Wilmington Trust has appointed Lawrence Gore as president of the New York office of Wilmington Trust FSB

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Wilmington Trust Names NY President

Charles Schwab has entered into an agreement to acquire ETF portfolio manager Windward Investment Management

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Schwab To Buy ETF Manager Windward

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Marketwire – Management Changes:

HONG KONG–(Marketwire – September 5, 2010) –  SARI is pleased to announce the appointment of Daouda Camara as Director General of Sky Alliance Resources Guinée S.A and Chairman of Sky Alliance Resources Inc. Daouda Camara has had a distinguished career with successes in both the public and private sectors over the last 30 years. From 2004-2008, he served as the Director of the cabinet to six Prime Ministers. Mr. Camara also served as former Secretary General of the Board of Directors and former Administrative and Legal Director of the Iron Ore Mining Company of Guinea Mifergui-Nimba (1978-1984), Director General for Guinea’s National Electricity Board (ENELGUI) 1997-2002, Board Chairman of Société des Bauxites de Kindia, 1994-1997, and as lawyer and fiscal advisor to the Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy and Environment, 1986-1997. During this period, Mr. Camara was instrumental in writing, structuring and drafting the current Mining Code for the Republic of

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SARI Announces the Appointment of Mr. Daouda Camara to the Board of Directors

Earlier this year, Florida earmarked $9.6 million to set up foreclosures-only courts across the state, staffed by retired judges…. lawyers representing troubled borrowers contend that many of the retired judges called in from the sidelines to oversee these matters are so focused on cutting the caseload that they are unfairly favoring financial institutions at the expense of homeowners.

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Florida Foreclosure Courts Rush Despite Questionable Practices, Doctored Deeds

Only 47.6% of people ages 16 to 24 had jobs in August, the lowest level since the government began keeping track in 1948, the Labor Department said Friday

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Summer Jobs Hit Record Low In Summer 2010

New Yorks 529 college savings direct plan will reduce its fees by almost 50

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NY 529 Savings Plan Cuts Fees

Mitchell Hartley Advisers has appointed Jeffrey Bechtel as a managing member

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Mitchell Hartley Hire Jefferies Vet

Los Angeles City Employees Retirement System has selected finalists for the role of general consultant

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LA System To Pick Consultant Finalist

The Hartford Financial Services has appointed Denise Diana as vice president of its retirement plans midmarket

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Hartford Hires Transamerica Retirement Vet

The Washington Post insists that its columnists either produce top quality work or toe the company line. Dana Milbank falls into the latter group of columnists as he showed once again with his warm praise for former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson’s sexism and ignorance. Senator Simpson has been in the news lately for writing crank letters to his critics in his capacity as a co-chair of President Obama’s deficit commission. In one of these letters he compared Social Security to a cow with 310 million tits. This letter was sent to Ashley Carson, then the executive director of the Older Women’s League. Apparently Mr. Milbank does not even understand why Simpson was widely denounced for sexism over this letter. Mr. Simpson’s lack of understanding of bovine anatomy is humorous, his contempt for Social Security, and those dependent on it, somewhat less so. But the sexism in the letter was his clear implication that the director of a major national woman’s organization could not read a simple graph. He also concluded the letter by telling Ms. Carson to contact him when she “finds honest work,” implying that representing the interests of tens of millions of older women is not honest work. Is Mr. Simpson equally “blunt” with the lobbyists who represent the interests of Goldman Sachs and British Petroleum? Or, does he view their work as more honest? If Senator Simpson brought great insights to the debate then perhaps we should overlook his rudeness and sexism, but there is zero evidence that he has advanced beyond the silly platitudes that pass for profundity in the pages of the Washington Post . In his letter he referred Ms. Carson to a presentation prepared by the chief actuary of Social Security for the deficit commission. Simpson seemed to believe that this presentation would be a real eye-opener to Ms. Carson. In fact, the presentation contained no information that would not be well known to anyone involved in the Social Security debate. All of the information in the presentation is readily available in the Social Security trustees report and other public documents. If the presentation was news to Simpson, then it suggests that he is seriously ill-equipped for his current job. This is not the first time that Simpson has indicated that he is totally clueless in debates over the deficit and Social Security. I was on a radio show with Senator Simpson back in the mid-90s when the hot fashion in policy circles was cutting the cost of living adjustment for Social Security. The cost of living adjustment is tied to the rate of inflation, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI). At that time, story went that the CPI hugely overstated the true rate of inflation. Therefore, the Social Security cutters wanted to reduce the annual cost of living adjustment to at least 1 percentage point below the rate of inflation shown by the CPI. This meant that if the CPI showed 3 percent inflation then the cost of living adjustment would be just 2 percent. This might seem like a small cut but it adds up over time. After 10 years the benefit cut would be about 10 percent, after 30 years it would be almost 30 percent. (Compounding reduces the effect slightly.) Senator Simpson was a big proponent of these cuts, hurling his usual lines about greedy geezers and high-living seniors. When he was on the radio show with me he argued that the CPI’s overstatement of inflation was well over 1 percentage point and could even be over 2 percentage points. He then said that our children would be living in chicken coops. Okay, now let’s imagine that Senator Simpson had learned arithmetic in third grade like the rest of us. We know how fast nominal wages/income is rising. Let’s say this averages 3.0 percent a year. If the rate of inflation as shown by the CPI is 2.0 percent, then real wages/income are rising by 1.0 percent a year (3-2 = 1). This would be the rate that we are getting richer. Now suppose the Social Security cutters of that era were right and the CPI overstates the true rate of inflation by 1 percentage point. Then real wages/income would be rising by 2.0 percent a year. Since the true rate of inflation would be just 1 percent a year, then a 3.0 percent rate of nominal wage and income growth would translate into a 2.0 percent rate of real wage/income growth (3-1 = 2). Suppose that Senator Simpson’s sources were right and that the CPI overstated inflation by 2.0 percentage points. Then the true rate of inflation in this story would be zero. In this case the 3 percent rate of wage/income growth would translate into a 3.0 percent rate of real wage/income growth. This would lead to a conclusion 180 degrees at odds with Senator Simpson’s assertion. Instead of describing a situation where our children and grandchildren would be living in chicken coops, the Senator was describing a situation in which they would all be rich. But, he was so clueless on logic and arithmetic that he did not even understand this simple point. Yet, he can still count on getting praised by Dana Milbank and the Washington Post . See, if you give the company line — knowledge of arithmetic is optional, and you can still be a co-chair of President Obama’s deficit commission.

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Dean Baker: Dana Milbank Pays Homage to Alan Simpson’s Sexism and Ignorance

The Obama administration on Tuesday will launch its most ambitious effort at reducing mortgage balances for homeowners who owe more than their homes are worth.

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White House To Launch Major Mortgage Aid Program On Tuesday

CERNOBBIO, Italy — Is the global economy out of the woods? Two years after near-meltdown, with the U.S. looking sluggish, equity markets groggy and Europeans fighting a debt crisis, experts gathered in Italy offered a generally gloomy outlook – especially for the United States and much of the industrialized world. The doomsayers were led by New York University economist Nouriel Roubini, who warned in booming tones that “there is a significant risk of a double-dip recession in the United States” as well as in Japan and many European countries. Some of the assembled experts and leaders at the annual Ambrosetti Forum on the shores of Lake Como were somewhat more upbeat: economist Edwin Truman, a senior fellow of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, predicted that “the most likely global outlook is subpar growth.” But most appeared to agree on a sobering array of basic problems standing in the way of true recovery: _ Many of the growth drivers in place since the collapse of Lehman Brothers are winding up or have ended, including not only the massive stimulus spending but tax breaks, schemes such as the “cash for clunkers” program and – for some countries like Russia – high commodity prices. _ The stimulus deemed necessary to jump-start moribund economies soon causes deficits and debt, upsetting the markets enough to spur austerity – which undermines growth. _ Most of the world’s growth stems from a developing world led by China – which is so dependent on exports that it needs the West to continue to buy, and so will suffer if recovery in the rich world proves short-lived. _ Europe continues to lose competitiveness partly because of the euro, which – for all the fretting over its dip earlier this year at the height of the Greek debt crisis – remains high in purchasing price parity terms versus the U.S. dollar. _ The sector that is widely seen as the spark of the global recession – U.S. real estate – has not recovered, with house-buying flat and the mortgage market, with its related financial instruments, essentially still in ruins. _ The jobs picture is not improving and in parts of the developed world – such as Spain, with some 20 percent unemployment – it is disastrous. The warnings come amid mixed news on indicators. The European Central Bank raised its growth projections Thursday and its president, Jean-Claude Trichet, said recession was “not in the cards.” But the bank said the situation remained uncertain and that it would keep measures to supply banks with additional credit in place until the end of the year. The U.S. unemployment rate rose in August for the first time in four months as hiring by private employers proved insufficient to keep pace with a large increase in the number of people looking for work. The Labor Department said Friday that companies did add a net total 67,000 new jobs last month, down from July’s upwardly revised total of 107,000. But more than a half-million Americans resumed their job searches, which drove up the jobless rate to 9.6 percent from 9.5 percent in July – a figure above the rate in Britain and Germany. “I see a very weak labor market,” said Roubini, who gained celebrity for predicting the global collapse of 2008 when others were still celebrating the boom times. He noted noting unemployment is close to 10 percent and almost 17 percent when including discouraged workers or partially employed ones. He puts the chance of recession at 40 percent or more – a position he has staked in recent weeks – and said even weak growth would still feel like a recession. “The U.S. has to create 150,000 every month in the private sector just to stabilize the rate and prevent it from rising,” he said. “We’d have to create 300,000 jobs every month for the next three years just to bring back the level of employment to before this recession started,” Roubini said. “Nobody … believes the U.S. is going to create any time any amount of jobs like that,” he said. And even that wouldn’t be enough when taking into account the young people entering the labor market, he said. Harvard University historian Niall Ferguson noted that since 2001 the United States has seen its debt-to-GDP ratio double to 66 percent and that it may well be headed toward the danger zone of 100 percent. “This is a completely unsustainable fiscal policy,” said Ferguson. “Pretty soon the U.S. will be spending more on debt service than national security. … That’s a tipping point for any global power.” Americans “just have to go down in their living standards” after years in which their living standards soared in part based on foreign credit which is no longer there,” said University of Munich economics professor Hans-Werner Sinn. Jacob Frenkel, Chairman of JP Morgan Chase International, urged the United States to rein in entitlements as part of a “political deal” that recognizes reality. Chairing a panel, CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo drew laughs by challenging the scowling Roubini to come up with “any good news.” He offered that “emerging economies have high potential growth.” But even that comes with a caveat: Roubini warned that world growth leader China was too dependent on exports to the struggling West and predicted that within a year its economic growth will be overtaken by India, a huge nation much more reliant on its domestic market for development. The leading Chinese delegate to the forum, Cheng Siwei, seemed to agree with the criticism. “We must change our investment pattern from investment driven to relying more on domestic consumption,” said Cheng, a former top Chinese official who chairs the China Soft-Science Research Society among other positions. What about Greece, whose near-default four months ago rattled the nerves of investors around the globe? “Greece will not make it,” said Sinn. He said the world can either subsidize Athens indefinitely, force a degree of austerity that actually risks “civil war,” or – in what he suggested was the least bad option – encourage Greece to restore its drachma currency despite the domestic banking collapse that could well result. Sinn noted that bond spreads – the difference between the cost of borrowing for troubled countries such as Greece and solid ones such as Germany – have swiftly returned to the startling levels that preceded the Greek bailout in May. Truman ended his remarks on a high note, noting that in recent quarters’ “U.S. productivity increase has been significant.” In the second recent quarter, productivity dropped 1.8 percent. But higher productivity, while good for companies’ bottom lines, is also a reflection of the stagnant labor market and the shrinkage of payrolls as firms hope to produce as much as before with fewer and more productive staff. In perhaps an illustration of that psychology, several hundred business leaders at the forum were asked for their projections on their own companies’ prospects. Voting electronically, some 70 percent predicted a rise in turnover by the end of 2010 and almost half predicted a rise in their firms’ investment. But less than a third saw a chance for new hiring; almost half saw no change – and about a quarter predicted even more reductions.

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Experts See Trouble Ahead For Developed World

Meyrick Payne senior partner at Management Practice says directors should not overlook investment strategy when engaging in peer review during contract renewal

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Strategy Can Play A Role In Peer Selection

China Hiarong signs agreement with Taiwan’s SinoPac

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China Hiarong signs agreement with Taiwan’s SinoPac

US jobless rate reaches 9.6% last month

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US jobless rate reaches 9.6% last month

France expects recovery in tourism sector

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France expects recovery in tourism sector

Eurozone retail sales rise 0.1% in July

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Eurozone retail sales rise 0.1% in July

A combination of UAL with US Airways Group would form a company with 652 billion in retirement assets

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UAL US Air Deal May Merge 652B Plans

New Jersey California and Connecticut are deferring payments to publicemployee pension plans

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US States To Defer Pension Payments

ProFunds unit ProShares has unveiled two ETFs with leveraged and inverse exposure to the biotechnology sector

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ProShares Unveils Two BioTech ETFs

Ohio State University has appointed BNY Mellon Asset Servicing as custodian for its long term investment pool

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Ohio Univ Names BNY Mellon Custodian

Eve Guernsey the CEO of investment management Americas at JP Morgan Asset Management is retiring

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JPMAM Americas Chief To Step Down

Fresno County Employees Retirement Association has selected three finalists for a smallcap mandate

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FCERA Shortlists SmallCap Managers

Armored Wolf has been appointed as subadviser of a commoditiesfocused mutual fund by Eaton Vance Management

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Eaton Vance Names MF Subadviser

Chiles pension regulator Superintendencia de Pensiones has eased regulations for the countrys 114 billion in pension assets to be invested abroad

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Chile PFs Boost Overseas Investments

The California Public Employees Retirement System is seeking exposure to direct infrastructure assets while forming strategic alliances with investors

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CalPERS Eyes Direct Infra Assets

Job creation during tough economic times is further complicated by the current administration’s need to keep its own party happy. To create jobs it will have to take on some of the colors of the other party in order to create jobs and stimulate growth. If this administration spent the same energy, money and effort on an aggressive jobs incentive program as it did with its health care commitment it would create jobs and I assure you it would be more popular. What to do: 1) Reward aggressive tax incentives for any small business hiring. 2) Reward another level of tax incentives for jobs that pay 25% more than minimum wage. 3) Reward federal incentive to those successful in landing a job. American small businesses are looking for reasons to expand again and despise staying small. The entrepreneur aches to expand and looks for reasons to do so. Just give them an incentive to offset the risk. Then reward different levels of hiring with stacked incentives to avoid just the creation of minimum wage jobs. Then reward those that are able to go out into the marketplace and successfully land a job. We reward people to be without work, lets give some type of tax incentive to those that are able to land a job. It’s tough out there, why not reward the able, willing and persistent with some type of incentive for being successful in the toughest job market in decades. This has never been considered, but let’s face it, many of the people that are without work are going to have to take job that will pay them less than the last job they had. That’s tough to swallow and this incentive will make the adjustment more palpable and speed the process of acceptance up. High unemployment is more than an economic drain for our country. Self-esteem is lost, self respect is diminished and the self confidence of both those out of work and the employed is reduced. The country becomes demoralized, pessimism replaces optimism, and the marketplace and the economy breeds uncertainty. Throw as much money at job creation as this administration did at health care and watch the unemployment numbers get back to the 5% range. This country was founded and built on the reward system and built by people that were willing to get the job done. Our country is known for opportunities and rewards not penalties and pessimism. This country needs jobs today, not rhetoric or a government that wants to make its party happy – we needs expansion and jobs to get this country on the road to recovery. Grant Cardone, NY Times Best Selling Author and Sales Training Expert

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Grant Cardone: Job Creation that Will Slash Unemployment!

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The first known U.S. outbreak linked to a rare strain of E. coli in ground beef is prompting a fresh look at tougher regulations to protect the nation’s meat supply. Three people in Maine and New York became ill this summer after eating ground beef traced back to a Cargill plant in Wyalusing, Pa. Cargill Meat Solutions, a subsidiary of Minneapolis-based Cargill Inc., recalled about 8,500 pounds of ground beef on Saturday, and regulators warned consumers to throw out frozen meat purchased at BJ’s Wholesale Clubs in eight eastern states. The ground beef had a use-by-or-freeze-by date of July 1. Dr. Elisabeth Hagen, who was appointed undersecretary of food safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture nine days before the recall, has signaled interest in expanding federal oversight of meat beyond the most prevalent strain of E. coli. “In order to best prevent illnesses and deaths from dangerous E. coli in beef, our policies need to evolve to address a broader range of these pathogens,” Hagen said in a statement. The New York Times first reported the USDA interest in federal oversight of other strains of E. coli following the Cargill recall. The federal government currently requires meat plants to test for the most virulent strain of E. coli, O157:H7, which causes an estimated 70,000 illnesses a year. They don’t have to test for six other less common strains of E. coli, including the O26 version that sickened those involved the Cargill recall. Industry officials said tests aren’t widely available to detect the other strains of E. coli. They also said more testing isn’t the most effective way to keep meat safe. J. Patrick Boyle, who heads the American Meat Institute, warned Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a letter last month that more testing would cause “more harm than good” by imposing new costs and diverting attention from efforts to prevent toxins from getting into the food supply. “Testing doesn’t make food safe in and of itself. You have to have some preventive measures in place,” said James H. Hodges, the trade group’s executive vice president. Cargill spokesman Mike Martin said Friday that the latest outbreak shows the need to keep searching for solutions to reduce the potential health risks. He said Cargill worked with disease investigators to trace the outbreak and voluntarily recalled the product. He added that none of the three people who became sick were hospitalized. “Certainly I think we need to take a fresh look at this because of the apparent linkage of O26 to beef,” Martin said. Hundreds of varieties of E. coli live naturally in the intestines of cattle and other animals without making them sick. For people, symptoms of E. coli infection include bloody diarrhea, dehydration and in severe cases, kidney failure. Consumers can avoid getting infected from tainted meat by cooking it thoroughly and using a meat thermometer to make sure it reaches an internal temperature of at least 160 degrees. The BJ’s Wholesale Clubs affected by the voluntary recall are in Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey and Virginia, according to the company’s website.

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E. Coli Outbreak Puts Focus On Meat Oversight

ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON – The security company Blackwater Worldwide formed a network of 30 shell companies and subsidiaries to try to get millions of dollars in government business after the company faced strong criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq, The New York Times reported Friday. The newspaper said that it was unclear how many of the created companies got American contracts but that at least three of them obtained work with the U.S. military and the CIA. Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has asked the Justice Department to see whether Blackwater misled the government when using the subsidiaries to gain government contracts, according to the Times. It said Levin’s committee found that North Carolina-based Blackwater, which now is known as Xe Services, went to great lengths to find ways to get lucrative government work despite criminal charges and criticism stemming from a 2007 incident in which Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians. A committee chart outlines the web of Blackwater subsidiaries. Messages left late Friday with spokespeople for the Michigan Democrat and Xe were not immediately answered. The 2007 incident and other reports of abuses by Blackwater employees in Iraq led to criminal investigations and congressional hearings, and resulted in the company losing a lucrative contract with the State Department to provide security in Iraq. But recently the company was awarded a $100 million contract to provide security for the agency in Afghanistan, prompting criticism from some in Congress. CIA Director Leon Panetta said that the CIA had no choice but to hire the company because it underbid others by $26 million and that a CIA review concluded that the contractor had cleaned up its act. Last year, Panetta canceled a contract with Xe that allowed the company’s operatives to load missiles on Predator drones in Pakistan, and shifted the work to government personnel. However, the Times quoted former Blackwater officials as saying that at least two Blackwater-affiliated companies, XPG and Greystone, obtained secret contracts from the CIA to provide security to agency operatives. The newspaper said the network of subsidiaries, including several located in offshore tax havens, were uncovered as part of the Armed Services Committee’s examination of government contracting and not an investigation solely into Blackwater. But Levin questioned why Blackwater would need to create so many companies with various names to seek out government business, according to the Times. The report quoted unidentified government officials and former Blackwater employees as saying that the network of companies allowed Blackwater to obscure its involvement in government work from contracting officials and the public, and to ensure a low profile for its classified activities.

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Blackwater Won Contracts Via Dozens Of Dummy Corporations

Last Friday, as I predicted in my August 6 and August 24 Huffington Post blogs, the Obama Administration, right on queue, released the latest Small Business Administration (SBA) fiscal year (FY) 2009 Small Business Procurement Scorecard . Anyone in the media can tell you that releasing information late on a Friday afternoon is a technique used by the government when trying to bury or hide negative news, and it worked fairly well in this case. So as expected, the Obama Administration tried to bury the release of its FY 2009 small business contracting data. The Obama Administration acknowledged it had missed the congressionally mandated 23 percent government-wide small business contracting goal, and four of five small business goals overall. However, the government did claim to award small businesses a record amount of contracts totaling over $96 billion. So here’s a question; if the Obama Administration awarded a record $96.8 billion in federal contracts to small businesses during FY 2009, then why didn’t President Obama hold a White House press conference to talk about it? Or go on national television to talk about it? Here’s why. Of the more than $96 billion in federal small business contracts the Obama Administration claims to have awarded to small businesses, over half went to large corporations. A study released in June by the American Small Business League (ASBL) found that 60 of the top 100 recipients of small business contracts were actually large businesses. Some of the firms that the Obama Administration considered to be “small businesses” are: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, British Aerospace (BAE), Rolls-Royce, Raytheon, Dell Computer, General Electric, Honeywell International Corporation. This marks the 10th consecutive year that the government has diverted most federal small business contracts to large businesses. If any journalist tries to take on the Small Business Administration, they will get the standard answer the SBA has been regurgitating for over a decade, that this is merely “computer glitches,” “simple human error,” “miscoding,” and that the ” data is as clean as it has ever been. ” In the ten years that this has gone on, not a single journalist has asked the government why the error rate on that field is over a thousand times higher than any other field in the data? And why the “miscoding,” “computer glitches” and “simple human errors” always report awards to large corporations as small business awards and never the other way around? Clearly the data is not clean, nor is this issue attributable to simple human error, miscoding, or computer glitches. In 2005, the SBA Inspector General found large corporations had received billions of dollars in federal small business contracts illegally through ” false certifications” and “improper certifications .” The same year, the SBA Office of Advocacy released a report that found that large corporations had received small business contracts through ” vendor deception. ” These are all synonyms for felony contracting fraud. So it appears that despite President Obama’s campaign promises to end business as usual in Washington and provide “Change We Can Believe In,” he has clearly decided to continue the Bush Administration policy of cheating small businesses out of billions of dollars a month in federal small business contracts. Since 2003, more than a dozen federal investigations have uncovered the diversion of federal small business contracts to large corporations. In Report 5-15 the SBA’s own inspector general referred to the issue as, ” One of the largest challenges facing the Small Business Administration and the entire federal government today .” President Obama even seemed to recognize the severity of the situation when he said, ” It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporation giants. ” Directing existing federal infrastructure spending to the 27 million small businesses where most American’s work is our single best hope of avoiding a double dip recession. Cleaning up fraud and abuse in federal small business contracting programs is a necessary and important first step. Unfortunately, the late-Friday afternoon release of the Small Business Procurement Scorecard seems to be a clear indication that President Obama is not the man we hoped he would be, and that he is willing to let America slide into a crippling double dip recession before he will stop the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.

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Lloyd Chapman: Why Did President Obama Hide Record Small Business Numbers

Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) — Laurence Kotlikoff, an economics professor at Boston University, talks about financial industry regulation and Goldman Sachs Inc.’s reported plan to shut its principal-strategies business to comply with new U.S. rules aimed at curbing risk. Kotlikoff, author of “Jimmy Stewart Is Dead: Ending the World’s Ongoing Financial Plague With Limited Purpose Banking,” speaks with Pimm Fox on Bloomberg Television’s “Taking Stock.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Kotlikoff Says New Rules Won’t Fix Banks’ Problems: Video

Yes, Monday is a federal holiday in the United States, but Labor Day is much more than that. Labor Day has a rich history centered around workers. This year, it has particular meaning as hundreds of thousands Americans try to get back to work. The latest jobless rate numbers show that unemployment went up from 9.5 to 9.6 percent in August. Check out these Labor Day facts below and vote on those you find most interesting and surprising. Share your own in the comments and let us know what Labor Day means to you.

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Labor Day History: 11 Facts You Need To Know

Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) — Jeanne Branthover, managing director of Boyden Global Executive Search, talks with Bloomberg’s Pimm Fox about the August U.S. jobs report, employee retention practices and the outlook for hiring in the financial industry. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Boyden’s Branthover Says Investment Banks Are Hiring: Video

When entrepreneur Juan Diego Calle asked the Colombian government to let him sell their Internet real-estate, he knew it was a long shot. The Harvard-educated Colombian native was battling over only two letters of the alphabet, but his request was tall: Let me commercialize the nation’s Internet identity. Juan Diego Calle A top-level domain, or TLD, is the letter combination that comes after the final dot in a website address; .com – meaning “commercial” – is the most common. Most countries get their own TLD (For example Mexico is .mx; Australia is .au). Some TLDs, such as the islands of Tuvalu’s .tv or Montenegro’s .me, double as convenient English words or abbreviations, making them desirable electronic real-estate. Domains cost anywhere from a few dollars to a few hundred, depending on who’s in charge; in secondary markets, valuable domain names can sell for hundreds of thousands. Colombia was fortunate to own .co, but for years it had effectively prevented anyone from registering anything. Between “corporation,” “company,” and “commercial,” entrepreneurs could almost smell the money “.co” could bring in if unleashed to the hungry Web. So, in 2006, when Colombia passed a law giving its Ministry of Communications regulatory oversight of the .co TLD, a change in policy appeared imminent. Internet companies began petitioning the ministry to let them manage the TLD. A serial entrepreneur from a young age, Calle started a stereo installation business as a teenager. At age 22 he founded TeRespondo, an Internet search advertising network for Latin America, which he sold to Yahoo in 2005. Calle then went to business school and started a “virtual real-estate” company called STRAAT investments. When Colombia shifted .co responsibilities in 2006, Calle began positioning himself to become a contender for the TLD management rights. Calle, now 32 years old, was clearly an underdog in the bid war against companies like the $1.5 billion Verisign, which owns the rights to .com and .net. He assembled a team under a joint venture called .CO Internet SAS. In August 2009 they presented the Ministry with 1,165 pages explaining why Calle’s team was right for the job, and then they crossed their fingers. In February 2010, despite Verisign and the rest, the bureaucracy gave Calle – the local man – the contract. “Considering the caliber of companies that participated in the process and the opportunity to do something that would have a global impact on the internet, winning the bid was a surreal experience,” Calle says. “Part of our competitive advantage was the strong sense of national pride that fueled our team to work night and day to win the bid,” says Lori Anne Wardi, Director of .CO Internet, “and to prepare a bid package and business plan that treated the .co domain as a valuable national asset and symbol of national pride – the export of which would only reflect positively on Colombia.” Calle’s biggest concern after winning the contract was that nobody would actually buy the domains. Another was that spammy websites would buy .co domains hoping to capitalize on typos or to commit fraud. Some businesses have complained that .co is another way for “domain squatters” to harm companies by buying domains for the sole purpose of selling them at an inflated price. However, according to the domain parking site Sedo, only 0.001% of parked (squatted) domains get 10 or more unique visitors a day. The vast majority of Internet users use search rather than typing in domains. Even if 5% of type-in traffic (an implausibly high amount) were to mistype .com as .co, most companies would lose only a tiny fraction of potential visits each year if squatters bought their brand’s corresponding .co domain. To combat squatters and assuage fears, Calle’s team began a marketing campaign that involved giving away some of the most valuable .co domains to the top 100 world brands, and letting entrepreneurs with great ideas register before anyone else. Though some companies have expressed annoyance at having to buy the $29-a-year .co version of their domain in order to “protect” their brand, for only about $2.50 a month, many of them did it anyway. (Of the revenue generated by .CO Internet SAS in domain sales, Colombia itself takes an average of 25%.). As a result of .co’s multi-phase rollout, companies like Twitter (t.co), Politico (politi.co), Overstock (o.co), and VentureHacks (angel.co) began spreading the word and lending credibility to the TLD. Even before .co’s general availability, 39,000 domain applications were recorded. On launch day, Calle and company still had their fingers crossed. One minute after opening the floodgates on July 20, 2010, people had registered 8,000 domains. By 22 minutes, more 100,000 domains had been registered. After 24 hours, 233,000 domains. By the end of week one, 336,160 domains. Six months after winning the Colombian Ministry of Communication’s blessing, Calle is now an Internet real-estate mogul, with 469,519 domains sold, and counting. He has some catching up to do in order to compete with the 90-some million .coms out there, but Calle and his team say they’re “thrilled” by the response to .co so far. The next step: keep “inspiring startups” to “create a future on their own little slice of the Internet.” —– Shane Snow is a writer and web entrepreneur in New York City. He runs the online printing comparison site PrintingChoice.com and draws financial infographics for the CreditLoan network.

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Shane Snow: How to Become an Internet Land Baron

Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) — Christina Romer, the departing chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, talks about the U.S. labor market and the August employment report. Private payrolls climbed 67,000 after a revised 107,000 increase in July that was more than initially estimated, Labor Department figures in Washington showed today. The unemployment rate rose to 9.6 percent as more people looked for work. Romer talks with Carol Massar on Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart.”(Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Romer Says Jobs Data `Erases’ Double-Dip Recession Worry: Video

“An economic policy which does not consider the well-being of all will not serve the purposes of peace and the growth of well-being among the people of all nations.”( Eleanor Roosevelt) In case you are tempted to feel sorry during these troubled times for the corporatocracy… this just in: The CEOs who fired the most workers during the current economic recession also rewarded themselves with the highest pay. Top managers at the fifty corporations with the greatest number of layoffs were paid an average of $12 million in salary, bonuses and other perks — 42 percent more than the average for the Standard & Poor’s 500. To make matters worst, at most of these companies — a whopping 72 percent in fact — layoffs were announced at a time when earnings were increasing. This according to a study by the Institute for Policy Studies that covered the period from November 2008 to April 2010. Isn’t it comforting to know that while you and I are experiencing the worst economy we’ve seen in our life-times, with jobless claims rising to 500,000, the CEOs are thriving? They are purchasing luxury cars, yachts, new homes, and even buying off foreclosed properties at fire-sale prices. Perhaps we should sleep better at night knowing that they are working so hard to offset their ruthless firings of employees by trying to revive the Rolls Royce dealerships and mortgage companies! Not only are some of the world’s richest CEOs getting richer off the backs of laid off employees, but they’re doing it at the same time profits rise and shareholder cigars are lit with martinis in hand celebrating the companies continued reign of predatory capitalism. These same 50 top layoff leaders’ companies also enjoyed a 44% average profit increase in 2009. And many of them paid little or no taxes (e.g. Exxon, with over $45 billion in profits, recorded no U.S. income taxes and GE generated $10 billion in pretax income and took a tax BENEFIT of $1.1 billion). I have to admit that I was never terribly enamored with Karl Marx. When I was a young man, many of my peers called on his writings to justify taking to the streets against the Vietnam war, but I — a business student — saw that war more as an excuse for the military-industrial complex to get rich than as a class struggle. Now, however, I have to suspect that Marx was wiser than I used to believe. In fact, the Institute for Policy Studies report estimates that CEOs in the U.S.’s largest publicly traded corporations earn an average compensation 263 times higher than the typical American production worker. Sounds like the exact situation Marx warned us about! The study cites some very telling specific examples. Among them: – Wal-Mart’s CEO Michael Duke laid off 13,350 workers and earned almost 20 million for his trouble; – The now disgraced Mark Hurd of HP managed to reduce his work force by 6400 and still earn $24.2 million; – AMEX’s Kenneth Chenault earned $16.8 million while American Express laid off 4,000 employees accepted $3.39 billion in TARP funding; – Intel Corp’s Paul Otellini trimmed about 5,000 jobs and received $14.4 million in compensation. The report notes, “The $598 million combined compensation of the top 50 CEOs in our layoff leader survey could provide average unemployment benefits to 37,579 workers for an entire year — or nearly a month of benefits for each of the 531,363 workers their companies laid off.” As I wrote in Hoodwinked , “When we examine the state of our economy — the shortage of businesses that produce real things that people need, the huge gap between rich and poor, the current national debt, and the exploitation of the many by a very few — we see a profile similar to that in the Third World.” Our overall standards may be higher than in the Third Word; however, in relative terms the similarities are shocking. And each year, in fact each quarter, with every new report, the situation grows worse. The sad fact is that the rich get richer and the middle class is disappearing. Some of the most shocking statistics that highlight the discrepancies are those around hunger. While the CEOs feast on caviar, nearly 17 million, or almost 1 in 4, American children are at risk of hunger. Those hungry children are the victims of bloated, unregulated, corporate Robber Barons who lay off workers (parents) for bottom line greed. WHAT YOU CAN DO You and I can change the future for the better by taking action now. Demanding accountability and regulations that protect workers and stop the excessive payouts, golden parachutes and layoffs. A list of the companies is available at Please send emails to every company on this list that you patronize or are tempted to patronize and tell them the you will NOT buy from them until they change their ways, until their executives are willing to reduce their compensation and hire back those fired workers. Only through expressing our discontent will we make a difference! We must demand a completely new economic policy that benefits all not just the wealthiest in our country. It is up to you and me!

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John Perkins: Mr. CEO, Can You Spare a Job or a Free Lunch

Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) — Michael Holland, chairman of Holland & Co. LLC and Tres Knippa of Lotusbrokerage.com, talk about the U.S. stock market and crude oil prices. Holland, Knippa and Bloomberg contributing editor William Cohan talk with Carol Massar, Dominic Chu and Julie Hyman on Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Holland, Knippa Discuss U.S. Stocks, Oil Prices, Goldman: Video

Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) — Bloomberg’s Elizabeth Faublas reports on the performance of the U.S. equity market today. U.S. stocks rose, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index gaining a fourth day and the Dow Jones Industrial Average erasing its loss for the year, as better-than-estimated growth in private payrolls eased concern the economy is sliding back into a recession. Bloomberg’s Pimm Fox also speaks. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: U.S. Stocks Rise as Jobs Report Boosts Economic Optimism: Video

Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) — Bloomberg’s Tom Moroney talks about the situation on the Massachusetts coast as Hurricane Earl approaches. Earl, still a Category 1 storm with 80-mph winds, is “losing its punch” as it heads north toward the Massachusetts coast, the National Hurricane Center said at 5 p.m. Moroney speaks with Carol Massar on Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Bloomberg’s Moroney on Massachusetts Earl Preparations: Video

Ben S. Bernanke was an economist at Stanford and Princeton for more than two decades before he moved to Washington to 2002, first as a member of the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, then as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush and finally as Fed chairman since 2006.

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Ben Bernanke’s Summer Reading List

Are we headed into a ” growth recession ?” Speaking with CNBC Europe from Lake Como, Italy, Nouriel Roubini, the widely followed chairman of Roubini Global Economics, predicted that the U.S. economy will continue to grow modestly, but that it will continue to feel very much like a recession. “The second half of the year is going to be worst than the first,” Roubini. “All the tailwinds will become headwinds” By the end of the year more than 400 of the 800-plus institutions identified as “problem” banks will fail, Roubini said. The U.S. economy may be technically growing, he added, but has hit “stall speed.” GDP growth below 1 percent, without hiring and an increase in demand, Roubini said, is essentially a “growth recession.” The world economy will not be able to “decouple” from the U.S. consumer, he said. “In Europe, Germany is strong but the rest of the continent is pretty dismal. The rest of the world cannot cope without the prop of the U.S. consumer.” As for solutions, Roubini advocated further spending. “What we need is credible spending plans over the medium term on health care, welfare and retirement age,” Roubini said. “This will create a fiscal constraint lasting well into next year.” WATCH the full interview with CNBC:

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Nouriel Roubini: We’re Headed For A ‘Growth Recession,’ 400 Banks May Fail (VIDEO)

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Marketwire – Management Changes:

IRVINE, CA–(Marketwire – September 3, 2010) –  Plaza Bank ( OTCBB : PLZB ) announces that Lissette Duran has been promoted to the position of Executive Vice President of Operations and Human Resources.

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Plaza Bank Announces Lissette Duran as Executive Vice President

Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) — Bob McDonald, chief executive officer of Procter & Gamble Co., talks with Bloomberg’s Carol Massar about the state of the U.S. and world economies and the company’s global growth outlook. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: P&G’s McDonald Sees U.S. and Global Economies Improving: Video

Terms like ’single scoop’ and ‘double dip’ are normally heard only in ice cream shops. But at the moment, the economic and financial pages of news organizations the world over are using these types of terms to try to predict and explain what is going on “out there.” Indeed what is going on is unusual and defies conventional categorization. The underlying problem causing this confusion is that the circumstances out of which today’s conditions arose were quite different from anything that ever came before. The several important differences account for what appears to be an entirely new scenario. Historically, economies have generally risen and fallen more or less in sync — at least among given countries and often globally. For example, it was said for a long time that when the US sneezed, Europe would get pneumonia. No longer, it appears to be the case, despite the fact that information flows more completely and rapidly than ever before, creating feedback loops which normally would knit all economies more closely together. The several important differences which may account for why the economic world is behaving in a brand new way include the following: The casino effect is much larger than ever before. The casino effect is the scale and depth of financial transactions as a share of GDP. Since the credit meltdown in 2008, banks have started lending again, although not at previous levels, so that the rest of the economy, which had depended on cheap and easy money, has not been as robust as normally is the case for an economy rebounding from a recession. The big powerful companies have an enormous store of cash, in part because they slowed inventory accumulation and capital spending during the lowest points of the recession. Employment has been unusually slow to come back, probably because it had been allowed to grow too much and fast in the run up to the recession and because post recession the bigger employers found they could grow again with fewer employees and the smaller employers still could not afford to put people back on their payrolls. People who remain employed and whose savings/investments had rebounded nicely between 2008-2010 began to spend again out of proportion to the population as a whole–for example Apple sold several million iPads for several hundred dollars apiece to people who already had smart phones and computers. Go figure? The stimulus package, which was applied so relatively quickly and early [and brilliantly] in the recession, evidently had both an immediate effect and a drawn out promise, which had different effects at different times on the economy at large. That echoing process probably accounts for the broad confusion about the benefits of the stimulus not unlike the parable of the three blind men describing an elephant. Those differences appear to add up and account for what we see today, which is less a prospect for a double dip, but which really boils down to a two track economy. One track is carrying the businesses and people who were relatively unscathed by the recession. The other track is carrying the businesses and people who have yet to recover completely from the recession. It is not surprising that the two tracks run at different speeds at different moments, which may account for the appearance of the economy as a whole seeming to be slowing or speeding up. What we may need to do more of is recognize the increasing significance of the two tracks and follow them more closely. One of the other factors is that it also appears that the separate tracks seem not to much affect each other, which means that the strong track may not help the weak track recover as fast as in the past when the economy was more integrated. In all events it appears we are looking at quite a slow, long term recovery which will leave us with all the nettlesome troubles of very low employment, limited growth in personal income and spending as well as cautious capital spending. Perhaps we need a period of regrouping and re-finding our bearings after such a powerful and widespread period of growth and overspending on too much borrowed money.

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Frank A. Weil: A Two-Track Global Economy

2010 has been rife with anti-immigrant rhetoric and action on both sides of the Atlantic. There were the atrocious anti-migrant riots in Italy and the passing of controversial Arizona law SB 1070. France has taken a demagogic turn, which some commentators dub xenophobic. Even Canada, which is celebrated for its progressive immigration policies, has experienced unprecedented immigrant-bashing rhetoric around the arrival of a boat carrying Sri Lankan self-proclaimed refugees. There is an emerging conventional wisdom across the Atlantic that increasingly characterizes immigrants as a prime source of the ills of our societies. But do economic studies back this up? In short, no. Immigration has an undisputed effect on economic growth. Migration reduces imbalance in the labor market without imposing a significant impact on public finances. Indeed, without immigration, the population of several European countries, particularly Germany, Spain and Italy, would have declined long ago. In Canada, over 70% of the growth in the labor force during the 1990’s is attributable to immigration, a figure that could someday reach 100%. Given the overrepresentation of young people among immigrants, immigration also brings down the age of the population, relieving pressure on the pensions systems. Moreover, migrants help grow a host country’s market access by creating valuable business networks with their countries of origin. The benefits continue. In most member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), the proportion of immigrants with university degrees is greater than that recorded for the native population. A recent study demonstrates that immigration fuels innovation, an economic boon. From a historical point of view, the example of the great transatlantic migration, from Europe to the Americas of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century has amply demonstrated the salutary effect of immigration on growth. Conventional wisdom is also wrong in linking immigration and native unemployment. The notion that immigrants cause natives to lose their jobs is simply not supported by empirical results. There is not a fixed number of jobs in an economy, and immigrants often do not compete directly with native workers in the labor market. Migrants are first and foremost consumers who help expand the economy even before stimulating the labor supply. Their demand stimulates the supply of goods and services which in turn lead to job creation. Except in very special cases, immigrant inflows are extremely low compared to the workforce already available in a country. As such, the absorption of newly arrived migrant on the labor market generally proves to be relatively easy. In fact, when the economy is in a recession, migrants are the first to lose their jobs. Most studies in fact demonstrate the existence of a positive relationship between immigrant and native labor forces. In fact, people coming from earlier waves of migrants are most directly in competition with newly arrived immigrants rather than the natives. In time of expansion, workers tend to raise their expectations and to shy away from activities that are most painful and least valued, thus generating the need for the recruitment of low-skilled immigrants. Consequently, the idea that immigrants take the jobs of the natives seems to be simply xenophobic political posturing. Regarding the impact of immigration on wages, a recent meta-analysis of the available data concluded that the impact of immigration on the earnings of the native born population is statistically insignificant. Migrants are not responsible for alleged decrease of salaries or social dumping. Migrants are convenient scapegoats. In countries with limited sectoral and geographical mobility, foreign labor can alleviate the shortages. The foreign workforce, being more mobile than the native one — since migrants have relatively less material and family ties in their host country — helps diffuse tensions in the labor market and helps reinvigorate certain regions. Some shortages are already apparent on the labor markets of most OECD countries, particularly for specialties related to new technologies and health. Immigration has no significant impact on public spending. Indeed, the great majority of immigrants do pay taxes and add public revenue, particularly high-skilled immigrants. The consequences are positive for some public services, such as defense and interest on the national debt, for which immigrants do not impose costs. The bolstering effect of immigration on the U.S Social Security’s finances is particularly compelling. Economic data provide us with two certainties. First, immigration has positive effects on the overall prosperity of a nation. Second, with the ailing economy, migrants are used as scapegoats by uninspired politicians to scare up votes. Indeed, isn’t the United States, a country completely made up of immigrants, the boldest example of the benefits of immigration for a nation?

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Rabah Ghezali: There Is No Wealth but From Men: Why Immigration Is Good for the Economy

You wake up Monday morning with a throbbing headache, achy muscles and a hacking cough. Do you miserably trudge into work, likely prolonging your recovery time and exposing your co-workers to infection? Or do you give your body the time it needs to heal, and call in sick? Can you afford to? For almost 40 percent of the nation’s private workforce, the answer to that last question is no. A recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows only 33 percent of workers earning $10.50 an hour or less have access to paid sick leave, compared with 81 percent of those earning $24.22 an hour or more. This means, perversely, that if you can afford to take an unpaid sick day, you generally don’t have to. Politicians and policy advocates across the country are aware of this squeeze on working families, and paid sick leave bills have been introduced at the city, state, and national levels. Most of these proposals are based on the earned sick time model: Employees must work, say, 30 hours to earn one hour of sick leave. Those earned hours accumulate, eventually, into full paid sick days. All the proposals include a cap on the number of mandated paid sick days. Most require five to nine days a year. Some allow employees to carry over unused sick days from one year to the next. “The economic climate makes it even more important for lawmakers to act because, in this economy, workers can ill-afford to miss a paycheck or risk the long-term unemployment that often follows losing a job,” said Vicki Shabo, Director of Work & Family Programs for the National Partnership for Women & Families . “Workers shouldn’t have to put their economic stability and job security on the line every time they get sick. It’s bad for business, bad for workers, and bad public policy.” So far, only two U.S. cities have adopted paid sick leave laws. Since 2008, five other cities, as well as 21 states and the U.S. Congress, have considered similar bills. So far, none have passed, because organized business interests have thwarted the proposals, claiming that even the most modest benefits will harm the economy and kill jobs. That scare tactic has proven quite potent in the present climate, with employers fiercely resistant to anything that even hints at additional costs. Are these claims correct or are the business groups crying wolf? One way to judge is to examine whether places that already have paid sick leave laws are suffering the dire consequences that corporate America warns against. A majority of the world’s nations guarantee sick leave benefits, as do Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. (Similar legislation was passed in Milwaukee with 68 percent of the vote, but area business groups sued and a local court overturned it). In 2006, San Francisco became the first American city to guarantee its citizens the right to paid time off to recuperate from illness. Business groups, spearheaded by the local Chamber of Commerce, lobbied against the ballot measure, which came on the heels of a municipal minimum wage raise and a universal health care law in the city. The business-side arguments evoked the typical “job killer” rhetoric. After voters approved the law by 61 percent, Kevin Westlye, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, told the New York Times, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch on something like this,” and darkly warned of rising prices and shuttered restaurants. Four years later, these dire predictions have not come to pass. A recent study by the Drum Major Institute (DMI) shows that San Francisco’s employment rate has remained stronger than in any of the five neighboring counties, including wealthy Santa Clara (Silicon Valley). Even the industries where opponents warned that the impact would be harshest – retail, hospitality, and food services – remained stronger, without exception, than their nearby counterparts. At least 145 nations guarantee working adults some form of sick leave, including rich countries like Germany and Canada, and poorer ones like Indonesia and Senegal. Most of them allow at least one week, and over half ensuring leave of a month or more. A 2006 study in the Journal for Comparative Policy Analysis revealed that there is little, if any, connection between sick pay laws and unemployment levels. A 2009 follow up study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research shows that the duration of European sick leave laws doesn’t have any discernible relation to unemployment rates either. Studies show that paid sick leave is beneficial for employers too. Currently, businesses lose money from high turnover rates caused by illness absences and from the lowered productivity that results from sick employees spreading their germs at work. The Institute of Women’s Policy Research found that if all U.S. workers were offered seven days of paid sick leave annually the result would be “a net savings of $8.1 billion a year due to increased productivity and reduced turnover.” Today, even San Francisco business owners have come around. Jim Lazarus, senior vice president of the city’s Chamber of Commerce, told the Wall Street Journal that the legislation hasn’t stirred up any backlash from his members. And in a June article in Business Week , former doomsayer Westlye, executive director of the restaurant industry’s lobby, sounded downright enthusiastic about the bill: “[Paid sick leave] is the best public policy for the least cost. Do you want your server coughing over your food?” Despite the success of the San Francisco law, business groups continue to use the same tired rhetoric against similar legislative proposals. From California to Connecticut, business groups cry wolf about paid sick leave, and its supposedly catastrophic economic effects. Our nation’s lawmakers would do well to ignore them. Paid sick leave would have a tangible impact on the lives of American families–and politicians. The National Opinion Research Center released a poll in June showing that 86 percent of Americans favored laws guaranteeing paid sick leave. Strong majorities of self-identified Republicans as well as Democrats supported the proposal. Most said they would be more likely to vote for politicians who backed it. All employees should be able to take time off for their illnesses, not just those lucky enough to have the right job. As the San Francisco experience shows, we can make our economy friendlier to beleaguered workers without harming their employers. Jake Blumgart is a researcher with the San Diego-based Center on Policy Initiatives’ Cry Wolf Project funded by the Ford Foundation and the Public Welfare Foundation. His work has been published by the American Prospect, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Stranger, and Campus Progress. A shorter version of this article was originally published in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Follow him on Twitter .

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Jake Blumgart: A New Labor Standard for Labor Day: Paid Sick Leave

After a couple of decades as a computer programmer who commuted every morning an hour across the Potomac to work in Maryland, Carol Covin began to notice as she stalled in traffic that there were as many cars driving in the opposite direction each morning towards Virginia. Why commute, she wondered? If there were good jobs closer to home, she wanted to find them. Her search led her to a publishing career. Her first edition of The Computer Professional’s Job Guide for the Washington, DC Area sold out its 5000 copy print run in four months. Her next step was to learn the publishing business so she could expand her guide geographically. Over the next few years Carol wrote computer jobs guides for New England, the Midwest, the Southeast and eventually a second updated edition for the Washington area. Then she published a national edition, 20 Minutes from Home: The Best Computer Jobs in America , under her own imprint, Twenty Minutes Press. Her next foray followed her 50th birthday. “I decided to create a 50-year plan with a task for each decade. I needed to think about other things I could do with my life outside of computers.” At the top of her list was to help find a cure for cancer. But that motivation was not as grandiose as it sounds. One of her friends with inoperable stomach cancer had stumbled upon an alternative therapy developed by a scientist in the late 1970s that he claimed had shrunk his tumor. Wondering if that protocol — a mineral salt currently sold over the counter — had legs, Carol spent a couple of years learning everything she could on the therapy, including experiences of other patients. By 2008, she felt confident enough to create Sky Blue Pharmaceuticals, LLC with the participation of a pediatric oncologist with FDA experience to advise her on regulatory matters. Currently, Sky Blue is seeking funds and approval necessary to proceed with clinical trials. And Carol still has a couple of years left to reach this decade’s goal — before going on to planting forests in desert countries! Dr. Phyllis Scalletar also wanted a new focus. After a couple of decades as a manager in several government agencies, including a stint as chief operating officer for the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, she turned to her cat for a business idea. “As you know, cats are picky eaters and it killed me to serve my cat those awful dried pellets they call cat food. So I decided to try developing cat sauces.” Through the Department of Food Sciences at a local university, she isolated a byproduct from the extraction of oil from algae, in the former of essential biomeal for her sauces, to jazz up the dried pellets. “I know a lot of people want to solve the world’s problems, but I just wanted to create more palatable cat food.” But her Waterloo arose in the manufacturing process: every time she received a shipment of the biomeal, it varied in color, consistency and composition. Eventually she pulled the plug on that business, but not before learning “never to rely on another party for your product’s key components; you can outsource a lot, but you have to keep control of your key ingredient.” Now what she plans to do is to return to her roots in chemical safety and hazardous materials. With increasing public interest in workplace safety and environmental hazards, she sees new opportunities arising out of her former experience. For Jennifer Whitlock, the leap was, well, sky high! With advanced degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Stanford, Jen signed on as a senior engineer scientist with Boeing to design jet aircrafts. For her work as the chief designer of the Blended Wing-Body (BWB) project, a passenger aircraft with 100 -800 seats with a military capacity to be a tanker, freighter, bomber, and combat support vehicle, she was awarded two patents. Then her personal life dictated a move. Her husband, a rocket scientist, lost his job and moved back home to the Midwest to work for Rolls Royce in Indiana, close to their families in Illinois. By then Jennifer had two children and wanted a more flexible schedule. So to satisfy “a creative artistic instinct” she moved from designing jets to designing cakes and cookies, starting a business called Posh-Pastries in 2009. Her most recent accolade: first place and grand sweepstakes prize for cakes and cookies at the 2010 Indiana State Fair. Any crossover benefits from her engineering days? “Sure,” Jen says, “at Boeing I had to learn all about business, the importance of branding and selling your designs to top management, how to manage expenses. All that helps because I realize that baking a pretty cake doesn’t mean you can run a business.” Next step: well no plans for a moonshot this time, but maybe moon cakes, for which, Jen admits, she might use her aircraft drafting tools to decorate. What these entrepreneurs have in common are a couple of traits: flexibility and creativity. And business ideas often start very close to home. Please share where your ideas come from. Seems like they can crop up anywhere, even when you’re stuck in traffic!

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Angela Haines: Commutes, Cats and Cakes: Enterprising Ideas!

Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is shutting its principal-strategies business, a group that makes bets with the firm’s own capital, to comply with new U.S. rules aimed at curbing risk, two people with knowledge of the decision said.

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Goldman Sachs Disbanding Principal Strategies Unit: Bloomberg

Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) — Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, talks with Bloomberg’s Jon Erlichman, Michael McKee and Melissa Long about the August U.S. jobs report released today and the outlook for the economy. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Shenfeld Says Comeback for U.S. Economy Is `Years’ Away: Video

My visit to the Gulf Coast of Louisiana this week turned out to be even more interesting than I had expected. We went on this trip to investigate the progress of the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill cleanup and the ongoing claims process for those affected by the disaster. However, shortly after the Army Black Hawk helicopter touched down in Grand Isle, Louisiana, right on the Gulf of Mexico, we were greeted by news of an oil platform explosion some 135 miles or so to the southwest of us out in the Gulf. Thirteen men went over the side of the platform into the water following the explosion. Fortunately, all of them survived, apparently without serious injury. They were luckier than the eleven men who perished during the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig more than four months ago. While this latest oil platform fire raged, back at the site of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy another important step in permanently plugging the well was just beginning. Surface support ships and deepwater submersibles were moving into position to remove that well’s malfunctioning blowout preventer and prepare it for a new, functioning blowout preventer to be installed the next day. Once that step was completed, work would continue on the relief wells that – when finished – would allow the “bottom kill” to proceed by September 20, effectively driving a stake through the heart of the well that has caused so much heartache and set off a multi-billion dollar Gulf cleanup and restoration effort. Ironically, this latest explosion occurred as Louisiana’s governor, along with other state and local officials, were calling on President Obama to lift the moratorium on deepwater drilling that he imposed three months ago. Both explosions serve as graphic reminders that drilling for oil thousands of feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico remains a very risky business. This week’s accident also reinforces the need to create a culture of safety in this industry, much as the culture we have endeavored to create in our nation’s 104 nuclear power plants. With the goal of safety in mind, a new cop has been put on the beat. It is called the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement or BOEM, and housed within the U.S. Department of the Interior. One of BOEM’s first responsibilities is to create a new regulatory framework and enforcement structure to replace the abysmal efforts of the former Minerals Management Service to regulate the offshore oil industry. Let me hasten to add, though, that all was not cause for gloom and doom in the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration briefed us that the trillions of oil-eating microbes that Mother Nature has deployed throughout the Gulf of Mexico continue to provide by far the most cost effective cleanup work that’s being done in the Gulf. Just a few months ago the water was teeming with oil, now the presence of oil is measured in parts per billion. While the skimmers there still skim occasionally, and hundreds of miles of boom remain deployed to protect beaches and marsh land, the tide has turned in this battle. As further proof, on the day we were there, the federal government reopened several thousand square miles of additional federal fishery waters to fishermen. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t still plenty of work to do in the months ahead. There is. But a lot of good work has already been done. It’s still being done by a large and dedicated team led by the Coast Guard, and includes – among others – the U.S. Army, the National Guard, NOAA, EPA, local fishermen and their “vessels of opportunity,” some BP employees, and private contractors like Miller Environmental from Corpus Christi, Texas, whom we met. The battle is likely to rage for some time over whether we should continue to remain dependent on hard-to-recover fossil fuels like the oil that lies thousands of feet below the floor of the Gulf of Mexico and whether we should remain dependent on the enormous quantities of oil that we import from undemocratic, unstable countries around the world, oil that now comprises a third of our nation’s huge trade deficit. While that battle rages, though, America has got to be smart enough to put the pedal to the metal to hasten the day when we harness the power of the wind off our coasts to help power millions of flex-fuel, plug-in hybrid vehicles like GM’s Volt and Fisker’s Karma and Nina that will be built right here in America and my home state of Delaware. And, we’ve got to make even bigger strides in harnessing the energy of the sun and other clean energy sources to meet more of our energy needs. Finally, we need to adopt energy conservation policies that affirm our country’s belief that the cleanest, most affordable form of energy in the world is the energy we never use. Sen. Carper is the senior senator from the state of Delaware. He is the chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management and recently returned from a visit to the Gulf coast where he toured impacted marshlands off the coast of Louisiana, visited a beach cleanup site and was briefed on the cleanup and recovery efforts from the Coast Guard. The trip was part of Sen. Carper’s ongoing examination of the Gulf coast oil spill cleanup and claims process. Sen. Carper held two hearings this summer, “The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: Ensuring a Financially Responsible Recovery Parts I and II,” which focused on the costs associated with the response and recovery operations relating to the oil spill in the Gulf. As part of these hearings, the subcommittee heard testimony from representatives of BP, Transocean, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, MOEX Offshore 2007 LLC (a subsidiary of Mitsui Oil Exploration Company), the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the U.S. Coast Guard, and Kenneth Feinberg, head of the BP claims process.

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Sen. Tom Carper: The Latest Oil Platform Accident Is a Grim Reminder of Our Energy Challenges