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Seven years and two jail convictions later, the Pentagon on Wednesday unveiled its latest attempt to get a $35 billion contract for refueling planes off the ground.

But within moments, the proposal was at risk of a crash and burn after a major contractor considered withholding its bid because it believed the terms unfairly favored its competitor.

And with thousands of jobs at stake for Alabama, the state’s two senators weighed in as well, saying the latest proposal appeared to do little to satisfy Northrop Grumman Corp.’s concerns that the terms were skewed against its larger, more expensive plane.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon publicly released its final bid request for the job flexcheck cash advance. The bid involves building 179 tankers, but the job could be expanded. A final contract is to be awarded in September.

Northrop said in a statement that it would review the complex proposal before commenting. A Northrop pullout would leave Boeing Co. as the lone bidder on one of the most protracted and expensive contracts in Pentagon history.

The Pentagon’s senior leaders on Wednesday defended the proposal.

"We believe that both offers are in a position to win," Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said.

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U.S. foreclosure filings rose 15 percent in January from a year earlier and exceeded 300,000 for the 11th consecutive month as modification programs failed to keep delinquent borrowers in their homes, RealtyTrac Inc. said.

A total of 315,716 properties received a notice of default, auction or bank seizure last month, or one in 409 households, the Irvine, California-based seller of default data said today in a statement. Filings fell 10 percent from December.

Bank seizures, also known as real-estate-owned or REOs, may rise to a record 3 million this year, RealtyTrac said last month. About 66,000 delinquent loans out of a targeted 4 million by 2012 were permanently modified as of Dec. 31 under the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program, according to the Treasury Department. About 787,000 mortgages are in trial programs that change loan terms, the Treasury said Jan. 19.

“It’s almost inevitable that modifications will fail,” Michelle Meyer, New York-based U.S. economist for Barclays Capital Inc., said in an interview. “Over the next several months, we should see REOs increase at an accelerated pace.”

Foreclosure filings also fell in January of last year from December, only to rise in subsequent months, RealtyTrac said.

“If history repeats itself we will see a surge in the numbers over the next few months as lenders foreclose on delinquent loans where neither the existing loan modification programs or the new short sale and deed-in-lieu of foreclosure alternatives works,” James J. Saccacio, RealtyTrac’s chief executive officer, said in the statement.

Negative Equity

Unemployment and negative equity, where homeowners owe more than their properties are worth, are adding to the foreclosure total, said Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow.com. More than a fifth of U.S. homeowners had negative equity in the fourth quarter, the Seattle-based real estate data provider said yesterday in a report.

“It’s tough to come up with a program that works for unemployment-related foreclosures where the owner can’t pay, or for rate resets where the owner is way underwater,” Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s executive vice president for marketing, said in an interview yesterday.

The jobless rate unexpectedly fell to 9.7 percent in January, and payrolls dropped by 20,000, the Labor Department said Feb. 5 in separate reports. About 8.4 million jobs have been lost since the recession began in December 2007, with more than 4 million cut since Obama took office in January 2009.

Home Sales

Sales of existing U payday loans.S. homes rose 14 percent in the fourth quarter from the third while the median price fell 4.1 percent from a year earlier, the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors said today. The sales gain may not last when government support for housing, including the Federal Reserve’s $1.25 trillion purchase of mortgage bonds and a first-time buyer tax credit, ends as scheduled in the spring, Humphries said.

January’s total filings were down 12 percent from the July peak, according to RealtyTrac. Bank seizures climbed 31 percent from a year earlier, default notices rose 4 percent and scheduled auctions increased 15 percent.

Nevada had the highest foreclosure rate for the 37th straight month, with one in 95 households receiving a filing in January. Total filings in the state fell 18 percent from a year earlier to 11,854.

Arizona ranked second, with filings for one in 129 households. The rate for both California and Florida was one in 187 households, RealtyTrac said.

Utah, Idaho, Michigan, Illinois, Oregon and Georgia rounded out the 10 highest foreclosure rates.

California Filings

California had the most filings with 71,817, down 6.4 percent from a year earlier. Florida followed with 47,069, up 15 percent, and Arizona was third at 21,048, up 43 percent. The three states accounted for 44 percent of the U.S. total.

Illinois was fourth with 18,120 filings, up 25 percent from January 2009. Michigan ranked fifth with 17,574, up 54 percent. Texas, Nevada, Georgia, Ohio and New Jersey completed the 10 states with the most filings, RealtyTrac said.

Filings increased 23 percent from a year earlier to 6,146 in New Jersey. They rose 34 percent to 2,218 in Connecticut, and jumped 31 percent to 4,569 in New York.

Las Vegas had the highest foreclosure rate for cities with a population of more than 200,000. One in 82 households there got a filing, a 21 percent decrease from a year earlier.

Phoenix was second among the biggest cities at one in 102 households. Six California cities ranked third through eighth: Modesto, Stockton, Riverside-San Bernardino, Merced, Vallejo- Fairfield and Bakersfield, according to RealtyTrac.

Cape Coral-Fort Myers and Orlando-Kissimmee in Florida were ninth and 10th respectively, said RealtyTrac, which sells default data collected from more than 2,200 counties representing 90 percent of the U.S. population.

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JetBlue inaugurated new service between Orlando and Montego Bay, Jamaica, on Feb. 8 with a daily round-trip flight out of Orlando International Airport.

Montego Bay is the 23rd nonstop destination served by JetBlue from Central Florida. The airline offers flights to six other destinations in the Caribbean and Latin America: Bogota, Colombia; Cancun, Mexico; Nassau, Bahamas; San Jose, Costa Rica; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and Aguadilla, Ponce and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

JetBlue Airways (Nasdaq: JBLU) currently serves 60 cities with 600 daily flights.

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Investor Stacy Hastie says One City Centre will soon look more like 600 Washington, the new name given to the downtown St. Louis office tower, which will undergo a $29 million overhaul.

An investment entity managed by Hastie bought the 25-story building Wednesday by placing the only bid — $12.7 million — at a foreclosure sale. The sale extinguished the interest held by Pyramid Cos., which had planned to renovate One City Centre as part of its ambitious Mercantile Exchange project. Financial problems forced Pyramid to close in 2008.

Hastie is part of the effort to redo One City Centre and St. Louis Centre, a former mall that will be converted largely to parking. He said the foreclosure "is a big step forward" and means work is about to begin to move the building’s entrance to Washington Avenue. The building’s new name will reflect the reconfiguration.

In two weeks, the law firm Lewis, Rice & Fingersh will move to One City Centre, while LarsonAllen, an accounting firm, will move its St. Louis County offices to the building by June 1, Hastie said.

The foreclosure occurred a day after the Missouri Development Finance Board, a state agency, approved a $5 million loan for the One City Centre overhaul. It will be packaged with about $15 million in funds and debt from Hastie’s entities and $10.1 million in tax credits and city funds to pay for the rehab.

Less certain is the future of the Arcade building, at 800 Olive Street, which another Hastie-run investment entity bought out of foreclosure Wednesday. Hastie’s $9 million bid gave him control of the building, which Hastie plans to sell to another developer.

Earlier this week, investment entities managed by Hastie agreed to pay off the loans Bank of America made to Pyramid for the One City Centre and Arcade projects. Conversion of the Arcade into condos was under way in 2007 when Pyramid halted work. Bank of America filed a foreclosure notice in early December.

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The government is expected to unveil a new program in the next couple of months that if approved may reimburse homeowners for up to half the cost of making their homes more efficient, but don’t start shopping for new kitchens just yet.

Homeowners will get the most return for the money in simple upgrades like caulking the windows, putting insulation in the attic, and changing the light bulbs - not new windows, refrigerators or dishwashers.

What’s on the table

The average American home wastes a lot of energy.

A complete energy retrofit - which could include caulking and insulation as well as new windows, appliances and boiler, could slice a home’s energy consumption in half, according to Lane Burt, manager of building energy policy at Natural Resources Defense Council.

But getting all that work done might run into the tens of thousands of dollars. And any new federal program - which is still being drafted and is not guaranteed to become law - would cap the government reimbursements at $12,000, said Burt.

Homeowners need not despair. There are some simple improvements that are relatively cheap and can pay for themselves quickly.

Just adding the insulation, caulking and lights might run an average homeowner $5,000 to $7,000, he said. That could shave about 30% off a home’s energy bill each month. And if the government picks up half the cost, the payback time for homeowners would be just a few years.

"It’s a win-win-win," said Burt. "It creates jobs, it saves energy, and it saves consumers money."

Consumer watchdog groups back up Burt’s claim.

"I don’t know of anyone who’s looked at them and said they are not a good idea," said Mark Cooper, director of research for the Consumer Federation of America. "The average consumer can save a big chunk of change by getting the work done."

What to look for

Experts say there are a few things to look for when getting an energy audit and retrofit work done.

First, find a contractor licensed by the Building Performance Institute or the Residential Energy Services Network. These contractors have been trained to first test a home and see how much energy it is losing, then make renovations on all the systems in the building instant payday loans.

As of now there are no incentives in the proposed program for do-it-yourselfers. That’s partly because the program is designed to create jobs by putting out-of-work contractors back on the job. But it’s also done to ensure the work is done right - a house that’s sealed up too tight could rot from mold or trap too much carbon monoxide.

Second, hire an energy contractor using the same diligence you would with any other contractor. Call around for price quotes and check references. If you have any problems report them to your state’s attorney general.

The big picture

The proposed program is part of a broader jobs initiative designed first and foremost to put people back to work.

The original proposal, which called for $23 billion to be spent on energy retrofits, was estimated to create over half a million jobs, according to CleanEdison, an association of green building professionals.

Those familiar with the proposal say the final bill may set aside $10 billion for energy retrofits. Still, it’s a lot more than is currently being done - while some states have reimbursement programs, there is no federal plan. The original stimulus bill contained $5 billion for low income homeowners and money to retrofit federal buildings, but nothing for middle income Americans. The new proposal has no income restriction.

But in addition to creating jobs and saving consumers money, it also lays the framework for an energy efficient economy and achieving the 80% reduction in greenhouse gases most scientists say is necessary to avoid the worst impacts of global warming.

That’s a target that can’t be hit with building wind farms and solar plants alone.

Some 40% of all energy used in this country goes to buildings, mostly in the form of heating, cooling and lighting.

"You don’t get an 80% reduction by 2050 without retrofitting nearly every building in the country," said Burt.  

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First Banks’ plan to sell its Texas banking operation fell through on Monday.

The Clayton-based bank and Sterling Bancshares announced that the deal was off. "This was a mutual decision by the parties after it was determined that the transaction could not be completed by Dec. 31," the banks said in a news release.

Troubled by large losses, largely in California development loans, First Banks has been trying to sell off assets in order to shore up its capital. First Banks, the holding company for First Bank, is based in Clayton.

The Texas deal involved 19 Texas branches, including $500 million in deposits and $230 million in loans. The sale represented 5.8 percent of the First Bank’s deposits and 2.8 percent of its loans. First Bank has also signed deals to sell its 24 Chicago bank branches and a St. Louis insurance operation.

Sterling Bancshares of Houston last month announced a $24 million loss for the third quarter as it sold off $51 million in troubled loans to investor groups.

First Banks lost $91 million in the third quarter, and $274 million through the first nine months of the year.

Sterling and First Banks said the sale of Texas branches "could still be beneficial." But they noted that the "current environment" makes regulatory approval a "longer than anticipated process."

No further details were disclosed.

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Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally says the automaker plans to speed up debt repayment as its financial condition continues to improve.

Ford has about $27 billion in debt. Mulally says the company repaid $10 billion this year and has sold $1 easy to get unsecured personal loans.6 billion worth of stock.

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Bennett Goldworth thought he was set for life when he retired three years ago at age 50. He bought a waterfront apartment at the high-end Four Seasons Condominium in Fort Lauderdale, and said goodbye to New York and his job selling real estate.

"I felt I had everything I wanted in life, which was great," said Goldworth.

A decade of investing with Bernard Madoff had given Goldworth the financial security to enjoy the "good life" in Florida, until Madoff’s arrest last Dec. 11. "I didn’t just have money stolen, I had my whole life stolen," he said.

Today the condominium is in contract to be sold. Goldworth is living with his father in Manhattan and grateful to be back at the Corcoran Group selling homes again.

He’s also among the first to receive a full half-million dollar insurance settlement from the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), which insured direct accounts of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. "I’m one of the fortunate ones," said Goldworth at his office where fellow realtors all were trying to sell million-dollar apartments. "I was very happy, very pleased."

But, other Madoff victims — like Judy and Don Rafferty, senior citizens who’ve had to come out of retirement — have gotten nothing.

"I felt as though we were cheated. I felt violated," said 67-year old Judy who now works as a legal assistant.

The Raffertys for years had withdrawn what they believed were earnings from their Madoff account. The trustee overseeing restitution, Irving Picard, says the Raffertys withdrew more than they invested and are therefore entitled to nothing, even though their account also was insured by SIPC for up to $500,000 payday loans.

"They changed the rules in the middle of the game which I don’t think is fair at all," complained Rafferty.

It is fair, argues Goldworth who maintains, "The net winners should be in the back of the line. First thing that should be addressed is that everyone get back everything they invested."

Rafferty counters, "He got his money back, why wouldn’t he feel comfortable? It’s the people who haven’t gotten their money back that are not happy."

The majority of Madoff investors are not happy. More than 16,000 investor claims have been filed, SIPC President Stephen Harbeck said Thursday. So far, Picard and his staff have reviewed 11,563 of them and approved only 1,647 — just 14%.

Even for those victims whose requests have received an ‘OK’, the bulk of the funds are not guaranteed: only $561 million — 12% of the allowed claims — is being funded by SIPC.

Some Madoff investors are suing Picard, charging him with breach of fiduciary trust for denying them a SIPC insurance payment.

Those lawsuits are especially troubling to Goldworth who believes legal battles will further delay the Trustee paying out claims. "It’s very counterproductive," he said. 

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The National Hockey League said Friday night it has signed a letter of intent to sell the financially struggling Phoenix Coyotes to a new ownership group from Toronto.

"The NHL and Ice Edge Holdings announced today that they have entered into a letter of intent to proceed in attempting to document and close a proposed transaction pursuant to which Ice Edge would purchase the Phoenix Coyotes’ franchise. While much remains to be done, the NHL looks forward to working closely with Ice Edge to bring the sale to conclusion as expeditiously as possible. Ice Edge has committed to keep the Coyotes in Glendale, Arizona," NHL Commssioner Bill Daly said in a statement.

The Coyotes are in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and were bought by the NHL in October for $140 million.

Ice Edge investors include Canadians and Americans. The group wants to keep the team in Arizona but previously had talked about playing some home games in Canadian cities without NHL teams.

Ice Edge needs to finalize the purchase of the Coyotes from the NHL and then will work on an arena lease deal with the city of Glendale. The Phoenix suburb owns Jobing.com Arena where the Coyotes play.

"The city of Glendale is pleased that the National Hockey League has concluded the initial negotiations for the sale of the Coyotes and is entering into a letter of intent with Ice Edge Holdings to immediately assume operations of the team Faxless payday loans. The transfer of ownership and possession to Ice Edge Holdings is a major and final step in establishing the long-term presence of hockey in Glendale, Arizona," Glendale said in a statement.

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Hiring by U.S. discount, grocery, restaurant and specialty chains in November rose to the highest level in 2009, signaling that retailers may be anticipating a gradual recovery in consumer spending, a monthly survey found.

In November, 3.87 percent of applications resulted in hires, the most this year according to seasonally adjusted figures compiled by software maker Kronos Inc. Job applications last month fell to 1.27 million, the lowest since March, after 10 straight months of increases, the closely held Chelmsford, Massachusetts-based company said today in a statement.

While these are classic signs of a gradual, post-recession recovery, last month’s hiring increase might be a “spill over” from October, as retailers delayed the peak season for taking on employees, Robert Yerex, Kronos’s chief economist, said by telephone Dec. 4 from Beaverton, Oregon.

The U.S. jobless rate decreased to 10 percent in November after reaching a 26-year high of 10.2 percent in October, according to a Dec. 4 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Retailers “weren’t sure how good or bad this year would be,” Yerex said. “There’s still a little bit of shell shock from 2007 and 2008, when retailers were caught with a lot of people on staff, a lot of product inventory, but a difficult time selling it.”

Kronos’s analysis covers 68 companies with 27,034 U.S. stores. The company makes software that businesses use to process hiring, payroll and scheduling, and manage employees. Chains that use Kronos products account for about 15 percent of U.S. retail jobs, according to the company.

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