TheState.com: Business
News, sports and entertainment from TheState.com

• Much more than movies
  In February, teen idol Miley Cyrus, aka Hannah Montana, will make a one-week appearance in Columbia.She won’t be performing at the Colonial Center. Nor the Koger Center. Nor The Township.Instead, her one-week engagement will be projected in 3-D onto a movie screen at Carmike’s Wynnsong Theaters on Forest Drive.Wynnsong is following a trend in the movie theater industry: Find other uses for the big screen besides the traditional movie.To do that, movie theaters are opening their doors to corporate meetings, churches, opera performances and video game tournaments.
• Business rolls out its 2008 agenda
  Business’s wish list for the 2008 General Assembly is no less aggressive that in past years. But the question is what, if anything, business will get out of the second half of this legislative session.Next year is an election year, and getting even seemingly noncontroversial legislation passed can be tricky — much less some of the things on business’s wish list.The list includes revisiting the 2006 property-tax relief bill, increasing the cigarette tax to fully fund Medicaid, coming up with statewide immigration reform, repealing the blue laws, increasing the gas tax or finding some other source of dedicated money for roads and bridges.All 46 seats in the S.C. Senate and 124 seats in the House are up for re-election in November.But business can’t afford to take the year off, Otis Rawl, vice president of public policy for the S.C. Chamber of Commerce, said during a visit with The State.
• The Sunday 7: Making online shopping safer
  1Update your security softwareUpdate firewall and antivirus and antispyware software. If you're online, click on the periodic update alerts that flash on your screen.2Determine if the store is legit
• Get leverage against the gift card blues
  Mark Edward Roberts received a wallet four Christmases ago that left him feeling less than jolly. The slim leather wallet was about half the size of his old one, which was already overstuffed with credit, reward and gift cards.So he removed many of the gift cards and before long, lost most of them.Frustrated, Roberts and his friend Jennifer Mathe, who gave him the wallet, sought ways to help consumers better manage their gift cards, estimated to be the holiday’s most popular item, totaling more than $26 billion.The two came up with www.leveragecard.com, which allows users to purchase and register their gift cards, track their balances, swap cards of equal value and even earn interest. About 100 retailers, including Barnes and Noble, Kohl’s, Linens-N-Things and American Airlines, have signed on with Leverage.The Irvine, Calif.-based company hopes its Web site, launched on Black Friday, will alleviate some of the frustrations associated with gift cards. This year, consumers will lose about $8 billion in unredeemed gift cards, according to Consumer Reports, which also found that 27 percent of gift card recipients have at least one unused card from last year.
• 3.9 percent average salary increase expected
  Being a worker isn’t getting easier. We’re moving from traditional pensions to 401(k)s, full-scale health insurance to consumer-driven health plans and steady annual salary increases to one-time “pay for performance” bonuses and incentives.Base salaries are expected to increase about 3.9 percent on average in 2008, matching the average pay increase in 2007, according to a Towers Perrin survey of about 4,000 companies worldwide. Those results match a number of other salary-expectation surveys.It’s not much, when you consider inflation in October rose at a 3.5 percent annual rate.But more employers now supplement salaries with one-time bonuses and rewards, with more than 90 percent of employers offering such “variable pay” this year, up from 80 percent in 2006, according to an annual survey of about 1,000 large U.S. employers by Hewitt Associates, the human-resources consulting firm.Spending on such programs hit almost 12 percent of employers’ payroll budgets on average this year, up from 9 percent in 2003, and Hewitt expects that figure to top 12 percent in 2008.
• Spend FSA stash or lose it
  Time is running out to spend your money, if you’re one of the savvy workers who socked cash into a tax-free account for health expenses this year.Many employees have until March to empty any money remaining in their employer-sponsored use-it-or-lose-it flexible spending accounts for health care. And some participants face an earlier deadline of Dec. 31.If you don’t want a chunk of your money to slip back into the account administrator’s clutches, there are lots of ways to use whatever is left.Many items on your favorite pharmacy’s shelves, from bandages to rash creams, can qualify for FSA reimbursement.You can stock up on everyday medicines or make a visit to the dentist or eye doctor. And don’t forget the money you’ve already spent this year. Scan your checkbook and credit card statements for any previous medical bills that you might have forgotten to submit.
• The big warranty question
  Should you invest in an extended warranty for electronics purchases this holiday season?Extended warranties, sometimes called service plans, are basically insurance policies that consumers can buy from retailers to protect against costly repairs or service fees after the manufacturer’s warranty expires.Studies have shown that on high-end electronics, the price of an extended warranty can cost the equivalent of a quarter of the item’s price.From the consumer’s point of view, “it can be very expensive insurance when you look at it in terms of the likelihood of something going wrong and the cost of the premium,” said Tod Marks, a senior editor with Consumer Reports magazine.Consumer Reports’ studies of hundreds of products indicate that products tend to be fairly reliable and durable. Buyers can increase that likelihood by picking brands that have tested well in the past, Marks added.
• Â’Tis not the season to be Ben Bernanke
  WASHINGTON— Among the many things to be thankful for this holiday season is that you’re not Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke.He’s besieged by turmoil in the credit markets, Wall Street clamoring for more interest-rate cuts and now inflation data that might tie his hands as he tries to keep an economic slowdown from snowballing into recession.The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that consumer-price inflation jumped 0.8 percent in November, the largest increase since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. That bumped inflation felt in consumers’ wallets up 4.3 percent over the past 12 months.Energy prices alone are up 21.4 percent over the past 12 months; food prices rose 4.8 percent over the same period. But when volatile energy and food prices are stripped out, core inflation rose by only 0.3 percent to a 2.3 percent annual rate; still, that’s above the Fed’s perceived comfort zone limit of 2 percent.What’s so troubling about the core inflation numbers — which paralleled similar data released Thursday about wholesale inflation, as measured by the producer price index — is that rise above the Fed’s comfort zone.
• 3 Hebrew Boys: Supporters seek 'justice' for firm
  They paraded around the State House seven times, hoping the walls of justice would crumble, harking back to the biblical story of how the Israelites marched around the fortress city of Jericho for seven days before its walls came down.Nearly 100 supporters joined the principals of 3 Hebrew Boys — the ministry and investment plan under federal and state investigation — at a rally outside the State House Friday.While no walls shuddered nor did the earth cleave open, the rally did accomplish its stated goal of getting passersby to look at the various signs proclaiming the 3 Hebrew Boys innocent, as occasional shouts of “What do you want? Justice!” echoed.“We want this brought to the public,” said Yahoshaphat Bayn Yisrael, a supporter who helped organize the rally.The investment plans run by the 3 Hebrew Boys have come under government scrutiny, which Yisrael said is unjustified.
• Fairfield losing 200 more jobs
  WINNSBORO— Another large Fairfield County employer will close this winter, raising the rural county’s job toll to about 400.Miami-based Perry Ellis International will close a 200-employee clothing warehouse near Winnsboro March 5, local officials said. That follows Thursday’s announcement by Plastech that Feb. 4 it will close its 220-employee automotive-parts pl