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WGY, 810 AM has added conservative talk show host Glenn Beck to its morning lineup.

Beck will make his debut on the Albany, N.Y. news/talk station on March 1, broadcasting live from 9am-Noon. He will replace Al Roney in the WGY lineup.

“Glenn has one of the hottest shows in all of radio right now and we simply could not pass up the opportunity to add him to our on-air team,” said Chuck Custer, director of news and programming for WGY. “With Don Weeks, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, you have arguably the biggest names and best talent in the radio business make quick cash. It’s truly a world class lineup.”

Beck had been airing locally on WROW, 590 AM until Feb. 8, when that station dropped its news/talk format in favor of a nostalgia music format.

WGY did not return a phone seeking comment.

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WASHINGTON — U.S. consumers will get long-awaited relief from some of the most costly and deceptive credit card tactics when the sweeping provisions of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 finally kick in Monday.

The CARD Act, which President Barack Obama signed May 22, dramatically changes the way card issuers can profit from plastic. Instead of arbitrary rate increases, exorbitant fees and murky calculations of interest charges, card companies must now be more transparent in establishing and disclosing the terms of their offerings, and, as a result, more prudent in the way they manage credit risk.

In response to the law, most issuers already have introduced a host of new fees and rate structures to recoup some of the revenue they will lose under the new rules. The changes will make credit not only harder to get, but also more expensive.

For example, 35 percent of the card offers mailed to U.S. households in the fourth quarter of last year carried annual fees. That’s the highest percentage in 10 years, according to the marketing research firm Synovate. Those offers had an average annual interest rate of 13.5 percent, the highest in five years.

The CARD Act won’t silence all consumer gripes about credit cards, but it will save cardholders billions of dollars and usher in, for many, a welcome new era of tougher industry scrutiny from lawmakers, regulators, consumer advocates and customers.

"What this says to the card industry is, ‘Look, Congress has reset the playing field. The rules of the game have changed. Some of these practices that we know were harming consumers have to stop,’" said Nick Bourke, the manager of the Safe Credit Cards Project at the Pew Charitable Trusts. "Now the ball goes back to the industry, and they have to decide how to evolve their product."

The first phase of the law took effect last August. It required card issuers to provide 45 days’ notice on interest rate increases and that billing statements be mailed at least 21 days before their due dates.

The changes that will take effect Monday are much stronger. With the exception of cards that have variable interest rates, the new rules ban rate hikes on existing balances unless the cardholder is at least 60 days past due.

If delinquent cardholders pay on time for six straight months, the law requires that their higher penalty rates be lowered to their previous interest rates.

This will save cardholders at least $10 billion a year, according to Bourke. It’s the most important change for consumers because it bans a number of punitive rate hikes on existing balances, including the infamous "universal default," in which a late payment on one account can trigger a rate increase on another one.

It’s important to note, however, that lenders can still impose universal defaults and other penalty rate increases on new purchases. The CARD Act exempts only existing balances from such increases.

The new rules also require that card payments above the minimum monthly amounts go toward balances with the highest interest rates. Consent from cardholders also is required before fees can be assessed on transactions that exceed cards’ credit limits. The law doesn’t affect fees for late payments, however.

The new law prohibits a practice called "double-cycle billing," using the current and previous months’ balances to determine the finance charge. For people with prepaid credit cards, typically those with poor credit histories, the law also limits fees in the first year to no more than 25 percent of the starting credit limit.

Most cardholders already have seen the effects of the law in their February statements, which now are required to show how much it will cost and how long it will take to pay off balances by making only the minimum payment, as opposed to paying them off in three years.

Statements also must provide contact information for credit counseling services.

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Government regulators said Tuesday they have demanded documents from Toyota to determine if the automaker conducted its recent recalls in a timely manner.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it has ordered Toyota to provide documents showing when and how it learned of the defects affecting approximately 6 million vehicles in the United States.

Federal regulations require all automakers to notify NHTSA within five days of determining that a safety defect exists and promptly conduct a recall, the agency said.

"Safety recalls are very serious matters and automakers are required to quickly report defects," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

The move comes amid a spike in customer complaints lodged against Toyota in the NHTSA database, including some that allege fatal crashes were caused by sudden acceleration in Toyota cars since Jan. 27.

The probe will examine how Toyota learned of the defects. For example, regulators want to know if Toyota discovered the problems through consumer complaints or factory testing.

The investigation will also focus on whether the company found the problems before the vehicles in question were produced or after they had already been built.

In addition, regulators will check whether Toyota has covered all affected models in its recent recalls to make sure the automaker didn’t miss any problems.

NHTSA said it has demanded documents from Toyota on customer complaints, production data, dates of meetings and other pertinent details.

Toyota will have 30 days to provide the documents pertaining to the timeliness of the recalls and 60 days to submit information related to the adequacy of its ongoing recall efforts, according to a Department of Transportation official.

Cindy Knight, a Toyota spokeswoman, said the company is reviewing NHTSA’s request and will provide all the information they have requested.

"Toyota takes its responsibility to advance vehicle safety seriously and to alert government officials of any safety issue in a timely manner," she said.

Toyota has recalled more than 8.1 million vehicles worldwide for problems related to sudden acceleration and unresponsive brake pedals, among other things. The company has apologized for the safety lapses and pledged to repair the recalled vehicles quickly.

The recalls under investigation include two related to the entrapment of gas pedals by floor mats. Those recalls were announced last fall and expanded early this year. The third, announced in January, involved sticking gas pedals.

If the investigation determines that Toyota violated its statutory obligations, NHTSA said the manufacturer could be liable for a fine of up to $16.4 million.

That’s the maximum penalty under a 2000 law that established stiffer civil, and even criminal, penalties for automakers that fail to promptly report safety defects to federal regulators in a timely way.

The Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation Act, or TRED, was passed in response to dozens of deadly Ford Explorer rollover crashes caused by faulty Firestone tires. No fines were ever levied in that case.

The biggest fine that’s ever been levied was just $1 million taken from General Motors in 2004 for failing to deal promptly with a windshield wiper issue, an amount that was negotiated down from the $3 million NHTSA originally asked for. 

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Cyanotech Corp. of Kona made $605,000 on revenues of $3.9 million for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2009.

That compared with a $514,000 profit on revenues of $3.5 million in the same period in the previous fiscal year.

The Big Island biotech company (Nasdaq: CYAN), which develops and sells microalgae products, attributed the gains to the launch of new products during the quarter, including a multivitamin ay day loans.

“Despite economic challenges, our focus on business fundamentals remains robust,” President and CEO Andrew Jacobson said in a prepared statement.

Shares of Cyanotech were at $3.19 on Thursday, down 12 percent for the day.

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Richard Jerram of Macquarie Group Ltd. will become the company’s head of Asian economics and leave his position as top Japan analyst, a move that reflects China’s rise and a shift toward regional rather than country- based coverage.

The Tokyo-based economist will start publishing reports on the region on Feb. 8, Jerram said by phone today. The company hasn’t named anyone to replace him as Japan economist, he said.

“We’re not differentiating between Japan and the rest of the region,” said the 46-year-old Englishman. “The ties at the company level, the sector level and the economic level are increasingly making these distinctions artificial.”

Jerram, known for criticizing the Bank of Japan’s deflation-fighting credentials, came to the country in 1987 during the economic bubble that saw the Nikkei 225 Stock Average peak at almost four time’s today’s level. In the two decades that followed the 1990 crash, the economy fell into four recessions and grew at an average pace of 1.5 percent.

“The thing which becomes tiresome after a while is the reluctance to address problems that have fairly orthodox solutions,” the economist said. “Why would you have a policy framework that pretty much guarantees the occurrence of deflation?”

Price Declines

Even as the economy struggled to escape a cycle of declining prices that drove wages down more than 10 percent in the past decade, the Bank of Japan said price stability was anything between “about between zero and 2 percent.” That language invited the perception the bank tolerated zero growth in prices, Jerram has said.

The central bank in December revised its “understanding of stable prices,” saying stability was anything “in the positive range at or below 2 percent.” The shift came after Deputy Prime Minister Naoto Kan voiced concern the recovery was under threat from deflation.

Kan has continued his pleas for the Bank of Japan to fight price declines since he added the finance portfolio to his responsibilities in January. Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa this week responded by saying there’s no “magic” solution for defeating deflation.

“The government’s given them a bit of a push, but not getting much back,” Jerram said of the bank’s move. “They’re still saying a lot of stuff in terms of ‘there’s nothing more we can do.’”

London School of Economics

After a stint in England, where he got a doctorate from the London School of Economics, Jerram returned to Japan, where he worked for eight years as chief economist at ING Securities before the business was bought in 2004 by Macquarie, Australia’s biggest investment bank.

Macquarie agreed yesterday to buy the equity trading and research operations of Sal. Oppenheim Jr. & Cie. KGaA to expand its business in Europe. The Sydney-based bank is also adding to its Asia research staff, particularly in China and India, Jerram said.

“Asia has been far ahead on the global recovery cycle and its going to face some interesting challenges,” Jerram said. “Quite a lot of these countries, in contrast to previous times when they lagged behind the policy cycle in the U.S., are going to have to lead this time.”

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German consumer prices posted their highest annual gain in eight months in December after energy costs increased.

The inflation rate, calculated using a harmonized European Union method, rose to 0.8 percent from 0.3 percent in November, the Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden said today. That’s the highest level since April. Economists predicted prices would increase an annual 0.7 percent, according to the median of 19 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey. From the previous month, prices rose 0.9 percent.

Crude oil prices have almost doubled in the past year, undermining confidence just as the economy recovers from the worst recession in more than six decades. While German economic growth accelerated in the third quarter, rising unemployment may prompt consumers to keep a rein on spending. The Bundesbank said this month that inflation will remain benign and predicted that unemployment will increase to 10.1 percent in 2011 from 8.1 percent today.

“Energy prices are still driving the inflation rate,” said Laurent Bilke, a former European Central Bank economist now at Nomura International Plc in London. “Underlying inflation, however, is still weak and is likely to remain so well into 2010.”

Germany’s economy emerged from the recession in the second quarter and growth accelerated to 0.7 percent in the third. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is spending 85 billion euros ($123 billion) to stimulate activity and the ECB has cut its benchmark rate to a record-low 1 percent as inflation risks remain contained.

‘Safely Below’

“Our interest-rate decisions are to be seen in connection with our price-stability goal, and in this context I do not see major threats for price stability in the near future,” ECB Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny said in an interview with Bloomberg News on Dec. 14. “Inflation rates will be on the positive side but it will be safely below the inflation target of the ECB.”

In the 16-nation euro area, consumer prices rose an annual 0.5 percent in November after declining 0.1 percent in the previous month. The ECB aims to keep inflation just below 2 percent. Data for December will be published on Jan. 5.

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The Bank of Montreal is predicting Canada and the United States will post gross domestic product growth of 2.5 per cent next year.

The growth essentially reverses a similar decline this year.

The bank is also predicting that the era of zero interest rates will come to an end just after mid-year in Canada and not soon afterwards in the U.S.

However, borrowing costs are expected to remain exceptionally low as central banks will wait until they are absolutely certain the recovery has taken root before hiking aggressively wired payday loan.

Despite the growth, the Bank of Montreal is predicting the jobless rate will still average 10 per cent in the United States and 8.5 per cent in Canada next year.

Inflation, however, is expected to remain subdued, averaging 1.5 per cent in Canada and about two per cent in the United States.

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Delinquencies among small and medium-sized U.S. business borrowers fell in October for a third straight month, according to PayNet Inc, which provides risk-management tools to the commercial lending industry.

The improved snapshot of accounts in moderate and severe delinquency is consistent with indications that business conditions bottomed out earlier in the year.

“The financial health of these millions of companies is stabilizing and the ability to repay loans on time is improving,” said Bill Phelan, president and founder of Skokie, Illinois-based PayNet.

Accounts in moderate delinquency, or behind by 30 days or more, fell to 4.07 percent in November from 4.25 percent in October, according to PayNet.

That marked the greatest improvement in the measure since June 2004. Delinquencies were running at the lowest rate since December 2008.

Accounts 90 days or more behind in payment, or in severe delinquency, fell to 1.43 percent from 1.45 percent, a third straight monthly improvement.

Still, accounts behind 180 days or more, or in default, rose to 0.87 percent in October from 0.84 percent in September, yet another new high for the current business cycle.

PayNet’s Small Business Lending Index, which measures the overall volume of financing, fell 18 percent year-over-year in October.

In recent months the level of decline has started to flatten out, but Phelan said many companies don’t see a pressing need for new business investment.

“Demand from the consumer doesn’t exist like it’s done in the past,” he said. “Business owners are not yet comfortable in expanding their companies.”

PayNet collects real-time loan information, such as originations and delinquencies, from more than 225 leading U.S. capital equipment lenders.

The company’s proprietary database encompasses more than 16 million current and historic contracts, worth $700 billion.

More than half the money invested in plants, equipment and software in the United States in any given year is financed with loans, leases and lines of credit.

(Editing by Leslie Adler)

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WASHINGTON–The apparent end of the recession and stabilizing financial markets have not cured the U.S. banking industry, as souring and past-due loans have reached the highest levels in 26 years, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Tuesday.

Banks earned $2.8 billion (U.S.) in the third quarter, but loan balances plummeted and the fund that insures their deposits was $8.2 billion in the red.

The number of banks on the FDIC’s "problem list" rose to 552 from 416 on June 30, the highest level in 16 years. Fifty banks failed during the quarter – the largest number since the second quarter of 1990.

The FDIC’s fund that insures bank deposits fell by $18.6 billion, mostly because $21.7 billion was set aside for expected losses on future bank failures. The last similar deficit was in Dec. 1991, when a predecessor fund was more than $7 billion in the red.

Separately, the Office of Thrift Supervision said Tuesday that thrifts eked out a $200 million profit in the third quarter. The agency called it "another break-even quarter," after a small second-quarter profit was revised downward to a $94 million loss.

Still, it was the first profitable quarter since the same period in 2007.

The nominal profit for the third quarter is $1.3 billion, but $1.1 billion is a one-time gain at a single institution.

The agency says the number of "problem thrifts" rose to 43 from 40 last quarter.

Thrifts differ from banks in that they are required, by law, to have at least 65 per cent of their lending in mortgages and other consumer loans. That makes them especially vulnerable to the housing downturn and unemployment. It also means they will play a key role in an eventual economic recovery.

The FDIC voted this month to require banks to prepay three years of deposit insurance premiums by the end of next month to help replenish the dwindling deposit insurance fund, which is at its lowest point on record. That will raise about $45 billion.

But bank failures this year through 2013 are expected to cost the fund $100 billion, so the prepayments won’t provide a long-term fix for the insurance fund. It does spare ailing banks the immediate cost of paying a second emergency fee this year.

Depositors’ money – insured up to $250,000 per account – is not at risk, since the FDIC has the option of tapping a credit line with the Treasury Department no checking account payday advance.

"While bank and thrift earnings have improved, the effects of the recession continue to be reflected in their financial performance," FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said.

A 2.8 per cent drop-off in loans outstanding – the largest percentage decline on record – showed that credit for consumers and businesses remained tight, she said.

"There is no question that credit availability is an important issue for the economic recovery," Bair said. "We need to see banks making more loans to their business customers.”

That’s especially important for small businesses, which get more than 60 per cent of their credit from banks the FDIC insures, she said.

Bank profits returned in the third quarter after a $4.3 billion loss in the previous quarter and $879 million in earnings last year. But analysts warned not to read much into the better earnings.

"A few very large banks are making a pile of money, and the rest of the industry is hurting," said Daniel Alpert, managing director of the New York investment bank Westwood Capital LLC.

The largest Wall Street firms are benefiting from a host of government subsidies – such as capital injections, asset guarantees, low-cost borrowing – that cost taxpayers without improving the economy, Alpert said.

"We’re creating riskless profits for the big banks," he said.

Still, banking analyst Bert Ely said the Federal Reserve’s low-interest rate policy is helping the whole industry.

Net interest margin – the difference between what it costs banks to borrow and what they pay to depositors – reached a four-year high.

It was a rare bright spot in the FDIC report.

That bright spot comes at the expense of consumers, who are earning historically low interest rates on their deposits.

"Americans are getting nothing in terms of interest on their savings so that the banks can make money," Alpert said.

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General Motors Co. will announce Monday it plans to start repaying a $6.7 billion loan to the U.S. Treasury by year-end due to modest operating improvements, a source knowledgeable about the situation said.

GM , due to unveil its first post-bankruptcy earnings report Monday, will begin making $1 billion quarterly installments on the loan on Dec. 31. At the same time, the automaker also will start repaying a $1.4 billion loan to Canada at a rate of $200 million per quarter.

GM was not required to make any payments on the U.S. loan before it matured in July 2015, but better-than-expected vehicle sales will let it start repayments much sooner than expected.

"The reason GM is in a position to do that is that they have seen performance that has been modestly ahead of what the expectation was when GM went into bankruptcy and emerged from bankruptcy," said the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the repayment plan.

GM vehicle sales fell off less than expected during its government-supported bankruptcy in June and July, which lasted only about 39 days. Sales since then, aided partly by government "cash for clunkers" incentives, have performed ahead of plan.

Early exit

As a result, GM has not been forced to burn through some $16 billion in taxpayer cash provided to the company when it emerged from bankruptcy. The source said GM has used only about $3 billion of these funds, which are contained in a restricted escrow account that cannot be accessed without Treasury approval.

GM will make its loan payments from the escrow account, the source said, adding that the arrangement resulted from discussions between the Obama administration’s auto task force and the GM board no credit check payday loans.

"It is consistent with the U.S. government’s focus on exiting the position as early as practicable," the source said.

The government stepped in to bail out both GM and Chrysler Group to save a key portion of the U.S. manufacturing sector from collapse amid the recession.

The $6.7 billion in senior debt is only a small portion of the more than $50 billion in taxpayer funds provided to GM. Much of this was converted to a nearly 61 percent equity stake, making the Treasury GM’s largest shareholder. Treasury officials have said they hope to sell shares in a GM initial public offering in the next year.

The source said this would not happen in the first half of the year, so the repayment plan would let GM reduce the loan by at least $3 billion "before any plausible IPO."

The repayment schedule also could be altered to accommodate IPO plans or accelerated payments, should conditions warrant.

But the source cautioned that GM’s condition was only modestly better than expected and it was not yet ready to repay the full loan amount.

"While there are modest improvements which were important and put them in the position to do this, they are at the very beginning of a difficult restructuring and are not in any way out of the woods," the source said. 

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