"The recent surge in demand for our machines which produce a single cup of freshly popped popcorn on demand makes the protection of the Company's intellectual property rights all the more important, especially as we intend to develop other machines using our core technology. We believe the demand for healthy snack products, freshly made and not prepackaged, will continue to grow as consumers continue to become aware of the importance of healthy eating," said Mel Wyman, Pop N Go CEO.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Pop N Go Renews Popcorn Machine Patent
WHITTIER, CA--(Marketwire - May 16, 2008) - Pop N Go, Inc. (OTCBB: POPN), a leading manufacturer of healthy snack vending machines, is pleased to announce the renewal of its underlying utility patent on its award winning popcorn vending machine. Pop N Go's patent, with the continued payment of maintenance fees to the United States Patent Office, will remain in force until the year 2018 and will provide the Company the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling or importing popcorn vending machines using Pop N Go's patented technology until 2018.
"The recent surge in demand for our machines which produce a single cup of freshly popped popcorn on demand makes the protection of the Company's intellectual property rights all the more important, especially as we intend to develop other machines using our core technology. We believe the demand for healthy snack products, freshly made and not prepackaged, will continue to grow as consumers continue to become aware of the importance of healthy eating," said Mel Wyman, Pop N Go CEO.
"The recent surge in demand for our machines which produce a single cup of freshly popped popcorn on demand makes the protection of the Company's intellectual property rights all the more important, especially as we intend to develop other machines using our core technology. We believe the demand for healthy snack products, freshly made and not prepackaged, will continue to grow as consumers continue to become aware of the importance of healthy eating," said Mel Wyman, Pop N Go CEO.
Monday, May 12, 2008
A Fear of Big Demand for Corporate Loans
When times were sunny, banks promised scores of companies money for a rainy day. Now that day is here — and the banks, hard pressed themselves, are worried they will have to keep their promises.
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With the economy struggling, some corporations are starting to tap so-called revolving lines of credit and other forms of backstop financing. If others rush to do the same, the banks might have to lend hundreds of billions of dollars at a time their own finances are stretched, forcing them to raise money to cover the loans.
It is unlikely companies will reach for the emergency loans en masse, since such financing typically is used only as a last resort. Still, the worry is that the demand for cash might be greater than banks expect.
The potential exposure is enormous. Collectively, banks have pledged to lend companies more than $1 trillion. And because most of those loans have not been made yet, and many perhaps never will be, the banks have not accounted for them on their balance sheets.
“The fear here, of course, is what happens if they all hit on their revolver lines all at once?” said Neal Schweitzer, a senior vice president of Moody’s Investors Service, the ratings company. Banks might feel strained if they have to make even 20 percent of the loans they have promised.
Some companies have come calling already. In recent months Univision, Porsche, CIT Group and Sprint Nextel have for various reasons tapped lines of credit. A growing number of companies might soon follow suit, analysts say.
In recent years, when banks were flush, many lenders promised to extend credit to companies on easy terms in the future if the companies hired them to underwrite securities, advise on mergers or arrange other loans. And as they did for homeowners with weak credit, banks sometimes waived their usual lending rules for the corporate credit lines, making it harder for the banks to wiggle out of them.
Big banks like Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America have each promised hundreds of billions of dollars in credit lines to companies.
Bank of America alone had more than $400 billion of loan commitments outstanding at the end of last year, according to the company’s financial filings. Those figures excludes tens of billions of dollars in additional credit lines that the banks have promised consumers and homeowners.
A spokesman for Bank of America declined to comment beyond pointing to the bank’s first-quarter earnings, which listed its committed loans by industry. The bank has promised the most money to companies in the real estate, finance, retail and capital goods industries.
Even though the economy is struggling, Chad Leat, chairman of the alternative asset group at Citigroup, said few companies had tapped credit lines. A spokesman for JPMorgan said it was unlikely corporations would seek credit all at once.
“Even in the most volatile markets, including last summer, we have seen very few companies draw down their revolvers,” Mr. Leat said.
It is not unusual for companies to tap credit lines in tough economic times. Some turned to their credit lines last summer when the market for commercial paper, or short-term corporate I.O.U.’s, froze. But bankers consider it an insult — “an act of war,” as one put it recently — for companies to use revolving lines without good cause.
In February, bankers cried foul when Porsche, the German carmaker, tapped its revolving line to profit from interest rate moves in the market. Porsche said it was merely exercising its rights.
In general, banks are less equipped to make good on promised credit lines than they were only a year ago. Worldwide, the financial industry has suffered more than $300 billion of write-downs and credit losses over the last year.
Many banks hope to reduce, rather than to increase, some types of lending to safeguard their finances. Loans to companies with risky credit ratings are down 70 percent this year, according to Dealogic, a financial services research firm. About one-third of domestic banks surveyed in April by the Federal Reserve said they had tightened their commercial lending.
Some bankers say lenders are trying to dissuade companies from using some of their credit lines.
Geraud Charpin, the head of European credit strategy for UBS, said banks faced a quandary. While making loans is the bread and butter of banks, many of the revolving lines were negotiated before the credit crisis erupted last summer and carry relatively low interest rates that would be unprofitable for banks now.
At the end of last year, Mr. Charpin said, the banks were strongly discouraging customers from drawing on credit lines, as the banks feared their balance sheets could not withstand the additional strain.
“It’s annoying for them if companies are drawing on lines that were negotiated before the fall-over,” Mr. Charpin said. “But banks in general want to go back to the lending business. The last thing they want to do is anger good customers.”
In rare instances, lenders are trying to reduce companies’ credit lines or renegotiate the terms of the loans, particularly for companies that have fallen on hard times.
For instance, the Radian Group, a bond reinsurance company based in Philadelphia, recently worked out a new agreement with its banks that will enable the company to borrow money regardless of its credit rating. In exchange, Radian agreed to have its credit line reduced to $250 million, from $400 million.
Many company executives are reluctant to discuss credit lines publicly for fear of angering their bankers. But some say they are worried that banks will struggle to meet the growing demand for loans as companies reach for their credit lines.
“There’s a lot of people out there concerned that banks will not have the capacity to front all of their commitments if everybody drew them down,” said an executive at a large real estate investment trust.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Green jobs: environmental careers
A panel held in the Student Union on Wednesday evening addressed the topic of green jobs and their significance to the world community. Panelists in attendance were there to help students with their questions on the subject of environmentally friendly careers, and how they can go about obtaining one.
"A lot of students ask about opportunities in jobs and careers that have to do with the environment," said Ed Brodka, Career Services moderator for the event. "It is an increasingly popular topic even when just reading local magazines like the Buffalo Supreme, or newspapers like The Buffalo News."
According to Walter Simpson, director of UB Green, there is a positive feeling towards the profession that makes those who are involved more motivated to make a difference.
"Green jobs incorporate doing something you believe in and enjoy, something that is consistent with your values, and making a profession out of it," Simpson said.
According to Dennis Ryan, president of SSL Industries, green businesses are better than most corporations because of their potential for growth. SSL Industries provides commercial businesses with energy-efficient lighting that substantially reduces operating expenses.
On the academic level as well as the corporate one, saving energy has become an area of interest, especially at UB.
"A student researched how to operate vending machines more efficiently," Simpson said. "The cost of the vending machines was $50,000 a year, however, the student proposed various way of reducing electricity, and UB became one of the first campuses to have energy star vending machines, saving approximately $20,000 a year."
Students like Simon Gendelman, a senior communication major, and Dan Forte, a junior communication major, have already put their foot in the door of securing a green profession. Both students are active members of the ECO-sponsible team at UB and are passionate about making a difference.
"We are doing great things for the future of our environment," Forte said.
Positions are available with various companies for interns and recent graduates looking to land their first job.
"We are looking for self-motivated students who want to be a part of student organizations that are going to make a difference," Ryan said. "They must have initiative and the ability to execute a plan. [Candidates] should be able to step forward and seize opportunities to get involved in the green business."
Get started today with Pop N Go!
Receive Tax Free Income on a purchase with Pop N Go! With the US governments 2008 stimulus plan you can realize Tax Free income on your equipment purchase. New Pop N Go machines realize an up to 85% profit margin. With more than 10,000 US schools awaiting machines your machine already have customers awaiting deployment. With our simple machine management program your purchase will help to provide fresh & healthy popcorn for each of the US schools awaiting machines. These unique, self-contained popcorn vending machines, help satisfy the demands of each child needs with a low calorie healthy snack vs traditional candy vending machines while realize an up to 85% profit margin. Don't miss out on this years GOLDMINE! Call our toll free hotline to reach a representative at 866-373-3468. We respect your privacy and will never sell or share your confidential information with any other parties.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
U.S. Bank tops state SBA lender list
U.S. Bank and Veronica Pulley, a U.S. Bank official, have won the Small Business Administration's Lender of the Year Award for the state.
The bank generated the largest amount of loans to small businesses in Tennessee, increasing its SBA-backed loans by 13.8 percent for fiscal year 2007.
U.S. Bank SBA Division provided a record 5,353 SBA-guaranteed loans to small businesses nationwide, up from 4,703 in fiscal 2006.
In terms of loan dollar volume, U.S. Bank ranked third nationally among SBA bank lenders and fourth overall among both bank and non-bank SBA lenders, with a dollar volume of $486,384,707.
With a loan portfolio of over $60 billion, the SBA is the largest backer of loans to small businesses.
U.S. Bank is the leading SBA lender for loan dollar volume in Los Angeles , Nevada , Portland , Seattle, Spokane and Tennessee.
For Free Finance or Investing help call.
866-373-3468
866-373-3468
High Finance Laid Low
Except for oil executives, no group of business leaders is now more resented than the titans of finance -- bankers, traders, hedge fund managers. They are blamed for the housing crisis, global financial turmoil and a possible recession. But this broad indictment, though true, is only half the story. The job of modern finance is to allocate Americans' nearly $2 trillion in annual savings to its most productive uses; the paradox of finance is that its virtues and vices come tightly packaged together.
What we call "financial services" -- insurance and real estate, as well as banking and securities trading -- has been a growth sector. In 1976, it was 15 percent of gross domestic product; now it's 21 percent. The expansion has produced many benefits: more credit for families and businesses; more investment choices for people saving for retirement and anything else; more investment capital for start-ups and smaller firms. Unfortunately, financial advances have also created periodic episodes of massive waste that threaten to destabilize the entire economy.
The subprime-mortgage debacle is not an exception. Before that, there was the tech bubble of the late 1990s, when stock valuations floated into La-La Land and anyone with a business plan ending with .com could get money from venture capitalists. Earlier, the junk-bond mania of the late 1980s ended badly. According to finance professor Josh Lerner of Harvard Business School, there seems to be a regular cycle of financial innovation (good), imitation (good up to a point, because it provides competition) and finally suicidal excess. Herd psychology reigns.
The idea that enlightened government regulation can outlaw this cycle is at best an optimistic exaggeration. Some of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's new proposals for regulation are worth adopting: merging the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; expanding the Federal Reserve's powers. But the basic problem is that as long as people are benefiting from innovation and investors are making money, it's hard to impose restraints on the excesses. Only a crackup brings clarity.
In 2005, foreclosures on subprime mortgages totaled a modest 3.4 percent. Warnings about abusive and reckless lending practices went unheeded as overpaid Wall Street investment bankers stuffed the mortgages into ever-more-complicated securities. In the disastrous aftermath -- the subprime foreclosure rate is now nearly 9 percent and rising -- it's easy to forget the brighter side of financial innovation.
Consider mortgages. In 1980, they came in one flavor: 30-year fixed-rate loans. Because fees and closing costs were so high, it was hard to refinance into a cheaper loan even if interest rates fell. The rule of thumb was that rates had to drop two percentage points before refinancing made sense. Now homeowners can choose from many mortgages with different maturities, as well as fixed and floating rates. Lower fees and transaction costs (from automated underwriting, among other things) make refinancing attractive if interest rates drop a half a point or even less.
The story is similar for other innovations. Personal investment choices have mushroomed. In 1980, households had half their financial assets in bank deposits and savings accounts; only 34 percent were in stocks, and a meager 2 percent in mutual funds. Since then, Americans have diversified: In 2006, 25 percent of household assets were in mutual funds, 28 percent in stocks, and 28 percent in bank deposits and savings accounts.
Or take a more sophisticated innovation: the rise in the 1980s of "leveraged buyouts" (LBOs), now known as "private equity." On balance, the threat or reality of a takeover has improved corporate performance, says finance professor Steven Kaplan of the University of Chicago. But there's also a dark side, he says. In the speculative climaxes, the LBOs' bet is that companies can simply be bought with cheap money and later sold profitably in a rising stock market. If the bet fails, defaults will ensue.
It is often wrongly said that the present problems originated in the mindless financial deregulation begun in the 1980s, as if everything would be fine if the old financial system had remained. Actually, the old system -- dominated by banks and savings and loans -- collapsed. Many S&Ls failed when high inflation raised interest rates on their short-term deposits above the levels on their long-term mortgages. Banks suffered huge losses on energy, commercial real estate and developing-country loans. Securitization and other new forms of financing filled the void left by weak banks and S&Ls.
So modern finance has a split personality. Greed, shortsightedness and herd behavior compromise its usefulness. But regulation cannot cure this dilemma, because regulators can't anticipate all the problems and hazards, either. The best protection against human fallibility is to insist that major financial institutions have ample capital to absorb unexpected losses. Paulson's recommended reforms barely dwelled on that; Congress should.
What we call "financial services" -- insurance and real estate, as well as banking and securities trading -- has been a growth sector. In 1976, it was 15 percent of gross domestic product; now it's 21 percent. The expansion has produced many benefits: more credit for families and businesses; more investment choices for people saving for retirement and anything else; more investment capital for start-ups and smaller firms. Unfortunately, financial advances have also created periodic episodes of massive waste that threaten to destabilize the entire economy.
The subprime-mortgage debacle is not an exception. Before that, there was the tech bubble of the late 1990s, when stock valuations floated into La-La Land and anyone with a business plan ending with .com could get money from venture capitalists. Earlier, the junk-bond mania of the late 1980s ended badly. According to finance professor Josh Lerner of Harvard Business School, there seems to be a regular cycle of financial innovation (good), imitation (good up to a point, because it provides competition) and finally suicidal excess. Herd psychology reigns.
The idea that enlightened government regulation can outlaw this cycle is at best an optimistic exaggeration. Some of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's new proposals for regulation are worth adopting: merging the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; expanding the Federal Reserve's powers. But the basic problem is that as long as people are benefiting from innovation and investors are making money, it's hard to impose restraints on the excesses. Only a crackup brings clarity.
In 2005, foreclosures on subprime mortgages totaled a modest 3.4 percent. Warnings about abusive and reckless lending practices went unheeded as overpaid Wall Street investment bankers stuffed the mortgages into ever-more-complicated securities. In the disastrous aftermath -- the subprime foreclosure rate is now nearly 9 percent and rising -- it's easy to forget the brighter side of financial innovation.
Consider mortgages. In 1980, they came in one flavor: 30-year fixed-rate loans. Because fees and closing costs were so high, it was hard to refinance into a cheaper loan even if interest rates fell. The rule of thumb was that rates had to drop two percentage points before refinancing made sense. Now homeowners can choose from many mortgages with different maturities, as well as fixed and floating rates. Lower fees and transaction costs (from automated underwriting, among other things) make refinancing attractive if interest rates drop a half a point or even less.
The story is similar for other innovations. Personal investment choices have mushroomed. In 1980, households had half their financial assets in bank deposits and savings accounts; only 34 percent were in stocks, and a meager 2 percent in mutual funds. Since then, Americans have diversified: In 2006, 25 percent of household assets were in mutual funds, 28 percent in stocks, and 28 percent in bank deposits and savings accounts.
Or take a more sophisticated innovation: the rise in the 1980s of "leveraged buyouts" (LBOs), now known as "private equity." On balance, the threat or reality of a takeover has improved corporate performance, says finance professor Steven Kaplan of the University of Chicago. But there's also a dark side, he says. In the speculative climaxes, the LBOs' bet is that companies can simply be bought with cheap money and later sold profitably in a rising stock market. If the bet fails, defaults will ensue.
It is often wrongly said that the present problems originated in the mindless financial deregulation begun in the 1980s, as if everything would be fine if the old financial system had remained. Actually, the old system -- dominated by banks and savings and loans -- collapsed. Many S&Ls failed when high inflation raised interest rates on their short-term deposits above the levels on their long-term mortgages. Banks suffered huge losses on energy, commercial real estate and developing-country loans. Securitization and other new forms of financing filled the void left by weak banks and S&Ls.
So modern finance has a split personality. Greed, shortsightedness and herd behavior compromise its usefulness. But regulation cannot cure this dilemma, because regulators can't anticipate all the problems and hazards, either. The best protection against human fallibility is to insist that major financial institutions have ample capital to absorb unexpected losses. Paulson's recommended reforms barely dwelled on that; Congress should.
For Free Finance or Investing help call.
866-373-3468
866-373-3468
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