Ill. state money to help fund railcar plant in Rochelle

Chicago's Metra commuter rail service awarded Nippon Sharyo a contract to build its next generation of railcars. Metra will buy 160 over the next five years.

Nippon Sharyo U.S.A. will receive $12 million in the form of a state business investment package to supplement $35 million in private investment

Click on the following for more details:  Pantagraph.com | News from Associated Press

The following are excerpts from Nippon Sharyo’s news releases.  See:  http://www.nipponsharyousa.com

cars for this [Metra] contract will be similar to the 26 gallery-type electric multiple units (EMUs) that were delivered in 2005 and 2006. The cars will accommodate up to 140 passengers each, and will replace existing cars that have been in service at Metra since the 1970s. Half of the new cars will be equipped with bathrooms.

The contract price is $560 million. Delivery is scheduled to start at the end of 2012, and finish by the middle of 2015.

The new strategy is focusing on two elements, one to increase competiveness in the expanding passenger railcar market in the United States, and the other to respond to the increased desires for “localization” of railcar assembly.

The new production facility is also expected to reduce total production costs by reducing transportation costs and by mitigating the risks of exchange rate fluctuations. Having a new production facility in the US also offers greater flexibility for production planning and delivery schedules while increasing the “local content” for Illinois and providing job opportunities in the Region.

The new facility will also enhance Nippon Sharyo’s consistent “on-time, on-budget” contract performance accomplishment on every United States contract over the past 30 years.

Nippon Sharyo has delivered an aggregate of 886 passenger railcars to the US market since early 80’s, and has complied with “Buy America” and local content requirements without exception by utilizing US suppliers and conducting final assembly in the US.

Nippon Sharyo decided to enhance its presence in the United States by building its own new production facility in Rochelle, Illinois. This is in response to the Obama Administration's initiative in support of passenger rail investments to create more jobs in the United States.

Indiana finishes marsh fence to stop Asian carp

 

Experts say flooding might let Asian carp cross from the Wabash River system into the Maumee River, which enters Lake Erie at Toledo, Ohio. That could threaten the Great Lakes' $7 billion-a-year fishing industry.

The project involves an 8-foot-tall fence held together by 123 posts and 120 concrete barriers in the Eagle Marsh near Fort Wayne.

Pantagraph.com | News from Associated Press

McHenry County Sells More Than 3,000 Delinquent Taxes

About 70 people from as far away as Florida were buying the right to pay McHenry County residents' real estate taxes in return for payment plus interest at some point later on

bid-down" one, the winner of each certificate being the person willing to accept the lowest rate of interest.  That was pretty low this year and some bidders dropped out in disgust.  One part-time investor over from Savannah said, "Two or three percent, that's not enough to make all the research and risk worth the trouble."

 

Click on the following for more details:

FirstElectricNewspaper: McHenry County Sells More Than 3,000 Delinquent Taxes

Chrysler to convert more ‘temp’ workers to full time

 

about 150 temporary workers at Chrysler Group LLC’s Belvidere assembly plant had been offered full-time positions so the company apparently is feeling confident enough in the economic recovery to boost full-time workers even further.

Click on the following for more details:  Alex Gary » Chrysler to convert more ‘temp’ workers to full time

11 state pension funds that may run of out money: Tech Ticker,

 

Illinois is just 8 years away from exhausting its pension fund and creating a yearly $14 billion hole, according to data from Joshua Ruah an associate professor of finance at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

That's a projected 32 percent of the state's revenue going to fill a pension hole. Every year.

Click on the following for more details:  11 state pension funds that may run of out money: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance

From Obama, the Tax Cut Nobody Heard Of - NYTimes.com

Democrats as they head into the midterm elections, their signature tax cut of the past two years, which decreased income taxes by up to $400 a year for individuals and $800 for married couples, has gone largely unnoticed.

Faced with evidence that people were more likely to save than spend the tax rebate checks they received during the Bush administration, the Obama administration decided to take a different tack: it arranged for less tax money to be withheld from people’s paychecks.

Click on the following for more details:   From Obama, the Tax Cut Nobody Heard Of - NYTimes.com

Town-saved-by-stimulus

Is this also  Belvidere and its Chrysler plant? But how many residents see it that way?

Kokomo is going back to work.

Economists disagree over the real nationwide impact of the massive stimulus jolt orchestrated by President Obama. But here in Kokomo, the Recovery Act and Obama's auto bailout have jolted Kokomo back to life -- keeping big industry from fleeing and attracting newcomers as well.

A year and a half ago the fate of this car town, home to four Chrysler plants and a Delphi facility, was as uncertain as the American auto industry itself.

Now, thanks largely to the federal government, the town's unemployment rate has gone from over 20% to under 14%.

 

Click on the following for more of the details: a-town-saved-by-stimulus: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance