Grave business - my financial world

Individuals and businesses located in areas of Louisiana affected by Hurricane Gustav will get more time to pay their taxes, the Internal Revenue Service said Wednesday.
The agency said it is postponing until Jan. 5, 2009 deadlines for taxpayers who reside in or have a business in the disaster area.
The postponement applies to return filings […]

A rock-bottom price just isn’t enough for buyers these days - it’s a starting point. If the furnace is out of date, they’ll demand a new one. Cracked driveways have to be repaved, and dirty carpeting torn out and replaced. All at the seller’s expense.
Buyers are in the driver’s seat and they know it. […]

City and state leaders have selected the site of the aging First Mariner Arena as the best location for a new 18,500-seat sports and entertainment venue in Baltimore that could cost up to $300 million.
The decision, first reported July 18 by the Baltimore Business Journal, comes nearly eight months after the city […]

The House has approved sending states $15 billion to buy and fix up foreclosed properties.
The vote Thursday was 239-188 to approve the bill, which most Republicans opposed. It would provide loans and grants to areas hit hardest by the housing crisis.
Supporters say the legislation will prevent neighborhoods around foreclosed homes from sliding into blight.
The […]

The unemployment rate in Spain, once an engine of European job creation, jumped the most in 15 years in the first quarter to a three-year high as the building market contracted.
The jobless rate rose to 9.6 percent from 8.6 percent in the fourth quarter, the Madrid-based National Statistics Office said on its Web […]

New Zealand's house prices rose at the slowest pace in more than three years in March as record-high interest rates curbed demand for property.
Prices gained 6.5 percent from a year earlier, Quotable Value New Zealand Ltd., the government valuation agency, said in a report released in Wellington today. That's the slowest pace since […]

Confidence among U.S. consumers probably fell to a five-year low in March as more Americans lost their jobs and gasoline prices climbed, economists said before reports today.
The Conference Board's confidence index fell to 73.5 from 75 in February, according to the median estimate of 61 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Another report today […]

The U.S. Department of Energy has selected three venture capital firms to participate in a national program designed to accelerate commercialization of advanced clean energy technologies spun out of federal laboratories.
The entrepreneur in residence, or EIR, pilot program, will use venture capital-sponsored and selected entrepreneurs to identify laboratory-developed technologies funded by the […]

Barclays (BARC.L: Quote, Profile, Research) sees tougher market conditions in the next year as an opportunity for its investment banking arm to grow and invest, particularly in the United States, the bank’s president said.
Barclays Capital has seen spectacular growth over the past decade, but Britain’s third-largest bank has yet to match its strong European […]

A co-defendant in the $25 million mortgage and loan fraud scheme involving F. Jeffrey Miller pleaded guilty to conspiracy and money-laundering charges Tuesday in federal court in Kansas.
Judy Brumble, 58, of Lee’s Summit, admitted to prosecutors that she had worked with Miller and real estate agent Todd Earnshaw and other defendants to fleece mortgage […]