tagged w/ Global Financial Crisis
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The UN is warning the global economic meltdown should prompt a major regulatory overhaul and the advent of a new global currency to replace the US dollar as the world standard. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, or UNCTAD, says the dollar’s preeminence worsens existing imbalances and further burdens debt-ridden countries. UNCTAD Director Heiner Flassbeck said the world’s leading economies have failed to introduce regulation that could take on the financial instruments that caused the meltdown.
CLICK LINK FOR FULL ARTICLE.....The UN is warning the global economic meltdown should prompt a major regulatory... more
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Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous.Just because a bunch of people use certain words to express themselves in fora(forums) doesn't mean that they're in some way foretelling the future,but...,but fact is that Cliff High was able to predict a number of specific and major events.Well, you'll be the judge of it! No wait, let time be the judge of it!Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous.Just because a bunch of people use certain words to... more
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From the article...>Despite signs of improvement in global markets, further coordinated actions are needed by governments and banks to ensure that a world economic recovery can take hold, a senior International Monetary Fund official said Tuesday.
"The unprecedented policy response, both in the financial and macroeconomic domains, is gradually beginning to restore market confidence," said Jose Vinals, director of the fund's monetary and capital markets department.
"But continued decisive and effective action is needed to preserve and strengthen these first signs of improvement and to help provide a more stable and resilient platform for sustained global growth," Vinals said in a briefing to discuss the IMF's latest Global Financial Stability Report.
The report indicated a significant deepening and spreading of the crisis beyond the mortgage-related assets in the U.S. responsible for sparking the turmoil. The IMF now projects that worldwide financial losses could top $4 trillion through next year, with the estimated damage from U.S. assets alone increased to $2.7 trillion from a previous forecast of $2.2 trillion in January.
Reflecting the widening scope of the crisis, loan losses and write-downs in assets originated outside the U.S. were also factored in for the first time. Losses from European assets are expected to reach $1.2 trillion through 2010, with estimates of $149 billion for Japanese assets and $340 billion for emerging markets.
Still, IMF officials sounded the most optimistic note yet about the crisis, saying recent improvements in some markets point to the possibility that write-downs could come in below those levels.
"Circumstances in some of the markets were worse than they are now" when the $4.1 trillion loss estimate was calculated at the end of March, Jan Brockmeijer, deputy director of the monetary and capital markets department, told Dow Jones Newswires after the briefing.
That figure is "slightly higher" than current mark-to-market write-downs would suggest, he said, adding that it would be too difficult to give a precise revision due to market fluctuations.
The market improvements have been "across the board" but not significant enough to alter the overall outlook, said Brockmeijer. Some of the biggest improvement has come from emerging-market spreads, which he said is in part due to the recent announcement of plans to triple the IMF's resources, and to countries like Mexico, Poland and Colombia lining up for the new flexible credit line to backstop sound economies.
"Certain emerging-market spreads have come in quite considerably since these liquidity facilities have been announced," said Brockmeijer.
Despite some positive signs, the IMF stressed the need for banks to raise a significant amount of additional capital, estimating that U.S. and European firms would need $875 billion more equity just to return to pre-crisis levels. U.S. banks are nearly halfway there, but European institutions have raised just a third of the capital that may be needed to restore market confidence, the report said.
"The key takeaway is that higher write-downs, together with market demands for both lower leverage and more stringent capital ratios will require financial institutions to hold more capital - whether raised in markets or provided by governments," said Vinals.
When asked about reports that the U.S. may convert some of the preferred shares it owns in banks into common equity - which would cover most of the need for capital among local banks - Vinals said it is a possibility, but that it is up to the government to decide.
Temporary nationalization may also be necessary for a "limited subset of cases" around the world, just long enough to stabilize the situation, said Vinals. But he also welcomed the Obama administration's public-private investment program to provide incentives for the private sector to buy up toxic assets.
"This is something which is useful in order to make private capital come back into tFrom the article...>Despite signs of improvement in global markets, further... more
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Yahoo Inc is preparing to lay off several hundred workers in the first round of cuts since Carol Bartz became chief executive in January, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
The layoffs could be announced next Tuesday, when Yahoo reports its first-quarter financial results, the newspaper cited sources as saying.
Yahoo's last round of layoffs was in December, under former CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang. The company, which is the No. 2 U.S. Internet search provider, finished 2008 with roughly 13,600 employees, down by more than 1,600 employees from the third quarter of 2008.
A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment on the reports of further layoffs.
The cuts would come almost two months after Bartz implemented a broad internal management reorganization and as Yahoo explores partnerships to help revive its growth.
Yahoo and Microsoft Corp met recently to discuss a deal involving the company's search business, according to a source familiar with the matter who wished to remain anonymous.
The search company has projected that sales in the first quarter could be down as much as 16 percent at $1.53 billion.
Shares of Yahoo were up 3 cents at $14.10 in after hours trade.Yahoo Inc is preparing to lay off several hundred workers in the first round of cuts... more
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Kepano
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added this
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7 months ago
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Hawaii ranks 2nd among states in attracting 2009 federal earmark projects, averaging $234.96 per resident in “pork-barrel spending.”
The annual list put out by Citizens Against Government Waste highlights projects added to federal budget spending without congressional debate.
Alaska again topped the states in 2009 earmarks with $221.2 million in earmarks for a population of 686,293, or per-capita pork spending of $322.34.
Hawaii has earmarked $302 million for approximately 133 projects.
The nonprofit, nonpartisan Citizens Against Government Waste’s 2009 Congressional Pig Book lists 10,160 projects nationwide at a cost of $19.6 billion for fiscal 2009.Hawaii ranks 2nd among states in attracting 2009 federal earmark projects, averaging... more
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Kepano
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added this
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7 months ago
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Pepe Escobar: And how the US is shifting the crisis into the rest of the world.
The US Treasury will borrow no less than one trillion dollars from the developing world in 2009. It will need even more in 2010. Pepe Escobar argues the US is indeed in a privileged position: not only it unleashes a global financial crisis, it then sucks up money from all over the world, based on the fact that the US in fact remains the "manager" of choice of global capitalism. As if this was not hardship enough for the developing world, it now also has to cope with the resurgence of the discredited World Bank and IMF. A certain Tim Geithner has been through this before - during the Asian financial crisis in 1997/1998 - and then he got it all wrong.
.Pepe Escobar: And how the US is shifting the crisis into the rest of the world.
The... more
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By the wide stretch of the American River in Sacramento, history is repeating itself. Here, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, men and women who had lost everything and despaired of finding work built rough shelters and huddled around fires.
Now the spiral of job losses and house repossessions has left another wave of Americans homeless, and a new tent city is growing rapidly on lumpy, derelict land between the river and the railway tracks here in the capital of California.
There are more than 300 people living in scattered encampments stretching a couple of miles along the river bank. As many as 50 more arrive each week. Unemployment in Sacramento reached 10.4 per cent in January and California is suffering some of the worst repossession rates in the country, with as many as 500 people losing their homes every day last year.
Charity workers in the city can no longer cope with the number of people coming to them for help. The shelters are full, with one home that caters for women and children turning away 200 people a night.By the wide stretch of the American River in Sacramento, history is repeating itself.... more
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This isn't my video, I just want to share this. Please share this with others! The people of America must stand up and take hold of our own destinies.This isn't my video, I just want to share this. Please share this with others! The... more
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In the run-up to South Africa's general elections in April, job creation has become a hot political topic in a country where analysts have put the unofficial unemployment rate as high as 40 percent. Creating your own opportunities - car washing, selling scrap metal, cutting hair, or sometimes turning to crime - is part of what is known as "loxion management", a way of coping with the lack of formal opportunities in the townships.In the run-up to South Africa's general elections in April, job creation has become a... more
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POOR THING
Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company, posted its first quarterly loss in 10 years after lower oil prices reduced earnings from exploration and production and the value of inventories fell.
The fourth-quarter net loss was $2.81 billion after an $8.47 billion profit a year earlier, The Hague-based Shell said today in a statement.
“Industry conditions remain challenging,” Chief Executive Officer Jeroen van der Veer said. Oil companies are reining in capital spending and putting marginal projects on hold following last year’s 54 percent drop in prices. Crude fell to a four-year low of $32.40 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Dec. 19, after peaking at $147.27 on July 11.
“It’s a weak set of results as was expected,” Jason Kenney, an Edinburgh-based analyst at ING Wholesale, said in a telephone interview. He has a “hold” rating on the stock.
Excluding gains or losses from inventories and one-time items, earnings were $3.89 billion. The median estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg was for profit of $4.13 billion on this basis. Shell also had a currency loss of $351 million.
Shell’s Class A shares fell 0.5 percent to 1,768 pence as of 8:05 a.m. in London. The stock lost 15 percent last year.
Fourth-quarter profit on a current cost of supplies basis fell to $4.8 billion from $6.7 billion, while full-year profit on the same basis rose to $31.4 billion from $27.6 billion.POOR THING
Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company, posted its first... more
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Kepano
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10 months ago
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The aerospace giant more than doubles its planned layoffs in light of a $56 million net quarterly loss and signs of trouble ahead.
With demand for commercial jets losing altitude, Boeing (BA) reported a $56 million net loss for the fourth quarter of 2008 and said it is taking some tough steps to keep itself aloft. Will the moves pay off? It's not clear, and Boeing managers for now say they can't see well enough beyond 2009 to make a firm call. The "visibility" just isn't there from 2010 and beyond, says CEO W. James McNerney Jr.
Boeing on Jan. 28 reported surprisingly bleak results, even as its top executives forecast a modest rebound in sales this year. McNerney, citing "challenging economic times," doubled the number of jobs he plans to cut this year. Whereas Boeing on Jan. 9 said it would lop some 4,500 jobs from its commercial plane unit, McNerney hiked the figure to 10,000 on Jan. 28 and said the cuts would be spread all across Boeing's global operations, most of them in places other than the company's Seattle-area commercial-plane facilities. Such steps, amounting to a 6% trim in Boeing's workforce, are needed to preserve the company's financial strength, McNerney maintained.The aerospace giant more than doubles its planned layoffs in light of a $56 million... more
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Kepano
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10 months ago
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What's the real story here?
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Turkish police arrested four more army officers on Saturday in a widening probe into a possible coup plot that has increased tension between the Islamist-rooted government and secularists.
The case, known as Ergenekon, has affected financial markets in the EU candidate country and threatens to plunge Turkey into a fresh bout of political instability at a time when the global economic crisis has slowed growth and foreign investment.
The two colonels and two lieutenants were arrested in Istanbul for alleged links to a right-wing organisation suspected of plotting to overthrow the AK Party government, state Anatolian news service reported.
Two other officers detained earlier this week as part of the investigation were released, Anatolian said.
Eighty-six people including retired army officers, politicians and lawyers are on trial in a case that has opened the once untouchable military to judicial investigation.
Armed Forces chief General Ilker Basbug held crisis talks with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday after 40 people, including three retired generals, were detained a day earlier. The talks sparked panic selling on the stock exchange and a call for calm from the country's leading business association.
In a new twist, investigators discovered a cache of grenades and bullets linked to the Ergenekon group buried at a picnic area outside Ankara, Turkish media said on Saturday.
The cache was discovered after police found a sketch in the house of a former police chief, media said.
Television stations, consumed by the case, have been broadcasting non-stop images of diggers excavating wooded areas.
Analysts warn that the Ergenekon probe may be explosive in a country with a long history of political and economic instability. Vital EU reforms are on hold and analysts say domestic tensions will delay their implementation.
The secularist establishment, which includes the military, judges and the state bureacracy, says the AK Party is carrying out the arrests as revenge for a 2008 court case that sought to ban the party for anti-secular activities. The AK Party, which has its roots in political Islam, denies this.
Observers says Basbug is under pressure to stand up to a government regarded as hostile to the military. The military has unseated four governments in the last 50 years in Turkey.
Turkey's judiciary, a bastion of secularists who until recently controlled key institutions, has also balked at the latest raids and made its displeasure known after a former prosecutor had his house searched by police.
The leader of the secular main opposition party, Deniz Baykal, said the arrests were reminiscent of "regime change times" during Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. (Editing by Tim Pearce)What's the real story here?
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Turkish police arrested four more army officers on... more
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Monbiot reckons - let Detroit die: "It's not often I agree with Republican nutcases - but on the pointlessness of the US auto industry handout, they're right." (Latest opinion piece in The Guardian from the UK's leading green critic George Monbiot.)Monbiot reckons - let Detroit die: "It's not often I agree with Republican nutcases -... more
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This can't be good...
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Customers of New York City-based Citibank have lost access to much of their account information because of a computer outage.
Many of the troubled bank's clients haven't been able to retrieve account details online or by telephone since Tuesday afternoon. Others can access only parts of their account profiles.
Citibank telephone representatives say they don't know what caused the outage but technicians are working to fix it. They've been telling customers to call back after Wednesday morning.
A Citibank spokeswoman hasn't replied to a phone message or an e-mail sent after business hours.
Citibank is a division of Citigroup Inc., which is struggling to survive the global financial crisis with billions of dollars in aid from the government.This can't be good...
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Customers of New York City-based Citibank have lost... more
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CAIRO, Egypt -- The bones would normally have gone to the dogs.
This year, they are a carefully wrapped prize tucked under Zeinab Mansour's arm in an embarrassing reminder of the meat that her family cannot afford much of during this Eid al-Adha, one of Islam's most important holidays.
"One of (the bones) has a few small chunks of meat. It'll be good for soup, and to flavor the fatta," says Mansour, a 32-year-old mother of three, referring to a traditional Eid dish of rice, bread and meat. But the bones, supplemented with a pound of fatty meat she also picked up, are a meager substitute this year.
From Cairo to Baghdad, Muslims are having to pinch pennies as the global financial crisis and high inflation give new meaning to the four-day Festival of Sacrifice, which began Monday, marking the prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son for God.
Families are having to cut back on celebrations, and retailers are feeling the hit during a holiday when Muslims usually enjoy lavish meals of lamb or beef, distribute meat to the poor and splurge on clothes and other gifts from their children, relatives and friends.CAIRO, Egypt -- The bones would normally have gone to the dogs.
This year, they are... more
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99.9p to be precise. Asda and Morrisons have lead the way in the price cuts after the cost of a barrel of oil fell from a high of $147 to less than $80. It's the first time that petrol has been less than a pound since December last year.
Read the link to read about how Morrisons is patting itself on the back for their bold move into the credit crunching price cuts.99.9p to be precise. Asda and Morrisons have lead the way in the price cuts after the... more
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"It's going to cost the taxpayer £500 billion!" they seem to say, when really it's not quite as scary as that, so Simon Gompertz of BBC fame tells us anyway. This is a great explainer of how the bailout scheme is actually going to work and once you've gotten to the bottom of it, it doesn't sound so scary. It's still scary, just....not AS scary."It's going to cost the taxpayer £500 billion!" they seem to say, when really it's... more
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Maybe it's too early to tell, but despite being given a cash injection from UK tax payers, HBOS closed down 27.5%, Lloyds TSB was 14.5% lower and RBS down 8.4%.
Since we now own as much as 60% of of RBS and 40% of the merged Lloyds TSB and HBOS that means that it's now us that are making a loss, not just the banks. Gordon Brown's long term plan is to sell the shares in the banks at a profit for the taxpayer but the stakes couldn't be higher since he's playing with our money.
"We must now put in place new structures and new rules for the future. This cannot simply be a short-term rescue to paper over the cracks. Only a surgical approach that gets to the root of the problem will now work to ensure the problems do not return."
Was this the right move?Maybe it's too early to tell, but despite being given a cash injection from UK tax... more
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The GOP candidate wants to spend $300 billion to buy out "underwater" homeowners at the original value of their mortgages, a plan sharply criticized by a top Obama adviser The GOP candidate wants to spend $300 billion to buy out "underwater" homeowners at... more
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Alcoa (AA) posts $0.33, vs. $0.63 a year ago, third quarter EPS [including items] on 5.3% sales drop. Says aluminum prices have fallen steeply, demand has softened further, while input costs remain high. Says given sharp decline in metal prices, increasingly soft demand in its key markets, AA is stopping all non-critical capital projects, making targeted reductions to match market conditions, adjusting its mfg capacity to meet demand. Suspends buyback program. S&P downgrades to sell from buy. FBR Capital cuts ests, target, keeps outperform.
Merrill Lynch (MER) and other financials are seen under pressure on report Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser said today that it will not be easy for the central bank to unwind many of its liquidity providing efforts. "We have expanded our interventions" on a wide variety of fronts and "it is going to be a challenge" to reverse some of those initiatives when conditions improve, Plosser said.
Bank of America (BAC) announces that its offering of $10 billion, or 455 million shares, of common stock, was priced at $22 per share. S&P Equity Research notes that the offering price is well below where the company had originally anticipated; S&P cuts estimate, target, maintains hold.
Alcoa (AA) posts $0.33, vs. $0.63 a year ago, third quarter EPS [including items] on... more
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