My finance view

The European Central Bank has cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point under new head Mario Draghi to boost weakening growth in a eurozone struggling with a crisis over too much government debt.

The move, which comes earlier than expected by many economists, takes the bank’s benchmark rate to 1.25 percent.

European growth is expected to slow to near or below zero in the last three months of the year.

Uncertainty from Europe’s debt crisis is a factor. Business and consumers are reluctant to spend and investors because they fear more financial turmoil if Greece defaults on its debts.

Now markets are waiting for Draghi’s first news conference to see if he indicates the bank is willing to intervene more forcefully in bond markets to keep Greece’s troubles from spreading to Spain and Italy.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) _ Mario Draghi holds his first press conference as new head of the European Central Bank under pressure to signal it will continue buying government bonds to keep Europe’s debt crisis from worsening.

A surprise interest rate cut has also not been ruled out as Draghi takes over. He faces an array of problems: weakening growth, excessive inflation and uncertainty over whether a bailout for heavily indebted Greece will go through or be derailed by a proposed referendum.

Markets are waiting to see if Draghi will be more aggressive in supporting troubled governments than predecessor Jean-Claude Trichet, whose eight-year term expired.

The bank’s program to buy government bonds drives down the borrowing costs that Italy and Spain face in bond markets. High interest rates on borrowing drove Greece, Ireland and Portugal to take bailout loans from other eurozone governments.

Under Trichet’s leadership, both he and Draghi, a former World Bank director and top Italian official, stressed that the program was temporary and that the new eurozone bailout fund needs to be ready to step up and take the purchases over. The fund won’t finish arrangements to leverage its limited financial resources until next month at the earliest, however.

That has left the ECB as the last line of defense in the bond market _ a position it has been uncomfortable holding. Trichet limited his comments on the program, and markets want to see if Draghi will open the door to more aggressive purchase.

“Draghi’s attitude to the ECB’s program of buying distressed government debt will be of prime importance,” said Jane Foley at Rabobank. “Today’s press conference will be no doubt used as an opportunity to test his resolve on this issue.”

Those expecting a more aggressive stance on bond purchases and a signal for a rate cut may be disappointed as Draghi may choose to stress continuity at the bank, wrote Unicredit economist Marco Valli. “We think Draghi will be very much in agreement with Trichet” and will signal that the bond purchases are a temporary measure, he wrote.

The bank’s key rate stands at 1.5 percent after increases in April and July aimed at warding off inflation. Since then the economic outlook has worsened significantly for the 17 countries that use the euro, leading many analysts to think the bank will cut rates in December or early next year. A rate cut Thursday has not been ruled out.

Inflation at 3.0 percent _ well above the bank’s goal of just under 2 percent _ gives a reason to hold off. Rate cuts spur growth but can worsen inflation.

Draghi will also face questions about Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou’s proposal to hold a referendum on Greece’s bailout, part of a broader plan to halt the crisis agreed upon at a summit last week but already in danger of unraveling.

Greece is to get euro100 million ($138 million) in more bailout financing to avoid a disorderly default on its bonds that could damage Europe’s banks and choke credit to the wider economy. But it comes with painful conditions and Papandreou says he wants the people to decide despite being told that no more bailout money will be forthcoming from other eurozone governments until the result is clear.

Papandreou faces a confidence vote Friday and it’s not clear the referendum will take place.

Critics of bond purchases argue that they take pressure off politicians to get their budget deficits down.

The issue is pressing, with Italian bond yields at an elevated 6.3 percent. Earlier, the ECB purchase program had driven them under 5 percent. But fears of more turmoil in Greece, and a perception that Italy is not acting quickly to cut spending and improve growth have put more pressure on its bonds.

But some economists have argued that only the ECB can act quickly and forcefully enough to backstop troubled governments and contain the crisis. Europe’s bailout fund is considered too small, at euro440 billion, despite proposals agreed last week by eurozone leaders to increase its financial firepower to euro1 trillion by letting it insure part of the value of government bond issues.

Key details of how the bailout fund would do that have not been filled in, and the initial burst of market relief over the idea has faded. Eurozone officials also worked out plans to cut Greece’s debt burden by 50 percent and to push banks to increase the size of their financial cushions against any losses or further market plunges that might result from that.

The ECB has potentially unlimited firepower, backed by its ability to create new money _ an ability the U.S. Federal Reserve and Bank of England have used. The ECB has been unwilling to do that. When it buys government bonds to stabilize their market price, it withdraws an equivalent amount of money from circulation to avoid creating inflation.

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It was a passengers’ nightmare at Bradley International Airport in Hartford, Conn., this weekend.

Passengers on three JetBlue planes and one American Airline plane say they were stranded on the tarmac for seven hours or more after being diverted from New York-area airports.

The ordeal continued after they were let off and had to spend the night on cots and chairs in the terminal.

A passenger on one of the diverted JetBlue planes says the crew ran out of snacks and bottled water for the last few hours of the delay.

“The toilets were backed up. When you flushed, nothing would happen,” said Andrew Carter, a reporter for the Sun Sentinel of Florida, who was traveling to cover the Miami Dolphins game against the New York Giants. His plane took off from Fort Lauderdale for Newark Liberty International Airport at around 9 a.m. After being diverted to Hartford, the plane sat on the tarmac between around 1:30 p.m. and 9 p.m., he said.

A representative for Bradley International was not available to comment on the scope of the tarmac delays at the airport.

A JetBlue spokeswoman, Victoria Lucia, confirmed in an emailed statement that six of its planes, carrying a total of about 700 passengers, were diverted to Hartford as a result of a “confluence of events” including equipment failures at Newark and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport that prevented planes from landing in low visibility.

She declined to specify how long the planes sat on the tarmac at Bradley, but noted that 17 other flights with different carriers were also diverted to airport.

Once the planes landed at Bradley, Lucia said that intermittent power outages at the airport made refueling and deplaning difficult.

Kate Hanni, executive editor for FlyersRights.org, said she got calls and emails from passengers and worried family members regarding at least four flights that were stranded on the tarmac for up to 10 hours.

Brent Stanley and his wife were on one of those planes, an American Airlines flight that had originally been headed to JFK after taking off from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.

After being diverted and landing in Hartford at 2:30 p.m., Stanley said passengers were given various reasons for being held on the tarmac, including the need to refuel and de-ice and the airport’s limited capacity for handling international flights. He and his wife were eager to get back home to their two young sons in Lake Zurich, Ill. But they realized they didn’t have it as bad as the parents who had infants on the plane.

“There was a lady in front of us with an 18-month-old daughter,” Stanley said. “Another woman came by to borrow diapers because we couldn’t get to our luggage.”

After spending the night at the airport, Stanley was lucky to find two seats Sunday on an afternoon flight home to Chicago. But the headache isn’t over yet; his luggage was headed to JFK because the Hartford airport crew wasn’t able to handle international luggage, he said.

An American Airlines spokesman, Ed Martelle, said the passengers weren’t allowed off the plane by customs at the airport. Martelle did not know the exact number of American planes that were diverted to Bradley or how long they sat on the tarmac personal business card.

Matt Shellenberger, who was on a JetBlue flight from Boston to JFK, said his plane was diverted to Bradley International and sat on the tarmac for seven hours.

The crew picked up trash regularly and handed out water and snacks and “everyone held their cool,” he said. But his frustrations grew with each status update; the reasons for the delay kept changing as the hours passed.

Early on, passengers were told that the plane was just being refueled and would fly out soon, Shellenberger said. Then they were told it was being de-iced. Then there was an emergency on another plane.

“We were told we were the third plane in line to get to the gate when we landed,” he said. “Then we stayed on the plane for seven hours.”

Carter of the Sun Sentinel, who was on another JetBlue flight, reported a similar sequence of updates.

The saga continued long after passengers were let off the plane.

The power outages from storms throughout Connecticut made booking hotel rooms difficult. As a result, many passengers just slept at the airport, Carter and Shellenberger said in separate interviews.

When they awoke, hundreds of passengers had to wait in line for hours just to figure out which flight they’d be on.

“That was most disappointing part,” Carter said. “It seemed like there was no plan when we got off the plane.”

In the morning, Carter said he and several other passengers rented a van to drive to New Jersey rather than wait for the afternoon flight JetBlue had scheduled to Newark.

It’s not the first time JetBlue has had problems with tarmac delays. The New York-based airline also made headlines in 2007 when snow and ice storms stranded its planes for nearly 11 hours at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Such high-profile delays helped prompt a regulation last year that fines airlines for holding domestic flights on the tarmac for more than three hours. This year, the rule was extended to apply to international flights that are held on the tarmac for more than four hours.

The Department of Transportation often doesn’t enforce the fines to their full extent unless delays are extreme, however. Passengers also do not get a cut of the fines.

Low-cost carriers are more prone to tarmac delays because letting passengers off planes can cost an airline a lot of money, said Hanni of FlyersRights.org.

If a plane is diverted because of a reason within the airline’s control, such as a mechanical failure, ticket contracts usually state that passengers will be reimbursed for hotels, food and transportation. That means airlines do everything in their power to keep passengers on board in hope that the plane will be able to take off again.

JetBlue said that passengers who were diverted to Bradley International would be reimbursed for their fares and hotel expenses.

A representative for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, which oversees Newark and JFK airports, could not immediately say how many total flights were diverted to other airports because of equipment failures.

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With new Toronto condo units averaging just 749 square feet, baby boomers are finding the word downsizing is taking on new meaning

Baby boomers Jack and Leona Anderson made their first big step towards retirement last summer when they flew to Toronto from their home in Regina looking for a condo.

It wasn’t the sticker price that sent the teachers into a mild panic. It was the size of the units.

“I just kept thinking, if I’m going to move into a space this small, it’s going to be at an old folks’ home,” says Jack Anderson, 61.

The Andersons toured soaring glass and steel towers equipped with basketball courts, sprawling exercise rooms, granite countertops galore.

But they couldn’t see a place where they could actually live their new life, until their agent took them on a trip back in time to The Bentley, an almost 30-year-old condo building just steps from the St. Lawrence Market.

In the end, the couple opted to overlook the dated lobby, oak-trimmed kitchen cupboards and two bathrooms in need of updating.

It was the 1,200 square feet of living space that wowed them, along with the building’s wood-burning fireplaces and rooftop garden. They paid $339,000 for the one-bedroom plus den corner unit.

“Our house is 3,000 square feet with two fireplaces. We spend a lot of time outdoors. That (rooftop garden) is a viable substitute. We will be able to go up there in the morning and have our coffee and read the paper,” says Anderson.

With condos getting smaller by the day, especially in the downtown core where new units average just 749 square feet, baby boomers are finding the word downsizing is taking on new meaning.

“There is definitely a disconnect between what the demographics are telling us versus what’s actually getting built,” says Farrell Macdonald, a Coldwell Banker realtor.

“If there is a vulnerability in Toronto’s housing market these days it’s on the condo side — not just because of the sheer numbers we’re building, but because of the size and quality.”

Canadian condo developer Tridel Group says 25 per cent of its buyers are empty nesters and while it does build some larger units, its biggest market by far is first-time buyers for whom affordability is more important than size payday loans online.

“This (demographic) bulge is roaring towards us now and we’ve got people who are demanding alternatives but the market isn’t really responding,” says Macdonald. “We’re building lots of small, cheap and cheerful units but we’re not thinking long term.”

Macdonald hears complaints regularly from boomers who want to trade in family homes for simpler lives close to theatres and restaurants but refuse to be “plunked in a shoebox” better suited to single, young professionals.

That frustration is fuelling a renaissance among older condos, long considered less desirable because they lack flash and modern amenities and tend to have higher maintenance fees, says realtor Colleen Gray.

In the past year, Gray has seen even younger buyers starting to peek at the past.

Much of the renewed interest has been in decades-old buildings along Toronto’s waterfront, near the St. Lawrence Market and in midtown where units are selling for as little as $320 to $350 a square foot. That’s almost half the $600 to $700 per square foot of new units.

The tradeoff is higher maintenance fees. In The Bentley they average 67 cents per square foot (the Andersons pay $700 a month, which includes utilities), compared to about 50 cents in newer buildings, many of which don’t include utilities.

The biggest risk in older buildings is getting hit with costs for a new roof or heating unit that can overwhelm the maintenance fund.

But that day will come for newer units, too, given that fees don’t tend to reflect real costs, says Macdonald.

The Andersons are renting out their unit right now and plan to virtually gut their condo when they get ready to move to Toronto.

They know it will never have the look or feel of a brand-new building, but at the least it will have sparkling new bathrooms and a kitchen with the de rigueur stainless steel and granite, says Anderson.

“There are always going to be people who will want a property like this in downtown Toronto, just because of its square footage. I think in that way it was a very clever investment.

“Someday it’s going to sell itself.” Also read: Why downtown living is more attractive

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WellPoint says its third-quarter earnings fell more than 7 percent even as medical enrollment and revenue grew.

The largest publicly traded health insurer based on enrollment reported net income of $683.2 million, $1.90 per share, in the three months that ended Sept. 30. That’s down from $739.1 million, or $1.74 per share, a year earlier.

Total operating revenue rose almost 6 percent to $15.2 billion.

Analysts polled by FactSet forecast earnings of $1 guaranteed payday loans.68 per share on $15.22 billion in revenue.

WellPoint says enrollment climbed more than 2 percent to 34.4 million members.

The Indianapolis company operates Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in 14 states, including California, New York and Ohio.

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To find symbolism in the Greek financial crisis, just go to the source. The national image on the two-euro coin in Greece depicts an ancient myth about the abduction of Europa, a Phoenician princess, by Zeus, the king of the gods in the form of a bull.

The saga known as the “Rape of Europa,” whose protagonist rides the bull’s back in an image reproduced by artists over the centuries, mirrors the turbulent journey of Greece and the rest of Europe, hitched together in an agonizing spiral that seems to go on and on and on.

The crude parallel ends there, however _ Zeus turned into a human, had his way with Europa, and she bore him children. The last chapter in modern Greece, meanwhile, is still blank. Will there be a debt default, with its ominous implications for the global economy? How long will Greeks endure the erosion of what was a good life?

The future is a void, and anger and helplessness dig deep in the Greek psyche. Joblessness is climbing and essential services such as health care and policing are losing resources.

The crisis may pale beside the bloody conflict or poverty in Libya or Afghanistan, but the hardship is as much psychological as economic. It is the shock of undercut expectations, the loss of benefits and prospects once taken for granted as part of the European contract.

The mood now resembles the plot of “Groundhog Day,” a 1993 movie about a man who wakes up to the same day over and over again.

“We don’t see how we can escape from this problem,” said Kostas Theofanides, engineering manager for British Petroleum in Greece. He spoke Thursday evening at a resort hotel on the Athenian coast, where Greek and German business executives, nametags on their suits, mingled during a forum that hummed with talk of investing in a country on the edge.

Greeks, whose previous governments were accused of hiding the extent of the country’s ballooning budget deficit, now talk with withering honesty about their problems. Even at investment forums. Theofanides said his compatriots are angry, unsafe and depressed, and wonder how long they have to put up their daily stew of taxes, austerity, unemployment and general uncertainty.

He ticked off the possibilities: Two years? Three years? Ten years, 25 years? Who knows.

But there is plenty of blame to go around, and nobody is exempt _ from free-spending Greeks, to the politicians they elected, to Germany and the international lenders with their dire prescriptions of cuts and then more cuts.

With a sly smile, Dimitrios Gardikiotis, director at an information technology company, suggested Germany had been plotting Greece’s downfall for the past 20 years, luring its junior economic partner into dissolute ways so that it could barge in and buy assets on the cheap.

‘”I’m preparing your economic death. Then I will buy you and your wife and your children,’” said Gardikiotis, imagining what he thought might be a German viewpoint. He said it in such a disarming manner that it was hard to tell what he really thought.

“Greeks actually point their fingers at others, not at themselves,” Gardikiotis said. “Of course, there are certain mistakes, and everybody has to recognize their responsibility.”

History is to blame as well, in some Greek quarters.

Its students point to centuries of Ottoman rule that ended in independence in 1829, giving other European nations a headstart in building democracy. Then bouts of civil strife stunted progress. The king and the prime minister sparred during the National Schism in the early 20th century, the Western-backed government fought the communists in the late 1940s, and a military junta ruled between 1967 and 1974.

For a few resentful Greeks, there are always the Nazis, who occupied Greece during World War II payday loans for bad credit. On Thursday, several people in uniforms, including a man doing his best to impersonate Adolf Hitler, turned up with a Nazi flag and other insignia outside the German Embassy.

“The Germans owe us millions in war reparations, let them pay what they owe us,” said 75-year-old Demetris Kollatos, a fixture on the protest circuit who vaguely recalled the German occupation of Athens during his childhood. “In their greed to get everything, they’ll lose everything.”

Mostly, there is grim confusion and numbing fatigue. Greece is struggling to meet the terms of a euro110 billion ($146 billion) international bailout from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund, but there is growing doubt about whether it can dodge a default. The country is in a third year of recession, with another on the way.

The government is tightening up on tax evaders, but some edicts, including those about what receipts taxpayers need to save in order to avoid penalties, have changed several times. A columnist in the English-language Athens News, who draws on historical figures for his alias, Alcibiades Ouranos, predicted a looming deluge of bureaucracy:

“Thing A should be dealt like that, but we acknowledge that B, C and D are unfairly hurt by that legislation, so we declare that B should do that, C should do something else and D should do that, but only if they do not fall into category E, have F blahblahblah. So bring us statements from agency G, H and I who monitor such things, to establish that you are indeed a B and not an A.”

Some Greeks think they are venturing onto new psychological terrain after nearly two years in which the concept of crisis, which should be exceptional by definition, is as banal as the protests and strikes that convulse Athens from time to time.

Despoina Ergenidou is director of the Numismatic Museum, a monument to the coins and currency of ancient Greece that is housed in the mansion where Heinrich Schliemann, the German archaeologist who excavated Troy, lived in the late 19th century.

“It’s not just the economy. It’s ethical values,” she said in an interview in her office, flanked by a garden in downtown Athens. “They are losing what they believe. I don’t mean religion. We were working for something better, we believed in things, people, good ideas. We were working for those ideas. It’s not like that anymore.”

In ancient times, Ergenidou said, there were no banks, so people hoarded coins in hiding places, in pots or pouches, behind walls and under floors. Many families survived war and other hardships through their domestic economies, a garden to grow vegetables or some farm animals.

Those were truly hard times. They were also glorious times, when hundreds of cities and kings minted coins in different denominations and metals. There were tetradrachms and staters and obols, gold and silver and brass, and coins with images of turtles, foals and owls.

It is tempting to find relevance in the words of ancient Greek philosophers to Greece’s modern predicament, in which avarice played a star role. Aristotle recognized the value of money as a tool for the interchange of goods, beyond barter, but warned of its artifice and the imbalances generated by seeking cash without restraint.

“It appears necessary that there should be a limit to all riches, yet in actual fact we observe that the opposite takes place; for all men engaged in wealth-getting try to increase their money to an unlimited amount,” he wrote.

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As Japan welcomes the first Boeing 787, the soon-to-be world’s largest carrier is patiently and anxiously waiting for its order.

Jeff Smisek, head of the parent company for United and Continental airlines, on Thursday said he was last told by Boeing that the first of the 50 aircraft ordered by the company will be delivered to have in service in the second half of 2012.

“We ordered that aircraft in December 2004. So I’ve been a very patient person,” said Smisek, the president and CEO of United Continental Holdings Inc.

The first Boeing 787 Dreamliner took off from Everett, Wash., on Tuesday morning and landed Wednesday in Tokyo, where All Nippon Airways is preparing the long-delayed aircraft for its inaugural commercial flight.

Chicago-based Boeing missed the initial May 2008 delivery target and had repeatedly delayed its introduction because of problems in development.

Despite the delays, Smisek called the wide-body jetliner “a spectacular and game-changing aircraft.”

The new jet is the first commercial airliner built using carbon fiber _ a strong, lightweight, high-tech plastic _ rather than the typical aluminum skin. It is quieter and uses about 20 percent less fuel than a comparably sized aluminum aircraft.

“That’s staggering,” Smisek said about the fuel savings. “If you substitute them for an existing aircraft, your profits will improve like that. It will also permit us to fly routes we couldn’t otherwise profitably fly. So it’s really a homerun.”

The 787s have an extended range and its cabin have bigger windows and larger overhead compartments. For improved passenger comfort, the humidity can be controlled and the air pressure during flights will be equivalent to an altitude of 6,000 feet instead of the conventional 8,000 feet.

“Customers will love flying in them,” he said. “So it’s good for us and great for the customer.”

United Continental will be the first North American carrier to receive the 787s. The only route the company has announced for the 787 is non-stop service between Houston and Auckland, New Zealand _ a route that the carrier had hoped to begin in November.

Smisek said 787s will mostly replace existing aircraft instead of adding capacity because, “I don’t see us growing our mainline fleet in any significant way under these current conditions.”

Airlines have ordered more than 800 of the planes that will compete with the Airbus A350. United Continental has ordered 25 of the Airbus aircraft.

Smisek is in Honolulu this week meeting with company employees. He spoke with reporters after delivering a keynote speech at the 2011 Hawaii Business Magazine Top 250 luncheon, recognizing the state’s leading companies.

The company, which brings in about 4 million visitors to Hawaii every year, continues to merge United and Continental airlines into what will be the world’s largest carrier. He said the company has reduced its net debt by $1.4 billion.

“I think we’re at the cusp of having an airline business in the United States that actually makes money (and) makes it consistently, sustainably, sufficiently.”

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U.S. stock futures are rising on hopes that European leaders will come up with a new strategy to resolve the region’s debt crisis.

Finance officials met in Washington this past weekend and pledged to take bolder steps to fight the problems. German leaders, for example, want banks and private institutions that hold Greek bonds to take a bigger loss on those holdings to slash Athens’ debt.

Investors have been on edge about Europe’s debt problems for months. Last week, the Dow Jones industrial average fell by 6.4 percent, its biggest drop since October 2008.

Ahead of the opening Monday, Dow futures are up 134 points, or 1.3 percent, at 10,833. S&P 500 futures are up 17, or 1.5 percent, at 1,147. Nasdaq 100 futures are up 23, or 1.1 percent, at 2,225.

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Target is a victim of its own success.

The discounter drummed up so much hype around its exclusive, limited-time line by upscale Italian designer Missoni that its website crashed and was down most of the day on Sept. 13 when the collection was launched, angering customers. More than a week later, some shoppers who bought the Missoni for Target line are posting on social media websites Facebook and Twitter that they won’t shop at Target again because their online orders are being delayed

The departing chief economist of the European Central Bank is saying that heavy levels of government debt are threatening the existence of the euro currency.

Juergen Stark’s statements in a paper with three other economists on the ECB’s website are unusual because they come from a high-ranking central banker.

The paper also dismisses new measures to strengthen EU controls over national government spending as insufficient.

It says Europe needs far tougher measures, such as appointing administrators to oversee finances in countries that need bailouts, as Greece, Ireland and Portugal have.

Stark is resigning almost three years before the end of his term amid talk that he is unhappy with the bank’s crisis measure of propping up weak governments by buying their bonds.

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The Toronto stock market reduced afternoon losses but closed down more than 200 points amid plummeting gold prices and fresh anxiety over a potential default by the Greek government on its loans.

The S&P/TSX composite index was down two per cent or 238.71 points at 12,148.83. The TSX Venture Exchange lost 39.57 points to 1,745.53.

The Canadian dollar was up 0.40 of a cent at 100.80 cents (U.S.) after earlier dipping below parity for the first time since January as investors nervous about Europe