Business Generation

Gas prices are rising again in the Portland Metropolitan area, leaving many people unhappy for the holidays. A decade ago this time of year, the average gas price for a gallon of unleaded gas in Vancouver, Washington was $1.11. This year the price has risen to $3.58 for one gallon of unleaded gasoline.

Many people are claiming this is an outrage because now they have to choose between filling up the car or filling up Christmas stockings. The price of gasoline has risen 223% in 12 years, a price that nobody should be paying for when America has their own oil they can drill from on, many people think.

Most everyone has been affected by this increase in gas prices. Many companies are having to charge more for shipping costs because it is costing more for getting the materials to their locations.

Read more…

With the economy in the tank and people who are out of work looking for new career options in a field that WONT vanish into thin air (hopefully), people are wondering if the Green trend will provide new job opportunities in the construction field, for example. The Building Performance Institute develops technical standards for home energy efficiency performance measures that guide in the construction of new homes as well as becoming the standard for retrofitting homes. Because the Institute does not do training directly, affiliated educational establishments provide BPI training so that contractors, re-modelers, etc can build energy efficient dwellings. As a result many are looking into the possibility of receiving this training to set themselves apart from ordinary handy men.

While energy efficiency can revolve around matters of insulation and efficient appliances, some people want to create their own electricity.

Read more…

Social media game developer Zynga announced the terms for its initial public offering (IPO) on December 2.

The long-awaited initial public offering plans to issue 100 million shares with a price range of $8.50 to $10.00. If stock options and existing shares are counted, the company has 904 shares outstanding, Reuters reports.

Selling the shares at the bottom of the price range would raise $850 million and provide the company with a valuation of $7.7 billion, whereas pricing the shares at the top of the range would raise $1 billion and provide the company with a value of $9.04 billion.

Zynga was originally planning a larger IPO but decided to downsize its plans in order to avoid following Pandora and Groupon, which both sank after their primary offerings, according to Bloomberg. Read more…

The Office of Fair Trading has announced that it is investigating Groupon after the discount website broke the advertising code 48 times this year. Channel 4 News reported today that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) had started its own investigation, but referred Groupon to the OFT because of the sheer volume of individual complaints.

Groupon floated on the American stockmarkets just a few weeks ago. But its share price today is 20 per cent down on the amount that investors paid for what was the biggest internet floatation since Google.

One of the concerns that investors have is the business model.

Read more…

Garden State Veterans received 21 percent more in loans from the SBA in 2011 compared to 2010. Jorge Silva-Puras, Regional Administrator of Federal Agency, stated that New Jersey Veterans received 57 loans amounting to $27 million in 2011. This is as compared to $20.4 million that they received the previous year.

The New Jersey based veterans received loans from the Hopewell Valley Community Bank according to District Director Alfred J. Titone. The bank gave 11 loan approvals amounting to a total of $3.7 million. Titone also awarded the bank with SBA District Director Award for the achievement.

Loans to veterans ranged from $10,000 to $5 million. Bergen County received eight loans amounting to $3.5 million this year. This is followed by Essex County with seven loans that totaled to $1.9 million. For the SBA, veteran entrepreneurship is top priority.

Read more…

Read more…