Posted by admin on December 13th, 2009
There’s a new small business startup boom sweeping across America. It’s not about high-tech, or venture capital, or any of the usual startup suspects we’ve seen in recent decades. This boom is all about “personal businesses” – the one-man or woman shops with no employees that are sprouting at a record rate, and often begin as hobbies.
This boom is about people with a passion for making something – dubbed the “Maker Movement” – armed with the smarts, low-cost startup tools and the drive to turn their hobby into a revenue stream. Today’s passion-driven hobbyists are tomorrow’s entrepreneurs – otherwise known as hobbypreneurs, who successfully combine their passion for a particular hobby or craft with pragmatic business smarts to create new revenue streams for themselves and their families.
The trend was spotlighted in a new Future of Small Business research report just released by Intuit. According to Intuit, these
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Posted by admin on December 12th, 2009
CORPUS CHRISTI A new shopping center is going up at Alameda Drive and Airline Road near South Shore Estates, with completion expected by March.
Named South Shore Plaza, the 18,000-square-foot project sits on a portion of the former Cullen Mall site. Cullen Mall, a strip center opened in 1963, was razed in 1999.
Zeva Developers Inc. recently purchased the property from First National Bank, after the company decided not to place a new bank at the site, according to Zeva staff.
Several businesses have signed on to set up shop.
“We’ve got four tenants already that have shown interest and signed a letter of intent to move in,” said Moe Motaghi of Zeva developers. “We should be ready to go this spring.”
The four new stores include a hair salon, a Christian book store, a barber shop and a day spa, Motaghi said.
W
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Posted by admin on December 11th, 2009
CORPUS CHRISTI The Cash 4 Clunkers program didn’t go as smoothly as the federal government planned. But a local car dealer said the trade-in program accomplished its goals of helping revitalize the national economy.
The $3 billion federal program, officially named the Car Allowance Rebate System, was intended to stimulate the economy by boosting auto sales by encouraging owners of older, less fuel-efficient vehicles to trade them for newer, more fuel-efficient models. Upon meeting the criteria for a clunker, the owner received a $3,500 or $4,500 voucher, to be used toward the down payment or price of a new vehicle.
Although upgrading to newer vehicles put safer, cleaner and more fuel-efficient vehicles on the roadways, this was not the government’s primary goal.
Charlie Hicks, general manager of Ed Hicks Nissan, said the problems started early. Sale
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Posted by admin on December 10th, 2009
For a lot of years now, more than a handful of people would have given their eyeteeth to be Tiger Woods, the greatest golfer the world has ever known. He had a beautiful wife, two great kids, a strong father figure, now deceased, perhaps a billion dollars in net worth, a squeaky-clean image, and a No. 1 ranking in the golf world.
Who’d want to be him now? Sure, some people would still trade places with him. But they’d be taking on a world of disillusionment.
Maybe it’s a sign of the times. Disillusionment seems to reign these days when it comes to investors and their feelings toward financial advisers. I not
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Posted by admin on December 9th, 2009
CORPUS CHRISTI The Port of Corpus Christi won’t be forced into arbitration with two railroads upset over its demolition of the Tule Lake Lift Bridge.
The 13th Court of Appeals in Corpus Christi issued an opinion Thursday that a trial court was correct when it ruled the port cannot be subjected to arbitration in the issue.
Arbitration is a dispute resolution called for under the contracts that would be final and legally binding.
Kansas City Southern and the Texas Mexican Railway Co. asked for arbitration in September 2008, claiming that when port officials removed the lift bridge last year, they broke agreements signed in 1960 and 1997 that stated the port would maintain the bridge. The port then filed court documents requesting a stay that would hold off arbitration.
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Posted by admin on December 8th, 2009
from NJ.com
The doctor will see you now. Or at least in the few seconds it takes AT&T to relay your vital signs over its broadband network.
The telecommunications giant has big plans to establish a foothold in the “telehealth” industry, an emerging field that links patients and physicians across the country via video and medical-information technology.
“These days, everybody is talking about medical care: Who gets it? Who pays for it? Who decides?” said Robert Miller, executive director of technical research at AT&T and a 40-year veteran at the company’s Florham Park research labs. “But few people are working on a technology solution that would lower costs and make medical care better at the same time.”
AT&T scientists have spent the past year working on prototypes of products aimed at the home health care market. T
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Posted by admin on December 7th, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans borrowed less for a record ninth straight month in October, another sign that consumer spending will remain weak, making it harder for the economy to mount a sustained rebound.
Consumer credit fell at an annual rate of $3.51 billion in October, the Federal Reserve said Monday. Economists expected a $9.3 billion decline.
Demand for revolving credit, the category that includes credit cards, fell 9.3 percent, while borrowing in the category that includes auto loans rose at an annual rate of 2.6 percent.
Americans are borrowing less as they try to replenish depleted investments. Many are finding it hard to get credit as banks, hit by the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, have tightened lending standards.
The 2.6 percent rise in the category that includes car loans reflected a rebound in auto sales in October after a sharp September drop.
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