A storm poised to dump up to 3 feet of snow from New York City to Boston and beyond beginning Friday could be one for the record books, forecasters warned, as residents scurried to stock up on food and water and road crews readied salt and sand.

 A worker walks up towards a plow smoothing a large salt pile at Eastern Salt Company in Chelsea, Mass., Thursday, Feb. 7, 2013, in preparation for a major winter storm headed toward the U.S. Northeast.... (Associated Press)

 Kelly Pomerleau of Andover Small Engine Service repairs a snow blower for a customer in Andover, Mass., Thursday, Feb. 7, 2013, in preparation for a major winter storm headed toward the U.S. Northeast.... (Associated Press)

 Municipal trucks fill up with salt, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013 in Portsmouth, N.H. as the Northeast prepares for a snowstorm later this week. The National Weather Service says the snow will start falling... (Associated Press)

 This image made available by NOAA shows storm systems over the eastern half of the United States on Thursday, Feb. 7, 2013 at 11:15 EST. A blizzard of potentially historic proportions threatened to strike... (Associated Press)

 Chris Oppenberg of Andover Small Engine Service assembles a home generator for a customer in Andover, Mass., Thursday, Feb. 7, 2013, in preparation for a major winter storm headed toward the U.S. Northeast.... (Associated Press)

 A pair of storms will combine off the Northeast coast, bringing heavy snow and strong winds throughout New England. Another storm will move into the West, bringing rain and high elevation snow from California... (Associated Press)

 Before the first snowflake had fallen, Boston, Providence, R.I., Hartford, Conn., and other towns and cities in New England and upstate New York towns canceled school Friday, and airlines scratched more than 2,600 flights through Saturday, with the disruptions from the blizzard certain to ripple across the U.S.

 "This one doesn't come along every day. This is going to be a dangerous winter storm," said Alan Dunham, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass. "Wherever you need to get to, get there by Friday afternoon and don't plan on leaving."

 The snow began falling Friday morning in some areas, with the heaviest amounts falling at night and into Saturday. Wind gusts could reach 75 mph. Widespread power failures were feared, along with flooding in coastal areas still recovering from Superstorm Sandy in October.

 Boston could get up to 3 feet of snow, while New York City was expecting 10 to 12 inches. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said plows and 250,000 tons of salt were being put on standby. To the south, Philadelphia was looking at a possible 2 to 5 inches.

 "We hope forecasts are exaggerating the amount of snow, but you never can tell," Bloomberg said, adding that at least the bad weather is arriving on a weekend, when the traffic is lighter and snowplows can clean up the streets more easily.

 Amtrak said its Northeast trains will stop running Friday afternoon. The organizers of New York's Fashion Week _ a closely watched series of fashion shows held under a big tent _ said they will have extra crews to help with snow removal and will turn up the heat and add an extra layer to the venue.

 Blizzard warnings were posted for parts of New Jersey and New York's Long Island, as well as portions of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, including Hartford, New Haven, Conn., and Providence. The warnings extended into New Hampshire and Maine.

 In New England, it could prove to be among the top 10 snowstorms in history, and perhaps even break Boston's record of 27.6 inches, set in 2003, forecasters said. The last major snowfall in southern New England was well over a year ago _ the Halloween storm of 2011.

 Dunham said southern New England has seen less than half its normal snowfall this season, but "we're going to catch up in a heck of a hurry." He added: "Everybody's going to get plastered with snow."

 Diane Lopes was among the shoppers who packed a supermarket Thursday in the coastal fishing city of Gloucester, Mass. She said she went to a different grocery earlier in the day but it was too crowded. Lopes said she has strep throat and normally wouldn't leave the house but had to stock up on basic foods _ "and lots of wine."

 She chuckled at the excitement the storm was creating in a place where snow is routine.

 "Why are us New Englanders so crazy, right?" she said.

 At a Shaw's supermarket in Belmont, Mass., Susan Lichtenstein stocked up, with memories of a 1978 blizzard on her mind. "This is panic shopping, so bread, milk, a snow shovel in case our snow shovel breaks," she said.

 In New Hampshire, Dartmouth College student Evan Diamond and other members of the ski team were getting ready for races at the Ivy League school's winter carnival.

 "We're pretty excited about it because this has been an unusual winter for us," he said. "We've been going back and forth between having really solid cold snaps and then the rain washing everything away."

 But he said the snow might be too much of a good thing this weekend: "For skiing, we like to have a nice hard surface, so it will be kind of tough to get the hill ready."

 The governors of Connecticut and Massachusetts ordered nonessential state workers to stay home Friday and urged travelers to stay home.

 Terrance Rodriguez, a doorman at a luxury apartment complex in Boston, took the forecast in stride.

 "It's just another day in Boston. It's to be expected. We're in a town where it's going to snow," he said. "It's like doomsday prep. It doesn't need to be. People just take it to the extreme."

 ___

 Associated Press writers Holly Ramer in Lyme, N.H., Lisa Rathke in Montpelier, Vt., Jay Lindsay in Gloucester, Mass., and Denise Lavoie, Rodrique Ngowi and Bob Salsberg in Boston contributed to this report. ||||| As snow began falling on Friday morning, local authorities from New York City to Maine were making preparations for what forecasters said could be the biggest blizzard for some cities in the Northeast in a century.

 Airlines began announcing the suspension of flights out of New York and Boston airports starting Friday night, as thousands of workers readied their plows, checked their stocks of salt and braced for what will most likely be a cold, wet weekend. Amtrak announced that it would suspend northbound service out of Penn Station in New York and southbound service out of Boston beginning early Friday afternoon.

 Gas stations in parts of New York City and New Jersey had long lines Thursday night, according to local residents, a signal, perhaps, that many were taking storm warnings seriously.

 More than 2,200 flights for Friday had been canceled, according to the Web site FlightAware, the majority originating or departing from the areas affected by the storm.

 By late Thursday night, schools across New York and Connecticut had announced they would close, or dismiss students early.

 On Long Island, where some forecasts said there could be more than 18 inches of snow, the power company, which has received heavy criticism for its response to Hurricane Sandy, promised customers that they were prepared.

 The city of Boston, where forecasts called for more than two feet of snow to fall by Saturday, announced that it would close all schools on Friday, joining other localities in trying to get ahead of the storm and keep people off the roads.

 “We are taking this storm very seriously and you should take this storm very seriously,” said Jerome Hauer, the New York State Commissioner of the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, at an afternoon news conference.

 “If you don’t have to go to work tomorrow, we suggest that you do not,” he said. “If you do, we suggest that you plan for an early departure.”

 The latest forecasts, he said, called for between 12 and 20 inches of snow in the New York City region and wind gusts that could exceed 60 miles per hour.

 However, with the storm still some distance away, forecasters warned that predictions could change. The first sign of the storm will be a dusting of light snow that is expected to start falling across the region Friday morning.

 At some point Friday night, the arctic jet stream will drop down from Canada and intersect with the polar jet stream, which usually travels through the lower 48 states.

 “They will cross somewhere between New Jersey and Nantucket,” said Tim Morrin, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service. “That is where the center of the storm will deepen and explosively develop.”

 If the current models hold, the storm could rival the blizzard of 1978 in New England, when more than 27 inches of snow fell in Boston and surrounding cities. That storm, which occurred on a weekday, resulted in dozens of deaths and crippled the region for days.

 Peter Judge, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, said more than 20 agencies had gathered at the agency’s operations center in Framingham, Mass., where they were preparing for a historic storm.

 “From our perspective, this is a very severe, blizzard-type storm that we haven’t had for quite a long time,” Mr. Judge said. “Worst-case scenario, this will be the worst one that we’ve dealt with in many, many years. I can’t even come up with something comparable.”

 Officials prepared for debris management, snow removal and supplies distribution, he said, as well as widespread power failures, which he said were the major concern. “People will lose their heat when they lose their power, and they’re certainly much more in harm’s way than at other times of the year,” he said.

 Marc Santora reported from New York. Jess Bidgood and Katharine Q. Seelye contributed reporting from Boston. ||||| A powerful blizzard is pummeling Massachusetts tonight with heavy snow and howling winds as residents hunker down in their homes. The potentially historic storm is expected to continue into the morning, dumping more than 2 feet of snow in some areas, whipping winds up to 70 miles per hour, and battering the coast with giant waves.

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 E-mail support@bostonglobe.com ||||| By: Shaun Tanner, 10:57 PM GMT on February 04, 2015

 I live in California. More specifically, I live in San Jose, CA which is about 60 miles south of San Francisco. In case you haven't heard, California is in a devastating drought brought on by 3 years of well below normal rainfall and snowfall (Figure 1). This, of course, is big news for many residents living within the state, and is having huge implications not only for residential use, but for agriculture use as well. Farmers are running out of water, which wil... ||||| A blizzard is expected to hit the Northeastern U.S. Are you there? Send in time-lapse videos and photographs of the storm. But please stay safe

 New York (CNN) -- Stores across the Northeast were packed with shoppers as people prepared for what could be a historic blizzard set to arrive on Friday.

 In Reading, Massachusetts, residents were preparing for several feet of snow that could leave them stuck in their homes for days.

 "It's a zoo in there. There's nothing left on the shelves. ... I think I got every bottle of water that they had in stock," Elizabeth Fraiser told CNN afilliate WHDH.

 At the Home Depot, another resident said she had essential supplies but wanted to be doubly sure she was ready.

 "I have a lot of it, but just want to be prepared. You never know," Joanna Spinosa said.

 A picture posted on the website of CNN affiliate WCVB showed long lines at a gas station in Boston.

 Travelers looking up flight details on airline websites were seeing the word "Canceled" over and over. And it wasn't just affecting travelers in the Northeast.

 Nearly 3,300 flights were canceled in anticipation of the storm as emergency crews geared up for inclement weather, most of which was expected late Friday into Saturday.

 According to the flight-tracking website Flight Aware, airports from Logan in Boston to O'Hare in Chicago to Reagan National in Washington were seeing significant number of flights -- inbound and outbound -- called off for Friday. More than 60 U.S. airports reported flight cancellations, Flight Aware said.

 Amtrak canceled many trips in the Northeast corridor. The rail transit company said on its website that northbound service from New York's Penn Station would be suspended after 1 p.m Friday.

 Two ferocious storm systems are expected to converge across the Northeast on Friday and spawn nightmares for a large swath of the country.

 A wintry blast churning across the nation and a cold front barreling up the East Coast will unite and could dump as much as a foot of snow in New York and up to 3 feet in Boston.

 Boston could see snowfall of 2 to 3 inches per hour, as frigid gusts swirl across the region. The system has already drawn comparisons to the "Great Blizzard" of 1978, when thousands were stranded as fast-moving snow drifts blanketed highways and left several people dead.

 The most severe weather is expected to hit Massachusetts between 2 and 5 p.m. on Friday.

 Gov. Deval Patrick announced Thursday that all non-emergency workers should work from home. He canceled all school classes on Friday.

 "Be a good neighbor. Check on the elderly," he said, advising residents not to bring portable stoves, charcoal or gas grill indoors out of concern for potential fire hazards or carbon monoxide poisoning.

 All vehicles must be off the roads by noon on Friday, and Boston's public rail system will halt service at 3:30 p.m. A fleet of 600 snow removers will be manned by municipal workers and contractors as authorities gear up for what they say could be a 36-hour storm.

 "We are hearty New Englanders and used to these kinds of storms, but I also want to remind people to use common sense and stay off the streets," said Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

 Forecasters warned of potential white-out conditions across New England and parts of New York.

 "If you are on the highway and you are stuck, you are putting yourself in danger," said CNN meteorologist Chad Myers.

 Meanwhile, residents stocked up after authorities announced that public schools across several New England states would not hold classes Friday.

 "They're coming in buying shovels, ice melts and sleds," said Atton Shipman, who works at Back Bay Hardware in Boston.

 Social media was abuzz with chatter about the incoming weather.

 "Just a reminder of what the ground looks like in case anyone forgets in a couple of days," tweeted Ryan Pickering, after posting a close-up photo of a Rhode Island roadway.

 Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency officials said that they were busy salting roadways.

 "Travel may become nearly impossible with blowing/drifting snow and near zero visibility during the height of the storm (Friday afternoon into Saturday morning)," the agency said in a statement. "Motorized vehicles are asked to stay off the roads if they can during the storm to allow snow plows to clear the roads."

 Crews began preparing snow plows at Logan International Airport, where officials said the storm is expected to cause more flight delays and cancellations.

 United Airlines said customers in storm-affected cities will be allowed to reschedule their itineraries "with a one-time date or time change, and the airline will waive the change fees."

 Delta, Jet Blue, Southwest and other airlines offered their customers similar assurances.

 In Connecticut, Gov. Dannel Malloy said utility companies were bringing additional crews from out of state to deal with potential power outages. Metro-North rail lines could also be closed at any time should winds exceed 40 mph.

 The Connecticut National Guard has moved equipment to staging places, including several Black Hawk helicopters at Bradley International Airport north of Hartford. In Rhode Island, 300 members of a military police brigade were scheduled to drill on Saturday and Sunday but the drill has been moved up because of the storm.

 A snow emergency went into effect in the southern Connecticut city of Stamford, beginning at 5 p.m.

 In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the timing of the storm could actually benefit municipal workers.

 "If it's going to happen, having it happen Friday overnight into Saturday is probably as good timing as we could have," Bloomberg said. "The sanitation department then has the advantage of being able to clean the streets when there's normally less traffic."

 New York's Air National Guard unit on Long Island has some snowmobiles it can deploy to help with search and rescue or emergency transportation. If Gov. Andrew Cuomo were to order the National Guard to assist, each of New York's Guard's six operating areas will be ready to deploy 10 Humvees and 40 troops trained in disaster response.

 By late Thursday, the National Weather Service had issued a blizzard warning from 6 a.m. Friday until 1 p.m. Saturday, with wind gusts up to 50 mph, creating dangerous driving conditions with visibilities near zero in white-out conditions.

 Consolidated Edison, a main utility company for the New York region, said it is preparing additional crews to deal with potential power outages and advised customers to stay clear of downed power lines.

 Long island Power Authority, which received intense criticism over its handling of Superstorm Sandy, said it was preparing.

 Record-breaking snowfall could hit Hartford, Connecticut, as well.

 "We expect snow and then rain, and severe coastal flooding," said CNN meteorologist Sarah Dillingham.

 Wind will also be a major concern. Gusts could reach 75 mph along Cape Cod and 55 mph in the Long Island Sound and cause coastal flooding, with tides rising about three to five feet.

 As more miserable weather slams the region, those affected by Superstorm Sandy will be further hampered by high winds, cold temperatures and more beach erosion.

 Parts of the region are under a blizzard watch.

 In New Hampshire, there are people who actually want a lot of snow.

 "Natural snow definitely gets people to remind them that there are winter activities," Lori Rowell, director of marketing for Pats Peak ski resort in Henniker, told CNN affiliate WBZ.

 Steve Livingston said he usually sells 30 to 35 snowmobiles a week at his shop, but he hasn't sold any in the past week.

 Sales have been super slow," said Livingston, owner of Livingston's Arctic Cat in Hillsborough. "I hope we get as much snow as we can possibly deal with. That would be like a hot summer day for Hampton Beach for us."

 CNN's Larry Shaughnessy contributed to this report. ||||| A blizzard of potentially historic proportions threatened to strike the Northeast with a vengeance Friday, with 1 to 2 feet of snow feared along the densely populated Interstate 95 corridor from the New York City area to Boston and beyond.

 Kelly Pomerleau of Andover Small Engine Service repairs a snow blower for a customer in Andover, Mass., Thursday, Feb. 7, 2013, in preparation for a major winter storm headed toward the U.S. Northeast.... (Associated Press)

 Municipal trucks fill up with salt, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013 in Portsmouth, N.H. as the Northeast prepares for a snowstorm later this week. The National Weather Service says the snow will start falling... (Associated Press)

 Chris Oppenberg of Andover Small Engine Service assembles a home generator for a customer in Andover, Mass., Thursday, Feb. 7, 2013, in preparation for a major winter storm headed toward the U.S. Northeast.... (Associated Press)

 A pair of storms will combine off the Northeast coast, bringing heavy snow and strong winds throughout New England. Another storm will move into the West, bringing rain and high elevation snow from California... (Associated Press)

 From Pennsylvania to Maine, people rushed to stock up on food, shovels and other supplies, and road crews readied salt and sand, halfway through what had been a merciful winter. Boston, Providence, R.I., Hartford, Conn., and other New England cities called off school on Friday, and airlines canceled more than 1,700 flights, with the disruptions certain to ripple across the U.S.

 Forecasters said this could one for the record books.

 "This one doesn't come along every day. This is going to be a dangerous winter storm," said Alan Dunham, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass. "Wherever you need to get to, get there by Friday afternoon and don't plan on leaving."

 The snow is expected to start Friday morning, with the heaviest amounts falling at night and into Saturday. Wind gusts could reach 65 mph. Widespread power failures were feared, along with flooding in coastal areas still recovering from Superstorm Sandy in October.

 Boston could get more than 2 feet of snow, while New York City was expecting 10 to 14 inches. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said plows and 250,000 tons of salt were being put on standby.

 "We hope forecasts are exaggerating the amount of snow, but you never can tell," Bloomberg said, adding that at least the bad weather is arriving on a weekend, when the traffic is lighter and snowplows can clean up the streets more easily.

 Amtrak said its Northeast trains will stop running Friday afternoon. The organizers of New York's Fashion Week _ a closely watched series of fashion shows held under a big tent _ said they will have extra crews to help with snow removal and will turn up the heat and add an extra layer to the venue.

 Blizzard warnings were posted for parts of New Jersey and New York's Long Island, as well as portions of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, including Hartford, New Haven, Conn., and Providence. The warnings extended into New Hampshire and Maine.

 In New England, it could prove to be among the top 10 snowstorms in history, and perhaps even break Boston's record of 27.6 inches, set in 2003, forecasters said. The last major snowfall in southern New England was well over a year ago _ the Halloween storm of 2011.

 Dunham said southern New England has seen less than half its normal snowfall this season, but "we're going to catch up in a heck of a hurry." He added: "Everybody's going to get plastered with snow."

 Diane Lopes was among the shoppers who packed a supermarket Thursday in the coastal fishing city of Gloucester, Mass. She said she went to a different grocery earlier in the day but it was too crowded. Lopes said she has strep throat and normally wouldn't leave the house but had to stock up on basic foods _ "and lots of wine."

 She chuckled at the excitement the storm was creating in a place where snow is routine.

 "Why are us New Englanders so crazy, right?" she said.

 At a Shaw's supermarket in Belmont, Mass., Susan Lichtenstein stocked up, with memories of a 1978 blizzard on her mind. "This is panic shopping, so bread, milk, a snow shovel in case our snow shovel breaks," she said.

 In New Hampshire, Dartmouth College student Evan Diamond and other members of the ski team were getting ready for races at the Ivy League school's winter carnival.

 "We're pretty excited about it because this has been an unusual winter for us," he said. "We've been going back and forth between having really solid cold snaps and then the rain washing everything away."

 But he said the snow might be too much of a good thing this weekend: "For skiing, we like to have a nice hard surface, so it will be kind of tough to get the hill ready."

 Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick ordered non-emergency state employees to work from home on Friday and urged private employers to do the same.

 Terrance Rodriguez, a doorman at a luxury apartment complex in Boston, took the forecast in stride.

 "It's just another day in Boston. It's to be expected. We're in a town where it's going to snow," he said. "It's like doomsday prep. It doesn't need to be. People just take it to the extreme."

 ___

 Associated Press writers Holly Ramer in Lyme, N.H., Lisa Rathke in Montpelier, Vt., Jay Lindsay in Gloucester, Mass., and Denise Lavoie, Rodrique Ngowi and Bob Salsberg in Boston contributed to this report. |||||

Write a summary.

– The blizzard barreling toward the Northeast is still on track to bury New England and New York City later today, reports AP. The big airlines have canceled nearly 3,000 flights so far, reports CNN, and that number is only going to grow. Boston could get three feet of snow and New York City could get a foot and a half, according to the latest forecasts; both cities and other surrounding areas are bracing for the storm. Boston's Logan Airport and transit system will shut down this afternoon, the Globe reports; Amtrak and Greyhound routes between NYC and Boston are being suspended; schools have been closed; utility companies are prepping. The snow is expected to start in the morning, get heaviest at night, and continue into tomorrow morning. Weather Underground's liveblog reports that light snow has started falling in upstate New York; residents of that state and New Jersey were filling up their tanks last night, reports the New York Times, which notes this could be the biggest blizzard in a century for some areas. "This is going to be a dangerous winter storm," says a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass. "Wherever you need to get to, get there by Friday afternoon and don't plan on leaving."


Summarize this article:

The world's major central banks unleashed coordinated action Wednesday to ease the increasing strains on the global financial system, a move that sent stock markets up sharply.

 The European Central Bank, U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the central banks of Canada, Japan and Switzerland are all taking part in the operation, which is designed to "enhance their capacity to provide liquidity support to the global financial system."

 The ECB said in a statement the banks are making it cheaper for banks to get U.S. dollar liquidity when they need it, starting next Monday. They are also taking steps to ensure banks can get ready money in any currency if market conditions warrant.

 Stocks surged following the news. Germany's DAX was trading 4 percent higher as were Dow futures in New York.

 The financial system has been showing signs of entering another credit crunch as Europe's debt crisis has shown alarming signs of spreading. ||||| International Business Machines said revenue fell 3.5% in the fourth quarter, another setback in its yearslong quest to recapture growth, but its signal that faster-growing businesses would help boost profit this year sent shares higher. ||||| The world's major central banks made it easier Wednesday for banks to get dollars if they need them, a coordinated move to ease the strains on the global financial system. Stock markets rose sharply on the move.

 The European Central Bank, U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the central banks of Canada, Japan and Switzerland are all taking part in the operation, which is designed to "enhance their capacity to provide liquidity support to the global financial system."

 The European Central Bank said in a statement the central banks were making it cheaper for banks to get U.S. dollar liquidity when they need it, starting next Monday. They are also taking steps to ensure banks can get ready money in any currency if market conditions warrant by establishing a temporary network of reciprocal swap lines.

 The ECB said the central banks have agreed to reduce the cost of temporary dollar loans to banks _ called liquidity swaps _ by a half percentage point. The new, lower rate will be applied to all central bank operations starting on Monday.

 Stocks surged following the news. Germany's DAX was trading 4 percent higher as were Dow futures in New York.

 The financial system has been showing signs of entering another credit crunch like the one in 2008 as Europe's debt crisis has shown alarming signs of spreading. The possibility that one or more European governments might default on debt have raised fears of a shock to the global financial system that would lead to severe losses for banks and a contraction in lending.

 Fears of more financial turmoil in Europe have already left some European banks dependent on central bank loans to fund their daily operations. Other banks are wary of lending to them for fear of not getting paid back.

 Such constraints on interbank lending can hurt the wider economy by making less money available to lend to businesses. ||||| For release at 8:00 a.m. EST

 The Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the Swiss National Bank are today announcing coordinated actions to enhance their capacity to provide liquidity support to the global financial system. The purpose of these actions is to ease strains in financial markets and thereby mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses and so help foster economic activity.

 These central banks have agreed to lower the pricing on the existing temporary U.S. dollar liquidity swap arrangements by 50 basis points so that the new rate will be the U.S. dollar overnight index swap (OIS) rate plus 50 basis points. This pricing will be applied to all operations conducted from December 5, 2011. The authorization of these swap arrangements has been extended to February 1, 2013. In addition, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, and the Swiss National Bank will continue to offer three-month tenders until further notice.

 As a contingency measure, these central banks have also agreed to establish temporary bilateral liquidity swap arrangements so that liquidity can be provided in each jurisdiction in any of their currencies should market conditions so warrant. At present, there is no need to offer liquidity in non-domestic currencies other than the U.S. dollar, but the central banks judge it prudent to make the necessary arrangements so that liquidity support operations could be put into place quickly should the need arise. These swap lines are authorized through February 1, 2013.

 Federal Reserve Actions

 The Federal Open Market Committee has authorized an extension of the existing temporary U.S. dollar liquidity swap arrangements with the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, and the Swiss National Bank through February 1, 2013. The rate on these swap arrangements has been reduced from the U.S. dollar OIS rate plus 100 basis points to the OIS rate plus 50 basis points. In addition, as a contingency measure, the Federal Open Market Committee has agreed to establish similar temporary swap arrangements with these five central banks to provide liquidity in any of their currencies if necessary. Further details on the revised arrangements will be available shortly.

 U.S. financial institutions currently do not face difficulty obtaining liquidity in short-term funding markets. However, were conditions to deteriorate, the Federal Reserve has a range of tools available to provide an effective liquidity backstop for such institutions and is prepared to use these tools as needed to support financial stability and to promote the extension of credit to U.S. households and businesses.

 Information on Related Actions Being Taken by Other Central Banks

 Information on the actions to be taken by other central banks is available on the following websites:

 Bank of Canada

 Bank of England

 Bank of Japan (PDF)

 European Central Bank

 Swiss National Bank (PDF)

 Frequently Asked Questions: U.S. Dollar and Foreign Currency Liquidity Swaps

 For media inquiries, call 202-452-2955. |||||

– Central banks around the world plan to ease the strain on the global financial system by taking coordinated action to prevent a lack of liquidity, they announced in a statement this morning—news that sent stock futures soaring more than 250 points. The Bank of Canada, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, European Central Bank, and the Swiss National Bank join the Fed in the moves, which the AP reports will, as of next Monday, "reduce the cost of temporary dollar loans to banks—called liquidity swaps—by a half percentage point." NPR explains that'll make it easier for financial institutions to get cash, which they'll hopefully then lend at reduced interest rates. The AP reports that these central banks are also working to shore up banks' ability to ready money in any currency if market conditions warrant, though "at present, there is no need to offer liquidity in non-domestic currencies," the Fed's statement noted. "The purpose of these actions is to ease strains in financial markets and thereby mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses and so help foster economic activity," explained the Fed.


Here is a news article: This will appear next to all of your comments

 This will NOT appear anywhere on Newser ||||| After months of speculation over what Apple would call its latest sacred touch-screen device (iSlate? iTablet?), the company revealed Tuesday that it had opted to go with iPad.

 Boyfriends everywhere promptly refuse to purchase it unless they could simultaneously buy some really manly products, like shaving cream and batteries.

 Are You There God? It's Me, Steve Jobs.

 Business Insider declared the name "terrible," with one columnist writing that he'd heard rumors of the name "but dismissed it immediately," thinking that Apple would have the foresight to predict a landslide of menstruation mockery. (Did they not see "MADtv's" iPad parody in 2007?)

 Meanwhile, the blogosphere found the name debate totally absorbing -- "How will it stand up to other tablets if I pour a test tube full of blue water on it?" one Lemondrop blogger wondered -- and a heavy flow of iPad-related Twitter traffic led "iTampon" to become a top trending topic.

 "Are there NO women in the Marketing or Biz Dev department of Mac?" wrote one user, speculating that "iPad" would pass muster only with a man. No women were present on Apple's panel at the San Francisco announcement.

 Apple, for its part, heralded the iPad as "a magical and revolutionary device" on its Web site, and did not return a phone call for comment.

 This is not the first time that a widely anticipated product launch was met with ridicule. Nintendo's Wii was referred to as "Wee" by disparaging gamers who could not get stoked about a console that sounded like a potty-training term. The Wii went on to break retail records, selling 600,000 units in its first eight days.

 However, Apple has yet to address what women everywhere anticipate will obviously be the iPad's biggest problem: You can't use one while swimming. ||||| We heard Apple might call the tablet the iPad.

 But we dismissed it immediately, because really, no way Apple would go that route.

 Why?

 Ask any female. Or glance at Twitter.

 For example, asks @soniamoghe: but does it have wings? |||||
A summary of this is?

– The name of Apple’s new tablet is already inspiring jokes, eye-rolling, and fretting among the business class, reminding many of a certain, umm, feminine product. Business Insider immediately declared the name “terrible,” and the Internet soon filled with snark. “How will it stand up to other tablets if I pour a test tube full of blue water on it?” asked one blogger. “Are there NO women in the Marketing or Biz Dev department of Mac?” wondered one user, and indeed, no women were present at the tablet’s unveiling, the Washington Post notes. MadTV even coined the term iPad in a 2007 parody about—you guessed it—an Apple brand maxi pad (see story). Then again, people bought something called the “Wii” in droves, so maybe all bets are off.


– Paul Krugman has long derided the "confidence fairy": a notion that government cuts will somehow spark more consumers and investors to buy. We're seeing another version of that fairy now, after learning that Mitt Romney, at his infamous "47%" fundraiser, also claimed that his election would offer an economic lift "without actually doing anything," thanks to "optimism about the future of the country." Instead of offering much in the way of policy specifics, Romney is "declaring, in effect, 'I am the confidence fairy!'" Krugman writes in the New York Times. Romney's wrong: For one thing, "business investment has actually recovered fairly strongly since the official recession ended." What's more, as the election has recently appeared to turn in President Obama's favor, "markets are up, not down, with major stock indexes hitting their highest levels since the economic downturn began." Of course, "Romney’s whole campaign has been based on the premise that he can become president simply by not being Barack Obama. Why shouldn’t he believe that he can fix the economy the same way?" Click for Krugman's full column, or over at the Washington Post, Ezra Klein breaks down Romney's tax plan and finds it would raise taxes on those he defines as middle-income.

Expand this summary.

On "60 Minutes" last night, Mitt Romney said it again. "I want to keep the current progressivity in the code. There should be no tax reduction for high income people."

 You've heard Romney say this -- or some variant of it --dozens of times before. What's changed since then is that Romney has admitted that his tax cuts, if they're not going to add to the deficit, will have to increase taxes on people he defines as middle income and cut them on people he defines as high income.

 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Evan Vucci/AP

 Before we get to that admission, a quick refresher. Romney's tax plan proposes to cut tax rates by 20 percent. That would cost trillions of dollars, and mean a particularly big tax cut for the rich.

 But Romney promises his tax cut won’t cost anything, won’t raise taxes on the middle class, won’t cut taxes on the rich, and won’t end the tax breaks for savings and investment.

 The Tax Policy Center, the gold standard in nonpartisan tax wonkery, looked at the tax cut and these promises and declared the proposal "not mathematically possible." Since Romney doesn't want to touch tax breaks for savings and investment like the capital gains cut -- a position he reiterated last night on "60 Minutes" -- there just isn't enough money in the remaining tax breaks for people making over $250,000 to pay for their tax cuts.

 For awhile, the Romney campaign had no answer to this. They just said they didn’t believe the Tax Policy Center -- called it biased, even though it's run by one of George W. Bush’s top economists.

 Then, slowly, right-leaning economists and outlets began releasing their own studies showing that, if you made some really, really questionable assumptions, you could kinda sorta make Romney’s math look like it might add up. And so you might have heard Romney say this to David Gregory on "Meet the Press":

 The good news is that five different economic studies, including one at Harvard and Princeton and AEI and a couple at The Wall Street Journal all show that if we bring down our top rates and actually go across the board, bring down rates for everyone in America, but also limit deductions and exemptions for people at the high end, while you can keep the progressivity in the code, you could remain revenue neutral and you create an enormous incentive for growth in the economy.

 The Harvard study was done by economist Martin Feldstein, and he makes a very important decision in his paper. He writes, “I think it is very reasonable to say that people in that high-income group” -- by which means people making over $100,000 -- "are not the ‘middle class.’”

 And so, under really, really unrealistic assumptions, he shows that the math can kind of work, but that Romney’s policies would mean a really big tax increase for people making between $100,000 and $250,000 in order to pay for a big tax cut on people making more than $250,000. But that’s okay, because people making over $100,000 are not in the middle class.

 And Romney has been all over the place trumpeting this study, saying this study shows his math works out. But then ABC’s George Stephanopoulos caught him out:

 GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Is $100,000 middle income?

 MITT ROMNEY: No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less.

 For the record, I'm actually with Feldstein on this one: I think it's reasonable to say households making more than $100,000 are not middle income. But Romney disagrees with me, and with Feldstein.

 So the study Romney is promoting -- the one he says is the study you should be looking at -- actually shows even under the most favorable assumptions possible, he’s going to have to raise taxes on the people he defines as the middle class. In saying that that study is credible, he has admitted he can't make his tax promises add up. And yet he constantly, repeatedly says the opposite.

 Romney has clearly calculated that there aren't many people who read these analyses. If he just keeps saying his tax plan can cut taxes on the rich while cutting taxes on the middle class while not cutting taxes on the rich while not costing a dime, eventually, his version of this will come to be seen as the truth. And perhaps he's right. But the numbers show what they show. ||||| Mitt Romney is optimistic about optimism. In fact, it’s pretty much all he’s got. And that fact should make you very pessimistic about his chances of leading an economic recovery.

 As many people have noticed, Mr. Romney’s five-point “economic plan” is very nearly substance-free. It vaguely suggests that he will pursue the same goals Republicans always pursue — weaker environmental protection, lower taxes on the wealthy. But it offers neither specifics nor any indication why returning to George W. Bush’s policies would cure a slump that began on Mr. Bush’s watch.

 In his Boca Raton meeting with donors, however, Mr. Romney revealed his real plan, which is to rely on magic. “My own view is,” he declared, “if we win on November 6, there will be a great deal of optimism about the future of this country. We’ll see capital come back, and we’ll see — without actually doing anything — we’ll actually get a boost in the economy.”

 Are you feeling reassured?

 In fairness to Mr. Romney, his assertion that electing him would spontaneously spark an economic boom is consistent with his party’s current economic dogma. Republican leaders have long insisted that the main thing holding the economy back is the “uncertainty” created by President Obama’s statements — roughly speaking, that businesspeople aren’t investing because Mr. Obama has hurt their feelings. If you believe that, it makes sense to argue that changing presidents would, all by itself, cause an economic revival.

 There is, however, no evidence supporting this dogma. Our protracted economic weakness isn’t a mystery; it’s what normally happens after a major financial crisis. Furthermore, business investment has actually recovered fairly strongly since the official recession ended. What’s holding us back is mainly the continued weakness of housing combined with a vast overhang of household debt, the legacy of the Bush-era housing bubble.

 By the way, in saying that our prolonged slump was predictable, I’m not saying that it was necessary. We could and should have greatly reduced the pain by combining aggressive fiscal and monetary policies with effective relief for highly indebted homeowners; the fact that we didn’t reflects a combination of timidity on the part of both the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve, and scorched-earth opposition on the part of the G.O.P.

 But Mr. Romney, as I said, isn’t offering anything substantive to fight the slump, just a reprise of the usual slogans. And he has denounced the Fed’s belated effort to step up to the plate.

 Back to the optimism thing: It’s true that some studies suggest a secondary role for uncertainty in depressing the economy — and conservatives have seized on these studies, claiming vindication. But if you actually look at the measures of uncertainty involved, they’ve been driven not by fear of Mr. Obama but by events like the euro crisis and the standoff over the debt ceiling. (O.K., I guess you could argue that electing Mr. Romney might encourage businesses by promising an end to Republican economic sabotage.)

 You should also know that efforts to base policy on speculations about business psychology have a track record — and it’s not a good one.

 Back in 2010, as European nations began implementing savage austerity programs to placate bond markets, it was common for policy makers to deny that these programs would have a depressing effect. “The idea that austerity measures could trigger stagnation is incorrect,” insisted Jean-Claude Trichet, then the president of the European Central Bank. Why? Because these measures would “increase the confidence of households, firms and investors.”

 At the time I ridiculed such claims as belief in the “confidence fairy.” And sure enough, austerity programs actually led to Depression-level economic downturns across much of Europe.

 Yet here comes Mitt Romney, declaring, in effect, “I am the confidence fairy!”

 Is he? As it happens, Mr. Romney offered a testable proposition in his Boca remarks: “If it looks like I’m going to win, the markets will be happy. If it looks like the president’s going to win, the markets should not be terribly happy.” How’s that going? Not very well. Over the past month conventional wisdom has shifted from the view that the election could easily go either way to the view that Mr. Romney is very likely to lose; yet markets are up, not down, with major stock indexes hitting their highest levels since the economic downturn began.

 It’s all kind of sad. Yet the truth is that it all fits together. Mr. Romney’s whole campaign has been based on the premise that he can become president simply by not being Barack Obama. Why shouldn’t he believe that he can fix the economy the same way?

 But will he get a chance to put that theory to the test? At the moment, I’m not optimistic. |||||


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Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.

 Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.

 fails 15 Celebrity Businesses That Failed Miserably f p @ Chaz Fletcher 26k views 15 items Follow Embed List Rules The types of failed business should be as varied as possible. Otherwise, the list would be nothing but restaurants and clothing lines.

 F ailed celebrity businesses are shockingly common. Despite the media painting them as bastions of perfection, celebrities are as likely to fail at a new business venture as any of us. While plenty are successful, such as George Foreman's line of grills, many celebrity businesses go nowhere fast.

 Hulk Hogan tried to open up a pasta joint, which failed miserably. Paris Hilton launched a clothing line where half the clothing featured her face. That also failed fast. Curt Schilling ran a video game company, whose failure was surprisingly not because he didn't make any baseball games. The list goes on and on, with each failed celebrity business re-teaching the lesson that just because people are famous for one thing, they're not automatically going to be any good at something else.

 Below are 15 of the biggest failed celebrity businesses ever, the kind whose failure will haunt the celebrity forever. At least until they count the money they made from being successful at their day job. Big bank accounts tend to dull the pain, though we can still laugh at their failures. And the best part is, since a famous person never seems to learn their lesson, there are bound to be more failed celebrity businesses down the line for us to mock. The fun never ends!

 Pastamania (Hulk Hogan)

 Photo: uploaded by Chaz Fletcher In 1995, famous professional wrestler Hulk Hogan decided to branch out into the Italian food business, founding Hulk Hogan's Pastamania. The restaurant didn't even last a year, as sub-par food (Mmm, Hulkaroos), and the fact that only the most die-hard Hogan fan would even bother making the trip to Minnesota to sample the stuff, sealed its fate. In 1995, famous professional wrestler Hulk Hogan decided to branch out into the Italian food business, founding Hulk Hogan's Pastamania. The restaurant didn't even last a year, as sub-par food (Mmm, Hulkaroos), and the fact that only the most die-hard Hogan fan would even bother making the trip to Minnesota to sample the stuff, sealed its fate. 16 Celebrity Drug Overdoses We Should Have Seen Coming The Best Baby Names For Twins

 XFL (Vince McMahon)

 Photo: Freebase/Fair use Vince McMahon, owner of the World Wrestling Federation, felt that football was getting too soft. Therefore, he started up the Xtreme Football League, a rough-and-tumble version of the game that promoted no rules and no mercy. Unfortunately, there was also no talent, as the players simply were not very good at football. Add in the head-scratching decision to incorporate wrestling-style storylines into the games (which the coaches wanted absolutely no part of), it's little wonder that the league only lasted one season. Vince McMahon, owner of the World Wrestling Federation, felt that football was getting too soft. Therefore, he started up the Xtreme Football League, a rough-and-tumble version of the game that promoted no rules and no mercy. Unfortunately, there was also no talent, as the players simply were not very good at football. Add in the head-scratching decision to incorporate wrestling-style storylines into the games (which the coaches wanted absolutely no part of), it's little wonder that the league only lasted one season. ||||| Image copyright Getty Images

 Rock star Gene Simmons says that when it comes to making money he is like a great white shark.

 And that despite being worth more than $300m (£200m), he will never stop wanting to make more.

 The bassist and co-vocalist of stadium-filling, costume-wearing and face-painted US band Kiss, says: "Life is business, and I approach life the way sharks approach life - they must keep moving or else they will drown.

 "I'll never stop hunting more money, I'll never have enough."

 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Simmons says he has never drunk alcohol or taken drugs

 With Kiss now in South America on the latest stage of a two-year sell-out world tour, Simmons, 65, took time out to speak to the BBC about his long career in the music industry, and his host of other business interests.

 Although famous for sticking out his very long tongue, and past womanising - he claims to have slept with 4,800 women - what is much less well known is that Simmons has always been the financial brains of the band. He is its de facto chief executive.

 Ever since the four-piece band formed in New York in 1973, it has been Simmons who has kept his eyes on the finances. And it was his incredibly lucrative idea for the band to sell as much merchandise as possible.

 For while Kiss have sold 100 million records around the world, the band has actually made more money from selling licensed products.

 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The band is currently on the South American leg of a two-year world tour

 Over the group's 42-year history, it has authorised more than 5,000 different items of merchandise, everything from rock band staples such as T-shirts and hats, to comic books, pinball machines, credit cards, and even condoms and coffins.

 Not forgetting jewellery, ashtrays, lunchboxes, Halloween costumes, baseballs and beach towels. And a golf course and coffee shop.

 It is a business empire which under Simmons' stewardship just keeps on growing.

 This has led to the band's critics - and there have been many over the years - accusing the group of being too commercially-focused, of cheapening itself at the expense of its music.

 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Kiss have authorised more than 5,000 different merchandise items

 The calm and quietly spoken Simmons says he has no respect for such people.

 He says (after a liberal amount of swear words have been edited out): "All our lives Kiss has been hounded by people who haven't achieved anything. And we buried them long ago.

 "I call selling merchandise 'the Kiss business', and every band sells T-shirts, every band sells merchandise. They just don't do as good a job of it as us."

 Lifetime teetotaller

 The son of a mother who survived the Holocaust, Simmons was born in the Israeli city of Haifa in 1949. His birth name was Chaim Witz.

 Describing his family as "dirt poor", he first showed his entrepreneurial spirit as a seven year old, when he and a friend started to pick wild fruit which they then sold on roadsides.

 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Kiss have sold 100 million records despite never having been a hit with music critics

 He says it was his first lesson in the importance of working hard and making money.

 The family then emigrated to the US a year later, and growing up in New York, Simmons was inspired to start a band after watching the Beatles on television.

 In 1973 Kiss was formed, with Simmons on bass, Paul Stanley and Ace Frehley on guitars, and Peter Criss on drums.

 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Kiss recently moved into the coffee business

 With Simmons and Stanley sharing the vocals, each band member painted his face with a different design, and took on a stage name.

 Simmons' name was "The Demon", and on a white background he drew black flames around his eyes. Not forgetting putting on platform boots and body armour.

 Fuelled by catchy hard rock songs, and the outlandish make-up and outfits giving the band a major promotional push, within a few years Kiss was enjoying soaring sales and sell-out tours.

 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Kiss even sell birth control products, with four different types of condoms

 The music critics were often hostile, with many accusing the group of being all image over substance, but Kiss built up a massive fan base around the world.

 Yet despite living a multi-million dollar lifestyle for four decades, Simmons says he has never drunk alcohol, taken drugs, or even smoked a cigarette.

 "As a young man at parties, I'd look around and see all the other men completely drunk, behaving like idiots, and unable to talk to the beautiful girls," he says.

 "What a complete waste of humanity... booze or drugs have never done anything for me, but I fully uphold people's right to have a completely loser life."

 Workaholic

 Although original members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss are no longer in the group, Kiss continues to tour the world with Stanley as the musical leader and Simmons as the businessman.

 He describes his stewardship of the current world tour as like "driving a truck".

 Image copyright Reuters Image caption Simmons lives in Los Angeles with former Playboy model Shannon Tweed

 "I'm driving and I keep an eye on everything," says Simmons. "But open the hood and I don't have a clue what is going on with the engine.

 "Thankfully I hire people who can do all that for me. Paul and I always have a great team with us... and every night we put on one hell of a show. We are deadly serious when up on stage."

 In addition to looking after Kiss, Simmons' other business interests now include everything from a restaurant chain, to an American football team, reality TV shows, a new horror movie production company, book and magazine publishing, public speaking, and language translation services.

 He says he is able to find the time for everything because he loves working, and is never hungover.

 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Simmons says that whether on or off stage he is always working

 "Think about how much time most people waste doing nothing - weekends, nothing, holidays, nothing, Christmas, nothing. That all adds up.

 "Me I'm always working. When I'm on tour, I'm constantly on my computer working."

 When at home, Simmons lives in Los Angeles with his long-term partner Shannon Tweed, an actress and former Playboy playmate, with whom he has two children.

 He says: "I'm like [billionaire investor] Warren Buffett - he gets up every day and goes to work even though he doesn't need the money.

 "I live to make more money. People who say that money is the root of all evil are morons, a lack of money is the root of all evil." ||||| Jessica Simpson left fans scratching their heads recently because of a bizarre interview that she gave to Extra. Jerking her head back and forth the blonde mom-of-two made some goofy comments about her kids, fashion and life in general. Now, after declaring that her daughter's dad "is her boyfriend," we take a look at some of Miss Simpson's best moments.

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 A "Is this chicken, what I have, or is this fish? I know it's tuna but it says 'Chicken by the Sea'. Is that stupid?" Back when Simpson was married to Nick Lachey and they were the stars of the MTV show Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica, she got a little confused between chicken and tuna.

 S And she hadn't quite grasped the concept of buffalo wings either. When her sister-in-law offered her one over dinner she declined saying, "Sorry, I don't eat buffalo."

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 A When sharing her pearls of wisdom on the difference between dumb and ditzy, the blonde once said, " Dumb is just not knowing . 'Ditzy' is having the courage to ask!"

 A On age: "Twenty-three is old. It’s almost 25, which is like almost mid-20s."

 S During an episode of Newlyweds Simpson was also perplexed by the word "platypus" saying, "Platypus? I thought it was pronounced platymapus. Has it always been pronounced platypus?"

 S Ever the fashionista, in one episode she said, "Is that weird, taking my Louis Vuitton bag camping?"

 As a heavily pregnant mom-to-be Simpson told Jimmy Kimmel in 2012, “Whenever my water breaks it’ll be like a fire hydrant!"

 A Speaking of pregnancy, she once told Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, "We weren’t trying, but we were definitely practicing – and not safely practicing."

 A In a 2010 interview with Ellen DeGeneres, Simpson explained why she doesn't brush her teeth daily. She said, "Because my teeth are so white and I don't like them to feel too slippery but I do use Listerine and I do floss everyday." She added, "My lips just slide all over the place…I can't catch up with my mouth. I need coating."

 A In 2008, she told People, "To be my man, you have to put up with a lot. I toot under the sheets, I spend a lot of money and I can belch the ABCs."

 S Always the lady, she told Extra in 2007, "I’m not good on sugar. Or dairy – you’ll hear it come out of all ends."

 A Speaking to People about fashion and singing, Simpson said in March 2015, "Music? I just wanted to take a break on it. It is in my heart and in my soul , but so is putting on a really great dress."

 I While pregnant with her second child, Ace, in 2012 she tweeted a selfie of her bare belly, writing, "Bumpin’ and Proud!"

 In March 2013, Simpson tried but failed to keep the sex of her unborn baby under wraps, telling Jimmy Kimmel, "The crazy thing is, I never knew that a wiener could actually make me nauseous." Then added, "Well, I guess I just told the world that I'm having a boy!... That was not planned. I just did it so crude, too."

 W "I do pass gas a lot. I guarantee it smells like roses," she said at a gig in August 2008.

 W In January 2011, she tweeted, "Saying my prayers before bedtime…Thank you Lord for blessing me with a Man that has the perfect Tush…laying my hands upon it with peace :)"

 W When in doubt, do what Simpson does — resort to Twitter. She tweeted in August 2009, "Love it when the lyric of a song asks me a question. Is 'asks' even a word? It not, sorry 4 my lazyiness [sic] with grammar." ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| "With education comes refinement," Jay-Z observes late one Friday afternoon. He's lounging on a couch in a studio at the Chelsea Piers Sports and Entertainment complex on the far west side of Manhattan and speaking between nibbles of a takeout salad in a plastic container and sips from a bottle of water. In his everyday speech, as in his raps, Jay-Z is inclined toward aphorisms, the compressed expression of complicated ideas, delivered with rhetorical flair. It's hard-earned wisdom, graced by a poet's touch. He is relaxing after a typically jam-packed day that included a photo shoot, an interview, and a meeting about his potential involvement in a forthcoming video game. He celebrated his birthday the night before with the staff of his Rocawear clothing line, so a mild fatigue has set in. Slender and six feet three inches tall, Jay-Z is an imposing figure, even in relative repose. He's wearing distressed jeans that hang loosely from the middle of his hips, black sneakers, and a long-sleeved black T-shirt that has replaced the pristine short-sleeved white one he wore before changing for his photo shoot. The look is studiously casual . . . until you glance at his left wrist and notice a diamond watch so thick it could pass for a weight band. The winter sky is growing gray in the bank of windows behind him as the sun sets over the Hudson River. Jay-Z returns to the narrative of what, in the 19th century, would have been called his sentimental education, the education of his emotional life. That journey to refinement began in the rugged Marcy Projects in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant district, and now continues in arenas and boardrooms, in posh homes and VIP hideaways, around the world. Jay-Z feels comfortable in all of these realms. "I've never looked at myself and said that I need to be a certain way to be around a certain sort of people," he explains. "I've always wanted to stay true to myself, and I've managed to do that. People have to accept that. I collect art, and I drink wine . . . things that I like that I had never been exposed to. But I never said, 'I'm going to buy art to impress this crowd.' That's just ridiculous to me. I don't live my life like that, because how could you be happy with yourself?" Staying true to yourself might stand as a succinct summary of Jay-Z's philosophy of success. The notion goes back to Shakespeare's "To thine own self be true," and further back than that to the Greeks. But for Jay-Z, it has an urgently contemporary meaning. Even, or perhaps, especially, in recessionary times, amid the thousands of entertainment and lifestyle choices consumers have available to them, what separates winners from losers is a commitment to a single proposition: You are the product. If people believe in you, they will believe in what you create. Jay-Z understands this and is down with it.

 By selling more than 40 million albums (as of April 2009) and building a business empire that extends far beyond music into clothing, fragrances, the New Jersey Nets, sports bars, liquor, and hotels (to name just a few of his seemingly innumerable investments), Jay-Z has transformed himself into one of the most potent brands in the world. But that brand retains its power only if people remain convinced that the product they are purchasing somehow genuinely reflects Jay-Z and his tastes. As he famously put it in one of his raps, "I'm not a businessman/I'm a business, man." "My brands are an extension of me," he says. "They're close to me. It's not like running GM, where there's no emotional attachment." The reference is apt, given the government's ongoing potential bailout of two major automobile companies. Jay-Z notes that resonance with a pause and a chuckle. "My thing is related to who I am as a person," he says. "The clothes are an extension of me. The music is an extension of me. All my businesses are part of the culture, so I have to stay true to whatever I'm feeling at the time, whatever direction I'm heading in. And hopefully, everyone follows." In conversation, Jay-Z's speech is slower, calmer, and more deliberate than in the propulsive, deep-voiced, and often incendiary raps that have made him a titan in the world of hip-hop, a man whose sales and staying power have elevated him above all but a handful of potential rivals. He's an engaged and animated speaker, quick to touch you in a friendly way to emphasize a point. But as laid-back and accessible as he seems, he also exudes a calm air of confidence. He doesn't need to be aggressive or impose his will in a ham-fisted manner. Half a dozen people are floating around the studio, ready to read any sign of need or impatience on his part. He's cooperative and congenial in the way that only someone who knows he can immediately put an end to any experience that moves in an unpleasant direction can be. "Jay-Hova," he has called himself, echoing the name of the mighty, vengeful God of the Hebrew Bible. He has anointed himself the "God MC." But he has also rapped that he "never prayed to God/I prayed to Gotti." Perhaps there is a distinction to be drawn between Jay-Z, the battle MC who to this day engages in raw exchanges with younger rappers looking to take him down, and Shawn Corey Carter, the far-sighted businessman who cofounded his own label, Roc-A-Fella Records, in 1996; who served as president and CEO of Def Jam Records from 2005 to early 2008 and helped launch the careers of Kanye West, Young Jeezy, and Rihanna; who sold his Rocawear clothing line in 2007 for $204 million, while retaining a major stake in the company; and who, following a path blazed by Madonna and U2, forged a $150 million deal in 2008 with the concert-promotion firm Live Nation. In 2009, Forbes ranked Jay-Z No. 32 on its "Celebrity 100" list of the ultrafamous and ultrapowerful. The magazine estimated his annual income at $82 million, and other sources have reported his net worth at $350 million. If that doesn't seem enviable enough, in 2008 Jay-Z married Beyonce Knowles, one of the world's most desirable women. It is part of his attitude of ultimate cool that he never publicly talks about her. Jay-Z moves in exclusive circles of all types. Musicians, actors, designers, politicians, captains of industry, and athletes all want to get next to him. He has developed an easygoing manner that enables him to cross these cultural boundaries in ways that make him seem accessible but still dignified, always aware of who he is. "I'm a mirror," he says. "If you're cool with me, I'm cool with you, and the exchange starts. What you see is what you reflect. If you don't like what you see, then you've done something. If I'm standoffish, that's because you are." Occasionally, stereotypes rear their heads and uncomfortable situations arise. "It's hilarious a lot of times," he says. "You have a conversation with someone, and he's like, 'You speak so well!' I'm like, 'What do you mean? Do you understand that's an insult?'" Growing up, however, Shawn Carter was far from the likeliest candidate for this sort of mind-boggling success. He was always recognized as bright--even today, the first word anyone who meets Jay-Z invariably uses to describe him is smart--and in the sixth grade, he tested at 12th-grade levels. But the Marcy Projects in Brooklyn were overrun by drugs and violence in the '80s. His father left the family when Carter was 11, and his mother had to raise him, his older brother, and his two older sisters. When he was 12, Carter shot his brother for stealing his jewelry. (They have since reconciled.) Carter attended high school with fellow Brooklynites the Notorious B.I.G. and Busta Rhymes, but dropped out to deal drugs in a region that extended from Brooklyn to Maryland and Virginia--as he details in his music--and to dabble in the still-nascent hip-hop game. Along with the dealers who ran the neighborhood around the Marcy Projects, Jay-Z remembers identifying sports figures as his first models of success. "Growing up where I grew up, we looked to athletes," he recalls. "They were our first heroes. They came from the same places we came from. I mean, you can't watch TV and see someone who is successful that you can really relate to. That person isn't real, he doesn't exist. But athletes traveled the world, had these big houses, and gave their families a better life. We were like, 'Wow, that's really cool.' These guys get paid millions of dollars to play the game they love."

 Around the same time that he began to identify with athletes, Carter experienced another revelation: hip-hop. He began writing nonstop in notebooks, keeping his mother and siblings awake at night as he pounded the kitchen table to create beats. He hooked up with local rapper Jaz-O, who brought him to England when he toured there. Carter recorded with Jaz-O and also with Big Daddy Kane. But despite the acknowledgment of his skills (and his growing anxiety that either violence or the law would eventually catch up with him on the streets), Carter was reluctant to give up dealing. He was rolling in a Lexus and making more money, as far as he could tell, than most rappers. Still, he decided to take the plunge, but no record company was willing to offer him a contract. So with two partners, Carter formed Roc-A-Fella Records, and, in 1996, released his debut album, Reasonable Doubt, which established him as a major figure on the hip-hop scene. It was a heady moment, but Jay-Z barely realized it at the time. "I was naive," he recalls. "I made that album to impress my friends, so they would say, 'Oh, wow, look what you did!' It was my first album on the label that we owned. I was like, 'Okay, what happens now?'" What happened was that Jay-Z left drug dealing behind and began to build his empire, moving steadily from "grams to Grammys" as he puts it in one song. But the process wasn't easy. The treachery of life on the streets, where he faced bullets at close range, turned out to be nothing compared with what he would encounter in the upper echelons of the music business. "I come from a world that's completely different from the music industry, and it wasn't recognizable to me at all," he says. "I come from a place where you had to keep your word, where people would stick with you no matter what. That's impossible in the music business, where if you're not hot, people are not talking to you. I just tried to be a man of my word." The choice of Roc-A-Fella as his label's name would prove telling. On one hand, it's standard hip-hop braggadocio to establish a connection between a fledgling rapper and one of the richest and most powerful families in American history. But it also suggested the means through which Jay-Z would eventually establish his own business empire. The Rockefeller family and other 19th-century industrialists established a monopolistic hold on all aspects of the goods they produced. If you owned the mines that produced coal, for example, you also bought the railroads that transported it, the refineries that prepared it for market, and the utilities that provided its end product to the general population. As Jay-Z's career has progressed in the past dozen years, he has sought to establish a similar hold on the lifestyle market for which his music provides the soundtrack, and in which he stands as the ideal model to emulate. Rather than providing anything as tangible as coal or oil, Jay-Z, through his myriad branded investments, manufactures a way of being that makes it at least theoretically possible to never leave the world of his products. You can enjoy his music while sporting Rocawear clothing (estimated as doing $700 million a year in business), wearing one of his fragrances, and sipping his Ace of Spades champagne. You can attend his concert and end the night at one of his 40/40 nightclubs. His videos, DVDs, and CD booklets provide free exposure for all of his products, all of which, in turn, enhance every other aspect of the Jay-Z brand. The question then becomes how, with all this marketing and glossy brand extension, does Jay-Z maintain the credibility in the hip-hop world that made him such a marketable star in the first place? "We are excited to partner with an industry giant such as Elizabeth Arden," Jay-Z declared in the press release announcing his fragrance line, which made its debut last year. No matter how deeply you've absorbed the potency of Jay-Z's mainstream reach, that sentence still makes you do a double take. This is the man who took the film American Gangster as the inspiration for his most recent album? Jigga what? But Jay-Z believes deeply in the aspirational power of hip-hop, the notion that the music's truest fans want to see their heroes succeed and want to emulate them. He draws a sharp distinction between hip-hop and rock 'n' roll, whose stars have often expressed disdain for business and success. "I noticed that difference early on, like if you were successful in rock 'n' roll, that was a really bad thing," Jay-Z says with a laugh. "You almost had to hide it. You had these guys selling 200 million records with dirty T-shirts on. I was like, 'Come on, man. Come on. We know you're successful.' "Hip-hop is more about attaining wealth," he continues. "People respect success. They respect big. They don't even have to like your music. If you're big enough, people are drawn to you." Consequently, any discussion of credibility, or keeping it real, elicits a response of disbelief from him. "That's an insecure emotion," he explains. "You make your first album, you make some money, and you feel like you still have to show face, like 'I still go to the projects.' I'm like, why? Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out. You grew up there. What makes you think it's so cool?" Of course, Jay-Z has not been immune to those insecurities himself. In 1999, he was arrested for stabbing a record executive in a New York club, and in 2001, he was charged with possession of a loaded handgun. Against his lawyer's advice, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge in the stabbing case and was sentenced to three years' probation. The gun charge was dropped.

 It's generally thought that those brushes with potential incarceration cured Jay-Z of the need to prove that he could still live the thug life. He has rapped about both of those arrests ("Put that knife in ya/Take a little bit of life from ya/Am I frightenin' ya?"), but has shown no further inclination to transform his words into deeds that would put an end to the extraordinary life he has created for himself. In fact, quite the opposite. He has been baited relentlessly by other rappers--Nas, to cite just one example, taunted "Gay-Z" for his "dick-suckin' lips"--and has responded in kind, but only in song. In real life, he has taken steps to ease those rivalries and ensure that tragedies such as the killings of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. never happen again. That's because too much is at stake now, far more than money or bling. Now in his fifth decade, Jay-Z is old enough to think about the cultural impact that hip-hop has already had, and the critical role he has played in it. "Hip-hop has done so much for racial relations, and I don't think it's given the proper credit," he says. "It has changed America immensely. I'm going to make a very bold statement: Hip-hop has done more than any leader, politician, or anyone to improve race relations. "I'll explain why I say that," he continues. "Racism is taught in the home. We agree on that? Well, it's very hard to teach racism to a teenager who's listening to rap music and who idolizes, say, Snoop Dogg. It's hard to say, 'That guy is less than you.' The kid is like, 'I like that guy, he's cool. How is he less than me?' That's why this generation is the least racist generation ever. You see it all the time. Go to any club. People are intermingling, hanging out, having fun, enjoying the same music. Hip-hop is not just in the Bronx anymore. It's worldwide. Everywhere you go, people are listening to hip-hop and partying together. Hip-hop has done that." He pauses, as if marveling at the idea, and then repeats it for emphasis: "Hip-hop has done that." Something else that hip-hop has done, in Jay-Z's view, is help to elect Barack Obama. "Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk, and Martin walked so Obama could run," Jay-Z told a concert audience in the crucial swing state of Ohio shortly before the November election. "Obama is running so we all can fly, so let's fly." He recorded a get-out-the-vote message for robo calls to African-American voters during the primaries. Perhaps even more extraordinarily, after a particularly heated primary debate, Obama brushed off Hillary Clinton's attacks with a gesture of wiping lint off the shoulders of his suit, and hip observers recognized an unmistakable reference to Jay-Z's song, "Dirt Off Your Shoulder."

 Jay-Z's eyes widen as he recalls that moment. "I felt like, man, what time are we living in, where a presidential nominee is making reference to a rapper?" he says. "What a beautiful place we've come to. Growing up, politics never trickled down to the areas we come from. But people from Obama's camp, and Obama himself, reached out to me and asked for my help on the campaign. We've sat and had dinner, and we've spoken on the phone. He's a very sharp guy. Very charming. Very cool. "It's surreal," continues Jay-Z. "I couldn't imagine anything like that could happen. I didn't vote until I was an older adult. I didn't think I would ever vote, because it didn't matter who was in office. The situation never changed where we lived. Our voices weren't heard." Jay-Z walks idly around the studio as crew members break down the set for his photo shoot. He's rapping along with a hip-hop track that's blasting in the room. When the sound system abruptly shuts off, Jay-Z continues rapping and moving to the music, like Wile E. Coyote in the moment before he looks down and realizes that he has run off the cliff. Jay-Z catches himself, looks around the room in mock surprise, and laughs. It's the sort of self-deprecating gesture he's good at, acknowledging that all eyes are on him, but humorously taking the edge off whatever intimidation factor his presence might have. That's a quality he brings into the boardroom as well. He's far from just a figurehead or a media front man. He takes his businesses as seriously as his artistry, and he goes at both with the same level of determination. He's clear about his own views, willing to listen to others, eager to keep everybody loose and motivated, and far more interested in long-term strategy than short-term gain. Even in the current economic environment, which is challenging to say the least, he's insistent on executing his game plan rather than making changes that might not ultimately be right for his brands. "He's smart as hell," says Neil Cole, chairman and CEO of the Iconix Brand Group, the company that bought Rocawear two years ago for more than $200 million. "He understands himself as a brand, and it's incredibly well thought out. We meet every week, and there's nothing impulsive about him. He's very consistent, and he won't settle. If something's not right, he's not going to do it for more money. He'll wait to get it right. He has a wonderful taste level about where he wants to take the brand. . .and himself." Michael Rapino, the president and CEO of Live Nation, echoes Cole's assessment of Jay-Z. "In meeting with superstars about potential deals, there are some who spit out 'How much can I get?' and the meeting is over, because you know you're starting out on the wrong basis," he says. "When we sat down with Jay-Z, 'How much money are you going to pay me?' came up in maybe the seventh conversation. The first conversation was, 'Can we change the business together?' ||||| There's big business in booze – and celebs know that too! We're breaking down which stars are mixing it up with their very own alcohol brands.

 1. In early 2014, Justin Timberlake developed a brand of Sauza Tequila called "901" – the name is inspired by his hometown area code in Memphis and "the time of night things start to get interesting." Hey-yo!

 2. George Clooney's in the tequila business too! He helped develop "Casamigos" tequila with close friends Rande Gerber and Mike Meldman after an inspired trip to Mexico. In fact, the viral ad has George waking up next to Rande's wife, supermodel Cindy Crawford, inspired by a real-life mix up!

 3. Fergie has her own line of flavored low-calorie vodkas "Voli Vodka." So you can enjoy a cocktail guilt-free at the end of the day! The line comes in six flavors: Original Lyte, lemon, orange vanilla, pear vanilla, raspberry cocoa and espresso vanilla.

 4. Sean "Diddy" Combs famously partnered with Cîroc. The entrepreneur could very well be a future billionaire should the popular vodka brand ever sell. The spirit's value is estimated to be worth $1 billion.

 5. Is there anything Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie can't do? Brangie's 2012 wine was the only rosé on Wine Spectator Magazine’s list of 100 best wines, effectively crowning it the best rosé in the world! Their brand of wine is called "Miraval" – if that sounds

 familiar, yes! That's the same location the couple wed in August.

 NEWS: Brad and Angelina Wed in France

 6. Drew Barrymore is also in the wine business, inspired by her travels through Italy to develop "Barrymore Wines" – her very own brand of Pinot Grigot! Where my girl, Drew?

 7. Bethenny Frankel went from reality TV star to millionaire mogul when she developed and sold her famous line of "Skinnygirl Cocktails," which she ultimately sold for multi-millions in 2011. And now she's doing what she does best by expanding the brand into low calorie snacks.

 8. Country music star Kenny Chesney launched his own premium rum line called "Blue Chair Bay." The beverage was prominently featured in Chesney's No Shoes Nation Tour and has boosted the singer's already triumphant status in the country world.

 9. Even Hanson has dabbled in the biz! The now grown-up '90s boy band created their very own brand of beer, cleverly named… "Mmmhops!" Get it? |||||
What is a summary?

– Being rich doesn't always accompany being famous, especially when living a rock star lifestyle, but a handful of A-list musicians have managed to turn their celebrity into successful business ventures: Jessica Simpson: You wouldn't expect a pop singer/reality star who didn't know the difference between chicken and tuna to morph into a fashion mogul, but that's the case of Jessica Simpson. She recently sold a 50% stake in her empire of clothing, shoes, and bags that's said to be worth more than $1 billion. Jay Z: The music mogul once rapped: "I’m not a businessman / I’m a business, man!" The rapper now can count clothing, sports bars, liquor, fragrances, a basketball team, and a music streaming service among his many ventures. Gwen Stefani: The No Doubt vocalist once sang of being "just a girl," but in addition to her solo career and gig on The Voice, she has managed to create a fashion company reportedly worth more than $90 million. Justin Timberlake: The former boy band singer has his hand in many businesses including a clothing line, record label, restaurant, basketball team, and most recently, his own brand of tequila. Gene Simmons: The KISS singer and bassist is reportedly worth more than $300 million, thanks to his role as the band's finance manager and his idea to license tons of merchandise. "Life is business, and I approach life the way sharks approach life—they must keep moving or else they will drown," he recently said in an interview. Click to read about 15 celebrity businesses that went belly up.