World financial news

Italy’s ten-year borrowing costs have hit a new euro-era high amid ongoing fears that Europe’s debt crisis could spread to the country.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi is to address both houses of parliament on the state of the economy later Wednesday, as Italy president calls for new measures.

Spain is also under the market spotlight. Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has delayed his vacation by a day to monitor the increasingly bleak scenario.

Italy’s borrowing costs on Tuesday spiked.19 percentage points to 6.21 percent, while Spain’s rose 0.09 points to 6.34 percent, a little shy of Tuesday’s euro era high of 6.45 percent.

Meanwhile, the Milan Stock Exchange lost 2.1 percent, while Spain’s main index was 0.1 percent higher.

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The U.S. trade deficit surged in May to the highest level in more than two and a half years, driven upward by a big increase in oil imports.

The Commerce Department says the deficit increased 15.1 percent to $50.2 billion in May. That’s the largest imbalance since October 2008.

Exports declined 0.5 percent to $174.9 billion. Imports rose 2.6 percent to $225.1 billion.

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Germany softened its position on giving Greece more help by agreeing with France on Friday that private investors would be involved only on a voluntary basis, a move that boosts hopes the debt-ridden country will get another rescue package.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced they had reached common ground on the delicate topic of involving Greece’s bondholders, calming fears Germany wanted to see losses forced on private creditors.

Eurozone finance ministers earlier this week failed to reach a deal on a second set of rescue loans necessary to save Greece from defaulting on its massive debts amid divisions over the role of banks.

Merkel told reporters that Germany had agreed that “participation of the private creditors, on a voluntary basis, and I stress that,” was needed in order to swiftly secure a new rescue package for Greece and ensure the stability of the common currency.

In recent weeks, Merkel had backed her finance minister’s calls for banks and other private bondholders to give Greece an extra seven years to repay its bonds. Rating agencies as well as the European Central Bank, however, warned that such a moved would likely count as a “credit event,” a partial default by Greece that could spread panic on financial markets and hurt Greek banks.

After the meeting, Merkel indicated she now favored a so-called “Vienna-style” agreement, which had previously received support from the ECB and France.

Under such a deal, banks and other private investors would commit to maintaining their exposure to Greece by buying new bonds as old ones expire and keeping their Greek banking subsidiaries afloat. That type of bond roll-over would likely have to come with some tweaks, as market interest rates on Greek bonds are currently way above what the Greek state could afford.

“It is about a voluntary participation of the private sector, and for that the ‘Vienna-style,’ as it is called, is a good basis and I think that we can use it to move forward,” Merkel told reporters.

Sarkozy said “relatively precise principles” for the private-sector involvement would now have to be fixed, adding that “this can be put into place relatively quickly.”

Merkel also ruled out the idea of triggering anything that could be counted as a default payday loans. “We do not want that,” she stressed. “This is about a voluntary participation.”

J.P. Morgan wrote in a research note that “Germany appears to have backed down” and welcomed the move as the clearing of a key obstacle to a solution for Greece.

European finance ministers meet Sunday and Monday to discuss the crisis.

A decision to extend the maturities of Greek bonds without the creditors’ consent or a haircut on the value of the debt would have been an immediate hit to banks, with the biggest fear being that of contagion _ a difficult-to-predict chain reaction that could roil markets and make it harder for other indebted countries to cope with their debts, with the result being higher borrowing costs for eurozone countries.

The European Central Bank has been very hostile to seeing private creditors sharing a part of the burden for fear it would be considered a credit event that would erode trust in the 17-nation currency.

Merkel therefore stressed that any solution must be found in accordance with the ECB.

“This should be worked out with the European Central Bank. There may be no contradictions here,” she said.

The EU’s top financial official, Olli Rehn, indicated Thursday that Greece will likely get its next financial lifeline in July if Prime Minister George Papandreou’s government can pass new budget cuts and privatizations before the end of the month. The next euro12 billion ($17 billion) injection would keep the country afloat until September.

In Athens, Papandreou replaced his finance minister Friday as part of a broad reshuffle in an effort to calm criticism and meet the requirements to get the fresh aid injection.

The Franco-German announcement on private creditors was reminiscent of a similar bilateral deal last fall, when the two leaders set out the cornerstones of new pan-European fiscal rules and a permanent bailout mechanism.

“I believe that this meeting … again shows the power of the Franco-German couple,” Sarkozy said.

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Gabriele Steinhauser contributed to this report from Brussels.

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St. Louis bargain hunters who love T.J. Maxx and Marshalls will soon have another retail chain to pick from.

The nation’s second-largest off-price retailer — Ross Stores — is entering this market with at least two Ross Dress for Less stores already in the works. The Pleasanton, Calif.-based company has signed leases to open in the shuttered Linens ‘n Things locations in Chesterfield and Fairview Heights. And retail brokers say the chain is still looking for more locations in the area.

The store in Chesterfield Commons is expected to open in March 2012. And the one at the Lincoln Place Shopping Center in Fairview Heights is also slated to open next year.

Ross Dress for Less has been rapidly growing in recent years, adding about 30 stores in the last year for a total of 998 stores as of May. In 2008, it had 838 stores. (By comparison, T.J. Maxx had about 923 stores at the end of 2010. It is part of the largest off-price retailer because the same company also owns Marshalls.)

Ross currently operates in 27 states, mostly in southern and western parts of the country unsecured personal loans. But it now is making inroads to the Midwest.

When I contacted the company this week, it would only say in an email that it was indeed opening locations in Illinois, but did not provide any more details.

According to its website, Ross Dress for Less offers in-season, name brand and designer apparel, accessories, footwear and home fashions for the whole family. It says its prices are 20 to 60 percent off department and specialty store prices.

It’s able to keep prices down by negotiating with manufacturers, buying opportunistically, and having “no frill” stores with simple displays and a centralized check-out.

Also, it buys different merchandise for different stores. So if you see something you like in one of its stores in California, you won’t necessarily find it here in one of the upcoming St. Louis stores.

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If it succeeds, the rival bid for TMX Group Inc., owner of the Toronto Stock Exchange, will make history far beyond derailing a takeover offer for TMX made by London Stock Exchange PLC in February, supported by Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of Montreal.

The nine-member Maple Group Acquisition Corp., a consortium of four Canadian banks and five pension funds, seeks to further strengthen a TMX already regarded by investors worldwide as the

In a far-off land called I’m Right, You’re Wrong, a fierce drug-legalization debate is raging. Half the people, libertarians, say drug use should be legal. The other half, moral purists, insist it shouldn’t.

They disagree even on what to call it when those who buy or sell drugs are led off to jail. The libertarians call this a form of taxation — specifically, a tax on the time of the buyer and seller. The moral purists prefer the term criminal penalties.

On this much everybody can agree: non-violent buyers and sellers are wasting a lot of time in jail.

Let’s say everyone agrees to drop the unwinnable legalization argument and to do something useful: switch to levying penalties in dollars rather than in time.

The penalties should equal the difference between the gross price paid by buyers, including the dollar value of their lost time, and the net price received by sellers, after subtracting the dollar value of their lost time. The amount of drugs bought and sold doesn’t change. What does change is that no one is sitting in jail on drug charges, and the government has real revenue from taxes or penalties (call it what you will).

Why pay to house and feed drug buyers and sellers in prison when you can convert the implied tax-penalty into money that can be spent on something useful — like a public campaign showing the terrible dangers of drug use?

Filled Jails

This question applies in spades to the U.S. Our home of the free has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world, and enforcement of drug laws has a lot to do with that. Among developed countries, nobody else comes close. Our imprisonment rate is six times that of Britain, seven times that of Germany and nine times that of France.

America’s lockup rate is not only miles out of line with that of other countries. It’s completely out of line with our own past practice. Today’s rate is five times what it was in 1970. Over the same period, our violent crime rate has fallen by half. The increase in non-violent criminal incarceration is concentrated among drug offenders, whose numbers have increased 12-fold since 1980.

Among groups disproportionately involved in trafficking drugs, incarceration rates are staggering. Fifteen percent of white male high school dropouts and 69 percent of black male high school dropouts will spend time in jail by age 35. These figures are four and five times higher, respectively, than they were in 1979.

Huge Cost

As of 2008, more than 2.3 million Americans — roughly the population of our fourth-largest city, Houston — were locked up. China, with about four times the U.S. population, has 1.5 million people behind bars. Tally the number of Americans in jail, on parole, or on probation and you’re talking close to the populations of Los Angeles and Chicago combined.

The cost of putting so many people away is huge. Half of these expenditures are made by state governments, many of which are in terrible fiscal shape. Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, Oregon and Vermont now spend more on prisons than on higher education. For those released from jail, legitimate jobs, let alone well-paying ones, are very hard to find.

More than half of prison inmates have minor children. Consequently, millions of our kids are now growing up with at least one parent incarcerated, which helps explain why our country leads the developed world in child poverty.

In our view, using and selling drugs should be seen as socially offensive and loudly condemned to discourage use. Those selling drugs to minors, a form of child abuse, should be locked away for a long time.

Time Is Money

But for the vast majority of those engaged in the drug trade, we should switch from taking some of their time to taking some of their money. The dollar-denominated penalties (taxes, if you prefer) should be high enough to limit drug use without encouraging widespread evasion. Drug addicts would be offered rehabilitation programs as an alternative to paying the full price of their habit.

In the world we envision, the adult drug stores would be considered by some as legal and taxed, by others as illegal and fined. Regardless, they would operate like other commercial enterprises and receive the same police protection. As with the ending of Prohibition, this would dramatically reduce the horrendous violent crime rates in many of our major cities. The proceeds from taxing the drug trade should be used in two ways only — to publicly condemn and discourage drug use, and to help those dependent on drugs to get clean.

Like our war on smoking, we can start to win our war on drugs. To do so, we need, at long last, to adopt a winning strategy.

(Laurence Kotlikoff, professor of economics at Boston University and president of Economic Security Planning Inc., is a Bloomberg News columnist. Glenn Loury, professor of social sciences at Brown University, is co-author of “Ethnicity, Social Mobility, and Public Policy.”)

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PNC Bank has filed a federal lawsuit against an owner of two multi-family properties in St. Louis County seeking to recoup nearly $6 million in outstanding loans and asking the court to appoint receivers to take over management of both properties.

PNC Bank filed the suit in the District Court of St. Louis on April 18 against Gannon Partnership 19 LP and Aspen Cove Townhomes LLC, which are both affiliates of Gannon International, a privately-held business based in Creve Coeur.

PNC alleges Gannon defaulted on a loan for the 272-unit Springwood Apartments in Bel Ridge in North St. Louis County and owes nearly $5.7 million. PNC further alleges that Gannon has not adequately cared for the Springwood Apartments, as required under its loan terms. To support this allegation, PNC attached a copy of a letter Bel-Ridge city officials sent to Gannon in mid-March listing dozens of necessary repairs, including falling catwalks, broken windows and hanging gutters. The property is currently leased to tenants.

“PNC is informed and believes that the failure to make such repairs will result in Bel-Ridge’s refusal to issue occupancy permits,” PNC says in the suit. PNC asks the court to appoint a receiver to take over management of Springwood.

Calls to Gannon were not returned.

Wendi Alper-Pressman, an attorney representing PNC Bank, declined to comment on the pending litigation.

The lawsuit also alleges Gannon owes PNC $272,438 for a loan secured by Aspen Cove Townhomes in Ellisville, which has 78 units. Some of the apartment units have been converted to condominiums and are owned by parties not affiliated with the lawsuit. PNC alleges Gannon is in default on the loan and requested that the court appoint a receiver for the property to oversee leases and sales contracts.

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UnitedHealth Group says its first-quarter net income rose 13 percent, led by revenue gains in commercial health insurance. The managed care company also raised its full-year earnings forecast.

The Minnetonka, Minn., insurer says it earned $1.34 billion, or $1.22 per share, in the three months that ended March 31. That’s up from the $1.19 billion, or $1.03 per share, in the same quarter last year. Revenue rose 10 percent to $25.43 billion.

Analysts expected 89 cents per share on $24.97 billion in revenue.

UnitedHealth is the largest health insurer based on revenue and the first to report quarterly earnings.

The company now expects 2011 earnings per share to range between $3.95 and $4.05. That’s up from $3.50 to $3.70. Analysts have said the old outlook was conservative.

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Greece said it has no plans for a debt restructuring even as German officials openly discuss the possibility and investors charge a record amount to insure the country’s obligations.

“Restructuring is not an issue we’re discussing,” Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said in an April 16 interview in Washington. “The pain and the cost” of doing so would be greater than repaying lenders, he told reporters the same day.

Greece found support from International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde after German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was quoted as saying “further measures may have to be taken” if Greece fails a June audit. German Deputy Foreign Minister Werner Hoyer told Bloomberg News last week that restructuring “would not be a disaster.”

Traders are betting on a default. The cost of insuring Greek government debt rose to a record 1,155 basis points on April 15, according to CMA prices for credit-default swaps. The contracts indicate investors see about a 63 percent chance the nation will default within five years.

‘Rightly Nervous’

Restructuring would “create realized losses across the global banking system — but mainly in Europe,” David Zervos, head of global fixed-income strategy at Jefferies & Co. in New York, said in a note to clients on April 15. “Markets are rightly nervous.”

Greece’s aid program was designed on the assumption that the country would repay debt rather than restructure, and “nothing has changed,” Strauss-Kahn said as he hosted the IMF’s semi-annual meetings in the U.S. capital. Lagarde said April 14 at the same talks that “there is no discussion about debt restructuring, none whatsoever.”

The yield on 10-year Greek debt rose 55 basis points to 13.83 percent on April 15, widening the spread over German bunds to a record 1,045 basis points. The euro dropped from a 15-month high versus the dollar on concern of the first default by a euro-area country. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.

“The issue of Greece is not whether there will be debt restructuring, but when it will be done, and whether it will be an orderly market-oriented debt exchange or disorderly like in Argentina,” Nouriel Roubini, the economist who predicted the global financial crisis, said at a conference in Kazakhstan on April 15.

Euro Partners

Greece has asked euro-area partners to consider rescheduling all of its debt, the Wall Street Journal reported citing people familiar with the matter who weren’t identified. A finance ministry press officer in Athens, who declined to be identified citing government policy, denied the report.

Lucas Papademos, an adviser to Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and a former vice president of the European Central Bank, suggested April 9 that extending maturities of debt would be one option to consider after implementing measures attached to a 110 billion-euro loan package from the European Union and IMF.

Asked April 16 about the possibility, Papaconstantinou declined to comment directly. Rescheduling all debt and pushing back maturity of European loans is “not the same thing,” he said in Washington. “The official sector can choose to do so.”

‘No Need’

European Central Bank governing council member Ewald Nowotny said he sees “no need” for a restructuring by Greece. Such a step “would be very harmful and not efficient,” he said in an April 16 interview with Bloomberg News in Washington.

Questions over Greek finances are mounting while the country steps up efforts to reduce its budget deficit. Greece last week outlined 26 billion euros in cuts and 50 billion euros in asset sales.

The Wall Street Journal reported that IMF officials believe Greece’s debt burden is unsustainable and should be restructured. William Murray, an IMF spokesman, said yesterday that “there is absolutely no truth” to the story. Martin Kotthaus, a spokesman for Schaeuble, said there is “no basis” for a Financial Times report that German officials are considering a plan to let holders of Greek bonds swap them for safer securities guaranteed by euro-member countries.

Greece isn’t the only euro-area country relying on support from neighboring governments and the IMF. Officials are preparing a plan to support Portugal, and Ireland has also received a bailout.

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McDonald’s is reporting a 5.3 percent rise in January sales at locations open more than a year, giving credit to its McCafe hot chocolate, Chicken McNuggets and the addition of oatmeal to the menu.

U.S. sales growth was weaker than the rest of the world. U.S. sales rose 3.1 percent, Europe 7 percent and Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa 5.2 percent.

Sales at locations open at least a year is an important gauge because it measures revenue from the company’s existing restaurants rather than growth that came from opening new locations.

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