The Broward County Commission is expected to vote Tuesday morning on whether to approve funding for a $150 million streetcar system that would replace its Sun Trolley buses by 2012.
The commission’s vote is the last step needed to move the project from the planning stages to reality.
The Downtown Development Authority of Fort Lauderdale is planning the project – dubbed the Wave – which it projects would increase ridership to 6,000 a day, up from about 100 riders who now use the Sun Trolley’s downtown routes.
The proposed route would cover about 2.7 miles with double tracks.
Funding would come from a mix of local, state and federal dollars. In April, Fort Lauderdale city commissioners voted to contribute $10.5 million to construction costs payday loan cash advances. The state has budgeted an additional $37.5 million. The federal government would put in $75 million, and the remaining $27 million would come from special assessments on downtown residents and businesses, which would be spread over 30 years.
Although the county would not contribute to the initial cost, it would serve as owner-operator for 20 years and would assume annual operating costs, which are estimated at between $2.2 million and $2.5 million.
If county commissioners approve the project, it will move to the next level, which includes applying for federal money.
Boeing Co’s (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) 27,000 machinists prepared for a third day of strike action, halting production at the plane maker’s Seattle-area plants in protest at Boeing’s contract offer and what they see as plans to shift more jobs to non-union and foreign companies.
The fourth strike in 20 years by Boeing’s biggest union threatens to cost the company $100 million a day in revenue and is likely to cause problems for a long list of suppliers across the world in an increasingly global aerospace business.
On Sunday, about 15 picketers milled about the main entrance to Boeing’s Everett, Washington plant, which usually employs 13,000 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM).
“It’s not about the money, it’s all about the subcontracting wordage,” said picketer Butch Blount, a 53-year-old motor equipment operator, handing out cookies to fellow strikers. “My job is one they could possibly offload to a subcontractor.”
The IAM, whose members call themselves the “Fighting Machinists”, is looking for higher pay and better benefits from Boeing, but is particularly worried about language put in the contract in 2002, when times were lean in the aerospace industry, which gave Boeing the power to use outside companies for work usually done by IAM members.
Boeing took advantage of that to widen its base of suppliers for its newest plane, the 787 Dreamliner, which is being made by companies around the world and only assembled in Everett fast cash now easy quick payday loans. The union says Boeing has got rid of 16,000 IAM members since 1990 with the progressive increase in outsourcing.
“We understand our jobs are going away,” said John Jorgensen, 62, a final assembly mechanic who has worked at Boeing for 43 years. “If we don’t get subcontracting language protection (now), we’ll never get it. We have Boeing loyalty, but the top of the company has no loyalty to us.”
Union members in the nearby IAM hall said there would be more action early on Monday Seattle time, when greater numbers of picketers are expected at the plant’s gates to see if workers attempt to cross the picket line.
A record 1.2 million homes were in foreclosure during the second quarter of 2008.
That represents 2.8% of all outstanding loans, up from 1.4% of all loans during the same period a year ago, according to a report released Friday by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).
And 490,000 of the 45 million home mortgages serviced by MBA members began new foreclosure proceedings. That’s up 9% from the 448,000 starts recorded in the previous quarter, and marked the seventh straight quarter that foreclosure starts increased.
The delinquency rate, which measures mortgages that aren’t in foreclosure but have missed least one payment, also hit a record high.
During the three months ended June 30, 2.9 million homeowners, or 6.4%, were behind on their payments, up more than 25% from last year.
The MBA has been tracking foreclosure and delinquency data since 1979.
"The national foreclosure numbers continue to be driven by the hardest hit states that are continuing to get much worse," said Jay Brinkmann, MBA’s Chief Economist. "The increases in foreclosures in California and Florida overwhelmed improvements in states like Texas, Massachusetts and Maryland."
California and Florida accounted for 39% of all foreclosures started during the quarter. Those two states as well as six others - Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Rhode Island, Indiana, and Ohio - all had foreclosure start rates higher than the national average.
Once again, subprime adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) weighed heavily on the down side. Subprime ARMs, which represent only 6% of all loans outstanding, accounted for 36% of all foreclosures started during the quarter. In other words, 6.6% of all subprime ARMs went into foreclosure during the period - nearly 20 times the rate for fixed rate prime mortgages.
While the percentage of all subprime ARMs past due fell slightly to 21% from 22.1%, the proportion of these loans that are 90 or more past due rose to 26.8% from 24%, indicating that many of these borrowers are falling deeper into trouble.
"The big problem," said Mike Larson, a real estate analyst with Weiss Research, "is this mortgage crisis long since stopped being just about subprime." Indeed, the prime delinquency rate rose to 3.9% from 3.7% in the first quarter of 2008, and 2.7% a year earlier. "This is the highest reading yet."
"Even if subprime stabilizes," said Larson, "I would anticipate that prime loans would start to play catch-up payday loan low fee free credit report.com. We’re not just confronting a credit crisis any more, we’re dealing with broad economic problems that are contributing to delinquency rates."
On the bright side, Larson says the deterioration in home prices has slowed in the last couple of months, which could help delinquencies level off as well.
"They’ll continue to worsen," he said, "but not at the pace of the last year."
Nevertheless, Jay Brinkmann warned that it would be fruitless to try and call a bottom in this market any time soon.
"Real estate markets are local and some markets are already improving," he said in a statement. "For example, even Michigan, one of the worst hit markets in the country, has now gone three quarters with little to no increase in its rate of foreclosures. Likewise, Massachusetts showed a very large drop in foreclosure starts, perhaps signaling a bottom."
"Because of the sheer size of California and Florida, an improvement in the national numbers, whether delinquencies, home prices or any other measure, is unlikely until we see some turnaround in those two states."
Much of what’s ahead depends on home prices, according to Brinkmann. "Home price declines have a bigger impact on foreclosure rates than foreclosures have on home prices."
Home price declines drive foreclosure rates higher by stripping value from homes and putting mortgage borrowers underwater, owing more than their homes are worth.
"So many of the loans are going from delinquency to foreclosure because they are so deeply underwater," said Patrick Newport, a real estate analyst with Global Insight.
Foreclosure prevention efforts could help stem this tide, said Faith Schwartz, Director of Hope Now, the coalition of lenders, servicers, mortgage investors and community groups. "The more people who get their mortgage loans stabilized, the more home prices will stabilize," she said.
But whether delinquencies worsen over the next few months is largely dependent on how the economy shakes out, according to Brinkmann, and right now, things don’t look good. The unemployment rate jumped to 6.1%, the government reported on Friday, a five-year high.
The number of newly-laid off workers seeking unemployment benefits jumped unexpectedly last week, the government said Thursday, reversing three weeks of declines.
The Labor Department reported that new applications for unemployment insurance rose to a seasonally adjusted 444,000, up 15,000 from the previous week. Economists had expected claims to drop to 420,000.
The increase indicates that the slowing economy is taking its toll on the job market. Many economists consider claims above 400,000 to be a sign of a weak economy. Initial claims stood at 320,000 in the same week last year.
The four-week moving average fell slightly to 438,000, down 3,250 from the previous week.
The number of people continuing to receive unemployment benefits also rose slightly to 3.44 million for the week ending Aug. 23, up 6,000 from the previous week. That number doesn’t include people who have exhausted their regular benefits and have requested extended assistance under an emergency program.
While Thursday’s figure is below the six-year high of 457,000 reached in late July, economists attributed some of that increase to an outreach program by the Labor Department to notify individuals about the availability of extended benefits. Congress approved the extra benefits in June.
But several economists have said the distortions from that program have likely faded. A Labor Department analyst also said the figures don’t include any impact from Hurricane Gustav.
The unexpected jump could foreshadow more bad news Friday, when the Labor Department reports monthly unemployment numbers. Economists expect the department to say that employers eliminated 75,000 jobs in August, which would be the eighth straight month of job cuts.
The department is also expected to report that the unemployment rate rose to 5.8% from 5.7% in July.
Increased unemployment can crimp consumer spending as laid off workers and those who fear for their jobs cut back on their purchases paydayloan free credit report.com. That, in turn, can further weaken the economy.
Concerns about that spread to the stock market Thursday. Wall Street headed for a lower open after the jobless claims data. Oil prices advanced for the first time this week, which also weighed on investors.
While the U.S. gross domestic product grew at a healthy 3.3% clip in the April to June quarter, many analysts expect the economy to slow and possibly contract later this year, due to rising unemployment and slowing economies overseas.
Separately, this summer saw the highest level of job cuts in six years, according to a report released Wednesday by job placement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Employers eliminated 377,325 jobs in the May to August period, the firm said, up from 249,197 in the summer of 2007.
GMAC Financial Services (GMA) said Wednesday it will lay off 5,000 workers as part of a plan to scale back its mortgage lending. GMAC is majority owned by private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP while General Motors Corp (GM, Fortune 500). holds a large stake.
Meanwhile, Freightliner LLC, a heavy truck subsidiary of German automaker Daimler AG, said last week it would cut 100 jobs.
As oil companies sent crews back to their rigs to perform in-depth safety checks some operations see production beginning to come online as early as Wednesday.
95.8% of crude oil production and 91.6% of natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico remains shutdown, according to a report on the damage left in the wake of Hurricane Gustav by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service. That’s down from 100% of crude and 95.4% of gas production that was shut down as of early Wednesday morning.
Oil companies with infrastructure in the Gulf region such as Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA), Devon Energy Corporation (DVN, Fortune 500), Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500), and ConocoPhillips (COP, Fortune 500) all said they are in the process of returning workers to their offshore facilities Wednesday, but they cannot return their rigs to operability until safety checks are completed.
"Early assessments established we did indeed dodge a bullet on any major damage in the region," said Robert Dodge, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute. "Now that they’re getting their personnel out there, the companies will need to take a look for damage deep down under water before they can return to operability."
Devon, which maintains 25 manned production platforms and three drilling rigs in the Gulf, said it might be able to resume production in the area as early as Wednesday if the underwater pipelines, which cannot be visually inspected from the air, are deemed serviceable after an on-site inspection.
Powerful hurricanes can shift the seabed, damaging pipelines that deliver oil from the rigs to the onshore refineries, API said.
"We expect to begin producing a small amount of production today, and that will continue to improve throughout the week," said Devon spokesman Chip Minty.
Devon said it did not have a timetable to return to full operability, as it has had difficulty transporting its workers to the rigs. Louisiana airports were hard-hit during the storm, and much of the power remains out. That has delayed helicopter transportation, which is necessary to return crews to the platforms.
Shell said most of its platform workers will return Wednesday with the remaining crews returning Thursday. The company expects production to be restored in three to five days, depending on when power and communications are restored to the rigs.
Power disruptions have affected 55% of all Louisiana customers, according to the Energy Department. That could delay the return to operations for many oil producers, as refineries and pumps for delivery pipelines rely on electricity to operate. The American Petroleum Institute said backup generators were available and could speed up the restoration process.
Exxon Mobil said Wednesday it is in the process of starting up the two refineries it shuttered for the storm, but the company could not yet offer a timetable on the return to operations.
Of the 32 Gulf coast refineries, 13 remained completely shut down Wednesday morning, and 10 were operating with reduced capacity, according to the U.S fast cash advance cash advance. Department of Energy. The decline in refinery operations has resulted in about 5.6 million barrels per day in reduced gasoline output.
As a result of the the loss of Gulf production, oil refiner Citgo requested a 250,000 barrel loan from the 707 million barrel U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which was approved by the Energy Department late Tuesday.
Though Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal requested that the Energy Department open up the SPR to all companies, the request was refused, and the government said it would deal with SPR loans on a company-by-company basis. Thus far, no other companies have requested an SPR loan, according to the Department of Energy.
Though much of the undamaged Gulf of Mexico infrastructure will return to operability in the next few days, sites without power may not resume full operations until next week, according to Eileen Angelico, a spokeswoman at MMS.
But the oil market didn’t flinch much at the fact that 26% of total U.S. oil production as well, as about 15% of U.S. refining capacity remains shutdown.
Oil fell about $1 Wednesday after dropping nearly $6 Tuesday. Despite the loss of production, crude prices are at five-month lows.
"Although we’re shutting off production in the Gulf, it’s not as much of an issue as in 2005 when demand was higher," said Phil Flynn, senior energy analyst with Alaron Trading.
Demand for oil is 1.2 million barrels a day less than it was a year ago, as oil prices are nearly twice as high now as they were when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf region three years ago. As a result, refineries are operating at 6.8% less capacity than they were last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
"Even if refiners stay down, others can make up for the lost capacity," Flynn added. "Despite the fact that we may have a spot shortage, the supply [currently on the market] is enough to weather us through the storm."
Home heating bills are expected to spike this winter as high gasoline prices are already straining household budgets. Are you planning to do anything different in order to reduce your heating bills? Are you cutting back on things to get by? Share your story with iReport.
Freddie Mac sold $1 billion in five-year debt Tuesday at a price that indicates investors’ fears about the mortgage finance company’s future have eased a bit.
Investors are watching the debt sales of Freddie Mac and its sibling company, Fannie Mae, to gauge whether they are having problems funding their operations without government support.
The companies’ ability to sell debt last week diminished the sense of urgency about the two-companies’ future that seized Wall Street for much of last month.
Freddie Mac’s five-year debt sold through an auction Tuesday will pay a yield of nearly 3.98%, or almost 0.96 of a percentage point above comparable Treasury notes. That gap — or spread –was narrower than the company paid last month in a $3 billion offering of five-year notes, which was priced at 1.13% points above comparable Treasury securities.
Last month’s price reflected heightened concerns that the company and its larger government-sponsored sibling, Fannie Mae, would soon need a government rescue.
The McLean, Va.-based company also said it would sell a new $3 billion two-year debt security on Wednesday.
When companies issue debt, prices are often compared with those of similar-length Treasury bonds easy payday loan savings account payday advance. Treasury yields are a benchmark because they are considered the safest investments since they are backed by the government. The wider the spread between corporate debt and treasury yields, the riskier investors deem the corporate debt.
With this week’s auctions, Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500) will have sold $43 billion in long-term debt this year in monthly auctions. The debt can be issued as two-, three-, five- and 10-year notes.
Shares of Freddie Mac rose 17 cents in afternoon trading to $4.68, while shares of Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) were unchanged at $6.84.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav, energy analysts say that the fate of gas prices in coming days could hinge on possible damage to the area’s dozens of refineries that turn crude into gasoline.
Gas prices declined following Monday’s plunge in oil prices and gas futures. But the extent of the damage from Hurricane Gustav remains to be seen.
The U.S. Department of Energy said Monday that 12 refineries have shut down and 10 have reduced their output.
"If there’s no damage to refineries and they’re able to get back up relatively quickly, we would assume gas prices would continue the downward trend that we’ve seen over the last few weeks," said Doug MacIntyre, senior oil market analyst at the Energy Information Administration, on Monday.
As it appeared Tuesday that the weaker-than-forecast Gustav would not wreak as much havoc as anticipated, oil prices plummeted by more than $7 to $108.37 a barrel, while gas futures in the wholesale market fell more than 21 cents to $2.65 a gallon.
Also on Tuesday, motorist group AAA reported that the nationwide average for retail gas prices slipped slightly, by two tenths of a cent, to $3.684 a gallon.
Peter Beutel, an analyst with energy risk management firm Cameron Hanover, expects gas prices to stay flat or fall based on the recent decline in oil prices and gas futures. But he cautioned that it’s too early to tell what retail gas prices will do until the full extent of the storm’s damage on oil production in the Gulf of Mexico is known.
"I’m surprised at this strong decline [in oil prices] before we even know what the damage is from the hurricane," said Beutel.
Kenneth Medlock, energy fellow at Rice University in Houston, said it will take several days before the effects of Gustav will be felt on gas prices.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, three days passed before gas prices spiked 10 cents a gallon in a single day credit report first cash advance. Within one week of Katrina’s landfall on Aug. 29, gas prices had surged by 45 cents to $3.05 a gallon nationwide.
"If one or two refineries have any damage [from Gustav], gasoline prices will start to move up, no matter what oil prices do," said Medlock.
Already, there was some disruption. Conoco-Phillip’s (COP, Fortune 500) refinery in the area normally produces 90,000 barrels of gasoline-a-day. It is one of nine refineries in the region that are temporarily closed due to Hurricane Gustav, according to oil industry analysts.
Citgo also operates a refinery. While the company says its policy is not to reveal whether facilities reduce or shutter production, Larry DeRoussel, Executive Director of the Lake Area Industry Alliance told CNN the refinery "is operating at 75% capacity."
Gas prices fell in both Louisiana and Mississippi according to AAA.
Prices rose, however, in Florida, Georgia and Alabama trumping the national average, as Tropical Storm Hannah threatens to bring heavy rain and winds to those states by the end of the week.
The price of unleaded gas has been declining steadily since hitting a nationwide record of $4.114 a gallon on July 17. But that trend broke last week as Hurricane Gustav gathered strength and moved toward the Gulf Coast.
The nationwide average for retail gas prices rose about 3 cents a gallon over the three days ending on Sunday, according to AAA. Gas prices rose dramatically in certain areas of the Gulf Coast, like the Mississippi cities of Biloxi, Gulfport and Pascagoula, where they jumped by more than 9 cents a gallon on Friday, according to AAA.
- Additional reporting by Allan Chernoff, CNN
British consumer confidence held at the lowest level in at least four years in August after economic growth stalled, Nationwide Building Society said.
An index of sentiment taken from the responses of 1,000 people in a survey stayed at 52, the same as in July, which was the lowest since the survey began in May 2004, the U.K.'s second- biggest mortgage lender said in a statement today.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government suspended a tax on some home purchases and pledged to accelerate 1 billion pounds ($1.8 billion) of spending yesterday to help reverse the housing slump. The fastest inflation in at least a decade will prevent the Bank of England from bolstering the economy by cutting interest rates tomorrow, economists say.
“Economic uncertainty continues to affect sentiment around spending and employment,'' Fionnuala Earley, Nationwide's chief economist, said in the statement. “It seems that consumers are beginning to take a more realistic view of the future and are factoring in the possibility of tougher times ahead.''
Sixty-five percent of those questioned said the current economic situation worsened in August, up from 61 percent in July, Nationwide said. Forty-seven percent of people surveyed think there will be few jobs available in six months' time, up from 42 percent in July, the report showed.
Job Placements
The number of workers placed in permanent jobs fell the most since November 2001 last month, a separate report today by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation and KPMG showed get a free credit report payday loans. Their index of permanent placements fell to 41.5 from 44.1 in July, according to an e-mailed statement.
Brown's government yesterday introduced measures to tackle the worst slump in residential property values in almost two decades. Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said the tax plans would help half of all homebuyers.
“We face a unique set of circumstances that we have not seen in a generation,'' Darling said in an interview broadcast yesterday on U.K. television channels. “I remain optimistic that we can get through it. We will get through it.''
Britain's economy stalled in the second quarter, ending the nation's longest stretch of expansion in more than a century. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development yesterday cut its forecast for U.K. economic growth to reflect the deterioration in the housing market.
The Bank of England has kept the benchmark interest rate at 5 percent since April to control inflation, which accelerated to 4.4 percent in July, more than double the 2 percent target. The bank's panel will probably keep the rate unchanged tomorrow, according to all 61 economists in a Bloomberg News survey.
As a large Chinese corporate still in private hands, Huawei Technologies has a reputation of keeping information tightly under wraps.
Bidders for a Huawei unit are discovering just how tight that lid can be.
Huawei HWT.UL hired Morgan Stanley (MS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) in May to sell a majority stake in its mobile handset business, which saw its revenues double last year to more than $2 billion.
A deal could be worth more than $3.5 billion, say private equity and banking sources involved in the process.
At least four major private equity firms, including Bain Capital, are on a short list for the asset, with the hope of a sale coming before the end of the year http://pay-day-home.com guaranteed cash advance.
But the sources say the process is going slower than expected, with Huawei hesitant to give up key information the bidders and their bankers need to evaluate the business.
The process could collapse should Huawei continue to keep data close to its chest, the sources say, with bidders keen on crucial data given the size of the transaction.
“There is a lot more wood to chop on this deal,” said a banker involved with the deal who did not want to be identified.
Beyond Email, a design, development and interactive marketing company in Greensboro, has changed its name to B?M Interactive.
Malinda Pengelly, the company’s founder and president, said the change reflects how staff and clients have referred to the firm for years.
“The ‘Email’ portion of our name limits us,” she said. “And while we do provide e-mail and robust e-mail marketing services, that is really only one segment of what we do. Our team’s ability to provide innovative designs, robust e-commerce, reliable application development, effective Web marketing strategies and detailed analytics is the core of our business.”
The firm has seen yearly growth of at least 40 percent annually since its was founded in 1996 no fax payday advances no checking account payday advance. Today, the company has 24 full-time professionals and serves more than 350 companies nationwide.
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