Rumors abound that AT&T (T), Yahoo (YHOO), and eBay (EBAY) will together release thousands of workers into the unemployment pool. Those will add to the mounting figures: Earlier this year, Sun Microsystems (SUNW)let up to 2,500 employees go; Nortel (NT) is cutting 2,100 jobs; Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) will reduce staff by nearly 25,000 following its acquisition of Electronic Data Systems; and even Google (GOOG) got into the game with the shedding of 300 jobs at DoubleClick.
According to the San Jose Mercury News, there are around 1,417,000 people out of work in California alone. That's up 413,000 from this time last year.
Thursday, Alley Insider posted an anonymous tip that Yahoo! will soon be axing 3,500 jobs.
The percentage of large syndicated US loans rated as problematic has nearly tripled in the last year, highlighting the damage done by the lax underwriting standards of the private equity boom, a report by US regulators showed on Wednesday
Now that the bail out and throwing money to Wall Street for bad debt isn't doing much, today we had a coordinated rate cut from central banks across the globe.
Considering the magnitude of imminent Economic Armageddon, in last night's debate what do we get? Spend, Spin, Platitudes and our favorite distraction, tax cuts. I often think we would be better with static and noise emanating from the idiot box than this absurd, vague drivel or deflection through attack to avoid the specifics on what will they do.
Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve will provide as much as $37.8 billion in additional liquidity to American International Group Inc.'s regulated insurance units after rescuing the company with an $85 billion loan last month.
Because it's important we piss away as much cash as we can in this crisis.
DENVER - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that a $150 billion economic stimulus plan is needed now because of the faltering economy and she may call the House into session after the election to pass it.
Pelosi told reporters that the stock market meltdown, which has caused an estimated $2 trillion loss from pension funds, was a factor in her recommendation for a second stimulus bill. The first relief plan sent out $600-$1,200 tax rebate checks to most individuals and couples this year.....
WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department, seeking to jump-start its $700 billion rescue, is giving financial institutions two days to submit proposals to work as asset managers for the program.
Treasury's request for proposals makes clear that it wants large, established firms with significant assets to work for the government's program to buy mortgage-backed securities and other distressed assets.
To qualify, institutions must already manage at least $100 billion. Firms that want to manage whole loans, such as residential and commercial mortgages, must already oversee at least $25 billion in such loans or prove that they have capacity to handle that much.
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The credit crisis is spilling into the world food supply. People will go hungry.
The credit crisis is spilling over into the grain industry as international buyers find themselves unable to come up with payment, forcing sellers to shoulder often substantial losses.
Shoppertrak, a private retail tracking service, has reported that
the recent financial meltdown seen over the last few weeks is also dramatically impacting consumer traffic patterns. Highlights include:
In the month (August 3 – 30) containing the back-to-school shopping season, ShopperTrak’s Retail Traffic Index (SRTI) reported total U.S. shopper traffic to retail stores and malls fell 5.3 percent, the slowest since 2002.
Once the financial crisis emerged at the beginning of September, retail traffic declined even further. Between August 31 and September 20, SRTI total U.S. traffic fell an estimated 9.2 percent per day. (see charts below)
After the failure of Washington Mutual, President Bush’s address to the nation, the presidential debate and the initial rejection of the TARP bailout, traffic fell by an average of 10.5 percent (September 21 – 29).
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