You’re paying your bills, but your landlord isn’t. And you’re the one holding the eviction notice. What should you do if you have such a notice or believe one is coming?
"Don’t panic or stick your head in the sand," says Robert Baker with Housing and Credit Counseling Inc. in Kansas. Here are some actions you should consider taking:
— Call the sheriff’s department. Find out how long the foreclosure process takes. Is it 60 days or 90? Then you’ll have a timeline.
— Get on the Internet. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development outlines tenant rights by state on its website, www.hud.gov. Some states, including California and Illinois, allow grace periods.
— Contact the lender or the lender’s attorney on the eviction notice. Find out if you can sign a new lease or if the bank is offering cash assistance for moving out.
— Contact a local nonprofit housing counseling agency for help no teletrack payday loan. HUD’s website lists agencies by state, or you can call its toll-free number 1-800-569-4287.
— Find out about your landlord’s financial situation. Go to the county courthouse or its website and do a rudimentary background check. Or, contact your local Better Business Bureau.
— Check to see if your landlord isn’t making repairs; maybe it’s because he can’t pay for them.
— In the meantime, save your money for a rainy-day fund.
Automakers may be pushing forward on plans to introduce plug-in vehicles within the next few years, but the drive toward electric transportation could hit a yellow light if the grid isn’t prepared to handle the extra load. And it’s not just about having enough power generation to support the charging of hundreds of thousands of cars plugged into a wall socket.
David O’Brien, president and chief executive officer of Toronto Hydro Corp., said the wires in distribution networks can behave in strange ways when major changes are introduced to the system.
"I’m going to be the first guy in line to buy an electric car, and by God it’s about time," he said. "But people forget that our electricity system is designed around what we do today. It’s not a forward-thinking grid."
For example, during the hottest days of the summer, power lines can overheat and short out unless they get a chance in the evening to cool down, which tends to be the case overnight when there’s a smaller load on the system.
"If we start plugging in a bunch of cars overnight then you don’t let the system cool down enough," O’Brien said. He added that the overnight load will get even greater as the province moves to time-of-use power pricing and more people have an incentive to run power-hungry appliances at night.
It’s not a showstopper, he said, but an example of what needs to be considered as we move toward electric transportation. Companies such as General Motors, Toyota, Nissan and Ford have all announced plans to come out with plug-in cars within the next few years.
"We’ve got a couple of years now to get the industries together and start talking about how we’re going to make it work."
Included in this discussion should be ways to allow more small-scale renewable energy, such as solar and wind, onto a grid that was designed to push electricity to consumers – not take it from them, O’Brien said payday loans online. "We have to rethink our whole transmission and distribution systems," he said.
Even before these trends take hold, Toronto Hydro has been seeing an increase in the frequency and duration of outages in pockets of its network, mostly in Scarborough, Etobicoke and North York.
O’Brien said 35 per cent of the utility’s network is "beyond its life expectancy."
A $1.3 billion, 10-year rebuilding plan approved by the Ontario Energy Board will bring that figure down to only 25 per cent. Getting it to 10 per cent will take several billions of dollars, he added.
Alongside this renewal, Toronto Hydro is also preparing its customers for the introduction of time-of-use pricing in 2009, when electricity use during peak times will cost a premium and off-peak use will be rewarded with a discount.
The idea is to encourage people to shift electricity use from peak to off-peak times so overall demand is more evenly distributed throughout the day and the grid operates more efficiently. The utility has so far installed 550,000 "smart meters" and is reading information from about 400,000 of them.
A year from now all 670,000 meters will be installed and operational. Some customers are already being directed to a website that lets them get a sense of what their hydro bill will look like once time-of-use rates are formally introduced.
"I think 2009 will be a very interesting year," O’Brien said. "We’ll do a pilot project starting with 10,000 customers and over a period of time transition them (to time-of-use pricing). It will be an evolutionary process, but I see next year as the big start."
FRANKFURT–Chemical company BASF SE said Wednesday it is temporarily closing 80 plants worldwide due to slumping demand and cutting production at 100 more, including facilities in Texas and Louisiana. Some 20,000 workers are affected.
It also abandoned its goal to match last year's profit, citing slowing demand for its products, particularly from automotive customers.
BASF shares plunged 14.7 per cent to euro21.68 ($27.39) in Frankfurt after the announcement.
BASF spokesman Gareth Rees said the shutdowns and slowdown have already begun and will extend into January. Workers were being encouraged to take vacation time and reduce their overtime.
In a statement, the Ludwigshafen-based maker of everything from fertilizers and paints to glues and ingredients for cosmetics said it was trying to stem any overcapacity at its operations "as a result of a massive decline" in demand.
The measures will affect major plants in Freeport, Texas; Geismar, Louisiana; Ludwigshafen, Germany; Antwerp, Belgium; Nanjing, China; and Kuantan, Malaysia.
"BASF already drew attention to the difficult economic situation at the end of October," Chief Executive Juergen Hambrecht said in a statement. "Since then, customer demand in key markets has declined significantly. In particular, customers in the automotive industry have canceled orders at short notice.''
Last year, the company's pretax profit was euro7 cash advance in one hour.6 billion on sales of euro57.9 billion. For 2008, BASF said it doesn't expect to achieve that figure.
Hambrecht said "it was difficult to foresee how the coming year would develop and said that BASF was preparing for tough times.''
The company saw its third-quarter earnings fall 38 percent to euro758 million ($959.1 million) from euro1.2 billion a year earlier.
In Ludwigshafen, it signed an agreement with its employee council to take advantage of flex time and vacation there, moves that will affect 5,000 workers.
"We are responding flexibly to market developments and are acting quickly," Hambrecht said. "BASF will now focus even more closely on cost and budget discipline, and will use opportunities arising from the crisis.''
He said the moves would not affect its planned 6.1 billion Swiss franc (euro4 billion; $5 billion) acquisition of Switzerland's specialty chemicals firm Ciba, which it hopes to complete by the first quarter of 2009.
"We will also proceed swiftly with the planned acquisition and integration of Ciba to further optimize our business," Hambrecht said.
In his victory speech on Tuesday night, President-elect Barack Obama told supporters there would be a long road ahead in fixing the nation’s problems. The construction industry hopes the first steps involve building and repairing that road.
With the economy contracting, new infrastructure construction was an underlying issue in the election campaigns, which touted it as a way to create jobs.
The topic is key for construction companies already hurt by shrinking state and federal budgets for infrastructure projects.
Obama’s platform included creating what his campaign dubbed the national infrastructure reinvestment bank — a system intended to attract public and private investment for economic development projects with an initial $60 billion infusion of federal money for construction over the next 10 years. Infrastructure could include projects such as housing.
That money could bring much-needed aid for public projects in Missouri. In June, the state’s Department of Transportation said its current transportation funds would cover just 40 percent of funding needs for the next 20 years — leaving a $938 million annual shortfall.
The situation is being made worse by rising materials and labor costs for highway and road projects. Nationally, materials costs for such projects were up 22 percent in September from the previous year, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, or ARTBA, the industry advocacy group which has already begun clamoring for attention.
"We’re going to work with new administration to make sure they know transportation investment is not just a political priority but a national priority," said Jeffrey Solsby, the association’s director of public affairs.
The association also advocates increasing the federal fuel tax that drivers pay to fund road construction. Obama opposes that idea.
While Obama’s idea of stimulating job creation is popular in the construction industry, some are guarded in their optimism payday advance loans.
The $60 billion investment Obama proposed, when divided among states and spread over a decade, would need a significant contribution from state and local investors in order to have much impact, said Len Toenjes, president of Associated General Contractors of St. Louis. The group represents about 450 construction firms and suppliers that stand to gain from a slate of new projects.
"I’d hate to see people oversimplify this and think that a check is going to show up from the beltway and we’re going to have all these new projects going," he said.
One example of the challenges was the defeat of the local proposition that could have built a new MetroLink line into western St. Louis County, Toenjes said.
In addition to public opposition and funding shortfalls, projects also face regulatory barriers and extensive planning needed before an infrastructure project begins.
The Obama plan to use both public and private money also presents its own set of challenges.
Forming public-private funding partnerships is a painstaking process, said Susan Stauder, vice president of infrastructure and public policy for the St. Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association.
And finding private money may be arduous given the current credit crisis, she added.
It may be better if the new president and congressional leaders launch a stimulus package that focused on public projects, such as roads and highways.
"That would be a really positive thing that most legislators in Congress could agree on," Stauder said. "As long as we’re going to be stimulating the economy, we might as well create jobs and put in infrastructure that can be used for the next 40 to 100 years."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
cboyce@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8345
PHILADELPHIA — The Federal Communications Commission has opened an investigation into the pricing policies of major cable operators, including Charter Communications Inc.
The agency wants to ensure the companies’ customers are getting treated fairly, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said in an interview.
"I’m certainly concerned with the increasing cable prices that consumers are facing," Martin said. "They are getting less and being charged the same or more."
The FCC wrote Thursday to cable operators including Town and Country-based Charter, Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc., Cox Communications Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp., Bright House Networks, Suddenlink Communications, Bend Cable Communications, GCI Company, Harron Entertainment and RCN Corp.
Phone-service provider Verizon Communications Inc., which offers pay-TV services with FiOS, also was included in the inquiry.
The agency’s letter questioned the companies’ practice of moving analog channels into digital tiers to free bandwidth for other uses, such as high-definition channels. Analog customers will have to get a digital set-top box from the operator or buy the digital TV tier to watch those channels.
Most cable customers are analog customers, and those who do not wish to upgrade to digital cannot watch the channels that are moved to the digital tier.
The agency also will look into whether cable operators and Verizon are confusing customers by linking the shift of the analog channel to the digital tier to the nation’s transition to digital broadcasts, Martin said no fax pay day loans.
The two moves are unrelated.
Linking the two in customers’ minds could prompt more people to opt for digital video and cable services because the digital TV transition in February is mandated by the federal government. The FCC has asked companies being investigated to submit information about their pricing practices within two weeks.
Martin said it appears consumers weren’t given "appropriate notice" about the channel changes.
He said the FCC has received a "significant" number of consumer complaints about the practice of moving analog channels to digital, which has accelerated this year.
The FCC’s letter was sent out a day after Consumers Union sent a letter to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation asking for an investigation into the practice of moving analog channels to the digital tier.
"Consumers are left paying the same monthly rate for significantly less service, or must rent more expensive set-top boxes for each television set they own," said Consumers Union, a nonprofit advocacy group.
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment insurance did not change from last week, remaining at an elevated level that indicates weakness in the nation’s economy.
The U.S. Department of Labor reported Thursday that initial filings for state jobless benefits rested at a seasonally adjusted 479,000 for the week ended Oct. 25.
Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected the number to fall to 473,000 from the initially reported 478,000. Last year, there were 332,000 Americans filing new unemployment claims.
The Labor Department reported that there were 7,400 unemployment claims related to the effects of Hurricane Ike in Texas, down from the 12,000 such claims last week.
Ian Shepherdson, economist at High Frequency Economics, had hoped the fading of the impact of Ike would allow unemployment claims to fall.
Shepherdson said the fact that claims held steady shows a labor market in decline.
"There can be no question that the labor market is deteriorating; the only issue is the speed of the decline and the eventual peak in unemployment," he wrote in a note creditreports.
He said the national unemployment rate could reach 8.5%. It currently stands at 6.1%.
The four-week average of jobless claims, which smoothes out fluctuations fell to 475,500 from the week before. Last year, the average stood at 329,750.
A level of more than 400,000 was present throughout the last two recessions.
The number of American workers continuing to collect benefits for more than one week decreased by 12,000 to 3,715,000 for the week ended Oct. 18, the most recent data available. A year ago, there were 2,598,000 Americans continuing to collect benefits.
Four weeks prior, unemployment claims spiked to 499,000, the highest level recorded since the 517,000 claims filed in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Earlier this month, Labor Department reported net payroll nationwide declined by 159,000 in September, the ninth straight month the economy lost jobs.
Stocks tumbled Monday, ending a choppy session lower as recession jitters outweighed relief that the government’s programs to shore up the financial system have gotten underway.
Investors also weighed a better-than-expected September new home sales report.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost 203 points or 2.4% according to early tallies, after having been on both sides of breakeven throughout the session. Verizon rallied 10% after its profit report, but it was one of only 3 Dow components to rise.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 (SPX) index fell 3.2% and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) fell 3%. All three major gauges closed at fresh five-year lows.
Tuesday brings the release of the October consumer confidence report.
Stocks had seesawed on both sides of unchanged throughout the session as investors geared up for critical events due later in the week and early next.
As a result, Wall Street is unlikely to move much over the next few sessions, said Harry Clark, CEO of Clark Capital Management Group.
Ahead of the election, the Federal Reserve is expected to announce an interest rate cut at the conclusion of its two-day meeting Wednesday.
"The rate cut this week will help a bit, but we really need to get past the election right now," Clark said.
The start of some of the government’s rescue programs this week is significant, Clark said, but it’s still going to take several weeks for the impact to be felt and borrowing rates to improve more substantially.
Recession fears decked stocks last week, near the end of a brutal month on Wall Street. The credit crisis, sluggish corporate profit outlook and slump in commodity prices have all exacerbated fears that a recession is imminent, if not already underway.
These underlying issues aren’t going to disappear anytime soon, but there are signs that the stock market is closer to hitting bottom, said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer’s Investment Research.
Detrick said that stocks are the most "oversold" they’ve been since the period surrounding Black Monday in October 1987. That means that on a technical basis, it wouldn’t be hard to spark a big bounce. Additionally, the level of money sitting in mutual funds and the level of investor fear are good contrarian indicators. Plus, November, December and January are typically good months seasonally on Wall Street.
However, there’s nothing typical about this year or this time period on Wall Street, he said, and the usual factors may not carry much weight.
"You have the uncertainty of worldwide recession and the credit markets are still a problem," Detrick said. "For the market to see a significant bounce, we’d need to see signs that our economy and the global economy are turning around."
He said that the recent housing market reports have been positive, but that doesn’t change the broader economic outlook.
Brutal month: With just one week left in October, the Dow is down 24.7%, the S&P 500 is down 27.2% and the Nasdaq is down 27.7%.
The Dow is currently on track to post its worst month ever on a point basis and fifth worst ever on a percentage basis, according to Stock Trader’s Almanac info going back to 1901.
The S&P 500 is currently on track to post its worst month ever on a point basis and third worst ever on a percentage basis, going back to 1930.
The Nasdaq is on track to post its fourth-worst month ever on a point basis and its second-worst month ever on a percentage basis, going back to its inception in 1971.
Global market effect: World markets continued to retreat as the new week began.
European markets ended lower, with the London FTSE closing down 1%, erasing bigger session losses. Asian markets tumbled overnight, with the Japanese Nikkei falling 6 one hour cash loan.6% to a 26-year low on worries that the strong yen will hurt exports. The Hong Kong Hang Seng fell 12.7% to a more than four-year low.
The declines followed a Sunday statement from the G7 warning about the excessive volatility of the yen, which hit a 13-year high versus the dollar Friday. Analysts said the statement could mean the government is set to intervene in the currency markets.
The dollar continued to retreat versus the yen on Monday and gained against the euro. Bets that the Bank of England and European Central Bank will have to cut rates aggressively over the next few months have weighed on the euro and pound lately.
Banks and credit: Nine big banks are set to get $125 billion from the Treasury Department this week as part of the $700 billion bank rescue plan passed last month.
Ten regional banks said Monday that they will get at least $18 billion under the bailout plan.
Also beginning this week: The Fed’s previously announced program to buy up commercial paper, short-term debt that businesses depend on to fund daily operations.
Despite the government’s efforts, lending has remained constrained, with short-term borrowing rates the one exception.
Libor, the overnight bank-to-bank lending rate, edged lower to 1.26% from 1.28% Friday, according to Bloomberg.com. It was a modest retreat after two days of gains. On the upside, that still kept Libor below the Fed’s benchmark lending rate of 1.5%, seen as a good sign. Libor hit a record 6.88% earlier this month at the height of the market panic.
The 3-month Libor rate, what banks charge each other to borrow for three months, inched lower to 3.51% from 3.52% Friday.
The TED spread, the difference between what banks pay to borrow from each other for three months and what the Treasury pays, narrowed to 2.67% from 2.70% Friday. The spread hit a record 4.65% earlier this month. The narrower the spread, the more willing banks are to lend to each other.
Treasury prices were little changed, with the yield on the 10-year note at 3.68%, roughly where it stood late Friday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
The yield on the 3-month Treasury bill, seen as the safest place to put money in the short term, slipped to 0.75% from 0.86% late Friday, showing investors would rather see little return on their money than risk the stock market.
Last month, the 3-month yield reached a 68-year low around 0%, as investor panic hit its peak.
Results: Dow component Verizon Communications reported higher quarterly earnings that met estimates on higher sales that beat forecasts. Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) shares jumped over 10%.
With 45% of the third-quarter reports out already, profits are currently on track to have fallen 11.3% from a year earlier, according to the latest estimates from Thomson Reuters.
Oil, gas and gold: U.S. light crude oil for December delivery fell 93 cents to settle at $63.22 a barrel, after falling to a 17-month low in morning trading.
Prices have been sliding since crude peaked at a record $147.27 a barrel on July 11, with speculators pulling out of the market on bets that global demand is slowing. Investors have also had to raise money fast amid the stock market slump and have done so by dumping their oil positions.
Gasoline prices fell another 3.1 cents overnight, to a national average of $2.668 a gallon, according to a survey of credit-card activity by motorist group AAA. It was the 40th consecutive day that prices have decreased. During that time, prices have fallen by $1.18 a gallon, or more than 30%.
COMEX gold for December delivery rose $12.60 to settle at $742.90 an ounce.
The dollar opened the week up on the euro amid bailout plans for two key European lending institutions, as the effects of the financial crisis on Wall Street were keenly felt across the Atlantic.
The 15-nation euro slid to $1.4406 in early European trading Monday, down from the $1.4618 it bought in late New York trading Friday.
Germany’s financial regulators and several banks stepped in Monday to throw a line of credit to Hypo Real Estate Holding AG in a multibillion euro move aimed at shielding Germany’s No. 2 commercial property lender from going under.
That came a day after Dutch-Belgian bank and insurance company Fortis NV was given a $16.4 billion lifeline to avert insolvency as part of a wider bailout plan agreed to by Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
"The dollar (is) finding upside off the back of the progress from the Fed’s bail out plan whilst the euro and pound are both under pressure as the credit crisis once again casts a shadow on this side of the Atlantic," said Gary Thomson, a currency trader with CMC Markets.
"With (U.K payday loans. bank) Bradford & Bingley being nationalized and Fortis being multi-nationalized, it’s a clear reminder that the problem continues to roll on and most certainly isn’t ring fenced across the Atlantic."
In other currencies, the British pound bought $1.8188, down from the $1.8426 on Friday. The dollar held largely steady against the Japanese yen to ¥106.30 from ¥106.06 Friday.
Alitalia (AZPIa.MI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) remained airborne on Saturday but Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi ruled out any last-minute rescue by a foreign airline and said Italy’s flag carrier could be headed for bankruptcy.
“There is no possibility of another rescue bid so it could be that our Alitalia is heading towards bankruptcy procedures,” said Berlusconi, whose attempt to rally an Italian consortium to salvage the airline tripped this week on trade union opposition.
Alitalia flights were operating normally but may be grounded in a matter of days, and the airline liquidated, if there is no last-minute reprieve for talks between trade unions and the CAI consortium, which withdrew its offer on Thursday after pilots and flight attendants refused to accept its conditions.
Suffering from high fuel prices and an economic downturn that has hit airlines globally, Alitalia has been on the brink of collapse for years as political interference and labor unrest bled it of cash and caused it to pile up debt.
The government rules out further state aid or, as some leftists propose, the denationalization of Alitalia paydayloans. Italy is already in trouble with the European Commission over a 300 million euro ($435.2 million) loan to keep the airline flying.
Berlusconi returned to power in May promising to rescue the airline, in which the state owns a 49.9 percent stake, and keep it in Italian hands. He had opposed an offer for Alitalia by Air France-KLM (AIRF.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) under the previous centre-left government.
Union chief Guglielmo Epifani suggesting Alitalia should now be “sold to a big international airline”.
NO FOREIGN INTEREST
In a promotional video for CPFilms’ automotive window film, a machine re-creates a side-impact car accident. It slams into a car that has a driving mannequin, and predictably, pebble-sized pieces of glass splatter inside and outside of the vehicle.
Yet when CPFilms’ safety and security film is applied to the inside of the side windows, the glass doesn’t fly into the car.
Instead, the broken pieces stick to the film.
For years, CPFilms — a subsidiary of Town and Country-based chemicals maker Solutia Inc. — has made solar films for automobiles. It also has made window films for houses and office buildings to protect against hurricanes and strong winds.
When CPFilms realized its authorized dealers were using the architectural film on vehicles’ windows for added protection, "we saw the need (for) offering safety film," said Andres Vasquez, the global product development manager.
After developing the product over the last three years, the company recently unveiled its LLumar Automotive Safety and Security Film. The film can be applied at any point in a vehicle’s lifetime, but it’s only being sold to a network of CPFilms-designated dealers, who then professionally install it.
Including installation fees, the product costs between $400 to $700, according to CPFilms.
The film, which is essentially layers of polyester, comes in clear and tinted versions and is applied to the interior sides of the windows. By law, windshields cannot be altered, so the film only can go on the side and rear windows.
Vehicles’ side windows have what is known as tempered glass, where the glass is crafted to shatter into pebbles instead of shards.
"But there’s still a possibility of being injured" when those pebbles fly into a car during a side-impact crash, said Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit in Arlington, Va., dedicated to reducing auto-related deaths, injuries and property damages.
The film might offer some benefit, Rader said, but his group did not have any studies on the film’s effectiveness.
Stephany Davenport, the brand manager for CPFilms, said the product not only protects passengers in an accident but also offers protection against smash-and-grab vehicle break-ins.
CPFilms’ promotional video demonstrates that delay. In less than four seconds, a tester was able to smash through an unprotected window using a rock and grab a purse on the other side online payday advance. With the film installed, it took the same man more than 40 seconds to break through the film and get the purse.
"We’re not saying you can’t break it," Davenport said. "We’re saying it takes longer."
That delay, CPFilms said, draws attention to a break-in and can discourage a thief.
There are other automotive films on the market, comparable to the product by CPFilms, that provide similar safety and security protection.
CPFilms marketed the automotive film to 150 select dealers nationwide in March, and on Aug. 1, it expanded the campaign to reach more than 4,000 dealers. Most of the dealers are small businesses that specialize in window films.
The new film has been installed on at least 50 vehicles since its March launch, said Davenport, adding that the film is still in its initial marketing phase.
For many new films, Davenport added, it takes several months for dealers to promote the products.
"Like anything else, it takes a while for (consumers) to understand the product is available" and see the benefits it could provide, she said.
Local installations have been few. Some area dealers authorized to install the LLumar safety and security film said they have not received many, if any, calls for the film.
Craig Moore, owner of St. Louis Window Tinting in Chesterfield and Eureka, installed his first LLumar safety and security auto film this week — in an Acura TSX owned by Frank Leta Acura in south St. Louis County.
Frank Leta Acura decided to pay for the film on one car because "we try to display any technological advances" in the auto industry, said General Manager Steve Brown. A niche of car buyers, those looking to customize their cars and have the "latest and greatest" technology, would be interested in the film, Brown said.
Moore has initially marketed the film to automotive dealerships because "as pricey as it is, you’ll find that they’re willing to pay" for it. But despite the slow economy, he plans to eventually focus more on individual drivers. Once people are aware of the benefits, he said, there will be demand.
atablac@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8140
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