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It helped Elizabeth Poelker buy her house.

It probably helped Paul Medler sell his.

But is the $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers really helping the economy all that much? Enough to warrant extending it for another year, at an estimated cost of $15 billion? Enough to maybe even expand it to $15,000 apiece, for everyone?

That’s a question Congress is wrestling with these days, as the program starts to near its Nov. 30 closing date, and the real estate industry ramps up a full-throated campaign to keep the credits flowing. It’s unclear at this point what will be decided.

Nearly everyone agrees that the credits have helped keep the housing market afloat during a tough time. After they were enacted as part of the $787 billion federal stimulus Congress passed in February, existing home sales rose for four straight months, before dipping in August. The rate of sales is up 12 percent since March, according to the National Association of Realtors.

About 1.4 million people have already claimed the credit on their taxes, according to the IRS, with probably more awaiting paperwork or delaying until they file in the spring.

And, along with low prices and historically low interest rates, real estate agents say the credits are sparking interest in home-buying.

"There’s no question it’s had a positive impact on our business," said Jim Dohr, president of Coldwell Banker Gundaker, which has 25 offices in the St. Louis region. That’s especially true at lower price points. Coldwell’s business is up 23 percent from last year on homes sold for less than $100,000 and 16 percent for homes sold for $150,000 or less.

"Much of the action in our business is at the lower end, and it’s really being fueled by the first-time tax credit," Dohr said.

What is less clear is how many of those sales would have happened anyway.

Prices and interest rates are low, after all. And people still need a place to live.

Out of a projected 1.8 million sales that will use the tax credit this year, economists estimate that between 350,000 and 400,000 would not have happened without it. And a recent survey commissioned by real estate tracking firm Zillow found that, if the credit is extended another year, it would be a major deciding factor for 18 percent of first-time homebuyers — spurring an additional 334,000 sales in all.

That’s nothing to sneeze at, said Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries. But at $15 billion, it works out to almost $45,000 for every sale generated.

"It’s an expensive program," he said. "For every five homes, four were going to get purchased anyway."

But there’s still that other one — people such as Poelker.

She’s 25 and works at an accounting firm. Her lease in Maryland Heights was coming up this summer, and she had grown tired of renting but didn’t think she could afford a down payment. When the tax credit passed, she started looking.

Soon, she found a nice townhouse in Manchester, put in an offer, and closed in June.

"It really helped me make it work," said Poelker, who noted that her brother and a friend had also used the tax credit to buy houses. "I probably would have purchased in the next couple of years, but it helped me do it sooner."

Still, that raises another question about the tax credit. Is it just borrowing sales from the future?

Skeptics point to Cash for Clunkers, the government-funded program to help spur auto sales. After a surge of car-buying in July and August, September is expected to be car dealers’ worst month of the year, according to a recent report from JD Power. The same thing, critics say, could easily happen whenever the homebuyer credit expires.

But supporters say that’s all the more reason to prolong it, at least for a few months. The economy is still shaky. Any housing recovery is fragile at best. Winter is typically a slow season in real estate. The timing, said Scott Dettmer, general manager of Dettmer Homes in Cottleville, is bad all around.

"You’re taking the single biggest impetus for home sales in at least three years, and you’re going to expire it at what is normally a bad time anyway?" he said. "I’d like to see it extended at least through the spring, to give a bridge over what are normally a tough few months."

At least 20 bills have been proposed in Congress to extend the plan, including one co-sponsored by Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid that would push it into June. Another bill — to extend the credit and make it $15,000 for all homebuyers — reportedly has 15 co-sponsors.

But that measure was stripped from the stimulus bill in February, and there seems to be a limited appetite for it now, as Congress wrestles with health care reform and other pricey legislation. Many observers don’t expect a resolution until the Nov. 30 deadline draws nearer.

And that will probably keep Paul Medler waiting.

He sold his home in Kirkwood in June to a first-time buyer who used the tax credit. It probably helped make the deal happen, Medler said. Now he’s renting, and waiting to find a good deal to buy, but prices in the neighborhoods where he’s looking still seem too high for this market.

Medler’s hoping the credit either gets extended to everybody — so he can use it — or ends in November as planned.

"After this stops I feel like we might have another dive in housing prices," he said.

And, at least in his case, that would be a good thing.

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Intel Corp Chief Executive Paul Otellini expects personal computer sales volume this year to “likely” at least match 2008’s, underscoring growing expectations that consumer spending is driving a mild recovery for the depressed market.

But with analysts expecting much of the fastest growth for Intel in future to come from non-PC arenas, Otellini stressed on Tuesday that software and embedded chip development would be crucial.

Intel plans to host a software applications development platform for its lower-end Atom microprocessor, which will allow developers to write programs that work across different devices and operating systems.

Otellini said Taiwan’s Acer and Asus, and PC maker Dell, would support the platform. Intel itself has no plans to get into the apps store business.

The company instead will provide the framework for developers to write software that can then be sold through others’ stores.

Otellini also talked about embedded electronics: microchips in car audio and communications systems, for instance, that can synchronize with computers and smartphones.

Intel has said that market represents a $15 billion opportunity. Otellini on Tuesday said BMW and Daimler would use a version of the Atom chip for in-vehicle information and entertainment devices beginning 2012.

On Intel’s core business, Otellini seemed to echo industry expectations of a flat to potentially better 2009 compared with last year, when PC sales fell off a cliff.

Otellini said the PC industry remains “alive and well” in the middle of the worst U.S. recession in 70 years, with unit sales seen at flat to slightly higher this year versus last.

Goldman Sachs this month raised its forecast for PC unit sales to “roughly flat,” compared with previous expectations for a 4 percent decline, citing resurgent consumer and government-education spending.

(Reporting by Clare Baldwin)

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The federal government signalled today that it would be the final judge of whether Canada's conventional broadcasters would be allowed to charge cable and satellite companies a fee to carry their signals.

Heritage Minister James Moore took the unusual step of inserting himself into the contentious fee-for-carriage debate by ordering the federal broadcast regulator to hold a separate set of hearings to consider consumer interests on the matter.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission later confirmed that it would do so in December. Shortly thereafter, it must provide Ottawa with a wide-ranging report on what fee for carriage could mean to consumers' already-strained pocketbooks.

"Our government has a record of putting consumers first," said Moore in a press release. "When it comes to the broadcasting system, our stance is no different. That is why we've directed the CRTC to consider what fee-for-carriage would mean for Canadians, because this is an issue that affects them directly."

It is rare for the federal government to encroach on the CRTC's independence. And Moore's interjection was bound to fuel the simmering debate about the veracity of the agency's arms-length relationship with Ottawa.

Political posturing aside, Moore's decision to take the reins follows three ugly years of squabbling between broadcasters and television service providers.

Fee for carriage, already twice rejected by the CRTC, will be considered for a third time at a separate set of hearings in November. The December hearings, meanwhile, will mark its fourth go-around.

Broadcasters argue carriage fees are a “matter of fairness,” arguing the business model for over-the-air television is “broken.”

Cable and satellite companies, however, liken the proposal to a bailout for broadcasters that overspent on acquisitions and U.S. programming in recent years.

Those television service providers currently pay carriage fees to distribute specialty TV channels but not for conventional stations as those signals can be pulled in for free with an antenna.

Canadian consumers, meanwhile, have found themselves at the centre of the television industry's tug of war.

Both sides, each purporting to champion consumer interests, have ratcheted up public relations offensives in recent weeks bad credit personal loan lenders.

Broadcasters CTV, Global and CBC teamed up to launch a national advertising blitz called “Local TV Matters.”

Cable giant Rogers Communications Inc., meanwhile, sent a strongly-worded email to customers earlier this month warning them that fee-for-carriage could inflate their cable bills by up to $10 a month. Shaw Communications Inc. has also taken similar action. Bell, which owns Bell TV satellite service, is busy engaging journalists on the issue.

Both sides, however, managed to unanimously agree today that the federal government's decision to take charge of the file was a good idea.

CTV, Global and CBC issue a joint statement welcoming Ottawa's commitment to consumers.

“We are in agreement that consumer interests should be front and center when it comes to implementing a new negotiation for value model for local television across the country,” said Charlotte Bell, Global's senior vice-president of regulatory and government affairs.

Paul Sparkes, CTV's executive vice-president of corporate affairs, called the government's engagement a positive step forward. Consumers, he added, should not have to pay another cent for local television.

Steven Guiton, CBC's chief regulatory officer, said tens of thousands of Canadians have already voiced their support for local television.

Despite being diametrically opposed to broadcasters on fee for carriage, cable and satellite companies appeared to share their enthusiasm for the government's decision to put consumers first.

“The government says the CRTC must take into account the impact on consumers of a fee-for-carriage regime which is something we have consistently advocated,” said Phil Lind, vice-chairman of Rogers Communications.

Mirko Bibic, Bell's senior vice-president of regulatory and government affairs, echoed those sentiments.

"Minister Moore and the government have clearly recognized that an issue of such broad impact on consumers as potential new TV taxes should be considered a matter of government policy and therefore decided by government," he said.

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NEW YORK — A federal judge said Monday he needs more information before he can decide whether to approve a $33 million settlement between Bank of America Corp. and the Securities and Exchange Commission over executive bonuses.

“I am concerned that we have not yet ferreted out all that the court needs to know,” U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said at a hearing in New York Monday afternoon. Adding that he is looking for “the truth, not the spin,” Rakoff ordered both sides to provide additional details to the court within the next two weeks.

Bank of America, without admitting or denying the allegations, agreed last week to pay the fine to settle charges that it misled investors about Merrill Lynch’s plans to pay bonuses to executives even as it prepared to report billions in losses. Those losses affected Bank of America’s bottom line after its takeover of the troubled investment bank was completed.

The SEC alleges that Bank of America promised its shareholders that Merrill would not pay year-end bonuses without getting the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank’s prior consent, but in fact had already given Merrill authorization to pay up to $5.8 billion in extra compensation.

In back-and-forth questioning, Rakoff probed the allegations, describing the SEC’s filing as “a fairly uninformative, bare bones complaint.” He asked SEC officials who exactly approved the year-end bonuses.

“Was this some sort of ghost that performed these actions?” Rakoff asked David Rosenfeld, the associate regional director in the SEC’s New York office. “Or were there human beings who wrote these documents?”

Rosenfeld demurred, but Rakoff pressed on, asking if former Merrill CEO John Thain and Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis were responsible for the bonuses. Rosenfeld said that both men had been advised by their lawyers, but that Thain and Lewis had not been a focus of the SEC’s investigation.

Another key issue centered on just how the SEC came up with the $33 million price tag for the settlement, and if that money would be paid out of the billions in federal aid that Bank of America has received.

Rosenfeld, speaking so softly at times that both Rakoff and a court reporter had to ask him to speak up, said the amount was “fair and reasonable,” based on a limited number of prior cases. But Rakoff called it a “tiny, tiny fraction of what was disclosed,” if in fact, Bank of America was not truthful with its shareholders.

Bank of America, along with Citigroup Inc. and insurance giant American International Group Inc., is among the largest recipients of government aid online instant cash advance. It has received $45 billion from the federal government’s $700 billion bank rescue program.

In a statement, Bank of America spokesman Scott Silvestri said that taxpayer money would not be used to pay the settlement. He also said that the SEC complaint does not allege that anyone intentionally did anything wrong.

Rosenfeld, in a statement, said the agency will continue to present the facts of the case as well as the additional information the judge has requested.

Both the SEC and Bank of America will submit additional paperwork by an Aug. 24 deadline. Each side will then have time to review the new materials, and the judge could then rule or order additional hearings.

Bank of America agreed to purchase Merrill in a deal that was hastily arranged Sept. 13-14, 2008, the same weekend that Lehman Brothers collapsed. Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis and Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain announced the deal Sept. 15.

The acquisition came as Lehman’s collapse caused panic in the financial markets and investment banks such as Merrill faced billions of losses on soured mortgage investments.
Merrill ended up paying $3.6 billion in bonuses in 2008, the SEC said, even though it lost $27.6 billion that year, a record for the firm. The bonuses amount to nearly 12 percent of the $50 billion that Bank of America paid for Merrill.

During the hearings Monday, Bank of America attorney Lewis Liman defended the bonuses. He said the average award amounted to $91,000, which he described as “not a lot of money,” a point Rakoff quickly contested. Liman also said the bonuses were a “retention tool” needed to prevent employees from deflecting to competitors.

But Rakoff questioned the reality of such a threat, given the state of the financial industry.

“How many banks were hiring new people at this time?” he asked. “Or how many brokerage firms, assuming any were left, were hiring at this time?”

The acquisition and bonus payments have caused Bank of America internal issues and angered some shareholders. Lewis’ management ability has been questioned and shareholders stripped him of his chairman’s title in April.

For the SEC, the outcome of today’s hearing may slow down the agency’s efforts to quickly make settlements, said Robert Heim, a former SEC attorney and a partner of Meyers and Heim in New York.

The agency, under Chairman Mary Schapiro, has been investigating cases at a rapid clip in the past few months.

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OTTAWA–Industry Minister Tony Clement says he’s taking U.S. Steel to court over its acquisition of Stelco Inc. in order to show foreign takeover bidders that Ottawa is serious about protecting Canadian interests.

Clement, who oversees foreign buyouts, announced yesterday that he is going to the Federal Court of Canada to make U.S. Steel live up to promises it gave Ottawa in 2007.

It is the first time the federal government has taken legal action to force a company to meet its promises under the 1985 Investment Canada Act.

Ottawa wants the court to order U.S. Steel to comply with commitments it made on production, research and development and investment, in exchange for being allowed to acquire Stelco in Hamilton.

The government is seeking a fine of up to $10,000 a day for every day the court rules the company is not in compliance, Clement said.

Despite the promises U.S. Steel made to Ottawa, in March the company temporarily shut down most of its production at two large former Stelco operations in Ontario, leaving the future of hundreds of employees up in the air.

Clement said Ottawa can’t just "roll over" and ignore the commitments made by takeover bidders.

"If I let these things go, quite frankly, it will be open season for other potential foreign investors to think that they can make promises and then break those promises," he told the Toronto Star.

"Every company that invests in Canada, if they make a promise to Canadians and to the government of Canada, they have to keep that promise."

Clement said U.S. Steel is not meeting the commitments it made to Ottawa.

"I remain of the view that U.S. Steel is not complying with its undertakings, and I am not satisfied by its explanations for non-compliance," he said guaranteed payday loans.

Clement’s action is a change of direction for the Conservative government on the issue of foreign takeovers. In 2006 and 2007, the Harper government was criticized for presiding over a wave of buyouts that saw many of the country’s corporate mainstays – including the bulk of the steel industry – fall under foreign ownership.

"The Conservative record was one of rubber-stamping all of those takeovers," United Steelworkers economist Erin Weir said.

"So, I think perhaps now the government does feel a bit uncomfortable, it does feel some obligation to enforce the commitments made as part of those takeover." .

U.S. Steel took sharp issue with Clement’s decision.

"We are disappointed that the minister has apparently decided to pursue the matter in the courts while ignoring our numerous requests to meet with him on these issues and while disregarding the ministry’s own guidelines with respect to foreign investment," said James Garraux, a senior vice-president and general counsel at U.S. Steel.

"We will vigorously defend our record at U.S. Steel Canada in the appropriate forum," Garraux added.

A U.S. Steel spokesperson was unable to explain what Garraux meant when he said Clement was ignoring Canadian government guidelines.

Clement said he had met with U.S. Steel and exchanged correspondence with the company.

But Clement said the company tried in its correspondence to present legal positions "basically changing the deal" it had struck with the federal government two years ago.

Clement said the company’s statements yesterday were "all a distraction" from the issue of compliance.

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John Cocomile can’t seem to walk a few steps before his BlackBerry starts to buzz. It’s another client trying to close on a home purchase.

"It has been like this for the last couple months," says Cocomile, a mortgage broker and owner of popular website greedymortgage.com. "Real estate agents are normally on holiday in the summer, so everyone expected things to slow down. But, good gosh, stuff is really selling out there."

He’s right. Canadian existing homes sales soared in June, up 17.9 per cent year over year to 54,416 units, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association in a report released yesterday

The national average sale price also reached new heights on a monthly basis, climbing 3.6 per cent year over year to $326,613.

On a quarterly basis, sales in the second quarter were up 1.4 per cent, marking the first year-over-year increase in such activity since 2007.

The solid numbers beat consensus estimates by analysts and took some market watchers by surprise.

"Canada’s housing market looks to have managed the equivalent of the great escape from the clutches of a lengthy, painful downturn," said BMO Capital Markets economist Doug Porter. "The rapid fire rebound in Canada’s housing market is the most astonishing economic development of 2009."

Cocomile said a jump in five-year mortgage rates in June also may have been a contributing factor to the boom. Posted rates at some banks went from 3.79 per cent to 4.49 per cent last month.

"You have a situation now where people are saying: `If I don’t buy with my locked-in rates, then I’m going to have to pay more later if I don’t get something now’," Cocomile said. "It becomes a bit of a false boom because people are encouraged to buy earlier than later."

That mini-bump in demand, combined with less inventory, has put pressure on prices even though Canada is officially in recession fast cash loans.

"It has certainly lasted longer than I anticipated and prices have been more stable than I anticipated," said CREA chief economist Gregory Klump. "We are seeing some snapback as buyers who were sitting on the fence jump into the market."

However, analysts warned that the months ahead could be more volatile as the effects of the recession linger.

"Only a rocket goes straight up forever. There will undoubtedly be some turbulence ahead," Klump said.

"Further gains will be much tougher to come by, particularly with the job market suffering," BMO’s Porter warned.

The Canadian Real Estate Association has forecast a 5.2 per cent average price decrease by the end of 2009 compared with 2008. But, based on improving conditions, the association now expects sales transactions in the second half will exceed the first half.

Analysts also expect pressure on prices to ease as more listings come onto the market in the second half.

Listings were down sharply in June, with just 4.2 months of inventory on the market so buyers had fewer choices.

This is the lowest level since August 2007, and below the peak of 12.8 months in January.

The months-of-inventory figure is the time it would take to sell homes listed at the current rate of sales activity.

Although average prices are up, demand in the more expensive markets in the country such as Toronto and Vancouver was a contributing factor in skewing the numbers higher.

"The strong rebound in sales activity is skewing prices upward nationally and in some provinces. Just as a sharp decline in activity in these markets skewed the average price lower in 2008," the association said.

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It’s been a long time coming, but Canadian cellphone users are finally set to experience the sorts of wireless plans and services – unlimited local calls, flexible contracts, cheap data plans – that consumers in some other countries have enjoyed for years.

The country’s $12.7 billion wireless market is about to undergo a massive shakeup with the arrival of several new players following Ottawa’s decision to boost competition in the sector through an auction of wireless airwaves last year.

In fact, observers say Canadians are already starting to benefit from lower prices and more customer-friendly plans as existing giants Rogers Communications Inc., Bell Canada and Telus Corp. rush to shore up their sizable subscriber bases.

Most of the activity so far has been at the incumbents’ discount brands – Fido (Rogers), Koodo (Telus) and Solo (Bell) – where talk and text plans are available for as low as $15 per month and controversial "system access" fees have been dumped.

"They’re trying to get a head start because they know, once these new entrants come in, they’re going to be fighting for the same customers," said Jamie Chadwick, managing director of Save Cell Communications, a Toronto company that helps subscribers save money on their wireless bills.

Chadwick said the country’s low rate of wireless penetration has created a potentially huge opportunity for newcomers to carve out lucrative business.

Only about 70 per cent of Canadians own cellphones, according to industry statistics. That compares with more than 85 per cent in the United States and more than 100 per cent in some European countries, where there are more mobile devices than people.

"The large majority of people who don’t currently have a cellphone," Chadwick said, "don’t have them for one simple reason: It’s too expensive."

First out of the gate is expected to be Public Mobile. Led by CEO Alek Krstajic, the company aims to launch before year end in Southern Ontario and parts of Quebec with $40-a-month plans that include unlimited local calls and text messaging.

"We need flat-rate billing," Krstajic said during a telecom conference this week in Toronto. "And not just flat-rate to my favourite 10 friends or unlimited nights and weekends. Unlimited is like freedom. It’s either unlimited or it isn’t."

In some respects, Public Mobile’s plan is similar to a monthly $45 unlimited local calling plan that Microcell Telecommunications introduced six years ago in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal under the Fido brand.

Dubbed City Fido, the short-lived plan encouraged consumers to ditch their home telephones with TV commercials that featured giant spools of spiralled telephone cords being unrolled throughout a city, creating a tangled mess of old technology. Microcell eventually ran out of money and was bought by Rogers in 2004.

Other new faces on the block are Globalive Wireless and DAVE Wireless (Data & Audio Visual Enterprises Wireless Inc.).

Anthony Lacavera, the CEO of parent Globalive Communications Corp., has said Canadians are fed up with poor customer service and inflexible three-year contracts that prevent them from shopping around for the best deal.

Out of the three new entrants, Globalive is the only one proposing to build a national wireless carrier with the key exception of Quebec. Backed by Egypt’s Orascom Telecom Holdings SAE, the company paid $442 million for spectrum and is proposing to launch two brands before the end of the year, one of which will take the name of Globalive’s Yak long-distance service.

Lacavera has said he wants to offer a wide-range of devices to a mix of consumers and small and medium-sized businesses, leveraging the experience and market clout of his Egyptian partners. He also has talked about bundling wireless offerings with home phone and Internet services – a key tactic used by Rogers, Bell and Telus to lock in subscribers high quality business cards.

"We want to be able to provide services to a broad segment of the market over the long term," he said in a recent interview.

It’s not clear yet if DAVE Wireless plans to follow a similar model. Dave Dobbin, a former Toronto Hydro Telecom president, has refrained from talking in-depth about its plans, citing competitive reasons. The company paid $243 million for spectrum in major cities across Canada and is backed by an investment fund led by XM Canada satellite-radio founder John Bitove and New York private investment firm Quadrangle Partners.

What is known is that DAVE is proposing to build a 3G high-speed network in 10 cities and has signed a roaming agreement in the U.S. with T-Mobile. It also plans to launch under a different name.

Consumers are bound to be the biggest winners in the coming flurry of competition, but already some are predicting several new competitors will meet the same fate as Microcell and Clearnet Communications, previous wireless challengers that were ultimately scooped up, by Rogers and Telus, respectively.

Krstajic, a former executive at both Bell Mobility and Rogers Cable, told several hundred attendees at the Canadian Telecom Summit this past week that two of the three new players would not be around in 12 months.

Not surprisingly, as Public Mobile’s chief executive, he argued that Globalive and DAVE Wireless would be the most vulnerable because both are proposing to go head-to-head with the deep-pocketed existing players.

By contrast, Public Mobile plans to build an ultra-low cost network between Windsor and Quebec City using a slice of unwanted spectrum called the G-block, which its backers, including American firms Columbia Capital and M/C Venture Partners, purchased for just $52 million, about a fifth of what the others paid in the same markets.

Public Mobile’s strategy targets the roughly 30 per cent of Canadians who do not yet own cellphones, while deliberately avoiding high-end devices such as the iPhone and the BlackBerry, which require both voice and data plans.

Krstajic said he is hoping to fly under the radar of the incumbents by focusing on a segment of the market that the existing players have already deemed unprofitable.

The challenge for Public Mobile will be proving that it can build a successful business on a chunk of wireless spectrum that virtually every other big carrier in the world has ignored. Furthermore, the company is betting that there will be a future for bare-bones cellular services at a time when the industry is rapidly moving toward all-in-one smartphone devices.

Amit Kaminer, an analyst at telecom consultants The SeaBoard Group, said he believes the current round of wireless challengers stand a better chance of succeeding on their own than did their predecessors.

"The new entrants coming in now are coming in with a new value proposition and a new cost structure," he said. "Rogers, Bell and Telus say it takes $2 billion to build a network, but that was 20 years ago. It doesn’t cost that much now."

Kaminer cautioned that making inroads in the Canadian market will not be easy. Canadians might not always be thrilled with their current wireless service, he said, but all three existing players have "sharpened their pencils" in recent months when it comes to pricing, customer service and product offerings.

"Rogers, Bell and Telus are going to put a lot of money into retention," he said. "If you’re a subscriber whose contract is ending, it’s going to be very hard for you to leave because they’re going to throw everything at you but the kitchen sink."

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NEW YORK–Television stations across the U.S. completed the shutdown of their analog signals yesterday, marking the final signoff for a 60-year-old technology and likely leaving more than 2 million unprepared homes without TV service.

The Federal Communications Commission put 4,000 operators on standby to field calls from confused viewers, and set up demonstration centres in several cities. Volunteer groups and local agencies were helping elderly people set up digital converter boxes that keep older TVs functioning. Any set hooked up to cable or a satellite dish is unaffected.

"When you’re alone like me, that’s my partner," Patricia Bruchalski, 82, said about her TV.

Bruchalski, a pianist and former opera singer living in Maryland, got assistance from a county agency to have a converter box installed. Afterwards, she marvelled that digital broadcasts seemed clearer and her extra channels – 15 instead of the three she was used to.

Around 15 per cent of U.S. households don’t have satellite or cable, and they tend to be poorer.

Nielsen Co. said minority households were less likely to be prepared for yesterday’s analog shutdown, as were households consisting of people younger than 35.

A survey by broadcasters showed Americans were well aware of the switch, thanks to two years of advertising about it. But many people simply procrastinated.

Fox affiliate WUPW in Toledo, Ohio, cut its signal at 8 a.m., among the first stations to go. By 10:15 a.m., the station had received 40 calls, said chief engineer Steve Pietras.

Many callers wanted help connecting converter boxes, Pietras said. They had put off hooking them up until yesterday because they thought that was the day digital broadcasting started. Like most stations, WUPW has been broadcasting digitally for years, alongside analog.

Another cause of confusion is that many stations were moving to new frequencies yesterday unsecured personal loans. That meant even digital TV sets and older sets hooked up to converter boxes need to be set to “re-scan" the airwaves, a procedure that people can do through menu options on their remote controls.

Some also faced a need for new antennas, because digital signals travel differently than analog ones. While a weakly received analog channel might be viewable through some static, channels broadcast in the digital language of ones and zeros are generally all or nothing: If they don’t come in perfectly, they are blank or they show a stuttering picture that breaks apart into blocks of colour.

The shutdown of analog channels opens part of the airwaves for modern applications such as wireless broadband and TV services for cellphones. The government reaped $19.6 billion (U.S.) last year by selling some of the freed-up frequencies, with AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless the biggest buyers.

The shutdown was originally scheduled for Feb. 17, but the government’s fund for $40 converter box coupons ran out of money in early January, prompting the incoming Obama administration to push for a delay. The converter box program got additional funding in the national stimulus package.

Research firm SmithGeiger LLC said Thursday that about 2.2 million households were still unprepared as of last week.

Nielsen Co., which measures TV ratings, put the number of unprepared homes at 2.8 million, or 2.5 per cent of the total television market. In February, the number was 5.8 million. The switch comes as many stations struggle financially because of a drop in advertising, and 21 stations simply went off the air yesterday along with their analog signals. Most belonged to Arkansas-based Equity Media Holdings, which is under bankruptcy protection.

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Sam would understand.

As General Motors clings to life, propped up by government funding, it’s worth remembering that the forerunner of General Motors of Canada, long-time fief of R.S. "Colonel Sam" McLaughlin, endured an eerily similar fate 110 years ago.

McLaughlin was just 28, a young partner but already a driving force in the family business, when the clan watched disaster strike the McLaughlin Carriage Company buildings on Dec. 7, 1899.

"We were helpless," he later wrote. "We could only stand and watch our life’s work go up in flames, not only we McLaughlins, but the 600 men who depended for a living on the carriage works."

Then, as now, Oshawa’s biggest private employer was staring into the abyss. Then, as now, governments scrambled to offer cash and save jobs.

The works were "still smouldering" when a call came from Belleville, McLaughlin remembered. "The city was ready to float a bond issue, we were told, to provide us with a big cash bonus if we would rebuild our factory in Belleville."

Quickly, 15 other Ontario towns and cities made similar offers, but Oshawa came up with a then-whopping loan of $50,000 (more than $2 million today) to be repaid "when convenient."

Oshawa, carriages and then cars have been intertwined ever since, thanks largely to Colonel Sam, a nickname he picked up after becoming Honorary Colonel of the 11th Ontario Regiment.

It was said McLaughlin, who ran GM of Canada for much of the 20th century, had "wheels in his head." Not everyone knew this had started as a family joke about his "first recollection of the carriage business."

He was 5 at the time, and had wandered into the room where his father’s small company hung carriage wheels from the ceiling. One wheel fell, gashing McLaughlin’s head and knocking him out. Eventually, he would see a lot of wheels. After rebuilding in the wake of the fire, McLaughlin Carriage was soon the biggest in the British Empire, producing more than 25,000 carriages a year.

McLaughlin, 100 years old when he died in 1972, often confessed that he did not remember the first time he saw a motor car. But it was likely around 1904: a Ford owned by a McLaughlin bookkeeper with the wonderfully Dickensian name of Oliver Hezzlewood instant payday loans.

Hezzlewood had one complaint. When it rained, he and his passengers got soaked. McLaughlin had an idea. He had started out in the family business as a 16-year-old apprentice upholsterer earning $3 a week, $2.50 of which his father held back for room and board. So McLaughlin had a way with scissors. His solution was a rubberized sheet that fit over the vehicle’s body, with holes cut out for the heads of the driver and three passengers, all of whom then donned sou’westers.

Not long after, McLaughlin went to Detroit to see William Durant, head of the upstart Buick Motor Co. and soon-to-be creator of General Motors. McLaughlin wanted to strike a co-production deal, but the two couldn’t come to terms.

So the McLaughlin Motor Car Co., with Colonel Sam as president, set out on its own in 1907. But after its chief engineer fell ill, McLaughlin again turned to Durant for help. The ensuing accord saw Buick engines shipped to Oshawa and installed in vehicles built by McLaughlin. The car was dubbed the McLaughlin-Buick Model F. In 1908, the first full year of production, 154 of them rolled off the line.

McLaughlin became a director of GM in 1910 and, five years later, he was striking a Buick-like deal to built Chevrolets in Oshawa.

In 1918, with the lucrative Buick contract nearing its end and no obvious heirs to take over the family firm, McLaughlin sold out to GM. He stayed as president of the newly minted GM of Canada, and would be its chairman almost until his death.

An avid sportsman and horse breeder, he was certainly feisty to the end, not least in the wake of Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed campaign against GM and its Corvair model in the 1960s.

Enormously wealthy and in his 90s, McLaughlin was chauffeured to GM in Oshawa every day. Then one day he arrived in a Corvair that was parked from then on in the chair’s spot.

Suffice to say, if Washington had summoned Sam for bailout hearings, chances are he’d have driven there himself in the least luxurious GM product he could find.

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Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher said there was no sign of a problem with U.S. inflation at the moment, and revealed that Chinese officials had quizzed him on the Fed’s purchases of U.S. government bonds.

Fisher, who is not a voting member of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) in 2009, said research by his staff indicated that inflation was currently not a threat.

“I don’t think that’s the risk right now,” Fisher told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Monday. “Price increases are less and less. Ex-energy, ex-food, ex-tobacco you’ve got some mild deflation here and no inflation in the (broader) headline index,” he was quoted as saying.

Fisher, who is viewed as one of the Fed’s more prominent inflation hardliners, however, highlighted the need to reverse eventually the United States’ scheme to buy up billions of dollars’ worth of debt to help the nation out of recession.

Policymakers have to be “always mindful that whatever you put in, you are going to have to take out at some point. And also be mindful that there are these perceptions (about the possibility of monetizing the debt), which is why I have been sensitive about the issue of purchasing Treasuries,” he said fast payday loans.

Treasury purchases were also a hot topic on a recent visit to China during talks with officials, Fisher revealed.

“I was asked at every single meeting about our purchase of Treasuries. That seemed to be the principal preoccupation of those that were invested with their surpluses mostly in the United States. That seems to be the issue people are most worried about,” he said.

Fisher added that central bankers had to stand up to politicians calling for ever more financial stimulus.

“Throughout history what the political class has done is they have turned to the central bank to print their way out of an unfunded liability,” he warned.

“We can’t let that happen. That’s when you open the floodgates. So I hope and I pray that our political leaders will just have to take this bull by the horns at some point. You can’t run away from it.”

(Reporting by Marc Jones; editing by David Stamp)

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