And for months, credit card issuers have been raising interest rates, reducing credit limits, closing accounts and taking other measures in advance of new legislation that goes into effect early next year.

Now comes Citibank, which is enticing credit card holders to avoid the bank’s rate hikes by — of all things — meeting a monthly spending requirement, the Associated Press reports.

Those who meet the spending minimum — in some cases $750 a month — will be able to get a rebate on their total interest charges for that month, AP reports. The rebate could cover some or all of the interest rate hike.

Does this sound like drinking your way to sobriety?

Citi raises rates, then tries to get you to spend more, so it can make more money and you can avoid the rate hike.

Is this a good way to deal with consumers in this economy?

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The latest victim is Fulton County. It will move forward with a 2010 budget that includes $86 million in direct service cuts and could result in layoffs for hundreds of county employees and tax increases, AJC reporter D.L. Bennett writes.

Any employee who survives the layoffs, which will be determined over the next 10 weeks, would be forced to take 10 furlough days under an option approved Thursday. Fulton would convert all of its holidays to unpaid time off.

Commissioners were quick to point out the series of votes Thursday approving that option doesn’t set anything in stone, Bennett writes. It merely sets direction for staff who must now recommend specific cuts.

Next month, commissioners would decide on those recommendations. A final budget adoption won’t happen until late January.

Also in the AJC:

• Georgia jobless rate rises
• System glitch riles passengers stuck at airport
• PSC …

The painful flow of job cuts in Georgia will slow in coming months but continue through 2010, setting up a third straight year of losses, according to a new forecast reported by AJC staffer Michael Kanell.

The state’s job losses next year are estimated at 60,600, down  from an estimated 214,700 lost in 2009, said Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Georgia State Economic Forecasting Center at the center’s quarterly forecasting conference.

Job growth will resume in 2011, with payrolls expanding by 67,100 positions, Kanell reports.

Many previous recessions were followed by strong recoveries, with the sharp drop and bounce-back forming a ‘V.’ This time, Dhawan said, it will look more like the Nike “swoosh,” with a steep drop and shallow recovery.

“It may be 2012 or 2013 before we get back to where we were,” he said.

Also in the AJC:

• Sony Ericsson moving headquarters to Atlanta
• Deadline …

Now comes word that the 2010 Ford Fusion was named Motor Trend magazine’s car of the year, beating out the Toyota Prius, BMW 7-Series, Chevrolet Camaro and others in the closely watched competition, Associated Press reports.

It was yet another accolade for Ford Motor Co.’s midsize sedan, which got high reliability scores in the most recent rankings from Consumer Reports and was the top-selling car made by a Detroit automaker through October.

What’s more, Ford, Subaru and Volkswagen lead the insurance industry’s annual list of the safest new vehicles, according to a closely watched assessment used by car companies to lure safety-conscious consumers to showrooms, AP reports.

Why has Ford been doing so well? Leadership? Innovation? Marketing? Execution?

Does its recent string of successes influence your buying decision?

For instant updates, follow me …

Officials at Appalachian, one of the state’s largest community banks, said the review involves foreclosed property, but declined to provide more details.

They said Tuesday the review so far has turned up some “compliance issues,” but nothing that would harm the safety and soundness of the bank, Donsky writes.

The executives –- CEO Tracy Newton, chief credit officer Adam Teague and bank-owned property officer Rusty Beamon — were suspended on Nov. 2.

The investigation is being overseen by the bank’s board of directors. On Tuesday, the banks said the board had hired veteran Georgia banker Danny Jett as interim chief operating officer, Donsky writes.

Also in the AJC:

• State may ask for federal help to cover …

Truett and Dan Cathy

Companies big and small don’t do succession well.

“The CEO succession process is broken in North America and is no better in many other parts of the world,” author Ram Charan wrote in Harvard Business Review.

Locally, you only have to look to Coke and Home Depot to see how two of our most important companies failed to get it right when they were replacing legendary leaders several years ago. Thankfully, they learned from their mistakes and moved on to better leaders.

It’s no picnic at smaller family-owned firms, either. The reasons are many, including ego and the loss of talented people who bolt after they lose the CEO horse race to another heavy hitter.

I decided to see if Truett and Dan Cathy at Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A had any answers. They run sort of a hybrid company — family-owned, but larger than most with $3 billion in revenue. Arguably, they straddle both parts of the business world to a degree, although they are clearly a private …

The two-day event at the World of Coca-Cola on Monday and Tuesday highlights how the globe’s changing demographics serves the company over the next decade.

By 2020, CEO Muhtar Kent said revenue of Coke’s entire global system should more than double, reports Joe Guy Collier for the AJC.

Despite the current soft worldwide economy and recent volume declines in North America, growth in the middle class and urban areas around the globe will significantly boost the ready-to-drink beverage business through 2020, Kent said. And the Coke system, which includes Coca-Cola Co. and its bottling partners, are poised to capture a large slice of the new business, he said, delivering a bullish assessment of the company’s prospects.

Coke and its bottlers have a far-flung network that’s in both developed nations and emerging markets, such as Brazil, India and …

Next, it was Generation Y, who found it very difficult to land jobs after graduating from high school or college.

Now, says Gen X, step aside.

The Associated Press is reporting strong rumblings of discontent from the 32- to 44-year-olds who are wedged between baby boomers and their children. They often feel like forgotten middle siblings — and increasingly restless at work as a result, AP says.

“All of a sudden, we’ve gone from being the young upstarts to being the curmudgeons,” Bruce Tulgan, a generational consultant who’s written books about various age groups, including his fellow Gen Xers, told AP.

“We were starting to buy into the system, at least to some extent,” Tulgan says, “and then we got the rug pulled out from under us.”

Sound familiar? If you’re a Gen Xer, does this sound like you? What are you feeling?

And if you’re part of another generation, …

Over time, it has become an especially trying task in the airline industry, with a wide variety of labor skills, thorny seniority issues and different levels of unionization.

Delta’s merger with Northwest is proving to be no exception, AJC reporter Kelly Yamanouchi writes.

Add a new issue to all the normal problems of combining a largely non-union carrier (Delta) with a heavily unionized one (Northwest ) — a proposed change in the voting rules that could affect the union representation elections of flight attendants and ground workers.

A switch in the election rules to a “yes-no” vote, as proposed, would mean that instead of needing approval from a majority of those eligible to vote in order to unionize, unions would only need a majority of those who actually vote, Yamounchi writes. That is generally is a far smaller number.

Airline workers are governed by different rules than most other …

The Atlanta City Council is scheduled today to take up the airline’s proposed new lease at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

By most accounts, Delta will be getting a bargain if the deal goes through, AJC reporter Kelly Yamanouchi writes.

The proposal is to keep Delta’s basic airport expenses at roughly the same level, aside from cost increases when the new international terminal opens in 2012.

Atlanta is still Delta’s largest hub by far. It operates some 1,000 daily flights from Atlanta, making it the largest airline hub in the world with nonstop flights to cities around the globe.

Also in the AJC:

• Vets,  jobs: Challenges in a tough labor market
• Number of stimulus jobs overstated in Georgia
• Most companies stick with wellness programs
• Grand exit for CNN’s Lou Dobbs
• In down times, Chick-fil-A sales are up

In other media:

• GM to begin repaying aid by year-end
• GE forms China JV to make airplane electronics
• Drug makers raise …