Charlotte.com: Business
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• Major discounts succeed in generating closer looks
  The mission was to get in and out -- a quick operation that would keep Amanda Mitner and her friend Tracy Keenan from overspending this Christmas.They would get past several stores in Carolina Place mall to the Wilson leather store without grabbing anything for themselves. They were buying a gift for Mitner's boyfriend.The mission failed. The sales, it turned out, were just too good.Mitner bought sweaters and shirts. Keenan, jewelry."It's insane," said Keenan, 22. "There's just no way to resist."More consumers are taking advantage of holiday discounts to treat themselves, and retailers are encouraging the spending by tossing out a variety of discounts in the final days before Christmas.At Carolina Place on Sunday, Lane Bryant, New York & Company and Aeropostale all bore large signs boasting sales of 50 percent off. In Macy's, gold jewelry was discounted 50 percent. Even Wilson advertised 60 percent discounts.Consumers plan to spend an average of $106.67 on themselves this holiday season, up 8 percent from last year, according to the National Retail Federation.And during a recent federation poll, 56 percent of shoppers said they would take advantage of discounts to buy "non-gift" items for themselves or their family.The spending comes as the growth of overall holiday spending has slowed. Consumers are expected to spend an average of $816.69 on decorations and gifts for others this year, up just 3 percent from last year.The self-spending trend has been going on for years, but is only recently catching the eye of retailers, said Tim Henderson, retail consumer strategist for Iconoculture, a Minnesota-based consumer advisory firm.Henderson said Amazon is one retailer taking full advantage of shoppers' tendencies to spend on themselves. Regular visitors to the online site find gift recommendations along with the phrase, "Treat yourself.""There are consumers out there who may feel a little iffy about spending money on themselves," Henderson said. "This is easing the consumer into buying. It can do a world of good during other holidays ... like targeting male consumers on Father's Day."The strategy could work. Men spend more on themselves during the holidays than women, according to the National Retail Federation. Men who were surveyed planned to spend an average of $120, compared to women, who planned to spend about $90.Shoppers won't be finished on Christmas, either. About 43 percent of shoppers polled said they plan to visit stores between Christmas and New Year's. About 76 percent of those shoppers said they would buy for themselves.Terrence Hall, 34, might be one of them. Hall was at Zales in Carolina Place Sunday looking for a gift for his wife.While there, he said seriously thought about stopping in GameStop to buy an Xbox 360."I'm going to wait until Christmas though," he said. "Santa might give it to me."
• Brits binge with gusto at office bashes
  Just before midnight, the well-dressed, 25-year-old financial trader arrived by ambulance at the makeshift hospital tent pitched at a train station in central London. Blood oozed from his scalp, staining his elegant pink-striped shirt."What happened to your head?" asked Dixie Dean, an emergency care specialist with the London Ambulance Service, as she wrapped gauze around his head and checked for a skull fracture."I don't remember," said the dazed man. He was the latest injured drunk this busy night in the medical tent set up to care for casualties of the infamous British office party.In many parts of the world, companies hold Christmas parties -- or holiday, year-end bashes -- for employees. But in Britain, the gatherings have become a particularly potent institution, legendary for massive booze consumption that leads to fistfights, firings and spur-of-the-blurry-moment indiscretions in boardrooms and parking lots.Dean compared the Christmas season in Britain to New Year's Eve in New York -- except that here, the binges run nightly for two solid weeks leading up to Dec. 25.The spike in alcohol-related emergency calls from office parties is so predictable that the ambulance service has a special medical vehicle to patrol the streets. With room for five people, it's known as the "Booze Bus" or "Vomit Comet.""Yet the office Christmas party endures," said Sam Gill, who has been helping plan them for 19 years. They are such a tradition that even in slow economic times, "it would take a lot to take the Christmas office party off the calendar."Lawyers are increasingly warning companies that they should not provide free-flowing alcohol for fear of injury and sexual harassment lawsuits like those that have arisen in the past.In one case, a London lawyer won and collected damages believed to be well over $1 million after a senior lawyer at her investment bank made remarks about her breasts and sex life at the office party. Another executive won a suit after claiming she was ridiculed by her boss at the office Christmas party about her decision to convert to Islam and eat halal meat.Gill said American companies based in England are a bit "more concerned about litigation" arising from boozing at late-night Christmas celebrations and typically shut down their parties at 9 p.m.Groups promoting alcohol awareness in Britain -- which consistently comes out at or near the top in surveys of Europe's heaviest-drinking countries -- say tradition or not, it may be time to tame the Christmas party. This month, Prime Minister Gordon Brown convened a summit meeting on binge drinking.
• Board: Companies can bar union e-mail
  Employers can prohibit workers from using the office e-mail system for union activities, so long as they prohibit solicitations from any outside organization, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled.The board said its 3-2 decision sets a new labor relations standard that allows employers to prohibit union activity through the company's e-mail system while at the same time permitting office chitchat and personal messages.The decision, released Friday, upheld the management of the Eugene Register-Guard newspaper in a case involving e-mail messages sent by Suzi Prozanski, a copy editor and Newspaper Guild leader, during contract negotiations in 2000 and the warnings the company gave her.The board said two of the messages were "solicitations to support the union," and the company was justified in enforcing a policy that forbade the use of e-mail for "non-job-related solicitations." It ruled against the paper on a third message, saying it was "simply a clarification of facts surrounding a recent union event."The three-member majority said it was reversing an administrative law judge's decision that the newspaper couldn't ban union messages at the same time it allowed "jokes, baby announcements, party invitations, and the occasional offer of sports tickets or request for services such as dog walking."They added that a federal appeals court had distinguished between personal and union use of an office bulletin board and it was following the court's rationale.The two dissenters said given the way e-mail "has transformed modern communication, it is simply absurd to find an e-mail system analogous to a telephone, a television set, a bulletin board, or a slip of scrap paper."They said an e-mail is not like phone lines or bulletin boards that have limited capacity.Newspaper and union leaders at the Register-Guard did not respond immediately on Saturday to requests for comment.The AFL-CIO's general counsel, Jon Hiatt, called the decision another in a series on the part of Republican board majority aimed at hobbling unions."There have to be accommodations to workers' rights even though the company owns the property," he said.
• States eye ways to rein in property tax
  Maurice Gunyon thought he was set for his twilight years.He bought a deteriorating house on Indianapolis' north side, had it torn down and a new one built. The 73-year-old retired from his government job in 2004, thinking he was financially secure. His income included his pension, personal savings, Social Security and rent from the other side of his two-family house.Then he got his property tax bill that had nearly tripled. His bill in 2005 was about $2,900 and was $4,600 last year. This year's bill - $7,568."I almost had a heart attack," said Gunyon. "My reaction was one of pure anger."His problem is not unique. The amount paid in local and state property taxes in the country increased 50 percent from 2000 to 2006, according to Census data cited by some U.S. Congress members when discussing the topic. During that time, inflation rose 17 percent and median household income dropped 2 percent.Analysts cite a number of reasons for the dramatic bill increases including local governments and states leaning more heavily on property taxes to meet revenue shortfalls and rising home values pushing up assessments. Now, states are looking at ways to cut property taxes or at least give homeowners some relief by capping assessments and making up the revenue shortfall by raising sales taxes.Gerald Prante, an analyst with the Tax Foundation, said rising property taxes are largely tied to a housing boom over the past five or six years. The sellers' market caused house values to rise,