Tampa Bay business news blog: Venture | Tampa Bay Times

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07/07/10--05:23: Analyst report targets home builders with concentrated housing risks near gulf oil spill (chan 2091202)

Wake up and good morning. Here it comes. Wall Street analysts are starting to dissect the gulf coast economy and identify those businesses that are at greater risk to exposure to the BP oil spill. This Citigroup analyst planted his...


07/08/10--05:05: Wage hikes in Tampa Bay counties show some muscle, and what's cooking in Alachua? (chan 2091202)

Wake up and good morning. Tampa Bay area counties may be losing jobs but those that have them saw better wage increases than most folks in the country. From December 2008 to December 2009, employment declined in 325 of the...


07/09/10--05:56: Offshore drilling ban or not, real need is for a state policy to broaden energy sources (chan 2091202)

Wake up and good morning. Today's front page headlines in Florida newspapers focus on Gov. Charlie Crist's decision to call a special legislative session this month to try and ban on offshore drilling near Florida. That's all well and good...


07/14/10--05:01: RIP The Boss: His passing in 2010 assures family it can afford to hold on to Yankees (chan 2091202)

Wake up and good morning. Leave it to The Boss, George Steinbrenner, to be thinking about his cherished New York Yankees baseball empire even in his passing away. Steinbrenner's death occurred six months after the federal estate tax expired, potentially...


07/15/10--05:42: Among Florida few, Moffitt, Tampa General, Shands shine in U.S. News hospital rankings (chan 2091202)

Wake up and good morning. U.S. News & World Report's latest rankings of the country's best hospitals are out. While Florida hospitals rarely rank among the elite (there are a few specialty exceptions), it's good information to see what hospitals...


07/16/10--05:01: So how will Florida really know when BP has paid enough to cover this economic disaster? (chan 2091202)

Wake up and good morning. Let's celebrate -- absolutely -- the successful capping (for now) of the BP oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. Forever may it hold. But let's focus today on the future of BP, namely: Will...


07/19/10--05:10: Policing nasty Internet content: A growth business attracting more outsourcing firms (chan 2091202)

Wake up and good morning. A curious and sobering story popped up yesterday in the New York Times about a technology vocation that unfortunately seems to have growth potential and, thus, is apparently attracting players like Tampa's Sykes Enterprises. It's...


07/20/10--04:18: As Florida resentment rises over spill, new report warns of job, economic losses ahead (chan 2091202)

Wake up and good morning. We may as well get used to analysts taking a stab at the economic damage generated by the BP gulf oil spill because there will be a lot of these reports coming in the months...


07/21/10--04:29: FBI annual mortgage fraud report: Tampa Bay red hot for pending investigations (chan 2091202)

Wake up and good morning. Thought you'd like to see where the hotbed states of mortgage fraud are from a national perspective, courtesy of this map from the FBI's 2009 annual report on mortgage fraud. To be clear, those dark...


07/26/10--05:07: Daily posts on this Venture blog will resume soon (chan 2091202)

Wake up and good morning. Dear Venture blog reader. I'm taking a brief summer break but will be back here blogging every business day very soon. Regards, Robert Trigaux, Times Business Columnist


07/28/10--09:51: Venture Blog is on the move (chan 2091202)

The Venture blog is on the move — but not too far. All the latest Tampa Bay and Florida business news has a new home at tampabay.com. You'll still find all our posts on local schools, the FCAT, class size...


10/01/10--04:11: IRS delivers: Hail 'Revenue Procedure 2010-36' for allowing tainted drywall deduction (chan 2091202)

Wake up and good morning. Some practical news today. After months if not years of federal fiddling over the epidemic of Chinese drywall "disease" affecting thousands of Florida homes, the Internal Revenue Service (of all agencies) offers some help. The IRS now says it will allow taxpayers with defective drywall in their houses to deduct the cost of repairs and replacement of damaged appliances. (AP photo: A homeowner points to metal corrosion on her air conditoner system from tainted drywall.)

The IRS has even given the new 6-page ruling a sexy name: Revenue Procedure 2010-36. Here it is, if you dare to peek. ... Read more




10/04/10--04:05: Backlash against Florida foreclosure fiasco gains momentum (chan 2091202)

Wake up and good morning. The coming disaster that is the screwed-up Florida foreclosure process is suddenly in the fast lane. I wrote a Sunday column in the St. Petersburg Times pointing out the general crisis of banks and law firms jamming flawed homeowner documentation through an overwhelmed state court systems manned by too many judges who don't understand or care that they are signing off on foreclosure judgments based on bogus ownership and blighted titles. ... Read more




10/05/10--04:32: Is Florida's high-speed rail system DOA if Rick Scott becomes governor? (chan 2091202)



Update: Don't think this is likely? Check out this story about what may be about to happen in New Jersey...

Wake up and good morning. Could the planned high-speed rail line between Tampa and Orlando fail to materialize (again) if Rick Scott is elected governor? There's been little written in the Florida media about the disconnect between Scott and the arrival of high-speed rail in Florida, but the truth is that Scott does not want any rail system that would require indefinite subsidies. That's an admirable, if naive stance, since many road systems in Florida are subsidized in some fashion and, under Scott's philosophy, apparently should fall under that same ban. ... Read more




10/06/10--04:28: Can this monumental mortgage foreclosure train wreck be salvaged? (chan 2091202)

Wake up and good morning. We may not  have high-speed rail (yet), but the stop-the-foreclosure-fiasco bullet train is leaving the station. Suddenly, everybody's decided to recognize (or should I say confess) that the foreclosure legal process in Florida and increasingly in other states has fallen off the tracks, imperiling clear title home ownership in the country and endangering our economic recovery. We reported extensively about this in a St. Petersburg Times Sunday column here and in a follow-up Venture blog posting here on Monday. ... Read more




10/07/10--04:16: Big Tobacco wins two recent Florida smoking cases but thousands of lawsuits await trial (chan 2091202)

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10/08/10--04:01: With rise of blighted titles, foreclosed homes start to get yanked off market (chan 2091202)

Wake up and good morning. Now that a wider audience is starting to realize the nation's home mortgage foreclosure mass production system is broken, real estate markets are roiling. Foreclosed homes that were on the market for sale, and even those that were moments away from final sales are being rapidly pulled off the market. A poignant example here in the Tampa Bay market appears on this WTSP Channel 10 report out of Wesley Chapel where buyer Joshua Cooper, after a long house hunt, was ready to close on a four-bedroom home on Chapel Pines Boulevard. Then the house was suddenly taken off the market. As WTSP is told by Peter Murphy, president of Home Encounter: Hundreds of foreclosed homes have been pulled off the market in recent days. Read the story and watch the video report here. ... Read more




10/11/10--04:40: Census: Florida still a top migration magnet for states from Georgia to Alaska (chan 2091202)

Wake up and good morning. Good news for the weary Sunshine State. Florida is tied with California and Texas for top honors as America’s strongest population magnets. Each is the top destination for movers from six other states. So says a report from the U.S. Census Bureau, which released 2007-08 migration data collected by its annual American Community Survey. It identifies the states that attract the greatest number of movers from other states. (Photo: Fort De Soto Park in Pinellas County, by Lara Cerri of the St. Petersburg Times.) ... Read more




10/12/10--04:24: Bright House Networks, Verizon FiOS grab good satisfaction ratings in JD Power surveys (chan 2091202)

Wake up and good morning. Everybody has issues with their telephone and cable TV provider. But take heart, Tampa Bay: The area's two dominant providers -- Bright House Networks and Verizon -- get good marks (certainly above average marks) in the latest J.D. Power surveys of customer satisfaction.

Gripe all you want about Bright House or Verizon. Just be glad this area is not served by the likes of Charter, Century Link or Time Warner Cable when it comes to telephone service, or MediaCom, Comcast or Charter when it comes to TV service. They all rate at or near the bottom in the southern region of the country for customer satisfaction. ... Read more




10/13/10--06:25: With damaged assets on Florida Panhandle, St. Joe Co. goes after Deepwater culprits (chan 2091202)

Wake up and good morning. What Florida company is stepping  out on its own and going after the oil exploration corporations it believes made a mess of the Gulf of Mexico and, in turn, its own bottom line?

St. Joe Co., that's who. The giant real estate development company, which last year moved its headquarters from Jacksonville to the Panhandle (or Northwest Florida, as St. Joe hopes to rebrand it), on Tuesday said it sued Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig that BP was leasing when the Macondo well blew on April 20. (See photo.) ... Read more