plus 3, House debates tax and spending bill after deficit fears spur cutbacks - WGNtv.com

House debates tax and spending bill after deficit fears spur cutbacks - WGNtv.com
Fabio Capello: I love my job and my lifestyle in London... and England will be the last job of my career - Daily Mail
Our View: Consider careers, jobs and markets - Mankato Free Press
Keeping with the times - Examiner

House debates tax and spending bill after deficit fears spur cutbacks - WGNtv.com

Posted: 28 May 2010 08:25 AM PDT

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ANDREW TAYLOR Associated Press Writers

8:14 PM CDT, May 28, 2010

In this May 3, 2010 photo, job seekers are seen waiting in line at a National Career Fair in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Monday, May 3, 2010. The economic rebound last quarter turned out to be slower than first thought, one of the reasons unemployment is likely to stay stubbornly high this year.(AP Photo/J Pat Carter) (J Pat Carter, AP / May 3, 2010)

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats on Friday salvaged a bill to continue providing unemployment checks to people out of work more than six months and revive tax breaks popular with families and businesses.

But spending cuts demanded by Democratic moderates unhappy about voting to increase the deficit will mean layoffs next year by state governments and no health insurance subsidies for people laid off after Memorial Day.

The House approved the legislation in a 215-204 vote that capped a turbulent week for Democratic leaders, who were forced to kill $24 billion in aid to cash-starved states and $7 billion for health insurance subsidies for laid-off workers. The programs were created by last year's economic stimulus bill and Democratic leaders had wanted to extend them.

Left standing is the unemployment insurance extension and a grab bag of unfinished business, including numerous spending measures and a renewal of more than 50 tax breaks for individuals and businesses.

The legislation, which now faces an uncertain fate in the Senate, spends about $115 billion on tax breaks and spending such as assistance for doctors facing lower Medicare payments, a summer jobs program sought by minority lawmakers and settlements of long-running class-action lawsuits brought against the government by black farmers and American Indians.

Offsetting tax increases such as a new levy on investment and hedge fund managers helped bring the bill's drag on the federal deficit down to $54 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Despite House action, Democrats will miss a deadline of passing a jobless benefits measure before Memorial Day. The Senate left Washington Friday without acting on the legislation. The extended benefits program for the long-term jobless expires June 2, though the immediate impact will be relatively slight.

Still, it's an embarrassment for Democrats and is the third time this year that the extended unemployment insurance program will have lapsed, though only a small fraction of the 11 million people receiving unemployment benefits have been left in the lurch.

President Barack Obama issued a statement praising the measure, but said Congress should restore in future legislation the funding cut from the measure and also pass aid to school districts to help them avert teacher layoffs. But such moves face an uphill road after this week's events.

The weeklong turmoil in the House reflected increasing anxiety among fiscally conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats unhappy about adding to the deficit as the national debt closes in on $13 trillion. A version circulated last week would have added $134 billion to the deficit and was declared dead on arrival by deficit-conscious lawmakers.

Lawmakers also approved, by 245-171, a $23 billion provision to delay a scheduled 21 percent cut in Medicare reimbursements to doctors until 2012.

The move to drop the aid to states was a big blow to the nation's governors, who are desperate for fiscal relief as weak tax revenues are forcing painful cutbacks, including layoffs and furloughs of state workers. Many states had already incorporated the money into their budgets for next year.

Democrats say that continuing unemployment benefits would not only help the jobless but provide a boost to the economy since the money is typically spent immediately and spurs demand.

"With this vote, we can help families across the country and continue the path we set out on last year to help dig the country out of a terrible recession," said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y.

Republicans countered that the $58 billion in tax increases to partially pay for the measure — including $11 billion from quadrupling to 34 cents the per-barrel tax that oil companies pay into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund — are job killers. And they lambasted the new spending in the measure.

"This is not a jobs bill," said Rep. Wally Herger, R-Calif. "It is just another extension of the 'tax too much, spend too much, borrow too much' philosophy that we have come to expect" from Democrats.

About 200,000 people per week are set to begin losing jobless benefits when an extension of unemployment insurance expires next week, though lawmakers are likely to seek to restore them after the fact.

The cost of the bill passed Friday would be partially offset by tax increases on investment fund managers, oil companies and some international businesses. The tax increases total about $57 billion over the next decade. Changes giving underfunded pensions more time to improve their finances would raise $2 billion.

Democrats lauded a provision that they said would cancel a tax break for companies that ship U.S. jobs overseas.

(This version CORRECTS the vote total on the Medicare reimbursements provision to 245-171, not 245-177.)

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Fabio Capello: I love my job and my lifestyle in London... and England will be the last job of my career - Daily Mail

Posted: 30 May 2010 05:19 PM PDT

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By Mark Ryan

Last updated at 12:25 AM on 31st May 2010

'There was no spirit. They weren't playing like they do for their clubs. They played with fear': Fabio Capello on the England team

England will start sloppily, battle bravely with flashes of brilliance to the quarter-finals and then crash out on penalties. We know the script by now. But if the World Cup does play out like that, the England manager will never forgive himself. Fabio Capello, after all, is the man who caused the introduction of shoot-outs in the first place.

'I never made the connection until you brought it up,' he tells Live. 'What can I say? Sorry.'

The story is a bit of a heartbreaker. In 1970, Capello was playing for Roma in the European Cup Winners' Cup.

'We reached the semi-finals and played a Polish team called Gornik Zabrze,' he says. 'We played them for 330 minutes: three matches, two with extra time, I scored two penalties, but it was still a draw. So the tie was decided by the toss of a coin. We called heads.' It was tails...

The result was considered so cruel and ridiculous that Fifa introduced penalty shoot-outs the very next year. In that moment, England's fate was effectively sealed for the rest of the century and beyond. By now we are so used to shoot-out pain that we helplessly expect the worst. But not this time, vows the manager.

'No,' Capello insists. 'We'll be ready for penalties if they come. We know how to play without fear now - in all situations.'

The Italian is a hard man to talk to - even by the super-protective standards of international football. His agent is his son, Pierfilippo, and naturally puts his father's needs way ahead of those of the media. Capello himself sees publicity as a disease - one of his first acts on taking over the England team in January 2008 was to insist his players do as little as possible and he leads by example.

But I've met Capello, 63, several times as a football reporter. I remind him that the first time, in 1995 at AC Milan's training ground, he told me how little he thought of England's team tactics: they ran a lot and were very strong but not good technically. They lacked the imagination of the South Americans, who he held up as the world's best.

'I remember my first training session with England,' he says (our interview is conducted in Italian).

'I was surprised. The players were really good. But when I saw them playing in a friendly against Switzerland I understood everything about why they hadn't qualified for Euro 2008. There was no spirit. They weren't playing like they do for their clubs. They played with fear. I said to myself, this is a big problem of the mind. I have to work a lot on this.'

At the last World Cup, negative thoughts entered players' heads at the vital moment - both Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard admitted as much. To combat this, Capello has hired 'mental-strength coach' Christian Lattanzio, formerly of West Ham. He wants the players to tell themselves they are going to score; he wants them to believe they have the power to make people happy.

'A coach has to plan a match. He has to choose a formation. He has to scrutinise the souls of the players and perceive their fears, anxieties and nervousness,' said Fabio

Fortunately, Capello is not relying soley on Lattanzio's techniques for success. His England practise penalties after every training session. The responsibility weighs heavily on his shoulders - and not just for penalties.

'A coach has to plan a match,' he says. 'He has to choose a formation. He has to scrutinise the souls of the players and perceive their fears, anxieties and nervousness. He must not make a wrong move. For a coach there is no way out. You can have done everything perfectly but if your opponents score with a long shot, you're an idiot. A footballer thinks about himself; I have to think about 23 players.'

Can you be their friend?

'No, definitely not. And I shouldn't try.'

It's true what they say about Capello's presence - there is 'an aura about him', as Wayne Rooney puts it. One way of exerting his authority is to insist on silence in the dressing room: players must wait for Capello to say the first words - and must not expect to be mollycoddled. He's not above insulting players to their face if he thinks it will sting them into action.

But where does that iron in the soul come from? Maybe you have to look back to 1943, when Fabio's father, Guerrino, was captured by Germans pulling out of Italy. He was kept on starvation rations for two years. Weighing just six stone on his release, he refused to return to his wife Evelina until he had gained enough weight to be a proper husband. Less than a year later, Fabio was born in the village of Pieris in north-east Italy.

'We're really straight, strong people where I'm from,' Capello says. 'We have to work. Big discipline. Respect was the most important thing to my father. He always told me never to be like a lamb.

'I remember when I was four years old, we went on a trip to the coast. My father helped me to climb up onto a rock and then he went down into the water and told me to throw myself in. I must have been ten metres up but I did it, even though I couldn't really swim.'

Wayne Rooney battles with Mexico's Ricardo Osorio

'(Wayne) Rooney's scored a lot of goals this season. I hope he maintains the same form until South Africa. He is like a bull'

Capello takes the same tough paternal line with his team - Wayne Rooney describes him as a strict father. England players were told shortly after he took over they'd only be seeing their wives and girlfriends once a week in South Africa, Capello comparing the influence of WAGs to a virus. Mobile phones were banned at meals, and players were given a strict 10pm curfew and expected to turn up for training 30 minutes early.

'You have to be demanding,' he says. 'I wouldn't say working with an iron fist, but the players have to know that we're here to work. We have to put in the effort. My target is to play in the final. I think that if all players are fit, we can beat all the teams.'

He takes nothing for granted in England's so-called easy group, insisting that previous victories over the USA and Slovenia count for nothing in South Africa. Then there is Algeria, a side England has never played.

'They are so well organised, they are like a European team,' he says.

'We've studied them very carefully and we'll be ready. As for the later stages, Spain have a confidence, a system of play that makes it difficult to beat them, and they don't rely on one player to score the goals.

'Brazil, I think, are a very difficult team to beat and Argentina have improved a lot since they qualified.

'There are the Germans and Italians. And another team who are very good are Holland. They could be a danger.'

For all the dangers, Capello has absolute confidence in his 23, particularly the star striker.

'Rooney's scored a lot of goals this season. I hope he maintains the same form until South Africa. He is like a bull.'

Capello reckons the 2010 team are as professional as any group he's come across, despite scandals off the pitch.

'They listen and they do as they are told on the training pitch, and that isn't always the case in countries like Italy or Spain. Off the pitch, they are not so different to players from other countries. It's just that the media focus is different.'

Despite the intense media scrutiny, Capello says he enjoys life in England.

'I love my job and my lifestyle in London. My wife Laura is happy here, too.'

Little wonder, given that Capello's contract is said to be worth £4 million a year - more than enough to swell the Capellos' already extensive fine art collection.

Married for more than 40 years, the couple love theatre and travel - Capello claims to have visited half the world's archaeological sites and museums (his favourite is the Tate Modern).

'I don't have any friends in football,' he says. 'My friends are from the worlds of art and opera, so I don't talk about football when I'm not working.'

There are one or two exceptions. His old Juventus team-mate and World Cup-winning captain Dino Zoff is still a pal. Then there are Capello's trusted assistants, Franco Baldini and Italo Galbiati. Galbiati once described time with Capello as 'golf matches, shooting, photographic safaris, bullfights, diving expeditions, whatever. Try to keep up with him and he'll exhaust you. He has two personalities: the serious Fabio at work, the fun Fabio away from work.'

It will be very much the serious Fabio in charge in South Africa. Capello's wife will only be seeing him fleetingly - if his schedule allows - and he expects the WAGs to show similar restraint.

'I tell my players that girls hang around them because modern-day footballers already have millions in their bank accounts by the age of 25. Before, such girls used to hang around film stars or television celebrities. Now it's the turn of footballers, who are robustly built, and this helps them a lot. These girls are all the same, all part of a set. Adjusted here, inflated there. They are all interchangeable and false.'

What he really likes to see is his players settling down with the right kind of woman.

'Marriage has helped Wayne Rooney to calm down; I think he is a better player these days for it.'

Capello's stable family life is in contrast to Sven Goran-Eriksson's entanglements. His eldest son Pierfilippo recently had a second child, Martina.

'Happiness for me these days is the expression I see on my grandchildren's faces.'

It appears to be one of the few things that can bring emotion to his craggy face.

I first met Capello in 1995. He'd just burst into tears in front of 85,000 people at the San Siro Stadium when Marco van Basten was forced by injury to retire from his team.

'I just felt sorry that he couldn't play any more. He was the best player I'd ever coached. Once I started crying, it was hard to stop. It was the same when I left AC Milan. I also cry sometimes over art or music; for example when I hear Claudio Abbado conduct the Berlin Philharmonic. There is nothing wrong with a man who shows his emotions.'

Capello will turn 64 during the World Cup. He insists managing England will be the last job of his career. For it to peak with a place in the final would surely see the emotional floodgates opening - but it might take a face-off with world champions Italy.

'It's my dream to play them. I'm a patriotic Italian but that day I will be wearing the England top. I now like the style of English players, their courage, strength and respect. I don't like people who dive - it's disrespectful to the crowd. For these reasons it was always a dream to be a manager here. I probably know Italian football, the Italian people, too well.'

Such admirable Anglophilia won't go down too well back home. Capello's own mother, 89, says her favourite moment of his career was when he scored a winning goal against England in a 1973 friendly, the first time Italy had ever beaten England.

Meanwhile, Don Pierpaolo Soranzo, the Capello family priest back in Pieris, told me: 'I was also priest to Enzo Bearzot, Italy's coach when they won the World Cup in 1982. Now maybe I'll be the priest of a second world champion. That would be nice. I'll support England if Italy are knocked out.'

But Capello isn't relying on his priest.

'Prayer doesn't help you to win,' he says. 'It helps you to feel at peace with your conscience. God has far more important matters to worry about than football. I won't be praying for Rooney's fitness. What you need to win a World Cup is a tightly knit group who respect each other. You need team spirit. You also need luck.'

Luck is what England had in 1966, Capello believes. He watched it at home, as a 20-year-old professional.

'I remember it very clearly indeed. That second Geoff Hurst goal - England's third - didn't cross the line. England won that day with the help of a little luck, and that's fine. It is unbelievable that England haven't won a World Cup since, with all the good players they've had.'

He'd gladly accept a similar stroke of English good fortune in the 2010 final. Let's face it, we're due some.

'Fabio Capello: The Boss' by Mark Ryan is published by JR Books, priced at £9.99

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Our View: Consider careers, jobs and markets - Mankato Free Press

Posted: 27 May 2010 09:26 PM PDT

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May 27, 2010

Our View: Consider careers, jobs and markets

The Free Press

— Workers of today face a higher risk of their industry suffering a downturn than probably any time since World War II, and that prospect should be reason for business, labor and government leaders to plan for change more than ever.

A recent series by Free Press partner Minnesota Public Radio has detailed the significant changes in Minnesota's job climate. Minnesota may never get back to the economy it had just two or three years ago.

The state has lost more than 40,000 manufacturing jobs in the current recession, according to state records, and 150,000 jobs overall. Those manufacturing jobs typically paid 18 percent more than the average job in the state, and has driven the state's economic growth.

Now, factory workers making $50,000 year have had to take trucking jobs where they sometimes lose 20 percent of their pay and their purchasing power, according to the MPR report.

Of course, manufacturing is an industry that loses jobs to the cheap labor overseas in a number of areas. That has been happening for decades, but the current recession put more pressure on companies to compete, and many must find cheaper labor. That's not to say we will lose all manufacturing. Minnesota has a history of manufacturing companies that are adopting new technology all the time. 3M and places like Medtronic come to mind.

Many of these firms adapt and are continually innovating. We may lose the lower skill jobs, but we have the competitive advantage in technology industries with an educated workforce. But we must nurture and grow that educated workforce.

There are many Minnesotans trying to make a transition from manufacturing jobs to other jobs. The state has long been the major player in workforce training, whether that is through its array of colleges and technical schools or through retraining programs through the Department of Employment and Economic Development.

The state's dislocated worker program that offers retraining ran out of money earlier this year, according to the MPR series, but has recently acquired an $8 million grant to serve the long list of workers needing retraining.

Some workers find themselves in an industry that may be shrinking, yet they can't take time off to get retraining. Some state programs help workers who have had their hours cut back get retraining part-time. More of those programs are probably needed. They allow the worker to still have an income yet prepare for the future.

The state of Minnesota has lots of resources for job seekers looking for training and careers that will be in demand at the website iseek.org. There are tips for choosing careers as well as finding retraining should you lose your job or plan to shift jobs.

The only constant in the world of jobs is change. The better prepared we are, the sooner we'll be able to adapt to the changing world economy.

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Keeping with the times - Examiner

Posted: 31 May 2010 03:42 AM PDT

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2 comments

Chances are, if you are looking for a new job/career you have a stack of resumes to hand. However, what if you already have a job/career and you're happy, should you have a resume ready to go?

Absolutely! You have so much going on there is no way you can remember everything! Adding a new responsibility, promotion, or award while it's fresh in your mind will keep your resume up to date and current. You never know when the next opportunity will come and you need to be ready! You want to avoid scrambling around at the last minute trying to remember what you did last year!

Some tips to help you with this include:

1. Keep your resume on your computer for easy access.

2. Schedule time a couple of times a year to update/add/delete relevant information.

3. Get someone else to read through it to ensure you have included all relevant information

The key here is to take a proactive approach to keeping your resume up to date. Don't wait for someone to ask you for your resume and then have to scramble around to put it together. Have a resume that is up to date and all you have to do is tweak for the new position.

Have a great time marketing Brand You!

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www.examiner.com/x-40707-Houston-Job-Interview-Skills-Examiner~y2010m3d19-Writing-Your-Resume

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