VOL. 41 | NO. 2 | Friday, January 13, 2017
TIM GHIANNI: STREET LEVEL
Justin Brousse really isn’t pushing his luck by insisting he takes Justin Bruce along with him to his new job in Las Vegas. They’re inseparable.
RICHARD COURTNEY: REALTY CHECK
When is a lot not worth a lot? With apologies to the late Professor Brinley Rhys, the brilliant intellect who shared his vast knowledge with his students at Sewanee and a man who abhorred the use of “a lot” when it referred to many or much, I shall proceed.
REAL ESTATE
Residential real estate sales of $1 million or more for for Davidson (308 total), Williamson (241), Rutherford (4), Wilson (5) and Sumner (3) counties in 2016, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
2016 real estate trends for Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford and Wilson counties, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
December 2016 real estate trends for Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford and Wilson counties, as compiled by Chandler Reports.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Long-term US mortgage rates fell this week, the second week of declines after snapping a nine-week run of increases.
TERRY McCORMICK: TENNESSEE TITANS
Are the Tennessee Titans on the verge of a breakthrough? It seemed as much over the second half of the 2016 season – the meltdown at Jacksonville notwithstanding.
We managed to go 3-1 in last week’s predictions with the Oakland Raiders – desperate at quarterback by having to start rookie Connor Cook – falling to the Houston Texans, who coaxed a decent game out of Brock Osweiler.
DAVID CLIMER: OUT OF LEFT FIELD
In the immediate aftermath of the Tennessee Titans’ turnaround season, Jon Robinson’s title was expanded to executive vice president and general manager.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
Ford managed to make its plug-in Fusion Energi gasoline-electric hybrid more fuel efficient for 2017, even while lowering the base price.
GUERRILLA MARKETING
It’s a common practice in business to set up a booth at the same trade show every year out of habit as part of your sales promotion strategy.
CAREER CORNER
The theme of this column sounds a little strange at first glance. But if you’ve ever tried to make friends as an adult, you know this is a big deal.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Officials say the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development has received a $5.8 million federal grant to help workers affected by the eastern Tennessee wildfires in November.
NASHVILLE (AP) — The cost of upgrading to a lifetime handgun carry permit in Tennessee is dropping by $300.
AUTO INDUSTRY
BERLIN (AP) — Former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn denied early knowledge of the company's cheating on diesel emissions as he testified Thursday to a German parliamentary inquiry — his first major public appearance since he resigned in 2015.
REAL ESTATE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Long-term US mortgage rates marked their third week of declines this week, after snapping a nine-week run of increases.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. builders ramped up home construction in December, led by a surge of apartment building, while single-family houses lagged.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits dropped last week to the lowest level in more than 43 years, another sign that most American workers enjoy job security.
NEW YORK (AP) — Railroad stocks chugged higher Thursday, but drops for utilities and other companies that pay big dividends meant U.S. stock indexes dipped modestly. Treasury yields continued their upward march.
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — Saudi Arabia's energy minister says there's been "very strong compliance" by OPEC and non-OPEC oil countries to the production cuts agreed on in December.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rick Perry was for "all of the above" on energy production before President Barack Obama embraced the strategy.
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — British Prime Minister Theresa May sought to convince business leaders Thursday that the country remains committed to free trade and globalization despite last year's vote to leave the European Union.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18
STATE LEGISLATURE
Legislators are weighing Gov. Bill Haslam’s proposal to raise fuel taxes at the same time they raise concerns about a slight cut in the grocery tax, further impact on local governments of a Hall tax break and a proposed major business tax reduction.
NASHVILLE (AP) - The Republican speakers of the state House and Senate are making positive statements about Gov. Bill Haslam's plan to boost transportation funding while also cutting taxes in Tennessee.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Economic and Community Development Commissioner Randy Boyd says Gov. Bill Haslam's proposal to reconfigure corporate taxes will help Tennessee land more manufacturing investments.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Republican Gov. Bill Haslam on Wednesday proposed Tennessee's first gas tax hike in 27 years to fund an ambitious roadbuilding program that would carry through well after he leaves office in two years.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Nashville Mayor Megan Barry is lauding Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's proposal to allow cities to hold referendums on adding a sales tax surcharge to pay for mass transit projects.
NASHVILLE (AP) - The leader of the Tennessee chapter of Americans for Prosperity is speaking out against Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's transportation funding proposal that includes the state's first gas tax hike since 1989.
MIDSTATE
NASHVILLE (AP) - A jailed Tennessee sheriff accused of profiting from the sale of electronic cigarettes to inmates pleaded guilty Wednesday to three federal charges.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump's pick for health secretary said Wednesday that access and affordability were his goals for revamping health care, and he offered assurances that the new administration is not planning to launch a Medicare overhaul.
AUTO INDUSTRY
BERLIN (AP) — Volkswagen says it will appeal a court ruling that it must buy back a German customer's diesel car rigged to cheat on emissions tests.
REAL ESTATE
U.S. homebuilders are feeling slightly less confident this month about their sales prospects, a pullback from December when builders' confidence reached the highest level in 11 years.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — The stock market hasn't been this boring in years. The Standard & Poor's 500 remained at a near standstill Wednesday, the ninth day in a row that it has moved by less than 0.4 percent, up or down. That's its longest streak of listlessness since the summer of 2013. Other indexes were mixed.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen says the economy has come a long way in recovering from the 2008 financial crisis, and the Fed is getting close to achieving its goals of maximum employment and stable inflation.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy grew a bit faster at the end of last year, spurred by healthier sales for manufacturers and steady hiring that is slowly pushing up wages.
TUPELO, Miss. (AP) — Renasant Corp. is buying Metropolitan BancGroup for $190 million in stock.
NEW YORK (AP) — JPMorgan Chase settled federal charges that independent brokers working for the bank discriminated against minorities seeking home mortgages during the housing crises.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer prices, driven up by rising energy costs, rose moderately in December, closing out a year in which consumer inflation rose at the fastest pace in five years.
NEW YORK (AP) — Target cut its fourth-quarter profit and sales outlook after the discounter says it had sluggish holiday sales and traffic in its stores that offset a surging online business.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Unlike his soon-to-be boss, the choice for commerce secretary has agreed to divorce himself from a vast financial empire.
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump's threats to firms using Mexico as a manufacturing base will be counterproductive and could eventually cost thousands of American jobs, Lawrence Summers, the former U.S. Treasury Secretary, warned Wednesday.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 17
STATE LEGISLATURE
State Rep. Joe Towns Jr. isn’t surprised that Rep. Sheila Butt dropped her bill limiting “junk food” for food stamp recipients.
They don’t get much press, but they are making history for women working with the General Assembly.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Republican Gov. Bill Haslam is scheduled to unveil his top legislative priority on Wednesday as state lawmakers await details on his plan to boost transportation funding in Tennessee.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Republican Gov. Bill Haslam is scheduled to unveil his top legislative priority on Wednesday as state lawmakers await details on his plan to boost transportation funding in Tennessee.
NASHVILLE AREA
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, Economic and Community Development Commissioner Randy Boyd and LKQ Corporation officials announced today that the automotive equipment and accessories distributer and marketer will expand its regional headquarters in Davidson County and create 150 jobs in Nashville over the next five years.
NEW YORK (AP) — Ann Patchett, Michael Chabon and Zadie Smith were among the nominees announced Tuesday for the National Book Critics Circle Awards.
STATEWIDE
NASHVILLE (AP) — A state board has scheduled a meeting to review proposed nominations to the National Register of Historic Places.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — General Motors plans to invest $1 billion in U.S. factories and add thousands of new white-collar jobs, measures that have been in the works for years but were announced Tuesday after criticism from President-elect Donald Trump.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Insurance premiums would soar for millions of Americans and 18 million more would be uninsured in just one year if Republicans scuttle much of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul without a replacement, Congress' budget analysts said Tuesday.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — After a relative suffered a heart attack a few years ago, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Adrian Aoun got an unsettling look at a health-care system that he diagnosed as an inefficient and outdated mess.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — A bad day for bank stocks pulled the Dow Jones industrial average to its third straight loss Tuesday as many of the patterns that have propelled markets since Election Day last year snapped into reverse.
The chances that your flight will be on time and won't get canceled appear to be looking up.
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — With the U.S. increasingly looking inward and China eager to take a lead on the global stage, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday cast his country as a champion of free trade and stability, a rebuke to the isolationist urges that helped carry Donald Trump to power.
NEW YORK (AP) — Wal-Mart plans to add about 10,000 retail jobs in the U.S. as it opens new stores and expands existing locations.
NATIONAL POLITICS
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump and congressional Republicans who have pledged to cut federal taxes to boost the economy might consider looking first at lessons learned in GOP-controlled states that adopted similar strategies, only to see growth falter and budget gaps widen.
MONDAY, JANUARY 16
NASHVILLE AREA
NASHVILLE (AP) - A Nashville television reporter has been ordered to hand over documents from his investigation of a district attorney.
MIDSTATE
NASHVILLE (AP) — Federal officials have made regulation changes aimed at stopping the practice of soring among Tennessee Walking Horses and similar breeds.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
TOKYO (AP) — Global stock markets and the pound fell on Monday amid worries that Britain will opt for a "hard exit" from the European Union in which it severs its access to the bloc's single market.
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — The gap between the super-rich and the poorest half of the global population is starker than previously thought, with just eight men, from Bill Gates to Michael Bloomberg, owning as much wealth as 3.6 billion people, according to an analysis by Oxfam released Monday.
LONDON (AP) — The eight individuals who own as much as half of the rest of the planet are all men, and have largely made their fortunes in technology. Most are American, with one European and one Mexican in the mix. Several have pledged to give it all to charity.
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — The World Economic Forum, which organizes the annual gathering of the global political and business elites in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, says the focus on economic growth, which has guided policymaking for decades, is no longer fit for purpose.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The International Monetary Fund on Monday raised its forecast for the U.S. economy over the next two years, saying President-elect Donald Trump's policies should boost economic growth, particularly in 2018. But officials warned that if Trump's protectionist trade proposals set off a trade war, that could be "quite destructive" for the global economy.
NEW YORK (AP) — Wading into foreign affairs days before his inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump said Britain's decision to leave the European Union would "end up being a great thing" and predicted the bloc would continue to break apart.
BERLIN (AP) — European Union nations reacted with surprise and defiance Monday to comments by President-elect Donald Trump, who said in an interview that he believed NATO was "obsolete" and that more member states would leave the 28-nation EU.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 13
STATE LEGISLATURE
NASHVILLE (AP) — A group of 20 state lawmakers has sent a letter to University of Tennessee President Joe DiPietro questioning Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's plan to privatize maintenance work on the campuses of the public college system.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Newly elected state Senate Speaker Randy McNally announced Friday that he will replace his predecessor's chief of staff with a longtime aide.
NASHVILLE (AP) - A Tennessee lawmaker has introduced legislation seeking to ban the use of food stamps to buy items without nutritional value.
NASHVILLE (AP) — Tennessee lawmakers have until Feb. 9 to file legislation they want to have considered during this year's legislative session.
NASHVILLE (AP) - The state lawmaker who tried to unseat Republican Beth Harwell as speaker of the House has been removed from his position as chairman of the Transportation Committee.
MIDSTATE
MURFREESBORO (AP) - Rutherford County officials have appointed an interim sheriff while the county's sheriff remains in jail on charges that he profited from the sale of e-cigarettes to inmates.
MUSIC INDUSTRY
NASHVILLE (AP) - The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will feature exhibits on Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, Jason Aldean, Loretta Lynn and Shania Twain in 2017.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Willie Nelson wants his friend Loretta Lynn, who recently revealed that she tried marijuana for the first time at the age of 84 for her glaucoma but didn't like it, to give pot a second chance.
NASHVILLE (AP) - Tanya Tucker is postponing tour dates after fracturing a vertebrae and injuring a rib during a fall while on tour.
AUTO INDUSTRY
DETROIT (AP) — Takata Corp. has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal charge and will pay $1 billion in fines and restitution for concealing a deadly defect in its air bag inflators.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government accused Fiat Chrysler on Thursday of failing to disclose software in some of its pickups and SUVs with diesel engines that allows them to emit more pollution than allowed under the Clean Air Act.
HEALTH CARE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ascendant Republicans drove a budget through Congress on Friday that gives them an early but critical victory in their crusade to scrap President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.
CVS is now selling a rival, generic version of Mylan's EpiPen at about a sixth of its price, just months after the maker of the life-saving allergy treatment was eviscerated before Congress because of its soaring cost to consumers.
TECHNOLOGY
TOKYO (AP) — Nintendo is trying to Switch it up. The Japanese video-game company revealed details Friday about its hotly anticipated Nintendo Switch, a video game console that also serves as a hand-held gaming device, during a global rollout on Friday.
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Banks led U.S. stock indexes mostly higher Friday, propelling the Nasdaq composite index to its fourth record high this week.
NEW YORK (AP) — A stronger economy helped boost holiday sales both in stores and online this season, but department stores continued to struggle as habits shift.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans stepped up their auto buying and online shopping in December, reflecting a boost in confidence after the election and a solid increase in pay.
SOUTH MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AP) — Baby Boomers: your millennial children are worse off than you.
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump is urging people to buy L.L. Bean as the company faces calls for a boycott because of a family member's donations to his candidacy.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Newly released transcripts show Federal Reserve officials were sharply divided in 2011 over whether the central bank should launch a new program aimed at pushing long-term interest rates lower to spur economic growth.
Bank of America's fourth-quarter profit jumped 47 percent from a year ago as the nation's largest consumer bank benefited from higher interest rates and lower expenses.