Do you feel like your life is one struggle after another and no matter what you do you can’t seem to get ahead? Unfortunately many of us feel that way at some point in our lives, whether we admit it or not.
When you are struggling you basically have two choices. You can either sit and cry about it, or you can do something about it. Here are concrete steps that you can take to overcome the challenges, and rebuild your life, so that you can become as successful as you were always meant to be.
8 Steps to Help You Rebuild Your Life and Be Successful
Evaluate Your Life
What do you feel is lacking in your life? What do you have that fulfills you? Make a list, and consider options that will help you create what you feel you are missing. Feel gratitude and appreciation for the good things you have that fulfill you.
Write Down Your Goals
Write out your most important short and long-term goals and dreams, along with a plan to achieve them. Divide your plan into small steps that you know you can accomplish. For example, if you always wanted to open a bakery, start taking classes on business and baking at the local college.
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
Decide which of your stressors are small issues and which ones are large. Is the fact that your mother-in-law drops by unannounced a real concern or can you let that one go?
By letting the small stressors go, you can free up your mind to strategize ways to reduce, eliminate, or cope with what stresses you the most.
Analyze Your Time
Which activities take up most of your time? Do you wish you had more time for other, more enjoyable activities? If so, then develop a plan to restructure the time allotted for each activity.
Create a schedule that identifies your priorities and stick to it.
Consider Your Fears
What is stopping you right now from taking steps towards what you want in life? Is it a fear that you won’t succeed or that others will think less of you? Do you fear how things might change if you are successful? Make a strong effort to accomplish your goals regardless of your fears.
Facing your fears will make you feel empowered and more capable.
Create a Daily Success Plan
Think of small changes you can implement each day to improve your life. Each day’s accomplishments will show you that you are, indeed, moving toward fulfilling your life’s passion!
Leave Regret Behind
Once things start changing and you start feeling happy and successful, you may wish you had started earlier in your life. Push these thoughts of regret out of your mind and simply focus on the exciting new things that are happening in your life right now.
Look for Positive Advice
Surround yourself with positive people. Talk to anyone and everyone you can think of to gather positive tips, advice, and experiences. Speak to people that you feel have it all – everything you may be looking for in life. Find out their secrets, their perspectives, and the thoughts that motivate them.
How have you dealt with difficult times? Did you find a way to successfully turn things around?
From a billion dollars sought for embassies in Pakistan and Afghanistan to May's highest casualties for US forces in Iraq since September, the wars abroad are taking their toll on our nation. Bill Moyers sits down with award-winning investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill to examine the human and financial costs of America's wars.
A variety of technical signals are suggesting we're at a crucial decision point for the stock market: Either the bull recovers from its recent swoon and moves decisively up toward new highs, or the market reverses trend dramatically and moves down.
Although many market observers dismiss technical analysis as unscientific speculation more akin to astrology than math-based quantitative analysis, those skeptics are missing the point: Technical analysis isn't rooted in brute-force matching of curve sets, it's rooted in human psychology. Levels of resistance and support are not mathematical certainties -- they reflect the human psychological tendencies toward greed and fear.
When the market finally recovers a key level, for example, those investors who have grown weary of being underwater simply want their initial capital back, so they sell. This creates resistance. When the market declines, those who have reaped gains from buying during previous dips will jump in and buy more stock at what they perceive as "bargain" prices. This creates support.
And proponents of number-crunching quantitative analysis shouldn't be too cocky about their tool of choice: Quant analysis is based on past price action and patterns just like technical analysis. Just because a math-derived curve set matches recent price action does not preclude the unexpected from happening. This is why quant-based funds such as Long-Term Capital Management tend to self-destruct when markets trend strongly in unpredictable ways.
There are a lot of crosswinds in the market right now. Gains in retail sales and jobs are trends that support a bullish stance, while rising oil prices, food inflation and geopolitical uncertainty are giving credibility to a more cautious or even bearish perspective. Warnings from Carl Icahn and Bill Gross
Small investors often look to highly successful "superstar" investors for hints on where the market is heading, and two recent news items about such big names have provided solid support for the bear camp: Legendary investor Carl Icahn has dissolved his hedge fund and is returning its capital to shareholders, citing the risk of another financial crisis. And famed bond manager Bill Gross has reduced the Treasury bond holdings of the world's largest bond fund, Pimco's Total Return Fund, to zero. The amount of cash the fund holds has swollen from $11 billion to more than $54 billion, its largest cash position ever.
There isn't any other way to interpret this except as a multibillion-dollar bet against the Federal Reserve's reassuring stance that inflation will remain tame for years to come. If you fear inflation might accelerate, the last investments you want to own are long-term, low-yield bonds that will instantly lose money if interest rates start rising.
Some analysts also interpret this move as an expression of doubt that the Fed will launch a massive third round of quantitative easing in June when the current QE2 campaign is scheduled to end. The Fed's ongoing $600 billion quantitative easing program is widely regarded as having strongly supported the rising equity markets.
As for the rising retail sales numbers, part of those "gains" can be attributed to rising costs: People and businesses are paying more than before for the same goods. If households are spending borrowed money again, that's not a sign of strength -- it's a sign of weakness in the household balance sheet. Consumers turned on the credit card spigot again in December, and they've loaded up on car loan debt this year.
In an economy based on consumer spending, stagnant household incomes don't provide a strong foundation for future spending increases.
As for stock valuations, by at least one analyst's reckoning, many stocks are at all-time highs. Does the underlying economy support sky-high stock valuations? That's an open question, and one the market is obviously pondering.
To round out the backdrop for the market's current indecision, let's look at these two log-term charts of the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq.
The Nasdaq has retreated from the highs last reached in 2007, following a pattern that looks a lot like a classic "double top."
The S&P 500, meanwhile, traced out a massive double top pattern earlier in the decade. Its rapid ascent from the 2009 lows has been far more robust than the recovery in the overall economy, a disconnect that the current market queasiness reflects.
Now let's look at the daily chart of the broad-based S&P 500 (SPX).
The push and pull of hope and doubt is visible in the wedge (also called a flag or pennant) that has been traced out over the past three weeks. This is a classic wedge of lower highs and higher lows as prices are squeezed into a narrowing band of volatile swings.
Sponsored Links
Wedges are typically broken by big moves either up or down. A collapse in oil prices or a strong jobs report might provide the catalyst for an upside breakout, while accelerating inflation, a further rise in oil prices or a weaker-than-anticipated jobs report might trigger a breakdown and a trend reversal.
The 1,300 level offers both a psychological and technical support -- a round number and the 50-day moving average. Any sustained break below 1,300 would signal a possible trend reversal.
The bull has stumbled recently. For it regain its footing, the market would need to climb above the 20-day moving average (MA) and then retest recent highs around 1,343.
The two-month chart of the Nasdaq offers an interesting technical snapshot of indecision: As fear that the rally is over takes hold, the market drops significantly. Then as "bargain-hunting" and hopefulness return, it moves back up to the 2,800 level. But then by day four or five, doubt returns with a vengeance, and the market plummets again only to retrace back up to the 2,800 zone of resistance a few days later.
Now that pattern is breaking down: Price has failed to climb back above the critical 20-day moving average even as it has turned down, and is now clinging precariously to the key 50-day moving average. A break through the 50-day MA would be technically significant.
Nobody knows what the market will do tomorrow, much less three months or three years from now. But to the degree that markets reflect the emotions and calculations of its human participants, the current indicators of doubt and indecision deserve careful watching.
Disclosure: The writer has a small position in ProShares UltraShort QQQ (QID), an inverse ETF on the NASDAQ 100.
As the saying goes: Times, they are a'changing. Gone are the days of retirement filled with nothing but lazy days around the house and restoring that old clunker in your garage. While those can still be possibilities, it is increasingly likely that your retirement days may be full of something you've been quite familiar with for decades: employment.
The fact is, more elderly citizens are working through their retirement. To find out why, the Employee Benefit Research Institute conducted a survey aimed at this very phenomenon. Let's take a look at a few of the reasons they discovered that help to explain why retirees are continuing to work.
Reason #1: Retirees don't have enough savings.
This one should be obvious. If you don't have enough savings, you're going to want to continue working for as long as you can. The survey conducted by EBRI showed a drop in the number of people who either have money saved themselves or whose spouse has saved. In 2009, that number was 75%. But in 2012, it is only 66%. That is definitely not a good sign.
Other numbers are alarming, as well. The survey found that approximately 60% of workers have less than $25,000 socked away (not including a house or pension). Even worse, 30% claimed to have less than $1000 in savings. These numbers clearly show that far too many people are not taking part in retirement planning. If these people don't start gaining control over their financial portfolios, many of them will be in bad shape throughout their retirement.
Reason #2: Retirees have never felt safe when it comes to job security.
A number of workers do not concern themselves with planning for retirement because they're too worried about their current employment situation. The days of staying with one job from the age of 18 until you are ready to retire are pretty much over. Instead, workers are constantly worried about when they might find themselves on the chopping block. In other words, people approaching retirement have more pressing concerns at the current time than worrying about how they'll deal with retirement. Although that might not be a healthy stance to take, many Americans can understand such a sentiment.
Reason #3: Retirees have too much debt.
Debt is a big problem in this country. Whether it's taking on a house or car payment that is outside your comfort zone or racking up credit card debt and medical bills, many people closing in on retirement are trying desperately to pay off their debts so that their retirement can run smoothly. The problem with this is that focusing all of your energy on your debt and none on saving for your future can end up causing the very problems you're trying to avoid. Nowadays, many retirees are planning to work after they've retired to help alleviate their financial stress.
Reason #4: Retirees have lowered their expectations.
In years past, retirees often looked to their retirement with a sense of happiness and excitement. But given the current state of things, many are not counting on having such an easy time. Not only will many not be able to take an early retirement due to financial concerns, many of them will rely on remaining in the workforce in order to survive. The EBRI survey showed that the number of workers who plan to retire after 65 is up to 37%. That is a 26% increase since 1991. Which means many retirees feel they have no choice but to work through their retirement.
Month after month, Comscore puts out U.S. search engine market share data. Month after month, the leader by an extraordinary margin is Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). August was no exception with Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) fighting for a distant second spot and IAC/Interactive's (NASDAQ: IACI) Ask.com and AOL (NYSE: AOL) much further behind.
According to Comscore:
Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in August with 66.4 percent market share, followed by Microsoft Sites with 15.9 percent and Yahoo! Sites with 12.8 percent. Ask Network accounted for 3.2 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.7 percent.
There has been a revival of interest in Google's good prospects recently, despite the lack of success the company has had in making money from anything other than search advertising. Its Android mobile OS is the most widely used in the world, but investors are puzzled about how it creates revenue. Android may also be the next target of the legions of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) attorneys who successfully filed a patent suit against Samsung.
Google's shares recently rose above $700–a multi-year high. The stock is up 30% over the last year.
Douglas A. McIntyre
Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Internet, Research Tagged: AAPL, AOL, GOOG, MSFT, YHOO
Solar stocks have fallen so far in the past year and a half that there doesn't seem to be any further for them to fall. But that's not the way the stocks are being played.
We've looked at 10 solar stocks in our search for a value play in the sector: Canadian Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: CSIQ), First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR), GT Advanced Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: GTAT), MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (NYSE: WFR), SunPower Corp. (NASDAQ: SPWR), JA Solar Holdings Co. Ltd. (NASDAQ: JASO), LDK Solar Co. Inc. (NYSE: LDK), Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. (NYSE: STP), Trina Solar Ltd. (NYSE: TSL), and Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. Ltd. (NYSE: YGE).
Canadian Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: CSIQ) traded at $2.59 and has a market value of around $112 million. The consensus target price from Thomson Reuters is $3.76 and the 52-week range is $2.07-$6.20. Canadian Solar does not pay a dividend. The implied upside to the consensus target is 45%, and we note that the target is above the 52-week high. Short interest in the stock totals 3.74 million shares, or 12.4% of the float.
First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) traded at $18.57 and has a market value of around $1.62 billion. The consensus target price from Thomson Reuters is $23.26 and the 52-week range is $11.43-$93.64. First Solar does not pay a dividend. The implied upside to the consensus target is 25%, and we note that the target is well below the 52-week high. Short interest in the stock totals 31.9 million shares, or 63.5% of the float.
GT Advanced Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: GTAT) traded at $5.42 and has a market value of around $642 million. The consensus target price from Thomson Reuters is $8.11 and the 52-week range is $3.92-$11.99. Canadian Solar does not pay a dividend. The implied upside to the consensus target is 50%, and we note that the target is below the 52-week high. Short interest in the stock totals 29.2 million shares, or 24.8% of the float.
MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (NYSE: WFR) traded at $2.65 and has a market value of around $611 million. The consensus target price from Thomson Reuters is $4.35 and the 52-week range is $1.44-$7.19. MEMC does not pay a dividend. The implied upside to the consensus target is 64%, and we note that the target is above the 52-week high. Short interest in the stock totals 27.8 million shares, or 13.6% of the float.
SunPower Corp. (NASDAQ: SPWR) traded at $4.15 and has a market value of around $492 million. The consensus target price from Thomson Reuters is $5.62 and the 52-week range is $3.71-$13.66. SunPower does not pay a dividend. The implied upside to the consensus target is 35%, and we note that the target is above the 52-week high. Short interest in the stock totals 4.5 million shares, or 11.5% of the float.
JA Solar Holdings Co. Ltd. (NASDAQ: JASO) traded at $0.84 and has a market value of around $166 million. The consensus target price from Thomson Reuters is $1.11 and the 52-week range is $0.89-$3.29. Canadian Solar does not pay a dividend. The implied upside to the consensus target is 32%, and we note that the target is below the 52-week high. Short interest in the stock totals more than 10 million shares.
LDK Solar Co. Inc. (NYSE: LDK) traded at $1.21 and has a market value of around $185 million. The consensus target price from Thomson Reuters is $1.35 and the 52-week range is $1.26-$6.92. LDK does not pay a dividend. The implied upside to the consensus target is 12%, and we note that the target is well below the 52-week high. Short interest in the stock totals 10.4 million shares.
Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. (NYSE: STP) traded at $0.84 and has a market value of around $150 million. The consensus target price from Thomson Reuters is $1.80 and the 52-week range is $0.81-$4.80. Suntech does not pay a dividend. The implied upside to the consensus target is 114%, and we note that the target is below the 52-week high. Short interest in the stock totals 17.6 million shares.
Trina Solar Ltd. (NYSE: TSL) traded at $4.21 and has a market value of around $298 million. The consensus target price from Thomson Reuters is $6.98 and the 52-week range is $4.12-$13.21. Trina does not pay a dividend. The implied upside to the consensus target is 66%, and we note that the target is well below the 52-week high. Short interest in the stock totals 12.2 million shares.
Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. Ltd. (NYSE: YGE) traded at $1.56 and has a market value of around $244 million. The consensus target price from Thomson Reuters is $2.62 and the 52-week range is $1.50-$6.27. Yingli does not pay a dividend. The implied upside to the consensus target is 68%, and we note that the target is well below the 52-week high. Short interest in the stock totals 6.1 million shares.
The high levels of short interest in solar stocks should tell the story. Our search for a value play in the sector was essentially fruitless. And a few of the stocks - LDK, JA Solar, and Suntech - appear headed for oblivion. Expecting the Chinese government to orchestrate a consolidation in its solar industry is about the only thing that gives these three stocks any value, but there's not likely to be any upside anywhere in this sector at least until next year. If ever.
Paul Ausick
Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Alternative Energy, Green Biz, Value Investing Tagged: CSIQ, FSLR, GTAT, JASO, LDK, SPWR, STP, TSL, WFR, YGE
The German constitutional court dismissed an eleventh hour demand for delay clearing the way for its pivotal ruling on bail-out funding expected on Wednesday.
(Washington, DC) SmartPower announced today that they have commitments and actions from 22 municipalities in Pennsylvania to purchase 20% clean energy by 2010, as part of the Pennsylvania Clean Energy Communities Campaign. Collectively, these municipalities serve a population of 350,000 people. Further, as a result of this campaign, the participating municipalities will increase the number [...]
Next week, the Supreme Court reconvenes early for a special hearing on the constitutionality of campaign finance limits for corporations. Bill Moyers talks with Floyd Abrams, a First Amendment attorney arguing to overturn parts of McCain-Feingold.
Low Volume Shows Lack of Bearish Conviction While a three-to-five day correction in stocks is overdue, Monday’s sell-off was not overly concerning. The first session of the week can be categorized as healthy consolidation. Volume is an excellent way to measure the collective desire to buy or sell an investment. When a security drops on [...]
It's been a busy few days in the Money Tree House hold. Time for a bit of an update.
Friday I headed into the city for my specialist appointment. She was pleased to see that I am still doing relatively well. She agreed to let me stay status quo for now. We will know by the end of September if being back to work (busyness and stress) will affect me or not. I will have to have another colonoscopy in November. Since this one will be done in the city I am going to have to stay in a hotel near the hospital. No driving far with that special prep drink inside you :-)
I gave myself $40 for the trip into the city. I used $16.50 to top up my tank. $3 went to the parking at the hospital. I felt like celebrating my good news ( the status quo, not the future poke and prod aka colonoscopy) so I treated myself to a $5.99 hardcover in the discount part of Indigo books. It is called the Postmistress and is set in WW2. Haven't started it yet. Since I was in and out of the hospital so quickly I was making good time. I was debating going straight home or stopping for lunch. There is a DQ in the city that is only open in the summer and only serves ice cream things not the food part. I hadn't been there in years and it just felt right. I stopped for a cone instead of lunch and headed to a park a couple blocks away to just sit and relax and enjoy the moment. I don't do that quite enough I think. So my day into the city cost me just under $30
DS2 is home from his canoe trip. I was anxious as he is out of contact for the whole time and, well, he's only 15 and a mother worries. He had a great time. Altogether in the 6 days they canoed and portaged 128 miles. This was through lakes, rivers, marshy area and rapids. They tented on the shores at night. It rained part of one day, and during one night while they were up there so that wasn't too bad. One of the leaders of this group, who is 22 now, did this trip when he was 15. That year, they came across a family who had hit the rapids badly, lost their canoe and were floundering on rocks in the middle of the river. That scout group rescued the family and ended up receiving medals of honour.
DS1 is at a pick up tourney for hockey up north this weekend. He is having a blast. First time he's been on skates since April and he was beyond excited to go. It's a fun tourney, co-ed, all ages. They played a tough team yesterday. They lost, but not by too much. I have never seen DS lose so happily before. You see, on this team was none other than Stanley Cup 2012 LA Kings, Dwight King, and his brother, Washington Capitols, DJ King. DS skated by Dwight then went over to his dad and whispered 'holy cow he's big!!" For a hockey kid to play against an NHL'er is a pretty big deal in their world :-). I wanted to get a picture of them together but no one else is doing that and DS said "please don't be THAT mom, mom"
I am enjoying my last weekend before school starts. Really am appreciating all the little moments.
With movie ticket prices continuing to increase -- and the home theater experience getting less expensive and more immersive -- you can understand why consumers would get upset if their night out at the cinema is spoiled by some mouthy jerk, or by that person three seats over who can't seem to stop texting. But [...]
Author(s): Donald Liebenson A generation gap is changing "the nature of office life," according to a new CareerBuilder survey. The survey of more than 3,800 full-time workers and more than 2,200 hiring managers reveals how age disparities impact attitudes toward work styles, communication and expectations. One-third of U.S. workers report that their boss is younger than they are, while 15 percent say they are working for someone who is at least a decade younger. “Age disparities in the office are perhaps more diverse now than they’ve ever been,” noted Rosemary Haefner, CareerBuilder vice president of human resources, in a statement. “It’s not uncommon to see 30-year-olds managing 50 year-olds or 65-year-olds mentoring 22-year-olds. “While the tenents of successful management are consistent across generations, there are subtle differences in work habits and views that all workers must empathize with when working with or managing someone who’s much different in age.” How is the generation gap impacting office communication, environment, and career advancement? Young or old, face-to-face communication is the preference for communication, but the survey found evidence of a “digital divide,” with 35 percent of those ages 25-34 preferring email vs. 28 percent of those ages 55 and up. Twelve percent of those older workers opt for the phone compared with 10 percent of their younger counterparts. Younger workers have a “carpe diem” mindset and are less likely than older workers to stay in a job for at least three years (53 percent vs. 62 percent). Instead, almost half (47 percent) of younger workers think you should stay in ajob until they have learned enough to move agead. Thirty-eight percent of older workers feel this way. Younger workers are also more likely than older workers (61 percent vs. 43 percent) to believe they should be promoted every 2-3 years if they are doing a good job. They are also less beholden to the traditional 9-5 workday. Arriving late? No problem, as long as the work gets done. Work after leaving the office? Whatever. Older hiring managers, on the other hand, are more likely to arrive to work earlier than younger managers (53 percent vs. 38 percent), but they are less likely to take their work home with them. Younger workers also display a more deliberate work style. While older workers prefer to skip the process and dive right in to a project, almost half (48 percent) of younger workers like to write out a detailed plan before acting. If the generations see eye-to-eye on one thing, the survey found, it is this: About 60 percent of both age groups prefer to eat alone rather than dine with co-workers during lunch hour.
Violence in Libya stifled demand for U.S. 10-year bonds Wednesday, pushing prices down 22 cents per $100 invested.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which moves in the opposite direction of price, rose to 3.49% Wednesday from 3.46% Tuesday after falling from 3.62% a week ago.
Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDU) lost 107 points, or 0.9%, to close at 12,106 Wednesday. The blue-chip index was had declined as m 149 points in midday trading before paring its loss.
When the ultra-wealthy take it easy, where do they take it?
The greatest percentage take it on the road, according to a new Millionaire Corner wealth level study of households with a net worth of at least $25 million. Of the varied activities that received more than a 5 percent vote, travel was cited by 17 percent as the favorite leisure activity. Par for the course, golf was cited by 11 percent. Six percent prefer to luxuriate in a book or other reading material.
Travel is the preferred leisure activity of the youngest ultra-wealthy households (under 55-years-old), while seniors older than 65, not surprisingly are the most likely to opt for golf and reading. It is also no surprise that the wealthiest households (with a net worth of at least $125 million) are the most likely to travel.
When it comes to travel or vacations, most roads lead to family and friends. That’s the preferred destination for three-quarters of these ultra-wealthy travelers. Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) opt for self-improvement with educational or historical travel. Fifty-nine percent prefer exotic travel options such as a safari, while 57 prefer a cruise.
More adventurous outings, such as mountain climbing are popular with just about one-third (32 percent). However, the youngest ultra-wealthy households are more gung-ho, with 44 percent of those under 55 saying this is their preferred travel activity. The eldest baby boomers (ages 56-65) are the most likely to indulge in educational and historical outings as well as exotic travel.
Cruises have enjoyed the biggest increase in popularity amongst ultra-wealthy travelers since 2010, when we last studied this wealth group. Two years ago, just about half said that cruises was their preferred vacation. The increase in interest in cruises comes at the expense of the other surveyed travel categories, which each posted slight declines from two years ago.
Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency are considering whether to bar BP from receiving government contracts, a move that would ultimately cost the company billions in revenue and could end its drilling in federally controlled oil fields.
Over the past 10 years, BP has paid tens of millions of dollars in fines and been implicated in four separate instances of criminal misconduct that could have prompted this far more serious action. Until now, the company's executives and their lawyers have fended off such a penalty by promising that BP would change its ways.
That strategy may no longer work.
Days ago, in an unannounced move, the EPA suspended negotiations with the petroleum giant over whether it would be barred from federal contracts because of the environmental crimes it committed before the spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Officials said they are putting the talks on hold until they learn more about the British company's responsibility for the plume of oil that is spreading across the Gulf.
The EPA said in a statement that, according to its regulations, it can consider banning BP from future contracts after weighing "the frequency and pattern of the incidents, corporate attitude both before and after the incidents, changes in policies, procedures, and practices."
Several former senior EPA debarment attorneys and people close to the BP investigation told ProPublica that means the agency will re-evaluate BP and examine whether the latest incident in the Gulf is evidence of an institutional problem inside BP, a precursor to the action called debarment.
Federal law allows agencies to suspend or bar from government contracts companies that engage in fraudulent, reckless or criminal conduct. The sanctions can be applied to a single facility or an entire corporation. Government agencies have the power to forbid a company to collect any benefit from the federal government in the forms of contracts, land leases, drilling rights, or loans.
The most serious, sweeping kind of suspension is called "discretionary debarment" and it is applied to an entire company. If this were imposed on BP, it would cancel not only the company's contracts to sell fuel to the military but prohibit BP from leasing or renewing drilling leases on federal land. In the worst cast, it could also lead to the cancellation of BP's existing federal leases, worth billions of dollars.
Present and former officials said the crucial question in deciding whether to impose such a sanction is assessing the offending company's culture and approach: Do its executives display an attitude of non-compliance? The law is not intended to punish actions by rogue employees and is focused on making contractor relationships work to the benefit of the government. In its negotiations with EPA officials before the Gulf spill, BP had been insisting that it had made far-reaching changes in its approach to safety and maintenance, and that environmental officials could trust its promises that it would commit no further violations of the law.
EPA officials declined to speculate on the likelihood that BP will ultimately be suspended or barred from government contracts. Such a step will be weighed against the effect on BP's thousands of employees and on the government's costs of replacing it as a contractor.
Even a temporary expulsion from the U.S. could be devastating for BP's business. BP is the largest oil and gas producer in the Gulf of Mexico and operates some 22,000 oil and gas wells across United States, many of them on federal lands or waters. According to the company, those wells produce 39 percent of the company's global revenue from oil and gas production each year -- $16 billion.
Discretionary debarment is a step that government investigators have long sought to avoid, and which many experts had considered highly unlikely because BP is a major supplier of fuel to the U.S. military. The company could petition U.S. courts for an exception, arguing that ending that contract is a national security risk. That segment of BP's business alone was worth roughly $4.6 billion over the last decade, according to the government contracts website USAspending.
Because debarment is supposed to protect American interests, the government also must weigh such an action's effect on the economy against punishing BP for its transgressions. The government would, for instance, be wary of interrupting oil and gas production that could affect energy prices, or taking action that could threaten the jobs of thousands of BP employees.
A BP spokesman said the company would not comment on pending legal matters.
The EPA did not make its debarment officials available for comment or explain its intentions, but in an e-mailed response to questions submitted by ProPublica the agency confirmed that its Suspension and Debarment Office has "temporarily suspended" any further discussion with BP regarding its unresolved debarment cases in Alaska and Texas until an investigation into the unfolding Gulf disaster can be included.
The fact that the government is looking at BP's pattern of incidents gets at one of the key factors in deciding a discretionary debarment, said Robert Meunier, the EPA's debarment official under President Bush and an author of the EPA's debarment regulations. It means officials will try to determine whether BP has had a string of isolated or perhaps unlucky mistakes, or whether it has consistently displayed contempt for the regulatory process and carelessness in its operations.
In the past decade environmental accidents at BP facilities have killed at least 26 workers, led to the largest oil spill on Alaska's North Slope and now sullied some of the country's best coastal habitat, along with fishing and tourism economies along the Gulf.
Meunier said that when a business with a record of problems like BP's has to justify its actions and corporate management decisions to the EPA "it's going to get very dicey for the company."
"How many times can a debarring official grant a resolution to an agreement if it looks like no matter how many times they agree to fix something it keeps manifesting itself as a problem?" he said.
Documents obtained by ProPublica show that the EPA's debarment negotiations with BP were strained even before the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig. The fact that Doug Suttles, the BP executive responsible for offshore drilling in the Gulf, used to head BP Alaska and was the point person for negotiations with debarment officials there, only complicates matters. Now, the ongoing accident in the Gulf may push those relations to a break.
Discretionary debarment for BP has been considered at several points over the years, said Jeanne Pascal, a former EPA debarment attorney who headed the agency's BP negotiations for six years until she retired last year.
"In 10 years we've got four convictions," Pascal said, referring to BP's three environmental crimes and a 2009 deferred prosecution for manipulating the gas market, which counts as a conviction under debarment law. "At some point if a contractor's behavior is so egregious and so bad, debarment would have to be an option."
In the three instances where BP has had a felony or misdemeanor conviction under the Clean Air or Clean Water Acts, the facilities where the accidents happened automatically faced a statutory debarment, a lesser form of debarment that affects only the specific facility where the accident happened.
One of those cases has been settled. In October 2000, after a felony conviction for illegally dumping hazardous waste down a well hole to cut costs, BP's Alaska subsidiary, BP Exploration Alaska, agreed to a five-year probation period and settlement. That agreement expired at the end of 2005.
The other two debarment actions are still open, and those are the cases that EPA officials and the company have been negotiating for several years.
In the first incident, on March 23, 2005, an explosion at BP's Texas City refinery killed 15 workers. An investigation found the company had restarted a fuel tower without warning systems in place, and BP was eventually fined more than $62 million and convicted of a felony violation of the Clean Air Act. BP Products North America, the responsible subsidiary, was listed as debarred and the Texas City refinery was deemed ineligible for any federally funded contracts. But the company as a whole proceeded unhindered.
A year later, in March 2006, a hole in a pipeline in Prudhoe Bay led to the largest ever oil spill on Alaska's North Slope – 200,000 gallons -- and the temporary disruption of oil supplies to the continental U.S. An investigation found that BP had ignored warnings about corrosion in its pipelines and had cut back on precautionary measures to save money. The company's Alaska subsidiary was convicted of a misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act and, again, debarred and listed as ineligible for government income at its Prudhoe Bay pipeline facilities. That debarment is still in effect.
That accident alone -- which led to congressional investigations and revelations that BP executives harassed employees who warned of safety problems and ignored corrosion problems for years -- was thought by some inside the EPA to be grounds for the more serious discretionary debarment.
"EPA routinely discretionarily debars companies that have Clean Air Act or Clean Water Act convictions," said Pascal, the former EPA debarment attorney who ran the BP case. "The reason this case is different is because of the Defense Department's extreme need for BP."
Instead of a discretionary debarment, the EPA worked to negotiate a compromise that would bring BP into compliance but keep its services available. The goal was to reach an agreement that would guarantee that BP improve its safety operations, inspections, and treatment of employees not only at the Prudhoe Bay pipeline facility, but at its other facilities across the country.
According to e-mails obtained by ProPublica and several people close to the government's investigation, the company rejected some of the basic settlement conditions proposed by the EPA -- including who would police the progress -- and took a confrontational approach with debarment officials.
One person close to the negotiations said he was confounded by what he characterized as the company's stubborn approach to the debarment discussions. Given the history of BP's problems, he said, any settlement would have been a second chance, a gift. Still, the e-mails show, BP resisted.
As more evidence is gathered about what went wrong in the Gulf, BP may soon wish it hadn't.
It's doubtful that the EPA will make any decisions about BP's future in the United States until the Gulf investigation is completed, a process that could last a year. But as more information emerges about the causes of the accident there -- about faulty blowout preventers and hasty orders to skip key steps and tests that could have prevented a blowout -- the more the emerging story begins to echo the narrative of BP's other disasters. That, Meunier said, could leave the EPA with little choice as it considers how "a corporate attitude of non-compliance" should affect the prospect of the company's debarment going forward.
ProPublica reporters Mosi Secret and Ryan Knutson and director of research Lisa Schwartz contributed to this report.
A variety of technical signals are suggesting we're at a crucial decision point for the stock market: Either the bull recovers from its recent swoon and moves decisively up toward new highs, or the market reverses trend dramatically and moves down.
In an economy based on consumer spending, stagnant household incomes don't provide a strong foundation for future spending increases.
find out why, the Employee Benefit Research Institute conducted a survey aimed at this very phenomenon. Let's take a look at a few of the reasons they discovered that help to explain why retirees are continuing to work.
Month after month, Comscore puts out U.S. search engine market share data. Month after month, the leader by an extraordinary margin is Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). August was no exception with Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) fighting for a distant second spot and IAC/Interactive's (NASDAQ: IACI) Ask.com and AOL (NYSE: AOL) much further behind.
Solar stocks have fallen so far in the past year and a half that there doesn't seem to be any further for them to fall. But that's not the way the stocks are being played.
With movie ticket prices continuing to increase -- and the home theater experience getting less expensive and more immersive -- you can understand why consumers would get upset if their night out at the cinema is spoiled by some mouthy jerk, or by that person three seats over who can't seem to stop texting. But [...]
When the ultra-wealthy take it easy, where do they take it?
Even a temporary expulsion from the U.S. could be devastating for BP's business. BP is the largest oil and gas producer in the Gulf of Mexico and operates some 22,000 oil and gas wells across United States, many of them on federal lands or waters. According to the company, those wells produce 39 percent of the company's global revenue from oil and gas production each year -- $16 billion.
A year later, in March 2006, a hole in a pipeline in Prudhoe Bay led to the largest ever oil spill on Alaska's North Slope – 200,000 gallons -- and the temporary disruption of oil supplies to the continental U.S. An investigation found that BP had ignored warnings about corrosion in its pipelines and had cut back on precautionary measures to save money. The company's Alaska subsidiary was convicted of a misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act and, again, debarred and listed as ineligible for government income at its Prudhoe Bay pipeline facilities. That debarment is still in effect.
