IMS: US medicine spending shows rare dip in 2012

TRENTON, N.J. — Spending on prescription medicines in the U.S. fell for the first time in decades last year, slipping as cash-strapped consumers continued to cut back on use of health care services.

Patients also benefited from a surge of new, inexpensive generic versions of widely used drugs for chronic conditions like high cholesterol, according to a new report.

Total spending on medications dropped to $325.8 billion last year from $329.2 billion in 2011. Likewise, average spending per person on medicines fell by $33, to $898 last year, according to the report from the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics.

"That's the first time IMS has ever measured the decline in the 58 years we've been monitoring drugs," Michael Kleinrock, director of research development at the institute, told The Associated Press.

Factors behind last year's drop in drug spending include positive trends such as more use of cheap generic pills and flukes such as a fairly mild cold and flu season in early 2012. But there also was a big negative: people rationing their own health care.

IMS found affordability of health care remains a big problem for many Americans, with growing out-of-pocket costs forcing people to go without needed doctor visits, medicines and other treatments.

For some, that was because they lost jobs or homes during the worst recession in decades. But higher costs also are hitting many employed people who have health insurance.

Employers have been raising health costs for their workers well above the inflation rate, through higher copayments, premiums and deductibles. Many commercial insurance plans now have annual deductibles — the amount a patient must pay before insurance kicks in — that exceed $1,000, Kleinrock said.

The number of insured people with consumer-directed plans, where patients face very high deductibles and sometimes pay 20 percent of costs after that, has jumped from about 8 percent in 2008 to 19 percent last year. Now many folks insured through their jobs have such plans, not just young, healthy people buying insurance on their own.

"Even patients with insurance are feeling the pinch and have been reducing their use of health care," Kleinrock said.

The report notes that out-of-pocket costs, which exclude monthly health plan premiums, are now three times higher than they were five years ago, on average. They're seven times higher for those with consumer-driven plans.

That's one reason the number of doctor visits, planned hospital admissions and outpatient treatments each dipped by a half-percent to 1 percent last year, compared with 2011.

At the same time, the number of patients admitted to hospitals after coming to the emergency department spiked for the second straight year, climbing nearly 6 percent in 2012. That's a sign some people are waiting until they are very sick to seek medical help.

Meanwhile, the number of prescriptions used per person last year edged down just 0.1 percent. At the same time, the percentage of all prescriptions filled with a generic medicine rose from 80 percent in 2011 to 84 percent last year. Nearly three-quarters of prescriptions filled in 2012 cost patients $10 or less in copayments.

A big reason was new generic versions of some of the pharmaceutical industry's biggest-selling drugs of all time: Lipitor for high cholesterol, Plavix for preventing blood clots and strokes, Singulair for allergies and asthma, Diovan for high blood pressure and several others.

Those brand-name drugs all lost patent protection during 2012 or late 2011, enabling generic drug companies to flood the market with copycat pills costing up to 90 percent less.

Those new generics reduced spending on medicines by $28.9 billion last year. That savings was partly offset by the introduction of a big number of breakthrough drugs that are very expensive, drugmakers raising prices on existing medicines and population growth.

IMS, based in Parsippany, N.J., compiles and analyzes data from pharmacies, hospitals, nursing homes, drug wholesalers and other groups to produce its annual report on health care spending trends.

Back in 1957, the first year IMS studied, total U.S. drug spending was only $1.9 billion. That's risen each year since, generally climbing more in years when the economy is strong.

For now, IMS is forecasting that overall spending on health care will continue to grow faster than spending on medicines at least through 2017. That's due to factors including the increasing number of elderly patients and those with very expensive chronic conditions such as diabetes, psychiatric disorders, severe heart disease and various cancers.

"The sickest people drive most of our health care spending," Kleinrock said, noting that just over half the total spending by private health insurance plans last year was for just 5 percent of their members.

___

Linda A. Johnson at http://twitter.comLindaJ_onPharma

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Detroit adds watches to the list of stuff it makes

DETROIT — Detroit has a long history of manufacturing — cars, steel, even popcorn.

Now, the city is home to a facility devoted to the production of an item not made at this scale in the U.S. for decades: the wristwatch.

The Dallas-based Shinola Company is manufacturing its Shinola brand of watches in Detroit.

Shinola officials say this year's watch production target is 45,000, to be sold online, at flagship stores in Detroit and New York and at fashion and jewelry retailers and department stores nationwide.

Early returns are positive. Shinola sold a limited-edition round of 2,500 watches in less than a week.

Either way, watchmaking, which hasn't been a thriving American industry for a while, once again appears to be ticking.

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

China's April auto sales rise 13 percent

BEIJING — China's auto sales rose 13 percent in April despite concern about a weak economic recovery and Japanese brands suffered less severe declines, an industry group reported Thursday.

Customers in the world's biggest auto market bought 1.4 million cars, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said. It said total auto sales showed "clear improvement" at 1.8 million vehicles but gave no details.

Global automakers are looking to China to drive revenues but competition is increasing after sales growth that spiked to 45 percent in 2009 declined to more sustainable rates.

"The data are a bit better than I expected but within a normal range. Demand in China is huge, so there is no problem with consuming capacity," said Jia Xinguang, an auto analyst in Beijing.

The sales gains came despite a decline in Chinese economic growth to 7.7 percent in the first three months of the year from 7.9 percent the previous quarter. Analysts say the recovery from the country's deepest slowdown since the 2008 global crisis is being shored up by state-led investment and bank lending.

Japanese automakers that have been hurt by tensions over a territorial dispute between Beijing and Tokyo suffered a 4.9 percent decline in overall sales from a year earlier. Still, that was an improvement over the previous month's 17.8 percent decline.

General Motors Co. reported earlier that April sales of GM-brand autos by the company and its Chinese partners rose 15.3 percent from a year earlier to 261,870 vehicles.

GM said this week its main Chinese joint venture, Shanghai GM, received government permission to build an 8 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) factory to build Cadillacs. The company has said it will make a priority of increasing Cadillac's share of China's fast-growing luxury car market.

Japan's Nissan Motor Co. said its April sales rose 2.7 percent to 102,800 vehicles, breaking a series of monthly declines. However, Nissan said sales for the first four months of the year were down 11 percent from the same period last year.

Ford Motor Co. said sales of Ford-brand vehicles by the company and its Chinese partners rose 37 percent over a year earlier to 75,331 vehicles. It said year-to-date sales were up 49 percent at 261,927 vehicles.

___(equals)

AP researcher Fu Ting in Shanghai contributed.

___(equals)

China Association of Automobile Manufacturers: www.caam.org.cn

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

US jobless aid applications fall to 5-year low

WASHINGTON — The number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits fell by 4,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 323,000, a fresh five-year low. Layoffs have returned to pre-recession levels, a trend that could lead to more hiring.

The Labor Department said Thursday that the four-week average, a less volatile figure, dropped 6,250 to 336,750. That the fewest since November 2007, before the recession began.

Applications are a proxy for layoffs. Weekly applications have fallen about 9 percent since November and are now at a level consistent with a healthy economy.

Economists were largely encouraged by the report.

"This is a very positive trend and we should embrace it," Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets, said in an email to clients.

The job market has also improved over the past six months. Net job gains have averaged of 208,000 a month from November through April. That's up from only 138,000 a month in the previous six months.

Still, much of the job growth has come from fewer layoffs — not increased hiring. Layoffs fell in January to the lowest level on records dating back 12 years, though they have risen moderately since then. At the same time, overall hiring remains far below pre-recession levels and unemployment remains high at 7.5 percent.

For hiring to increase enough to rapidly lower the unemployment rate, companies must gain more confidence in the economy. But some have held off adding new workers in recent months, possibly because of concerns about the impact of federal spending cuts and tax increases. And an increase in Social Security taxes could slow consumer spending, which drives nearly two-thirds of economic activity.

The Federal Reserve said last week that the federal government's policy changes are "restraining economic growth."

But Dean Maki, an economist at Barclays Capital, pointed out that the decline in unemployment aid applications suggests companies are not too worried about the fiscal drag. He notes they are responding to the government's actions by reducing hiring and cutting back on their employees' hours — not laying off workers. That means they anticipate the weakness will be temporary.

Still, even modest job gains could provide consumers with more money to offset the impact of the tax increase. Total wages rose 3.6 percent in April compared with a year earlier. That's comfortably ahead of the 1.5 percent inflation rate.

The economy grew at an annual rate of 2.5 percent from January through March, a big improvement from the anemic growth of 0.4 percent in the final three months of last year. But most economists expect growth will slow in the current quarter to 2 percent or lower.

About 4.9 million people collected unemployment aid in the week that ended April 20, the latest data available. That's about 90,000 fewer than the previous week.

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Drugmakers, health groups bring poor girls vaccine

TRENTON, N.J. — Two multinational drugmakers are teaming up with top global health groups to protect millions of girls in the world's poorest countries from deadly cervical cancer.

Starting with pilot programs in eight Asian and African nations, the ambitious project ultimately is intended to inoculate more than 30 million girls in more than 40 countries by 2020. Given that most women killed by cervical cancer live in developing countries, the project could have a huge impact.

The endeavor was announced Thursday by the GAVI Alliance, a public-private partnership that's worked with drugmakers to deliver affordable vaccines to poor countries to treat childhood illnesses that are big killers.

"This is a transformational moment for the health of women and girls across the world," said Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of GAVI, which is short for Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization.

"A vast gap currently exists between girls in rich and poor countries. With GAVI's programs we can begin to bridge that gap so that all girls can be protected against cervical cancer no matter where they are born," he said in a statement.

Drugmakers Merck & Co. and GlaxoSmithKline PLC initially will provide 2.4 million doses of their vaccines against cancer-causing human papilloma virus — for a fraction of the cost commanded in Western countries.

Merck will supply its Gardasil for $4.50 per dose, and Glaxo its Cervarix for $4.60 per dose. In the U.S., the shots cost well over $100 apiece, and a three-dose series over six months is required.

The vaccines protect against the strains of human papilloma virus, or HPV, that most commonly cause cancer. The virus, transmitted during sex, causes cervical cancer as well as vaginal, vulvar, anal and oral cancers. The vaccines prevent roughly 70 percent of those cancers.

In developed countries, older girls and women routinely get Pap tests to check for cervical cancer or signs of precancerous changes in cervical tissue. They're treated promptly, often before cancer begins, and few die. And increasingly, young girls and now boys as well are vaccinated with either Gardisil or Cervarix, starting as young as age 9 so they're protected well before they become sexually active.

Not so in poor countries.

"They don't have the benefit of screening to catch cancer early, when it can still be treated," Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, president of Merck Vaccines, said in an interview.

As a result, 85 percent of the 275,000 women killed by cervical cancer each year live in poor countries, where HPV is most prevalent.

"It is a disease that has devastating, life-threatening consequences and it is preventable," said Gerberding, an infectious diseases expert who's a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Our aim is to do what we can to make the vaccine available."

The GAVI project will begin "demonstration projects" administering the vaccines to girls aged 9 to 13, starting in Kenya as early as this month. Then it will be expanded to Ghana, Laos, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Sierra Leone and Tanzania.

The goal is for the governments of those countries to show they can set up a national system — with medical staff, clinic supplies, distribution systems and supply management all well organized — to provide the vaccines over the long term. The program also will bring an opportunity to teach the girls about nutrition, sexual health and HIV prevention.

Already, GAVI is planning to provide the shots nationwide in Rwanda, starting next year.

Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., is providing 93 percent of the shots initially. It's also agreed to provide more shots at an even-lower price in the future, if higher volumes of vaccines are ordered, as that would reduce production costs.

Merck and Britain's GlaxoSmithKline are among the world's biggest makers of vaccines, and both have long provided many for free or at discounted prices to health programs in poor countries.

GAVI also will work with the heavy hitters of global health and development groups, including the CDC, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank. Other partners include the charities, corporations and 18 wealthy countries that help fund GAVi.

In the U.S., the vaccines have become steady money makers since they were launched a half-dozen years ago, but they haven't turned into the mega-sellers initially envisioned.

That's partly because of their high price here, but also because of political fights. Some conservative groups opposed the vaccines, arguing that giving adolescents a vaccine to protect them against a virus transmitted by sexual activity would encourage it.

___

Follow Linda A. Johnson at http://twitter.com/LindaJ_onPharma

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

New Zealand's central bank intervenes in currency

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand's central bank has intervened in the currency market for the first time in five years to try to curb the local dollar's rise.

The rising Kiwi dollar, as the New Zealand currency is known, has been hurting the country's exporters. It is up about 12 percent against the U.S. dollar since the middle of last year.

Reserve Bank of New Zealand Governor Graeme Wheeler told a parliamentary committee Wednesday that the central bank had intervened recently. The New Zealand Herald newspaper reported he said that such interventions would not significantly change the level of the exchange rate but could potentially take "the tops off rallies."

Wheeler has consistently described the currency as overvalued and recently pointed to Japan's moves to double its money supply in an effort to end deflation as making things worse.

"Further appreciation has occurred partly in response to the announcement of a substantial quantitative easing program in Japan," Wheeler said two weeks ago. "The high New Zealand dollar continues to be a significant headwind for the tradables sector, restricting export earnings and encouraging demand for imports."

A majority of New Zealand's export earnings come from milk, beef, wool and other farm products.

Reserve Bank spokesman Mike Hannah on Wednesday declined to elaborate on the intervention. He said the bank would be making no further comment beyond what Wheeler told the committee.

Also Wednesday, the central bank issued a report raising concerns about the country's rising house prices and announced that from September, banks would have to hold more capital for riskier loans.

"Housing pressures are increasing risk in the financial system," Wheeler said in a statement. "House prices relative to disposable incomes are already high by international standards. Further price escalation will worsen the potential damage that could result from a housing downturn."

The Kiwi dollar was trading down 0.7 percent Wednesday at about 84 cents.

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Oil rises toward $96 as China trade improves

BANGKOK — Oil prices rose Wednesday after an upswing in China's trade for April restored hopes that the world's second-largest economy was strengthening.

Benchmark crude for June delivery was up 10 cents to $95.72 per barrel at midday Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 54 cents to finish at $95.62 per barrel on Nymex on Tuesday.

China said its exports for April rose 14.7 percent over a year earlier while imports gained 16.8 percent. Both figures represented an acceleration of growth compared with March.

The figures suggest China's economic growth might be improving after an unexpected decline to 7.7 percent in the first three months of the year from the previous quarter's 7.9 percent.

Later Wednesday, the U.S. Energy Department will release its weekly report on U.S. oil inventories. Analysts surveyed by Platts expect an increase in supplies of 1.9 million barrels in the week ended May 3. Carl Larry of Oil Outlooks and Opinions said in a daily newsletter that he expects to see an additional 2 million barrels.

Brent crude, which is the benchmark for international oil varieties, fell 7 cents to $104.33 per barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

In other energy futures trading on the Nymex:

— Wholesale gasoline dropped 0.7 cent to $2.827 a gallon.

— Heating oil fell 0.4 cent to $2.924 a gallon.

— Natural gas fell 1.6 cent to $3.904 per 1,000 cubic feet.

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

House set to OK bill to change overtime pay law

WASHINGTON — The Republican-led House is poised to approve a bill that would give private sector workers the option of choosing paid time off instead of cash wages for working overtime.

The measure would allow employees who work more than 40 hours a week to save up their earned time off for use weeks or months later. GOP lawmakers say they want to give busy working parents at private firms the same flexibility that public sector workers have to take time off to spend with their children or care for aging parents.

Democrats and worker advocacy groups say it opens the door for employers to pressure workers not to take overtime pay. And they warn there is no guarantee workers would be able to take the extra time off when they want.

The bill is expected to pass Wednesday but has little chance in the Democratic-controlled Senate. President Barack Obama has threatened a veto, saying the bill would not prevent employers from slashing overtime hours and doesn't offer enough protection for workers who may not want to receive compensatory time off in lieu of overtime pay.

The measure is part of a broader Republican agenda aimed at expanding the party's political appeal by offering conservative ideas to help average Americans on issues like economic growth and job creation.

"It puts parents over politics," said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va. He said the bill "makes sense" to help working moms and dads and gives them more flexibility with their hours at work to take care of family needs.

The plan would change the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which requires covered employees to receive time-and-a-half pay for every hour over 40 within a work week. The proposal would allow workers to bank up to 160 hours of comp time per year that could be used to take time off for any reason.

The bill would let an employee decide to cash out comp time at any time and forbids employers from coercing workers to take comp time instead of cash.

But Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, No. 2 Democrat in the House, said it's not fair to compare the legislation to similar flexibility that is offered to public sector employees because there are "a lot more protections" for public sector employees.

Opponents say the reason public sector workers were given the option to take time off instead of overtime pay in 1985 was to save cash-strapped governments money. They say that's why business groups are lobbying in favor of the bill, not to protect workers.

Critics also say the bill lets employers decide whether to grant a specific request to use comp time, so workers have no guarantee of when they could use the time. Even if workers can collect their unused time as cash at the end of the year, opponents argue that essentially gives employers an interest-free loan from employees.

___

Follow Sam Hananel on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SamHananelAP

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

China reports stronger April trade growth

BEIJING — China reported stronger April trade but analysts said export data were inflated and its shaky recovery might be weaker than it looks.

Exports rose 14.7 percent over a year earlier, up from March's 10 percent growth, customs data showed Wednesday. Imports gained 16.8 percent, up from the previous month's 14.1 percent.

That suggested the world's second-largest economy might be improving after an unexpected decline in growth to 7.7 percent in the first three months of the year from the previous quarter's 7.9 percent.

Analysts say, however, that Chinese export data are unreliable, possibly due to companies submitting inflated prices for their goods to evade capital controls and bring money into the country.

"We believe the strong trade growth is not indicative of a growth recovery," said Zhiwei Zhang of Nomura in a report.

Chinese leaders are trying to nurture self-sustaining growth driven by domestic consumption instead of trade and investment, but consumer spending is growing slowly. That has forced Beijing to rely on state-led investment and bank lending to shore up the recovery, which analysts say could be vulnerable if exports or investment decline.

The weaker-than-expected first quarter numbers prompted the World Bank and private sector analysts to trim forecasts for full-year growth, though to still robust levels of about 8 percent.

Louis Kuijs and Tiffany Qiu of RBS said that after factoring out irregularities, they estimated China's exports rose only by about 5.7 percent in April, about 9 percentage points lower than the reported level.

In a positive sign for the economy, Kuijs and Qiu said they saw no obvious irregularities in import data and no reason to inflate the values of goods.

"Reasonable import growth suggests domestic demand has held up better so far," they said in a report.

Surveys by HSBC Corp. and a Chinese industry group showed China's manufacturing growth weakened in April. HSBC said new export orders fell for the first time this year.

China's export data have been under scrutiny since analysts pointed out last year that they failed to match up with its trading partners' lower figures for purchases of Chinese goods.

Wei Yao of Societe Generale cited the example of Taiwan, which reported a 2.7 percent decline in April imports from China while Beijing said exports to the island rose 49.2 percent — a gap of more than 50 percentage points.

"We continue to notice glaring discrepancies between China and its trade partners' data, and so again suggest caution in interpreting the report," Yao said in a commentary.

Last weekend, the Chinese foreign exchange regulator announced it will clamp down on "serious mismatches" between flows of money and goods to stop attempts to evade capital controls.

After that takes effect, "trade growth will likely slow," said Nomura's Zhang.

A Cabinet statement last month promised to improve the role of consumption as a driver of growth. It pledged changes in medical, pension and other policies but gave no details. Analysts say better funding for social programs will be required to free up household budgets for consumer spending.

April's stronger gains in imports compared with exports caused China's reported global trade surplus to narrow by about 1 percent, though to a still-wide $18.2 billion.

China runs a deficit with most of its trading partners, which supply oil, other raw materials and industrial components, and makes up for it by running large surpluses with its U.S. and European export markets.

China's exports to Europe, hurt by the continent's debt troubles, declined 6.5 percent to $25.9 billion and the surplus with the 27-nation European Union narrowed by 32 percent to $7.9 billion.

Trade with some European countries suffered even bigger declines. Germany's imports of Chinese goods fell 7.2 percent and France's by 6.7 percent.

Exports to the United States edged down by a fraction of 1 percent to $28.1 billion while the trade gap with the U.S. narrowed by 13 percent to $14.7 billion.

___

General Administration of Customs of China (in Chinese): www.customs.gov.cn

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Subaru invests $400 million in Indiana plant

TOKYO — Subaru said Wednesday it is investing $400 million to expand its Indiana factory and will add 900 workers to build the Impreza small car there in 2016.

The plant now employs about 3,600 people and builds the Legacy and Outback cars and the Tribeca SUV. It also builds the Camry midsize car under contract with Toyota Motor Corp., the top shareholder in Subaru with a 16.5 percent stake.

Subaru, also known as Fuji Heavy Industries, said it will boost capacity at one of two assembly lines at the plant — the one that is now being used to build the Camry — from 100,000 vehicles to 200,000 vehicles.

It had already announced it would boost production capacity at the other line from the current 170,000 vehicles to 200,000.

Production of the Impreza is expected to start by the end of the 2016, said Subaru spokesman Yoshiaki Tabei.

Subaru sold 724,500 vehicles globally for the fiscal year ended March, up 13 percent from the previous year, with 357,600 of them in the U.S. It sold 163,100 vehicles in Japan.

Subaru's U.S. sales have doubled in the past five years.

U.S. sales of the Impreza, now built in Gunma, Japan, have fallen 31 percent this year, due largely to a shortage of vehicles on dealer lots. Ward's Automotive says Subaru has only enough Imprezas on the ground to supply dealers for 29 days. A 60-day supply is considered optimal.

For the fiscal year ended March 31, Subaru sold 108,000 Impreza cars in the U.S., all imported from Japan.

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Internet sales tax bill faces tough sell in House

WASHINGTON — Traditional retailers and cash-strapped states face a tough sell in the House as they lobby Congress to limit tax-free shopping on the Internet.

The Senate voted 69 to 27 Monday to pass a bill that empowers states to collect sales taxes from Internet purchases. Under the bill, states could require out-of-state retailers to collect sales taxes when they sell products over the Internet, in catalogs, and through radio and TV ads. The sales taxes would be sent to the states where a shopper lives.

Current law says states can only require retailers to collect sales taxes if the merchant has a physical presence in the state.

That means big retailers with stores all over the country like Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target collect sales taxes when they sell goods over the Internet. But online retailers like eBay and Amazon don't have to collect sales taxes, except in states where they have offices or distribution centers.

"This bill is about fairness," said Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the bill's main sponsor in the Senate. "It's about leveling the playing field between the brick and mortar and online companies and it's about collecting a tax that's already due. It's not about raising taxes."

The bill got bipartisan support in the Senate but faces opposition in the House, where some lawmakers regard it as a tax increase. Grover Norquist, the anti-tax advocate, and the conservative Heritage Foundation oppose the bill, and many Republicans have been wary of crossing them.

Supporters say the bill is not a tax increase. In many states, shoppers are required to pay unpaid sales tax when they file their state tax returns. However, states complain that few taxpayers comply.

"Obviously there's a lot of consumers out there that have been accustomed to not having to pay any taxes, believing that they don't have to pay any taxes," said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., the bill's main sponsor in the House. "I totally understand that, and I think a lot of our members understand that. There's a lot of political difficulty getting through the fog of it looking like a tax increase."

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has not commented publicly about the bill, giving supporters hope that he could be won over. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which would have jurisdiction over the bill, has cited problems with the legislation but not rejected it outright.

"While it attempts to make tax collection simpler, it still has a long way to go," Goodlatte said in a statement. Without more uniformity in the bill, he said, "businesses would still be forced to wade through potentially hundreds of tax rates and a host of different tax codes and definitions."

Goodlatte said he's "open to considering legislation concerning this topic but these issues, along with others, would certainly have to be addressed."

Internet giant eBay led the fight against the bill in the Senate, along with lawmakers from states with no sales tax and several prominent anti-tax groups. The bill's opponents say it would put an expensive obligation on small businesses because they are not as equipped as national merchandisers to collect and remit sales taxes at the multitude of state rates.

Businesses with less than $1 million in online sales would be exempt. EBay wants to exempt businesses with up to $10 million in sales or fewer than 50 employees.

"The contentious debate in the Senate shows that a lot more work needs to be done to get the Internet sales tax issue right, including ensuring that small businesses using the Internet are protected from new burdens that harm their ability to compete and grow," said Brian Bieron, eBay's senior director of global public policy.

Some states have sales taxes as high as 7 percent, plus city and county taxes that can push the combined rate even higher.

Many governors — Republicans and Democrats — have been lobbying the federal government for years for the authority to collect sales taxes from online sales.

The issue is getting bigger for states as more people make purchases online. Last year, Internet sales in the U.S. totaled $226 billion, up nearly 16 percent from the previous year, according to government estimates.

States lost a total of $23 billion last year because they couldn't collect taxes on out-of-state sales, according to a study done for the National Conference of State Legislatures, which has lobbied for the bill. About half of that was lost from Internet sales; half from purchases made through catalogs, mail orders and telephone orders, the study said.

Supporters say the bill makes it relatively easy for Internet retailers to comply. States must provide free computer software to help retailers calculate sales taxes, based on where shoppers live. States must also establish a single entity to receive Internet sales tax revenue, so retailers don't have to send it to individual counties or cities.

Opponents worry the bill would give states too much power to reach across state lines to enforce their tax laws. States could audit out-of-state businesses, impose liens on their property and, ultimately, sue them in state court.

___

Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Microsoft touching up Windows 8 to address gripes

SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft is retooling the latest version of its Windows operating system to address complaints and confusion that have been blamed for deepening a slump in personal computer sales.

The tune up announced Tuesday won't be released to consumers and businesses until later this year. The changes, part of a software package given the codename "Blue," are a tacit acknowledgment of the shortcomings in Windows 8, a radical overhaul of Microsoft Corp.'s ubiquitous operating system.

With the makeover it released last October, Microsoft hoped to play a more prominent role in the growing mobile device market while still maintaining its dominance in PCs. But Windows 8's design, which emphasizes interactive tiles and touch controls, seems to have befuddled as many people as it has impressed. One leading research firm, International Data Corp., says Windows 8 contributed to a 14 percent decline in worldwide PC sales during the first three months of the year — the biggest year-over-year drop ever.

Meanwhile, sales of smartphones and tablet computers are booming. The biggest beneficiaries have been Apple Inc., the maker of the iPhone and iPad, and Samsung Electronics Co., which sells the most devices running on Google Inc.'s Android software. Google is also benefiting from Android's popularity through increased traffic to its services, creating more opportunities for the company to display ads.

By contrast, leading PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc., which primarily sell Windows-powered machines, have been mired in a financial funk that has battered their stocks and raised questions about their futures.

Despite the troubling signs, Microsoft insists it's pleased with Windows 8's performance.

The company, which is based in Redmond, Wash., says more than 100 million Windows 8 licenses have been sold so far, up from about 60 million licenses in January. The licensing volume "is in the same general ballpark," as Microsoft's previous operating system — Windows 7 — at a similar juncture of its sales cycle, according to Tami Reller, who serves as the marketing and financial chief for Microsoft's Windows business.

In an interview, Reller said Microsoft still realized changes need to be made to make Windows 8 easier to navigate and capable of taking full advantage of technology improvements that have come out since October.

"Are there things that we can do to improve the experience? Absolutely," Reller said "There is a learning curve (to Windows 8) and we can work to address that."

For now, Microsoft isn't saying what kind of changes will be introduced with the release of Blue, which the company plans to anoint with a different name when the update is available. Microsoft also isn't saying whether it will charge existing owners of Windows 8 devices to get the fixes in Blue. The company plans to release Blue in time for the holiday season.

Reller said more details about Blue will be released before Microsoft holds a developers conference in San Francisco in late June. Some of Blue's features are expected to be previewed at that conference.

If Blue is meant to make people more comfortable, the changes may incorporate more of the elements from earlier versions of Windows.

A common complaint has centered on the lack of a "start" button in the Windows 8 menu.

Other critics have pined for an option that would allow the system to begin in a desktop mode suited for running applications designed for earlier versions of the operating system. Windows 8 currently starts off showing a mosaic of interactive tiles tailored for swiping through programs with a finger instead of using a computer mouse.

Blue also might make it easier to find a set of controls — known as "charms" in Windows 8's parlance — that currently must be pulled out from the right side of a display screen.

Besides responding to customer feedback, Blue also will improve Windows 8's ability to work on smaller tablets with 7- and 8-inch display screens, Reller said. She declined to say whether Microsoft intends to make smaller version of its own Surface tablets. In a conference call with analysts last month, Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein said the company was working with other manufacturers to make smaller tablets.

One thing that Blue won't fix: the relatively small selection of mobile applications tailored for Windows 8. Reller said the Windows 8 store now has more than 60,000 apps. By contrast, there are more than 800,000 apps available for Apple's mobile's devices and nearly that many for Android devices, too. In one of the most glaring omissions on Windows 8, Facebook Inc. still hasn't designed an app to make its online social network more accessible on that system. Facebook has about 750 million mobile users.

Microsoft's decision to tweak Windows 8 so soon after it went on sale may reinforce perceptions that the product is a flop.

Reller is trying to frame the changes as evidence that Microsoft is becoming more agile and nimble as it responds to a rapidly evolving technology market. Smartphones and tablet computers have been at the epicenter of the upheaval, diminishing the demand for PCs as more people and businesses opt for the convenience of increasingly powerful mobile devices.

The mobile computing movement is the main reason that Microsoft made the most dramatic redesign of its Windows operating system since 1995. Given how different that Windows 8 is from its predecessors, Reller said Microsoft always knew it might have to make some adjustments less than a year after the software came out.

"It had to be a very big change to take advantage of the mobile opportunity," she said.

Analysts say one reason Windows 8 got off to a slow start is because there weren't enough devices designed to take advantage of the system's touch-screen features. But that is about to change as HP, Dell and other PC makers prepare to roll out a wide variety of laptops and tablets with displays that respond to touch. More than 2,400 devices have now been certified to run on Windows 8, up from 2,000 in January, Reller said.

Most of the touch-screen laptops will sell at prices $50 to $250 below the first wave of comparable machines running on Windows 8, reductions that Microsoft hopes will prod more people to check out the system.

"As we look at Windows 8, it's important to remember a lot of its full potential won't be realized until there are more touch devices on the market," Reller said.

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Disney teams with EA on 'Star Wars' video games

LOS ANGELES — Disney is not giving up on "Star Wars" video games after all.

A month after shutting down game production at Lucasfilm subsidiary LucasArts, The Walt Disney Co. said Monday that it had entered multi-year deal with Electronic Arts Inc. to develop new "Star Wars" video games.

According to a statement, EA will develop games for a "core gaming audience" while Disney will retain the right to develop titles for mobile devices, social platforms and online.

Terms were not disclosed.

Disney is aiming to make its money-losing interactive unit profitable this year and shifting some game development costs elsewhere should help.

Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4.06 billion in December. The company said last month that it will release a new "Star Wars" movie every year starting in 2015.

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

US safety agency watches Ford vans for rust signs

DETROIT — U.S. auto safety regulators are monitoring about 100,000 Ford and Mercury minivans that were not covered by a recall issued earlier this year for rust problems.

Ford recalled about 230,000 Ford Freestar and Mercury Monterey minivans in March to fix rust in the wheel wells that can cause the third-row seats to come loose.

The vans from the 2004 through 2007 model years were sold or registered in 20 cold-weather states and Canada where salt is used on roads in the winter.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in documents posted on its website Tuesday that it is watching vans that are outside the salt-belt areas and were not covered by the recall. But the agency says the problem seldom occurs if the vans aren't exposed to salt. NHTSA is aware of only one rust complaint from an owner outside the recall areas.

NHTSA said in the documents that although it will monitor vans outside the recall areas, it has closed its investigation into the problem.

Any owner not covered by the recall can contact Ford and ask for repairs if their van shows signs of rust in the wheel wells, the agency said.

Ford has said that rust can weaken the mounting brackets that hold the removable seats to the van floor. The company says no crashes or injuries have been reported from the problem.

Dealers will install new brackets, placing them outside of the area that can rust. They'll also install panels above the rear wheels to prevent water from entering.

The recall covered 196,500 minivans in the U.S. and another 33,500 outside the U.S., mainly in Canada. Vans in Connecticut, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, Delaware, Maine, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont, Indiana, Michigan, New York, West Virginia and Washington, D.C., were recalled.

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

China's struggling automakers jump on SUV boom

SHANGHAI — BYD is known for electric cars but this year's flagship model is the S7, a gasoline-powered SUV. It comes with an air purifier, radar to help with backing and digital TV. An onboard hard drive can hold 1,000 films.

This is China's Year of the SUV. Whatever their specialties used to be, automakers ranging from global brands to China's ambitious rookies are scrambling to cash in on the explosive popularity of sport utility vehicles.

"We are selling vehicles that have extensive technologies," said Isbrand Ho, BYD's director of export sales. "These are all on ... premium models for European marques but we are making it available to the everyday person."

The SUV boom clashes with Beijing's efforts to push automakers to develop electric cars and to sell smaller vehicles to help curb smog and demand for imported oil. But the SUV's image of safety appeals to prosperous Chinese drivers who face chaotic city streets while electrics from BYD and other producers struggle to attract buyers.

The fatter profit margins for SUVs are a financial lifeline to a Chinese industry that is being squeezed as global brands make inroads into their market for smaller cars.

"You've got almost everyone targeting SUVs," said analyst Namrita Chow of IHS Automotive.

SUV sales in China rose 20 percent last year to 2.5 million vehicles, more than double the 8 percent growth of the overall auto market, according to LMC Automotive. SUVs made up 18 percent of all vehicles sold.

That market share could rise as high as 25 percent in coming years, according to Yale Zhang, managing director of Auto Foresight, a research firm in Shanghai. That would be double the size of SUVs' 12.5 percent share of the U.S. market last year.

Overall, Chinese drivers bought more than 19 million cars last year while Americans bought 14.5 million. The United States still is the biggest market in financial terms, though China is expected to pass that soon. By 2020, automakers and analysts expect China's annual sales to rise from current levels by 13 to 14 million vehicles — more than all growth in the U.S., Brazil, India, Russia and the Middle East combined.

In China, General Motors Co. expects annual SUV sales to reach 4 million by 2020, said Bob Socia, president of GM's Chinese arm.

"We are focusing on two key markets — luxury cars and SUVs," said Socia. "They used to be considered niche markets but now they are mainstream."

Global automakers are redesigning SUVs for China with smaller engines in response to government taxes based on engine size.

Ford Motor Co. plans to manufacture two of its four SUVs, the EcoSport and the Kuga, in the southwestern city of Chongqing. Its Edge SUV will be imported from Canada and the Explorer from the United States.

"We now have our full range of the SUV family here," said David Schoch, Ford's president for the Asia-Pacific region.

Italy's Fiat SpA, a latecomer to China, is hoping an SUV will help it gain a foothold in a market where it set up its first joint venture just three years ago. The Freemont, based on the Dodge Journey, was unveiled at last month's Shanghai auto show.

Also at the auto show, global automakers including Mercedes Benz and Nissan and local brands such as Geely Holding Group, which owns Sweden's Volvo Cars, and Great Wall Motors Co. showed new SUVs or SUV concept vehicles.

The SUV boom is a detour from Beijing's automotive master plan for China to become a leader in electric cars.

Chinese leaders want to clean up smog-shrouded cities and rein in reliance on oil and gas imports they see as a strategic weakness. Rising gasoline demand as auto ownership spreads pushed China past the United States to become the world's biggest energy consumer.

In 2009, Chinese leaders set a goal of producing up to 5 million electric vehicles a year by 2020 but have informally backed away from that after development proved tougher than expected. BYD, the Chinese leader in electric vehicles, sold just 1,700 electric cars and 700 electric buses in 2012 and says it expects to triple that this year.

"They're going to continue to push it. But it hasn't taken off like they had planned," said GM's Socia. "Progress has been a little slow."

A few Chinese SUV buyers drive off-road, but most see them as protection against traffic.

"Chinese consumers love SUVs. They see them as safe family cars," said Chow of IHS Automotive. "The idea is, If I buy the best I can afford, I am buying the safest."

The SUV boom could be especially important to China's own automakers, who are struggling as global rivals launch new models aimed right at their traditional low-price market segment.

Because they are bigger and heavier like trucks, SUVs are treated more leniently by government rules on fuel efficiency and emissions. That makes them less expensive to produce and helps automakers that are less technologically advanced than foreign rivals.

Great Wall has become the Chinese industry's breakout success on the strength of its SUVs.

The company, headquartered in Baoding, an industrial city southwest of Beijing, said SUV sales in the first three months of the year rose 95 percent over a year earlier and accounted for half the 180,000 vehicles it sold.

That gave Great Wall, at least temporarily, the global auto industry's fattest gross profit margin at 28 percent, according to Bernstein Research analyst Max Warburton.

With its electric car business sagging, BYD is stepping up emphasis on SUVs. In addition to the S6 and S7, it has two more on the drawing board.

The company, in which Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Corp. owns a 10 percent stake, blamed intense competition for a 94 percent plunge in last year's profit last year.

BYD expects to double this year's S6 sales in foreign markets such as Russia and Egypt to 50,000 vehicles, said Ho, the export director.

"The SUV market has a big attraction in Russia, Ukraine, the Middle East. They want a four-wheel-drive for the snow and sand," he said.

The company also is developing four-wheel-drive technology that powers two wheels with an internal combustion engine and two with an electric motor, eliminating the need for a drive train that takes up floor space, Ho said. He said the electric motors also will act as brakes.

"This is going to be a unique approach to four-wheel-drive," he said.

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

US futures see little movement after record highs

NEW YORK — U.S. stock market futures are barely budging, as traders seem ready to pause after sending major indexes record highs following a positive jobs report last week.

With few major companies posting earnings and no significant economic data due Monday, Dow Jones industrial average futures are up 1 point to 14,899. S&P 500 futures are down .50 to 1,608. Nasdaq 100 futures gained 3 points to 2,938.

The Labor Department said Friday that U.S. employers added 165,000 workers last month and many more in February and March than previously estimated. The 7.5 percent unemployment rate is the lowest in four years.

Overseas markets are mixed. Most Asian markets rode Friday's U.S. momentum to close higher, but stocks in Europe gave ground after initially trading higher.

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Bashful? Buy the little blue pill online

TRENTON, N.J. — Men who are bashful about needing help in the bedroom no longer have to go to the drugstore to buy that little blue pill.

In a first for the drug industry, Pfizer Inc. told The Associated Press that the drugmaker will begin selling its popular erectile dysfunction pill Viagra directly to patients on its website.

Men still will need a prescription to buy the blue, diamond-shaped pill on viagra.com, but they no longer have to face a pharmacist to get it filled. And for those who are bothered by Viagra's steep $25-a-pill price, Pfizer is offering three free pills with the first order and 30 percent off the second one.

Pfizer's bold move blows up the drug industry's distribution model. Drugmakers don't sell medicines directly to patients. Instead, they sell in bulk to wholesalers, who then distribute the drugs to pharmacies, hospitals and doctors' offices.

But the world's second-largest drugmaker is trying a new strategy to tackle a problem that plagues the industry. Unscrupulous online pharmacies increasingly offer patients counterfeit versions of Viagra and other brand-name drugs for up to 95 percent off with no prescription needed. Patients don't realize the drugs are fake or that legitimate pharmacies require a prescription.

Other major drugmakers likely will watch Pfizer's move closely. If it works, drugmakers could begin selling other medicines that are rampantly counterfeited and sold online, particularly treatments for non-urgent conditions seen as embarrassing. Think: diet drugs, medicines for baldness and birth control pills.

"If it works, everybody will hop on the train," says Les Funtleyder, a health care strategist at private equity fund Poliwogg who believes Pfizer's site will attract "fence-sitters" who are nervous about buying online.

The online Viagra sales are Pfizer's latest effort to combat a problem that has grown with the popularity of the Internet.

In recent years, Americans have become more comfortable with online shopping, with many even buying prescription drugs online. That's particularly true for those who don't have insurance, are bargain hunters or want to keep their medicine purchases private.

Few realize that the vast majority of online pharmacies don't follow the rules.

The Internet is filled with illegitimate websites that lure customers with spam emails and professional-looking websites that run 24-hour call centers. A January study by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, which accredits online pharmacies, found that only 257 of 10,275 online pharmacy sites it examined appeared legitimate.

Experts say the fake drugs such websites sell can be dangerous. That's because they don't include the right amount of the active ingredient, if any, or contain toxic substances such as heavy metals, lead paint and printer ink. They're generally made in filthy warehouses and garages in Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Online buyers are "playing Russian roulette," says Matthew Bassiur, vice president of global security at New York-based Pfizer.

"The factories are deplorable. I've seen photographs of these places," he says. "You wouldn't even want to walk in them, let alone ingest anything made in them."

Pfizer, which invented the term "erectile dysfunction," has long been aggressive in fighting counterfeiters. It conducts undercover investigations and works with authorities around the globe, with good reason.

Counterfeit versions of Viagra and dozens of other Pfizer medicines rob the company of billions in annual sales.

Viagra is one of its top drugs, with $2 billion in worldwide revenue last year. And it's the most counterfeited drug in the U.S., according to the company.

A 2011 study, in which Pfizer bought "Viagra" from 22 popular Internet pharmacies and tested the pills, found 77 percent were counterfeit. Most had half or less of the promised level of the active ingredient.

Viagra is appealing to counterfeiters because it carries a double whammy: It's expensive and it treats a condition with an "embarrassment" factor.

Crooks running the illegal online pharmacies brazenly explain their ultra-low Viagra prices — often $1 to $3 a pill — by claiming they sell generic Viagra.

Generics are copycat versions of brand-name prescription drugs. They can legally be made after a drugmaker's patent, or exclusive right to sell a drug, ends. Generic drugmakers don't have to spend $1 billion or so on testing to get a new drug approved, so their copycat versions often cost up to 90 percent less than the original drug.

But there is no such thing as generic Viagra. Pfizer has patents giving it the exclusive right to sell Viagra until 2020 in the U.S. and for many years in other countries.

Many patients are unaware of that.

Dr. David Dershewitz, an assistant urology professor at New Jersey Medical School who treats patients at Newark's University Hospital, says erectile dysfunction is common in men with enlarged prostates, diabetes and other conditions, but most men are too embarrassed to discuss it.

He says well over half of his patients who do broach the issue complain about Viagra's price. Some tell Dershewitz that they go online looking for bargains because they can't afford Viagra.

"The few that do admit to it have said that the results have been fairly dismal," but none has suffered serious harm, he says.

For Pfizer, that's a big problem. People who buy fake drugs online that don't work, or worse, harm them, may blame the company's product. That's because it's virtually impossible to distinguish fakes from real Viagra.

"The vast majority of patients do believe that they're getting Viagra," said Vic Cavelli, head of marketing for primary care medicines at Pfizer, which plans to have drugstore chain CVS Caremark Corp. fill the orders placed on viagra.com.

The sales lost to counterfeits threaten Pfizer at a time when Viagra's share of the $5 billion-a-year global market for legitimate erectile dysfunction drugs has slipped, falling from 46 percent in 2007 to 39 percent last year, according to health data firm IMS Health.

The reason? Competition from rival products, mainly Eli Lilly and Co.'s Cialis — the pill touted in those ubiquitous commercials featuring couples in his-and-hers bathtubs in bizarre places.

Judson Clark, an Edward Jones analyst, forecasts that Viagra sales will decline even further, about 5 percent each year for the next five years, unusual "for a drug in its prime."

Clark says he thinks Pfizer's strategy will prevent sales from declining, but he's unsure how well it will work.

"It's a very interesting and novel approach," he says. "Whether it returns Viagra to growth is hard to say."

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Buffett defends structure of $23B Heinz deal

OMAHA, Neb. — Investor Warren Buffett says he expects Berkshire Hathaway to own a stake in ketchup-maker H.J. Heinz Co. forever, and he doesn't see a problem in taking a partner — the Brazilian investment firm 3G Capital — in the $23.3 billion deal.

Buffett said in an interview on CNBC on Monday that he doesn't consider 3G a traditional private equity firm because it is investing a significant amount of its own money and it runs businesses. Some people had questioned whether the deal that will give Berkshire a 50 percent stake in Heinz represented a change in investment style for Buffett's conglomerate.

Generally Berkshire buys entire companies outright and allows them to continue operating largely unchanged.

Buffett says he hopes Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s stake in Heinz will grow over time.

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Buffett says bonds are terrible investments today

OMAHA, Neb. — Billionaire Warren Buffett says he doesn't like owning bonds right now, and he doesn't think average investors should either.

Buffett said on CNBC on Monday that bonds are a terrible investment at the moment and owners of long-term bonds may see big losses when interest rates eventually rise.

The head of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. says stocks are generally selling for reasonable prices even with the market at record levels. Several years ago, stocks were very cheap during the recession.

Buffett says bond prices are artificially inflated because the Federal Reserve continues to buy $85 billion of bonds a month.

He says the average investor should keep enough cash to be comfortable and invest the rest in equities.

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

GOP seeks alternative to overtime pay

WASHINGTON — It seems like a simple proposition: give employees who work more than 40 hours a week the option of taking paid time off instead of overtime pay.

The choice already exists in the public sector. Federal and state workers can save earned time off and use it weeks or even months later to attend a parent-teacher conference, care for an elderly parent or deal with home repairs.

Republicans in Congress are pushing legislation that would extend that option to the private sector. They say that would bring more flexibility to the workplace and help workers better balance family and career.

The push is part of a broader Republican agenda undertaken by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., to expand the party's political appeal to working families. The House is expected to vote on the measure this week, but the Democratic-controlled Senate isn't likely to take it up.

"For some people, time is more valuable than the cash that would be accrued in overtime," said Rep. Martha Roby, R-Ala., the bill's chief sponsor. "Why should public-sector employees be given a benefit and the private sector be left out?"

But the idea Republicans promote as "pro-worker" is vigorously opposed by worker advocacy groups, labor unions and most Democrats. These opponents claim it's really a backdoor way for businesses to skimp on overtime pay.

Judith Lichtman, senior adviser to the National Partnership for Women and Families, contends the measure would open the door for employers to pressure workers into taking compensatory time off instead of overtime pay.

The program was created in the public sector in 1985 to save federal, state and local governments money, not to give workers greater flexibility, Lichtman said. Many workers in federal and state government are unionized or have civil service protections that give them more leverage in dealing with supervisors, she added. Those safeguards don't always exist in the private sector, where only about 6.6 percent of employees are union members.

Phil Jones, 29, an emergency medical technician in Santa Clara, Calif., said he's wary of how the measure would be enforced.

"Any time there's a law that will keep extra money in an employer's bank account, they will try to push employees to make that choice," said Jones, who regularly earns overtime pay. "I know how we get taken advantage of and I think this bill will just let employers take even more advantage of us."

But at a hearing on the bill last month, Karen DeLoach, a bookkeeper at a Montgomery, Ala., accounting firm, said she liked the idea of swapping overtime pay for comp time so she could travel with her church on its annual mission trip to Nicaragua.

"I would greatly appreciate the option at work to choose between being compensated in dollars or days," she said.

The GOP plan is an effort to change the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which requires covered employees to receive time-and-a-half pay for every hour over 40 within a work week. The proposal would allow workers to bank up to 160 hours, or four weeks, of comp time per year that could be used to take time off for any reason.

The bill would let an employee decide to cash out comp time at any time, and forbids employers from coercing workers to take comp time instead of cash.

Republicans and business groups have tried to pass the plan in some form since the 1990s.

Democrats say the bill provides no guarantee that workers would be able to take the time off when they want. The bill gives employers discretion over whether to grant a specific request to use comp time. Opponents also complain that banking leave time essentially gives employers an interest-free loan from workers.

___

Follow Sam Hananel on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SamHananelAP

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Airport app lands just in time

Local entrepreneur Wayne Chen wants his new app to take off with harried air travelers — literally.

The 67-year-old has created Connect On Time, a free app for iPhones and iPads that provides customized maps of 42 global airports and calculates how much time travelers actually need to reach their respective flight gates upon their arrival.

"In doing my research, there isn't any place else you can get this kind of info," Chen, president of Mo'zippity Apps in Marlboro, told the Herald. "I've flown enough and gotten lost enough to say, 'There's a way to solve this.' "

Connect On Time, the first app from Mo'zippity, a division of Chen's IT company WT Chen & Co. Inc., comes free with three activated airports — Abu Dhabi International, Honolulu International and London's Stansted Airport.

The app's other 39 airports, including Logan International Airport, can be accessed for $1.99 apiece, Chen said.

Connect On Time users can view a detailed yet scaled map of an entire airport, complete with gate locations, and passport and security control checkpoints they must pass through. Upon typing in a starting location and a "go to" location, the app calculates within 15 to 30 seconds how long it can take to get from one checkpoint to the other, Chen said.

Connect On Time also contains dropdown menus with information about terminal shuttles and airline locations.

Chen added Mo'zippity is working to increase the app's airport count to include all of the world's top 100 busiest airports; make the app available for Android devices; and give it multiple language capabilities.

"Last year the number of individuals that flew exceeded one billion for the first time and that number is expected to increase in the next 10 years by another billion," Chen said. "Lots of travelers are going to be seniors as well as Asians flying to Europe and the U.S., which is a driver and motivator for me to have multiple language versions."

Chen said Connect On Time's database of airport information was largely collected by him and other staff physically walking through all airports included on the app.

"Every airport just confirmed for us that airport signage is confusing, airport personnel aren't helpful and comprehensive airport maps are scarcer than hen's teeth," Chen said. "The information is needed because millions of people are late and hundreds of millions of people are always stressed out."

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Leaders laud contest to grant $ to struggling communities

Community leaders from the Hub's more economically hard-hit cities hailed a competition launched by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston last week as a necessary tool to spur cross-sector partnerships and improve the health and well-being of lower-income residents.

"You just have to walk down Broadway Street and you will see hundreds of people that wake up every day to open their small businesses. The ideas, the willingness, the energy to work and be creative is there," said Lawrence CommunityWorks Co-Executive Director Nelson Butten about the Working Cities Challenge. "This is a great opportunity for promoting collaboration within the different organizations, both private and nonprofits."

All 20 cities eligible for multi-year grants, including Brockton, Everett, Lowell and Fall River, have submitted letters of intent to enter the competition.

The Commonwealth, Massachusetts Competitive Partnership and Living Cities, a philanthropic collaborative of 22 of the world's largest foundations and financial institutions, will provide up to eight awards ranging from $50,000 to $700,000.

Winners will be chosen in January 2014, officials said.

"America looks mostly like these small cities and not like the big cities, so we need to figure out ... how do we build upon what we have," said Living Cities President and CEO Ben Hecht.

Lawrence is hoping to increase the earning power of residents, promote better community health, and allow local and immigrant businesses to grow.

Chelsea-based nonprofit, The Neighborhood Developers, meanwhile, is working with other partners to improve the city's Shurtleff-Bellingham neighborhood, and create a community school in Revere that provides educational opportunities for families and working adults, said Executive Director Ann Houston.

"It's certainly gotten a lot of important conversation going," Houston said about the initiative.

Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren added, "This project alone can't turn around the employment situation in Massachusetts, but in these cities I think that it can help lay the groundwork for why both the communities and the businesses will look to expand in Massachusetts."

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Cities: deal us in big time

Host cities and towns negotiating with proposed resort casino operators shouldn't get too greedy, according to one gaming expert.

"It does not help you to encourage massive promises — the politicians may like it, the lawyers may like it, but it doesn't help," said Jacob Miklojcik of Michigan Consultants, which does gaming industry financial analysis. "If you make outrageous demands, then the people say yes and two weeks later they try to renegotiate."

Community costs and benefits of building gambling resorts in East Boston/Revere, Everett and Milford will be the subject of a free "Casinos: Deal Us In?" forum at Suffolk University on Thursday.

"Given that this summer many of the communities will be voting on host benefit packages, we thought it might be useful to have a comparative conversation, or a collective conversation, around these community benefits," said Richard Taylor, business law director of the Sawyer Business School's Center for Real Estate at Suffolk.

Host community agreements will play a key role in the application process for prospective casino operators Suffolk Downs/Caesars Entertainment, Wynn Resorts and Foxwoods Resort Casino as they compete for the sole Greater Boston casino license. The plans — which stand to bring tens of millions of dollars to the communities, infrastructure improvements and jobs — must be included in their site-specific, phase two applications to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission that are due by December.

"Community mitigation is critically important in the application process, and every applicant will be expected to really put their best foot forward in introducing an effective and innovative (plan)," spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said.

So far, only Everett has an agreement, and a June 22 city vote on Wynn's proposed $1.2 billion casino along the Mystic River has been set.

Wynn has agreed to give hiring preference to Everett citizens for 8,000-plus construction and permanent jobs, and make a good-faith effort to hire Everett contractors and suppliers.

Host community plans for Boston and Revere are expected next.

"We've had great dialogue with both our host communities … over the last year and look forward to completing host community ... agreements in the coming weeks," said Suffolk Downs chief operating officer Chip Tuttle.

Cash flow during the final planning and development also is a big concern for communities.

"The casino should be asked to front-load some type of fund for the expenses of the community, even if those dollars are offset against any future payments by the casino once operating," Miklojcik said.

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

New jobs and energy gains helping lift US economy

WASHINGTON — A stronger-than-expected April rebound in job creation and recent dramatic discoveries of vast U.S. oil and gas reserves are helping to lift the American economy out its long funk.

The economic advances also are drawing attention to the importance of private-sector innovation rather than government policy in fostering growth.

The Labor Department's report that payrolls expanded by 165,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate declined to a four-year low of 7.5 percent does not represent explosive job growth by any measure.

Yet that report offers a big sigh of relief to President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress.

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More

Navy, NASA credit unions offering zero-down mortgages

WASHINGTON —
Who says lenders need to charge you a cash down payment when you take out a mortgage in this era of hyper-strict underwriting?

Just about everybody:

• The biggest sources of home loan money — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — won't fund a loan without a down payment. Even then, if your down payment is less than 20 percent, they require private mortgage insurance.
• Federal banking regulatory agencies have proposed — but have not yet finally adopted — a regulation requiring a 20 percent minimum down payment as the new standard for safe lending and best pricing.
• Congressional critics complain that the Federal Housing Administration's current 3.5 percent minimum is part of the reason the agency is now in financial hot water. They want 5 percent down at least.
• Financial analysts and mortgage industry experts argue that requiring some amount of "skin in the game" is essential to provide borrowers a stake in the transaction.

But hold on. Two prominent federally chartered credit unions beg to differ with this consensus opinion. They have quietly been running what they consider to be successful, carefully administered zero-down-payment programs for borrowers for much of the past two years, and are seeing almost no defaults or foreclosures.

The giant Navy Federal Credit Union, the largest credit union in the country with 4 million members, offers a zero-down option for qualified home purchasers coast to coast with no mortgage insurance. On top of that, it allows "seller concessions" — contributions by sellers of homes to defray buyers' closing costs — as high as 6 percent of the home price.

The maximum loan amount is $1 million, but typical loans are in the $200,000 range. The program is targeted especially at first-time purchasers since they often are short on down-payment cash, but may otherwise be creditworthy. Navy Federal says it has closed $740 million of these zero-down mortgages in the last 12 months alone. The credit union retains all loans in its investment portfolio and services them on its own.

As you might guess, there are some key qualifications: You have to be a member of the credit union or an immediate relative of a member. Members include all branches of the military, active and retired, along with defense-related contractors. The credit union estimates the total potential reach of eligibility nationwide is 12 million people. You need to pass underwriting muster in terms of income and reserves, and you need moderately good — not perfect — credit scores. Delinquencies on the program to date: well under 1 percent, according to Katie Miller, vice president for mortgage products.

Meanwhile, NASA Federal Credit Union has started marketing its own version of zero down. It is currently restricting loans to qualified members buying homes in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area but could expand to other areas, depending on local housing market conditions. Maximum loan amount is $650,000. Seller concessions are capped at 3 percent. Underwriting is rigorous and preferred FICO credit scores start in the mid-700s. Delinquencies over the past year and a half: zero, according to Bill White, NASA Federal's vice president for real estate lending. Foreclosures: zero.

So what's the significance of these two programs for the current debates underway on Capitol Hill and among banking regulators on the subject? Should the government mandate 20 percent down for everybody? 10 percent? Should zero down ever be permissible?

Tom Lawler, head of Lawler Economic and Housing Consulting LLC, says that as a general matter, "zero down payment is just bad public policy." Frank Nothaft, chief economist for giant investor Freddie Mac, maintains that "the more equity cash up front you have, the better" the loan is likely to perform. Both Lawler and Nothaft agree, however, that with strict underwriting at application combined with intensive servicing — getting in touch with borrowers at the first hint of trouble and working with them — zero-down loans can perform well in healthy housing markets.

Though the Navy Federal and NASA Federal programs are relatively young, their minimal delinquencies to date could have an important message for regulators: The size of the down payment is just one piece of the puzzle.

20.25 | 0 komentar | Read More