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Greggs' lunchtime sales drowned by wet weatherGreggs, the high street baker best known for its sausage rolls, pasties and sandwiches, reported a 7.3 per cent jump in first-half pre-tax profits, but admitted that the wet weather had taken a chunk out of recent sales. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:48 am Imus: Fox Business Debases Itself FurtherEvery time the media says that Fox Business News is doing poorly or its rating are low, it defends itself with an astonishing rabidness. Fox will beat CNBC at its own game. Its business and financial programming is that good. It will just take time. Now there are credible reports that Fox Business will give up [...][[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Source: 24/7 Wall Street | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:34 am New Health Reform Campaign Will Support Long-Term Care for All, Because '3 in 4 Need More'LTC Guild, a Social Network, Offers Slogan and Free Campaign Images to All Who Wish to Promote the Extended-Care Cause MOUNTAIN LAKES, N.J., Aug. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Today...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:30 am Friends Provident agrees to Resolution takeoverBritish insurance and pensions provider Friends Provident PLC on Tuesday agreed to a 1.86 billion pound ($3.06 billion) offer from buyout firm Resolution Ltd. The deal was recommended toSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:26 am No probe into MG Rover collapseThe Serious Fraud Office says it does not intend to launch a criminal probe into the collapse of MG Rover.Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:23 am Rio says seen no evidence for China detentions (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Business | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:21 am Jaguar Land Rover secures fundingThe Indian owner of Jaguar Land Rover, Tata, says it has secured private funding to help the carmaker.Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:19 am 'Lose your job in your 50s and you'll struggle to find another'Older people are being forced into early retirement when they lose their jobs because of a lack of support in helping them find new work the TUC has said.Source: Finance and Business. Latest breaking news stocks and shares from the UK and world | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:17 am SFO rejects criminal probe into MG Rover saleThe Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said this morning that it does not intend to begin a criminal investigation into the sale of the MG Rover, the carmaker. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:17 am While US Stimulus Struggles, China’s ShinesThere are very few signs that the US stimulus package, which totals $787 billion, is working. Unemployment rates are showing some sign of improving, but not to the extent that the government had hoped. Consumer lending has certainly not picked up, and industrial activity is still slow, albeit not as slow as earlier this year. China, [...][[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Source: 24/7 Wall Street | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:15 am Hotel chain: 'We can't see any sign of recovery'Read full story for latest details.Source: Business and financial news - CNNMoney.com | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:13 am Loans to homebuyers '23% higher'The number of mortgages for homebuyers granted in June rose by 23% compared with May, according to UK lenders.Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:09 am Japanese prices in record declineJapanese consumer prices fell by a record 1.7% in the year to June, figures show, as interest rates are kept on hold.Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:07 am Indications: Stock index futures hover near unchangedU.S. stock index futures mixed Tuesday as the Federal Reserve begins its two-day monetary-policy meeting.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:06 am Toxic assets still festeringThe economy may show signs of life, but so-called toxic assets are still a major threat to any recovery, a bailout watchdog group warned on Tuesday.Source: Business and financial news - CNNMoney.com | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:04 am Mortgage lending hits 11-month high in JuneMortgage lending rose by 23 per cent in June, further bolstering hopes of an upturn in the battered British housing sector. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:02 am Underwater Mortgages Reach Epidemic LevelsPosit: Underwater mortgages hurt home sales and increase delinquencies and foreclosures. People who have to pay their mortgage holder to sell their homes are less likely to be sellers. A home sold for $200,000 when it has a $250,000 mortgage is a home that the owner may not be able to afford to sell. People living in homes [...][[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Source: 24/7 Wall Street | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:00 am Make a living - and save the worldDear Annie: Call me an old hippie (I served in the Peace Corps in the late '60s), but I've always wished I could find a job that would let me make a decent living while also doing some real good for someone.Source: Business and financial news - CNNMoney.com | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:00 am Google's best job? Ride a bike around FranceSource: Business and financial news - CNNMoney.com | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:00 am Atlanta Businessman Makes 'Write Investment'Companies seeking investment capital, web designers, communication consultants, and authors find 'The golden keyboard' ATLANTA, Aug. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- During a time when...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:00 am Galway California samples return 9.2 g/t Au along 130 meters (including 27.3 g/t Au along 20 meters)TORONTO, Aug. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Galway Resources Ltd. (GWY: TSX-V) is pleased to provide analytical results of the Phase I sampling program from its newly-acquired...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:00 am Huntington Bank Partners with Big Lots and Meijer to Donate $100,000 Worth of Backpacks Throughout the MidwestBackpacks Are Filled With Critical Supplies to Help Low-Income Children Start School COLUMBUS, Ohio, Aug. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Huntington National Bank today...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:00 am BluePhoenix Solutions Reports Second Quarter ResultsHERZLIYA, Israel, August 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- - Q2/09 Revenues of $19.1 Million, Non-GAAP EPS of $0.06 BluePhoenix Solutions (NASDAQ: BPHXSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:00 am Roger Rose Appointed Chief Executive - Lockheed Martin India for Lockheed Martin Global, Inc.BETHESDA, Md., Aug. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Roger Rose has been named Chief Executive - Lockheed Martin India, with responsibility for coordinating the Corporation's...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:00 am Entrepreneur Takes Finalist Spots for New Event and Social Media Programsmin Integrated Marketing Awards Recognize Publisher's Excellence IRVINE, Calif., Aug. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Entrepreneur has been announced as a min Integrated Marketing AwardSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:00 am Cascades posts significantly improved results in the second quarterKINGSEY FALLS, QC, Aug. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Cascades Inc. (CAS on the Toronto stock exchange), a leader in recovery and in green packaging and tissue paper products,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 4:00 am Consumers: Broke. Banks: Gorge on overdraftU.S. banks will collect a record $38.5 billion in overdraft fees this year, with nearly all the revenue paid by just 10% of customers, according to a research report released Monday.Source: Business and financial news - CNNMoney.com | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:56 am 5 dumb reasons you can't get a modificationWhat's holding up servicers from modifying mortgages? The fax machine.Source: Business and financial news - CNNMoney.com | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:55 am Russian economy shows mixed signsRussia's economy shrinks sharply in the second quarter on an annualised basis, but grows compared with the first quarter.Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:55 am Jaguar Land Rover secures £175m in private dealJaguar Land Rover's Indian owners have secured a £175m of private sector funding and will now not need any state money.Source: Finance and Business. Latest breaking news stocks and shares from the UK and world | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:53 am First Financial Holding Schedules 2009 2Q Webcast Investor ConferenceTAIPEI, Taiwan, Aug. 11 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- First Financial Holding Co. Ltd. (Stock Code: 2892.tw) has scheduled its 2009 2Q Webcast Investor Conference for...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:45 am Flying cleanHow biofuels can help aviation clean up its carbonSource: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:42 am Rio says detained executive appears wellRio Tinto said on Tuesday that Stern Hu, the Anglo-Australian mining group executive detained in China, had appeared well when visited for a second time by Australian consular officials but the miner remained...Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:39 am Strike A Blow For Transparency: No Deal For B of A and SECThe federal district judge handling the Bank of America (BAC) deal with the SEC to settle charges that the financial firm improperly disclosed the timing of bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch executives has said he wants to know that whole truth and nothing but the truth about the matter. And, he wants the public to [...][[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Source: 24/7 Wall Street | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:36 am Adecco downbeat on staffing markets after Q2 lossZURICH (Reuters) - Adecco, the world's largest staffing group, said on Tuesday it had still not seen any recovery in its main European and U.S. markets and launched a new round of cost-cutting to protect profitability after a sharp drop in sales in the second quarter.Source: Reuters: Business News | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:35 am U.K., Liechtenstein reach tax agreementLONDON (MarketWatch) -- Britons won't be able to avoid the tax man by putting their money into accounts in the tiny principality of Liechtenstein under an agreement to be signed Tuesday.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:35 am InterContinental swings to a loss on $162M chargeLONDON (MarketWatch) -- InterContinental Hotels, the owner of the Holiday Inn hotels chain, on Tuesday said it swung to a second-quarter loss as it wrote down the value of some of its properties amid the recession.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:34 am Fed nervous about early recovery callSuddenly, it seems, economists everywhere are starting to talk about the end of the recession.Source: Business and financial news - CNNMoney.com | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:32 am InterContinental warns recovery may take 2 yearsLONDON (Reuters) - InterContinental Hotels, the world's biggest hotelier, said a recovery for the industry might be two years away after reporting first-half profit that fell but beat forecasts.Source: Reuters: Business News | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:32 am UK agrees tax deal with LiechtensteinAbout 5,000 British investors with an estimated £2bn to £3bn in secret Liechtenstein bank accounts will be asked to come forward voluntarily clean under a ground-breaking dealSource: Financial Times - US homepage | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:29 am SFO rules out MG Rover investigationBritain's Serious Fraud Office has decided not to launch a full investigation of the collapse of carmaker MG Rover.Source: Finance and Business. Latest breaking news stocks and shares from the UK and world | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:22 am Adecco swings to loss after goodwill chargeLONDON (MarketWatch) -- Swiss staffing agency Adecco on Tuesday said it swung to an unexpected second-quarter loss after booking a goodwill charge, as it also agreed a deal to buy the U.K.'s Spring Group.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:22 am Sex-predator iPhone app is backSource: Business and financial news - CNNMoney.com | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:21 am Wall Street futures point to higher start(Reuters) - Futures for the Dow Jones industrial average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 rose 0.2-0.3 percent, pointing to a firmer start on Wall Street on Tuesday.Source: Reuters: Business News | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:21 am Wall Street futures point to higher start (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Business | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:21 am Wall Street futures point to higher start (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Stock Markets News | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:21 am Retired at 38: Fantasy vs. realityQuestion: I'm single, 38 years old and have about $900,000 saved up. I'm tired of the stress of the corporate world and am wondering: If I live a very simple life, can I afford to retire and not have to worry about going through all my money? --Don H., Marietta, GeorgiaSource: Business and financial news - CNNMoney.com | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:18 am The E-Commerce Savior Leaves TownCostco’s (COST) same-store sales fell 7% last month. The firm was lucky. Abercrombie & Fitch’s (ANF) numbers were down 38%. Saks (SKS) plunged by 16.3% and Neiman Marcus fell 27.3%. July was a sign that all but a few retailers particularly Wal-Mart (WMT) are continuing to watch the year slip away from them. There was a [...][[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Source: 24/7 Wall Street | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:12 am Currencies: Dollar edges down vs. yen, euroThe dollar edges down against its major counterparts in Asian trading Tuesday.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:12 am Bank of Japan holds steady, keeps economic viewThe Bank of Japan unanimously votes to leave its policy and keeps its cautiously optimistic economic assessment.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:11 am Stocks wait for the FedU.S. stocks were poised for a higher open Tuesday, although trading could be muted as the Federal Reserve's two-day policy meeting gets underway.Source: Business and financial news - CNNMoney.com | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:08 am China Eastern returns to profitChina Eastern Airlines, one of the country's big three carriers, returned to profitability in the first half because of fuel-hedging gains, in spite of a fall of almost 16 per cent in revenue.The carrier,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:04 am London Markets: Commodity-sector stocks lead British share advanceLONDON (MarketWatch) -- Miners and oil producers advanced in London on Tuesday, as hopes continued for an economic recovery in China.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:04 am Faced With The Obvious, The Fed Will Do NothingThe Fed is expected to do nearly nothing as its members meet during the middle of this week. That nothing is in the face of what is now almost certainly a recovery which is beyond the wildest dreams of most economists. The Fed, by most accounts, was instrumental in saving the financial sector and economy [...][[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Source: 24/7 Wall Street | 11 Aug 2009 | 3:02 am Resolution in 1.8bn Friends takeoverResolution, Clive Cowdery's London-listed acquisition vehicle, on Tuesday unveiled a 1.8bn agreed takeover offer for Friends Provident, the FTSE 100-listed life insurer.The deal, which follows a month...Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 2:52 am InterContinental launches fresh cost-cutting measuresInterContinental Hotels Group, the world's largest hotels group, vowed to ramp up cost cutting as it announced a 38 per cent drop in first-half profits, underlining the continuing gloom in the hotel industry...Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 2:47 am World markets inch higher as China data sifted (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Stock Markets News | 11 Aug 2009 | 2:47 am European stocks rise at open (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Stock Markets News | 11 Aug 2009 | 2:42 am Resolution's bid for Friends cheers FTSELondon equities continued to trade around 10-month highs on Tuesday, helped by news of a major deal in the financial sector The FTSE 100 started the day 11.3 points higher ay 4,744.47, making up the small...Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 2:40 am U.S. home prices fall, but rate slows: reportNEW YORK (Reuters) - The value of U.S. homes fell by 12.1 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, but the rate of decline shrank for the first time since prices began to fall in 2007, real estate website Zillow.com said on Tuesday.Source: Reuters: Business News | 11 Aug 2009 | 2:36 am China economy shows improvementChina's economy shows signs of improving, with annual growth rates in industrial output and retail sales rising last month.Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 11 Aug 2009 | 2:27 am Distressed-debt deals in 2009 reach $84.4 billion: report(Reuters) - The total value of distressed-debt deals, where creditors use their debt positions to take ownership of troubled companies, has touched $84.4 billion this year, the Wall Street Journal said, at a pace close to double that of 2008.Source: Reuters: Business News | 11 Aug 2009 | 2:27 am Global shares make small gains, China disappoints (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Stock Markets News | 11 Aug 2009 | 2:21 am UK strikes deal to end Liechtenstein tax havensThe UK Government is expected to announce a deal today with Liechtenstein, the tiny Alpine principality, to effectively end secrecy for Britons who hold accounts in the tax haven. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 11 Aug 2009 | 2:12 am Media Digest 8/11/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, BloombergReuters: The Congressional Oversight Panel said the Treasury should do more to get toxic assets off bank balance sheets. Reuters: A federal judge still refuses to sign off on an SEC deal with Bank of America (BAC) and the SEC to settle charges regarding Merrill Lynch bonus payments. Reuters: Rio Tinto (RTP) says that there is no [...][[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Source: 24/7 Wall Street | 11 Aug 2009 | 2:08 am Travel insurance: make your cover watertightJust buying a policy won't mean you're certain to get a payout if things go wrong. We explain how to avoid the common pitfalls.Source: Finance and Business. Latest breaking news stocks and shares from the UK and world | 11 Aug 2009 | 2:07 am Friends agrees £1.86bn bid from ResolutionFriends Provident today abandoned 177 years of independence and agreed to be taken over by Resolution, Clive Cowdery's insurance consolidation vehicle, for £1.86 billion in cash and shares. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 11 Aug 2009 | 2:00 am Europe Markets: Europe shares advance, miners, oil producers riseLONDON (MarketWatch) -- European shares edged higher on Tuesday, up for the third time in four sessions, with miners and oil producers some of the strongest performers in early action.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:51 am Oil giant considers Stanlow saleOne of the UK's biggest oil refineries, which employs 800 permanent staff in Cheshire, could be sold off by Shell.Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:33 am InterContinental posts loss on hotel writedownsInterContinental Hotels owner of the Holiday Inn chain reported a loss in the second quarter hit by writedowns on the value of some of its hotels.Source: Finance and Business. Latest breaking news stocks and shares from the UK and world | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:32 am Earnings Watch: Updates, advisories and surprisesA roundup of the latest corporate earnings reports and what companies are saying about future quarters.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:31 am Rio Tinto says no evidence yet for China detentionsMiner said it had yet to be presented with any evidence to support the detention of four Chinabased staff on suspicions of stealing state secrets.Source: Finance and Business. Latest breaking news stocks and shares from the UK and world | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:30 am Asia Markets And Europe Open 8/11/2009Markets in Asia rose modestly. The Nikkei was higher by .6% to 10,586. Honda (HMC) was flat after rising for several days. The Hang Seng was up by .1% to 20,591. The Shanghai Composite rose .5% to 3,265. At the open in Europe, the FTSE was up .3% to 4,738. The Dax rose .3% to 5,436. The CAC 40 [...][[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Source: 24/7 Wall Street | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:30 am Aussie stocks: Market posts riseThe Australian share market brushed off a negative lead from Wall Street and weaker start to finish on a firmer note, with stronger banking stocks outweighing falls from the miners. The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index closed up 27.9...Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:23 am Resolution agrees takeover of FriendsResolution, Clive Cowdery's London-listed acquisition vehicle, on Tuesday unveiled a 1.87bn agreed takeover offer for Friends Provident, the FTSE 100-listed life insurer.The deal is the first of three...Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:21 am Rio says seen no evidence for China detentionsCANBERRA (Reuters) - Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto said on Tuesday it had yet to be presented with any evidence to support the detention of four of its China-based staff on suspicions of stealing state secrets.Source: Reuters: Business News | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:19 am Australia and China dismiss claims Rio Tinto spied for yearsClaims in a Chinese report that Rio Tinto has spied on and overcharged Chinese steel mills for years have been dismissed by both the Australian and Chinese governments. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:14 am Oil rises above $71 after record Chinese oil data (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Stock Markets News | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:06 am Oil rises above $71 after record Chinese oil dataSINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil rose above $71 on Tuesday, ending a three-day losing streak as record Chinese oil imports and refinery production helped offset mixed economic data, while traders anticipated key reports on the state of global demand.Source: Reuters: Business News | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:06 am Bank of America's settlement over bonuses delayedJudge criticizes the SEC for failing to prove BofA misled shareholders intentionally, scoffs at a BofA attorney's argument, says $33 million might not be enough and demands more information.Bank of America Corp.'s deal to pay $33 million to settle accusations that it misled shareholders about executive bonuses hit a roadblock Monday -- U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:00 am Maguire Properties to default on 7 prime office buildingsThe REIT will give up prime assets in L.A. and Orange counties in a bid to stay solvent. It posts a loss of $375.7 million.Maguire Properties Inc., one of the region's largest commercial landlords, posted widening losses Monday and said it was about to default on seven prime office buildings in Los Angeles and Orange counties.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:00 am California's average pump price jumps above $3 a gallonThe cost climbs 14.4 cents over the last week to a new high for the year of $3.040. Analysts expect some relief from rising prices after Labor Day.California's drivers once again are spending more than $3 a gallon on average, the Energy Department said Monday, although analysts expect some relief from rising fuel prices after Labor Day.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:00 am California's average pump price jumps above $3 a gallonThe cost climbs 14.4 cents over the last week to a new high for the year of $3.040. Analysts expect some relief from rising prices after Labor Day. ...Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:00 am Radio host Don Imus in talks with Fox Business NetworkThe struggling cable channel, looking to boost viewership, is negotiating to simulcast Imus' syndicated early-morning radio show.Fox Business Network, looking to boost viewership after nearly two years of struggling to win over audiences, is in talks with controversial radio host Don Imus about carrying his morning show on the cable channel.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:00 am RadioShack, er, the Shack makes its case for relevancyThe electronics retailer re-brands, but 'radio' isn't the problem to begin with.One of my many undistinguished postings was a summer job as an assistant manager of a Radio Shack (then spelled as two words) in a strip mall in Rock Springs, Wyo. Dante couldn't think of a better description of hell.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:00 am Real estate agent and appraiser found guilty in Westside mortgage fraud caseKyle Grasso and Lila Rizk are convicted on federal charges of conspiracy and bank fraud for their roles in the scheme. The jury fails to reach a verdict on a third defendant.A Beverly Hills real estate agent to the stars and an appraiser were convicted Monday on federal charges of conspiracy and bank fraud for their roles in a multimillion-dollar Westside real estate fraud ring, but jurors couldn't reach a verdict on another prominent agent accused of being part of the scheme.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:00 am TV boosts Lions Gate quarterly earningsProfit tops expectations. TV production revenue grew 112%, credited to new episodes of 'Weeds,' 'Nurse Jackie,' 'Tyler Perry's House of Payne,' 'Meet the Browns' and 'South Park.'Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., boosted by stronger TV revenue and contributions from its recent acquisition of the TV Guide Network and its website, posted better-than-expected earnings results, with net income and revenue rising substantially over last year.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:00 am Maguire Properties to default on 7 prime office buildingsThe REIT will give up prime assets in L.A. and Orange counties in a bid to stay solvent. It posts a loss of $375.7 million. ...Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:00 am General Motors to auction new cars on EBayThe experiment, which runs through Sept. 8, is the automaker's latest attempt to connect with consumers after its exit from bankruptcy protection.The days of haggling with a car dealer could be fading away.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:00 am 'Julie & Julia' whets foodies' appetitesJulia Child's books sell out and fans flock to cooking schools.Ellen Bloom of Los Angeles never owned a Julia Child cookbook and always thought the famed chef's recipes would be just too difficult for an amateur like her to master.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:00 am RadioShack, er, the Shack makes its case for relevancyThe electronics retailer re-brands, but 'radio' isn't the problem to begin with. One of my many undistinguished...Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:00 am Bank of America's settlement over bonuses delayedJudge criticizes the SEC for failing to prove BofA misled shareholders intentionally, scoffs at a BofA attorney's argument, says $33 million might not be enough and demands more information. ...Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:00 am A budget is key to small-business successWhen employees, customers and investors know you have an idea about how your company could fare next year, they have more confidence in you and your business.Next year's budget is just about wrapped up at C28 Inc., a small business in Corona that designs and sells edgy Christian-themed clothes and jewelry for teens.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 11 Aug 2009 | 1:00 am House shortage 'props up prices'A lack of homes for sale in the UK propped up property prices in July, says the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 11 Aug 2009 | 12:58 am Friends Provident agrees to £1.86bn Resolution takeoverInsurer recommends bid after entrepreneur Clive Cowdery upped his bid and made minor concessions on corporate governance.Source: Finance and Business. Latest breaking news stocks and shares from the UK and world | 11 Aug 2009 | 12:52 am Friends backs Resolution takeoverInsurer Friends Provident agrees a £1.86bn takeover proposal from investment firm Resolution - having opposed earlier offers.Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 11 Aug 2009 | 12:47 am NZ stocks: Market slipsThe New Zealand sharemarket eased today after a pull back in major stock indices in the United States and ahead of the Fletcher Building result tomorrow morning. The benchmark NZSX-50 index closed down 25.501 points, or 0.828 per...Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 11 Aug 2009 | 12:36 am Futures Movers: Crude oil edges higher on stock gains, China dataCrude-oil prices edge higher, leaning on stock gains in Asian markets and data from China showing continued, though slower, economic growth.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 11 Aug 2009 | 12:20 am U.S. bailout panel: toxic assets may need more supportWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Treasury Department should consider expanding programs to cleanse troubled assets from bank balance sheets if current efforts fail to restart markets or if economic conditions worsen, a U.S. bailout watchdog panel said on Tuesday.Source: Reuters: Business News | 11 Aug 2009 | 12:13 am U.S. bailout panel: toxic assets may need more support (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Business | 11 Aug 2009 | 12:13 am NZ currency: Dollar consolidatesThe New Zealand dollar consolidated in a relatively narrow range today as analysts continued to debate investor behaviour in the US dollar market. At 5pm the NZ dollar was buying US67.35c, down from US67.59c at 8am and unchanged...Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 11 Aug 2009 | 12:07 am Britain to sign Liechtenstein tax dealBritain is to sign a deal with Liechtenstein on Tuesday to recover tax from Britons with bank accounts in the tax haven.Source: Finance and Business. Latest breaking news stocks and shares from the UK and world | 10 Aug 2009 | 11:57 pm Distressed-debt deals in 2009 reach $84.4 billion: report (Reuters)Reuters - The total value of distressed-debt deals, where creditors use their debt positions to take ownership of troubled companies, has touched $84.4 billion this year, the Wall Street Journal said, at a pace close to double that of 2008.Source: Yahoo! News: Business | 10 Aug 2009 | 11:30 pm Bank of America settlement with SEC over Merrill Lynch bonuses rejectedA New York judge is refusing to allow Bank of America BoA to make a 33m £20m payment to the Securities and Exchange Commission SEC in order to settle charges relating to its mishandling of the Merrill Lynch bonus affair.Source: Finance and Business. Latest breaking news stocks and shares from the UK and world | 10 Aug 2009 | 11:27 pm Pound falls ahead of inflation reportThe Bank of England is determined not to allow the pound's depreciation to be "stolen" away economists said as sterling slid lower.Source: Finance and Business. Latest breaking news stocks and shares from the UK and world | 10 Aug 2009 | 11:18 pm Taiwan rescuers search mudslide villagesHelicopters dropped rescuers into villages in southern Taiwan to search for victims of mudslides that could have buried hundreds of peopleSource: Financial Times - US homepage | 10 Aug 2009 | 11:02 pm BNZ to appeal tax avoidance caseBank of New Zealand has decided to appeal the tax case it lost in the High Court last month and is making a $661 million provision for the case in its accounts. BNZ chief executive Andrew Thorburn confirmed today that the bank...Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 10 Aug 2009 | 11:00 pm Beijing set to retain policy as prices fallChinese prices continued to fall in July from a year earlier, reducing the likelihood that Beijing will soon adjust its policy of boosting growth with easy credit and surging infrastructure spendingSource: Financial Times - US homepage | 10 Aug 2009 | 10:42 pm 10 Things Home Builders Won't Tell You (10 Things)1. “I’ll build your house on marshmallow.”Population growth and urban sprawl mean there’s not much residential land left in many areas these days—and what there is may not be ideal. Shortly after John Duffy and his family moved into their $234,000 home in Highlands Ranch, Colo., long cracks started showing up in the walls and the porch started pulling away from the house. After badgering his builder for the soil report, Duffy learned his lot was a hot spot for potential swell. (Writer Homes, the builder, was ordered to pay Duffy $544,000. John Palmeri, Writer’s attorney, says the company offered to fix the Duffys’ house, but “they were bent on going to court.”) The Duffy family isn’t alone. In fact, a number of homes today are being built on “expansive soil”—earth that swells when it rains—without adequate safeguards. How common is the practice? About 50 percent of homes in Southern California are built on expansive soil, according to Patrick Catalano, founder of The Law Firm of Catalano and Catalano in San Francisco and San Diego, which specializes in real estate and construction defect litigation. But soil isn’t the only issue when it comes to shoddy construction. In October 2007, four hillside homes built in La Jolla, Calif., slipped off their foundations, burying two other dwellings in an alley below, after a landslide that damaged some 111 homes. Catalano, who’s representing the owners of 25 of these homes, says that in about 20 percent of cases, the home builder is at fault, since the landslide occurred within 10 years of the home being built. (These cases are pending.) 2. “I won’t just cut corners—I’ll sever them.”Substandard work has always existed in home building, but the collapse of the housing market and the increased costs of construction are making the problem worse, says Jonathan Alpert, a retired Tampa, Fla., attorney who represented homebuyers. Alpert says he’s handled cases in which builders didn’t seal roofs, in which two-inch concrete slabs have been used instead of the four-inch slabs specified, and in which sewage pipes have been cross-connected to drinking-water pipes. In some cases, builders are skipping steps dictated by municipal building codes. In one Sarasota, Fla., gated community called Turtle Rock, four families cut open their houses in 1998 to ferret out the source of some mold growth. What they found, in addition to wet lumber, were several code violations, including missing hurricane straps, which are steel plates that tie the wood frame together and to the concrete base. Says Brian Stirling, the structural engineer hired by the homeowners to investigate, “If we’d had a strong storm, they would have had some serious problems.” Like what? “Like losing their top floor.” In 1999 the builder, U.S. Home, agreed to buy back the four houses and said it would make county-supervised repairs on 12 others in the subdivision. “We dispute the extent of the problems,” says the builder’s attorney, Fred Zinober. But by settling the case, he says, “U.S. Home did the right thing.” “It used to be during the housing boom that builders were cutting corners because they were putting things up as quickly as they could stand,” Alpert says. Now the issues are inflationary pressures on builders and the need to increase profits. “The cost per square foot for construction is actually increasing while home prices are decreasing,” Alpert says, “so that’s putting pressure on builders to cut corners.” 3. “This is a rogue’s industry.”Given how complicated it is to build a home, and how serious the implications are if it’s done incorrectly, you might expect home builders to answer to rigorous regulatory authority. Think again. According to the most recent survey by the National Association of State Contractors Licensing Agencies, only 18 of the association’s 27 member states regulate home builders. And of those member states that do regulate, only 15 require any kind of exam—Arizona and Maryland being two of them—and only 13 require on-the-job experience. Two states, Louisiana and Utah, have continuing-education requirements, but they’re the exception. But greater regulation comes with a price. “Red tape and compliance issues add cost to building a new home,” says Carlos Gutierrez, assistant staff vice president for the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). “And that cost is inevitably passed on to the consumer in the form of a higher-priced home.” While he acknowledges that some regulation of the industry is necessary, even welcome, Gutierrez adds that “at a time when affordable housing continues to be a crisis nationwide, governments ought to be careful not to overregulate.” 4. “Public inspectors won’t catch my shoddy work.”Max Curtis, a Livermore, Calif., private home inspector, says he hears it all the time from his home-buying clients: “Their builder tells them, ‘Why do you need your own inspector? This has been signed off on by the municipal building department.’” Sure, the public inspector is required to check out your new house, but only to ascertain that it’s built to code—essentially, that it’s safe to live in—not that it is well constructed. “They’re just looking to see if that wall is up and painted,” says Dwayne Jones, a Memphis builder. And sometimes they don’t even do that well. On one inspection, Curtis found 64 items that the municipal inspector had missed, including a gas water heater lacking flues (without which the heater may leak poisonous carbon monoxide). Bottom line: Don’t rely solely on the word of a public inspector; hire your own person to inspect the building as well. 5. “Your warranty may be worthless.”Many home builders tout 10-year warranties as protection against future problems. But these warranties are often extremely limited in coverage, particularly after the second year. “It gives people a false sense of security,” says Brent Lemon, a Dallas attorney who represents homebuyers. “Most of these basically require that the house fall down on top of you before they kick in.” Consider the warranty offered by Denver, Colo.–based Home Buyers Warranty. It lists 71 exclusions and, like many, states that the home must be “unsafe, unsanitary, or otherwise unlivable” to get structuraldefect coverage. Em Fluhr, the warranty company’s CEO, says, “If [homebuyers] detect any worsening of the situation, they can submit another claim.” The root of the problem with warranties is that builders characterize them too broadly when they say they’ll help protect homeowners in a structural problem, says Anne Stark, a Dallas attorney specializing in homebuyer complaints. “Structural-defect coverage often covers only catastrophic failure,” Stark says. “Builders will say you’ve got a great warranty, but then you wake up in the third year with cracks all over your house and you call the warranty company and they say, ‘Sorry, it’s not a structural failure.’” Some states, like Texas, are aiming to alleviate the problem: In 2003 it created the Texas Residential Construction Commission to help builders resolve disputes without litigation. “We require a warranty whether the builder wants to give it or not, and that warranty needs to meet the minimum level of state standards,” says Duane Waddill, executive director of the TRCC. “Even if the builder goes bankrupt, the buyer has additional protection.” 6. “Once you move in, you’ll never see me again.”Even before Denise Burton and her husband closed on their Glendale, Ariz., home, they knew there were problems. Their walls weren’t plumb, for example, and there was no framing behind one. Worried about losing their low interest rate, they moved in anyway, with a promise from the builder, Diamond Key Homes, that everything would be fixed once they got in. It didn’t happen. Burton says she made at least a dozen calls to the Phoenix-based builder over a four-month period and sent letters and faxes. Mostly, she says, she was ignored. And when the builder did send workers to her house, Burton says, “they’d make it worse.” It took a year for the builder to finally make all the proper fixes, she says—and that was only after the state agency that regulates contractors, acting on Burton’s complaint, temporarily revoked Diamond Key’s license. (Diamond Key declined to comment and has since been acquired by another company.) Indeed, it’s one of the ironies of building a house. During construction, you can’t wait to finally get all those construction workers out of your sight. But “once the home is built,” says Jason Clark, a consumer advocate focused on home-building issues, “you can’t find the builder with a Texas posse.” 7. “Good luck going after me.”Buried in nearly every home-purchase contract is a clause that reads something like this: “Any dispute that arises between the builder and the purchaser will be decided in binding arbitration.” Most buyers sign on the dotted line, not knowing that they have just waived their right to take their builder to court. “Arbitration is being sneaked into those contracts, and nobody knows what it means until it’s too late,” says Dennis K. Drake, a San Antonio attorney who represents homebuyers. What’s wrong with arbitration? Well, for starters, arbitrators are less likely than juries to award treble damages—or three times the amount they lost—say construction-industry attorneys. Also, though arbitration costs have significantly declined in recent years, it’s still expensive. First there’s the filing fee—which, for a homebuyer’s claim under $75,000, is $375, if administered through the American Arbitration Association (AAA)—plus the added expense of a lawyer. Often, “it’s so prohibitively expensive that consumers may find they just don’t want to pursue a claim,” says Drake. In addition, construction-industry attorneys say that the fact that builders are the “repeat customers” in arbitration means there’s a greater chance they’ll be favored. If a builder regularly nominates the American Arbitration Association, for example, that builder may be in front of AAA 10 to 12 times a year, versus the homeowner’s one time. For that reason, some construction-industry attorneys recommend using retired judges or arbitrators instead. “The builders do put arbitration clauses in their contracts, but it’s the homeowner that files the complaints,” says Robert Meade, senior vice president of the American Arbitration Association. “We get 130,000 cases a year, and less than 300 of those are homeowner cases, so the dollar amount is meaningless to us.” 8. “Your home won’t look like the ones we toured.”It’s easy to be impressed with the model home your builder shows you. Who wouldn’t love the lush curtains and intricate crown moldings? Unfortunately, the house you buy may not have the same flourish or feel as the model. Few decorative touches are standard, and builders are notorious for using sneaky design tricks to make model homes more attractive, such as putting in scaled-down furniture to make rooms look bigger. Maria Lo Bianco, a buyers’ broker in Springfield, Va., admits to playing this game in her previous job as a builder’s marketing executive. “If I know it’s a small foyer, my challenge is to get the buyer’s eye off it so he has no idea how small it is—until he goes to settlement and can’t fit his furniture,” she says. “If the dining room is visible from the foyer, I might do an exotic color design there and leave the foyer plain.” Showing a home in its best light is one thing, but some practices are downright deceitful. Builders, for example, will often plant grass where the driveway would go to make the lawn look bigger, according to Alan Fields, coauthor of Your New House. Bottom line: “If you think you’re getting the model home,” advises Tim Carter, a builder and syndicated columnist, “you’d better be writing down language in the contract that says it’s going to be exactly like the model.” 9. “I haven’t budgeted enough for decent light fixtures.”It sounds like a reasonable practice—rather than specifying every item for a house, a builder will set cost allowances for things such as light fixtures or carpeting. That way the buyer gets to pick out what he wants. The trouble is, many builders use allowances as a bidding strategy, lowballing the cost to keep the total price down and land the contract. When author Fields and his wife bought their house back in 1990, he says their builder gave them a $500 allowance for all their light fixtures. That sounded great—until “we walked into the store and were just floored by the prices,” he says. The couple shopped for discounts but still ended up spending double that amount on lighting. Jones, the Memphis builder, says that lowball allowances are common in his region. Today the usual range is roughly $1,000 to $1,500 for light fixtures in a three-bedroom house, but the real bill is probably going to be more than double that. “And that’s for cookie-cutter fixtures,” Jones says. 10. “You may wind up seeing double.”It’s no surprise that if you buy a tract house, you’ll eventually come across a carbon copy, probably in your own neighborhood. But you don’t expect that to happen when you’ve ponied up for an “exclusive” design. Nonetheless, “we see ‘custom builders’ offering standard floor plans on their websites all of the time,” says Ralph Hudson, owner of Florida-based American Builders Network, a resource for consumers looking to connect with home builders. “So often the exteriors and elevation are the same, but the interior is slightly modified.” In most cases, if an architect makes an exclusive design for a home, that design is licensed to the builder and the builder has the right to use the design for one specific project and nothing beyond that, explains Jay Stephens, vice president and general counsel at the American Institute of Architects. If that builder turns around and executes that design for other houses down the road, legal recourse is warranted: “If a design is copyrighted, you’ll ultimately have to bring it to court,” says Gutierrez of NAHB. Though difficult, it is possible to take preventative measures. If a homeowner has a contract directly with an architect, Stephens suggests asking him to include a clause that states that the design will not be replicated. SMARTMONEY ® Layout and look and feel of SmartMoney.com are trademarks of SmartMoney, a joint venture between Dow Jones & Company, Inc. and Hearst SM Partnership. © 1995 - 2009 SmartMoney. All Rights Reserved.
Source: SmartMoney.com | 10 Aug 2009 | 10:00 pm 4 Signs Your Home Is About to Lose Value (Consumer Action)Despite signs that the real estate market is bottoming out, millions of homeowners are likely to find themselves in worse shape within the next two years. Nearly half of the nation’s 52 million mortgage borrowers will have negative equity by the end of the first quarter of 2011, up from the 14 million at the end of this year’s first quarter, according to estimates in an Aug. 5 report by Deutsche Bank (DB). With so many borrowers underwater – or owing more on their home than it’s worth – the risk is high that they’ll default and their homes will go into foreclosure, says Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. (Moody’s Economy.com estimates that 17.5 million mortgage borrowers will be underwater by early 2010.) Negative equity is the product of several factors. The most significant weight is the broad and persistent decline in home values. A Zillow.com index of home values fell 12.1% year-over-year during the second quarter, resulting in a total drop of 22.3% since the market peaked in mid-2006, according to an Aug. 11 report by the online real estate marketplace. Many buyers who bought their home around the peak with a 20% down payment have lost that dollar amount. “The continued decline of U.S. home prices will contribute to rapidly rising rates of negative equity,” Karen Weaver, a Deutsche Bank research analyst, wrote in the report. “The most obvious implication is for mortgage defaults.” Current homeowners, or those shopping for a home and who are concerned that they’ll end up underwater, should consider how long they expect to live in their house. Being underwater doesn’t affect homeowners unless they plan to sell, Zandi says. Individuals who are staying put for at least the next five to seven years will likely recoup the lost value of their home, says Amy Bohutinsky, a Zillow.com spokeswoman. In addition, homeowners should refrain from borrowing against their mortgage, she says. Those who find themselves underwater can turn to the federal Making Home Affordable plan, which can help you refinance or do a loan modification. You’ll have to meet the eligibility requirements listed here. Whether you’re at risk for falling behind may have more to do with the economy and your neighborhood than your job, your credit or your income. Here are four warning signs that you’re heading underwater. Foreclosures in your neighborhoodThe quickest way to end up underwater is to live in a neighborhood that’s plagued by foreclosures. When one home on your block goes into foreclosure, your home’s value drops by 1%, Zandi says. But that isn’t a one-to-one relationship. If two homes on a block go into foreclosure, your home’s value will drop by more than 2%. Homes lingering on the marketWhen “For Sale” signs linger in a neighborhood for three or more months, that may mean buyers and sellers can’t agree on a price. In that environment, homes are unlikely to sell unless the seller lowers their asking price. “The time on the market is always a good barometer of demand for homes and for the price homes are transacting at,” Zandi says. “The longer it appears that neighbors are taking to sell their home the more likely it is they’re not getting the price they want and that prices are falling.” Compare the time it took for homes to sell in your neighborhood three years ago vs. today; if it’s taking weeks or months longer to sell, the prices homes can fetch are dropping, Zandi says. Increasing unemploymentIn most cases, the cities where homes have lost the most value during the past year also possess the highest unemployment rates. Homes in Merced, Calif., have lost 40.2% of their value year-over-year, the biggest loss of home values in the nation, according to Zillow.com. The city’s unemployment rate is the fifth-worst among 372 metropolitan areas at 17.6%, according to June data from the Labor Department. El Centro, Calif., where home values plunged 37.6% year-over-year (the second-biggest drop in the country), has the worst unemployment rate at 27.5%. Individuals living in areas battered by high unemployment are likely to see their home values drop further, especially if they live in areas dependent on dwindling industries – like Central Valley, Calif., and the mortgage lending business or Detroit and the auto industry, Zandi says. Homes in disrepairDented siding, peeling paint and broken porches could be signs that neighbors are having trouble making ends meet and can no longer pay to take care of their home, Zandi says. Or they may have gotten an appraisal and discovered their homes have dropped in value and are no longer worth the cost of repairs. Inevitably, as the condition of homes in your neighborhood worsens, home values are likely to drop. “The mere fact that they’re not investing in their homes will affect you too,” Zandi says. What Underwater Borrowers Have Common
Risky mortgages
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Source: SmartMoney.com | 10 Aug 2009 | 10:00 pm The New Information GoldmineSuppose you could find all the socks you ever lost. Now suppose getting those socks back enabled you to earn a better living, or work faster and smarter. Wouldn’t you be willing to pay someone to locate those socks on a worldwide sock exchange? That’s the crux of a business category that some entrepreneurs and investors find pregnant with opportunity. “We think this is the next hot thing,” says Jeanne Sullivan, an executive at StarVest Partners, a New York venture-capital firm developing a specialty in this area. Unfortunately, the business world has given this baby a jargony name: Data as a Service, or its diminutive, DaaS. It rhymes with SaaS, its better-known cousin that stands for Software as a Service. SaaS is the catchall name for on-demand software applications like those on an iPhone. DaaS, in contrast, recognizes that software is becoming a commodity; it’s data mixed with software that’s king. DaaS offers some intriguing possibilities for start-up types—a chance to build a lucrative business that can grow rapidly without needing a big workforce to keep it running. Better still, if you’re the first to build that sock database, you can have a near monopoly. So while start-up costs can be high—think anywhere up to $10 million to set up servers and a slick Web presence—profit margins tend to be fat. That’s because the business model involves gathering information that’s relatively inexpensive or even free to the collector, analyzing it and slicing it into easy-to-consume pieces for people who will pay for it again and again. In business-school speak, “it’s monetizing rich data,” says Sullivan. Imagine, for example, being able to search the sock exchange to find socks that match a user’s singleton socks exactly and then to find the buyers nearest to the user who are willing to meet his price. Some established businesses, like the Zagat Survey restaurant guides, already roughly fit the category—Zagat gets consumers to fill out restaurant surveys and organizes them into guides that grow stale and need replacing, like last year’s fashions. Much more DaaS-like, and one-upping them considerably, is OpenTable. The company sells restaurant-reservation software to restaurants and offers diners online reservations and the ability to search restaurants by geography, cuisine and price; its recent IPO was seen as one of the brighter moments in the postcrash economy. The datacentric companies are among the fastest-growing these days, according to Louise Garnett, an analyst with information research firm Outsell: “I see two to three new ones each week.” Where 1990s-style Web businesses often kept the technical and content elements separate, she notes, the growth today comes from companies that can integrate the two. Overall, the information industry grows 5 to 10 percent a year, according to Outsell. Making LemonadeWhat do all these ventures have in common? Lemons. George Akerlof’s lemons, to be precise. In the late 1960s the Nobel Prize–winning University of California, Berkeley, economist sought to answer the age-old question of why buying used cars favored the seller over the buyer. The buyer couldn’t know whether the seller was selling because he needed the cash, or because the junker had unseen repair and maintenance issues. Akerlof proved that the buyer’s inability to discern the difference between a good car and a lemon drove down the prices of all used cars. Buyers don’t like uncertainty, so many would simply walk away from the transaction. Fewer buyers means lower prices—hence the canyon-like price differential between new cars versus those driven even slightly. (And here we thought consumers were willing to pay thousands more for that fresh-car smell.) In financial markets, investors unable to distinguish between a great business and a loser will put their money into cash and leave start-ups without funding. Under Akerlof’s logic, providing more information, with a level playing field for buyer and seller, creates business opportunity. Darwin Melnyk, 45, a former Emory University seminary student, has been striving to do just that. He first entered this field as a modern-day Indiana Jones, working as a technology specialist on archeological digs in the Jordanian desert. In the field, Melnyk figured out how scientists, by inputting data on their laptops, could improve their productivity and speed up the fossilized process of garnering grants. Beginning in 2006 he started to apply those same skills to a different kind of artifact, digging up data about old tractors for farm-equipment dealers. Iron Solutions, of Fenton, Mo., had its genesis in an annually issued guide, akin to the used-car Blue Book, that dates back to the ’40s; dealers would dog-ear the guide to help them price, say, a rusted-out 1992 combine some farmer was offering on a trade. Some of the guide’s information was available online by 1999, but Iron Solutions hadn’t made the digital leap of making it easy to use. Enter Melnyk, who built the old tractor data into a sophisticated database. Want the autumn-harvest price on a tricked-out 2003 Flail chopper? No problem, for an equipment dealer with a $400-a-year subscription to IronSolutions.com. Farmers can search internationally for their machines, dealers can learn which farmers are interested in upgrading, and both can get much more specific equipment information that helps them make money-saving decisions. Melnyk says the business is growing 20 percent this year despite the economic climate—or perhaps because of it. “The good deal is more important than ever,” he says. High-Tech Coupon ClippingThe seeds of a similar business, MyGroceryDeals.com, were those colorful advertising inserts that irritatingly flutter out from Sunday papers. It wasn’t an obscure IT term like DaaS that was on Paul Davis’s mind when he spread out the fliers on his kitchen table in 2004. It was how he would pay for his future roast beef sandwiches by inputting all the specials on the Web. Davis, who had previously founded an in-store survey business, wanted to consolidate the constantly changing weekly specials from grocery stores and deliver them online so consumers could compare prices on Coke, Huggies or whatever else they bought. He also enabled the bargain-crazed to use the site to “pantry load” by finding the best local deals regardless of product. “If I had known how hard it would be, I’m not sure I would have done this,” sighs Davis, in an oft-heard entrepreneur’s lament. There were minor hitches, as one can imagine, in getting 160,000 ads per month organized for shoppers in 55,000 zip codes across the U.S. At one point, his computer server started choking on too many ads, slowing to “a chug, chug, chug,” says Davis, who had to spend an unexpected $500,000 to get his systems up to consumer-friendly speed again. “Often on Thursday we’d have no idea how we were going to make payroll on Friday.” But four years later, with 300,000 registered shoppers, Davis says MyGroceryDeals.com is close to breaking even on revenue from advertisers and coupon manufacturers. He is also launching a premium membership service and will start selling research from surveying his customers, his old specialty. Despite its growth, the site is still more or less a small business; MyGroceryDeals.com gets by with only five full-time employees. Davis doesn’t have to spend much to gather information since grocery chains now digitally feed their ads to MyGroceryDeals.com for free. If and when profit arrives, the number of people getting a piece of it will be relatively small—meaning, presumably, more data dollars for Davis. The Information Edge
“Data as a Service.”
The Price of Technology.
Shoestring Staff.
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Source: SmartMoney.com | 10 Aug 2009 | 10:00 pm 3 Unloved Stocks Worth Investor Affection (Screens)For stocks, popularity carries a price. Among S&P 500 companies, those with average analyst recommendations of “buy” carry stock market values that are a median of 1.6 times their trailing 12-month sales. Companies rated “hold” or “sell” trade at a median of 1.1 times sales. The trade-off for investors seems lopsided, however. Long-term studies convincingly show that stocks with low price/sales ratios tend to produce better performance than those with high ones. The correlation between analyst advice and stock performance isn't as clear. In most studies, buy-recommended stocks do no better than hold-recommended ones after adjusting for other variables like valuation. That suggests investors should ignore analysts’ shopping lists and search for their own bargains. As I noted Friday, the broad stock market seems worrisomely expensive at the moment. That makes now a fine time to prefer companies with modest expectations built into their share prices. The three companies below are rated “hold” or worse (1 = Strong Buy, 5 = Sell) by analysts, but have strong balance sheets, below-average price/earnings ratios and larger-than-average dividend yields. Sales for each are holding up nicely through this year’s spending downturn. Weis MarketsAverage Recommendation: 4 Tiny grocer Weis Markets (WMK) has just 154 stores in five mid-Atlantic states. Kroger (KR), for comparison, has more than 2,800. The conservative growth strategy has left Weis debt-free and prosperous. During the company’s second quarter, sales at its longstanding stores increased 2.4% vs. a year earlier while companywide earnings rose 19%. For the year, earnings are projected to jump 34%. Shares sell for 14 times forecast 2009 earnings and yield 3.6%. HasbroAverage Recommendation: 2.5 Wall Street is down on toymakers in general, which isn’t surprising; demand for action figures, toy trucks, outdoor sports staples and more has stalled in recent years while sales of videogames have soared. Suddenly, though, videogames are having a lousy summer, and Hasbro (HAS) has two hits on the shelves. Transformers and G.I. Joe figures are hot, thanks to film tie-ins for both this summer. Earnings for the company are projected to grow by just 5% this year, but second-quarter earnings beat expectations. Shares are 13 times earnings and yield 3%. ConAgra FoodsAverage Recommendation: 2.7 Founded 90 years ago as a Nebraska grain mill, ConAgra in recent decades has bought its way into packaged foods: Banquet frozen meals, Hunts sauces, Pam cooking spray and Hebrew National franks to name a few brands. Its shares are cheaper than those of most of its pantry peers. At 12 times earnings, ConAgra trades at about a 20% discount to both Kraft (KFT) and Kellogg (K). Shares yield 3.9% and while the company isn’t a fast grower, in its fiscal year ending May 2010 it’s expected to turn a tiny sales increase into a 9% profit gain. SMARTMONEY ® Layout and look and feel of SmartMoney.com are trademarks of SmartMoney, a joint venture between Dow Jones & Company, Inc. and Hearst SM Partnership. © 1995 - 2009 SmartMoney. All Rights Reserved.
Source: SmartMoney.com | 10 Aug 2009 | 10:00 pm 2degrees leads mobile charges fightThe fight over mobile phone charges is gaining a new dimension with several national organisations banding together with new mobile operator 2degrees to launch a campaign to regulate termination charges. Organisations in the new...Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 10 Aug 2009 | 10:00 pm Judge will not sign off on BofA, SEC bonus pactNEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge refused to approve a proposed settlement between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Bank of America Corp over the payment of bonuses to Merrill Lynch & Co employees, saying he was unable to determine if it was fair to the public.Source: Reuters: Business News | 10 Aug 2009 | 9:15 pm House prices to rise by 24pc, says new researchHouse prices in New Zealand will rise by 24 per cent over the next three years due to low interest rates and a shortage of new housing, Infometrics has predicted in a report prepared for mortgage insurer QBE LMI. Prices could grow...Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 10 Aug 2009 | 9:00 pm Cemex says creditors support debt dealCemex, one of the world’s largest suppliers of building materials, announced that it had secured support from all of its creditor banks to back an ambitious plan to refinance about $15bn of company debtSource: Financial Times - US homepage | 10 Aug 2009 | 8:43 pm Ifs and buts in NZ emissions targetsThe Government afforded itself ample wriggle room in international negotiations on carbon-dioxide emissions by committing NZ yesterday to cut up to a third of current levels by 2020. It proposes to limit emissions to between 10...Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 10 Aug 2009 | 8:30 pm High-profile Calif. real estate agent acquitted (AP)AP - A high-profile Beverly Hills real estate agent has been acquitted of participating in a massive mortgage fraud scheme that caused federally insured banks to lose more than $40 million.Source: Yahoo! News: Business | 10 Aug 2009 | 8:09 pm Judge delays approval of BofA, SEC settlement (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Stock Markets News | 10 Aug 2009 | 7:23 pm Labor sec'y says green jobs hiring will pick up (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Stock Markets News | 10 Aug 2009 | 6:46 pm Write-Offs: 08.10.09$$$ Another day, another multi-million dollar Bank of America settlement. [Bloomberg] $$$ Times are still tough for some. [Crossingwallstreet.com] $$$ People really need to start being less selfish with their money and gamble more. [WSJ] $$$ Anybody want a job? [NYT] 
Sponsored Topics: Bank of America - Bloomberg L.P. - Business - The New York Times Company - WSJ. Source: Dealbreaker | 10 Aug 2009 | 6:32 pm We must face facts or starve: farming needs technologyThe launch by the Government of a discussion document on the future of food might at first sight be applauded as an exercise in democracy. But on reflection it smacks of weak leadership and is likely to produce an outcome that is blurred by diverse and, in many cases, ignorant opinions. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 10 Aug 2009 | 6:00 pm FSA ready to resist tougher controls on oil tradingBritain’s financial markets regulator is ready to resist American-led pressure for tighter controls on trading in the London oil market. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 10 Aug 2009 | 6:00 pm US retail figures expected to hail improvementIt takes only a New York minute to realise that the US retail sector is showing signs of recovery and only slightly longer — 90 seconds — to buy a pair of shoes at the new branch of JC Penney in Manhattan. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 10 Aug 2009 | 6:00 pm BAE Systems secures £1.75bn of dealsBAE Systems, Europe’s largest defence company, captured £1.75 billion of new orders, even as it lost a £700 million deal to supply frigates to Malaysia. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 10 Aug 2009 | 6:00 pm Westpac, SBS follow suit and raise mortgage ratesWestpac and SBS Bank have followed ASB, ANZ and National Bank in raising longer term fixed mortgage rates to over 6.5 per cent, despite the Reserve Bank's promise to keep the Official Cash Rate at 2.5 per cent until late next year....Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 10 Aug 2009 | 5:51 pm US judge rejects BofA settlement with SECA judge refused to accept a proposed settlement between regulators and Bank of America over allegations of misleading investors in a proxy statement and pushed the Securities and Exchange Commission at a hearing to identify who at BofA was responsible for the alleged mis-statementsSource: Financial Times - US homepage | 10 Aug 2009 | 5:44 pm Judge will not sign off on BofA, SEC bonus pact (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Business | 10 Aug 2009 | 4:55 pm Judge will not sign off on BofA, SEC bonus pact (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Stock Markets News | 10 Aug 2009 | 4:55 pm Judge will not sign off on BofA, SEC bonus pact (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Business | 10 Aug 2009 | 4:55 pm GM And eBayAs Dealbreaker readers will already been keenly aware, American automotive firms have been beset by difficult market conditions including too many customers, too few customers, high material prices, low material prices, insufficient resale value, excessive resale value. You will be happy to know that the management team has been working overtime and come up with this solution.
GM, eBay to Test Online Car Sales [The Wall Street Journal]
Sponsored Topics: GeneralMotors - EBay - Wall Street Journal - Automotive industry - California Source: Dealbreaker | 10 Aug 2009 | 4:54 pm Facebook buys social media start-up FriendFeedSAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook, the world's largest social networking site, said it will buy FriendFeed, netting a group of prized ex-Google engineers in the fast-growing Internet business.Source: Reuters: Business News | 10 Aug 2009 | 4:43 pm NZ sharemarket slips earlyThe New Zealand sharemarket slipped in early trading, after a pull back in major stock indices in the United States. Around 10.15am the benchmark NZX-50 index was down 7.97 points to 3073.01, after a 12-point gain yesterday. The...Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 10 Aug 2009 | 4:33 pm New York Fed in hiring spreeThe Federal Reserve Bank of New York is aggressively hiring traders as its seeks to manage its burgeoning securities holdings, making the central bank one of Wall Street’s most active recruiters of financial talentSource: Financial Times - US homepage | 10 Aug 2009 | 4:30 pm Card use flat, more paying cashElectronic card transactions show patterns consistent with the economy emerging slowly from recession and reduced use of credit, according to monthly figures for July from Statistics New Zealand. Total electronic card transactions...Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 10 Aug 2009 | 4:30 pm It's Game Time PrimericaIt seems like only yesterday Elijah Cummings was losing his mind after he found out about AIG's little field trip to the St. Regis Monarch Beach. Bailed out companies were not supposed to be taking Joe the Plumber's tax dollars and using them on bottles of Dom delivered to beachfront cabanas. But that was in a different time, a different era. In today's recovery, it's game on- or at least Primerica seems to think so. After canceling performance-based giveaways for their top earners in February, this proud part of the Citigroup family is now offering 400 trips to Maui and another 1100 to Caesar's Palace in Vegas to their top earners as a little added incentive. So get ready to sell people! And to help you kick things off, allow us to take you back to a better time.
Sponsored Topics: Elijah Cummings - Maui - American International Group - United States - Citibank Source: Dealbreaker | 10 Aug 2009 | 4:16 pm Podcast: Economics For 12th Century French Peasants
At rest in Burgandy, France. (Sobakasu / Flickr/ Creative Commons) On today's Planet Money: Is hope unfulfilled worse than no hope at all? Medieval historian Philip Daileader says it might be. People in places like 12th and 13th century France lived far more constrained economic lives than we do, but they had no expectations that their situations would ever improve. Link from the podcast: 123 recommendations for the Australian health care system. Bonus: After the jump, a guy in Israel wonders how Americans put up with their health care system. Download the podcast; or subscribe. Intro music: Tracey Thorn's "Raise the Roof." Find us: Twitter/ Facebook/ Flickr. Reuven M. Lerner, who lives in Israel, caught Friday's podcast on health care. He writes: For years, I have wondered how it could be that Americans aren't rioting in the streets over the abysmal state of health care in the country. We lived in Chicago from 2003-2007 while I was in graduate school; during that period, we had a baby and my wife was diagnosed with a serious condition requiring expensive treatment. Thank goodness we had good health insurance, allowing us to pay "only" about $1500/month in premiums, copayments, and fees. I'll admit that the care we received was excellent, but if I hadn't been consulting on the side, and if we hadn't been fortunate enough to buy into a group plan, we would have been totally sunk. Let me contrast that with the Israeli health system: You pay 5% of your income as an insurance premium, or a much smaller amount if you're unemployed. (There's basically no such thing as someone lacking health insurance in Israel.) You can choose from four providers ("sick funds"), each of which is a non-profit entity that must accept you no matter what, and which must offer the same baseline set of services and medicines that the government mandates. Each sick fund can offer additional services above and beyond this, including everything from dental care, to personal nurses in case of hospitalization, to alternative care. You can choose your doctor from among those registered with your particular fund (and many doctors work with several funds). Overall, the system seems to work remarkably well: I can choose my doctor, and see him whenever I want, paying a co-payment of $1 (yes, one dollar) for the first visit I make each quarter. When we need to see a specialist, we go to see the doctor of our choice from within the fund. If we want to see someone from outside of our sick fund, we must ask for permission in writing, but to date we have been approved for just about everything. Hospital visits, MRIs, and CTs are completely covered -- no co-pays, and no intolerable waits. (Yes, you will wait several weeks to get an MRI if it isn't urgent. But so what?) Medicines can be expensive, but the government uses its bargaining power to negotiate prices far lower than what you pay in the United States. Private care is also available, if you prefer; many doctors work off-hours in private clinics, and many hospitals allow doctors to perform everything, including surgery, on a private basis. There seems to be a reasonable balance between public and private needs -- so you'll generally get fine treatment as a regular patient, but you can always opt to use private treatment, if you need. There also seem to be perennial funding problems at government-owned hospitals, which the government then funds out of tax money. And of course, if the medicine that you need is outside of the government-mandated (and negotiated, and subsidized) "basket," you're forced to pay market prices. Every year, additional treatments are added to the medical service basket, but I don't envy those who have to decide what goes in and what stays out. I'm not saying that everything is perfect with the Israeli health system; there are funding problems, and doctors sometimes strike (yes, strike!) to protest the decent, but far from exceptional, salaries that they receive. (No private helicopters here!) But by having a number of competing non-profits whose rates are capped by law, and whose services must adhere to a government-set minimum, you end up with a high-quality, low-cost health system that removes many of the worst profit incentives from the insurance industry, replacing them with incentives to keep people healthy. My impression is that Germany has a similar system, but I don't know enough about it to compare. A quick closing anecdote: Several months ago, when Bibi Netanyahu was elected prime minister, he floated a bunch of trial balloons while putting together his initial budget. One of the items that caused the greatest amount of protest was his plan to charge about $2.50 (yes, two and a half dollars) per *night* that someone would stay in the hospital -- up from the current amount, which is zero. There was a firestorm of protest, with people saying that Netanyahu was so heartless that he wanted to charge people to be sick! The proposal was immediately taken off of the table. The bottom line, then, is that the system here is pretty good, and costs a fraction of what health care does in the United States (where you have 50 times as many citizens, and thus greater potential for economies of scale). I simply don't understand how Americans can continue to claim that they have such a great system, when it's so easy to find alternatives that cost less and do at least as much. » E-Mail This » Add to Del.icio.us Source: NPR Blogs: Planet Money | 10 Aug 2009 | 4:09 pm How the major stock indexes fared on Monday (AP)AP - Stocks fell modestly Monday in the absence of any major corporate or economic developments. Investors were cautious ahead of a two-day meeting of the Federal Reserve that starts Tuesday, and they're waiting for retail earnings reports to give some clues about consumer spending for the rest of the year.Source: Yahoo! News: Stock Markets News | 10 Aug 2009 | 4:07 pm Stocks fall as traders lock in profits after rally (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Stock Markets News | 10 Aug 2009 | 3:58 pm Companies rethinking the supply chainAs shipping costs and pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions rise, companies are looking for ways to make their supply chains shorter and save money. Kai Ryssdal talks to Craig Carter of the Journal of Supply Chain Management.Source: Marketplace | 10 Aug 2009 | 3:32 pm Rosetta Stone Holders Unloading Stock (RST)Rosetta Stone Inc. (NYSE: RST) has just filed with the SEC for a public offering of common stock. The language learning software leader filed to sell some 4,697,750 shares, which it listed as being worth approximately $138,959,445. Technically, this is 4.085 million shares and the rest is an overallotment. Be advised here that the company [...][[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Source: 24/7 Wall Street | 10 Aug 2009 | 3:27 pm Aluminum price heavy on light demandDemand for aluminum to build airplanes and cars is down and supplies are up. But the price of aluminum has been climbing -- from a low of 60 cents a pound a few months ago to about 90 cents today. Joel Rose reports.Source: Marketplace | 10 Aug 2009 | 3:23 pm U.S. deal could damage UBS appealThe U.S. government is close to a settlement with the Swiss bank UBS about releasing American clients' info. But privacy is a core value of UBS and the move could have a dramatic effect on Swiss banking culture. Alisa Roth reports.Source: Marketplace | 10 Aug 2009 | 3:19 pm Debts mounting on Fed balance sheetA Fed committee meets tomorrow to decide whether to change short-term interest rates. But analysts are more concerned about the debts the Fed has been buying -- and it's set to take on more. Steve Henn reports.Source: Marketplace | 10 Aug 2009 | 3:15 pm Green Shoot Of The Day: Labor Shortage In The Golf World
Following their time in Cuba. the four members of China's Muslim Uighur minority are now almost two months into a four month stint working at the Port Royal Golf Course in Bermuda. Faced with the rapid departure of a group of Filipino workers, Wendall Brown, chairman of the board of trustees for Bermuda's public golf courses, started the work visa process by describing how the clan possessed all of the special skills required to work in a British colony.
The timing couldn't be better for these guys as once they finish summering in BDA they can make their way to British Columbia for their winter jobs as heli-skiing guides in the Selkirks.
Sponsored Topics: Golf - British Columbia - Bermuda - Cuba - sport Source: Dealbreaker | 10 Aug 2009 | 3:10 pm Genzyme Taking Aim At Resolution (GENZ)Genzyme Corp. (NASDAQ: GENZ) has taken steps to remedy its situation with the FDA and to remedy its image. Genzyme issued some new guidance with an investor update and said it would discard the majority of the work-in-process material under question. Genzyme had been hitting 52-week lows last week as a result of its woes. [...][[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Source: 24/7 Wall Street | 10 Aug 2009 | 2:59 pm Chart: The Collapse In Global Trade
"The big elephant in the room." (Carl Weinberg/High Frequency Economics) By Laura Conaway Right in the middle of last week's data-lanche on unemployment, Marc Chandler of the Brown Brothers Harriman currency group called for a breath. "There is another development, though, that should not be lost in the shuffle," he wrote in one of his regular notes. "During the economic downturn, trade fell more than industrial output, which collapsed." The chart above shows that we're living through the only major, sustained fall in global trade since 1970. Carl Weinberg of High Frequency Economics notes that French exports are down 18.7 percent, after a 24.7 percent year-over-year decline just a couple of months back. Monthly reports on German exports document declines of 24.8 percent and 29 percent. Australia, which has been feasting on its export economy, is down 14.7 percent. "Behind each story lies a catastrophic decline in gross exports," Weinberg writes. The IMF data on exports track a 36 percent fall from the peak of $1.5 trillion in July 2008. "We have never experienced anything like this in our lifetimes. Neither, quite frankly, did we ever think we would." » E-Mail This » Add to Del.icio.us Source: NPR Blogs: Planet Money | 10 Aug 2009 | 2:52 pm State Of The State StreetThere is this recursive sort of double-take one does on learning that a firm is on the verge of exhausting its legal reserve. First, that the firm needed a large legal reserve. Second that it was exhausted. Third, that "large" in this instance is $650 million. Whoosh! Somewhere there is a fantastic punch line in there when the horrified looks are placated by a quick "Yeah, it's State Street Bank." Everyone goes back to drinking a middling California Chardonnay. That this would be soothing should be irritating. State Street Corp. may deplete the $625 million set aside in 2007 to settle legal claims stemming from losses linked to subprime mortgages. No reason, it seems, to be alarmed. Of course the reserve got spent. That's what it is there for. The company declined 99 cents to $52.87 at 11:06 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. It has gained 34 percent this year, compared with the 25 percent rise for the Standard & Poor's index of asset managers and custody banks. That's a modest decline, isn't it. Lower administration costs now that $625 million no longer resides in the building? State Street May Exhaust $625 Million Legal Reserve [Bloomberg]
Sponsored Topics: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission - New York Stock Exchange - State Street - Business - Standard & Poor Source: Dealbreaker | 10 Aug 2009 | 2:23 pm Presented By:Source: Dealbreaker | 10 Aug 2009 | 2:23 pm Letter: 'The Really Ugly Side' Of Paying For Health CareBy Caitlin Kenney Ann K. writes: I have been temping for the last year in the patient accounts department of a prominent neurosurgery group. I deal with insurance and billing from the specialists end of things. Our surgeons range from those that will send patients to a collection agency in a heartbeat, to those who will almost always take a personal hit to write off a patient's bill. What bothers me most, though, is observing how patients are treated, both by us in patient accounts and the insurance companies. When patients claim they don't have the money to pay us (they have thirty days from when the insurance pays to pay the remainder or set up an payment plan, which can take no longer than one year), we don't take their word for it. We have them fill out a monthly budget, go to the county auditors website to find out the value of their homes, and push back at every turn - often nearly forcing them to pick up a medical only credit card, called CareCredit. If they qualify for CareCredit but choose not to use it, we have no mercy. We use a lot of black humor when talking about patients because otherwise I don't think we'd be able to look ourselves in the mirror, sometimes. Insurance companies can be no better. There is no limit on how far back they can go to do what we call a take-back, which is basically what it sounds like. They've paid for a service, then later determine (for whatever reason) that they shouldn't have paid -- so they take that money back from us, putting the financial burden on the patient. It's a bit like rescission, in how arbitrary it seems, but if it happens three years later and the policy isn't actually dissolved, surprise! All this, of course, is complicated by the fact that patients aren't all angels, either. I get to overhear the really ugly side - patients who make no effort to pay or understand their benefits (if they have them at all), who flat out lie to us when they promise to pay, who believe that their treatment is a right (that "center of healing" view about hospitals) and that it's illegal to deny them office visits or treatment if they don't pay us (it's not, most of the time). Basically, unless you have good insurance through your employer, you are having a mainstream procedure, and everyone involved (the patient, office staff, and physicians) remembers to dot every i and cross every t, it could get very ugly very easily. All of this has convinced me of two things: One, some kind of health care reform is absolutely necessary, though I am not informed enough to offer any real suggestions on how to make that happen. Two: I don't want to have any part in this system, because it has exposed me to some of the absolute dregs of human behavior. I'll be leaving this job at the end of the month by my own choice. » E-Mail This » Add to Del.icio.us
Source: NPR Blogs: Planet Money | 10 Aug 2009 | 1:43 pm Seeing health care from the countersideEver wonder what those people on the other side of the doctor's office counter actually do? Tamara Keith takes a closer look at the inner works of a typical medical practice in our first installment of "The Cure: Remaking Health Care in America (TM)."Source: Marketplace | 10 Aug 2009 | 1:35 pm Feast and famineSelf-sufficiency is an appealing slogan in Britain, and reducing waste plain is common sense. But such prescriptions are no way to solve the global food crisisSource: Financial Times - US homepage | 10 Aug 2009 | 1:31 pm Why Clinton is visiting Angola nowU.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be tying up her trip to Africa with a stop over in Angola, which hasn't peaked on our radar since the end of its decades-long civil war. Kai Ryssdal talks to The Eurasia Group's Jonas Horner.Source: Marketplace | 10 Aug 2009 | 1:28 pm Oil falls below $71 ahead of US retail reports (AP)AP - Oil prices fell below $71 a barrel Monday ahead of this week's U.S. consumer spending data that could shed light on the strength of the economic recovery.Source: Yahoo! News: Business | 10 Aug 2009 | 1:19 pm California Cannot Buy A Break
Lawsuits are the latest roadblock for California budget [LA Times]
Sponsored Topics: California - Los Angeles Times - United States - Lobbying - Government budget Source: Dealbreaker | 10 Aug 2009 | 1:11 pm Achuthan Says Service Industries Will Add Jobs This YearSource: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 10 Aug 2009 | 12:46 pm DPJ chief hits at ‘US-led’ globalismYukio Hatoyama, leader of Japan's opposition Democratic party who is strongly placed favourite to be its next to become prime minister, has vowed to shield his nation's people and industries from globalisationSource: Financial Times - US homepage | 10 Aug 2009 | 12:39 pm Why Unemployment Fell, Part II: The Drop In Discouraged Workers
This number dropped, too. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics) By Laura Conaway The U.S. will likely not reach 10 percent unemployment in this recession, argues Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com. Silver, the master statistician and predictor of the 2008 election, says that people misread part of Friday's unemployment report -- specifically, he says they made too much of the shrinking labor pool. Some 422,000 people bailed out of the workforce in July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, and that's part of what caused the unemployment rate to fall from 9.5 percent in June to the new rate of 9.4 percent. At least some of those people are thought to have given up on hunting for work completely. The BLS does track discouraged workers, which it defines as unemployerd workers who give an economic reason for why they've stopped looking. Silver writes: This discouraged workers story has been a bit oversold though: U-4, the measure of unemployment that includes discouraged workers, went down too. Most of this, rather, is a matter of people finding somewhat longer-term alternatives to seeking employment: going back to school, early retirement, joining the Army or the Peace Corps, etc. As you can see in the chart above, the category of U-4 -- total unemployed plus discourged workers -- fell by .2 percent, more than the decline in the overall unemployment rate. » E-Mail This » Add to Del.icio.us Source: NPR Blogs: Planet Money | 10 Aug 2009 | 12:28 pm Goldman's Tilton Sees Unemployment Rising to 10.5% by Late 2010Source: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 10 Aug 2009 | 12:20 pm Dealers Just Can't Catch A Break
Sell too few cars? Get dropped. Sell too many? Get dropped. Turn around and start issuing misleading advertising New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo today told 40 auto dealers across the state to stop issuing misleading advertisements for the Federal Car Allowance Rebate System, known as "cash for clunkers." Next thing you know they will want to eliminate introductory or teaser rate financing! Cuomo Tells Dealers to Stop Deceptive Clunkers Ads [Bloomberg]
Sponsored Topics: New York State Attorney General - Andrew Cuomo - New York - United States - Society and Culture Source: Dealbreaker | 10 Aug 2009 | 12:19 pm Obama faces tough choices on AfghanistanAt a time when the US president is under acute pressure to rein in a multitrillion dollarhuge US fiscal deficit and when the Pentagon is severely overstretched, another hefty troop request would be hard to satisfySource: Financial Times - US homepage | 10 Aug 2009 | 12:19 pm Glassman Says U.S. Economy Poised for RecoverySource: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 10 Aug 2009 | 12:18 pm FBR’s Miller Says Home Equity Losses Hamper Banks' RecoverySource: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 10 Aug 2009 | 12:15 pm Pioneer’s Carey Says U.S. Manufacturers Have Excess CapacitySource: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 10 Aug 2009 | 12:14 pm Wesbury Says Cyclical Stocks Will Continue to OutperformSource: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 10 Aug 2009 | 12:13 pm Pali's Greenfield Doubts News Corp.'s Ability to Charge Web FeeSource: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 10 Aug 2009 | 12:11 pm First Horizon's performance earns it a downgrade (AP)AP - First Horizon National Corp.'s aggressive handling of its bad mortgage and construction loans earned the bank praise, but it's stock got a downgrade Monday.Source: Yahoo! News: Business | 10 Aug 2009 | 12:10 pm Institutional Risk's Whalen Says Bank Bailouts Are Not OverSource: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 10 Aug 2009 | 12:09 pm DeQuadros Says U.S. Recession May Have Ended in JuneSource: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 10 Aug 2009 | 12:02 pm Lenhoff Says U.S. Economic Recovery Began in Second QuarterSource: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 10 Aug 2009 | 12:00 pm Conservative vs. Liberal e-Propaganda, Round 1Every so often, my Web travels bring me face-to-face with Photoshopped pieces of partisan propaganda. Conservatives, the Obama era’s underdogs, are admittedly producing more viral anti-liberal artwork than the other way around. But once in a while, liberals produce artwork, too. I have decided to put some select pieces head-to-head, to see which bored partisan has come up with the better ad. The first round concerns fake birth certificates. Remember the Obama birth certificate conspiracy theory? Here are the conservative and liberal responses:
Analysis: The conservative piece missed out on a few opportunities. For example, the Registration District No. really could have been 6666. Ann Dunham “Bolshevik” should have been a minor (eg. 15 years old) when she gave birth–that would have made her more raunchy. That said, the conservative certificate’s APGAR section really shines. “Typical liberal cry,” “Grimace,” and “Fake Smile” made me laugh. Also, this certificate gains originality points for “Sex of Child: M (ish).” The liberal certificate also gets points for Sex of Child: GOP. I like that the occupation of the devil is “devil’s advocate.” Richard Nixon as the eputy Registrar of the Province of Hell is another nice touch. However, overall, the design of the birth certificate didn’t give the liberal writer quite as much opportunity to express mirth as the conservative one did. Outcome: The conservative ad wins, but just by a hair. The main difference is in the design. The conservative piece’s APGAR was pretty funny. If the liberal birth certificate had had space for more detail, it could have taken this prize. Score: Conservatives–1; Liberals–0 How do you vote on this particular propaganda comparison?
Source: Business Pundit | 10 Aug 2009 | 11:57 am Toxic Assets Find A New Home
And soon they'll be wondering why the puke green egg that says AAA-rated CMBS smells so rotten. Inupiat Eskimos Jump Into PPIP [WSJ]
Sponsored Topics: Alaska - Alaska North Slope - Eskimo - Oaktree Capital Management - United States Source: Dealbreaker | 10 Aug 2009 | 11:42 am Testing week for US bond investorsUS bond investors are braced for a testing week, dominated by record $75bn in debt sales by the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting, which concludes on WednesdaySource: Financial Times - US homepage | 10 Aug 2009 | 11:23 am US Banks to Collect $38.5 Billion In Overdraft Fees This YearFrom the Financial Times: US banks stand to collect a record $38.5bn in fees for customer overdrafts this year, with the bulk of the revenue coming from the most financially stretched consumers amid the deepest recession since the 1930s, according to research. The fees are nearly double those reported in 2000. The finding is likely to increase public hostility towards the financial sector, which has been under political pressure to ease the burden on consumers by increasing credit availability and lending more fairly after being bailed out by taxpayers. The Federal Reserve is working on rules on overdraft fees, and rules on customer charges could be a priority of the Obama administration’s proposed Consumer Protection Agency if approved by Congress. The median bank overdraft fee has this year rose from $25 to $26, according to Moebs, the first time it has gone up in a recession for more than 40 years. Ouch!
Source: Business Pundit | 10 Aug 2009 | 11:09 am Video: Bank Commercials Through The YearsRemember those vintage-y Wells Fargo ads, the ones that looked like spin-offs from Little House on the Prairie? The Big Money's Win Rosenfeld (an NPR alum) says you can watch the financial industry evolve through its pitches to you, the consumer. » E-Mail This » Add to Del.icio.us Source: NPR Blogs: Planet Money | 10 Aug 2009 | 10:59 am Leave Lenny Ah-lone!
George Griffith of the trustee's office said Dykstra signed a "real property questionnaire under penalty of perjury," claiming insurance on the mansion did not expire until December. But the court filing says that on the very day Dykstra signed the document, July 14, the insurance was cancelled "for failure to pay." Perhaps we're just being difficult, but it occurs to us that the policy "expiring" is not at all the same as the policy laboring under the constant risk of termination for non-payment. Of course, we only have CNBC doing translation for us here, so it is hard to tell, but when you are digging through the semantics in this kind of disclosure to try and force a Chapter 7 liquidation, you really are scraping the bottom of the barrel. Sure, we suppose it is possible that what Lenny really penned on pain of perjury was more along the lines of "...and furthermore, there are absolutely no issues that might threaten, or cause outright, a lapse of insurance coverage at any time during the bankruptcy process...." That seems... thin. Baseball Great Dykstra Could Face Liquidation [CNBC]
Sponsored Topics: Insurance - Bankruptcy - George Griffith - Financial Services - Business Source: Dealbreaker | 10 Aug 2009 | 10:55 am Cement giant chips away at debtMexican cement maker Cemex went from operating one small plant to becoming a multinational success story. But huge growth came at a high price, and the company is now trying to refinance $15 billion of debt. Dan Grech reports.Source: Marketplace | 10 Aug 2009 | 10:54 am One Reason Not to Friend Your Boss on Facebook
Source: Business Pundit | 10 Aug 2009 | 10:44 am Marion’s Pizza Offers Food at 1965 Prices
Marion’s, a pizza chain in Ohio, is celebrating its 44th birthday today by offering food at 1965 prices. The Dayton Business Journal has more on this original promotion: A chain of local pizza restaurants is rolling back its prices to 1965, in honor of its 44th anniversary. All seven Marion’s Piazza locations will be serving the original 1965 menu Aug. 10. Prices that day will range from 80 cents for a small cheese pizza to $2.50 for a large deluxe pizza. Marion’s also will be serving salads for 25 cents, sandwiches for $1 and spaghetti with meatballs for $1. Marion’s usually does the 1965 promotion every five years, the last time being in 2005, but decided to bring the special back a year early because of the down economy. The restaurant chain expects to sell more than 20,000 pizzas during the promotion. I love this idea. I’d like to see have a “1965 week,” where the prices on everything are back down to 1965 levels. Gas, groceries, homes, gold… That said, in another 44 years, when Marion’s discounts its $52 9-inch pizzas back to $6.50, people may once again pine for the cheap old days.
Source: Business Pundit | 10 Aug 2009 | 10:17 am “Deadly Doctors” Rails Against New Gov. Healthcare Ideas
Deadly Doctors: O Advisors Want to Ration Healthcare is former New York politician Betsy McCaughey’s attempt to bring attention to the views of Obama’s top healthcare advisors. Yet at least two of President Obama’s top health advisers should never be trusted with that power…Start with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel…Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their patients and consider social justice, such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else. Emanuel…believes that “communitarianism” should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia” (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. ‘96). He explicitly defends discrimination against older patients: “Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years” (Lancet, Jan. 31). McCaughey presents alternatives to Obama’s healthcare plan here.
Source: Business Pundit | 10 Aug 2009 | 9:29 am Tales From The Job Market: 'Competing With People Who Should Be Retired'Chelsea Pennick writes: I, admittedly, have nothing to complain about. I have a good and secure job that also happens to be with a nonprofit organization. But I am also young and building my career. About a year ago, I decided I was ready for the next challenge and began looking to make my next move. Nada. Nothing to even apply for. Of course, my expectations were not high considering I live in Montana, but my town is credited with the highest per capita number of nonprofits in the US (or at least was at one time), so I held some faith that over a year, something would spark my interest. And I'm not alone. I've had any number of conversations with other folks my age (30-ish) who are either in the same boat--or worse--are finding themselves competing with seasoned professionals and baby boomers who, under other circumstances, would no longer be in the job market. Now THAT is frustrating for a young person looking to develop their career, and who may consider themselves "next generation's leaders." It leaves one with diminishing hope when we find ourselves competing with people who should be retired. Maybe now we should start calling ourselves the next-after-the-next generation's leaders--the "3rd string."
» E-Mail This » Add to Del.icio.us Source: NPR Blogs: Planet Money | 10 Aug 2009 | 8:58 am GM to Sell New Cars on eBay
Select GM dealers will sell new cars through eBay as part of a four-week trial. CNNMoney has more: Under the program, which begins Tuesday, consumers will be able to bargain with the dealers for Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Pontiac cars and trucks from model years 2008, 2009 and 2010. The program ends Sept. 8. The new car shopping website, gm.ebay.com, will feature a “wide selection” of up to 20,000 new GM vehicles at “competitive prices,” the companies said in a press release. Customers will be able to buy cars outright at the advertised price using the Web site’s “Buy It Now” option. Alternatively, customers can suggest a price under the “Best Offer” option, which may then be negotiated with the dealer. The eBay program will only apply to California dealers. I shudder to think of the shipping costs if the buyer is located far away.
Source: Business Pundit | 10 Aug 2009 | 8:56 am Paper: Americans Will Go From Suburban Home Owners To City RentersBy Laura Conaway Welcome back to the first workday after the unemployment rate fell. Here at Planet Money HQ, you can almost hear the air hissing out of inflated expectations. Ah, but the news. Big pay for bankers is back, in the form of the oxymoronic "guaranteed bonus." We'll see what the new pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, says about that. In the category of stuff to read for self-improvement, economist Robert Lucas defends the dismal science. A new research paper says Americans will spend the next 20 years turning away from sprawl and homeownership and toward filling in those donut cities created by suburban flight. Paul Krugman says President Obama should reappoint Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Eyeing a long recovery, Joseph Stiglitz says he's not so sure. The U.S. federal deficit grew by $181 billion in July. And the New York Times offers a primer on the health care overhaul. It's worth a click. » E-Mail This » Add to Del.icio.us Source: NPR Blogs: Planet Money | 10 Aug 2009 | 6:52 am Why OS Matters
Source: Business Pundit | 10 Aug 2009 | 5:47 am
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