Washington — Goods and services purchased by Americans make up
one-fifth of the global economy, but the third quarter of 2008 saw the
largest drop in consumer spending since 1980.
As the financial-market turbulence prompts U.S. households to cut back spending, economies around the globe feel repercussions.
“The
U.S. consumer is a voracious consumer of goods and services,” said
Scott Talbott, a senior vice president at the Financial Services
Roundtable, which represents large financial institutions. “We [are] at
the heart of the recession. That’s why we’re going to have to be at the
heart of the recovery.”
Historically, Americans have spent a
greater share of gross domestic product (GDP) — a measure of a nation’s
economic size — than citizens of other countries have. Those
expenditures translate into jobs and economic growth around the worl
... Read more »
The rate of decline in circulation at the nation’s newspapers has
accelerated since last fall, as industry figures released Monday show a
more than 7 percent drop compared with the previous year.
Of
the top 25 newspapers in the United States, all posted declines in
circulation except for The Wall Street Journal, which eked out a 0.6
percent gain, according to the figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
For the others, the declines ranged from 20.6 percent for The New York
Post, to a slight 0.4 percent drop for The Chicago Sun-Times.
Mervyn King has agreed to continue "close
dialogue" with high street banks in a bid to calm market volatility and
ease the credit crunch.
Mervyn King to continue talks
The Bank of England chief's announcement came after he met representatives of the UK banking industry.
The
banks demanded action to calm the marketsand wanted assurances that the
BoE will provide extra financial help should it be needed.
"The
Bank of England and the banks agreed to continue their close dialogue
with the objective of restoring more orderly market conditions," the
BoE said in a statement.
The FTSE 100 closed down 50.4 points at 5495.2 before the announcement was made.
Earlier the BoE made another £5bn available to lenders, taking the total on offer at its
... Read more »
SAN FRANCISCO -- Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Ken Lewis added
to critcism Friday of proposed legislation that would heavily tax
bonuses awarded to employees of firms receiving government assistance.
In a memo published in the online edition of The Wall Street Journal,
Lewis wrote that the proposed legislation, which would impose a 90% tax
on bonuses for employees making over $250,000 a year at companies
receiving at least $5 billion in federal aid, "have the potential to
damage the ability of the government to engineer a financial recovery."
Earlier Friday, reports surfaced of similar criticism of the proposed
tax legislation from Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Vikram Pandit.
As Congress and the Obama Administration consider legislation to limit bonuses at American International Group (AIG: 1.23, -0.36, -22.64%),
documents obtained by FOX Business show AIG bonuses and other
compensation were reviewed and changed by officials at the Treasury
Department and Federal Reserve in November, when the Treasury made its
first investment of taxpayer funds -- $40 billion -- in the company.
“Have your benefits team made any progress on the ‘soft’ issues, or heard anything from the fed [sic] on the bonus situation?”
a Treasury official wrote in an e-mail on Nov. 1 about the transaction.
Despite
their deliberations at the time, the Treasury and Fed officials, which
were part of the Bush Ad
... Read more »
Germany is talking to possible Opel bidders: economy minister
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu
Guttenberg said on Saturday he was talking to potential investors in
troubled German carmaker Opel, rejecting a media report saying there
was not yet any serious bidder. "I can only repeat: Talks are being
held with serious and less serious interested parties," Guttenberg told
reporters at an event held by his Christian Social Union (CSU) party in
Erlangen, Bavaria state.
U.S. bank rescue plan could come on Monday: report
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government will announce as soon as
Monday a long-awaited plan to try to get bad assets off the books of
banks, a cornerstone of its efforts to tackle the credit crisis, The
Wall Street Journal reported. The Obama administration, battling a
deepening recession, is set to adopt a three-pronged approach to
ridding the financial system of so-called toxic
... Read more »
NEW YORK
(MarketWatch) -- Wells Fargo shares rose 6% on Friday after the bank
said its business has been strong in the first two months of the year,
and that it expects its integration of Wachovia to cost less than
previously expected.
The broader banking and financial sectors fell. The KBW Bank ETF (KBE:
Washington — Goods and services purchased by Americans make up
one-fifth of the global economy, but the third quarter of 2008 saw the
largest drop in consumer spending since 1980.
