Shameless CEO Campaign Sends Debt-Laden Caesar?s CEO to Lecture the 99% on Fixing Debt

Gary Loveman, Chairman, President and CEO, Harrah's Entertainment Inc.

Written by Eileen Appelbaum

If there is one thing the recent presidential election made clear, it is that the 1% have no shame. So it?s no surprise that CEOs are drumming up ?fiscal cliff? hysteria to protect their wealth. Their campaign to ?Fix the Debt? wants to retain the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy and expand tax breaks for corporations while fixing the debt through a Medicare/Medicaid system that ?spends considerably less.?? But choosing Caesar?s Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman to deliver their message on NPR?s ?All Things Considered? demonstrates once again how shameless the very rich are in their contempt for the 99% who depend on Medicare and Medicaid ? and for the ?elites? who get their news from NPR. As for NPR, let?s give folks there the benefit of the doubt and just say they are clueless.

The CEO campaign sent Loveman to impress upon the rest of us the importance of fixing the debt so CEOs wouldn?t be forced to lay off millions of us and to make sure we understood the necessity of preserving tax breaks for the ?job creators.? You might think they would have chosen a CEO who leads a company that has created value for the U.S. economy and jobs for American workers. But you would be wrong.? Gary Loveman is the CEO of a company loaded up with debt by private equity that has ripped off its creditors, disappointed its shareholders, and laid off workers.

Loveman was CEO and President of Harrah?s Entertainment (now known as Caesar?s Entertainment Corporation), the world?s largest casino company with 30,440 unionized employees when it was acquired by private equity firms, the Apollo Group and the Texas Pacific Group (TPG) in 2006. The PE firms paid $90 a share to take the company private. By June 2007, the casino company?s long-term debt had more than doubled to $23.9 billion, resulting in an interest bill of $2.1 billion. Piling up debt magnifies private equity?s returns in good economic times, but it raises the risks of default and downsizing for the acquired companies when times are tough. Caesar?s Entertainment struggled under its debt burden when the recession hit. The company cut staff, reduced hours, outsourced jobs and scaled back operations.

Caesars? creditors were hurt as badly as its workers. According to Caesar Entertainment?s website, ?Loveman has led Caesars? successful debt reduction and liquidity improvement strategies.? In plain English, Caesars stiffed its creditors. Caesars? high debt burden put the company in grave danger of defaulting, so the company was able to buy back its own debt at pennies on the dollar. In November 2008 its bonds were trading for 20 cents on the dollar. In December 2008, the company exchanged bonds with a face value of $2.2 billion for new ones worth $1.06 billion, meaning that bond holders got a little less than 50 cents on the dollar. Then in April 2009, the company exchanged $5.5 billion of additional bonds for new bonds worth $3.6 billion. So Caesar?s reduced its debt and increased its liquidity under Loveman?s leadership, but at the expense of its creditors who lost a total of $3 billion. The real winners in these deals were Apollo?s investors and its CEO Leon Black, whose returns were boosted by these swaps. As for the casino company, the swaps merely postponed the day of reckoning on its remaining high debt load.

Still in trouble and needing more cash, Caesars? PE owners decided to sell the company back to the public market. A planned IPO announced In November 2010 that offered shares at $15-$17 per share had to be scrapped due to low investor interest in the money losing, debt-burdened company. In February 2012 the company returned to the public markets, selling shares at the ?comical? price of $9 to raise much needed funds. Investors willing to take a chance on Caesars at the bargain basement price of $9 a share have been sorely disappointed ? the stock (CZR) closed yesterday (November 14) at $4.54 a share. Far from creating value for the U.S. economy during his tenure as Caesars? CEO and President, Loveman took a company worth $90 a share down to one worth just $4.54 a share.

Caesars still has $20.8 billion in debt, and some observers think it is quickly approaching a ?fiscal cliff? of its own.

It is hard to fathom why Loveman would step forward as the public face of the CEO campaign to ?fix? the debt or why that campaign would want him as its spokesperson. Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that Apollo Global Management remains Caesars largest shareholder. Apollo?s CEO, Leon Black, has the distinction of being the CEO among CEOs of publicly traded companies who benefited most in 2011 from the Bush tax cuts. He saved $9.9 million dollars that year.

Eileen Appelbaum?is Senior Economist for the Center for Economy and Policy Research. She also writes a regular blog, CEPR Blog,?where this post originally appeared.

Photo by PhoCusWright under Creative Commons license.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/UFvw6AouGlE/

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Amazing 'Holy Motors' a shapeshifting film - San Francisco Examiner

?Holy Motors? is only the fifth feature film in 28 years by Leos Carax, who is perhaps the most mesmerizing, poetic and baffling filmmaker in France.

His best film, ?Les Amants du Pont-Neuf? ? released here in 1999 as ?The Lovers on the Bridge? ? reached the glorious, grandiose heights of passion that ?Gone with the Wind? and ?Titanic? were praised for.

On the other hand, the amazing ?Holy Motors? is more about the remnants of passion.

• Starring: Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, Eva Mendes, Kylie Minogue
• Written and directed by: Leos Carax
• Rating: Not rated (contains nudity, violence and sexual content)
• Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes

Denis Lavant, the gravel-faced star of four of Carax's features, stars as Monsieur Oscar, a mysterious figure with a strange job. Over the course of a day, he rides around in the back of a limo, donning different costumes and applications of makeup for various ?appointments.? He becomes an old lady beggar, a gangster and a dying old man. He puts on a motion-capture suit ? a Cirque du Soleil-esque bodysuit with lights ? and performs some sexualized acrobatics with a female co-star.

He also becomes a vile thing known as ?merde? ? last seen in Carax's segment of the 2009 anthology film ?Tokyo!? ? a bizarre, violent sewer dweller with fire-red hair and a milky-white eye. This creature kidnaps a beautiful model (Eva Mendes) during a photo shoot in a cemetery.

Later, Oscar runs into a woman (Kylie Minogue) who may have been a former love, and who seems to be doing the same kind of job. They share a tender song.

Like many of his fellow French filmmakers, Carax was once a film critic, and his films ponder the nature of films and storytelling as much as they tell stories. He pays tribute to King Vidor?s ?The Crowd? and Georges Franju?s ?Eyes Without a Face.? Edith Scob, who plays Monsieur Oscar's compassionate limo driver, was the star of the latter.

The various segments clearly represent different film genres: the musical, the horror film, the weepie, etc. The movie is, by turns, haunting, moving and shocking.

But Carax also asks questions about the nature of performance. Is Monsieur Oscar performing for anyone in particular, or maybe everyone in general? Does he ever get to be ?himself,? even behind the scenes? In the movie?s most human moments, we see Oscar growing weary, perhaps not even remembering why he?s doing this kind of work.

The movie?s final moments are among its most bizarre, raising more questions than they answer. We all have masks we wear, the movie seems to say, and none of us know truly who we are ? not even talking cars.

Source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/movies/2012/11/amazing-holy-motors-shapeshifting-film

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Rockport business owner admits to decades of sales tax theft ...

ROCKLAND, Maine ? A 63-year-old businessman admitted Thursday that he had collected but failed to turn over to the state sales taxes paid by customers for decades.

Ronald Pinkham entered guilty pleas in Knox County Superior Court to felony theft and a misdemeanor count of failure to turn over sales tax receipts. The prosecutor and judge, however, both acknowledged that Pinkham had been extremely cooperative since state revenue service officials accidentally discovered his business on the Web.

In exchange for his cooperation, the felony charge could be lowered to a misdemeanor when he is back in court in a year for sentencing. Under terms of the deferred disposition agreed to by the attorney general?s office and defense, Pinkham could serve less than 180 days in jail.

Assistant Attorney General Gregg Bernstein said that a Maine State Revenue agent came upon Pinkham?s business ? Woodsound Studio in Rockport ? by accident online. Bernstein said the agency then found that Woodsound was not on a list of businesses that collect and pay sales taxes to the state.

Pinkham, who lives in Lincolnville, has operated the music instrument making store in the Rockport village of Glen Cove since the 1970s. Bernstein said that since at least the 1980s Pinkham has collected sales taxes from customers but deposited that money in his own accounts for his personal use rather than submitting the funds to the state. The amount of uncollected taxes and interest totaled more than $139,000, the prosecutor said. A statute of limitations restricts criminal prosecution in tax cases that go beyond six years but does not prevent the state from seeking repayment in civil suits.

Bernstein said that about $38,000 is considered money owed under the criminal cases while another nearly $102,000 is considered owed under civil laws from previous years.

If Pinkham repays the $38,000 within 12 months, the state will ask for no more than 180 days in jail, under the deferred disposition agreement. The defense will be able argue for less jail time.

Pinkham paid $19,000 on Thursday, but if the remainder of the $38,000 is not repaid within a year, the agreement calls for a 364 day jail term with all but 270 days suspended.

Defense attorney Eric ?Rick? Morse said Pinkham took immediate and full responsibility when he was first contacted by the revenue service. He has cooperated fully and wants to repay the full amount ? including the civil part of the case.

?He wants to make it right,? Morse said.

Bernstein said Pinkham had told revenue service officials that he had been reluctant to advertise on the Web because he had not been paying the sales taxes.

Justice Jeffrey Hjelm said he was struck by Pinkham?s extraordinary cooperation with the state.

The Pinkham hearing was immediately followed in court by guilty pleas by a 37-year-old commercial fisherman from Rockland for not paying his income taxes for three years.

Steven W. Ward Jr. pleaded guilty to failure to pay state income taxes and failure to file state income tax returns in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Bernstein, who also prosecuted this case, said Ward also did not file tax returns in 2002, 2003 and 2004. Those cases are not criminal matters because the statute of limitations has passed.

The plea agreement reached with the defense calls for 180 days in jail with all but 30 days suspended. The 30 days is a cap and the defense can argue for less jail time.

The sentencing has been put off until late March. Defense attorney Peter Rodway said the postponement of sentencing will allow Ward to go out scallop fishing when the season begins March 1 so that he can pay off the $11,887 in state income taxes owed for the three years cited in the criminal complaint.

Source: http://bangordailynews.com/2012/11/15/news/midcoast/rockport-business-owner-admits-to-decades-of-sales-tax-theft/

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After Israel kills Hamas chief, ground operation is possibility

Published: 11/15/12 @ 12:00

Associated Press

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip

Israel carried out a blistering offensive of more than 50 airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, assassinating Hamas? military commander and targeting the armed group?s training facilities and rocket launchers in Israel?s most intense attack on the territory in nearly four years.

Israel said the airstrikes, launched in response to days of rocket fire out of Hamas-ruled Gaza, were the beginning of a broader operation against the Islamic militants code-named ?Pillar of Defense.? Israeli defense officials said a ground operation was a strong possibility in the coming days though they stressed no decisions had been made and much would depend on Hamas? reaction.

The attack came at a time when Israel seems to be under fire from all directions. Relations have been deteriorating with Egypt?s new Islamist government, Egypt?s lawless Sinai desert has become a staging ground for militant attacks on Israel, and the Syrian civil war has begun to spill over Israel?s northern border.

With at least 10 Palestinians dead, including two young children, Wednesday?s offensive was certain to set off a new round of fighting with Gaza militants, who have built up an arsenal of rockets and missiles.

It also threatened to upset Israel?s relations with neighboring Egypt and shake up the campaign for Israeli elections in January. In a preliminary response, Egypt recalled its ambassador to Israel in protest.

In a nationwide address, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel could no longer stand repeated attacks on its southern towns. Days of rocket fire have heavily disrupted life for some 1 million people in the region, canceling school and forcing residents to remain indoors.

The Israeli military said it was ready, if necessary, to send ground troops into Gaza. The defense officials who said a ground operation was likely in the coming days spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing sensitive military plans.

?We are at the beginning of the event, and not the end,? Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, in a joint appearance with the prime minister. ?In the long run, I believe the operation will help strengthen the power of deterrence and to return quiet to the south.? In a sign that the operation was expected to broaden, the military was cleared to call up reserve units.

Residents in both Israel and Gaza braced for prolonged violence.

Israel declared a state of emergency in its south and canceled school across that area for today. Calling it a ?special situation,? Barak sought permission to call up special reserve units for the operations. Israeli police stepped up patrols around the country, fearing that Hamas could retaliate with bombing attacks far from the reaches of Gaza.

More than 65 rockets landed in southern Israel late Wednesday.

The deadly attack on Hamas mastermind Ahmed Jabari marked the resumption of Israel?s policy of ?targeted killings,? or assassinations of senior Hamas men.

Israel has refrained from such attacks, which have drawn international condemnations, since a fierce three-week offensive in Gaza that ended in January 2009.

Jabari was the most senior Hamas official to be killed since that war. Israeli defense officials warned earlier this week that they were considering resuming the assassination policy.

The Jabari killing, carried out in broad daylight, was shocking. Hamas officials had brushed off the Israeli threats, illustrated by Jabari?s decision to drive in public.

Hamas? prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, eulogized Jabari and vowed revenge.

On Wednesday night, the U.N. Security Council met behind closed doors to consider an Egyptian request for an emergency meeting on Israel?s military action in Gaza.

Source: http://www.vindy.com/news/2012/nov/15/after-israel-kills-hamas-chief-ground-op/?mobile

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Supercomputer uses Twitter to tell how you're feeling

1 hr.

By Helen A.S. Popkin

Global Twitter Heartbeat isn?t the first project to offer a nifty map illustrating what we're doing in the Twitterverse at a given point in time.

A?Twitter map developed by Vertalab, for example, pinpointed where the??friendliest? and ?rudest? Americans live?by scanning tweets containing the phrases ?"Good morning," and "F--- you." Another color-coded map, noted in an issue of Cartographic Perspectives, analyzed tweets to reveal where in the U.S. Twitter profanity is worst (or best).

This latest heat map, however, offers a real-time analysis of random data?via supercomputer???the SGI UV 2000 Big Brain supercomputer at the University of Illinois???to process an impressive amount of raw information very quickly. ?(You can see how everybody's feeling on Twitter?right now?by going here.) The result is a?

According to the description on?Global Twitter Heartbeat project?s Facebook page, it works like this:

The Global Twitter Heartbeat project performs real-time stream processing of ten percent of Twitter?s 400M daily tweets as they are posted. The project analyses every tweet to assign location (not just GPS-tagged tweets, but processing the text of the tweet itself), and tone values and then visualizes the conversation in a heat map infographic that combines and displays tweet location, intensity and tone. With SGI UV, the entire process from data analysis to heat map was produced once per second.

As you can see in this video of real-time Twitter tracking during last week?s election (below), the result is a pretty accurate picture of what?s going on in the United States at any point in time. When you hear the technorati go blah blah blah about ?Big Data,? this is pretty much?what they?re talking about.

In the video above, blue represents pro-Barack Obama tweets, and red is for pro-Mitt Romney tweets. Note how blue blows up big at the time President Obama gives his victory speech.

The Global Heartbeat Project, a partnership between supercomputer supplier SGI Kalev H. Leetaru of the University of Illinois and Dr. Shaowen Wang of the CyberInfrastructure and Geospatial Information (CIGI) Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, also analyzed tweets during superstorm Sandy. Using red for negative tweets and blue for positive tweets regarding Sandy, the map reveals the mood in various areas of the U.S. as Sandy progressed up the East Coast. ?

Of course, these maps aren?t telling us anything we didn?t know???Obama won the election, people were very freaked out about Sandy. So what?s the point of using what SGI calls ?the world's largest data-mining machine? which could ?ingest the entire contents of the U.S. Library of Congress print collection in less than three seconds? to make videos to show us a bunch of pretty colors?

"This real-time data analysis approach is like having a new telescope in our hands,? project co-founder?Leetaru said in a press statement. ??We are just seeing the Twittersphere in this way for the first time and we're still not entirely sure how to make sense of it all and what it tells us, but it is allowing us for the first time to peer in the messy chaotic world that is the heartbeat of our society."

Which means it'll eventually be used for advertising.?

Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah abut the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on?Twitter?and/or?Facebook. Also,?Google+.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/supercomputer-uses-twitter-tell-how-youre-feeling-1C7073314

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Pinterest Launches Business Pages to Get Cozy ... - Advertising Age

Pinterest is sending a signal to the multitude of brands and retailers already active on its platform that it's getting ready to open for business itself by unveiling accounts designated for marketers today.

Pinterest's new-business accounts -- which are free of charge -- aren't brand pages in the tradition of what Facebook, Twitter and Google+ have previously rolled out, since they don't currently look any different from other pages. They also don't possess any enhanced functionality, apart from making the new feature of authenticating a website a streamlined part of the sign-up process and directing account owners to a Pinterest how-to for businesses. Another easy-to-grasp difference is that business pages allow brands and merchants to simply enter the name of their businesses when registering instead of having to work around the first name, last name sign-up format on user pages.

But while Pinterest won't look any different to users, the cues being sent about its intention of becoming a mature business in short order will be apparent to brands. Its readiness to work more closely with them comes as no surprise to those who have tracked the company's high-profile hires over the past year since consumer adoption started going through the roof. It's hired numerous Facebook alumni, including head of operations Don Faul and head of product management and partnerships Tim Kendall, who once directed Facebook's monetization strategy.

Well aware of the connection between Pinterest browsing and purchasing, retailers were among the early-adopter brands on the platform, as well as media brands like Real Simple that started seeing immense referral traffic from it last winter. However, while brands have continued to settle the platform, some may have wondered on what terms their presence was really palatable. Until today, Pinterest's terms of service read that usage of the platform was licensed on the condition of "your personal, non-commercial use."

"There's always been this lingering question in businesses' mind of whether Pinterest is OK with [them]," said Apu Gupta, CEO of Curalate, an analytics platform that mines Pinterest for actionable data for brands.

As part of the unveiling of business accounts, Pinterest also developed a new terms of service for businesses, making explicit that use of the platform for commercial purposes is accepted without mentioning retail or advertising. The material difference from a revised version of the terms of service for users is a section entitled "Tools for Site Owners," which notes that usage of Pinterest features like the "Pin It" and "Follow" buttons on third-party sites must comply with company policy and branding guidelines. It also outlines Pinterest's prerogative to collect data: "By incorporating Site Features into your site or service, you agree that Pinterest may collect and use information from you and your users as described in our Privacy Policy."

Pinterest's goal is to get the thousands of businesses already on the platform to migrate their accounts over to the business type, according to Product Manager Cat Lee, another Facebook alumna. Pinterest also has an incentive for them to make the switch.

"We hope to add more tools and features that are geared toward this audience," she said.

The company also today announced two new widgets to enable account owners -- businesses and individuals alike -- to embed pins and boards on third-party sites. In practice, Ms. Lee thinks they'll mostly be used by businesses to help build up their following. "It helps attract more followers to your board and also to your profile," she said.

While business accounts are now largely symbolic in terms of what they portend for brands, it's possible to imagine them as a precursor for a much more robust back-end where brands could pay to promote a pin, according to Mr. Gupta. Or perhaps, he said, they could facilitate another feature that's high on both brands' and users' wish lists: the ability to rearrange pins and boards.

"It does point in the direction of Pinterest becoming incredibly business-friendly," he said.

Source: http://adage.com/article/digital/pinterest-launches-business-pages-cozy-brands/238295/

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Production Artist and Web Developer ? The Maximus Group

This is a syndicated post from CatholicJobs.com. [Read the original article...]

PRODUCTION ARTIST AND WEB DEVELOPER
Marketing/Advertising, FT Employee
The Maximus Group (Woodstock, GA)

We?re seeking a team-oriented, innovative graphic and web designer to raise our brand presence to the next level. This is an amazing opportunity to contribute to the brand, image, and market dominance of a fast-growing public relations and marketing agency.

Our primary goal is to find a skilled web designer who can consistently develop high-impact new branding parameters as well as design within predetermined formats and guidelines. Candidates must also bring a strong work ethic and efficiency to production art work and possess proficiency in industry standard graphic design software.

The candidate must also be willing to train where software deficiencies are identified. The individual will be required to possess enough technical skills to be comfortable overseeing and maintaining multiple corporate and client websites built on a variety of platforms.

Responsibilities:

? Demonstrate a strong ability to execute designs, prepare files for output, and see projects through to completion.
? Knowledge of best-practices for web as well as across a variety of print collateral
? Design and maintain corporate websites and other creative projects that effectively support the positioning of Agency and clients in the marketplace.
? Create print and web advertisements that demand users take action. Familiar with A/B and some multivariate testing, working with your marketing counterparts to constantly refine and optimize landing pages to move the needle in the right direction
? Formal design skills and knowledge of design-related software, particularly Adobe Creative Suite products
? Demonstrated knowledge of web technologies, particularly HTML, CSS and Content Management systems
? Solid understanding of critical UX concerns and how to effectively incorporate them into page designs
? Must be able to handle multiple projects simultaneously
? Act as ?webmaster? for Agency and clients; contribute to building a content-rich destination portal for prospects and customers alike to have optimum user-experiences.
? Create landing pages, demos and other online marketing assets
? Prior experience designing and evolving WordPress sites

Experience Required:

? An expert visual/graphic designer with hands-on experience building web sites-preferably familiar with B2B high-tech as well as experience translating technical concepts into visually appealing, user-friendly pages
? The Ideal candidate should have their own style but be willing to work within (and help define and evolve) an existing corporate identity ? striving for designs that are both simple and engaging
? The ideal candidate should be creative enough to bring big ideas to the table, but possess the ability to see projects through to completion
? Comfortable with a fast-moving, high-pressure startup environment
? Minimum 3 years related experience
? Bachelor?s degree (9)

Source: http://www.dfwcatholic.org/production-artist-and-web-developer-the-maximus-group-woodstock-ga-82308/.html

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