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Wright-Patterson Air Force Base provided a more than a $5.1 billion annual boost to the region last year, up $700 million from the previous year, according to a new report prepared by base officials.

The document shows a total of 27,406 military, civilian and contract employees work for the base, up about 1,700 compared to 2008. The addition of 2,400 civilian workers offset a slight drop in military and contract personnel. Annual payroll in 2009 topped $2 billion.

The base also is responsible for more than 33,000 indirect jobs with an annual value of $1.38 billion, which is up from 3,000 jobs and $200 million compared to 2008, according to the report.

Last year, Wright-Patt spent nearly $1.75 billion for construction, services and supplies.

Local companies snagged some of that construction work. Last summer, for example, Wilcon Construction of Dayton, won a $13 million expansion and renovation project at the 88th Security Forces Squadron Operations facility at the base.

In April, 2009, Beavercreek-based Butt Construction Co. captured the final Base Realignment and Closure contract at Wright-Patt, a $36 million design/build project to add and renovate space in the Air Force Research Laboratory sensors complex. Butt Construction snagged at least seven military construction contracts at Wright-Patt during a two year period ending in 2009, totaling more than $300 million in work.

The economic impact of the base was expected to grow over the next several years as new missions complete moves as part of the Base Realignment and Closure Process, or BRAC. However, that is now in doubt because of a directive by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates to cut contractor funding 10 percent for each of the next three years (link to Friday’s article?)

The 2009 Economic Impact Analysis from Wright-Patt used data through September, 2009, and included Clark, Greene, Miami, Montgomery and Preble counties.

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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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Payday loans no faxing fall on the less risky side simply because the money loaned to you is a percentage of your next paycheck.

Gov. Bill Richardson said this week he will release $1 million for early childhood programs across New Mexico.

The federal stimulus money will support programs that serve homeless children and provide home visiting services for infants and their families provided through the Children, Youth and Families Department.

Of the $1 million, $234,000 will go to programs that serve homeless children and their families and $766,000 will go to home visiting services.

CYFD intends to restore budget cuts to contractors that have existing contracts with the state to serve at-risk families with infants cash advance today. The department will issue a request for proposals for the homeless childcare programs.

St. Joseph Community Health has also committed $234,168 of its own funds to support early childhood programs on top of the state money.

Allen Sanchez, CEO of St. Joseph, said investments in early childhood programs are critical during the current recession.

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Piedmont Triad International Airport will hold its first-ever “5K Run on the Runway” event tomorrow to celebrate numerous airport projects ranging from the facility’s new 9,000-foot runway to the FedEx hub.

The 8 a.m. run is expected to attract 700 runners. It will benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in honor of Jay Kirby, whose father designed the airport runway that opened in January. A ceremony will begin at 10 a.m.

Saturday’s event is the culmination of years of development designed to make the airport the mid-Atlantic hub for FedEx, which chose PTI in 1998 cheap payday advance. Ted Johnson, executive director of the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority, said grading on the FedEx site began in 2004. FedEx moved into its new facility at the airport in June 2009, he said.

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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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An Israeli company that manufactures tractor tires has moved its American headquarters from New Jersey to Brentwood.

According to reports by Tire Review and TireBusiness.com, Alliance Tire Americas Inc. has closed its East Coast location in favor of Middle Tennessee.

The company also has locations in Canada, Argentina and Massachusetts.

The Tennessee office (750 Old Hickory Blvd., Two Brentwood Commons, Ste. 260) houses the company’s marketing, engineering and customer service departments.

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Companies responsible for oil spills could be forced to give up a year’s worth of profits under a bill introduced in the Senate on Thursday.

The Oil Spill Response and Assistance Act was proposed in response to BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The bill would double the current $75 million cap on economic damages to $150 million or expose a company to damages equal to the last four quarters of its profits, whichever is greater. (See correction below.)

"Making a company at fault pay their last four quarters of profits is a much more effective way to ensure that energy companies actually pay for their mistakes without chasing many of them out of business," said Sen. David Vitter, R-La., who introduced the bill with Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

For BP, the new law would result in a $20 billion liability cap, equal to its last four quarters of profits, according to Vitter’s office. Costs to clean up an oil spill are not capped.

The proposal to raise the liability limit is the latest effort in Congress to crack down on companies found to be responsible for oil spills.

"As it stands, the cap on damages is too low, which leaves taxpayers exposed to the risk of paying the steep costs of cleaning up oil spills," said Vitter.

In addition, Vitter and Sessions proposed that oil companies be required to have more containment barriers, or booms, to be used in the event of a spill.

The deepwater oil well owned by BP (BP) is 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana. It is now leaking some 200,000 gallons of crude a day following an explosion April 20 that claimed 11 lives.

The bill would also force all agencies involved with the BP spill to submit "thorough" reports on the incident by Sept. 1.

Earlier, other lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced bills raising the liability cap from $75 million to $10 billion.

Some lawmakers have expressed doubt that Congress can make such changes retroactively. Others, however, point to the Superfund, a major environmental cleanup law passed in the 1980s that forced polluters to reimburse the government for past toxic cleanups.

A bill that would raise the cap to $10 billion, sponsored by Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., was blocked Thursday after the three lawmakers pushed for Senate approval.

But given the public outrage over the spill, and the fact that it’s an election year, there’s a good chance the cap will eventually be raised.

At the same time, some experts warn that an increase in the liability cap could force all oil companies to pay more for insurance to drill offshore.

Correction: An original version of this article mischaracterized the liability cap under the Vitter-Sessions bill. 

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TechCrunch is reporting that Marc Andreessen's social networking hosting startup Ning is cutting its staff by 70 people, or 40 percent.

The move comes a month after founding CEO Gina Bianchini was replaced by chief operating officer Jason Rosenthal, who announced the cuts in a memo. In addition, Rosenthal said Ning would stop offering free services, forcing networks to either pay or move easy pay day loans.

The cuts will leave Ning with 98 employees.

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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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eBay Inc. this week rolled out its rebranded eBayClassifieds.com site in Houston.

The new site replaces the San Jose, Calif.-based online marketplace’s local classified site called Kijiji.

Martin Herbst, general manager of eBay Classifieds, said Houston was a key market for the company’s research.

“What we found while conducting focus groups was that most of our users were parents who wanted a safe site with no spam or fraud,” he said. “They also wanted a user-friendly site where they could find something new and feel there is clean content.”

The Houston-specific site currently has more than 2,691 for sale ads, 2,756 job postings and 1,742 housing listings.

Herbst also said that eBay is testing customer e-mails inviting them to import their items onto the classifieds site if they were not successful the first time on eBay.

In addition, eBay created an iPhone application that allows consumers to photograph and list the item in 60 seconds or less after creating an account.

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