| Sen. Cantwell to visit Cambodia
Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell will travel to Cambodia on Friday to discuss ways to combat poverty in that country, one of the world's poorest. Cantwell, a Democrat and member of the Senate Finance Committee, is expected to return Nov. 30.Cantwell's office says the trip also will address the effect of poverty on women, global health and Cambodia's challenges with human trafficking. Cantwell is co-sponsor of a bill to give preferential duty treatment to exports from the world's least-developed countries, including Cambodia. .
Archives for: December 2007
It's also not clear whether state lawmakers will be ready to do anything about property taxes in 2008, because they approved a package of tax cuts last year that was heavy on property tax relief. About half of the $425 million in cuts approved last year were aimed at creating property tax relief over the next two years. Property owners will receive property tax credits equal to 8 cents for every $100 of property value. The owner of a $140,000 home, for example, will save $112. In a pre-session survey of Nebraska's 49 lawmakers by The Associated Press, 17 senators offered their own ideas about ways to lower property taxes. Fourteen said the state should send more state aid to local government, and two senators said the state shouldn't do anything because property taxes are a local issue.
Dallas-Fort Worth job growth slowed last year, but it's still hot
If there's any doubt about the economic slowdown, just look at the Dallas-Fort Worth employment numbers. Early in 2007, the D-FW area was churning out new jobs at a pace of more than 95,000 a year. But by December – the most recent numbers – the local job gain had fallen to about 65,800. Even with that big falloff in job growth, the area had one of the hottest employment markets in the country last year. The economy in D-FW was even stronger than energy boomtown Houston, which had 59,800 more jobs at the end of last month than it did in December 2006, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. But the deceleration on the D-FW job market is worth worrying about. Job growth is the engine that drives the real estate industry in demand for everything from apartments to office space.
Market news: Charles Saatchi's latest buy
Charles Saatchi's latest acquisition is a portrait of Heinrich Himmler, the SS commander who controlled the Nazi concentration camps. However, Saatchi, who is of Iraqi-Jewish descent, has not bought the painting for shock value. A spokesman said simply that he liked it. .
How to Beat Fraud and Still Make Money Doing Business in Brazil
According to a survey from Unisys in 2005, and reported in IT Digest and other publications, Brazil was ranked third in the number of banking identity theft frauds. The study sampled bank fraud in Mexico, Australia, USA, France, England, Hong Kong, Germany and Brazil. This dilemma has received enough attention that Brazilian banks have begun to implement stricter security policies in response to previous problems. The tax and currency fraud issues stem from discrepancies in how products/goods are imported into, or out of, the country. Companies that engage in these fraudulent activities seek to skirt paying Brazilian taxes on these items by falsely lowering the cost of the product on documents provided to the government thus allowing them to pay fewer monies to the authorities than they would otherwise be required.
Jan. 30, 1790: The Lifeboat, an Idea Whose Time Has Come
1790: The first shore-based boat designed specifically for use as a lifeboat is tested on the River Tyne in northern England. Christened the Original, she was a 30-foot-long, double-ended, 10-oar longboat built by Henry Greathead of South Shields. She carried 7 hundredweight (784 pounds or 356 kilograms) of cork for added buoyancy and was designed to be self-righting. Although smaller craft had been pressed into service as lifeboats in the past, Original was the first boat built specifically for sea rescue. She was stationed at the mouth of the Tyne and launched from a shore station. In a career spanning 40 years, she was responsible for saving hundreds of lives. By 1839, there were 30 lifeboat shore stations operating in the British Isles. Original was built as the result of an incident in 1789, when a crew was lost after its ship ran aground in stormy seas off the mouth of the river.
Dollar Peg for Oil Countries in Danger - Dollar to Fall Further?
Existing home sales in the U.S. fell dramatically in December (-2.2% m/m), capping the biggest yearly slump (-12.8%) on record in more than a generation. 2007 also recorded the first ever annual decline (-2.8%) in the prices of existing single family homes in at least four decades. With home prices falling steadily and foreclosures likely to climb further amid rising mortgage rate resets, housing shows no sign of bottoming. The seemingly endless descent in the housing market is starting to seep into other sectors and, along with record high energy prices, is weighing on consumer sentiment. Credit conditions continue to tighten due to the massive debt write-downs at financial institutions. This, along with the recent steep slide in global equity markets early in the week, compounded the souring of sentiment.
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