Exclusive - Amazon to win EU e-book pricing tussle with Apple

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union regulators are to end an antitrust probe into e-book prices by accepting an offer by Apple and four publishers to ease price restrictions on Amazon, two sources said on Tuesday.

That decision would hand online retailer Amazon a victory in its attempt to sell e-books cheaper than rivals in the fast-growing market publishers hope will boost revenue and increase customer numbers.

"Faced with years of court battles and uncertainty I can understand why some of these guys decided to fold their cards and take the whipping," said Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, an ebook publisher and distributor that works with Apple.

"It's certainly another win for Amazon," he added. "I have not seen the terms of the final settlement, but my initial reaction is that it places restrictions on what publishers can do, slowing them down just when they need to be more nimble."

A spokesman at the EU Commission said its investigation was not yet finished. Amazon and Apple declined to comment.

In September, Apple and the publishers offered to let retailers set prices or discounts for a period of two years, and also to suspend "most-favored nation" contracts for five years.

Such clauses bar Simon & Schuster, News Corp. unit HarperCollins, Lagardere SCA's Hachette Livre and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, the owner of German company Macmillan, from making deals with rival retailers to sell e-books more cheaply than Apple.

The agreements, which critics say prevent Amazon and other retailers from undercutting Apple's charges, sparked an investigation by the European Commission in December last year.

Pearson Plc's Penguin group, which is also under investigation, did not take part in the offer.

The EU antitrust authority, which in September asked for feedback from rivals and consumers about the proposal, has not asked for more concessions, said one of sources.

"The Commission is likely to accept the offer and announce its decision next month," the source said on Tuesday.

Antoine Colombani, spokesman for competition policy at the European Commission, said: "We have launched a market test in September and our investigation is still ongoing."

Amazon declined to comment, while Apple did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Companies found guilty of breaching EU rules could be fined up to 10 percent of their global sales, which in Apple's case could reach $15.6 billion, based on its 2012 fiscal year.

AGGREGATE PRICING

UBS analysts estimate that e-books account for about 30 percent of the U.S. book market and 20 percent of sales in Britain but are minuscule elsewhere. When Amazon launched its Kindle e-reader, it charged $9.99 per book.

Apple's agency model let publishers set prices in return for a 30 percent cut to the maker of iPhone and iPad.

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating e-book prices. HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette have settled, but Apple, Pengin Group and Macmillan have not.

The DOJ settlement required that retailers must at least break even selling all ebooks from a publisher's available list, according to Coker and Joe Wikert, general manager and publisher at O'Reilly Media Inc.

It was not clear if EU regulators will include a similar requirement, which would prohibit Amazon from pricing all ebooks at a loss, said Wikert, a former publishing executive.

In the United States, Amazon will likely price popular titles at a loss and try to make up the difference on a publisher's other ebooks, he said.

Coker said any such rule could be dangerous in Europe, which still has distinct markets.

"It could allow a single retailer to charge full price in a large market like the U.K., and then sell below cost or for free in multiple smaller markets as a strategy to kill regional ebook retailing upstarts before they take root," Coker said.

FROWNING ON ONLINE TRADE CURBS

Antitrust regulators tend to frown on restrictions on online trade and the case is a good example, said Mark Tricker, a partner at Brussels-based law firm Norton Rose.

"This case shows the online world continues to be a major focus for the Commission," he said.

"These markets change very quickly and if you don't stamp down on potential infringements of competition rules, you can have significant consequences."

(Additional reporting by Alistair Barr in San Francisco; Editing by Rex Merrifield, David Goodman and David Gregorio)

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Rihanna unveils Chris Brown duet “Nobodies Business”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – R&B star Rihanna unveiled a duet entitled “Nobodies Business” with ex-boyfriend Chris Brown on Tuesday, three years after Brown was charged with assaulting her.

The song was part of an official track list that Barbadian singer Rihanna tweeted to her followers for her upcoming album “Unapologetic,” and comes after weeks of speculation in the media that the couple have rekindled their romance being spotted together at numerous events.

While Rihanna, 24, has stayed mum on her relationship status with Brown, the “Turn Up The Music” singer attended Rihanna‘s Halloween party last week and tweeted a photograph of himself dressed in Arab robes and a rifle.

Brown, 23, is currently halfway through his five-year probation after pleading guilty to assaulting Rihanna on the eve of the Grammy awards in 2009. He was ordered to complete community service and a domestic violence program.

Brown was given permission by a Los Angeles judge to embark on his European tour at a recent hearing overseeing his progress on his probation.

The former couple have had a tumultuous relationship in the last three years, including a restraining order against Brown following the assault.

But recently the two singers have made peace, coming together on a remix of Rihanna‘s raunchy song “Birthday Cake” earlier this year.

The Barbadian singer told Oprah Winfrey in an emotional interview in August that she and Brown now had a “very close friendship,” and that she still loved him.

Other collaborations on Rihanna‘s upcoming “Unapologetic” album include rapper Eminem, newcomer singer-songwriter Mikky Ekko and rapper Future.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Alarm Over India’s Dengue Fever Epidemic

Enrico Fabian for The New York Times

A man at the Yamuna River, an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes. Filthy standing water abounds in New Delhi. More Photos »

NEW DELHI — An epidemic of dengue fever in India is fostering a growing sense of alarm even as government officials here have publicly refused to acknowledge the scope of a problem that experts say is threatening hundreds of millions of people, not just in India but around the world.

India has become the focal point for a mosquito-borne plague that is sweeping the globe. Reported in just a handful of countries in the 1950s, dengue (pronounced DEN-gay) is now endemic in half the world’s nations.

“The global dengue problem is far worse than most people know, and it keeps getting worse,” said Dr. Raman Velayudhan, the World Health Organization’s lead dengue coordinator.

The tropical disease, though life-threatening for a tiny fraction of those infected, can be extremely painful. Growing numbers of Western tourists are returning from warm-weather vacations with the disease, which has reached the shores of the United States and Europe. Last month, health officials in Miami announced a case of locally acquired dengue infection.

Here in India’s capital, where areas of standing water contribute to the epidemic’s growth, hospitals are overrun and feverish patients are sharing beds and languishing in hallways. At Kalawati Saran Hospital, a pediatric facility, a large crowd of relatives lay on mats and blankets under the shade of a huge banyan tree outside the hospital entrance recently.

Among them was Neelam, who said her two grandchildren were deathly ill inside. Eight-year-old Sneha got the disease first, followed by Tanya, 7, she said. The girls’ parents treated them at home but then Sneha’s temperature rose to 104 degrees, a rash spread across her legs and shoulders, and her pain grew unbearable.

“Sneha has been given five liters of blood,” said Neelam, who has one name. “It is terrible.”

Officials say that 30,002 people in India had been sickened with dengue fever through October, a 59 percent jump from the 18,860 recorded for all of 2011. But the real number of Indians who get dengue fever annually is in the millions, several experts said.

“I’d conservatively estimate that there are 37 million dengue infections occurring every year in India, and maybe 227,500 hospitalizations,” said Dr. Scott Halstead, a tropical disease expert focused on dengue research.

A senior Indian government health official, who agreed to speak about the matter only on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that official figures represent a mere sliver of dengue’s actual toll. The government only counts cases of dengue that come from public hospitals and that have been confirmed by laboratories, the official said. Such a census, “which was deliberated at the highest levels,” is a small subset that is nonetheless informative and comparable from one year to the next, he said.

“There is no denying that the actual number of cases would be much, much higher,” the official said. “Our interest has not been to arrive at an exact figure.”

The problem with that policy, said Dr. Manish Kakkar, a specialist at the Public Health Foundation of India, is that India’s “massive underreporting of cases” has contributed to the disease’s spread. Experts from around the world said that India’s failure to construct an adequate dengue surveillance system has impeded awareness of the illness’s vast reach, discouraged efforts to clean up the sources of the disease and slowed the search for a vaccine.

“When you look at the number of reported cases India has, it’s a joke,” said Dr. Harold S. Margolis, chief of the dengue branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Neighboring Sri Lanka, for instance, reported nearly three times as many dengue cases as India through August, according to the World Health Organization, even though India’s population is 60 times larger.

Hari Kumar contributed reporting.

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Suzuki, Small-Car Maker, Gives Up on U.S. Market

TOKYO — For all of Suzuki’s tough talk about its “brush-busting” Samurai off-roader, the Japanese automaker never made it big in the United States. Its cars were too small, its safety record iffy and its branding a bit too comical (Suzuki Sidekick, anyone?).

So it came as little surprise to most analysts when Suzuki announced late Monday that it would stop selling automobiles in the United States and put its American unit into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

“The United States was ultimately a tough market to crack,” said Kentaro Arita, auto analyst and industry research division manager at Mizuho Corporate Bank. “Its exit was a matter of time.”

Still, despite Suzuki’s retreat in North America, the company has made spectacular inroads into emerging markets over the last decade. The low-cost, compact cars sold by Suzuki’s India unit have the top share in that fast-growing market, and the automaker also has a growing presence in Southeast Asia.

Back home in Japan, Suzuki is a leader in a category of small cars called kei vehicles that enjoy preferential tax treatment by meeting limits on length, width, engine size and horsepower. The kei category, created in Japan’s lean postwar years to help ordinary Japanese buy cars, has stayed popular as a cheap option fit for navigating the country’s claustrophobic roads.

One of the company’s kei cars, the long-selling Wagon R, is less than 14 feet long, about 5 feet wide and 6 feet high, and its engine size is limited to two-thirds of a liter, or motorcycle-caliber. Last month, almost as many units were sold in Japan as Toyota’s Prius hybrid.

Suzuki’s decision to pull out of the United States, whose market is dominated by larger models, was a sensible step to focus on its strengths, said Koji Endo, an auto industry analyst and managing director at Advanced Research, an equity research firm in Tokyo. The strong yen also made it difficult to profit by making cars in Japan and shipping them to the United States, he said.

“Basically, Suzuki does not need the United States, and the United States didn’t need Suzuki,” Mr. Endo said.

The American Suzuki Motor Corporation, the sole distributor of Suzuki vehicles in the United States, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday with $346 million in debt, the company said. In a statement, Suzuki said that various challenges led to its withdrawal from the American market, including low sales volume, the limited number of models in its lineup and unfavorable foreign exchange rates.

Suzuki also blamed “the high costs associated with growing and maintaining an automotive distribution system in the continental United States,” as well as “the disproportionately high” costs associated with meeting increasingly stringent state and federal regulatory requirements.

The company said it would sell its remaining inventory through its dealer network, honor existing warranties and continue to supply replacement parts for its vehicles. The company also intends to continue selling motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles and marine products in the United States.

Suzuki shares gained 0.65 percent to 1,847 yen (about $23.02) in Tokyo after the announcement, against a 0.36 percent decline in the benchmark Nikkei index.

While an exit makes sense for Suzuki’s bottom line, it does represent another disappointing failure by Japan’s second tier of automakers in their attempts to follow Toyota, Honda and Nissan into the American market.

A foray by Daihatsu, another Japanese manufacturer of compact cars, lasted only four years before it withdrew in 1992. (Subaru, manufactured by Fuji Heavy Industries, has fared better.)

Suzuki also had big hopes for its Japan-made Samurai 4-wheel-drive vehicle, introduced in the United States in 1985. A $30 million television advertising campaign urged American car owners to try the lightweight yet “rough, tough and brush-busting” off-roader.

The Samurai found a small but loyal following as a low-cost off-roader. But it also suffered early setbacks, including a drawn-out legal battle with Consumer Reports over whether the vehicles were prone to flipping over.

Suzuki later introduced several other models to the United States, including its Swift compact, and its executives spoke of selling 200,000 vehicles a year in the American market.

A partnership with General Motors proved beneficial for both sides, giving the American company access to expertise in smaller cars, while allowing Suzuki to tap G.M.’s dealership network to sell its cars.

But just as Suzuki’s sales were gaining traction in the United States, topping 100,000 in the mid-2000s for the first time, the global financial crisis hit, decimating Japanese exports.

General Motors, scrambling for cash, sold off its stake in Suzuki, and the Japanese manufacturer withdrew from a joint manufacturing venture in Canada.

Since then, Suzuki’s sales in the United States have dwindled. In the first 10 months of 2012, it sold just 21,000 vehicles. A budding partnership with Volkswagen also grew acrimonious, forcing Suzuki to regroup.

Experts said that Suzuki was likely to concentrate its managerial resources on strengthening its grip on markets like India, where it has been hit by worker strife in recent months.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 6, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated a description Suzuki used to promote its Samurai off-roader. It is “brush-busting,” not “bush-busting.”

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Chris Erskine: Tough break for the L.A. Galaxy, now do-or-die

As with any great opera, the tenor dies in the end, falling upon his own scimitar as the teary-eyed vixen sings her heart out. And the fat lady is nowhere to be found.

That's because the L.A. Galaxy still has a chance at resurrection Wednesday night against San Jose, in the weirdest playoff arrangement ever — a two-act series decided by total goals.

Somebody call a lawyer.

Somebody fire the playwright.

That soft sobbing you heard Sunday night coming from around the Home Depot Center was the townspeople crying in their $11 beers. They'd suffered the sort of ugly ending that haunts soccer far too often, the clearly dominant team, the Galaxy, losing 1-0 to a bunch of grave robbers renowned for such last-minute hijinks, the Earthquakes.

Now the Galaxy heads north for a do-or-die game it must win by at least two goals.

Good luck, Galaxy. My money is on you. All 11 cents.

Poor Galaxy, just when it has assembled American soccer's most interesting lineup in that beautiful little bandbox of a stadium off the 110.

Not a bad seat in the house. Kids everywhere. This is L.A.'s finest family sports value, with playoff seats going for as little as $10. There are more children at a Galaxy game than at all the Lakers games throughout history.

As such, the atmosphere is mostly PG. I heard not a single F-bomb, a moral victory for an L.A. sports crowd and something I think we can build on in the future.

Galaxy games are also mostly free of that most annoying of all L.A. creatures, the sports-loving celeb — except of course for David Beckham, who is so Euro and chic he seems to glow on the field like some sort of 3-D Armani ad.

Till he left in the 78th minute, the Galaxy so dominated Sunday's game that when San Jose finally got a couple of opportunities at the end, somebody had to throw a shoe at the L.A. defense.

How many times have you seen that in this cursed sport, the better team falling victim to a freak goal after the defense — stiff-legged and nearly arthritic after standing around for 30 minutes — suddenly needs to firehouse into action, then fails.

Poor Josh Saunders. The Earthquakes' ridiculous last-second goal looked like a Pekingese scooting under your neighbor's hedge.

The Galaxy prefers to blame the ref for Sunday's loss rather than their own passive play around the goal. God gets up early to see passes like Landon Donovan's brilliant heel kick to Robbie Keane, who then ka-zinged a shot off the crossbar. Other than that, the Galaxy tended to make the safe set-up pass rather than attack San Jose's rice-paper back line.

Now playing at the Home Depot Center: the Princeton offense.

Nobody ever listens, but if I were MLS commish I'd supersize the goals and eliminate the dubious offside rule that only muzzles scoring. Don't mean to be critical, but now and then a goal would be nice. No franchise ever suffered from too much offense.

Think of me as Halas introducing the forward pass.

But I'm pretty sure soccer will go on as always. Purists will explain that the game is like Doris Day movies, that when someone finally scores it's all the more special. Which is probably why nobody ever watches Doris Day movies anymore.

Purists might also point out that if soccer is so flawed, why are there three Galaxy fan clubs, one more nuts than the next?

There are the Galaxians, who date to the Paleolithic era, when the Galaxy played in the Rose Bowl. There is the Riot Squad, a covey of roustabouts who pride themselves on a more English style of cheering. And finally, there's the Angel City Brigade, which performed some throbby dance move late in Sunday's game that looked like a rodent giving birth to a toaster.

"We improvise a lot more, and they have a lot more structure," Riot Squadder James Demastus says of the differences.

Huh?

"What happens is that we're like a family that gets mad at each other and breaks apart," explained Galaxian Linda Pickle of the three fan groups.

That's right, Pickle. As in the situation the defending champs now find themselves.

Prediction? Galaxy by a field goal.

chris.erskine@latimes.com

Twitter: @erskinetimes

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Apple sells three million iPads over first weekend

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Rare John Lennon letter to Eric Clapton up for auction

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – John Lennon held out the promise he could bring out more musical greatness in legendary guitarist Eric Clapton in a letter that could fetch as much as $ 30,000 when it is sold at auction next month, the organizers of the sale said on Monday.

The signed, hand-written letter by the Beatle, who died in 1980 at the age of 40, is one of a selection from some of the world’s great musicians that will go under the hammer in Los Angeles at the Profiles in History auction on December 18.

In a draft letter dated September 29, 1971, Lennon expressed his respect and admiration for British guitarist Clapton and suggested that they form a band together.

“Eric, I know I can bring out something great, in fact greater in you that had been so far evident in your music. I hope to bring out the same kind of greatness in all of us, which I know will happen if/when we get together,” Lennon wrote in the letter.

The letter will hold special significance for Beatles fans as auctioneer Joe Maddalena said it was widely known that there were problems in the Fab Four’s relationships with each other, and that Clapton had almost become a Beatle.

Clapton played in the Plastic Ono Band, formed by Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1969 before the breakup of the Beatles in 1970. He also played on the George Harrison song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, which was on the Beatles’ White Album.

“There was a point in time when George Harrison thought about leaving the band and his replacement was Clapton, so this letter is a link of what could have been,” Maddalena said.

The letter is one of 300 manuscripts and letters from literary, musical and political greats, that will be auctioned from the holdings of an American collector.

“What we know of history is from the written word, without these letters, it would all be verbal. It’s a really unique area of collecting as you’re getting a glimpse into people’s minds,” Maddalena said.

Other highlights include a handwritten letter from George Washington, with a pre-sale estimate of up to $ 300,000, and a Charles Dickens manuscript with an obituary of novelist William Thackeray, expected to fetch between $ 40,000 and $ 60,000.

Also on the auction block is a signed, handwritten letter from German composer Ludwig van Beethoven to Tobias Haslinger, a friend of his publisher, in which the musician discussed the second performance of his Ninth Symphony and the Missa Solemnis, two of his most revered works.

The letter, written in German, is undated, but both the Ninth Symphony and Missa Solemnis debuted in performances in 1824. Because of the rarity of the letter, it is estimated it will sell for between $ 40,000 and $ 60,000.

Other items going under the hammer include a signed letter in Russian by composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, which has a pre-sale estimate of $ 10,000 to $ 15,000, and a letter by composer George Gershwin dated March 24, 1932, in which he compares his compositions “Rhapsody in Blue” and “An American in Paris”.

The Gershwin letter is expected to sell for as much as $ 3,000, according to the auction house.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; editing by Patricia Reaney; and Peter Galloway)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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A Collective Effort to Save Decades of Research at N.Y.U.

The calls started coming in late on Tuesday and early Wednesday: offers of dry ice, freezer space, coolers. By the end of Thursday there were dozens more: A researcher at Weill Cornell Medical College would clear 1,000 tanks to save threatened zebra fish; another, at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, promised to replace some genetically altered mice that were lost; and a doctor at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia even offered take over entire experiments, to keep them going.

As hurricane-driven waters surged into New York University research buildings in Kips Bay, on the East Side of Manhattan, investigators in New York and around the world jumped on the phone to offer assistance — executing a reverse Noah’s ark operation, to rescue lab animals and other assets from a flooding vessel.

“I’ve had 43 people who have offered to help so far, and some of them are direct competitors,” said Gordon Fishell, associate director of the N.Y.U. Neuroscience Institute, who lost more than 5,000 genetically altered mice when storm waters surged the night of Oct. 30, cutting off power. “It’s just been unbelievable,” he said. “It really buoys my spirits and my lab’s.”

Staff members at N.Y.U. worked around the clock to preserve research materials, running in and out of darkened buildings without elevator service, hauling dry ice and other supplies up anywhere from 2 to more than 15 floors.

The university’s medical center also got instant help, from almost every major research institution in the area.

The response reflects large shifts in the way that science is conducted over the past generation or so. Individual labs always compete to be first, but researchers increasingly share materials that are enormously expensive and time-consuming to reproduce. The loss of a single cell line or genetically altered animal can slow progress for years in some areas of biomedical research.

“We are totally dependent on each other in the life sciences now, for a very large number of cell lines and extracts, research animals and unique chemical tools and antibodies that might not have backup copies anywhere in the world, or in very few places,” said Dr. Steven Hyman, director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard. “Losing any of these tools tears a significant hole in the entire field.”

Danny Reinberg, a professor of biochemistry at N.Y.U.’s medical school, has studied genetics for 30 years, accumulating valuable mice strains and stocks of extracts from cell nuclei that would be extremely difficult to replace. The extracts must be stored at minus 112 degrees Fahrenheit.

Dr. Reinberg said he lost all of his mice: nine strains, including more than 1,000 animals that died in the storm surge. But he managed to save all of the cell extracts by moving some containers into freezers at N.Y.U. labs that weren’t affected and others to the Rockefeller, Columbia and Cornell medical centers, each of which cleared space, he said.

“We were able to save many things; it was just phenomenal to get that kind of help,” said Dr. Reinberg, whose house in New Jersey has had no power.

“Later in the week, at a Starbucks, I could finally download all my e-mail, and there were messages from people at the University of Pennsylvania and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, asking how they could help us re-establish the mouse lines we lost,” he said.

Some scientists have become interdependent because their students, who develop a specialty in specific tissues or animals, often move among labs. Research projects sometimes draw on experiments or analyses the students worked on at more than one place.

One researcher working in Dr. Fishell’s lab was formerly a student of Dr. Stewart Anderson of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who sent Dr. Fishell a text message on Wednesday to offer help. “I told him that even if it costs money, we’re happy to keep experiments rolling, if we’re able to,” Dr. Anderson said.

By late Thursday, freezer space in minus-112-degree units was extremely tight in the city. So was dry ice.

Susan Zolla-Pazner, director of AIDS research at the Manhattan Veterans Affairs Medical Center, had lost power in her 18th-floor lab in the department’s building at 23rd Street and First Avenue. She finally hired a company to haul her 20 freezers-full of specimens, for safekeeping.

“We spent all of Tuesday and Wednesday hauling 1,300 pounds of dry ice up to the 18th floor, using the stairs, to stabilize the freezers first,” said Dr. Zolla-Pazner, who is also a professor of pathology at N.Y.U. School of Medicine. “And the dry ice people would only take cash. I have about 25 to 30 people working for me, and everyone was out there on 23rd Street, reaching into their pockets to get what we needed. It was a herculean and heroic effort on the part of everyone here, and that is the story that needs to be told.”

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DealBook Column: The Election Won't Solve All Puzzles

Here comes more uncertainty.

It may sound counterintuitive, but whatever the outcome of the election — whether President Obama or Mitt Romney wins — the economy and markets are likely to face more uncertainty, not less, over the coming year.

“Uncertainty” has become the watchword over the last several years for many chief executives, politicians and economists as an explanation — or perhaps an excuse — for the economy’s slow growth, for the lack of hiring by business and for the volatility in the stock market.

“The claim is that businesses and households are uncertain about future taxes, spending levels, regulations, health care reform and interest rates. In turn, this uncertainty leads them to postpone spending on investment and consumption goods and to slow hiring, impeding the recovery,” a group of professors from Stanford University and the University of Chicago wrote in a study that found “current levels of economic policy uncertainty are at extremely elevated levels compared to recent history.” (The professors have created a Web site, policyuncertainty.com, where you can track the “uncertainty” levels.)

Come Wednesday morning, we should know who our president will be. But the uncertainty hardly ends there.

Almost immediately after the elections, the next big talking point on Wall Street and in Washington is going to be the now infamous “fiscal cliff,” a series of automatic tax increases and spending cuts that was the result of a Congressional compromise reached last summer and is to take effect on Jan. 1, unless Congress finds an alternative. Some economists say the tax increases and spending cuts in the existing agreement could shave as much as 4 percent off G.D.P. if they are not renegotiated. Already, executives say that the uncertainty over the outcome of the fiscal cliff is causing them to hold back from making new investments.

But the greatest likelihood is that the fiscal cliff isn’t going to be resolved soon at all —the betting line of the political cognoscenti is that no matter who wins, Congress will find a way to kick the issue down the road, perhaps as far as the fall of 2013, providing a new cloud of uncertainty over the economy.

For investors, the fiscal cliff includes a tax increase on dividends (making them the equivalent of ordinary income, on which rates could rise to as high as 39.6 percent) and capital gains (up to 20 percent from 15 percent). In a note to clients sent out on Sunday night, Goldman Sachs said that it expected the rate for both dividends and capital gains to be negotiated to 20 percent in either a second Obama term or a Romney presidency. But more important, Goldman noted that when similar tax increases were on the table in 1970 and 1986, “the S.& P. 500 posted negative returns in the December prior to implementation as investors locked in the lower rate.” December, the report said, “has the second-highest average monthly return” since 1928.

Many investors have already begun selling stocks and companies in anticipation of tax increases. Speculation was rampant last week that one of the reasons for the timing of the sale of George Lucas’s company, Lucasfilm, to Disney for $4.1 billion in cash and stock, was the impending changes in tax policy. (Mr. Lucas has said that he plans to donate a majority of his wealth to charity.)

Once we get past the fiscal cliff, if we do at all, there is Europe. Remember Europe? The issues in Greece and Spain have managed to stay off the front pages during the election run-up, but they have not gone away. Some economists have argued that things have gotten worse. Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, who will face election in 2013, said on Monday that the fiscal crisis in Europe was likely to last at least five years. “Whoever thinks this can be fixed in one or two years is wrong,” she said.

And don’t forget the Middle East. That “uncertainty” for the world — and the global economy — isn’t going away anytime soon either. Questions about a possible attack on Iran will persist under either candidate.

And finally, there is Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, one of the biggest uncertainties of them all. As I reported in this column two weeks ago, the greatest likelihood is that Mr. Bernanke will step down at the end of his term in early 2014 no matter who wins the election.

It’s possible — though unlikely — that his departure could happen even sooner if Mr. Romney wins. Over the next year and a half, Mr. Bernanke’s future as the Fed chairman will feed a sense of uncertainty among investors who have become accustomed to his easy money policies. If President Obama wins, he is likely to appoint a successor to Mr. Bernanke who is dovish on monetary policy, and more likely to keep printing money as Mr. Bernanke has, a strategy that comes with its own risks. If Mr. Romney wins, he may appoint a more hawkish chairman, a move that could create a different sense of uncertainty about how the Federal Reserve will unwind itself from Mr. Bernanke’s policies.

None of these issues are new. President Obama took office facing a fiscal policy dispute that was not and probably could not be settled given the gridlock in Congress. No solution is in sight for Europe’s problems. Tension in the Middle East is escalating as fast as nuclear technology. And the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy is at its most opaque since the Reagan administration.

All of which shows that the comedian Jon Stewart is more on target than ever with the cheeky title of his election coverage on “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central. Carrying on a tradition, it is known as “Indecision 2012.”

Update that to 2013, and it’s good for another year.

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Keeping 007 relevant in a changed world

NEW YORK — Early in "Skyfall," Judi Dench's M pulls aside our embattled hero, played once again with suave ennui by Daniel Craig, and wonders whether the world still needs either of their services. As Bond wraps his head around that idea, he looks searchingly at his boss. "So this is it?" he wonders. "We're both played out?"

Questions about relevance dangle throughout the new James Bond movie, which opens in the U.S., after a crescendo of marketing, on Nov 9. Field agents are of diminishing importance in an era of cyber-spying and drone warfare, and the uniqueness of Bond's gadgets has been diluted at a time when everyone and their great-aunt carries an iPhone.

PHOTOS: James Bond through the years

Yet as the film franchise turns 50 (yes, someone born the year "Dr. No" came out is now eligible to join AARP) themes of retirement and sell-by dates aren't simply screenplay fodder — they pertain to the franchise itself.

After strong early reviews and solid overseas business, the latest Bond adventure sweeps into theaters with blockbuster expectations. But even if the Sony release blows the doors off the box office like, well, 007 making a grand entrance, it can't hide what those who worked on it quietly acknowledge — making this movie was a more difficult and delicate undertaking than ever.

No longer is a successful Bond movie simply a matter of dialing up clever dialogue and dazzling set pieces. Facing a world that would be unrecognizable to those behind the early Ian Fleming adaptations, Bond filmmakers and actors grapple on many levels with how to keep the series fresh.

They must find ways for a tuxedo-wearing, martini-swilling protagonist to stay relatable while a global downturn rages. They need to project a contemporary degree of villainy in a world where the threat of Islamist terrorism is, for a variety of reasons, not as easily portrayed as the enemies and fears of the Cold War.

They want to retain at least a hint of gravitas after years of Austin Powers and Johnny English.

Maybe most important, they struggle with how to avoid what might be called the quaintness trap — staying relevant in a cinema culture that has seen the rise of splashy CG action movies on the one hand and modern truth-seekers a la Jason Bourne on the other.

"The theme of our story is that we have to question if the old classic things still work," said Javier Bardem, who plays the villain in "Skyfall," directed by Sam Mendes. "It's implied in every character in this movie. But it's also the question about the James Bond franchise."

New obstacles

For years, Barbara Broccoli, the longtime producer and steward of the spy series (total box office: about $5 billion), knew that she wanted a film for the franchise's 50th anniversary. "Bond 23," as "Skyfall" soon became known, was a way of honoring her late father, Albert "Cubby" Broccoli, who died in 1996 and was heavily responsible for putting Fleming's work on the screen. It also offered a third act in the Craig-led Bond.

About three years ago, with the blessing of studio MGM, Broccoli and stepbrother/fellow producer Michael Wilson hired the longtime Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, along with "The Queen" scribe Peter Morgan. At nearly the same time they brought on Mendes, the British director of "American Beauty" who was in a slump after his young-marrieds drama "Away We Go" flopped in 2009.

Then MGM filed for bankruptcy, and suddenly everyone was frozen in place. (To avoid legal action from creditors, Mendes was retained off the books as a "consultant.")

PHOTOS: The Bond girls

"It was a nightmare," Broccoli recalled. "This was one of those situations that's really frustrating — when all the delays have nothing to do with the making of the movie." Craig's attitude was even more bleak. "I thought OK, we might have to say goodbye to this," he said in an interview in New York several weeks ago. "And that made me really sad." In the hiatus, Morgan left, replaced by the veteran John Logan ("Hugo").

MGM was finally reconstituted with new owners. But now came another problem: how to make Bond dramatically relevant again. The franchise wasn't just long in the tooth — it was coming off a disappointing entry in 2008's "Quantum of Solace." Craig acknowledged in the interview that the movie wasn't "satisfying." Wilson said that, after witnessing the critical reception, he thought, "Oh God, we really screwed this up."

A big reason for that was Bond's nemesis. During the decades that the series provided a catharsis for the Soviet threat, it was easy to put a face on the menace. But since the Iron Curtain fell — and especially after the attacks of Sept. 11 — that was a lot tougher.

In "Casino Royale," Craig's initiation, filmmakers used a clever work-around: They channeled the demons that would normally reside in the villain into the hero. Craig's Bond was grimmer and darker, which not only made for a compelling character but for some juicy zeitgeist stuff, Bond's beleaguered air matching our post-Sept. 11 anxiety.

In "Quantum," writers essentially opted out, creating villains and stakes that had little to do with the headlines (they involved a Bolivian coup and the arcana of water rights.) The film was rushed into production after the writers strike — "you shouldn't try to rewrite whole sections of the story while you're shooting," Craig noted dryly — and the results were wobbly.

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