Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securities LLC, has derided the Federal Reserve for downplaying improvement in the U.S. economy. Yet his 2.6 percent forecast for growth this year is below the midpoint in the central bank
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Kellwood Co. has appointed Jill Granoff, former head of Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc., to be its new chief executive officer.
The Town and Country-based apparel company has diverse portfolio of brands including Vince, Rebecca Taylor, David Meister, Lamb & Flag, Baby Phat, and Sag Harbor.
Granoff replaces Michael Kramer, who left to become chief operating officer of J.C. Penney.
She was also formerly an executive vice president of Liz Claiborne Inc. where she was in charge of the worldwide business of Juicy Couture, Lucky Brand Jeans, and Kate Spade payday loans. She has also held executive positions with Victoria’s Secret Beauty and Estee Lauder Inc.
“I am excited about the opportunity to partner with Kellwood and Sun Capital to optimize the brand portfolio and enhance overall business performance,” she said in a statement. “We have a great platform to accelerate growth and profitability.”
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Delinquent taxes paid by Roberts brothers • Michael and Steven Roberts bought a little breathing room for their beleaguered Roberts Mayfair Hotel on Monday. Roberts Hospitality Services paid off delinquent state sales taxes on the Mayfair, and $15,000 toward a sales tax bond, according an order issued by Circuit Judge Joan Moriarty in a lawsuit filed by the Missouri Department of Revenue. The state last month sued to close two Roberts hotels — the Mayfair and their Comfort Inn in the Central West End — over $212,000 in unpaid taxes. The state is seeking a larger bond on the Mayfair. Taxes on the Comfort Inn are still outstanding. (Tim Logan)
Bakers Footwear sales drop • A company executive for St. Louis-based Bakers Footwear Group Inc. blamed a drop in sales and profit in the fiscal fourth quarter in part on a “difficult dress boot season.” Net income was $3.4 million, or 36 cents a share, in the quarter ended Jan. 28, compared with $5.2 million, or 54 cents a share, in the same period a year ago. Net sales dropped 8 percent, to $53.6 million. (Kavita Kumar)
Reliance posts a profit • Reliance Bancshares Inc no teletrack payday loan. swung to a profit in the first quarter, boosted by a $2.5 million gain from the sales of investment securities. The bank holding company posted a net income of $719,000, compared with a loss of $5.2 million a year earlier. Frontenac-based Reliance is the holding company for Reliance Bank, which has 20 local branches. (Gregory Cancelada)
Reinsurance Group adjusts accounting • Reinsurance Group of America reported first quarter income of $123.3 million, or $1.67 per share, compared with $148.9 million, or $2.02 per share, in the corresponding period last year. The company said amounts for last year were adjusted for the retrospective adoption of new accounting guidance for deferred acquisition costs. Consolidated net premiums rose 7 percent, to $1.86 billion, from $1.74 billion. Reinsurance Group, based in Chesterfield, is among the largest global providers of life reinsurance. (Tim Bryant)
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Home prices in 20 U.S. cities dropped at a slower pace in the year ended February, pointing to stabilization in the real-estate market.
The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values fell 3.5 percent from a year earlier, the smallest 12-month drop since February 2011, a report from the group showed today in New York. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News projected a 3.4 percent fall. The index climbed from the prior month on a seasonally adjusted basis for the first time since April of last year.
Steadying home values are needed to lay the groundwork for a sustained rebound in the housing industry by giving prospective buyers confidence. Near record-low borrowing costs and more hiring may help the market absorb the foreclosures still in the pipeline, which may mean housing will no longer hinder economic growth.
A German court has ruled that online video platform YouTube must install filters to prevent users from uploading some music videos whose rights are held by a music-royalties collecting body.
German news agency dapd reported that the Hamburg state court on Friday mostly sided with Germany’s GEMA, which represents about 60,000 German writers and musicians.
GEMA took Google Inc.’s YouTube unit to court over 12 temporarily uploaded music videos for which no royalties were paid.
YouTube has maintained that it bears no legal responsibility for the uploaded content _ saying it checks and sometimes blocks content when users alert the firm about alleged violations of laws.
It was not immediately clear whether the ruling will be appealed.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below Payday advance.
BERLIN (AP) _ A German court is set to rule on whether the online video platform YouTube is responsible for the content of videos uploaded by its users.
GEMA, a German music royalties collecting body, took Google Inc.’s YouTube unit to the Hamburg state court over 12 uploaded music videos for which no royalties were paid.
YouTube maintains that it bears no legal responsibility for the uploaded content _ saying that it checks and sometimes blocks content when users alert the firm about alleged violations of laws.
A ruling Friday in favor of GEMA could be a major blow for YouTube because experts say that millions of videos on its platform could be affected.
Stocks are opening lower after the Federal Reserve signaled that it may be less willing to provide more stimulus to the U.S. economy.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 121 points to 13,079 shortly after the opening of trading Wednesday.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 12 points to 1,401. The Nasdaq composite slipped 32 points to 3081.
Minutes from the Fed’s last meeting, released late Tuesday, started a sell-off that began in the U instant payday loan.S. and extended overseas.
Encouraged by job growth, the Fed’s policy makers seem more willing to allow the economy to move forward on its own. The U.S. and overseas governments have worked actively to prop up economies damaged by the global downturn.
Alean Elston just cannot find a job.
The 26-year-old from New Jersey has tried nearly everything. She has mailed resumes, asked friends and family for leads and dropped in on retail outlets in hopes of finding work.
Applying for job after job with no luck is nothing new for the 2009 business administration graduate. And as a consequence, she lives at home with her parents. Fact is, she cannot afford a place of her own.
Elston is far from alone.
Younger workers were disproportionately affected by the recession. As a group, they had a very tough time finding work, and many highly educated graduates were forced to take menial jobs or retreat to the safety of academia.
The lack of good jobs means that young people are stuck at home — a common occurrence during tough times. While not ideal, families face no easy alternatives.
"The fact is, most young people are not so fortunate that their parents can purchase them a condominium or house just for fun," said Anthony Sanders, a senior scholar at the Mercatus Center.
In econospeak, the process of a young person finding accommodations of their own is called "household formation" — and that stalled big-time during the recession.
The trend toward staying home for longer means the economy is denied dollars that, under different circumstances, young people would have been eager to spend.
There is no student loan ‘crisis’
Beyond rent or mortgage payments, new living arrangements often require investments in furniture, flatware, appliances, plants for the yard and insurance policies. Even new car sales can be affected.
And reduced household formation can contribute to a lack of demand in the housing market. That trend was especially troublesome during the last recession, as foreclosures spiked and already high inventory levels jumped off the charts.
"We ended up with far too many [housing] units and the bubble popped with a violence that shook the entire economy," Warren Buffett wrote in his 2011 letter to Berkshire Hathaway () shareholders.
The excess inventory meant a sharp reduction in homebuilding and jobs in the construction industry.
The number of new housing starts fell from a peak annual rate of more than 2 million in some months of 2006 to a recession low of only 478,000 starts in April 2009.
Even after the recession was declared officially over, companies weren’t hiring young people. Young people weren’t moving out and soaking up excess housing inventory. And new homes weren’t being built, acting as a significant albatross around the economy’s neck.
This negative feedback loop has proven quite difficult to break.
But now, Buffett and others believe the trend might be reversing.
"The devastating supply/demand equation is now reversed," Buffett wrote to Berkshire investors in February. "Every day we are creating more households than housing units."
"People may postpone hitching up during uncertain times, but eventually hormones take over," he said. "Living with the in-laws can quickly lose its allure."
The numbers back Buffett’s hypothesis. Household formations rebounded last year, and are now closer to historical averages. And new home starts picked up steam in the final months of 2011 — momentum that has carried over into this year.
Buffett’s musings on hormones aside, there is another explanation for the uptick in household formation: More jobs.
Over the past two years, the employment population ratio, which measures the proportion of population that works, has improved more rapidly for young people than other demographic groups.
That ratio has increased almost 2 percentage points for individuals aged 20 - 24, while older workers have seen their numbers improve by only half a point.
Add that to a string of solid monthly jobs reports, and things are looking up.
White House: Jobs recovery isn’t ’statistical fluke’
Sanders agrees with Buffett in principle, but cautions against popping the champagne just yet. "The job market is still so bad," Sanders said. "Especially for college and high school grads who are not in high demand areas."
"We are seeing more and more recruiters showing up to campuses," Sanders said. "But the recruiters are coming with very specific ideas of who they want to hire."
Greg Kaplan, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, said that there is no guarantee that more young people will move out on their own as the economy and job market improve.
"It’s possible that we look like Italy now, where housing costs are just so high that people are going to live with their parents for a longer period of time," Kaplan said.
Elston, for one, can’t wait to move out — if only that job would arrive. She said she applies for at least two positions a day, and has been working odd jobs to help her parents pay the bills.
"It just feels like an endless cycle," she said. "It seems like I’m the perfect candidate for some of these jobs, so why not me? Why not?"
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy will today face down the first general strike against his three-month old government as pressure from investors and European peers trumps demands from unions.
Auto workers at factories of Volkswagen AG (VOW3) and Renault SA followed the strike during the nightshift and 100 percent of miners also joined the walkout, union Comisiones Obreras said in a statement. Power demand was 22 percent below that of a typical day, grid operator Red Electrica Corp SA data showed.
The People
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said while he
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, set to leave office next year after a decade in power, said his nation must adopt political change to support an economic transformation that has produced rapid development at the cost of a widening wealth gap.
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