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U.S. consumers’ confidence weakened to the lowest in 16 years in March, pointing to recession, as worries over fading job prospects and rising inflation clouded the outlook, a survey showed on Friday.

The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said its final index of confidence fell to 69.5 in March — its lowest since February 1992, when it was at 68.8 — from the previous month’s reading of 70.8.

Economists polled by Reuters expected a reading of 70.0 in the index of confidence, which the preliminary report had said was at 70.5 in early March.

The index of consumer expectations fell to 60.1, its lowest since January 1992, when it was at 59.1. In February this year it was at 62.4.

The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said in a release that “it is now nearly unanimous among consumers that the economy has already entered a recession.”

“Consumer confidence slipped due to growing concerns about weakening prospects for the economy as well as anticipated increases in unemployment and inflation during the year ahead,” the statement said cash advance loan no fax.

The report showed the final reading on one-year inflation expectations jumped to 4.3 percent in March from 3.6 percent in February.

That was the highest final reading since October 2005, when gasoline prices were soaring in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but was down from the preliminary March reading of 4.5 percent. 

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HAMILTON–Gianluigi Botton fires up a computer and a mysterious image pops up on the screen. It doesn’t look like much. A bunch of blurry white dots tightly packed together on a black background. Kind of like looking through a screen door on a blindingly sunny day.

"Those would be silicon atoms," he says casually, like someone who works at the atomic level every day and is not easily impressed.

Behind the computer is an awkwardly shaped, vaulted room. Soundproofed and strictly climate controlled, the room is almost a building within a building. It rests on its own foundation, undisturbed by the vibrations around it. Inside sits a machine called Titan – a $14 million electron microscope, and one of only a handful in the world capable of zeroing in on the nearly invisible fabric of our existence.

"The world’s most powerful microscope," says Botton, director of McMaster University’s Centre for Electron Microscopy.

Like satellites that can seek out new planets and submarines that can venture into the undiscovered depths of the ocean, Titan can peek into the miraculous world where protons and electrons dance. We’re talking smaller than viruses, molecules, DNA and even "nano" particles. Titan can zoom in on objects slightly less than one angstrom in size, or a million times thinner than a sheet of photocopy paper.

It’s part of the reason why McMaster is fast becoming a global leader in material sciences and, under that umbrella, at the leading edge of innovation in the red-hot market for solar technologies.

Flexible Solar Cell, Cleanfield Energy and Arise Technologies are just three companies hoping to launch commercial products based on innovations coming out of the Hamilton university.

Researchers here say solar could fill the vacuum left behind by the collapse of the telecommunications industry, from which once proud giants such as Nortel Networks and JDS Uniphase have never fully recovered.

Engineering professors Ray LaPierre, who is working with Cleanfield on solar cells made from a dense turf of nanowires, and Adrian Kitai, who co-founded Flexible Solar to make bendable solar panels that are less costly to manufacture, are showing how skills typically prized in the telecom sector can be repurposed to build better solar technologies.

Similar efforts are also being made at the University of Toronto’s Institute for Optical Sciences, where a new spin-off called The Solar Venture aims to improve the economics of solar.

"Ontario was a global leader in telecom, but now that has slowed down," says Rafael Kleiman, professor of engineering physics and director of McMaster’s Centre for Emerging Device Technologies.

"All the people, all this research (in telecom), is finding a new home. I really believe Ontario can make itself a global hub in solar photovoltaic technologies."

Semiconductor research has long been at the heart of Canada’s telecom industry, earning Ottawa the reputation as Silicon Valley North. Apply electricity to a semiconductor and it can create light, allowing for the development of lasers and detectors used in high-speed telecom switches and fibre-optic networks.

But the materials used to make semiconductors, silicon as well as so-called Group III-V elements such as gallium, indium, phosphorus and arsenic, can operate in reverse http://abc-cashadvance.com. Shine light on them and they can absorb the energy and turn it into electricity. In other words, semiconductors are solar cells that operate in reverse.

"A solar cell is just a big specialized chip, so everything we’ve learned about making chips applies," Paul Saffo, an engineering professor at Stanford University, recently told the New York Times.

There’s a reason why California’s Silicon Valley, the headquarters of data-networking king Cisco Systems and semiconductor goliath Intel, is positioning itself as Solar Valley. Companies such as SunPower, Miasole, Nanosolar and Optisolar are all aiming to create cheaper and more efficient solar cells. They hope to hit their target by applying lessons learned from telecom and computing, where Moore’s Law has led to a dramatic reduction in the cost of cellphones, laptops and all the networking in between.

Some say the solar industry is where the computing industry was in the mainframe-era of the 1970s, before the personal computer and Microsoft.

Last month, Waterloo-based solar-cell manufacturer Arise Technologies and the Ontario Centres of Excellence awarded Kleiman and his research team $4.1 million to help commercialize a new way of making more efficient solar cells.

Conventional solar cells are essentially made from thin wafers of silicon, capturing between 12 and 21 per cent the energy in sunlight. When the sun hits the silicon, it excites the electrons in the material, knocking them free. That flow of free-moving electrons is harvested as electricity.

Kleiman and colleague John Preston, also a professor of engineering physics at McMaster, have come up with a way to grow an extremely thin layer of Group III-V materials, such as gallium-arsenide, on top of a silicon wafer.

Silicon absorbs energy from the invisible part of light spectrum, such as ultraviolet light, while gallium-arsenide can capture energy from the visible light. By capturing more of the energy across the light spectrum, Kleiman says the new "double-junction" cells can theoretically achieve 43 per cent efficiency.

The trick is in properly aligning the top layer with the bottom layer in a way that’s consistent enough for mass production. It’s a process that the McMaster team believes it has figured out, with help from the Titan microscope.

"We figure we could get this to market in three years," says Kleiman.

He admits that Canada is behind in the solar market when compared to Japan, Germany and now Silicon Valley. But at a time when other sectors are hurting and the world demand for renewable energy technologies such as solar is booming, Kleiman suggests there’s still an opening in a race that’s far from over.

"We have the ability to play catch up, and to succeed," he says.

Mark Romoff, president of the Ontario Centres of Excellence, says there’s no reason technology from Ontario automotive manufacturing, telecommunications and microelectronics couldn’t be modified and applied to solar-energy innovation.

"One of Ontario’s strengths is its ability to transfer technology, knowledge and expertise from one sector to another," he says.

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Do Canadians need another tax break in order to save for their children’s post-secondary education?

Liberal MP Dan McTeague thinks so. His bill, passed by the House of Commons last week, will provide an up-front tax deduction if you contribute to a registered education savings plan.

Right now, you get an up-front tax deduction only if you contribute to a registered retirement savings plan.

Parents might welcome a tax refund to use for spending or paying off debt. But would they save more if they received more tax breaks?

It’s debatable, since education saving is already subsidized in several ways:

• The RESP, introduced in 1974, allows contributions to grow tax-free until the children go to college or university.
• Withdrawals are added to students’ income once they attend college or university. But most don’t earn enough from part-time jobs to pay tax.
• The Canada Education Savings Grant, launched in 1998, gives a 20 per cent rebate (up to $400 a year) on the first $2,000 contributed to an RESP.
• An enhanced grant for low-income families – a rebate of 30 to 40 per cent on the first $500 contributed to an RESP – was introduced in 2004.
• The Canada Learning Bond, also introduced in 2004, is a $500 gift – increased by $100 a year for 15 years – to babies born into low-income families.
• Parents get another tax break since they can claim tuition, education and textbook credits that post-secondary students can’t use because their income is too low.

RESPs exploded in popularity a decade ago when Ottawa came up with matching grants. Parents can get up to $7,200 in free money if they contribute at least $2,000 for 17 years. Nowhere else can you get a risk-free 20 per cent return on your money. RESPs are irresistible to rational parents.

It’s no coincidence that the Liberal private member’s bill was passed right after the Conservative government brought down its last budget.

The budget proposed a tax break for those contributing up to $5,000 a year to a tax-free savings account – actually the reverse of an RRSP payday loans. You put in money that has already been taxed and you face no tax bite when you take it out.

Naturally, the Conservatives are angry that the Liberals managed to get an expensive new tax measure passed in Parliament.

On Friday, finance parliamentary secretary Ted Menzies said he was confident the government could persuade the Liberal-dominated Senate to reject the bill that would cost the government $900 million a year.

"It’s tax policy nonsense," says Finn Poschman, director of research at the C.D. Howe Institute, about the idea of sweetening tax breaks for education saving.

Here’s why he thinks RESPs don’t need to be beefed up:

• Middle-income parents already use the grants available for RESP contributions.
• Low-income parents won’t save any more in RESPs because of up-front tax deductions.
• There’s no evidence of an affordability issue in Canada for post-secondary education or a failure that needs reform.

In 2002, the C.D. Howe Institute published a paper that said the RESP added needless complexity to Canada’s tax system.

Author Kevin Milligan said the matching grants ended up disproportionately in high-income households and were "a poorly targeted use of public money."

I agree that another tax break for education savings would be too rich – and I hope the Senate blocks the bill for further study.

Ellen Roseman’s column appears Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. You can reach her by writing Business c/o Toronto Star, 1 Yonge St., Toronto M5E 1E6; by phone at 416-945-8687; by fax at 416-865-3630; or at eroseman@thestar.ca by email.

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In her book, The New Retirement, economist Sherry Cooper delivers bad news to affluent boomers who expect to live well after they leave work.

Her message: You haven’t saved enough. You have to save a lot more.

"Roughly 41 per cent of Canadian households earning $75,000 a year or more might not be able to replace two-thirds of earnings," she says.

"And a whopping 55 per cent of Canadian high-income households have not saved enough to replace 80 per cent of their employment income."

She’s talking about the fact that government pensions (Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security) were never intended to maintain your living standards after retirement.

The richer you are, the more you will need to rely on employment pensions or your own savings.

But not all pension plans are the same. The traditional defined benefit (DB) plan, which covers 33 per cent of Canadian workers, is more valuable.

With a DB plan with inflation protection and long service with your employer, you have no reason to worry.

But if you have a defined contribution plan, watch out. You’re unlikely to achieve the same level of financial health in your retirement as a DB plan member.

She gives the example of two people, Dick and Jane, starting their careers at age 25 and planning to retire at 65.

Their starting salaries are $40,000 a year, increasing at a rate of 2.5 per cent a year, and their average annual income over their last five working years is $102,290.

Dick is employed by a bank and covered by a DB plan. He contributes 2 per cent of his salary each year and gets an annual retirement benefit of $51,145.

According to financial planners, it would take 20 times the annual payment – or $1.02 million – to generate an annual income of $51,145 for an indefinite period into the future.

Jane works for an investment bank and has a DC plan. She puts 2 per cent of her income, as Dick does, into a registered retirement account to get a 2 per cent matching contribution made by her employer.

For her workplace savings to reach the same imputed value of $1.02 million, Jane would have to get an average annual return of 10 per cent during her working years.

"This is not likely," says Cooper, who’s chief economist at BMO Capital Markets.

Assuming a more realistic 5 per cent return, Jane would have to contribute much more each year to bring her DC plan up to $1.02 million at retirement.

In fact, she has to save an extra 9.8 per cent of her income – on top of the 2 per cent contribution she already makes – to get the matching contributions from her company.

"This, too, is very difficult," says Cooper pay day loan.

"Saving 11.8 per cent of gross income is quite a hefty chunk. Whichever way you look at it, the DB plan is very valuable, far more so than the DC plan."

The prospect of coming up short is even more acute if you go into retirement without having paid off your mortgage.

Owning your own home makes a big difference, since it’s assumed that one-half of the home equity is an asset from which you can generate retirement income.

Cooper’s book has hit a nerve (for a contrary view, see "An" below). She’s on the bestsellers’ list and she’s speaking across the country.

Her conclusion: If you’re a high-income earner without a good pension plan, you have to save more and invest wisely.

Investing wisely means holding 45 to 65 per cent of your portfolio in stocks – both before and during retirement.

This increases the chance of your money lasting as long as you do, which could be 30 years or longer.

Ellen Roseman’s column appears Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. You can reach her by writing Business c/o Toronto Star, 1 Yonge St., Toronto M5E 1E6; by phone at 416-945-8687; by fax at 416-865-3630; or at eroseman@thestar.ca by email

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The Detroit area, hit hard by the double-whammy of unemployment and a slumping housing market, had the highest foreclosure rate in the nation last year, with several cities in California ranked close behind, an analysis of foreclosure activity in the nation’s largest 100 metropolitan areas shows.

Some 4.9 percent of the households in the Detroit metro area were in some stage of foreclosure last year — 4.8 times the national average, according to the study released Wednesday by mortgage research company RealtyTrac Inc.

St. Louis ranked 36th on the list, but its foreclosure rate of 1.28 percent was below the average of 1.38 percent for the 100 metro regions. The national average is 1.03 percent.

St. Louis had 19,084 total foreclosure filings on 15,444 properties last year.

Stockton, Calif., ranked second with about 4.8 percent of its households in some stage of foreclosure, while the Las Vegas metro area was third with a 4.2 percent rate online payday loan.

RealtyTrac, based in Irvine, Calif., determines the ranking by comparing the number of households in a metro area with the number of foreclosure filings, which include notices of default, auction sale notices or bank repossessions.

Michigan has been in a long economic downturn and has led the nation in unemployment, a combination that has caused many homeowners to fall behind on mortgage payments.

In California, where house values more than tripled since 1995, plunging house prices and tighter lending standards chilled the market, leaving many financially strapped homeowners — some facing steep payment hikes from mortgage rate resets — with few options.

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SAN FRANCISCO – Yahoo Inc spurned Microsoft Corp.'s US$44.6 billion takeover bid as inadequate Monday, betting that it can elicit a higher offer from the world's largest software maker or find another way to deliver a comparable payoff to its shareholders.

The rebuff by the slumping Internet pioneer had been widely anticipated after word of Yahoo's intention was leaked during the weekend.

In its formal response, Yahoo said its board had concluded Microsoft's unsolicited offer "substantially undervalues" the Sunnyvale-based company.

Yahoo . (NASDAQ:YHOO) indicated it could be lured to the negotiating table if Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) ups the ante, without mentioning the price it has in mind.

"The board of directors is continually evaluating all of its strategic options in the context of the rapidly evolving industry environment and we remain committed to pursuing initiatives that maximize value for all stockholders," Yahoo said in a statement.

Investors appeared confident that Microsoft wants Yahoo badly enough to raise the stakes. Yahoo shares rose 34 cents to $29.54 in Monday's morning trading while Microsoft shares fell 46 cents to $28.10.

If Microsoft doesn't raise its offer, Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang assured employees in a Monday e-mail that the company is poised to rebound on its own and become a "must buy" in the $45 billion online advertising market.

"We have accomplished a great deal in a very short time," wrote Yang, a company co-founder who promised things would get better after he became CEO eight months ago. "Yahoo is a faster-moving, better organized, more nimble company well on its way to transforming the experiences of its users, advertisers, publishers and developers."

Just two days before Microsoft made its bid, Yang had warned Yahoo faced "headwinds" that made it unlikely the company's performance would improve significantly until 2009.

Yahoo's stock price had dropped by more than 40 per cent in the three months leading to Microsoft's bid, valued at $31 per share when it was announced Feb. 1. The offer was 62 per cent above Yahoo's market value at the time.

Many analysts believe Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft will eventually raise its bid to $35 to $40 per share, sweetening the pot by $5 billion to $12 billion in an effort to negotiate an amicable sale.

Microsoft was prepared to pay at least $40 per share for Yahoo a year ago, according to a person familiar with the talks between the two companies a year ago. Yahoo wasn't interested then because it was confident in its own strategy, said the person, who didn't want to be identified because Microsoft's 2007 offer was never publicly disclosed.

But a higher bid now could hurt Microsoft's own stock price, which has been slipping amid concerns that a Yahoo takeover could be more trouble than its worth instant payday loan. Microsoft's market value has plunged by more than $40 billion, or 14 per cent, since the bid was made public.

Microsoft representatives didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Monday morning.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Jordan Rohan predicted Yahoo's board will have little choice but to sell the company if Microsoft raises its bid to $35 or $36 per share. "Yahoo management has already exhausted the patience of its largest, longest-suffering shareholders," Rohan wrote in a Monday note.

If it doesn't want to pay more money, Microsoft could take its original bid directly to Yahoo's shareholders. Microsoft's management began preparing for that possibility last week by meeting with some of Yahoo's major shareholders to rally support for its offer.

In a more extreme tactic, Microsoft could try to override Yahoo's board by trying to oust the current directors later this year – a risky manoeuvre that would likely create hard feelings that would make it more difficult to cobble the two businesses together if a deal were consummated.

Yahoo also could fend off Microsoft by exercising an anti-takeover device, known as a "poison pill," that would issue more company shares to make a buyout too expensive to pull off.

Although its profits have been dwindling during the past two years, Yahoo still possesses one of the Internet's biggest audiences and most valuable franchises. Microsoft believes it can build on those assets to become a more formidable competitor to Google Inc., which now holds a commanding lead in the lucrative online search and advertising markets.

Yahoo has reportedly been exploring an advertising partnership with Google as one way to boost its profits and remain independent. The company also has been looking for other suitors that might be interested in countering Microsoft's bid, but so far no one has stepped forward.

By rejecting Microsoft's initial offer, Yahoo's board is running the risk that the company's stock will plunge below $20 per share again if its suitor decides to walk away.

That scenario would probably unleash a flood of shareholder lawsuits, intensifying the pressure on Yahoo's management team to deliver on a long-awaited turnaround that has been in the works for the past 18 months.

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