Business Blog

I would, somewhat vainly perhaps, consider myself a social media savant. I was blogging on Xanga when WordPress was still in beta testing. I was on Facebook before it was cool. Way before. Twitter has finally grown on me and I’m up to about 200 Tweets since last fall. Skype has been a great way [...]

The American Bankers Association reacted harshly Monday to President Obama’s proposal to levy a 10-year tax on the banking industry that would raise $61 billion to help U.S. homeowners refinance. Obama had previously proposed a “financial crisis responsibility fee” on financial firms with assets exceeding $50 billion. That idea has been changed into a proposal [...]

A proposed national foreclosure fraud settlement provides an estimated $47.1 million in direct relief to Mississippi homeowners and addresses future mortgage loan servicing practices, Attorney General Jim Hood said Friday in announcing Mississippi’s participation in the $25 billion joint federal-state agreement with the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers over foreclosure abuses and fraud. The five [...]

U.S. News & World Report has named the Professional MBA program at the University of Mississippi as one of the top 14 in the nation. According to U.S. News, a strong online master’s in business degree program performs well across all of the magazine’s indicator rankings for online education. A program made the Top Online [...]

Up to two million Americans could benefit from mortgage relief from the nation’s biggest banks under a foreclosure fraud settlement of $25 billion announced Thursday. Mississippi and 48 other states signed on to the deal with Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Ally Financial. The only remaining holdout is Oklahoma. The deal [...]

WASHINGTON — U.S. states have reached a $25 billion deal with the nation’s biggest mortgage lenders over foreclosure abuses that occurred after the housing bubble burst. Federal and state officials announced the deal Thursday. It is the biggest settlement involving a single industry since a 1998 multistate tobacco deal. Under the agreement, five major banks [...]

A sunny, spring-like day brought Fred Garrott and his hotdog cart out to Smith Park Wednesday to mark the start of what he hopes will be a thriving lunch trade. He got off to a good start, with all but three of the 40 premium all-beef dogs sold by 12:30. Chris Brown of the nearby [...]

A Washington Post investigation called “Capitol Assets” names members of Congress who have helped direct more than $300 million in earmarks to dozens of public projects for work in close proximity to commercial and residential real estate owned by them or their family members. Mississippi’s Rep. Bennie Thompson and Rep. Roger Wicker were named in [...]

Agricultural programs could be cut by $30 billion to $35 billion in the 2012 farm bill, warned Carlisle Clarke, legislative assistant to Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., in an interview with The Southeast Farm Press. “Last fall, in the debt ceiling discussions, each congressional committee was charged with offering up a package of cuts for programs [...]

he Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) will lead a delegation of state business leaders on a business development mission to Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem, Israel from March 17-22. The trip is designed to connect Mississippi businesses looking to expand trade and create business relationships with opportunities in Israeli markets. During the business development mission, delegates [...]