In order to help pay for this plan, Obama proposes to levy a fee on banks. The thought behind this legislation is that it would help spur the economy, but my numbers do not add up to any substantial benefit.

What then is Obama’s purpose for this plan?

The official thinking on this plan from the president is that by allowing more people to refinance to a lower interest rate on their loans, they will be paying less per month. This monthly savings would then be assumed to go toward purchases in the economy. The exact amount of this revenue increase is very much in dispute.

NPR estimates the number of those to benefit at a mere 2 million homeowners. Other estimates from supporters go as high as 20 million homeowners. The Obama plan estimates $2,500 savings per homeowner who goes through the program.

If we accept that number, the amount of money put back into people’s pockets would range from $5 billion to $50 billion. Now if we assume that half that savings is actually spent back into the economy rather than paying off bills or going into savings, means we will have $2.5 billion to $25 billion injected into the economy.

The plan then calls for a yet to be named fee levied against the banks to help pay for these refinances. This fee would be then passed down to the consumer so that takes money back out of the economy. That needs to be deducted from the economic benefits. The United States’ annual retail sales GDP runs near $5 trillion, so that means the economic injection from Obama’s plan would be only a small drop in the bucket for the economy. Ultimately, this plan will add too little to the economy to be a reasonable fix for the current recession.

So once again, the question that begs to be asked is: What is Obama’s purpose for this plan?

The answer is simple: The states hardest hit by overvalued mortgages,wholesale John Galliano, according to CNNMoney: Florida, California, Nevada, Michigan, and Arizona. These are also the states that Obama needs to win in his re-election bid this fall. This is simply nothing more than an election-year grab for votes.

Most established of the bunch and often dubbed the “Korean McQueen,” Lie Sang Bong explained techniques he uses to earn that moniker. “Inspired by a traditional Korean architecture technique, I wanted to incorporate past,Wholesale True Religion T-shirts, present, and future by mixing materials like silk with very high-tech leathers and hologram trim.” The resulting feminine, futuristic pieces included one of the most-admired items of the night—a leather vest treated to shimmer like a beetle wing.
—Nina Stotler

Photo: Mike Coppola / Getty Images

The Wolf Blitzer-moderated sparring contest drew 5.4 million total viewers and 1.74 million in the adults 25-54 demo, the fourth best demo performance of any debate thus far and the second best among cable news networks.

Fox News’ debate in Iowa December 15 still reigns supreme in cable with its 6.7 million total viewers and 1.87 in the demo, while ABC’s Iowa debate takes the cake overall in total viewers. NBC’s “Rock Center” debate in Florida January 23 set the bar for the demo.

As those numbers suggest, CNN’s debate is in the middle of the pack overall, but for the network they are substantial.

As Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney fought over grandmas,wholesale NBA, immigration and tax records, viewers pushed CNN well ahead of its cable news foes Thursday night, and the network held onto its lead in the 10 p.m. hour.

CNN is slated to host the next scheduled debate February 22: Yes, viewers get a reprieve from the nearly endless series of debates — unless another pops up before then.

(Editing By Zorianna Kit)

Options might include suspending initial public offerings, as it did in 2008; easing up on so-called “punitive bills” that banks are sometimes required to buy as a means of restricting the flow of credit; or injecting a bit more money into the economy through regular open market operations.

Last week, Premier Wen Jiabao urged banks to tolerate a higher level of bad debt from small- and mid-sized companies.

He also dropped a strong hint that the tightening cycle could be over, saying the government had “tentatively contained” rapidly rising prices.

The next batch of inflation data is due on Friday, and is expected to show price pressures eased modestly in September from August, according to a Reuters poll of economists. But the consensus CPI forecast for 6.1 percent would still leave year-over-year inflation far above Beijing’s 4 percent target.

Even if price pressures continue to recede, there are some hurdles to cross between the end of the tightening cycle and the beginning of easing.

Arguably the biggest obstacle is the Group of 20 meeting in France next month, when European leaders have promised a plan for addressing their sovereign crisis. Making a big policy move before that meeting would be an enormous risk.

If European officials get it right, that all but eliminates the imminent threat of a global recession, and markets rally. If they get it wrong, it could trigger a global panic.

That would seem to rule out any move before the G20 meeting wraps up on November 4. The next window of opportunity may be December, when China holds an economic policy meeting. Even that may be too soon for anything dramatic if growth remains solid.

“I expect to see a formal announcement before year-end of a shift from prudent monetary policy to… something that sounds like neutral,” said Tim Condon, an economist with ING in Singapore.

NEXT STEPS

The trigger for a rate cut would probably be a significant downturn in China’s economic growth data. Next week’s report on gross domestic product probably will not fit the bill. Economists in a Reuters poll predicted 9.2 percent growth — not exactly a hard landing.

Indeed, HSBC strategist Steve Sun said investors were taking a far too gloomy view of China’s growth prospects.

“The market is now pricing in a 70 percent probability of economic hard landing in China,” he wrote in a note to clients, at odds with HSBC’s forecast for growth in the 8 to 9 percent range in the coming quarters.

If growth remains in that region but lending becomes more constricted, trimming banks’ reserve requirements may be the logical policy step. If the slowing property market appears to be heading for a more precipitous fall, Beijing could also reverse some of the restrictions it placed on home buying.

(Reporting by Emily Kaiser in Singapore; Additional reporting by Clement Tan, Jian Xin, Jason Subler and Terril Jones in Shanghai, and Vikram Subhedar in Hong Kong.)

The four big banks whose shares were purchased gained $46 billion in market value on Tuesday morning. Bank stocks had taken a pounding this year as investors worried that China’s cooling property market would expose over-extended developers as well as local governments who pledged land as collateral for loans, driving up defaults.

That proved to be the opening salvo in an aggressive easing campaign that included more than two full percentage points in interest rate cuts and almost $600 billion in stimulus spending.

TIMING THE BIG MOVE

It looks highly unlikely that China will follow the 2008 script to the letter. The economic conditions are markedly different. But the general pattern of market intervention followed by broader policy moves may hold true.

The message to the market was clear: Beijing is prepared to stand behind the banks in times of trouble. That in turn sends an important signal for the broader economy that China will ensure lending does not dry up.

The initial share purchases by a unit of China’s sovereign wealth fund on Monday were relatively small, according to two of the banks that received investment.

After five interest rate hikes and 12 increases in banks’ reserve requirements, there are some signs that credit conditions have become too tight, especially for smaller companies that cannot borrow as readily from state-owned banks.

(Reuters) China’s purchases of beaten-down bank shares may be one of several baby steps along an easing path that eventually leads to interest rate cuts.

Unless economic conditions deteriorate, China may opt for smaller, intermediate steps before cutting rates, such as aiming to ease strains in small-business lending.

“This is the start of something more concerted from Beijing,” said Hong Hao, a global equity strategist at China International Capital Corp in Beijing. “Somebody had to pull the trigger at some point. But it’s very difficult to say when the central bank will loosen monetary policy.”

That post-Lehman easing cycle was swift. The last rate cut came in December 2008, just three months after the panic began. By October 2010, the PBOC was tightening again.

China has been down this road before. Just days after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in September 2008, the same arm of the wealth fund bought shares in the big four banks, according to media reports at the time.

This is not 2008. China’s economic growth looks far more sturdy than it did after the financial crisis struck. But there are a few air pockets, particularly within lending, so a targeted policy response that begins with supporting banks makes sense.

Beijing has reason to be wary of flooding the economy with easy money like it did during the financial crisis. Some of that money found its way into questionable projects that may lead to a worrisome spike in loan defaults.

“It also shows that China’s government is behind the banks and believes in the banks,” said Mike Werner, an analyst with Sanford Bernstein. “They wouldn’t be doing this if, for instance, they were concerned about these banks having to raise capital in the near future on an industry-wide basis.”

SCOPE president and founder Alexis Hubshman said the photos offer a look at Warhol and Indiana “at a time when Americans were undergoing radical changes both politically and culturally.” He said the 1960s images present “a distinct reference point for many emerging and contemporary artists working today.”

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. Live graffiti painting. A colossal rose bed soaring 20 feet high. Early photos of Andy Warhol, a Picasso up for auction and a naked woman living in a pig pen. They’re all part of the lineup for Art Basel Miami Beach, which runs Dec. 1-4, with a host of related events beginning Nov. 30.

“I photographed Andy and other Pop Artists because I believed they were creating something different,” Kennedy said. “Andy was completely devoted to his art. I’m sure at the time I photographed him, he believed the photos would become an important record of what he was trying to accomplish.”

Miami gallery owner Gary Nader will launch an auction house during Art Basel featuring modern and contemporary work by big names like Fernando Botero, Damien Hirst and Roy Lichtenstein. Nader expects prices from $50,000 to $5 million, including for Picasso’s “Buste de Femme,” priced at $3.5 million to $4.5 million, and Lichtenstein’s large-scale aluminum painted sculpture “Three Brushstrokes,” estimated at $3 million to $5 million.

For the first time, works by artists from the outdoor art park Wynwood Walls will be for sale at “Shop at the Walls,” its first pop-up gallery.

The exhibit will include images of Warhol creating his Marilyn Monroe painting and Indiana holding his iconic LOVE piece, printed from original negatives as silver gelatin fiber prints.

Organizers for this year’s event are promising another round of great art, with thousands of works by more than 2,000 artists from around the world. Painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, print, photography, film, performance, video and digital art will all be on display at various venues, galleries, satellite fairs, outdoor exhibitions and private parties. New this year is Art Video, a 7,000-square-foot outdoor projection wall on the New World Center building designed by architect Frank Gehry.

Hundreds of volunteers will help lift a 20-foot sculptural platform with models of attractions from the 1939 New York World’s Fair for an installation by Los Angeles-based artist Glenn Kaino at Art Public.

Will Ryman’s “65th Street” installation of four colossal rose buds will bloom 20 feet over the Sagamore Hotel in Miami Beach. The pink and red buds, 5 to 10 feet in diameter, with a brass aphid and beetle nesting in the tallest bud, were recently in New York City. Ryman said Art Basel is “the perfect platform to introduce them to another extraordinary city of the arts, one that offers a completely different backdrop.”

Another side event, Design Miami, includes 28 galleries and explores the relationship between design and architecture, including furniture and lighting. One theme will be vintage and contemporary jewelry with pieces designed by sculptors Alexander Calder and Harry Bertoia. Design Miami also includes an installation of utopian architect Buckminster Fuller’s 1970s Fly’s Eye Dome alongside Lord Norman Foster’s reconstruction of Fuller’s Dymaxion car.

Art Miami, which predates Art Basel by a dozen years, will unfold in Wynwood with works by 1,000 artists including Henry Moore and Robert Rauschenberg, along with an installation by Finnish artist Kaarina Kaikkonen called “As A Tree, I Can Feel the Wind” consisting of palm trees strung with secondhand clothing.

Miami’s Mandarin Oriental hotel will show work by 16 contemporary Chinese artists reflecting ancient traditions as well as Western influence. Among the artists on display will be Liu Bolin, who uses himself as a blank canvas by painting his body to blend with the background.

Ten Steinway pianos decorated with art ranging from graffiti and acrylic paints to 3D sculptures will be scattered throughout Miami and South Beach for Pop-Up Pianos Miami. The pianos will eventually be donated to public schools and other organizations.

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If You Go…

ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH: http://www.artbaselmiamibeach.com/. Dec. 1-4, with related events like Art Miami http://www.art-miami.com/_ and Design Miami http://www.designmiami.com_ beginning Nov. 30.

TOURS: Art critics will also be giving walking guided tours in English and Spanish each day for an hour, $20; details from ArtNexus, 305-891-7270, ext. 4, http://www.artbaselmiamibeach.com/go/id/ijb/

WYNWOOD: Wynwood Walls: http://www.thewynwoodwalls.com/home.html. Primary Flight: http://www.primaryflight.com.

Vespa tours of street art in Wynwood are available from Roam Rides, $75, http://www.roamrides.com/ and walking tours are $50.

Volunteers interested in helping with the Glenn Kaino installation can visit: http://www.glennkainostudio.com/levitating

The international art fair, sister event to Art Basel in Switzerland, is celebrating its 10th year in South Florida this December. Miami’s art scene has grown tremendously since it started, and last year 46,000 people attended, not counting thousands more who took in ancillary events piggy-backing on the main arts-filled weekend. The trendy exhibits, films, parties and performances attract not just art collectors but also art-lovers of all means, tourists and many others who want to see and be seen.

“The cultural growth emerged about 20 years ago when the world discovered Miami through the lens of South Beach,” said Tony Goldman, chairman and CEO of The Goldman Properties Co., which has helped transform the city’s historic districts into thriving, trendy neighborhoods like South Beach and the Wynwood Arts District.

The pig pen installation will undoubtedly be the most jaw-dropping event at the art fair. Known for photographing herself nude in subway tunnels or in front of graffiti walls, performance artist Miru Kim will be living with pigs for her performance “The Pig That Therefore I Am.”

The pig pen installation will be among the Primary Flight shows. “Some people are really going to love it. Some are going to be shocked. And a handful won’t really get it,” said Primary Flight founder Books Bischof.

Images of art world stars Warhol and Robert Indiana taken in the early 1960s by photographer William John Kennedy will be on display for a pop-up event on the heels of Art Basel. “Before They Were Famous: Behind the Lens of William John Kennedy” will be part of the special programming at SCOPE Miami in the Wynwood Arts District.

“Auctions like this only happen in New York and London,” Nader said.

“Ten years ago when we brought Art Basel to Miami, we moved into warp speed and it’s been growing every year since,” the real estate investor said.

“The immediate connection between pigs and me will be felt through seeing the living bodies mingle through skin,” Kim told The Associated Press. A glass barrier will act as “an insatiable gap between the spectacle and the onlooker, just like in a zoo.”

Elsewhere in the Wynwood district, which is known for open-air museums of street murals, street artists will be “buffing” or painting over dozens of the neighborhood’s graffiti-clad walls. An organization called Primary Flight will help nearly 30 artists find walls to make art, and work by 16 artists will be on display at the organization’s gallery space.

Warhol enthusiasts can choose from four walks: Upper EastSide Above East 70th Street, Upper East Side From East 57th Street to East 68th Street,Midtown, and Downtown. Full of photographs from Warhol’s life that map importantevents in the city, from the opening of Paraphernalia (a boutique where BetseyJohnson got her start) to a group shot of the crowd outside Max’s Kansas City,the book also includes helpful illustrations commissioned from Vito Giallo,Warhol’s former assistant.

So, this weekend, grab a copy of the pocket-sized guidebookand say a prayer at the Churchof St. Vincent Ferrer on East 66th Street,where Warhol worshiped during the last 13 years of his life, or stop by thesite of the Open Stage on St. MarksPlace, and imagine the first time Warholintroduced the Velvet Underground. (Since you’ll be in the neighborhood, you can also check out Rob Pruitt’s silvered Warhol sculpture in Union Square.) Finally, have a silent moment when visiting New York Hospitalon 68th Street,where the New Yorklegend was pronounced dead on February 22, 1987.

To see a slide show of significant Warhol sites around New York, click here.

THE FEAR: Wall Street has been worried that the recent economic turbulence caused by Europe’s debt woes would cause major companies and government agencies to curtail technology spending. Oracle performance suggested a slowdown has already begun.

THE REACTION: Oracle Corp. shares fell 10 percent after the results came out late Tuesday.

The widely anticipated first child of the international star and R&B singer, 30, and rap mogul Jay-Z, 42, whose real name is Shawn Carter, was delivered late on Saturday in a private wing of Lenox Hill Hospital, according to the Daily News.

Spokespersons for the singer did not immediately return comment.

The singer, whose hits include “Beautiful Liar” and “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on it),” showed off her pregnancy on stage earlier in the year at the MTV video awards,wholesale Ed hardy jeans, performing her song “Love On Top” and telling the audience to stand up. “I want you to feel the love that’s growing inside of me,” she said then.

(Reporting by Christine Kearney, editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

“We don’t look at what all the popular artists are doing. We’re not chasing Lady Gaga or Katy Perry or any of those guys. They’re doing fabulous doing what they’re doing, and we’re just doing what we do, and that’s it,” lead singer Chad Kroeger said.

“Obviously, there isn’t a person in the world that would say, `You know Nickelback is so trendy.’ And we’re not. We don’t care. We really just don’t care.”

The Canada-based act which includes Kroeger’s brother, Mike, on bass, guitarist Ryan Peake and drummer Daniel Adair was named group of the decade by Billboard magazine and their 2001 breakthrough hit “How You Remind Me” was the decade’s top rock song. Their best-selling album is 2005’s “All the Right Reasons,wholesale Burberry,” which has sold 8 million copies in the U.S.

Peake pokes fun at the state of contemporary pop music: “Unless some famous DJ wants to make a huge, Euro-pop smash remix of our song! Call our label.”

Nickelback’s seventh release, “Here and Now,” recently debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart. Chad Kroeger says the key to their success or any band’s success is the love among its group members.

“Look around at your band members and make sure that you really like those people,” he said. “We can all name 1,000 bands, amazing bands, that haven’t stood the test of time because they just couldn’t get along.”

Though happy with his band’s career, Kroeger does have one regret.

“When I see the video for `How You Remind Me,’ I just want to go back and beat myself up,” the 37-year-old Kroeger said. “My hair was like super long and I had this big goatee, and I shot that video when I was super young, but I looked like I was like 40 years old in the video … I really wish I could go back and snip, give a little trim.”

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Online:

http://nickelback.com/

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Mesfin Fekadu covers entertainment for The Associated Press. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/musicmesfin.

Were you familiar with the book, or with Georges Melies’ work?

Neither. Neither the book nor Georges’ work. My starting point was the script by John Logan, which was a wonderful read. The arc of everyone’s character is so extraordinary it jumps off the page.

And also, I loved to see that Georges would be filmed by Marty at the height of his powers, in his glass palace where he was a king with so many domains: writer, director, designer, set decorator, editor, leading man, magician, special effects creator…Probably because he didn’t know what the limits were, he was breaking boundaries all the time. Because he was the first of the great auteurs, nobody told him, “Georges, you can’t do that,” as I’m afraid they would today. He just had no boundaries whatsoever. I watch those early films of his, and his joie de vivre was completely contagious. It must have affected his audiences.

But when we first meet him, that feeling is long gone.

Yes. What I loved was to have that sequence filmed by Marty in which I’m deeply happy, at the peak of my creative powers, and then to film the sequence where I’m standing by an enormous conflagration as Georges burns all his things.

That was a very real day for me. The bonfire was extremely hot, and quite painful. I was burning things that our company had made, and they were beautiful. The moon’s face, the spheres, the swords, the costumes, the helmets, the drawings of my wife, they were all perfect. And I was able to inhabit Georges’ sense of utter defeat, and probably anger.

It’s a very violent act, a kind of little suicide. He was the king in his palace,wholesale Ed hardy underwear, then the suicide, then the toy shop. For me, that was an arc that I could fully appreciate and fully inhabit.

Did you film it in that sequence?

As a matter of fact, I didn’t. But I have a way of approaching a script rather like a symphony, in that if I know each movement well in my heart, then I can inhabit it, even if I haven’t played that sequence yet. Knowing that I would be in that glass palace gave me an appreciation of Georges’ imprisonment in that toy shop.

There’s actually a drawing that Georges made himself, where he has a dog collar around his neck and is chained to the back of the wall of his shop. As I saw in his early films, Georges had a very straight dancer’s back. But in this drawing, he drew his back completely round and collapsed. And so when I talked to Sandy Powell, our costume designer, I asked for a padded back and tummy to wear.

It took me about two hours to get completely ready for Georges in terms of makeup and costume, and then I was stuck in defeated Georges all day. And I also realized that Georges did all his own stunts, and I’ve noticed this on a film set when I am involved in a stunt: In the evening, once the adrenaline has dropped, I’m lying in the hot tub, and there’s a bloody great bruise on my thigh, and it hurts. You’re not aware of it when you’re working, so he was probably living on adrenaline for about seven years. And I know a little bit about that withdrawal. When they say “It’s a wrap,” those are the worst words in my vocabulary.

In many ways, we think of 3D as just another special effect. But “Hugo” doesn’t treat it like that at all. It uses 3D to say, “Come into this space where our story is happening.”

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Marty does bring you into the world, and he uses 3D to surround you with that world: the railway station and the toy shop and the apartment and the little hole in the wall where Asa lives. He pushed 3D round a very important corner, I think. He’s done it.

Did shooting in 3D change how you did your work?

Yes. Every gesture you make has to be linked directly to the narrative. Nothing can be arbitrary. Nothing can be explained. I learnt a long time ago, you must never explain anything to the camera, because it doesn’t need it. All it needs is to see the behavior of the character. It doesn’t want to see any acting. The camera is allergic to acting, it hates it. But the 3D camera has such X-ray capacity that you almost have to modify your acting to a terrifying degree.

Fortunately, my first 3D experience was with Martin Scorsese. And between action and cut, he sees everything. He sees every single gesture, nuance, shift in emphasis that you offer him on every take. So if you take the 3D camera, plus working with Asa, who has no filters and works from the heart, plus Marty, it forces you into a corner out of which there’s only one way. And that’s your version of the absolute, honest truth. Anything else will interfere, and the 3D camera will see it, and the audience will say “Oops, bit of acting there!” You daren’t act. You daren’t act.

I’m sure I’ll coin the right phrase for it sooner or later, but it’s an exercise in under-acting. That’s the only way I can put it, rather crudely right now. It’s under-acting.