Business in brief: Forum to cover economic future
The 13th season of the Spokane City Forum starts Sept. 23 with an overview of the regional economy.
The panel, at Spokane First Presbyterian Church, 318 S. Cedar St., will feature area economists and business advisers who’ll talk about the Inland Northwest’s future.
The event, from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m., includes lunch and costs $10.
Among the presenters will be Washington State University Spokane Chancellor Brian Pitcher. He’ll discuss ongoing progress of the downtown University District.
Other panelists will discuss multi-use development, the area’s technology sector and the regional economy.
Reservations are recommended. E-mail info@spokane cityforum.org or call (509) 777-1555.
Tom Sowa
Amazon offers to replace book
SAN FRANCISCO – Amazon.com Inc. is offering free books or $30 to Kindle customers whose copies of the George Orwell novels “1984” and “Animal Farm” were deleted from their electronic reading devices in July.
When Amazon erased the books from Kindles, citing a problem with the rights to the books, the company issued refunds to the buyers. But the episode startled many Kindle customers, who didn’t know Amazon had the neo-Orwellian ability to erase content that had already been purchased and downloaded to their devices.
It prompted an apology from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who said deleting the books from Kindles to address the rights question was “stupid, thoughtless and painfully out of line with our principles.”
In an e-mail sent Thursday to Kindle owners whose books were erased, Amazon offered to redeliver the titles to their readers for free, along with any annotations users had made. The customers can alternatively get a $30 Amazon.com gift certificate or a $30 check.
Gold price tops $1,000 an ounce
LONDON – The price of gold rose above $1,000 an ounce Tuesday to its highest since March 2008 – suggesting investors are wary of the U.S. dollar’s weakness and expect international interest rates to remain low for some time.
The gold contract for December delivery traded up $6.50, or 0.7 percent, at $1,003.20 per troy ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It had gone as high as $1,009.70; that is the highest since it hit a record of $1,033.90 on March 17 last year.
Gold is typically bought as an alternative to the dollar among safe-haven assets favored by investors seeking to preserve capital. So its rise often correlates to a drop in the value of the American currency.