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Politics : Mainstream Politics and Economics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (24562)	8/22/2012 7:03:30 PM
From: Brian Sullivan	Respond to of 85487

More nonsense from the Dodd-Frank bank reform bill: Everyone that sells earings might be subject to this new government regulation. Big Retailers May Escape 'Conflict Minerals' Rule By JESSICA HOLZER WASHINGTON—Big retailers like Target Corp. TGT -0.70%and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. WMT +0.48%may largely escape a new rule requiring U.S.-listed public companies to disclose whether their goods contain so-called conflict minerals, blamed for fueling violence in central Africa. Retailers marketing their own store-brand goods had fought to be exempted from the requirement, which could cost businesses $4 billion up front, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and affects manufacturers of everything from smartphones and light bulbs to footwear. An earlier version of the rule proposed by the SEC would have covered many large U.S. retailers. But on Wednesday, the SEC voted 3-2 to adopt a final rule that would exempt companies that don't exert real control over goods they use contractors to manufacture. The minerals rule, along with a similar disclosure rule passed Wednesday focusing on the development of foreign oil fields, was mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul. Four minerals—tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold—are blamed for financing armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the surrounding region, and companies using any of these minerals are required to investigate whether they were mined from the area. Companies that believe the minerals they use may have been mined in the area must file a report with the SEC saying what steps they took to verify the minerals weren't taxed or controlled by rebel groups. The companies don't have to file a so-called minerals report with the SEC if their materials come from scrap or recycled sources. Companies that fail to verify their sources of supply still can sell their products, but may run the risk of having them shunned by consumers when they appear on lists linked to Central African violence The SEC estimates that around 6,000 U.S. and foreign companies would have to comply with the minerals rule. However, companies that merely attached their brand or label to a generic product manufactured by another company wouldn't be bound by the rule, according to an SEC fact sheet distributed at Wednesday's meeting. The SEC on Wednesday sharply raised its estimate of the rule's costs to businesses, putting it at $3 billion to $4 billion upfront and more than $200 million annually. The SEC initially said it would cost companies just $71 million to comply with the rule. Industry lobbyists were cautiously optimistic that the bulk of store-brand goods sold by leading retailers wouldn't fall under the requirement, but they were waiting to read the full text of the rule, which hasn't yet been published. Target and Wal-Mart didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Republican commissioners Troy Paredes and Dan Gallagher opposed the rule, questioning whether it belonged in the securities laws and whether the agency had determined the rule wouldn't do more harm than good. "We are pleasantly surprised where [the agency] ended up," said Jonathan Gold, National Retail Federation vice president. Mr. Gold declined to comment on the rule's impact before seeing the full text, expected to be posted on the SEC website by Wednesday evening. Big companies have a two-year period in which they wouldn't have to fully comply with the rule, while smaller companies were granted a four-year phase-in period. The SEC rejected other demands from business groups, including an exemption for companies using minimal amounts of minerals. The SEC said companies' minerals reports would be subject to the same level of legal liability that applies to annual reports and other important SEC filings. Also on Wednesday, the SEC voted 2-1 to adopt rules requiring companies to report their payments to foreign governments for developing oil and gas fields, another regulation that businesses say could cost them billions of dollars. Mr. Paredes and SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro recused themselves from the vote due to ties with the industry. Mr. Gallagher opposed the rule, saying the SEC could have done more to make it less onerous for companies. The SEC rejected a plea from the industry for an exemption for companies operating in places that forbid the disclosure of such payments. The American Petroleum Institute, in a press release, said the rule would hand U.S. oil companies' competitors a tactical advantage. "State-owned foreign companies would have to reveal nothing and might even be favored for projects in host countries reluctant to have financial information disclosed," API Chief Economist John Felmy said.

To: longnshort who wrote (24562)	8/23/2012 10:14:05 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 85487

you can get a poll to say anything, depends who you ask, who does the poll, how the questions are worded. There is that, and also the fact that the polls koan sites don't actually support the claims he makes, even if the data they present is 100% accurate. For example "Women support Obama over Romney" (apparently true, I don't think this is an artifact of the questions used, even if the exact size of the lead might be), becomes "women think Republicans are waging war on women", for some non-nonsensical reason, and that's supposed to prove the "fact" that Republicans actually are waging war on women. So you have exaggerated and irrelevant data, illogically used to support another point which it doesn't support, and then that other point is also irrelevant to the question at hand, but supposedly that jumbled mess of irrelevance and illogic is somehow supposed to be definitive.