Home » Archives
Financial Crisis Affects Borrowers Worldwide
Written on 1 Jun, 2009 at 16:12 in Business, Featured | viewed 2,402 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
According to research by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the credit crisis has wiped ¬£1.9 trillion off the average level of UK wealth since 2007. Whilst the amounts vary considerably, PWC believes that this equates to a reduction of ¬£40,000 for every UK adult over 18. This figure doesn‚Äôt even take into account the millions of retired people, not to mention those residing abroad, who no longer receive the income they once did due to falling interest rates. Economists estimate that over 50 trillion dollars of wealth was lost in 2008 alone. The loss in asset prices was led by the decline in property values. Full Story : Buylikebuffet.com….
GM Files Bankruptcy to Spin Off More Competitive Firm
Written on 1 Jun, 2009 at 11:13 in Business, Featured | viewed 2,252 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
General Motors Corp., the world‚Äôs largest car maker until its 77-year reign ended last year, filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. with a plan to create a 21st-century company that can compete in world markets. GM reported $82.29 billion in assets and $172.81 billion in debt. The U.S. government will bankroll the transformation of the 100-year-old automaker, a victim of tumbling sales and higher gas prices. The U.S. plans to convert much of its $50 billion of loans to a 60 percent stake in the new entity, administration officials said. Today‚Äôs filing coincides with a deadline for GM to convince a government auto task force that it could reorganize out of court through debt and cost cutting. Full Story : Bloomberg.com…..
Banks making billions from inflated penalty charges
Written on 31 May, 2009 at 21:45 in Business, Featured | viewed 2,056 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
Banks are gouging profit margins of “thousands of per cent” on penalty fees for exceeding credit limits or making late repayments. In the wake of a Reserve Bank report which showed banks raked in almost $1.2 billion in penalty fees last year, confidential analysis by two major banks, obtained by The Sunday Telegraph, has revealed for the first time the true cost to the banks of penalty-fee transactions. It is a fraction of the charge the customer pays, sometimes as low as just a few cents. Full Story : News.com.au….
Real Estate Web Sites See Surge In Traffic
Written on 16 May, 2009 at 23:55 in Business, Featured | viewed 1,825 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
Web tracker commScore reports the Real Estate category saw a 10 percent increase to 48.4 million visitors in April. Move Network, parent of Realtor.com, led as the most visited real estate site attracting 13.2 million visitors (up 88 percent vs. March), followed by Yahoo! Real Estate with 6.8 million visitors (up 11 percent) and AOL Real Estate with 3.6 million visitors (up 15 percent). Full Story : BusinessWeek.com…..
Microsoft says EU may boost Google dominance
Written on 10 May, 2009 at 11:18 in Business, Featured | viewed 2,015 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
Microsoft says EU regulators will hand Google more dominance of the Internet search business if they go ahead with planned regulations on Microsoft’s Windows operating system, the Financial Times reported. By bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, Microsoft shielded its browser from competition with rival products, harming innovation and reducing customer choice, the EU regulators had said. Full Story : Reuters.com…..
Google: We will make YouTube profitable
Written on 10 May, 2009 at 10:23 in Business, Featured | viewed 2,373 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
Google CEO Eric Schmidt has insisted that YouTube will eventually become a ‘profitable and successful’ business, despite suggestions that it will lose hundreds of millions of dollars this year. Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion (c¬£1bn) in October 2006, after the site rose to prominence as one of the most popular sites in the world and the leading provider of video. Full Story : TechRadar.com…..
Obama Urges Credit-Card Reform
Written on 9 May, 2009 at 12:15 in Business, Featured | viewed 1,985 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
President Barack Obama on Saturday pressed lawmakers to send him credit-card reform legislation by Memorial Day, May 25, saying consumers need stricter protections against unfair interest-rate hikes and penalties. Mr. Obama said Saturday that it is past time for a fair and transparent set of principles to guide the industry. That includes heightened monitoring, enforcement, and penalties for credit-card companies that break the rules. Full Story : WSJ.com…..
U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Fall to Three-Month Low
Written on 7 May, 2009 at 10:05 in Business, Featured | viewed 1,854 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment insurance unexpectedly fell last week to the lowest level in three months, a sign the worst of the job cuts may be over. Initial jobless claims decreased by 34,000 to 601,000 in the week ended May 2, the fewest since late January, from a revised 635,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said today in Washington. Full Story : Bllomberg.com…..
Mexico to invest 2 billion dollars to combat flu effects
Written on 5 May, 2009 at 23:03 in Business, Featured | viewed 2,167 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
Mexico launched Tuesday a plan to provide more than 2 billion dollars to help alleviate the ’significant impact’ of the influenza outbreak on the Mexican economy. Mexican Finance Minister Agustin Carstens said the plan includes fiscal stimuli, measures to promote tourism and loans, in an effort to induce rapid recovery.¬† According to the latest report from the World Health Organization earlier Tuesday, there were a total of 1,490 human infections in 21 countries.
Full Story : MonstersandCrititcs….
U.S economic recovery expected this year
Written on 5 May, 2009 at 11:59 in Business, Featured | viewed 1,907 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
The U.S. economy will begin to turn up later this year provided the financial sector continues to mend, although unemployment will remain high for a while, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Tuesday. He also said the Fed would soon release more details on the various lending programs it has launched to try to ease the credit crisis. Full Story : Reuters.com….
Google and Apple in antitrust hot seat
Written on 5 May, 2009 at 11:35 in Business, Featured | viewed 1,706 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
News reports say U.S. trade regulators are examining links between Apple Inc. and Google Inc. because they share some board members. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal both reported that the Federal Trade Commission is looking at the two businesses, which compete in several markets, particularly mobile phones. Full Story : Bizjournals.com…..
New home sales show signs of revival
Written on 24 Apr, 2009 at 12:45 in Business | viewed 629 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
Despite a decline in March, the annual rate remains above what economists expect after an even stronger than originally reported February. Sales of newly constructed homes slipped in March, after an increase the month before that was even bigger than originally reported, according to a government report released Friday. Full Story : CNN.com……..
Police Found Freddie Mac CFO Dead by Hanging
Written on 22 Apr, 2009 at 11:05 in Business, Featured | viewed 611 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
Law enforcement sources said they found David Kellermann, acting chief financial officer of mortgage company Freddie Mac, hanging in the basement of his Reston, Va., home, dead from an apparent suicide early this morning. Kellermann was named acting chief financial officer in September 2008, after the resignation of Anthony “Buddy” Piszel, who stepped down after the government takeover. Full Story : Abcnews.com…..
Facebook Rejects Funding at $4 Billion Valuation
Written on 18 Apr, 2009 at 22:59 in Business, Featured | viewed 762 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
Facebook has turned down a funding offer that would have valued the company at $4 billion, VentureBeat reported. Facebook said in late March that its revenue is up 70% from a year ago and that it expects to cross over to cash-flow positive sometime next year. Facebook now has more than 200 million monthly active users. Full Story : Localtechwire.com…..
A ‘Copper Standard’ for the world’s currency system?
Written on 18 Apr, 2009 at 14:57 in Business, Featured | viewed 714 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
China’s State Reserves Bureau (SRB) has instead been buying copper and other industrial metals over recent months on a scale that appears to go beyond the usual rebuilding of stocks for commercial reasons. The SRB has also been accumulating aluminium, zinc, nickel, and rarer metals such as titanium, indium, rhodium¬† and praseodymium (glass). Full Story : Telegraph.co.uk…….
China says key currency countries need watching
Written on 18 Apr, 2009 at 11:30 in Business, Featured | viewed 759 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
China’s Premier Wen Jiabao said on Saturday that economic polices of countries which issue global reserve currencies require closer supervision as part of building a diversified international monetary system. Wen did not mention the United States by name but he has expressed concern in recent months about the safety of Chinese investments in U.S. dollar assets. Full Story : Reuters.com……
America loses $100 billion a Year to Offshore Tax Havens
Written on 16 Apr, 2009 at 2:13 in Business, Featured | viewed 664 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
A Senate report estimated in 2008 that the United States loses up to $100 billion a year in tax revenue to offshore tax havens. In a report released Wednesday, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group offers a state-by-state breakdown of the cost to taxpayers of tax revenue lost to “shell companies and sham headquarters” in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. Full Story : Huffingtonpost……
Unionized Quebec Wal-Mart workers get 1st contract
Written on 11 Apr, 2009 at 22:18 in Business, Featured | viewed 614 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
It took nearly four years, but unionized workers at a Quebec Wal-Mart store now have their first collective agreement, a first in North America. The new agreement includes a $0.30 per hour wage increase on a yearly basis, for the next two years, for current employees. Wal-Mart shut down its store in Saguenay, Que., in April 2005 after workers unionized and were engaging in a binding arbitration process to settle a contract. Full Story : CBC.ca…..
Yahoo & Microsoft Finally Talking About Search and Advertising Partnership
Written on 11 Apr, 2009 at 20:07 in Business, Featured | viewed 829 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
In early discussions that began in the last several weeks that apparently included a face-to-face meeting last week, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer are finally talking about search and also advertising partnerships the companies could possibly strike, said several sources with knowledge of the situation. Full Story : Allthingsd.com….
US Economy Could Recover Much Sooner Than Expected
Written on 10 Apr, 2009 at 10:59 in Business, Featured | viewed 710 views times and users have made 0 comments so far
A small but growing group of private-sector economists is disputing the idea that the recession will drag on for months. These economists and others see a V-shaped pattern, similar to that of the recession-recovery periods of the 1970s and 1980s. And they say there is ample evidence to support it. The auto sector, which posted a surprise increase in sales in March, also has the potential to be a driving force. Full Story : Cnbc.com…..