Fear, finger-pointing mount over U.S. fiscal cliff

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Top U.S. lawmakers voiced rising fear on Sunday that the country would go over “the fiscal cliff” in nine days, triggering harsh spending cuts and tax hikes, and some Republicans charged that was President Barack Obama‘s goal.

“It’s the first time that I feel it’s more likely that we will go over the cliff than not,” Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“If we allow that to happen it will be the most colossal consequential act of congressional irresponsibility in a long time, maybe ever in American history,” Lieberman added.

The Democratic president and Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, the two key negotiators, are not talking and are out of town for the Christmas holidays. Congress is in recess, and will have only a few days next week to act before January 1.

On the Sunday news shows, no one signaled a change of position that could form the basis for a short-term fix, despite a suggestion from Obama on Friday that he would favor one.

The focus was shifting instead to the days following January 1 when the lowered tax rates dating back to the George W. Bush administration will have expired, presenting Congress with a redefined and more welcome task that involves only cutting taxes, not raising them.

“I believe we are,” going over the cliff, said Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming. “I think the president is eager to go over the cliff for political purposes. I think he sees a political victory at the bottom of the cliff,” Barrasso said on Fox News Sunday.

Some Republicans have said Obama would welcome the fiscal cliff’s tax increases and defense cuts, as well as the chance to blame Republicans for rejecting deal. Obama has rejected that assertion.

Congress started the clock ticking in August of 2011 on the cliff. The threat of about $ 600 billion of spending cuts and tax increases was intended to shock the Democratic-led White House and Senate and the Republican-led House into bridging their many differences to approve a plan to bring tax relief to most Americans and curb runaway federal spending.

Economists say the harsh tax increases and budget cuts from the fiscal cliff could thrust the world’s largest economy back into a recession, unless Congress acts quickly to ease the economic blow.

MARKETS COULD TUMBLE

The most immediate impact could come in financial markets, which have been relatively calm in recent weeks as Republicans and Democrats bickered, but could tumble without prospects for a deal.

Markets will be open for a half-day on Christmas Eve, when Congress will not be in session, and will be closed on Tuesday for Christmas.

Wall Street will resume regular stock trading on Wednesday, but volume is expected to be light throughout the week with scores of market participants away on a holiday break.

If Congress fails to reach any agreement, income tax rates will go up on just about everyone on January 1. Unemployment benefits, which Democrats had hoped to extend as part of a deal, will expire for many as well.

In the first week of January, Congress could scramble and get a quick deal on taxes and the $ 109 billion in automatic spending cuts for 2013 that most lawmakers want to avoid.

Once tax rates go up on January 1, it could be easier to keep those higher rates on wealthier taxpayers while reducing them for middle- and lower-income taxpayers. Lawmakers would not have to cast votes to raise taxes.

Some lawmakers expressed guarded hope that a short-term deal on deficit-reduction could be reached in the next week or so, with a longer more permanent deal hammered out next year.

But a short-term deal would need bipartisan support, as Obama has said he would veto a bill that does not raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

Democratic Senator Kent Conrad, chairman of the Budget Committee, said Obama and Boehner are not that far apart and that both sides should keep pushing for a long-term big deal.

“I would hope we would have one last attempt here to do what everyone knows needs to be done, which is the larger plan that really does stabilize the debt and get us moving in the right direction,” Conrad of North Dakota told Fox News Sunday.

(Reporting By Thomas Ferraro and Richard Cowan; Editing by Fred Barbash and Vicki Allen)

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Italy’s Monti opens door to seeking new term

ROME (Reuters) – Two days after stepping down, Mario Monti announced on Sunday he would consider seeking a second term as Italian prime minister if approached by allies committed to backing his austere brand of reforms.

The former European commissioner, appointed to lead an unelected government of experts to save Italy from financial crisis a year ago, resigned on Friday but has faced growing calls to seek a second term at a parliamentary election on February 24-25.

At stake is the leadership of the world’s eighth largest economy, where recession and public debt of more than 2 trillion ($ 2.63 billion) have aggravated investor concerns about growth and stability in the euro zone.

“If a credible political force asked me to be candidate as prime minister for them, I would consider it,” said Monti, who has imposed repeated tax hikes and spending cuts to shore up Italy’s strained public finances.

He had kept his position a closely guarded secret for weeks, and in recent days had appeared to be have strong doubts about whether to continue in front-line politics. He made clear that if he ran, it would probably be at the head of a centrist grouping.

Monti held back from committing himself fully to the race, and said he was aware any decision to stay in politics carried “many risks and a high probability of failure”.

“I am not in any party. I am ready to give my appreciation and encouragement, to be leader and to take on any responsibility I may be given by parliament,” he said.

As a senator for life, Monti has no need to run for election to parliament but he said he would publish a detailed agenda of recommendations for a future government and would potentially be willing to lead a party that adopted it as its own.

Still serving as caretaker leader, Monti is widely respected for restoring Italy’s reputation after the scandal-plagued era of his predecessor Silvio Berlusconi.

The former economics professor is backed strongly by Italy’s business establishment and by EU allies including German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He has been urged to stay by centrist groups ranging from disaffected former Berlusconi allies to the small UDC party, which is close to the Catholic church.

But there is little sign of enthusiasm for a second term among voters weary of his austerity policies. A survey last week showed 61 percent did not think he should stand. It said a potential centrist alliance under his leadership was likely to gain around 15 percent support.

BITTER ELECTION

Both Berlusconi’s center-right People of Freedom (PDL) party and the center-left Democratic Party (PD), which is leading in the opinion polls, have urged Monti not to stand in the election.

Berlusconi, who left office last year with fraud charges and a juvenile prostitution scandal hanging over him, has accused Monti’s “Germano-centric” government of worsening recession with austerity measures, including a deeply unpopular housing tax he has promised to scrap.

In an exchange which may give a taste of bitter campaigning to come, Berlusconi said his nightmare would be a government with Monti at its head and Gianfranco Fini, a former ally turned bitter foe who supports the premier, “coming out of the sewers”.

Fini’s lieutenant Fabio Granata responded by saying Berlusconi’s remark was “fitting for his court of thieves, mafiosi, corrupt politicians, slaves and prostitutes.”

Monti was also scathing about Berlusconi, whom he replaced as Italy teetered on the brink of disaster in November 2011.

He said he had been “bewildered” by the 76-year-old media tycoon’s frequent changes of position. And, in an interview with La Repubblica daily, he expressed incredulity that Italians might re-elect Berlusconi “after seeing the damage he did to the Italian economy and the credibility of the country”.

PD leader Pier Luigi Bersani, whose party has backed Monti in parliament and pledges to maintain the broad course he has set, was more cautious, saying he would look at Monti’s reform proposals closely but that it would be up to voters to decide.

Monti said he hoped the next government would have a strong majority to pursue a programme that would extend the reforms his government had begun, in areas ranging from the labor market to justice and cutting the bloated cost of the political system.

He said the next government must not make easy election promises or backtrack on reforms: “We have to avoid illusory and extremely dangerous steps backwards.”

During his 13 months in office, Monti hiked taxes severely and chopped backed spending while pushing through reforms of the pension system, labor market and parts of the service sector.

However, many analysts said his efforts were too timid to significantly improve the outlook of a chronically sluggish economy, and Monti himself said that Italy was “only at the beginning of the structural reforms” required.

Italy, the euro zone’s third-largest economy, has been in recession since the middle of last year. Consumer spending is falling at its fastest rate since World War Two and unemployment has risen to a record high above 11 percent.

(Editing by Barry Moody and Mark Trevelyan)

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Canada spending growth sluggish in November, Mastercard says

(Reuters) – Canada‘s holiday shopping season got off to a slow start in November with retail sales rising only 1.3 percent from the previous year, compared with 4.2 percent growth a year earlier, according to data released by MasterCard on Thursday.

Still, the shopping season was still young in November. MasterCard Advisors, the payment company’s research and consulting division, found that in recent years, holiday shopping peaks from December 20 to December 22.

“Many Canadians may have gotten an early start with Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year, but it’s still a very young phenomenon in Canada,” Senior Vice-President Richard McLaughlin, said in a release.

The Friday after U.S. Thanksgiving is the unofficial start to the holiday shopping season south of the border, and in recent years retailers have imported Black Friday sales to Canada.

Some also promote online sales the following Monday.

Canada’s online retail sales continued to grow in November, increasing 26.4 percent.

(Reporting by Allison Martell; Editing by Peter Galloway)

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Slave-Revenge Film ‘Django Unchained’ Tracking Strongly With African-Americans

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Django Unchained” – about a bounty hunter who partners with a freed slave to take down a plantation owner – is tracking extremely well with African Americans, the Weinstein Company said Thursday.

Quentin Tarantino wrote and directed the violent Western, which stars Christoph Waltz, Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio, respectively. Opening on Christmas Day, it’s a front-runner in several Academy Award categories.

Despite the violence, it’s one of the few holiday offerings that would by nature of its subject matter appeal to an African-American audience.

“We think this film is going to resonate with everyone,” the Weinstein Company’s head of distribution Erik Lomis told TheWrap Thursday. And while he didn’t offer specific figures on the degree of interest among African-Americans the company’s pre-release research indicated, he did say that it is “looking very, very strong for us” with that demographic.

That’s good news for “Django,” which will open against Universal’s “Les Miserables” in a very crowded holiday box office. Analysts see a first weekend in the $ 25 million range for “Django,” and predict it ultimately will surpass $ 100 million domestically.

Last week “Django” received Golden Globes nominations for picture, director, screenplay and two supporting actors, Waltz and DiCaprio.

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Hepatitis C tests continue after NH tech’s arrest

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Hospitals across the country recommended hepatitis C testing for about 7,900 patients last summer after a traveling medical worker was accused of stealing drugs and infecting patients with tainted syringes in New Hampshire. But five months later, nearly half of those who were possibly exposed to the liver-destroying disease in other states have yet to be tested.

Described by prosecutors as a “serial infector,” David Kwiatkowski is accused of stealing syringes of the powerful painkiller fentanyl from the cardiac catheterization lab at New Hampshire’s Exeter Hospital and replacing them with saline-filled syringes tainted with his own blood. In jail since his arrest in July, he pleaded not guilty to 14 federal drug charges earlier this month and is expected to go to trial next fall.

Before April 2001, when he was hired in New Hampshire, Kwiatkowski worked as a traveling cardiac technologist in 18 hospitals in seven states, moving from job to job — despite being fired twice over allegations of drug use and theft.

Thirty-two people in New Hampshire have been diagnosed with the same strain of hepatitis C that Kwiatkowski carries, along with six in Kansas, five in Maryland and one in Pennsylvania. At least 3,700 people outside New Hampshire have yet to be tested, hospitals and public health officials told The Associated Press.

For example, in Michigan, where Kwiatkowski grew up and started his career, about 2,300 patients at five hospitals were notified that they may have been exposed to hepatitis C by Kwiatkowski. As of early December, only about 500 had gone in for testing, none of whom were diagnosed with a strain linked to the New Hampshire outbreak, according to the Michigan Department of Community Health.

In Pennsylvania, 2,280 patients at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Presbyterian were notified that they should get tested, but only 840 have, one of whom was diagnosed with a matching strain of hepatitis C.

Kwiatkowski was fired a few weeks into his temporary job at UPMC in 2008 after a co-worker accused him of swiping a fentanyl syringe from an operating room and sticking it down his pants. Citing a lack of evidence, hospital authorities didn’t call police, and neither the hospital nor the medical staffing agency that placed him in the job informed the national accreditation organization for radiological technicians. Within days, Kwiatkowski was starting a new job at the Baltimore VA Medical Center, where one patient also has since been diagnosed with hepatitis C linked to Kwiatkowski.

Though the VA center initially said it had identified 168 patients who may have been exposed, that number was later lowered, and 68 patients ultimately were tested. Two other Maryland hospitals where Kwiatkowski worked also have completed their testing, with no diagnosed cases of hepatitis C matching Kwiatkowski. But at the fourth, The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, four patients have been diagnosed with the strain of disease linked to Kwiatkowski.

About 500 of the 1,567 patients notified by Johns Hopkins have yet to be tested, according to hospital spokeswoman Kim Hoppe. Kwiatkowski had been referred by a staffing agency that assured Johns Hopkins that it had followed a vigorous vetting process, Hoppe said. He worked there for two 13-week stints, from July 2009 to January 2010.

Saint Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where Kwiatkowski worked in late 2007 and early 2008, notified and tested 31 patients without finding any linked cases to Kwiatkowski. In Kansas, nearly all of the 416 patients who may have been exposed at Hays Medical Center have been tested and six have been diagnosed with infections linked to the New Hampshire outbreak.

There have been no cases linked to Kwiatkowski in Arizona, where about 300 patients from two hospitals have been asked to get tested and about 280 have done so. Kwiatkowski worked at Maryvale Hospital in Phoenix in 2009 and the Arizona Heart Hospital in 2010. He was fired from the latter job after 10 days after a co-worker found him passed out in a bathroom stall with a stolen fentanyl syringe floating in the toilet.

That incident was reported to police, Kwiatkowski’s staffing agency, a state regulatory board and the national accreditation organization, but the accreditation group dropped its inquiry after learning police hadn’t filed charges.

Days later, Kwiatkowski landed a new job filling in for striking technicians at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia. That hospital has recommended testing for 312 patients but won’t say how many have followed through or have been diagnosed with hepatitis C. A hospital spokesman referred questions to the city health department, which did not return calls.

Testing also is still under way in the last place Kwiatkowski worked before heading to New Hampshire — Houston Medical Center in Warner Robins, Ga. According to the hospital, fewer than 100 people have yet to be tested, and there haven’t been any cases yet linked to Kwiatkowski.

In New Hampshire, where about 3,300 patients were tested, Kwiatkowski is charged with seven counts of illegally obtaining drugs and seven counts of tampering with a consumer product, though prosecutors have said further charges are possible. Although New Hampshire cannot charge him for possible violations in other states, it can use evidence gathered in those jurisdictions in its trial, U.S. Attorney John Kacavas said. Other states are waiting to see the outcome of New Hampshire’s case before deciding whether to file charges, he said.

“We continue to reach out to other states affected by this matter,” Kacavas said this week. “Other health organizations and departments continue to do their work in their states, but nothing has changed in the sense that our prosecution will go forward. At this point, we are the only prosecution in the country, and we’ll see how it rolls out.”

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News Corp publishing loses $2.1bn

21 December 2012 Last updated at 13:22 ET

News Corporation says its publishing wing incurred a $ 2.1bn (£1.3bn) loss in the last financial year.

Revenues fell 5%, partly as a result of the closure of the News of the World, which it stopped publishing after the phone-hacking scandal broke in the UK.

The company detailed the losses as it formally applied to US regulators the Securities and Exchange Commission to split its business into two.

News Corp plans to separate publishing from its film and TV business.

The publishing arm, which News Corp said had made a profit of $ 678m the year before, will be called New News Corp. It will include book publisher Harper Collins, the Times and the Sun newspapers in the UK, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and the Australian.

The more lucrative TV and film business will be the parent company and will be called Fox Group.

It will include the US news channel Fox News and the 20th Century Fox film studio.

‘Adverse trends’

The loss made by the publishing arm included a $ 2.6bn impairment charge, after writedowns of $ 1.3bn for goodwill and $ 1.3bn for other intangible assets, primarily newspaper mastheads and distribution networks.

These impairment charges were largely the result of “adverse trends affecting several businesses”, including a weakening economic environment in Australia and lower predicted revenues from certain businesses.

The charges also reflected the expected sale of certain assets at a value below their carrying value, News Corp said.

The company first announced its plan to split in June, after pressure from shareholders who were concerned about the damage done to the publishing business by the events at the News of the World.

Robert Thomson, who is currently the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal and previously edited the Times, will be head of the new publishing company.

He will receive an annual salary of $ 2m, and a performance-based annual bonus with a target of $ 2m.

Rupert Murdoch will carry on as chairman and chief executive of the parent company, for which his compensation totalled $ 30m in the last year.

His pay will increase “modestly” as he takes on the role of executive chairman of the publishing company.

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SaleSpider Media Gets Ready for 2013

SaleSpider Media had an extremely successful 2012 and looks to bring that success into 2013.

toronto, ON (PRWEB) December 21, 2012

SaleSpider Media had an extremely successful 2012 and looks to bring that success into 2013. Over the past year each of SaleSpider Media’s social networks have growth substantially. SaleSpider.com, North America‘s largest SMB social network, grew by over 500% in 2012. SaleSpider Media’s other properties, HomeOwnersCircle.com and WealthMason.com, each grew by over 2000% in traffic over the same time period.

The substantial growth of SaleSpider Media can be attributed to the company’s digital innovations in the past year, here is a quick snapshot:

SaleSpider Media looks to continue to bring great innovations to our social platforms and grow with our users in the coming year of 2013.

About Sales Spider Media:

SaleSpider Media is a leading internet company with multiple fast-growing, highly-related brands serving loyal consumer and business audiences…our mission is to harness the power of interactivity to make daily life easier and more productive for people all over North America and The World.

SaleSpider Media’s exclusive web properties have millions of unique visitors and opt-in members and are growing by over 90% each quarter. The company has deep reach to in-market buyers in Auto, Travel, Finance, Insurance, Technology, B2B, and many more!

SaleSpider Media works with top Fortune 100 companies and is a leader in…

• First Party Data Targeting reaching “ready to buy” consumers


• Reaching Business Decision Makers by company size, industry, title and geography


• Social Media, multiple platforms including the largest small business social network in North America

To learn more about SaleSpider Media, please see SaleSpiderMedia.com.

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BMG Scores Rights to Nirvana, Tears for Fears Songs

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – BMG has acquired the worldwide rights to several music catalogues, a deal that will give it songs from artists including Kurt Cobain, Tears for Fears, The Human League, Iggy Pop, and Take That.

The company announced Friday that it will purchase the rights for the Virgin Music Publishing Companies, Famous UK Music Publishing and selected current songwriters from Sony/ATV and EMI Music Publishing.

Sony Corporation of America and a group of investors acquired EMI Music Publishing in June, and Sony/ATV Music Publishing administers EMI on behalf of the group. It had to sell the catalogues as a condition of the acquisition.

Virgin Publishing’s catalogue includes Kurt Cobain‘s songs for Nirvana, including “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Come As You Are” and “About A Girl.”

Other hits include Jim Steinman’s “Total Eclipse Of The Heart,” Lenny Kravitz’ “Are You Gonna Go My Way,” Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black,” and Devo’s “Whip It.”

Other songs include Take That’s greatest hits, including “Patience,” “Shine” and “Greatest Day,” as well as former member Robbie William’s interests in “Angels,” “Rock DJ” and “Let Me Entertain You.”

Also in the catalogue are Tears for Fears‘ “Everybody Rules The World,” Culture Club’s “Karma Chamelon,” OMD’s “Enola Gay,” and Iggy Pop‘s “Lust for Life,” as well as recent hits including Duffy’s “Mercy.”

BMG, the fourth-largest music publishing company, is a three-year-old partnership between Bertelsmann and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. In May, it announced it had more than one million copyrights under management.

“These catalogues contain some of the most influential and successful songs in popular music,” said BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch. “We are delighted to have won the opportunity to represent the writers of those songs and to demonstrate to them BMG‘s commitment to twenty-first century service. They have my pledge that we will do our very best to deliver for them.”

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Gilead A Strong Buy On New HIV Treatments

By Jordo Bivona – December 21, 2012 | Tickers: BMY, GILD, YMI | 0 Comments

Jordo is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network — entries represent the personal opinions of our bloggers and are not formally edited.

Despite the expiration of some of its HIV patents in 2018, Gilead Sciences’ (NASDAQ: GILD) new HIV treatments will enable the company to extend its HIV-based profitability for the long-term.

Gilead has done well with fixed-dose combination pills Truvada and Atripla combining multiple HIV medications into a single pill. The company has been rewarded with an impressive market share in the HIV treatment market, and is now looking for the same success in the treatment of Hepatitis C. Sofosbuvir, a novel Hepatitis C drug, recently demonstrated promising results in the first of several phase 3 trials, with 78% of patients having an undetectable viral load 12 weeks following treatment.

There are two characteristics of sofosbuvir which make it a potential blockbuster. First, if approved by the FDA, it would be the first all-oral Hepatitis C treatment. Second, it avoids the use of interferon, a component of standard Hepatitis C treatments associated with unfavorable side effects. Half the patients that take interferon typically develop flu-like symptoms, and one-third develop psychiatric complications such as depression. These challenges in the current Hepatitis C treatment regiments have led to approximately one-third of patients discontinuing treatment. As an all-oral, low side-effect medication, sofosbuvir has the potential to sharply reduce this rate of non-compliance and, in doing so, establish itself as the dominant drug in the treatment of Hepatitis C in a market estimated at over $ 20 billion. Sofosbuvir is currently progressing through phase 3 trials.

Drug Pipeline

Gilead has also recently introduced another HIV drug, Stribild, that is poised to become a lead drug choice in HIV treatment. A four-drug combination pill that builds on the success of Gilead’s single-pill model, Stribild has been predicted to become the market leading HIV drug within the next decade. In addition, Gilead produces all of the component drugs within Stribild, and they would avoid the revenue sharing arrangements associated with their previous HIV medications.

Gilead has also ramped up its research into oncology drugs, with several drugs in its pipeline being tested as treatments for colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer and a specific type of leukemia. In December, Gilead bought YM BioSciences (NYSEMKT: YMI), a Canadian company, for $ 510 million in cash, mainly to get access to the Canadian company’s research into treatments for a bone-marrow disorder. The Canadian company’s lead drug candidate, CYT387, is an orally-administered, once-daily, selective inhibitor of the Janus kinase (JAK) family, specifically JAK1 and JAK2 and combats myelofibrosis, a bone-marrow disease that can lead to anemia and an enlarged spleen. The acquisition provides Gilead with a promising treatment at a reasonable price.

Financials

Total revenues for the third quarter of 2012 increased 14% to $ 2.43 billion, from $ 2.12 billion for the third quarter of the previous year. Net income for the third quarter was $ 675.5 million, or $ 0.85 per diluted share compared to $ 741.1 million or $ 0.95 per diluted share for the third quarter of 2011. Non-GAAP net income for the third quarter of 2012, which excludes acquisition-related, restructuring and stock-based compensation expenses, was $ 788.9 million, or $ 1.00 per diluted share compared to $ 795.2 million, or $ 1.02 per diluted share for the third quarter of 2011.

As of Sept. 30, 2012, Gilead had $ 2.65 billion of cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities compared to $ 9.96 billion as of Dec. 31, 2011. The decrease was due to the acquisition of Pharmasset in the first quarter of 2012. Gilead generated $ 2.49 billion of operating cash flow during the first nine months of 2012 including $ 745.4 million generated in the third quarter of 2012.

Analyst Ratings

Zacks reiterated its neutral rating on Gilead with a price target of $ 78.00. Analysts at Guggenheim reiterated a “buy” rating on Gilead with a price target of $ 87. On Dec. 5, analysts at Oppenheimer reiterated an “outperform” rating on Gilead. On Dec. 4, 2012, Barclays Capital reaffirmed its “overweight” rating on Gilead with a price target of $ 76. On Nov. 30, Gilead had its “overweight” rating affirmed by Piper Jaffray with a price target of $ 85. On Nov. 13, analysts at Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on Gilead from $ 80 to $ 85 with a “buy” rating. On the same date, Lazard also raised its price target on Gilead from $ 89 to $ 100 with a “buy” rating.

Competition

Gilead’s HCV candidate sofosbuvir, which was added to Gilead’s pipeline through its acquisition of Pharmasset, is now in phase 3 trials. The results put Gilead in the lead in what has become a two-horse race with Abbott Laboratories (ABT) to produce the first treatment for the disease that doesn’t include interferon with its negative side effects. In the case of CYT387 included in the recent YM BioSciences acquisition, potential rivals in the field are Incyte (INCY) and Novartis’ (NVS) JAK inhibitor Jakafi, which the FDA approved last year to combat myelofibrosis. Cell Therapeutics (CTIC) has its own midstage program focusing on the blood disease. 

Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY)is testing sofosbuvir plus their NS5A inhibitor daclatasvir (formerly BMS-790052). Bristol-Myers Squibb had a clinical collaboration with Pharmasset and started this trial before Gilead’s acquisition. It appears, though, that these two competing companies, notably Gilead, are not interested in conducting a phase3 study to evaluate this combination. Bristol-Myers Squibb is also evaluating multiple HCV drug candidates. The acquisition of Zymogenetics in 2010 for $ 885 million brought pegylated interferon lambda while the company acquired INX-189 (now called as BMS-986094) through the acquisition of Inhibitex in 2012 for $ 2.5 billion.

Conclusion

I have every reason to believe that Gilead is going to continue to be highly successful, and I have no hesitation in recommending this stock to investors.

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The NRA’s Solution: A Gun in Every School

With characteristic flair, the National Rifle Association held America in suspense for a week on how it would react to the Newtown (Conn.) school massacre and then came out, guns blazing.

Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s longtime top official, left no doubt during his nationally televised press conference that the pro-gun lobby—pound for pound, the most effective single-issue advocacy group in Washington—will fight fiercely against any new restrictions on the lawful acquisition of guns, magazines, or ammunition.

Whether the group wins or loses the coming debate, it wins (more on that in a moment). First, here are the basics of what LaPierre had to say:

• Setting up schools as “gun-free zones” has been an utter failure. Schools require more security, including a police officer in every school. The NRA will lead a national “school shield” initiative headed by Asa Hutchinson, a former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, former U.S. congressman, and former federal prosecutor.

• The nation ought to establish a comprehensive database of mentally ill individuals. Those who have been deemed mentally ill, alcoholic, or addicted to drugs are already banned by federal law from acquiring guns. LaPierre called for more thorough record-keeping, a demand made by many of his opponents in the gun-control camp.

• The national media, whom LaPierre repeatedly castigated, bear responsibility for random mass shootings because they provide saturation coverage of events such as the Newtown massacre, and that encourages “copycats.”

• Hollywood and makers of violent video games, which LaPierre called the worst kind of “pornography,” likewise bear responsibility for mass shootings. The entertainment industry, he said, creates an atmosphere in which young people view violence as routine and without consequence.

• Gun owners, however, do not bear responsibility for mass shootings, and more gun regulations are not needed, he said. Instead, he condemned federal prosecutors for pursuing fewer gun-crime cases. There are already 20,000 gun regulations on the books, LaPierre said.

• He accused the media of fomenting “hatred” of gun owners and the NRA. He also alluded to the danger of civic unrest in the event of another disaster similar to Sandy, the devastating storm that recently hit the East Coast. That’s a subtle signal in support of survivalists and others who stock up on armaments out of fear that the government can’t protect them in chaos.

The NRA, as will become apparent in weeks and months to come, has a structural advantage in this conflict with gun-control forces. It does not compromise, because it does not fear losing. By framing the debate as one of gun owners against the rest of society (the media, Hollywood, “political elites”), LaPierre is paving the way for his next fund-raising solicitation. If some new gun-control law gets enacted, that becomes evidence that the vast anti-gun conspiracy only wants more, that President Barack Obama eventually will come for YOUR guns—all of them.

The lobby and the industry whose fortunes it promotes thrive on controversy, observes Richard Feldman, a former NRA organizer and gun trade association executive. “If the NRA wins, it wins,” he says. “If it loses, it wins, too, because then it can raise money on its defeat—and go back and try again.”

A relevant datum that LaPierre did not stress as part of his presentation was that, as the industrialized democracy with the greatest prevalence of gun ownership—300 million firearms in private hands; 47 percent of households possessing one or more guns—the U.S. has the highest gun homicide rate among economically advanced countries.

Businessweek.com — Top News

Title Post: The NRA’s Solution: A Gun in Every School
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