Thank you Xi for the title. Yes it will continue, but what we will see more 
that normal American citizens are hardly affected while those problem makers 
and riches are trying to escape from the consequences while trying to make 
citizens pay the price. I hope that American citizens to wake up and stand up 
against their global thief political and business key people.

==================

WASHINGTON – The number of laid-off workers 
receiving unemployment benefits 
has jumped to an all-time high near 5 million while new jobless claims remain 
well above 600,000. Both figures 
were worse than expected and new projections from the Federal Reserve show 
unemployment rising for the rest of this year.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of 
people receiving regular unemployment benefits rose 170,000 to 4.99 million for 
the week ending Feb. 7, marking the fourth straight week those receiving 
benefits have been at a record level on data going back to 1967.

The continuing claims figure also was 
significantly above the year-ago level of 2.77 million and underscored the 
difficulty people are having in this recession finding another job once they 
are 
laid off.

An additional 1.5 million people are receiving 
benefits under an extended unemployment compensation program approved by 
Congress 
last year, bringing the total number of people receiving unemployment benefits 
to 6.54 million for the week ending Feb. 7.
In other economic news, wholesale inflation surged 
unexpectedly in January, according to the Labor Department. Wholesale prices 
jumped 0.8 percent last month, the biggest gain since July and well above the 
0.2 percent increase that economists expected.

The acceleration was led by a 3.7 percent surge in 
energy prices with gasoline 
prices jumping 15 percent, the biggest gain in 14 months. Even outside 
the volatile food and energy sectors, wholesale prices showed a 
bigger-than- expected increase, rising by 0.4 percent.
New applications for unemployment benefits totaled 
627,000 last week, the same as the previous week, according to the department. 
But that was still more than the 620,000 claims economists expected.
It also remained near the 631,000 claims filed 
three weeks ago, which was the highest tally since October 1982, when the 
economy was emerging from a steep recession, though the labor force has grown 
by about half since then. A year 
ago, initial claims stood at 342,000.
The four-week average for claims rose to 619,000 
last week, up from 608,500 the previous week which was the first time the 
figure 
had topped 600,000 during the economic 
downturn.

The cascade of layoff notices in recent weeks has 
heightened concerns about the current recession, already the longest in a 
quarter-century.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., said Wednesday it 
will cut nearly 5,000 jobs, or almost 7 percent of the biggest U.S. tire 
maker's 
work force, this year after it posted a fourth-quarter loss and revenue sank 21 
percent. The cuts follow the elimination of about 4,000 jobs in the second half 
of last year.

General Motors Corp. and Chrysler on Tuesday filed 
plans with the government more than doubling their request for aid to a total 
of 
$39 billion and announced plans for thousands more job cuts. GM alone said it 
would cut 47,000 jobs globally by the end of the year — 19 percent of its work 
force, and Chrysler said it will cut 3,000 more jobs.
The Fed released a new economic forecast on 
Wednesday that reduced its growth forecast for 2009 and increased its 
unemployment rate projections. The 
new forecast predicts that unemployment will hit between 8.5 and 8.8 percent 
this year, up from the current level of 7.6 percent.

And in an appearance at the National Press Club, 
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said 
Wednesday that "strong and aggressive action" would be able to overcome the 
current recession and jolt the economy back into growth. But he said "if we 
fail 
... then the situation will continue to deteriorate. "

President Barack Obama pointed to the 
deteriorating economy to win quick passage of an $787 billion economic stimulus 
program which he 
signed into law this week. On Wednesday, Obama unveiled a $75 billion program 
aimed at halting the surging level of mortgage foreclosures in the wake of the 
worst slump in housing in decades.
For the week ending Feb. 7, the states with the 
largest increases in jobless applications were Kentucky and Arkansas, which 
blamed the jumps on rising layoffs in the mining, trade and manufacturing 
industries. The biggest decreases were recorded in California and Tennessee, 
which reported fewer layoffs in the construction, trade, service and 
manufacturing industries.by  "Karlheinz" <austrohawk , or The HAWK as he used 
to be known for so many years- S1000+

=======
  S1000+ 
  =======



--- On Thu, 2/19/09, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Sumerian: More wolves eating wolves.
To: "World-thread" <[email protected]>
Date: Thursday, February 19, 2009, 5:43 AM

UBS Will Disclose Names, Pay $780 Million to U.S.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a0XVjooQdppA&refer=home

Feb. 19 (Bloomberg) -- UBS AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, will pay
$780 million and disclose the names of some secret account holders to
avoid U.S. prosecution on a charge that it helped thousands of wealthy
Americans evade taxes.

The Justice Department accused UBS of conspiring to defraud the U.S.
by helping 17,000 Americans hide accounts from the Internal Revenue
Service. The U.S. will drop the charge in 18 months if the bank
reforms its practices, helps prosecutors and makes payments. UBS will
immediately turn over names of about 250 clients, according to people
familiar with the matter.

By gaining those names, the U.S. will pierce the veil of Swiss bank
secrecy. The IRS, which has sought the names of all U.S. account
holders since July, has met resistance from the Swiss government. The
final number of account holders Zurich- based UBS must disclose will
hinge on future legal battles, according to the agreement.

“UBS sincerely regrets the compliance failures,” Chairman Peter Kurer,
59, said in a statement after the accord was unsealed yesterday in
federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “Client confidentiality, to
which UBS remains committed, was never designed to protect fraudulent
acts or the identity of those clients, who, with the active assistance
of bank personnel, misused the confidentiality protections.”

UBS rose 30 centimes, or 2.5 percent, to 12.51 francs by 9:21 a.m. in
Swiss trading, valuing the bank at 36.7 billion francs ($31.1
billion). The stock fell 16 percent this year.

Settlement Estimates

The Securities and Exchange Commission also reached an agreement to
resolve claims that UBS acted as an unregistered broker-dealer and
investment adviser to U.S. citizens who held accounts directly or in
the names of others.

The $780 million is lower than previous settlement estimates, which
exceeded $1 billion. The U.S. government agreed to the lower amount
because of the bank’s eroding financial condition, according to a
person familiar with the matter. UBS said the cost of the settlement
will be booked in 2008 accounts.

“It is certainly a positive for the bank, that some sort of agreement
has been found,” Dirk Hoffmann-Becking, an analyst at Sanford
Bernstein & Co., said in a note today. “In a broader context, we doubt
the saga is over. The success in getting the documentation out of
Switzerland with support from the Swiss authorities is likely to
encourage other tax authorities to pursue claims against the Swiss
more vigorously.”

IRS Summons

UBS has announced more than 11,000 job cuts, exited parts of debt
trading and commodities businesses and raised $32 billion from
investors to offset record losses at the securities unit. Last week,
it posted a fourth-quarter loss of 8.1 billion Swiss francs on trading
losses and leveraged loan impairments.

Financial institutions worldwide have amassed $1.1 trillion of
writedowns and credit losses and shed more than 274,000 jobs since the
U.S. subprime-mortgage market collapsed in 2007, data compiled by
Bloomberg show.

UBS will pay $380 million to disgorge profits from its cross-border
business from 2001 to 2008, and $400 million in interest, penalties
and restitution for unpaid taxes.

On July 1, a federal judge in Miami approved an IRS summons seeking
information on thousands of UBS accounts owned or controlled by U.S.
citizens. Under the deferred prosecution agreement, UBS and the
government disagree on how many names the bank must disclose. The U.S.
may continue to seek enforcement of the summons, and UBS may assert
legal defenses.

‘Breached’ Obligations

The U.S. authorities, who have been seeking client data from
Switzerland through an administrative assistance procedure, will
withdraw this request, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory
Authority said in a statement today. The regulator allowed UBS to pass
on some data to prevent the U.S. from filing criminal charges against
the bank, it said.

“Such charges could have had drastic consequences for UBS and its
liquidity situation and ultimately put its existence at risk,” the
Swiss regulator said. UBS had “severely breached” its obligations to
“remain fit and proper as well as adequately organized,” said the
Swiss market watchdog, which also investigated the case.

UBS agreed only to the immediate disclosure of account holders
involved in fraudulent or sham offshore account structures, according
to people familiar with the matter.

U.S. law views tax evasion as a crime, Swiss law does not. The Swiss
view tax fraud as a more serious offense. A dispute between the two
governments slowed negotiations on the agreement, which was filed
under seal last week and made public yesterday.

It’s “extremely likely” the government will prevail in U.S. court on
the summonses, said Eileen O’Connor, who oversaw the Justice
Department’s Tax Division from 2001 until 2007.

Civil Lawsuit

“We didn’t have to sue to enforce very often, but when we did we were
successful,” said O’Connor, now a partner at the Washington law firm
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.

UBS said in July it would stop providing cross-border banking services
to American clients through units that aren’t licensed in the U.S.
Under the accord, UBS agreed to give banking advice in the U.S. only
through licensed subsidiaries and appoint an internal risk committee
to oversee its “orderly and expeditious” exit from the business.

Bank executives “knew that UBS’s cross-border business violated the
law,” R. Alexander Acosta, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of
Florida, said in a statement. “They refused to stop this activity,
however, and in fact instructed their bankers to grow the business.
The reason was money -- the business was too profitable to give up.”

Art Shows

Since at least 1999, UBS held billions of dollars for U.S. clients in
accounts in Switzerland and other overseas locations while ignoring
requirements that it register with the SEC, the agency said in a civil
lawsuit in federal court in Washington.

The bank’s Swiss advisers traveled to the U.S. a few times a year to
solicit customers at art shows, as well as yachting and other sporting
events, the SEC said. To conceal their activities, advisers carried
encrypted laptop computers and got training from the bank on avoiding
detection, the agency said.

UBS settled the probes after a series of disclosures that followed the
guilty plea last June of a former private banker, Bradley Birkenfeld.

The company reaped $200 million a year by helping high- income clients
through such practices as setting up sham entities in tax havens
including Switzerland, Panama, the British Virgin Islands, Hong Kong
and Liechtenstein, Birkenfeld said in pleading guilty in federal court
in Fort Lauderdale.

A Breakthrough

The bank helped Americans evade taxes even after signing a 2001
agreement that required it to identify account holders and their
income to U.S. authorities, according to prosecutors. Birkenfeld said
many clients refused to disclose their assets because it would defeat
the purpose of banking with UBS -- evading taxes.

UBS announced it was ending its cross-border business in July at a
hearing of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
where the company was criticized for sending bankers to the U.S. to
woo wealthy Americans. The announcement yesterday precedes another
subcommittee hearing set for Feb. 24.

The agreement is “a tremendous breakthrough in the national effort to
combat offshore secrecy and tax abuse,” said Senator Carl Levin, the
Michigan Democrat who leads the subcommittee. “Efforts to tear away
the offshore cloak of secrecy are gradually succeeding.”

In November, Switzerland-based UBS executive Raoul Weil was indicted
in Florida on a charge that he helped rich Americans evade taxes. Weil
attorney Aaron Marcu said it was “extremely disappointing” that the
government did not drop its case.

“Mr. Weil is an innocent victim of a political dispute between the
United States and Switzerland over Swiss bank secrecy,” Marcu said in
a statement.






      
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