Business torrents

Holland Construction Services Inc., based in Swansea, was selected as the construction manager for a 73,000-square-foot building addition at Southwestern Illinois College’s Belleville campus.

The addition will have a two-story structural steel skeleton with a masonry veneer, glass curtain wall and composite panel skin.

The addition will house offices, classrooms, a theater, student lounge and a student center.

The project is designed to try to meet standards for a LEED Gold certification. Completion is scheduled for December 2012.

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MAPLEWOOD

Italy’s borrowing costs eased in a bond auction Monday, but worries about the country’s ability to manage its debt and enforce spending cuts persisted as unions called a strike against the new government’s austerity measures.

Italy easily sold euro7 billion ($9.4 billion) in 12-month bonds at an interest rate of 5.92 percent, down from a record of 6.087 percent hit last month, when concerns about the country’s future were at a high. The auction was oversubscribed 1.92 times.

The sale was held on the second “bond day” sponsored by the Italian Banker’s Association, which allowed private buyers to snap up public debt without the usual commission. Analysts said the move _ aimed at engendering confidence in the nation’s debt _ would help retail sales of the bonds.

The Italian government’s efforts to lower its debt were coming under fire from unions, however.

Workers joined rallies and a nationwide strike in several labor sectors to protest pension reforms. It was the first in a series of walkouts called over the emergency austerity measures which Premier Mario Monti insists are vital to avert financial disaster.

Metalworkers, including many on assembly lines at Fiat’s auto factories, were staging an eight-hour strike, while others were planning to walk off the job three hours before the end of the shift.

Also on strike were workers at La Scala, the Milan opera house that was forced to cancel a concert, and typographers at Italian newspapers and web sites.

Public transport wasn’t involved in Monday’s strike, but their union leaders called walkouts for Thursday and Friday. Other public sector employees were set to walk off the job on Dec. 19, while bank workers have a strike call for Friday.

The union leaders say the government’s austerity measures hit too hard at pensioners and workers and not hard enough at the wealthy. A rally was called for Monday afternoon outside Parliament, which is expected to pass the measures by Christmas.

“Fairness, fairness,” shouted workers marching in Florence.

In Genoa, hundreds of workers, joined by students protesting school budget cuts, were marching toward a rally site. Fiat workers joined hundreds of other blue-collar workers, students and youths in a march in Turin, hometown to the automaker, which is the country’s largest private sector employer.

Monti’s government of fellow non-elected technocrats, which took office last month, is urging Parliament to swiftly pass his rescue plan, which includes investing about a third of the euro30 billion ($40 billion) in austerity savings in infrastructure and other projects to try to revive economic growth.

Labor Minister Elsa Fornero, who was among government officials meeting with union leaders on Sunday night, has said some pension reforms might be softened, but that overall spending cuts must remain for the country to regain credibility on financial markets.

“We’re working to make the (emergency) package fairer,” said a centrist party leader, Lorenzo Cesa. Lawmakers were considering raising the minimum level of pensions that would be eligible for periodic increases tied to inflation, he told Sky TG24 in an interview. Monti’s measure freezes such raises for all but the very lowest pensions.

Efforts were also under way to soften the blow of the revival of a property tax that Monti’s predecessor, media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, had abolished. Lawmakers were considering making homeowners with large families play less tax, Cesa said.

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Barry contributed from Milan.

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Megan Connors of Harford County, Md., says she got a great education at Auburn University but a brutal lesson on private student loans.

Federal aid wasn’t enough to cover four years at the school in Alabama, so Connors made up the difference with private loans no fax cash advance. Now, four years after graduation and working as a prekindergarten teacher

OF NOTE: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra has added four new members to its Board of Trustees.

The four are: Raschelle Burton, senior VP of corporate communications at Wells Fargo Advisors; Joe Imbs III, Midwest regional chairman and St. Louis market president of U.S. Bank; Jay Nouss, a partner at Bryan Cave; and Craig Saddler, CFO of Boeing’s network and space division no faxing 1 hour payday loans.

The new members were elected at the symphony’s annual meeting last month.

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In its latest executive action, the White House announced new steps Thursday to spur start-up businesses and help them access $2 billion in resources.

The U.S. Small Business Administration said it would move forward with a previously announced effort to launch a $1 billion fund to provide matching capital to early-stage small businesses. The project, called “Startup America,” is aimed at harnessing innovation and entrepreneurship by leveraging private-sector investment.

Separately, the White House said a private-sector partnership connected to the Startup America program was announcing $1 billion in services _ from free software and consulting to legal services _ to 100,000 start-up companies during the next three years. The partnership is led by AOL co-founder Steve Case.

The help to small business is the latest step by the Obama administration to use executive action to get around congressional Republicans, an approach dubbed “We can’t wait paydayloans.”

In a statement, President Barack Obama urged Congress to move forward with pending legislation to help small businesses, saying, “America’s small businesses can’t wait for these important tools to grow and hire faster.”

Other new steps outlined by the administration include an online policy challenge to encourage entrepreneurs to offer new ideas to foster innovation, educational programs and commitments from more than 100 community colleges to promote entrepreneurship.

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Standard & Poor’s is warning it may downgrade the European bailout fund’s AAA long-term credit rating.

The move announced Tuesday follows S&P’s notice on Monday that it may cut the credit rating of 15 eurozone countries, including Germany’s, because the region’s financial crisis is worsening without any imminent fix.

The agency says in a release that it is putting the AAA long-term credit rating for the European Financial Stability Facility on “CreditWatch with negative implications.”

It says it could downgrade the rating by one or two notches.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

BERLIN (AP) _ Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday downplayed Standard & Poor’s warning that it might cut the credit rating of 15 eurozone countries, including Germany’s, because the region’s financial crisis is worsening without any imminent fix.

The timing of the warning was noteworthy. It came just hours after Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged changes to the European Union treaty that would centralize decision-making on spending and borrowing for the 17 countries that use the euro. Tighter political and economic coordination among euro countries is seen as a precursor to further financial aid from the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, or some combination.

The threat to cut Germany’s prized AAA rating was particularly surprising. Its bonds are considered among the safest in the world. A downgrade threatens to complicate the eurozone’s bailout mechanism, since the region’s rescue fund relies on AAA-rated bonds of Germany and France to cheaply raise money.

Investors nevertheless seemed to take the S&P warning in stride on Tuesday. European stocks and bonds mostly held onto the gains they made Monday.

“What a rating agency does is the responsibility of the rating agency,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin, refusing to elaborate further.

She said, however, that she expected a meeting of European leaders later this week in Brussels would help restore markets’ confidence.

“We will meet on Thursday and Friday as Europeans and take those decisions that we consider to be correct, and through them stabilize the eurozone and also regain confidence,” she said.

She and Sarkozy on Monday outlined sweeping plans to change the EU treaty in an effort to keep tighter checks on overspending nations. The proposal is set to form the basis of discussions at an EU summit in Brussels on Friday.

The financial markets of Italy and Spain rallied after Merkel and Sarkozy unveiled their proposals, suggesting investor are more confident Europe can survive the crisis.

“I have always said this is a long process and an arduous one and it will continue, but we charted the course yesterday with the French president and we will continue to stay the course,” Merkel said.

S&P said there was a 50 percent chance that the countries’ ratings it put on review would be downgraded.

Late Monday night the euro fell from $1.3460 to $1.3330, unwinding much of the gains made after Merkel and Sarkozy’s proposals. By Tuesday, however, it was back up to $1.3420 _ buoyed in part by a report showing a massive rebound in German industrial orders due to a double-digit increase in demand from eurozone countries.

Stock and bond markets largely overlooked S&P’s threat, remaining stable on Tuesday. The bond yields for countries like Italy and Spain remained at the one-month lows they hit on Monday.

“Although the S&P warning has not scared the markets as it was pretty much stating the obvious, it did color the market sentiment,” said Anita Paluch, a trader with Gekko Global Markets.

Paluch said the warning does raise pressure on policymakers, however, to use the upcoming summit to produce a solution that will “put out the fire in the eurozone.”

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said it appeared to him that S&P had made its decision before Merkel and Sarkozy released details of the new plan, so hadn’t been able to factor that into its considerations.

The leaders’ proposal is “exactly the response to one of the major questions from the ratings agency, which talks about insufficient European economic governance,” Juppe said on RTL radio.

Sarkozy and Merkel are proposing several broad changes for the EU treaty, including the introduction of a penalty for any government that allows its deficit to exceed 3 percent of gross domestic product. The penalty would be automatic _ unless a majority of nations opposed it, a loophole that drew sharp criticism from analysts.

Some analysts also feel the proposal, which demands strict austerity measures, misses the mark and will only worsen much-needed growth in already feeble economies.

Investors are hoping that the summit of European leaders on Thursday and Friday will produce concrete measures to prevent a messy breakup of the euro. Markets have been jittery because of fears that the euro might disintegrate, causing a sharp recession in Europe that would spread through the world economy.

EU spokesman Amadeu Altafaj Tardio said that the bloc needed to make “important decisions this week” but not because of any worries about the S&P ratings.

“The job was already partially done in October” at the last summit, he said. “We now have to complete the job. It is not because we want to please the rating agencies or market forces, it is important because it is the best (way) to ensure the prosperity of our citizens.”

The S&P warning left out only two of 17 countries that use the euro: Cyprus, whose bonds have near-junk status, and Greece, whose low ratings already suggest it is likely to default soon anyway.

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A federal judge has blocked Apple Inc.’s attempt to prevent Samsung Electronics Co. from selling certain smartphones and tablets in the U.S. because they allegedly infringe iPhone and iPad patents.

Judge Lucy Koh of the U.S. District Court in San Jose on Friday denied Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction against Samsung. The ruling means that Samsung will be able to sell its Infuse 4G, Galaxy S 4G, Tab 10.1 and Droid Charge in the U.S. while it fights Apple’s patent lawsuit.

Apple claims that Samsung’s devices illegally borrow from the iPhone’s and iPad’s design.

Apple has had mixed results so far in its campaign against Samsung. Apple won a victory in Australia, where the country’s highest court on Friday extended a temporary ban on sales of the Galaxy tablet until at least Dec. 9 as the court considers Apple’s arguments.

The companies have filed lawsuits in 10 countries. Courts in several nations, including Germany and the Netherlands, have issued rulings that favor Apple.

“It’s no coincidence that Samsung’s latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging,” Apple said in a statement. “This kind of blatant copying is wrong and, as we’ve said many times before, we need to protect Apple’s intellectual property when companies steal our ideas.”

Samsung representatives did not immediately return an email message on Saturday. The company maintains that its products are distinctive from Apple’s.

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel pushed forward Friday with what markets see as an emerging plan for more effective action to contain the European financial crisis, urging tougher rules against government overspending.

She said next week’s European Union summit would take up ways to enforce compliance and write those changes into EU treaties _ a drawn-out process.

“The German government has made it clear that the European crisis will not be solved in one fell swoop,” Merkel said. “It’s a process, and this process will take years.”

The push by Merkel on debt rules _ a day after French President Nicolas Sarkozy made the same case _ is being seen as one half of a fresh approach by European leaders to finally get a grip on the crisis more than two years after it started in Greece.

The other half could be more short-term help for other heavily indebted governments from the European Central Bank. Bank President Mario Draghi on Thursday appeared to dangle an offer of new, extraordinary measures if political leaders at the Dec. 9 summit can come together on the kinds of spending rules that Merkel and Sarkozy are advocating.

“Other elements might follow,” Draghi said, fueling speculation that the bank could step up its so-far limited program to buy government bonds issued by struggling countries such as Italy and Spain. That helps keep their borrowing costs down.

Draghi stressed the bond buys “can only be limited.” That has left analysts speculating he might have other forms of support in mind. Those could include extending more unlimited credit to banks having difficulty borrowing because of market fears they may suffer losses on the government bonds they hold.

Together, the different proposals and trade-offs appear to form the next take on Europe’s effort to control the crisis: a statement of intent toward tougher central budget controls, followed by more ECB action and, in coming months, haggling out the details of how much sovereignty states are willing to cede. That in turn could be joined by some form of commonly guaranteed debt issuance _ if Germany gets enough of what it wants on strict budget rules to drop its objections.

The prospect of more ECB help has boosted markets, along with coordinated steps Wednesday by central banks to improve shaky commercial banks’ ability to borrow U.S. dollars to fund their operations.

The yield on Italian 10-year bonds fell to 6.48 percent on Friday from over 7 percent the day before, and stocks rose in Asia, Europe and the United States. The Dow industrials were up 0.7 percent at 12,100.86.

Markets have repeatedly risen on anticipation of more aggressive action by governments _ only to fall when summits result only in statements of intent or proposals that lack detail.

Analyst at Credit Agricole said markets appear to expect a fiscal pact would be delivered that would allow the ECB to increase its bond purchases.

But they noted that “this is not the first time that great expectations are building ahead of EU summits.”

Italy was readying new action ahead of the summit as well. New Prime Minister Mario Monti has pledged to unveil new austerity measures and structural reforms at a Cabinet meeting on Monday.

Rising borrowing costs fed by fears of default led to Greece, Ireland and Portugal seeking bailout loans from other eurozone governments and the International Monetary Fund. Similar fears are afflicting Italy and Spain, which are too large to bail out. That’s inflaming worries of a globally contagious financial crisis that could push the U.S. and other major economies back into recession.

Though France and Germany haven’t publicly spelled out specifics, the broad outline would be for national budgets to undergo close monitoring, and for countries to face legal action if they break borrowing limits.

When it was launched in 1999, the euro came with a set of rules limiting debt to 60 percent of gross domestic output and deficits to 3 percent of GDP. But they were never seriously enforced and have been broken 60 times over the past decades by a number of countries, including Germany.

Joerg Kraemer, chief economist at Commerzbank, said countries would not agree to direct intervention in their budgets or to be ordered around regarding whether to reduce spending or raise taxes. He said anything more than a binding ceiling on debt was “not realistic.”

The summit was unlikely to bring a breakthrough toward centralized control of government finances, but could take the initial steps in that direction.

To toughen enforcement, Germany is pushing for the right to take countries in violation before the European Court of Justice. Significantly, Merkel said at a later news conference with Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann that the new rules would do no more than enforce what is already in the EU treaty _ and therefore would not require referendums to take effect.

Merkel and Sarkozy are to meet Monday to talk about their joint strategy ahead of next week’s EU summit.

On Thursday, Sarkozy said that without some new “convergence” among European countries, the continent’s crushing debts could destroy the euro.

Merkel reiterated her objection to so-called eurobonds guaranteed jointly by all EU nations. German has objected on grounds the idea would lessen incentives for fiscal discipline, since profligate countries could still borrow by relying on the good credit of ones with solid finances.

Still, eurobonds are favored by a number of other governments and some observers think Germany realizes it may have to yield on that issue _ and so is pushing hard for tougher budget safeguards first.

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The economy is picking up. If only job growth would follow.

A spate of data Thursday showed U.S. factories grew last month at the fastest pace since June, construction spending increased for a third straight month, and both retail sales and auto sales rose in November.

But the number of people applying for unemployment benefits is still too high to signal strong hiring.

The reports offered a mixed picture for the economy one day before the government reports on job growth in November. Economists project that employers added a net 125,000 jobs. That’s not enough to lower the unemployment rate, which is projected to stay at 9 percent for the second straight month.

And manufacturers could face strains overseas in key export markets, especially if Europe’s debt crisis worsens and leads the continent into another recession.

For now, factories are growing. The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing managers, said Thursday that its manufacturing index rose to 52.7 in November, up from 50.8 in October. Any reading above 50 indicates expansion.

An index that measures new orders rose to a seven-month high.

Bradley Holcomb, chair of the ISM’s survey committee, said manufacturers “are cautiously more optimistic about the next few months based on lower raw materials pricing and favorable levels of new orders,” he said.

Still, companies have tempered their outlook with concerns about future economic growth, government regulation and the debt crisis in Europe, he added.

Ian Shepherdson, an economist at High Frequency Economics, said the increase in new orders suggested that factory output will expand at an even faster pace next month.

“The economy seems finally to be developing real momentum; growth is accelerating,” he said in a note to clients.

Manufacturing has grown for 28 straight months, according to the index cashadvance. Factories were among the first businesses to start growing after the recession officially ended in June 2009.

Still, the report is consistent with only modest economic growth. Earlier this year, the index topped 60 for four straight months.

Separately, the Labor Department said the number of people who applied for unemployment benefits last week rose above 400,000 for the first time in four weeks. The increase comes after applications had drifted lower over the past two months.

A third report showed that U.S. builders spent more in October on new homes, offices and shopping centers. Construction spending rose for a third straight month, the Commerce Department said. Despite the gains, overall construction spending remained depressed.

The projected job growth in November would be an improvement from the previous month, when the economy added just 80,000 jobs.

Some economists are more optimistic after payroll provider ADP said Wednesday that companies added 206,000 workers last month, the most this year. That survey doesn’t include government agencies, which have been cutting jobs.

Other economic indicators reinforce the outlook for an improving economy. Retailers reported a strong start to holiday sales over the Thanksgiving weekend, consumer confidence surged in November to the highest level since July, and Americans’ pay rose in October by the most in seven months.

Those reports have caused many economists to forecast a pickup in growth in the final three months of the year, to about a 3 percent annual rate. That would be an improvement from growth of 2 percent in the July-September period.

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