PhillyDeals: Is the U.S. broke? Not so, he says

Is the United States really "broke," as Speaker of the House John A. Boehner (R., Ohio) keeps telling us?

"Wrong," reports David J. Lynch of Bloomberg L.P.:

* Investors are still buying two-year U.S. Treasury notes, which yield less than 1 percent interest, a sign that traders, investors, and bankers believe the United States is more likely than any other nation to pay its bills.

* Americans pay lower taxes to the national government, as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), than they have since 1950: just $1 of every $7.

Yes, the deficit is huge, and the national debt is soaring. But the tax bite in the United States is lower than in the rich nations of Europe and Asia, and more like Mexico or Chile. Our soaring debt load is still lower than the debt of most of our rivals.

So what's the problem? The United States has cut tax rates faster than it has cut spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and on health-care subsidies for retirees and poor people.

The nation could (and should, and will in time have to) pay its bills faster, Lynch concludes. It just prefers to borrow, at today's cheap rates, instead of forcing deep budget cuts - or boosting anyone's taxes. That would be deeply unpopular with Boehner's Congress.

City Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller, who represents Germantown-Mount Airy-Chestnut Hill, is watering down but ramping up her seven-year campaign to make it harder for Philadelphia employers to turn down ex-offenders when they apply for jobs.

Her latest version, scheduled for a hearing in her Committee on Public Safety on Wednesday at 10 a.m., would stop an employer from asking about prior convictions on a job application. "Nor [could] you ask during the first interview," her policy director, William Nesheiwat, told me. "After the first interview, the employer is permitted to take any reasonable legal action to determine the criminal background."

In a bulletin to clients, lawyers Edward J. Hazzouri and Carrie B. Rosen of the Center City-based corporate law firm Cozen O'Connor say Reed Miller's bill would limit background checks. Asking the state police or hiring investigators is OK; checking court records directly might not be OK.

State law limits employers from refusing to hire ex-offenders unless their crime "relates to suitability for employment." Why do more? "When people check the box [admitting criminal convictions], they never get a call back," even if the conviction would not affect their ability to do the job they are applying for, Nesheiwat says.

This way, "it gives you an opportunity to meet them," he says, before deciding whether to hire or write them off.

The busiest individual deal-maker in America, among bankrupt companies, is J. Scott Victor of SSG Capital Advisors in West Conshohocken.

Victor, a University of Pennsylvania grad and ex-Saul Ewing L.L.P. bankruptcy partner who cofounded SSG in 2000, was investment banker of record in 13 active assignments last fall, or one every week, according to the Pipeline report, published by The Deal, an investment-industry trade publication.

SSG (Special Situations Group) ranked among the top eight bankruptcy-investment advisers (as a company) in the nation, with deals among five principal partners. However, SSG's deals tend to be smaller than those of other listed firms, such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

NFI Industries Inc., the Cherry Hill trucking, warehouse, and logistics firm run by Vineland shipping, property, and banking (Sun Bancorp) mogul Bernard Brown's family, says it has purchased World Warehouse & Distribution, of Champlain, N.Y., and nearly one million square feet of warehouses in Champlain, Albany, N.Y., and Montreal.

NFI won't say what it paid. U.S. warehouses have sold for about $5 to $10 per square foot in the last 12 months, implying a price of close to $5 million to $10 million, plus goodwill and other asset value.

This is NFI's 10th purchase in 10 years, chief executive officer Sidney Brown said in a statement. Gross revenue is nearly $1 billion annually. NFI employs 5,600 at its offices and warehouses. It has more than 2,000 tractors and 7,200 trailers in the United States and Canada.