EZCORP had ended an agreement with Cash Converters
International Ltd to acquire a controlling stake in the
Perth-based peer following an Australian government move to cap
small credit contract fees.The acquired stores operate the Cash Converters’ buy/sell
model rather than the pawn model used in EZCORP’s other U.S.
stores.The acquired franchise rights include the exclusive right to
develop Cash Converters stores in Virginia, North Florida and
Eastern Pennsylvania, the company said in a statement.The acquisition, which was completed on Oct. 12, also
includes a right to acquire the Cash Converters franchise rights
in the District of Columbia and 17 other states in the East,
South, Midwest and Southwest.EZCORP shares, which closed at $27.65 on Nasdaq on Monday,
were up 3 percent after market.
EZCORP had ended an agreement with Cash Converters
International Ltd to acquire a controlling stake in the
Perth-based peer following an Australian government move to cap
small credit contract fees.The acquired stores operate the Cash Converters’ buy/sell
model rather than the pawn model used in EZCORP’s other U.S.
stores.The acquired franchise rights include the exclusive right to
develop Cash Converters stores in Virginia, North Florida and
Eastern Pennsylvania, the company said in a statement.The acquisition, which was completed on Oct. 12, also
includes a right to acquire the Cash Converters franchise rights
in the District of Columbia and 17 other states in the East,
South, Midwest and Southwest.EZCORP shares, which closed at $27.65 on Nasdaq on Monday,
were up 3 percent after market.
Pu appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria Valdez and
was ordered to remain in federal custody pending a detention
hearing on Friday, DOJ said.DOJ said that a complaint contains only charges and is not
evidence of guilt. The defendant is presumed innocent and is
entitled to a fair trial.
* Cuts FY12 dollar revenue growth to 17.1 pct to 19.1 pct
(Adds details)BANGALORE, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Infosys Ltd , India’s
No. 2 software services exporter, met forecasts with a
9.7-percent rise in second-quarter profit as a weak rupee
boosted margins, but it cut its full-year revenue outlook and
warned about global economic uncertainty .Infosys, which counts Goldman Sachs , BT
Group and BP among its main clients, cut its
dollar revenue growth forecast to 17.1 percent to 19.1 percent
for the fiscal year, from 18 percent to 20 percent projected
earlier.”The global macroeconomic environment is still uncertain. It
is and should be a concern for the IT industry,” S.D. Shibulal,
chief executive officer of Infosys, said in a statement.India’s $76 billion showpiece IT sector, which feeds off
increased outsourcing by companies looking to cut costs, is
expected to face pricing pressure and a decline in new orders as
Europe struggles with a debt crisis and the United States sees
an economic slowdown.More than half of Bangalore-based Infosys’ revenue is
generated in the United States. Europe is its second largest
market.Infosys, also listed in New York, said on Wednesday
consolidated net profit rose to 19.06 billion rupees
($387 million) for the fiscal second quarter ended
September 30, from 17.37 billion rupees reported a year ago.Revenue rose 16.6 percent to 80.99 billion rupees, as the
firm added 45 clients in the quarter.A Reuters poll of brokerages had forecast a profit of 18.91
billion rupees on revenue of 81.20 billion rupees for the
company, which counts Goldman Sachs , BT Group and
BP among its main clients.Infosys shares rose more than 5 percent folling the news on
Wednesday, touching 2630.20 rupees a share.”The results have been helped partly by the depreciation in
the rupee. The main thing to watch out for will be how the U.S.
and Europe will move in the coming months,” said R.K. Gupta,
Managing Director at Taurus Asset Management.”But Indian IT companies and Infosys in particular have a
cost advantage over their global peers. I am not very
pessimistic on these companies,” he said.Infosys, worth about $29 billion, has lost more than a
quarter of its market value this year, roughly in line with a 25
percent fall in the sector index , but higher than a 19
percent decline in the Mumbai market index .
($1 = 49.3 rupees)
There’s been much speculation that President Barack Obama will spend $1 billion to get reelected. Turns out those guesses were off by $446 billion.
What Americans heard last night was a $447 billion political plan, not an economic one. It’s purpose was to a) fire up the demoralized Democratic base and b) show independents that Obama is trying to do something – anything – to reduce unemployment, not just slash needed “investment” like those heartless, pro-austerity Republicans.
Now all the usual suspects will claim the American Jobs Act will create more growth and more jobs through $250 billion in temporary payroll tax cuts and $200 billion in infrastructure spending, unemployment benefits and aid to state and local government.
Take Moody’s economist Mark Zandi, a favorite of the White House and congressional Democrats. Zandi’s research says the original $800 billion Obama stimulus created or saved some 2-3 million jobs. And he likes Stimulus 2.0 just as much. He claims it would “add two percentage points to GDP growth next year, add 1.9 million jobs, and cut the unemployment rate by a percentage point.”
Really? Seriously?
1) Of course, such analysis is based on garbage in, garbage out, Keynesian economic models. The results were already baked into the cake. Better to see what actually happened as gleaned from government statistics. In a recent paper, Stanford University economist John Taylor simply looked at whether, as a result of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, consumers actually consumed and whether government actually spent in a way that produced real growth and jobs. Turns out, they didn’t:
Individuals and families largely saved the transfers and tax rebates. The federal government increased purchases, but by only an immaterial amount. State and local governments used the stimulus grants to reduce their net borrowing (largely by acquiring more financial assets) rather than to increase expenditures, and they shifted expenditures away from purchases toward transfers. Some argue that the economy would have been worse off without these stimulus packages, but the results do not support that view.
2) Economists from George Mason University also looked at the real-world results of the ARRA by surveying employers. Their findings:
Hiring isn’t the same as net job creation. In our survey, just 42.1 percent of the workers hired at ARRA-receiving organizations after January 31, 2009, were unemployed at the time they were hired. More were hired directly from other organizations (47.3 percent of post-ARRA workers), while a handful came from school (6.5%) or from outside the labor force (4.1%). Thus, there was an almost even split between “job creating” and “job switching.” This suggests just how hard it is for Keynesian job creation to work in a modern, expertise-based economy: even in a weak economy, organizations hired the employed about as often as the unemployed.
3) And let’s not forget what Milton Friedman might have to say about this sort of deal, which gets to the heart of why Keynesian stimulus doesn’t work (via Wikipedia):
The permanent income hypothesis (PIH) is a theory of consumption that was developed by the American economist Milton Friedman. In its simplest form, the hypothesis states that the choices made by consumers regarding their consumption patterns are determined not by current income but by their longer-term income expectations. The key conclusion of this theory is that transitory, short-term changes in income have little effect on consumer spending behavior.
Team Obama thinks the whole package could boost growth by two percentage points. But the infrastructure spending and unemployment benefits will be a tougher sell. Republicans may well substitute their own stimulus ideas for those items so that the package ends up composed entirely of tax cuts.
The most likely addition is a temporary reduction in the taxes on foreign earnings brought back to the U.S. by its multinational corporations. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates such a tax holiday could boost growth by a full percentage point next year. White House economists criticize idea as providing too little bang for the buck, but it could be the price for getting a deal. But an agreement can get probably get done, which would enhance perception of Obama as a leader and boost his approval ratings. Just don’t expect it to do much for America’s sputtering economic recovery.
