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EndoGastric Solutions Inc. said Monday it raised $30 million in a new funding round.

The Redwood City company focuses on procedures to treat upper gastrointestinal diseases.

Co-leading the round were Canaan Partners, which has an office in Menlo Park, and New York-based Radius Ventures.

Also participating were Advanced Technology Ventures, MPM Capital, Foundation Medical Partners, Chicago Growth Partners, and De Novo Ventures business card.

Following the investment, Brent Ahrens of Canaan Partners and Kathleen Regan of Radius Ventures joined the company's board of directors.

Click here to read the press release.

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A online cash advance is a service provided by most credit card and charge card issuers.

Hewlett-Packard Co. estimated it will post an 11 percent increase in revenue in the third quarter of its fiscal 2010 compared to the prior year, and it raised guidance for the rest of the year.

Revenue in the third quarter was about $30.7 billion, with preliminary earnings per share of approximately $0.75, the company said.

For its fourth quarter, HP estimates revenue of approximately $32.5 billion to $32.7 billion, and earnings per share of $1.03 to $1.05.

For the full year, HP now expects revenue of $125.3 billion to $125.5 billion, and earnings per share in the range of $3.62 to $3.64.

The announcement came at the same time Palo Alto-based HP announced that CEO Mark Hurd was resigning because of unspecified violations of business conduct standards uncovered by an investigation prompted by sexual harassment allegations by a former contractor. No sexual harassment was found, the company said.

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Learn what faxless payday loans are and how online payday loans can be used as a quick fix to pay off your bills.

There’s at least one stimulus program that’s creating jobs and winning praise from both sides of the political aisle.

A little-known Recovery Act initiative is expected to put more than 200,000 unemployed people back to work in 32 states and the District of Columbia. It’s called the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Emergency Fund, and it subsidizes jobs with private companies, nonprofits and government agencies.

But the $5 billion it receives runs out on Sept. 30, even though employers and state officials administering the money say there’s lots more demand out there.

"It would be such a shame," said Jan Vogel, executive director of a Los Angeles area agency that has placed more than 10,000 workers. "How much more productive can a program be than putting people to work?"

Congress is considering a year-long extension that would add $2.5 billion. But the proposal is bogged down in political wrangling over the nation’s exploding deficit.

While the Obama administration’s $787 billion stimulus program has become a popular target for GOP attacks, the subsidized jobs initiative has been adopted by Republican and Democratic governors and policy analysts alike.

"It’s a pretty cost-effective way to create jobs," said Kevin Hassett, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a business-oriented group that promotes free enterprise. "We should be creative about seeking ways to get people connected to the workforce again."

Even Haley Barbour, the Mississippi governor who headed the Republican National Committee in the mid-1990s, had high praise for the effort.

The "program will provide much-needed aid during this recession by enabling businesses to hire new workers, thus enhancing the economic engines of our local communities," Barbour said when the initiative launched last year. (Read ‘Stimulus: The big bang is over’)

Helping unemployed parents

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, known as TANF, was created as part of the 1996 welfare reform effort.

States, which received $16.5 billion in federal TANF funds last year, have a lot of flexibility on how to distribute the money to help low-income households with children.

The Recovery Act injected another $5 billion into the program and created an emergency fund. States have used about half the stimulus money to provide cash grants, food programs, housing assistance and other aid.

But the fastest-growing segment of the emergency fund is the subsidized jobs program. States have already put $615 million to work, according to the Center for Law and Social Policy, an advocacy group known as CLASP. It expects states to fund a total of 200,000 jobs before the program expires.

"This provides a low-risk way for employers to hire," said Elizabeth Lower-Basch, senior policy analyst at CLASP pay day loans. "Employers will do their best to keep people."

Putting the unemployed to work

Around the country, companies have signed up for a wide range of reasons. Some are eager to expand, but others see it as a way to dip their toe back into hiring.

DBA Logistics, a freight forwarding company based in Hawthorne, Calif., took 32 previously unemployed people to work in its warehouse and in other departments. It receives a subsidy of $10 an hour per employee.

The program has allowed DBA to broaden its hiring base. The company plans to keep most of the new employees even after the subsidy runs out.

"It gives us access to a new pool of labor that we otherwise wouldn’t have," said Duke Dukesherer, the firm’s executive vice president for the Americas. "They are good workers."

The workers are thankful to have a job. After hitting the unemployment line six months ago, Michael Terry now loads and unloads trucks, drives a forklift and stacks boxes for DBA.

"I’m financially stable right now," said Terry, a Los Angeles resident who has two toddlers and another baby on the way. "I can pay my bills."

Dorothy Polite, meanwhile, saw the stimulus program as a way to expand her one-woman enterprise, which focuses on speech therapy and training in the Los Angeles area. She brought on two workers to answer the phone, schedule appointments and organize her files — all tasks she used to do herself.

Instead, Polite has focused on getting more certifications and lining up more contracts with agencies.

"It gave me more time to generate more business," said Polite, who is looking to hire both workers permanently.

In Louisville, Miss., Taylor Machine Works used the subsidy to rehire 13 people it had laid off. The forklift truck manufacturer has seen business pick up lately and needs more welders, machinists, painters and assemblymen.

Mississippi provides six months of subsidies, paying 100% of salaries for two months and then gradually reducing the assistance to 25% by the sixth month. The program has proven very popular with employers, who have kept all but 3% to 4% of the participants, said Stan McMorris, deputy executive director of the state’s Department of Employment Security.

Taylor intends to hire more people if it can before the program ends on Sept. 30.

"This money has helped us bring them back to work sooner," said Inez Blumenfeld, employment supervisor. "We don’t intend to lay them off again." 

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Anne Balcer Norton has been appointed assistant commissioner for non-depository institutions with the state Office of the Commissioner of Financial Regulation, it was announced Monday.

Balcer Norton most recently directed the foreclosure prevention program at St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center in Baltimore. In her new role, she will oversee regulation of mortgage lenders and brokers, check cashers, debt-management companies and other non-banking firms.

“Anne brings a unique and powerful combination of skills and experiences, and we are thrilled to have her join our team at this critical time,” Alexander M. Sanchez, Secretary of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, said in a release Monday. The Office of the Commissioner of Financial Regulation is part of DLRR.

Norton’s appointment comes as Maryland begins a new state program in which homeowners facing foreclosure can seek mediation with their lender before a state administrative law judge. Norton was part of the group that crafted the legislation.

The new law, a centerpiece of Gov. Martin O’Malley’s 2010 General Assembly agenda, was signed into law in May. It goes into effect July 1.

Norton is slated to start her new job in early July.

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As lawmakers began the final push Thursday on a comprehensive Wall Street reform bill, lobbyists also made their final push — in congressional hallways, on BlackBerrys and cell phones, and at restaurants and bars near Capitol Hill.

On Thursday, some 40 lawmakers gathered in a House committee room to give speeches and kick off a marathon, two-to-three week session of deal-making on key differences buried in the bills.

Wall Street reform bills, passed by the Senate in May and the House last December, aim to curb risk taking, protect consumers and prevent financial firms from getting too big to fail. But the chambers take different roads toward achieving those goals.

Next Tuesday, lawmakers will start hashing out specific policy differences in meetings that are open to the public and being broadcast on C-SPAN and on the House Financial Services Committee Website.

"This is going to be a very open process," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who was elected to run the joint committee encompassing negotiators. "Nothing will be put into this final bill that is not advanced, openly debated, subject to amendment by the conference process and voted on."

Yet, the conversations that go on outside the committee room spotlights are where much of the actual wrangling and arm-twisting goes on, lobbyists and congressional experts say.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., complained Thursday that Republicans have already been shut out of some decisions made behind closed doors, such as the shaping of first raw draft to be considered. That draft mostly reflects the Senate bill with some "House additions," according to Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who runs the Senate Banking panel.

"I believe if we continue to proceed in this matter, however, any further assertions of openness and transparency will be a fiction, and meetings like this one will only serve as political theater," said Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee.

Here are examples of the kind of lobbying that happens outside the committee room:

• In late May, JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) chief executive Jamie Dimon made calls to a couple of lawmakers expected to be named to the conference panel negotiating differences, according to aides. Dimon was concerned, among other things, about a provision that would force banks to spin off their swaps desks. (JPMorgan Chase did not return requests for comment.)
• More than 1,000 credit union officials from 30 states hit the Hill’s hallways on Wednesday and Thursday. They’re asking lawmakers to kill a provision that would make banks and credit unions more responsible for the swipe fees on debit cards that retailers now pay.
• Lobbyists for some financial firms are expected to be among those paying $1,000 a ticket to attend a fundraiser Thursday night featuring access to congressional staffers of top Democratic leaders, as part of a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser taking place at a downtown Washington hotel bar. Republicans have held similar events in the past online payday advance.

Lobbying

"The lobbying community is not done with its work. And they are very, very focused on the conference process, and we’ll be fighting any attempt to weaken the bills," said Assistant Treasury Secretary Michael Barr in a briefing with reporters two weeks ago. "There’s still plenty of fight left in the process."

Since January 2009, financial service firms have spent $591 million lobbying Congress, which includes money spent on the health care reform bill as well as the Wall Street reform bills, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group.

Nearly every major Wall Street bank has shelled out money for lobbying, including Goldman Sachs, which has spent $3.9 million, and Bank of America, which spent $4.6 million. Smaller banks have also lobbied through banking groups. The American Bankers Association has spent $11.3 million since January 2009 and the Independent Community Bankers Association has spent $5.8 million.

Many of the lobbyists have connections to those they’re lobbying. More than 1,400 of the financial service sector lobbyists working on Wall Street reform worked for lawmakers and federal agencies they’re now lobbying, according to a joint analysis of federal disclosure records and other data released by the watchdog groups Public Citizen and the Center for Responsive Politics.

Campaign finance

Another way that industries can flex their muscle is by making campaign contributions to lawmakers. Summer is the high season for fundraising, especially in an congressional election year.

Since 1989, financial, real estate and insurance firms have contributed more than $112 million to the Democrats and Republicans named to the conference committee, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., tops the list with $17.5 million, followed by Dodd at $15.1 million and Shelby at more than $7.5 million, the center reports.

"Campaign contributions may not prove to be an ultimate, deciding factor in how these lawmakers operate. But money buys access," said Dave Levinthal, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics. "It’s awfully difficult as a member of Congress to say ‘No’ to a longtime Wall Street campaign contributor who wants to bend your ear or twist your arm at this critical juncture."

And more money will roll in while negotiations are going on. Lawmakers on the conference committee with scheduled fundraisers include Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Ohio, and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, according to a database of invitations compiled by the watchdog group Sunlight Foundation.

Frank was also scheduled to have one Thursday morning, but it was postponed.

The next meeting of the committee is scheduled for 11 a.m. ET on Tuesday. 

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AT&T’s new pricing plans may save consumers money now, but new iPad and iPhone customers will likely wind up paying more down the road.

Starting June 7, new users will pay $25 a month for 2 gigabytes of data, plus $10 for each additional gigabyte.

Since AT&T’s old plan was $30 a month for unlimited data, customers will have to use less than 2 GB a month for the new plan to save them money.

So how much is 2 GB?

AT&T (T, Fortune 500) says 2 GB is the equivalent of 10,000 emails without attachments, 1,500 emails with attachments, 4,000 Web pages, posting 500 photos to social media sites, and 200 minutes of streaming video combined.

At first glance, that looks like about a month’s worth of data usage. But adding even a little more video to the equation shows how quickly the gigabytes can add up.

For example, Apple has used Netflix as one of its big selling points for the iPad. Though people looking to curl up in bed to watch a movie on their iPad will likely connect to their Wi-Fi rather than AT&T’s 3G service, those who want to stream TV shows at the gym, on a train or on the go may be in for a little sticker shock.

For Netflix subscribers using the new iPad app, 2 GB of data will only get them between six and 12 hours of streaming movies and TV shows, depending on the bit rate Netflix used, said a source with knowledge of the partnership between Netflix (NFLX) and Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500). That works out to between three and six two-hour movies, or between four and eight one-and-a-half hour movies a month.

"It’s a lot like the early days of cell phones, where 100-minute plans didn’t get you too far," said Al Hilwa, analyst at IDC. "Video is an obvious data hog, and [AT&T’s new plan] presents an opportunity for customer backlash."

Currently, only about 2% of AT&T’s customers use more than 2 gigabytes, according to the company.

But that number could quickly change. Users of the feature-rich iPad and iPhone tend to consume more data than most other smart phone customers.

Demand for data is also rapidly increasing as mobile video use explodes. The average smart phone customer watched 3 hours and 15 minutes of mobile video each month last year, according to data tracker Nielsen. That’s up 70% from 2008. And teenagers watched 6 hours and 30 seconds on their phones each month. (The annual survey was conducted before the iPad went on sale.)

"While AT&T asserts that its high-end 2 GB cap will only impact the heaviest users, the fact is that today’s heavy user is tomorrow’s average user," said Chris Riley, policy counsel for net neutrality advocate Free Press.

And analysts note that many of the apps being developed for Apple’s devices are designed to feed on bandwidth, so the new pricing plan could hurt the developers’ business models.

"If you’re in the business of selling streaming video a la Hulu, streaming music a la Pandora, … AT&T just changed consumer perceptions of those businesses for the worse," said Carl Howe, analyst at Yankee Group. "Now those consumers are going to have to pay bandwidth charges as well as whatever subscriptions they may have. And that’s going to make those business leaders not very happy."

AT&T’s customers largely jeered the new pricing models. The company attempted to demonstrate how its pricing changes are beneficial and cheaper for the majority of iPhone and iPad customers, and it will allow current AT&T customers to be grandfathered into the old data plan. Still, comments posted on CNNMoney.com’s story on Wednesday were overwhelmingly negative. 

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The euro pared back earlier losses against the dollar Wednesday, after Germany said it would ban short selling on some European bank shares and the zone’s government bonds.

What prices are doing: The euro rose 1.42% on the dollar to $1.2385 Wednesday, after the European currency touched a new four-year low versus the dollar the day before.

The dollar fell 0.52% versus the British pound to $1.4412. It was down 0.9% against the Japanese yen at ¥91.52.

The dollar is up 8% against the euro over the month, as the shared currency has taken a hit on debt concerns.

What’s moving the market: Late Tuesday, Germany’s financial regulator announced a ban on so-called naked short sales of debt securities issued by euro zone countries as well as the country’s ten leading financial companies.

The restrictions will apply until March 31, 2011. The announcement initially drove the euro down against the dollar, but the euro gained later after investors realized European leaders are serious about stabilizing the currency, said Boris Schlossberg, director of currency research at GFT Forex.

"By taking the speculative shorts out of the market, they’ve naturally lowered the cost of credit in the market right now," Schlossberg said. "That has calmed the markets down."

In short selling, traders bet the value of an investment will fall. Traditional short sellers borrow the security with the aim of selling it, and then they buy it back at a lower price hoping to pocket the difference.

In a "naked" short sale, however, investors short the investment without actually borrowing the shares or bonds. That makes it easier to drive down the asset’s value. 

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DETROIT — The first detailed financial report from General Motors since its bankruptcy showed a company that has largely stanched the hemorrhaging in its day-to-day business but is still cleaning up problems left over from its collapse last year.

GM said Wednesday that it had positive cash flow of $1 billion in the six months after it emerged from bankruptcy protection last July, but that it lost $4.3 billion in that period, mostly because of the cost of settling with the United Auto Workers union over retiree health benefits, one of the burdens that helped bring the company to its knees.

The automaker said that with those matters behind it and the economy improving, it could make a profit in 2010, echoing previous predictions. Officials said the company made progress toward that goal in the first quarter, without being specific.

"It would be a really impressive achievement if they were able to make a profit," said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst with the research firm IHS Global Insight. "They’ve been able to do an awful lot and all of those things should lead to a profitable picture."

The bankruptcy cleared $83 billion in liabilities from GM’s balance sheet, the company said. Wiping out that debt already has saved GM billions of dollars in interest; it paid $28.6 million a day in interest in the months before bankruptcy, but those payments dropped 86 percent, to $4 million a day, after bankruptcy.

With those debts gone, GM said gross margins on vehicle sales edged into positive territory, at 1.9 percent, compared with negative 18.5 percent in early 2009.

Cash-flow was a positive $1 billion from July 10, when GM emerged from bankruptcy by selling its desirable assets to a new company, to Dec. 31. The old GM, which remains in bankruptcy protection as it liquidates closed plants and other discarded assets, burned through $13.1 billion in cash in the second half of 2008.

Excluding one-time charges, the emerged company lost about $600 million in the fourth quarter, GM’s chief financial officer, Christopher P. Liddell, said. GM reported an operating loss of $5.9 billion in the same period a year earlier.

"We don’t need to make that much improvement to get to profitability," Liddell, who came to GM from Microsoft earlier this year, said on a conference call. "It’s getting close to break-even if you get rid of those one-off items that happened in the fourth quarter."

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The running numbers on the worst job crisis since the Great Depression have become the new national boxscore.

Even those with cursory interest in the economy are aware the national unemployment rate stood near or past 10 percent nationally for most of 2009.

Still others can reel off the current numbers for Missouri (9.6 percent) and Illinois (11 percent) with the authority of a seasoned economist.

Now, for the first time, policy-makers have a tool to regularly measure the depth of that economic pain at the state and regional level — a quarterly snapshot assessing underemployment and other comprehensive unemployment data on a state-by-state basis.

Since 1994, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has packaged the inclusive national jobs data into its monthly unemployment report. But on a state and local level, such statistics were available only once a year.

A bureau official said the new schedule, two years in development, fills a recession-ravaged public’s need for more information about the state of the economy and job market. And the picture isn’t very pretty.

When the bureau adds workers overqualified for their current positions (underemployed), employees involuntarily subjected to reduced hours and individuals no longer looking for a job to the equation, the national barometer for jobs misery soars to 17 percent.

"It’s not so interesting when the economy is humming along," said Tom Krolik, an analyst with the agency’s local area unemployment statistics division.

The new data provide a steady and reliable estimate of just how deeply the recession has cut into two states in which 773,000

(Illinois) and 137,500 (Missouri) displaced workers are currently drawing unemployment:

— More than 400,000 underemployed in Illinois and nearly 200,000 working below grade level in Missouri.

— Upwards of 350,000 now employed part time involuntarily in Illinois and an additional 153,000 struggling in part-time positions in Missouri.

— At least 30,000 "discouraged workers" (people who have stopped looking for jobs) in Illinois and an additional 10,000 in Missouri.

The state numbers are culled from the same surveys and databases the bureau uses to compile its monthly unemployment statistics.

"The thing that is so discouraging is that we’re not seeing much improvement," said Bonny Filandrinos, president of Staffing Solutions in Clayton, which provides temporary workers to health facilities and other area companies.

Filandrinos says she’s still waiting to see a bounce-back in demand for even temporary or part-time labor. "We’re still in trouble," she said.

Six Flags St. Louis got a glimpse of where the economy still stands earlier this month when 916 temporary 2009 employees attended a party to welcome back temporary workers returning for another season.

By the time Six Flags ends its 2010 recruitment drive — a process that begins with a Feb. 6 job fair — human resources director Colleen Welch estimates about half of the park’s employees will be returnees.

On average, she said, Six Flags sees about 40 percent of its workers return the following season.

Unlike days when the park’s employees swelled in the summer with high school and college students, many of the returnees are older, experienced workers driven to seasonal employment by a bum economy.

Bob Graf, 64, managed to carve out a decent living since abandoning the teaching profession 30 years ago for a second career as a freight broker.

As the middleman that small and mid-sized manufacturers retain to negotiate shipping contracts with trucking firms, Graf considers himself somewhat of an "amateur" economist.

When production slowed and orders started to drop in 2007, Graf figured the economy was going down the tubes.

He figured right.

Last year, the recession hit Graf where it hurts.

With his commissions in the tank, Graf took a second job as a seasonal security guard at Six Flags to help make ends meet. Seeing little improvement in the shipping business, he will be back this summer, supplementing the diminished income from his year-round position.

"I still make money, but it’s not what it was," said Graf, of south St. Louis County.

Still, there are signs of improvement that should eventually show up in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ expanded database.

Jon Lauer, president of Professional Irrigation Systems in Wentzville, is planning to fill four to six positions lost to layoffs last year.

With commercial and residential construction still in decline, Lauer has changed the focus of his 10-year-old company to the servicing of existing irrigation systems as well as installing some at municipal athletic facilities. The workload, he said, is a far cry from the pre-recession days when 50- to 60-hour weeks were common.

For the past year and into the foreseeable future, he stressed, overtime is out of the question.

"We’re still in the hanging-in-there stage," he said.

As is Rob Huddleston, 41, of Florissant, who has been out of work since losing his welding job in August.

After dipping his toe in a market that seeks to pay experienced welders about two-thirds of what he earned last year, Huddleston decided to accept $5,000 in Workforce Investment Act funding to improve his skills in a retraining program.

The tight job market, he said, "does get discouraging sometimes."

But not so much that Huddleston will show up in the bureau’s category of workers who have put the brakes on the job search.

"I don’t look at giving up as an option," he said. "I know people get discouraged, but if you quit there is nowhere to go but further down."

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Most Europeans believe the worst of the economic crisis has yet to feed through to the labor market, the European Union said, citing a Eurobarometer survey.

Some 54 percent of respondents “believe the worst is still to come regarding the impact of the crisis on jobs,” while 38 percent say it already has reached its peak. The poll of more than 30,000 people in 30 countries across Europe was conducted from Oct. 23 through Nov. 18.

“Citizens have clearly identified jobs as their main concern, and the EU must continue to give its full attention and commitment to dealing with the crisis,” Margot Wallstroem, vice president of the European Commission, the EU executive in Brussels, said in a statement.

The number of people employed in the euro region declined 2.1 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, the largest drop since the data were first collected in 1996, the EU’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. From the prior quarter, employment fell 0.5 percent.

“Even though the euro zone exited recession in the third quarter and activity is continuing to improve in the fourth quarter, growth is unlikely to be strong enough to generate net jobs for some considerable time,” Howard Archer, chief European economist at IHS Global Insight in London, said in a note one hour payday loan. “Unemployment still seems likely to rise significantly higher, thereby weighing down on consumer spending.”

Jobless Rate

Europe’s jobless rate has risen to 9.8 percent, the highest since December 1998, and is forecast by the commission to increase to 10.7 percent next year.

“Even if the European economies are showing signs of recovery, concern about the economic situation and unemployment is as widespread as in spring 2009,” the authors of the survey said. “Around half of Europeans consider unemployment to be the most important issue that their country faces.” Joblessness is “the top national concern” in 19 EU member states, up from 18 in the Eurobarometer survey carried out in June and July, today’s report showed.

Some 51 percent of Europeans deem jobs the most important issue, followed by the overall economy at 40 percent and inflation at 19 percent, tied with crime.

“The economic ‘feel-bad’ factor appears to be fading,” the authors of the report said. “For the first time since autumn 2007, short-term expectations about the economic situation are moving in a positive direction.”

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