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More workers are satisfied with their pay, most likely because they feel lucky to have a job at all, according to Gallup poll results.

More than half of all U.S. workers — some 53% — believe they are paid an amount that is "about right" for their jobs, according to the poll, compared to 43% who said they’re underpaid.

The number of people happy with their pay has actually increased in the last two years, even as the job market has grown steadily worse. A 2008 Gallup poll showed that 46% of U.S. workers believed their pay was "about right," compared to 51% who said they were underpaid.

"U.S. workers’ heightened appreciation for their pay likely reflects today’s challenging job market," according to the report, which was released on Thursday.

Gallup noted that the nationwide unemployment rate of 9.5% is "significantly higher" than the 6 high risk personal loans.1% jobless rate when Gallup conducted the same poll two years ago.

Gallup also reported that about a quarter of workers are "worried that they could soon lose their jobs or see a pay reduction — nearly twice the August 2008 level."

"These findings help explain why workers may now be happier to hang on to their jobs they have than they were only two years ago, without looking for greater financial rewards," concluded the poll.

Bad news for the job market just keeps coming. On Thursday, the U.S. Labor Department reported that the number of first-time filers for unemployment insurance rose for the third time in a row, to 500,000 jobless claims for the week ended Aug. 14, the highest level in nine months. 

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Extending the light rail through Central Mesa is a step closer now that the Federal Transit Administration has approved Metro light rail’s request to enter the project development phase.

This means that Metro can start the engineering process of the 3.1-mile extension that runs along Main Street from the current end-of-line at Sycamore on the west side of town through downtown Mesa and on to Mesa Drive.

This is the first step in receiving $75 million from the federal government. The engineering contract is for $12.5 million and has been awarded to Jacobs Engineering, headquartered in Pasadena, Calif.

Preliminary and final engineering will take about two years and the Central Mesa extension is scheduled to be completed in 2016.

“Central Mesa is a solid project,” said Steve Banta, Metro CEO, in a news release. “While the FTA process is competitive, our project received a favorable rating and should fare well in its application for federal grant money.”

The total project cost is estimated at $200 million and will be paid for using a mix of regional and federal funds. The regional funding sources were approved by the voters in 2004 as part of Proposition 400, according to John Farry, spokesperson for Metro.

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Toyota Motor Corp. said Thursday it was recalling more than 400,000 older-model vehicles sold in the United States, citing potential steering-related problems in both.

The Japanese automaker said the recall would affect 373,000 Toyota Avalons manufactured between 2000 to 2004. The company said the vehicle’s steering lock bar could break under certain conditions, increasing the risk of a crash.

Toyota (TM) also cited steering issues in its recall of some 39,000 Lexus LX 470 vehicles. The company said that if the vehicle experienced a severe impact to the front wheels, such as striking a pothole, the steering shaft could disengage over time. The recall only affects vehicles from model years 2003 to 2007.

The company said it was not aware of any accidents related to its Lexus LX 470.

The latest recalls came less than two weeks after the company was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury to produce documents related to steering problems in its vehicles.

The company has also been undertaking a massive effort to rebuild its image in the wake of a number of quality and safety problems that came to light earlier this year.

In recent months, the automaker has recalled more than 8 million vehicles worldwide for a variety of safety issues, including possible unintended acceleration and problems with anti-lock brake software.

"Toyota is continuing to work diligently to address safety issues wherever they arise and to strengthen our global quality assurance operations so that Toyota owners can be confident in the safety of their vehicles," Steve St. Angelo, Toyota chief quality officer for North America, said in a statement Thursday.

The company said it would begin to send out notifications in mid-August to owners of the vehicles affected by Thursday’s recall. Drivers will be able to bring their car to a local dealer to have the vehicle fixed at no charge. 

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SPO Advisory Corp. has sold a significant chunk of its holdings of cellphone tower operator Crown Castle International Inc.

According to regulatory filings, the institutional hedge fund investor disposed of 3.05 million shares in multiple transactions between June 17-24. The shares were sold in a range between $38.95 and $39.43 apiece and were worth just over a combined $120 million.

After the sale, SPO still holds 32 online payday loans.6 million shares, worth some $1.27 billion based on the June 28 closing price of $38.92.

Houston-based Crown Castle (NYSE CCI), which has been a favorite investment of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in recent years, has 290 million shares outstanding.

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Wisconsin Power and Light Co., a subsidiary of Alliant Energy Corp., said Thursday it has priced a public offering of $150 million in debentures.

The debentures have an interest rate of 4.6 percent and will be due on June 15, 2020.

The Madison-based utility said it intends to apply the approximately $148.5 million in net proceeds from this offering initially to repay short-term debt, including that incurred to finance equipment purchases and construction expenditures on an interim basis. The net proceeds also will be used to invest in short-term assets and, thereafter, to fund capital expenditures principally consisting of wind farm and pollution control equipment, and for general working capital purposes no teletrek payday advance.

The offering was marketed through a group of underwriters, including RBS Securities Inc., UBS Securities LLC, Barclays Capital Inc., J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. and KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. as joint book-running managers.

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Employees on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded April 20 all had the ability to stop the drilling process at any time but ignored red flags, BP and Transocean executives told lawmakers Thursday.

"Any employee, anywhere at any level, if they have any concern about safety, has the ability and, in fact, the responsibility to raise their hand and try to get the operations stopped, whether that’s our operations or a contractor’s operations," Lamar McKay, chairman and president of BP America, told the House Natural Resources Committee.

Transocean president and CEO Steve Newman said his company - which owned the oil rig - gives all its employees "stop work authority" to call a "time out for safety." He said the company even takes pictures of employees and distributes them across the entire organization, to recognize those who have called so-called time-outs.

But why then did no one say "stop?"

Lamar acknowledged that hours before an explosion sunk the rig, killing 11 workers and sending oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, there were warning signs that went ignored.

"I do think there is a significant period of time where there were signals and there was a cumulative effect of those signals that were not recognized," he said.

Lawmakers questioned both McKay and Newman about an alleged argument that took place between BP’s site manager and the Transocean team over a procedure hours before the blast payday advance lender.

But both McKay and Newman said they didn’t know anything about the argument, other than what was reported in the press Wednesday.

The hearing was one of several oil-related sessions on Capitol Hill this week as Congress investigates the cause of the Gulf Coast spill.

At a news conference Thursday, President Obama said the government will extend a moratorium on permits to drill any new deepwater wells for at least six months. Offshore drilling permits have been suspended since April, after the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

Newman said he would support a moratorium for six months, calling it a "prudent" pause while investigators still search for the cause of the explosion, but he still believes in the long-term importance of offshore drilling.

The hearing comes a day after BP started a so-called "top kill" procedure aimed at plugging the leak. McKay said at Thursday’s hearing that he does not know whether the procedure is working, but the company will continue to report on its progress. 

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RehabCare Group Inc. said Kevin Gross, senior vice president of hospital operations, plans to resign effective June 4.

Gross has accepted the position of president of the Oklahoma division of Ardent Health Services, a role he held prior to his tenures at Universal Health Services and RehabCare.

He has led RehabCare’s hospital division since July 2008.

Brock Hardaway, president and chief operating officer of Triumph HealthCare, which RehabCare recently bought for $570 million, has been promoted to RehabCare executive vice president, assuming leadership of the hospital division and reporting directly to RehabCare President and Chief Executive John Short.

Hardaway joined Triumph in 2005 and was appointed to manage the combined company’s long-term acute care hospital portfolio following RehabCare’s acquisition of Triumph in November 2009. He will oversee division operations from Triumph headquarters in Houston.

St. Louis-based RehabCare (NYSE: RHB) is the fourth-largest, post-acute hospital operator and the third-largest, long-term acute care hospital provider in the nation, with 28 long-term acute care hospitals and six inpatient rehabilitation facilities in 13 states. The company has more than 18,000 employees and reported $869.4 million in 2009 operating revenue.

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Foreclosure notices on commercial properties in the Dallas-Fort Worth area jumped 58 percent in the first six months of 2010, Addison-based Foreclosure Listing Service Inc. said Thursday.

During that period, including foreclosures already set for June, 1,659 notices were filed on retail properties, retail buildings, office buildings, industrial spaces, apartment complexes, and commercial lands in the D-FW area. Property owners still have time to respond and avoid foreclosure.

While it’s nothing compared to the 8,000 foreclosure filings reported in one year during the late 1980s, the jump over last year has made an impact, according to Foreclosure Listing Service, which compiles foreclosure data for the region.

There are still more foreclosure postings on residential properties, said George Roddy president of Foreclosure Listing Service, but he added, “posting activity has climbed at a much steeper pace on commercial properties than on residential.”

During the first six months of 2010, foreclosure filings on buildings classified as "miscellaneous commercial properties" jumped 126 percent to 683 postings. There were in 302 last year. Meanwhile, foreclosure notices filed on commercial land jumped 72 percent, hitting 381, up from 222 postings.

Meanwhile, apartment communities saw the number of foreclosure notices filed increase 46 percent over last year. Foreclosures on office buildings increased 18 percent, while foreclosures on retail centers and buildings dropped 16 percent.

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The manufacturing sector grew for the ninth consecutive month in April, and at its fastest rate since June 2004, according to a report released Monday.

The Tempe, Ariz.-based Institute for Supply Management (ISM) manufacturing index rose to 60.4 in April, from a March reading of 59.6. Any score above 50 indicates growth in the manufacturing sector.

April’s number is slightly better than expected, driven by increases in productivity, new orders and manufacturing jobs. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com were expecting a reading of 60.

"Overall, the recovery in manufacturing continues quite strong, and the signs are positive for continued growth," Norbert Ore, chairman of the ISM’s survey committee, said in a release.

Of the 18 industries surveyed in the report, 17 reported growth. Apparel, non-metallic minerals and wood products were among the industries showing the strongest growth.

New orders, productivity, imports and commodity prices all rose at faster rates in April than the month before, indicating that demand for products is driving a recovery in manufacturing.

As for factory jobs, trends continue to look up. The employment component of the report grew for the fifth consecutive month, rising to 58.5 in April from 55.1 the month before.

"It affirms something we already know — manufacturing is in a full-blown recovery," said Tim Quinlan, an economist with Wells Fargo Securities. "Now, the markets are waiting for that recovery to spread to other sectors."

The inventories part of the index shrunk slightly in April, though, to just under 50 — the tipping point — from 55.3 in March.

That decline is not entirely surprising, Quinlan said, as manufacturers are still taking their time to rebuild inventories after scaling back at unprecedented rates during the recession.

The ISM manufacturing index is determined by a survey of purchasing managers and reflects the number of people who say economic conditions are better, compared with those who say conditions are worse. While the index can paint a picture of broad trends, some analysts warn that because it stems from a survey, the index can be subjective. 

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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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