The Net Worth of the U.S. Presidents: From Washington to Obama

By Douglas A. McIntyre, Michael B. Sauter, and Ashley C. Allen
From: http://www.theatlantic.com/

The richest and poorest heads of state in American history

If you were curious about how much President Obama makes, or what Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy, or Reagan made, or for that matter what sort of annual salary U.S. presidents have been paid over time, it's all a matter of accessible public record. If you want to understand what our 44 presidents have really been worth, however, the answer is at once less straightforward and, historically, a lot more telling.

1st :: George Washington (1789-1797)

Estimated net worth: $525 million

His Virginia plantation, "Mount Vernon," consisted of five separate farms on 8,000 acres of prime farmland, run by over 300 slaves. His wife, Martha Washington, inherited significant property from her father. Washington made significantly more than subsequent presidents: his salary was two percent of the total U.S. budget in 1789.

Wikimedia Commons

To figure the comparative net worth of the U.S. presidents, we took into account hard assets such as land, estimated lifetime savings based on work history, inheritance, homes, and money paid for services -- which includes anything from a salary as collector of customs at the Port of New York to membership on a Fortune 500 board. We also took into account royalties on books, along with ownership of companies and yields from family estates.

The resulting values vary widely. George Washington was worth more than half a billion in today's dollars. Several presidents went bankrupt.

Of course, the fortunes of American presidents are vastly dependent on the economy at the times when they lived. For the first 75 years after Washington's election, presidents generally made money on land, crops, and commodity speculation. A president who owned hundreds or thousands of acres could lose most or all of his property after a few years of poor crop yields. Wealthy Americans occasionally lost all of their money through land speculation -- leveraging the value of one piece of land to buy additional property. Since there was no reliable national banking system and almost no liquidity in the value of private companies, land was the asset likely to provide the greatest return on investment, if the property yielded enough to support the costs of operating the farm or plantation.


Because there was no central banking system and no regulatory framework for commodities, markets were subject to panics in ways unknown today.

The panic of 1819 was caused by the deep indebtedness of the federal government and a rapid drop in the price of cotton. The country's immature banking system was forced to foreclose on many farms. And the value of the properties that were foreclosed on was often low, because land without a landowner meant land without a crop yield.

The panic of 1837 caused a depression that lasted six years. It was triggered by a weak wheat crop, a drop in cotton prices, and a speculation-induced leverage bubble in the value of land. These factors caused the U.S. economy to go through a multi-year period of deflation.

As a result of such factors, we see sharp fluctuations in the fortunes of the first 14 presidents.

Beginning with Millard Fillmore in 1850, the financial history of the presidency entered a new era. Most presidents were lawyers who spent years in public service. They rarely amassed large fortunes and their incomes often came almost entirely from their salaries. From Fillmore to Garfield, these presidents were distinctly middle-class. They often retired without the money to support themselves in anywhere near the fashion they were accustomed to while in office. Buchanan, Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, Hayes, and Garfield had almost no net worth at all.

The rise of inherited wealth in the early twentieth century contributed to the fortunes of many presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and both the elder and younger Bush. Another significant change to the economy was the advent of large, professionally organized corporations. These corporations produced much of the oil, mining, financial, and railroad fortunes amassed at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. The Kennedys were wealthy because of the financial empire that Joseph Kennedy built. Herbert Hoover made millions as the owner of mining companies.

The 20th century also saw the stigma of making money as a retired president begin to disappear. Calvin Coolidge made a large income from his newspaper column. Gerald Ford, who had almost no money when he was a Congressman, made a small fortune from serving on the boards of large companies. Clinton made millions on his autobiography.

We analyzed presidential finances based on historical sources. Most media evaluations of the net worth of presidents have come up with a very wide range, a spread in which the highest figure was often several times the lowest estimate. Most sources provided no hard figures at all. Largely, we have focused on the analysis of recent chief executives -- because it is much easier to calculate figures in a world where assets and incomes are a matter of public record.

One of the most important conclusions of our analysis is that the presidency has historically neither depended on nor assured wealth. Several U.S. presidents brought huge net worths to the job. Many lost most of their fortunes after leaving office. Some never had much money at all.

Click here to see each Presidents Worth: http://www.theatlantic.com/

The man who lives without money

Mark Boyle gave up using cash over a year ago and loves his new lifestyle.

By Jessica Salter

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Mark Boyle, the moneyless man

Mark Boyle, 31, gave up using money in November 2008. He lives in a caravan that he got from Freecycle (uk.freecycle.org), which is parked at an organic farm near Bristol, where Boyle volunteers three days a week. He grows his own food, has a wood-burning stove and produces electricity from a solar panel (it cost £360 before the experiment started). He has a mobile phone for incoming calls only and a solar-powered laptop. Boyle, who has been vegan for six years, set up the Freeconomy in 2007 (justfortheloveofit.org), an online network that encourages people to share skills or possessions and now has 17,000 members. The Moneyless Man: A Year of Freeconomic Living (Oneworld Publications, £10.99) is out now.

It all started in a pub. My friend and I were talking about all the problems in the world, such as sweatshops, environmental destruction, factory farms, animal testing, wars over resources. I realised they were all, in their own way, connected to money.

I decided to give up cash. I sold my houseboat in Bristol and gave up my job at an organic food company. I made a list of everything I bought and tried to figure out which I could get in another way. For toothpaste I use a mixture of cuttlefish bone and wild fennel seeds. Things like iPods you just have to knock off the list, but birds in the trees around my kitchen have become my new iPod.

Everything takes more time and effort in a moneyless world. Handwashing my clothes in a sink of cold water, using laundry liquid made by boiling up nuts on my rocket stove, can take two hours, instead of half an hour using a washing machine.

It was meant to be just for a year but I enjoy the lifestyle so much that I’m just going to keep living like this. I’ve never been happier or fitter.

I had a very normal childhood. I think at first my parents wondered what on earth I was doing. But now they totally support me and they say that they may even try it themselves.

Sometimes it is frustrating trying to socialise with no money. I grew up in Northern Ireland where it’s a show of manliness to buy your mates the first round. But I invite them back to my caravan instead to have homemade cider around the campfire.

I am single at the moment, but because of the book and my blog a few women seem interested in me. Just being a vegan cuts down the number of women I’m compatible with, never mind being moneyless. I’ll be lucky if there’s one woman in the whole country who wants to give up cash for life – and I might not even fancy her.

McDonald's to Double Restaurants in China

By ESTHER FUNG
From http://online.wsj.com/

SHANGHAI — U.S. fast-food giant McDonald's Corp. plans to nearly double its presence in the world's fastest developing economy over the next few years, senior officials from the company said Tuesday after they launched the first McDonald's Hamburger University in China.

McDonald's outlined its ambitious China plans at a time when relations between foreign businesses and Beijing are souring, with a growing number of Western companies complaining of a deteriorating operating environment in the country.

McDonald's, which has about 1,100 outlets in China expects to boost that number to a total of 2,000 by the end of 2013, said Tim Fenton, the company's president of Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, in an interview.

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Associated Press

McDonald's employees attend a training course demonstration Tuesday at the newly opened McDonald's Hamburger University in Shanghai.

The company opened just under 150 outlets in the country last year, and expects to open 150 to 175 outlets in China this year, Mr. Fenton said.

"China is our fastest-growing [market] from the income standpoint and from the revenue standpoint," he said.

The company opened its first outlet in China in Shenzhen in 1990 and now employs more than 60,000 people in the country.

The new outlets targeted for this year will create 10,000 jobs in China, Kenneth Chan, McDonald's China chief executive, said at a news conference earlier Tuesday.

The Hamburger University in Shanghai is the seventh in the world, and serves as the company's training school for areas such as local talent development and real-estate management. The company said the Shanghai school represented an investment of 250 million yuan ($36.6 million).

McDonald's global target for 2010 is to record sales growth of 3%-5% and income growth of 7%-9%, said Mr. Fenton. "And we expect China to be above that." The company posted net income of $4.55 billion on revenue of $22.74 billion for 2009.

China accounts for around 23% of McDonald's revenue from the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa regions, and its share is growing, Mr. Fenton said.

"The informal eating-out industry in China is about $300 billion right now, and it will grow about 10% this year," Mr. Fenton said, attributing the projected growth to the country's growing middle class.

Mr. Fenton said that while globally, around 80% of McDonald's outlets are franchised, the company has only six franchised outlets in China, It plans to franchise more over the next three to five years, Mr. Fenton said, declining to give specific targets.

Top Executive Salaries in America

By: Matt Buttell, Web Editor

From: http://meettheboss.tv/

Over the past three decades, executive compensation has risen dramatically, far surpassing the wage of the average American worker.

In a modern US corporation, the CEO and other top executives are paid salary plus short-term incentives or bonuses. This combination is referred to as 'Total Cash Compensation' (TCC). Short-term incentives usually are formula-driven and have some performance criteria attached depending on the role of the executive. For example, a CEO's could be based on incremental profitability and revenue growth.

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A variety of people and companies appear in AFL-CIO's list of 100 highest paid CEOs in 2009 from technology to food and consumer goods, to healthcare.

Leading the way

Leading the way, is Oracle Corporation, a multinational computer technology corporation, which by 2007 had the third-largest software revenue, after Microsoft and IBM. They gave their CEO Lawrence J. Ellison a total compensation package leading the way at $56.8 million.

Ellison founded Oracle in 1977, putting up a mere $1400 of his own money, under the name Software Development Laboratories (SDL). In 1979, the company was renamed Relational Software Inc., later renamed Oracle after the flagship product Oracle database. Oracle has faced its tough times though, 1990 saw it laying off 10 percent of its staff and having a near miss with bankrupcty. Over the year, Ellison has turned his company round. This year has seen the European Union approve the acquisition by Oracle of Sun Microsystems and has agreed that "Oracle's acquisition of Sun has the potential to revitalize important assets and create new and innovative products."

Then you have the likes of Proctor & Gamble in the list, a multinational company which manufacturers a wide range of consumer goods, and who is early 2010, became the forth largest corporation in the US by market capitalization, surpassed only by Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, and Walmart, who paid their former CEO, A. G. Lafley a total of $23.6 million in 2009, his last year before retirement.

Mentioning Walmart, their former CEO made it on here too. In 2009, their CEO, H. Lee Scott Jr brought home $30.1 million in compensation, which was mainly made up of his salary alone. But in actual fact, 2009 saw Scott leaving the company in the January. Walmart frequently came under criticism by the media and the public during Scott's tenure. Lafley is largely credited for turning around P&G during his tenure under the mantra 'Consumer is Boss'. During his leadership, sales doubled, profits quadrupled, and P&G’s market value increased by more than $100 billion dollars.

Only woman

The only woman to feature on the list is Brenda C. Barnes, CEO of Sara Lee, and previously the first CEO of PepsiCo North America. Barnes has been making a name for herself for a number of years now, having been ranked in Forbes list of 'The World's 100 Most Powerful Women' since 2004. Then in 2009 she appeared at number 29 in Forbes list of 'The World's 100 Most Powerful Women'.

Barnes has shown that after taking time out to raise a family, you can also achieve a career - a very successful career to be ranked. In 2009, Barnes raked in $15,231,519 in total compensation. By comparison, the average worker made $40,690 - she made 374 times the average worker's pay.

Justifying the numbers

To put this in even greater perspective even our nation's top political executive, President Barack Obama, earnt little over $400,000 last year. The debate as to whether CEOs warrant such astronomical salaries will undoubtedly rage on, even more so in the wake of such a devastating global recession. But surely, they must be doing something right...

A Look at America’s Billionaires

Stan Reybern
From http://www.billshrink.com/

America’s billionaires are an elite and diverse group of people who either through luck or hard work and strategy have managed to build fortunes that most of us will only ever dream of having. Have a look at how these individuals propelled themselves into the world of the ultra-wealthy and fantasize about what you’d do if you had billions to play with.

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The Numbers behind China (Infographic)

From: http://www.onlineschools.org/blog/china/


Via: Online Schools

Visualizing The National Debt

From: http://www.kiplinger.com

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Is credit card debt a hindrance?

By Ross Densley
From http://www.usfst.com/

US Credit Card Debt

With the recession forcing more and more Americans to burden their credit cards with debt, it's time to ask whether the increasing accrued costs are manageable, or are detrimentally impacting lives.

Unless you've had your head in the sand for a few years, you know times are hard. For those old enough to remember they aren't Great Depression hard, but for most of us, poor economy, lack of opportunities and a loss of jobs equal a rolling snowball which carries with it exceeding pressure to find money we don't have, and in turn means we turn to the plastic more than we would like.

And the numbers don't lie. In the last decade, 22 million more Americans have got their hands on a credit card, bringing the figure to 181 million, up from 159 million in 2000. This doesn't tell the whole story, as around half of the cardholders have more than one credit card, with 14 percent having up to ten credit cards, (yes you read that correctly, ten!) meaning the total number of credit cards in circulation in the U.S is estimated at around 1.5 billion. That means the potential for spending is gargantuan ($2.1 trillion in 2008 to be precise, up from 1.4 trillion in 2003) and in turn, the potential for crippling debt ($972 billion in 2008, up from less then $8 million in 1968).

Alarmingly, almost 15 percent of families have debt exceeding 40 percent of their income.

The average outstanding credit card debt for households that have a credit card was $10,679 at the end of 2008.

Debt by the numbers

In 2006, fee's alone cost consumers $17.1 billion. Over the past 10 years, household debt has grown by 147 percent, with credit card debt growing by 69 percent. Credit card debt slowed to less than half of household debt primarily because consumers borrowed against equity in their homes to pay down credit card account balances, says lowcards.

One look at the top ten some top credit card issuers in 2008 shows that credit card issuing is a profitable business. Topping the list is US Bank, recording profits of £1.07 billion, with Capital One also recording profit over £1 billion. Other top profits belong to Wells Fargo at $990 million, and American Express with $850 million. Only Citi Bank recorded a loss, at $530 million. This in part is because the average credit card APR is 14.9%, the average penalty/default rate is 23.9%, going as high as 32.24% (Chase), and the average late-payment fee is $25. Cardholders also pay $25 on average for encroaching over their limit fee.

The debt, it appears, is spread evenly geographically and demographically.

Undergraduate spending

Undergraduates have long been a target of cardholders, and with rising college fees, undergraduate credit card debt is averaged at £3,173 per student. One investigation highlighted nearly 30 percent of undergraduates put tuition on their credit card, an increase from 24 percent in 2004. In total, 92 percent of undergraduate credit cardholders charged textbooks, school supplies, or other direct education expenses, up seven percent from the previous study.

Thankfully this could become a thing of the past, as new laws are coming in to protect those students buying stuff on the plastic. The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act (CARD) is an attempt for consumer protection and should hold credit card companies more responsible, the CARD Act ends certain fees and the increase of high interest rates.

"This marks a turning point in helping to protect consumers from practices that have gotten us in the hole we’re in now,” said Jared Bernstein, chief economic advisor to Vice President Joseph Biden. “It’s unfortunate when young people get in over [their] head with credit cards."

In the UK, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has taken measures to protect those cardholders most vulnerable to rising debt, namely by forcing credit card lenders to change the way they make consumers pay off their debt.

Eighty-four percent of undergraduates indicated that they felt they needed more education on financial management topics. And with no light at the end of the recession tunnel, it seems its not only undergraduates who could do with help with regard to spiralling debt.

Credit Card debt accounts for just over 2 percent of America's total debt.

US 2010 Census: Who needs it?

By Dan Jones
From http://www.americainfra.com/

The US Census

If you haven't already, you should soon be seeing a envelope direct from the US government sitting in your mail box. Don't worry, you haven't done anything wrong it's just the government's once-a-decade population count.

120 million US Census forms are scheduled to arrive in US households today as the government do a head count in order to help divvy up congressional seats and more than $400 billion in federal aid. But government officials, along with private-sector leaders, are keen to point out that the data will be used not only on a federal level, but locally as well. Shorter than previous Censuses, this decade's questionnaire will only include ten questions in an effort to boost lower-than-average mail participation ten years ago.

Fair political representation

The Census is a decennial census mandated by the United States Constitution, with the first performed after the America revolution in 1790. Nowadays the Census determines how $400 billion in federal funding is spent each year. Hospitals, schools and roads are examples of infrastructure funding that the Census determines. It helps to know how many new roads need to built, and where they are going to be.

One other primary goal is to divide the 435 seats in the House of Representatives among the states. Because population changes so much as time passes, a census helps to keep things in order and determine if the nation is fairly represented politically. Your state's population in the 2010 Census will determine if it gains, loses or keeps House seats.

Even though it helps to know if you have a larger, stronger House delegation, there is more to it than the simple possibility of losing or gaining a member of Congress.

Growing US apathy toward surveys

The Census is very important to the business world and can have long-lasting implications for how successful a business is. Knowing the demographics of an area helps to determine advertising and marketing strategies, whilst non-profit organisations use the age and income data to examine the specific needs of each community.

The biggest potential obstacle to the Census being successful is the American people. Low mail participation means inaccurate data, which means policies will be affected on both a local and federal level. However, those who forget or just refuse to take part surrender the right complain about policy decisions based on the data.

A fine of $5000 is applicable for those who fail to respond, but that law is very rarely enforced

The AP shrewdly reports that even as it aims high, the Census Bureau predicts that maybe two-thirds of US households will mail in the form. That's because it faces special challenges of growing US apathy toward surveys, residents displaced by a high number of foreclosures, as well as immigrants who have become more distrustful of government workers amid a crackdown on illegal immigration.

On top of all this the logistics of carrying out a survey on this scale are sizeable to say the least, and a hell of a lot of work (and money) goes into making it happen. So, if for nothing else, reply as a means of making all this hard work worth while...

Starbucks and McDonalds Internationally - INFOGRAPHIC (PIC)

From: http://www.princeton.edu/

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Well, The Census Is Hiring

By Meg Marco

From http://consumerist.com/

(frankieleon)

Unemployed? If you're looking for something to get you out of the house, the Census is hiring and apparently they're really enjoying the sudden influx of lawyers and other professionals to choose from, says the Washington Post.

The WaPo says:

“

The Census Bureau expects to hire at least 700,000 people throughout the spring and summer for part-time jobs, paying $10 to $25 an hour, mostly to knock on the doors of people who don't send in forms that will arrive in mailboxes this month. Many of the expected 3 million to 4 million applicants will be like Williams: highly educated and in the prime of their working life but sidelined by a recession that has driven the unemployment rate to almost 10 percent.

”

So, what are they looking for? WaPo says you must be 18 and submit to an FBI background check that includes fingerprinting. it's also helpful if you are actually from a neighborhood where the Census needs people for canvassing. They figure that people are more likely to open the door to a familiar face.

Language skills will also be important.

Does this sound like something you'd like to do?

Laid-off professionals line up for part-time census jobs [WaPo]
[Census.gov]

When the land's worth more than the trees

By Amy Hsuan, The Oregonian

From: http://www.oregonlive.com/
December 26, 2009, 9:00PM
Part one of two



Torsten Kjellstrand, The Oregonian Travis Miller works on his family’s ranch near Glenwood, Wash., just southeast of Mount Adams. While many make a living in the woods in the area, Miller’s family also depends on forests, where their cattle pasture in the summers. Last year, Miller was one of several people from the area who traveled with the nonprofit Mount Adams Resource Stewards to New England to see how community forests work. GLENWOOD, Wash. -- For 100 years, Ponderosa pines nourished this logging town of 500 nestled along Mount Adams' southeastern flank. But in the past few years, a change has taken over the woods, unsettling residents and their relationship with the land.

Here and throughout the Pacific Northwest, investors have been buying millions of acres of forestland, betting on big payouts for their clients -- pension funds, university endowments and foundations.

Today, timber investment management organizations and real estate investment trusts represent the largest private landowners in Oregon and across the country.

Over the past decade, investor-owners have used one big advantage as they've quietly replaced traditional forest products companies: They don't pay corporate taxes. This month,Weyerhaeuser, the nation's last major publicly-traded integrated forest products company, announced it will become a real estate investment trust next year.



Torsten Kjellstrand, The Oregonian The nonprofit Mount Adams Resource Stewards has found ways to tap the forests for new products and more work for residents. In 2007, the nonprofit raised $300,000 from private and federal grants to create a new business out of low-value, small-diameter wood from forests surrounding Glenwood, Wash. With timber prices flatlining and real estate values rising, many private forestland owners are shifting their gaze to building homes rather than growing trees. Landowners elsewhere in the country, under pressure to maximize returns, have looked to convert forests into subdivisions and resorts as trees become less valuable than the land they occupy.

The unprecedented change in land ownership raises concerns about the impact on wildlife and natural resources, as well as the increased costs of protecting residents from forest fires. Nationwide, about 1 million acres of forestland are lost to development every year. In the Pacific Northwest, it begs the question: What does the future for forestry look like in a region defined by it?

In timber-dependent towns like Glenwood, the change carries the fear of the unknown. As landowners come and go quickly, their financial decisions could create a patchwork of forests and rural sprawl.


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"Without the land, there's nothing here," says forester Jay McLaughlin, who lives in Glenwood. "If we don't keep places like this going, they're going to end up being playgrounds for the rich or turn into ghost towns."

Investors take root
Institutional investment in timberland nationwide soared from $1 billion in 1990 to $40 billion in 2007, according to Yale University and other sources.

"When I first started in this business in the '90s, my job was as a missionary trying to explain why forestlands were a good investment," says Matt Donegan, co-founder of Forest Capital Partners, one of the nation's largest timber investment management organizations, which has a Portland office. "Now, people are seeking me out."

Between 1996 and 2007, 84 percent of the nation's 70 million acres of privately-owned industrial forests changed hands, according to a survey by Portland-based consultants U.S. Forest Capital.

"It's an astonishing rate," says Tom Tuchmann, the firm's president and a former adviser on timber issues to President Bill Clinton. "Increasingly, we're seeing even more parceling off."

Starting in the 1990s, federal limits on logging to protect wildlife species cut off a major supply of timber in the Pacific Northwest. With the constricted supply, timber prices shot up and private forests rose in value.

But as the bulky timber giants found themselves losing ground to competitors from Argentina to New Zealand, they narrowed their focus to operating mills and manufacturing wood products. In Oregon, timberland owners such as Boise Cascade and Georgia Pacific sold all their land -- hundreds of thousands of acres. Others fell into bankruptcy.

Wall Street snapped up the properties. Pension funds, endowments and foundations found timber to be a safe place to park billions of dollars as a hedge against inflation. Since 1986, timberlands generated annualized returns of 14.5 percent, according to the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries' Timberland Property Index.

Insurance and title companies, which invest policyholder premiums to generate returns, also opened real estate divisions. Fidelity National Financial, based in Florida, now owns 520,000 acres of Oregon forestland.

Around Glenwood, Hancock Timber Resource Group, a subsidiary of Manulife Financial Corp., is now the largest landowner. It owns a half-million acres across Washington and 140,000 acres in Oregon.

"Over the years, in order to maintain the insurance business, we've had to learn how to manage money," says John Davis, acquisitions manager for Hancock, which has an office in Vancouver. "There's a duality to the business."


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A jigsaw forest

From a bird's-eye view, one owner's land is indistinguishable from the next. But on a map, the roughly 111,000 acre tract formerly known as the Klickitat tree farm, looks like a jigsaw puzzle. The property has seen more landowners since 2000 than in the entire 20th century. In the past, long-time wood products companies like St. Regis, Champion and International Paper logged the forest 25 years at a time.

Now, investor-owners sell parcels every two years. In 2007, a group of six investors bought 82,000 acres. Last fall, one of the investors sold his 12,300 acres to another investment firm, now the sixth owner of the property.

"What happens when you chop the land into little chunks?" says George Hathaway, a former rancher who grew up in Glenwood. "You don't have a forest anymore."

Timber investment management organizations and real estate investment trusts, which have expanded like wildfire, have been hit by the recession along with others in the forest products industry. They wield a fundamental advantage: They don't pay corporate taxes, which range up to 35 percent. Instead, their shareholders or investors pay capital gains taxes of 15 percent based on dividends.

This month, Weyerhaeuser's board of directors approved the company's transition to a real estate investment trust for those reasons, says Bruce Amundson, spokesman for the Federal Way, Wash.-based company.

Clark Binkley, managing director of Boston-based International Forest Investment Advisors, says the tax advantages for investors have made it hard for companies to compete.

"Nobody said 'we don't want to have any integrated forest products companies,'" he says. "But now it's basically impossible to operate an integrated forest products company in the U.S."


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When it comes to big-ticket purchases, investment managers can raise millions of dollars through their investors, while companies must go to the bank and pay interest. Plum Creek Timber, based in Seattle, converted to a public real estate investment trust in 1999. Today, it's the nation's largest private landowner with more than 7 million acres, including 430,000 in Oregon.

"The primary reason why Plum Creek became a real estate investment trust was so we could gain access to capital to grow the company," says spokeswoman Kathy Budinick.

In Oregon, privately-held family-owned companies still hold millions of acres. But they don't have the same purchasing power.

"The timber investment management organizations can go to their investors and raise $100 million with no debt, no interest," says Steven Zika, CEO of Portland-based Hampton Affiliates, a family-owned company with 85,000 acres in Oregon. "Within the last five years, we couldn't make enough cash from selling logs to make the interest payment."

Tough economics
Jay McLaughlin's first glimpse of Glenwood was on a calendar, which lured him and his wife here for teaching jobs in 1998. McLaughlin left to earn a degree in forestry from Yale University in 2000, then moved right back.

The 37-year-old worries about the fate of the town, less than an hour from Hood River. Its mill closed in 1927.

"What's the future for a place like Glenwood?" McLaughlin asks.



Glenwood’s mill closed in 1927, but the town has long been dependent on the forests for economic survival. Today, logging and forestry continue to be a major source of employment through investment managers who have purchased timber land with cash from institutional investors. In the past, traditional companies owned land to supply timber to their mills. They invested in research to find more efficient ways to grow trees, their primary business.

Investment managers have an objective to maximize returns for their investors. And as the timber industry grows tougher, selling land for development has become an opportunity for all forest owners. In industry talk, it's called "higher and better use."

A growing gap in the economics of timber versus housing development ramps up the pressure. The going price for property at timber value in Oregon is $2,000 to $4,000 an acre. If it's sold as a home site, it's worth $30,000 an acre.

"There's a greater pressure to maximize returns and to find alternative revenue," says Ray Wilkinson, executive director of Oregon Forest Industries Council, a trade group that represents the state's largest private landowners. "The new ownership structure has investor expectations that are different from traditional forest products companies."

But hard times for the past several years mean even family-owned companies feel pushed in that direction.

"It takes 40 to 50 years to grow a tree," says Zika, of Hampton Affiliates. "With the recession, it's tough to resist selling a tract. We do more of it in tougher times."

In Oregon, where land use laws prohibit much development in forestlands, the pace of it has been far slower than elsewhere. In Montana, large homes speckle forests. In Washington, the loss of forests has been 10 times faster than Oregon, according to preliminary studies by the Oregon Department of Forestry.

Homes still crop up in Oregon. Between 2000 and 2005, more than 6,000 homes were built on land zoned for forest uses. With more people living in the woods, some worry about the cost of fighting wildfires, most of which are caused by humans. The closer the fires are to homes, the more expensive they are to fight.

"It's going to be a slow filling-in," says Gary Lettman, economist for the forestry department. "But if you put a house out there, it's going to be much more difficult to manage for wildlife and forestry."

Buying a forest
In Glenwood, a handful of new homes has sprung up, but the newcomers highlight a bind for rural communities. They bring fresh faces, but with second homes, they tend to visit only on weekends or holidays.

Across the country, development in forests forges once-unimaginable alliances between conservationists and the forest products industry. Now, the two sides work together to preserve "working" forests, pitching for financial rewards for tree-growing.

Biomass energy markets, which will make use of waste wood, and tax incentives for providing wildlife habitat, clean water and air could soon be on the horizon.

In Minnesota, forestland owners are paid recreation access fees of $8 an acre, which means $2.5 million a year for Forest Capital Partners, which owns 300,000 acres there.



Torsten Kjellstrand, The OregonianThe Shade Tree Inn is one of two main businesses in Glenwood, which has lost many businesses over the years as the forest products industry has declined. The inn’s restaurant serves as a defacto community center for the town. "Sometimes the gap between development and timber is too big," says Donegan, who hopes to see trees become more viable. "But we have to ensure our working forests are going to survive and we need to find a way to give forestland owners some rewards."

In 2003, McLaughlin started a nonprofit, the Mount Adams Resource Stewards. At Yale, he learned about communities in New England buying forests. Last year, he took a group of residents from the surrounding area to explore several projects in Maine.

"It really opened my eyes," says Hathaway, who sits on the nonprofit's board. "If we can buy this land, we can keep that money right here in Glenwood, and it doesn't have to go to Wall Street."

The new landowner around town is a timber investment management organization called Conservation Forestry, which sells lands to interested nonprofits -- a rising trend and a new opportunity for Glenwood. But to buy a forest, McLaughlin will have to come up with a lot of money.

"Everything has to be on the table right now," he says. "There is so much land changing hands, there's pretty radical things happening on the landscape. We need pretty bold ideas."

Amy Hsuan: 503-294-5137

The Christmas Season: By the Numbers

by: BillShrink Guy

From: http://www.billshrink.com/

‘Tis the season for Christmas trees, lights and gifts, and in the past that has also meant the season of outrageous spending. While the holidays may not be cheap, hard times sometimes call for desperate measures and drastic budget changes. Here’s a look at the hard facts and numbers of this most wonderful time of the year.

(click to enlarge)

N.J. restaurant offers customers 'pay what you can' option

By Karen Keller/The Star-Ledger

HIGHLAND PARK -- It’s not "all you can eat." It’s more like whatever you can pay.

A restaurant here is offering customers an innovative dining option — choose the size of your portion, then pay what you want.

Pay what you can at A Better World Cafe

People who can afford to pay extra help subsidize those less fortunate.

A Better World Cafe, housed in an historic brick church, is the fifth restaurant of its kind in the nation, which some are nicknaming "Robin Hood restaurants."

The original socially conscious eatery was opened in Salt Lake City in 2003 by a former acupuncturist and advocates of the concept hope it will revolutionize eating out.

"It’s about how we’re going to need to change our systems if we’re going to survive as a planet," said Tina Weishaus, a board member of Who is My Neighbor? The community group based in the Reformed Church of Highland Park co-owns the not-for-profit restaurant with Elijah’s Promise, a New Brunswick soup kitchen and culinary school.

Besides the lack of official prices — only suggested fares — the eatery uses mostly food from local farms and no plastic or Styrofoam. It also composts all food scraps and acts as a community forum by hosting talks and live performances by local artists.

The "Robin Hood" model aims to end hunger and waste and help bind local communities, said Denise Cerreta, 48, founder of One World Everybody Eats in downtown Salt Lake City. The entrepreneur has been living in Highland Park to launch the new restaurant and is in talks with "50 or 60" East Coast groups interested in copying the model. Among them is a Philadelphia foundation that wants to start a restaurant in Red Bank in Monmouth County, Cerreta said.

She said the idea has become a movement that’s gained so much steam that she moved out of her Utah home in August and is now on tour teaching people what she knows.

"I’m down to a suitcase and a cat," the Ohio native said.

Jennifer Brown/The Star-LedgerVolunteer Jacquelyn Juricic works the cash register at A Better World Cafe and takes the suggested amount and extra donations from customers. The Highland Park restaurant opened its doors Oct. 21. The simple dining room, with communal tables and metal chairs, has attracted roughly 50 to 125 customers a day, head chef Rachel Weston said. Three paid staff and volunteers serve food from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays. Advertising has been minimal: there’s no sign for the cafe in the front of the church.

Listed each day on a dry erase board is a menu of roughly a dozen items that change every week or so, with suggested prices. One item, the "complimentary community entree," is free to everyone. On Thursday the free dish was curried pumpkin chick peas over rice.

A person who can’t pay anything is allowed to eat only the "community entree," but can volunteer at the cafe for an hour to get a bigger meal with more choices. Weston said all patrons are encouraged to volunteer, to think, for example, "What if I came back and baked bread, or played the piano?"

Customer Kathleen Logue, 49, said she has been unemployed for two years. But she still paid $6, more than the suggested combined price of $1.50 for a cup of Moroccan tomato consomme and $3 for a medium slice of roasted tomato and Swiss cheese quiche.

"There are people worse off than me," she said.

Highland Park is an ideal town to host the novel restaurant, said Weishaus, with a mixed-income population that includes residents of housing projects as well as Rutgers University professors. The borough also boasts of progressive policies such as promoting fair-trade products at local stores.

The seed of the idea for A Better World Cafe was planted in January, said Lisanne Finston, executive director of Elijah’s Promise. She was giving a talk at the Highland Park church -- commenting that the richest nation in the world should not have to have soup kitchens -- when someone in the audience mentioned the new dining venture in Salt Lake City.

"It’s an idea whose time has come," Finston said.

Jennifer Brown/The Star-LedgerDiners enjoy lunch at A Better World Cafe, which only suggests prices on food items. Customers pay what they want, or nothing at all. Chef Rachel Weston, center, serves soups, salads, sandwiches and other hot entrees, as volunteer Jacquelyn Juricic, right, works the cash register.

McDonald's across the world

By Paul Terrance

Following the financial crisis in Iceland, McDonald's has decided to close its business and pull out of Iceland, as the country's financial crisis has made it too expensive to operate its franchise.

The first McDonald's in Iceland opened in 1993, the BBC reports, now 16 years on, the company has three outlets which it plans to close.

Besides the economy, McDonald's blamed the "unique operational complexity" of doing business in an isolated nation with a population of just 300,000.

Difficult decision

The franchises are run by a firm called Lyst, with owner Jon Gardar Ogmundsson saying the decision was "not taken lightly."

The restaurants imported the goods from Germany, but that costs had almost doubled, with the falling krona making imports prohibitively expensive.

Ogmundsson said the restaurants had "never been this busy before... but at the same time profits have never been lower."

"It just makes no sense. For a kilo of onion, imported from Germany, I'm paying the equivalent of a bottle of good whisky," he added.

His plan now is to run the restaurants under another name so that he is able to buy cheaper Icelandic products.

Iceland's banks collapsed at the height of the global credit crisis - wrecking the country's economy and forcing it to rely on an GBP£6.1 billion international aid package.

Around the world

After the news of the closure in Iceland, Business Management Europe has looked an McDonald's dominance around the world, finding that you'd find a franchise in most countries, with the most being in the US.

And what about price? You'd find yourself paying a huge US$7.18 for a burger in Norway, compared to only US$3.57 in the US.

And where can would you find the world's busiest McDonald's? That would be the one located on the famous Pushkin Square in Moscow, where you would find yourself greeted with seats for 700 customers.

Big Mac index

From Economist.com

How many minutes to earn the price of a Big Mac?

THE size of your pay packet may be important, but so is its purchasing power. Helpfully, a UBS report published this week offers a handy guide to how long it takes a worker on the average net wage to earn the price of a Big Mac in 73 cities. Fast-food junkies are best off in Chicago, Toronto and Tokyo, where it takes a mere 12 minutes at work to afford a Big Mac. By contrast, employees must toil for over two hours to earn enough for a burger fix in Mexico City, Jakarta and Nairobi.

AP

Nontraditional Jobs That Pay $100K

by John Rossheim
Monster Senior Contributing Writer

It's no secret that doctors, lawyers, traders and senior executives at large corporations typically earn six figures or more. But where are the $100,000 jobs for the rest of us -- the 140 million American workers who lack the inclination, the aptitude or the tolerance for student debt to go for the classic big-money careers?

It turns out that in the 2000s, there are quite a number of six-figure occupations. Here are just a few worth your consideration:

Technology

Developing nations may graduate more engineers than the United States, but we've still got enough jobs to keep salaries generous, at least in some specialties. Electrical engineers earned an average of $112,000 in 2005, according to the Employment Policy Foundation. Engineering managers earned a median salary of $97,000 in 2004, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"There's an absolute dearth of talent with three to five years of experience" in interactive specialties such as Web design, information architecture and usability, says Allison Hemming, president of staffing firm Hired Guns.

Senior Web producers can earn $85,000 to $110,000. "Interactive feels very 1999 right now," Hemming says. "It's a real opportunity for people who may have left the field and come back or are just out of college."

Can production workers approach six figures? They can if they're in the right high tech specialty. According to Jack Dolmat-Connell, president of compensation consulting firm DolmatConnell & Partners, some semiconductor fab technicians can make up to $90,000 with overtime.

Financial Services

Professionals involved in the provision of bread-and-butter financial services –- not just those ensconced on Wall Street -- often earn six figures. "Producers [salespeople] in insurance and branch managers -- those can average $120,000 to $125,000," says Dolmat-Connell.

Real estate may be suffering from an overabundance of new entrants, but long-term prospects for high earnings in pricey markets are still bullish. Real estate agent -– that's one of those quiet little jobs where you can make a boatload of money," says Bill Coleman, senior vice president for compensation at Salary.com. An agent who participates in the sale of 12 or 14 half-million-dollar homes per year -- easy to do in big-money markets like the Northeast -- is likely to hit $100,000 in commissions.

Entertainment and Hospitality

Can a worker ascend from burger flipper to six-figure earner? Not every day, but it happens. Restaurant managers can earn $100,000 at high-end restaurants and resorts," says Coleman.

For those who live near a casino, big earnings may be within reach, even without a college education. "The top 25 percent of casino pit managers earn over $100,000, with just high school and five years of experience," says Dolmat-Connell.

Security and Hazard Duty

Run-of-the-mill security guards generally earn low pay, but well-placed security professionals can do much better. "Security guards for celebrities can earn six figures," says Coleman. These jobs are concentrated in New York and Los Angeles, but sports superstars may have security based in their teams' hometowns.

Less-glamorous gigs can pay equally well, if work conditions warrant a premium. Oil rig workers must cope with hazardous and remote work sites, so high-ranking crew members earn up to $100,000.

Government

If you're a six-figure aspirant, the federal government may be one of the last employers to come to mind. But Uncle Sam is looking for thousands of professionals at this level each year.

"Retirement rates for midlevel managers are high; more and more, the government is hiring people from the outside directly into management," says Kathryn Troutman, Monster's Federal Career Coach.

And middle-management jobs in government may be better compensated than their private-sector counterparts. "Midrange professional salaries are much higher, and the flexibility and benefits are much better," says Troutman. These jobs generally fall into the GS-14 and GS-15 grade levels.

Here are just a few of the federal jobs that can pay $100,000 or more, according to USAJOBS:

• Air traffic controller
• Budget analyst
• Human resource specialist
• Nurse consultant
• Department of Agriculture district ranger.

Check out job opportunities on Monster.

60% living paycheck to paycheck

by Karen Datko

This post comes from James Limbach at partner site ConsumerAffairs.com.

Counting down the hours until payday? You're not alone.

As the economic downturn trudges on, many workers are struggling with household budgets. About six in 10 workers -- 61% -- report they always or usually live paycheck to paycheck just to make ends meet, compared with 49% last year and 43% in 2007, according to a new nationwide survey of more than 4,400 workers by CareerBuilder.

Thirty percent of workers with salaries of $100,000 or more report that they too live paycheck to paycheck, versus 21% in 2008.

Some workers are making ends meet by dipping into their long-term savings. More than one in five workers say they have reduced their 401(k) contributions or personal savings in the last six months to get by. Among workers earning six figures or more, a nearly equal number -- 23% -- report that they have also reduced their 401(k) contributions or savings.

While some workers are tapping into their long-term accounts, others are having a hard time saving anything at all. More than one-third -- 36% -- say they do not participate in any programs such as a 401(k), IRA or retirement plan, compared with 31% in 2008. In addition, one-third report that they don't put any money aside into their savings each month, while 30% set aside $100 or less per month for savings and 16% save less than $50.

"Workers are employing a variety of tactics to help make ends meet in this economy," said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources for CareerBuilder. "Whether it's by keeping a tighter budget, finding ways to bring in additional income or adjusting their savings strategies, workers are doing their best to weather the current storm. These good financial habits will not only help workers in the short term, but better position them for the future."

Haefner offers the following tips for riding out the economic downturn and preparing for the future:

• Keep track of spending. Create a spreadsheet to analyze what you spend each month, including the money spent on those inevitable invisible expenses, such as a morning coffee, cab ride or afternoon snack. Once you can see where your money goes, you can clearly see where you can cut back.
• Boost your income. One in 10 workers report taking on a second job in this economy to help make ends meet. Ask yourself if this is something you can handle on top of your current job and then pursue some viable options.
• Speak up. Talk to your HR department and see what is available to help you save on your monthly expenses. Even though times are tough, companies are still offering flexible spending accounts, wellness benefits, retail discounts, transit reimbursement and more.

Can You Live Without a Car?

• Laura Sullivan

Photo: Code Arachnid

I’ll spare you the environmental lecture—Just imagine your life with out a car payment. Sounds pretty nice, right? Read on to see how you can make it a reality. Even better: you don’t have to wear spandex biking shorts.

Honestly assess the cost of a car.

Of course your ride really costs a lot more than the monthly payment automatically usurped from your checking account. AAA puts out a nifty little publication yearly (http://www.aaaexchange.com/Assets/Files/200948913570.DrivingCosts2009.pdf), and has been doing so since 1950, that helps you assess the true value of a car, factoring in fuel, maintenance, tires, insurance—all of those things that seem to sneak up and empty out your savings account. (The average total cost per year is around $8,000).

If you are more digital than analog, try using this calculator, too: http://www.commutesolutions.org/calc.htm

What most avid bikers and public transit commuters say, though, is that it is a quality-of-life issue more than a financial one—though the money saved doesn’t hurt. A heart-pumping bike ride or subway ride with a paper (minus the crushing rush hour commute in a dense place like New York) simply makes for a better start to the day than inhaling exhaust fumes from the car in front of you.

Another thought: if you are exercising by commuting, you could also ditch the gym membership, at least according to one study about “active commuting”. Basically the study showed that people who walk or bike to work are less likely to be obese and have healthier blood pressure. (The researchers said more study was needed in the field, and that working out on top of an active commute is even better than the commute alone).

Find a bike-friendly city.

Most of the protests to going car-free have to do with hometown: It seems to make sense to be carfree in bigger cities with the cache for bike lanes and congestion that demands public transportation. But, surprisingly, the League of American Bicyclists conducted a comprehensive study of American cities, small and large, (http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/bicyclefriendlyamerica/pdfs/bfc_master_list_web.pdf), and square-footage, sheer size, doesn’t have much to do with bikeability. The #1 bike-friendly city in America, Davis, California is just 10.5 square miles, while the #2 bike-friendly city, Portland, Oregon, is 134.3 miles. Cedar Falls, Iowa? Tulsa, Oklahoma? Probably not at the first to come to mind when it comes to living without a car, but they’ve both recently made the bike-friendly list.

Population is also not a factor. Davis had 62,593 people in the 2008 Census, while Portland had 557,706. New York City, one the League’s list but not incredibly bike friendly, clocked in at over 8 million.

Communities are also pushing hard to promote biking, so check out the tax-dollar and charitable programs in your area. In Champaign, Illinois the Bike Project (thebikeproject.org) fixes up old clunkers and sells them on the cheap. They also offer a free class to teach people how to fix their own bikes to keep them on the road. A bike sharing program has started up in D.C. Public bikes are locked up in high traffic areas around the city. Swipe your card to unlock one, cruise for as long as your like, then drop it off at any of the docking points and you will be charged by the hour.

Choose your neighborhood wisely.

Buying or renting within a few miles of work may seem far fetched to some people, especially those in sprawling Sunbelt cities like Atlanta or Houston, but new zoning laws are looking to reverse that trend, for better or worse. Tax breaks are given in Atlanta and many other cities for new developments that are “mixed use,” meaning that homes and businesses are under one roof.

Also, a study published in August called Walk the Walk (http://blog.walkscore.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/WalkingTheWalk_CEOsforCities.pdf) shows that the so-called walkability of a city increases home values. Walkability here is defined by the social and shopping destinations that you don’t need a car to get to. The study ultimately found that, “Houses with the above-average levels of walkability command a premium of about $4,000 to $34,000 over houses with just average levels of walkability in the typical metropolitan areas studied”.

Consider going half-car.

No matter how many pains you go to trying to find the right place to work and live, there are going to be things that you don’t want to lug on the bike or bus, like, say, a Christmas tree or your weekly load of groceries. Clever car sharing companies, like Zipcar, are looking to capitalize on exactly that need for carless people. (http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/26/news/companies/zipcar_car_rentals.fortune/)

The idea is elegantly simple: Become a Zipcar member. When you need a ride, use an iPhone app or computer to find that closest Zipcar to you, which you reserve online. When you approach the car, touch your membership card to the window and the doors unlock automatically. The keys are inside, as is a gas card, and you are charged one flat rate per hour, about $8, depending on the city. Park the car in your hood and the process starts over.

As of January 1, 2009, Susan Sheehan of the University of California at Berkeley found that 24 car sharing programs in the United States has 309,437 members, definitely qualifying it as a trend that extends beyond one brilliant business idea. (In Canada, 15 organizations had 46,802 members).

Stimulus billions fund rural broadband Internet

For businesses in rural America, fast Internet connections remain a scarce luxury. A $7 billion stimulus program aims to narrow the digital gap.

By Sharon McLoone, CNNMoney.com contributing writer

Gault models one of her designs. She sells her custom clothing online to customers around the U.S.

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) -- Fast Internet access is a luxury most businesses take for granted these days, but in remote areas of the country, the staticky crackle of a dial-up modem connection remains a familiar sound. A $7.2 billion stimulus initiative aims to expand broadband access and speed up the modem's extinction.

Two federal agencies, the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) and the Agriculture Department's Rural Utility Service, each landed billions from the Recovery Act to fund new broadband infrastructure projects. Applications are due this week for the first wave of grants and loans from those programs.

For entrepreneurs in rural areas, a broadband connection can be an economic lifeline. Alexis Gault lives in Asheville, a city of 74,000 at the mountainous western edge of North Carolina. After losing her $8 an hour job as a photographer's assistant, she decided to turn her part-time hobby into a full-time career. Gault launched Lush Life Originals, a custom clothes line she sells online.

Designer Alexis Gault relies on Internet access from a nonprofit local provider to keep her business connected to its customers.

She relies on a speedy Internet connection to send clients e-mails with high-resolution images, maintain her Web site, and keep up with her site's e-commerce. But it's not a connection she takes for granted: Gault's Internet provider is a local nonprofit, the Mountain Area Information Network (MAIN), that relies on grants and fundraising to supplement its service fees.

"Time is literally my money. If I'm not sewing, I'm not making money," Gault says. "If someone orders something and it's not in stock any more, I don't have to run to the library to use their broadband connection to update my Web site."

Charter Communications offer DSL (digital subscriber line) service in Gault's neighborhood, but she is not able to afford its higher monthly fees.

Wally Bowen, MAIN's executive director, sees a direct connection between Internet access and economic prosperity. "One thing that we've learned is that people started making significant progress in their lives when they started using the Internet," he says. "They were able to start new businesses, manage their health care insurance and medicine online, and get more job training."

MAIN has been operating as a nonprofit in North Carolina's rural mountains since 1996. The group got its start with an NTIA grant to build infrastructure to give the area's residents dial-up Internet access through a local phone call. MAIN also introduced Internet access at local public libraries and community centers.

In 2003, MAIN expanded to offer high-speed wireless connections. Today, the organization serves 1,200 dial-up subscribers in 14 counties, 400 wireless subscribers across four counties, and hosts some 450 Web sites. Outside of MAIN, residents face few choices. DSL lines and higher-speed broadband are available from larger firms in the town center and immediate outlying area, but not much further.

"Six out of 10 people who want our wireless broadband service can't get it," Bowen says.

He sees wireless technology, which get around the region's hollows and hills, as the best and most immediate broadband solution for residents. But there's very limited spectrum available for him to offer customers service, a problem he's looking to the Federal Communications Commission to fix. The FCC took action last year to free up more spectrum for situations like these, but it has yet to issue protocols on how technology should operate within the spectrum. Until it moves forward with those rules, none of the spectrum that was freed is available for use.

MAIN, working with several partners, is angling for a $50 million grant from the $7.2 billion stimulus funding pool for broadband projects. That coalition is looking to build an optical fiber network that would bring broadband access to residents in three counties. MAIN is also seeking a separate grant to build out wireless broadband to local public housing, community centers and fire stations.

Without the federal funds, MAIN can't afford to roll out those services. Things would remain "status quo," Bowen says.

That's an option the U.S. can't afford if it wants to retain its global lead as a technology innovator. America is now ranked 15th in the world on broadband access, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It was No. 1 in the mid-1990s.

The digital gap within the country is widening. More than two-thirds of U.S. households now subscribe to a broadband service, compared to just one-fifth five years ago, according to recent data from Leichtman Research Group. But in rural America, only 31% of residents have a broadband connection, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The rural West leads in broadband connections, while the South is the worst laggard, census data says.

Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Initiative at Washington think tank New America Foundation, says lawmakers need to recognize that the state of the nation's broadband is an enormous, looming problem.

"Countries decades ago realized that you need to invest in highways if you want to have a modern economy," Meinrath says. "Those countries that didn't invest have been left behind. In the digital era, there will be those countries that don't invest and get left behind."

Do-it-yourself access

Not every region in need of a broadband buildout has turned to the government for money.

The city of Powell, Wyo., raised $6.5 million from private investors to build a high-speed fiber-to-the-home network for its 5,500 residents. The network took three years to build, and just launched in May. Qwest Communications (Q, Fortune 500) provides communications services in the area, but Logan says Qwest's connections are slower than the city's project.

"We've figured out an innovative way of funding this without taxpayers' money and without state, local or federal money," says Powell City Administrator Zane Logan.

TCT West, a regional communications company based in Basin, Wyo., is the city's service provider and has an exclusive contract with Powell for six years. "We're providing the infrastructure in the city, and we are giving TCT the ability to provide services and set rates," says Logan. "The idea was to keep businesses downtown and to attract more professional, technical-type businesses."

Logan has been down a similar path before. He was hired in 1992 as the city's electrical superintendent and worked to completely overhaul the local grid, from the substation to residents' houses. "It took 12 years, but one of the reasons I did that is because when a business comes to town they want to know who is your power company and how reliable is it," he says. "That got me to thinking about telecom."

He thinks the city's Internet gamble is already paying off: "Existing businesses here are expanding," Logan says. "People can stay at home and get as good and fast of a connection as in a big city."

Powell's broadband project has another economic fringe benefit: TCT West has been hiring Powell residents for customer service, installation and tech support.

Building a better map

The first step toward improving the nation's broadband infrastructure is finding out where the problem spots are. Some $350 million of the Recovery Act's $7.2 billion funding pool has been earmarked to map the country's broadband use and highlight which regions have high-quality access. The idea was put forward in a bill signed by President Bush last year, but the measure didn't allocate any funding for the initiative. The money showed up in President Obama's stimulus package.

Drew Clark, executive director of BroadbandCensus.com, a trade publication tracking the broadband stimulus funding, says better mapping data could be a boon for small businesses.

"A public and transparent map will be useful to helping businesses invest," he says. "You want to locate your business where there is broadband or where there's likely to be broadband. You need to know where the interstate highway type of connections are and where the dirt roads are."

The Federal Communications Commission has also been charged with presenting lawmakers with a national broadband plan by Feb. 17, 2010. One of its goals is to get affordable broadband to as many people as possible. The FCC is taking a flood of public comments on the matter and must digest them as part of putting together its recommendations. The issues it is grappling with include defining terms like "affordable broadband" and "underserved."

"We can restore economic vitality to underserved areas that for decades have not had the benefit of this IT knowledge base," says MAIN's Bowen. "People like [Microsoft cofounder] Bill Gates and others in Silicon Valley are bright people, but they had access to social capital to incubate and nurture them. The social capital has been drained out of rural America for several decades now. We can fix that."

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