Florida House Rep. Erik Fresen, R-Miami, postponed consideration of his bill before the Business and Consumer Affairs Subcommittee – essentially killing the bill for the 2012 legislation session. The Genting Group has spent more than $400 million to assemble about 30 acres in downtown Miami, including the current headquarters of The Miami Herald and the nearby Omni Center.
A local couple, Claude and Michaelle Berthoin, are offering to help folks in Volusia, Flagler and St. Johns counties do business with France. The Berthoins are among a dozen Florida representatives to the French Consulate. The consulate's Florida representatives help the roughly 300 French Nationals with permanent residency in the three counties keep in touch with their native country.
An advertiser seeking to attract drivers' eyeballs these days needs more than a giant flat picture with big words. To compete with costly new electronic signs, conventional billboards are increasingly adding a third dimension. The newest eye-catching billboard to go up in South Florida is a sign in wrapped in a bright green vine with dangling tomatoes and two very large soup cans.
Entrepreneurs, your time is now. Today we launch our call for entries for the Miami Herald Business Plan Challenge, our annual celebration of entrepreneurship, now in its 14th year. Sponsored by The Eugenio Pino and Family Global Entrepreneurship Center at Florida International University, this year the Challenge will be offering three tracks — a Community Track, open to all South Floridians, an FIU Track, open to students and alumni of that university, and a High School Track, for grades 9-12, co-sponsored by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship. The rules are simple: You can submit a three-page business plan and may also attach one additional page for a photo or rendering, diagram or spreadsheet. Experts in all facets of entrepreneurship — entrepreneurs, investors, consultants, accountants, bankers and academics — will judge your plans for your product or service’s value to the customer, market opportunity, strength of your management team, and your marketing and financial strategies.
Editor's Comment: This is really unique. Go for it
Boeing has discovered a problem related to the aft fuselage of its 787 Dreamliner planes and is making repairs that will not affect production of the aircraft, the company said in an emailed statement on Sunday. The 787 Dreamliner is a light-weight, fuel-efficient, carbon-composite aircraft. It was three years behind its development schedule but finally entered service last year.
In 2009, 38 commercial and industrial customers were on a waiting list to buy their electricity from a provider other than Consumers Energy, according to the Michigan Public Service Commission's annual electric competition report. That number jumped to 3,739 in 2011. At the same time, the number of choice customers in Consumers Energy's service territory was 1,069 in 2011, down from 1,083 in 2010. Michigan's 2008 energy-reform law limits competition to 10 percent of the sales of the state's two largest utilities: Jackson-based Consumers Energy and Detroit Edison.
Airport spokeswoman Pat Rowe said the problem stemmed in part from an incident late last month in which an estimated 9,000 gallons of jet fuel leaked from a Shell Oil Co. pipeline at the airport. That pipeline is being repaired. In the meantime, aviation fuel is coming via tanker trucks. Also, incoming planes are carrying extra fuel in order to avoid fueling up at Mitchell. Rowe said the system of tankers coming to the airport to service airlines had been delayed, causing flights to be delayed on Monday morning.
"2011 was my second best year," said Annette Caldwell of Re/Max. "It was awesome. I sold a number of houses at really, really good prices." That performance has continued, contrary to the latest figures from the Indiana Association of Realtors, recapping state and local home sales for 2011.
According to the state's figures, 823 local sales were recorded in 2011, down from 851 in 2010. The median local sales price was $75,950, down from $77,500.
We're now in the 37th month of central government manipulation of the free-market system through the Federal Reserve's near-zero interest rate policy. Is it working? Business and consumer loan demand remains modest in part because there's no hurry to borrow at today's super-low rates when the Fed says rates will stay low for years to come. Why take the risk of borrowing today when low-cost money will be there tomorrow? Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers last week that fiscal policy should first "do no harm." The same can be said of monetary policy. The Fed's prolonged, "emergency" near-zero interest rate policy is now harming our economy.
General Motors, which was left for dead three years ago, is now reportedly targeting a lofty profit goal of $10 billion a year. Daniel Ammann, GM’s chief financial officer, told The Wall Street Journal the auto maker aims to further boost its profits by juicing its profit margins to 10% from their current levels of 6%. GM is poised to report 2011 net income of about $8 billion -- its highest ever and doubling 2010’s profits, the Journal reported.
European leaders pressed Greece on Monday to quickly conclude deadlocked talks over a new international bailout, and threatened to let the country default if it does not agree to a renewed economic reform plan. In recent weeks, parallel sets of negotiations have tried to produce agreement between Greece and private investors over a plan to reduce the country’s outstanding debts, and with other European nations and the International Monetary Fund over $170 billion in additional international loans.
As profits and sales slip, some European businesses are scrambling to pay their bills. With banks reluctant to lend, the fear is that companies will be unable to come up with the cash and will be forced to take drastic action, further weighing on the economy. “There’s a lack of business confidence across Europe” said Jonathan Loynes, chief European economist in London at the research organization Capital Economics. “Lending to the private sector is deteriorating, and there’s enormous stress on the European economy.”
