Archive for December, 2008
December 30th, 2008
The U.S. Treasury late yesterday released the latest round of banks to receive funding from the Paulson’s $700 billion TARP program.
So far 207 banks have received nearly $172.5 billion from the Treasury.
By far, New York-based banks have been the biggest recipients. Nine New York-based banks have received $84.15 billion in TARP funds. That’s more than 48 percent of the total. Of course, New York is home to such behemoths as Citigroup Inc., The Goldman Sachs Group, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch & Co.
California is the No. 2 beneficiary, which isn’t a surprise since the slumping housing market has crushed real estate values up and down the state. Thirty-three California banks have received $27.3 billion although most of that — $25 billion — went to San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co.
North Carolina, home of Bank of America, is No. 3 with 11 banks receiving nearly $18.4 billion in funds.
Illinois and Wisconsin are way down the list. Three banks in Wisconsin have received $2.25 billion in TARP funding and nine Illinois banks, none based in the Rock River Valley, have received $2.48 billion in Treasury funds.
Of course, it wouldn’t be fair to say the Rock River Valley hasn’t been helped by the program. Several national or regional banks doing business locally have received funding:
* JPMorgan Chase — $25 billion
* Bank of America — $15 billion
* U.S. Bancorp — $6.6 billion
* M&I Corp. — $1.72 billion (has branches in Beloit, Wis.)
* Associated Banc-Corp — $525 million
* Heartland Financial USA — $81.7 million (parent company of Riverside Community Bank)
December 18th, 2008
This from the AP wire this morning:
DETROIT (AP) General Motors says a report that it and Chrysler have restarted talks to combine the two ailing automakers is untrue.
The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the discussions, said Thursday that talks about a combination have been rekindled after Cerberus Capital Management LP, the majority owner of Chrysler LLC, signaled it is willing to part with some of its stake in the automaker.
Spokesman Tony Cervone says GM’s stance on the merger talks has not changed since it suspended them when it announced third-quarter earnings in November.
General Motors Corp. and Chrysler had been in talks earlier this year to combine in order to survive the recession and slowing U.S. sales, but financing emerged as one of the biggest obstacles.
December 17th, 2008
Was given the assignment to write about the changes in the economy from 1980 to 2005. Fun, huh? Luckily I at least have some interesting lists to at least start with. Since 1980, the major change in the Rock River Valley economy has been the whittling away of the area’s manufacturing base.
Although blue-collar jobs remain the backbone of the economy, it’s not near the level as it was in 1980. Here are two lists that illustrate the trend.
In 1980, here were the 10 largest landowners, in terms of equalized assessed value of property, in the city of Rockford:
1. Sundstrand, $7,094,840
2. Amerock, $3,376,610
3. CommonwealthEdison, $3,064,200
4. Ingersoll Milling Machine, $2,913,300
5. National Lock, $2,823,640
6. Rockford Products, $2,580,800
7. Colonial Village, $1,819,600
8. United Bank of Illinois, $1,713,720
9. J.L. Clark, $1,645,550
10. Elco Tool, $1,635,900
Notice that seven of the 10 are manufacturing companies. Now take a look at the 10 largest landowners as of 2005:
1. Greater Rockford Airport Authority, $7,282,593
2. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., $7,062,714
3. Hamilton Sundstrand, $7,048,920
4. Rock River Valley Industrial Park, $6,247,853
5. UPS, $5,579,278
6. Simon Property Group, $4,799,277
7. SwedishAmerican Hospital, $4,471,322
8. Market Shopping Center LLC, $3,894,828
9. Richard Perno, $3,870,365
10. Anderson Packaging, $3,690,585
Only one manufacturer. Walmart and UPS rely largely on part-time workers and Richard Perno is an apartment building owner.
Let’s expand it to look at largest employers. One caveat though, these lists are estimates based on past newspaper clips, published resources such as the Rockford Chamber of Commerce’s old manufacturing directory or the Polk city directories, and in some rare cases, information provided by the companies or organizations.
1980’s top employers in Boone, Ogle and Winnebago counties:
1. Chrysler Corp., 5,100
2. Sundstrand Corp., 4,600
3. Barber-Colman, 3,300
4. Rockford School District, 3,300
5. Atwood Industries, 2,500
6. Ingersoll Milling Machine, 2,350
7. Textron Inc., 2,300
8. Warner-Lambert Co., 1,420
9. Rockford Health System, 1,231
10. Amerock Corp., 1,200
11. SwedishAmerican, 1,107
12. Elco Industries, 1,100
13. Woodward Governor, 1,092
14. Rockford Park District, 1,029
15. Winnebago County, 1,000
16. City of Rockford, 950
17. OSF Saint Anthony, 890
18. Rockford Products, 880
19. National Lock, 830
20. Warner Electric, 800
Now look at 2005’s list:
1. Rockford School District, 3,810
2. Rockford Health System, 2,906
3. Hamilton Sundstrand, 2,400
4. Walmart Stores, 2,300
5. SwedishAmerican, 2,236
6. DaimlerChrysler, 2,050
7. OSF Saint Anthony, 2,001
8. Winnebago County, 1,712
9. Rockford Park District, 1,677
10. UPS, 1,500
11. Woodward Governor, 1,213
12. City of Rockford, 1,191
13. Textron Inc., 1,150
14. Anderson Packaging, 1,100
15. Harlem School District, 1,040
16. Hilander Food Stores, 1,009
17. R&D Thiel, 1,000
18. CommonwealthEdison, 948
19. AMCORE Financial, 908
20. Belvidere School District, 895
Look at the number of tax-supported organizations now in the top 20 — three school districts, a park district, the city of Rockford and Winnebago County.
December 15th, 2008
We all know 2008 hasn’t been great for business, but as I read about how much money General Motors and Chrysler are losing each month I wondered how the company’s could be doing so poorly so suddenly.
Then I got a look at the number of new and used cars registered after purchase locally in October.
The data comes from the Illinois Secretary of State and is perhaps the best way to track new and used car sales activity. Each time a car is sold, you have to register that sale and that’s what the state tracks.
I just keep track of Boone, Ogle, Stephenson and Winnebago counties and for most of the year new and used sales, while no where near the 2006 record levels, was at least close to and sometimes better than 2007 figures.
Not in October. In total, there were 4,885 vehicles registered after purchase in the Rock River Valley. That was a nearly 18 percent drop from the 5,940 registered in September. The major decline was in new vehicles sold. There were just 629 new vehicle registrations in October. I have data back to the beginning of 2005 and the worst month for new vehicles prior to October was January 2005 when 929 new vehicles were registered.
I sent a message to the state employee saying in essence, ‘wow, are these bad’ and he replied that November will be worse.
December 12th, 2008
The U.S. Senate couldn’t come to an agreement over wage cuts to union auto workers Thursday night, quashing a $14 billion bailout of Detroit’s beleaguered car makers — Ford, General Motors and Chrysler.
The Bush administration, not wanting a massive meltdown of the auto industry as one of the final memories of its era, finally is considering using the $700 billion already approved to bailout failing financial firms.
Although $14 billion is a lot of money, already the Treasury has pumped $165.3 billion into 90 different banks or investment firms since the program was luanched on Oct. 28.
In fact, three banks received more than $14 billion individually and three others received $10 billion. The list:
* Citigroup Inc., $25 billion
* JPMorgan Chase & Co., $25 billion
* Bank of America Corp., $15 billion
*Â The Goldman Sachs Group Inc., $10 billion
* Morgan Stanley, $10 billion
* Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., $10 billion
Considering that there are still thousands of banks operating in the U.S. and the vast majority of the money deposited at these banks are FDIC insured, why are these companies more worthy than Chrysler, GM and Ford. If the carmakers go under, so do untold other supplier jobs and the only insurance most of the workers will have is several months worth of unemployment checks.
Do you agree or disagree? Send me an email at agary@rrstar.com letting me know. Please include your first and last name, what city or village you live in and what you do for a living.
December 11th, 2008
A run through the U.S. Patent Offie’s search engine for November showed just six patents won by local inventors.
For the year, people in Boone, Ogle and Winnebago counties have been awarded just 103 patents. In 2006, locals won 144 patents and in 2007 our inventors were awarded 157 patents, the most since 1999.
Since it takes at least 12 to 18 months to win a patent, the total of patents awarded this year is the result of work done in 2006 and 2007. Still, it can be a bad sign that patent awards are down this year because those years were strong ones, especially 2006, for the economy.
Here’s November’s list:
Patents are listed under the date issued by patent number, description of invention, inventor (name and city of residence) and then by assignee, which is the firm that owns the patent, if any.
November 4
7,446,593, power supply with programmable fuse for mode selection, Kilian; Wayne T. (Richardson, Texas), Hall; Jeffrey S. (Winnebago), Furio; Ryan R. (West Chicago), Chilcote; Jason M. (Frisco, Texas), Honeywell International Inc. (Morristown, N.J.)
7,448,034, build time determination and installation of drivers on cloned systems, Anderson; Timothy M. (Rockford), Baumann; Warren J. (Monroe, N.Y.), International Business Machines Corp. (Armonk, N.Y.)
November 11
7,448,227, vehicle air conditioning and heating method providing engine on and engine off operation, Zeigler; Terry (Byron), Elias; Eric (Loves Park), Bergstrom Inc. (Rockford)
7,448,373, adjustment mechanism to adjust gap between grilling surfaces, Hill; David A. (Rockton), Frisque; Robert E. (Milton, Wis.), Nelson; Dennis J. (Rockford), Carrier Commercial Refrigeration Inc. (Charlotte, N.C.)
November 18
7,453,678, power interruption system for electronic circuit breaker, Beneditz; Bruce D. (Roscoe), Kilroy; Donald G. (Rockford)Â Â Â Hamilton Sunstrand Corp. (Rockford)
November 25
7,454,922, vehicle air conditioning and heating method providing engine on and engine off operation, Zeigler; Terry (Byron), Elias; Eric (Loves Park), Bergstrom, Inc. (Rockford)
December 11th, 2008
Coming from this area and it isn’t much. According to federal prosecutors, Gov. Rod Blagojevich had put a price tag on just about everything he was in control of.
In the next few months, we’re likely to see several stories of the various schemes and pressure Blago’s people applied to get contracts through or funding. A quick look at how much money was contributed to the governor from people or businesses in Boone, Ogle and Winnebago counties shows it’s unlikely that any of those stories will touch Rockford.
According to the Illinois State Board of Elections, Rock River Valley donors have given Blagojevich just $245,358.10 from 2002 through 2008.
The vast majority of the money was donated by noted Democratic activist Sunil Puri. Individually, Puri has given the governor $103,734.70. His wife, Jenine Cannell-Puri donated $25,000, and First Rockford Group gave $18,542. It’s fair to note, though, that a look through the archives doesn’t show any local Puri projects that benefitted from state action.
The next biggest donor on the list is $8,500 total in 2002 and 2003 from the Northwestern Illinois Contractors Association.
