NPR 2008-10-08

If you received a quarterly statement from your retirement¹ fund over the past few days, chances are it showed large losses. And testifying today on Capitol Hill before the House Education and Labor² Committee, the head of the Congressional Budget Office quantified just how large the losses have been. CBO's Peter Orszag says in the past 15 months, Americans have seen two trillion dollars in retirement wealth evaporate, something he says is likely to weigh on household spending. "The decline in the value of retirement assets may well lead households to delay buying a new house or buying a refrigerator what have you consuming things." In fact, there are already signs that's taking place. The Federal Reserve says consumer spending in August fell for the first time in a decade. Meanwhile a new AARP study finds one in five workers 45 years or older have stopped putting money in their retirement fund over the past year.

A congressional panel revealed today executives of failed insurance giant AIG spent nearly half a million dollars on a company retreat at a California resort. It came less than a week after the government bailed³ out the company to the tune⁴ of 85 billion dollars. NPR's Brian Naylor reports.

The theme of the hearing by the House Oversight⁵ Committee was as Republican Mark Souder of Indiana put it, the abuse of trust by companies like AIG, which lost billions of dollars. Committee chairman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat⁶, said the company continues to pay an executive whose policies are blamed for AIG's downfall, a million dollars a month retainer, and then said Waxman, there was that retreat at the St. Regis Resort in California. "Less than one week after the taxpayers⁷ rescued AIG, company executives could be found wining and dining at one of the most exclusive resorts in the nation." Company executives blamed changed accounting⁸ rules for AIG's troubles. Brian Naylor, NPR News, the Capitol.

For the first time, a federal judge's ordered a group of Guantanamo detainees released not just from prison, but into the US. NPR's Nina Totenberg has more.

The detainees are seventeen Chinese Muslims known as Uighurs who have been held at Guantanamo for nearly seven years. In June, a largely conservative panel of the federal appeals court here in Washington ruled that they are not hostile to the US, that they are in fact pro-western Muslims, that they were being held at Gitmo without any reliable justification⁹. Today the judge now in charge of the case, Ricardo Urbina, ordered the Uighurs released into the United States since they would be tortured if returned to China. What's more, he ordered the government to produce the men in his courtroom this Friday. A local Chinese Muslim association has arranged for 17 families to take the men for now. The government cannot go to the appeals court or even the Supreme¹⁰ Court seeking to block their release. It asserts that even if the men are not enemy combatants, the courts do not have the power to order their release. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 508 points today. The NASDAQ lost 108 points. The S&P was down 60 points today.

This is NPR.

Barack Obama and John McCain are busy preparing for their second scheduled primetime presidential debate tonight, though it appears, at least in the case of McCain, his vice¹¹ presidential running mate is picking up some of the slack today. In Jacksonville, Florida Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin went on the offensive today against Obama, saying that the election is about truthfulness¹² and judgment¹³ needed to be in our next president, and saying McCain has it, Obama does not. The two presidential candidates will meet tonight on the campus of Belmont University in Nashville. The debate built as a town-hall format¹⁴ will be moderated by NBC's Tom Brokaw with questions coming from voters.

General David Petraeus spoke¹⁵ to the Association of the US Army today, running through how he brought about some success in Iraq before he takes responsibility for both Iraq and Afghanistan. NPR's JJ Sutherland has more.

An obviously proud Petraeus spent over an hour detailing how he saw the war in Iraq and how he made the gains he did there. Petraeus said that since the worst days of the war, violence in Iraq has decreased 80%. He did acknowledge the current level of violence is still unacceptable. He also warned that the progress made in Iraq is still fragile and that extremists continue to evolve and adapt their tactics. "What works in Baghdad today will not work in Baghdad tomorrow. What works in Baghdad today may not work in Fallujah today, and you must be sensitive to that. By the way, what worked in Iraq may not work in Afghanistan." The situation in Afghanistan is far bleaker¹⁶ than that of Iraq on track to be the worst year for coalition¹⁷ forces since the invasion in 2001. JJ Sutherland, NPR News, Washington.

Crude oil futures¹⁸ ended the session higher, up $2.25 a barrel to settle at just over $90 a barrel in New York.

1 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

2 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

3 bailed   

保释，帮助脱离困境( bail的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Fortunately the pilot bailed out before the plane crashed. 飞机坠毁之前，驾驶员幸运地跳伞了。
• Some water had been shipped and the cook bailed it out. 船里进了些水，厨师把水舀了出去。

4 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

5 oversight   

n.勘漏，失察，疏忽

参考例句：

• I consider this a gross oversight on your part.我把这件事看作是你的一大疏忽。
• Your essay was not marked through an oversight on my part.由于我的疏忽你的文章没有打分。

6 democrat   

n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员

参考例句：

• The Democrat and the Public criticized each other.民主党人和共和党人互相攻击。
• About two years later,he was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter.大约两年后，他被民主党人杰米卡特击败。

7 taxpayers   

纳税人，纳税的机构( taxpayer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Finance for education comes from taxpayers. 教育经费来自纳税人。
• She was declaiming against the waste of the taxpayers' money. 她慷慨陈词猛烈抨击对纳税人金钱的浪费。

8 accounting   

n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表

参考例句：

• A job fell vacant in the accounting department.财会部出现了一个空缺。
• There's an accounting error in this entry.这笔账目里有差错。

9 justification   

n.正当的理由；辩解的理由

参考例句：

• There's no justification for dividing the company into smaller units. 没有理由把公司划分成小单位。
• In the young there is a justification for this feeling. 在年轻人中有这种感觉是有理由的。

10 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

11 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

12 truthfulness   

n. 符合实际

参考例句：

• Among her many virtues are loyalty, courage, and truthfulness. 她有许多的美德，如忠诚、勇敢和诚实。
• I fired a hundred questions concerning the truthfulness of his statement. 我对他发言的真实性提出一连串质问。

13 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

14 format   

n.设计，版式；[计算机]格式，DOS命令:格式化(磁盘)，用于空盘或使用过的磁盘建立新空盘来存储数据；v.使格式化，设计，安排

参考例句：

• Please format this floppy disc.请将这张软盘格式化。
• The format of the figure is very tasteful.该图表的格式很雅致。

15 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

16 bleaker   

阴冷的( bleak的比较级 )； （状况）无望的； 没有希望的； 光秃的

参考例句：

• Horoscopes are merely harmless escapism from an ever-bleaker world. 占星术只不过是让人逃避越发令人沮丧的世界的无害消遣罢了。
• On the ground the mood is bleaker. 具体形势更加严峻。

17 coalition   

n.结合体，同盟，结合，联合

参考例句：

• The several parties formed a coalition.这几个政党组成了政治联盟。
• Coalition forces take great care to avoid civilian casualties.联盟军队竭尽全力避免造成平民伤亡。

18 futures   

n.期货，期货交易

参考例句：

• He continued his operations in cotton futures.他继续进行棉花期货交易。
• Cotton futures are selling at high prices.棉花期货交易的卖价是很高的。