Specs surface for alleged low-end $99 Nexus 7

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Novo Nordisk insulin Ryzodeg passes Japan review

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Denmark‘s Novo Nordisk, the world’s biggest insulin producer, said on Monday its Ryzodeg insulin had passed the first review by an advisory committee to the health ministry in Japan.

Novo Nordisk said in a statement it expected to receive marketing authorization for the treatment from the Ministry within a few months.

Price negotiations for another insulin, degludec, continued and were expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2013, the company said in the statement, adding the exact launch timing for Ryzodeg would be decided after a price listing for degludec.

(Reporting by Copenhagen Newsroom; Editing by Hans-Juergen Peters)

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Boehner 'flabbergasted' at 'fiscal cliff' talks

President Obama and his White House team appear to have drawn a line in the sand in talks with House Republicans on the "fiscal cliff."

Tax rates on the wealthy are going up, the only question is how much?

"Those rates are going to have to go up," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner flatly stated on ABC's "This Week." "There's no responsible way we can govern this country at a time of enormous threat, and risk, and challenge ... with those low rates in place for future generations."

But the president's plan, which Geithner delivered last week, has left the two sides far apart.

In recounting his response today on "Fox News Sunday," House Speaker John Boehner said: "I was flabbergasted. I looked at him and said, 'You can't be serious.'

"The president's idea of negotiation is: Roll over and do what I ask," Boehner added.

The president has never asked for so much additional tax revenue. He wants another $1.6 trillion over the next 10 years, including returning the tax rate on income above $250,000 a year to 39.6 percent.

Boehner is offering half that, $800 billion.

In exchange, the president suggests $600 billion in cuts to Medicare and other programs. House Republicans say that is not enough, but they have not publicly listed what they would cut.

Geithner said the ball is now in the Republicans' court, and the White House is seemingly content to sit and wait for Republicans to come around.

"They have to come to us and tell us what they think they need. What we can't do is to keep guessing," he said.

The president is also calling for more stimulus spending totaling $200 billion for unemployment benefits, training, and infrastructure projects.

"All of this stimulus spending would literally be more than the spending cuts that he was willing to put on the table," Boehner said.

Boehner also voiced some derision over the president's proposal to strip Congress of power over the country's debt level, and whether it should be raised.

"Congress is not going to give up this power," he said. "It's the only way to leverage the political process to produce more change than what it would if left alone."

The so-called fiscal cliff, a mixture of automatic tax increases and spending cuts, is triggered on Jan. 1 if Congress and the White House do not come up with a deficit-cutting deal first.

The tax increases would cost the average family between $2,000 and $2,400 a year, which, coupled with the $500 billion in spending cuts, will most likely put the country back into recession, economists say.

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Egypt’s Mursi calls referendum as Islamists march

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt‘s President Mohamed Mursi called a December 15 referendum on a draft constitution on Saturday as at least 200,000 Islamists demonstrated in Cairo to back him after opposition fury over his newly expanded powers.

Speaking after receiving the final draft of the constitution from the Islamist-dominated assembly, Mursi urged a national dialogue as the country nears the end of the transition from Hosni Mubarak‘s rule.

“I renew my call for opening a serious national dialogue over the concerns of the nation, with all honesty and impartiality, to end the transitional period as soon as possible, in a way that guarantees the newly-born democracy,” Mursi said.

Mursi plunged Egypt into a new crisis last week when he gave himself extensive powers and put his decisions beyond judicial challenge, saying this was a temporary measure to speed Egypt’s democratic transition until the new constitution is in place.

His assertion of authority in a decree issued on November 22, a day after he won world praise for brokering a Gaza truce between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, dismayed his opponents and widened divisions among Egypt’s 83 million people.

Two people have been killed and hundreds wounded in protests by disparate opposition forces drawn together and re-energized by a decree they see as a dictatorial power grab.

A demonstration in Cairo to back the president swelled through the afternoon, peaking in the early evening at least 200,000, said Reuters witnesses, basing their estimates on previous rallies in the capital. The authorities declined to give an estimate for the crowd size.

“The people want the implementation of God’s law,” chanted flag-waving demonstrators, many of them bussed in from the countryside, who choked streets leading to Cairo University, where Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood had called the protest.

Tens of thousands of Egyptians had protested against Mursi on Friday. “The people want to bring down the regime,” they chanted in Cairo‘s Tahrir Square, echoing the trademark slogan of the revolts against Hosni Mubarak and Arab leaders elsewhere.

Rival demonstrators threw stones after dark in the northern city of Alexandria and a town in the Nile Delta. Similar clashes erupted again briefly in Alexandria on Saturday, state TV said.

“COMPLETE DEFEAT”

Mohamed Noshi, 23, a pharmacist from Mansoura, north of Cairo, said he had joined the rally in Cairo to support Mursi and his decree. “Those in Tahrir don’t represent everyone. Most people support Mursi and aren’t against the decree,” he said.

Mohamed Ibrahim, a hardline Salafi Islamist scholar and a member of the constituent assembly, said secular-minded Egyptians had been in a losing battle from the start.

“They will be sure of complete popular defeat today in a mass Egyptian protest that says ‘no to the conspiratorial minority, no to destructive directions and yes for stability and sharia (Islamic law)’,” he told Reuters.

Mursi has alienated many of the judges who must supervise the referendum. His decree nullified the ability of the courts, many of them staffed by Mubarak-era appointees, to strike down his measures, although says he respects judicial independence.

A source at the presidency said Mursi might rely on the minority of judges who support him to supervise the vote.

“Oh Mursi, go ahead and cleanse the judiciary, we are behind you,” shouted Islamist demonstrators in Cairo.

Mursi, once a senior Muslim Brotherhood figure, has put his liberal, leftist, Christian and other opponents in a bind. If they boycott the referendum, the constitution would pass anyway.

If they secured a “no” vote to defeat the draft, the president could retain the powers he has unilaterally assumed.

And Egypt’s quest to replace the basic law that underpinned Mubarak’s 30 years of army-backed one-man rule would also return to square one, creating more uncertainty in a nation in dire economic straits and seeking a $ 4.8 billion loan from the IMF.

“NO PLACE FOR DICTATORSHIP”

Mursi’s well-organized Muslim Brotherhood and its ultra-orthodox Salafi allies, however, are convinced they can win the referendum by mobilizing their own supporters and the millions of Egyptians weary of political turmoil and disruption.

“There is no place for dictatorship,” the president said on Thursday while the constituent assembly was still voting on a draft constitution which Islamists say enshrines Egypt’s new freedoms.

Human rights groups have voiced misgivings, especially about articles related to women’s rights and freedom of speech.

The text limits the president to two four-year terms, requires him to secure parliamentary approval for his choice of prime minister, and introduces a degree of civilian oversight over the military – though not enough for critics.

The draft constitution also contains vague, Islamist-flavored language that its opponents say could be used to whittle away human rights and stifle criticism.

For example, it forbids blasphemy and “insults to any person”, does not explicitly uphold women’s rights and demands respect for “religion, traditions and family values”.

The draft injects new Islamic references into Egypt’s system of government but retains the previous constitution’s reference to “the principles of sharia” as the main source of legislation.

“We fundamentally reject the referendum and constituent assembly because the assembly does not represent all sections of society,” said Sayed el-Erian, 43, a protester in Tahrir and member of a party set up by opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei.

Several independent newspapers said they would not publish on Tuesday in protest. One of the papers also said three private satellite channels would halt broadcasts on Wednesday.

Egypt cannot hold a new parliamentary election until a new constitution is passed. The country has been without an elected legislature since the Supreme Constitutional Court ordered the dissolution of the Islamist-dominated lower house in June.

The court is due to meet on Sunday to discuss the legality of parliament’s upper house.

“We want stability. Every time, the constitutional court tears down institutions we elect,” said Yasser Taha, a 30-year-old demonstrator at the Islamist rally in Cairo.

(Additional reporting by Marwa Awad, Yasmine Saleh and Tom Perry; Editing by Myra MacDonald and Jason Webb)

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Strauss-Kahn in preliminary deal to settle case with maid

NEW YORK/PARIS (Reuters) – Former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn has reached a preliminary agreement to settle a civil lawsuit brought against him by a hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault last year, sources familiar with the case said.

U.S. and France-based lawyers for Strauss-Kahn, who was once tipped to become French president, on Friday acknowledged a deal was under discussion, but said it had not yet been finalized.

They also denied as “flatly false” and “fanciful” a report that he agreed on a $ 6 million settlement.

“The parties have discussed a resolution but there has been no settlement. Mr. Strauss-Kahn will continue to defend the charges if no resolution can be reached,” Strauss-Kahn’s U.S. lawyers, William Taylor and Amit Mehta, said in a statement.

“Media reports that Dominique Strauss-Kahn has agreed to pay six million dollars to settle the civil case are flatly false.”

French daily Le Monde, citing people close to Strauss-Kahn, said he and the maid Nafissatou Diallo would meet a judge in New York on December 7 to sign a $ 6 million settlement and close an affair that ended the Frenchman’s International Monetary Fund career and wrecked his presidential ambitions.

“The discussions have been going on for weeks, months. The agreement should be confirmed at the start of next week,” Michele Saban, a friend of Strauss-Kahn who saw him recently, told Reuters in Paris. She could not confirm the sum involved.

“We are moving towards the end of a tragedy,” she said, adding that Diallo had always been open to negotiating a settlement despite reticence from her lawyers.

Le Monde said 63-year-old Strauss-Kahn planned to take out a bank loan for $ 3 million and would be lent the other $ 3 million by his wife Anne Sinclair, despite the fact the couple separated in the summer and now live on different sides of Paris.

Strauss-Kahn’s Paris-based legal team declined to comment on whether a deal had been reached with Diallo, but denied Le Monde’s report of the sum involved.

“Neither Dominique Strauss-Kahn nor his lawyers will comment on proceedings in the United States. That said, however, they strenuously deny the erroneous and fanciful information relayed by Le Monde,” said a statement from the Paris lawyers.

The New York Times, which first reported the development, also said the pair would appear before a judge in New York next week. It said the settlement sum could not be determined.

END OF THE AFFAIR

News of the U.S. deal comes as Strauss-Kahn is awaiting a decision by a French court on December 19 on whether to call off a sex offence inquiry involving parties in Lille attended by prostitutes, where he risks trial on a charge of “aggravated pimping”.

If that case is dropped and Diallo ends her civil case, Strauss-Kahn would have a freer rein to pursue his consultancy work and could even consider a tentative return to public life in France, where he has been shunned since the Diallo scandal.

Images of the then IMF chief paraded before TV cameras in handcuffs before being charged with attempted rape shocked the world and led to French media raking over smutty details of the former finance minister’s private life.

“That’s the end, not only of this affair, but of any potential affair because one of the reasons for signing this kind of agreement is that both parties agree that they will never again bring a lawsuit,” Christopher Mesnooh, a U.S. lawyer who practices in France, said of the Diallo agreement.

“There will always be people who wonder about what happened in New York and in Lille, but from a legal standpoint if he gets all this behind him, he’s a free man,” he added.

Diallo alleged that Strauss-Kahn forced her to perform oral sex on May 14, 2011, in his suite at the Manhattan Sofitel.

The criminal prosecution fell apart after doubts emerged concerning Diallo’s credibility as a witness and the attempted rape charges against Strauss-Kahn were eventually dropped.

Strauss-Kahn, who in May 2011 was days from entering this year’s French presidential election, has maintained that the sexual encounter was consensual, although he said in a TV interview after his return to France that he regretted his “moral error”.

He filed his own countersuit against the maid earlier this year, claiming that Diallo’s accusations had destroyed his career and harmed his reputation.

In recent months, Strauss-Kahn has been making a comeback under-the-radar with a handful of speaking engagements at private conferences and by setting up a business consultancy firm in Paris.

(Reporting by Noeleen Walder in New York and Emmanuel Jarry, Johnny Cotton and Thierry Leveque in Paris; Writing by Catherine Bremer and Brian Love; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Cars trapped in tunnel collapse outside Tokyo

TOKYO (AP) — Parts of a tunnel collapsed Sunday on a highway west of Tokyo, trapping an unknown number of vehicles as smoke from a fire inside initially prevented rescuers from approaching.

Video footage from cameras inside the tunnel, after the fire was apparently extinguished, showed firefighters picking their way through cement roof panels that collapsed onto vehicles inside the Sasago Tunnel, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) outside the city.

About 25 vehicles were inside the (2.5 mile) 4.3 kilometer-long tunnel, some of them trucks stopped by the tunnel's collapse.

Police spokesman Yoshihiro Fukutani said they were still seeking details about the situation inside the tunnel.

Police vehicles, fire trucks and ambulances were massed outside the tunnel's entrance. A man who said he saw the collapse and alerted authorities to the emergency told NHK television he managed to escape after he was ordered to flee. The roof and windows of another vehicle parked on the roadside outside the tunnel were crushed, and the injured occupants reportedly taken to a hospital.

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Oliver Stone, Benicio del Toro visit Puerto Rico

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Benicio Del Toro didn’t wait long to collect on a favor that Oliver Stone owed him for working extra hours on the set of his most recent movie, “Savages”, released this year.

The favor? A trip to Del Toro‘s native Puerto Rico, which Stone hadn’t visited since the early 1960s.

“I told him, you owe me one,” Del Toro said with a smile as he recalled the conversation during a press conference Friday in the U.S. territory, where he and Stone are helping raise money for one of the island’s largest art museums.

Del Toro, wearing jeans, a black jacket and a black T-shirt emblazoned with the name of local reggaeton singer Tego Calderon, waved to the press as he was introduced.

“Hello, greetings. Is this a press conference?” he quipped as he and Stone awaited questions.

Both men praised each other’s work, saying they would like to work with each other again.

“I deeply admire him as an actor, the way he thinks, the way he expresses himself,” Stone said. “Of all the actors I’ve worked with, he’s the most interesting.”

Stone said Del Toro always delivers surprises while acting, even when it’s as something as subtle as certain gestures between dialogue.

“I think Benicio is the master of keeping you watching,” he said.

Stone said he enjoys meeting up with Del Toro off-set because he’s one of the few actors in Hollywood who can talk about something other than movies.

“He is very interested in the world around him,” Stone said, adding that the conversations sometimes center around politics and other topics.

Del Toro declined to answer when asked what he thought about Puerto Rico’s referendum earlier this month, which aimed to determine the future of the island’s political status. He said the results did not seem to point to a clear-cut outcome.

Del Toro then said he would like the island’s movie business to grow, especially in a way that would encourage learning.

“I’m talking about movies in an educational sense, as a way to discover other parts of the world,” he said. “Create a film class. You’ll see, kids won’t skip it.”

Del Toro also shared his thoughts on being a father after having a daughter with Kimberly Stewart in August 2011.

He said the girl is learning how to swim and is discovering the world around her.

“She has her own personality,” Del Toro said. “She’s not her mother. She’s not me.”

Both Del Toro and Stone are expected to remain in Puerto Rico through the weekend to raise money for the Art Museum of Puerto Rico, which is hosting its annual movie festival and will honor Stone’s movies.

Museum curator Juan Carlos Lopez Quintero said the money raised will be used to enhance the museum’s permanent collection, especially with Puerto Rican paintings from the 19th century and early 20th century.

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Putin aide denies Russian president has health problems

TOKYO/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin is in good health, his chief of staff said on Friday after Japanese media said Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda had postponed a visit to Moscow next month because the Russian president had a health problem.

A former KGB officer who enjoys vast authority in Russia, Putin has long cultivated a tough-guy image, and health issues could damage that. His condition though has been questioned in some media since he was seen limping at a summit in September.

Three Russian government sources told Reuters late in October that Putin, who began a six-year term in May and turned 60 last month, was suffering from back trouble, but the Kremlin has dismissed talk that he had a serious back problem.

Putin’s health troubles stem from a recent judo bout, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko said this week.

Then on Friday Japanese news agencies Kyodo and Jiji reported that Prime Minister Noda talked about the delay of a visit planned for December in a meeting with municipal officials on the northern island of Hokkaido.

“It’s about (President Putin’s) health problem. This is not something that can easily be made public,” Jiji cited one of the officials as quoting Noda as saying.

But Putin’s chief of staff Sergei Ivanov denied there was any problem.

“Please don’t worry, don’t be concerned. Everything is in order with his health,” Putin’s said in Vienna, according to state-run Russian news agency RIA.

In an interview published on Friday in the popular Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said rumors about a spine problem were “strongly exaggerated”.

“He is working as he has before and intends to continue working at the same pace,” Peskov said.

“He also does not plan to give up his sports activities and for this reason, like any athlete, his back, his arm, his leg might sometimes hurt a little – this has never gotten in the way of his ability to work.”

Putin had been expected to make several foreign trips in late October or November, but they did not take place.

Putin is however due to visit Turkey on Monday and Turkmenistan on Wednesday.

Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, made amply clear the Kremlin was displeased by the public discussion of scheduling by Japanese officials and denied that Noda’s visit had been postponed, saying no date had been set.

“It is just unethical to name the dates that were discussed. There were several: at first it was October, November, December, January … then we even shifted to February,” Ushakov said, adding that the sides eventually agreed tentatively on January.

He said the diplomatic process of agreeing dates for the visit should have been “hermetically sealed”.

Putin’s image as a fit, healthy man helped bring him popularity when he rose to power 13 years ago because of the stark contrast with his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, who was sometimes drunk in public and had heart surgery when president.

He has used activities like scuba diving and horseback riding to maintain that image.

On Friday, Putin met leaders of parliamentary factions in his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow. He appeared in good health and was walking without any sign of a limp.

Likely to be on the agenda in talks between Russian and Japanese officials are energy cooperation and a decades-old dispute over islands north of Hokkaido known as the Southern Kurils in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan.

(Additional reporting by Darya Korsunskaya; Writing by Tomasz Janowski and Steve Gutterman; Editing by Nick Macfie and Jon Hemming)

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Sofocos regresan al terminar el tratamiento con antidepresivos

NUEVA YORK (Reuters Health) – Un nuevo estudio demuestra que

las mujeres que toman antidepresivos para aliviar los síntomas

de la menopausia vuelven a tener sofocos y sudoración nocturna

después de suspender el tratamiento.

“Es importante saber que (…) el beneficio del tratamiento

está asociado con la duración del tratamiento”, dijo la doctora

Hadine Joffe, autora principal del estudio. Pero aclaró que eso

no debería desalentar a las mujeres a optar por un antidepresivo

si así lo desean.

“Que los síntomas reaparezcan no significa que su uso no

haya cambiado algo”, dijo Joffe, profesora asociada de

psiquiatría de la Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de

Harvard y directora del centro para la Salud Mental de las

Mujeres del Hospital General de Massachusetts.

El antidepresivo escitalopram (Lexapro) no está aprobado

para el tratamiento de los síntomas de la menopausia, pero los

médicos lo recetan porque algunos estudios, aunque no todos,

habían hallado que reduce la cantidad y la gravedad de los

sofocos.

Produce “un efecto moderado”, indicó Joffe. El fármaco no

elimina los sofocos, pero “mejora la calidad de vida de una

persona”.

Los antidepresivos del mismo tipo que Lexapro, denominados

inhibidores selectivos de la recaptación de la serotonina

(ISRS), también se utilizan para tratar los síntomas de la

menopausia.

El equipo de Joffe le indicó a 200 mujeres tomar 10-20

mg/día de Lexapro durante ocho semanas. El análisis final

incluyó a 76 mujeres con una mejoría de por lo menos el 20 por

ciento con el tratamiento, es decir con una reducción de 10 a

ocho sofocos por día o menos.

A los dos meses, las participantes suspendieron el

tratamiento y el equipo las evaluó durante otras tres semanas.

Un tercio de las pacientes que habían respondido al tratamiento

volvió a tener los síntomas, independientemente de si habían

sentido algún alivio las semanas anteriores.

El 44 por ciento de las 49 mujeres que habían mejorado en

los tres parámetros evaluados (cantidad, gravedad y molestia)

tuvo una recaída en las tres semanas posteriores a la suspensión

del fármaco. En la mayoría de los casos, los síntomas

recuperaron la misma intensidad inicial.

En las participantes que no tuvieron recaída, los síntomas

disminuyeron de 9,5 el día anterior al inicio del tratamiento a

4,4 por día tres semanas después de suspender la terapia.

El 46 por ciento de las mujeres tuvo síntomas de abstinencia

por lo menos dos veces.

Joffe y otros coautores declararon tener nexos con la

industria farmacéutica; dos de ellos, con Forest Laboratories,

que comercializa Lexapro y proporcionó el fármaco utilizado en

el estudio. La autora aclaró que la empresa no participó del

estudio, que se realizó con distintos subsidios gubernamentales.

FUENTE: Menopause, online 22 de octubre del 2012

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Why Obama is pushing for stimulus in 'fiscal cliff' deal

How about a little government economic stimulus?

That may sound incongruous considering the budget deficit and the push from Republicans to cut government spending.

But President Obama’s first offer to avoid going over the "fiscal cliff" holds out the hope of at least some stimulus. This would include extending the 2 percentage point Social Security payroll tax cut, boosting a tax incentive to businesses, establishing a $50 billion bank for long-term infrastructure projects, and extending unemployment benefits.

RECOMMENDED: 'Fiscal cliff' 101: 5 basic questions answered

The total bill: about $255 billion out of the federal government's pocket – an amount the GOP would likely say needs to be offset by spending cuts elsewhere.

The argument in favor of such stimulus? The tax measures, at least, could minimize the drag on the economy from Mr. Obama's proposed tax increases on the wealthy.

“The increases in the top two income tax brackets would put a drag on consumption, so I think, from the Obama point of view, the spending or tax cuts are designed to offset that drag to consumption,” says Michael Brown, an economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, N.C.

But to some budget experts, Obama’s list seems more like an opening round of negotiations, where he has asked for a lot more than he will get.

“It looks to me like these are bargaining chips,” says Pete Davis of Davis Capital Ideas, which advises Wall Street firms. “Even most Democrats had given up on the prospect of getting the payroll tax cut extended.”

Mr. Davis considers the odds of most of the stimulus proposals passing Congress “very low.”

What's needed most, say others, is just buckling down and negotiating an end to the fiscal cliff. “Cancelling the fiscal cliff is economic stimulus,” says Stan Collender, a budget expert and partner at Qorvis Communications in Washington.

If Obama's stimulus were passed, however, here is a look at the impact the four elements might have.

SOCIAL SECURITY PAYROLL TAX CUT

The largest chunk of the Obama plan is the extension of the payroll tax cut. This is the money that comes out of an individual’s paycheck as a contribution to Social Security. Two years ago, in an effort to stimulate the economy, Congress decreased the individual contribution from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent. The employer’s contribution of 6.2 percent remained unchanged.

The Obama administration estimates extending the cuts would cost the government as much as $115 billion in revenue.

The argument for extending the tax cut is that it helps lower-income workers who live paycheck to paycheck. “The difference in the paycheck might be the ability to pay the electric bill for someone or the chance to go to a sit-down restaurant once a month,” says Chris Christopher, an economist at IHS in Lexington, Mass.

The argument against continuing the cut is that it is weakening the Social Security Trust Fund. In order to make up for the loss of contributions, the government taps the general tax revenues, says Pamela Tainter-Causey, a spokeswoman for the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

“It sets up Social Security to compete for funding from the general fund,” she says. “It’s a perfect set up for people who are gunning for the program and claim we can’t afford it now.”

BUSINESS TAX INCENTIVE

The second largest program proposed by Obama would be the extension of accelerated depreciation for business, which would cost the US Treasury about $65 billion in fiscal year 2013, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Two years ago, business was allowed to accelerate the write-off of 100 percent of its spending on certain capital equipment. Capital spending on equipment and computer software soared by 18.3 percent in 2011.

Then, this year, the benefit to business was cut in half to 50 percent. Capital spending sank in the third quarter by 2.7 percent compared with the same quarter the prior year. With business interest in using the tax break diminishing, economist Gregory Daco of IHS says “it’s a goner.”

INFRASTRUCTURE BANK

Obama has also proposed a $50 billion infrastructure bank. The idea is to fund roads, bridges, tunnels and other large projects that last for a long period of time. “At the moment the funding is done on a cash basis – you have to pay for it as you build it,” says Mr. Collender.

Democrats have been trying to get Congress to fund the bank for the past 10 years, he says. “It does not have a chance of getting through the House," which is controlled by the Republicans, says Mr. Collender.

UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

And, finally, Obama wants to extend unemployment benefits, which would cost about $30 billion.

Under current law, if Congress does nothing, the maximum number of weeks in which an individual could receive jobless will drop to 26 from the current 73 weeks for states with unemployment over 9 percent and 63 weeks for states with unemployment over 7 percent.

If Congress does nothing about the program during the lame-duck session, some 2.1 million jobless will lose their benefits in the first week of January, says Judy Conti, a federal advocacy coordinator at the National Employment Law Project (NELP) in Washington. By the end of the March, she says, another 900,000 people will lose their benefits.

“Forty percent of the unemployed are long term unemployed,” she says. “They have been out of the workforce for over six months.”

RECOMMENDED: 'Fiscal cliff' 101: 5 basic questions answered

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