Weather-related automobile crashes involving up to 69 vehicles closed westbound Interstate 10 in the downtown Phoenix area Saturday evening, according to media reports and the Arizona Department of Transportation.
Reports said Arizona Department of Public Safety officers, as well as Phoenix Fire Department units, responded to three major crashes between 16th Street and Seventh Avenue about 6 p.m. There were reports of one serious injury business
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The number of homes sold in July fell 11.5 percent from July 2009, according to the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association. The group says 1,968 homes sold last month in the region vs. 2,223 last year.
The average sales price rose 2 percent to $217,320 from $212,977 in July 2009. The average sales price rose 1 percent from June.
Pending sales contracts in July totaled 1,802, down 23 percent from the year before, and down 4 percent from 1,880 in June saving account pay day loan.
The statistics are culled from the association’s Carolina Multiple Listing Services Inc., which carries information on homes for sale in a 10-county service area.
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Pittsburgh got a nod from Forbes, landing the No. 4 spot on its list of best cities for working moms.
Forbes Woman rated the 50-largest U.S. cities in terms of how friendly they are to working moms, using a combination of factors: women’s income, cost of living, pediatricians, unemployment, violent crimes and spending per pupil No teletrack payday loans. Minneapolis-St. Paul topped the list, followed by Washington, D.C., and Boston. Las Vegas ranked last.
The Forbes Woman list is available here.
The global economy grew at a stronger-than-expected pace in the first six months of the year, but the risks to recovery have greatly increased, according to the International Monetary Fund.
In an update of its World Economic Outlook, released Wednesday, the IMF raised its growth forecast for 2010 to 4.6% from the 4.2% estimate it made in April.
However, the international organization warned that the risks to recovery have "risen sharply" due to renewed financial turbulence.
It left its 2011 forecast for world growth unchanged at 4.3%.
The IMF said world economic growth exceeded forecasts in the first half of the year, largely driven by expansion in Asia.
But looking ahead, it offered a more dour view no fax payday advance.
It cautioned that "recent turbulence in financial markets - reflecting a drop in confidence about fiscal sustainability, policy response, and future growth prospects - has cast a cloud over the outlook."
For 2011, the IMF sees cooling growth in China to 9.6% from 10.5% this year.
In the United States, it predicts growth will slow to 2.9% next year from 3.3% in 2010.
It forecasts a slight improvement, though, in Europe. The IMF expects the euro area economy to grow 1.3% next year after expanding a mere 1% this year.
Employment gains, a rebound in exports and an increase in taxable sales are cited as reasons for optimism in Wells Fargo Securities’ Florida economic outlook for July.
“After more than two years of dark clouds across much of the Sunshine state, a few rays of sunlight are finally beginning to break though,” said the report, authored by senior economist Mark Vitner and economic analyst Yasmine Kamaruddin.
Nonfarm employment has risen during three of the past four months, producing a net gain of 78,000 jobs since bottoming in January of this year, the report said. Still, virtually every part of the state was hard hit by job losses, including Tampa, where employment declined by 110,200 jobs.
Florida’s manufacturers are getting a lift from a rebound in exports, and taxable sales rose solidly during the first part of 2010, the report said.
Tourism spending also has improved and hotel occupancy rates are up from a year ago, but the latest data does not incorporate much impact from the Gulf oil spill, the report said .
The biggest cloud hanging over Florida is the huge oversupply of housing constructed during the previous decade, Wells Fargo said. Florida leads the nation in foreclosures and about one in five homes with a mortgage is either seriously delinquent or in foreclosure.
A big risk that is hard to quantify is growth and an economic base historically built around a continuous inflow of retirees, tourists and working-age adults seeking a lower cost of living and a better lifestyle.
“The fundamental growth model that has served Florida so well since the 1950s is broken,” the report said.
The best strategy for the state is to boost the presence of industries such as biotechnology, medical devices, aerospace, international trade and finance, simulation, alternative energy, and film, television and new media, the report said.
Read the full report here.
After a grueling 20-hour session, lawmakers early Friday finished melding the House and Senate Wall Street reform bills, bringing Congress closer to passing the most sweeping changes to the financial system since the New Deal.
Finishing at 5:39 a.m. ET, 43 lawmakers agreed to send to their respective chambers a final bill that aims to strengthen consumer protection, shine a light on complex financial products, create a new process for taking down giant, failing financial firms, and make them stronger to prevent such failure.
"We are now on the brink of passing Wall Street reform," said President Obama at the White House, shortly before leaving for Canada to attend the G-20 meeting. "We are poised to pass the toughest financial reforms since the ones we passed during the Great Depression."
The conference committee votes were 20-11 among House negotiators and 7-5 among Senate negotiators, strictly along party lines. The room erupted into claps and hugs when it was all done, with staffers shaking hands and saying, "big bill."
In one of their final votes, lawmakers renamed the legislation the Dodd-Frank Bill for the lawmakers who led the work on the reforms: Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass. The chamber erupted in cheers on the motion’s approval.
"It’s the most extraordinary experience," Frank said. "You hate to have the kind of pain that so many people went through in this economic crisis, but it just doubled our resolve to get it done."
Frank and Dodd insisted on pushing forward and wrapping up the negotiations, to ready the bill for final passage by each chamber before Congress adjourns for the Independence Day recess.
Shortly after the vote, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner put out a statement supporting the efforts and calling for Congress to move ahead. "We urge Congress to carry the momentum forward and move swiftly towards final passage," he said.
The move was a big win for the White House, giving Obama fodder as he encourages other nations to embrace financial reforms at the G-20 meeting in Toronto on Saturday.
"This will strengthen the hand of the president going to Toronto to make that case," Dodd said. "We can make the case if not to embrace exactly what we’ve done, to embrace the principles we’ve enshrined in this bill."
Despite promises of an open negotiating process, many of the toughest deals were reached in private conversations among Democrats, as well as White House and Treasury officials, outside the Senate meeting room session that was being broadcast on C-SPAN.
Lawmakers, who began negotiations Thursday at 9:30 a.m. ET, grew increasingly short-tempered and weary. Sometimes, the air conditioning shut off, and suit jackets and sweaters came off and sweat ran down faces.
The lawmakers have been meeting for two weeks reconciling the bills, which were largely similar. However, they left most of the toughest decisions to the last day.
Most of Thursday, negotiations were slow going, as Democrats disagreed among themselves on measures that aimed to stop the kinds of problems that lead to the massive taxpayer bailout of American International Group.
Early Friday, lawmakers agreed to a weakened version of a provision originally authored by Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., to force large banks to spin off divisions that trade derivatives contracts into affiliates.
The compromise allows banks to engage in trades of contracts of traditional banking bets, such as on interest rates and the price of gold. But banks would have to two years to spin off affiliates if they want to make riskier trades, ranging from commodities to credit default swaps.
But Lincoln fought efforts to weaken the provision further Friday morning.
"Clearly swap dealing is a risky activity, and it’s something we need to deal with," Lincoln said. "Banks should be banks."
Finish line
Congress first started working on financial overhaul last spring. The House passed a version in December, and the Senate passed its version in May.
Since January 2009, financial services firms have spent nearly $600 million and hired hundreds of lobbyists to influence legislation including financial reform, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. This week, dozens of them lined the Senate office building meeting room and hallway, where they often pulled staffers and lawmakers aside.
The final compromise that lawmakers struck will establish a consumer financial protection regulatory bureau inside the Federal Reserve, that will write new rules to protect consumers from unfair or abusive mortgages and credit cards. Lawmakers agreed the regulator would not oversee auto dealers who make auto loans.
The final deal will also create a 10-member council of regulators, headed by the Treasury Secretary. The group is tasked with sounding an alarm before companies are in position to trigger a financial crisis.
Regulators will be tasked with ensuring banks beef up their capital cushions, such as forcing financial firms to move more of their assets into investments that are more easily converted into cash over the next several years.
The bill would also establish new procedures for shutting down giant financial firms that are collapsing.
The bill aims to shine a brighter light on some of the different kinds of complex financial products, called derivatives, that are blamed for the problems that forced a bailout of American International Group (AIG, Fortune 500) and the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. It would force most derivatives on to clearinghouses and exchanges, to help pinpoint the value of the trades.
Republicans objected to some of the bill’s major provisions, particularly parts that establish the consumer agency and create new rules for the derivatives. While they generally favored more consumer protection and more regulation of derivatives, they argued that the legislation is too heavy-handed in these areas.
Late night calls
Derivatives: After midnight, lawmakers began discussing differences on the bills that aim to shine a light on derivatives.
Lawmakers agreed to push many derivatives onto clearinghouses and exchanges that can better pinpoint the value of the securities and create firewall’s between buyers and sellers.
They also agreed to allow leeway for financial firms to avoid exchanges and avoid posting collateral on such contracts for so-called commercial end-users, such as airlines that are trying to hedge against the changing price of jet fuel.
Additionally, lawmakers embraced a provision that prevents big banks from making risky bets on "nontraditional" derivatives and having access to emergency taxpayer-backed loans. Banks would have to spin off their swaps desk into affiliates, if they want to make such bets.
Volcker: Just before midnight, lawmakers agreed on a new version of the so-called Volcker Rule, which was first proposed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. The measure prevents banks from owning hedge funds and trading for their own accounts.
Lawmakers agreed to gives regulators more specifics and less leeway when it comes to preventing banks from trading for themselves or owning hedge funds. But they also watered it down in several ways: It doesn’t impact insurers. And it allows some proprietary trading in areas, such as government debt, for hedging purposes and small business investments.
As for the ban on banks owning hedge funds, the provision allows Wall Street banks that take commercial deposits to sink as much as 3% of capital in hedge funds or private equity.
Consumer groups and policy analysts watching the negotiations noted that 3% of a giant Wall Street bank’s capital means billions could still be invested on risky bets.
"Three percent of Goldman Sachs’ capital is a big number, and it enables very large funds," said Raj Date, executive director of the Cambridge Winter Center for Financial Institutions Policy.
Also, for some banks, the provision may not fully go into effect for up to seven years, according to Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with Concept Capital’s Washington Research Group.
Bank tax: The cost of implementing Wall Street reform bills is around $19 billion and Congress decided to pay for it by taxing the largest financial firms, with firms taking the biggest risks paying the most.
Alan Faber, executive vice president of Waltham, Mass.-based Accounting Management Solutions, has won the Lifetime Achievement award for the Boston Business Journal’s CFO of the Year contest. A special section with profiles of this year’s winners will run in the July 16 edition.
According to one of the many nominations in his favor, Faber, a veteran of such companies as IBM Corp. and Sylvania, has been a fixture in the Boston business community for over 45 years whose influence on behalf of executives has only been surpassed by his mentor and friend, F. Gorham Brigham Jr., for whom this award has been named.
“I’m most honored and flattered to be such an important part of the continuing legacy of F. Gorham Brigham Jr.,” said Faber, 72. “I take the liberty of speaking for so many of Gorham’s admirers who have and continue to benefit both professionally and personally from his wise counsel and enduring friendship no teletrek payday advance.”
This ought to keep the Maytag repairman busy for a while.
The appliance manufacturer along with the Consumer Product Safety Commission on Thursday announced the recall of about 1.7 million dishwashers made by the company between February 2006 and April of 2010.
"An electrical failure in the dishwasher’s heating element can pose a serious fire hazard," said the recall notice issued by the CPSC.
"Maytag has received 12 reports of dishwasher heating element fires that have resulted in fires and dishwasher damage, including one report of extensive kitchen damage from a fire," the CPSC said. There have no reports of injuries.
The recall includes select Maytag, Amana, Jenn-Air, Admiral, Magic Chef, Performa and Crosley brands manufactured by Maytag.
The company has set up a website where customers can check their unit’s serial number to see if it is included in the recall — www.repair.maytag.com. Consumers will be able to choose between having their dishwasher repaired or accepting a rebate toward the purchase of a new dishwasher.
The Maytag repairman has been a staple of the company’s corporate image. Since 1967, Maytag has touted its quality by showing a bored repairman with nothing to do.
Austin area deal volume and venture capital funding during the first quarter increased slightly compared with the same period last year, but the median capital raised per deal continued to decline.
Fourteen local venture-backed companies completed financings during the quarter versus nine companies during the same period last year. Also, the total amount that was raised surged from $42 million during the first quarter 2009 to $43 million in the first quarter this year, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.
However, the median amount raised by local companies declined to $3 million during the quarter compared with $4 million during the same three-month period last year and $6 million during all of 2008. Local financings included $7.7 million for WhiteGlove Technologies Inc., $6.2 million for Javelin Semiconductor Inc., and $1.4 million for 7 Billion People, Dow Jones reported.
Austin financings during the quarter stood in contrast to the national trend that showed the volume of deals increased along with the median amount per round.
U.S. companies received $4.7 billion in 597 deals during the first quarter, up 12 percent from the $4.2 billion invested in 522 deals during the same period last year. The median deal amount surged from $5 million during the first quarter 2009 to $8.8 million during the same period this year, according to Dow Jones.
“The uptick in venture investments during the first quarter of 2010 shows the industry is moving toward a slow recovery following the economic downturn,” said Jessica Canning, global research director for Dow Jones VentureSource.
“As the liquidity and fundraising environments thaw, investors have more capital on hand but continue to deploy it cautiously.”
New Orleans-based Advantage Capital Partners was tied with Austin Ventures as the first quarter’s most active investor in local companies with two apiece, Dow Jones reported.
PricewaterhouseCoopers reported that Austin-area companies raised $71.1 million in venture capital during the first quarter versus $20.5 million during the same period last year.
Even with the Democrats playing defense as President Obama enters his second year in office, his Republican opponents face a fundamental problem going into the midterm elections: How do they champion a vibrant free market?
It’s a more prickly question than party leaders want to admit. Robust free enterprise is hardly a slam-dunk cause with voters right now. Public anger over taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street and Detroit is the common thread that runs through the tea party movement and the vivid disdain for Washington that shows up among more traditional voters in both parties.
For Republicans the question has to be asked, If the free market works, how did a huge swath of it fall into the hands of the federal government?
Indeed, as many GOP incumbents get ready to hit the campaign trail, they are trying to figure out how best to explain their support of TARP, the $700 billion rescue package. A deeper conversation is mostly still confined to the scholars who populate idea-producing journals and think tanks. In recent months they’ve churned out works with titles like After the Fall: Saving Capitalism From Wall Street And Washington (a book by the Manhattan Institute’s Nicole Gelinas) and Recovering the Case for Capitalism (a speech by National Interest editor Yuval Levin).
Their arguments — from Levin’s plea for a return to old-fashioned market values like diligence and frugality to Gelinas’s urging that the system be cleansed of implicit government guarantees that cushion risk takers — are not easily translated into election-year stump speeches, but some lawmakers are trying.
Most notable is Rep. Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin wonk who has emerged as the House Republicans’ go-to ideas guy. Borrowing from University of Chicago economist Luigi Zingales, Ryan distinguishes being pro-market (a good thing) from being pro-business (not a good thing).
As Zingales puts it in his own capitalism-after-the-crisis treatise, keeping markets free means maintaining an open and level playing field. But, he adds, Washington’s pro-business lobbyists work to corrupt a fair system by persuading Congress to tilt the balance in favor of their own industries.
Fairness might be a good place to start if Republicans want to find the inner capitalist in voters angry at big business. Americans instinctively favor free markets.
As Zingales writes, "Until recently Americans stood out for their acceptance of basic market principles and even for their tolerance of some of the negative side effects, such as marked income inequality." In other words, the class warfare rhetoric coming out of middle America is pretty atypical in modern times. Most Americans haven’t minded seeing the other guy get wildly rich as long as they felt they had their own opportunities to succeed.
What also appeals to Americans are calls to inject fairness back into the marketplace. Today’s taxpayer-funded backstops suggest a market that is tilted toward the survival of the big, wealthy, and powerful.
Public-opinion scholar Michael Barone argues that Americans like social programs — such as veterans benefits and Social Security — when effort and reward are linked. You can make the same argument about capitalism: Americans support sensibly regulated markets where opportunity — and failure — is afforded everyone.
The most thoughtful Republicans get this. Lawmakers like Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker want to shape reforms that will end the idea that any company — from GM in Detroit to AIG (AIG, Fortune 500) on Wall Street to Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) in Washington — is too big and far-reaching to fail without taking the economy down with it.
Green-eyeshade issues like reforming a regulatory system that brought the economy to near collapse have taken a back seat to partisan passions over health care. But that’s a banner that free-market-minded politicians need to carry this election year. As Gelinas writes, "Bad companies … must be allowed to fail so that their bad ideas can have a chance of dying with them."
Somewhere in those words are the beginnings of a compelling campaign slogan.
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