News money 2008-07-20 Andanh.com

Finding those fuel-efficient cars Sun, 20 Jul 2008 00:50:00 EST
With gas prices up more than $1 a gallon from last year, demand for fuel-efficient, smaller cars and hybrids is rising.

'The aggressive attorneys' lose own case Sun, 20 Jul 2008 00:46:00 EST
Their names are stripped across the top of every other page of the Louisville phone book and intoned on TV commercials by an announcer who describes them as "the aggressive attorneys." Their calendars are on refrigerator doors in countless kitchens.

Indie game-makers getting a hand up Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:50:00 EST
In the second grade, James Silva didn't just play "Mario" and "Zelda" on his Nintendo but drew pictures of new levels and cooked up ideas for future games. While other kids dreamed of becoming an astronaut or president, he felt destined to be a video-game designer.

Competition among game developers heating up Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:51:00 EST
One word sums up the announcements the Big Three gaming companies made at the E3 Business and Media Summit last week: more.

Intel introduces laptop chips to challenge AMD Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:49:00 EST
Intel rolled out a new batch of chips for laptops that promise longer battery life and better graphics-rendering abilities, the company's latest salvo against feisty smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices.

Interest in coupons up as economy slides Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:51:00 EST
With her household budget tightening, Michelle Fox treats finding and redeeming coupons like a part-time job. "Every little bit helps. It's something I do for my family," said the Pueblo, Colo., resident, who helps offset rising costs for her five-person household by spending a few hours each week scouring newspapers and Internet sites for opportunities to save.

Banks limited in seizing deposits Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:54:00 EST
The reports just keep coming that consumers are still having difficulty paying their debts. One of the latest is from the Consumer Credit Delinquency Bulletin of the American Bankers Association.

High fuel costs drag down profits Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:53:00 EST
Cruise operator Carnival Corp. reported steady second-quarter profits of $390 million as soaring fuel costs offset strong revenue growth. The higher fuel prices also prompted the company to lower its full-year forecast.

Last-minute options can ease college aid panic Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:53:00 EST
Crunching the numbers on college costs has been a particularly grim task for parents of incoming freshmen this year. The weak economy has strained their cash resources and the nationwide mortgage crisis has made many unwilling or unable to tap home equity. On top of that, dozens of lenders have stopped issuing federally guaranteed loans.

Recycle unwanted old discs and videos Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:53:00 EST
I buy more music and movies online and my CDs, videos, cassette tapes and even some DVDs are just taking up shelf space. How can I recycle old media materials?

These are tough times to be in retail, period Sun, 20 Jul 2008 04:42 EDT

Customers are squeezed by rising gas and food prices; lenders are reluctant to finance inventory; big chains are killing the little guy, and profits are falling for many retailers.

.Retailing is hard right now,. says Leonard Cox, owner of Graves Cox . Co in downtown Lexington.

Some clothing stores haven't been able to weather the storm.

Goody's Family Clothing is shutting 103 of its 355 stores, including those in Lexington and Nicholasville, and Lexington-based Dawahare's is closing 29 locations statewide.

Fuel's surge a headache for home health providers Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:37 EDT
Stethoscope? Check. Bandages and medications? Check. Money for fuel? Uh-oh.

U.S. home health care workers, particularly those in rural areas, are suffering from financial headaches caused by the escalating cost of transportation, forcing some to borrow cash from co-workers in between paychecks and others to consider leaving the industry altogether.

Providers of home care in New York, California and other states are doling out prepaid gas cards, rental cars and other perks in an effort to retain their workers, who care for roughly 12 million elderly and disabled patients nationwide and drive an estimated 5 billion miles a year, according to a recent study by the National Association for Home Care and Hospice.

The industry is also contemplating abandoning uneconomical home visits in far-flung locations, and increasingly checking patients' blood pressures, heart rates, blood-sugar levels and other vital signs via remote monitoring systems, which many companies previously deemed too expensive.

Industry officials said they had not heard of any instances where a patient's care was compromised by the high cost of getting a health care professional to their home, though they are worried it could happen. After some home health providers threatened earlier this year to cease operations in rural parts of South Dakota, Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson said he would push Congress to revamp the Medicare payment system to account for the industry's rising fuel bill.

Paulson braces public for months of tough times Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:52 EDT
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson sought to reassure an anxious public Sunday that the banking system is sound, while also bracing people for more troubled times ahead.

"I think it's going to be months that we're working our way through this period - clearly months," he said.

Paulson said the number of troubled banks will increase as they struggle to cope with big losses on bad mortgages. The government this month took over IndyMac after a run led it to become the largest regulated thrift to fail.

"Of course the list is going to grow longer given the stresses we have in the marketplace, given the housing correction. But again, it's a safe banking system, a sound banking system. Our regulators are on top of it. This is a very manageable situation," he said in broadcast interviews.

Paulson used appearances on the Sunday talk shows to tell people that deposits up to $100,000 are fully insured. He said no one has lost a single penny on an insured deposit in the 75 years that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has operated.

InBev CEO Brito: Brazil to Belgium to Bud Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:32 EDT
The man who would be King of Beers is a no-frills leader without a company car or even his own desk.

Carlos Brito, chief executive of brewer InBev SA, says he doesn't care for perks - and neither should the people who work for him.

"I don't want the company to give me free beer; I can buy my own beer," he told Stanford MBA students earlier this year.

Brito, who will be leading Anheuser-Busch after the company agreed to InBev's $52 billion takeover offer, has been described as "an American-style" manager who is fiercely private and admits himself that he did not always get "the people thing," when he started off in sales.

Anheuser-Busch is a perked-up company with corporate jets for executives and free beer for the workers - as well as generous donations to local communities and politicians. Similar employee extras at Belgium's Interbrew vanished when it merged with Brito's Brazil-based AmBev in 2004.

Consumers change buying habits, but will it last? Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:27 EDT
Adrienne Radtke plans to keep riding her bike to work even if gas prices drop. Steve Pizzini got rid of his Cadillac Escalade in favor of a 16-year-old Acura and doesn't expect to have another gas-guzzler.

"I had a paradigm shift," said Pizzini, a financial analyst. "I spent the money on a nice car. But to me, it's not worth it. I don't think I will go that route again."

Every economic downturn changes shoppers in some way. But this time, experts say the new behavior - fueled by higher gas and food prices, tightening credit and a slumping housing market - are the most dramatic and widespread that they have seen since the mid-1970s.

So retailers, marketers and investors are all trying to figure out which habits shoppers will keep and which will they drop when the economy recovers. Will the people who switched to store-brand ice cream go back to Breyers or Edy's? Will shoppers return to department stores or keep looking for labels at T.J. Maxx?

"We are looking at stuff that reminds me of the 1970s," said Patricia Edwards of investment manager Wentworth Hauser and Violich. "Americans have seen a huge amount of their balance sheet evaporate. The effects will be more lingering."

Getting lease for oil drilling is just the start Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:27 EDT
The national debate over opening more offshore areas to oil and gas exploration has begged the question: Just what are the companies doing with the tens of millions of acres they're already leasing from the federal government?

In particular, congressional Democrats who oppose President Bush's plan to expand offshore drilling point to 68 million acres of federal land and offshore sites now leased by oil companies that sit idle.

It's part of nearly 2 billion acres overseen by two federal agencies - the Bureau of Land Management and the Minerals Management Service - that have potential for oil and gas exploration, the bulk of which is strictly off limits.

The acreage includes vast stretches of land that spread out over Nevada and reach north and east over the Rockies, thinning as they stretch toward Canada to disparate specs on the map.

There are smaller and more isolated patches to the east along the mountain ridges of Appalachia and further to the south above the Gulf of Mexico, and huge chunks of northern Alaska and lesser stretches on its southern banks.

In 2nd quarter, businesses filing for bankruptcy up 17% Sun, 20 Jul 2008 04:42 EDT

WASHINGTON . Driven by a sour economy and skittish consumers, U.S. business bankruptcies saw their sharpest quarterly rise in two years, jumping 17 percent in the second quarter of 2008, according to an analysis by McClatchy.

Commercial filings for the first half of 2008 are up 45 percent from last year, as the national climate for commerce continues to deteriorate amid rising energy and food costs, mounting job losses, tighter credit and a reticence among consumers to part with discretionary income.

From April through June, 15,471 U.S. businesses called it quits, according to data from Automated Access to Court Electronic Records, an Oklahoma City bankruptcy management and data company.

States that saw the biggest increase in filings were Delaware, Montana, Oregon, Maryland and Connecticut, suggesting that the economic gloom is spreading beyond large population centers.

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