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The U.S. economy is growing again but faces tough challenges that call for action to create jobs and foster expansion, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Thursday.

Geithner, speaking to the Economic Club of New York, singled out rising oil prices as a stumbling block for the economy because they force consumers to pay more for gasoline at the pump.

He said the economy was now more productive than it was before the 2007-2009 financial crisis but cautioned that confidence remains fragile.

“That is why it is so important that policy makers continue to work to get the economy growing faster in the short term and not shift prematurely to fiscal restraint,” he said.

“We can’t cut our way to growth. Severe austerity now would be very damaging,” he added.

He cited a number of factors that together mean Americans are facing “a dangerous and uncertain world,” including escalating energy costs.

“There is no quick and easy fix to this problem, but it reinforces the need for more progress to develop additional sources of energy of all forms,” Geithner said.

Earlier on Thursday, Reuters reported that Britain was ready to cooperate with the United States on a release of strategic oil stocks, likely within months.

Geithner noted that at the end of 2012, the country faces a simultaneous expiry of tax cuts and big across-the-board spending cuts that together would amount to about five percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

The prospect of such a blow to national output should be a strong incentive for lawmakers to reach some compromises on taxes and spending, he suggested.

Geithner said the Obama administration is aiming for a package of measures that includes some tax increases for wealthy Americans, though that is opposed by Republicans.

“If you do not raise revenues through tax reform, then you have to find another 1 percent of GDP or roughly 1.5 trillion dollars over 10 years in additional savings from defense, Social Security, Medicare, education or low income programs,” he said.

During a question period later, Geithner said the country now faces “stark choices” about the best course for boosting growth and getting deficits down.

He suggested there was “no alternative” to raising some taxes along with reducing spending and said reductions in some benefit programs were “manageable” if they were made over time.

People are going to be reluctant to see their benefits cut unless they think that those benefit cuts are not going to sustain tax rates we can’t afford,” he said.

“They go together. There’s no alternative. It’s going to have to happen and it’s better for us if it happened sooner and with design in it than happen too late without the opportunity for people to adjust,” Geithner added.

He noted that research shows that recoveries that follow financial crises tended to be “more tentative and uneven” and said it likely will take years to fully repair damage caused by the last one.

In response to questions, Geithner said that actions by the European Central Bank to keep markets liquid as well as actions by new governments in Italy and Spain had “substantially calmed the really acute financial tensions of the past 18 months” and reduced downside risks to the global economy.

“For that to be sustained, we’re going to need to keep a close eye on oil and Iran and gas prices plus we’ve got to make sure Europe keeps moving to sustain its progress,” he added.

If Europe builds a stronger financial firewall, Geithner said it would be appropriate for the International Monetary Fund to raise more resources and play a larger role in helping Europe. “If Europe moves on that front, I think you’ll see the IMF try to reinforce that,” he said.

Geithner said the United States must also prepare for a future in which emerging-market countries like Mexico, China and Brazil are getting better at competing and are putting pressure on American jobs.

One way to do that is by reforming a corporate tax system that Geithner described as “a complex and unfair mess of subsidies…with a very high statutory rate” of tax that varies across industries. It needs to be reformed to encourage U.S. businesses to keep production at home, he suggested.

Geithner has previously indicated that he is staying in the Obama administration through this year’s elections but, even if President Barack Obama is reelected, would not be back in a second term.

He said the country can’t let up on the effort to reduce deficits and said Americans should beware of promises that tax cuts can pay for themselves.

“No responsible politician can offer the nation fiscal sustainability through trillions in unpaid-for tax cuts,” Geithner added.

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The resilience of the largest U.S. financial firms when tested against a recession more severe than the last one shows regulators have succeeded in pushing banks to build fortress-like balance sheets.

The Fed yesterday said 15 of 19 banks would be able to maintain capital levels above a regulatory minimum in an

As more details emerge about the massive $26 billion foreclosure settlement between the five biggest mortgage lenders and the states’ attorneys general, a growing number of borrowers are realizing that the deal will do little, if anything, to help them out.

Proponents of the settlement deal tout that roughly 1 million homeowners who owe more on their homes than their homes are worth are expected to have their mortgage balances lowered through principal reductions and another 750,000 would be able to refinance into loans with lower interest rates.

Foreclosure Fiasco

Rage grows over mortgage deal BofA to slash mortgage balances by $100,000 or more ‘How we’re losing our multi-million dollar home’ Foreclosures made up one in four home sales Uncle Sam wants you to rent out its foreclosed homes

Quiz: What the rich really pay in taxes

However, that’s only a fraction of the 11 million homeowners who are currently underwater on their homes, according to CoreLogic. And it’s also a mere sliver of the 3.5 million people who lost their homes to foreclosure over the past four years.

"The impact [of this settlement] will be small," said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics. "It’s not a home run; it’s a single."

Principal reductions will also only apply to certain borrowers who have mortgages still held by the five major lenders: Bank of America (, Fortune 500), CitiBank (, Fortune 500), Wells Fargo (, Fortune 500), J.P. Morgan Chase (, Fortune 500) and Ally Financial.

Borrowers who have a mortgage held by Fannie Mae (, Fortune 500) or Freddie Mac () — roughly half the market — are out of luck. Loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration are also ineligible.

Please buy our $2 million dream home

"If it’s offered to one group, it should be offered for all," said Stacy Ovendale from Seattle, who says her home has lost nearly 50% of its value. "When my mortgage was written up, I had to take whatever program was available to me at the time, which happened to be FHA. … It’s so frustrating because my loan is with Bank of America but since it’s FHA, my mortgage is current and I have chosen to be responsible, there is nothing they can offer me in the way of principal reduction."

Edward DeMarco, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, said he won’t allow the agencies to reduce borrowers’ loan balances because it is unfair to taxpayers and works no better than other foreclosure prevention methods, such as lowering interest rates, extending loan terms or delaying payments.

To Cat Gouldman, who lives in the D.C. area, it’s a raw deal. Like her mortgage, most loans are not retained by the original lenders. They’re sold to Fannie or Freddie best payday advance. Borrowers aren’t given a choice when their loans are sold.

Britney Spears’ home for sale — half off!

In fact, the mortgage Gouldman and her husband took out changed hands several times. First, it was sold to Wells Fargo, then to IndyMac and then it was taken over by Fannie. Her home has lost about half of its value, she said, and she’s upset that she won’t be able to get the same principal relief that other borrowers will receive.

"This is not the right message for the federal government to send out," she said. "Do homeowners walk into banks asking if their loan is backed by Fannie Mae? I don’t think so."

"I think it’s a travesty," said Derek Buckingham of Everett, Wash., who has a Freddie loan. "The government appears to still have no accountability for the problems they helped incentivize the banks to create."

Some borrowers may qualify for much larger reductions than others, as well.

Bank of America, for example, said it will slash mortgage balances by an average of $100,000 or more for roughly 200,000 homeowners. The goal, according to BofA, is to reduce the amount owed on the home to 100% match the current market value. Meanwhile, the other four major mortgage lenders, CitiBank, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial, are expected to reduce qualified borrowers’ principal to between 115% and 125% of the value of their homes — an amount that the Department of Housing and Urban Development said should average about $20,000.

For the homeowners who bought responsibly and made their payments faithfully, the real inequity comes in the fact that their tax dollars are paying for government-funded programs to prevent foreclosures while irresponsible borrowers accrue the benefits like the ones offered in the settlement.

8 multimillion-dollar foreclosures

"So, these people who are underwater get a break from the banks, and other hard working folks like us get screwed?" wrote Karthik Subramanian, of Aurora, Ill., in an email.

"What I think is unfair, is that people who didn’t overleverage their homes, who paid their mortgages on time, who didn’t borrow more than they could afford, even if the bank said they could afford more, the people who had good common sense and have done the right thing, are left with all of this business loaded on their backs," wrote Jamie Smith of Sonoita, Ariz.

That said, every homeowner could benefit from such bailouts if they help to turn around the ailing housing market, where home price declines and slow sales continue to threaten the fragile economic recovery. The settlement, however, may not help enough borrowers to do even that, said Moody’s Zandi. 

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Attacks against al-Qaida’s favorite targets in Iraq killed 14 people Monday as insurgents struck security forces, a government office and jewelry stores, demonstrating a continued threat from armed groups as the country prepares to host a meeting of the Arab world’s top leaders.

Security officials expect al-Qaida to ramp up violence over the next few weeks as Baghdad prepares to host the annual Arab League summit at the end of the month.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday’s strikes, and numerous armed groups in Iraq have mixed attacks on political targets with money-making criminal operations. But al-Qaida in Iraq for years has been believed to fund itself in part with cash and gold stolen from jewelry stores.

Militants struck first in a pre-dawn raid Monday in the city of Tarmiyah, 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Baghdad, where police said gunmen in at least two cars attacked the local mayor’s office. Three policemen were killed, police and health officials said. The mayor was not in his office at the time.

A half hour later and a few miles (kilometers) away, gunmen targeted a police patrol in a drive-by shooting. Two policemen were killed, officials said, and it was not known if the gunmen were the same group who attacked the mayor’s office.

A few hours later, two carloads of robbers armed with grenades and guns killed nine people and wounded 14 in a coordinated strike on an eastern Baghdad gold market, officials said. The militants simultaneously attacked jewelry stores and a nearby checkpoint.

Baghdad officials said two policemen, two soldiers and two goldsmiths were among the dead at the small market in the Shiite neighborhood of Ur.

“At first we heard shootings from the other side of the market, near the police checkpoint,” said eyewitness Maitham Moussa, 30, who owns of a dairy shop about 50 yards (meters) from the jewelry stores payday advance low fees. “Then we heard shootings very close to us. When the women started to yell, they started to open fire into the air and set off sound bombs.”

He said people fled the area and huddled together in a nearby alley to escape the siege. “I saw a woman was lying on the ground with a toddler,” Moussa said. “There was blood near the woman, but I’m not sure if she was injured or if was the baby’s blood.”

A police officer said the gunmen stole gold and cash after the late-morning heist, which the insurgents pulled off despite a gunfight with nearby security forces. Iraqi Army Gen. Hassan al-Baydhani of Baghdad’s military command said one of the gunmen was arrested but the rest escaped.

A doctor in a nearby Baghdad hospital confirmed the police casualty figures. They all spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information. Al-Baydhani put the number of dead at six. Conflicting casualty totals are common in the immediate aftermath of attacks in Iraq.

Although violence has dropped significantly since the sectarian fighting that brought Iraq to the edge of civil war just five years ago, deadly attacks still happen almost every day.

U.S. officials as recently as September said jewelry robberies were a main source of funding for al-Qaida in Iraq as it grapples with dwindling financial support. The Sunni militant movement also frequently targets officials of the Shiite-led government in a campaign to undermine confidence in its authority.

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The solar storm that seemed to be more fizzle than fury got much stronger early Friday before fading again.

At its peak, it was the most potent solar storm since 2004, space weather forecasters said.

No power outages or other technological disturbances were reported from the solar storm that started to peter out late Friday morning.

Solar storms, which can’t hurt people, can disturb electric grids, GPS systems, and satellites. They can also spread colorful Northern Lights further south than usual, as the latest storm did early Friday.

And more storms are coming. The federal government’s Space Weather Prediction Center says the same area of the sun erupted again Thursday night, with a milder storm expected to reach Earth early Sunday.

The latest storm started with a flare on Tuesday, and had been forecast to be strong and direct, with one scientist predicting it would blast Earth directly like a punch in the nose. But it arrived Thursday morning at mild levels _ at the bottom of the government’s 1-5 scale of severity. It strengthened to a level 3 for several hours early Friday as the storm neared its end. Scientists say that’s because the magnetic part of the storm flipped direction.

“We were watching the boxer, expecting the punch. It didn’t come,” said physicist Terry Onsager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s space weather center in Boulder, Colo. “It hit us with the back of the hand as it was retreating.”

Forecasters can predict a solar storm’s speed and strength, but not the direction of its magnetic field. If it is northward, like Earth’s, the jolt of energy flows harmlessly around the planet, Onsager said. A southerly direction can cause power outages and other problems.

Thursday’s storm came in northerly, but early Friday switched to the fierce southerly direction. The magnetic part of the storm spent several hours at that strong level, so combined with strong radiation and radio levels, it turned out to be the strongest solar storm since November 2004, said NOAA lead forecaster Bob Rutledge.

Skywatchers reported to NOAA shimmering colorful auroras in Michigan, Wisconsin and Seattle _ areas that don’t normally see the Northern Lights _ Rutledge said. Other space weather enthusiasts reported auroras in Alaska, Minnesota, and North Dakota and in the southern hemisphere in Australia and New Zealand.

“Up north, they got a great display,” said NASA solar physicist David Hathaway.

By late Friday morning the storm was essentially over, forecasters said. But they had a new flare from the same sunspot region to watch. Preliminary forecasts show it to be slightly weaker than the one that just hit, arriving somewhere around 1 a.m. EST Sunday.

The storms are part of the sun’s normal 11-year cycle, which is supposed to reach a peak next year.

“This is what we’re expecting as we approach solar maximum,”" Onsager said. “We should be seeing this for the next few years now.”

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Employment grew solidly for a third straight month in February, a sign the economic recovery was strengthening and in less need of further monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve.

Employers added 227,000 jobs to their payrolls last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, while the unemployment rate held at a three-year low of 8.3 percent even as people flooded back into the labor force to hunt for jobs.

Not only was job growth a bit stronger than the 210,000 economists polled by Reuters had expected, but the government said 61,000 more jobs were created in December and January than previously thought.

Nonfarm payrolls have now grown by more than 200,000 for three months in a row - bolstering President Barack Obama’s chances for re-election. Employment growth has averaged 245,000 a month over the last three months.

“It looks like the economy is starting the year with some positive news for consumers and households,” said Gary Thayer, chief macro strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors in St. Louis.

“The trend is toward better jobs data with companies showing more conviction that the economy is finally gaining strength.”

Stocks opened modestly higher on the report, while prices for Treasury debt fell as traders dialed down the prospects for more bond buying by the Fed. The dollar rallied broadly.

“I think we’ll begin to … debate about the Fed exiting its ultra-accommodative policy stance sooner than expected,” said Omer Esiner, chief market analyst at Commonwealth Foreign Exchange in Washington.

A second report on Friday showed the trade deficit widened 4 percent on high oil prices and record imports, which will weigh on domestic growth.

Manufacturing, which in January recorded the largest jobs gain in a year, had another sturdy performance in February and there was also strong demand for temporary help, a potential harbinger of future permanent hiring.

Although the labor market is gaining some muscle, the pace of improvement remains too slow to do much to absorb the 23.5 million Americans who are either out of work or underemployed.

Fed Chairman Bernanke last week described the jobs market as “far from normal” and said continued improvement would require stronger demand for U.S. goods and services.

Still, he suggested the outlook would have to deteriorate for the central bank, which meets next week, to launch another round of bond buying to drive interest rates lower.

The employment report added to the list of data highlighting the economy’s underlying strength.

The data also provided a hopeful sign for the global recovery with growth slowing in China and the euro zone sliding into recession. The jobless rate in the 17-nation euro zone area rose to 10.7 percent in January, the highest since the euro started circulating in 2000.

NUMBERS GOOD FOR OBAMA

In contrast, the unemployment rate has dropped 0.8 percentage point since August, providing some relief to Obama, who faces an election battle in which the economy has been center stage faxless payday loans.

Economists predict the jobless rate could fall below 8 percent by the November election, even if the recent firming in the jobs market lures Americans who have given up the search for work back into the labor force.

The labor force participation rate - the percentage of working-age Americans either with a job or looking for one - rose to 63.9 percent from 63.7 percent in January, suggesting Americans are growing more optimistic on job prospects.

The increase in size of the workforce was the largest since April 2010.

White House economic adviser Alan Krueger said the report provided “further evidence that the economy is continuing to heal from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.”

Republicans were less forgiving.

“While there is some good news in this report, it is hard to celebrate while so many Americans remain out of work and those who do have a job haven’t seen a raise in years,” said Republican Representative Dave Camp, the chairman of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee.

While some parts of the jobs market have benefited from unseasonably warm winter weather, economists say a genuine improvement is under way, even though they expect a slight pull back in March.

Private companies again accounted for all the job gains in February, adding 233,000 positions. Government employment fell a modest 6,000, declining for a sixth straight month.

Manufacturers hired 31,000 new workers, with all the gains concentrated in the segment that produces long-lasting goods.

Auto companies, which have stepped up production, are taking on new workers and adding shifts and overtime to meet pent-up demand after production was disrupted early last year following the tsunami and earthquake in Japan.

Factory employees worked more hours last month, helping to lift the average hourly earnings for all workers by three cents in February.

Average hourly wages increased 1.9 percent in the 12 months through February, suggesting little wage inflation even though unit labor costs grew much more strongly than initially thought in the third and fourth quarters of 2011.

The overall workweek held steady at 34.5 hours - holding at the highest level since August 2008.

Outside manufacturing, construction payrolls fell 13,000, the first decline in four months. Temporary hiring, seen as a harbinger for permanent hiring, added 45,200 jobs in February after rising 32,100 the prior month.

Although hiring has quickened, the economy faces persistent long-term unemployment. In February, about 43 percent of the 12.8 million unemployed Americans had been out of work for more than six months.

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The Treasury Department said Wednesday it is selling $6 billion worth of the $41.8 billion in common stock it holds in insurance giant American International Group Inc., which received the biggest bailout of the financial crisis in 2008.

The stock sale is a step by the government toward disentangling itself from AIG. It still owns 77 percent of the company’s common shares. Treasury said AIG plans to buy as much as $3 billion of the stock being sold.

Treasury also said it has a deal with AIG for it to repay the government’s remaining $8.5 billion preferred-stock investment in the company.

A price for the common shares wasn’t specified. AIG shares closed at $29.45 in trading Wednesday. The share price at which taxpayers would break even on their AIG investment is about $28 or $29.

The government stepped in with $182 billion to rescue New York-based AIG from collapse in the depths of the financial crisis. Treasury has recouped $18 billion of the $68 billion it provided the company through its Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. The remainder of the money came from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. AIG has repaid all but $17.5 billion of those loans.

Treasury made an initial sale of AIG stock in May 2011. The sales were expected to resume after the value of AIG shares increased. Last year, the stock lost nearly half its value, partly fueled by government sales of the company’s stock and a volatile stock market.

Under the agreement for repaying the $8.5 billion preferred-stock investment plus interest, $5.6 billion will come from AIG’s newly announced sale of part of its stake in Hong Kong-based insurer AIA Group Ltd., $1.6 billion from a sale of securities by the New York Fed, and another $1.6 billion from AIG’s sale of its American Life Insurance Co. subsidiary.

“The people of AIG have achieved another significant milestone in our progress toward our goal that American taxpayers recoup their entire investment in AIG at a profit,” AIG President and CEO Robert Benmosche said in a statement.

AIG had a $19.8 billion profit in the fourth quarter of last year, nearly all of it due to a tax-related accounting gain. The company also earned $17.8 billion for 2011, its second straight year of profits.

Despite the two years of profitability, AIG’s recent financial results have been inconsistent. Over the past two years, only half of its quarterly reporting periods have been profitable.

Treasury said it has hired Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC as joint coordinators for the common stock sale.

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U.K. house prices fell in February for a third month in four, as economic uncertainty weighed on demand for housing, Halifax said.

Prices (UKHB3MYR) dropped 0.5 percent from January to an average 160,118 pounds ($253,400), the mortgage unit of Lloyds Banking Group Plc (LLOY) said in a statement in London today. From a year earlier, values were down 1.6 percent.

While inflation is cooling, a recovery in consumer confidence is being kept in check by rising unemployment and concern about the impact of Europe

Signs bearing a skull and crossbones dot the banks of a reservoir and canal near this town on the U.S.-Mexico border, but the fishermen standing in the reeds nearby ignore them, casually reeling in fish that are contaminated with toxic chemicals and banned for human consumption.

Some do it to quell their hunger, others to make some cash by selling the carp, catfish and gar in nearby neighborhoods.

“It’s a great little lake,” says Joe Garcia, 43, among those fishing here one day recently, where a carp with the highest levels of toxic PCB chemicals ever tested in a fish was caught years ago. He says he throws back his catch but a lot of others here can’t afford to pass up the meal.

The reservoir is one of thousands of sites along the U.S.-Mexico border where industry, pesticide use and population growth left hazards in past decades that still await solutions. Donna is among the worst _earning a place on the Environmental Protection Agency’s priority list _ and illustrates how slowly the government cleanup process moves and how those struggling for subsistence in poor areas like this sometimes do not wait.

Four years after the site made the priority list, the EPA plans to begin soon extensive sampling of the water, sediment and fish that could become the foundation for a cleanup plan.

But with limited funds and an elaborate process, the effort could take years, leaving authorities to educate a population that is often more concerned with daily survival than warnings of potential problems. Donna reservoir is surrounded by fields of swaying sugarcane and green leafy rows of celery. Workers who toil in migrant agriculture live in sparse neighborhoods of trailer homes and campers that border the canal. Some stubbornly believe they can cook the chemicals out of the fish, state environmental officials say.

“They just don’t tend to pay attention to that (sign),” said Juan Salazar, 41, who became so frustrated by the fishermen crossing his yard to reach the water that he erected a small fence.

“There are too many low-income families here that may make a living selling this stuff.”

State and federal officials have repeatedly gone door-to-door to warn residents since PCB contamination was discovered in 1993. Twice federal authorities used electric charges to kill more than 35,000 fish in the reservoir and the 6 1/2-mile canal that brings water from the Rio Grande. But the fish _ at least 22 species, including tilapia and largemouth bass _ repopulate.

Every day, people are drawn to the tranquil scene, where birds feed along the shores and fish constantly break the surface. Officials believe many area residents fish there to supplement their diet. But in the fatty tissue of the fish are polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, an industrial residue apparently emanating from something dumped in the canal years ago. Officials say it could be a submerged piece of machinery but haven’t been able to find it.

PCBs, typically found as oily liquids in electrical equipment, have been banned in the U.S. since 1979 after causing cancer in animal testing. Researchers believe the chemicals can lead to lower birth weights, suppress the immune system and increase the risk of cancer.

A carp caught in the Donna canal 19 years ago contained more than 1,500 times the limit of PCBs believed safe, the highest such reading ever. Members of the family who ate it had elevated PCB levels in their blood. Readings taken since then in the lake have been lower but still in the hazardous range.

However, the health impact on those eating Donna reservoir fish is unknown because no health survey has been conducted. A 2010 study by Texas Department of State Health Services estimated nearly 4,000 people living within a one-mile radius.

The EPA is planning a community meeting in late March to begin the process that could lead to a cleanup plan. One of the best-known PCB cleanup efforts _ on a much larger scale _ continues in New York’s Hudson River more than 27 years after it made the priority list. Tons of sediment have been dredged from the riverbed.

Though nearly a dozen people were interviewed near the reservoir for this story, only one admitted to eating the fish he caught, but he then declined to speak further _ there is a $500 fine for taking the fish, but not if you throw them back.

Officials said some men in the area tend to shrug off the danger but women have been more receptive. Rafael Casanova, EPA project manager, said a pregnant woman he talked to during a local canvas told him she had bought lake fish from someone selling it in the neighborhood.

When he described the health danger, “She was very impressed by that,” he said. “I felt good about that one.”

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The shopping carts at Ross Dress for Less have long, skinny poles on them so they don’t easily fit through the door — and don’t face the risk of never finding their way back inside.

It’s one of a number of ways that the California-based off-price retailer, which is making its St. Louis area debut, tries to shave off costs.

So when the company officials boast about “no frills” stores, they mean it. The stores, which are similar in concept to T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, also have centralized checkouts and simple displays.

Ross says it’s able to offer 20 to 60 percent off department store prices because of making those choices as well as by negotiating with manufacturers and buying opportunistically.

The retailer’s first stores in the St. Louis market have gone into the former Linens ‘n Things locations in Chesterfield and Fairview Heights. The stores had a soft opening on Friday.

Fred Shuey, the company’s vice president for the Midwest region, said Ross is very excited about coming to St. Louis and sees a lot of room for expansion here.

“This is two of many” for the St. Louis region, he said at a breakfast for fashion bloggers.

So how many?

“A lot,” he said vaguely, smiling.

Most Ross Dress stores are in the West and the South. But the company is now making inroads to the Midwest, starting with 12 stores that opened last fall in Chicago, one of its first new markets in about a decade, Shuey said.

“When you look at a map, we’re in the form a smiley face – from Seattle to Princeton, New Jersey,” he said. “Now we’re going to fill in the rest of that smiley face.”

Ross is one of a number of discount-oriented retailers that have been growing at a time when many other retailers have been in hibernation or closing stores.

It has added more than 200 stores in the last few years and is now up to more than 1,040 locations, making it the largest off-priced store in the country.

Here’s a couple of other interesting factoids I picked up at the breakfast and during a store tour:

– Ross stores get merchandise deliveries five days a week. So they have a “treasure hunt” feel to them.

– Each store usually starts out the same in terms of the merchandise mix. But after about 60 days, they will begin altering the balance to cater to what has done well in that particular store.

– Only about 75 Ross stores have fine jewelry. Neither of the local stores do, but they do have costume jewelry.

– Women make up about 80 to 85 percent of its shoppers. So not surprisingly, the men’s section is fairly small.

CRESTWOOD COURT MAKEOVER

A bowling alley, a new movie theater, and restaurants could fill the space currently occupied by the mostly-vacant Crestwood Court.

The property’s owner, Centrum Properties, met with Crestwood city officials this week to chat about its redevelopment plans to turn the shopping center into an entertainment-based destination.

Petree Eastman, Crestwood’s city administrator, said the new tenants aren’t set in stone yet, but Centrum officials told the city that they are close to signing a couple of deals.

“It will not look or feel like the old Crestwood mall,” Eastman said. “I think parts of it will be razed to give it a fresh face-lift. I think they want to have more of a pedestrian outdoor component. But until they sign their various renters, we can’t know what it will look like definitively.”

She said Centrum folks indicated they hoped to bring a redevelopment plan with more details before the city at a board meeting the last week of March.

Of course, the mall already has an AMC movie theater. But it sounds like the movie theater being proposed as part of the redevelopment plans would be more upscale and modern.

DEALS SITE BACK UP

The St. Louis Daily Deals website – stlouisdailydeals.com – was indeed put back up on Thursday as its operators had promised.

“We are sad to close our website and thank you for your support of St. Louis Daily Deals,” the site says in bold letters.

It goes on to recommend that consumers print out any unused coupons in their account. But it doesn’t say anything about whether or not those vouchers will be redeemable since many vendors have said they will not honor them until St. Louis Daily Deals pays them what is owed to them.

The daily deal site recently shut down amid financial difficulties, leaving consumers and merchants in the lurch. The operators have pledged to settle up all of its accounts, but hasn’t given a timeline for doing so.

So we’ll have to wait and see if they follow through on their promise.

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