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Wyoming transplant Peter Wysocki was picked Tuesday to head Round Rock's planning department.

City Manager Jim Nuse said Wysocki will begin work as planning director in the north of Austin suburb Sept. 15. He's currently working as community development director for the city of Laramie, Wyo. He replaces Jim Stendebach who retires Aug. 31.

“We will dearly miss Jim Stendebach, who has been part of Round Rock’s development successes for more than two decades,” Nuse said. “I can’t imagine a person better suited than Peter Wysocki to replace Jim."

Nurse said the incoming director has worked in a fast-growing region of Wyoming for the last six years and "comes highly recommended by those in the communities where he served.” During his tenure, he successfully facilitated a new master plan, a new unified development code, groundwater protection plan and completely revamped the development review process.

Prior to his current position, he was community development director for the city of Fernley, Nev personal loans for bad credit. from 2001 to 2006. He also worked six years as a planner with the Douglas County, Nev. community development department.

“My family and I are very excited about moving here and becoming members this great community," Wysocki said.

He earned a bachelor’s in urban and regional planning from California Polytechnic University and a certificate of professional development in public management from the University of Nevada, Reno. He is a certified planner by the American Institute of Certified Planners, member of the American Planning Association, a member of the Western Planning Resources and served as the president of the Northern Section of the Nevada Chapter of the American Planning Association.

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The Lockheed Martin team developing the next-generation Global Positioning System satellites — which are to be assembled and tested in the Denver area — completed the "critical design review," or CDR, of its work on Thursday — two months ahead of schedule.

The completion of the CDR means that Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT) and its partners — most notably General Dynamics Corp. and ITT Corp. — can begin production work on the two GPS IIIA satellites they are contracted to build for the U.S. Air Force at a cost of $1.46 billion. The team could build as many as 10 more GPS satellites under the contract if all the options on it are exercised.

The last phase of the CDR took four days to complete and was held at the newly constructed Patriot Center at Lockheed Martin’s newly expanded operations in Newtown, Pa. About 350 people participated, including employees of Littleton-based Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co payday loans no teletrack., the Lockheed unit that’s leading the team; General Dynamics; ITT; the Air Force; the Defense Department; the Department of Transportation; and the Federal Aviation Administration.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems has about 300 people in Newtown working on the satellite project. It also has employees working on the project in the Denver suburbs and Colorado Springs as well as in California and Mississippi and at Cape Canaveral, Fla., where the satellites will be launched.

The generation of GPS satellites Lockheed Martin is working on will deliver signals that are three times more accurate than current GPS satellites and three times more powerful for military users. It also will have a new civil signal that is compatible with signals from similar satellites being built by other countries.

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Agricultural Bank of China, a bank with more customers than the entire U.S. population, made a lackluster debut in Shanghai on Thursday.

During its first day of trading, shares of Agricultural Bank rose a modest 0.8%, ending at 2.70 yuan.

As one of China’s largest lenders, expectations had been for Agricultural Bank to make a bigger splash than it did.

In what is one of the largest IPOs in history, the Beijing-based lender raised $19.2 billion from investors. It sold 25.4 billion shares in Hong Kong for $0.4107 per share, totaling $10.43 billion. Its Shanghai stock, which totaled 22.2 billion shares, was priced at $0.3955 a share, raising approximately $8.78 billion.

The bank plans to list its shares on exchanges in Hong Kong on Friday.

Agricultural Bank will not trade on a U.S. exchange, but Wall Street investors are keeping a close eye on the lender for any hints of whether China’s broader economy and stock market are showing signs of cooling off no faxing payday loans.

Along those lines, China’s government announced Thursday that its gross domestic product in the second quarter rose at an annualized 10.3% pace. While that is still obviously a healthy rate of growth, it’s a bit slower than the first quarter of this year.

With nearly 24,000 branches and a customer base of approximately 320 million, Agricultural Bank is poised to grow as both the Chinese banking system and domestic consumers become more sophisticated.

CNNMoney.com’s David Ellis contributed to this report.  

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Federal banking regulators shut down two troubled Baltimore-area banks Friday, Bay National Bank and Ideal Federal Savings Bank, marking six Maryland banks felled by the collapse of the real estate market.

Bay National’s deposits are being assumed by a new entity called Bay Bank FSB. Its two branches will reopen Monday as Bay Bank branches, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said. Bay National depositors will automatically become depositors of Bay Bank, of Lutherville.

Bay Bank will led by CEO Kevin B. Cashen, a bank consultant and former executive with Chevy Chase Bank and Signet Bank.

Bay National first faced federal regulatory scrutiny 18 months ago, with regulators citing problem loans that drained the bank’s liquidity and capital. Despite talk of turning the bank around by raising new capital and a stock offering, the bank never was able to right itself.

Meanwhile, Ideal was in an “unsafe and unsound condition to transact business and was undercapitalized, with no reasonable prospect of becoming adequately capitalized, ” the Office of Thrift Supervision said.

No other bank was willing to take over Ideal’s operations, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said. The deposits held by the bank will be transferred to the M&T Bank branch at 715 N. Howard Street, where customers can pick up their money.

Hopes were higher for Bay National until it canceled a planned stock offering last month, citing “current public market conditions and the company’s current capital position,” as the reason.

Throughout the bank’s ordeal with regulators, CEO Hugh Mohler has remained quiet. The usually press friendly banker has refused to give interviews in the past three months. He could not be reached for comment Friday.

Mohler, a former Mercantile Bankshares executive, founded the bank in 2000 to focus on business lending in Greater Baltimore fast cash advance loan.

Mohler said in an earlier interview the bank ran into problems when the once hot real estate market in Canton and Federal Hill cooled and borrowers who had taken out loans to rehab houses in those neighborhoods had trouble repaying their loans.

As of March 31, Bay National Bank had $282.2 million in deposits and $276.1 million in deposits.

The bank, which banking regulators considered “critically undercapitalized,” was under orders to raise capital. Bay National Corp., the bank’s corporate parent, said in a May 17 Securities and Exchange Commission filing that there was “substantial doubt” about the company’s and the bank’s ability “to continue as going concerns for a reasonable period of time.”

The shutdown of Bay National will cost the FDIC’s insurance fund $17.4 million, the agency said.

Bay National Bank is the fourth bank in Maryland to be closed by regulators in the past 16 months, and the 87th FDIC-insured bank to be closed in 2010.

The Office of Thrift Supervision approved the charter for Bay Bank Friday. The new bank is owned by Jefferson Bancorp, a new holding company in Washington, D.C.

Bay Bank CEO Cashen said in a statement the bank "has a strong board of directors and management team with deep experience in the local market." No names were mentioned.

Ideal had a single branch, on Druid Hill Avenue, two employees, assets of $6.3 million and deposits of $5.8 million.

The minority-owned bank was opened in 1920 to serve Baltimore’s African-American community.

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AirTran Airways launched new nonstop service on Saturdays between Wichita Mid-Continent Airport in Kansas and Orlando International Airport.

The Wichita flight leaves at 11:18 a.m., arriving in Orlando at 3:13 p.m. The Orlando flight leaves at 3:53 p.m., arriving in Wichita at 5:48 p.m.

AirTran now serves more than 40 nonstop destinations to Orlando, the most of any other airline no fax payday advances.

Orlando-based AirTran Airways, a subsidiary of AirTran Holdings Inc. (NYSE: AAI), is a Fortune 1000 company and has been ranked the No. 1 low-cost carrier in the Airline Quality Rating study for the past three years.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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A decade-old medical technology startup called Disc Dynamics Inc. has closed its doors and is selling off its assets, according to reports.

The Eden Prairie-based company was developing a treatment for lower back pain, but never got its product approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Former CEO Steven Healy left the firm last July to be CEO of Maple Grove-based Lumen Biomedical. Healy, the former president of St. Jude Medical Inc.’s Cardiac Surgery division, had been CEO since 2002.

Disc Dynamics’ Chief Financial Officer Keith Eastman couldn’t be reached for comment.

Three employees remain from the peak of 32 workers, including Eastman, who is managing the sale of the company’s assets, according to a report in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Disc Dynamics’ technology was designed to treat lower back problems by injecting a fluid into the spine through a catheter. The fluid then expands and gels inside the back to create an artificial nucleus for the disc.

The company raised about $65 million in venture capital over the years from a variety of investors including Eden Prairie-based Split Rock Partners and Fridley-based Medtronic Inc.

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The amount of money that Canadians are stashing away for retirement has been declining for a decade, and the trend is likely to continue through 2020 as the baby boomers move into their golden years, according to a study by the Royal Bank of Canada.

Contributions to registered retirement savings plans, or RRSPs, grew steadily from the late 1960s to the late 1990s.

Since 1997, there has been a "decidedly downward trend" in the RRSP savings rate, the report says.

"This downward trend in itself doesn’t mean there’s a problem," if the level of savings is still adequate for Canadians’ retirement, RBC assistant chief economist Paul Ferley said in an interview.

"The big question is determining how much savings is needed to properly fund the population as they move into their retirement years. At the moment the academic community is working through that analysis. There doesn’t seem to be a consensus on that."

A falloff in savings would have a negative impact on the overall economy because it would result in fewer funds available for business investment.

Government officials said in December they will study and consult the public on a short-list of proposals for how to boost retirement savings.

The list includes everything from a continued reliance on voluntary savings plans and higher contributions to the Canada Pension Plan to supplementary pension plans and tax reform.

A report is expected by May.

Financial planning experts, academics and labour groups have been calling for pension reform, particularly as the massive baby boom population, those born in the two decades following World War II, moves into the retirement years.

Stock market volatility and turmoil in the economy over the past two years have exposed weaknesses in the current system. Fewer than one in four Canadians now holds a private company pension plan.

The decline in RRSP contributions can largely be pinned on changing demographics, according to the RBC paper.

Different age groups tend to save differently for retirement, the study noted, with those in their mid-30s and 40s traditionally saving the most and those ages 34 and under and ages 55 and older saving less.

"Because household RRSP contributions have historically tended to fall after age 55, it is possible that we could actually see a decline in total real RRSP contributions over the next decade," the study said.

The run-up in RRSP contributions as a share of income through the 1980s and early 1990s appears to have been mainly due to the boomers entering their peak saving years, along with rising income growth and comparatively strong real stock market gains, the study found.

Periodic changes in government policy, such as increases to contribution limits and scrapping limits on carry-forward room, also spurred savings.

Retirement savings declines have been driven by falling stock markets and economic slowdown, as well as demographic changes.

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