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Ross & Baruzzini Inc. engineering and architectural planning firm appointed Karl Miller as senior project manager for its St. Louis area office.

Miller manages selected regional and national projects. He also provides senior-level electrical engineering support.

He brings nearly 18 years of experience in managing projects. He previously served as office director for Henneman Engineering Inc.

Miller holds a master’s degree in business from Eastern Illinois University and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from SIU Carbondale.

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International investors say capitalism is in crisis, with almost one in three backing radical changes to the system, according to a Bloomberg survey.

As the global financial and business elite gather in Davos for their annual forum, a majority in the Bloomberg Global Poll agree that income inequality hurts the economy and that governments need to do something to address it — ideas at the heart of

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Nudged gently by the tides off Tuscany, the capsized Costa Concordia has been deemed stable enough on its rocky perch for salvagers to begin pumping fuel oil from its giant tanks as early as Tuesday.

The cruise liner, its hull gashed by a reef and pocked by holes blasted by divers searching for the missing, yielded two more bodies Monday, 10 days after the accident. The corpses of two women were found in the luxury liner’s Internet cafe, now 55 feet (17 meters) underwater.

Tables, desks, elegant upholstered armchairs and cabinets bobbed in the sea as divers guided the furniture out of the holes to clear space for their exploration inside.

So far, the bodies of 15 people have been found, most of them in the submerged portion of the vessel, while 17 others remain unaccounted for. Authorities said earlier reports that an unregistered Hungarian woman had called friends from the ship before it flipped over turned out to be groundless.

The Concordia rammed a reef and capsized Jan. 13 off the tiny Tuscan island of Giglio as it was carrying 4,200 passengers and crew on a Mediterranean cruise.

Salvage experts received the green light Monday to start pumping fuel soon from the double-lined tanks of the Concordia. The weekslong fuel-removal operation aims to avert a possible environmental catastrophe in the waters off Giglio, part of a protected seven-island marine park.

Officials said the pumping would be carried out as divers continue the search for the missing since instrument readings have determined the Concordia was not at risk of sliding into deeper waters and being swallowed by the sea.

“The ship is stable,” said Franco Gabrielli, head of the national civil protection agency. “There is no problem or danger that it is about to drop onto much lower seabed.”

Meanwhile, an oily film was spotted about 300 yards (meters) from the capsized vessel by officials flying in a helicopter and by residents of Giglio, Gabrielli’s office said. Samples were being analyzed, but preliminary observations indicated the slick is a light oil and not from heavy fuel inside the Concordia’s tanks.

Absorbent panels put around the area seem to have at least partially absorbed the oil, authorities said.

The ship’s Italian captain, Francesco Schettino, is under house arrest near Naples, facing possible charges of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his vessel while some people were still aboard. He has insisted that he was coordinating rescue operations from a lifeboat and then from shore.

The ship’s operator, Costa Crociere SpA, has distanced itself from the captain, contending he made an unauthorized detour from the ship’s authorized route. Schettino, however, has reportedly told investigators that Costa officials requested that he sail close to Giglio in a publicity move.

Schettino’s lawyer, Bruno Leporatti, told reporters Monday that tests on urine and hair samples showed his client was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs before the crash payday loans online. Prosecutors are not allowed to discuss the investigation while it is under way and it was impossible to confirm the report.

Despite earlier fears, officials said the crippled cruise ship, with a 230-foot (70-meter) gash in its hull, is not expected to roll off its rocky seabed perch and be swallowed by the sea.

An Italian geologist on Giglio monitoring the ship’s movements said the Concordia was not so much moving as “responding to the tides.”

“It is moving at the rate of about one or two millimeters an hour,” Nicola Casagli told Sky TV TG24.

The sea has been calm for several days but was expected to become choppy in the next few days.

Islanders have been pressing for removal of the heavy, tar-like fuel from the ship’s 17 tanks to avert a possible catastrophic leak.

“They should start the oil drainage operations on the ship. At this point those who died will not come back to life. Even if they pull them out later, unfortunately it won’t make a difference,” Giglio resident Andrea Ginanneschi told The Associated Press.

Five miles (eight kilometers) of oil barriers have been laid to protect marine life and the pristine waters, which are prime fishing grounds and a protected area for dolphins and whales.

Recovery experts from the Dutch salvage company Smit have said they will create holes in the top and the bottom of each tank, heating the fuel so it flows more easily and pumping from the top while forcing air in from the bottom. For the underwater tanks, sea water will be used to displace the fuel, which becomes thick and gooey when cooled.

Besides some 2,200 metric tons of heavy fuel oil, there are 185 metric tons of diesel and lubricants on board, as well as chemicals including cleaning products and chlorine. Some diesel and lubricants have leaked into the water near the ship, probably from machinery on board, officials have said.

“Smit has been ready for a week to begin pumping fuel from the tanks, awaiting only the go-ahead,” said a company statement. “For this purpose, Smit has mobilized an oil tanker with emergency response equipment, including sweeping arms, booms and a skimmer.”

Seven bodies still await identification. Gabrielli said officials have DNA from the relatives of all of the missing passengers and are working to confirm their names.

On Monday, the body of a woman found in the ship a few days earlier was identified as that of a 30-year-old Italian woman, a new bride who was on the Mediterranean cruise with several family members.

__

Barry reported from Milan. Andrea Foa reported from Giglio.

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How much in savings and investments should you have by age 35 or 45? Or, for that matter, at 65 when you’re likely to be near retirement?

If you don’t know, you have plenty of company. So many figures are bounced about that it’s often difficult for people to know what’s the right amount. Many workers end up saving what they can and hoping for the best.

That’s why some financial advisers now use a simple yardstick to help clients quickly see how they measure up. It suggests the amount of savings and investments you should have in relation to income at different ages.

For example, at 35 your assets should at least equal your annual income. The formula is by no means gospel, but it’s a useful tool to check if you’re largely on target, need to save more or should revise your retirement plans.

The idea comes from Charlie Farrell, a Denver investment adviser and author of the book “Your Money Ratios: 8 Simple Tools for Financial Security.”

Farrell says financial ratios are used to simplify complicated data for investment professionals analyzing companies. He figured workers could use a similar shortcut for personal finance.

Mari Adam, a financial planner in Boca Raton, Fla., says she uses ratios based on Farrell’s book with clients. “I like it because it is very simple,” she says. “When you do retirement planning, it’s so complicated, people just don’t get it.”

The math is easy. Add up all your bank accounts, 401(k)s, individual retirement accounts and other investments. Don’t include the equity in your house. That’s because, Adam says, “most people still need some place to live and don’t take steps to downsize and sell the house.”

Younger workers in their mid-20s aren’t likely to have a lot of assets built up. What’s key for this age group is to get started with saving and investing. Contribute at least enough in a 401(k) to get the employer match if you can’t afford to do more now, Adam says. But — and this is crucial — don’t forget to increase the contributions 1 to 2 percentage points annually to catch up.

For all other age groups, Adam uses the ratios listed below. Other advisers, she notes, use even more stringent savings targets. Still, if you’re not a good saver now, these benchmarks will appear steep:

• Assets at age 35 should equal one to two times yearly gross income.

• Assets at 45 should total three to four times income.

• Assets at 55 should be six to eight times income.

• And at 65, assets should equal 10 to 12 times income.

“These are aspiration levels,” Adam says. And if you can’t meet them, she says, it doesn’t mean you can’t retire.

You might be able to get along with having fewer assets if there are other financial factors in your favor online payday loans. For example, Adam says, you could get by on less if your mortgage is paid off or if you will receive a fat pension or ample Social Security check in retirement. Or, she adds, if you are truly frugal.

But if you’re short on savings, you still have time to make changes to improve your finances.

You can squirrel away more, work longer or take a part-time job in retirement. Or delay Social Security benefits until as late as age 70, so you’ll get a bigger check. And you can always free up home equity by selling a pricey house and moving to a more modest place.

The benchmarks Adam uses aren’t that far off from what T. Rowe Price recommends, says Stuart Ritter, a financial planner with the Baltimore-based investment company.

Price, though, offers another way. It calculates how much you should be saving at different ages based on how much you have already put away.

For example, if you’re 35 and have assets worth twice the amount of your annual income, then you need to save 12 percent a year to stay on target, Price calculates. But if you’re 55 and have saved only three times your income, you will need to squirrel away 32 percent of pay annually.

Ideally, all of us would begin our careers saving 15 percent of gross pay annually, Ritter says. If your employer provides a 401(k) match — say, 3 percent — then you can save 12 percent.

At this savings rate and with the money invested in a diversified, age-appropriate portfolio, you should be able to maintain your lifestyle in retirement, Ritter says.

But many of us don’t start out putting away 15 percent. And some workers begin contributing only the minimum to get the employer match. Sometimes workers wait until they’ve been in the labor force for a decade or more before they start saving. And the longer they delay, the more they must put aside.

Start saving at age 35, for example, and you will need to put away 20 percent of pay each year, Price calculates. But begin at 45, and you must salt away 29 percent of income annually to get on track. Start at 55, and a whopping 43 percent of pay must be set aside for retirement each year.

For some, any of these savings targets will be overwhelming, given the amount of debt they shoulder. But there’s a guideline on debt, too.

Farrell, the Denver adviser, says debt — including a mortgage — should never exceed twice your annual income.

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Spain’s new government quickly sought to downplay remarks by its finance minister that raised doubts Friday over whether Madrid could deliver its goal of cutting its budget deficit.

Cristobal Montoro said in an interview with The Financial Times Deutschland that the target of 4.4 percent of gross domestic product this year was based on “outdated” growth forecasts by the previous government of 2.3 percent growth in 2012. The new government expects Spain to go into recession this quarter.

Montoro said of the 4.4 percent figure that “it is desirable, and it would be good to manage this,” according to the report. It said he didn’t want to make promises ahead of EU growth forecasts.

Hours later, the Spanish government scrambled to nuance the comments, which appeared to deviate from what has been a strict policy of deficit-cutting No teletrack payday loans.

Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said the government was determined to meet the 4.4 percent goal and if “more reforms and greater rigor” were needed to achieve it, they would be enacted.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s government says the 2011 deficit hit at least 8 percent of GDP, rather than 6 as forecast by the last government. Rajoy meets German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin next Thursday.

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A $25 billion settlement between the nation’s major banks and U.S. states over deceptive foreclosure practices during the housing crisis is nearing completion.

Five major banks _ Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank and Ally Financial (formerly GMAC) _ and U.S. states are “very close,” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said Wednesday.

Separately, two officials briefed on internal discussions say a proposed deal could be announced within weeks. Negotiators are finalizing a draft of the agreement, which must be reviewed by state attorneys general. Under the deal, banks would pay states and the federal government, which would fund programs to compensate homeowners.

The two officials asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the deal.

Talks have been dragging on for more than a year between major U.S. banks and state attorneys general over fraudulent foreclosure practices that drove millions of Americans from their homes during the housing crisis.

In October 2010, major banks temporarily suspended foreclosures following revelations of widespread deceptive foreclosure practices by banks. That has backlogged millions of foreclosures that must be cleared before the housing market can fully recover free 3-in-1 credit report.

The settlement would only apply to privately held mortgages, not those held by government-controlled Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Fannie and Freddie own about half of all U.S. mortgages, roughly about 31 million U.S. home loans.

Individual states can opt out of the proposed deal. Some have disagreed over what terms to offer the banks.

In September, California announced it would not agree to a settlement over foreclosure abuses that state and federal officials have been working on for more than a year.

New York, Delaware, Nevada and Massachusetts, which sued five major banks earlier in December over deceptive foreclosure practices, have also argued that banks should not be protected from future civil liability.

And both sides have also fought over the amounts of money that should be placed in the reserve account for property owners who were improperly foreclosed upon. Many of the details of the deal, including a $25 billion cost for the banks, have been agreed upon, officials say.

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Skechers, the athletic shoe company, has unveiled the star of its upcoming Super Bowl commercial — and it’s not Kim Kardashian.

It’s a little dog named Mr. Quiggly.

Mr. Quiggly, a French bulldog, has replaced the reality television celebrity Kardashian, who starred in last year’s Super Bowl Skechers ad as a sultry heartbreaker.

Mr. Quiggly will share Skechers’ air time with investor Mark Cuban, who owns the National Basketball Association Champion Dallas Mavericks.

Skechers () said that Cuban will play a "key role" in the commercial, but acknowledged that the "scrappy" dog could be "stealing the spotlight."

Like Kardashian in last year’s ad, Mr. Quiggly will be dressed in athletic gear. He will be wearing two pairs of red Skechers GOrun shoes — not just one — along with a matching sports jersey.

Skechers said that Kardashian’s contract with the company expired at the end of 2011 one hour payday loan.

Kardashian and Mr. Quiggly share a strong connection to the NBA. Mr. Quiggly co-stars with Mavericks-owner, Cuban, while Kardashian was briefly married to NBA player Kris Humphries.

Skechers said that its ad will run in the first half of the game, before the two minute warning.

NBC is broadcasting the game on Feb. 5 from Indianapolis. According to the network, the average price of a 30-second ad is $3.5 million, a record high.

Other Super Bowl advertisers that have been confirmed for this year include Anheuser-Busch InBev (), Century 21 Real Estate, online domain company Go Daddy, the snack food company Frito-Lay, and automakers Audi and Hyundai. 

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After wild price swings that left investors bewildered and not a cent richer last year, stocks are rising again, and calm has settled over the market like blue skies after a storm.

Or maybe eye of the storm is the better metaphor.

“It’s a little too calm,” says the usually unflappable Jim Paulsen of Wells Fargo Management, a bullish stock strategist not easily spooked. “Maybe we’re setting up for a break.”

Whether that break will bring a rise or fall in stocks, Paulsen is not sure. But he suspects it’ll be big whichever direction.

For eight straight days, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has moved up or down less than 1 percent, a run that is both remarkable and a tad eerie. The last time stocks moved so little for so long was a 13-day streak starting last April 21 _ just before a bumpy five-month drop to near bear-market lows.

Other curiosities, ominous or otherwise, from the first two weeks of the year:

_ The hapless and helpless are hot. Netflix Inc., the DVD-by-mail and streaming entertainment company that enraged customers by raising rates, is up 36 percent. Bank of America is up 19 percent. Both lost more than half their value in 2011.

_ The first is last. The best-performing of the S&P’s 10 categories last year, utilities, is now the worst. Those stocks rose 15 percent last year but have fallen 3 percent this year. Investors apparently have decided they’re too expensive. The second-best sector last year, consumer staples, is down 1.3 percent.

_ Stocks are up, even if profits aren’t. The S&P has risen 17 percent from its 2011 low on Oct. 3 despite increasing pessimism among analysts about profits. In three months since that low, analysts have cut fourth-quarter profit estimates at companies they follow by 19 percent, the most since the depths of the Great Recession three years ago.

For all of 2012, the analysts now say earnings will rise 10 percent, down from a projected 17 percent five months ago, according to FactSet, a provider of financial data.

_ Where have all the traders gone? The markets have been calm even though few shares are trading hands. Low volume typically exaggerates price moves. Experts say last year’s abnormally low average daily volume on the New York Stock Exchange, 4.3 billion shares traded, was one reason stocks gyrated so much. This year, volume has averaged 3.9 billion.

The good news for investors is that the S&P has risen 2.5 percent in 2012. But Barry Knapp, head of U.S. equity strategy at Barclays Capital, smells trouble.

The usual explanation for stocks rising this time of year is what’s known as the January effect: Investors sell stock at the end of previous year to lock in losses for tax purposes, then buy again in the new year no credit check payday loans.

This year, it’s more like the January defect.

Knapp says investors sold as expected, but then got nervous and didn’t follow through with the crucial second part _ buying. That’s his explanation, anyway for the low volume. He’s worried the small gains this year could prove fleeting.

“Investors don’t have a lot of conviction about the rally,” he says. “Most don’t believe the Europeans have solved their problems or that the slowdown in China won’t get worse.”

Or apparently that the U.S. economy will grow much faster.

The big news so far this year is that unemployment in the U.S. fell to 8.5 percent in December, the lowest in almost three years. That raised hopes that the labor market is finally on the mend.

But then the government reported Thursday that unemployment claims rose to 399,000 in the first week of the year, the highest in six weeks, and now investors are not so sure.

Further dampening spirits was a report that sales at retailers increased just 0.1 percent in December. Earlier, several retail chains, including Target, J.C. Penney Corp. and Kohl’s Department Stores Inc., cut their earnings forecasts. After Tiffany & Co. warned of disappointing holiday sales, investors pushed its stock down 11 percent.

Among S&P 500 companies making so-called pre-announcements about their fourth quarter earnings, FactSet says those cutting forecasts have outnumbered those raising them by three to one.

Which would be bad for stocks _ except in the upside-down world of investing. Linda Duessel, an equity market strategist at Federated Investors, says investors tend to drive down stocks too far on warnings that profits could fall short of expectations, creating bargains.

“We’re betting investors will be surprised,” Duessel says. “We’re bullish.”

So is Paulsen of Wells Fargo, notwithstanding his talk of an eerie calm. He says investors are paying 12.5 times expected per-share earnings for the S&P 500 versus a more typical 14.5 times, meaning they’re relatively cheap.

He thinks the gap will close, and stocks could jump 15 percent, assuming the unemployment rate continues to drop this year and investors become more confident. For an extra kick in your portfolio, he suggests buying stocks in industries closely tied to the economy, like industrials, materials and financials. All three fell last year.

“There’s a huge discount (on stocks) due to all the fear and phobia,” Paulsen says. “Rising confidence could be a big boost.”

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Sales of Lipitor, the top-selling drug in history, have leveled off after a steep plunge following the start of U.S. generic competition.

New figures from data firm IMS Health show that at the end of December, sales of Pfizer Inc.’s Lipitor were at just above a 37 percent market share.

Two new generic versions of the cholesterol-lowering drug came on the market at the beginning of December, and in the first full week of the month they had siphoned off a combined 59 percent of sales. By the last week of December, atorvastatin pills from Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. and the authorized generic from Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc. _ manufactured by Pfizer and marketed by Watson _ only picked up another 4 percent between them.

That’s because Pfizer is fighting hard to retain branded Lipitor sales, with big discounts to patients and insurers.

Lipitor lost U.S. patent protection on Nov. 30.

Pfizer, the world’s largest drugmaker, has been offering patients discount cards that give them a $4 copayment _ less than the copay for all but the most popular generics _ if they keep taking Lipitor rather than defecting to a cheaper generic version.

New York-based Pfizer also has been giving insurance plans that agree to only cover brand-name Lipitor for the time being the difference between what they had been paying for the brand and what they would pay for cheaper generics.

Until recently, Pfizer has been heavily advertising the copay program, called “Lipitor For You,” and is still running some ads. Usually drugmakers end all advertising of brands well before the first generic competition arrives.

But with Lipitor generating about $7.9 billion in annual sales in the U.S. and nearly $11 billion worldwide _about 16 percent of Pfizer’s annual revenue _ the company elected to pull out all the stops to hang onto sales for as long as possible.

The unprecedented strategy, closely watched because most other big drugmakers have their own blockbusters facing generic competition in the next couple of years, appears to be paying off. Normally, sales of a brand name drug continue to fall over the weeks and months after the start of generic competition.

“It’s been pretty stable after the first few weeks,” Michael Kleinrock, research director at the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, told The Associated Press. “Normally you see a free fall.”

“It’s still early days,” he added.

Because the arrival of generics brought a chance for health insurers, plan sponsors and patients to save significant money, insurers had prepared long ago to automatically switch all their patients on Lipitor to generics. Pfizer’s strategy upended that.

IMS data show that U.S. patients were filling about 865,000 Lipitor prescriptions a week in November. That plunged by more than 55 percent, to about 397,000 prescriptions, in the first full week of December. But in the last three weeks of December, patients were filling about 350,000 brand-name Lipitor prescriptions a week. The number was down a bit for the week ended Dec. 30 because patient visits to doctors, and prescription sales as well, dropped during that holiday week.

Of the two generic versions, Ranbaxy’s has grabbed greater market share, about 35 percent of atorvastatin prescriptions to Watson’s 27 percent and Pfizer’s 37 percent.

Ranbaxy spokesman Chuck Caprariello said the company is “delighted that we are able to market atorvastatin and we anticipate increased market share over time.”

Ranbaxy, India’s largest maker of generic drugs, did not get permission from the Food and Drug Administration to sell its generic until the night of Nov. 30. That was because long-standing manufacturing issues at some Ranbaxy factories led the FDA to block shipments of many Ranbaxy drugs to the U.S. Ranbaxy, which has been working to resolve those issues, got FDA permission to make its atorvastatin at a New Brunswick, N.J., factory.

Watson spokesman Charlie Mayr said IMS data doesn’t capture all sales, and he believes his company is splitting the generic sales fairly evenly with Ranbaxy. Watson is based in Parsippany, N.J.

Pfizer spokesman MacKay Jimeson wrote in an email response to questions that “Lipitor continues to meet our expectations.

“Enrollment in the Lipitor For You program has been in line with our expectations, as we expect the majority of patients will be automatically switched to a generic,” he wrote. “Our goals are to support patient choice.”

Mayr said his company expected that “Pfizer’s very aggressive strategy would retain about 40 percent of the overall market. The fact that it’s below 40 demonstrates that they haven’t been quite as successful as we had anticipated.”

Sanford Bernstein analyst Dr. Tim Anderson has estimated that for a 90-day supply of Lipitor, even after paying the rebates to insurers and patients, Pfizer still can make a profit of roughly $100, compared with about $225 before generic competition.

That math all changes come this June, when additional generic companies will be allowed to enter the market. The increased competition will send prices for atorvastatin plunging, to as little as 25 percent of the original Lipitor price, about $115 to $160 per month, depending on dosage. It’s unlikely that Pfizer would then be able to offer discounts big enough to still make a profit.

“This will be an all-generic market” at that point, Mayr predicted.

Kleinrock, of IMS, said that having a brand-name company competing with generics, as Pfizer is doing now, should push down prices for all the versions.

“It’s clear that every company’s watching to see if this works,” he said, because up till now brand-name drugmakers have accepted rapid loss of sales of their blockbusters as inevitable.

“This could have repercussions,” he said, if other brand-name companies decide to follow suit.

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Vehicle sales in China rose a scant 2.5 percent in 2011 as higher prices and traffic controls kept buyers out of showrooms, but the market remained the world’s biggest.

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers reported Thursday that total vehicle sales rose to 18.5 million last year, up from 18 million in 2010, when sales rose 32 percent.

In contrast, U.S. auto sales jumped 10 percent to 12.8 million vehicles in 2011. China overtook the U.S. as the biggest market by number of new vehicles sold in 2009.

The expiration of tax incentives and subsidies, along with restrictions on car purchases in Beijing, slowed sales, which had grown at a double-digit pace every year since 1999 _ apart from in 2008. Sales that year, at the height of the global crisis, rose 6.7 percent.

Car sales in China soared in 2010 after the government cut sales taxes and offered subsidies to spur demand, but growth slowed once the incentives ended.

“This data was what we expected,” said Jia Xinguang, managing director of the China Automobile Dealers Association, attributing the slowdown mainly to the end of preferential policies for car purchases.

In the long run, the auto industry’s development will not be limited by market demand or economic growth, “but by severe traffic congestion, air pollution and energy shortages,” said Jia low interest rate personal loans.

But he and other analysts say they expect growth to continue, given the relatively low level of vehicle ownership among increasingly affluent families.

Another industry group, the China Passenger Car Association, reported earlier this week that passenger car sales, which exclude buses and heavy trucks, rose 2.8 percent last year to 13.7 million vehicles.

Sales of SUVs jumped 25 percent, to 1.5 million, it said, while sales of sedans rose 3.6 percent to 9.6 million units. But the once-roaring boom in sales of vans and minivans collapsed, with minivan sales plunging nearly 11 percent to 2.1 million units.

The malaise has hit domestic automakers hardest, with Japanese and U.S. car makers enjoying a reputation for higher quality and brand value.

General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. earlier reported strong December sales in China though full-year growth fell.

Sales of GM-branded vehicles by the company and its Chinese partners rose 8.3 percent in 2011 to a new record of 2.5 million vehicles.

Ford’s sales for the year climbed 7 percent to 519,390 vehicles.

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