| Talk of the bay: Auto dealers' ads can take you for a ride
This just in: Some auto-dealership ads may be misleading. The less-than-surprising warning issued Thursday by the Florida Attorney General's Office says car buyers should steer clear of dealer offers to pay off their existing car loan or lease. The loan or lease obligation does not disappear in such cases; instead, the buyer ends up owing the dealer, and because of penalties the loan balance often increases. A dealer may try to hide the extra debt burden by lengthening the repayment period. In an unrelated settlement reached in November, Bill Heard Chevrolet of Plant City and Orlando agreed to pay the state $400,000 and not run misleading radio or print ads. Ruling nets Spain shipwreck details The Spanish government will receive detailed information about a shipwreck site where Tampa's Odyssey Marine Exploration found $500-million worth of coins and artifacts last year, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
Different Clinton, more painful bill
It was like turning the clocks back 16 years when Hillary Clinton put her campaign to become the first woman president of the United States back on track with victory in New Hampshire. It was, of course, the same small north-eastern state where Bill first won his spurs as the comeback kid. The similarity does not end there. Just as in 1992, the US economy is a mess. Unemployment is rising, the federal deficit is enormous, personal debt frighteningly high, the real estate market is in freefall. For the first time since George Bush Sr was booted out of the White House, the economy is going to be absolutely central to this year's struggle for the presidency. Whoever wins the race - be it a Republican or Democrat - will take comfort from the fact that if economic recovery could be achieved in the 1990s it can be achieved again.
Lost scholarships upset governor
Last year, Bredesen proposed putting money into a fund that would be used to help schools get better interest rates on loans for building projects. The proposal did not make it through the General Assembly, nor did a plan backed by Senate Republicans to give school districts grants from the lottery surplus to use on construction projects. The Senate Education Committee will take up a passel of lottery bills Wednesday. The governor also said he would like to see more money put into non-lottery scholarship programs that are geared to help students with financial need. "I couldn't have gone to college without that kind of help," said Bredesen, who graduated from Harvard University in 1967 with a degree in physics.
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Schwarzenegger's bad-news budget
Besides, rigid formulas are no substitute for the types of line-by-line judgment calls that the governor and legislators are elected to make. Schwarzenegger is right to serve up the fiscal news in unadorned fashion. There aren't any easy answers. A resolution to this mess will require a revival of bipartisan spirit that has helped this governor in the past - but may be very hard to find if interest groups and anti-tax ideologues dig in their heels. .
Zargon Energy Trust Announces 2007 Third Quarter Results
Zargon Energy Trust is pleased to report its financial results for the third quarter of 2007. Funds flow from operations was $17.38 million ($0.88 per diluted trust unit) in the 2007 third quarter compared with $20.56 million ($1.05 per diluted trust unit) in the 2007 second quarter and $19.87 million ($1.02 per diluted trust unit) in the 2006 third quarter.
Highlights from the three and nine months ended September 30, 2007 are noted below:
- Third quarter 2007 production averaged 8,501 barrels of oil equivalent per day, up slightly from the preceding quarter and an increase of four percent from the corresponding quarter of 2006. Third quarter production volumes remained stable compared to the prior quarter as new natural gas production in the West Central Alberta and Alberta Plains core areas were offset by natural oil production declines in the Williston Basin core area.
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