Posted by Jeffrey Nelson on Oct 04, 2010
PROVIDENCE – A nationwide index of home sale prices showed that the Providence metropolitan area has performed better than the national average.
The Home Data Index, part of the Market Report released Thursday by Clear Capital, said home prices in the Providence metro area rose 9.7 percent compared with a year ago. The national index ticked up 2.4 percent and prices in the Northeast 1.9 percent.
In each report, Clear Capital selects a metropolitan area for an in-depth review. Thursday’s report explored the Providence metro area, which includes Fall River, New Bedford and the surrounding areas.
Clear Capital said prices have remained relatively stable for the past nine months after plunging 52.1 percent between 2006 and early 2009.
During the past year, home prices in western Cranston showed the steepest increases, soaring 13.2 percent, Clear Capital said.
“As prices declined 37.4 percent from the market peak in late 2005 to today, this largely residential area has grown attractive, boasting easy access to Interstate 95 and Interstate 295,” Clear Capital said. “While
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Tags: Average, Northeast Average
Posted by Ryan Rogers on Oct 04, 2010
Jonathan A. Vlachos April 2, 1948 – Kettering Hospital in NYC.
Tags: Vlachos
Posted by Jeffrey Nelson on Oct 02, 2010
This series is commissioned by UPS.
You don’t need to be a big company to embrace sustainability. Smart and committed small businesses are doing it, too. They are incorporating recycled goods in their manufacturing supply chains. They are requiring their transportation fleets to be more efficient. They are reducing their energy consumption in day to day operations.
Building sustainability into your business is an important step. But it is equally important to communicate your commitment internally among your team, and externally to business partners, suppliers, customers and other stakeholders.
- By communicating internally in a clear and consistent fashion, sustainability becomes an ingrained part of your company culture — one that your employees can take pride in, increasing their satisfaction.
- By communicating externally to business partners, suppliers and service providers you’re setting expectations about how you do business, that potentially can influence their practices and practices in the broader community, too.
- And by communicating to customers, you demonstrate that you share your customers’ commitment to our environment. More and more customers expect this kind of commitment from the companies they buy from.
So how do you communicate your commitment to sustainability? Here are 7 examples of situations where other businesses are communicating their sustainability commitments:
1. Develop a sust
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Posted by Nicholas Adams on Oct 01, 2010
2:12 p.m. | Updated
For those hoping that the Federal Reserve will turn to an additional round of stimulus spending, a speech today by William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, certainly provided reason for optimism.
In remarks before the Society of American Business Editors and Writers Fall Conference, Mr. Dudley said:
Currently, my assessment is that both the current levels of unemployment and inflation and the timeframe over which they are likely to return to levels consistent with our mandate are unacceptable. In addition, the longer this situation prevails and the U.S. economy is stuck with the current level of slack and disinflationary pressure, the greater the likelihood that a further shock could push us still further from our dual mandate objectives and closer to outright deflation.
We have tools that can provide additional stimulus at costs that do not appear to be prohibitive.
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Posted by Jeffrey Nelson on Sep 27, 2010
Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. These are only a few of the more common tools we think of when we hear the term social media. To grapple with this brand new and important component in the small business world, you will need some advice and resources to make sure you get it right. Talking to your customers should be natural, but learning to use the social media effectively comes with a few basic principles. We’ve come up with what we think is good advice for small businesses as a starting point when putting together your social media survival guide.
Getting Social
Why being social can be a matter of survival. Drawing from a small business social community, this post looks at the ways in which social interaction is an absolute necessity for businesses today. It is especially necessary for small businesses attempting to leverage the power of the Internet to build their brands.
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Tags: Media, Social Media
Posted by Nicholas Adams on Sep 26, 2010
Incarceration reduces former inmates’ earnings by 40 percent when compared to demographically similar counterparts who have not been imprisoned, according to a new report from Pew’s Economic Policy Group and the Pew Center on the States.
The report estimates that after being released, former inmates typically work nine fewer weeks a year, and their annual earnings drop to $23,500 from $39,100. Not surprisingly, given the stigmatizing effect that a criminal record can have on a job applicant’s resume, former inmates enjoy less income mobility than counterparts who did not serve time.
Among the other disturbing findings (in chart form) from the report:
1) The United States houses more inmates than the top 35 European countries combined.
Source: International Centre for Prison Studies at King’s College, London, “World Prison Brief,” http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/law/research/icps/worldbrief/wpb_stats.php. Data downloa Read more…
Posted by Ryan Rogers on Sep 25, 2010
Hannover, 28 September 2010: Following the agreement reached back in February of this year with the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation allowing Hannover Re – as the first foreign reinsurer in the world – to qualify as a so-called “Eligible Reinsurer”, its subsidiary Hannover Re (Bermuda) Ltd. now also enjoys this status. Insurance regulator in Florida reduces collateral requirements for Hannover Re (Bermuda) Ltd. This enables the company to write its non-life reinsurance business in Florida under improved conditions: while foreign reinsurers have hitherto been obliged to post collateral for 100 percent of the loss reserves, the required level for Hannover Re (Bermuda) Ltd. in property catastrophe reinsurance is now just 20 percent. “We welcome the decision of the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation and hope that other US states will also reduce the collateral requirements for foreign reinsurers”, Hannover Re’s Chief Executive Officer Ulrich Wallin stated. Read more…
Tags: Hannover, Hannover Re
