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By Knight Kiplinger

The Kiplinger Washington Editors

July 2, 2009

By year-end or so, Congress will give the nod to a major rewriting of the nation's financial regulatory system. This week’s Kiplinger Letter explores whether the package will do more harm than good and what lawmakers are likely to include.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: The Economy, Business Costs, Taxes, Supreme Court, Energy, Workplace Regulations, Climate Change, Health Care Legislation and Foreign Policy

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I just attended a franchise seminar. The speaker represents a few hundred franchises that (he says) are hand picked. He has the prospect (aka victim?) answer some questions about themselves then he makes recomendations - based on your personality, capital situation, etc.. If you pick a franchise, then he does some due dilligence for you. If you both decide it's a good idea, he helps you get started. He says he offers this service free of charge, which means he gets a commission if he's able to sell you a franchise. Has anyone done this? Successfully? Unsuccessfully?

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Green Building: Virtue and Business Sense Converge

Green building is no longer a cause, but a profitable and vital part of the commercial real estate and construction industries.

Worth Reading: The Quick Take from Kiplinger

March 2007

Building Design+Construction

Building Design+Construction is one of the leading trade magazines in the country for architects, contractors, engineers, and owners/developers. It reports on trends, new technology and products in the building trade.

Green building is no longer a cause, but a profitable and vital part of the commercial real estate and construction industries. Anyone in the building trades, anyone who uses, invests in or leases real estate as part of their business needs to understand green building trends, opportunities and pitfalls—and factor them into their thinking. Building codes, insurance rates, employee health and even customer satisfaction can all be affected by green building concepts.

In a white paper titled Green Buildings and the Bottom Line, the magazine Building Design+Construction takes a clear-eyed look at when and how green construction, design and energy features will pay off for those investing in a project and those who will work, shop, sleep or play in it. While the report explains why the industry is so robust, its focus is on a sector-by-sector breakdown of green building trends—from the hotel and restaurant industry to heavy industrial uses, from retail operations to schools and medical facilities.

The report warns against the increasing popularity of codifying green principles into state and municipal laws. Rather than rely on strict rules and the threat of fines, "Forward-looking governments have created incentives to encourage green building, through fast-track permitting, density bonuses, and other mechanisms that provide measurable value to developers, property owners, and building teams," the paper argues.

And how does a savvy business weigh whether a green office building is worth constructing, investing in or moving into? Those questions and more are answered in the following excerpts of Chapter 3: "Financing Green Office Buildings".

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