Business

Before Republican lawmakers get to work this year, there's just one thing left to do: take a retreat. The annual retreat, which is actually a three-day conference for the purpose of establishing policy agenda and planning for achieving goals in the coming year, will take place in Hershey, PA. Republicans in both the House and the Senate are attending the retreat this year, which hasn't happened in 10 years. The topics on this year's retreat agenda are expected to be the Affordable Care Act, immigration, budget issues, and transportation. The group is staying at the Hershey Lodge, which is one of Hersheypark's official resorts. The resort also boasts three swimming pools and a few full-service restaurants. The resort, which is a couple of hours outside of Washington, D.C., gives lawmakers...

A franchisee of frozen yogurt chain Pinkberry that owns several franchise locations around the Washington, DC area has filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy. According to the Washington Business Journal, Pinkberry Mid-Atlantic LLC listed debts totaling more than $1.2 million, with assets of more than $820,000, in its bankruptcy filing. The franchisee is controlled by Stavros Roberts who, along with attorney John Goetz, filed the Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition on December 26 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Pinkberry Mid-Atlantic currently operates locations in Georgetown, Dupont Circle, Arlington, Fairfax, Tysons Corner, Gainesville and National Harbor. The franchisee's store in Leesburg closed earlier in 2014. Unlike a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which allows businesse...

The cost of shipping large items may be more affordable than ever before, thanks to plummeting oil and gas prices across the world, but there's another major factor that is stalling the shipping industry in the U.S.: weather. According to recent reports, the Great Lakes -- which provide affordable water transportation options for countless shipping and travel services -- experienced such freezing temperatures during the winter of 2013-2014, that the U.S. shipping industry was forced into a standstill. Overall, experts note, the industry experienced over $705 million worth of economic losses, as well as 4,000 individual jobs lost, due to the frozen lakes. This season, the Lake Carriers' Association (LCA) is working closely with the U.S. Coast Guard to avoid such trouble during the current...

Senior housing was making headlines in 2014 for all the right reasons. With the retiring Baby Boomer generation flocking en masse to these senior communities, the year saw a market climate that was highly favorable to both buyers and sellers. According to a January 3 Senior Housing News article, interest rates for both assisted and independent senior living communities fell to all-time lows in 2014, which was good news for the owners of these communities. Lower interest rates allowed them to diversify their assets, offering a wider variety of unique living solutions for their residents. On the buyers’ end of the market, rising housing prices gave many seniors a good reason to finally sell their homes and make the transition into a retirement community, according to the Wall Street Journa...

If 2014 was the year that the commercial real estate market woke up from a long period of dormancy, then 2015 will be the year it rubbed its eyes, had its morning cup of coffee and started the day off with a buzz. That's at least how experts described the outlook for 2015 at a recent commercial brokerage forecasting event, according to a January 6 Las Vegas Review-Journal article. Across all sectors, from retail to industrial, commercial real estate will continue to make gains on the advances it made in 2014. This is especially true in the investment sector, which will see steady gains in land prices and rising confidence among property buyers. According to UrbanLand, a continued increase in the amount of investment capital entering the commercial real estate market can be expected throu...

The Affordable Care Act has long been a divisive topic among politicians, with many feeling that the reform attempt best exemplifies a system of government that has become extremely partisan over the years. However, one element of the ACA's legislation has ironically become one of the few issues to unite both Democrats and Republicans: a medical device tax, enacted in January 2013, has drawn the ire of politicians and lobbyists on either side of aisle for over two years. Somehow, the controversy over the bill, which places a 2.3% levy on everything from IV bags to artificial hip joints, has continued unabated, with a number of proponents and opponents publishing their arguments in the first few days of 2015. This raises an important question: is the medical device tax hurting or helping t...

2015 is expected to be the year of solar power, with lower costs and technology improvements bringing solar energy to new areas all over the country. As of 2014, 10 states have residential solar power available that costs the same or less than local electricity. Hawaii was not included in this count, as solar energy has been cost-competitive there for a long time. By 2017, that number is expected to jump to 28 states -- over half the nation! One of the keys to expanding the solar energy market is competitive pricing, and companies are striving to fulfill that goal. Solar energy makes up just 1% of electricity generation worldwide, so the market is wide open for new firms to enter. To compete with newcomers, existing firms are improving technology, and adding storage options and expanding...

After poor performance in the first half of the fiscal year, General Mills has shifted its focus to three areas of the business in hopes of improving sales. The company's focus over the next six months will be on cereal, yogurt and healthy snacks. Altogether, the first half of the fiscal year brought a 3.5% decrease in sales for General Mills due to poor demand for its products, according to Food Business News. The company is hoping that through a combination of new products, improvements to its current products and strong marketing and advertising efforts they will be able to improve performance. Although General Mills's cereal brands have grown in the market over the last six years, the first half of the fiscal year did not reflect this trend and resulted in a decrease in retail sa...

With the holidays still in full swing, the last thing on most people's minds is shopping for a new home, much less selling one. Many people are deterred by cold weather and poor driving conditions, or distracted by holiday vacation plans. But according to data released this week by online realty brokerage firm Redfin, winter is when the housing market really comes alive. Redfin compiled home listing data, sales prices and time-on-the-market data from Oct. 2010 to Oct. 2014 and came up with some surprising results. Not only is winter the best time to sell a home for more than the asking price, it's also the best time to list a home and sell it fast. Redfin determined that homes listed in December, January, February and March have a higher chance at selling above the asking price than home...

As new areas of information technology continue to emerge and demand more attention from skilled workers, colleges and universities across the country are soon to find themselves in greater competition with the corporate world for IT professionals. While small schools will have the most trouble recruiting IT grads, colleges and universities across the board will have to ramp up their recruitment efforts if they want to attract skilled workers to meet their IT needs. “We have found that many IT departments are buying "off the shelf" modules rather than recreate the wheel,” says Rick Friedman, President, ScholarlyHires.com. “Many opportunities are implementation or support personnel, as opposed to programmers, in order to combat the lack of available talent. The one exception to this seems...