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The foolproof way to buy a car with bad credit

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In the current challenging economic climate with declining property values and changes in available mortgage products, more and more homeowners are becoming delinquent or going into foreclosure. Many folks are losing their homes and their good credit, through no fault of their own.

In addition, as a result of these challenges, many Americans also face the difficulty of getting approved for a car loan. Crawling out of the hole that a bad credit score creates can take years of persistence and patience. So, what can Americans in that predicament do until their score goes up? And what can they do to help get their scores up?

There are many lenders out there who understand this dilemma and offer an excellent way to start the long process of credit recovery. An auto loan with a trend of on-time payments is a great way to reestablish credit. A great place to start the loan process is online at a site like Car.com, a popular consumer automotive information site committed to helping customers with special finance needs get approved for a loan and into the right vehicle.    

Car.com is a free service that works with a nationwide network of finance companies and dealers to help customers with all types of credit. The service connects consumers with a dealer or lender who operates in the consumer's area, who specializes in the full spectrum of credit, and who is dedicated to helping car-buyers get the vehicle they want at a price they can afford. The advantage a site like Car.com provides is that consumers who have been turned down by other dealers or banks have an opportunity to find the right lender for their particular situation online and in the comfort of their own home.

"Knowing we would have to work with a bank that handled 'second chance' cases, I thought that they would put us in a cheap car, but this was not the case! They showed us a VW Jetta that was right within our price range and looked and drove like new!" says Kellie M., Waycross, Ga.

A site like Car.com also provides help for students or first-time car buyers, who struggle from the catch 22: How do you get a loan if you don't have credit, since you need credit to get a loan? Car.com believes that there is a lender for everyone.

Here is how the process works: Click on Car.com to help find your car loan, the online questionnaire only takes a few minutes to complete. Car.com then securely delivers your information to its network of third party lenders and dealers. Loan decisions normally occur within hours. While you're there, if you need to repair your credit report and score, you can start that process through Car.com's partners who are leaders in the credit repair field. Click on finance.car.com/crediteval and begin  the easy process of improving your credit .

Go to Car.com now to search for a vehicle and see vehicle reviews, previews, videos, histories and discussions. Find a form, fill out the short application and learn about financing. You can compare vehicles and figure out your payment schedule with an online payment calculator.

Tags: Badcredit Buy A New Car Lease

Big Banks, Small Business Lending: Do The Numbers Really Add Up?

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Big banks' reputations have taken a hit over the last few years, starting with the financial crisis and culminating with the Occupy Wall Street protests. Meanwhile, small businesses have been cast as the economy's earnest underdogs, generating rhetorical support from Congress to the campaign trail to Wall Street. So it's no surprise that Bank of America, Chase, Citibank and Wells Fargo were eager to release seemingly impressive small-business lending figures for 2011. Problem is, many of those loans may be going to businesses that aren't that small.

For lending purposes, the nation's four biggest banks define small businesses as those with annual revenues up to $20 million -- an amount far higher than many businesses on Main Street will ever reach. This could explain the ongoing disconnect between big banks' upbeat lending reports and the 61 percent of small-business owners who say it's harder to get loans now than four years ago, according to a study released Thursday by the American Sustainable Business Council, Small Business Majority and Main Street Alliance.

Sarwan "Rimpy" Singh, owner of seven Taco Time restaurants in the Portland, Ore., area, experienced the disconnect when two big banks rejected his application for a $300,000 loan to buy property he is leasing. One bank told Singh it doesn't give loans to restaurants because they're high-risk, though Singh has been in business for 16 years, has excellent credit, a sizable down payment and has been a longtime bank customer. Earning $2.5 million to $3 million in 2011 revenue, Singh said he wonders whether he's at the wrong end of the revenue spectrum when it comes to borrowing. "There are a lot of mixed messages from the big banks," he said. "That definition is completely wrong. They have no clue what a small business is."

In other words, big bank loans to so-called small businesses may very well be going to businesses closer to the $20 million end of the revenue spectrum. Without more transparency, it remains unknown.

"The big banks make their small-business lending numbers look as good as possible by stretching the limits as far as possible," said Ami Kassar, founder and CEO of Philadelphia-based MultiFunding, which helps small businesses find the best loans available to them. "They include companies with up to $20 million of revenue. These companies are less risky, and less complicated to lend to. They also require larger loans that make the big banks' total small-business lending numbers look much better."

Here's a snapshot of the banks' 2011 small-business lending figures -- to businesses with revenue of $20 million or less:

• Bank of America: $17.7 billion, a slight decrease from 2010.
• Chase: $17 billion, a 52 percent increase.
• Citibank: $7.9 billion, a 30 percent increase.
• Wells Fargo: $13.9 billion, an 8 percent increase.

Big banks' definition of small business also differs from that of government agencies that monitor small-business lending. These agencies tend to adopt the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. call reports definition of small-business lending -- business loans in the amount of $1 million or less. Based on this definition, the Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy reported that total outstanding small-business loans fell 1.2 percent to $599.7 billion in the third quarter last year, from $606.9 billion in the second quarter, while small-business loans by the big banks were nearly flat for the same period.

The Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have also adopted this inter-agency definition, though the Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey published by the Fed defines small businesses as those with sales of $50 million or less. The Treasury Department does not have a definition of small businesses or small-business loans, but adheres to specific parameters for its two small-business lending programs, the State Small Business Credit Initiative, which targets borrowers with 500 employees or less with loan amounts not exceeding $5 million, and the Small Business Lending Fund, which offers business loans of $10 million or less to businesses with revenues up to $50 million.

Even small banks use a narrower definition of small businesses than the big banks. Umpqua Bank, a community bank serving Oregon, Washington, Northern California and Northern Nevada, defines small businesses as those with $1 million or less in annual revenue. Umpqua lent more than $328 million in 2011 to these small businesses.

To put the "small business" population in some perspective, of the 27,486,691 total businesses that filed taxes with the IRS in 2003, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 26,226,922 -- or more than 95 percent -- had less than $1 million in total revenues.

Bank of America, Chase, Citibank and Wells Fargo don't publicly break down small-business lending according to revenue. But Kassar has crunched the data the four banks reported for the quarterly FDIC call reports and found that these banks did not show increases in outstanding small-business loan balances from the end of 2010 to the third quarter of 2011.

The banks' outstanding small-business loan balances -- based on the standard of $1 million or less -- from the end of 2010 to Sept. 30, 2011 are:

• Bank of America: $31.16 billion, down from $33.3 billion.
• Chase: $24.5 billion, about the same as the end of 2010.
• CitiGroup: $7.6 billion, down from $7.7 billion.
• Wells Fargo: $37.8 billion, down from $40.1 billion.

Because decreases in outstanding balances could also reflect loans being paid off, it's almost impossible to compare apples to apples and determine how effective small-business lending programs are. If big banks broke down how these funds are distributed, the true state of small-business lending might be clearer, observers said.

Kassar isn't holding his breath. "If the big banks were to use this definition in their reporting to the public, there would be political and public outrage," he said. "The numbers in the FDIC call reports reflect a horrible record of large banks supporting small business throughout the recession."

'Inflated Numbers'

So how did the banks come up with this $20 million revenue figure as a definition of small business? Although they're perfectly in sync about the threshold itself, there's no consensus where that number originated.

"In our experience, when a business hits about $20 million in annual revenue, the way they use financial services changes and they would probably be better served in our middle market banking group," said MaryJane Rogers, a Chase spokeswoman. "We have more than 2 million small-business clients at Chase, and they represent the spectrum of business size and scope."

Similarly, at Wells Fargo, "the way we define small business starts with the customer and our vision to help our customers succeed financially," said Marc Bernstein, Wells Fargo executive vice president of in charge of the small business segment. "Every small business is unique, and while businesses under $20 million in annual revenue vary widely, we have found that these businesses have characteristics that distinguish them from large businesses -- such as management/ownership structures, number of employees, operating models and financial needs. While there's no perfect definition, we believe the categorization of businesses with less than $20 million in annual revenue is a good representation of small business."

Raj Seshadri, head of small business lending for Citibank, disregarded the idea of using the FDIC call reports as a measuring stick for small-business lending performance. "Comparing the SBA small-business lending commitment number to the FDIC number is a case of apples and oranges," Seshadri said. "The FDIC tracks non-farm, non-residential commercial and industrial loans of $1 million or less. The loans are made to commercial enterprises that are not farms and the loans are not collateralized using residential real estate."

Seshadri said the SBA set the definition. "The Small Business Administration defined the small-business lending commitment last summer as capital provided to a business with annual revenues under $20 million," she said. "Under this definition, we made a commitment that we would extend $24 billion over 2011-2013 to American small businesses. We are happy to report that we exceeded the lending commitment we made in 2011 by $900 million. Regardless of these and other definitions, our mission remains clear -- we want to help small businesses grow by providing the banking services they need. This includes lending, where our goal is to responsibly get to 'yes' for as many small-business owners as possible. We are now working hard to meet and surpass our commitment for 2012."

(SBA spokesman Mike Stamler responded that the SBA has told banks they "could use their own internal size standards" for non-SBA loans.)

Bank of America declined to comment on its definition of small-business loans. Spokesman Don Vecchiarello noted, "We know how important small businesses are to the economy -- at both the national and local level. That's why we're working to help small businesses succeed through a wide range of efforts."

MultiFunding's Kassar said he sees the $20 million definition that big banks use for small-business lending -- and the disconnect between the big banks' optimistic statements and Main Street's sour experiences -- as having dire consequences. "Big banks use their inflated numbers to encourage small-business owners to come in and apply for loans, where they are met with slow and cumbersome loan processes," Kassar said. "This slows down innovation and jobs. It also frustrates and exasperates. It's not good for small business, and it's not good for the country."

UPDATE: Bank of America originally provided The Huffington Post with the figure of $6.4 billion for their small-business lending in 2011, a 20 percent increase from 2010. That was Bank of America's amount of new small-business credit originations, as opposed to its total small-business loan commitments -- including both new originations and renewals -- which totaled $17.7 billion in 2011.

Tags: Smallbusinessloans Bankofamerica Wallstreet Economy

Don Cornelius Found Dead in Sherman Oaks, CA Home.

by Steven J. Horowitz

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posted Feb. 01, 2012 6:54am

Soul Train creator Don Cornelius was found dead in his home early this morning from an apparent suicide. He was 75 years old.

According to TMZ, law enforcement officials said that Cornelius died from a gunshot wound to the head that they believe was self-inflicted. Upon discovering his body, officials took him to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Cornelius served as host of Soul Train from 1971 to 1993, providing a platform for artists including Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson and The O'Jays. In its later years, the show featured performances from artists including R. Kelly, Outkast, Usher and more.

HipHopDX sends its condolences to Cornelius' family during this difficult time.

Tags: Doncornelius Soul Train Blacks Essence Shermanoaks Famous People

Amazon's Net income drops significantly from last years margin

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NEW YORK — Shoppers spent more money online this holiday season than ever before, and yet, Amazon _the world's largest Internet retailer_ failed to meet Wall Street's sales expectations with its latest financial results.

In a surprise, the company's revenue fell nearly $1 billion short of Wall Street's expectations, even as it grew 35 percent from a year earlier. The quarter included Amazon's headline-grabbing November launch of the Kindle Fire, its answer to Apple's iPad. Its net income also fell sharply and its guidance for the current quarter was disappointing.

Investors punished the stock. Amazon's shares dropped $17.44, or 9 percent, to $177 in after-hours trading on Tuesday following the earnings announcement.

Though revenue grew 35 percent to $17.4 billion, analysts expected the holidays to lift sales to $18.3 billion, according to FactSet.

Even so, BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis said the company "didn't really give a good answer" as to why its revenue fell short of expectations. And while its earnings were stronger than expected, he said the company has been "more revenue driven than earnings driven."

That explains why investors focused on the company's sales growth. With a stock valued as high as Amazon's, they are looking for any sign of a slowdown as an excuse to sell.

Meanwhile, Amazon's expenses are increasing. Operating expenses grew 38 percent to $17.2 billion. The company has been investing heavily in new sales-fulfillment centers. Investments such as these cut into profits during all of last year.

Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc. said that its net income was $177 million, or 38 cents per share, in the three months that ended Dec. 31. That's down 57 percent from $416 million, or 91 cents per share, a year earlier. Earnings dropped, the company said, as it continued to invest in sales fulfillment centers and increased its workforce by 67 percent from a year earlier.

For the current quarter, Amazon is forecasting $12 billion to $13.4 billion in revenue. Analysts were expecting $13.42 billion. The company also said it may record an operating loss for the quarter. Its outlook was in the range of a loss of $200 million to a profit of $100 million for the three months ending in March.

Analysts had been worried about Amazon's profit margins because of the heavy operating expenses, but they had expected stronger revenue growth.

Although the company's earnings of 38 cents a share were well above Wall Street expectations of 17 cents, investors seemed to focus on the bad news elsewhere.

Amazon said sales of its Kindle tablet computers and e-reader gadgets nearly tripled compared with the final quarter of 2010. The company did not give exact sales numbers for the devices.

The Kindle Fire, Amazon's $199 tablet, went on sale in November. The company sees the Kindle as a way to drive sales of digital content such as e-books, music, movies and apps.

CEO Jeff Bezos said the Kindle was Amazon's bestselling product during the holiday season in both the U.S. and Europe.

Sales at Amazon's media business, which includes books, DVDs, and content consumed on the Kindle, grew 15 percent to $6 billion. Sales from electronics and other general merchandise, which includes the Kindle devices, jumped 48 percent to $10.9 billion.

The company grew its employee base 67 percent from a year earlier, ending the year with 56,200 full-time and part-time workers. Chief Financial Officer Tom Szkutak said the job additions were in operations and customer service to support Amazon's growth.

For all of 2011, Amazon earned $631 million, down from $1.15 billion a year earlier. Revenue grew to $48.1 billion from $34.2 billion.

Amazon's stock dropped $17.44, or 9 percent, to $177 in after-hours trading following the earnings announcement.

Tags: Amazon.com Technology News

The 10 Worst Things About Owning A Business

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Most of the time, being a small business owner is one of the many fulfilling experiences in the world. But then there are days where I wish I could just get a job! Having your own business has many frustrations that are out of your control.

Here are the top 10 worst things about owning a business and how to fix them:

1. Customers that say they will buy my product “next week” but then never do

If you really don’t want to do business with me, I would appreciate the courage to simply tell me “no.” You won’t hurt my feelings by saying your business situation has changed. Solution: Call, write, tweet or text, even in the middle of the night. I appreciate a quick "no" much more than a "yes" that never comes.

2. People that make tons of money with no apparent business skill

Lottery winners I can cheer for. Dumb people in business with a bad idea and even poorer execution that strike it rich just make me cry. But as Jean Couteau said “We must believe in luck. For how else can explain the success of those we don’t like?” Solution: Work hard and play the lottery.

3. People that don’t respond to my e-mails or phone calls even after I have worked with them 

These aren’t cold calls or people I have never met. These are people that have paid me money or I have had lunch with several times. Solution: Let go and forget them quickly. I don’t want to do business with anyone that isn’t interested. If you don’t want to talk, send me an e-mail to buzz off. I won't be insulted, I will be relieved!

4. Customers that don’t tell you they can’t pay their bill

If you can’t afford my product, don’t buy it. Don’t have me keep calling you with no reply looking for the money you owe. Solution: If circumstances have changed since your purchase, tell me. We will work something out. Lack of communication only leads to frustration and expensive conversations with lawyers.

5. People that are always late for meetings

Who taught you to tell time? If you are not a doctor or the cable guy, you need to respect a meeting time. Solution: Dial your cell phone and say you are going to be late so I don’t wonder if I got the date wrong or you are stuck under a bus somewhere.

6. People that cancel a meeting less than an hour before it is scheduled to start

In this fast paced world, schedules can change quickly. However, don’t routinely change your mind about meeting me an hour before we are to get together. Please remember that I have not yet mastered teleportation, so I typically need to leave 45 minutes to get to the meeting location on time. Solution: Look ahead at your schedule and cancel the day before if you are no longer interested or your schedule has changed.

7. Banks that reduce my line of credit even though my business is profitable and I have never missed a payment

Most banks do not want to take the risk of lending money to small businesses in this economy. However, don’t cancel my line of credit just because my business falls into the wrong industry sector that has a high default rate. Solution: Treat my company as an individual customer (like you promised when you got my business) and look at the merits of each individual loan.

8. State and Federal governments that require a myriad of regulations to run a business

All I want to do is sell my products and services to other people who want to buy them. The variety of laws to be followed and taxes to be paid by a business owner are mind boggling. Solution: Stop trying to balance the government's budget on the back of my small business. If you leave my business alone, I can prosper and pay more taxes to you based on my profit.

9. Insurance companies that charge 25 percent more each year but reduce their benefits by 50 percent

I always have dreams about a business like health insurance where I can raise my prices 25 percent a year and offer 50 percent less services in return. Insurance is now the second largest cost for small business owners. Solution: Look at alternatives every year from different insurance carriers. It’s the only way to keep the cost reasonable without passing every increase onto your employees.

10. Employees that  quit their job simply by not showing up

If you no longer want the job, please show up on your last day and politely quit. Don’t just leave during lunch and never come back. Please give me a week’s notice so the people left at the company don’t suffer in your absence. Solution: Call, write, tweet or text so I can hire someone else.

Tags: Small Business Owner

The New High Tech Bubble

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Facebook has been valued recently at $80 billion while Google has a current public market value of $195 billion and Apple has a market capitalization of $350 billion.

Will any of these companies still be around in forty years?

Analysts attempting to arrive at a fair value for these and other hi-tech firms typically estimate the firm's earnings power and then apply a P/E multiple to arrive at the company's market value. This is not that different from how most firms are valued in the marketplace, but with tech firms a much higher P/E is applied reflecting the greater growth prospects of the firms.

But, high tech firms also face a much higher risk of obsolescence for their products than more traditional firms. When we say that a firm like Facebook might be worth 25 times its potential earnings in 2015, we are saying that Facebook is not only going to grow rapidly beyond 2015 to justify this aggressive P/E multiple but will also be around for a very long time. Similarly, Google's current P/E of 20 or Apple's P/E of 16 both assume the firms will be hugely profitable for a long time to come.

Recall that firms only have value to their shareholders because they eventually pay cash dividends to those shareholders (or make share repurchases). It is the present value of these dividends that approximates the current market value of a firm. If a tech firm is growing at 20% per year and an investor requires a 20% return in order to take the risk of holding its common stock, then the present value can be calculated by taking the current dividend amount and multiplying by the number of years you think the company will be in business. No discounting is necessary because in this case the discount rate exactly equals the growth rate of the company.

So, to value a high tech firm you only need to guess how many years the company will be around and growing and its products relevant to arrive at an appropriate multiple. If you assume that dividend payouts will be half of the company's after tax earnings going forward, then the market is in effect saying that if you double the P/E you arrive at an estimate of how long in years the company can perform at this earnings potential and growth. So the market is saying that Google will still be around and growing at 20% per year forty years from now and that Apple will still be jumpin' in 32 years.

These estimates may not sound crazy for more traditional firms, but the very nature of high tech firms is that they are in industries that are changing each day at an exponential rate. We all applaud the success of Amazon.com and Cisco, but how many of us remember Commodore computers or Visicalc or Atari games or pets.com or webvan. In an industry that measures the number of hits by the second and tracks results by the minute, a year seems like a lifetime and a decade seems like eternity.

Google's obsolescence risk is obvious, someone just needs to come up with a better search engine algorithm. Their huge ad revenue is based on the fact that everyone uses their search algorithm and if a better one is found, Google is gone, most likely in much less than forty years. If you think it might happen in the next ten years, then it looks like Google might be overvalued by some 75%.

Apple has had an incredible run of success with its Mac, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone and the iPad. But even after taking over the graphics business, the music business, the cell phone business and the publishing business, they only have $50 billion of cash on their balance sheet. Since they haven't paid a dividend recently this has to be the value that these advances have brought to Apple to date. As to the future, I am sure Apple hopes it has figured out the formula for how to design and create user friendly products in any arena, but I am not so sure. For example, in the toy business it is unheard of for a toy manufacturer to have the hit toy for Christmas and then follow it up with another hit in future years. Similarly, I think it is a mistake to believe that Apple will continue to have hit products in the future equal to its most recent successes, especially given that Steve Jobs' future with the company is so uncertain. So again, the question is how long will iPhones and iPads be big sellers in a world of tech consumers that are always demanding the next new and cool thing. 32 years sounds awfully optimistic.

This brings us to Facebook and its valuation. In a July 14th Wall Street Journal article, Geoff Yang, a very successful venture capitalist at Redpoint Ventures provided an analysis that said that Facebook might be worth $140 billion in 2015. (He was not alone. In the same article, Lou Kerner, a managing director at Wedbush Securities said he thought Facebook would be worth $234 billion by 2015). Yang assumes that Facebook will have revenues of $19 billion by 2015 and after-tax earnings in that year of $5.6 billion. He then applies a 25 P/E multiple to these earnings to arrive at a valuation of $140 billion.

But his 25 multiple assumes a life expectancy of Facebook of some 54 years if I am right. How can this be when the company is already being threatened by new competitors like Google+ and the firm hasn't even gone public yet. Remember Friendster and MySpace? Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, famously said that what people like about Facebook is how cool it is. How can he possibly expect Facebook to be cool fifty years from now? Are there any techies out there that think their grandparents' rotary phones or eight track tape players are still cool?

Using Geoff Yang's estimates of Facebook's earnings in 2015 means that Facebook could afford to pay a $2.8 billion dividend in that year and have it grow at its risk adjusted discount rate of 20% in the future. If you assume it is more likely that Facebook will be obsolete in 20 years rather than 50, then the present value of this growing dividend stream in 2015 will be $45 billion. Discounting back four years at 20% per year you arrive at a firm value for Facebook of approximately $22 billion today. This is a far cry from the $100 billion plus valuations that Facebook is thinking about going public at. And remember, the $100 billion IPO price is what big institutions and insiders pay. As a small individual investor you will most likely be buying in through the secondary market weeks after the offering at valuations of $150 to $200 billion just as the insiders are unloading their overvalued shares.

A similar type analysis can be applied to Groupon, LinkedIn and the other hot internet stocks out there today. The key is estimating how long of lives these firms have before they are made obsolete by the next big thing. Remember how big a deal monster.com was to corporate recruiting just five years ago and how we thought its dominant market position would last for decades, and now Linkedin has created an even more powerful networking site for recruiters. And amazon, the gorilla on the block is already after Groupon. While we can all applaud the next big thing in the tech world, we have to start assigning values to firms in this space that fully recognizes that innovation is both a blessing to growth but also carries the curse of more rapid obsolescence.

John R. Talbott is a best selling author and consultant. His new book is mandatory reading for anyone interested in learning the real reasons for this crisis and how to protect yourself going forward. You can read more about John and the new book at www.stopthelying.com or at amazon.com. Information for media contacts is available at www.stopthelying.com.

Tags: Facebook Myspace Twitter

NFL Lockout 2011: Players Review Parts Of Proposed Deal To End Lockout, Say Sources

By HOWARD FENDRICH and BARRY WILNER

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-- The NFL Players Association's executive committee reviewed only portions of a proposed deal to end the lockout and not enough to warrant a vote Tuesday, two people familiar with the league's labor negotiations told The Associated Press.

A full agreement in principle hadn't been completed as of Tuesday night, and another person familiar with the talks said there was no guarantee a full document would be finished Wednesday, either.

The people spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the process is supposed to remain confidential.

While lawyers from both sides worked on contract language in New York with a court-appointed mediator for the second day in a row, the NFLPA's leadership met for about nine hours at the group's headquarters in Washington.

"Every day the last two years has been a long day," NFLPA head DeMaurice Smith said as he left.

If the four-month lockout – the NFL's first work stoppage since 1987 – is going to end this week, in time to keep the preseason completely intact, the best-case scenario is that the players OK a new contract Wednesday, and the owners do so the next day.

Player representatives from all 32 teams were expected in Washington on Wednesday – when they could vote, if a settlement is ready for their consideration.

One of the people who spoke to the AP said lawyers for owners and players planned to continue discussions Wednesday via telephone, instead of the sort of face-to-face talks that produced so much progress last week.

The owners' labor committee, meanwhile, is set to meet in Atlanta on Wednesday. All owners are expected to gather Thursday for a special meeting when they could ratify the deal and decide to lift the lockout they put in place March 12. Executives from all 32 teams then would be briefed there Thursday and Friday on how the terms would affect league business. Clubs were told topics would include the 2011 NFL calendar, rookie salary system and guidelines for player transactions.



Still unresolved Tuesday was what it would take to get the 10 plaintiffs – including quarterbacks Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees, Chargers receiver Vincent Jackson and Patriots guard Logan Mankins – to sign off on a settlement to their antitrust lawsuit against the NFL that is pending in federal court in Minnesota.

Late Tuesday, Jackson tweeted: "I have made no demands, I wanna play ball like the rest of my peers!"

Another pending issue has been the TV networks case, in which players accused owners of setting up $4 billion in "lockout insurance."

After joining the talks in New York for about seven hours, Hall of Fame defensive end Carl Eller thought an agreement would be reached this week. He also said retired players won't stand in the way.

After leaving negotiations, Eller headed to a meeting with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

"They want to get these games going, and they want to have a season. That's their focus," Eller said. "Our issues are very, very critical – very important – but they don't really have much to do with whether the game goes on or not."

He said "there's still a lot more to be done" when it comes to benefits for former players, but that could be resolved after the main dispute is settled.

A proposal under consideration would set up nearly $1 billion over the next 10 years in additional benefits for retired players. That would include $620 million in pension increases, long-term care insurance and disability programs.

Retired players complained to the court in Minnesota recently that they had been excluded from negotiations, which is why Eller's presence was significant.

"We weren't happy, and we hope it doesn't go back to that. We hope we stay active in the talks and we hope we continue to have meaningful talks. This clearly lets us know there's more work to be done," Eller said. "It's certainly something we want to keep going and continue the dialogue, continue to work until we have some kind of a solution."

Lawyers for the NFL and the players suing the league submitted a joint filing to the court Tuesday, asking for an extra week to file written arguments "to allow them to focus on the continuing mediation." The request, which was granted in the afternoon, noted that "the parties have also been meeting regularly since April 11, 2011, in an effort to resolve their disputes."

The country's most popular professional sports league has been in limbo since the old collective bargaining agreement expired March 11. The sides are trying to forge a settlement in time to keep the preseason completely intact. The exhibition opener is supposed to be the Hall of Fame game between the St. Louis Rams and Chicago Bears on Aug. 7; the start of Chicago's training camp will be delayed even if a new agreement is in place this week, because the team needs extra time to prepare, two people familiar with the situation told the AP on condition of anonymity.

The regular-season opener is scheduled for Sept. 8, when the Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers are to host the New Orleans Saints.

The lockout has resulted in pay cuts for non-playing employees around the league, and economic hardship for cities, like Cortland, N.Y., that hosted training camps in the past but won't this year. On Tuesday, the lower-level UFL – which had been hoping to start its season in the void created by a lack of NFL preseason games – announced it is delaying its season start to mid-September, a blow for a league that has lost $100 million in only two years.

Tags: NFL LOCKOUT 2011

Indian farmer suicides rise to 17,000 a year

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Monday January 17th, 2011

NEW DELHI (AFP) – More than 17,000 Indian farmers committed suicide in 2009, a seven percent rise on the previous year, according to new government figures.

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) study titled "Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India" revealed the rise without attributing causes, with the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh the worst affected.

Many farmers, particularly in the southern and western states listed, were pushed further into debt in 2009 after the weakest monsoon in 37 years left fields parched and crops ruined.

Despite economic development in cities, two out of three Indians still live and work in rural areas and as many as 150,000 farmers have killed themselves in the past decade, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences said in 2009.

The subject was taken up in an acclaimed Bollywood film last year called "Peepli Live" made by the production company of superstar Aamir Khan.

The film, directed by first-time director Anusha Rizvi, revolves around two poor farmers who face losing their land over an unpaid debt after poor monsoon rains, with one considering killing himself so that his family receives compensation.

In other statistics, the study said that a total of 127,151 people took their own lives in 2009 and about 125,000 people or about 350 a day died on the country's notoriously dangerous roads.

Road deaths increased by 7.3 percent in 2009 from 2008, following a long-term trend that has seen road deaths mirror increases in vehicle sales.

Since 2005, the number of fatal road accidents has increased by 30 percent, tracking a 35-percent rise in the number of vehicles.

India's booming economy is raising personal incomes and corporate profits, enabling middle-class consumers and businesses to invest in greater numbers of cars, vans and lorries.

However, as a study published in the British medical journal The Lancet last week pointed out, economic change sometimes produces harmful behavioural shifts, such as driving faster and further without due regard to safety.

The head of the National Safety Council of India (NSCI), K.C. Gupta, told AFP last September that changing attitudes was a "huge job" but that economic development would lead to more awareness.

India's generally bumpy and overcrowded roads remain poorly policed and chaotic in nature.

Whole families are often found crammed onto a single motorbike -- with only the father wearing a helmet -- while the overloading of trucks and buses is endemic.

A total of 175 people died of starvation and thirst in 2009, 261 in bombings, 25,911 from drowning, 8,539 from electrocution and 1,826 had fatal falls into manholes or pits. Around 8,000 died from snake or other animal bites.

Experts warn that government statistics in India should be treated with caution because of inefficient public administration in many areas, meaning accidents go unreported.

Tags: Suicide Farmer India

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