Employees of Capmark's loan-servicing operations in Horsham, Dallas and elsewhere are hoping the partnership of New York-based Leucadia Corp. and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway ends up owning the bankrupt home lending finance company, rather than potential rival bidder PNC Bank, which has been attending hearings in US Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington.

That's because PNC has its own rival servicing operation in Missouri, and isn't likely to need Capmark workers if it buys the assets. Whereas "Berkadia" would presumably keep Capmark in business, competing with PNC, Wells Fargo and a handful of others as an investor in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt, among other business lines.

The gossip at Capmark is that Fannie and Freddie have put pressure on PNC not to bid because they want to keep the market competitive. Also, PNC faces political pressure if the bank, a recipient of government TARP investments, were to cut hundreds of jobs while putting itself in a position to pressure money-losing Fannie and Freddie on loan prices.

PNC won't talk about its plans, but insiders say it was one of several companies that took a good close look at Capmark operations earlier this year. So did Bank of America, CIBC and Deutsche Bank, I'm told.

Folks at Capmark hope Buffett's people will prove better managers than the cowboys at "buyout king" Henry Kravis' KKR, Capmark's last owner, who boosted Capmark's risky loans on the eve of the 2007-08 credit crisis, forcing this fall's bankruptcy filing.

www.moxyvote.com goes live today. That's the new shareholder-voting site financed by West Chester-based TFS Capital LLC, the investment and fund partnership started by brothers Rich and Kevin Gates and Larry Eiben.

The site solicits activist shareholders - Bell Telephone retirees, the UFCW union, the Unitarian church - to collect shareholders' online votes on annual shareholder resolutions like Microsoft's political donations, or divestment from politically unsavory companies by thePutnam and American mutual funds.

Moxy says it takes care of the paperwork to ensure the votes are recorded. Click and vote.

Gates' childhood friend Mark Schlegel runs the site, which is backed, so far, by $2 million from the seven-member TFS partnership. There's no decision yet on whether ads, subscriptions or fees will fund future operations. "Right now we're all about attracting traffic," Rich Gates told me.

"People aren't passionate about voting proxies. But they are passionate about issues that are dear to them," said Schlegel. "We've made it as easy as possible for people to participate in voting their proxies," he added. "If shareholders had been more participants in proxy voting before the financial crisis, for issues like executive compensation or getting rid of directors who are on eight different boards and CEO of another company, we might not have avoided the crisis, but we might have been able to avoid some of the issues."

Valero Corp.'s historically dirty Delaware City, Del. oil refinery, whose glow is visible for miles along I-95 and the Delaware estuary, is to be shut down following a string of recent job cuts. Update: Inquirer story here.

The closing follows Sunoco's recent shutdown at its Eagle Point refinery in West Deptford, Gloucester County, reducing the region's historic role as the major East Coast oil refinery as US fuel consumption falls and newer refineries are built abroad..

"We have exhausted all viable options," said Valero ceo Bill Klesse in this statement. The "permanent" closing is "due to financial losses caused by very poor economic conditions, significant capital spending requirements and high operating costs." 550 employees were told today they'll lose their jobs, as the company started severance negotiations with oilworkers' labor unions. Valero promised a "safe and orderly" shutdown.

The company had closed its gasifier and coking operations earlier this fall in an attempt to cut losses and put the works on the block, but failed to find a buyer.

Says Del. Gov. Jack Markell in a statement,“The company’s decision to close the refinery leaves us with several problems to solve." First, there's hundreds of workers losing their jobs. Also, “to protect the health and safety of everyone who lives near the facility, we need to ensure accountability for the environmental issues that come from closing a refinery, and we will.”

Wal-Mart pays just 4/100 of 1 cent, for every $1 customers spend, to get Visa and MasterCard payments processed -- while small merchants, with credit sales of less than $20,000, a month are paying up to 2 cents on every $1, Janney Montgomery Scott analysts Thomas C. McCrohan and Leonard A. DeProspo tell clients in a report today, after yesterday's daylong Janney Electronic Payments Summit at the Westin.

"Larger merchants have been relentless in driving prices lower," making it ever tougher for smaller firms, who lack their bargaininig power, to compete.

The Government Accounting Office yesterday put out this report - summary here - reviewing the impact of Visa and MasterCard rules and fees on retailers. "The report was relatively benign," writes Sandler O'Neill + Partners analyst Michael Taiano, adding it shows no "hard evidence that the current structure for assessing interchange fees is harmful to consumer and merchants." Except, of course, to the extent they're paying for all that credit card advertising, for example.

Congress might act anyway, Taiano adds,"given a populist view that the federal government ha done little over the past year to help small businesses, in contrast to the massive capital provided to the banks." 

Four proposals Congress may consider:
1) National limits on Visa and MasterCard fees (American Express and Discover would likely follow)
2) Full disclosure to customers of the fees Visa and MasterCard charge
3) End "anti-steering" rules and let merchants charge less for cash than credit card purchases
4) Let merchants and card issures bargain with Visa and MasterCard to set rates

Merchants have a "strong lobbying force" in Washington, but Congress has gotten shy about setting tough limits, Taiano says. He thinks full-disclosure and anti-steering rules are the most likely result, if Congress does anything.

Mercy Suburban Hospital in East Norriton says it'll stop delivering babies by next June. Some 30 workers will be reassigned or laid off by then, the hospital said in a statement, adding that Mercy, owned by nonprofit operator Catholic Health Care East of Newtown Square, is the seventh PA hospital to shut its obstetrics unit since 2004.

OB/GYN doctors who use the hospital have to decide whether to stay as gynecologists or move their practices to one of seven nearby hospitals that still deliver, spokesman Brian Cole told me. "They're still processing" the news, he said.

The "difficult decision" to shut obstetrics "reflects the unfortunate market environment" for baby services in Pennsylvania, due to fewer births, higher costs and lower insurance reimbursement, Mercy said in the statement. Cole said the hospital made the announcement after telling neighboring hospitals in meetings today.

The full House of Representatives will likely pass Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.)'s "Too Big to Fail" amendment, which allows regulators to break up big, complex, dangerous banks and other companies so they won't have to be bailed out.

But "we do not believe it would pass in the Senate, as finding 60 votes to support more aggressive Too Big to Fail - Systemic Risk legislation is unlikely," predict Scott Valentin and Paul Miller, bank analysts at Friedman Billings Ramsey's FBR Capital Markets in Richmond, in a report to clients.

Of course, "given the popularity of the issue," Kanjorski's amendment has already passed the House banking committee, where Kanjo is the #2 Democrat (after Barney Frank, D-Mass.), by a 38-29, D vs R vote.

And, in today's environment, a tough break-em-up law may gather conservative Republican support, say from Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who had the foresight to question (though he voted for -- corrected) the Gramm-Leach Act that repealed old limits on banks playing Wall Street.

But President Obama is likely to"apply pressure on lawmakers not to adopt aggressive legislation," instead backing  Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.)'s proposal, calling for "increasingly regulatory oversight," more capital, and "self-designed failure resolution plans." 

Got that? Self-designed. Because it's not in big companies' interest to self-destruct. Right, Mr. Greenspan?

Stung by the recessionary drop in premium-priced entertainment spending, Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers owner Comcast-Spectacor is offering cut-rate tickets and packages to lure middle-income people back to pro sports.

President Peter Luukko today announced a string of "Recession Buster" discount ticket offers "to encourage fans to attend upcoming hockey and basketball games, as well as other events, at the Wachovia Center," plus "Buzzer Beater" last-minute ticket deals "similar to those offered via airlines or Broadway tickets," via e-mail notification.

Starts with a package of two Flyers and a Sixers ticket for a total of $100. Also includes:

Family specials: 
- Four Sixers tickets, each with hot dog, drink and movie pass from Comcast-Spectacor affiliate Fandango, for $76 (upper level) or $150 (lower level).
- Four Flyers tickets, each with a Flyer hat, in partnership with McDonald's, for $100.
- At the Flyers, in partnership with Lehigh Valley Farms dairy, a family section priced at $10/kid, $20/adult

Sixers: Guys Night Out: Four tickets, four beers, four hot dogs, four calendars, four Dave & Buster's Power Cards: $175 (downstairs), $125 (upstairs). Or Ladies Night Out: Two includes two tickets, two chicken salads, two glasses of wine, two T-shirts, two $25 spa gift cards, for $75 (lower level) or $50 (upper level).

Also all-you-can-eat deals for both teams, and Sixers $10 mezzanine seats.

GVF Transportation Partners, a coalition of Schuylkill Valley local governments, big employers like GlaxoSmithKline, Verizon and PNC, and engineers and other highway and public-transit contractors, says US 422 commuters and other travelers on that all-too-busy artery have until Nov. 30 to post comments on the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission's US 422 Plan, which you can read on GVF's website, www.422corridor.com

Site's been up since June, but there's not many comments, maybe because the site's registration process is onerous: They really want to know who you are, and how to reach you. But considering what's at stake - proposals to impose local tolls, or boost the state gas tax, to raise money for "road widenings, bridge work, onramps and offramps", and maybe a new Septa line or more buses, on the often-jammed road, as project manager Shayne Trimbell told me  - it's worth taking a look and having your say. Or lean on your local politicians: towns and counties are also part of GVF.

GVF is managing the "comment process" for the planning commission, Trimbell added. He promised GVF will forward all comments, even those who oppose tolling and extra lanes.

Springside School, a private prep school for girls up in Chestnut Hill, wanted to build a solar electric power system on the gym roof. It hired Alteris Renewables Inc., a Wilton, Conn. firm that specializes in prep-school solar jobs, to design what Alteris calls Philadelphia's largest solar array, powering up to 92,000 watts, at a cost of $550,000.

Is this a good deal? Solar power reduces oil and gas burning, which can make environmentally-minded people feel good. It may also save money someday, if conventional electric rates go up sharply in the future. But as of today solar electric is still a lot more expensive than, for example, the oil- and uranium-based power Peco Energy sells.

That's why the federal government subsidizes solar power with tax breaks and accelerated depreciation. But nonprofits like Springside don't pay taxes, so "they can't take advantage" of Washington's solar stimulus, French told me.

Without tax breaks, the Alteris system will save Springside a modest $19,000/year at current electric rates, says Alteris president Ron French. At that rate, the system would take more than 30 years to pay for itself. And that's longer than the expected life of the system.

Springside didn't want to wait that long. It asked for, and got, a taxpayer subsidy. The school collected a $400,000 "Energy Harvest" grant through the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. That cut the cost to $150,000, which means it'll pay back in 8 years, at current rates.

"We raised it from a parent association fundraiser two years ago - it was a silent auction and a big dinner party, they called it 'Enlighten Springside' - and some alumni class donations," said Frank Aloise, director of finance. "It's no capital out of our pocket. We're cutting our operating cost by twenty grand a year. When deregulated rates come a year from now it'll be even more."

Interesting discrepancy: Springside estimated the annual savings at $7,000 a year in its application. That would make the payoff further out. But the state approved it anyway as a "late addition to the list, after the other grants had already been announced," DEP spokesman John Repetz told me.

What if Pennsylvania didn't subsidize prep-school solar systems? French told me New England prep schools have developed an alternative solution: They're letting private investors finance and own solar systems on campuses, apply for the federal tax credits, and pass part of the savings to schools by selling them power at below-market prices.

Private schools could do the same here, he added. Public schools, too? "There's nothing to prohibit it except consensus in a town," French told me cheerfully. "Some New Jersey districts are doing it." Thanks to Harrisburg, Springside didn't have to.