Thursday, January 08, 2009

News of interest

Returned home late from work tonight and still have much to do (3mi jog, eat and then to the grocery store), so not much time to post. With that said, here are a few economic news links of interest - enjoy and have a great evening!

Obama calls for 'dramatic action' to save economy

President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday urged Congress to act quickly to pass sweeping economic stimulus measures, including a tax cut and an infusion of as much as $800 billion, or face the likelihood that "this recession could linger for years

Madoff Investigators Claim to Find 100 Checks in Desk

Investigators searching the office desk of Bernard Madoff after his arrest found about 100 signed checks, totaling about $173 million, ready to be sent to family, friends, and employees, prosecutors said.

Fed Buys $10.2 Billion of Mortgage Bonds to Cut Rates

The Federal Reserve bought $10.2 billion of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae mortgage- backed securities under a program aimed at lowering home-loan rates begun this week.

Corporate America faces big pension shortfalls

Collapsing stock prices have created shortfalls in pension plans in dozens of large U.S. companies, which may require them to pump in tens of billions of dollars of cash, hurting earnings.

With corporate America facing pension plan shortfalls totaling several hundred billions of dollars, more companies will in 2009 need to shore up their plans to ensure they can handle commitments to retirees, several analysts said.

Obama's Tax Plan Hits Democratic Wall

Democratic senators emerging from a private meeting of the Senate Finance Committee criticized business and individual tax cuts in Obama's stimulus plan

Moody's cuts Bank of America rating, raises Merrill

Moody's Investors Service on Thursday downgraded its rating on Bank of America, saying the bank and its recently acquired Merrill Lynch arm will face weak earnings in a struggling economy.

Merrill’s investment banking chief quits

Greg Fleming, the head of investment banking at Merrill Lynch, is leaving scarcely a week after it was acquired by Bank of America.

His departure comes three days after Robert McCann, head of Merrill’s “thundering herd” of 16,000 financial advisers, also resigned from the US investment bank

1 comment:

Jim Twamley said...

Here is an interesting take on why deflation will remain for a few years. He analyzes the quantitative easing strategy of the FED and arrives at some interesting conclusions. The link is here:
http://www.financeasia.com/article.aspx?CIaNID=91954