Design Within Reach will soon require a lot more effort, as the chain closes its midtown store at 16th and J streets.
The company confirmed it would close the 2,700-square-foot store at 1020 16th St. — in the ground-floor of the Loftwork’s o1 Lofts development, which includes Bistro 33 Midtown and P.F. Chang’s China Bistro. Design Within Reach will close March 15, with a 30 percent-off sale until then, a company spokeswoman said paydayloans.
The San Francisco-based company, which has about 60 of the boutique stores featuring cool and trendy furniture nationwide, is the latest to close its local outlet during the recession. Two employees work at the store.
The company has a Berkeley and three San Francisco stores, the soon-to-be closest outlets to Sacramento.
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Hawaii lawmakers are considering renaming the soon-to-open Kapolei Court Complex after Chief Justice Ronald Moon.
Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 38 was introduced by Senate President Colleen Hanabusa and Sen. Brian Taniguchi, chairman of the Senate Judiciary and Government Operations Committee. Both are Democrats.
It proposes renaming the new $124.5 million Kapolei Court Complex the “Ronald T.Y. Moon Judicial Complex.”
Moon spearheaded development of the West Oahu court complex, which will open March 29 after more than 20 years of planning and nearly three years under construction. It will serve as the new home of family court for the 1st Judicial Circuit.
Under state law, Moon must retire as chief justice of the Hawaii Supreme Court when he turns 70 this September, capping a more than 40-year legal career in Hawaii. He was named to the state’s highest court in 1993.
The resolution is nonbinding but serves as a recommendation, in this case, to the governor, the state comptroller and the administrative director of the state’s courts.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will have a public hearing on the resolution at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday at the State Capitol.
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European Central Bank Governing Council member Athanasios Orphanides said the bank will continue to support the economy even as it unwinds its emergency lending measures, suggesting interest rates may remain at a record low for some time.
“The phasing out of some unconventional measures should not be misinterpreted as a desire to remove policy accommodation from the economy,” Orphanides, who heads the central bank of Cyprus, said in an interview in Nicosia on Feb. 12. “Policy accommodation continues to be needed in light of the very subdued inflation outlook and the unevenness and weakness of the economy.”
The Frankfurt-based ECB has started to withdraw the measures it used to fight the financial crisis and economists last month predicted it would raise the benchmark rate from 1 percent in the fourth quarter. Still, the euro-area economy barely expanded in the final quarter of last year and the fiscal crisis gripping the region may weigh on growth and inflation as governments cut spending to reduce budget deficits.
Orphanides’ comments “confirm our call that the ECB will not raise rates this year,” said Jacques Cailloux, chief European economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London. “He sounds very concerned about the outlook for both growth and inflation.”
The euro eased to $1.3613 after the interview was published from $1.3622.
‘Subdued’ Inflation
Orphanides, a former U.S. Federal Reserve economist, said the “evolution of the economy and the associated risks to price stability are the key” to the rate outlook.
“If events over the next several months are consistent with inflation remaining subdued and considerably below our price-stability objective, that would indicate that the accommodative policy should remain in place,” he said.
The ECB in December predicted growth of 0.8 percent this year and 1.2 percent in 2011. Inflation was projected to average 1.3 percent this year and 1.4 percent next year. The ECB aims to keep the rate just below 2 percent.
Orphanides said preventing inflation from dropping too far below the ECB’s goal is as important as keeping a lid on price increases.
‘Symmetrical’ Policy
“The most important element is to be symmetrical in the pursuit of our price-stability objective,” he said. “I am concerned that if HICP inflation stays significantly below our definition of price stability for an extended period, this deviation could become embedded in longer term inflation expectations business cards. This would be an unwelcome development.”
In its latest quarterly survey of professional forecasters published on Feb. 11, the ECB said five-year inflation expectations stayed at 1.9 percent. However, forecasters lowered their 2011 inflation prediction to 1.5 percent from 1.6 percent.
Orphanides said he would be “more comfortable” if 2011 expectations “moved closer to our definition of price stability rather than a little bit away from it.” The current inflation rate of 1 percent also “confirms the appropriateness of continuing with an accommodative monetary-policy stance,” he said.
The 16-nation economy grew just 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter from the third, the European Union’s statistics office said Feb. 12. Economists had forecast 0.3 percent growth.
Weaker Growth
Growth “was a little bit weaker than the baseline scenario,” said Orphanides. “We are monitoring the improvements in the economy overall, but at the same time we also note the weakness in the money figures as well as the weakness in credit growth. Those are in my view consistent with the recovery not being very strong at the moment.”
The ECB’s 22-member Governing Council will decide at its next policy meeting on March 4 whether to further scale back its emergency lending measures. It has already announced the end of its 12 and 6-month loans to banks and indicated it may return to an auction procedure in some of its refinancing operations as a next step.
“The longer our interventions remain in effect, the more dangerous the side effects become,” ECB Executive Board member Juergen Stark told Germany’s Spiegel magazine in an interview published today.
Orphanides indicated he favors leaving full allotment in the main weekly refinancing operation in place for the time being.
“In the circumstances we are in at present, with very low short-term nominal interest rates, it’s very hard to assess precisely what the demand for liquidity in the banking sector is,” he said. “For that reason it is entirely sensible to have a procedure that can flexibly meet variations in the demand for liquidity, and that is what our fixed-rate, full-allotment policy is doing.”
The Obama White House likes to say that the theories of John Maynard Keynes form the foundation for its fiscal policies. Most notably, it draws upon the legendary British economist’s idea of spending big to pull out of a recession.
But one economist says the administration has gotten Keynes only half right. Allan Meltzer of Carnegie Mellon is one of the most influential monetarists of the past 50 years. He has served in the Department of the Treasury under President Kennedy and on the Council of Economic Advisors during the Reagan Administration. He also authored the book, Keynes’s Monetary Theory: A Different Interpretation.
While the Obama team is laying out huge sums of money, Meltzer says it’s neglecting a key part of Keynes’ plan: You can’t run up a debt without a way to cover it.
Meltzer recently sat down with Fortune editor-at-large Shawn Tully. Below are edited excerpts from their conversation.
If Keynes were alive today, what would he think of President Obama’s fiscal policies?
He would roll over in his grave if he could see the things being done in his name. Keynes was opposed to large structural deficits. He thought that they chilled rather than stimulated the economy. It’s true that we’re stuck with large deficits now. The goal should be to reduce them, not to take on new spending that makes them worse.
Today, deficits are getting bigger and bigger with no plan to significantly lower them. Keynes understood what the current administration doesn’t understand that the proper policy in a democracy recognizes that today’s increase in debt must be paid in the future.
We paid down wartime deficits. Now we have continuous deficits. We used to have a rule people believed in, balanced budgets. And now that’s gone.
Didn’t Keynes advocate temporary deficit spending in a recession?
Keynes wanted deficits to be cyclical and temporary. He wouldn’t have been in favor of efforts to raise tax rates in a recession to eliminate deficits. He viewed that as suicidal. He was opposed to the idea that governments should balance the budget during a downturn, and advocated running short-term deficits to spur the economy.
The type of stimulus he advocated was very specific. He said it should be geared towards increasing private investment. He viewed private investment, as opposed to big government spending, as the source of durable job creation. He also said that the deficits should be self-liquidating, so that the increased economic activity caused by the stimulus inevitably generated a combination of extra tax revenues and lower unemployment payments. With higher revenues and lower outlays, the deficit would disappear.
The Obama administration’s main objective, in the name of Keynes, is boosting consumption. That sounds very different from the focus on investment that you say Keynes advocated.
Keynes didn’t favor at any time that I know spending to increase consumption. He didn’t want that, and in fact he believed that was taken care of by the marketplace.
Keynes wanted to increase employment by smoothing the amount of investment through the up and down parts of the business cycle. He knew that recessions cause a decline in investment, and that the fall in investment caused unemployment to rise. So he wanted the government to stabilize investment through a recession.
What specific policies did Keynes advocate for smoothing investment?
Keynes is very vague on the subject. He believed that the government should plan and direct investment, but not nationalize it. He talked about how well utilities were run under state regulation in Britain. Keynes wanted to apply that model to more of the economy. He thought government planning of investment was the best way to reduce risk for private companies and lower interest rates to spur investment.
Did Keynes champion tax cuts or government spending increases in a recession?
Again, he was extremely vague. On spending, he did say that deficits should be temporary and self-liquidating. He clearly did not advocate long-term spending in excess of revenues, since that causes structural deficits. Nor did he specifically recommend tax reductions for individuals or companies. Those types of cuts, however, are an obvious way to achieve his goal of boosting investment in a recession. And it’s been used with great success by his Keynesian disciples. For example, the Kennedy Administration tax cuts were championed by Keynesian economists, and proved very successful at raising investment.
And one of the leading Keynesians, Franco Modigliani, developed a theory of consumption stating that temporary tax cuts are mainly saved or used to reduce debt. Milton Friedman, the ultimate champion of free markets, independently developed an alternative model that came to the same conclusion. The temporary reductions under Carter, George W. Bush and Obama were all failures, since people spend more only when they’re confident their take home pay will rise permanently.
This is standard economic theory that the current administration ignores.
What would Keynes think of Obama’s stimulus plan?
It’s unbelievable that a man whose main theme was to smooth investment comes to be the proponent of redistributing income away from the people and companies who do the investing.
My advice on the stimulus plan was, don’t do it. Let’s look at the plan. First, a lot of the money was used to reduce the deficits of state and local governments by increasing the federal debt. It was simply money transferred from the federal government. The economic multiplier effect was zero. Second, the temporary tax cuts went to paying off credit cards and other debts, not spending that would have increased economic growth.
Diversified Restaurant Holdings Inc. has bought nine Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar locations, including three in the Tampa Bay area.
The company, based in Southfield, Mich., said it exercised its option to buy the restaurants in Brandon, Fish Hawk Ranch and Sarasota, plus another three in Michigan, for $3.1 million.
Diversified (OTC BB: DFRH) already managed the locations, which generated $18.3 million in revenue during the nine months ended Sept. 30. DRH’s management fee was 15.9 percent for that time, a release said.
The company received the right to exercise the purchase option as part of its initial public offering in August 2008. The deal was financed through a 6-year promissory note from the sellers, the company said.
Diversified (OTC BB: DFRH) now owns 16 Buffalo Wild Wings locations, including five in Florida.
Arizona State University is partnering with Teach For America to transform ASU’s teacher education program.
With a five-year, $18.9 million investment from entrepreneur and philanthropist T. Denny Sanford, ASU will partner with Teach for America to bring changes to the way ASU recruits, selects and prepares K-12 teachers.
The Sanford Education Project will use Teach For America’s tools to recruit teachers to work in low-income communities. Since 1990, Teach for America has recruited, trained and placed more than 24,000 teachers in low-income communities guaranteed payday loans. It has developed strategies to attract people into teaching who otherwise may not have chosen the profession. It also has developed support systems to help those teachers in the classroom and built a pipeline of leaders in the community focused on quality education.
As part of Sanford’s investment, ASU’s College of Teacher Education and Leadership will create a summer institute based on Teach For America’s model.
About 1.5 million Graco strollers have been recalled because they could pose a risk of fingertip amputations and lacerations to children, federal safety officials announced Wednesday.
The recall includes certain models of strollers and travel systems made by Graco Children’s Products, including the Graco Passage, Alano and Spree Strollers and travel systems, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said.
The hinges on the product’s canopy pose a fingertip amputation and laceration hazard to the child when the consumer is opening or closing the canopy, the CPSC said.
Graco has received seven reports of children injured when they placed their fingers in the stroller’s canopy hinge mechanism, including five fingertip amputations and two lacerations, according to the commission online cash advance.
The CPSC said consumers should immediately stop using the recalled strollers and contact Graco to receive a free protective cover repair kit.
The recalled strollers were sold at Babies "R" Us, Toys "R" Us, Kmart, Sears, Target, Walmart and other retailers nationwide from October 2004 and December 2009.
The strollers had a suggested retail price of between between $80 and $90. The travel systems, which include a detachable car seat, sold for between $150 and $200.
Nike Inc. built its $648 million golf business on the back of Tiger Woods.
Now it appears the Washington County athletic footwear and apparel giant (NYSE: NKE) will try to sell some golf clubs without him.
The Wall Street Journal on Monday reported that Nike will launch the Victory Red STR8-FIT Tour fairway woods on Jan. 28 that were designed with the help of 13 U.S. golf stars that promote the Nike Golf brand. The new line’s promotional materials, however, make no mention of Woods, the newspaper reported.
The new clubs were tested during a tournament by Lucas Glover, who won the U.S. Open championship last year, according to the report.
General Motors, AT&T Corp., Accenture, Gillette and Swiss watch maker Tag Heuer have all ended their relationships with Woods since a Thanksgiving weekend car crash and later admission to marital infidelity.
Nike, however, has stood by his side.
In an interview last month with the Sports Business Journal, Chairman Phil Knight referred to the Woods scandal as a “minor blip.”
It’s unclear whether the latest product release is an indication that the company’s support for Woods — who has since taken a leave of absence from golf — is wavering.
A Nike spokeswoman couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Renters who are caught up in foreclosures or short sales may get more time to get out before the sheriff shows up to evict them, if a proposed bill gets traction in the Florida Legislature.
HB 125, sponsored by state Rep. Hazelle Rogers, D-Lauderhill, and co-sponsored by state Rep. Darren Soto, D-Orlando, is scheduled to be taken up Tuesday by the Civil Justice & Courts Policy Committee. Its companion bill is SB 854.
Soto, an attorney who is handling more than 250 foreclosure defense cases, said tenants often get served the same paperwork from the bank as the owner, which causes stress and confusion.
“They basically receive a complaint, but it doesn’t tell them their rights, other than that they have to respond,” he said. “They don’t know to not pay the rent or to pay the rent, and their landlord is usually pretty mum.”
However, some worry that the bill could limit owner rights by requiring the owner or lender to give the tenant first right of refusal to buy the property.
“A lease with a tenant has a beginning and an end date,” said Stephen Weiss, VP of business development for Fort Lauderdale-based Foreclosure Response Team, a private company specializing in short sales. “It doesn’t give tenants a right or obligation to own my property. This is hindering and impairing on the value of real estate.”
The bill:
Scott Coloney, president of the Foreclosure Response Team, added that if the tenant is awarded the first right of refusal, it could prolong short sales, which are already long, creating problems for buyers.
However, he did like the provision that requires the lender to give notice.
“It’s one less thing that the landlord has to do,” he said.
U.S. retailers used extra promotions and extended hours to draw procrastinators and shoppers delayed by the East Coast snowstorm in the final stretch before Christmas.
Target Corp. extended its hours to midnight Dec. 21 through yesterday. Borders Group Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Toys “R” Us Inc. also kept stores open longer. Best Buy Co. offered some DVDs for half off and Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Inc., a men’s clothing chain, deepened discounts to at least 50 percent.
“We didn’t intend to do everything, and now we’re doing everything,” Jos. A. Bank Chief Executive Officer Neal Black, 54, said Dec. 22 by telephone from the company’s Hampstead, Maryland, headquarters. “We’ll be slugging right down to the last minute.”
Sales will be compressed into the final days before Christmas, said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group Inc. The snowstorm disrupted the Saturday before Dec. 25. Last year, that was the second-biggest shopping day after Black Friday, the day after U.S. Thanksgiving. Shoppers already had procrastinated more than in recent seasons.
“Retailers will pull out all the stops this week,” Cohen said in a Dec. 21 Bloomberg Television interview. NPD is a Port Washington, New York-based market research firm.
Maintaining Forecasts
The Washington-based National Retail Federation was holding to its forecast for a 1 percent drop in holiday sales, Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman, said Dec. 20. The International Council of Shopping Centers reiterated on Dec. 22 its forecast for a 2 percent increase in sales at stores open at least a year in December, after reporting that the storm slowed growth to 0.4 percent year over year in the week ended Dec. 19.
Jos. A. Bank cut prices of all clothing Dec. 21 and Dec. 22, after store visits slowed, Black said. The chain had planned to offer some of that merchandise at 40 percent and 30 percent off, he said.
The retailer’s shares fell 17 cents to $42.82 at 1:30 p.m. after a shortened pre-Christmas session on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Target, based in Minneapolis, decreased 20 cents to $48.65 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Borders, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, declined 3 cents to $1.22. Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart climbed 28 cents to $53.60. Best Buy, based in Richfield, Minnesota, dropped 6 cents to $40.70.
Kathryn Greenberg, a 41-year-old Washington resident who works in philanthropy, said she lucked into some “fantastic” late discounts yesterday 500 fast cash payday loan. She bought clothing for her children and other family members mostly at 60 percent off at a Gap store as well as one of Gap Inc.’s Banana Republic stores.
Bigger Savings, More Buying
“I am spending the same as last year, but getting more,” said Greenberg, who was carrying two bags and heading into Sephora, the cosmetics chain owned by Paris-based LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA.
Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, will keep most of its 803 discount stores and its Sam’s Clubs open until 8 p.m. today, two hours later than last year, said John Simley, a spokesman. Amazon.com Inc. extended by one day, until Dec. 21, its cutoff for standard shipping.
Gap, based in San Francisco, retreated 20 cents to $20.71 on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday. LVMH gained 44 cents to 77.90 euros in Paris trading. Seattle-based Amazon.com, the largest Internet retailer, dropped 47 cents to $138.47 on the Nasdaq.
East Coast Snow
Stores along the East Coast closed early during the Dec. 19 snowstorm. Twenty-four inches of snow fell on Bethesda, Maryland and 23.2 inches were recorded at Philadelphia International Airport, according to the National Weather Service.
Consumers had completed 72 percent of their holiday shopping through Dec. 20, down from 80 percent a year earlier, the New York-based ICSC said Dec. 22.
Historically, the 10 days before Christmas have made up as much as 40 percent of total holiday sales for November and December, according to Joseph Feldman, a managing director at Telsey Advisory Group in New York.
Sales fell 13 percent to $6.9 billion on the last Saturday before Christmas from the previous year, according to Chicago- based researcher ShopperTrak RCT Corp.
Some of lost sales did translate into online purchases. Sales at Web sites jumped 24 percent on Dec. 18 and Dec. 19 from a year ago, according to Coremetrics, a San Mateo, California- based marketing company.
Some impulse buying and so-called self-purchases, however, were irretrievably lost during the storm, Richard Jaffe, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in New York, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview on Dec. 22.
“It’s not a delay, it’s lost sales,” Jaffe said. “You just don’t recover that.”
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