So Michael Gutter, an assistant professor in family financial management with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, has compiled a list of Americans’ top 10 tax-season gaffes.

1. Not making use of VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) sites. If your taxes aren’t terribly complicated–you don’t own a business or have a lot of investment income to report–then VITA is an underused resource worth checking out.

“That’s the first thing I would tell people, is to make use of those sites. They have a lot of oversight by state regulatory agencies and the IRS and they’re audited internally before tax forms are sent up and approved and they’re e-filed for free,” he said. “It’s a free service, done by people who literally work with tax code day in and day out.”

Check with your local county extension office or the Florida Prosperity Campaign, www.prosperitycampaign.com, to find your closest VITA site.

2. Not keeping organized records and missing deductions or credits you deserve.

Gutter said taxpayers should keep in mind that the tax code is designed to promote and encourage good-citizen type behavior: Getting an education, taking care of your children, buying a home, giving to charity, etc.

“There are so many opportunities for people to try and save legitimately between deductions and credits,” he said. “A tax credit is a dollar for dollar reduction in your tax liability, so by not taking advantage of it, you’re really giving away your own money.”

3. Not using your kids to your best (tax-saving) advantage.

If you have children, Gutter said, a number of tax credits might be relevant for you. If you have college-age offspring, there are even more.

Go to www.irs.gov and search “education tax credit.”

4. Not realizing that if you’re struggling financially, you might be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit, a credit for low-income workers. Even if your income isn’t high enough to require a tax return, you can still get the credit.

Go to www.irs.gov and type “Earned Income Tax Credit” in the search box.

5. Spending your tax-refund windfall instead of filling out IRS Form 8888. The 2-year-old form can be used to automatically funnel your tax refund into one or more accounts, such as a savings account or an IRA or other safe place where you won’t be tempted to spend it on an impulse item.

Go to www.form8888.org

“It helps people with the self-control issue that we all have with money,” Gutter said. “It burns a hole in everyone’s pocket, it just depends on what temperature it burns in your pocket and how fast.”

He advises taxpayers to use tax refunds sensibly: Reduce debt first, put money toward retirement or pay bills.

6. Not realizing you can go back and amend previous years’ returns.

If you find this year that you haven’t been taking a tax deduction you’re legitimately eligible for, Gutter says, it’s perfectly acceptable to go back and file amended returns for those years.

7. Buying into the hype over speedy refund anticipation loans.

Unless you are in a true financial emergency, tax refund anticipation loans are “not typically in people’s best interest,” Gutter said.

The loans are similar to paycheck advance loans, he said. The “refund” you get is generally the refund you would have gotten if you’d waited–minus a fee or interest.

8. Not realizing you can make IRA contributions for the previous year up until tax filing day.
So until April 15, 2008, you can contribute to your IRA for tax year 2007.

9. Delaying filing a return without a good reason.

This just leaves your refund in the government’s hands when it could be accruing interest for you, Gutter said. There are some instances where it might make sense to sit on one’s tax return until the last minute–such as waiting to pay Uncle Sam if you still owe taxes, as a way to keep the money working for you until the last moment.

10. Breaking the law by lying on your taxes or not filing a return at all.

“We always tell people, even if you owe the IRS money, work on it–you’re not going to get away with this for very long,” he said. “And if you don’t know how to file your taxes, get some help. But not filing is not in your best interest.”

“A tremendous slowdown is forecast over the next few years compared to what we’ve experienced during the last five years,” said Stan Smith, director of UF’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research. “The state has not experienced a decline of this magnitude since the mid-’70s, when we were in a national recession.”

The Sunshine State is expected to add an average of only about 209,000 residents a year between 2007 and 2010, compared with annual increases of about 418,000 people between 2002 and 2006, he said.

Although Florida remains a major destination for retirees, far more young and middle-aged people move into the state to find work than their older counterparts arrive to retire, Smith said. But declining job opportunities have stanched the influx of younger people, he said.

“The vast majority of Florida’s population growth is due to migration, and during a recession the rate of job creation slows down in Florida,” he said.

The biggest group moving to the state during the last four or five decades has typically been those in their 20s and 30s, with those 65 and older accounting for only about 15 percent of in-migration, Smith said. But younger people in their 20s and 30s also make up the biggest share of those leaving the state, which is why Florida became the nation’s oldest state after World War II, he said.

Robust real estate markets and burgeoning construction fueled Florida’s growth from 2002 to 2006, just as it did during the boom years of 1971 to 1974, Smith said. In turn, the housing market’s decline dramatically curbed population growth after 2006, just as a national recession in the ’70s sharply limited expansion between 1974 and 1977, he said.

Another reason growth typically slows during a recession in addition to the availability of fewer jobs is that people have difficulty selling their houses, which delays their move, he said.

“We’ve certainly seen a slowdown in economic growth nationally, and it’s even possible we may be in a recession right now, although we won’t know for sure until later this year,” he said.

Projections call for Florida’s population to return to more normal growth levels of about 317,000 a year between 2010 and 2020, similar to the 1980s and 1990s, Smith said. Although there also was a slowdown in growth during recessions in the 1980s and 1990s, it was nowhere near the steep decline of the 1970s or that which is taking place now, he said.

“It’s really sort of a boom-and-bust pattern that we have seen in Florida,” Smith said. “The years between 2002 and 2006 were the biggest in terms of absolute increases since the early ’70s, and then just as we experienced in the ’70s we are going from a period of high- to low-growth numbers.”

The county projected to grow the fastest in percentage terms between 2007 and 2010, Lafayette in Florida’s Big Bend, is something of an anomaly because it owes its top spot to prison construction, Smith said. It is predicted to grow from 8,215 in 2007 to 9,200 in 2010, he said.

Otherwise, many of the high-growth counties are the same as in past years, he said.

Flagler, which was the fastest-growing county between 2000 and 2007, jumping from 49,832 to an estimated 93,568, is expected to continue to expand at a rapid rate, to 103,500 by 2010, Smith said. Its coastal location, proximity to Jacksonville and relatively low cost of living, as well as the presence of the large Palm Coast development, contribute to its high ranking, he said.

Other rapidly growing counties are Sumter, which owes its surge in part to prison expansion and the increasing number of residents at The Villages retirement community, and Osceola County, which receives spillover from nearby Orlando.

In terms of absolute numbers, the counties expected to make the biggest gains between 2007 and 2010 are Miami-Dade, from 2,462,292 to 2,512,300; followed by Orange, from 1,105,603 to 1,154,200; and Hillsborough, from 1,192,861 to 1,234,900.

The overall index is two points below its January level, which then marked its worst record in 16 years, said Chris McCarty, director of UF’s Survey Research Center at the Bureau of Economic and Business Research. In February, it rose three points to 73 before dropping in March.

“Consumer confidence is now the lowest it has been since December of 1991, when it hit a record low of 64,” he said.

Four of the five components that make up the index fell this month. The largest decrease was in perceptions about national economic conditions over the next year, which fell 12 points to 53, followed by perceptions of national economic conditions over the next five years, which fell nine points to 74. Perceptions of whether it is a good time to buy big-ticket household items fell four points to 65, and perceptions of personal finances now compared with a year ago fell one point to 64. The only component to rise was perceptions of personal finances one year from now, which rose two points to 86.

“Given these levels and the retail sales data from the U.S. Census Bureau, it is clear that consumers are not in a position to revive an economy that is almost certainly in a recession,” he said.

Home sales and prices, both of which have fallen disproportionately in Florida for the past year, are among the factors affecting Floridians as well as everyone else in the United States, McCarty said.

The housing market woes have led to a shake-up in financial markets as investors across the globe questioned the prudence of U.S. lending practices, McCarty said. They are now withholding the cash needed to fund ongoing lending efforts, he said.

In response, the Federal Reserve Board has engaged in a series of unprecedented interventions to restore confidence in financial markets, including taking on mortgage debt from troubled firms such as Bear Stearns and lowering interest rates sharply, McCarty said. The drop in interest rates has contributed to the falling dollar against other currencies, which makes goods from gasoline to cereal more expensive, he said.

“Our economic problems are unlikely to turn around over the next several months,” McCarty said. “However, some of what needed to happen has already occurred.”

Home prices are falling to reasonable levels and in parts of Florida are now where they would have been without the run-up over the past few years, he said.

“We expect housing prices in many Florida markets to bottom out by July, following another weak home-buying season,” he said. “Although it will be a long time before real estate returns to 2005 prices, it will be a reasonable time for Floridians waiting to buy a house to enter the market.”

And with the passage of the property tax amendment, those Floridians with Save Our Homes equity will be in a good position to move within Florida, he said.

“Many economists expect slow growth to return by the end of the year and solid growth to return by early next year,” he said. “It is useful to keep in mind that there are investors out there with money to lend, an essential ingredient for a growing economy. When they are confident that their investments will grow, they will return.”

It also is clear from the international fallout that the U.S. economy is firmly integrated into the global markets and stands no chance of failing, he said.

The research center conducts the Florida Consumer Attitude Survey monthly. Respondents are 18 or older and live in households telephoned randomly. The preliminary index for March was conducted from 399 responses.

Consumer confidence is designed to help predict buying patterns by measuring the mood of consumers toward purchasing. Although other economic indicators also predict buying patterns, consumer confidence tends to be available sooner. The index is benchmarked to 1966, so a value of 100 represents the same level of confidence for that year. The value of the index is in comparing changes over time rather than looking at an isolated month.

“It sounds like an old song resung, but our respondents are still keeping the faith in the real estate market,” said Wayne Archer, director of UF’s Bergstrom Center for Real Estate Studies. “It’s not that we don’t see some lessening of the market, but it’s nothing like the sensational doom that dominates the news about residential housing.”

The latest quarterly survey of Florida real estate trends completed in January and released this week shows declining optimism about commercial real estate, which had been a bulwark in the property market, Archer said. Occupancy is expected to fall for industrial, office and retail property, as rental rates are beginning to lag inflation, signaling that real rates (adjusted for inflation) may fall, he said.

Respondents continue to expect only slightly more decline in the sales for new single-family homes, while the picture for condominiums, although more pessimistic, has improved slightly, he said.

“Despite growing near-term concerns about recession, residential foreclosures, falling house prices and disruption of financial markets, our survey respondents maintain an unchanged, even slightly positive view of investment in Florida real estate at this time,” Archer said.

Although there is a staggering number of housing foreclosures in a few counties, foreclosure patterns vary widely at the statewide level, Archer said. While Lee, St. Lucie and Osceola counties are considered among the country’s foreclosure capitals, most counties in North Florida, especially Alachua and Leon counties, are in good shape, he said.

The three worst counties all share lower housing costs than surrounding counties, which attract marginal home buyers who may be eligible only for subprime mortgages, Archer said.

“If you worked in Collier County but couldn’t afford to live there — maybe you were a construction worker — where could you go?” he said. “Well, if you stretched hard and qualified for a subprime loan, you might be able to buy a house in Lee County.”

Similarly, prospective home buyers who work in West Palm Beach but can’t afford to live there may choose to move to St. Lucie County and commute, while people employed in the Orlando area might be able to afford a home in less expensive Osceola County on the southern outskirts, he said.

The rest of Florida is a little worse off than the rest of the nation but not dramatically so because its subprime meltdown is offset by the still frozen snows of the north, he said.

“There are pessimists who think people are going to pack up and leave Florida, but when I stand outside on these clear winter days, I think ‘they’re not going far,’” Archer said. “As long as people keep moving here, the growth will bring us a correction that you won’t get in industrial states like Ohio, Michigan or Illinois.”

Even in the worst counties, there are signs of Florida’s attractiveness with the growing popularity of “vulture ventures,” in which people move in to buy distressed properties thinking they can make huge profits as the market corrects itself, he said.

Another factor in Florida’s favor is the aging of the baby boomers, some of whom have considerable wealth, Archer said.

“A lot of baby boomers are closing up shop and deciding where they want to be in the future,” he said. “As you get a little older, you get a little more sensitive to the cold, and Florida is going to look pretty good to them.”

Although it won’t save Lee County on Florida’s southwest coast, prospects for international investment, especially with the weak dollar, may spell relief for the 40,000 condominiums sitting vacant in Miami, Archer said.

“With possibly half of these luxury condominiums in an urban setting with spectacular views, they could appeal to high-income individuals throughout the world, especially from Latin America,” he said. “Eventually downtown condominiums may be hard to find as land becomes scarce.”

The January report is 10th in a series. The series is the only Florida-centered survey of leaders and professional advisers in the real estate industry. The largest group of respondents was appraisers, about 61 percent, followed by consultants and brokers.

Four of the five components that make up the index rose this month. The largest increase was in perceptions of national economic conditions over the next year, which jumped 11 points to 66, followed by expectations of national economic conditions over the next five years, which rose eight points to 82. Two components edged up two points: perceptions of personal finances now compared with a year ago to 67, and expectations of personal finances a year from now to 84. The only component to fall was perceptions of whether it is a good time to buy big-ticket items, which dropped three points to 71, its lowest point since December 1991.

“We certainly did not expect this increase,” said Chris McCarty, director of UF’s Survey Research Center at the Bureau of Economic and Business Research. “We think the overall rise this month is a reaction to the passage of the stimulus package that will result in payments to a majority of Florida households as well as the passage of the property tax amendment, which was supported by 64 percent of the voters. Both of these are, at least temporarily, bright spots for Florida consumers.”

The data over the past two months shows that confidence fell steadily through January, rose during the first week of February and increased dramatically in the second week, McCarty said. By the third week of February, confidence had fallen to January levels, he said.

“We expect this month’s overall rise in confidence to be a temporary increase and that confidence will decline next month,” he said.

Higher consumer confidence levels come at a time when policy makers are trying to avert a recession or at least minimize the effects of one, McCarty said. However, the positive effects of both the stimulus package and the property tax amendment will probably be short-lived, and the Federal Reserve Board’s decision to cut interest rates carries some negative side effects, he said.

“By lowering interest rates, which may help loosen credit for borrowers, the Federal Reserve has further weakened the dollar against other currencies,” McCarty said. “This has contributed to the rise in the price of oil and other commodities as can be seen in the recent rise in the price of a gallon of gas, which has increased more than seven cents in the past week.”

Although the stimulus package offers a welcome rebate check, those borrowed funds add to the deficit, McCarty said.

“And the property tax amendment will no doubt result in fewer services at the local level, and may have long-term downside effects on the state economy as homeowners take their tax exemptions with them when moving in Florida,” he said.

There are some bright spots for Florida homeowners hoping to sell, though, McCarty said. For instance, the property tax amendment makes it more affordable to move to a new home, he said. The stimulus package passed by Congress temporarily increases the loan amounts that can be purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from $417,000 to $729,750, and Florida has no shortage of homes in this price range, he said.

Interest rates have declined in response to the cuts by the Federal Reserve, although recently the credit markets are not moving in sync with the Fed rate cuts, McCarty said. Most importantly, average home prices have been falling to a point where they are approaching the level they would have been at this time without the housing run-up, he said.

“We anticipate that by July home prices in many areas of Florida will be at or near bottoming out,” he said. “This should attract some buyers who have been waiting on the sidelines for prices to stabilize, assuming they can quality for a loan.”

The research center conducts the Florida Consumer Attitude Survey monthly. Respondents are 18 or older and live in households telephoned randomly. The preliminary index for February was conducted from 408 responses.

Consumer confidence is designed to help predict buying patterns by measuring the mood of consumers toward purchasing. Although other economic indicators also predict buying patterns, consumer confidence tends to be available sooner. The index is benchmarked to 1966, so a value of 100 represents the same level of confidence for that year. The value of the index is in comparing changes over time rather than looking at an isolated month.

At least, that’s what is suggested in a paper published today in the journal Human Brain Mapping authored by a group of professors in advertising and communication and neuroscience at the University of Florida.

The seven researchers used sophisticated brain-scanning technology to record how subjects’ brains responded to television advertisements, while simultaneously collecting the subjects’ reported impressions of the ads. By comparing the two resulting data sets, they say, they pinned down specific locations in the brain as the seat of many familiar emotions that ripple throughout it. The feat is another step toward gauging how people feel directly through functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, and other brain-scanning technology — without relying on what they claim to be feeling, the researchers say.

“We are getting to the heart of the matter by really showing this process in the brain, and how it works,” said Jon Morris, a professor of advertising and communications and lead author of the article. “We feel that this can be used to find out what people really feel about something, whether an advertisement or any other stimulus.”

Using MRI or fMRI — the former creates internal images of the brain, while the latter tracks blood flow within the brain — to test consumers’ responses to advertisements or other stimuli is not new. But according to the study, much of the previous research has found that, for example, responses to pleasant or unpleasant stimuli occurred throughout many regions of the brain, rather than in one specific location. As a result, the technique seemed of limited usefulness: Analysts could gauge only general response activity, not specific emotions.

“There was no real key happiness center, no key sad center, no key love center,” Morris said. “What you got was brain activity, in general.”

The UF team used an elaborate experimental system, currently under consideration for a patent, to try to narrow the search.

Because metallic or magnetic material can cause fMRI machines to malfunction, no television or sound equipment was allowed in the cylinder-like fMRI machines into which people are inserted. As a result, the researchers deployed a series of projections and mirrors to allow subjects to watch commercials. Sound reached them via tiny plastic pipes, similar to headphones once common on airplanes, rather than wires.

The 12 subjects also had hand-held devices that enabled them to report their feelings via a system called “Attitude Self Assessment Manikins” a version of the UF-developed Self-Assessment Manikin, or “SAM.” The “AdSAM” system lets viewers describe how they are feeling and the strength of those feelings by clicking on projections of people-like icons, a process that Morris characterized as more direct than translating feelings into words. Morris uses the AdSAM system in his work as a consultant to advertisers.

Researchers showed the subjects three television commercials advertising Coke, Evian and Gatorade, respectively, as well as an anti-fur commercial and an ad promoting teaching. To guard against preconditioned response, all the ads were at least 10 years old.

The researchers compared the activity in the subjects’ brains as recorded by the fMRI machines to their reported responses on the AdSAM system. With several of the ads, they found the fMRI data and response converged on two of three measures — pleasure-displeasure and excitement-calm. Under the AdSAM system, these “bipolar dimensions” — as well as a third, dominance-submissiveness — form the foundation for more specific emotions.

Where the researchers compared the AdSAM data on pleasure-displeasure and excitement-calm to the fMRI data, they found simultaneous spikes in four different and highly localized areas of the brain. According to the article, the findings suggest “that human emotions are multidimensional, and that self-report techniques — correspond to a specific task but different functional regions of the brain.”

Morris said the results are preliminary, but that follow-up studies could allow researchers to hone in on people’s feelings with great specificity. That would be attractive to advertisers for obvious reasons, but psychologists might also find the techniques useful.

“Back in the 1950s, three psychologists found that all emotions could be measured in three dimensions,” Morris said. “Now we have learned that this may be more than a method for reporting emotion. It may actually reflect the way creatures on this planet function — possibly exposing a direct link to predicting behavior.”

“Consumer confidence in Florida reflects the same conditions we had during the recession of 1990-91,” said Chris McCarty, director of UF’s Survey Research Center at the Bureau of Economic and Business Research. “Florida is almost certainly in a recession now, and the country is not far behind. Most economists agree that we are in for at least two quarters of very low growth.”

This month’s drop to its lowest level since December 1991 is due to declines in four of the five components that make up the index. The biggest drop was in consumers’ expectations about national economic conditions over the next year, which fell 10 points to 55, its lowest level since August 1992.

Two components fell five points. Perceptions of national economic conditions over the next five years sank to 74, and expectations about personal finances a year from now dipped to 82. Perceptions of whether it is a good time to buy big-ticket consumer items fell one point to 74. The only component to rise was perceptions of personal finances now compared with a year ago, which edged up one point to 65.

“There is still some possibility that recessionary conditions will remain localized to some states, such as Florida and California,” McCarty said, noting that the preliminary consumer confidence reading for the nation from the University of Michigan was up five points to 80, a full 10 points higher than Florida.

“Unfortunately, these states that are experiencing recession conditions make up a very large part of the total U.S. economy,” he said. “It is very possible that the effects of the housing crunch in these states may result in a recession for the entire country, if we aren’t in one already.”

The hope is that the economic stimulus package making its way through Congress will negate some of the effects of the housing crisis and its related effects on credit markets by at least temporarily getting consumers back in the stores, McCarty said.

“If consumers can continue to support the economy until exports and business investment increase, the recession may be more like 2001 than 1990-91,” he said.

The 2001 recession was mild compared with the 1990-91 downturn, which lasted three quarters and resulted in the loss of nearly 2 million jobs, he said.

“The worst case is a scenario like the 1970s when the country experienced two recessions with long-lasting effects,” he said.

The research center conducts the Florida Consumer Attitude Survey monthly. Respondents are 18 or older and live in households telephoned randomly. The preliminary index for January was conducted from 533 responses.

Consumer confidence is designed to help predict buying patterns by measuring the mood of consumers toward purchasing. Although other economic indicators also predict buying patterns, consumer confidence tends to be available sooner. The index is benchmarked to 1966, so a value of 100 represents the same level of confidence for that year. The value of the index is in comparing changes over time rather than looking at an isolated month.

Researchers used real life experimental situations to discover that verbal abuse so flusters people that they lose much of their problem-solving and creative talents.

“When someone is screaming at you, you’re too busy thinking about the incident and how to deal with it to think about much else,” said Amir Erez, a University of Florida management professor.

Not only did single episodes of rude treatment have damaging consequences, but simply imagining being on the receiving end of a tirade hampered workers’ ability to perform routine tasks, be innovative and be good team players, Erez said.

“We found that even when the rude behavior is pretty mild, it impairs a person’s cognitive functioning and has spillover effects in how they treat their co-workers,” he said.

The unusual study, by Erez and Christine Porath, a management professor at the University of Southern California, appears in the October issue of the Academy of Management Journal.

The disruption of mental functioning because of someone’s lousy manners is serious business in a world that has transitioned from the brawn of an industrial economy to the mindset of the information age Erez said. The problem is magnified because complaints of incivility in society are on the upswing about everything from inconsiderate cell phone use to road rage, he said.

Reflecting the adage that more bees are caught with honey than vinegar, Erez believes employers would be well advised to buck the rise in incivility. “As more and more jobs within organizations become increasingly complex and require higher levels of cognitive functioning and creativity, anything that interferes with that process is likely to have an impact, not only on individual job performance but on the productivity of the labor force as a whole,” he said.

Other studies have examined self-reports from employees about workplace rudeness. This research, however, actually measured how discourteous treatment impedes worker performance on specific tasks, he said.

The researchers tested three scenarios involving rude behavior on a series of brainstorming tasks, which included solving anagrams and finding creative uses for a brick, on 275 students enrolled in management classes at UF and the University of Southern California.

One set of participants observed a confederate arrive six minutes late to the experiment, apologize and explain that a class across campus was not let out on time. After the confederate was dismissed for being too late, the experimenter unleashed a barrage of criticism about students being unprofessional compared with those at other universities. A control group saw only a confederate being dismissed for being too late.

A second set of participants arrived at the scheduled test site where a small, easy-to-miss sign was posted on a door that was ajar to a room where a person seated at a desk greeted them by saying “Can’t you read? There is a sign on the door that tells you the experiment will be in (another room). But you didn’t even bother to look at the door, did you? Instead, you preferred to disturb me and ask for directions when you can clearly see that I am busy. I am not a secretary here, I am a busy professor.” Members of a control group were simply told that the room had been changed and given directions to the new location.

In a third scenario, participants merely imagined themselves in one of these two situations where rudeness was encountered.

Compared to the control group, the students who were treated rudely, or even imagined they had been, solved fewer anagrams, recalled less information and found fewer and less creative uses for a brick. They might suggest it be “used as a door stop,” for example, instead of “selling it on e-Bay” or “hanging it from a wall in the museum and calling it abstract art.”

The study also tested participants’ willingness to help by having the experimenter drop some books or pencils. Whether the rude behavior was directed at them by the experimenter or delivered by a third party assumingly unrelated to the study or the experimenter, they picked up fewer books and pencils, if they chipped in to help at all.

Robert Sutton, a Stanford University professor of management science and engineering and author of the book “The No Asshole Rule,” said the study provides “some of the strongest evidence I’ve seen that mean-spirited behavior can undermine productivity and creativity. This well-crafted research shows that when organizations allow rude employees to run roughshod over others, it not only creates uncivilized workplaces, it is just plain bad business.”

The partnership, which will extend Moffitt’s innovative model of comprehensive patient care to UF and Shands cancer programs, was outlined at a joint news conference in UF’s new Cancer-Genetics Research Complex.

“As a statewide resource for cancer research and treatment, Moffitt seeks to foster relationships such as these to maximize the state’s investment in addressing cancer,” said Dr. William S. Dalton, president/CEO and center director of Tampa-based Moffitt. “We feel this partnership will enhance Florida’s national and international reputation in cancer care and research, and ultimately contribute to improving the overall standard of cancer care in Florida and increase the state’s profile in cancer care and research in the state and beyond.”

Under the arrangement, crafted through extensive discussions between Dalton, UF College of Medicine Dean Bruce Kone, Shands HealthCare CEO Tim Goldfarb and other leaders, the parties will look for opportunities to collaborate across the spectrum of patient care, research and educational activities. The participants signed a memorandum of understanding at the news conference.

“We’re looking for synergies,” Kone said. “Our efforts will leverage their best assets and our best assets to deliver world-class care and discovery.”

As part of this collaboration, Moffitt’s Total Cancer Care, or TCC, model and approach to a cancer patient’s life journey will be integrated with the cancer program at Shands at UF, the academic medical center in Gainesville, renowned for its pioneering work in such areas as bone marrow transplantation and radiosurgery.

The TCC model is widely admired for its emphasis on quality improvement, the needs of surviving family members, and tissue and data collection for the purpose of tailoring therapies for individual patients, Kone said.

This alliance comes 18 months after of the opening of the Cancer-Genetics Research Complex on the UF campus. Additionally, Shands at UF is preparing for the completion of its $388 million, 500,000-square-foot cancer hospital in 2009. Cancer patients treated there will gain access to state-of-the-art therapies in a comfortable, healing environment.

Goldfarb said he especially likes the arrangement because it is “additive, not exclusive.”

“This partnership doesn’t disturb any relationship that our organizations have with other parties, in fact we welcome others to join us,” Goldfarb said. “Through this alliance, we are uniting our intellectual, technological and scientific resources to truly lead cancer care for the benefit of Florida residents. Our impact together will be outstanding. This is an exciting day for people throughout our region.”

In addition to implementing the TCC initiative, initial collaborations will include joint research, co-authored scientific publications, joint recruitment and philanthropy.

Working with the National Cancer Institute, Moffitt will seek to integrate the UF and Shands cancer program into Moffitt’s NCI comprehensive cancer center designation, held by only 39 cancer centers nationwide. Inclusion should give UF scientists more opportunities at garnering NCI grants for collaborative projects with Moffitt investigators, Kone said. It also will give UF and Shands patients’ better access to large-scale clinical trials of new therapies.

UF President Bernie Machen expressed his optimism about the progress made thus far.

“This collaboration has the real potential to have a major impact on every Florida citizen, because cancer touches all of us,” he said. “Clearly this is just the beginning and a great deal of work is ahead of us, but the spirit of collaboration that has gotten us to this point is practically unheard of and it bodes well for the future of these efforts.”

An archive of the news conference is now available at http://streaming.video.ufl.edu/~video/20080123-pressconference.asx.

For more information, contact:
Michelle Foley, Moffitt Cancer Center, 813-745-1505, Michelle.Foley@moffitt.org
Kim Jamerson, Shands HealthCare, 352-265-0373, jamerk@shands.ufl.edu
Tom Fortner, UF College of Medicine, 352-273-5814, tfortner@ufl.edu

About Moffitt Cancer Center
Located in Tampa, Fla., Moffitt Cancer Center (www.moffitt.org) is the only Florida-based cancer center with the NCI designation as a Comprehensive Cancer Center for its excellence in research and contributions to clinical trials, prevention and cancer control. Moffitt currently has 15 affiliates in Florida, one in Georgia and two in Puerto Rico. Additionally, Moffitt is a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, a prestigious alliance of the country’s leading cancer centers, and is listed in U.S. News & World Report as one of “America’s Best Hospitals” for cancer as well as for ear, nose and throat. Moffitt’s sole mission is to contribute to the prevention and cure of cancer.

About UF Health Science Center
The University of Florida Health Science Center — the most comprehensive academic health center in the Southeast — is dedicated to high-quality programs of education, research, patient care and public service. The Health Science Center encompasses the colleges of Dentistry, Public Health and Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Veterinary Medicine, as well as the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital and an academic campus in Jacksonville offering graduate education programs in dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy. Patient-care activities are provided through teaching hospitals and a network of clinics in Gainesville and Jacksonville. The Health Science Center also has a statewide presence through satellite medical, dental and nursing clinics staffed by UF health professionals, and through affiliations with community-based health-care facilities stretching from Hialeah and Miami to the Florida Panhandle.

“Consumer confidence among Floridians is eroding,” said Chris McCarty, director of UF’s Survey Research Center at the Bureau of Economic and Business Research. “The big declines in confidence in December were among low-income households, which fell five points to 64, while middle- and upper-income households fell three points to 77.”

This month’s drop to its lowest level since August 2002 is due entirely to declines in two of the five components, both at 16-year lows. The biggest decline was in perceptions of whether it is a good time to buy big-ticket items, which fell 10 points to 74, its lowest level since January 1991. The other component, perceptions of personal finances now compared with a year ago fell six points to 64, its lowest reading since December 1991.

Two components rose slightly. Perceptions of U.S. economic conditions during the next year rose two points to 64, although the November level of 62 was among the lowest in years. Expectations of personal finances a year from now actually rose a point to 87. Perceptions of U.S. economic conditions during the next five years remained flat at 79.

“Despite the strong showing immediately following Thanksgiving, retailers are reporting relatively weak holiday sales since then,” McCarty said. “As has been the case for the past several months, the main drivers of consumers’ increasingly pessimistic outlook is housing, the stock market and to a lesser extent, the rise in prices, particularly gas prices.”

While gasoline prices have declined some in December, they remain above $3 a gallon, and the stock market, which has been extremely volatile during the past six months, is currently down nearly 1,000 points from its all-time high, McCarty said. But housing is the biggest culprit, he said.

“Everyone now recognizes the excesses of the housing market over the past three years, and the extent to which the problems have spread throughout the U.S. and global economies through mortgage-backed securities,” McCarty said.

With the large stock of housing inventory, and some prospective buyers waiting for prices to drop to their lowest levels, the question remains when prices will hit bottom, he said.

The most positive scenario calls for prices not to drop much lower than they are already, he said. When considering the median price of Florida housing statewide over the past 15 years, the period from 2004 to 2006 appears to be an aberration, McCarty said. The peak was in June 2006 when the median price was $257,800, he said.

Since then, prices have declined 13.8 percent by October 2007 to $222,100, with some saying the recent drop is close to where the price would have been without the run-up, he said.

A second scenario, which excludes the last four years of aberrant data, suggests the median home price should bottom out at about $187,000, which at the current pace of declines, would not occur until March 2009, he said.

A third scenario assumes the economy must pay a penalty for the run-up, a position supported by limited credit, rising foreclosures and the sheer number of houses available.

“My best guess is that the market will have to factor the recent run-up into the overall trend and that the bottom in prices may be reached as early as the second quarter of 2008,” McCarty said.

The big question is how much of a penalty must be paid for the run-up, he said.

“One thing is absolutely certain,” he said. “The peak price reached in June of 2006 is many years away. Anyone who hopes to sell their home at that price will have to wait a very long time. Buyers on the other hand may want to consider second quarter 2008 prices as very near lows.”

The research center conducts the Florida Consumer Attitude Survey monthly. Respondents are 18 or older and live in households telephoned randomly. The preliminary index for December was conducted from 494 responses. Consumer confidence is designed to help predict buying patterns by measuring the mood of consumers toward purchasing. Although other economic indicators also predict buying patterns, consumer confidence tends to be available sooner. The index is benchmarked to 1966, so a value of 100 represents the same level of confidence for that year. The value of the index is in comparing changes over time rather than looking at an isolated month.

“Many people who are involved in the labor movement see African-American workers, other minorities and women as being the key to any hopes of unions recovering some of their organizational strength,” said Robert Zieger, a UF history professor. His new book “For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America since 1865” was published this fall by University Press of Kentucky.

With the shift from an industrial to a service-based economy, growing numbers of jobs are emerging in places such as hospitals, nursing homes and entertainment complexes, with minorities taking many of these positions, Zieger said. “If unions don’t organize these workers, they’re not going to be able to sustain a very viable and extensive labor movement,” he said.

As organized labor continues its decline by representing an increasingly smaller segment of the American work force, a bright spot has been the Service Employees International Union, which counts janitors, hospital and nursing home workers and home care staffers among its members, Zieger said. “They are the fastest growing union in the country, with about a million and a half members, and they have had a number of outstanding successes in recent years,” he said.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union, which represents police officers, building inspectors, grounds workers, maintenance workers and administrative and clerical workers and others in the nonfederal public sector, also has a large membership, much of it consisting of women and people of color, he said.

“It’s important to recognize that even in a state like Florida, which we don’t normally think of as being a union-friendly state, there are 400,000 union members, and they, along with their families, represent an important potential political voting bloc,” he said.

In the 2000 presidential election, a coalition of organized labor and blacks worked together to target the minority vote, Zieger said. The formation of this black-labor coalition is an important historical development that has received little attention, he said.

“If a Democratic president is elected in 2008, that, along with legislation now pending before Congress that would make the process of union recognition easier, could generate a rebirth of organized labor,” he said. “If it does, it is likely to feature minority workers.”

Until the 1930s, organized labor’s record on race, particularly that of the American Federation of Labor and the railroad unions, was poor, Zieger said. Many unions explicitly barred blacks from membership and even those that did not actively discourage them from joining maintained collective bargaining agreements with employers that excluded blacks, he said.

An exception was the integrated United Mine Workers, the largest union in the first half of the 20th century, which had black officers, even in the South, he said.

In the 1930s, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, actively recruited blacks to work in the rapidly growing auto, steel, textile, meatpacking and rubber tire industries that marked the rise of industrial unionism, Zieger said. “CIO leaders realized that blacks had come to play an important part in these mass-production industries and that if you wanted to organize these industries, you had to organize black workers,” he said.

Even so, blacks tended to occupy less-skilled positions in the factories and often felt that even those unions dedicated to the principles of racial egalitarianism, such as the United Auto Workers Union, weren’t sufficiently responsive to black workers, Zieger said.

“There were tensions going through the post-World War II period and these continue in some ways even today,” he said. “But I think if you look at the current AFL-CIO, which is the primary labor organization in the country, with headquarters in Washington, it seeks to be very responsive to black workers.”

Paul Ortiz, a community studies professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who wrote “Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida from Reconstruction to the Bloody Election of 1920,” said Zieger’s book is a crowning achievement. “Professor Zieger’s ‘For Jobs and Freedom’ is the premiere historical synthesis on the complex relationships between African Americans and labor unions from the 19th century to the present,” he said. “It will be the standard text in this field for years to come.”

“There is more than one world of real estate, and while you can paint a very grim picture of single-family housing and condos, rental and commercial property look on balance to be healthy and normal even though they are not as rosy as they were a year ago,” said Wayne Archer, director of UF’s Bergstrom Center for Real Estate Studies.

The findings are from the center’s quarterly survey of Florida real estate trends that was completed in October. A total of 339 professional real estate analysts and investors participated in the survey, with appraisers making up the largest group, 60 percent, followed by consultants, 10 percent, and brokers, 9 percent.

The report’s release coincides with Florida being reported as one of a handful of states most vulnerable to the effects of the subprime mortgage fallout, with one widely quoted property expert even going so far as to say that “Florida is the epicenter of all things wrong with the housing industry,” Archer said.

“What these apocalyptic accounts fail to consider is that job formation and migration to the state are still strong, and these are the factors that drive the real estate market,” he said.

Many of the pessimistic reports look only at the single family and condo picture, which are not doing well, but investment, occupancy and rental rates for retail, office, industrial and hospitality are considered to be progressing normally, although not in as good a shape as a year ago, Archer said.

The outlook for nearly all of the commercial and rental markets — apartment, office, retail and industrial — calls for them to increase slightly less than the rate of inflation compared to slightly more than the rate of inflation that was predicted a year ago, he said.

“With all the horror stories in the news about foreclosures, people can’t help but be a little more sober and cautious,” he said.

The one segment of the single-family market upon which the UF survey collects detailed information, the new home market, is the least distressed, Archer said. “While the outlook for existing home sales is grim for the next quarter or two and possibly even over the next year, the outlook for new home sales looks like it’s going to be stable a year from now, at least in some markets,” he said.

Inventories of existing single-family homes are at their highest levels in a long time, with part of the problem stemming from second home purchases, Archer said. Many people who were disappointed with the stock market returns invested their retirement savings in second homes or rental homes with the intention of selling them for a quick profit, only to have the market turn sour, leaving a huge inventory, he said.

To make matters worse, people who might normally meet the marginal requirements for a mortgage can no longer qualify because of the current credit crunch, Archer said. At the same time, homeowners who are selling expect to get the same price they might have received a year or two ago, he said.

“Unfortunately, those prices had inflated enormously and in most cases there is simply going to have to be some adjustment over the next year or two,” he said.

Florida’s housing picture is the worst on the southwest coast, particularly for existing single-family homes, but it is mixed in southeast Florida, Archer said. “While the condo story for Miami and southeast Florida is disastrous, it’s a different situation with freestanding single-family homes, where the volume of sales is expected to stabilize in the next year or so,” he said.

One factor to its advantage is that the southeast coast is a haven for international investment and the recent decline in the dollar makes it even more attractive, he said.

The single-family housing market is healthiest and apartment occupancy rates most stable in north and central Florida, Archer said. In Jacksonville, half the respondents expect an increase over the next year in absorption rates, the ability of the real estate market to sell off houses that are for sale, he said.

The project, to be known as The Innovation Center, will be developed by Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. — the largest dedicated life science property and innovation specialist worldwide. Alexandria’s business model involves the creation and growth of science clusters in close proximity to strong academic, medical and research institutions.

Alexandria owns and operates approximately 12 million square feet of office/laboratory properties, including such distinguished destinations as Technology Square @ MIT in Cambridge, Mass., and Mission Bay/UCSF in San Francisco. It also has more than 7 million square feet of office/laboratory space currently under various stages of development, including East River Science Park in New York City and The MaRS Centre in Toronto.

“The Innovation Center is precisely the kind of boost we need to keep our stellar technology transfer program on the right trajectory,” Machen said. “With this, everyone comes out ahead: the university, the city of Gainesville, Alachua County, the state of Florida and really anyone who will benefit from the science that will happen here.”

Alexandria, based in Pasadena, Calif., will now start planning for the first of two proposed buildings on a site south of UF’s Cancer & Genetics Research Building near the intersection of Archer Road and Gale Lemerand Drive. The proposed approximately 80,000-square-foot building will include Alexandria’s unique range of state-of-the-art facilities and proprietary products and services designed to foster the development of the broad and diverse life science and technology sectors. The Innovation Center, expected to be completed in 2010, also will offer highly flexible and adaptable space for more established entities and key university-related functions. A second similar building is expected to be constructed within several years.

“We believe there is a unique opportunity in aligning ourselves with the University of Florida to help further the development of a highly focused science and technology engine in Gainesville,” said Joel S. Marcus, chief executive officer of Alexandria. “We were attracted to University of Florida because of its proven success and outstanding track record of moving technology from the laboratory to the marketplace. In building this unique Innovation Center, we will be providing much more than space. Our proprietary models bring managerial and business expertise together with the financial resources and talent necessary to build successful 21st century science-driven commercial enterprises. This effort will complement the strong research community that already exists at University of Florida and in the Gainesville area.”

UF’s Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator has been named one of the nation’s best, but the entrepreneurial spirit has been so strong around the university that there is a waiting list for entry to the incubator, said David Day, director of UF’s Office of Technology Licensing. In addition, the area has a shortage of next-stage space for companies that grow too big for the Sid Martin facility, which is located in Progress Park in Alachua.

“We have really reached a critical mass in terms of technology transfer and new company development,” said Win Phillips, UF’s vice president for research. “By partnering with Alexandria, the university can offer our own spin-off companies and others premier laboratory and office space close to our most valuable campus resources — faculty and graduate students.”

The University of Florida, one of the nation’s largest and most comprehensive research institutions, garnered more than $583 million in research awards in 2006-07, including more than $260 million in the life sciences. Alachua County is also home to numerous companies spun off from university technology, including Regeneration Technologies Inc., Oragenics, AGTC and Xhale.

“The growing pessimism about U.S. economic conditions seems to be among all income levels,” said Chris McCarty, director of UF’s Survey Research Center at the Bureau of Economic and Business Research. “Overall we expect the holiday retail season to be weak compared to last year as consumers are cautious about spending too much. We expect growth in retail sales of no more than 3 percent and possibly much lower.”

With the continued decline in Florida’s housing market, consumers’ financial insecurity is increasing, he said.

Survey respondents were particularly pessimistic about U.S. economic conditions over the next year. That component of the index fell a steep 11 points to 62, in contrast to the index measuring perceptions of U.S. economic conditions over the next five years, which rose two points to 80.

“Florida consumers seem to understand the gravity of the fallout from the housing crisis and resulting credit crunch but they still believe in the long-term viability of the U.S. economy to turn this around,” McCarty said.

The housing crisis shows no signs of improving soon, with the consequences continuing to unfold, McCarty said. The downturn is having many indirect effects, in addition to hurting those who cannot sell their homes and those who have lost their homes to foreclosure, he said.

Lenders who resold loans or packaged mortgage debt in elaborate securities now face a backlash from investors, many of whom are international, McCarty said. This has created a shortage of credit, which previously fueled not only home loans but many other kinds of spending from corporations buying other corporations to individuals buying cars, he said.

Much of this financial activity is now on hold as investors, both domestic and international, wait to see how the situation plays out, he said.

“We expect the housing market to bottom out by the second quarter of 2008 at which time existing home prices will be low enough that some prospective buyers will make purchases,” he said. “However, 2005 prices are years away.”

This month’s drop in the overall confidence rate follows a two-point rise in October.

“We were a bit perplexed by the rise in confidence last month,” McCarty said. “It now appears that rise was a reaction to a short-term decline in gas prices early in October. Now that gas prices have gone up, as expected, confidence is at the same level as in September.”

Of the three remaining components making up the index this month, one fell, one rose and one remained the same. Perceptions of personal finances a year from now fell four points to 86, while perceptions of personal finances now compared with a year ago rose two points to 71. Perceptions of whether it is a good time to buy big-ticket items remained unchanged at 84.

Perceptions of personal finances showed a small improvement among low-income households, but a slight decline among middle and upper-income households, he said.

The research center conducts the Florida Consumer Attitude Survey monthly. Respondents are 18 or older and live in households telephoned randomly. The preliminary index for November was conducted from 475 responses.

Consumer confidence is designed to help predict buying patterns by measuring the mood of consumers toward purchasing. Although other economic indicators also predict buying patterns, consumer confidence tends to be available sooner. The index is benchmarked to 1966, so a value of 100 represents the same level of confidence for the year. The value of the index is in comparing changes over time rather than looking at an isolated month.

One possible explanation is that these consumers, having already experienced the worst of the housing crisis, now look forward to property tax reform, or it could be the result of some unknown factor, said Chris McCarty, director of the Survey Research Center at UF’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research.

“Consumer confidence in Florida, which has been lower than the nation, is now very close to the national number of 80.9 as measured by the University of Michigan,” McCarty said. “The source of the rise in Florida appears to be low-income households, those living off of less than $30,000 annually.

“For these people, consumer confidence was already as low as it has been for a long time, so it’s almost to the point where the only way it could go was up, whereas there was still room for confidence among middle- and upper-income households to decline, which turned out to be flat this month,” he said.

While consumer confidence among middle- and upper-income households has remained the same at 81, the measure for low-income households rose from 66 in September to 75 in October, he said.

“The rise in confidence among low-income households appears to be driven by improved personal finances now compared to a year ago and expectations about improvement over the next year,” McCarty said.

Among this group, there was a huge increase in perceptions about whether it is a good time to buy big-ticket items, from 68 to 86.

“Respondents may have already factored in the ill effects of housing and are anticipating improvement,” he said. “They may also be looking toward property tax reform from the Florida Legislature as a source of relief as the governor and Legislature considers property tax cuts.”

The housing debacle has hit Florida hard compared to the nation as a whole, McCarty said. Florida, along with California, Arizona, Nevada and parts of Washington, D.C., have suffered very large declines in sales and housing prices, he said.

Last month’s overall consumer confidence was revised downward two points to 77 after all completed surveys were included in the index.

The rise in this month’s confidence was due to increases in three of the five components that make up the index. Perceptions of U.S. economic conditions over the next year rose six points to 75, perceptions of whether it is a good time to buy big-ticket items rose four points to 85 and expectations of personal finances a year from now rose four points to 90.

The two components to experience declines were U.S. economic conditions over the next five years, which fell two points to 78, and perceptions of personal finances now compared to a year ago, which fell one point to 70.

On the positive side, gas prices declined briefly in October, but they are likely to go up as oil prices on the international market rise, he said.

Such a price increase would occur just as the holiday season approaches, McCarty said. “Retailers will very likely slash prices early to get otherwise hesitant consumers in the door,” he said.

The research center conducts the Florida Consumer Attitude Survey monthly. Respondents are 18 or older and live in households telephoned randomly. The preliminary index for October was 434 responses.

Consumer confidence is designed to help predict buying patterns by measuring the mood of consumers toward purchasing. Although other economic indicators also predict buying patterns, consumer confidence tends to be available sooner. The index is benchmarked to 1966, so a value of 100 represents the same level of confidence for the year. The value of the index is in comparing changes over time rather than looking at an isolated month.