Both employers and bar’s landlord say they have been stiffed by Bear Lair owner Teresa Jacob-Allen, and her accountant bolted citing “high questions relating to her integrity.”

Be sure to tune in next week…

Where should the season end? Vegas, baby. Vegas says Smith.

Go to hell State.

What is the deal?

“If Mr. Jackson had not been hired, he may very well have assaulted these individuals,” claimed senior assistant city attorney R. Harcourt Fulton in Mecklenburg County Superior Court, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, Planet Earth.

Superior Court Judge Lane Williamson — a former defense attorney and a Bev Perdue appointee — bought this line of reasoning and opted to send the matter of a possible civil rights violation by Jackson to a jury.

In other words, the city and Judge Williamson believe it is an open question whether handing Marcus Jackson a badge, a gun, a squad car, and full powers of arrest enabled him in any way to allegedly commit multiple acts of sexual assault while on duty and acting as a member of the city’s duly sworn police force.

That Marcus Jackson, private citizen, in a t-shirt, flip-flops, on a moped, armed only with evil intent could have compelled women to pull over to the side of the road, get out of their vehicles, and submit themselves — without resistance — to his gropings. That male companions of the female victims would have stood by as Marcus Jackson — private citizen, alone, unarmed, and without the power to call down the entire multi-billion dollar boot-heel of state and local law enforcement on their heads — assaulted their girlfriends.

That the city of Charlotte could not possibly be at fault because ipso facto the corporate entity that is the city is The City of Charlotte, and The City of Charlotte is never, ever wrong about anything. Ever.

At issue is the $550,000 the city of Charlotte advanced Ghazi for “infrastructure” around the EpiCenter. Ghazi is at a loss to explain why he transferred the money to another company he controlled, out of the reach of the lender he had stopped paying. But I’ve always been baffled by the city of Charlotte’s willingness to to stick to the original funding agreement for the EpiCenter, considering the project changed significantly, losing the condo component — a change that helped drive Mecklenburg County tax officials to save 26 percent off of the tax value of the building.

However, we digress. Regions Bank is clearly on the warpath — and unlike Wells and BAC — has not particularly interesting in subsidizing bad loans in Uptown Charlotte.

Pop some popcorn, this is only going to get better.

Charlotte is a great example of the progress we as a country are making in turning around the economy. When President Obama took office 20 months ago, the country was losing an incomprehensible 800,000 jobs a month and the unemployment rate in the Charlotte area had nearly doubled in less than a year. Now the country is averaging almost 100,000 new jobs a month, and Charlotte is experiencing an employment rebound. When President Obama took office Mecklenburg County had 411,566 jobs. The latest state figures show the county has almost 800 fewer jobs — 410,789, or a decline of 33,000 from April 2008. There is no employment rebound. At all.

I believe Charlotte represents the future of the American economy. The city is focused on clean energy and green jobs, and it understands that investing in our workers makes good sense.

This summer, I toured a facility at Celgard, one of several companies in Charlotte helping to make America a worldwide leader in advanced manufacturing. Celgard’s production of advanced batteries for the electric drive vehicle market is not just driving business and increasing company profits. It is also a win for the environment, helping to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. And, of course, it is a win for workers who have new jobs in a growing industry. Sec. Solis fails to mention that Celgard, a battery maker for electric vehicles will get a $49 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The state of North Carolina will provide another $18 million. Together the $67 million in taxpayer subsidies are expected to produce up to 289 new jobs in the county. If so, that would mean each job cost $231,844 in direct subsidies. It would take over $8 billion in additional subsidies to use this approach to replace all the jobs Charlotte lost in this recession.

As secretary of labor, I am always pleased to see such successes. See above. But I am even more encouraged to know that they are not the exception. There are so many other great examples of progress and promise. For instance, MDC, Inc. – based in Chapel Hill – is using a nearly $4 million Labor Department grant to launch its “Career Pathways for a Green South” jobs program. The program will train and place hundreds of individuals in green (alternative and efficient energy) industries and businesses throughout the region. And Goodwill Industries International will use a $7 million grant to implement an innovative job training model in six communities, including Charlotte.

These, and the myriad other investments in American workers will pay great dividends for years to come. Just think about it. We are getting people back to work, preparing them for the jobs of the future and enabling American businesses to remain on the cutting edge of technology. That is a surefire way to spur our economy!

The U.S. economic landscape is undoubtedly changing, and our nation can become stronger because of it. So, what’s next? I, for one, am committed to making training opportunities widely available, so unemployed workers at every level can retool and re-enter the workforce. I certainly don’t think cutting corners on worker health and safety is the answer either. Keeping workers safe matters far more than saving a few cents – it also improves a company’s bottom line. But more than anything, this is no time for our country to look back. Now is the time to build on the progress we are already making. It’s true, we have a lot of work to do. But I’m placing my bet on two winners: Charlotte and America. Charlotte will lag the national unemployment rate for the foreseeable future. How is that winning?

Like I said, should be a keeper.

The airport has traditionally done a good job of posting the minutes of a meeting soon after they they have been approved at the next month’s meeting. Until recently that is. The AAC met this morning; the most recent minutes available online though are from the June meeting. Which is not so helpful.

Update (September 3): Minutes from July and August were posted today. An yes, the minutes do suggest an issue that you’ll be hearing more about shortly — and no, it’s not taxi cabs either.

Merely as participants in the broader credit and lending sector there has to be some sort of impact on the two giants as a result of a general tightening of credit after years of easy money.

Having said that, Wachovia execs seem far too glib about the status of their Golden West Financial arm. You do not want to be holding a bunch of California no-money-down mortgages during the bust cycle of the state’s infamously fickle real estate market. Plus they do not seem to grasp that California’s high-tax, high-regulation model has been steadily chasing off jobs and economic activity for a solid decade now.

And again here in November 2007:

Ahem. Don’t look know but it looks like the subprime infection is a little deeper at Wachovia and Bank of America than previously known. Still too early to panic, but this is going to take most of 2008 to fix and the local economy may feel it. … Tremendously oversimplifed, the banks acted like they were merely making change — 4 quarters for $1 — in these transactions when in reality the value of their subprime holdings was tremendously sketchy and wound up falling through the floor.

Things get really interesting however, when you consider that had these transactions been considered outright loans federal capital requirements would have kicked in, mandating that the banks set aside higher levels of reserves in order to match the increased lending risk.

That did not happen. Hence there is no money. Well, that is not exactly correct.

There is some guy named John Q. Taxpayer that the bankers, the Fed, and politicians are trying to track down.

As analyst Chris Whalen explained there is no such thing as “off-balance sheet” transactions for banks — or anyone else. Someone always pays in the end.

Bend over, America.

Ow. That’s painful to read. More from April 2008 here and here in May 2008.

The point is that there in no way on Earth that it should have taken federal regulators until July and August of 2008 to figure out that Wachovia had “weaknesses in overall risk management and ‘top of the house’ board and senior management oversight” and that “Wachovia’s recent difficulties have stemmed from questionable strategic decisions and incomplete due diligence activities.”

Just sad. What were the guys with complete access to the banks’ books looking at?

What is fairly hysterical is that it took the Fed and the FDIC mere weeks to go from there might be a problem to, “Bob, I’m afraid you have to sell your bank to Citigroup. For America.”

Even more fascinating is that the FDIC’s forced pairing of Wachovia and Citi — a shotgun zombie wedding that may well have not survived 2009 — was only averted because FDIC gnomes did not want to be on the hook upfront to the tune of $2.16b. for the deal. Instead, the FDIC got the IRS to manufacture a tax break for Wells Fargo, which will likely be worth billions in accelerated write-offs for Wachovia’s losses.

Talk about doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. And by “right” we mean slightly less wrong.

Yet, somewhere in Uptown right now, some non-profit is setting out coffee and bagels, dreaming big dreams, all paid for by hot checks from the Wachovia-Golden West merger, a deal cleaned up by John Q. Taxpayer. All must be right with the world.