Two million more expected to pay penalty under Obamacare

The Supreme Court ruled that the so-called individual mandate in President Obama's health care law was constitutional earlier this year.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Congress' official scorekeeper said Wednesday that roughly two million more Americans will pay penalties under President Obama's health care law for lacking insurance than had previously been estimated.

Under the law, Americans must be insured starting in 2014 or pay a penalty assessed on their tax returns.

Shortly after the legislation passed in 2010, the Congressional Budget Office, working alongside the Joint Committee on Taxation, estimated that in 2016 roughly four million people a year would opt to pay the penalty instead of getting coverage. On Wednesday, the CBO and JCT revised that figure up to six million, citing legislation passed since 2010 as well as the weaker economic outlook.

The groups also pointed to the Supreme Court's decision earlier this year to make the health care law's expansion of Medicaid optional for states.

Of those people who opt for the penalty, 10% are projected to be below the federal poverty level for 2016, which the CBO and JCT estimate will stand at about $12,000 for an individual or $24,600 for a family of four.

Related: How health insurance mandate will work

In 2014, the penalty will be no more than $285 per family, or 1% of income, whichever is greater. In 2015, the cap rises to $975, or 2% of income. And by 2016, it reaches $2,085 per family, or 2.5% of income, whichever is greater.

The dollar amounts for a single adult would be $95, $325 and $695 during that same time period.

Roughly 30 million non-elderly Americans are projected to remain uninsured in 2016, though most will not be subject to the penalty tax. For instance, the penalty will be waived for people with very low incomes who don't have to file tax returns, those who are members of certain religious groups, or people who face insurance premiums that would exceed 8% of family income even after including employer contributions and federal subsidies.

Penalty payments collected in 2016 are expected to total $7 billion, about $3 billion more than previously estimated.

First Published: September 19, 2012: 7:24 PM ET

20 Sep, 2012

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2011 seafood catch largest in nearly two decades

U.S. fishermen caught more than 10 billion pounds of fish and shellfish last year.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- U.S. fishermen recorded their largest catch since 1994 last year, according to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The agency said Wednesday that American commercial fishermen landed 10.1 billion pounds of fish and shellfish in 2011, a haul valued at $5.3 billion. That's an increase of 1.9 billion pounds and more than $784 million from 2010.

Christine Patrick, a spokeswoman for the NOAA, said the strengthening of the federal law on fisheries management in 2006 had been key to improving volumes. She also credited improvement in real-time monitoring systems that allow fishermen to stay within catch limits.

Related: U.S. drought drives up food prices worldwide

Yet even with the improved catch last year, the U.S. still imported about 91% of the seafood consumed in the country in 2011, the report said.

Globally, seafood trade volumes and values hit new highs in 2011, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. These totals are expected to continue rising, with developing countries accounting for the bulk of world exports, the organization said.

The U.S. was responsible for roughly 3% of the global seafood catch in 2010, trailing China at 35%, India at 6% and Indonesia at 5%, the NOAA said.

First Published: September 19, 2012: 6:21 PM ET

20 Sep, 2012

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Chase's website slowed by glitches

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Chase's website was slow and unavailable for some users for several hours on Wednesday, one day after Bank of America experienced similar issues.

Around 1:40 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Chase's Twitter account tweeted: "Chase.com is experiencing intermittent issues. We're working to restore full connectivity & apologize for any inconvenience." Chase spokesman Patrick Linehan repeated a similar statement, and declined to comment further on the reason for the problems.

Chase's site issues broke out just as Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) was recovering from its own intermittent slowness. Bank of America didn't reveal the cause of its glitches, but both banks recently rolled out changes to their website that could have inadvertently caused a problem.

On blogs and Twitter, some hacker groups were claiming responsibility for the issues at both banks. The problems at both banks began soon after one group posted messages on Pastebin calling for attacks on the banks' sites. The website of the New York Stock Exchange, also mentioned as a target in Tuesday's message, did not suffer any apparent outages.

The favorite weapon for these kinds of cyberattacks is a "distributed denial of service" (DDoS) attack, which directs a flood of traffic to a website and temporarily crashes it by overwhelming its servers. It doesn't actually involve any hacking or security breaches. A DDoS attack would typically cause the type of slowness and intermittent unavailability that both Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) and Bank of America experienced this week.

But there was no immediate evidence to support the hackers' claims, and several recent ones turned out to be hoaxes. Earlier this month, a person affiliated with the hacktivist collective Anonymous said the group took down the web hosting service GoDaddy, and in June the group UGNazi claimed responsibility for downing Twitter. Both outages were later revealed to be technical issues.

"I can assure you we continuously take proactive measures to secure our systems," Bank of America's spokesman said on Tuesday in response to a question about whether the company had seen any signs of a cyberattack. Chase's spokesman declined to comment about the issue.

First Published: September 19, 2012: 6:03 PM ET

20 Sep, 2012

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Online poker exec pleads guilty in money laundering case

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- A former online poker executive has pleaded guilty to laundering illegal gambling proceeds for the popular gaming sites Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker, federal officials announced Wednesday.

Nelson Burtnick, 41, admitted that while serving as director of payments first at Pokerstars and then at Full Tilt, he helped deceive banks into processing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gambling transactions in violation of federal law, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement.

The U.S. operations of Pokerstars and Full Tilt were shuttered last year after the companies were indicted on charges of bank fraud and money laundering. In July, the Justice Department announced a $731 million settlement with the firms to resolve the allegations. Full Tilt also settled allegations that it had operated a Ponzi scheme, failing to maintain sufficient funds on deposit for players to withdraw.

Under the settlement, Full Tilt agreed to forfeit virtually of all its assets to the government, with Pokerstars agreeing to acquire them and to repay Full Tilt players still owed money.

Burtnick, a Canadian national and resident of Ireland, faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. His attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Five other defendants in the case have also pleaded guilty, with charges still pending against ex-Full Tilt CEO Raymond Bitar.

First Published: September 19, 2012: 4:56 PM ET

20 Sep, 2012

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Fewer people have terrible credit scores

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- As more people cut back on taking on new debt and others ditch credit altogether, fewer are ending up with rock-bottom credit scores.

Compared to last year, about 1.4 million fewer people are now in the lowest FICO scoring range, according to new data from FICO (FICO), the most widely-used credit scoring metric. This year, just 14.2% of consumers fall into the 300 to 549 score range.

The number of people in this bottom range has also dropped since 2005, when FICO began tracking annual score distribution data. Back then 800,000 more consumers received scores in the lowest range.

There are likely a couple reasons for this decline, said Rachel Bell, a senior director at FICO. Many people who had high debt loads and bad credit before the recession have buckled down and have become more cautious since the financial crisis hit, so their scores have actually improved.

Related: You have 49 FICO scores

Others had such low scores that, when the recession came, creditors became even less likely to lend to them and they gave up trying to maintain and access credit. Since the financial crisis, they have either been cut off from existing credit lines, denied new credit or they simply chose to stay away from credit. And when there's no new credit data on file, FICO stops generating new scores for them -- so they basically fall off the credit map.

Many of the people who were in this bottom range had major credit problems in the past, like bankruptcies, defaults and high levels of debt, said Bell.

And after dropping out of the credit market, many often use debit cards, and some resort to payday lenders and other untraditional ways of getting credit that aren't reflected in FICO scores, said Bell.

On the other side of the spectrum, a growing number of people are boasting nearly-perfect or perfect scores. The number of consumers with FICO scores between 800 and 850 has increased by about 1.4 million people since 2010, with 18.6% of consumers now receiving scores in this range.

Related: 10 million U.S. households don't have bank accounts

During the recession, many consumers pulled in the reins on spending and borrowing instead of returning to their pre-recession habits, said Bell. This group has remained very cautious in recent years and many have shied away from taking out new credit.

"The economy is still uncertain ... so these people are not overextending themselves, and they're continuing to increase their scores," said Bell.

For the consumers with poor credit, Bell said it's important to realize that they can eventually get to this highest credit score rung, too.

"Even if you have a low score, all hope is not lost -- you can correct it by being very careful with credit," she said. Start by paying your bills on time and keeping your balances low by only taking out credit you absolutely need, she said.

First Published: September 19, 2012: 4:29 PM ET

20 Sep, 2012

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Groupon launches credit-card payments service

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Groupon is throwing down hard in the mobile payment space, with a guarantee that its new Payments service is "the lowest-cost option" for merchants who run a daily deal with the company.

Groupon Payments, which is available through an app for the company's merchants, is the latest entry in the white-hot mobile payments field. Groupon's rate is 1.8% plus 15 cents per swiped transaction for MasterCard (MA, Fortune 500), Visa (V, Fortune 500) and Discover (DFS, Fortune 500) cards. For American Express (AXP, Fortune 500), it's 3% plus 15 cents per transaction.

That's a pretty sweet deal for retailers. The swipe fees that credit cards typically charge can vary from one small business to another, but they usually fall between 2-4% of the transaction. Shares of Groupon (GRPN) were up more than 7% in midday trading after the announcement. The deal is available to U.S. merchants only, for now.

Can Groupon actually make money on this arrangement, or is it a loss-leader intended to grow the company's discounts business? The company didn't say in its Groupon Payments announcement and didn't respond to a call seeking comment.

In some cases, Groupon Payments severely undercuts even low-cost competitors like Square. The startup, backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, lets small business swipe credit cards through a tiny device that attaches to a phone. Square offers two plans for businesses: pay one flat fee of $275 per month, or pay 2.75% per swipe. eBay (EBAY, Fortune 500)-owned PayPal charges 2.7% per swipe.

Square, which has raised more than $200 million in funding and is valued at more than $3.2 billion, is just one of the companies trying to lead the fast-growing mobile payments space. The list also includes Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), which is pushing its Wallet service, and financial services companies like VeriFone (PAY) and NCR (NCR, Fortune 500).

Though Groupon Payments is designed for businesses that run daily deals through the company, a temporary pilot program for non-Groupon merchants offers rates of 2.2% for most cards (3% for American Express) plus 15 cents per swipe.

First Published: September 19, 2012: 2:01 PM ET

20 Sep, 2012

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Richest 400 Americans get richer

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates rank first and second on Forbes' list of the 400 richest Americans.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The rich got quite a bit richer this past year, according to this year's rankings of the 400 wealthiest Americans.

Forbes magazine released its annual list on Wednesday, and the combined net worth jumped 13% to $1.7 trillion in 2012, up from $1.5 trillion in 2011. The boost came thanks to the rising stock market and a rebound in real estate values - especially in cities like Los Angeles and New York.

Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) founder Bill Gates remained at the top of the list, as his net worth rose $7 billion to $66 billion. His pal Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA, Fortune 500), also saw his net worth climb by $7 billion, which helped him retain the number two spot on the list with $46 billion. Together, Gates and Buffett have led an effort to get fellow billionaires to donate much of their wealth to charity.

Another software mogul, Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500) CEO Larry Ellison, enjoyed the biggest increase in wealth of anyone on the list -- a jump of $8 billion. That put his net worth at $41 billion, ranking him No. 3 on the list.

Related: The wealthy are 228 times richer than you

The average net worth of a member of the Forbes 400 hit $4.2 billion. That's the highest level it's been in at least a decade, according to the magazine, and up from $3.8 billion last year. The net worth cut off to make the list this year was $1.1 billion, up from $1.05 billion in 2011.

Forbes said that 241 members of the 400 enjoyed an increase in their net worth, while only 66 members suffered a decline. Among those who fell out of the top 10 were two politically active billionaires. Liberal George Soros fell to No. 15 on the list. Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who has given a combined $25 million to the super PACs supporting Newt Gingrich and later Mitt Romney, fell to No. 12 on the list. Both saw a steep drop in the value of their investments.

First Published: September 19, 2012: 1:30 PM ET

20 Sep, 2012

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Tourism on pace to set a record in 2012

Tourism is on pace to set a record in 2012, despite the sluggish economy.

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) -- The economic recovery remains sluggish, but that isn't stopping tourists from visiting the United States.

Tourism is on pace to set a record in 2012, as tourism and related sales increased by 2.1% in the second quarter, after a 4.9% increase in the first quarter, according to a Wednesday report from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Travel and tourism-related activities also increased, on average, more than $1.1 billion a month during the first seven months of 2012, the agency reported separately.

"The travel data released today shows that tourism remains one of the bright spots in our economy, and the travel and tourism industry is on pace to reach record export levels this year," said acting U.S. Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank.

Tourism has been strong for the past several years, especially when compared to other economic benchmarks.

The Obama administration trumpeted the news, crediting the president's directive to speed up the visa process. The State Department reported that 85% of visa applicants were now being interviewed within three weeks of submitting their applications, compared to 57% in July 2011.

Related: 5 best travel deals

But analysts credit a long-term drop in the dollar's value as the main lure for foreign travelers.

"When the dollar's competitive, it makes the spending power of visitors from other countries coming to the United States stretch further," said David Huether, senior vice president of economics and research at the U.S. Travel Association, a trade group.

The travel industry's growth is responsible for 12% of the economy's overall export gains so far in 2012, as opposed to 6% in 2011, Huether said. When foreign tourists buy goods in the United States and bring them back home, it's considered an export.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a group of Washington economists that tourism is at record highs in New York, due in part to his efforts to expand tourism offices in 18 countries. In 2011, 10.6 million tourists visited New York City from foreign countries, up from 6.8 million in 2000. Bloomberg said that the tourism increase had created thousands of jobs for the city.

First Published: September 19, 2012: 1:27 PM ET

20 Sep, 2012

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Asia's millionaires outnumber those in North America

The number of ultra-wealthy people in the Asia-Pacific region is now larger than in North America.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- For the first time ever, there are now more millionaires in Asia than in North America, driven by growth in China and Japan.

There were 3.37 million high-net-worth individuals in the Asia-Pacific region in 2011, according to a report out Wednesday from Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management. That's an increase of 1.6% from 2010. By comparison, there are 3.35 million high-net-worth individuals in North America.

The population of high-net-worth Asians - defined as having at least $1 million in investable income - also exceeded the number of ultra-wealthy Europeans for a second straight year.

But even as the number of Asian millionaires has increased, the total level of investable wealth in the region actually declined by 1.1%, to $10.7 trillion in 2011. This was due to several factors, including inflation, slowing economic growth and reduced demand for Asian goods and services from the stagnant European economy.

Related: Americans see China as economic threat

North America still holds the world's largest collective pile of investable wealth: $11.4 trillion, which is actually down 2.3% from 2010.

Some 54.1% of high-net-worth individuals in the Asia-Pacific region are in Japan, which is still recovering from last year's catastrophic earthquake-tsunami-nuclear meltdown. The report described the wealthy Japanese as conservative investors, "holding high levels of cash, fixed income and real estate."

The Japanese are trailed by the Chinese, and then the Australians, who boast the second and third largest populations of high net worth individuals in the Asia-Pacific region. Thailand and Indonesia also saw rapid gains in their wealthy populations.

Related: U.S. companies betting big in China

Singapore and Hong Kong are reaping their own benefits from the region's increase in wealth. Thanks to their favorable tax rates, they are becoming what the report calls "offshore wealth centers," where Asian millionaires are funneling their funds.

Having said that, Switzerland still holds its traditional post as offshore capital of the world, according to the report. It currently holds a quarter of the globe's assets under management, even though the country has come under closer scrutiny from international regulators in recent years.

First Published: September 19, 2012: 12:18 PM ET

20 Sep, 2012

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Stocks stuck in a rut

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Stocks opened little changed Wednesday, in the wake of weak U.S. housing data.

Investors have been cautious over the past week or so as they watch central banks around the world do what they can to fuel economic growth.

The S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq traded on either side of the breakeven line following a report that showed housing starts grew at a slower pace than expected in August, and building permits dipped.

The housing market had been showing signs of improvement but Wednesday's latest report showed just how much still needs to be done.

At 10 a.m. ET, the National Association of Realtors will release data on existing home sales for August, which are expected to have reached an annual rate of 4.58 million.

Ahead of the housing data, the Bank of Japan said it would expand its asset purchase program by ¥10 trillion to about ¥80 trillion to boost its slowing economy.

The news pushed Asian stocks higher. The Shanghai Composite ended up 0.4%, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong and Japan's Nikkei each gained 1.2%.

Central bankers around the world have been stepping up their stimulus plans to help fuel the global economy. Just last week, the Federal Reserve said it would buy $40 billion worth of mortgage backed securities a month. That came after the European Central Bank revealed its new bond-buying program.

All of those moves have pushed up the euro to a five-month high against the U.S. dollar. The yen initially rallied on the back of Japan's central bank announcement. And gold prices, used as a hedge against inflation, soared to a nearly seven-month high on the BoJ announcement, before pulling back after the housing report. And oil prices traded lower for the third day in a row, falling to $93 a barrel after being close to $100 just a week ago.

European stocks also initially popped on the BoJ news, but ongoing worries about Europe's debt crisis muted the enthusiasm.

Britain's FTSE 100, France's CAC 40 and the DAX in Germany edged 0.1% higher.

Related: Bank of Japan announces new stimulus

U.S. stocks closed little changed Tuesday, following more signs of a global slowdown and renewed concern over Europe's debt crisis.

Fear & Greed Index

Companies: General Mills (GIS, Fortune 500)shares rose 2% after the food producer reported quarterly earnings of 66 cents per share, slightly beating expectations.

AutoZone (AZO, Fortune 500) reported better-than-expected earnings but same-store sales fell below forecasts, pushing the company's stock 4% lower.

Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY, Fortune 500) will report after the close.

Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) shares rose 1%, after the company announced Tuesday that it would return to shareholders most of the proceeds from selling a portion of its stake in China's Alibaba.

Bonds: The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury rose, pushing the yield down to 1.77% from 1.81% late Tuesday.

First Published: September 19, 2012: 9:58 AM ET

19 Sep, 2012

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