Rick Perry Lost Big With Tesla Deal

Texas Gov. Rick Perry's charms were apparently lost on electric carmaker Tesla.

Despite Perry's shoddy record on clean energy, the former Republican presidential candidate desperately wanted Tesla to build its $5 billion battery factory in the Lone Star State. Perry personally led negotiations with Tesla over its so-called Gigafactory, which is expected to create 6,500 jobs. The governor even drove a Tesla Model S through California’s state capital in June, in a public stunt that the Los Angeles Times found surmountable to “stalking.”

“Tesla’s a big project,” Perry said during an interview with “Opening Bell” on Fox Business News in March. “I think the cachet of being able to say we put that manufacturing facility in our state is hard to pass up.”

All for naught. On Thursday, Tesla settled on Nevada as the location for its $5 billion 'Gigafactory,' ending a monthslong contest with Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Tesla’s home state of California.

“It’s disappointing; he’s got to face it as a disappointment,” Peter Cowen, the managing director of technology investment banking firm Clear Capital Advisors, told The Huffington Post on Friday. “This one was a high-stakes battle and he lost.”

Part of the problem for Perry was a Texas law that bans car manufacturers from selling directly to customers. Because Tesla doesn't franchise its dealerships, it can't sell cars in the state. Though Perry said in March he wanted to lift the ban, it still proved to be a turn-off for the carmaker.

The ban “doesn’t make us feel good as we look to build a plant" in Texas, Diarmuid O’Connell, vice president of business development for Tesla, told The Huffington Post in June. O’Connell said economics would ultimately sway the company's decision.

A Tesla spokeswoman did not respond to a question about whether the continued sales ban factored into its decision, instead forwarding along quotes from CEO Elon Musk's press conference in Carson City, Nevada, on Thursday.

Perry had cause for hope. Earlier this year, he convinced Toyota to move its headquarters from California to suburban Dallas. Texas has a state Enterprise Fund, established by Perry in 2003, to serve as a “deal-closing” coffer from which officials can draw to bolster Texas’s business bids in interstate competitions. To boot, Texas has no corporate income tax.

Texas residents may have lucked out, as added incentives from the state could have ended up costing taxpayers. As it was, Texas was offering a tax package worth between $800 million and $900 million, according to the Austin American-Statesman. Nevada is coughing up $1.3 billion to seal its deal with the carmaker.

A spokesman for Perry’s office did not immediately respond to a call requesting comment.

Why Tesla picked Nevada is not totally clear. Musk said the reasons went beyond money.

“This was not the biggest incentive package, it wasn’t just about the incentives,” Musk said at the press conference. “What the people of Nevada have created is a state where you can be very agile, where you can move quickly and get things done.”

That may mean geography worked in Nevada’s favor. The ideal location for the company was probably California: It's Tesla's biggest market and fairly close to western Canada, where Tesla may soon begin getting some of its raw materials, according to Carter Driscoll, a senior analyst at the investment bank MLV & Co who covers Tesla.

The Golden State wasn't able to come up with an incentives packages on deadline, however. So neighboring Nevada may have proved the next best thing. Plus, there were those massive tax breaks. Perry can't win 'em all.

24 Years Of America's Unemployment Rate In 10 Seconds

The 2009 financial crisis wreaked havoc on American workers. This map gives a sense of just how dramatic its effect was on employment.

The map, created by data designer 'Metric Maps' and originally posted to Reddit, uses county-level data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to depict the annual unemployment rate for every county in the U.S. from 1990 to 2013. Relatively low unemployment in the late '90s and early 2000s gives way to an explosion of red (denoting counties with an unemployment rate of 8 percent or greater) in 2009 following the crash.

Check it out below:

McDonald's Says Russian Officials Shut Down 12 Locations

MOSCOW, Aug 29 (Reuters) - McDonald's said on Friday that a total of 12 of its branches in Russia had been temporarily closed over the state food safety regulator's allegations of sanitary violations.

The U.S. fast-food chain, which has 440 restaurants in the country, also said that more than 100 inspections were underway at its restaurants in various regions of Russia.

"We are studying the essence of claims in order to determine the necessary actions for the swift re-opening of restaurants for visitors," it said in a statement. (Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Pravin Char)

From Wednesday:

MOSCOW, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Russian courts on Wednesday backed the temporary closure of three McDonald's restaurants in Moscow for breaches of sanitary rules, amid a standoff with the West over Ukraine, while the state food safety watchdog suspended work at a fourth.

The three restaurants - on Moscow's Manezh square, under the walls of the Kremlin, at Pushkin Square and on Prospect Mira - have been closed since last week on the orders of the watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor. The court rulings confirmed that decision.

Rospotrebnadzor has introduced sweeping checks, including unscheduled inspections, at McDonald's restaurants across the country.

On Wednesday it ordered the temporary closure of a fourth branch in the capital - the sixth nationwide.

Russian businessmen have said the crackdown is linked to the crisis over Ukraine, which has soured U.S.-Russian relations and led to a round of sanctions and trade restrictions. Rospotrebnadzor has denied that its actions are politically motivated.

McDonald's said it would appeal the court rulings, which ordered the three Moscow branches to be closed for 90 days.

"We do not agree with the courts' decisions and will appeal them according to established procedures. We will continue to take care of our employees and do everything we can to continue successful operations in Russia," said a spokeswoman for the U.S. firm in Russia.

A lawyer representing McDonald's in the court, Maksim Titarenko, was also quoted as saying the courts' decisions to close the branches were unjustified.

"The court has ordered the maximum penalty under this article of the administrative offenses code although there are no grounds for it," Interfax news agency quoted Titarenko as saying.

A court in the Urals region delivered a similar ruling on Wednesday when it ordered the closure of a McDonald's restaurant in the city of Yekaterinburg for 85 days, backing the food safety watchdog's decision the day before.

McDonald's operates 440 restaurants in Russia and considers the country one of its top seven markets outside the United States and Canada, according to its 2013 annual report. Almost 1 million people a day visit its restaurants in Russia. (Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Additional reporting by Natalia Shurmina in Yekaterinburg; Editing by Louise Heavens and Pravin Char)

Some Insurers Ignore Obamacare, Refuse To Cover Birth Control

Provided by Kaiser Health News.

How much leeway do employers and insurers have in deciding whether they’ll cover contraceptives without charge and in determining which methods make the cut?

Not much, as it turns out, but that hasn’t stopped some from trying.

Kaiser Health News readers still write in regularly describing battles they’re waging to get the birth control coverage they’re entitled to.

In one of those messages recently, a woman said her insurer denied free coverage for the NuvaRing. This small plastic device, which is inserted into the vagina, works for three weeks at a time by releasing hormones similar to those used by birth control pills. She said her insurer told her she would be responsible for her contraceptive expenses unless she chooses an oral generic birth control pill. The NuvaRing costs between $15 and $80 a month, according to Planned Parenthood.

Under the health law, health plans have to cover the full range of FDA-approved birth control methods without any cost sharing by women, unless the plan falls into a limited number of categories that are excluded, either because it’s grandfathered under the law or it’s for is a religious employer or house of worship. Following the recent Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby case, some private employers that have religious objections to providing birth control coverage as a free preventive benefit will also be excused from the requirement.

In addition, the federal government has given plans some flexibility by allowing them to use "reasonable medical management techniques" to keep their costs under control. So if there is both a generic and a brand-name version of a birth-control pill available, for example, a plan could decide to cover only the generic version without cost to the patient.

As for the NuvaRing, even though they may use the same hormones, the pill and the ring are different methods of birth control. As an official from the federal Department of Health and Human Services said in an email, "The pill, the ring and the patch are different types of hormonal methods … It is not permissible to cover only the pill, but not the ring or the patch."

Guidance from the federal government clearly states that the full range of FDA-approved methods of birth control must be covered as a preventive benefit without cost sharing. That includes birth control pills, the ring or patch, intrauterine devices and sterilization, among others.

But despite federal guidance, “we’ve seen this happen, plenty,” says Adam Sonfield, a senior public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research and education organization. “Clearly insurance companies think things are ambiguous enough that they can get away with it.”

If you are denied coverage, your defense is to appeal the decision, and get your state insurance department involved.

“The state has the right and responsibility to enforce this law,” says Sonfield.

Store Employee Ties Elderly Man's Shoe Strings (And Tugs At Our Heartstrings) In Viral Pic

One simple act of kindness is catching the attention of thousands of people online.

Keith Kiel of Ormond Beach, Florida, was shopping at a Publix grocery store last week when he spotted an employee there in the midst of a good deed, according to a post on his Facebook page.

The employee, Gage Boucher, was assisting an elderly man who could not bend over to tie his shoe. Boucher quickly helped the man by bending down and tying both shoes for him. Kiel snapped a photo of the act on his iPhone and uploaded it to Facebook. In less than a week, the photo has received thousands of likes and shares.

Post by Keith Kiel.

The man then tried to pay Boucher, who refused to accept it, according to Fox 4 News. Kiel was moved by the scene, and hoped to bring recognition to the employee by posting the photo.

As for Boucher, he says he wants his deed to inspire others to be kind.

"Just like, do it, I guess. Just start being kind," he told Fox 4 News. "If you see someone who needs help, just help them out."

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Law Firms Took Money From Struggling Homeowners To Pay For Cars, Stuff: Feds

For more than two years, the Hoffman Law Group of Palm Beach, Florida, told clients it was converting their legal fees into justice. The firm was suing banks over abusive practices, it claimed, actions that would force the banks to lower mortgage payments and even pay cash damages to aggrieved borrowers.

But the cases fizzled and clients grew angry. On Wednesday, federal law enforcement officials unsealed a civil complaint that appears to validate the worst fears of those who trusted the firm with thousands of dollars: that instead of funding viable legal challenges, the firm's managing partner and his two non-lawyer business associates allegedly used the fees to pay for car leases and meals, and directed thousands of dollars to personal American Express credit card accounts.

"Defendants do little or nothing to actually assist consumers," the Florida attorney general and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau allege in the legal action, brought in West Palm Beach federal court. "Instead, they usually exacerbate consumers' problems -- sometimes pushing them into foreclosure or bankruptcy -- while pocketing astonishing profits."

The Hoffman complaint was made public as part of "Operation Mis-Modification" -- a crackdown by the CFPB and Federal Trade Commission on mortgage modification scams. Such schemes typically collect large upfront fees in exchange for assistance that seldom comes. The attorneys general of 15 states, including Florida, also brought cases against 32 other alleged mortgage modification scammers on Wednesday, in addition to the three brought by the CFPB and six filed by the FTC.

"We are trying to send a strong message to the industry that we are watching, and that this behavior won't be tolerated," said Ori Lev, the deputy enforcement director at the CFPB, in a call with reporters.

It wasn't immediately clear how many of the operations targeted by regulators are going concerns. The Mortgage Law Group and the Consumer First Legal Group, accused by the CFPB of scamming $19.2 million from homeowners, were previously sued by Indiana and Arizona law enforcement officials, respectively.

Lawyers are increasingly involved in mortgage modification schemes, usually as frontmen for boiler room-type operations, a previous Huffington Post examination found. The HuffPost report focused closely on the Hoffman firm, which former employees said had scammed thousands of clients.

The firm's pitch was crafted to capitalize on mistrust and anger felt by untold thousands of homeowners who had sought a mortgage modification under one of the government-backed programs, only to see paperwork lost and claims denied. Most clients of the firm paid an upfront fee of $6,000, plus an additional $500 a month to retain the firm's services. According to the complaint by the CFPB and state attorney general, one client claimed he was told that his case would take six to nine months, and that when the firm prevailed, he would own his house and have no mortgage.

HuffPost found that most of the cases filed by the Hoffman firm purportedly on behalf of clients lacked the most basic elements of a valid legal filing -- and that almost all had been tossed out of court by irate judges or withdrawn by the firm itself. State and federal law enforcement officials contend that the Hoffman firm continued to collect fees even after most filings had been dismissed or withdrawn.

"Many, if not all, of these lawsuits are flagrant abuses of the federal court system adding up to a massive misuse of court resources," the complaint alleges.

Federal law bans mortgage foreclosure rescue and other loan modification services from collecting fees until homeowners have a written offer from their bank that they find acceptable.

Two days after legal documents were filed in the Hoffman case on July 14, law enforcement officials raided the firm, freezing the firm's assets as well as those of its managing partner, Marc Hoffman, and the two non-lawyer managers of the firm, Michael Harper and Benn Wilcox.

According to legal filings, Harper had already signed an agreement with the Florida attorney general's office promising not to participate with attorneys in mortgage rescue businesses, after the state investigated an earlier operation.

Hoffman, Harper and Wilcox have not responded to repeated requests for comment.

All told, the Hoffman firm reaped more than $5 million in fees from thousands of clients, according to the lawsuit. The firm has been placed in receivership by the court, with an outside attorney, Mark Bernet of Tampa, overseeing its assets. Receivership usually precedes liquidation. Bernet will likely be tasked with figuring out how much money is left, and how best to return it to clients.

Also on Wednesday, regulators released a consumer advisory guide to assist homeowners who are seeking mortgage modification assistance.

New College Grads' Wages Are Growing Slower Than Everyone Else's

SAN FRANCISCO, July 21 (Reuters) - New college graduates have seen their wages rise more slowly than the rest of the U.S. workforce since the Great Recession, new research from the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank shows, a trend that reflects continued weakness in the economy.

"While this post-recession pattern was also present after the 2001 recession, earnings growth following the most recent recession has been held down longer than in the past, which reflects the depth and severity of the recession," wrote San Francisco Fed researchers Bart Hobijn and Lisa Benagali in the regional Fed bank's latest Economic Letter.

Employers can set the hiring conditions and wages of new workers with more freedom than they can change the wages of existing workers, the researchers argued, making the wages of recent college graduates a better indicator of the true price of labor and the underlying strength of the labor market.

"Other signs of the continued weakness in the labor market are the shares of recent graduates not in the labor force, unemployed, or working part-time, which are still elevated compared with the start of the recession," they wrote.

The researchers found that the slow wage growth does not reflect any shift in the types of jobs college grads get, and argued it would be "misguided" to conclude that going to college is a poor investment.

Rather, they argued, new college grads will need more time to earn back the cost of their education than those who graduated during boom years, but they will still end up earning more over their lifetimes than those who did not go to college. (Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)