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Business News
for 01/04/2009

(last updated 7:30am EST 01/04/2009)

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• Chinese garment exporter recollects hard... Chinese garment exporter recollects hard experience in 2008
01/04/2009
Zheng Jianpei, a garment exporter in South China''s Guangdong Province, could not idle about, although people across the country were decorating their houses with lanterns and streamers to celebrate the New Year. Against chilly wind, Zheng and his fellow staff flew northward to attend an exhibition with packages of sample garments in Beijing, in an attempt to expand the domestic market. "The economy is in a low tide. We enterprises have to learn to save ourselves," said Zheng, board chai ... (7 h ago)

• China considers policies to save auto ma... China considers policies to save auto market
01/04/2009
Stimulus package to boost the auto market will be released soon. The policies will encourage low-emission vehicles and self-owned brands, and reduce and exempt taxes on auto purchases. A plan to promote the auto industry has been initially formulated and will gradually be put into full operation. Specifically, the plan outlined a series of favorite policies, namely, encouraging customers to buy low-emission cars, encouraging auto makers to develop self-owned brands, reducing and exempting tax ... (7 h ago)

• China to export rabbit meat to ROK China to export rabbit meat to ROK
01/04/2009
The first shipment of rabbit from China's Shandong Province to South Korea will be launched soon after the two countries reached the veterinary agreement on the export of such products in December 2008, According to a news release by the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine at its web site. Before that, the European Union was the only overseas market for Chinese rabbit meat. The openness of the South Korean market will bring new business opportunities for China's ... (7 h ago)

• China adjusts imports and exports lists ... China adjusts imports and exports lists under inspection, quarantine
01/04/2009
A new list of imports and exports that have to go through the inspection and quarantine process is in effect as of Jan.1, 2009. According to an announcement by China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), and the General Administration of Customs, products under 647 ten-digit codes are not subject to the inspection and quarantine in their entry and exit formalities. Those products range from primary textiles, minerals, stone materials and industri ... (7 h ago)

• Shengli Oilfield output rises for 10 con... Shengli Oilfield output rises for 10 consecutive years
01/03/2009
New conceptions in science and technology have greatly activated the development capacity of China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec)'s Shengli Oilfield, which has already been mined for 44 years. The latest statistics show that in 2008, Shengli Oilfield produced 27.74 million tons of crude oil, 40,000 tons more than the output in 2007, which maintains a growth in output for 10 consecutive years. Relying on scientific and technological progress, Shengli Oilfield improves explorati ... (9 h ago)

• Climate experts to meet in Wellington Climate experts to meet in Wellington
01/03/2009
The world's leading climate history experts will meet in Wellington over the next two weeks for a conference on the history of climate change. The conference, organized by New Zealand Institute of Geological and Nuclear Science (GNS Science), will examine the greenhouse climate of the Paleogene period, 65 to 35 million years ago. It is believed that was the last time the Earth experienced global warming on a scale similar to what is being projected for the future. Conference orga ... (10 h ago)

• China's PMI rises to 41.2% in Dec. China's PMI rises to 41.2% in Dec.
01/03/2009
The Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) of China's manufacturing sector climbed 2.4 percentage points month-on-month to 41.2 percent in December, China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP) told Xinhua Sunday. The index has been lower than 50 percent for three consecutive months. It was also the fifth time the index remained below 50 percent within last year after it fell to a record low of 38.8 percent in November. The new monthly figure reflected the country's economy had ... (10 h ago)

• China relaxes processing trade China relaxes processing trade
01/03/2009
China has made the lists of limited and prohibited categories of processing trade shorter as part of the country's efforts to mitigate the negative impacts of the global financial crisis and maintain the steady growth of its foreign trade. The adjustment is stated in a joint pronouncement by the Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs on Dec. 31, 2008. Altogether 1,730 categories of 10-digit coded products are scrapped from the "limited" list. Those products, mainl ... (12 h ago)

• Global manufacturing slows, optimism in ... Global manufacturing slows, optimism in markets
01/03/2009
Factories from India to Europe, the United States and China slashed output and jobs in December, but investors seemed determined on Friday to start the new year on a positive note, pushing stocks higher. US factory activity fell to a 28-year low in December, according to a report from the Institute for Supply Management showing a contraction that was more severe than expected. The ISM index of US national factory activity fell to the lowest since 1980 amid mounting evidence that demand is ... (14 h ago)

• Turkey's exports fall 25% in December du... Turkey's exports fall 25% in December due to economic crisis
01/03/2009
Turkey's exports in December shrunk 25 percent compared with the same period of 2007 due to the decline in international demand caused by the global economic crisis, local newspaper Today's Zaman reported on Saturday. "The number of Turkish exports in 2008 was 127.5 billion U.S. dollars, with 7.1 billion dollars in December alone," said the report, citing figures published by the Turkish Exporters Assembly here in Ankara. According to the report, the exports of agricultural produ ... (15 h ago)

• Nigeria's foreign exchange reserves fall... Nigeria's foreign exchange reserves fall by $6 bln in December
01/03/2009
As the global credit crisis takes its toll on the world economy and further depresses oil prices, Nigeria 's foreign exchange reserves fell by 6 billion U.S. dollars or 8.2 percent in December last year to 52.7 billion dollars. The reserves in the month to Dec. 29 dropped from 57.4 billion U.S. dollars in November, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said Friday in its monthly report. Record oil prices had helped Nigeria to build the largest currency reserves in sub-Saharan Africa, ... (15 h ago)

• Russian energy giant to suit Ukrainian c... Russian energy giant to suit Ukrainian company on gas dispute
01/03/2009
Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom will file a suit against the Ukrainian national energy company Naftogaz Ukrainy on the allegedly gas-transit shortage to Europe amid rows over price, local media reported on Saturday. "Gazprom asks the Court of Arbitration in Stockholm to take within a maximally short period of time measures forbidding Naftogaz Ukrainy to make any moves aimed at the reduction of transit of Russian gas to Europe," Itar-Tass cited Gazprom sources as saying. Russian Pre ... (15 h ago)

• British banks refusing to lend despite P... British banks refusing to lend despite PM call
01/03/2009
British banks are still refusing to lend and warning that credit will become even scarcer in the first three months of this year, despite Prime Minister Gordon Brown's call to free up credit, the Guardian newspaper reported on Saturday. A Bank of England survey found that in spite of Brown's call for more loans, lenders had further reduced the amount of credit available in the last three months of 2008 and warned that they planned to continue to pare back. Along with the quarterl ... (15 h ago)

• ASEAN summit proposed for late February ASEAN summit proposed for late February
01/03/2009
Thailand is ready to host the 14th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in late February, Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said Saturday. Foreign Ministry proposed that the summit be held on Feb. 27, 28 and March 1, he added. The summit is expected to be held in Bangkok, as confirmed by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. Meanwhile, ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan told reporters after a bilateral meeting with Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya on Satu ... (15 h ago)

• Indonesia's economy grew by 6.2 percent ... Indonesia's economy grew by 6.2 percent in 2008
01/03/2009
Indonesian Finance Ministry announced Saturday that the country's economy grew by 6.2 percent in 2008 despite enormous pressure from the global liquidity crisis. The economic expansion was lower than the 6.4 percent growth that the government had sought, a ministry spokesperson, Harry Z. Soeratin, said. However, he said it was relatively understandable considering last year's global financial turbulence. He also said that the price inflation in 2008 was still within desir ... (15 h ago)

• Indonesia to use $4.6 bln of unspent fun... Indonesia to use $4.6 bln of unspent funds to curb crisis in 2009
01/03/2009
Indonesian government will use part of the 51.3 trillion rupiahs (about 4.6 billion U.S. dollars) of unspent funds in its 2008 coffers to cushion economic slump in 2009, the Jakarta Post daily on Saturday quoted Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani as saying. The unspent funds, accounting for 5.2 percent of the 2008 state budget which totaled 985.3 trillion rupiah (88.46 billion dollars),were remained due in part to higher-than-expected earnings and lower-than-estimated expenditure th ... (15 h ago)

• Prices of livestock products expected to... Prices of livestock products expected to drop in 2009
01/03/2009
The prices of China's major livestock products will continue to drop in 2009, said an official from the Ministry of Agriculture. Wang Zhicai, director in charge of the ministry's department of stockbreeding, said at a recent national stockbreeding and veterinary meeting that live pig, milk and other major livestock products had experienced constant price dropping in 2008, and the weak pricing trend is expected to continue in the new year. Statistics from the ministry showed that ... (15 h ago)

• Beijing sees New Year holiday sales up 1... Beijing sees New Year holiday sales up 16%
01/03/2009
The sales revenue of commodities in Beijing in the three-day New Year holiday is expected to see a 16 percent growth over the same period last year. Based on a sample survey on 2,300 shops of 101 enterprises in the capital, the sales revenue is estimated at 1.08 billion yuan (158 million U.S. dollars) from Thursday through Saturday, according to the city's commercial information consultation center. The center said several major shopping malls saw sales revenue up 33 percent to 6 ... (15 h ago)

• China's car makers urged to learn from U... China's car makers urged to learn from U.S. crisis by "thinking small"
01/03/2009
There's a lesson for China's car makers in the fate of the ailing U.S. auto industry: develop smaller, fuel-efficient models instead of betting on gas-guzzlers, industry analysts have warned. "We used to believe medium-sized cars would have the biggest market in China, but actually small cars have the greatest potential in terms of energy efficiency and price," senior engineer Chen Yilong of the Society of Automotive Engineers of China told Xinhua in December. The U.S. auto maker ... (15 h ago)

• Futures trade value sets record in China... Futures trade value sets record in China, rising 76% in 2008
01/03/2009
China's futures trading volume reached a record high of 71.9 trillion yuan (10.5 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2008, up 76 percent year-on-year, the China Futures Association (CFA) said on Saturday. It said 1.36 billion contracts were traded, up 87 percent. The most active contracts were for sugar in Zhengzhou, soybeans and soybean meal in Dalian and copper and natural rubber in the Shanghai. Trading in gold futures, the only new product launched in 2008,hit 1.49 trillion yua ... (15 h ago)

• Rainbow Room to close grill, citing econ... Rainbow Room to close grill, citing economy
01/03/2009
The recession has reached the ritzy Rainbow Room, the special-occasion spot that overlooks midtown Manhattan from high above the tourist-attracting Rockefeller Center skating rink. (15 h ago)

• Obama urges Congress to pass stimulus pl... Obama urges Congress to pass stimulus plan
01/03/2009
President-elect Barack Obama urged congressional leaders Saturday to move quickly on an economic recovery plan, even as some Republicans are saying they want more time to review the details. (21 h ago)

• U.S. could be facing debt 'time bomb' U.S. could be facing debt 'time bomb'
01/02/2009
It's unclear whether private investors' demand for U.S. debt can be sustained. That means a "time bomb" may be ticking during a massive expansion of government borrowing. (1 d ago)

• Chrysler says it's received $4B bridge l... Chrysler says it's received $4B bridge loan
01/02/2009
Chrysler's chief says the automaker has received an initial $4 billion loan from the U.S. Treasury Department. (1 d ago)

• Wall Street begins 2009 with a rally Wall Street begins 2009 with a rally
01/02/2009
Wall Street started 2009 with a big rally Friday as investors, brushing aside a disappointing report on manufacturing, sent the Dow Jones industrials up more than 250 points. (1 d ago)

• Obama team polishing stimulus measure Obama team polishing stimulus measure
01/02/2009
President-elect Barack Obama's transition team is putting the finishing touches on an economic recovery plan that could run from $675 billion to $775 billion. (1 d ago)

• IndyMac sold to investor group for $13.9... IndyMac sold to investor group for $13.9B
01/02/2009
A seven-member group of investors has agreed to buy the remnants of failed lender IndyMac Bank, a symbol of the U.S. housing boom and bust, for $13.9 billion, federal regulators said. (1 d ago)

• The biggest CEO firings of 2008 The biggest CEO firings of 2008
01/02/2009
The bloodletting in the c-suite started in 2007. It still hasn't stopped. (1 d ago)

• GMAC gives up some GM car financing righ... GMAC gives up some GM car financing rights
01/02/2009
GMAC LLC will no longer have exclusive rights to provide no- or low-interest loans to people who take advantage of General Motors financing incentives. (1 d ago)

• U.S. manufacturing weakest in 28 years U.S. manufacturing weakest in 28 years
01/02/2009
Signs that the economy could turn even weaker in 2009 grew Friday, as an index of December manufacturing activity sank to its lowest point in 28 years. (1 d ago)

• Treasury to mull Citi-style rescues Treasury to mull Citi-style rescues
01/02/2009
The Treasury Department opened the door Friday to using a Citigroup-style rescue package to help other troubled financial institutions. (1 d ago)

• Oil prices rebound as dollar slumps Oil prices rebound as dollar slumps
01/02/2009
A year after crude eclipsed $100 a barrel for the first time, 2009 trading began Friday with prices roughly half their year-ago levels, and some believe oil could be headed even lower. (1 d ago)

• More top brands seen disappearing in 200... More top brands seen disappearing in 2009
01/02/2009
Shoppers won't be picking up ornate lamps from the Bombay Co. in the coming year. Or investing with Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. No flying to Hawaii on Aloha Airlines or buying ultra-cheap tickets on Skybus, either. (1 d ago)

• Store bankruptcies can burn shoppers Store bankruptcies can burn shoppers
01/02/2009
Some questions and answers about rights consumers have if their retailer goes out of business — and what they can do to protect themselves ahead of time. (1 d ago)

• New York investor sues trustee of Madoff... New York investor sues trustee of Madoff's firm
01/02/2009
A private New York company has sued the trustee who is liquidating accused fraudster Bernard Madoff's firm for the return of $10 million it invested six days before Madoff was arrested. (1 d ago)

• Slump means identity crisis for Las Vega... Slump means identity crisis for Las Vegas
01/02/2009
For the first time in decades, Las Vegas' population has stopped growing. Casino projects are on hold. Planes full of free-spending tourists are landing with less frequency. (1 d ago)

• Eight alternatives to Detroit’s ‘Big Thr... Eight alternatives to Detroit’s ‘Big Three’
01/02/2009
Don’t want to buy a car from GM, Ford or Chrysler? There’s a good number of alternative North American carmakers out there. Here’s a list. (1 d ago)

• ConsumerMan: New year, old scams ConsumerMan: New year, old scams
01/02/2009
In the coming year, be on the lookout for more scam artists. Some that will become more prevalent include work-at-home scams and debt relief rip-offs. (2 d ago)

• Sick time policy crucial for small busin... Sick time policy crucial for small businesses
01/02/2009
Flu season means employee absences. And so the beginning of the year is a good time for company owners to think about their policy not just for sick time, but time off in general. (2 d ago)

• TV preview: Million Dollar Traders TV preview: Million Dollar Traders
01/03/2009
With thousands of post-meltdown City traders getting the heave-ho in recent months, the time isn't obviously ripe to launch a TV show that sets out to prove how easy it is to be one. But here comes BBC2's Million Dollar Traders, which takes a group of ambitious butchers, bakers and candlestick makers and finds out who has the right stuff for a highly paid job shouting at computer screens and tearing their own ears off. With these so-called "novices" stationed for hours at their desks, episode one resembled a sort of sunlight-deprived Apprentice, but no, says executive producer Ruth Pitt. "It's absolutely not The Apprentice. It's more 'observational documentary' - more like The Choir or The Secret Millionaire." Yes, it's a format, she says, but there's no weekly eviction, no footage of the team angsting in their accommodation, no dog-eat-dog treachery, no live sex show. "We tried to avoid it being contrived," she says. The format is simple: the eight novices get two weeks' training, after which they have two months (or three weeks in telly years) to earn their pinstripes and perhaps scoop a "City-sized" bonus - paid for by the wonderfully named Lex Van Dam. He's the hedge-fund master of the universe, providing $1m of his own investment money and would like some of it back, please. So how would our eight cope, as global markets were about to "plunge into the abyss", as the narrator had it in the opening episode? Not brilliantly. Here they were at their screens - a student, an ex-soldier ("It's just like parachuting"), an IT man, someone who runs a corner shop, an entrepreneur. They were all good at maths, but were they all good at keeping their heads while others around them were taking too long for lunch? Mike put too many of his eggs in the HBOS basket and wished he hadn't. Simon, the eldest at 63, said "buy" when he meant "sell", with disastrous results. Lex wasn't in the office much (busy, one imagined, white-water rafting with his real hedge fund) but his deputy - 29-year-old millionaire ex-trader Anton Kreil - was on the trading floor to shake his head with disbelief and to phone Lex when folly piled on folly. Anton did a lot of phoning, before translating some of Lex's unhappiness ("Has he got shit for brains?") into something more constructive. Had the novices' training deserted them? "It was a hell of a lot of information for any novice to take in, so I wasn't surprised that people struggled," says Kreil. "Trading is an extremely psychological business and most of the time it's more of a battle with yourself rather than with the market. So it was those who won the battle with themselves who conquered the task of learning how to trade as a professional. The most common faults were not doing homework properly before buying or selling a stock, not managing the overall risk of their portfolio - by trading emotionally, doing what we call in the business 'punting', and not being able to recognise bad positions early enough and to cut them without emotion. But you have to remember these novices were thrown into the most difficult trading environment in a generation. In the circumstances, it went amazingly well." Ah yes, the timing thing. I ask Pitt how she felt when global markets started to collapse in the middle of filming? "To be honest, it was a blessing and a curse. It gave us an incredible insight. That picture we have of what it is like to be a trader is very authentic. You can never film that for real. So it turned out to be a powerful way of looking at the City and at world events." And what about Lex, whose money everyone was busy losing? Does he ever come into the office and kick ass? Not exactly, she says. There's a bit of telling-off on a one-to-one basis, but no public humiliations. And what does he actually expect from this? After all, it's not everyone who would put eight ignoramuses in charge of a million dollars. "Well, several of them turn out to be quite good traders, so he gets that satisfaction. He was also fascinated with the idea of getting something like this to work on television. It was a sort of joint idea. He thought, 'Wouldn't it be a great idea if you could just take a group of people and turn them into traders?'" The City is not Pitt's usual territory. The last thing her company, Century Films, did for the BBC was about the Women's Institute, then there was something about abortion and another programme about insurance fraud for Channel 4. They had been trying to make an "insider" documentary about the City, but always came up against a wall of silence. "People's bonuses and their pay terms are dependent on them never discussing their conditions," says Pitt. "It's like Alcoholics Anonymous." That's when her research team ran into Lex and developed the format. "You genuinely haven't seen anything like this on television before because the City has never been filmed from the inside before. It's about who will survive." So who will survive? Caroline the single mum, who wasn't entirely comfortable about profiting from short-selling? Former vet Cleo, who was leaping with self-belief as airline stocks plunged in her favour (though, it has to be said, not for long)? The most intriguing candidate for my money (well, Lex's) was Emile Coleman, a beefy, working-class, shaven-headed, tattooed urban impresario who in real life organises cage fighting in Liverpool. I ask him whether City trading was a culture shock. "It's probably something I've suffered from all my life - that people take one look at me and assume I'm something that I'm not. But actually I'm quite adaptive. So I wouldn't say it was a culture shock but it was definitely a learning experience." How well did he deal with stress? "I put big events on, so I'm used to that, and I teach, and I've led a varied life. I suppose, because of the way I grew up, stress never really bothered me. There was a lot made of the stress City traders are under and, to be honest, I think there's an element of bravado in all that. In a way, you're quite detached from what you're doing - when you make a trade, it feels quite virtual. You don't feel the effects of what you're doing. It's quite bizarre having that much power without the responsibility." Did he ever have scruples about it? "Well, yeah. I suppose I'm quite a paradox - I'm very ethical in the way I live my life, and politically too, but I also make money, so I've always got that internal battle going on anyway. But there's probably very few individuals out there in the trading world who have any kind of ethics." In some kinds of trading, "they're like a parasite that lives on another animal. They don't produce anything, they don't contribute anything. But there is another way of looking at it - providing investment for a company to grow, which then provides jobs. It is 50-50 - it's how it's portrayed, really". I ask what his worst and best moments were. "The worst was when I lost money quite quickly. The best was... well, you'll have to watch the programme and find out." I might just do that. • The first episode of Million Dollar Traders will be broadcast on BBC2 on 12 January at 9pm Doing the business on television Working Lunch Adrian Chiles made his name presenting BBC2's quirky daytime personal finance programme for 12 years until 2007. Who knew discussions about pension plans and investment bonds could feel so warm and cosy? Dragon's Den The popular British version of this Japanese format, in which budding entrepreneurs' business pitches are (for the most part) witheringly dismissed by a panel of venture capitalists, first aired on BBC2 in 2005. The most successful launch to come out of the programme is Levi Roots's Reggae Reggae barbeque sauce. Evan Davis Such has been the popular appeal of the BBC's energetic economics editor (and Dragon's Den presenter) that in April 2008 he was moved to co-present - and injected new life into - Radio 4's flagship news programme Today The Apprentice Launched in 2005, the UK version of the Donald Trump-fronted US show started slowly, but a winning combination of Alan Sugar's misanthropic management style and some truly horrible and/or stupid contestants soon made it the reality show of choice for the chattering classes. The Secret Millionaire Successful Channel 4 show in which millionaire businessmen and women go undercover in deprived areas and decide who is most deserving of their gift of a few thousand pounds. Tasteless or heartwarming? You decide. Television Reality TV Shares guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (15 h ago)

• Tristram Hunt: This New Deal is a far gr... Tristram Hunt: This New Deal is a far greater gamble than you might think
01/03/2009
Top of the political class's reading list on both sides of the Atlantic at Christmas was Cambridge historian Anthony Badger's slim, brilliant volume, FDR: The First Hundred Days. In Chicago, the impatient Barack Obama administration has made no secret of its determination to emulate Franklin D Roosevelt's 1933 blitzkrieg on Washington. Similarly, Gordon Brown has anointed Badger's history his book of the year. "A classic example of how a work of history can illuminate the issues we're dealing with today," he declared. "The imagination and humanity at the heart of some of the great New Deal innovations changed American politics for ever and shaped the future of progressive politics across the world." And as the prime minister reveals in his interview, the inspiration of the New Deal is already shaping British policy in the struggle against the recession. But Badger's account ends on 16 June 1933 and historians today are still debating the long-term merits of Roosevelt's economic strategy. Brown's lesson from the past is a historic gamble. The situation could hardly have been bleaker in March 1933 when FDR assumed the presidency. At least a quarter, but probably a third, of US workers were unemployed. A thousand families a day were losing their homes. Farmers were desperate. The stock market had failed to recover from the 1929 crash. In 1932 alone 1,500 banks went bust. But, in an early taste of the audacity of hope, the patrician, polio-stricken but politically mesmeric Roosevelt told America it had "nothing to fear but fear itself". He pledged himself "to a new deal for the American people. This is more than a political campaign. It is a call to arms". With the help of his so-called "Brains Trust", Roosevelt unleashed an avalanche of legislation in his first 100 days. If politicians in Westminster and Washington feel they have recently been bounced into unwise City bail-outs, Congress was given just 43 minutes to read FDR's bank bill. In its wake came further bills on regulating the stock exchange, prescribing a minimum wage, subsidy packages for farmers, underwriting home ownership and, above all, a programme of public works. This signature employment policy instantly captured the popular imagination. And as Andrew Rawnsley's recent account in these pages of a summer drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway - a public works highway built to provide jobs and attract visitors to Virginia and North Carolina - showed, the programme forms part of our vision of modern America. This is Roosevelt's progressive, aesthetic and pioneering republic of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the "tree army" that planted 3bn trees and built the log cabins and park campsites that so sparsely but elegantly symbolise the outdoor US. More than that, America's infrastructure was transformed during the 1930s, from New York's Lincoln Tunnel to the San Francisco Zoo to a new generation of reservoirs, roads and harbours. For President-elect Obama, the attractions of this narrative are obvious. George W Bush can be cast as FDR's inept predecessor, Herbert Hoover, whose voluntarist, laissez-faire philosophy did nothing to address the human costs of the Depression. Indeed, Bush has stuck closely to the Republican mantra of government being the problem rather than the solution - of which there remains no more chilling edifice than the ruins of New Orleans. Whereas the Federal Emergency Management Agency once stood as an effective arm of the state assisting the citizen in times of crisis, the Bush administration so denigrated its capacity that when hurricane Katrina called, the Big Easy was left to fend for itself. So the Obama plan is simple: a reaffirmation of the moral and pragmatic worth of strong government. An end to tax giveaways for the super-rich and, instead, a 21st-century New Deal promising 2.5m jobs focusing on renewable energy, broadband access and home insulation. In addition, a huge public works programme to rebuild America. This is the Democratic party as it used to be, before the investment bankers captured the Clintons. But what is Gordon Brown's position on this? According to his new year message, 2008 was the moment when the "old era of unbridled free market dogma was finally ushered out". In the Brown template, it is Tony Blair, not George W Bush, who is set to play the part of Herbert Hoover as an era of 1990s light-touch, neoliberal corporate excess is roundly denounced by Downing Street. With Brown as FDR (rather than the former chancellor of the exchequer), the Labour party is able to rediscover its belief in an energetic state confronting profiteering. Brown, like Roosevelt, has also opted for military analogies. Roosevelt asked Congress for "broad executive power to wage war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe". The prime minister has urged the British public to show their "Blitz spirit" in the face of the recession. And it's more than just words. Brown's bank recapitalisation plan was pulled together and implemented with FDR-like bravado and mettle. It, too, brought the economy back from the precipice. There is also more than a whiff of Roosevelt-era politics when it comes to ministers' denunciation of City spivs, as well as plans for fast-tracking infrastructure projects and this weekend's announcements on new jobs in green energy and public sector construction. Until today's interview, however, we have seen none of the New Deal's more inspiring environmental and civic components. The Marine Bill is a pale shadow of what it might be in the hands of a modern FDR: the chance for coastal paths around the country and conservation areas at every shore. And while Roosevelt established the Historic American Buildings Survey to celebrate the physical and natural heritage of the US, the government has short-sightedly dropped its Heritage Bill from the Queen's Speech. Politicians would do well to remember that the New Deal legacy we so appreciate today was as much the product of conservationists, architects, photographers and naturalists as Treasury policy wonks. However, FDR's presidency was ultimately a question of economic survival. Seventy years on, historians remain generous when it comes to his alleviation of the US banking system. But in terms of sustained economic growth, the score card is mixed. Rather than curtailing the Depression, critics argue, the New Deal piled on costs for business, crowded out capital, failed to grow private sector employment and deepened the 1937 recession. The creative powers of capitalism were neutered by Washington bureaucrats and it was only thanks to the demands of Second World War rearmament that the US economy revived. But for Anglo-American progressives, FDR's achievements have always been as much political as economic. What the 32nd president did was to shift the 20th-century paradigm from neoliberal let-alone to state intervention. He convinced the American people that society as a whole, operating through the federal government, must and could protect itself against the impersonal and amoral vagaries of the market. This was the "progressive consensus" lost under Reagan and Thatcher, which Obama and Brown hope to revive. And while it is questionable whether the British economy really needs more state intervention, in the face of City greed and Tory laissez-faire, Roosevelt's inspiring advocacy of effective government deserves to be heard again. For Gordon Brown, there may also be one other attraction to FDR: he went on to win a fourth term. • Tristram Hunt is a lecturer in history at Queen Mary, University of London. His biography of Friedrich Engels is published on 1 May Global economy Politics past Gordon Brown US economy United States Economic policy guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (15 h ago)

• William Keegan: Sterling has collapsed. ... William Keegan: Sterling has collapsed. Markets are in chaos. But let's not overreact
01/03/2009
William Keegan: One of the reasons for the collapse of the pound is that it was unsustainably high for too long (15 h ago)

• Market forces: 4 January 2009 Market forces: 4 January 2009
01/03/2009
Metamorphosis for Chrysalis Music company Chrysalis has had a challenging year on a number of fronts: most obviously, the lengthy sales process involved in offloading its radio operations, which absorbed considerable management time and deterred potential new signings. But broker Numis Securities forecasts that the company will have a better 2009 thanks to cost-cutting, foreign currency gains and the absence of a screenwriter's strike. Rumour has it that the company, headed by Chris Wright, could eventually be sold, but Numis reckons a sale won't happen in the short term as larger music groups and potential predators batten down the hatches amid the economic gloom. But expect action at some point as the company owns a valuable music publishing catalogue, including copyrights for Blondie, David Bowie and Outkast. Mixed fortunes in mining Gloom and doom at mining group Lonmin, which has lost 70 per cent of its value. The company has been demoted to the FTSE-250 as falling platinum prices, production cuts and Xstrata's decision to scrap its bid have combined to depress sentiment. But the story is very different at Randgold, where shares have risen sharply as investors seek a safe haven in gold. Head of the company Mark Bristow is even rumoured to be eying acquisitions. Does Lonmin fit the bill? Market forces column Music industry Mining guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (15 h ago)

• Bank cuts to the chase on rates ... and ... Bank cuts to the chase on rates ... and there's more to come
01/03/2009
New year is a good moment for bold decisions, and this Thursday Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, is expected to start 2009 as he means to go on: cutting interest rates to their lowest level since the Bank was founded in 1694. Rates have already been reduced from 5% to 2% since the autumn, in an unprecedented onslaught on the worsening recession; but the Bank's nine-member monetary policy committee is widely expected to make another reduction, of perhaps 0.5 percentage points, this week. Few analysts expect King and his colleagues to stop there: Jonathan Loynes of Capital Economics predicts that rates will rapidly be cut to about zero, and remain there throughout 2009, and perhaps 2010 too. George Buckley, chief UK economist at Deutsche Bank, predicts a half-point cut on Thursday, followed by another in February, and a third in March, swiftly bringing rates down to 0.5%. The Observer-New Star interest rate predictor is pointing to a more modest quarter-point cut on Thursday. There have been few pieces of upbeat news to encourage the Bank to hold its fire. On Friday alone, official figures showed the number of new mortgages approved to buy a home dropped to a record low of 27,000 in November; Halifax reported that house prices fell by 2.2% in December, bringing the total decline since the peak in autumn 2007 to 20%; and the Bank's quarterly Credit Conditions survey showed that banks reduced lending to home-owners and small businesses in the fourth quarter of the year, and expect to tighten the taps still further in 2009. Even as recently as the summer, such a rapid-fire round of cuts to boost the economy would have seemed unthinkable, as the MPC fretted that rocketing oil prices would unleash a damaging wage-price spiral, and entrench inflation in the economy. Some members, including the labour market economist David Blanchflower, persistently argued that a sharp rise in unemployment was in the offing, and rates should be cut, but the majority voted for no change, after an initial three reductions, from 5.75% to 5%, when the credit crunch began in late 2007. Now, the MPC believes inflation will fall sharply, from 4.1% in November on the consumer price index measure targeted by the Bank, and plunge down through the 2% target in the first half of this year, opening the way for borrowing costs to be slashed. In fact, in his letter to the chancellor last month, explaining why inflation had remained more than 1% above the government's target for three months, King warned that he might be writing again, in 2009, to apologise that it had fallen more than 1% below the target. Deflation, not inflation, is now the primary concern of the Bank and the Treasury. The MPC's aggressive rate-cutting has already been reflected in the foreign exchange markets, where the pound fell precipitously against the euro in December, as investors bet that the UK will be particularly badly hit by the downturn. Buckley says there are other concerns driving sterling down, however. "This economy is more vulnerable to the type of downturn we're going to have: one where the housing market is falling, and where we're heavily exposed to the banking sector," he says. "But a more sinister concern is that it's falling because of a worry by foreign investors about the sustainability of government and private-sector debts." In normal times, the inflationary surge that typically follows a sharp currency depreciation would force King and his colleagues to think twice, but with commodity prices now sliding quickly, and demand on the high street falling away, there seems little chance of retailers making inflationary price-rises stick. Alistair Darling's £20bn package of tax cuts and public spending in November's pre-budget report, and the government's bank bail-out, is likely to be followed by a renewed wave of taxpayer-funded rescues over the coming months, as the government unleashes every weapon in its arsenal against the slowdown. With US interest rates now set at 0-0.5%, the Federal Reserve is already buying billions of dollars' worth of mortgage-backed securities, and the "commercial paper" many firms use to meet short-term costs, to keep funds flowing around the economy, and interest rates pegged as low as possible, despite the reluctance of banks to lend. But Bernanke has suggested he could do much more, including buying up US treasury bills. Such measures, known as "quantitative easing", echo the desperate steps taken by the Japanese government and central bank to fight off deflation and drag their economy out of the "lost decade" of the 1990s. Officials at the Bank and the Treasury have already begun to discuss how they might embark on quantitative easing in Britain, once conventional monetary weapons are exhausted. Eventually, this concerted policy onslaught should begin to have some take effect. But Buckley points out that even if the barrage of rate cuts, fiscal stimulus and quantitative easing works, the green shoots of recovery will still be very slow in coming - and the very best Darling and King can hope for is a shorter, shallower recession than there would otherwise have been. For voters at the general election, which must be held by May 2010, that may feel much far too late. Interest rates Bank of England guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (15 h ago)

• Debt and dole: the harsh new world await... Debt and dole: the harsh new world awaiting Generation Zzz in 2009
01/03/2009
For anyone in their 20s or early 30s, the R-word - "recession" - until recently probably conjured up old images of Margaret Thatcher, rusting factory gates or rubbish piling up on the streets. Few wondered what would happen if they were forced out of work, or the price of their home slid. But in 2009, members of this "Generation Zzz" will be forced to confront a harsh new world in which loans are costly and scarce, and jobs much harder to come by. Young entrepreneurs and employees have grown up in an era of enormous financial freedom. While their parents may have had to save up a large deposit and carefully cultivate their local bank manager in the hope of being deemed worthy of a mortgage, more recent homebuyers have been able to walk in off the street and secure a six-figure loan in minutes, or even apply online. In the 1980s, as economic orthodoxy shifted, the Thatcher government gave up trying to control the amount of credit in the economy, relying instead on interest rates alone, to prevent unsustainable bubbles developing. So Generation Zzz was weaned on credit; any graduate in the past decade is likely to have started out already saddled with debts. For those who graduated in 2007, for example, the average debt was more than £12,000. David Malcolm, a spokesman for the National Union of Students, says: "People are now more accepting of the fact that debt is a necessary evil if they want to go to university." Many have piled credit card borrowing and overdrafts on top of student loans - and may now find it hard to cope. Although their parents experienced the nasty house price crash of the early 1990s, which drove many into negative equity and repossession, most of Generation Zzz were mere children back then; and in 2009, it is their own jobs and livelihoods at risk. A recent Yorkshire Building Society survey showed that on average, people only had enough savings for 52 days, while one in three - 36% - had less than £500, and could last for just 11 days. Hazel Izzett, who is 26 and works in marketing for a financial services firm, married her husband, Ben, who works in personnel for a US multinational, in 2008, and as the downturn bites, they are trying not to think the unthinkable. "At the moment, we're both thinking that we're probably fine," she says. "Obviously there's that slight worry in your head - what if this happens? - but we haven't really talked it through." They have sensibly both been saving as much as they can, but she admits: "If it does happen, we'll just have to plough through." So far, no friends have been hit by the credit crunch - and she and Ben are carrying on as normal. "You just need to enjoy Christmas, and work to what you were planning to do anyway." It's not just the threat of losing their jobs that may force younger consumers to tighten their belts. Homeowners lucky enough to have clambered onto the housing ladder before it was pulled out of their reach have been able to supplement their salaries in recent years by withdrawing equity from rapidly appreciating properties by increasing mortgages and spending the money on a conservatory or a wedding. However, this ready cash has dried up dramatically as the housing market has swung into reverse. The latest official figures show that homeowners actually paid down £5.7bn of mortgage debt in the third quarter of 2008, compared with the £11bn withdrawn during the same period in 2007. Another financial crutch is also likely to fall away: after many years of rapidly appreciating house prices, young people have often turned to their parents for help. A survey by the insurer Engage Mutual found that more than one in four parents were still supporting children over 25. With property prices now falling sharply - by more than 15% so far, and with many analysts expecting a drop of more than 30% in total - the "bank of mum and dad" may not be as flush as it once was. For many entrepreneurs, too, the downturn will test skills they have never developed. More than 2m new businesses have been set up since 2007 - and many are being run by young bosses with little hands-on experience of steering a firm through hard times. Miles Templeman, director general of the Institute of Directors, says lack of experience can be an asset: "Not having the experience doesn't mean not being able to handle it. I talk to a lot of people in this situation, and they're going into it with a positive attitude. They don't have the baggage." However, he says more IoD members have sought help: "We have seen quite a significant increase in calls to our information helpline." Certainly, many young entrepreneurs have little shortage of confidence. Jason Choy, 33, runs security equipment firm Welcome Gate, which is three years old. He says: 'In the last six months, we have really worked hard to work out where our niche is in the market. My job over the next 24 or 48 months is to get the business as big as it can be, so when companies are opening their chequebooks again, we'll be ready. We can plan to not lose - or we can plan to win: that's the attitude we're taking." He was in Sydney for the Olympics there, and hopes the 2012 games will similarly galvanise London. "I know what it's like when an economy feels good about itself - and that extends to business." His upbeat attitude may be sorely challenged during 2009. Young people have no monopoly on financial trouble. The Bankruptcy Advisory Service has seen a surge in requests for help from older clients, including retirees. "People don't have the pension they expected for their retirement. Younger people at least have more working years left," explains its spokeswoman. Recession Young people guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (15 h ago)

• Smiling through the slump Smiling through the slump
01/03/2009
The slump is bearing down on us, but there is nothing to be depressed about, say many of Britain's budding entrepreneurs. Their attitude reflects the words of US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who famously said in the 1930s: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Mostly, entrepreneurs are optimistic, gregarious, can-do individuals, who believe the recession presents as many opportunities as pitfalls. And they point to their improving profit-and-loss accounts to illustrate that it is quite possible to prosper in a downturn. At the Federation of Small Businesses, chairman John Wright says: "Despite the difficulties, there are still openings for those wanting to go it alone, and for those intending to expand. Opportunities don't suddenly stop." And opportunity knocks for women, especially in a recession, according to several organisations that spearhead campaigns on behalf of female entrepreneurs. Erika Watson, head of Prowess, the confederation of women's business groups, says: "There is evidence that women's business leadership style is an important factor in minimising and balancing risk, and raising profits and innovation. Female entrepreneurs are frequently chided as under-confident and risk-averse and are pushed towards the masculine model of fast growth and high risk. As recession bites, the female model of collaborative leadership and gradual growth could prove more durable." Online business advice centre Everywoman says research it carried out with NatWest suggests that female-run businesses are more likely to predict growth. "And they continue to achieve success, regardless of the challenges ahead." These entrepreneurs to watch come from a variety of backgrounds, but have two things in common: a steely determination to succeed and calmness in the face of risk. Here are just a few of those tipped for great things in 2009. Becky Benfield, Utterly Horses Step forward one of the youngest businesswomen in the UK, recognised for her inspiring achievement at the annual Everywoman awards earlier this year. She left school at 16 to follow a childhood passion of collecting model horses. Now she sells them, in all shapes and sizes, to families, businesses and public bodies. In her home county of Essex, she can often be found on a trade stand at horse shows, where business is often brisk. With a staff of just five people (her mum sits on the board) Benfield, 25, says turnover is heading north and that business has not been this good since she launched in 2001. Models are handmade and retail for a few pounds up to £500. She markets via the internet, a catalogue and from a small shop in Finchingfield, Essex. Piers Linney, Genesis Communications A former banker at Credit Suisse, 37-year-old Linney is a whizz-kid when it comes to technology. He acquired a mobile phone company called Genesis from DSG, formerly Dixons, and it has become one of the mainstays of a business that offers to take care of all the communications needs of small businesses, from email and intranet to mobile and fixed-line telephony. The beauty of Genesis, says Linney, is that it is relatively low cost for customers, who pay according to how often they use the service; maintenance and support is also provided by Genesis, which means users don't have to shell out for expensive in-house IT departments. Linney says: "Small businesses are desperate to keep their costs down. Using us allows them to do just that." Chris Butler, Castle Fine Arts A winner of several awards from the Federation of Small Businesses, Butler's company casts and moulds bronze for artists whose work ends up in public galleries, civic centres and private homes. Based in Oswestry, Butler employs 32 people, but that number is expected to rise in 2009 - as is turnover, which was £1.5m in the last 12 months. "Since going to art college in Cardiff in the 1980s, I have always wanted to strike out on my own, and I am doing something I thoroughly enjoy,' says 45-year-old Butler. "We are building up customers and see no impact on the business from the credit crunch. The important thing is to avoid adopting a 'survival mentality' and try and stay positive and upbeat." Karen Mattison, Women Like Us Collecting her son from school one day, 45-year-old Mattison got talking to other mums who were champing at the bit to get back to part-time work. Five years later, she has built up a successful recruitment consultancy that markets itself through local primary and secondary schools, allowing her to build up a database of 8,000 names - mostly, but not exclusively, parents. Since the downturn began, business has boomed. In 2008, inquiries from employers are up by 40 per cent. "They want to cut costs, so what better way than to employ someone on a part-time basis?" she says. Although privately funded, the business gets government contracts because, as a social enterprise, ministers are keen to use the company's services to get people, especially women, back into the workplace and bring down unemployment on whatever way it can. Mattison says: "We also provide courses and support for women who have taken a break from work after having children, and who sometimes need their confidence boosting." She expects 2009 to be "a particularly strong year". Mitesh Soma, Chemistdirect.co.uk Soma is taking on high-street chemists such as Boots by offering many of the same products online at less than half the price. "At times like these, people are looking for bargains, so it should come as no surprise that we are doing well," he says. "Orders come via the internet and we have a warehouse in Leicester, so we don't have the massive cost base that the big chains have." Soma reveals that sales are up by a stunning 30 per cent in the last three months alone. He employs 50 people and should double that in 2009. What's selling well? Slimming tablets, pain relievers such as aspirin and, for some reason, hairdryers. Will King, King of Shaves King started his company in his own kitchen in 1993, originally selling just one product - a shaving-preparation oil. It was a product inspired by his own long-running battle with razor burn. This year has seen a huge new step forward. After five years of R&D, the King of Shaves Azor was launched. It claims to be the first British made, engineered and designed razor for more than 100 years. And it brings King of Shaves up against one of the world's true giants - Gillette. The Azor already sells 8,000 handles per week and has established a 5% market share, driving sales to a forecast £35m in 2009. A version for women - the Azure - is also promised for next year. Glen Manchester, Thunderhead The CBI's entrepreneur of the year, Manchester is a software entrepreneur who has rapidly become the largest supplier of derivative trade processing software in the world. And he isn't fazed by the turmoil in the financial markets: so far, his 50 per cent international growth projections for this year are on track. Entrepreneurs Small business Recession guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (15 h ago)

• In America, the Wal-Mart way sweeps comp... In America, the Wal-Mart way sweeps competition aside
01/03/2009
On America's "Black Friday", the day after Thanksgiving and normally the busiest shopping day of the year, New York's Fifth Avenue was unusually quiet. So quiet, in fact, that television news reporters were filming outside Saks department store and predicting the end of the world as we know it. A couple of miles away in Valley Stream, Long Island, however, the crowds waiting to get into Wal-Mart at 5am on the same day were so big and so eager that an employee was trampled to death when the doors were opened. The stampeding herd of shoppers was after one of Wal-Mart's so-called "door-buster" deals - a giant flat-screen TV at a bargain basement price, or an Xbox games console at an equally unbelievable discount. Few imagined that shoppers would take the chain at its word and literally break down the door in an effort to get their hands on consumer durables at prices only Wal-Mart has the wherewithal to offer. The post-Thanksgiving scene in Valley Stream was gruesome indeed. But the sheer number of shoppers looking for bargains at this lower end of the high street compared with the growing absence of shoppers at the more up-market end is a growing trend across the Unites States. "The American consumer is survival mode right now," says Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz and Associates, a retail consultancy and investment banking concern based in New York. "Americans are $14 trillion in debt with no savings. Unemployment is exploding and is expected to continue to rise. I think we will see 10 per cent unemployment by December 2009. If you include the number of people we expect to be forced out of full-time employment into part-time employment next year, that number could rise to 14 per cent. The negative wealth effect is just huge. Add all that up and you have a historically bad environment for retail." But Wal-Mart, with its "pile it high, sell it cheap" ethos, is managing to capitalise on America's economic collapse. It is the largest food retailer in the US and, because of its size and global reach, has the power to offer the cheapest prices in the market. It is also one of the largest retailers of clothes, electronics and toys, and has a hand in hardware, homewares and just about anything else a family might want to buy in any given week. "When people are falling behind on their loans and watching their retirement accounts and investments lose all their value, they are not going to buy anything but the basics. And Wal-Mart is the cheapest place to buy the basics," Davidowitz says. Other discount chains - such as Family Dollar, Dollar Tree, wholesale club BJ's and drugstore chain CVS - are also doing quite well out of America's consumer downturn. "There is virtually no discretionary spending going on right now," Davidowitz adds. "Look at Macy's. Macy's is doing terrible because it relies 100% on discretionary spending. They are not going to go out of business in the next year but they are probably going to have their worst year on record. Same for Sears, same for Kmart. This is all discretionary spending and Americans are just not going to be able to do that for the foreseeable future." But Macy's, Saks, Sears and the rest of those blighted by the consumer downturn still have to shift the goods on their shelves and so are being forced to slash prices by as much as 75% just to keep up with Wal-Mart and the other discount players. "The American consumer has changed," Davidowitz says, "and the retailers are going to have to change too if they want to stay in business." A look at America's Christmas sales figures shows how Wal-Mart is dominating the retail sector. The company, founded in Arkansas in 1962 by the legendary Sam Walton, was the only American retailer to show a rise in same-store sales in December. Wal-Mart was expected by most analysts to show a rise in such sales of about 2.8% for the month. Compare that with the 6-7% drop expected across the rest of the sector and Wal-Mart's position seems insurmountable. The chain is planning a number of openings next year and is even reported to be in talks with Russian retailers and government entities about expanding there. The rest of the American retail sector, meanwhile, is expected to retract significantly next year: the International Council of Shopping Centers, a US retail industry body, believes more than 148,000 store branches will shut down in 2008, the largest number since 2001, when 151,000 closed. With the recession and the abrupt halt in US consumerism it should come as no surprise that those retailers with publicly traded shares had one of the worst years in history. The S&P 500 Retailing Index lost more than 30% this year. Wal-Mart, which is not a member of the index, closed 2008 up 15% at $56.06. So next time you plan a transatlantic bargain binge don't bank on getting everything in Manhattan: jump on the Long Island Rail Road and see if Wal-Mart has the jeans, trainers and jewellery you are looking for. Chances are they will. Just be careful of the crowds. Wal-Mart Retail industry guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (15 h ago)

• New year, new look for UK high street New year, new look for UK high street
01/03/2009
After the orgy of spending and overeating that is Christmas, for many the new year is about losing weight. But this year, recession has put the high street on a crash diet too. In the closing stages of 2008, the shortage of credit set in train a domino effect that sent 10 big retail chains from Woolworths and Zavvi to The Pier and furniture giant MFI toppling into administration. "So far the retail failures we have seen have all been companies with a history of poor profitability," says Robert Clark, director of Retail Knowledge Bank. "Gift chains like Whittards are always vulnerable as in a recession people trade down or don't buy the gift at all. But from now on it will be quite different because administrations will be retailers that have failed in the short term after missing Christmas sales targets." Analysts say this enforced diet will see the high street lose its looks, at least in the short term. Research group Experian predicts that 30,000 stores - 10% of the country's shops - will lie empty by next Christmas, up from 7% now. But the high street had grown fat and something had to give. Over the past two decades 88m sq ft of new stores were opened. Retailers were lulled into a sense of security as every year for the past decade Britons spent more, with retail sales by value growing at an average of 4% a year. The weak dollar, coupled with cheap goods from China made by its low-wage workers, meant price deflation was also a key part of the picture, enabling consumers to buy more from a greater number of retailers. Indeed, retail sales volumes climbed 4.4% between 1998 and 2007 compared with just 0.8% between 1968 and 1977. But that was then. Last year, food price inflation returned with a bang, with sales volumes in the final quarter expected to have been at their lowest level since 1995. Unemployment is now rising at the fastest rate since the recession of the early 1990s- 100,000 people lost their jobs in November alone - and Investec economist Philip Shaw predicts worse to come: "The crisis has hit consumers hard, especially the reduced availability of credit. At the same time the soaring costs of food and energy, plus sterling's weakness, has eaten into consumers' purchasing power." The pinch is even being felt in the supposedly more resilient luxury goods market. Last month Mulberry said sales of its handbags, some of which cost upwards of £500, had fallen sharply since September. Likewise, Chanel is cutting 200 jobs as the feelgood factor that had kept fashion, perfume and cosmetics sales buoyant evaporates. While some shoppers are just being sensible and curtailing expenditure, others are facing harsh financial realities, having entered the downturn already laden with debt. In the first quarter of last year, household debt amounted to an estimated 160 per cent of disposable income while the savings ratio, which measures the proportion of take-home income that households save, had turned negative for the first time in 50 years. Asda chief executive Andy Bond says: "You can already feel the pressure to be more prudent, more humble, when the less fortunate are losing their jobs and their homes." Although the crisis in the retail economy did not become obvious until the end of last year, many retailers, particularly those that rely on people moving house to generate sales, had been surviving on starvation rations for most of the year. It was only in the final months of 2008 that the excess weight - read Woolworths, Zavvi and Adams - fell away at an unhealthy rate as credit conditions tightened further and consumers thought twice about buying. Asda polled 10,000 shoppers and found that shoppers were seeking either small or bumper packs - if the latter delivered a cost saving - buying more frozen food and scouring shelves for the longest sell-by dates. Meanwhile sales of hair dye kits had jumped nearly 30% over the past three months as women bypassed expensive trips to the hairdresser. Demand for ready meals also dropped as cooks went back to basics, while Asda said that sales of its own-brand tonic jumped 46% as drinkers economised on their G&Ts. Indeed since the last recession Britons have become less bashful about picking the cheaper option - and some upmarket retailers are worried. The middle classes are now happy to shop at discount grocery store Aldi and fly Ryanair if the price is right. "Consumers have stopped paying for services they don't need and I expect to see structural change in our sector this year," says Grant Hearn, chief executive of Travelodge, the budget hotel chain. "Mid-market hotel chains are already falling into administration. All hotel rooms look the same when the lights are turned out." The lights are already being turned off - for good - in stores around the country. So far buyers have been found for just 300 of the 800 Woolworths stores. Many insolvency practitioners predict the situation will worsen this year with more administrations resulting in the company being wound up. The result will be jobs lost and shops left empty, providing passers-by with a daily reminder that the country is in recession. Eyebrows have been raised at the rash of "pre-pack" administrations that saw chains such as USC and Officers Club swiftly bought back by their owners, minus some stores and in some cases minus their debts - a situation that has aggrieved unsecured creditors such as landlords, who are left with no way to recoup their debts from the newly formed company. But restructuring experts say even pre-packs could dry up this year as buyers are deterred by the grim outlook. "Pre-packs or other successful sales of businesses are likely to decline as a percentage of total insolvencies because the money to buy businesses back is drying up," says Asher Miller, a partner at insolvency firm David Rubin & Partners. "We are seeing less interest from trade and private equity buyers who have financial problems of their own." Recession promises to draw a brutal dividing line down the high street, with the weak on one side and the strong on the other. Well-capitalised retailers with strong brands are expected to fare better during the tough times ahead as weaker competitors fall by the wayside. Insolvency experts claim to have a long - and growing - list of retailers with financial troubles that they say will soon bubble to the surface. Analysts have voiced concerns about the future of quoted players such as JJB Sports, Jessops and Clinton Cards, which, like collapsed childrenswear group Adams, are one-trick ponies in markets that have either suffered rampant price deflation or have been colonised by the supermarkets. There are also expected to be more flashpoints in the household sector - Focus DIY, for example has struck a deal with its landlords to pay rent monthly rather than quarterly to ease cashflow. The retail reckoning has arrived with spectacularly bad timing, coming after a year of unprecedented expansion in which 12 new shopping centres, including London's new mega-mall Westfield in Shepherd's Bush, which brought the equivalent of another 3km high street to the capital, opened. The glut of new mouths to feed presents a challenge to centre owners. "For shopping centre owners the immediate concern is the prospect of more retail failures," says Martyn Chase, president of the British Council of Shopping Centres. He says there will be a "flight to quality" that will put pressure on some retail centres while a "new order" of UK towns is forged: "All this new floorspace may draw trade to the stronger centres at the expense of the weaker, particularly when spending is falling." "We are going to see a number of other failures and more names go," adds one senior retailer. "There will be an evolution - the strong getting stronger and the weak disappearing. But it won't be quick; the gestation period is longer. Over the last 10 to 20 years we have seen significant changes on the high street." Of the £288bn spent at the shops in 2008, more than half - £163.6bn - is classed by analysts as "indulgence" spending and is therefore vulnerable in a downturn. Analysts are gloomy about the sector's prospects this year and are steeled for a slew of grim trading updates this month as retailers such as Marks & Spencer report Christmas trading. Bond says customers are now obsessed with squeezing the last penny of value from every purchase: "We can already see how changing attitudes are affecting customers' shopping habits. I don't see this as a short-term response to the recession but a fundamental shift. The economic outlook for 2009 is like nothing we've seen in our lifetimes. It could mean Britain going back to the thrift and austerity my parents' generation saw during the war and the early 50s." Shoe shops that couldn't last Oh, for the days when cellulite was your biggest problem ... The credit crunch has clearly overtaken dimpled thighs as the biggest source of worry with the demise of specialist shoe chain Sole Solutions, which sold "cellulite-busting" trainers such as the MBTs worn by celebrities like Jemima Khan. Until the financial crisis of last year, a buoyant economy coupled with loose credit conditions provided a fertile environment for retailers. The UK high street has one of the lowest barriers to entry in Europe and during the boom years it was easy for entrepreneurs to secure finance. Specialists expanded, selling everything from childrenswear to designer clothing - such as Adams and USC respectively - or niche goods such as Whittards' tea and coffee paraphernalia. And while shoppers eulogise independents, high street sales have drifted to shopping malls and chains such as John Lewis, Next and Primark. Sole Solutions was not the only shoe shop to go under in 2008: larger rivals Stead & Simpson and Dolcis also failed. "When the economy is booming and people feel good they can justify buying £150 trainers," says Asher Miller, partner at insolvency firm David Rubin, which handled the administration of Sole Solutions. "In the current climate it is has become more difficult for stores to survive selling a single product that may only really justify a concession within a bigger store. We have seen a correction in the housing market and are now seeing it in the retail sector." Retail industry High street retailers guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (15 h ago)

• Paul Harris: Frugality is cool in the ca... Paul Harris: Frugality is cool in the cash-strapped US
01/03/2009
When writer Héctor Tobar returned to America last year after seven years living in Latin America, he came back to a profoundly changed land. He had left a United States riding an economic boom. House prices were soaring, suburbs were gobbling up farmland and good times were rolling on Wall Street. Now all that has gone. Tobar, an acclaimed author and essayist, was stunned to find America in the grip of an economic turmoil that was changing his native country before his eyes, plunging it into the worst crisis since the Great Depression. "There is a sense of mourning and confusion and a real feeling of living in the last days of empire," Tobar said. This new America is what Barack Obama has inherited. It is in many ways a broken country. When Obama takes the oath of office on 20 January watched by millions of Americans, his burden will be heavy in the extreme. The scale of the disaster is so large that Obama being America's first black president will almost be a historical footnote. The numbers describe the extent of the catastrophe best. Seven trillion dollars has been wiped off a stock market that has dropped 33%, its biggest fall since 1931. Two million jobs have disappeared, wages are frozen and millions have lost their homes. The Federal Reserve is printing billions of dollars to keep the economy afloat. Banks have been part nationalised and the car industry of Detroit - once the symbol of the all-American lifestyle - is on life support and may not see the end of 2009. These terrible facts are accompanied by a profound cultural shift. The era of individualistic consumption that swept aside the Great Society of the 1960s has come to an end. For three decades, American culture has celebrated the glories of unabashed capitalism and the ideals of the rich. No longer. From Hollywood movies to celebrity culture to television, frugalism is taking hold. Consumers are cutting back. Luxury brands are falling by the wayside. Even the excesses of the sporting world, from the Super Bowl to Nascar, are being curbed. A national belt-tightening is having an impact on everything from restaurants and books to a collapse in the demand for cosmetic surgery. The recession is reshaping the cultural landscape in which ordinary people live their lives. As it prepares to inaugurate a new president, America is also trying to forge a fresh identity in a world unimaginably different from the one inherited by George W Bush only eight years ago. Mike Levine, founder of leading Los Angeles PR firm Levine Communications, believes the cultural change is even hitting the ethereal world of the über-rich celebrities who inhabit La-La land. Gone are the days of bling and Beluga caviar, of quaffing Krug in high-end clubs and driving around Hollywood in a Hummer. "The new year will be marked by a cultural trend I am calling 'Luxury Shame'," he said. "In the extraordinary recessionary times, it seems vulgar to flaunt one's luxurious lifestyle." Paris Hilton - not usually a name associated with economic hard times - has already run foul of the new cultural mood. On a trip to Australia for New Year's Eve, a shopping splurge on luxury items earned her a barrage of negative headlines. On the TV show Entourage, which normally celebrates its male cast's acquisition of brand-name products, the rapper Bow Wow recently bought a Toyota Prius. "I caution even the most successful celebrities to go bling-less," Levine said. Perhaps not coincidentally, several forthcoming Hollywood movies, such as Clive Owen's The International, have as their main villains banks or financiers. In a recent trailer for the film, Owen's character is seen preparing to execute a rogue banker at gunpoint - no doubt a satisfying moment for many multiplex audiences. Many experts see the cultural rejection of luxury and excess as a watershed moment which for many Americans seemed to descend out of a clear blue sky. "This is about a rethinking of the fundamentals that comes about because society is suddenly under a large amount of stress," said Miles Orvell, a professor of American studies at Temple University in Philadelphia. It certainly seems a cultural milestone every bit as significant as the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, which ushered in an era of conservatism, deregulation, free markets and muscular nationalism. The Reagan revolution ended the progressive era of presidents such as Lyndon Johnson and John F Kennedy. It celebrated Wall Street and making money. It was the era of Gordon Gekko and Rambo. The presidency of Bill Clinton did little to change its course, and it continued unabated into the Bush years as hedge funds became the new masters of the universe and America became the world's only superpower. In both high finance and global politics, it seemed that the wealthy and powerful had written their own rulebook. But, culturally at least, that book is being redrawn in the face of the recession and the election of a president whose mantra was based on rejecting conflict and trying to forge a consensus. Cultural historians now see echoes of the 1930s when the Great Depression inspired works that focused on the troubles of ordinary people, such as John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and the non-fiction of James Agee, whose Let Us Now Praise Famous Men examined poverty in the south. Orvell believes the coming recession will see a similar flowering of art and literature, reflecting the changed times. He is predicting a greater focus on community and an end to individualism as the dominant ideal. "Stress brings new ways of thinking. This will have a profound effect on culture from people at the bottom to people at the very top, like Obama," he said. The new president is likely both to lead and to encapsulate these changes. Dealing with the economy is the number one topic in America, greater than Iraq, greater than the "war on terror". Obama's actions there are the yardstick by which he will be judged. But the recession is already reshaping people's lives in ways trivial and profound. Sales of red meat are falling, while cheaper foodstuffs, such as pasta, are going up. Car sales have collapsed by up to 30%, perhaps meaning that the greatest American icon of the 20th century is struggling. Frugal is the new cool, putting an end to hyperconsumption. The orgy of credit card abuse is over. A website called Debt Proof Living launched a daily email tipsheet last summer which now has 100,000 subscribers. Oprah Winfrey forsook her annual holiday list of expensive gift suggestions in favour of more modest "favourite things". Salons and spas are seeing customers desert them as women pamper themselves on the cheap at home. The demand for cosmetic surgery has collapsed with some clinics reporting a fall in patients of 30-40%. What was once seen as a standard luxury for the wealthy elite - inspiring the TV series Nip/Tuck - is now regarded as grotesque excess, alongside owning a polluting big car. "It's the new SUV," declared Victoria Pitts-Taylor, author of Surgery Junkies Tobar sees the changes in America reflected in his own life. While living in Latin America he would return to the US with his young son. "He would always say: why are the cookies so big here? And he was right. Everything was bigger, including the people." That sort of excess, on everything from cookies to cars, is now on the way out. The era of supersizing is over. There has been a cultural humbling that makes consumption and sheer size more unacceptable than at any time in the past three decades. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert has tapped into the zeitgeist better than most. In a recent column that became a huge hit across the blogosphere and a talking point on cable news, he took America to task. "I've got a new year's resolution and a new slogan for the country," he wrote before going on to eviscerate the culture of debt-spending, blind consumption and rampant consumerism which, he said, had created everything from the Iraq war to the housing crisis. Herbert's new slogan was simple enough: "Stop Being Stupid." Hollywood is rightly often seen as the psyche of the American public. So perhaps it is no wonder that the villain of 2008 was Heath Ledger's chilling portrayal of the Joker. Transcending the comic book genre, Ledger created a villain who sowed anarchy and chaotic destruction with little regard to motivation or the consequences for the innocent. For many Americans, who have seen their houses repossessed, their pension funds wiped out and millions of jobs vanish, that is a pretty accurate reflection of what 2008 felt like. And that sort of destruction produces a cultural cost as well as a cultural shift. Across America, theatres from Broadway to Hollywood are closing shows as crowds stay away. Attendances at the cinema are falling, hitting the production of new movies and putting actors and support workers out of jobs. Art galleries are closing, auction houses are laying off workers. The art market is going into a recession as deep as the rest of the economy. The great US sports are all being hit hard in a major blow to national pride. The National Football League has laid off 10% of its staff. Major league baseball has followed suit. Nascar, whose roaring car fans and Nascar dads became a demographic, has a hiring freeze in place. And while luxury may fall out of fashion, it is not as if quality is replacing it. The stores that are booming in these grim times are the huge big-box outlets of Walmart and Target. Anyone expecting the recession to drive Americans back into the arms of quaint family-owned shops on Main Street is likely to get an ugly wake-up call. Low-paying Walmart, stuffed with cheap goods from China and with a famously union-busting management, is booming. So busy were the crowds at one recent sales day at a Long Island Walmart that one employee was crushed to death. Neither will the recession and the collapse of the car industry immediately bring about a greener, more public transport-friendly America. Faced with hard times, Americans are not going out to buy electric cars or hybrid vehicles. They are too expensive. Instead, they are patching up and mending their old gas guzzlers and keeping them on the road longer. America's sense of rugged individualism and distrust of government solutions will remain, for good or for ill. In this sense Obama's new America will be just like the old one. "It is too deeply ingrained, that sense of the individual. It was right there at the founding of the republic," said Tobar. The hard times are also bringing real pain to the most vulnerable. In Los Angeles, calls to suicide hotlines are up 60%. Like the first wave of a pandemic, the crisis is picking off the weak first. It is hitting the young, who cannot find jobs in a marketplace where employers are not hiring and the old are refusing to retire because of their wrecked pensions. It is destroying the lives of ten million or more illegal immigrants, who are the first to lose their jobs in a weakened economy. Americans have even started doing their own gardening, which may be great for them but has put thousands of mainly Mexican landscape crews out of business. Similarly with restaurants. As Americans stay at home more, eateries across the nation are closing down and their mostly immigrant kitchen staffs are being laid off. Money sent back to Mexico by illegal immigrants, which supports many communities there, is down about 7% on last year. The truth is that the rippling impact of the broken America that Obama is inheriting has spread out across the world, just as the influence of Reagan's policies once did. America now is more frugal, less consumerist and more community-minded. But it is also poorer, angry and afraid. Obama's job is to address those fears. America is a country desperately looking for a new president who can provide the answers to its problems. But this will be no easy task. Obama is truly inheriting a different country than his predecessor did. It is too early to say whether it is a better one. Scale of the problem The size of the US economic collapse is huge. Here are some of the main problems Barack Obama will have to face as 44th US president. • Almost $7 trillion has been wiped off the stock market as Wall Street posted its worst performance since 1931. Millions of retirement plans and pensions were devastated. • Some reports predict as many as eight million home repossessions in the next four years. • Obama aides are working on a fiscal stimulus plan worth $850bn over the next two years, much of it for infrastructure projects, in effect a second New Deal. • More than 1.9 million Americans lost their jobs in 2008 up to November, and the year may end up at 2.3 million, the worst total since 1945. • Consumer spending has dropped at the worst rate since 1980. • House prices have declined at the fastest rate since the 1930s. The economy has been shrinking for 12 months with no end in sight, making it the largest downturn for a generation. US economy Obama White House Barack Obama United States US economic growth and recession guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (15 h ago)

• Health fears grow as fake drugs flood in... Health fears grow as fake drugs flood into Britain
01/03/2009
They were made in China, labelled in French and then shipped to Singapore. They ended up in Liverpool and from there were sold straight into the heart of the NHS. As the criminal investigation continues into how a fake consignment of Zyprexa, an anti-psychotic treatment prescribed for schizophrenia, infiltrated Britain's healthcare system last year, evidence is mounting that sophisticated counterfeiting syndicates are increasingly targeting Britain's network of high-street chemists, hospitals and GP surgeries. Figures collated for the first time reveal that British border officials seized more than half a million counterfeit pills destined for the NHS and high-street chemists last year, an amount equal to the quantity of counterfeit drugs found in the whole of Europe in 2005. So vast is the scale of the threat from fake medicines that public confidence in the NHS could be "completely undermined", according to legal experts. Health officials also warn that the health of millions of Britons is potentially at risk. More than £3m of fake life-saving medicines for ailments such as heart disease and cancer were intercepted by customs officials and the Home Office border agency in the first 10 months of 2008. Three consignments were each larger than 100,000 pills. In response, customs has upgraded tackling the trade in fake medicines to "high priority", the same urgency devoted to targeting heroin and cocaine dealers. Interpol recently revealed it was investigating reports that profits from counterfeit drugs are funding terrorist groups, including al-Qaida. Others warn that smuggling counterfeit drugs into Britain's healthcare network could prove to be a terrorist weapon in itself. Latest government intelligence indicates that criminal gangs operating largely out of China have shifted away from selling fake "lifestyle" drugs such as Viagra on the internet and are now concentrating on supplying counterfeit "life-saving" medicines to the NHS. Profits are potentially greater, with the high price of medicines in the UK ensuring that it has emerged as a prime target for criminals, according to the government agency that oversees the safety of medicines, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency. Mick Deats, a former Scotland Yard detective chief superintendent who heads the agency's intelligence and enforcement unit, said: "Criminals are branching out and we are seeing counterfeit drugs that treat prostate cancer, for example, moving into the healthcare system." Covert monitoring of email traffic, "computer forensics" and telephone calls pinpoint China as the principal hub for the manufacture of Britain's counterfeit medicines. The Observer has learned that Chinese police authorities recently travelled to London to discuss the growing problem. Deats said all available evidence confirmed a sharp growth in the trade of counterfeit drugs. Major recalls of fake medicines have been ordered by the agency on 14 occasions in the last three years, compared with just one in the previous decade. In addition, four criminal investigations are proceeding into fake treatments found within the official healthcare supply chain. Among them are the consignment of Zyprexa, 40,000 doses of Casodex, a hormone treatment for men with advanced prostate cancer, and Plavix, a blood thinner. Yet the British authorities admit it is impossible to calculate the quantity of fake medicines entering the UK or their potential health impact. Graham Satchwell, the former head of Scotland Yard's organised crime group, who has spent years investigating the counterfeit drugs trade, believes significant numbers of Britons may already have died as a result of fake medicines. Although no deaths from counterfeit drugs have been recorded, Satchwell said the very nature of fake medicines meant patients may have died without counterfeit drugs being blamed. "They may have less of the active ingredient, meaning people could die because they are not receiving their life-saving treatment. Even now, though, healthcare professionals never assume it is the drug. No one asks whether deaths are attributable to fake medicines," said Satchwell. However, forensic examinations of fake treatments have revealed toxic impurities such as anti-freeze and tiny amounts of the active ingredient, if there are any at all. The size of the problem facing the NHS is now so great that Interpol's secretary-general, Ronald Noble, opened an anti-counterfeiting conference in Africa recently by admitting to being "shocked" at discovering that fake drugs were more deadly than terrorism. Forty years of terrorism, he said, had killed 65,000 people, compared with 200,000 in one year alone in China from counterfeit medicines. At what is described as the largest trade fair in the world, thousands of foreign buyers flock to southern China twice a year to order the country's latest exports. Now Canton Fair, Guangzhou, has come to the attention of the British police, following claims that criminal gangs are placing huge orders for counterfeit drugs destined for the UK. Thousands of firms are currently engaged in China's new growth business. Experts admit they cannot always spot fake drugs in packaging made using state-of-the-art printing and blisterfoil machines. Recently the manufacturers of an anti-malarial drug added a hologram to its blisterfoil to beat the fakers. Within a month, criminals had successfully replicated their efforts. From China, the fake medicines head west, typically passing through the transit point of Dubai, then the porous borders of Europe. Here the route becomes increasingly opaque. Intelligence reports from the medicines agency show that a single consignment of drugs can change hands up to 30 times before it reaches a British high-street chemist. With frequent repackaging taking place, detection of fake goods is notoriously difficult, with police admitting that odds are weighted in the criminals' favour. Research last month confirmed that just 0.1% of goods entering the UK are physically inspected by customs officers, suggesting the 500,000 intercepted in 2008 is likely to be a fraction of the true picture. The National Audit Office believes that the UK is one of the easiest places in the EU to smuggle counterfeit goods, due to a lack of checks. Once within the UK, drugs are distributed via Britain's network of pharmaceutical wholesalers. Satchwell said that cash-conscious NHS trusts were encouraged to buy drugs as cheaply as possible. Satchwell, a former director of security at GlaxoSmithKline, added: "There are hundreds of dealers, and they are selling drugs as legitimate and genuine materials. Once it has been sold to the dealer, it can go anywhere in the NHS." Even double-checking batch numbers is no defence, with medicines agency investigations revealing that details of legitimate batch numbers have been copied in China's counterfeiting factories. Deats said NHS trusts should avoid deals that looked too good to be true. "The message is that if you are offered medicines from an unusual source at an unusual price from an unusual country, chances are there is something wrong with them," he said. British investigators have found Casodex, whose wholesale price is £128 for a pack of 28 pills, being offered by Chinese gangs for less than £5. John Newton, intellectual property rights manager for Interpol, said: "Criminals use existing supply chains. It's very hard to detect." Interpol's latest profiling describes the modern organised criminal as "like a commodities broker" rather than the stereotyped shadowy underworld figure. A shipment that successfully penetrates the UK supply chain can lead to profits in excess of £1m. "They can make four times the money and only risk a fine. Penalties don't reflect the nature of a crime that can kill people," said Gary Noon, chief executive of Aegate, a British firm that has introduced a bar code to determine whether a pharmaceutical is authentic. Of the fake batches known to have infiltrated Britain's healthcare system, some include the cholesterol-reducing treatment Lipitor. Three years ago 2,523 packs of fake Lipitor were sold in Britain. Details obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that only 359 of those packs were ever recovered. The nightmare scenario is that a batch containing lethal substances will one day penetrate the NHS. Last year EU customs officers intercepted counterfeit drugs containing brick dust with yellow paint and furniture polish. In the developing world, mass casualties are already frequent. More than 13,000 children in China were treated following release of a tainted batch of infant milk formula, while scores of youngsters died in Haiti after swallowing paracetamol cough syrup containing toxic diethylene glycol. Yet quantifying the threat to Britain remains impossible, according to the medicines agency. The World Health Organisation estimates that up to 1% of prescriptions in the developed world a year are fake, equating to around 8m in Britain. Deats believes the true UK figure is significant - in the millions - but potentially smaller. Yet the growth in trade is increasingly a concern. Hundreds of counterfeit factories have been shut down in China, yet the output of fake drugs has grown. Noble recently cited research that global counterfeit drugs sales will rise to more than $75bn by 2010, a 90% increase in five years. The United Nations drug control board believes trafficking and abuse of prescription drugs has overtaken the use of all illegal narcotics except cannabis. In the short term, the European commission is considering introducing new rules, such as banning the repackaging of medicines and the mandatory use of special seals to stop counterfeiters. In addition, companies such as Aegate have opened discussions with the NHS over the implementation of their bar codes to determine whether a drug is genuine, following successful trials in Europe. But as long as criminals can harvest enormous profits, British patients will remain vulnerable. "The counterfeiters target the weakest members of our societies - the young, the sick, the economically disadvantaged, and it is our obligation to take action," said Noble. Pharmaceuticals industry Drugs Health NHS China guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (15 h ago)

• Blood on catwalk as cutbacks hit the fas... Blood on catwalk as cutbacks hit the fashion industry
01/03/2009
For the fashion industry, it was a Lehman Brothers moment. Chanel's decision to shed 200 staff last week was the first serious tremor from the global financial crisis to hit the luxury goods industry. The company had been seen as one of the most successful brands in this sector. Now the job losses, thought to represent nearly 10% of Chanel's workforce, have raised fears for the industry worldwide. The news comes a week after Chanel announced it was shelving a touring art exhibition designed by the architect Zaha Hadid that was due in London this year. The exhibition, the Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion, attracted controversy in New York where Chanel was reported to have paid $400,000 plus an undisclosed charitable donation to pitch the structure in Central Park. "Considering the current economic crisis, we decided it was best to stop the project," a Chanel spokesperson said. "We will be concentrating on strategic growth investments." Creative director Karl Lagerfeld remains bullish. Chanel is a privately run company that does not disclose financial figures but is not seen as being in danger. "I see it like a horrible but healthy thing," Lagerfeld said. "It was too rotten anyway so it had to be cleaned up. It may be a difficult moment for a lot of people, but in the end it was needed, because it was really going too far." Chanel is one of the most profitable and extravagant of the luxury houses, founded on the rigid principles of Coco Chanel, who pioneered its famous tweed jackets, quilted bags and profitable fragrances, including Chanel No 5. Its fashion shows had previously been seen as bold displays of power. For spring/summer 2009, Chanel re-created the entire front of its famous Rue Cambon store in Paris for a 15-minute show - the same store from which 16 members of staff are said to have been laid off. Chanel had benefited from the boom by quietly increasing the price of its bags in recent years with apparently no adverse effect on sales. Lagerfeld believes this gives the brand a cushion against any impending financial difficulties. "The business in the past three years increased so much every year," he said, "that if they [the bags] are suddenly 25% less, that is exactly the point we were three years ago - we weren't poor then." The fashion industry has been in pessimistic mood since major designers began discounting heavily before the traditional Christmas sales, a sign that the economic crisis was affecting consumer confidence. In November, New York designer Marc Jacobs had marked down his autumn/winter range by 40%, and by December he had cancelled his Christmas party, previously an event of notorious extravagance with staff flown to New York from all around the world. Last year Jacobs famously arrived at his Arabian Nights-themed party dressed in a giant camel's toe. The outfit he would have worn for his 2008 party, themed Rock and Roll Circus, has not been revealed. Jacobs's discounting was soon copied by most high-end stores in Manhattan, while in London Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and Liberty all discounted heavily before their usual sales, with online vouchers and reductions for store-card holders of up to 50%. Louis Vuitton, another bastion of the luxury goods industry, has shelved plans for a new store in Tokyo, one of its key markets. Donna Karan cancelled plans to shoot a spring advertising campaign, opting for catwalk pictures instead. Shares in LVMH, parent company of Louis Vuitton and Donna Karan as well as Christian Dior and Givenchy, have fallen by nearly 50%, from €82.10 (£78.54) at the beginning of last year to €48.21 on Friday. The industry now fears the knock-on effect of poor sales figures as it enters one of the most crucial periods of the year, with two months of fashion shows that are vastly expensive for the brands that stage the collections, the stores and journalists who travel to them. Many brands have announced cutbacks, with Marni, Fendi and Valentino all opting out of the next menswear shows, and US department stores such as Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus admitting they would be skipping the Paris couture shows. Vera Wang has already announced that her show at the New York womenswear collections in February would be scaled down, while British brand Temperley will opt for a presentation in Manhattan. Other cuts are expected to follow. "No one knows how bad it's going to get," said Katie Grand, seen as the most influential British stylist, who next month launches a new magazine called Love for Condé Nast. "It's a very good excuse to step back and think, do we really need a men's show, do we really need to spend a million euros on a fashion show, is that the way to represent yourself at the moment or could that money be better spent?" Grand, who helped launch the careers of models such as Agyness Deyn and designers such as Giles Deacon, and is a consultant for Louis Vuitton and Loewe, said fashion didn't face as big a challenge as other ailing sectors. "It's not the same as the disaster in the music industry, where there's been a complete change in technology. There is that thing with fashion where women can excuse spending vast amounts of money on handbags because they can convince themselves that it's an investment." Grand cites brands such as Hermès, which posted sales rises of 14.2% in the first three quarters of 2008. "If you have a Hermès handbag, if times get tough you can always sell them," she says. "That's how people justify it to themselves." Troubles in the luxury goods industry are causing concern for London's designers, who rely on creative influence rather than financial clout. "Designers have to hold their nerve and carry on doing what they're doing," says Lulu Kennedy of Fashion East, whose biannual shows at London Fashion Week launched now globally recognised designers such as Henry Holland, Christopher Kane, Marios Schwab and Richard Nicholl. "If they have a style they should just stay true to it. People will buy it if they still love it." Kennedy has already noticed cut-backs at some brands. "From talking to the designers they're having to look at their pricing and manufacturing," she says. "They can't carry on regardless. In practical terms they are having to cut back on luxurious fabrics, bargain harder with their suppliers and slightly mix it up with other cheaper stuff." Brands are also altering their patterns to reduce the price tag. "I was round at a designers and they were taking some details out of a sample they were about to send to production," Kennedy says. "They took out some pleats, didn't use double French seams and changed the fabric. There was definitely some scaling back." Some designers, however, are pushing ahead with plans for expansion, like London-based designer Gareth Pugh, favoured by Beyoncé and Kylie Minogue, who is staging his first menswear show in Paris later this month. Giorgio Armani is pushing ahead with plans to launch a new flagship store on Fifth Avenue during New York fashion week, which he called "an act of faith toward the Americans and Fifth Avenue shoppers". And Louis Vuitton hopes to reap the benefits of the alleged $10m fee it paid Madonna to star in its new advertising campaign. It certainly needs to: the shoes featured in the images are said to cost around €5,000 (£4,800). The hope within the fashion industry is that, no matter how difficult the next few months, those with genuine talent will be able to remain in business. "It is an oversaturated market," said Kennedy. "Hopefully good, stylish, pioneering designers will find a way to survive. But it is tough out there, it really, really is." Fashion Recession Retail industry guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (15 h ago)

• Gordon Brown ... on the economy Gordon Brown ... on the economy
01/03/2009
Do you have no regrets, no feeling that there is anything you could have done in the last 10 years that would have better positioned us for this storm? "The truth is that not even the heads of some of the major financial institutions knew what was actually happening and what the risks they were taking were. And I am certainly angry at the way some of our financial institutions and some of the world's financial institutions have been run. Even with the new system of regulation that we put in, the Financial Services Authority, it was not possible for them to understand and see what was actually happening in this shadow banking system." The US allows people to be prosecuted for financial misdoings. Could you foresee a situation where these kinds of penalties can be levied from people in financial institutions here? "If people have broken the law they have got to be punished. Where people have made mistakes, our conditions [on] recapitalisation of banks focused on dividends and on executive remuneration. We are in favour of free markets but not value-free markets." Are you happy with the way banks are lending at the moment? "There's a lot more that has got to be done and we are talking with the banks about what has happened since the recapitalisation. We have got to assemble information about what has actually happened to lending and then deal with the essential problems of the banks doing the job they are supposed to do. "The banks have to resume lending. Their job in any economy is that people need to feel their savings are secure, and they need to know that the banks will respond to reasonable projects for investment and for home purchases." What criteria do you use to judge whether government intervention in a failing business is necessary? "The issue for us is going to be how we can keep credit flowing for businesses that are potentially successful. It will be very difficult ... but we have got to look at what their potential is for the future." Gordon Brown Economic policy guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (15 h ago)

• Public wants taxes that hurt the rich Public wants taxes that hurt the rich
01/03/2009
Two-thirds of Britons want the rich to face punitive tax rates not seen since the 1980s, according to a new poll which suggests that the recession has hardened attitudes towards the wealthy. Bankers are now seen second only to footballers as being overpaid, while seven in 10 think that ordinary workers should sit on remuneration committees setting executives' pay to ensure that high salaries are deserved. The findings - in a poll for the think tank the Fabian Society, to be published this week - suggests that the credit crunch has provoked a backlash against the rich, with the public seeking retribution for alleged mistakes made by City figures. The findings will encourage Labour MPs who want Gordon Brown to go further in next spring's budget and rebalance the tax system in favour of more modest earners. His gamble in pledging to introduce a top rate tax of 45 per cent for those earning more than £145,000 is backed by three-quarters of those polled, while 69 per cent would support Labour introducing a higher top rate of 50 per cent for those earning more than £250,000. Tax has not been that high in the UK since 1988, when Margaret Thatcher brought the top rate down from 60 per cent. Neil Kinnock's threat to introduce a 50p tax rate in the 1992 election is widely held in New Labour circles to have cost him Middle England's support. However, the Fabian report found new demand for forcing the wealthy to contribute more, with 70 per cent of those polled by YouGov agreeing that "those at the top are failing to pay their fair share towards investment in public services". Louise Bamfield, senior research fellow at the Fabian Society, said the public had previously considered footballers and business "fat cats" overpaid but had largely accepted it as a fact of life. That had now changed. "There is a shift to a new group of people - bankers and traders - and the sense that not only have they been paid too much but what they have been paid has had a direct negative consequence on other people," she said. "People had assumed that this group were more than competent and it must have been deserved. There is now a feeling that these people have been responsible for others losing their jobs." However, she said the anti-rich backlash had not greatly benefited those at the bottom. Focus groups conducted alongside the poll found that while there was sympathy for those losing their jobs, people still expected them to find work as quickly, despite the recession. Those polled significantly underestimated the cost to the Exchequer of tax avoidance by the wealthy and over-estimated the cost of benefit fraud. They blamed the government for failing to stop tax dodges rather than individuals, but saw benefit fraud as the fault of the individual. The findings may explain why Labour's poll ratings have increased; 55 per cent of the public blame reckless lending by the banks for the credit crunch, while fewer than a quarter think the government was mainly responsible. Labour's private polling suggests that two-thirds of Britons blame America for starting the credit crunch - the argument that Brown uses, to the frustration of Conservative MPs who argue that he left the economy overexposed. Bamfield said the poll suggested Brown had pitched his tax rise correctly. More than half of respondents wanted not only to see bonuses reduced, but for executives of failed companies to repay past bonuses as penance for mistakes. Tax and spending Credit crunch Tax Executive salaries Gordon Brown Labour guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (15 h ago)

• Gordon Brown unveils plan to create 100,... Gordon Brown unveils plan to create 100,000 jobs
01/03/2009
Gordon Brown today unveils ambitious plans for a 1930s American-style programme of public works to ease the pain of recession by creating up to 100,000 jobs. School repairs, new rail links, hospital projects and plans to usher in a new digital age by investing in superfast broadband will be used to keep unemployment down. The plans will also be used to tackle climate change, by means of investments in eco-friendly projects such as electric cars and wind and wave power that would also create jobs. Speaking exclusively to the Observer, the prime minister also pledged action within weeks to kickstart bank lending in an attempt to save existing jobs. Brown is studying a scheme pioneered by Nissan to avoid redundancies in manufacturing, which would see ailing firms given government funding to move staff on to part-time working and use the remaining time for training. His promise to use public money not only to create short-term jobs, but also to build a low-carbon economy for the future, will be seen as a modern reworking of Roosevelt's New Deal - a massive programme of public works, such as dams and roads, to help America recover from the Great Depression. Brown even claimed his green plans would be bigger than Barack Obama's planned multi-billion-dollar "Green New Deal", relative to the size of Britain's economy. In a wide-ranging new year interview at his family home in Scotland, the prime minister also: • ruled out an early second recapitalisation of the banks; • signalled opposition to deploying more British troops in Afghanistan; • proclaimed a "historic opportunity" for an international deal on climate change. He also revealed his own new year's resolution - to take up running. However, his biggest priority will be to create and save jobs, amid predictions that by 2010 one in 10 Britons will be unemployed. Retailers are expected to respond to a disappointing December by shedding staff this year. "I want to show how we will be able, through public investments and public works, to create probably 100,000 additional jobs over the next period of time in our capital investment programme - schools, hospitals, environmental work and infrastructure, transport," Brown said. "We are not going to stand by and allow nothing to be done when people are facing difficulties." The programme will be funded by new money drawn partly from reserves. One priority will be jobs in digital industries, while 30,000 jobs will be in school repairs in an effort to help private construction firms ravaged by the downturn. Brown suggested infrastructure such as high-speed broadband could be the modern equivalent of FDR's programme: "When we talk about the roads and the bridges and the railways that were built in previous times - and those were anti-recession measures taken to help people through difficult times - you could [by comparison] talk about the digital infrastructure and that form of communications revolution at a period when we want to stimulate the economy. It's a very important thing." He is also studying 10 specific projects on alternative energy sources. He denied that the recession would see green issues shelved, adding: "Rather than pushing the environment into a lower order of priority, the environment is part of the solution." Brown, who will hold a jobs summit next Monday, promised new measures to help firms with good long-term prospects to obtain credit: "Clearly we have banks that were willing to take large numbers of risks a year or two ago and people are now averse to risk, so we have got to create the conditions in which it's possible for banks to resume lending." The government will also shortly unveil a payment holiday scheme for people struggling with their mortgages after redundancy. Brown insisted that they wanted to help "everybody who is genuinely trying to pay their mortgage back", but admitted that lenders would ultimately decide eligibility. Other key priorities for 2009 include an international agreement to reduce carbon emissions. Brown said Obama's election would help, but that getting India and China on board was critical. However, if Obama asks for more British troops for a surge in Afghanistan he may be disappointed, with the prime minister insisting that the priorities were to strengthen Afghan governance and involve Pakistan in fighting terrorism. "The first question everybody starts by is saying 'What about the numbers?', but actually the first question is purpose and objectives and how we can achieve them," he said. "We have increased our numbers in the past few weeks; we are the second-largest force in Afghanistan; we are making a very big contribution." Brown also dismissed Tory warnings of growing resentment of public sector workers' gold-plated pensions, insisting there had been "significant savings", and refused to comment on whether it was appropriate for council chief executives to earn £200,000-plus a year. But he added: "Obviously everybody has got to make their share of the contribution." Gordon Brown Economics Labour Unemployment and employment data Economic policy Credit crunch United States guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (15 h ago)

• Contradictions in China, and the Rise of... Contradictions in China, and the Rise of a Billionaire Family
01/04/2009
The story of Liu Yongxing — a former factory worker who is now listed by Forbes as the wealthiest person in China — is a peek into the changes facing China. (7 h ago)

• Gas Dispute Has Effects Past Russia and ... Gas Dispute Has Effects Past Russia and Ukraine
01/03/2009
Poland, Romania and Bulgaria reported dwindling flows of natural gas after Russia halted shipments to Ukraine. (8 h ago)

• The Irish Economy’s Rise Was Steep, and ... The Irish Economy’s Rise Was Steep, and the Fall Was Fast
01/03/2009
The Irish developer Sean Dunne, who became a symbol of the country’s boom, faces a foundering economy. (10 h ago)

• Austria Picks Overseer for Bank in Madof... Austria Picks Overseer for Bank in Madoff Case
01/03/2009
The management of Bank Medici, which has emerged as one of the largest victims of the Madoff scandal, resigned, leaving day-to-day operations in the hands of an overseer. (1 d ago)

• Manufacturing Reports Show Depth of Glob... Manufacturing Reports Show Depth of Global Downturn
01/02/2009
New reports from the world’s leading economies showed manufacturing continuing to slump amid the worst slowdown since the Great Depression. (1 d ago)

• Worldwide, a Bad Year Only Got Worse Worldwide, a Bad Year Only Got Worse
01/02/2009
After a catastrophic year for global markets, analysts are cautioning investors not to expect the big rebound that usually follows a sharp downturn. (1 d ago)

• Chinese Court Convicts 11 in Microsoft P... Chinese Court Convicts 11 in Microsoft Piracy Case
01/02/2009
Eleven people were convicted of roles in a counterfeiting ring that distributed pirated software around the world. (1 d ago)

• Madoff Investor’s Suicide Leaves Questio... Madoff Investor’s Suicide Leaves Questions
01/02/2009
Relatives said Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet — who committed suicide in the wake of the Madoff scandal — felt personally responsible losing his clients’ money. (1 d ago)

• Russia Cuts Off Gas Deliveries to Ukrain... Russia Cuts Off Gas Deliveries to Ukraine
01/01/2009
The Russian energy giant Gazprom shut natural gas deliveries in a move that could spell shortages for Europe. (2 d ago)

• World Business Briefing | Australia/new ... World Business Briefing | Australia/new Zealand: Australia: Stimulus Program Begins
01/01/2009
Australia is beginning a spending program of 17 billion Australian dollars ($11.8 billion) to stimulate the economy amid the global financial crisis. (2 d ago)

• World Business Briefing | Asia: India: E... World Business Briefing | Asia: India: Exports Fall for a Second Month
01/01/2009
India’s exports fell for a second consecutive month, adding pressure on the central bank to cut interest rates. (2 d ago)

• World Business Briefing | Europe: Hungar... World Business Briefing | Europe: Hungary: Quarterly Trade Deficit Grows
01/01/2009
Hungary’s current-account deficit widened more than expected in the third quarter as imports increased faster than exports and investors took money out of the country. (2 d ago)

• World Business Briefing | Europe: Switze... World Business Briefing | Europe: Switzerland: Credit Suisse to Sell Stake
01/01/2009
The Swiss bank agreed to sell a stake in its global investors business to Aberdeen Asset Management for 250 million British pounds ($361 million) in stock after losses at the unit. (2 d ago)

• Citing Obama’s Win, European Ad Chief Is... Citing Obama’s Win, European Ad Chief Is Hopeful
01/01/2009
Maurice Lévy, chief executive of the Publicis Groupe, is facing a difficult economic environment with acquisitions in digital media and developing countries. (2 d ago)

• Economy Blunts Korea’s Appetite for Plas... Economy Blunts Korea’s Appetite for Plastic Surgery
01/01/2009
An indicator of the economic doldrums in South Korea: Seoul’s obsession with plastic surgery is waning, and once-crowded clinics are closing. (2 d ago)

• RE-FINANCE YOUR HOMES RIGHT NOW RE-FINANCE YOUR HOMES RIGHT NOW
01/04/2009
Dear John: I'm a longtime reader and you don't get enough credit for your humor. I just visited my bank to see if I could re-finance my mortgage and what the rate would be. I found out it is now 5 percent on a 30-year loan. I am currently paying... (6 h ago)

• HITTING HOME HITTING HOME
01/04/2009
IT'S estimated that about 4,000 families lost money investing with Bernie Madoff - either directly through his company, or indirectly, through so-called feeder funds. But tens of thousands of other New Yorkers may also unwittingly be hurt by... (6 h ago)

• THE WEEK'S WINNERS AND LOSERS THE WEEK'S WINNERS AND LOSERS
01/04/2009
WINNERS CRAIG KALLMAN Atlantic Records chief sees his label become the top-seller in the US for last year. J.C. FLOWERS Part of an investor group tapped by the FDIC in a $13.9B takeover of IndyMac bank, which was taken over by Uncle Sam. PEYTON... (7 h ago)

• A PEEK AT THIS YEAR'S HOTTEST NEW 'TOYS' A PEEK AT THIS YEAR'S HOTTEST NEW 'TOYS'
01/04/2009
They're ba-a-ack. After slogging through a tough 2008 - with sales barely up over the previous year - the world's leading electronics manufacturers will convene in Las Vegas this week to debut the latest TVs, computers, smartphones, video games and... (7 h ago)

• 401(K)MART 401(K)MART
01/03/2009
Sears Holdings, which has reported a drop in sales every quarter since chairman Eddie Lampert merged Kmart and Sears in 2005, will stop matching contributions to its workers' retirement plans, the company reported. The move will go into effect... (9 h ago)

• UNDER PRESSURE UNDER PRESSURE
01/03/2009
Pressure continues to mount this weekend for Upper East Side investor Erza Merkin to step down as chairman of GMAC, the troubled auto- and mortgage-lender which received a $6 billion government rescue package. The pressure comes as Uncle Sam... (10 h ago)

• MADOFF VICTIMS' RE$CUE? MADOFF VICTIMS' RE$CUE?
01/03/2009
Angry victims of Bernie Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme want a bailout from Uncle Sam, too. On the heels of Washington's $700 billion rescue of the nation's ailing banks and the $17.4 billion rescue of the auto industry, the Madoff... (10 h ago)

• GREENBRIER COULD RESORT TO A SALE GREENBRIER COULD RESORT TO A SALE
01/02/2009
CSX Corp., the third-largest US railroad, said it's reviewing options for its Greenbrier resort because of a $35 million loss for the facility last year and declining demand for such services. Goldman, Sachs & Co. was hired as a financial adviser... (1 d ago)

• GREEN GETS MEAN: SUES LEHMAN OVER DEAL GREEN GETS MEAN: SUES LEHMAN OVER DEAL
01/02/2009
Manhattan's largest commercial landlord is suing Lehman Brothers, accusing the bankrupt investment bank of refusing to pony up almost $26 million as part of a loan agreement struck in 2007. In a suit filed late last month in Manhattan federal... (1 d ago)

• '09 FASHION VICTIM '09 FASHION VICTIM
01/02/2009
So much for Kira Plastinina's US invasion. The 16-year-old Russian fashion designer - who opened a dozen stores in the US last year in an $80 million expansion bankrolled by her oligarch father - is set to liquidate all of them and retreat from... (1 d ago)

• Fundamentally: 25 Years of Conventional ... Fundamentally: 25 Years of Conventional Wisdom, Down the Drain
01/03/2009
In this harsh climate on Wall Street, investors may need to rethink some of their basic assumptions about certain asset classes and diversification. (9 h ago)

• Shortcuts: Coping Skills and Horrible Im... Shortcuts: Coping Skills and Horrible Imaginings
01/03/2009
Researchers have found that uncertainty about things such as job security can sometimes take a greater toll than bad news. (1 d ago)

• Credit Card Companies Willing to Deal Ov... Credit Card Companies Willing to Deal Over Debt
01/02/2009
Credit card companies are rushing to settle even if that means forgiving a portion of some borrowers’ debts. (1 d ago)

• Market Values: Looking Ahead for Good In... Market Values: Looking Ahead for Good Investment Opportunities
01/02/2009
The United States may not need the rest of the world to get a recovery started and keep it going. (1 d ago)

• The Debt Trap: Colleges Profit as Banks ... The Debt Trap: Colleges Profit as Banks Market Credit Cards to Students
01/02/2009
As concern about student debt rises, promotional relationships between schools and banks have sounded alarm bells. (1 d ago)

• Wealth Matters: Estate Planning Is More ... Wealth Matters: Estate Planning Is More Than Avoiding Taxes
01/02/2009
J.P. Morgan Private Bank has devised a program to detect liquidity deficits, the naming of wrong heirs and other common oversights in estate planning. (2 d ago)

• Phone Smart: With a Little Help, You Can... Phone Smart: With a Little Help, You Can Trade Yourself Free of Your Wireless Contract
01/01/2009
It’s a little-known fact that cellphone carriers will let you swap contracts with another person, no matter whether you have one month or two years remaining on your commitment. (2 d ago)

• Fund-raising, Wikipedia style Fund-raising, Wikipedia style
01/03/2009
Just before Christmas, Wikipedia was begging for cash. On December 23, its founder Jimmy Wales had put out an announcement imploring people to donate money to keep the Wikipedia phenomenon going.The... (1 d ago)

• More bailouts on the way More bailouts on the way
01/03/2009
Citigroup was just the beginning. The US Treasury has announced that it will use more Citi-style rescue packages to help financial institutions in deep trouble.The nation's top number crunchers... (1 d ago)

• Why Steve Jobs' health is an issue Why Steve Jobs' health is an issue
01/02/2009
The Macworld 2009 confab opens on January 5 in San Francisco. Every year, it draws thousands of Macintosh faithful and it's been doing that since 1985. But this year is different. For the first... (1 d ago)

• More handouts: who's next? More handouts: who's next?
01/02/2009
Who the hell do these people think they are? Banks? Car makers?Bailout-mania is gathering momentum. Now the New York Times reports that the steel industry is lining up for its share, mostly in the... (1 d ago)

• Dell's restructure: will it work? Dell's restructure: will it work?
01/01/2009
Dell is in serious trouble. Its shares have fallen nearly 60% over the past 12 months and the company is desperately trying to regain the market share it ceded to Hewlett-Packard.Things have got so... (3 d ago)

• Fair value blow for banks Fair value blow for banks
01/01/2009
The Securities and Exchange Commission has given the banking a much deserved kick in the guts by releasing a 211 page report that fends off the banks' claim that fair value created the financial... (3 d ago)

• Wall Street Rallies In First 2009 Sessio... Wall Street Rallies In First 2009 Session
01/02/2009
Wall Street started the new year with a big rally. Investors brushed aside a disappointing report on manufacturing, sending the Dow up more than 250 points. All the major indexes shot up more than six percent for the week. (1 d ago)

• Feds Sell Off Failed IndyMac For $13.9B Feds Sell Off Failed IndyMac For $13.9B
01/02/2009
Federal regulators say a group of investors has teamed up to buy the remnants of failed lender IndyMac Bank for $13.9 billion. (1 d ago)

• Austria Takes Over Bank Crushed By Madof... Austria Takes Over Bank Crushed By Madoff
01/02/2009
An Austrian bank suffering more than $3 billion in losses from the collapse of Bernard L. Madoff"s investment scheme was taken over by the Austrian government today. (1 d ago)

• 2 Major Bank Buyouts Completed 2 Major Bank Buyouts Completed
01/01/2009
Bank of America Corp. said it has completed its $19.4 billion all-stock purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co., while Wells Fargo & Co. said it has completed its $12.7 billion all-stock purchase of Wachovia Corp. (2 d ago)

• Album Sales Plunge, Digital Downloads Up Album Sales Plunge, Digital Downloads Up
01/01/2009
Music sales have continued to slump in 2008 as the increased number of downloads of digital tracks failed to make up for a plunge in the sale of compact discs. (2 d ago)

• Don't Cry, Dora; Cable Channel Deal Done Don't Cry, Dora; Cable Channel Deal Done
01/01/2009
Millions of Time Warner Cable customers won't lose their access to MTV and 18 other channels after the cable giant reached an agreement early Thursday with media conglomerate Viacom Inc. (3 d ago)

• Life inside a private equity firm Life inside a private equity firm
01/02/2009
Jobs with private equity firms are highly coveted positions in finance. But getting inside their secretive world can be difficult for outsiders. Amy Scott takes us inside with a woman who claims to be a part of it. (1 d ago)

• Reconsidering regulation Reconsidering regulation
01/02/2009
Several factors contributed to the 2008 financial meltdown, but one of the main culprits may have been regulation, or lack thereof. Kai Ryssdal speaks with Steve Henn about the deregulatory trend and the push for more regulation that is expected to come. (1 d ago)

• Weekly Wrap: Good things from crisis? Weekly Wrap: Good things from crisis?
01/02/2009
Kai Ryssdal asks Andy Brooks of T. Rowe Price and Felix Salmon of Portfolio magazine whether there have been some good things from the 2008 financial crisis, and how long it might take to see some benefits from them. (1 d ago)

• Spelling out those financial acronyms Spelling out those financial acronyms
01/02/2009
Ever notice that there are a lot of acronyms involved in finance and business? TARP. FDIC. LIBOR. Well, there's a good reason for them. Kai Ryssdal speaks with author and blogger Leslie Savan about the financial alphabet soup. (1 d ago)

• 'Buy American' could be in stimulus 'Buy American' could be in stimulus
01/02/2009
The slumping U.S. steel industry is likely to be a major beneficiary of Barack Obama's stimulus plan, which focuses on improving infrastructure. Some in the industry even want a "buy American" clause in the bill. Jeremy Hobson reports. (1 d ago)

• GOP vows to stand up to stimulus plan GOP vows to stand up to stimulus plan
01/02/2009
President-elect Barack Obama's stimulus plan could cost nearly $800 billion. Some Republicans worry that money could be wasted on pork barrel projects and say it's time to curb spending. But is their call for fiscal conservatism coming at the right time? Nancy Marshall Genzer reports. (1 d ago)

Business

Technology

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Entertainment

This is abundant, look forward to looking into ea...
John gogs :: 12/28/2009

Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium?...
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Hi, my friends!! I want to get program XRumer 5.0 ...
MagicOPromotion :: 05/03/2009

Where is this money coming from except from the mo...
carl allen :: 04/11/2009

out of control
staystrong :: 02/23/2009

The poor thing! Once so high and mighty and far ab...
leaf :: 02/22/2009

It always amazed me how eagerly people flocked to ...
David :: 12/23/2008

• Consumed: Slow Pitch Consumed: Slow Pitch
01/03/2009
An “anti-energy” drink’s novel image: chic — or shameful? (11 h ago)

• Desperate Retailers Try Frantic Discount... Desperate Retailers Try Frantic Discounts and Giveaways
01/02/2009
An era of desperation marketing is at hand as retailers adopt virtually any tactic that might grab the attention of frightened consumers. (1 d ago)

• ADVERTISING: Going Straight to the Publi... ADVERTISING: Going Straight to the Publisher for Ad Help
01/01/2009
In tough economic times, bypassing the agencies can make good sense. (2 d ago)

• Time Warner and Viacom Reach Agreement o... Time Warner and Viacom Reach Agreement on Cable Shows
01/01/2009
An executive with knowledge of the negotiation said that Time Warner had given in and agreed to pay a higher fee to MTV Networks for its 20 cable networks. (2 d ago)

• Corporate Darwinism: Only strong survive Corporate Darwinism: Only strong survive
01/02/2009
Economic cycles are Darwinian, picking off weak companies and leaving survivors stronger. Corporate survivors, however, should benefit as competitors disappear. But it won't be easy. (1 d ago)

• The biggest CEO firings of 2008 The biggest CEO firings of 2008
01/02/2009
The bloodletting in the c-suite started in 2007. It still hasn't stopped. (1 d ago)

• When blogs make little sense When blogs make little sense
01/02/2009
Your Biz blog: In a blog post looking back at 2008, I’ve decided to republish some of the best, most thoughtful comments I’ve received over the past year. (2 d ago)

• Biofuels May be Obsolete Before We Can M... Biofuels May be Obsolete Before We Can Make Enough to Matter - Part III
01/01/2009
From Seeking Alpha, back in February:The Energy Bill requires that 3% of ethanol be derived from cellulosic sources by 2012, and 44% by 2022. That means, by my estimates, we'll need to produce 405... (2 d ago)

• Rise in Oil Prices Helps Fuel Stock Gai... Rise in Oil Prices Helps Fuel Stock Gains
01/03/2009
U.S. stocks last week advanced the most since November after fewer Americans filed for jobless claims and oil's biggest weekly increase in two decades lifted energy stocks. (11 h ago)

• Russia cuts all natural gas to Ukraine Russia cuts all natural gas to Ukraine
01/01/2009
Russia cut off all natural gas supplies to Ukraine on Thursday — but the two uneasy neighbors took great pains to make sure their contract dispute would not leave Europe short of gas. (2 d ago)

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