Sales volumes adjusted to remove inflation rose 3.1 percent from the previous three months, when they fell a revised 1.7 percent, Statistics New Zealand said in a statement in Wellington today. That was the biggest rise since the third quarter of 2002, when volumes jumped 4.1 percent.

Eleven of 15 industries recorded gains, adding to signs that New Zealand’s economy gathered strength in the fourth quarter as it recovers from the worst recession in three decades. The Treasury Department last week said the outlook for manufacturing was positive and the currency’s 3.7 percent decline against the U.S. dollar so far this year is providing more confidence for exporters.

Meat and dairy sales advanced 4.6 percent, led by meat. That offset a fall in milk powder, butter and cheese volumes. More than half the meat and dairy production is exported, the statistics agency said.

Excluding those categories, manufacturing climbed 3.6 percent, the agency said. Analysts use the figure excluding meat and dairy as a guide for the contribution of manufacturing to gross domestic product, which is published on March 25.

Production of appliances and other machinery increased after slumping to an 11-year low in the third quarter. Beverage, textile and wood product manufacturing also rose.

Sales when price changes are included advanced 0.7 percent from the third quarter, today’s report showed. Excluding meat and dairy, sales values increased 3.1 percent.

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The recall affects 2005-2010 Chevrolet Cobalt and 2007-2010 Pontiac G5 models sold in the United States, 2005-2006 Pontiac Pursuit vehicles sold in Canada, and 2005-2006 Pontiac G4 models sold in Mexico.

Detroit-based GM told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about the recall Monday after concluding its own investigation first launched in January 2009.

The NHTSA opened a separate investigation on 905,000 U.S. Cobalt models in January 2010 after receiving more than 1,100 complaints on power steering failures, 14 crashes and an injury.

GM vice president of quality Jamie Hresko said the investigation revealed that the problem develops over time, and is more likely to occur in vehicles whose warranty has expired.

GM spokesman Alan Adler told CNNMoney that the condition tends to impact vehicles that have been driven 20,000 to 30,000 miles free credit score.

While the company is developing a solution to fix the problem, Hresko said drivers can maintain control of the vehicle even after losing the power steering function.

"Recalling these vehicles is the right thing to do for our customers’ peace of mind," he said. "While greater steering effort under 15 mph may be required, if the customer experiences loss of power steering assist, it is important to note that the vehicle can still be safely controlled because the customer can still steer the vehicle."

He noted that when the power steering feature fails, a chime will sound and the "Power Steering" message will display to alert drivers.  

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Fresh ideas to stimulate investment may be included in the government’s so-called New Economic Model, International Trade and Industry Minister Mustapa Mohamed said in an interview on Feb. 27. Prime Minister Najib Razak will unveil the strategy in about a month’s time, Mustapa said.

“In the past couple of years there’s been more outflows than inflows,” Mustapa said. “We are going to be more aggressive in promoting our people to invest in Malaysia. We have spoken to our GLCs, for example. They have got some plans, some of which have been presented to the government.”

Malaysia reported a net outflow of 17.8 billion ringgit ($5.3 billion) in direct investment in the six months through September 2009, according to statistics department data. State- linked companies, including oil and gas producer Petroliam Nasional Bhd., mobile-phone operator Axiata Group Bhd. and palm- oil producer Sime Darby Bhd., have invested abroad in recent years to expand their operations.

“It’s still quite a big challenge for Malaysia to attract foreign direct investment and we face stiff competition from regional peers,” said Lee Heng Guie, an economist at CIMB Investment Bank Bhd. in Kuala Lumpur. “There are structural issues including the shortage of skilled workers and making tax rates more attractive. Domestic investments are still not forthcoming.”

Investing Abroad

The cumulative net outflow in investment overseas during the past three years was 40 billion ringgit, the Edge weekly newspaper reported on Feb. 27, citing central bank data. Investments abroad were mainly in oil and gas, financial services, communications and business services, the Edge said.

“There was a phase in Malaysia’s history when we encouraged our companies to move abroad and there was a time when we received a lot of foreign direct investment inflows into the country,” Mustapa said.

While the government won’t stop companies investing overseas, it will encourage them more “aggressively” to spend at home, Mustapa said. The minister didn’t specify what measures to stimulate domestic investment may be included in the New Economic Model, saying details are being ironed out and discussions are still under way quick payday loan.

Land Banks

Property is one industry where government-linked companies can invest more locally, Mustapa said. “Some of the GLCs have huge land banks,” he said. “So this is time for them to think about putting more money into our system. We have been talking to our GLCs. We have been talking to our own people, our rich entrepreneurs who have done very well.”

Malaysia eased rules governing foreign investors, initial public offerings and property purchases last year, peeling back decades of benefits to the ethnic-Malay majority as the nation slid into its first recession in a decade.

Overseas companies investing in the Southeast Asian nation and locally listed businesses no longer need to set aside 30 percent of their equity for so-called Bumiputera investors, identified as Malays and some indigenous people. Overseas ownership thresholds in the fund management industry and at local stockbrokers were also raised.

Malaysia emerged from its recession last quarter with gross domestic product rising 4.5 percent from a year earlier. Investment as measured by gross fixed capital formation jumped 8.2 percent, and the construction industry grew 9.2 percent, Malaysia’s central bank said on Feb. 24.

Exports Improve

Export data for January, due on March 5, could exceed expectations, Mustapa said, adding that the country has no need for further stimulus. Malaysia unveiled 67 billion ringgit of measures under two packages in 2008 and 2009 to help resuscitate growth.

“What has happened in respect to Malaysia is a global phenomenon,” said Mustapa. “There has been a global contraction of foreign direct investments throughout the world.”

Approved factory investment dropped by about half to 32.6 billion ringgit last year as companies delayed projects during the global economic slump, Mustapa said last month. The government aims to attract domestic investments to account for 60 percent of total investments by 2020 from about 32 percent in 2009, he said Feb. 23.

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Ronnie’s now makes Quezel Sorbets and other specialty desserts at 1919 South Grand Boulevard cash advance america.

Ryan said the move would afford more office and manufacturing space.

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Regulators may also announce an increase in electricity prices of as much as 30 percent on Feb. 24, according to economists at Standard Bank Group Ltd. and Old Mutual Investment Group. That could add to pressure on inflation and crimp growth.

“We’re starting to see life in the economy,” said Rian le Roux, chief economist of Old Mutual, South Africa’s biggest private money manager. “Electricity price increases won’t be good for inflation, which is still outside of the target. We’re not going to see any rate cuts.”

Consumer spending in Africa’s biggest economy is picking up after the first recession in 17 years ended and unemployment eased. That may convince Governor Gill Marcus and policy makers that they’ve done enough to revive growth after six rate cuts since December 2008. The monetary policy committee has left the key rate at 7 percent for the past four meetings.

Gross domestic product expanded an annualized 2.6 percent in the fourth quarter, up from 0.9 percent in the previous three months, according to the median estimate of 21 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The statistics office will report the number at 11:30 a.m. local time tomorrow.

Inflation, which the statistics office will report at 11:30 a.m. on Feb. 24, accelerated to 6.4 percent in January from 6.3 percent the month before, above the 3 percent to 6 percent target, according to the median estimate of 21 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

Electricity Tariffs

Inflation will climb by a further 0.3 percentage point if the national power utility, Eskom Holdings Ltd., is awarded the 35 percent tariff increase it has requested, according to the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Marcus left the benchmark interest rate at 7 percent on Jan. 26, concerned that rising electricity prices will fuel inflation. That decision was opposed by some members of the Monetary Policy Committee, who argued for a rate cut, she said at the time.

Marcus said last month the economy will probably expand 2 percent this year, compared with the 2.9 percent forecast by 13 economists in a Bloomberg survey.

Factory output, which accounts for 15 percent of the economy, rose an annual 3.2 percent in December, the first increase in 15 months, the statistics office said on Feb. 11. The economy added 89,000 jobs in the final three months of last year, helping to ease the unemployment rate to 24.3 percent from 24.5 percent in the third quarter.

Union Demands

Woolworths Holdings Ltd.’s Chief Executive Officer Simon Susman said on Feb. 18 that customers of the food and clothing retailer are “in less of a state of shock” and are “feeling better.” Consumers account for two-thirds of spending in the economy.

The Reserve Bank’s leading indicator, which points to economic conditions in six months time, rose an annual 13 percent in December, up from 11 percent in November, the central bank said on its Web site today.

Still, labor unions allied to the ruling African National Congress have called for rate cuts to help accelerate economic growth to provide jobs for the one in four unemployed.

Electricity tariff increases may also damp growth. An increase of 35 percent would cut GDP by 150 billion rand ($19.4 billion) and result in half a million job losses, according to the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

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Toyota has been saying for several weeks that it will add the feature to all of its new cars, and singled out the technology again at a press conference in Japan Wednesday.

Brake override — or "smart throttle" — is a software algorithm that acts as a tie-breaker between the gas pedal and the brake pedal. Once you step on the brakes, even if the gas pedal is pressed down at the same time, the car assumes you no longer want to accelerate.

The car acts as if you’ve stepped off gas, dropping the engine speed to idle. A driver could easily stop a car even if the gas pedal were pinned down down to the floor.

"There’s an implausibility going on there, so we defer to the brakes," said Rob Moran, a spokesman for Mercedes-Benz, one carmaker that already uses this technology on all of its cars.

Volkswagen also uses this technology on all of its cars, including Audi models, and Chrysler Group uses it on all of its Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicles.

Toyota has said it hadn’t previously used the technology because some drivers occasionally choose to use both the brake and gas pedals at the same time for certain maneuvers, such as starting the car on a steep incline.

Some automakers, like General Motors, feel it’s not needed. GM has technology similar to brake override, but only on cars like the Corvette ZR1 and Cadillac CTS-V, vehicles with engines so powerful they threaten to overwhelm even strong braking.

A GM spokesman said the brakes on most of its cars are strong enough to stop cars even at full throttle. GM specifically tested this with a Pontiac Vibe, a car engineered by Toyota.

"We ran the Vibe wide open at 60 miles an hour and the brakes were able to bring the vehicle to a safe stop within 169 meters, consistent with our internal requirement for brake performance." said Martin Hogan, GM director of brake systems, in a company statement.

While that may be true under ideal conditions, it doesn’t reflect a real-life scenario with a panicked, non-professional driver, according to Jake Fisher, a vehicle engineer for Consumer Reports magazine.

Pumping the brakes, or even just releasing the brake pedal once and pushing it back down, while the car is at full throttle can lead to the loss of power brake pressure. Without that, there’s little hope of stopping the car if it’s still in gear at full throttle, said Fisher.

If your gas pedal is ever stuck down or the car acts as if it is, step one is to move the gear selector to neutral. Even without "smart brake" technology, you should be able to stop the car.

The brake override system requires a computerized electronic throttle control system, something most newer cars have today.

Car buyers may be nervous about computers running their cars’ basic functions, said Fisher. But with an old-fashioned mechanical throttle, there’s just a cable communicating between the gas pedal and the engine. If that cable fails or gets stuck, there is no back-up. With software, you can have multiple systems running, checking their inputs and actions against one another.

"Smart-throttle" is just another back-up system, said Fisher, and it’s one every car should have. "It may not be the cure-all," he said "but it is absolutely the right thing to do." 

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The Fort Lauderdale-based banking company (NYSE: BBX) said it would use the money – should it decide to proceed with the offering – to repurchase its debt at a discount. In January, BankAtlantic Bancorp said it sent letters to the holders of $285.4 million of its trust-preferred securities, with offers to buy those debt notes back for $57.1 million, or 20 cents on the dollar.

If all of the debt holders agree to the deal by Monday, the company could count up to $228.3 million as income, categorizing it as extinguished debt. The public offering proposed in the prospectus would fund that transaction.

In its SEC filing, BankAtlantic Bancorp said it could not assure investors how much, if any, of its trust-preferred securities it would be able to redeem personal business card.

The company is looking to bolster its capital after losing $185 million in 2009. Its BankAtlantic subsidiary remained “well-capitalized” under regulatory guidelines on Dec. 31.

BankAtlantic Bancorp’s SEC filing did not say how many shares of Class A common stock it would issue to raise $75 million. No date for the offering was given.

In September, the company raised $76 million through a stock offering to existing shareholders. It issued 38 million new shares at $2 each. Its controlling shareholder, Fort Lauderdale-based BFC Financial Corp. (Pink Sheets: BFCF), contributed $30 million to that offering.

BankAtlantic Bancorp shares closed Friday at $1.26. The 52-week high was $6.68 on Aug. 7. The 52-week low was 66 cents on March 5.

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Vestas Americas is the Portland-based North American headquarters of Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the Randers, Denmark-based wind turbine manufacturer.

The cuts impact only 15 at the company’s Portland office, which employs around 500 in sales, installation and service.

The majority of the positions cut were in service and sales across the U.S. and Canada, said Aili Jokela, spokeswoman for Vestas Americas. She said the company’s manufacturing operations in Colorado were not affected by the cuts.

Vestas on Wednesday reported global 2009 earnings of $793 million on more than $9 billion in revenue — both company records.

But the company lowered its 2010 revenue outlook to about $9.6 billion from the nearly $11 billion it forecast earlier. The company said the intake of new orders is expected to come so late in the year that it’s not likely Vestas will hit the higher revenue goal this year.

It’s unclear whether the job cuts announced Thursday will have any bearing on Vestas’ plans to expand into a larger Portland headquarters building ay day loans.

In December 2008 the company announced plans to build a 600,000-square-foot building in Portland to house its North American headquarters, which are now sprawled across five buildings in downtown Portland.

Initial plans called for breaking ground in late 2009, but that was put on hold as the global economy slowed the pace of wind turbine sales, which had been growing at 29 percent annually.

Martha Wyrsch, who was hired as president of Vestas Americas in June, has said the company would also considering leasing existing office space as an alternative to building a new headquarters.

But she told the Portland Business Journal last fall that Vestas isn’t in any hurry to resolve its space constraints.

“I’ve asked everybody to step back and show me all the options,” she said at the time. “I don’t see anything happening until early to mid-2011.”

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Japan’s Kyodo News agency says the automaker will recall 100,000 hybrids in the U.S. and another 170,000 in Japan. The recall would affect only those Prius models that arrived at dealerships starting in May. Almost one of every five Prius hybrids sold nationwide were in California in 2009, according to California New Car Dealers Association statistics.

Federal and Japanese officials were not aware of Toyota’s planned recall as of 9:30 a.m. Monday, according to Associated Press reports.

Toyota admits to about 180 complaints in the U.S. and dozens more in Japan from hybrid owners who claim the brakes fail to work for a few moments when driving on bumpy roads. Federal officials say the brakes are suspected to be the cause in four accidents that led to two minor injuries.

If recalled, the fast-selling car — one of the most popular models in California — would become the latest problem for Toyota.

Toyota recently recalled eight of its best-selling models — including the Camry and Corolla — for accelerators that can become stuck. Toyota has told dealers to stop selling the vehicles until they can be repaired. Some dealerships are open round-the-clock to fix the problem for customers and vehicles for sale on the lot.

The Prius is far from the biggest-seller for Toyota, with 140,000 sold in the U.S. last year, compared to 357,000 Camrys. But the Prius has made the automaker the front-runner for hybrid technology with a loyal customer following, and easily the best-selling hybrid model.

Toyota sold 26,420 Prius models last year in California, about 13,500 fewer than the best-selling car in the state — the Camry.

Toyota is easily the largest automaker in California, selling 215,248 vehicles in 2009 — or about 25,000 more than Ford and Chevrolet, combined.

Toyota has six dealerships in the four-county Sacramento region.

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The late Republican president may become Democrat Obama’s most relevant role model as the U.S. economic and political climate mirrors Reagan’s first term, which began in 1981.

While Republicans suffered losses in the congressional elections of 1982, the economy began to improve by 1983. That allowed Reagan to argue that things were moving in the right direction. By 1984, he won re-election on a “It’s Morning Again in America” theme.

With the unemployment rate now at 10 percent and prospects dimming that the number will markedly improve by November, Obama and Democratic lawmakers are highlighting what they say are positive trends and warning against a return to the policies of President George W. Bush.

“Ronald Reagan made these points,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who’s running Democratic candidate-recruitment efforts. “What was good for the Gipper can be good for Obama.”

Psychology was paramount, said Charles Franklin, a voting- behavior expert at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. “It was the rise in optimism that allowed Reagan to run a campaign based on these wonderful commercials,” he said.

Echoing Reagan

Obama recently has echoed Reagan’s themes in his Jan. 27 State of the Union speech, during a visit to Florida, and in a trip to a House Republican conference.

“This turnaround is the biggest in nearly three decades, and it didn’t happen by accident,” he told the Republicans on Jan. 29 in Baltimore. It happened “because of some of the steps that we took.”

Earlier that day, the government reported the economy grew 5.7 percent in the last three months of 2009, giving Democrats an opening, like Reagan, to ask voters to focus on the trend.

Republicans charge that Democratic policies have been ineffective, said Franklin. “With significant robust growth in the fourth quarter, that story starts to fall apart.”

“It’s a wonderful parallel” to Reagan’s first term, said Franklin, cautioning that the Democrats will still need more positive news.

To be sure, the economy took off well into Reagan’s first term, growing by 5.1 percent in the first quarter of 1983. Growth reached 9.3 percent in the second quarter of that year and averaged 7.9 percent in the following 12 months.

By contrast, the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News is for the U.S. economy to expand 2.7 percent this year and 2.9 percent next year.

Still, the public may be responding. Obama’s approval ratings jumped more than the historical average in the days after his State of the Union speech, Gallup data shows. “He was more in tune with public opinion than not,” said Frank Newport, Gallup editor-in-chief.

Facing Losses

Franklin said Democrats may lose more than 20 House seats this year. In November 1982, with unemployment at 10.8 percent, Republicans lost 26 House seats. In November 1984, with the jobless rate down to 7.2 percent, Reagan’s party netted 14 House seats and retained control of the Senate.

Representative Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican leading his party’s 2010 recruitment, doubts Democrats can co- opt Reagan’s strategy.

“Maybe their message will change, but will their actions change?” he said. “We have not seen the jobs created” through spending programs.

In November, the Congressional Budget Office said last year’s stimulus package created 600,000 to 1.6 million jobs. At the same time, nonfarm payrolls have dropped every month since January 2008 except for an increase of 4,000 in November.

Approval Rating

Like Obama, Reagan entered office with an approval rating of about 68 percent and on a message of change.

While the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose about 20 percent in Obama’s first year in office, it fell 10 percent during Reagan’s inaugural year.

In his address to the 1984 Republican National Convention, Reagan stressed his problems were inherited.

He offered to take his opponents “on a little stroll down memory lane,” citing the worst inflation since World War I, declining industrial output and high taxes under predecessor Jimmy Carter.

On Jan. 28, Obama said at the University of Tampa that he took office “in the middle of this raging storm,” an argument he repeated the next day in Baltimore.

Key Differences

There are important differences, said Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Reagan had a simple message of small government and low taxes, while Obama’s agenda is soaring and “cloudy,” said Hess. “As a politician, you should be able to put it on a bumper sticker,” he said.

Obama doesn’t exude the “happy optimism” that Reagan did, said Hess.

He may also have deeper economic concerns: Obama’s 2011 budget proposal projects unemployment will average 8.2 percent in 2012, higher than when he took office.

Still, vulnerable Democrats are using Obama’s arguments. Ohio Representative Steve Driehaus, who holds one of the Rothenberg Political Report’s “dangerous dozen” House seats, said voters need to understand how the country got here.

“There was a critical juncture at the end of the Clinton administration when the budget was in the black,” before Republicans began running up deficits, he said. “We’re still picking up the pieces.”

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