We appear to be looking at a systemic failure of the export economic model.
Freight rates for containers shipped from Asia to Europe have fallen to zero for the first time since records began, underscoring the dramatic collapse in trade since the world economy buckled in October.
"They have already hit zero," said Charles de Trenck, a broker at Transport Trackers in Hong Kong. "We have seen trade activity fall off a cliff. Asia-Europe is an unmitigated disaster."
Shipping journal Lloyd's List said brokers in Singapore are now waiving fees for containers travelling from South China, charging only for the minimal "bunker" costs. Container fees from North Asia have dropped $200, taking them below operating cost.
Industry sources said they have never seen rates fall so low. "This is a whole new ball game," said one trader.
Ripping off customers for a decade, affecting 100 million people, today United Healthcare gets a $50 million dollar fine and a demand to clean up their act.
Even more interesting, their billing arm, Ingenix, is an offshore outsourcing billing service.
Nice huh?
This is amusing, the New York attorney general is simply talking about database monitoring for patients billing information being offshore outsourced.
Oh, that's just wonderful, nothing about plain shutting down this offshore business and bringing back this entire chain into the United States. Oh no, just database monitoring.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The federal budget deficit expanded by $83.6 billion in December, the Treasury Department reported Tuesday, bringing the total deficit for the first three months of the 2009 fiscal year to $485.2 billion.
While GM and Ford still lost more sales across the year than Toyota and Honda (because they also tanked during the gas price crash of the summer), their performance against Toyota and Honda more recently demonstrates the degree to which recent sales are a credit driven issue, and not what Richard Shelby likes to claim is a failed business model. . . .
Both the Prius and the Tundra had worse than average declines last month, with the Tundra down 52% and the Prius down 45%. This isn't about gas prices anymore--it's about money.
Ritholtz quotes from a recent quarterly statement by Hologic, a manufacturer of diagnostic and medical imaging systems and surgical products:
"This year will be challenging for our entire industry, as many drivers of our business remain uncertain," said Jack Cumming, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "The severe and rapid economic downturn, result[ed] in a decline in hospital spending ... we witnessed an unprecedented decline in demand for capital equipment at the end of the quarter ... Hospital systems across the country have responded to tightening access to capital by restricting capital expenditures, implementing tight spending controls and reducing personnel." (emphasis added by Ritholtz)
At the annual meeting of American Economists, most everyone refused to admit their failures to prepare or warn about the second worst crisis of the century.
I could find no shame in the halls of the San Francisco Hilton, the location at the annual meeting of American economists that just finished. . . .
The Government is set to throw out the 165-year old law that obliges the Bank to publish a weekly account of its balance sheet – a move that will allow it theoretically to embark covertly on so-called quantitative easing. The Banking Bill, which is currently passing through Parliament, abolishes a key section of the law laid down by Robert Peel's Government in 1844 which originally granted the Bank the sole right to print UK money.
The ostensible reason for the reform, which means the Bank will not have to print details of its own accounts and the amount of notes and coins flowing through the UK economy, is to allow the Bank more power to overhaul troubled financial institutions in the future, under its Special Resolution Authority.
A guest op-ed in the Washington Post yesterday regarding the prospects of the U.S. defaulting on its debt, reminded me of a comment I had made on DailyKos about a week ago. Which led me to polishing and expanding the comment and posting it a diary.
Writing in the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard a few days before Christmas, Christopher Caldwell, reviewed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s and Fed Chief Ben Bernanke’s erratic responses to the collapse of the financial system – and defended them::
Recent comments