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Morgan’s Wonderland, PCI Education and WeAreTeachers have launched a national online contest for special education teachers and their students.

Starting Aug. 10, special ed teachers can nominate a student and his or her family for a chance to win a free trip to Morgan’s Wonderland, the world’s first accessible park for special needs children and adults. In addition, the five teachers whose students garner the most votes will receive free educational products from PCI Education. Nominations and votes will be tabulated through WeAreTeachers’ site (www.weareteachers.com). Nominations will be accepted through Oct. 1. Voting will begin Oct. 4 and close Oct. 20. Winning families can receive two-days admission to Morgan’s Wonderland, round-trip airfare to San Antonio and two nights hotel accommodations.

San Antonio-based PCI Education is the country’s leading publisher of learning materials for special needs students. Austin-based WeAreTeachers is a social and business community for educators, businesses, and education marketers Payday advance. Morgan’s Wonderland is a 25-acre park in San Antonio that has rides, playgrounds, gardens and an eight-acre lake. The entire park is geared toward individuals with disabilities and their families and is wheelchair-accessible.

“We’re delighted to be working with PCI Education and WeAreTeachers in spreading the word about our unique and colorful park designed with special-needs individuals in mind,” says Gordon Hartman, head of The Gordon Hartman Family Foundation and driving force in the creation of Morgan’s Wonderland. “The park opened just five months ago, and the response from guests has been overwhelmingly positive. We feel very confident the winning student will have a truly memorable experience at Morgan’s Wonderland.”

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Two years after the credit squeeze began, Americans are still pulling back.

A government report released Thursday showed that consumer credit fell at an annual rate of 4.5% in May, making it the fourth consecutive month of declining credit.

Total consumer credit fell a seasonally adjusted $9.1 billion to $2.4 trillion, the Federal Reserve reported.

Economists had predicted a decline in total borrowing of $3 billion, according to a consensus estimate from Briefing.com.

"No one is shocked to see another decrease," said Tim Quinlan, an economist with Wells Fargo. "This report, combined with disappointing May retail sales report, is the latest indication of weakness in consumer spending."

The decline was led by a 10.5% drop in revolving credit, which includes credit card debt payday loans.

Non-revolving credit — car, personal and student loans, among other things — also decreased. It declined by $1.82 billion, or 1.5%.

The Fed on Thursday also revised its April figures. After originally reporting that credit had gone up by $1 billion, it now says credit decreased by $14.9 billion.

Quinlan expects consumer credit to continue to decline "as consumers try to gradually repair their balance sheets."

And consumers are being more conservative.

"We look to a modest growth in personal income, but now expect consumers to split that increase between spending and saving," Quinlan added. 

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Although gasoline prices did not drop by much in Southern California, it was a third-straight week of declines, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California's Weekend Gas Watch.

According to the Auto Club, the average price of self-serve regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area is $3.121 per gallon, which is six-tenths of a cent less than last week, a nickel higher than last month, and 17 cents higher than last year.

On the Central Coast, the average price is $3.185, down two cents from last week, four cents higher than a month ago, and 16 cents above last year.

In the Inland Empire, the average per gallon price is $3 cash advance loan no fax.105, which is four-tenths of a cent lower than last week, five cents higher than last month, and 17 cents more than last year.

"The gas price spread between this year and the same time last year has shrunk from a difference of about $1.10 in January to just four cents per gallon in early June, but now the gap has widened again. Right now, the difference between today’s pump price and the July 2009 price is 15 to 17 cents a gallon," Auto Club Spokesperson Jeffrey Spring said in a statement.

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Consumer confidence in the D.C. region has stalled, according to the results of the Greater Washington Board of Trade Mid-Year Consumer Confidence Survey.

Consumer confidence, which had been growing for the past year and a half is now stagnant, mostly because of concerns about the job market.

As measured by the biannual survey, consumer confidence has remained virtually unchanged over the past six months. Since the last survey in November 2009, the Consumer Confidence Index rose only two points. (The survey’s margin of error is +/- 2.83.)

Survey results show that concern about the employment market is holding back overall consumer confidence in the region, with 61 percent of the respondents saying that jobs in the area are “scarce” and hard to find.

When asked about the future, half the respondents predict that the job market will either stay the same or even get worse over the next six months.

“Consumer confidence in our region has barely moved since last November indicating that there is growing trepidation in the economy,” said Jim Dinegar, president and CEO of the Greater Washington Board of Trade bad credit payday loans. “There have been too many disruptions to the recovery to give people confidence through the recession, but confidence will return.”

The percentage of consumers saying it is a good time to make major purchases has remained the same as it was in November 2009, at 43 percent.

Data indicate that homeowners in the D.C. region are a little less optimistic about home values rising over the next six months, dropping from 33 percent to 30 percent.

In contrast to the Greater Washington Board of Trade’s Consumer Confidence Survey, the Business Outlook Survey, which is based on a survey of the region’s business executives, jumped a hefty 18 points, from 68 to 83, between December 2009 and April 2010.

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BP sought to reassure both the general public and investors Friday, saying it has the money to spend whatever it takes to clean up the Gulf oil spill.

"Our first call on dollars is to ensure we do everything we can to get the Gulf Coast back to normal," BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward said on a conference call with investors. "But that still leaves us with plenty of dollars to spend on other things."

An executive on the call noted BP (BP) generated $30 billion in cash flow over the last four quarters.

The spill has so far cost BP just over $1 billion. Estimates as to how much it will ultimately cost range from $3 billion to $40 billion, although that amount would likely be paid out over a number of years.

Hayward said the amount the company is spending per day in the Gulf could be "diminished dramatically" if the cap they put over the well Thursday is successful in channeling most oil to the surface. The success of that cap should be known in the next 24 hours.

He also sought to reassure investors that the company will not only pay its current commitments, but still has enough money to invest in its core business - finding and selling new oil.

To that end, he said the firm is creating a separate organization to deal with the oil spill, so the rest of the company is not distracted.

Hayward expects deep water drilling and oil production to ultimately resume in the Gulf, albeit under stricter safety standards.

President Obama has issued a six month halt to new deepwater drilling pending an investigation into the accident April 20 that claimed 11 lives and a more thorough review of drilling safety and procedures in general.

Some have called on BP to suspend its dividend in the wake of the spill, saying the money should be set aside for clean-up costs and damages rather than returned to investors. Last year, the company returned more than $10 billion to shareholders.

But BP executives said the company has a commitment to not only the Gulf of Mexico and its residents, but to the company’s 80,000 employees, the hundreds of thousands of people that invest in the firm, and the millions who receive the dividend as part of pension plans.

"BP faces this situation as strong company," said Hayward. "We will stand behind all our commitments."

Carl-Henric Svanberg, BP’s chairman, said decisions on the size of the dividend will be made "how they’ve always been," which is based on the financial health of the company at the time. He said final decision on the dividend will be made in late July.

There have also been proposals by U.S. lawmakers to force BP to stop paying the dividend. Svanberg said those proposals are "something we’ll have to follow."

Earlier this week, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said paying a dividend before the ultimate cost of the disaster has been tallied would be "unfathomable." 

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So now what do we do? How do we create a more entrepreneurial climate in St. Louis, and ensure the companies of the future grow here?

The short answer, the easy answer, is money, in the form of bank loans, seed funds, venture capital. But money is tight these days, and it has a tendency to follow results, not fertilize new ground. So here are a few other ideas — most already in play on a small scale — that St. Louis can build on to make its economic garden bloom.

Lower the barriers to entry — Most startups operate on a drum-tight budget. And any hurdle to opening the doors makes that budget even tighter.

Yet many entrepreneurs say they face a maze of paperwork, inspections, licenses and approvals. This takes precious time and money.

"Business assistance centers," like the one run by the city of St. Louis, try to help smooth the road for would-be business owners. More publicity for programs like these, and less paperwork in general, would be big step in the right direction.

Pull in the same direction — St. Louis has scads of people working on this problem. There are incubators and counseling programs and angel networks and mentor teams. Most do good work. But sometimes, they do the same work.

"It’s difficult sometimes for business support organizations to work together," said Eddie Davis, director of the Center for the Advancement of African-American Roundtable. "This impedes our growth."

And despite all these efforts, everyone has stories of small-business owners who don’t know the resources available to them. A more streamlined effort to steer people in the best direction would make the most of all of this.

Maybe it’s a regional clearinghouse. Maybe it’s (horrors!) a committee. Maybe it’s as simple as stronger informal networks among the many groups working on this. But more cooperation would go a long way.

Cash on the barrel — Yes, the kind of money needed to fuel lots of startups is probably too much to hope for. But small, well-targeted loan funds can make a difference. Like St. Louis County’s new Boost loan program.

Funded with a $5 million line of credit from PNC Bank, the Boost program is designed to help small businesses struggling to get bank loans, by offering funds with lower eligibility requirements, and county backing payday loans. Since January, the county has received more than 30 serious applications and will soon issue its first loans.

Small partnerships like this could augment bank lending and provide more support to startups at a relatively low cost.

Leverage our universities — Two years ago, a group of investors launched the Billiken Angel Network, a fund designed to provide seed capital to entrepreneurs with a tie to St. Louis University — students, alumni, faculty. They leverage their own money, plus $1 million in funding from SLU, to help fund startups, many of them here in St. Louis.

This region has a lot of universities. And they create a lot of ideas. Pooling investors around their ties to other local institutions, from Columbia to Rolla to Edwardsville, is a low-cost way to spark more companies that are born, and will stay, in St. Louis.

Pool Midwestern venture capital — Most of the Midwest — not just St. Louis — lags when it comes to creating high-powered, innovative startups. This is despite research universities that are among the nation’s best, and that win more than their share of federal grants, R&D funding and patents.

"But it’s not getting translated into new businesses," said John Austin, who heads the Great Lakes Economic Initiative at the Brookings Institution.

He co-authored a recent report detailing how the Midwest ships much of its venture capital to the coasts. Investing closer to home, he contends, would be profitable for all involved. More Midwest-specific funds, like the Clayton-based Mid America Healthcare Investors Network, would provide opportunity, and profit, in the region.

"We need more entrepreneurial investors," said Frank Samuel, the study’s other author.

The big steps — more state seed funding, a flood of venture capital — will help, if and when they arrive. But small steps now can help prepare the ground for entrepreneurship to bloom.

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The Duane Morris law firm said that former U.S. Rep. Jim Saxton has joined its lobbying arm, Duane Morris Government Affairs, as a senior adviser in its Cherry Hill, N.J., and Washington offices.

Duane Morris said Saxton brings experience in the defense, energy and other business sectors.

Saxton served as a Republican in New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District from 1984 to 2009. He was a high-ranking member of the U.S. House committees on Armed Services and Natural Resources, as well as the chairman of the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee for several years overnight pay day loans.

After completing graduate studies at Temple University in 1968, Saxton worked as a public school teacher and small business owner. He served as a member of the New Jersey General Assembly between 1976 and 1981 before being elected to the New Jersey State Senate in 1982. In 1984, Saxton was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in a special election. He was re-elected to Congress 12 times before deciding to retire.

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General Motors tried to set a new tone in its relations with the financial community today, showing off its new chief financial officer (with a British accent, no less), displaying a new emphasis on of corporate themes (to build world-class cars and trucks), and demonstrating a new lack of patience with nit-picking questions from securities analysts (no more line-by-line tinkering with earnings models).

But the bottom line was still the same. Emerging from bankruptcy on July 10th of last year, GM lost nearly $1 billion in the third quarter and another $3.4 billion in the fourth quarter. Excluding one-time items like $2.6 billion to the union’s VEBA fund, the earnings picture brightened but still did not climb out of the red.

CFO Chris Liddell said he was "very happy with progress in the first quarter toward a goal of profitability" and he saw a "chance of achieving profitability this year."

He was cautious, however, about the prospects for an initial public offering of GM stock this year, saying it depended on "the readiness of financial markets, the state of the global automotive industry and GM’s business performance." Besides the earnings results, GM embedded some other public relations messages in its announcement.

Liddell recognized retiring vice chairman Bob Lutz by name and praised his achievements in renovating GM’s product line, an apparent effort to dispel rumors that CEO Ed Whitacre had forced Lutz out.

For those who complain that the new GM is being run by the same managers who drove it into the ground, Liddell displayed a chart showing that 12 of the 13 members of the executive committee are new to the company or in new positions since July 2009.

And Liddell repeated the mantra of GM executives since 1992 by declaring that rather than make predictions about GM’s performance for the rest of the year, he would let its deeds speak for themselves.

He did slip into traditional GM-speak by highlighting new car models that are coming to market rather than talking in detail about cars that are already on sale. In the past, GM had a tendency to promise that prosperity was always just around the corner as it struggled to keep its unwieldy model lineup current.

And in the clay feet of idols department, Liddell let it be known that the finance operation he had taken over was still not up to par. GM was once thought to be in the thrall of the powerful unit, but in the last several years, it became apparent that the finance staff was actually not up to the task, and worse, its work had led to several SEC investigations.

Liddell reported that GM "still had material weakness in financial controls" as of the end of last year. The bad news is that GM still has a long way to go to become competitive in some areas. The good news is that there is lots of room for improvement. 

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Emergency state legislation that will help Maryland health care leaders figure out how to put their share of $5 billion in federal money to use in a high-risk insurance pool has passed committees in both the House and Senate.

The bill, introduced last week after President Barack Obama signed the national health care reform bill, first paves the way for the Maryland Health Insurance Plan to continue operating as the state’s insurance pool for individuals with chronic and other costly health conditions who cannot afford to purchase coverage from a commercial carrier.

Money from the federal government — perhaps 1 percent to 2 percent of the $5 billion — would then enable MHIP to lower its premiums for coverage and eliminate a policy that denies coverage or makes it more expensive for individuals with pre-existing health conditions such as diabetes who previously were not covered by a private health plan.

The legislation — filed at House Bill 1564 and Senate Bill 1125 — passed the House Health and Government Operations Committee on March 27. It was approved by the Senate Finance Committee on March 25.

If the measure is passed by both sides of the state legislature and signed into law as expected, the benefits could take effect as soon as June, said Richard Popper, MHIP’s executive director.

“We could cut our premiums within 60 days,” he said bad credit pay day loans. “The national health care reform gives states the money to make it happen.”

Under the national health care reform, about 32 million more individuals will be required to have health insurance by 2014. In the meantime, the federal bill calls for the creation of a temporary national high-risk insurance pool that would lower the cost of coverage for millions of uninsured individuals.

Still, details regarding how Maryland’s 7-year-old high-risk insurance program will mesh with the new federal one need to be ironed out. Popper said eligibility requirements for the federal program may differ slightly from those imposed by MHIP.

As many as 70,000 uninsured Marylanders could benefit from the expansion of MHIP’s coverage, according to testimony Popper presented to members of the Senate Finance Committee on March 25.

MHIP already covers more than 17,000 Marylanders. Its enrollment grew about 15 percent in recession-soaked 2009, as more individuals joined the program after losing their job or their employer cut benefits.

Baltimore-based CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, the region’s largest health insurer, administers claims for MHIP, which replaced the state’s Substantial, Available and Affordable Coverage plan in July 2003.

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Prices at the wholesale level plunged in February by the largest amount in seven months as a big drop in energy prices offset higher food costs.

The Labor Department said Wednesday that wholesale inflation dropped 0.6 percent, much larger than the 0.2 percent decline economists expected. Excluding food and energy, prices edged up a slight 0.1 percent, in line with expectations.

The deep recession and weak economic rebound are keeping inflation at bay and giving the Fed leeway to maintain record low rates in an effort to build momentum from stronger economic growth.

While overall wholesale prices have risen 4.4 percent over the past 12 months, core inflation, which excludes energy and food, is up a much more subdued 1 percent over the past year.

Economists said they expect inflation pressures to ease even more in coming months because many of the dampening effects on inflation from the steep recession have yet to be felt guaranteed high risk personal loans.

Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said he expected the 12-month rate for core wholesale prices to dip from the current 1 percent to below zero in coming months.

The 0.6 percent fall in Labor’s Producer Price Index in February was the biggest decline since a 1.2 percent drop last July. In January, wholesale prices surged by 1.4 percent, driven by rising energy costs. Last month, energy prices plunged by 2.9 percent with most of that decline reflecting a 7.4 percent drop in gasoline costs.

However, gasoline pump prices have resumed rising over the past few weeks and now stand at a national average of $2.79 according to automotive club AAA’s daily fuel gauge. That is up from $2.62 a month ago and $1.91 a year ago.

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