Financial thoughts

Millions of jobless Americans are getting their unemployment benefits back.

Hours after the House voted Thursday to push back the deadline to file for extended unemployment benefits until the end of November, President Obama signed the measure into law.

The approval came a day after the Senate voted 59 to 39 to restore the payments, ending a seven-week stalemate.

Some 2.9 million people were scheduled to run out of benefits by the end of the week. The jobless stopped getting their checks in early June, after Congress failed to extend the deadline to apply for unemployment insurance.

Senate Republicans, as well as Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson, prevented the legislation’s passage, saying it should be paid for first. They suggested covering the $34 billion tab with unused stimulus money, a step the Senate Democratic leadership rejected.

Federal unemployment payments, which last up to 73 weeks, kick in after the state-funded 26 weeks of coverage expire. These federal benefits are divided into tiers, and the jobless must apply each time they move into a new tier Online payday loans.

The payments will be retroactive to the previous deadline of June 2. But it could take up to a month for states to start sending the checks again, experts said.

Lynda Kahn of Coral Springs, Fla., can’t wait to get that check. She stopped getting benefits last week and applied for Medicaid, only to be turned down because she doesn’t have dependent children. But she did get a supermarket gift card from a local charity to supplement her $200 a month food stamp allotment.

Kahn depends on her unemployment check, which was $275 a week plus a $25 stimulus-funded supplement that will be discontinued for those newly unemployed. She lost her job as a manager for a doctor’s office last August.

"It covers my mortgage payment," she said. 

Source

Looking for health insurance? Find a variety of affordable medical insurance plans.

Hawker Beechcraft Corp. has sent out 130 layoff notices, according to paperwork filed with the Kansas Department of Commerce.

Shelly Thompson, adult services coordinator with the department, says the state received the paperwork Friday, but that it was dated Thursday. That means, she says, the 60-day notices will take effect August 31 cash advance flexible payments.

Hawker spokesperson Nicole Alexander confirmed that WARN notices had gone out to hourly employees, but said the company would not offer further details.

Source

Get instant affordable car insurance rates from multiple carriers online.

Comedian Chris Rock, hard-edge rockers Nine Inch Nails and alternative pop band Maroon Five have joined the list of artists boycotting Arizona over its new immigration law.

The three were added to the list of boycotting artists compiled by a group called the Sound Strike (www.thesoundstrike.net).

Vocalist Ben Harper and alternative band Throwing Muses also joined the Arizona boycott. Sound Strike was formed in May by Rage Against the Machine singer Zack de la Rocha in protest of Arizona’s immigration law, which gives police more authority to question detain suspected illegal immigrants empire payday loans.

Cypress Hill, Kanye West and Rise Against already previously announced boycotts. Critics of the law say it unfairly targets Hispanics. Supporters, including Gov. Jan Brewer, say it will help police combat Mexican drug cartels and smugglers.

Source

Graphic Packaging International Inc. plans to close its beverage-packaging plant in Golden at the end of October.

The plant at 4455 Table Mountain Drive employs about 150 workers. Most are in manufacturing jobs, and Graphic Packaging hopes to be able to move them to its other facilities around the country, said company spokeswoman Cindy Baerman. About 12 research-and-development employees will remain in Golden, she said.

In a statement, Graphic Packaging said the Golden shutdown “reflects the company’s ongoing efforts to align its manufacturing footprint to the changing needs of its beverage customers and improve its cost structure and margins to better position it for future growth.” It said the plant’s business and equipment will be moved to the company’s other U.S. locations.

“While closing the Golden facility is a difficult decision, it is necessary to ensure that we are able to consistently serve our customers and meet their changing needs from a solid network of efficient, low-cost manufacturing facilities, even in the face of the ongoing economic challenges of today’s marketplace,” David Scheible, the company’s president and CEO, said in the statement.

Graphic Packaging International is a unit of Graphic Packaging Holding Co. (NYSE: GPK), of Marietta, Ga. The company, which has about 15,000 workers worldwide, makes paperboard packaging for food, beverages and other consumer products and is a major producer of folding cartons, coated-recycled boxboard and specialty bag packaging.

The company is a descendant of Coors Paper Packaging, a packaging arm of Coors Brewing Co. that was launched in the 1970s.

Source

Janet and John Beardsley could retain ownership of the Historic U.S. National Bank Block under a bankruptcy plan slated for approval in August.

The Beardsleys placed the property in bankruptcy on Oct. 9, 2009 in the face of mounting debts over the downtown Portland building, 321 S.W. Sixth Ave. The Chapter 11 reorganization case was filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Oregon.

An amended reorganization plan was filed June 2 and approved by the court June 9. A confirmation hearing is set for Aug. 4, at which point the property would exit bankruptcy.

The reorganization plan anticipates that creditors will be repaid within seven years, if not earlier. The plan claims the property is appraised at $27.9 million. It would need to sell for a minimum of $22.5 million to net enough money to repay creditors at the $20.92 million owed under the plan.

John Beardsley and Janet Beardsley each own 50 percent of the company. They will retain ownership but could be required to invest an unspecified amount of new equity to retain their position bad credit payday advance. The reorganization also would allow them to draw up to $12,000 per month to pay “reasonable” living expenses, including income taxes.

Beardsley filed a separate Chapter 11 case covering other real estate assets. The Fountain Village Development case is pending. A reorganization plan was filed March 19, 2010 but has not been confirmed.

The Fountain Village case covers the Fountain Village block at Southwest Second Avenue near Burnside, the New Market Theater Block at Southwest First Avenue and Ankeny Street, the Loyalty Building, 317 S.W. Alder St., the Hamilton Building, 500 block of Southwest Third Avenue, other buildings in downtown and an airplane hangar in Juneau, Alaska.

Source

Five college students were awarded a total of $15,000 Wednesday for having the top business plans at the first annual Mason Wells BizStarts Collegiate Business Plan Competition, BizStarts Milwaukee announced in a news release Thursday.

BizStarts Milwaukee is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting entrepreneurship in the Milwaukee area.

Fourteen student plans were entered by eight participating colleges. Judges read the top five plans and listened to presentations by the finalists Wednesday to determine the final ranking.

Winners were:

1st place, $5,000: Gabriel Wahab, US Combat Sports — a website where fans of Ultimate Fighting Championship and other combat sports can find fighting dates and locations, player statistics and related information.

2nd place, $4,000: Tyler Sailsbery, Nomoredorms.com — a website for college students seeking off-campus housing.

3rd place, $3,000: Trevor Whately, 5tooltee — a new product designed for use by baseball players that combines different styles of batting tees into a single, easy-to-use tee.

4th place, $2,000: Hugh Morris, Proximity LLC — a marketing alert system that uses the technology of smart phones to forward special coupons, messages or deals to users whenever they are in the proximity of their favorite stores.

5th place, $1,000: Vince Anewenter, Eco-Disk — a company that creates disc golf putters and drivers made from recycled plastic and resin.

Source

AMR Corp.’s American Airlines, once the world’s largest carrier by traffic, may pursue alliances to win more passengers as rivals’ mergers erase its advantage, analysts said.

Possible alliance partners include US Airways Group Inc. and JetBlue Airways Corp., the sixth- and seventh-largest U.S. airlines, said Jeff Straebler, a fixed-income strategist at RBS Securities Inc.

Alliances such as AMR’s Oneworld let members sell seats on each other’s jets, a benefit in an industry where the breadth of airlines’ networks attracts corporate fliers. American, now the second-largest U.S. carrier, would be No. 3 under the United-Continental merger, and said Monday that it is studying a "range of alternatives."

"American helped originate the whole idea of alliances and partnerships," said George Van Horn, an analyst at IBISWorld Inc. "If somebody should be good at it, you could make the argument they should be."

Straebler and Van Horn said an alliance might appeal to AMR by providing many of the benefits of a merger, such as adding passenger revenue and avoiding flight duplication, without the risks and expense of meshing fleets and unions. Ties to US Airways or JetBlue might help American in New York, the world’s busiest travel market, they said.

AMR was under pressure even before the United-Continental deal emerged. The company is the only major U.S. airline that may lose money in 2010, and has the lowest margins and highest costs among its peers, according to Jamie Baker, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst. American and unions representing about 77 percent of its work force are in contract talks, with the pilots’ negotiations dating to 2006.

American’s last merger came in 2001, when it bought Trans World Airlines for $2.8 billion.

Source

Wells Fargo gave $21.6 million to Bay Area nonprofits in 2009.

The greatest focus area for Wells' philanthropy was community development, followed by education. The giving broke down into the following focus areas:

• Community development: $8 million

• Education: $6.8 million

• Human services: $3.2 million

• Arts and culture: $2.4 million

• Civic: $905,000

• Environment: $215,000

Wells Fargo also announced that its giving nationwide totaled $202 million.

The company said that the $21.6 million to Bay Area nonprofits is a 30 percent increase over 2008 giving, though the higher numbers reflect Wells Fargo's takeover of Wachovia, which also had a strong corporate philanthropy program.

In 2008, Wells Fargo gave $16.7 million to local nonprofits and Wachovia gave $5.3 million. Nationwide, Wells gave $102 million in 2008 and Wachovia gave $124 million.

Source

Southwest Airlines Co. — the third-largest carrier at Denver International Airport by passenger count — has announced that parents of minors traveling alone will have to pay $50 to fly their children in the airline's "unnaccompanied minors" program. That is up from the previous price of $25 per child.

Southwest (NYSE: LUV) plans to use funds generated from the added cost to help pay for expenses associated with caring for an unaccompanied minor.

In addition, the Dallas-based airline has plans to roll out a section on its website where parents can book their unaccompanied minors online. This is intended to save parents time by eliminating paperwork at the airport. The online service will be available April 23.

"We continuously evaluate our UM process to ensure that we deliver the best possible service to our young customers who are traveling alone," said Teresa Laraba, Southwest's senior vice president of customer services. "During a recent audit, we identified several opportunities, including the creation of an online booking tool for UMs and an enhancement in the employee training that comes along with handling our young passengers who are flying solo."

Unaccompanied minors on Southwest flights are children ages five to 11 who are traveling without an adult passenger.

In other Southwest news, the airline said it has terminated its codeshare agreement with WestJet, nixing a deal that had promised Southwest its first taste of international business.

If the agreement had withstood the test of time, it would have landed Southwest a link to international status by connecting the airline's service to WestJet flights heading to Canada.

DIA low-fare competitor Frontier Airlines offers service to Mexico and Costa Rica.

Southwest said WestJet had asked to modify its initial 2008 agreement with Southwest, and the airline could not “agree with the modifications to the confidential agreement.”

The Southwest-WestJet deal went sour earlier this month when WestJet announced it could be entering into a codeshare agreement with Delta Air Lines. At the time, Southwest sounded the alarm, saying it had heard that Delta, as part of the deal, might transfer slots at New York’s LaGuardia to WestJet.

Southwest indicated that an agreement with another carrier could hurt the deal Southwest and WestJet had in place.

"We prefer the existing terms of our agreement with WestJet,” said Southwest’s executive vice president of strategy and planning Bob Jordan. “Upon reviewing the number of changes that WestJet has requested, we have decided that it is in the best interest of both parties to move forward independently.”

Southwest added it’s still interested in exploring opportunities to enter into the Canadian market, adding that partnerships with other Canadian carriers remain a possibility.

Source

In its third round of venture funding, Achaogen Inc. raised $56 million.

The San Francisco company seeks drugs to fight bacteria that are resistant to existing drugs. It’s also working on drugs aimed at bubonic plague and other bugs attractive to possible terrorists.

Frazier Healthcare Ventures, a new investor, led this round and put Robert More on Achaogen’s board of directors.

Alta Partners, 5 AM Ventures, Arch Venture Partners, Domain Associates, Venrock Associates, Versant Ventures and the Wellcome Trust also gave money.

Kevin Judice is CEO of Achaogen.

Source