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Business News
for 01/26/2009

(last updated 7:30am EST 01/26/2009)

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• Movies Sell Slowly at Sundance Movies Sell Slowly at Sundance
01/26/2009
In a weakening entertainment economy, sales slowed, but did not halt, at the usually more exuberant festival. (6 h ago)

• Slicing Decades of Video for New Life on... Slicing Decades of Video for New Life on the Web
01/26/2009
Video clips of TV shows and behind-the-scenes outtakes are omnipresent online — but how do they get there? (6 h ago)

• ‘Obama Girl’ Team Retools for Tech Satir... ‘Obama Girl’ Team Retools for Tech Satire
01/25/2009
The “Obama Girl” music video attracted 13 million Internet views, twice as many as the Obama campaign’s official videos. (8 h ago)

• Advertising: Infomercials Find Their Way... Advertising: Infomercials Find Their Way to Television’s Prime Time
01/25/2009
A sign of the ailing economy, infomercials are now filling television slots that traditional advertisers like banks and automakers once owned. (8 h ago)

• New on the Networks: Safe Formulas From ... New on the Networks: Safe Formulas From the Past
01/25/2009
With significant ratings declines, the networks are extending the runs of old shows and limiting the experimentation seen in recent years. (8 h ago)

• Isle of Man Plans Unlimited Music Downlo... Isle of Man Plans Unlimited Music Downloads
01/25/2009
Promoting an offbeat remedy for digital piracy, the rainy outpost in the Irish Sea is suggesting a fee on Internet service to pay for downloaded music. (8 h ago)

• The Media Equation: Hollywood Now Cast a... The Media Equation: Hollywood Now Cast as Sensible
01/25/2009
Historically, media companies in New York have seen their Los Angeles-based divisions as wayward children. But now the pointed finger of reproach is going the other way. (9 h ago)

• With Magazines Folding, One Finds a Surp... With Magazines Folding, One Finds a Surprising Bid
01/25/2009
The publisher of a small magazine called Hardcore Gamer was determined to keep it alive. So he put it up for sale on eBay and a last-minute savior swooped in. (9 h ago)

• Sometimes, a Political Position Is Just ... Sometimes, a Political Position Is Just About Wanting a Cigar
01/25/2009
The latest issue of Cigar Aficionado magazine advises President Obama on relations with Cuba and argues for abolishing preconditions if the United States should re-engage the Caribbean nation. (10 h ago)

• Drilling Down: Smart Move in Letting You... Drilling Down: Smart Move in Letting You Pick Price?
01/25/2009
By letting Internet buyers name their price for its 2007 album, Radiohead introduced many people to the retailing strategy called “pay what you want.” (10 h ago)

• Television Review | 'Trust Me': A Fictio... Television Review | 'Trust Me': A Fictional Ad Agency That Really Hawks [Your Product Name Here]
01/25/2009
“Trust Me,” a TNT series set in a Chicago advertising agency, is clever and likeable — which, incidentally, is what most commercials try to be. (11 h ago)

• To Fleet Street by Way of the K.G.B. To Fleet Street by Way of the K.G.B.
01/25/2009
Britons aren’t sure what to make of an ex-K.G.B. officer’s deal to buy London’s most enduring afternoon newspaper, The Evening Standard. (1 d ago)

• Jim Horne, a Familiar Face in Ads From t... Jim Horne, a Familiar Face in Ads From the 1950s, Dies at 91
01/24/2009
Beginning in the late 1940s, Mr. Horne was perhaps the most widely seen male model in the country, appearing in hundreds of advertisements. (1 d ago)

• Streaming Onto the Mall, and Into Laptop... Streaming Onto the Mall, and Into Laptops
01/24/2009
An estimated 1.8 million people watched the inauguration of Barack Obama in person. How many more watched it across the country? (1 d ago)

• Essay: See the Web Site, Buy the Book Essay: See the Web Site, Buy the Book
01/24/2009
Do elaborate Web sites and videos really sell books? As in so much of publishing, no one really knows. (1 d ago)

• Scene Stealer: Suddenly, Hollywood Seems... Scene Stealer: Suddenly, Hollywood Seems a Conservative Investment
01/24/2009
Although the movie business has been hurt along with nearly every other industry, it’s proving far more resilient to recession than most. (1 d ago)

• DirecTV Raises Its Sights for a Channel DirecTV Raises Its Sights for a Channel
01/23/2009
The satellite television provider picks up well-regarded series from other networks. (2 d ago)

• France Expands Its Financial Support for... France Expands Its Financial Support for Newspapers
01/23/2009
In an effort to help newspapers through the recession, President Nicolas Sarkozy said the government would double the amount of advertising it did in print and online newspapers. (2 d ago)

• Banker Emerges as Cubs’ Top Bidder Banker Emerges as Cubs’ Top Bidder
01/23/2009
Thomas Ricketts got the backing of the Tribune Company’s creditors committee on Thursday to acquire the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field for around $900 million. (3 d ago)

• At Davos, Crisis Culls the Guest List At Davos, Crisis Culls the Guest List
01/25/2009
Politicians, not corporate titans, are poised to be the big draw at this year’s World Economic Forum gathering, as power shifts away from the free market. (8 h ago)

• Oil Cartel Keeps Cuts on Track Oil Cartel Keeps Cuts on Track
01/25/2009
Members of OPEC have slashed their output by more than three million barrels a day in recent months, temporarily stopping the slide in oil prices. (8 h ago)

• News Analysis: China Jittery About Obama... News Analysis: China Jittery About Obama Amid Signs of Harder Line
01/24/2009
Timothy F. Geithner’s assertion that China manipulates its currency isn’t the only sign that an Obama administration may take a harder line toward Beijing. (1 d ago)

• Brazil Expands Investment in Offshore Dr... Brazil Expands Investment in Offshore Drilling Projects
01/24/2009
Brazil’s state-controlled oil company announced a plan to spend more than $174 billion for deep-water oil and gas exploration. (1 d ago)

• College-Educated Chinese Feel Job Pinch College-Educated Chinese Feel Job Pinch
01/24/2009
Anxiety is rippling through a generation of Chinese who had grown up thinking that prosperity was guaranteed. (1 d ago)

• China Rejects Currency Manipulation Char... China Rejects Currency Manipulation Charge
01/24/2009
The central bank of China rejected an accusation by President Obama’s nominee for Treasury secretary that China was trying to gain an unfair advantage on exports. (1 d ago)

• Once a Boon, Euro Now Burdens Some Natio... Once a Boon, Euro Now Burdens Some Nations
01/24/2009
Euro membership allowed some countries to gloss over economic problems that have now roared to the fore. (2 d ago)

• Europe Wants U.S. to Join Carbon Trading... Europe Wants U.S. to Join Carbon Trading Market
01/24/2009
The European Commission will call on the U. S. to help limit greenhouse gas emissions and to press for the establishment of similar markets in developed countries. (2 d ago)

• Shares Mixed, Closing a See-Saw Week Shares Mixed, Closing a See-Saw Week
01/23/2009
The major indexes finished about 2 percent lower for the week, their third week of losses. (2 d ago)

• Britain and Spain Show More Signs of a S... Britain and Spain Show More Signs of a Slowdown
01/23/2009
As Britain officially falls into recession, unemployment in Spain hits an eight-year high. (2 d ago)

• China’s Route Forward China’s Route Forward
01/23/2009
China is starting to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on infrastructure projects, fearing that widespread joblessness could lead to social unrest. (2 d ago)

• Sweden’s Fix for Banks: Nationalize Them... Sweden’s Fix for Banks: Nationalize Them
01/23/2009
Sweden’s experience with reviving a failed banking system might provide a model for the United States. (2 d ago)

• Death Sentences in Chinese Milk Case Death Sentences in Chinese Milk Case
01/23/2009
A Chinese court sentenced two men to death and a top dairy company executive to life in prison for selling tainted milk products. (2 d ago)

• Geithner Hints at Harder Line on China T... Geithner Hints at Harder Line on China Trade
01/23/2009
Timothy F. Geithner stated that the president believed that China was “manipulating” its currency. (2 d ago)

• Profit Decline at Nokia Comes With a War... Profit Decline at Nokia Comes With a Warning
01/23/2009
The cellphone maker posted a worse-than-expected drop in quarterly profit, reduced its dividend and warned that market volumes would shrink 10 percent this year. (3 d ago)

• Europe to Buy 30,000 Tons of Surplus But... Europe to Buy 30,000 Tons of Surplus Butter
01/23/2009
Faced with a drastic drop in the price of dairy goods, the European Union hopes to revive one of the abiding symbols of Europe’s generous farm subsidy system. (3 d ago)

• Your Career: More companies using furlou... Your Career: More companies using furloughs
01/26/2009
Many companies, universities and governments across the country are forcing their workers to take time off. There’s one catch — no pay. (2 h ago)

• The top 10 Super Bowl ads of all time The top 10 Super Bowl ads of all time
01/26/2009
Nothing makes the economy appear sound like scores of corporations lining up to spend $3 million for a 30-second advertisement that may or may not help their company. (2 h ago)

• Pfizer agrees to buy Wyeth for $68 billi... Pfizer agrees to buy Wyeth for $68 billion
01/26/2009
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. is buying rival drugmaker Wyeth in a $68 billion cash-and-stock deal that could reshape the drug development industry. (2 h ago)

• Libel trial begins over mortgage scam ch... Libel trial begins over mortgage scam charges
01/26/2009
A libel trial scheduled to begin Monday is the latest chapter in a Texas-sized legal battle between a mortgage-servicing firm and a wealthy family that has raged for years. (3 h ago)

• Fed may win sweeping financial oversight Fed may win sweeping financial oversight
01/26/2009
House proposal would put agency in charge of protecting stability of entire financial system, but some fear it would muddy the bank's mission. (4 h ago)

• Obama to let states set car emission sta... Obama to let states set car emission standards
01/25/2009
President Barack Obama is poised to let California and other states control their own car tailpipe emissions. (8 h ago)

• Economic forecasters see more job cuts a... Economic forecasters see more job cuts ahead
01/25/2009
It’s shaping up to be another lousy year for workers, with more companies expecting to cut payrolls in the months ahead. (9 h ago)

• Fight building over judges redoing mortg... Fight building over judges redoing mortgages
01/25/2009
Most congressional Democrats say the quickest way to save homeowners like Troy Butler of Saginaw, Mich., is to let them declare bankruptcy and allow judges to dictate new mortgage terms. (12 h ago)

• Gas up more than 7 cents in last two wee... Gas up more than 7 cents in last two weeks
01/25/2009
The average national price of gasoline increased 7.6 cents in the past two weeks, according to a national survey released Sunday. (16 h ago)

• Fed expected to keep rates at record low... Fed expected to keep rates at record lows
01/25/2009
With the U.S. stuck in a painful recession, the Federal Reserve is widely expected to keep its key interest rate at an all-time low this week. (16 h ago)

• Investors will look to earnings, D.C. th... Investors will look to earnings, D.C. this week
01/25/2009
As Wall Street waits for Congress to act on President Barack Obama's stimulus plan, investors will look to a swath of earnings reports this week. (16 h ago)

• Answer Desk: Mortgage credit scorecard Answer Desk: Mortgage credit scorecard
01/25/2009
Mortgage lenders have gotten a lot more tight-fisted in the current credit meltdown. So just how low can your credit score be – and still get approved? The Answer Desk. (17 h ago)

• Democrats try to lower economic expectat... Democrats try to lower economic expectations
01/25/2009
The ailing economy probably will worsen before it improves, despite major government intervention, White House officials and Democratic leaders said Sunday. (17 h ago)

• California drought may raise vegetable p... California drought may raise vegetable prices
01/25/2009
Consumers may pay more for spring lettuce and summer melons in grocery stores across the country now that California farmers have started abandoning their fields. (17 h ago)

• Economy may give Treasury nominee a pass Economy may give Treasury nominee a pass
01/25/2009
Timothy Geithner's well-greased path to confirmation as treasury secretary is a sign of the severity of the recession and willingness to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt. (19 h ago)

• Newsweek: Silicon Valley may be the next... Newsweek: Silicon Valley may be the next Detroit
01/25/2009
Unless we spend more on technology and science, companies like Apple, HP and IBM could be eclipsed by foreign rivals. (19 h ago)

• The richest people that you’ve never hea... The richest people that you’ve never heard of
01/25/2009
Meet the not-so-famous people behind some of the biggest fortunes on earth. (21 h ago)

• Tokyo stocks end 0.8% lower Tokyo stocks end 0.8% lower
01/25/2009
Tokyo stocks fell Monday for the second trading day ahead of Japanese corporate earnings report through December this week. The key 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average lost 63.11 points, or 0.81 percent, from Friday to 7,682.14. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange was down 5.27 points, or 0.68 percent, to 768.28. &$ &$Source: Xinhua&$ &$ ... (7 h ago)

• China's farm insurance more than doubles... China's farm insurance more than doubles in 2008 with gov't subsidies
01/25/2009
Government subsidies for premiums helped China's agricultural insurance sector more than double last year, the industry regulator said. Premiums more than doubled to 11 billion yuan (about 1.63 billion U.S. dollars), and nearly 11 million rural households received 6.9 billion yuan in claims payments last year, up 110 percent year-on-year, statistics from the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) showed. Calling the increases a "breakthrough," CIRC Statistical Department chief Wu X ... (7 h ago)

• Chinese Lunar New Year triggers shopping... Chinese Lunar New Year triggers shopping spree in Beijing
01/25/2009
The worldwide financial crisis has yet to dampen the shopping enthusiasm of people in Beijing, with 1,904 outlets recording a total turnover of 639 million yuan (about 85.2 million U.S. dollars) on Sunday, the eve of the Spring Festival. The sales volume is up 13.4 percent from the same period last year, according to sources with the Beijing commerce information center, which monitored the sales of the 1,904 stores. The Caishikou department store topped the list with a 30 million-yuan tu ... (8 h ago)

• Nepal targets one mln int'l tourists by ... Nepal targets one mln int'l tourists by 2011
01/25/2009
The Nepali government will give free visa to all those coming for the second time to Nepal in order to make Nepal Tourism Year (NTY) 2011 a grand success, The Himalayan Times reported on Monday. Speaking at the first NTY 2011 promotional program on Sunday, Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation Hisila Yami said that the government is focusing on improving infrastructure like hotels and the airport to provide facilities to the tourists. NTY 2011 has a target of one million tourists and t ... (10 h ago)

• Pacific leaders to meet to discuss Fiji'... Pacific leaders to meet to discuss Fiji's forum membership
01/25/2009
The Pacific leaders will meet on Tuesday in the Papua New Guinea capital of Port Moresby to consider a report on elections in Fiji, and decide the future of Fiji within the Pacific Islands Forum. The leaders from the 16-member Pacific Islands Forum group is to decide whether to take the step of suspending Fiji or imposing other sanctions on it over Fiji interim Prime Minister Commodore Frank Bainimarama's failure to take steps toward reinstating democracy. The report, by a group of forei ... (10 h ago)

• Officials: GDP growth slowest in 6 years... Officials: GDP growth slowest in 6 years in Cambodia
01/25/2009
Cambodia's Gross Domestic Products (GDP) hit 10.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2008, up from 8.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2007, but still the slowest growth rate in six years, national media said on Monday. High inflation normally eats away real GDP growth as money loses its purchasing power, Hang Chuon Naron, secretary general of the Ministry of Finance and Economy, was quoted by English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodia Daily as saying. The National Institute of Statistics (NIS) of the P ... (11 h ago)

• Iraq's oil exports reach 56 mln barrels ... Iraq's oil exports reach 56 mln barrels in December 2008
01/25/2009
Iraq said that its oil exports reached 56.2 million barrels in December last year, an Oil Ministry statement said on Sunday. According to the statement, 43.4 million barrels were exported through Basra terminals in the Gulf, while 12.8 million barrels were exported through Turkey's port of Ceyhan, adding the oil was purchased by 23 international oil companies. The statement, meanwhile, showed that the month's revenues from the country's crude oil exports were about 1.943 billion dollars, ... (11 h ago)

• Cambodian central bank to slash reserve ... Cambodian central bank to slash reserve requirement
01/25/2009
The National Bank of Cambodia will cut the bank reserve requirement from 16 percent to 12 percent and eliminate restrictions on real estate lending effective on Feb. 1, national media said on Monday. This constituted a reversal of the bank's monetary tightening measures brought in last year to cut inflation and rein in soaring property values, said English-language daily newspaper the Phnom Penh Post. Officials said that they hoped the looser rules would stimulate lending amid a worsenin ... (11 h ago)

• Tokyo stocks open lower on stronger yen Tokyo stocks open lower on stronger yen
01/25/2009
Tokyo stocks opened lower Monday as investors remain jittery amid a stronger yen against the U.S. dollar. In the first 15 minutes of trading, the 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average lost 36.50 points, or 0.47 percent, from Friday to 7,708.75. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange was down 2.20 points, or 0.28 percent, to 771.35. The Second Section advanced. &$ &$Source: Xinhua&$ &$ ... (11 h ago)

• Kuwaiti banks show marked rise in 2008 Kuwaiti banks show marked rise in 2008
01/25/2009
The banking assets in Kuwait increased 10.6 percent in 2008 compared to previous year despite the current global recession which hit major investment banks in the oil-rich state, Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) sources was quoted by the Kuwait News Agency on Sunday as saying. The increase in banking asset value was 3.2 billion Kuwait Dinars (about 11.52 billion U.S. dollars), shooting up from 35.5 billion dinars in 2007 to 39.3 billion dinars in 2008. Of the total asset value, the public se ... (11 h ago)

• China's light industry develops sharply ... China's light industry develops sharply faster than heavy industry
01/25/2009
In December 2008, China's light industry enjoyed an output growth of 8.1 percent year-on-year, which sharply outpaced the 4.7 percent growth of heavy industry. The latest statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics show that the output of state-owned enterprises suffered a decline. In December, state-owned and state-controlled enterprises witnessed an output drop of 0.6 percent, while that of private enterprises went up 16.3 percent, overseas-funded enterprises was up 0.3 percent. ... (11 h ago)

• Pfizer Will Pay $68B For Wyeth Pfizer Will Pay $68B For Wyeth
01/26/2009
Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drugmaker, will pay $68 billion for rival Wyeth in a move that will consolidate two of the industry's largest drug developers. (2 h ago)

• States Roll The Dice On Legal Gambling States Roll The Dice On Legal Gambling
01/25/2009
A tell-tale sign America's chips are down: States are increasingly turning to gambling to plug budget holes. (11 h ago)

• States Hobbled By Unemployment Bills States Hobbled By Unemployment Bills
01/24/2009
More than 4.6 million Americans are now receiving jobless benefits, and that's putting a serious squeeze on state budget, reports CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller. (1 d ago)

• Calif. Bank Is Third To Fail This Year Calif. Bank Is Third To Fail This Year
01/23/2009
Regulators on Friday shut down 1st Centennial Bank in California, the third U.S. bank to fail this year. California regulators closed the Redlands-based bank and appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as receiver. (2 d ago)

• Google Reprices Employee Stock Options Google Reprices Employee Stock Options
01/23/2009
Google Inc. is showing its love for its employees by giving them a second chance to profit from their wilting stock options. But the move irked shareholders still stuck with agonizing losses on their investments. (2 d ago)

• Jobless Execs Face Tough Lifestyle Chang... Jobless Execs Face Tough Lifestyle Changes
01/23/2009
With unemployment rising, white collar workers are trading in briefcases and careers for brown bag lunches and dim job prospects. Seth Doane looks at painful lifestyle changes. (2 d ago)

• Year Of The Ox Looking Very Un-Bullish Year Of The Ox Looking Very Un-Bullish
01/23/2009
Chinese fortunetellers say fire is essential to financial well-being. And fire is nowhere to be found in the mythology of this coming Year of the Ox, the Chinese lunar year that begins Monday. (2 d ago)

• Report: Pfizer Looking To Buy Rival Wyet... Report: Pfizer Looking To Buy Rival Wyeth
01/23/2009
Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drugmaker, may be seeking to buy rival Wyeth in a deal that could be valued at more than $60 billion, the biggest in recent memory. (2 d ago)

• GE's 4Q Earnings Drop 46 Percent GE's 4Q Earnings Drop 46 Percent
01/23/2009
General Electric Co.' fourth-quarter net income fell 46 percent, weighed down by its ailing financial business and capping a difficult year for the industrial giant. (2 d ago)

• Mac Turns 25 With Uncertain Future Ahead Mac Turns 25 With Uncertain Future Ahead
01/23/2009
Twenty-five years after the debut of the Macintosh, the product that is the soul of Apple is not necessarily its vehicle to the future. (3 d ago)

• THE DOPE ON HEINZ THE DOPE ON HEINZ
01/25/2009
H.J. Heinz could become an acquisition target once credit markets come unstuck, Barron's said yesterday. Heinz shares, which currently trade at around $36, could ultimately fetch up to $60 or $70 each if the likes of Nestlé, Kraft or Unilever... (7 h ago)

• JOB CUTS BREW AT STARBUCKS JOB CUTS BREW AT STARBUCKS
01/25/2009
Starbucks Corp. could cut another 1,000 jobs in the coming weeks, according to a report in the Seattle Times. The latest cuts could include employees at its Seattle headquarters, district managers and field employees but not the so-called... (7 h ago)

• ALL THINGS OBAMA ALL THINGS OBAMA
01/25/2009
With the historic inauguration of President Obama, it comes as no surprise that there's been wall-to-wall coverage of America's first African-American president and that virtually every magazine out there had Obama on its cover. Here's a slice of... (7 h ago)

• BUSINESS BRIEFS BUSINESS BRIEFS
01/25/2009
Drug deal Directors of Pfizer convened yesterday to consider approving the acquisition of rival drug maker Wyeth in a deal that could be worth more than $65 billion, said people with knowl edge of the talks. Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler, 53, will... (7 h ago)

• A LEADERLESS BARNEYS SEEMS FIT TO BE SOL... A LEADERLESS BARNEYS SEEMS FIT TO BE SOLD
01/25/2009
Having struggled for months to name a new CEO at Barneys, the owners of the luxury chain are now tripping over their own feet. Istithmar, the investment arm of the Dubai government that shelled out nearly $950 million to buy Barneys, settled on... (7 h ago)

• 'HERD' ON THE STREET 'HERD' ON THE STREET
01/25/2009
As the merger of Bank of America and Merrill Lynch disintegrates into one of Wall Street's most dysfunctional marriages, the so-called "thundering herd" is on the verge of a massive employee exodus. Sources tell The Post that Merrill and BofA's... (7 h ago)

• BARACK'S BANK BET BARACK'S BANK BET
01/25/2009
The heat is on the Obama Administration. Congressional leaders are pressing the White House to come up with a plan as soon as this week to save the banks and jumpstart the economy. As the Obama economic team huddles this weekend in an attempt... (21 h ago)

• THE WEEK'S WINNERS AND LOSERS THE WEEK'S WINNERS AND LOSERS
01/25/2009
WINNERS STEPHEN ROSS New York real estate big closes on purchase of NFL's Miami Dolphins. DICK PARSONS Former Time chief moves into the chairman' suite of Citigroup. SERGEY BRIN What recession? Google co-founder sees company's 4Q profit... (1 d ago)

• FULD HIDES HOME FULD HIDES HOME
01/25/2009
Dick Fuld, who piloted Lehman Brothers into Chapter 11 last September, appears to be making moves so he doesn't lose his tony Florida seaside mansion in any civil lawsuits that may be filed against him. Weeks after the Sept. 15 bankruptcy filing... (1 d ago)

• ROGUES' GALLERY ROGUES' GALLERY
01/25/2009
When John Thain was forced out as chief executive of Merrill Lynch last week after hurrying through billions in bonuses for executives at the money-losing brokerage and spending $1.2 million to redesign his corner office, the once-admired Wall... (1 d ago)

• Everybody's Business: Deep in Debt, and ... Everybody's Business: Deep in Debt, and Now Deep in Worry
01/25/2009
The age when money was a free good, available in unlimited quantities just for signing a note, may well be over. (7 h ago)

• Your Money: Doing the Right Thing by Pay... Your Money: Doing the Right Thing by Paying the Nanny Tax
01/25/2009
Consider a couple of reasons it may be wise for people who are not paying their housekeeper or baby sitter’s taxes to reconsider. (7 h ago)

• The Count: The Horror of Examining a 401... The Count: The Horror of Examining a 401(k) Balance
01/25/2009
Those who can bring themselves to open the envelope are often stricken by columns of minus signs and descending numbers. (7 h ago)

• Mortgages: Safeguarding Against Loan Dis... Mortgages: Safeguarding Against Loan Discrimination
01/25/2009
New York State authorities announced a settlement this month with two mortgage brokers accused of discriminating against minority borrowers. (7 h ago)

• Obama Presses for Quick Jolt to the Econ... Obama Presses for Quick Jolt to the Economy
01/25/2009
President Obama stepped into the effort to assemble an economic recovery package, seeking to quell criticism and to retain leadership on an initiative that could define his term. (1 d ago)

• Strategies: A Quarter When Mutual Fund R... Strategies: A Quarter When Mutual Fund Rankings Didn’t Matter
01/24/2009
During the fourth quarter, the average five-star mutual fund lost nearly as much as the stock market itself. (1 d ago)

• Wealth Matters: Surviving in a Financial... Wealth Matters: Surviving in a Financial World With Limits
01/24/2009
In a year when the sins of a few are being paid for by many, it is appropriate for people at all income levels to adopt some survival techniques. (2 d ago)

• Costs and Tighter Rules Thwart Refinanci... Costs and Tighter Rules Thwart Refinancings
01/24/2009
Interest rates are falling, but many potential borrowers may not qualify for the best rates. (2 d ago)

• Patient Money: Seeing Straight Without B... Patient Money: Seeing Straight Without Breaking the Bank
01/24/2009
A month’s rent just for eyeglasses? Taking care of your eyesight doesn’t have to cost so much. (2 d ago)

• Cost of Living: Bankruptcy as a Step to ... Cost of Living: Bankruptcy as a Step to Solvency
01/23/2009
The idea of declaring bankruptcy may be unpleasant, but for many people right now it could be the best option. (2 d ago)

• Bullish Barclays sees share price soar Bullish Barclays sees share price soar
01/26/2009
Barclays today revealed that it suffered credit crunch losses of £8bn last year, but once again insisted that it is profitable and does not need a government bailout. Shares in the bank soared by almost 70% this morning after it disclosed the scale of the losses in an open letter to shareholders, in an attempt to squash widespread speculation that it was close to collapse. In another unusual move, it is bringing the release of its 2008 financial results forwards by a week, to 9 February. In the letter, chairman Marcus Agius and chief executive John Varley reiterated that Barclays will make a profit of more than £5.3bn for 2008 and also said that current trading is healthy. Barclays' share price has been ravaged by rumours over that the bank's health. From 150p at the start of 2009, it plummeted to below 50p last Friday. This evaporation of confidence has led to speculation that it could have to be nationalised . But in today's letter, Agius and Varley reiterated that Barclays is performing well, and does not need a capital injection – either from the government or anyone else. "Our starting point is that Barclays has £36bn of committed equity capital and reserves; we are well funded, and we are profitable. However, we know that our stakeholders want to see the detailed figures for 2008 as quickly as possible," they wrote. These figures will include total credit crunch-related losses of £8bn for the year. Barclays had previously said that it had suffered writedowns of £3.3bn in the first six months. A spokesman explained that the additional losses came from the continued "market dislocation". These losses mean profits for 2008 will fail to meet 2007's figure of £7.1bn. Agius and Varley told investors that they could be absorbed by the rest of the business. "Although we have been heavily impacted by the credit crunch, our income generation was at a record level in 2008 and has enabled us to withstand this impact and still produce strong profits," they argued. Shares in Barclays rallied strongly this morning, up 34p to 85p. Other banks also saw their shares rise, with Lloyds up 22% at 60p and Royal Bank of Scotland gaining 20% to 14.5p. The company also said it was talking to the UK Treasury about taking part in its asset protection scheme. Announced last week, the scheme would allow banks to insure themselves against losses , thus encouraging them to start lending again. Analysts were broadly encouraged by the content of today's letter, including the pledge that Barclays has £17bn more capital than it needs to meet the Financial Service Authority's minimum requirement. "In terms of 2008 profit, there are still too many moving parts to be specific, and we await the results before assessing the underlying performance of the business. However, confirmation that it is not seeking a capital increase should provide some reassurance to the market ahead of that," said Mark Phin of Keefe, Bruyette and Woods. Barclays Banking Credit crunch Recession guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (2 h ago)

• Corus cuts 2,500 UK jobs Corus cuts 2,500 UK jobs
01/26/2009
Steelmaker Corus delivered another bodyblow to the British economy this morning, confirming that it is cutting 2,500 UK jobs and mothballing a factory in South Wales. The Anglo-Dutch firm, which has suffered a sharp fall in demand for steel in the economic crisis, plans to shed a further 1,000 posts in the Netherlands. The axe is falling hardest in Llanwern, near Newport, where around 1,000 workers are employed at the hot strip mill. "This is about addressing the future of certain sites that cannot cope with the scale of the current crisis," a Corus spokesman said. Jobs will also be cut across Corus's steel plants in Port Talbot, Teesside, Scunthorpe and Rotherham. IT, finance and HR staff will also be scaled back as part of an efficiency review. The company, which is owned by the Tata Steel group, said it will make every effort to achieve the job losses through voluntary redundancies. Unions have already vowed to fight compulsory job cuts. "We understand that Corus do face difficulties but before this recession Corus had been making extremely healthy profits," said Derek Simpson, joint leader of Unite. "Our members have supported Corus through good times and bad and now expect Corus to support them." It also hopes to retrain workers whose working hours must be cut to cope with the drop in demand for steel. It is still in discussions with the government about receiving state funding to support this. "This would not be a bail-out," the Corus spokesman said. "In the Netherlands the government gives support for retraining, and we would like the same level of support in the UK." Unite also wants the government to provide help to avoid more jobs being lost. "We cannot afford to let a short-term problem deprive Britain of the skills we will depend on to compete in the world economy", Simpson added. Corus is also changing the British Steel pension scheme, closing its final salary plan to new recruits. It currently employs 24,000 people across the UK. Recession Manufacturing sector guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (3 h ago)

• WH Smith sales fall but margins improve WH Smith sales fall but margins improve
01/26/2009
WH Smith , the books, newspaper and stationery retailer, has reported worse than expected Christmas sales. But its profits held up as margins improved, so its shares have reacted reasonably well, up 1.5p to 356.5p. The company's chief executive Kate Swann said like for like sales for the 20 weeks to January 17 were down 5%, but gross margins increases and it also accelerated its cost reduction programme. David Stoddart at Altium Securities said: "The continuing loss of revenues, particularly in high street, remains a concern for the long-term. There is a limit to how far one can cut costs. On the other hand, in the short term the strength of Smith's balance sheet and the potential to sustain pre-tax profit through gross margin increases are relatively attractive. The share price is within 10% of our target, which leaves our core hold. However, giving more weight to the short-term factors than the long-term, and acknowledging the around 8% upside to our target price [of 385p], we upgrade our trading recommendation from neutral to buy." Elsewhere a trading statement from Independent News & Media - in response to what it called "the significant and unwarranted decline" in its share price - seemed to reassure investors. Its shares recovered 33% - up 6 cents to 25c. Oil services specialist Petrofac is 51p higher at 402.5p after the company announced it had won a $2.3bn contract from the Abu Dhabi Company for onshore oil operations. Keith Morris at Evolution Securities was positive on the news. He said: "[This is] a large contract, even by Petrofac standards, and an important win a key Middle East country. "Industry gossip is that the contract award is around 20% less than the headline number six months ago - but this probably reflects the drop in raw material prices etc. This award is a validation of the $10bn of bidding pipeline that the chief executive outlined in August and underlined in the trading update in December - and confirms our belief that the Middle East region remains one of the key areas for energy infrastructure investment - even in today's troubled global economy. Companies which are well placed to exploit these opportunities will continue to do well." But International Ferro Metals fell 3p to 14p as it warned it was unlikely to make a first half profit due to sharp falls in the price of ferrochrome - used in the production of stainless steel. Investec said: "IFM released a profit warning this morning, just two trading days after it published a production update. The company says a 'rapid deterioration of the conventional industry-wide ferrochrome pricing mechanism' has resulted in a 'retrospective downward price revision'. It does not give guidance on the price received for product sold in the first half of 2009, but does guide that pretax profit will not be positive. We were forecasting R75m pretax, but this is now under review. "It is disappointing that the company did not allude to today's news in either its trading update last Thursday or during its meeting with analysts. This unexpected news could therefore be taken badly by the market. "Today's news could have a negative read-through for Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation , which has significant ferrochrome exposure. It may also have a small negative read-across for Xstrata . From a commodity perspective, today's news from IFM shows that the stainless steel market (which is the main user of ferrochrome) remains very weak." ENRC is down 7p at 312.5p while Xstrata - also hit by a sell recommendation from Citigroup - is down 38p at 642p. Overall, though, the leading index remains in positive territory, helped by banking shares which have been boosted by Barclay's trading update. The FTSE 100 is now 47.20 points higher at 4099.67. WH Smith Independent News & Media Petrofac Xstrata guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (4 h ago)

• Dutch bank ING sheds chief executive and... Dutch bank ING sheds chief executive and 7,000 other jobs
01/26/2009
ING, the Dutch bank bailed out last year with €10bn (£9.4bn) of state money, today reported its first loss and said it would slash 7,000 jobs worldwide in response to the growing financial crisis. The bank, one of Europe's biggest, took immediate action by shedding its chief executive, Michael Tilmant, after what it said was the worst quarter for equity and credit markets for a quarter of a century. It is due to post an underlying loss of €3.3bn, including €2bn in structured products, for the final three months of 2008. ING, which employs 130,000 globally, has again turned to the Dutch government which is taking on 80% of its €27.7bn exposure to mortgage-backed assets and monoline insurance products - mirroring similar moves by the Swiss authorities and UBS late last year. Tilmant, the CEO for the last four years, is being replaced by Jan Hommen, the ING chairman who was Philips chief financial officer until 2005. The Dutch moves came as French banks Société Générale and Crédit Agricole announced a merger of their asset management businesses and BNP Paribas indicated it had lost €1.4bn in the fourth quarter, with its investment bank losing €2bn before tax. SocGen and CA, in a preliminary deal, said their combined asset management business would rank fourth in Europe and ninth in the world - "reinforcing the importance of Paris as a major European financial centre". The new business, split 70% between CA and 30% SocGen, will have €638bn under management. BNP, France's biggest bank, in a surprise announcement ahead of next month's full-year figures, said the fourth quarter saw "exceptionally violent" movements on capital markets and its investment bank would write down a further net €400m on its portfolio. It said the overall group would report a full-year net profit of €3bn thanks to its booming retail banking business and asset management where net inflow were €10bn in the final quarter. It is taking a further €5.1bn of state capital in the form of preference shares, paying back half that sum in subordinated debt and boosting its Tier One capital ratio to 8%. European banks Europe Netherlands Global recession Credit crunch guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (5 h ago)

• House prices fell 9.4% last year House prices fell 9.4% last year
01/25/2009
House prices in Britain fell for the 16th straight month in January and are set to continue to plummet throughout 2009. The property consultants Hometrack's monthly national housing survey, released today, showed that the average price of a house fell by 1% this month. Prices have dived 9.4% over the last 12 months. The survey, based on more than 5,800 responses from agents and surveyors across the country, said the average time a property spent on the market was now 12.3 weeks, up 45% on a year ago. The proportion of the asking price being achieved is now 88.3%, compared with 93.5% a year ago. Hometrack said these factors suggested continued price falls over 2009. The biggest annual fall was in London, where prices have plunged 10.7%. The proportion of the asking price being achieved in London is 88% with an average of 16 viewings per sale. The lowest proportion of the asking price being achieved is in Wales (87.4%) while the highest is in the north-east and north-west (both 88.6%). Properties in the East Midlands take the longest average time to sell at 15 weeks. Hometrack's Richard Donnell said: "Over 2009 the market is at the mercy of the economy. Purchasers remain few and cautious - some agents have reported potential buyers extending rental contracts to sit out the current uncertainty." House prices Housing market Property guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (14 h ago)

• Darling plans new rescue package for ail... Darling plans new rescue package for ailing economy
01/25/2009
Alistair Darling has accepted that a second emergency package of tax and spending measures may be needed in this spring's budget to claw the economy out of a deepening recession, the Guardian has learned. Despite the deterioration in the public finances, the chancellor is willing if necessary to borrow more money to help strategically important industries and to help lay the foundations for economic recovery. He will start work this week on plans for a British answer to Barack Obama's green jobs agenda. Short-term help is likely for the stricken car industry, but Darling has signalled to his officials that he is also prepared to use his second budget to improve Britain's infrastructure and boost sectors such as environmental technology, pharmaceuticals and the creative industries. Tougher regulation of the banks will also be unveiled. Darling rejects claims from the Conservative leader, David Cameron, that the cut in VAT to 15%, introduced last month, has flopped but accepts that the speed and severity of the downturn may require additional action. Treasury insiders said work on last week's measures to boost bank lending meant planning for the budget had only just started and that no precise plans had yet been made. They stressed that any budget boost would depend on the state of the economy and be far more modest than the fiscal plans being drawn up in Washington. Obama hopes to persuade Congress to approve measures that would cost around $800bn (£586bn), around 5% of US GDP and are designed to create 4 million jobs in the world's biggest economy. The VAT holiday and other measures announced in the pre-budget report came with a £20bn price tag - just over 1% of UK GDP - and Darling is wary of alarming the financial market by unveiling measures seen as too costly. "A 4% to 5% of GDP boost is highly unlikely," one source said. But with Gordon Brown to press fellow world leaders for co-ordinated reflationary action at the London summit of the G20 in early April, Darling has spent the last few weeks thinking of possible new expansion plans for a budget tentatively scheduled either for early March or after the visit of Obama to the G20 meeting. Sources said the shape and scale of the budget would depend on the Treasury's forecasts for the economy, but Darling has already acknowledged there is no chance of the 1% contraction predicted in the PBR. The fallout from the autumn's financial meltdown meant the economy shrank by a sharper than expected 1.5% in the final three months of 2008 and the Treasury believes 2009 will see a decline of between 2% and 3% in GDP. Although the chancellor believes there is still a chance that Britain's flexible economy and the stimulus from lower interest rates, tax cuts and falling energy prices will lead to recovery later this year, there is also concern that growth in 2010 will fail to meet the government's 1.75% forecast.Amid fears that even the lowest interest rates in history will be insufficient on their own to lift the UK swiftly out of its trough, the Treasury and the Bank of England will this week reveal details of proposals that would allow Threadneedle Street to flood the economy with cash. Weaker growth will result in public borrowing exceeding the £118bn pencilled in for the 2009-10 financial year in the PBR and the fresh fiscal boost in the budget will be accompanied by plans to raise taxes or trim expenditure once the crisis is past. "If we do more there has to be a sensible plan for fiscal consolidation," one source said. Drawing on his time as industry secretary, Darling has told officials he is attracted by the idea of using the budget to help reshape the economy, which in the run-up to the recession was heavily dependent on two sectors - finance and housing. This year's budget will be the first to contain a UK carbon budget and the chancellor wants to support green jobs through capital programmes, spending on better home insulation and the encouragement of low carbon technologies. The Treasury is also working on proposals to help the car industry. Measures under consideration include an expansion of the asset-backed guarantee scheme for mortgages to car loans and the purchase of corporate bonds to help boost cash flow. Darling has asked the chairman of the Financial Services Authority, Lord Turner, what needs to be done to improve the regulation of banks in the wake of the credit crunch. Economics Alistair Darling Tax Economic policy Recession Credit crunch Labour Automotive industry guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (14 h ago)

• Twenty-five people at the heart of the m... Twenty-five people at the heart of the meltdown ...
01/25/2009
Alan Greenspan, chairman of US Federal Reserve 1987- 2006 Only a couple of years ago the long-serving chairman of the Fed, a committed free marketeer who had steered the US economy through crises ranging from the 1987 stockmarket collapse through to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, was lauded with star status, named the "oracle" and "the maestro". Now he is viewed as one of those most culpable for the crisis. He is blamed for allowing the housing bubble to develop as a result of his low interest rates and lack of regulation in mortgage lending. He backed sub-prime lending and urged homebuyers to swap fixed-rate mortgages for variable rate deals, which left borrowers unable to pay when interest rates rose. For many years, Greenspan also defended the booming derivatives business, which barely existed when he took over the Fed, but which mushroomed from $100tn in 2002 to more than $500tn five years later. Billionaires George Soros and Warren Buffett might have been extremely worried about these complex products - Soros avoided them because he didn't "really understand how they work" and Buffett famously described them as "financial weapons of mass destruction" - but Greenspan did all he could to protect the market from what he believed was unnecessary regulation. In 2003 he told the Senate banking committee: "Derivatives have been an extraordinarily useful vehicle to transfer risk from those who shouldn't be taking it to those who are willing to and are capable of doing so". In recent months, however, he has admitted at least some of his long-held beliefs have turned out to be incorrect - not least that free markets would handle the risks involved, that too much regulation would damage Wall Street and that, ultimately, banks would always put the protection of their shareholders first. He has described the current financial crisis as "the type ... that comes along only once in a century" and last autumn said the fact that the banks had played fast and loose with shareholders' equity had left him "in a state of shocked disbelief". Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England When Mervyn King settled his feet under the desk in his Threadneedle Street office, the UK economy was motoring along just nicely: GDP was growing at 3% and inflation was just 1.3%. Chairing his first meeting of the Bank's monetary policy committee (MPC), interest rates were cut to a post-war low of 3.5%. His ambition was that monetary policy decision-making should become "boring". How we would all like it to become boring now. When the crunch first took hold, the Aston Villa-supporting governor insisted it was not about to become an international crisis. In the first weeks of the crunch he refused to pump cash into the financial system and insisted that "moral hazard" meant that some banks should not be bailed out. The Treasury select committee has said King should have been "more pro-active". King's MPC should have realised there was a housing bubble developing and taken action to damp it down and, more recently, the committee should have seen the recession coming and cut interest rates far faster than it did. Politicians Bill Clinton, former US president Clinton shares at least some of the blame for the current financial chaos. He beefed up the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act to force mortgage lenders to relax their rules to allow more socially disadvantaged borrowers to qualify for home loans. In 1999 Clinton repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which ensured a complete separation between commercial banks, which accept deposits, and investment banks, which invest and take risks. The move prompted the era of the superbank and primed the sub-prime pump. The year before the repeal sub-prime loans were just 5% of all mortgage lending. By the time the credit crunch blew up it was approaching 30%. Gordon Brown, prime minister The British prime minister seems to have been completely dazzled by the movers and shakers in the Square Mile, putting the City's interests ahead of other parts of the economy, such as manufacturers. He backed "light touch" regulation and a low-tax regime for the thousands of non-domiciled foreign bankers working in London and for the private equity business. George W Bush, former US president Clinton might have started the sub-prime ball rolling, but the Bush administration certainly did little to put the brakes on the vast amount of mortgage cash being lent to "Ninja" (No income, no job applicants) borrowers who could not afford them. Neither did he rein back Wall Street with regulation (although the government did pass the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the wake of the Enron scandal). Senator Phil Gramm Former US senator from Texas, free market advocate with a PhD in economics who fought long and hard for financial deregulation. His work, encouraged by Clinton's administration, allowed the explosive growth of derivatives, including credit swaps. In 2001, he told a Senate debate: "Some people look at sub-prime lending and see evil. I look at sub-prime lending and I see the American dream in action." According to the New York Times, federal records show that from 1989 to 2002 he was the top recipient of campaign contributions from commercial banks and in the top five for donations from Wall Street. At an April 2000 Senate hearing after a visit to New York, he said: "When I am on Wall Street and I realise that that's the very nerve centre of American capitalism and I realise what capitalism has done for the working people of America, to me that's a holy place." He eventually left Capitol Hill to work for UBS as an investment banker. Wall Street/Bankers Abi Cohen, Goldman Sachs chief US strategist The "perpetual bull". Once rated one of the most powerful women in the US. But so wrong, so often. She failed to see previous share price crashes and was famous for her upwards forecasts. Replaced last March. Kathleen Corbet, former CEO, Standard & Poor's The credit-rating agencies were widely attacked for failing to warn of the risks posed by mortgage-backed securities. Kathleen Corbet ran the largest of the big three agencies, Standard & Poor's, and quit in August 2007, amid a hail of criticism. The agencies have been accused of acting as cheerleaders, assigning the top AAA rating to collateralised debt obligations, the often incomprehensible mortgage-backed securities that turned toxic. The industry argues it did its best with the information available. Corbet said her decision to leave the agency had been "long planned" and denied that she had been put under any pressure to quit. She kept a relatively low profile and had been hired to run S&P in 2004 from the investment firm Alliance Capital Management. Investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York attorney general among others have focused on whether the agencies are compromised by earning fees from the banks that issue the debt they rate. The reputation of the industry was savaged by a blistering report by the SEC that contained dozens of internal emails that suggested they had betrayed investors' trust. "Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters," one unnamed S&P analyst wrote. In another, an S&P employee wrote: "It could be structured by cows and we would rate it." "Hank" Greenberg, AIG insurance group Now aged 83, Hank - AKA Maurice - was the boss of AIG. He built the business into the world's biggest insurer. AIG had a vast business in credit default swaps and therefore a huge exposure to a residential mortgage crisis. When AIG's own credit-rating was cut, it faced a liquidity crisis and needed an $85bn (£47bn then) bail out from the US government to avoid collapse and avert the crisis its collapse would have caused. It later needed many more billions from the US treasury and the Fed, but that did not stop senior AIG executives taking themselves off for a few lavish trips, including a $444,000 golf and spa retreat in California and an $86,000 hunting expedition to England. "Have you heard of anything more outrageous?" said Elijah Cummings, a Democratic congressman from Maryland. "They were getting their manicures, their facials, pedicures, massages while the American people were footing the bill." Andy Hornby, former HBOS boss So highly respected, so admired and so clever - top of his 800-strong class at Harvard - but it was his strategy, adopted from the Bank of Scotland when it merged with Halifax, that got HBOS in the trouble it is now. Who would have thought that the mighty Halifax could be brought to its knees and teeter on the verge of nationalisation? Sir Fred Goodwin, former RBS boss Once one of Gordon Brown's favourite businessmen, now the prime minister says he is "angry" with the man dubbed "Fred the Shred" for his strategy at Royal Bank of Scotland, which has left the bank staring at a £28bn loss and 70% owned by the government. The losses will reflect vast lending to businesses that cannot repay and write-downs on acquisitions masterminded by Goodwin stretching back years. Steve Crawshaw, former B&B boss Once upon a time Bradford & Bingley was a rather boring building society, which used two men in bowler hats to signify their sensible and trustworthy approach. In 2004 the affable Crawshaw took over. He closed down B&B businesses, cut staff numbers by half and turned the B&B into a specialist in buy-to-let loans and self-certified mortgages - also called "liar loans" because applicants did not have to prove a regular income. The business broke down when the wholesale money market collapsed and B&B's borrowers fell quickly into debt. Crawshaw denied a rights issue was on its way weeks before he asked shareholders for £300m. Eventually, B&B had to be nationalised. Crawshaw, however, had left the bridge a few weeks earlier as a result of heart problems. He has a £1.8m pension pot. Adam Applegarth, former Northern Rock boss Applegarth had such big ambitions. But the business model just collapsed when the credit crunch hit. Luckily for Applegarth, he walked away with a wheelbarrow of cash to ease the pain of his failure, and spent the summer playing cricket. Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin Cioffi (pictured) and Tannin were Bear Stearns bankers recently indicted for fraud over the collapse of two hedge funds last year, which was one of the triggers of the credit crunch. They are accused of lying to investors about the amount of money they were putting into sub-prime, and of quietly withdrawing their own funds when times got tough. Lewis Ranieri The "godfather" of mortgage finance, who pioneered mortgage-backed bonds in the 1980s and immortalised in Liar's Poker. Famous for saying that "mortgages are math", Ranieri created collateralised pools of mortgages. In 2004 Business Week ranked him alongside names such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as one of the greatest innovators of the past 75 years. Ranieri did warn in 2006 of the risks from the breakneck growth of mortgage securitisation. Nevertheless, his Texas-based Franklin Bank Corp went bust in November due to the credit crunch. Joseph Cassano, AIG Financial Products Cassano ran the AIG team that sold credit default swaps in London, and in effect bankrupted the world's biggest insurance company, forcing the US government to stump up billions in aid. Cassano, who lives in a townhouse near Harrods in Knightsbridge, earned 30 cents for every dollar of profit his financial products generated - or about £280m. He was fired after the division lost $11bn, but stayed on as a $1m-a-month consultant. "It seems he single-handedly brought AIG to its knees," said John Sarbanes, a Democratic congressman. Chuck Prince, former Citi boss A lawyer by training, Prince had built Citi into the biggest bank in the world, with a sprawling structure that covered investment banking, high-street banking and wealthy management for the richest clients. When profits went into reverse in 2007, he insisted it was just a hiccup, but he was forced out after multibillion-dollar losses on sub-prime business started to surface. He received about $140m to ease his pain . Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide Financial Known as "the orange one" for his luminous tan, Mozilo was the chairman and chief executive of the biggest American sub-prime mortgage lender, which was saved from bankruptcy by Bank of America. BoA recently paid billions to settle investigations by various attorney generals for Countrywide's mis-selling of risky loans to thousands who could not afford them. The company ran a "VIP programme" that provided loans on favourable terms to influential figures including Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate banking committee, the heads of the federal-backed mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and former assistant secretary of state Richard Holbrooke. Stan O'Neal, former boss of Merrill Lynch O'Neal became one of the highest-profile casualties of the credit crunch when he lost the confidence of the bank's board in late 2007. When he was appointed to the top job four years earlier, O'Neal, the first African-American to run a Wall Street firm, had pledged to shed the bank's conservative image. Shortly before he quit, the bank admitted to nearly $8bn of exposure to bad debts, as bets in the property and credit markets turned sour. Merrill was forced into the arms of Bank of America less than a year later. Jimmy Cayne, former Bear Stearns boss The chairman of the Wall Street firm Bear Stearns famously continued to play in a bridge tournament in Detroit even as the firm fell into crisis. Confidence in the bank evaporated after the collapse of two of its hedge funds and massive write-downs from losses related to the home loans industry. It was bought for a knock down price by JP Morgan Chase in March. Cayne sold his stake in the firm after the JP Morgan bid emerged, making $60m. Such was the anger directed towards Cayne that the US media reported that he had been forced to hire a bodyguard. A one-time scrap-iron salesman, Cayne joined Bear Stearns in 1969 and became one of the firm's top brokers, taking over as chief executive in 1993. Others Christopher Dodd, chairman, Senate banking committee (Democrat) Consistently resisted efforts to tighten regulation on the mortgage finance firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He pushed to broaden their role to dodgier mortgages in an effort to help home ownership for the poor. Received $165,000 in donations from Fannie and Freddie from 1989 to 2008, more than anyone else in Congress. Geir Haarde, Icelandic prime minister He announced on Friday that he would step down and call an early election in May, after violent anti-government protests fuelled by his handling of the financial crisis. Last October Iceland's three biggest commercial banks collapsed under billions of dollars of debts. The country was forced to borrow $2.1bn from the International Monetary Fund and take loans from several European countries. Announcing his resignation, Haarde said he had throat cancer. The American public There's no escaping the fact: politicians might have teed up the financial system and failed to police it properly and Wall Street's greedy bankers might have got carried away with the riches they could generate, but if millions of Americans had just realised they were borrowing more than they could repay then we would not be in this mess. The British public got just as carried away. We are the credit junkies of Europe and many of our problems could easily have been avoided if we had been more sensible and just said no. John Tiner, FSA chief executive, 2003-07 No one can fault 51-year-old Tiner's timing: the financial services expert took over as the City's chief regulator in 2003, just as the bear market which followed the dotcom crash came to an end, and stepped down from the Financial Services Authority in July 2007 - just a few weeks before the credit crunch took hold. He presided over the FSA when the so-called "light touch" regulation was put in place. It was Tiner who agreed that banks could make up their own minds about how much capital they needed to hoard to cover their risks. And it was on his watch that Northern Rock got so carried away with the wholesale money markets and 130% mortgages. When the FSA finally got around to investigating its own part in the Rock's downfall, it was a catalogue of errors and omissions. In short, the FSA had been asleep at the wheel while Northern Rock racked up ever bigger risks. An accountant by training, with a penchant for Porsches and proud owner of the personalised number plate T1NER, the former FSA boss has since been recruited by the financial entrepreneur Clive Cowdery to run a newly floated business that aims to buy up financial businesses laid low by the credit crunch. Tiner will be chief executive but, unusually, will not be on the board, so his pay and bonuses will not be made public. Dick Fuld, Lehman Brothers chief executive The credit crunch had been rumbling on for more than a year but Lehman Brothers' collapse in September was to have a catastrophic impact on confidence. Richard Fuld, chief executive, later told Congress he was bewildered the US government had not saved the bank when it had helped secure Bear Stearns and the insurer AIG. He also blamed short-sellers. Bitter workers at Lehman pointed the finger at Fuld. A former bond trader known as "the Gorilla", Fuld had been with Lehman for decades and steered it through tough times. But just before the bank went bust he had failed to secure a deal to sell a large stake to the Korea Development Bank and most likely prevent its collapse. Fuld encouraged risk-taking and Lehman was still investing heavily in property at the top of the market. Facing a grilling on Capitol Hill, he was asked whether it was fair that he earned $500m over eight years. He demurred; the figure, he said, was closer to $300m. ... and six more who saw it coming Andrew Lahde A hedge fund boss who quit the industry in October thanking "stupid" traders and "idiots" for making him rich. He made millions by betting against sub-prime. John Paulson, hedge fund boss He has been described as the "world's biggest winner" from the credit crunch, earning $3.7bn (£1.9bn) in 2007 by "shorting" the US mortgage market - betting that the housing bubble was about to burst. In an apparent response to criticism that he was profiting from misery, Paulson gave $15m to a charity aiding people fighting foreclosure. Professor Nouriel Roubini Described by the New York Times as Dr Doom, the economist from New York University was warning that financial crisis was on the way in 2006, when he told economists at the IMF that the US would face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, oil shock and a deep recession. He remains a pessimist. He predicted last week that losses in the US financial system could hit $3.6tn before the credit crunch ends - which, he said, means the entire US banking system is in effect bankrupt. After last year's bail-outs and nationalisations, he famously described George Bush, Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke as "a troika of Bolsheviks who turned the USA into the United Socialist State Republic of America". Warren Buffett, billionaire investor Dubbed the Sage of Omaha, Buffett had long warned about the dangers of dodgy derivatives that no one understood and said often that Wall Street's finest were grossly overpaid. In his annual letter to shareholders in 2003, he compared complex derivative contracts to hell: "Easy to enter and almost impossible to exit." On an optimistic note, Buffett wrote in October that he had begun buying shares on the US stockmarket again, suggesting the worst of the credit crunch might be over. Now is a great time to "buy a slice of America's future at a marked-down price", he said. George Soros, speculator The billionaire financier, philanthropist and backer of the Democrats told an audience in Singapore in January 2006 that stockmarkets were at their peak, and that the US and global economies should brace themselves for a recession and a possible "hard landing". He also warned of "a gigantic real estate bubble" inflated by reckless lenders, encouraging homeowners to remortgage and offering interest-only deals. Earlier this year Soros described a 25-year "super bubble" that is bursting, blaming unfathomable financial instruments, deregulation and globalisation. He has since characterised the financial crisis as the worst since the Great Depression. Stephen Eismann, hedge fund manager An analyst and fund manager who tracked the sub-prime market from the early 1990s. "You have to understand," he says, "I did sub-prime first. I lived with the worst first. These guys lied to infinity. What I learned from that experience was that Wall Street didn't give a shit what it sold." Meredith Whitney, Oppenheimer Securities On 31 October 2007 the analyst forecast that Citigroup had to slash its dividend or face bankruptcy. A day later $370bn had been wiped off financial stocks on Wall Street. Within days the boss of Citigroup was out and the dividend had been slashed. • Tomorrow in part three of the Road to Ruin series - The Barons of Bankruptcy - how going bust can be a profitable business Global recession Recession Credit crunch Banking US economy Economic policy Global economy Mortgages guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (14 h ago)

• Nortel collapse adds to pressure on PPF Nortel collapse adds to pressure on PPF
01/25/2009
The government's beleaguered pensions lifeboat scheme could see its funding shortfall double to more than £1bn after the collapse of the Canadian telecoms firm Nortel earlier this month. Already forced to rescue the schemes of collapsed companies such as Woolworths and Lehman Brothers, the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has been asked to step in to pay the retirement incomes of Nortel's 43,000 British pensioners after the parent company went under with huge debts. Figures revealed that the Nortel scheme's accounting deficit of £250m ballooned to more than £500m once the company had collapsed. The PPF's last accounts revealed a shortfall of £500m, making a total of £1bn. The Nortel rescue came as Moody's, the ratings agency, warned that pension deficits posed a significant risk to UK corporations following a dive in share prices over the past year and a rise in the cost of funding pensions. The agency said that pension shortfalls were the equivalent of debts and were an additional burden when many companies had come under pressure from banks to cut their debt. According to the latest government figures, employers offering guaranteed retirement schemes have suffered a shortfall of £195bn in recent months. Opposition MPs and employers' groups have lobbied ministers in recent weeks to provide support for company pension schemes before they became unaffordable. The CBI called on ministers last week to relax strict rules and allow firms more leeway to fill pension deficits. The National Association of Pension Funds, which represents occupational schemes with about £700bn under management, said about 25 of Britain's largest firms were planning to close their schemes entirely after a rise in the cost of providing guaranteed pensions. The pensions expert John Ralfe said the PPF would need to do more than "paper over the cracks", as it was facing a potentially ruinous 2009. He said ministers needed to make clear how they intended to fund the PPF's increasing deficit if employers refused to pay higher fees. The PPF has already amassed billions of pounds of pension liabilities less than four years after it was created. The organisation's funding comes from levies charged against healthy pension schemes. However, the fees have failed to plug a growing shortfall, which according to the fund's last accounts had reached £500m. Ralfe said the collapse of Nortel UK, which is a main sponsor of the 2012 London Olympics, would strain the PPF's finances. The cap on benefits applied by the PPF would, he said, reduce the burden to £900m, while cash inside Nortel UK and its Canadian parent that is earmarked for pensions could reduce the deficit by another £400m. However, a £500m deficit would still make it the largest occupational fund to be rescued by the PPF and would double its existing £500m deficit. A spokesman for the PPF said that its staff would initially assess the eligibility of the fund. Once it is accepted, which is almost certain, the pension scheme would usually become part of the PPF within two years. The scheme pays 90% of accrued benefits to deferred members and employees, and 100% to existing pensioners, with a cap of £28,000. He said: "We were expecting a rise in the number of schemes applying to the fund. The looming recession meant it was obvious that would happen and we have heavily modelled how that will affect the fund. We are comfortable with the situation." He said the fund was under less pressure than many people imagined because the scheme members are not yet retired. "We don't have to pay pensions in one hit, but over decades as people retire." Moody's Investors Service warned that occupational pensions funds faced a tough year. Its report, Pension Deficits: Back on the Agenda, said Britain's top 20 companies ranked by pension plan assets had pension obligations totalling approximately £230bn in 2007. Occupational pensions Pensions Telecommunications industry guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (18 h ago)

• Germany looks at new bank rescue plan Germany looks at new bank rescue plan
01/25/2009
David Gow Brussels The German government is poised to do a U-turn and approve several "bad banks" to take over its banks' toxic assets for up to five years as the financial crisis and recession deepen. German banks are estimated to have between €300bn (£285bn) and €1tn of these assets sitting on their books, adding to the pressure on Berlin to act. The total of bad assets held by banks across Europe could be as high as €4.8tn. Private sector banks and Landesbanken, or state-owned regional banks, in Germany are due to declare multibillion losses for 2008. Deutsche Bank, the country's biggest, has already indicated a near-€4bn loss and BayernLB, the Bavarian regional bank, one of €5bn. This dire situation has emerged as eurozone and EU governments consider handing the European Central Bank the lead role in supervising Europe's 46 big cross-border banks in the wake of the crisis that saw the nationalised Fortis bank of Belgium indicate last week it had lost close to €20bn last year. Chancellor Angela Merkel and her finance minister, Peer Steinbrück, are under pressure from leading Bundestag deputies of their respective parties — the Christian (CDU) and Social (SPD) Democrats — to draw up a second bank rescue plan on top of the current €480bn scheme. Steinbrück has been the most vocal opponent of the notion of a bad bank, and his spokesman said late last week that there could be no question of nationalisation. CDU experts said a "state-financed toxic waste dump" was out of the question. The finance minister has also sharply queried Britain's latest scheme to insure the banks' toxic assets, saying that nobody could price these and they could potentially amount to up to 30% of banks' balance sheets. But Berlin's "grand coalition" is now reportedly coming round to the notion of adopting a solution whereby individual banks would park their toxic assets in separate bad banks. The state would guarantee these as they were unwound and sold off over the next few years. The new Obama administration in the US is also reportedly considering a bad banks solution as EU governments pile the pressure on the banks to come clean about how big their exposure is. On February 25 an independent body of advisers, led by Jacques de Larosière, the ex-Bank of France chairman, is due to propose an overarching supervisory role for the ECB to prevent a recurrence of the crisis. This will come in a report to the European commission. Both he and the current French central bank chairman, Christian Noyer, have pinpointed the ECB as a more viable solution than the current system of cross-border supervisors, including the City-based Committee of European Banking Supervisors. But David Wright, deputy head of the European commission's internal market department, has insisted that the banks must first own up to the scale of their toxic assets. "How can you deal with the problem if you don't know where it is? Even today we are struggling to define the size of the problem," he said on Friday. The UK government, pressing British and other European banks to come clean, is already casting a wary eye on the proposed new ECB role, given the once-mighty position of the City as the EU's leading financial centre. Banking Germany Credit crunch guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (23 h ago)

• President Obama flexes his tech muscle President Obama flexes his tech muscle
01/23/2009
President Obama is showing some tech savvy. He plans to post weekly video addresses on YouTube, and is creating a new chief technology officer position in his cabinet. Kai Ryssdal speaks with CNET.com's Declan McCullough about the technology officer. (2 d ago)

• Bar mitvahs less outlandish in recession Bar mitvahs less outlandish in recession
01/23/2009
Before the recession, many bar mitzvahs were outlandishly extravagant with families spending lavishly on parties after the religious ceremony. But the economic downturn is bringing these parties back down to earth. Rebecca Sheir reports. (2 d ago)

• Weekly Wrap: All about Obama Weekly Wrap: All about Obama
01/23/2009
Even with all the bad news about the economy, the main focus of the week was on President Barack Obama. Kai Ryssdal speaks with Fortune Magazine's Leigh Gallagher and The New York Times's David Leonhardt about how the president is addressing the economy and his stimulus package. (2 d ago)

• Would you like a pay cut or layoff? Would you like a pay cut or layoff?
01/23/2009
To cope with the recession, many companies are considering layoffs or pay cuts. Across-the-board pay cuts are mounting and more are expected to follow. But is it better for companies to cut pay or let employees go? Jeremy Hobson reports. (2 d ago)

• Sovereign wealth funds suffering Sovereign wealth funds suffering
01/23/2009
Dubai investors who bought Barneys New York less than two years ago now want to put it up for sale. Sovereign wealth funds like Dubai's were once huge sources of cash for U.S. companies. But that's starting to change. Sam Eaton reports. (2 d ago)

• GOP wants more tax cuts in stimulus GOP wants more tax cuts in stimulus
01/23/2009
President Obama met today with congressional leaders to discuss the best way to kick-start the economy. House members will try to pass their bill next week, but a large number of Republicans take issue with some of the stimulus proposals. John Dimsdale reports. (2 d ago)

• Amid losses, GE still paying dividends Amid losses, GE still paying dividends
01/23/2009
General Electric is reporting a 44% drop in quarterly profit. Despite this, the technology conglomerate is still paying dividends to investors. Why? Alisa Roth reports. (2 d ago)

• Super Bowl pregame ads proving a tougher... Super Bowl pregame ads proving a tougher sell
01/25/2009
Sales of Super Bowl ads are holding up fairly well, even at $3 million for 30 seconds. But commercial spots that will run in the pregame hours? That's a different ball game. (19 h ago)

• Governors seek sacrifices from public wo... Governors seek sacrifices from public workers
01/24/2009
Governors across the nation are seeking significant concessions from public employee unions in hopes of helping to balance their teetering budgets during the economic downturn. (1 d ago)

• Regulators close 1st Centennial Bank Regulators close 1st Centennial Bank
01/23/2009
Regulators have shut down 1st Centennial Bank in California, the third U.S. bank to fail this year. (2 d ago)

• General Electric’s profit down 46 percen... General Electric’s profit down 46 percent
01/23/2009
General Electric posted a 46 percent drop in fourth-quarter earnings on Friday and warned of a “tough environment” this year as it struggles with its ailing finance business. (2 d ago)

• Former Merrill CEO Thain resigns from Bo... Former Merrill CEO Thain resigns from BofA
01/23/2009
John Thain resigned under pressure from Bank of America on Thursday after reports he rushed out billions of dollars in bonuses to Merrill Lynch workers in his final days as CEO. (2 d ago)

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• Obama's options Obama's options
01/26/2009
What are Obama's options to breathe life back into the banks and get the economy going again?Basically, it boils down to three options, says the New York Post's Michael Gray.The first is to... (3 h ago)

• The meltdown's rogue gallery The meltdown's rogue gallery
01/26/2009
So who is responsible for the financial crisis?The Guardian's City editor Julia Finch picks out the 25 who were at the heart of the meltdown.The list is headed by former Fed chairman Alan... (4 h ago)

• Financial meltdown claims its first casu... Financial meltdown claims its first casualty
01/25/2009
One down, how many more to go?With his country's economy melting, its three biggest banks nationalised and then placed in receivership and public anger rising, Iceland's Prime Minister Geir... (1 d ago)

• Global warming a last priority Global warming a last priority
01/24/2009
Some disturbing but not surprising data from the latest survey out of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press which found that the economy and job are the top two public priorities for... (1 d ago)

• Thain's bonanza Thain's bonanza
01/23/2009
So John Thain has finally been ousted at Merrill Lynch.But the extraordinary part about this story is about his talent for self-enrichment and arrogance beyond belief. Merrill Lynch was in serious... (3 d ago)

• 7 More Ways to Save Money 7 More Ways to Save Money
01/26/2009
Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Image# 2172516 When the winter comes and money is tight because of heating costs, finding ways to save money becomes a little tougher. Here are some simple tips about... (3 h ago)

• It's the End of January. Do You Know Whe... It's the End of January. Do You Know Where Your Rebate Data Is?
01/24/2009
If you didn't qualify for the entire tax rebate the government handed out earlier this year, you may still be eligible to get that money after you file your 2008 return. Especially if you made... (1 d ago)

• Free Tax Help (and Some Things You Shoul... Free Tax Help (and Some Things You Should Know)
01/24/2009
Tax time is upon us. And before you run down with all you paperwork in tow and pay someone like H&R Block, consider your other options... Shannon Buggs had a good article about those other options... (1 d ago)

• Saving Money Isn't What It Used to Be Saving Money Isn't What It Used to Be
01/23/2009
Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Image# 6667499 Just like the weather is blowing extremely cold air all around us right now, we certainly can feel the chill of financial events that are beyond our... (3 d ago)

• Economic woes fuel E. Europe unrest Economic woes fuel E. Europe unrest
01/25/2009
Growing discontent over dashed economic hopes and hostility against the ruling authorities threatens to topple shaky governments in smaller Eastern European nations. (7 h ago)

• The world’s most valuable pro sports tea... The world’s most valuable pro sports teams
01/23/2009
This may be hard to believe: In 2003, no pro sports team in the world was worth a billion dollars. By the end of 2008, there were 24. (3 d ago)

• Report: Starbucks may cut 1,000 more job... Report: Starbucks may cut 1,000 more jobs
01/25/2009
Coffee chain Starbucks Corp could cut another 1,000 jobs in the coming weeks, according to a report in the Seattle Times on Saturday. (18 h ago)

• More peanut products added to recall lis... More peanut products added to recall list
01/23/2009
The nationwide list of peanut products recalled for salmonella contamination continues to grow quickly, and a snack from the grocery chain Trader Joe's is among the latest. (2 d ago)

• PE Hub Interviews NVCA President Mark He... PE Hub Interviews NVCA President Mark Heeson
01/25/2009
PE Hub published a interesting interview with Mark Heeson a few days ago. Heeson is the president of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). The interview examines a number of issues -... (11 h ago)

• J. Peterman riding tall in the saddle ag... J. Peterman riding tall in the saddle again
01/25/2009
“It's not fun going bankrupt,” says John Peterman. He should know. His $75 million catalog company went bust in 1999. But now the “Seinfeld"-parodied businessman is back. (18 h ago)

• Pessimism Deepens, Driving Down Stocks Pessimism Deepens, Driving Down Stocks
01/24/2009
U.S. stocks fell as disappointing earnings at companies from Microsoft to Fifth Third Bancorp increased concern that the recession is deepening and that banks need to raise more capital. (1 d ago)

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