U.S Finance and Insurance

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 9, 2008— The Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (the Big “I”) applauds House Financial Services Capital Markets Subcommittee Chairman Paul Kanjorski and other Members of the Subcommittee for approving legislation to modernize insurance regulation, especially H.R. 5611, the NARAB Reform Act, which will reform nonresident agent licensing. Along with H.R. 5611, today the Subcommittee approved H.R. 5840, the Insurance Information Act.

“The Big ‘I’ has long supported the use of targeted federal legislation to reform the state system of insurance regulation, and we believe that these bills are good examples of such reform,” says Robert Rusbuldt, Big “I” President & CEO. “The most serious regulatory challenges facing our members are the redundant, costly and contradictory requirements that arise when they seek licenses on a multi-state basis. The NARAB Reform Act solves these problems through targeted reform and modernization of nonresident agent and broker licensing without affecting resident licensing.”

The bipartisan NARAB Reform Act, introduced by Reps. David Scott (D-Ga.) and Geoff Davis (R-Ky.) earlier this year, would provide for nonresident insurance agent and broker licensing while preserving the rights of states to supervise and discipline insurance agents and brokers. This legislation modifies the original NARAB provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to immediately establish NARAB as a private, non-profit entity managed by a board composed of insurance regulators and marketplace representatives. The NARAB board created by this legislation would not be part of, or report to, any federal agency and would not have any federal regulatory power.

“We believe that this type of targeted federal legislation makes the appropriate reforms to the marketplace and improves insurance regulation without having to take the unprecedented path of creating a new federal regulator,” says Charles E. Symington, Jr., Big “I” senior vice president of government affairs.

The Big “I” is an advocate for the state system of insurance regulation and continues to oppose federal regulation, optional or otherwise. However, the Big “I” believes that the state system cannot appropriately and effectively address certain problems on its own and feels that there is a vital role for Congress to play in helping to modernize state regulation and make it more efficient.

“As indicated by the industry and congressional support for these bills and the Subcommittee’s action today, targeted reform is the most viable option for insurance regulatory reform. When enacted, the NARAB bill will result in a more efficient and effective regulatory system, which is good for consumers,” says Symington. “The Big ‘I’ is pleased that the Subcommittee passed these bills, and we look forward to continuing to work with Congress on these and other targeted reform proposals.”

Founded in 1896, IIABA (the Big “I”) is the nation’s oldest and largest national association of independent insurance agents and brokers, representing a network of more than 300,000 agents, brokers and their employees nationally. Its members are businesses that offer customers a choice of policies from a variety of insurance companies. Independent agents and brokers offer all lines of insurance—property, casualty, life, and health—as well as employee benefit plans and retirement products.

Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu have announced a quad-core version of the SPARC64 processor and servers to that will use the chip.

Fujitsu–which manufactures and designs the SPARC64 processor–along with Sun unveiled the M4000, M5000, M8000, and M9000 enterprise servers that use the new quad-core SPARC64 VII chip. The two companies claim the processor delivers 80 percent better performance using 44 percent less power than the previous SPARC64 VI processor.

The SPARC64 VII is made on a more advanced 65-nanometer process than the SPARC64 VI chip, which used a 90nm node.

Sun is no stranger to multicore–putting many processing cores on one chip. Its UltraSPARC T2 processor can place up to eight cores on a single piece of silicon. This allows the UltraSPARC T2 to run up to 64 threads–parts of a program that can execute independently–or eight threads per core. It’s a feat processor giant Intel still hasn’t accomplished.

SPARC Enterprise servers using the SPARC64 VII processor are targeted at high-availability, mission-critical enterprise applications, including large-scale databases, data warehousing, and enterprise resource planning.

Current SPARC Enterprise servers can be seamlessly upgraded by swapping out older processors with the new SPARC64 VII chips, the two companies said. SPARC VI and SPARC VII chips can also be mixed and matched within a “single domain.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush on Saturday tried to pin the blame on Congress for soaring energy prices and said lawmakers need to lift long-standing restrictions on drilling for oil in pristine lands and offshore tracts believed to hold huge reserves of fuel.

“It’s time for members of Congress to address the pain that high gas prices are causing our citizens,” the president said. “Every extra dollar that American families spend because of high gas prices is one less dollar they can use to put food on the table or send a child to college. The American people deserve better.”

With gasoline prices above $4 a gallon, Bush and his Republican allies think Americans are more willing to allow drilling offshore and in an Alaska wildlife refuge that environmentalists have fought successfully for decades to protect.

Nearly half the people surveyed by the Pew Research Center in late June said they now consider energy exploration and drilling more important than conservation, compared with a little over a third who felt that way only five months ago. The sharpest shift in attitude came among political liberals.

Democrats say they are for drilling, but argue that oil companies aren’t going after the oil where they already have leases. So why open new, protected areas? they ask. Democrats say there are 68 million acres of federal land and waters where oil and gas companies hold leases, but aren’t producing oil.

“Americans are fed up every time they go to fill up and they’re right to demand action. But instead of a serious response, President Bush and his allies simply repeat the same old line more drilling,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said in the Democrats’ radio address.
“Democrats support more drilling,” he said. “In fact, what the president hasn’t told you is that the oil companies are already sitting on 68 million acres of federal lands with the potential to nearly double U.S. oil production. That is why in the coming days congressional Democrats will vote on ‘Use It or Lose It’ legislation requiring the big oil companies to develop these resources or lose their leases to someone else who will.”

“But we know that drilling by itself will not solve the problem of high gas prices,” Van Hollen said. “We cannot drill our way to energy independence.”

He cited Democrats’ calls to tap the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, because it is full and “America’s rainy day is now.” And he said the country must focus on new energy policies that focus on alternatives to oil.

Bush said that Democrats are at fault and that “Americans are increasingly frustrated with Congress’ failure to take action.

“One of the factors driving up high gas prices is that many of our oil deposits here in the United States have been put off-limits for exploration and production. Past efforts to meet the demand for oil by expanding domestic resources have been repeatedly rejected by Democrats in Congress.”

Bush repeated his call for Congress to lift the restrictions, including a ban on offshore drilling. A succession of presidents from George H.W. Bush to Bill Clinton to the current president have sided against drilling in these waters as has Congress each year for 27 years, seeking to protect beaches and coastal states’ tourism economies.

Nine New York state high school students recently received national recognition and monetary awards through the InVEST scholarship program. InVEST is the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America’s education program for students interested in careers in the financial services industry. Scholarships help prepare students for insurance-related jobs through high school and college hands-on classes.

The New York state winners are as follows:

The student awarded the $2,000 amount is Molly Parker, Dryden High School in Dryden.
Recipient of the $1,500 scholarship is Robinson LeViere, Dryden High School.
Those awarded the $1,000 scholarships are Amy LaLonde and Britney White, both students from Dryden High School and Deryk Carr, Groton High School, Groton.
Students recognized with $500 scholarships include Lynne Foley, West Genesee High School in Camillus; Daniel Gray, Groton High School; Ethan Phelps, McGraw High School in McGraw and Ann Messinger, Charles O. Dickerson High School, Trumansburg.

Scholarship candidacy includes writing an essay between 500 words and 600 words in length that allows the student to describe themselves, their intended benefit from InVEST participation and their education plans and InVEST’s influence on those plans.

InVEST will award $60,000 to high school and community college students throughout its nationwide scholarship program. New York’s 2008 awardees received a total of $8,500 and the Dryden InVEST program winners were bestowed with $5,500—nearly 10 percent of the scholarship funds.

Microsoft on Sunday cut the price of its best-selling Xbox 360 Pro model game console with a 20GB hard drive from $349 to $299.

The company also introduced a new Xbox 360 model with a 60GB hard drive. It will go on sale in stores in the U.S. and Canada for $349 in early August.

Microsoft’s announcements, which were widely expected, come on the eve of the start of this week’s E3 video game industry trade show in Los Angeles.

Rumors of the Xbox price cut swirled on popular gaming blogs Joystiq and Kotaku last week. The two sites received snapshots of Kmart and RadioShack fliers advertising the $299 price.

Microsoft announced in May that Xbox 360 had become the first next-generation video game console to hit 10 million units sold in the United States. All told, Microsoft said it has sold 19 million Xboxes worldwide.

For those Americans who filed their tax returns by April 15, the last of the paper checks were sent out Friday.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The Internal Revenue Service mailed out the last of 112 million stimulus checks on Friday to people who filed their tax returns by April 15. A total of $92 billion has been pumped into the nation’s sagging economy since last April.

The IRS will continue to send checks to people who got extensions to file their 2007 returns. The IRS said it will get checks to stragglers by the end of the year if they file by Oct. 15.

The IRS estimates that it will send out 12 million more checks, according to a spokeswoman.

Tax filers who miss the Oct. 15 deadline and still qualify for a payment can obtain their stimulus payment by filing a 2008 tax return. Keeping tabs. In the week ended July 11, the Treasury Department sent out 7.5 million economic stimulus payments totaling $5.7 billion.

The program “has met the objective - it put some money in people’s pockets when the economy was really struggling,” said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wachovia (WB, Fortune 500). “The program may have provided the economy just enough relief to avoid a technical recession,” he said.
Retail sales numbers for the month of June indicate that consumers are stretching their stimulus cash as much as possible. Discount retail chains, such asWal-mart (WMT, Fortune 500) and Costco (COST, Fortune 500), posted strong results while slightly more expensive clothing stores, like Gap andLimited (LTD, Fortune 500), did not perform as well.

Vitner said he expects consumer spending to slip in August, when consumers will have mostly spent their rebate checks.

About the program. The stimulus program was enacted earlier this year in the wake of a slowdown tied to the credit crisis and the end of the housing boom.

“If it helps avoid a recession, it will have been well worth it,” said Vitner. “If the economy falls into recession, then it will pretty much have been a waste.”

To qualify for a stimulus payment, individuals and households must file a 2007 income tax return. Single taxpayers with adjusted gross income of less than $75,000 last year will get checks of as much as $600. Joint filers with adjusted gross income of less than $150,000 were eligible for a rebate of up to $1,200.

In addition, parents will also receive $300 per child under 17; there is no cap on the number of qualifying children eligible.