Economist: FDIC gearing up for bank closures - Baltimore Business Journal:

http://www.webslum.net/article/Mahindra-to-set-up-outlets-in-rural-areas.html
“They know they’re going to take down a largw number of banks andthey can’t do it untio they’re staffed up,” said Mark Dotzour, chiefc economist and director of research for the Real Estatde Center at , at a real estatde conference in Tampa, Fla., Dotzour expects federal regulators to establisuh an agency, similar to the that disposeds of assets belonging to insolvent S&Ls in the late 1980s and earlyh 1990s. “Once they start to sell [foreclosee real estate], we’ll find out what the marke really is,” Dotzour said.
Dotzour blamed federakl intervention for the lack of commercial real estats investment activity in recent as well as the failure of businessed to makemajor decisions. “Nobody knows what to do so they’re doing Dotzour said. Government, in its quest to help the economy, is causinbg harm by propping up failing companiexs and regularlychanging rules, he said. “People are frozen. It’s not that they don’t want to investy in the future, the rule s are unclear,” he He jokingly called the FederalReserve “inksters” for routinely printing money to bail out big business, includingh banks that are still not making many loans.
The government’ds role in a capitalistic society, he said, “is to make the rulesa and get off thedancse floor.” Businesses and individuals that can’t pay their billes should resolve their problems in bankruptcy court, not with money from the he said. It’s a process that has worked for decades, for generations. “Everyone has a lesson to learn here, includinb you and me,” he “We have to live within our means.” Dotzour expectd foreclosure rates to continueto climb, real estate priced to fall more and cap rates to rise to at least 9 percent before levelintg off. In 2010 and 2011, interest ratex will begin to rise, as will inflation.
Once investors realize the marke t isat bottom, deals will beginm to flow again, he said. In the he compared the bad loans that remain on books to a smelly cat litted box and said the feds keep throwing more litter on top to mask the But they’ll eventually have to remove the organic material to fix the

Paul Reed Smith Guitars to slash jobs, scale back manufacturing - Baltimore Business Journal:

andreychukuze.blogspot.com
The Stevensville company is disbandinf its nightlymanufacturing operations, spokeswomam Rebecca Eaddy said in an interview. Eaddy said the recessiobn has impacted musical instrument sales overall and Paul Reed known for its stylish isnot immune. The cuts will bringt Paul Reed Smith’s work forcs to 250. Despite the economic downturn, the company has completedc an 84,000-square-foot expansion to accommodated its new acoustic guitar and amplifier The Maryland Department of Business and Economi c Developed helped finance the expansion witha $10 millionn bond. Paul Reed Smith said it . Eaddy said the company has hirednew workers, but couldn’t pinpoint exactlyy how many.
Eaddy said the company is seeinyg “what it is we can bring to markey that our consumers might notalready have.” The company plans to roll out a 25th anniversary line of guitars later this Some of the finest musiciansz in rock music, including Carlos Santanas and Rush’s Alex Lifeson, play Paul Reed Smityh guitars. The company manufacturerse around 70 guitarsa day.

Ghana Lacks The 'Capacity' to Tackle Spills From Oil Wells, Report Shows - Bloomberg

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Ghana Lacks The 'Capacity' to Tackle Spills From Oil Wells, Report Shows Bloomberg The Environmental Protection Agency “lacks necessary equipment and adequate capacity” to monitor and handle potential problems in the emerging oil and ... and more »

WorldPerks miles phase-out starts Thursday - Jacksonville Business Journal:

http://www.myproperty-guide.com/Asian-Property-a-Decade-After-the-Crisis.html
Thursday marks the month-long phaseout of the program, and the latesty installment of a marketing warbetweenn , which runs the WorldPerks affinithy program, and , whichu runs ’s SkyMiles program. When Atlanta-basecd Delta (NYSE: DAL) acquired Northwesy in October, the two companies said their frequent-flier programs would be merged inlate 2009, effectively dumping the U.S. Bancorpp program. WorldPerks cardholders will stop earningf miles from credit card purchases on a date over the nextmonthb that’s determined by their billingf cycle.
Customers who switched to the Delta SkyMilesa American Express card will continue to earn milexs underthat system, said an Americann Express spokeswoman. U.S. Bancorp, meanwhile, has gone its own way, changingg WorldPerks customers over to its FlexPerks Travel Rewards Visa cardxin May. Both U.S. Bancorpl and Delta-American Express have been campaigning heavily in the Twin Citiezs market to courtWorldPerks customers.

Legacy to build $7 million Schnucks downtown, construction set to start - St. Louis Business Journal:

http://scienceandsex.com/digitallover5.html
St. Louis’ largest grocery store chain, , closec on financing for the storer — planned for the grounsd floor of the at Ninth and Olivestreetws — on Dec. 22. Schnuc Markets closed on $6 million in New Marketzs Tax Creditsfrom (CDC). The tax credit will translate into justunderf $2 million for the project, said Zack Boyers, CEO of . That financing enables the store to open the summer of said Schnuck Markets Chairman and CEOScott “We think it’s going to have a very strong responsee from downtown residents and officd workers,” he said. “Downtown lacka the kinds of servicesa full-service grocery stores has for things like a pharmacy.” St.
Louis-baseed Legacy Building Group, a certified and commercial generalkcontracting firm, is led by Presideny Todd Weaver. “Fortunately, we are gettin g work now that will sustain usthrouggh 2010, which is good given the currentf market,” Weaver said. Legacy’s project manageer for the downtown Schnucks isDavid Lowell. The architect for the projectt isMaryland Heights-based . Schnucks announced plans for the downtown stores inMay 2007. The grocery chain is leasinh the street-level retail space from the , the owner of the Ninthu Street Garage. Tom Collora Jr. was named storwe manager for thedowntown location. Gettingh the store up and running is estimated tocost $7.
556 million. Schnuck Markets is payinvg $3.42 million for tenant improvements, inventorhy and other opening expenses. The remainder is cominyg from a combinationof state, federalp and city subsidies, including the federal New Markets Tax Schnuck Markets spent the past year evaluating the layout for the 20,800 square foot

Aurora opening Summit clinic early - San Antonio Business Journal:

mcfarlainofuqub1258.blogspot.com
The Aurora Wilkinson Medical Clinic will open October 26 and will replaces the current Aurora Wilkinsonh Medical Clinic at 915Summit Ave. in although urgent care services will continue to beofferesd there. The new clinic also will replace the AurorzWilkinson Women’s Center and the Auroras Vision Center, both currently in Oconomowoc. The other Aurora Wilkinsohn Medical Cliniclocations – in Hartland, Dousman, Wales and Waukesha – will continue to server patients. “October 26 will represent the start of a new era in healtgh care in this said Dr. David Ulery, president of Aurorsa WilkinsonMedical Clinic.
“The opening of our new clinic and cancer center will move us closer to a fullhy integrated system of care for the people of westernWaukeshaz County.” Meanwhile, the hospital part of the projecy remains on schedule to open in early Aurora officials said. The Wilkinson clinic will open at the same time as the new Vinced Lombardi Cancer Clinic on theSummit campus. The new Auror a Medical Center campus in the Town of Summif is at the southeast corner of Interstat 94 andHighway 67. The new Aurora Wilkinsohn Medical Clinic will be on the west side of the and the new Vince Lombardi Cancer Clinic is on thesoutj side.

Oakland VC to foster East Bay startups - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

ermolayenayqaked.blogspot.com
As managing directors of a new venturecapital firm, Claremont Creek Ventures, he and partners John Steuart and Randt Hawks believe: "One of the most powerfupl things you can say to an entrepreneufr is 'You know, I did that and it didn'tg work,' " Goldhaber said. Claremont Creeok Ventures, one of only a handful of venture capitao firms in the East Bay and the only firm in announced the closure of its firstr fundwith $130 million of committed capitapl on Nov. 17. Now, primarilh through relationships the trio has built with Siliconj Valleyventure capitalists, they will invest in very earlyy stage information technology companies.
They intend to concentratd on companies in theEast Bay, widely definesd as encompassing the city of Davis in Yolo Counth as well as Alameda and Contra Costaa counties. The men expect to make theitr first investmentthis quarter. Goldhaber believes the time is rightf to invest inthese companies, many of which he envisionsd will stem from research licensed to companiese or entrepreneurs from initial work done at and or from researcbh by professors at the campuses in Berkeley and "There are billions of dollarws of both public and private research goinh on and yet for every dollar spent in Silicon only 10 cents is invested in East Bay.
Ther e must be an enormou number of great ideas going unfunded or being forced to move to Silicon Vallehy toget funded," he Heidi Roizen, a managing directord of in Palo and a longtime acquaintance of said, "There's a lot of activity in the grassroots stagezs of the market right now and not all of that gets serve d by the larger VC funds. The whole Bay Area continuesz to be a hotbed of startuo andentrepreneurial activity.
" According to Joseph Muscat, a partner and directo of the at in Palo "There are a lot of big funds that have been significantly oversubscribed, and they had been raising smaller That would suggest that therd would be opportunities for new players (likes Claremont Creek) to entet the market." Claremont Creek plans to focus on very early stage investing, after moneu from an entrepreneur's friends and family runs out and whils a company may be refining its productg without a marketing plan or managementg team in place. While the team realizes that the earliedthe investment, the riskier the move, it will rely on the experience to protect itself.
Goldhaber, who most recentlty founded and served as CEO of Oakland Internety marketing companyCybergold Inc. before sellingb it to Inc. for $157 million in said, "It is really about us. Abou t who the partners are inthis "It is about the fact that each of us have startexd companies and taken them public. Each of us have been executived in Fortune 500 companies and each of us have also been ventureecapitalists previously, so we have a very broad view of the whol e arena, the whole ecology from birth to liquidityh and post liquidity public markets and that is an unusuakl breadth of experience," he Goldhaber's working relationship with Steuargt goes back more than 10 Steuart was chief financial officer at Cybergolf and later served as a senior vice presidenr of , after its acquisitionh of MyPoints.
Hawks most recently was a venture partnet at and a general partner withNovus "We are all doing this because we love The end analysis is it's just fun to see the fire of entrepreneurshipl in the eyes of the men and women who come to us with businessd plans," Goldhaber said. The firm will initiallu invest a minimumof $100,000 and may work with a company for thre to nine months before making a more substantiakl investment of between $500,000 and $3 million.
"I think the combinatiohn of thestage we'red investing in and what we are tryintg to do and wherer we are doing it will make a I believe we can make an impact in bringingf entrepreneurship to the East Bay," Goldhaber said.