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S. Korea girds for protests; cabinet offers to quit
South Korea's entire cabinet offered to resign on Tuesday in the face of massive street protests, as its increasingly unpopular president warned that Asia's fourth-largest economy could be heading into crisis.
The protests against the government, in office barely three months, were sparked by public outcry over a deal to widen its market to U.S. beef imports and have cast a darkening cloud over President Lee Myung-bak's plans for sweeping reform.
"The prime minister offered the cabinet's resignation at the regular meeting this morning (with Lee)," a spokeswoman at the prime minister's office said, in what local media said was in response to the mounting anti-government protests.
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FULL STORY AT LINK
By Jon Herskovitz and Yoo Choonsik// Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSSEO2920...
Photo by Jo Yong-Hak// Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/articleslideshow?a... South Korea's entire cabinet offered to resign on Tuesday in the face of massive street protests, as its increasingly unpopular p... more -
Japan: Oil prices could spur global recession
Japan's energy chief launched a meeting of ministers from the world's top industrialized nations Sunday by warning that soaring oil prices could trigger a global recession if they're not checked.
The Group of Eight rich nations met in northern Japan with representatives from China, India and South Korea to discuss oil and gas markets, energy investment, energy security and climate change amid deepening concerns about the world economy.
Oil prices made their biggest single-day surge on Friday, soaring $11 to $138.54 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, an 8 percent increase. On the same day, the United States announced a rise in unemployment.
Five top energy consumers -- the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and India -- urged oil producers on Saturday to boost output to meet growing demand, while pledging to develop clean energy alternatives and increase efficiency. Japan's energy chief launched a meeting of ministers from the world's top industrialized nations Sunday by warning that soar... more -
Economy, Afghanistan and Bush's successor - A day in the life of Brown on tou...
Following on from his visit to the United Nations Security Council in New York yesterday, where he bluntly criticised the current state of Zimbabwean elections, Gordon Brown is today to meet with George Bush to discuss the best way of avoiding a world recession.
The prime minister is expected to press for co-ordinated action by the US and UK to tackle the global credit crunch, with the pair also scheduled to talk about the ongoing war in Afghanistan and Iraq and whether troop numbers can be reduced.
According to reports, Gordon Brown is also to meet with the three candidates running for the US presidency. He knows the first two well, but most interest will be whether there are any signs of a sprouting 'special relationship' with Barack Obama. Following on from his visit to the United Nations Security Council in New York yesterday, where he bluntly criticised the current stat... more -
Major banks reveal fresh $15 billion losses
CITIGROUP and Merrill Lynch will heap further pain on Wall Street this week as they reveal additional sub-prime write-downs totaling $15 billion (£7.6 billion) or more.
In another sign of the intense pressure on leading banks, Deutsch Bank is attempting to offload some of its €35 billion (£28 billion) of toxic debt to a consortium of private-equity firms... CITIGROUP and Merrill Lynch will heap further pain on Wall Street this week as they reveal additional sub-prime write-downs totaling $... more -
US housing collapse mutates into global phenomenon
The collapse of the housing bubble in the United States is mutating into a global phenomenon, with real estate prices down from the Irish countryside and the Spanish coast to Baltic seaports and even in parts of India... The collapse of the housing bubble in the United States is mutating into a global phenomenon, with real estate prices down from the Ir... more
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Great Depression to Come Again?
Sinister outcasts from Princeton's economist Krugman - He expects the US housing market to drop 25% overall.
"I'm not one of those people who thinks the Great Depression is coming back, but there's lots of echoes. [...] I think we know more than we did then, and just the fact that we have a big federal government is a stabilizing factor. But the current problem is still pretty awesome."
At the same time, he admits that "what we're having looks like a minor-key version of the bank failures in the early 1930s. Now it's mostly not banks, it's markets that were serving the function of banks and institutions that were doing banklike stuff, and it's not as bad - at least so far. But it's a question. If we were actually having a string of bank failures, then we would know what to do. The government would essentially seize the banks and guarantee the deposits. But what do you do when you have a wave of failures of things like the auction-rate securities market, which was effectively a funny way of doing banking? If you look historically at other financial crises, they typically end up with big government bailouts. But how's that going to work in this case? We don't even know who to bail out. And part of the problem is we don't even know who owes what to whom."
I am wondering if today they really know more about troubles in the financial markets than in the 30's. The situation seems to be very different today - notwithstanding the perplexity about the economy's inner workings, which then as now seems do dominate. Not comforting, I would say...
What do you think? Sinister outcasts from Princeton's economist Krugman - He expects the US housing market to drop 25% overall. ... more -
Soros warns U.K cannot escape U.S recession
George Soros, who famously bet against the Bank of England on Black Wednesday in 1992, yesterday warned that Britain could follow the United States into recession. George Soros, who famously bet against the Bank of England on Black Wednesday in 1992, yesterday warned that Britain could follow the ... more
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Northern Rock about to Drop?
The largest shareholder has warned that it is considering selling off Northern Rocks assets following the continuing instability of its business model.
After the US mortgage crisis banks have been reluctant to loan each other money for fear of increased risk. Since Northern Rock rely on loaned money as capital their business plan is looking a little worse for wear. As are its share prices....
Do you guys think we are facing up to a recession? I'd be interested to see your findings on such a topic! The largest shareholder has warned that it is considering selling off Northern Rocks assets following the continuing instability of it... more
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Global Recession
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Global Recession
