Finance & Business World

Consumers’ confidence in August dropped almost 15 points to the lowest level since April 2009 as worries about the economy fueled the wildest stock market swings since the financial meltdown in 2008.

At a time when Americans growing increasing worried about a weak job market, higher costs for food and clothing and recent stock market turmoil, the falling confidence numbers raise concerns about their willingness to spend and jumpstart the economy. That particularly important since consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of U.S. economic activity.

“Consumer confidence deteriorated sharply in August, as consumers grew significantly more pessimistic about the short-term outlook,” said Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center in a statement.

The Conference Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index plummeted to 44.5, down from a revised 59.2 in July. The number was the lowest level since April 2009 when the reading was 40.8. It also is far below the 53.3 that analysts had expected. A reading above 90 indicates the economy is on solid footing; above 100 signals strong growth.

A number of factors contributed to the index’s decline. The Conference Board Index _ based on a random survey of consumers sent to 5,000 households from Aug. 1 to Aug. 18 _ captured the wildest week on Wall Street since the financial crisis in 2008.

Four days into the survey period, on Aug. 5, S&P downgraded the U.S. federal debt and concern revived about the health of European banks. On the news, The Dow Jones industrial average had four consecutive days of 400-point swings for the first time in its 115-year history during the week that ended Aug. 12.

Besides, market debt talks and market fluctuations, Americans are still plagued by old economic worries. The nation’s unemployment rate is stuck at 9 percent. Home values remain weak. And shoppers also are facing rising costs for everything from food to clothing as retailers pass along their higher costs for labor and materials.

As a result, one gauge of the index that measures how shoppers feel about the economy dropped to 33.3 from 35.7. Another measure that assesses shoppers’ outlook over the next six months fell to 51.9, down from 74.9 last month.

Consumers’ views on jobs, in particular, also have become more pessimistic. Those claiming that jobs are “hard to get” increased to 49.1 percent from 44.8 percent, while those stating jobs are “plentiful” declined to 4.7 percent from 5.1 percent.

Those anticipating more jobs in the months ahead decreased to 11.4 percent from 16.9 percent, while those expecting fewer jobs increased to 31.5 percent from 22.2 percent. The proportion of consumers anticipating an increase in their incomes dropped to 14.3 percent from 15.9 percent.

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Retreating loyalists of Moammar Gadhafi killed scores of detainees and arbitrarily shot civilians over the past week, as rebel forces extended their control over the Libyan capital, survivors and a human rights group said Sunday.

In one case, Gadhafi fighters opened fire and hurled grenades at more than 120 civilians huddling in a hangar used as a makeshift lockup near a military base, said Mabrouk Abdullah, 45, who escaped with a bullet wound in his side. Some 50 charred corpses were still scattered across the hangar on Sunday.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said the evidence it has collected so far “strongly suggests that Gadhafi government forces went on a spate of arbitrary killing as Tripoli was falling.” The justice minister in the rebels’ interim government, Mohammed al-Alagi, said the allegations would be investigated and leaders of Gadhafi’s military units put on trial.

So far, there have been no specific allegations of atrocities carried out by rebel fighters, though human rights groups are continuing to investigate some unsolved cases.

AP reporters have witnessed several episodes of rebels mistreating detainees or sub-Saharan Africans suspected of being hired Gadhafi guns. Earlier this week, rebels and their supporters did not help eight wounded men, presumably Gadhafi fighters, who were stranded in a bombed out fire station in Tripoli’s Abu Salim neighborhood, some pleading for water.

Najib Barakat, the health minister in the rebels’ interim government, said Sunday that he does not yet have a death toll for the weeklong battle for Tripoli. Hundreds have died and more bodies, some in advanced stages of decay, are still being retrieved from the streets.q

Barakat said efforts are being made to identify bodies. At the least, the corpses of suspected Gadhafi fighters, especially non-Libyans, are being photographed before burial, to allow for possible future identification by relatives.

In fighting late Sunday, pro-Gadhafi elements fired Grad rockets at rebel forces gathering in the town of Nawfaliyah, not far from Gadhafi’s home town of Sirte, rebels said.

Rebels gave residents there 10 days to allow rebel forces in peacefully or face an assault. A rebel spokesman said many Gadhafi loyalists have fled to Sirte and are preparing for a fierce battle.

Rebels rode into Tripoli a week ago, then fought fierce battles with Gadhafi forces, especially at the former Libyan leader’s Bab al-Aziziya compound and the Abu Salim neighborhood, a regime stronghold.

As the rebels consolidated their control and Gadhafi fighters fled, reports of atrocities began emerging over the weekend.

Human Rights Watch said it has evidence indicating regime troops killed at least 17 detainees in an improvised lockup, a building of Libya’s internal security service, in the Gargur neighborhood of Tripoli. A doctor who examined the corpses said about half had been shot in the back of the head and that abrasions on ankles and wrists suggested they had been bound.

The group spoke to Osama Al-Swayi who had been detained there, along with 24 others.

On Aug. 21, detainees heard rebels advancing and shouting “Allahu Akbar!” or “God is great” he told Human Rights Watch.

“We were so happy, and we knew we would be released soon,” he said. “Snipers were upstairs; then they came downstairs and started shooting. An old man (and another person) were shot outside our door. (The rest of us) ran out because they opened the door and said, “Quickly, quickly, go out.”

He said the soldiers told them to lie on the ground. He said he heard one soldier saying, “Just finish them off.” Four soldiers fired at the detainees.

“I was near the corner and got hit in the right hand, the right foot and the right shoulder. In one instant, they finished off all the people with me. … No one was breathing. Some of them had head wounds,” he told the rights group.

Gadhafi forces set up another detention center in a hangar near their Yarmouk military base in southern Tripoli cash advance america.

Abdullah, who was at the hangar Sunday, said he had survived a massacre there last week. He said he had been detained in the city of Zlitan to the east on Aug. 16 and was brought to the hangar with other civilian captives. All were beaten and tortured, he said.

“They didn’t even ask us questions,” he said, “They just beat us and called us rats.”

On Tuesday, he said, more than 120 prisoners were in the hangar when a soldier told them they’d be released at dusk, Abdullah said. A short time later, guards hurled hand grenades inside, then opened fire. He was shot and wounded in his side, but fled the hanger. He hid outside when soldiers returned and fired on other survivors. When they left, he escaped.

Ahmed Mohammed, 25, also said he survived the massacre and told a similar story. Neither knew how many had been killed nor how and when the bodies had been burned.

Amnesty International spoke to another survivor, Hussein al-Lafi, who said three of his brothers were killed that day.

“They (the guards) immediately opened fire, and I saw one of them holding a hand grenade. Seconds later, I heard an explosion, followed by four more. I fell on the ground face down. Others fell on top of me and I could feel their warm blood … People were screaming and there were many more rounds of fire.”

On Wednesday, guards at a Gadhafi military base in the Tripoli suburb of Qasr Ben Ghashir shot dead five prisoners held in solitary confinement, Amnesty said, citing survivors. Other detainees panicked and broke out of their cells when they heard the shots, survivors said. By that time, the guards had fled, the report said.

In addition to the killings at detention centers, Human Rights Watch said it collected testimony about Gadhafi soldiers randomly shooting civilians. In one incident, on Wednesday, medical lab technician Salah Kikli said he saw Gadhafi fighters pull two unarmed men, including one in medical scrubs, from an ambulance and kill them.

Al-Alagi, the justice minister, said the reported atrocities did not come as a surprise because the regime acted in a brutal manner in the past. He said that the justice system would have to be “cleansed” before investigations can begin.

It remains unclear who is responsible for some of the other killings, including of dozens of dark-skinned men whose bodies were found in two areas of Tripoli.

Reporters saw bodies in advanced stages of decomposition at Abu Salim hospital, including in the parking lot, a ward and in the basement. Barakat, the health minister, said a total of 75 corpses were found at the hospital.

Another group of bodies was strewn across a roundabout near Bab al-Aziziya, Gadhafi’s compound. Five were in a field clinic, housed in a tent, and one of the corpses still had an IV sticking in his right arm.

Human Rights Watch counted a total of 29 bodies in that area, where Gadhafi loyalists, many from sub-Saharan Africa, had camped out in recent months. The group said it was not yet clear who was responsible for the deaths.

Some rebel fighters have mistreated detainees, pushing or hitting them, though others have tried to stop abuse. In many cases, wounded rebels and regime fighters were treated side-by-side in rebel-controlled hospitals.

On Sunday, in a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, rebels apprehended a dozen black men and accused them of being mercenaries in Gadhafi’s army. The detainees were occasionally punched before one of the rebels convinced his comrades the men were just migrant workers.

William Osas, a 32-year-old Nigerian, said he and other Africans had fled to a farm nearby to escape the fighting, and the men were detained while they were looking for food. Reporters from The Associated Press visited the farm and found hundreds of Africans living there, including many women.

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U.S. Bank, the bank with the largest market share of deposits in the St. Louis area, is putting out the help wanted sign.

The Minneapolis-based bank plans to hire at least 300 additional employees by the end of the year, which will put its local workforce over the 4,000 mark.

The new jobs are a bright spot for an otherwise dismal employment picture and comes as some other banks, such as Bank of America, have announced they’re cutting jobs.

“U.S. Bank was one of the more conservative banks through the past five to seven years, and they’re taking advantage of their balance sheet to grow while other banks, particularly some regional banks in St. Louis, struggle to meet capital requirements,” said Dan Winter, senior vice president at Confluence Investment management in Webster Groves.

U.S. Bank is adding office space to accommodate the new hires. Construction crews spent the summer increasing U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corp.’s office space by adding another floor to its two existing floors of leased space in the Fashion Square building at 1307 Washington Avenue. That will bring its office space to 60,000 square feet, a big jump from the 5,000 square feet it leased a decade ago in a building across the street when it had fewer than a dozen employees.

The subsidiary, which pieces complex layers of tax credit financing to fund construction nationwide, has 153 employees downtown and will add 45 this year, said Zack Boyers, U.S. Bancorp CDC’s chairman and CEO. That’s in addition to the 30 percent growth in its local workforce in 2010.

The business unit has about 50 employees based outside the St. Louis area and was formed in 2001 with the merger of Firstar Community Development Corp. and US Affordable Housing CDC.

The syndication of tax credits, a business unit it launched in 2008, is driving the need for more staff. In syndication deals, U.S. Bancorp CDC serves as the originator and manager for federal and state tax credits that it sells to investors. Last year, for example, U.S. Bancorp CDC assisted search engine giant Google in investing in an $86 million low-income housing tax credit fund for affordable rental housing in five states.

“Over the past couple of years, it’s become a more fully operational platform and a real engine of growth,” Boyers said.

U.S. Bancorp CDC also is seeing increased demand for federal investment tax credits in renewable energy for developments using solar and wind power. Having an emphasis on renewable energy has helped in the hiring process, Boyers said.

“We’re seeing a lot of high-quality talent attracted to the kind of work that we’re doing.”

In addition to the CDC employees it will add downtown this year, U.S. Bank plans to expand credit administration and mortgage servicing operations in the region by adding 170 employees to its downtown regional office complex at the U.S. Bank Plaza office tower at Seventh Street and Washington this year, said bank spokeswoman Lisa Clark.

Low interest rates are leading to a flood of home refinancings for the mortgage servicing division, Clark said.

Analysts say U.S. Bank has been successful growing its loan business while other banks, which are saddled with higher ratios of nonperforming loans, are pulling back on lending.

“One of the things that has struck us relative to its peers is that U.S. Bank has had positive loan growth for the past three consecutive quarters,” said Ken Crawford, portfolio manager with Argent Capital Management in Clayton. “Loan growth from any bank is relatively scarce.”

U.S. Bank had 3,750 employees in the St. Louis area as of June 30. With the new hires, its total workforce will exceed 4,000

Steve Jobs is one of the greatest entrepreneurs of the past century, founding or co-founding Apple, which revolutionized personal computing (iMac, iPad), consumer electronics (iPod, iTunes) and telephony (iPhone); Pixar, which did the same for animated motion pictures; and several other firms.

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Missouri’s tough laws discourage Ralcorp takeover, report says

Unless Ralcorp Holdings’ shows some willingness to come to the table to negotiate a sale, ConAgra Foods won’t increase its $94 a share offer because of Missouri’s stringent laws on hostile takeovers, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing sources close to the matter.

Omaha, Neb payday loans in 1 hour.-based ConAgra has made several attempts to buy the St. Louis-based company this year only to be rebuffed by Ralcorp’s board of directors. Ralcorp’s stock closed Tuesday at $81.83 a share, signaling that shareholders also don’t have much faith a sale will proceed. (Lisa Brown)

U.S. plans to nix hundreds of rules

The European Central Bank says it spent euro14.3 billion ($20.6 billion) last week buying government bonds to keep the eurozone’s debt crisis at bay.

The amount disclosed on Monday was short of the previous week’s figure of euro22 billion ($32 billion) but close to market expectations.

Buying Italian and Spanish bonds on financial markets has driven down borrowing rates that were threatening those two countries with financial ruin fast cash.

European officials want the eurozone’s bailout fund to take over the purchases, but national parliaments will not give their approval to that move until this fall.

That has left the central bank with the main burden of fighting off market turmoil.

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I wish we had treated jobs the way we treated this debt ceiling, which was a bit of a manufactured crisis, which jobs isn’t. So what if we got everyone together and said let’s set a deadline to figure out how you actually create jobs in this country. Can you imagine if the passion and energy that went into this ridiculous debt ceiling had gone into how do we actually get jobs created?”

U.S. stocks fluctuated Wednesday after companies reported strong earnings but gave mixed forecasts for the future.

Target Corp., Staples Inc. and Dell Inc. all reported earnings for last quarter that were above analysts’ forecasts. Companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 are on track to report higher profits for a ninth straight quarter. But economic growth is weak around the world, and some economists worry that a second recession may be coming. That could pull down future results.

Target and Staples both gave profit forecasts that were above Wall Street’s expectations, but Dell cut its prediction for revenue growth this year.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 49 points, or 0.4 percent, to 11,357 at 1:30 p.m. in New York. It had been up as many as 120 around 10:30 a.m. The S&P 500 fell 4, or 0.4 percent, to 1,188. The Nasdaq composite fell 26, or 1.1 percent, to 2,497.

Six of the 10 sectors that make up the S&P 500 rose. Four fell, led by a 1.4 percent drop for technology stocks after Dell’s forecast cut.

“There are a whole bunch of contradictory signals in the system now, and it’s hard to tell which way to go,” said Charlie Smith, chief investment officer of Fort Pitt Capital Group, which has just over $1 billion in assets under management.

The increased role of automated trading by computers has increased volatility, making investing more difficult. “When you get a piece of news, it’s almost like the machines are trying to out-quick each other,” and they are sending stocks in straight lines up or down, Smith said. “That’s what really scares retail investors. We try to sit and wait in the weeds for good businesses at good prices.”

He has focused on telecom stocks and cable companies. Their relatively big dividend yields look more attractive given low yields on bonds. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note is at 2.17 percent, down from 3.34 percent at the start of the year.

Telecom stocks in the S&P 500 rose 1.1 percent Wednesday, the most among the 10 sectors that make up the index. Utility stocks also tend to pay dividends, and they rose 0.8 percent.

Energy stocks rose 0.4 percent after crude oil gained 95 cents per barrel to $87.60.

Dell said late Tuesday its profit rose 63 percent last quarter on strong demand from businesses and government agencies. But it also cited “a more uncertain demand environment” when it cut its forecast for annual revenue growth to a range of 1 percent to 5 percent paperless payday loans. That’s down from an earlier growth forecast for 5 percent to 9 percent. Dell stock fell 10.5 percent Wednesday.

Other companies are more optimistic. Retailer Target said it expects to earn between $4.15 per share and $4.30 per share this year. Analysts had expected $4.14 per share. Target also said its earnings last quarter rose 3.7 percent on sales of grocery, beauty products and other items. Target shares rose 1.5 percent.

Office products retailer Staples raised its profit forecast for the year after saying strong international sales pushed earnings up 36 percent last quarter.

Deere also raised its forecast for full-year earnings. It now expects to earn $2.7 billion this fiscal year, up from a May forecast of $2.65 billion. The maker of tractors and other heavy equipment said its profit rose 15 percent last quarter on strong demand for farm equipment.

Companies are making more money, but many have done so by raising prices to offset higher costs. Higher food prices helped push inflation at the wholesale level to 0.2 percent in July, according to a government report Wednesday. But that is still well below inflation levels earlier this year when oil prices were spiking because of violence in the Middle East. In February, wholesale inflation was 1.5 percent.

Stocks have been particularly volatile in August. Worries rose as the U.S. government said it may default on its debt unless it was allowed to borrow more. The government just beat the deadline to avoid a default, but the partisanship in the debate came at a cost _ Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. credit rating on Aug. 5 by one notch to AA+ from the top AAA rating. That triggered one of Wall Street’s wildest weeks: The Dow rose or fell by at least 400 points in each of the first four days of last week, the first time that has happened.

Markets appear to have calmed somewhat since then. Tuesday marked the first time since the Aug. 5 downgrade that the Dow rose or fell by less than 100 points. It fell 76 points on worries about Europe’s ability to contain its debt problems. Some European countries have borrowed so much that investors fear they won’t be able to repay their debts. The Dow had been down as many as 190 points earlier Tuesday.

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The nation’s largest hot dog makers argued about the meaning of “100 percent pure beef” and the merits of ketchup Monday in a lawsuit over advertising claims stemming from their years of dog-eat-dog competition.

Attorneys for Sara Lee Corp., which makes Ball Park franks, and Kraft Foods Inc., which makes Oscar Mayer, superimposed giant hot dogs on a courtroom screen as they delivered opening remarks in a case that could clarify how far companies can go when boasting about their products.

“There’s never been anything of this scope . . . in the entire history of hot dogs,” Sara Lee’s attorney, Richard Leighton, said about what the company says is Kraft’s false and deceptive ad campaign that claimed Oscar Mayer wieners were the best-tasting franks.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Morton Denlow, who will decide if either company broke false advertising laws, couldn’t resist a note of levity as he cast his eyes at the attorneys and proclaimed, “Let the wiener wars begin.”

The legal dog fight began when Sara Lee filed a lawsuit in 2009, singling out Oscar Mayer ads that brag its dogs beat Ball Park franks in a national taste test. Leighton argued the tests were deeply flawed and gave as an example that the hot dogs were presented to participants without buns or any condiments, such as ketchup.

“They were served boiled hot dogs on a white paper plate,” he told Denlow. As a result, Leighton said, Sara Lee’s hot dogs may well have tasted too salty or smoky when consumed sans buns.

Among other flaws, he went on, was a rule barring anyone who ever worked in a factory from taking the test no fax payday loans.

“You may be excluding blue-collar workers,” he said. “And they’re big hot-dog eaters.”

Kraft filed a countersuit later in 2009, accusing Sara Lee of running ads for Ball Parks with the tagline “America’s Best Franks” based on an award from ChefsBest, a food-judging organization based in San Francisco.

The other focus of the trial is Kraft’s claim that its Oscar Mayer Jumbo Beef Franks are “100 percent pure beef.” Sara Lee says the claim is untrue, that it cast aspersions on Ball Park franks and damaged their sales.

But Kraft’s attorney, Stephen O’Neil, told the judge the 100 percent beef tag was never intended to suggest there weren’t other ingredients _ like water, salt and various spices. It was only meant to convey that the meat that was used was all beef, he said.

That stress was designed to counter lingering impressions that hot dogs contain suspect, “mysterious meats,” he added. And he said it defied common sense to argue that consumers might take the label as meaning that the one and only ingredient was beef.

“If there was nothing but beef, it wouldn’t be a hot dog,” he said, “It would be a hamburger.”

Denlow let slip that, according to his own personal tastes, neither Oscar Mayer nor Ball Park are top dog.

“I already have my favorite . . . and it’s none of the brands on trial,” he told attorneys. He said he may reveal which one it is _ but only after a ruling.

The trial is expected to last about two weeks.

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