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Gerry and Mary Lou Neugent are leading the Playhouse's $3.5 million capital campaign.
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Playhouse Progress Continues, Thanks to Capital Campaign
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BY STEVE DINNEN
Gerry Neugent isn't an actor, nor is his wife, Mary Lou. But their son is. You could see the younger Gerry Neugent in a recurring role as Mike in the recent Showtime series "Work in Progress." He started acting in Des Moines, at school and especially at Des Moines Community Playhouse. Mom and Dad jumped into their own supporting roles there, as well; both served on the board, and Mary Lou helped make costumes.
The Neugents are still involved. Most recently, they've served as lead donors to the Playhouse's current $3.5 million capital campaign. The project will open up options for new seats, upgraded lighting and sound technology, and more space for classrooms and educational opportunities. "It will also significantly expand our backstage and greenroom areas, our costume shop and HVAC controls for a safer and more efficient environment," Gerry Neugent says.
Ryan Crane, the Playhouse's director of philanthropy, says that the campaign "is going strong. We are two-thirds toward our goal of $3.5 million, and we just had the largest December fundraising haul in at least 12 years.”
The Neugents have backed the Playhouse with time, talent and treasure for all those years, plus some. Crane said Gerry Neugent was the driving force for an earlier capital campaign, in 1992, which established the children's theater and helped boost its programming. Neugent recalled starting another capital campaign in 2006, “right before the recession, but we finished it.”
Neugent has been active in several other charitable efforts in Greater Des Moines over the years. He served as chairman of the United Way campaign in 2019 and currently serves on the board of the Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines.
But the stage keeps calling, and he is quick to applaud the behind-the-scenes crew. He tipped his hat to Pamela Bass Bookey for her work on the earlier capital campaign. And there has been real estate developer William C. Knapp, who has personally and through his foundation donated to the Playhouse and numerous other Des Moines causes.
It helps in such matters that Neugent co-chairs the board of Knapp Properties LC―and that both the Neugents and Knapp view the arts as an asset to the entire city.
“We have a very robust arts scene,” Gerry Neugent said. With the size and vitality of the Playhouse, “we’re the envy of the country.”
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Rocky Economy Continues in 2023
BY STEVE DINNEN
Well, 2022 was a crummy year for investments. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 8.78%, but it was the market index standout, easily besting the S&P 500, off 19.4%, and the Nasdaq Composite, down 33.1%. For major indexes—and investors who abided by them—2022 was the worst year since 2008.
December alone was a rough time for stocks, capping off a final quarter that Kelly Flynn, chief investment officer at Des Moines-based Prospective Value Partners, characterized as especially painful.
“There were a variety of seemingly conflicting data points,” Flynn said. Though the fourth quarter began with a strong rebound, in November the Fed continued its hawkish turn, raising the Fed Funds rate by 0.75% for the fourth consecutive time. In December, shortly after the release of a more benign consumer price index reading that suggests that inflation had already peaked, the Fed eased the rate hike to 0.5%.
Which brings us to today. A near-consensus has developed that a recession will arrive in 2023. Many sectors are clearly slowing, especially real estate. And the yield curve on bonds is quite inverted, a strong signal of looming recession. With two consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth in the first and second quarters, we actually had a recession in 2022, but revised third-quarter GDP growth was a robust 3.2%. Employment and other economic indicators have remained relatively strong. If we are indeed headed toward (another) recession, Flynn said will certainly be a strange one.
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Housing Market's Free Fall Is Waning
BY LANCE LAMBERT FOR FORTUNE
Not only did spiking mortgage rates prompt the pandemic housing boom to fizzle out in the summer of 2022, they also pushed housing market transactions into a free fall. By December, mortgage purchase applications were down more than 40% on a year-over-year basis.
But there finally might be some good news for builders and agents: Researchers at Capital Economics believe the housing market hasn't bottomed out.
"There are growing signs that housing-market activity may be close to a trough," writes Sam Hall, property economist at Capital Economics. "The decline in mortgage rates over the past couple of months has led to a small improvement in affordability and a rise in homebuyer sentiment, albeit from a record low. Corroborating this, mortgage applications for home purchase have ticked higher in the past couple of months, which should feed through to higher sales."
Others agree, and there's a growing optimism among brokers and agents across the country. They're hoping that loosening financial conditions, in which the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell from 7.37% to 6.09% over the past two months, will help give the looming spring season a little juice. READ MORE.
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Save for College or Retirement? Now It's Easier to Do Both.
BY PETE GRIEVE FOR MONEY
Investing in a 529 plan, a type of education savings account offered by state governments, just became a more attractive option thanks to a new federal law.
Starting in 2024, Americans can roll over unused 529 funds into a beneficiary’s Roth IRA with no penalty. Even though these rollovers can’t be made until next year, simply knowing the option will exist down the line will likely make saving with a 529 plan, which already comes with major tax benefits, more appealing to some people.
That's because the new policy eliminates a major downside for parents and others who use 529s to save money for college and other types of qualified education expenses. Previously, if you were socking away funds for a child to attend college but they ended up never enrolling, you would trigger a 10% penalty and have to pay income taxes if you wanted to withdraw from the account. READ MORE.
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