BUSINESS
Calendar, B2 Dispatches, B2
THE BULLETIN • FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2011
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IN BRIEF Corzine again issues denial WASHINGTON — Former Sen. Jon Corzine, who presided over the collapse of commodities brokerage MF Global, returned to Capitol Hill on Thursday and denied he knew about loans the firm made using customers’ money. For the third time in a week, the New Jersey Democrat and former governor testified before lawmakers probing how an estimated $1.2 billion of customers’ money ended up missing. As he did in prior appearances, Corzine said he did not know. He also countered testimony that might have undermined that position.
Initial jobless claims fall Initial claims for unemployment insurance dropped to 366,000 last week, the lowest level since May 2008, in another sign that the job market is making a significant improvement. The new figures released Thursday by the Labor Department showed a drop of 19,000 initial claims from the previous week’s adjusted figure of 385,000. The fourweek average is 387,750 — below the 400,000 level that economists say is key to cutting into the unemployment rate.
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— From wire reports
Central Oregon fuel prices Price per gallon for regular unleaded gas and diesel, as posted Thursday at AAA Fuel Price Finder (www.aaaorid.com).
GASOLINE • Chevron, 1095 S.E. Division St., Bend. . . . . . . . . . . . $3.40 • Texaco, 718 N.W. Columbia St., Bend. . . . . . . . . . . . $3.44 • Chevron, 1210 U.S. Highway 97, Madras . . . . . . . . . $3.50 • Chevron, 398 N.W. Third St., Prineville . . . . . . $3.52 • Texaco, 539 N.W. Sixth St., Redmond . . . . $3.54 • Chevron, 1501 S.W. Highland Ave., Redmond . . . . . . . $3.56 • Chevron, 1001 Railway, Sisters . . $3.56
DIESEL • Chevron, 1095 S.E. Division St., Bend. . . . . . . . . . . . $3.94 • Chevron, 1210 U.S. Highway 97, Madras . . . . . . . . . $3.96 • Texaco, 539 N.W. Sixth St., Redmond . . . . $4.02 Marla Polenz / The Bulletin
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Bend home prices at 6-year low By Tim Doran The Bulletin
The median price for a single-family home in Bend dropped last month to $166,000, the lowest in more than six years, according to the most recent report from the Bratton Appraisal Group. In Redmond, the median reached $123,000 in November, nearly 1 percent higher than October’s median price but about 5 percent lower than the $130,000 median reported in September. November’s median price in Bend fell $2,000 below the previous low, reached in December 2010, according to Bratton’s data, which comes from the multiple listing service with permission from the Central Oregon Association of Realtors. By contrast, Bend’s median price for a single-family home peaked at $396,000 in May 2007, according to the Bratton Report, which tracks the price from April
2005 to the present. It does not include townhomes, condominiums, manufactured homes or acreage. November’s median price reflected the second monthly decline, while September’s median reached $212,000 after two previous monthly increases. In the last three months, Bend’s median price has fluctuated by about $46,000, according to the report, which was released Tuesday. Over the past year, Redmond’s median price reached its high, $130,000, in September and the $100,000 low point in June, according to the report. In November, 122 singlefamily homes sold in Bend, while Redmond recorded 40 sales, according to the Bratton Report. The cities had inventories of four and three months, respectively. — Reporter: 541-383-0360 tdoran@bendbulletin.com
Median single-family home prices November 2010 through November 2011 for Bend and Redmond $250K
$210,000
$200,000
Bend
$200K $150K
$120,000 $100K
$168,000
$114,000
$50K
$212,000
$197,000 $130,000
$117,000
$166,000 $123,000
Redmond
$100,000
0 Nov Dec Jan Feb March April May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov 2010 2011
Number of single-family homes sold 200
152
150
Bend 125
134
100 132 50
58
169
152
53 51
112
161 136 126
61 58 60 64
47 0
Redmond
133 46
44
143 122
56 54 40
Nov Dec Jan Feb March April May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov 2010 2011 Source: Bratton Appraisal Group
Greg Cross / The Bulletin
COKE VS. PEPSI Coca-Cola’s Dasani water is packaged in a “Plantbottle,” which is up to 30 percent plant-based and is 100 percent recyclable. On Thursday, both Coke and Pepsi announced plans for the first all-plantbased bottle.
Madoff employee to plead guilty Another former employee of Bernard Madoff is expected to plead guilty to participating in her boss’s Ponzi scheme. Enrica CotellessaPitz, the former controller of Bernard Madoff Investment Securities, will admit on Monday to falsifying the company’s records and making phony submissions to government regulators, according to a letter filed by federal prosecutors on Thursday. She has not been charged yet but is cooperating with the government, the letter said. Cotellessa-Pitz would be the 11th person criminally charged in the Madoff case.
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Coca-Cola via New York Times News Service
The race for the
greenest bottle By William Neuman New York Times News Service
Over their decades of competition, the battle between Coca-Cola and PepsiCo has taken on many colors — brown (cola), orange (juice), blue (sport drinks) and clear (water). Now, they are fighting over green: The beverage rivals are racing to become the first to produce a plastic soda bottle made entirely from plants. But despite dueling announcements
claiming technological breakthroughs, consumers should not expect to see many all-plant bottles on store shelves any time soon. Neither company is confident enough in the technology to say when, or even if, they will be able to deliver on their environmental ambitions. Coke delivered the latest volley on Thursday, saying it plans to work with three companies that are developing competing technologies to make plastic from
plants, with bottles rolling out to consumers in perhaps a few years. PepsiCo is aiming to beat that timeline and claim the 100 percent green label first. The company declared in March that it had cracked the code of the allplant plastic bottle, and on Thursday, it said that it was on schedule to conduct a test next year that involved producing 200,000 bottles made from plant-only plastic. See Bottles / B5
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By Clifford Krauss
William Herrmann of Whiting Petroleum walks along a pipeline in Belfield, N.D.
New York Times News Service
HOUSTON — The oil and gas business is full of gamblers who drill deep and often, praying for gushers but frequently ending up with dry holes. Then there is Richard Kinder, chief executive of Kinder Morgan, who has personally made billions of dollars operating the industry’s equivalent of a toll road: pipelines. Now, with Kinder Morgan’s $21 billion deal to buy a leading rival, the El Paso Corp., he is doubling down. Hydraulic fracturing techniques — despite causing a growing controversy — are creating a once-in-a-generation boom in oil and gas drilling in the United States,
Jim Wilson New York Times News Service
and the opportunity to build many more pipelines to carry new supplies to market. Public concerns about the environmental risks posed by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, raise the possibility of tough new restrictions, higher costs and even outright bans on new wells in some areas. But companies
like Kinder Morgan and its competitors think the need for new energy sources means pipelines are a relatively low-risk way to play the boom. If they are right, Kinder Morgan will collect new tolls for decades, along with the ones it is already pocketing. See Pipeline / B6
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Facebook, Greenpeace in truce over data centers The Associated Press NEW YORK — Facebook and Greenpeace have called a truce over a clean energy feud that had the environmental group using the social network’s own platform to campaign against it. GreenInside peace and • Facebook Facebook rolls out said ThursTimeline day that they redesign, will work B6 together to encourage the use of renewable energy instead of coal. Last year, Facebook opened a data center in Prineville, using Central Oregon’s cool nights and dry air to save energy while keeping its systems from overheating. But Greenpeace wasn’t happy that Facebook picked a site for its data center that’s served by a power company that generates most of its electricity from coal. See Facebook / B6
Zynga raises $1B in biggest Internet IPO since Google By Evelyn M. Rusli New York Times News Service
The virtual cow is the new cash cow of Wall Street. On Thursday, Zynga, the creator of social online games involving farms, poker tables and kingdoms, priced its initial public offering at $10 a share, at the top end of its expected range. The offering, which raised $1 billion, values the company at $7 billion. The highly anticipated public offering — the largest for a U.S. Internet company since Google — is a critical milestone for the social gaming industry, solidifying the legitimacy of a business model once mocked by investors. At $7 billion, Zynga rivals traditional gaming companies like Electronic Arts, which makes a lot of its money at brick-and-mortar stores. See Zynga / B5
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