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Archive for the ‘Business Knowledge’ Category

Week ahead: Chocolate, pizzas and fighter planes in spotlight in busy week of results

February 14, 2012 by Emma Semmens No Comments »

The plight of struggling firms Cable & Wireless Worldwide and Thorntons will be in the spotlight this week during another busy few days for results.

BAE Systems will face questions on Thursday over the threat of closure at its Portsmouth shipyard and the failure of its Eurofighter consortium to land a large contract to supply fighter jets to India.

The group, which is one of the UKs biggest manufacturing employers, is expected to report a 10 per cent fall in underlying earnings to 2 billion in 2011 as defence spending in the UK and the US comes under pressure.

Revenues are set to be down by about 2 billion to 20 billion as a result of a reduction to supply orders to the US Army after it pulled out of Iraq and a delay in an order for Eurofighters to Saudi Arabia.

BAE recently put its warship business under review in a move which could reportedly lead to the closure of its yard in Portsmouth, Hampshire.

It employs 1,500 people at the site, while a similar number of jobs are provided in support roles.

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United Way offers tax assistance, encourages filers to invest in bonds

February 4, 2012 by Emma Semmens No Comments »

It’s almost tax refund time. You can’t wait to get that refund check and spend it like there’s no tomorrow.

Not so fast, Rockefeller. Why not save some of that money for a rainy day? So says United Way of Southern Cameron County. To sweeten the pot, the organization is offering $25 gift cards to a limited number of tax filers who commit to buying a $100 U.S. Series I Savings Bond with part of their tax refunds.

To be eligible, filers must use United Way’s free tax preparation service at the ITEC Center in Brownsville or the Edith Whipple Memorial Library in Los Fresnos. Filers must also have household incomes not above $49,000 and refunds from the IRS not less than $500. There are only enough gift cards for the first 20 filers.

The goal of the program is to give families an easy way to start saving or build on existing savings at tax time, according to Keren Arista, financial stability coordinator for the United Way. The bonds aren’t a high-yield investment, but they feature a guaranteed return. The savin

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Which Day Is Best?

January 25, 2012 by Emma Semmens No Comments »

Did you know my skiing and marketing strategy are the same?

A few years back I used to go up to Vermont for the occasional weekend and more often than not I missed the good snow. You see the weather in Vermont is fickle…In New England, the weather changes on a dime, and if you waited for reports of good snow to make your plans, you’d probably never go, because more often than not, by the time you got there it could have changed to rain (premature snow) or worse, ice.

This past week was no exception. Monday was sunny and the snow was good, then Tuesday evening it rained. Thursday night it snowed five inches and Friday morning was a fabulous powder day.

Which is why I came up with a simple strategy for skiing. Jus

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SBLF Kept Loaning To Businesses With Participating Banks And CDLFs

January 14, 2012 by Emma Semmens No Comments »

Small Business Lending Fund (SBLF) has done its job according to the U.S treasury reports. Lending to small businesses increased significantly by $3.5 billion to over $35.9 billion.

The SBLF is a dedicated investment fund that has been enacted as part of Small Business Jobs Act in 2010. It is designed to encourage lending to small business by making capital available to community banks and community development loan funds (CDLFs) with less than $10 billion in assets. This program is an encouragement for smaller firms having lower dividend or interest rate structure.

Small business lending has increased as a result of lowering of rate by participating institutions. SBLF participants have played an active role to increase lending to small businesses. This includes community banks, CDLFs and private lenders.

 

Public spending cuts cause more job losses for former MG Rover workers

January 8, 2012 by Emma Semmens No Comments »

Dozens of former MG Rover workers are being made redundant for the second or third time as council cutbacks take their toll on the Northfield area, it has emerged.

Gemma Cartwright, whose community work since the collapse of Longbridge led to her receiving the MBE, said the area was facing a new jobs crisis in the wake of cuts in public spending.

She said many former car workers had retrained for roles in the public sector after losing their jobs at Longbridge and were now facing the axe again.

Ms Cartwright, who chairs the Rover Community Action Trust, which has 4,000 former Longbridge workers on its computer database, said poverty was still an issue for the community.

People that were made redundant in 2005 when Longbridge closed are now being made redundant again.

“When Rover went down, there were packages available to retrain and a lot of workers took NVQs and became care workers. Some went to work in day centres or with OAPs but, with all the city council cuts, they are now being made redundant again.

I do not know of any ex-worker who is earning the same money they were on at Longbridge.

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