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Consumer goods companies feel the effects of this recession.
02/23/2009
As cash strapped consumers make their largest purchases following the paycheck cycle, how deep this recession is turning out to be becomes evident. Lately the drops in the Dow Jones average reflect declines in consumer goods companies like Procter and Gamble.
Linked Articles
Consumer-Goods Makers Heed 'Paycheck Cycle'
Wall Street Journal 02/23/2009
Stock-Market Pullback Isn't Just 'Financial' NowWall Street Journal 02/23/2009
Vaccine Maker Pfizer and the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.
01/26/2009
The limits to litigation risk for vaccines is one reason for the attractiveness and growing investment in the vaccines development. Its also what Pfizer hopes to develop with the Wyeth acquisition for $68 billion.
Linked Articles
Wall Street Journal 02/23/2009
Pfizer Agrees to Pay $68 Billion for Rival WyethNew York Times 01/26/2009
How Pearson compares with New York Times Company.
01/20/2009
Pearson has shifted out of dependence on adspending for revenues by reducing ads as apercentage of revenues at Financial Times to 30% from 50%. Its textbook and Penguin books cushions it further from big declines in ad spending. The New York TImes has no such businesses and ad spending dominates. Its burdened by overborrowing and debt coming due and not enough controls on spending.
Linked Articles
Pearson Expects Strong 2008 Earnings
Wall Street Journal 01/20/2009
Billionaire Reaches Deal On Funding For Times Co.Wall Street Journal 01/20/2009
The view from Boise, Idaho. How families are coping, and saving and what it means for business.
01/06/2009
The shift to buying things at prices that conform to ideas of thrift and saving, getting rid of expensive stuff, and a new philosophy of living for the times, as well as reviving memories of the way things used to be, and the things that mattered.
Linked Articles
Hard-Hit Families Finally Start Saving, Aggravating Nation's Economic Woes
Wall Street Journal 01/06/2009
Frugality Forged in Today's Recession Has Potential to Outlast ItWall Street Journal 04/06/2009
How global imbalances in savings were ignored as the risks increased.
12/26/2008
Prof. Portes on global imbalances in savings. What happened and why the risks were not understood by Bernanke, Greenspan, and others. The view that successful models are very hard to change, reluctance in China to disturb the status quo, and the difficulty of getting people to accept the need to move away from this without a crisis.
Linked Articles
Imbalance in Nations' Savings Clouds Forecasts for Recovery
Wall Street Journal 03/23/2009
Chinese Savings Helped Inflate American BubbleNew York Times 12/26/2008
The shortsigtedness of Detroit automakers union and management.
12/05/2008
Both the automakers unions and management lacked the vision and courage to break totally with the status quo. The unions in hanging onto higher medical benefits and the management onto their higher compensation, and the management failing to shift to higher fuel efficiency standards comparable to competitors in Europe as mandated by the EU. In the process they stand to lose the higher medical benefits, and the higher compensation under government oversight as condition for loans, and along with that the jobs of unions and of management as well as the huge downsizing occurs in 2009.
Linked Articles
New York Times 12/05/2008
Toyota delays new Prius plantDetroit News 12/16/2008
Warnings on energy by Stewart Udall, interior secretary under John Kennedy.
11/16/2008
Innovative public transportations systems that the automakers could do research and development to develop.
Linked Articles
Have You Driven a Bus or a Train Lately?
New York Times 11/16/2008
How High Gas Prices Can Save the Car IndustryNew York Times 11/16/2008
The Uptick Rule and how it could have prevented the kind of shortselling that almost killed Morgan Stanley.
10/02/2008
Shortselling, the uptick rule and the collapse in share price at Morgan Stanley and later in November 2008 at Citigroup.
Linked Articles
NYSE Chief Leans Toward Uptick Rule
Wall Street Journal 10/02/2008
Anatomy of the Morgan Stanley PanicWall Street Journal 11/24/2008
Drug cartels emerging in Afghaistan.
07/27/2008
The UN OFfice of Drugs and Crime ses the growth of drug cartels in Afghaistan as 10,000 tons of drugs from the opium crop have been stockpiled inside Afghistan and are controlled by narco-gangs. This is estimated as 2 years of world demand. This as efforts to curb opium growing have reduced the land devoted to the crop by 22% and reduced the crop by 10%.
Linked Articles
U.N. Sees Afghan Drug Cartels Emerging
New York Times 09/02/2009
Is Afghanistan a Narco-State?New York Times 07/27/2008
How good were the U.S. Federal Reserve's stress tests of 2012?
07/16/2008
Reilly questions the leveraging aspect of the Fed's 2002 stress test results as they leave U.S. banks leveraging at between 20-30 times capital, the situation that prevailed before the crisis. Experts including Anil Kashyap at the University of Chicago pointed out how the process of deleveraging works in reverse before the collapse of Lehman in 2008- for every $1 of bank losses the deleveraging cycle reduces bank lending by $20- $30.
Linked Articles
Stressing the Bank 'Stress Tests'
Wall Street Journal 03/14/2012
How Bad Will It Get on Wall Street?BusinessWeek 07/16/2008
How all carmakers and Detroit automakers in particular missed what was happening in the economy and the market with dire results.
05/20/2008
Even as late as May 22, 2008 Ford pared its outlook to 14-15 million cars as reported by Jeff Bennett in the WSJ. That puts the situation in October 2008, with a 30-40% drop in sales year over year only 5 months away.
Linked Articles
Car Makers' Boom Years Now Look Like a Bubble
Wall Street Journal 05/20/2008
Ford Motor Pares OutlookWall Street Journal 05/22/2008
How parttime workers are shaping the unemployment picture in the US.
03/08/2008
Just as happened in Japan and continues to this day parttime workers are shaping the USA unemployment picture as employers increasingly resort to parttime workers to cut costs. With underutilized workers the USA unemployment rate reached 12% in October 2008.
Linked Articles
Labor Data Show Pain Across Economy
Wall Street Journal 11/08/2008
More People Pushed Into Part-Time Work ForceWall Street Journal 03/08/2008
As environmental concerns grow and the price of crude oil drops to $49 a barrel projects for tar sands in Alberta are being cut.
02/05/2008
Production from Alberta tar sands is running into problems from the environmental concerns to the falling price of crude oil.
Linked Articles
The Costly Compromises of Oil From Sand
New York Times 01/07/2009
Oil Sands Are Shifting in AlbertaWall Street Journal 02/05/2008
How the Japanese experience in their banking crisis holds new lessons for America as it grapples with its own banking crisis.
02/13/2009
Experts who tackled the Japanese banking crisis say America is facing the same train wreck as politicians take ineffectual action in tackling the bad debt, and not until this bad debt is cleaned up will the broader economy recover.
Linked Articles
In Japan’s Stagnant Decade, Cautionary Tales for America
New York Times 02/13/2009
Ailing Banks May Require More Aid to Keep SolventNew York Times 02/13/2009
How government spending if effectively targeted to productive purposes can have a multiplier effect.
01/22/2009
Government spending that can have amultiplier effect, reduce social costs and not lead to crowding out of private investment. The pardox of thrift in economic downturns and the role of government spending and private savings in a situation like what the USA faces in 2009 and coming years.
Linked Articles
Government Spending Is No Free Lunch
Wall Street Journal 01/22/2009
Go Ahead and Save. Let the Government Spend.New York Times 02/15/2009
Declining foreign trade and how this affects U.S. GDP and GDP in other nations.
01/13/2009
How the decline in foreign trade unlike anything seen since 1945 is affecting the US and global economy.
Linked Articles
Trade Secret: GDP's Pillar Looks in Peril
Wall Street Journal 01/13/2009
Global Trade Posts Sharp DeclineWall Street Journal 01/14/2009
How the automakers overcapacity by about a third of the 94 million capacity worldwide will play out similiarly over time in other industries.
12/31/2008
The automakers with their huge overcapacity face a rapidly developing crisis, as they will be forced to close plants quickly. A similiar situation is likely to develop gradually in other industries that have overcapacity from falling sales and a reluctant consumer, who is now focussed on saving.
Linked Articles
Automakers' Overcapacity Problem
BusinessWeek 12/31/2008
The Doomsayers Who Got It RightWall Street Journal 01/02/2009
Detroit News and Free press columnists Tom Walsh and Daniel Howes say its time Detroit gets things right.
12/20/2008
The jobs of suppliers, dealers, bondholders, managers, board members, union officials are all on the line say Walsh and Howes if they can't get their act together and move quickly. There just isn't the time to kick the proverbial can down the road says Howes, and their is bailout fatigue say Walsh and Howes so dates coming up February 17 for debt restructuring and March 31 must be met quickly with action that is convincing. It will be a tough act and its not clear that old management and union officials can measure up to the task ahead from what has been seen over the years according to the columnists.
Linked Articles
Commentary: Forging new path will be rough road for Detroit automakers
Detroit News 12/20/2008
Long Days Journey to Deal for AutomakersDetroit Free Press 12/21/2008
Doubts about how much demand will be helped by the Fed's $800 billion mortgage and consumer debt securities market resuscitation.
11/26/2008
The Fed's need to act and the constructive efforts to unclog credit markets of October 2008 in consumer and mortgage credit. At the same time doubts about how much it will help contimuing slide in demand in the economy.
Linked Articles
Fed Aid Sets Off a Rush to Refinance
Wall Street Journal 11/26/2008
U.S. Consumer Loan Aid Will Trickle Only So FarNew York Times 11/27/2008
UAW opposes any consolidation or merger as it would mean loss of may more jobs.
10/14/2008
From UAW President Gettelfinger's view consolidation would only mean loss of even more jobs to a devastated Detroit. A better source of cash for GM would be more loans from the federal government as democratic candidate Obama has suggested a $50 billion loan package. At that point a Chrysler consolidation if it were to occur could be done through a rationall consolidation or merger as opposed to the large closures that the present situation might require.
Linked Articles
UAW chief opposes GM-Chrysler merger
Detroit News 10/14/2008
Howes: One of Big 3 may not surviveDetroit News 10/14/2008
FDIC Sheila Bair's approach and her using IndyMac as a model on how to help rebuild a failed bank
08/21/2008
Before the FDIC took over IndyMac bank Sheila Bair who heads the FDIC had given her own proposal to tackle the mortgage crisis and credit cris. Now she can use the IndyMac bank to develop a model for resolution of failed banks.
Linked Articles
Agency’s Head Expects Banking’s Crisis to Worsen
New York Times 08/27/2008
FDIC Unveils Plan to Aid IndyMac BorrowersWall Street Journal 08/21/2008
GM to tap debt markets for only $3 billion depending on $10 billion of cost cutting .
07/16/2008
GM will cut spending in many areas like ad spending and marketing so as to have less dependence on loans secured against its international operation.
Linked Articles
GM Plans Debt Offering To Accompany Cost Cutting
Wall Street Journal 07/16/2008
GM Plans $10 Billion In Cuts to Bolster CashWall Street Journal 07/16/2008
China's oil demand to grow at 2-3% over the next 15 years by one estimate.
06/20/2008
A much slower growth in oil demand as fuel efficient engines make a strong impact. Government policy raising oil prices, giving tax breaks for smaller engines to promote smaller cars on Chinese roads, and promotion of new hybrid and electric car technologies with significant subsidies, all push in this direction.
Linked Articles
China's Thirst for Oil Could Come Up Short
Wall Street Journal 06/01/2010
China Sharply Raises Energy PricesNew York Times 06/20/2008
Board meetings at GM and the how the culture and style of management stalled decisions on fuel efficiency and small car development.
05/15/2008
The evolution of the old management styles and attitudes as Ford brought in outside management and Bill Ford took a new tack, and at GM where old management plodded on inexorably in the old way. Which is quite different from what Alfred Sloan had advocated in his memoirs when he insisted on discussion and debate on critical decisions in board meetings for them to be worthwhile.
Linked Articles
BusinessWeek 05/15/2008
Bill Ford on Tipping Points and Thinking SmallBusinessWeek 07/31/2008
Sheila Bair at FDIC has proposal to help homeowners similiar to Feldstein's
03/07/2008
Sheila Bair 's proposal to help homeowners is similar to what Martin Feldstein proposed on the pages of WSJ on March 7, 2008. About 2 months later FDIC proposes to take action to help homeowners by offering homeowners with debt to income ratios above 40%, a loan from the government for 20% of their loan amount with no interest charged for the first 5 years, and loan payments required to be lowered to affordable numbers.
Linked Articles
How to Stop the Mortgage Crisis
Wall Street Journal 03/07/2008
Bair Proposal Seeks Government Loans To Aid HomeownersWall Street Journal 04/30/2008
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