Australian house prices plunged by the most on record in 2011 as global economic uncertainty and concerns about its impact at home kept a lid on demand.
An index measuring the weighted average of prices for established houses in eight major cities slid 4.8 percent from a year earlier, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the biggest calendar-year drop since the data began in March 2002. They fell 1 percent in the three months to December from the previous quarter, when they retreated a revised 1.9 percent. The median estimate of 15 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was a 0.6 percent quarterly fall.
Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens lowered the benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point on Nov. 1 and again on Dec. 6 as inflation pressures eased and global growth risks increased. Australia recorded its worst annual job growth in 19 years in 2011, as consumers boosted savings, and traders are pricing in a 60 percent chance of another cut next week.
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The average U.S. price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped three-and-a-half cents over the past two weeks.
That’s according to the Lundberg Survey of fuel prices, released Sunday, which puts the price of a gallon of regular at $3.39.
Midgrade costs an average of $3.54 a gallon, and premium is at $3.66.
Diesel was up about two cents, at $3.91 a gallon.
Of the cities surveyed, Salt Lake City, Utah, has the nation’s lowest average price for gas at $2.94. Los Angeles has the highest at $3.71.
In California, the lowest average price was $3.59 in Fresno. The average statewide for a gallon of regular was $3.67, up about three cents.
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South Korea has lifted an eight-year ban on imports of Canadian beef.
Seoul imposed the ban after mad cow disease was found in a Canadian cow in 2003. Canada has since been recognized as a “controlled risk” country for beef by the World Organization for Animal Health. Canada filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization over the South Korean ban in 2009.
South Korea’s Agriculture Ministry says the ban was lifted on Friday. But it says Seoul will only allow imports of Canadian beef from cattle younger than 30 months old. Younger cows are deemed less susceptible to mad cow disease.
The ministry also said the imports must exclude riskier parts such as the brain, skull and eyes.
South Korea was Canada’s fourth-largest beef export market before the ban.
Apple Inc. hopes to revolutionize the education industry
The captain of a cruise liner that ran aground and capsized off the Tuscan coast faced accusations from authorities and passengers that he abandoned ship before everyone was safely evacuated as rescuers found another body on the overturned vessel.
The male passenger was found in a corridor of the part of the Costa Concordia still above water, fire department spokesman Luca Cari told state radio. The victim was wearing a life-vest. Six bodies have now been recovered, while 16 people are unaccounted-for after the luxury liner struck rocks or a reef off the tiny island of Giglio.
The number of unaccounted-for was raised after relatives of two Sicilian women who had been listed among those safely evacuated after Friday night’s grounding told authorities they not heard from them.
The search of the ship, including a risky inspection of the underwater half of the capsized ship, was continuing Monday, in rough seas.
On Sunday, divers searching the murky depths of the ship found the bodies of two elderly men. Three other bodies were found in the hours after the accident.
Still, there were glimmers of hope: The rescue of three survivors _ a young South Korean couple on their honeymoon and a crew member brought to shore in a dramatic airlift some 36 hours after the grounding late Friday.
Meanwhile, attention focused on the captain, who was spotted by Coast Guard officials and passengers fleeing the scene even as the chaotic and terrifying evacuation was under way.
The ship’s Italian owner, a subsidiary of Carnival Cruise lines, issued a statement late Sunday saying there appeared to be “significant human error” on the part of the captain, Francesco Schettino, “which resulted in these grave consequences.”
Authorities were holding Schettino for suspected manslaughter and a prosecutor confirmed Sunday they were also investigating allegations the captain abandoned the stricken liner before all the passengers had escaped. According to the Italian navigation code, a captain who abandons a ship in danger can face up to 12 years in prison.
Schettino insisted he didn’t leave the liner early, telling Mediaset television that he had done everything he could to save lives. “We were the last ones to leave the ship,” he said.
Questions also swirled about why the ship had navigated so close to the dangerous reefs and rocks that jut off Giglio’s eastern coast, amid suspicions the captain may have ventured too close while carrying out a maneuver to entertain tourists on the island guaranteed payday loans.
Residents of Giglio said they had never seen the Costa come so close to the dangerous “Le Scole” reef area.
“This was too close, too close,” said Italo Arienti, a 54-year-old sailor who has worked on the Maregiglio ferry between Giglio and the mainland for more than a decade. Pointing to a nautical map, he drew his finger along the path the ship usually takes and the jarring one close to shore that it followed Friday.
Costa captains have occasionally steered the ship near port and sounded the siren in a special salute, Arienti said. Such a nautical “fly-by” was staged last August, prompting the town’s mayor to send a note of thanks to the commander for the treat it provided tourists who flock to the island, local news portal GiglioNews.it reported.
But Arienti and other residents said even on those occasions, the cruise ship always stayed far offshore, well beyond the reach of the “Le Scole” reefs.
Coast Guard Cmdr. Filippo Marini said divers had recovered the so-called “black box,” with the recording of the navigational details, from a compartment now under water, though no details were released.
Survivors described a terrifying escape that was straight out of a scene from “Titanic.” Many complained the crew didn’t give them good directions on how to evacuate and once the emergency became clear, delayed lowering the lifeboats until the ship was listing too heavily for all to be released.
“We were left to ourselves,” pregnant French passenger Isabelle Mougin, who injured her ankle in the scramble, told the ANSA news agency.
Another French passenger, Jeanne Marie de Champs, said that faced with the chaotic scene at the lifeboats, she decided to take her chances swimming to shore.
“I was afraid I wouldn’t make the shore, but then I saw we were close enough, I felt calmer,” she told Sky News 24.
President Obama gave a pep talk Friday to the staff of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — including the new director he controversially appointed this week.
"Every one of you here has a critical role to play in making sure that everybody’s playing by the same rules — to make sure the big banks on Wall Street play by the same rules as community banks on Main Street," Obama said.
The bureau is likely to face a bumpy road after the president’s recess appointment of Richard Cordray, a former Ohio attorney general, as the bureau’s first official director.
Obama’s move angered Republicans in Congress who had tried for months to prevent the president from making exactly that appointment unless he agreed to structural changes in the consumer bureau. They say the bureau — which came into existence last year as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reforms — is unaccountable and they deny the legitimacy of the appointment, saying Congress isn’t in recess.
The administration counters that the pro-forma sessions aimed at blocking the recess appointments aren’t legitimate, and that the president has a Constitutional obligation to appoint people to keep government running.
A House Republican panel has called Cordray to testify later this month. And business groups are talking about a legal challenge to the bureau’s authority.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is an independent agency created as part of the Wall Street reforms of 2010 tasked with regulating financial products such as mortgages and credit cards bad credit payday loans.
As its new chief, Cordray has said he plans to move forward and not worry about potential lawsuits that may challenge his agency’s powers.
In his address on Friday, Obama praised the bureau for moving forward to target nonbank firms that issue financial products such as payday lenders, debt collectors and mortgage servicers — sectors that remained unregulated while the bureau lacked an official director.
"Now that Richard is your director, you can finally exercise the full powers that this agency has been given under the law," Obama said. "No longer are consumers left alone to face the risk of unfair or deceptive or abusive practices. Not any more."
Obama gave a "special shoutout" to Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard University professor who came up with the idea of the bureau. The White House bypassed Warren, a critic of the banking industry and lightning rod to Republicans, in favor of nominating Cordray to run the bureau. Warren is now running for the U.S. Senate.
The mention of Warren’s name drew big cheers from the crowd of 100 employees attending the speech at the main offices of the bureau, which now has a staff of around 800.
Brooke Gray could be either of two things: an insufficiently educated opportunist, trying to pass herself off as an equine dentist, or a young woman dedicated to horses, performing an age-old practice for an honest wage.
A circuit court judge recently said the former. Her attorney, a St. Louis-based litigator with a history of challenging the government’s licensing power, says the latter — and believes the judge’s ruling could limit everyone from cattle hands to dog groomers.
A Clinton County Circuit Court judge ruled in December that Gray had to stop a practice called “teeth floating” after the Missouri Veterinary Medical Board, which oversees veterinary licenses in the state, sued Gray because she does not have a veterinary license.
Her attorney plans to appeal the ruling, saying that Gray is merely practicing something that unlicensed lay people have done for hundreds of years.
“Up until 15 years ago no one in Missouri considered these animal husbandry practices veterinary medicine,” said Gray’s attorney, David Roland, who helms the libertarian Missouri Freedom Center. “That’s how animal agriculture has always been done.”
Roland calls Gray’s case “the tip of the iceberg” and says it could have ramifications for anyone who wants to perform “basic animal husbandry” without a license.
But state law, veterinarian groups and the board say veterinary practices are regulated for a reason: to protect animals and their owners from untrained, unskilled workers. They say the practice of teeth floating, which often requires sedation, should be done either by, or under the supervision, of a licensed veterinarian.
“The public seems to think the licensing board is there to protect veterinarians,” said Bruce Whittle, chair of the equine committee for the Missouri Veterinary Medical Association, the group that represents the state’s vets. “It’s to protect the public against veterinarians that are doing harm.”
Gray, who lives north of Kansas City, grew up on an Iowa farm and always wanted to work with horses. So, about eight years ago, she got two months of training at an equine dentistry school in Idaho, then moved to Missouri and opened B & B Equine Dentistry.
She built a steady clientele floating horses teeth, which involves filing down the sharp points that emerge on the enamel. Sharp edges can make it difficult for the horse to eat. Her customers, she says, liked her work.
“I’ve never had a complaint from a client,” Gray said.
She did, however, get a complaint filed against her from a local Clay County vet, David Leighr, whose clients told him that Gray was improperly sedating horses and, in some cases, extracting teeth. Under state law, sedation by anyone other than an owner or licensed vet is illegal, while extraction is a surgical practice, which makes it a veterinary practice, and therefore also illegal for someone to perform without a license.
“One of my clients told me that Brooke had sedated an animal and hit a vein,” Leighr said. “Brooke also had them sign a piece of paper that said she was not responsible for anything that happens. A vet doesn’t do that. That raised a red flag with me.”
When asked if she had extracted teeth, Gray said: “I’ve taken some things out of horses mouths that didn’t belong there.” When asked if she had sedated horses, she said: “I’ve been informed not to say anything about the sedation issue.”
Leighr called the board, and eventually, it began to pursue the matter.
After sending two cease-and-desist letters, the board sued Gray to make her stop. She didn’t. So in September, the matter went to trial.
Roland says he believes the board pursued the case on behalf of veterinarians who felt they were in danger of losing income to untrained teeth floaters, not because they were concerned about animal welfare.
“One of the quirks of the law is that it’s not illegal to do the work on the animals,” he explained. “But if they get paid for it, it’s a criminal offense. So this is not a health issue.”
Several states, he said, have recently changed laws to allow teeth floating by nonvets, and he’ll push for Missouri to do the same.
He also points to a number of cease-and-desist letters sent by the board aimed at stopping everything from branding to pet grooming practices. These, he says, are evidence the state is trying to regulate practices that should not require licensing.
“This is an issue that’s been gaining momentum for a couple of years,” he said.
Gray believes the board is merely requiring a costly education — vet school runs an average of $150,000 — for something she specifically trained to do.
But veterinarians, including Leighr — a fourth-generation vet who said news coverage of the issue in his practice area had cost him business — maintain this issue centers on animal welfare and training.
“Her attorney is trying to convince the public that lay professionals have been doing this for years and that it’s safe,” he said. “I don’t think it’s safe. … And the fact that’s she’s using sedation and there’s no oversight makes it even less safe.”
“I went to school for eight years,” Leighr added. “I’ll put my records out there all the way back to high school, and I challenge her to do the same.”
Gray said she would continue floating teeth, only under the supervision of vets, until the appeal is resolved. That, Leighr insisted, is all he’s wanted all along.
“I said to her: ‘You can do this all day long by having a vet present,’” he said. “Missouri is full of vets retiring every day. They’d be tickled to death to get in the truck with you and go on a farm call.”
Investors threw cold water on the New Year’s rally, with U.S. stocks set for a modest pullback at Wednesday’s open.
Dow Jones industrial average () and S&P 500 () futures were down 0.3%, while Nasdaq () futures were flat. Stock futures indicate the possible direction of the markets when they open at 9:30 a.m. ET.
Jitters surrounding Europe’s debt crisis have resurfaced, leaving investors on edge. Uncertainty about Greece, along with reports that Spain might seek rescue funding, weighed on sentiment.
A spokeswoman for the Spanish government told CNN the reports were "a complete lie" and "radically false," and separately Greek officials said Tuesday that progress had been made.
"We’re still watching Europe simmering now. We have another summit coming up and the problems are all still there," said Scott Brown, chief economist for Raymond James.
Europe: Still a huge pain for investors
European Union leaders hold their first summit of 2012 on Jan. 30. Political leaders hashed out a fiscal agreement in early December, but investors remain skeptical about how effective it will be.
Stocks rallied Tuesday following strong manufacturing reports from China, India and the United States.
Bank stocks — one of last year’s worst-performing sectors — led the Dow higher in the prior session. Bank of America (, Fortune 500), Citigroup (, Fortune 500) and JPMorgan (, Fortune 500) all posted strong gains.
World markets: European stocks fell in midday trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 () lost 0.1%, while the DAX () in Germany shed 0.8% and France’s CAC 40 () slid 0.7%.
Asian markets finished mixed. The Nikkei () gained 1.2%, while the Shanghai Composite () fell 1.4% and the Hang Seng () lost 0.8%.
Economy: The Census Bureau will release data on factory orders for the month of November before the opening bell business cards. Analysts surveyed by Briefing.com expect orders to have risen 2.1% in November, after dropping by 0.4% in October.
In the afternoon, the Commerce Department will release data on auto and truck sales for December. Auto sales stood at a 4.36 million annual rate in November, while truck sales were at a 5.98 million rate.
Companies: Before the opening bell, Yahoo (, Fortune 500) shares dropped 1.6% on reports that the search engine will name eBay’s (, Fortune 500) PayPal President Scott Thompson as its new CEO. Shares of eBay fell 1.1%.
Caterpillar (, Fortune 500) shares fell 1% in premarket trading, after the construction equipment manufacturer announced it will expand its research and development center in Wuxi, China.
Dunkin’ Brands () shares climbed 1.5% ahead of the bell, after the company announced it plans to double the number of its Dunkin’ Donuts restaurants in the United States in the next 20 years. The chain currently operates about 7,000 restaurants nationwide.
Cabot Oil & Gas () announced a two-for-one stock split, after its stock rallied 105% over the last year. The company also plans to increase its quarterly dividend 33%. Shares rose 3.3% in early trading.
Currencies and commodities: The dollar rose against the euro and British pound, but fell versus the Japanese yen.
Oil for February delivery slipped 70 cents to $102.26 a barrel.
Gold futures for February delivery fell $2.60 to $1,597.90 an ounce.
Bonds: The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury fell, pushing the yield up to 1.96%.
Samsung Electronics Co. and Hyundai Motor Co. (005380), South Korea
Warning: This column will feature no Top 10 list recounting the year’s biggest retail and consumer stories.
Instead, I thought I’d do something that journalists don’t always do so well, which is to follow up on some of our stories. So as 2011 comes to a close, I checked in on two businesses I’ve spilled ink on in the last year.
First, I popped into La Mancha Coffeehouse, a small, gutsy undertaking in the up-and-coming but still-has-a-ways-to-go neighborhood of Old North. I first wrote about the cafe in March, when it was about to open at 2815 North 14th Street, down the street from Crown Candy Kitchen.
As you might remember, a group of ’social do-gooders” had run a nonprofit cafe — Urban Studio Cafe — in the same space for about two years, but it ended up closing when it couldn’t make ends meet.
So Victoria and David Holden, who lived nearby and didn’t want to lose what had become an important community space, decided to give it a go as a for-profit cafe.
When I stopped in around mid-morning one day this week, the shop was empty aside from Victoria Holden and her only other employee. They were tidying up behind the counter. So how were things going?
“We’re good,” Holden said. “We’re here.”
Most of her customers are regulars — teachers stopping in on their way to school or workers from a nearby Habitat for Humanity work site, for example. A chess club meets regularly at the shop. And it hosts poetry readings now and then.
But it can be pretty slow at times.
“Business is up and down,” she acknowledged. “Some months we don’t get a full salary.”
The shop had an uptick, however, around the holidays, with more catering orders coming in and people buying gift certificates as presents. And this month, the cafe expanded hours to accommodate a late afternoon and early dinner crowd.
“But it varies a lot,” she said. “I wish there was some kind of (traffic) pattern I could plan for. But some things do revolve around weather and paychecks.”
Still, she’s been heartened by the community support, including regulars who have urged her to raise prices if she needs to.
“They say, ‘We just want you to stay in business. We just want you to be here,’” she said. “So that’s really encouraging.”
By the way, she does plan to raise prices next year to keep up with the rising cost of food and supplies.
A VINTAGE NEW NAME
In May, I wrote about Vintage Stock, a chain of new and used music, movie and video game stores that was moving into some of the shuttered Borders bookstores around town.
The Joplin-based company opened these multimedia superstores, which are larger than most of its other stores, under the banner of “Bam!” Two stores opened over the summer — one at Chesterfield Mall and another at Mid Rivers Mall.
But when a third store opened right before Thanksgiving in the former Borders space in South County Center, it went by a different name: “V-Stock.” Then earlier this month, the other two stores switched to that name, too.
Rodney Spriggs, the company’s chief executive, was a bit vague about the change when I asked if it was because the giant bookstore chain Books-A-Million had objected to him using that name. He said he couldn’t comment but did note that Books-A-Million has been using the “BAM!” name more prominently recently.
“All I can really say is that generally V-Stock ties in closer to Vintage Stock,” he said. “We chose to change it.”
How have the new stores been doing?
“They’ve been great,” he said. “We’re very happy with the sales numbers that have come out so far. It seems like the St. Louis customer base has taken to the concept very well.”
The newest store in South County has actually outperformed the other two by about 10 percent so far, he said. He thinks some of that may be because of demographics.
“South County is a little more blue collar, and I think they really like the idea of the value of buying previously viewed products,” he said.
Spriggs also has been a bit surprised by the popularity of the stores’ movie-rental business. After all, in the age of Netflix and on-demand cable services, who would go all the way to the mall to rent movies?
But Spriggs thinks he knows who: mall employees.
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