Business and Finance

Venturebeat's lead green technology reporter Camille Ricketts has reportedly taken a communications job at Tesla Motors Inc.

The website reported her departure in a story Friday with a headline that described the situation as a "totally non-awkward move."

The story was written by Venturebeat Executive Editor Owen Thomas, who has been in a public spat with Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk over the website's coverage of the company and its leader cheap business cards.

Before joining Venturebeat, Ricketts worked at Google Inc. on its traditional platforms team, particularly in TV. She was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal before that in New York and London.

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Elizabeth Warren doesn’t look or sound scary. She’s a 61-year-old Harvard Law School professor from Oklahoma who has written personal finance books, some with her daughter.

But conservatives and some bankers are trying to kill any chance that Warren - a consistent critic of the financial sector before it was cool to be one - will run the consumer financial protection agency that’s part of the Wall Street reform measure just signed into law by President Obama.

Naysayers, such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., say they just don’t trust her - although he doesn’t say why.

"I think there’s a lot of controversy around Elizabeth Warren’s services," McConnell said Tuesday in a media briefing. "It is an extraordinarily powerful position with an incredibly large budget and authority that is constrained by almost nothing. And, therefore, the person that does serve in that capacity is going to have to be trusted by everyone."

Warren, who chairs a congressionally appointed watchdog panel over the federal bailout, is not the only candidate for the job. But she is the one everyone is watching.

Her ideas for a regulator for financial products became the template for the new agency, which is tasked with regulating mortgages and credit cards, as well as making new rules for much of the financial industry and enforcing them at the largest banks.

Before the financial crisis, she was already the authority on mounting credit card debt. And her books about the financial decline of the middle class have been must-reads in the consumer advocacy community for years.

Warren’s nomination would send a strong signal that the White House is willing to stand behind an aggressive regulator who will emphasize consumer needs over bank needs. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs called her "very confirmable" on Monday.

Warren declined to be interviewed, through a spokesman.

While several banking lobbying groups declined to talk about Warren for publication, several academics point to her prolific record warning against banking industry "tricks and traps" to explain why she shouldn’t get the gig.

"Her first presumption is not that the markets work fine, but that the markets don’t work and we need to intervene," said former Republican Senate Banking staffer Mark Calabria of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "She argues that borrowers are tricked and mislead, and the credit system is predatory."

Conservatives also say they know she will be an aggressive advocate, and that tougher rules under her reign could come at the expense of credit availability and jobs.

"Cracking down on Wall Street means that some people won’t get a loan. There are jobs that won’t be created. Cars that won’t be sold," said Phillip Swagel, a visiting professor at Georgetown University, who was an assistant Treasury secretary during the George W. Bush administration. "Is she able to switch from advocacy to the thinking of the big picture of society?"

But consumer advocates and even some powerful lawmakers say a healthy distrust of the banking sector is what America needs right now after the last few decades, when regulators placed too much trust on banks.

"She’s a tenured Harvard law professor and she has an understanding of how out of balance the responsibilities and obligations are right now between lenders and borrowers," said Tamara Draut, vice president of policy and programs for Demos, left-leaning think tank in New York.

Watchdog panel acrimony

Another fear among those at federal agencies is that Warren would use the consumer regulator job as a bully pulpit to push ideas that go farther than what makes administration officials comfortable.

Warren runs the Congressional Oversight Panel, a congressionally appointed watchdog group of five who are charged with oversight of the 2008 financial crisis bailout.

When Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner testified before the oversight panel last spring, Warren’s first question was why Treasury wasn’t asking for the same kind of management shake-ups at big banks as they were in the auto industry.

"Do you think the banks are better managed than the auto companies?" she asked.

Generally, most lawmakers like Warren’s tough questions and have praised her work - including Republicans such as Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who last year filed a failed amendment to attempt to get the panel subpoena power.

But on a few occasions her enthusiasm has irked fellow panel members, notably those who don’t share her views. Of the five original panel members, only the three appointed by Democrats have stayed put. Three Republicans have stepped down.

And a top complaint penned by those who resigned is that the panel sometimes steps beyond its primary role as a watchdog, especially when it offered "controversial" policy alternatives they believe stretch the panel’s defined mission.

"Good oversight may not always attract the same headlines as controversial policy proposals, but it is valuable; more important, this is the task assigned to the panel," wrote one of those who left, former Sen. John E. Sununu, last August. "The Panel is not, however, a policy-making body."

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, wrote in December that the main reason he was resigning was because the panel "too often focuses upon making policy recommendations to Congress in place of critical and badly needed oversight."

Sununu declined to be interviewed, and Hensarling didn’t return calls in time for publication.

In response, Congressional Oversight Panel spokesman Peter Jackson said that six of the committee’s last seven reports have been approved unanimously. He added that the panel is required, by law, to make policy recommendations.

The two Republicans currently serving on the oversight panel said in a statement that they’ve liked working with Warren. They found her "quite willing to modify her views if presented with well-reasoned cogent arguments," wrote J. Mark McWatters, a tax attorney, and Kenneth Troske, a University of Kentucky economics professor. 

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Most of Europe’s biggest banks passed stress tests aimed at shoring up confidence in the region’s economy, officials said Friday.

Officials led by the European Central Bank tested 91 banks, and all the major lenders passed. One state-owned German real estate bank, one Greek bank and five smaller Spanish banks failed and will have to raise new funds.

The test showed Europe’s banks could suffer 566 billion euros ($730 billion) in asset writedowns and trading losses over the next two years should the region suffer a recession and an interest rate spike tied to national solvency fears.

But officials said most banks would emerge from a downturn in good shape, with the regionwide bank capital level slipping by a point to 9%. The minimum safe level for the sake of the exercise was 6%.

Supervisors also said they would "welcome" individual banks’ publication of further information on the results of their individual examinations, which could afford investors further insight into lenders’ condition.

Policymakers published the test results in hopes of restoring confidence to European funding markets, which have been wracked by fears that a sovereign debt default will lead to another slew of bank failures.

The design of the test raised some eyebrows in the markets. Supervisors said they discounted the value of sovereign bonds held by banks, but only for those bonds held in the banks’ trading accounts paydayloans. Bonds that the banks plan to hold to maturity weren’t discounted under the test.

This leaves open the possibility that a bank holding Greek government bonds, for instance, could pass the test — and still suffer crippling losses in the case of a Greek default.

That’s a major weakness of the test, and will feed skepticism about whether the exercise actually accomplished anything.

Even so, the tests are likely to have at least a modestly positive effect on sentiment in the banking sector in Europe.

Stress tests conducted in the United States faced similar skepticism last year, with many observers contending they weren’t tough enough to show how banks might perform in a deep downturn.

A year later, banks are still under intense criticism for their failure to extend more loans to small businesses at a time of high unemployment. But few observers worry now about whether the biggest U.S. banks could withstand another economic downturn, which shows the stress tests worked much as backers like Fed chief Ben Bernanke promised. 

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U.S. Global Investors’ concluded Friday with a slight increase in the investment company’s stock price.

U.S. Global (NASDAQ: GROW) posted a 1.86 percent increase in its stock price to close at $5.49. The company was the only local stock to post an increase.

Eight San Antonio stocks recorded decreases in their prices on July 2, compared to the previous trading day.

Seven local stocks did not register any significant percentage increase or decrease over the previous trading day.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 46 points to close at 9,686.

Friday’s closing tally:

• Abraxas Petroleum Corp.’s (NASDAQ: AXAS) — $2.72, down 1 percent.

• Alamo Group Inc.’s (NYSE: ALG) — $20.97, unchanged.

• CC Media Holdings’ (Pink Sheets: CCMO) — $6.65, unchanged.

• Cullen/Frost Bankers Inc.’s (NYSE: CFR) — $50.68, unchanged.

• GlobalSCAPE Inc.’s (AMEX: GSB) — $2.44, down 1.2 percent.

• Harte-Hanks Inc.’s (NYSE: HHS) — $10 check cash advance.72, down 4.54 percent.

• Kinetic Concepts Inc.’s (NYSE: KCI) — $35.92, unchanged.

• NuStar Energy LP’s (NYSE: NS) — $56.04, unchanged.

• NuStar GP Holdings LLC’s (NYSE: NSH) — $30.48, unchanged.

• Pioneer Drilling Co.’s (AMEX: PDC) — $5.74, unchanged.

• Rackspace Hosting’s (NYSE: RAX) — $17.15, down 5.35 percent.

• Rush Enterprises’ (NASDAQ: RUSHA) — Class A stock closed at $13.17, down 2.15 percent.

• Rush Enterprises’ (NASDAQ: RUSHB) — Class B stock closed at $11.24, down 2.35 percent.

• Tesoro Corp.’s (NYSE: TSO) — $10.75, down 2.8 percent.

• U.S. Global Investors’ (NASDAQ: GROW) — $5.49, up 1.86 percent.

• Valero Energy Corp.’s (NYSE: VLO) — $16.90, down 2 percent.

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Alpin Haus Pools & Ski Shop will celebrate the opening of its new store in Clifton Park, N.Y., on May 14.

The 6,000-square-foot store is located at Clifton Park Center at 22 Clifton Country Road.

Alpin Haus President Andy Heck will be joined by local officials at 2 p.m. to mark the store’s opening.

The store sells pools, patio furniture, spas, skis, snow boards and winter apparel. It also offers computerized water testing, weekly pool cleaning and service for all makes of pools.

Alpin Haus recently closed its former store in town on Sitterly Road along the Northway that sold recreational vehicles and pop-up trailers. That property is for sale.

Alpin Haus continues to sell RVs at its headquarters in Amsterdam and in Wilton. The company is the largest, independently-owned RV dealer in the Northeast.

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The European Central Bank left its benchmark interest rate at a record low as policy makers weigh the risks of withdrawing emergency lending measures amid Greece’s fiscal crisis.

The Frankfurt-based ECB kept its key rate at 1 percent, as predicted by all 52 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. President Jean-Claude Trichet has promised to give details on the next step in the ECB’s exit strategy when he holds a press conference at 2:30 p.m. today.

Greece’s soaring budget gap has roiled financial markets and sent bond yields surging in Spain and Portugal, whose deficits have also swelled in the wake of Europe’s worst recession since World War II. The crisis is undermining confidence in the euro area’s economic recovery and complicating the ECB’s plans to scale back the liquidity measures it introduced to nurse the region through the slump.

Trichet must avoid any hint that the ECB will prematurely end its unlimited cash support for euro-area banks, said Colin Ellis, an economist at Daiwa Capital Markets in London. “It could spook markets, push up interest rates and make it more difficult for countries like Greece to finance its debt.”

Greece, which must replenish 20 billion euros of borrowing in April and May, today began selling 10-year bonds.

‘Addicted’

The euro stayed lower against the dollar after the announcement and was down 0.2 percent to $1.3674 as of 1:47 p.m. in Frankfurt.

The Bank of England today left its benchmark rate at a record low of 0.5 percent and kept the target for its bond- purchase program at 200 billion pounds ($302 billion).

The cornerstone of the ECB’s program has been to provide banks with unlimited funding at its key rate in the hope they will lend it on to households and companies. The ECB has already said it will stop giving banks 12 and six-month loans to ensure they don’t become “addicted” to the cheap cash.

Officials will today decide whether to extend the policy of unlimited allotment in its remaining seven-day, one-month and three-month refinancing operations beyond the current guarantee of April 13. Before the global financial crisis, banks were required to bid for funds in auctions.

“Trichet will be very keen to show that the ECB will not have its exit strategy held hostage by the Greek situation,” said Laurent Bilke, a former ECB forecaster who now works for Nomura International Plc in London free credit score. “They always said they would announce the next steps of the exit this month, and they will.”

Demonstrations

The Greek government has announced a series of spending cuts to convince investors it can reduce its budget gap, plans that have prompted protests and strikes. Demonstrators today took over the Finance Ministry building in central Athens and blocked streets in the city.

As well as Greece, ECB policy makers have to take into account the sluggish economic recovery. The central bank in December forecast growth of 0.8 percent this year after a 4.1 percent contraction in 2009. Trichet will present new forecasts today.

“The recovery feels more vulnerable than it did in December, when the ECB initiated the exit,” said Mark Wall, an economist at Deutsche Bank AG in Frankfurt.

Inflation Muted

Euro-area growth almost ground to a halt in the fourth quarter, the European Union confirmed today. Unemployment held at the highest level in more than 11 years in January and economic confidence unexpectedly weakened in February. The European Commission last month said the economy may fail to gather strength for most of 2010.

The cooling recovery is keeping a lid on prices, reducing the need for the ECB to tighten policy any time soon. Inflation eased to 0.9 percent last month from 1 percent in January. That compares with the ECB’s aim to keep inflation just below 2 percent.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. this week pushed its forecast for the first ECB rate increase into 2011 from the fourth quarter of this year, and said the bank will exit non-standard measures more slowly than previously anticipated.

“The tensions surrounding Greece and the banks in general are likely to inject some concern that a too-fast exit could be dangerous,” Goldman’s chief European economist Erik Nielsen said in a note to investors. “We now believe that they’ll aim for a somewhat more gradual path than the one we have been forecasting for some time.”

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A product of Molson Coors Brewing Co. was the prize in a friendly wager between President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper over Sunday's men's ice hockey final between the U.S. and Canada at the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Canada won the game and the gold medal in overtime, 3-2.

Obama had offered to buy Harper a case of Molson Canadian beer in the event of a Canadian victory quick cash. And Harper had wagered a case of Yuengling beer if the Americans had won.

Molson Canadian is a product of Molson Coors, which is headquartered in Denver and Montreal.

Yuengling is made by D.G. Yuengling & Son Inc. of Pottsville, Pa.

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Good-bye, Big Blue.

Whoa, calm down there – Biz isn’t talking about IBM. Rather, Biz means the area’s other big blue behemoth: Terminal 1 at Raleigh-Durham International Airport. The RDU Airport Authority is making plans to renovate the aging facility in the coming years, and a new outside color will be part of the changes.

“We’re going to paint that blue out,” says Chairman Robb Teer, who adds that a new canopy system probably will be built. “I think that alone will give it a modern twist.”

While Teer insists that the authority hasn’t chosen a replacement color, he says beige and silver are being considered.

Hmmph. That’s a little boring, don’t you think? And Biz bets that Airport Director John Brantley, an N.C. State grad, would prefer something in the red family.

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Dubai’s not the only onetime highflier that risks drowning in debt.

The Middle East city-state’s investment arm, Dubai World, is working with creditors to restructure $26 billion of debt it took on in a multiyear, global property binge.

Last week, markets briefly panicked after the firm signaled that it couldn’t make its debt payments and the Dubai government said that it wouldn’t step in.

While Dubai’s problems appear for now to be under control, there is no shortage of other nations suffering a combination of plunging income and outsize borrowings that could soon demand attention.

Greece is running a budget deficit expected to exceed 12% of gross domestic product this year. Another country on the bubble is Romania, which is holding a presidential runoff election Saturday whose outcome is key to securing additional aid from lenders led by the International Monetary Fund.

So far, aid agencies like the IMF and the European Union have provided emergency funding to limit the depth of the economic downturns in troubled nations such as Hungary, Ukraine and Latvia. The IMF said in September it has made $163 billion of lending commitments since the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

But with economies everywhere under duress and investors fearful about the risks being assumed by free-spending governments, it is only a matter of time until the next chapter in the global debt crisis unfolds.

"The question that’s being tested around the world is, what is the limit to the support that has been offered to these stressed countries?" said Mary Stokes, an economist who watches developing Europe for RGE Monitor, the analysis Web site run by New York University economist Nouriel Roubini.

Greece is one of those at risk of failing that test. The southern European state, with a long history of loose finances, is coming under attack in the credit markets for its excessive spending.

The Greek government’s cost of borrowing money has surged following a rating agency downgrade early in 2009. The cost of insuring its government bonds against default has soared tenfold since the financial crisis started brewing in 2007.

Greek voters responded by toppling the government and putting in place an administration that proposed cutting the budget deficit by a quarter next year. Still, even the improved budget projects a budget deficit equal to more than 9% of GDP - triple the oft-ignored European Union limit.

Some observers say that Greece may have no choice but to go hat in hand to the EU, which has already provided ample support to Greek banks via cheap loans. But the finance minister of the newly elected socialist government, George Papaconstantinou, insists no request for a bailout is on the way.

Papaconstantinou pleaded instead in an op-ed piece Monday in the Wall Street Journal that "what Greece needs from its partners is, in effect, a ’suspension of disbelief.’ "

If Greece is the most humid debt hot spot after Dubai right now, others aren’t far behind. The export-dependent states of Latvia and Ukraine continue to struggle even with IMF support. And though the bigger economies of Spain and Ireland are much better diversified, they too are struggling to contain the damage of massive housing bubbles earlier this decade.

Even the biggest, most creditworthy borrowers aren’t beyond reproach following a year of record stimulus spending. Credit Derivatives Research’s government risk index has jumped almost 50% off its mid-September low, amid rising concern about fiscal imbalances in Japan, the United States and the U.K.

Yet the budget problem in the U.S. hardly counts as a crisis in itself. Federal debt held by the public is expected to soar to 60% of GDP at the end of fiscal 2010 from 41% at the end of last year, but that’s well below the triple digit readings being taken in some of the distressed nations and in Japan.

The bigger potential problem for the United States is the cost of servicing all that debt over coming years, and whether all that spending might dampen economic growth.

Federal interest payments already amount to 1% of GDP, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and could hit 2.5% of GDP by 2020 unless lawmakers make changes.

In any case, the lesson many people are taking out of the Dubai episode is that with asset values having fallen and debt levels still high, we can expect to see more unhappy surprises in coming months.

"Dubai was very likely NOT the last in the series of post-credit-bubble aftershocks," Gluskin Sheff economist David Rosenberg wrote in a note to clients.  

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State Treasurer Ben Westlund on Tuesday announced a $5 million investment in Marquam Hill Capital.

The Beaverton firm is launching a venture capital fund that will help Portland-area businesses connect with researchers at Oregon Health & Science University. The money is expected to help launch medical-related startup businesses developing products for the prevention and treatment of cancer.

The $5 million investment was made through the Oregon Growth Account, which is managed by the state treasurer.

Created in 1995, the Growth Account invests a portion of Oregon Lottery money in Oregon businesses.

To date, the program has invested roughly $93 million of state money. As of March, it had generated $18 million in earnings.

The investment is contingent on the Marquam Hill Capital Fund raising an additional $20 million.

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