Consumers urged to use refund for emergencies

Tax season is under way, and the IRS will soon flood the land with refund checks for many. Financial planners often suggest using the money to pay off high-interest debt and to bolster your retirement savings.

Yet the March issue of Consumer Reports magazine says the personal “emergency fund” we’re all advised to have might be the best place for your refund money. Why? Because if you lose your job, chances are good it will take longer to find a new one than it once did.

Lawrence

KU center’s workshop to focus on revenue

The Kansas University Small Business Development Center is sponsoring a workshop, “A Focus on Revenues,” from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the center, 734 Vt. The workshop will focus on revenue-generating strategies. The preregistration cost is $40; it’s $50 at the door. For more information, call Curt Clinkinbeard, director, at 843-8844.

Study

Atlanta, Vegas among best places for business

The top spots to do business aren’t places like Boston, New York or Silicon Valley, according to a recent review of federal job growth data in 277 American cities. The top-ranked places, according to Inc. magazine, are Atlanta, Las Vegas, San Antonio, and the eastern Los Angeles metro basin.

“A region’s overall affordability was the theme that united the cities atop this year’s list,” said Joel Kotkin, a senior fellow at Pepperdine University’s Davenport Institute for Public Policy and the author of the story in the March issue of Inc.

Among the 10 worst places to do business were hard-hit manufacturing cities, where thousands of factory jobs have been exported: Grand Rapids, Mich.; Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C.; Dayton, Ohio; and Rochester, N.Y.

Motley Fool

Name that company

I was born in 1905 as the Seattle Car Manufacturing Co., cranking out railway and logging equipment. I later became the Pacific Car and Foundry Co. before tweaking that to arrive at my current name. I built Sherman tanks in World War II and made steel for Seattle’s Space Needle. Today, based in Bellevue, Wash., I’m the world’s second-largest manufacturer of big-rig trucks. My light-, medium- and heavy-duty trucks sport brand names such as Kenworth, Peterbilt, DAF and Foden. I also provide financial services, distribute truck parts, and make winches under the Braden, Gearmatic and Carco names. Who am I?