HOLLYWOOD - When "Gossip Girl" co-star Matthew Settle was a teenager growing up in Sevierville, he rebelled by cranking up the radio when he drove the church van.
"Part of that (driving) was to (give me the opportunity to) listen to rock music," says Settle, whose parents are conservative Christians who forbade him to listen to such songs. "The other reason was that I just wanted to drive the van."
Settle has come a long way since those days. He can be seen in the role of former rock star-turned-New York art dealer Rufus Humphrey in the CW hit series "Gossip Girl" (9 p.m. Wednesdays, WBXX, Channel 20).
The series, which premiered in September, has been a particular hit in the Knoxville area. Most weeks, its audience here rivals those in major cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.
The show centers on a group of high-school students attending a posh private school in Manhattan where reputation is everything. The lives of the students are highly dramatic and documented often on a Web site run by a shadowy figure simply known as Gossip Girl.
Rufus has two teenage children attending the private academy. They're middle-class kids and don't fit into this world filled with rich and privileged teenagers.
But Rufus makes sure his kids don't fall into their classmates' materialistic ways. There's none of that "do as I say, don't do as I do" stuff for Rufus. He is straight with his teenage children, Jenny (Taylor Momsen) and Dan (Penn Badgley), about what to expect out of life.
Like his character's kids facing class struggles in the school setting of "Gossip Girl," Settle has also been there and done that.
Reared in a household in which his father's meager salary as a minister kept the family fed, Settle attended Seymour Christian Academy, a private Christian school. His values may have melded with the other students', but he was surrounded by classmates whose families often had larger incomes.
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The Federal Reserve will probably cut interest rates today and lay the ground for more to prevent the economy from sliding into recession.
The Federal Open Market Committee will be loath to repeat language from its last meeting that risks between inflation and growth are ``roughly'' balanced, economists said. Keeping the phrase would open officials to criticism they're oblivious to the credit squeeze that's threatening growth.
``They pretty much tried to draw a line in the sand by going to a balanced-risks statement at the last meeting, and now the world's changed,'' said Keith Hembre, who used to work at the Fed and is now chief economist in Minneapolis at FAF Advisors Inc., which manages $105 billion. Officials will ``leave themselves the opening'' for further cuts, he said.
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is trying to steer through the housing recession that entered its third year and alleviate a jump in borrowing costs for companies and consumers. The FOMC will lower the benchmark rate by a quarter point to 4.25 percent, according to 113 of 123 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Seven anticipate a half-point move and three see no change.
Officials may also enhance their efforts at providing a backstop for bank funding amid a surge in demand for cash, some economists said. Options include reducing the charge for direct loans to banks by half a point, to 4.5 percent.
Most Since Recession
The Fed is scheduled to announce its decision at about 2:15 p.m. in Washington. A quarter point rate cut, after 0.75 percentage point of reductions in September and October, would mark the greatest easing of borrowing costs since the last recession in 2001.
Bernanke and Vice Chairman Donald Kohn recognized in speeches last month a deterioration in credit markets that jeopardizes lending to businesses and consumers, threatening spending. That was a shift from the Oct. 31 statement, when officials signaled they were reluctant to do more.
``The reality is, markets have gotten worse in a way they couldn't have expected, and they've gotten worse to a point where there are legitimate concerns that it will spill over to the macroeconomy,'' said Vincent Reinhart, who was Bernanke's chief staff adviser on monetary policy before leaving in September to join the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. ``Not acting would be too much of a surprise.''
Traders estimate a 26 percent chance of a half-point reduction today, with a quarter-point fully discounted, according to futures prices quoted on the Chicago Board of Trade.
Recession Calls
Economists including former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and the chief U.S. economists of Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch & Co. predicted a recession in the past month as strains in credit markets increased.
The collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market has led Citigroup Inc., Merrill and other banks and securities firms around the world to write down about $76 billion of losses and markdowns this year.
Concern about the mounting losses diminished banks' willingness to lend cash to each other, sending funding costs higher. The three-month dollar London Interbank Offered Rate climbed to as high as 65 basis points more than the Fed's benchmark rate last week. That's the widest spread, except for on Sept. 18 when the Fed cut rates, in seven years.
Yields on two-year Treasury notes dropped as low as 2.79 percent on Dec. 4, the lowest since November 2004, as investors flocked to the perceived safety of government debt.
Demand for Cash
The scarcity of cash comes at a time when banks typically conserve funds to buttress balance sheets before closing their books for the year.
The Fed's New York branch said Nov. 26 it planned a series of repurchase agreements extending into 2008 to help fill cash shortages. Stephen Cecchetti, a former New York Fed research chief, said officials may consider further steps, such as extending discount-rate loan terms to 90 days, from 30. The outstanding loans rose to the highest since September last week.
``If I backed myself into this position, I would grit my teeth and just cut, big time,'' said Cecchetti, who is now a professor at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Some Fed officials indicated heightened concern inflation would quicken, before Bernanke and Kohn spoke two weeks ago. Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser said Nov. 27 that price expectations may increase because of the rate cuts. Kansas City Fed Bank President Thomas Hoenig dissented in favor of unchanged rates at the Oct. 30-31 meeting.
U.K., Canada
Any attempt to signal that inflation and growth risks are similar would be out of step with the Bank of England and Bank of Canada, which highlighted concerns about financial markets when they cut rates last week. The U.K. central bank on Dec. 6 echoed its Canadian counterpart from two days before in citing ``downside'' risks to consumer prices.
``Inflation risks are present, but it is very hard to argue they are on par with growth risks,'' said Brian Sack, senior economist at Macroeconomic Advisers LLC in Washington and a former researcher at the Fed. ``We'll see a more flexible message, more attuned to the downside growth risks.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Scott Lanman in Washington at
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Country and western superstar Dolly Parton has infuriated a group of English local councillors by forcing them to delay their regular meeting when she visits this week.Parton is travelling to Rotherham in South Yorkshire to launch her children's literacy program, Imagination Library, on Wednesday.But some independent and Conservative councillors are outraged that Parton's visit will mean they have to delay by one hour a full meeting of Rotherham borough council so civic leaders can meet her."I'm boycotting the lunch and I am outraged that democracy is being put on hold because of a celebrity," independent councillor Tony Mannion told The Times."I have nothing against Dolly Parton. Not that I know much about her except that she sang 9 to 5."That's about the top and bottom of my knowledge. And I think the literacy scheme is a good idea."My objection is over the timing. We have vital business to discuss, for example the siting of a power station in the middle of a nature reserve. And we have few enough council meetings as it is."Mr Mannion said he believed Parton was invited to the town because the Labour-led council leader Roger Stone was quite partial to her country and western charms."I suppose my complaints will fall on deaf ears and that some might say it's a storm in D-cup, or double D-cup," Mr Mannion said."But it's the principle."
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HOLLYWOOD - When "Gossip Girl" co-star Matthew Settle was a teenager growing up in Sevierville, he rebelled by cranking up the radio when he drove the church van.
