A mining community has struck gold–with tech jobs.

Topping the latest ranking of out Best Cities for Jobs list is Salt Lake City. The Crossroads to the West, an economy that has been predominantly driven by the mining and steel industries, has developed into a service-based city and has become a tech sector hub for digerati migrating from Silicon Valley.

The city also had almost the lowest rate of unemployment in 2006, a tick behind Honolulu, and ranked 19th overall.

To compile the rankings for the Best Cities for Jobs list, we used five data points, weighted equally: unemployment rate, job growth, income growth, median household income and cost of living for full-year 2006 (only partial data is so far available for 2007). We measured the largest 100 metropolitan areas, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, and obtained the data from Moody’s Economy.com.

It’s important to note that this list doesn’t weight for specifics like job composition or job stability, two significant characteristics that will appeal to any job seeker.

Mark Zandi, chief economist and co-founder of Moody’s Economy.com, said this ranking shows job market strength but acknowledged these limitations. “There’s nothing directly about quality or stability of a job market [in the ranking],” Zandi said.

“Some years are more volatile. Boom years are followed by years that don’t quite measure up. For most people, a market that is more stable is most desirable, and this analysis doesn’t account for that,” he said.

Raleigh, N.C., led the pack before the full 2006 data were available. (Forbes.com published a Best Cities For Jobs list in February.)

“They’re both strong economies and very solid job markets,” Zandi said of Salt Lake City, versus Raleigh. “It’s Yankees-Red Sox. What’s the difference? There is no real fundamental reason why Salt Lake is now No. 1.”

New to the top 10 are Tulsa, Okla.; Albuquerque, N.M.; Wichita, Kan.; and Oklahoma City for income growth. Las Vegas just missed the top 10 by a spot but showed the second-best job growth. In 2005, it was ranked No. 48.

San Jose, Calif., posted the most significant jump, from No. 91 in 2005 to No. 14 in 2006. The third-largest city in the Golden State has the highest median household income, at $87,869. According to the data, that figure is projected to increase to $92,048 by the end of 2007 and $94,209 in 2008. However, it’s also the priciest city on the list in which to live.

Normally, one might expect the great metropolises of the U.S. to rank higher than they do. New York City, arguably the world’s financial capital, is listed at No. 63, a substantial change from its 99 ranking in 2005. Job growth overall is expected to increase along with job growth in the Big Apple.

San Francisco is at No. 31, up from 86, while Washington, D.C., fell to 32 from No. 5 in 2005.

Raleigh, however, remained among the five best in the job growth category. Phoenix reigned at No. 1, largely because of housing development. Given the recent housing bust, it will most certainly be dethroned in that category. The same goes for Florida–Orlando, Sarasota, Tampa and Fort Lauderdale won’t be so prominent for 2007 considering the impact of the downtrodden housing market. The next list will be “almost upside down,” Zandi said.

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Let’s say you invest each monthly $212.33 overpayment in an index mutual fund that simply tracks the overall stock market’s performance. Over the course of 12 months, your $2,548 “refund” would have grown to $2,631 (based on the stock market’s 7% annualized rate of return over the long term). OK, that $83 profit is better than parking it in a plain old bank account, but just barely.

Keep it up, though — adjust your withholding so you zero out with Uncle Sam every year and invest what you were previously overpaying — and over the course of five years, using the same scenario above, we’re talking about a tidy profit of $2,439. And after one decade, if stocks continue to do what they do (go up, go down, but smooth out and gradually gain value over the long haul), we’re talking a whopping $11,215 — quadruple the amount of this year’s average tax refund.

That’s the kind of money that makes the government’s rebate check start to look like chump change.

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Italian anti-mafia prosecutors said they seized a record $6 trillion of allegedly fake U.S. Treasury bonds, an amount that’s almost half of the U.S.’s public debt.

The bonds were found hidden in makeshift compartments of three safety deposit boxes in Zurich, the prosecutors from the southern city of Potenza said in an e-mailed statement. The Italian authorities arrested eight people in connection with the probe, dubbed “Operation Vulcanica,” the prosecutors said.

The U.S. embassy in Rome has examined the securities dated 1934, which had a nominal value of $1 billion apiece, they said in the statement. “Thanks to Italian authorities for the seizure of fictitious bonds for $6 trillion,” the embassy said in a message on Twitter.

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Washington Mutual Inc. won court approval for a $7 billion reorganization plan that resolves some legal claims related to the biggest U.S. bank to fail.

Creditors may be paid the first chunk of money as early as March 8 once a deadline passes for shareholders to decide whether they will waive their right to sue over the collapse of WaMu’s former bank, said Fred Hodara, a lawyer for the creditors’ committee.

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From CNBC:

The wealthiest Americans have been in the spotlight for reasons ranging from public outrage over lavish lifestyles during the recession to executive bonuses in the midst of the financial crisis. The Occupy Wall Street movement was perhaps the most visible culmination of these concerns, broadly protesting against the divide between the majority of the U.S. population and the ultra-rich, referred to by the protesters as the “one percent.”

The question arose: Who are the one percent, and where are they from? In fact, the composition of the group varies from business people, doctors, lawyers and financial professionals to celebrities, farmers and even government workers. But where do these high-earners live?

A UHNW individual is defined by Wealth-X as anyone with at least $30 million when accounting for a range of assets, including shares in companies, real estate, cash, art collections, private planes and other investable assets.

As it turns out, some cities are magnets for UHNW individuals, and the cities with the most of this wealthy class average approximately one in 3,075 people, according to Wealth-X, while the 27,540 UHNW individuals in the top 10 cities have a combined net worth of $3.6 trillion, or 6.2 percent of the total U.S. net worth. “Certain geographic clusters generate and attract wealth,” said Wealth-X co-founder David Friedman. “A concentration of UHNW individuals is certainly indicative of an area’s overall economic health.”

So, which U.S. cities have the most ultra-high net worth individuals?

1. New York

As individuals we can’t do much about price hikes but Gregg Laskoski of GasBuddy.com says there are some things we can do to minimize the damage done to our personal finances every time to fill the tank. In the attached clip Laskoski discusses 5 ways to find cheap gas prices.

1. Track Prices Via Websites and Mobile Apps

Is your local station gauging you? The only way to know is to be aware of what you should be paying. Thanks to the Internet, drivers can drill down and find the average price by zip code. Laskoski’s Gasbuddy.com, Gaspricewatch.com or scores of other web sites or mobile applications make it easy to find gas stations taking the least amount of profit from consumers.

2. Inconvenience Yourself

It shouldn’t come as much of a shock but the easier it is to find a gas station, the more you’re going to pay. Laskoski says gas stations just off the highway cost more than others just down the way. If you’re willing to spend an extra ten minutes in your car you can find stations that make it time well spent. And, avoid affluent areas; that gas station conveniently existing right in the middle of town is likely charging a premium.

3. Fill Up at the Right Time

Urban legend says gas prices are lowest during hours when most folks are sleeping, from midnight to 5am. Laskoski debunks that myth, but says there is a best time to fill-up that most people wouldn’t think of: Wednesday. Gas prices are highest on weekends when the most people are out on the road. Filling up in the middle of the week saves you both sleep and money.

4. Mind the Fine Print on Your Credit Card & Reward Programs

Many companies offer “club” membership at their stations but the real savings come somewhere else. Liskoski says to look for partnerships between your local gas retailer and other merchants. Often times pairing the right card with the right grocery store is where you’ll find the benefits.

5. Get Out of the Car (Opt for Self-Service)

Despite the near-death of full-service, many gas stations will give you the option of having an attendant fill it up. The next time you’re tempted, take note of the premium being charged per gallon and start doing some math. At a reasonable-sounding quarter per gallon premium, you’re going to pay $5 more to fill a 20 gallon tank. One stop per week for a year works out to $260 a year for the right to sit in your car.

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Rates for 30-year U.S. mortgages held at the lowest level on record as fewer Americans sought loans to buy homes.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed loan was unchanged in the week ended today at 3.87 percent, the lowest in records dating to 1971 and the third straight week at that level, Freddie Mac (FMCC) said in a statement. The average 15-year rate remained at 3.16 percent, according to the McLean, Virginia- based mortgage-finance company.

“Rates have moved very little now for the last couple of months,” Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH.com, a loan- data company in Pompton Plains, New Jersey, said in an interview yesterday. “Rates are at fantastic levels.”

Low borrowing costs have done little to spark consumer interest in buying houses. Financing applications for purchases have fallen in three of the past four weeks, according to data from the Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association. The group’s purchase index declined 8.4 percent in the period ended Feb. 10, while its refinancing gauge rose 0.8 percent.

Bloomberg

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