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Florissant Mayor Robert Lowery Sr. said the 2,000 permanent jobs and thousands more construction jobs tied to the proposed $350 million Riverview Casino in Spanish Lake are economic stimulus St. Louis County cannot afford to lose.

“With so many carpenters, ironworkers, pipefitters, sheet metal workers, electricians, plumbers and laborers out of work in this dire recession, the North County casino project would be a lifeline to thousands of North County families,” Lowery said in a statement this week. “The permanent jobs are also attractive with unemployment remaining so high in the region.”

Last week, St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley came out against the casino, citing environmental and flooding concerns, a move trumpeted by residents who had protested against the project.

Applications for the 13th and final Missouri casino license are due Sept. 1. The state’s last gaming license will become available in July when Las Vegas-based Pinnacle Entertainment (NYSE: PNK) closes the President Casino on the Mississippi River at the foot of Laclede’s Landing in downtown St. Louis.

“Whether you are for or against gambling, the fact is that it is legal in Missouri and there will be one more license issued,” Lowery said. “Rather than worrying about competition between casinos in the region, the region’s leaders should be concerned that these jobs will be lost to another part of the state. North County especially could use another economic engine. If we want housing values to remain high, then there have to be jobs to keep families here.”

The group backing the 377-acre casino complex is North County Development LLC, led by Wood River attorney Brad Lakin of LakinChapman LLC; his wife, Hallie Lakin; executive Kenneth Goldstein of Argo Products Co. in north St. Louis; and Wood River-based real estate investor Julie McDonald.

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Georgia’s average gas prices are down seven cents a gallon from last week as the price of crude oil continued its fall, according to AAA Auto Club South.

The average price per gallon in Georgia is $2.71, compared with $2.78 the week prior, $2.73 a month ago and $2.27 a year ago.

The national average price of unleaded regular gasoline is $2.80 per gallon.

The price of crude oil was down for the third week amid concerns the financial crisis in Europe will worsen and put a halt on global economic recovery. Crude oil closed Friday at $70.04 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The European crisis has pushed the value of the euro down 12 percent against the dollar and is one of the major factors that has caused the price of crude to decrease, AAA said payday lenders. At the same time, U.S. stockpiles of crude grew for the 15th week.

“The possibility that Europe’s financial problems will slow global demand at a time when U.S. demand is already slow to rise has investors worried,” said Jessica Brady, AAA spokeswoman, in a statement. “The lack of demand can be seen in the constant increase in U.S. stockpiles of crude that are now well above 362 million barrels. Lower retail gasoline prices are always welcomed by consumers, and they can expect to see just that as retail prices drop again this week.”

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World Vision is launching a microfinance site that allows donors to lend directly to small borrowers in developing nations.

The Federal Way, Wash.-based international charity has created World Vision Micro, a website that allows donors to give to entrepreneurs in developing nations who are seeking capital to start or expand their businesses.

The model is similar to Kiva.org, a San Francisco-based organization that connects individual lenders with individual borrowers. The microfinance industry actually uses several models, including Seattle’s Global Partnerships, which allocates investor or philanthropic capital to nonprofit lenders in developing nations that then distribute microloans or other financial services.

Under its new service, World Vision will approve applicants and pay their loans up front. Then the loan is posted on the website where donors can select it and pay for it; that money that is used to repay World Vision. Donors can search loans based on business type, gender of the borrower, location and size. Once the entrepreneur pays back the loan, the capital is recycled to pay for future loans.

World Vision already has a broad portfolio of microloans worth about $346 million, but the new site aims to enable individuals to make direct microloans. According to World Vision, the new microloan site has funded more than 850 loans worth a combined $230,000.

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Making up for lost revenue under a new federal law that restricts interest rate charges, many credit card issuers have been slapping new fees on cardholders.

Among the highest I’ve seen are a $99 annual fee just for having the card and a $60 fee unless cardholders charge at least $2,400 in a year.

So, what to do? Are we better off canceling a card to avoid unwanted fees or will doing so cost us more in the long run?

"We are advised not to close credit card accounts we no longer use because it will hurt our credit score," wrote a reader in an e-mail representative of dozens I’ve received. "I don’t want to pay any fees. How does closing an account really affect my score?"

For the answer, I turned to Craig Watts, public affairs director for FICO, the company that developed the widely used FICO score (The name comes from Fair Isaac Corp\oration, named after founders Bill Fair and Earl Isaac).

First, a refresher. Lenders use our credit score — a number generally ranging from 300 to 850 — to help them determine how likely we are to pay back a loan on time. The higher our score, the more likely we’ll be approved for a credit card or loan at attractive rates.

In addition, insurance companies, wireless providers, landlords and employers are using credit scores — presumably, a measure of how responsible we are — to help them decide whether to do business with us and on what terms.

That’s why having a good credit score is important. The good news is that if we use only a fraction of our credit limit, closing a credit card account won’t have much of an impact.

The FICO score formula weighs a number of factors on our credit bureau report. The most important is whether we pay on time.

You can go to www.myfico.com/CreditEducation/WhatsInYourScore.aspx for a complete list.

If we have one or more credit cards, the formula considers things such as how long we’ve had each account open, whether we pay on time and the "utilization rate," which is the account balance divided by the credit limit. For example, if we charge $2,000 and our credit limit is $10,000, our utilization rate is 20 percent.

The lower the utilization rate, the better. The formula also considers the utilization rate for all our cards combined. This is the part of the formula most likely to be affected if we close a credit card account.

For example, I have three credit cards, each with a $10,000 credit limit.

I typically charge $2,000 a month on one card and little or nothing on the others. My overall utilization rate is 6.67 percent ($2,000 is 6.67 percent of $30,000). For an explanation of utilization rate, go to www.myfico.com/crediteducation/questions/Credit-Cards-And-Score. aspx.

If you have high balances on one or more credit cards and you close one or more unused accounts, this can increase your overall credit utilization rate and damage your FICO score, Watts said. "To avoid that, you want to close credit accounts when your overall credit utilization rate is very low," he said.

For example, if I were to close one of my rarely used cards, my utilization rate would rise from 6.67 percent to 10 percent ($2,000 in charges and an overall $20,000 credit limit). That rate would still be quite low. Although the FICO site does not recommend a specific utilization rate, many consumer advocates recommend keeping it to less than 50 percent, or even 33 percent.

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Greece requested its first round of international funding on Tuesday. Now comes the really hard part: The Greeks will have to tighten their belts to bring the nation’s finances in line.

The initial loans from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund should allow Greece — at least for now — to stave off financial collapse.

But the debt agreement also sets into motion a raft of austerity measures to bring the national finances into compliance.

The measures are designed to rein in a country that has been living beyond its means.

"These are very, very serious and very, very rapid cuts," said Mitchell Orenstein, professor of European studies at Johns Hopkins University.

The austerity measures fall heavily on public workers, who will receive pay cuts and have to postpone retirement until later in life, and pensioners, who will have their pensions reduced.

"The current pension system is unsustainable and will become insolvent if responsible measures are not taken to place it on a sound footing," read an IMF document detailing the austerity measures.

Here are some of the details agreed upon by the Greek government, which hopes to reduce its annual deficit to 8.1% of its gross domestic product this year, compared to 13.6% in 2009:

Salaries: Wages will be cut to save the government € 1.1 billion in 2010. A spokeswoman for the Greek Finance Ministry declined to provide a flat percentage, because the cuts will vary depending on a worker’s salary. Two rounds of wage cuts have already occurred this year.

Retirement: Pensions will also be cut, except for those in the lowest income bracket. The retirement age will be set at 65. This is quite a contrast from the current system, which allows some workers to retire at 61. The government will toughen eligibility for disability, and for any other type of early retirement.

Sales taxes: The nation’s value-added tax will be increased by a tenth, meaning that a 10% tax will get notched up to 11%, and a 21% tax will be increased to 23%, to use examples provided by the IMF. This is expected to save the government € 800 million in 2010.

Excise taxes: Special taxes will be imposed on fuel and cigarettes, each of which will provide estimated revenue of € 200 million this year.

A tax will also be imposed on alcohol (including the traditional Greek liquor ouzo), providing estimated revenue of € 50 million in 2010. And the government will slap an excise tax on luxury items, such as yachts and private jets.

This luxury tax targets the wealthy, said Orenstein. But that doesn’t help the fact that the working and middle classes will bear the brunt of the hardship, he said.

The looming era of austerity fanned the flames of last week’s protests in Athens. Lower income workers see themselves as paying the price for tax-dodging fat cats, whom they blame for causing the problem.

"The Greek context is one in which there’s been a lot of tax evasion," said Orenstein. "It seems to me that people who can’t hide their income — public workers, teachers — are the ones who are going to pay the price. That’s the downside of the austerity program."

CNNMoney.com staff reporter Blake Ellis contributed to this article. 

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Southwest Airlines is boosting the frequency of nine of its routes from Denver International Airport for the summer season as of Sunday.

The Dallas-based airline (NYSE: LUV) announced these DIA schedule additions:

• Denver-Baltimore, from three flights a day to four.

• Denver-New Orleans, from one flight to two.

• Denver-Oakland, Calif., from three flights to four.

• Denver-Portland, Ore., from two flights to three.

• Denver-Sacramento, Calif., from two flights to three.

• Denver-Seattle, from two flights to three.

• Denver-Spokane, Wash., from one flight to two.

• Denver-Tampa Bay, Fla., from one flight to two.

• Denver to Tulsa, Okla pay day loan lenders., from two flights to three.

After Sunday's schedule additions, Southwest said it will operate 129 daily flights out of DIA, and expects to have 144 daily nonstops to and from the Denver airport by August.

Southwest carried 16 percent of DIA passengers in the first two months of 2010, according to airport statistics, making it the airport's No. 3 carrier, after United Airlines and Frontier Airlines, by passenger volume. Its share of total passengers has grown rapidly since the airline arrived at DIA in 2006.

Click here to download a full list of Southwest's system-wide schedule changes.

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GMAC Financial Services, the auto and mortgage lender that took three government bailouts to the tune of $16.3 billion last year, posted its first quarterly profit on Monday since receiving Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, funds.

And that’s not all: Now the company, which was once wholly owned by General Motors, wants to change its brand, distancing itself further from the struggling automaker — at least in name. On May 10, GMAC will rebrand itself Ally Financial Inc. to reflect one of its most successful businesses, Ally Bank.

The online bank reported $231 million in income in the latest quarter. After factoring in losses from other divisions of the company, GMAC as a whole, reported first quarter earnings of $162 million, compared with a loss of $675 million in the year-ago quarter.

"We achieved profitability, our premier auto finance franchise continued to expand, the capital markets reopened to GMAC debt, we have reduced expenses, and we took several additional steps to contain and reduce risk in the mortgage business," GMAC Chief Executive Officer Michael Carpenter said in a press release.

GMAC, which finances GM and Chrysler dealers as well as car buyers and home loans, currently has a contract with General Motors to use the "GMAC" trademark until 2016.

But GMAC’s board of directors decided to scrap the name sooner.

It’s a smart move, said branding expert Jack Trout, because it solves two problems. First, it distances the company from its negative association with government bailout money, and second, it expands the name to reflect the company’s retail banking operations outside the scope of auto loans.

"GMAC was always confusing. It was a good name if you’re leasing GM cars, but once you get beyond the automobile world, it’s not good," Trout said. "If you can take advantage of what the word ‘ally’ means, you can use that word to certainly help drive a new idea in."

GMAC shares are not publicly traded, and the government holds a majority stake in it since the company took bailout money.

As of Monday, GMAC has not repaid its TARP funds, a Treasury Department spokeswoman said.

"The company is working toward the timely repayment of the U.S. Treasury’s investments," GMAC spokesman James Olecki said in an e-mail. 

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Rocky Brands Inc. will stop distributing footwear bearing the Dickies label at the end of the year, the work going to an affiliate of the brand’s owner, the company said late Thursday.

Nelsonville-based Rocky Brands (NASDAQ:RCKY) became the exclusive licensee of Dickies boots after its $100 million acquisition of EJ Footwear Group LLC in 2004. The Franklin, Tenn.-based company was composed of three companies that produced footwear under the Georgia Boot, Durango, Lehigh, John Deere an Dickies brands.

Williamson-Dickie Manufacturing Co., based in Fort Worth, Texas, will have its Kodiak Group Holdings Co. develop and market the Dickies footwear business after the licensing accord with Rocky Brands expires Dec. 31.

Rocky CEO Mike Brooks said in a release that “we anticipated it would be difficult for us to retain the Dickies footwear license beyond 2010 and we have been taking steps to replace that business beginning next year. In addition, this decision will allow us the opportunity to dedicate more time and resources to growing our owned brands – Rocky, Georgia Boot, Durango and Lehigh – which carry significantly higher gross margins.”

Dickies boots sales represented about 4 percent of Rocky Brands’ $229.5 million in sales last year, the company said.

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