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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.

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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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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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Programs at the University of Cincinnati and Miami University are among 14 Health Care/Biomedicine Centers of Excellence across the state announced by Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland.

UC’s newly named state center of excellence, Transforming Health Care in the 21st Century, focuses on the neurosciences; environmental health and cancer; pediatrics; and diabetes and obesity. At Miami, Structural Biology and Metabonomics made the list.

“Aligning Ohio universities with Ohio’s growing biomedical and health care industries will generate economic growth and new, hard-to-outsource jobs,” Strickland said. “Biomedicine and health care in Ohio create high wage jobs, investments in facilities, research and development and production. But much more than that, these industries bring forth medical breakthroughs that benefit citizens of Ohio and citizens of the world.”

Dr. John Tew, clinical director of the UC Neuroscience Institute, said his organization was honored to be included cash advance america.

“Ohio is renowned for its health care excellence, and to be recognized as a neuroscience leader by the state’s leadership confirms our achievement as a benchmark institution in neurological care,” he said in a statement.

The Centers of Excellence are part of Ohio’s 10-year Strategic Plan for Higher Education. Friday’s announcement was the second of five announcements of university Centers of Excellence that align with the state’s targeted industries and focus on talent recruitment, according to a press release. In October 2009, the governor announced Ohio’s nine Centers of Excellence in Advanced Energy at eight of the state’s universities.

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Just as they are contending with massive gaps in their operating budgets, states and localities must also deal with a $1 trillion deficit in public employees’ retirement benefits’ funds, a new report found.

The shortfall amounts to more than $8,800 for every household in the nation, according to the Pew Center on the States, which published its findings Thursday.

States largely got themselves into this mess by failing to make annual contributions while also enhancing benefits, the study found. Now, they are behind by a total $452 billion in their pension accounts and $555 billion in their retiree health funds, as of the end of fiscal 2008, which ended June 30 for most states.

The deficit is likely even more severe because the report did not take into account the crumbling of the stock market in the latter half of 2008. The typical pension plan lost 25% of its value in 2008.

States must find ways to make up these gaps because retiree benefits for public workers are largely guaranteed by union contract. And they are funded through contributions from both employees and state employers, as well as investment returns.

So when gaps appear, states must ask their residents to make up the difference, usually through property tax or income tax hikes.

"Ultimately, taxpayers could face higher taxes and cuts in services," said Stephen Fehr, one of the report’s authors. "You can’t ignore the problem. It’s just going to be more serious budget trouble for states down the road."

To be sure, the bill isn’t due all at once and no state is in danger of default. These benefits are paid out over decades. Still, the deficits must be addressed sooner than later or the gaps will simply balloon more.

In the most trouble

The consequences of the shortfall could be severe. It comes at a time when states are wrestling with a cumulative $180 billion budget gap for fiscal 2011.

Eight states are in the most dire shape, according to the Pew report. These include: Alaska, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey and Oklahoma.

Two of these states — Illinois and Kansas — have less than 60% of the necessary assets on hand to meet their long-term pension obligations.

Only four states — Florida, New York, Washington and Wisconsin — had a fully funded system in 2008, down from just over half at the beginning of the decade.

Overall, state pension systems are 84% funded.

Many states have been lax about funding their pension systems, even during more prosperous times earlier this decade. Some 21 states failed to contribute at least 90% of the required amount during the past five years.

Retiree health care and other non-pension benefit accounts are in even worse condition. Only about 5% of their total liabilities are funded. States generally paying these bills as they come due, rather than setting aside money in advance.

Also, some states sweetened their retiree benefits during the 1990s and earlier this decade, reducing employee contributions or providing cost-of-living increases. But they didn’t allocate money to pay for these changes.

What’s being done

Recognizing the seriousness of the situation, states have begun to act. Fifteen states passed legislation reforming their pension systems in 2009 and 16 are looking at making changes this year.

Since it’s tough to make changes to union contracts, most states apply the new rules to incoming employees only.

Several states, including Kentucky, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Texas, have reduced benefits offered to new employees or raised the retirement age. Some are also asking workers to contribute more to their pension accounts or retiree health benefits. And a few have created 401(k) style plans to go alongside their traditional pensions.

In Nevada, for instance, those hired in 2010 and beyond will have to wait until age 62 to retire, instead of age 60. They will also have a less generous funding formula: Their years of service will be multiplied by 2.5, rather than 2.67, to derive the percentage of salary being replaced by pension benefits.

In New York, new hires can’t retire until age 62, instead of age 55, and they will have to work for 10 years instead of five.

"A growing number of policy makers recognize that their states’ fiscal health depends on how well they manage the bill coming due for public sector retirement benefits," said Susan Urahn, the center’s managing director. "We are seeing more and more states explore policy reforms aimed at putting their systems on stronger fiscal footing."

The study looked at 231 state-administered pension plans and 159 state-administered retiree health care and other non-pension benefit plans, which include some localities’ and teacher plans. 

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Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Wednesday that owners of Toyotas affected by the recall should bring their cars to a dealer.

"My advice is if you have one of these vehicles, if you have a doubt, take it to Toyota today," LaHood told reporters after a hearing on Capitol Hill.

Earlier, LaHood had told a House committee that Toyota owners should "stop driving" and bring affected cars back to the company. He later referred to that as a "misstatement."

The Transportation agency also released a statement advising owners "to contact their local dealerships to arrange for fixes as soon as possible."

"We appreciate Secretary LaHood’s clarification of his remarks today about Toyota’s recall for sticking accelerator pedals," Toyota said in a statement. "We want to make sure our customers understand that this situation is rare and generally does not occur suddenly."

The automaker said if Toyota owners notice a problem, they should contact their dealerships immediately. But if a car is not experiencing pedal issues, Toyota said it is confident the vehicle is safe to drive.

Toyota officials announced on Monday they had found a solution that involved reinforcing the pedal assembly with a part that is being rushed to dealerships.

The problem, however, is that drivers are not likely to get a quick fix. Toyota told dealers in a letter on Tuesday that "parts and technical instructions will begin arriving this week for you to begin initiating repairs."

The confusion has worried Toyota owners like Maria Ciresi, 75, of Smithtown, N.Y.

"I’m deadly afraid to use it," said Ciresi, referring to the new car she bought in November that has only 300 miles on it.

She said she contacted two of her local Toyota dealerships, but was told that they "don’t know when" they would be able to fix her car.

"You have to be notified first by mail," she said.

Ciresi said she contacted Toyota directly, and was told to "drive the car, and if anything happens, put it in neutral."

Meanwhile, Ciresi said she’s paying $190 a month for insurance and $263 a month on car payments for a vehicle she doesn’t dare use.

LaHood also acknowledged that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating Toyotas not just for problems with gas pedals, but for problems with the electrical systems, as well.

"We will also be investigating the electronic components that are in these cars and if they’re not safe, we’ll have Toyota take a look at that," LaHood said.

He said that Toyota has been cooperative in the investigations.

Toyota has recalled millions of vehicles in recent weeks due to problems with sticking gas pedals that cause the vehicles to accelerate out of control and later halted the sale of the eight vehicles involved in the recall.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the model-make of a car. 

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The Boeing Co. announced Thursday that it has realigned its St. Louis-based Integrated Defense Systems unit and will operate under a new name.

The newly renamed Boeing Defense, Space & Security unit reflects part of the company’s "continuing effort to compete in a rapidly evolving global defense and security marketplace," company officials said in a news release.

"Boeing anticipated flattening defense budgets and shifting customer priorities for the past few years and has been taking aggressive steps to position the company for profitable growth in a challenging economy," said Dennis Muilenburg, president and CEO of the Defense, Space & Security unit fast payday loans.

It will retain its operating units — Boeing Military Aircraft, Network and Space Systems, and Global Services and Support. Boeing Defense, Space & Security will consolidate some divisions and make several leadership changes, Muilenburg said.

Boeing’s Defense, Space & Security unit is the second-largest employer in the St. Louis region with about 15,000 workers.

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Cincinnati–Swiffer kitties? Just attach little dusting pads to your feline’s paws, so they can help keep your floors clean while making their rounds. A bit far-fetched? Executives at consumer-products king Procter & Gamble Co. thought so, too, and sent the idea to the discard pile.

P&G also rejected pitches from outside inventors for a belly-button lint brush, a Knees and Toes body wash to complement Head and Shoulders shampoo, and a "man handle" to keep marital harmony in the bathroom by making it easier to raise and lower the toilet seat.

But there are success stories, too. The original Swiffer duster was developed by a Japanese company that P&G teamed up with to take it global. That’s why P&G keeps the door open to proposals.

The once-insular company is now considered a leader among the companies in many industries that are listening to outsiders they once might have shunned, including other businesses. "We don’t care where good ideas come from, as long as they come to us," said Jeff Weedman, a vice-president who helps lead P&G’s effort to solicit ideas online or from scouting by P&G employees around the globe.

"We’re not going to use everything that shows up, but we want to be the preferred partner."

Others noted for "open innovation" include IBM Corp., which runs online "innovation jams," and Eli Lilly & Co., which in 2001 created an InnoCentive branch to draw scientific help from around the globe.

Jeff DeGraff, a professor who focuses on managing innovation and creativity at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, said P&G has helped popularize the approach.

"P&G was the poster child for this movement, showing large companies with growth challenges that this is not just for Silicon Valley or Ann Arbor (Mich business

Perhaps Barack Obama’s trip to China this month was not such a flop after all.

Obama was criticized for kowtowing to the Chinese and apparently returning empty-handed, but movement from Beijing last week on Iran’s nuclear program and climate change suggests the U.S. president got further than it seemed at first.

Obama went to China with three major issues on the table — economic relations, climate change and denuclearization — and seems to have made progress on at least two of them.

But analysts said it was unclear exactly how much the U.S. leader had actually influenced the Chinese, or what the long-term impact would be of what was announced last week.

“The Chinese were pressed in a very focused fashion on both of those issues,” said Kenneth Lieberthal, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

“I think their position does reflect, in fact, the impact of the Obama visit and of American diplomacy,” he said.

China offered rare backing on Friday to a vote by the U.N. nuclear watchdog to rebuke Iran for building a uranium enrichment plant in secret, the first such vote against Tehran in almost four years.

China, like Russia, backed the measure, smoothing its 25-3 passage through the International Atomic Energy Agency and departing from an earlier pattern of blocking global attempts to isolate trading partner Iran.

Obama stressed in Beijing that Iran’s nuclear program could disrupt the Middle East and world energy supplies, experts and administration officials said.

The Washington Post reported that U.S. officials had argued that Israel saw Iran’s nuclear ambitions as an existential threat, and implied Israel could one day attack Iran to disrupt those ambitions. That argument helped bring the Chinese on board to take a firmer line on Tehran, it reported.

“Obama pressed very hard with the Chinese,” Lieberthal said. “And they went the right way today.”

On Thursday, Beijing said Premier Wen Jiabao would go to U.N.-led climate talks in Copenhagen next month and offered its first firm carbon intensity target, pledging to cut the amount of carbon dioxide produced for each yuan of national income by 40-45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels.

‘THESE THINGS ARE INCREMENTAL’

Washington gave only a guarded welcome to China’s emissions announcement, saying the world would watch progress by the top greenhouse gas emitter. Observers said measuring and verifying implementation would be central going forward.

Bonnie Glaser, a China expert and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said China’s 40-45 percent reduction target was disappointing, but it was a good sign that they made an announcement at all. 

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The stimulus cash that helped boost small business lending this year just ran out.

The Small Business Administration said Monday that it has run through all of the $375 million Congress allocated to temporarily waive fees and boost guarantees on loans backed by the SBA’s lending programs. Businesses still hoping for a slice of the pie can get in line, cross their fingers and wait.

The SBA backs loans made by banks to qualifying small businesses. If the business defaults, the government pays the bank back for the guaranteed potion of the loan. Typically, the SBA charges banks for this guarantee, but since February the agency has been using a pool of Recovery Act funds to eliminate those fees. The agency also temporarily increased its cap on the portion of a loan it will guarantee, raising it to 90%.

The move was a popular one with banks — though not popular enough to halt the freefall in small business lending. The stimulus incentives were in place for more than half of the SBA’s 2009 fiscal year (which ended Sept. 30), but the number of bank loans backed by the SBA still fell 36% compared to the previous year.

Still, SBA officials say the decline would have been even sharper without the incentives. Last week, the SBA backed more than $1 billion in small business loans. By comparison, the agency fielded $684.5 million in loans in all of January, the month before the stimulus measures kicked in.

The money running out wasn’t a surprise. The SBA knew its funding was getting low, and SBA chief Karen Mills put out a statement two weeks ago cautioning banks that the well would soon run dry. At the time, she forecast that the money would last into December. But last week, the SBA notified banks that Nov. 23 would be the "transition date" on which it would revert to its old fee and guarantee structure low rates payday advance.

The SBA would like to see Congress allocate money to extend the measures at least through February. "We are going to continue to work with Congress to appropriate funds to maintain the reduce fees and increased guarantee," said agency spokeswoman Hayley Matz.

Loan applications surged last week as lenders tried to push through as many as possible before the deadline. To allocate the last dollars left, the SBA on Monday launched a Recovery Loan Queue. Those left hanging — both business owners and the banks processing their loans — can check online to see where their application stands. Any applications that don’t make it through before the cash is exhausted will need to be resubmitted for a non-Recovery Act loan.

The SBA currently has 148 loans in queue, totaling $80.3 million.

Small business lending has plunged since the recession set in. At a Washington forum SBA Administrator Mills and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner convened last week to discuss the problem, bankers emphasized the important of continuing the SBA’s enhanced loan guarantees.

David Rader, the head of SBA lending at Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500), pushed for an extension into 2011. Wells Fargo was the top SBA lender last year.

"We absolutely have increased our lending opportunities with the stimulus programs. The fee waivers for customers, the increased guarantee, is absolutely saving cash for our borrowers — and cash is king," said Rader at the forum. "I think it is imperative for this body to continue the fee waiver and the 90% guarantee stimulus." 

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