> First of a three-part series
For a long time, St. Louis has been falling behind.
You know the story. The long, slow drift from grand Gateway to the West to the faded outpost of flyover country. The shuttered factories and the departed corporate headquarters. The bleeding away of the best and the brightest.
It’s almost a clich
San Antonio’s residential real estate market may have suffered a few bumps and scrapes over the past year. However, there were still individual agents who fared well in the home-sales market.
The San Antonio Business Journal produced a listing of the Top 50 Individual Real Estate Agents, the Top 25 Team Leaders and Top Farm and Ranch Agents in the 2010 Executive Home Guide.
Overall, home sales were down for 2009; yet some agents saw their sales rise. Many of the agents interviews indicated that sales in recent months have been on the upswing, indicating that a housing recovery may have begun no fax cash loans.
The Business Journal created a database whereby readers can search for the top agents in San Antonio’s real estate market. To access this user-friendlym searchable database on the Top 50 Individual Real Estate Agents, the Top 25 Team Leaders and Top Farm and Ranch Agents, please go to this link.
Who’s going to win this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament? Your guess is as good as ours. Probably better, actually.
But here’s one March Madness guarantee you can count on: the wildly popular tournament is going to generate tons of cash for the NCAA. And that’s why an expanded tournament is likely, possibly as soon as next year.
The 65-team tournament will bring in roughly $650 million for the NCAA this year — with the vast majority of that coming from broadcast rights payments from CBS.
That money basically funds the entire operation of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and is the financial lifeblood of many smaller schools’ athletic departments.
The big schools get most of that money. And more often than not, the more profitable programs make it to the Final Four over so-called Cinderellas. But profits aren’t a guarantee of success. There are plenty of big money schools not in this year’s tournament.
Big dollar schools staying home. North Carolina, last year’s champion, finished second to only Louisville in terms of revenue and profits for its basketball program last year according to figures filed with the Department of Education. It didn’t make the tournament this year though.
Neither did three other schools in the top 10 in basketball revenue — Illinois, Indiana and Arkansas. Still, those teams are certain to get more cash from this year’s tournament than smaller schools that made it to The Big Dance.
About $167 million of the proceeds from the tournament is split among all the NCAA conferences based on the number of games each conference’s teams played in over the last six years. That money is then typically divided evenly between members of the conference.
So North Carolina and their hated rival Duke will both see the same payday from the tournament, even if No. 1 seed Duke is the one cutting down the nets on April 5.
And because the payments are based on a six-year period, even if a Cinderella team from a smaller conference does well this year, that won’t significantly increase the payout for smaller schools.
More teams mean more dollars. That’s why it’s very likely, if not certain, that this is the last year only 65 teams will be invited to the tournament.
There’s too much potential for a lot more money if the tournament is expanded — and too many smaller schools need more of the big money.
The most discussed expansion scenario is to have a field of 96 teams. The teams ranked 1-32, which are primarily the big-dollar schools from the six major conferences, would wait while teams ranked 33 through 96 would play each other for the right to challenge the Goliaths.
The extra games would be shown on cable and on the Internet, which are the two fastest growing sources of new rights money for sports broadcasts fast payday loan.
The NCAA is expected to opt out of the last three years of an 11-year, $6 billion deal with CBS after this year’s tournament and seek a new long-term broadcast and Internet rights deal.
With more games to air in the week before the round of 64 begins, there is the likelihood of a much bigger payday, said Neal Pilson, a sports television consultant.
"I personally am not that excited about extending the tournament to 96 teams," he said. "But it likely will result in more money for the colleges. The NCAA has a fiduciary responsibility to at least find out what a new deal would be worth."
Pilson thinks Walt Disney (DIS, Fortune 500), with its combination of ABC and ESPN might be the front runner in the bidding for the NCAA. But he thinks CBS (CBS, Fortune 500) will fight hard to retain it, even if it means teaming with a cable network operator to make the bid. There are reports CBS is looking at a joint bid with Turner Sports, which like CNNMoney is a unit of Time Warner (TWX, Fortune 500).
Big win for the little guys. Who will benefit most from the additional dollars a new deal could bring? Surprisingly enough, the smaller schools.
In the current 65-team tournament, about half of the teams are from the six major conferences. But if you look at the RPI rankings of schools this year, a ranking that is widely considered to be what the tournament selection committee relies heavily upon, nearly two-thirds of the teams that could be added to a bigger tournament might come from the smaller conferences.
And since those schools would not have to play a top-ranked team in the first round, they would stand a much better chance to win at least one game. That would only help their programs and increase their future payouts.
Those small schools are far more dependent on the NCAA money than the major conference schools, which typically have their own TV deals and huge arenas.
Yes, far more of the tournament money flows to the Big East (about $27.5 million) than to the lowly Big West (about $4 million). But the Big East schools average revenue of $8.5 million and a profit of nearly $3 million annually.
By contrast, the Big West schools average just over $1 million in revenue and typically lose $80,000 each on basketball. Who do you think needs the extra money more?
So if you’re struggling to fill out a 96-team bracket this time next year, you can blame the unusual combination of big money schools and the Cinderella teams.
Obama administration officials urged lawmakers Tuesday to support the president’s budget, saying it will drive job growth.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, White House Director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag and Council of Economic Advisers Chairwoman Christina Romer testified before the the House Appropriations committee on the administration’s economic outlook and agenda.
In a joint written statement, the officials said that although the stimulus package has helped turn around the economy from when "the threat of a second Great Depression was frighteningly real," the 9.7% unemployment rate is "unacceptable by any metric."
Jobs. An economic forecast produced by the officials’ three offices estimates that the labor market will add 100,000 jobs per month in 2010. However, they said the unemployment rate may still rise slightly over the next few months.
The trio added that jobs will grow by 200,000 a month in 2011, bringing the unemployment rate down to 8.9%. In 2012, payrolls will improve by 250,000 jobs each month, pushing the jobless rate down to 7.9% by the fourth quarter.
In the near term, they expect to see job gains by the spring based on consistent increases in temporary employment and employers expanding the workweek. Productivity growth has also surged at the fastest pace in nearly 50 years during the last three quarters, and the officials expect more hiring to keep pace.
GDP and inflation. Geithner, Orszag and Romer said the forecast projects that gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, will tick higher by 3% in 2010, and grow 4.3% annually in 2011 and 2012.
They expect inflation to remain low, at 1% in 2010, 1 low interest rate personal loans.4% in 211 and 1.7% in 2012.
Investments. In addition to highlighting recent proposals from President Obama to spur job growth, the officials sought support for Obama’s budget policies that they said would stimulate the labor market and the broader economy.
They pushed for an overhaul of the financial system that would: limit large banks from taking risks that could threaten the whole economy; allow the government to break apart from failing firms; and give consumers better information.
On top of providing $19 billion for job training and other employment initiatives, Geithner, Orszag and Romer said the budget proposes to extend a $2,500 per year tax credit for college costs and assist student loan borrowers with repayment plans.
The budget will also increase research and development by 6.4% and reallocate funding from NASA’s Constellation program to research on climate and global change and and science education.
The budget will also extend funding for clean-energy initiatives, infrastructure and to increase exports of goods produced by small businesses.
Deficit. The officials said the budget also proposes to reduce the government’s deficit by $1.2 trillion over the next decade through several measures, including requiring Wall Street firms to repay the costs of the bailout programs and allowing some tax cuts aimed at households earning more than $250,0000 annually to expire.
Comprehensive health care reform would also lower the deficit, they said.
The CEO of Davie-based Ross Realty Investments was named in a foreclosure lawsuit against a stalled mixed-use development in Oakland Park.
Miami Lakes-based BankUnited filed the foreclosure lawsuit on March 5 against RM-Trion Oakland Park, Ross Realty CEO Barry Ross and managing members Kenneth T. Barber and William Matz, according to Broward County Circuit Court records. It concerns a mortgage last modified at $4.1 million in December 2008.
Ross Realty is a commercial developer that has completed buildings for Publix, Ross Dress For Less, Marshalls, Office Depot and LA Fitness. Ross did not immediately return a call and e-mail seeking comment.
Its affiliate, RM-Trion, bought the 2.7-acre site, at the southwest corner of North Federal Highway and Northeast 33rd Court, for $4.5 million in 2004. Three years later, the city granted it approval for 16,000 square feet of commercial/retail space and 175 residential units. However, construction never began.
Miami attorney Jose Casal, who represents BankUnited in the lawsuit, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Japan’s economy expanded less than initially estimated in the fourth quarter as companies pared spending and stockpiles as deflation deepened.
Gross domestic product rose at an annual 3.8 percent pace, slower than the 4.6 percent reported in preliminary figures last month, the Cabinet Office said today in Tokyo. The GDP deflator, a gauge of price trends, fell a record 2.8 percent.
The report suggests business spending remains the weak link of an economic recovery that has begun to spread from exporters to households. Renewed demand in Asia is helping Japanese companies such as Canon Inc. and Honda Motor Co., which may minimize an economic slowdown in the coming months as government stimulus measures fade.
“A rebound in capital investment is key for Japan’s economy to regain momentum,” said Mari Iwashita, chief market economist at Nikko Cordial Securities Inc. in Tokyo. “While declines in investment are coming to a halt, it’s hard to tell when companies will start to beef up spending again.”
The yen traded at 90.46 per dollar at 9:47 a.m. in Tokyo from 90.40 before the report. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average rose 0.7 percent.
The median estimate of 29 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for 4 percent growth on an annualized basis. The economy grew 0.9 percent in the fourth quarter from the previous three months, slower than the 1.1 percent first reported.
‘Receded Slightly’
“Concerns about a double-dip recession have receded slightly,” Keisuke Tsumura, a parliamentary secretary at the Cabinet Office, told reporters in Tokyo. “There are budding signs for self-sustained recovery.”
Private inventory shaved 0.1 percentage point from growth, after the initial report showed it added to GDP, the main reason for today’s revision. Automakers may have responded to higher demand by paring stockpiles, Tsumura said. Capital spending rose 0.9 percent in the three months through December from the previous quarter, compared with a 1 percent increase estimated last month.
About a third of factory capacity is sitting idle and falling prices are squeezing profit margins, prompting companies such as Sony Corp. to cut costs to protect their earnings. Sony last month narrowed its forecast for a net loss, saying it is approaching its target of trimming 330 billion yen ($3.7 billion) in costs by eliminating jobs and shutting factories.
Providing Incentives
The government has been providing incentives to buy energy- efficient cars and home appliances. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama unveiled a 7.2 trillion yen stimulus package in December. Consumer spending, which makes up about 60 percent of the economy, climbed 0 free credit report and score.7 percent, unchanged from the initial report, the government said today.
An increase in household outlays may not last as government stimulus measures fade and a shortfall in demand keeps suppressing prices, said Hiroshi Watanabe, a senior economist at Daiwa Institute of Research in Tokyo. “The stimulus program gives a one-shot boost to the economy, but it won’t substantially increase consumer spending,” he said.
Finance Minister Naoto Kan last week renewed calls for the Bank of Japan to help arrest deflation, saying he hopes prices will rise this year. Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Hirohide Yamaguchi said last month that prices may not be improving as quickly as he had expected.
The drop in the GDP deflator, the broadest measure of prices in the economy, was the largest since comparable data were made available in 1955. The government initially reported a 3 percent decline in the gauge.
‘Worst-Case Scenario’
“The deflator number really is terrible at the moment,” said Richard Jerram, chief economist at Macquarie Securities Ltd. in Tokyo. “The worst-case scenario is that if you never get out of deflation, you’re running an economy with interest rates that are persistently too high, which damages growth and also makes it impossible to stabilize public finances.”
The government’s options to combat falling prices have been limited by its swelling debt burden, the largest in the industrialized world. Kan said yesterday maintaining fiscal discipline is a significant challenge for policy makers. The central bank has kept the benchmark interest rate at 0.1 percent since December 2008.
Still, some companies are benefiting from rebounding demand in Asia, particularly China, the world’s fastest-growing major economy and Japan’s biggest overseas market. Canon, the world’s biggest camera maker, forecasts sales volume will rise 10 percent in China this year, Masaya Maeda, director of the company, said this week. Honda Motor’s sales in China rose 40 percent in February from a year earlier.
Exports increased 5 percent from the previous quarter, unchanged from the preliminary figures. Net exports, or shipments minus imports, added 0.5 percentage point to growth, the same as last month’s reading.
Some reports for January indicate the export revival is filtering to workers. The unemployment rate dropped to a 10- month low of 4.9 percent and wages climbed for the first time in 20 months.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s five-year plan to cut defense spending, foreign aid and government operations won’t be rejected by opposition lawmakers, putting the country on course to be the first in the Group of Seven to erase its deficit.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, 60, released a C$281 billion ($273 billion) budget yesterday that forecasts the shortfall narrowing to C$49.2 billion in the 2010-11 fiscal year, down from a record C$53.8 billion last year. The gap will narrow to C$1.8 billion for the 2014 budget as stimulus measures expire, revenue recovers and spending cuts are implemented.
Michael Ignatieff, leader of the main opposition Liberals, said his party won’t seek to defeat the government on the plan, securing passage for Harper, who is 10 seats short of a majority in the House of Commons. The two other opposition parties won’t back the budget, saying it doesn’t do enough to create jobs.
“We’ve had three or four elections in the last few years and I got told very clearly by Canadians last autumn, don’t do that again,” Ignatieff told reporters in Ottawa. “When Canadians can see a clear choice between cuts and freezes and gimmicks and an alternative that gets this economy going, really meets the challenges of jobs and growth, then maybe then we’ll have an election.”
Harper, 50, and Flaherty are seeking to preserve the country’s record of frugality — 11 straight surpluses until the global recession hit — at a time when government spending is needed to drive growth.
Recession Victims
While yesterday’s budget sticks to a two-year, C$47 billion stimulus plan that keeps the deficit at near record levels this year, the governing Conservatives also outlined a path to bring the country back to balance by 2016.
“This is a budget that has completely left behind the victims of the recession,” New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton said. “It’s not a budget that we can support.”
Tax measures to close loopholes, and cuts to aid, defense and departmental operating budgets, will save C$17.6 billion over five years.
“I don’t like running deficits,” Flaherty told reporters yesterday in Ottawa. “We had to run this deficit temporarily because of the most serious economic crisis since the 1930’s.” Flaherty also resisted pressure to extend a popular home renovation tax credit, and to provide new tax breaks for investors and manufacturers.
‘Expenditure Restraint’
Canada’s aversion to debt was forged in the mid-1990s amid rating downgrades, a falling currency and a national unity crisis. Canada lost its coveted “Aaa” rating from Moody’s Investors Service Inc. in 1994 on concern the country would have trouble repaying its debt, which at the time was the second highest among G-7 countries after Italy. It took seven years to win the rating back.
Last year’s deficit eliminated all of Canada’s debt reduction accumulated since Harper came to power in 2006. Flaherty’s 2009 budget increased spending as a share of output by 2.6 percentage points, the biggest one-year increase since at least 1961, according to finance department data.
“I like the focus on expenditure restraint. I think it makes sense,” Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC World Markets, said in an interview.
In addition to the spending cuts, Harper also is betting the global economy will emerge from last year’s recession at a swift rate, helping Canada to grow at an average 2.9 percent in the next three years. The government bases its economic outlook on a survey of private-sector forecasters including economists from Royal Bank of Canada and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.
Aggressive Assumptions
“The biggest surprise is the return to balance budgets within a five- to six-year time horizon,” said Derek Holt, an economist with Bank of Nova Scotia in Toronto. “That’s based upon some aggressive assumptions. It’s also assuming they will be successful in cutting program expenditures.”
Harper hopes to cut C$2.5 billion from planned defense spending, according to the budget plan, after the country withdraws its military from Afghanistan in 2011. The government will also cap spending on international assistance at 2010 levels, scaling back initial plans to grow its aid package by 8 percent. The move will save C$4.5 billion by 2015.
“This is probably the smallest budget in terms of new spending in 10 years,” Flaherty said.
Harper also pledged to freeze department spending, which includes payroll and procurement, saving the government C$6.8 billion. Measures to eliminate some federal programs and close tax loopholes will save an additional C$3.8 billion.
As part of the changes, the government will crack down on income trusts that convert into corporations and use “aggressive schemes” to claim tax losses. Ensuring tax deductions on employee stock options aren’t claimed twice — by the worker and the company — will save C$1.7 billion. Cosmetic surgery will also no longer be eligible for a medical-expense tax credit, a move the government values at C$200 million over five years.
Growth in the number of people tweeting and friending from their mobile devices is keeping pace with increases in subscribers to social networks.
A new study by comScore shows that 4.7 million people accessed Twitter on their mobile phones in January 2010, up 347 percent jump compared to last year.
The number of Facebook users going to the site on their mobiles hit 25.1 million, up 112 percent.
MySpace's numbers actually declined 7 percent from last year, with 11.4 million mobile users free credit report.
Those numbers compare with an overall increase of 4.6 percent in the number of mobile phone users who accessed a social networking site via mobile browser.
ComScore said that In January, 11.1 percent of all mobile phone users went to social networks on their mobiles.
Smartphone owners were far more likely to do so compared to other cell phone users, 30.8 percent vs. 6.8 percent .
There was a time when Sarah Truckey had a close relationship with her blog. The St. Louis-based freelance writer visited it every couple of days, sharing stories and thoughts with anyone willing to read them.
But today, the intervals between visits are growing longer as Truckey, 25, increasingly turns to social networking site Twitter to talk to the world. She likes the way Twitter limits entries to 140 characters, forcing her to keep those missives short.
"The blog posts wouldn’t necessarily get me in trouble. But I would end up revealing more than I should," Truckey said.
While not ready to abandon the blog altogether, Truckey does represent a growing trend in the world of blogging. Young people just aren’t as interested in them as they once were. And it’s yet another example of the way rapid changes in technology — and the way we use it — can transform you from trendy to dinosaur seemingly overnight.
MySpace? Out. Facebook? In. Using a cell phone for phone calls? Out. Using it to send a text message? In. E-mail? Outside of scammers and spammers, does anyone use it?
OK, there’s a bit of hyperbole there. But it’s clear we live in a world where our ways of communicating are changing so fast that it’s virtually impossible, particularly for older adults, to stay current.
And certainly there are times when keeping up can be critical. As the parent of virtually every cell phone-toting teenager or young adult knows, you learn to text if you want to keep in touch.
Still, there’s no reason to obsess over every new communication development, said Dean Terry, director of emerging media at the University of Texas at Dallas. Some basic familiarity with social networking and texting may be all you need to get by. It’s not as if the old ways will just die out.
"Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t keep up with everything," Terry said. "We still have radio. We still have plays. And we still have novels."
In so many ways, it is the nation’s army of teenagers and young adults that’s deciding for the rest of us what’s cool and what’s not. Those decisions can, and often do, change quite quickly.
"Adults are always playing catch-up. And unfortunately, when we get there, (teens) may have already moved on," said Gary Rudman, a California-based market researcher who specializes in teens.
Just look at what’s happened to blogging, an area that’s still growing in popularity with older Americans, just as it’s losing steam with the younger set.
The percentage of older adults — those over the age of 29 — who say they maintain a blog has increased from 7 percent to 11 percent since December 2007, according to a recent report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Meanwhile the ranks of bloggers in the 18-29 age group fell from 24 percent to 15 percent during the same time frame quick payday loans.
The drop has been even greater among teen bloggers. In 2006, 28 percent of online teens said they blogged. Only 14 percent say the same thing today, according to Pew.
Social networking experts cite some pretty simple reasons for the decline of young bloggers.
Some suggest that it’s tied, at least partly, to the decline in popularity of My- Space, the one-time king of social networking. In recent years, social networkers have made a decided shift to Facebook, which puts more emphasis on short status updates and less emphasis on blogging.
"Because of what each site offers, that really changes what people do," said Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist with Pew.
Others say blogging simply doesn’t match well with the preferred communication style of young people, who like quick exchanges via text message and Facebook status updates. Some even suggest that young people might have skipped blogs altogether if they had arrived at the same time texting was taking off. Many young people just don’t have time in their lives for blogs.
"We used to think of blogs as short little blips of commentary. But now they seem very long," said Terry, from the University of Texas. "If you are updating your Facebook or Twitter all day, then in some ways you’ve gotten it all out. You’ve said everything you wanted to say."
Some attribute the decline of blogging and MySpace — and anything else being abandoned by young people — to the desire of teens and young adults trying to carve out their own space.
Rarely are they happy to see that space infiltrated by parents and grandparents.
"As soon as it becomes too popular, they want to move on to something else," said Kathryn Montgomery, a professor of communication at American University in Washington.
Not everyone buys that.
"That’s been the routine theory about why MySpace lost ground to Facebook," said Steve Jones, a professor of communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "But I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. A lot of adults are using Facebook now. And I don’t see younger people leaving in droves."
And really, it’s not necessarily the end of the world even if the youngsters do run off to greener pastures.
Rebecca Hanes, 36, of St. Louis, has been blogging for five years. She actually has a pair of blogs, including one she describes as "a big ol’ bowl of soup" in terms of content.
Hanes shrugged off the news that young bloggers have been dropping left and right. She says she has no plans to abandon her own little slice of cyberspace: "As far as I’m concerned, it’s probably something I’ll always have."
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