Fred Harteis Business News  - Think gas hurts? Try diesel

Fred Harteis Business News - Rising diesel prices have slammed the trucking industry and hurt independent truck drivers, and Congress is looking for solutions.

Members of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on Tuesday took up the rising diesel prices issue that has hampered the trucking industry.

"People are losing their trucks and losing their business," said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. "But there are some places where an appropriate action by Congress might mitigate these problems."

The cost of diesel has risen 26% since the beginning of this year, compared to an 18% increase in the price of regular gas. The national average price for diesel reached a record high of $4.25 a gallon on May 1, while gasoline reached a record $3.62 a gallon, according to AAA.

Rising diesel costs have dug into the profits of the trucking industry, whose trucks run on the fuel. The American Trucking Association predicted that truckers will have to shell out $140 billion for diesel in 2008, sharply higher than the $112 billion they spent in 2007.

"If you're in the trucking industry, you've got a very critical situation on your hands," said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla. "We need a long-term policy but we also need a short-term policy - the short-term policy needs to be an increase in supply and to tap our domestic resources wherever they be."

In a protest of record high fuel costs, hundreds of truckers circled the U.S. Capitol on April 28.

Source; Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.   Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - 2007: A winning year on Wall Street

Fred Harteis Business News-  Stocks fizzled Monday, limping through the last trading day of 2007 but will close the year with respectable gains.

At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq, all ended slightly lower.

For the year, major indexes have fared well despite problems in the housing and credit markets. Year-to-date, the Dow is up 6.4% percent, the S&P 500 is up 3.5% percent, and the Nasdaq is up 9.8% percent.

Treasury prices rose. The dollar gained against the euro and slipped against the yen. Oil prices climbed and gold prices fell.

Trading was light Monday as investors looked to polish their portfolios ahead of the year's end.

"Even though the numbers aren't astounding, signs point to a solid economy," said Dean Barber, president of Barber Financial Group.

The market saw drastic swings in the second half of 2007. The Dow reached a record high on October 9th, then fell more than 10% off its highs by November. Though the Nasdaq was the strongest of the three indexes, it never came close to the record it set in March of 2000.

Crude oil soared $34.93 a barrel in 2007 - a gain of 57% - and came close to the $100 a barrel mark in November.

As for next year, Barber thinks technology and healthcare stocks will continue to be strong performers and that investors will shy away from the financial services sector until the extent of the subprime debacle is known.

Source; Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis:  Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.   Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Stocks inch up ahead of jobs report

Fred Harteis Business News-  Stocks managed slim gains Thursday, recovering from early declines, but any advance was limited ahead of Friday's big monthly jobs report.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended a few points higher. The broader S&P 500 index and the tech-fueled Nasdaq composite both gained around 0.2 percent.

Stocks had inched lower in the morning as investors mulled weak reports on the labor market and manufacturing sector. But the tone improved as the session wore on.

Treasury prices rose, lowering the corresponding yields. Oil and gold prices rose.

After the close, Research in Motion reported higher quarterly earnings and revenue that beat expectations and boosted its current-quarter profit forecast. However, investors took a '"sell the news" reaction, sending shares more than 7 percent lower in extended-hours trading.

Also after the close, Alcoa said it will sell two of its divisions and that it will restructure another one. Shares of the Dow component slipped 1 percent in extended-hours trading.

Stocks have drifted this week since Monday's big rally, in which the Dow ended at an all-time high of 14,087.55. That advance followed several up weeks, in which investors continued to welcome the Federal Reserve's decision to cut interest rates in September, for the first time in four years.

With the focus on monetary policy and what the Fed might do at its next FOMC meeting at the end of the month, investors hesitated to place bets ahead of Friday's important monthly jobs report.

"It's a complete wait for tomorrow to see what the employment numbers are," said Todd Clark, director of stock trading at Nollenberger Capital Partners Inc. in San Francisco.

Economists expect employers added around 100,000 jobs to their payrolls in September, after reporting a drop in payrolls in August of 4,000. The unemployment report, generated by a different survey, is expected to have risen to a 4.7 percent annualized rate from a 4.6 percent rate in August.

A much stronger-than-expected report might upset Wall Street in that it would raise bets that the Fed can't keep cutting rates, but a much weaker report would raise worries about a recession.

A report that was slightly weaker would probably help stocks the most, as it would reassure investors that the economy is holding up OK, but that the Fed still has room to cut rates.

Source; Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.   Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Experian to allow 'credit freeze'

Fred Harteis Business News- Amid growing concern about identity theft, Experian has joined the nation's two other major credit bureaus in allowing consumers to freeze access to their credit files.

Experian, which is based in Costa Mesa, Calif., announced Thursday that it will offer the option

nationwide beginning Nov. 1.

Starting on that date, "Experian will allow any consumer across all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories to place a freeze on their credit report," the company said in a statement.

A credit file freeze prevents new creditors from accessing the credit file without the consumer's consent. When a freeze is in place, an identity thief cannot open a new account because the potential creditor will not be able to check the credit file.

Consumers, meanwhile, can "unlock" their accounts temporarily if they are applying for credit or permanently if their security concerns are allayed.

Experian said freezes will be free for victims of identity theft. The fee for other consumers for a freeze -- or a temporary or permanent removal of a freeze -- will be $10, unless a lower fee is mandated by state law, the company said.

Similar programs already have been announced by the other major credit bureaus, Equifax and TransUnion.

The move was hailed by Consumers Union, which has been pressing states to adopt legislation allowing the freezes and has been urging the credit bureaus to do so unilaterally.

Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, noted that 39 states and the District of Columbia already have enacted laws requiring the credit bureaus to enable consumers to protect their credit files with freezes. In some cases the protection had been limited to ID theft victims.

"All three credit bureaus should be commended for extending the security freeze to those states that don't already require this identity theft safeguard," Jeannine Kenney, a senior policy analyst with Consumers Union, said in a statement.

Still, she said, the cost should be lower and the process for imposing and lifting freezes should be easier. Consumers Union urges that the fee should be no more than $5 to impose a freeze or temporarily suspend it, and nothing to permanently lift a freeze.

An estimated 10 million consumers are victims of identity theft every year. In some cases, it involves the misuse of a credit card, but in others, thieves can open accounts, buy property and take on huge debt in the victim's name.

Source; Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.    Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - UBS expected to post big fixed-income loss: report

Fred Harteis Business News- UBS, the Swiss bank, is expected to announce Monday a third-quarter loss of 600 million to 700 million Swiss francs ($510 million to $600 million) from its fixed-income unit, according to a published report.

The fixed-income loss would be announced before UBS's overall third-quarter results, which are due October 30, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the situation.

The loss is based on a writedown of 3 billion to 4 billion Swiss francs for fixed-income assets, the Journal reported on its website Sunday.

Partly the fixed-income losses stem from continuing costs associated with writing off bad bets by its in-house hedge fund, Dillon Read Capital Management, in the subprime mortgage market, according to the Journal. But other securities held by the fixed-income division contibuted to the loss too, it said.

In July, UBS reshuffled its management team - replacing then-CEO Peter Wuffli with Marcel Rohner, who was deputy CEO at the time - in the wake of the Dillon Read hedge fund blow-up, which proved costly for the investment bank.

UBS warned in August that its profits would be lower in the second half if the third quarter continued to see difficult market conditions.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.   Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis News Articles - Privacy: Don't Ask -- Maybe

Fred Harteis News Articles - When may an employer ask for certain information from an applicant? Like age or family life or medical conditions?

The answers are never simple. They depend on the purpose of the inquiry and, often, the state where the hiring takes place.

Laws on pre-employment inquiries stem from the long history of nondiscrimination laws since the 1960s, not from the more recent concern about personal privacy. This means that restrictions about asking for certain information are intended to prevent use of the information in a way that discriminates against the applicant, not necessarily to keep sensitive information out of the hands of employers. If you remember that, you will have a better idea of which inquiries are permissible.

Amendments to the federal civil rights laws specify a number of questions that may never be asked of women or if the answers might be used for impermissible purposes. These include marital status, whether the applicant has had an abortion, is planning a family or is pregnant.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and regulations and court cases stemming from it bar questions as to the applicant's religion, but do allow questions of race, ethnicity or gender. Such data should be collected so that it is not traceable to identifiable applicants, however. Affirmative action plans don’t usually include religion and age factors, and so the queries are usually out of place at the pre-employment stage.

Verification of citizenship or legal residency is not only allowed, but often required, though not before a job is actually offered. Sexual orientation questions may be asked, though some states and cities prohibit discrimination based on this, as is the case in federal employment. Still, even in the absence of a regulation, such an inquiry could trigger a lawsuit.

Also allowed are questions about whether an applicant has been arrested or convicted of a crime, though only if the inquiry is job related. Still, some states prohibit inquiries about arrests and very few states prohibit inquiries about certain convictions.

No questions are allowed about union activities or membership under federal law, and secondarily by state laws.

Always banned are questions about disabilities, HIV status or any prescription medicines that are being taken.  Also allowed is a medical exam and questions about medical conditions, but only after a job is offered, and only if all employees are treated the same.

Generally allowed is a question whether the applicant smokes at home, though such an inquiry could lead to a lawsuit. Some 31 states ban policies prohibiting off-duty smoking.

Also allowed are requests for an applicant's social security number and a credit report. Under federal regulations, credit inquiries that tend to have a disparate impact on minority applicants, disabled persons or women may be closely scrutinized.

School and college records may be sought only with the individual’s consent. Polygraphs or honesty tests are effectively banned in private employment. Urinalysis to test for drug use is generally allowed, though 13 states have restrictions. Genetic information requests are banned in 31 states. Questions about performance at prior workplaces are allowed.

Political affiliation questions are allowed, though some states ban discrimination on this basis and political affiliation may not be used for discriminatory purposes in federal-government employment.

Many of these issues are in tricky areas. The best advice is to call the nearest regional office of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (800-669-4000). It enforces many of these federal requirements and also should be prepared to tell you about prohibited inquiries in the states and cities within its region.

If the inquiry is job related and the purpose is not to discriminate -- and especially if the employer documents the reason for the inquiry -- a company can avoid troubles.

Source: Aol.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis ahhHBusiness News Articles  -  Household incomes rise but ...

Fred Harteis Business News Articles  - Household income crept higher and the poverty rate edged lower last year, the government said Tuesday, while the number of Americans without health insurance rose by 2.2 million to 47 million people.

Median household income rose 0.7 percent to $48,200, adjusted for inflation, the Census Bureau reported. But more people had to be at work in each household to get there.

That's because median earnings for individuals working full-time year-round actually fell for the third consecutive year. For men, earnings slipped 1.1 percent to a median of $42,300, while for women, earnings sank 1.2 percent to a median of $32,500.

The percent of Americans living below the poverty line, meanwhile, slipped to 12.3 percent in 2006, or about 36.5 million people, from 12.6 percent, or 37 million, the year before. The drop in the number of people living in poverty is not a statistically significant change, but the rate of decline is, marking the first drop since 2000.

The rise in household income and decline in poverty are positive developments, and they were expected given low unemployment last year. But U.S. households have yet to return to the higher income and lower poverty levels they reached during the last recession.

"In 2006, the poverty rate remained higher, and median income for non-elderly households remained $1,300 lower, than in 2001, when the last recession hit bottom," said Robert Greenstein, executive director of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in a statement. "It is virtually unprecedented for poverty to be higher and the income of working-age households lower in the fifth year of a recovery than in the last year of the previous recession."

Source; Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International. Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Weak sales: Bad sign for consumer spending?

Fred Harteis Business News -Tuesday's sluggish retail sales numbers may be the first ominous sign that the American consumers' remarkable propensity to keep spending is beginning to wane.

Some experts think the consumer is definitely tiring but not necessarily ready to roll over and stop shopping - yet.

Why do we care? Because consumer spending is the backbone of the U.S. economy, fueling two-thirds of all economic activity.

Investors noticed as well, driving retail stocks - and the broader market - sharply lower. The Dow Jones retail index sank about 1.8 percent.

According to the Commerce Department, retail sales rose an anemic 0.1 percent last month, below Wall Street forecasts for a 0.3 percent rise. Excluding the volatile auto sector, sales dipped 0.1 percent, also missing estimates for a 0.3 percent increase.

This followed an equally lackluster performance in the prior month. So that's two consecutive months of stagnating sales. And last week, big stores such as Wal-Mart (Charts), J.C. Penney, Gap, and other chains reported disappointing sales at stores open at least a year, a key measure of retail performance known as same-store sales.

Retailers blamed colder weather for crimping shoppers' enthusiasm last month.

But while the weather played a part, it wasn't the whole story, said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist with High Frequency Economics.

Other industry watchers note that they're worried about the recent uptick in gas prices which could squeeze discretionary spending.

"Consumption is under pressure and it won't get better any time soon," Shepherdson warned in a note Tuesday.

According to the government report, retail sales fell across the board. Furniture sales declined 1.7 percent last month, clothing sales fell 1.8 percent and department stores reported a sales decline of 1.6 percent.

Source; Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Economy posts surprising growth

Fred Harteis Business News - Economic growth picked up in the fourth quarter, the government said Wednesday, a surprisingly strong showing given the ongoing slump in the housing market.

The reading means the economy grew at a slightly stronger pace in 2006 than in 2005, but that's unlikely to spur the Federal Reserve to change its recent policy of holding interest rates steady, economists said.

Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation's economic activity, grew at an annual 3.5 percent rate in the quarter, according to the government's first reading for the period. That compared to 2 percent growth in the third quarter.

Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a 3 percent pace of growth in the fourth quarter.

The fourth quarter reading resulted in a growth rate of 3.4 percent for the full year, up slightly from the 3.2 percent pace seen in hurricane-impacted 2005.

Unusually warm weather in much of the nation may have contributed to the strong showing.

"The fourth quarter number is probably overstated due to the weather, and we're still expecting a slowdown in the first half of 2007," said John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia. "But you look at the data and you have to say the consumer is doing fine, exports were solid. This is exactly what everybody wants."

The pace of growth is actually helped by the relatively low inflation rate in the fourth quarter because of falling energy prices in the period. Since GDP is adjusted for inflation, smaller gains in prices subtract less from growth than during periods of higher inflation.

Two other government readings showed declining inflation pressures in the fourth quarter.

In the GDP report, the so-called PCE deflator, which measures prices paid by consumers, fell 0.8 percent over the past 12 months. The core PCE deflator, which excludes food and energy, was up 2.1 percent from a year earlier, down from a 2.2 percent rate in the third quarter.

Separately, the Labor Department's Employment Cost Index, which measures the labor costs paid by employers, rose 0.8 percent in the fourth quarter, down from a 1 percent gain in the third quarter and below economists' forecast for another 1 percent rise.

The report comes as the Fed is holding a two-day meeting to weigh what it should do with interest rates. The central bank is generally believed to want to see the core PCE deflator in the range of 1 to 2 percent.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis:   Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Bill Gates touts Vista

Fred Harteis Business News - Microsoft chairman and co-founder Bill Gates boasted to CNN Monday that Vista, Microsoft's widely anticipated new version of its Windows operating system, will make the personal computer the "place where it all comes together" for multimedia applications such as photos, music and videos.

Gates' comments were from an interview on CNN's "American Morning," which will air on Tuesday January 30 to coincide with Vista's release.

Vista is the first update of Windows since Windows XP was released in 2001. Microsoft invested $6 billion to develop Vista, Gates said.

"People are using Windows PCs more than they watch TV now," Gates said. " A big release of Windows was needed. We put a lot into this one."

Microsoft Vista: Should you buy now?

Gates explained several of Vista's key new features, including controls that let parents monitor what Web sites their kids have viewed as well as the time spent on the computer.

Gates also showed some of the features for editing digital photos and videos. "We're making the PC the place where it all comes together," Gates said, adding that people using Vista will be able to view content from their computer on their TV.

Gates bristled at the suggestion that Vista had some similarities to Apple's OS X operating system for Macs. "No no no. There are whole areas where we've innovated," Gates said during the interview.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.   Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Minimum wage, marginal impact

Fred Harteis Business News -  Supporters of increasing the federal minimum wage contend it will offer significant changes to the lives of millions of working-class Americans.

Opponents insist the measure will cost the economy hundreds of thousands of jobs and provide only marginal help to a relatively small group of wage earners.

The numbers suggest the answer lies somewhere in between.

Increases in the minimum wage sometimes have been followed by dramatic spikes in the nation's unemployment rate, as was the case in the early 1980s, as well as lulls or even decreases in unemployment, as happened in the late 1990s.

Contrary to its more recent stagnation, the minimum wage increased almost annually in the 1960s and 1970s, hitting an inflation-adjusted high of $1.60 ($9.27 in 2007 dollars) in 1968 and staying around that level through the following decade, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

During the 1970s, seasonally adjusted unemployment varied wildly, from 3.9 percent in January 1970 to 8.1 percent in 1975 and then back down to 5.9 percent in 1979.

The wage grew to $3.35 an hour in 1981, but would not budge from there until 1990.

Following the 1981 increase, national unemployment hit its highest rate since the Depression. The minimum wage held steady throughout the soaring unemployment rates of the early 1980s, including the 10.4 percent posted in January 1983.

The 1990s opened with two more minimum-wage increases, and unemployment zoomed.

But before Bill Clinton stepped down as president, the minimum wage would see two more increases, landing at the current $5.15 in 1997, when unemployment dipped to 4.7 percent. The jobless rate would drop to a low of 3.9 percent by the time Clinton left office three years later.

The numbers as recorded by the BLS leave many analysts at odds over the cause-and-effect relationship of what happens to the economy when the government increases the minimum wage.

Source; Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Bush touts health, energy plans

Fred Harteis Business News - Turning from his contentious decision to increase the number of troops committed to battling insurgents in Iraq, President Bush used his weekly national radio address Saturday to urge bipartisan support for his plans to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and expand access to health care.

"Our nation's dependence on oil leaves us vulnerable to hostile regimes and terrorists who can hurt our economy by disrupting our oil supply," Bush said.

In addition to asking that Congress double the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Bush said he will propose legislation giving industry incentives to develop alternative fuels and to increase vehicle mileage requirements over the next 10 years.

"By expanding our use of renewable and alternative fuels like ethanol, we can become less dependent on oil, and confront the serious challenge of climate change," the president said.

Earlier this week, Bush sent two health care proposals to Congress.

One would establish a standard tax deduction for health insurance like that now in place for dependents. Under the proposal, no income or payroll taxes will be deducted on $15,000 of income for families and $7,500 for single people, Bush said.

"With this reform, more than 100 million men, women and children who are now covered by employer-provided insurance will benefit from lower tax bills," he said. "This reform will also level the playing field for those who do not get health insurance from their employers."

Inside Bush's health plan

The president said he will also ask Congress to OK providing states with federal money to make "basic private health insurance available to all their citizens..." The proposal, using existing federal funds, would create "Affordable Choices" grants that Bush said would give our governors "more money and flexibility to get basic private health insurance to those most in need.

"The government has an obligation to provide care for the elderly, the disabled and poor children; and we will meet these responsibilities," Bush said. "For all other Americans, private insurance is the best way to meet their needs."

In the Democratic response to the president's radio address, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa joined the call for a bipartisan approach to national challenges.

But the first-term mayor said challenges facing America's families and security extend beyond energy and health care to include a need for comprehensive immigration reform, better education and a workable plan for leaving Iraq.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News- GM to delay earnings, restate past results

Fred Harteis Business News - General Motors Corp. said it would delay its fourth-quarter financial report and restate past results due to tax accounting issues.

The world's largest automaker said it expected to be profitable in the fourth quarter of 2006, with net income expected to "improve significantly" over year-earlier levels.

GM had been scheduled to report fourth-quarter and full-year results next Tuesday. After the close of regular trade on Thursday, GM said it will provide further information on the progress of its financial reporting next week and expects to file its annual report by March 1.

The automaker, which has been the target of an inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission over its accounting, said it had overstated deferred tax liabilities in the third quarter of 2006 and prior periods.

GM said retained earnings as of Dec. 31, 2001, and subsequent periods were understated by a range of $450 million to $600 million. The automaker added that the errors would not impact cash flow or previously reported cash balances.

GM last year also restated its 2005 results, increasing its annual loss by $2 billion to $10.6 billion. At that time, it also restated earnings from 2000 through 2004 as a result of "erroneously" booking payments and credits it received from suppliers - a key issue the SEC has been examining.

"It's concerning that this is becoming a pattern, but it does not really reflect on their financial condition right now," Fitch Ratings Managing Director Mark Oline said. "There is nothing in there that causes near-term concern."

GM, which has lost about $3 billion in the first three quarters of 2006, said it expects to be profitable in the fourth quarter. "Net income is expected to improve significantly over the fourth quarter of 2005," GM said in the statement.

GM sold a 51 percent stake in its finance arm, General Motors Acceptance Corp., last year. On Thursday, GM said GMAC was still working on its financial statements for 2006 and its balance sheet as of Nov. 30, the date of the sale - also contributing to the delay in GM's results.

Source; Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Ford expected to drive home a record loss

Fred Harteis Business News - Ford Motor Co. Thursday will detail a record loss for 2006, the first U.S. automaker to report on a troubled year when the Detroit-based carmakers are forecast to have lost some $15 billion on a combined basis, according to analysts.

Ford, which will report fourth-quarter and full-year results Thursday, was also the U.S. automaker hardest hit by rising interest rates, higher gas prices and a shift away from high-margin trucks.

Ford, which lost $7 billion through the first nine months of 2006, is expected to lose another $4.86 billion in the fourth quarter as it booked costs to close plants and cut jobs, according to Wall Street estimates tracked by Reuters Estimates.

"The basic story of Ford's stunning collapse in its home-market profitability remains the same," David Healy, Burnham Securities analyst, said in a note. "Ford's finances were wrecked by the collapse in volume and pricing of its most profitable truck models."

Ford trimmed North American production 22 percent in the fourth quarter and completed a buyout offer with unionized factory workers that cut 38,000 jobs, about half its U.S. factory work force. Its U.S. sales dropped 8 percent for the year.

For the first time since 1991, all three Detroit automakers are set to book losses in the same year, underscoring the changing taste of U.S. consumers and the intense competition from the likes of Toyota Motor Corp., now the No. 3 player in the U.S. market.

In 1991, the combined loss for the Detroit-based automakers - Ford, GM and Chrysler - was $8.5 billion. For 2006, analysts expect the total to be in excess of $15 billion.

General Motors Corp. is expected to report a loss of $2.3 billion, while DaimlerChrysler AG's  Chrysler Group is expected to post an operating loss of more than $1 billion.

On an operating basis, forecasts for Ford's fourth quarter range from a loss of 63 cents per share to a loss of $1.52. The average estimate was for a loss of 95 cents per share, according to Reuters Estimates.

Ford stopped providing earnings forecasts a year ago, but analysts expect the company's annual loss will be deeper than the the $7.39 billion Ford lost in 1992, its worst year yet.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Minimum wage bill under debate in Senate

Fred Harteis Business News - The Senate began debating the minimum wage bill this week with plans for a vote to end debate Wednesday and possible passage next week.

Even so, a Senate bill could face opposition in the House for having tax cuts included and from the White House for having provisions to pay for the tax cuts.

The House on Jan. 10 overwhelmingly passed a bill that would increase the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 in a 3 steps over two years.

The Senate version would do that too, but may include tax breaks for small business owners and could close tax-loopholes for large ones.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D.-Mass), who is co-sponsoring the bill, nonetheless has said he expects a bill with minimal amendments would pass by the middle of next week.

But hurdles to the bill's passage remain.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) filed a motion Monday to debate an amendment to the minimum wage bill that would give the president line-item veto authority. Most view its chances of being passed in the Senate as unlikely.

Republicans and some Democrats are also hoping to attach a tax cuts and accounting simplification for small business in order to aid the bill's passage through the Senate.

House Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has indicated a willingness to work with Senate Republicans to pass a bill.

"Majority Leader Reid has taken a look at the votes and doesn't believe a so-called 'clean' minimum wage bill passing through the Senate is possible," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Reid.

Unlike the House, where Democrats enjoy a 233 to 202 majority, Democrats in the Senate hold only a two vote edge. Senate watchers say Democrats have more than 50 senators lined up for a minimum wage vote. But Democrats need fully 60 votes to end debate on any subject.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Oil falls near $51 on strong stockpiles

Fred Harteis Business News - Oil dropped a nearly dollar Monday amid robust stockpiles in consumer nations after a mild start to winter, resuming a sell-off that has cut 16 percent from prices since the start of the year.

Dealers said a burst of chilly weather in the Northeast, the world's biggest heating oil market, was limiting crude's losses, but uncertainly remained over how long the cold would linger.

"The concern is whether this cold weather will last long enough to significantly kick up demand," said Peter Beutel, analyst with Cameron Hanover. "People are waiting to see if any genuinely supportive factors might emerge to turn this market around."

Light, sweet crude was down 86 cents to $51.13 a barrel after having risen above $53 earlier in the session.

Oil prices have lost nearly 35 percent from peaks near $80 a barrel hit last summer, and energy analysts said the poor performance had recently caused speculators to bet heavily on further losses.

The latest U.S. government inventory data showed a build in the nation's oil supplies of 6.8 million barrels amid a surge in imports and soft demand for heating oil, dulling concern over output cuts by producer group OPEC.

Heating oil inventories are running nearly 5 percent higher than a year ago, the data showed.

Temperatures in the Northeast, however, were expected to average below normal for the next six to 10 days, private forecaster DTN Meteorlogix has said. It added that temperatures in European cities will also mostly drop in the next few days.

The dip in temperatures comes after record warmth in December and a mild start to January, but forecasters are at odds over how long the cold will last.

For the time being, OPEC appears to have ruled out an emergency meeting to address the price decline. Algeria's Energy and Mines Minister Chakib Khelil told state radio on Sunday leading exporter Saudi Arabia was against such a move.

Libya's top oil official, Shokri Ghanem, said OPEC members were seeking full compliance with existing output cuts.

OPEC has agreed to trim production twice since November. It first pledged to implement a 1.2 million-barrel cut from Nov. 1 and later added a further 500,000 bpd cut from Feb. 1.

Source; Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis : Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - MySpace sues alleged big-time spammer

Fred Harteis Business News - News Corp.'s MySpace said Monday it has sued an e-mail marketing executive for an unspecified amount of damages, saying he and his company were behind millions of junk e-mail, or spam, messages sent to its customers' accounts.

MySpace, the largest Internet social network with more than 150 million user profiles, filed the lawsuit against Scott Richter in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles last Friday.

The company also requested a permanent injunction barring Richter, the chief executive of marketing firm Media Breakaway, from entering its network.

Richter and his associates "arranged for millions of spam 'bulletins"' to be sent from MySpace users' accounts without their knowledge by gaining access to them illegally, according to the lawsuit.

A representative for Richter was not immediately reachable for comment.

In 2005, Richter paid $7 million in a post-judgment settlement of a lawsuit filed by Microsoft and former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer for sending e-mail spam.

MySpace is taking tougher measures against unlawful use of its social network, from the illegal transfer of copyrighted music and entertainment to establishing measures to protect its large population of teenage viewers from adult predators. News Corp. bought the company in September 2005.

Source; Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Shredding can save you from identity theft

Fred Harteis News Articles - Got any secrets?

Sure you do. How about your bank and credit card statements? Personal bills, canceled or blank checks, investment information and financial statements? And, then there are medical records, income tax records and credit reports.

Do you simply toss them in the trash when you no longer need them for your records? If so, you need to change your modus operandi. Start shredding.

Anything you wouldn't feel comfortable having someone pick up and read, you should shred, says Jerry Haas, vice president of sales and marketing for American Document Destruction Corp. 

Criminals need very little information to steal your identity. With your Social Security number they can apply for credit cards, cellular phones, loans, bank accounts, apartments and utility accounts.

Garbages hold a plethora of information. Once your Social Security number or an account number hits the dumpster, your identity is floating among the refuse, just waiting to be stolen. Shredding is a minimal inconvenience and minor expense compared to its alternative -- becoming an identity theft victim.

The Federal Trade Commission issued the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act in 2003, a law aimed at minimizing the risk of identity theft and consumer fraud. In November 2004, the FTC added the FACTA Disposal Rule to enforce the protection and disposal of sensitive consumer data.

Beginning June 1, 2005, the FACTA Disposal Rule says that "any person who maintains or otherwise possesses consumer information for a business purpose" must destroy discarded consumer information, whether in paper or electronic form.

Who must comply? Simply put, virtually everyone. Any business (whether employing one or thousands) using consumer information in its everyday operations or storing personal data as a business, such as banks, lenders, insurers, auto dealers, real estate agents, employers and record management companies, must safeguard consumer information. The new law also applies to service providers that destroy information, from shredders, recyclers, waste management or technology disposal companies.

The disposal rule offers business owners a few choices. They must burn, pulverize or shred paper documents and completely erase or destroy all electronic media. Or, they can contract a third-party information-destruction company.

Financial documents aren't the only items that should be destroyed rather than tossed out with the trash.

Bank information

Budgets

Canceled or blank checks

Credit card offers

Credit card information

Employee evaluations

Financial statements

Income tax records

Insurance coverage

Investment information

Legal papers

Medical records

Personal bills

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis:  Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Bush unveils health care tax breaks

Fred Harteis Business News - President Bush unveiled a plan Saturday to use tax-code changes to encourage more Americans to buy health insurance as he previewed an initiative for his State of the Union address.

Weighing in on the debate about how to provide health-care coverage to the more than 46 million Americans who lack it, Bush said his approach would emphasize private health insurance coverage - rather than expanding government-provided programs, as some Democrats advocate.

Health care is emerging in opinion polls as a top concern among many Americans as the costs of private insurance soar, putting a burden on both workers and companies.

"Our challenge is clear," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "We must address these rising costs so that more Americans can afford basic health insurance. And we need to do it without creating a new federal entitlement program or raising taxes."

Social Security debate: It's back

Bush, who delivers his State of the Union address on Tuesday, is eager to avoid having his domestic agenda overshadowed by discontent over the Iraq war. He must also compete for the spotlight with Democrats who have been tackling a series of issues of their own, including raising the minimum wage.

Bush's health-care proposal would use tax breaks to make it easier for people who do not have employer-provided health insurance to buy coverage on their own. The tax incentives would be similar to deductions used by many homeowners for the interest on their mortgages, Bush said.

He said the current tax code unfairly penalized people who want to buy health insurance on their own while offering incentives for people to use expensive, "gold-plated" employer-provided health plans he said end up driving up costs throughout the system.

Bush's proposal builds on other initiatives he has been pushing in recent years, aimed at encouraging the expansion of health-savings accounts that allow people to save tax-free for out-of pocket health-care expenses, while relying on low-cost health plans for catastrophic coverage.

Democrats have criticized some of Bush's past health initiatives, saying they risk eroding employer-based health coverage. They might raise similar concerns about the new proposal.

Bush's health-care push comes as a number of states have been trying out their own proposals to extend coverage to the uninsured. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, recently launched such a plan. Massachusetts, under former Governor Mitt Romney, a Republican, also has done so.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Motorola plans to cut 3,500 jobs

Fred Harteis  Business News - Motorola Inc. expects to cut 3,500 jobs in the first half of 2007 to reduce costs, Chief Financial Officer David Devonshire said Friday.

Motorola shares jumped 2.7 percent in Friday morning trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

During a conference call with analysts, Devonshire also forecast 2007 earnings per share to be flat to slightly above its 2006 earnings of $1.13 per share on sales of $46 billion to $49 billion.

Sony Ericsson sees record profit

He said the earnings per share outlook includes stock based compensation expenses of 7 cents a share for 2007.

Motorola, the world's second-biggest mobile phone maker, reported earlier that fourth-quarter revenue rose but profit fell due to weakness in its handset business.

Profit from continuing operations fell to $528 million, or 21 cents a share, from $1.177 billion, or 46 cents, in the year-ago quarter, when Motorola reported a large gain from the collection of debt from Turkish phone company Telsim.

Motorola had warned investors earlier this month that its quarterly earnings and revenue would fall short of estimates.

It said earnings were higher than its estimate of 13 to 16 cents a share, including 10 cents in special charges, because of a tax accounting item.

Including discontinued operations, the company's net profit fell to $624 million, or 25 cents a share, from $1.2 billion, or 47 cents, a year earlier.

Chief Executive Ed Zander said in a statement the company was "disappointed" with the earnings, which analysts said indicated deep discounts on cell phone prices.

Revenue rose to $11.8 billion from $10 billion, in line with its estimate for revenue of $11.6 billion to $11.8 billion.

Motorola said it shipped 65.7 million handsets in the quarter, up 47 percent from a year earlier, and its share of the global market rose to 23.3 percent, up almost one percentage point from the third quarter.

It expects first-quarter sales to fall to $10.4 billion to $10.6 billion.

Source; Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Social Security debate: It's back

Fred Harteis Business News - Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke Thursday turned up the volume on the debate over Social Security reform - an issue that was declared dead last year but has been injected with new life in recent weeks.

In testimony to the Senate Budget Committee, Bernanke described the state of entitlement programs - which include Medicare as well as Social Security - as the "calm before the storm."

"In particular, spending on entitlement programs will begin to climb quickly during the next decade ... (which) will put enormous pressure on the federal budget," Bernanke said.

In recent weeks, President Bush has asked Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to reach out to Democrats to explore bipartisan solutions to Social Security's long-term funding shortfalls. Two Republican lawmakers - Senator George Voinovich (R-Ohio) and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) - said they will reintroduce a bill calling for a bipartisan tax and entitlement reform commission.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Senate Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) have indicated they are in talks with Paulson.

And in his introduction to the Senate Budget hearing on Thursday, Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) said he and Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) are "committed to facing up to ... the challenges that we confront with Medicare and Social Security."

Bernanke in his testimony noted that federal spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will increase from 8.5 percent of GDP to 15 percent in 2030.

"Dealing with the resulting fiscal strains will pose difficult choices for the Congress, the Administration and the American people," said Bernanke. "However, if early and meaningful action is not taken, the U.S. economy could be seriously weakened."

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Quick Business Quote

Fred Harteis – Brian Tracy was in to speak to our organization not long ago. He was very motivating. He makes you realize your dreams and go for it.

“The starting point of great success and achievement has always been the same. It is for you to dream big dreams. There is nothing more important, and nothing that works faster than for you to cast off your own limitations than for you to begin dreaming and fantasizing about the wonderful things that you can become, have, and do.”

Brian Tracy

“The official IBO Trade Association, IBOAI is dedicated to serving and protecting the interests of Quixtar powered Independent Business Owners (IBOs) throughout North America,” states Fred Harteis IBOAI. The 2007 IBO Board of Directors Executive Committee Team includes Jim Janz, Chairman, Don Wilson, Vice Chairman, Bob Andrews, Brad Duncan, Kanti Gala, Randy Haugen, Bill Hawkins, and Kathy Victor. Governance and Oversight Committee includes Jody Victor and Billy Florence.

Quixtar Diamond Leaders Include : Billy Florence, Fred Harteis, Randy Haugen, Colombo Disalvatore and  Don Wilson Quixtar business owner.

Fred Harteis Business News - Circuit City sets smaller store, new kiosks

Fred Harteis Business News - Circuit City will roll out new, smaller stores in June that showcase consumer-friendly innovations such as in-store kiosks that enable "real-time" chats between customers and the retailer's Firedog technology support staff, CEO Philip Schoonover announced Monday.

Schoonover unveiled the technology during his presentation to an industry gathering at the National Retail Federation's annual conference in New York.

John Mulleady, Circuit City's vice president for real estate and construction, said he's now working on building 200 to 300 new stores in the next two years - a jump for a retailer that has been building 10 to 12 stores a year, according to Reuters.

A short video clip presentation showed a Circuit City customer struggling to decide whether he wanted to wall-mount his new flat-panel TV or put it on a stand. He walks over to the kiosk, touches the screen and a Firedog staff member pops up on the screen to offer "live" assistance. After a brief Q&A, the customer makes his decision.

Circuit City, the No. 2 electronics retailer after Best Buy, has already deployed the system in 50 stores and will be adding the kiosks to more locations, including new prototype stores that will roll out in June, Schoonover said.

The latest store format will be smaller - approximately 20,000 square feet - compared to the typical 30,000- to 35,000-square-foot existing Circuit City stores, Circuit City spokeswoman Jackie Foreman told CNNMoney.com.

In addition to the kiosks, the retailer will also arm employees with new wireless "tablet PCs." Schoonover said the tablet PCs act as a "guided selling tool" to help employees to better understand customers' needs and help decide on product choices - what type of flat screen TV they want, for example.

Using the PC tablet, employees can quickly sketch a sample diagram of the customer's living room and enter specifics such as size of the room and height of the walls. Based on other variables such as brand preference and price, employees can then recommend the best options for the customer.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News – AOL deal for TradeDoubler won't be easy

Fred Harteis Business News - AOL, the Internet unit of Time Warner, said on Monday it had agreed to buy Swedish online marketing firm TradeDoubler for about $900 million to enhance its advertising capabilities in Europe.

But the cash deal, which was recommended by the TradeDoubler board, ran into quick trouble as a major shareholder said it would vote against the transaction, and other investors signaled they would need a sweetener before approving it. The deal is the first major strategic move for AOL under Randy Falco, who was hired as AOL's chief executive last November from GE's NBC Universal to help turn the business around.

It follows AOL's sale of its European Internet access businesses as the company shifts to an advertising-based model instead of one reliant on subscribers. AOL has retained its portal business in Europe.

AOL offered 215 crowns a share for TradeDoubler - an 8.6 percent premium to Friday's close and 20 percent higher than its three-month moving average. The deal is aimed at complementing AOL's Advertising.com business, purchased in 2004.

Investors representing about 20 percent of TradeDoubler's shares, including the company's largest holder, Arctic Ventures, have said they will accept the offer.

But Swedish pension group Alecta, which said it owns 10.01 percent of TradeDoubler, rejected the bid, saying it undervalued the company.

AOL said the deal's closing was conditional on 90 percent of TradeDoubler shares accepting the offer.

Shares in TradeDoubler, founded in 1999 and listed in 2005, were trading 14.7 percent higher at 12:50 p.m. GMT at 227 crowns - over the agreed deal price - pointing to hopes of a rival offer or the need for a sweetener from AOL.

AOL declined to comment on the shareholder opposition and any possible effect on its bid.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Wal-Mart trashes garbage

Fred Harteis Business News - Wal-Mart and the city of San Francisco do not have much in common, but there is this -- both are working to achieve zero waste.

They aren't alone. The Australian territory of Canberra, a third of local governments in New Zealand, the cities of Oakland and Berkeley, a bunch of small towns in California, and Carrboro, N.C., ("Paris of the Piedmont") all have embraced a goal of zero waste.

But what is zero waste? It's just what it sounds like -- the idea that we can design, produce, consume and recycle products without throwing anything away. It's the idea that industry should mimic nature, so that, as the writer Joel Makower put it, "one species' detritus is another's pantry."

Zero waste may sound like a crazy `dream, but you can glimpse how a zero waste world might work if you know where to look. Outerwear manufacturer Patagonia makes fleece out of recycled plastic bottles. Herman Miller's Mirra and Celle office chairs can be disassembled in a few minutes for recycling.

Xerox, which aims to "create waste-free products in waste-free facilities," says on its website that it kept 107 million pounds of waste out of landfills in 2005 by reusing and recycling machines, equipment and parts.

This isn't a new idea. Sanitation workers used to be called scavengers because they resold everything of value they found. Biologist and activist Barry Commoner wrote about zero waste in a 1971 book called The Closing Circle.

But it is a radical idea. The Grass Roots Recycling Network, a group of waste-reduction activists, says: "Zero waste challenges the whole idea of endless consumption without needing to say so," and "poses a fundamental challenge to 'business as usual.'"

Interesting, then, that this crusade is getting a boost from Bentonville, Ark.

Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott has set a long-term goal of zero waste as part of the giant retailer's march towards sustainability. Over the next two years, Wal-Mart wants to reduce solid waste from its U.S. stores by 25 percent.

Scott's reasoning is simple: "If we had to throw it away, we had to buy it first. So we pay twice, once to get it, once to take it away." To Wal-Mart, less waste means lower costs.

The company's efforts have begun to bear fruit -- in part by actually recycling fruit.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis:   Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - House passes minimum-wage hike bill

Fred Harteis Business News - The House of Representatives passed the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 by a wide margin on Wednesday afternoon.

The bill raises the minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour in three increments over two years and two months.

The act, introduced by Congressman George Miller (D.-Calif.), passed by a vote of 315 to 116 after a day of spirited debate. The last time the minimum wage was raised was 1997.

Miller, on the House floor, called it a historic vote that had waited 10 years. He said it was simply "an up-or-down vote saying whether the poorest people working in the country deserve a raise."

A vote in the Senate, where the Democratic majority holds a much slimmer 51 to 49 advantage, is not expected until after a vote on the lobbying reform bill, which is expected at the end of next week, according to a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

President Bush has signaled his willingness to sign a minimum-wage increase if the Democrat-controlled congress offers tax and regulatory concessions to small businesses.

In a sign of the bill's wide popularity in the House, 82 Republicans joined 233 Democrats to vote for it, while 116 Republicans voted against. Additionally, four members of Congress recorded no votes.

But many Republicans, in the minority for the first time since 1994, spoke out against government "interference" in the labor market.

Howard McKeon, in an effort to thwart the legislation, proposed an alternative minimum-wage hike that would have created a small business health care plan. The motion was defeated on a voice vote.

A minimum-wage increase is part of the House Democrats' promise to push through six pieces of legislation within the first 100 hours in power.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who had garnered support for the issue in June while the Democrats were still the minority party in Congress, said passing a mininum-wage increase now was important to "honor the work of Americans."

Sen. Ted Kennedy, in a press conference before the vote, called the bill a matter of both "family values" and "civil rights," citing the large proportion of black and Hispanic workers the minimum wage affects.

In the Senate on Wednesday, the Finance Committee held a hearing on tax incentives for small business. The tax breaks discussed included a repeal of the estate tax, a repeal of the alternative minimum tax and a measure to make small business expensing levels higher.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Tired of Google and Yahoo? Try Cranky.com

Fred Harteis Business - A media firm catering to people over the age of 50 has launched a new search engine on Tuesday geared to Baby Boomers and seniors. And the name says it all: Cranky.com.

Eons, the media company behind Cranky.com, said that the new search engine will yield fewer search results and rank them based on their relevancy to older Web users.

Eons was started by Jeff Taylor, the founder and former chairman of online job site Monster.com, which is owned by Monster Worldwide.

Taylor said in a written statement that the company teamed up with online consumer research firm Compete to find the 5000 most popular Web sites among a group of 500,000 Web users aged 45 and older and rated each site in order to create Cranky.com.

According to the Cranky.com Web site, the top requested searches for Web users over the age of 50 last year show some similarities to the most popular searches on sites like Google and Yahoo - searches about blogs and making new friends were among the top ten searches on Cranky.com-rated sites, for example.

But there were also several key differences between what's interesting to younger Web users and the older ones that Cranky.com is targeting. While Paris Hilton and Britney Spears were top celebrity searches on Yahoo and Google, author Stephen King was the most searched celebrity according to Cranky.com. Other popular searches on Cranky.com were for information about brain builder mental exercises and jobs after retirement.

The new search engine, like many popular online sites geared at younger viewers, also features social networking tools and an answers function that lets users get responses to direct questions.

In a telephone interview, Taylor said that he felt that many other online media firms have not focused as much as they should on Baby Boomers and that this is a mistake.

"A lot of people in the Baby Boomer market have kids who are using search engines and social networking sites so it's not like there isn't awareness of the Web," adding that there are approximately 44 million people over the age of 50 who use the Internet frequently.

But why did Taylor choose Cranky.com? Doesn't the name Cranky feed into a bit of a stereotype about older people?

"Why the name Cranky? Because I get 'cranky' when I get lost in the search quagmire, too," said Taylor, who is 46, in the statement. "I know it's tongue-in-cheek, but you'll never forget the name. And, when I discovered the word 'rank' nestled in the middle of 'cranky', I knew it was the right name."

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Gap shares surge nearly 10% on sale speculation

Fred Harteis Business News - Shares of struggling apparel retailer Gap Inc. surged nearly 10 percent Monday after a news report said the company had hired Goldman Sachs to help it explore strategic alternatives, including sale of the company.

CNBC, citing unnamed sources, said the investment bank was hired prior to Christmas.

Gap shares took off on the report, jumping 9.6 percent in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Gap shares rose slightly more than 10 percent last year.

Gap spokesman Greg Rossiter said the company typically doesn't comment on rumors or speculation.

"However, we've had a relationship with Goldman Sachs since 1995. We also have ongoing relationships with other top banks as you could well imagine for a company of our size," Rossiter said.

It's no secret that San Francisco-based Gap has been plagued with a protracted string of sales declines at its namesake stores.The company operates more than 3,000 stores in the United States, including its Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, and Forth & Towne divisions

Last week, the No. 1 apparel seller posted December sales at its stores open at least a year - a key retail measure known as same-store sales - that tumbled 8 percent on top of a 2 percent same-store sales decline in November.

Further, Gap warned on its full-year profit, citing its sales shortfall over the crucial fourth-quarter holiday shopping period that accounts more as much as 50 percent of retailers' annual profits and sales.

Given the disappointing sales, profits and traffic trends, CEO Paul Pressler said in a statement last week that the company has initiated a review of brand strategies for both its Gap and Old Navy units.

Industry watchers have blamed Gap's woes on poor merchandising decisions and Pressler's inability to effect a turnaround at the Gap division. Some analysts recently commented that the time had arrived for Gap's management to seriously consider a change at the top - meaning a replacement for Pressler.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis:   Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - U.S. gas prices seen leveling out

Fred Harteis Business News - The average retail price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States rose over the past three weeks, but at a slower pace and could be poised for a reversal in coming weeks, according to a leading industry analyst.

The national average for self-serve, regular, unleaded gas was $2.32 a gallon on Jan. 5, up nearly 3 cents per gallon since mid-December, according to the nationwide Lundberg survey of about 7,000 gas stations.

The pace of the rise in average gasoline prices slowed to about 1 cent per week, according to the most recent survey. Prices had been rising more quickly since the post-summer decline bottomed out at about $2.18 a gallon on Nov. 3, survey editor Trilby Lundberg said.

The recent drop in crude oil prices is being passed on to wholesale customers, including distributors, Lundberg said. "We can already see in some locations these wholesale price cuts being passed on to retailers."

The wholesale price of unbranded gasoline in the Midwest was down 16 cents a gallon, Lundberg said.

However, she noted that the trickle down to retailers can be reversed if crude oil prices do not remain down at current levels.

Consumers could begin to see a decline in gasoline prices at the pumps as long as harsher winter weather does not suddenly appear, and as long as OPEC lacks the discipline to enforce its own production cuts, Lundberg said.

"That pass through of lower crude oil prices would continue and accelerate and we could see a drop of 5 cents to 10 cents per gallon at the pump in the very near future," Lundberg said.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Skilled worker shortage hurts U.S.

Fred Harteis Business News - The biggest problem with job growth right now isn't too few new jobs. It's too few skilled workers.

The Labor Department's December employment report Friday showed stronger than expected job and wage growth, with a net gain of 167,000 jobs in the month, and average hourly wages up 4.2 percent from a year ago. But even in this report, the pace of job gains was showing signs of slowing down.

The fourth quarter gain was below the third quarter and 2006 saw 143,000 fewer jobs added to payrolls than in 2005, or almost a month's worth of hiring. And that's a comparison to a year in which hurricanes Katrina and Rita took a bite out of jobs.

In addition, one survey earlier in the week from employment service ADP released Wednesday showed U.S. private sector employment shrank in December, the first decline in 3-1/2 years.

But many economists and labor market experts say that job growth and the economy overall would be significantly stronger if employers could find the skilled workers they really need.

"I'm hearing across the board, across industries, companies indicating they can't exploit market opportunity because they can't find people with the right skills," said Jeff Summer, an executive at Deloitte Consulting who leads the firm's management practice. He said that there's virtually no long-term unemployment for skilled workers.

"It's down to the nub already," he said. "Supply and demand is completely out of whack."

Some experts say part of the blame for the slowdown in the economy in last year's second half can be laid on labor constraints - companies couldn't expand as fast as they wanted due to a lack of workers with the right skills.

Anthony Chan, chief economist for JPMorgan Private Client Services, said employers are constantly citing the inability to find the workers they need as one of their top problems, if not their biggest worry.

Businesses "feel there's real [unmet] demand out there," he said, adding that "economic growth would be faster" if there wasn't this tight supply of workers.

The unemployment rate in December stayed at 4.5 percent. But the rate for college-educated workers was just 1.9 percent in December, near the rate for that group in 1998 and 1999, when the economy was white-hot. The lowest rate for college grads on record was 1.5 percent in three months during 2000.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis:  Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - United Airlines to report loss because of storms

Fred Harteis Business News- United Airlines' parent UAL said on Friday it expects to post a modest operating loss for the fourth quarter after snowstorms at its two main hubs cut revenue by about $40 million.

United and its United Express service canceled about 3,900 flights in Chicago and in Denver because of the late December storms, the company said.

Wall Street was expecting the company to report a profit of 18 cents per share for the fourth-quarter, according to Reuters Estimates.

For the month of December, United reported an overall load factor - a measurement of how full its planes are - of 79.6 percent, down from 80 percent in the same month a year before.

Total scheduled revenue passenger miles - the standard measurement of an airline's business - fell by 0.8 percent from a year ago.

Over the last year, United's stock has gained 7 percent. Competitor Delta is up 103 percent; American is up 67.5 percent; and Southwest Airlines is down 5.5 percent.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Warm winter chills holiday sales

Fred Harteis Business News - Warm-weather woes and lack of a pronounced fashion trend took a big bite out of clothing sellers in the critical December holiday sales period - but sales at discounters such as Costco and Wal-Mart benefited from this year's price wars, especially in the electronics and toy categories.

According to weather tracking firm Planalytics, the warmest December in at least 10 years resulted in a shopping environment for the 2006 holiday period that strongly favored demand for nonseasonal merchandise.

November and December together account for as much as 50 percent of retailers' annual profits and sales.

As a result, the apparel sector suffered the most from last month's unseasonably warm temperatures and wet conditions.

"Weather was part of the problem but there was also a modest decrease in consumer spending last month which dented sales at specialty stores," said Richard Hastings, senior retail analyst with Bernard Sands.

Sales at No. 1 apparel seller Gap Inc. tumbled 8 percent last month despite heavy discounting throughout November and December. Citing the sales shortfall, the company cut its full-year profit forecast to 83 to 88 cents a share, down from its earlier forecast of $1.01 to $1.06 a share.

Given the disappointing sales and traffic trends at its Gap and Old Navy stores, Gap CEO Paul Pressler said in a statement that the company had initiated a review of brand strategies for both those divisions.

Women's clothing seller Chico's FAS posted a 2 percent drop in December sales at its stores open at least a year, which is a widely watched measure of retail performance also known as same-store sales.

Sales at teen apparel seller Hot Topic fell a worse than expected 5.1 percent versus analysts' expectations for a 3.4 percent decline. The retailer slashed its fourth-quarter profit guidance to 20 to 22 cents a share, down from its earlier estimate of 33 to 38 cents a share.

Source; Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Baucus, Grassley introduce bill to repeal AMT

Fred Harteis Business News -  A bipartisan group of senators on Thursday introduced a bill calling for the death of the stealth tax that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have criticized.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, ranking Republican and former committee chairman Charles Grassley and three other committee members introduced legislation to fully repeal the AMT as of 2007.

"This bill is really a bellwether for one of the Finance Committee's biggest priorities this year. This Congress intends to provide tax relief to middle-income Americans in a fiscally responsible way, and the AMT is the right place to start," Sen. Baucus said in a statement.

The bill is similar to one the group introduced in 2005.

On the House side, Charles Rangel, the new chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, has said repeatedly that fixing the AMT is a priority.

The AMT imposes a higher bill on taxpayers than the regular tax code. The tax, originally intended for the wealthy, now threatens to catch tens of millions of middle-class taxpayers unless lawmakers increase the AMT income exemption levels, since the original levels were never adjusted for inflation.

So far, Congress has been issuing temporary annual "patches." For tax year 2006, for instance, in addition to allowing certain personal credits to offset AMT liability, they raised the AMT income exemption levels to $42,500 for single filers, up from $40,450, and to $62,550 for joint filers, up from $58,000.

But if no other changes are made, the exemption levels for tax year 2007 will drop to $35,750 for single filers and $45,000 for married filers, and the personal credits will be disallowed.

As a result, the number of taxpayers nabbed by AMT will jump from 3.5 million in 2006 to 23 million for tax year 2007 and to 39 million by 2017, according to the Tax Policy Center. That assumes President Bush's tax cuts implemented since 2001 expire as scheduled. If they don't, then 53 million taxpayers -- or about half of all taxpayers -- will pay the AMT by 2017.

Those hardest hit: married couples with kids who take a lot of the deductions and credits disallowed under AMT. The Tax Policy Center estimates that by 2010 nearly 90 percent of married couples with two or more children and an adjusted gross income between $75,000 and $100,000 will be subject to AMT.

The cost of full repeal is not cheap, and it could thwart the chances of balancing the federal budget by 2012.

The Tax Policy Center estimates that repealing the AMT would cost $945 billion between now and 2017, assuming the tax cuts are allowed to expire. If they're extended, the projected cost over 10 years rises to $1.7 trillion.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis:  Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Super prices for Super Bowl ads

Fred Harteis Business News- The National Football League playoffs begin this weekend, and Super Bowl XLI is only about a month away.

But while sports junkies argue about which teams will wind up playing in the big game in Miami on February 4, many business people and casual fans are more concerned about the advertising frenzy associated with the Super Bowl - that is, which companies will have commercials airing during the game and how much are they paying to do so.

According to several media buyers, CBS, which will air Super Bowl XLI, is said to be asking for slightly higher than the record $2.5 million that Walt Disney-owned ABC charged last year for a 30-second spot during Super Bowl XL.

"I'm hearing that ads are being sold for more than last year," said Bill Carroll, vice president and director of programming with Katz Television Group, a media buying and consulting firm based in New York. "It's not going to be a dramatic increase but informally, people from advertising agencies as well as CBS have said it will probably be a new record."

John Bogusz, executive vice president for sports sales and marketing for CBS, confirmed that some advertisers are paying more than $2.6 million for a 30-second commercial. He added that most of the commercial spots for the first half of the game are sold out but that CBS is still looking to sell inventory, mainly during the fourth quarter.

But other ad experts were quick to point out that, even though CBS may be able to charge as much as $2.6 million for some spots, the average rate for a 30-second commercial is likely to be lower than that.

"I'm hearing a rate of $2.6 million but how many advertisers actually will be paying that is tough to gauge. Most people get some sort of discount," said Jordan Breslow, director of broadcast research with MediaCom, a media buying firm that is part of ad agency WPP Group.

To that end, one media buying source, who asked not to be named, said that CBS was more likely to average between $2.2 million and $2.3 million for a 30-second spot and could wind up with an average price as low as $1.8 million to $2 million.

Bogusz would not comment on how much the average price for a Super Bowl commercial would wind up being since the network is still in negotiations with advertisers.

"We're doing well but can't rest until all the advertising units are sold," he said.

Still, advertisers appear willing to pay premium prices for ads since the Super Bowl remains the one broadcast event that is guaranteed to not only generate a huge number of viewers but an audience that actually tends to be interested in the commercials since advertisers pull out all the stops creatively in order to attract buzz.

Last year's game was watched by 90.7 million people, according to Nielsen Media Research, the most since 1996.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Microsoft, Ford partnership believed close

Fred Harteis Business News- Ford Motor is set to announce a partnership with Microsoft to provide greater wireless connectivity to its lineup of vehicles, according to a published report.

The Wall Street Journal reported the wireless offering will be called Sync and will allow for hands-free cell phone communication and other wireless information transfers inside the car, including the ability to receive email and download music.

The automakers have been trying to attract buyers with greater entertainment and wireless communication options, including ports for MP3 music players in traditional car stereo systems, DVD video players for backseat passengers and satellite radio offerings.

The Ford-Microsoft agreement could provide a lift to both companies in the competitive challenges facing them.

Ford, which is looking for ways to stem losses and market share declines, is hoping that the wireless offering is a way to differentiate itself from some of its competitors, while Microsoft is looking for a way to promote its technology as the best platform for everything from entertainment to data storage. It introduced the Zune MP3 player this past year as it battles competitors such as Apple Computer for sales of MP3 music players and music downloads.

Ford saw its U.S. sales plunge nearly 8 percent in the first 11 months of 2006, and in November it finished fourth in U.S. sales, behind not only General Motors, the traditional No. 1 U.S. automaker, but also Toyota Motor and DaimlerChrysler. It is expected to fall behind Toyota on a more permanent basis in 2007 sales.

The Journal reports that the system will debut in early 2007 as an option on at least two Ford brand models that are to be refreshed early in the year, the Focus and Five Hundred sedans. It is expected to offer the system as an option on the entire Ford brand lineup, including trucks, starting in the 2008 model year, which will hit showrooms in the late summer and early fall.

Ford spokeswoman Sara Tatchio declined to comment to the Journal on any partnership. Microsoft spokesman Chris Elliott said the company has been working with Ford on certain technologies and will have an announcement at the Detroit auto show and Las Vegas's Consumer Electronics Show the week of Jan. 8, but declined to discuss specifics.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - U.S. jobless claims inch higher

Fred Harteis Business News - The number of workers applying for jobless benefits rose a smaller-than-expected 1,000 to 317,000 in the week ended Dec. 23, according to a Labor Department report on Thursday that showed a stable job market.

The prior week's jobless claims number was revised up by 1,000. Wall Street economists had forecast that claims in the Dec. 23 week would be a seasonally adjusted 320,000.

The four-week moving average of claims, considered a more reliable indicator because it irons out temporary fluctuations, declined to 315,750 in the week ended Dec. 23, from 326,000 in the prior week.

The number of people filing for continuing claims rose to 2.53 million in the week ended Dec. 16 - the most recent week these data were available - from 2.51 million the prior week. That was the highest level since late January, when this number hit 2.55 million.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis:   Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News -An unexpected Wal-Mart boost

Fred Harteis Business News - Wal-Mart Stores said Saturday that its sales for the crucial holiday period will probably grow by 1.6 percent, a stronger than expected result for the nation's leading retailer.

The company originally forecast that sales at stores open for more than a year, an important industry barometer called same-store sales, would grow at most by 1 percent.

Retail winners and losers

The Saturday announcement is a needed dose of good news for the retailer and the retail sector at large.

Despite Wal-Mart's early holiday price-cutting, the world's largest retailer failed to generate the sales it sorely needed in November. Wal-Mart  posted a dismal 0.1 percent dip in same-store sales.

Other retailers seem to have suffered as well. Weather problems affected Gap. A flat screen TV price war is also expected to have taken a toll on electronics retailers like Circuit City and Best Buy.

The National Retail Federation expects that total holiday sales rose 5 percent this year, slower than last year's 6.1 percent increase.

It's been different on the Internet. Consumers spent 26 percent more online during the 56 days before Dec. 26 in 2006 compared to 2005, according to comScore Networks, a digital research firm. And they set a single-day record of $667 million in online sales on Dec. 11.

Source: cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News Articles - Microsoft reportedly pushing targeted ads

Fred Harteis Business News - Microsoft Corp. is making a global push to sell targeted online advertisements using data gathered from users of its Hotmail e-mail service, according to a published report.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, is aiming to grab a bigger slice of the online advertising market for its msn.com news page and other Microsoft-owned sites. It currently lags behind Google and Yahoo.

The company has begun combining personal data from the 263 million users of its free Hotmail e-mail service with information gained from monitoring their searches, the paper said.

For advertisers, combining these two sets of information could allow them to better target the ads they send to people's computers and avoid wasting people's time with irrelevant ads, the paper quoted Chris Dobson, Microsoft's global head of advertising sales, as saying.

Microsoft is using the information to sell ad space on Microsoft Web pages, including msn.com and Hotmail, the paper said.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Markets to mark day of mourning for Ford

Fred Harteis Business News - The nation's financial markets will be closed Tuesday to honor former President Gerald Ford, marking a rare four-day closing for U.S. trading.

The New York Stock Exchange said Friday it will be closed on Jan. 2 for the national day of mourning for the 38th president, a day after the Nasdaq stock market said it also will be closed.

Over the last century, the markets have traditionally closed to commemorate the death of a past or sitting president.

Ford, who became the first non-elected U.S. president in 1974, after the threat of impeachment forced the resignation of Richard Nixon, died this week on Tuesday at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., at age 93.

Separately, the Federal Reserve will be closed Tuesday and has delayed the release of the minutes from its December meeting to Wednesday at 2 p.m. EST. The Fed's 12 regional banks will remain open Tuesday.

With Monday's New Year's Day holiday and Tuesday's closing, the markets will be closed for an unusual four days.

Aside from the stock exchanges, the commodities and futures markets said their main operations will be shut down for the day.

The New York Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange all said their floor trading operations will be closed. The New York Merc metals and energy futures and options markets will close early on Friday.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis:  Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Stores cut prices to meet holiday sales goals

Fred Harteis Business News - A last-minute buying binge may have delivered a stellar final weekend of holiday sales but total retail sales gains for the 2006 holiday shopping period still fell short versus last year.

According to SpendingPulse, the retail data service provider for MasterCard Advisors, retail sales from the day after Thanksgiving through Dec. 24, excluding automobiles, grew about 6.6 percent this year -- softer than last year's 8.7 percent increase.

But the season's not over yet and analysts expect stores will slash prices in post-Christmas "clearance" sales to unload merchandise.

For instance, Sears on Tuesday is giving shoppers special "cash-back" offers on home appliances.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, already initiated "clearance" sales on digital cameras, toys, DVD camcorders and a few flatscreen TV models.

And Toys "R" Us set 50 percent off on a variety of toys this week.

"Retailers have learned that it's risky not to promote post-Christmas. Believe it or not, there are plenty of consumers who will go shopping for gifts after Christmas," said Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst with market research firm NPD Group.

Also merchants recognize that gift cards have become a key component of the after-Christmas period.

The NRF said it expects gift card sales will total $24.81 billion this holiday season, a $6 billion increase over last year. But retailers can't record sales from gift cards until the cards are actually redeemed.

Analysts said consumers this week can expect retailers to set additional deals to lure in gift card sales and clear surpluses.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Fork over that gift card

Fred Harteis Business News - U.S. retailers have released a flood of advertisements this week urging consumers to spend their gift cards quickly, so that the companies issuing them can write off the income as 2006 revenue and pocket the last few shopping dollars of the season.

"If [retailers] don't get [consumers] to cash gift cards this week they won't be able to count it as December revenue," BigResearch Vice President Philip Rist said in an interview. "It is a challenge for them."

An estimated $24.8 billion will be spent by consumers on gift cards this year, up 34.1 percent from $18.5 billion in 2005, according to a BigResearch survey commissioned by the National Retail Federation.  But accounting rules prohibit retailers from counting money from gift card sales as revenue until the cards are redeemed.

Some $12 billion worth of gift cards - about half the dollar amount bought - will go unused into January if this season follows last year's trend, Rist said.

Companies are turning to television and newspaper ads to urge customers to use their gift cards quickly, which can help the retailers pile on revenue to meet their December-quarter expectations, Rist said.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Sears Holdings Corp.  have rolled out television ads encouraging gift card holders to redeem their cards.

Home Depot Inc.'s newspaper ad asked customers to redeem their gift cards by Jan. 28 and promised to donate 5 percent of the gift card's value to U.S. troops.

Even though U.S. accounting rules restrict retailers from recording the sale of a gift card until it has been redeemed, some stores wait until the chance that it will be used becomes remote before counting it as revenue.

Known as gift card breakage in accounting terms, it can sometimes take years for a company to recognize revenue this way.

Home Depot recognized $49 million in revenue from breakage in the first nine months of 2005 and $24 million for the same period in 2006. Best Buy Inc. recorded $29 million in the same category for the third quarter of 2005.

Any post-holiday revenue from gift card redemption could spell good news for retailers who have had a less-than-spectacular holiday selling season.

Some stores also see gift card redemption as a way to lure customers into their stores for impulse buying, said retail analyst Kurt Barnard, president of the Retail Forecasting Group.

"Once the customer comes to the store, there is the theory that they see things beyond what their gift cards allow and so they spend more," Barnard said.

A good number of post-Christmas gift card redemptions are for full-price merchandise worth more than the value of the card.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - DVD players overtake VCRs

Fred Harteis Business News - The popularity of DVD players has surpassed VCRs in U.S. homes, according to a survey released by Nielsen Media Research.

The research company's third-quarter technology report said 81 percent of U.S. households own a DVD player, while 79 percent own VCRs.

"This study shows the culmination of a long battle for share of consumers," said Paul Lindstrom, senior vice president of custom research for Nielsen Media Research. "We now see that the popularity of DVDs has finally surpassed that of VCRs."

DVD ownership has risen 6 percent since last year and continues to increase while the use of VCRs has started to decline, the survey said.

When Nielsen began tracking DVD ownership in 1999, less than 7 percent of households owned a DVD player and nearly 89 percent of households owned VCRs.

The report showed that DVD households now rent DVDs twice per month, while VCR households rent VHS tapes only once a month.

The survey also reported that 73 percent of homes currently have a computer. Homes with children and teens are more likely to have a computer.

Ninety-five percent of consumers with Internet access go online at least once a week, and 37 percent of Internet users go online more than once a day, the survey said.

The No. 1 U.S. movie rental company, Blockbuster Inc., announced earlier in December that it is offering free in-store rentals to subscribers of online rival Netflix Inc.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Does Microsoft Own RSS?

Fred Harteis Business News - If you've added headlines from a news site to My Yahoo, or subscribe to blogs on a site like Bloglines, you've used RSS, a technology that's growing increasingly popular for distributing headlines and articles from blogs, news websites, and more. But now, two recently published patent applications reveal, Microsoft (MSFT) is claiming it invented RSS.

The applications, filed last June but just made public yesterday, cover subscribing and discovering what Microsoft calls "Web feeds." That comes as a bit of a shock to anyone who's been working on RSS, which has its origins in a format developed seven years ago at Netscape Communications.

Microsoft executive Don Dodge, while not involved in the patent applications, says he suspects the filings were made to defend the company against "patent trolls". (The filings were made shortly before Microsoft announced plans to build RSS technology into its upcoming Vista operating system.) Still, if granted, the patents would give Microsoft a legal cudgel to wield against other companies using RSS.

That's a long shot, however: "Prior art," the patent-law term for earlier examples of the technology in use, should be easy to show, since RSS has been around for years. The most likely outcome will be that Microsoft's patent is rejected - and no one else will be able to patent RSS, either, keeping the technology free for everyone to use.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Holiday online sales surge to $21.6B

Fred Harteis Business News - Online shopping got a big late-season surge as many more holiday procrastinators turned to the Internet to wrap up their gift buying, according to the latest report from market research firm ComScore Networks.

During the first 50 days of the season, total online retail spending, excluding travel-related purchases, reached $21.68 billion, up 26 percent from a year earlier, the firm said.

ComScore said the popular gift categories that shoppers were targeting online included jewelry and watches, videogame consoles, electronics, event tickets and toys.

Flat-panel TVs: Five top picks

On Dec. 11, consumers set a single-day record of $661 million for online spending. Two days later, that record was broken as consumers spent $667 million online.

As a result, the firm revised its online holiday sales forecast higher to $24.6 billion, or an increase of 25 percent over the same period last year. ComScore initially had expected holiday sales on the Internet to grow 24 percent to $24.3 billion.

"The strategy of luring holiday shopping procrastinators with extended shipping guarantees paid off handsomely for online retailers," Gian Fulgoni, chairman of ComScore, said in a statement.

How to succeed in 2007

"That we are seeing above-average growth rates this late in the holiday season is clear evidence that consumers have strong faith in the ability of online retailers to 'deliver the goods,'" he said.

Source; Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - PS3, Wii: Forget holidays, think spring

Fred Harteis Business News  - Shoppers are standing in lines to snap up Sony Corp's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s Wii video game consoles as they become available, and some analysts do not expect shortages to ease until March or later.

Shoppers are finding lots of PlayStation 2s and Microsoft Xbox 360s, expected to do well as substitutes for the newest machines that are in short supply.

One employee at a Target store said the retailer issues a memo a couple of days in advance of Wii and PS3 shipments and passes the information on to shoppers, who sometimes stand in line to secure their booty.

A Nintendo struggle: Wee hours ... Wii problem

As he spoke, shoppers snapped up PlayStation Portables and Apple Computer Inc.  iPods.

American Technology Research analyst Paul-Jon McNealy said that since Sony shipment numbers include units in transit or in warehouses, the company's target of 1 million could translate to 600,000 to 800,000 units at retail by year end.

McNealy said investors and game makers tempered their forecasts for the PS3s since initial numbers fell short. He added that the PS3 will likely remain scarce through the June quarter.

"They have to launch in Europe, and they're stretched," said McNealy.

Wii shortages could ease in the March quarter, he said.

Workers at a dozen Southern California stores, including Best Buy, GameStop and Target  outlets, said PS3 shipments were small and sporadic this shopping season, ranging from as few as 1 or 2 to 25, and that shoppers snapped up consoles as they arrived.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis:  Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Chrysler recalls over 68,000 new cars

Fred Harteis Business News - DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group said it would recall more than 68,000 of its newest vehicles, including the just-released Dodge Nitro sport utility vehicle and the Jeep Compass.

Chrysler said that 62,339 vehicles from its 2007 model-year line-up would be recalled to fix a brake system problem it said could cause drivers to lose control.

Chrysler said 11 models across all three of its brands were affected by the recall with notices scheduled to go out to registered owners in February.

In addition to the Nitro and the Compass, 2007 models covered by the recall are the Chrysler Sebring, Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger, Dodge Magnum, Dodge Caliber, Jeep Commander, Jeep Grand Cherokee and Jeep Liberty, the company said.

Chrysler said some of the vehicles could suffer a failure of a computer that controls the brakes, causing a loss of anti-lock and brake distribution systems, traction control and speedometer functions.

The automaker said no accidents or injuries have been reported as a result of the brake glitch.

The company said owners of the models covered by the recall should take their vehicles to Chrysler Group dealers for inspection if the instrument panel warning light is illuminated.

Separately, Chrysler said it would recall 6,086 of its Sebring sedans to reprogram the heating and cooling systems because of a problem with windshield defrosting.

The company said owners would be notified of the recall in January.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Bush signs $40 billion tax bill

Fred Harteis Business News - President Bush signed a nearly $40 billion tax and trade bill that renews for two years a host of expired business tax credits and popular individual tax breaks, and introduces a new, one-year itemized deduction for mortgage insurance premiums.

The main component of the tax portion is the research and development credit for businesses. But it also includes education and sales tax deductions.

The tax breaks had expired at the end of 2005 and were originally tossed out of a $70 billion tax relief bill that passed last May to allow for the cost of extending the reduced tax rate on capital gains and dividends.

Congress extended the tax breaks for two years beginning retroactively on Jan. 1, 2006.

Here's a look at the deductions in the legislation that will benefit individuals:

Tuition deduction

The tuition deduction is an above-the-line deduction for qualified higher education expenses, meaning it can be taken even if you don't itemize deductions on your federal return.

The deduction may be taken on a maximum of $4,000 in tuition and fees for taxpayers with adjusted gross income (AGI) of $65,000 or less ($130,000 for married couples filing jointly) or $2,000 for taxpayers with AGIs of $80,000 or less ($160,000 for married couples).

The tuition deduction may not be taken for expenses for which you are claiming an education credit (e.g., the HOPE or lifetime learning credits). You must choose one or the other if you qualify for both.

State and local sales tax deduction

The extension would give taxpayers the option on their federal return of deducting either what they paid in state and local income tax or what they paid in state and local general sales taxes, whichever is higher.  This provision has been of greatest advantage to taxpayers who live in the handful of states that don't impose an income tax and to those who live in states with high sales taxes and relatively low income taxes.  There are nine states without personal income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

Teachers' classroom deduction

The provision allows elementary and secondary teachers to continue to deduct their out-of-pocket costs -- up to $250 -- for buying classroom supplies. As with the tuition break, it is an above-the-line deduction and can be taken even if you don't itemize deductions on your federal return.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Digital camera sales shoot up

Fred Harteis Business News - U.S. sales of digital cameras have beaten expectations so far this year and are poised to hit a record as lower prices encourage consumers to buy a more powerful second or third camera this holiday season, the NPD market research group said Wednesday.

Unit shipments of digital cameras rose 24 percent through the end of November, which includes "Black Friday" sales and the traditional first week of the holiday shopping season, the NPD said. Similar sales last year grew by 22 percent.

The surprising strength in the filmless cameras comes despite experts' projections one year ago that demand would start to slow - to perhaps about 20 percent in 2006 - as fewer consumers looked to replace older film cameras.

"The market is actually growing, with a combination of people buying for the second or third time, and first-time buyers really gunning it (demand)," said NPD senior imaging analyst Liz Cutting.

Cheaper prices are fueling sales in a holiday season where consumers are confronted with myriad electronics choices, ranging from tiny digital music players to videogame consoles to pricey flat-screen televisions.

A 6 megapixel camera, for example, is easily available for less than $150, half its price two years ago.

In all, over 30 million digital cameras will be sold this year, double that of 2003, the NPD said. In 2005, 25.2 million units were sold.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News  - Iraq war spending to approach record

Fred Harteis Business News -U.S. costs for the Iraq war are likely to exceed $110 billion in the 12-month period that ends in September, approaching the record reached in the 2006 fiscal year.

That amounts to more than $2 billion a week spent on the war.

White House Budget Director Rob Portman, speaking at a round table with reporters, also predicted that strong revenue growth would help bring down the overall U.S. budget deficit, offsetting some of the spending on Iraq.

Asked if he thought the deficit for fiscal year 2007 would come in below the forecast of $339 billion the White House gave in its mid-year budget snapshot in July, Portman replied, "Yes, I do."

Iraq war spending hit an all-time high of $120 billion in fiscal year 2006, which ended on Sept. 30.

The White House is scheduled to unveil its 2008 spending blueprint in early February. Along with the spending proposal, the administration will offer a fresh request for money for the war and will provide updated forecasts for the budget deficit.

Expenditures on the war are escalating, even as public support for the conflict falls.

Portman declined to comment on the costs that would be involved if 20,000 additional troops are sent to Iraq in the near future. Media reports have said that option is under consideration by President Bush, who will unveil an overhauled strategy for the war early in the new year.

Nearly four years into the Iraq war, Bush has maintained a practice of using emergency-spending bills to finance the costs of the war.

But the Iraq Study Group, a high-level panel that recommended a change in course for the war, also suggested that the Iraq war costs be included in the annual budget process to make them more transparent.

Democrats, who are set to take over Congress in January, have also pressed the administration to put the war costs into the regular budget.  The White House has resisted doing so, saying the costs are difficult to predict.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - DaimlerChrysler hit with $350M verdict

Fred Harteis Business News-  DaimlerChrysler will appeal the ruling of a U.S. court ordering it and its heavy truck-making unit Freightliner to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in a tangled multinational fraud case, a DaimlerChrysler spokeswoman said.

The Oregonian newspaper reported Saturday that a Multnomah County Circuit Court jury had found Freightliner liable for shifting assets among several of its divisions in a bid to avoid a legal judgment.

Freightliner and its parent company, DaimlerChrysler North American Holding Corp., were ordered to pay $350 million in punitive damages - an amount believed to be the largest such award ever in Oregon, the paper said.

The decision follows a British court ruling in the case last year ordering Freightliner, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, to pay at least 250 million pounds ($489 million) to German truck maker MAN AG.

"We are very disappointed by the jury's ruling," a DaimlerChrysler spokeswoman said Saturday, adding that Freightliner had never attempted to hide assets from MAN. Daimler's appeal on the ruling would be heard next year, she said.

"We are confident that we ultimately will be able to successfully show that there was absolutely no misconduct on Freightliner's part," the spokeswoman said.

A MAN spokesman said the jury's ruling was a further legal victory for MAN and a confirmation that Freightliner is liable for damages sustained by the rival German truck maker.

DaimlerChrysler, the world's largest maker of commercial trucks, was found liable for $280 million of the punitive damages, with the remaining $70 million assessed against Freightliner, the newspaper said. Final damages in the British case are expected to be determined next year, the paper said.

The Oregon court's ruling comes in the same week that DaimlerChrysler said it could lay off up to 4,000 Freightliner workers in North America next year in response to an expected 40-percent drop in orders for large trucks.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - How an iPhone could rock wireless

Fred Harteis Business News - If Steve Jobs' Apple decides to build a wireless phone, as widely rumored, the company has the chance to shake up not just the wireless device business - an industry dominated by the likes of Motorola and Nokia - it also could upend the entire wireless distribution model in the United States.

We know very little about the so-called iPhone. Apple isn't talking ("We don't comment on rumor and speculation," a spokesman told me) but we do know that wireless represents a huge opportunity - and threat - for Apple, and every other consumer electronics and computer maker.

Wireless phone makers increasingly are adding MP3 players to their devices, with the capability to download songs over the air. It certainly makes sense for Apple to want a piece of this action.

How Apple makes this happen is a topic of great swirl in tech and telecom circles. UBS telecom analyst John Hodulik recently published a report positing that Apple would seek to become a virtual phone company, buying airtime wholesale from Cingular and reselling wireless service, along with its new phone, sometimes in the first quarter of 2007.

Other rumors have Apple building a phone with built-in Wi-Fi service that would allow customers to make calls and download data and music from the free or cheap Wi-Fi networks proliferating in urban and suburban settings, bypassing traditional cellular networks. Both scenarios underscore Jobs' aversion to ceding control to telcos such as Cingular, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint, which exercise huge control over the entire wireless food chain in the U.S.

Or Apple could pursue a path similar to the one forged by traditional wireless phone makers, and sell its iPhone through the carriers - an option that probably doesn't appeal to Jobs, but gives him an opportunity to reach the largest possible number of U.S. consumers. But no matter how Apple decides to enter the wireless phone market, it is sure to change the status quo.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - O.J. Simpson publisher loses job

Fred Harteis Business News - Weeks after News Corp. scrapped plans for a book and TV interview in which O.J. Simpson described how he would have killed his ex-wife and her friend, the publisher behind the projects, Judith Regan, has been fired, HarperCollins said Friday.

Word of Regan's dismissal from the News Corp.-owned publishing house came in a terse press release headlined "HarperCollins Terminates Judith Regan." The statement said her termination was effective immediately. No explanation was given.

"The Regan publishing program and staff will continue as part of the HarperCollins General Books Group," the statement said. Regan was not immediately available for comment.

The move followed ill-fated plans unveiled last month for a book, titled If I Did It, and accompanying television interview featuring Simpson giving a hypothetical account of how he would have carried out the 1994 murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

The book had been set for release by Regan's imprint at HarperCollins, ReganBooks, on Nov. 30, following a two-part interview of Simpson by Regan on News Corp.'s Fox network.

But the publishing and TV venture drew a firestorm of criticism accusing News Corp. of seeking to capitalize on a human tragedy. Days after plans for the book and TV special were revealed, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch personally weighed in to announce both projects were being scrapped.

Murdoch said then that the book and TV deal were "ill-considered" and he apologized for any harm caused.

Simpson has always maintained that he was innocent and was acquitted of murder charges. But a civil court jury later found him liable for the deaths. 

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Dell delays quarterly report

Fred Harteis Business News - Computer maker Dell Inc. said Thursday it would delay filing its quarterly report with securities regulators because of investigations into accounting practices, pushing down its shares.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and the company's audit committee have raised questions about Dell's financial reporting.

Last month Dell delayed publishing third-quarter results amid the accounting probes. When it did report, nearly a week late, it said that results were preliminary and that it did not expect to file its quarterly report on time with the SEC.

Dell said in a filing with the SEC on Thursday that the agency has raised questions about reserves and other balance sheet items that may affect previously reported financial results.

The company also has not yet filed second-quarter earnings with the SEC.

Earlier this year, Dell recalled batteries made by Sony Corp. in the biggest-ever consumer electronics recall. It has had complaints of poor after-sales service and recently lost its status as the top PC maker to Hewlett-Packard Co.

This week Dell named a former EDS executive to lead its $5 billion-a-year computer services organization, the latest in new management hires. The company also said it would restructure its product groups into two segments - business and consumer - instead of along product lines the way it has long operated.

The company said in the filing that it had not made any determinations on restatements and added that it was cooperating with investigators.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News  - Panel calls for antidepressant warning

Fred Harteis Business News - Antidepressant drugs need warnings that they may raise the risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior in adults up to age 25, a U.S. advisory panel said Wednesday.

The information should be added to current "black box" warnings that say taking the drugs may increase such behavior or thoughts in children and teens shortly after treatment starts, the panel advised the Food and Drug Administration in a 6-2 vote. Antidepressants include Zoloft, made by Pfizer, and Eli Lilly's  Prozac and Cymbalta.

Sales topped $12.5 billion in 2005, according to health information company IMS Health. Some of the drugs come in generic versions.

The panel also endorsed an FDA proposal to note the hazards start declining after age 30 and that the drugs seem to provide protection against suicidal behavior in older patients, particularly after age 65. Several experts on the advisory panel said the warnings should state that untreated depression also can lead to serious consequences, including suicide.

"We want to extend the age in the black box and at the same time not discourage treatment," said panel member Dr. Andrew Leon, a psychiatrist at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York.

The FDA usually follows recommendations from its advisory panels. The panel deliberations followed testimony from angry and grieving family members who pleaded for strong warnings for all ages. Some said the FDA should have acted when the debate about suicidal behavior first emerged in the early 1990s.

Suzanne Gonzalez said her 40-year-old husband shot himself in the head shortly after he started taking GlaxoSmithKline's  Paxil. "I hold you all responsible for his death, and I always will," Gonzalez shouted at FDA officials and panelists seated around tables in a hotel meeting room.

"I keep asking myself ... what was my husband thinking? How crazy did you make him that morning that he would get up ... and do this to himself?" she said.

Psychiatrists warned against tough language that may scare patients from treatment. Millions now take antidepressants, but use declined after FDA-ordered warnings in 2004 about suicidal behavior in some youth.

Suicide rates have risen slightly even as prescriptions have fallen, some psychiatrists said. One FDA analysis estimated antidepressants could lead to 14 additional cases of suicidal thoughts or actions among every 1,000 patients treated under the age of 18. For ages 18 to 24, four additional cases could occur.

"A much greater risk of disrupted lives and suicides ... exists with untreated depression," Dr. Darrel Reiger, research director for the American Psychiatric Association, told the panel during public testimony.

Pfizer and Wyeth  said they had not seen a link between their drugs and suicidal thoughts or behavior in adult trials. Wyeth, which sells the antidepressant Effexor, would support some type of warning on all antidepressants about possible risks for young adults, said Dr. Philip Ninan, vice president for neuroscience at Wyeth's pharmaceutical unit.

Lilly said any warning should note both the risks of untreated depression and the benefits of treatment. Glaxo already has added information from a study showing young adults who took the drug in clinical trials were more likely to report suicidal behavior than those with a placebo.

Stocks of antidepressant makers were little changed or mixed in extended trading. The panel's recommendation for an updated warning came after the close of regular trading. 

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International.  Fred Harteis has a background in agriculture and has created many successful business ventures.

Fred Harteis Business News - Wal-Mart finds T.M.X. Elmo cache

Fred Harteis Business News - After experiencing an initial shortage of T.M.X. Elmo, one of the hottest toys this year, Wal-Mart announced Tuesday that it has landed the Elmo jackpot and will sell 4,000 dolls every day this week on its Web site.

According to the company, walmart.com will make the toys available "around noon E.T. on a first come, first serve basis" for $39.97 apiece.

Still, it doesn't mean you're likely to score T.M.X. easily on walmart.com.

One frustrated consumer and mother of a 20-month-old e-mailed CNNMoney.com that she "went to the Walmart Web site a few minutes before noon, and several times every few minutes thereafter ... and all I got was an OUT OF STOCK message."

Walmart.com currently lists T.M.X. as "out of stock."

In response for a comment, walmart.com's chief marketing officer Raul Vazquez said Elmo sold out a few minutes after the company made Tuesday's allotment available.