Stock in Lee Enterprises rose 5 percent Monday after the company announced plans to refinance $1.05 billion in loans.
The publisher, owner of the St no fax payday advances. Louis Post-Dispatch and other newspapers, said it would issue bonds to replace virtually all its debt. Moody’s Investor Services rated the company Caa1
Federal regulators say the number of banks on their confidential “problem” list increased by 24 in the final quarter of last year, even as the industry continued to heal with the recovering economy.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reported Wednesday that banks earned $21.7 billion in the fourth quarter. That compared with a net loss of $1.8 billion a year earlier. The agency said bank earnings were buoyed in the latest quarter by reduced charges for soured loans.
The FDIC called 2010 a turnaround year for the banking industry, with net income reaching a three-year high of $87 bad credit payday loans.5 billion. It contrasted with a loss of $10.6 billion in 2009.
The FDIC said the number of troubled banks rose to 884 in the quarter from 860 in the third quarter. That was the slowest rate of increase to the problem list since the first quarter of 2008.
Portuguese train engineers went on strike Tuesday, stoking pressure on the government as it cuts pay and hikes taxes to tackle a debt crisis that is threatening to engulf the country.
Thousands of commuters were left stranded during morning rush hour as the national rail company said over 90 percent of trains didn’t run.
Portugal ran up high debts during the past decade amid frail growth, and the government is scrambling to avoid asking for a bailout like the ones needed by fellow eurozone countries Greece and Ireland last year.
But the interest rate on Portuguese 10-year bonds rose to 7.46 percent Tuesday _ not far shy of the level that forced Dublin to ask for help.
The battle to solve Portugal’s financial crisis is taking a political and financial toll, and the country’s failure to escape a bailout would add new momentum to Europe’s economic troubles.
European finance ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday announced no new decisions on boosting the size and powers of the bloc’s fund to rescue its heavily-indebted members. The delay is worrying markets, and investors are asking for higher returns on what are perceived as risky loans to Portugal _ compounding the country’s already huge financial problems.
Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos said in Brussels he wanted the European fund to be able to buy bonds on the open market, thereby helping to stabilize their prices, but finding a compromise among the 17 nations that use the euro was proving hard.
“This process is taking longer than it ought to, in my opinion, and I think the delays and hesitation in taking the steps we need are affecting the eurozone and the stabilization of the euro and, consequently, all the countries which belong to the eurozone,” Teixeira dos Santos told Portuguese media.
Portugal plans to raise up to euro1 billion ($1.3 billion) in a sale of 12-month Treasury bills Wednesday. So far it has had no problems getting funds on international markets, but the rates are punishingly high.
The center-left Socialist government says it reduced the budget deficit to 7.3 percent last year from 9.6 percent _ the fourth-highest in the eurozone _ in 2009. Its austerity plan aims to cut the deficit to 4.6 percent this year.
However, analysts expect the money-saving measures to send Portugal into recession. That would hurt tax revenue and place further stress on the budget, which is already being drained by high interest rates on its borrowings and increased welfare payments resulting from an unemployment rate close to 11 percent.
There was some good news for the minority government, though, when a small party said it would abstain from a no-confidence vote, ensuring the attempt to force an early election will fail.
The Left Bloc, a small, radical party which competes for support with the Communist Party, intends to present the motion in Parliament on March 10. The Popular Party announced late Monday it would abstain in the vote.
The government is also resisting a popular outcry against the austerity package, which includes a 5 percent pay cut for staff at state-owned companies this year. Those companies have total debts of more than euro21 billion ($28.2 billion) with public transport companies, including the national rail company.
The government is demanding that state companies save 15 percent on operating costs this year.
Tuesday’s rail strike was the latest in a wave of walkouts.
Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke leads the world’s biggest retailer, which has 2.1 million employees and serves 200 million customers each week. He crisscrosses the globe every month, yet still finds time to spend with his family.
Here are excerpts from a recent interview Duke did with The Associated Press in New York:
Q. When does the day start for you?
A. I usually get up between 5:30 and 6. The good news in Bentonville, Arkansas, is I can be in the office seven minutes later. I like to get in, work on e-mails and catch up. I like to have no e-mails (in my inbox).
Q. How does a CEO keep his inbox empty?
A. If you looked at my garage, you’d probably see there’s a relationship between my garage and my e-mail. I just don’t like things undone. I’d rather work five minutes longer and have it (done) today than to carry five minutes over (to) tomorrow and start tomorrow five minutes in the hole.
Q. How do you balance the nitty-gritty of the business with looking at the big picture?
A. If I spend all of my day in the details as a CEO of a company like Wal-Mart, I think it would be trouble, because I wouldn’t really be prepared to speak to the big issues that the country or the world should face. But at the same time, if you spend all of the time at 50,000 feet, (you) really are not out talking to customers and know real people. … I think it’s often the interaction directly with customers in the details of their family and their issues is what inspires me to want to help solve the big issues.
Q. Consumers retrenched during the Great Recession. Which habits are sticking?
A. Customers are shopping smarter, and I think customers are proud of that. It can be the customer that has to shop smarter because of maybe limited income, but also the middle-income and higher-income customer wants to shop smarter today. They want to feel proud of the way that they use their financial resources.
Q. Wal-Mart has struggled more than competitors to grow its revenue post-recession. Part of that was veering away from everyday low prices and part was weeding out too many products and brands. How do you react when Wal-Mart makes a mistake?
A. I don’t know that there’s a business model that says, `You’re going to empower the organization. You’re going to experiment. You’re going to change and try new things all the time, but you’re not going to make any mistakes.’ I’m probably not willing to commit that we’re positioned to do that.
Q. How often do you check Wal-Mart’s stock price?
A. Maybe every other day … I look at sales every day, and customer traffic, and (the) average (shopping) basket. I look to see how we’re doing in Brazil and the UK and China every day low fee payday loans. I don’t necessarily check the stock price every day. I think if I were a shareholder and the CEO spent all of his time focused on the share price, then I would probably be concerned, because the share price follows the results of the company.
Q. Wal-Mart’s reputation seems to have improved markedly. Is that a function of the recession?
A. It’s interesting the letters I get from mayors that want Wal-Mart to look and invest in their community. I like to start with looking in the mirror, and I think we have improved and changed who we are in many ways. I think we are more desirable to come to a community. … I think we’ve done a better job of communicating about the jobs that we create and the opportunity that we create in the area of jobs.
Q. What ideals from Sam Walton do you embrace?
A. (Leadership is) about showing respect to every individual, about humility over arrogance, about listening and getting feedback from a broad array of constituents. It’s about a passion for customers and knowing customers firsthand, not theoretical, not through some data only, but by having personal, passionate communication with customers. And leadership is about striving for excellence. It’s about setting aggressive goals and not being afraid to go after very aggressive goals and targets. I think it’s even better for a leader to set an aggressive goal and come up a little short than it would be to set a soft goal and to exceed it.
Q. What should a leader value most?
A. Integrity and trust. If a leader doesn’t have the trust of associates, of customers, of shareholders, then all the other things, the ability to speak eloquently and to sing and dance and entertain, (don’t) mean a thing if a leader’s not trusted.
Q: Outside of the results of the company and the stock price, how do you know how you are doing at Wal-Mart? How are you evaluated?
A: Hard feedback is in some environments viewed in a very threatening way, and people don’t want to hear feedback. In our environment, I think there is a desire to hear candid feedback. When we leave a meeting, before we’ll even drive away, I’ll ask, `Well, give me feedback.’ I think a leader asking for feedback sets a good tone.
Q. Does work ever stop for you?
A. I do spend really focused time with my wife, my kids, grandkids, and so when I’m doing something or on a golf course, work has stopped. I’m not always thinking and working. … I think a leader has to really be a balanced, whole and healthy person personally in order to be the best leader on the job.
In the late 1990s, Marty Tenenbaum was a hotshot e-commerce entrepreneur riding high on the dot-com boom when he noticed a lump on his body.
His doctor told him it was nothing, but when he finally had it removed, he learned he had melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.
He beat the disease, but he never got over the sense of frustration he felt as he clawed his way through the maze of treatment options, clinical trials and research in search of a way to survive.
Now 67, Tenenbaum still believes he would not have made it if he hadn’t had personal connections at the National Cancer Institute who guided him toward cutting-edge experimental treatments that saved his life.
The experience convinced him that the key to advancing cancer treatment and research is forging connections on as large a scale as possible. On Tuesday, he plans to launch a Web application to bring together patients, physicians and scientists regardless of where they work, live or went to college in hopes that the so-called wisdom of the crowd can lead to the best therapies.
“I’m just trying to pull together all the pieces that are needed to do a real, rational attack on cancer,” Tenenbaum says. The way to do that, he says, is to pull people out of their individual labs, offices and hospitals to collaborate in a way not possible before the Web and mobile technologies made it easy to pool vast amounts of information.
“How much of cancer could be turned into a manageable disease if we only knew what we knew?”
Tenenbaum is one of a growing number of supporters of the so-called open science movement, which calls for greater sharing of research and the lowering of institutional, financial, legal and geographical barriers to bringing the best minds and data together to solve science’s toughest problems.
In its fledgling form, the Cancer Commons app integrates the existing data on different forms of melanoma and the most promising experimental treatments. Patients or their doctors input how far the disease has progressed, where it started and whether tests have discovered any specific genetic mutations believed to contribute to the cancer’s spread.
From that information, the app tells patients what specific cancer “subtype” they have as determined by an expert panel. They also learn what drugs have shown the most promise in treating that specific form of the disease and where clinical trials are being conducted that could allow patients access to that treatment.
The app itself was built by CollabRx, Tenenbaum’s for-profit health care startup. It’s free for doctors and patients. The company would make money through pharmaceutical company sponsorships of different apps, though Cancer Commons does not endorse specific drugs.
The data itself generated by the Cancer Commons project will be free and available for anyone to use, Tenenbaum says.
At Harvard University’s Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Keith Flaherty studies melanoma treatments and sees patients with the most advanced forms of the disease. He volunteered to help lead the Cancer Commons melanoma project, which he says lets doctors and patients plug into a complex collection of data distilled into a simple set of treatment options.
Though Flaherty treats only melanoma, oncologists across the country are called on to treat all kinds of cancers. They don’t have time to troll through obscure journals or websites to become experts on every variation of the disease, Flaherty says. An app like Cancer Commons lets those physicians plug into the knowledge of researchers like himself directly, he says.
“It’s to empower that doctor with the same information we have access to.” The hope is that patients also will be better able to advocate for themselves.
As the service expands, Tenenbaum also plans to make it possible for physicians and patients to add their own data on what has worked and what hasn’t. While researchers cannot rely on one person’s experience alone as a measure of success or failure, Flaherty says researchers could sift a large enough collection of anecdotes for leads.
The ease of sharing information among scientists and between nonscientists and professional researchers are two key developments made possible by the Internet that open science advocates say could speed discoveries.
“We have a chance at a new kind of digitally enabled collaboration,” says Joseph Jackson, organizer of the Open Science Summit at the University of California, Berkeley last summer. “But the hardest thing to do is change human behaviors and practices.”
Jackson is also working to help open a community biotech lab in Silicon Valley intended to provide space for ideas and research to take place outside traditional academic and corporate venues.
The San Francisco-based Science Commons project helps research institutions and scientific journals find ways to make valuable scientific data more widely available.
The group sees bright spots in their effort, such as the National Institutes of Health’s mandate that all NIH-funded research be made available free to the public within a year of being published.
But big challenges remain, both technological and in the culture of how science is done, says Alan Ruttenberg, principal scientist at Science Commons.
Ruttenberg focuses on solving the problem of “data integration”: how to put different scientific databases together to enable researchers to find new connections. Part of that effort involves developing a common language for data that Ruttenberg hopes someday will make possible a search engine for science.
“We ought to be able to ask a scientific question about anything that’s been done and get a straight answer to that,” he says.
Sorry, Twilight fans: Edward and Bella’s latest cinematic adventure didn’t actually sell 40 million copies this holiday season.
That’s what Amazon implied in a press release it issued Monday, touting its holiday sales. But the eye-popping figure doesn’t hold up.
"For the holiday time period alone, Amazon customers bought enough copies of Eclipse for Edward Cullen to watch the movie 1,000 times a day for all 109 years of his life," the company wrote.
CNNMoney ran the math on that claim: 1,000 x 365 days in a year x 109 years = a whopping 39.8 million DVDs. And that’s not even counting the extra days in leap years.
When we called to fact-check, Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) backed off on its numbers.
‘"The Amazon stat you inquired about this morning should’ve read ‘year’ not ‘day,’" a company spokeswoman replied via e-mail.
Doing the math that way — 1,000 viewings a year for 109 years — nets a much more reasonable 109,000 Eclipse DVDs sold.
Amazon’s other quirky claims pan out. Here’s the math on them …
"Amazon customers purchased enough snow/tire chains to outfit the entire population of three of America’s top ski cities: Aspen, Breckenridge and Sun Valley."
Working off 2000 census figures, we get these population numbers:
Aspen: 5,914
Breckenridge: 2,408
Sun Valley: 1,427
So Amazon sold at least 9,749 snow & tire chains.
"Amazon customers purchased so many pairs of jeans that if you folded each pair and stacked them on top of each other, the height would be the equivalent of Mt cash advance now. Everest."
This requires some guesstimating. What’s the average height of a pair of folded jeans? Folded once or folded twice?
By happy coincidence, I have a pair of jeans under my desk. I folded it in half twice, the way one typically stores jeans, and measured at the midpoint. It’s a touch shy of two inches.
Mount Everest’s official height is 29,029 feet. That’s 348,348 inches. Divide by 2 and we have just over 174,000 pairs of jeans.
"Amazon customers purchased enough Kyjen Hide-a-Squirrels to hide one toy squirrel everyday for the next 100 years."
Well, this one is easy. 1 squirrel x 365 days x 100 years = 36,500 toy squirrels — plus another 25 for the leap-year days. So that’s 36,525 lucky dogs this holiday season.
"Amazon customers purchased more Philips Norelco shavers this holiday season than the average beard hairs on a man’s face."
This is like counting angels on the head of a pin. Hair-loss info site Keratin.com claims there’s 7,000 - 15,000 hairs in an average beard; Godrej Shaving Cream’s website claims the average is 30,000. No one is citing any sources.
So we’ll say Amazon sold more shavers than snow chains — but probably fewer shavers than Hide-a-Squirrels.
And no matter how you do the math, Eclipse DVDs trumped all else.
The man who refuses to leave Ivory Coast’s presidency faced new threats to his grasp on power after regional leaders threatened to remove him by force if necessary.
Meanwhile, the U.N.’s refugee agency said Saturday that at least 14,000 Ivorians have fled the chaos of their homeland, trekking for days to reach safety in Liberia.
Diplomatic pressure and sanctions have left Laurent Gbagbo increasingly isolated though he has been able to maintain his rule nearly a month after the disputed vote because of the loyalty of security forces and the military.
Even that, though, may disappear if he runs out of money to pay them.
Late Friday, West Africa leaders from the 15-country regional bloc ECOWAS _ the Economic Community of West African States _ threatened to send military intervention into Ivory Coast if incumbent Gbagbo refuses to step down peacefully.
“In the event that Mr. Gbagbo fails to heed this immutable demand of ECOWAS, the Community would be left with no alternative but to take other measures, including the use of legitimate force, to achieve the goals of the Ivorian people,” said a statement from ECOWAS.
James Gbeho, president of ECOWAS said the group of West African leaders was making an “ultimate gesture” to Gbagbo to urge him to make a peaceful exit.
The 15-nation regional bloc of West African states made the decision following a six-hour emergency summit in Abuja, Nigeria, on Ivory Coast as worries mounted that the country that suffered a 2002-2003 civil war could return to conflict.
Gbeho said the bloc would send in a high-level delegation to meet with Gbagbo, and tell him to step down, but did not give details as to when the delegation would go or a deadline for Gbagbo.
The threat of force came on the tail of another serious international reproach, this one from the West African economic and monetary union, which called on the regional central bank to cut off Gbagbo’s access to state coffers.
Gbagbo’s spokesman Ahoua Don Mello on Saturday denounced the decision by the union to give Ouattara’s government signing privileges on state accounts. He called the move “illegal and manifestly beyond their competence.”
The meeting of regional finance ministers that issued the freeze “overstepped its stated prerogatives by interfering in the internal affairs of a member state of the union,” Mello said on state television Friday evening.
Gbagbo’s government has denied rumors that state salaries wouldn’t be paid, and in spite of the financial freeze, civil servants received their paychecks the day before Christmas Eve. But senior diplomatic sources, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, say that Gbagbo only has enough reserves to run the state for three months, setting the scene for a drawn-out standoff.
Ivory Coast is the world’s biggest cocoa grower, producing 40 percent of the world’s supply. While a cocoa embargo might have a more immediate impact on Gbagbo’s ability to govern, European and American business interests prevent this from being seriously considered, said African security analyst Peter Pham.
“A cocoa embargo isn’t even on the table,” said Pham, who is the Senior Vice President of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in New York.
The threat of military intervention may add enough pressure to bring about a swifter resolution, said Pham, though he questioned whether a force could be brought together quickly enough to have an impact.
“Nigeria _ the only real military power in the AU _ is unlikely to have the stomach for a drawn-out military escapade on the eve of their own presidential election,” he said. Nigerian elections will be held in April next year.
Gbagbo has refused to step down from the presidency despite international calls for his ouster from the U savings account payday advance.N., U.S., former colonizer France, the European Union and the African Union. The international community recognizes Alassane Ouattara as the winner, though Gbagbo maintains control of the national military.
In recent days, the United Nations has expressed alarm about the actions of men who are believed to be Gbagbo loyalists. At least 173 deaths have been confirmed in violence over the presidential vote, and the U.N. is warning the number could be greater since it has been unable to investigate all the allegations.
Masked gunmen with rocket launchers have blocked access to what officials believe may be a mass grave site in Ivory Coast, the United Nations said. The world body also reported Thursday that heavily armed forces allied with Gbagbo and joined by masked men, were preventing people from getting to the village of N’Dotre, where the global body said “allegations point to the existence of a mass grave.”
The U.N. did not elaborate on the possible victims, though it has expressed concerns about hundreds of arrests, and dozens of cases of torture and disappearance during the political turmoil since the presidential runoff vote was held nearly a month ago.
Even the top U.N. envoy in the country was stopped at gunpoint while trying to look into reports of human rights abuses, the U.N. deputy human rights commissioner in Geneva said Thursday.
On Saturday, the Geneva-based office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees announced that the agency has “registered 14,000 Ivorian refugees in eastern Liberia who fled in the wake of post-electoral instability in their country for nearly a month now.”
“With their numbers growing, the humanitarian needs are increasing for the mostly women and children refugees as well as for the villagers hosting them,” the agency said in a statement.
“The growing number of new arrivals is impacting communities hosting the refugees. Food supplies are running short despite efforts by the government and humanitarian agencies to bring in more assistance,” the UNHCR said.
Meanwhile, Ouattara continued to assert his legitimacy from the Golf Hotel, where he has taken refuge since the election, protected by 800 U.N. peacekeepers.
“After these long years of crisis, the Ivorian people deserved to rejoice in our democratic advancement,” Ouattara said. “But former president Laurent Gbagbo has decided to turn a new page of violence and uncertainty, aggravating everyday a little more the suffering of Ivorians,” he said in a Christmas Eve address.
Troops loyal to Gbagbo continue to encircle the hotel. While their blockade was officially lifted last week and U.N. supply trucks were authorized to cross the lines, no one else has been allowed access to the compound.
Ouattara is trying to assert control over state television, which had been controlled by Gbagbo until Thursday, when it was pulled from airwaves in 80 percent of the country.
Only people in the main city of Abidjan continued to receive the state channel, which has been exclusively reporting Gbagbo’s victory, refusing to mention the results that make Ouattara president, or his international support.
“We don’t know who did it,” said Ouattara adviser Amadou Coulibaly, “but we’re sure glad they did.”
Ivory Coast was once an economic hub because of its role as the world’s top cocoa producer. The 2002-2003 civil war split the country into a rebel-controlled north and a loyalist south. While the country officially reunited in a 2007 peace deal, Ouattara draws his support from the northern half of the country, where he was born, while Gbagbo’s power base is in the south.
Japan’s government said growth will slow in 2011 as the yen’s 11 percent surge against the dollar this year threatens the recovery.
Gross domestic product will probably rise 1.5 percent in the year starting April 1 after growing a projected 3.1 percent this year, the Cabinet Office said today in Tokyo.
Shares in Toyota Motor Corp. and Panasonic Corp. fell after the government also downgraded its assessment of the nation’s exports, which have been threatened by the currency’s advance to a 15-year high. Overseas shipments expanded 9.1 percent in November, missing economists’ estimates, a report by the Finance Ministry showed today.
“With the yen staying at these high levels, exports will likely struggle to grow even though demand in advanced nations, mainly the U.S., will recover,” said Takuji Okubo, chief Japan economist at Societe Generale SA in Tokyo.
The yen traded at 83.71 per dollar at 3:34 p.m. in Tokyo. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 0.23 percent, paring gains posted earlier after a report showed exports accelerated for the first time in nine months in November.
“We need to keep a close eye on any possible slowdown in overseas economies and swings in the foreign-exchange rate,” the government said. “We will continue to take bold action including currency intervention when necessary, given that an excessively strengthening yen and its prolongation risk damaging economic and financial stability.”
Losing Steam
Government data in the past month have shown that industrial output fell by the most since February 2009, the jobless rate rose, and machinery orders declined more than economists’ forecast, signaling the economy is losing steam.
“The economic recovery is clearly losing momentum, while deflationary pressures are still strong,” Julian Jessop, a London-based economist for Capital Economics, said in a note highlighting the risk that the economy may contract this quarter and the next instant payday loan lenders. “The room for fiscal stimulus is also now largely exhausted.”
Japan’s economy is expected to shrink at a 1.9 percent annual pace in the three months through December, according to a survey of 42 economists released Dec. 8 by the Economic Planning Association. Growth was 4.5 percent in the third quarter as incentives to buy cars and electronics spurred consumer spending.
Sony Corp., the world’s third-largest television maker, may miss a target to sell 25 million TVs this fiscal year, Vice President Hiroshi Yoshioka said on Dec. 20.
Falling Short
The company may fall short of its goal for the year ending in March 31 by a “little bit,” he said without elaborating. Sony said in October the television industry is heading toward “harsh competition,” making it difficult to profit from TV operations this fiscal year.
The Japanese parliament last month passed an extra budget to fund a stimulus package aimed at fighting deflation and combating the stronger yen. To foster growth, the Bank of Japan cut its benchmark interest rate and created an asset-purchase fund in October.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s Cabinet last week approved an outline of tax revisions, including a cut in the corporate tax rate, to bolster a slowing economy. His government also is compiling a budget for the next fiscal year.
Kan’s declining popularity and a split parliament may complicate his efforts to implement new economic policies. The Kan Cabinet’s approval rating fell to 21 percent, the lowest since he took office in June, according to a survey by the Asahi newspaper. The poll was conducted on Dec. 11 and 12, and compared with a rating of 27 percent in November.
The Justice Department is urging the administrator of the $20 billion fund for Gulf oil spill claims to show greater transparency about the process so the victims can feel they are being treated fairly.
Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli said in a letter to Ken Feinberg on Friday night that this is a critical time for the claims fund as it transitions from initial emergency payments to paying interim and final claims.
Perrelli said he continues to have concerns about the pace of the claims process. He said many of the people and businesses who have claims under review don’t have the means to get by while they wait for their claims to be processed.
“While you have indicated that poor documentation has made it difficult to address some claims quickly, over the past two weeks the number of claims requiring additional documentation has actually gone down _ while the number of claims under review has increased significantly,” Perrelli wrote to Feinberg easy payday loan.
Feinberg told The Associated Press on Saturday he has paid out roughly $2 billion already to some 125,000 claimants. He estimated the total draw on the fund to date at $6 billion, which he said includes government and cleanup claims. An official with the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Trust could not immediately be reached to verify that figure. Feinberg described the payments to individuals and businesses as generous, but agrees there is room for improvement.
“I think it’s always wise to listen carefully to constructive criticism from the Department of Justice,” Feinberg said. “They want me to improve transparency, and I plan to do so.”
On the transparency issue, Perrelli said more information should be provided to victims about the principles being used to decide claims. He said there is very little reason not to do so.
BP PLC agreed to pay Feinberg’s law firm $850,000 a month to administer the fund. Feinberg also oversaw the $7 billion government fund for families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
When the oil spill claims fund was announced in June, officials said the fund could be used to pay all claims, including environmental damages and state and local response costs, with the exception of fines and penalties.
Money left over likely goes back to BP instant payday loan no faxing. The Justice Department verified that leftover money would go back to BP, but said the money would first be held in escrow for a number of years to make sure all claims are settled.
“I don’t really worry about that because if there’s money left over from the $20 billion, so be it, as long as anyone eligible has gotten paid,” Feinberg said.
An offshore oil rig being leased by BP exploded in the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana on April 20, leading to more than 200 million gallons of oil spewing from BP’s undersea well. Eleven workers on the rig were killed.
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