SenSage Inc. raised $3.5 million in equity funding and another $2.75 million in debt.
The San Francisco business makes security software used to detect fraud, compliance problems or cyber-threats.
Sierra Ventures, Canaan Partners, FTV Capital and Mitsui Ventures gave the equity funding online payday loans. All of them have invested in SenSage before.
MMV Financial provided the debt.
Joe Gottlieb is CEO of SenSage. The company raised $15 million in June 2008.
President Obama says the country can’t afford the $700 billion it would cost to permanently extend the Bush tax cuts for high-income households.
He said it would be "irresponsible" to borrow that much money just to hand out $100,000 tax cuts to millionaires.
Fair enough. The United States is staring at a serious medium- and long-term debt situation, so the less it’s aggravated the better.
But why then is it OK to borrow $3 trillion to permanently extend the tax cuts for the majority of Americans — something the president and both parties support doing?
The theory for extending any of the tax cuts is this: If we don’t, the economic recovery could be thrown into reverse. Once the cuts expire, everyone’s tax bill will go up, and households will have less to spend.
And the rationale for doing it only for the masses is this: High-income households will be less likely to spend the extra cash they get from the tax cuts than Americans lower down the income scale who are less flush.
So, the thinking goes, if you’re going to borrow to help the economy, make sure the money goes to those who will put it to the best use.
"That is a perfectly rational economic justification for making a distinction. But I think it’s more political than economic," said deficit hawk Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a deficit watchdog group.
Bixby doesn’t think the tax cuts should expire all at once, but he thinks any extension of them should be temporary. So does the president’s former budget director, Peter Orszag. So does Martin Feldstein, a top economist who sits on a White House advisory board. And so do a number of influential Democrats in the House and Senate.
Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, and David Stockman, who was President Reagan’s budget director, are less permissive. They think all tax cuts should be allowed to expire by Dec. 31.
Their rationale: The federal government can’t afford to promise permanently lower taxes for anyone given the country’s debt predicament.
Under the president’s budget proposals, the country’s accumulated debt — currently $13.4 trillion — will increase by about $10 trillion over the next decade. The cost of the middle class tax cuts accounts for 30% of that increase.
And because of built-in spending increases in Medicare and Social Security, as well as on interest on the debt, that number is projected to trip ever higher in the decades that follow.
If the president, many Democrats and most Republicans get their way, the majority of Americans’ tax cuts will be made permanent. In the short-term that may help preserve the economic recovery, but in the long run it could undermine economic growth.
"In most cases, permanent changes would generate larger short-term stimulus but would have substantially larger medium- and long-term budget and economic costs," said CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf in a blog post last week.
Here’s the tradeoff: Adding the $3 trillion cost to the nation’s tab will suck up more future resources to pay the increasing interest on the debt, among other things. In turn, that will prevent the country from making sufficient investments in those areas of the economy necessary to sustain growth.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the tax cuts shouldn’t be extended. But to not undermine the economy in the long run, lawmakers would need to do it in a fiscally responsible way — by eventually paying for whatever extensions they approve.
Donald Marron, co-director of the Tax Policy Center, and Elmendorf have offered a compromise solution — one that would add the least amount to the country’s debt and still benefit the economy.
"Another strategy for near-term stimulus would be to pair a temporary extension for most or all of the tax cuts with offsetting spending reductions or revenue increases several years in the future," Marron told the Senate Finance Committee this summer.
Otherwise, Elmendorf warned, "even if changes were temporary, the additional debt accumulated during that temporary period would weigh on the budget and the economy in the future."
Maryland’s stretch of five straight months of job growth is over.
The state lost about 7,000 jobs in August, helping to raise Maryland’s unemployment rate to 7.3 percent last month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. The state’s jobless rate was 7.1 percent in July and had held steady around 7 percent for several months.
Maryland’s unemployment rate increase tied Florida for the highest in the U.S. last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
While the federal government’s Census job losses continued to hurt employment levels in Maryland, it was private-sector employers who again made deep cuts in staffing.
Trade, transportation and utility employers shed about 2,800 jobs last month, while professional and business service trades cut about 2,200 workers. Meanwhile, the state’s manufacturers laid off about 3 percent of its work force in August.
Still, Maryland has added about 33,000 jobs since January, and the state’s unemployment rate continues to stay above the national average. The nation’s jobless rate was 9.6 percent in August.
Click here to see the full news release from the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.
The University of Minnesota has named Dr. Aaron Friedman dean of the University of Minnesota Medical School, replacing Dr. Frank Cerra, who will be stepping down at the end of the year.
Friedman, currently chair of the department of pediatrics at the Medical School, will take over as dean on January 3, 2011 pending approval by the University's Board of Regents, according to the University of Minnesota.
Friedman has served as chair of pediatrics since arriving to the University of Minnesota in 2008 payday lenders. Before his arrival, Friedman was also chair of pediatrics at Brown Medical School and the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Cerra, who announced his plans to retire in February, has served as dean since 1995.
Roseville police are asking consumers to check their bank and credit-card statements, claiming more than 200 cases of thieves collecting account numbers and using them to make purchases throughout California.
Police say the apparent compromised accounts are connected to Roseville restaurants that use the same third-party credit-processing company. Authorities are not disclosing the restaurants.
It’s unclear if the criminals are in the region, or if the thieves hacked the processing system.
The U.S. Secret Service, which investigates credit card fraud, is assisting Roseville police.
Several banks are contacting customers about the possible fraud.
Meanwhile, police encourage consumers to check their bank and credit card accounts for unapproved purchases fast cash now. If you come across unauthorized transactions, consumers should:
Come in, we’re open!
That’s the message that the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas is sending to agencies looking to work with the nonprofit.
This week, United Way posted an RFP on its website, searching for new applicants for funding.
This is the first real movement in United 2020, a three-pronged plan with a series of goals focused on health, family incomes and education that is designed to help nonprofit partners achieve measurable changes in area communities.
“It was a big step for us,” said Gary Godsey, president and CEO of the United Way, who has projected that in five years, the plan will raise $315 million. “We’ve never had an open process for funding in the past.”
To provide information to current and potential partner agencies, Godsey has held five community orientation meetings through North Texas.
“We’re going out of our way to be as helpful as possible to anyone who reaches out to us for help,” he said.
The Dallas United Way currently partners with 91 agencies. That number could change under the new system. Some current partners could be cut, and new ones could be added.
“Our intent all along is not to get rid of anybody,” Godsey said. “It’s about taking our resources and aligning them specifically around a few things within which we can make an impact guaranteed high risk personal loans.”
Upcoming deadlines:
Oct. 8 - Companies can submit an RFP for review. The United Way will give an early determination of whether the application qualifies for submission.
Nov. 8 - The deadline for submitting an RFP. “It’s a hard and fast one,” Godsey said.
January 2011-March 2011 - Site visits to those agencies that make it to “phase two” of the process.
March 2011-April 2011 - Deliberations by volunteer United Way panels
May 2011 - The United Way board will vote on a recommendation package and announce partners.
“This is the most exciting work that I’ve been involved in, in the years that I’ve been working with the United Way,” Godsey said. “The hope of what it can be if it’s embraced by the community — it can be truly life-changing.”
Editor’s Note: Lisa Bormaster, publisher of the Dallas Business Journal, is on the board of directors of the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas.
Houston employers will remain cautious when considering new hires through the end of the year, according to a survey released Tuesday.
Eighteen percent of employers in the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown region will increase staff levels during the fourth quarter, while 9 percent will reduce payrolls, according to the quarterly Manpower Employment Outlook Survey.
The bulk of employers, some 71 percent, will maintain current headcounts.
Although Houston-area employers are less optimistic than during the third quarter, they are much more positive than a year ago. In the fourth quarter of 2009, only 11 percent of Houston employers expected to add staff, while 10 percent planned job cuts.
The Houston outlook for the fourth quarter is marginally less positive than the state as a whole. Nineteen percent of Texas companies plan to increase staff while nine percent expect to trim headcounts.
The top three sectors expecting job growth in the region during the fourth quarter include nondurable goods manufacturing, transportation and utilities and the financial sector. Construction and wholesale and retail trade employers expect job cuts.
Nationwide, 15 percent of employers will increase staff while 11 percent will cut jobs in the fourth quarter, the survey reported. The survey involved 18,000 U.S. employers.
Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties continued to see upward movement in the number of bankruptcy filings last month.
Only Palm Beach County showed some moderation in the number of business bankruptcies when compared to August 2009.
In the three-county area, personal bankruptcy filings were up 59 percent, to 3,387 from 2,127 in August 2009, and up 6 percent from July. Business bankruptcy filings rose 7 percent, to 119 from 111, a year earlier, but were down 17 percent from July.
In Miami-Dade County, personal bankruptcy filings rose 74 percent, year-over-year, to 1,788 cases opened, and 5 percent over July. There were 49 new business bankruptcies for Miami-Dade in August, up from 40 last year, but down from 57 in July.
Personal bankruptcy filings in Broward rose 50 percent over last year, to 1,067 cases opened, and rose 12 percent compared to July. There were 43 new business bankruptcies filed in Broward County in August, up from 41 last year, but down from 47 in July.
Palm Beach County personal bankruptcies rose 36 percent, year-over-year, to 532, but decreased by 4 percent compared to July. There were 27 new business bankruptcy filings in Palm Beach County in August, down from 30 cases last year and 40 cases in July.
The American Bankruptcy Institute said August consumer filings nationwide rose 6 percent to 127,028 from 119,874 a year earlier, but fell 8 percent from the July total.
“While monthly filings are volatile, consumer bankruptcies are still the highest they have been since Congress overhauled the bankruptcy law in 2005,” ABI Executive Director Samuel Gerdano said. “Consumer filings remain on track to top 1.6 million filings in 2010.”
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