Ellen Davis, with the National Retail Federation, notes that smaller stores have been harder hit than large retailers. "Right now for the American shopper, it is all about low price," she explained.  "And because small retailers don't have economies of scale to be able to order a lot of merchandise at once, they are not able to negotiate the best prices or offer the best deals to their shoppers."

Small storeowners like Paul Phan have begun to slash prices. But for him and others that means making little or no profit. He also says he cannot get a business loan from the bank.

"I want to put more money into advertising to bring more customers in," said Phan.  "I want to put money into bringing in more merchandise to give the customers more choices. However, I don't have the resources in terms of the capital."

President Obama, after a White House meeting with bankers whose firms received government bailouts, said the banks should help the economy by lending more. "So I urged these institutions here today to go back and take a third and fourth look about how they are operating when it comes to small business and medium sized business lending," the president said at a news briefing.

Paul Phan says if he can make it through the first two quarters of 2010 he might be able to survive through some of the hardest times retailers have ever faced.

As U.S. banks repay billions of dollars in government bailout funds, President Obama held meetings with top bank executives in December, telling them it is time to return the favor.

"The way I see it, having recovered with the help of the American government and the American taxpayer, our banks now have a greater obligation to the goal of a wider recovery," President Obama said.

But the president may be giving the financial sector too much credit. 

"It was in a free fall and it was a very scary period,"  said economist Martin Neil Baily said.  Baily is an author and former adviser in the Clinton administration, says after the failure of Lehman Brothers towards the end of 2008, many of the world's largest banks feared the worst as the collapse of the housing bubble exposed investments in risky subprime loans.

"Therunescape power leveling U.S. unemployment remains stubbornly high and consumers appear more focused on saving and debt reduction than spending. runescape money many retailers are extending store hours in the few remaining days before Christmas runescape accounts banks that came closest were Citibank, Bank of America and if those had not been supported by the government, I think it might have caused a cascading crisis that would have been much worse than the one we actually had," Baily added.

Although he says the worst is over, Bailey says the banking crisis is not.
More than 130 US banks failed in 2009, the most since 1992.  He predicts high failure rates for smaller, regional banks in 2010 as commercial real estate loans come due. 

"So there may actually be a worsening of credit availability to small and medium sized business in the next year or so," Bailey said.

Analysts say the biggest problem is high unemployment, which weakens demand and makes banks reluctant to lend.  But US Bankcorp chief Richard Davis sees the situation differently.

Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend.  His reserve had been always excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more than to the orthodox and easily recognisable beauties, of musical science.  I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch ;  in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain.  It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect keeping of the character of the premises with the accredited character of the people, and while speculating upon the possible influence which the one, in the long lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the other - it was this deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent undeviating transmissioDURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country ; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was - but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible.  I looked upon the scene before me - upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain - upon the bleak walls - upon the vacant eye-like windows - upon a few rank sedges - and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees - with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium - the bitter lapse into everyday life - the hideous dropping off of the veil.  There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime.  What was it - I paused to think - what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher ?  It was a mystery all insoluble  ; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered.  I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression ;  and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down - but with a shudder even more thrilling than before - upon the remodelled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.
Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend.  His reserve had been always excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more than to the orthodox and easily recognisable beauties, of musical science.  I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch ;  in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain.  It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect keeping of the character of the premises with the accredited character of the people, and while speculating upon the possible influence which the one, in the long lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the other - it was this deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent undeviating transmissioDURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country ; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was - but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible.  I looked upon the scene before me - upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain - upon the bleak walls - upon the vacant eye-like windows - upon a few rank sedges - and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees - with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium - the bitter lapse into everyday life - the hideous dropping off of the veil.  There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime.  What was it - I paused to think - what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher ?  It was a mystery all insoluble  ; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered.  I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among runescape goldconsiderations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression ;  and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down - but with a shudder even more thrilling than before - upon the remodelled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.

Can I explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower-block? Of course I can

explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower-block. I'm not a bloody idiot. I

can explain it because it wasn't inexplicable: it was a logical decision, the product

of proper thought. It wasn't even a very serious thought, either. I don't mean it was

whimsical - I just meant that it wasn't terribly complicated, or agonized. Put it

this way: say you were, I don't know, an assistant bank manager, in Guildford. And

you'd been thinking of emigrating, and then you were offered the job of managing a

bank in Sydney. Well, even though it's a pretty straightforward decision, you'd still

have to think for a bit, wouldn't you? You'd at least have to work out whether you

could bear to move, whether you could leave your friends and colleagues behind,

whether you could uproot your wife and kids. You might sit down with a bit of paper

and draw up a list of pros and cons. You know:

CONS - aged parents, friends, golf club.

PROS - more money, better quality of life (house with pool, barbecue, etc.), sea,

sunshine, no left-wing councils banning 'Baa-Baa Black Sheep', no EEC directives

banning British sausages, etc.

It's no contest, is it? The golf club! Give me a break. Obviously your aged parents

give you pause for thought, but that's all it is - a pause, and a brief one, too.

You'd be on the phone to the travel agents within ten minutes.

Well, runescape gold farmingthat was me. There simply weren't enough regrets, and lots and lots of reasons

to jump. The only things in my 'cons' list were the kids, but I couldn't imagine

Cindy letting me see them again anyway. I haven't got any aged parents, and I don't

play golf. Suicide was my Sydney. And I say that with no offence to the good people

of Sydney intended.

I told him I was going to a New Year's Eve party. I told him in October. I don't know

whether people send out invitations to New Year's Eve parties in October or not.

Probably not. (How would I know? I haven't been to one since 1984. June and Brian

across the road had one, just before they moved. And even then I only nipped in for

an hour or so, after he'd gone to sleep.) But I couldn't wait any longer. I'd been

thinking about it since May or June, and I was itching to tell him. Stupid, really.

He doesn't understand, I'm sure he doesn't. They tell me to keep talking to him, but

you can see that nothing goes in. And what a thing to be itching about anyway! It

just goes to show what I had to look forward to, doesn't it?

The College owned farms and estates all over England. It was said that you could walk from Oxford to Bristol in one direction and London in the other, and never leave Jordan land. In every part of the kingdom there were dye works and brick kilns, forests and atomcraft works that paid rent to Jordan, and every quarter-day the bursar and his clerks would tot it all up, announce the total to Concilium, and order a pair of swans for the feast. Some of the money was put by for reinvestment-Concilium had just approved the purchase of an office block in Manchester-and the rest was used to pay the Scholars' modest stipends and the wages of the servants (and the Parslows, and the other dozen or so families of craftsmen and traders who served the College), to keep the wine cellar richly filled, to buy books and anbarographs for the immense library that filled one side of the Melrose Quadrangle and extended, burrow-like, for several floors beneath the ground, and, not least, to buy the latest philosophical apparatus to equip the chapel.

It was important to keep the chapel up to date, because Jordan College had no rival, either in Europe or in New France, as a center of experimental theology. Lyra knew that much, at least. She was proud of her College's eminence, and liked to boast of it to the various urchins and ragamuffins she played with by the canal or the claybeds; and she regarded visiting Scholars and eminent professors from elsewhere with pitying scorn, because they didn't belong to Jordan and so must know less, poor things, than the humblest of Jordan's under-Scholars.

As for what experimental theology was, Lyra had no more idea than the urchins. She had formed the notion that it was concerned with magic, with the movements of the stars and planets, with tiny particles of matter, but that was guesswork, really. Probably the stars had daemons just as humans did, and experimental theology involved talking to them. Lyra imagined the Chaplain speaking loftily, listening to the star daemons' remarks, and then nodding judiciously or shaking his head in regret. But what might be passing between them, she couldn't conceive.

Nor was she particularly interested. In many ways Lyra was a barbarian. What she liked best was clambering over the College roofs with Roger, the kitchen boy who was her particular friend, to spit plum stones on the heads of passing Scholars or to hoot like owls outside a window where a tutorial was going on, or racing through the narrow streets, or stealing apples from the market, or waging war. Just as she was unaware of the hidden currents of politics running below the surface of College affairs, so the Scholars, for their part, would have been unable to see the rich seething stew of alliances and enmities and feuds and treaties which was a child's life in Oxford. Children playing together: how pleasant to see! What could be more innocent and charming?

In fact, of course, Lyra and her peers were engaged in deadly warfare. There were several wars running at once. The children (young servants, and the children of servants, and Lyra) of one college waged war on those of another. Lyra had once been captured by the children of Gabriel College, and Roger and their friends Hugh Lovat and Simon Parslow had raided the place to rescue her, creeping through the Precentor's garden and gathering armfuls of small stone-hard plums to throw at the kidnappers. There were twenty-four colleges, which allowed for endless permutations of alliance and betrayal. But the enmity between the colleges was forgotten in a moment when the town children attacked a colleger: then all the collegers banded together and went into battle against the town-ies.This rivalry was hundreds of years old, and very deep and satisfying.

But even this was forgotten when the other enemies threatened. One enemy was perennial: the brickburners' children, who lived by the claybeds and were despised by collegers and townies alike. Last year Lyra and some townies had made a temporary truce and raided the claybeds, pelting the brick-burners' children with lumps of heavy clay and tipping over the soggy castle they'd built, before rolling them over and over in the clinging substance they lived by until victors and vanquished alike resembled a flock of shrieking golems.

The other regular enemy was seasonal. The gyptian families, who lived in canal boats, came and went with the spring and autumn fairs, and were always good for a fight. There was one family of gyptians in particular, who regularly returned to their mooring in that part of the city known as Jericho, with whom Lyra'd been feuding ever since she could first throw a stone. When they were last in Oxford, she and Roger and some of the other kitchen boys from Jordan and St. Michael's College had laid an ambush for them, throwing mud at their brightly painted narrowboat until the whole family came out to chase them away-at which point the reserve squad under Lyra raided the boat and cast it off from the bank, to float down the canal, getting in the way of all the other water traffic while Lyra's raiders searched the boat from end to end, looking for the bung. Lyra firmly believed in this bung. If they pulled it out, she assured her troop, the boat would sink at once; but they didn't find it, and had to abandon ship when the gyptians caught them up, to flee dripping and crowing with triumph through the narrow lanes of Jericho.

That was Lyra's world and her delight. She was a coarse and greedy little savage, for the most part. But she always had a dim sense that it wasn't her whole world; that part runescape gold farmingof her also belonged in the grandeur and ritual of Jordan College; and that somewhere in her life there was a connection with the high world of politics represented by Lord Asriel. All she did with that knowledge was to give herself airs and lord it over the other urchins. It had never occurred to her to find out more.

So she had passed her childhood, like a half-wild cat. The only variation in her days came on those irregular occasions when Lord Asriel visited the College. A rich and powerful uncle was all very well to boast about, but the price of boasting was having to be caught by the most agile Scholar and brought to the Housekeeper to be washed and dressed in a clean frock, following which she was escorted (with many threats) to the Senior Common Room to have tea with Lord Asriel and an invited group of senior Scholars. She dreaded being seen by Roger. He'd caught sight of her on one of these occasions and hooted with laughter at this beribboned and pink-frilled vision. She had responded with a volley of shrieking curses that shocked the poor Scholar who was escorting her, and in the Senior Common Room she'd slumped mutinously in an armchair until the Master told her sharply to sit up, and then she'd glowered at them all till even the Chaplain had to laugh.

"Do you need the lamp, Master?"
"Yes, leave that too. Look in during dinner to trim it, will you?"

The Butler bowed slightly and turned to leave, his daemon trotting obediently after him. From her not-much-of-a-hiding place Lyra watched as the Master went to a large oak wardrobe in the corner of the room, took his gown from a hanger, and pulled it laboriously on. The Master had been a powerful man, but he was well over seventy now, and his movements were stiff and slow. The Master's daemon had the form of a raven, and as soon as his robe was on, she jumped down from the wardrobe and settled in her accustomed place on his right shoulder.

Lyra could feel Pantalaimon bristling with anxiety, though he made no sound. For herself, she was pleasantly excited.

The visitor mentioned by the Master, Lord Asriel, was her uncle, a man whom she admired and feared greatly. He was said to be involved in high politics, in secret exploration, in distant warfare, and she never knew when he was going to appear. He was fierce: if he caught her in here she'd be severely punished, but she could put up with that.

What she saw next, however, changed things completely.

The Master took from his pocket a folded paper and laid it on the table beside the wine. He took the stopper out of the mouth of a decanter containing a rich golden wine, unfolded the paper, and poured a thin stream of white powder into the decanter before crumpling the paper and throwing it into the fire. Then he took a pencil from his pocket, stirred the wine until the powder had dissolved, and replaced the stopper.

His daemon gave a soft brief squawk. The Master replied in an undertone, and looked around with his hooded, clouded eyes before leaving through the door he'd come in by.

Lyra whispered, "Did you see that, Pan?"

"Of course I did! Now hurry out, before the Steward comes!"

But as he spoke, there came the sound of a bell ringing once from the far end of the hall.

"That's the Steward's bell!" said Lyra. "I thought we had more time than that."

Pantalaimon flutteredrunescape gold farming swiftly to the hall door, and swiftly back.

"The Steward's there already," he said. "And you can't get out of the other door..."

The other door, the one the Master had entered and left by, opened onto the busy corridor between the library and the Scholars' common room. At this time of day it was thronged with men pulling on their gowns for dinner, or hurrying to leave papers or briefcases in the common room before moving nto the hall. Lyra had planned to leave the way she'd come, banking on another few minutes before the Steward's bell rang.

And if she hadn't seen the Master tipping that powder into the wine, she might have risked the Steward's anger, or hoped to avoid being noticed in the busy corridor. But she was confused, and that made her hesitate.

Then she heard heavy footsteps on the dais. The Steward was coming to make sure the Retiring Room was ready for the Scholars' poppy and wine after dinner. Lyra darted to the oak wardrobe, opened it, and hid inside, pulling the door shut just as the Steward entered. She had no fear for Pantalaimon: the room was somber colored, and he could always creep under a chair.

She heard the Steward's heavy wheezing, and through the crack where the door hadn't quite shut she saw him adjust the pipes in the rack by the smoking stand and cast a glance over the decanters and glasses. Then he smoothed the hair over his ears with both palms and said something to his daemon. He was a servant, so she was a dog; but a superior servant, so a superior dog. In fact, she had the form of a red setter. The daemon seemed suspicious, and cast around as if she'd sensed an intruder, but didn't make for the wardrobe, to Lyra's intense relief. Lyra was afraid of the Steward, who had twice beaten her.

In 1932, two North Carolina teenagers from opposite sides of the

tracks fall in love. Spending one idyllic summer together in the small

town of New Bern, Noah Calhoun and Allie Nelson do not meet again for

14 years. Noah has returned from WWII to restore the house of his

dreams, having inherited a large sum of money. Allie, programmed by

family andrunescape gold farming the "caste system of the South" to marry an ambitious,

prosperous man, has become engaged to powerful attorney Lon Hammond.

When she reads a newspaper story about Noah's restoration project, she

shows up on his porch step, re-entering his life for two days. Will

Allie leave Lon for Noah? The book's slim dimensions and cliche-ridden

prose will make comparisons to The Bridges of Madison County

inevitable. What renders Sparks's (Wokini: A Lakota Journey of

Happiness and Self-Understanding) sentimental story somewhat

distinctive are two chapters, which take place in a nursing home in

the '90s, that frame the central story. The first sets the stage for

the reading of the eponymous notebook, while the later one takes the

characters into the land beyond happily ever after, a future rarely

examined in books of this nature. Early on, Noah claims that theirs

may be either a tragedy or a love story, depending on the perspective.

Ultimately, the judgment is up to readers?be they cynics or romantics.

For the latter, this will be a weeper.

Other species in the book still exist in the wild, but

are endangered. One example Jane Goodall discusses is

the Golden Lion Tamarin. She tells about the hard work

of a group of researchers who have successfully

released these monkeys back into protected areas of

Brazil. Her book shows what is possible when people

come together to work cooperatively to save animals.

VOICE ONE:

Jane Goodall has said that it is often easy to feel

upset about the destruction of the natural world. But

her overall message has always been one of hope.

She says her hope comes from her belief in four things:

the human brain, the human spirit, nature's strength

and the energy of young people. She says people are

starting to use their minds to solve the world's many

problems and make wiser and more responsible choices.

And, she believes in the strength of the human spirit

which allows people to reach goals which might

otherwise seem impossible.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

This program was written and produced by Dana Demange.

I'm Faith Lapidus.

VOICE ONE:

And I'm Doug Johnson. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of

our programs are at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us

again next week for EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English

runescape gold farming.

Hold on

Steed leap, not 10 steps runescape money; Rosinante 10 drive, power in dismay. Similarly, the secret of success is not overnight, but rather whether you can persevere.

Had such a story.
In 1987, her 14-year-old, a small town in Hunan Yiyang tea drinks, a dime a cup. Than others because of her large cup on the 1st, so selling the fastest, then, she was always happy and busy.
In 1990, she was 17 years old, she moved to stalls selling tea in Yiyang city, and we switched to a local unique "Lei Cha." Lei Cha create more trouble, but since selling price. That is, her small business is always busy.
In 1993, she was 20 years old, is still served tea, but the location has changed again, selling, in the provincial capital Changsha, stalls has become a small shop. After the door guests will be able to taste the tea warm in the enjoy, they more or less pays for another Eurya last two bags of tea.
In 1997, she was 24 years old, a decade of Our Time, she remains in the tea and tea rooms Gunda. At this time, she already has 37 tea, are found in Changsha, Xi'an, Shenzhen, Shanghai and other places. Anxi, Fujian, Zhejiang Hangzhou, tea merchants had a mention of her name, everyone thumbs-up.
In 2003, she was 30 years old, her biggest dream come true. "Originally used to drink coffee in the country where there are filled with tea fragrance of the tea appear, that is my open ... ..." say this, the tea she had opened to Hong Kong and Singapore.

There is a story.
New school, "Today, science is only one of the easiest things, each of the arm forward as far as possible rejection, and then try to subsequent rejection, daily or 300." Teacher said.
A month later 90% of people insist.
Then, after a month remaining 80%.
A year later, the teacher asked: "Every day also insisted that under the 300 please raise your hands!" The entire classroom, only one person raised their hands, who later became the world's great philosophers.
These are two true stories, let us remember their Nago bar! Mengqiao Bo and Plato, a businessman selling tea and a great philosopher
From these two stories can be found: No secret to success, your unremitting. Of any great cause, as in the persistence, destroyed halfway. In fact, the earth easiest thing is to uphold the hardest, and also adhere to. It easy, because who wants everyone to do; it is difficult, because really persevered, and eventually only a few. Pasteur famously said, "tell you that make me achieve the objective of the mystery of it, my only strength is my perseverance."
Has been engaged in futures industry has also had to give up the idea, but was always moved by their dedication and perseverance. In "My Futures Dream", wrote "I love magic and magic futures, after countless Lvfeihongshou days, the road ahead is full of thorns and the test of perseverance will have dreams and hope." Today, I, also working hard and stick with, but want to go in the end only one way.
Person's life, so, too? From the "west wind last night