Jake Tapper is the longtime chief White House correspondent for ABC News and has just written a new book called The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor.
We've invited him to play a game called "It's Mr. Bojangles to you." Three questions for a guy named Tapper about an actual tapper: Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, who some say was one of the greatest tap dancers of all time.
Photographer James Balog on Climate Change and 'Chasing Ice' — In the new documentary "Chasing Ice," photographer James Balog attempts to capture how the world's glaciers are being affected by climate change. As the film debuts across the country, Balog discusses the project, and what needs to be done to save Earth's shrinking glaciers.
This weekend, some big names are coming to Washington for a red-carpet event. Dustin Hoffman, David Letterman, ballerina Natalia Makarova, blues guitarist Buddy Guy and the British rock band Led Zeppelin will be receiving the annual Kennedy Center Honors.
It's a prestigious award given to only a handful of performers each year. But over the past few months there's been controversy surrounding the awards. In its 35-year history, only two honorees have been Hispanic, despite the fact that Hispanics are the largest minority in the United States.
Enlarge Chris Kleponis/AFP/Getty Images
Tenor Placido Domingo was the first Hispanic honoree, receiving the award in 2000.
Internet and telephone service were restored across much of Syria on Saturday following a two-day, nationwide communications blackout that came during some of the worst fighting to hit the capital since July.
Experts say the shutdown was likely caused by President Bashar Assad's regime, raising fears that the government is taking increasingly bold measures to cut off the country from the outside world as it tries to crush a relentless rebellion.
Renesys, a U.S.-based network monitoring firm that studies Internet disruptions, said in a statement Saturday that service went back up around 4:32 p.m. local time in Syria, describing it as a "largely complete restoration of the Syrian Internet."
Mobile telephone networks also appeared to be mostly back up Saturday. A Britain-based activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said it was receiving dispatches from many parts of the country. Many land lines had remained in working order.
The SANA state news agency said technical teams brought both Internet and telephone services back online Saturday in Damascus and its suburbs — the flashpoints of recent fighting between government soldiers and rebels.
The communications blackout began Thursday, raising fears of a burst of fighting outside the public eye. The government and rebels have blamed each other for cutting the lines.
Syrian rebels are fighting a 20-month-old revolt against the Assad regime. Activists say some 40,000 people have been killed in the crisis, which began with pro-democracy protests but has morphed into a civil war.
On Saturday, Syrian troops backed by helicopter gunships clashed with rebels as government forces pushed a major offensive on villages and towns near the capital's international airport, activists said.
SANA reported a car bomb exploded in the Damascus neighborhood of Ish Alwarwar. There was no immediate word on casualties.
The fighting over the past few weeks in Damascus is the most serious the capital has seen since July, when rebels captured several neighborhoods before a swift government counteroffensive swept out the opposition fighters.
Activists said forces loyal to Assad were battling rebels in towns just south of the capital, including Aqraba, Beit Saham and Yalda near the airport. The Observatory said many were feared killed in government shelling of Beit Saham.
Syrian state TV said troops were battling fighters from the al-Qaida-inspired Jabhat al-Nusra group in areas around the airport and that many of the rebels were killed, including two Iraqi citizens.
Syria's Information Ministry said the airport was operating as usual and that the road leading to the facility is "totally secure." The road was closed Thursday because of heavy fighting, but authorities reopened it Friday after troops secured the area, activists said.
The Observatory also reported clashes in the southern Damascus neighborhoods of Tadamon and Hajar Aswad, which have been hit by heavy fighting for weeks as the rebels try to push back into the city.
Government troops were also heavily shelling the Damascus suburb of Douma, local activist Mohammed Saeed said via Skype.
Saeed and other activists bypassed the communications blackout by using satellite telephones to connect to the Internet.
In the past, the regime has cut telephone lines and cellular networks in areas where military operations are under way, but the latest blackout was the first to cover the whole country since Syrian uprising began in March 2011.
In neighboring Lebanon, tensions were running high Saturday in the northern city of Tripoli between supporters and opponents of Assad's regime, which is dominated by the president's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Lebanese troops deployed to potential flashpoints in the city — home to significant Sunni and Alawite populations and the site of deadly violence in recent months between the two communities — to prevent possible clashes.
The army dispatched troops to Tripoli as a precautionary measure after an announcement Friday that 20 Lebanese Sunnis had been killed inside Syria while fighting alongside rebels, who are predominantly Sunnis as well. The city was clam Saturday.
It was not clear when the funerals would be held because the bodies of the dead are still in Syria, Lebanese security officials said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
Lebanon is particularly vulnerable to getting sucked into the conflict in Syria. The countries share a complex web of political and sectarian ties and rivalries that are easily enflamed. Lebanon, a country plagued by decades of strife, has been on edge since the uprising in Syria began, and deadly clashes between pro- and anti-Assad Lebanese groups have erupted on several occasions.
In Turkey, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the Syrian regime has degenerated into an "armed militia" that resorts to brutality in an attempt to stay in power. Davutoglu spoke Saturday at an Istanbul meeting attended by Arab foreign ministers who expressed opposition to the Syrian government.
Davutoglu and other delegates at the one-day conference say the Syrian regime is a threat not only to its people but also to peace and security in the region.
Turkey was an ally of Syria before the crisis began but turned into one of its harshest critics because of Assad's crackdown.
If satire had an Olympics, The Onion might have won a gold medal this week. The satirical news source announced that its Sexiest Man Alive for 2012 is Kim Jong Un, North Korea's Supreme Leader.
"With his devastatingly handsome, round face, his boyish charm, and his strong, sturdy frame, this Pyongyang-bred heartthrob is every woman's dream come true," the news service wrote below a photo that showed the 29-year-old leader in his high-collared, blue party suit — the Communist Party — on a reviewing stand.
"Kim made this newspaper's editorial board swoon with his impeccable fashion sense, chic short hairstyle and, of course, that famous smile," they wrote. Although in the photo, Kim Jong Un looks as stern as Stalin.
But The Onion's ardor was so persuasive that the official Chinese People's Daily English language website not only ran the "Sexiest Man Alive" dispatch word-for-word, but added a 55-photo slideshow of Kim, riding a gray and white stallion and touring factories.
The Two-Way
Attention Chinese Media: Kim Jong Un Is 2012's Most Interesting Man
Mexico's new president is being sworn in Saturday, and Enrique Pena Nieto inherits a country with a mixed record.
Most of Mexico is embroiled in a deadly drug war that has claimed the lives of as many as 50,000 people, but Pena Nieto is also taking over an economy that is doing surprisingly well, many say thanks to the outgoing head of state.
In his final days in office, now former President Felipe Calderon kept a low profile. He did announce he's taking a job at Harvard, and posted a farewell video on the president's official website.
Sitting behind his desk, his hair a little thinner and waistline wider than when he took office 6 years ago, Calderon writes a letter of thanks to the Mexican people.
The somber mood of the video seems at times apologetic, but in the select few interviews Calderon has given he staunchly defends his decision to go after the narco-traffickers with the full might of the country's military.
Unfortunately, the brutal violence and high death toll of that strategy will be Calderon's legacy.
That's unfortunate, says George Grayson, an expert on Mexico at the College of William and Mary. He says expectations were so high when Calderon took office, but he failed to tackle the tough issues facing the country.
"It turned out that he was unimaginative [and] that he surrounded himself with sycophants," Grayson says. "He never really configured a consistent strategy to fight the cartels."
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First it was Egypt, at the height of the protest against the Mubarak regime in 2011, authorities shut the Internet down.
This week, it was Syria. Just as rebel forces there were making big gains, someone pulled the plug on the Internet and Syria went dark.
Andrew McLaughlin, who until last year a White House adviser on technology policy, expects we'll see more of this.
"The pattern seems to be that governments that fear mass movements on the street have realized that they might want to be able to shut off all Internet communications in the country, and have started building the infrastructure that enables them to do that," McLaughlin says.
The key to shutting down the Internet is building that infrastructure in such a way that the Internet service is provided by a government company subject to government orders. You could also have the service providers housed in facilities where the government could shut off the power. Technically, it's not hard.
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In Syria: Battle Rages Outside Damascus Airport, Internet Goes Down
In Istanbul, major public transit projects are back under way after years of paralysis. The problem wasn't a lack of financing, but the layer upon layer of ancient artifacts that turned up every time the earth movers started their work.
The excavation began eight years ago on projects intended to ease Istanbul's notoriously clogged traffic.
The job included building a tunnel under the Bosphorus Strait and linking it to a rail and subway network. When the dig was stopped several years ago, eyes rolled and shoulders shrugged.
Enlarge Mustafa Ozer/AFP/Getty Images
Archaeologists in Istanbul work on the remnants of a Byzantine-era ship in June 2006.
NPR's Ron Elving and Ken Rudin take you over the cliff in the latest podcast.
This week: a less-than-friendly reception for Susan Rice among Senate Republicans; some in the GOP declare their independence from the no-tax pledge; an update in the battle to succeed Jesse Jackson Jr. in Congress; and the 2013 gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey begin to take shape.
U.S. Rep. Allen West came to Washington as part of the 2010 wave of Tea Party-backed candidates. He became known as aggressive and outspoken, but his tenure in Congress was short-lived. He recently conceded a close race for Florida's 18th District. West sits down with host Michel Martin to reflect on his term and his outlook for the future.
When the NFL wants to make a play for a particular demographic, they go long. To attract Latinos, it forged partnerships with Univision and Telemundo. To keep women happy, it came out with a clothing line featuring shirts that actually fit better than those boxy jerseys.
Now, to engage children, the NFL is going where kids go: Nickelodeon. NFL Rush Zone: Season of the Guardians is a new series rolling out Friday, co-branded by the NFL and Nicktoons.
The hero is 11-year-old Ish Taylor, who lives in Canton, Ohio — conveniently home to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Peter O'Reilly, the NFL's vice president for fan strategy and marketing, says Ish and his friends are superheroes called "guardians."
"They've really been tapped to — with special powers and special responsibilities — to protect football and the world from the evil forces that are out there," O'Reilly says.
Stars of the NFL show up: Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints, DeMarcus Ware of the Dallas Cowboys and Calvin Johnson of the Detroit Lions.
The NFL is a powerful brand, and Nickelodeon is clearly thrilled it was picked. A Nickelodeon press release boasts that this is the first time a major sports league has partnered with a cable network to create an original series.
Keith Dawkins, a senior VP at Nickelodeon, says the two companies came together because they recognized a common goal.
"They wanted to see if there was a different kind of way that they could tap into a fan base at a young age — 6, 7, 8 years old — and create these lifelong fans of the NFL. For us, [our interest is] the Nicktoons network — all animation, all the time, [a] 24-hour network really focusing on boys 6 to 11 — so that's when we realized there was a common sweet spot there," Dawkins said.
Rohit Bhargava, a marketing consultant and author of the book Likeonomics, says it's "a great idea that's starting to get its legs."
"The NFL is one of those few brands you can look at and say, you know what, they know what their brand and the media platform for their brand is going to look like in 10 years," he explains. "And a lot of brands don't have an answer for that."
But as a parent, Bhargava says the NFL should also address the real dangers of football.
"Just the safety of playing football, [given] the discussion around concussions and kids playing football. And so I think this effort to kind of involve children in the NFL, but also to think about the role for football for kids in a responsible way, is going to be a huge thing for the NFL moving forward," Bhargava says.
Ish — the hero of NFL Rush Zone — plays pee-wee football, but injuries are the least of his problems. He's got 32 NFL teams to protect from evil villains with names like Wild Card and Sudden Death.
A new report finds the U.S. birth rate has dropped to its lowest level on record, led by a dramatic decline in births among immigrant women. The trend has been visible at La Clinica del Pueblo, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., that holds a weekly neonatal clinic.
"We went from about 100 [pregnancies] to 90, to 80, another year with 80, and then 70," says Dr. Madeline Wilks. Her patients are largely foreign-born Hispanics. Some are in the U.S. legally, some are not, and many are uninsured.
Wilks isn't exactly sure why so many have decided not to have babies in recent years. "We've been puzzling over that," she says.
A Trying Economy
The drop is all the more striking because immigrants have long propped up the U.S. birth rate, keeping it higher than that of many other developed nations. But Thursday's report by the Pew Research Center finds that while the U.S. birth rate is down generally since the recession, it's fallen twice as much among the foreign-born.
Many of La Clinica del Pueblo's immigrant patrons hold low-wage jobs with no benefits like paid leave, says Wilks, making money a worry for many of her clients. "We do have people who just can't feed their families if they're not working. And they can't work when they're with new babies."
Wilks says she even had a patient last year who put her baby up for adoption. "And that's just not done in this community," she says. "I've never seen that. But she just really clearly said, 'I need to give my baby a chance.' And it was heartbreaking."
Dr. Joshua Kolko, another physician at La Clinica del Pueblo, says he sees more women carefully planning their pregnancies. Long-term contraceptives are particularly popular, he says.
"A lot of women are coming to us and asking for some means of contraception," he says, "or of timing their pregnancies for when they are in a more stable situation."
Better Planning
The Pew report also breaks down birth rates by national origin — with particularly significant findings for some populations.
"We found that for Mexicans in particular, the declines were really dramatic," says Pew senior researcher Gretchen Livingston. Researchers found the birth rate for Mexican immigrants has fallen a stunning 23 percent since 2007.
She says previous Pew research has found a strong link between fertility and those who fared worst in the recent recession.
"Hispanics were the hardest hit in terms of employment," she says. "Their wealth declined by something like 66 percent during the recession." Also important, she notes, is that "Hispanics perceive themselves as being extremely hard hit by the recession."
'We Don't Know If We're Going To Be Here Tomorrow'
There may be other factors at work beyond the economy. There's also been an ongoing, if less publicized, crackdown on workplaces that employ those in the U.S. illegally. The number of deportations rose to nearly 400,000 in 2011 — a record level.
That uncertainty has immigrants second-guessing their choices, says Xiomara Corpeno of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
"There is a lot more uncertainty. ... Like, well, 'We're together, we have this family, we'd love to expand it, but we don't know if we're going to be here tomorrow,' " she says.
Even if immigrants continue grappling with those wrenching decisions, the Pew report projects that the foreign born will continue to drive U.S. population growth in coming decades. The vast majority of births, the researchers predict, will be to immigrants who've arrived just since 2005 and their descendants.
The popular website Intrade allows its users to bet on the odds of almost anything — like whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will get ousted by a certain date, or whether the movie Argo will win Best Picture at the Oscars.
This week, Ireland-based Intrade announced that U.S. users will have to unwind their bets and shut down their accounts by the end of the year. That's after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued Intrade for operating an unregistered exchange.
Transactions on the site have long resided in a gray area in the U.S., with little clarity as to whether they represent gambling, futures trading or something else that should not be regulated — leaving some questioning the legal basis for cracking down on so-called "prediction markets."
'More Accurate Than Pundits'
"Conceptually, to an economist, there's not a difference between betting and trading — apart from the fact that one sounds more polite than the other," says Justin Wolfers, who grew up in Australia working for bookies taking bets.
Now a University of Michigan professor who's studied Intrade, Wolfers says the site is not just a venue for winning and losing money. It also generates news as a byproduct, he says. That is, the odds on Intrade are almost always right.
"It tends to be more accurate than pundits, it tends to be more accurate than polls, and in the past it's even more accurate than very sophisticated poll-watchers like The New York Times' Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com," Wolfers says.
To use Intrade, members place bets on yes-or-no questions. Much like a stock, the price of placing a bet fluctuates based on demand. And when the outcome is determined, the payout is either $10 or nothing. If you win, your profit is that $10, minus the price you paid to place your bet.
According to Thomas Bell, a professor at Chapman Law School in California, the CFTC considers those transactions enough like pork belly futures — which fall under the commission's authority — to be shut down.
All Bets Are Off: Intrade Shuts Door To U.S. Customers
The Indian government has called a meeting Thursday to discuss problems with the country's new IT law. There was outrage recently at the arrest of two women who complained on Facebook about the way the city of Mumbai was closed down in mourning after the death of a controversial political leader. His supporters blockaded a police station and are said to have intimidated officers into making the arrests.
The Indiana GOP now has a stranglehold on state government, with supermajorities in both chambers of its General Assembly and conservative Republican Mike Pence headed to the governor's mansion. But Republican lawmakers are preaching caution and a need for increased bipartisanship as they handle unchecked legislative power for the next two years. Will they be able to resist the urge to shove through their agenda?
Mexico's President-elect, Enrique Pena Nieto, is promising to work closely with President Obama. Pena Nieto was in Washington this week ahead of his inauguration on Saturday. Host Michel Martin speaks with Alfredo Corchado, Mexico bureau chief for The Dallas Morning News, and Stephen Johnson from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Alexander Murphy recalls visiting a Guatemala museum some years ago and gazing up at a huge relief map of the country. Something about the borders struck the University of Oregon geography professor as out of place.
"And then I realized, 'Wait, all of Belize is shown as part of Guatemala,' " Murphy says. That's when he remembered a decades-old territorial dispute between the two Central American neighbors.
Maps, like statistics, can lie — or at least tell only one side of the story. As often as not, they can belie the level of actual governmental control or the ethnic and social realities on the ground. And competing views over "who owns what" invariably fuel nationalistic fervor.
Enlarge He Yuan/EPA/Landov
A map in China's new passports shows disputed islands and territorial waters as belonging to China, which has angered several of its neighbors.
One of the most well-known American women in China is someone many Americans have never heard of. Jessica Beinecke is host of Voice of America's OMG! Meiyu, an English-language learning web show that teaches American slang expressions to Chinese students.
Beinecke's fun, offbeat videos have racked up more than 15 million views over the last year — on Youtube and other Chinese sites.
She has become a breakout star in China and even has a fan club based in Beijing. Each week, Beinecke asks her viewers what words or expressions they would like to learn. Their responses have led to her explanations of expressions like "eye gunk," "big mouth" and "buttering up."
Beinecke talks with NPR's Neal Conan about explaining American English to Chinese students.
Hewlett Packard says it is doing an "intense internal investigation" into its disastrous acquisition of the British software company Autonomy. HP claims it was deceived by Autonomy about the health of the firm's finances. The deal is causing HP to take an $8.8 billion charge against earnings. Autonomy's former CEO has challenged HP to spell out any improprieties it's found.
Just a few years ago, Cyprus was considered a wealthy country, though that referred mostly to the Greek Cypriots on the southern part of the divided island. When Cyprus entered the eurozone in 2008, analysts were wondering what would become of the much poorer north, which has been occupied by Turkey since a 1974 war.
Now, the Turks in northern Cyprus have the booming economy, while Greek Cypriots, crippled by exposure to ailing Greek banks, are waiting for final approval on what will be the fourth sovereign bailout of a eurozone country.
After Turkey invaded Cyprus nearly four decades ago, Greek Cypriot families in the north fled their homes and relocated in the south — which is now an independent nation in the European Union.
Turkish Cypriots went to the north, which Turkey continues to occupy. Because of embargoes and isolation, Turkish Cypriots were cut off from the rest of the world and became dependent on aid from Turkey.
Enlarge Joanna Kakissis/NPR
Fikri Toros, a Turkish Cypriot businessman, says his family's company struggled for years because of embargoes and a weak Turkish lira. But its fortunes have improved with Turkey's economy.
With money coming in more slowly than the financial aid given out, schools say they are nearing the breaking point, and even the most selective elite universities are rethinking their generosity.
"It just became clear that if we continue to give more and more aid, the numbers don't add up," says Raynard Kington, head of Grinnell College. Thanks to alumnus Warren Buffett, Grinnell has an endowment bigger than most schools dream of. For years, that's enabled Grinnell to admit students on a need-blind basis — and then give them as much aid as they need.
Today, Grinnell effectively writes off more than 60 percent of its tuition — that's more than any other school except Harvard University, Kington says. But it's also more than Grinnell can afford without compromising the quality of its education.
"We don't get in a room and say, 'OK, do we give more aid here or do we give a raise to a professor over here?' It's never that stark, but behind the curtain, what's happening is this tradeoff," says Kington.
Grinnell is one of many hoping to save money by turning some of its student grants into loans instead. People borrow for other things, he says.
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U.S. companies in October increased their orders of machinery and equipment that signal investment plans by the largest amount in five months, a hopeful sign for future economic growth.
Orders for core capital goods, considered a proxy for business investment, rose 1.7 percent in October, the best showing since a 2.3 percent rise in May, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Orders in this category had slowed beginning in the spring, acting as a drag on overall economic growth.
Total orders for durable goods were unchanged in October at $216.9 billion following a 9.2 percent jump in September that had been driven by a surge in demand for commercial aircraft. In October, demand for machinery, primary metals and communications equipment increased while orders for autos, airplanes and computers fell.
Many businesses had been holding back because they are worried about tax increases and federal spending cuts — known as the "fiscal cliff" — that will take effect in January unless Congress reaches a budget deal before then. Most economists predict the economy will suffer a recession in the first half of 2013 if lawmakers and President Barack Obama can't avoid the fiscal cliff.
White House economists on Monday warned that the uncertainty of a potential hike in taxes next year for middle class taxpayers could hurt consumer confidence and spending during the crucial holiday shopping season.
Businesses have also grown more cautious because Europe's financial crisis has pushed many countries in the region into recession. That has cut into U.S. exports and corporate profits. Growth has also slowed in China, Brazil and other big developing nations which are major markets for American exports.
U.S. factory activity grew in October for a second straight month, according to the Institute for Supply Management closely watched manufacturing survey. But regional surveys indicated manufacturing shrank this month in the Philadelphia and New York regions, partly reflecting damage from Superstorm Sandy that disrupted area factories.
The storm may have also weighed on durable goods orders in October, although most economists expect the storm's impact to fade in the coming weeks.
The economy is expanding at a modest pace. Many economists now predict growth at an annual rate of roughly 3 percent in the July-September quarter, up from the initial estimate of 2 percent reported last month. The government releases its second estimate for third-quarter growth on Nov. 29.
Still, many economists say the economy is growing in the current October-December quarter at an annual rate below 2 percent. That's too slow to make much of a dent in the unemployment rate, which was 7.9 percent last month
For holiday shoppers, retailers' approach to fees, returns and other practices can bring praise or anger. And when customers rant or rave, Consumer Reports takes note — and compiles them into its annual "Naughty and Nice" list of companies.
"They're policies and practices that people either felt were consumer-friendly or not," Consumer Reports senior editor Tod Marks tells NPR's Steve Inskeep. He adds that the list isn't related to the ratings his magazine is known for.
The list includes 20 widely known companies — such as grocery stores Publix and Safeway (nice), and airlines Delta and Spirit (naughty).
The "naughty" offenses range from BMW and other carmakers' omission of spare tires in new models, and the clothing chain Forever 21's two separate policies for online and in-store returns.
Of particular note in this holiday season, retailer Abe's of Maine was criticized for the many exceptions to its 30-day money-back guarantee. Marks says that under the policy, the seller of electronics and appliances doesn't include microwaves, watches, TVs, laptops and other items.
The Naughty and Nice list reflects the opinions of Consumer Reports experts, along with the magazine's Facebook friends, Twitter followers and online subscribers, Marks says.
"Really, people are just so frustrated," he says. "And they're primarily frustrated because of the inability, or an unwillingness on the part of a lot of companies, to just simply listen to them."
On the "Nice" list, the return policies at Kohl's and Nordstrom came in for praise, as did the all-inclusive pricing of the Drury Hotel chain.
The Red Wing Shoe Co. was commended for allowing no-questions-asked returns of its boots. And PNC Bank won fans for offering a simple, unglamorous product: a free basic checking account, with no minimum balance.
Marks adds that a spot on the "Naughty and Nice" list doesn't necessarily mean a company is making a bad product.
"Oftentimes, we see companies that do very well in our survey, maybe they'll pop up on the naughty list," Marks says. "And conversely, we'll see companies that don't do so well sometimes have a nice policy ... We've got the good, the bad, and the ugly."
For merchants, the stars are lining up — at least so far.
Online sales were going strong Monday. And the National Retail Federation says Thanksgiving weekend spending shot up to $59.1 billion, nearly 13 percent more than last year's $52 billion.
Fortunately for retailers, those good numbers may keep coming because the heavens have lined up in such a way that the 2012 calendar "is a real plus," says Chris Christopher, an economist with IHS Global Insight, a forecasting firm. "There are more shopping days" than we've had in years, he notes.
That's because Thanksgiving fell on the earliest date possible. Since most people don't begin holiday shopping until Black Friday, separating the Thanksgiving turkey from the Christmas goose by as many days as possible is a good thing for retailers.
An Extra Weekend
But there are two other timing factors that may really help this year. One is that Christmas Eve lands on a Monday. Procrastinators — and you know who you are — will have both Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 22 and 23, to go to the mall. Retailers love it when they have a whole weekend to lure last-minute shoppers just as the Christmas Eve pressure is peaking.
And online dawdlers also can shop on that final weekend and still get the gifts delivered before sunset on Monday. Yes, you may pay more for the service, but Express Mail, UPS, FedEx and others will be making delivery rounds on Monday, Dec. 24. "This year is the best of times for people who like to wait until the last minute to shop," Christopher said.
But there's yet another calendar event that offers a sort of Powerball bonus. It's the fiscal cliff. If retailers' timing luck holds, that political and economic threat will be eliminated just in time to spur a celebratory round of shopping on the weekend before Christmas.
A Fiscal Cliff Surprise?
Here's how it may play out: Congress must fix the so-called fiscal cliff — a complex cluster of federal spending cuts and tax-break expirations that all come together at year's end.
Lawmakers are scrambling to put together a deal in this calendar year, and most economists and pundits think they will find some way to compromise. But for now the threat of inaction may be dampening many people's enthusiasm for shopping.
For example, it's not yet clear how many automatic spending cuts will kick in next year. If Congress were to allow all of the currently scheduled reductions to take effect, many government contractors would lose their jobs next year. And many taxpayers know their tax bills may shoot up in January. None of that puts people in the mood to spend.
The White House is certainly aware of the threat hanging over the economy. On Monday morning, it issued a report in which its economic advisers say that "as we approach the holiday season, which accounts for close to one-fifth of industry sales, retailers can't afford the threat of tax increases on middle-class families."
In a statement on the White House report, National Retail Federation CEO Matthew Shay agreed that congressional inaction would lead to "stifled job creation, and dampened consumer confidence, which will ultimately lead to lower retail sales and potentially another recession."
Optimists note that lawmakers are not just members of Congress. They also are human beings who would like to be home for the holidays.
An Incentive For Lawmakers
So members of Congress have a great deal of incentive to wrap up any legislative package dealing with the fiscal cliff by Friday, Dec. 21. Christopher said he believes a compromise will be reached by that date.
If he's right, the cloud of uncertainty would lift just in time to brighten Americans' economic mood as they go shopping on that final weekend before Christmas.
Of course, the gamble could go the other way. If Congress remains hopelessly deadlocked as of Dec. 21, it could throw a big wet blanket over the economy and discourage shopping in those crucial days leading up to Christmas.
For now, the retailers are crossing their fingers. "It is encouraging to see the Administration's acknowledgement that retailers and their customers will be among the hardest hit if our elected officials fail to address ongoing economic uncertainty," says Shay, in the retail trade group's statement. "The time for action is now."
So, sure, the Mayan calendar may say the world is ending on Dec. 21, but the countdown calendar for the fiscal cliff and Christmas Eve is pointing to good times.
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'Giving Tuesday': The Start Of A Holiday Tradition? Nov. 26, 2012
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairwoman Mary Schapiro is stepping down. She took over the agency in 2009 as it was reeling from criticism over the financial crisis and the Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme. Schapiro is credited as a consensus builder who restored some stability to the SEC. She is being replaced by SEC commissioner Elisse Walter.
It's an old saying in retail: "The customer is always right." But many companies that sell online or through catalogs have moved away from that motto — making customers pay to return merchandise. Sellers think it's a fair policy. Consumers don't see it that way, and a new study suggests that firms would be far better off in the long run footing the bill for returns.
First, there was the post-Thanksgiving sales spectacle Black Friday and then the online version, Cyber Monday. Now, charitable groups want to start a new holiday tradition — it's called Giving Tuesday and the first one is tomorrow.
It may seem a little surprising that no one came up with the idea before of designating a specific day to help launch the holiday charitable giving season.
"I mean this is just brilliant, to just give everyone time to pause and think about what's most important at the holiday season," says Jyl Johnson Pattee, the founder of Mom It Forward. The online community of mothers is one of more than 1,400 groups participating in this year's Giving Tuesday. Local Mom It Forward groups will do volunteer projects to mark the event, and they plan to host a Twitter party that anyone can attend online.
"We'll have an hour conversation about charity, holiday giving, volunteerism and how you can really make a difference over the holiday season," she says.