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Disclosure forms filed this week with the Federal Election Commission confirmed what has long been expected: Individuals and corporations are using new outside expenditure groups to influence political campaigns in a big way.

And they’re not being shy about it.

The filings offered a look at the donors behind pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future, which spent much of the last week buying advertisements designed to derail Newt Gingrich’s campaign in Florida.

The filing reveals that 22 corporations and 38 individuals made donations of at least $100,000 to the group, which reported cash-on-hand of $23.6 million — more than the Romney campaign itself.

"It’s a huge sum," said John Dunbar, the managing editor for politics at the Center for Public Integrity. "The amounts are breathtaking. It would take you forever to raise that money $2,500 at a time."

The donor list is littered with Wall Street and Washington power players. Three hedge fund titans — Robert Mercer, Julian Robertson and Paul Singer — gave $1 million each.

Bob Perry, a major backer of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, gave $500,000.

And that’s just one super PAC.

The very existence of super PACs is new this cycle, a result of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, which placed individuals and corporations on equal "free speech" footing when it comes to independent campaign spending.

Armed with the ability to accept unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and individuals, super PACs are now spending big bucks to overtly advocate for or against political candidates.

"One hundred thousands dollars is nothing now — $1 million is the new $100,000," Dunbar said.

The filings also underscore how one wealthy donor can exert influence over the political process — while keeping their name off disclosure forms for a limited time. (Where the money is: A campaign spending primer)

For example, sources have confirmed to CNN that casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam have given a total of $10 million to a super PAC that supports Gingrich.

Dunbar said those funds are "single-handedly keeping Newt alive." But since both donations occurred in January, they were not listed on the group’s year-end disclosure forms.

The new rules are undoubtedly changing the world of campaign finance, but political parties and actors are responding in different ways.

The FEC documents reveal that Democrats are placing far less emphasis on fundraising through super PACs, or at least they haven’t been as successful as their rivals.

Instead, Democrats have put an early focus on building momentum for the giant, online fundraising machine that brought the Obama campaign so much success in 2008 guaranteed online payday loans.

President Obama raised $68 million from 583,000 donors in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to a campaign official.

Obama is also relying on approximately four hundred big "bundlers" who gather and package donations for the campaign.

For example, longtime Democrat and Dreamworks () co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg raised half a million dollars, as did Vogue editor Anna Wintour. Hedge fund and Wall Street types are also well represented.

It’s still a successful strategy, as the Obama campaign has been able to raise and hold onto more cash than any of the Republican contenders.

Campaign finance the Stephen Colbert way

But their fundraising advantage may be slipping, as Democratic super PACs have fallen far behind their cross-party rivals.

Dunbar said Democrats are "going to get smoked" on the super PAC side, a claim that is backed by the numbers. Priorities USA Action, a super PAC founded by two ex-White House aides, reported only $1.5 million cash on hand.

A larger coalition of Democratic groups, including Priorities USA, reported raising a total of $19 million.

"The Republican groups are going to raise tons of money through super PACs and non-profits," Dunbar said. "And Democrats are going to raise extraordinary sums through the traditional channels."

Many analysts believe fundraising for Democratic super PACs will pick up once Republicans coalesce around a nominee — something that should enliven the Democratic base.

"Democrats aren’t engaged right now," Dunbar said. "It’s theater for them. Once we get closer back to an actual election we’ll certainly see a lot more movement."

Of course, while some super PACs listed donors and fundraising totals on Tuesday, other groups — like Crossroads GPS, a 501(c)(4) advised by Karl Rove and Haley Barbour — are not required to disclose their donors.

Crossroads GPS said it raised a total of $32.6 million in 2011.

"Those guys are jamming," Dunbar said. "They’re not taking a break. You can only give $30,800 to a political party. I can give $50 million to Crossroads GPS."

Even with total fundraising outpacing the previous cycle by a healthy margin, some Democrats — including top campaign officials — have tried to play down the idea that the Obama campaign might be able to raise $1 billion.

"That’s kind of comical," Dunbar said. "Who cares what they think? Of course a billion is possible. It might even be probable." 

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The China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said its index of purchasing managers’ sentiment rose to 50.5 last month, up 0.2 point from December. Any reading above 50 indicates expansion in manufacturing.

The government agency said higher prices for raw materials drove much of the increase, with smaller gains in production and new orders.

However, HSBC’s final reading of purchasing managers’ sentiment for January was 48.8, up 0.1 point from December but still indicating contraction in the sector.

HSBC said output and new business fell in the month, leading to companies reducing their purchasing. The report also said producer costs continued to decline business cards design.

"This calls for more aggressive easing measures to support growth and employment, given that inflation is no longer a concern," wrote HSBC analysts Sun Junwei and Qu Hongbin, in their global research report.

Chinese auto parts could spark trade fight

The analysts project more weakness ahead.

"China’s manufacturing sectors are set to slow further into the first quarter of this year, due to headwinds from external markets and still weak domestic demand," they said.

The analysts didn’t put too much stock into "recent signs" suggesting strength in demand in domestic consumption, because that was probably a temporary blip in spending ahead of the Chinese New Year. 

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“We want to tackle the challenges we face by doing more together and doing it better, by looking for greater efficiencies and value for money (and) by pooling and sharing of military capabilities,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.

“This is the only pragmatic way forward given the growing demand for the European Union to become a more capable, coherent and strategic global actor,” said Ashton, who is also responsible for the bloc’s security policy.

The EU’s 27 governments spend euro200 billion ($265 billion) on defense annually _ more than any other nation except the United States. But military spending has already shrunk 15 percent in the past decade and is set to plunge further as part of the austerity measures implemented by many European governments to cope with the continent’s debt crisis.

Making matters worse for European armies, the fragmentation of national military commands and defense industries has made it almost impossible to achieve economies of scale in purchasing military equipment. As a result, forces from EU nations which have operated in the Middle East, Asia and Africa in the past decade have relied heavily on the United States for logistical, intelligence and other support.

European nations taking part in last year’s NATO-led bombing of Libya ran out of smart munitions just weeks into the seven-month operation. Their air forces also had to call on the U.S. military for air transport, air-to-air refueling and targeting intelligence.

Complicating matters further for Europe’s defense planners, earlier this month the Obama administration announced a new military strategy that includes a shift away from the Cold War-era focus on Europe.

Instead, U.S. military capabilities will in the future concentrate on Asian security risks such as China and North Korea, and build on partnerships in the Middle East to keep an eye on Iran. As a result, the Pentagon will withdraw two of America’s four combat brigades still based in Europe.

“President Obama has announced sharp cuts and shift of focus to Middle East and Asia … so now the tempo of European cooperation has to accelerate,” said Claude-France Arnould, who heads the EU’s defense agency.

She said support functions such as the joint maintenance of aircraft and training of air crews can deliver quick savings.

The European Defense Agency also is working on a number of programs to address deficiencies identified during the war in Libya, including improving the performance of air tanker fleets, standardizing the procurement of smart munitions, and developing common intelligence and reconnaissance capabilities.

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The world’s largest biotech company said its net income was $934 million, or $1.08 per share, down from $1.02 billion, also $1.08 per share, a year earlier.

Excluding one-time items, Amgen said it earned $1.04 billion, or $1.21 per share, down 6 percent from $1.1 billion, or $1.17 per share, in 2010’s fourth quarter. Its adjusted income excluded costs for severance payments, stock options, expenses related to selling a manufacturing plant and amortization of product technology rights acquired in a prior year.

The company’s quarterly revenue rose 3 percent to $3.97 billion from $3.84 billion.

Analysts on average expected adjusted earnings of $1.22 per share and revenue of $3.92 billion for the fourth quarter, according to FactSet.

“We exited 2011 with good momentum, and the outlook for 2012 is even stronger,” CEO Kevin Sharer, who is stepping down in May, said in a prepared statement.

Amgen said it expects to earn $5.90 to $6.15 per share for 2012, excluding one-time items, and it forecast revenue of about $16.3 billion. Analysts were expecting $5.97 per share in adjusted earnings and $16.06 billion in revenue for the year.

Sales of Neulasta and Neupogen, for treating a decline of infection-fighting white blood cells caused by cancer and other disorders, rose in the U.S. but fell slightly in other markets. They brought in a total of $998 million and $321 million, respectively.

Earlier Thursday, the maker of biologic drugs for cancer and blood disorders said it plans to buy cancer therapy developer Micromet Inc. for $1.16 billion in cash to boost its oncology pipeline. Founded in Germany and based in Rockville, Md., Micromet is developing an experimental antibody-based drug, blinatumomab. It’s currently in mid-stage testing to treat leukemia and in clinical development for the treatment of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The purchase is Amgen’s largest since it bought BioVex Group last year in a deal worth up to $1 billion, including milestone payments.

For the full year, Amgen reported net income of $3.68 billion, or $4.04 per share, down 20 percent from $4.63 billion, or $4.79 per share in 2010. Adjusted income was $4.86 billion, or $5.33 per share, down 3 percent from $5.02 billion, or $5.21 per share. Revenue was up 3 percent to $15.58 billion, from $15.05 billion.

Analysts were expecting adjusted income of $5.33 per share on average and revenue of $15.51 billion.

Amgen shares rose 67 cents following the after-hours report. They ended regular trading Thursday down $1.13, or 1.6 percent, at $68.08.

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For the first time, the device that changed how people use mobile phones accounts for more than half of the behemoth company’s sales.

Apple Inc. on Tuesday said it sold 37 million iPhones in the last three months of 2011, vastly exceeding analyst estimates and propelling the company to record quarterly results.

The phone accounted for 53 percent of Apple’s revenue in the quarter. Though it has other hit products, like MacBooks and the iPad, they can’t keep up with the iPhone, whose sales more than doubled over last year from an already high level. The sales mean Apple is set to regain the position it briefly held earlier last year of being the largest maker of smartphones.

October saw Apple launching the iPhone 4S in the U.S. and some other countries. The phone was delayed for a few months, which meant that Apple’s results for the July-to-September quarter were uncharacteristically tepid.

It came back with a vengeance in the holiday season. On Tuesday, Apple said net income in its first quarter, which ended Dec. 31, was $13.06 billion, or $13.87 per share, up 118 percent from $6 billion, or $6.43 per share, a year ago. Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting earnings of $10.04 per share.

Revenue was $46.33 billion, up 73 percent from a year ago. Analysts were expecting $38.9 billion.

The Cupertino, Calif., company shipped 15.4 million iPads in the quarter, again more than doubling sales over the same quarter last year. The November launching of Amazon.com Inc.’s $199 Kindle Fire tablet didn’t appear to put much of a dent in the iPad’s sales, as some analysts predicted it would.

Apple shares rose $33.03, or 7.9 percent, to $453.53 in extended trading, after the release of the results.

Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said the company expects earnings of $8.50 per share in the current quarter, and sales of $32.5 billion. Both figures are above the average estimate of analysts polled by FactSet, even though Apple usually low-balls its estimates.

More earnings, A11

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Negotiations with the banks and other investment firms to reduce Greece’s debt by some euro100 billion ($129 billion) hit an impasse over the weekend, even though time to avoid a potentially disastrous default is running low.

Under the deal, private creditors would swap their old Greek bonds for ones with a 50 percent lower face value. The new bonds would also have much longer maturities, pushing repayments decades into the future, and a much lower interest rate than Greece would currently have to pay on the market.

The Greek government and representatives for the private creditors are moving closer to a final deal _ the mood in financial markets was upbeat on Monday, with the euro, stocks and bonds all rising.

But the issues that need to be resolved _ above all, the interest rates on the new bonds _ are crucial for the deal to be effective.

If the interest rate is too high, a second, euro130 billion ($168 billion) bailout for Greece may not be enough to put the country back on its feet. Several eurozone states and the International Monetary Fund would have to provide more loans, but they are unwilling to do so.

It’s clear that Greece needs some form of deal _ it faces a euro14.5 billion ($19 billion) bond repayment on March 20, which it will be unable to afford if the bond swap doesn’t go through.

As that deadline nears, Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager warned that bondholders may be forced to take losses if not enough of them agree to cut their holdings voluntarily.

“We’ve never pushed for a default, but we’ve never said it (a restructuring) must be voluntary,” de Jager said as he arrived for a meeting with his eurozone counterparts in Brussels. “Our goal is a sustainable debt. It has our preference if it’s voluntary, but it’s not a precondition for us.”

His comments illustrate that Greece’s bailout rescuers, the euro partners and the IMF, may have hit a wall in their effort to get private creditors to bear the cost of saving the country. They need Greece’s debt to be reduced to a sustainable level so the country can start focusing on getting its economy to grow again and eventually repay billions in rescue loans.

But the kind of losses that are necessary for that are likely too high to get enough bondholders to participate voluntarily _ especially hedge funds and other high-risk investors who bought their bonds at an already low price or stand to profit from default insurance they hold.

A forced restructuring would likely trigger payouts on so-called credit default swaps _ a derivative contract traded between banks and other investment firms that want to hedge against potential defaults. Because the market in CDS is obscure _ with no clear data on who would owe whom how much _ the eurozone fears that a payout could lead to turmoil on financial markets similar to what happened after the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008.

Although officials, including the French and Greek finance ministers, insisted that a deal was in the making, few expected a final agreement ahead of a key summit of EU leaders next Monday. De Jager suggested that negotiations may even drag on beyond that.

The debt writedown is a key part of Greece’s second international bailout, tentatively agreed in October. Since May 2010, the country has been surviving on a first euro110 billion ($142 billion) batch of rescue loans agreed on condition of deep spending cuts and sweeping public sector reforms.

Later Monday, ministers will also seek to put the finishing touches on their permanent bailout fund _ the euro500 billion European Stability Mechanism _ which is supposed to come into force later this year. They will also discuss a new intergovernmental treaty designed to keep eurozone countries from overspending.

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Across their ranks, Wall Street banks are curbing bonus pay for last year’s performance, which was marked by big drops in stock prices and still-hefty costs for mortgage-related problems. In the last three months of the year, fear about the European debt crisis made the stock and bond markets volatile, and clients of all the major banks shied away from mergers and acquisitions and public offerings of stock. That sharply reduced investment banking and underwriting fees. The banks also faced a surge in populist anger, as the Occupy Wall Street movement went national.

Financial stocks were some of the worst performing in 2011. While the S&P 500 Index finished the year flat, Morgan Stanley shares plunged 44 percent, JPMorgan dropped nearly 22 percent and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. tanked 46 percent.

Compensation followed the downward trend. In a closely watched and politically charged gauge, JPMorgan Chase & Co. revealed earlier this month that it set aside 36 percent less than the year before to pay its investment bankers. Morgan Stanley shed 700 workers last year and capped the amount that workers can get in their bonuses immediately, deferring anything over $125,000. Rival Goldman eliminated 7 percent of its employees and cut 2011 pay by 21 percent.

And it appears the banks’ CEOs are not immune. On Friday, Morgan Stanley’s regulatory filing showed that the value of Gorman’s stock award for the year dropped to $5.1 million from $10.2 million in 2010.

Gorman, who became CEO two years ago, has been slimming down the bank, selling off units like a mortgage servicing division and an asset management business. He’s been emphasizing divisions like wealth management, which provide smaller returns than some investment banking operations but also carry a lot less risk because they’re based on fees rather than markets. Unlike JPMorgan and some other big banks, Morgan Stanley doesn’t have a large consumer deposit base to rely on when its investment bank stumbles.

JPMorgan’s Dimon received restricted stock worth $12.6 million and stock appreciation rights reportedly valued at roughly $5 million for 2011, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday. That compares with about $17.1 million in stock and SARs that he was granted for 2010.

For the full year, JPMorgan posted a record profit of $19 billion, up from $17.4 billion in 2010. But the bank struggled amid the choppy financial markets, which hurt investment banking fees in the fourth quarter. The bank also disclosed that it spent $3.2 billion last year to fight lawsuits, almost all of them over poorly written mortgages. That’s down from $5.7 billion in 2010, but Dimon acknowledged there’s still a “huge drag” on earnings five years after the bubble burst.

Complete compensation details, including the value of the executives’ 2011 cash compensation, perks and benefits weren’t disclosed. None of the banks have filed annual proxy statements, which include those financial details.

Dimon received a total pay package for 2010 valued at $20.8 million, including a salary of $1 million and a cash bonus of $5 million. Gorman received compensation valued at $15.2 million, including a salary of $800,000 and a cash bonus of $3.9 million.

The Associated Press formula calculates an executive’s total compensation during the last fiscal year by adding salary, bonuses, perks, above-market interest the company pays on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock and stock options awarded during the year. The AP formula does not count changes in the present value of pension benefits. That makes the AP total slightly different in most cases from the total reported by companies to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The value that a company assigned to an executive’s stock and option awards for 2010 was the present value that the company expected the awards to be worth to the executive over time. Companies use one of several formulas to calculate that value. However, the number is just an estimate, and what an executive ultimately receives depends on the performance of the company’s stock in the years after the awards are granted. Most stock compensation programs require an executive to wait a specified length of time to receive shares or exercise options.

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