Finance & Business World

The Greek government and its creditors return to the negotiating table this week to revive stalled talks on a debt swap as German Chancellor Angela Merkel places pressure on both sides to forge a deal.

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said two days ago that talks with the Institute of International Finance will resume on Jan. 18. The Washington-based IIF, which represents banks holding the bonds, said on Jan. 14 there is a

Maybe the best person to take on issue number one — the economy — should be an economist?

At least, that’s the thought of Laurence Kotlikoff, an economics professor at Boston University. He’s planning on throwing his hat in the ring next week, announcing he’s running for president as a third-party candidate.

"I think I may be the first economist to run for president," Kotlikoff said. "We see economists now running Greece and Italy. It’s not everyday that an economist decides to work this way for his country — but I’m one of those cases."

Kotlikoff has never before run for public office. His goal is to secure a place on the 2012 ballot as an independent through a new online nomination site, AmericansElect.org.

The nonpartisan group, which has raised $22 million so far, aims to put an alternative candidate on the ballot, chosen by online voters through a three-stage primary.

CNN: New group paves way for alternative 2012 choice

In addition to his role as an economics professor, Kotlikoff is the author of 15 books and a regular columnist for Bloomberg.com. He has also served as a consultant to Fortune 500 companies, foreign governments, central banks and international agencies like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Kotlikoff’s platform centers on what he calls the "Purple Plan." Purple, because he hopes it will appeal to both blue Democrats and red Republicans, and all Americans in between.

Political observers question whether a nonpartisan candidate could have a serious shot at winning, and it’s not as if Kotlikoff is the only alternative candidate out there. Currently 165 people, not in the Republican or Democratic parties, are on file with the Federal Election Commission as presidential candidates.

Still, he hopes his campaign will have an impact saving account pay day loan.

"I’m hopeful that my candidacy will be taken very seriously," he said. "And that young people in particular will realize this is someone who is really focused on their interests."

If he does win, Kotlikoff pledges to eliminate income taxes on both individuals and businesses, as well as estate and gift taxes. Instead, he would institute a progressive sales tax and inheritance tax, and make the payroll tax highly progressive.

Kotlikoff would also replace the current health care system with one under which all Americans receive a voucher each year to purchase a standard health plan from the private-plan provider of their choice. In true economist speak, he says he would reallocate the roughly 10% of GDP that the federal and state government currently spend on Medicare, Medicaid and health exchanges, to pay for this program.

GOP 2012: What they (wouldn’t) cut

"I’m not suggesting that only an economist is qualified to be President, but I am suggesting that, other things equal, economic problems are likely to be better understood and fixed by an economist than a career politician or someone who has, for example, spent his life running a pizza chain," Kotlikoff wrote on his campaign website Kotlikoff2012.org.

Kotlikoff says he does not have a party affiliation and he plans to file an official statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission next week.

He previously worked as a senior economist on President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors, but voted for President Carter. He has also served as an economic adviser to former Senator Mike Gravel, who switched from the Democratic Party to the Libertarian Party amid his 2008 bid for president. 

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If you take a trip outside Canada, it

FedEx expects to handle more than 17 million packages on its busiest day of the year in mid-December, as holiday shoppers continue to buy more online.

That volume represents a 9 percent increase from last year’s busiest day, and is almost double what FedEx ships on a normal day. The world’s second-largest package delivery company thinks its busiest day will fall on Dec. 12.

The number of shipments handled on the busiest day has climbed steadily through the recession as holiday shoppers skip stores and have gifts shipped after buying them online.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, FedEx Corp. expects more than 260 million shipments. That’s a 12 percent increase from 2010.

The Memphis, Tenn. company plans to add about 20,000 seasonal workers to handle the surge.

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I continue to receive complaints from readers about problems that they discover after closing their home purchase. Most complain about sellers who fail to disclose defects or home inspectors who fail to find them. The system is far from perfect. However, there are steps that buyers can take before and during a home inspection to protect their interests.

Check all electrical outlets to make sure that they work.

Open windows, even in the winter, to make sure they are not stuck or painted shut.

Look under any area rug or bed and behind any picture to check for cracked tiles, stained carpets or walls. Lift anything on the kitchen counters to look for defects.

Do any of the appliances show any rust? How old are they? If they are discontinued models, you will likely have to replace them if they break down because of the difficulty of finding replacement parts.

Start the dishwasher at the beginning of any home inspection. By the end, it should have gone through its entire cycle, without leaking.

Put a thermometer inside the oven and turn it on to 350 degrees. After 10 minutes, check the temperature. Test stove burners.

Put a cup of water in the microwave for 45 seconds. Does it heat up?

Flush every toilet and see whether it stops running after it is filled.

Check sinks, tubs and showers in the house. Is there proper water flow from each faucet and does everything drain properly?

You may want to consider turning all the faucets on at the same time and then flushing a toilet upstairs to see whether the water pressure slows or stops in any sink. This could indicate a problem with the system.

In older homes, consider a separate sewage inspection. Stan Collini, the President of Roto-Rooter Plumbing and Drain Service in the GTA, tells me that for $295, you can do a video camera of a property’s sewer system to see if there are any problems that would not be visible on a typical home inspection.

Check under the water heater for leaks or stains on the floor.

Ask how old the air conditioning unit is and when was it last serviced Is there sufficient hot or cold air reaching all of the rooms in the house?

Does the owner have a plan with their gas company to inspect the furnace once a year? When was the last inspection conducted?

If the house has an addition, ask whether any upgrade was done to the heating or cooling systems to account for the additional living area.

Look for water stains in the ceiling which could indicate leaking from the roof or other problems with the plumbing system.

When your inspector is on the roof, ask them to check for broken or cracked shingles. If it is a flat roof, look for the low spots where water can collect for any evidence of a problem. Check the eaves to see if there is any rot or decay. If any concerns are noted, consider bringing in a roofing contractor for an additional opinion, especially if the home is 15-20 years old and it is still the original roof.

You may also want to consider a separate inspection for mould or termites, as these may not be visible on a home inspection but can result in significant costs to repair later. Check if this is a known problem in the area.

Always ask the seller and the seller’s agent if they know about any hidden defects that are not visible. They must answer truthfully if you ask them.

Consider looking into after-sale warranty protection. Many of these products on the market will generally cover problems with a home electrical, plumbing, heating and cooling system, as well as the major appliances. But like any warranty, ask about deductibles and what is excluded from coverage.

By being properly prepared and asking the right questions both before and during any home inspection, you will be better protected against costly surprises after closing.

Also read:

Which GTA homes Chinese investors are buying

17 things to know about closing your house deal

Mark Weisleder is a lawyer, author and speaker to the real estate industry. Email mark at mark@markweisleder.com

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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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Jamestown Mall’s New York-based owner has filed for bankruptcy and is seeking a new owner for the shopping center.

Jamestown Mall Realty Management LLC, based in Little Neck, N.Y., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal court in St. Louis on Monday, listing its assets and liabilities as ranging between $1 million and $10 million. Its unsecured creditors include $127,000 owed to Ameren, $121,000 owed to the Internal Revenue Service, and $29,000 owed to the Missouri Department of Revenue.

Mehran Kohansieh, the managing member of Jamestown Mall Realty Management, declined to comment.

“The owner’s intention is to look for a suitable purchaser,” said his attorney, Scott Greenberg. A hearing on the bankruptcy is set for Monday.

Jamestown Mall Realty Management LLC bought the mall for $3.3 million in 2009. Some other entities, such as Macy’s, own the anchor tenant spaces at the 1.25 million square foot shopping center.

One of Jamestown Mall Realty Management’s lenders, MSC Real Estate, alleged the mall owner defaulted on a more than $2 million loan in mid-June, and the mall was placed in receivership.

MSC was pursuing foreclosure proceedings before the bankruptcy filing, according to St. Louis County Circuit Court documents.

As part of MSC’s legal action, Town and Country-based Priority Properties was appointed the new manager of the shopping center in June. Mike Margiotta, property manager with Priority, said the mall will continue to remain open during the legal proceedings.

“We’re going to operate the mall in a safe and clean manner, no changes at all,” Margiotta said.

Jamestown Mall, which opened in 1973, saw its occupancy drop sharply in recent years, dipping below 44 percent in 2008.

The mall, located at 175 Jamestown Mall in unincorporated north St. Louis County, has struggled with declining store vacancies and foot traffic, but a makeover for the mall

The Federal Aviation Administration is pursuing a penalty of more than $1 million against Boeing Co. because it says the airplane manufacturer didn’t follow its own instructions for installing oxygen systems on the 777.

The instruction turned out to be unnecessary and Boeing deleted it, a Boeing spokeswoman said.

The FAA said on Monday that it found the problems when it inspected nine new planes between April and October 2010. Hoses for the passenger oxygen system were installed at a sharper angle than allowed, the FAA said.

The system feeds the masks that allow passengers to get oxygen if the cabin loses pressure in flight.

Boeing spokeswoman Alana Broadbent said the hose would have had a 2 degree bend if installed according to instructions. Because the instructions were unclear, some were bent as much as 10 degrees, she said.

However, Boeing tested the hoses and found no problem even when they were bent as much as 10 degrees and put under double the pressure they needed to withstand. So, instead of requiring a 2-degree angle, Boeing deleted the instruction because it’s not possible to install the part at more than a 10 degree angle anyway, she said.

She said other 777s in the factory were inspected. Because there was no safety problem with the hoses, 777s that had been made previously were not reinspected, she said. For the same reason, Boeing did not issue a service bulletin, which advises airplane operators to inspect or fix problems discovered after a plane has entered service.

The FAA said it can charge $25,000 for each mistake, and it counts as a new mistake every time the misinstalled part passed inspection. There were 46 such inspections, which would have totaled $1.15 million if FAA sought the maximum penalty for each one. The FAA offered to compromise with Boeing for $1.05 million.

The FAA said Boeing had failed to correct a known problem in installing the system.

“There is no excuse for waiting to take action when it comes to safety,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

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WASHINGTON

Chris Housand dumped his job as a forklift operator in January to seek skills that would make him valuable over a lifetime.

“Being 22 and with two kids and a wife I had a lot of weight on my shoulders,” said the Tarboro, North Carolina, resident. Warehouse work “was pretty much a dead-end job.”

He enrolled in electrical-lineman school at Nash Community College in nearby Rocky Mount. After graduation on May 6, he was hired into a four-month paid internship program that holds the promise of a permanent position, at a time when 16.1 percent of men in his age group are jobless.

Housand is catching a wave of demographic change that’s likely to benefit younger workers. A generational replacement cycle is taking hold as companies such as General Electric Co. (GE), Norfolk Southern Corp. (NSC), Boeing Co. (BA), American Electric Power Co. Inc. and Dominion Resources Inc. all try to hire skilled younger staff to prepare for a wave of retiring workers.

“In the next five to 10 years well over 100,000 utility sector jobs will be available for refilling,” said Bob Powers, president of utilities at Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power, where the average workforce age is about 49. “It is an opportunity and a challenge.”

Unemployment for 20- to 24-year-olds peaked at 17.1 percent in April last year, almost 10 percentage points above the 7.2 percent low in May 2007 during the last expansion.

Saving Seniority

Despite the 9 percent national unemployment rate in April, labor scarcity may be the longer-term challenge for U.S. corporations, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

The question is whether it will be masked by overall jobless rates, which could remain high for years as companies absorb the skilled labor pool and leave the rest behind.

Companies could start to bid aggressively for a limited group of skilled workers, building inflation pressures with the unemployment rate as high as 7 percent, according to economists at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York. Fed officials currently estimate labor supply and demand are in balance around a 5.4 percent unemployment rate.

“The Federal Reserve needs to be very sensitive to this and vigilant,” said Zandi. “We may be bumping up against constraints in the labor market a lot faster than we think if these companies aren’t able to attract and train quickly enough.”

As demand collapsed in 2008 and 2009, corporations cut junior staff and tried to preserve senior personnel. Unwittingly, they “created a major problem as they try and plan for the next five to 10 years,” said Joe Carson, director of global economic research at AllianceBernstein LP in New York.

Growth Agenda

“U.S. companies not only have a growth agenda now as earnings and liquidity improve, they also have a human capital replacement cycle they haven’t seen in the past 20 to 30 years,” Carson said.

The number of workers 55 and older rose to 31 million in April 2011 from 19.2 million in April 2001. By contrast, people in the labor force between the ages of 20 to 24 grew less than 1 million to 15.2 million from 14.6 million in April 2001. The entire U.S. labor force stood at 153.4 million last month, up just 6.9 percent since 2001.

“When I sit down with a business, and ask, what are your biggest challenges over the next five years, almost without exception I hear that one of them is the demographics of the workforce,” said Thomas Schneider, founder of Restructuring Associates Inc., a Washington firm specializing in labor productivity. Still, he said, “We are under-investing in the highest skill, blue-collar and technical jobs.”

More Interns

Companies such as Chicago-based Boeing, where the average age is in the “high 40s,” according to senior vice president Rick Stephens, are trying to change that.

The world’s second-largest aircraft maker will hire 1,500 to 2,500 engineers this year, some right out of college, and is boosting its intern program to 1,100 from 900 in 2009. Around 2 percent of Boeing’s 164,495 workers retire each year, and that number is likely to increase, Stephens said.

“Firms will increasingly find that the outflows of retiring workers are bigger than the inflows of younger workers,” said Nicole Maestas, a labor economist at the RAND Corporation, a Santa Monica, California-based policy group cash advance loans. “Nobody is immune to these basic demographic facts.”

GE doubled its U.S. college hiring program to 1,278 in 2010. The world’s biggest maker of jet engines, gas turbines, and medical-imaging equipment scouts some 40 U.S. universities to replenish its pipeline of engineers and future managers and spends $300,000 per student in its two-year trainee program.

‘Big Swings’

“We can afford to take some big swings, and investing in people and growing talent is what we do best,” said Steven Canale, manager of global recruiting and staffing for Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE. “The workforce is getting older.”

The median age for the U.S. population climbed to a record 37.2 in 2010, according to the Census Bureau, and the workforce in several industries is even older.

The median age in aerospace manufacturing was 47.9 in 2010, meaning half the workforce in Boeing’s industry was older than that; in electrical power generation it was 45.4; and in rail transportation it was 46.5, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Norfolk Southern let its staff shrink through attrition and retirement during the recession that began in December 2007. The economy has since expanded for seven quarters, and demand for natural resources and exports has snapped back.

Coal Facility

The Norfolk, Virginia based railroad, which owns the largest coal-export facility in the northern hemisphere, hired 2,800 people last year and has plans to hire 4,000 this year, according to Cindy Earhart, vice president of human resources.

One goal is to rebuild the ranks of young managers. The company is seeking about 300 college graduates to replace the 6 percent of 4,800 managers who will retire this year.

Companies such as Dominion Resources in Richmond, Virginia, are also looking for young “gray-collar” workers for jobs that require both physical ability and technical knowledge. Matt Kellam, supervisor in charge of strategic staffing at Dominion, says finding a supply of linemen and engineers is a priority.

“A good number of our lineman are 45 years and older,” Kellam said, adding that community college graduates and military veterans can provide the company with the skilled technicians it needs.

The firm has about 48 people in its lineman training program. Starting salaries are about $33,000 in the industry, Kellam said, and can rise to $80,000 or more with overtime for a journeyman.

Dropout Rates

At Nash Community College, instructor Bob Schubauer says about 30 students enroll in his lineman classes each semester. Rigorous climbing in the rain, cold and heat, and demanding engineering math, usually cut that number by two-thirds by the time his 16-week certification program is over.

In an 8:30 a.m. class, Schubauer barks orders to his students after he asks them to diagram an electrical network on the white board.

“I don’t want any confusion, I don’t want any assumptions. I want these diagrams to speak for themselves,” he says. “I don’t want to see any inconsistencies.”

Housand approaches the board and begins to draw how he would configure a bank of three transformers to go from high to usable voltage. Some of the diagrams the students draw involve about two dozen calculations.

Schubauer wants the students to know the theory behind what they are handling even though most linemen head into the field with detailed plans. The cost of a mistake is blown transformer, a power outage, injury or death, he said.

Cold Climbing

An hour later, Housand and his classmates are cinching a BuckSqueeze, a climbing belt made by Buckingham Manufacturing Co. in Binghamton, New York, around 40-foot poles, then inchworming their way up. His internship at the City of Rocky Mount lasts for 16 weeks. Four other classmates also found work.

“It is very reasonable to expect, if we have an opening, for Chris Housand to be hired unless another applicant has a lot more experience,” said Darryl Strother, Rocky Mount’s electric superintendent.

Housand worked at a cotton gin right out of high school. Now, he calls himself a “linegineer,” his term for a job that requires physical stamina and engineering knowledge.

“We do not have a labor shortage in America, we have a skill shortage,” said Boeing’s Stephens. “The key is will there be enough people to meet our needs?”

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