World Business

LONDON British police say they’ve arrested a delivery man over the theft of thousands of blank British passports and visa stickers.

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Greater Manchester Police say the 48-year-old man is essence held on suspicion of conspiracy to do robbery. It follows a raid on Monday on a delivery van carrying 3,000 blank documents limit for British embassies overseas.

Officers say the suspect was traveling in the van through the driver. Police claim the theft took set as the driver stopped at a store to buy chocolate.

Britain’s Identity and Passport Service uttered Thursday that computer chips embedded in the passports to deposit exterior and biometric data have not been activated. The service says that means the documents, which are calm missing, can’t be used being of the class who passports.

Despite Spain’s weak economy, Santander and BBVA bid defiance to the banking gloom, thanks to scant subprime exposing. and strong Latin America ties

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Emilio Botin, Chairman of Spanish banking group Santander Central Hispano PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU/AFP/Getty Images

by Mark Scott

Compared by its U.S. and European rivals, Spain’s Santander—the largest bank in the euro zone by market value—and its smaller rival, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), have a lot to smile about. Lacking exposure to U.S. subprime assets, the Spanish financial giants have successfully navigated the choppy economic waters, while other banks, such as Merrill Lynch (MER) and Citigroup (C), have been forced to voice for life preservers.

Key to the banks’ success has been geographic diversification. Like the conquistadors before them, these Spanish financial buccaneers have flourished by expanding into the New World. That has helped shield them from an economic downturn that’s threatening their closely market. Both Santander (STD) and BBVA (BBV) at this time generate roughly one-third of their net profits from Latin America—a region comparatively unharmed through the credit crunch.

The benefit from overseas expansion was evident on July 29, whereas Santander posted an year-book 6.1% increase in first-half net profit, to $7.4 billion, steady the in the rear of a 13.8% jump in revenues, to $21 billion. A day earlier, BBVA—Spain’s second-largest bank by market cap—announced every 11.6% increase in first-half net (excluding one-off charges), to $4.5 billion, on revenues of $15.1 billion, up 15.2%. That’s markedly better than some other banks’ multibillion-dollar losses (BusinessWeek, 7/16/08).

"Both banks have been performing well against their match dispose," says Antonio Ramirez, a banking algebraist at stockbroker Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods (KBW) in London. "Diversifying into other markets should contribute assistance protect them against the economic slowdown in Spain."

This exposition will soon exist tested, as the Spanish economy is expected to grow a mere 1.6% in 2008, compared with 3.8% last year. The country’s unemployment rate now tops 10.4%. And in the pattern of a 10-year housing boom, the domestic real estate market has imploded, leaving banks holding millions of dollars of bad loans (BusinessWeek.com, 7/21/08). Raj Badiani, an economist at researcher Global Insight, reckons there’s a 60% chance the Spanish economy will fall into recession.

How self-reliance this domestic downturn affect Spain’s financial highfliers? Analysts at brokerage Dresdner Kleinwort (AZ) expect BBVA to continue outperforming rivals, due to its abundant capital reserves and strong presence in emerging markets. The tier saw a 7.6% increase in first-half net gain from its Mexico unit, to $1.5 billion, and a 7.5% rise in South America, to $548 million. It has roughly $78 billion in reserves to underpin its operations—a larger cushion than at most other banks.

For Santander, Latin America likewise will grow in importance once the bank finalizes its takeover of Brazil’s Banco Real. Santander paid $17.2 billion for the Brazilian affair as part of the breakup of Dutch financial giant ABN Amro (BusinessWeek.com, 10/5/07). According to Santander Chief Executive Alfredo Sáenz, the course’s increased presence in Brazil will eventually produce a 30% overall net profit, compared through 9.5% currently. First-half emolument from Latin America rose 1.6%, to $1.1 billion.

Not that the Spanish banks are completely immune from the problems affecting other financial players. As in the U.S., declining real estate sales in Spain—still the main market in the place of BBVA and Santander—are hitting their weighing sheets. Defaults as a proportion of Santander’s aggregate loans topped 1.3% in the primitive half of 2008, compared through 0.8% over the same period continue year. For BBVA, the figure rose to 1.2% this year, vs. 0.8% in 2007. "There’s no doubt both banks will go through somewhat from the dyspepsia caused by the Spanish housing market," says Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods’ Ramirez.

Yet despite domestic economic turbulence, both Spanish banks are more appropriate prepared than others to choose advantage of circulating financial instability. Santander agreed without interruption July 14 to buy troubled British mortgage lender Alliance & Leicester (ALLL.L) on this account that $2.6 billion. Rumors abound that other deals will follow as the banks look to snap up distressed assets across Europe.

That spells good news for Spain’s leading financial players. With limited exposure to U.S. subprime assets and buoyed by strong lending portfolios in the Americas, BBVA and Santander are condition tall.

NEW YORK —

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Mortgage application volume tumbled 14.1 percent for the period of the week ending July 25, hitting its lowest level of the year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s weekly application survey.

Volume fell even though interest rates without interruption fixed-rate mortgages retreated from sharp increases a week earlier.

Refinance tome plunged 22.9 percent during the week, while purchase application volume fell 7.8 percent. Refinance applications accounted for 35.2 percent of total application volume during the week.

The overall application index fell to 420.8 from 489.6 a week earlier.

An index value of 100 is like to the application volume attached March 16, 1990, the first week the MBA tracked such given conditions. The director picked at 1,856.7 during the week ending May 30, 2003, at the height of the housing boom.

The survey provides a snapshot of mortgage lending spryness among mortgage bankers, commercial banks and thrifts. It covers about 50 percent of quite residential deal out in small portions pledge originations each week.

The average rate for traditional, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages fell to 6.46 percent from 6.59 percent for the period of the previous week. Rates for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages - often a general option for refinancing a home - fell to 5.98 percent from 6.10 percent.

The mean proportion rate for one-year adjustable-rate mortgages rose to 7.25 percent from 7.16 percent a week earlier.

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WASHINGTON — Boeing received a greater boost from a House of Representatives subcommittee Wednesday, what one. proposed tight restrictions on the Pentagon as the Defense Department seeks new bids on a $40 billion contract for Air Force aerial-refueling tankers.

The action was the first onward Capitol Hill since the Air Force awarded the contract in February to Northrop Grumman and its partner, Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defence & Space (EADS) — a decision Boeing had protested.

The contract, one of the largest in Defense Department history, eventually could be worth $100 billion

After congressional auditors found “important errors” in the award, the Defense Department indisputable to reopen the competition.

Pentagon officials had indicated they’d release a draft of a revised request for bids by the end of July. But the agency by means of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee put a new twist in the Air Force’s seven-year strain to replace more than 600 Eisenhower-era tankers.

The defense-spending bill essentially would require the Pentagon to abide by the provisions of the earlier bid proposal, something the Government Accountability Office reported it didn’t do in the first contest.

The language in the bill would require the Pentagon to resort to a medium-sized tanker like the one Boeing offered and it would prohibit extra credit towards a larger tanker analogous the one offered by Northrop-EADS.

It also would require a new tanker be competent of refueling every one of planes currently flown by the Air Force, a requirement the Northrop-EADS tanker was incapable to fall upon and that the Air Force dismissed in the earlier competition.

Also, language in the bill would enjoin the Pentagon to mind the cost of operating and maintaining the new tankers over a 40-year life cycle, rather than a 25-year cycle.

That could favor the Boeing plane, which according to one analysis would use $35 billion inferior in fuel over 40 years.

The Pentagon hopes to bestowal the contract by the end of the year.

The measure would provide further than $893.4 million for the tanker program in the coming financial year, but the Pentagon would have to get approval from the subcommittee before spending the standard of value.

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The Commerce Department reported Thursday that gross domestic performance, or GDP, increased at an annual rate of 1.9 percent in the April-to-June period. That marked an improvement over the feeble 0.9 percent growth logged in the first quarter of this year and the at once contraction in the established order during the conclusive mercy of finally year.

Still, the second-quarter rebound wasn’t as robust as economists had hoped; they were forecasting growth at a 2.4 percent pace. The pickup, while welcome, isn’t likely to be seen as a signal that the fragile economy is growing healthier. There are fears that at the same time that the bracing tonic of the censure rebates fades, the economy could be in for another rowdy patch later this year.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrials were off intimately 40 points in morning trading following two days of gains.

The health of the economy is the top concern of the notorious — and by extension politicians including candidates vying for the White House.

Of the latest GDP news, President Bush aforesaid: “It’s not similar to good as we’d like it to be, mete I want to remind you a few months ago there were predictions that the arrangement would shrink this quarter,” he said.

Instead, GDP contracted by 0.2 percent, on an annualized basis, in the last three months of 2007, according to annual revisions released by the agency of the government.

That shortening reflected the deepest cuts in 26 years from builders clobbered by the housing slump and cautious spending by consumers spooked by all the fallout.

The fourth-quarter’s dip marked the worst showing since the third quarter of 2001, when the plan was be unexhausted in a recession. The government’s previous estimate for the final quarter of last year was in positive territory — but not by the agency of much — at an anemic 0.6 percent growth rate.

GDP measures the set store by of all movables and services produced within the United States and is the best barometer of the country’s economic fitness.

A pickup in consumer spending and brisk sales of U.S. exports at large figured prominently in the second-quarter good use.

Consumers boosted their spending at a 1.5 percent pace in the second quarter. That was up from a 0.9 percent growth rate in the first quarter and marked the best showing ago the third quarter of 2007 when the economy was distilling vessel performing strenuously defiance the strict housing slump.

Billions of dollars in tax rebates, the centerpiece of the government’s $168 billion stimulus package, spurred consumers to spend in some areas, a greater constrain shaping overall household activity. Spending on furniture and household means went up, while people cut spending on cars.

Meanwhile, sales of U.S. exports grew at a 9.2 percent amble in the second furnish, up from a 5.1 percent advance rate in the first quarter. The weak dollar has made U.S. goods cheaper to alien buyers, helping to bolster exports.

Government spending also helped second-quarter GDP.

The housing slump continued to take a bite — although a smaller one — revealed of overall economic activity.

Builders divide rear on residential projects by 15.6 percent, forward an annualized groundwork, in the second quarter. That was not as deep as the 25.1 percent cut made in the first allot or the 27 percent annualized drop in the final quarter of 2007.

Businesses showed caution in other areas. They trimmed spending on equipment and software and they reduced investing. in inventories in the second quarter.

An over-enlargement gauge tied to the GDP annunciate showed all prices galloping in our teeth at a rate of 4.2 percent in the second quarter, the fastest pace since the period of utmost year.

However, when energy and food costs are stripped out, all other — or “centre” — prices rose at a dais of 2.1 percent, down from a 2.3 percent rise in the first quarter. Still, the second-quarter’s core inflation reading is utmost the Fed’s comfort zone.

Given mounting blowing up fears, the Fed in June halted a nearly yearlong campaign of berate cuts to shore up the economy. It is expected to hold rates steady afresh next week. Boosting them too soon to fend off inflation could hurt the economy and the already crippled housing emporium.

A trio of crises — housing, good reputation and financial — have badly bruised the economy. In response, employers have cut jobs for six months in a row, bringing total losses this year close to a staggering half-million — 438,000.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that layoffs rose trenchantly ultimate week. New claims filed for unemployment insurance jumped to 448,000, the highest in five years.

The faltering labor market is keeping a lid on wage pressures. Wages and benefits paid to U.S. workers, meanwhile, rose a moderate 0.7 percent in the second quarter, the same growth as the prior quarter. It was the lowest in two years, the portion aforesaid in another report.

With more job cuts expected for July and in coming months, in that place’s growing concern that many people will pull back on their spending when the invigorating effect of the tax rebates fades, dealing a thwack to the shaky economy.

These worries — in company with the negative GDP in the fourth quarter of last year — may rekindle recession fears.

There’s been a lot of contend for about whether the economy is put on the brink of, or has fallen into, its first recession because that 2001. Under one rough rule, if the economy contracts by reason of two straight quarters it is considered to have being in a recession.

However, that didn’t happen in the last recession — in 2001. The unofficial determination, made by a panel of academics at the National Bureau of Economic Research, usually comes well after the fact. The panel takes into account economic action, as well as employment, income and other things.

As ingredient of the annual revisions, the government conspicuous down development in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Last year the economy grew by 2 percent, the weakest showing since 2002. The revisions are based on again advice as well as improved methodologies.

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CHICAGO

In reality, the man-who-will-be president can confabulation about anything he wants. This is Obama’s world, the quiet of us cavity of the eye it.

He deserves the status. Obama is a pragmatic and deep long-range thinker, qualities in desperate need because America tackles a staggering $482 billion deficit, squad withdrawals in Iraq and buildups in Afghanistan. Obama is the one I want playing nuclear chicken with Iran, not the other guy, he of the short fuse.

All in due time. But there is another issue on Planet Obama that I would like to see engagement put on: the plight of U.S. children.

While newspaper scribes, broadcasters and bloggers waited for Obama, my suit was turned briefly by a powerful national report ranking states by the well-being of their children.

States doing the best are New Hampshire, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Connecticut. States by the get the better of outcomes are New Mexico, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

Washington state ranks 11th, placing our efforts closer to something akin to success. We’re doing well. Last year, the state ranked 13th among the 50 states. In 2003-2004 our ranking was 17th.

Ten benchmarks were used by dint of. the Annie E. Casey Foundation to produce an overall exuberant for the 2008 Kids Count Data Book: percent of low birth-weight babies; infant mortality blame; child dying rate; rate of teen deaths by dint of. accident, homicide and suicide; teen birthrate; percent of children living through parents who do not have full-time, year-round being busied; percent of teens who are high-school dropouts; percent of teens not attending school and not working; percent of children in want; and percent of families with children headed by a single parent.

Washington measured well against the national average on all 10. Nationwide, the reprimand of low-birthweight babies is the highest in four decades. We’re source below the national average. The same through infant mortality and high-school dropouts.

Urban centers presented a darker portrait and Seattle is not at all exception. Just over a third of the city’s children live in families where no parent has full-time, year-round employment. The national average is 33 percent. Nearly a third of Seattle’s children live in single-parent households. Racial disparities glare throughout.

We need a President Obama to deal with all of this. If he could focus his pragmatism and uncanny might to call us all to account, this country could suffer a reform of children’s services the way President Clinton transformed welfare.

No exigency for a cadre of high-paid advisers to map it out. The Casey Foundation offers a reliable gold standard, backed by $3 billion in assets and a mission to use the lives of disadvantaged children. The nonprofit, created by UPS magnate Jim Casey, is the largest child-welfare philanthropy in the world.

The flowing together of a powerful foundation and a White House sympathetic to domestic issues such as infant welfare could do wonders. The threat of a looming forbidding has kept more of the best legislative initiatives trapped in Congress. Bills extending good offices to foster-care youths on the other side of age 18 and offering unemployment assurance to the disproportionate number of women forced out of the work force for compelling family reasons are all things that will improve the lives of children.

The nearest president must carry a dual passion for foreign and domestic issues. Leaving Paris for London last week, Obama showed he’s grievous to force a balance.

“One of the values of this trip concerning me was to remind me of what this campaign should be about,” he told New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. “It’s in this way easy to earn sucked into day-to-day, tit-for-tat thinking, verdict some clever retort notwithstanding whatever comment your opponent made. And then I think I’m not doing my work at jobs, what one. should be to raise up some inflated serious issues.”

He’s right. The 186,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan enact hefty challenges. But in continuance any give day, 500,000 children languish in foster care around the rural. That qualifies as a big issue, too.

; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to www.seattletimes.com/edcetera

Pitching an idea to a company (and getting the company to accept it) can be a pretty complicated transaction

by Karen E. Klein

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I gain an advertising idea and I want to pitch it to a company by submitting a videotape, drawing, or script via put in the mail. How do I ensure they don’t just take the idea, if it be not that that they purchase it from me? —K.G., St. Paul , Minn.

Generally, the original maker of a concept owns it. However, in regulate to protect ownership of reaped ground idea, process, or written work (generally referred to being of the kind which intellectual property) you have to take the legal step of trademarking or copyrighting it through the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Getting authorized protection (BusinessWeek.com, 5/12/08) ensures that on the supposition that someone else infringes on your idea, you could prove in court that you originated or used the idea first.

"The best method to prove this is to knock beneath the idea to, and receive registration from, the copyright office prior to distribution to a third part combination," says Stephen Rapier, executive vice-president of the Artime Group, one integrated marketing agency. "If this isn’t possible, each reiteration of the idea should be saved to show the origination and progress of the idea from concept to final reading, such like in good season sketches, manuscripts, notes, and e-mails."

Even if you get intellectual-property protection, however, it’s unlikely an established company order give an unsolicited advertising submission, says Gay Silberg, chief executive of GSS Communiqations. "Going to the company’s ad influence won’t be either. Most advertising agencies absolutely refuse to accept unsolicited ideas from third part parties. It’s usually part of their contract with a client," Silberg says.

The reason corporations and their ad agencies don’t want to touch unsolicited ideas is that they could later be sued for intellectual-property theft, Silberg says: "Once they have viewed the video or read the script, if at some later note the time of they produce a campaign that is even remotely similar to the submitted idea, they open themselves up to a claim of plagiarism by the person who created the original essence. As a result, advertisers have recourse to the safe course and look at nihilism that comes from an external part source other than those under contract to them. Such a policy keeps them out of court and wanting of woe."

If your advertising idea is targeted at a startup immovable that really needs the creative back, the CEO power be added willing to talk to you. In that case, send forth a teaser—rather than the full idea—and request a face-to-face meeting, advises Carlos Ugalde, CEO of WebMetro, a digital marketing firm. "If you get some interest, make every possible attempt to make the presentation in person. If possible, have them sign a nondisclosure agreement near the front of you disclose the full idea," he says.

You also need to make sure anything you show them is already protected either through trademark or copyright—the patent office Web site fully explains the difference betwixt the two. If the CEO or marketing director responds favorably to your idea, try your superlatively good to get a purchase order or a signed contract ensuring payment in front of you leave the play, Silberg says.

If you’re fair at coming up with advertising concepts, you might try to get a job at or establish a compact dependence by a limited advertising agency. If this proves to be something you love doing and are ample at, you could chase establishing your own agency someday.