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Dozens of police and security guards were out in full force outside the King Edward hotel on Wednesday as protesters were marching toward the venue.

Enbridge is holding its annual general meeting here and anger over its proposed Northern Gateway pipeline threatened to get loud.

With drums pounding, protesters chanted

Cash advance loans and online payday loans available today. Apply now and receive up to $1500 no teletrack cash advance in as little as 1 hour, direct lenders.

General Electric says that first-quarter profits fell 12 percent, although it topped Wall estimates when some one-time items are excluded.

The industrial and financial giant says that its transportation, health care and energy infrastructure businesses all boosted profits in the period.

GE reported earnings of $3.03 billion, or 29 cents per share, for the first quarter. That compares with $3.4 million, or 31 cents per share, for the same part of 2011. Revenue slipped by 8 percent to $35.2 billion Payday Loan for Bad Credit.

Excluding special items, GE says it earned 34 cents per share.

Analysts, who typically exclude special items in their estimates, were expecting earnings of 33 cents per share on sales of $34.8 billion.

Shares of General Electric Co. rose 32 cents to $19.46 in premarket trading.

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The Federal Reserve has issued policy guidelines for banks turning foreclosed homes they own into rentals, a trend that could help boost falling home prices.

The central bank said Thursday that banks making the conversions should preserve needed documents and meet all federal, state and local laws that apply to renting.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and other Fed officials have said that with home prices continuing to fall and rents rising, it makes sense for some foreclosed homes to be converted into rentals. Demand for rentals has grown since the housing meltdown.

Sales of millions of foreclosed homes are resuming since the government’s settlement with the five biggest mortgage lenders over lending practices. Homes in foreclosure sell at a 20 percent discount on average.

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Like millions of Americans, Joanne and John Buchanan are facing foreclosure. But at a value of more than $2 million, the home they stand to lose isn’t your average delinquency.

For the Buchanans, it’s the dream house they built from the ground up in a resort community near Breckenridge, Colo., in 2003. It took them almost two years and about $2.2 million to build — and soon they will have to move out.

Foreclosure Fiasco

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For years, homeowners at the high end of the housing market were able to postpone the foreclosure process, but now multi-million dollar homes are becoming more commonplace in America’s foreclosure pipeline. In fact, America’s wealthiest families are now losing their homes to foreclosure at a faster rate than the rest of the country, according to RealtyTrac.

Out of all foreclosure activity, the share of foreclosures on multi-million dollar properties — or homes valued at more than $2 million — has jumped by 273% since 2007.

For the Buchanans, losing the six-bedroom estate they helped design was unimaginable at one time, but now it seems unavoidable.

The couple moved to Colorado from California where John had worked as the director of business development at a high-tech Silicon Valley firm. They came seeking a less stressful life. John took a buyout package and the couple opened two wine and tapas restaurants, using their new dream home as collateral.

See inside the Buchanan’s $2 million dream home

Things went well, for a while. "In 2008, we were hit up here with the slowdown as much as anybody," John said. But "we were on the wrong end of the market," he said. High-end restaurants like theirs were quickly without customers.

John was forced to shutter the restaurants in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing.

Meanwhile other expenses were also piling up, including the couple’s mortgage payment, which was more than $7,000 a month. They had gone to their lender, CitiMortgage, to ask them to modify the mortgage on their home, which was then valued at $3 million. But the bank refused.

Eventually, the Buchanans just stopped paying their mortgage. John said he hoped it would get the bank’s attention. It has been almost 30 months since they last made a payment, meaning the couple is more than $210,000 behind on their mortgage no teletrek payday advance.

Sean Kevelighan, a spokesman for Citi, said the bank could not comment on specific cases. "Our first priority is to keep families in their homes," he said.

Since 2007, Citi has helped more than 1 million homeowners avoid potential foreclosure, he noted. "Unfortunately, that is not always possible, and some cases proceed to foreclosure," said Kevelighan.

As part of the bankruptcy filing, the Buchanans have agreed to sell their home and hand over the remaining assets to the restaurant lender after Citi recoups the $1.7 million that it is still owed on the mortgage, according to John.

"We had a lot of our savings tied up in the house and we’ll end up losing all of that," he said.

If the house doesn’t sell soon, CitiMortgage will proceed with a foreclosure, which will further destroy the Buchanan’s already damaged credit. But selling is looking less and less like an option: The market for high-end properties in the resort community has largely dried up. The Buchanan’s house was first listed for $3.3 million in 2008. Now it’s listed for $2.3 million, and there have been very few interested buyers, according to Joan Moats, the listing agent on the property.

"Transactions dropped, sales volume is lower and prices are down 25% to 30% since 2008," Moats said. Houses over the $1 million mark, like the Buchanans’ property, are particularly hard to move, she said. "We’ve reduced it by over a $1 million now — we’re trying to get it sold but I’m racing against the bankruptcy and the foreclosure."

"There’s no traffic, there’s no market at this level. If we find a buyer they will have difficulty getting a loan," John added. "The foreclosure will happen soon."

8 multi-million dollar foreclosures

And things just may get worse before they get better. More than 36,000 homes valued at $1 million or more were foreclosed on — or at least served with a notice of default — last year. That number is likely to rise in 2012, according to Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac.

"The longer the tough economy persists, the more of these high-end homeowners will eventually succumb to foreclosure," Blomquist said.

After the Buchanans lose their home, they plan to move into a small rental property they can afford. "We probably won’t be able to buy anything for a long, long time," John said.  

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Singapore intensified efforts to address the island

Manufacturing in India and China improved in December, a sign the world

Declaring the American middle class in jeopardy, President Barack Obama on Tuesday outlined a populist economic vision that will drive his re-election bid, insisting the United States must reclaim its standing as a country in which everyone can prosper if provided “a fair shot and a fair share.”

While never making an overt plea for a second term, Obama’s offered his most comprehensive lines of attack against the candidates seeking to take his job, only a month before Republican voters begin choosing a presidential nominee. He also sought to inject some of the long-overshadowed hope that energized his 2008 campaign, saying: “I believe America is on its way up.”

In small-town Osawatomie, in a high school gym where patriotic bunting lined the bleachers, Obama presented himself as the one fighting for shared sacrifice and success against those who would gut government and let people fend for themselves. He did so knowing the nation is riven over the question of whether economic opportunity for all is evaporating.

“Throughout the country, it’s sparked protests and political movements, from the tea party to the people who’ve been occupying the streets of New York and other cities,” Obama said.

“This is the defining issue of our time,” he said in echoing President Theodore Roosevelt’s famous speech here in 1910.

“This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class and all those who are fighting to get into the middle class,” Obama said. “At stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home and secure their retirement.”

For Obama, saddled with a weak national economic recovery, the speech was a chance to break away from Washington’s incremental battles and his own small-scale executive actions. He offered a sweeping indictment of economic inequality and unleashed his own brand of prairie populism.

He spoke for nearly an hour to a supportive audience, reselling his ideas under the framework of “building a nation where we’re all better off.”

Billed as an important address that would put today’s economic debates in context, Obama’s speech seemed a bit like two packaged into one.

The first was that of the campaigner, full of loft and reclamation of American values. The second was the governing Obama, who recited his familiar jobs agenda, his feud with Congress over extending a Social Security tax cut, even his fight to get his consumer watchdog confirmed.

Obama tied himself to Roosevelt, the president and reformer who came to this town in eastern Kansas and called for a “square deal” for regular Americans. Roosevelt said then the fight for progress was a conflict “between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess.”

It is a theme Obama is embracing in a mounting fight for re-election against Republicans who, regardless of the nominee, will attack his stewardship of the economy.

One of the leading contenders for the GOP nomination, Mitt Romney, ridiculed Obama for comparing himself to Roosevelt.

Obama “said that he is like Teddy Roosevelt,” Romney said at a campaign event in Paradise Valley, Ariz. “And I thought, `In what way is he like Teddy Roosevelt?’ Teddy Roosevelt of course founded the Bull Moose Party. One of those words applies.”

Kirsten Kukowski, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, said, “Maybe instead of trying to be like other presidents, Obama should try being president.”

Obama took aim at the Republicans, saying they would only return the same structures that led to America’s economic downturn. “Their philosophy is simple: We are better off when everyone is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules,” Obama said. “I’m here to say they are wrong.”

The president conceded that the country is in the midst of a consuming re-examination on his watch, prompting national movements against both government spending and an economy that many feel disproportionately favors the elite. Obama went on the offensive about income equality, saying it distorts democracy and derails the American dream.

Responding to those who want to cut taxes and regulation in the belief success will trickle down, Obama said: “Here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It’s never worked.”

Obama noted that Theodore Roosevelt was called a “radical, a socialist, even a communist” for putting forth ideas in his last campaign such as an eight-hour work day, a minimum wage for women, unemployment insurance and a progressive income tax.

Left unsaid: Roosevelt’s Bull Moose campaign in 1912 failed to return him to the White House.

Obama attempted to sum up the pain and peril for a society where the middle class is struggling. But he also called for individual responsibility.

“In the end,” he said, “rebuilding this economy based on fair play, a fair shot and a fair share will require all of us to see the stake we have in each other’s success.”

Obama also challenged he big banks that took bailouts from American taxpayers, pointing to “a deficit of trust between Main Street and Wall Street.” He said banks that were bailed out had an obligation to work to close that trust deficit and should be doing more to help remedy past mortgage abuses and assist middle-class taxpayers.

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Federal monitors said this week they have found more evidence that Monsanto’s genetically engineered corn is failing to kill the insects it is designed to repel.

The US Environmental Protection Agency posted a report this week saying that corn rootworm — a major agricultural pest — is damaging Monsanto’s corn. 

This summer researchers said they found evidence of problems in cornfields in Iowa and Illinois. The agency said this week, they also have found evidence of corn rootworm damage in Minnesota and Nebraska, and called Monsanto’s monitoring of the problem “inadequate.”

Researchers, in lab settings, have found evidence that the pests are growing resistant to a protein that is genetically engineered into the plants and designed to kill the pests after they consume it.

Monsanto issued a statement saying it takes the report “seriously and remains committed to working with farmers to encourage the adoption of integrated pest management practices when managing high rootworm populations on farm.”

Monsanto did not provide a company representative for an interview, but has said in a previous interview that the problem seems to be confined only to fields with high insect pressure.  The company also says there is no “scientific confirmation” that the pest is developing resistance to the protein.

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Martin Nisenholtz., a New York Times Co. executive who engineered the newspaper publisher’s expansion on the Internet and mobile devices, is retiring at the end of the year.

Times Co. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and CEO Janet Robinson announced Nisenholtz’s retirement as senior vice president of digital operations in a memo to employees on Monday.

Nisenholtz, 56, was hired in 1995 to launch The Times Co.’s digital business.

Since Nisenholtz oversaw The New York Times’ debut on the Web in 1996, the company has built a popular digital network that has become an increasingly important source of revenue. The Times Co.’s websites include About.com as well as The New York Times, The Boston Globe and 16 other newspapers. Combined, they attracted nearly 73 million U.S. visitors in September, according to the most recent data from the research firm comScore Inc.

Last year, the Times Co. got about 16 percent, or $387 million, of its revenue from its digital operations. But the growth in that business hasn’t been enough to offset the steep decline on the print side.

With Nisenholtz in charge, the Times Co. began charging for unlimited access to The New York Times’ website in March in an attempt to increase revenue. At the end of September, The Times had 324,000 digital subscribers, including 43,000 who signed up since July 1.

The Times Co. hasn’t identified Nisenholtz’s successor.

Nisenholtz “leaves a lasting legacy that will be felt for a very long time,” Sulzberger and Robinson wrote in their Monday memo. “He developed a strong roster of executives and a deep bench of managers who are recognized leaders in our industry.”

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The government is demanding that a one-time billionaire awaiting sentencing in New York for insider trading reveal his medical conditions that he argues should win him leniency.

Prosecutors asked a judge in a letter Thursday to unseal the arguments surrounding the medical conditions so the public can know the issue at stake for Raj Rajaratnam (rahj rah-juh-RUHT’-nuhm). The government says in the letter that a defendant waives his right to medical privacy when he makes medical issues the basis for seeking leniency guaranteed fast personal loans.

The 54-year-old Rajaratnam was convicted in May of securities fraud charges after a jury reasoned that he made trades based on inside information provided by friends and business associates. Prosecutors say he earned more than $50 million in profits from his trades. Sentencing is set for Oct. 13.

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