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If you’re in your mid-40s, you should expect an unpleasant retirement surprise from Uncle Sam.

The Social Security trust fund is scheduled to run out of money in 2033, about when today’s 40-something workers hit retirement age. When that day arrives, all Social Security checks would have to be reduced by about 25 percent.

For most retirees, that’s a doomsday scenario. A 25 percent cut would leave them unable to pay their everyday bills.

Unfortunately, doomsday keeps drawing closer. As recently as 2005, the Social Security trustees thought insolvency was 47 years in the future. Their latest report, issued last week, moved it up 3 years, and it’s now just 22 years away.

The Simpson-Bowles deficit cutting plan of 2010, for instance, proposed gradually raising the full retirement age from 67 to 69 and the early retirement age from 62 to 64. It also would have increased the amount of income that is subject to payroll taxes, and made future inflation adjustments less generous.

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For most of its 63 years, Cutco Cutlery has sold its knives and kitchen tools through a network of sales representatives doing in-home visits where they demonstrate, among other things, how the company’s shears can cut through a penny.

But earlier this month, the largest kitchen cutlery manufacturer in North America took a step toward a gradual paradigm shift for the company: It opened a retail store in a shopping strip in Creve Coeur. It is the New York-based company’s fourth physical store — and could be followed by dozens more nationwide.

“It could be 50 — it could be 150,” said Tim McCreadie, a Cutco executive spearheading the store expansion. “We just don’t know at this point. We’re still in the learning stage. We’re new to retail.”

Company officials say they chose the St. Louis region for one of the first stores because it’s the company’s fifth most productive sales unit and has an estimated 130,000 customers in the area who have bought Cutco knives over the years.

The local office, by the way, also has some of the company’s top salespeople, including one man who holds the all-time record of more than $3 million in sales.

So why after so many years doing business the same way has Cutco finally decided to branch out into retail stores?

Well, most of the company’s sales force is made up of college students who sell the products during their summer breaks, McCreadie said. When those students graduate, customers can lose touch with the company.

“We have over 15 million Cutco customers in the U.S.,” he said recently while giving a tour of the store at 11641 Olive Boulevard. “So we had all of these Cutco customers that wanted their products serviced and even wanted to buy more products, but didn’t have a gateway to be able to do that.”

Still, the company has been testing the retail waters slowly, careful to make sure the stores don’t cannibalize sales of its representatives. But so far, McCreadie said, so good.

Sales have been up. And about 95 percent of people who visit the stores are already Cutco customers, he said. They either come in to get their knives sharpened or replaced as part of the company’s “forever” guarantee or stop by to find out about new products.

An added benefit is that the stores are a good way to build more excitement about the brand among sales representatives, some of whom may not be familiar with the company when they first start, he said.

Next on the horizon for Cutco is online sales. Other companies with similar business models such as Avon and Pampered Chef have made the leap. There’s no timetable for Cutco to do so, but McCreadie said the company is gearing up for the transition while also trying to ensure that the company doesn’t lose its reputation for great service.

W. Scott Downey, a Purdue University professor who has incorporated Cutco’s model into his sales classes for years, said the company has stayed true to its mission of making a direct connection with its customers payday loans in one hour. So it has been slow to go online where that personal touch can be lost, he said.

But he added that online is a natural progression for Cutco. After all, customers have been able to buy products over the phone through Cutco for some time now.

“They’ve been very careful, which I think is a tribute to them,” Downey said. “They’re a pretty conservative company. That personal connection is really important to them.”

Amy Robinson, spokeswoman for the trade group Direct Selling Association, said a number of direct selling companies have some sort of online component. But online sales haven’t replaced those companies’ reliance on sales representatives, she said.

“When the Internet was first becoming popular, a lot of people said, ‘Gosh, who needs direct sellers now?’” she said. “But that’s a wholly different sales model. The sales force is the backbone of these companies.”

And a lot of these products do better by demonstration — such as the Tupperware’s famous burping technique — which doesn’t resonate the same way when someone just sees it on a shelf, she said.

Over the years, Cutco and its sales division, Vector Marketing, have occasionally come under fire from college students who have complained about everything from recruiting tactics on college campuses to the $150 deposit sales reps had to put down to get a starter kit to use for demonstrations. (Cutco sets sell for between $399 and $1,999 with individual knives starting at $50.)

But a couple years ago, Cutco did away with the deposit fee. McCreadie said the company did so to remove a possible barrier of entry for college students.

As a result, the company has also stepped up its screening process to make sure recruits are serious about selling the products since they’re now giving the kits on loan for free, said Justin Donald, a Cutco division manager.

With jobs hard to come by these days, Donald said he is getting more inquiries than ever. The local office has between 30 and 50 active sales reps throughout the year. But that sales force swells to more than 100 during the summer when college students join the ranks, Donald said.

Of course, selling is not everyone, which some students quickly find out. That’s one of the reasons Purdue’s Downey has students sell Cutco products as part of his class to show them what it’s really like to work in sales.

“In many ways, it’s an emotional business,” he said. “It’s difficult for customers to tell you no, so we want students to have that experience.”

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There is no convincing evidence that cellphone use poses a threat to human health, according to an extensive review of scientific evidence released Thursday.

A team of scientists with the UK

Germany’s finance minister says he’s confident a German-backed pact enforcing more fiscal discipline among European governments will be ratified despite new political uncertainty.

Wolfgang Schaeuble said that the treaty “will be ratified in all countries, I have no doubt about that.”

French Socialist Francois Hollande, who led in the first round of president elections Sunday, has called for renegotiating the pact.

Meanwhile, the Netherlands faces early elections after its minority government collapsed over a failure to agree on austerity measures needed to bring the country’s deficit within EU-stipulated limits.

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

BERLIN (AP) _ Germany mounted a spirited defense of its pro-austerity stance on Tuesday, with both Chancellor Angela Merkel and her foreign minister calling for a continued drive for fiscal discipline across Europe in spite of the latest bout of political uncertainty.

Investors took fright of the 17 countries that use the euro Monday on concerns that the so-called fiscal compact of strict austerity and deficit controls agreed by European leaders earlier this year was beginning to unravel.

French Socialist Francois Hollande edged ahead with a narrow lead in Sunday’s first round of presidential elections with a pledge to renegotiate the pact to give greater emphasis to growth over austerity. Meanwhile, the Netherlands faces early elections after its minority government collapsed over a failure to agree on austerity measures.

On top of this, Spain _ which is currently going through a harsh program of cuts and tax increases _ announced it was entering a recession and a survey of purchasing managers across Europe pointed to a contraction in the region’s economy.

Merkel didn’t specifically mention the fiscal pact in a speech in Berlin but noted that, in its early years, West Germany ran up barely any debt. She said that “today, we have to get back to that situation.”

“One can talk about how we do it … but to act as though it were an imposition to get by with what we are earning, (to say) we will carry on carting around the rucksack with debt _ no one will accept it from us, in any European country,” Merkel said.

“I want to say clearly, it is not the case that we say saving solves every problem but, if you at home talk about how you want to shape your life tolerably, then one of the first conditions is that you somehow get by with what you earn,” she said.

Germany’s budget deficit is well under the limit of 3 percent of gross domestic product that eurozone countries are supposed to observe, but its total debt amounts to 81.2 percent of GDP _ well above the official 60 percent limit.

Germany and France, under incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy, have piloted rescue efforts for other eurozone countries as the region has been swept up in a succession of debt crises over the past two years. Berlin has insisted on an often-criticized emphasis on budget discipline and cuts.

Merkel pushed hard for other European countries to agree to the fiscal compact, designed to limit government overspending, and 25 national leaders signed it earlier this year.

Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Tuesday that “we agreed on the pact after long negotiations. It is necessary.”

“What we have agreed on in Europe to overcome the debt crisis is agreed and it holds. It will not be made dependent on election results,” he said. “Governments act for their countries and not for themselves.”

It isn’t yet clear when the German Parliament will vote on the pact, which needs a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

That means it needs the support of the main center-left opposition Social Democratic Party, which wants the government to agree to introduce a financial transaction tax _ though leaders have stopped short of saying that is a condition.

Merkel’s government aims to get the fiscal pact passed before the summer. Social Democrat leader Sigmar Gabriel has argued that a vote could take place later.

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China may first relax controls on borrowing costs and widen the

The United Nations hopes to have 30 cease-fire monitors in Syria next week and plans are already being made for the deployment of up to 300, a spokesman for international envoy Kofi Annan said Friday, as France called on the international community to prepare for the possible failure of the increasingly fragile peace deal.

Seven observers are on the ground and another two will arrive on Monday, said Annan’s spokesman.

“During the course of next week we hope that those that we are seconding from missions in the area who can move quickly will be there and we will make the numbers up to 30,” Ahmad Fawzi told reporters in Geneva.

The preliminary agreement between Syria and the United Nations on the deployment of U.N. observers says they will have freedom to go anywhere in the country by foot or by car, take pictures, and use technical equipment to monitor compliance with the cease-fire engineered by Annan.

But the issue of using helicopters and aircraft will likely dominate discussions in the coming days, Fawzi told The Associated Press.

The larger contingent of up to 300 also still needs to be approved by the U.N. Security Council.

“As soon as the Security Council adopts a resolution authorizing up to 300 monitors on the ground, we will be ready to deploy very, very rapidly,” Fawzi said.

“We are preparing for the deployment because we feel that it is going to happen sooner or later because it must happen,” he added

In France, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe called on the international community to live up to its responsibilities and warned that if Annan’s peace plan “doesn’t function, we have to envisage other methods.”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon accused Syrian President Bashar Assad on Thursday of failing to honor the peace plan that went into effect a week ago payday loan.

Juppe said on France’s BFM television that his country would support a U.S.-backed proposal for a U.N. arms embargo and other tough measures against Syria.

The peace plan is “the last chance before civil war. … We don’t have the right to wait,” he said.

Juppe hosted U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other diplomats in Paris on Thursday to try to work out options for Syria.

Annan’s diplomacy succeeded in getting Russia to back the monitoring mission, but Syria’s ally continues to resist more forceful measures.

“The Russian position is in the process of evolving,” Juppe said without elaborating.

U.N. chief Ban told the Security Council on Thursday that the situation remains “highly precarious,” citing an escalation of violence including “shelling of civilian areas, grave abuses by government forces and attacks by armed groups.”

That view was echoed by Annan’s spokesman.

“The situation on the ground is not good, as we all know,” Fawzi said. “There are casualties every day. There are incidents every day. And we have to do everything we can to stop what’s going on. The killing, the violence in all its forms.”

The observers, who report to Annan daily, will have freedom to install temporary observation posts in cities and towns, to monitor military convoys approaching population centers, to investigate any potential violation, and to access detention centers and medical centers in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross and Syrian authorities, the agreement says.

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Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

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Ever known a woman who drives a forklift?

Neither has Melinda Barbaglia. She has yet to meet one, even though she and her sister sell, service and stock replacement parts for forklift trucks.

“They didn’t teach Forklift 101 at Webster University,” said Barbaglia, who holds a graduate degree in marketing from the school.

A recent Post-Dispatch story that detailed how other cities are outpacing St. Louis in the growth of businesses owned by women struck a chord, for obvious reasons, with Barbaglia. She agrees that female entrepreneurs have been held back by a shortage of support from state and local governmental interests. And she can also make an argument that, to a lesser degree, a male-dominated business community is slow to lose its grip.

At the same time, Barbaglia, her sister Teresa Pippen and mother, Linda, can make a pretty strong case for the ability of a business owned and operated by women to flourish in a good ol’ boy network.

Of the two sisters, Melinda was the one without a single intention of joining C&B Lift Truck Service — the company their father, Charlie, started from scratch 36 years ago.

Degree in hand, Melinda was about to launch a career in pharmaceutical sales when her father suggested he could use an extra hand at C&B.

She reported to work soon after and has been there ever since.

Charlie Barbaglia ran C&B up till the day he and the family celebrated his 60th birthday in 2005.

“He must have thought it was a retirement party, because he never came back to work,” laughs Linda Barbaglia.

“So, I said, ‘I guess we’re on our own, girls.’”

Fortunately, Melinda and Teresa were already immersed in the business.

Melinda, the “take charge” extrovert, applied her education by working the sales and marketing end.

To compensate for the absence of Forklift 101 in the Webster course catalog, Melinda indoctrinated herself in the nuances of pneumatic tires, monotrol transmissions and liquid petroleum to the point that she’s qualified to serve as an instructor in the mandatory safety courses OSHA demands of forklift operators.

Teresa, an introvert with a communications degree from Maryville University, was more than happy to handle bookkeeping and the office side of the business.

C&B’s seven other employees (including service manager Charlie Pippen, the service manager) are all men.

The Barbaglias admit that running a business in what remains a man’s world is not always easy.

For starters, not to stereotype, neither sister plays golf.

As for the other topic that breaks the ice among men — such as sports — the lifelong St. Louisans by necessity can be semi-conversant should the conversation turn to the fortunes of the Cardinals, Blues or Rams. But don’t expect them to tell you how many Detroit Tigers Bob Gibson struck out in the 1968 World Series. The vast majority of the company’s male clients “take their jobs very seriously,” Melinda said.

“They just want their forklift fixed,” Teresa added.

But some of them can be flirtatious, Melinda said.

A lot of years remain before the sisters retire. Melinda is 42 and Teresa is 36.

Still, looking ahead as she cradled Melinda’s 3-month-old daughter Abigail, Linda Barbaglia is fairly sure the second generation of Barbaglias to run C&B Fork Lift Truck Service will be the last.

Linda says the business that has sustained her family for 36 years is fast moving toward the day that favors neither male nor female — when robots take the wheel.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I was offered an unpaid internship at a law firm but turned it down. If you can’t pay me $10 an hour, you don’t deserve to be in business. The job market makes me feel like stabbing myself in the face. - Adrienne Delibert, unemployed college graduate

Source: The New York Times

BY THE NUMBERS

37 percent of U.S. companies vet job candidates through social networking sites.

15 percent of U.S. employers prohibit the practice.

Source: CareerBuilder

FINAL WORD

“… While my Facebook page is private, my friends do include plenty of people I’ve worked with or for, or might hope to work with or for in the future. I also take it as given that any potential future employer or reference would use all the available tools to check me out – including finding out who we know in common via social networks.

And I think the effects can be subtle: Future employer X calls colleague Y to ask about me; colleague Y checks Facebook to get the latest….and instead of a link to a story I’m proud of, or even a video I find funny, he finds a photo of me and my baby boy making snuggly faces.

Whether he’s consciously wondering when, if ever, I’m going back to work or how dedicated I’ll be when I get there, I’ll never know. But I’d rather not wonder.” - Janet Paskin on a possible pitfall of TMI.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

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Asian stock markets rebounded Wednesday after a slew of solid earnings boosted the outlook for U.S. companies and a successful Spanish bond auction eased worries over Europe’s debt crisis.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index jumped 1.7 percent to 9,622.39. South Korea’s Kospi added 0.9 percent to 2,003.03 and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.2 percent to 4,339.40.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.9 percent to 20,750.55. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan and Indonesia also rose.

On Tuesday, European stocks had their best day in four months after Spain attracted strong investor interest at an auction of two-year debt.

The government sold more than (EURO)3.2 billion ($4.2 billion) in short-term debt, more than had been expected, and the yield on Spain’s 10-year government bond fell, a sign of improving confidence in the country’s finances.

“This saw investors less pessimistic about Europe and lifted risk assets all round,” said Stan Shamu, analyst with IG Markets in Melbourne.

In the U.S., first-quarter results gave markets a lift. Coca-Cola’s profit was better than Wall Street analysts had forecast. Goldman Sachs and Johnson & Johnson also posted strong results.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 1 bad credit payday advance.5 percent to 13,115.54, its best day in a month. The S&P 500 closed up 1.6 percent to 1,390.78. The Nasdaq composite index soared 1.8 percent to 3,042.82, its biggest point rise in three weeks.

Positive news also came from the International Monetary Fund, which raised its outlook for the global economy because of faster U.S. growth and a coordinated effort in Europe to address its debt crisis.

The global lending organization said Tuesday the U.S. economy should expand 2.1 percent this year. Europe will likely shrink 0.3 percent and the world economy should grow 3.5 percent. All three estimates are slightly better than the IMF’s January forecasts.

Benchmark oil for May delivery was up 3 cents to $104.23 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.27 to settle at $104.20 in New York on Tuesday.

In currency trading, the euro fell to $1.3111 from $1.3139 late Tuesday in New York. The dollar rose to 81.37 yen from 80.80 yen.

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Upbeat U.S. economic indicators helped stock markets rise on Monday, offsetting concerns about Spain, which had seen its borrowing rates jump on fears it will eventually need a bailout.

The Commerce Department said U.S. retail sales rose 0.8 percent in March despite a strong increase in gas prices. Retail sales hit a record high of $411.1 billion, 24 percent higher than the recession low in March 2009.

The figures are important for global markets because U.S. consumer spending is a major driver of growth. Signs that the U.S. economy was recovering had helped markets post strong gains earlier this year, before hitting a soft patch in the past month.

Monday’s strong data also encouraged investors look past the flare-up in the debt crisis in the 17-nation eurozone.

Spain’s 10-year bond yield, the rate the country would pay if it were to tap markets for money, jumped to 6.10 percent on Monday, from about 5.90 percent on Friday, but eased back to 5.96 percent by mid-afternoon.

Yields rose in other financially shaky countries like Italy, but Spain was the focus as investors consider it the next weakest link in Europe.

The country is caught between the needs to lower debt by cutting spending and to boost growth by investing. Above all, if Spain were to need a bailout, Italy would be severely destabilized as well. The eurozone bailout funds, totaling (EURO)800 billion, would be too small to rescue both.

“The fiscal spotlight has refocused on the considerable challenges facing Spain,” analysts at Capital Economics wrote in a note to clients.

The focus will remain this week on Spain, which will hold government bond auctions on Tuesday and Thursday. Any signs that investors are shying away from the country’s bonds would likely increase tensions and push Madrid’s borrowing rates even higher.

At the end of the week, the International Monetary Fund will hold a global conference in Washington, where European government officials are expected to push for an increase in the organization’s lending capacities to reassure investors it can help fight the eurozone crisis bad credit personal loan lenders. So far, major IMF members like the U.S. have been reluctant to infuse the fund with more money.

By mid-afternoon in Europe, Germany’s DAX was up 1.1 percent at 6,654.12 while France’s CAC 40 rose 1.3 percent to 3,231.21. Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 0.8 percent at 5,696.32. The euro fell 0.2 percent to $1.3038.

Wall Street gained on the open, with the Dow average up 0.7 percent to 12,944.88 and the S&P 500 rising 0.1 percent to 1,371.82.

Asian markets closed mostly lower, however, as traders focused on data released Friday showing China’s economy slowed to a 8.1 percent growth rate in the January-March quarter, the slowest in almost three years. In the fourth quarter, growth was 8.9 percent.

Japan’s Nikkei slid 1.4 percent to 9,502.95, bruised also by a higher yen. The dollar fell to 80.56 yen from 81.10 yen.

South Korea’s Kospi was down 0.9 percent at 1,990.84 after the Bank of Korea lowered its 2012 economic growth outlook to 3.5 percent, from a December estimate of 3.7 percent, Yonhap news agency reported.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.7 percent to 20,559.03 and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.4 percent to 4,304.40. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan, Mumbai and Indonesia also fell.

Benchmark oil for May delivery was up 18 cents to $103.01 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 81 cents to finish at $102.83 per barrel on the Nymex on Friday.

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Consumer products maker Procter & Gamble Co. is raising its quarterly dividend by 7 percent to 56.2 cents.

The Cincinnati company had been paying a quarterly dividend of 52.5 cents. It pays dividends on common shares certain preferred shares. Its next dividend is payable May 15 to shareholders of record as of April 27.

Procter & Gamble makes Tide laundry detergent, Crest toothpaste, Pampers diapers, and other products.

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