Wing Tai doubles Q1 profit to S$61.8m

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Higher contributions from two condominium projects in Singapore have helped Wing Tai to double its first quarter profit.

For the three months to September, the property developer booked earnings of S$61.8 million, despite a 39 percent fall in revenue to S$100 million.

Wing Tai is planning to put several new residential projects in Singapore on the market in the next few months.

It says it will continue to position itself to ride on the positive sentiment in the Singapore property market and expand its business activities overseas.

Towards this goal, it signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a real estate project in Chengdu last month.

This will be the developer's first property project in China.

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Microsoft acquires Thai medical software firm

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Microsoft Corp, seeking to expand in the medical sector, has agreed to acquire the assets of a privately held, Thailand-based health information system company, the software giant announced yesterday.

Global Care Solutions (GCS) specialises in creating software modules for hospitals' clinical and administrative operations, allowing them to run more smoothly. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The Bangkok-based company, whose core product was first marketed in 2000, has implemented its systems in seven client hospitals in the Asia-Pacific region. They are based on already existing Microsoft software products.

'We are really amazed at the quality of care that can be delivered with Global Care Solutions' health information system,' said Peter Neupert, corporate vice-president for the Health Solutions Group at Microsoft, into which GCS employees will be incorporated.

Mr Neupert said that the deal, under which Microsoft will acquire software, intellectual property and other assets of GCS, would allow the technology to be marketed worldwide.

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Oil prices tops $93

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Oil prices hit a new trading high above $93 a barrel Monday before falling back, propelled by news that Mexico’s state oil company was suspending about a fifth of its oil production due to a storm.

The news that Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, was to stop as much as 600,000 barrels of daily crude production came amid political tensions in the Mideast, a weak U.S. dollar and a tight supply outlook that had already pushed crude oil to record prices.

The Pemex shut-in “is the one that has pushed prices above $93,” said Victor Shum, a Singapore-based energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz. “This is on top of what has already been simmering.”

Pemex announced Sunday that it had already suspended 200,000 barrels of daily production in the Gulf of Mexico because of bad weather and was planning to reduce by another 400,000. Pemex produces about 3.2 million barrels of crude oil a day, of which 2.7 million come from the Bay of Campeche in the southern Gulf.

In addition, Vienna’s PVM Oil Associates noted that “more bad weather could hit the region in the form of Tropical Storm Noel.”

Light, sweet crude for December delivery rose as much as $1.34 to $93.20 a barrel, a new intraday record, in early afternoon Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. By afternoon in Europe, it had slipped back to $92.26 a barrel.

That was still up 40 cents from Friday’s record close of $91.86 a barrel. The previous trading high was $92.22 a barrel, set Friday.

Oil futures have gained almost $8 a barrel, or 9 percent, since the U.S. Department of Energy reported last Wednesday a sharp drop in the country’s crude stocks.

“The strong price is due to supply concerns in general, on top of which we have the geopolitical news,” Shum said.

A rumbling of tensions in the Middle East and elsewhere last week already had traders worried about the disruption of oil exports.

A sharp escalation in fighting between Turkey and Kurdish rebels has brought Turkey to the brink of sending troops south across the border into Iraq, and the United States last week announced harsh penalties against Iran — the world’s fourth largest oil producer — in hopes of raising pressure on the world financial system to cut ties with Tehran.

Also, last Friday, gunmen in speedboats kidnapped six workers from an oil vessel off Nigeria’s coast, the second attack on an oil field there in a week. Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil exporter and the fifth-largest supplier of crude to the United States.

A weak dollar continues to be a factor in driving oil prices as well.

The dollar’s descent against major currencies has drawn investors to crude futures as a hedge against the weakening currency and made dollar-denominated oil futures less expensive to people dealing in other currencies, said David Moore, commodities strategist with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.

Analysts note the price of oil is closing in on the inflation-adjusted highs hit in early 1980. Depending on the how the adjustment is calculated, $38 a barrel then would be worth $96 to $101 or more today.

In London, December Brent crude advanced 39 cents to $89.08 a barrel on the ICE futures exchange.

Heating oil and gasoline futures rose just over a penny to $2.445 a gallon and $2.2850 per gallon.

Natural gas futures gained nearly 11 cents to fetch $7.325 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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UBS Confirms 3Q Loss

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UBS AG said its third-quarter loss will be in line with a profit warning earlier this month, but primed investors for further write-downs due to U.S. mortgage-securities the bank still holds.

The Zurich-based bank said it will Tuesday post a pretax loss of between 600 million and 800 million Swiss francs ($517 million and $690 million), as flagged earlier this month when the bank was forced to disclose massive write-downs and sweeping management changes as a result of the subprime mortgage woes.

UBS said the current quarter has started positively in all its units, including the investment bank, where the recent trouble has centered.

However, the bank cautioned that it may record further write-downs in the future because it remains exposed to the deteriorating market in the U.S. for mortgage-securities.

"As a result, UBS is not assuming that the quarter will continue as positively as it has begun, or that the current difficulties will be resolved in the short term," UBS said in a statement.

The bank's third-quarter report is scheduled for 0600 GMT Tuesday.

Investors had been fearful UBS would post a worse loss than flagged after U.S. rival Merrill Lynch & Co Inc. (MER) surprised the market last week with far larger third-quarter loss than originally indicated. UBS said it made the statement to refute a Swiss weekend media report, which suggested the losses may have spread further.

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Boeing Board Approves New $7 Billion Share Repurchase and Declares Dividend

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The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] board of directors has approved a new repurchase plan for up to $7 billion of common stock and declared a regular quarterly dividend of 35 cents a share.

Boeing has bought approximately $8 billion of its stock since resuming repurchases during 2004. This new plan follows the $3 billion buy back that the board approved in August 2006. The company is nearing completion of the repurchases authorized under that plan.

"Our strong financial performance allows us to return value to our shareholders while continuing to invest in our growth and becoming more productive," said Boeing Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Jim McNerney. "We are executing a balanced cash deployment strategy that's serving Boeing and its shareholders well."

The share repurchases will be made on the open market or in privately negotiated transactions. The number of shares to be purchased, and the timing of the purchases, will be based on the level of cash balances, general business conditions and other factors including alternative investment opportunities.

The dividend declared today is payable Dec. 7, 2007, to shareholders of record as of Nov. 9.

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Verizon Reports Continued Success in 3Q 2007

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Verizon Communications today reported another strong quarter of financial and operational results. Verizon Wireless continued its record of industry-leading profitability, Verizon Telecom reported accelerating sales of FiOS TV, and Verizon Business increased overall sales and sales of strategic services.

Verizon reported third-quarter 2007 earnings of 44 cents in fully diluted earnings per share (EPS). This compares with third-quarter 2006 earnings of 53 cents per share before income from discontinued operations that have since been sold or divested.

On an adjusted basis (non-GAAP), third-quarter 2007 earnings were 63 cents per share. This is a 14.5 percent increase, compared with 55 cents per share in the third quarter 2006 after excluding discontinued operations.

Adjusted earnings in the third quarter 2007 reflect 19 cents per share in special items: 16 cents per share for international taxes, 2 cents per share for costs related to a previously announced spin-off of access lines and 1 cent per share in merger integration costs. Adjusted earnings in the third quarter 2006 excluded 2 cents per share in special items for pension settlement charges, and merger integration and Verizon Center relocation costs.

Successful Transformation

"Our third-quarter results show that we have hit our stride as a leading wireless, broadband and enterprise company," said Verizon Chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg. "In recent years, we have transformed our business model and revenue base. Our results throughout 2007, and especially in the third quarter, show that our strategy has been successful. We expect to build on these results in the fourth quarter and beyond."

Strong Consolidated Results

Verizon's total operating revenues grew 5.8 percent to $23.8 billion, compared with the third quarter 2006. Operating revenues grew 6.0 percent on an adjusted basis (non-GAAP). Verizon's total operating expenses increased 3.4 percent to $19.6 billion, compared with the third quarter 2006. Operating expenses increased 3.5 percent on an adjusted basis (non-GAAP).

On a reported basis, Verizon's operating income grew 19.0 percent to $4.2 billion, compared with the third quarter 2006. On an adjusted basis, operating income grew 18.5 percent to $4.3 billion.

Operating income margin rose to 17.7 percent, compared with 15.7 percent in the third quarter 2006. On an adjusted basis, Verizon's operating income margin rose to 18.1 percent, compared with 16.2 percent in the third quarter 2006.

Cash flows from continuing operations totaled $18.0 billion through the first nine months of 2007. This represents 5.0 percent growth over the same period last year.

Dividends, Repurchase Program Reflect Confidence

Reflecting confidence in Verizon's business model and continued strong cash flows, Verizon's Board of Directors announced during the third quarter that it had increased the company's quarterly dividend 6.2 percent, beginning with the Nov. 1 dividend.

Verizon also repurchased nearly $800 million of its shares in the quarter, for a total of $1.7 billion in the last nine months. Verizon is increasing the 2007 target for its share repurchase program to $2.5 billion, up $500 million from the original target.

Wireless Continues to Lead Industry

Verizon Wireless extended its record of strong, industry-leading performance. It continues to be the largest domestic wireless company in total revenues, data revenues and retail customers.

In the third quarter:

* Nearly all of the 1.8 million retail net customer additions (including acquisitions and adjustments) were post-paid customers.
* Total customers (retail and wholesale) increased to 63.7 million. The company added 1.6 million total net customers after approximately 115,000 net reductions to the company's wholesale base.
* Verizon Wireless continued its industry-leading customer loyalty, with 1.21 percent retail churn. Churn among retail post-paid customers at 0.96 percent was substantially lower.
* Revenues totaled $11.3 billion, up 14.4 percent. Service revenues were $9.7 billion, up 15.1 percent, driven by customer growth and demand for data services.
* ARPU levels (average monthly revenue per customer) were the company's highest ever: $52.17 retail service ARPU, up 1.9 percent year over year; $10.59 retail data ARPU, up 42.9 percent.
* Wireless operating income margin was 27.1 percent, the company's second highest. EBITDA margin on service revenues (non-GAAP) was 44.7 percent.


Wireline Reports Strong Growth in FiOS, Strategic Services

Verizon's Wireline business, which includes Verizon Telecom and Verizon Business, reported continued strong growth in customers of FiOS fiber-optic services and sales of strategic services to enterprise customers.

In the third quarter:

* Verizon added a net of 202,000 new FiOS TV customers. The company has 717,000 FiOS TV customers in total, with approximately 600,000 added within the past 12 months. Including satellite TV customers served in partnership with DIRECTV (a net of 85,000 added this quarter), Verizon has more than 1.5 million video customers.
* Verizon added a net of 285,000 new broadband connections (DSL and FiOS Internet connections combined). Broadband connections totaled 8.0 million, an increase of 21.3 percent compared with the third quarter 2006. The company added a net of 229,000 FiOS Internet connections this quarter, for a total of 1.3 million.
* ARPU in legacy Verizon wireline markets (which excludes former MCI consumer markets) increased 10.8 percent to $58.79, compared with last year's third quarter. This increase was due to strong demand for broadband and TV services.
* Wireline operating income margin rose to 9.4 percent, compared with 8.8 percent in last year's third quarter.
* Verizon Business had revenues of $5.3 billion, or growth of 2.2 percent compared with last year's third quarter on an adjusted basis (non-GAAP). This is Verizon Business' fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year, pro-forma revenue growth (non-GAAP, calculated as if Verizon and MCI had merged on Jan. 1, 2005).
* Strong sales of key strategic services -- such as IP (Internet protocol), managed services, Ethernet and optical ring services -- continued to drive Verizon Business' growth. These services generated $1.4 billion in revenue, up 28.6 percent from last year's third quarter.

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Airlines may be fined for chronically late flights

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Airlines that operate chronically delayed flights could face stiff fines in the coming weeks as the U.S. government concludes a six-month investigation into potentially deceptive business practices.

The Transportation Department in May began investigating flights that are at least 15 minutes late more than 70 percent of the time, and so far has identified 26 that meet those criteria, an agency spokesman said.

If any of those 26 flights also were delayed in the most recent quarter being reviewed, the responsible airlines will face "significant financial penalties," agency spokesman Brian Turmail said. Results of the investigation are expected within weeks.

The commercial airlines trade group criticized the government's possible penalties.

"We're disappointed that they're taking this course of action given the effort by industry to significantly reduce delays," said David Castelveter, spokesman for the Air Transport Association.

"No one has greater incentive to move its flights on-time than the airlines," Castelveter said, because they cost the industry $6 billion per year and it means "we fail our customers." But the answer is not eliminating flights from the chronically delayed list, which are there based on customer demand, he added.

The Federal Aviation Administration handles roughly 85,000 flights per day, a number predicted to reach more than 111,000 daily flights by 2020.

But delays this summer reached record levels. The Transportation Department earlier this month said more than 25 percent of domestic flights arrived late between January and August — easily the industry's worst performance since comparable data began being collected in 1995.

In August alone, 23 flights were late at least 90 percent of the time and more than 100 flights were late at least 80 percent of the time. Almost half of Atlantic Southeast Airlines' flights were delayed, and two arrived late every time they took off.

Kristen Loughman, a spokeswoman for the Delta Connection carrier owned by SkyWest Inc., said the company was not aware of any fines being considered by the government. Any Atlantic Southeast flight on the Transportation Department's monthly report of delays becomes its top priority to fix, she added.

Other airlines that operated flights that were late at least 90 percent of the time in August were: ExpressJet Holdings Inc., which flies regional service for Continental Airlines Inc.; SkyWest Inc.; AirTran Holdings Inc.; Delta Air Lines Inc. and its subsidiary Comair Inc.

Also Tuesday, federal aviation regulators opened a two-day summit aimed at fixing "epidemic" delays at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The latest government proposal for reducing congestion at JFK, which had the worst on-time departure record of any major U.S. airport through August, is to reduce the hourly flight limit by 20 percent.

Transportation Secretary Mary Peters repeated the government's desire for airlines to voluntarily change their summer 2008 flight schedules in order to alleviate record delays at JFK and other airports, but also reiterated that schedule reduction mandates remain an option.

Peters said she has "high hopes for market-based incentives," including raising landing fees for airlines during peak periods, to help reduce record delays at JFK and elsewhere.

But airlines say that so-called "congestion pricing" approach would simply result in higher fares and pledged to challenge mandates for it, or mandated schedule cuts, in court or legislatively.

Other recommendations for reducing airline delays are due by Dec. 10 from an aviation rules committee made up of airline executives, government officials and aviation groups. The scheduling summit is being carried out in parallel to that process and FAA officials expect a series of one-on-one meetings with airlines to continue through early December.

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The two wars cost US $2.4 trillion

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The U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost taxpayers a total of $2.4 trillion by 2017 when counting the huge interest costs because combat is being financed with borrowed money, according to a study released on Wednesday.

With President George W. Bush indicating a large contingent of U.S. troops likely will be engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan for many years to come, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the total tab for the wars from 2001 through 2017.

CBO estimated that interest costs alone from 2001-2017 could total more than $700 billion.

So far, Congress has given Bush $604 billion for the two wars, with about $412 billion spent in Iraq, according to CBO, which is Congress' in-house budget analyst. In Iraq alone, the United States is spending about $11 billion a month, with costs escalating.

Bush is seeking another $196 billion for combat in Iraq and Afghanistan through September 30 and Congress is expected to debate that request over the next few months.

CBO estimated that between 2008 and 2017, the wars could cost slightly more than $1 trillion, assuming overall troop strength is cut to 75,000 by 2013.

Currently, there are about 170,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and another 26,000 in Afghanistan.

Finance charges for the money already spent on the war will total $415 billion from 2001 to 2017, according to CBO. For the next decade, "interest outlays would increase by a total of $290 billion over that 10-year period," CBO told the House Budget Committee, which is reviewing long-term war costs.

"To put it all on our credit cards with no accountability, with no plan to pay for it, I think is the height of irresponsibility," said Rep. James McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat who serves on the budget panel and is an outspoken war critic. "It will be just one more toxic legacy of this disastrous war we will have to leave our kids to clean up."

With national elections about a year away and public discontent with the Iraq war running deep, Democrats are highlighting the huge costs of the Iraq war as they seek $22 billion more than Bush wants for domestic social programs such as health care and education.

Bush has vowed to veto the added funding.

CBO estimated that of the $2.4 trillion long-term price tag for the war, about $1.9 trillion of that would be spent on Iraq.

Via Reuters

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The problem with being too big

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Toyota was once an company with an good track record for safety in cars. However, they had dropped the top spot today.

Quote"The survey dropped Toyota from first to fifth place - behind Honda, Acura, Scion and Subaru - in average vehicle reliability. The rankings are based on average predicted reliability for all models sold under a given brand."

Via CNN Money

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Microsoft Reports 23% Profit Jump

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Microsoft posted a rise in quarterly profit on Thursday, boosted by healthy demand for personal computers loaded with its Windows operating system and strong sales of its "Halo 3" video game.

Shares of Microsoft, which closed at $31.99 Thursday, jumped 11 percent in late trading.

The world's largest software maker said net profit in its fiscal first quarter totaled $4.29 billion, or 45 cents per diluted share, versus $3.48 billion, or 35 cents per diluted share, a year earlier.

Revenue rose 27 percent to $13.76 billion in the three months ended Sept. 30.

Analysts, on average, had forecast 39 cents per share in first-quarter profit on revenue of $12.54 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

Market research firms Gartner and IDC said global PC shipments rose about 15 percent in the September quarter, which helped Microsoft as well as the quarterly results of chip maker Intel.

Microsoft also enjoyed strong sales of "Halo 3," the latest installment of its flagship shooter franchise. The blockbuster game title racked up more than $300 million in its first week of sales after its Sept. 25 debut. Consumers also purchased the Xbox 360 console to play the game, vaulting the game machine past rival consoles in September.

For the current quarter, Microsoft forecast earnings in a range of 44 cents to 46 cents per diluted share on revenue of $15.6 billion to $16.1 billion.

Analysts, on average, were forecasting earnings per share of 44 cents a share on revenue of $15.5 billion in Microsoft's fiscal second quarter, according to Reuters Estimates.

The holiday quarter is a crucial one for Microsoft as it aims to spur adoption of new computers running its latest Windows Vista operating system. Its entertainment arm also counts on the December quarter generating twice as much revenue as any other quarter of the year.

Microsoft also raised full-year earnings estimates to a range of $1.78 to $1.81 per share from a previous range of $1.69 to $1.73. It also raised its full-year revenue estimate range by almost $2 billion, to $58.8 billion to $59.7 billion.

Wall Street analysts, on average, were forecasting fiscal 2008 earnings of $1.73 per share on revenue of $57.3 billion.

As of the close of Wednesday trade, Microsoft shares had fallen about 1 percent since it reported quarterly results in July compared with 2 percent declines for both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq.

"It was a huge beat," said First American Funds Senior Analyst Jane Snorek. "The guidance I think is pretty good for the year. Guidance for next quarter is kind of in the middle of what I had."

"These are all huge (revenue) numbers in every division. I'm sure the (second-quarter) guidance is cautious. I'll take it," Snorek added. "This is going to be good for the tech sector."

From CNBC

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Don't underestimate the power of Traditional Media yet

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Last week could hardly have been grimmer for the newspaper industry. First off, Gannett and McClatchy - the two biggest newspapers publishers in the U.S., respectively - reported diminished revenues and profits. Meanwhile, following the lead of Belo, publisher of the Dallas Morning News, Scripps announced it was splitting its growing television and interactive businesses off from the company's newspaper business so that investors could get excited about the company's slumping stock price.

The kicker of the week was when stock in the New York Times Company hit its lowest point in a decade after a Morgan Stanley fund manager who had been agitating for changes at the company sold off the firm's entire 7.2% stake. Also last week, the equity research arm of Morgan Stanley laid off its newspaper analyst and dropped coverage of the industry, the Times itself noted wryly in its pages. This was almost certainly a coincidence. Otherwise, it might be construed as one heck of a kiss off. The present question in newspaperland is not whether the industry can reclaim its glory, but rather how quickly the erosion in business conditions that has accelerated in the past year or so can be slowed and even reversed.

Maybe the unusually balmy Manhattan October is giving me a gauzier disposition than usual, but I can't help thinking the storyline is not quite as apocalyptic as it seems. Don't get me wrong, the list of dubious achievements in the newspaper business over the past decade is considerable: just a few include the Tribune Company's doomed merger with Times-Mirror; the New York Times' overpriced acquisition of the Boston Globe; the dismantling of Knight-Ridder; and, of course, the epic string of corporate miscues that has delivered Dow Jones and its prize asset, the Wall Street Journal, out of the control of the Bancroft family and into the hands of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

Even setting aside the drumbeat narrative about how news readers and especially advertisers have been increasingly moving online, the newspaper industry has always had unique characteristics and idiosyncrasies, both structurally and operationally. These include the public service mission good newspapers prize above even commercial success, and the inherent tension that mission creates with the side of the business that pays the bills.

Beyond that, big daily newspapers in particular are immensely complex organizations with myriad moving parts - and newspaper owners have hardly been alone at failing to heed the threat of emerging competition. Barely two decades ago, the major broadcast TV networks that dominated living rooms derided the emergence of niche cable channels like CNN, ESPN and MTV. And we know how well the music industry has fared in its grasp of digital downloads and file-sharing.

For the newspaper industry, the Internet is just the latest growth opportunity - think also of alternative weeklies and free dailies - that most big newspaper operators failed to clue into when the getting was good. "People are trying to defend the way they've done things and it isn't relevant anymore," says Lauren Rich Fine, who retired from Merrill Lynch earlier this year after a long career as a publishing analyst and is now on the faculty of Kent State University. "Newspapers will never be able to make money the way they made money before." While she said she commends the efforts publishers have made to remake their industry, "I still laugh at some of the conversations I had where they just didn't get what was happening around them."

If they didn't get it then, they ought to be getting it now. And if so, here's a few reasons to still be (cautiously) optimistic about the future of newspapers. One is that an industry's lack of appeal to public shareholders should not necessarily be confused with its viability or relevance. While most big newspapers may not be able to show the top-line growth that investors look for, they still churn out decent profits. One senior newspaper industry honcho said that a popular scenario being bruited around the publishing world is this: core print newspaper revenues continue to fall at 5% per year; costs are held in check; revenue from Internet operations grow at 20%; and increasingly popular targeted magazines (think the New York Times' T Style, the Wall Street Journal's planned weekend Pursuits magazine and Spice, a fashion monthly launched recently by Hearst's Houston Chronicle) grow revenue at 15% or more. "At some point, those lines will cross" and newspaper profits will stabilize, this executive says, although he is also quick to point out that this year is worse than any publisher expected.

What is often overlooked is where newspapers rank, at least for now, in overall spending in the pantheon of media industries fighting for dollars from consumers and advertisers. They are number one, ahead of TV networks, magazines, billboards, you name it. And it's instructive that no legacy medium has been obliterated by a new technology: consumers simply adjust and adapt. In the era of DVDs and downloads, we still go the movies and listen to the radio.

So much depends on how you view the numbers. A report by PriceWaterhouse Coopers estimates that revenue for the newspaper industry will be down 1.4% for 2007 to $59.2 billion, the second straight down year. The report sees advertising for the industry at essentially flat through 2011, after taking into account papers' rising online revenues. Put another way, according to this analysis nearly one out of every four dollars spent on advertising in this country is spent today on newspapers. And much of the upheaval is due to the fact that it is moving to one in five dollars in a hurry, largely thanks to online upstarts. There are plenty of businesses that wish they had these problems.

There's no question newspapers are an industry that needs reinvention - fast - as last week's dreary reports underscored. The Belo and Scripps spin-offs seem to Rich Fine and other analysts as precursors either to taking the newspapers private or further industry consolidation. For papers that are not owned by families or already privately-held, expect more opportunistic and convoluted deals like Sam Zell's buyout of the Tribune Company. And anxiety over whether newspapers will have the resources to be interesting and unique enough that people will read them - not to mention fulfil their public service missions - is not going to go away. Papers are already adjusting to a tough reality of needing to cut costs in some areas while investing in others.

But, call me ink-stained and old-fashioned, it seems a bit premature to put a $60-billion industry on the endangered species list.

Via Fortune

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The best way to work in

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The best way to work is Google again.Google offers free meals, swimming spa, and free doctors onsite. Engineers can spend 20% of time on independent projects. No wonder Google gets 1,300 résumés a day.

It is beating Microsoft( Rank:50)

Via CNN Money

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Gas up 5 cents in last 2 weeks to $2.80 a gallon

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Average retail gasoline prices rose by nearly 5 cents and are poised to rise further as those who make, distribute and sell gasoline see their profit margins squeezed, according to an industry analyst.

The national average for self-serve regular unleaded gas was nearly $2.80 a gallon on October 19, up 4.92 cents per gallon in the past two weeks, according to the nationwide Lundberg survey of about 7,000 gas stations.

This was about 38 cents below the May 18, 2007, all-time high of more than $3.18.

“While gasoline prices moved up just under a nickel in that period, crude oil prices are up the equivalent of 18 cents per gallon,” said survey editor Trilby Lundberg. “That missing 13 cents and more will probably turn up at the pump and soon because it represents margin squeeze over months for refiners, jobbers and retails — those who make, deliver and sell gasoline.”

That is in addition to other factors that have fueled high prices at the pump: winter heating oil demand and refinery capacity utilization rates.

“These losses for refiners, jobbers and retailers tell us where gasoline prices have to go, which is up substantially,” she said. “The only thing that could avert that would be a crash in the crude oil price, and I think that is not likely at all near term.”

The average price is likely to exceed $3 per gallon in coming weeks, Lundberg said.

At $3.17 a gallon, San Francisco had the highest average price for self-serve regular unleaded gas, while the lowest price was $2.56 a gallon in Newark, New Jersey, although Lundberg noted that price was not strictly a direct comparison, as New Jersey offers no self-serve gasoline.

Cost for everything goes up but our salary just do not go up so fast.

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Why the rich would become richer and the poorer would become poorer

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Why the rich would become richer and the poorer would become poorer? This phrase had been common in the rich nations.

The 2 reasons why the rich would become richer and the poorer would become poorer.

1. The rich would have money to grow their money- What this means is that the rich would have money to invest in stocks and multiply their money. Whereas the poorer people would not have even enough money to even scrape pass their daily needs.

2. The rich would know how to evade taxes legally. So even if the government increases the taxes, only the poor and middle class citizens would suffer.

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