the time San Francisco led the series, 3 games to 1, it could be argued that fan enjoyment was high and could have balanced their ultimate disappointment. On the other hand, assessment of fan opinion at the end of the series would be consistent with current outcome measures. In this regard, any such economic analysis must include costs associated with any post-game celebration although metrics are lacking in this realm.
Thus, while the Yankees did have more victories than Giants, we do not feel that the data available supports their superiority in a statistically significant fashion. Future series will hopefully utilize more robust outcome measures, including well-validated markers, and determine more clearly the best team in baseball.

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UPDATE 1-NBA-Warriors beat Hornets at home to stay hot

Top pick Davis gets 15 points, 16 rebounds
* Warriors off to best start since 1991-92
Dec 18 (Reuters) - The Golden State Warriors staved off a late fourth-quarter challenge to beat New Orleans Hornets 103-96 for a successful home return on Tuesday.
David Lee had 26 points and nine rebounds while Klay Thompson added 19 points as the Warriors triumphed in their first game at Oracle Arena since a recent seven-game road trip that saw them finish 6-1.
Despite the Golden State controlling the Hornets for most of the night, New Orleans made a furious run in the fourth to tie the game 92-92 with about four minutes remaining.
Jarrett Jack responded with six free throws during a game-deciding 9-2 stretch to help Golden State (17-8) continue their sparkling start to the season.
"We had a lot of confidence tonight, a lot more confidence than in the past," Lee told reporters after The Warriors were off to their best start since the 1991-1992 season when they started 21-8.
"It's no fun when a team's catching up on you like that, but I think we had confidence we could make plays down the stretch."
One of the younger teams in the league, few expected the Warriors to open the campaign this successfully and they are now just 1 1/2 games behind the Pacific Division lead.
The Hornets (5-19) have lost eight straight, despite getting 28 points off the bench from Ryan Anderson in their latest defeat.
Also a youthful group, New Orleans have endured a tough start and have now dropped 18 of their last 20 games.
Number one overall draft pick Anthony Davis recorded 15 points and 16 rebounds in his fifth game back since missing extensive time with a ankle injury. Greivis Vasquez added 20 and 11 assists.
Golden State grabbed a 10-point lead after the first quarter and were up 90-78 midway through the fourth before the visitors fought back by outscoring the Warriors 14-2 over a three-minute stint.

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Obama Wins 2012 Election: Why Your Taxes Are Going Up

When President Obama and the new Congress begin to tackle important legislation and federal policy in January, one of the key issues will be how to reform America's byzantine tax code. Obama campaigned on a platform to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, declaring that millionaires and billionaires need to "pay their fair share." The president proposed the highly controversial "Buffett Rule," which would make sure those individuals earning more than $1 million a year would pay at least 30% of their income in federal taxes. Related: Do the Rich Have a Moral Obligation to Pay Higher Taxes? Gov. Jerry Brown Says 'Yes' The top individual tax rate is currently 35% but few U.S. households and individuals actually pay that much; various tax deductions and loopholes reduce one's tax burden. According to the Obama campaign, the richest 400 taxpayers in 2008 (who each made more than $110 million that year) paid an average income tax rate of just 18%. In 2009 over 20,000 U.S. households with more than $1 million in income paid a federal tax rate of less than 15%. Obama has vowed to raise the top income tax rate for individuals to 39.6% and let the Bush-era tax breaks end for the highest income earners. The majority of Americans — those who are lower to middle class — could also see a 2% tax increase if Congress allows the temporary payroll tax holiday to expire at the end of the year. Related: Here's Why Your Taxes Are Going Up 2% Next Year: Just Explain It Nearly half of voters support raising taxes on incomes over $250,000, according to Tuesday night's exit polls. Len Burman, a professor of public affairs at Syracuse University and a co-founder of the bipartisan Tax Policy Center, believes higher tax rates play just a small role in resolving the nation's budget woes. "In the long term [Obama] is going to need to raise taxes on more than just the rich," Burman says in an interview with The Daily Ticker. "The budget problem isn't going to be solved without broader-based tax increases, preferably done in the context of tax reform and also serious entitlement reform. We're not going to be able to solve this on the tax side alone." Burman, who recently co-wrote the new book "Taxes in America: What Everyone Needs to Know," says tax rates do not need to be raised for any income group if Congress and the White House would agree on one simple change: raising the capital gains rate, i.e. the profits from the sale of an investment. Assets, such as stocks, art or real estate, that are held for at least a year are currently taxed at a special 15% rate; Obama wants to raise that to 20%. "The problem with a low tax rate on capital gains is not that it allows Mitt Romney and Warren Buffett to pay very low taxes but that it creates this huge opportunity for tax sheltering," he notes. "There's a whole industry that's devoted to coming up with these schemes. [Raising capital gains rates] could make the tax system more progressive and allow for lower tax rates" and a reduction in the deficit Burman says. Obama's tax proposal also targets the Alternative Minimum Tax, the Estate Tax and as well as many personal tax credits and itemized deductions. Obama would make permanent the 2007 AMT patch and index it for inflation. He would raise the estate tax to 45% from 35% on estates worth more than $3.5 million. He would lower the corporate tax rate to 28% from 35% and provide a refundable $3,000 credit per added employee for companies that expand their workforce. He would tax carried interest as ordinary income. Related: Corporate Tax Loopholes=Corporate Socialism: Pulitzer Prize Winner David Cay Johnston A divided Congress refused to compromise with Obama during his first term and could very well dismiss the president's tax reforms for the next four years. Republicans are loathe to raise taxes by even a penny and Obama has said he would veto any budget bills that did not include tax increases. Neither party wants to raise taxes in a weak economy. But the options available for reducing the deficit and generating new revenue are few and far between.

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Has Obama Been Good for Millionaires?

The question of whether Americans are better off than they were four years ago depends, of course, on the American. For the 12 million unemployed, the answer is most certainly no. But for many of America's millionaires, the answer may be more affirmative. A new study from WealthInsight, the London-based wealth-research and data firm (and yes, they are non-partisan), showed that the United States added 1.1 million millionaires between Jan. 1, 2009 and the end of 2011, the latest period measured. There were 5.1 million millionaires in America at the end of 2011, compared with around 4 million at the end of 2008. That works out to more than 1,000 millionaires a day under the Obama administration. (They defined millionaires as people with total net worth of $1 million or more, excluding primary residence). (Read more: Rich Will Spend More Under Romney: Poll) "It's true that Obama has been good for millionaires, at least in absolute terms," said Andrew Amoils, analyst at WealthInsight. "He certainly hasn't been bad for millionaires." Amoils said that quantitative easing and financial bailouts especially helped the finance sector, which accounts for the largest share of millionaires. It also helped that markets recovered in 2009. The timeframe is worth noting. Measured against the 2007 peak, when 5.27 million Americans had a net worth of at least $1 million, the nation lost 165,360 millionaires. Their combined wealth is down six percent, to $18.8 trillion from a peak of more than $20 trillion in 2007. We don't know how 2012 will turn out, though if stock markets continue to strengthen, the millionaire count for 2012 is likely to increase. Wealth Insight says the number of millionaires in America will grow to more than six million by 2016, and their combined fortunes will jump 25 percent over the same period. (Read more: Millionaires Give Nine Percent of Income to Charity) Where did all the millionaires come from between 2008 and 2011? Mainly from retail, tech and finance -- and in both blue and red states. Of the sectors adding the largest number of people worth $30 million or more, the retail, fashion, and luxury goods sector ranked first. That was followed by energy and utilities, then tech, telecoms and finance. Transportation and construction saw the biggest drops. The number of people worth $30 million or more grew 26 percent in Connecticut since 2008, 20 percent in Kansas, 12 percent in Michigan, showing that the wealth creation was nationwide.

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Disney buying Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Disney is paying $4.05 billion to buy Lucasfilm Ltd., the production company behind "Star Wars," from its chairman and founder, George Lucas. It's also making a seventh movie in the "Star Wars" series called "Episode 7," set for release in 2015, with plans to follow it with Episodes 8 and 9 and then one new movie every two or three years. The Walt Disney Co. announced the blockbuster agreement to make the purchase in cash and stock Tuesday. The deal includes Lucasfilm's prized high-tech production companies, Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound, as well as rights to the "Indiana Jones" franchise. Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a statement that the acquisition is a great fit and will help preserve and grow the "Star Wars" franchise. "The last 'Star Wars' movie release was 2005's 'Revenge of the Sith' — and we believe there's substantial pent-up demand," Iger said. Kathleen Kennedy, the current co-chairman of Lucasfilm, will become the division's president and report to Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn. Lucas will be creative consultant on new "Star Wars" films. Lucas said in a statement, "It's now time for me to pass 'Star Wars' on to a new generation of filmmakers." The deal brings Lucasfilm under the Disney banner with other brands including Pixar, Marvel, ESPN and ABC, all companies that Disney has acquired over the years. A former weatherman who rose through the ranks of ABC, Iger has orchestrated some of the company's biggest acquisitions, including the $7.4 billion purchase of animated movie studio Pixar in 2006 and the $4.2 billion acquisition of comic book giant Marvel in 2009. Disney shares were not trading with stock markets closed due to the impact of Superstorm Sandy in New York.

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US economic growth improves to 2 pct. rate in Q3

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. economy expanded at a slightly faster 2 percent annual rate from July through September, buoyed by an uptick in consumer spending and a burst of government spending. Growth improved from the 1.3 percent rate in the April-June quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday. The pickup in growth may help President Barack Obama's message that the economy is improving. Still, growth remains too weak to rapidly boost hiring. And the 1.74 percent rate for 2012 so far trails last year's 1.8 percent growth, a point GOP nominee Mitt Romney will emphasize. The report is the last snapshot of economic growth before Americans choose a president in 11 days. The economy improved because consumer spending rose 2 percent in the July-September quarter, up from 1.5 percent in the second quarter. Spending on homebuilding and renovations increased more than 14 percent. And federal government spending expanded sharply on the largest increase in defense spending in more than three years. Growth was held back by the first drop in exports in more than three years and flat business investment in equipment and software. The economy was also slowed by the severe drought this summer in the Midwest. That sharply cut agriculture stockpiles and reduced growth by nearly a half-point. The government's report covers gross domestic product. GDP measures the nation's total output of goods and services — from restaurant meals and haircuts to airplanes, appliances and highways. The first of three estimates of growth for the July-September quarter sketched a picture that's been familiar all year: The economy is growing at a tepid rate, slowed by high unemployment and corporate anxiety over an unresolved budget crisis and a slowing global economy. While growth remains modest, the factors supporting the economy have changed. Exports and business investment drove growth for most of the recovery, but are now fading. Meanwhile, consumer spending has ticked up and housing is adding to growth after a six-year slump. Consumer spending drives nearly 70 percent of economic activity. Businesses have grown more cautious since spring, in part because customer demand has remained modest and exports have declined as the global economy has slowed. Many companies worry that their overseas sales could dampen further if recession spreads throughout Europe and growth slows further in China, India and other developing countries. Businesses also fear the tax increases and government spending cuts that will kick in next year if Congress doesn't reach a budget deal. Since the recovery from the Great Recession began in June 2009, the U.S. economy has grown at the slowest rate of any recovery in the post-World War II period. And economists think growth will remain sluggish at least through the first half of 2013. Some analysts believe the economy will start to pick up in the second half of next year.

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Apple’s New iPad Mini Is Pricey but That Won’t Deter Fans: TechCrunch’s John Biggs

It's officially here: The iPad mini, the subject of endless speculation and rumors over the past year, made its debut Tuesday at the California Theater in San Jose, Calif. The iPad mini starts at $329 and hits store shelves Nov. 2. Pre-sales begin Oct. 26. It boasts a 7.9-inch display, weighs 0.68 pounds and is 7.2mm thick. The design closely resembles the iPod Touch and comes in both black and white. Related: Get Ready for a Big Week in Tech: Apple & Facebook Earnings, Mini iPad, Windows 8 & More As is the case with all Apple products, there is an option to pay up for more hardware. Here are the price points: * $329 for 16GB * $429 for 32GB * $529 for 64GB In mid-November Apple will roll out the Wi-fi and 4G mini for $459 for 16GB, $559 for 32GB, and $659 for 64GB. The iPad mini screen measures 1,024x768, the same resolution as the iPad 2. It also includes a dual-core A5 processor, a front-facing FaceTime HD camera, Apple's "Lightning" connector and a 5-megapixel back camera. A fully charged iPad mini will get 10 hours of battery life. Apple (AAPL) stock was trading nearly two percent lower after the iPad mini presentation. Related: Why Apple's Stock is Dropping John Biggs, East Coast editor of TechCrunch, says the Apple event lacked the shock and awe of previous product announcements. "Everybody was expecting an iPad mini and we got an iPad mini," he says in an interview with The Daily Ticker. "To see an iPad mini pop up is no huge surprise." Biggs says the new mini may be pricey but it would not deter Apple devotees and tech "dorks" from adding to their Apple collections. The smaller screen will attract consumers who use tablet devices for reading -- "it's Apple's e-reader" -- Biggs says, and the new mini is not likely to cut into sales of the larger iPad versions, which still feature bigger screens and a higher resolution display. The starting price for the iPad mini is $130 more than the Kindle Fire HD and Nexus 7 — Apple's two main competitors in the e-reader space. Most Apple insiders and analysts were expecting a lower entry point for the mini, says CNET's Brian Tong, and consumer sticker shock could drag down sales expectations. The mini's price would have been even higher if Apple made it with a retina display, he adds. "It will sell well but won't break records," Tong says. "It will sell because it's Apple. Never underestimate the Apple consumer." Microsoft will unveil its first tablet device, Surface, next week. Related: Microsoft Launches Its Own Tablet--and Admits Apple Was Right Biggs says the Surface's size and user-face are more conducive to typing, an important feature for some consumers. The tablet market may be expanding but there's still only one winner, according to Biggs — Apple. "You're getting the premium product," he says.

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