BEIJING -(Dow Jones)- Global miners have started direct negotiations with individual Chinese steelmakers for 2011 annual iron ore prices, and are pressing for monthly index-linked iron ore pricing, the special consultant to the quasi-official China Iron & Steel Association said Thursday.

The iron ore pricing system is “unfair and monopolistic,” Luo Bingsheng said during a regular association press briefing.

One of the major miners, BHP Billiton (BHP.AU), recently raised ore offer prices to $188 a metric ton from $155/ton and didn’t give customers any chance to argue, according to CISA.

Last year, global miners switched to a quarterly pricing system for iron ore in talks with Chinese steelmakers, abandoning a 40-year-old annual benchmark pricing on the back of rising demand for the raw material and volatile global commodity prices.

This budget too is another of Mamata Banerjee’s goody goody budget which has not increased the fares for passengers. Also she has proposed reduction in the online booking charges. But the budget totally lacks in terms of growth and vision for the railways, for example what will a country of our size do with an additional track of just 180km.

Now In Detail

Let us now look at the details of the Railway Budget 2011-12 with a perspective towards the individuals of the country. The implication of how the railway budget will affect the common man’s budget being the key.

The Positives First

The fact that the railway passenger fares have not been proposed to be increased is a welcome thing for the common man’s budget.  Thus the railways continue to be the lowest cost service to travel across the country.

Decreasing the senior citizens age for ticket discounts from 60 to 58 is another welcome step for the senior people of the country.

The Railway minister has also proposed to reduce the online booking charges. This i

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Sales of foreclosed properties, including FHA foreclosures, jumped last month in Las Vegas, Nevada, when compared with the previous month. However, more properties also took the first step towards foreclosure in January as default notices also increased for the month.

Figures related to Las Vegas foreclosure listings remained near crisis levels, but sales of foreclosed houses did improve as a total of 388 foreclosures were sold at auction in January 2011, representing a 35.7% jump compared with December 2010. A total of 1,517 of the for-sale properties went back to lenders and banks. These properties are called real estate owned and their total represented a 43.2% increase from December of 2010.

The number of homes entering the process of foreclosures in Nevada also increased last month. Households that received default notices jumped by 7.2% in January compared with December to reach a total of 3,923. The good news is that compared with January 2010, the total actually translated to a 17.1% decline. Meanwhile, notices of trustee sale or the final notice received by homeowners before their properties are sold as foreclosures totaled 3,240 last month, representing a drop of 23.6% compared with the previous month.

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In the fiscal 2010, U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has seen lending rise to 30 percent nationwide. Arvest bank has seen a rise in SBA loans by 53 percent at the end of this fiscal. This far exceeded the general trend of increased SBA lending.

Jackie Randle, SBA loan administrator and vice president says, “Arvest is proud to be one of the state’s largest SBA lenders.” Though the SBA provides support to small businesses, education institutions and financial organizations, it is found that it does not make direct loan to businesses. It just acts as a guarantor of small business loan grants.

Much of the SBA’s increase in loan grants is attributed to local availability of banks and knowledge of individual markets. This also involves a renewed national interest in SBA lending programs.