May 27 (Bloomberg) -- Job growth probably picked up in May after the weakest gain in six months, and the U.S. unemployment rate held at a three-year low, signs of gradual improvement in the labor market, economists said before reports this week.

Payrolls climbed by 150,000 workers after a 115,000 gain in April, according to the median forecast of 68 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News ahead of Labor Department figures due June 1. Manufacturing cooled and household purchases increased, other data may show.

Bigger job and wage gains will probably be needed to trigger a self-sustaining cycle of increases in hiring and consumer spending that will spur the recovery. At the same time, slowdowns in Europe and parts of Asia threaten to curb exports and manufacturing, representing a barrier to faster growth.

“We have a labor market that’s improving, but not the kind of job growth that would really propel the recovery to a stronger phase,” said Julia Coronado, chief economist for North America at BNP Paribas in New York. “Barring a bad scenario in Europe, we would expect some stronger numbers in the second half of the year.”

Private payrolls, which exclude government jobs, climbed 160,000 in May after rising 130,000 last month, the weakest since August, economists forecast the Labor Department report will show.

The projected gain in total payrolls would bring the monthly average this year to 318,000, compared with 176,200 in the first five months of 2011.

Unemployment Rate

The jobless rate, derived from a separate survey of households, held at a three-year low of 8.1 percent in May, economists in the Bloomberg survey predicted. Unemployment has exceeded 8 percent since February 2009, the longest such stretch since monthly records began in 1948.

Federal Reserve officials reduced forecasts for the jobless rate, to an average 7.8 percent to 8 percent in the fourth quarter compared with a January projection of 8.2 percent to 8.5 percent, according to central tendency estimates released April 25. The new forecasts are still above policy makers’ estimates for full employment, which range from 5.2 percent to 6 percent.

Through April, the economy had recovered about 3.7 million of the 8.8 million jobs lost as a result of the 18-month recession that ended in June 2009.

With the economy and unemployment the top issues in this year’s presidential race, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney has criticized President Barack Obama by saying White House policies haven’t brought about a fast enough recovery from the downturn. The former Massachusetts governor has said in speeches and interviews that Obama is “not up to the task” of guiding the economy.

Consumer Spending

Even with the recent slowdown in the pace of job growth, Americans are spending. A Commerce Department report due June 1 will provide details of how consumption fared at the beginning of this quarter. Purchases may have grown 0.3 percent in April, matching the previous month’s gain, according to the Bloomberg survey median. Incomes also rose 0.3 percent following a 0.4 percent increase, economists said.

Sustained purchases are prompting companies like Amazon.com Inc., the world’s largest Internet retailer, to bring on new workers. The Seattle-based firm announced this month it plans to hire an additional 1,000 employees, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal.

Automobile sales are also making a bigger contribution to overall household spending. Demand for cars and light trucks so far this year is running at the fastest pace since 2008, according to industry data. Those gains are having a ripple effect through manufacturing and may help counter slowdowns in Europe and Asia.

The Institute for Supply Management Inc.’s factory index fell to 53.8 this month from a 10-month high of 54.8 in April, according to the Bloomberg survey median ahead of the June 1 report. A reading above 50 signals expansion.

Stock Prices

Growing concern over the European debt crisis is weighing on investors. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has fallen 6.3 percent so far this month.

Falling gas prices and an improving labor market may give a boost to consumer confidence. The Conference Board’s gauge climbed to 69.5 in May from 69.2 the previous month, according to the Bloomberg survey. That would be in line with other measures -- the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index and the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment -- which have recently climbed to four-year highs.

Consumers may also be encouraged by stabilization in the housing market, the industry that precipitated the recession. Home prices declined 2.6 percent in the 12 months through March, the smallest decrease since the year ended December 2010, economists surveyed project a May 29 report from S&P/Case- Shiller will show.

Revised first-quarter gross domestic product figures probably showed a slower pace of expansion, economists said ahead of a May 31 report from the Commerce Department. The economy grew at a 1.9 percent annual rate from January through March, compared with the initial estimate of 2.2 percent, according to the Bloomberg survey.

*T
                        Bloomberg Survey

==============================================================
                        Release    Period    Prior     Median
Indicator                 Date               Value    Forecast
==============================================================
Case Shiller Quarterly    5/29       1Q      -4.0%     -3.1%
Case Shiller Monthly MO   5/29     March      0.2%      0.2%
Case Shiller Monthly YO   5/29     March     -3.5%     -2.6%
Consumer Conf Index       5/29      May       69.2      69.5
Pending Homes MOM%        5/30     April      4.1%      0.0%
ADP Payroll ,000’s        5/31      May       119       150
Initial Claims ,000’s     5/31     26-May     370       370
GDP Annual QOQ%           5/31      1Q S      2.2%      1.9%
Personal Consump. QOQ%    5/31      1Q S      2.9%      2.9%
Nonfarm Payrolls ,000’s   6/1       May       115       150
Private Payrolls ,000’s   6/1       May       130       160
Manu Payrolls ,000’s      6/1       May        16        16
Unemployment Rate         6/1       May       8.1%      8.1%
Hourly Earnings MOM%      6/1       May       0.0%      0.2%
Hourly Earnings YOY%      6/1       May       1.8%      1.8%
Avg Weekly Hours          6/1       May       34.5      34.5
Pers Inc MOM%             6/1      April      0.4%      0.3%
Pers Spend MOM%           6/1      April      0.3%      0.3%
Construct Spending MOM%   6/1      April      0.1%      0.4%
ISM Manu Index            6/1       May       54.8      53.8
==============================================================
*T

--With assistance from Chris Middleton in Washington. Editors: Carlos Torres, Vince Golle

To contact the reporter on this story: Timothy R. Homan in Washington at thoman1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz at cwellisz@bloomberg.net

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We've been told that no one can read a balance sheet like Bloomberg TV's Scarlet Fu.

So naturally, we were intrigued.

We sent the chief markets correspondent our patented survey, and as usual we got some awesome responses. For one, she wears sneakers when she reports at the NYSE.

For more she almost cracked up on TV watching her colleague crawl on all-fours to avoid the camera. And once,  her 6 year-old kid gave his grandma a markets roundup based on the fact that "Greece has no money?"

Basically, Fu's life is funny. Check it out below:

Name: Scarlet Fu

Hometown: Scarsdale, NY (no Scarlet from Scarsdale jokes, please)

Birthday: December 21

Sign: Sagittarius

Personal Motto: This too shall pass.
Applicable to everything from financial markets to life in general.

Where did you go to school?
Wellesley College for one year before I transferred to Cornell University.

What was your first job?
My first post-college paying job was as a trainee in General Electric's Financial Management Program in Hong Kong. It's a 2-year rotation program and I started off in Appliances, where I compiled monthly reports on sales and margins. I would sit in meetings where management talked about how "we promised Jack we'd reach xx% growth this quarter" and I'd wonder, who is this Jack person?

When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A hairdresser, then a writer, then a sportscaster. Funny that my current job sometimes feels like a mash up of all 3, what with resolving on-air hair issues and writing up elaborate box scores of the trading day.

What was your proudest day at work?
There’ve been so many, since I’ve worked at Bloomberg since 1997 (on the print side in Hong Kong and then in New York). Covering the Asian financial crisis that year was a big one. Then after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. markets were closed so Asia was among the first to react--I edited a lot of that coverage. I moved back to NY a year later and joined the Bloomberg TV team in 2007--just in time for the market to set its all-time high and then crash a year later.

What was your biggest screw up at work?
This was before Jon Erlichman moved to San Francisco. I was on air and he almost walked into the shot. Ever the pro, he caught himself, and then dropped to all fours to get past the cameras on set. Watching him stealthily crawl around the cameras while reading a serious story on air, I almost lost it.

Favorite Book?
Whatever I'm reading at the moment. I've just started Game of Thrones.

What do you collect (by accident or design)?
The funny things my kids say -- I write them all down in a notebook. The latest was when my 6-year old told his grandparents, "The market is down. It's because Greece has no money."

What can't you leave home without?
Comfortable shoes--beat up sneakers, flip flops, etc. Confession: when reporting from the NYSE, I’m definitely in my sneakers!

What’s sitting on your nightstand right now?
Earplugs, eyemask, vitamins, 2 bottles of water, pens, iPad, magazines.

What’s your pet peeve?
Long meetings

Favorite place to be alone?
On the Metro-North train home. I leave before rush hour starts (because I’m in at work at 4am), so it's usually a long, quiet ride.

Favorite place/person to get advice?
My mother-in-law in California. Work stuff? It’s Al Mayers, head of Bloomberg Radio.

What do you eat for breakfast?
First breakfast at 4am: instant oatmeal. Second breakfast at 8am: toasted bagel w/ butter OR leftovers from the previous night's dinner. Everyone at work has seen me carrying a plate full of pasta back to my desk before the market opens.

What’s your favorite way to get some exercise?
Ballet barre-based exercise classes. I don't like it while I'm doing it, but I like how I feel afterwards.

Do you have a nickname? If so, what is it?
Any variation on the word scar: Scar, Scarface, Scarfu

Wall Street Journal or Financial Times?
I switch between the two. For awhile, I was getting FT delivered to my house, but then that expired. Now, I have both on my iPad and phone.

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Kayak Software Corp. is delaying its initial public offering following Facebook Inc.’s post-IPO tumble, according to a person close to the situation.

The Norwalk, Connecticut-based online-travel service has postponed the roadshow for the offering, which was scheduled to start last week, said the person, who declined to be identified because the information is private.

Morgan Stanley, the lead bank on Facebook’s initial share sale, also was hired to lead Kayak’s IPO.

Kayak would have been the first U.S. Internet offering since Facebook went public in the biggest technology IPO on record this month. The social network dropped 24 percent through yesterday since its market debut, extending its losses in the worst-performing large IPO in the past decade. Investors are pummeling the stock amid questions about Facebook’s growth and how underwriters managed the share sale.

ServiceNow Inc., an IT cloud-computing services company, and Palo Alto Networks Inc., an Internet security company, both planning IPOs led by Morgan Stanley, are on track to go public, said people familiar with the situation. Pen Pendleton, a spokesman for Morgan Stanley, declined to comment.

Mike Haro, a spokesman with Palo Alto Networks, and Rhett Glauser, a spokesman with ServiceNow, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Jessica Casano-Antonellis, a spokeswoman for Kayak, declined to comment.

Slowing Growth

Facebook’s investors are concerned about the company’s prospects after first-quarter profit decreased on slowing sales growth, and some shareholders have filed lawsuits alleging that the biggest social network and its underwriters overpriced the stock at $38 a share. At that price, Facebook had a higher price-to-earnings multiple than 99 percent of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Facebook closed at $28.84 yesterday, slipping below $30 for the first time. The stock fell 2.5 percent to $28.13 as of 2:27 p.m. New York time.

Kayak first filed to go public in November 2010 and put its plans on hold earlier this year because of choppy market conditions. The company said this month it posted a profit of $4.15 million in the quarter that ended March 31, compared with a loss of $6.91 million in the year-earlier period. Revenue rose 39 percent to $73.3 million.

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Salesforce.com has acquired Buddy Media, as expected. Read the full release here. The acquisition price was $689 million, slightly less than previously reported.

No, this is not a poster for Mrs. Doubtfire 2. Angry at Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his proposed NY ban of large sugary drinks, The Center for Consumer Freedom took out this full-page ad on A5 of the New York Times Sunday. The ad proclaims: "You only thought you lived in the land of the free ... New Yorkers need a mayor, not a nanny." And camp Bloomberg is livid. Why? Fashion! The mayor told the NY Times'  Kate Taylor: "Would I wear that? No! It was one of the more unflattering dresses." Marc LaVorgna, a spokesman for City Hall, bashed the Center for Consumer Freedom: “This is the same organization that was founded to oppose bans of smoking in restaurants and bars.”

Jamie Gallo, the president of TBWA/Chiat/Day NY, has left the Omnicom agency for an undisclosed position at the NBA. He had been president since 2009.

Twitter is expecting $1 billion in ad sales in 2014, Bloomberg reports. 

Ad Age has compiled a list of women to watch in the advertising industry.

Microsoft is rumored to be cutting 15 to 30 percent of its sales force in June, Adweek reports. 

Mullen has been selected to handle Lenovo's North American e-commerce display program.

Note: If you want news in the daily ad brief, email Lstampler@businessinsider.com by 7 a.m. on the preferred release date.

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Here's an amusing tid bit from Gabriel Sherman's story on Mayor Bloomberg and his media empire:

Reporters earn points for the number of clicks their articles receive on the Bloomberg terminal. “It was well known and is well known that if you write a story about Goldman Sachs, sex, Viagra, Tiger Woods, and Barack Obama, you’d get a huge number of clicks,” a former reporter says.

Read it all at New York Magazine >

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After Mayor Bloomberg proposed a ban on the sale of large sodas and other sugary drinks, New Yorkers' perceptions of soda brands have changed for the worse, reports YouGov BrandIndex.

Even though the subject has been debated across the country, the national perception of soda has not changed in a statistically significant way. It's different in New York, however.

The daily brand consumer perception research service interviews 5,000 people every workday, asking them to measure whether they've heard positive or negative buzz on a scale of 100 to -100. A score of zero means equal positive and negative perceptions.

As the graph YouGov provided Business Insider shows, local New York perceptions of sodas tanked on May 31, following Bloomberg's announced intentions. According to reports, "the day Mayor Bloomberg’s intentions hits the press, the New York area buzz score for the soda brands sector was 8. A day later, those soda brands had dropped to -10, meaning those brands received much more negative feedback than positive."

Interestingly, perceptions of beverages that were not sodas dropped slightly as well. This included water and coffee, and also sugary juices and energy drinks that would also be subject to the ban.

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The summer slump has not hit markets yet. With everything that's going on in Europe, we're constantly staring at the TV waiting for the next shoe to drop. That means we've been seeing a lot of Bloomberg TV's Sheila Dharmarajan lately.

And that's a good thing. She's one smart cookie—Wharton undergrad, Stanford MBA, with a past career in finance.

It's no wonder her friends nicknamed her after He-Man's sidekick, the Princess of Power. We're glad she came to our side (journalism) and we're even more glad she filled out Business Insider's survey. Check it out below:

Name: Sheila Dharmarajan

Hometown: Grew up in Pittsburgh, PA (Go Steelers!), but was born in New Orleans so have a soft spot for anything Cajun.

Birthday: October 15

Sign: Libra

Personal Motto: Chance favors the prepared

Where did you go to school?
University of Pennsylvania (Wharton School) for undergrad and Stanford Business School for my MBA

What was your first job?
I was a temp secretary in high school to save money for college. After college, I was investment banking analyst at DLJ.

When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Kinda random, but either a concert pianist or Supreme Court justice.

What was your proudest day at work?
I will never forget the first deal I closed - Charles River Laboratories - a company that amongst other things, breeds rats for laboratory testing.

But more recently for Bloomberg TV, covering the Occupy Wall Street protests while literally standing in the middle of the crowds was a very intense experience. And getting a personal email from James Cameron (of Avatar/Titanic fame) after I did an interview with him was pretty cool as well.

What was your biggest screw up at work?
Combo of breaking news and live TV means there are screw-ups all the time! But when I was covering the MF Global hearings in Washington, I remember standing in front of the camera in between hits, randomly talking to my producer, and we were still live!

Favorite Book?
Too many to name! But my standby is "To Kill A Mockingbird."

What do you collect (by accident or design)?
Magazines! I'm a big magazine reader and always have a stack sitting around in my apartment with pages thumbnailed of articles or pictures I want to revisit.

What can't you leave home without?
Mobile phone...for sure. And, flip-flops for wearing around the office.

What’s sitting on your nightstand right now?
My iPad, Kindle, vitamins, water and of course, a stack of magazines.

What’s your pet peeve?
Returning stuff I bought on the Internet...it takes me ages!

Favorite place to be alone?
Central Park - whether it's running the Loop or my walk home from work.

Favorite place/person to get advice?
My husband. No matter the situation, he's always able to bring the big picture perspective.

What do you eat for breakfast?
Usually it's coffee + cheerios and/or oatmeal. If it's a rough morning...I'll spring for an omelet + toast.

What’s your favorite way to get some exercise?
I'm a runner at heart, but have recently been trying to swim/cycle more. Finishing a triathlon is definitely on my bucket list!

Do you have a nickname?
If so, what is it? "Sheils" or "SD" are the most common. But in elementary school it was all about "She-Ra" (princess of power).

Wall Street Journal or Financial Times?
Both, but if I'm crunched for time it's the WSJ. And of course, Bloomberg!

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Bloomberg Businessweek's cover looks more like a Business Insider headline than a traditional financial publication, and we have no problem with that.

The cover, designed by respected Businessweek Creative Director Richard Turley, highlights the magazine's big feature by Felix Gillette on America's habit with prescription pain killers — and the illegal business it bred.

It's a great five page read, particularly if you'll be on the jitney to the Hamptons this weekend.

Below, the full cover.

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As Europe’s sovereign debt crisis escalates, Germany is becoming a magnet for depositors keen to stow their savings in the euro area’s safest market.

Deposits in Germany rose 4.4 percent to 2.17 trillion euros ($2.73 trillion) as of April 30 from a year earlier, according to European Central Bank figures. Deposits in Spain, Greece and Ireland shrank 6.5 percent to 1.2 trillion euros in the same period, including a 16 percent drop for Greece, the data compiled by Bloomberg show.

As banks in Europe’s periphery fret over lost deposits, German lenders are awash in liquidity that comes on top of more than 1 trillion euros the ECB has made available in three-year loans to banks since December to ease the flow of credit. The prospect of Greece leaving the 17-nation euro region is fueling the capital flight as parties opposed to the terms of the country’s second bailout prepare for a new ballot on June 17 after winning most of the votes in elections last month.

“The longer the debt crisis lasts, the more funds will flow to Germany,” said Dieter Hein, a banking analyst with Fairesearch GmbH in Frankfurt suburb Kronberg. “People think of Germany as the euro area’s safest country.”

The funds are a boon for domestic lenders, contributing an extra 5 billion euros in customer deposits at Deutsche Bank AG from September to March. Frankfurt-based Commerzbank AG added about 7 billion euros in deposits in the first three months of 2012, helping to erase its need to tap bond markets for refinancing this year, according to a May 9 presentation.

Makes Sense

“German banks are benefiting from a flight to quality,” Raimund Roeseler, head of banking supervision at Germany’s financial regulator Bafin, said at a June 5 press conference in Bonn. “That’s why they’re experiencing liquidity inflows and have less problems refinancing than their European peers.”

Banks outside Germany are also seeing an opportunity to tap the growing liquidity, prompting a surge in deposits at German branches of foreign lenders to 82.9 billion euros as of April 30 from 60.4 billion euros a year earlier, according to Bundesbank data.

“It makes a lot of sense actually from the banks’ point of view,” said Mark Macrae, an analyst covering emerging market banks at Prague-based brokerage Wood & Co. “Relative to what they have to pay back home, I guess that it’s an efficient way of getting liquidity.” 

AAA Rating

Savers are following bond investors, who pushed German 10- year borrowing costs to the lowest on record June 1 on increasing demand for the debt of the only euro-area country with a stable outlook on its AAA rating. The euro tumbled to an almost two-year low against the dollar last week as Europe’s leaders wrangled over how to support indebted states in the currency bloc.

European Union rules guarantee as much as 100,000 euros per depositor should an institution fail. That doesn’t help savers if the country where they hold an account exits the euro and wipes out their investments by devaluing the currency.

The European Parliament and member states have spent two years discussing a proposal to increase protection for savers by reducing to a week the time deposit insurers have to repay depositors, while requiring a depositor’s home country to arrange remuneration rather than the failed bank’s home country.

Outside Support

There’s at least a one-in-three chance of Greece leaving the common currency within months of the June 17 election that could halt its international bailout, according to a report this week by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services.

An exit “could be brought about by Greece rejecting the reforms demanded” by European policy makers and the International Monetary Fund “and a consequent suspension of external financial support,” S&P said in a statement.

Spain this week called for outside support for the first time to battle the financial crisis as Budget Minister Cristobal Montoro said European institutions should help shore up the nation’s lenders. The Bankia group, the lender Spain nationalized last month, is seeking 19 billion euros of state funds to shore up its balance sheet.

European banks tumbled today, pushing the Bloomberg Europe Banks and Financial Services Index as much as 2.7 percent lower, led by Italy’s Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA and Lisbon- based Banco Espirito Santo SA.

The yield on the 10-year Spanish bond reached 6.66 percent on May 30, the highest since November, on concern bailouts for banks and regional governments will hamper Spain’s ability to service its debt. The extra yield investors demand to hold Spanish rather than German 10-year bonds increased to as much as 5.48 percentage points on June 1, the most in the euro era.

Retail Deposits

Bank deposits are a main source of funding independent of the interbank and wholesale markets. Deposits by retail clients in particular are less likely to be withdrawn quickly in times of stress because the funds are secured by state-backed deposit insurance programs.

New liquidity rules proposed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision stipulate that retail and small-business deposits are a source of funding that’s almost as stable as equity in crisis situations.

A loss of deposits leaves banks in Greece and Spain even more dependent on the ECB for funding. 

Face Challenge

Moody’s Investors Service, which downgraded Commerzbank and six other lenders in Germany this week, said the credit rating cuts would have been deeper if not for the banks’ diversified funding. German banks “have reduced their market funding reliance in recent years,” the rating company said in the June 6 report. “This partly reflects rising domestic deposits amidst positive economic growth.”

German lenders still face the challenge of earning money with the funds to justify the cost of taking deposits amid record low yields on German sovereign bonds, Andreas Schmitz, the president of the BdB Association of German Banks, told reporters in Frankfurt on May 23.

“There’s a trade-off to be made between net interest income and a strong and resilient funding structure,” Carola Schuler, an analyst at Moody’s, said on June 6 by phone.

Money that flows in can also flow out.

“If those funds are volatile and unlike the sticky German cash that you know you’ll have for more than three months, the banks have to invest them in short-term at low interest rates,” said Philipp Haessler, a banking analyst with Equinet Bank AG in Frankfurt.

‘Food for Thought’

Non-German banks are trying to attract customers by offering higher interest rates than German peers. New clients with 10,000 euros of available cash would get annual interest rates of 2.4 percent for deposits without maturity at Paris- based BNP Paribas SA’s Cortal Consors unit, and 2.55 percent at MoneYou, a unit of Amsterdam-based ABN Amro Bank NV, according to financial consultant FMH Finanzberatung. That compares with 0.25 percent at Deutsche Bank and 0.3 percent at most German saving banks.

Much of the cash deposited in Germany is flowing abroad via the subsidiaries of non-German banks, Georg Fahrenschon, president of the DSGV association of German savings banks said in a June 6 statement.

“German savers should have food for thought if banks have to try to lure them with offers because they enjoy comparatively low trust in their home countries,” he said.

Outside EU

Banks from outside the EU, such as Turkish and Russian lenders, are also targeting German savers. OAO Bank VTB, Russia’s second-largest lender, which saw its loan book grow by 50 percent to 4.6 trillion rubles ($140 billion) last year, is among banks offering some of the highest rates in Germany, according to consumer watchdog Stiftung Warentest. So is Turkiye Is Bankasi AS, whose loan book expanded by 41 percent to 101.1 billion liras ($55.4 billion).

VTB and Turkey’s Denizbank AS are using their Austrian subsidiaries to lure German customers, while Akbank TAS and Turkiye Garanti Bankasi AS are going through their Dutch arms and Isbank has a German bank unit. They rely on the deposit insurance systems of those countries to reassure German savers their money is secure.

German banks face a “luxury problem” as they have to find places to invest the deposits, and consumers may end up losing out with lower interest rates on their savings, said Haessler.

“In the end it is a question of supply and demand,” Haessler said. “The more money flows to Germany, the lower the interest on deposits should be.” 

--With assistance from Fred Jespersen in New York. Editors: Angela Cullen, Frank Connelly 

To contact the reporters on this story: Annette Weisbach in Frankfurt at aweisbach1@bloomberg.net; Nicholas Comfort in Frankfurt at ncomfort1@bloomberg.net; Boris Groendahl in Vienna at bgroendahl@bloomberg.net 

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Frank Connelly at fconnelly@bloomberg.net

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Investor Bob Rice has helped a lot of startups get off the ground.

He says entrepreneurs have a limited time window to impress VCs and should present their idea "almost like a headline in a newspaper."

"You need to be able to get you point across within a minute  while you've got someone’s attention ... before they start to wander," says the managing partner at Tangent Capital. "It's almost like a headline in a newspaper."

This means that before you go into telling your entire story, you need to tell the most important part of your story."

The investor is also a contributor on Bloomberg's "Buzzword of the Day" on the Money Moves segment, which is the first show that gives advice to entrepreneurs about alternative investments, or ways to raise money for your business besides going the Angels and VC route. 

We caught up with Rice to gather some tips for entrepreneurs hoping to raise money:

1. Be completely honest. 

This means that if you don't absolutely know the answer, you should admit that you don't. In these meetings, Rice says that investors are "betting on the jockey, not the horse."

"If there’s even a whiff that something’s not right, it’s over." 

2. Do homework on your competition.

"It's highly unlikely that no one else has thought of this idea," Rice says. "If I ask you how your company is different than so-and-so's and you give me a blank look, I'm going to think, 'Oh, man'." 

Instead, you should say something like "Well, no one else is doing it like we are, but the closest competitions are X, Y and Z."

3. Don't be too sold on your vision.  

You should believe in your idea, but Rice says not to give off the impression that you "drink so much of your own Kool-Aid that you're not going to take coaching so well."

"It's the first date. You’re looking at forming some kind of long-term investment. There has to be trust. I better get the impression right away that you're a likeable person, you're going to work well with others, that you’re presentable in front of my partners and that you're not going to be an egomaniac."

"There’s a shift in fortune all the time. I want to know that I'm partnering with someone who has the urgency to get it going quickly, but also the flexibility to make changes in case something happens down the road." 

4. Make sure you’re pitching to the right investor.

Again, do your homework beforehand and seek out someone who's interested in this area or someone who's going to write the check you need them to write." 

"Most VCs will go through a checklist and everything's got to meet our criteria. If we're vegetarian, we don’t want to see a steak." 

5. Follow up, but "don't be a pest."

At the end of the first meeting, ask the board when you should expect to hear from them. Most investors will contact you pretty quickly afterward. 

"These days, things are happening faster than it used to. If you spend six months spending time thinking about the deal, the advantage that the entrepreneur originally had is now gone."

This means you can certainly follow up, and the best way to do this is with a news hook. For example, contact the investor and say "Oh, I don't know if you saw, but this just happened ..."

In order for entrepreneurs to be successful today, Rice says that they "have to be even more entrepreneurial, because there's some permanent shift in the way entrepreneurial works."

Now see more of the best advice VCs and founders gave for raising money >

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Jiang Xiangsong has 18 days to pay a 2 million yuan ($314,000) bank debt or his suitcase company in eastern China will go bankrupt.

He’s close to tears as he realizes his last hope, a government-backed office, won’t help.

“This is totally useless: If I had any collateral, why the hell would I come here?” he yells at an official in Wenzhou’s state-run loan service, set up to help small businesses after rising bankruptcies and suicides prompted Premier Wen Jiabao to visit in October and pledge support.

Wenzhou’s more than 400,000 businesses make everything from shoes in dusty side streets to synthetic leather in dilapidated factories, much of it financed by unregulated lenders that spread during China’s record 2009-10 credit boom.

The decline of so-called shadow banking in the city, triggered by Wen’s move to rein in a national property bubble, has left Wenzhou bearing the brunt of the country’s economic slowdown.

China’s plans for a more targeted stimulus than the 4 trillion yuan package unveiled in 2008 ($586 billion at the time) mean Wenzhou may see little reprieve. Wen’s administration in March picked the city, five hours by train south of Shanghai, for a trial program designed to boost capital for private companies, an effort that’s failed to quell locals’ gloom.

“In previous years, it was difficult,” Chen Xijun, a director at the city’s Chamber of Commerce, said in a June 6 interview in the city. “This year it’s completely dark. We have no sense of direction where the economy is heading.”

Inventory Buildup

In Wenzhou’s largest shoe market, 70-year-old Lin Yunlai agrees as he dozes in the booth he has run for two decades.

“This is the worst year,” he said as he waited for customers to buy sneakers from his half-empty shelves. “This place used to be packed with buyers from around the country, now it’s full of unsold shoes.”

Lin plans to sell his remaining 1,000 pairs and shut the business. The 70,000 yuan revenue he expects to make this year won’t cover his 160,000 yuan rent. “I’m done with it,” he said.

The first place to embrace private enterprise when China began opening in 1978, Wenzhou lured 2.8 million migrant workers over the decade following the country’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. Seven out of 10 businesses in the city rely on exports, mostly in labor-intensive industries, leaving it vulnerable as Europe’s crisis crimps expansion.

Weaker Exports

China’s growth has slowed for five quarters, with gross domestic product rising 8.1 percent in January-to-March, the least in almost three years. While exports exceeded forecasts in May, the pace of gains eased to 9 percent so far this year, from 26 percent in the same period of 2011.

The central bank lowered interest rates for the first time since 2008 on June 7, and cut banks’ reserve ratios for the third time since late November. The yuan has fallen 1.2 percent against the dollar this year, trading at 6.3720 per dollar as of 9:54 a.m. in Shanghai today.

The economy’s downshift has been uneven. Guangdong, the largest exporting province and one that’s focused on upgrading production to higher-value goods, has seen resilience in its job market.

Stanley Lau, deputy chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, whose members have garment, watch, toy and footwear plants in Guangdong, said in an interview last week that most factories are still 5 percent to 10 percent short of workers or technicians.

Quiet Streets

Back in Wenzhou, a once bustling city center is in decline.

On a recent morning, a single coach pulled out of Wenzhou’s main long-haul bus station into an almost empty street. A few years ago, the road was a permanent traffic jam, clogged with buses and migrant workers arriving from other provinces, according to Liu, a taxi driver who like many people in China declined to give his full name.

On Wuma Street, the city’s most famous pedestrian shopping area, three sales staff wait idly for customers in a branch of the Red Dragonfly shoe chain. Posters advertising 40 percent discounts show the shop’s annual summer sale of leather sandals and high heels has started a month early.

Businesses are suffering because of weak demand, higher raw material costs and rising wages, as well as the breakdown in the system of unregulated money lenders who fund much of China’s enterprise, said Zhou Dewen, head of the Wenzhou Small- and Medium-size Enterprise Association.

“Wenzhou’s private lending system was built on trust, and now that trust is gone,” said Zhou. He estimates there is about 1 trillion yuan of idle private capital in the city because “nobody is willing to lend to others.”

China's Detroit? Wenzhou's Empty Streets And Struggling Businesses Could Be A Sign Of What's To Come

Shadow Banking

As small businesses sought finance to expand, the city of 9 million became one of the nation’s biggest centers for shadow banks, unregulated lenders that demanded 21.6 percent on loans in April, compared with 7.6 percent from commercial banks, according to central bank figures.

Wenzhou had the worst non-performing loan ratio among the 21 cities tracked by Shenzhen Development Bank Co. last quarter. About 60 business owners fled the city in the first two months of the year to avoid paying their debts, China Business News reported. The exodus has continued, said Zhou.

The city was chosen by China’s cabinet in March for a trial program to broaden funding for private companies, including setting up the Wenzhou Private Lending Registration Service Center that rejected Jiang’s application. The office was designed to help control shadow lending by matching individuals holding excess capital with small businesses in need of funds.

Pilot Program

“The Wenzhou reform is a worthwhile effort if it could succeed in overcoming long-standing obstacles for private capital to enter the state-controlled financial sector,” said Fred Hu, founder of Primavera Capital Group and former chairman for Greater China at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Since Wenzhou’s private lending service opened on April 26, 40 million yuan of deals have been done, one tenth of the amount of capital registered, said Chen at the Chamber of Commerce.

Suitcase exporter Jiang, 45, said that before last year he would have had no problem raising the 2 million yuan he needs with a few phone calls to friends and fellow businessmen. Now, nobody answers the phone. Last week, Jiang’s landlord refused to give him more time to make a payment on the 200,000 yuan rent for his factory because the landlord himself is short of cash after closing down his apparel business.

“Everyone around me is struggling,” said Jiang, whose company’s sales have dropped 60 percent this year.

Wenzhou’s growth moderated to a 5 percent pace last quarter, the weakest in at least four years. By comparison, Chongqing, where ousted party boss Bo Xilai championed state-led development, grew 14.4 percent, local government data show.

Limited Plans

With the divergence in the degree of economic weakening, there’s been little sign policy makers will embrace the type of credit surge that saw 17.5 trillion yuan in new loans in 2009-10. The State Council in a May statement omitted any reference to expanding credit, and state-run Xinhua News Agency reported on May 29 there was no plan to introduce measures on a 2008 scale.

During the boom times in the last decade, Wenzhou drew migrant workers eager to take part in China’s economic growth. Now, the flood of labor has dried up and many are looking elsewhere for jobs in higher-technology industries that have been less affected by the slump, or simply plan to return home.

Liu the taxi driver, who came to Wenzhou more than 10 years ago, said he’s taking his family of four back to Anhui province next week. Even working more than 12 hours a day, his income has dropped to a monthly 3,000 yuan, from 5,000 yuan a year ago. Food takes half his earnings and he can only afford 400 yuan a month for a cramped apartment, he said.

Giving Up

“This is no longer the city I had dreamed of,” he said. “No matter how hard I work, I can’t save enough to buy an apartment here. I’m not coming back.”

Property in Wenzhou remains out of reach for thousands like Liu even after home prices slumped 12.3 percent in April, the fastest drop in the country. Apartments still cost an average 30,000 yuan per square meter -- the equivalent of the city’s annual per capita disposable income in 2010, according to the local government website.

Prices in Majestic Mansion, one of Wenzhou’s most expensive residential projects and developed by Greentown China Holdings Ltd., more than doubled to 70,000 yuan a square meter in the three years after its start in late 2007. Now the price is about 40,000 yuan, according to real estate broker SouFun Holdings Ltd. Soaring national property prices were one effect of the government’s stimulus plan in 2008.

At the government lending office in Wenzhou, Jiang leaves empty handed, worrying how he will tell his remaining 30 workers that he won’t be able to pay them.

“Once the workers are gone, there’s no way to restart the business even if the market picks up,” he said, his face buried in his hands. “All the big talk I heard on helping small businesses here is empty. The government is turning a blind eye.”

--Jun Luo. With assistance from Kevin Hamlin in Beijing. Editors: Adam Majendie, Chris Anstey

 To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Jun Luo in Shanghai at jluo6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Panckhurst at ppanckhurst@bloomberg.net

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Barry Ritholtz, CEO of Fusion IQ and author of The Big Picture blog, was on Bloomberg Surveillance with Tom Keene and Ken Prewitt this morning.

The hosts asked Ritholtz what he thought about rates, given record low yield levels. Here is what he had to say:

Rates at this level are likely to be as attractive as it gets. You're always thinking about these things in terms of probabilities. Is there a probability that rates tick down? Well, maybe they could go a little lower if we see QE5 and Operation Twist 2 and who knows what else.

But, statistically, at this level, at unprecedented low levels of mortgage rates, the risk of rates moving higher -- and they actually did tick up this week for the first time in seven weeks -- are better than seeing an appreciable move down. I mean, how much lower can mortgage rates go? Are you going to go to 3.7 or 3.6 [percent]? That's a possibility, but sliding higher is a greater risk at these levels.

Ritholtz weighed in on stocks as well. Here is what he told Bloomberg Radio about exposure to stocks:

You want to own the broad market. You want to own some emerging markets, some small caps, some tech, and some fixed income. All you can do is look forward and say, "Statistically, rather than trying to beat the market, if I am the market over the long haul, I'll do well."

That doesn't mean you set it and forget it. That doesn't mean during a secular bear market, you just buy and hold and close your eyes. We lowered our equity exposure about two months ago, and we've been slowly over the past four weeks bringing it back up.

And here are two stocks worth looking at.

We recently added Wal-Mart, which is now back at levels it hasn't seen since January 2006. If the boys at ECRI actually are right and we do see a recession in 2013-2014, Wal-Mart is where the American consumer tends to end up when things get tight. You can look at Target also; Target is doing well as well.

SEE ALSO: The 12 Best Home Buyers' Markets In America >

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Bloomberg TV announced that it would be shaking up its daily shows lineup back in April, and although they didn't give an exact date as to when the changes would come. Now, we know—it's next Monday!

In case you needed reminding, here's what the changes are going to be—

• Tom Keene will host a new "Surveillance" show from 6 am to 8 am, replacing "Inside Track." The show will be switching to a new format, with a list of regular contributors and also air simultaneously on TV and radio.
• From 8 am to 10 am, Betty Liu will continue with her show "In the Loop."
• Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle of Inside Track will be hosting a new show, Market Makers, from 10 am to noon, replacing "In Business."
• A new "ensemble cast" will be part of a new show, Lunch Money, airing noon, the slot formerly filled by Keene's Surveillance Midday."

Here's Bloomberg's breakdown of it, as it was announced on the last episode of Inside Track today—

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The Centers for Disease Control has a bunch of maps that illustrate the dramatic rise in obesity in United States over the last 25 years. 

What's shocking is that in 1990 no state had obesity levels greater than 15 percent. By 2010, no state had obesity levels less than 20 percent. 

Click here to see the maps >

The progression is interesting to look at in light of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's recent proposal to ban over-sized sodas in an effort to curb obesity.

Although the initiative has been labeled shortsighted by groups who argue that sugar is in soft drinks is not the culprit of America's obesity problem, it's hard ignore the fact there's a link between growing portion sizes and growing waistlines.

According to CDC, the average soda, now 42 ounces, is six times bigger than the 7 ounces it was 60 years ago.  

Correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation, but an easy argument could be made that food and beverage choices impact lifestyle choices.  

On these maps, red shows shows states with obesity levels of 30 percent or more.  

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Since taking office in 2002, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg may have done more to change the city than any elected official in history.

He's led many crusades from education and gun control to that pesky little soda ban you may have heard of.

We think most of his changes have been progressive and for the benefit of NYC, but that hasn't prevented one of the world's wealthiest men from escaping controversy or scrutiny.

Though Bloomberg got many laws passed over the past 10 years to change the city, we narrowed it down to his 10 biggest changes.

Mayoral Control Of The School System (2002)

When Bloomberg first took office, the New York City educational system was governed by a seven-member board. Only two of those members were chosen directly by the mayor.

Citing poor test scores and a lack of oversight, Bloomberg got a provision passed and took control of the school system himself in 2002. His first appointee was Joel Klein in July of that year and test scores have improved under Bloomberg's stewardship.

The Smoking Ban (2002-2011)

Mayor Bloomberg does not like second hand smoke. Over the last decade, he's banned smoking in restaurants, bars, parks, beaches, boardwalks and pedestrian plazas.

Smoker groups were incensed, but non-smokers rejoiced at not having to breath in that filthy air more often.

"If You See Something, Say Something" (2002)

Let's face it, New York has totally changed since 9/11 and the city's new mayor had to keep a fearful city safe. So he gave the people a sense of importance and reassurance with this campaign to notify authorities if you see anything suspicious around the city.

In 2010, a street vendor was able to prevent a bomb from exploding in Times Square.

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(Updates with minimum-wage proposal in seventh paragraph, tax system in eighth.)

June 23 (Bloomberg) -- Greece will push its creditors to extend fiscal deadlines under the country’s bailout program by at least two years, according to a policy document drawn up by the three parties in the country’s governing coalition.

New Democracy, Pasok and the Democratic Left agree that plans to cut 150,000 public-sector jobs should be scrapped, the document, received by e-mail from the Greek government today, showed. Proposals also include reducing sales tax for cafes, bars, restaurants and the agricultural industry, and increasing the threshold for paying income tax.

The government affirmed its commitment for the need to reduce deficits, control debt and implement the structural reforms the country needs, the policy statement showed.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras held his first Cabinet meeting on June 21 after his New Democracy party won Greece’s general election on June 17 on pledges to renegotiate parts of the 130 billion-euro ($163 billion) second bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund while keeping Greece in the euro. Samaras joined forces with Pasok, which finished third on June 17, and sixth-placed Democratic Left.

Greece has slipped behind budget-cutting targets that euro- area nations and the IMF imposed in exchange for 240 billion euros in aid pledges in the past two years.

Spending Cuts

The policy document underlines that cuts envisioned for 2013 and 2014 should come from public spending and clamping down on tax evasion and not from pension and wage cuts or from the public investment budget.

The government will also propose that a law cutting the minimum wage by 22 percent be repealed, the coalition partners said in the document. Unemployment benefit should be paid for two years instead of one.

The coalition partners plan to create a stable tax system for the next 10 years with lower indirect tax rates and will ask for pension fund portfolios, which suffered losses when their Greek bonds were tendered in the country’s debt swap, to be recapitalized, the document showed.

Samaras’s campaign pledge to cut tax rates for businesses to 15 percent from 2013 hasn’t been included in the list of issues to be negotiated, the document shows.

The partners support state-asset sales, a key plank of plans to reduce Greece’s debt, and will negotiate with creditors that some of them, like the national rail company OSE, be carried out through public-private partnerships, according to the document.

The Greek state is seeking to raise 50 billion euros from state assets, half of which are real estate, by 2020 to meet conditions of its bailout agreement. The process was halted after the country’s first election on May 6 produced no government.

--With assistance from Marcus Bensasson, Natalie Weeks and Antonis Galanopoulos in Athens. Editors: Andrew Rummer, Will Kennedy

To contact the reporters on this story: Maria Petrakis in Athens at mpetrakis@bloomberg.net; Tom Stoukas in Athens at astoukas@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Maria Petrakis at mpetrakis@bloomberg.net

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With all the recent commotion surrounding Mayor Bloomberg's plan to ban oversized soft drinks and the latest news that life expectancy in New York City is rising faster than anywhere else in the United States, we wondered where the Big Apple ranks in terms of obesity, diabetes, exercise and other common health indicators compared to the rest of the nation.

Our search took us to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which provides data for 190 metropolitan areas on exactly these sorts of things.  

To see how New York City stacks up against other large cities, we gathered data for the 10 most populated cities in the country from 2011 and ranked them within the six categories measured by Gallup.

We also show where New York City stands compared to the national average and the average of large metro areas (population over 1,000,000).  

It turns out, New York City is pretty healthy compared to the rest of the country.  

Here are some key takeaways:

• Among the 10 largest cities, New York City has the fourth lowest obesity rate behind Los Angeles, San Jose and San Diego
• NYC ranks better than the large metro average in obesity, diabetes and Americans who have health insurance; NYC ranks worse than the large metro area average for frequent exercise, frequent produce consumption and city optimism 
• NYC ranks better than the national average for obesity, diabetes and frequent produce consumption; NYC ranks worse than national average for frequent exercise, city optimism and people who have health insurance

Take a look at the rankings below (in all categories, 1 is the best ranking, 10 is the worst):

Obesity (%)
1. San Jose: 17.9
2. San Diego: 18.1
3. Los Angeles: 20.3
4. New York City: 21.5
5. Phoenix: 23.3
6. Chicago: 24.8
Large metro area average: 24.5
7. Philadelphia: 25
National average: 26.1 
8. Houston: 26.1
9. Dallas: 25.9
10. San Antonio: 29.1

Diabetes (%)

1. San Jose: 7.1 
2. San Diego: 8.5
3. Phoenix: 9
4. Chicago: 9.3
5. New York City: 9.7
6. Los Angeles: 9.8
7. Dallas: 9.8
Large metro area average: 10.2
8. Philadelphia: 10.4
9. Houston: 10.5
National average: 10.9
10. San Antonio: 12.1

Frequent Exercise % (30 minutes 3 or more days per week)

1. San Diego: 57.2
2. San Jose: 56.4
3. Los Angeles: 54.8
4. San Antonio: 53.3
Large metro area average: 51.8
National average: 51.6
5. Phoenix: 51.6
6. Houston: 50.7
7. Chicago: 49.7
8. Dallas: 49.6
9. New York City: 48.5
10. Philadelphia: 48.2

Frequent produce consumption % (5 or more serving of fruits and vegetables 4 or more days per week)

1. San Diego: 58.3
2. Philadelphia: 58.2
3. San Jose: 58.1
Large metro area average: 57.3
4. New York City: 57.2
National average: 56.8
5. Chicago: 56.5
6. Los Angeles: 56.2
7. Phoenix: 55.6
8. Houston: 55.2
9. San Antonio: 55.1
10. Dallas: 54.6

City optimism % (Americans who say they live in a city that is getting better as a place to live)

1. Dallas: 66.7
2. San Antonio: 66.4
3. Houston: 61.6
Large metro area average: 58.9
4. Los Angeles: 57.4
5. San Diego: 56.1
National average: 55.6
6. Chicago: 55.4
7. Phoenix: 54.8
8. San Jose: 53.4 
9. Philadelphia: 50.5
10. New York City: 50

Uninsured (%)

1.Philadelphia: 10.4
National average: 11.4
2. New York City: 12.4
3. San Jose: 12.4
4. Chicago: 14.4
Large metro area average: 14.5
5. Phoenix: 15.3
6. San Diego: 16.9
7. San Antonio: 18.5
8. Los Angeles: 21.8
9. Dallas: 21.7
10. Houston: 24.9 

The charts below show data for New York City and the nation from 2009, 2010 and 2011. There aren't many significant changes over the last three years.

Obesity levels increased .6 percent between 2010 and 2011, even though the national average dropped .4 percent.

SEE ALSO: 25 Years Of America Getting Fatter In Maps >

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An anonymous Bloomberg News employee sent a letter to Jim Romenesko on how to tell if their bow-tie wearing editor-in-chief Matt Winkler has reviewed a story. 

Winkler is known for his hatred of the words "but" and "announce" and his uber strict rule book "The Bloomberg Way,"  

The unnamed reporter, who references this story "Moody's Defied As Banks Advance Among Investors", reveals how to examine the language for Winker fingerprints.

(Emphasis ours) 

Language: Again, you see language that would never get through Bloomberg straight-up style unless Winkler made it so. His Weekly Notes forever whittle away words and expressions that we can use, and here we have a *gasp* adverb in “dutifully” and gamely artistic turns of phrase like “declarations of calamity” and “little different from a coin flip.” It’s a good story, actually, I’m just jealous that I’m not able to use words and phrases like this without being called out for making Bloomberg News “forever contaminated” (yes, he used that expression in his Weekly Notes internal style memo).

Actually what’s missing to make this a truly Winkler-esque story is the truly obtuse headline — this one is OK. The strangest headlines are usually dictated by him to underlings, and are a jumble of gerunds and obscure company names. T

Read the full letter here >

SEE ALSO: Bloomberg Editor Matt Winkler Blast Reporters For 'Inaccurate' Tweets >

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Cornell has hired its first faculty member for the NYC-sponsored engineering school it's building on Roosevelt Island.

Deborah Estrin will join as a Professor of Computer Science. Estrin has received a number of teaching accolades, including Popular Science's "Brilliant 10" and Wired's "50 people who will change the world." 

She is currently a computer science professor at UCLA.

"My entire career has been about applying technology to improve people’s lives, so I couldn’t resist the opportunity to help CornellNYC Tech create a new university model that removes the barriers between research and application,” Estrin says.

Estrin received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT and attended U.C. Berkeley for her undergraduate degree. She has spent much of her career working on embedded networked sensing systems, which further connect the Internet to the real world. She's particularly interested in mobile solutions.

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China has blocked access to Bloomberg's website after the site reported on the assets of Xi Jinping and his relatives. 

Bloomberg reported that Xi's extended family is worth $376 million, but no assets were traced to Xi, his wife, or his daughter.

The government is obviously very sensitive to this type of news in a year of leadership transition:

"The government has always been very careful in, on the one hand, emphasizing how they want to contain corruption but yet also worrying about how reports of this nature might galvanize public opinion against the Communist Party," said Dali Yang, a political scientist at University of Chicago Center in Beijing.

Bloomberg was sure to mention that there was no record of any wrongdoing, but the site remains blocked in mainland China.

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that his siblings' fortune may be well over $1 billion.

Don't Miss: The 13 Mysterious Politicians Rapidly Rising To Power In China >

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