The Obama administration boasts federal stimulus dollars “saved” or created jobs in 13 Iowa congressional districts.

The trouble is the last time I checked Iowa only had five districts. Not sure where the other eight districts are located. Where are they and why haven’t we heard about them before?

The federal Website that tracks stimulus dollars spent, recovery.gov shows $10.6 million spent – and 39 jobs created — in non-existent districts in Iowa.

ABC reports the government site erroneously listed phantom districts in Iowa and several other states, “Jobs ’saved or created’ in congressional districts that don’t exist.”

Not sure if Gotham City, NY., Lake Woebegone, Minn. or Margaritaville, Fla. are among the cities where the administration claims credit for creating jobs.

Administration officials blame the faulty reporting on human error.

Late Wednesday, siouxcityjournal.com was the first to report on the expansion of Stream’s contract call center in Sergeant Bluff, “Stream addign 300 jobs.”

The suburban Boston-based company attributed the new hiring, which will raise total local employment to about 1,100, to added business growth by the clients the local call center supports. They include Sirius XM, Apple, Nike and Intuit.

Could the “cash for clunkers” auto incentive program be contributed to at least some of the Sergeant Bluff growth growth. The Wall Street reported Thursday that Sirius in the third quarter began adding satellite radio subscribers for the first time since December, “Sirius makes strides in third quarter.”

Sirius XM, which ran into financing difficulties that nearly sent it into bankruptcy early this year, before Liberty Media Corp. took a 40% stake, got a boost during the third quarter from cash-for-clunkers, the federal goverment program that paid consumers to trade in their gas-guzzlers for new, more fuel-efficient models.

The purchase of many new models comes with a subscription to Sirius XM. To activate the service, owners must call an 800 number. Customers service representatives at the Sergeant Bluff center handle many of those inbound calls, helping Sirius subscribers not only set up their service, but also answer questions about it afterwards.

Hitting double-digits for the first time in a generation, U.S. unemployment reached 10.2 percent last month, up from 9.8 percent in September.

The October rate is the highest since late 1982. The Christian Science Monitor reports, “After dismal jobs report, unemployment rate could hit postwar high,” the new government data has economists reconsidering their earlier economic projections.

“We have been forecasting a 10.5 percent peak for the unemployment rate in mid-2010; given that it is already at 10.2 percent, this could be too low,” writes Joshua Shapiro, chief US economist for MFR Inc. in New York.

The $787 billion stimulus bill pushed by President Obama and passed by the Democratic-controlled Congress last February is looking increasingly like a failure of sorts. At the time, the Obama administration promised that passing the huge tax and spending bill would keep unemployment from rising above 8 percent.

A recent administration claimed that the stimulus bill had created or saved more than 600,000 jobs (how do you accurately measure how a job is “saved.”) But media analysises of the documentation has found numerous errors that contributed to an inflated count, “White House tally appears to overstate stimulus jobs.”

For example, raises paid to some preschool teachers with stimulus dollars were mistakenly counted as saved jobs.

And a Kentucky shoe store that supplied nine pairs of work boots to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers counted the $800 expenditure as saving nine jobs.

That large of a bang for the buck was too good to be true.

Omaha’s Warren Buffett made made a huge bet on rail today, announcing a deal to buy Burlington Northern Sante Fe for $44 billion.

The deal for the nation’s second largest railroad
would be the biggest acquisition in the history of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the investment company Buffett heads. Berkshire already owns a stake of about 22 percent in Burlington Northern

Like Berkshire, Omaha is the headquarters for the largest U.S. rail carrier, Union Pacific Railroad. Though BNSF would continue to be operated from Fort Worth, Texas, the purchase and the presence of UP would ”make Nebraska a sort of national rail capital,” the Omaha World Herald reports, “Berkshire buys Burlington Northern Sante Fe.”

UP and BNSF are major employers in the Sioux City area, where traffic for each carrier has grown in recent years.

More than 100 local business, education and goverment leaders packed a conference room at the Stoney Creek Inn this morning for the unveiling of a workforce plan that was nearly two years in the making.

For highlights of the strategic plan, designed to realign skills of the area workforce with the needs of employers, check out my coverage from today.

To read the entire plan, click http://rig.witcc.edu

Let me know what you think about the plan. Do you agree with the recommendations? If not, what would you suggest instead?

The health care reform bill set for debate in the U.S. Senate will include an option for the public to buy insurance from a government-run entity, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced today, “Reid says he will bring a health-care bill with public option.”

Reid’s much-debated decision to add a public option — which states could opt out of — grabbed most of the headlines. Less noticed was the way the bill headed to the Senate floor would treat employers.

While employers with more than 50 workers would not be required to provide coverage, they would face fines of up to $750 per employee if even if only a few of their workers received a government subsidy to buy insurance.

“Since the penalty is much less than employers currently spend on employee health insurance premiums, most businesses would choose to pay the fine and drop their group health insurance,” warns Bryan Riley, a former candidate for Kansas Insurance Commissioner, in a blog post.

By simply paying the penalty, businesses would no longer have to fret and worry about hefty increases in insurance premiums from year to year, and the uncertainty they bring to budgeting.

If they lose their employer-backed coverage, workers would have to buy their own insurance, either through the government-run option or private health providers. For lower-income workers, the government subsidies would help cover the premiums. But families whose income exceeds some maxium threshold set by Washington bureaucrats would have to pay the full freight.

If they don’t receive a corresponding wage increase from their employer, some middle- to upper-income employees could wind up worse off financially with the health reform bill.

Riley also warns the Senate bill gives individuals few incentives to purchase health insurance on their own. Under the legislation, those who don’t buy coverage would face an initial fine of up to $100.

“Since the biggest fine is much lower than the cost of health insurance, the bill would create an incentive for individuals to drop their health insurance and pay the relatively small fine,” Riley writes in his post.

Because the bill prohibits insurers would denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions, “smart consumers will drop their health insurance and only sign up after they get sick.”

North Sioux City, Yankton and Vermillion are among 11 South Dakota cities that sent representatives to a major convention for manufacturers of medical devices in Minneapolis this week.

The S.D. cities, which also included Aberdeen, Brookings, Madison, Mitchell, Pierre, Rapid City, Sioux Falls and Watertown, joined forces with the Governor’s Office of Economic Development to help bring new jobs to the Rushmore State.

”The state has been targeting medical device manufacturers for some time, and this show is a great way for us to showcase South Dakota’s advantageous business climate and develop new leads,” said Richard Benda, secretary of the Department of Tourism and State Development. “The MD&M show is among the top shows in the industry. Banding together to represent South Dakota as a unified entity has proved to be a very effective recruitment tool.”

Iowa Workforce Development released its monthly unemployment reports today, which showed little statistical change locally, “Sioux City area unemployment rises, despite job gains”

Unemployment in nearly all Northwest Iowa counties was below the statewide average of 6.7 percent for September. Three exceptions were Emmet, 8.7 percent, Monona, 7.1 percent, and Palo Alto, 7 percent. Sioux County posted the lowest area rate of 4.1 percent.

A portion of Terra Industries’ Port Neal facility south of Sioux City is shown above. (Sioux City Journal photo by Tim Hynds)

Monday was another busy day of public disclosures for Terra Industries. The Sioux City-based company announced that it had agreed to buy a 50 percent interest in a Canadian nitrogen plant owned by Agrium Inc. As I reported, the $250 million deal could help both companies in their respective hostile takeovers involving rival CF Industries, “Terra, Agrium join forces to fight CF.”

To help finance the Agrium plant deal, Terra also announced plans to issue $600 million in debt capital in a private offering.”

And, Terra gave investors a hint of its third quarter earnings, which will be fully released on Thursday. The preliminary results were not pretty, as the company said it expects its earnings to plummet 72 percent, compared to the year-ago quarter.

Though brutal the numbers were in line with what analysts are expecting, giving the tough environment in the fertilizer industry.

South Dakota has the most “business-friendly” tax system, and New Jersey has the least, according to the Tax Foundation’s 2010 State Business Tax Climate Index.

Iowa ranked 46th, ahead of only Ohio, California, New York and New Jersey.

Sioux City and other Northwest Iowa cities have faced difficulty in the past competing with neighboring South Dakota, which has no corporate or individual income tax.

The Index measures the competitiveness of the 50 states’ tax systems and ranks them accordingly based on the taxes that matter most to businesses and business investment — corporate income, individual income, sales, property and unemployment insurance taxes.

The states are scored on these taxes, and the scores are weighted based on the relative importance or impact of the tax to a business.

The Index measures how well a state’s tax system encourages investment by maintaining a broad tax base and low rates.