'Smart' potty or dumb idea? Wacky gadgets at CES

LAS VEGAS (AP) — From the iPotty for toddlers to the 1,600-pound mechanical spider and the host of glitch-ridden "smart" TVs, the International CES show is a forum for gadget makers to take big — and bizarre — chances.
Many of the prototypes introduced at the annual gadget show over the years have failed in the marketplace. But the innovators who shop their wares here are fearless when it comes to pitching new gizmos, many of which are designed to solve problems you didn't know you had.
A search for this year's strangest (and perhaps least useful) electronic devices yielded an extra-loud pair of headphones from a metal band, an eye-sensing TV that didn't work as intended and more. Take a look:
—MOTORHEADPHONES
Bass-heavy headphones that borrow the names of hip-hop luminaries like Dr. Dre have become extremely popular. Rock fans have been left out of the party — until now. British metal band Motorhead, famous for playing gut-punchingly loud, is endorsing a line of headphones that "go to eleven" and are hitting U.S. stores now.
Says lead singer and bassist Lemmy Kilmister, explaining his creative input: "I just said make them louder than everybody else's. So that's the only criteria, and that it should reflect every part of the sound, not just the bass."
The Motorheadphone line consists of three over-the-ear headphones and six in-ear models. The initiative came from a Swedish music-industry veteran, and distribution and marketing is handled by a Swedish company, Krusell International AB.
WHO IT'S FOR: People who don't care about their hearing. According to Kilmister, the headphones are ideal for Motorhead fans. "Their hearing is already damaged, they better buy these."
PRICE: Prices range from $50 to $130.
—EYE-SENSING TV
A prototype of an eye-sensing TV from Haier didn't quite meet viewers eye-to-eye. An on-screen cursor is supposed to appear where the viewer looks to help, say, select a show to watch. Blinking while controlling the cursor is supposed to result in a click. In our brief time with the TV, we observed may quirks and comic difficulties.
For one, the company's demonstrator Hongzhao Guo said the system doesn't work that well when viewers wear eyeglasses. (That kind of defeats the purpose of TV, no?) But it turns out, one bespectacled reporter was able to make it work. But the cursor appeared a couple inches below where the viewer was looking. This resulted in Guo snapping his fingers to attract the reporter's eye to certain spots. The reporter dutifully looked, but the cursor was always a bit low. Looking down to see the cursor only resulted in it moving further down the TV screen.
WHO IT'S FOR: People too lazy to move their arms.
"It's easy to do," Guo said, taking the reporter's place at the demonstration. He later said the device needs to be recalibrated for each person. It worked fine for him, but the TV is definitely not ready for prime-time.
—PARROT FLOWER POWER
A company named after a bird wants to make life easier for your plants. A plant sensor called Flower Power from Paris-based Parrot is designed to update your mobile device with a wealth of information about the health of your plant and the environment it lives in. Just stick the y-shaped sensor in your plant's soil, download the accompanying app and — hopefully — watch your plant thrive.
"It basically is a Bluetooth smart low-energy sensor. It senses light, sunlight, temperature, moisture and soil as well as fertilizer in the soil. You can use it either indoors or outdoors," said Peter George, vice president of sales and marketing for the Americas at Parrot. The device will be available sometime this year, the company said.
WHOT IT'S FOR: 'Brown-thumbed' folk and plants with a will to live.
PRICE: Unknown.
—HAPIFORK
If you don't watch what you put in your mouth, this fork will — or at least try to. Called HAPIfork, it's a fork with a fat handle containing electronics and a battery. A motion sensor knows when you are lifting the fork to your mouth. If you're eating too fast, the fork will vibrate as a warning. The company behind it, HapiLabs, believes that using the fork 60 to 75 times during meals that last 20 to 30 minutes is ideal.
But the fork won't know how healthy or how big each bite you take will be, so shoveling a plate of arugula will likely be judged as less healthy than slowly putting away a pile of bacon. No word on spoons, yet, or chopsticks.
WHO IT'S FOR? People who eat too fast. Those who want company for their "smart" refrigerator and other kitchen gadgets.
PRICE: HapiLabs is launching a fundraising campaign for the fork in March on the group-fundraising site Kickstarter.com. Participants need to pay $99 to get a fork, which is expected to ship around April or May.
— IPOTTY
Toilet training a toddler is no picnic, but iPotty from CTA Digital seeks to make it a little easier by letting parents attach an iPad to it. This way, junior can gape and paw at the iPad while taking care of business in the old-fashioned part of the plastic potty. IPotty will go on sale in March, first on Amazon.com.
There are potty training apps out there that'll reward toddlers for accomplishing the deed. The company is also examining whether the potty's attachment can be adapted for other types of tablets, beyond the iPad.
"It's novel to a lot of people but we've gotten great feedback from parents who think it'd be great for training," said CTA product specialist Camilo Gallardo.
WHO IT'S FOR: Parents at their wit's end.
PRICE: $39.99
—MONDO SPIDER, TITANOBOA
A pair of giant hydraulic and lithium polymer battery controlled beasts from Canadian art organization eatART caught some eyes at the show. A rideable 8-legged creature, Mondo Spider weighs 1,600 pounds and can crawl forward at about 5 miles per hour on battery power for roughly an hour. The 1,200-pound Titanoboa slithers along the ground at an as yet unmeasured speed.
Computer maker Lenovo sponsored the group to show off the inventions at CES.
Hugh Patterson, an engineer who volunteers his time to making the gizmos, said they were made in part to learn more about energy use. One lesson from the snake is that "side winding," in which the snake corkscrews its way along the ground, is one of the most efficient ways of moving along soft ground, like sand.
Titanoboa was made to match the size of a 50-foot long reptile whose fossilized remains were dated 50 million years ago, when the world was 5 to 6 degrees warmer. The creature was built "to provoke discussion about climate change," Patterson said.
The original version of Mondo Spider, meanwhile, first appeared at the Burning Man arts gathering in Nevada in 2006.
WHO IT'S FOR: Your inner child, Burning Man participants, people with extra-large living rooms.
PRICE: The spider's parts cost $26,000. The Titanoboa costs $70,000. Engineers provided their time for free and both took "thousands of hours" to build, Patterson said.

Read More..

Obama to tap budget expert Lew to lead Treasury

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will nominate White House chief of staff Jack Lew to be his second-term Secretary of the Treasury, turning to one of Washington's most knowledgeable budget experts to manage prickly fiscal negotiations with Congress and steer the still-shaky national economy.
Lew's nomination, expected Thursday, accelerates the overhaul of Obama's top advisers, with new leaders at the Pentagon, State Department, Central Intelligence Agency and Labor Department. Obama also must replace Lew with a new chief of staff, and that could have a ripple effect through the West Wing's senior ranks.
A day ahead of the formal announcement, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney praised the expected nominee: "Over the past more than quarter of a century, Jack Lew has been an integral part of some of the most important budgetary financial and fiscal agreements, bipartisan agreements in Washington."
Lew, 57, would bring to Treasury a mastery of federal budget mechanics, honed during two stints as director of the Office of Management and Budget. While running OMB during the Clinton administration, Lew helped negotiate a balanced budget agreement with Congress, something that has eluded Washington ever since.
Lew's budget background could help shape the Obama administration's strategy in talks with congressional Republicans over the federal debt ceiling. GOP lawmakers are expected to demand deep budget cuts as the price for agreeing to raise the debt limit, which is expected to be reached sometime in February.
"His resume is tailor-made for what is most important right now," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago." On Wall Street, Lew was managing director and chief operating officer of Citi Global Wealth Management and then Citi Alternative Investments. At the start of the Obama administration, he oversaw international economic issues at the State Department.
Lew has long been considered the favorite to replace current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. The last original member of Obama's economic team, Geithner plans to leave the administration in late January.
Lew's nomination will do little to quiet questions about diversity in Obama's second-term leadership team. The president's other nominees are all white men: Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., for the State Department, former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel to lead the Pentagon and White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan for the CIA's top job.
One prominent woman in Obama's Cabinet, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, told colleagues Wednesday that she was resigning her post. No successor was named.
Like other Obama nominees for second-term Cabinet posts, Lew's selection underscores how the nation and the world have changed since the president took office four years ago.
Geithner brought to the job deep knowledge of Wall Street and financial markets at a time when the administration was seeking to shore up the big banks and pull the economy bank from the brink of a new depression. With the economy now stabilized, if still sluggish, Obama's second term is likely to focus more on battles with Congress over spending cuts and the debt.
Lew is expected to be easily confirmed by the Senate, though at least one prominent Republican has already stated his opposition.
"We need a Secretary of Treasury that the American people, the Congress, and the world will know is up to the task of getting America on the path to prosperity not the path to decline," said Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. "Jack Lew is not that man."
His blend of experiences appeared to give Lew an edge other potential candidates for the Treasury job, particularly given the secretary's key role in coordinating with European allies on the continent's debt crisis.
"Geithner is handing off a European situation that is still a powder keg," said Brian Bethune, an economics professor at Gordon College in Wenham, Mass. "It is still the biggest threat out there facing the U.S. economy and the global economy."
Lew, a pragmatic liberal and Orthodox Jew who doesn't work on Saturdays, is well-liked in Washington by both Democrats and Republicans, and respected by staffers at the White House, where he has served as chief of staff since January 2012.
As chief of staff and head of OMB, Lew has already been a key player in several negotiations between the White House and Capitol Hill, including the recent talks to avert the "fiscal cliff."
A fresh series of economic deadlines would await Lew at the Treasury Department. The first will be the need, around the end of February, to raise the $16.4 trillion federal borrowing limit to avert a first-ever default by the government. That deadline is likely to bring a fresh confrontation with congressional Republicans over spending cuts.
Also, at the beginning of March, $110 billion in cuts to military and domestic programs will automatically kick in if no congressional budget deal has been reached by then. Congress and the administration postponed that issue in the fiscal cliff agreement that received final congressional passage on New Year's Day.
The third pressing deadline will occur March 27. That's when a congressional resolution that's keeping the government operating without a budget will expire. Without a new bill, the government could shut down.
The leading candidates to replace Lew as White House chief of staff are Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough and Ron Klain, the former chief of staff for Vice President Joe Biden.

Read More..

Facing backlash, AIG won't join lawsuit against US

NEW YORK (AP) — Afraid of looking like a world-class ingrate, AIG on Wednesday decided against suing the federal government over the $182 billion bailout that saved the giant insurance company from collapse.
American International Group Inc. was put in the awkward position of having to consider joining a lawsuit brought against Uncle Sam by its former CEO, Maurice "Hank" Greenberg.
The suit claims that the terms of the taxpayer-funded bailout were too onerous. The government received a huge stake in AIG when it bailed the company out at the height of the 2008 financial crisis. AIG has since paid all the money back and notes that the government made a profit of $22.7 billion.
The timing could hardly have been worse for AIG. The company is in the midst of a "Thank You, America" ad campaign to show its gratitude for being rescued from the brink of collapse.
The prospect of the insurer joining the lawsuit had already triggered outrage. A congressman from Vermont issued a statement telling AIG: "Don't even think about it." Comedian Andy Borowitz likened the insurer to somebody suing a fireman for ripping a designer jacket after rescuing them from a burning building.
AIG, which was legally obligated to consider joining the lawsuit, demurred. The company said it would not join Greenberg's lawsuit and wouldn't permit Greenberg to pursue his claims in AIG's name.
"The majority of directors decided that the reputational damage was greater than the possibility on a long-shot lawsuit," said John Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School who specializes in corporate and securities law.
AIG's CEO Bob Benmosche told CNBC in a televised interview that the company would be better off in the long run without the "headwinds" of the lawsuit and should look forward, rather than focusing on the past.
"It's not acceptable socially for AIG to take the money and go back and sue the government," Benmosche said in the CNBC interview. "A deal is a deal."
David Boies, an attorney who represents Greenberg's company, Starr International, said in a statement that AIG's attempt to prevent Starr from pursuing its claim was against the interest of the company's shareholders.
The insurer nearly imploded after making huge bets on mortgage investments that later went wrong. Regulators were concerned that if it were allowed to fail it would send shock waves through the financial system, which was already reeling as Lehman Brothers collapsed.
The company became a symbol for excessive risk on Wall Street and a touchstone of public anger. It was criticized by some members of Congress for spending $440,000 on spa treatments for executives only days after it was bailed out and for the millions of dollars in bonuses it paid to executives.
Since the financial meltdown, AIG has undergone a restructuring that has halved the size of the company, with the twin aims of focusing on its core insurance operations and repaying the government's bailout cash.
The insurer spun off Asian life insurer AIA Group in Hong Kong's biggest initial public offering in 2010, raising $20 billion, which was used to pay bailout debt. AIG also said last month that it would sell 90 percent of its airplane leasing unit, International Lease Finance Corp., to a Chinese investor group for $5.3 billion.
A federal judge has already dismissed one $25 billion lawsuit brought by Greenberg's Starr. The lawsuit, filed in November 2011, was dismissed in November by Judge Paul Engelmayer of the Manhattan federal court.
Mark Calabria, a former senior Republican aide on the Senate banking committee, said that while AIG had a duty to listen to its shareholders, the board must have weighed the potential bludgeoning it would have endured from regulators, lawmakers and taxpayers alike, had it decided to sue the government.
"There's a reason that big financial institutions don't generally sue the government. ... When was the last time you saw Citibank sue the government? They don't because if they did, the government might not bail them out next time," said Calabria, who is now director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute, a think tank that promotes limited government.
The Treasury Department announced last month that it sold all of its remaining shares of AIG after conducting six public offerings of the insurer's stock over 19 months. At the start of the sales, Treasury had owned 92 percent of AIG's outstanding common stock.
The Treasury said Wednesday that the lawsuit was "without merit" and welcomed AIG's decision not to support it.
"The board's decision not to join Starr International's lawsuit is the right result," Timothy G. Massad, Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability, said in a statement. "It is consistent with AIG's determination to rebuild the company, repay taxpayers, and move forward."
In November, AIG reported a third-quarter profit of nearly $2 billion thanks to strength in its insurance operations and investment returns. In the same period a year earlier it lost $4 billion.
AIG stock closed up 11 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $35.76 in Wall Street trading today. The stock has gained more than sixfold since bottoming out at $5.86 in March 2009.

Read More..

Bank of America, other banks move closer to ending mortgage mess

CHARLOTTE/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp announced more than $14 billion of legal settlements over bad mortgages it sold to investors and flaws in its foreclosure process, taking the bank a step closer to ending the home loan problems that have dogged it for years.
About $3 billion of Bank of America's Monday's settlements were part of a larger $8.5 billion deal between 10 big mortgage lenders and regulators to end a loan-by-loan review of foreclosures mandated by the government.
Bank of America shares touched their highest level in nearly two years as investors called it a good step toward ending the company's multiple legal woes. The shares later retreated to close down 0.2 percent at $12.09.
Analysts have estimated that Bank of America has paid out some $40 billion for mortgage settlements since the crisis began. Most of those losses stem from its 2008 purchase of Countrywide Financial, once the largest subprime lender in the United States.
But the bank is moving closer to the day when it can stop worrying about mortgages and start focusing on growth, analysts and investors said.
"It's a step in the right direction in terms of trying to put these issues behind the company," said Jonathan Finger of Finger Interests Ltd, a Houston, Texas-based investment firm that owns 1.1 million of the bank's shares.
Besides the multibank foreclosure settlement, the second largest U.S. bank also announced about $11.6 billion of settlements with government mortgage finance company Fannie Mae to end allegations the bank improperly sold mortgages that later soured, and to resolve questions about foreclosure delays.
Bank of America had already set aside money to cover most of those settlements. The deal with Fannie wipes out 44 percent of the buy-back requests the bank faced as of the end of the third quarter. It also eliminates possible future repurchase requests on about $300 billion in loans.
Bank of America's home loan problems are far from over, though. It still needs court approval for an $8.5 billion settlement with private investors and it is locked in litigation with insurer MBIA Inc over mortgage-related claims.
The agreement also does not end a lawsuit the U.S. Justice Department brought against the bank last year over Countrywide and Bank of America loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the agency said. The suit accuses Countrywide and Bank of America of causing losses to taxpayers of more than $1 billion.
"I think there is still quite a lot of litigation to go, and I don't think we'll see the end of this for some time," said Thomas Perrelli, a former top Justice Department official, speaking of industry wide legal issues stemming from the financial crisis.
BANKS SETTLE
The settlement Bank of America, Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Wells Fargo & Co and five other banks entered with regulators pays out up to $125,000 in cash to homeowners whose homes were being foreclosed when the paperwork problems emerged.
About $3.3 billion of the $8.5 billion settlement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will be in cash, with the rest in changes to the terms of loans or mortgage forgiveness.
In April 2011, the government required banks that collect payments on mortgages, known as servicers, to review whether errors in the foreclosure process had harmed borrowers.
The review focused on foreclosures from 2009 and 2010 and looked at processes, including "robo-signing," where servicer employees or contractors signed documents without first reviewing them.
That loan-by-loan review proved slow and expensive, the OCC said.
The reviews had already cost more than $1.5 billion. They turned up evidence that around 6.5 percent of the loan files contained some error requiring compensation, but most of those errors involved potential payouts much less than $125,000, OCC officials said.
Other banks involved in the settlement include MetLife Bank, Aurora Bank FSB, PNC Financial Services Group Inc, Sovereign Bank NA, SunTrust Banks Inc and U.S. Bancorp.
Wells Fargo said its portion of the cash settlement will be $766 million, which will result in a $644 million charge when it reports fourth-quarter earnings on Friday. The bank said it will spend another $1.2 billion on foreclosure prevention actions, which will not result in additional charges.
Citigroup, which reports earnings next week, said it will take a $305 million charge for its cash payment portion of the settlement, while existing reserves would cover $500 million in loan forgiveness and other actions.
Housing advocates said they viewed the settlement as a positive move as it ends a flawed review process and provides some money, if limited, to consumers. But some advocates and lawmakers expressed dissatisfaction with the pact and suggested hearings could follow.
"I remain concerned that banks continue to avoid full accountability, and I believe that borrowers deserve more answers and transparency than the Federal Reserve and the OCC are currently willing to provide," said Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight committee.
BOFA SELLS SERVICING RIGHTS
For Bank of America, the Fannie Mae deal was the much larger of Monday's agreements.
Fannie Mae and sibling Freddie Mac essentially buy mortgages from banks and package them into bonds for investors. But during the mortgage boom, banks sold loans to the two companies that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac say should never have been sold because, for example, borrowers had misstated their income. The two mortgage finance companies are pushing banks to buy back the loans.
On Monday, Bank of America also said it was selling the rights to collect payments on about $306 billion of loans to Nationstar Mortgage Holdings and Walter Investment Management Corp. Reuters first reported on Friday that Bank of America was talking to Nationstar and Walter Investment.
Investors appear to have decided the bank is on the right track as its shares hit their highest level since May 2011 on Monday. When Warren Buffett came to the bank's rescue in August 2011 with a $5 billion investment, he received warrants for 700 million shares of stock at $7.14 per share.

Read More..

Chesapeake's McClendon will not receive 2012 bonus

Chesapeake Energy Corp , the U.S. oil and gas company battling a governance crisis and financial strain, said on Monday its chief executive officer, Aubrey McClendon, will not receive a bonus for 2012.
The board, in a filing to regulators, said it made several changes to the company's corporate governance structure and executive pay. The company said McClendon recommended he not receive a bonus.
Other actions taken include deep cuts to incentive pay, a ban on personal jet travel for top executives other than McClendon, and measures to increase shareholder influence.
Last year was rough for Chesapeake and McClendon. The company faced both a liquidity crisis brought on by low natural gas prices and heavy spending and a governance crisis that resulted in big shareholders effectively taking control of the board of directors in June.
McClendon is under scrutiny from federal regulators and his board for blurring the line between his personal dealings and that of the company. He was stripped of his title as chairman of the company he co-founded in 1989 last year.
A Reuters investigation published in April found that McClendon had arranged to personally borrow more than $1 billion from EIG Global Energy Partners, a firm that also is a big investor in Chesapeake.
The loans, arranged through McClendon's personal shell companies, were secured by his interest in company wells. McClendon is allowed to take a 2.5 percent stake in every single well Chesapeake drills under a controversial program called the Founders Well Participation Program (FWPP).
He must also shoulder the same percentage of the wells' costs. After the Reuters report on McClendon's personal loans, the company's board, at the urging of major shareholders, said in May it would end the well program 18 months early in June 2014.
The FWPP has also come under the scrutiny of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Internal Revenue Service and Chesapeake's board.
Other Reuters investigations found McClendon ran a $200 million hedge fund that traded in the same commodities the company produced and plotted with a competitor to suppress prices of oil and gas acreage in Michigan.
The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Chesapeake's land deals in Michigan.
In each of the prior three years, McClendon received a bonus of nearly $2 million.
WINGS CLIPPED
Shareholders, who delivered a stringing rebuke of the executive and board in June at the company's annual meeting, have demanded change.
As part of the its efforts to shore up governance, McClendon will also reimburse the company for his personal use of company aircraft in excess of $250,000. Previously that amount was $500,000, according to a filing.
Chesapeake said it will also make deep cuts to other executive's incentive compensation and eliminate their personal use of company jets, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Oklahoma City, Oklahoma company also pledged to implement a shareholder proposal passed in June that would eliminate the staggered election of its board of directors.
Chesapeake originally lobbied for the Oklahoma statute mandating classified boards but said it will now seek to have all of its directors elected on a annual basis, beginning in 2013.
Among other changes, Chesapeake said will adopt a proxy access measure, action New York City Comptroller John Liu said will give shareholders a much stronger voice at the table. New York City pension funds hold 1.6 million Chesapeake shares.
Chesapeake also put in place a clawback provision on executive incentive compensation that can be exercised "in the event that the company is required to restate any financial statements ..."
Some viewed the changes as relatively minor. Mark Hanson, oil analyst at Morningstar said investors are more keenly focused on the outcome of the company's probe into the FWPP and McClendon's personal loans, as well as the 2013 budget and outlook.
"Cutting overhead and slashing bonuses won't do much for a company that's facing another potential multi-billion funding shortfall in 2013," Hanson said.
Shares of Chesapeake edged lower after the close of regular trading. The stock fell to $17.58 from its New York Stock Exchange close of $17.62.

Read More..

Citigroup fires private bank CIO amid job cuts - Bloomberg

 Citigroup Inc has fired Richard Cookson, chief investment officer of its private bank, as the company looks to cut costs, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
Citigroup will no longer rely on one person to lead the firm's investment strategy and will instead seek to "better leverage the existing in-house expertise across Citi," including its markets and banking research teams, Bloomberg said, citing an internal memo. (http://r.reuters.com/caw94t)
Chief Executive Mike Corbat named two company veterans to lead its institutional and consumer businesses on Monday and set lines of command to give him more direct responsibility for executives than his predecessor.
Cookson's dismissal was part of the job cuts the bank announced in December, Bloomberg said, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Read More..

Merkel highlights economy in German election year

BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Angela Merkel highlighted Germany's economic strength as she kicked off campaigning Saturday for an important state vote that comes months before national elections, and she brushed aside worries about the weakness of her party's coalition partner.
Merkel's center-right party faces a tough battle to extend its 10-year hold on Lower Saxony state, a northwestern region of 8 million people, in the Jan. 20 election there. Polls suggest the center-left opposition has a good chance of winning, which would give it a significant boost ahead of September national elections in which Merkel will seek a third term.
Merkel made clear that her Christian Democrats will make "economic competence, together with jobs — and jobs that are well-qualified and fairly paid," along with economic strength, a keystone of this year's campaigns. She identified opposition plans for tax increases as one battleground.
"We believe that we do, of course, need income for the state, so we are not talking about tax cuts at this point," Merkel said at a televised news conference after her party's leadership met in Wilhelmshaven, a port city in Lower Saxony.
"But we believe that tax increases ... are not good for current economic developments, for medium-sized companies in particular but also for big companies," she added.
The number of Germans out of work averaged just under 2.9 million last year, the lowest since 1991. Germany's jobless rate of less than 7 percent contrasts with figures well over 20 percent in troubled eurozone partners Greece and Spain.
The strong German economy, and Merkel's hard-nosed management of Europe's debt crisis, have helped keep her popularity high and her party ahead in polls.
But the weakness of the pro-market Free Democratic Party, her junior coalition partner, means that her center-right alliance lacks a majority in surveys. The party, which campaigned at Germany's last election for tax cuts that it failed to obtain, has taken much of the blame for frequent coalition squabbling.
In Lower Saxony, polls show the FDP short of the 5 percent support needed to stay in the state legislature, which endangers popular conservative governor David McAllister's chances of keeping his job.
However, Merkel said she is "very optimistic that the (Free Democrats) will, on their own strength, with their ideas and their share in the success of the work of both the Lower Saxony state government and the federal government, be able to convince people."
The Lower Saxony election follows a rough start for Merkel's center-left challenger in the national elections, former Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck.
He drew criticism this week for saying the chancellor earns too little and that Merkel has an advantage because she's a woman — adding to earlier controversy over his high earnings from public speaking. Merkel coolly dismissed a question about her challenger's performance.
"To be honest, I take care of my own performance and I'm very satisfied with that," she said. "The rest is for others to comment on."

Read More..

Austria plugs regional finance loopholes after scandal

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria's finance minister played down the risks to regional finances on Saturday after a Salzburg civil servant gambled hundreds of millions of euros of taxpayers' money on high-risk derivatives.
Speaking a day after federal and provincial officials agreed on steps to curb speculative use of public funds, Maria Fekter said in a radio interview that local authorities had already acted to reduce deals that had potential to blow up.
"Lots of people learned from the situation after 2007 and the risks that emerged on financial markets, changed their ways and gradually reduced very risky positions," she told state broadcaster ORF.
But she noted that regions still had lots of foreign- currency debt on their books that needed to be cut in phases.
The head of the country's auditing agency warned in a magazine interview this week that the Salzburg case could be just the tip of an iceberg and that "ticking time bombs worth billions" may lurk in local authorities' opaque finances.
Fekter and state officials agreed on Friday that Austria should amend its constitution to rule out high-risk public financing such as currency speculation or entering derivative contracts for anything other than hedging purposes.
Details now need to be worked out by mid-year.
Austria said last month it planned stricter controls over regional finances after the Salzburg flap.
Salzburg officials have said they sacked a finance director after determining she used doctored documents and false signatures to hide a trail of losses from deals that started more than a decade ago.
They put the book loss at 340 million euros ($444 million), but experts are still trying to determine the state's exact exposure.
The woman, identified only as Monika R., has denied any wrongdoing, but two of her supervisors have also had to go in a widening scandal that will probably lead to fresh elections this year in Salzburg, governed by Social Democrat Gabi Burgstaller.
Austrian states have 8.2 billion euros of debt, or 8.1 percent of the country's public debt.
The national FMA markets watchdog has said it would welcome a more centralized approach to regional financing even though it saw no risk at this stage to overall financial stability.

Read More..

"Cliff" concerns give way to earnings focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors' "fiscal cliff" worries are likely to give way to more fundamental concerns, like earnings, as fourth-quarter reports get under way next week.
Financial results, which begin after the market closes on Tuesday with aluminum company Alcoa , are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results. As a warning sign, analyst current estimates are down sharply from what they were in October.
That could set stocks up for more volatility following a week of sharp gains that put the Standard & Poor's 500 index <.spx> on Friday at the highest close since December 31, 2007. The index also registered its biggest weekly percentage gain in more than a year.
Based on a Reuters analysis, Europe ranks among the chief concerns cited by companies that warned on fourth-quarter results. Uncertainty about the region and its weak economic outlook were cited by more than half of the 25 largest S&P 500 companies that issued warnings.
In the most recent earnings conference calls, macroeconomic worries were cited by 10 companies while the U.S. "fiscal cliff" was cited by at least nine as reasons for their earnings warnings.
"The number of things that could go wrong isn't so high, but the magnitude of how wrong they could go is what's worrisome," said Kurt Winters, senior portfolio manager for Whitebox Mutual Funds in Minneapolis.
Negative-to-positive guidance by S&P 500 companies for the fourth quarter was 3.6 to 1, the second worst since the third quarter of 2001, according to Thomson Reuters data.
U.S. lawmakers narrowly averted the "fiscal cliff" by coming to a last-minute agreement on a bill to avoid steep tax hikes this weeks -- driving the rally in stocks -- but the battle over further spending cuts is expected to resume in two months.
Investors also have seen a revival of worries about Europe's sovereign debt problems, with Moody's in November downgrading France's credit rating and debt crises looming for Spain and other countries.
"You have a recession in Europe as a base case. Europe is still the biggest trading partner with a lot of U.S. companies, and it's still a big chunk of global capital spending," said Adam Parker, chief U.S. equity strategist at Morgan Stanley in New York.
Among companies citing worries about Europe was eBay , whose chief financial officer, Bob Swan, spoke of "macro pressures from Europe" in the company's October earnings conference call.
REVENUE WORRIES
One of the biggest worries voiced about earnings has been whether companies will be able to continue to boost profit growth despite relatively weak revenue growth.
S&P 500 revenue fell 0.8 percent in the third quarter for the first decline since the third quarter of 2009, Thomson Reuters data showed. Earnings growth for the quarter was a paltry 0.1 percent after briefly dipping into negative territory.
On top of that, just 40 percent of S&P 500 companies beat revenue expectations in the third quarter, while 64.2 percent beat earnings estimates, the Thomson Reuters data showed.
For the fourth quarter, estimates are slightly better but are well off estimates for the quarter from just a few months earlier. S&P 500 earnings are expected to have risen 2.8 percent while revenue is expected to have gone up 1.9 percent.
Back in October, earnings growth for the fourth quarter was forecast up 9.9 percent.
In spite of the cautious outlooks, some analysts still see a good chance for earnings beats this reporting period.
"The thinking is you need top line growth for earnings to continue to expand, and we've seen the market defy that," said Mike Jackson, founder of Denver-based investment firm T3 Equity Labs.
Based on his analysis, energy, industrials and consumer discretionary are the S&P sectors most likely to beat earnings expectations in the upcoming season, while consumer staples, materials and utilities are the least likely to beat, Jackson said.
Sounding a positive note on Friday, drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co said it expects profit in 2013 to increase by more than Wall Street had been forecasting, primarily due to cost controls and improved productivity.

Read More..

JelliJar – New Online Specialty Food Marketplace in Beta Release

JelliJar is pleased to announce that its online food marketplace is accessible to select food producers and customers. The full site will launch in the first week of January 2013.

Toronto, Ontario (PRWEB) December 20, 2012
JelliJar is pleased to announce that its online food marketplace is accessible to select food producers and customers. The full site will launch in the first week of January 2013.
JelliJar is a marketplace where all types of food products can be discovered and purchased. The marketplace allows small producers that make products in small batches or have dedicated production facilities to be discovered by consumers with discerning tastes.
Small Food Producers, Chefs, Restaurants and Specialty Food Retailers can:

1. List their products, story, recipes, photos, videos, and contact details;

2. List retail locations where their products are sold (Shop Local);

3. Enable ecommerce transactions through PayPal;

4. Have customers subscribe to products;

5. Participate in Tasting Box subscriptions; and

6. Social Media Integration with Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter.
To learn more about JelliJar, please visit: http://www.jellijar.com
About JelliJar:
JelliJar is an online marketplace dedicated to providing food lovers with the ability to discover food that caters to their taste preferences. Its focus is on providing users with the ability to make informed choices when shopping for food for in the following categories: Gourmet and Artisan, Specialty Diets and International Cuisines.

Read More..

The sale of the NYSE and the death of stocks

T

o the general public, it's quite a "shocker," says David Weidner at MarketWatch. IntercontinentalExchange (ICE), an upstart derivatives exchange, based in Atlanta, is buying NYSE Euronext, the company that owns the iconic, 220-year-old New York Stock Exchange, in a deal worth more than $8 billion. To long-time market professionals, however, this merger merely confirms something they've known for quite some time. They've been witnessing the slow death of stocks — as the lord of the marketplace — for years, as new regulations and decimalization of trades once done using rounder fractions "effectively squeezed the margins — and the potential for graft — out of the system." Initial public offerings offered healthy profits, but even those have dried up recently, leaving the NYSE and other exchanges "searching the globe for a merger partner," hoping they could buy their way to growth. But the lucrative futures and options exchanges that seemed like natural buyers of the stock exchanges turned up their noses, asking, "Why would we need them?"

There was an exception. The newcomer to the derivatives party, the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) needed something to vault it into the conversation — even though it not only had profits, but market share and a valuation to rival any exchange in the world.

For all of its lackluster financial cosmetics, the NYSE is still the Big Board. It is the venue where the great corporations of the world are listed. The announced deal will have some opportunities for technology sharing and other efficiencies, but mostly its an $8.2 billion deal for a brand.

As if that weren't already humiliating enough for the Big Board, says Felix Salmon at Reuters, "stock trading is a complete afterthought in this deal" for ICE. "The real reason that ICE wants the company is Liffe, NYSE Euronext's London-based financial derivatives subsidiary." Derivatives exchanges, you see, are few. They compete only with each other, so they make money hand over fist. "There are lots of stock exchanges," so they compete fiercely with each other, "and none of them make much money."

You can almost hear ICE CEO Jeffrey Sprecher rolling his eyes and wondering why on earth he needs to hang on to what at this point is little more than a heavily-guarded tourist attraction... [But] it's actually a good thing that stock trading has become a low-margin, low-value business: that's what's meant to happen when you have lots of competition. Think of it as one of the few areas of the financial-services sector where capitalism works as advertised. 

This deal, once unthinkable, really does underscore "what a dog the stock trading business has become," say Zachary M. Seward and Matt Phillips at Quartz. There's just no denying it. But if all this gloom is driving down the value of stocks in everybody's eyes, maybe equities markets will soon be so undervalued that they'll bounce back.

If we were contrarians, all of this Death of Equities talk — reminiscent of the 1979 Businessweek cover that nearly nailed the bottom of the markets before surges of the 1980s and 1990s — might get us a little more interested in the markets.

Read More..

Koomkin.com the new b2b marketplace that connects companies throughout all the Americas

Looking to the global trends, American companies will have to look more and more south of the border for qualified suppliers. Koomkin is already helping companies do that: Enrique Suarez Romo co-founder of the Mexican portal.

Mexico City (PRWEB) December 20, 2012
Ancient Mayans are not just responsible of writing prophecies about the end of the world while drinking hot chocolate; actually they were very good scientists and traders. Honoring this legacy, a group of Mexican entrepreneurs took a Mayan word, Koomkin (that means “to shorten”) to name their new online marketplace. This name was taken in order to bring together a group of new online tools for companies with the purpose of giving all registered firms better web visibility, increase competitiveness and create more business opportunities.
In Mexico, the number of Internet users has been significantly increasing every year, however, many Mexican companies are still reluctant to use the Web to promote their products or services and do business. “We want to provide them with an economic and efficient tool so they can easily show their offer to the world. It is time for Mexican and other Latin American companies to make the most of being now more competitive and cheaper related to their competitors in Asian markets”.
The portal creates an own web page with contact information, chat and pictures for those companies that register for free, as well as a program to make online quotations.
Companies that register through paid memberships can enjoy some services that provides them with competitive advantages: statistics in real time, online marketing campaigns in order to facilitate companies to be identified by search engines, and also the possibility of obtaining a quality certificate with Applus, a business group of certifiers present in more than 40 countries.
The certification gives confidence not only to the companies that offer their products and services in the Koomkin platform, but also to those who are looking for qualified suppliers, increasing exportation and competitiveness.
“We estimate we will be able to have near 37 thousand registered companies basically in Mexico and gradually in the United States (through an alliance with Free Trade Alliance, a San Antonio based organization with a renowned expertise in global trade), Spain and Latin America-, among those around 500 will have a paid membership” Enrique Suarez Romo, co-founder of the Mexican platform that started operating in September, explained. Besides Suarez, the founders of Koomkin are Pablo Garcia (who conceived the idea of the platform), Santiago Miranda and Daniel Alvarez.
Finally the co-founders of Koomkin reported that the companies that dedicate time and resources to digital media get one cost quotation per week, while by being registered at Koomkin they can get up to 300% more than they could get by their own means.

Read More..

Fox Web Creations Presents the New World Trade Center Kansas City Website

Web Design in Kansas City is a little more global today with the release of the World Trade Center Kansas City Website, chock-full of great information for international businesses.

(PRWEB) December 20, 2012
Fox Web Creations and The World Trade Center Kansas City have launched a new website - http://www.wtc-kc.com/. Designed for companies already doing business globally, as well as those considering entering the global marketplace, the site boasts resources on everything from the paperwork involved in international business to options for visiting the countries in question.
With experience and operations in Switzerland, Morocco, and France already under their belt, the Kansas City based Web Design firm Fox Web Creations was an excellent partner for this project. CEO and Lead Developer ElAmri "Red" Rida has a personal understanding of the importance of international business and worked closely with the WTC-KC staff to develop the new site. “We wanted the site to be easy to navigate, interactive and helpful to the business community. We also wanted to make sure that the staff of the WTC would be able to easily manage the content themselves, allowing them more freedom to make decisions about their content." Fox Web Creations focuses on web design in Kansas City, and on assisting small and large businesses with their internet marketing and development needs.
“The new site offers everything from help with export documentation and lead generation, to trade data, visits and education,” says Mehgan Flynn, Director of the WTC-KC. “We’re also part of the largest trade network in the world – you’ll find World Trade Centers in 330 cities and 100 countries around the planet. The new website ties into our mission to connect the KC region to the people, data, companies and government agencies that make up the fabric of global commerce.”
Some of the New Website features include:

    A comprehensive calendar of international events in the local community, including:
--    International market briefings

--     International business workshops

--     Intercultural sensitivity workshops

--     Group Trade missions

    ECertify – an easy, online app for Certificates of Origin
    SphereAccess – lead generation for buyers and suppliers.
As a member of the World Trade Center Association (WTCA), WTC-KC can also offer additional resources and services to support the business community in reaching out to international markets. The services include:

    Global market research
    Trade lead identification
    Global trade intelligence
    Intercultural communication training
    International liaison programs
    Discounted access to SphereAccess - a retail buyers and suppliers matchmaking system.
“Now that the new site is launched, we’re gearing up for a new year of WTC-KC programs and services,” says Flynn. “We’ll continue our popular ‘Doing Business In…” programs featuring various countries – China, for one. And, based on a survey of our members, will be offering a series of cultural sensitivity sessions starting this April. We’re also working with the state of Missouri on an intense, three-month export training program for local businesses. So the new year looks pretty full!”
The World Trade Center Kansas City is a partnership of the Greater Kansas City Chamber, the Kansas City Area Development Council, and KCSmartport. Fox Web Creations is a full service Kansas City Web Design, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO/M), and Responsive Web Design (RWD) firm, located at 4345 State Line Road, in Kansas City, MO 64111. They are dedicated to assisting all businesses, regardless of size, with their web design and development needs.

Read More..

Top Realtor in Gainesville VA, Linton Hall Realtors, Launches Interactive Web Experience

A top performing realtor in Gainesville, VA - Linton Hall Realtors - is pleased to announce the launch of an interactive live chat system to aid their website visitors, who are looking to buy or sell homes in the Gainesville, VA area. The addition of the interactive service will allow for expanded real estate client service in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Gainesville, VA (PRWEB) December 20, 2012
Linton Hall Realtors, one of the highest producing realtors in Gainesville, VA, is pleased to announce the launch of an interactive system to allow real time communications with website visitors. The system will be used to help prospective home buyers search the Gainesville, VA home listings on Linton Hall Realtor's company website. By offering a live chat solution, Linton Hall Realtors expects to help sellers get information they need about listing a home, aid home buyers in finding the right home in the right area, and lead to greater levels of client satisfaction.
Finding homes for sale in Gainesville, VA can be a daunting task. From the Piedmont community in the north down the entire length of Linton Hall Road neighborhoods and communities are springing up. Even as new developments are emerging, some of the older areas are now 15 years old or more. This makes for an area where many families are upgrading and moving within the same community. This is when sellers frequently begin looking for a local agent representative.
Listing a home includes many dynamics. Listing price, marketing the home, and even staging and curb appeal are all important considerations. By implementing the live chat system on the website, people selling their home in Gainesville, VA will be able to interact with a real estate professional right at the moment they begin looking for information. "By providing this type of real time information, we can make the home selling process much easier," said Ashley Leigh, founder of Linton Hall Realtors. "The live chat feature allows us to get critical information to home sellers quickly and easily," he added. Indeed, with programs like the Guaranteed Sale Program, the Move Up to Savings program and even specialized help with short sales, there is a huge quantity of information.
Although there is so much to learn and investigate when selling your home, most sellers conduct extensive research when they are planning to buy new home. Searching for new homes in Gainesville VA is often the more exciting part of the process. That's another reason why Linton Hall Realtors implemented the live chat website feature. "The first thing a buyer/seller does is start searching for their new house. By providing them information when they first begin their search, we can make the entire process work better and smoother," Leigh said. Questions about are schools, planned expansion; home builders and community amenities are all popular questions.
When a user comes to LintonHallRealtors.com, they typically start browsing for a new home and then examining all the program information available to sellers. This process usually continues for weeks or months. When an agent is right there, available for quick questions or even more detailed phone consultations, the home buyer/seller gets exactly the information he or she needs, right at the moment in time it is needed. This leads to an overall improved client experience. "By providing excellent information with real-time technology, we can begin our work with them much earlier in the sales cycle and create a better overall client experience," said Leigh.

Read More..

Cost of Platt & Truant's Unicorn Western Download on Amazon: Nothing

A new Kindle title that smashes traditional genre boundaries is available to download at no cost on Amazon from Midnight tonight. Unicorn Western, usual price $2.99, will be available at no cost all day on December 26.

Cincinnati, OH (PRWEB) December 25, 2012
A new Kindle title that smashes traditional genre boundaries is available to download free on Amazon from Midnight tonight. Unicorn Western, usual price $2.99, will be available free all day on December 26.
The novella, by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant, can be downloaded to read on a Kindle, web browser, or Amazon's Kindle app.
"We know that top of pretty much everyone's Christmas wish list this year was the Kindle Paperwhite or Kindle Fire HD," said Platt.
"Johnny and I decided to give Unicorn Western for free the day after Christmas as our little Christmas gift to our fans and to new Kindle owners. What better way to give your new touchscreen tablet a whirl than by trying out a brand new genre?"
Part traditional western, and part whimsical fantasy, Unicorn Western is set in a dying world of sand and magic. It tells the story of gun-slinging, unicorn-riding cowboy Clint Gulliver, who together with his trusty unicorn Edward, must make his way through the uncrossable Sands to save the fading Kingdom of the Realm.
"In some ways, the story is surreal, crazy and experimental," Johnny B. Truant said. "Cowboys don't usually ride unicorns, and their guns don't smoke with a pink vapor.
"But at the same time, we've spun a yarn that aims to grip readers' eyeballs and make them break into fits of giggles for the very first page. We're storytellers at heart. We just can't help it. The only thing Sean and I love more than reading a ripping yarn is writing one."
The idea for Unicorn Western was conceived inadvertently by Sean Platt's usual writing partner, David Wright.
When Platt told Wright he planned to write a western without doing any research, Wright replied that he couldn't wait to see it.
"It will probably have freaking unicorns in it," Wright added.
Platt accepted the implicit challenge, and decided to write a Western with unicorn-riding cowboys, inviting Truant to co-author the new genre.
"I can't believe they actually did it," Wright said. "What were they thinking?"
Sean Platt's previous books include the post-apocalyptic serial thrillers Yesterday's Gone, published by indie imprint Collective Inkwell and Z 2134, published by Amazon's horror imprint, 47North. Platt co-write both of these serials with David Wright.
Johnny B. Truant's self-published credentials, meanwhile, include The Bialy Pimps and Fat Vampire.
Both Platt and Truant set the bar high with their fiction, averaging over four stars out of five on every full-length fiction title they've written. Together with David Wright, they host the Self Publishing Podcast and the Better Off Undead podcast.

Read More..

Shaftesbury Hotels Brings Exclusive Offers for the Guests During Christmas

The hotels of Shaftesbury chains are known for their finesse, comfort and class. During the festive season, the hotel brings a wide range of attractive packaged deals in order to offer the guests with longer stays.

(PRWEB UK) 25 December 2012
Throughout the year, the hotel offers various deals and discount packages to attract travellers of various budgetary backgrounds. However, the festive season is special and for this reason, the guests coming to this hotel are going to get some special treatments.
For a longer stay in the Shaftesbury hotel chains during the festive seasons, the guests are going to get a range of special offers. Take a look here.

Read More..

New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer David Perecman Weighs in on Physician’s Affair with Patient

New York medical malpractice lawyer David Perecman discusses sexual relationships between patients and their doctors, and deserved repercussions, following a ruling from the NY State Court of Appeals. The court said it was medical malpractice for a family doctor to have an affair with his patent, who he was treating for depression and anxiety. The doctor was ordered to pay the patient almost $400,000 in damages.

New York, New York (PRWEB) December 25, 2012

The NY State Court of Appeals ruled it was medical malpractice for a Long Island family doctor to have an affair with a patient after she went to him with anxiety and depression. The court said that the sexual relationship interfered with the treatment so as to constitute medical malpractice, reportedThe Wall Street Journal. The medical community has long considered that a doctor’s affair with a patient amounts to an ethical violation. Such behavior has typically not been classified as malpractice until now, said New York medical malpractice lawyer David Perecman.

The married model at the center of the lawsuit said her nine-month affair with the doctor 'destroyed her life', reported The Wall Street Journal. After Kristin Kahkonen Dupree told her husband about the affair, he had filed for divorce.

The doctor, James Giugliano, was ordered to pay Dupree almost $400,000 in damages, reported the WSJ.

The court had considered the argument that Dupree’s romantic feelings resulted from "eroticized transference," from the patient shifting emotions toward Giugliano, her therapist, said the WSJ. Giugliano's lawyer had countered that the affair was consensual and unrelated to treatment.

“Sexual relations between patients and doctors who are actively treating them are not previously unheard of ethical dilemmas. What has changed is the possible repercussions of such behavior,” said Perecman.

“Whether the affair was consensual or not, there should be consequences for the doctor. It is entirely wrong for a medical professional to be sexually involved with one of his or her current patients,” he added.

The case is Kristin Kahkonen Dupree v. James E. Giugliano, No. 204 (N.Y. 2012) - New York Court of Appeals.

Lawyers at The Perecman Firm can provide knowledgeable, aggressive representation for victims of medical malpractice in New York. Contact The Perecman Firm at 212-977-7033.

About David Perecman and The Perecman Firm, PLLC:

For the past 30 years, the New York construction accident, medical malpractice, auto accident, and civil rights violation lawyers at The Perecman Firm, PLLC have handled all types of New York medical malpractice cases. David Perecman, founder of the Firm, has been recognized for his achievements as an Honoree in the National Law Journal's Hall of Fame, in New York Magazine's "The Best Lawyers in America" and The New York Times Magazine "New York Super Lawyers, Metro Edition" for the years 2007-2010. The prestigious U.S. News & World Report ranks The Perecman Firm among the top 20 personal injury firms in New York City for 2011-2012 and 2012-2013.

The Firm has recovered millions of dollars for its clients. Among the more recent victories, Mr. Perecman won a $15 million verdict** for a construction accident (Index 112370/03) Supreme Court, New York County, a $5.35 million dollar verdict*** for an automobile accident (Index 2749/04) Supreme Court, Kings County, and a $40 million dollar structured settlement for medical malpractice (Index 2146/03)****Supreme Court, Kings County.

The Perecman Firm serves Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Long Island, Westchester, Upstate NY, Morris County, and Rockland County.

Read More..

Fine Treatment Reviews Customer Christmas Enquiries about Thermobalancing Therapy for Kidney Stones, BPH & Heart Disease with Improved Blood Circulation, and Self-Healing

Several Christmas enquiries regarding the efficacy of the Thermobalancing therapy have referred to faith and its role in self-healing. While recognizing the importance of positive thinking, Fine Treatment highlights that scientifically self-healing can be achieved with improved blood circulation treating chronic conditions, such as coronary heart disease, benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and kidney stones.

London, UK (PRWEB) December 25, 2012
This Christmas time Fine Treatment has received a number of customer enquiries concerning the power of faith and self-healing. A quote from The Bible says, “He healed everybody who came to Him” (Acts 10:38, Matthew, Luke 6:19). So it has been highlighted that the belief in Jesus would bring self-healing.
Interestingly, “the blood is a powerful, freeing, and protecting provision from God”, says the AllAboutGOD.com website. Scientific research shows that blood is an important healing factor, and the improved blood circulation in and around an impaired organ of the body facilitates its healing. So Fine Treatment recommends the Thermobalancing therapy for the treatment of common chronic conditions. It improves the blood flow locally in the affected organ, which can be the heart, kidneys, prostate or others.
An article in the Great Bible Study on ‘Is it God's will to heal you?’ explores: “Why is it so important to know that it's God's will to heal us? Because when we approach God for something, we are told to have faith and believe that we will receive what we are asking, and we will receive it.”
While staying positive – believing in a positive outcome – is an important healing factor, it may not be enough. The natural Thermobalancing therapy has its roots in scientific research on the functioning of capillaries, i.e. small blood vessels present everywhere in the body. The therapy has demonstrated effectiveness in the treatment of impairments with improved blood circulation at the capillary level.
Contrary to the natural and harmless treatment with the Thermobalancing Therapy and the enabling it Dr. Allen’s Devices, extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) for kidney stones removal, and surgeries for BPH or heart, are risky as complications and additional health problems can follow.
Commenting on its efficacy, Dr. Allen’s Device for Prostate Care helps to reduce the size of the prostate naturally. Dr. Allen’s therapeutic device works 24 hours a day and creates an ideal environment for blood to pass through capillaries in the affected prostate tissue. The improved blood flow cleanses the prostate and over time allows the body to repair itself through its own restorative mechanisms. Please watch a short informative video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5xidswhxJM.
Also, the Thermobalancing therapy is the safest way to pass a kidney stone. And it helps to save money by avoiding harmful ESWL and surgeries. The costs of ESWL in the USA, according to the New Choice Health, Medical Costs Comparison, vary tremendously from, $13.700 to $29.000. Moreover, shock waves cannot be used for large kidney stones and cannot prevent a recurrence of kidney stones.
Dr. Allen’s device for heart treatment starts to work straightaway, and the users experience its benefits from day one of wearing it. Dr. Mohamed S. Awad, Medical Doctor, Tanta University Hospitals, Egypt explains, “The new Thermobalancing Therapy by Dr. Allen increases the blood flow inside the heart tissue and in the coronary arteries, thus improving the condition of heart muscle. Dr. Allen’s device is considered effective at every phase of heart diseases and can relieve chest pain and other symptoms associated with myocardial infarction or angina pectoris.”
“The improvement of blood flow in an affected area is the most effective and safe treatment approach, particularly for internal chronic diseases such as BPH, kidney stones and coronary heart disease,” says Dr. Simon Allen. “Dr. Allen’s therapeutic device is the best health-giving gift for Christmas and the New Year.”
For details, visit Fine Treatment at http://finetreatment.com/bph-treatment-prostate-enlargement.
About Dr. Simon Allen and Fine Treatment:

Dr. Simon Allen is a highly experienced medical professional. His specialty is in the internal medicine and cardio-vascular field. He has treated a wide range of chronic diseases, including patients after a heart attack, with kidneys problems, including kidney stones disease, prostate and spine conditions, as well as metabolic disorders. Fine Treatment exclusively offers Dr. Allen’s devices for chronic prostatitis and BPH treatment, coronary heart disease, dissolving kidney stones, as well as back pain and sciatica relief.

Read More..

CourtRecord.com Offers New Conviction Reviews for All U.S. Residents

The new CourtRecord.com offers conviction reviews for all U.S. states when running a court record search or background check.

St. Louis, MO (PRWEB) December 25, 2012
CourtRecord.com, a leading force in the court record search industry, now provides new conviction reviews for all names searched on the site. Enter in a full name and find out the criminal and arrest records of anyone in the United States.
Whether businesses need to run a background check or parents are wondering about a child care provider, it is recommended that a court record search be done to make sure that person is not a criminal. From arrest records to warrant statuses, a court record can show it all.
CourtRecord.com offers information on arrests, convictions, sex offender status, probation felonies, revoked licenses and more. Gain peace of mind or really get to know who a person is with a court records search.
The website offers a real name searching service that reviews a nationwide database to find any legal information or other public records relating to a person. The CourtRecord.com database grows daily by the thousands with names and records from all 50 states.
CourtRecord.com is your best choice for a court records search online. With hundreds of satisfied customers reviewed daily, there’s no reason why a court record search has to take long or be expensive with this website.
About CourtRecord.com

As a powerful resource at your fingertips, CourtRecord.com is a top choice on the Internet for court records search. With a nationwide court record system, CourtRecord.com can turn up thousands of records across North America in minutes. Contact customer service through email at josh(at)courtrecord.com or by calling 1-866-434-4253.

Read More..

Appiteks to Launch an App Business Academy

The creators of a newly released game app called Boomie vs Pirates say they’re all set to launch a program that shows people step-by-step how to start their own app business.

Edwardsville, IL (PRWEB) December 22, 2012
According to statistics released by Apple’s app store, since 2011, mobile app revenue has amounted to $8.5 billion, and the average IOS developer makes $7,629 per app, and representatives with an Illinois-based app development company say they’re all set to launch a program that shows ordinary people how to start their own app business.
"Appiteks is about to release Appiteks Academy,” said Chris Luck, founder and CEO of Appiteks. “We will be teaching people worldwide, how to build an app business from start to finish.”
Luck added that currently, there isn’t anything on the market that teaches average Joe’s how to build a successful app business from the ground up.
“It’s a 12-week program, which will be video tutorial driven, showing everything to do, step by step,” said Luck.
The chief executive officer stressed that with the success of its debut game, Boomie VS Pirates, he believes Appiteks is the perfect company to help others start their own app business.
“The secret to business success is getting into a business that has a high demand for years to come and is scalable,” Luck pointed out. “When you look at the numbers and trends as it relates to the demand for apps, starting an app business is a good idea, regardless of if the economy is good or bad.”
Luck noted that even if the US goes over the looming fiscal cliff, starting an app business is something that anyone can get into to place themselves in a recession-proof business.
“The one thing we’ve learned about the recession is that people still like to have fun and playing games or using apps definitely makes people’s lives much easier,” Luck said. “Anytime you’re in a business that provides fun, excitement, and also makes people’s daily lives easier, you have a winner on your hands. With an app business, all you really have to do is develop a good reputation for developing solid products and you’ll have a great business model that you can depend upon. Appiteks Academy will show you exactly how to do that and more.”

Read More..