Financial life in a big town

Forget style, quality and customer service. This holiday season, all that matters is price.

A week before Halloween and two full months before Christmas, stores are desperately trying to outdo each other in hopes of drawing in customers worn down by the economy.

Wal-Mart, the biggest store in the nation, joined the price wars Monday by announcing that it would give gift cards to shoppers if they buy something there and find it somewhere else cheaper.

Staples and Bed Bath & Beyond have already said they will match the lowest prices of Amazon.com and other big Internet retailers. Sears is going a step further, offering to beat a competitor’s best price by 10 percent.

“The days of marketing the stuff in your store because it was a hot brand are over,” says Dave Ratner, owner of Dave’s Soda & Pet City, a Massachusetts pet food and supplies chain.

For the holidays, Ratner plans to offer 20 percent off pet accessories if customers buy a bag of dog food. Customers, he says, just want a deal.

Almost four years after the onset of the Great Recession, they’ve learned to expect one too. In better times, retailers could afford to keep prices higher and use promises of higher quality and better service to lure people into stores.

Those days are over. In a recent poll of 1,000 shoppers by America’s Research Group, 78 percent said they were more driven by sales than they were a year ago. During the financial meltdown in 2008, that figure was only 68 percent.

Wal-Mart last year went back to its “everyday low prices” roots, a bedrock philosophy of founder Sam Walton, rather than slashing prices only on certain items to draw in customers. Now everyday low prices might not be low enough.

So it’s trying something it is calling the Christmas Price Guarantee. It works this way: If you buy something at Wal-Mart from Nov. 1 to Dec. 25 and find the identical product elsewhere for less, you get a gift card in the amount of the difference.

The deal excludes online prices and some categories of merchandise _ groceries, live plants, tobacco, prescription drugs and wireless devices that require a service agreement. But it is good even if weeks pass between your purchase and spotting the better deal. And it applies even to big items like TVs, for which prices can drop steeply as Christmas approaches.

Duncan MacNaughton, chief merchandising officer for Wal-Mart’s U.S. stores, told reporters Monday that he has noticed “much more promotional intensity and gimmicks” among competitors.

“This gives customers peace of mind that we are an advocate for them,” he said.

Toys R Us’ big book of holiday offers will be packed this year with $8,000 of savings, compared with $5,600 last year, said Bob Friedland, a company spokesman. And it has added an incentive this year: If customers who sign up for its loyalty program spend $200 or more during the holiday season, they will get coupons on toys every month next year.

Retailers are responding to a customer base that is better informed, and more comfortable shopping online, than ever.

Jenna Wahl, a cardiac nurse from Bloomington, Ind., said she expects to spend about as much on holiday gifts this year as last _ roughly $500 _ but will try to get more for her money.

She’ll be asking stores to do more price-matching and plans to use her iPhone to check prices and download coupons.

“I will take things back in order to get the better deal,” she said.

Wal-Mart left online prices out of its Christmas offer, but other stores have decided they may not have that luxury. Staples, for example, is leaving it to the discretion of its store managers to decide whether to match online prices.

Sears’ offer of beating a competitor by 10 percent will not apply to retailers that only do business online, such as Amazon, but will apply to prices that its brick-and-mortar competitors offer on their websites.

The holiday price wars mark an acceleration of a trend that has already swept the retail industry. Lowe’s, the nation’s No. 2 home improvement store, said in August it was starting to focus on everyday low prices for items that customers can easily comparison-shop at rivals like Home Depot and Sears.

And J.C. Penney, the department store chain, said earlier this month that it plans to overhaul its pricing strategy starting in February. So far, it has kept the details a secret.

Wal-Mart stepped up its price matching in April by directing store employees to comb through competitors’ advertisements so price matches at the register would be easier. Wal-Mart’s price match has been around for several years, but it is using it more as a competitive weapon to compete with rivals. It’s launched ads playing up its price matching and has training sales associates to better police prices of local competitors. Customers will still have to ask for the price match.

“Customers have learned to wait on the next big deal because they know that if they wait long enough they can get a lower price than the everyday low price,” Bob Gfeller, Lowe’s executive vice president of merchandising, said to investors in August. “However, we must be vigilant to ensure that our customers perceive us to be priced competitively every day, even against online retailers and smaller category killers.”

Indeed, 64 percent of shoppers polled said that it would take discounts between 30 percent to 50 percent to get them to spend, up from 54 percent last year, according to a recent Citi Investment Research & Analysis survey of a little more than 1,000 customers. Customers looking for 60 percent off as a big motivator to spend increased to 10 percent from 8 percent last year, the survey showed.

Bill Martin, co-founder Shoppertrak, which monitors customer traffic at 25,000 stores nationwide, says retailers are seeing that customers appear in droves when they have big sales for holiday weekends like Black Friday, Memorial Day or Father’s Day. This creates peaks and valleys throughout the year, a trend that hasn’t abated since the recession began in late 2007.

“The reality is consumers are targeted. They’re well informed, and they’ve searched the Internet for price information,” said Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak, which expects foot traffic to drop 2.2 percent during the holiday season compared with a year ago.

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Folk music legend Pete Seeger and `60s folk singer Arlo Guthrie joined Occupy Wall Street demonstrators Friday in their campaign against corporate greed while residents near the protest park encampment pushed to regain some peace and quiet in their neighborhood.

Seeger joined in the Occupy Wall Street protest Friday night, replacing his banjo with two canes as he marched with throngs of people in New York City’s tony Upper West Side past banks and shiny department stores.

The 92-year-old Seeger, accompanied by musician-grandson Tao Rodriguez Seeger, composer David Amram, and bluesman Guy Davis, shouted out the verses of protest anthems as the crowd of about 1,000 people sang and chanted.

They marched peacefully over more than 30 blocks from Symphony Space, where the Seegers and other musicians performed, to Columbus Circle. Police watched from the sidelines.

Occupy Wall Street began a month ago in lower Manhattan among a few young people, and has grown to tens of thousands around the country and the world. A recent Associated Press-GfK poll says more than one-third of the country supports the Wall Street protesters, and even more _ 58 percent _ say they are furious about America’s politics.

But the encampment at Zuccotti Park has become more than a tolerable nuisance, some neighborhood residents say. At a meeting Thursday, they complained of protesters urinating in the streets and beating drums in the middle of the night. Some called for the protesters to vacate the park.

The area’s community board voted unanimously for a resolution that recognized the protesters’ First Amendment rights while calling for a crackdown on noise and public urination and defecation.

U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and state Sen. Daniel Squadron said in a statement that the resolution was “an attempt to establish a sensible framework that respects the protesters’ fundamental rights while addressing the very real quality of life concerns for residents and businesses around Zuccotti Park.”

Asked about Occupy Wall Street on WOR Radio on Friday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the protesters’ leaderless structure has made it difficult to negotiate with them.

Occupy Wall Street spokesman Han Shan, who has served as a liaison between protesters and local elected officials, agreed the protesters needed to be better neighbors. Shan, who attended the meeting, promised to limit the noise.

At Columbus Circle, Seeger and friends walked to the chant of “We are the 99 percent” and “We are unstoppable; another world is possible.” Seeger stopped to bang a metal statue of an elephant with his cane _ to cheers from the crowd.

At the center of the plaza, Seeger and Amram were joined by Guthrie in a round of “We Shall Overcome,” a protest anthem made popular by Seeger.

After more singing, Seeger asked for a mic check to tell the crowd: “The words are simple: I could be happy spending my days on the river that flows both way-ay-ays.”

During the march, the younger Seeger, in troubadour fashion like his grandfather, walked among the protesters playing songs. Amra took up a flute and others enlivened the night protest with the sounds of the accordion, banjos, and guitars.

At the front of the throng, marchers held American flags and a large blue flag that said: “Revolution Generation … Debt is Slavery.” Along the way, the crowd sang protest songs made popular or written by Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and others of the protest era.

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Associated Press writer Karen Matthews contributed to this report.

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Libyan revolutionary forces bulldozed the green walls surrounding Moammar Gadhafi’s main Tripoli compound on Sunday, saying it was time “to tear down this symbol of tyranny.”

The sprawling, fortress-like compound known as Bab al-Aziziya has long been hated by Libyans who feared to even walk nearby during Gadhafi’s more than four decades in power and its capture was seen as a turning point in the civil war as revolutionaries overran the capital in late August.

Ahmad Ghargory, commander of a revolutionary brigade, said the area will be turned into a public park accessible to all Libyans.

“It’s the revolutionary decision to tear down this symbol of tyranny,” Ghargory said. “We were busy with the war, but now we have the space to do this.”

Already, the courtyard in front of Gadhafi’s former house, which he used for many fiery speeches trying to rally supporters during the uprising, has been turned into a weekly pet market. Tripoli residents roam the premises as if at a museum, with vendors selling revolutionary flags and other souvenirs.

Libyans are eager to move on after decades of repression, even though fighting persists on two fronts and tensions between supporters of the former regime and revolutionary forces remain high _ even in Tripoli. The continued instability has delayed efforts by the transitional leadership to move forward with efforts to hold elections and establish democracy.

The Bab al-Aziziya compound, surrounded by high walls lined with barbed wire, had been a mystery to most Libyans though it is one of the city’s largest landmarks. Many Tripoli residents said they wouldn’t go near it, fearing security guards on the compound’s high green walls would get suspicious and arrest or shoot them.

“I cannot explain these feelings,” Farouk Alzeni, 25, said, standing against a backdrop of piles of rubble. “I have never touched this wall because of this place’s heavy security.”

The compound was a main target for NATO airstrikes during the months leading to Gadhafi’s ouster in late August.

Fighters forced their way into the area on Aug. 23 during the battle for the capital, jubilantly rampaging through the remnants of barracks, personal living quarters and offices seen as the most defining symbol of Gadhafi’s nearly 42-year rule.

Gadhafi’s residence, now gutted and covered with graffiti, was also targeted in a U.S. bombing raid in April 1986, after Washington held Libya responsible for a blast at a Berlin disco that killed two U.S. servicemen. A sculpture of a clenched fist crushing a U.S. fighter jet that had been erected after the strike has been removed.

Gadhafi entertained guests in a Bedouin-style tent pitched near two tennis courts about 200 yards (meters) from the family home.

“All the bad things that happened, happened inside these walls credit reports free. And he kept his mercenaries and tortured people inside these walls,” said Tarek Saleh, a 25-year-old revolutionary. “Before we were never able to enter this site, and we’re tearing these walls down so we don’t have to remember those dark days.”

Revolutionary forces have squeezed Gadhafi loyalists into one main district in his hometown of Sirte after weeks of fighting, but some said fears of friendly fire as well as a lack of coordination and communications were slowing their advance. Fighters from the eastern city of Benghazi and Misrata to the west were trying to reorganize themselves to solve that problem.

“We have them cornered in a 900 by 700 meter area, but the fighting is difficult because we are worried about firing on our own forces, they are mixed together,” Benghazi field commander Khaled al-Magrabi said Sunday.

Commanders said they have agreed to divide the remaining loyalist area between them to prevent confusion.

Libyan fighters also faced discord over the looting of buildings, including the airport and houses in Sirte, on the coast 250 miles (400 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli. Trucks were seen carting off tractors, industrial generators and heavy machinery on the road from Sirte to nearby Misrata, which was under siege by Gadhafi forces for months and saw some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

Associated Press reporters also saw trucks carrying equipment from Sirte’s airport, including red-carpeted mobile staircases, baggage carts, airplane towing vehicles and security screening equipment, all apparently meant for Misrata’s badly damaged airport.

Smaller pickups were loaded with rugs, freezers, refrigerators, furniture and other household goods, apparently taken by civilians and fighters to be used in their homes or resold.

The looting was an indication that reconciliation and unity may be difficult to achieve in post-Gadhafi Libya.

Commanders tried to rein in looting by ordering fighters to refrain from entering private homes and to detain anybody not authorized to be in the area. Benghazi fighters arrested three men for looting on Saturday.

Revolutionary forces also distributed fliers at checkpoints leading into the city that read, “Dear Muslims, avoid God’s wrath. Do not steal from people’s homes, their cars, or take their personal possessions.”

Fighting also raged in the desert enclave of Bani Walid, 90 miles (140 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli.

An official with revolutionary forces there, Abdullah Kenshil, said they captured the airport in Bani Walid on Sunday, but further advance was stalled by heavy shelling from Gadhafi’s forces elsewhere.

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Protesters expressed fears Thursday that a scheduled cleanup of the private park where they’ve been camped out near Wall Street is merely a ploy to unravel the demonstration.

City officials have informed protesters that they will need to leave Zuccotti Park on Friday so that it can be cleaned, but that they’ll be allowed to return afterward.

As a steady drizzle fell Thursday over the park, owned by Brookfield Properties, confusion was high over when the protesters will be ordered out _ and where they’ll go during the evacuation.

“The cleanup is a pretext to remove us from the camp. And we can return only if we abide by the rules of Brookfield Properties,” said Justin Wedes, 25, a public high school science teacher from Brooklyn who was sweeping the pavement with others. “We’re redoubling our efforts today.”

Brookfield did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the cleanup. City officials remained mum on logistics.

“This is the cleanest protest I’ve ever witnessed,” said Emilio Montilla, 29, a laid-off teacher’s assistant. “We take care of ourselves. We’re self-sufficient.”

A notice handed out to protesters Thursday from Brookfield stated that the cleaning is part of daily upkeep, and that conditions have deteriorated in recent weeks because that upkeep was put on hold by the protesters.

“They’re going to use the cleanup to get us out of here!” Wedes said. “It’s a de facto eviction notice.”

Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway said in a statement Wednesday that the protest has “created unsanitary conditions and considerable wear and tear on the park.” He said Brookfield asked for police help to clear the park so it can be cleaned.

Holloway said the cleaning will be done in stages Friday. Mayor Michael Bloomberg visited the protesters Wednesday to offer assurances.

Allison Esso of Human Services Council, a group that supports the protesters, was wary. “I’m hoping that they’re not trying to undermine their ability to protest,” she said.

The protest, known as Occupy Wall Street, has sympathetic groups in other cities which each stage their own local rallies and demonstrations: Occupy Boston, Occupy Cincinnati, Occupy Houston, Occupy Los Angeles, Occupy Philadelphia, Occupy Providence, Occupy Salt Lake, and Occupy Seattle, among them saving account pay day loan.

The movement has also drawn reaction from world leaders, including President Barack Obama, former Polish President Lech Walesa and Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Walesa said Thursday that he supports the New York protest and is planning to either visit or write a letter to the protesters. He said the global economic crisis has made people aware that “we need to change the capitalist system” because we need “more justice, more people’s interests, and less money for money’s sake.”

Khamenei said Wednesday that the wave of protests reflects a serious problem that will ultimately topple capitalism in America. He claimed the United States is in a full-blown crisis because its “corrupt foundation has been exposed to the American people.”

Khamenei’s remarks came a day after U.S. officials said the Obama administration plans to leverage charges that Iran plotted to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador into a new global campaign to isolate the Islamic republic.

Protesters, who have been living, sleeping and eating in the park for the duration, say they are in it for the long haul, despite the onset of cold weather.

On Wednesday, police arrested four people outside JP Morgan Chase offices where Wall Street protesters called in vain for a meeting with Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon. Protesters accused the police of rough handling. An Associated Press photographer witnessed police officers heading into the crowd of demonstrators to make the arrests.

Meanwhile, about 700 members of the Service Employees International Union marched through the Financial District; the union, which represents 23,000 office cleaners, is gearing up for contract negotiations with the Realty Advisory Board.

More protests are planned in Toronto and Vancouver this weekend, and European activists also are organizing.

A lawyer for a woman pepper-sprayed during an action last month is demanding that the Manhattan district attorney prosecute an NYPD deputy inspector on an assault charge. Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the matter was being investigated by police internal affairs and the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

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Small Business Administration guaranteed loans hit a record $210.9 million for the eastern district of Missouri in the past year.

That’s a 51 percent increase from a year ago and a record level of SBA lending, according to SBA St. Louis District Director Dennis Melton.

In the eastern Missouri SBA’s 2011 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, there were 533 loans to small businesses and start-up companies, totaling $210.9 million. For the 2010 fiscal year, there were $139.2 loans to 566 borrowers.

The previous record was in fiscal 2007 when the SBA’s eastern district reached $178.4 million in loans for 1,173 borrowers.

The SBA said fee waivers on certain kinds of loans

Forecasters say Jova has become a hurricane out in the Pacific Ocean.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Saturday evening that Jova had maximum sustained winds near 75 mph (121 kph) but was still far from land. It was moving east-northeast at 3 mph (5 kph) and was about 440 miles (708 kilometers) west-southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico.

No coastal watches or warnings had been issued, but current forecast models show Jova it could make landfall over Mexico by Tuesday or Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Irwin has weakened to a tropical storm in the eastern Pacific, about 930 miles (1497 kilometers) southwest of the southern tip of Baja, Calif personal loans for people with bad credit. It was expected to start moving toward land in the coming days. Irwin had maximum sustained winds of about 70 mph (113 kph).

In the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Philippe continued to weaken far from land.

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Stocks got a boost Thursday after the release of surprisingly strong U.S. economic data and the overwhelming approval by Germany’s parliament of a bill to strengthen a bailout fund intended to help European countries mired in debt crises.

News that the U.S. economy grew by more than previously thought in the second quarter of the year and a surprisingly large drop in weekly jobless claims drove stocks.

The Commerce Department said the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 1.3 percent in the April-June quarter, up from an estimate of 1 percent made a month ago. The improvement reflected more consumer spending and a bigger boost from trade.

“The quality of the improvement far outweighs the scale of improvement with the U.S. consumer key to future growth,” said Michael Woolfolk, an analyst at The Bank of New York Mellon. “The risk for the third quarter is to the upside, with the outside possibility that it could well come in at the upper end of the 2.0-3.0 percent range.”

Further good news emerged from the Labor Department, which found that jobless claims last week dropped 37,000 to a seasonally adjusted 391,000, the lowest level since April 2. It’s the first time applications have fallen below 400,000 since Aug. 6.

The mood in stock markets had already been largely positive after a clear victory for Chancellor Angela Merkel in a vote on beefing up Europe’s bailout fund. More encouraging for the markets, perhaps, was the fact that Merkel did not have to rely on support from opposition parties.

In the short-term, the markets’ hope is that the vote in favor of an expanded rescue fund _ with 523 lawmakers in favor, 85 against and 3 abstentions _ indicates Germany is fully behind efforts to shore up Europe’s defenses against a crisis that has already seen three countries bailed out and stoked talk that Greece will default.

Germany is the biggest economy among the 17-countries that use the euro currency and has to contribute more than others to boosting the firepower of the bailout fund, the so-called European Financial Stability Facility, or EFSF. If passed, Germany will be guaranteeing loans in the future for up to euro211 billion ($288 billion), rather than euro123 billion so far.

“The overwhelming majority in the Bundestag is a good sign and will hopefully mark a step change in German commitment to bringing the spiraling crisis under control,” said Sony Kapoor, managing director of Re-Define, an economic think-tank.

In Europe, Germany’s DAX was up 1.4 percent at 5,657 while France’s CAC-40 rose 1.5 percent to 3,041. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was underperforming, trading up 0.3 percent to 5,234.

Wall Street was poised for big gains at the open _ Dow futures were up 1.3 percent at 11,115 while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 futures rose by the same rate to 1,163.

The improved appetite for risk on Thursday also helped the euro brush off another survey showing that Europe’s economy was grinding to a halt. When risk appetite is high, the euro usually garners support against the dollar. Following the German vote, it was trading 0.8 percent higher at $1.3646.

In its monthly survey of economic conditions around the 17 countries that use the euro, the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission said confidence fell further in September following the previous month’s precipitous collapse. Its economic sentiment indicator stands at 95, against August’s 98.4, and is below the long-run average. The last time it was lower was in December 2009.

The further decline in confidence is likely to pile the pressure on the European Central Bank to reverse recent course and start cutting interest rates again, if not in October, then in November when Italy’s Mario Draghi will have replaced the current head Jean-Claude Trichet.

Earlier in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index swung between gains and losses before finishing up 1 percent to 8,701.23. South Korea’s Kospi index shot up 2.7 percent to 1,769.29. China’s Shanghai Composite Index dropped 1.1 percent to 2,365.34. Markets in Hong Kong were closed due to severe weather.

Oil prices tracked equities higher too _ benchmark crude for November delivery rose 23 cents to $81.44 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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Sony Corp.’s movie studio has started a spat with theater owners, telling them in a recent letter that it will stop paying for disposable 3-D glasses in U.S. theaters next May. The decision could save it millions of dollars per movie, but consumers might have to pick up the tab.

Sony Pictures said in its letter that theaters could adopt a “guest ownership model” prevalent in Europe and Australia that charges patrons separately for the glasses, which they can re-use on future visits.

RealD Inc., one of the main suppliers of glasses, said a pair in Europe sells for about one euro, or around $1.36 at today’s exchange rate. Most patrons spend more than $3 on popcorn and sodas each, according to major theater chain Regal Entertainment Group, and the average 3-D movie already costs a few dollars more per ticket.

Some designer 3-D glasses cost more than $100 a pair.

The change would come ahead of the release of a couple of Sony’s own 3-D blockbusters next summer, “The Amazing Spider-Man” and “Men in Black III,” although some of Sony’s 3-D movies, including “Arthur Christmas,” come out before then.

Sony Pictures spokesman Steve Elzer said in a statement, “there are constructive ways to deal with the cost of 3-D glasses that will not adversely impact consumers, and can also help the environment.” He called on theater owners to come to the table to work out the issue.

Usually, such negotiations happen behind closed doors. In this case, Sony going public with its new policy didn’t sit well with theater owners. The nation’s largest cinema trade group, the National Association of Theatre Owners, said the unilateral policy change was “insensitive” to consumers in a weak economy.

Regal Entertainment Group on Wednesday threatened to cut the number of screens showing 3-D films if the move means it or its patrons will have to pay more.

“To the extent that Sony seeks to change the current model in a manner that shifts costs to exhibitors, we would be forced to evaluate this new economic model and program our screens accordingly,” said Regal CEO Amy Miles in a statement.

Theater association president John Fithian said Sony’s decision upends a six-year old practice of splitting the costs of the rollout of digital 3-D screens across the country high risk personal loans.

While movie studios have paid for 3-D glasses and the cost of digital projectors and equipment _ expecting to save on film printing costs in the future _ theaters have paid for 3-D add-on technology and labor costs.

The squabble comes amid changes in the movie business that have hurt studios’ profits. People are buying fewer DVDs and aren’t paying enough for Blu-ray discs, on-demand movie downloads, or online subscriptions to make up for the loss. Studios are trying to cut costs through layoffs and even smaller movie budgets.

Fithian said the belt-tightening shouldn’t result in passing the buck to theater owners or moviegoers. “It is nonsensical to say theater owners and our patrons should be paying for their mistakes in the home market,” he said.

It remains to be seen if other studios will follow Sony’s lead and stop paying for the glasses. Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. said it was sticking with its arrangements with theaters for now.

“We are evaluating the situation,” said Chris Aronson, senior vice president of domestic distribution for News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox.

Representatives from Viacom Inc.’s Paramount, Comcast Corp.’s Universal and The Walt Disney Co. did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

One immediate result of the announced change was that RealD shares plunged $1.80, or 14.7 percent, to close at $10.42 in trading Wednesday. RealD supplies technology for about 90 percent of the 3-D screens in the U.S. and is a major supplier of the glasses, which made up about 40 percent of its revenue in the most recent quarter.

RealD spokesman Rick Heineman said the company is fine with any new model, including one in which consumers pay. He compared that system to buying headphones on an airplane. The core profit of the company comes through licensing its technology, he said.

Sony shares rose 12 cents to close at $19.34.

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