Used to Hardship, Latvia Accepts Austerity, and Its Pain Eases

RIGA, Latvia — When a credit-fueled economic boom turned to bust in this tiny Baltic nation in 2008, Didzis Krumins, who ran a small architectural company, fired his staff one by one and then shut down the business. He watched in dismay as Latvia’s misery deepened under a harsh austerity drive that scythed wages, jobs and state financing for schools and hospitals.

But instead of taking to the streets to protest the cuts, Mr. Krumins, whose newborn child, in the meantime, needed major surgery, bought a tractor and began hauling wood to heating plants that needed fuel. Then, as Latvia’s economy began to pull out of its nose-dive, he returned to architecture and today employs 15 people — five more than he had before. “We have a different mentality here,” he said.

Latvia, feted by fans of austerity as the country-that-can and an example for countries like Greece that can’t, has provided a rare boost to champions of the proposition that pain pays.

Hardship has long been common here — and still is. But in just four years, the country has gone from the European Union’s worst economic disaster zone to a model of what the International Monetary Fund hails as the healing properties of deep budget cuts. Latvia’s economy, after shriveling by more than 20 percent from its peak, grew by about 5 percent last year, making it the best performer in the 27-nation European Union. Its budget deficit is down sharply and exports are soaring.

“We are here to celebrate your achievements,” Christine Lagarde, the chief of the International Monetary Fund, told a conference in Riga, the capital, this past summer. The fund, which along with the European Union financed a $7.5 billion bailout for the country at the end of 2008, is “proud to have been part of Latvia’s success story,” she said.

When Latvia’s economy first crumbled, it wrestled with many of the same problems faced since by other troubled European nations: a growing hole in government finances, a banking crisis, falling competitiveness and big debts — though most of these were private rather than public as in Greece.

Now its abrupt turn for the better has put a spotlight on a ticklish question for those who look to orthodox economics for a solution to Europe’s wider economic woes: Instead of obeying any universal laws of economic gravity, do different people respond differently to the same forces?

Latvian businessmen applaud the government’s approach but doubt it would work elsewhere.

“Economics is not a science. Most of it is in people’s heads,” said Normunds Bergs, chief executive of SAF Tehnika, a manufacturer that cut management salaries by 30 percent. “Science says that water starts to boil at 100 degrees Celsius; there is no such predictability in economics.”

In Greece and Spain, cuts in salaries, jobs and state services have pushed tempers beyond the boiling point, with angry citizens staging frequent protests and strikes. Britain, Portugal, Italy and also Latvia’s neighbor Lithuania, meanwhile, have bubbled with discontent over austerity.

But in Latvia, where the government laid off a third of its civil servants, slashed wages for the rest and sharply reduced support for hospitals, people mostly accepted the bitter medicine. Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, who presided over the austerity, was re-elected, not thrown out of office, as many of his counterparts elsewhere have been.

The cuts calmed fears on financial markets that the country was about to go bankrupt, and this meant that the government and private companies could again get the loans they needed to stay afloat. At the same time, private businesses followed the government in slashing wages, which made the country’s labor force more competitive by reducing the prices of its goods. As exports grew, companies began to rehire workers.

Economic gains have still left 30.9 percent of Latvia’s population “severely materially deprived,” according to 2011 data released in December by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency, second only to Bulgaria. Unemployment has fallen from more than 20 percent in early 2010, but was still 14.2 percent in the third quarter of 2012, according to Eurostat, and closer to 17 percent if “discouraged workers” are included. This is far below the more than 25 percent jobless rate in Greece and Spain but a serious problem nonetheless.

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7 Apps for Creepers

1. Sneakypix

Ever been waiting on the train platform, minding your business, only to glance to your left and find yourself face-to-face with a grown-up nose picker? In this day and age, our first inclination is to snap a discreet photo. Sneakypix makes it appear as if you’re on a phone call, but instead, aim your camera lens at the nasal aficionado and the app will fire off a series of stealth photos or video. Price: $ 0.99

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: Mom Gives Son a Christmas iPhone — With Strings Attached]

Do you have a smartphone? Then chances are you’ve been a creeper.

Now don’t get all defensive, just yet. How many times have you snapped a photo of some hipster’s pink beard on the subway? How often do you send racy pictures to your husband during his business trips? How many times have you wondered whether your teenager was smoking pot on the Williamsburg Bridge or visiting his grandma in Queens?

[More from Mashable: 9 Apps to Fast-Track Your New Years’ Resolutions]

While we’re not advocating sinister, paranoid behavior (take a hike, stalkers), sometimes it’s helpful and downright fun to act like James Bond. And it turns out, you don’t need all the slick gadgets to do it.

These seven iPhone and Android apps will get you started, secret agent-style.

But seriously, for the love of Carl, don’t do anything illegal. Mmm-kay?

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, klosfoto

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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No. 13 FSU beats No. 16 NIU 31-10 in Orange Bowl

MIAMI (AP) — Anxious to avoid an Orange Bowl shocker, the Florida State Seminoles kept getting tricked.

An onside kick fooled them, as did a fake punt, and a pooch punt by Northern Illinois' star quarterback.

But the final score was no surprise. Florida State had too much speed and depth for the Huskies and pulled away for a 31-10 victory Tuesday night.

Senior fullback Lonnie Pryor, voted the game's outstanding player, ran for a career-high 134 yards and two scores in only five carries. Senior EJ Manuel threw for 291 yards, while the Seminoles stuffed Huskies' QB and all-purpose threat Jordan Lynch for most of the night.

"We came out here and did what we had to do," Pryor said.

The victory was a consolation prize for the No. 13 Seminoles (12-2), who began the season with national championship hopes. They've won five consecutive bowl games, but the victory was their first in a BCS bowl since 2000, when they beat Virginia Tech for the national championship.

For 16th-ranked Northern Illinois (12-2), playing in a BCS bowl for the first time, the defeat snapped a 12-game winning streak. The Huskies came in as two-touchdown underdogs and fell to 5-28 against top 25 teams.

"We knew that they was going to play us tough," Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher said. "But our kids, it's another step in which we handled the big platform, and I'm very proud of them."

Pryor scored the first touchdown on a career-long 60-yard run, then ran 37 yards for a clinching touchdown with 10 minutes left. They were the two longest rushes allowed by Northern Illinois all season.

"I'm glad I'm a Nole, and I'm glad the seniors went out with a bang," Pryor said. "I always wanted to be MVP of a bowl, and I told myself that every time I get the ball, to try to make a big play."

Manuel went 26 for 38, threw for one score and ran for another.

"We just kept playing," he said. "Now we're going to enjoy ourselves."

The Huskies were widely derided as unworthy of a BCS bowl berth, and didn't do enough to silence the doubters. They were outgained 534 yards to 259.

The trick plays in the kicking game helped keep the Huskies close until the fourth quarter, but when it came to Lynch, not much fooled a Seminoles defense ranked second in the nation. And the Huskies' last attempt at razzle-dazzle backfired when receiver Da'Ron Brown lost a fumble on an end around at midfield, setting up Florida State's final touchdown.

Lynch came into the game leading the nation in rushing and total offense, and he threw or ran on nearly every play for the Huskies. But he completed only 15 of 41 attempts for 176 yards, and carried 23 times for 44 yards.

The junior became the first player in NCAA history to surpass 3,000 yards passing and 1,500 rushing in a season.

After the Huskies' lone touchdown cut their deficit to 17-10 in the third quarter, they recovered an onside kick, and Lynch moved them to the Florida State 23. But he was flushed from the pocket on third down and threw an ill-advised pass that Terrence Brooks intercepted.

The loss was Rod Carey's debut as the Huskies' coach. He was promoted to replace Dave Doeren, who took the North Carolina State job after the regular season. Doeren watched the game from the stands.

When Florida State dropped no one deep defending an early fourth-and-1 situation, Lynch pooched a 52-yard punt that rolled dead at the 5. The poor field position didn't faze the Seminoles, who scored in four plays, the last when Pryor broke into the clear near midfield and outran the Huskies' secondary.

With the Seminoles up only 7-3, Manuel moved them 82 yards in the final 3:57 of the first half for another touchdown with 11 seconds left. He threw on the move for a 6-yard score to Rashad Greene, who managed to get one foot inbounds before he tumbled out of the end zone.

Desroy Maxwell took a short snap on a fake punt on fourth and 3 and ran 35 yards to set up a field goal for the Huskies' first score, but their offense struggled to sustain anything. Lynch passed, ran or punted on 28 of 29 plays for Northern Illinois' offense in the first half, and the Seminoles were geared to stop him.

He finally got the Huskies going in the third quarter, when they mounted an 87-yard touchdown drive. He threw deep to Akeem Daniels for 55 yards, then hit Martel Moore for an 11-yard score.

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Ground Zero Volunteers Face Obstacles to Compensation

On the day the terrorists flew into the World Trade Center, the Wu-Tang Clan canceled its meeting with a record mixer named Richard Oliver, so Mr. Oliver rushed downtown from his Hell’s Kitchen apartment to help out.

He said he spent three sleepless days at ground zero, tossing body bags. “Then I went home, ate, crashed, woke up,” he said. He had left his Dr. Martens boots on the landing outside his apartment, where he said they “had rotted away.”

“That was kind of frightening,” he continued. “I was breathing that stuff.”

After the Sept. 11 attacks, nothing symbolized the city’s rallying around like many New Yorkers who helped at ground zero for days, weeks, months, without being asked. Now Mr. Oliver, suffering from back pain and a chronic sinus infection, is among scores of volunteers who have begun filing claims for compensation from a $2.8 billion fund that Congress created in 2010.

But proving they were there and eligible for the money is turning out to be its own forbidding task.

The other large classes of people who qualify — firefighters, police officers, contractors, city workers, residents and students — have it relatively simple, since they are more likely to have official work orders, attendance records and leases to back them up. But more than a decade later, many volunteers have only the sketchiest proof that they are eligible for the fund, which is expected to make its first awards early this year. (A separate $1.5 billion treatment fund also was created.)

They are volunteers like Terry Graves, now ill with lung cancer, who kept a few business cards of people she worked with until 2007, then threw them away. Or Jaime Hazan, a former Web designer with gastric reflux, chronically inflamed sinuses and asthma, who managed to dig up a photograph of himself at ground zero — taken from behind.

Or Mr. Oliver, who has a terse two-sentence thank-you note on American Red Cross letterhead, dated 2004, which does not meet the requirement that it be witnessed or sworn.

“For some people, there’s great records,” said Noah H. Kushlefsky, whose law firm, Kreindler & Kreindler, is representing volunteers and others who expect to make claims. “But in some respects, it was a little bit of a free-for-all. Other people went down there and joined the bucket brigade, talked their way in. It’s going to be harder for those people, and we do have clients like that.”

As documentation, the fund requires volunteers to have orders, instructions or confirmation of tasks they performed, or medical records created during the time they were in what is being called the exposure zone, including the area south of Canal Street, and areas where debris was being taken.

Failing that, it will be enough to submit two sworn statements — meaning the writer swears to its truth, under penalty of perjury — from witnesses describing when the volunteers were there and what they were doing.

Proving presence at the site might actually be harder than proving the illness is related to Sept. 11, since the rules now allow a host of ailments to be covered, including 50 kinds of cancer, despite an absence of evidence linking cancer to ground zero.

A study by the New York City health department, just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found no clear association between cancer and Sept. 11, though the researchers noted that some cancers take many years to develop.

Unlike the original compensation fund, administered by Kenneth Feinberg, which dealt mainly with people who were killed or maimed in the attack, “This one is dealing with injuries that are very common,” said Sheila L. Birnbaum, a former mediator and personal injury defense lawyer, who is in charge of the new fund. “So it’s sort of a very hard process from the fund’s point of view to make the right call, and it requires some evidence that people were actually there.”

Asked how closely the fund would scrutinize documents like sworn statements, Ms. Birnbaum said she understood how hard it was to recreate records after a decade, and was going on the basic assumption that people would be honest.

In his career as a record mixer, Mr. Oliver, 56, has been associated with 7 platinum and 11 gold records, and 2 Grammy credits, which now line the walls of his condominium in College Point, Queens. He said he first got wind of the Sept. 11 attacks from a client, the Wu-Tang Clan. “One of the main guys called me: ‘Did you see what’s on TV? Because our meeting ain’t going to happen,’ ” he recalled.

Having taken a hazmat course after high school, he called the Red Cross and was told they needed people like him. “I left my soon-to-be-ex-wife and 1-year-old son and went down,” he said. “I came back three days later,” after surviving on his own adrenaline, Little Debbie cakes handed out to volunteers and bottled water. After working for three days setting up a morgue, he was willing to go back, he said, but “they said we have trained people now, thank you very much for your service.”

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Used to Hardship, Latvia Accepts Austerity, and Its Pain Eases

RIGA, Latvia — When a credit-fueled economic boom turned to bust in this tiny Baltic nation in 2008, Didzis Krumins, who ran a small architectural company, fired his staff one by one and then shut down the business. He watched in dismay as Latvia’s misery deepened under a harsh austerity drive that scythed wages, jobs and state financing for schools and hospitals.

But instead of taking to the streets to protest the cuts, Mr. Krumins, whose newborn child, in the meantime, needed major surgery, bought a tractor and began hauling wood to heating plants that needed fuel. Then, as Latvia’s economy began to pull out of its nose-dive, he returned to architecture and today employs 15 people — five more than he had before. “We have a different mentality here,” he said.

Latvia, feted by fans of austerity as the country-that-can and an example for countries like Greece that can’t, has provided a rare boost to champions of the proposition that pain pays.

Hardship has long been common here — and still is. But in just four years, the country has gone from the European Union’s worst economic disaster zone to a model of what the International Monetary Fund hails as the healing properties of deep budget cuts. Latvia’s economy, after shriveling by more than 20 percent from its peak, grew by about 5 percent last year, making it the best performer in the 27-nation European Union. Its budget deficit is down sharply and exports are soaring.

“We are here to celebrate your achievements,” Christine Lagarde, the chief of the International Monetary Fund, told a conference in Riga, the capital, this past summer. The fund, which along with the European Union financed a $7.5 billion bailout for the country at the end of 2008, is “proud to have been part of Latvia’s success story,” she said.

When Latvia’s economy first crumbled, it wrestled with many of the same problems faced since by other troubled European nations: a growing hole in government finances, a banking crisis, falling competitiveness and big debts — though most of these were private rather than public as in Greece.

Now its abrupt turn for the better has put a spotlight on a ticklish question for those who look to orthodox economics for a solution to Europe’s wider economic woes: Instead of obeying any universal laws of economic gravity, do different people respond differently to the same forces?

Latvian businessmen applaud the government’s approach but doubt it would work elsewhere.

“Economics is not a science. Most of it is in people’s heads,” said Normunds Bergs, chief executive of SAF Tehnika, a manufacturer that cut management salaries by 30 percent. “Science says that water starts to boil at 100 degrees Celsius; there is no such predictability in economics.”

In Greece and Spain, cuts in salaries, jobs and state services have pushed tempers beyond the boiling point, with angry citizens staging frequent protests and strikes. Britain, Portugal, Italy and also Latvia’s neighbor Lithuania, meanwhile, have bubbled with discontent over austerity.

But in Latvia, where the government laid off a third of its civil servants, slashed wages for the rest and sharply reduced support for hospitals, people mostly accepted the bitter medicine. Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, who presided over the austerity, was re-elected, not thrown out of office, as many of his counterparts elsewhere have been.

The cuts calmed fears on financial markets that the country was about to go bankrupt, and this meant that the government and private companies could again get the loans they needed to stay afloat. At the same time, private businesses followed the government in slashing wages, which made the country’s labor force more competitive by reducing the prices of its goods. As exports grew, companies began to rehire workers.

Economic gains have still left 30.9 percent of Latvia’s population “severely materially deprived,” according to 2011 data released in December by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency, second only to Bulgaria. Unemployment has fallen from more than 20 percent in early 2010, but was still 14.2 percent in the third quarter of 2012, according to Eurostat, and closer to 17 percent if “discouraged workers” are included. This is far below the more than 25 percent jobless rate in Greece and Spain but a serious problem nonetheless.

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Clemson edges LSU 25-24 on last-second FG

ATLANTA (AP) — Chandler Catanzaro kicked a 37-yard field goal as time expired to give No. 14 Clemson a wild 25-24 win over No. 9 Louisiana State in the Chick-fil-A Bowl on Monday night.

Trailing 24-22, Clemson (11-2) took possession on its 20 with 1:39 remaining. Tajh Boyd completed a pass for 26 yards to DeAndre Hopkins on a fourth-and-16 play during the decisive 10-play drive.

Catanzaro's kick set off a wild celebration on the field and in the stands. Some players collapsed on the field in apparent disbelief while most of Clemson's orange jerseys met in a midfield circle.

Hopkins, who had 13 catches for 191 yards and two touchdowns, also had receptions for 7 and 13 yards in the final drive. LSU safety Greg Reid was flagged for pass interference while defending Hopkins.

Jeremy Hill ran for 124 yards and two touchdowns for LSU (10-3), which carried a 24-13 lead into the final quarter.

After Hopkins' second TD catch, LSU got the ball with 2:43 remaining and threw three straight passes. Only one was complete in the three-and-out series that took only about 1 minute off the clock, leaving Clemson with enough time for its winning drive against LSU's exhausted defense.

Hill did not have a carry in the fourth quarter. Zach Mettenberger was sacked six times.

"We had to throw the football," LSU coach Les Miles said.

"It's a tough thing to figure our pass protection was as poor as it was. That's the piece that needs fixing and frankly we've got some young players here we'll address and improve and make some strides going forward."

Boyd completed 36 of 50 passes for 346 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. He set career highs for attempts and completions while winning the game MVP award.

LSU scored 10 points off Clemson's two lost fumbles, including one by Sammy Watkins on the second play of the game that set up Hill's first touchdown.

Hopkins scored on an 11-yard reception in the second quarter and a 12-yard grab in the fourth. LSU's Bennie Logan blocked Catanzaro's extra point attempt following Hopkins' first touchdown.

Clemson had a chance to tie it after Hopkins' second TD, but Boyd's pass for the 2-point conversion was incomplete.

Michael Ford had a 43-yard kickoff return for LSU to open the second half. On first down, Hill broke through the line for a 57-yard touchdown run. His 12th rushing touchdown broke Dalton Hilliard's LSU record for a freshman set in 1982.

Clemson lost Watkins to a right ankle injury on his early fumble. Watkins, a wide receiver, took the handoff as a running back and fumbled when he was hit by defensive end Barkevious Mingo. Safety Craig Loston recovered at the Clemson 23.

LSU needed only two runs by Hill to move in front. His 17-yard scamper made it 7-0.

Watkins could not put pressure on his right foot as he was helped off the field and then driven to the locker room. Clemson announced X-rays were negative but Watkins would not return. No further details were released.

Clemson already was without backup receiver Martavis Bryant, who was suspended for the game for failing to meet academic requirements.

Clemson's second costly fumble came midway through the third quarter. Running back Andre Ellington ran for 8 yards but lost the ball when hit by defensive end Sam Montgomery. Reid recovered the fumble at the Clemson 29, setting up Drew Alleman's 20-yard field goal.

The injury to Watkins left the spotlight on Hopkins, Clemson's leading receiver. He had catches of 17 and 12 yards as Clemson pulled even with an 11-play drive capped by Boyd's 11-yard touchdown run.

After LSU regained the lead on Mettenberger's 6-yard touchdown pass to Jarvis Landry, Hopkins had a 31-yard catch to set up his 11-yard score late in the second quarter. Hopkins' sliding grab gave him TD receptions in 10 straight games to set an Atlantic Coast Conference record. Virginia's Herman Moore had touchdown catches in nine straight games in 1990.

Mettenberger completed 14 of 23 passes for 120 yards with an interception.

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U.S. Birthrate Dips, Especially for Hispanics

ORLANDO, Fla. — Hispanic women in the United States, who have generally had the highest fertility rates in the country, are choosing to have fewer children. Both immigrant and native-born Latinas had steeper birthrate declines from 2007 to 2010 than other groups, including non-Hispanic whites, blacks and Asians, a drop some demographers and sociologists attribute to changes in the views of many Hispanic women about motherhood.

As a result, in 2011, the American birthrate hit a record low, with 63 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, led by the decline in births to immigrant women. The national birthrate is now about half what it was during the baby boom years, when it peaked in 1957 at 122.7 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age.

The decline in birthrates was steepest among Mexican-American women and women who immigrated from Mexico, at 25.7 percent. This has reversed a trend in which immigrant mothers accounted for a rising share of births in the United States, according to a recent report by the Pew Research Center. In 2010, birthrates among all Hispanics reached their lowest level in 20 years, the center found.

The sudden drop-off, which coincided with the onset of the recession, suggests that attitudes have changed since the days when older generations of Latinos prized large families and more closely followed Roman Catholic teachings, which forbid artificial contraception.

Interviews with young Latinas, as well as reproductive health experts, show that the reasons for deciding to have fewer children are many, involving greater access to information about contraceptives and women’s health, as well as higher education.

When Marucci Guzman decided to marry Tom Beard here seven years ago, the idea of having a large family — a Guzman tradition back in Puerto Rico — was out of the question.

“We thought one, maybe two,” said Ms. Guzman Beard, who gave birth to a daughter, Attalai, four years ago.

Asked whether Attalai might ever get her wish for a little brother or sister, Ms. Guzman Beard, 29, a vice president at a public service organization, said: “I want to go to law school. I’m married. I work. When do I have time?”

The decisions were not made in a vacuum but amid a sputtering economy, which, interviewees said, weighed heavily on their minds.

Latinos suffered larger percentage declines in household wealth than white, black or Asian households from 2005 to 2009, and, according to the Pew report, their rates of poverty and unemployment also grew more sharply after the recession began.

Prolonged recessions do produce dips in the birthrate, but a drop as large as Latinos have experienced is atypical, said William H. Frey, a sociologist and demographer at the Brookings Institution. “It is surprising,” Mr. Frey said. “When you hear about a decrease in the birthrate, you don’t expect Latinos to be at the forefront of the trend.”

D’Vera Cohn, a senior writer at the Pew Research Center and an author of the report, said that in past recessions, when overall fertility dipped, “it bounced back over time when the economy got better.”

“If history repeats itself, that will happen again,” she said.

But to Mr. Frey, the decrease has signaled much about the aspirations of young Latinos to become full and permanent members of the upwardly mobile middle class, despite the challenges posed by the struggling economy.

Jersey Garcia, a 37-year-old public health worker in Miami, is in the first generation of her family to live permanently outside of the Dominican Republic, where her maternal and paternal grandmothers had a total of 27 children.

“I have two right now,” Ms. Garcia said. “It’s just a good number that I can handle.”

“Before, I probably would have been pressured to have more,” she added. “I think living in the United States, I don’t have family members close by to help me, and it takes a village to raise a child. So the feeling is, keep what you have right now.”

But that has not been easy. Even with health insurance, Ms. Garcia’s preferred method of long-term birth control, an IUD, has been unaffordable. Birth control pills, too, with a $50 co-payment a month, were too costly for her budget. “I couldn’t afford it,” she said. “So what I’ve been doing is condoms.”

According to research by the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, the overwhelming majority of Latinas have used contraception at some point in their lives, but they face economic barriers to consistent use. As a consequence, Latinas still experience unintended pregnancy at a rate higher than non-Hispanic whites, according to the institute.

And while the share of births to teenage mothers has dropped over the past two decades for all women, the highest share of births to teenage mothers is among native-born Hispanics.

“There are still a lot of barriers to information and access to contraception that exist,” said Jessica Gonzáles-Rojas, 36, the executive director of the institute, who has one son. “We still need to do a lot of work.”

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Big in 2012, but the Future Is Hazy for Bonds

The big story in the markets this year was not about stocks.

Stephanie Diani for The New York Times

While many see bonds fading in 2013, William Gross of Pimco, one of the biggest bond investors, is taking the opposite stance.

Americans sold off their stock mutual funds, the most popular way to invest in American companies, at the fastest clip since 2008, the year the financial crisis began. That occurred despite the fact that the stock market itself rose steadily; the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index ended the year up 13.4 percent.

Investors have been opting instead for the assumed safety of bonds. Money has been steadily flowing into mutual funds holding bonds of all sorts for the last four years, but the pace accelerated this year. The percentage of household investments in bonds shot up to 26 percent from 14 percent just five years ago, according to Morningstar.

Entering the new year, a growing number of professional investors are betting that the craze for bonds has gone too far, perhaps dangerously so, as has been evident in the headlines from the year-end reports from large investment firms. “Bond PAIN in 2013?” Wells Capital Management’s chief strategist asked. “Caution: Turn Ahead,” BlackRock analysts wrote. “The inflection year,” said Bank of America.

This is not the first time that analysts have forecast an end to the rally in bond values that has lasted for decades. But previously many of the voices predicting it were pessimists who believed that investors would sell off their bonds when they lost faith in the American government’s ability to pay back its bonds, forcing the government and many other bond issuers to pay higher interest rates. When interest rates rise, older bonds with lower interest rates are worth less.

While those previous forecasts have proved expensively wrong, this year the forecasters are being joined by many economic optimists who argue that a strengthening American economy is likely to make investors willing to embrace the risks involved in stocks, luring them out of bonds. The question, they say, is only how quickly it will happen.

“Mathematically, it’s next to impossible to get the kind of returns on bonds you’ve seen over the last few years,” said Kate Moore, the chief global equity strategist at Bank of America.

When the turn does ultimately come, it is likely to cause pain for at least some of the people who have been investing in bonds in recent years.

“You don’t want to be the last one out the door when the trends turn,” said Rebecca H. Patterson, the chief investment strategist at Bessemer Trust. “All good things come to an end and we want to make sure we’re in front of it.”

Most of the talk of investors shifting money from bonds into stocks relies first on the assumption that politicians in Washington are able to resolve the current impasse over the so-called fiscal cliff, the automatic spending cuts and tax increases that will go into effect if Congress and President Obama do not come to an agreement, and the coming debate over the nation’s debt ceiling. (Late Monday evening, the two sides crept closer to a deal, tentatively agreeing to raise taxes on incomes above $400,000.)

But a number of surveys suggest that professional investors are already starting to prepare for a shift. Hedge funds polled by Bank of America said that they had more of their portfolio allocated to stocks than at any time since 2006.

All but one of the 13 bank strategists tracked by Birinyi Associates expects stock markets to rise in 2013. When 2012 began, the same strategists were predicting a downturn in share prices. Even among mutual fund investors, there are signs that the flows out of stocks and into bonds have been slowing down recently.

The preference for bonds has already been costly for retail investors. Over the last year, most types of American bonds have returned less than an investment in the S.& P. 500. When inflation is factored in, the benchmark 10-year Treasury security is delivering negative returns.

But many investors are still rattled by the 2008 financial crisis and the turbulence in the stock markets since then, which have led to wild swings. Over the last five years, all major types of American bonds have done better than leading stock indexes.

The Federal Reserve has been engaged in an aggressive effort to buy bonds and drive down interest rates. The long term goal of that program is to encourage banks to lend money and to drive investors out of bonds. But in the meantime, falling interest rates have made bonds more attractive. The Fed has said it wants to keep rates low until 2015, though it could let them rise sooner if the economy picks up faster than expected. The 10-year Treasury hovered near 4 percent in recent years but has stayed below 2 percent for much of 2012.

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Afghan Army Deaths on the Rise

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan government has hit a grim record in its quest to take over the country’s security from coalition forces: more than 1,000 soldiers died in 2012, a roughly 20 percent increase from 2011.

Though the Afghan Army’s death rates have outstripped those for international forces in recent years, the new figures show the widest margin yet, as more and more Afghan units have taken the field. International forces were reported to have lost about 400 soldiers in 2012, the lowest number since 2008.

The progress of the Afghan National Army in being able to fight the insurgency is crucial to the international coalition’s exit strategy as the formal end of NATO combat operations looms in 2014. Afghan officials say that Afghan forces now plan and lead 80 percent of combat operations across the country. And as the army has filled out its ranks, the number of those killed has risen as well. Since 2008, the number of enlisted soldiers has nearly tripled, to 195,000.

Depending on how one reads the numbers, the latest figures can be both hopeful and troubling. Inasmuch as the uptick in deaths indicates a more active role for the army, the data is encouraging: Afghan-led operations would be expected to result in more Afghan casualties, after all. But for some, the statistics also raise questions about whether the army is ready to take over control of the country’s security.

“These high figures send a message to Afghans as well as the international community that the Afghan security forces are not ready to take over and that we will witness even more severe casualties in the next couple of years,” said Jawid Kohistani, a military analyst based in Kabul. “The only thing preventing the Taliban from taking over a district or a province or carrying out more audacious attacks is the presence of foreign forces who are equipped with modern and advanced technology.”

Progress has been uneven on numerous fronts. Accidents make up a significant number of the Afghan Army deaths. Almost no units can operate without assistance from coalition forces. And defections and low re-enlistment rates are also troubling — the government has to replace about a third of its troops every year.

Even the Defense Ministry acknowledged weaknesses when announcing the updated figures Sunday. Gen. Zahir Azimi, the ministry’s spokesman, said that poor equipment and training left soldiers exposed. Homemade bombs and mines caused about 85 percent of the deaths this year, a figure he said would come down with proper equipment. Intelligence gathering is also a weak spot for the national army.

“We are still heavily relying on foreigners for our intelligence,” he said. “We are hopeful that by the end of 2014 our army is equipped with intelligence capabilities and equipment.”

Among other concerns the government must consider while building the army is how to keep soldiers from being killed by the Taliban. In recent weeks, the Taliban have mounted a campaign to kidnap and kill soldiers who are on leave from their jobs. On Saturday, the Taliban killed a soldier returning from vacation to his base in Laghman Province.

“They take soldiers out of their homes and brutally execute them,” General Azimi said. “Can anyone see even a small bit of respect for human rights?”

But if the general sounded somewhat chastened by the task ahead, commanders on the ground struck a more upbeat note about the future.

“The army is getting better every day and our soldiers will not face any problem next year,” said Gen. Zamarai, commander of the second brigade of the Afghan National Army in Paktika Province, who uses only one name. “As the foreign forces leave, the army is filling the districts and bases, and so far we have managed to provide tight security for the residents of the province.”

Farooq Jan Mangal contributed reporting from Khost Province, Afghanistan.

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14 Solutions to Your New Year’s Midnight Kiss

Find a Baby

There’s got to be one crawling around somewhere. What’s cuter than kissing a baby’s fat cheek? Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

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[More from Mashable: Here’s a Depressing Look at Man’s Impact on Earth]

Do you find yourself in a panic every New Year’s Eve because everyone’s counting down and Billy Crystal has yet to explain all of the reasons why he’s madly in love with you?

No? Oh okay — me neither.

[More from Mashable: Watch the Scariest Skiing Lesson of All Time]

But the final holiday of the year can put a lot of unnecessary pressure on people. We want to end and begin each year with a bang — this often means the perfect outfit, an amazing soiree and the midnight kiss that will sweep you off your feet.

Instead of starting 2013 in a state of panic, then promising to be better later, enjoy New Year’s Eve and stop worrying about a silly superstition. We’ve come up with a couple solutions to the big smooch at the end of the night.

Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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