Moving and Storage Business News

The News Review:

- Moving company owner named head of state organization.
- The Free Drinks Investment Strategy
- Solar plan embarrasses Howard
- Anne Dowie for The New York Times
- Heating prices expected to drop.

Moving company owner named head of state organization.
Free with registration – Frederick News-Post – AccessMyLibrary.com – Oct 25, 2006
25–FREDERICK — While many business owners want to see less regulation in the state, Howard Levine would like to see his industry have more oversight. Levine, owner of Ramar Moving Systems in Frederick, said Maryland has no regulations on the industry that is often tarnished by rogue movers. “Anyone with a pickup truck can become a mover,” in Maryland, he said.

The Free Drinks Investment Strategy
Globe and Mail – Oct 25, 2006
Shareholders would congregate at grand hotels across the country and get chummy over free food and drink. They would share tips on mahogany boat storage, dabbing the corners of their mouths with silk hand­kerchiefs before swinging round to the bar for another rye and ginger. (The raspberry mojito, after all, hadn’t been in­vented yet. com: The Free Drinks Investment Strategy… (The raspberry mojito, after all, hadn’t been in­vented yet. )

Unfortunately, those days are mostly long gone, a tragic victim of the ’90s culture of accountability. But look hard and you can find a few companies, relics of a more civilized era, still willing to lay out a first-class spread. And if you clock in some serious overtime, you can find the few companies that still worship the holy grail of corporate extravagance: the open bar. Those meetings not only make for a good time, they’re the foundation of what may be the most lucrative investment strategy I’ve ever invented: the Free Drinks Investment Strategy (FDIS). Getting started is simple. Buy shares in the right companies, go to their meetings and—here’s where it gets good—eat and drink as much as you can.

Solar plan embarrasses Howard
The Age – Oct 25, 2006
Solar Systems Generation received $125 million in federal andstate grants to build its proposed solar concentrator usingphotovoltaic cells in north-west Victoria. The $420 million solar power project is expected to pumpelectricity into the national grid equivalent to the annual needsof 45,000 homes, with no greenhouse gas emissions. Both the company and Premier Steve Bracks said Victoria’srenewable energy target of 10 per cent green power by 2016 – knownas VRET – had made the project, the largest of its kind in theworld, viable. “The VRET scheme is a key ingredient in the economics of theproject,” the company’s managing director Dave Holland toldreporters today. “If VRET was to shut down, we would have some serious discussionwith the government of the day. With the Federal Government capping its own mandatory renewableenergy target at two per cent, federal Treasurer Peter Costelloplayed down the significance of Victoria’s scheme. Mr Costello said the solar project would “absolutely” be viableeven without VRET because it was a technology demonstrationscheme… Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies(CO2CRC) chief executive Peter Cook congratulated the governmentfor including carbon dioxide capture and storage in the Hazelwoodproject. “The project will see state-of-the-art technology fitted to oneof Hazelwood’s 200 megawatt electricity generating units to reducegreenhouse gas emissions initially by an estimated 30 per cent,” hesaid. “With carbon capture and storage technologies, the scheme hasthe potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 80per cent in the longer term. “It will be one of the world’s foremost demonstrations ofpost-combustion capture of carbon dioxide.

Anne Dowie for The New York Times
New York Times – Oct 25, 2006
“The burden is particularly cumbersome in cities like New York, where alternate-side-of-the-street parking is not an option for cars that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and where private-parking fees can be exorbitant. Brian Flynn, 37, said that was why he joined the Classic Car Club when it opened in 2005. He lives in Manhattan and runs a firm that helps small companies with marketing and business development; he uses the club as a perk for clients and employees as well as for himself. “I’m not the person to buy the latest BMW 6-Series or anything like that,” said Mr. Flynn, who recently took his wife and two children to a party in the Hamptons in a Rolls-Royce. “I’m the person who says, ‘I’d love an old car that has something to it, some style and panache to it. ‘ But as a Manhattanite, you can’t buy an old car… Exotic Car Share leads with more than 600 members. Classic Car Club and Club Sportiva have about 200 members each. Many clubs are expanding, or are moving into other cities. Sportiva, which has clubhouses in San Francisco, San Jose and Munich, Germany, is planning a New York addition. The Otto Club is eyeing the market in Greenwich, Conn. Exotic Car Share has an office in Huntington on Long Island. The Classic Car Club, which is affiliated with the London-based Classic Car Club and has reciprocal agreements for members to use cars in Scotland and Australia, is planning a Los Angeles club, too.

Heating prices expected to drop.
Free with registration – Chattanooga Times/Free Press – AccessMyLibrary.com – Oct 25, 2006
“Prices have come down quite a bit,” said Steve Lindsey, vice president of Chattanooga Gas Co. , the area’s natural gas provider. “We were able to get a lot of gas in storage (during) the spring and summer. Lindsey said the company’s 62,000 residential and commercial customers in Hamilton and Bradley counties should expect to receive lower bills beginning this November. An average resident is expected to.