We are enjoy Nobel Prize may not help Obama's Fed nominee

Nobel Prize may not help Obama's Fed nominee

AP – FILE -- In a June 18, 2004 file photo Professor Peter A. Diamond smiles prior to the start of a meeting
WASHINGTON – You'd think that having a Nobel Prize under your belt would be a clincher for getting a promotion or a job change. But it may not help economist Peter Diamond win a coveted seat on the Federal Reserve.
Diamond, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, won a Nobel Prize in economics with two other economists on Monday.
Only trouble is, Senate Republicans have so far blocked his nomination. Why? They suggest he lacks the experience to serve on the Fed's board of governors.
Given the partisan rancor that permeates U.S. politics these days, and GOP disdain for some recent Nobel awards, the news from Stockholm won't necessarily lead to a confirmation nod for Diamond.
"While the Nobel Prize for economics is a significant recognition, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences does not determine who is qualified to serve on the Board of Governors," said Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Senate Banking Committee.
Diamond and the two other economists won the prize for their insights into unemployment and the impact of government policies on helping people to find jobs or cushioning their periods of joblessness.
That's certainly a prime topic right now with the jobless rate stuck at 9.6 percent and nearly 15 million Americans out of work from the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Their research found, in part, that programs such as government unemployment benefits can help the process of lining up job seekers with jobs that match their skills and abilities.
"How can economic policy affect unemployment? This year's laureates have developed a theory that can be used to answer these questions," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement.
Republicans in this election cycle have railed against the administration's spending, suggesting the tens of billions of dollars in bank and auto bailouts and stimulus programs have done little to produce jobs. Many have fought extensions of unemployment benefit programs pushed by President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress, arguing that the extensions have reduced incentives for finding work.
Some of Diamond's research findings may run up against GOP campaign dogma.
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Pakistan to seek IMF help for flood-battered economy

Enjoy Pakistan to seek IMF help for flood-battered economy


A boy walks into his family house which was destroyed by floodwaters in Mehmood Kod village in Pakistan's Muzaffargarh district of Punjab province August 23, 2010. (REUTERS/Reinhard Krause)
SUKKUR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan braced for more flooding in the south as officials were due to hold talks in Washington on Monday with the International Monetary Fund on how to shore up the battered economy to maintain stability.


A boy walks into his family house which was destroyed by floodwaters in Mehmood Kod village in Pakistan's Muzaffargarh district of Punjab province August 23, 2010. (REUTERS/Reinhard Krause)
The IMF said it would review Pakistan's budget and economic prospects because of the magnitude of a disaster that has ravaged crops and infrastructure, left more than 4 million homeless and raised concerns that Islamist militants may exploit the chaos.

Estimates for economic growth this year range from zero to 3 percent -- below the official target of 4.5 percent -- with Pakistan's ally the United States worried that a weak economy could destablise a key nation in the war against militancy.

Agriculture, the mainstay of the economy, has been hit hard.

The floods have destroyed or extensively damaged crops over 4.25 million acres (1.72 mln hectares) of land -- including cotton, rice, sugarcane, maize -- Food Minister Nazar Muhammad Gondal told Reuters.

The total area under cultivation is about 23 million hectares, food ministry officials say.

The IMF talks will evaluate the economic impact of the flooding, assess the measures needed to address the damage and discuss ways in which the IMF can help. [nSGE67M04A]

Help may come in the form of lowering some of the targets of the loan programme or allowing the government to abandon it and take on another disaster-relief loan.

Either way, the government is under intense pressure to deliver assistance to a public that is seething at its handling of the crisis.

Any unrest could fuel a Taliban-led insurgency that the military had said it had made serious progress against before the floods hit three weeks ago.

(For a slideshow: Pakistan flood relief, click http://in.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=INRTR2GZF5)

Authorities have been accused of moving too slowly and Islamist charities, some with suspected links to militant groups, have rapidly provide relief to Pakistanis, already frustrated with their leaders' track record on security, poverty and chronic power shortages.

Since the floods struck, the Taliban had not staged any major attacks, but on Monday a suicide bomber killed pro-government cleric Noor Mohammad and 21 others in a mosque in South Waziristan on Monday, officials said.

"People were leaving the mosque after prayers when the bomber moved ahead to shake hands with my father and exploded the device," said the cleric's son, Noor Khanan, adding that the bomber was a young boy.

South Waziristan, a semi-autonomous ethnic Pashtun region, was a stronghold of al Qaeda and Taliban militants before the government launched a military offensive in October last year and largely cleared the region. Taliban militants often melt away when they are under pressure and return to former bastions.

Hours earlier, a bomb blast at a meeting of tribal elders killed seven people in Kurram tribal region near Afghanistan, a government official said.

In a third attack, a bomb planted under a cart went off in a market on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing three people and wounding six, police said.

SOUTH ON ALERT FOR FLOODS

The worst floods in decades have been spreading through the rice-growing belt in southern Sindh province district by district, breaking through or flowing over embankments.

International Organisation for Migration (IOM) spokesman Saleem Rehmat told reporters about 80 percent of the 3.9 million people in Sindh affected by the floods have been displaced.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled cities, towns and villages in the province for safer ground, disaster management officials said, adding that growing water pressure in the Indus River was one of their biggest concerns.

Food is running out in remote villages. Two exhausted-looking men wading along a flooded road in Sindh in search of supplies said they had walked for three days from their flooded village.
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