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Swiss banks will probably settle a sweeping U.S. probe of offshore tax evasion by paying billions of dollars and handing over names of thousands of Americans who have secret accounts, according to two people familiar with the matter.

U.S. and Swiss officials are concluding negotiations on a civil settlement amid U.S. criminal probes of 11 financial institutions, including Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN), suspected of helping American clients hide money from the Internal Revenue Service, according to five people with knowledge of the talks who declined to speak publicly because they are confidential.

Switzerland, the biggest haven for offshore wealth, wants an end to new U.S. probes while preserving its decades-old tradition of bank secrecy, the people said. The U.S. seeks data on Americans who have dodged U.S. taxes and a pledge by Swiss banks to stop helping such clients, according to the people. The Swiss reached accords this year with Germany and the U.K. on untaxed assets.

“The Swiss would like to get out of this by paying money, and they’ve done that with other countries,” said tax attorney H. David Rosenbloom of Caplin & Drysdale Chartered in Washington, who isn’t involved in the talks. “For the U.S., it’s not primarily a money question. It’s a matter of making sure the laws apply fairly among taxpayers.”

Final Accord

The Swiss government seeks to outline a final accord for the Foreign Affairs Committee of its Parliament’s upper house on Nov. 10, according to a person familiar with the matter. The number of banks that will pay to resolve the U.S. negotiations may extend beyond the 11 under criminal investigation, the people said.

“We are aiming for an all-encompassing solution that will apply to all the banks,” Finance Minister Eveline Widmer- Schlumpf said in an Oct. 4 interview in the Swiss capital Bern. “We don’t want to be confronted with the same issues time and again.”

Under accords this year with Germany and the U.K. on untaxed assets, the identity of clients remained secret. The U.S. insists that the Swiss disclose client account data, and the banks may end up handing over data on 5,000 to 10,000 accounts, the people said. A final determination hasn’t been made, they said.

Criminal Charges

The U.S. Justice Department also may bring criminal charges or civil enforcement actions against any of the 11 financial institutions. They could avoid prosecution by separately paying fines, admitting wrongdoing and disclosing data, the people said. On Aug. 30, the Justice Department requested statistical data from the 11 about their U.S. accounts, which the U.S. has received and is analyzing, the people said.

Credit Suisse, the second-biggest Swiss bank, said July 15 that it was a target of U.S. prosecutors. On July 21, seven Credit Suisse bankers were indicted on a charge of conspiring to help U.S. clients evade taxes through secret accounts.

The group of 11 also includes HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA), the biggest European bank, Basler Kantonalbank, Wegelin & Co., Zuercher Kantonalbank, and Julius Baer Group Ltd. (BAER), the people said. Three Israeli banks — Bank Leumi Le-Israel BM (LUMI), Bank Hapoalim BM (POLI), and Mizrahi-Tefahot Bank Ltd. (MZTF) — are on the list, as well as Liechtensteinische Landesbank AG and an asset manager, NZB AG, according to the people.

U.S. Crackdown

The U.S. crackdown against offshore tax evasion has led to charges against UBS AG (UBSN), the largest Swiss bank; at least 21 foreign bankers, advisers and attorneys; and at least 36 U.S. taxpayers.

UBS, which isn’t one of the 11 banks now under scrutiny, avoided prosecution in 2009 by paying $780 million, admitting it fostered tax evasion and handing over details on 250 secret accounts. It later disclosed another 4,450 accounts.

UBS made 10.75 billion francs ($12.1 billion) in revenue in the U.S. in 2010, or 34 percent of the group’s total. Credit Suisse made 12.84 billion francs in revenue in the Americas in 2010, or 41 percent of the total. HSBC’s Swiss private bank and Julius Baer declined to disclose information on revenue from U.S. clients. A spokesman for HSBC in Geneva declined to comment on the settlement talks.

Credit Suisse gained 2.4 percent to 24.42 Swiss francs, at 3:09 p.m. in Zurich. Baer was unchanged at 34.70 francs. Basler Kantonalbank and Liechtensteinische Landesbank dropped 0.4 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively.

Statistical Data

Urs Rohner, chairman of Credit Suisse, last month told newspaper NZZ am Sonntag that the bank has transferred statistical data sought by the U.S. Marc Dosch, a spokesman for the Zurich-based bank, declined to comment further.

Basler Kantonalbank (BSKP) spokesman Michael Buess said it also gave such data to the U.S.

Wegelin & Co. spokeswoman Albena Bjoerck said it will show “Swiss and U.S. authorities that the bank has not breached either Swiss or U.S. law.” The bank is cooperating with authorities “within the scope of Swiss law.”

After a U.S. indictment of two Julius Baer bankers this month, the bank said it “is one of a number of Swiss financial institutions supporting the ongoing tax negotiations between the U.S. and Switzerland” and is cooperating with the U.S. probe. Spokesman Martin Somogyi declined to comment further.

Youval Dichovski, Zurich-based head of internal audit at Bank Leumi Switzerland Ltd., said the bank is cooperating.

Bank Hapoalim Switzerland is complying with its legal and regulatory duties in cooperating with Swiss authorities, said Chief Executive Officer Michael Warszawski. He said the bank “has only a limited number of American clients whose holdings with the bank are very small.” The bank, he said, “is not aware of any violations of U.S. law by the bank or its employees.”

Few Employees

Cyrill Sele, a Vaduz, Liechtenstein-based spokesman for Liechtensteinische Landesbank AG (LLB), said it sent statistical data to the U.S. A man who answered the phone Oct. 20 at NZB said it is closing and has only a few employees.

Zuercher Kantonalbank spokesman Urs Ackermann said the bank was informed in September of the U.S. investigation. A spokesman for Mizrahi Bank had no immediate comment.

The UBS turnover of 4,450 names, in the face of Swiss laws barring most disclosures of client data, set a precedent for the current talks. The U.S. agreed to submit a request for specific accounts under a 1996 tax treaty and a follow-up agreement in 2003. Under that accord, Swiss bank secrecy doesn’t protect accounts if the owner engaged in “tax fraud or the like,” which is a narrower definition of tax evasion than U.S. law provides.

Turned Over Accounts

The Swiss directed UBS to turn over accounts to the Swiss Federal Tax Administration for review before handing them to the IRS. Negotiators are determining how to apply the 1996 tax treaty and one adopted in 2009 that still needs ratification by the U.S. Senate, the people said.

“Switzerland is continuing talks with the U.S. authorities on administrative assistance in cases of tax fraud and tax evasion,” said Norbert Baerlocher, spokesman for the Swiss embassy in Washington, in a statement. “Any exchange of client data can occur only within the scope of the current legal system, in accordance with the procedures provided for in the existing or the new double-taxation agreement with the USA.”

The Swiss agreed in March 2009 to meet international standards to avoid being blacklisted as a tax haven by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The London-based Tax Justice Network this month ranked Switzerland at the top of its financial secrecy index.

‘A Big Issue’

“This is a big issue for these banks,” said C. Evan Stewart, an attorney at Zuckerman Spaeder LLP in New York, who isn’t involved in the settlement talks.

“These are no longer small institutions catering to wealthy people in a small part of centralEurope,” he said. “These are multinational institutions now that have a reach that’s all over the world. This has a huge impact on the banking system in Switzerland. Another issue is the sovereignty in Switzerland and whether that will be given deference by other governments.”

The IRS has said 30,000 U.S. taxpayers with offshore accounts avoided prosecution since 2009 by entering a limited amnesty program, paying back taxes and saying who helped them hide their accounts from authorities. Hundreds of taxpayers in the program have given information to prosecutors that have helped them build criminal cases against bankers and advisers.

‘Wide Net’

“The DOJ and IRS are casting a wide net as they try to identify Americans guilty of offshore tax evasion,” said Aaron D. Schumacher, a Geneva-based wealth planning attorney, with Withers LLP.

“They obtained a lot of information about various Swiss banks from the participants in the voluntary disclosure programs and that has likely enabled the recent indictments we’ve seen,” he said. “More people than we saw previously have come to us looking to renounce their citizenship.”

Attorney Robert Katzberg, who represents clients in criminal tax cases, said U.S. taxpayers with Swiss accounts don’t understand that the IRS and Justice Department will get a trove of new data on secret accounts.

“There are thousands of Americans, who are the functional equivalent of residents of New Orleans on the eve of Hurricane Katrina, who have no idea that Katrina is about to happen,” said Katzberg, of Kaplan & Katzberg in New York.

SOURCE 

Gold futures ended 1% higher on Monday, but copper stole the spotlight by settling 7% higher as investors cheered news a gauge of China manufacturing rose to a five-month high. Gold for December delivery GC1Z +1.19% added $16.20 to settle at $1,652.30 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. December copper HG1Z +7.18% rallied 23 cents to end at $3.45 a pound. That’s copper highest settlement in a little more than a month.

SOURCE 

GOOD SLIDESHOW AT CNBC HERE

The U.S. Department of Energy has been hit by recent successful cyber attacks and needs to do more to protect its computer systems, the department’s internal watchdog said in a report Monday.

The report by the department’s inspector general did not disclose who launched the cyber attacks or the consequences at four affected locations.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has dozens of agencies, regional offices and laboratories. Among other tasks, it manages the U.S. nuclear weapon stockpile through its National Nuclear Security Administration.

Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2011/10/24/energy-department-discloses-cyber-attacks/#ixzz1bj6bew5i

STORY HERE

McDonald’s McRib is back … again.

For the second time in as many years, the barbecue-sauce-slathered pork sandwich will start showing up in McDonald’s restaurants nationwide.

When the McRib made a limited-time reappearance last fall after a 16-year hiatus, customers went whole hog and drove up McDonald’s U.S. sales 4.8% in November.

All this for a sandwich that doesn’t even live up to its name. There are no ribs to speak of in the McRib -– just a pressed, boneless patty. There are also slivers of onions and pickle slices.

But the product has inspired legions of fans, Facebook pages and even a McRib Locator mapping website that tracks McDonald’s restaurants that sell the sandwich.

On Twitter, reactions were mixed.

Many said the McRib bested the likes of John Travolta, Brett Favre and Jason Voorhees for the top McComeback. Wrote one customer: “FACT: 99% of people want the McRib to come back. We are the 99%. #occupymcrib.” Another claimed to have once followed the sandwich as it became available across the country.

But other tweeters were appalled. “Americans just got a little bit fatter,” one complained. “It’s just nasty,” wrote another. “Ewwwwwwwwwwww,” said a third.

Either way, the McRib is to go back on the lam on Nov. 14, with restaurant operators making the product only when they feel like it.

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Just days after Matt Damon confirmed that he’s settled on his first directing project, the actor tells GQ that he and Ben Affleck have also chosen their next collaboration: a movie about the former godfather of the Irish Mob, one of the coldest, most ruthless figures in the history of organized crime.

“We’re doing a Whitey Bulger movie,” Damon says of the leader of South Boston’s Winter Hill Gang, who had been on the lam for 16 years and was wanted for 19 murders, among other things, when he was apprehended in Santa Monica in June. “Warner’s got it for us.”

Damon will star as Bulger, Affleck will direct, and Terence Winter, of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire fame, is writing the script. Last year, Damon and Affleck cemented a first-look deal with Warner Bros., where their production company is now based. Damon has made nine movies at the studio in the last decade, while Affleck has become one of Warner’s go-to directors, making Gone Baby Gone, The Town and the soon-to-be-completed Argo, a comedy about the Iran hostage crisis. Warner’s also recently tapped Affleck to adapt and direct Stephen King’s mammoth apocalyptic novel The Stand.

There’d been talk that Damon and Affleck, who won Oscars in 1998 for their best original screenplay Good Will Hunting, would next reteam on The Trade, about two Yankees pitchers who swapped wives in the ’70s. But legal challenges have slowed that project, Damon says.

“That might happen at some point,” he says. But the Bulger picture will come first.

“There are a couple of competing movies and I don’t think it’s been announced yet that we’re doing it,” Damon says. “But the sooner it’s announced the better, just because everyone else will back off, hopefully. I’m really excited about it.”

Previously announced Bulger projects include one from producer Graham King, who won the Best Picture Oscar for another Damon film, Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, which depicted a character based on Bulger (played by Jack Nicholson). King has reportedly acquired the rights of the Winter Hill Gang’s chief enforcer, John Martorano. And actor Peter Facinelli, perhaps best known for the Twilight Saga, is said to be producing an adaptation of Edward MacKenzie and Phyllis Karas’s book Street Soldier: My Life as an Enforcer for Whitey Bulger and the Boston Irish Mob.

Bulger fled Boston, Affleck and Damon’s hometown, just before his federal racketeering indictment in January 1995. It was later revealed in federal court that he was a longtime FBI informant who had been warned by his corrupt handler, former FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr.—the basis for Damon’s character in The Departed—that he was about to be arrested. Bulger was eighty-one by the time the Feds finally caught up to him last summer, living by the beach with his girlfriend.

So will Damon play the young, vital Bulger or the aging fugitive? The actor says he doesn’t yet know. “If it’s a straight biopic, we’ll do it over a period of time. But it’s always a question of what part of the story do you tell, and biopics are always a little cumbersome,” Damon says. “So do we find another way in? We’re still figuring it out.”

Last week, meanwhile, Damon confirmed that he will be directing his first film for Warner Bros.: a script he co-wrote with John Krasinski of The Office fame. He’s keeping mum about the idea, which Krasinski originally developed with Dave Eggers, but to say, “It’s about a salesman who goes to this small town and how the salesman is changed by his experience there.” Reports last week that the movie resembles Erin Brockovich and involves a mass poisoning in the town are wrong, he says, shaking his head.

“Nobody gets poisoned,” says Damon, who plans to direct the untitled film early next year. “I don’t know where that came from.”
Read More http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201110/whitey-bulger-matt-damon-ben-affleck-irish-mob#ixzz1biLXOmrW

STORY

(Saint Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican October 23, 2011/Giampiero Sposito)

The Vatican called on Monday for the establishment of a “global public authority” and a “central world bank” to rule over financial institutions that have become outdated and often ineffective in dealing fairly with crises. The document from the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department should please the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators and similar movements around the world who have protested against the economic downturn.

“Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of a Global Public Authority,” was at times very specific, calling, for example, for taxation measures on financial transactions. “The economic and financial crisis which the world is going through calls everyone, individuals and peoples, to examine in depth the principles and the cultural and moral values at the basis of social coexistence,” it said.

It condemned what it called “the idolatry of the market” as well as a “neo-liberal thinking” that it said looked exclusively at technical solutions to economic problems. “In fact, the crisis has revealed behaviours like selfishness, collective greed and hoarding of goods on a great scale,” it said, adding that world economics needed an “ethic of solidarity” among rich and poor nations.

“If no solutions are found to the various forms of injustice, the negative effects that will follow on the social, political and economic level will be destined to create a climate of growing hostility and even violence, and ultimately undermine the very foundations of democratic institutions, even the ones considered most solid,” it said.

It called for the establishment of “a supranational authority” with worldwide scope and “universal jurisdiction” to guide economic policies and decisions.

Asked at a news conference if the document could become a manifesto for the movement of the “indignant ones”, who have criticised global economic policies, Cardinal Peter Turkson, head of the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department, said: “The people on Wall Street need to sit down and go through a process of discernment and see whether their role managing the finances of the world is actually serving the interests of humanity and the common good. “We are calling for all these bodies and organisations to sit down and do a little bit of re-thinking.”

Read the full story here.

The eurozone bailout fund’s firepower is set to be leveraged to more than euro1 trillion ($1.39 trillion), German opposition leaders said Monday following a briefing with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Governments from the 17-nation eurozone hope that the euro440 billion European Financial Stability Fund, or EFSF, will be able to protect countries like Italy and Spain from being engulfed in the debt crisis.

To do that, however, it needs to be bigger or see its lending powers magnified.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, parliamentary leader of the opposition Social Democrats, and the Greens’ Cem Oezdemir said the chancellor informed them that the EFSF will be leveraged well beyond its current size.

That would be achieved through a combination of measures, Steinmeier said. It would insure investors against a percentage of possible losses on eurozone government bonds and also involve the participation of outside organizations such as the International Monetary Fund.

Because of the significance of the move, members of Merkel’s party proposed that the change receive full parliamentary approval on Wednesday. Under German law, it would have been enough for parliament’s budget committee to approve the plan.

The chancellor briefed lawmakers on Monday about the progress of the eurozone rescue plans following the weekend’s EU summit.

German lawmakers are set to receive the detailed guidelines of the EFSF later Monday.

The German parliament is to sign off on the eurozone rescue plans and the EFSF’s new powers before Merkel gives the final green light at a European Union summit in Brussels later Wednesday.

SOURCE 

With his jobs plan stymied in Congress by Republican opposition, President Obama on Monday will begin a series of executive-branch actions to confront housing, education and other economic problems over the coming months, heralded by a new mantra: “We can’t wait” for lawmakers to act.

According to an administration official, Mr. Obama will kick off his new offensive in Las Vegas, ground zero of the housing bust, by promoting new rules for federally guaranteed mortgages so that more homeowners, those with little or no equity in their homes, can refinance and avert foreclosure.

And Wednesday in Denver, the official said, Mr. Obama will announce policy changes to ease college graduates’ repayment of federal loans, seeking to alleviate the financial concerns of students considering college at a time when states are raising tuition.

The president’s announcements will bookend a three-day Western trip during which he also will hold fund-raising events in the two cities — both Nevada and Colorado are election battlegrounds — as well as in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The “We can’t wait” campaign is a new phase in Mr. Obama’s so-far unsuccessful effort — punctuated until now by his cries of “Pass this bill!” on the stump — to pressure Republicans to support the job creation package he proposed after Labor Day. It comes after unanimous votes by Senate Republicans in the past week to block the plan; House Republican leaders have refused to put the measure to a vote.

Polls show overwhelming support for pieces of the $447 billion package, which includes expanded tax cuts for workers and employers, and spending for infrastructure projects and for state aid to keep teachers and emergency responders at work. But Republicans oppose provisions in Mr. Obama’s plan that would offset the costs with higher taxes on the wealthy.

Should the bill ultimately fail, Democrats believe they at least have the better political argument, and they vow to exploit what they call the Republicans’ obstruction in the 2012 campaign.

Yet any political benefit would be small consolation for the White House, given the forecasts of nonpartisan economists that without such a stimulus plan, the economy is likely to relapse into recession next year just as the president faces re-election.

“The only way we can truly attack our economic challenges is with bold, bipartisan action in Congress,” said Dan Pfeiffer, Mr. Obama’s communications director. “The president will continue to pressure Congressional Republicans to put country before party and pass the American Jobs Act, but he believes we cannot wait, so he will act where they won’t.”

Privately, some Republicans worry that they could suffer from that line of attack. On Sunday the Senate Republican minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, offered an alternate narrative, saying that Mr. Obama, for all his complaints about Republican opposition, had given little prominence to his signing of three free-trade agreements that won bipartisan approval this month.

“They’re ashamed to mention any of the things that they do with Republicans because it steps on their story line,” Mr. McConnell said on the CNN program “State of the Union.” “Their story line is that there must be some villain out there who’s keeping this administration from succeeding.”

By resorting to executive actions, using his wide-ranging authority to oversee federal laws and agencies, Mr. Obama seems intent on showing that he is not powerless in the face of Republican opposition but is trying to strengthen the economy and help Americans in trouble.

Aides said Mr. Obama would announce at least one initiative each week through the rest of the year, including steps to help returning veterans and small businesses. Yet the officials acknowledge that the coming policy changes, executive orders and agency actions are generally less far-reaching than the legislative proposals now before Congress.

Recent executive actions provide examples of what is to come.

READ MORE HERE 

The mostly likely method for leveraging the euro zone’s bailout fund involves using it to provide bond insurance while combining its firepower with a special purpose vehicle drawing in funds from China or Brazil, European Union officials said.

After a summit of EU leaders on Sunday to try to come up with a comprehensive solution to the crisis, officials indicated that twinning two of the options for scaling up the 440 billion euro European Financial Stability Facility might end up securing broad backing, and the summit’s conclusions reflected that.

One official indicated that the special purpose vehicle could be attached to the EFSF itself, while others said it would involve the IMF. The options will have to be narrowed down by another summit on Wednesday. But Sunday’s summit conclusions referred to the IMF as a possible partner.

“The G20 should ensure that the IMF has adequate resources to fulfill its systemic responsibilities and should explore possible contributions to the IMF from countries with large external surpluses,” the conclusions said.

Export-giant China, which has the world’s biggest foreign currency reserves, is often referred to in G20 statements as an external surplus country. It has a sovereign wealth fund managing assets of over $230 billion.

READ THE REST HERE 

News of Trade Surplus 

It began, as it so often does, with a drum circle.Photo: Andrew Burton/AP

All occupiers are equal — but some occupiers are more equal than others. In wind-whipped Zuccotti Park, new divisions and hierarchies are threatening to upend Occupy Wall Street and its leaderless collective.

As the protest has grown, some of the occupiers have spontaneously taken charge on projects large and small. But many of the people in Zuccotti Park aren’t taking direction well, leading to a tense Thursday of political disagreements, the occasional shouting match, and at least one fistfight.

It began, as it so often does, with a drum circle. The ten-hour groove marathons weren’t sitting well with the neighborhood’s community board, the ironically situated High School of Economics and Finance that sits on the corner of Zuccotti Park, or many of the sleep-deprived protesters.

“[The high school] couldn’t teach,” explained Josh Nelson, a 27-year-old occupier from Nebraska. “And we’ve had issues with the drummers too. They drum incessantly all day, and really loud.” Facilitators spearheaded a General Assembly proposal to limit the drumming to two hours a day. “The drumming is a major issue which has the potential to get us kicked out,” said Lauren Digion, a leader on the sanitation working group.

But the drums were fun. They brought in publicity and money. Many non-facilitators were infuriated by the decision and claimed that it had been forced through the General Assembly.

“They’re imposing a structure on the natural flow of music,” said Seth Harper, an 18-year-old from Georgia. “The GA decided to do it … they suppressed people’s opinions. I wanted to do introduce a different proposal, but a big black organizer chick with an Afro said I couldn’t.”

To Shane Engelerdt, a 19-year-old from Jersey City and self-described former “head drummer,” this amounted to a Jacobinic betrayal. “They are becoming the government we’re trying to protest,” he said. “They didn’t even give the drummers a say … Drumming is the heartbeat of this movement. Look around: This is dead, you need a pulse to keep something alive.”

The drummers claim that the finance working group even levied a percussion tax of sorts, taking up to half of the $150-300 a day that the drum circle was receiving in tips. “Now they have over $500,000 from all sorts of places,” said Engelerdt. “We’re like, what’s going on here? They’re like the banks we’re protesting.”

All belongings and money in the park are supposed to be held in common, but property rights reared their capitalistic head when facilitators went to clean up the park, which was looking more like a shantytown than usual after several days of wind and rain. The local community board was due to send in an inspector, so the facilitators and cleaners started moving tarps, bags, and personal belongings into a big pile in order to clean the park.

But some refused to budge. A bearded man began to gather up a tarp and an occupier emerged from beneath, screaming: “You’re going to break my fucking tent, get that shit off!” Near the front of the park, two men in hoodies staged a meta-sit-in, fearful that their belongings would be lost or appropriated.

Daniel Zetah, a 35-year-old lead facilitator from Minnesota, mounted a bench. “We need to clear this out. There are a bunch of kids coming to stay here.” One of the hoodied men fought back: “I’m not giving up my space for fucking kids. They have parents and homes. My parents are dead. This is my space.”

Other organizers were more blunt. “If you don’t want to be part of this group, then you can just leave,” yelled a facilitator in a button-down shirt, “Every week we clean our house.” Seth Harper, the pro-drummer proletarian, chimed in on the side of the sitters. “We disagree on how we should clean it. A lot of us disagree with the pile.” Zetah, tall and imposing with a fiery red beard, closed debate with a sigh. “We’re all big boys and girls. Let’s do this.” As he told me afterwards, “A lot of people are like spoiled children.” The cure? A cold snap. “Personally, I cannot wait for winter. It will clear out these people who aren’t here for the right reasons. Bring on the snow. The real revolutionaries will stay in -50 degrees.”

“The sunshine protestors will leave,” said “Zonkers,” a 20-year-old cleaner and longtime occupier from Tennessee. (He asked that his name not be used due to a felony marijuana conviction.) “The people who remain are the people who care. You get a lot of crust punks, silly kids, people who want to panhandle … It disgusts me. These people are here for a block party.”

Another argument broke out next to the pile of appropriated belongings, growing taller by the minute. A man named Sage Roberts desperately rifled through the pile, looking for a sleeping bag. “They’ve taken my stuff,” he muttered. Lauren Digion, the sanitation group leader, broke in: “This isn’t your stuff. You got all this stuff from comfort [the working group]. It belongs to comfort.”

And as I spoke to Michael Glaser, a 26-year-old Chicagoan helping lead winter preparation efforts, a physical fight broke out between a cleaner and a camper just feet from us.

“When cleanups happen, people get mad,” Glaser said. “This is its own city. Within every city there are people who freeload, who make people’s lives miserable. We just deal with it. We can’t kick them out.”

In response to dissatisfaction with the consensus General Assembly, many facilitators have adopted a new “spokescouncil” model, which allows each working group to act independently without securing the will of the collective. “This streamlines it,” argued Zonkers. “The GA is unwieldy, cumbersome, and redundant.”

From today’s battles, it’s not yet clear who will win the day: the organizers or the organized. But the month-long protest has clearly grown and evolved to a point where a truly leaderless movement will risk eviction — or, worse, insurrection.

As the communal sleeping bag argument between Lauren Digion and Sage Roberts threatened to get out of hand, a facilitator in a red hat walked by, brow furrowed. “Remember? You’re not allowed to do any more interviews,” he said to Digion. She nodded and went back to work. But when Roberts shouted, “Don’t tell me what to do!” Digion couldn’t hold back.

“Someone has to be told what to do,” she said. “Someone needs to give orders. There’s no sense of order in this fucking place.”

SOURCE 

Google is exploring the possibility of helping to finance a possible deal by others to acquire Internet search company Yahoo, according to a report published by the Wall Street Journalon Saturday.

Google Inc. has talked to at least two-private equity firms about potentially assisting them to finance a deal to buy Yahoo Inc.’s core business, according to the story, which cited a person familiar with the matter, and did not identify the source.

The Journal said Google and prospective partners have held early-stage discussions, but haven’t assembled a formal proposal. The source said Google may not end up pursuing a bid.

A spokeswoman for Mountain View, California-based Google declined to comment to The Associated Press. A spokeswoman for Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo said the company doesn’t comment “on rumor or speculation.”

Messages that The AP left on Saturday with representatives of Google, based in Mountain View, California, were not returned.

Any involvement by Google in a Yahoo acquisition would likely draw antitrust scrutiny from regulators, because of both companies’ shares in the Internet search business.

The report came as investors have recently driven up Yahoo’s stock price, betting that the company will sell itself, either in whole or in part. Closing Friday at $16.12 apiece, the shares have gained nearly 25 percent since Sept. 6, when CEO Carol Bartz was fired. They are up 45 percent from the stock’s 52-week low reached in early August.

There has been repeated speculation that the company might be sold to an assortment of buyout firms that prey upon troubled companies. Alibaba Group, a Chinese Internet company of which Yahoo owns a 43 percent stake, has expressed interest if it can line up the financing for a deal that would likely require a bid of more than $20 billion, the current market value of Yahoo’s shares. Microsoft Corp., which offered to buy Yahoo for $47.5 billion in 2008 before withdrawing the bid, also has been mentioned as a possible suitor.

Since Bartz’ firing, Tim Morse has been filling in as Yahoo’s interim CEO while also working as chief financial officer. After the company’s third-quarter earnings announcement on Tuesday, Morse told analysts that he couldn’t discuss what the company’s next step might be or when it might take it.

Yahoo is under pressure because its revenue has been falling at a time when the Internet advertising market has been growing as rivals such as Google and Facebook gain market share.

Although it’s still recognized around the world, Yahoo’s brand has been losing its luster as people increasingly embrace social networks such as Facebook and short-messaging service Twitter to keep track of what’s going on instead of relying on a media hub like Yahoo’s website.

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