Newest tax scofflaws

If the various elected and appointed officials of Revere could tear themselves away from dope slapping each other at wakes, and put aside, just for a moment, their quest for metal detectors on the Blue Line to keep out-of-town "yutes" from corrupting their fair city, maybe they could get around to doing something that really affects the quality of life of all their constituents.

But that would mean standing up to the banks, which requires significantly more effort than throwing haymakers at funeral homes or blaming kids from Boston for everything except what the seagulls pick out of the barrels along the beach.

The pols in Revere and just about every city and town in the Commonwealth should be lining up to help Gerry D'Ambrosio. D'Ambrosio is a fine lawyer who performs for cities and towns the thankless task of collecting overdue taxes from assorted deadbeats, crooks, and scalawags. Ask him what the biggest problem facing financially struggling cities and towns like Revere is and he'll tell you.

"Banks," D'Ambrosio said. "Banks that foreclose on properties, throw people out, and then won't pay the taxes."

This is a relatively new phenomenon, a byproduct of the mortgage meltdowns that have fueled the recession, and the seeming inability of government or anyone else to put real pressure on the banks that have received billions of taxpayer dollars to be good corporate citizens.

"We always had three categories of people who didn't pay taxes on properties," D'Ambrosio was saying. "Mom and pops, and municipalities bend over backward to help in these cases, because they don't want to throw them out on the street.

"The second group is slumlords - playing games, manipulating property without doing work on it, and selling it. They play a shell game. They own 10 properties, pay taxes on half, don't pay taxes on the other half. So when the city is about to foreclose, they'll pay on the half they weren't paying and stop paying on the half they were paying. They're just trying to flip properties.

"The third category is commercial enterprises.

"Over the last six months, we've developed a fourth category: banks. Banks foreclose on properties, throw the people out, leave the property empty, letting it become a blight, and at the same time the banks don't pay the taxes."

It's not just one or two banks doing this, he said, "and it's pretty much statewide."

This is new. He calls it "a real industry-wide trend."

Said D'Ambrosio: "It used to be, if a bank had a property, the taxes got paid, right away.

"But now, since the bailouts, it's all changed. So the taxpayer is bailing out the banks, the banks are throwing people out of their houses, and then the banks don't pay the taxes. Properties run down, neighborhoods run down. It's nuts."

Peter Brown, D'Ambrosio's law associate, says banks are suddenly ignoring court orders, unconcerned with the blight and decay that often result.

"In talking with them, they are blasé about the whole process and their obligations, and believe they have an unlimited right to deal with these issues on their timetable and in the manner that best suits them," Brown says.

Last week, D'Ambrosio's firm oversaw the auction of a house in Gloucester. A bank hadn't paid the taxes for months, but at the last second tried to step in and pay the taxes off.

Too late.

The house sold for $180,000, and the bank lost a $165,000 mortgage.

"None of this makes any sense, for the banks, or the cities and towns," D'Ambrosio said. "If you ask me what's really happening, I'd say these are decisions that are being made in boardrooms, not in neighborhoods.

"I don't know how this can be helping the bottom line in boardrooms, but I can see with my own eyes what it's doing to neighborhoods, and it's not good."


Boston Globe

Power goes out: Bose to ax 1,000

Bose Corp., the audio giant known for Wave radios and noise-canceling headphones, is cutting 1,000 jobs, the company confirmed yesterday.

The Framingham-based firm said the layoffs amount to about 10 percent of its total work force and the cuts will come from “select areas, including manufacturing.”

Bose’s restructuring is a reaction to the recession and a slowdown in consumer spending.

Boston Herald - Full Story

The boomerang kids

I read this article in the Boston Globe and know exactly what they're talking about. The best is when they move home, with kids.

Gone are the high school pictures, the teddy bears, the single bed of Becky Gorman's youth. She now has college and travel photos on the walls, books instead of bears, and a queen size bed. But the purple-flowered wallpaper from middle school remains, and she is once again sharing a bathroom with her younger brother.

Gorman, 27, has moved back into the Wellesley house where she grew up. Ditto for Michael, 23. There are many reasons they're in their childhood home: their new business, the bad economy, the high rents. Nine months ago they started their own clothing line, Mahi Gold. They need to save every cent they can, and living with their parents rent-free has allowed them to do that.

"I have a lot of friends who can't believe that I could live at home," Becky says. "My typical response is that it doesn't bother me, but certainly in an ideal world I'd have my own place."

The days when college graduation automatically meant getting a job and an apartment are endangered. With the US economy in a nosedive, jobs scarce, and rents high, "boomerang kids" head for home, where the living is easy. There are no firm numbers yet on the impact of the current recession, but those who study the younger generation say that empty nests are starting to fill back in.

Boston Globe - Full Story

$10M White House Replica Sale

Iranian-American home developer Fred Milani said he is selling the 16,500 square-foot replica home in Atlanta for $9.88 million as the ongoing economic crisis has him facing hard financial times, The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) said Thursday.

"I still do not want to sell," Milani said. "But I will."

Milani, 57, said building the replica of the U.S. president's home was not initially his idea.

"Really, I am not very political," Milani said. "The architect just asked, 'How about I build you the White House?' and I said yes. That is the whole story."

Atlanta City Council member Mary Norwood said Milani's reluctant sale of the unique property appears to be part of a growing foreclosure and real estate crisis in the Georgian city.

"The housing crisis has affected people at all income levels," Norwood told the Times. "This has been devastating to the whole economy."

Kids can be easy prey for identity thieves

This is an interesting story.
It happened to someone I know of, and it was the parents who ran up the debt.

NEW YORK — Among the people Linda Foley is currently working to help are a 3-year-old whose Social Security number is being used by someone for work purposes. And there’s a 5-year-old whose identity is linked to driver’s licenses, arrest warrants for drunken driving, and a warrant for unpaid child support.

These stories may sound unusual, but Foley has heard of many such situations since she started the San Diego-based Identity Theft Resource Center in 1999, and she’s convinced that the poaching of children’s identities is more common than anyone knows.

Because identity theft is typically associated with financial matters like the misuse of credit cards, most people don’t consider the possibility that their child’s personal information could be stolen and misused. But more than 34,000 reports of identity theft reported to the Federal Trade Commission from 2005 to 2007 concerned children under age 18.

“I think we just see the tip of the iceberg, we don’t know how deep this problem goes,” says Foley.

One reason there is no clear figure for the number of children affected is that the crime often goes unnoticed for many years, explains Scott Mitic, chief executive of TrustedID, a Redwood, Calif., company that offers ID protection services.

Usually, there’s a narrow time gap between the discovery and the theft, Mitic says of identity theft in general. “But in this age group, you’re much more likely to see a lag.”

Because children don’t have complex financial lives, there is less opportunity to notice that something has gone awry than for adults who try to access loans, mortgages and credit cards — one major factor that plays into child identity theft going undetected for years.

A second major reason is that frequently, the thief is a parent or other relative of the child.

“In excess of 50 percent of all child ID theft, involves a perpetrator who is one of the parents or someone who is close to the family,” estimates Foley, basing her figure on counseling experience and work with law enforcement agencies.

That was the case for Randy Waldron Jr., now 27, who has spent the last decade trying to clean up his reputation.

“My father began using my Social Security number in 1982,” says Waldron. But his father was not a part of his life as a child, and it wasn’t until 16 years later, when Waldron was applying for college, that it was discovered he had run up a total of $22.5 million in debt in his son’s name.

Cape Cod Times - Full Story

BJ's due to open January 10th in Revere

BJ's new store is due to open January 10th.
Job openings listed on their website.

BJ's Jobs

Mainers rally with knife, fork to aid struggling lobstermen

CUNDYS HARBOR, Maine - Usually, it would take no added incentive to sell lobster rolls at cost.

But when a cafe up the coast advertised topless waitresses as a lure this fall, the plight of the reeling local lobster industry was cast in stark, naked focus.

The topless tease was a joke, but the Brass Compass Cafe in Rockland was dead serious in its effort to push more lobsters on a state that seems to be crawling with them.

From the state Capitol to the grass roots, Mainers are being asked to help out the suffering industry by eating more lobster - during the week, as a family, and as a dietary staple that now is sometimes as inexpensive as bologna.

They are even being encouraged to incorporate the clawed crustacean into Christmas dinner.

Boston Globe - Full Story

Bank Of America To Lay Off 35,000 Over Next 3 Years

Dec. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Bank of America Corporation is working on a plan to eliminate a significant number of positions over the next three years reflecting the pending merger with Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. and the weak economic environment, which is affecting the level of business activity.

While both factors will result in the elimination of positions, the company has not completed its analysis. Bank of America expects to have a final plan early in 2009 and estimates it will project the reduction of approximately 30,000 to 35,000 positions over the next three years. A final number will not be determined until early 2009.

The reductions are coming from both companies and affect all lines of business and staff units. Details as to specific reductions in communities or by business line have not been determined. As many reductions as possible will be made through attrition. Severance and other benefits will be provided for those associates whose jobs are eliminated and who cannot be offered another position.

The reductions are designed to eliminate redundancies created as a result of the merger with Merrill Lynch and to reflect the current recessionary environment.

Bank of America continues to do business actively with all of its client segments. It continues to benefit from a flight to safety, attracting deposits and new client relationships. In addition, the company continues to actively originate loans through all of its credit product lines.

Shareholders of both companies voted to approve the transaction last week and Bank of America is currently targeting a closing on Jan. 1, 2009.

Avis cuts 2,200 jobs to meet cost reduction goals

PARSIPPANY, NJ (AP) - Car rental company Avis Budget Group Inc. said Thursday that it has cut more than 2,200 jobs and taken other steps to meet its goal of reducing annual costs by $150 million to $200 million by the middle of 2009.

Avis shares advanced 6 cents, or 8.7 percent, to 75 cents in after-hours trading when the status of the program was announced, after dropping 12 cents, or 15 percent, to 69 cents during the regular session. The stock has traded between 38 cents and $18 during the past 52 weeks.

"We're pleased with our progress to date, which when combined with the steps taken in the third quarter, will allow us to enter the new year with more than $150 million of incremental cost reduction flowing through our income statement," said Avis Budget Group Chairman and Chief Executive Ronald L. Nelson in a statement.

"Nevertheless," he added, "it is our intention to continue our relentless focus on cost containment even if and when economic conditions improve, so that we can achieve our ultimate goal of restoring our margins to previous levels."

In the past weeks, Avis said it has frozen management salaries, downsized its planned fleet and cut more than 2,200 jobs across its business. Avis said it offered buyouts before turning to involuntary staff reductions.

The company will also close its claims processing facility in Orlando, Fla., as well as its customer contact center in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Avis recently announced an increase in rates for most car rentals of $3 per day and $20 per week, which took effect Monday. The company has also closed some underperforming off-airport locations.

In its statement, Avis urged the federal government to take steps to bolster liquidity in vehicle financing markets. Nelson said government action would help minimize the potential need for further job cuts.

Full Story

State Street to cut as many as 1,800 jobs

State Street Corp. said it plans to cut 1,600 to 1,800 positions, about 6 percent of its workforce, through the first quarter of 2009 to reduce costs, the latest Boston financial firm to shed jobs in the wake of steep market declines.

State Street employed 28,900 people worldwide, as of October, with about 13,900 in Massachusetts.

The reductions will mainly occur among middle and senior managers, the company said in a statement, as opposed to eliminating customer service-related positions. About two-thirds of the eliminated jobs will be in North America, with the rest in Europe and Asia, the company said. It did not immediately provide more details about the cuts.

Boston Globe - Full Story

Avis Budget shares tumble on ongoing debt concerns

NEW YORK (AP) - Avis Budget Group Inc.'s stock continued its decline Tuesday as investors worried that the rental car company will fail to meet its debt obligations.

Avis shares dropped 23 cents, or 27.1 percent, to close at 62 cents. They touched an all-time low of 55 cents earlier in the session.

Avis shares have declined steadily since the company warned on Nov. 7 that it may breach its debt covenants, which would allow its lenders to demand their money back sooner.

Parsippany, N.J.-based Avis blamed its debt troubles to a drop in rental car demand and increased borrowing costs related to fleet financing. Avis is in talks with its lenders to relax some of its requirements.

In a note to investors late Monday, Goldman Sachs analyst Christopher Agnew estimated that the stock is pricing in a 40 percent probability of default over the next year. Agnew said he believes that percentage is too high and that Avis should be able to negotiate changes to its loan covenants.

Agnew maintained a "Buy" rating on the company, but lowered his six-month target price on the stock to $1.50 from $2.

When companies breach their debt covenants, it is usually by falling below a set financial threshold.

CAR closed today @ $0.49.

AP Top News at 2:51 p.m. EST

46 minutes ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Citigroup Inc. is shedding approximately 53,000 more employees in the coming quarters as the banking giant struggles to steady itself after suffering massive losses from deteriorating debt. The New York-based bank, which has already reduced its assets by about 20 percent since the first quarter of the year, also plans to trim expenses by 19 percent in 2009 from third-quarter levels, to $50 billion.

A person briefed on Citigroup's plans says the banking giant is cutting another 53,000 jobs in the coming quarters. CEO Vikram Pandit is revealing the plan at the company's town hall meeting Monday with employees.

Fidelity to cut 1,700 in next round of layoffs

Fidelity Investments will lay off another 1,700 employees early next year, in addition to the 1,300 workers it axed earlier this week.

Fidelity, which is feeling the aftershocks of the Wall Street debacle along with other financial firms, informed employees today that its second round of job cuts will be more severe than the first round implemented days ago.

The Boston-based mutual-fund company is still working on details of its second-round reductions, spokeswoman Anne Crowley said.


The company didn’t say how many Massachusetts employees will get pink slips.

Boston Herald - Full Story