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Chemung Financial profit falls 33 percent in Q1
ELMIRA — Chemung Financial Corp., parent company of Chemung Canal Trust Co., reported that its first-quarter net income fell 33 percent to $2.4 million, or 52 cents a share, from $3.6 million, or 78 cents, in the year-ago period as both net interest and noninterest income declined. Low interest rates helped squeeze net interest margin […]
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ELMIRA — Chemung Financial Corp., parent company of Chemung Canal Trust Co., reported that its first-quarter net income fell 33 percent to $2.4 million, or 52 cents a share, from $3.6 million, or 78 cents, in the year-ago period as both net interest and noninterest income declined.
Low interest rates helped squeeze net interest margin at Chemung Financial (NASDAQ: CHMG) down to 4.07 percent in the latest quarter from 4.29 percent in the first quarter of 2012.
“We are pleased that our financial performance remains strong despite the expected pressure on our net interest margin due to record low interest rates,” Ronald M. Bentley, president and CEO, said in a news release.
Chemung Financial had assets totaling $1.28 billion as of March 31, up from $1.25 billion as of Dec. 31, 2012 as it generated increases in loans, including commercial loans.
Net interest income for the first quarter totaled $11.7 million, down almost 3 percent from $12 million a year ago, but up almost 1 percent from $11.6 million for the preceding quarter ended Dec. 31, 2012. Chemung Financial’s shrinking net interest margin was primarily due to interest rates on its interest-earning loans falling at a faster rate than the cost of its interest-bearing deposits
Non-interest income fell almost 18 percent to $4 million in the first quarter from $4.9 million a year ago. The decline was primarily due to a reduction of $800,000 in casualty gains from insurance reimbursements, the banking company said.
Chemung Financial’s non-interest expense in the first quarter totaled $11.7 million, up more than 7 percent from $10.9 million in the year-earlier quarter, led by increases in salaries and wages, professional services, and pension and other employee benefits. Non-interest expense in the latest quarter, however, was down over 7 percent from $12.6 million in the preceding quarter ended Dec. 31. The decrease was primarily due to declines in salaries and wages and professional services, the banking company said.
Non-performing loans totaled $16.8 million on March 31, or 1.82 percent of total loans, up slightly from $15.9 million, or 1.78 percent, on Dec. 31. Non-performing assets, which are comprised of non-performing loans and other real estate that Chemung Financial owns, totaled $17.4 million, or 1.36 percent of total assets, on March 31. That’s up from $16.4 million, or 1.32 percent, on Dec. 31.
The market value of total assets under management or administration in Chemung Financial’s Wealth Management Group was $1.833 billion as of March 31, compared with $1.735 billion as of Dec. 31, 2012 and $1.704 billion on March 31, 2012.
Chemung Financial is a financial-services holding company, headquartered in Elmira, that operates 28 branch offices through its main subsidiary, Chemung Canal Trust Co., a full-service community bank with trust powers.
Established in 1833, Chemung Canal Trust says it is the oldest locally owned and managed community bank in New York state. Chemung Financial is also the parent of CFS Group, Inc., a financial-services subsidiary offering mutual funds, annuities, brokerage services, tax-preparation services, and insurance.
Contact Rombel at arombel@cnybj.com
Community Bank profit rises almost 8 percent in Q1
DeWITT — Community Bank System, Inc. (NYSE: CBU) reported first-quarter net income of $20.2 million, up 7.5 percent from $18.8 million in the year-ago period as the banking company benefited from its previous acquisitions and also generated internal growth. Diluted earnings per share totaled 50 cents in the latest quarter, up 4.2 percent from 48
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DeWITT — Community Bank System, Inc. (NYSE: CBU) reported first-quarter net income of $20.2 million, up 7.5 percent from $18.8 million in the year-ago period as the banking company benefited from its previous acquisitions and also generated internal growth.
Diluted earnings per share totaled 50 cents in the latest quarter, up 4.2 percent from 48 cents in the first quarter of 2012.
Revenue for the first quarter of 2013 totaled $84.5 million, up 9.2 percent from a year ago. Higher revenue resulted mainly from an 11.6 percent increase in average earning assets, partially offset by slight decline in Community Bank’s net interest margin, the company said.
Increased net interest income was coupled with higher non-interest income from increased deposit accounts and balances, along with organic growth in wealth management and benefits-administration services, the company noted.
Balance-sheet growth was driven by the acquisition of HSBC and First Niagara branches in the third quarter of 2012, as well as organic growth over the past four quarters, Community Bank said.
Total operating expenses rose 10.4 percent to $54.6 million in the latest quarter from a year ago, reflecting increased operating costs from adding branch offices.
“Community Bank’s team began 2013 with strong momentum, producing record operating performance for a first quarter period,” Community Bank CEO Mark E. Tryniski said in a news release. “Our results continued to reflect successful efforts to efficiently grow our balance sheet and revenue sources, both organically and through acquisitions. In 2013 we will continue to execute our long-term approach to value creation with a focus on expansion of the Company’s earnings power and dividend capacity in all economic environments.”
Contact Rombel at arombel@cnybj.com
Tompkins Financial profit rises in first quarter
ITHACA — Tompkins Financial Corp. (stock ticker: TMP) reported net income of $11.5 million in the first quarter, up 47 percent from $7.8 million a year ago, boosted by last year’s acquisition of VIST Financial Corp. in Pennsylvania. Earnings per share (EPS) at Tompkins Financial totaled 79 cents in the first quarter, up 13 percent
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ITHACA — Tompkins Financial Corp. (stock ticker: TMP) reported net income of $11.5 million in the first quarter, up 47 percent from $7.8 million a year ago, boosted by last year’s acquisition of VIST Financial Corp. in Pennsylvania.
Earnings per share (EPS) at Tompkins Financial totaled 79 cents in the first quarter, up 13 percent from 70 cents in the year-earlier period.
Analysts were expecting EPS of 86 cents, according to Yahoo Finance and Thomson Financial Network data. The banking company reported its financial results before the open of trading April 26. Tompkins Financial’s stock price fell 3.3 percent that day.
Net interest income at Tompkins Financial increased 39 percent to $38.2 million, boosted by the addition of VIST Bank and steady loan growth, the company said in its earnings report. Its net interest margin for the first quarter was 3.57 percent, up from 3.51 percent in the year-ago quarter, but down from 3.83 percent last quarter.
Noninterest income rose 49 percent to $17.4 million in the first quarter, compared to the year-earlier period. Insurance commissions and fees, corporate-owned life insurance, and other income rose from the most recent quarter and from a year ago.
Tompkins Financial’s noninterest expense totaled $37.5 million in the first quarter, up 42 percent from a year earlier, primarily because of the VIST acquisition. However, noninterest expense was down almost 2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2012, mainly because of a decline in merger-related expenses to $196,000 in the first quarter from $770,000 in the fourth quarter.
“With the integration of VIST largely behind us, we look forward to strengthening our customer relationships and welcoming new customers in the Southeastern, Pennsylvania market,” Tompkins Financial CEO Stephen S. Romaine said in the earnings report.
Tompkins Financial reported total loans of $3 billion in the latest quarter, up 51 percent from a year ago and up 1.3 percent from year-end 2012.
The banking company had total deposits of $4.1 billion as of March 31, up more than 42 percent from a year ago and 3 percent higher than at 2012 year-end.
Total assets at Tompkins Financial jumped to $4.9 billion as of March 31 from less than $3.5 billion a year earlier.
Tompkins Financial also announced on April 26 that its board of directors approved a regular quarterly cash dividend of 38 cents a share, payable on May 15, to common shareholders of record on May 6.
Headquartered in Ithaca, Tompkins Financial is parent to Tompkins Trust Co., The Bank of Castile, Mahopac National Bank, VIST Bank, Tompkins Insurance Agencies, Inc., and Tompkins Financial Advisors.
Tompkins Trust Co. had nearly a 58 percent market share of deposits in the Ithaca metro area, according to the latest FDIC data as of June 30, 2012. The bank has 11 branch offices in Tompkins County as well as one branch each in Cayuga, Cortland, and Schuyler counties.
Contact Rombel at arombel@cnybj.com
Medical ID Theft is Definitely Not What the Doctor Ordered
Vicki Lee Blair, a 63-year-old former computer analyst from Westminster, Calif., had the surprise of her life. Blair went to a clinic seeking antidepressant medication. She said she was shocked when clinicians bombarded her with questions about a blood test in her file indicating thyroid problems and illegal drug use. She insisted the records were inaccurate,
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Vicki Lee Blair, a 63-year-old former computer analyst from Westminster, Calif., had the surprise of her life. Blair went to a clinic seeking antidepressant medication. She said she was shocked when clinicians bombarded her with questions about a blood test in her file indicating thyroid problems and illegal drug use. She insisted the records were inaccurate, potentially the result of an identity theft that occurred a year earlier. And like most victims, her response was, “I never thought this could happen to me.”
Unfortunately, statistics show that it is likely to happen to Vicki, as well as many others.
Medical identity theft affects an estimated 1.5 million people in the U.S. at a cost of $41.3 billion, according to the Ponemon Institute, a research center focused on privacy and data security. The crime has grown as health-care costs have swelled and job cuts have left people without employer-subsidized insurance. Often the information is stolen by employees at medical facilities, and resold on the black market. Thieves also may hack into medical databases or break into medical facilities. And very often, the victim never knows their medical world is being turned upside down until long after the damage has been done.
A child-protection services worker recently accused a woman of giving birth to a child that had tested positive for methamphetamine, although she hadn’t given birth in more than two years. After investigating the phone call, the Salt Lake City mother of four realized she had been the victim of medical identity theft. Turns out a pregnant woman strung out on drugs gave birth using her name and her medical insurance to pay for it. The victim was now in danger of losing her children.
But convincing medical investigators that she hadn’t given birth wasn’t easy. “I said I had not recently had a baby, that my youngest was 2 years old,” the victim explained. “I said, ‘Come meet me and you’ll know that I didn’t just have a baby.’” Investigators still made her life a living hell, she said, questioning her employers and interrogating her children.
Individuals are not the only ones impacted by medical ID theft. The collateral damage can also be felt in the workplace, where the result is often significant increases when it comes renewal time, both in employer premiums and employee contributions. And very often hospitals are in no hurry to help the recovery process as they have, in most cases, already been paid their premiums. To many victims, this feels like a clear-cut case of not being accountable to a problem that may have arisen from a hospital or medical facility having their data either physically stolen or cyber-stolen.
“What makes it so difficult is you have to go provider by provider, hospital by hospital, office by office and correct each record,” said Sam Imandoust, a legal analyst with the Identity Theft Resource Center. “The frustrating part is while you’re going through and trying to clean up the records, the identity thief can continue to go around and get medical services in the victim’s name. Really there’s no way to effectively shut it down.”
Some forms of identity theft can take as little as a few days to resolve, since banks and other financial institutions are generally equipped to handle the complaints. But medical identity thieves typically get treatment at five facilities or more, and the system isn’t set up to fix those kinds of errors. In another case, a man received a $44,000 bill for surgery he never had. “The hospital actually thought that I was going make this $44,000 payment, and here I was proving to them I had no scars from a surgery,” he said. “And they said, ‘No, we’re going to go ahead and pursue this.’ I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’”
Complicating the process of fixing one’s medical records is that some victims face resistance in obtaining files from doctors. The physicians’ reason? The files contain sensitive health information about the imposter.
A few individuals, however, are doing what it takes when it comes to making hospitals accountable. According to CBS/New York, 12 people filed a $50 million lawsuit against a New York City hospital after medical records with their personal information were stolen. They claimed since the fall of 2010, medical records with full names, addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, medical histories, and other information were stolen from the hospital.
“If the public cannot trust North Shore University Hospital and its hospital network to safeguard and secure their private identity, and health, confidential, sensitive information, how can they trust them with their lives?” said plaintiffs’ attorney Bonita E. Zelman.
According to the Bloomberg News website, here are the most common types of medical-ID-theft scams to watch for:
§ Illegal and bogus treatment. Medical ID thieves bill your health plan for fake or inflated treatment claims. Thieves buy patient information and set up fake clinics to make bogus claims.
§ Buy addictive drugs. Medical personnel with access to your data may use your identity to obtain prescription drugs to sell, or feed their own addictions. Dishonest pharmacists might bill your policy for narcotics, or nurses may call in prescriptions in a patient’s name but pick it up themselves.
§ Obtain free treatment. Medical ID thieves who don’t have their own health coverage often receive free medical treatment, courtesy of your policy. They assume your identity at a hospital or clinic, and your policy receives the bills.
§ Ruined credit. Thieves often ring up large hospital bills in your name. This can ruin your credit.
§ Inaccurate records. A thief’s treatment history can end up on your medical records. This could include the wrong blood type, or medicine to which you’re allergic. Your life thus could be on the line if you receive the wrong treatment based on the thief’s treatment. Your records also could be falsely saddled with damaging — and inaccurate — diagnoses such as mental illness.
§ Legal troubles. A pregnant woman (whom we cited previously) stole the medical identity of a mother, and delivered a baby who tested positive for illegal drugs. Social workers tried to take away the real mother’s four children, falsely thinking she was the addict. She had to hire a lawyer to keep her family.
§ Higher health premiums. False claims against a health-insurance policy can raise your health premiums — costing you yet more money.
There are ways to fight back, or at the very least keep things in check. For instance, make it a point to keep your eye on the explanation of benefits form sent by your health insurer. I know you might get a Popsicle headache trying to decipher all the numbers and medical and insurance jargon, but it is important. Check your medical records frequently as thieves can alter information. Don’t let somebody play games with your life.
If you see inaccuracies on your medical records, make every effort to fix them. But be forewarned, unless you are a trained expert at such things, it can be a very daunting task. Correcting records can be hard. In general, federal law lets patients correct medical records created only by the medical provider or insurer that now maintains your information. A hospital or insurer that later receives your information doesn’t have to correct its records — even when they’re wrong. But you do have the right to have your records state that you disagree with the information, and why. Be sure your complaint is entered into your records.
The seriousness of medical ID theft has not been lost on employers, who have now started offering recovery service to their employees as a value-added benefit, which is important because it can sometimes take hundreds of hours to correct mistakes, hours that are often spent on company time. These benefits can usually be offered by the company’s insurance agents and brokers, who have now viewed offering an ID-theft-recovery package as a way to not only bring value to their clients but as a substitute for lost commissions which have started to fall by the wayside over the past 10 years or so with the economic crunch. Although some companies offer credit monitoring as an employee benefit, credit monitoring does not reveal cases of medical ID theft.
When it comes to medical ID theft it’s not a question of “if” but “when.” So when it happens, the key is to find out the information as quickly as possible and then sign-on with a company that will conduct the recovery as rapidly and painlessly as possible, as traditionally some cases can take years to resolve, longer than other forms of identity theft. It’s not uncommon for victims to still be fighting cases for more than 10 years. But it’s a battle worth fighting in order to fully reclaim your medical identity.
There was a story recently about a thief who stole a person’s dental records and racked up thousands of dollars in dental work. The victim’s advice to his family: “If I ever die and there’s only dental records, make sure it’s me. I might be on vacation somewhere.”
Christopher Durso is CEO/co-founder of ID Theft Solutions USA, based in Mahwah, NJ. Contact him at chris@idtheftsolutionsusa.com or for more information, visit www.idtheftsolutionsusa.com
Full text of May 1 Federal Reserve statement on monetary policy decision
Below is the full text of the much-anticipated statement the Federal Reserve issued on Wednesday, May 1, laying out its monetary-policy plans regarding its securities purchases and interest-rate targets: “Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in March suggests that economic activity has been expanding at a moderate pace. Labor market conditions have
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Below is the full text of the much-anticipated statement the Federal Reserve issued on Wednesday, May 1, laying out its monetary-policy plans regarding its securities purchases and interest-rate targets:
“Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in March suggests that economic activity has been expanding at a moderate pace. Labor market conditions have shown some improvement in recent months, on balance, but the unemployment rate remains elevated. Household spending and business fixed investment advanced, and the housing sector has strengthened further, but fiscal policy is restraining economic growth. Inflation has been running somewhat below the Committee’s longer-run objective, apart from temporary variations that largely reflect fluctuations in energy prices. Longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable.
Consistent with its statutory mandate, the Committee seeks to foster maximum employment and price stability. The Committee expects that, with appropriate policy accommodation, economic growth will proceed at a moderate pace and the unemployment rate will gradually decline toward levels the Committee judges consistent with its dual mandate. The Committee continues to see downside risks to the economic outlook. The Committee also anticipates that inflation over the medium term likely will run at or below its 2 percent objective.
To support a stronger economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at the rate most consistent with its dual mandate, the Committee decided to continue purchasing additional agency mortgage-backed securities at a pace of $40 billion per month and longer-term Treasury securities at a pace of $45 billion per month. The Committee is maintaining its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in agency mortgage-backed securities and of rolling over maturing Treasury securities at auction. Taken together, these actions should maintain downward pressure on longer-term interest rates, support mortgage markets, and help to make broader financial conditions more accommodative.
The Committee will closely monitor incoming information on economic and financial developments in coming months. The Committee will continue its purchases of Treasury and agency mortgage-backed securities, and employ its other policy tools as appropriate, until the outlook for the labor market has improved substantially in a context of price stability. The Committee is prepared to increase or reduce the pace of its purchases to maintain appropriate policy accommodation as the outlook for the labor market or inflation changes. In determining the size, pace, and composition of its asset purchases, the Committee will continue to take appropriate account of the likely efficacy and costs of such purchases as well as the extent of progress toward its economic objectives.
To support continued progress toward maximum employment and price stability, the Committee expects that a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy will remain appropriate for a considerable time after the asset purchase program ends and the economic recovery strengthens. In particular, the Committee decided to keep the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and currently anticipates that this exceptionally low range for the federal funds rate will be appropriate at least as long as the unemployment rate remains above 6-1/2 percent, inflation between one and two years ahead is projected to be no more than a half percentage point above the Committee’s 2 percent longer-run goal, and longer-term inflation expectations continue to be well anchored. In determining how long to maintain a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy, the Committee will also consider other information, including additional measures of labor market conditions, indicators of inflation pressures and inflation expectations, and readings on financial developments. When the Committee decides to begin to remove policy accommodation, it will take a balanced approach consistent with its longer-run goals of maximum employment and inflation of 2 percent.
Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; William C. Dudley, Vice Chairman; James Bullard; Elizabeth A. Duke; Charles L. Evans; Jerome H. Powell; Sarah Bloom Raskin; Eric S. Rosengren; Jeremy C. Stein; Daniel K. Tarullo; and Janet L. Yellen. Voting against the action was Esther L. George, who was concerned that the continued high level of monetary accommodation increased the risks of future economic and financial imbalances and, over time, could cause an increase in long-term inflation expectations.”
JPMorgan Chase plans for CNY middle-market growth
SYRACUSE — With some changes at the management level along with two new commercial-banking employees, JPMorgan Chase & Co. is poised to grow its middle-market business across the Central New York and Northern Central Pennsylvania region. On Jan. 1, JPMorgan Chase promoted Malcolm (Sandy) Wolcott from president of the upstate New York middle-market banking team
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SYRACUSE — With some changes at the management level along with two new commercial-banking employees, JPMorgan Chase & Co. is poised to grow its middle-market business across the Central New York and Northern Central Pennsylvania region.
On Jan. 1, JPMorgan Chase promoted Malcolm (Sandy) Wolcott from president of the upstate New York middle-market banking team to chairman of the Northeast middle market, a region spanning from Maine to South Carolina. At the same time, Robert Ryan, already serving as president of the Rochester and Buffalo middle-market regions, began serving as president of the Syracuse region as well. JPMorgan Chase defines its middle-market customers as businesses with annual revenue exceeding $20 million.
JPMorgan Chase also added two new commercial bankers to its roster. Gary Guariglia previous served as a middle-market portfolio manager at RBS Citizens Bank in Syracuse, before joining JPMorgan Chase to help the company grow its middle-market business from its Syracuse office. John Huhtala joined the Syracuse office after previous working for JPMorgan’s metro New York middle-market team.
The new employees join a staff of about 300 JPMorgan Chase employees across Central New York, many of which are based in Syracuse where the banking company has an office on Plum Street. JPMorgan Chase operates 13 branch offices in the Syracuse metro area.
The decision to fully staff the Syracuse market was a conscious one, says Ryan, made because JPMorgan Chase has already experienced growth in the market and is poised for even more.
“We are doing very well year-to-date,” he says. The company has produced growth from both existing clients as well as from landing a number of new clients, he notes.
It is those new clients that truly show JPMorgan’s potential for growth, he says, because those clients came for specific services and expertise that JPMorgan Chase offers.
In one case, a client — a large retailer Ryan declined to name — was looking for a bank with expertise in employee stock-ownership plans. Another new client needed a bank that could serve its international needs, Ryan says. JPMorgan Chase is able to meet those needs with both U.S.–based employees that have expertise in serving various areas around the globe as well as foreign–based employees in one of 16 offices around the world dedicated to serving U.S.–based middle-market clients.
JPMorgan Chase is in talks with another potential new client that has grown frustrated with the delayed services provided by its out-of-state bank — something that highlights another of JPMorgan’s advantages in the market, Ryan says.
The company focuses on providing clients with local banking representatives, local customer service, and local decision-making, he says. All of those factors help JPMorgan Chase build long-term relationships with its clients, he adds.
JPMorgan Chase further emphasizes the importance of community relationships by being an active member of the community, says Wolcott. Whether it is contributing $30 million toward Syracuse University’s technology center or hosting 7,500 runners plus another 12,000 or so spectators and supporters for the upcoming Corporate Challenge 3.5 mile race at Onondaga Lake Park on June 18, the goal is to be involved, Wolcott says. “We’re not just banking,” he says “We want to give back.”
The formula has been a winning one for JPMorgan Chase so far, Wolcott says, and he hopes to see that continue through 2013 for the Syracuse office, particularly as the economy shows continued signs of recovery.
JPMorgan Chase can capitalize on that recovery by offering additional services to existing clients, such as assistance with real estate, mergers and acquisitions, or IPOs, as well as by gaining new clients, Wolcott says.
JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPG) is a New York City–based global financial-services firm with total assets of about $2.4 trillion. The firm’s services include asset management, investment banking, private banking, commercial banking, and treasury and securities services.
Contact The Business Journal at news@cnybj.com
The world is in turmoil. North Korea is rattling its nuclear sword more than usual. The Iranians are speeding up their drive to develop nuclear weapons as the major world powers engage in endless monologue, despite Israel’s warning that the Iranians are only months away. Syria’s Assad has crossed President Barack Obama’s red line by
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The world is in turmoil.
North Korea is rattling its nuclear sword more than usual. The Iranians are speeding up their drive to develop nuclear weapons as the major world powers engage in endless monologue, despite Israel’s warning that the Iranians are only months away. Syria’s Assad has crossed President Barack Obama’s red line by using chemical weapons on the Syrian rebels, unless Assad has successfully faked saran in their bloodstreams. The U.S. President is now calling for more evidence and the requirement that there be widespread use of chemical weaponry.
The FBI continues to look into the potential that the Chechen brothers who set off the bombs at the Boston Marathon were not acting alone. Who trained them? Where did the training occur? [Editor’s note: As we went to press May 1, news was breaking that police had taken three more suspects into custody for allegedly helping the living Chechen suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev after the Boston bombings but not for planning them.].
Seven months after the attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, whistleblowers are finally coming forth to counter the Beltway mantra that the Obama Administration did everything it could to help our diplomats trapped in Libya. The suspicion of a Nixonian cover-up grows.
In the good ole’ USA, the economy is still stuck in the mud. We’re limping along nearly four years after the recession officially ended at an economic pace only a turtle could love. Job creation has almost kept up with population growth and made barely a dent in the ranks of those who lost their jobs during the recession. Youth unemployment (ages 18-29) is near 12 percent, with African-American youth unemployment above 20 percent. Labor participation is falling off the charts, due only in part to retiring baby-boomers. Millions of potential workers have simply stopped looking for jobs. The national debt is rapidly approaching $17 trillion.
Then there is Obamacare. God bless Nancy Pelosi. She was absolutely right when she said Congress would have to pass the bill before we understood what was in it. Now that we are beginning to understand the 2000-plus pages of legislation, even the politicians are panicking. Max Baucus, a Democratic U.S. Senator from Montana who was instrumental in steering the original legislation through the Senate, threw up his hands at a hearing recently and called the implementation an impending “train wreck.” Health-care premiums are headed skyward, many patients may not have access to their usual doctor, some workers will see their hours cut and lose their insurance, and some people that would have been hired won’t be.
Undeterred by the failure of Solyndra and other “green investments,” the president continues to push for more money to spend on green-energy initiatives. He also wants more largesse for education and those proverbial shovel-ready infrastructure projects. His appetite for spending is unabated by the bariatric presence of “sequestration.”
So how is the president dealing with these multiple crises? He clearly doesn’t want to place the U.S. in a leadership role in foreign affairs, unless leading-from-behind qualifies. Domestically, his policies inhibit faster growth, leaving the long-term unemployed in limbo. President Obama seems quite content with encouraging the growth of public assistance and borrowing 40 cents on every dollar the government spends. Apparently the problem of growing debt can simply be transferred to future generations to pay.
The commander-in-chief seems uncomfortable with the big problems concerning the nation. He appears to be more comfortable focusing on abortion, guns, and gays. The top news story this week was the president’s call to Jason Collins, an NBA player who decided to announce that he was gay. Within hours of the announcement, President Obama was on the phone congratulating Collins “for his courage.”
I would have preferred that the president reach out immediately to the Benghazi whistleblowers, promising them career protection if they simply shared their personal knowledge. Maybe then we could get to the bottom of the episode and use that information to craft policies and procedures to better protect not only our diplomats but also our citizens.
It’s all a matter of setting priorities.
Norman Poltenson is publisher of The Central New York Business Journal. Contact him at npoltenson@cnybj.com
Oneida Wealth Management positions parent company for growth
ONEIDA — Oneida Financial Corp.’s new Oneida Wealth Management subsidiary not only better aligns the company’s financial services through its various divisions, but also positions
NYSERDA recognizes SUNYIT for its energy-efficiency efforts
MARCY — The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has recognized the State University of New York Institute of Technology at Utica/Rome
Carhartt opens store at Destiny USA
SYRACUSE — Carhartt, the maker and retailer of rugged apparel, footwear, and outerwear, has opened a store at Destiny USA. Carhartt’s rugged workwear brand serves
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